What better way to control a population than through inducing apathy and banality and encouraging the trivialization of causes, ideas or the plights of certain folk?The author provides numerous illustrations of these methods so often used by the One Percent to dull the wits of the 99 Percent. It's much more cost effective to control a population this way than using police state methods, but they have the latter ready to use just in case the usual methods fail.
Another important way, which the author does not touch on, is the use of simplified enemies--commies, terrorists, evil-doers, evil empires, etc.--that must be defended against and used to justify all sorts of violations of civil rights and crimes against humanity:
Dumbing down of the 99 Percent is a deliberate strategy of the One Percent's political operatives. Thus, we see public school teachers under fire, larger class sizes, privatization of education, higher tuition fees to exclude people from obtaining a higher education (see this).