By Matthew Hayward
I just found this paper I wrote a
couple of years ago for my Writing 101 class.
Author Edward Hallowell observes a
fast-paced and overstimulated society. The society that Mr. Hallowell
discusses is the one in which we live. Though we agree that modern
technology can be used for great things, we must recognize that it also
negatively affects many people, allowing it to direct their lives rather than
simply assist them.
Modern life, as Hallowell writes
about in Crazy Busy, details the effects of what I believe to be a larger
problem. We need to be more aware of the trickledown effect of the controlled
and manipulated evolution of the technology boom. While Hallowell does a
terrific job categorizing things that take up time by explaining what we can do
to fight back against the Gemmelsmerchs, (a word made up by Hallowell to
describe "the ubiquitous force that distracts us from whatever we're
doing") (57), he does not at any point in the book discuss how we arrived
at our current predicament.
Finding a solution to the problems
brought forth in our reading of Crazy Busy may not require a historical
overview of how we got here, but if one wants to better prepare for future
distractions, it would behoove them to learn the source or sources of our
quandary. Education is the key to freedom and all of its fruits, not just basic
education but philosophical and moral education as well. We also need to understand
the psychology of marketing so we are capable of combating the indoctrination
of implanted ideas and the manipulation of our inner desires.
Most of us have become unwilling
participants in an experiment put forth by think tanks of elitists and scholars
working in secret behind the scenes. Members are frequently part of groups like
the Trilateral Commission, the Bilderbergers, and the Council on Foreign
Relations. While the Rockefellers, Carol Rove, and others write books detailing
their methods of control, the masses blindly continue to feed on an illusion of
reality, freedom, and connectedness. Mr. Hallowell does a great job detailing
the illusion of connectedness in chapter 8 but does not recognize the fact
that our current circumstances have not come about merely by chance. On the
contrary, consumerism came about by design.
Edward Louis Bernays, a nephew to
Sigmund Freud, is considered to be the father of public relations, or as it is
more honestly known, propaganda. Mr. Bernays looked at what he believed to be
the underlying problem of American culture, dangerous libidinal energies that
lurked just below the surface of every individual. To combat this, he used
subconscious manipulation techniques to control public opinion. He believed
that the corporate elite could harness and channel human desire through
commercialism. Edward L. Bernays coined the phrase "engineering of
consent."
Day in and day out, a hurricane of
propaganda sweeps the nation, leaving behind catastrophic damage to the psyches
of an easily led society of automatons. While we unwittingly tune in to the
indoctrination every time we turn on, our televisions are also fed by paper
headlines, catchphrases, billboards, and radio. It is hard to believe that we
have been fooled into thinking that convenience is more important than the
freedom to think for ourselves. It is amazing how easily controlled a person or
group of people are when you have a backdoor to their minds, sitting back and
allowing information and ideas to be planted into their cerebral cortex rather
than cultivating relevant information and forming their own ideas.
Mr. Bernays's
experiment is, to a large extent, completed. We have become accustomed to a fast
pace society with expectations to excel. Technology has managed people into an
increasing state of non-social behavior, thus minimizing conflict. We spend
money to cover our feelings of inadequacy and fear. We sit on our couches and
watch reality TV as though life is not about living but rather working,
gossiping, and watching others' lives. We have become complacent, allowing
ourselves to feel powerless over changing our lives and country as if some other force controlled things. We have become mentally enslaved!
What happens when someone like
Hallowell opens his eyes to the massive control grid over the people's psyches? America was founded by people who stood up and fought against the idea of
elitist control, as every society historically has done. In the sixties, an
attempt to have a revolution largely failed. What happened, and why are we now
further away from having the ability to fight back than ever before?
We now have evolved think tanks of
vast knowledge collected over thousands of years.
Whether people are well intended or
not, it makes little difference if they are working with a skewed sense of
reality. I fear that as long as most Americans have a sustainable level of
needs but are continually pressured to maintain them, there’s little hope that
enough people will feel transgression toward the bombardment of attacks on
their minds to stand up and fight for a better way. Unless people have nothing,
the necessary number of disgruntled and manipulated people to make a point will
not be reached. Understanding and being able to manipulate the needs of the
people as theorized by Abraham Maslow (the father of humanistic psychology),
enables our leaders to convince people to slip back into their programming.
I fear that the slave ship has
paddled far from shore into the unknown waters of the Arctic. Without the knowledge
from the captain and his trusted crew of advisers, we may have little hope of
getting back to safety. Unfortunately, the necessary shifts in our social
structure cannot occur without a total breakdown of the malformed existing
structure. In this process of knocking down and rebuilding, there would have to
be great sacrifices made as well as tremendous hardships experienced. In our
overstimulated greed-driven society, most people are unwilling to make
sacrifices. So we patch the boat with our freedom in exchange for the
comforting illusions of safety.
Most Americans feel a sense of
comfort in their mental atriums. Outside the bars of mental slavery and
constant stress inducing the activation of fight or flight is a vast openness
of possibilities. For anything is possible if we can break free from the sense
of fear that is put into the air by a few established entities that enjoy
extended freedoms brought about by the injustices to the ignorant. Even just a
peek into the rabbit hole is usually enough to drive the most adventurous
people back into their shells of pessimism and apathy.
Hallowell's book Crazy Busy gives me
the impression that he is a capitalist who pays little attention to the bigger
picture. Ultimately, my ideological beliefs against suppressing intellectuality
drive me against the powers that be. Although it is argued by some of the
greatest minds that have ever lived, I do not believe that manipulating people
for their own good is necessary. Instead, I find myself more influenced by
Thomas Jefferson, and I believe it is said best in his words,
"I know no safe depositary of
the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves, and if we think
them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome
discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their
discretion by education. This is the true corrective of abuses of
constitutional power".
--Thomas Jefferson to William C.
Jarvis, 1820. ME 15:278
Work Cited
THE CENTURY OF THE SELF. Dir. Adam
Curtis. Perf. Edward Bernays, Sigmund Freud, Adam Curtis. DVD. British Broadcasting Corporation, 2002.
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