Yea, a full nights sleep, at night. Racked out at 8:30pm and awoke at 5:30 the following morning. A full nights sleep, and I needed it.
For give or take the last week I’ve been immersed in the world of the youth, living their schedules, playing in their games, listening to their music. Nuts and bolts bottom line is I’ve been trading beer and pizza (and a safe place to enjoy all of the above) in exchange for them conducting a class on the culture they live. My buddies are proving out to be a fine tutors on the subject, Trev in particular knowledgeable enough in the culture as it was to draw the lines of progression into the culture as it is, Keating and Rob providing additional material particularly in the realms of Anime. It’s not a particularly easy class to sit in, but cheap at the price. The university couldn’t provide such education, and it would cost me a whole lot more for them to even make an attempt.
A few posts back I spoke of the Anime genre as a propaganda medium dispersing a subtle despair. Realizing I’d made a pretty broad generalization I asked after the subject, framed the question within the context for the guys. My question was met (and my assumption validated to a degree) by a long silence as they searched their memories. In the end they produced a couple of possible examples not conforming to the assumption. Based on what I saw I’ll set a confidence level of 90(+/- 5)% on that assumption. They could find exceptions, but not many, and they had to think about it. But the most interesting thing to come out of the last week was evidence validating another assumption.
Beginning in the late eighties, early nineties I began to sense a deliberate and coordinated effort by the “establishment” to program weakness and compliance into the emotional structures of the youth as they came up the years into their adulthood. I could sense it, but not really prove it. It cost me, my ears had to suffer a bit to acquire the evidence first hand, but I can now demonstrate that such an effort has to be an ongoing campaign of the enemy. While the enemies effort is widespread and dilute, impinging on the youth from essentially every angle, every facet of their lives, their defense against that effort is by the rule of inverses concentrated and discrete. The music they’ve evolved to call their own is in fact an antidotal agent to the propaganda efforts of the enemy, the structures of their music a perfect negative space image of the emotional weapons being wielded against their humanity by the enemy.
My stereo got a workout for several hours each night (the Kappa’s earning their keep in spades!) playing music structured to negate the propaganda being inflicted by the establishment. In common between the works was a transition from melancholy soft tones (that instantly reminded me of King Crimson or Pink Floyd at their best) each displayed a shock stop transition into tones so harsh and hostile to assault and repel adult ears (think Jemi Hendrix bred to say Deep Purple, and then overdriven from anger into berserk insanity). That might be expected, looking at the normal maturation process passing through teen angst and rebellion.
But what does NOT fit that profile of maturation is this fact: the lyrics were in fact continuous, a thought continuing unbroken across the transition from melancholy to rage, the lyrics in essence buried to become a subliminal influence beneath the raw volume of the shock transition! I was listening closely, and when each work broke into rage the volume of the instrumental elements totally obscured the lyrics, they were not within the range of conscious perception. And yet as I watched the boys each was chanting the lyrics in perfect time to the beat!
Yes. That is exactly what I said. The musicianship was crafted to set the most defiant of the lyrics, the thoughts most condemning of the establishment’s efforts to rob them of their individuality as a subliminal influence, an influence impacting their psyches at the same level as the propaganda it counter attacked. The proof of the absolutely unethical presence of subliminal propaganda in the culture is the evolution of an equally subliminal counter agent! That the counter agent is subliminal by reason of raw volume does not change the fact that it impacts the same regions of the mind, the subconscious perceiving what the conscious is unable to! They are in fact fighting fire with fire, and theirs is loud enough to be clearly seen by those with enough understanding to perceive the nature of the defense of self they are mounting against the efforts of the enemy.
My son has been saying for years that "the establishment" has had far greater control over the thinking of our young people than I would admit... Somehow it was difficult to imagine a board of directors, holed up in a dark room, masterminding everything from what our children learn to fluoridating the water supplies to make facile idiots out of the masses... I could never give any one party or organization that much credit.
ReplyDeleteYet, the older I get the more I believe that they don't have to... All a few ultra-wealthy, ultra-greedy individuals need to do is create the climate for the values they wish to advance to thrive. Control the language and the narrative and you control the people... It's no accident that Reagan set out almost immediately to de-regulate the communication industry. Now that almost everything we see, hear, and read are controlled by about six major corporations. With the advent of the Internet, perhaps the last bastion of democratized free speech, those same corporations flocked like flies to Washington to win control of the "on-ramp" - before long they will also control the content.
I believe there is a reason that our schools have all but killed the arts (the natural mode of self expression) and put all of their eggs in the basket of science and technology (the natural mode of control). Was it the work of a few sinister cigar chomping world bankers and power mongers? Probably not - but they created the climate and the language to encourage those baser instincts to take root. To wit, the Supreme Court has stated that violence (even sexual violence) in video games is protected by free speech, but show one nipple for 9/16s of a second on the public airwaves, and it's curtains. The Attorney General can put a burqua on a statue of Lady Justice while at the same time allowing torture in secret prisons all around the world... We have become sheep. Like you, I cheer for those who refuse to join in the chant... But we have a long way to go. I believe it begins with a return to what is beautiful and nourishing in society. We need to reclaim the language of compassion and care and do it unapologetically. We need to set a new standard for human decency and fairness in what is left of our society. Music is a great place to dig in! Thanks for your post!
Vincent, thanks for the read, and thank you so much for the words of encouragement!
DeleteThis subject has been a major portion of my explorations, it is heavily represented in my fiction. My likely never to be published hardcopy novel Takiea is a vision of America as it might become as a result of this assault carried to maturity (the balance being a counter attack against the beast of pornography which is a staunch ally of the same enemy).
I like you see the Reagan years as the beginning of the assault, Reagan himself a manipulated minion just as was Bush Jr. It is my belief the main mechanism of the assault has been subliminal propaganda of deep skill inserted into the entertainment medias, the knowledge of psychology perverted and bastardized to be used as a tool of mental enslavement negating the principles of democracy in ways the founding fathers could have imagined in their darkest nightmares. Orwell and Huxley tried, but ignorant of the technologies could only give warning of the motives but not the methods.
Do you remember the “DittoHeads?” The fanatical followers of Rush Limbaugh? It is my belief they were the first evidence of a successful subliminal propaganda campaign broadcast on television. The fanaticism of the dittoheads demonstrated to the enemy how successful such campaigns could be, they became the enemies test effort in our culture, and their core invasion force.
How did they manage to pull off such a coup unnoticed, with perfect plausible deniability when caught and called on it? I think I can explain that, not in terms of political clout and subterfuge, some deep secret conspiracy, but rather in terms of the basic nature of AC electricity and electronics.
When Rush broadcast on television he was seated at his podium/desk with two large television screens behind him as a back drop. The majority of the time what the television audience saw on those screens was a static hash, unless Rush turned to them at which point they would suddenly display a clear image for the television audience. In point of fact though I’d bet those screens were ALWAYS carrying a message for his studio audience. Why would this be so? Because the nature of AC electricity is such that those messages continuously before his studio audience’s eyes would only have appeared twice each second for 1/30 of a second to his television audience, a perfect subliminal insert in his programming accomplished by taking advantage of the properties of the broadcast gear itself.
To the best of my understanding the only way a television camera can broadcast a clear image of a working television screen is if they are phase matched, the sweep of the display matched to the sweep of the camera. Most electronic devices take advantage of the stable wave form of the electricity feeding it to regulate their internal cycles, 60 cycle here in the states. I believe that this was how the dirty deed was done… feed both the monitors and cameras from the same 220vac circuit, the monitors on the 110v leg of the circuit opposite the cameras (creating the subliminal broadcasts when the screens were “hash” to conscious perception) and then switch them to run from the same leg of 110 feeding the cameras when Rush desired his message be seen consciously. Work like a dream, and if you get caught just blame it on the guys who wired up the stage! Nobody would believe a simple electrician could have possibly been part of a plot to overthrow freedom!
The enemy is a subtle bastard, and the enemy knows both the arts/psychology and technology as well. We who propose to resist them must match them in our knowledge of both realms as well.
As far back as some of the great Classical/Romantic composers, there have been musicians (composers, orchestra players, singers and conductors) who understood subliminal elements in music. Gustav Mahler, Alexander Scriabin, Maurice Ravel, Arnold Schoenberg, and Igor Stravinsky are only a few composers who mastered the art of subliminal tones and patterns; among more recent performers, the Kronos Quartet seems to understand subliminal messaging. (I once heard a performance of Mahler's Second Symphony in which one of the bass drummers, a young, beautiful woman, was a master of subliminally soft rolls that were more felt than consciously heard.) And none of these great artists can be accused of "pandering to the 1%" in any way. :) So there's hope in the arts, especially music!
DeleteJochanaan, to make a very crude connection to your observation, I once knew an audio engineer in Nashville who went on the road for the goofy Indian televangelist Benny Hinn. Of course, he is known for causing the spirit of God to move across an audience, striking them down all at once... Well, my friend revealed Hinn's dirty little secret... It seems that my friend the audio guy was the spirit of God, operating subwoofers that had been placed under the seats of the auditorium. The tone was sub-aural, but certainly powerful enough to move the air, causing not a sound, but a "whoosh" sensation, which everyone believed to be the spirit of God... (it is Biblical, after all... the spirit was likened unto the "rush of a mighty wind" in Acts...) - so there you have it. Subversive, subliminal control from both politicians and preachers...
ReplyDeleteThat doesn't surprise me, Vincent. One of my Christian sisters, an African-American woman who knows about such things, has told me that some black ministers use voodoo-style speech rhythms to whip their congregations into a frenzy that has little to do with the Holy Spirit, but maybe much with other spirits... In my experience, the LORD doesn't neet that kind of help and in fact hates it.
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