Self inundated hopelessness (422 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 0.7 on 12 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Dalai Queso (View user info) at 2008-07-04 14:40:51 EDT
There is a proven science to brain washing. It's quite simple, really. If you want to ingrain a particular message into someones mind, you simply repeat it to them over and over and over. This can be difficult to do against someone's will in America, courtesy of human rights laws. However, other countries don't have those sorts of laws, and regularly brainwash prisoners.
America has taken brainwashing up a notch by making the message one that someone would willingly listen to repeatedly. This is even more effective than the forced variety as the individual being brainwashed is not putting up any mental resistance to the message.
Consider the ubiquity of sex in America. Once a major taboo, sex has become a thing of moral relativism. "What I think is right is right" has been a popular ideology for years now, a direct assault on absolute truth. Now that America has, for the most part, been indoctrinated with that message, the trend moves further down the ladder. Hopelessness.
With no absolute truth, there is little to hope for. If everything is relative, then a persons unhappiness is just a fact of life to them. Back to brainwashing, how many of you are familiar with the song "Rockstar" by Nickelback? This is a band created by a very powerful media company, with a very specific target audience, and a very specific message.
"Rockstar" glorifies celebrity, and a lifestyle in which "The girls come easy and the drugs come cheap." How many young female listeners out there really need the message echoing through their head, "We'll all stay skinny 'cause we just won't eat"? Yet both those lines are from the catchy chorus of "Rockstar". Another song, "Animals", shamelessly promotes reckless sex to a sound that appeals to a young audience.
Let's take a look at some other popular songs playing over the airwaves of a rock station neaer you. With names like "Five Finger Death Punch" we have messages of hopelessness like,
"I'm so fed up with everyone around me
(No one seems to care)
I'm just so far gone and nothing's gonna change
(I'll never be the same)
Its always do this, do that,
everything they want to
I don't want to live that way
Every chance they get their always
Pushin me away"
And also,
"Its all so messed up and no one ever listens
(Everyone's deranged)
I'm just so fucked up and I'm never gonna change
(Wanna lay it all to waste)"
Not to mention the chorus,
"Its never enough
No its never enough
No matter what I say
Its never enough
No its never enough
I'll never be what you want me to be"
With words like that pumping through their ipod at all hours of the day, what kind of teen do you expect? Now that's just one song, but the rock music that carries such broad appeal to these troubled teens is full of messages of pain and hopelessness like that. All of you are painfully familiar with the messages of popular "Emo" tunes.
You know most, if not all of the words to your favorite tunes. They bounce around in your mind from time to time. Favorite movies, books, shows, tunes, all these highly prized snippets of "entertainment".
Merriam Webster - Media: 1: a medium of cultivation, conveyance, or expression
That is to say, a message. Every movie, every song, every book, every form of media is a means to convey a message. The more you submit yourself to a given message, the more deeply ingrained in your psyche it becomes.
Is it any wonder why we have a generation of youths dressing themselves strangely and glorifying death and hopelessness? It is not "just a phase", it is a plain as day cry for help. Nothing left to itself will improve. With time, everything degrades. This is the second law of thermodynamics, and that law applies to all things organic and inorganic.
Fortunately, so long as there is life, there is hope. The truth is in everyone, and you know this as much as I do. I'm just heartily encouraging you to seek it. The hopelessness of mass media will only leave you in bondage. The truth will set you free.
User Reviews
Submitted by SilvrWolf (user info) at 2008-07-19 23:15:45 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
There is nothing simple about brainwashing. You have to break down a person's psyche to it's basest elements and then rebuild them in the construct you desire. "Simple" repetition only works on the simplest and most easily influenced minds. For most, you have to forcefully induce the hopelessness first and then perpetuate it.
Personally, I find extended sensory deprivation followed by rapid sensory overload of your intended construct provides the most effective and long-lasting results.
Submitted by kgbpasha (user info) at 2008-07-08 22:17:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
Iss that gotdang Rockandroll!
Ruin me. I had nochance.
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2008-07-07 12:14:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
In order to brainwash someone, you must first break their spirit and free-will, in order to build them back up in the image you wish for.
Kinda like a military's boot-camp if you will.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2008-07-07 04:28:30 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Well it's long been asserted that the reason for people feeling down could be prescribed to some manner of large scale thing happening. In the past when, say, there have been a lack of equality in life or a rule of restrictive social dogmas then they may have been justified. Not anymore though. We've come down, as they say, to brass tacks.
Everyone in western society is completely free to live their lives in any way they see fit. If you want to make a living carving tiny busts of Barbra Streisland whilst living with Roderick, your caribean lover, then you may do so. All a person has to do is do it and they can have it.
That is, as they say, the point.
Now you're saying that loads of people are feeling miserable because of mad reasons. I say that they're feeling miserable because of a general lack of empowerment/effectivness (depends enitrely on one's perspectivness) in sorting out their lives. People don't want to be 'led' or 'controlled'. They want to be carried. Nobody is going to carry them though.
I guess that's all there is to it.
Submitted by Baxter (user info) at 2008-07-05 19:29:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Not all an absolute truth...... but an interesting read all the same.
Submitted by skrapmetal (user info) at 2008-07-05 14:21:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Take one step back and see that what you need to do is 1)kill your television, 2)kill your radio, and 3)think/act rather than absorb/regurgitate.
Submitted by billrhine (user info) at 2008-07-04 17:42:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
what snark said.
Submitted by Snark (user info) at 2008-07-04 17:30:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Rockstar is not a glorification of that life but a criticism of it.
Submitted by billrhine (user info) at 2008-07-04 17:10:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
donno if i agrree.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-07-04 15:45:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2008-07-04 15:30:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
with no absolute truth there is hopelessness?
What complete and utter bollocks.
==============
I believe he means that it then comes down to opinion and nothing more.
*just a peasant's thoughts*
Submitted by apollo88 (user info) at 2008-07-04 15:30:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
with no absolute truth there is hopelessness?
What complete and utter bollocks.
Submitted by Bubba2341 (user info) at 2008-07-04 15:15:49 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
The Cheese Dude lives!