“Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government.”
—Edward Bernays“If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.”
—Mark Twain“Those who are able to see beyond the shadows and lies of their culture will never be understood, let alone believed by the masses.”
– Plato
In 2008, I published The Grand Story of Humanity, my attempt to outline the evolution of our cultural myths, from primordial times to the present – including the myths of modern science. The article also explores the question of how human intelligence evolved, along with the question of whether humanity has ever experienced, or ever will experience, a ‘Golden Age’.
My 2009 article, The Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution tells the story of the transformation of society from an aristocratic cultural paradigm to republicanism. It explores the relationship between Enlightenment thinking and the economic and political changes that were needed in order to unleash the process of industrial development. These changes called for new myths about the role of the citizen in society.
Also published in 2009, Some Thoughts on Beliefs, Progressives and Conservatives explores the psychology behind why people so often stick to their existing beliefs, rejecting overwhelming contrary evidence. It goes on to explore the core differences between progressive mythology and conservative mythology, in the American context, and how those differences are exploited by the media.
George Orwell and Aldus Huxley predicted dystopian futures for humanity, in their classic novels, 1984 and Brave New World. In both futures the state exercises total control over people’s thinking, in Orwell’s world by means of fear, and in Huxley’s by means of scientific conditioning. In this recent article, Mind control: Orwell, Huxley, and today’s reality, I explore the mind-control research, and the operational programs, that have been going on in the US over the past few decades. The trends and the evidence suggest that Huxley’s predictions, in particular, are likely to turn out to be remarkably prophetic. In other words, to get a taste of the future, revisit Brave New World.