Is it ethical to socially engineer a paranoid society?

[modest]

Originally Posted by nutronjon

You are confusing a real danger with an imagined one.

No - proportional level of danger in an ordinary person is what I said... not confused. I did not introduce or discuss anything imaginary. A person that is paranoid of imaginary things wouldn't be 'ordinary' would they? If you want to discuss imaginary danger I certainly can but there is no need to broach that topic with me by saying I'm confused. That's not helpful.

Originally Posted by nutronjon

Unless someone is presently threatening you with a gun, you should not be living in fear of this person.

Nonsensical. Guns are not the only rational fear people should have. Children should fear and be paranoid of pedophiles. There are many levels of fear, many levels of danger, and many levels of paranoia. My post above not only leaves room for this, it is based on it. And I'm guessing you agree with me.

If you are trying to get me to say "people should not be afraid of X because it's imaginary" and then relate that to some political situation, there is no need to bait me into it. You can ask me if terrorism or Iraq or any other thing is a real danger and how paranoid people should be of that danger and I'll give my honest opinion.

Originally Posted by nutronjon

Straus was a Jew who came out of Nazi Germany, and went into one of our major colleges as a professor. He taught political philosophy and basically he taugh- to be a strong leader everyone must fear an enemy. If you don't have one, you better make one up, and that’s exactly what you find in the Bush administration. People should really take this more seriously and do their own research, and come to their own conclusion.

I assume you're referring to Leo Strauss and not Oscar Straus.

I agree with what you say about him. He probably would have considered many things the Bush administration does as "noble lies" or "noble myths", the origin and consequences of which he discusses in very great depth.

- modest

[LaurieAG]

par·a·noi·a [par-uh-noi-uh]

–noun 1. Psychiatry. a mental disorder characterized by systematized delusions and the projection of personal conflicts, which are ascribed to the supposed hostility of others, sometimes progressing to disturbances of consciousness and aggressive acts believed to be performed in self-defense or as a mission.

2. baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others.

Obviously NO.

[nutronjon]

Originally Posted by modest

No - proportional level of danger in an ordinary person is what I said... not confused. I did not introduce or discuss anything imaginary. A person that is paranoid of imaginary things wouldn't be 'ordinary' would they? If you want to discuss imaginary danger I certainly can but there is no need to broach that topic with me by saying I'm confused. That's not helpful.


Nonsensical. Guns are not the only rational fear people should have. Children should fear and be paranoid of pedophiles. There are many levels of fear, many levels of danger, and many levels of paranoia. My post above not only leaves room for this, it is based on it. And I'm guessing you agree with me.

If you are trying to get me to say "people should not be afraid of X because it's imaginary" and then relate that to some political situation, there is no need to bait me into it. You can ask me if terrorism or Iraq or any other thing is a real danger and how paranoid people should be of that danger and I'll give my honest opinion.



I assume you're referring to Leo Strauss and not Oscar Straus.

I agree with what you say about him. He probably would have considered many things the Bush administration does as "noble lies" or "noble myths", the origin and consequences of which he discusses in very great depth.

- modest

Sorry, I grew up in Hollywood, California in a home that never had locked doors. At age 8 I was walking the streets by myself, and fortunately was not living in fear. May be our disagreement is about having different memories of reality. However, I remember reading something that said something along the lines of fearing a lion in the living room is not rational unless there is a lion in the living room. I am talking about our relationship with fear. Of course we can living in constant fear and rationalize why this is necessary, I just think this is paranoid. Like a coward dies many deaths, because such a person is constantly imagining his/her own death.

I believe, the average American lives in fear of Ladin and terrorist. While to me it is obvious the targets of 9/11 were very specific to the institutions of the New World Order, the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and ?- probably a government building because this is the missing peice of the puzzle. Whatever, citizens of the US were not targeted, so it is paranoid for us to give away our privacy and agree to our government having the ability to track all of us and even prevent us from traveling, because we fear "the terrorist". This is like being afraid of the lion in the living room that isn't there, and is the heart of this discussion. Our military spending is the result of paranoia, resulting from the military technology of WWII to fly over oceans and drop atom bombs. For this we spend far more on military spending than any other nation and have increased our ability to destroy many times over.

Drop about 12 B B's in a tin bucket. Then drop the rest of the B B's in a tin bucket. That is how much we have increased our destructive potential since WWII. Is this necessary?

Not to mention we are now requiring people carry ID and are judging them by what is in a file, and have given our government the power to track people through education, banking and medial care, and are now tying driver license to Social Security numbers, and getting the masses accustom to police questioning and constant police presince in places like Social Security offices. Shit, we should have just gone alone with Nazi, Germany and saved a lot of lives and collateral, because this is what we defended our democracy against, so why are we spending so much on national defense now? What are we defending ourselves from now? Like how much worse can it get? This is paranoia. We didn't always live like this, and thought we were defending our liberty and freedom when we went to war, but it was all for nothing, because we are what we fought against.

Come on, the Germans and Japanese were not "evil people". They were human beings just as ourselves. Let us use our national defense budget to give everyone around the world computers and Internet serve, so our leaders can never again lead us into stupid wars. What do we fear? We gave citizens, not the president, control of spending, to keep us out of wars, and now we think what makes us great is our military might. I think I am loosing it. I am obsessed by what has happened to the US.

[nutronjon]

Originally Posted by LaurieAG

par·a·noi·a [par-uh-noi-uh]

–noun 1. Psychiatry. a mental disorder characterized by systematized delusions and the projection of personal conflicts, which are ascribed to the supposed hostility of others, sometimes progressing to disturbances of consciousness and aggressive acts believed to be performed in self-defense or as a mission.

2. baseless or excessive suspicion of the motives of others.

Obviously NO.

In his book "Is Germany Incurable?" Richard M. Brickner, M.D. Richard defines paranoia as excessive need to be in superior and in control. He published the book in 1943, and the book is a fascinating follow up on Charles Sarolea's 1911 book "The Anglo-German Problem".

By imitating Germany in every important way, we are what we fought against, including paranoid. Unfortunately this is not limited to fear of an imagary enemy, but is wholistic. A large of part of this beast is bureaucratic.

"Whatever their efficiency, such great organizations are so impersonal that they bear down on the individual lives of the people like a hydraulic press whose action is completely impersonal and therefore completely effective in crushing out individual liberty and power." Tagore A teacher Sara H. Fahey quoted Tagore during her speech to the 1917 National Education Association Conference. During this same conference J. A. B. Sinclair, Surgeon, United States Navy, Portland Recruiting Station.. explained why public education should apt the German modeled for military purposes. Because our national defense depended on patriotism, not technology- until WWII, we didn't adopt the German model for education until 1958. However, during the Roosevelt administration, Roosevelt and Hoover adopted the German model of bureacracy to the US model. This was not the problem it has become until we also adopted the education that goes with government control of the people.

Today, the average American needs superiority and control, and this the extreme opposite of our past, when we trusted in God. In a way we could say, the exploding consciousness of technology is like Pandora's box. We went through some kind of consciousness shift from the marvel of science and still trust in God, to technology and trust in our own achievements. But because we replaced our liberal education with the German model, we are now technologically smart but without the wisdom to use this technology. Part of the technological smartness is the ability to track citizens, and malnipulate every part of thier lives, creating above humanity Tocqueville's greatest fear 1835 "Democracy in America". A tutelary government where no one is accountable and government attempts to manage every aspect of everyone's lives. What we must understand about this, is the power shift from individuals to a bureaucratic machine, reducing the whole of society to a mechanical society. It is the bureaucratic order that is the problem, not a conspiracy of a few individuals who understand the machine and how to place themselves well within it.

Whatever, the US is expereincing the same mass paranoia that Germany experienced and for the same reason.

[modest]

Originally Posted by nutronjon

Sorry, I grew up in Hollywood, California in a home that never had locked doors. At age 8 I was walking the streets by myself, and fortunately was not living in fear. May be our disagreement is about having different memories of reality.

Interesting - every society has a different collective memory of reality as well.

Originally Posted by nutronjon

However, I remember reading something that said something along the lines of fearing a lion in the living room is not rational unless there is a lion in the living room. I am talking about our relationship with fear. Of course we can living in constant fear and rationalize why this is necessary, I just think this is paranoid. Like a coward dies many deaths, because such a person is constantly imagining his/her own death.

Paranoia is not only a clinical disorder for schizophrenics. It’s a basic human (and animal) emotion. It has developed through billions of years of life-experience. I would suppose there’s a reason people are more paranoid of snakes than butterflies. As long as you brought up lions I could easily ask how many of your ancestors were killed by saber tooth cats on the African savannah? Did they watch their backs, keep an ear to the ground, an eye on the bushes? Was it paranoia? Was it healthy? Yes to all. Paranoia is far to entrenched in the human genetic psyche to be rejected so readily. This same emotional state of mind can easily be projected on to the actions and character of a society.

Originally Posted by nutronjon

I believe, the average American lives in fear of Ladin and terrorist. While to me it is obvious the targets of 9/11 were very specific to the institutions of the New World Order, the World Trade Center, Pentagon, and ?- probably a government building because this is the missing peice of the puzzle. Whatever, citizens of the US were not targeted, so it is paranoid for us to give away our privacy and agree to our government having the ability to track all of us and even prevent us from traveling, because we fear "the terrorist".

I agree, it is “paranoid for us” to live in fear of terrorism. Is that bad? Are we too paranoid? Is there a healthy level of paranoia societies should have about certain things? You haven’t explored any of that. Your implication that any level of paranoia is bad - I would reject. And your statement that citizens were not targeted on 9-11 is wrong. Were you sympathetic to their aim?

I personally think people living in western countries are far too paranoid of terrorists. America as a society is also too paranoid and it shows in a lot of the things we do. But, there is a healthy level that needs to be found.

Originally Posted by nutronjon

This is like being afraid of the lion in the living room that isn't there, and is the heart of this discussion.

It is too simple an analogy. We can’t take the lion out of the room in our analogy because terrorism IS real. But, it maybe shouldn’t be a lion because terrorism is not that dangerous to the average person. I’d rather share a country with a terrorist than a room with a lion. So, let’s make it a cat (one of the little ones). But the cat has to be ill tempered - hissing and getting ready to scratch - like a terrorist. Should the person in the room be paranoid now? ‘No paranoia’ would mean the person sits down next to the cat oblivious to the danger and gets mauled or scratched a bit (the severity of the eventual attack is yet to be determined). ‘Too paranoid’ would mean the person kills the cat with his hand grenade and blows his house up in the process. The correct level of paranoia would lead to removing the danger some how without over reacting. Maybe putting the cat in a pin or cage. I like this analogy better.

Originally Posted by nutronjon

Not to mention we are now requiring people carry ID and are judging them by what is in a file, and have given our government the power to track people through education, banking and medial care, and are now tying driver license to Social Security numbers, and getting the masses accustom to police questioning and constant police presince in places like Social Security offices.

I agree. A great example is London. All the cameras watching, identifying, undercover police and MI5 is a direct result (or partially a result) of all the terrorism they’ve faced in the past decades. An argument can be made that this is healthy and another argument that it has gone too far. But, it’s a matter of increments and proportion. Simply calling that kind of behavior ‘paranoia’ isn’t adequate to the situation.

Originally Posted by nutronjon

We didn't always live like this, and thought we were defending our liberty and freedom when we went to war, but it was all for nothing, because we are what we fought against.

As soon as you decide to kill your enemy, you are what you fight. War is always evil and we always fight our brothers in arms. But, when the cat in the room turns into a lion you’d best be ready to put it down. It (they) want your blood nutronjon.

[nutronjon]

I do not think I followed your reasoning. If the lion or ferral cat are in the room, it is sane to fear the cats. However, if they are not in the room, it is not sane to be acting as though they are in the room. Paranoia is acting as though they are in the room when in fact they are not. Do you see a difference?

But paranoia is not just excessive fear. It is an excessive need to be superior and in control. This is effecting every aspect of our lives, in ways unknown to us 50 years ago. Our banking business was between the banker and the citizen, and no one else! The federal government did not require the bank to check validation of a person's ID and address. Loans were not sold to unknown persons. When a wife asked the doctor about her husband's health, the doctor told her. We did not have federal government regulations that prevented the doctor from telling family about family, and also tied every medical service contact a person makes, to the federal government. Would we rather have the federal government know every single medication we use and where we buy it, and all other details of our health care, than our own family? When did we vote for this privacy that prevents family from knowing about family and enables the feds to know so much? Who is controlling, and for what purpose is this control in place?

I remember when we knew the police can not require people to show ID, if they are just standing on the street or a passenger in someone's car. I don't know when this changed, but other changes came with it. Employers could not asked about a person's criminal record, unless a security clearence was needed for a special reason, such as cleaning banks. They sure didn't do credit checks, and neither did property managers. Forget all the good reasons for this being done now. There were excellent reasons why we didn't do these things, and I would be a lot happier if we lived by the reasons for not doing these things, and returned to the strong opinion that privacy is important. We didn't even tell people our ages, and asking about a person's income was terribly rude, unless a person was applying for a loan.

In Sparta privacy was unimportant, and in Athens privacy was important. In
Sparta everything was made public, and in Athens there was a clear distinction between our private lives and public lives. I mention this, because the change in the US is not a matter of technology, but a matter of values. And our reason to live in fear, that is to be paranoid, is much, much higher when our lives are no longer private. We have lost essential control over our own lives because we have been robbed of our privacy. This brings out the worst in democracy, because it brings us to mob rule. We are now marginalizing people, for small infractions, such as getting drunk and punching someone, becomes a criminal charge that can prevent a person from getting a job or housing. Because these judgements are based on records, rather than an effort to know a person; when someone's identity is stolen, life can become a living hell, and it can cost a lot money and take many years to resolve this problem. This lost control over our lives, exasperates paranoia. Again, this is not just because we have technology that we are making our lives hell, but how we use this technology is a matter of values.

Paranoina is not just fear. It is also excessive need to superior and in control, and by destroying our privacy we have exasperated real reasons to live in fear of the powers over which we have no control, because we have no personal power, when are a judged by what is in a record. Such a government that establishes these laws, without our vote, and education that is amoral and no longer defends our liberty is a serious problem. The fear this generates is being directed to "terrorist" and terrorist are equal to the boogy man children fear. In the past we had enemies and knew who they were. A terrorist is not easy to easy to identify. I assume thoughout history there were kidnappers, and reason to protect children, but this reality and the reality of boogy men is different. As the reality of enemies and terrorist is different. It is malnipulaton of the media for political and economic purpose that gives us "terrorist" and we should not allow this to happen.

I said a lot and wonder if I succeeded in conveying the concepts?

[nutronjon]

Good manners are more important than good laws. Public education use to teach good manners and we had fewer laws. I am very distressed by the reversal in our consciousness, that has favoring laws over good manners. We are destroying our liberty, and that makes every war for nothing, and what we spend on national defense is not defending you and me, but multinationals and companies like Blackwater that profit off war.

[LaurieAG]

Originally Posted by modest

As soon as you decide to kill your enemy, you are what you fight. War is always evil and we always fight our brothers in arms. But, when the cat in the room turns into a lion you’d best be ready to put it down. It (they) want your blood nutronjon.

Hi Modest,

I also don't think that it's ethical to redefine paranoia to argue this threads topic.

IMHO, when the power of the media becomes concentrated in a few people and has a great impact on generating fabulous wealth for those with a reluctance in dealing with the truth, promoting unethical paranoia becomes the MODUS OPERANDI. The border line between true capitalism and crony capitalism was broken at the time in the past when there were twice as many media moguls running much smaller organisations than they do today.

[modest]

Originally Posted by LaurieAG

Hi Modest,

I also don't think that it's ethical to redefine paranoia to argue this threads topic.

IMHO, when the power of the media becomes concentrated in a few people and has a great impact on generating fabulous wealth for those with a reluctance in dealing with the truth, promoting unethical paranoia becomes the MODUS OPERANDI. The border line between true capitalism and crony capitalism was broken at the time in the past when there were twice as many media moguls running much smaller organisations than they do today.

I think Buffy was right that 'paranoia' is a "heavily loaded but undefined term" and really doesn't help the discussion on these topics. Although I believe it is necessary for societies to be a bit paranoid about certain things because it can protect us - The Cuban missile crisis is a good example - both the Cubans and the US were paranoid of the other for good reason. But, it is hard to make that point in a time when the US is very overly paranoid about most everything leading to very, very bad decisions. Decisions that are, in fact, getting a lot of innocent people killed. So, I'm going to stop trying

I couldn't agree more about the diversity of media right now and the consolidation trend. I hope that the internet can help reintroduce the choice that information consumers used to have. A person can probably get a better idea of what's happening in Iraq spending 20 minutes on YouTube than watching CNN all day. It seems sad that that's the case in one respect and yet hopeful in another. I hope the internet finds more serious investigation reporters since we are loosing them so quickly in the print media market. We could have used more Woodward-and-Bernstein's to put a dagger through the bush administration's heart.

-modest

[nutronjon]

Originally Posted by modest

I think Buffy was right that 'paranoia' is a "heavily loaded but undefined term" and really doesn't help the discussion on these topics. Although I believe it is necessary for societies to be a bit paranoid about certain things because it can protect us - The Cuban missile crisis is a good example - both the Cubans and the US were paranoid of the other for good reason. But, it is hard to make that point in a time when the US is very overly paranoid about most everything leading to very, very bad decisions. Decisions that are, in fact, getting a lot of innocent people killed. So, I'm going to stop trying

I couldn't agree more about the diversity of media right now and the consolidation trend. I hope that the internet can help reintroduce the choice that information consumers used to have. A person can probably get a better idea of what's happening in Iraq spending 20 minutes on YouTube than watching CNN all day. It seems sad that that's the case in one respect and yet hopeful in another. I hope the internet finds more serious investigation reporters since we are loosing them so quickly in the print media market. We could have used more Woodward-and-Bernstein's to put a dagger through the bush administration's heart.

-modest

I don't think it is redefine the term paranoia to use a professional doctor's explantion of it, and it is vitally important we understand this excessive need to be superior and control, because what it is doing to our whole culture. Richard M Brickner, MD, defined paranoia as "excessive need to be superior and in control" in his book "Is Germany Incurable" written during the second world war. He wrote the excessive fear is the result of excessive need to be superior and in control.

Charles Sarolea wrote 30 years earlier, of the conditions in Germany that brought on the paranoia. This is a political organization that US has adopted. Not only is the US power structure radically different, but national values and the character of the US are changed. Of major concern to Charles Sarolea, was the destruction of German national hero's and taught negative attitude towards Germany, while praising efficiency; and he also made note of the popularity of Nietzsche . The US has experienced the same changing, done in the same way, through public education. Our young today learn of German philosophers and no longer learn of ancient Greek and Roman ones, that were the classical education essential to our democracy. We have a changed culture because we changed education. The National Defense Education Act, prepared the US to be the same New World Order, it defeated in WWII.

One reason people question if Bush and Cheney had a hand in making 9/11 happen, is the same thing happened in Germany, before it was successfully mobilized for war. I forget the details, but a major building was burned down, doing the equivalent of causing people to fear "an enemy", and we know Bush and Cheney had designs on making the US a strong military force in the mid east long before 9/11. We know Straus was a German Jew who fled Germany and became an influential professor in the US. We know the CIA learned from fleeing intelligent offices from Germany. We know the Eisenhower administration embedded the Military and Industrial Complex in our society, instead of demobilizing the US as we have done, following every other war. We know Bush senior was a director of the CIA, and Bush junior was influenced by Straus, and the grandfather had connections with NAZI Germany. Cheney worked for oil companies, before leading the company that supplies wars, and we know this blend of the private industry and military are the structure of the Military, Industry Complex, or New World Order, first realized by a Prussian General before WW1. .

During the Eisenhower administration, new connections were made between government and research, and government and media. During the Reagon administration, research on poverty completely disappears from the Abstracts and is completely replaced with research on welfare fraud. It is such a complete change in research, it is obviously biased by a predetermined purpose. The findings of the research were used to scapegoat the poor for the 1970 recession, and we cut off welfare to two parent families, slashed domestic budgets, and poured money into military spending, skyrocketing homelessness and pregnancies without marriage. Even Social Security funds were used for military spending, so the military could have more money without raising taxes. There was a huge shift of wealth and power and at this time, and we are just now talking about it, as a widening gap between have's and have not's. Part of this military spending was in the form of granting arms to the mid east. Clearly during the Reagan administration the neocon agenda of Bush and Cheney for military domination of the mid east, was already taking effect.

I am not saying Bush and Cheney had a hand in 9/11, but they did have the most to gain from it and the US has imitated Germany in so many other ways, things do appear suspicous. And can we back up, to the education media professionals have? It is not the same education we had before the 1958 National Defense Education Act which radically changed public education, our national values and character. The control of thoughts, destruction of national hero's and dislike of our own country, while praising effeciency, began with in 1958.