Great stuff. I thought the Tweet by Justin Podur about creating stories was right on the money.
Storytelling can definitely be used for either good or bad, whether poets, prophets, writers, or the oligarchy. They all understand how mythos can shape the imagination, which then colors how people think about countless other things. It in many ways determines how people think and view reality at a much deeper level than any kind of didacticism or lecture. I find that a good deal of Hollywood and the streaming services also function in tandem with the msm as one great "priming" machine.
All this stuff also makes Plato's question about banning the poets from the Republic more interesting and nuanced for me. The average academic tends to treat Plato's questions are purely literal, as if Plato is some kind of Kim Jon Un saying poets must be panned with no nuance, no irony, nothing? It doesn't sound like the Plato I know, and yet this is the popular take.
I would argue that Plato understood in his own way the kind of thing we are now faced with. He was trying to make a more subtle point about the power of narratives, imagery, story-telling, which in their day was largely in the hands of the poets and raphsodists who spread the stories among the people. For, if one wanted to change opinion and direct people in a different way, they would seek to introduce the kinds of stories that would support that, or discourage the kind of things they sought to suppress. Plato seems to have had a deep understanding of the power of narratives, and so was introducing a polemic to get people to think more seriously about how our reality is constructed and influenced on these more subtle and deeper levels.
After reading a few books by Richard Bandler on hypnosis and trance (a very sketchy guy, co-creator of Neuro Linguistic Programming, and also considered one of the world's leading hypnotists), I've recently come to a better understanding of how some of the more subtle "priming," "predictive programming" and other hypnotic techniques are applied to modern propaganda.
These techniques in their most modern form are powerful because they are subtle and people don't realize they're being given suggestions. In many ways, the increase in the effectiveness in propaganda is largely a result of its becoming more artfully subtle, but also using hypnotic techniques, including the "illusion of choice," hypnotic "binds," "sequences," the power of suggestion, and a conscious understanding of how "altered states." In the case of "sequences," imagine me starting my speech by first talking about images of children being killed, crying mothers, and THEN talking about the possibility of no fly-zones and other alternatives. Even just these same two points in the reverse order doesn't have the same effect, because the first set of images are to induce the altered state, getting someone to becoming emotionally more involved, with their sensitivity heightened, and THEN introducing the other idea. Sequence is very importance in hypnosis.
However, Bandler points out that hypnosis is also a natural part of life. We experience altered states everyday in our lives, from walking (no one has to think about each step they take, automatic i.e. unconscious processes do that for us), to driving, to thinking about and imagining images from the past or future. By knowing exactly how to word things and using the proper sequences and "frames," it becomes easier to consciously guide altered states, especially when one knows how to give "cues" and "prime" people with different images and linguistic formulations. "Experts say," "most experts agree," "there is a consensus," "the benefits outweigh the risks" - each of these phrases makes use of subtle behavioral insights. "Experts say" is what social engineers and behavioral scientists would refer to as the "leveraging of authority" - the idea being that when we are faced with something where we don't consider ourselves "experts," for example going to see a doctor, the mind is prone to taking mental "shortcuts" as a risk-benefit decision i.e. you're likely better off taking the doctor's opinion than just doing your own thing based on your own personal theory. "Most experts agree" and "there is a consensus" is a pretty overt appeal to group-think, but in behavioral science terms, it's a form of "social proof" i.e. most people believe this and it seems reliable, thinking otherwise is more uncertain, presents more uncertainty, which the mind automatically seeks to avoid.
Stories and narratives are framed in a way that most efficiently and quickly leverages these various elements, from altered states to social proof to the preference for avoiding potentially large losses (whether real or imagined) over potentially minor gains.
Great stuff. I thought the Tweet by Justin Podur about creating stories was right on the money.
Storytelling can definitely be used for either good or bad, whether poets, prophets, writers, or the oligarchy. They all understand how mythos can shape the imagination, which then colors how people think about countless other things. It in many ways determines how people think and view reality at a much deeper level than any kind of didacticism or lecture. I find that a good deal of Hollywood and the streaming services also function in tandem with the msm as one great "priming" machine.
All this stuff also makes Plato's question about banning the poets from the Republic more interesting and nuanced for me. The average academic tends to treat Plato's questions are purely literal, as if Plato is some kind of Kim Jon Un saying poets must be panned with no nuance, no irony, nothing? It doesn't sound like the Plato I know, and yet this is the popular take.
I would argue that Plato understood in his own way the kind of thing we are now faced with. He was trying to make a more subtle point about the power of narratives, imagery, story-telling, which in their day was largely in the hands of the poets and raphsodists who spread the stories among the people. For, if one wanted to change opinion and direct people in a different way, they would seek to introduce the kinds of stories that would support that, or discourage the kind of things they sought to suppress. Plato seems to have had a deep understanding of the power of narratives, and so was introducing a polemic to get people to think more seriously about how our reality is constructed and influenced on these more subtle and deeper levels.
After reading a few books by Richard Bandler on hypnosis and trance (a very sketchy guy, co-creator of Neuro Linguistic Programming, and also considered one of the world's leading hypnotists), I've recently come to a better understanding of how some of the more subtle "priming," "predictive programming" and other hypnotic techniques are applied to modern propaganda.
These techniques in their most modern form are powerful because they are subtle and people don't realize they're being given suggestions. In many ways, the increase in the effectiveness in propaganda is largely a result of its becoming more artfully subtle, but also using hypnotic techniques, including the "illusion of choice," hypnotic "binds," "sequences," the power of suggestion, and a conscious understanding of how "altered states." In the case of "sequences," imagine me starting my speech by first talking about images of children being killed, crying mothers, and THEN talking about the possibility of no fly-zones and other alternatives. Even just these same two points in the reverse order doesn't have the same effect, because the first set of images are to induce the altered state, getting someone to becoming emotionally more involved, with their sensitivity heightened, and THEN introducing the other idea. Sequence is very importance in hypnosis.
However, Bandler points out that hypnosis is also a natural part of life. We experience altered states everyday in our lives, from walking (no one has to think about each step they take, automatic i.e. unconscious processes do that for us), to driving, to thinking about and imagining images from the past or future. By knowing exactly how to word things and using the proper sequences and "frames," it becomes easier to consciously guide altered states, especially when one knows how to give "cues" and "prime" people with different images and linguistic formulations. "Experts say," "most experts agree," "there is a consensus," "the benefits outweigh the risks" - each of these phrases makes use of subtle behavioral insights. "Experts say" is what social engineers and behavioral scientists would refer to as the "leveraging of authority" - the idea being that when we are faced with something where we don't consider ourselves "experts," for example going to see a doctor, the mind is prone to taking mental "shortcuts" as a risk-benefit decision i.e. you're likely better off taking the doctor's opinion than just doing your own thing based on your own personal theory. "Most experts agree" and "there is a consensus" is a pretty overt appeal to group-think, but in behavioral science terms, it's a form of "social proof" i.e. most people believe this and it seems reliable, thinking otherwise is more uncertain, presents more uncertainty, which the mind automatically seeks to avoid.
Stories and narratives are framed in a way that most efficiently and quickly leverages these various elements, from altered states to social proof to the preference for avoiding potentially large losses (whether real or imagined) over potentially minor gains.