You might be, but you probably aren’t, aware of the fact
that everything that we hear
and see is being controlled,
either through the large media such as television, radio,
internet and newspapers, or
through people who might
have misheard something, but
they want to tell it on anyway,
not being aware that they
are telling the story wrong.
When you are watching television, there is always an alterior
message behind the program,
whether that is to make money, or to convince you that
something is a truth. Within
Europe the standards for the
reporting on news items are
quite high, and most stations
seek to be as objective as
possible. However, there are
other stations that just want
people to watch the news,
whether this is true or just a
blatant lie. They don’t care
about you, they care about
their ratings and their profit.
Reporting on lies or partly-truths
is a very risky business, as the
viewer might perceive the reported as being a truth (“It’s
been on the news, it must be
true!”), which in turn can prove
harmful for the subject of the
report or for those who were
influenced by the reporting.
I couldn’t possibly state that
such forms of covered up manipulation are something new, that
has been around ever since
the world-wide availability of
newspapers, radios and later
on TVs, because it has been
around much longer than that.
One of the best cases I could
make for manipulation a long,
long time ago in a far away
land, would be the early myths
and legends. These were not
merely entertaining, but also
served the purpose of teaching the one on the receiving
end what should be done,
what is appropriate to do
and what absolutely should
not be done. This is something that was used a lot, by
a wide variety of different
cultures, ranging from Scandinavia all the way to Japan.
Most of these stories changed
gradually over time, to be fitting for the era they were currently in. These stories as we
know them now are considered to be fairy-tales, of which
most have been passed on
verbally throughout thousands
of years, until a couple of German brothers decided to write
them down. You might know
them as the Grimm brothers.
Entrata religion. Another form
of early mass manipulation,
and a very clever one, is the
existence of deities who demanded a certain lifestyle from
their devout acolytes. Even
though the birth place and
time cannot be pinpointed exactly, it is guessed that it has
been around ever since the
dawn of the Homo Sapiens.
It suffices to say that the first
cities and states were built
upon theocratical principles,
which in time have led to great
prosperity in Egypt and Mesopotamia, with the European cities and states following
later. Ancient Egypt provides
us with one of the most wellknown examples of a person
ruling an empire because he
is a god. The Pharaos as we
know them were able to rule
a massive empire through the
simple believe of the people
that the Pharao is of divine
descent. This is also the reason
why they were able and willing
to build them the piramids and
the sphinxes, which required
enormous manpower and time.
A thousand years later new
religions showed their faces.
The Abrahamic religions, as
they are called, were derived
from the ancient Mesapotamian religions, and started with
the coming of age of Judaism,
later followed by Christianity
and Islam. All these religions
share a common ancestry, but
are nevertheless very keen on
destroying eachother, in order
to become the one dominant
religion. They also proved very
useful if used by emperors and
kings, to control their lands and
an excuse for conquering others, whilst also spreading fear
and terror about those who
did not follow the same teachings. Christians vs Jews, Jews vs
Muslims and Muslims vs Christians, it has been an excuse
for bloodbaths against fellow
men around the globe. Where
ever you look, there is always
a group that uses religion as
an excuse for extreme violence.
burned, crucified or drowned
(or any other horribly painful
way of dying that you can think
of), whichever has your fancy.
Fear of death is a very powerful tool (do take into consideration that Christianity is based
on love for one another).
How do these previous examples of mass manipulation translate to the present? We are still
influenced by these Abrahamic
religions. In what we call western society we can still clearly
see the ideals and influences
of Christianity and Judaism,
whereas in the Middle-East
the Islam is still the go-to option.
Modern media do also very
much influence our way of
thinking, as they tend to show
only one side of the story that
they are telling. Objectivity is
something rare, and true objectivity still does not exist, as
we all have a previous history, and a certain place with a
certain culture where we were
born and we have grown up.
What, in the end, is most important, is to remember that
no-one has all the facts. For
that reason, no-one can say
they have the full story on
what happened, where-ever
that was. What you personally should do to avoid prejudice as much as possible, is to
look at as many different sides
of any given story. The truth
might sometimes be clouded, but it is always present.
But how did religions manipulate you ask? Peer-pressure,
mostly, to get you to follow the
rules of that specific religion. If
you didn’t, you were considered
to be a heretic and had to be
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