"Mass Delusion" - Styx 1977 I believe.

Interesting essay, particularly because I see so many mis-understandings within our own conversations on this site of, how could this have happened to us, to this country of the free, where did this nonsense come from, etc. I think I read the referenced book many years ago, I'll have to go check.

Txs for posting.

Yes, and everyone thinks that it's someone else that's brainwashed, never considering the brainwashing affects everyone.

"American conservatives are by and large clueless about propaganda methods and tactics. And it shows."

The evidence is indisputable. The GOP still exists and most conservatives consider the GOP to represent conservatives and continue to vote for GOP candidates. Clueless.

I agree completely.

She says maybe people have been brainwashed with a "fast-talking sales pitch" to accept those ideas, but maybe we really believe them of our reason and volition. I know I do.

My guess as to why those things are accepted is that they are consistent with reason and reality. In an industrial and post-industrial economy, reason delivers the goods. Reason gets us more cool smartphones, plane trips, ways to share our music and writing, etc; so we embrace it. In pre-industrial times, the means of production were arable land, and there was only so much of it. A feudal protection racket delivered the goods to people on the stealing side of it. Giving people who were different a hard time was more profitable in those days. Now we leave each other alone, and the weird Roarks of the world design cool new weird stuff that people want to buy.

We still have the protection-racket-like problems, e.g. income taxes going from almost zero to half our income, but I hope we'll keep moving toward liberty because it's right and it's helped along by the fact that it delivers the things people want.

This is something of an odd article. The first half of it seems to say that if you believe in [list topics] then you are mind controlled. But there is no evidence to suggest that this is so other than the writer's bias that [list topics] are innately objectionable...and therefore if you believe in them you must have been psychologically conditioned to do so.

What about a person who believes in those topics on their own? This does not seem to be included in the writer's universe.

About halfway through, some good points are made about the freedom to be politically incorrect without legal repercussions. I agree that one should be able to express that one does not agree with transgenderism (to use one of her examples) without having gym membership revoked or being fired from your job. But I also am aware that someone who is transgender has had a lifetime of being rejected in those respects, and that is not right either. Freedom is freedom.

I do not agree that a person who expresses a particular belief or opinion should be immune to shunning or rejection as a personal and individual choice of the people around them. You opens your mouth; you takes your chances.

Jan