2025-01-11
Laura Dodsworth suggests that "we need a cognitive freedom movement".
She is (rightly in my view) concerned about the manipulative techniques that governments use to persuade us to buy into their favoured narratives, even to persuade us to take on board total tosh, such as man-made climate change and 'we're all going to die!'.
OK, what exactly does "cognitive" mean?
Even the dictionaries seem a bit confused:
"an adjective that means connected with thinking or conscious mental processes"
"relating to, being, or involving conscious intellectual activity"
"a term used in psychology to describe anything related to thinking, learning, and understanding"
"relating to the process of acquiring knowledge and understanding through thought, experience, and the senses"
But surely the manipulative techniques that "they" use are not really directed at the conscious mind, but at the unconscious that can be seamlessly guided by constant repetition, especially as a background feature rather than a foreground item that demands our conscious attention.
The best propaganda passes unremarked, slipping unnoticed into our subconscious, there to take root and in time become an automatic reflex.
Why else do commercial companies seek to place their products within film or studio settings where they may have nothing to contribute to the story line? They just need it to be seen by our subconscious, so that we will recognise it in the shop.
After all, repetition is exactly how the subconscious learns our daily habits to the point where its subtle promptings guide our conscious routines (eg: getting breakfast), whilst our conscious mind is grappling with knottier problems (perhaps the latest office politics that we will shortly have to navigate when we arrive at work).
We are as a species for ever susceptible to the repeated message.
Truly, the price of freedom is eternal vigilance!
