Social control mechanisms

Hi I was contemplating about how social pressure is or can be being used as a mass control mechanism. A lot of people probably don't even know why they think what they do they just do. Most of it is just taught to them so they believe it. I was thinking how this can be taken advantage of as a control mechanism for social behavior and managing corporate cultures and advertising.

So what do you think?


I forgot to mention. They rely heavily on emotional response and playing human emotion.

a reply to: onequestion

Social pressures and peer pressures are the biggest control mechanisms. Conform or die, you politically incorrect outcast.

a reply to: onequestion

I think its absolutely powerful. Just look at the role of propaganda in all the military conflicts over the past 100 years. That's social control. The mainstream beliefs are a form of pay-to-play "cultural capital", if you embrace them, there are supposedly benefits. Until there aren't, and you realize you've been lead blindly into catastrophe.

That's one reason non-violence is powerful. People think its about this hippy-dippy stance, but in reality its about not responding to violence as a means of control, with fear or retribution. When people sprayed MLK protestors with fire hoses, they expected them to react angrily and show how bestial blacks were, or to cower, but they did neither. They showed themselves beyond the control mechanisms so they won.

originally posted by: tridentblue
a reply to: onequestion

I think its absolutely powerful. Just look at the role of propaganda in all the military conflicts over the past 100 years. That's social control. The mainstream beliefs are a form of pay-to-play "cultural capital", if you embrace them, there are supposedly benefits. Until there aren't, and you realize you've been lead blindly into catastrophe.

That's one reason non-violence is powerful. People think its about this hippy-dippy stance, but in reality its about not responding to violence as a means of control, with fear or retribution. When people sprayed MLK protestors with fire hoses, they expected them to react angrily and show how bestial blacks were, or to cower, but they did neither. They showed themselves beyond the control mechanisms so they won.

Well worth reading your reply thanks.

Trident Blue gave you the best answer you could get to that question.

I think right here we are in the middle of a social control experiment….so I think it's almost funny, if I were in a laughing mood, you pose the question in the middle of what I describe.
Ironic.
Social control is everything. The reason for huge experiments around it are the cash flow it generates, to play a part in that cycle. Once someone is shunned by society, they have no recourse, against well, anything….

So, the opposite, is social acceptance provides a climate in which an individual can do and become anything.
Unless there's a time slip, that is…..
tetra
eta. i do not think this the only reason for experiments such as social control mechanisms. to predict and control quantum entanglement, as it is discovered that consciousness is quantum, in nature. So it becomes a predictive mechanism, then.

Our most dangerous social control mechanism is the public school system.
The bext biggest concern is the mainstream media and the continuing
consoilidation into the hands of a few major players.

The next, and probably the greatest threat of all, is Google--with its
ability to direct your attention, at will, with impunity,

Just my two cents

As a female, growing up caught in the consumer culture ideals, it can be very confusing and scarey. Young women, younger and younger these days are suffering from it, eating disorders at six years old...wow.

The way they used "Reefer Madness" worked great to demonize cannibus, even plain old hemp, for several generations.

a reply to: onequestion

We live in a world full of societal norms and protocols, taboo subjects, and behaviour that the group deems to be inappropriate, and some behaviours are considered to be the product of mental disease, although the behaviours themselves are harmless, much like those whom talk to themselves in public - totally harmless, yet, deemed to be inappropriate to the degree that if not treated with medication, results in confinement.

Why exactly are these behaviours considered unacceptable or appalling? It is a deep question, and to an extent we are conditioned to accept certain behaviours and reject others, one could imagine a society that considers talking to oneself to be acceptable, you would have people talking to themselves all over the place, and no one would bat an eye.

I am afraid that even talking to strangers is almost unacceptable, many would ignore you if you were to just sit next to them on the train and say "Hi, my names Resistor, what's your favourite colour, mine is blue?"

As you can tell perhaps if we had people talking to strangers, and talking to themselves, sharing their "taboo" experiences and talking about things we consider to be "strange" perhaps society would benefit?

Emotional suppression is heavy now-a-days, it is almost unacceptable to show emotions in today's society, such as anger and sadness, only about 30 or 40 years ago showing emotion was considered natural and human, and was generally met with empathy and understanding. Now, if one were to display gratuitous sadness, instead of understanding, one would likely be confronted with an invitation to see a professional, as opposed to a conversation.

What road are we headed towards? Denial of emotions, denial of the strange thoughts that permeate our subconsciousness, trained to be oblivious to our deeper thoughts, so we can act like cogs in a machine?

I think it is sad, people used to be far more expressive than they are today. Do you notice how our voices used to be different, deeper, do you also notice how we used to have a greater degree of contact as well in conversations, a hand on the shoulder for instance, in addition to the lack of eye contact?

I'm afraid what I am truly trying to convey to you is difficult, because, most seem to be suffering an "amnesia" about the way things were and how we used to experience our lives.

a reply to: onequestion

Yep.
Except it most likely has been used as a control mechanism for as long as homo sapiens have existed.
And of course it has been used in advertising.
Here's an example.
What is a fad?

Social control mechanisms? One that always bothered me. Santa Clause. It's like being between a rock and a hard place. On one hand I can tell me daughter the truth, Santa is bull# to consume garbage and be considered a horrible father for ruining it. Or I can try to "fit in" because after all lying to a child about a mythical person and waste debt notes on consumer trash isn't so bad, right? Six in one, half a dozen in the other? Or social engineering?

a reply to: Rosinitiate

Keeping it real as well as positive is the way forward. You don't have to lie to your daughter, but saying something that might hurt her feeling while she's still too young tp understand might be not be such a good idea.

You're joking right? Look around you, mind manipulation is being perfected every single day.

The whole of civilized society is a control mechanism, that is what its nature is and precisely what it was designed for.

It can be read all about, gleaned, and extracted directly from Plato's Republic and The Statesman. The system is set-up under the guise of two very major promises: safety and security. The beast supposedly makes life better for us so we can advance in peace and comfort, but the majority actually spend all of their time working so the elite class does not have to in order that the elite class can sit around and "think", rather than the rest of us having the spare time to think that we once did.

Once tricked into voluntarily joining this control mechanism (or being born into it), it then becomes apparent what it is really all about. The elite class must then put a few extra things in to keep the masses happy and docile.

The philosopher Jacques Ellul wrote all about the various control mechanisms in his book The Technological Society, in which he labels the control mechanisms "technique" and provides a very good explanation (although very dry) of exactly what it is and how it works.