America's Social Norm = Ignorance (Shh, Don't Deviate!)

A sociological approach to the ignorance endemic virus in America.

Societies have a built in tendency to 'program' (usher conformism) those within it ("socialization") to the societies norms (customs) and values. Therefore, all that engineers of social domination must do is increment the inhabitants (slaves) into adopting ignorance and apathy as the de facto social norms. Welcome to America, we hope you ignore your stay...

In sociology, a norm, or social norm, is a rule that is socially enforced.
en.wikipedia.org...(sociology)

Socialization is the process by which humans or animals learn the values, norms and culture of their particular society. They learn to conform to the way of life in their society.
en.wikipedia.org...

Slavery : The condition of a slave; the state of entire subjection of one person to the will of another.
dict.die.net...

Anyone who has tried to "wake up" others around them has surely met resistance. Odds are the would-be educator is even chastized at every attempt. This is because ignorance is America's social norm, and violating said norms are considered social "deviance". Chastizing people for violating your your social rules is a process of socialization. It's coerson into conformity, as there's generally not an option involved.

Deviant behavior is behavior that is a recognized violation of social norms. Formal and informal social_controls attempt to prevent or minimize deviance. One such control is through the medicalization of deviance. It is not the act itself, but the reactions to the act, that make something deviant.
en.wikipedia.org...

When a norms is widely enough held, those who "deviate" from the norm are generally "stigmatized", which usually leads to the deviant group being "marginalized". Those generally considered deviant fall into 3 basic categories which respectively include deformities, drug addiction or outcast social / racial groups.

Social stigma is severe social disapproval of personal characteristics or beliefs that are against cultural norms. Social stigma often leads to marginalization.
en.wikipedia.org...

When one pressures another into accepting the norms they are "agents of socialization". Most have heard the term "epidemic", but it turns out there are distinct variations. "Endemic" is the term that would apply to social norms, as norms tend to be spread person to person without necessarily requiring external inputs.

Agents of Socialization - people and groups that influence our self-concept, emotions, attitudes, and behavior. Examples: Family, peers, and mass media. (Henslin, 2006)
en.wikipedia.org...

In epidemiology, an infection is said to be endemicin a population when that infection is maintained in the population without the need for external inputs.
en.wikipedia.org...

Syndemic refers to the concentration of two or more diseases or other health conditions in a population in which there is some level of biological interaction among the diseases and health conditions that magnifies the negative health effects of one or more of the comorbid diseases or health conditions. Syndemic theory seeks to draw attention to and provide a framework for the analysis of these interactions. Syndemics tend to develop under conditions of health disparity caused by poverty, stress, or structural violence , and contribute to a significant burden of illness in affected populations.
en.wikipedia.org...

Following social theory, it should only take our social engineers the initial challenge of engineering the society into accepting the norms (ignorance) and then socialization will maintain it as so. Even if it isn't quite that simple, the external influence is still present to satisfy the entertainment and ignorance addiction that our social engineers hooked most everyone on ages ago. People over the years have been incrementally adjusted to 'higher' and 'higher' states of ignorance through "operant conditioning".

Operant conditioning is the use of consequences to modify the occurrence and form of behavior. Operant conditioning is distinguished from Pavlovian conditioning in that operant conditioning deals with the modification of voluntary behavior through the use of consequences, while Pavlovian conditioning deals with the conditioning of behavior so that it occurs under new antecedent conditions.
en.wikipedia.org...

All social norms operate in the manner of an endemic, and generally norms are for decency and the better, so therefore we wouldn't consider these a disease. Diseases can be contagious or infectious. There are often social norms which are undesirable and even detrimental, such as ignorance and apathy, and in extreme cases like we have here in America they should be considered and treated as the diseases that they are.

A disease is an abnormal condition of an organism that impairs bodily functions. In human beings, "disease" is often used more broadly to refer to any condition that causes discomfort, dysfunction, distress, social problems, and/or death to the person afflicted, or similar problems for those in contact with the person.
en.wikipedia.org...

They say the road to recovery from an addiction related disease is first admitting that your addicted, so therefore geting them to admit that they're addicted to ignorance is the first step.

Perhaps a variation of the AA 12 Step Program is in order (removed the religious context to minimize rejection):

1. We admitted we were powerless over our ignorance - that our lives and minds had become unmanageable.
2. Made a searching and fearless moral and intellectual inventory of ourselves.
3. Admitted to to ourselves, and to all other human beings the exact nature of our ignorance.
4. Made a list of all persons we had socialized into our disease, and became willing to make amends and attempts to cure them all.
5. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, especially to those most engulfed in collective ignorance.
6. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were relapsing back into tought patterns of ignorance promptly chastized ourselves for self-destructive and selfish behavior.

[edit on 30-5-2007 by IgnoranceIsntBlisss]

I believe you are right on the money with this. This is exactly how I see it, but you put it into words better than I can.

The way I see society controlled is by those that want to control society, interest groups, corporations, governments etc., sowing a seed that society itself then takes and molds into a social norm that is taboo to step out of, just as you have said here. If something is repeated often enough it really doesn't take long for the sheep to run with it.

People think social conditioning doesn't happen cause they can't see it, and think it doesn't effect them. When all the time they are living examples of social conditioning. It's really hard to explain it to someone who doesn't see it. You have to step outside for awhile, which is not always a comfortable place for a lot of people.

The public ridicule of people who deny the official 9-11 story is a good example of social conditioning. Most people are really social cowards, and would choose to laugh along with the de-bunker than risk being laughed at, whether the de-bunker is right or not. As you know, we see it everyday here, and most people are so in denial they can't even see themselves what they are doing.

Society really is a prison without bars, 'Emancipate yourself from mental slavery'...Bob Marley

9/11 is a great example, but I find it applying to pretty much everything in general. In fact in the early days I quickly realized that starting with 9/11 is the wrong approach to a person who has no clue. First layers of perception must be unraveled for the person to be able to comprehend the bigger picture. This was one of the major things that pushed me to develop my view as I speak it thes days. However, despite trying a myriad of tactics and increments I still meet the same resistance on even more basic and abstract views that really speak for themselves (very little about 9/11 speaks for itself (without video and such) besides the "first truth" / Bush freedom propaganda arguments I use.

It's total ignorance. We must talk dirt about each other or pop icons, and talk about things like what we want to own or do and so on, and it ends there. Talk about real issues and you wont hear from them for awhile.