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F.: Professor of Political Science Emily Goldman says that “perception management” is a polite term for “an aspect of information warfare” involving falsehood and deception with the goal of influencing humans to believe whatever it is that “leaders” (or would-be leaders) want others to believe, no matter what the actual truth may be.
Perception management among advertisers and political strategists and others has become a euphemism for “stretching the truth” which is, in turn, a euphemism for “lying.” Lying has become so commonplace that now it seldom warrants a second glance.
Why would anyone be surprised at how few ever Realize when it is seen how widespread lying is throughout the culture and thus how tolerant of the lie persons have become? On one hand, the masses almost expect the current glut of lies; on the other hand, the age-old lies—regarding nations or patriotism or a god or gods or religion or so-called "spiritual truths"—are considered so sacred that persons will die in their defense.
Some would ask: “Lies, yes, but ‘information warfare’?” You bet. Those who would control the masses have been using information warfare since languages (or other means of “communicating”) began.
No person on the planet has escaped the effects of this warfare, and the victors have always been those “leaders” who have been able to persuade persons to set aside logic and reason and questioning and to accept the leaders’ concepts as truth based on nothing other than “faith” alone. And faith comes in only one style: blind faith.
Traditions and practices today are rooted in concepts that were first dreamed up thousands of years ago by ignorant, self-appointed “leaders” who used perception management to manipulate the masses. Now, millennia later, the superstition-based ignorance that was dreamed up by those persons in bygone days is still being accepted as truth nowadays.
The invitation is to understand the way that persons today are blindly and unknowingly living out their relative existence while being controlled by their blind and unquestioning belief in nonsensical concepts that evolved from the use of perception management many thousands of years ago. Then you will understand how out-of-touch with reality that persons truly are.
All across the planet, persons are lost in the “Dream of the Planet,” watching the action on the stage of “the Theater of the Lie” and thinking it’s all real and true. Why? Because their perceptions are being managed. They are being treated like fools, being played like a fiddle, as they blindly accept the most outrageous lies as truth if the liars are “respected leaders in their community or country.”
Accepting as truth the lies told by such perception managers as politicians and priests and parents and preachers will get you billions of people who believe a special woman gave birth to a special baby while maintaining her virginity; that a god can love you unconditionally but will punish you eternally if you break his rules; that bread and wine can really become blood and body; and that it’s normal to model vampirism and cannibalism to children each week.
It will get you millions of persons who believe that one nation has the right to arbitrarily bomb and invade another country; that emotional intoxication by a male who beats you is evidence of how much he must care; that the members of one race are better than the members of another race; and that levels in your company are an accurate measurement of the variances in the value of the people working there.
It will get you millions of persons who believe that it is only “real men” who are willing to die for their country; who believe that their god wants them to kill people who are members of different religions; who believe that their kindergarten spirituality has made them “enlightened”; who believe that their heaven is a place where the sole purpose of women is to sexually gratify martyrs; or millions of persons who believe that it is they who live in the greatest nation on earth.
So, is “warfare” accurate or not? Definitely. See the wars that are happening because persons today are operating under the influence of bogus information that was offered up thousands of years ago in order to manage the perceptions of the masses or under the influence of bogus information that is being offered up now.
See the warfare that results from the bogus information being circulated about religion and spirituality and nations and dualistic hierarchies and a god or gods, all of which generate a belief in “better than” and “separate from” and “deserving to live” or “deserving to die.”
See how that filters down to individual “relationships” wherein one who was “loved” is now “hated”…where a woman employed by a Christian church can calmly report that she prayed ever day for a year that god would kill her husband while adding that she is still “a good Christian woman at heart.”
From the most “personal” level to the state level to the national level to the international level, perception management (which could more accurately be called “perception mis-management”) is generating war and conflict and misery and suffering.
Because of the perception that Hinduism or Taoism or Buddhism or Judaism is the only source of truth, then fighting or separation or wars will occur as humans argue with humans, or as humans fight other humans, over the “right” teachings.
The perception that “Christians and Jews are infidels who must be destroyed” leads to warfare. The perception that sect “A” is right and sect “B” is wrong leads to warfare. The perception that “all Muslims want to kill us” leads to warfare.
The perception that there is a heaven and a hell—and that the way to each can only be explained by one religion—leads to warfare. The perceptions that “humans can own land” and that “separate nations exist” pave the way for one nation to fight another.
The perception that there is only one way that a person can behave in a “relationship” and still be considered “acceptable” generates individual warfare. The perception that false identities are real is at the root of all “personal” warfare.
Indeed, it is no overstatement that perception management (mis-management) is at the root of all warfare and misery and suffering. Please enter the silence of contemplation. (To be continued)
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