In Dan Carlin’s recent Common Sense episode The War on Bad Thoughts he, once again, explores the subject of terrorism and the dilemma of a (prevalent) short term view that leads to narrow-minded responses vs. a long term view in which the root of this problem (and potentially many other problems) is “bad thoughts” … and he starts to delve into a potentially interesting domain of changing minds. However this creative opening led to what was in my mind, a narrow and limited exploration … of “weapons of thought control”.
What follows are some reflections in the spirit of the challenging direction that the show touched on … nothing nearly as coherent as the show itself!
A general “scientific” assumption behind “mind control” seems to be that the mind itself is a kind of storage device for thoughts which implies that if we could somehow get into it, remove some thoughts, add some new ones, etc … we would have a technology with great potential. Well … what if that core assumption “the mind as a storage device” is unfounded. Rupert Sheldrake may have something to say on that.
“Changing minds and hearts” is also a phrase that came up … and I wonder if it too opens a door to an interesting path of exploration. Why are we so focused on changing minds …. what if our hearts turn out to be more responsive to change … what would changing our hearts look like? How quickly can a man with anger in his heart from, say, work transform into a soft, loving father when he comes home and embraces his little girl?
I am a practitioner of Yoga. Though its popular image is that of a physical practice, I was taught and trained in a tradition that views Yoga as a science of the mind. It therefore has A LOT to say about how mind works and how to go about changing it … though much of what this view has to offer would likely be rejected in a modern / mechanistic / supposedly scientific conversation.
Dan also talked about what happens when we come together as a herd … how we tend to revert to more basic, animalistic, responses. What if there too is a potential exploration … what if we could come together and instead of reverting to somethign primitive we could become something more advanced … a intellectual / social construct that would not only harness our potential in a better way but also nourish us in such a way that our minds would change in some that we could not as individuals?
I would say that there are plenty of ongoing experiments of mind-control that we may not appreciate for their mind-control aspects:
- An obvious one would be mainstream media and how its continuous flow has altered now just what we think, but how we think.
- Another obvious example would be social media and how it has had effects on both what and how we think.
- A less obvious example though may be viewed as belonging to the “chemical weapons” realm. I believe that the typical American diet has effected the way American’s can and do think. I believe it has both short term and long term accumulating effects … a form of self-inflicted chemical warfare the USA has been waging with itself. Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food may be a good start on that subject.
- An even more subtle example would be capitalism itself – not judging it, just pointing out its effects on thoughts and thinking. Consider for example: the “herd dynamic” Dan speaks of, how is that phenomenon shaped by capitalist (individuals seeking personal gain in a zero sum game = at the expense of one another) thought. Are we just naturally fearful or have our social-technologies given rise to almost rational fears? What do we fear more, our hunters or our other herd members?
If I were to continue this list it would seem that many of our typical day-to-day technologies are in fact altering how we think and what we think about. What if what we need is not a radical”weaponized” change but a subtle change in underlying attitudes and intentions. Could it be that because of their obviousness we overlook them and are tempted by the drama of “weapons of thought control”?
Finally … what if the underlying attitude of war and weaponry limits our view on this subject? What if mind-control is a process that is too variable for control and direction? Maybe the fact that it failed in the 60’s or 70’s wasn’t because of immature technolgies (that have now, 40 years later, matured) … but an immature understanding of the mind and thought itself (which is still immature in mainstream society, though there are many more small pockets on the fringes of society with developed insights)? What if mind-control is a natural organic process that we can tap into and partake in better than we have been doing so far?