Manipulation of human consciousness Kara Murza. S.G. Kara-Murza "Manipulation of Consciousness" Introduction
Mind manipulation
Introduction
We are witnesses and participants in the events of a cosmic scale. Before the eyes of one generation, they managed to blow up and, possibly, break Russia. For ten centuries this huge civilization connected and balanced the two main blocks of the human world - the West and the East. After the first blow in the 20th century, Russia, already in the guise of the USSR, revived its main features, regained its face (though washed with blood). But the virus remained in her body, the disease found new vulnerable points, the crisis turned out to be much more difficult. One of the pillars of the entire human community staggered and began to crumble. The whole world is drawn into perestroika, with growing horror.
Everything shows that the turmoil is for a long time, and incredible adventures await us. Slightly reworking Khrushchev's famous phrase, we can say: "The current generations of Soviet people will not get bored until death." And, unlike Nikita Sergeevich's prediction, this prediction seems to come true. Moreover, life expectancy with such fun is rapidly declining.
In order not to be painfully ashamed of the stupid things we have done, it is useful for us to speculate: what happened? Why, then, did we want the best, but it turned out not as always, but as in a terrible dream we will not dream. Indeed, Chara bank depositors still complain to each other: “I wake up with hope: it was all a dream. I, so smart and cunning, could not take and give all my savings to crooks. Voluntarily!". No, this is not all a dream. Yes, and "Chara" - a trifle. Or rather, not a trifle, but that drop of water, which reflected all this perestroika, reform, democracy, and what else the magician had under his hat.
I think that passions have already cooled down a bit, and we can argue with benefit and even with laughter (sometimes nervous, but no longer hysterical) - all together. And the victims of our landmark scam, and those who, as it seems to him, managed to profit from it. There are fewer of them, but they do exist. Yes, and a person does not like to look like a simpleton, so he swaggers - now I am a banker, and I am a manager.
Maybe our reasoning will still have time to help us ourselves in our lives, they will certainly help our children - they will have to clear up the mess. Yes, and for history, for posterity, I want to leave eyewitness accounts with at least some attempts at comprehension. Otherwise, today we read different versions of what happened to the Russians at the beginning of the 17th century, but it is difficult to understand. What kind of turmoil is this? Why did they believe thieves and miserable rogues, even put them on the Russian throne? Why did the governors vying with each other in a hurry to surrender the cities to the insignificant forces of surprised adventurers, and the Cossacks rushed to rob Russian cities?
And then, we are mostly non-believers (candles and crosses are not quite right), but the majority of them have a secret thought: they will have to answer to our dead. My father, who did not come from the war, will ask me: “What did you do there? Explain, we're all guessing, we can't understand. We must prepare, our ancestors cannot put Gorbachev's speech under their breath: they say, they were carried away by these truths. Their thinking was not new, but sound.
Let us begin to unwind the thread little by little, restoring history in memory in such a way as to understand: by what miraculous means we were persuaded to do everything that we did. After all, we did a lot of things, and without any stick and carrot - with enthusiasm and even delight. Now, in hindsight, someone is very strong. Some even boast: I knew! I warned! These people do not change the overall picture.
First, there were very few such smart people. Read at least the speeches of Ligachev, our conservative beeches. The same cabbage soup, but pour in a thinner one. And others seemed to be warning correctly, but in such a deliberately ridiculous form that, it seems, their warnings were written in the department of A.N. Yakovlev. Let us recall at least a letter from Nina Andreeva. Of course, she wrote herself and sincerely, the department of A.N. Yakovlev only picked up such pearls and “by mistake” put them into print.
Finally, in every society of people (and even in every herd) there are some innate obstinate, natural dissidents. They always grumble and contradict. Take even Solzhenitsyn. Few people managed to do so much to destroy the Soviet system. Finally, they destroyed it, did everything as he asked - again he was dissatisfied. No, you kill, but so that it is beautiful. So that the dead man was pink and smiled. I think that such eternally dissatisfied people cannot be considered evidence of the stability of our national mind.
So let's accept it as a fact: some influential and organized part of humanity (which includes some of our fellow countrymen) somehow managed to ensure that our society as a whole, almost 300 million people, not counting the "allies", actively acted on a program that brings huge benefits to this group and huge damage to ourselves. Today, when an important stage of this program has been completed and the result is evident, this can really be accepted as a fact and no longer dwell on it. Losses and gains are known and obvious, they are calculated and published in the world's books of accounts, literally written on the faces of happy politicians.
Whatever the skeptics, strong in hindsight, say, if we consider that we are a people (that is, a single body with a transpersonal mind), then it is time to admit that our folk wisdom for some reason misfired. We collectively swallowed one bait after another until we were led to the hook and pulled out onto the cutting deck. True, even today there are those who, already lying on this deck, shout: “I wanted this and I cannot compromise my principles! Long live Comrade Chubais! But these are subtle natures, they are especially pitiful.
So, let's look at what kind of bait it was, how it was prepared and with what words it was waved in front of our noses. Because what they did to us is called a boring term: the manipulation of public consciousness. In terms of scale, cost, duration, and results, this manipulation program is unparalleled in history. In the course of its preparation and implementation, a huge number of finds and even discoveries have been made, new important knowledge has been accumulated about man and society, about information and language, about economics and ecology. Before starting decisive actions in Russia, "acute" (often extremely bloody) experiments were carried out on many peoples and valuable knowledge was gained in ethnography and anthropology. The world has changed not only because of the collapse of the USSR. The very invisible activity of manipulating the public consciousness of many peoples of the earth changed the face of the world and affected almost every inhabitant of the planet. And especially the cultural layer of humanity, the reader and viewer.
The success of manipulating the consciousness of the peoples of the USSR and, above all, the Russian people (according to Dulles, "the most recalcitrant people") dangerously turned the heads of the victorious politicians and their experts. Today, the press is full of triumphant cries about the fundamental possibility of complete control over human behavior, and at very little cost. On the other hand, many of those who considered themselves victims of manipulation fell into despondency and believed in some secret weapon developed by the KGB or the CIA (or jointly), in some kind of psychotropic drugs with which insidious politicians "zombie" people . It is clear that faith in the mystical power of the enemy paralyzes the will to resist. So the "creation" of this faith (through rumors, articles, "denunciations" and "confessions") is in itself an important means of manipulating public consciousness.
S.G. Kara-Murza "Manipulation of Consciousness" Introduction
We are witnesses and participants in the events of a cosmic scale. Before the eyes of one generation, they managed to blow up and, possibly, break Russia. For ten centuries this huge civilization connected and balanced the two main blocks of the human world - the West and the East. After the first blow in the 20th century, Russia, already in the guise of the USSR, revived its main features, regained its face (though washed with blood). But the virus remained in her body, the disease found new vulnerable points, the crisis turned out to be much more difficult. One of the pillars of the entire human community staggered and began to crumble. The whole world is drawn into perestroika, with growing horror.
Everything shows that the turmoil is for a long time, and incredible adventures await us. Slightly reworking Khrushchev's famous phrase, we can say: "The current generations of Soviet people will not get bored until death." And, unlike Nikita Sergeevich's prediction, this prediction seems to come true. Moreover, life expectancy with such fun is rapidly declining.
In order not to be painfully ashamed of the stupid things we have done, it is useful for us to speculate: what happened? Why, then, did we want the best, but it turned out not as always, but as in a terrible dream we will not dream. Indeed, Chara bank depositors still complain to each other: “I wake up with hope: it was all a dream. I, so smart and cunning, could not take and give all my savings to crooks. Voluntarily!". No, this is not all a dream. Yes, and "Chara" - a trifle. Or rather, not a trifle, but that drop of water, which reflected all this perestroika, reform, democracy, and what else the magician had under his hat.
I think that passions have already cooled down a bit, and we can argue with benefit and even with laughter (sometimes nervous, but no longer hysterical) - all together. And the victims of our landmark scam, and those who, as it seems to him, managed to profit from it. There are fewer of them, but they do exist. Yes, and a person does not like to look like a simpleton, so he swaggers - now I am a banker, and I am a manager.
Maybe our reasoning will still have time to help us ourselves in our lives, they will certainly help our children - they will have to clear up the mess. Yes, and for history, for posterity, I want to leave eyewitness accounts with at least some attempts at comprehension. Otherwise, today we read different versions of what happened to the Russians at the beginning of the 17th century, but it is difficult to understand. What kind of turmoil is this? Why did they believe thieves and miserable rogues, even put them on the Russian throne? Why did the governors vying with each other in a hurry to surrender the cities to the insignificant forces of surprised adventurers, and the Cossacks rushed to rob Russian cities?
And then, we are mostly non-believers (candles and crosses are not quite right), but the majority of them have a secret thought: they will have to answer to our dead. My father, who did not come from the war, will ask me: “What did you do there? Explain, we're all guessing, we can't understand. We must prepare, our ancestors cannot put Gorbachev's speech under their breath: they say, they were carried away by these truths. Their thinking was not new, but sound.
Let us begin to unwind the thread little by little, restoring history in memory in such a way as to understand: by what miraculous means we were persuaded to do everything that we did. After all, we did a lot of things, and without any stick and carrot - with enthusiasm and even delight. Now, in hindsight, someone is very strong. Some even boast: I knew! I warned! These people do not change the overall picture.
First, there were very few such smart people. Read at least the speeches of Ligachev, our conservative beeches. The same cabbage soup, but pour in a thinner one. And others seemed to be warning correctly, but in such a deliberately ridiculous form that, it seems, their warnings were written in the department of A.N. Yakovlev. Let us recall at least a letter from Nina Andreeva. Of course, she wrote herself and sincerely, the department of A.N. Yakovlev only picked up such pearls and “by mistake” put them into print.
Finally, in every society of people (and even in every herd) there are some innate obstinate, natural dissidents. They always grumble and contradict. Take even Solzhenitsyn. Few people managed to do so much to destroy the Soviet system. Finally, they destroyed it, did everything as he asked - again he was dissatisfied. No, you kill, but so that it is beautiful. So that the dead man was pink and smiled. I think that such eternally dissatisfied people cannot be considered evidence of the stability of our national mind.
So let's accept it as a fact: some influential and organized part of humanity (which includes some of our fellow countrymen) somehow managed to ensure that our society as a whole, almost 300 million people, not counting the "allies", actively acted on a program that brings huge benefits to this group and huge damage to ourselves. Today, when an important stage of this program has been completed and the result is evident, this can really be accepted as a fact and no longer dwell on it. Losses and gains are known and obvious, they are calculated and published in the world's books of accounts, literally written on the faces of happy politicians.
Whatever the skeptics, strong in hindsight, say, if we consider that we are a people (that is, a single body with a transpersonal mind), then it is time to admit that our folk wisdom for some reason misfired. We collectively swallowed one bait after another until we were led to the hook and pulled out onto the cutting deck. True, even today there are those who, already lying on this deck, shout: “I wanted this and I cannot compromise my principles! Long live Comrade Chubais! But these are subtle natures, they are especially pitiful.
So, let's look at what kind of bait it was, how it was prepared and with what words it was waved in front of our noses. Because what they did to us is called a boring term: the manipulation of public consciousness. In terms of scale, cost, duration, and results, this manipulation program is unparalleled in history. In the course of its preparation and implementation, a huge number of finds and even discoveries have been made, new important knowledge has been accumulated about man and society, about information and language, about economics and ecology. Before starting decisive actions in Russia, "acute" (often extremely bloody) experiments were carried out on many peoples and valuable knowledge was gained in ethnography and anthropology. The world has changed not only because of the collapse of the USSR. The very invisible activity of manipulating the public consciousness of many peoples of the earth changed the face of the world and affected almost every inhabitant of the planet. And especially the cultural layer of humanity, the reader and viewer.
The success of manipulating the consciousness of the peoples of the USSR and, above all, the Russian people (according to Dulles, "the most recalcitrant people") dangerously turned the heads of the victorious politicians and their experts. Today, the press is full of triumphant cries about the fundamental possibility of complete control over human behavior, and at very little cost. On the other hand, many of those who considered themselves victims of manipulation fell into despondency and believed in some secret weapon developed by the KGB or the CIA (or jointly), in some kind of psychotropic drugs with which insidious politicians "zombie" people . It is clear that faith in the mystical power of the enemy paralyzes the will to resist. So the "creation" of this faith (through rumors, articles, "denunciations" and "confessions") is in itself an important means of manipulating public consciousness.
People, regardless of their ideology and political preferences, are divided into two types. Some believe that, in principle, a person is a big child, and the manipulation of his consciousness (of course, for his own good) by an enlightened and wise ruler is not only acceptable, but also a preferred, “progressive” means. For example, many experts and philosophers believe that the transition from coercion, especially with the use of violence, to the manipulation of consciousness is a huge step in the development of mankind.
Others believe that the free will of a person, which implies the possession of a clear mind and allows one to make a responsible choice (albeit an erroneous one), is a great value. This category of people rejects the legality and moral justification of the manipulation of consciousness. In the limit, he considers physical violence less destructive (if not for the individual, then for the human race) than "zombie", robotization of people.
These two positions are determined by the values, ideals of a person. So, it is useless to argue about which of these positions is more correct and better. It's like arguing which is more important - the soul or the body. Rationally and even logically, one can argue about what consequences for society and the individual will entail the transformation of one or another ideal position into a political doctrine. Does the implementation of this doctrine into life linearly affect a person's life - or does this influence have critical threshold levels. That is, whether "manipulation within reasonable limits" is acceptable or whether its recognition as a justified means of control means a leap into a qualitatively different society.
Therefore, in the book, which is offered to the reader only as a basis, a matrix for dialogue, we will try to avoid accusations and evaluation of ideals. Let's talk about deeds - they can and should be evaluated from the standpoint of conscience, since they affect people's lives. But hiding your attitudes is useless and even harmful, this is not agitprop. It is not necessary to recruit into one's faith, it is much more important to create a center of dialogue in our divided society. Therefore, I prefer to warn that the book was written from the standpoint of rejection of manipulation by both public and private consciousness. I am sure that on this path, which, of course, provides convenience and comfort, trouble awaits a person. The exhaustion of being and the extinction of the entire human race, including the caste of priests sitting at the control panel of a manipulating machine.
But this is personal, it is better to read about it in Dostoevsky. We will talk about obvious and tangible things - about the technology of manipulating consciousness that has developed in our time and which was used against the "scoop", against me and my fellow citizens.
The book is a revised and supplemented anniversary edition of the famous work of Sergei Kara-Murza "Manipulation of Consciousness", the total circulation of which has reached 50,000 copies. Sergey Georgievich reveals the structure of the entire system of manipulation of public consciousness - as a technology of domination of the power elite. For Russia, the transition to this new type of power would mean a change in culture, thinking, language, the destruction of the very foundations of traditional society. The book describes in detail the main blocks of manipulation and the reasons for the special vulnerability of the Russian consciousness. Accepting a new type of power over a person or building a defense against manipulation is a matter not only of choosing a historical fate, but of the very survival of the Russian people. The book is intended for the general reader.
A series: Mind manipulation (Eksmo)
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The following excerpt from the book Mind manipulation. Century XXI (S. G. Kara-Murza, 2015) provided by our book partner - the company LitRes.
Section I. The Essence and Doctrines of Mind Manipulation
Chapter 1
Let us limit the subject of our conversation, going from the general to the particular.
In living nature, man is a qualitatively new phenomenon. He is not just a social creature that can exist only by intensively exchanging information with his own kind (such is the ant). He possesses mind, capable of abstract thinking, and language. Language and thinking are large complex systems that can be influenced for the purpose of programming behavior person. A person has a complex psyche, an important part of which is imagination. It is so developed that a person lives simultaneously in two dimensions, in two "realities" - real and imaginary. The imaginary world to a large extent (and for many in the first place) determines human behavior. But it is unsteady and malleable, it can be influenced from the outside in such a way that a person will not even notice this influence.
In general, a person lives not only in the objectively existing physical world, but also in the so-called artificially created by him. noosphere- the world created by the conscious activity of the human race. Narrowing the concept, we can say that a person lives in an artificially created world culture.
Thus, all living beings influence the behavior of those with whom they coexist in their ecological niche, using natural objects and programs recorded by nature in the form of instincts. But a person in addition to this affects the behavior of other people, influencing the sphere of culture.
Of course, it is possible to program a person's behavior by direct external influence on him. biological structures and processes. For example, by implanting electrodes in the brain and stimulating or blocking certain centers that control behavior. With some technical sophistication, you can not even implant electrodes, but influence the higher nervous system of a person at a distance - using physical fields or chemical means.
At one time, the experiments of Jose Delgado at the University of Atlanta (USA), which were then classified, aroused interest. They tested the so-called "brain telestimulator". The electrodes implanted in the monkey's brain received a signal from a distance, using a radio transmitter. At will, the experimenter could call the animal desires and emotions- appetite, fear, aggressiveness, etc. Moreover, this could be done with the help of a computer equipped with a transmitter - behavior "programmed" literally.
Both in the past and now, they also apply the impact on human behavior with the help of rude surgical intervention in his body. In the United States, lobotomy has been widely used for a long time - the surgical removal of some centers in the frontal part of the brain, after which the restless person loses his rebellious spirit and becomes happy with everything (someone must have watched M. Forman's film "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest").
A significant proportion of women in poor countries (and today, at a time of severe cultural crisis, in the former GDR) are voluntarily sterilized. This greatly changes both the mental sphere and some aspects of behavior. Until recently, eunuchs occupied a prominent place in society in many countries. Castrated men also behave quite predictably in some important matters.
In this book, we will not discuss the use of electrodes in the "correction" of behavior, nor lobotomy, nor the impact of psychotropic rays or gases. All this, by our standards, is a criminal interference in the human body and, hopefully, will not be used openly and on a massive scale in the coming years. And if these means are used, sooner or later it will be revealed and some kind of retribution will overtake the criminals. History provides grounds for optimism in this regard.
Of course, vigilance is necessary. There are enough enthusiasts with totalitarian thinking under any banner, even democratic ones. In their conviction that they have been given the right to eradicate the vices of "backward" peoples, they easily slide into the idea of a biological reworking of "human material." The doctor N. Amosov, who became a prominent ideologist, wrote in 1992:
“Correction of germ cell genes, combined with artificial insemination, will give a new direction to the old science - eugenics - the improvement of the human race. The wary attitude of the public towards radical influences on human nature will change, including compulsory (by court order) treatment of malicious criminals with electrodes... But here we already fall into the sphere of utopias: what kind of person and what kind of society have the right to live on earth.
These thoughts express the secret desire of the elite to have a population that would behave exactly in the way that is beneficial, convenient and pleasant for it, the elite. But we, I repeat, will not talk about plans to "improve the human race" and treatment by court electrodes, or about the impact of psychotropic rays.
Our subject is a simple and real thing that has become an integral part of our life in culture. This is manipulation of consciousness and human behavior through legal and studyable means. She represents technology, which is used according to their official duties and for a small salary by hundreds of thousands of professional workers - regardless of their personal morality, ideology and artistic tastes. This is the technology that penetrates into every home and from which a person, in principle, cannot hide. But he can learn its tools and techniques, and thus create his own individual and collective "means of protection."
Receipt knowledge about tools and techniques for manipulating consciousness is a human right in a more or less democratic society. The systematization and dissemination of this knowledge is the moral duty of an educated person and citizen. If such knowledge becomes available to a sufficiently large number of people, then joint actions will become possible to protect against manipulation, that is, a wider implementation of democratic human rights and freedoms.
Of course, manipulators will invent new tools and new techniques. But this will already be a difficult and costly struggle, and not the suppression of an unarmed and defenseless population. And it will be a struggle of an insignificant minority (albeit with money and organization) against a huge mass of creatively thinking, inventive people. The very transition to struggle will mean an important turn in the fate of our society, and perhaps of all mankind.
Knowledge about how some people influence the behavior of others through the manipulation of consciousness is accumulated in science, in art, and in everyday experience. Science, which is obliged to study reality impartially and neutrally, without giving moral assessments to anyone, basically describes the structure of the manipulation process itself, its technique, its techniques and systems of techniques. This is - technological an approach.
Literature, theater, cinema delve into the soul of a person, explore the motives of actions, the origins of the gullibility of victims of manipulation, remorse of manipulators - all this through the prism moral norms of a particular culture. Describing the inner world of all participants in the act of manipulating consciousness, artists sometimes create complex models, which then become the subject of scientific research for a long time. In The Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky "split" the human soul, presenting each part of it as a separate participant in a complex conflict. There is even a theory that it was in the totality of all members of the Karamazov family that Dostoevsky presented the human soul. And her holy-animal character, and a sophisticated, contradictory mind, and a thirst to experience all the baseness of the fall, and the temptation of betrayal.
In artistic creation, the artist's talent lies precisely in not pushing the model ("morality") too much. So that the "experiment" that the writer puts on his heroes is not far-fetched, artificial. The highest achievement of this genre, apparently, is the murder of Karamazov's father. This is - experimentum crucis(critical experiment), staged and described by Dostoevsky with amazing skill. No wonder it is covered in the literature on the history and methodology of science. But in general, works devoted to the subtle influence on human behavior make up a very large part of the literature.
Separately developed synthetic approach - description of specific cases, observed or fictional ( case studies). In them, reality is not “cleaned up” too much, so the description convinces by the presence of vital details, but at the same time, the model shines through quite strongly. Therefore, at the end of the story about the model case, a rather definite conclusion can be drawn, and its logic is clear to the reader.
The literature on recent history is full of descriptions of how the "party of Napoleon" in France brought a young general to power - so that influential social forces literally begged him to accept this power. Recently, almost before our eyes, the ideologists of the West carried out a brilliant campaign to manipulate the public consciousness in Europe, persuading their middle class to support the Munich agreements and "allow" Hitler to march to the East (although at that moment it was not difficult to stop him - it was precisely about allowing or prohibition). This campaign is also described as a "model case". After the Second World War, all local civil wars and national conflicts are intensively studied, revealing in each case the technology of manipulating public consciousness. The "velvet revolutions" and perestroika in the USSR gave social scientists all over the world material for a hundred years. One "August 1991" has already blocked the most brilliant provocations in history in terms of the main parameters.
In this book, we will not follow any one approach, but will try to select ideas and information that are useful to us from the stock of ready-made knowledge and apply them, as in a workshop, to analyze those words and deeds that we have to hear, see and endure in our real life.
Chapter 2
Man is a social being. Only gods and beasts can live outside society(Aristotle). The individual is an abstraction that took shape in the 17th century with the emergence of modern Western society. The Latin word itself individual there is a translation of the Greek word atom, what does it mean in Russian indivisible. In practice, the myth about the individual is unrealistic, a person arises and exists only in interaction with other people and under their influence. A child raised by wild animals (such cases are known and studied) does not become handsome Mowgli. He is not human and cannot survive. Even a child, isolated from other people by his mother for a long time, does not become a man.
embedded in us biologically a program of behavior is not enough for us to be human. It is supplemented by a program written in signs culture. And this program is a collective work. This means that our behavior is always under the influence of other people, and in principle we cannot protect ourselves from this influence with some kind of rigid barrier. What kind of influence on our behavior, in the whole huge range of influences, we will define as manipulation?
This word itself has negative coloring. We designate by it the influence that prompted us to do such actions that, according to the subsequent assessment, we were the losers. If a friend at the racetrack persuaded you to bet on the horse that came first, then when you receive a prize at the box office, you will not say: “He manipulated me.” No, he gave you sound advice.
On the other hand, not every influence, obeying which you were at a loss, you will call manipulation. If in a dark alley they put a knife to your stomach and whispered: “Money and watches, quickly,” then your behavior is very effectively programmed. But calling a stranger a manipulator does not come to mind. What is the meaning of this concept?
The very word "manipulation" is derived from the Latin word manus- hand (manipulus- a handful, a handful). In the dictionaries of European languages, the word is interpreted as handling objects with purpose(for example, manual control, examination of the patient by a doctor with the help of hands, etc.). It means that such actions require dexterity and dexterity. In technology, those devices for controlling mechanisms that are, as it were, an extension of the hands (levers, handles) are called manipulators.
From here came the modern figurative meaning of the word - deft handling of people as objects, things. The Oxford English Dictionary defines manipulation as “the act of influencing or controlling people with dexterity, especially with disparaging connotations, such as hidden management or processing". Published in 1969 in New York, The Modern Dictionary of Sociology defines manipulation as “the exercise of power in which the possessor influences the behavior of others, without disclosing the nature of the behavior he expects from them.”
One of the first books directly devoted to the manipulation of consciousness was the book of the German sociologist Herbert Franke "The Manipulated Man" (1964). He gives the following definition: “Manipulation in most cases should be understood as a mental impact that is produced secretly, and therefore to the detriment of those persons on whom it is directed. Advertising is the simplest example of this.
We emphasize the two most important features of the manipulation of consciousness as a way of programming people's behavior - dexterity and secrecy. So that a person does not even have to know what kind of behavior the manipulator wants to achieve from him. These features immediately sharply limit the set of control methods understood as manipulation.
Thus, the term "manipulation" is metaphor and is used in a figurative sense: the dexterity of hands in handling things is transferred in this metaphor to the deft control of people (and, of course, no longer with hands, but with special “manipulators”). The metaphor of manipulation evolved gradually. An important stage in its development was the designation by this word of magicians working without complex devices, with their hands (“magician-manipulator”). The art of these artists is based on the properties of the human perception and attention- on knowledge psychology person. The magician-manipulator achieves his effects using psychological stereotypes viewers, distracting, moving and concentrating their attention, acting on the imagination - creating illusions of perception. If the artist has mastery, then it is very difficult to notice the manipulation, although the skeptics are staring with all their eyes.
It was when all these principles entered the technology of managing people's behavior that the metaphor of manipulation arose in its modern sense - as programming opinions and aspirations the masses, their sentiments and even a mental state in order to ensure their behavior, which is necessary for those who own the means of manipulation.
If we write out the definitions given by authoritative researchers of manipulation, then we can single out its main, generic features. First, this is the view spiritual psychological impact (rather than physical violence or threat of violence). The target of the manipulator's actions is the spirit, the mental structures of the human personality.
Second, manipulation is hidden influence, the fact of which should not be noticed by the object of manipulation. One of the leading experts on the American media, Professor of the University of California, G. Schiller, notes: “To achieve success, manipulation must remain invisible. The success of manipulation is guaranteed when the person being manipulated believes that everything that happens is natural and inevitable. In short, manipulation requires fake reality, in which her presence will not be felt."
This “false reality is created by the media. They are a repeater authoritative opinions, which are assimilated by people and then perceived by them as their own conclusions. E. Fromm in the book "Escape from Freedom" distinguishes between two qualitatively different categories of thought, which are the product of independent thinking, and learned thoughts of others. He came to this conclusion: “In fact, it seems to people that it is they who make the decisions, that it is they who want something, while in reality they succumb to the pressure of external forces, internal or external conventions, and “want” exactly that. what they have to do."
If an attempt at manipulation is revealed and the exposure becomes widely known, the action is usually curtailed, since the revealed fact of such an attempt causes significant damage to the manipulator. The main goal is hidden even more carefully - so that even the exposure of the very fact of the manipulation attempt does not lead to the clarification of long-term intentions. Therefore, concealment, withholding information is a mandatory sign, although some manipulation techniques include a game of sincerity, when the manipulator tears his shirt on his chest and lets a stingy male tear down his cheek.
Thirdly, manipulation is an impact that requires significant skill and knowledge. There are, of course, talented nuggets with powerful intuition, capable of manipulating consciousness with the help of home-grown means. But the scope of their actions is small, limited to personal influence - in the family, in the brigade, in the company or gang. If we are talking about public consciousness, about politics, at least on a local scale, then, as a rule, specialists or at least special knowledge gleaned from literature or instructions are involved in the development of the action. Since the manipulation of public consciousness has become technology, professional workers who own this technology (or parts of it) have appeared. There was a system of personnel training, scientific institutions, scientific and popular science literature. True, the Nobel Prize has not yet been explicitly established in this area (although some winners of the Nobel Prize for Peace or Literature should have been classified as mind manipulators).
Another important, although not so obvious, sign is that people whose minds are being manipulated are treated not as individuals, but as objects of a special kind. things. Manipulation is part power technology, rather than influencing the behavior of a friend or partner. A woman in love can play a very subtle game, influencing the psyche and behavior of a man in order to awaken reciprocal feelings. If she is smart and patient, then up to a certain point she carries out her maneuvers secretly, and the "victim" does not detect her intentions. This is - ritual love relationship, the specific image of which is prescribed by each culture. If we are talking about sincere love, we will not call it manipulation. Another thing is if a cunning wench decided to cheat on a simpleton.
We do not include in the concept of manipulation and etiquette- influence on the behavior of others with the help of allegories and defaults, the language of signs, understood only in this culture. If a person understands the sign, then the meaning of the appeal is clear to him and the intentions of the one who "influences his behavior" are not a secret for him. If an Englishman asks an English acquaintance: "How do you do?" (“How are you doing?”), he replies with the same question, and they get down to business. And the Russian, as the British joke, in response to this greeting question, begins to tell that his wife fell ill and his son, a brat, began to study poorly.
When a person addresses another with the use of elevated etiquette (for example, subtly polite), he, of course, seeks to influence the partner's behavior in his favor. But this is not manipulation, since neither the fact of influence nor intention is hidden here. On the contrary, the sign language must be understandable, otherwise the attempt to influence cannot be successful. It is impossible to live in society without etiquette and conventions. But, applying the rules of etiquette, we do not treat a person as a thing at all, we respect him as a person. We do not include this kind of “deception that elevates us” in the concept of manipulation.
And in general, a simple deception, being one of the important private techniques in the entire technology of manipulation, in itself cannot constitute a manipulative effect. The fox, luring cheese from the Crow, cannot even be called a liar. She does not say to her: throw, they say, cheese for me, and I will throw raw smoked sausage for you. She asks her to sing. False information, influencing a person's behavior, does not in the least affect his spirit, his intentions and attitudes. Therefore, for example, the concept of manipulation is not applicable to infants, since they cannot make independent decisions and feel like a responsible subject. E.L. Dotsenko in the book “Psychology of Manipulation” (M, 1996) explains: “For example, someone asks us for directions to Minsk, and we falsely send him to Pinsk - this is just a deception. Manipulation will take place if the other one was going to go to Minsk, and we made him want to go to Pinsk.”
In the book of G. Franke “The Manipulated Person”, this feature of manipulation as a mental influence is emphasized: “It not only encourages a person under such influence to do what others wish, it makes him to want do it."
From this, a rather unpleasant side of the matter becomes clear. Any manipulation of consciousness is interaction. A person can become a victim of manipulation only if he acts as its co-author, accomplice. Only if a person, under the influence of the received signals, rebuilds his views, opinions, moods, goals - and begins to act according to a new program - the manipulation took place. And if he doubted, stubbornly defended his spiritual program, he does not become a victim. Manipulation is not violence, but temptation. Every person is given freedom of spirit and free will. This means that he is loaded with responsibility - to resist, not to fall into temptation. One of the sure signs that a big mind-manipulation program is going on at some point is that people suddenly stop listening to reason - they seem to want to be fooled. A.I. Herzen was already surprised at “how little logic can take when a person does not want to be convinced.”
To discuss our topic, the main difficulty is created by that side of the manipulation of consciousness, which we have designated as "secrecy", and even in the presence of skill and dexterity. Professional manipulators, like magicians, do not reveal their secrets and do not allow strangers into their creative laboratories. Thus, the real meaning of the words and deeds of the authors and performers of important manipulation actions is always carefully hidden, and special work is required to reveal it. We are forced research cases and situations of interest to us.
Revealing the real meaning in the words and actions of people who sought to hide this meaning is interpretation, interpretation. Approaching such statements or facts as an object of study, we must from the very beginning accept that the meaning of words and actions explicitly offered to us is only one of the possible versions. And at this first stage, it has no advantage over other possible versions, which we are obliged to build ourselves, without prompting. That is, we must approach any words and deeds of politicians and their ideologists as an investigator listening to the first explanation of a suspect. There is no violation of the presumption of innocence in this - neither the investigator nor we reject the possibility that the version heard is true, we do not call its author a deceiver. But we do not immediately accept it as the truth. We want install truth.
The first condition for successful manipulation is that in the vast majority of cases, the vast majority of citizens do not want to spend either spiritual and mental strength or time simply doubt in messages. Passively immersing yourself in the flow of information is much easier than critically processing each signal. There is not enough strength for this if a person has not mastered, to automatism, a certain set of controlling “mental tools”, which, as if by themselves, without the efforts of consciousness and will, analyze information according to one sign: does it contain symptoms manipulation. So an experienced driver can work all day without getting tired, because his hands and feet respond to all signals about the state of the car and the road automatically. He doesn't think, "What am I going to do if that sleazy guy who's swaying on the sidewalk suddenly steps onto the road?" If necessary, such a driver will have both the steering wheel turned and the brake applied without the hard work of the brain.
Similarly, a person who has become adept at looking for different meanings of words and actions immediately notices messages in which there are symptoms of an important hidden meaning - “ears stick out”. At the same time, he has developed a sense of proportion. After all, there is a hidden meaning in all words and all actions, which is why the fabric of human communication is so rich. But an experienced person "filters" messages, highlighting those that exceed his threshold of "sniff for manipulation." Developing the right threshold of irritation is a condition for winning small battles on this invisible front. So the eye of a skilled driver immediately notices even in a crowd of scraggly types who are able to throw themselves under the wheels. And all the rest of his eyes does not fix, discards - they are "below" the threshold of irritation.
Let's split the two questions. It's one thing to spot that message that has too much "noodles" sticking out of it, cooked up to hang on your ears. Another thing is to quickly build plausible versions of the true intention of the cook who prepared these noodles. There is a huge distance between these tasks. The second is much more difficult, and if you do it, you will have to devote a lot of time and effort to it. Good mind sport, but expensive. This is not required for normal life. It is enough to solve the first problem - to smell the catch and simply not to believe such messages, without trying to figure out what the manipulators really intended. If a dog with clouded eyes runs at you, which staggers, and foam flows from its mouth, then first of all you need to step aside. It is not easy to decide what she is sick with and what microbes she has in her saliva. This can be left to professionals and amateurs, but it is important for everyone to step aside.
When the press secretary of N. Stepashin, head of the Federal Grid Company, declares from the outskirts of the village of Pervomaisky captured by the militants that all the hostages have been killed by the militants and a massive bombardment of the village can begin, it is not easy to understand what lies behind this. After all, the next day it turns out that not a single hostage was killed, but every one of the militants left the encirclement ("barefoot"). What is the true meaning of this legend and these actions? It is difficult to understand, but there are enough signs that all this is part of a political spectacle.
Science has created intelligent tools that are useful for a person who builds a defense against manipulation. And not even just tools, but a whole methodological approach, which is called hermeneutics. In its original sense, hermeneutics (from the Greek word “I explain”) is the science of interpreting texts.
Hermeneutics is also directly related to hermeticism- Religious and philosophical doctrine that developed in the era of antiquity. Hermetism means closeness(hence tightness). The meaning of the concept goes back to the legendary sage Hermes Trismegist ("Thrice the Greatest"), a magician and astrologer, the founder of alchemy. Hermeticism had a great influence on the mystical tradition of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, laid the foundations for the occult teachings of the West. In texts written in the Hermetic tradition, the meaning is conveyed with the help of complex symbolism, accessible only to initiates. The treatises of the alchemists cannot be understood without knowing this symbolism. Such texts have to be deciphered - interpreted. This is what hermeneutics does.
This science arose already in the era of Hellenism for the study and interpretation of old texts (for example, Homer). By the way, even then, and in connection with Homer's blindness, it was said about the difficulty of correctly interpreting words if there is no way to see for yourself what is being said. Heraclitus wrote: “People are deceived in the knowledge of the visible, like Homer. And he was wiser than all the Hellenes! Namely, the boys spent it, killing lice and saying: everything that they saw and took, they threw, and what we don’t see and don’t take, we wear it. This is a joke in one of Homer's hymns. He recalls addressing the fishermen from the island of Chios: "Arcadian fishermen, what's the catch?" And they answer: “Everything that they caught, they threw away, and what they didn’t catch, we carry away.”
In the Middle Ages, the main subject of hermeneutics was Holy Scripture. Europe was filled with theologians who engaged in endless disputes and gave rise to heretical interpretations. During the Renaissance, hermeneutics became an important technique in the emerging "social sciences". It was actively used by Niccolo Machiavelli, a politician and thinker who laid the foundations of a new doctrine of the state. For our topic, it is especially important because he was the first of the theorists of the state to declare that power is held by in strength and harmony("Machiavellian centaur"). It follows from this that the “Sovereign” must continuously carry out special work to win and retain the consent of his subjects. Therefore, the very phenomenon of manipulation of consciousness for a long time, until recently, was denoted by the word machiavellianism. It is believed that in the field of political philosophy, Machiavelli anticipated the activities of the Jacobins in the French Revolution, who carried out a grandiose manipulation of mass consciousness.
Current research has shown that Machiavelli's writings on the state, which were perceived as exceptionally original, are the fruit of his "hermeneutical" research by older authors. He "rewrote" some of the works of Plato, Terence, Livy and Dante in a new way, as well as his own. In the 20th century, Antonio Gramsci contemplated a big plan - to "rewrite" Machiavelli's book "The Prince" from the height of a new experience.
In his revelations, Machiavelli said something that is directly important for our topic: the words of politicians always are in need of interpretation. He sharpened this issue to the limit, confessing in one letter dated May 17, 1521: “For a long time I did not say what I believe in, I never believe in what I say, and if sometimes it happens that I and indeed, I speak the truth, I wrap it in such a lie that it is difficult to detect it.
In the 19th century, hermeneutics became a general philosophical method and expanded the range of objects. She began to claim to learn to "get used" to the text so as to "understand its meaning better than its author himself." With the help of hermeneutics, historians tried to restore, reconstruct the spirit of culture and the meaning of the events of past eras. The approach of hermeneutics has been used and is being used by major philosophers of our time (Heidegger, Habermas, Foucault).
Moreover, philosophers warned us that humanitarian knowledge (which we mistakenly sometimes call scientific) needs interpretation, since the main thing in it grows out of the unsaid. In his book on Kant (1929), Heidegger stated: “Generally speaking, what must become decisive in any philosophical knowledge is not contained in the assumptions made, but in what, although not spoken out as such, appears to our gaze through these assumptions.
Hermeneutics is widely used in the "archeology of knowledge" - the search for the true meanings of those main concepts which underlie the modern civilization of the West (for example, spirit and body, the individual, freedom, money, real estate, crime, etc.). This "archeology" unearths absolutely amazing, unknown to us meanings (and, by the way, allows us to understand what really is the difference between our country and the West as two cultures, two civilizations).
Hermeneutics occupies a special place in that part of philosophy that is occupied with criticism. ideologies as the main means of domination and social power in the modern world. It is clear that the language of ideology, created as a replacement for religion in an atheistic society of an industrial civilization, serves to introduce hidden meanings into consciousness. Therefore, for hermeneutics, any ideological text is an excellent field for the application of forces. Here we are already very close to our problem.
Today, the scope of hermeneutics as a scientific approach has expanded dramatically. The word (and text) began to be considered only as a particular expression of a broader concept - sign. We all know that transmitted information can be embodied in a variety of sign systems. Dress, posture, gesture can be more eloquent than words, these are “non-verbal texts”. According to American psychologists (J. Rush), sign language has 700,000 clearly distinguishable signals, while the most complete English dictionaries contain no more than 600,000 words. The acknowledged master of propaganda Mussolini once said: "All life is a gesture." But besides gestures, there are many other sign systems.
Therefore, in principle, we must always interpret, interpret any message, in whatever sign system it may be “packed”. It happens that even when interpreting seemingly transparent and generally accepted signs, there are annoying mistakes. How the woman in the market mourned when a thief pulled out a purse hidden on her chest! She, you see, thought that he climbed "with good intentions." And now they are crying like the Russian people after the privatization of public property. So, in the general case, hermeneutics can be considered any science that studies interpretation, that is, “revealing the hidden meaning in the obvious sense.”
Our object is a special activity, the manipulation of public consciousness. What are the main sign systems to which we can apply the tools of hermeneutics? The most important for our topic can be considered messages “packed” in words, verbal texts (printed texts, speeches, radio and television programs). This also includes elements of the text no less important than words - the spaces between words, pauses. And in politics, these are no less important messages than what is expressed in words. The main thing for politicians who manipulate consciousness is often in silence and words are distracting "shooting".
The meanings hidden in images(paintings, photographs, cinema, theater, etc.). Of course, combinations of sign systems work most effectively, and with knowledge and art, you can achieve a huge synergistic(cooperative) effect simply by connecting "tongues", which we will discuss below.
Finally, interpretation must also be actions. If a politician with great experience and intuition on an important foreign trip gets off the plane and, in full view of the entire high-ranking public, who greets him with flowers, urinates on the wheel of the landing gear, how is this to be understood? The obvious meaning, which is slipped into the ingenuous opponents of this politician, is simple. Oh, he, such and such, an uncultured boor, could not endure the toilet! But this apparent meaning actually "does not make sense." On these kind of trips, a whole bunch of directors and psychologists think through every gesture, every movement. The action that we mentioned is a whole ritual (it must be admitted that it is innovative), which carries several layers of hidden meanings. And every person who did not see cold calculation here fell under the spell of this ritual, no matter how indignant he was with it.
Any gesture, any act, in addition to the obvious, visible meaning, has many subtexts in which different incarnations, different “masks” of a person express themselves. The communication of people is a continuous theater, and sometimes a carnival of these masks - "persons". Recall, by the way, that the Latin word persona comes from the name of the mask in the ancient theater and literally means "that through which the sound passes" (per- through, sonus- sound). These masks had a bell-shaped mouth to amplify the sound.
In general, actions, especially unusual and complex ones, can be likened to texts written with omissions and allegories in a language that is not entirely clear. A prominent specialist in hermeneutics, P. Ricoeur, wrote about action as an analogue of the text: “As in the field of writing, here the opportunity to be read wins, then ambiguity and even the desire to confuse everything take over.”
It is very difficult to correctly understand the meaning of messages clothed in the words and actions of people from a different culture. The apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Corinthians: “He who speaks in an unknown tongue, pray for the gift of interpretation.” The writer Kurt Vonnegut, who was tormented by the problem of "lack of communication skills", in one of his parable novels ("Breakfast for Champions") gives the plot of the story of his hero - a crazy science fiction writer:
“A creature called Zog arrived on a flying saucer on our Earth to explain how to prevent wars and cure cancer. He brought this information from the planet Margot, where the language of the inhabitants consists of farting and tap dancing. Zog landed at night in Connecticut. And as soon as he went to the ground, he saw a burning house. He burst into the house, farting and tap dancing, that is, warning the residents in his own language about the terrible danger that threatens them all. And the owner of the house blew Zog's brains out with a golf club.
Finding an important gesture that would be correctly understood is a great art. Here is a kiss. It seems that the origins of this gesture are much more natural, natural. Isn't it our biological nature that encourages it? But no, it is also a cultural phenomenon. The European kiss was unknown to the Japanese, and when they found out, it was disgusting for a long time. In Cuba, Khrushchev's attempts to kiss Fidel Castro caused shock and gave rise to a lot of caustic jokes. Miklukho-Maclay went alone to the warlike tribe of the Papuans. Arriving in the village, all the inhabitants of which immediately hid, he sat down, took off his shoes and fell asleep. This gesture convincingly expressed his peaceful intentions.
In general, when applied to a person, the word natural(“natural”, “inherent in the genes”, etc.) - in most cases, nothing more than a metaphor. It is often used by politicians to give the appearance of an indisputable argument arising from the "laws of nature" for their statements (for example: "during collectivization, the kulaks were destroyed, and therefore the genetic degeneration of the Soviet people occurred"). In fact, a person is an exceptionally plastic being, and the norms of culture he has assimilated enter into his “nature” in such a way that they even affect physiology. They really begin to seem like something natural, biologically inherent in a person - and he begins to sincerely consider his purely cultural features that are absent in other cultures to be “universal”, the only correct ones.
Even within the framework of one large culture, interpreting the words and actions of people of a different circle, a different class (another subculture) is not an easy task. What is the main principle of hermeneutics, what is the basis for the interpretation of texts or events? On the fact that a word or gesture is embedded in their context. Already the text, from the Latin word "fabric", "connection" (hence texture) there is a community of thoughts and words linked by many connections, some of which are hidden, invisible. And the context is a much broader generality, in which the text is woven, and woven with links that are already mostly hidden. And the level of our understanding of the text depends on how deeply and widely we were able to catch these connections. So, to see in the text an expression of a complex and invisible reality. M.M. Bakhtin wrote: “Each word (each sign) of the text leads beyond its limits. Any understanding is the correlation of a given text with other texts.
It is clear that the text that raises the main questions of being and therefore can be “embedded” in a variety of contexts of place and time becomes a masterpiece. The action of Shakespeare's tragedies can be easily transferred to medieval Japan or modern Russia - we link its meanings with the context of any civilization. Gogol is read today as a prophet and teacher of the Russian people, but who will read the ten times more prolific Boborykin? Because Boborykin wrote things connected by simple and obvious connections with the context of only his place and time.
But for us, the second side of the problem of the connection of the text (events, actions) with the context is more important - the work that the "recipient messages”, reader, observer, historian or contemporary. As the hermeneutic theorist Hans-Georg Gadamer wrote, “it is only thanks to one of the participants in the hermeneutic conversation, the interpreter, that the other participant, the text, generally acquires a voice. It is only thanks to him that written designations turn into meaning again.
Interpretation, interpretation is the restoration of implicit or specially hidden connections with the context. The success of this work is determined by the knowledge, skill, will and creativity of the reader or observer. Knowledge can be acquired, skills can be developed. We immediately recognize people in a photograph and even imagine their image “as if alive”. And the savage in the jungle, when he is shown a photograph of even familiar objects and people, looks at it completely indifferently and sees nothing - he not trained perceive these images.
But knowledge and skills are not enough. Without the work of the mind, spirit and imagination, nothing will work. When we look at the landscape of a good artist, we reproduce the picture so vividly in our imagination that it seems as if the artist wrote out all the details, every leaf on the tree. But it's impossible.
He wrote out very few leaflets, and they are disproportionately large. If the artist depicted the details accurately, we simply would not recognize the image. He, knowing the laws of perception, only hinted gave us a sign, and we created a picture (together with him, with his skillful signs) in our imagination. We are co-authors of the picture.
What is the goal of someone who wants to manipulate our consciousness when he sends us messages in the form of texts or actions? Its purpose is to give us such signs that we, by embedding these signs in context, changed the image of this context in our perception. He suggests we are forced to interpret such connections of our text or action with reality in such a way that our idea of reality is distorted in the direction desired by the manipulator. This means that our behavior will also be affected, and we will be sure that we are acting in full accordance with our own desires.
To say a word or perform an action that would touch the strings of our soul so that we suddenly see reality in a distorted form precisely contrary to our interests is a great art. Such a word and such an act cannot be clear, bright, understandable, they are necessarily addressed to something hidden from the mind:
There are speeches - the meaning is dark or insignificant, But it is impossible to listen to them without excitement.
What is the task of a person who, not wanting to be a passive victim of manipulation, undertakes a small research in the spirit of hermeneutics - tries to give his own interpretation of words and deeds? Its task is to recreate in the mind, as completely as possible, real the context of the message and in various ways to embed what is heard or seen into it. Of course, it is impossible to completely recreate reality; it is necessary to select its essential aspects. For this, hermeneutics, as a scientific method, just gives useful indications. It is clear that it is especially important and difficult to recreate the specially concealed aspects of reality and their connection with the message. For example, the interests of those who "organize" the message (not without reason that the ancient Romans discovered the most important principle of social hermeneutics - "seek who benefits").
The search for hidden meaning is a psychologically difficult process. It requires courage and free will, because it is necessary for a moment to throw off the burden of authority, which the sender of the message often has. Those in power and moneybags - and basically they need to manipulate public consciousness - always have the opportunity to hire their favorite artist, respected academician, incorruptible poet-rebel or sex bomb to transmit messages, for each category of the population its own authority. From the point of view of psychology, the ability to interpret is determined by the ability of a person to easily move from one context to another, connecting different "sections" of reality into a single picture. In experimental studies of psychologists, it turned out that about 30% of the subjects experience severe difficulties in this. So, you need to train.
It is believed that people in their approach to interpretation are divided into two main types. Some begin by trying to restore as strictly as possible the logic of the author of the message, for the time being setting aside their own versions. If they find flaws in this logic and the author of the message “does not fit in”, this is where they start digging.
Others don't take the time to reconstruct the "intelligent tools" of the message's authors. They accept the finished message output as one of the valid versions, but just one of several possible and begin to develop a set of their versions. They "construct contexts" by trying on a version of the "suspect" - the author of the message.
In practice, both approaches are used in varying combinations. It is important to assimilate the main indication of hermeneutics: “The plurality of interpretations and even the conflict of interpretations are not a disadvantage or vice, but the dignity of understanding, which forms the essence of interpretation” (P. Ricoeur).
And the point is not to conciliately compose one "averaged" version from several versions. Only analyzing various version, one can approach the truth, especially when the actors are interested in hiding it.
This problem was sharpened to the utmost by Akutagawa in the story "Rashomon" (many people know her from the Kurosawa film that was shown in our country). The judge interrogates the participants and witnesses of one event - a duel between a samurai and a robber, in which the samurai was killed. Even the spirit of the murdered gives testimony. Converging in the description of "objective facts", what a different interpretation they give the participants!
This phenomenon is typical. The Hungarian historian A. Kovacs studied the opinion of a large group of people who were in the same room and observed the same event (the arrest of Imre Nagy). People, depending on their attitudes, saw such different things that the historian called his report at an international conference in 1990 "The kidnapping of Imre Nagy and the Rashomon effect."
And here is our close story, which was told by its participants. On August 19, 1991, the famous meeting of the Council of Ministers of the USSR took place, where the ministers determined their position in relation to the State Emergency Committee. After the "defeat of the putsch", the ministers, who were friends, gathered and compared the notes that each kept at that meeting on August 19. These records were absolutely incompatible, as if they were talking about different meetings. And at the same time, everyone led them for himself, he had no need to distort what he heard. It was just that everyone snatched from the flow of messages what they considered important - according to their views. Everyone saw what was happening through the filter of their beliefs. This story could be called "The meeting of the Council of Ministers of the USSR on August 19, 1991 and the Rashomon effect."
Unfortunately, very often we experience a narrowing of consciousness: having received a message, we immediately, with absolute certainty, accept for ourselves a single interpretation of it. And it serves as a guide to action for us. This usually happens because we follow from the "economy of thinking" stereotypes- habitual cliches, concepts, ingrained prejudices. In the early 1970s, the Harvard Business Review, a magazine of American economists and businessmen, showed its readers how strong racial stereotypes were in them. On the cover of the magazine was given a picture in which the editors asked to peer carefully. The interior of the bus was drawn, in which a white man and a black man quarreled. One already had a straight razor open in his hand. Three months later, the picture was printed again, but with one change - there was no razor. The editors asked readers to make an experiment on themselves: without looking for the original picture, remember which of the participants in the scandal had a razor in his hand. Then the astonishing results were published: the majority of readers (almost exclusively white) believed that the razor was in the hand of a Negro. In fact, she was with a white man. The stereotype was stronger than memory.
From the narrowness of the view, subordination, even if short-term, for the time being, to a stereotype that has arisen, grave mistakes and blunders in our practical actions follow. It doesn't even matter whether we unconditionally believe the false message or construct our own false interpretation of it. In both cases, our behavior inadequately reality, and we will fail.
Anyone who wants to build a defense against attempts to manipulate his consciousness must overcome the rigidity of the mind, learn to build in the mind options explanations. No matter how the mind of a dogmatist is protected by his "principles that he cannot compromise", after some attempts there is a key to him, because the course of his thoughts is predictable and therefore amenable to programming. And the dogmatist, without suspecting it, becomes not just a victim, but an instrument of manipulation.
It is impossible to save oneself from manipulation with the help of dogmatism and stubbornness, simply by “resting one's feet”. You can only hold out for a while until you pick up the master key. Or they will not bypass as an obstacle that does not pose a great danger (as the ideologists of the market reform of the peasants bypassed, not trying to seduce them with democracy and not spending effort and money on developing special technologies and language to manipulate the consciousness of the peasants).
One can master reality only by studying the doctrine, tactics and weapons of manipulators. Let us first consider in what conditions of social existence manipulation becomes the most important means of domination and power, in what doctrines the main principles of this method of domination are expressed.
Chapter 3
As we have established, manipulation is a way of domination by spiritual influence on people through the programming of their behavior. This influence is aimed at the mental structures of a person, is carried out covertly and aims to change the opinions, motives and goals of people in the direction necessary for power.
Already from this very brief definition it becomes clear that the manipulation of consciousness as a means of power arises only in civil society, with the establishment of a political order based on representative democracy. This is a "Western-style democracy", which today is mistakenly perceived simply as democracy is the opposite of totalitarianism. In fact, there are many types of democracy (slave-owning, veche, military, direct, Vainakh, etc.).
In Western democracy, the sovereign, that is, the owner of all power, is declared to be the totality citizens(that is, those residents who have civil rights 1).
In many Western countries, rights have been curtailed for vast categories of people. Let's not recall the very recent slavery in the United States (although this is a fundamental, philosophical question). But here is Brazil, which is considered a democratic country. Indians, the indigenous population of the country, do not have voting rights. They are - residents country, but not her citizens.
These citizens are individuals, theoretically endowed with equal particles of power in the form of a “voice”. The particle of power given to each is exercised during periodic elections by dropping the ballot into the ballot box. Equality in this democracy is guaranteed by the principle of "one person, one vote". No one except individuals has a voice, does not "take away" their particles of power - neither the collective, nor the king, nor the leader, nor the sage, nor the party.
But "equality before the Law does not mean equality before the fact." The Jacobins have already clarified this by sending to the guillotine those who demanded economic equality on the basis that, they say, "freedom, equality and fraternity." In the property sense, politically equal citizens are not equal. And even they must necessarily be unequal - it is the fear of the poor that unites the prosperous part into civil society, makes them "conscious and active citizens." This is the basis of the whole structure of democracy - the "two-thirds society".
Two-thirds is the “middle class”, united by the spectacle of poverty of those who are pushed to the margins of life. Vote thirds citizens who are dissatisfied with such an order are "dead" - in many ways they are encouraged not to participate in the vote. Recently, the democracy of the West has been shifting towards a "society of two halves" - in fact, half of the citizens refuse to participate in elections. In the Russian Federation, elections to the State Duma are considered valid if only 25% of voters came to the ballot boxes (“one-quarter society”).
Property inequality creates a strong disequilibrium in society, which can only be balanced with the help of political power. The founder of political economy, Adam Smith, defined the main role of the state in civil society as follows: “The acquisition of large and extensive property is possible only with the establishment of a civil government. To the extent that it is established for the defense of property, it becomes in effect a defense of the rich against the poor, a defense of those who own property against those who have no property."
This is exactly what we are talking about civil government, that is, government in a civil society. Prior to this, under the "old regime", power was not distributed in particles among citizens, but was concentrated in the monarch, who had an unquestioned right to rule. In a class society, inequality was protected by tradition, clearly expressed in different rights before the law and confirmed by the indisputable word of the monarch.
Of course, as in any state, the power of the monarch (or, say, the General Secretary) needed legitimation - the acquisition authority in the public mind. But she didn't need mind manipulation. The relations of domination under such power were based on "open, without disguise, imperative influence - from violence, suppression, domination to imposition, suggestion, order - using crude simple coercion." In other words, tyrant commands not manipulated.
This fact is emphasized by all researchers of the manipulation of public consciousness, distinguishing between methods of influencing the masses in democratic and authoritarian (or totalitarian) regimes. Here are the opinions of prominent American scientists:
Media specialist Z. Freire writes: “Before the awakening of the people, there is no manipulation, but there is total suppression. As long as the oppressed are completely crushed by reality, there is no need to manipulate them.”
Leading American sociologists P. Lazarsfeld and R. Merton characterize the relations of domination in the USA as follows: “Those who control the views and beliefs in our society resort less to physical violence and more to mass suggestion. Radio programs and advertisements replace intimidation and violence.”
A well-known specialist in the field of management, S. Parkinson, gave the following definition: “In a dynamic society, the art of management comes down to the ability to direct human desires in the right direction. Those who have mastered this art to perfection will be able to achieve unprecedented success.
E. Toffler in his book Metamorphoses of Power writes: “The state invented new forms of control over mental activity when the industrial revolution led to the creation of the media, and it will look for new means and methods that would help it maintain at least some control over images , ideas, symbols and ideologies reaching ordinary people through the new electronic infrastructure.”
Although ideology, this replacement of religion for civil society, arose as a product of the Scientific Revolution and the Enlightenment, in Europe, the main creator of the concept and technology of manipulating mass consciousness from the very beginning was the United States. However, as they said already in the 18th century, the United States is more Europe than Europe itself. Here, in spaces free from the traditions of the old class cultures, the individual arose in its purest and most complete form. The "fathers of the nation" and the wealthy stratum of the United States had an urgent need to control a huge crowd of free individuals, formally equal before the law, without resorting to state violence (it was simply impossible). At the same time, it was not possible to appeal to such ethical norms as respect for authorities - the United States was populated by European dissidents who deny authority. Thus arose a new type of social management in history, based on suggestion. Poet Gore Vidal said that "the American political elite had an enviable knack for persuading people to vote against their own interests from the start."
In general, G. Schiller gives the following definition:
“The United States can most definitely be described as a divided society, where manipulation is one of the main tools of control, which is in the hands of a small ruling group of corporate and government bosses ... Since colonial times, those in power have effectively manipulated the white majority and suppressed minorities of color.”
In the United States, an innovative technology for managing society was created in the shortest possible time. What took shape in other societies for thousands of years, in the USA was constructed from scratch, in a new way, in a purely scientific and engineering way. Herbert Marcuse notes this great change: “Today, the subjugation of man is perpetuated and expanded not only through technology, but also as technology, which gives even more reason for the full legitimization of political power and its expansion, covering all spheres of culture.” Submission is not through technology, and as technology! The tyrant could not create technology, he just subjugated people with its help, and using very primitive systems.
It was the technology that was created in the USA, and a large detachment of trained, professional intellectuals has worked and is working for this. G. Schiller notes: "Where manipulation is the main means of social control, as, for example, in the United States, the development and improvement of manipulation methods are valued much more than other types of intellectual activity."
In the matter of manipulation, US specialists turn even those social movements into the service of the ruling circles, which, it would seem, are precisely in opposition to the authorities of these circles. During the 1980s, the Reagan and Bush governments in the United States were able to pursue extreme right-wing social and militaristic policies while there was a strong shift in public opinion towards social democratic principles. In the polls, the vast majority supported the introduction of state guarantees of full employment, public health care and the construction of kindergartens, and the ratio of supporters to opponents of cuts in military spending was 3:1. According to a 1987 U.S. Constitution poll, almost half of the U.S. population believed that the phrase "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" was an article of the U.S. Constitution, not a slogan from Marx's Communist Manifesto.
Philosophers Adorno and Horkheimer, in The Dialectic of Enlightenment, presented the organization of all life in the United States as "the cultural industry, which is perhaps the most sophisticated and malignant form of totalitarianism." So the question, for that matter, is not about the choice between democracy and totalitarianism, but between different types of totalitarianism(or different types democracy- the name depends on taste).
In Western philosophical thought itself, there have long been no "democratic" illusions. Montesquieu, in his theory of civil society, proposed the idea separation of powers believing that this would limit the tyranny of the executive branch. These hopes did not come true. At the end of the 19th century, the writer Maurice Joly even wrote a hilarious book Dialogue in Hell between Machiavelli and Montesquieu, in which the shadow of Machiavelli, as a theorist of cynical and cruel executive power, explained to Montesquieu in no time how easily the sovereign can manipulate other "branches of power" simply because it is he who controls the finances - without even resorting to more stringent means. And they, too, when necessary, apply.
When philosophers write in earnest, they drop slurs like "totalitarianism" or "cult of personality" and speak of two types of despotism - Eastern and western. The modern French philosopher S. Moscovici sees the main difference between the Western type in that it relies on control not over the means of production, but over media and uses them as a nervous system:
“They extend their branches wherever people gather, meet and work. They penetrate into the nooks and crannies of every quarter, every house in order to lock people into a cage of images given from above and inspire them with a picture of reality that is common to all. Eastern despotism responds to economic needs, irrigation and the development of labor capacities. Western despotism responds above all to political necessity. It presupposes the seizure of the instruments of influence or suggestion, which are the school, the press, the radio, etc. ... Everything happens as if there was a development from one to the other: external subordination gives way to internal subordination of the masses, visible domination is replaced by spiritual, invisible domination, from which there is no defense."
The notion that the presence of “democratic mechanisms” in itself ensures human freedom, and their absence suppresses it, is the fruit of naivety. To some extent, this naivety was still excusable for Russians at the beginning of the century, but even then Berdyaev wrote: “For many Russian people, accustomed to oppression and injustice, democracy seemed to be something definite and simple - it was supposed to bring great benefits. must liberate the individual. In the name of some indisputable truth of democracy, we were ready to forget that the religion of democracy, as proclaimed by Rousseau and as implemented by Robespierre, not only does not liberate the individual and does not affirm his inalienable rights, but completely suppresses the individual and does not want to know his autonomous existence. State absolutism is just as possible in democracies as in the most extreme monarchies. Such is bourgeois democracy with its formal absolutism of the principle of popular power… The instincts and habits of absolutism have passed into democracy, they dominate in all the most democratic revolutions.”
Strictly speaking, as soon as the manipulation of consciousness turned into a technology of domination, the very concept of "democracy" became conditional and is used only as an ideological stamp. Among professionals, this stamp is not taken seriously. In his "Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences" G. Lasswell noted: "We must not give in to the democratic dogma, according to which people themselves can judge their own interests."
Speaking of democracy and totalitarianism, we need to digress for a moment and single out a special case: what happens when “democratic” rules are suddenly introduced in a revolutionary manner in a society with “totalitarian” ideas about man and power? It doesn't matter whether it is American infantrymen who bring democracy, as in Haiti or Panama, Belgian paratroopers, as in the Congo, or domestic idealists, as in the spring of 1917 in Russia. In any case, this is democracy, which does not grow out of the “sense of power” that has developed in the culture, but is introduced as a wonderful overseas fruit. A hybrid is emerging that, if carefully and carefully worked out, can be quite acceptable (like the Japanese "democracy" created after the war by the US occupation authorities). But in most cases, this hybrid is terrible, like Mobutu.
For us, this option is important because for more than ten years the problem of democracy and totalitarianism has become a key theme in manipulation. As you know, Russia has never been a "civil society" of free individuals. It was a traditional estate society (peasants, nobles, merchants and clergy - not classes, not proletarians and owners). Liberal social philosophers call this type "warm society face to face". Ideologists express themselves more crudely: totalitarianism. How do people behave in such a society when they suddenly have to create power (they are obliged to be "democrats")?
This is what we see today and are amazed - mostly mediocre people and very often criminals are chosen. There is a low, everyday explanation for this, and there is a high, ideal one. According to the "ideal" attitude, the burden of power is a misfortune for a person! Power is always something external in relation to a “warm society”, and a person who has accepted the burden of power inevitably becomes an outcast. If he puts his human relations above the public debt, he will be a bad, unrighteous government. In this position, it is very difficult to walk on the edge of a knife and not ruin your soul. It is understandable why a Russian person is trying to "send into power" someone whom he does not feel sorry for, but it is better to call a stranger, a German. If, however, they oblige, for the sake of democracy, to create self-government, then evasion of power duties and corruption are almost inevitable.
So, there are, relatively speaking, two "pure" models - democracy and totalitarianism. And the most difficult case, our own, is the imposed hybridization of an alien democracy superimposed on the culture of a “warm society”. In this hybrid, our reformers pretend that they hope to kill the “totalitarianism” component. Almost the main tool in their efforts was the manipulation of consciousness.
Its technology, created in the USA, is used today to a more or less wide extent in other parts of the world (in Russia - without any limits). It must become the main means of social control in the new world order. Of course, supplemented by violence against the "colored". True, the poor are more and more considered as such, regardless of skin color (for example, the Japanese are no longer considered colored, and Russians are already almost considered).
Why are methods of hard spiritual influence outside of democracy not covered by the concept of manipulation? After all, tyrants not only chopped off their heads and frightened them with a "black crow" - in a word, music and image, they acted no less. Why is a liturgy in a church or a conversation of a political officer in the Red Army, which induces a person to a certain behavior, not a manipulation of consciousness?
The impact on a person of religion (we are not talking about sects yet) or "propaganda" in ideocratic societies, such as, for example, tsarist Russia and the USSR, differ from manipulation in their main generic features. Let's remember the first sign - secrecy influence and suggestion to a person of desires, obviously contrary to its core values and interests.
Religion and the official ideology of an ideocratic society not only do not correspond to this feature, they operate in a fundamentally different way. Their appeal to people is not only not hidden, it is loudly. Guidelines and norms of behavior, to which these influences prompted, were declared quite openly, and they were rigidly and clearly connected with the declared values of society.
Both the church fathers and the “fathers of communism” believed that the behavior they called for was in the interests of the salvation of the soul or the welfare of their flock. Therefore, the task could not be to inspire false desires and hide the action of spiritual influence. Of course, ideas about the welfare and needs of people in power and a greater or lesser part of the population could diverge, the leaders could be mistaken. But they did not "get under the skin", but supplemented the power of the Word with direct suppression. A poster hung in the barracks of the Red Army: “If you can’t, we will help. If you don't know how, we'll teach you. If you don't want to, we'll force you."
The meaning of manipulation is different: we will not force, we will get into your subconscious and make you you want it yourself. This is the main difference and fundamental incompatibility of the two worlds: religion or ideocracy (in the so-called traditional society) and manipulation of consciousness (in the so-called democratic society).
Many are misled by the similarity of some "technical" techniques used in religious, propagandistic, and manipulative rhetoric - playing on feelings, appealing to the subconscious, to fears and prejudices. Although in religion and ideocratic propaganda the use of these techniques is a consequence of weakness and immaturity, but in the manipulation of consciousness it is a fundamental setting. Moreover, religious denominations that have taken a course of renewal and are concerned about success in politics sometimes fall into the temptation to master large manipulation technologies. We are not talking about those sects and "churches" that are primarily political (sometimes criminal) organizations, which, on the contrary, use religious "technologies" for the purpose of manipulation.
This is one of the most important reflections of Dostoevsky, expressed in the Legend of the Grand Inquisitor. The Grand Inquisitor sends Christ, who has descended to Earth, to the fire so that he does not violate, as we would say today, the World Order, which is based precisely on the manipulation of consciousness. The Grand Inquisitor reproaches Christ for refusing to lead a man, influencing his consciousness by a miracle.
In the Soviet ideology, Khrushchev's "renovationism" with an attempt to use manipulative technologies immediately inflicted a wound on it, in which ideologists like A.N. Yakovlev ripened. Khrushchev began to tempt with miracles: we will catch up with America in terms of meat and milk, in twenty years we will live under communism. From this, the ideocratic Soviet society began to collapse - for it, the manipulation of consciousness is dysfunctional (“harmful to health”).
But in real life, deviations from the “pure” model obscure fundamental differences, and therefore, for the time being, let us dwell on an obvious generic feature: the openness and even rituality of establishing the desired norms of behavior in theocratic and ideocratic societies, and the hidden establishment of such norms in a democratic society, achieved through the manipulation of consciousness. (civil, liberal) society.
There are two approaches to comparing these "pure" variants of domination. We will call the first approach functional, and second - moral. How successfully do both approaches allow the authorities to perform one of their functions - to ensure the survival of society, its reproduction and sustainability?
In general, traditional and liberal societies are resistant or vulnerable to different types of impacts. The first is amazingly resilient when blows are inflicted on all or a large part of society, so that there is a feeling that "ours are being beaten." In these cases, the stability is such that observers and politicians "from another society" are seriously mistaken over and over again.
Relatively few materials have been published about the conclusions of Napoleon's and Hitler's advisers who were mistaken in their predictions about the reaction of different sections of the Russian people to the invasion of Russia. But even what has been published shows that the West made a fundamental mistake in both “experiments” with Russia. The Russians “interpreted” the gestures of the Western bearers of progress differently than they expected. Each blow from the outside, which was perceived by the Russians as a blow against Russia, healed its internal cracks and "cancelled" internal contradictions.
The ability of Russian society to withstand the blows of the victors in the Cold War is just as striking today for Western experts. Mass impoverishment not only did not destroy society, it almost did not even embitter the people, did not set them off. Contrary to expectations, society has not collapsed, but continues to live according to unwritten laws and cultural norms that are alien to individualism.
In the West, a decline in production by 1% is already a crisis that dramatically changes the behavior of the layman. Even if this crisis has not touched him personally yet and ruin does not directly threaten him. And if the wheel of the crisis touches him, simply incredible transformations take place. A lot of sad literature has been written about how quickly the cultural norms that hold it together are lost in a liberal society when the middle class is impoverished. During the Great Depression in the United States, bankrupt businessmen were thrown out of windows. There is nothing similar in Russia.
On the other hand, traditional society is exceptionally fragile and defenseless against such influences to which civil society is completely insensitive. It is enough to instill doubt in the mass consciousness about the righteousness of life or the righteousness of power, all the foundations of the political order can stagger and collapse overnight. About this - "Boris Godunov" by Pushkin. Repentant liberal philosophers wrote about this in Vekhi after the experience of the 1905 revolution. And the whole drama of the second act of the murder of the Russian Empire, already in the guise of the USSR, is before our eyes.
An ideocratic society is a complex, hierarchically constructed structure that rests on a few sacred ideas-symbols and on relationships of authority. Loss of respect for authorities and symbols is death. If the enemy manages to build in these ideas the viruses that destroy them, then victory is assured. Relations of domination cannot be saved by means of violence, for violence must be legitimized by the very same ideas-symbols.
A civil society, consisting of atoms-individuals, is connected by innumerable threads of their interests. This society is simple and inseparable, like mold, like a colony of bacteria. Impacts on some points (ideas, meanings) do not produce much damage to the whole, only local holes and breaks are formed. On the other hand, this fabric hardly endures "molecular" blows to the interests of everyone (for example, economic difficulties). For internal stability, it is only necessary to control the entire colony in such a way that large social blocks with incompatible, opposite desires do not arise. The technology of manipulation of consciousness copes with this task. And the struggle over the degree of satisfaction of desires is quite acceptable, it does not undermine the essence of society.
This is the instrumental side. Another thing is assessments arising from ethical values. Here the views are diametrically opposed. A person with a liberal way of thinking is convinced that the transition from coercion to the manipulation of consciousness is progress in the development of mankind, almost the “end of history”. Paradoxically, some liberal ideologues agree that for the sake of such a transition, a regime of unrestrained violence is established for an indefinite period. The arguments of those who welcome the transition from coercion to manipulation are simple and clear. The whip is painful, but the spiritual drug is pleasant. If anyway the strong force the weak to submit to his will, then let him do it with the help of a drug, not a whip. Tastes could not be discussed.
Now consider the arguments of those who consider the drug worse whip. And above all, the arguments of Western thinkers themselves, who see the problem precisely on the basis of the ideals and interests of the West, from the point of view of the path and fate of their civilization. It is known that the West considers itself a civilization of free individuals who have gathered in a civil society on the basis of law. The law, protected by the state, introduced into the civilized framework the eternal "war of all against all", the struggle for existence. One of the main philosophers of civil society, T. Hobbes, called the state that is capable of civilizing the "war of all against all" Leviathan - after the name of the mighty biblical monster. This war has become all-encompassing competition and social life is an all-pervading market. The philosopher of civil society, Locke, was aware that the desire for profit divides people, for "no one can get rich without inflicting a loss on another." But the freedom of the individual is understood primarily as a separation, atomization"warm society face to face" - through competition. In the political sphere, this corresponds to democracy, understood as a "cold civil war", a kind of competition.
The main condition for maintaining such an order is the freedom of the individual, allowing him to make a conscious rational choice and conclude a free contract. It doesn't matter if it's about buying or selling labor, this or that chewing gum or the party program (in elections). This is the ideal. In its pure form, of course, it is not achieved. The question is, on which path of development society approaches, and on which it moves away from the ideal, and even comes to a standstill.
Today, a significant part of thinkers believe that by making the manipulation of consciousness the main technology of domination, the West made a mistake and reached a dead end. The reason is that the manipulation of consciousness, which is always carried out secretly, deprives the individual of freedom to a much greater extent than direct coercion. The victim of manipulation completely loses the opportunity rational choice, for her desires are programmed from the outside. Thus, its position in the competition, in the "war of all against all," is rapidly deteriorating. In fact, this is the elimination of the main civil rights, and therefore the elimination of the ideal basis of Western civilization. In its place, a new kind of totalitarianism is emerging, replacing the whip with a much more effective and more inhumane tool - the “mass culture industry”, which turns a person into a programmable robot. As the German philosopher Kraus said about the current ruling elite of the West, “they have the press, they have the stock exchange, and now they also have our subconscious.” This position, critical of manipulation, has little to do with political views, the issue is deeper.
Let's return to our native land and remember how the transition "from totalitarianism to democracy" was assessed by the exponents of Russian culture. Our “leftists” of the 19th century, carried away by the denunciation of serfdom and tyranny, generally did not notice this problem (with the exception of Herzen, who was horrified by what he saw in the West). Those more astute and far-sighted immediately expressed concern. Gogol saw in a civilization that corrupts man with a "weapon of sweets" an anti-Christian force. He suffered not only from fear for the fate of Russia, but also at the sight of a threat to the soul of a European. And since it was already clear that the United States had become the most complete expression of the new spirit of the West, he said about them, paraphrasing Pushkin: “What is the United States? Carrion; the person in them has faded to the point that it’s not worth a damned egg. ”
Perhaps, in Russian literature and philosophy, it was anxiety for the human soul that was the main motive in relation to the manipulation of consciousness. Therefore, very many reasonings either directly proceed from the Christian ideal, or are painted in religious tones, include Christian metaphors and allegories. N. Berdyaev noted this when he wrote in 1923: “Democracy is not a new beginning, and it is not the first time it enters the world. But for the first time in our era, the question of democracy has become a religiously disturbing question. It is no longer placed on a political, but on a spiritual plane. We are not talking about political forms when experiencing religious horror from the progressive course of democracy, but about something deeper. The kingdom of democracy is not a new form of statehood, it is a special spirit.
It is important to note that Russian emigrant philosophers, believing that the regime of Bolshevik tyranny had been established in Russia, saw the threat to the human soul precisely in the West. It was his fate that they considered tragic. They warned of the deep error of the Russian Western liberals. Georgy Florovsky wrote: “It doesn’t occur to them that it is possible and necessary to think about the ultimate fate of European culture ... Their imaginary admiration for Europe only covers up their deep inattention and disrespect for its tragic fate.”
Berdyaev expressed this idea about the Westerners of his time in a different way: “It is precisely the extreme Russian Westernism that is the manifestation of the Asian soul. One can even express such a paradox: the Slavophiles… were the first Russian Europeans, since they tried to think in a European way on their own, and not imitate Western thought, as children imitate… And here is the other side of the paradox: the Westerners remained Asians, their consciousness was treated European culture in the way that only people completely alien to it could relate.
Dostoevsky also saw the tragedy of the West in the light of Christianity. The use of a spiritual drug in order to control for him is not only incompatible with free will, and therefore with Christianity - it opposite him, it is a direct service to the devil. Let us recall the Legend of the Grand Inquisitor, choosing from it only places that are directly related to our topic (this, of course, is a free and impoverished citation, but conveys the main meaning). So, in Seville, where a stable social order was created by the enormous labors of power, Christ appeared. The Cardinal Grand Inquisitor immediately recognized him in the crowd and arrested him. At night, he came to him for explanations in the cell:
"It's you? Why did you come to disturb us? For you have come to interfere with us, and you know it yourself... Yes, this work cost us dearly, but we finally finished this work in your name. For fifteen centuries we have suffered with this freedom, but now it is over, and over hard. Don't you believe it's over? But knowing that now and precisely now these people are more confident than ever that they are completely free, and yet they themselves brought us their freedom and humbly laid it at our feet. But we did it, but is that what you wanted, is this freedom? ..
And the people rejoiced that they were again led like a herd and that such a terrible gift, which had brought them so much torment, had finally been removed from their hearts. We were right in teaching and doing so, tell me? Have we really not loved humanity, having so humbly acknowledged its impotence, lovingly lightening its burden and allowing its feeble nature even a sin, but with our permission? Why have you come to disturb us now?
And will I hide our secret from you? Listen: we are not with you, but with him, that is our secret! We took from him Rome and the sword of Caesar and declared ourselves kings of the earth, although we have not yet had time to bring our work to a complete end. Oh, the matter is still only at the beginning, but it has begun. For who can control people if not those who control their conscience and in whose hands their bread is. We took the sword of Caesar, and taking it, of course, we rejected you and followed him. We will all be happy and will no longer rebel or destroy each other, as in your freedom, everywhere. Yes, we will make them work, but in the hours free from labor we will arrange their life as a child's game, with children's songs, choruses, and innocent dances. Oh, we will allow them to sin, they are weak and powerless, and they will love us like children because we allow them to sin. And they will have no secrets from us. We will allow or forbid them to live with their wives and mistresses, to have or not to have children - all judging by their obedience - and they will submit to us with fun and joy.
What I tell you will come true and our kingdom will be built. I repeat to you, tomorrow you will see this obedient herd, which, at my first wave, will rush to rake hot coals to your fire, on which I will burn you for coming to interfere with us. For if there was one who deserved our fire more than all, then it is you. Tomorrow I will burn you. Dixi.
Of course, Gogol and Dostoyevsky did not write for the West. The West made its choice a long time ago and will overcome its illnesses only on its own path. One must only be amazed at how accurately Dostoevsky captured the essence of these illnesses.
His Inquisitor says: "We will allow or forbid them to live with their wives and mistresses, to have or not to have children - all judging by their obedience." It seems to be an allegory, a metaphor. But England in the early 30s of the XX century.
The eminent scientist, Sir Julian Huxley, in order to reduce the birth rate among workers, proposed that unemployment benefits be made conditional on the obligation not to have more children. “Violation of this order,” wrote the scholar, “could be punished by a short period of isolation in a labor camp. After three or six months of separation from his wife, the offender, perhaps in the future, will be more circumspect.
Gogol and Dostoyevsky wrote for Russia. Their fears were prophetic, and the warnings seemed to be directed to us. The choice is ours to make, on our own responsibility, but we must listen and consider the warnings. Let us take into account, however, that the warnings "from Christianity" will leave many indifferent. Let's reason rationally, mundanely, as if admitting that "God is dead" and putting Christian values aside. In the West, Nietzsche began this heavy clarifying conversation - the liquidation of what the German theologian and philosopher Romano Guardini called "the dishonesty of the Modern Age." He wrote in 1954:
“The dishonesty of modern times is a double game, on the one hand, rejecting the Christian teaching and the way of life, and on the other hand, striving to appropriate everything that they gave to man and culture. From this, a constant uncertainty remained in relation to the Christian in modern times. Everywhere he encountered what was originally inherent in Christianity, and now turned against him ... Now the ambiguity comes to an end. Where the future turns against Christianity, it will do so in earnest. It will declare secularized borrowings from Christianity empty sentiments, and the air will finally become transparent. Saturated with hostility and menace, but clean and clear.
We, too, must cold-bloodedly assess the “merits and demerits” of the coercion stick and the carrot of manipulation, and determine for everyone: if any power is evil, then which evil is lesser precisely for our culture.
Let's see if the status of a person rises or falls in the transition from direct coercion to manipulation of his consciousness. Even in the “war of all against all”, conducted according to the rules of civil society (competition), the objects of influence are divided into three categories: friend, partner, rival. Experts agree that a person who has become the object of manipulation generally falls out of this classification. He is not a friend, not a partner, not a rival. He becomes thing.
Bakhtin wrote that in relation to the world and man, two tendencies struggle in the thoughts and actions of people: towards reification and towards personification. In "primitive" cultures, there was a strong desire for personification (for Dersu Uzala, ants are "little people"). Animism, the spiritualization of things, is always present in the culture of even highly developed traditional societies. In the technology of manipulation of consciousness, we see, on the contrary, the extreme expression of the opposite trend - to reification person. A. Toynbee wrote:
“We know well enough, and we always remember the so-called “pathetic delusion”, which spiritualizes and gives life to inanimate objects. Now, however, we are more likely to fall prey to the opposite, the “apathetic delusion”, according to which living beings are treated as if they were inanimate objects.”
As this takes on a mass character, the result is a steady and unconscious decline in human status. Of course, at first it affects a person who is not part of the elite (she manipulates the plebeians). But then this order machinizes, materializes the person in general.
Thus, agreeing to build an order in his country based on the manipulation of consciousness, everyone should be aware that with a very high probability his status will be lowered. This means that all the promised benefits like civil liberties, feeling like a master, etc., will turn into trinkets devoid of content. And the one who is lucky enough to fall into the manipulating minority will become one of those oppressors of his fellow tribesmen who will be forced to increase and refine this oppression.
A tyrant can become kinder - and they will be grateful to him. But the manipulator is deprived of this opportunity - a person who sees clearly becomes furious.
It can be expected that the transition to statehood based on the manipulation of consciousness would hit Russian culture incomparably harder than it hurt the West. The reason is that the very category of freedom has developed differently in Russian culture. Other than in the West, the Russian people have been looking for and are looking for freedom. Russian culture is characterized by a special combination of freedom of spirit and freedom of life. On the contrary, the Russians were rather indifferent to the political and economic freedoms so valued in the West.
N. Berdyaev wrote that “Russia is a country of boundless freedom of spirit…”, that its Russian people “will never give in for any blessings of the world”, will not prefer “the internal lack of freedom of the Western peoples, their enslavement to the outside. The Russian people truly have a freedom of spirit, which is given only to those who are not too absorbed in the thirst for earthly profit and earthly prosperity ... Russia is a country of everyday freedom, unknown to the peoples of the West, enslaved by petty-bourgeois norms. Only in Russia there is no oppressive power of bourgeois conventions ... The type of wanderer is so characteristic of Russia and so beautiful. A wanderer is the freest person on earth… Russia is a country of endless freedom and spiritual distances, a country of wanderers, wanderers and seekers.”
So far, there is no reason to think that Russians today, rushing into business, would want to forfeit this type of freedom. On the contrary, for most of the "new Russians" this business is a new adventure, wandering through unknown distances. This is a largely spiritual, albeit costly and even destructive quest. The Russian bourgeoisie does not grow out of them. This is a new version of the Russian rebellion, truly senseless and merciless.
It is impossible to take away by force or buy from the Russians this freedom of spirit and life. But to lure out by deception is technically possible. This is what a whole army of specialists is doing now.
Chapter 4
§ 1. Technology of manipulation as closed knowledge
Sometimes it is said that the manipulation of consciousness is "colonization of one's people". Gradually, as knowledge about a person and his behavior was accumulated, the doctrines of manipulation of consciousness were formed. Since the conquest is secret and success in it is determined by the ability of the "colonizers" to prevent organized resistance, the main doctrines of the manipulators are presented in a vague, veiled form, in connection with private indirect questions.
Having become an instrument of bourgeois revolutions, the manipulation of consciousness from the very beginning received generous funding from the property-owning class. When this class came to power and created its fundamentally new, bourgeois state, the activity of manipulating consciousness received the support and protection of the state. If it is useful for the cause, the authorities will allow the rioters to smash the city hall or even the presidential palace, but they will never let them into the television center.
Of course, the dominant minority is trying to prevent the masses from knowing the doctrines and technologies for manipulating their consciousness. This is mainly achieved by generously rewarding "those who are with us" and boycotting "those who are not with us." There have always been scientists and philosophers who were disgusted by the habits of the colonizers of their own people. But there were few of them, and their voice could be drowned in noise design. But bit by bit we can collect the revelations of the technologists of this power, and the observations of "those who are not with them." They need to be cleared of "noise", brought into a system, and the issue essentially clarified.
Doctrines and developed theories of manipulation of consciousness were formed recently, already in the 20th century, but the main stones in their foundation were already laid by those who prepared the bourgeois revolutions in Europe. After all, the trick was to make these revolutions by proxy (“the proletariat is fighting, the bourgeoisie is sneaking into power”). It was necessary to literally set the common man on the "old order". In all Western countries where the great bourgeois revolutions took place, scientists, philosophers and humanitarians have contributed to this programming of mass behavior. In England, the Newtonians, who from the new picture of the world derived ideas about the “natural” nature of the constitution, which should limit the power of the monarch (“after all, the Sun obeys the law of gravity”). The scientist and philosopher Thomas Hobbes developed the main myth for bourgeois society to this day about man as an egoistic and lonely atom, waging a "war of all against all" - bellum omnium contra omnes.
In its purest form, the manipulation of consciousness as an organized campaign has developed in France. Here society was prepared for the destruction of the "old order" by half a century of work of the Enlightenment. In addition to the great work of liberating human thinking and mastering a new, scientific worldview, the figures of the Enlightenment made a profound impact on consciousness in a purely political sense. That revolution had thoughtful observers. One of. them - the Englishman E. Burke. He collected his observations in the book Reflections on the Revolution in France. Here is what is directly related to our topic:
“Together with money-capital a new class of people arose, with whom this capital very soon formed a close alliance, I mean political writers. The academies of France, and later the Encyclopedists, who belonged to the society of these gentlemen, made no small contribution to this.
The intrigues of writers a few years ago created something like a regular plan for the destruction of the Christian religion ... What could not be achieved on the way to their great goal by direct or immediate law, could be achieved in a roundabout way - thanks to public opinion. To control public opinion, the first step is to put pressure on those who lead. They conceived methodically and persistently to achieve this by all means of literary glory ... To make up for the shortcomings of the argument, intrigues were used. This system of literary monopoly has been joined by an incessant industry of smearing and discrediting by any means all those who are not part of their faction...
Writers, especially when they act in an organized manner and in one direction, have a huge influence on public opinion, so the loyalty of these writers plus money capital were important factors in eliminating popular envy in relation to those who were involved in welfare. These writers laid claim to the great enthusiasm of the poorest sections of the population, while in their satires they presented with hatred the errors of the court, the aristocracy and the clergy in extremely exaggerated form. They have become demagogues, the link between the union of abominable well-being with restless and desperate poverty.
In France, aces of money attracted writers and scientists, and they influenced public opinion so much that they managed to “turn off” the natural hostility of the poor sections of the people towards plutocrats and incite the urban poor against all the foundations of the old regime. In its own way, this is a brilliant achievement of the mind and the word. The tool of the rich has become precisely what is hostile to them - the human desire for equality and justice.
Since the “rulers of thoughts” formed a close-knit community, self-awareness arose in it rather quickly and theoretical work began. So in France the word first appeared ideology and an influential organization was created - the "Institute", which was run by ideologists. They accepted as members of the Institute Napoleon rising to power. In turn, he correctly assessed the importance of this union and, being already a member of the Directory, signed "Napoleon Bonaparte, member of the Institute."
It should be noted that already the first specialists, who called themselves ideologists, identified two main areas of a person’s spiritual activity, which must be taken under control in order to program his thoughts - knowledge and communication. The "ideology course" they were going to teach the ruling elite of France consisted of three parts: natural sciences, linguistics ("grammar"), and ideology itself. So, the basis in which you need to lay your ideas-viruses is built from knowledge about the world (and the person himself) and from the exchange of messages (information).
It was during the French Revolution that the ideologists of the new society realized that the main means of power would be in it language. Here, they deliberately went for a systematic, as in a laboratory, creation of a new language. The pioneer here was Lavoisier, who created the language of chemistry, but the philosophical significance of this went far beyond the scope of science (by the way, English God-fearing chemists were horrified by Lavoisier's boldness).
At the same time, the influence on people's thoughts of a quantitative measure was realized, numbers, replacing qualities filled with a secret, uncontrolled meaning. And one of the first major deeds of the French Revolution in creating a new attitude for the masses was the development of the metric system of measures. The most prominent scientists and ideologists participated in it. With the help of this system of measures, the spheres of knowledge and language were connected. With the help of this new “language of precision”, the ruling stratum began to dominate thoughts and words about the most fundamental categories of being – space and time. The eminent French philosopher Michel Foucault, who undertook the "excavation of the meanings" that created the modern West, states clearly: "the language of precision" (the language of numbers) is absolutely necessary for "domination through ideology."
At the same time, modern society began to create the most important mechanism for the domination of the class of owners - school new type. This school, from the first grade, divided the flow of students into two “corridors” - some were brought up and trained in such a way as to be capable of manipulating other people's consciousness, and others (the majority) - to be ready to easily succumb to manipulation. The school has become a factory "producing" a class society.
The entire 19th century is the history of how ideologists of all directions (but all within the framework of one common platform - industrialism, based on faith in progress and the laws of social development) draw arguments from an inexhaustible source, Sciences. And they turn them into an ideological weapon with the help of a specially created language and number.
The 20th century is the time of the creation of major theories and doctrines, and then the development of powerful manipulation technologies based on them. And, of course, the time of using these technologies in the practice of struggle and domination. Let us briefly outline some concepts (doctrines) that are especially necessary for talking about the current state of affairs.
§ 2. The doctrine of hegemony by Antonio Gramsci
Antonio Gramsci, founder and theorist of the Italian Communist Party, was arrested by the Fascists in 1926, imprisoned, released ill under an amnesty of 1934, and died in 1937. Early in 1929 he was allowed to write in prison and began his own great work "Prison Notebooks". It was published for the first time in Italy in 1948-1951, in 1975 a four-volume scientific-critical edition with comments was published. Since then, reprints in all languages except Russian have followed one after another, and the research literature devoted to this work is boundless - thousands of books and articles. Approximately a quarter of Prison Notebooks was published in Russian.
The Prison Notebooks were written by Gramsci not for publication, moreover, under the supervision of prison censors. It is not easy to read them, but through the efforts of a large number of “Gramsh scholars” the meaning of almost all materials has been restored. In general, we are talking about an important contribution to almost all sections of the humanities - philosophy and political science, anthropology (the doctrine of man), cultural studies and pedagogy. Gramsci made this contribution by developing Marxism and comprehending the experience of the Protestant Reformation, the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution of 1917 and fascism. In this way, he created a new theory of the state and revolution - for modern society (in development and, perhaps, overcoming, Lenin's theory, created for the conditions of peasant Russia). However, while working for the victory of communism, Gramsci made many discoveries of general scientific significance. As you know, “knowledge is power”, and anyone who masters knowledge and gets the opportunity to apply this power can use it. The theory created by the communist was effectively used by the enemies of communism.
If today you open a large Western scientific database for the word "Gramsci" (for example, the American database "Dissertations Abstracts"), then you are amazed at what a wide range of social phenomena is being studied today with the help of Gramsci's teachings. This is a move to incite national conflicts, and the tactics of the church elite in the fight against the "theology of liberation" in Nicaragua, and the influence of sports on the mass consciousness in the United States, and the features of current African literature, and the effectiveness of certain types of advertising. Perhaps, if 20–30 years ago pragmatic Western social science considered it necessary to use the methodology of classical Marxism for the analysis of all important social processes (of course, along with others), today it is considered necessary to “roll” the problem in the concepts and methodology of Gramsci.
One of the key sections of Gramsci's work is the doctrine of hegemony. This is part of the general theory of revolution as a breakdown of the state and a transition to a new socio-political order. Here, briefly, is the essence of the teaching, directly related to the problem of manipulation of consciousness.
According to Gramsci, who develops the thought of Machiavelli, the power of the ruling class rests not only on violence, but also on consent. The mechanism of power is not only coercion, but also persuasion. The possession of property, as the economic basis of power, is not enough - the domination of the owners is thus not automatically guaranteed and stable power is not ensured. Gramsci is not an idealist, he emphasizes that "hegemony, being ethical-political, cannot but be economic." But he is moving away from the "economic determinism" of the Historical Mathematics, which places emphasis on the basis, on property relations. According to Gramsci, the economy is the skeleton of society, and ideology is its “skin”.
Thus, the state, whatever the ruling class, stands on two pillars - strength and harmony. The situation at which a sufficient level of agreement is reached, Gramsci calls hegemony. Hegemony is not a frozen, once achieved state, but a dynamic continuous process. At the same time, "the state is a hegemony clothed in the armor of coercion." In other words, coercion is only armor of a much more significant content. Moreover, hegemony presupposes not merely agreement, but benevolent(active) consent, in which citizens desire what the ruling class requires. Gramsci defines it as follows: "The state is the whole set of practical and theoretical activities by which the ruling class justifies and maintains its domination, while seeking the active consent of the governed." It is clear that this is a great complication of the formula "the state is a machine for the suppression of one class by another."
Other great thinkers came to similar conclusions in quite a different way. The American philosopher J. Waite, a researcher of Heidegger, writes: “By 1936, Heidegger came - partly because of his political experience in Nazi Germany, partly as a result of reading the works of Nietzsche, where, as we could easily see, the same thoughts are expressed, in fact, - to the idea that Antonio Gramsci (almost at the same time, but based on a different experience and kind of reading) called the problem of "hegemony": namely, how to rule implicitly, with the help of a "moving balance" of temporary blocks of various dominant social groups, using "non-violent coercion" (including so-called mass or popular culture), so as to manipulate subordinate groups against their will, but with their consent, in the interests of a tiny part of society.
If the main strength of the state and the basis of the power of the ruling class is hegemony, then the question of the stability of the political order and, on the contrary, the conditions for its breakdown (revolution) are reduced to the question of how hegemony is achieved or undermined. Who is the main agent in this process? What are the "technologies" of the process?
According to Gramsci, both establishing and undermining hegemony is a “molecular” process. It proceeds not as a clash of class forces (Gramsci denied such mechanistic analogies), but as an invisible, in small portions, change of opinions and moods in the minds of each person. Hegemony is based on the "cultural core" of society, which includes a set of ideas about the world and man, about good and evil, beautiful and disgusting, many symbols and images, traditions and prejudices, knowledge and experience of many centuries. As long as this core is stable, there is a "sustainable collective will" in society aimed at preserving the existing order. The undermining of this "cultural core" and the destruction of this collective will is the condition of revolution.
When the “crisis of hegemony” has matured and a situation of “war” arises, not only “molecular” influences on consciousness are needed, of course, but also quick targeted operations, especially those that deal a strong blow to the consciousness, cause a shock that makes large masses of people move from passive to active. Gramsci considers this a chain reaction ("chain of syntheses") and calls catharsis- like the action of a tragedy in the theater enlightening the collective consciousness of the audience. Passing from the philosophical language to the language of war, Gramsci writes: “Under the correlation of military forces one should understand not only the fact of the presence of weapons and military detachments, but also the possibility for the party to paralyze the main nerve nodes of the state apparatus.”
Creating conditions for this is a long-term "molecular" aggression in the cultural core. Such aggression is not an utterance of some truth that would make a revolution in consciousness, some kind of insight. It is “a huge number of books, pamphlets, magazine and newspaper articles, conversations and disputes, which are endlessly repeated and in their gigantic totality form that long effort from which the collective will of a certain degree of homogeneity is born, the degree that is necessary to get an action, coordinated and simultaneous in time and geographical space.
We remember how such a long effort was created by the ideological machine of the CPSU during perestroika, before the cultural core of Soviet society was broken in the mind of the average citizen and the hegemony of the "market ideology" was established, at least for a short time. This whole "revolution from above" (in Gramsci's terminology "passive revolution") was precisely projected according to the doctrine of hegemony and molecular aggression into the cultural core. Yeltsin's adviser, philosopher A.I. Rakitov, wrote in the academic journal Questions of Philosophy: "The transformation of the Russian market into the market of modern capitalism required a new civilization, a new social organization, and, consequently, radical changes in the core of our culture."
What in the cultural core should be influenced first of all in order to establish (or undermine) hegemony? Not at all on the opponent's theory, says Gramsci. It is necessary to influence the ordinary consciousness, everyday, "small" thoughts of the average person. And the most effective way of influencing is the tireless repetition of the same statements so that they get used to them and begin to accept them not by reason, but by faith.
Gramsci was well aware of the fact that both the forces defending their hegemony and the revolutionary forces must fight for ordinary consciousness. Both have a chance of success, because the cultural core and everyday consciousness are not only conservative, but also changeable. That part of everyday consciousness, which Gramsci called "common sense" (the spontaneous philosophy of the working people), is open to the perception of ideas that serve as the source of "liberation hegemony."
If we are talking about the bourgeoisie, striving to maintain or establish its hegemony, then it is important for it to neutralize or suppress this common sense, introducing fantastic myths into the consciousness.
Who is the main actor in establishing or undermining hegemony? Gramsci's answer is clear: intelligentsia. He develops a whole concept about the essence of the intelligentsia, its origin, role in society and relationship with the authorities. The main social function of the intelligentsia is not professional (engineer, scientist, priest, etc.). It is the creation and dissemination of ideologies, the establishment or undermining of the hegemony of one class or another, that is the main reason for the existence of the intelligentsia.
The most effective hegemony of the bourgeoisie going to power was achieved in France, where a close alliance of capital and intelligentsia quickly developed. Underneath this union lay a close connection between both the bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia, with the German Reformation, which gave rise to powerful philosophical currents (they say, "Kant beheaded God, and Robespierre the king"). In general, Gramsci considers the combination of the Protestant Reformation with the political model of the French Revolution to be the theoretical maximum in the effectiveness of establishing hegemony.
Selling their labor, the intelligentsia reaches out to where the money is. Gramsci writes: "Intellectuals serve as the 'orders' of the ruling group, used to carry out functions subordinated to the tasks of social hegemony and political control." True, there always remains in society a part of the intelligentsia, which Gramsci calls "traditional" - that intelligentsia that served the group that lost its hegemony, but did not change the banner. Usually the new hegemony group tries to tame it. In addition, social movements, ripening for the struggle for their hegemony, give rise to their own intelligentsia, which becomes the main agent for the impact of these social forces on the cultural core.
This is a very short and simplified presentation of some points of Gramsci's teaching. Gramsci was one of those who laid the foundations of a new social science that overcame the mechanism of the Historical Mathematics (in both its Marxist and liberal versions). No wonder his name is called on a par with the names of M. Bakhtin in cultural studies, M. Foucault and other innovators in philosophy. Gramsci is one of the first philosophers who felt the new scientific picture of the world and transferred its main spirit to the science of society.
Histmatism originated in a culture that originated in Newton's mechanical picture of the world, which is why his metaphors and allegories are mechanistic, like the movement of a piston in a steam engine. As they say, this picture of the world rests on "Physics of Being". A different picture of the world began to take shape in the 20th century, it took into account those "anomalies" that were excluded from the mechanical picture - irreversibility, nonlinearity, fluctuations and chain processes, self-organization. This is - "Physics of Becoming". Her main interest is directed to the processes of transition, change, catastrophes.
Let us give a few examples of those social processes, the current study of which has shown that they proceeded in accordance with Gramsci's doctrine of hegemony (they are mainly taken from American dissertations). Perhaps the biggest confirmation of the correctness of this doctrine is the successful strategy of the Indian National Congress party for the non-violent liberation of India from colonial dependence. By many "small deeds and words" the party won a firm cultural hegemony among the masses of the population. The colonial administration and the pro-English elite were powerless to oppose anything - they had lost the necessary minimum consent of the masses to maintain the old order.
Another brilliant and deliberately designed "operation" is the peaceful transition of Spain after the death of Franco from a totalitarian and closed society to a liberal market economy, federalism and Western-style democracy. The crisis of the hegemony of the Francoist elite was resolved through a series of pacts with the left opposition claiming hegemony. As a result of these pacts and compromises, the leftists were "accepted into the elite", and the Francoists changed their odious coloring and phraseology, becoming "democrats". The leftists were able to "persuade" the masses to be patient, to abandon their social demands - the rightists could not achieve this.
Based on Gramsci's theory, culturologists explain the role of things ("consumer goods") in establishing and maintaining the hegemony of the bourgeoisie in Western society. Things (material culture) create the environment in which the average person lives. They carry "messages" that have a powerful impact on everyday consciousness. If things are designed with this function as "signs" ("information systems of symbols") in mind, then due to the huge scale and diversity of their flow, they can become a decisive force in the formation of everyday consciousness. It is the design of consumer goods (the car occupies a special place in it) that has become in the United States the main mechanism for introducing cultural values into the consciousness (creating and preserving the "cultural core"). Specialists emphasize the ability of this mechanism to effectively "standardize and segment" society.
Standardization and segmentation is an important condition for hegemony in civil society, where it is required to maintain the "atomization" of people. But at the same time, it is necessary to connect the "segments" with links that do not lead to organic unity - safe for hegemony. As studies on Gramsci's methodology have shown, sport has become an effective means for this in the United States. It generated such symbols and images that bound the most diverse segments of society, from the Negro bottom to the bourgeois elite, with soft ties that did not lead to social unity. Sport created a special section of the general mass culture and everyday consciousness.
It is interesting to study some more specific cases when the opposing forces deliberately planned their campaign as a struggle for hegemony in the public mind on a specific issue. This was the case, for example, in Thatcher's 1984-1985 privatization campaign. The British unions, opposed to privatization, tried to sway public opinion to their side, but lost the competition for hegemony. In general, the British agreed to privatization and only recoiled from Thatcherism when they experienced its consequences firsthand.
Gramsci's methodology well reveals the essence of the activities of the "Trilateral Commission" created on the initiative of N. Rockefeller under the leadership of Z. Brzezinski. This is one of the most closed and influential shadow international organizations. It includes about three hundred members from the USA, Europe and Japan. Its goal is to stabilize the new world order by achieving unhindered access for transnational corporations to all countries of the world, especially in the financial sector and energy. It is recognized, however, that in reality the Trilateral Commission contributed to the current global financial crisis and the overall destabilization of the world compared to the 70s. But another conclusion is important for us: this shadow organization was able to mobilize influential forces in all major countries to influence public opinion so that the “unpleasant” consequences of its activities generally disappeared from public debate. These forces (scientists, the press, "spiritual leaders") were able to influence everyday consciousness on a global scale in such a way that people, as it were, ceased to see the obvious. They have lost common sense.
Finally, completely in line with the logic of Gramsci's teaching, the liberal intelligentsia undermined the hegemony of the socialist forces in the countries of Eastern Europe. Dissertations have been made in the USA on the role of theater in the destruction of the cultural core of these countries. For example, the work of Heiner Müller, a well-known theater in the GDR, which in its plays aimed at “undermining history from below”, is considered. This is a typical example of "anti-institutional theatre", that is, a theater that gnaws at public institutions. According to the study's findings, the directors consciously "looked for cracks in the monolith of hegemony and sought to widen these cracks - in the future until the end of history." The end of history has long been called the desired collapse of the "Soviet bloc" opposing the West. Such a theater played an active role in the USSR in the 70-80s.
Almost all of the deep thoughts and warnings with which Gramsci addressed his comrades in order to learn how to mobilize the common sense of people, to raise the masses of working people to the level of the intelligentsia, was studied and used by his ideological opponent for completely opposite purposes. To suppress common sense, to belittle a person, to effectively manipulate his consciousness, to strengthen the hegemony of the ruling minority. The pinnacle of this "work according to Gramsci" was, of course, perestroika in the USSR.
§ 3. Psychological doctrine
Gramsci's doctrine considers public person, rather than an individual or small groups. The protagonist of Gramsci are the masses, classes, social strata, spheres of activity, the state. On the other hand, the doctrine that has developed gradually within the framework of the psychological sciences (psychology of personality and social psychology, psychoanalysis) approaches the issue of manipulation of consciousness. The doctrine of higher nervous activity (especially the theory of conditioned reflexes) by I.P. Pavlov also served as an important basis. In this vast field of knowledge, the first place in the development of the actual doctrine of programming human behavior came to the 50s of our century. psychoanalysis- a doctrine (going beyond rigorous science) created by Sigmund Freud and developed by his followers.
Since the end of the 19th century, a number of European scientists (especially Gustave Le Bon) have focused on the meaning suggestion in social processes. They even put forward a hypothesis that a person has an “instinct of submission”. In 1903, the Russian psychophysiologist V.M. Bekhterev published the book "Suggestion and its role in public life." He described the phenomenon of mass suggestion under the influence of "mental infection", that is, when information is transmitted using different sign systems.
In Bekhterev, suggestion is already directly associated with the manipulation of consciousness, since it is “an invasion [into the consciousness] of an extraneous idea without direct and direct participation in this act“ L ”of the subject.” This is the fundamental difference between suggestion and beliefs. Whether the suggestion is made by words or other signs, “everywhere it affects not by logical persuasion, but directly affects the mental sphere without appropriate processing, due to which there is a real inoculation of an idea, feeling, emotion, or one or another psychophysical state.”
Persuasion involves the active participation of the subject, because he is offered a series of arguments that he comprehends and accepts or rejects. Bekhterev emphasized that suggestion, on the contrary, “bypasses” the mind of the subject. It is effective when it is possible to muffle the activity of consciousness, to lull the sentry: “Suggestion, unlike persuasion,” Bekhterev wrote, “penetrates the mental sphere in addition to personal consciousness, entering without special processing directly into the sphere of general consciousness and strengthening here, like any object of passive perception. ".
In the 1930s and 1940s, a different point of view prevailed, denying the irrational process of suggestion. On the contrary, the theory of rationality of suggestion was accepted. According to this theory, when suggesting a person does not change his beliefs and assessments, but changes an object estimates. That is, with the help of suggestion in the mind, the object of judgment is replaced, so that the person mentally exclaims: “Ah, that's it! That's who's to blame!" etc.
This substitution is made by the skillful creation of such context in which a person's thoughts go in the direction necessary for the manipulator. The so-called "commented press" was based on this theory - in it a report of a fact is accompanied by interpretation
This book is not a guide to the practice of mind manipulation, nor is it a manual on defense against manipulation (“unarmed self-defense”). She wears rather not technological, but methodological character. The main goal of the book is to provide material so that everyone can think about the choice that our country and our culture faces today. This is not the choice of a president, a party, or even a political system. It's about lifestyle choices. (type of civilization).
The current time is often referred to as the "transitional period". These words have a lot of meaning. Transition - between what and what? Today we are stuck in a space between two different types of life order, and we are being strongly pulled and pushed to that shore, where the main and almost total means of domination will be mind manipulation. This, of course, is only one of the many elements that determine the way of life, but the element is extremely important and reveals a lot in the essence of the entire system of living arrangements. Having received at least preliminary knowledge about this element, we will better understand the whole.
We are empirically quite well equipped to master this knowledge - for the past fifteen years our society has itself been the object of a very intense campaign of mind manipulation. Thanks to this campaign, it was possible to produce a huge scale and depth revolution- change the social order. Fresh experience and everyday observations provide us with enough material for everyone to supplement the short discussions of the textbook with it.
The consciousness manipulation campaign carried out in the USSR was exceptionally effective. Thus, in just two years (from 1989 to 1991), the ideologists of the market reform succeeded in impressing the workers with the idea that the privatization of industrial enterprises and the inevitable unemployment in this case corresponded to their interests. This is an outstanding achievement of manipulation technologists, considering that in these two years the workers did not receive any positive experience that could convince them of the beneficialness of privatization and unemployment, and could not get any logical arguments, or even arguments from common sense. took place suggestion.
Considering what we are people(that is, a community connected by a common culture with a transpersonal mind and collective memory), then we must admit that in the course of this campaign, our folk wisdom somehow misfired. As a result of this failure in the public consciousness, we are experiencing not only a deep economic, but also cultural a crisis. Overcoming it is possible only if we regain our cultural identity, master the new situation in our spiritual space and restore the coordinates inherent in our national culture for orientation in matters of good and evil.
This requires an understanding of the methods by which our consciousness was affected - and an analysis of our own perception of these actions. They are called boring term manipulation of public consciousness. In terms of scale, cost, duration, and results, this manipulation program is unparalleled in history. In the course of its preparation and implementation, a huge number of finds and even discoveries have been made, new important knowledge has been accumulated about man and society, about information and language, about economics and ecology. Before starting decisive actions in the USSR and Russia, valuable knowledge was gained in ethnography and anthropology. The world has changed not only because of the collapse of the USSR. The very invisible activity of manipulating the public consciousness of many peoples of the Earth changed the face of the world and affected almost every inhabitant of the planet. And especially the cultural layer of humanity - the reader and viewer.
Today, the world press is full of statements about the fundamental possibility of complete control over human behavior, and at very little cost. On the other hand, many of those who considered themselves victims of manipulation fell into despondency and believed in some kind of secret weapon developed by the special services, in some kind of psychotropic drugs with which politicians "zombify" people. Belief in the mystical power of manipulators paralyzes the will, so the “creation” of this belief (through rumors, articles, “denunciations” and “confessions”) is in itself an important means of manipulating public consciousness.
People, regardless of their ideology and political preferences, are divided into two types. Some believe that, in principle, a person is a big child, and the manipulation of his consciousness (of course, “for his own good”) by enlightened and wise rulers is not only acceptable, but also a preferred, “progressive” means. For example, many experts and philosophers believe that the transition from coercion, especially with the use of violence, to the manipulation of consciousness is a huge step in the development of mankind.
Others believe that the free will of a person, which implies the possession of a clear mind and allows one to make responsible choices (albeit erroneous ones), is of great value. This category of people rejects the legality and moral justification of the manipulation of consciousness. In the limit, this part of the citizens considers physical violence less destructive (if not for the individual, then for the human race) than "zombie", robotization of people.
These two positions are determined by the values, ideals of a person. So, it is useless to argue about which of these positions is more correct and better. It's like arguing which is more important - the soul or the body. Rationally and even logically, one can argue about what consequences for society and the individual will entail the transformation of one or another ideal position into a political doctrine. Does the implementation of this doctrine into life linearly affect a person’s life, or does this influence have critical threshold levels? That is, is “manipulation within reasonable limits” acceptable or is its recognition as a justified means of control means a leap into a qualitatively different society.
Therefore, in the book, which is offered to the reader as a matrix for reflection and dialogue, we will try to avoid accusations and evaluation of ideals. Let's talk about deeds - they can and should be evaluated from the standpoint of conscience, since they affect people's lives. But hiding your attitudes is useless and even harmful. Therefore, I prefer to warn that the book was written from the standpoint of rejection of manipulation by both public and private consciousness. I I am sure that trouble awaits a person on this path - the depletion of culture and the extinction of the entire human race, including the caste of priests sitting at the control panel of a manipulating machine.
But this is in a foggy distance, it is better to read about it in Dostoevsky. We will talk about obvious and tangible things - about the technology of manipulating consciousness that has developed in our time and which has been and is being used against ordinary citizens in many countries.
Section I. The Essence and Doctrines of Mind Manipulation
Chapter 1
Let us limit the subject of our conversation, going from the general to the particular.
In living nature, man is a qualitatively new phenomenon. He is not just a social creature that can exist only by intensively exchanging information with his own kind (such is the ant). He possesses mind, capable of abstract thinking, and language. Language and thinking are large complex systems that can be influenced for the purpose of programming behavior person. A person has a complex psyche, an important part of which is imagination. It is so developed that a person lives simultaneously in two dimensions, in two "realities" - real and imaginary. The imaginary world to a large extent (and for many in the first place) determines human behavior. But it is unsteady and malleable, it can be influenced from the outside in such a way that a person will not even notice this influence.
Two heads and six legs; four walk, and two lie still
Self-esteem - what is it: concept, structure, types and levels
Cassandra's Path, or Pasta Adventures War on Earth and Underground