Why the Most Powerful Thing You Can Do Right Now Is Change How You Think
Shake off the indoctrination and seize the viewpoint that leads to prosperity
The most powerful thing you can do right now is change how you think. What do I mean by that?
It has become painfully obvious that many of the things we're told to believe are quite simply untrue. I'm talking about the fundamental ideas that form the foundation of our whole society.
They're lies.
For example, this nation does not stand for truth or justice. This nation is not free. The moment we accept that is the moment we start to make progress towards those concepts.
There are many things that we've always known to be untrue, but we go along with them because some semblance of a prosperous life was possible. At least, it felt possible. But it's always been the case that there were many injustices we simply trained ourselves not to recognize.
Those of us with privilege anyway.
Despite all their intelligence and their focus on critical thinking, even people who are inclined towards humanitarian beliefs are indoctrinated with self-destructive thinking. Let me provide a really basic example.
I write a lot of articles in which I'll include some variation on the sentiment that obscene wealth is inherently evil. I believe that anyone who accumulates a huge fortune is corrupt because they have the power to appease human suffering and they choose not to.
This is not a new idea. Sir Thomas More wrote about it five hundred years ago.
The idea that we should have criticisms for the rich is something you'll find in every history book, every work of literature, and every religion. It's prominently featured in the Bible. However, when I make any statement that contains such a criticism, I'm immediately inundated with replies from people who tell me my generalizations are “unfair.”
“Not all rich people,” they say, even though I never use the word “all” in my statements.
There's a compulsion out there which makes people respond this way. There's some mechanism at work that tricks the general public into thinking a “not all” statement has to be made out of some sense of inherent fairness.
My question is, why?
Why do you feel you have to say that? Maybe it's time to take a moment to examine where that compulsion comes from. Haven't you recognized that it's a reflex reaction? It's the type of thing that is learned through rote conditioning, which is also known as indoctrination.
You say “not all” because you’re under control.
It’s time to ask yourself where that compulsion comes from.
This also applies to the people out there who will write endless comments and responses about how “socialism is evil.” They don't even know what socialism is, but they'll denounce it until they're blue in the face.
Nobody ever responds with “Well, not all forms of socialism.”
Doesn't that strike you as odd?
People will risk friendships over their compulsion to spread “not all” arguments when it comes to the defense of the rich. But everyone remains silent when it comes to intellectual discourse over the pros and cons of socialism.
We've got an impenetrable block in our minds. Why is it there? Whom does it serve?
You do have instances where people point out examples of socialism in our society. They might talk about public schools, or the military, or roads, or a variety of other concepts. But it's never framed with, “Not all socialism is bad.”
The “not all” construction doesn’t appear in that context.
The sad part is that rational arguments simply don't land with the same impact as the trigger phrases that have been installed to control us. The second the overlords say “not all,” many people lose all control of their reason.
Except for people like me who have deliberately counter-indoctrinated themselves to go in the direction I'm conditioned not to go—with regard to the things I’ve identified anyway.
That's what I mean when I say you must change your thinking. You need to get to a point where you can simply say “obscene wealth is unjust” without feeling the tickle in the back of your mind that compels you to make exceptions.
That tickle isn't natural. Some nefarious force put it there.
The scary part is that this is just one example. There are hundreds of examples of concepts you refuse to evaluate. I haven't even started to uncover them all. That's how deep the rot goes. They're deployed to make us controllable. They're deployed to make us malleable. They're deployed to sow the seeds of division.
There are a lot of things I could say that would provoke an instant reaction, an instinctive reaction, a reaction you didn't decide for yourself. Once you learn all these sacred concepts, and you become practiced at invoking them, you can become a sort of wizard. You can tug on the same puppet strings that the oligarchs use.
I'm telling you without any exaggeration at all, that you too can make your neighbors jump at your command. You've got a manual for this behavior modification. It's your own mind. See how you react to things, and recognize that other people in your nation have suffered the same brainwashing.
“Not all people...”
Uh-huh.
These responses are designed to maintain and support all the mechanisms that have yielded every single frustration you feel with our society today. It's why you don't get paid enough. It's why you don't have access to healthcare. It's why you're desperate, powerless, and hopeless.
The key that unlocks the door to your prison is learning to change how you think. The way it is now, you've been conditioned not to go in any direction that would actually lead you to prosperity or freedom. Before you even consider changing direction, part of your mind steps in and says, “Don't go that way.”
You've been robbed of your curiosity.
You've been robbed of your volition.
This is true of all Americans.
“Well, not all Americans...” you think.
Why do you feel you have to say “not all?”
“Because you're speaking in absolutes, and that's unfair.”
Not always.
Some things are absolute. If you refuse to recognize that, you're operating on a flawed assumption. You're imposing this idea that there are always exceptions, but that's not the case. There's also the reality that some exceptions are statistically irrelevant. You aren't going to encounter them in your reality.
In other words, not all absolute statements are wrong.
Did you feel something weird in your brain when I used “not all” in that way? That's the cognitive dissonance that's a consequence of your conditioning. That's the pain that tells you when your thinking is trending in a direction that doesn’t serve the overlords. You’re made to feel uncomfortable. That's the mechanism that's used to keep you under control.
You have to learn to lean into that discomfort. You have to explore the untrue thoughts you've been deceived to believe with all your heart.
The next time somebody says something and you feel an instinctive reaction to resist... don't. Simply remain silent. Face the discomfort of cognitive dissonance and be deliberate in your thoughts. Make your own choices. Become the master of your own mind.
With time, you might discover you'll become empowered to improve your reality. It all starts with overcoming your reflexive reaction to certain socially conditioned concepts.
Don’t take my word for it. Try it.
You all make this newsletter happen! Thanks for your sponsorship! I have payment tiers starting at as little as twenty dollars a year.
I'm so happy you're here, and I'm looking forward to sharing more thoughts with you tomorrow.
My CoSchedule referral link
Here’s my referral link to my preferred headline analyzer tool. If you sign up through this, it’s another way to support this newsletter (thank you).
Walter, I agree with the premise of your argument, that we shouldn’t be letting people off the hook when they turn away from injustice and allow it to continue to exist in perpetuity. I thought about my own behavior. Stay with me here…
For example, I had a conversation with a neighbor regarding the protests last weekend, and I admit I let her off the hook when she said that while she doesn’t condone anything Trump does, she doesn’t like to get involved with politics because it’s too upsetting for her.
Yes, when it comes to human behavior and morality, there are things that are absolute, and we need to stop the both sides crap and making excuses.
As far as my own values go, I was trained as a scientist and lived and worked in that world for most of my life, and the message in a nutshell in my doctoral program was very clear: the more you learn, the less you know. Scientists are trained to keep an open mind and realize that it takes a hell of a lot of evidence to be able to state with certainty that something is absolute, and even then, long-accepted facts can be altered by further analysis- using the scientific method, of course.
There is always a pinch of skepticism that must be held in one’s mind when facing any fact. That scientific method is what’s allowed us to make the advances that we have, and that are now at risk because of the RFK Jr. and anti-vax and “do your own research” crowd.
I have caught myself on numerous occasions making “excuses” and letting people like my neighbor off the hook on moral issues because it’s easy to conflate the scientific thinking habit with the moral thinking.
I am more confrontational than I used to be, but now I find myself wishing I had asked Kmy neighbor, if they come for me, will you protect me or look the other way?
What is alarming is when a scientifically trained person uses that scientific thinking in an immoral way, all the snake oil salesmen and quacks out there using the letters behind their name (Dr. Oz) to serve their own interests but not the public’s. And this has become so commonplace that scientifically illiterate people have picked up on this and think it’s okay. Including members of Congress.
Critical thinking and being aware of the limitations of your own knowledge is the missing link in this country. Thanks for another thoughtful post.
"For example, this nation does not stand for truth or justice. This nation is not free." It never was, really, unless you were/are white and rich.
This is why history has to be studied and taken seriously. The U.S. got drunk on its own mythology a long time ago and will likely not get sober any time soon. Whereas we in Canada took a more pragmatic and realistic approach- we were a colony of Britain, we live north of the U.S., and we are a combination of each while trying to be our own thing. Plus the whole English/French split. How do you make a unified mythology out of that?