Brainwashing is what we have right now …
We are agreeing on something, we don’t want to live in a society governed by brainwashing, definitely I don’t want to live under such conditions! But unfortunately we live in a society that practices brainwashing on a massive scale and with genocidal intent. We should extend the anthropocentric concept of genocide to include the entire planet as a subject liable for genocide, because our current society with its practices not only commits extreme violence against the human race in general, but also against the entire planet. The genocide practiced against the human race could be characterized as primarily mental, as it seeks to destroy any semblance of critical thinking in order to convert us in docile “productive-consumers”; but it doesn’t rule out physical genocide, which often precedes the mental violence and paves its way, but also insidiously infiltrates our daily lives through pollution, consumer products harmful to health, stimulating lifestyles incompatible with health, etc… And against the planet, I suppose that by now should be pretty clear to us the kind of violence with which we treating the planet, because otherwise we would not be talking about ecological crisis.
In short, today we live in a social and ecological crisis, because since birth, our education system, and the propaganda that continually bombards us taking advantage of any advance in technology, and the examples we receive daily, etc…, they all are conditioning us to act disrespectful with ourselves, with others, and with the planet.
For example, it is disrespectful to yourself wasting most of your free time eating chips and watching the empty? Here, I guess people will start to speak about personal freedom and that everyone has the right to choose what to do with her/his free time. That is partially true, and this partiality -playing with half-truths- is the greatest hoax of our current society: to make us believe that we have a system where we are free to choose, and that whatever we do against it, is going against our freedom. So, it is partially true, cause it is true that we must have freedom about what to do in our time – as long as we are not damaging the freedom of others -. So, if I want to eat chips and watch the empty all my time, it must be OK. But it is also false, cause to choose freely you must have the adequate knowledge to see and evaluate the various possible alternatives, and must have the appropriate context to implement the best alternative. And in our society can not choose freely, because from birth we are brainwashed by telling us that eating chips and watching the empty is the good, and also we don’t have the proper context, because when I’m arriving from work after an exhausting day, that is the easiest course of action - kindly offered by a system designed for that -. So, what happens in the end, most of us are ending up eating chips and watching the empty in our free time because we were trained to do that, and because we do not have the necessary context to make something better. And so, finally we are ending up being disrespectful to ourselves, because we do not use our time – the only thing that we really have - consciously.
For example, it is disrespectful to ask others to use the best part of their days to do a certain job, neglecting the cultivation of their personal, family and interpersonal sides? To put it simply, here I’m not questioning the meaning of their jobs, because we could fill many pages talking about the countless people forced to do meaningless work (I was questioning that a bit here). No, let’s talk about something “simpler”, again about time. And here, I have one question, who was the person who decided that the workday must be 8 hours (at least), and also must be at the best part of the day? As far I know, as people living in a society, we have to do some productive contribution to it, this seems to be logical, ultimately we cannot hope to do nothing and live from miracles. But as human beings, supposedly owners of our own time, we also have the right to cultivate our personal interests, our families and our interpersonal relationships (the social part outside family). Today it is fashionable to talk about work-life balance, but its departing from a false premise (), since beforehand is not questioning the right of the work to occupy a third -at least () - of our day. Why the work is more important than all the rest and has such prominence? Why not work should not occupy at most a fifth of our time? 8 hours for resting, 4 for personal (sports, hobbies, etc.), 4 for family (romantic relationship, growing children, etc.), 4 for the interpersonal (community service, talking with friends, etc…), and 4 for work. You could say that I am free to organize my time as I want. That if I really want (or a similar discourse of self-help) I would be able to find a lifestyle where I can get for example the previous balance. Really I have that freedom? I’m conditioned to believe that 8 hours working is the normal and the whole system is structured for that - that means that most jobs are offering that and not another option -. Therefore, I’m rarely discussing the right to work less than 8 hours and still living with dignity, and if I do that, I will hardly find a job where I can work less than 8 hours and live with dignity. And if I’m lucky and I’m getting it, then it is a certainty that this situation is beyond the reach of most of us, simply because the system is not structured for that. Now suppose that not only I want to work less than 8 hours, but also I want to have a family with children. Probably, again you will tell me that this is a personal decision, and that it is my problem if I’m deciding getting myself into such a mess. And yes, you’re right, it’s my personal decision, but that decision is of crucial importance for all the society. We are needing new people to assure the future of the society, thus for example, at the medium term, we are needing new people to take care of us when we are getting old. So, these people who are taking this personal decision in fact is also working for all of us, because we definitely are needing the new generations. That is, having a family it I not only a personal decision that is consistent with the interests of a particular person, it is also a decision that affects the future of our society. But what do we do as a society about that decision? It is your individual decision, it is your particular problem, so I have nothing to do regard such decision; therefore, you must work eight (or more) hours and you will earn the same as any other, and after working at your spare time, you must resolve your “problem” you alone. And actually, I have a reasonable probability of contradicting that? That is, I’m free to choose? Well, I am free to work more or not having family, cause in fact that is the way that our society is showing me. But I am not free for example to work less and spend more time with my family, because despite the importance of this task, we are conditioned to think that the most important thing is work - no matter that the speech perhaps says no, what matters is the amount of time we must spend at work -. And if for some reason I am free of this mental conditioning, the system simply is not structured so you are able to work less and spend more time with your family. Maybe some of us are able to do that, but definitely not all of us. And so, finally we are ending up being disrespectful with the others, because not only we are not recognizing the activity they are doing for us (), but we also are denying them the possibility to do this activity in the best way.
So if the real question is how to avoid the brainwashing, the answer is that it is too late, because we are being brainwashed in one way or another from cradle to grave. Because we are in a society that tells us that we are free to choose whatever we want, and we can have everything we want, and that we can be even rich. When the truth is that we are being brainwashed through the word “freedom” and half-truths. Because the truth is that we cannot choose whatever we want, we can not have everything we want, and we cannot be all rich. To begin, there is insufficient material resources so we all can have everything we want, and even less we all can be rich, that is just a mirage - or just the carrot that motivates the donkey -. , and for this reason we need temperance. We also cannot choose whatever we want, because when we are deciding to live in society, we are accepting to play with the rules of that society – where those rules are also called values -. And those rules (values) are ultimately determining the kind of society we all have. Therefore, if we want a more fairer society, we must have fairer rules. For example, it is not the same a society where my word is enough to make safe a deal, that another where we are needing a legion of lawyers and controls – and not event that is enough as is shown in the current financial crisis -. So what we are needing are fairer rules (values), as for example the the “simple” rule of keeping one’s word. But that can not be imposed from outside, that has to grow from the intimate conviction of the individual person (and call to this development, personal change or whatever else). And it cannot be imposed from outside, first, because it does not respect individual freedom, cause if a whole group voluntarily decides to follow a set of rules, I can not come and force them to follow my rules because I’m considering that my rules are better. At most I can teach them, and I can show by example that my rules are working better. Second, because for such a change to a more fairer society really works, you must feel it, cause in the opposite we will be always looking for ways to avoid our responsibility. And for that is why I was saying that the first thing is to develop trust in ourselves, cause that means I’m feeling the need to follow those fairer rules. So do not be afraid and think about sects when I’m talking about values. I’m just talking about fairer rules. And to start to follow those fairer rules in our current society for sure we are needing discipline, perseverance and courage, cause they are not coming for free.
So if we want to change our society to a fairer society, we must change its rules to fairer rules, and to change its rules we must individually develop the conviction that fairer rules are needed and develop the commitment to find those rules and follow those rules (and again, call this development, personal change or whatever else). And imposing that from above is not a successful recipe for that, not at least to establish a fairer society. And for that is why I was talking of a change initiated from the bottom-up. People with the same ideals coming together to collaborate and implement projects that are giving life to these ideals. Projects that are a way to find better rules, and that through their implementation these projects are serving as teaching tools by example (a proof that this rules are better), and themselves also changing the society through their actions. This is the procedure, only a way of looking for better rules and propagate them from the bottom-up, because we must be careful with the messiahs that are coming with the perfect solution ready to implement from the top-down, cause they are knowing better than anybody how the world is working.
And at the weekend I’m answering to Noemi and writing about one of these projects designed to look for better rules and at the same time improve the society through its own working. Cause was through the discussion of this project that we arrive at the “Living together” session to this three words: trust, bottom-up and balance.
So, yes, we definitely are not needing more brainwashing, cause we are having enough right now. But for sure we are needing a lot of braincleaning, to clean ourselves of all this conditioning that we all have inside us.
(*) We could also discuss the purpose of this talk, because usually what it seeks is to improve productivity, not the worker’s life. You can say it does not matter much, because at the end the worker’s life is improved. But I can argue that matters a lot, cause if the center of the talk is not the worker’s life, in the case that tomorrow we are finding a way to improve productivity at the expense of worker’s life, this new way will be implemented and we’ll be forgetting the talk about work-life balance. We could also discuss about the name “work-life”, cause isn’t work part of the life? Interestingly, work is seen as out of life, and probably that partly has to do with the nonsense of many jobs.
(**) If you deduct up 8 hours from rest, then work is accounting by half the conscious day. Even worse, the stress conditions of many jobs, it is translating that stress to the rest of the day.
(***) It should be considered as a work, or if not work (to avoid trivializing something so important), at least as important as the work.
