The Great American Delusion
I have come to develop a profound appreciation for the incredible success the American empire has in terms of the social engineering and psychological manipulation of its domestic population. This achievement is akin to the architectural marvels of the ancient world such as the Great Pyramid of Giza or the Great Wall of China. Except this marvel of modern engineering is one of social engineering rather than civil engineering. Rather than blocks of hewn stone there is the engineering of thought and behavior of millions of individuals; where minds are molded, arranged, and moved as needed by the will and whims of imperial technocrats. The Great American Delusion is undoubtedly a modern marvel, and it should be appreciated for the grand scale of its magnitude, even as one feels apprehension at the implications of such a human achievement.
Perhaps it is best to begin by describing the nature of The Great American Delusion. This mass delusion partaken simultaneously by millions of people is one which is created by a combination of:
Indoctrination and dumbing down through the educational process.
Social engineering through mass communication with a special emphasis on entertainment and the “culture industry”.
A highly effective and tightly controlled propaganda apparatus encompassing both major and minor “news outlets”. This apparatus concerns itself with the highly aggressive psychological manipulation of the public through every available medium.
A near complete control over the information space (especially aided by algorithmic information promotion and suppression).
A vast censorship apparatus that can silence and suppress alternative voices and socially destroy “troublesome” dissidents.
The embedding of propaganda and psychological warfare content in every meaningful form of mass communication.
A veritable “army” of propaganda specialists, influencers, and other apparatchiks involved in every aspect of propaganda and psychological warfare. From general strategy design to policy implementation, content creation, and mass distribution.
In essence, one is describing a mass delusion created and maintained through the most effective propaganda and censorship apparatus in the history of mankind. Undoubtedly to be surpassed in the future, but also undoubtedly the most effective in contemporary humanity.
American audiences are swimming in an endless ocean of propaganda and nearly all have been swimming in these polluted waters throughout their entire lifetimes. Furthermore, the propaganda is so effective that even highly educated Americans are unable to properly identify even a small fraction of the propaganda they are exposed to on a daily basis.
If anything, American audiences are socially engineered to be hyper-susceptible to psychological warfare techniques which aids in “propaganda uptake”. In essence, to be perfectly gullible “super-schmucks” in the face of imperial propaganda.
Because imperial propaganda is so ambitious and so aggressive, the engineered delusions are especially egregious and obscene. The worldview of Americans is not merely incorrect, it is a perfect inversion of reality and cartoonish and fantastical in nature. Almost everything meaningful thing that Americans “know” is false.
And there are highly conspicuous “gaps” in their knowledge of critical information which is by design. Indeed, it is shocking to people around the world how American citizens remain blissfully ignorant of basic facts which are critical to understanding contemporary geopolitics. The differences in core understanding between Americans and the world is painfully obvious when juxtaposed with international audiences that are not subject to such efficient systems of censorship and information suppression.
It is incredibly difficult for Americans exposed their entire lives to this system to “deprogram” themselves, to “disinfect” themselves from the contamination of propaganda and begin the process of thinking in a truly independent and sovereign manner. There are many reasons for this, but to give two examples:
When propaganda is psychologically embedded using emotion and emotional manipulation, it is generally resistant to logic, facts, and rational discourse.
When people allow propaganda to infect their sense of self, the propaganda construct (propaganda ideas) are psychologically defended as if the person were defending the integrity of their psychological self (i.e. fiercely). Hence why a lot of propaganda targets aspects like sense of identity and nationality.
Simply put, most Americans do not have the intellectual and psychological faculties necessary to even begin the process of fully purging the propaganda they have been programmed with over the course of many decades. And even if they were able to do so, because propaganda is a dynamic and versatile practice, it is inevitable that they would become re-programmed in the near future unless they formally studied propaganda and began understanding its theory and practice.
Although merely one narrative, I would like to provide my experiences with the “Great American Delusion”:
In my experience it has been a minority of people in the United States with whom I can speak to meaningfully about important aspects of society, politics, and culture. Conversely, when I have exited the US and have spoken to people from around the world, meaningfully conversation is the norm; it is the rare outlier individual who is too intolerant and politically extreme that political discourse has to be avoided entirely.
The amount of people that one can speak to seriously and deeply about important subjects is very limited, mainly because people have been engineered to be so rabidly partisan that there is a general inability to engage in the most basic civil discourse and there is an intolerance of deviation from strictly controlled mainstream political tenets.
This means that average adult conversations are often filled with nonsense talk about trivial matters of no great consequence and it is seen as highly taboo and socially inappropriate to attempt to speak meaningfully about anything of importance.
I have seen family members be shunned merely for the content of their political opinions.
I have seen liberals be “psychologically shifted” (programmed) through mass propaganda into championing the complete inverse of their original values and the historical principles of classical liberalism.
I have seen entire cohorts of people be “psychologically shifted” over as little as a decade to hold opinions which are perfect inversions to their original political ideologies and philosophies.
I have seen people of the highest ethical standard adopt heinous and reprehensible political opinions due to exposure to propaganda; with these opinions being hostile to the very core of their original values.
I have seen the wholesale subversion of logic to such a point where average Americans feel hostile to logical political discourse and antipathy to those who dare retain their logical faculties.
And as an expatriate, I feel I must juxtapose my adopted home with the United States.
There are many similarities between the two: both have serious issues with corruption, both have had campaigns of social engineering conducted on the populace for the purposes of political control, both have had a dumbing down of the educational system to create more “docile” and gullible citizens, and so on.
The greatest difference between my adopted home and the US is clarity. In this country, there is a clarity in popular understanding of what is happening and there is an appropriate and organic response to seeing and understanding these adverse realities.
The educational system has been debased in both countries, here it is widely known and seen as a national tragedy, in the US it is “conspiracy theory” or seen as partisan histrionics.
In both countries there is corruption, here the people clearly understand the extent and nature of the corruption and are unhappy with state of affairs. In the US, obscene corruption is mostly unseen by the general public and it is considered in poor taste to point out the crippling corruption at every level of the government in civil discourse.
When corruption is acknowledged, it is to an extremely limited extent and in a highly partisan manner which merely facilitates continued social and political divisions. The obscene corruption by Congress, the Senate, and the President du jour are always politicized so it seems that only one side is massively corrupt instead of the entirety of the entire political system. This engineered rabid partisanship is necessary to keep Americans hopelessly divided. The failure to form a general consensus ensures an uninterrupted status quo of pillage and plunder by political and economic elites.
In recent times, both countries have experienced significant economic problems with one of the major indicators of the economic ill-health being the poorly controlled inflation rate. Here the people fully understand the serious issues concerning inflation and those who have the economic means are able to compensate for this by buying gold or foreign currencies or investing in real estate. In the US, inflation is denied, downplayed, or even portrayed as “beneficial” to the public.
In both countries, there is a strong sense of nationalism. Here the people want the continued progress of their civilization. In the US the nationalism is used to ignore or reject the crimes of the American empire.
Indeed, as the US continues the transnational trend towards globalization, “patriotism” is generally reserved to 1) engineer consensus for aggressive American foreign policy 2) recruitment campaigns to generate more cannon fodder for foreign adventurism or 3) politicize patriotism to further divide the public. Unlike in other nations where patriotism is a unifying force, in the US “patriotism” is mostly used to divide or silence the citizenry.
Even citizens lacking in higher education in my adopted home are able to talk meaningfully about important subjects they are familiar with. In general, deep meaningful conversation is the norm. Logic is expected in civil discourse and respectful cordiality is the standard. Disagreements are extremely common, but this is usually fuel for lively debate, not a cause for rancorous animosity and social ostracism.
“The Great American Delusion” is especially sinister when compared to the history of the United States. The American republic was formed by intellectual titans, it was built on the backs of Americans with a fierce education. This educational tradition has been wholly undermined in order to turn the “American citizen” into an “American imperial subject”.
As I compared my new home to the US, it is even more stark a difference to compare the contemporary US with its own past. The general “clarity” that I spoke of in regard to my adopted country is evident in the in newspapers and political cartoons of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Political satire of the era was extremely direct in their excoriation of the dangerous expansion of oligarchic power and its control over the American political system.
Doing the same in today’s America is generally anathema. If one were to do the equivalent today, such as depicting the oligarchic influence of Bill Gates over American education and American healthcare policy, such depictions would be labelled “conspiracy theory” by the American imperial media and many propagandized Americans would automatically reject such truthful depiction.
The general newspaper output of from the late 1800s through early 1900s also demonstrates a high general erudition by the American laity and a very clear and shrewd understanding of how the world works. Again, not merely is such clear and direct media content absent in imperial media, in general it would not be understood by the majority of modern Americans.
Even as recent as the 1960s and 1970s, in review of conferences and political speeches one can hear the refreshingly frank and cogent discourse of that era which is in extinction in today’s America. Again, such clarity and frankness would be labelled as “conspiracy theory” in today’s public discourse.
When comparing American’s past to the current state of affairs, it is painfully evident that what America has become is magnificent travesty of its original self. A ripping away of every core American value to be replaced with malignant inversions. An intellectual decimation in which the American Enlightenment which birthed the republic has been replaced by an extremely primitive and narrowminded mentality which is unable to comprehend the world or form coherent thoughts.
Pointing this out is viewed as anti-American by those who fail to understand the foundations of the American republic. Inevitably, out come accusations of “anti-Americanism” intended to silence dissent and force conformity to the imperial groupthink. But quite the contrary, pointing out this reality is the most quintessentially American thing one can do. Historical Americans were not known for their stupidity, their gullibility, their slavish obedience, or their cowardice.
To condemn the onslaught against the American mind is a necessary step in order to understand the nature of the problem. And in understanding the nature of this problem, one can attempt to champion the solutions necessary to bring about a renaissance of the American mind.
In doing so, one is truly honoring and paying homage to the intellectual and philosophical ideological titans of the American republic. Men who dared rebel against odious tyranny and believed in ideals more powerful than themselves.