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>...controlling language can control thought, but maybe that is something still to come. Over the last couple of years, I've been collecting passages that touc

by dmux 7y ago

>...controlling language can control thought, but maybe that is something still to come. Over the last couple of years, I've been collecting passages that touch on this point. I'm always surprised when I come across them. Two of my favorites that I've randomly come across (and from non-political books): >It would be in the interest of kings, czars, nobles, and so forth that the masses be educated in a way that renders them slavelike in mentality. The language of wrongness, should, and have to is perfectly suited for this purpose: the more people are trained to think in terms of moralistic judgments that imply wrongness and badness, the more they are being trained to look outside themselves—to outside authorities—for the definition of what constitutes right, wrong, good, and bad. When we are in contact with our feelings and needs, we humans no longer make good slaves and underlings. [0] >...the very media we have mentioned are so designed as to make thinking seem unnecessary (though this is only an appearance). The packaging of intellectual positions and views is one of the most active enterprises of some of the best minds of our day. The viewer of television, the listener to radio, the reader of magazines, is presented with a whole complex of elements — all the way from ingenious rhetoric to carefully selected data and statistics — to make it easy from him to “make up his own mind” with the minimum of difficulty and effort. But the packaging is often done so effectively that the viewer, listener, or reader does not make up his own mind at all. Instead, he inserts a packaged opinion into his mind, somewhat like inserting a cassette into a cassette player. He then pushes a button and “plays back” the opinion whenever it seems appropriate to do so. He has performed acceptably without having had to think. [1] [0] "Nonviolent Communication" by Marshall B. Rosenberg [1] "How to Read a Book" by Mortimer J. Adler

apocalypstyx 7y ago
Reminds me of a quote from Schopenhauer: "When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. In learning to write, the pupil goes over with his pen what the teacher has outlined in pencil: so in reading; the greater part of the work of thought is already done for us. This is why it relieves us to take up a book after being occupied with our own thoughts. And in reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of another’s thoughts. So it comes about that if anyone spends almost the whole day in reading, and by way of relaxation devotes the intervals to some thoughtless pastime, he gradually loses the capacity for thinking; just as the man who always rides, at last forgets how to walk. This is the case with many learned persons: they have read themselves stupid."
- Fnoord 7y ago
  It is funny how people who read a lot say the same thing about people who watch a lot of movies/series or play a lot of [video] games. I suppose Usenet was the first public massively available cesspit to read and write. You could regard it as a practice ground for either. With regards to creating content, it requires life experience in general as inspiration. You could obtain such life experience by doing things such as climbing or hiking or traveling or reading or watching TV or playing video games or interacting with random people on the Internet or going out every Friday night to the pub. Who's to say which of these are effective, or not? Why even make such a bifurcation in the first place?
  - baud147258 7y ago
    For creating content in a particular media, if your life experience is mostly built from that particular media, all you would product will be derivative of that particular media.

by dmux 7y ago

apocalypstyx 7y ago

Reminds me of a quote from Schopenhauer: "When we read, another person thinks for us: we merely repeat his mental process. In learning to write, the pupil goes over with his pen what the teacher has outlined in pencil: so in reading; the greater part of the work of thought is already done for us. This is why it relieves us to take up a book after being occupied with our own thoughts. And in reading, the mind is, in fact, only the playground of another’s thoughts. So it comes about that if anyone spends almost the whole day in reading, and by way of relaxation devotes the intervals to some thoughtless pastime, he gradually loses the capacity for thinking; just as the man who always rides, at last forgets how to walk. This is the case with many learned persons: they have read themselves stupid."

Fnoord 7y ago
It is funny how people who read a lot say the same thing about people who watch a lot of movies/series or play a lot of [video] games. I suppose Usenet was the first public massively available cesspit to read and write. You could regard it as a practice ground for either. With regards to creating content, it requires life experience in general as inspiration. You could obtain such life experience by doing things such as climbing or hiking or traveling or reading or watching TV or playing video games or interacting with random people on the Internet or going out every Friday night to the pub. Who's to say which of these are effective, or not? Why even make such a bifurcation in the first place?
- baud147258 7y ago
  For creating content in a particular media, if your life experience is mostly built from that particular media, all you would product will be derivative of that particular media.