Leading to nazi-like fanatical certainty of the rightness of your trance beliefs, to the point of believing that it’s right and proper to sacrifice entire segments of a population “for the greater good of all.”
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This, for me at least, explains why some of the people I know who are intelligent, articulate individuals, can be taken in by the lies and hype. For those that haven’t listened to this, it is not just another guy talking about hypnosis by the media. He expains the societal conditions that lead to mass hypnosis, and why logical argument then does not work. Dan at TLN anyone?
Thanks for posting
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Well worth watching and in remarkably similar vein:
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Have only watched the first few minutes but the gist of his argument was laid out clearly enough. The ‘senselessness’ of people’s work is definitely a big stressor as Mattias points out. You either surrender to this and just do what you’re told, banking your salary, spending it, going with the flow, fearing anything else. Or you rail against it, try to reform or revolutionise processes. Then you realise that only those with power are able to do this really, and you have to collaborate or keep rebelling, knowing your days are numbered.
The latter is painful, but pain is a useful signal that something is wrong. Numbness and polite niceness are dangerous because one fails to register threats until it is too late.
The book Bullshit Jobs, which Mattias mentions, is very worth reading. The author whose name he can’t recall was David Graeber.
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I’ve not read Graeber’s book and he may well address this, but, for me, it’s not that jobs in and of themselves are necessarily bullshit, but rather that one’s stake in them is invariably bullshit (feeble, fragile and eminently replaceable) and therefore debilitating.
You mention pain being a sign that something is up. I am often told by my close friends, those that have known me for decades, that my worldview is depressing. Whilst it might be true for some that a period of depression might accompany a ‘revelation’, often these things are a process, an unravelling, a mental detoxifying over many years (after all, the indoctrination has taken place over many years) and not a sudden bludgeoning that might lead to a depression. Besides which, I tell them, no, on the contrary, it’s liberating and liberation from any oppression can only be progressive and a cause for celebration.
Incidentally, interesting that you refer to both revolution and rebelling. I once read a fine take on the two that posited that revolutionaries just want to replace one order with another, whilst rebels always rebel, irrespective. This suggests to me that there’s an idealism in rebels, always striving for better (depending on your perspective of course!), although It could just be contrariness which would bring us round to the bearded lawyer’s perspective (loaded though it is) that those that aren’t so easily taken in are difficult personalities! I prefer the former take of course. 
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Personally @Jamie I’m just a bloody awkward creature that won’t stop asking questions. Closer to rebel than revolutionary because faced with a cancerous system I woul counsel cutting out the tumour rather than worrying about what to replace it with
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For anyone interested, I found this recent James Delingpole podcast fascinating. Both Delingpole and his guest Alex Thomson, are right wing Christians. In this interview they give a good understanding of what’s happening at the moment.
I perhaps don’t need to add that Jesus was the most major lefty in western history (I’m not religious, by the way)…
totalitarianism, thought-control, mass-media
This is all Chomsky’s area.
It is hard to avoid the conclusion, then, that the man has now disgraced himself through his deafening silence on this, perhaps the biggest ever crime against humanity.
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Bewildering isn’t it. Plenty of younger less established academics could at least plead the excuse of having to get research fellowships on the dining table. It’s not as though they could earn a living any other way after all.
But Chomsky has nothing to lose, so must have been got at.
“But Chomsky has nothing to lose, so must have been got at.”
I agree.
His view on the JFK assasination was/is ridiculous for someone in his position.
His take on 911 was/is also ridiculous and obviously highly suspicious and that was when I knew he was a tool for sure - fool me once etc.
And now Covid.
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Never under-estimate the power of the blind-spot. Humans are NOT rational creatures, Spock/Data-style. We’re emotion- and instinct-driven creatures, with a recent add-on of reasoning capability, which we ALWAYS use as an optional extra. Noam has blind-spots just like anyone else - 11/9 being one of his most glaring.
Also, never under-estimate the power of being ancient, shagged-out, and losing it… 
Ancient is definitely on the horizon - I see that now. Shagged out is also becoming a feature now and then.
Losing it arrived a while back. At times it seems like I’ve spent the whole day losing things and wandering around the house trying to find them and getting really annoyed and vocal while I’m doing it: “For fuck’s sake! Where the fuck is it! You had it just now! Oh you stupid cunt - where the fuck have you put it this time you fucking idiot? You total utter arsehole!” etc.
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SNAAAAAAA[filler, filler]AAAAAP!! 
PS: Age Concern gave me one of those alarm-call boxes a while back, which I have around because it seemed churlish to reject their generosity. I often wonder how much giggling the listeners might get if the listen in - even when not red-buttoned - to me talking to myself, or effing and blinding because of ‘the sheer bloody awkwardness of THINGS!’ Like shoes and pullovers and so on…
Rhis, I always advise people with a tv set, or whatever, to unplug it and chuck it in the nearest body of water.
Perhaps there’s some kind of karma in that.
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I shouldn’t really gloat and say I told you so, but I have called Chomsky a gatekeeper for a long, long time!
I do the same. Than ask my wife to help me find it and in 10 seconds or less, she says “Is this what you’re looking for”. I blame the fact that men have less rods and cones in their eyes (not sure if that’s true, but I’ll keep using the excuse)
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