Soap box: Brainwashing

Confessions of a Brainwashed American


I woke up the other day to the realization that I’ve been brainwashed by America since
I was a small boy. The American public at large has been brainwashed since after the Second World War to conform to a vision of a United States founded in a materialistic
world view. Whether or not this is the result of a conspiracy of immense proportions is
not my concern here. It is the experience we share as Americans that points to this brainwashing that I’m interested in exposing. If you are stuck in a job you hate, a slave to your television set, desirous
of the latest electronic device, on prozac or other “coping” drugs, afraid of the people you pass in the street, saddled by debt, you are experiencing the result of this brainwashing, especially if you feel that this is the way the world is and there is nothing you can do about it. Surprisingly, if you have lots of money, several new cars, houses…all the trappings of success…you are equally victim to this brainwashing. You just happen to be somehow essential to the process, and so must be hypnotized by pleasure in order for
the operation to run smoothly.

This brainwashing has been going on for so long now, that more than ever it is taken for reality. It is a paradigm cast in concrete that is hard to penetrate. Even the more aware and awake, educated, open individuals seem to have a minimal effect to penetrate the American cultural of ignorance. Over one hundred scholars, PHDs, have come out en mass
to demand an investigation into 911 official report discrepancies to little avail. Over three hundred and fifty reputable witnesses…former military and government workers at the highest levels… have come out to demand transparency about government knowledge about the UFO phenomena, to equal silence. This is the macro level of the effect of brainwashing.

On the micro, the individual level, most people accept the paradigm of meaningless work for money, a more or less comfortable physical existence, with non-participatory entertainment as the opium that distracts awareness, as the status quo…the way things are, take it or leave it. Isolation is the norm. One statistic say that twenty-five percent of Americans feel they have NO close friends.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to be this way. Waking up has to take place on an individual basis, since it definitely is going against the prevalent forces of mass culture.
Here are some suggestions:

1. Kill your television set. Avoid mass media altogether as a source for the truth.
2. Get off your ass and do something. Go for walks, learn to meditate, take a class
in painting, start a literary discussion group…in short, exercise your body and your mind.
3. Learn to be creative. Sing, dance, write poetry, do art, learn a musical instrument.
4. Go to Burning Man or another, outdoor, tribal, paradigm challenging event. Does that mean do drugs? Not necessarily….although in some cases it might be helpful to shake up what you think you know….only the psychedelics, please.
5. Learn to talk to people. You won’t like them all, that’s for sure…but you have to
learn that as humans we have some connection to each other. Also, you’ll begin to feel that self importance is not that interesting.
6. Travel...even to Canada or Mexico. Nothing opens the mind like being in a different culture.
7. Find someone that knows something and listen to them. It could be a yoga instructor, a tai chi teacher, a buddhist monk, an Indian medicine man or a shaman....it could be an artist, a carpenter or a musician. It could be that old guy down the block everyone thinks is crazy, (that would be me). Find someone who has explored life and ask them questions.

What will be the result? There is no guarentee once you move beyond the illusion of security. But the illusion of security is living in supressed fear...fear of death, fear of life itself. It is possible that with some effort, you might experience life more as celebration. You might begin to overcome fear and move towards developing confidence...not in anything specific, but simple confidence in the value of your existence.. It's worth a shot. The alternative, although seductive, is not very pretty.