Dear friends, Last week I was invited to give a short speech at the European Parliament in Strasbourg. In many respects, a speech in the European Parliament is a speech in the beating heart of one of the institutions at the forefront of the processes that I (we) have criticized in recent years. That's true, but at the same time I think such considerations should never stop us from going there. It is precisely with the people with whom we disagree, the people who we easily experience as our opponents, that we should try to speak.
I noticed the name next to you was D Martin, I assume David Martin? I would love to see the whole presentation as it seems that the 2 of you should make a very good team. Thanks, Ken.
You didn't need more time to convey your context and your message. You noticed that many people were going along with obvious false narratives, and you responded to your obligation, viz. to explain what was happening. For more details, they can read your book. Thank you, Dr Desmet.
At the end of the speech, we hear the following: "It's time to start telling that you feel that there is something wrong, because otherwise we will go to a state in which nobody can stop the system anymore, simply because it's not only an elite that... a cruel elite, or an evil elite that mismanages the world. It's much more than that. It's a mass that is on the move. It's a blind, societal system of which nobody is in control anymore."
Let us assume that everybody refrains from telling around that something is wrong. Then cash money will be made obsolete, programmable digital money will introduced, social credit will be enforced and the digital gulag will become a reality worldwide. Once we are there, will we be in "a blind, societal system of which nobody is in control anymore"?
I have the impression that the ones controlling today the BIS and everything else will still be in control of everything and most certainly will be the ones programming the digital money that defines the quota of meat I can buy or the air travel ticket I am allowed to purchase according to my carbon footprint.
Fascinating ideas: Totalitarianism is different than a dictatorship in that the population buys the narrative the elite sell thus becoming the cause of their own enslavement, but the atomization of society leads to the population being susceptible to the propaganda/ideology/promises/narrative to begin with. The atomization of society seems to be the product of materialism itself... the good life outside the family structure materialism promises to provide. I also like the idea how when interests converge (financial, bureaucratic, political, and other) the narrative gets set in motion and can be self-sustaining even as fewer and fewer and fewer benefit. My own take is you can't have freedom/quality of life without virtue as our vice always enslaves ourselves and others and is the the reason libertarianism is doomed to fail.
Thank you for speaking truthfully to this elite gathering of European leaders.
I'm curious about a word you used a couple of times in your speech that I could not understand or hear clearly. I would appreciate it if you could tell me what the word was. Here is the part of the sentence that the word is found for the first time.
". . .which tried to impose its will to society, not anovicly as the ancient elite did. . ."
I cannot find this word in my dictionary, and I may not have spelled it correctly.
Did I spell “anovicly” correctly? My very large unabridged dictionary did not include this word. From the context, I gathered the meaning. The opposite of covert or overt.
There has always been an "elite" that has taken control with the means of propaganda. Just ask the Pope ;-) But with the advent of the Internet, propaganda in the old sense no longer works properly. No one can control information centrally. So what does one do "as a descendant of the Pope"? One may think about turning the table and simply flooding society with bullshit (as it happens today), which goes quite automatically in the online world of machines. And since information, knowledge and wisdom (as Henry I noted) are highly different kinds of intelligence, the "educated" masses easily end up in a new Middle Ages where everyone "can read" and has full access to the world library. But only some bright minds are able to make sense and see clearly.
So it is indeed very important that more and more people start to raise their voice to fight totalitarianism. But it is also important WHO speaks out. And eventually that true wisdom (like in my opinion Mattias' insights) is amplified and "bullshit" is somehow defused. But who could or should decide what is worth amplifying and what is not? The broad masses themselves? Blind or even „woke“ algorithms? Mass censoring "Google?" "Wise" climate apostles and endtime apologists like DANiel SchmachtenberGER who seem to prefer endless monologues rather than discussing their arguments with others but yes-men (btw: I'd like to see a discussion between Mattias and Daniel ;-)? I don't think so. So how can we solve this EDUCATION PROBLEM without ending in totalitarianism, censorship and the new holy inquisition?
In the early draft I sent you in February, I remember a headline I put "The Ghastly Problem of Propaganda". As you said, the public sphere has become so saturated with Propaganda, that one starts to see ghosts, propaganda where no exists. Accusations you faced about being "controlled opposition" I think are a good demonstration of that. Ultimately, propaganda results in a crisis of truth, where ultimately authorities resort to force to sustain collective myths and maintain prevailing social order.
I think it is important to recognize that propaganda is also a function of civilization complexity. It is harder, though not impossible to start believing in a false narrative about things happening in your village. However, its much easier to be fooled when you don't have deep knowledge about what you are interacting with.
I love how you mention expressing what one feels, no more or less, as a solution to the problem. Maybe we can lean on the terrific power of human intuition to find our way through this mess. Macgilchrist mentions how rationality is what one clings to, when trust/or certain faculties of the mind has gone away (paraphrased). One attempts to build the world part by part, when one can no longer understand things holistically.
One of the reasons we cling to rationalist-materialist worldview, since we do not know what will fill the gap. Rationality is tool, but in the vacuum left by religious-monarchist collapse (partly due to its own glaring shortcomings) it became our worldview.
I read the address you gave in Prague on 2nd December, 2006. I begin to see in that speech itself, how beginning from defending clinical psychology against empiricism, lead you to a larger critique of rationalistic-materialistic worldview itself.
Ahh, Shifting Baseline Disorder, too, Mattias . . . and with AI-Mixed Reality-Virtual Reality-Augmentaed Reality, we are on a steep and quickening of circling the proverbial drain.
He's off on Soviet Union history, and alas, how man Russian cities did USA and UK want to nuke during Oppen-Monster-Heimer's conflicted genocidal bomb making?
Whipping up fear, uh? Nothing like a good war to get millions to go all in and kill each other, and then, destroy countries.
Viagra and Libya?
Doesn't take much to destroy a country, people, generations afterward.
We Used to Call These Moves, 'daft,' 'queer,' 'inane' and grotesque: Here, Bernays.
but in the Post Edward Bernays World of Getting Women (not his wife, though) to suck on cancer sticks for the perceived coolness of it, we will see more of this 3rd grade reading level shit!!!!!!
Here, Eddy boy:
Standard American policy (among everyday people as much as politicians) for a long time maintained that what the rest of the world was up to was really none of our business. This changed right about the time we entered the first world war, though even having entered it, public opinion mostly stood opposed. It was Edward Bernays’ first large-scale project in fact, working on a team for the military to convince the average Joe that war was good and right. As such, Bernays helped to present a paint-by-number framework for such convincing that governments have since mastered – with flair.]
Another?
Our more extravagant meal was conjured up when Edward Bernays secured the Beech-Nut Packing Company as a client who wanted him to raise their pork sales. Bernays went to work collecting testimony from nearly 5,000 doctors across the U.S. who said simply that a heavier breakfast was a healthier one, while some of them specifically cited bacon and eggs as an example. The ploy worked.
+--+
How many die form cigarettes? Tobacco kills up to half of its users. · Tobacco kills more than 8 million people each year, including 1.3 million non-smokers who are exposed to second hand smoke.
+--+
That cancerous smile, Eddy Boy?
Edward Bernays was hired by Alcoa to present industrial-grade fluoride, a common byproduct (and regulated pollutant) produced by the manufacture of its big seller, aluminum, as a benefit to public health. Bernays himself is quoted as saying that he took the job because he was fascinated to see if he could convince an entire nation to vote against what it knew instinctively to be its own good health interests. Using methods like calling up every dictionary and encyclopedia he could find and having them add a then-non-existent entry on “fluoridation,” giving the whole concept a sense of authority, he, as per usual, succeeded with flying colors.
+---+
Bernays literally wrote the book on an idea he termed “engineering consent.” He presented the argument that democracy could not be left in the hands of the unwashed masses, that the world’s wealthy and powerful must protect those lower on the class rung from themselves. The method of providing this protection was to manipulate their votes by the same kinds of campaigns which Bernays had perfected, all the while promoting the beauty of free election.
+--+
"Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government." -- Bernays
Lucky Strike cigarettes proudly bore a bright green package when they hired Bernays to raise sales. Through polling, he discovered that women in particular were opposed to the brand because it clashed with just about every outfit.[4]
Rarely one to take the straight-forward route, Bernays didn’t demand a change in packaging from the company but instead – by planting supportive articles in fashionable magazines and hosting “green balls” where, perhaps obviously, everyone invited wore green in an environment decorated with the same –, he created a massive fashion trend for the color green. It worked. People wore more green and Lucky Strike, appearing well ahead of the game, became a popular brand accessory.
I noticed the name next to you was D Martin, I assume David Martin? I would love to see the whole presentation as it seems that the 2 of you should make a very good team. Thanks, Ken.
You didn't need more time to convey your context and your message. You noticed that many people were going along with obvious false narratives, and you responded to your obligation, viz. to explain what was happening. For more details, they can read your book. Thank you, Dr Desmet.
Hi! Do you know where I can see the whole meeting?
At the end of the speech, we hear the following: "It's time to start telling that you feel that there is something wrong, because otherwise we will go to a state in which nobody can stop the system anymore, simply because it's not only an elite that... a cruel elite, or an evil elite that mismanages the world. It's much more than that. It's a mass that is on the move. It's a blind, societal system of which nobody is in control anymore."
Let us assume that everybody refrains from telling around that something is wrong. Then cash money will be made obsolete, programmable digital money will introduced, social credit will be enforced and the digital gulag will become a reality worldwide. Once we are there, will we be in "a blind, societal system of which nobody is in control anymore"?
I have the impression that the ones controlling today the BIS and everything else will still be in control of everything and most certainly will be the ones programming the digital money that defines the quota of meat I can buy or the air travel ticket I am allowed to purchase according to my carbon footprint.
Thank you Mattias for this very clear and concise intervention. It motivated me to make it's transcription and subtitles in EN and FR :
https://dieudo.fr/wiki/Mattias_Desmet/2023.09.19
https://tube.aquilenet.fr/w/dWyWbUGAz1pLTbf7t8P4KU
Fascinating ideas: Totalitarianism is different than a dictatorship in that the population buys the narrative the elite sell thus becoming the cause of their own enslavement, but the atomization of society leads to the population being susceptible to the propaganda/ideology/promises/narrative to begin with. The atomization of society seems to be the product of materialism itself... the good life outside the family structure materialism promises to provide. I also like the idea how when interests converge (financial, bureaucratic, political, and other) the narrative gets set in motion and can be self-sustaining even as fewer and fewer and fewer benefit. My own take is you can't have freedom/quality of life without virtue as our vice always enslaves ourselves and others and is the the reason libertarianism is doomed to fail.
Thank you for speaking truthfully to this elite gathering of European leaders.
I'm curious about a word you used a couple of times in your speech that I could not understand or hear clearly. I would appreciate it if you could tell me what the word was. Here is the part of the sentence that the word is found for the first time.
". . .which tried to impose its will to society, not anovicly as the ancient elite did. . ."
I cannot find this word in my dictionary, and I may not have spelled it correctly.
"not in an overt way, as the ancient elite did" 5:03
"the elite couldn't impose its will again, in an overt way" 5:24
Did I spell “anovicly” correctly? My very large unabridged dictionary did not include this word. From the context, I gathered the meaning. The opposite of covert or overt.
I hear him saying it as "overt," but with his accent. "Anovicly" to my knowledge is not a word.
Thanks. Now I hear it. In addition to his accent, my hearing isn't what it used to be.
I’m always disappointed when a video doesn’t have the option of closed captioning.
There has always been an "elite" that has taken control with the means of propaganda. Just ask the Pope ;-) But with the advent of the Internet, propaganda in the old sense no longer works properly. No one can control information centrally. So what does one do "as a descendant of the Pope"? One may think about turning the table and simply flooding society with bullshit (as it happens today), which goes quite automatically in the online world of machines. And since information, knowledge and wisdom (as Henry I noted) are highly different kinds of intelligence, the "educated" masses easily end up in a new Middle Ages where everyone "can read" and has full access to the world library. But only some bright minds are able to make sense and see clearly.
So it is indeed very important that more and more people start to raise their voice to fight totalitarianism. But it is also important WHO speaks out. And eventually that true wisdom (like in my opinion Mattias' insights) is amplified and "bullshit" is somehow defused. But who could or should decide what is worth amplifying and what is not? The broad masses themselves? Blind or even „woke“ algorithms? Mass censoring "Google?" "Wise" climate apostles and endtime apologists like DANiel SchmachtenberGER who seem to prefer endless monologues rather than discussing their arguments with others but yes-men (btw: I'd like to see a discussion between Mattias and Daniel ;-)? I don't think so. So how can we solve this EDUCATION PROBLEM without ending in totalitarianism, censorship and the new holy inquisition?
In the early draft I sent you in February, I remember a headline I put "The Ghastly Problem of Propaganda". As you said, the public sphere has become so saturated with Propaganda, that one starts to see ghosts, propaganda where no exists. Accusations you faced about being "controlled opposition" I think are a good demonstration of that. Ultimately, propaganda results in a crisis of truth, where ultimately authorities resort to force to sustain collective myths and maintain prevailing social order.
I think it is important to recognize that propaganda is also a function of civilization complexity. It is harder, though not impossible to start believing in a false narrative about things happening in your village. However, its much easier to be fooled when you don't have deep knowledge about what you are interacting with.
I love how you mention expressing what one feels, no more or less, as a solution to the problem. Maybe we can lean on the terrific power of human intuition to find our way through this mess. Macgilchrist mentions how rationality is what one clings to, when trust/or certain faculties of the mind has gone away (paraphrased). One attempts to build the world part by part, when one can no longer understand things holistically.
One of the reasons we cling to rationalist-materialist worldview, since we do not know what will fill the gap. Rationality is tool, but in the vacuum left by religious-monarchist collapse (partly due to its own glaring shortcomings) it became our worldview.
I read the address you gave in Prague on 2nd December, 2006. I begin to see in that speech itself, how beginning from defending clinical psychology against empiricism, lead you to a larger critique of rationalistic-materialistic worldview itself.
Excellent speech. Every one of your points in 8 minutes! And, you had time to breathe.
He is so good. Isn’t he?
Hearing your words again inspires me to read your book a second time. Thank you!
One day, when the history of the 2020s will be written into the future history books, you sir will get your own chapter!
Ahh, Shifting Baseline Disorder, too, Mattias . . . and with AI-Mixed Reality-Virtual Reality-Augmentaed Reality, we are on a steep and quickening of circling the proverbial drain.
He's off on Soviet Union history, and alas, how man Russian cities did USA and UK want to nuke during Oppen-Monster-Heimer's conflicted genocidal bomb making?
Whipping up fear, uh? Nothing like a good war to get millions to go all in and kill each other, and then, destroy countries.
Viagra and Libya?
Doesn't take much to destroy a country, people, generations afterward.
We Used to Call These Moves, 'daft,' 'queer,' 'inane' and grotesque: Here, Bernays.
but in the Post Edward Bernays World of Getting Women (not his wife, though) to suck on cancer sticks for the perceived coolness of it, we will see more of this 3rd grade reading level shit!!!!!!
Here, Eddy boy:
Standard American policy (among everyday people as much as politicians) for a long time maintained that what the rest of the world was up to was really none of our business. This changed right about the time we entered the first world war, though even having entered it, public opinion mostly stood opposed. It was Edward Bernays’ first large-scale project in fact, working on a team for the military to convince the average Joe that war was good and right. As such, Bernays helped to present a paint-by-number framework for such convincing that governments have since mastered – with flair.]
Another?
Our more extravagant meal was conjured up when Edward Bernays secured the Beech-Nut Packing Company as a client who wanted him to raise their pork sales. Bernays went to work collecting testimony from nearly 5,000 doctors across the U.S. who said simply that a heavier breakfast was a healthier one, while some of them specifically cited bacon and eggs as an example. The ploy worked.
+--+
How many die form cigarettes? Tobacco kills up to half of its users. · Tobacco kills more than 8 million people each year, including 1.3 million non-smokers who are exposed to second hand smoke.
+--+
That cancerous smile, Eddy Boy?
Edward Bernays was hired by Alcoa to present industrial-grade fluoride, a common byproduct (and regulated pollutant) produced by the manufacture of its big seller, aluminum, as a benefit to public health. Bernays himself is quoted as saying that he took the job because he was fascinated to see if he could convince an entire nation to vote against what it knew instinctively to be its own good health interests. Using methods like calling up every dictionary and encyclopedia he could find and having them add a then-non-existent entry on “fluoridation,” giving the whole concept a sense of authority, he, as per usual, succeeded with flying colors.
+---+
Bernays literally wrote the book on an idea he termed “engineering consent.” He presented the argument that democracy could not be left in the hands of the unwashed masses, that the world’s wealthy and powerful must protect those lower on the class rung from themselves. The method of providing this protection was to manipulate their votes by the same kinds of campaigns which Bernays had perfected, all the while promoting the beauty of free election.
+--+
"Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government." -- Bernays
Lucky Strike cigarettes proudly bore a bright green package when they hired Bernays to raise sales. Through polling, he discovered that women in particular were opposed to the brand because it clashed with just about every outfit.[4]
Rarely one to take the straight-forward route, Bernays didn’t demand a change in packaging from the company but instead – by planting supportive articles in fashionable magazines and hosting “green balls” where, perhaps obviously, everyone invited wore green in an environment decorated with the same –, he created a massive fashion trend for the color green. It worked. People wore more green and Lucky Strike, appearing well ahead of the game, became a popular brand accessory.
It is not only time to start speaking out; it is way past time to speak out. Thank you Mattias for your strength and integrity!!
Thank you! We all need to do our part to speak up, even if only 1 other person hears us and is convinced. You encourage me to keep speaking!