Is it Culture, or is it Brainwashing?
Back to Philosophical Considerations
We can all easily see that people like the Iraqis have been brainwashed to believe things that we know aren't true. They have been propagandized to believe that we, Americans, are ruthless Imperialists, merciless barbarians who will torture and kill captured enemy soldiers, etc. They actually believe these things, and would argue with you in a determined manner to sustain them. Likewise the North Koreans, who daily issue statements saying that if we, America, dare attack them we'll be really sorry we did. Are we going to attack the North Koreans? I doubt it.
So, are we brainwashed? Well, it depends on your point of view. In my view we are extensively brainwashed. Not only in political matters, but also in personal matters. I'll leave the political stuff out of this and just look at the personal stuff. Let's take one of my favorite examples. Have you ever noticed how they put toothpaste on a brush in all the ads. They swipe it from end to end of the brush with a curl on the end, right? Do you do that? If you do, you're using about ten times more toothpaste than it takes to do the job. Try putting a dab the size of a green pea on your brush and see if you think you don't have enough suds or flavor in your mouth.
Big deal. Well if you multiply it by 300,000,000 times a couple of times per day, it amounts to a rather enormous heap of toothpaste. In fact it amounts to a toothpaste industry that's ten times bigger than it needs to be.
Let's just estimate it. Lets say that a family of four brushing their teeth twice a day use one tube of toothpaste every two weeks. So twenty-four tubes a year at say $2.50 a tube is $60 per year. So with four in the family it's $15 per person. Now, multiply by 300,000,000 people in America and it's a staggering $4,500,000,000 per year. Four and a half billion dollars for toothpaste!
Good thing for them. Bad thing for us and worse still for the environment. How did they get us to do this? Oh yeah, they just implied it by example in their ads.
Ok, so we use too much toothpaste, so what? Well, what about soap, perfume, hair styling products, fabric softeners, etc. etc. etc. Soap is what is known as an emollient. It helps grease and oil dissolve in water. If you just handled a slab of bacon or changed the oil in your car, you need soap to get it off your hands. Do you need soap to get all that grease off your whole body every day? What grease? Your skin has natural oils it secretes in moderation. Why? Because it helps keep bacteria from getting into your pores and starting infections. Do we want to remove all that natural oil every day? Oh, but we use skin lotion to replace it and keep our skin healthy. Are you beginning to see what I'm getting at. Have you ever heard the saying, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." Rinse with hot water in the shower and don't use soap unless you're greasy.
Now let's get down to one of the most incredible (and evil) pieces of personal brainwashing we have in America. Ready? Feminine hygiene. Eeeeek, no we can't talk about THAT!
Well we're going to. Do you suppose that we evolved so that the scent that women have between their legs is offensive to men? Would that promote survival and effective reproduction through the ages? On the contrary, one would suppose that we would have evolved so that the scent that women have between their legs would be exceedingly attractive to men. And in fact, if you ask most men (there are exceptions, but not many) and if those men tell you the truth, which they might not if you who are asking are a woman, they will admit that the scent women have between their legs is sublime, unique in it's effect, and exceedingly attractive. The faintest whiff of that particular scent will give most healthy men an erection. Find me a perfume that can do that! But, the feminine hygiene industry has convinced a large number of women that that animal scent is offensive. It must be eliminated and replaced by raspberry! Crap. But, it's a billion dollar industry, again bad for us and bad for the environment. Just look at the picture below. Is this the most heartless evil thing you've ever seen? It's from an old ad about..... feminine hygiene.
Are we brainwashed yet?
Why do we have unscented products? Why do we have scented products is my question. If I didn't make a concerted effort to avoid it, I'd smell like a House of Ill Repute that had collided with a perfume tanker. How dare they perfume my laundry detergent, my soap, my toilet paper, my paper towels, my dishwashing detergent, and most every other thing I use? If I want to perfume myself, I'll buy perfume! But, if I didn't avoid it like the plague, I'd be wearing nine or ten different perfumes all the time. Where do they get this? Now this may be a radical thing to say, but normal healthy human beings don't stink.
And on and on and on. Do we need all those fancy clothes, those expensive cars, that gold wristwatch for $11,999.99, special (exceedingly provocative) clothes to run and get sweaty in for only $333.33, that new house with ten bedrooms for three people, that bikini that amounts to two pieces of string and four square inches of cloth for $179.99?
What about shaving? Do I "wear" a beard? Do you "wear" your eyebrows? I naturally have hair on my face. So do most male Homo Sapiens. But now any man who doesn't shave the hair off his face is wearing a beard? Isn't that backwards?
Are you AFFLICTED with baldness? The last time I was exposed to television, which was a while ago, the boys on Advertising Row were up to a new campaign of self serving evil. Every few minutes a commercial, "Are you afflicted with baldness?" it began. And then some bald guy is shown being intimidated by everything from pool balls to the dome on the library building. Since when is baldness an affliction? I thought it was a natural condition common to our species. Noooooo, we can cure this affliction. For only some exorbitant amount of money we can surgically transplant hair follicles from who knows where to your scalp. Just shows how manipulating one word can change the whole nature of something. Are you afflicted with red hair? Are you afflicted with blue eyes? Bad part is, they've succeed in making a lot of men feel bad about themselves. But that's what they're after, isn't it? Every man in America who's bald should sue them.
What about underarms? Do we have to talk about this? Well, no, but let's anyway? Why do we have hair under our arms? Well, nature put it there for at least two reasons. One, it acts as a wick to help perspiration cool the blood in the arteries that are close to the surface in this protected part of our bodies. Two, it keeps the skin in the fold from rubbing against itself, thereby rubbing bacteria into our pores. Same for the hair in our "other place". It keeps our "other places" from rubbing violently together skin on skin when we do what we don't like to admit we all do. It's part of our natural immune system. Should we shave it off? I personally don't think so. This is one of the most persistent pieces of brainwashing I have encountered. When I say to other men, "I like women with hair under their arms," almost all of them say, "Ewwwwwwwwwww!" Good thing they didn't live in the Middle Ages.
Has it ever occurred to you that people got along just fine for more than 100,000 years without any of this stuff. If we piled up all this stuff we use in a year it would probably bury New York City fifty feet deep. Are we brainwashed?
Tommy Atkinson
What about death?
Lets not talk about that. Why? Well, death is a mistake in the design of nature or creation if you prefer, but medical science is going to set it straight, right? That's what our culture tells us on the subject. It's unfair we have to die, but we're not going to tolerate it much longer.
Just recently a new cult emerged that claims to be cloning humans. Why? It's the first step to immortality they say. From that I take it they intend to clone new bodies for themselves and transplant their brains into them when they get old. But wait a minute, what are they going to do with the brains from the cloned human beings? You can bet they plan to flush them down the toilet. Is this not the most egotistical thing you've ever heard of? We're going to have to define a new crime. Brain flushing!
And, in the meantime, we have all manner of creams, medicines, herbs, plastic surgery, makeup, wigs, etc. etc. for you to buy so you won't look like you're getting old. And, when your time comes, we have medical treatments that, for enormous amounts of money, will prolong your miserable existence for another few months. You too can lie on your deathbed with tubes coming out of every orifice in your body and suffer.
Now, most people don't want to die, it's our survival instinct. If we didn't have this instinct, we wouldn't be viable in the real world. But, most cultures acknowledge that we're mortal. We have a finite lifetime, and death is its natural end. Most cultures prepare their members for this so they can meet their end with dignity. But not ours. Ours terrorizes us so we meet our end in despair and fear. Why? To sell us all that junk.
So what would the world be like if we did succeed in abolishing death? Well, our already excessive population would go right off the scale. To deal with this we'd have to stop having children. So there we'd be, a static population of people who in a short time would have nothing to look forward to but an eternity of boredom. Let's get real.
Tommy Atkinson
What about being overweight?
I read recently that more than 60% of Americans are significantly overweight. What causes this? Well, from the physical point of view, it's caused by eating more food than we burn up. There are no other physical causes. If you doubt this go to Ethiopia while they're having a famine. There is nobody whose "glands" keep them from losing weight when there's nothing to eat.
Well why do we eat more than we burn up? I hate to get boring here, but again I point the finger at commerce, advertising, and merchandising. Just the same as we are manipulated to be frustrated and buy all manner of junk in hopes it will satisfy us, so we are manipulated to eat to try to feel satisfied. To help it along they do the same as the toothpaste guys. Supersize that sir? Oh yeah, and the sweet part of it is, now they can sell us all manner of weight loss products too. Another billion dollar industry. Damn we have a great economy!
Doctor I have anxiety attacks!
Oh well, that's no problem, here's a prescription for Prozak(tm). Next!
To me this typifies how we miss the point. If you have anxiety, there's a reason somewhere. It's like pain. Pain exists to tell us something's wrong. What would you think if you went to your doctor with a rat trap snapped shut on your fingers and said, "Doctor my fingers hurt," and he replied, "Oh well, that's no problem, here's a prescription for morphine,"?
Clearly removing the rat trap from your fingers would be a lot better, wouldn't it? But what about your anxiety? Wouldn't it be better to fix whatever's making you anxious? It's not as easy, but at least you'd have a life. Could it be that you've been brainwashed into leading a life that doesn't suit your animal nature? Could it be that riding in mortal peril on the freeway in rush hour traffic every day for an hour is scaring you? Could it be that you live with a spouse who doesn't really know you or care about you? Could it be that your boss is an evil tyrant? Could it be that your job is an inhuman bore? My advise is, don't look at things that counteract your symptoms. Look at what causes your symptoms. And then envision a life you can live in and be happy. Find someone who truly loves you and make it happen.
But, I can't. Bah! If you say you can't, you won't. First, get rid of your television. (Put it in the basement in a box if you aren't sure about this.) Now you'll find that for a few weeks, you have the urge to reach for that remote and turn the thing on. Grit your teeth and resist. After a while it'll go away. In the meantime, you're going to have a lot of time on your hands. Spend your time thinking about your life. Start imagining a different life for yourself. Design it to be doable. Talk to people about it. Then take a step. Look for a new job if that's what you need. Tell your spouse you want a divorce if that's what you need. Tell your mother in law to mind her own business and get a life of her own if that's it. Once you make a first step you'll probably feel an incredible feeling of relief. Why? Because you're no longer trapped. Do it.
Tommy Atkinson