Discussion Groups / English Usage / January 2007

Philosophy can be briefly defined as thinking. Thinking about what surrounds
us, what we are part of and what we are ourselves. Such thinking is
motivated by one's eagerness to get to know the truth - to comprehend the
matters which are not clear and explicit at a glance. During such thinking,
or reflecting upon the basis of every being, we rely on the knowledge that
we have acquired by means of perception as well as that handed down by some
authority and accepted by us. The effectiveness of searching for the truth
through considering all that one knows depends largely on that part of our
knowledge that we have taken for granted without any proof of its accuracy.
This knowledge is usually absorbed while we are children - meek and aware of
their inferiority to adults, children accept everything they're told. In
today's world a man is doomed to absorb data which gets to his head not
accidentally but with full premeditation of those who have power, control
the media and create the system. Those who once grasped the power and felt
the pleasure of ruling are now striving to preserve society in a state of
widespread irresponsibility, indiscipline and dependency to make it easy to
control. Such pseudo-human plasticine-like mass with no principles and
objectives is easily moulded into shapes devised by the devilish authority.

The process of thinking is accompanied by, or rather made of, synthesis and
analysis of present states aiming to find their reasons and consequences.
Thinking is facilitated by knowledge and gathering knowledge is, in turn,
facilitated by sharp senses sensitive to external stimuli. Sensitivity thus
determines penetration of thoughts. Human sensitivity is dangerous for those
craving full and constant control over the masses. There are different
techniques of deadening human minds, being the process opposite to
sensitizing. A perfect tool in the hands of manipulators is television.
Images that reach the recipients are often a blend of emotional stimuli with
opposite charges. This means that what the viewer receives is a combination
of documentary on cruelty like rapes, murders and mass butchery, then some
scenes showing a celebrity or a millionaire wallowing in luxury (to trigger
mass yearning for lucre, thus escalating greed and demand for goods). These
are followed by a warm picture of happy children, only to cut it after a
while and start the bittersweet medley over again. Such stroboscopic
manipulation of people's feelings results in the brain's torpor,
indifference and susceptibility to further information delivered by the
manipulators. In other words, exposure to second-long mental strains spiced
with different emotions without proper time for consideration and taking an
attitude causes mental indigestion and intellectual constipation, so much
desired in the masses by their leaders.

There is a remedy for slavery to this informational trash, which we are
exposed to far and wide, which penetrates the mind and remains in it. The
remedy is as simple as it is hard to realize - isolation from mass media,
temporary alienation from society and meticulous scrutiny of all that we
know and have been told. The world we live in does not facilitate this task,
on the contrary - it created the system, part of which a man becomes from
his birth and then sticks to it due to its visual attractiveness. Later
spends his entire life making himself busy to distract his mind from
thinking about the end. In order to free ourselves and survive we have to
get to hate the status quo, decide to live and be born again.

mike