Is the cause of division also the cure?
How governments and media manipulate us and what to do about it
Perhaps you’ve had this experience: you’re having a conversation with a friend who believes that what the government is currently telling them is true. This could be that masks work, vaccines are safe and effective, ivermectin is nothing more than horse dewormer, or something else.
You present them with all the evidence you have that indicates otherwise: fact after incontrovertible fact.
As far as you’re concerned, the case you are making is undeniable. At the very least, it is compelling enough to justify further investigation. Despite this, your friend dismisses it entirely and sticks to their position.
Sound familiar? It can be a shocking and demoralising moment. Sometimes the fall-out from such a conversation is so great, it damages the relationship altogether. I know families that are no longer speaking to one other as a result of their differing views. How is this possible? How have we become so polarised, so divided?
I asked David Charalambous about this. He is a behavioural analyst with a deep understanding of why we behave the way we do, and what influences us. We like to think we make independent, intelligent choices, but the reality is we are subject to deep-rooted evolutionary impulses that can easily override rational thinking. Behavioural science seeks to understand these impulses.
David explained to me how governments have taken this understanding and weaponised it against their own people. As things stand, our governments currently know more about how we behave and make decisions than we do. It’s a bit like trying to fight machine guns with bayonets: we the people are outgunned.
What can we do in the face of such an unfair advantage? We can skill up. We need to arm ourselves with the same knowledge that governments are using against us. Once we can see through their tactics, we can free ourselves from their influence. More importantly, we can use this understanding to inform how we communicate with friends and family in a way that bridges the divide and brings us together again. Governments have been so good at leading us to believe there are two ‘sides’ – and that one is right while the other is wrong. It is a classic strategy of ‘divide and conquer’ that keeps governments in control.
In my conversation with David, he gave clear and practical tips on how we can communicate in a way that dispels the fiction that we are the enemy. This approach is grounded in understanding and compassion, and it makes me hopeful that we can reclaim the lost ‘common ground’ where open conversations, questioning and exploration can take place without fear of reprisals.
Our conversation will be posted here this Sunday at 10:30am. It goes public the following Tuesday. I really hope you will tune in: the more of us who understand how to override divisive government tactics, the more quickly we can heal rifts and make our communities whole again.
Also…
Dr Anna Forbes (who appeared in my first Tess Talks episode) suggested I let my subscribers know about her upcoming course, which I am very happy to do:
Moving into Private Practice with Integrative Medicine
2-day course: Saturday 7th - Sunday 8th May
Dr Anna Forbes will be running a two-day course offering simple and effective naturopathic approaches that you can rapidly apply and integrate into your current clinical skill set to move swiftly into private practice using Integrative Medicine.
This training is for qualified practitioners that are looking to move into private practice:
Doctors
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The course will be held in London, on Saturday, May 7th, and Sunday, May 8th for £365. This fee covers lunch, tea, and coffee on both days.
Alternatively, you can attend online, which will be live-streamed on Zoom for £295. A recording will be available after this event.
EARLY BIRD TICKETS ARE AVAILABLE UNTIL MONDAY 18TH APRIL - IN PERSON £299, ONLINE £249.
Listen to Anna's overview of the course here:
https://www.tickettailor.com/events/annaforbes/681765
This course was designed by Dr Anna Forbes and 10% of the proceeds from the event will be donated to MHS (My Health Society).
I would give an enthusiastic YES to your question, Tess! Nearly a year ago, I launched my Substack with the aim of unmasking totalitarianism and awakening the sleeping before tyranny triumphs. I felt understanding the mechanisms of propaganda was so crucial to that undertaking, I made it the topic of my first post:
• “Primer for the Propagandized: Fear Is the Mind Killer” (https://margaretannaalice.substack.com/p/a-primer-for-the-propagandized)
In that piece, I describe the formula for achieving mass control:
The recipe is simple. Take a naturally occurring phenomenon, say a seasonal virus, and exaggerate its threat far beyond every imagining—despite exhaustive evidence to the contrary. Suppress, silence, ostracize, and demonize every individual who dares present facts that expose the false mono-narrative.
Whip up a witches’ brew of anger, envy, and, most importantly, fear, escalating emotions to a boil so as to short-circuit our faculties of reason and logic.
Isolate us from one another, supplant real-world interactions with virtual feuds, label nonconformists as a threat to the group, and pump the public with a disinformation campaign designed to confuse and atomize. In essence, foster a cultlike mentality that shuts down thought to guarantee assent.
Cultivate and wield our cognitive biases—especially ingroup bias, conformity bias, and authority bias—against us in a comprehensive divide-and-conquer policy that keeps us too busy squabbling amongst ourselves to recognize and unite against those corralling us into a Matrix-like collective delusion that enables the powerful to extract our resources for their own gain.
This ideological mass psychosis is religion—not science. If this were about science, the Media–Pharmaceutical–Big-Tech complex would not be memory-holing every dissenting voice, vilifying every thought criminal, and censoring every legitimate inquiry in quest of the truth.
thank you, and I look forward to hearing this discussion on Sunday.
I have a very good, lifelong friend from childhood. She and I both held similar political views (left of center) for many years, until I stepped away from that position while she moved farther to the left. I underwent some traumatic experiences which allowed me to peek behind the curtain of the government manipulations, and that created in me a desire to learn the truth, no matter where I was led, and to question. My good friend became more entrenched in holding fast to the "correctness" of her views, and consensus which made her feel virtuous. I love her dearly, and decided the friendship is more important than "being right," since I could not convince her, and since she also believes she is "right." An impasse.
So I have avoided political discussion and we have plenty to talk about otherwise. When she brings up political things, I agree with whatever I can agree with (there is always common ground) and otherwise stay silent. I have always, throughout, been hoping that somehow the hypnosis on the population would break, and she would begin to question. Hasn't happened yet.
My point here is mainly that I have observed that she continues to maintain the "left-right" paradigm, while moving farther and farther to the left. I have stepped outside that paradigm and see the manipulations. I cannot unsee or go back. I do not align with either of the two parties and I'm turned off by the labels and pigeonholing. I relate to people as individuals. I consider issues from all sides.
She believes that I am "more conservative" than she is. I just see things as issues. For example, an issue of who cares about the environment. Well, the left obviously does, and the right is selfish and wants to destroy the environment. (actually, no.....). The truth is that the majority of people care about the environment. But how many of them see humans as a legitimate part of the environment, as opposed to a parasite which needs to be destroyed?
More and more people identify as "independent" and not left or right. In the US, republicans and democrats each represent about 30% of the population, while independents are at about 40%. The largest group. And it is growing.