Has mind control become required for real progression today?

by sabastious 10 Replies latest jw friends

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  sabastious

  Reading through Combatting Cult Mind Control has got me to thinking...

  Cult behaviours are found in an alarmingly high amount of groups. Just start naming off large groups off the top of your head:

  National Football League
  Salvation Army
  Democrat and Republican Parties
  Pokemon (Nintendo)
  Free Masons

  It seems like today groups need to apply forms of Mind Control to ensure that their mission is accomplished.

  I'm starting to think that without total servitude from your members some things just can't be accomplished because of the sheer diversity of humankind.

  -Sab
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  brotherdan

  Mind control exists EVERYWHERE. I work in marketing and I know that all advertisers use certain manipulation tactics. Look at any commercial. They are wanting to make you think that you NEED their product. In most cases...you probably don't need it. But if they can keep their product in your face for long enough and make you think that everyone else is using it and enjoying it, then you will be more likely to buy it.

  I think Stephen Hasaan even talks about this. Mind control is a part of everyones everyday life. But there are DANGEROUS forms of mind control and there are non dangerous forms. Obviously the way that the WT uses mind control is destructive towards a persons life and family and this makes it a destructive mind control cult. But other means of persuation are innocent and not dangerous (IMO).
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  Curtains

  Good topic sabastious. Its a life skill when you can recognise when there is persuasion going on. We have to learn to evaluate whether or not we really do want to go along with a particular course and then be assertive and say no as clearly as we can.
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  VoidEater

  Question marketing
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  Lady Lee

  There are many levels of persuasion, starting from education at one end of a continuum and going through to mind control on the other end.

  Propaganda, persuasion, advertising all fit somewhere in the middle.

  Mind control doesn't give you any outs. It is total control over every aspect of your life.

  I would not be able to classify what a sports team does to its players in the same league "you must win" with what a cult does to its members "you must stick with us or die". If I choose to play for a certain team it doesn't mean if I leave no one will talk to me any more or that I can't go off and play some other sport.

  I wouldn't put advertising in the same league either. Just because they say their product is the best doesn't mean we have top buy it "or else".

  Lumping them all into the same category diminishes the impact of what life is like inside a cult.
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  Finally-Free

  I find it in the workplace, especially since I'm in a political environment. Reading Steve Hassans books helped me identify it here. No, our lives aren't being threatened here, but our livlihoods could be in jeapordy if we give a hint of disagreement regarding certain party policies.

  W
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  ProdigalSon

  In this world, mind control starts right out of the womb, and in some cases even while IN the womb we begin getting programmed. TV, radio, games, movies, teachers, parents, friends, and music all pitch in to formulate to some degree who we think we are, while the true inherited self gets buried and lost in all the confusion. Suffering begins shortly afterward, when we begin striving for goals that we were told were the ones we should strive for, which can vary greatly depending on what culture we are born into. If we should fall short, we think we've failed, when it was really someone else's expectation of what we should do with our lives.

  If and when we get past all that, we can truly call ourselves "free spirits".
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  Hoffnung

  Mind control is a marketing tool used by many. JW employ to the extent it is destructive for their victims, as they are completely dependent on it. That it is a very effective tool, the nazis proved with their Ministry of Information (aka propaganda), and it destroyed Europe almost completely. Mind control must be kept under control. Just how do you go about it? That is one hell of a question.
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  sabastious

  Good replies all!

  -Sab
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  Liberty93

  All of the opprobrium heaped on the Masons is so silly. They're just a social club these days. And even when they weren't, they were more involved in self-discovery than in advancing the Secret Illuminati Plot to Corner the Barley Commodities Market or whatever. And they sure as HELL wouldn't have inducted Jay-Z... ;-)