The Challenges of Defending Your Child’s Mind from Propaganda

Screen Shot 2014-10-23 at 11.13.40 AMIn great empires the people who live in the capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them, scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies. To them this amusement compensates the small difference between the taxes which they pay on account of the war, and those which they had been accustomed to pay in time of peace.They are commonly dissatisfied with the return of peace, which puts an end to their amusement, and to a thousand visionary hopes of conquest and national glory from a longer continuance of the war. 

– Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations

Let’s face it, your child’s mind is fertile ground for oligarchs, corrupt politicians and any other thieving member of the so-called “ruling elite” who aim to enslave the masses both mentally and monetarily. Unfortunately, the propaganda that comes from the government and our largest corporations is perceived as being absolute truth by most people. If you’re like me, at one point in time you had to wake up to it all and accept that you had been completely brainwashed for the first few decades for your life.

On a parental level, defending my child’s mind against blatant lies and deceit from the media, military industrial complex and corporatism is really not that difficult. But what about their grandparents, cousins or the kids next door?

I truly believe that most Americans suffer from Stockholm Syndrome, a psychological phenomenon where the victim identifies with the attacker to the point they will even defend their captor and even treat certain forms of abuse as a form of compassion.

We see this everywhere; especially around election time, where the voters defend all kinds of atrocities and criminal actions by our elected officials.

The mobs, of course, love the abuse and crimes against humanity. They probably even feel patriotic if the guy committing the crimes is of the same political affiliation they identify with.

When I am home with the kids, observing this type of behavior is easy to discuss – right and wrong is sort of natural for the kids. It’s the adults in their lives who inject a lot of bad philosophy into their lives and unfortunately for most of us reading this blog, the adults have some influence in our children’s lives.

I feel like I have to tread carefully. I mean I am talking about people I love very much: grandparents, neighbors, cousins, uncles…pretty much everyone in our lives. You would think that a non-violent philosophy focused on respecting other people and not forcing your will against others would be universally accepted, but in reality it’s not.

There’s a certain program that pretty much everyone follows. We nearly all accept the lie that every American soldier’s death was to defend our freedoms; that drugs, prostitution and other consensual acts are bad and should be outlawed. That Muslims are violent, that war is good for the economy and America has a free market system. Our society idolizes some of our biggest criminals. In fact, the bigger the crime, the more you are treated as a legend in many circles.

I often get frowns from my friends and family when I openly teach my children about the immoral aspects of government, or how we should be kind to others, even Iranians!

Sometimes the philosophy of respect can make you the oddball, and as a parent the last thing I want to do is make my kids feel weird or be treated like outcasts.

Ultimately, my children will have to make their own choices. I can’t expect them to go against the crowd like I have, but in the meantime I will defend their minds. Not by shutting out the people we love or the millions of Americans who suffer from Stockholm Syndrome. Rather, as a father I will give them real choices: the choice between violence and volunteerism, and the choice between discriminating against other people because of imaginary borders and superficial differences and respecting others.

– The Dissident Dad

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20 thoughts on “The Challenges of Defending Your Child’s Mind from Propaganda”

  1. The good news; even grandpa can get his mind clear, when honestly facing the correct information, and the internet is making the deconversion easier than ever.

    What really sucks is that as far as I can tell, the most deluded sheep are in the USA.

    You might enjoy my favorite story for illustrating the true nature of freedom:

    http://www.abelard.org/e-f-russell.php

    Reply
    • It’s not just in the US. I’m in London, England and I feel very lonely in my views. I’m always the weirdo, the cynic etc. British people have major Stockholm Syndrome when it comes to “respectable institutions”. BBC can do no wrong.

      Only posts like this and people identifying is keeping me sane. It appears I’m not alone

    • I’m sure the deluded are everywhere, but we don’t have nearly as much of an excuse in the US – we’re supposed to know what freedom means better than anyone, and it makes me want to puke that it’s so bad in reality.

      Of course the English produced the Magna Carta, and they also learned the true meaning of freedom from Gandhi, so American Exceptionalism isn’t the whole story, not by a long shot!

      No, absolutely you aren’t alone.

      “Cynic” is good – it means you’re honest.

      “Weirdo” is also good – it means you’ve escaped the sugar-coated moral decay and kept your standards. It means you haven’t fallen for the inverted cave-man tribalism currently destroying civilization.

      Are you familiar with the two moral systems described by Nietzsche – the “Slavish” versus “Aristocratic” – in “Genealogy Of Morals?”

      Sowell’s “Vision Of The Anointed” and “Conflict Of Visions” speaks to the same distinction:

      The “Slave” moral system is characterized by ‘good people versus evil’ and it’s the job of good people to identify and smite the evil, who are approximately ally unredeemable and most commonly they get identified with shifting criteria by some schmuck who isn’t thinking straight anyway because he’s emotional.

      The “Aristocratic” or “Free” mentality is characterized as ‘good versus bad’ where the job of the good people is to help the bad people become useful again, usually by informing them, and their mistakes are identified according to the standards of logic and evidence which literally built civilization, and is indirectly the primary cause of approximately all contemporary human success. It can most succinctly be described as “but how do you know?”

      They don’t have symmetrical views of each other, which sometimes creates the pathetic spectacle of some slave trying to smite the person trying to help him get free.

      If you find yourself trying to eliminate or marginalize someone, you’re probably doing it wrong.

      If you find yourself trying to inform or help someone who seems to hate you for it, you’re doing it right.

      Because the two major political factions DO have symmetrical views of each other, and largely consider the other evil (or insane) you can be sure neither is operating by the “Free” moral system.

      Indeed, slavish states can work up an incredible frenzy of bullshit about each other, but two people both operating by proper standards can, at worst, agree to disagree.

      Hang in there!

  2. you cannot so easily defend your childs mind. life is relavistic. people only learn about the propoganda after they’ve educated themselves, not allowed the system to indoctrinate them.

    children learn not only from parents but from peers in their environment. homeschool your kids and you risk isolating and sheltering them, put your kids in the wrong school, or any school for that matter, and they will be exposed to plenty of negative skewed perceptions of the world, not to mention ‘bad influences’ such as drugs, time wasting , excessive violence, excessive political correctness, excessive patriotism , or hosts of other isms.

    the difficulty is in trying to expose a child to negative things and SHOW them the negative aspects of these things , instead of isolating the child from these things entirely.

    to understand propoganda , and how it skews our perception, we need to think about and learn about the world, particularly the bad parts of the world. “out of sight , out of mind” is acutally the credo of the propogandists. it works to their favor. because skepticism and ananlytic caution are fostered by constant exposure and trained analysis of information—not by merely being away from information.

    thus———to train a child to be at least somewhat of a critical thinker is difficult as it requires one to take risks exposing the child to lots of things.

    in my own childhood, i was sent to to a private religoius grade school where violence was frowned upon seriously. however, my residence was very far away from the school in an area where there were some violent white trash families living around the blocks i lived on. my brother taught me how to fight starting at about 7 years of age because he himself was beat up routinely by these kids and eventually had to learn how to fight for himself as my father was largely useless in that area.

    the net result was i NEVER had problems at my gradeschool and was able to actually physically stick up for kids at grade school and even got into some fights myself because i was not overly scared of violence. most of the kids in private religious grade school are. they are correctly taught from a young age that violence is a fools game and that civilized people talk out there problems. however THEY ARE NOT EXPOSED TO VIOLENCE at all and overly sheltered, and so they generally grow up with a skewed way of thinking that is dangerous and naive.

    i’m sure it’s tough being a dad…..

    Reply
    • “teslark’s” comment about private religious schools is way off mark, at least from my personal experience, having gone to three private religious schools (Baptist, Lutheran, Catholic) grades 1 through HS (in the 70’s to 80’s). As a non-religious observer/participant in these milieu I found them to be extremely treacherous and at times very violent places (by both students, teachers, & parents). I will give just two examples, and a short narrative to illustrate. 1.) in 2nd grade a mob of little b@$t@ds consistently hazed and severely beat a new kid over a 2 week period who was fat and tended to smell a bit funny — on his last day he was pushed to the ground and repeatedly kicked by a mob of 8 little monsters (which included 2 girls). He managed to break free of the mob after about 3 minutes of beating while teachers watched and did nothing and he ran off the school grounds to the safety of a nearby store and called his mom for help. 2.) In 5th grade I switched schools (from B to L) and was restrained by 4 little monsters while beaten by by a 5th — for a week this gang gave me problems until I publicly “called-out” the ring leader, in class, for a 1-on-1, no interference face-off right after school. A crowd gathered at the appointed time and place (including some teachers in the distance) but the tormentor did not show and fortunately left me alone the rest of my 3 yr there — though it was not a pleasant three years, being such a vile hypocritical place ( just like the B. School).

      In the all boys Catholic/Jesuit HS I attended, it wasn’t as bad as the B. & L. primary/middle schools — it was a more “civilized violence”. But physical brawls occurred every 2 or 3 mo. and the Jesuits tended to let the altercations occur and resolve themselves, as long as it appeared to be a fair fight, and then would send both parties to afterschool detention which usually involved the most demeaning and disgusting janitorial work they could come up with.

      Anyway, hardly a sheltered, nonviolent existence.

    • i was clearly generalizing. but there do exist some private and even some public shchools with cultures that are generaly anti-violent. some schools tolerate violence more than others but children are generally speaking inherently violent unless taught otherwise. that is what socialization is. not all children are inherently violence. but only some few need to be , and like a virus violence spreads naturally. similarly cooperation also spreads naturally. they are both natural instincts and exposure and education about both is useful and worthwhile.

      on the ‘cooperation’ side. i was basically indoctrinated to worship learning and education. taught to memorize things continuously for years, as many people are. but we are not taught WHY learning is good and HOW to learn to teach ourselves things. we are often implicityly taught that the cooperation embedded in our ecucational system is simply about memorizing and taking tests and hoop jumping.

      those are processes of socialization—the implicit coopeartion of being in a formal education program —-and abiding by its rules.
      socialization can take place in ANY context.

      the true value of LEARNING & cooperation—is to build a mental muscle for the virtues of critical thought, critical empathy, patience and contemplative approach towards PROBLEM SOLVING. not memorization. learning isn’t an obstacle. it’s a process. and there’s no real easy way of changing the fossilized educational system to incorporate this into it, while it is anchored towards its goals of social promotion, quota curve separation of groups, and generic babysitting.

      i am most certainly a fan of home schooling if done properly, but it is expensive and costly and has its risks.

      a mix of home schooling and tutoring and organized social outings for kids to get together and focus on explicit social team activities rather than ‘schooling’. could actually incorporate the best of all three worlds.

  3. Get ready for a long road. My children are 25 and 23. I was fully awake for half their childhood but was aware that something was wrong with the messages coming in well before they were born. I stayed home with them. I cooked real food and packed real lunches. They didn’t have cell phones until high school and we didn’t get involved in the gaming systems. I believe that “man grows and becomes like that which he thinks about” so we read and talked. They are wonderful people- but they do feel sometimes, as do I, that we are on the outside looking in. My advice is to find other people with the same values and surround your children with them so they do not feel alone. It probably is easier these days but a few years back I was practically accused of child abuse for not having a gaming system in my house. It was rough even with family members. My kids both graduated college- one is working on his masters- both debt free! The moral is to listen to your instincts and follow your heart not the hype. Remember today’s must haves are in the trash tomorrow. The biggest contribution one can make to society is creating fair, well balanced, critical thinking, and empathetic people. It is not easy but so worth it.

    Reply
  4. The biggest problem ist still that we all get trained into a system of slavery
    Starting from Kindergarten, the tenor is: Get a good education (which means “be productive”), get a good job and get rich, and THEN you can live a nice life.
    I am now in the age where my parents (and friends) got their pensions, and in review I realized that it was not worth it… spending most of their life working their asses off… for a handful of peanuts… including healthproblems etcpp.
    So, what they (and everyone else) invested has no real turnback… so whats the point ?
    The global system of “work 3/4 of your life” (and try to enjoy the other quater) sucks… who invented this “no alternative” slaverysystem anyway ?

    Shure, there are a few handful of people who leave into the amazonas to live truly free… but shure they have a kind of hard life with limited medical and other ressoruces.

    On the other hand the industrialization makes more and more people unemployed because of technology, which lead from thousands of people working in production useless… machines can o it better, cheaper and do not rebel.

    So we should also work on a new philosophy of life… not focusing on “work to live”, but more like “what would you really LIKE to do in your lifespan… what are your dreams and competences… if you like to do nothing , OK… if you like to help people in need, or like to make great inventions, etc.

    That would also help to get the people into the right “business”… not focused on the paycheck, but on your abilities ! I sawso many people in the wrong jobs… teacher who are not able to communicate/teach… doctors who weren’t qualified to interact with humans,… salesman who doesn’t care,… you get the point.

    It would shurely also help to bring a stop to wasting time, ressources and lifes… for the good of all mankind.

    But for that we really need a global revolution indeed.

    But that has to start in the young ages too !

    Maybe the next civilisation makes it right,… but i doubt that… people are stupid, manipulative,greedy and egoistic. That to change needs a lot of will and effort.

    Reply
    • If you think human nature must change in order for a society to be free, I’m afraid that means you’ve been seduced by some Marxist premises.

      Would you like to get clear of that bullshit?

    • Shure it needs to change on a global level… and as long as the people are more interested in cheap smartphones, than in the circumstances they are produced (workconditions in asaia), or in the way they are misused against whole societies (NSA), nothing will change.

      The people have to change… then the rest will change… not the other way around.

      But pls tell me where my misunderstanding/wrong thinking is…

      PS: I have spent a lot of time thinking about this egg/chicken problem… and this is my result… but i am always open for alternatives/corrections 😉

      (which could be interesting,… especially from an us citizen)

      greetz from germany…

      chris
      😉

    • Believing that human nature must change for your preferred social organization to work is approximately open-and-shut: you’re a Marxist useful idiot.

      (Hint; the free price profit and loss system works to approximately everyone’s advantage *despite* human nature – that is basically it’s strength.)

      Hope this helps.

    • (Hint; the free price profit and loss system works to approximately everyone’s advantage *despite* human nature – that is basically it’s strength.)
      /quote

      And that is the point: your definition of “approximately everyone” and my definition of it 😉

      And I am deeply sorry for you, my friend !

    • “Approximately” means “almost all.”

      What definition did you have in mind?

      Or were you trying to disagree with my identification of the proper standard, but were too much of a coward to address the point directly, because it’s obviously and absolutely true?

    • I wonder how many GenXers can look back now and see that it was normal for us developing from age 10-25 for our empire to only have 1 brief massive troop deployment. Now it is commonplace (e.g. strongly pushed as normal) to have many major sporting events beam in our empirical occupiers via satellite to show our “support for the troops” or even more frequent “surprise hero welcome home” with crying spouses and children. Of course minimal reporting on how the military divorce and suicide rates are skyrocketing because of our foreign policies. Even less reporting on the cost vs. benefit of the policy. That we are now less free should be enough to reverse course.

      Teach your kids that this perpetual war stuff did not exist overtly when we grew up and it is wrong to glorify it now. Wearing a government costume does not make one a hero. What takes courage is speaking out against those in elected positions who go along with perpetual war and the erosion of our freedoms. “Kill the Messenger” is a timely story we all should see or buy. Gary Webb was a hero exposing how government could be insidiously evil when it was not overtly so (i.e. the return to flag waiving under Reagan after wholesale kidnapping and involuntary servitude during the Vietnam draft). Congress actually had the balls to withhold funding for an administration’s war of choice back then. Things have changed but we should remember the power of the purse.

      Have your teenagers google warprayer.org (Mark Twain’s War Prayer) or look up LCPL Joshua Bernard to see what can really happen to an enlistee in the service of “the war on terrorism”. It’s not a video game. See what former Marine Fred Reed had to say about that sad event. Your kids are growing up in a tech savvy world. They must learn to dissect propaganda away from any reality it intersects.

      Keep up the good work Mike. Peace out.

      Chris

    • Hi Bro 😉

      I think the problem is that a lot of people (mostly afroamericans) HAVE to join the army, as there is no other way to get some money, education or other things.

      So again here is the difference between beeing a rich white kid or a poor black one. Rich white kids no not need to choose this way for a “better life”,.. or at least the change of it.

      Additionaly… when you are a teen or twen,… all of them like playing war on their console/pc… that there is no “additional life” in the “real game” is a fact they learn when its too late.

      And propaganda has made a long way since Göbbels (the “inventor” of Nazi-Propaganda)… add that to the decades of “human studies”, and then you know how confusing it can be.

      Especially when all mainstream media, politicians and “brainwashed” partens do/say the same 24/7… then it “must” be true.

      Remember the times where they hunted the “reds” in the usofa ? Same technique as in the dark centuries when hunting witches was a common reason to get rid of your neighbors, or the hunt for jews in nazi-germany…

      Today its “the terrorists”… you even don’t have to proof it,… just say it ! Paedophiles,… or actual “black guy comming from africa”… thats all they need to put a crosshair on your back !

      This civilisation really sucks, and people are stupid… I wonder if it would change when a solarstorm will kill all tech… so people stop watching the fuckin TV, the stupid WWW, useless smartphones (which doesn’t make anyone smarter) and all that BS people waste their precious lifespan on…

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    Reply

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