Techniques of Persuasion-J.A.C. Brown

I was a late bloomer to Instagram, creating my account around 2018.

Even before I began voluntary restrictions as a means of digital cleansing, my interactions on that platform were sparse. I'd post a few things here and there and muster up a handful of likes—maybe a comment or two—but that was it.

Most of my experience with social media had always been relegated to Facebook. I was very new to the concept of hashtags and extremely novice to the overload of skin that infests the highlight reels. I do not possess any Playboy magazines in my household nor any pornography films and gave up PornHub scrolling many years ago. So it came as a great surprise to me that, with a few simple and innocent hashtag follows—Ohio, lifting, hip-hop, books, reading, etc.—my feed became flooded with gargantuan mammary glands and lots and lots of booty.

It led me to wonder "Is this who I am as a person? Some closeted jack-off hound?"

I have no idea what hashtag Ohio has to do with some girl in a g-string making a salad, but I caught on pretty fast as to what kind of sewer this galaxy of the digital verse largely was: a borderline softcore porn reel for ditzy women to make money off of thirsty men.

Shortly thereafter—around the pre-pandemic months of 2020—I began to clean up my feed and started to follow more conservative-leaning accounts and Christian-inspired hashtags. And then once the pandemic was unleashed it seemed as if everyone turned to social media to see what was really going on in the world. Conspiracy theories filled the void where untrustworthy media sources were seemingly leaving us empty.

With nothing but time on my hands during the height of tumult, I devoured it all and am guilty as charged in buying into my fair share of the bullshit that was being passed around online. Among some of the stories I perused was the infamous Q-Anon battle cry "#wwg1wga" (where we go one, we go all), an apparent quote that was inscribed upon the bell of John F. Kennedy Jr's yacht. The story behind the hieroglyphics on John-Boy's bell was that JFK Jr. had faked his death, was hiding in plain sight as a man with a six o'clock shadow named Vincent Fusca who attended Trump rally's that would make his triumphant return at the zero hour of November 3rd, 2020 to rescue the Republican party from the satanic grip of a demo(n)cratic hand.

Needless to say, everything grew to become even stranger as time went on. Whether it was the Epstein list, Wuhan labs, pizzagate, or human cargo in Wayfair boxes, like a game of whack-a-mole, there was always one conspiracy that popped up in place of a predecessor that had failed to come to fruition.

I then took the time to watch Out of Shadows and Fall of Cabal, which, admittedly, presented some overwhelmingly strong evidence to their cases, but ultimately felt like wild shots in the dark.

If I were to make an honest guess at fact and fiction between what conspiracy theorists posit and what is grounded in factual reality, I'm willing to put my money in the range of 65-67%. This means that yes, I do believe there is something deeper with a darkened ulterior motive beyond what is presented to us as the unsuspecting public in a deceitful wrap. Call it Satan, zog, illuminati, deep state, Rothchilds network, cabal, or whatever you fancy. But is it as extreme as the exaggerations profess and require fleeing to a remote outpost, away from society to bog down for inevitable Armageddon? I do not believe that either.

As time passed I grew weary of keeping up with the latest subliminal attack on my consciousness and started to become more and more detached from the exhaustion synonymous with social media scrolling and regressed further and further into living life strictly within my immediate orbit—bereft of a blue screen.

Which brings us to Techniques of Persuasion-From Propaganda to Brainwashing.

Techniques of Persuasion was written in 1963, 18 years after World War Two had concluded, at a point in time when Communism had picked up the torch of human suffering after the Nazis had fumbled it and was well along in its race of civil rights violations.

It digs very deep into what is considered brainwashing through various avenues: Media, Government, and Religion, and does not appear to be biased towards any sort of religious sect, economic ideology, or political party. J.A.C. also thoroughly dissected the malleable targets for recruitment into religious cults and political movements. i.e. those carrying around multiple skeletons in their closet they wish to get rid of were perfect marks for snake oil salesman and every outcast that had been chewed up and spit out by society is the perfect candidate for a born-again comrade.

The subtle methods used to recruit misfits into the Marxist fold I found to be quite fascinating, as they largely haven't changed for 60+ years.

It stems from the threat of isolation thrust upon individuals who had never found a fitting within acceptable society. Those who were shuffled to the bottom of the deck via any interchangeable deviance. Sexual, physical, social, etc. The prerequisite for this is irrelevant because communism espouses the illusion of proletariat liberation. A flip of the pyramid, where the bullied serfs now handle the whip and get to dish out the punishment. Marxism offers its hand to bridge the gap for those whose social ineptitude has kept them forever excluded. And once this individual finds a home and is locked arm in arm with the other proles who take to the street as a means of battling modern-day bourgeoisie, they begin to adopt causes that don't affect them in the slightest, yet, feel equally as enraged as those of whom it does within their newfound community, and dare not question the banner under which they march no matter how many red flags are being raised within their intuition—as that would be a one-way ticket out of the party and back to isolation, a fate worse than death.

What inevitably follows, J.A.C. points out, are the twisted semantics and illegible newspeak that is deliberately designed to keep its comrades in a perpetual state of intellectual paralysis. And when one ludicrous cause has been exploited for all its worth, they move on to the next, and by the time trends dictate that cycle to be over, the vast majority of marchers cannot even remember what they are upset about. In the end, it doesn't matter to those up top who perpetuate Marxism anyway, the paramount goal is about molding every recruit into a subservient automaton that gives up every ounce of individualism (that they never had to begin with) for greater advancement of the "community". Just so long as you shuck and jive to the beat of the tribal drum—no matter how distorted the tempo may be—you're on good terms with your comrades.

This is the party in a nutshell: You own nothing, not even your mind.

This is only one aspect of which J.A.C. digs into. The other—which I found to be most interesting—was how overblown the notion is that brainwashing is at its apex within mainstream media. If anything, J.A.C. goes on to explain that mass media—while creating a tremendous amount of influence—has very little power (nor the capability) to control viewers' minds.

He goes on to explain that the media we consume is nothing more than a reflection of society as a whole. And that (despite what people may be led to believe) it delivers a far superior product than they ask for. With credible evidence, he even declares that if people got exactly what they asked for from the media, they would be sorely disappointed. He offers quotes from network television presidents to speak to this truth, who remark on the idiotic writing and illegible sentences contained within letters from an outraged audience (difficult even to decipher) which contain scathing critiques and inexperienced advice as to which direction television conglomerates should proceed with their programming if they hope to retain decent ratings.

This overblown misconception of brainwashing through the media is dispelled quite easily when viewed with honest discernment. A lot of what we see on television or read online is a direct result of what we as the viewers choose to consume based upon principles we are nurtured with from infancy onward. Once we find a passion, ideology, or hobby that we feel most accurately represents our integrity, it is our obstinate loyalty that is solely to blame for what data it is we consume henceforth.

Despite the dystopian misconception, nobody is forcing upon us the Ludivico treatment with CNN, Fox News, ESPN, or MTV (or TikTok, YouTube, and Snapchat). This is an activity that we choose to do of our own volition. All the stations care about is keeping you watching from dawn to dusk. If you want to watch the lunatic left destroy our country, then tune into Fox News and catch some primetime Tucker & Hannity. Prefer 24/7 Trump bashing and proof of white supremacy instead? Head on over to CNN. Want to watch endless web gems of athletes defying gravity with pristine bodies? Tune into ESPN. Endless sex-The Playboy Channel. A round table of squawking verbal dysentery-The View. Violence and chaos-AMC. There is an ail to every craving available. If you feel shitty afterward, inadequate, riled up, and angry at the world, you have nobody else to blame but yourself. The networks that you tuned into only did what you asked of them, otherwise you wouldn't have watched.

I thought that this book was one of the most supreme pieces of literature on brainwashing that dissects a subject that is most always misperceived and used as a scapegoat.

At the end of all the manipulation and conspiracy theories, it is just our plain old human nature that ultimately guides our motives and decisions.

Nobody else.

Grade: A+

Verdict: Read