From: Ant McWatt (antmcwatt@hotmail.co.uk)
Date: Thu Aug 11 2005 - 15:58:14 BST
Ant McWatt quoted Derren Brown July 29th:
“Public speakers often capitalise on the same response. Have you ever
listened to a politician giving rapid-fire statistics so fast that the
audience can't possibly take them in, only to end the speech with a simple,
memorable phrase? The soundbite comes as such a relief after all those facts
and figures that this is all the listeners remember.”
(http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/M/mindcontrol/trick/phone.html)
Ant McWatt commented on this July 29th:
Keep in mind Brown’s last point the next time you hear Bush Junior read out
one of his scripted speeches. After an hour, what do you actually remember
from what he said?
---cut----
In another TV program/me “Mind Control” originally broadcast in 2001 by
Channel 4, Brown played with the heads of two London advertising executives
(Bill Hick’s favorite people – I love them as well – especially boiled…).
Brown first decided a general theme for the executives of an animal
sanctuary and then predicting the exact campaign that two advertising
executives would produce for the sanctuary by the placing of] certain
pictures and phrases on shop windows, pedestrians wearing T-shirts, and even
pub signs that the executives would see fleetingly on their route to the
office. The executives were unconscious of the information provided by the
pictures and phrases that they had absorbed on their journey, and therefore
provided pictures and phrases very similar to those that Brown had given to
them beforehand in a sealed brown envelope. Now the executives were amazed
at Brown’s supposed prediction skills when they opened the envelope after
their journey but they shouldn’t have been because that’s what their
industry does to people’s minds every day.
Platt Holden “commented” on the above July 29th:
Brown sounds like a typical charlatan.
Ant McWatt responded to this closed minded dismissal August 4th 2005:
Where did this sweeping conclusion suddenly derive from, Platt? Where’s the
evidence? I bet you haven’t watched any of Brown’s TV program/mes or even
heard of him until I mentioned him.
I guess your throwaway conclusion based on minimal evidence about Brown
being a charlatan is probably a good indication of how your closed mind
works in general and your fear that people like him and myself are probably
right about the political propaganda that many people are largely
brainwashed with.
Platt Holden “replied” August 5th 2005:
Hey Ant, if you're into hypnotists fine. I'm just surprised that you being
an academic would find them a "credible source."
Ant McWatt comments:
Platt,
From your flippant avoidance of the issue, I take it that you concede the
following points:
Firstly, that your throwaway conclusion about Brown being a charlatan was
based on minimal evidence which is a good indication of how your closed mind
works in general and your fear that people like him are probably correct
about the political propaganda that many people are largely brainwashed
with.
Secondly, that I’ve never mentioned another hypnotist on this discussion
group so rather than being interested in hypnotists per se (most of whom
don't have interesting viewpoints concerning politicians and religious
leaders), it is apparent that I’m actually more interested in the
involvement of hypnotism and how it is involved in the political and
religious agendas.
Thirdly, that my concern with how social institutions such as government and
the church hypnotise the general public with TV and other media is a concern
shared by none other than Robert Pirsig. For instance, note the following
quote from LILA, a few pages into chapter 29:
“The theater's a form of hypnosis. So are movies and TV. When you enter a
movie theater you know that all you're going to see is 24 shadows per second
flashed on a screen to give an illusion of moving people and objects. Yet
despite this knowledge you laugh when the 24 shadows per second tell jokes
and cry when the shadows show actors faking death. You know they are an
illusion yet you enter the illusion and become part of it and while the
illusion is taking place you are not aware that it is an illusion. This is
hypnosis. It is trance. It’s also a form of temporary insanity. But it’s
also a powerful force for cultural reinforcement and for this reason the
culture promotes movies and censors them for its own benefit.”
Ant McWatt commented August 4th 2005:
As far as Chomsky is concerned, if you could refer to a direct quote of his
which you are prepared to argue as being a falsehood (rather than relying -
as usual - on secondhand opinion “And what is good and is not good, do we
need conservative commentators to tell us, Phaedrus?”) that would at least
be intellectually constructive.
Platt Holden “replied” August 5th 2005:
Perhaps it would be intellectually constructive to give us some quotes
from Chomsky so we could critique them. I've presented a full page of a
speech he made while kissing up to Ho Chi Min in North Korea and haven't
heard an intellectual peep out of you about it. :-)
Ant McWatt comments:
Sorry, Platt I must have missed your undoubtedly balanced and accurate
“presentation”. You should have sent it in for the Conference ;-) All I
remember reading about Ho Chi Min and Noam Chomsky is Mark Heyman’s (usually
correct!) complaint from May 21st 2005 that you had failed to provide any
direct quote from Chomsky about this issue:
“Demand for evidence is ignored. No evidence provided. Ad hominem attacks
against Chomsky as well as other progressive thinkers and organizations
(such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch) continue to this
day.”
(http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/15230.html)
And, strangely enough, also earlier from May 1st 2005:
Platt:
And if that doesn't give you pause about Chomsky's historical accuracy,
check out his support of Mao, Pol Pot and Ho Chi Min and his initial denials
of their genocides which he later justified as a small price to pay to
establish communist regimes.
msh says:
This is deja vu all over again. Please provide direct quotes from Chomsky,
with references, in support of your claims above.
(http://www.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/14944.html)
And so, around and around and around the Carousel of Faux Philosophy
continue to turns… (yawn)
Finally, Ian Glendinning stated August 6th:
The politics emerges bottom-up from people doing as they would be done by.
Ant, you really should know better.
Ant McWatt comments:
Ian, I largely agree with your sentiment that politics should emerge
bottom-up. This is very much supported in the work of Dr Robert Harris, the
MOQ business person concerned largely with how corporations should be run on
more co-operative and therefore profitable (as far as money, intellectual
development, longevity of a corporation and the environment) lines are
concerned. Unfortunately, while certain members on this discussion group
insist in employing right-wing propaganda icw the MOQ, I feel that I have a
moral duty to challenge it especially when I hear that one of the MOQ
conference attendees is going to resign from MOQ Discuss particularly
because of Platt’s political posts.
Best wishes,
Anthony.
“Lose your dreams and you could lose your mind”
Mick Jagger & Keith Richards (1966-67)
N.B. For anyone interested there are fourteen video clips of Brown’s “Mind
Control” TV Series (including the one about political speeches) at:
http://www.channel4.com/entertainment/tv/microsites/M/mindcontrol/video/index.html
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