Dead in the bathtub. Psycho (1960)
Madness was made possible by all that milieu that repressed in
man of his animal nature...madness then became the other side of
progress. By multiplying mediations, civilisation offered men ever
increasing means to become insane - Michel Foucault. History of Madness. Pg. 374
The individual may think that the most important reality is his own existence, but this is only his personal point of view. This lacks historical perspective. Man does not have the right to develop his own mind. This kind of liberal orientation has great appeal. We must electronically control the brain. Someday armies and generals will be controlled by electric stimulation of the brain. - Dr. Jose Delgado, Director of Neuropsychiatry Yale University Medical School - Congressional Record, No. 26, Vol. 118 February 24, 1974
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The term designer babies is by and large just emblematic of the idea that genetic technology can do more than merely correct the frail aspects of human existence. It can redress nature's essential randomness. Purely elective changes are in the offing. The industry argues over the details, but many assure that within our decade, depending upon the family and the circumstances, height, weight and even eye color will become elective. Gender selection has been a fact of birth for years with a success rate of up to 91 percent for those who use it.
...
It goes much further than designer babies. Mass social engineering is still being advocated by eminent voices in the genetics community. Celebrated geneticist James Watson, codiscoverer of the double helix and president of Cold Springs Harbor Laboratories, told a British film crew in 2003, "If you are really stupid, I would call that a disease. The lower 10 per cent who really have difficulty, even in elementary school, what's the cause of it? A lot of people would like to say, 'Well, poverty, things like that.' It probably isn't. So I'd like to get rid of that, to help the lower 10 percent." For the first half of the twentieth century, Cold Spring Harbor focused on the "submerged tenth"; apparently, the passion has not completely dissipated.
Following in the footsteps of Galton, who once amused himself by plotting the geographic distribution of pretty women in England, Watson also told the film crew," People say it would be terrible if we made all girls pretty. I think it would be great." Watson gave no indication of what the standard for beauty would be.
War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America's Campaign to Create a Master Race. By Edwin Black. Pg. 442-443
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Though [John B.] Watson's work was the beginning of mans attempts to control human actions, the real work was done by, B.F. Skinner, the high priest of the behaviorists movement. The key to Skinner's work was the concept of operant conditioning, which relied on the notion of reinforcement, all behavior which is learned is rooted in either a positive or negative response to that action. There are two corollaries of operant conditioning Aversion therapy and desensitization.
Aversion therapy uses unpleasant reinforcement to a response which is undesirable. This can take the form of electric shock, exposing the subject to fear producing situations, and the infliction of pain in general. It has been used as a way of "curing" homosexuality, alcoholism and stuttering. Desensitization involves forcing the subject to view disturbing images over and over again until they no longer produce any anxiety, then moving on to more extreme images, and repeating the process over again until no anxiety is produced. Eventually, the subject becomes immune to even the most extreme images. This technique is typically used to treat people's phobias. Thus, the violence shown on T.V. could be said to have the unsystematic and unintended effect of desensitization.
Skinnerian behaviorism has been accused of attempting to deprive man of his free will, his dignity and his autonomy. It is said to be intolerant of uncertainty in human behavior, and refuses to recognize the private, the ineffable, and the unpredictable. It sees the individual merely as a medical, chemical and mechanistic entity which has no comprehension of its real interests.
Skinner believed that people are going to be manipulated. "I just want them to be manipulated effectively," he said. He measured his success by the absence of resistance and counter control on the part of the person he was manipulating. He thought that his techniques could be perfected to the point that the subject would not even suspect that he was being manipulated.
Dr. James V. McConnel, head of the Department of Mental Health Research at the University of Michigan, said, "The day has come when we can combine sensory deprivation with the use of drugs, hypnosis, and the astute manipulation of reward and punishment to gain almost absolute control over an individual's behavior. We want to reshape our society drastically."
Mind Control by Harry V. Martin and David Caul/ Napa Sentinel August/September/October/November 1991
Related Archives:
"Humans" are EXTINCT (Part One)
"The Angel in the Wreckage" (unfinished writing)
When a "Duplicate" America Moves In
It is safe to say at this point that if you even remotely have a heart,
courage or much of a brain left, the epicenter of this New World Order
(the U.S.) has become so degraded as to be rendered almost completely
unlivable. And it is also safe to say that the 'spark' within
experience that used to make each of us unique, individual beings has
been brutally snuffed out by human arrogance and greed. - ce399. 16 February 2008
Tod Browning on the set of Freaks (1932)
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