“Amazing you never hear about that experiment that one elementary school teacher did in her classroom.”
I take it that was supposed to be about cultural conditioning and how easy it is to turn innocent people into Nazis, or whatever. I always thought it worked that way because deep inside we all really, really want to be racists (or bigoted/prejudiced/whatever, as the case may be). Which I find confirmed by all of human history). It’s too dang easy to generalize, stereotype, and reduce.
Now, if they culturally conditioned the kids to enjoy sitting still, eating green beans, or anything else they don’t have a natural inclination to do. I think of this whenever anyone casts advertisers as brainwashers, or even simple hucksters. Yes, advertising is inherently deceptive. But not in the way you think. It wouldn’t work if they tried to get you to do what you didn’t already want to do. The trick is to make you unreasonable about what you want.
If no one ate bacon and eggs for breakfast before 190blah-dee-blah, it wasn’t because no one wanted to eat bacon and eggs. It’s because it didn’t yet occur to them. No one says you have to eat them every morning, or several times a day, or to excess, or to think that in doing so you’ll get a promotion at work and more love at home. Those are all lies. But it starts with the truth.
There was a thread on FR that analyzed why it was that Jews continued to vote Democrat, even when liberals clearly and repeatedly worked against their interests, and worked for people who publicly declare that their goal is the destruction of their homeland.
The conclusion, rather laboriously reached was, quite simply, ‘because they are liberal first, and Jewish second.’
Your post put it more eloquently than all of that.
As a Christian, it causes me to apply such an observation to the entire cosmic conflict between Satan and God.
Satan wouldn’t be so effective if it were not for our nature, no person being truly innocent as you point out. God asks us to voluntarily deny these animal spirits.
Ultimately, it comes down to choice and judgement. All things seem to end in judgement, and there are no innocent people.
And as such, we will debate the forgone conclusion of the genius of Barack Obama, and whether Rick Perry, or any conservative, is inevitably dumb.