March 24, 2013
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Psychobable?
¹ I have just finished reading a most excellent science fiction story by Robert Heinlein called "If This Goes On ..." The tale of a dictatorship hiding behind the mask of a false cult in the United States.
The magazine Astounding Science Fiction's editorial has a lot to say about the story and the science it represents - psychology. The editorial is titled, "It's isn't a science - yet."
The story goes on to describe psychotechnicians, psychotherapists, psychodynamics and its' relation to a military religion of choice. Could it be in reference to the Naval hazing inquisition of Earth? Indoctrination of commissioned officers involving fasting (against certain substances such as fat, additives in diet, etc) with praying and penance. He mentions the "grand hailing sign of distress, virgins ministering to the prophet, a senior sister, an executive officer of the guard, a grand council, an agent provocateur and guardsmen in the angels of the lord, even a revered person of the prophet, deacons, angels of the Lord administering to nervous virgins, one of the innocents, right to stone the ungodly and suspects trying to make the evidence prove reasonable doubt or guilt of some minor offence counting on chance and human nature. There is also mentioned a tailor of the lodge, proctors of the chief inquisitor, a relief watch section, the cabal and a lodge master studying natural logarithms".
Followers must be loyal, maintain secrecy and a superlative staff organization. Identity checks are on placed on a database listing measurements, photograph, voice recordings, plastic coated fingertips, backgrounds by a metamorphic and a walk analysis - all designed to question uniqueness and to create synthetic people with faked records. The oligarchy spy network. They used telephone circuits with infrared beam transmission able to communicate and influence the greater mass of people simultaneously (subliminal?).²"Mob Psychology" is a science because it effects the stock and bond markets and is therefore engaging the sciences of computers in speculation. "Propaganda" is also a science because it is marketing and it also employs the sciences of the computer in conveying a message. The Pacific Ocean being the widest, represents a challenge to communications and quick response to change. The scientific, logical study of the psyche (psychology) questions how any person will react to a preconditioned reflex or stimulus. The mind is compared to a dependable machine in physiology. In the scenario of directional control, psychology is questioned as a science. Insanity is another world of sight and sound, a difference of opinion from the rest of the world; a fine line between sanity and intelligence or genius. To accurately control, real science judges society and makes change, readjusting a psycho stimuli towards automation again. Adjustment towards an orderly world, free of crime and drugs (used to correct the individual criminal), applied to mob psychology and propaganda, still requires a corporate decision for judgement. Applying development to these two aspects in question (mob psychology and propaganda), the theory is proposed to eliminate any if not all "lost minds" failing to think for themselves. Decision making by intelligent normal humans, using a digital computer with scenarios in place (if, then, therefore reasoning) places the action of the science on their shoulders.Later, decisions can be reversed but only after a review of its decided outcome.
This futuristic, military ritual of hazing turned non-cult, questions science and religious evidence - not authority. Science deals with natural phenomena and the physical universe; religion is a personal matter between mankind and their path to a religious liberty. It ends with a quote from George Washington on civil liberty & safety.
Sources:
¹ British Fantasy Pics
² Astounding Science Fiction Magazine 1940-02 and 1940-03.
