Manipulation technology
My questions are answered by the director of the special programs of the Moscow Center for Protection against Stress Alexei Zakharov.- Alexey Valerievich, at one of the meetings of the “Russian Intellectual Club” you presented the original concept of the formation of trends in the public consciousness. Why did you study these questions?
- I am a military psychologist, engaged in extreme psychology. From the beginning of 1990, I had to fight a lot (the Ossetian-Ingush conflict, the Chechen wars, the investigation of major terrorist attacks). After the collapse of the USSR, the ideological foundation of our society crumbled. It is no secret that for a Soviet person, ideology was a substitute for religion. Psychology as a science has also been absorbed by ideology. Soviet psychology mainly developed in the field of education. It is not by chance that the Center for the Psychology of Extreme Situations, which I managed in 2003 – 2009, was formed at the Russian Academy of Education.
Intelligence and marketing
In 1990, Russians found themselves psychologically in a very difficult situation, as the ideological foundations of society were lost. I had to work with participants in military conflicts and extreme situations. Psychologists who were engaged in the same, in our country there were only a few dozen people. As a result of communication and analysis of the situation, my colleagues and I identified a number of patterns in the work of our opponents with the population. Many of these technologies were worked out during the Cold War against the USSR, and then spread to the whole world. Now the impact is on the population of almost all countries.
It is no secret that political interests are closely related to economic ones. Information warfare technologies have proven to be a highly sought-after commercial tool. It was necessary to simply change the goals and objectives of the impact. Now, with the help of the developments of the military and special services, people are persuaded to buy goods and vote for the right politicians. Scouts of the United States, Britain and Germany began to actively sell their technology. At the same time, they retain control over the practical application of these technologies to manipulate the public consciousness.
- Information warfare and marketing technologies are absolutely identical?
- I guess, yes. The ideologists of the Cold War noted that the most difficult to implement a successful informational impact on a person is overcoming the barriers that his consciousness sets. It is no secret that the cultural traditions of different nations differ greatly from each other. In particular, it concerns the culture of laughter (for example, it is difficult for the Chinese to understand American humor). That is why they bet on work with the subconscious. The basis of human nature is based on three basic instincts: survival, procreation and domination. These instincts are included in the genetic code and determine both social and biological human life. Impact on these basic, subconscious instincts makes it easy to break through the mechanisms of protection that sets the mind.
I will give a simple example. When you walk past the McDonald's cafe, pay attention to the smell - it always smells of vanilla. At the biological level, you have the hunger reflex, and you begin to look for the source of the "delicious" smell, that is, to act in a controlled manner. And in the ventilation systems of many casinos and nightclubs, oxygen is pumped in, which acts stimulantly on the human nervous system. As a result, he does not want to sleep.
It is no secret that in recent years shopping has become a mass disease, becoming one of the forms of addiction along with alcoholism, drug addiction and gambling. A person in a state of dependence is easily manageable. And the mechanism of dependence formation is always the same. Therefore, an alcoholic can easily be made a drug addict, a gamer, etc. Do you know the secret of curing alcoholism in the organization of anonymous alcoholics? They simply change their addiction to alcohol to a dependency on a group. When a person comes to the group and says: “I am an alcoholic,” he relaxes and other members of the group relieve him of stress. However, as soon as a person stops attending group meetings, he has a “break-up” and he starts drinking again. This fact has been verified repeatedly. On the same principle sects are built.
- So we are talking about psychological dependence?
- It begins as psychological, but gradually turns into physiological. The formation of all types of dependence has the same mechanism. In the human brain is the center of pleasure, clearly fixing any process in the body that relieves stress and pleasure. It does not matter what is the source of this relaxation and relief: alcohol, pills, game. At this time in the body are chemical processes that are remembered. Gradually, addiction occurs at the physiological level. There are, for example, “adrenaline drug addicts” who do not use anything, they simply create extreme situations for the body that are accompanied by an adrenaline rush, and a person gets pleasure. Do not believe the inscriptions on the hypnotic or anti-stress drugs "not addictive." Once again, everything that leads to relaxation of the body and stress relief is addictive.
Dependence
In order to be able to manipulate a person, you need to make him addicted. And any dependence destroys the personality, as it leads a person to a narrow program of action. Deviation from this program immediately causes withdrawal ("breaking"). The whole entertainment system is aimed at getting pleasure. First of all, movies, television, music. All of them are addressed to the three basic instincts of which I spoke. That is why there is so much sex on TV and movies. All advertising is built on instincts. A person who buys something realizes two basic instincts (domination and procreation). After all, he buys a thing in order to "be cooler", that is, to dominate and, as a result, to like someone.
The second type of addiction is relaxation after an overstrain. Some groups of people specifically over-exert, drive into a hopeless depression, and then open for them a certain way out (“window”). If a person works a lot without a normal rest, then he accumulates stress, which gradually develops into a physiological injury. The body needs to compensate for this pressure, find a way to relax: alcohol, drugs, shopping, playing, group communication, etc. This method is clearly fixed by the pleasure center of the brain, and as a result, an addiction is formed. How both of these systems work can be traced back to the example of Arab Muslim countries. There, one of the main factors for compensating stress is Islam. Moreover, stress is often created by pressure from Western countries. The answer to external pressure is always the same - a protest, a search for the guilty. And the guilty one is right here - the West. All this did not happen by chance. After the collapse of the USSR, the West (first of all, the USA) needed a new enemy to justify the enormous costs of the army and special services. This enemy must be scary to scare the inhabitants of Western countries, but not dangerous for the elite. That is why “international Islamic terrorism” appeared, which the elites of Western countries use to intimidate their own population and solve geo-economic and geopolitical tasks.
- Why are the main news on television of all countries - is it a disaster associated with human victims? Why should a resident of Saratov know that a plane crashed in Argentina?
- The fact is that the human body at the physiological level responds very strongly to the death of other individuals. He gets scared. If you see the death of another person, your body will be scared as if they were killing him. This is the instinct of self-preservation. The main thing for TV is to inflict trauma on a person, which he will seek to compensate, and this is where the dependence is formed. Compensation can be twofold: either relax with the help of something, or sabotage the evil on someone else and thus frighten another group of people. Constant mental injury gradually leads to a contraction of consciousness. A person is obsessed with his injury, begins to see life in black colors, and the simplest way out is suicide. I often came across this when working with combatants or victims of terrorist acts. To take a person out of a terrible depression, he needs to show a way out in the direction of positive activity. This may be help to other victims, some kind of creative work. Through such actions, a person forgets about his injury, he has an expansion of consciousness and life is filled with meaning. He begins to enjoy, his self-esteem rises, and this is again fixed by the brain.
Expansion of consciousness
A known method of healing from alcohol and drug addiction, which is practiced by Orthodox priests. First, they attract a person to the group, that is, they act on the principle of organizing anonymous alcoholics. Then dependence on the group is transferred to dependence on a specific type of activity - obedience. Then gradually increase the activities, expanding his consciousness. For 3 – 4, a person completely gets rid of dependence and can already exist independently. Sectarians and terrorists are working in the opposite direction. Their task is to narrow the mind. They form dependence, fix it and turn a person into an obedient performer of someone else's will. But a person whose consciousness works only for the execution of orders does not live for a long time, as his body disintegrates.
- In the course of globalization there was a mixture of different nations. Today, people of all skin tones live in Europe and the USA. At the same time, they are all equally processed by mass media. What for?- First of all, then, to turn them into obedient buyers. At the same time, goods are constantly changing and their quality does not play a significant role anymore, the main thing is that the thing “is fashionable”, it is important “to be in trend. And secondly, there are too many people on the planet. In order to provide the population of the whole world with the standard of living of the middle class of the USA or the EU countries, all the resources of planet Earth will not be enough. That is why the mass media system is now working on the problem of population reduction. To do this, undermine the traditional institutions of life, which are the basis of human existence. People say: "You do not need to start a family and have children." The struggle of liberal and traditional ideas begins. The liberal idea is based on the priority of personal desire ("I want"), and the traditional - on interest ("I need"). The first works at the level of reflex and subconsciousness, and the second at the level of consciousness. Social tradition is always an element of development, since it is based on the interest not of an individual, but of a group. The social support of a person is family, traditions, his social status. If there is no tradition, then there is no development, the race begins, which leads to inevitable degradation of the individual.
- But the elite, which introduces liberal ideas into the mass consciousness, is also part of society, and it degenerates with everyone.
“No man admits to himself that he degenerates.” Any criminal considers himself a good person. Although in practice, liberal policy leads to a general degradation. The elite are trying to isolate themselves from society, but still it is part of it and goes to death together with everyone.
Traditions against liberalism
- What is the alternative?
- Traditional values: family, creative work, love, mutual aid, etc. By the way, last year, German Chancellor Angela Merkel stated that the liberal idea failed, and in order to survive, the nation (pay attention to this word) needs to return to traditional values.
- And the Chinese offer some kind of alternative ideology?
- They offer nothing to others. They consider themselves the center of the world. This is the only people who, over several thousand years of existence, has not changed the basis of its cultural code: Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism. By the way, Chinese Buddhism is very different from Indian. Recently, it is the Indian variety of Buddhism that is actively promoted in the world.
- Why?
- Because he preaches the search for an individual path through withdrawal from active life to a state of calm and peace (nirvana). Indian Buddhism very well justifies egoism, because the main thing is that you feel good (no matter from what and by whom). If in India it is possible due to the climate, then in the northern countries it is not. But due to the fact that such Buddhism is aimed at bringing a person out of society, it is promoted. And not Indian lamas, but immigrants from Europe. For example, Osho - a former drug addict who came to India to get rid of his addiction, and then became a preacher.
- What is the difference between the Chinese version of Buddhism?
- It is based on collective action. If a group is good, then it is good for an individual. The same can be said about Confucianism and Taoism. The communist regime practically did not change anything in the spiritual foundations of Chinese society.
- And what about the Islamic world?
- The Islamic world is heterogeneous, it is divided into Sunnis, Shiites, etc. The main country of Shiites is Iran, which is mostly inhabited by Persians. This is a very ancient sedentary people with outstanding cultural achievements and traditions. Unlike the nomadic Arabs, in whom the system of traditional relations is much simpler. That is why Arabs are easier to manipulate than Persians. And that is why the US hates Iran and pits its allies against this country. By the way, the Arabic version of Islam is being promoted in the North Caucasus.
The conversation was led by Sergey Pravosudov
Information