I'm skeptical of this notion of false consciousness. It reminds me of the Jesuit boast: "Give us the child until age 12 and we own the adult" or something like that. It wasn't brainwashing that gave them the adult, it was that the Jesuits were closely connected with secular powers. If the Jesuit gave a young person a good recommendation, their career path was smoothed, bad recommendation and they would be marked as troublemakers and have a difficult life. Clever and ambitious young people quickly learned to regurgitate whatever the Jesuit told them. That's not brainwashing, that's sycophantism, or courtier mentality as you would term it..As soon as Jesuits lost their influence among the secular powers, such that good/bad recommendation from the Jesuit teacher no longer mattered to a young person's career, they lost their influence among young people.
Likewise with these poor Pentecostals. They swallow and regurgitate neoliberal ideas because it pays off for them in the short term. For someone at the bottom of the economic pyramid, filling one's head with their ideas about oligarchy, etc is just asking for trouble: too easy to let such ideas slip out by mistake when Massa asks the peons opinion of some current event. Hypocrisy takes a lot of mental energy and poor people are already near their limits on energy expenditure. Much simpler to believe what Massa wants to hear, so no risk of letting dangerous ideas slip out accidentally in conversation, with just a tiny space in the core of the peon's mind where he holds the ultra dangerous belief that might makes right is the only moral law in this world, and the rest of his ideas are believed because Massa currently is strong, but watch out if Massa ever becomes weak. That ultra dangerous belief is easily kept under control, with no risk of slipping out accidentally in conversation.
In other words, if and when a situation arises such that it benefits these poor Pentecostals to take on new belief systems, they can change beliefs very fast indeed. But such a situation is not going to arise among the poor. Rather, it will come from a crisis such that the oligarchs are forced to fight one another, and one faction brings the poor in as allies, by promising them better leadership. For example, effects of climate change might bring about such a situation of oligarch civil war.
You are utilizing a rational actor model which is not a workable one for humans, and assuming an extremely high level of social consciousness and foresight. Human beings generally have very deep needs for such things as feelings of purpose, membership of a community and social interaction. By destroying traditional workspaces, traditional communities, and working class organizations such as unions the decades of neoliberalism remove the social institutions that provide for much of those needs, and the Pentecostal churches are then provided with a gap to fill.
The Church, and especially the style of religion provided by the Pentecostals, provides a sense of purpose, meaning to one's life, membership in a community and deep and varied social interactions. For a population deeply affected by poverty, social disruption, and social isolation this can be irresistible. The emotionality of Pentecostal services also helps facilitate the taking on of a new belief system (many humans are quite open to brainwashing, most especially in desperate and emotional states).
Liberation Theology provided a different religious ideology which was quickly taken up by such populations, and that is why it was so brutally crushed by the oligarchy and the Catholic Church. Throughout time, populations without power have rebelled and taken on anti-ruling class class belief systems and set up their own institutions to gain power. The rights that the hoi polloi generally have is because of such struggles, even against overwhelming odds. Many of those struggles are based in world views that value basic ethics and human rights, not simple careerism.
Again and again groups and individuals have been shown to hang on to belief systems even when faced with overwhelming countering evidence and even when they become dysfunctional for the individual; cognitive dissonance. Human beings are not fully rational creatures, and certainly not mostly careerist tools. That is why the oligarchy has to utilize violence, coercion and a hegemonic culture to maintain control and a legitimacy for its rule.
In Brazil in particular, a coalition of working people had managed to gain an electoral and social strength that threatened the elites in the 1960s. So a dictatorship (1964 to 1985) was imposed to crush that opposition and once again make Brazil safe for liberal democracy. Even after that there was a fair amount of election meddling to stop the "wrong" candidates from getting elected. Liberation Theology threatened a new upsurge in popular consciousness and resistance and was therefore thoroughly snuffed out and the oligarch-friendly evangelical churches pushed (in the same way that the evangelical churches were very consciously supported by the US elite in the post-WW2 era to combat the Social Gospel that was aligned with the New Deal).
I'm not sure we're in disagreement. Regarding need for community membership, social support, belief system that gives life meaning, etc, we are in complete agreement. And also in agreement that humans are barely capable of "rational thought". We are just highly intelligent apes, after all. But apes, like all life, has to think rationally enough to survive in reality. A mind that doesn't operate more or less rationally is an evolutionary dead end. However, there is nothing irrational about men who genuinely cannot understand an argument because their salary depends on not understanding it. Or a peon genuinely believing that God wants oligarchs to have all the power and wealth because oligarchs know better how to run things than the poor peon, because believing otherwise in rural Brazil is a good way to get yourself killed by the oligarchs death squads. If it is rational to want to keep your salaried job in case 1 or avoid death squads in case 2, then any belief system that contributes to those goals is rational in the biological sense, same as believing earth is flat is a workable and thus rational approximation of the truth to a primitive hunter gatherer who never ventures outside a small area of land.
Speaking personally from someone who has experienced it in the US, Roger is right that the need for purpose and membership in a community makes it easy to take in people "down on their luck" who are affected by poverty, social disruption, social isolation, or other ills. Most people have a need for company that they can't deny.
very illuminating Mr Boyd, thank you. Upon rereading I saw I missed the video with Claudia De La Cruz which I'll watch later.
I am going to go on a tangent re: liberation theology and Pope Francis. imho Francis was a Joe Biden liberation theologist. As party line democrats viewed Biden in a positive light so did those who wish to believe in good without looking below the surface view Francis.
there was a sex-trafficking slavemaster who roamed our ancestral lands years ago, spreading death and horror and genocide among my people. Pope Francis considered this saintly and canonized him. Non-natives rejoiced. Natives gathered at Mission Dolores to condemn this act of religious terror. Those of us still practicing got on our knees to beg forgiveness for what was done to ancestral victims. Statues were toppled while the archbishop in SF condemned the toppling as work of "the evil one" and did an exorcism. what the pope did was analogous to putting statues of Netanyahu in Gaza. so much for liberation theology. If it's not anti-genocide it's no good.
Excellent article on the social oppression for a natural feeling of humanity by the Business Bible of the Oligarch’s.
Explains many puzzling , ingrained attitudes by the educated.
I'm skeptical of this notion of false consciousness. It reminds me of the Jesuit boast: "Give us the child until age 12 and we own the adult" or something like that. It wasn't brainwashing that gave them the adult, it was that the Jesuits were closely connected with secular powers. If the Jesuit gave a young person a good recommendation, their career path was smoothed, bad recommendation and they would be marked as troublemakers and have a difficult life. Clever and ambitious young people quickly learned to regurgitate whatever the Jesuit told them. That's not brainwashing, that's sycophantism, or courtier mentality as you would term it..As soon as Jesuits lost their influence among the secular powers, such that good/bad recommendation from the Jesuit teacher no longer mattered to a young person's career, they lost their influence among young people.
Likewise with these poor Pentecostals. They swallow and regurgitate neoliberal ideas because it pays off for them in the short term. For someone at the bottom of the economic pyramid, filling one's head with their ideas about oligarchy, etc is just asking for trouble: too easy to let such ideas slip out by mistake when Massa asks the peons opinion of some current event. Hypocrisy takes a lot of mental energy and poor people are already near their limits on energy expenditure. Much simpler to believe what Massa wants to hear, so no risk of letting dangerous ideas slip out accidentally in conversation, with just a tiny space in the core of the peon's mind where he holds the ultra dangerous belief that might makes right is the only moral law in this world, and the rest of his ideas are believed because Massa currently is strong, but watch out if Massa ever becomes weak. That ultra dangerous belief is easily kept under control, with no risk of slipping out accidentally in conversation.
In other words, if and when a situation arises such that it benefits these poor Pentecostals to take on new belief systems, they can change beliefs very fast indeed. But such a situation is not going to arise among the poor. Rather, it will come from a crisis such that the oligarchs are forced to fight one another, and one faction brings the poor in as allies, by promising them better leadership. For example, effects of climate change might bring about such a situation of oligarch civil war.
You are utilizing a rational actor model which is not a workable one for humans, and assuming an extremely high level of social consciousness and foresight. Human beings generally have very deep needs for such things as feelings of purpose, membership of a community and social interaction. By destroying traditional workspaces, traditional communities, and working class organizations such as unions the decades of neoliberalism remove the social institutions that provide for much of those needs, and the Pentecostal churches are then provided with a gap to fill.
The Church, and especially the style of religion provided by the Pentecostals, provides a sense of purpose, meaning to one's life, membership in a community and deep and varied social interactions. For a population deeply affected by poverty, social disruption, and social isolation this can be irresistible. The emotionality of Pentecostal services also helps facilitate the taking on of a new belief system (many humans are quite open to brainwashing, most especially in desperate and emotional states).
Liberation Theology provided a different religious ideology which was quickly taken up by such populations, and that is why it was so brutally crushed by the oligarchy and the Catholic Church. Throughout time, populations without power have rebelled and taken on anti-ruling class class belief systems and set up their own institutions to gain power. The rights that the hoi polloi generally have is because of such struggles, even against overwhelming odds. Many of those struggles are based in world views that value basic ethics and human rights, not simple careerism.
Again and again groups and individuals have been shown to hang on to belief systems even when faced with overwhelming countering evidence and even when they become dysfunctional for the individual; cognitive dissonance. Human beings are not fully rational creatures, and certainly not mostly careerist tools. That is why the oligarchy has to utilize violence, coercion and a hegemonic culture to maintain control and a legitimacy for its rule.
In Brazil in particular, a coalition of working people had managed to gain an electoral and social strength that threatened the elites in the 1960s. So a dictatorship (1964 to 1985) was imposed to crush that opposition and once again make Brazil safe for liberal democracy. Even after that there was a fair amount of election meddling to stop the "wrong" candidates from getting elected. Liberation Theology threatened a new upsurge in popular consciousness and resistance and was therefore thoroughly snuffed out and the oligarch-friendly evangelical churches pushed (in the same way that the evangelical churches were very consciously supported by the US elite in the post-WW2 era to combat the Social Gospel that was aligned with the New Deal).
I'm not sure we're in disagreement. Regarding need for community membership, social support, belief system that gives life meaning, etc, we are in complete agreement. And also in agreement that humans are barely capable of "rational thought". We are just highly intelligent apes, after all. But apes, like all life, has to think rationally enough to survive in reality. A mind that doesn't operate more or less rationally is an evolutionary dead end. However, there is nothing irrational about men who genuinely cannot understand an argument because their salary depends on not understanding it. Or a peon genuinely believing that God wants oligarchs to have all the power and wealth because oligarchs know better how to run things than the poor peon, because believing otherwise in rural Brazil is a good way to get yourself killed by the oligarchs death squads. If it is rational to want to keep your salaried job in case 1 or avoid death squads in case 2, then any belief system that contributes to those goals is rational in the biological sense, same as believing earth is flat is a workable and thus rational approximation of the truth to a primitive hunter gatherer who never ventures outside a small area of land.
Speaking personally from someone who has experienced it in the US, Roger is right that the need for purpose and membership in a community makes it easy to take in people "down on their luck" who are affected by poverty, social disruption, social isolation, or other ills. Most people have a need for company that they can't deny.
very illuminating Mr Boyd, thank you. Upon rereading I saw I missed the video with Claudia De La Cruz which I'll watch later.
I am going to go on a tangent re: liberation theology and Pope Francis. imho Francis was a Joe Biden liberation theologist. As party line democrats viewed Biden in a positive light so did those who wish to believe in good without looking below the surface view Francis.
there was a sex-trafficking slavemaster who roamed our ancestral lands years ago, spreading death and horror and genocide among my people. Pope Francis considered this saintly and canonized him. Non-natives rejoiced. Natives gathered at Mission Dolores to condemn this act of religious terror. Those of us still practicing got on our knees to beg forgiveness for what was done to ancestral victims. Statues were toppled while the archbishop in SF condemned the toppling as work of "the evil one" and did an exorcism. what the pope did was analogous to putting statues of Netanyahu in Gaza. so much for liberation theology. If it's not anti-genocide it's no good.
a sore spot, off my soapbox and thank you.