The Status Quo Mindset

It is important for rulers of masses to maintain the status quo, because they derive their power from it. Because, a society composed of individuals who are exactly like one another will act and react accordingly and predictably. This can be made possible by government-controlled education. Therefore, rulers of the masses regard education as an essential political tool. Since human beings are born with an unwashed brain, and have not yet been subject to lies based on distorted historical, traditional, institutional or religious facts, education serves the purpose of mental programming in order to impose the nationalist indoctrination.

Nationalist Indoctrination

"Education of the young is used to condition them to what comes later, thereby eliminating the difference between propaganda and education. Propaganda cannot work effectively without education. The mind is conditioned with vast amounts of information posing as 'facts' and 'knowledge' dispensed for ulterior motives… With propaganda, distraction focuses attention on information that is false. Repetition of the false information imbeds it in your subconscious mind so that your acceptance of its truth and accuracy becomes a conditioned response, circumventing analysis. Therefore, you accept this information as true without thinking about it. This is especially true in school where there is pressure to accept what is presented as true because that is what is expected from you."¹

Nationalist indoctrination uses various kinds of mind control techniques. As in any other kind of manipulation, distraction is the starting point. This is where the concept of state comes in. Rulers cannot directly manipulate the masses. The concept of state is used as the intermediary of distraction between the rulers and people. lMoreover, "people are led to believe something that is not true when that information is presented by an accepted authority."². Rulers make use of emotional symbols (most of which trigger subconscious perception) in order to control actions and sentiments. Epic songs and poems, monuments, national anthems, official uniforms and national anniversaries are just a couple of rituals of statism.

History is also a lucrative source to pump national enthusiasm. Especially in distressing periods, glorifications of distorted and exaggerated past achievements (or just plain myths and legends) are used to manipulate the individuals through the previously embedded national sentiments.

In many cases, the state’s sacred entity is impersonated in characters called leaders. With the help of a heroification process, these leaders who have the main role in national myths, are presented as super humans.

Organized Religion and Cults

Using mind control techniques in order to better control the masses is not merely limited to those who govern. There are also many religious, secular and business groups which use various mind control techniques. Organized religion, however, possesses the only comparable power to that of those who govern.

Religion, at its core, intends to serve the good. It brings a call to people to join the righteous path. It has the intention to shape the human being in a way that will make a better person. To achieve this, it sets forth various rules and methods. But by nature, people think and act in different ways from each other. Moreover, they perceive the same things in so many different ways. Therefore, as a religion ages, it always splits into more factions and sects.

When the passage of time is involved; culture, politics and other corruptive influences distort the essence of religion – whether on purpose or not. When these are combined with imperfect decision making by human beings, wisdom of ages may end up a bunch of nonfunctional rules and restrictions that do not make much reasonable sense. This is when religion really becomes organized religion.

New generations who are born to this distorted belief system either blindly follow it or refuse to accept most parts of it – even though they have faith in the concept of a supreme being. This may foster social polarization between believers and non-believers - as well as polarization among sects. Because, when a religion is equated (or reduced) to rules and restrictions, it loses its edge, and the door to bigotry opens. These rules, restrictions and rituals become the religion itself; and the blind followers of this watered-down faith takes things to a new level. Because, this is when a cult mentality that embraces conformity is born.

Rulers of the cult (and also those who wish to manipulate the cult) embrace this conformity. Because, conformity makes it a lot easier to control (and in some cases manipulate) the members - since members composed of individuals who are exactly like one another will act and react accordingly and predictably. On the contrary, it is very hard to control a fully independent and liberated individual.

Another typical characteristic of religious (or non-religious) cults is to discourage individualism and autonomy. Cult members are provided with the few and same source(s) of information, while alternate readings or other inputs are discouraged. Members believe in almost exactly the same things, which is, most of the time, what they are told or taught to believe. In the end, members of such cults or sects come to think, look, act and dress more or less the same as one another, and reach a point where they tend to protect what they believe is true, and unconsciously filter out information they don't want to receive.

Such a strong emphasis on conformity naturally involves the rejection of diversity, and thus it becomes pretty usual to treat deviant members with suspicion. Due to similar concerns, it is difficult for cults to recruit scientists, philosophers and artists, since they hardly fit in a certain mainstream. They tend to question the authority that prevails, as well as the underlying principles that are intended to not be discussed widely and openly.

After Indoctrination

Once programmed, both educated and uneducated masses become slaves to their own status quo mindsets.They 'choose' to believe in the dominant and populist ideas which are socially and officially approved, and they view all the changes to the status quo skeptically.

Slaves to the status quo mindset tend to label and categorize those who do not fit in the mainstream. That's because they perceive and judge others with the paradigms and norms injected in their brains. A great deal of prejudice and stereotyping is involved in their understanding.

This is the typical transformation of individuals, who are now called citizens, from human beings to collective (or national) beings. The saddest part of all is that the dominant and populist idea exists in different forms. The indoctrination produces rightists, leftists, greens, yellows and so on. Citizens who choose one of these labels as their political identities start to believe that they are different from others in the political arena.


¹ Jacobson, Steven. 1985. Mind control in the United States. Santa Rosa, California: Critique Publishing. 32, 33.

² Jacobson 33.