Escaping The Cave: The Toddzilla X-pod

On Ellul's "The Need For Propaganda." We've both developed a tolerance for and a psychological dependency on propaganda's certainty-stoking, justifying, and and self-worth generating narratives, social media is a propagandist's dream, desensitization and an increasing desire for the excitement felt from being immersed in the constant, and necessary stream of propaganda, how our addiction has allowed both traditional media and social media "influencers" to monetize the Outrage Industrial Complex, our role as retained ideological attorneys, and wishful thinking (and possibly disastrous effects) of suddenly eliminating 320-million people's propaganda narratives. Sometimes the cure is worse than the disease. Grab a sammich for this one. And maybe a stiff drink. Hey! I never said this would be easy!    ALSO:  This is a triage situation; not a search for the "cure" Disinformation bit me again! Why we won't quit the informational drug A possible path to empathy The culture war is a War of Narratives Chosen p

The Propaganda opus resumes with Ellul's take on psychic "dissociation". Includes more on wordknapping, how righteous and simplistic propaganda narratives silence the self and numb natural cognitive dissonance, replacing reality with the electronic eyes of the "verbal universe", the effects of disconnecting a person's personal opinion in favor of an acceptable "public" opinion, and how opposing propagandas affect the target. ALSO: Democratic Socialists: as ridiculous during Occupy as at their "convention" Aligned, Premeditated, and Secret Consciences: Individuality and Haidt's Elephant Disconnecting thought & action   Opposing propagandas: political abstention or fanaticism? The IDW: Agitation Propaganda Data Overload and the Defective Human Mind Your congenial host and the Ideological Riptide No one's immune. Not even you. Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747 *Like the pod? SPREAD IT! You are the marketing team. *Subs

Todd, Chris and Rich discuss the Dayton shooter's leftist leanings being swept aside, poking the Crackerbear and how a real conflict between Woke Island and Trumptown might resemble an episode of "Lambs to the Wolves", Los Tíos Tom Blancos and their own dignity, informational chum agitating swarming ideological sharks, how suppressing a defeated ideological Holy War enemy might look in the 21st century, and we revisit "reparations" just to, you know, lighten things up. (Send the bill to Boris!) The Propaganda opus continues next time. ALSO: Chris & Rich educate Todd on "Civil War 2: Electric Boogaloo" The PMRC and the new Left Corey Booker's "community" The Dragon, Kraken, and your own self-interest The absurdity of expecting a Matriarchal Utopia *Like the pod? SPREAD IT! You are the marketing team. *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher. *Also check out www.christophermedia.net & www.escapingthecave.com

After more shootings, Chris & Rich rejoin the show to discuss our "news" (propaganda) consumption, and the predictably tribal response. We're malleable psychological adolescents and clearly unprepared for this informational responsibility. Also, the same recycled arguments with a few new propaganda twists, did you know the Dayton killer was a self-proclaimed Leftist? Is it coincidence that most "news" coverage is in El Paso? Remote rhetorical assaults and the usefulness of "physical accountability": smacking bullies in the snout. ALSO:  "Can I believe this" vs "Must I believe this" Snorting pacifists: lambs to the wolves Arya Stark: she was fiction.  "Educated Intellectuals" aren't immune to propaganda; maybe more vulnerable     *Like the pod? SPREAD IT! You are the marketing team. *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher. *Also check out www.escapingthecave.com

How propaganda acts as an informational virus to destroy critical thought and alienate the person from himself. More on data overload, the uninformed Current Events Man knowing a little about everything and a lot about nothing, mistaking feelings for thought, having to accept or reject an entire doctrine in total, losing intellectual autonomy, and how artificial tensions are often accompanied by dubious solutions.  ALSO: Artificial solutions to real needs Real solutions to artificial needs "Influencers", their product, and their Patreon The Tribal Dance of Rhetorical Fuckery We're a species of sleazy lawyers and pathological liars Self-stereotyping caricatures It's fine to generalize then exile sectarian fabricants Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747   *Like it?  Share it. *More: www.escapingthecave.com

The conclusion of Ellul's "Psychological Crystallization" featuring the makeup of its slogans & how they're used to replace thought. Also, collective belief and obsessions, self-justification/rationalizations and how they spawn the self-righteous Puritan, the closing of the crystallized mind, propaganda's religious personality, and the bizarre media phenomenon: monetizing your mind rape.  ALSO: - Marianne Williamson: The New Trump? - Introducing the father of American propaganda: Edward Bernays - They know you better than you know yourself    - Propaganda's side-effects and how they mirror the '60's definition of "neurosis"   Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747 *Like the pod? SPREAD IT!  F**k The Zuckerbeast & Twitter. You are my marketing team. *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher. *Also check out www.christophermedia.net & www.escapingthecave.com  

Begins with a takedown of "white privilege", self-flagellation vs. self-interest, and the asinine/futile demands of our Social Vengeance Warriors; beware the boomerang, Moonbeam. From there, I move on to Ellul's dissection of how propaganda hijacks the political cultist's mind. The first of two parts, this episode focusses on the distinction between doctrine and critical thought, unnaturally homogenous thought, codifying social, political, and moral standards, exploiting latent pre-existing prejudices, and the power of implanted stereotypes & symbols used as triggering mechanisms. The elephant is strong in this one!     Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747 *Like the pod? SPREAD IT!  F**k The Zuckerbeast & Twitter. You are my marketing team. *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher. *Also check out www.christophermedia.net & www.escapingthecave.com 

Propaganda isn't what you may think. Ellul's ideas on pre-propaganda, propaganda's conditioned reflexes, myths, and "orthopraxy". Including the triggering of active and passive action (activists, influencers, collaborators), widespread participation by "committed" zealots, the separation between thought and action, exploiting the abyss between what we say and what we do, mobilizing men for action counter to their own values, and being unable to reverse ourselves once "action" has begun.   ALSO:  Exiling naked sectarians Agitation and organization How the Internet rejuvenates and revives conditioned reflexes Technology indoctrinates us much faster than before Presuppositions, stereotypes, and political education disguised as universities Mind-hacking thru a broken firewall Seizing your intellectual autonomy Excommunication is painful. But Necessary.   Jacques Ellul's "Propaganda": https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Formation-Attitudes-Jacques-Ellul/dp/0394718747 *Like the pod? SPREAD IT!  F**k The

More on agitation propaganda and the psychological effects of propaganda including: loss of individuality, suppression of critical thought, creation of the mob and how critical thought is literally impossible as part of a group, the creation of a fanatically self-righteous social "conscious" leading to the demonization of the out-group, and more on the sphere of the sacred. Then, how propaganda partitions society (identity politics) via verbal fiction creating sects of victims who only speak "to themselves."   Also:  Propaganda's only heard by its choir creating alternate factual universes: The Echo Chamber Manchurian activists primed for provoked outrage & action: Marionettes The creation of an abstract verbal universe: Personal Realities spun from Collective Narratives & "fake news" Sacrificing self-dignity to "the cause" and the danger of surrendering to "something bigger than yourself" Stereophonic propaganda Reclaiming individuality by removing your dog from the fight: Privatized Detachmen

Congressional grandstanding for the cameras, Mueller's testimony: viewed and spun in parallel universes, deciding whether to read the report, voting your own self-interest (Yes! Do it!), the Current Events Man, asking the right questions, when boutique news becomes fatal, and the sacred Golden Calves. Also:  Leaving the mob Evolution lurks Mythology and the Devil within   *Like it? SPREAD IT!  F**k The Zuckerbeast & Twitter. YOU are my marketing team. *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher. *Also check out www.christophermedia.net and www.escapingthecave.com

The extreme left's totalitarian purity test and its search for Utopia's messiah; self-righteous moral certainty and the narcissistic narratives of the secular humanist religion. Then, agitation propaganda creates armies of proselytes and militants while unleashing an uncontrollable and destabilizing primal hatred for "the evil other." No one's immune; would you even know if you're devouring propaganda?  ALSO:  Silent Collaborators The Sunday School of political insemination Political missionaries always rapping at the smart phone's door Being right vs. "looking" right Ignoring history You're solely responsible for protecting and maintaining your own mind    *Like it? SPREAD IT!  F**k The Zuckerbeast & Twitter. YOU are my marketing team. *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher. *Also check out www.christophermedia.net and www.escapingthecave.com

Todd, Chris, and Rich discuss how the left always inadvertently triggers heated nationalism with its self-defeating renouncement of patriotism and Zinnification: exploiting idealistic naiveté; how Zinnified agitation propaganda attacks national unity by destroying symbols and cohesively fictitious myths.    Also:  “Racism” isn’t a "white thing" nor exclusively an American trait The ridiculous notion that propaganda-farting fleshbots are “changing minds” The slow crawl of social progress  Paying Granddaddy’s social debts Immigration and "becoming American" “Socialism rules!" Then why was there a Berlin Wall? Your special personal experience doesn’t matter Child Worship? But, children are literally ignorant   *Like it? SPREAD IT!  F**k The Zuckerbeast & Twitter. YOU are my marketing team. *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher. *Also check out www.christophermedia.net and www.escapingthecave.com

Chris & Rich sit in on the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. We discuss the achievement, the courage of those undertaking it, and how subsequent generations were cheated of their signature crowning moment in history.    ALSO:  -Data overload, informational suffocation, and how the compulsive "current events man" is actually less informed. -Are we "really" evolving? -Patriotic appreciation vs. copycat anti-Americanism   *Like it? SPREAD IT!  F**k The Zuckerbeast & Twitter. YOU are my marketing team. *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher. *Also check out www.christophermedia.net and www.escapingthecave.com

"He who defines is your master." More on twisting definitions as a malicious propaganda tool, how institutional propaganda systems affect a population, and where a species oblivious of its own shortcomings ultimately ends up. Also:  -Communing with the organic dead -There's no such thing as collective critical thought -Intelligence as a handicap -Foreshadowing a Walter Lippmann re-think   *Like it? Share it! F**k The Zuckerbeast & Typhoid Jack. YOU'RE the marketing team. *Subscribe on your favorite podcatcher. *Also check out www.escapingthecave.com

Definitions, journalism as a euphemism for propaganda, Amash goes rogue, Antifa gets played by Patreon's punching bag, I have a creative reparations solution, FOX gets savvy and begins filling a void. Part two coming soon.  Also,  -What happened to our Nuremberg rally? -More on these ridiculous Democratic debates -Justice isn't real   -Is the extremist worm turning?      *Like it? SPREAD IT!  F**k The Zuck & Twitter. YOU are my marketing team. *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher. *Also check out www.christophermedia.net and www.escapingthecave.com 

A digital detox update and re-connecting with the organic world, Trump's 4th of July spectacle and the predictable "outrage", why I'm rooting against the US women's soccer team, the ridiculous debates, and half as many young people consider themselves "gay allies." Why? Beware the boomerang!   Also:  -Social media is the new talk radio -Visceral emotive manipulation and monetized propaganda -Algorithms as propaganda delivery systems  *Like it? SPREAD IT!  F**k The Zuck & Twitter. YOU are my marketing team. *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher.  *Also check out www.christophermedia.net and www.escapingthecave.com

Are we representing ourselves accurately via these one dimensional social media avatars? I update the digital detox progress and talk about my over-amplified virtual projection, Toddzilla, destroying meaningful relationships, how the tweet is in the eye of the beholder, missing a funeral for a friend, and maybe a faint glimmer of not-so-Sausage Party Hope.     *Like it? SHARE IT!  F**k The Zuck & Twitter. You are the marketing team. *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher. Missing one? Tell me! *Also check out www.escapingthecave.com and www.christophermedia.net

How does someone whose life is based online digitally detox? Good question. Let's find out; here's how it's going to start.  Should be a hoot!   *Like it? SPREAD IT!  F**k The Zuck & Twitter. YOU are my marketing team. *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher. Missing one? Tell me! *Check out www.escapingthecave.com & www.christophermedia.net    

Hi New Zealand! Find yourself logging onto to the LaBrea Twitter Pit or Facebook and suddenly you've lost far more time to it than you intended?  Me too. More on Digitally Enhanced Avatars, Digital Detox as a treatment for a distorted virtual perception/socialization as well as depression, anxiety, cynicism, and generalized anger.   Also, -The universal nature of both our inner and shared stories -Propaganda is a story. -What happens when conflicting propagandas collide? -Social Vengeance Warriors moving beyond "justice" and discrimination into thought control.       *Like it? SPREAD IT!  F**k The Zuck & Twitter. YOU are my marketing team. *Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, and your favorite podcatcher. Am I missing one? Let me know!  *Check out www.christophermedia.net and www.escapingthecave.com

Wrapping things up with Chris & Rich, we discuss how public relations is, literally, a euphemism for propaganda, manufacturing opinion, euphemisms and twisting words to fit the propagandist's purpose, informational overload creating political non-entities, and partisanship rotting political, cultural and social institutions.  Also:  -Abandoning basic American principles; Patriotism's vicious backlash  -Social upheaval or an authoritarian police state resulting from the governed revoking their consent -The Great Utopia is not only impossible, its illusion is held together only by chains -The ridiculous argument that people are voting "against their own interest" -Morally self-righteous bigotry and Wokeflakes poking the Crackerbear     Like it? SHARE IT!  F**k The Zuck & Twitter. YOU are my marketing team.   Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, YouTube, Google Play, Spotify, & Stitcher. Check out www.christophermedia.net and www.escapingthecave.com