For this post I wanted to take the opportunity to provide an analysis of Webster Tarplay’s view on the Global Elite in order to share information and spread awareness. This is also an attempt to persuade readers to take a deeper look at the influences they are influenced by, to analyze the actions and words that the authorities, lawmakers, and philosophers pass and teach, while trying to show a connection to various theories. The impact and effectiveness on societies can be explained by the programming used to not only predict people’s behavior but to control it. Group-think theory, and the theory of reasoned action, as well as social dominance theory show how people who belong to a certain group wouldn’t reveal the inner workings or intentions of that group for personal gain/placement within hierarchies.
“The Greater Good” are the “elite”, the “1%” that rule the 99% of us. They are everywhere and control everything. From billboards in big cities, the blatant “flashing lights”, to the signs in the background that are in our peripheral. They are our “educational systems” and what we are told to learn as part of a “curriculum”. They are constructed and organized religions and “faiths”, and their denominations. They are the words and beliefs of our choice authors, the people we follow, the story-lines in movies we live in vicariously, it’s the directors “vision” – down to the publication and the publishers. They are our leaders and instructors. All of it is part of our programming.
Throughout my studies, and after reading about Utilitarianism, and its modern founder, I found it incredibly hard to swallow how such a belief as Bentham’s “no action or motive is intrinsically bad” could be accepted as “rational” or “logical”. I wanted to research who would study and emulate his framework that, by definition, became a “school of thought” for others to add on to, refine, and adapt to their own. Along with the mentality, as it’s defined, (state of mind, frame of mind, attitude, approach, way of thinking, etc.), in my opinion, a concept holding that “pleasure is the only good”, and furthermore, that “the greatest happiness for the greatest number should be the ultimate goal of humans”, are examples of just that, intrinsically evil beliefs. This “greater good” doesn’t include everyone – it’s a happiness and stability that comes at the expense of others.
Machiavellism argues that “human beings are motivated to seek power and status above all else.” Another is captured in Legalism’s, founded by Hsün Tzu, “most important principle” in thinking that “humans are inherently evil and inclined toward criminal and selfish behavior”. So far, the aforementioned serve as adequate and accurate starting points in attempting to explain the culminating state of affairs, and “surveillance state”, a society based on Bentham’s obsessive ideologies for legal and social reform enable a means for a “national penitentiary” system, without doors or windows, to remedy a human condition built to encircle Bentham’s “Panopticon” vision.
To provide more insight I’d like to shed light on a “Frankenstein” of many philosophers, Michel Foucault, who invokes the spirit of Bentham in his own concepts that, as a close colleague, Pierre Bourdieu, summarizes him as having “a long exploration of transgressions, of going beyond social limits, always inseparably linked to knowledge and power. He says not only prisons but all hierarchical structures – the army, schools, hospitals and factories have evolved through history to resemble Bentham’s Panopticon.
But what I find even more fascinating is the interest “critical theorists” have shown in these philosophies and philosophers. The scrutiny these philosophies have received influenced critics to regard such thinking as negative – but as contemporary social critics point out, technology has asserted this “way of life” and deployment of panoptic structures with more invisibility. This brings me to John Holdren, a “science czar” and “Benthamite” himself, who co-authored “Ecoscience” which is regarded as the “norm” for its proposals and theories, basing his own perspectives on this same research.
Aside from my personal belief that Bentham is from the “same school” that Hitler was “educated” in, where they teach one-sided “win-lose” situations, where “education” disregards morality for all, and is contradictory – I’d like to know who would follow an “immoral morality” which is impossible to be beneficial to anyone other than those who would use this ideology, and technology, to indeed benefit from individually? This leads me back to Darwinism, and his “survival of the fittest” belief in “prosperity through conflict”. “Problem, Reaction, Solution.”
As with many of these experimental and unethical approaches, the “controlled substances” – whether dog, “man’s best friend”, or “man” himself – I find it appalling how a person, and subsequently, institutions could adapt an “operant conditioning”, and it’s “rewards and consequences” programming. That, coupled with Darwin’s observational and also “hands on” approach at manipulating one’s environment and/or not manipulating it but rather watching and recording – studying it, and you, longitudinally, and culturally was one of the fundamental points in establishing a “theory of evolution” that has been considered “fact” or “proven” so much so that a character such as Bentham can be credited in much of the “conditioning” practices.
It’s one thing to want to help people but when the help that is offered is provided to control it almost seems like a “God-complex” to categorize certain people as unfit or unworthy of having the same rights. They then decide who can or can’t receive what are often referred to as “privileges”. So taking a closer look at the character of Bentham, at the core of his beliefs on humanity, society, behavior and what is acceptable on his take of morality – his works are the ideal blueprint for a manipulative and corruptible system that projects itself as the counter-opposite designed to prevent that which they are created to be. It is by these means that the “elite”, by commonality, share in their entitlement via obtainment, and containment, by reaching various statures, through affiliations, providing the platform to operate and influence with the mentality that “I can do no wrong”. In theory, from an objective place, don’t these concepts sound rather radical? They sound racist too.
I don’t believe in accidents or coincidences either, a la Sigmund Freud, but this “greater good” I always hear used so loosely in this secularly controlled “program”, where “in God we trust” refers to money, allows the flow of money to bring with it a certain power. And controlling the “current of currency”, the influence of it, allows money to act like its own entity. It can provide everything! Or so is the illusion. It also provides a means of soliciting and solidifying a personal or collective goal, a means to be seen as an authority figure – “power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”.
With a concept of “no action or motive is intrinsically bad” not pertaining to everyone, but referring to those who “can do no wrong” – this “greater good” doesn’t include the “expendable” because, to them, we are not created equal. We are society’s “lab rats” looked down upon and labeled as “immigrants” or “invalids”. We’re the “inferior” cattle on an “animal farm”, milked to the last drop for this “economic machine”. We’re the “casualties” of an unseen war. We produce the “data” for the research, and cure for our own cancer – the vaccine and the cancer too. This system reminds me of Nazi Germany trying to resurface on American soil, as if the spirit behind its “master race” was now embodied by its “democratic” captor.
History sure does have a history of repeating itself, but somehow, as historians and philosophers interpret and, at times, try to rewrite, using psychological warfare, attempting to learn from the mistakes of their teachers – as Orwell prophesized in his “doublespeak” and “groupthink”, “thought police” think-tank, the individual finds others to inherit their ideas, and the affluent continue to contribute to the results of those who have less power and/or no power at all, no “voice” or “say so”. This is what separates the lawmakers and those who the laws are made for. They are “subject to interpretation”, open-ended and ever-changing and confusing, and controlling propaganda we oblige to so freely and ignorantly as our “programming of choice”.
It’s everywhere. It’s in our every background, and right in front of our faces. It’s in our homes, and jobs. It’s there playing in our favorite music and songs, our favorite artists and actors, our favorite sports and athletes. It’s who we mimic and “look up to”. “What is she wearing?” “What is he saying and doing?” “How are they acting and behaving?” Distractions upon distractions.
I stumbled across the YouTube video below by accident one day and was shocked to hear how among the many disturbing facts and policies it mentions, along with the people named – Bentham was a main source of inspiration for the material discussed. He wasn’t only mentioned but his maniacal framework, as “innocently” as it was made known to me, is one of the voices behind “Ecoscience”.
And I quote, “there’s a limit to growth, and the privileges of an oligarchy are more important than the standard of living and the success of the individual human family. This summarizes the “wolf in sheep’s clothing” a “greater good” defined by a character of Bentham’s caliber offers, along with both philosophies and philosophers he’s tailored his costume to fashion, and the students of his own “school of thought” that he helped “enlighten”.
References:
Schneider, F., Gruman, J., Coutts, L. (2012). Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.). Los Angeles: Sage.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-08-15/order-out-chaos-doctrine-runs-world
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism