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“Political and economic power in the United States is concentrated in the hands of a “ruling elite” that controls most of U.S.-based multinational corporations, major communication media, the most influential foundations, major private universities and most public utilities. Founded in 1921, the Council of Foreign Relations is the key link between the large corporations and the federal government. It has been called a “school for statesmen” and “comes close to being an organ of what C. Wright Mills has called the Power Elite – a group of men, similar in interest and outlook shaping events from invulnerable positions behind the scenes. The creation of the United Nations was a Council project, as well as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.”

– Steve Jacobson, Mind Control in the United States

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Impersonal forces over which we have almost no control seem to be pushing us all in the direction of the Brave New Worldian nightmare; and this impersonal pushing is being consciously accelerated by representatives of commercial and political organizations who have developed a number of new techniques for manipulating, in the interest of some minority, the thoughts and feelings of the masses.

— Aldous Huxley, Preface to A Brave New World

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The Standardization of Human Thought

These facts were flagged as dangers to human freedom in the 1930’s by thinkers of the school of Frankfurt such as Theodor Adorno and Herbert Marcuse. They identified three main problems with the cultural industry. The industry can:

1. reduce human beings to the state of mass by hindering the development of emancipated individuals, who are capable of making rational decisions;

2. replace the legitimate drive for autonomy and self-awareness by the safe laziness of conformism and passivity; and

3. validate the idea that men actually seek to escape the absurd and cruel world in which they live by losing themselves in a hypnotic state self-satisfaction.

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The Thai Character: Flexibility and Adjustment Orientation

Flexibility and Corruption

Since the Thai are not principle oriented, and with
the high value for personal relationships, they also appear not to be
strictly law-oriented. In practice, principles and laws are
ever-adjustable to fit persons and situations. In other words, laws are
rules laid out in papers; but what is wrong or right depends not on the
rules, but instead on who the person is or whom the person knows. A
prominent Thai businessman ironically described this phenomenon in a
seminar:

We Thai are not a society of law; we are a society
of relationship…. It is not what a person has done that’s wrong; it’s
who he is…. If he is your cousin, or your friend, then what he has
done is not wrong. But if another person does the same thing, and it’s
somebody you don’t like, then what he has done is wrong…

This is the reason why law enforcement in Thailand hardly works. If
it does, it is selectively enforced on those who are either nobody or do
not know anybody, or who have no money to ease their wrong-doings or
buy their way out of problems. As a society of relationship, it is easy
and common for an officer, upon request from even friends of friends, to
pull out, cross out or destroy a traffic citation issued. For the sake
of a smooth relationship, officers would overlook, turn a blind eye, or
keep silent. The point here is that, while the basic Thai value system
should not be blamed as the major factor for corruption, it definitely
does not help to inhibit corruption either.

In general, this characteristic “Flexibility and
Adjustment” value orientation has perhaps accounted for varieties of
behavioral patterns, ranging from the facilitation of ethnic
assimilation process, to the tendency of being corruption prone. In
addition, it provides a deeper understanding to the various existing
interpretations of the Thai being “unpredictable”, “non-committing”,
“irresponsible” or even “selfish” and “opportunistic”, by foreigners.

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Half of Your Friends Probably Don’t Think of You As a Friend

May 9, 2016

Tags:friends friendship New York Magazine People real friends Science social behavior

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Bobby Hundreds

thehundreds Wayback Week :: A lot of our early T-shirts were parody-based. This is typical for startup Streetwear labels because they can fly under the legal radar. By perverting a recognizable property, flips are also a fast way to get your foot in the door. In 2005, I designed this rip on “Super Friends,” after seeing how quickly close friends were turning against us in light of popularity. It was a total bummer, after entering the game on such positive vibes, but, it was also a lesson that prepared us for the next decade of navigating relationships. The road to success can get narrower and lonelier. Anyone who competes like it’s a race, tends to get distracted with comparison, and burns out chasing the crowd. The rest who see it as a journey, dig in for the long haul, and write their own story. – @bobbyhundreds

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Brene Brown – Boundaries, Empathy, and Compassion