Conditioning and Propaganda

Georgina BasualdoFernando de la Parra 9A

Social Conditioning in the World

In the world we are all conditioned by news and propagandas. They tell us the things that will worry us the most or things we will love to hear, they will make us react more in a negative or positive way, we are always listening what they want us to believe. For example: If you’re watching TV and this ad comes up saying if you buy their new shampoo your hair will look like the person in the ad. Women will believe this and they will buy the shampoo. We are enslaved by the TV. We rely on what they have to say. This meaning the TV, news, social media etc.. control us in some way. We are always listening to what they say and we believe it.

PropagandaThis is the easiest way to condition people. It is the most effective way to advertize. Advertising is the art of propaganda. And in this way they make you believe and consume the things they want you to consume. Donald Draper style.

They “want” your “happiness”

“Advertising is based on one thing: happiness. And do you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It’s freedom from fear. It’s a billboard on the side of a road that screams with reassurance that whatever you’re doing is Okay. You are Okay.”-Donald Draper (Jon Hamm) in Mad Men

“One believes things because one has been conditioned to believe them.” -Aldous Huxley, Brave New World

All the advertising companies make you believe that they are selling you a product, when really they are selling you the idea of that product. If they want to sell you a car they tell you how cool you will look in the car, and they tell you that everybody has one, so you don’t want to be left out and want to look cool; so you buy the car.

We are the Slaves of PropagandaIn modern day we are enslaved by propaganda. Because we believe right away what the social media tells us. We don’t even investigate more about the subject because we think it’s reliable, just because the media tells us.

Affecting the societyHow is this affecting the society?We live for technology. We are slaves for it. It’s an international problem. We believe that technology has the answer for everything when in fact we created technology. Because of this, what other people communicate via technology seems like it’s always true and they don’t lie to you. Not everything in this world is perfect, and not everything is true. So we need to embrace this and question ourselves.

Religion In a way, you are conditioned by your religion, you don’t know why you need to believe in a god, you just know you believe in it. You don’t even know if you like it or not, you just go to church every sunday, but you don’t even know why.

Conditioning in Brave New World In Brave New World, people are conditioned by soma. When they don’t want to have bad thoughts, or just don’t want to think at all. They take soma. When they don’t want to feel bad things. They take soma. This drug practically sedates the people into a happy state. They make them believe that soma is the answer for everything when really it’s not. They see it as something happy and good. Also the Delta’s and Epsilon’s are conditioned into not liking books, nature, and being “intelligent”. So the world state conditioned them to like tools and bloody sports because it is what “dumb” people like.

ConclusionTo conclude we’d like to give our last opinion. Propaganda and conditioning are connected in many different ways and they can both ruin you or make you grow as a person. It depends on you, it depends if you decide to believe the information they give you, or to investigate and verify if it is true or not, if you believe it or not. You don’t necessarily need to believe what they say, in fact it is better if you question it, in that way you can give your opinion about the subject and create an idea around it. If you do this you create a person that believes what he chooses to believe, not a person that believes what other persons tell him.