Abstract：Within the next generation I believe that the world's leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narcohypnotic are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience.

Consciousness  

Consciousness is defined as the quality or state of being aware, especially of something within oneself. Political consciousness is then the personal awareness or concern for some social or political cause. For certain philosophers, all consciousness is political because in their view, it always is the outcome of politic-economic circumstances, a product of ideological influences. That looks close to the reality, but it is far from complete. Today in 2020 the picture is much more complex.

Four steps to full political consciousness

Without any doubt, most people either straightforward deny or are unaware of the entire economic, political, media and internet influence. With a lot of effort and a strong analytic mind it is nevertheless possible to escape that external influence. Not right away; that process takes time and effort. These are the four steps in the process:

The four steps

Everyone, whether they like it or not, has to go through these four stages:  

1. The honeymoon
This is even for well educated people raised in a political active family, the first step. It is an inevitable stepping stone to a more correct political consciousness. Because of the heavy social pressure and the daily brainwashing by the mainstream media, many, if not most people never escape this first stage.

2. Ambiguity and doubt; the second step.
After being confronted with the contradictions between the mainstream media story and reality, a form of uncertainty slowly arises. Last week, a friend wrote me in an email: “I can’t believe they’re all lying”. Indeed, they’re all lying. I have not taken the effort to explain him the details; he wouldn’t accept my explanation anyway. Much, if not all what people read in the western mainstream media is pure propaganda. It is meeting all of the 10 features of propaganda as defined by Edward Bernays and his followers.

3. Awareness, apprehension; the third stage.
Cracks appear in the in the image. People are getting aware that most mainstream media do not present real news but only a pre-made fairy-tale. They despise some or all of the western mainstream media and look for alternative media. They scold the media and politicians but are not yet ready to look for the root causes of the decline of democracy, the economy and freedom of speech.

4. Full political consciousness; the final stage.
The nirvana of political consciousness. People no longer consume western mainstream media. They have strong indications of the root causes of the decline of their freedom. But they’re also fully aware of Confucius’ “Real wisdom is to know that one can’t know everything”.

Global political consciousness

It is, as Mark Twain so vividly expressed, not just useful but of the utmost importance to travel to other countries. To speak with the local people in their own native language.

Mark Twain:

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

One of the reasons for the bias within the Anglo-Saxon population is the lingua franca status of their language. They do not feel the same incentive as others to try to speak the native language of their interlocutor. It is only with a deep understanding of the social and economic situation in other countries that political consciousness has a fertile soil to grow.  

In this regard, it is remarkable that most Chinese people have a higher political consciousness than Westerners.[3]  There are four main causes for the stronger Chinese awareness.[4] In brief: the Chinese 10 points higher IQ, the Chinese education system based on STEM directions and analytical thinking, the harsh meritocratic selection process and the Western degrading but Chinese increasing Flynn effect. 

And even more remarkable is that in general, sociologists are less politically aware than STEM graduates. At first sight this may seem contradictory, but on closer inspection it is very logical. Sociologists are believers, they absorb a way of thinking and pass it on to their audience in a convincing way. STEM graduates, on the other hand, look at things in an analytical way, measure and test, and don’t make a decision until they’ve reviewed enough parameters.

Aldous Huxley [5], fully aware of Bernays’ work two decennia before him, wrote on 21.10.1949 in a letter to his former student George Orwell, author of ‘1984’: “Within the next generation I believe that the world’s leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narcohypnotic are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience”.

[1] Paul Craig Roberts, Institute for Political Economy, “The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media.” Institute for Political Economy, 16.10.2014  https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2014/10/16/cia-owns-everyone-significance-major-media/

[2] Edward L. Bernays, “Propaganda” New York, Horace Liveright, 1928. https://archive.org/details/BernaysPropaganda

[3] Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 in “Statecraft and Society in China” Chapter 7, 17.10.2020

[4] Frans Vandenbosch 方腾波 in “The dictatorship of the idiots” IIGS International Institute on Governance and Strategy, Beijing  06.08.2020  https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s?__biz=MzI1ODE1NjYwOQ==&mid=2682396246&idx=1&sn=0540f2050d284ba030f8a60ba664980f&

[5] Aldous Huxley “Brave New World” 1932 and “Island” 1962.