Sylvain Timsit compiled a list of “10 strategies of manipulation” with the help of the media:
1. The strategy of distraction. The primary element of social control is the strategy of distraction that consists in diverting public attention from important problems and changes decided by political and economic elites, through a flood of continual distractions and insignificant information. Distraction is also essential to prevent the public from taking interest in essential knowledge in the areas of science, economics, psychology, neurobiology and cybernetics. Keep the public’s attention diverted away from real social problems, and captive to matters of no real importance.2. Create problems, then offer solutions. This method is also called “problem–reaction–solution.” A problem is created — a “situation” — to cause a certain reaction in the public, so that it becomes the demander of measures that the elites wished to have accepted beforehand. For example: allow urban violence to rise, or organize bloody attacks, so that the public demands security laws that strip away liberty. Or create an economic crisis so that the dismantling of social rights and public services is accepted as a necessary evil.
3. The gradual strategy. To make an unacceptable measure acceptable, apply it gradually, drop by drop, over years. That is how radically new socioeconomic conditions (neoliberalism) were imposed during the 1980s and 1990s: minimal state, privatization, precariousness, flexibility, massive unemployment, low wages, and no guarantee of a decent income.
4. The strategy of deferring. Another way to make an unpopular decision accepted is to present it as “painful but necessary,” and to gain public acceptance now for application in the future. It is easier to accept a future sacrifice than an immediate one.
5. Treat the public like children. Most advertising directed at the general public uses discourse, arguments, characters and a tone appropriate for children. The more you try to deceive the viewer, the more you adopt a childish tone.
6. Use the emotional more than the rational. Making use of emotion allows one to short-circuit rational analysis and critical sense. Moreover, the use of emotional register opens the door to the unconscious in order to implant ideas, desires, fears, and anxieties.
7. Keep the public in ignorance and mediocrity. Make the public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods used to control and enslave it. The quality of education given to the lower social classes must be as poor and mediocre as possible, so that the gap between lower education and elite education remains unknown to the lower classes.
8. Encourage the public to be complacent with mediocrity. Promote the idea that it is fashionable to be stupid, vulgar and uneducated.
9. Strengthen self-blame. Make the individual believe that they alone are responsible for their misfortune, because of their insufficient intelligence, abilities or efforts. Thus, instead of rebelling against the economic system, the individual devalues themselves and feels guilty — which generates depression, one of whose effects is inhibition of action.
10. Know individuals better than they know themselves. Over recent decades, advances in science have generated a growing gap between public knowledge and elite knowledge. Combined with biology, neurobiology and applied psychology, this enables “the system” to have ever greater control over individuals — better than individuals know themselves.
Author: Sylvain Timsit
Source: “Stratégies de manipulation” (2002); English circulating as “10 strategies of manipulation”
Original: https://www.syti.net/Manipulations.html
Widely misattributed online to Noam Chomsky; Timsit is the author.