Are we being dumbed down?

[Whitehaze]

Television is a great example of this. Remember when TV signed off at midnight and restarted at 6am the next day? And the programming was much different in the earlier years, most if it made sense and was educational with a little being entertainment. Now with each passing year, what they allow viewers to see is ever growing. And ever more stupid. Just watch TV at 3am and lose count watching ridiculous infomercials. Look at the reality shows and other night time programs designed to not inform, but to capture attention and lock on. Sex, drugs, and violence has become the norm. This is what people see everyday. Not to mention the adds for foods and drinks laced with chemicals that deposit in the brain and find a nice comfy place to settle down. What other things are designed to stop the thinking process or the ability to rationalize? Are people being turned into mindless drones, blind to the obvious?

[gardunk]

There is no doubt that this is happening and has been for quite a while. A preoccupied mass of sheeple that get stuck watching the fluff that the boob tube throws is a well designed process that also includes project for twenty first century and no child left behind in schools/ link this with the standardized testing that pervades all schools and you will have your truth!

[Whitehaze]

Which is why my son gets his education directly from me. I recognized early on the dangers of public school and the force fed approach. I allowed him to attend public school until his 3rd year, then noticing changes in his personality and habits. He was becoming very angry and frustrated for such a young individual. He rebeled and fought against the school system, he hated it. The officials at the school suggested punishing him for it. My son is very articulate when it comes to discussing how he feels. He was becoming frustrated and bored with school and felt he was being held back from his potential. Indeed he was! The school has a program that does just that, it programs our children. It curbs their thought process and forces them to focus on many things they will never use in their lifetime. And television works hand in hand with that program, furthering dumbing down our children. The last time we viewed broadcast television was in September of 2001. Remember those images that were played over and over and over? My son was only 4 months old at that time, and that is when I went outside and cut the satellite cable to the TV. Some would say I am cutting him off from the world by disengaging from the tv and homeschooling him. But I have to take responsibility for his mind and what goes into it until he is able to understand and rationalize these things for himself. I wish I had his mind. The things he can do are absolutely mind boggling. Things like play a piano, and having never taken a lesson. He wanted to explore the internet and I wasnt ready to allow that yet, so he found a way to hack around the operating system and create a back door account. I never taught him this! It is extremely difficult to keep up with him at times, but I never regret removing him from a system designed to dumb down and control.

[MorningSong]

Here's a link to a free e-book that you all might find interesting:

http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/

Ps: It isn't happening only in the US....believe me.

[1159]

We are being dumbed down in so many ways we don't even recognise half of them. Just about all media output is controlled to gain audience. That means it's a show. Even the news and straight forward documentaries are shows to gain viewers.

The result of all this means we are hardly ever being given the unbiased truth about anything. Media exaggerates, manipulates, sensationalises, distorts and dramatises everything to create a programmed response in the viewer. It's all a show.

Having been the subject of media myself on a global level, I have seen this first hand. An article appeared in The Times about us that although was the result of a personal interview by the reporter, was incorrect on several factual areas. However, other newspapers and media copied the story and reported their own variation of the story. This has happened on several occasions. Chinese whispes... you better believe it!

Yes, we are being dumbed down, because the truth is NOT the issue in the mainstream media. What matters is a juicy story that grabs viewers/readers/listeners, etc. The unbiased truth is secondary to audience attention.

Why is this dumbing us down?

Because while we are being distracted and wowed and sensationalised by the media drama, the real truth is happening somewhere else, in different way and with real people. I personally would not believe anything the newspapers report, or the radio or TV. My experience is that it's always biased and incomplete.

That means you and I know virtually nothing about the real world that comes to us via the media. It's manipulated shadow of the real thing.

Food/ drugs/ education/ religion/ entertainment/ They are all there to take our eyes off the ball, while the real stories happen just out of sight...

[9eagle9]

I had a creepy subliminal incident with the TV several years back. I didn't watch it again for years. Since I've learned to filter that sort of stuff out, I will watch it for very short periods of time but have noticed the programming (they don't call it television programming, for nothing!) is just trash. Stupid, inane. I like to watch History Channel and things of that nature but I doubt I watch more than an hour in any given week. It's just plain dumb. News isn't news is a bunch of shrill opinion, shows are just grimy and incomprehensible, comedies aren't funny, dramas are just ego engagement....

What I have been finding most disturbing though, is that in real life the dramas, fighting, and weird self created cumbersome unrealistic problems, is beginning to reflect in everyday real life in the people on the fringes of my life. Peoples 'issues' are sounding more surreal to me everyday, its like they've created a Hollywood script in their head and are attempting to live it out no matter how unhealthy and unrealistic it is. And the more you attempt to steer them around to a perspective of "there is no REAL need or drama" here the more stubbornly they create to the fiction. Like they want the drama of the role they are assuming.

[Mister_m]

In answer to the question - only if we allow ourselves to be.

Theres a lot of good education material around, it's just rarely on TV nowadays.

[Whitehaze]

Posted by MorningSong (here)
Here's a link to a free e-book that you all might find interesting:

http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/

Ps: It isn't happening only in the US....believe me.

THIS is an excelent read so far! thank you for the link! And yes it is not happening just here in the US, it is everywhere. In regards to our children, I have to say it is of utmost importance to protect them and educate them ourselves. As we learn to expand our own minds, we must also teach our children to expand as well. They wont learn that in any program at school. One of my favorite things to do is to watch my son get an idea and run with it. I sit and quietly observe and usually am awe struck. In school he probably would have been sent to the principles office for thinking outside the box!

[ace]

No TV for over 10 years....

i am un plugged

Regards
Ace

[Ba-ba-Ra]

And not just TV. Don't know about other countries, but here in the U.S., we also have pharmaceuticals being used to keep people in a semi-zombie state. Look at the statistics of the number of young children who are now on daily medications. Then there is our food, which is no longer real food, but a bunch of chemicals and if that isn't enough, then we zap them in microwaves! They put snack and coke machines in our schools years ago. Why? Not to mention Chemtrails and what they're putting into our water supplies.

How can these brains and bodies that have been saturated in drugs, chemicals, pollutants, etc., be expected to be able to decipher critical issues?

[Shezbeth]

I had the opportunity to watch US (CA) network T.V. for about 3 hours yesterday, after 7 years without. It was like having the glasses from They Live. I actually shut my eyes and covered my ears for a period because I was so disgusted and repulsed by the content, while still others watched with rapt attention and amusement.

I was disgusted. It truly is a vehicle for subliminal programming, with 'messages' or content flashed so fast that one can't really absorb it before moving on to the next bit or sequence, intentionally so. I don't know the specific mechanisms involved, but I can assert that it is precisely designed to introduce ideas in such a manner so as to overload the logic and reasoning centers of the brain with enough information that it reverts to a mode of constant download and assimilation.

Hollywood this, promiscuity that, pharma-drugs here, consumerism there - buy this, buy into that, with all the repetition and ceaselessness of a machine gun aimed at the brain. It seeks to undermine one's perception of health, marriage/relationships, solidarity, contentment, nutrition,... the list is endless. Anything positive is certain to be undermined, 'discredited', and at the very least made to seem foolish or 'unsophisticated'.

As has been said, there is positive programming, but you have to pay for it - That which is worth having is worth paying for, and for full price at that!

Add to this equation the rapidly decreasing nutrition standards affected by countless government and corporate agencies, the proliferation of pharmaceutical products and companies, as well as the immediate gratification of commercial consumerism. Pretty much all the things I mention the T.V. as promoting or undermining. Then there are the neurological, biochemical, and dispositional effects and responses to all the aforementioned things. I find it safe to say that:

Yes. We as a society and a race are being dumbed down,... deliberately.

[gardunk]

I most appreciate the comment that we are only if we let ourselves be/ we do have and make many choices daily but falter when we assume that consensus thinking has anything to do with big media/ We homeschooled for 7 years/ but then it was too late to expect any sort of chance for our kids to not be dumbed down and they knew it, hated it and all went to occupational high school/ the key in looking back is to know that we are responsible for our own education and it never ends/ I call it OWN schooling...

[PHARAOH]

To answer the question briefly... !!

[str8thinker]

There's no need to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

IMO the greatest inventions of the 20th century were the time-shifting personal video recorder, the fast forward button and the mute button.

Fortunately for us in Australia we have a great deal of excellent free-to-air television in the form of ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, ad-free) and SBS (minimal ads). Add to that all the excellent stuff available in alternative news and there's no need for anybody to be ill-informed or otherwise dumbed down.

The ABC even has a program named Media Watch, which exposes sloppy and misleading journalism on all channels, including its own. It leaves American TV for dead.

(added) Thanks Morningsong for the book link - excellent. I can't understand why it still costs $134.85 on Amazon when it's now available free!

Here's another interesting PA thread:
Jay Rockefeller Speaks out Against the Dumbing Down by News Mass Media

[pugwash84]

imo if they are "Dumbing down children" it's not working because children are a heck of a lot smarter than they used to be. Each generation gets more and more inteligent as the years go on. I never learned to speak french untill i got to secondary school and they are teaching children this at the age of 7 now. So if they are trying to its not working. My little boy is 7 and i have to ask him to help me with my laptop since he knows more about technology than i do. Also we never went to school untill we was 5 and i never knew how to count or write my name or any of that before i went to school but my boy is 3 and can do all that and more.

[norman]

Not me. I'm getting sharper by the day.

And the joke is: they've broken through a a big FAIL barrier for me ( and probably a lot of others ). Everything they do to bull**** and propagandise me sunses just backfires so badly for them now.

Theys are actually giving me an intense education and stimulating my awareness of it all.

[Icecold]

Aside from the content of the programming, there is also the more insidious aspects of TV. Manipulation of consciousness using fields and electrical signalling techniques.......

http://wacptv.ning.com/profiles/blog...ia-monitorsnot

[Shezbeth]

Also video games. Some involve hidden truths and ideas, much of what we discuss here on Avalon.

Others just involve blowing stuff up, taking whatever isn't nailed down, getting more 'kills', etc.

[philipwebb]

The answer is YES. Through the television, radio, schools, newspapers, ect. I don't watch that much TV anymore. The stupidity is boundless, not to mention the amount of "spins" and disgusting programs that are on I multitude of the stations. The people are dumbed down to the point that something on the TV/Computer Game is more important to them than what is real. It's lobotomy by TV the electronic insanity of the age.

[muxfolder]

I haven't got tv for 5 years now and really don't need that stupid thing anymore. I don't understand my parents cause it seems like their always watching tv whenever their have some time to spare. I think over the years everything on tv has gotten more and more stupid and people don't even realize it. It's irritating actually. Does anyone of you want to be a reality-tv-star or even watch those stupid shows? Like Big Brother? Who wants to be volentarily observated by cameras 24/7?