DISCLAIMER:
I would like to begin this article with an explanation of why a discussion of James Cameron's movie Avatar [2009] is relevant to a blog that is devoted to total disinformation awareness. I intend to use this movie as an analogy to explore some of the issues surrounding predictive programming and cultural conditioning. Astute readers will note that these are two different labels for the same phenomena. I might equally call it behaviour modification or mind control, except that in the case of Avatar it happens on a mass scale. Recent estimates indicate that almost 27 million people have seen the film at a cinema with the full 3D immersion effect. For the sake of brevity I shall avoid any extended discussion of the technology behind Avatar, as I don't think the special effects are the most important factor here, although the experience of being totally immersed in someone else's vision is an issue that should be considered in depth. Equally, I am omitting any discussion of the plot or storyline of the film as, for the sake of full disclosure I feel it is only right to admit that I haven't actually seen it on account of how the whole thing really fucking creeps me out.
INTRODUCTION: Not Just Imprisoned, The Prison Itself
[Or: It May Only Be A Movie But It Has The Power To Transport Us All To A Magical Dreamland Where We Will Become So Happy We'll Want To Kill Ourselves]
Firstly: no responsible, rational blogger would, could or should expect to get away with a line like that.
But I'm not a responsible, rational blogger.
I'm an irresponsible, alarmist blogger.
So that's alright, then.
As I will argue [#withlogic!] in this article, predictive programming is nothing new, and one of the earliest references that I've been able to find is Plato's allegory of the cave. Before we get into that, or into what some more contemporary thinkers are writing about predictive programming, lets have some background information on all this Avatar shit [and a fucking creepy picture] preferably from a reputable, mainstream source:
James Cameron's completely immersive spectacle "Avatar" may have been a little too real for some fans who say they have experienced depression and suicidal thoughts after seeing the film the beauty of the alien world Pandora. On the fan forum site "Avatar Forums," a topic thread entitled "Ways to cope with the depression of the dream of Pandora being intangible," has received more than 1,000 posts from people experiencing depression and fans trying to help them cope.
A user named Mike wrote on the fan Web site "Naviblue" that he contemplated suicide after seeing the movie. "Ever since I went to see 'Avatar' I have been depressed. Watching the wonderful world of Pandora and all the Na'vi made me want to be one of them. I can't stop thinking about all the things that happened in the film and all of the tears and shivers I got from it," Mike posted. "I even contemplate suicide thinking that if I do it I will be rebirthed in a world similar to Pandora and the everything is the same as in 'Avatar.'"
Creepy, right? Other fans have expressed feelings of disgust with the human race and disengagement with reality. Cameron's movie, which has pulled in more than $1.4 billion in worldwide box office sales and could be on track to be the highest grossing film of all time, is set in the future when the Earth's resources have been pillaged by the human race. A greedy corporation is trying to mine the rare mineral unobtainium from the planet Pandora, which is inhabited by a peace-loving race of 10-foot tall, blue-skinned natives called the Na'vi.
In their race to mine for Pandora's resources, the humans clash with the Na'vi, leading to casualties on both sides. The world of Pandora is reminiscent of a prehistoric fantasyland, filled with dinosaur-like creatures mixed with the kinds of fauna you may find in the deep reaches of the ocean. Compared with life on Earth, Pandora is a beautiful, glowing utopia.
Cameron's special effects masterpiece is very lifelike, and the 3-D performance capture and CGI effects essentially allow the viewer to enter the alien world of Pandora for the movie's 2½-hour running time, which only lends to the separation anxiety some individuals experience when they depart the movie theater.
"Virtual life is not real life and it never will be, but this is the pinnacle of what we can build in a virtual presentation so far," said Dr. Stephan Quentzel, psychiatrist and Medical Director for the Louis Armstrong Center for Music and Medicine at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York. "It has taken the best of our technology to create this virtual world and real life will never be as utopian as it seems onscreen. It makes real life seem more imperfect." Within the fan community, suggestions for battling feelings of depression after seeing the movie include things like playing "Avatar" video games or downloading the movie soundtrack, in addition to encouraging members to relate to other people outside the virtual realm and to seek out positive and constructive activities.
- Jo Piazza; Audiences experience 'Avatar' blues [cnn.com; Janurary 11, 2010]
So, let's review: Avatar is a "completely immersive spectacle" which has produced in some viewers "feelings of disgust with the human race and disengagement with reality" as well as suicidal ideation and the belief in some kind of supernatural afterlife upon death. Astute readers will immediately notice the similarities between this and the intended results of both military training and religious indoctrination.
And that is why I want to examine it more closely in our awesome new blog.
PART ONE: But Then They Began Shooting...
[Or: A Chilling Warning Of Things To Come]
This article was originally written over a year ago, so I was curious to see if the Avatar naviblue.com forum was still around and active. It was interesting, but not conclusive, to note that the first thing I saw when I hit the forum was a short article entitled Avatar fandom quite literally eliminates race. While this article may equally be critiqued for it's misunderstanding of the meaning of the word "literally" as well as for it's appalling lack of dialectical thought and perhaps for buying into the fake liberal conceit that we now live in a "post-racist" world, it is interesting nonetheless:
One of the great features of intelligent interests like science fiction is that it brings people together, putting aside such trivialities as physical differences or such issues as nationality, in favor of the creative spirit and the connections that we as living beings share in the great momentum of conscious existence. This is a fundamental theme of Avatar, but the experience of this theme extends beyond watching the film itself.
One particularly elegant demonstration of this phenomenon happened to me a few months ago at DragonCon, while I was wandering with a friend, while wearing my Na'vi costume, an outfit consisting of a full body suit and meticulously applied paint, covering my face and hands. She had on a partially assembled dragon costume, but at the time, her head and hands were off, and people could see her face. Someone asked if I was my friend's brother. We thought this question was amusing, since she is African-American, whereas I am white. At that moment, I had stopped being a human nationality. I could have been any race. What at the time seemed simply amusing became a more profound statement to the world outside the convention, where people are still caught up in petty conflicts over differences that, from a genetic standpoint, are essentially cosmetic.
- Jonathan Coolidge - Avatar Fandom Quite Literally Eliminates Race [naviblue.com; November 10 2010]
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| I know, what the fuck? |
This is particularly interesting in light of the perhaps the most extreme manifestation of the manner in which "the experience of this theme extends beyond watching the film itself." I am referring, of course, to the infamous Palestinian/Na'vi protest of February 2010, in which two Palestinian and three Israeli protesters dressed in Avatar costumes "marched up to the Israeli Army blockade in full Na'vi gear. As they chanted for an end to the occupation of their lands, a bevy of journalists and various onlookers followed. Israeli forces responded by firing dozens of rounds of tear gas and sound grenades at the movie impersonators.
"At first they were surprised," [protest organiser] Khatib said with a laugh. "But then they began shooting and we felt like it was a scene from the movie again, except it was real, and it was taking place in the village." [Carl Franzan; The Making Of The West Bank's 'Avatar' Protest; aolnews.com; February 12 2010]
Now, Herman Melville once said something that I wish more people would remember: "of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well-warmed, and well-fed." Therefore I will limit my discussion of the above event to simply saying that I think it's an interesting example of the phenomena of predictive programming. Clearly this is a very complicated phenomenon which can manifest itself in very powerful, often unpredictable ways.
It's OK, I know you don't understand what predictive programming is, but that's why I'm gonna talk you through it, nice and slow like...
PART TWO: Predictive Programming
[Or: Chained Like Dogs To The Screen]
In his 2005 article Fiction as a Precursor to fact: Scifi and "predictive programming" and the emergent world religion, Philip D. Collins states it like this: "science fiction is a means of conditioning the masses to accept future visions that the elite wish to tangibly enact. This process of gradual and subtle inculcation is dubbed 'predictive programming.'" While I don't agree with all of Collins' contentions, and think that at times he may underestimate the ability of individuals to in some sense "rehabilitate" themselves and others from the effects of predictive programming, I strongly recommend that readers check out his entire article. It contains some important information about cultural conditioning and is a good introduction to several other important researchers. Specifically, Collins quotes author Michael Hoffman's definition of predictive programming:
"Predictive programming works by means of the propagation of the illusion of an infallibly accurate vision of how the world is going to look in the future."
Collins further informs us that predictive programming is also called "sci-fi inevitabilism" by Hoffman and:
predictive programming is analogous to a virus that infects its hosts with the false belief that it is:
* Useless to resist central, establishment control.* Or it posits a counter-cultural alternative to such control which is actually a counterfeit, covertly emanating from the establishment itself.* That the blackening (pollution) of earth is as unavoidable as entropy.* That extinction ('evolution") of the species is inevitable.* That the reinhabitation of the earth by the "old gods" (Genesis 6:4), is our stellar scientific destiny.
- Michael Hoffman; Secret Societies and Psychological Warfare; [2001] p205; cited in Fiction as a Precursor to fact: Scifi and "predictive programming" and the emergent world religion; Phillip D. Collins; [conspiracyarchive.com]
Astute readers will correctly note that we are now getting into some fairly heavy and weird shit, so at this point I would encourage everybody to calm the fuck down, close your eyes and imagine that you have died and, by the power of my words alone, been transported to a magical dreamland where it is actually possible to rationally discuss these kind of topics without the recourse to paranoia, annoying new-age bullshit, INAPPROPRIATE CAPITAL LETTERS or sarcasm. Imagine that we really are going to think about this together, calmly, everything is going to be amazing and you feel that, right?
HAHAHAhahaHAHA!!!! ! 1!!! NOT REALLY!!! PSYCHE!!! JAYKAYEZ BITCHES!!! You're still in shitty reality, I was just fucking with you. [#howcouldyoureadthiswithyoureyesclosedsilly?]
Aren't you glad I don't have access to millions of dollars of audio-visual equipment and special effects?
And, as Alan Watts has so insightfully stated: "that's why it's called 'programming.' You're programmed by it." [transcript of Cutting Through The Matrix podcast; 24 November 2006.] Furthermore:
Hollywood is the magician's wand (holly-holy) which has been used to cast a spell on the unsuspecting public. Things or ideas which would otherwise be seen as bizarre, vulgar, undesirable or impossible are inserted into films in the realm of fantasy. When the viewer watches these films, his/her mind is left open to suggestion and the conditioning process begins. These same movies which are designed to program the average person, can give the discerning viewer a better understanding of the workings and the plan of the world agenda. "Be-aware". Predictive programming [is] the power of suggestion using the media of fiction to create a desired outcome.
Now, if any of this is starting to sound familiar at all, it may be because there is a certain amount of historical evidence that suggests predictive programming is a very ancient phenomenon. Now that I've given you a bit of context and a contemporary example [#andfuckedwithyoualittlebit] it's a good time to take a look at the way Plato explained it.
PART THREE: Plato's Allegory Of The Cave
[Or: The Lights Are On But You're Not Home]
Plato was an ancient Greek philosopher who lived in the 4 and 3rd centuries BCE and was a student of Socrates. One of the most powerful metaphors that we have to describe predictive programming comes from Socrates via Plato and is known as the allegory of the cave. W. C. K. Guthrie said that Socrates said that Plato said this about the allegory of the cave:
- W. C. K. Guthrie; A History of Greek Philosophy: Volume 4, Plato: The Man and his Dialogues: Earlier Period; Harvard University Press [1974] [italics mine].Let me show in a figure how far our nature is enlightened or unenlightened: --Behold! human beings living in a underground cave, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the cave; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.
It was like Youtube, but with less idiotic comments.
And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.
And they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave. How could they see anything but the shadows if they were never allowed to move their heads? To them the truth would be literally nothing but the shadows of the images.
And so, transferring this story to our high-tech dystopia: the "fire" that creates these "shadows" on the wall of this "cave" is the "media." Or maybe the fire is real and the shadows are the media. Or are the "chains" that keep the people imprisoned in this cave watching the fire that creates these shadows the media? See, I dunno. All I know is I totally know not.
CONCLUSION: All That, For This
[Or: What I Learnt Trolling The Avatar Fan Forums Because I Was Too Fucking Creeped Out To Actually See The Movie Like A Real Journalist Would]
So, what have I learnt about predictive programming from Avatar? I have spent more time than I even want to think about trolling the Avatar forum [#soyoudonthaveto] and I have to say I several things almost immediately jumped out at me [#notlitterally.] While some forum members insist that they have remarkably intimate experiences with the characters and environment of Avatar, a case can be made that this relatively new manifestation of predictive programming may not be as powerful or deeply embedded as an earlier form of predictive programming, namely the program we call consumer culture, thusly:
I always dreams and thought about being on Pandora and becoming a Na'vi, but never would suicide or genocide to believe that i will go to Pandora and become a Na'vi. [...] But, everytime i think i go crazy about Pandora, or insane, i just ask myself, what is there to do Pandora besides flying and stuff? No video games, no TV, no basketball, no football..... and that lowers my insanity.
- "Meatwad" on the topic thread: Dont be sad that Pandora is fictional. Earth is real. [naviblue.com; 12/01/10]
Furthermore, there was some evidence of this newer form of predictive programming clashing with another, older, previously embedded program, namely religion:
I agree. We shouldn't commit suicide. If you do that you go to hell. Thanks for the post.
And while there were many examples of Avatar predictive programming meshing with and becoming almost indistinguishable from various new age beliefs, perhaps the most interesting conversation I witnessed was this one:
- "surfnoc" on the topic thread: Depressed 'Avatar' fans only think they long for Pandora [naviblue.com; 18/01/10] [Note: these links are all over a year old and are now dead, or in Avatar world.]Our DNA remembers, but our brains struggle. We have a fuzzy, nebulous longing, hovering at the edge of our consciousness, just out of reach. Although we can't quite remember, the cellular memory of our connection to Mother Earth can be triggered, as can the grief over our separation from her. That's what 'Avatar' was for some people - a memory trigger. But they think it's Pandora they long for. It's not. It's Mother. And she's still here, if you know where to look.
The above statment strongly reminded me of this quote by Ernst Bloch:
Human kind still lives in prehistory everywhere, indeed everything awaits the creation of the world as a genuine one. The real genesis is not at the beginning but at the end, and it only begins when society and existence become radical, that is, grasp themselves at the root. The root of history, however, is the human being [...] if human beings have grasped themselves, and what is theirs, without depersonalization and alienation, founded in real democracy, then something comes into being in the world that shines into everyone's childhood and where no one has yet been -- home.
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| eeeeek!!! |
Therefore I think it would be wrong to simply dismiss the people who have been caught up in this as either pathetic loners with a weird fetish for dressing up like blue freaks or as hapless victims of something they don't understand.
The fetish element, for example, must warrant closer examination. "Fetish" is, as I'm sure we were all aware, a Marxist term that is used to describe the process whereby goods and services [typically consumer items] are seen not as the final result of a complex web of social relations and interactions, but simply as the thing itself, imbued with certain "transcendent properties" typically status. An example can be found in the way in which the consumer feels "I am not just purchasing this car, I am purchasing the success and status that allows me to purchase this car" or perhaps some other property or value: sophistication, for example.
The three examples I have cited here are instructive, but not decisive. And yet, in blatant violation of the Total Disinformation Awareness guidelines, it is possible to make the following tentative conclusions:
1] 66% of Avatar fans are nuts, or playing at being nuts
2] 33% of Avatar fans "have a good head on their shoulders."
3] 100% of Avatar fans are nerds
4] 100% of Avatar fans don't know what happens to Avatar fans after they die
5].100% of Avatar fans need to get off the Avatar fan forums and check out totaldisinformationawareness.blogspot.com
[SockRatEz says: So does this mean I've been Predictively Programmed to realise that victory is assured and we will overthrow the Evil empire and drive out the Oligarchs like the end of Return Of The Jedi? Whose playing at the celebration party? Do Cheney statues smash as easy as Saddam ones or the Emperors? Will there be Ewoks at the final battle?] [Sparx says: Fuck your "Return Of The Jedi" what about THIS: have you ever noticed how Ron Paul kinda looks like Yoda? Or is that just me? [#itstartedasajokebutnowicantstopthinkingaboutit.]]
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