Just Thinking

I just happened to accidentally see a little of a TV Documentary How Art Made the World. The part that I saw was investigating some findings regarding Aztec ideas about death and went like this ...

In the US some researchers were testing the effects of exposure to certain things on how people treated others who were similar or different to them. The subjects were either Democrats or Republicans and they had to dish up a helping of some very hot (and I gather unpleasant) spicy stuff for another person to eat.

In the initial test, the people were told who had to eat it and whether they were of the same or different political persuasion. This had no effect on the helping served, people treatd their opponents the same as their comrades.

However in the second test people were first put through a procedure that asked them about what happened to people at death. After that, people then served up twice as much nasty hot sauce to their political opponents. This apparently confirmed some Aztec ideas (I missed the earlier part).

The conclusion is that exposure to images or thoughts of death and their own mortality makes people much more likely to go along with seeing others as targets for unpleasantness.

It seems to me (and others have observed this also) that the news these days is filled with US propaganda on death and destruction and that 911 is kept alive as a reminder of death and mortality so that the US Government can continue a campaign of hatred and attack on other countries. It seems that they know about this or similar research and are practicing a campaign of hatemongering.

The manipulation of people's minds in this way should be deplored by all. Unfortunately the large majority are manipulated without any realisation of what is going on.