A Wide-ranging Conversation about Social Isolation with Bill Walton and Mark Tapscott

September 2, 2023 | Books, Community, Conformity, Education, Family, Freedom of Association, Friendship, Language, Loneliness, Media, Persuasion, Political Correctness, Politics, Propaganda, Religion, Society, Weaponization of Loneliness

There continues to be substantial interest in the phenomenon I discuss in my book The Weaponization of Loneliness. (Even Hillary Clinton seems very interested!)

One of the most comprehensive interviews I’ve done on the book is the one below hosted by Bill Walton on his show with Epoch Times editor Mark Tapscott and me delving into the topic.

I love doing one-on-one interviews, but having someone else’s voice and perspective can really help with a deep dive into the material. Mark is an amazing thinker and observer who touches on a lot of great points in this interview. Bill Walton opens by correctly noting that the surgeon general’s advisory on loneliness is (as I’ve written) just another excuse for government intrusion into the private sphere of life. This interview lasts about an hour, but we cover a lot of ground, so if you’re interested in the topic, please give it a listen (and subscribe to the amazing Bill Walton Show while you’re at it!)

The Exploitation – and Weaponization – of Loneliness: Now the Feds say they plan to “solve” our Loneliness Epidemic

July 31, 2023 | Books, Brainwashing, Bureaucracy, Community, Conformity, Culture, Freedom of Association, Friendship, Identity Politics, Isolation, Loneliness, Media, Persuasion, Political Correctness, Politics, Propaganda, Society, Weaponization of Loneliness

I recently had the honor of being interviewed by Jan Jekielek for his Epoch Times program “American Thought Leaders.”  Epoch Times posted it on Twitter and here, along with a transcript: Stella Morabito: Technocratic Totalitarianism, the Impulse to Conform, and Astroturfed Mobs versus Organic Protest

You can view the preview here:

Jan and I talked at length about the subject of my book, The Weaponization of Loneliness.  We covered a lot of ground on the human fear of social rejection and how it causes people to shut up –and even lie — about what they believe. The consequences are massive because mass self-censorship always gives a lot of oxygen to destructive agendas.  What are the dynamics involved in that? We discussed them in the context of conformity impulse, political correctness, identity politics, public opinion polling, mob formation, and how power elites build the illusion of consensus, even when there is no consensus.

Ultimately, this is all ramping up to be a war on the private sphere of life: family, faith, true community, and friendship. Those are the only institutions that give us the strength to resist totalitarian designs.

This is evident now that Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) recently introduced legislation called “The National Strategy for Social Connection Act.”  The bill is a follow up to the surgeon general’s advisory on “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Social Isolation.” It’s ironic because government policies–particularly those that promote family breakdown, addiction, urban blight, dependency, and more–are largely responsible for the loneliness epidemic in the first place! As I wrote in the Federalist, both the advisory and the legislation read like a blueprint for government takeover of the private sphere of life.  My latest article on that is here:  “Beware of Bureaucrats Wanting to be your BFF.”  

New Interview on The Weaponization of Loneliness — with Bill Walton

May 10, 2023 | Books, Conformity, Free Speech, Freedom of Association, Friendship, History, Identity Politics, Isolation, Loneliness, Media, Persuasion, Political Correctness, Politics, Propaganda, Society, Weaponization of Loneliness

I love The Bill Walton Show. He and his wife Sarah are so insightful and interesting. They keep important conversations going, bringing light into the chaos of our times. I recommend you subscribe to Bill’s Youtube channel if you’re looking for in-depth discussions of the most critical issues of the day. Bill has interviewed many prominent thinkers, including George Gilder, Naomi Wolf, Arthur Laffer, James Lindsay, and Winsome Sears–to name a very few.

So I was honored to return to Bill’s show, this time for an in-depth conversation about my book The Weaponization of Loneliness. You can watch the discussion below:

We talked about the uses of isolation as a political weapon today, as well as throughout modern history. I’m actually amazed at the many points we covered in one short hour, though there was a lot more we could have said on this topic. My hope is that more Americans become conversant with the dynamics that lead to our self-censorship so that we can overcome that fear of ostracism and start speaking out. Because self-censorship gives a lot of oxygen to destructive agendas. Worse, it opens the door wide for far more punitive forms of top-down censorship.

Bill and I ended on a hopeful note. There is so much even one person can do to overcome the darkness and chaos that surrounds us today. Just one honest conversation with another person can open the door to new ideas and influences that that strengthen civil society. This causes the sort of ripple effect of freedom that tyrants always seek to squash through censorship. We talked about the revival of beauty in the public square. And the revival of comedy! We talked about my book club project on the topic of the Weaponization of Loneliness, and we discussed all of the parallel polises springing up. Please give our conversation a look and a listen! And please subscribe to Bill Walton’s wonderful podcast!

On Relationships and Voting

November 2, 2020 | Children, Family, Isolation, Persuasion, Politics, Society, Weaponization of Loneliness

I recently posted a piece at American Thinker that examines the growing phenomenon of voter intimidation in personal relationships.  It’s an especially prevalent tactic by leftists. I felt compelled to write the piece when I saw a young woman gush on TikTok about how she and her sisters hectored their dying father so that he would vote for Biden/Harris instead of Trump/Pence: 

All people of good will should be aghast at such abuse of a father’s love. This also serves as a reminder that our tradition of secret ballot needs to be revived, if only to cut back on behavior like that.  It’s possible the father voted in secret even though he felt he needed to tell his daughters he voted for their preferred candidate.  Nevertheless, we ought to consider the potential for more of this if we go to universal mail-in voting — whereby official ballots will always arrive in shared mailboxes of households where dominant personalities can hold sway over others. You can read my whole piece at this link: “How Mail-In Voting Makes Social Pressure so Much Easier.”

Whether we cast our ballots in person or by mail, on election day or early, we ought to think deeply about the sacred nature of the secret ballot. Let’s ponder how changes in our electoral processes are destroying the ability to vote one’s conscience in the privacy of a voting booth. Sadly, in states like Oregon, citizens no longer even have the option to cast an official ballot in a voting booth at a local precinct. They must receive and cast their ballot in the mail.

The trend towards universal mail-in ballots will definitely allow for more voter intimidation in addition to more potential for voter fraud. Will the voting booth eventually disappear if more states go postal with voting? It seems likely, and that would be a very bad thing.

Let’s also remember: Unless you wish to willingly express whom you’re voting for, nobody has a right to know how you vote. Nobody.

My FRC talk about Social and Emotional Programming, the latest fad in Education

February 23, 2018 | Bureaucracy, Children, Community, Culture, Education, Family, Freedom of Association, Language, Law, Loneliness, Persuasion, Political Correctness, Propaganda, Religion, Society
I recently spoke at the Family Research Council about a new fad in mass public schooling called “social and emotional learning” (SEL.) Those who advocate for SEL claim the program will give children critical life skills, such as empathy, getting along with others, and making good decisions. An organization called the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) wants a government mandate that will bring this program into every school. You can watch my FRC policy lecture here:

In this talk I give my perspective on SEL.  While good teachers are always a godsend, bureaucrats can never achieve what they promise in such programs. Especially since their framework is mass schooling. Such values and attitudes need to be taught in intimate settings of trust, such as families.  Not in hyper-bureaucratized mega-schools.  I see the SEL program as a bait-and-switch operation, because it demands universal compliance with its methods, with its content, and with its monopoly.  By its very monolithic nature as program driven by a government monopoly, it is coercive. In the video, you’ll see a clip in which a representative for SEL tells us that they “need the WHOLE child.” And if you delve into this more, you can see that the SEL program is really all about enforcing conformity: Conformity of feelings, attitudes, emotions, speech, attitudes, beliefs, and behavior.  When such things are directed by a centralized State mandate, rather than by de-centralized mediating institutions —  institutions of family, faith, and voluntary associations — there can be no freedom, nor can there be real diversity.

Staged Hate in Charlottesville? In War, Perception is Everything.

August 26, 2017 | Language, Persuasion, Political Correctness, Politics, Propaganda, Society

“All the world’s a stage; And all the men and women merely players . . . ” — Shakespeare, As You Like It

Below is an excerpt from my latest Federalist piece:  “America’s Post-Charlottesville Nervous Breakdown was Deliberately Induced.” I hope you’ll have a chance to read it in full.

“Wars are won or lost based mostly on perceptions of events, not on what actually happens. This is true for any given battlefield, whether it’s the 1968 Tet Offensive in Vietnam or the ideological battlefield over the future of the First Amendment as played out in Charlottesville in 2017. The reality of what takes place in the public arena is always secondary to any projected illusion.

So let’s never forget this: Whoever has the power to dictate public perceptions of reality is in a position to dictate public opinion and behavior. Abusing language and images to stir up emotions is an ancient trick of power-mongers. And once journalism turns into unchecked propaganda, we become trapped in its dangerous illusions.”

The social turmoil we are witnessing today has largely been manufactured through the combination of three elements: 1. the manipulation of our language; 2. the deliberate use of such loaded language to cultivate extreme emotions in people, particularly anger and resentment; and 3. the role of mass media as a nuclear device to impose those perceptions on a mass scale.

Here’s another interesting sidelight to consider.  Public Relations firms such as Crowds on Demand provide actors for protests and rallies and run ads on Craigslist to recruit and pay for that purpose. So it’s very easy to create illusions of riots if you can rent a mob for it.  The blog Gates of Vienna ran an interview recently with an eyewitness who was in Charlottesville on the day of the riots and reports that protesters from both sides — attired both in “counter-protester” clothing such as Antifa or BLM shirts AND neo-Nazi/KKK shirts — were dropped off from the same bus.  And this happened with a line of chartered buses, both sides apparently sharing the same vehicles. The story is here:  “All the World’s a Stage.”  Whether or not you believe this, the fact that politicized officials ordered police to stand down lends credence to the scenario of a staged riot.

Some Study Questions for “Cults in our Midst”

May 30, 2017 | Books, Cults, Education, Free Speech, Language, Persuasion, Political Correctness, Propaganda, Society
If you decide to read Margaret Thaler Singer’s book, “Cults in our Midst,” I offer a few study questions below.  I also hope you have the beginnings of a book club to get the conversation going on these issues.

We are living through a time of immense social change and instability.  It is during such times throughout history — especially with fast technological changes — that cult activity takes root and thrives.  But even more alarming is that there is virtually no discussion in public discourse about how cult-like thinking penetrates and infects a society.  This level of unawareness is a red flag.

If you can’t read the whole book, I recommend focusing just on the following pages/chapters:  Singer’s INTRODUCTION (to the first edition); Chapter 1 – DEFINING CULTS (pp. 3-28);Chapter 2  A BRIEF HISTORY OF CULTS – Just 2 pages: 29-30)  THE PROCESS OF BRAINWASHING —  (pp. 52-82); Chapter 4 – WHAT’S WRONG WITH CULTS?  (pp. 83-102); Chapter 5 – RECRUITING NEW MEMBERS (pp. 104-124); Chapter 9 – THE THREAT OF INTIMIDATION (excerpt pp. 224-43); Chapter 11 — WHY IT’S HARD TO LEAVE – (excerpt pp. 270-79)

Pay special attention to Chapter 3 in which Singer identifies the six basic features of cults, which are as follows:  1. Keep the person unaware that there is an agenda to control or change the person; 2. Control time and physical environment (contacts, information); 3. Create a sense of powerlessness, fear, and DEPENDENCY; 4. Suppress old behavior and attitudes; 5. Instill new behavior and attitudes; 6. Put forth a closed system of logic.

Singer also includes discussion of the eight themes of cults, as ennumerated by cult expert Robert Jay Lifton:  1. Milieu control; 2. Loading the language; 3. Demand for purity; 4. Confession; 5. Mystical manipulation; 6. Doctrine over person; 7. “Sacred science;” and 8. Dispensing of existence.

Singer also discusses the Edgar Schein’s theory of three stages that a person in a cult goes through as their attitudes are being reshaped to suit the cult’s leadership:  the freezing of thought processes; the transformation of thoughts; and then the unfreezing of thought processes.

Here are some study questions to consider while reading:

1.     Review the charts in Chapter 3, and especially the list of Singer’s six conditions that allow brainwashing to happen.  Then answer: What makes a person susceptible to that kind of psychological manipulation?  

 2.     What groups (or institutions or policies or social trends) can you name in Western life today that apply cultic methods and techniques to unduly influence behavior and suppress freedom?

3.     According to Singer, the effects of brainwashing are very often reversible. What can ordinary citizens do to help Americans – and especially students – keep their minds free of undue influence?

4. Why do you think the methods and techniques of cult activity never come up for discussion in America today?

 

The SPLC Scam

May 22, 2017 | Culture, Free Speech, Friendship, Law, Loneliness, Persuasion, Political Correctness, Politics, Propaganda, Society
What would the Southern Poverty Law Center do if there was no poverty? If there was no hate? Or ignorance?  I suppose its leaders would invent all those things.  Because if you examine the SPLC’s operations, it certainly cultivates ignorance, hate, and poverty — perhaps to keep itself rolling in dough.  For more on this, take a look at my recent Federalist article:  “12 Ways the Southern Poverty Law Center is Scam to Profit from Hate-Mongering.”

The tragic irony is that the United States was on the road to real racial healing before self-professed watchdog groups like the SPLC got addicted to the practice of tearing the scabs off of the nation’s wounds and pouring salt into them.  Division is the name of their game:  isolating people, de-humanizing them, labeling them as “haters” or “bigots” and inciting mob anger at anyone who dares to express a different perspective on life than the one the self-appointed authorities at the SPLC have assigned to us all.  Sadly, the SPLC uses pathetic and scattered cases of “white supremacists” as cover to lump in and label anyone who doesn’t buy into their agenda.  And since 95 percent of all media outlets do their bidding, that sort of stereotyping has an impact on creating a society of skittish people loath to treat others as human until they check in with Big Brother.  It’s an ancient dynamic that totalitarian regimes have always depended upon to keep themselves in power.

I think Alexis deTocqueville said in best in his work “Democracy in America” when he noted that the essence of tyranny is to divide people, to make sure they do not love one another. This is the purpose of political correctness, especially as applied by groups like the SPLC.

The truth is that people everywhere are starving for real friendship and freedom. They certainly don’t crave regimes of PC silencing that prevent them from getting to know one another.  There is a loneliness epidemic.  But friendship can’t happen without real conversation and civil society — both of which are shut down by SPLC-styled rhetoric. But friendship — which can only happen through free conversation — doesn’t serve the bottom line of organizations devoted to sowing seeds of discord. It’s all so sad and unnecessary. People of goodwill must confront and end this inhumane practice, which, ironically, is always pushed “in the name of humanity.”

Next Up for Stella’s Book Club: “Cults in our Midst”

May 12, 2017 | Books, Cults, Education, Free Speech, Persuasion, Political Correctness, Propaganda
In February I posted a fascinating chart from Margaret Thaler Singer’s book “Cults in our Midst.”  You can find it in my blog post entitled:  “Do you know the difference between real education versus coercive thought reform?”  The chart which Singer drew up is called “The Continuum of Influence and Persuasion.”  On one side of the continuum is true education that involves open and civil discourse with no intent to deceive.  On the other side is coercive thought reform, or brainwashing, which uses deceptive tactics to blunt independent thought and control the person.  In between are other, varying forms of influence: advertising, propaganda, indoctrination.  It’s very helpful to understand what’s going on in each of these forms of persuasion.

I believe that the study of cult methods is useful for resisting political correctness. And especially today.  First of all, few people are actually focusing today on the methods and processes of thought reform.  Certainly not the media or academia.  And as we are battered with floods of information from all quarters — the internet, news outlets, social media, TV, our education institutions, and so on — one thing should be clear:  there is a battle to push us into conformity of thought to the benefit of power elites and their power-consolidating agendas.  There’s nothing new there.  This has been the story in advertising and propaganda from time immemorial.  But what is most disconcerting is that few are investigating the actual guts of the propaganda machinery itself.  At some point we have to tune out the constant barrage of blather and start sniffing out the machinery that its coming from!

The study of cults offers a key to understanding how propagandists behave:  their methods, their features, their techniques for controlling how people think. It’s especially helpful in strengthening us to resist the temptation to self-censor in our culture of political correctness. And that’s critical because giving in to it creates a spiral of silence that makes it ever harder to express an independent thought.  Propagandists know this!  Anyone pushing a power-centralizing agenda tends to be hellbent on shutting off all other forms of influence in people’s lives. Driving you into this sort of isolation is exactly what political correctness is designed to do.  Did it ever occur to you that this is precisely how cult leaders operate as well?

So, please take a look at Singer’s book as soon as possible.  Find another person to do the same so you can talk about it.  Hopefully you can grow a book club like mine, dedicated to propaganda awareness and the fight for freedom of expression.  I hope soon to post some some study questions that go with the book.

My Book Club about how Propaganda Works is Getting Underway. How about yours?

April 10, 2017 | Books, Language, Persuasion, Political Correctness, Propaganda, Society

Cover of The Manipulated Mind, by Denise Winn (1983)

This week I’m beginning a book club which is  entirely focused on the theme of propaganda and the human susceptibility to mind hacking.  Why? Because there has been an abysmal lack of self-awareness on this topic among the general public.  And that’s a shame because the less aware we are of the trickery involved in social pressure and psychological manipulation, the less immune we are to those things. But when you learn how and why people blindly conform to destructive behaviors, it’s like learning the magician’s tricks.  You can get beyond the illusions of political correctness, propaganda, and advertising.  That’s not to say you won’t still be susceptible, but building public awareness can really help cut through and challenge the political correctness we are barraged with in modern life.

Our club is going to read a lot of titles, mostly non-fiction, but I hope also to include some fiction. (The dystopian novel “We” by Yevgeniy Zamyatin is high on my list.  That’s the book that influenced George Orwell to write 1984.)  I offered a short list of titles in my Federalist article “Ten Resources for Hack Proofing Your Mind.”

But I’ve decided to start the club off reading Denise Winn’s book “The Manipulated Mind” because  that book serves as an overall primer on many different aspects of psychological conditioning, indoctrination, and brainwashing.  At just over 200 pages, it’s relatively short and introduces the reader to many of the theories and scholars who have studied conditioning and social psychology, including Ivan Pavlov, Stanley Milgram, Solomon Asch, and numerous others.  Here are a few  of the questions I offer for pondering if you read this book:

  1. What parallels can you detect between political correctness and the 10 brainwashing processes discussed in Chapter Two? (For example, as used on college campuses, or in the media, or in Human Resources departments.)

2.  Why is the threat of social rejection so central to getting people to conform to an agenda? And what makes some people more vulnerable than others?

3. What do the Milgram experiments (“Obedience to Authority”) tell you about how ordinary people can commit unthinkable acts?

  1. Given the information you gleaned from this book, what qualities would you conclude are necessary to keep a society free?

I’d love to hear about more and more folks starting book clubs like this to jump start these kinds of discussions.  If you know people who are interested, why not get together and start reading with them? Spread the word!