Beyond Freedom and Dignity (essay, short)

Beyond Freedom and Dignity
by arendt

1. Introduction - (patience, grasshopper)

The infamous behaviorist psychologist, B.F. Skinner, argued that humans
were mere stimulus-response machines, who could be manipulated as
easily as his experimental pigeons by classic techniques he called
"operant conditioning". His most famous experiment used "random reward".
That is, food was dispensed on a completely random schedule. Pigeons
tried to correlate their behavior with the random schedule; and the results
were truly bizarre:

...."One bird was conditioned to turn counter-clockwise about the cage,
....making two or three turns between reinforcements. Another repeatedly
....thrust its head into one of the upper corners of the cage. A third developed
....a 'tossing' response, as if placing its head beneath an invisible bar and
....lifting it repeatedly. Two birds developed a pendulum motion of the head
....and body, in which the head was extended forward and swung from right
....to left with a sharp movement followed by a somewhat slower return."

- "'Superstition' in the Pigeon",
....B.F. Skinner, Journal of Experimental Psychology #38, 1947 <1>)

Later psychological work has shown that random reward is the most
compelling kind of conditioning. That is why a gambling addiction is so hard
to break. Ditto channel surfing and web surfing.

Skinner was more than a psychologist, he was a philosopher; and his
philosophy was radical behaviorism. At the height of the sixties counter-
culture, he became a momentary darling of the anti-Dr. Spock crowd. (You
must remember that the reactionaries of the day blamed youthful rebellion
on the "permissive" upbringing counseled by the baby doctor, Dr. Spock.
As if the 1950s were "permissive"! LOL) Skinner argued that humans could
also be made to behave like pigeons.

...."There are many analogies in human behavior. Rituals for changing one's
....luck at cards are good examples. A few accidental connections between
....a ritual and favorable consequences suffice to set up and maintain the behavior
....in spite of many unreinforced instances. The bowler who has released a ball
....down the alley but continues to behave as if he were controlling it by twisting
...and turning his arm and shoulder is another case in point."

- Ibid

This was headline-grabbing stuff in a decade which watched The Manchurian
Candidate and heard of the infamous electric-shock experiments of Stanley
Milgram. But today, Skinner's big book of the decade, "Beyond Freedom
and Dignity", generates eleven hits on Google, and eight of those are
people offering to sell the book. It seems like Skinnerism is a flop today.

2. Reporters as pigeons

But, after the infamous "Al Gore is a liar" campaign of 2000, followed by the
"smoke 'em out", "bring 'em on" campaign of 2001-3, my teeth were put
on edge yet again by the "Howard Dean is crazy" round of 24/7 OJ coverage.

I began to think that someone had decided to apply operant conditioning
to the American media when I read the recent study which showed that
people who got their news from Fox News had substantially mistaken ideas
about the real world. While that audience is beyond gullible, it is hard to
put the blame entirely on them. They are too stupid to refute these
lie-ridden stories, deliberate misrepresentations, character assassinations,
and GOP butt-coverings on their own.

The people being conditioned are the media whores. These guys want to
get rewarded; but, with the demise of genuine investigative reporting, they
all are getting the same Kool Aid from the GOP press outlets. These guys
are so ball-less that they dare not go outside the fence drawn by the GOP
party line. So, they flounder around looking for some way to bash the
Dems with the material supplied to them.

And, they do it with a fervor that would shame a mouse pressing a lever for
an electric current to the pleasure center. These media whores are the most
shameless, on-the-make, unethical slimeballs to ever stink up journalism.
They are a half a step away from being members of the Army Propaganda Corps.
(Actually, two of those guys were caught out at CNN a few years ago.)
So, like Skinner's bizarre pigeons, you have reporters who make incredible
mental contortions to smear Democratic candidates and exonerate GOP
felons.

What else can you call the "hairdoo" attacks on John Kerry, the decades-
old drumbeat against Ted Kennedy, the shock and awe campaign against
Howard Dean's "gaffes" like telling the truth about Saddam's capture? These
reporters are aping what succeeded in pleasing their corporate masters in
the past, hoping for lightning to strike twice. They all want to be the next
Laura Ingram or Bill O'Reilly.

Yet, what is O'Reilly except the guy who shouts the loudest about the
same stupid lies as all the other media whores? He is just the best fed
pigeon of the bunch. The American people need to tell the media whores
that they look absolutely asinine, and craven into the bargain. They have
sold their journalistic soul for a bowl of corporate porridge.

3. Democrats as second-order pigeons

The Democratic Party has developed its own superstitions about the
media. While the whores are contorting for cash, the Democrats are
trying to track the whores' contortions so as to be rewarded with votes.
But, that makes no sense. The corporate masters may simply be training
whores to be rabid supporters, but the masters' goal in this is to trash
the Dems.

So, the Dems should never buy into the idea that there is any rationality
to the day-to-day actions of the press. The only rationality is the long-range
plan of big money to destroy or neuter the Democratic Party and its support
for the working class. The Dems must not become Skinner pigeons for
the random reward of the media whores. That is suicidal. It is a superstition
among Democrats that there is a magical "correct" behavior that will win the
media's respect. In reality, any respect shown to Democrats is entirely
accidental, and usually comes from some whore using that Democrat as a
foil in an attack on another Democrat.

In particular, the Democratic voters should NEVER rejoice in the mindless
slandering of ANY candidate because it legitimizes past and future content-free
character assassination. If the Democrats showed some cohesion and some
spine, then maybe they could end the careers of some of the more egregious
thugs in the press corps.

In closing, let me try to add another pejorative to the already long list describing
our hijacked media. The next time someone parrots (interesting word in this context)
the latest contortion, just call them a Skinner pigeon. Then, condescendingly ask
them about their "lucky" sweater, rabbit's foot, etc.

What? Two essays at once is too much to handle?
Nobody cares about pigeons?

Huh?

arendt

Where?
Show me!

n/t

I did like your comment about being spoiled in the fifties. They didn't beat or punish us like their parents beat or punished them, so in their minds we were terribly "spoiled".

And it's an interesting premise.
Solution(s)?

Liberals don't offer solutions, remember?

If the solution were simple, it would have been done.

The media machinery is immense. The CIA called
it "the Mighty Wurlitzer". It is now unashamedly
biased in favor of big business and GOP.

We need to build our own infrastructure plus discredit
the corporate media. That's a tall order.

But, people like MoveOn, and TBTM are a beginning.

arendt

It sounds like you're ticked off that the media jumped on dean for his howling and you're reading that as a joint move by the corporate media system (pidgeons) to defend the cage from real change (both DLC dems and RNC robber barons) Then come out and say so.

Stop with the vast oblique metaphors from nineteen fucking fifty... and get real.

Dean is being wrongly abused, and you feel that the attack has foiled his chances entirely given just the iowa caucus(?) a rather poor representation of american voters at that!.

Your piece is lovely... but your media adgenda should come clean... tell the truth, using fewer words... and speak from your own heart... it has even more power than your brilliant mind.

Lovely hannah, give me your magnificent passion and let the world know what makes you the gift that i know you are.

love,
your sweetheart

> Stop with the vast oblique metaphors from nineteen fucking fifty...
> and get real

But, that is real. That is who I am. I wear my brain on my sleeve.
I recognize that it turns a lot of people off. Too f-ing bad. I have
never trimmed my intellectual sails; otherwise I wouldn't have
made it out of the lower middle class hellhole I grew up in.

> Your piece is lovely... but your media adgenda should come clean...

What agenda? The piece IS my agenda. I'm just looking for new
ways to call them whores, kneepad blowjobbers, tools of corporations.
Dean may have been the catalyst, but I mentioned Kerry, and if there
were other examples I could think of, I would have mentioned them.
This was not posted in GD-P2004; and the admins didn't lock it. This
was not some crypto-pro-Dean thread. It was honest analysis.

I think Skinner pigeons is a perfect metaphor for these lame psychotic
assholes. The problem is, most people today never heard of Skinner -
cf. the fact that his big book gets THREE hits on Google. So, I took
it upon myself to educate people, as I always do.

My passion is to analyze and then to teach others what I have
analyzed and what I have concluded. I would do academia, but
it is too full of loons; and the pay sucks; and you spend half your
time writing stupid grant proposals and sucking up to the admins.

If you want, think of me as a clueless academic saying what he
thinks without regard for others' opinions of it. But "agenda", as
in "hidden" is not what I'm doing here. I'm not that subtle.

Is that passionate enough for you?

Ciao, sweetie

arendt

I agree with this analysis, and the brain is better on teh sleeve than hot emotion, as clearly we have enought of that around...

Perhaps then, you could cast the light on how this media pecking has used its training bias towards defamation of candates... as i don't think the stimulus is random.

Hell, i have been pecked very hard when Dateline, Newsweek and others attacked my religious group long ago with similar groundless defamation.. egged on by a hidden adgenda of food poking through the cage bars... but it was not random.

It was "destroy this nonchristian religion" mr. television executive.. use any means available. Destroy this non-business centric candidate who stands for organized labour (DK). Destroy this outspoken candidate who stands unaligned to business and labour interests.... this is no random behaviour retrained.

I think it is more deliberate than the pidgeon analogy gives, and that the folks who do it are truly malefic, and not just in a feeding frienzy.

I guess what i was probing in my overly harsh response to you was "http://y?" What lead you to focus on this observational study? What snapped that made you embark upon pidgeon thinking... as the origin of the hypothesis is as interesting to me as the analysis... and perhaps that is what i was getting at you brainiac you.. :)

We need more vertical studies of media spin. A short 5 minute segment of the "program running" and then a 55 minute study of the metadata, command and control structure and influences behind it. it is not just a frienzy, and it is not just greed. Those misleading conclusions are part of the camoflauge of the bird.

I wrongly reproached your passion. What i meant more was your origins and your own metadata and metametadata and meta-n. The full meta expose, of even your own media is a deeper and deeper truth.

You are already passionate enough lovely hannah. Appearances do not fool a lovers eyes.

xoxoxo,
-sweetheart

"The people being conditioned are the media whores. These guys want to
get rewarded; but, with the demise of genuine investigative reporting, they
all are getting the same Kool Aid from the GOP press outlets. These guys
are so ball-less that they dare not go outside the fence drawn by the GOP
party line. So, they flounder around looking for some way to bash the
Dems with the material supplied to them."


Maybe they are afraid of something, or maybe they are in on it. Ever tossed around those theories for a minute?

Personally, I find his views of the human condition to be incredible short-sighted -- if not lacking almost completely in reality. They are as if he decided upon his conclusions ahead of time and worked backward in order to establish his hypothesis.

That being said, I think that this essay of yours falls short on several levels.

FIRST, you are assuming that these "journalists" arrived at their positions with a hint of true journalistic integrity to begin with. I don't think so. I believe that any "integrity" among the mainstream press corps has been either beaten out of them by the time they reach that level, or they have been passed over.

If talent were a primary factor in achieving journalism success, then Amy Goodman would be one of the most sought-after reporters in the world, with offers to do a nightly prime-time show on every network. Instead, we get Bill O'Reilly, Paula Zahn and Clueless Connie Chung.

While print journalism, even at the highest levels, still displays some of this "integrity" you seek -- the medium of television has turned the entire idea of journalistic integrity on its head. Reporters are hired more for their looks than anything else -- and as such (along with the outrageous salary structures), the kinds of people most attracted to these positions are those who are more interested in just making it for themselves than those who might have been attracted to journalism as a noble calling (like the aforementioned Ms. Goodman).

I always love to read your stuff, arendt -- and find you to be an extremely bright and insightful guy -- but I think you might do a bit better as to why the mainstream pundits act the way they do by simply looking HERE.