This is not just an article. I am asking questions, trying to start discussions, and – grandiosely – launch a policy field. Here is my question: How do we re-program our nation?
Of course, we can use the Left’s technique of taking sound bites out of context, and calling individuals “Hitler.” This works for tarnishing individuals and those associated with them. But, culturists are concerned with defining, guiding and promoting traditional majority culture more broadly. As such, rather than tarnish one man, we culturists must work towards a wider reprogramming of western culture.
I teach in a Christian university in South Korea, yes South! In my university, students are required to go to chapel twice a week. If they don't they cannot get a space in the dormitories and their scholarships are put in jeopardy. In their majors, students perform coordinated Christian dance routines in awesome assemblies. I mention this for entertainment’s sake. But, I also mention it to broaden our imaginations.
Speaking of imagination, the first thing we need to do is realize that rationality is not enough. We know that if you really think Black Lives Matter (BLM), statistically you should confront inner-city black-on-black violence. But, pointing that out has had zero deterrence effect. As with my uni’s dance routines, we must look past rationality.
Of course, we can use the Left’s technique of taking sound bites out of context, and calling individuals “Hitler.” This works for tarnishing individuals and those associated with them. But, culturists are concerned with defining, guiding and promoting traditional majority culture more broadly. As such, rather than tarnish one man, we culturists must work towards a wider reprogramming of western culture.
I teach in a Christian university in South Korea, yes South! In my university, students are required to go to chapel twice a week. If they don't they cannot get a space in the dormitories and their scholarships are put in jeopardy. In their majors, students perform coordinated Christian dance routines in awesome assemblies. I mention this for entertainment’s sake. But, I also mention it to broaden our imaginations.
Speaking of imagination, the first thing we need to do is realize that rationality is not enough. We know that if you really think Black Lives Matter (BLM), statistically you should confront inner-city black-on-black violence. But, pointing that out has had zero deterrence effect. As with my uni’s dance routines, we must look past rationality.
DARWINIAN CULTURIST PSYCHOLOGY
Herein a Darwinian
perspective helps. Fish mark territory
with bright colors. Howler monkeys
defend territory via howls. Colors and sounds matter. We need to wave flags,
have red, white and blue clothes, and use patriotic songs – the national anthem
among them – to create loyalty. Anthropologists, ethnologists and
sociobiologists of all stripes will tell you ‘us versus them’ is the primal
program. Even naming the enemy
helps. No them, no us.
Void of ideas, content, and morality, BLM is all about signalling and spectacle. |
Prisons are
ineffective because they do not take cultural psychology into account. People
are ‘punished’ and come out proud of the experience. The only real punishment is humiliation. Even killing is culturally relative. Jihadi’s are proud to die. To make prison effective, those whose
behavior we are trying to deter must suffer humiliation in their culture’s
eyes. Pride, as in rooting for a winning
team, is the positive pole of the emotional controls of man. Causing our culture to see communist, BLM,
anti-social folks as losers is the negative pole.
In sum, to push this
effort we must have emotional goals. Disgust and anger should result when
someone defiles our flag. Pride at
hearing our anthem is important.
Indignant rejection should follow cynicism about our narrative. Laughter must, again, come from mocking our
enemy’s ways. Sadness must come from
defeat. The reasons for said feelings
are significant. As Darwinian culturists
we must be specific about the emotional reactions at which we’re aiming.
INSTITUTIONAL CULTURISM
Our story is
compelling. The Puritans created a mighty nation with morals. John Smith told the starving pilgrims, “he
who does not work does not eat.” The
Founding Fathers were both brave and ingenious. We fought a war to stop slavery. We must get a generation to take the prosocial side on such stories. To
safeguard this reversal we must have a long march through the institutions. But
we need more instantaneous results too.
Many national
governments have a ‘Ministry of Culture.’ While now perverted, these could be reclaimed. The US could also have one – a Department of
Culture. It would coordinate large and
small public celebrations of America. Beyond the events, the Feds doling out grants specifically for patriotic
artists, would cultivate patriotism in artists.
Publishing conservative art history books would encourage scholarship
and embed learned professors for 50 years.
I’m going to go out on
a controversial edge here – but we’re brainstorming – and suggest we reconsider
reinstituting a form of the loyalty oaths our universities had professors sign
upon hiring. Nearly all universities
voluntarily receive Federal funds. From
a culturist perspective, beyond skills, inculcating culturist patriotism is the
big function of schools. Promoting
hatred of the West should again become a cause for dismissal in employment
contracts.
Again, rather than
taking a rationalist approach, these institutional programs will aim at the
subconscious mechanisms that motivate humans. People follow rewards such as money. And, they don’t like to tell themselves that they do. So, they reconcile
their thoughts with their actions. We
must reward patriotism and pro-social behavior and, subtly – allowing for
freedom, as is appropriate in the West – punish anti-social attitudes and
behavior.
Darwinian psychology
says that public avowals that involve physically synched behavior bond
people. This gives Islam an
advantage. We need to emulate Korea’s school assemblies and rallies. This
might seem anti-intellectual to many. You may recoil at the word
‘programming.’ Yes, publicly the term
must be dropped. But, as Darwinian
culturists we cannot forget that all tribes have initiation rites and
religions. We are born designed to absorb cultures. The opposite of programming
is not liberation, it is ceding programming to others.
Prosocial control mechanisms put to a bad use. |
THE MEDIUM, MESSAGE AND MAN
I have not been trying
to suggest that words and story content do not matter. Quite the opposite. Teaching matters. Ideas have consequences. But, as scientific culturists, we must
understand the goal is an emotional response to ideas, not ideas in the
abstract – ideas in men, masses of men, in cultures. To this end, we must be
familiar with recent findings in sociobiology and literary Darwinism; we must
adopt a Darwinian perspective.
Roles also impact
thought. Philip Zimbardo’s famous Stanford University prison studies randomly assigned
students to either serve as guards or prisoners. The mock prison experiment had to be called
off due to the cruelty of the mock guards and the deteriorating condition of
the mock inmates. Interestingly, South
Korea uses arrested protesters as crowd control police. You might be wondering what the point of
going to churches and rallies and singing the anthem is if we don’t
believe. Roles often create loyalty,
roles often precede belief.
A final example: You
can tell a high status chimp by how much animals look at him. We’re rigged to accept messages from high
status folks; cultures thrive by following the winners. But, in our upside down
culture, that means youth are biased to take high-status left wing thugs’ and
actors’ pronouncements as gospel. Trump and other high status folks, (actors and
entertainers), must be at the ceremonies that the Department of culture sponsors. I would recommend that Trump have long
discussions with the nation about our winning history. But, we can’t just go
rational. As with the importance of status,
culturists must consider the totality of man’s mechanism.
John K. Press, Ph.D., teaches International
Relations at a university in South Korea.
He is the author of the book, Culturism: A Word, A Value, Our Future. He
is also the author of a biography of the first acknowledged ‘culturist,’
Matthew Arnold. More information can be found at www.culturism.us.
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