(May 15, 2025 at 9:05 am)Belacqua Wrote:(May 15, 2025 at 8:15 am)John 6IX Breezy Wrote: What are words good for? Social coordination. Does that include persuasion? Yes, but not the cartoonish version of it that you think exists.
Let me see if I can summarize the fight so far. The vituperative tone here makes it all a bit obscure.
So, if I'm reading you right, here is the version which you call cartoonish:
Parents tell their children what is true, and the children believe it. Then, if they're lucky, at a certain age the children begin to think for themselves and may reject the "indoctrination" given them by their parents.
Sounds cartoonish, but explains all of Europe for over a millenium. Well, once you add in some stiff societal pressures on top of it, but nobody's claiming that indoctrination has to be exclusively parental.
I think that the problem that John's having is that he can't seem to distinguish between propaganda and indoctrination, which are matters of persuasion and influence, and the much more absolute cases of "mind control" and "brain-washing". People are typically ignorant of those last other than through Hollywood wackiness. To suggest that propaganda and indoctrination don't exist is tantamount to claiming that no human can ever be persuaded or influenced by another.
