Examining Eastern Systems

excerpt from Changing Human Behavior by John Mann (1965):

Some Techniques of Eastern Religions 

    Certain preliminary generalizations can... be made before examining any particular system of Eastern religion. 

First, to achieve any substantial development, a tremendous amount of work is necessary. There is apparently no shortcut to paradise. The story of the great 12th century Tibetan saint, Milarepa, is typical. He was told by his teacher to build a house. After many months he was finished. His teacher then told him to take it down. When that was done, he was told to build it up again. This cycle was repeated several times. In this way, his teacher tested the firmness of his resolution and brought his work to a pitch of intensity that enabled him to attain the growth that he desired. 

 Second, work by oneself without the guidance of a person who has in fact himself extended his faculties is not productive. A teacher is necessary. It is not only the ignorance of the aspirant that will prevent his success when working alone, though certain kinds of knowledge are viewed as essential. Of even greater importance is the need for guidance from an impartial but benevolent source who can detect just those areas and issues that the individual would avoid. 

 Third, the nature of the work, whatever its specific content, is difficult and painful in the sense that it goes against natural tendencies of the person. The individual grows by opposing himself. The teacher functions in part to create the right kind of obstacles or to show how the ones that already exist can be attacked. 

Fourth, at some point complete surrender of individual effort is required. He must recognize his own helplessness and ask for guidance from his teacher or from some great spiritual source. 

Fifth, the process of work is gradual, though the rate of development at different times may vary greatly. After successive stages are past, new methods may be required: what is useful during one stage may be harmful at another. 

These five principles are sharply reminiscent of many of the psychological processes with with which we have dealt. Certain modern insight psychotherapies stress the need for difficult work under the guidance of a healer who helps the person to face those situations and aspects of his self he seeks to avoid. It is not surprising that the same principles seem to hold in very general form, since the process of growth must have certain common denominators regardless of the point from which one starts.




-- from Changing Human Behavior, p. 149-150.

ISHK

From the Institute for the Study of Human Knowledge

ISHK History

WE ARE IN A RACE WITH OURSELVES

Will we be able to educate people quickly enough to understand the complexity of the modern world?
Will we be able to learn to control nuclear weapons before it is too late?
Will the human population continue to increase faster than we can control it?
Will we ever be able to feed ourselves?

ISHK began with these questions over three decades ago. The twentieth century saw major advances in our knowledge of human nature. Scientists in many disciplines unraveled mysteries of the human brain. Research in psychology confirmed observations of classical thinkers such as Plato, Rumi, and El Ghazzali on conditioning, attention, and perception; the link between mind and health was well established; new discoveries in the past 60 years have revealed more about the origins of Christianity than perhaps in any other period. Though vital to humanity and the world today, even in the twenty-first century, this new knowledge has been slow to reach the general public and public policy makers. In the mid-1960s, ISHK's founders envisioned approaches toward solving some of the complex social, political, economic, biological and environmental issues facing humankind. They established ISHK in 1969 as an educational organization to begin the task of closing the knowledge gap in these areas.

A brochure entitled "We Are in a Race With Ourselves" in the 1970s laid out some of the problems and issues facing the world today. Are the solutions to these problem issues within our grasp, or are we still in a race with ourselves? Read More...

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The race is still on...To read a little more about the history of ISHK, continue with the following chronological account.

2000 - 2011...

"...a main focus of ISHK's work since our founding in 1969 has been to disseminate information and insights from psychology and other disciplines about who we are and how our minds work, so that we may be more conscious in shaping the future. Today...getting this kind of information and insight into the wider culture is more important than ever." -- Robert Ornstein

Hoopoe Books Share Literacy Program™ 

In the past four decades, ISHK took note of the great need for books and educational materials by at-risk kids throughout the country. In early 2000, ISHK began its children's literacy project called Hoopoe Books Share Literacy™ program under the directorship of Sally Mallam. Through generous support from donors, grants from organizations such as The Will J. Reid Foundation, eBay, H.E.B. Texas, Kaiser Permanente, and others, Share Literacy has been able to work with established programs designed to promote thinking and reading skills in young children and to contribute books, CDs and newsletters to over 350,000 families, many of whom had no books in the home before. As an adjunct to this project, with the help of professional educators and researchers, in 2004-2005, ISHK developed and piloted early education curricula for teachers and developed free parent-teacher manuals for all the Hoopoe books offering home and school activities to help instill the love of reading in children. In 2006, ISHK began pilot programs for training teachers on the use of the Hoopoe books in a program called "Teaching-Stories: Learning That Lasts." Since that time, Hoopoe Books Curriculum and Training programs have been used successfully used and critically acclaimed by educators all around the country.

September 11 and Beyond 

ISHK responded to the tragedies of September 11 by offering information that stresses the need for educating ourselves about brainwashing and conversion, as well as the rich cultures and contributions to human history from the regions of Afghanistan, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

The Human Journey 

In 2005-2006, ISHK embarked on developing a new website to follow humanity from our origins in Eastern Africa and the Middle East to the present day, with an eye to what comes next. The Human Journey website publishes important essays written by foremost researchers and experts which should help overlay the significant stages of this journey with what we know of how we adapted physically and culturally to conditions along the way. ISHK hopes that an examination of these determinants will reveal a better understanding of who we are as humans and why we do what we do.

As part of the Human Journey, in April 2006, ISHK sponsored a one-day symposium in Cambridge, MA, entitled The Core of Early Christian Spirituality: Its Relevance to the World Today bringing together leading researchers speaking on some of the latest discoveries and their implications for contemporary spirituality. In the past 60 years, more has been revealed about the origins of Christianity than perhaps in any other period in history. "At a point when religions are seen by many to be in conflict, when some call for an end to faith, others for a split between spirituality and religion, we are bringing together leading thinkers on the new, radical evidence about early Christianity and what it means for us today," says moderator Robert Ornstein in a pre-conference interview.

All About Me 

Work is in progress on the fourth title in a series of books and teaching materials on human nature for kids ages 12 - 18 (All About Me). The first three books focused on our memory, our feelings, and how our behavior is influenced by others. Under the editorial direction of Denise Nessel, Ph.D., Publications Director of the National Alliance for Effective Education, and of Robert Ornstein, Ph.D., as advising psychologist, the series will present the latest information from various branches of psychology in an engaging, relevant and practical way for children of this age group.

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1990s...

A FABLE:
Once upon a time, in a land not very far away, was a community located along the banks of a river. The citizens were distressed because so many people were drowning in the river. So they developed ambulance speedboats, impressive resuscitation procedures, and intensive care units. Sometimes the rescues worked, but often they did not. Either way, their heroic medical efforts fully occupied their time, attention, and resources. Then one day someone asked, "Why don't these people learn to swim?"

Continuing Education at Home for Psychologists 

ISHK's CE@Home Program for Psychologists, founded in 1979 under the direction of Charles Swencionis of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, began as a direct extension of the Brain, Mind and Psychology seminars of the 1970s and 1980s. ISHK is approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education. ISHK set up a structure to insure compliance with the APA's Ethical Principles of Psychologists and, today, there are over 300 courses offered to psychologists in states that require CE accreditation in such fields as Clinical Psychology, Ethics, Cognitive Psychology, Gender Studies, Psychology of Consciousness, and many others.

The Mind/Body Health Newsletter 

Because of the explosion of knowledge about the role of mental and social factors in health and longevity,from 1992-2000, under the direction of David Sobel, M.D., Director of Preventative Medicine at Kaiser Permanente, ISHK began publishing The Mind/Body Health Newsletter, the first newsletter dedicated to bridging the gaps between mind and body, research and practice, in the fast-moving new fields of behavioral medicine, psychoneuroimmunology and health psychology. For nearly a decade, ISHK's Mind/Body Health Newsletter (originally Mental Medicine Update) was an important resource for more than 35,000 readers — lay persons and practitioners. The fundamental health information from the newsletter is now available in the Healthy Mind Healthy Body Handbook edited by David Sobel and Robert Ornstein.

Malor Books 

As part of ISHK's mission is to make available important works in the fields of health, psychology, education, cross-cultural studies, and spirituality, in 1995 ISHK founded Malor Books to publish new or reprints of significant and thought-provoking works. The first publication brought back the important work of Gordon Claridge, The Origins of Mental Illness, and subsequent printings included works by Denise Nessel, Paul Ekman, Robert Ornstein and many others. ISHK has made the Malor publication New World New Mind by Robert Ornstein and Paul Ehrlich available in a free downloadable version on our website, and ISHK plans to offer more downloads for future works.

Hoopoe Books 

In 1998 ISHK's Hoopoe Books, under the editorship of Sally Mallam, began publishing an award-winning series of large-format, illustrated children's books by Afghan author Idries Shah featuring traditional teaching tales. In part, this endeavor was to enhance the scientific research initiated in the Mind, Brain and Health seminars over two decades earlier that supported the evidence that these traditional Teaching-Stories enhance the learning process in children and adults alike. There are now 11 children's books by Idries Shah, ranging from ages 3 & up, many of them printed in bilingual Spanish-English or Spanish languages and most with audio CDs available in multiple languages. Since its inception, Hoopoe books continue to garner praise from major educational reviewers, including the School Library Journal, NEA Today, Children's Bookwatch, and featured on NPR News in "All Things Considered." In 2009, Hoopoe Books expanded its offering to include the All About Me series of books for ages 12-18, and other important works for children.

1980s...

"On the positive side, the brain possesses highly refined mechanisms to maintain and restore health. We are not helpless and defenseless in the face of the stresses of everyday life." -- Robert Ornstein, in The Healing Brain

The Healing Brain Seminars 

From the Mind & Body, Health and Psychology series of seminars in the 1970s, ISHK developed the popular Healing Brain Seminars, under the direction of Dr. David Sobel (Director of Preventative Medicine, Kaiser Permanente). The seminars were established to give a much-needed forum to pioneering researchers in mind/body health, and much of what we now know about mind-body relationships come from this important series. The seminars were attended by over 20,000 health professionals, and they helped bring psycho-social factors such as stress, depression, optimism, and social support to the forefront of health care. The work by Robert Ornstein and David Sobel entitled The Healing Brain touches on much of the material from these seminars. (See also The Healing Brain: A Scientific Reader, edited by Robert Ornstein and Charles Swencionis, in the ISHK CE at Home program.) Read More...

The Road to the Future 

In 1989, ISHK's Road to the Future symposia convened a distinguished panel of thinkers to address pressing issues of our time: cross-cultural communication, the environment, and effects of technological progress. Participants included historian James Burke, anthropologist Edward T. Hall, novelist Doris Lessing, and ecologist Paul Ehrlich.

1970s...

The educational system, both past and present, has specialized in verbal analysis and the teaching of reading, writing and arithmetic. What it has neglected, perhaps, is the development of relationships between ideas, between people, and the perception of whole systems—the development of the whole person. -- Paul Brandwein, Ph.D., from "Educating Both Halves of the Brain" seminar

Brain, Mind and Health Seminars 

Because of the growing understanding among scientists and educators on the complex, yet subtle relationships between the body and the mind, ISHK began the groundbreaking seminars on mind and body health. New scientific discoveries on the brain and consciousness were emerging, and there was a growing recognition of the differences between people and of the need for new and better techniques for educating the whole person. ISHK's intention was to present a new synthesis and a new understanding of the brain, the duality of the mind, and the implications of the newer knowledge of split-brain and normal brain research for the purposes and processes of education. A long list of eminent faculty in these early seminars, including Idries Shah, Rene Dubos, Linus Pauling, Robert Ornstein, and others, presented scientific evidence that tools such as the Teaching-Story, meditation, biofeedback enhance our understanding of ourselves. The information developed and taught in ISHK's early Mind & Body seminars was, indeed, part of the foundation upon which current successful practices in education, medicine, and psychology are based. Read More...

Psychologies East and West Seminars 

Much of ISHK's work through the 1970s evolved to the development and initiation of continuing education programs in partnership with major academic and professional institutions, such as the Universities of California, The New School, Boston University, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Stanford University, and others. In 1972, ISHK became one of the first organizations approved by the American Psychological Association to sponsor continuing education for psychologists. Because psychology overlaps many professional fields of study and covers a broad range of populations and service settings, ISHK began with seminars on psychological advancements in biofeedback, meditation and self-regulatory therapies and, in the 1990s, developed course work that covered fundamental skills that are essential for competent functioning as a clinical psychologist within the areas of health and mental health. (See CE at Home for Psychologists program.) Read More...

The Book Service 

During the 1970s, ISHK began to see a need in the U.S. for books and collections on ancient and new ways of thinking, so in 1972, the ISHK Book Service was formed as a central source for important contemporary and traditional literature. ISHK became the sole US distributor of the works of Idries Shah published by Octagon Press LTD. Libraries, universities, trade booksellers, and the general reading public began to find out about this wealth of knowledge. In the past three decades, more than 2 million books have been distributed through the Book Service.

* * *

Beyond Today...

GROWING MY FIELD
Someone observed Nasrudin digging earth from his field and piling it into a mound. "What are you doing, Mulla?" he asked. "I am collecting this earth so that I can scatter it and make my field grow bigger." -- From The World of Nasrudin by Idries Shah, Octagon Press, 2003

We hope to continue the expansion of our programs as much as possible in the next few years. Our literacy and education programs will further develop to meet the most current standards in American education. Our Continuing Education directors are working on plans to include not only psychologists, but physicians in our course offerings. We will continue to research and disseminate information on the latest in health, psychology, education, human nature, and much more.

In the past ten years alone, ISHK's programs have grown enormously thanks to the generous support from grants and donations. ISHK runs all our programs with an administrative staff of 6, plus the support of approximately 200 volunteers who provide hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of services per year. If you wish to help us with any of our programs, please volunteer your services, or consider a donation.

Current Programs...

http://www.ishkbooks.com/ishk_history.html

Social Change

excerpt from "Laboratories of Social Change" 
a lecture delivered by Doris Lessing in 1985.



Sometimes it is hard to see anything good and
hopeful in a world that seems increasingly horrific.
To listen to the news is enough to make you think
you are living in a lunatic asylum.


But wait . . . we all know the news is presented
to us for maximum effect, that bad news seems, at
least, to be more effective in arousing us than good
news—which in itself is an interesting comment on
the human condition. We are all regularly presented,
day after day, with bad news, the worst, and I think
our minds are more and more set into attitudes of
foreboding and depression. But is it possible that all
the bad things going on—and I don't have to list
them, for we all know what they are—are a reaction,
a dragging undertow, to a forward movement in the
human social evolution that we can't easily see? Perhaps,
looking back, let's say in a century or two centuries,
is it possible people will say, "That was a time
when extremes battled for supremacy. The human
mind was developing very fast in the direction of self-knowledge,
self-command, and as always happens,
as always has to happen, this thrust forwards aroused
its opposite, the forces of stupidity, brutality, mob
thinking"? I think it is possible. I think that this is
what is happening.


Let us look at something that is extraordinarily
encouraging. In the last twenty or so years [1965-1985] quite a
few countries that were dictatorships, tyrannies,
have opted to become democracies. Among them are
Greece, Portugal, Spain, Brazil and Argentina. Some
of these are precarious—democracy is always precarious,
and must be fought for. But countries that were
in the grip of single-minded, simple-minded, stulti-
fying systems of thought have chosen to attempt the
more complicated, many-choiced balances of democ-
racy.


In the balance against this hopeful fact, we must
put a sad one, which is that large numbers of young
people, when they reach the age of political activity
adopt a stance or an attitude that is very much part
of our times. It is that democracy is only a cheat and
a sham, only the mask for exploitation, and that they
will have none of it. We have almost reached a point
where if one values democracy, one is denounced as
reactionary. I think that this will be one of the atti-
tudes that will be found most fascinating to historians
of the future. For one thing, the young people who
cultivate this attitude towards democracy are usually
those who have never experienced its opposite: peo-
ple who've lived under tyranny value democracy.


It is not that I don't understand it—I understand
it only too well, having lived through the process
myself. Democracy, liberty, fair play, and so forth
these have been stuffed down one's throat, and sud-
denly you see the most appalling injustices all around
you, and shout: "Hypocrite!" In my case, it was
Southern Rhodesia, where democracy was for the
white minority, and the black majority had no rights
of any kind. But when people are in that state of
mind, what is forgotten is that a democracy, no matter
how imperfect, offers the possibility of reform,
change. It offers freedom of choice. It is this freedom
to choose that is the new idea, historically speaking.
I think we tend to forget how new these ideas are,
that an individual should have rights, that a citizen
should be able to criticize the government.


How new is it? When was this concept born into
the human community for the first time? At this
point, there are people who start muttering about
ancient Greece, forgetting that it was a slave state
that allowed certain minimal freedoms to a male minority.
For argument's sake, it would be safe to say
that our concepts of liberty, of the rights of the individual,
were born in the English Revolution, in the
French Revolution, and in the American Revolution.
Very young ideas indeed. Very frail. Very precarious.
That an individual should be entitled to the rule
of the law—why, three or four centuries ago, they
wouldn't have known what you meant by it. Now it
is an idea so powerful that strong and ruthless governments
are brought down by it.


An idea seems to have taken root that there is
such a thing as civilized government, even that there
is a general consensus what civilized government is.
How otherwise could the citizens of Argentina have
agreed that they wanted to sue their deposed government
for wicked and cruel behaviour? For improper
behaviour? This seems to me the most extraordinary
and encouraging thing—that it could be happening
at all, proving to us all that in the world mind there

is an idea of what government ought to be. Has there
ever been an example before, of citizens wanting to
sue a government for improper behaviour? I am no
historian, but it does seem to me that this is a new
thing in the world.


Yet I think we may very well see countries that
take it for granted they are democracies losing sight
of democracy, for we are living in a time when the
great over-simplifiers are very powerful—Communism,
fundamentalist Islam. Poor economies breed
tyrannies.


But good ideas don't get lost, though they may
be submerged for a time.


An example. I have been talking about what we
call the "soft sciences," social psychology, and social
anthropology and the rest, and their contribution in
understanding ourselves as social animals, and how
these young sciences are denigrated, patronized, put
down. As everybody knows, public money is getting
very short in Britain, university departments are clos-
ing, all kinds of studies are being cut. This type of
science has been badly affected, is often the first to
be cut'—yet I have just read that in various universi-
ties, departments studying social psychology, social
science and so forth have been reprieved, because of
their usefulness to industry. In other words, they are
proving their value where it counts.


There is another hopefulness, not now but for the future.
Because Communism has turned out so
badly, proved itself not only one of the bloodiest tyr-
annies ever, but also so inefficient that any type of
regime, no matter how bad, is preferred to it, we
forget that Communism was born out of the ancient
dream of justice for everybody. It is a very powerful
dream, a powerful engine for social change. Because
Communism is at this present time equated with barbarism,
inefficiency and tyranny, that doesn't mean
that the idea of real justice will not be reborn.


Meanwhile there is no country in the world
whose structure is not of a privileged class and a poor
class. There is always a power elite with the mass of
the people excluded from wealth and from any sort
of political power.


In my more gloomy moments, I do brood about
the fact that it took the Communists' Soviet Union
only a couple of generations to develop a power elite
as rich and as privileged as any in the world. Communist
China is reported to be going the same way
and so are some of the new African states. But if this
is some kind of an inevitable process, for this time at
least, that all types of society produce privileged
elites, then at least we should acknowledge it and
work for as much flexibility as possible inside the
structure.


There is no group or party setting itself up against
this state of affairs that does not see itself as an elite,
whether it be the dictatorship of the proletariat,
headed by the Communist party, or terrorist groups,
or the political parties of the democracies, which by
definition know what is best for everyone else.
Elites, privileged classes, groups better educated
than others . . . this seems to be the stage at which
the world is now, or at least, nothing else seems to
be visible anywhere.


There are all kinds of elites, some retrograde and
useless that only act as brakes on social change, while
others, I believe, are productive. If I say that I think
elites, privileged groups, are often useful, then that
makes me reactionary, but it depends on who the
elite is: as I said before, if you call it the vanguard of
the proletariat, then that changes things, doesn't it?
Or, if I say I think ginger groups, pressure groups,
are invaluable because they prevent a society from
going sleepy and unself-critical, then that is all right
too—no, it is the word "elite" that is suspect. Very
well, let's discard it: we live in a time when people
may murder for the sake of a word, or a phrase. . 

.
There is a certain social process that is known and
very visible, but perhaps not acknowledged as much
as it should be. It is that one where a new idea (or an
old one in new form) is accepted by a minority, while
the majority are shouting treason, rubbish, kook,
Communist, capitalist, or whatever is the valued
term of abuse in that society. The minority develop
this idea, at first probably in secrecy, or semi-secrecy,
and then more and more visibly, with more and more
support until . . . guess what? This seditious, impossible,
wrong-headed idea becomes what is known as
"received-opinion" and is loved and valued by the
majority. Meanwhile, of course, a new idea, still seditious
etc. and so forth, has been born somewhere
else, and is being cultivated and worked out by a
minority. Suppose we redefine the word "elite," for
out present purposes, to mean any group of people
who for any reason are in the possession of ideas that
put them ahead of the majority?


When you get to my age—I was bound to say
this at some point, you'll agree—when you get to my
age, watching this process continuously at work in
society is one of the more entertaining ways of pass
ing one's time. It is an entertainment on the whole
denied to all but a few of the more reflective young,
because the young are still able to believe more easily
in permanence. What! That the beautiful ideas they
cherish are destined for the dustheap? Of course not!


But suppose we got to the point where at least
enough of us could agree that this is a process continually
at work—even in societies that outlaw new
ideas, like the Communist ones—making it inevitable
that today's treason is tomorrow's orthodoxy.
Would that not make us more efficient than we are
now, less punishing and bloody-minded, and ready
to resist change? I think it would, and that there must
come some point when this, like other mechanisms
in society, will be used, instead of resisted or ignored.
They can be ignored only by people who do
not study history.


Which brings me to another quite remarkable
phenomenon of our times. It is that young people are
not interested in history. In a recent survey in Britain,
young people who were asked what they thought
were useful subjects of study put history very low:
only 7 per cent saw any value in it. I think one reason
for this is psychological, easy to see and to understand,
particularly, again, if you've lived through
that stage yourself. If you are self-consciously
"young," and by definition progressive, or revolutionary
or whatever, but in any case, in the right
(young being against the old who are stupid and reactionary),
then the last thing you want to do is to
look at history, where you will learn that this attitude
on the part of the young is perennial, part of a permanent
social process. You do not want to read any-
thing that upsets your view of yourself as a gloriously
new and amazing phenomenon, whose ideas are
fresh, in fact just minted, and probably by yourself,
or at least, by your friends, or by the leader you revere,
an altogether new unsullied creature destined
to change the world. If I sound mocking, then I am
only laughing at my own young self—but that is the
point.


I think that this attitude, that history is not worth
studying, will strike those who come after us as quite
amazing.


After all, what we have seen since the French
Revolution (some would say since the Utopian and
Socialist groups of Cromwell's time) has amounted
to a laboratory of experiment in different types of
Socialism, different types of society, from the thirteen-
year-long war regime of Hitler, which called
itself National Socialism, to the Labour governments
of Britain, from the Communist states of Russia and
China, to Cuba, to Ethiopia, to Somalia, and on and
on. You'd think that people dedicated to production
of new'types of society would fall on these examples,
of what has actually happened, in order to study and
learn from them.


I repeat: one way of looking at the last two and a
half centuries is that they have been laboratories of
social change. But in order to learn from them one
needs a certain distance, detachment; and it is precisely
this detachment that makes possible, I believe,
a step forwards in social consciousness. One learns
nothing, about anything, ever, when in a state of
boiling ferment, or partisan enthusiasm.


I think children should be taught about history
not as is usually the case now, that this is the record
of long past events, which one ought to know about
for some reason or other. But that this is a story from
which one may learn not only what has happened,
but what may, and probably will, happen again.


Literature and history, these two great branches
of human learning, records of human behaviour,
human thought, are less and less valued by the
young, and by educators, too. Yet from them one
may learn how to be a citizen and a human being.
We may learn how to look at ourselves and at the
society we live in, in that calm, cool, critical and
sceptical way which is the only possible stance for a
civilized human being, or so have said all the philosophers
and the sages.


But all the pressures go the other way, towards
learning only what is immediately useful, what is
functional. More and more the demand is for people
to be educated to function in an almost certainly temporary
stage of technology. Educated for the short
term.


We have to look at the word "useful" again. In
the long run what is useful is what survives, revives,
comes to life in different contexts. It may look now as
if people educated to use our newest technologies
efficiently are the world's elite, but in the long run I
believe that people educated to have, as well, that
point of view that used to be described as humanistic
—the long-term, over-all, contemplative point of
view—will turn out to be more influential. Simply
because they understand more of what is going on in
the world. It is not that I undervalue the new technicians.
On the contrary. It is only that what they know
is by definition a temporary necessity.



To my mind the whole push and thrust and development of the world is towards the more complex,
the flexible, the open-minded, the ability to entertain
many ideas, sometimes contradictory ones, in one's
mind at the same time.


We are-seeing now an example of the price a
society must pay for insisting on orthodox, simpleminded,
slogan thinking: the Soviet Union is a
creaking, anachronistic, inefficient, barbaric society,
because its type of Communism outlaws flexibility of
thought. "Life itself"—to use the phrase the Communists
like using—"life itself" is showing just what
happens to societies that allow themselves to ossify
in dead patterns of thought. (The new ruler Gorbachev
is trying to remedy this.) We may observe
how the Chinese, always a clever and pragmatic people,
are allowing themselves to change. We may see
how fundamentalist Islam creates societies that will,
because of their inflexibility, soon be shown up for
what they are, while other societies, more flexible,
more open, race ahead.


In the long term, I think the race will go to the
democracies,, the flexible societies. I know that if one
looks around the world at the moment, this may
seem a rather over-optimistic view, particularly when
we see that the new information about how we work
and function is used so skilfully and cynically by governments,
police departments, armies, secret services
—all those functions of administration that can be
used to diminish and control the individual.
But it is my belief that it is always the individual,
in the long run, who will set the tone, provide the
real development in a society.


It is not always easy to go on valuing the individual,
when everywhere individuals are so put down,
denigrated, swamped by mass thinking, mass movements
and, on a smaller scale, by the group.


It is particularly hard for young people, faced
with what seem like impervious walls of obstacles, to
have belief in their ability to change things, to keep
their personal and individual viewpoints intact. I remember
very clearly how it seemed to me in my late
teens and early twenties, seeing only what seemed to
be impregnable systems of thought, of belief—governments
that seemed unshakeable. But what has
happened to those governments like the white government
in Southern Rhodesia, for instance? To
those powerful systems of faith, like the Nazis, or the
Italian Fascists, or to Stalinism? To the British Empire
. . . to all the European empires, in fact, so recently
powerful? They have all gone, and in such a short
time.


Looking back now, I no longer see these enormous
blocs, nations, movements, systems, faiths, religions,
but only individuals, people who when I was
young I might have valued, but not with much belief
in the possibility of their changing anything. Looking
back, I see what a great influence an individual may
have, even an apparently obscure person, living a
small, quiet life. It is individuals who change societies,
give birth to ideas, who, standing out against
tides of opinion, change them. This is as true in open
societies as it is in oppressive societies, but of course
the casualty rate in the closed societies is higher.
Everything that has ever happened to me has taught
me to value the individual, the person who cultivates
and preserves her or his own ways of thinking
stands out against group thinking, group pressures.
Or who, conforming no more than is necessary to
group pressures, quietly preserves individual thinking
and development.


I am not at all talking about eccentrics, about
whom such a fuss is made in Britain. I do think that
only a very rigid and conforming society could have
produced the idea of an eccentric in the first place.
Eccentrics tend to be in love with the image of eccentricity,
and once embarked on this path, become
more and more picturesque, developing eccentricity
for its own sake. No, I am talking about people who
think about what is going on in the world, who try to
assimilate information about our history, about how
we behave and function—people who advance humanity 
as a whole.


It is my belief that an intelligent and forward
looking society would do everything possible to produce
such individuals, instead of, as happens very
often, suppressing them. But if governments, if cultures,
don't encourage their production, then individuals 
and groups can and should...


We live in an open society... We are fortunate in that we are able to teach ourselves what we will, if our schools seem to us deficient; and to reach out anywhere at all for ideas that seem to us valuable. 


I think that we should make more use of these freedoms than we do....


By using our freedoms, I do not mean just joining demonstrations, political parties, and so on and so forth, which is only part of the democratic process, but examining ideas, from whatever source they come, to see how they may usefully contribute to our lives and to societies we live in.



from Prisons We Choose To Live Inside, by Doris Lessing, 
pgs. 63-75.

The Persuaders

A Talk by Vance Packard

from 

Annotations: The NEH Preservation Project

Beyond 'Eggheads': Vance Packard Pulls Back the Curtain on Advertising, 1958

Wednesday, December 05, 2012 - 01:10 PM

WNYC

By Philip Quarles

ListenAdd

Vance Packard Testifying Before Congress, July 26, 1966 (© Bettmann/CORBIS/Corbis Images)

At this Books and Authors Luncheon, Vance Packard tries to dispel the idea that his book, The Hidden Persuaders (1957), is merely about the quirks and absurdities of advertising's use of "motivational research." 

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In fact, what he had in mind when he wrote the book was "a protest against the over-commercialization of American life." Packard feels we are in danger of losing many of our basic rights, citing three areas of specific concern. The first is "the growing boldness in invading the privacy of our minds." This concerns subliminal messages, flashes of popcorn, say, or Coca-Cola, in a movie theater, too rapid to be consciously perceived but resulting in increased concession-stand sales. Second is "the deliberate encouragement of irrational behavior." The shopping list, he claims, is a thing of the past; 70 percent of the items purchased at a supermarket are now bought on impulse. "Psychological obsolescence" now gets people to replace perfectly good appliances, cars, and even houses, because they are no longer in style. Finally, he laments a change in the American character itself. We are the most materialistic nation on earth, he says. Whereas the youth in other countries are "aglow with idealism," young Americans have succumbed to "the pressure to consume."

The great question, he concludes, that we must ask ourselves, going forward, is, "How can we work out a spiritually tolerable relationship between our dynamic economy and our free people?"  

A popularizer before the word itself was popularized, Packard (born in 1914) spent the early part of his career working for newspapers and magazines. In 1952 he began writing books, combining his reportorial skills with a deep-seated conviction that the course of American society had gone awry after the war. The Hidden Persuaders tapped into a sense of paranoia and loss of control felt by the consuming public. Reviewing its initial reception, The New York Times, in his obituary, recalled:

Writing in the New York Times Book Review, A.C. Spectorsky called the book ''frightening, entertaining, and thought-stimulating.'' The work remained on The New York Times best-seller list for a year. ''Hidden Persuaders'' became all the rage; many readers claimed they were being subjected to subliminal advertising every time they noticed a glitch in their television reception.

The advertising industry was incensed, denying the sinister motives imputed to it. Even today, Advertising Age's 100 People of the Century grudgingly lists Packard, noting:

The public bought the book and its premise. Packard explained that ad agencies used psychiatry, motivational research, and related social sciences to create subliminal selling patterns. Ironically, his work contained enough distortions to diminish its value where it might have counted most -- among ad makers.

Packard went on to write several more best-sellers all stemming from the same premise, that conformity was on the rise and materialism was doing away with the American virtues of independence and simplicity. These included The Status-Seekers (1959), about social stratification and social-climbing; The Waste Makers (1960), about manufacturing's need to convince people to buy things they don't need; and The Naked Society (1964), about the loss of individual privacy. Although none of these books contained much original research or thinking, they did bring together scientific information and personal testimony, aiming at a "middlebrow audience" whose concerns mirrored Packard's own. His findings have been variously characterized as scary, comic, only of interest to "eggheads," as well as the possible basis for a musical. As the website of his alma mater, Penn State, summarized:

Readers and critics quickly associated the…books as playing an important role in the awakening of consumer awareness among Americans. He was once described in Publishers Weekly as “our most popular popularizer of sociology.”

Indeed, it was after hearing a lecture by Packard that a young Betty Friedan determined to write a similar type of book about her own concerns, which later became The Feminine Mystique. 

Packard's clarion call to action, or at least to increased awareness, sounds somewhat muted today. As Mark Greif, in an essay marking The Hidden Persuaders' 50th anniversary, notes:

What’s surprising is the degree to which we’ve all become sophisticates, engaging in our own Packard-like critiques of consumer culture without changing our habits. We know we buy irrationally; we just don’t care. We imagine that the “manipulators” at J. Walter Thompson or BBDO play only on the fears and hopes of desperate consumers who aren’t as “conscious” as we are (in which case it’s hard not to admire the ingenuity of the advertisers), while we ourselves are smart enough to decide when to give in. On the last page of The Hidden Persuaders, Packard had to acknowledge the paradox: “When irrational acts are committed knowingly they become a sort of delicious luxury.” We seem to enjoy both knowing that ads are hustling us and choosing to be hustled.

Packard continued to produce books that showed his uncanny ability to anticipate the concerns of the reading public. His last book, published in 1989, was The Ultra-Rich: How Much Is Too Much?

Packard died in 1996. He was 82.

Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection.

Note: Some poor audio quality due to condition of transcription disc.

GUESTS:

 Vance Packard