TALKING TO OUR REPTILIAN BRAINS
In order to gain political power, you must gain the attention of those over whom you wish to have power.
In order to gain the attention of those over whom you wish to have power, you must be effective in communication.
In order to be effective in communication, you must understand the people with whom you are trying to communicate.
One of the most important keys to understanding the people with whom you are trying to communicate is to remember that people are divided into two main groups....the 'rational group' and the 'reptilian group'.
In order to gain political power, you must correctly decide which of the two groups you must communicate with in order to gain the mass of support you need to propel you to your goal.
This decision is relatively easy when either of the two groups is significantly larger than the other.
If most of the people you wish to have power over belong to the "rational" group, you must make rational arguments in order to communicate with them in your attempt to appeal to them. Public debates over proposed policies are an effective method of communicating with a largely rational population.
On the other hand, if the people you wish to have power over are mostly from the reptilian mindset, you must appeal to a primal non-reasoning part of their brains that respond to a different type of communication.
This type of communication occurs at a sub-rational level where the corporeal world is brought into sharp focus and the abstract world of language and thought are dimmed.
Allow me to contrast the two methods of communication by posing the theoretical conundrum of foreign threat.
1) Rational proposal to lead a country to strengthen national defense
- Because of the rising threat of our violent neighbor, our country must commit resources to intelligence gathering and border patrols. I am dedicated to idea of defending our country by committing resources to protecting it from attack. Vote for me.
2) Reptilian proposal to lead a country to strengthen national defense
- Because of the rising threat of our violent neighbor, our country is full of fear. Vote for me because I am very tall and I have a fierce look on my face. I have very thick arms.
As you can see, one politician appeals to the rational mind that can understand that more border patrols will likely reduce the chance of violent intrusion by the violent neighbor.
The other politician appeals to the people at such a low level that it is not even necesary to use words to communicate. This politician needs only to present an image of himself towering over his opponent. Each member of his reptilian audience, fearful of the threatening country, forms an imprint of the larger looking candidate. Each person becomes attached to and supports that candidate for the position of power.
To such audiences, it does not matter that the candidate, though large, can be felled by a single bullet rendering him unable to defend them. It does not matter to them that a single man, no matter how physically impressive, cannot hold back an invading army if rational strategies of defense are not used.
To this audience, the same automatic imprinting that attaches a duckling to its mother is at work to attach them to the large candidate.
In a fully rational country, it would never be necesary to see candidates (TV) or even to hear them speak (radio). To transmit ideas in a rational world, it would only be necesary for candidates to publish books and papers carrying their ideas and proposals. The population of such a country would only need to read and understand the ideas in order to make rational decisions on who to support. It would be entirely unnecesary to see the physical attributes of the candidate. A rational person would not be swayed by the candidates tan (Kennedy) or the shining health of his or her hair (John Edwards).
It saddens me write that our western civilization, once hinged on rationality, is now returning to the age of primal communication. More and more politicians, having discovered that voters are easily swayed by physical attributes, are now using reptilian communication as the kingpin of their campaign strategies.
Presidential candidate from 2000, Al Gore is a classic example of a politician who decided to communicate in a reptilian way. The picture above was published as the cover of the Rolling Stone magazine. The image was famously air brushed in the area of the groin to enhance the appearance of his genital package. In the minds of his campaign strategists, his reptilian audience (seeking fruitfulness, sensuality, virility and oversight over their lives) would see Al Gore's enhanced genital package and be imprinted by the package and subsequently by him. This group would then follow Al Gore to the voting booth and award him with political power.
Judging from Al Gore's performance in the Presidential race of 2000, I would dare to guess that there were enough people imprinted by Al Gore's genitalia to give him a majority of the votes cast in that election. Of course there is no way to know this but the graphic method of reptilian communication seems to have made an impression with the next serious Democratic contender for President.
Photo via Wiz Bang
This sculpture of Hillary Clinton was recently 'unveiled' at the New York Museum of Sex. The artist said that he wanted to convey his subject "as a woman — not a covered-up person, but as a woman."
I, on the other hand, say that he conveyed what his subject and her strategists told him to convey.
Clinton and her strategists, having settled on a plan to communicate in the language of reptiles, commissioned an artist to create a image of Hillary Clinton that would project an impression of bountiful milk and copious supply. The sculture projects the subject as fecund and noble while pre-supposing the subject's title of the "First woman President of the United States of America". This effort to speak directly to the medula oblongata of the population has been used by aspiring leaders for many centuries.
Compare the sculpture of Hillary to this one of a Hindu "Mother Goddess" from about 1 B.C.
Via Columbia Edu
Both sculptors enhance the breasts to communicate the primal code for nourishment. In large countries, it can hardly be expected that the breasts of a single woman could supply all the nutritional needs of the population so it is clearly a sub-rational impulse to follow a leader purely based on the forwardness of her breasts.
In a rational world, even a skinny, shriveled and disabled male would be able to inspire the population with ideas on how to enhance dairy production in his country by reducing taxes on farmers. In such a country, the candidate would not need to have a sculpture of himself oozing 2% milk from his every orifice to communicate his association with bountiful agricultural policies.
Our education system is becoming less a training ground for rational thought and more a nursery for amplifying the value of emotional reactions to reality. Because of this sad fact, upcoming generations will be less inclined (or even able) to listen to rational propositions and more likely to respond to sub-rational projections.
Future candidates able to convey the largest breasts or the deepest voice or the largest genital package or the shiniest hair or the brownest tan (and maybe even all of the aforementioned) will imprint huge swaths of the population without the pronouncement of a single word.
These candidates will merely release suggestive photos of themselves in unspeakable poses or have greatly exaggerated sculptures of themselves set in the public square.
Unfortunately for such generations, those who promise economic relief or security on the strength of their physical attributes will more often than not entirely fail to deliver.
