Do the sophisticated practice demagoguery?

[coberst]

Do the sophisticated practice demagoguery?

The demagogue is a “leader who makes use of popular prejudice and false claims and promises in order to gain power”--Webster. Demagoguery is often the preferred tool of politicians and plutocrats because the muddled masses are moved more easily by emotion than by reason.

SPLC (Southern Poverty Law Center) reports “Nearly a decade after virtually disappearing from public view, the so-called “Patriot” movement is back…This is the most significant growth we’ve seen on 10 years. All it’s lacking is a spark…These groups are steeped in bizarre conspiracy theories and seething with rage”

I am convinced that our (American) educational system, which teaches young people what to think but not how to think, is greatly to blame for this unfortunate situation.

Quickie from Wiki: “The iron law of oligarchy is a political theory, first developed by the German syndicalist sociologist Robert Michels in his 1911 book, Political Parties. It states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic or autocratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop into oligarchies. The reasons for this are the technical indispensability of leadership, the tendency of the leaders to organize themselves and to consolidate their interests; the gratitude of the led towards the leaders, and the general immobility and passivity of the masses.”

Is it possible for a nation to overcome our human nature to fear the responsibility inherent in free will? I think that the answer is YES.

The way that we can overcome this human weakness is by a large segment of the population becoming self-actualizing self-learners with Critical Thinking skills that will tend to overcome the hypnotic appeal of group psychology.

The sophisticated do practice demagoguery because the appeal to emotion is the best way to manipulate the unsophisticated who have little or no Critical Thinking skills.

[Clodhopper]

The immoral sophisticated do. But I'm not sure that saying "This is the Way to think" is any more than another way of manipulating people. The ideal of teaching is to encourage people to think for themselves.

Of course, this way madness lies, because any form of teaching can be seen as a form of brainwashing until you end at a position where you should leave a child to explore the world entirely at its own pace which might be ideal but is unfortunately unaffordable and also ignores the fact that children are not angels.

A good "way of thinking" should be a map allowing you to explore and make decisions as to route, not a railway track taking you to an unavoidable destination.