Do Most People Just Want to Be Controlled?
Ever since I first started writing here back in 2020, I was quite skeptical of the mandates that had been implemented for a certain virus. Now that there are reports of schools shutting down due to said virus in 2023 (not to metion virtual teachers and the disasters that may bring up) and masks being mandated again, I’m afraid that the majority of people aren’t going to learn anything from the previous couple of years and freak out over what turned out to be not as severe as it was hyped to be.
Before 2020, I would’ve looked at someone weirdly if they had told me about this whole crisis because I just couldn’t think that it would be possible to manipulate billions of people to mindlessly comply. Even last year, while I was still cautious about these mandates, I still thought they were all behind us and that we can move forward again.
Seeing these news articles are making me wonder if people will panic and repeat the same things they did back in 2020 and 2021? Even after a whole year and a half of not doing so? Will people really go back to those dark times at the drop of a hat because news stories and governments tell them to do so?
Do most people just want to be controlled?
Let’s think about it for a moment. When you have to make a decision — any decision — what do you do? Do you make an immediate choice, take some time before deciding, or pray that someone else makes a decision for you?
More accurately, what’s your reaction when reading a headline? Do you do your own research to come to your own conclusion, or do you believe/not believe said headline based on your own political biases? There’s a good chance it’s the latter. You’re not immune to it; I’m not immune to it. Nobody’s immune. We’re humans, after all.
Whether we’re left, right, or center, we all look for headlines that align with our political biases. You do it. I do it. Everyone does it. That’s because, in our own lives, we act like the world revolves around us. And when we see enough headlines and stories that align with our biases, we look towards the people who influenced said biases to tell us what to do and how we should think. This is especially the case with politics.
Unless you live under a rock, then you should know that Medium.com leans heavily on the political left. In fact, almost every social media website and business leans left. It’s mostly to make money, but these websites and businesses have a huge influence on what we as consumers see and hear. Therefore, when we go onto these websites or businesses, we’re bombarded by the political ideologies they wish to promote.
If you’ve read any of my previous articles here, you might come to the conclusion that I’m not too much on the left (despite calling myself a leftist earlier). Therefore, it’s a bit hard for me to find things I can enjoy reading without those stories getting deleted off platforms later on. And since almost every website is left-leaning, it’s hard to find websites that don’t shove those politics down my throat. That might be the reason why I don’t interact with many people online (another one being that I don’t like dealing with drama all that much).
What I’m trying to say is that having almost everything catering to a certain political bias is enough to influence a mass audience’s views on the world. Therefore, these audience members will look towards the people who have been infiltrating said viewpoints (mostly politicians and businesspeople) for some guidance on what to do and how to think. Then, these politicians/businesspeople will tell the little people what to do and how to think. It’s a vicious cycle that’s almost impossible to break.
Again, this applies to every political ideology. We may be in a leftist-dominant culture right now (at least in the western world we are), but the pendulum can swing back right to the right wing. Back in the 1980s and 2000s (by 2000s, I mean right after 9/11), our politics were pretty right wing. Ronald Reagan, the AIDS panic, 9/11, the mass consumption of materials, I can go on. However, in the 1990s and this decade, our popular culture was pretty left-leaning.
How does this happen, and why? I think it’s because most people don’t agree with what our media is telling us, but they’re too afraid to do anything to change that. Therefore, they wait until someone else speaks up and changes our culture (whether it’s for better or worse). Then, when they think they’re safe, that’s when they begin to speak up. And they feel safe speaking up when their ideology is in the majority because a majority of people secretly want a dictatorship.
That’s where the politicians and the media come in. They tell the masses what they want to hear, and the masses will comply because they either agree wholeheartedly (whether by manipulation or sincerity) or they’ve been peer-pressured to agree with whatever society is pushing for. It’s happening with the pushback on woke media, and it’s going to happen when the right takes over.
To put it simply: We can’t really think for ourselves. That’s why most of us want to be controlled by someone else. We may have our own thoughts and opinions, but we’ve either been manipulated into thinking that way by seeking out biased media, or we’re too afraid to stand up for ourselves. If we let ourselves get controlled by elitist government officials instead of controlling ourselves, we’re in some serious danger.
That’s why we need to find as many stories on a source to come to our own conclusions rather than automatically trust what someone’s saying just because they’re on our political side.
