Pyramids of power
by Mary W Maxwell
Gumshoe editor Dee McLachlan does not buy newspapers. She goes to a coffee shop where they are freely circulated and takes selfies of the headlines. Yesterday she was beside herself about the Murdoch press’s headline THERE IS NO DEBATE regarding vaccination.
Clearly the headline meant: DON’T YOU DARE DEBATE VACCINATION. So let’s pause for a minute to ask: What is a newspaper? What podium is Rupert Murdoch speaking from, and why does he want Australians to get super-vaccinated?
The first question is easy to answer. He speaks from the podium of mass media. He got there by coaxing legislators to get rid of laws that put limits on concentration of media. For instance, not long ago Oz very sensibly forbade the owners of TV stations to hold huge market share in other media such as newspapers. (“Cross ownership – out!”)
Rupert Murdoch, a man of no particular charisma but shrewd business sense, saw to it that he gained a position from which he could influence people massively and easily. Let’s postpone the question about vaccination to ask: Why did the various media moguls emerge? In particular, what drives Rupe?
The Maxwell Sociobiological Approach
In early parts of this series I pledged my allegiance to sociobiology, particularly as put forward by William Hamilton (on kin altruism) and Richard Alexander (on group selection).
Sociobiology is a science dealing mainly with non-human animals, but it fits Homo sapiens very well.
I see us as being in a mess today because of our evolved traits. They were “designed” to suit an ecological situation that is very different from the modern person’s environment. EO Wilson, the maestro of sociobiology, has said (in his 1978 book, On Human Nature) that we were “jerrybuilt on the Pleistocene.”
I think we have two hard-wired traits that are bring us into disaster today. Both of them can help explain the Rupert Murdoch phenomenon. One is the trait that causes male hierarchies to form. The other is the human way of grouping together against an enemy — and being willing to stop at nothing to defeat that group. It explains war and genocide.
Hierarchies
Chickens in a barnyard have a pecking order. If you drop a new chicken into the group she has quickly to find a place in the pecking order. Among mammals, the hierarchy may culminate in an alpha: one top dog can control everyone.
How can he do that so easily? (Note: I say “he,” but in some species the alpha is always a female.) I think it’s obvious that the reason he can do so is the same reason for each chicken to “maintain her station.” It’s better to have a place than not.
It is better, overall, for there to be a structure, with some individuals being higher or lower than others. The alternative would be pretty unpleasant: to have to fight anew everyday against your competitors. Pecking orders and hierarchies are provided for in the DNA and they are here to stay.
I suppose I am entering politically incorrect waters here, by not declaring that equality is what we need. Well, I love to be politically incorrect. (I assume that the political correctness of the left wing was invented by someone who, far from hoping we would end up with equality, was trying to confuse us, for the sake of his boss, the alpha. Betcha betcha.)
Just trust me for now: we humans can’t help being hierarchy-oriented. It is biologically hard wired in each of us.
Rupert’s Place in the Hierarchy
Many human males are ambitious. They have great drive. Perhaps if you put a hundred people on a desert island, one or two would emerge as the acknowledged ‘boss.’ I mean it is natural to strive for top-ness in general.
Vanity can help but is not essential. Some bosses are in love with themselves, some are not. I don’t think of Rupert as vain, do you? So what is he striving for?
It is well known that Rupert Murdoch is a man of focused ambition, willing to destroy any competitors. Soon after I arrived in Adelaide (1980), I was told that Murdoch had bought up all the printing presses and ink so no one else could get off the ground with a newspaper that might challenge his Advertiser.
So, as I said, our traits can get a society in trouble. It’s bad for all of us when someone controls the news even just in one city, right? And ol’ Rupe didn’t stop with Adelaide. He went on to capture much of the media in Britain and then in America, his most recent acquisition being the Wall Street Journal.
We used to hear of his tête-à-tête’s with Margaret Thatcher. It’s not clear who was the boss in that duo. My best guess is that he and Maggie both were working for the same boss. They both ass-kissed, even though the public does not know who’s ass is getting kissed. Who the hell is on top?
The Group/Group Competition Thing
My claim is that two human traits that evolved during the Pleistocene are lethal in the contemporary world. The first, as discussed, is hierarchy. The second is group-to-group competition. Again, it is hard-wired. Culture may seem to shape it a bit, but every human has the makings of going out and killing the offending enemy.
Taking my cue from Richard Alexander, I say that this instinct is so deep in us that it renders us incapable of having much “conscience” as to how we treat foreigners. We simply don’t realize how conscienceless is our decision to try to defeat a potential attacker.
Let’s look at hyenas, a species that practices genocide. Any member of that group can recognize that a group of nearby hyenas may be getting too big. Thus it calculates – without language, or knowledge of history – that the needed move is war. On a certain day they may attack the group whose size is threatening to them.
Note: when a hyena group sees a few of the enemy walking around unprotected it may kill them off then and there. This will be advantageous when the two groups finally meet, and anyway it is so easy to kill the loners.
My point for now is: Homo sapiens has instinctive ruthlessness toward member of its own species when they appear as enemies.
I say the advice to be universally good to all people is a bad joke. Our mental barriers prevent such a thing. If we ever want to deal with this issue, we had better own up to our mental barriers. This will take education. We need to learn evolutionary biology – it’s the key to everything. I realize I’m politically incorrect by saying that we don’t love foreigners, but deep down we don’t.
What Is Rupert’s Group?
So, we evolved to close ranks with our own tribe, and strike out at other tribes. Identifying which group to give your loyalty to was no problem — it was the home group. Natch. But in modern times one can belong to a group that is not one’s nation. For example, one may identify mainly with a group that sprawls several nations.
Importantly, within a nation, even one that has ethnic homogeneity, there can be social classes that see each other as the enemy — the rich and the poor. In his 1705 “Fable of the Bees,” Bernard Mandeville spoke of ‘Lady Justice’ in this way:
Yet, it was thought, the Sword she bore
Check’d but the Desp’rate and the Poor;
That, urg’d by mere Necessity,
Were tied up to the wretched Tree
For Crimes, which not deserv’d that Fate,
But to secure the Rich, and Great.
As for my question What Is Rupert’s group? the answer must be: those who are near the very top and who make plans for the entire species. Murdoch hangs around with Western leaders, but his marriage to a woman from China gave a hint of East-meets-West.
Probably Rupe’s main group (his in-group, opposing all out-groups) is “the circle of governments” or something like that. Certainly he is devoted to World Government, whatever that may consist of.
Ass-Kissing by the Powerful
Now to the crux of this article. The phone conversation between me and Dee this morning, that started out with her fury over the vaccination propaganda, led her to wonder how the plans get made.
Specifically, she queried: why would powerful persons plan for things that will occur only in a later generation? How can an individual be motivated to work for something so long-term?
A century ago, genocidal scientists put bad things into the vaccines. They knew the payoff would be very delayed (the illness caused to the patient could take decades to develop), so how did they feel abut that?
For that matter, it can be asked: how did the blokes such as Albert Pike, who supposedly planned three World Wars back in 1870, give a hoot about it all since he could never live to see its fruition?
The short answer from me is that I don’t know. I assume that Albert Pike was kissing ass, that is, trying to please someone other than himself. I have often thought the same is true of the first famous Rockefeller, the Oilman. Indeed, Eustace Mullins proved that The Oilman was but a front for Rothschild.
To me it looks as though a person such as Our Rupe has the standard human need to win a pat on the back, and thus works hard to please whoever it is that distributes those pats. But who is that? I don’t know.
Human Selfishness and Dependence
I am trying to persuade readers, in this sociobiology-based series, that we are all in it together. We have species problems. If Mr Murdoch is displaying a well-known human trait, you might as well say “There but for the grace of God go I.”
Perforce, if we want to overcome the lethal aspects of having such top dogs getting into position where they can reign unchallenged, we need to act sensibly.
Funny, I though John Locke, David Hume, and the rest of the critics had already done the maths on that stuff and come up with good political systems! Um, but then the alphas crushed such democratic arrangements.
Don’t let them crush us, OK? It is beyond stupid to “fall in line” under the guidance of such people as Murdoch.
Wise up. Think species. Think Pleistocene. Think of how these poor, pitiful alphas have to spend their whole lives being nasty, and controlling our culture, just so they won’t have a bad fall.
Help them fall.
Mary W Maxwell lives in Adelaide. She is preparing more articles for the Selfishness and Human Dependence series…
Perhaps the “demise pill” for those reaching 75 years as forecast by Dr. Day in his March 1969 lecture [ref ‘NWO exposed by insider March 1969] was directed as a plan to get rid of ‘alpha” control freaks so the rest of us can ‘demise” in our own time in peace.
Now who are the alpha control freaks who have passed their NWO 75 year used by date?
That’s an interesting point, Ned. I have wondered if their whole gig is going to fall apart due to the difficulty of training their young. After all, to live the way a Rupert lives takes a lot of discipline. He had to be able to do his arithmetic tables. The kids today don’t learn anything and they don’t have mental discipline. So how can they think?
See if this doesn’t cheer you up.
Mary, Whilst I agree with your comments on Murdoch, I disagree with the remainder regarding human traits and built in mechanisms.
If your going to go down that road, you must also accept that all humans have a similar mechanism that tells them what is RIGHT and what is WRONG.
For example, in a war zone, when first confronted with that reality, people have great difficulty coming to grips with what they are facing and with what they are required to do. KILL THE ALLEGED ENEMY.
For this very reason, militaries conduct thorough training to override what the troops have , until that day, been brought up to believe, that to KILL is wrong.
If, as you claim, killing is built in to our nature, then the military would not need to conduct such in depth brain washing and training, it should, as you state, come naturally and easily. I can assure you, that the men I served with, KILLING did not come as easy as you would impost, it left severe nasty memories and feelings, minds in turmoil even still to this day.
There also, should be no PTSD from such events either.
Going back the beginning of my post, humans KNOW what is RIGHT and what is WRONG.
It is up to each and every individual to make that decision which road they choose, it’s got nothing to do with built in mechanisms.
We are supposed to be intelligent and are supposed to make intelligent decisions, waging war and killing people because they don’t belong to our tribe, is not an intelligent decision by any means.
Even the indigenous tribes in the Amazon know this, so much for the in built mechanisms.
If we accept your idea, the future is indeed bleak.
I really believe you are way off the mark on this subject.
I think the human species is divided into groups; Those that are essentially born empathetic as Eddy describes. And the smaller group that lacks empathy – I would almost class them as a (sub-species) sub-group, where traits of empathy are lacking or none. There is also be a natural trait to “follow” the group as a survival mechanism.
So — to me the sub-group of lets say psychopaths — they have a huge advantage as nothing holds them back to gain power. They don’t play the same game as the rest. Over the centuries they have risen to rule.
All we need to do is wake up the masses and point to that fact to restore some order. The sub-group is well aware of that and thus bought the media a long time ago to suppress this.
I think Eddy is right. The sub-group use the “follow” trait to train the masses to kill for their ends.
I think there is a huge difference in killing to defend your family – or killing others to steal their food. Most people will possibly kill to defend their kids…. only a very very small number will go and kill someone else’s kids to fill up one’s petrol tank – like they did in IRAQ
To continue:
That is why when you talk to most people about 9-11 – that it was orchestrated by people in power — they just can’t (don’t want to) believe it. It seems to them, impossible that humans in positions of government could behave like this.
To many of those in power it would be normal and necessary behaviour.
I think this “disbelief” clearly demonstrates the humans from the sub-species. Its just that most humans can’t see through the fog of lies.
Stop hurting people’s illusions about themselves (those about their species are needed because they serve as illusions about themselves)
🙂
The truest reactions you’ll get are “Yes, that is true of ANIMALS, but what’s it to do with us?” or “Yes, that may be true of some/many/most but it’s not true of /many/some/some exceptions”. When complete denial is prevented, partial denial is
the way to go; when partial denial is not viable, mystification and misinterpretations are the way to go.
And why wouldn’t we concede to humans to be humans, after all?
Human “consciousness” gives us additional needs in contrast with all other species… and illusions are the chief one.
Any healthy-minded human will pick their illusions over oxygen, if choice is compulsory.
Culture? Isn’t it an offspring of biology? (You may find Baumann’s Mortality Immortality and Other Strategies of Life interesting.)
The “fog of lies”? Doesn’t it help to believe in them, when you aren’t in a position of domination and you can’t shape reality, or even your destiny?
Willing submission is the other side of the medal of power.
It minimizes global disturbance, and individual ache; it saves energy (to be used for life’s chief ends)
Nature is so subtly, masterfully economic.
While reading the article, I… only wanted to know your face and say “Miss, I love you.”
There are no merits, as there is no free will, but were there a merit in our condition and time, it would be not to flee from what we have realized.
There’s nothing as politically incorrect as saying “I love you,” in our day. But I am politically incorrect, that is.
And anyway, there’s nothing else I would say to a woman (politically incorrect bit: I am male, and feel attraction, even psychological, to females) who can write what I just read.
You are the first human being, me excepted, I have seen writing “non-human animals.”
(To a man I would say “I admire you.”)
Anyway, when you say “This will take education. We need to learn evolutionary biology – it’s the key to everything,”
the sobering reply is: it will be evolutionary biology, and psychology, to determine our future, and what “we” need.
And what we need will never be truth or a life devoid of illusion. The converse instead.
By the way, what is the meaning of “we”, and personal pronouns?
Other stuff “we” need, just that.
As for whose ass(es) is(are) being kissed in the contemporary Anglo-Sphere, there can be no doubt you know it well 🙂
All it takes to the non-blindfold is the courage not to question what the eye sees.
But if the ass owners were removed by a magic spell, others would take their place.
As for the dishonest lying scholars and academics who prevent sociobiology and psychobiology from accessing the main stream… aren’t they working in the interests of man kind (and as programmed)? They are.
Telling humans what they are, what they actually desire and why, and the real motives of their actions… that’s killing them, and not in a very humane manner at that.
Truth is the nemesis of living beings with “conscience”, as it is changeless: how on earth could it adapt? “Truth” in the mind of living beings with a “conscience” changes instant from instant, shaped by purposes and needs.
“I love him,” will say the very ugly girl once a barely male individual told “hello” to her.
“I didn’t like him at all” will say the girl, as soon as the quasi-male has turned his back on her.
The human comedy, as a great French writer named it.
(The real birth of sociobiology took place in the 19th century, with Freud and Realism in literature)
Shaped by vanity, too.
Look at the most cherished of social scientists… what are their theories, if not paintings… showing what they would, for reasons as selfish as all humans’, the world to be like as the “real”?
And their deceptions sell and are received greatly, because they are shaped by pride and vanity, and assuage the market’s pride and vanity.
Later, other lies will replace today’s.
Only two things will never be there, truth, and justice.
Thanks for the nice opinion piece.
You have the experience and I don’t, so I must credit that.
I see fantastic tortures committed by the US at AbuGhraib, and yet only a handful of people (out of 300,000 Americans) trying to stop it.
I see Israelis openly boasting about what they do to unarmed people in Gaza.
Eddy, those two examples are of rough behavior by the strong. What about an ethnic group under attack — wouldn’t their troops gp whole hog to save their people by fighting? Would they start to shoot and then say “Wait, I don’t think this is right”?
I do believe you as to what you say about the need to brainwash — but maybe that is because the ones doing the brainwashing are aware that the imminent battle is more like an invasion?
In the MK-ULtra program many girls were taught to be killers, and they did kill, but they “knew it was wrong” as you say. They got quite sick over it and still feel guilty.
Reblogged this on tomaz2015.
Thank you for another great article Mary … Dee used my favourite word – ‘empathy’.
Digressing for a moment – the likes of murdoch et al will pass into oblivion with a certain stench on their last breath … documented but forgotten …
While others leave a legacy worth cherishing …
“When we are young we think so many things are important – including ourselves. But as we get older we find less is important, apart from some fundamental things … one of them being a love of one’s fellow man.” … David Bowie
A classic moment with Bing Crosby …
Vale David Bowie