"Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves." - Henry David Thoreau

Have you ever noticed how vehemently people react when you question something they believe in instead of ever being able to have an intelligent discussion with him or her? In the below video, Chris Hedges, a Pulitzer Prize winning American journalist, author, and war correspondent, nails the reason that explains why it is so difficult to change a person’s mind when they are committed to believing something even when they are confronted with a mountain of evidence that points to the contrary. Chris states that universities have stripped away humanities and other courses that develop critical thinking skills and instead, due to the historical influences of men like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller, focus on teaching young men and women “what to think” instead of “how to think.”

Like the proverb that states we have two ears and only one mouth so we should listen twice as much as we talk, when we are confronted with actually having our views challenged, many among us fail to listen, fail to analyze, fail to think, and we instead immediately open our mouths in defense without ever seriously considering the contrary information, often in factual form, that has been presented to us. All of us, including yours truly, have been guilty of responding insensitively and unintelligently in this manner, and I believe that there is a reason for this type of response. The powers that be have used education against us by employing teaching methods within institutional academia that condition us to automatically dismiss any notion that might conflict with our internal belief systems that THEY have programmed into us. If you believe that this notion is far-fetched, consider that from 1900 to 1920, at a time when the direction of American education was very much still being molded, Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller incredibly spent more money than the entire US government in funding and building the education system to meet their specifications and wishes.

Have you ever thought about why repetition, an integral construct in the effectiveness of brainwashing, is also an integral construct in most institutions of academia in every country of the world? Could education institutions possibly be serving as re-education camps? Should not true learning involve students questioning professors, students questioning students, and professors questioning students not just to repeat and regurgitate pre-packaged responses as is so often the case, but also to critically analyze and to defend one's positions and arguments? The Powers That Be (TPTB) that attend the Bilderberg conference must secretly smile and laugh behind closed doors at the “unthinking” nature that they have been able to instill within us. Refuse to accept something as fact just because an authority figure, whether a professor, the Vatican, or politician, told you to believe it, and automatically many amongst the sheep will accuse one of pandering to conspiracy theories, even when one can present many facts that support one’s opposition view much more strongly than the widely accepted view.

Because universities are so focused on teaching us “what to think” instead of “how to think”, this dumbing down process has produced many media figures and talk show hosts that respond to any questioning of their beliefs with censorship, an attempt to talk over opposition views, or with infantile ad hominem attacks, no matter how cogent and eloquently expressed the opposition view may be. When I lived in Japan, I learned of a Japanese proverb that states, “The nail that sticks out gets hammered down”, as if uniqueness and individuality were undesirable traits. Perhaps this may be the case as the status quo views us, their subjects, but certainly humanity should strive to achieve creativity and foster critical thought in order to establish a more moral society and to root out corruption. Furthermore, the deliberate destruction of curricula in institutional academia that fosters critical thinking skills has given way to “hero” worship and learned helplessness instead of self-determination and self-reliance. Again, the status quo delights in the hero culture we have built today. Hero worship leaves one longing for salvation to come on the back of some mythical hero without any commitment or accountability from the masses. The status quo delight in the hero culture that they have built in the minds of the masses as they know that longing for salvation to come from someone else will leave people in a state of learned helplessness-induced inertia and thus create an effective barrier from the manifestation of a "peasant" revolt.

As long as we believe a hero can save us, we will not act and take control of our own fate, and all the easier it is for the powers that be to control us. Have you ever noticed how often someone will defend every fault of their country’s President, a huge pop star, or a star athlete as passionately as they would defend their own family if you should dare criticize their “hero” figure? From a logical standpoint, such defenses are the definition of irrational, as no one can truly know anything substantial or substantive about the character or true nature of a public figure with whom they have not spent a single hour. But yet people very frequently subscribe to the absolutely absurd belief that they know the character of their “hero” intimately and will defend this person’s honor (or dishonor as it may be in many cases) to the end of time. In closing, in addition to Chris Hedge’s video, I will leave you with a video I posted nearly a year-and-a-half ago in which I discuss ex-KGB Yuri Bezmenov’s discourse on ideological subversion and how such tactics can produce sheeple that will invariably obey and believe what they are told. Hopefully this will help us identify the ideological subversive tactics that are being deployed against us today all over the world and help all of us to transform into more open-minded people willing to consider alternate viewpoints other than the ones that "the powers that be" commanded us to embrace.

Read Part II of this series here.

Read Part III of this series here.

About the author: JS Kim is the Founder and Chief Investment Strategist for SmartKnowledgeU, a fiercely independent investment research and consulting firm with a mission of helping to stomp out Wall Street fraud and to reinstitute sound monetary principles and sound money worldwide. We sincerely appreciate all of you that continue to “like” our Facebook fan page and "follow us" on Twitter. Through these mediums, we will keep all of you aware of some major campaigns we will be launching in early 2012 to raise global awareness of monetary truth and our proposed solutions to institute sound money.