*CS stands for Conditioned Stimulus. CR stands for Conditioned Response. I learned in Pscyh 101 in college that it’s a lot easier to program human beings to respond to a stimulus than it is to reverse that response. The Left has programmed so many people with so much perverted stimulus that it’s going to take a LOT to deprogram them. In College I had the dubious privilege of listening to a guest lecture by the renowned psychologist B.F. Skinner. For those of you who took introductory Pscyh, you may recall Skinner was known for being the pre-eminent “behaviorist”, for the “Skinner Box” and “operant conditioning”. Skinner espoused the notion that free will is an illusion, and that all human behavior is the direct result of conditioning. To prove his point, he stood at the front of our class and began his lecture by explaining his theories about conditioning while holding a revolver in his hand.
Periodically, he would yell “CS” and fire the blank-loaded gun. Our guts would tighten instantly when we heard the loud report. He would then go on with his lecture, and every so often would repeat the “CS” – ‘BANG!” sequence. He did this three or four times and each time it predictably elicited the same visceral response among us, a pronounced tightening of the diaphragm.
As he neared the end of his lecture, he once again yelled “CS”, only this time he did NOT pull the trigger.
We all nevertheless felt the contraction in our guts, expecting the loud bang.
“That,” explained Skinner with a wry smile, “is conditioned stimulus and conditioned response”. He explained that his cry of “CS” was the conditioned stimulus. The gut tightening was the involuntary conditioned response.
He went on with his lecture for another fifteen minutes or so, repeatedly yelling CS and NOT pulling the trigger. Our gut response continued, however.
During the question and answer period a timid student raised his hand and asked Skinner what it would take to deprogram us from the conditioned stimulus.
And this is where I was shocked to learn that while it took only a few instances of conditioned stimulus to produce the conditioned response of a gut twitch, IT WOULD TAKE AT LEAST TEN TIMES LONGER TO REVERSE THE PROGRAMMING!
Indeed, as we walked from class, all across the campus one would hear the cries of “CS” as we students tried to prompt the conditioned response. Because none of us had guns, the novelty and programming wore off after another class period or two and we went on our merry ways.
Think, however, what the never-ending Conditioned Stimulus of Leftist BS has done to the population! So programmed to respond to, for example, COVID fear-mongering, are grown adults that they cower before their conditioners and obediently comply with their demands, however unscientific, unsubstantiated, unproven or lacking in common sense!
(For a very recent summation, by the way, that dispels the COVID conditioning to which I’m referring, please see the wonderful piece in Off-Guardian.org here. Think you’ll find it a useful reference.)
So, to counter the Leftist drivel, now deeply ingrained in the weak-minded psyches of so many people, will take a WHOLE LOT OF TRUTH TELLING… many times greater than what the Left has conditioned us with.
I don’t point this out to be pessimistic of fatalistic. I do so because the war in which we find ourselves is a war of wits. The only way we are going to be able to reclaim our country and banish the evil among us is by changing hearts and minds…by deprogramming and reprogramming people.
We’ve started this process. The wealth of truth-telling in so-called “alternative” (alternative to the MSM) news sites and the willingness of the “un(brain)washed” to speak out and openly about the falsehoods, lies and deceit constantly emanating from the mouths of Leftist politicians, judicial activists, teachers and people who would otherwise know better but who have been unwittingly programmed, is bit by bit serving as an antidote.
We need to keep it up! It’s going to take a while!