The Ten Strategies for Controlling Populations by Noam Chomsky

The Ten Strategies for Controlling the Masses

- Professor Noam Chomsky

In January 2011, Chomsky compiled a list of methods used by global media to control the masses through ten basic strategies:

1. Distraction Strategy

This strategy is a key element in controlling societies. It involves diverting public attention from important issues and changes decided by the political and economic elites through a continuous flood of distractions and trivial information. The distraction strategy is also essential to prevent the public from gaining important knowledge in fields like science, economics, psychology, neurobiology, and computer science. "Keep the public's attention distracted away from the real social issues, directed towards topics with no real importance. Keep the public busy, busy, busy, without any time to think, until they return to the farm with the other animals." (Excerpt from the book "Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars")

2. Create Problems, Then Offer Solutions

This method is also known as "problem - reaction - solution". First, a problem or "situation" is created to elicit a specific reaction from the public, so that they will demand the measures you want them to accept. For example: allowing urban violence to escalate, or organizing bloody bombings, so that the public demands security laws at the expense of their freedom; or creating a financial crisis to make the public accept the degradation of social rights and the deterioration of public services as a necessary evil.

3. Gradual Strategy

To get an unacceptable measure accepted, it is enough to apply it gradually, in degrees, over a period of 10 years. This method was adopted to impose new socio-economic conditions between the 1980s and 1990s: widespread unemployment, precariousness, flexibility, outsourcing, and wages that do not guarantee a decent living. These changes would have led to a revolution if applied all at once.

4. Deferred Strategy

Another way to gain acceptance for unpopular decisions is to present them as "painful but necessary" and to get public consent for future sacrifices. Acceptance of a future sacrifice is always easier than an immediate one. First, because the effort will not be made immediately, and second, because the public always tends to hope naively that "everything will be better tomorrow" and that the sacrifice required may be avoided in the future. Finally, this gives the public time to get used to the idea of change and accept it with resignation when the time comes.

5. Treat the Public Like Children

Most advertising aimed at the general public uses arguments, characters, and tones that are childish, often approaching the level of mental retardation, as if the viewer were a small child or mentally disabled. The more we try to deceive the viewer, the more we adopt that tone. Why? "If we address a person as if they were 12 years old, then, due to suggestion, they will have a reaction or response that is as devoid of critical sense as that of a 12-year-old." (Excerpt from the book "Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars")

6. Appeal to Emotion Rather than Thought

A classic technique to disable logical analysis and critical thinking. The use of emotional vocabulary allows the passage to the subconscious to implant ideas, desires, fears, impulses, or behaviors.

7. Keep the Public in Ignorance and Mediocrity

Making the public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods used to control and enslave them. "The quality of education provided to the lower classes must be the poorest, so that the knowledge gap that isolates the lower classes from the upper classes remains incomprehensible to the lower classes." (Excerpt from the book "Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars")

8. Encourage the Public to Accept Mediocrity

Encouraging the public to believe that it is fashionable to be stupid, vulgar, and uneducated.

9. Replace Rebellion with Guilt

Making individuals believe that they are solely responsible for their misfortune, due to the inadequacy of their intelligence, abilities, or efforts. Thus, instead of rebelling against the economic system, individuals blame themselves, feel guilty, and become depressed, which leads to a state of passivity and lack of action. Without action, there is no revolution!

10. Know Individuals Better Than They Know Themselves

Over the past 50 years, scientific advances have created a widening gap between public knowledge and the knowledge possessed and used by the ruling elites. With the help of biology, neurobiology, and applied psychology, the "system" has reached an advanced understanding of human beings, both physically and psychologically. This means that the system, in most cases, has more control over individuals than individuals have over themselves.