Jim Marrs notes several interesting alterations that have taken place in American society since 100 years ago and explains how he sees these as creeping trends towards socialism. To begin with, he explains that 100 years ago an individual was born as a person. Today an individual is a person but carries with him a set of numbers which must be presented to authorities. This reduction of a human person to a set of numbers which follow him throughout life marks the incursion of socialism. In the socialist and totalitarian societies of the past, individuals were deprived of their individuality by the state. The individual became subordinate to the state and all individual activity was controlled by the state and elite controllers (those who occupied positions within the state). Thus the entire form of human existence became subordinate to the state and all human activity was initiated by the state. This collectivist hell (ironically termed collectivist paradise by its expounders such as Marx) gave rise to a grey world syndrome in which creativity, diversity, and inviduality was stifled by the state, so that the individual existed solely for the purpose of maintaining the state.
Marrs also considers the role of state education and the continuing mediocratization of society through education. Marrs notes that 100 years ago, education involved much more difficult exams that relied on heavy usage of memory. Students learned difficult languages like Latin and Greek and exams consisted of difficult mathematics problems. This type of education had existed since the Middle Ages when the schoolmen were required to commit large biblical passages and passages from other text to memory. (With the internet, reliance on memory has become even more outmoded than it was just 20 years ago before the advent of sites like Wikipedia). This reliance on memory and difficult feats of mental calculation kept the mind sharp. Further, the language spoken by persons of years ago was much more refined and sophisticated. Today's language is choppy and written in short paragraphs. But the language of back then was long winded and relied on excessively abstruse philosophical terminology even for everyday conversations. Language continues to decline in polite conversation and individuals resort more frequently to slang and even foul language (which is increasingly becoming just a familiar norm in our society). Further, computers continue to erode language even further in which individuals have reached a point where they cannot even think and express thoughts by means of texting and superficial code terms which differ from original hackerspeak in that original hackerspeak involved clever usage. Marrs explains how education today is designed to produce effective employees (usually for large corporations) and workers not thinkers. Thinkers pose a problem for society so must be shunned and corporations offer a standardized form of political correctness that exceeds that imposed by the government.
Marrs notes the stifling effects of education and the continued development of a new dark age. In a recent broadcast on a French quiz show a contestant could not even explain that the moon revolved around the earth. To add further irony to this, he asked the audience who did not know this either. In honesty though, while educated people do know this fact, very few even educated people would be able to tell you how this fact has been derived. In other words, they just accept this fact as knowledge based on teachers and textbooks (or more likely a quick look towards wikipedia) without ever considering how this fact came about. Examples such as this illustrate our continued decline into further idiocracy and irrationalism.
Marrs further sites examples in which quakery has now become accepted practise. If one watches television one quickly notes the many quack cures peddled on there, including ads for medicines promoted by pharmaceutical companies. These types of ads illustrate the lack of standards in medicine and the decline in medical power, to be replaced by pharmaceutical corporations that appeal to mob psychology.
Marrs discusses the role of psychology noting its origin in ancient philosophies, but its more modern development in the Nineteenth and early Twentieth century through psychoanalysis. Marrs explains how psychiatry was incorporated along with the field of eugenics and the role it played in Nazi and Communist tyrannies. Marrs notes that in today's world psychiatry is commonplace and a given, though just 20 years ago it was first being popularized when it reached mainstream tv in the form of talk shows and self help books. Former generations would have seen such open confessions as shameful. These types of shows also illustrate our increasing loss of privacy in which all concerns are aired before the public. In the Victorian era, sex could not even be discussed, soon perhaps pornography will be shown on mainstream television. Pornography has become mainstream through the internet and pornographers now are even beginning to play a role in politics disturbingly.
Marrs also notes the role of a surveillance state, in which cameras occupy every corner of society. The corporate media has become omnipotent and it now reveals our inner flaws for all to see, including the military secrets we once guarded so closely during the Cold War.
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