From: blanc <blancw@accessone.com>
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 1996 00:00:43 +0800
To: "'vznuri@netcom.com>
Subject: RE: Net Control is Thought Control
Message-ID: <01BADFF7.0DBE4740@blancw.accessone.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
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From: 	Vladimir Z. Nuri

the problem that "covert thought control" becomes more possible with
an information age that does not handle identity in any "permanent" or
"enduring" way. agent provocateurs etc. may be more difficult to identify
and easier to create and maintain.   in fact a single "government
thought control agent" might be able to create and maintain dozens of
convincing identities, all of them working to subtly manipulate the
population's thinking without detection. (...)
...........................................................................................................

I read the book, too, Nuri, and I think you overlooked an important point.  It doesn't matter about the identity of the provocateur.  It is the identity of the "target" which is crucial.  It is when the prisoner in a psychologically restricted setting begins to identify with their agent-provocateur cell mates, to sympathize with and accept their ideology, that change in that prisoner's mind becomes possible and the thought control is achieved.

This change in the prisoner's image of themselves is not so easily accomplished in a setting where they are free to leave, free to seek and hear other points of view - more importantly, the actual truth.

	"The primary effect of unfreezing is that it makes the prisoner seek information
	which will guide him in finding an adaptational solution to his problems.  Such
	information can be gotten to some extent from the propaganda input to him
	via the mass media, lectures, loudspeakers, etc., but more likely is obtained
	from cell mates or interrogators who begin to be models of how to adapt
	successfully.  The prisoner who has been unfrozen begins to treat the inter-
	personal cues he obtains from them as credible and valid, and begins to 
	take their point of view seriously, where previously he may have paid no
	attention to it or even discounted it. " 

A mistake people make even when they are not physically imprisoned, is that they seek to benefit by association:  they will accept an appearance of confidence as equivalent to knowledge, accepting the word of those who "seem to know", instead of searching for definite facts.  They come to depend upon their identification with groups of such like-minded people, and thus get themselves in trouble when the whole herd is suddenly corralled and taken for a ride (by their leaders).

Rather than worry so much about anyone's actual identity as a determining factor in what one will accept from them, I think it is much more critical to consider the content of the information they offer; to develop one's judgement (to "know how to know")so to be able to evaluate that information and make realistic decisions for one'self about what to support or what actions to take.

    ..
Blanc