We finally got a few days off to run up to Arkansas and visit the family. Three of my four children and all of my grandchildren live in Arkansas and since we had yet to see a new granddaughter born this past spring, we decided to run up there for a few days.
The good news is that Arkansas was beautiful up there in the Ozarks where we were, and the weather was fine. It was that window of time after the heat and humidity of summer and right before the trees explode in fall colors and pumpkins appear in roadside stands. It was the last dance of summer.
Most people don’t know this, but Arkansas is the ancient Indian word for “Old Buick No Hubcaps” from an older Ouibwau word that loosely translated means “Tick Caliphate.” Ticks are omnipresent in Arkansas, but you may not know that ticks are tiny bears that come from space. That hasn’t been proven yet, but when the science catches up, you’ll see that I’m right about that. The only reason ticks don’t eat you all the way in one meal is that they got shrunk traveling through spacetime. It happens. I used to be much taller. Same thing happened to house cats. They’ll eat you too.
Anyway, I digress. The bad news is that we drove through Oklahoma to get there. Oklahoma is a word that comes from the Yanomami phrase “OhGoHomeA” translated into Texan as “pothole universe.” The state bird is the traffic cone and that tells you all you need to know.
The point is that you have to be funneled into pathways to travel from point A to point B. You can’t just go traveling willy-nilly in whatever manner you like. And someone is in charge of those pathways. That’s really the point. Maybe not in Oklahoma, but elsewhere there are able people in charge. In Oklahoma, construction is managed by chickens pooping on bingo cards. CONSTRUCTION SUPERVISOR: “What? What construction is next? Let me see… chicken poop says to close down 1/3 of highway 69. Which 1/3? Oh, I don’t know… throw up cones and narrow it down to one lane and slow the speed limit to 45 mph on and off every mile or so all the way across the state. What? That doesn’t make sense? Take it up with the chickens.”
And there are tax collectors in cop cars along the way to make sure you don’t stray or break any of the ineffable laws or the structural dynamics of flow. It’s a system and a racket. And that’s thinking is controlled too.
Wait, you didn’t think this would be a bad comedy routine without a lesson, did you?
Here we go!
Ever wonder why it is so easy for propagandists and powerful interests to control people? Funnel humans into manufactured cliques and give them something to protect (real or imagined,) and you can control the mass-man effectively. This is the “Granfalloon Technique.” You’ll want to pay close attention to this one because it is the system by which you are remotely controlled.
The concept of the “Granfalloon” was described by Kurt Vonnegut in his classic novel Cat’s Cradle.
A granfalloon = a group of people who affect a shared identity or purpose, but whose mutual association, in reality, is meaningless.
“If you wish to examine a granfalloon, just remove the skin of a toy balloon” ~ Bokonon (Cat’s Cradle)
A granfalloon is a “proud but meaningless” association of individuals who have chosen (or who have been chosen) to identify with one another based on some criteria that (when examined) are inconsequential. Vonnegut gives examples of granfalloons in Cat’s Cradle, but the gist of it is that studies have shown that humans will very easily choose manufactured cliques with which to identify and will often give up any critical thinking or individual responsibility in order to maintain loyalty or obedience within that people group.
In a famous test of the technique, groups were formed by techniques as simple as the toss of a coin. People were placed in these groups and immediately they began to identify together and “clique up” based on an association that had no meaning at all. We’ve all experienced this. As children, we choose up teams on the playground and find ourselves in a group all of a sudden. Immediately those “others” would become the enemy. In controlled studies, these types of granfalloons (meaningless groupings) have proven to be much easier to control than independent thinking individuals.
So here is how the granfalloon technique works.
Groups or “cliques” are formed and then individuals are encouraged to identify with those cliques. These groups can be centered around some meaningless association, a trait completely out of the individual’s control, or some other manufactured identity. It is even more powerful if this manufactured identity can be focused on some real or imagined grievance or category of victimhood. A perceived threat is the most powerful and pervasive system of controlling granfalloons. The way in which individuals identify with the group then creates pressure to conform, support, and defend what has become a clique or artificial tribe. The granfalloon is more successful as a technique of social control when it has very strong identifying markers, symbols, mantras, or slogans and when the “others” can be demonized.
THE MINIMAL GROUP PARADIGM is a way of understanding this granfalloon concept. Total strangers will form cliques or artificial tribes based on meaningless or contentless identifiers that are inconsequential or manufactured. Social Media, memes, hashtags, etc. are ways to provide identifying markers or flags around which these artificial tribes can rally. Social media control agents will then produced ACTUAL flags that you can use in your bio to identify you with your new artificial tribe. Studies prove that mental training and brainwashing are easier in these types of online groupings. Now, from here there are a couple of ways control is cemented over the group.
As we have said, individuals are encouraged to identify with one another based on associations that are (in the larger sense) meaningless. But the individuals are encouraged to focus their attention only on the similarities within the group. “We are the red shoe team. We wear red shoes.” “We are left-handed bargain hunters.” “We are the Crips, they are the Bloods.” “We are WEST COAST RAPPERS!” “We support man-sasquatch love! Didn’t you see the flag in my bio?” This focus on similarities creates an in-group affinity that is exploitable because humans are, by nature, unjust and morally corrupt. We (humans) will interpret and change rules in order to support and defend our group affiliations.
The second way the group is controlled is by focusing attention on the DIS-similarities of the “others.” That is, within our group we focus on our similarities, but outside of our group we focus on the dissimilarities. Differences. This creates an in-group and out-group bias. Cognitively, this takes advantage of the lower angels of our corrupt nature. Next, we implement a system of feelings and rewards for positive in-group behaviors. Virtue signaling, group building, mutual protection, etc.
Here is where it gets really interesting:
Vengeance and self-defense are the strongest human motivations precisely because in our nature we are fundamentally corrupted in our understanding of justice. We become inflamed with righteousness when we believe we are wronged, and this is multiplied when we identify with a group. If you ever want to get a good grasp of this, watch children. Self-righteousness is so strong in them. When the other child has the toy, they will propose sharing and “taking turns.” They soak in justice and righteousness. But if they have the toy, they don’t really like these concepts of sharing as much. If they take something from a weaker child, it’s survival of the fittest. If something is taken from them, they’ll put the whole system on trial. This completely corrupted sense of justice is natural to fallen man, and, to the spiritual mind, it is one of the greatest pieces of evidence of the existence of God – because it is in the antithesis that we understand our true nature and need. Needless to say, turning the other cheek was a massive blow to the granfalloon technique handlers. Forgiveness and grace are bugs in the human system that hamper social control. But, I digress again. Here is how this all relates to control:
The Granfalloon Technique is fluid and scalable. Social Media and Big Tech manipulations allow control agents to coalesce group affinities in order to move ever larger and larger sections of the population. Profile symbols, avatars, virtue signaling, and flag-waving provide pressure for in-group versus out-group behaviors. Think of “I Voted” stickers but on steroids. Why do you not have pronouns in your bio? Where is your Ukraine flag? Once we identify with our granfalloon, the remote-control system works across systems and platforms. People will hear what they want to hear because their in-group bias is the filter by which they interact. Individuals will begin creating in-group bubbles, seek biased news sourcing, etc. in order to reinforce their granfalloon thinking. Phrases and mantras are manufactured by meme mills in order to reinforce control. You think that meme is just funny, but it is a programming chip and you are the viral means of its distribution. The mass-man will most certainly never realize that they are being controlled by power blocks and systems that have no loyalty at all to the granfalloons they control. You’re just glad to have a wine-mom-empty-nest-meangirl-soulpain-lasagna support group to share memes with. We’re Gen-X and everyone else sucks. Pass the soft tacos my new brothers!
The last mechanism in the process is to disassociate the individual from people and groups with which they ought to have a more natural affinity. Families… OUT. Parents, Grandparents, kinfolk… out. The sisters I was raised with… NOPE, they hang out with Methodists, Bandito Bikers, and Antifa so screw them. (Not really. That was a joke. No one I know hangs out with Methodists.) The point is that to control the mass, you break down the old landmarks and build new ones that are easier to control.
This is how you are being managed. This is why the system hates critical thinking, individuality, and true kinship (associations based on real and not meaningless identities – such as families, neighbors, friends.)
Anyway, I’m back from Arkansas. I probably have ticks on me, but I wanted you to know that you are being controlled.
Adjust your thinking, moderate your certainty, question everything. Think.
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Michael Bunker is a local columnist for BrownwoodNews.com whose columns appear periodically on the website.