The Most Dangerous Lie

And why you may not even know it exists.

Oh, the lies we’ve been told! They are endless and they are pervasive. But the most dangerous lie of them all is rarely discussed. You may not even consider it a lie, as it hasn’t been “told” to you as much as it’s been planted all around you.

How we think about our ability to process information, to form opinions, and to create our own set of beliefs has been largely shaped by society, instead of what we experience individually as humans.

We’re told that we have complete autonomy as individuals to think how we want, to believe what we want, and to form our opinions freely. We’re told that we have the freedom to express those thoughts and opinions openly. We’re told that we can practice in whatever belief system we choose. But this is a lie.

In reality, we understand very little about how our minds process information that we’re presented with. We don’t fully grasp how we form our beliefs and opinions, and we don’t recognize how much outside influence plays into all of this.

As humans, we like to believe that we think for ourselves and that we are not easily swayed. We view ourselves as individuals with thoughts, beliefs, and opinions of our own. And while there is truth to that, we vastly underestimate how easily we’re manipulated and influenced, not only as individuals, but as groups of people.

There’s a common misconception that someone who is easily manipulated is stupid or weak. In reality, they’re simply human. It is human to be manipulated, especially in a society where manipulation is key to maintaining power and control over the general public.

The powerful are very aware of this truth and have studied it for generations. They know how individuals and groups of people become more susceptible to manipulation, and they use it against us in more ways than we can grasp.

Some manipulation is more obvious, such as certain forms of propaganda. We can see a campaign ad and recognize that there is an attempt to manipulate us into believing something about that candidate. But oftentimes, the manipulations are far more insidious and harder to detect.

Indoctrination, for example, is when we’re manipulated at a very young age. We don’t have the mental capacity as this point in our lives to recognize that we’re being manipulated. And yet, much of our core belief system is created at this stage of life. We look to our caretakers, peers, and authority figures to form our thoughts, beliefs, and opinions.

But the funny thing is, so did they at one point. When those influential adults in our lives were children themselves, they looked to other influential adults, and so on, and so on, and so on.

Where are those thoughts, beliefs, and opinions originating from?

We look to our institutions, such as religion, education, government, and economy to understand how to be “successful” and accepted within our communities and our society at large. These institutions, however, are controlled at the top. They aren’t natural or organic or maintained by everyday people. They’re not a creation made by you or me.

They’re used to manipulate us on an individual and societal level, and they’re hugely successful. We base the vast majority of our thoughts, beliefs, and opinions on outside influences that hold great weight within our society. And because we are an innately social species, we strive to maintain our place within that society.

This makes it extraordinarily difficult for us to form thoughts, beliefs, and opinions that truly our own. It’s not to say that it’s impossible and in fact, it will become more prevalent the more we can recognize the stronghold these influences have on us as humans.

We are not less than because we have been manipulated. We are not stupid or weak. We are simply human, and to be human means that we acclimate to our environment to survive. But our environment has become toxic and insane.

To continue to believe the lie that these influences don’t shape our thoughts, beliefs, and opinions is dangerous, because it makes us think that we are maintaining this way of life on our own volition, and not because we are being manipulated into it by the few who truly benefit from it.