"Three metamorphoses of the spirit do I designate to you: how the spirit becometh a camel, the camel a lion, and the lion at last a child. Many heavy things are there for the spirit, the strong load-bearing spirit in which reverence dwelleth: for the heavy and the heaviest longeth its strength. What is heavy? So asketh the load-bearing spirit; then kneeleth it down like the camel, and wanteth to be well laden.
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But in the loneliest wilderness happeneth the second metamorphosis: here the spirit becometh a lion; freedom will it capture, and lordship in its own wilderness. Its last Lord it here seeketh: hostile will it be to him, and to its last God; for victory will it struggle with the great dragon. What is the great dragon which the spirit is no longer inclined to call Lord and God? "Thou-shalt," is the great dragon called. But the spirit of the lion saith, "I will."
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My brethren, wherefore is there need of the lion in the spirit? Why sufficeth not the beast of burden, which renounceth and is reverent? To create new values- that, even the lion cannot yet accomplish: but to create itself freedom for new creating- that can the might of the lion do. To create itself freedom, and give a holy Nay even unto duty: for that, my brethren, there is need of the lion. To assume the ride to new values- that is the most formidable assumption for a load-bearing and reverent spirit. Verily, unto such a spirit it is preying, and the work of a beast of prey. As its holiest, it once loved "Thou-shalt": now is it forced to find illusion and arbitrariness even in the holiest things, that it may capture freedom from its love: the lion is needed for this capture. But tell me, my brethren, what the child can do, which even the lion could not do? Why hath the preying lion still to become a child? Innocence is the child, and forgetfulness, a new beginning, a game, a self-rolling wheel, a first movement, a holy Yea. Aye, for the game of creating, my brethren, there is needed a holy Yea unto life: its own will, willeth now the spirit; his own world winneth the world's outcast."
-Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
In this episode we take a deeper dive on Edward Bernays and how his system of implicit propaganda has been used to manufacture the personas and lives of the population. We talk influencers, consumer culture, Noam Chomsky, the illusion of choice and freedom, and drop the first "un-commoners" uncommon opinion that most people are actually better off staying sheep (something we'll elaborate on greatly in future episodes).
Tyler saves his cough drop noises until the end of the episode this time.
Episode Notes:
Bernays' books mentioned...
Propaganda:
https://www.amazon.com/Propaganda-Edward-Bernays/dp/0970312598
The Engineering of Consent:
https://www.amazon.com/Engineering-Consent-L-Bernays/dp/0806103280
Noam Chomsky's excellent blog post "We Own The World":
https://chomsky.info/20080101/
Century of Self, full documentary:
