Government And The Mind

Challenges traditional ideas about freedom of expression and the role of government in regulating speech, eduction, and political discourse.

In Of One Mind and Of One Government Kevin Kokomoor examines the formation of Creek politics and nationalism from the 1770s through the Red Stick War, when the aftermath of the American Revolution and the beginnings of American expansionism precipitated a crisis in Creek country. The state of Georgia insisted that the Creeks sign three treaties to cede tribal lands. The Creeks objected vigorously, igniting a series of border conflicts that escalated throughout the late eighteenth century and hardened partisan lines between pro-American, pro-Spanish, and pro-British Creeks and their leaders. Creek politics shifted several times through historical contingencies, self-interests, changing leadership, and debate about how to best preserve sovereignty, a process that generated national sentiment within the nascent and imperfect Creek Nation. Based on original archival research and a revisionist interpretation, Kokomoor explores how the state of Georgia's increasingly belligerent and often fraudulent land acquisitions forced the Creeks into framing a centralized government, appointing heads of state, and assuming the political and administrative functions of a nation-state. Prior interpretations have viewed the Creeks as a loose confederation of towns, but the formation of the Creek Nation brought predictability, stability, and reduced military violence in its domain during the era.

In this follow-up to Psychic Dictatorship in the USA, researcher Alex Constantine explores the government's misinformation campaigns about its "black-ops."

Join the global movement that's making corporations more people-centric to achieve great results. The world is facing a global leadership crisis. Seventy-seven percent of leaders think they do a good job of engaging their people, yet 88 percent of employees say their leaders don't engage enough. There is also a high level of suffering in the workplace: 35 percent of employees would forgo a pay raise to see their leaders fired. This is an enormous waste of human talent--despite the fact that $46 billion is spent each year on leadership development. Based on extensive research, including assessments of more than 35,000 leaders and interviews with 250 C-level executives, The Mind of the Leader concludes that organizations and leaders aren't meeting employees' basic human needs of finding meaning, purpose, connection, and genuine happiness in their work. But more than a description of the problem, The Mind of the Leader offers a radical, yet practical, solution. To solve the leadership crisis, organizations need to put people at the center of their strategy. They need to develop managers and executives who lead with three core mental qualities: mindfulness, selflessness, and compassion. Using real-world inspirational examples from Marriott, Accenture, McKinsey & Company, LinkedIn, and many more, The Mind of the Leader shows how this new kind of leadership turns conventional leadership thinking upside down. It represents a radical redefinition of what it takes to be an effective leader--and a practical, hard-nosed solution to every organization's engagement and execution problems.

Americans are losing touch with reality. On virtually every issue, from climate change to immigration, tens of millions of Americans have opinions and beliefs wildly at odds with fact, rendering them unable to think sensibly about politics. In How America Lost Its Mind, Thomas E. Patterson explains the rise of a world of “alternative facts” and the slow-motion cultural and political calamity unfolding around us. We don’t have to search far for the forces that are misleading us and tearing us apart: politicians for whom division is a strategy; talk show hosts who have made an industry of outrage; news outlets that wield conflict as a marketing tool; and partisan organizations and foreign agents who spew disinformation to advance a cause, make a buck, or simply amuse themselves. The consequences are severe. How America Lost Its Mind maps a political landscape convulsed with distrust, gridlock, brinksmanship, petty feuding, and deceptive messaging. As dire as this picture is, and as unlikely as immediate relief might be, Patterson sees a way forward and underscores its urgency. A call to action, his book encourages us to wrest institutional power from ideologues and disruptors and entrust it to sensible citizens and leaders, to restore our commitment to mutual tolerance and restraint, to cleanse the Internet of fake news and disinformation, and to demand a steady supply of trustworthy and relevant information from our news sources. As philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote decades ago, the rise of demagogues is abetted by “people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.” In How America Lost Its Mind, Thomas E. Patterson makes a passionate case for fully and fiercely engaging on the side of truth and mutual respect in our present arms race between fact and fake, unity and division, civility and incivility.

From the dawn of humanity, the desire to control the thoughts, behaviors, and actions of others has been a pervasive one. From the use of coercive persuasion by ancient Egyptians and the Knights Templar to today’s claims of electronic harassment and microwave “bombing,” we have always been at the mercy of those who wish to reprogram our thoughts and reshape our beliefs. Mind Wars includes fascinating stories of: Ancient attempts at mind control using spell casting, potions, and rituals. Cults and the use of mental reprogramming. More modern mind-control techniques, from hypnosis, drugs, and electroshock to radiation and psychic driving. The inside story of the quest for a real Manchurian Candidate—MKUltra and the CIA connection. The brave new world of electronic harassment, “voice to skull” technology, and gang-stalking. The inner frontier of the human mind is the last bastion of privacy. But are we really in control of our own minds? The answer may shock you!

The long and disturbing history of the Government of the United States experimenting with unknowing citizens has brought the nation to its final question. How much are we controlled?

There have been significant developments in the state of psychological, neuroscientific and behavioural scientific knowledge relating to the human mind, brain, action and decision-making over the past two decades. These developments have influenced public policy making and popular culture in the UK and elsewhere – through policies and emerging social practices focussed on behavioural change, happiness, wellbeing, therapy, resilience and character. Yet little attention has been paid to examining the wider political and ethical significance of the widespread use of psychological governance techniques. There is a pressing and recognised need to address the behaviour change agenda in relation to how our cultural ideas about the brain, mind, behaviour and self are changing. This book provides a critical account of existing forms of psychological governance in relation to public policy. It asks whether we can speak of a co-ordinated and novel shift in governance or, rather, whether these trends are more simply pragmatic policy tools based on advances in scientific evidence. With contributions from leading scholars across the social sciences from the UK, the USA and Canada, chapters identify practical, political and research challenges posed by the current policy enthusiasm for particular branches of affective neuroscience, behavioural economics, positive psychology and happiness economics. The core focus of this book is to investigate the ways in which knowledge about the mind, brain and behaviour has informed the methods and techniques of governance and to explore the implications of this for shaping citizen identity and social practice. This groundbreaking book will be of interest to students, scholars and policy-makers interested and working within geography, economics, sociology, psychology, politics and cultural studies.