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The Control Factor: Our Struggle to See the True Threat
FrontPage Magazine
Jamie Glazov
2/8/2013
Excerpt:
FrontPage Interview’s guest today is Bill Siegel, a lawyer and business executive. He has been a producer of several documentary films and assists numerous non-profit organizations. He is the author of The Control Factor: Our Struggle to See the True Threat.
FP: Bill Siegel, welcome to FrontPage Interview.
Congratulations on this brilliant book. It is without question one of the most vital works of our time.
Let’s begin with what inspired you to write it.
Siegel: Thanks for having me Jamie. As a young boy born in the mid 1950s, I was fascinated with footage of Hitler and the Third Reich and could never understand how the Jews of the time could not see the evil that seemed so obvious. Not yet appreciative of the benefit of hindsight, I could not comprehend the blindness. Following 9/11, like so many others, I began to study Islam, its history, its current movements, terrorism and so on. As I would learn one stunning aspect after another, I would discuss them with friends and associates. Rather than confront the facts I would present, they would find one clever way after another to avoid the frightening truth of what America and the West truly face. Their fear appeared obvious to me. I began to catalog many of my friends’ different maneuvers to dispel the anxiety that they found so difficult to endure. The more I focused on their mental processes (as well as my own) the more I began to see a structure to the mental endeavor and to understand what I had, as a child, found so difficult to explain.
FP: Tell us about the Control Factor, what you describe as “that effort our minds engage in in order to keep us blind” and that “process of avoiding seeing the threats we face.” It’s also about, as you state, trying to believe that the threat is under our control, when in fact it is not. Kindly enlighten us as to these profound insights you make in terms of the Control Factor.
Siegel: First, let’s distinguish the ”real world” where real battles are taking place from the mental battlefield which occurs in each of our minds. We tend to believe our perceptions are simply clear realizations of what is “out there” and overlook how much our internal worlds can literally determine what we see. When our internal minds become anxious and sense a loss of “control,” they tend to concoct ways to distort our perceptions so as to restore that sense of inner control. I describe the Control Factor as an “active and continuous process” designed to maintain that sense, if not illusion, of control. We naturally think that our thinking and feeling processes are passive; that they just happen. Yet when faced with truly frightening prospects, the mind is geared to actively distort.
Similarly, the sense of control must be continuously maintained so the Control Factor operates constantly. In turn, the sum of this active and continuous undertaking makes these perceptions all the more familiar and thus seemingly all the more “real.” In one sense, the Control Factor is the mechanism of what Andy McCarthy entitled one of his numerous excellent books- willful blindness. The Control Factor is cleverer than we are aware; that is almost tautological as, if our minds are to create ways to keep us in denial, they must out maneuver our conscious thinking.
Since World War II, America has had limited experience with threats coming to the homeland. Most of America’s history has been about “over there,” where we have always known that if things got too out of hand (e.g. Vietnam) we could always return home. The current generations, for a wide array of reasons, have had virtually no experience with a threat to this land. (The documentary, Generation Zero, is interesting on this point).
Consequently, the process of waking up to such a threat parallels the arc of a typical horror film. In such a film, there is typically a cast of characters surrounding one or two main characters. We in the audience know there is a threat coming – be it a monster, a virus, a psycho killer, an alien, the blob that ate Cincinnati etc. This threat is typically defined by its intent- the singular goal of destroying the characters. Much of the initial exposition shows how the characters first are oblivious to the destruction the threat brings about, then explain it in familiar terms only to finally open their eyes to see that something uniquely terrifying is happening. The next stage usually involves a series of failed attempts to deal with the threat- from trying to negotiate with it, to appease it, to coax it, to threaten it with ineffective weapons and so forth. Most of these failings are due to not adequately appreciating the threat for what it truly is and projecting onto it a host of other attributes instead. The final stage generally involves a back-up-against-the-wall decision by whichever characters remain alive. I named this the “turnaround moment” when the character becomes willing to be as ruthless as the threat. That change in mental state is necessary to ensure survival. Ultimately, the storyline is a race for whichever characters remain to wake up fully and use whatever advantages they may still have to beat the threat.
This is the same arc our minds go through in battling our own Control Factors, our own compulsions to deny that which is staring us in the face. Ultimately, the question is whether we will be able to wake up while we still have advantages and give ourselves permission to fully fight the battle we are in.
I said earlier that there is a structure to the Control Factor. To oversimplify, I view it much as a pyramid where on the bottom are the many minute by minute thoughts that are manipulated. I call this level of maneuvers the many ”D’s” as they include the psychological defenses such as distortion, denial, demonization, deflection, deletion, detachment, delusion, displacement, discolorization and so forth. Layered upon these are moves such as projection, where we can assign to our Islamic Enemy traits we wish to see in them or introject traits from them into ourselves that we wish not to acknowledge. These maneuvers involve a mixing of identities where we actually lose clarity about who we are and who the enemy is. Projection and introjection are active almost across the board. It is always helpful, for instance, to ask how what the enemy accuses us of is more appropriately descriptive of it. When we add Western Guilt and Shame, our need to be liked, and other psychological dimensions, basic thoughts solidify into larger fantasies.
As these narratives (“Our courts will never allow that,” “As a superpower we will always be able to win any fight we put our minds to,” “Assimilation will ensure Muslims are westernized” …) gain consent from others they tend to guide us deeply and become infused on our policies. Ultimately, what emerges is a relationship we take with our Islamic Enemy that parallels that between an addict and an enabler. Emblematic of this relationship is the “transfer of responsibility” in which we assume responsibility for the enemy’s behavior who is addicted to transferring it away from itself. The Control Factor actively maintains this relationship and makes changing that relationship as difficult a chore as any addict finds in breaking his addiction. And just as an addict needs to devote serious effort and consciousness to his addiction, so must we devote great energy to understanding how the Control Factor ultimately sabotages us.
............................................
View the complete article at:
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/jamie-g...e-true-threat/
FrontPage Magazine
Jamie Glazov
2/8/2013
Excerpt:
FrontPage Interview’s guest today is Bill Siegel, a lawyer and business executive. He has been a producer of several documentary films and assists numerous non-profit organizations. He is the author of The Control Factor: Our Struggle to See the True Threat.
FP: Bill Siegel, welcome to FrontPage Interview.
Congratulations on this brilliant book. It is without question one of the most vital works of our time.
Let’s begin with what inspired you to write it.
Siegel: Thanks for having me Jamie. As a young boy born in the mid 1950s, I was fascinated with footage of Hitler and the Third Reich and could never understand how the Jews of the time could not see the evil that seemed so obvious. Not yet appreciative of the benefit of hindsight, I could not comprehend the blindness. Following 9/11, like so many others, I began to study Islam, its history, its current movements, terrorism and so on. As I would learn one stunning aspect after another, I would discuss them with friends and associates. Rather than confront the facts I would present, they would find one clever way after another to avoid the frightening truth of what America and the West truly face. Their fear appeared obvious to me. I began to catalog many of my friends’ different maneuvers to dispel the anxiety that they found so difficult to endure. The more I focused on their mental processes (as well as my own) the more I began to see a structure to the mental endeavor and to understand what I had, as a child, found so difficult to explain.
FP: Tell us about the Control Factor, what you describe as “that effort our minds engage in in order to keep us blind” and that “process of avoiding seeing the threats we face.” It’s also about, as you state, trying to believe that the threat is under our control, when in fact it is not. Kindly enlighten us as to these profound insights you make in terms of the Control Factor.
Siegel: First, let’s distinguish the ”real world” where real battles are taking place from the mental battlefield which occurs in each of our minds. We tend to believe our perceptions are simply clear realizations of what is “out there” and overlook how much our internal worlds can literally determine what we see. When our internal minds become anxious and sense a loss of “control,” they tend to concoct ways to distort our perceptions so as to restore that sense of inner control. I describe the Control Factor as an “active and continuous process” designed to maintain that sense, if not illusion, of control. We naturally think that our thinking and feeling processes are passive; that they just happen. Yet when faced with truly frightening prospects, the mind is geared to actively distort.
Similarly, the sense of control must be continuously maintained so the Control Factor operates constantly. In turn, the sum of this active and continuous undertaking makes these perceptions all the more familiar and thus seemingly all the more “real.” In one sense, the Control Factor is the mechanism of what Andy McCarthy entitled one of his numerous excellent books- willful blindness. The Control Factor is cleverer than we are aware; that is almost tautological as, if our minds are to create ways to keep us in denial, they must out maneuver our conscious thinking.
Since World War II, America has had limited experience with threats coming to the homeland. Most of America’s history has been about “over there,” where we have always known that if things got too out of hand (e.g. Vietnam) we could always return home. The current generations, for a wide array of reasons, have had virtually no experience with a threat to this land. (The documentary, Generation Zero, is interesting on this point).
Consequently, the process of waking up to such a threat parallels the arc of a typical horror film. In such a film, there is typically a cast of characters surrounding one or two main characters. We in the audience know there is a threat coming – be it a monster, a virus, a psycho killer, an alien, the blob that ate Cincinnati etc. This threat is typically defined by its intent- the singular goal of destroying the characters. Much of the initial exposition shows how the characters first are oblivious to the destruction the threat brings about, then explain it in familiar terms only to finally open their eyes to see that something uniquely terrifying is happening. The next stage usually involves a series of failed attempts to deal with the threat- from trying to negotiate with it, to appease it, to coax it, to threaten it with ineffective weapons and so forth. Most of these failings are due to not adequately appreciating the threat for what it truly is and projecting onto it a host of other attributes instead. The final stage generally involves a back-up-against-the-wall decision by whichever characters remain alive. I named this the “turnaround moment” when the character becomes willing to be as ruthless as the threat. That change in mental state is necessary to ensure survival. Ultimately, the storyline is a race for whichever characters remain to wake up fully and use whatever advantages they may still have to beat the threat.
This is the same arc our minds go through in battling our own Control Factors, our own compulsions to deny that which is staring us in the face. Ultimately, the question is whether we will be able to wake up while we still have advantages and give ourselves permission to fully fight the battle we are in.
I said earlier that there is a structure to the Control Factor. To oversimplify, I view it much as a pyramid where on the bottom are the many minute by minute thoughts that are manipulated. I call this level of maneuvers the many ”D’s” as they include the psychological defenses such as distortion, denial, demonization, deflection, deletion, detachment, delusion, displacement, discolorization and so forth. Layered upon these are moves such as projection, where we can assign to our Islamic Enemy traits we wish to see in them or introject traits from them into ourselves that we wish not to acknowledge. These maneuvers involve a mixing of identities where we actually lose clarity about who we are and who the enemy is. Projection and introjection are active almost across the board. It is always helpful, for instance, to ask how what the enemy accuses us of is more appropriately descriptive of it. When we add Western Guilt and Shame, our need to be liked, and other psychological dimensions, basic thoughts solidify into larger fantasies.
As these narratives (“Our courts will never allow that,” “As a superpower we will always be able to win any fight we put our minds to,” “Assimilation will ensure Muslims are westernized” …) gain consent from others they tend to guide us deeply and become infused on our policies. Ultimately, what emerges is a relationship we take with our Islamic Enemy that parallels that between an addict and an enabler. Emblematic of this relationship is the “transfer of responsibility” in which we assume responsibility for the enemy’s behavior who is addicted to transferring it away from itself. The Control Factor actively maintains this relationship and makes changing that relationship as difficult a chore as any addict finds in breaking his addiction. And just as an addict needs to devote serious effort and consciousness to his addiction, so must we devote great energy to understanding how the Control Factor ultimately sabotages us.
............................................
View the complete article at:
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/jamie-g...e-true-threat/