Conformity - Jan Theuninck, 2017

How could normal people become unimaginable criminals? How quickly people are prepared to give up all traces of humanity for conformity and uniformity? 

nonconformity and freethinking now considered mental illness

 anticonformismo e libero pensiero ormai considerati malattie mentali

De vrijheid en uniciteit van het individu moesten plaats maken voor conformisme, dienstbaarheid en ondergeschiktheid.‘De verpulvering van de mens tot een ding was zonder twijfel het grootste drama van de twintigste eeuw. Hiermee werd de Kantiaanse stelling dat we de mens steeds als een doel moeten zien en niet als een middel, brutaal en meedogenloos opzij geschoven. De wreedheden die in de kampen gebeurden waren zo erg dat menige overlevende zich bewust was dat anderen hen niet zouden geloven.
https://www.liberales.be/teksten/2017/12/2/over-kampliteratuur-jacq-vogelaar

The system is designed to produce conformity, not genius(Marilyn Mach)
Krachtige woorden van een lid van het Europees Parlement, Christine Andersen, over de stand van zaken in onze wereld: “Je kunt je niet conformeren aan een tirannie.”

One of the ways Western conformity manifests itself is through blind obedience and a pathological need to follow rules. Most people believe that a good person is a compliant person who does what he is told by the political authorities and their lackeys in the media and celebrity culture. By blindly obeying, the conformist fails to distinguish between morality and legality and thus remains willfully ignorant of the fact that government regulations can be immoral, driven by corruption, and that they sometimes pave the way for individual and social ruin.
https://www.frontnieuws.com/waarom-zijn-de-meeste-mensen-lafaards-gehoorzaamheid-en-de-opkomst-van-autoritaire-regimes/

The Lucifer effect refers to the phenomenon whereby people under certain circumstances, particularly group circumstances, can lose their sense of morality and begin to behave negatively, sometimes even brutally. It is a deliberate exercise of power to harm others: psychologically through verbal abuse, bullying, teasing, gossiping, spreading rumors, dehumanizing, hurting others, torturing, physically abusing, and destroying or killing.

Conformity: The Pipeline from Education to Obedience

The mechanisms of this control have been perfected over the centuries, but have reached new heights through the systematic transformation of education and the scientific study of psychological manipulation. As John Taylor Gatto revealed, schools teach seven lessons: confusion, class status, indifference, emotional dependency, intellectual dependency, makeshift self-respect, and constant surveillance—all designed to create docile citizens rather than independent thinkers. Charlotte Iserbyt documented how this “deliberate dumbing down” shifted education from academic excellence to job training, using Skinnerian behavioral psychology to create measurable results rather than true understanding. Meanwhile, as William Sargant demonstrated in “Battle for the Mind,” the techniques of psychological conversion have been refined to a science: mental exhaustion weakens cognitive defenses, repetitive questioning creates uncertainty in memory, isolation removes the reality check, and emotional manipulation depletes the psychological resources needed for critical thinking. The system fragments knowledge into isolated facts, destroys the coherence that creates meaning, and ensures that "good people wait for an expert to tell them what to do." This educational and psychological conditioning explains why the population has so readily accepted the authoritarian measures of recent years: they were trained from childhood to follow irrational orders, to depend on certified authorities, and never to question the shadows on the wall. As a CIA expert declared before Congress in 1962, with enough time and the right techniques, "we can make anyone kill their own parents and eat them in a soup." The digital age has only accelerated this process: algorithms now preemptively determine what information reaches us, AI creates personalized perception caves, and educational technology widely applies behavioristic methods, making certain ideas literally unthinkable by ensuring they never enter our consciousness.
https://www.frontnieuws.com/de-oorlog-tegen-kennis/