SotT Promotion Posters

[Renaissance]

These posters are excellent. All of them. I LOVE THEM! Perhaps here we can exchange ideas of how we're spreading the word and see what practices might be most helpful. So far I've blogged one poster and intend on blogging all of them. This week I'm going to hang them up in a couple of local coffee shops and on telephone poles on streets where there's a lot of foot traffic.

Some other ideas:

Students could cover their books w/ the posters and leave posters on desks before or after classes

highway banners (might have to do some sort of simplified version becasue of the cost, readability, and they tend not to last too long)

Internet forums that allow posting of pictures

go to the local libraries and find books that SotT readers have found useful (or just related topics) and put a folded poster inside

leave on buses, trains, subways

Some restauarants allow the community to put flyers in their windows or on bulliton boards - find them and post them

Go to local or national rallies and demonstations and hand them out in generous portions/ perhaps a giant banner of a poster could be made (this would be great for anyone going to the protest in D.C. - United for Peace and Justice is having a massive rally on Sept 24 and the World Can't Wait is doing one October 5 - there are ususally groups in mosts states that also hold local rallies all the time, even if small, its just a matter of doing some investigating)

Ask friends if they would be interested in helping you - this may spark their interest to visit the site and help if they are so inclined

Get the addresses of members of the community and organizations who seem to be trying to help people but are lacking the knowledge of the pathocracy - and send them a poster (perhaps write them a brief letter too?)

other ideas?

 

[anart]

Great ideas, Shane. These designs would also make great stickers, post cards, magnets or even book marks - the sky is the limit and the point is to SPREAD THEM AROUND! I agree that the designs are fantastic - and I understand that more are on the way!

 

[Mr. Premise]

These are fantastic! Well done. Glad I bought a color printer.

 

[Renaissance]

and the point is to SPREAD THEM AROUND!

Yeah, I found one of my programs is to get my imagination so excited about things that my mind will spend more time 'imagining' and so less time doing.

So you prompted me to start writing emails:
I didn't know how to insert pictures into emails and thought I wasn't going to be able to do so cause I don't know how to code html in email; but cut and paste works fine in yahoo mail!!

 

[domi]

Fantastic and powerful stuff.

My top 3 faves:

1) Hope. Don't drop it.
2) With deepest sympathy and Wishing you weren't here
3) Psychopaths rule our world

Regarding the "Psychopaths rule our world" one: it screams for the documentary with that name to be made.

Cheers,
Dominique

 

[Art]

yeah this is great! I love the stickers idea! And T-shirts!

The designs are so cool!

 

[Pirates Go ARRRRRRGH!]

I changed the small posters to GIF format if anyone is interested. They are in my photobucket album.

http://s39.photobucket.com/albums/e198/sizlnutz/SOTT%20Posters/?sc=1&addtype=local

The files load faster and photobucket provides the code so it makes for quick cut and paste in forums and myspace pages.

Love the posters BTW!

 

[Iconoclast]

i like them!!

as a fellow graphics designer i really appreciate great design.

best idea: HOPE - Don't drop it!

best design: tie - 'psychopaths rule our world' and 'psychopath' (skulls)


how about adapting some as banners that can be used in forums which allow the display of graphics as signatures?

 

[OneSoul]

I have use of a plotter and am printing up lots of poster-size images of these and putting them up in the area.

Beautiful, necessary, inspired work, guys!! Never give into fear.

 

[Tina]

I changed the small posters to GIF format if anyone is interested. They are in my photobucket album.

http://s39.photobucket.com/albums/e198/sizlnutz/SOTT%20Posters/?sc=1&addtype=local

The files load faster and photobucket provides the code so it makes for quick cut and paste in forums and myspace pages.

Love the posters BTW!

Thanks Pirate,

I just uploaded one to myspace. I agree, they are great posters.

 

[domi]

I sent out an broadcast email to some people that might be receptive to the message of V for Vendetta and I got this rather funny reply back from a friend but he does make a good point:

Ok, I did some research on the web... according to
the great dictionary in the sky (m-w.com) the word
"pathocracy" has not been accpeted as a word in the
American language.

My only guess is that it describes one who likes to
hike on paths, and is also a hypocrite.. so I am
thinking of some guy walking in a nice peaceful
setting with trees (and of course his path), yet he
walks while yelling at the top of his lungs "HP did no
wrong!"... ok, maybe he is just littering.

The absence of "pathocracy" in a dictionary is indicative of the problem we are dealing with and the corruption of the system.

 

[Laura]

That's really an absurd and ignorant comment. Scientists give new names to stuff all the time and in some cases, it takes years to get into dictionaries. Generally, that only happens if the word falls into common usage. Scientific terms can also NEVER get into dictionaries used by common people. We have a giant scientific/mathematical dictionary that contains scads of words that scientists commonly use that are not in a regular dictionary.

This person is obviously not familiar with academia and how scientists operate when they are doing groundbreaking work as Lobaczewski has. He writes about his use of the term:

The ponerogenesis of macrosocial phenomena - large scale evil - which constitutes the most important object of this book, appears to be subject to the same laws of nature that operate within human questions on an individual or small-group level. The role of persons with various psychological defects and anomalies of a clinically low level appears to be a perennial characteristic of such phenomena. In the macrosocial phenomenon we shall later call "pathocracy", a certain hereditary anomaly isolated as "essential psychopathy" is catalytically and causatively essential for the genesis and survival of large scale social evil.

And again:

When a ponerogenic process encompasses a society's entire ruling class, or nation, or when opposition from normal people is stifled -- as a result of the mass character of the phenomenon, or by using spellbinding means and physical compulsion, including censorship -- we are dealing with a macrosocial ponerologic phenomenon. In such a case, however, a society's tragedy, often coupled with that of the researcher's own suffering, opens before him an entire volume of ponerologic knowledge, where he can read all about the laws governing such a process if he is only able to familiarize himself in time with its naturalistic language and its different grammar.

Studies in the genesis of evil which are based on observing small groups of people can indicate the details of these laws to us. However, it might be thought that this would present a warped picture that is dependent upon various environmental conditions which are further dependent on the historical period in question; this is the backdrop to the phenomena observed. Nevertheless, such observations may enable us to hazard a hypothesis to the effect that the general laws of ponerogenesis may be at least analogous, regardless of the quantity and scope of the phenomenon in time and space. They do not, however, permit verification of such a hypothesis.

In studying a macrosocial phenomenon, we can obtain both quantitative and qualitative data, statistical correlation indices, and other observations as accurately as might be allowed by the state of the art in science, research methodology, and the obviously very difficult situation of the observer. We can then use the classical method, hazarding a hypothesis and then actively searching for facts which could falsify it. The wide-spread causative regularity of ponerogenic processes would then be confirmed within the bounds of the above-mentioned possibilities. This is, in fact, what the author and his colleagues undertook to do. It is astonishing how neatly causative regularity of ponerogenic processes observed in small groups govern this macrosocial phenomenon. The comprehension of the phenomenon thus acquired can serve as a basis for predicting its future development, to be verified by time. It is in close and careful observation, and only after time passes, that we become aware that the colossus has an Achilles heel after all.

The study of macrosocial ponerogenic phenomena meets with obvious problems: their period of genesis, duration, and decay is several times longer than the researcher's scientific activity. Simultaneously, there are other transformations in history, customs, economics, and technology; however, the difficulties confronted in abstracting the appropriate symptoms need not be insuperable, since our criteria are based on eternal phenomena subject to relatively limited transformations in time.

The traditional interpretation of these great historical diseases has already taught historians to distinguish two phases. The first is represented by a period of spiritual crisis in a society, which historiography associates with exhausting of the ideational, moral, and religious values heretofore nourishing the society in question. Egoism among individuals and social groups increases, and the links of moral duty and social networks are felt to be loosening. Trifling matters thereupon dominate human minds to such an extent that there is no room left for thinking about public matters or a feeling of commitment to the future. An atrophy of the hierarchy of values within the thinking of individuals and societies is an indication thereof; it has been described both in historiographic monographs and in psychiatric papers. The country's government is finally paralyzed, helpless in the face of problems which could be solved without great difficulty under other circumstances. Let us associate such periods of crisis with the familiar phase in social hysterization.

The next phase has been marked by bloody tragedies, revolutions, wars, and the fall of empires. The deliberations of historians or moralists regarding these occurrences always leave behind a certain feeling of deficiency with reference to the possibility of perceiving certain psychological factors discerned within the nature of phenomena; the essence of these factors remains outside the scope of their scientific experience.

A historian observing these great historical diseases is struck first of all by their similarities, easily forgetting that all diseases have many symptoms in common because they are states of absent health. A ponerologist thinking in naturalistic terms tends to doubt that we are dealing with only one kind of societal disease, thereby leading to a certain differentiation of forms with regard to ethnological and historical conditions. Differentiating the essence of such states is more appropriate to the reasoning patterns we are familiar with from the natural sciences. The complex conditions of social life, however, preclude using the method of distinction, which is similar to etiological criterion in medicine: qualitatively speaking, the phenomena become layered in time, conditioning each other and transforming constantly. We should then rather use certain abstract patterns, similar to those used in analyzing the neurotic states of human beings.

Governed by this type of reasoning, let us here attempt to differentiate two pathological states of societies; their essence and contents appear different enough, but they can operate sequentially in such a way that the first opens the door to the second. The first such state has already been sketched in the chapter on the hysteroidal cycle; we shall adduce a certain number of other psychological details hereunder. The next chapter shall be dedicated to the second pathological state, for which I have adopted the denomination of "pathocracy".

And again:

The time-cycle sketched in Chapter III was referred to as hysteroidal because the intensification or diminution of a society's hysterical condition can be considered its chief measurement. It does not, of course, constitute the only quality subject to change within the framework of certain periodicity. The present chapter shall deal with the phenomenon which can emerge from the phase of maximal intensification of hysteria. Such a sequence does not appear to result from any relatively constant laws of history; quite the contrary, some additional circumstances and factors must participate in such a period of a society's general spiritual crisis and cause its reason and social structure to degenerate in such a way as to bring about the spontaneous generation of this worst disease of society. Let us call this societal disease phenomenon "pathocracy"; this is not the first time it has emerged during the history of our planet.

It appears that this phenomenon, whose causes also appear to be potentially present in every society, has its own characteristic process of genesis, only partially conditioned by, and hidden within, the maximal hysterical intensity of the above-described cycle. As a result, unhappy times become exceptionally cruel and enduring and their causes impossible to understand within the categories of natural human concepts. Let us therefore bring this process of the origin of pathocracy closer, methodically isolating it from other phenomena we can recognize as being conditional or even accompanying it.

 

[anart]

Since he's into internet information sources, have him simply do a Google search - he'll find it there.

;)

(plus - we need new words to fight this old disease of our society - the old words sure as hell weren't getting anyone's attention)

 

[domi]

That's really an absurd and ignorant comment.

For sake of clarification: mine or his?

Scientists give new names to stuff all the time and in some cases, it takes years to get into dictionaries. Generally, that only happens if the word falls into common usage. Scientific terms can also NEVER get into dictionaries used by common people. We have a giant scientific/mathematical dictionary that contains scads of words that scientists commonly use that are not in a regular dictionary.

Sorry about that. Clearly my friend didn't search to hard, but I think he was being a smart-ass in the second paragraph.

I admit that I am ignorant on how words get into dictionaries.

Dominique.

 

[John G]

It would be nice if a lot of the ideas in this forum were more well known and used wisely by the general public. I think a term sometimes has to be created to make the idea easier to reference in the papers. Also the idea may be more important than the underlying ideas that already have names. Pathocracy would be the most intense realization of underlying terms like psychopaths and hysteria.

A favorite word of mine is liminocentric. It was created by a researcher friend of mine. Underlying concepts for liminocentric would include the torus and the Chinese box. From this forum, cyclical time would fit nicely under the liminocentric umbrella. It is interesting to do a Google search on pathocracy and liminocentric. You can see words taking baby steps on to the public stage.