Between the 1790 and 1820, a new means for bridging society and the government was being taken seriously in the young American Republic largely by the ruling elite. In order to direct social change (in the social imagination) that many people were not ready for nor even asking for. We have been made to believe that the American Revolution was embraced by every single person living in the colonies.
But, that is not true. So, to drive this new vision/agenda, there had to be a correlated effort. However, wordage alone was not the way forward alone. Another means or directive had to be taken and that was the use of statistics in relation to the created ‘story line’. To prove to people that the so-called events of their times was data that showed what was at stake and what was the way forward.
The birth of spin doctors in America happened early on as a tool for the revolution which made a lot of people rich at the expense of others. Sure, we glorify the end results but they were initially spun to maintain the social thought required for those times.
As proof of this, we can read about the Shay Rebellion. Five years after Yorktown, the promise of the American Revolution essentially did not happen for thousands of farmers in western and central Massachusetts, many of whom had risked their lives serving in the state militia and Continental Army.
They had received little pay or reimbursement for their military service, and now with the fledgling country mired in a severe economic recession, debt collectors began to seize their farms and possessions for unpaid debts and delinquent taxes.
Men who fought for their freedom now languished behind bars in debtor prisons. George Washington saw this as a threat against the tranquility of the Union and he called for strengthening the federal government in order to put down future uprisings.
Although plans for a Constitutional Convention were already under way, the uprising in Massachusetts led to further calls for a stronger national government…
The early Americans then saw that liberty hard won could be easily lost. And, that same principle applied to the ruling class and political ruling cast… their new found liberty meant something different to them and they did not want to lose their position in it… “given they wrote that all men were created equal”. Which became a real image in the minds of early Americans and they embraced it. Perhaps, a surprise to the ruling elite… and thus, that wordage came back to bite them in arse so to speak.
Are we witnessing a new spin through (so-called legitimate) media that is to redirect social thought (all shared information in the social imagination)? Yes! Why? Because, America like the rest of the world is changing fast; and so, there is a need for a radical change in the social imagination; the way man thinks and interacts.
What kind of change in social thought? Well, its no longer what man thought it was... the American who thought liberty and the pursuit of happiness was his/hers because all are created equal.
No, the new man/woman today needs a new social thought a new social imagination that aims to blend or interface man and machine think together (if that's possible). The future is about man and machine. Its the new frontier whereby man's ability to learn from his/her mistakes, the ability think on one's feet, to question society and government especially those in it... is being squelched.
Liberty is no longer the way forward in the age of super high technology whereby Ai and quantum computing head the new revolution. Sadly, there will not be any Shay's Rebellion this time, though I would like to be wrong.
Its possible... but only if the ruling elite oppose it as much as those who prefer liberty (give me liberty or give me death) over power and position. But, that's not likely since the elite are in love with money and power. Ironically, they will unknowingly or maybe knowingly come under the new authority which they help to create- the Beast. They will think its the way forward and that its numbers and wordage will keep them safe. Not!
https://www.history.com/news/how-shays-rebellion-changed-america
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