Linguist Noam Chomsky compiled the list of the “10 Strategies of Manipulation” through the media.

1. The Strategy of Distraction. The primary element of social control is the strategy of distraction, which consists of diverting public attention from important issues and changes decided by political and economic elites through the technique of flooding or inundating with continuous distractions and insignificant information. The strategy of distraction is equally essential to prevent the public from taking interest in essential knowledge in the areas of science, economics, psychology, neurobiology, and cybernetics. “Keep public attention distracted, away from real social problems, captivated by matters of no real importance. Keep the public busy, busy, busy, with no time to think; back to the farm like the other animals (quote from the text ‘Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars’).”

2. Create Problems and Then Offer Solutions. This method is also called “problem-reaction-solution.” A problem is created, a “situation” designed to cause a certain reaction in the public, so that the public becomes the advocate for the measures one wishes to have accepted. For example: allow urban violence to develop or intensify, or organize bloody attacks, so that the public demands security laws and policies at the expense of freedom. Or also: create an economic crisis to make the rollback of social rights and the dismantling of public services acceptable as a necessary evil.

3. The Strategy of Gradualism. To make an unacceptable measure acceptable, it is sufficient to apply it gradually, drop by drop, over consecutive years. This is how radically new socioeconomic conditions (neoliberalism) were imposed during the 1980s and 1990s: minimal state, privatizations, precariousness, flexibility, mass unemployment, wages that no longer ensure decent income—so many changes that would have provoked a revolution if they had been applied all at once.

4. The Strategy of Deferring. Another way to make an unpopular decision acceptable is to present it as “painful and necessary,” obtaining public acceptance at the moment for future implementation. It is easier to accept a future sacrifice than an immediate sacrifice. First, because the effort is not required immediately. Then, because the public, the masses, always tend to naively hope that “everything will get better tomorrow” and that the required sacrifice can be avoided. This gives the public more time to get used to the idea of change and to accept it with resignation when the time comes.

5. Address the Public as Young Children. Most advertising directed at the general public uses particularly childish discourse, arguments, characters, and intonation, often bordering on weakness, as if the viewer were a young child or mentally deficient. The more one attempts to deceive the viewer, the more one tends to adopt an infantilizing tone. Why? “If one addresses a person as if they were 12 years old or younger, then, due to suggestibility, they will tend, with a certain probability, to a response or reaction also devoid of critical sense like that of a person 12 years old or younger (see ‘Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars’).”

6. Use the Emotional Aspect Much More Than Reflection. Using the emotional aspect is a classic technique to short-circuit rational analysis and ultimately the critical sense of individuals. Furthermore, using the emotional register allows opening the door to the unconscious to implant or inject ideas, desires, fears and anxieties, compulsions, or induce behaviors…

7. Keep the Public in Ignorance and Mediocrity. Make the public incapable of understanding the technologies and methods used for their control and enslavement. “The quality of education given to the lower social classes must be as poor and mediocre as possible, so that the gap of ignorance between the lower classes and the upper social classes remains impossible for the lower classes to bridge (see ‘Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars’).”

8. Encourage the Public to Be Complacent with Mediocrity. Promote the public to believe that it is fashionable to be stupid, vulgar, and uneducated.

9. Reinforce Self-Blame. Make the individual believe that they alone are to blame for their own misfortune, due to insufficient intelligence, capabilities, or efforts. Thus, instead of rebelling against the economic system, the individual devalues and blames themselves, which generates a depressive state, one of whose effects is the inhibition of action. And without action, there is no revolution!

10. Know Individuals Better Than They Know Themselves. Over the past 50 years, accelerated advances in science have generated a growing gap between public knowledge and that possessed and used by dominant elites. Thanks to biology, neurobiology, and applied psychology, the “system” has enjoyed advanced knowledge of the human being, both physically and psychologically. The system has managed to know the average individual better than they know themselves. This means that, in most cases, the system exercises greater control and power over individuals than individuals have over themselves.