(To read about Jon’s mega-collection, Exit From The Matrix, click here.)

“It’s instructive to read what authors wrote about core values a hundred or two hundred years ago, because then you can appreciate what has happened to the culture of a nation. You can grasp the enormous influence of planned propaganda, which changes minds, builds new consensus, and exiles certain disruptive thinkers to the margins of society. You can see what has been painted over, with great intent, in order to promote tyranny that proclaims a greater good for all.” (The Underground, Jon Rappoport)

Here I present several statements about the individual, written in 19th century America. The authors, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, and James Fenimore Cooper were prominent figures. Emerson, in his time, was the most famous.

“All greatness of character is dependent on individuality. The man who has no other existence than that which he partakes in common with all around him, will never have any other than an existence of mediocrity.” James Fenimore Cooper

“The less government we have, the better, — the fewer laws, and the less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of [by] formal Government, is, the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The former generations…sacrificed uniformly the citizen to the State. The modern mind believed that the nation existed for the individual, for the guardianship and education of every man. This idea, roughly written in revolutions and national movements, in the mind of the philosopher had far more precision; the individual is the world.” Ralph Waldo Emerson…

Can you imagine, today, any of these statements gaining traction in the public mind, much less the mainstream media?

Immediately, there would be virulent pushback, on the grounds that unfettered individualism equals brutal greed, equals (hated) capitalism, equals inhumane indifference to the plight of the less fortunate, equals callous disregard for the needs of the group.  The 19th-century men who wrote those assertions would be viewed with hostile suspicion, as potential criminals, as potential “anti-government” outliers who should go on a list. They might have terrorist tendencies.

Contemporary analysis of the individual goes much further than this.

Case in point: Peter Collero, of the department of sociology, Western Oregon University, has written a book titled: The Myth of Individualism: How Social Forces Shape Our Lives:

“Most people today believe that an individual is a person with an independent and distinct identification. This, however, is a myth.”  Callero is claiming there aren’t individuals to begin with. They’re a group.

This downgrading of the individual human spirit is remarkable, but it is not the exception. There are many, many people today who would agree (without comprehending what they are talking about) that the individual does not exist. They would agree because, to take the opposite position would set them on a path toward admitting that each individual has independent power—and thus they would violate a sacred proscription of political correctness….

Without realizing it, they are tools of a program. They’re foot soldiers in a ceaseless campaign to promote collectivism (dictatorship from the top) under the guise of equality.”

If you don’t develop your own individual mind – if you don’t work to develop the minds of your children – the media and the state will do it for you.