[reader_x]

Excellent article and interview.

Jack London helped me see how those in control (here the New Orleans owners of enslaved people, the merchants, and/or the politicians—author says many were all 3) would likely respond to an event (including disease) so as to preserve their own position and then claim that as moral and scientific:

In The Iron Heel, referring to owners of northern factories with child labor and other ghastly working conditions, Jack London wrote,

“When they want to do a thing, in business of course, they must wait till there arises in their brains, somehow, a religious, or ethical, or scientific, or philosophic, concept that the thing is right. And then they go ahead and do it, unwitting that one of the weaknesses of the human mind is that the wish is parent to the thought.“

I try to stay personally vigilant in remembering how my mind can trick me this way. The trick works in so very many contexts.

[swayvil]

This is classic advertising. Evoke a desire then provide a solution.

And yes, the victim will happily accomodate any inconsistencies between the solution and reality/morality/etc.

The takeaway is : reason serves desire.