Olek Netzer
Olek Netzer, Ph.D. in Applied Behavioral Science granted by Union Institute University, USA. Independent researcher. Holocaust survivor, living in Israel. Dissident, activist in nonviolent resistance to annexation of the occupied territories. Author of (in Hebrew), "The Virus of Dehumanization: Deciphering the Political Code on the Background of Israel 1979-1999" (2001); IN ENGLISH: Dehumanization: the Cognitive Roots of Fanaticism, ed. LIT 2019; Person-Centered Political Party: Blueprint for Organization Free of Power-Corruption, ed. LIT Verlag, 2020; Your Thinking Mechanism: User's Manual, ed. LIT (2021);
Supervisors: (Historically) Carl Rogers, Roy Fairfield, Erich Fromm, Melvin A. Allerhand
Supervisors: (Historically) Carl Rogers, Roy Fairfield, Erich Fromm, Melvin A. Allerhand
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Papers by Olek Netzer
“At the very least, this Blueprint contains the strongest antidotes to Power Corruption that has poisoned the lives of idealistic and conscientious reformers and revolutionaries in the past. Political organization that puts power in the hands of all members at all times rather than in the hands of top leaders would be a radical departure from all the unsuccessful earlier attempts to organize.”
At the very least, this Blueprint contains the strongest antidotes to Power Corruption that has poisoned the lives of idealistic and conscientious reformers and revolutionaries in the past. Political organization that puts power in the hands of all members at all times rather than in the hands of top leaders would be a radical departure from all the unsuccessful earlier attempts to organize.
Dr. Olek Netzer is an independent researcher in Political
Psychology and a social activist residing in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Lit
» The Book will be useful for all those who want to translate their ideas into action at the same time democratically and effectively, whatever their cause, from global warming to peace in the Middle
East or gender inequality.«
Prof. Nonna Mayer CNRS Research Professor Emerita at Sciences Po, Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics, former President of the French Political Science Association.
Research question: How can normal people justify, in their own eyes, even the most obviously erroneous ideas about other humans; and the most inhuman acts mass-destruction – without running into an intolerable Cognitive Dissonance with their own highest values of Sanity, Truth, Morality and Justice?"
Research: Analyzing conflict related texts in mass-media for patterns of reasoning and justification of stated views.
Results: A major Discovery – Blind Areas. Fanatics of conflict are mentally blind to see the fundamental realities of themselves and their enemies being human: “We” liable to error and crimes as any human; “Them” individuals with human qualities, each one unique and potentially able to change same as we.
Application: As politically motivated behavior must be self-justified – bringing Blind Areas to awareness effectively undermines the dehumanized self-justification system by causing Cognitive Dissonance with one’s own supreme values of Truth and Morality.
Prognosis: Bringing Blind Areas to awareness effectively undermines the dehumanized self-justification system. Systematic bringing of Blind Areas to awareness, applied in Education and in political discourse, will humanize identity motivated social conflict.
ABSTRACT: MOVING FROM MULTICAUSAL TO DIRECT CAUSATION APPROACH IN WAR AND PEACE RESEARCH
The scientific research of human conflict, which has been dominated by the Multicausal approach, failed to deliver meaningful remedies to war and inter-group conflict. "No straightforward and consensual psychological science has arisen to meet the needs of political scholars". Its approach, based on the idea that "political and psychological studies are inextricably intertwined" could be based on a fundamental methodological error if it fails to account for the fact that they are qualitatively different from each other. The "intertwined" causes are NOT of the same order: some are real DIRECT causes motivating people in their thinking, believing and doings, other are INDIRECT causes that might or might not affect them.
In any helping profession, without regarding the physical or closest-to-physical agents, one cannot deal with critical factors in changing the condition. Changing only the indirect causes of illnesses, by changing social conditions, we practice hygiene and hopefully prevent the spread of disease. But prevention is not healing once the human organism becomes infected. We cannot become a helping profession unless we adopt the Direct-Causation approach.
Research focused on direct-conscious causes of destructive political behavior leads to the human system of cognitive orientation. Then, as perpetrators of socially sanctioned evil anywhere behave as if they were under compulsion to believe they are right and their enemies are wrong, the relevant research questions need to be "How exactly do people manage to justify in their own eyes even the most inhuman atrocities and acts of self and others mass-destruction?"
Following the Direct Causation approach leads to mapping of the inner social orientation space, defining the symptoms of politically motivated destructiveness and irrationality, discovering the mechanisms by which political fanatics avoid experiencing cognitive dissonances: and devising tools and procedures of helping intervention. However, the decisive step every researcher should make is to leave the multicausal approach behind and take the Direct Causation approach.
Books by Olek Netzer
The Manual will lead readers to use their Thinking Operations properly, thus avoiding over-generalization and over-abstraction that Aldous Huxley called “intellectual sins” responsible for “at least two-thirds of our miseries”. The pledge of Thomas Jefferson to struggle against “all forms of tyranny over the minds of man” is followed here to the limits of practical application by contemporary individuals. Modern-day tyrants over our minds reside in the mass media and in the communication patterns of many people we encounter in life. The Manual exposes their means of exploiting people and specifies in detail how to liberate oneself from their influence.
Proficiency in using our Thinking Operations will equally apply to the understanding of Thinking Operations others employ to influence us.
This Manual pledges Liberation from Psychological Exploitation.
“At the very least, this Blueprint contains the strongest antidotes to Power Corruption that has poisoned the lives of idealistic and conscientious reformers and revolutionaries in the past. Political organization that puts power in the hands of all members at all times rather than in the hands of top leaders would be a radi-cal departure from all the unsuccessful earlier attempts to organize.”
Talks by Olek Netzer
“At the very least, this Blueprint contains the strongest antidotes to Power Corruption that has poisoned the lives of idealistic and conscientious reformers and revolutionaries in the past. Political organization that puts power in the hands of all members at all times rather than in the hands of top leaders would be a radical departure from all the unsuccessful earlier attempts to organize.”
At the very least, this Blueprint contains the strongest antidotes to Power Corruption that has poisoned the lives of idealistic and conscientious reformers and revolutionaries in the past. Political organization that puts power in the hands of all members at all times rather than in the hands of top leaders would be a radical departure from all the unsuccessful earlier attempts to organize.
Dr. Olek Netzer is an independent researcher in Political
Psychology and a social activist residing in Tel Aviv, Israel.
Lit
» The Book will be useful for all those who want to translate their ideas into action at the same time democratically and effectively, whatever their cause, from global warming to peace in the Middle
East or gender inequality.«
Prof. Nonna Mayer CNRS Research Professor Emerita at Sciences Po, Centre for European Studies and Comparative Politics, former President of the French Political Science Association.
Research question: How can normal people justify, in their own eyes, even the most obviously erroneous ideas about other humans; and the most inhuman acts mass-destruction – without running into an intolerable Cognitive Dissonance with their own highest values of Sanity, Truth, Morality and Justice?"
Research: Analyzing conflict related texts in mass-media for patterns of reasoning and justification of stated views.
Results: A major Discovery – Blind Areas. Fanatics of conflict are mentally blind to see the fundamental realities of themselves and their enemies being human: “We” liable to error and crimes as any human; “Them” individuals with human qualities, each one unique and potentially able to change same as we.
Application: As politically motivated behavior must be self-justified – bringing Blind Areas to awareness effectively undermines the dehumanized self-justification system by causing Cognitive Dissonance with one’s own supreme values of Truth and Morality.
Prognosis: Bringing Blind Areas to awareness effectively undermines the dehumanized self-justification system. Systematic bringing of Blind Areas to awareness, applied in Education and in political discourse, will humanize identity motivated social conflict.
ABSTRACT: MOVING FROM MULTICAUSAL TO DIRECT CAUSATION APPROACH IN WAR AND PEACE RESEARCH
The scientific research of human conflict, which has been dominated by the Multicausal approach, failed to deliver meaningful remedies to war and inter-group conflict. "No straightforward and consensual psychological science has arisen to meet the needs of political scholars". Its approach, based on the idea that "political and psychological studies are inextricably intertwined" could be based on a fundamental methodological error if it fails to account for the fact that they are qualitatively different from each other. The "intertwined" causes are NOT of the same order: some are real DIRECT causes motivating people in their thinking, believing and doings, other are INDIRECT causes that might or might not affect them.
In any helping profession, without regarding the physical or closest-to-physical agents, one cannot deal with critical factors in changing the condition. Changing only the indirect causes of illnesses, by changing social conditions, we practice hygiene and hopefully prevent the spread of disease. But prevention is not healing once the human organism becomes infected. We cannot become a helping profession unless we adopt the Direct-Causation approach.
Research focused on direct-conscious causes of destructive political behavior leads to the human system of cognitive orientation. Then, as perpetrators of socially sanctioned evil anywhere behave as if they were under compulsion to believe they are right and their enemies are wrong, the relevant research questions need to be "How exactly do people manage to justify in their own eyes even the most inhuman atrocities and acts of self and others mass-destruction?"
Following the Direct Causation approach leads to mapping of the inner social orientation space, defining the symptoms of politically motivated destructiveness and irrationality, discovering the mechanisms by which political fanatics avoid experiencing cognitive dissonances: and devising tools and procedures of helping intervention. However, the decisive step every researcher should make is to leave the multicausal approach behind and take the Direct Causation approach.
The Manual will lead readers to use their Thinking Operations properly, thus avoiding over-generalization and over-abstraction that Aldous Huxley called “intellectual sins” responsible for “at least two-thirds of our miseries”. The pledge of Thomas Jefferson to struggle against “all forms of tyranny over the minds of man” is followed here to the limits of practical application by contemporary individuals. Modern-day tyrants over our minds reside in the mass media and in the communication patterns of many people we encounter in life. The Manual exposes their means of exploiting people and specifies in detail how to liberate oneself from their influence.
Proficiency in using our Thinking Operations will equally apply to the understanding of Thinking Operations others employ to influence us.
This Manual pledges Liberation from Psychological Exploitation.
“At the very least, this Blueprint contains the strongest antidotes to Power Corruption that has poisoned the lives of idealistic and conscientious reformers and revolutionaries in the past. Political organization that puts power in the hands of all members at all times rather than in the hands of top leaders would be a radi-cal departure from all the unsuccessful earlier attempts to organize.”