In recent chapters in the story of humankind the majestic powers of Europe attempted to "civilize" the savage masses. This task was undertaken on the basis that those majestic peoples were superior to others. Thus, the masses should be taught to act according to the proper manner imposed by the oppressors, and could be used to any advantage those oppressors could conceive. Europeans endeavoured to fulfill their intended "civilization" through means ranging from simple barbarism to subtle brainwashing.

Of course, the most obvious means to achieve complicity was the rifle. Those who chose to act as savages in the face of a superior mannerism were, ironically, killed in cold-blood for their barbarism.

But the most effective tools of colonialism were not aimed at breaking the human body. Rather the Conqueror targeted the soul and culture of a people. It is through the destruction of a people's cultural life-blood that they are most effectively broken.

Take religion, for example. Europeans carried Christianity to the "New" world like a loaded automatic. The Old Testament speaks of the Christian deity as a Selfish God, a Jealous God. Perhaps this is what the Conqueror had in mind when insisting that the citizens of every culture they encountered convert to Christianity, on the penalty of death. This conversion was, of course, a double-edged sword since conversion to a religion designed around another culture's reality generally led to cultural oblivion anyway.

Beyond this, by asserting an attitude that insists the savage could only be saved by conversion and assimilation to any and all Christian traditions, the Conqueror created a morality that affirmed the destruction of anything different. Assimilation under the threat of death was okay because it saved souls. In this way, the Conqueror attained total control of the oppressed, and made the victims believe he was right to do so.

Of course history is all about learning lessons. As such it is unlikely that this will recur in the Western world. Western society has marginalised the importance of religion to the extent that practicing religious doctrine is reasonably uncommon. Under these conditions, religious conquest is unlikely. But the powers-that-be have also learned from the efforts of the Conqueror.

Consider the new dilemma... The American oppressor requires a way to convince the oppressed that they are indeed happy under his yoke. Furthermore, he needs to cause the oppressed to support and improve his position.

EYE propose to you that the American oppressor has learned to use your television the way the European Conqueror used religion. He has created a method to indoctrinate an entire people into patterns of thought that reaffirm his power. Like the Conqueror's religion, television becomes an integral part of the victims' lifestyle and culture. Its status as an infallible body convinces the oppressed that the Conqueror's views, as expressed through this medium, must, by rights, be correct. Values that strengthen the oppressor's grip on the people - ambition, consumerism, supplication, division, inferiority - are affirmed daily. Eventually, the victim begins to love the tool of his own destruction. The ideas that have dismantled his culture are embraced, and become the basis for a new culture.

The integral and encompassing role of the oppressor's tools in the oppressed culture leaves little room for original thought - the predecessor of revolution.