Although the term negative priming seems to have recently become fashionable, the concept related to it comes from afar. It falls, along with others, within what is called language engineering, which uses language to establish beliefs, achieving the subsequent reaction through manipulation in the form of emotional responses aimed at fulfilling a previously planned objective. The negative priming is explained to us very well by the philologist, writer and researcher Carme Jiménez Huertas:
Have you ever wondered why there are movies that predict the future so accurately? How can it be that they are so right... 'Matrix', 'The Simpsons'? It is not to give us a gift; it is to create implicit memory (...) They are introducing the information through a fiction movie. In the first moment, when I leave the movie theater, I will say: it is false, because my left hemisphere, logical and rational, tells me that it is a lie, that it is fiction. But the idea has already been introduced to me... and on an unconscious level all beliefs are true, and it has created a memory in me.
And what happens after this apparently harmless priming in our brain took place?
My learning process always searches memory to create relational processes; Since I already have that memory that they have introduced to me and I have not realized it... Scary, right? So they're seeding into fiction movies the whole plan of what they are doing (...) Which pill are you going to choose, the red or the blue? I am explaining to you how they do it. From here, what are we going to do? Are we going to dismantle it, are we going to deprogram it or are we going to accept everything that they have been inoculating us with? (...) And not only in movies, but also in novels: '1984' is being applied like a true manual, and those who defend it the most are the socialists... because now we know that there are no lefts or rights, huh? They are not what they seem... and it must be said because there are people who still haven't realized it.
Once known how this tool works, a determining factor, such as the intention of the sender of the message, should be added. Why? Because although the effect may be the same, the negative priming has not always been sought consciously and consistently by the sender of the message in order to fulfill a planned objective. In other words, we can write a book or produce an audiovisual work in which, for example, we expose our vision of a future world and, although time ends up confirming parts of it, our initial intention was mere entertainment or, on other occasions, warn precisely that following certain paths may end up leading to dangerous scenarios. In any case, we would be contributing to priming in the memory of the reader and the audience of certain ideas, with its consequent effect. Just as the devil loads weapons, seemingly harmless but powerful tools can fall into our hands, whose simple well-intentioned use will result in effects that we would never have imagined or taken into account.
Something similar occurs with the so-called taboo topics for society. When someone is interested in a taboo ceasing to be so, it needs to be on everyone's lips, being a permanent forum for debate. Although we continue to rant about issues whose red lines should never be crossed, we are unconsciously normalizing the debate on something that until now did not generate any discussion because it was not even a subject for debate. There was a social consensus about it. A consensus that is broken when society falls into the trap that has been set for it, turning a taboo topic into an everyday topic. The red lines have been broken; reality on that matter is normalized and sweetened, and our brain will end up accepting as normal what it previously considered absolutely abnormal. This other brainwashing technique, depending on the intention and purposes for which it is applied, can have positive or negative effects on the individual and society as a whole.
Ok, and once you've found out that The Simpsons have been "predicting" your future... Now what?
