Features:
How to Avoid
Responsibilities – Don’t read this if you’re a responsible
member of the community.
Coercion With
a Smile – Friendly "persuasion" or Orwellian doublespeak? – The
coercive tricks of corporate/government PR.
Finding Your
Purpose – Don’t be a slave to the purposes of others.
Today’s
Sermon – Why you don’t have to earn a living.
How to Stop
Worrying – Some useful psychological gimmicks.
Work Hell
– Exposing work myths. Useful facts & figures.
Your Duty to Phone
In Sick – Phoning in sick is the best thing you can do for the
economy.
Instant
Wish-fulfiller – A 15-minute hedonistic de-anxietiser.
Media-free
Zones – Avoiding the media to keep your sanity.
"Real" Positive
Thinking – The type of positive thinking that needn't upset
pessimists.
Office
Slave – our new column for the Guardian newspaper.
Regulars:
News – The
latest stories overlooked by the mainstream media.
Diary of
Distractions – Our media diary/blog.
Rant – Short,
topical, opinionated pieces. Regularly updated.
Newsletter – Our
free monthly email newsletter. The latest news, reviews and
notifications of website updates. Subscribe now...
FAQ /
Contact
Details – Background info on Anxiety Culture.
Lazy Person’s
Guide to Power – Our 200-page ebook is available to download
when you make a small donation.
Amusement Arcade:
Propaganda
Gallery – Large collection (50+ pages) of designs for stickers,
posters and postcards. High quality images – for printing.
Family Values
Generator – Randomly generates the tender, caring environment
of a stable family upbringing. Well, not quite.
Zombie Plus
Loyalty Card – Shopping for the undead, with our all-purpose
loyalty card. Get yours here now! Genuine plastic.
Jokes – This
week: jokes about radio show subversion, how to sack people, 10
things not to say to the police, and more.
Are You
Moral? – Try our quiz to see if you’re "morally correct".
Control Systems:
The Guilt
System – Your hidden, unresolved guilt makes you vulnerable.
How to undo it.
The
Distraction System – Society turns focused people into
distracted automatons. Hedonistic focus to the
rescue.
The Consumer-anxiety
System – How our economy depends on consumer anxiety.
The
Disapproval System – How advertisers and propagandists exploit
our fear of disapproval.
The Inner
Dictator – Think bad things and be unreasonably happy.
Controlled by
Words – Certain words function as social
control-mechanisms. You can easily identify
them...
The Metaphysical
System – Unsuspected metaphysical beliefs control us, until we
become aware of them.
The Propaganda
System – Semantic propaganda, and how to defend yourself
against it.
Empire of
Emotion – Emotion as a sold commodity, and as a social control
system. Who is pushing your emotional buttons?
Anti-Perspectivism
– How ruling authorities depend on "absolute truths" to control
people. And how they misrepresent "relativism".
How to
Stupidise People – Prevent yourself from being
stupidised!
Media-related:
BBC's
misleading crime headlines – We noticed a pattern of crime
misreporting on BBC News Online – a consistent
cherry-picking of "rises" in crime (which often weren't rises at
all).
Dialogue with
BBC's Mark Easton (on crime
reporting) – Our recent correspondence with the BBC
reporter about scaremongering BBC crime reports.
Web
Witch-hunts – An unpleasant new phenomenon. This article
approaches the subject via Marshall McLuhan's "the medium is the
message" and Nietzsche's views on "morality".
Subversive
Stats – A collection of statistics for refuting common media
fallacies.
8,000 years
of anti-social behaviour – Puts the current scare over "yobs"
into perspective. Includes some great quotes from the distant past
about moral decline.
Crime Fixation
Watch – On media exaggeration of crime. Featuring
Scaremonger Watch, Terrorist Watch, CCTV Watch
& Citizen Watch.
Media
scaremongering on crime – Update on how crime rates are
distorted by the media.
Naivety TV –
Has TV news disappeared up its own “sophisticated” backside? We
pose some big, “naive”, childlike questions.
NSPCO – National Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty in Offices. Our spoof charity
site.
Letters to
Newspapers – A lazy person’s guide to getting unconventional
views published.
Survey Questions
Outrage – How pollsters slant their questions to get results
fit for tabloid sensationalism. Exclusive!
Fear of Food
– media scaremongering on issues relating to food.
Originally published in the Idler's food issue.
Miscellaneous:
Today's Sermon
II – On how to distinguish between absolute blame and
practical blame, to avoid hysterical blaming frenzies.
Stress
contagion – short article on the infectiousness of
stress/anxiety, and how best to avoid it.
Motivation
Seminar – Motivating the herd: a power-talk by our CEO.
Originally printed in Sleaze magazine.
Scheme for Full
Employment – Well, sort of...
Office Rat
Maze – The psychological control of employees. Originally
printed in the Idler.
Belief
Manipulation – Useful information about belief systems, “common
sense”, Naive Realism and feeling good.
Stupid,
Pointless Jobs – the growth of pointless jobs. If you thought
full employment was a good thing, think again.
Is Work Bad for
You? – 60% of UK employees dislike their jobs and find their
work pointless.
Clare Voyens ~
Anxiety Aunt – We’ve commissioned this famous TV sex therapist
to answer your personal problems. She also lets you in on the
secrets of sex in advertising!
Sadism in High
Places – Sadism, slavery, the ruling class, authoritarian
society, Original Sin and the Queen of England’s
pheasant-strangling exploits. By Clare Voyens.
Repeating
Thought Loops – Change your mind.
Creating
Anxiety-Free Zones – Desirable, unhealthy, antisocial escapes
from reality are good for you when indulged in excessively.
Irony Deficit
– Appreciation of irony is falling rapidly amongst the older age
groups. Daily Mail readers are particularly badly
affected.
Household
Debt & Bank Rip-offs – How banks profit from the poor, the
low-paid and the financially desperate.
Debt Trap –
The high level of consumer debt, and how debt functions as a social
control mechanism.
Book
Review – Critical review of Steven Pinker's The Blank
Slate.
Bullied by
Corporate Finks – We use the word "caution" in a T-shirt
design. A designer-clothing brand says we infringe their
trademark.
Extended Articles:
Bluffer's
Guide to Revolutionary Economics – Capitalism & socialism
aren't the only options. How to bluff expertise on the
alternatives.
Guía para el
economista inconformista – Spanish version of above.
The Bureaucracy
Curse – Bureaucracy and the taboo of complaining. Originally
printed in the Idler.
Anxiety
Attack – Article on the philosophy behind Anxiety
Culture. Originally printed in the Idler and later
reprinted by The Guardian.
Capitalism
Crib-Sheet – A leaflet (double-sided A4 sheet – needs Adobe
Acrobat to view and print) which is useful for rebutting all
those tired old clichés about the so-called “free market”.
The Puritan
Work Ethic – Spend a day in bed.
The Beginning
of the End of Work – 75% of work can be automated (which could
be a good thing).
A
Critical Path Primer – Our easy-to-follow guide on
Buckminster Fuller's acclaimed and important book.
Obsolete
Free-Market Metaphors – The “free” market seems like a myth.
Monopoly anyone? |