Hypnotizability

Hypnotism is an interesting phenomenon in the sense that it's something that I am utterly appalled at which others see as no big deal. Hypnotism is to me much like a multiple car pileup is to other people. What makes it even more app umm "interesting" is that its fans yammer on about how thinking you can resist hypnotism isn't the same thing as resisting hypnotism. And this is correct in a trivial way, but I'll show why it should be false.

The subjective experience of hypnotism is that you're 'going along' with the hypnotist's suggestions of your own free will. Not that your will is being overridden or any such childish nonsense. No, you're just "going along". Kinda like the torturers in Milgram's Obedience Experiment were "just going along" with the dictates of the emotionless researcher who was commanding them to torture someone, even past the point of inflicting lasting harm.

Now this is rather interesting because it means I'm totally immune to hypnotism. Not because I'm going to "resist" it or because "my will is too strong" or any crap like that. But for the simple reason that the whole process fucking appalls me. The reason I can resist a hypnotist is because I'm never going to sit on a hypnotist's couch. The whole notion of obeying someone without question appalls me. Hell, if given a few minutes to think about it, I don't even follow up on my own promises if the circumstances change to the point where they're a really bad idea. Not only do I decide things for myself but I decide again and again.

And given what this ties into, the horrific Obedience Experiment, we would live in a much better world if fewer people "went along" with others. If they just decided things for themselves. Perhaps the reason this is such a poor world is because they don't have the mental capacity to do this. After all, if people are incapable of realizing that this world sucks and is horrific, why should they realize that their torturing someone is wrong?