Diversion of hatred
“If you hate a person, you hate something in him that is a part of yourself. What isn’t part of ourselves doesn’t disturb us.”
Herman Hesse
It is difficult for the average moral human to engage in a process so brutal as war without harboring a deep seeded animus towards their adversary. A soldier, or a citizen for that matter, in order to quell their impending cognitive dissonance, is inclined to believe any piece of information that testifies to the evil of the enemy, thus justifying their contempt. War requires hate, it would appear, so an effective psychological tactic is to divert the hate of your enemy’s citizenry away from you and toward another target, often their very own.
We love to project our inner demons onto other people. Better them than us. This is an instinct that can be manipulated by psychological forces. Speaking strictly strategically, directing our ire at our opponent is advantageous. But the waters get murky when we consider the sins of our own side. Very few hands are totally clean in warfare. If your opponent can get you doubting your own moral high ground, or that of your allies, then these are the first steps that lead to division and defeat.
In World War I, Germans attempted to stoke the flames of past conflicts between Great Britain and France, suggesting that the British were letting the French take the brunt of the casualties. In retribution the British sent messages to German citizens stating that Austria-Hungary was hoarding food while the German citizenry starved. A century later, I cannot, or rather do not feel like, verifying the level to which either of those claims are true and for our purposes it almost doesn’t matter. When you are in a stressfully dire situation like war and starvation, how susceptible might you be to the suggestion that someone out there is screwing you? How willing might you be to risk your life in battle while those damned Austrian-Hungarians are living the high life? This may have been a case of white propaganda or the darkest shade of grey but if it moves at least a few of your opponents away from hating you and towards hating their supposed ally, one could argue that it is a worthwhile strategy.
How much of a stretch is it to suggest that elites do not bear nearly the same costs of war than do the working class? If I want to discourage and divide my enemy and divert their hatred away from me, I can use the fact that the majority of the fighting, and killing, and dying is done by folks who “ain’t no senator’s son.” The Vietnam War was probably the first war fought by Americans in which the veterans did not return home as heroes in the eyes of a lot of the public like in previous generations. I think the increase in post-traumatic stress with Vietnam vets is partially due to this cultural shift. Not only did they see, and do, and experience horrible acts, but they were rejected by a large portion of the public when they returned. It was all for nothing. It should be noted, and will be in further detail later in this book, that there was plenty of villainry perpetrated by the American military against the people of Vietnam, so it didn’t take much, if any dishonest reporting to paint American forces in an unfavourable light. All of this is to say that a disproportionate amount of lower class young men were sent to the jungle to fight and kill and die for a war that didn’t end up solving much of anything. Anti-war rhetoric in the late 60’s and early 70’s was convincing and eventually successful in ending the war and turning a large portion of American citizens against their own forces.
Any anti-war/peace movement is likely to be supported at least to some extent by one’s adversary. Stanislav Lunev, the highest ranking Soviet defector to the United States, writes that “the GRU and KGB helped to fund just about every antiwar movement and organization in America and abroad.” Perhaps Jane Fonda wasn’t directly paid by GRU agents but if you are volunteering for an organization whose mission you fully support, you aren’t as likely to care about where they get their funding. How closely are you really going to scrutinize their books?
In our present day, after failed missions in Afghanistan and Iraq, or perhaps more importantly, the press’ depiction of those failed missions, Americans and Canadians of my generation are not so enthused anymore about being the world’s policemen. And then when a 20th century style villain emerges in the form of Vladimir Putin, a lot of people my age are not as eager to intervene. It is as if Putin was betting that today’s Western young men were not going to be willing to enlist in the army just to save Ukraine, and then slipping in something like, “hey aren’t those Ukrainians harboring Nazi sympathizers anyway?” Reducing sympathy enough to keep the West out of his business. All of this, largely due to a zeitgeist that no longer honours warriors because a) we haven’t had to, nor has most generations alive had to, and b) we are no longer certain of our moral high ground.
In today’s America you will find just as many people who believe that America is the world’s worst evil as you would those who believe in its exceptional greatness. Propaganda has effectively diverted young Americans’ hatred towards themselves. And once again, this is not a judgment on what is right or wrong morally. It’s rather an observation of how it is and who might be benefiting and orchestrating such a drastic change in opinion.
Thank you for reading so far. Here is the outline of the manuscript for the book so you can keep track of where you are.
Introduction
Defence against Psyops
What are PsyOps?
What makes us marks?
The power of narratives
Who is behind it?
Kayfabe
Psychological Operations
Propaganda
Diversion of hatred (you are here)
Character assassination
Re-education
Cults
False flags/agent provocateur
Totalitarian regimes
Menticide
Defence
Principled insubordination
The Culture Wars
Ideological possession
Cancel Culture
Postmodernism
Profanity
MAGAstan vs. WOKEistan
Religious Zealotry
Heroes and villains
The Defence
The 21st Century Hero
The Responsibility of Freedom of Speech
Ridicule and Humour
Parallel Polis
Art and doubt
The Information Wars
Political Polarization
Corporate Media
Big Tech and the Post-Truth World
Noise vs Signal
“Woke”Journalism
Hate Hoaxes and victimhood
Collective ADHD
Advertisers
Defence
News/Media Diet
Critical Consuming
Rhetoric
The Slow burn
The Psychological Wars
Bullying
Gaslighting
Shame and isolation
Social contagion/Moral Panic
Safetyism
Social Media and human downgrading
The Meaning Crisis
Defence
Know Thyself
Be Wise
Stoicism
Psychological Immunity
Antifragility
Be Kind
Live Well
Conclusion