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| Constant Mayer: Recognition: North and South |
All wars begin with words.
You want to destroy a society? Attack the meaning of their words. Insinuate that words don't really mean what people think they mean. Tip the axis of human communication on its head. Use wordsmithery to craft new words that place a positive spin on things previously considered sinful or unacceptable.
Distort the meaning of their words and you'll twist their worlds at the same time. Conflate some words so that they mean more than what they should and tear down others so that they mean less than they should.
You want to brand a person as "evil"? Simple, really. Assign evil intent to their words and actions. Instead of calling them "pro-life" call them "anti-choice". Imply that their acts of goodness are inherently evil and against "love". Impute guilt where there is no guilt so that the person begins to have difficulty trusting in his ability to discern what is of value and what is not. You want to disfigure truth by making it unrecognizable. Better to unravel the meaning of it than an attempt to destroy it directly. No one would be dumb enough to fall for that. At least not at first.
A man is not going to march directly onto the path of evil if he clearly recognizes that thing as bad, horrible, destructive. No, no, you have to deceive him first and make him believe he is working for "the good team". Once man is deceived he's very malleable and you can use him as you will.
Consider abortion. Abortion didn't really become "acceptable" until the humanity of the baby was first called into question. It's a lot easier to kill something that's just "a blob of cells", isn't it? It's a heck of a lot more difficult to kill something called "a baby".
Call lust -"free love". Call euthanasia -"mercy killing". Spin. Spin. Spin. Call those who disagree with your values, "haters". If possible, attempt to aim your word bombs directly at the person. Remember your ultimate goal is to destroy reputations and distort truth because the nature of truth itself is such an integral part of the human spirit that, ultimately, it cannot be fully destroyed. It can only be disarmed. Disarmed by the destruction of the person holding truth as his weapon, not the destruction of the weapon itself. Weapons are useless if they cannot be wielded . You must focus on invalidating the person if you can't invalidate the argument.
Your most powerful weapon is the understanding that human beings can handle all kinds of hardship but they can never accept being tagged as evil. So, your greatest weapon is to ascribe evil to good acts and assign righteousness to evil acts. This is simply the only way to destroy the human spirit. The innate goodness of humanity insists upon this. If not, they will just rise up stronger than ever.
All humans long to be accepted by others. Destroy this predilection for unity by the creation and promotion of many, many different groups and then make sure those initiated into it kowtow to the "group think" therein. Do not, under any circumstances, allow any diversion away from the norms set before the group. Immediately put the dissenter in his place by threatening to withhold your approval of him as a human being. That works far more quickly than addressing the behavior itself.
Don't allow interaction with those who think differently. Make it so they are afraid to communicate with each other. Work to create a "walk on eggshells" culture by the consistent and forceful application of labels such as "misogynist", "racist", and the like, even if the dissenter's argument is valid. And if you can't get others to join with you, shame them into agreement.
You can't directly attack the truths that all cultures have held close to their hearts for thousands of years so you must first distort those truths that they hold so dear. Start by gently insisting that many of their truths are subjective and not objective. "Your truths are not my truths, dear." Sway the court of public opinion by appealing to their emotions instead of sound reason. Impute guilt by assigning evil motives to all those who oppose you.
Destroy their heroes and give them anti-heroes instead. Make them think the courageous - "loud and obnoxious" and the insipid - "peaceful and humble". Turn their virtues upside down and society will turn upside down with it.
But remember, it's not always strictly necessary to require the complete capitulation to a cause for it to prevail.
Sometimes, simply purchasing the silence of the majority is enough.
It is hard for many in the free world to believe that there are not only bad men, but evil men. Bad men steal, rape, ravage and plunder. Evil men may not always do these things, but they seek to destroy goodness, virtue, morality, decency, truth and honor. Bad men who steal admit honesty; evil men who do not steal, call dishonesty "honesty," totalitarianism "democracy," slavery "freedom." Evil men can be nice at table, polite with women, courteous in Washington, refined in London and calm in Geneva.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen