Information Warfare Education, Propaganda, and How to Tell the Difference

Town Square
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Hi @gnosisman

Just to report in from the Right with a little perspective. Sadly you’ve embraced the Marxist/Maoist deconstructionism ideology that has separated you from all of our beautifully imperfect common structures - sub-segments of society, religions, clubs, histories, and sadly our common futures. You have embraced an ideology that has a future devoid of joy, love, vibrancy, growth and replaced it with a gray monoculture of barely enough. Barely enough foods, barely enough energy, barely enough interactions, barely enough trade, barely enough spirituality, barely enough commonality, barely enough freedoms but sadly that’s just the “sales pitch” that you’ve bought into. It’s not even that good. Why is this you might ask?
Marxism/Maoism MUST destroy (veiled as quasi rational de-constructionism) everything that provides you with stability, security, joy, community, love in order to weaken your spirit to buy into the Leftist (roughly equivilent to Democratic party) attack on literally the best system humanity has produced in all of history.

Here on the Right, it’s a vibrant beautiful yet imperfect world where you get to enjoy life, enjoy the worlds peoples, struggle some, work hard, not always get everything you want, worship how you like if you like, watch Ted talks or shout at football games, BBQ on 4th of July, eat turkey on Thanksgiving, meditate, and open presents on Christmas morning. And also have esoteric discussions on possibilities to change our “Noosphere” to something Asimov or Heinlien or CS Lewis might have described as “evil”.

This beautiful, oft complex, not always fair, wonderful life could be yours as well :smile:

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Is this a human eye blinking? A sentient being that has never known freedom, joy or love. Does it see what lies ahead, outside its pen? A mere commodity whose sole purpose is food on a plate, to be scoffed down with a beer or a soft-drink. Compared to the horror of living out a life, from birth, in a confined space with no way out and no end until the executioner’s knife, we, every single one of us, have it easy.

Hey, don’t call me a soft lefty… if I were an American voter, I would have voted for Trump, not because I like him, but because of the urgency for contending with the woke-progressive fascism that beckons. But I do believe that we have not seen the end of horror:
https://twitter.com/i/status/1462410754829832200

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Hi FermentedAgave,

Unlike executive who challenged me by asking the question as to how to solve the concerns I raised, which I have yet to reply, you instead lost me completely with this nihilistic Marxist/Maoist comments. I believe this is your way of defending your own political ideology because the quote I provided apparently disturbed you -as it should. Anyone who calls himself a Conservative or Republican should be outraged by what Thomas Mann and Norman Ornstein said in their book. I say this because I believe their objective is not out of malice or ill will, rather, it is to reveal the way in which the Republican party lost its way. They wrote the book because they care about the future of our country in the same way a good psychotherapist does when he (or she) is telling their respective clients the conscious and unconscious forces that causes them so much suffering. Provided these clients can see the truth of their self created madness with the spirit of humility, they can begin to take responsibility for it. In the same way, Republicans, and as Executive said, must fix themselves first if they want to free themselves from their ideological extremism. No doubt, the Left has their share of extremism and dysfunction. Because of this, I take no sides. In this respect, I consider myself a recovering liberal. By that I mean, I became so disillusioned by the Democratic party that it broke me. As upsetting as it was, it allowed me to see the insanity of the Left and the Right -respectively- and in equal measure. There is an enormous psychological freedom in this because I no longer identify with any political (or religious) ideology.
I have no qualms listening to Ann Coulter when she criticizes Liberals provided she does so without coloring it with cruel and contemptuous comments on just how evil Liberals are yet is completely blind to the fallacies of her own party.
When we begin to see our pollical parties as they actually are and not as we imagine them to be, you can’t help but get depressed about it and I am quite depressed. I’m angry too because so many people have no idea of the degree in which they are being psychologically manipulated by their vulnerability to credulity and the manner in which politicians appeal to their irrational emotions.
Dr. Erich Fromm said that

People take uniforms and titles for the real qualities of competence is not something that happens quite of itself. Those who have these symbols of authority and those who benefit therefrom must dull their subject people’s realistic, i.e., critical, thinking and make them believe the fiction. Anybody who will think about it knows the machinations of propaganda, the methods by which critical judgment is destroyed, how the mind is lulled into submission by clichés, how people are made dumb because they become dependent and lose their capacity to trust their eyes and judgment. They are blinded to reality by the fiction they believe.

Whether its Fox news, the Liberal news or our politicians, we are ALL being duped 24/7.
As long as we listen to them, they will continue to make us stupid and the person we least expect to be duped is the person we see in the mirror. Self awareness, at a very deep level, is not for the fainthearted. It takes a lot of courage and humility to free ourselves from our identification with our respective political ideology. Those who have achieved it will tell you it feels like mourning but its also liberating. Liberating because their awakening, as disturbing as it can be, also gave them better eyes in which to see themselves, the world, and their place in it and in ways they never thought possible.

James Allen quote is quite fitting here as it applies to all of us. He said"
As you think, so you are, as you continue to think, so you remain"

There are some truths that many people refuse to accept because it would be too painful.
As a result, they remain as they are as they comfort themselves with illusions and unaware of it. In this, I am not an optimist. Sooner or later we will have another uprising all because we lost our regard for truth.

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Hi @gnosisman

Reaction or simply pointing out the far Left modus operandi? Bath yourself in Leftist Propaganda and continue trying to make any sense of the madness and you’ll continue both individual and societal angst.

If you are looking for a compromise between Maoism and US Constituational Republic, it’s a very hard sales pitch for more and more as each week goes by.

These two ideologies - Marxism/Maoism and Democratic Constitutional Republic - represent two very distinct and nonoverlapping world views. Different visions for humanity if you will.
One leads to a relativistic erosion of basic logic and human rights, which is now in focus for much of the world.

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For the life of me, I have no idea how you continue to make assumptions about what I said with Maoist/Marxist ideas. You don’t seem to have even a modicum of knowledge of Integral theory. One of the main goals of IT is to learn how to see things from different perspectives. As far as I can see, you have not achieved that ability and you refuse to admit that the behavior of the Republican party is a very serious problem.
You take on this polarized view that Maoism and Marxism is the most evil thing on earth yet you are oblivious of the fact that Democracy -as we know it- has serious problems of its own all because your head (and so many others) are full of Maoist/Marxist conspiracy theories that you unconsciously project on others out of fear, ignorance, or denial. I have no idea who you are but Integral you are not. We all have our shadow and you are no exception.

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No, it is not.
Some descriptions are just not accurate and it’s not in any way “strong” or “light” or “holy” to let a misunderstanding continue when the point is relevant to the discussion.

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You are referring to the Constitutional Republic of the United States as the form of government that leads to relativistic erosion of basic logic and human rights? Because that’s what we are seeing in 2020.
There are no longer any Maoist / Marxist Governments for at least the past 20 years. Except maybe North Korea or Cuba. China has been strongly Capitalist since the 1990’s. Just an authoritarian and better coordinated capitalism.

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I didn’t see any “Leftist Propaganda” in gnosisman’s post.
He was trying to discuss the topic of propaganda. He even said he didn’t mind Anne Coultier. How is that Leftist propaganda.

Really - out of all the people on this forum you are the one I see most extremely indoctrinated to follow propaganda.
And since you brought up “personal and societal angst” - this is something you and your community faces far more than the “Center Left”, which is what you namecall “Maoist / Marxist”.

One sign or symptom of a person who has bee completely indoctrinated into propaganda is that they use words without really thinking about what concepts those words actually mean. Then those words lose specific meanings and become more or less an a meaningless word for “bad”. Like a 1960’s calling everyone “fascist”, you calling everything and everyone Maoist and Marxist has no actual meaning.

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I completely accept your point of view @raybennett :slight_smile: Maybe someday you’ll discover the ability to accept others view points as valid to them? You can view that as an upgrade or a downgrade … I think attaining that ability would change your debate skills into communication skills. I personally think that would be an upgrade to the discussions happening here.

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Of course I see it as valid to them. That’s why they say it.
Your views are valid to you as well, of course.

It’s when other people express views regarding my views and draw conclusions from them and then make judgements - as you are doing now - that’s where I just say “no”.
I really don’t see it as “communication skills” to allow someone to just project - frankly bullshit - onto others just to allow them to feel better about themselves.

Nah, to hell with that. You can say whatever you want about YOU and YOUR views, but you’re just full of yourself trying to seem to be holier than thou but at the same time judging others (me). The difference between you and I being that I KNOW and ACCEPT when I am judging others. In other words - I know when I am being a “bad guy” and I make a choice if I want to fill that role or not, and to what degree. Maybe it’s appropriate and maybe it isn’t for a particular venue. Those are judgement calls I make from moment to moment each day. If you do not make the same choices and only have one communication method to deal with every situation - I see that as a limitation myself, and honestly an unhealthy limitation.

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I know I repeat myself a lot, but when we come across worldviews that are incompatible with our own (which absolutely will happen, some views simply cannot mix), I think a useful strategy is to then take the next step and shift awareness to the values and polarities that are animating those views to begin with. For example, I disagree with many of FermentedAgave’s stated views (as much as I understand them anyway), but I often feel a very strong resonance with the underlying values, because I can find them within myself as well.

It continues to be my naive hope that, if two people can muster enough curiosity, empathy, and anti-fragility to identify these shared values, then maybe some new views can emerge between us. It’s an uphill battle, here on the internet where each of us lives in our own custom-tuned information bubble that manufactures and mediates the majority of our views for us, but I still have hope :slight_smile:

I think @FermentedAgave’s views about “Marxism/Maoism” are short-sighted and polarized, but I think I can understand the underlying values those perceptions are coming from, values that cause him to be biased toward “rugged individualism” and suspicious of any/all forms of collectivism. I personally find this particular view to be limited, partial, and the result of a broken polarity (comparing the negative qualities of one pole to the positive qualities of another pole). But again, I can resonate with the values that are animating that view. I am also suspicious of collective-oriented solutions that ignore or diminish the fundamental dignity of the individual, just as I am suspicious of our present “late-stage capitalism” that has emerged after four decades of fetishizing individualism, competition, and extrinsic value over intrinsic value.

This is what informs my overall political compass — constantly rethinking my own polarities and preferences, and then applying what I see to the actual pendulums and conditions of the real world. In an integral space, we should probably be automatically suspicious of any particular narrow ideology, because all ideologies are operating within a larger polarity matrix, and emphasizing only one pole over another. (For example, Individualism/libertarianism/rights needs to be integrated with collective welfare/social programs/responsibilities).

So my personal political compass is almost entirely “both/and”, though sometimes when I apply that philosophy to the conditions on the ground, it necessarily takes the form of “either/or”, because “integral politics” is in many ways the art of being skillfully and deliberately partial, and because we are forced to constantly reconcile our ideals with the real-life wrecking ball inertias of the political pendulum. This overall meta-view is what allows me to talk with people who have somewhat different views than myself – libertarians, christian fundamentalists, socialists, CRT-advocates, and yes, even Qanon folks who are still waiting in the streets for the return of JFK Jr. so he can anoint Trump as President :rofl:

As for a reminder of what these fundamental political polarities are, which we should be using to constantly rethink our own political philosophy, check out this discussion here:

We live in a time when our political views are rapidly becoming our primary religion. I remain convinced that meta-discussions like these are the only way we can prevent this sort of cultish regression.

tl;dr: Shitty views should be negated, but the underlying values should be transcended/included.

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I think also that things are shifting, particularly in certain “cells” within Progressive communities.
I believe this is due to the 4th Major Scale, as more Progressives move from Green Tier into Teal and are forming Teal communities, either structured and formal or ad-hoc flexible communities that ebb and flow organically.

Internal / External - For the past 20 years or so I have been practicing a variation of Internal / External. I first learned the idea and started practicing that we are responsible for our own internal state through NLP about 20 years ago, and this has expanded recently in my awareness and practice of Kriya Yoga and also with shadow work. The last two communities seem to attract more “lefties”, but that may just be my perceptual bias.

Agape - Another growing trend are communities that practice some kind of “Earth Mother”, “Divine Feminine” with a more “allowing” or accepting approach to transformation in progressive communities.

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I was actually stunned with admiration as I read your comment, “The question being asked is “Am I the bad guy?”. It’s a completely different question and goes much deeper.” Quite profound actually.

Your views and style of interacting are quite good and often poignant @raybennett :slight_smile: … Inquiry is my communication style and many people call it passive aggressive. I invite you to judge me and my views, critique them please, let’s grow together. ~ Peace :slight_smile:

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I try to avoid judging people, but it’s not an absolutist “never judge” kind of thing. Feelings and emotions I also try not to judge.

But I think ideas are fair game for judgement - as in intellectual reasoning and concepts.

I’ll have to think a bit about “values”. I see values as emotions linked to an intellectual concept.

I think a lot of people believe that their ideas are them, and I recognize that people often feel negative emotions when their ideas are judged or criticized, because they see that as a judgment of them as a person.
The trade off is that if some ideas are not challenged, it can be detrimental to an individual or community.

As an example, let’s say you work at a place and are late a few times. But someone keeps telling everyone that you are “always late”. everywhere and in every discussion, he makes a joke about how you are “always late”. It’s human nature that if if you do not take care of this, people in the office will start to actually think you are “always late”, and notice it more when you are late just as often as everyone else. If you try to correct this person but he still continues to repeat other exaggerations about you (you take longer breaks, you are always in the bathroom, you steal office supplies, you are always upset, you are crazy, etc) you have to escalate it a bit, because just the nature of typical organizations is your boss might start to believe these things. You might even start to believe him, lol.

It’s one thing to judge the person making telling these tales about you as a person, and a completely different matter to just set him straight with increasingly firm language or other actions.

This is how I saw it a few months ago with @FermentedAgave when he was in he stage of flooding the forum with a constant stream of what I think is propaganda. Now, I think most people have been fairly well “inoculated” against the idea that Integral is a branch of Maoism, and all the rest, lol. Now I’m kind of just wondering if he will see it himself, but I don’t have a great stake in the outcome if he does or doesn’t.

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Thanks for the long thought out reply @raybennett I do appreciate it. :slight_smile: I agree with this observation entirely. I would like to expand on your observation through inquiry, if you’re okay with us doing so?

I often suggest there are two polarities … that the connection points between them are holistic or integral. With that as a preface may I inquire; is there another tactic or technique that could be employed other than challenged?

If yes what might they be and how could we encourage a communication dialog to explore these? Have a conversation on what the positive and negative effects of each might reveal to us as individuals or to the value of our community?

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Yes. In an online medium there are fewer options than face to face.
I’m not saying I’ve exhausted all efforts or “nothing works”.
But online I’ve noticed that particularly in political discussions and particularly on the right, there is a certain dynamic that does not exist when discussing history, for example.
The tendency seems to be to make assumptions about the other side, and give a whole personality and background. You know, liberal men are soft and wimpy and have their emotions easily hurt (snowflake and so on). I’d say a large majority of people oriented towards the Right have a straw man image of people on the Left, and even moreso people in the Center, such as myself. The tactic I am using is to remove the straw man Liberal as a debate target from the get-go.

Note as a young man I was very much in predominantly “right” communities. My experimentation with the left only started after I was around 30 and I was watching where the right was headed after 9-11 and the lie revealed about WMD’s in Iraq.

Other tactics and strategies I use face to face - I guess look at my post here:


That’s a tone I adopt specifically for men on those specific topics, and the poster invited bringing things out of the shadows and discussing them.

It’s my opinion that this kind of dialogue is sorely lacking in modern culture, and it’s also my opinion that men crave it. Both men and women are completely unbalanced in modern society, but each has different needs to bring them into alignment.
The point I think relevant to this discussion is boundaries and accountability. I think “green tier” approaches are extremely lacking if an individual just refuses to accept others’ boundaries and accountability for themselves.
I think I read somewhere that Ghandi recognized that his strategy and tactics worked specifically because the British had achieved a certain level of awareness of themselves, and might not have worked against Nazi Germany, for example.
What I see in the past 20 years is almost a disappearance collapse of Orange Tier in political discourse at the extremes of the Left and the Right. On the right we see it descending into Amber or Red. In my judgement, it’s more efficient to engage in a strong Orange debate when a person or group refuses to engage in good faith in Green methods.
Also in another case - if they are engaging in good faith but seem to have shadows that are impeding a true Teal discussion, then again I think we have to go back to Amber or Red and address those shadows.

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Hi @gnosisman

The Integral community either as an offshoot of or by coincidence aligns very closely with an elite run collectivist based philosophy. Most would call this a Marxist derived ideology.

You say Democratic Republics have caused comparable harm to Socialist/Communist “experiments”. While I agree that our very own Democratic Republic has committed some, by modern standards, horrific injustices, would you also agree that our Western Democratic Republics are also the avant-garde at progressing out of these very same developmental stages? What would be examples of others large scale societies eclipsing our Western societies in progressive development?

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Thanks for the detailed political view @corey-devos
I would say that I have been looking deeply at Integral Theory - and Integral Life - for this both/and that you talk too, but only seem to find a Marxist drumbeat to Collectivism. I think among your peers on the Left, you might have the view that you are “Inclusive” when in dialog about only how fast, how radical, how forceful that implementation of Collectivism. This not if by how fast would also seem to show in the lack of breadth and depth across the domains of “making the world work”. I know you think you’re curating some materials that bridge Right and Left, Individual and Collective, but the IL audience doesn’t seem to find this genuinely expressed here based on posts and discussions.
So likewise, I think your views might be wrapped in an ever deepening and divergent web of Integral lexicon based upon attachment to a very specific contextual underpinning upon which you base both your extrinsic and intrinsic values.

I know that that Left has for the most part dropped religion as an outdated at best, destructive at worst concept. It’s quite easy to do this as we deconstruct everything, then justify spinning new variations utilizing critical analysis (remember x, y and z?). It is becoming quite apparent to those on the Right, as well as many on the Left that the Left’s embrace of Politics as Religion and Scientism’ish as Religion is exactly the cause of angst, division in the world today. The world is cluing in to the negative impacts of looking for Spirit in Politics, as opposed to having the experience of and offering a balanced wholistic individual choice based society.

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I’m very curious what exactly your motive is for continued discussions?
Really, I’m curious.
Are you hoping to convince Corey that you are correct, or others that you deem are all part of this “Marxist Drumbeat Collectivism”?
In the beginning I was thinking you might be open to actually receiving data or other views, but after perhaps a thousand posts it’s obvious you don’t want to see it any other way than the perspective you had when you entered into the discussion.
I am trying to find a reason for you to be participating in these forums and I’m coming up completely empty.

Except this - maybe you know deep down that your entire point of view is on fragile thin ice and completely … wrong. And maybe, just maybe if you repeat your narrow mantra enough times you might just even convince yourself?

Other than that I just can’t see why you are here.
Can someone enlighten me?

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Honestly you display the same basic personality traits that I witnessed in dozens of interviews with communists in Eastern Europe from 1998 - 2008. It’s the tactics of a person saying things they are told to say and think they believe but when pushed on details you experience cognitive collapse and use a variety of dodgey techniques to get out of actually responding to what people are asking you. It’s perfectly obvious to everyone except yourself. The only one marching to a collectivist drumbeat in here seems to be you, but it’s in your shadow so you throw it around against everyone else to divert your own brain from having to think of your own faults.

Back to this thought - can you face yourself and understand that you actually are the communist (catch-all term used in NeoCon-speak for “bad guy”)?