Nobody is perfect, we all have blind spots no matter who we are. That begs the question: Why for some their statements are graded on a curve and others enabled?
Double standards and cognitive dissidence
We all have biases. For this article, a bias is defined as a predisposition to lean towards or against something or someone we favor and oppose something or something we disfavor. You are welcome to use another dictionary definition that is more comprehensive. My intent is to start with a baseline and stating the reality that we all have a bias, it is human nature.
However, getting controlled by said bias, that is a different story. To prevent bias exploitation, we need critical thinking be combined with intellectual honesty. Because that way we can learn to compartmentalize that part of us and remain as objective as possible. For example, a very religious person who conducts scientific processes that contradict their doctrine. That person has the right to continue believing whatever he or she wants but does not have the right to use simple conjecture or belief as a basis for their research. Hope this makes sense.
And I use a religious example because this tends to be the one bias people wrestle with the most. Why? Because religion, whichever one of the 4,000+ that have ever existed, creates a visceral response that can become that “red line” people won’t cross when it comes to severe scrutiny. Never mind that they will feel compelled to scrutinize all the other 3,999+ religions out there with a fine-tooth comb if the circumstances present themselves, but their own faith tends to remain sacred and off limits.
When it comes to authoritarian propaganda, a similar reality occurs with any other bias that has a deep connection with the individual, and generally also with the community surrounding that individual. As many societies expanded and created a group of their like-minded folk, the differences with many outsides also start becoming more pronounced. Some rituals, traditions, and several cultural traits developed to galvanize that unity. Nothing wrong with that.
A micro-scale example to illustrate this could be our own families. Many of us have some quirks, inside jokes, games, traditions, etc., that are very unique to our own households. For example, my wife, daughter, and I have our own little fun inside jokes we enjoy. But also, when I was growing up as the kid in my household, my mother and my siblings had other inside jokes that were commonplace back then. And yes, some of those inside jokes no longer exist on our daily lives, because we all have our own separate lives as adults – though we might reminisce about them once in a while.
On a larger scale of societal structure, for example a village, the amalgamation of traditions, inside jokes, quirks, language, etc., will be of course a lot more complex. Sadly, this like any other virtue or flaw can be weaponized by opportunistic entities. This level of control won’t privy the general population as of its occurrence. In other words, a scammer won’t be placing a billboard announcing “hey, I’m gonna scam this entire town on date such and such, come over and get scammed, all ages welcome.” Scams tend to be discrete and palatable, but not always.
The best way to normalize a dissident behavior is in plain sight. Sure, that it might have some shock value at first, and many will condemn such action. But the opportunistic swindler is likely to double down and something surprising occurs… an obvious lie starts to gain the same benefit of the doubt as the truth – in the eyes of some, and if it goes long enough, the truth becomes as the “dubious” event, while the lie gets propped as fact – when its reality is a falsehood. Let’s explore how that works.
Bias exploitation starts with the self
Yesterday I posted an article about a research experiment I conducted on Twitter about how misinformation can travel very fast, and people who could approach a person in a professional and kind manner to shed light on a blind spot, instead felt emboldened to gratuitously insult and escalate the problem, and this enticed a gang of others to join the bashing effort.
Cyberbullying research, it’s distressing
This is a long article, and is worth the read, because it goes to explore the crux of why we are so divided nowadays.
Unsurprisingly, there have been people who have not read it but felt embolden to chime in (I know because it takes 48 minutes to read and they commented in less than 5 with another insult), which in a bizarre way validates the argument I’m making on that article. Which is that people will laser beam to the part that triggers them, and ignore the rest of the context, and feel compelled to be that “warrior” with the duty to squash whomever they feel is their adversary… regardless of whether they had the entire facts or not.
Back when I was still in the Navy, when training a particular group of Sailors and Officers on being harder targets to be aware of counterintelligence and manipulation tactics, I used to issue them a special cognitive test. And this test was to see if they would want to “address” the problem guns blazing (incorrect way), or first gain context before completing the task (correct way). The test specifically asked them to read it thoroughly and “then” answer some questions.
Spoiler alert, not all the questions were meant to be answered, a lot of them were distractors, and a particular question down the line directed them to do whatever was the actual requirements. Very few followed directions, and instead wasted time chasing ghosts. However, if they would have read it as it was intended, a lot of grief would have been realized what the game was being played upon them, and be able to defeat it, by simply understanding the full context of the issue. I might post a copy of one such tests on my Patreon page in the future.
Bias exploitation does something similar. When people are having a “conversation” – if one party does not care about dialog, but just about being “right” then they won’t care if the person on the opposite side of the argument has any valid points. In other words, a lot of people hear to respond, but not listen to understand. Authoritarian propaganda fosters the former – have people just sort of “hear you” while impatiently shifting on their seat until the “trigger word” pops up, and they start spewing firepower against the other person before they understand the full context.
With this I am not saying that another person should condone falsehoods being spewed at them, or let a person say something that is demonstrably false – while putting words in their mouth. There is a fine line, and this line has been blurred more and more as we are more polarized than ever. But there is a common denominator, it's that visceral response. People who get emotional feel compelled to get argumentative before a situation is resolved. And then there is an even deeper layer.
Authoritarian propaganda is not one-dimensional. Yes, it does make people see the world in a one-dimensional manner, but propaganda is indeed a dynamic multidimensional gradient. What does that mean? It means that it is designed – at its varsity level – to be several steps ahead of the person scrutinizing it. Sure, some people are extremely naïve and will fall and drown in a very shallow pool of lies – right on step 1, but in other cases the lie might be 17 steps ahead, while the person scrutinizing it might have only figured out the jig up to step 15.
This is the level of adversarial regime state-sponsored Information Operations (IO) campaigns, which lead to psychological Operations or PSYOPS. It all starts with a bias, what makes a person tick, and what can cause a person to go from super chill sweet soul to an enraged beast defending their castle… the answer? Well, it depends on the person, each person has different trigger points. For example, some people are very easily provoked, others are so chill that they just sigh in disdain, eye roll, and go back to their business if they see no need to get involved.
Usually, I happen to be the later, but of course the geopolitical situation in the world is making it my problem now. So, it is my duty to sound the alarm any way I can. The best I can do that is through my writing, because my words travel a lot farther than I can… and fortunately, for what my readers tell me, it resonates with them, and I am very grateful it does. Hence, I continue writing. Because if my words make a difference to even one person out there, then it is worth it. Fortunately, the number is considerably higher according to my website’s analytics.
But I digress, authoritarian propaganda is meant to be complex on the onset. A redacted truth, emphasizing the parts that resonate with a particular group becomes a wide fishing net to see who gets snared. And from there, the propagandists’ next step is to gather metrics. See who are the most naïve from each crop, and what type of buzz words, talking points, merchandise, etc., seems to entice them to move, and stick around. That carrot and stick method will continue until they start demonstrating levels of attrition. For those who are leaving but could be useful fools, they will either “offer” them a more “privileged” position to see if they want to play ball to herd all the naïve followers, or if they refuse, a character assassination of some sort will follow.
That is why a lot of times when you see a controversial figure, their entourage tends to be a bunch of acolytes who are other grifters and questionable folks – but they have this “pseudo celebrity” status near the leader. And this causes the masses to think that if they are loyal enough, the dear leader will also notice them, and they too could be rubbing elbows with that crowd. They just fail to realize that that crowd does not give a damn about them, but they will take their money. And even pose with a selfie. But if you want to mingle with them, you better have deep pockets and influence.
This tribalism paired with a craving to be part of that group will cause people to feel compelled to do things outside their comfort zone. This will get eventually normalized and expected of them. For example, buying merch in support of their new leader, attending events, volunteering to insult people online, moving on to insult people on the street, be prepared to “defend” their right to insult these other folks. And so on. And in this process, they have been given up a lot of sacrifices, from the micro to the macro level. Let’s explore.
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Burning bridges in reverence of a charlatan
Like in any cult-like circumstance, the charlatan will seem larger than life to the cult-followers. Let’s use a less incendiary example to illustrate, an ex-lover who cheated on somebody who was extremely infatuated with that person. There are chances that everybody who cared for this person was giving him/her advice about how this toxic relationship was going downhill fast. And the infatuated person response was to give a middle finger to their entire support group in favor of the cheater.
The cheater might be charismatic, and the relationship will be shaky, and the infatuated person might or might not be seeing the red flags – but those get discarded with great amounts of mental gymnastics because the infatuated person has already invested so much in that relationship. “It has to work,” they refuse to accept that this was not only a waste of time, but that somebody had made fools of them. And when anybody who truly cares about them tries to help them, they burn those bridges – mercilessly, against those who want to help them.
These burned bridges could have included increased tensions at work, friction with family members, stop speaking with friends or other loved ones, spend tons of money on the cheater, gotten into financial debt to remain in the cheater’s “good graces,” probably even lost a job, moved to a different town, and so much more.
Seriously, I’ve heard some crazy stories when it comes to a bad relationship. And instead of escaping when still the worst thing that can happen is a heartbreak and eating a full pint of ice cream, some people even produce children together, and get in a toxic marriage, there might be domestic abuse, etc. In other words, their perception of a “valid course of action” to improve their situation, is because they have “invested too much "already into this toxic relationship – instead of assessing it pragmatically - they will choose to invest and sink even more resources onto it.
Eventually, one way or the other this relationship ends. Sometimes with acknowledging that everybody who cared about them was correct and truly tried to help them, despite seeing that their lives have gotten upside down until that point – others were not so lucky, and their fight to make it work ended in the person losing their life at the hands of the abusive partner. And yes, this happens every day around the world.
Something similar happens with propaganda. There is something “charming” about the charlatan, and when a person is infatuated with this politician, or swindler – they will ignore the red flags. They will tend to be extremely cynical and point any “perceived flaw” on anybody else – and use THAT as their metric for why they should not listen to somebody who is trying to help them in good faith. Yet, they will be very blind to the reality in front of their own eyes.
And the fact is that – even innocuously – they realize that if they concede to ONE flaw on their object of their affections, and they have already burned so many bridges in favor of this person. Then they will have to acknowledge that if this “omnipotent” figure was flawed in ONE thing, then chances are that they are a lot more flawed in several other areas. And if they condoned that ONE thing that was wrong, then they likely condoned a BUNCH of stuff they thought was right but was in fact a lie. That’s terrifying to them.
Why? Because it is not about being right or wrong, it is about ALL the things they have been wrong about, and have fought tooth and nail, or with a proverbial sword and shield in defense of the charlatan. It is a lot easier for them to burn more bridges and gravitate to an echo chamber where the facts are not allowed in – if any of these facts contradict their cozy perception of the reality, they want it to be true – even if it is false. Especially if it is false.
This is why I was saying on the onset that nobody is perfect, we all have blind spots. When we can humanize each other and realize that we are fallible, even those we admire – then it is ok to acknowledge that we will make a mistake here and there. Much like when you’re practicing a new skill, you might not be a natural on the first try. Let me give you a couple of illustrative examples.
Let’s say that you’re learning to play the guitar, have a little band with your buddies and learn a couple of songs, get a first gig… it won’t be the same as a major band on the first time. No matter how rich we are we cannot buy talent or experience, and it takes sets and reps in order to nurture that talent through experience – and experience means that you will make mistakes along the way, and hopefully get better if you learn from said mistakes.
The authoritarian propagandist will infer and indoctrinate their base that opponents must be flawless in the eyes of their target audience otherwise they cannot ever measure up to their “dear leader” – of course nobody is perfect, so no matter how small the flaw, this will be amplified exponentially.
Here is the catch, their own “dear leader” can be fallible – if convenient (for example, crass, late, vociferous, etc.), and these flaws will be portrayed as some sort of twisted virtue. Although the “dear leaders” will never admit they are wrong, they will spin it any way they can. But that is how people get graded on a curve. It starts with the bias – it always starts with an exploited bias, then it continues with the proclivity that a person already has to be objective or manipulated, and then it ends with them investing into a falsehood they find cozier than reality. All the while projecting all the faults onto their opponent, but never having a moment of introspection.
I’ll end todays’ article by saying that we are all potential victims to fall for this trap. Traps are designed to snare us with ease. And charlatans are those jailers who place us in a golden cage. This cage might even look cozy and fun, but it is a confinement, nonetheless. As a reminder this article is part of a larger series to understand authoritarian propaganda. Each article adds an additional part to this gigantic puzzle.
Please keep in mind that when it comes to authoritarian propaganda, a one-off article, no matter how succinct cannot encompass the entire complexity of this problem. As I keep saying authoritarian propaganda is a multidimensional gradient, and to truly understand it, it will seem tangential at first, it will take a lot of pages to explore different parts of this gradient – eventually the entire structure becomes very obvious.
Sure, that there are millions of ways on how propaganda can move, but this series of articles explore each different region so you can put that gigantic puzzle one piece at the time. Just seeing it from a bird’s eye view out of context, will be akin as looking at a jumbled mess. Hence, that is why it is so easy to hide their insidious intent in plain sight. I’ll see you in the next article, meanwhile feel free to read all the articles already posted on this site. HLC