We all can be naïve about something no matter how smart we are. Why? Because nobody knows everything, and we all have blind spots. And propagandists love that!
Testing the waters
It does not matter how smart you truly are, you have blind spots – like every other human on the planet. Nobody knows everything, and we are always bombarded with all kinds of information that might or might not be real. Surprisingly, the most naïve group, hence the most exploitable, are the ones who have convinced themselves to be the smartest in the room.
When one of those “self-assured” know-it-all people boast about being the smarter in the room, a propagandist can see through their façade quite easily. In fact, they might butter them down even more to make them believe that this smug group is even much smarter than even these conceited people themselves thought they were. This “self-assured” group of naïve individuals will eat it up and will be easily manipulated as they are convinced that they are in control of the narrative and understand the truth. They don’t.
But naïve individuals are not only found on this “self-assured-know-it-all” group, but they can also be found in any group. The only way to escape this reality is through experience. And guess what? Sometimes that means that you’ll be caught with your guard down in order to learn a lesson. Sometimes somebody will best you before you learn your lesson. But you can also learn by proxy, although this can be harder for some people.
For example, if you see somebody jumping off a high elevation and break many bones on the way down, most people, by simply seeing how unpleasant that situation looked, would avoid jumping in a similar manner. Others might think they are invincible, jump, and break their bones – and hopefully realize why others preferred not to jump, even though the group who did not jump also did not break their bones.
This extreme example was purposely a bit more on the nose to illustrate the point, because when it comes to exploiting gullibility, the tactics tend to be a lot more subtle, and in some instances very well-crafted. Depending on what audience they want to trick into believing a false reality or do something against their best interests. The exploiting entity will be a lot less subtle if they find that the group that they are exploiting is getting increasingly naïve. In other words, the manipulators will get sloppy and lazier.
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Hitting rock bottom
I said it before, and it is worth repeating. The best way to exploit a naïve person is by convincing this individual that he or she is the smartest cat in the room. It is irrelevant if they are correct or not, so long they keep doing what the propagandist or con artists wants them to do. And this is the kicker, this “smart cat” naïve person will be convinced that whatever they end up doing was their own bright idea.
When a large group of people who have demonstrated a similar level of gullibility, they will use the “smart-naïve” people to seem as though they are the “leaders and cheerleaders” of the group. For example, in a political rally you would easily be able to identify them. These will be the individuals who either (or collectively) sport the most decked out regalia, it is the loudest, obnoxious, confrontational, vociferous, pedantic, and adoring fans of their dear leader.”
This level of group thinking is contagious, and during this event, these “smart-naïve” people will feel like they are the heart of the party, and others who are convinced of the same propaganda will even celebrate them.
But propagandists will keep lowering the bar as far as how well-crafted is their propaganda. If a group of people shows that they obediently believe anything put in front of them, no matter how sloppy it is – eventually the lies will become more and more shoddy. Since the elements in a lie never quite add up, at first propagandists will work very hard to tie lose ends. But if their target audience is so naïve as to believe low hanging fruit, the propagandists will eventually be less diligent in trying to tie lose ends on their fabricated stories.
One of two main things will happen:
1. Some of the less naïve individuals will realize that lies are increasingly half-baked and wake the hell up. They might try to wake others around them, but the more naïve group will disavow the less naïve. Likely by calling them some insulting epithets that rhyme with whatever it is that they were convinced to hate, and double down on the false story – or even physically attacking them.
2. They will start having doubts, but their ego will get the best of them. Especially if they have already invested a lot in believing this false narrative. And I’m not talking about just time and money. But maybe friendships, or getting fired, arrested, cited, shunned, etc. for being loyal to whomever was deceiving them – whilst viciously insulting everybody who was trying to help them escape this nightmare.
Sadly, the propagandists are already aware that those who are very naïve will fight until the end to defend whatever it is that they were convinced to believe by said propagandist. Much like a scam, a con, a cult, a swindle, or an addiction, people tend to be very resistant to accepting they have been taken advantage of. It takes critical thinking AND intellectual honesty to get above it.
However, when a person is a victim of propaganda, they will get so deep, often so subtly, and occasionally so fast, that they won’t even realize what happened. On my book Authoritarianism & propaganda the Puppet Master Tools and most of the articles on my website and social media platforms, I go in detail on how to identify this mass-delusion propagandistic scam and break that vicious cycle. I do this because our collective decisions affect our collective future. HLC