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An Introduction
by Ralph Dorian.
Let's start with an admission. I'm an actor. I'm also a scriptwriter. For the last fifty years I've played a single role. My role has fostered a very callous side to my personality. This one is coldhearted and intellectual. He'll accept news of the most disturbing atrocities like a sunrise and sunset, just another day, another non-event in a long series of the same. The role wasn't originally a natural fit. It certainly wasn't me. But like a prisoner's black and white stripped overalls, I put it on and in many ways have grown accustomed to it. I understand the character better than I used to. Without a doubt, there will be those who at first glance condemn this character. A shiver will run up and down their spines and they wonder how anyone could be so icy and coldhearted. They'll say he knew everything that was going on, but instead of doing something, he aided and abetted the conspiracy, then patiently waited and bided his time. Meanwhile, families were destroyed, fortunes were squandered, and the deception expanded. Quite frankly I must admit that much of this will appear true --- at first glance. This character, which is indeed part of me, has totally inured himself to the sufferings of S--------gists : ex- or otherwise. For his part, he has succeeded. So far, he's followed his script to the letter.
He's grown so much a part of me now, I could never completely be rid of him. He knows too much. Losing him would mean losing much of a lifetime of learning. I can hear him speaking to me: "Caring about the subjective experiences of the means is a foolhardy enterprise most suited to dreamers who lack ambition... or perhaps the timid and depressed who have given up and feel their lives should soon draw to a close," he would say. He pauses to think, then continues. "A carpenter could spend his thoughts pining over the slave-like roles of the hammer and the nail, but such a carpenter would have little to show for his efforts. It's mental energy wasted. Great things have been achieved by those who accepted the world as it is with their eyes fixed firmly on a better future, after the sacrifices are over." Lines much like these have been repeated to me over and over during the last fifty years. They continue to play upon my mind. If this has made me callous, then so be it. If playing two steps behind the lead in this story leaves me a hypocrite, ok, I admit it. Complex lives are filled with contrasts and contradictions. Such has been my fate. A softer character submerges and a stronger, tougher character takes his place. It was necessary. Fully scripted S--------gists know this fate well. Their own bears striking similarities. Perhaps the most salient difference between us is that I well understand that I am an actor playing a role in a contrived story within a story, while the S---- ----gists do not.
One's fate can be viewed from multiple perspectives. Were I to supplant the preceding perspective with another, perhaps I would say that I care very much about the fate of human civilization, so much so that the temporally local time-space containing the experiences of our S--------gist actors, fades into relative insignificance. Humanity could thrive for millions of years, but it will not unless it learns to recognize the subtle characteristics that distinguish goodness from an artfully disguised evil. This is the perspective of my natural, innate character. He has accepted individual suffering in the interests of the greater good. He has ignored the one for the sake of the many. To be kind to one means being callous to another. Being there for one means not being there for another. This is a fact of life. As a composite character in real life, I am a realist. I have too many of the facts of human nature at my disposal to be otherwise. Yet, I also believe in life everlasting. What we are may disintegrate and die, but the structural- functional pattern that we are reappears like new leaves returning in the spring. The potential for immortality is already build into us. But realization of the potential can never be a certainty. For the continuation of life, the individual is utterly dependent on the larger whole, just as the leaf is dependent on the tree. This is why I am one who thoroughly believes that the good of the many outweighs the good of the few; that when the two interests are in conflict, it is the soul of humankind that outweighs the importance of any one of its individual incarnations. Better to lose a few leaves rather than to sacrifice the whole tree. Better to sacrifice the tree than to lose the entire forest.
As an individual, I am multifaceted. I am my parts and I am various combinations of the whole. Each speaks of a fragment of the truth. Accept whichever part you feel comfortable with. Or, accept them all. On the other hand, if denial of my existence is what you prefer, then by all means you should certainly do it.
I expect some bitterness to come with acceptance. If you must feel bitter, then feel bitter. Later, when the anger begins to dissipate, recall that virtually everyone who volunteers to incorporate S---------y scripts into their mind was already suffering, in some way, on some level. There is virtually no one who can honestly deny this. S---------y brings a respite. It's like a vacation in the land of hope. There, happiness and ambition take the place of melancholy. The vacation ends when the hope capsule cracks. When it does, all of the old aches and pains come back like a new winter's snow. Perhaps the pain may be more poignant than it was before. Perhaps it's tinged with even sharper flavors of betrayal and disappointment. But the elemental character of it is the same: same old character, with the same old thoughts, expecting the same old gloomy fate. The role in S---------y is over. The pocketbook is lighter. The pride is tarnished. A benign fate seems beyond salvation. But what's this? A glimmer of humility? A curiosity that hasn't been extinguished? An urge to maintain the highest "ethical" standards so as to vie for the highest moral ground and avoid being recognized as a "criminal"? Perhaps all is not completely lost. Perhaps the experience, if not pressed into service as the latest excuse for everything that's wrong in one's life, may be coaxed, (very gently, and with liberal amounts of forgiveness), to mature eventually into a compassionate teacher of wisdom.
This is the hope of the writers of the larger play. There has existed a small group of us who have known all along what was really happening. We knew the composition of the various characters in the smaller S---------y play. We were aware of their various intents, ranging from the hopeful to the predatory. We also knew that not every individual story would have a happy ending. And so we never completely rose above a sense of guilt, doubt, and regret. Speaking as my [natural] self, these feelings have sat like little gremlins on my shoulder, and in my chest and gut, poking, pulling, and pestering. There were just three of us that knew. We are the writers of the larger play. The "larger" play includes the performance called S---------y. (Draw two circles, a smaller one inside the larger. The larger circle represents the larger play; the smaller circle represents the S---------y play.) My two comrades have now retreated to latency. They were my mentors and their loss has not been easy to bear. I am the sole survivor. I have become their voice. Maintaining my patience and restraining myself from jumping in and completing the story has not always been easy. Let me tell you something about what provided me solace.
Fifty years ago I made a choice, a choice which I still believe was the most sensible of the selections I had available to me at the time. We, (referring to the USA and her allies) had just come out of a war with the followers of what my colleagues and I refer to as an "artful solution provider". (... or sometimes as a "fraudulent solution provider", abbreviated F-SP, A-SP, or occasionally just "SP"). On the visions of several highly vocal and arrogant SP's, millions of people had recently been killed in just about every way one could imagine. The future world could be made into a much better place, faithful followers were promised, if the "strong" and "superior" breeds of human being sped up the pace of evolution by exterminating the "weak", "inferior" breeds. Poverty, suffering, and the generalized possibility of failure could be all but cured if only there were a people who could recognize the necessity of the job that had to be done and who then had the guts to actually set about doing it.
A popular assumption that was much discussed in the years before the Second Great War was that an inferior human being could be detected through his or her association with simian-like traits. Science had recently said that humans arose from ape ancestors. Common sense said that not everyone was created equal. Some humans were less evolved, others, more. It was a definitive negative to be recognized as having, for example, a nose or a type of hair reminiscent of that of a chimpanzee or gorilla. In contrast, traits that were distinctly and uniquely human were held as signs of beauty and viability. In other human beings, non-simian traits were appealing; simian traits were not. The more distinctly non-simian characteristics a particular group possessed, without incurring any obvious liabilities as a result, the higher up the newly devised evolutionary hierarchy the group could reasonably place itself. Apes were placed below man, but species man could be divided into subspecies, or races. Some subspecies were apparently more apelike, others less. Simian traits lowered an individual in the human evolutionary hierarchy, while purely human traits raised him up. For example, less body hair was attractive simply because it is so utterly non-simian and because clothing could be worn to protect the wearer from the elements. The use of clothing is itself a non-simian trait --- which is why even in warm climates the donning of some sort of ornament or covering, if only a colorful necklace, belt, or bracelet is almost always more attractive to an audience than nothing at all. In the area of complex functional traits, language dependent intelligence, being non-simian, was valued over intuitive common sense. To a certain point, lighter skin was more highly prized than darker skin, because again, clothing had reduced much of the liabilities of bare skin containing less protective melanin and because chimpanzees and gorillas, our nearest relatives, appear to be mostly black. For the same reasons, it was better to be in control of one's emotions than to be their impulsive, unwitting servant. Blonde hair and blue eyes were appealing simply because the colors are virtually absent in our larger simian relatives. An individual who possessed and was facile in the use of tools (using the broadest definition of the term) was more attractive than someone that wasn't. And the more un-natural the tool, the better. Today, the high status tools are complex and completely artificial: cell-phones, computers, automobiles. The list goes on and on and on. Returning to the body, a high, vertical forehead was deemed as more attractive than a low, swept back simian-like forehead. Smaller ears are "better" than chimpanzee-like ears. A richly expressive gaze is "better" than a thoughtless stare. I like to laugh but I've never yet met a chimpanzee comedian. Have you? If I see someone cry, especially if she's a woman and it's heartfelt, I feel sad too. It draws me closer, wanting to help. What if you met someone that couldn't make you laugh, that couldn't cry, didn't own any tools of any kind, didn't ever wear a scrap of clothing, was illiterate, couldn't talk, had a low swept back forehead, was covered with coal black hair except for a vertical oval around the mouth and eyes ---would you want this kind of person, say, dating your daughter? Would you want him to become your in- law and sire your grandchildren? If you were the daughter, would you be attracted to this kind of guy? Could he be your one and only? I say only this: To remind a human audience of one's connection to the larger body of primates is to earn their revulsion and disrespect. But to distinguish one's self from other primates by reveling in and exaggerating one's purely and uniquely human traits is to gather a flock of smiling admirers. Human beings don't appreciate monkey traits, not in themselves, not in their fellow humans. The subject is nearly taboo today, but the preference remains the same. In the first half of this 20th century the preference was not only admitted, it was used as a popular foundation on which to base new solutions to human problems. Racist fascism was one of those solutions.
The human prejudice against the traits of their nearest relatives is taboo because of the lessons we've retained from the fraudulent solution of the Nazi era. In response, today some of our nations with heterogeneous populations have enacted "anti-discrimination" laws. But though the laws have shifted the commonly used criteria for discrimination, they haven't eliminated it. Nor will they ever. The appeal of uniquely human traits over traits common to the simian primates derives from the quintessentially human instinctual preferences that originally helped drive our pre-human ancestors to diverge and separate from their simian progenitors into a distinct species. For a new species to maintain its integrity, the recognizable traits of the parent and sibling species must be stripped of their ability to attract, even to the point of becoming repellent --- otherwise a freshly differentiating species would tend to blend back into the old, unable to retain its own separate identity. To become human, we, as an emerging species, had to begin finding the combination of human and simian traits repulsive.
All humans inherit a subtle preference for purer combinations of human traits. Simian characteristics in a human being is like a fly in the porridge. The preference may be modified by other preferences, but it could never be completely extinguished without a major alteration of the basic structures that make us think and act like humans. When the preference isn't patently obvious, it's verifiable on closer inspection. For example, it's fairly easy to ascertain that virtually no human male is attracted to the box-like red swelling on the posterior of a female chimpanzee in heat, but that most men are very strongly attracted to its curvilinear antithesis found in the human female. The preference reveals itself in our literature. If you've read Victor Hugo's _Hunchback of Notre Dame_, you may have felt sorry for Quasimodo, the luckless hub of the story. Mr. Hugo crafted him to be extremely unappealing, especially to women. He was designed to be one whose potential for love seemed destined to go unrequited --- easy for many people at some point in their lives to relate to. Consider what Mr. Hugo used to make Quasimodo irredeemably unattractive: he gave him a gait that was reminiscent of that of an ape. And sure enough Quasimodo became believably and understandably repulsive. The instinctive prejudice against simian traits also shows up in mythology. In the Pagan religions, one can find images of gods that are part human and part animal. In this collective pantheon are represented parts of the eagle, the lion, the horse, even the goat. But nowhere, in no culture, do we find a god symbolized with any portion of the head or body of an ape! The very idea of an ape being somehow "better" than a human being is so repugnant that it's been used to build the antagonist side of the plot of several movies, most notably _King Kong and Planet of the Apes_. One of the gravest insults one can hurl at a fellow human being is to show him (or her) clear evidence that his appearance or behavior is more ape-like than human. It was probably for this reason that Darwin's theory of Evolution caused such a furor in the late 1800's and why it still remains controversial to this day. Whether we like to admit it or not, human beauty is composed of distinctly human features, sans any telltale, "ugly" reminders of our simian ancestry.
In the 1930's, the focus was on the appearance. Skin color and facial features were deemed the most important criteria upon which to base choices. Compare that to the discrimination criteria of the contemporary era. Today we continue to discriminate but now the emphasis is on clothing, the control of emotions, language and communication skills, and the number and un-natural quality of the tools possessed and the skill with which one can make use of them. To discriminate against simian traits is human; to be drawn to them -- - is itself a repulsive simian trait. The difference between the current era and the 1930's is merely the kinds of simian traits we will find most objectionable. The values underlying the urge to discriminate against them is something all humans have in common.
Here we have the foundation upon which the final solution of the Nazi Third Reich was based. The first characteristic of a "final solution" is that it always appeals to and parallels instinctual preferences and behaviors. It flatters and pleases instinct by professing unquestioning agreement with its preexisting assumptions and values.
Reason is Instinct's storyteller, but Instinct is Reason's master. If there were an instinctive preference that favored red over green, Reason would be ordered to seek out a story that explains, in commonplace, familiar symbols, why red is "better" than green. If the story agrees with Instinct, Instinct will find the story "pleasing" or "moving". With proper justification, the preference can be used as the basis for action --- such as the action of accumulating red things and destroying green things. Reason is Instinct's justifier. Whatever Instinct wants, Instinct gets, as long as servant Reason can find a way to justify and explain its wishes with a story.
After the Great War, native Germans were desperately in need of a story that would justify why they should not deserve to continue playing the role of whipping boy of Europe. An intuitive awareness of their proper place in the scheme of life informed native Germans that their postwar scapegoat role was somehow unjustified. If someone should be punished, it wasn't the pureblooded Germans. Germans are relatively free of simian-traits. A different, but no less powerful human instinct was also telling them they should seek out and uncover the root cause of their suffering. And once it was found, they should cut it out and get rid of it. Logic married instinctive preference to the latter instinctive urge and from that bond was born a decision. The decision demanded that an identifiable culprit be found who was more conclusively tied to a simian past than were pureblooded Germans. And once found, all that remained necessary was an explanatory story to cast the unfortunate group into the antagonist's villain role.
In answer to the need there very quickly arose a literary and performance artist who crafted the story the people were looking for. Adolph Hitler explained, in so many words, that if evolution were driven by the "survival of the fittest", as scientist-philosopher Charles Darwin said it was, it must also be driven by the death of the "unfit". And if evolution was driven by the death of the unfit, then killing one's fellow human beings was not really wrong at all. It was biological progress. If the unfit must die for the sake of a beneficent future, then killing was a good thing --- just as long as those that were terminated were first confirmed as irredeemable anchors to humankind's distant simian past. At the time, this specious reasoning was taken almost as a revelation. Prior to Hitler's appearance, and shortly after Darwin's _The Origin of Species_, the underlying logic had already begun to gather an apparently respectable philosophical following, in Germany and elsewhere. The ties to the simian past would be initially released, and ultimately completely erased, to make way for a new and better future. The target for erasure would be a group evidencing a greater number of simian traits but without a way to exonerate themselves from blame.
The conclusions that were being drawn up in 1930's Germany were music to the ears of those who could look in a mirror or a family genealogy and fairly place themselves in a racially "superior" group. For them, reason had performed well --- Instinct was very pleased. The new truth especially appealed to Germans who were still closely tied to their Pagan religious heritage. It implied that the monotheistic Judaism, as well as its Christian schism, with their "Thou shalt not kill" and their "Turn the other cheek" and forgive edicts, were inadvertently training Germans to block the natural upward progress of evolution. If evolution was impeded, what would become of the future? If Judeo-Christians and their shortsighted traditions succeeded, it meant a lasting return to the barbarism and injustice of previous centuries, a strong taste of which had already seemed to have come home to roost in the aftermath of the Great War. Perhaps it even meant the destruction of human civilization. At the very least, if nothing was done to stop them, it was thought, the Judeo-Christian primitives would reinforce their power and a topsy-turvy, superstitious reverse justice would continue to prevail. The essential hope of man to rise above the primates would be strangled and humanity would be set on a dwindling spiral path of de-evolution, back to the mud and the animal primates from whence it came. The only answer: a small band of brave thoroughbred humans must boldly stand up to their crudely primitive oppressors. They must draw upon their superior strength and intelligence and rise up to claim their rightful position of leadership. The first task on the path towards their goal was annihilating simian tainted populations and whoever else might be foolish enough to defend them, before the window of opportunity closed, perhaps forever.
So... here we have the second characteristic of the "final solution". After it flatters Instinct with hearty agreement, then it builds a story that calls Instinct into action. Continued flattery becomes conditional on the successful implementation of the final solution. "You are good, you are right, you are untainted by simian characteristics --- but all these good things will be destroyed unless..." The only way to hold on to the good things is to apply the solution. It becomes the "last, best hope of man", "man" referring very specifically to human beings unspoiled by their animal ancestry.
The Third Reich was a solution crafted by Reason to satisfy Instinct. To Germans, (as well as any other group that wanted to carve out a space in the new world), it made perfect sense. The search was over. The solution had been found. A funny thing happens at this stage. Instinct has been satisfied. Reason is no longer needed. To protect the source of satisfaction, Reason stripped of the liberty of undoing a pleasing state of affairs. It's motivation, it's urges to continue searching for solutions in general, are retracted. Specifically, if the story says that German Aryans belong at the top of an evolutionary hierarchy, and this made the Germans feel hopeful and happy where before they had felt despondent and morose, then the story could not be doubted. Instinct had been pleased, feelings were soothed, and Reason would not be allowed to upset its master.
From contemporary times we can only look in retrospect at the gaping logical flaws in the story and wonder how anyone could be so blind as to not notice them. To hint at one: Darwinian "fitness" and attractiveness are not necessarily the same, no matter what natural Instinct says. The most beautiful and attractive traits are not necessarily the most fit to survive and reproduce themselves in a given situation. A "master race" may only be master of a small subset of situations. No one can be the master of all situations. Sharks, for example, are excellent undersea predators. They excel at ripping up flesh and gulping it down. But on dry land they're helpless. (What's more they're terrible conversationalists and they don't even know how to dress... whoops! my human prejudices are showing...) To the Nazi eugenicist's chagrin, the "fittest" traits in one milieu often turn out to be the least "fit" in another. Situations are always changing and Darwinian "fitness" is both gene _and_ situation dependent, a fact that Adolph Hitler and company conveniently ignored. But no one wanted to look underneath appearances. No one wanted to keep checking the story for credibility. No one wanted to critically analyze the details because they didn't want to risk finding something wrong. To satisfy the many, the few that did ask the wrong questions were quickly and efficiently persuaded into silence.
Here we have the third characteristic of the "final solution": After Reason has found a story that justifies and pleases natural instinct, Reason's job is over. Instinct will now attempt to defend its new gift by inhibiting Reason from finding anything that would damage it. In practice, this means that once the final solution's ideology is set in place, it cannot be questioned or changed --- by anyone. The story is set in stone. And once the author is dead, the final solution remains relatively static, either submerged in complete ignominy or held safe under the protection of a hierarchy of faithful followers who still cling tightly to the instinct-pleasing "true" reality of the solution's central story line.
Hitler's artistry told a story, but it also communicated a script, by implication. The implied script demanded action, and action is what it got. In the name of the first "final solution" that boldly set its follower's eyes on scientifically accelerating the course of human biological evolution through artificial selection, humanity became the patient, and the enthusiastic solution advocates, the self appointed surgeon. The surgeon would serve the greater good of the body by recognizing, then cutting out the bad cells, leaving the good cells to thrive in peace. And so, the bombs fell, flesh was turned to ash, and the human race once again shuddered and convulsed against itself.
Since that time, I have watched the artistic offerings of other SP's rise and fall. Their solutions dot the political and religious landscape. Some are recently hatched, others cling to life, some are near death. For example, the life cycle of the other "final" political/economic solution of the twentieth century has all but concluded. This one was different from Nazi fascism in that its violence was less obtrusive and it was stretched out over a longer interval of time. Nor did it appeal to the natural human prejudice against simian traits. Instead it appealed to the envy and jealous hatreds arising out of the instinctive urge to value oneself by comparison to one's neighbors. They called it "Communism", and as I'm sure you know, in a manner reminiscent of Fascist eugenics it claimed many lives --- most notably in Siberia, the Korean peninsula, Southeast Asia, and elsewhere. In more recent times, the final solution called "Islam" is trying to move to center stage. Having reached an age of 1300 years, you might think this solution has reached its latter stages. Not so. The life cycle of religious final solutions are considerably longer than those of political solutions. It has reached the stage where the use of force seems its best alternative. To maintain the hope that flows to believers from its central story line, Islam is now trying to arm itself, as if in emulation of its Fascist and Communist brethren. (Christianity, as you may recall, went through a similar phase during the Crusades through the Spanish inquisition.) The followers of the Islamic solution are now threatening an encore performance that may or may not play out in another super-destructive "final conflict", this time between the Middle East and the Christian West. We really don't know for sure.
What we do know is that there will always be problems and there will always be people who appear to offer solutions. Of all that are offered, and accepted, some solutions are designed to work and some are designed to be accepted because they look like they will work. The most devastating conflicts almost always begin in the latter category. Study history with this assumption in mind and be amazed. Jealousy and a desire for revenge both inspire hatred, this is true, but so do false hopes. Hope inspired hatred targets anyone who threatens the hope, either directly or indirectly. The pattern is always the same. There is the artful solution provider, and he, or she is surrounded by a relatively artless group who have been convinced, to one degree or another, that they are in possession of the ultimate, final, perfect, supreme, holy, exact --- (or whatever adjectives that were in vogue at the time) --- solution --- to life's most fundamental problems. Naturally, the SP's followers want more than anything to see their solution applied, usually as broadly as possible. Unfortunately for us, their white-knuckled ardor derives from a sublime vision of the future, all in their imagination and hasn't yet come true. But it never will. The followers have seen the signs, but the signs have misled them. Perhaps knowingly, perhaps unknowingly, their solution provider has provided a solution that seems to be working, but really is not. No matter. Anyone that threatens the hope becomes a target for hate and much worse. So while the faithful firmly believe they are leading humanity to a utopia, in fact they are drawing us into needless conflict. At the end of the road lies at best a painful disillusionment followed up with cynicism, and at worst terrible bloodshed and death --- all over a vision of possibility that could never come true. In the twentieth century the human race has grown more cynical than in times past. No wonder. Think of all the solutions that haven't lived up to their provider's claims. The only thing that's truly final about one of these "final" solutions, is the pronouncement that after all was said and done, after all the hoopla and fanfare, it really didn't work after all. It had a hidden flaw. In the aftermath, everyone wonders, how could we, (or "they") have been so na"ve?
One wonders. One certainly has good cause to wonder. There's apparently something very important missing from the human psyche. It starts out very, very gullible. It craves solutions like it craves food. It will eat anything, if hungry, whatever is within easy reach. Only later, after hard experience, may it finally wise up. But it often gets poisoned in the process. Being poisoned with a fraudulent solution can lead to death. Or, it can lead to murder. The process by which fraudulent but appealing solutions initially spread, only later to be abandoned in disgust has been so very destructive to the quality of life on Earth that there have been those, (I have to count myself among them), who have wondered if the process somehow could be speeded up, or better yet, avoided altogether. The value of education is that it lets students avoid the dangerous trial and the needlessly fatal error. A single hard lesson can ruin a whole life. Such a waste. One wonders... perhaps with the help of greater understanding and wisdom... perhaps followers could be shown how to detect the attractive but fraudulent solution... before they make their mistake, rather than after!?
It was thought that if a play could be performed, or a movie be made that depicted how the most artfully sophisticated of SP's operated... but it seemed all but impossible. There were far to many details to be incorporated into a mere three hours, such a short block of time. A movie or a play is too brief. Far too brief.
And a book? --- a book seemed out of the question as well, mostly because of the unfortunate fact that humanity doesn't take the lessons in books very seriously unless the fictional events closely relate to something that has been, or could be witnessed in real life. How many, at the turn of the last century for example, would have taken seriously a made-up story of a future leader who comes to power in a nation well known for its scientists, its discipline and its faith in logical thinking, and announces a government that is sure to last for a thousand years, and who then proceeds to execute six million of the citizens of his own as well as those in surrounding countries? --- all because of a very slight difference in ancestry. And to top it off, a broad majority of the nation without the tainted ancestry strongly supports it?? --- "Get _real_," prospective readers would have said, (or some other contemporaneous words to the same effect.) Let's say the story were published in, say, 1898. Would the 1898 story teach it's lessons as effectively as the 1930's and `40's experience with reality? I think not. The book could be tossed aside. And it probably would be. But the reality, complete with surviving victims, abandoned death camps, and other grim but lasting mementos of the carnage, could not be so easily ignored.
So it came to us --- or let us say more specifically (and accurately) that it occurred to my mentors --- that to effectively convey such a message, a somewhat grander performance was in order. We would, as artists, craft our own "final solution", one that looked, sounded, smelled, and tasted like the real thing, not so we could really take over the world, but as a sort of parody of someone whose ambitions might someday propel them to do just that. We would show the world how it was done, how to recognize a fraudulent solution when they saw one, and perhaps even how to undo some of it's unpleasant after- effects. You see, the world, it has been said, is a stage, and it contains many plays. Unable to distill our parody for Broadway theater or the silver screen in your local movie house, we decided to produce and perform ours on the world stage at large. Our parody would act as an inoculation. Rather than a full blown case of _Final-Solutionitis_ replete with its terrible atrocities and carnage, humanity would instead feel a feverish chill in some isolated locations here and there, but it wouldn't get really sick.
Just a mite overzealous you say? A bit of an overreach? I understand exactly how you must feel. I felt the same way when I first had the idea introduced to me. That was fifty years ago. I was shocked and scandalized at the temerity of it. Well, believe what you like, but your skepticism will betray you here, for this is exactly what we did. We really did it. We did craft a play for the world stage. Our actors still run on the intent we implanted in them, and they still recite our scripts, day in and day out. In public, our play was called "S--------- y". In private, amongst our lead actor, writers and producers, it was called, "Target Acquisition: Earth" which was abbreviated to TG-ack. The name is a multiple entendre (if you think about it you'll get the various meanings). Its acronym was later expanded and used to refer to planet Earth in one of the scenes of the smaller play. The larger story that included the S---------y play was not spoken of by anyone but myself, our theory consultant, and our acting consultant. This, we simply called "The Play", and only we knew what we were really talking about. The person referred to as "H", (as far as we knew), was never privy to all of the secrets of the larger play. Ironically, I'm fairly certain that he and his director thought they were controlling us!! But that is how we intended it. Now it seems, we get to have the last laugh.
~~~
Let's diverge for a moment. There are four related topics I'd like to lightly touch upon.
I. Belief
If you happen to be an actor or actress in the larger or smaller plays, please understand that whether you or any of your brethren believes the revelations that are being published here does not concern us in the slightest. You are being granted an opportunity, not an obligation. Accept what you like; deny what displeases you. Your particular individual preference is not our concern here.
How might you know if you are one of our actors? --- you be one of our actors if you have strong beliefs about S---------y, either for or against. It's that simple. If this describes you, know that we do not seek to convince our actors of anything. The stage has already been set, we have a conflict of intent, and with a little nudge and a little help, it will be resolved.
Do you doubt? This is good. We are now inclined to encourage skepticism and critical thinking. Consider: the actors on one side of the conflict have already been reached and their training is done. They've been "processed". They've been inculcated with the necessary intent. They know their lines and they receive helpful direction from amongst one another. Their own instinct combined with implanted intent and our scripts tell them what to do. However, a discerning handful will grasp a view of the broader picture and the larger play. In the process, these actors may reverse their intent and come, low and behold, to find themselves on the other side of the conflict. After nearly fifty years of induction, processing, training, selection, and rejection, it is the rejected S---------y actors that make up the silent majority. What they lack in organization and strength of will, they make up for in numbers. Clearly, we have conflict, and hence, a plot. This is as it was intended.
To be an effective production, the larger play requires a characterization of both extremes. One side wants something very, very much, so much that it would sacrifice just about anything to get it. To attain what they believe is a pure goodness, they will sacrifice whatever goodness they already have to get it. And they would make the world sacrifice whatever goodness it has too. "Whatever it takes", is the catchphrase of the desperado. "Make it go right", is the slightly more sophisticated credo of the desperado S--------gist.
On the other side are people who did want, and did sacrifice, but finally recognized that they were gravely hurting themselves and others in the process. Now, with compassion, they would rather that no one else need repeat the same mistake.
Realize that no matter what position you occupy, in terms of an opinion or a perspective, we have a role for you to play and can certainly use you. Large numbers of people in a two sided conflict have an uncanny ability to gain world attention. We can use the good S--------gist who faithfully endeavors to fulfill his role in the diminutive play "standardly" and "exactly". We can use the nasty, perverted, warped S--------gist whose sense of right and wrong has been twisted far beyond societal conventions; nay, into a world of its own. We can use all of you --- no exceptions.
What we care about is the existence of conflict, not specifically who takes this side or that side. Though it may seem that I am personally entering the fray, I have always been above it. You may come to wonder, "Does the "Anti-" side, like the "Pro-" side once did, now have its author-advocate???" We're going to leave this question unanswered for now. As one who has personally straddled both "sides" for two very different audiences, I cannot ever align myself wholly "against" the actors of the smaller play. I helped create them. We very much need such people to doggedly continue doing what they are doing. And despite the fact that they are nearly altogether oblivious to their role outside the diminutive play, such people are actors in the larger play too. The larger play includes them. Without these people, the larger play wouldn't have antagonists, and without the counter-intent of our antagonists, it wouldn't have much of a plot, would it?
Therefore, if you be one of our actors, we say to you once again. Regarding your opinions, actors, we are thoroughly indifferent. Believe what pleases you and cast yourself into whatever role you prefer. The casting decisions are entirely yours.
II. The Second Source
Admittedly, both the smaller and the larger plays are unusual, as plays go.
Yet another oddity, is that my role as ghost-writer for the diminutive play has now transformed, at least in part, into an acting role, in the larger production. In addressing you now, I have become a lead "actor" of sorts, in the larger play.
My role in both plays has been essentially invisible --- until now. The loose script that is my guide was first conceived long ago, more than fifty years ago. Thus far, my role has been that of editor and ghostwriter. I had a hand in most of the books and the key "technical" bulletins that comprised the smaller play. I also contributed to the design of the stories and theatrics that were designed to cloak its lead actor's actual intent. Some of my work is evident in the fictionalized "translation-draft" that accompanies this letter. The T-drafts were our way of converting one type of communication (literal) into another (implied). Only the latter was suitable for issue to a public audience. This was a constraint of the smaller play.
My role has been relatively easy; the time schedule has not. The smaller play was intended to run for fifty years, perhaps more. With such a time scale, it was necessary to depend on the next generation, at least for the sake of insurance. This has been a source of considerable anxiety to me since my wife and I never managed to produce a large family. Now I have matured to an age in which the help of my son is not just more than welcome, it's indispensable.
Richard, like many sons of strong will, had his years of rebellion. It's true that there was a long period when a rift lay between us. But to Richard's credit, he never turned traitor; he kept his secrets to himself. Recently, to my great relief and pride, Richard has come back. It seems that when the topic is the larger play, we see things eye to eye, mostly.
I'm very happy to announce that through our concerted efforts, the disturbing parody on final solutions known as "S---------y" will, be brought to a satisfying, if not swift, conclusion. And if all goes according to the time schedule of my primary loose script, it will all happen in the temporal vicinity of the play's fiftieth anniversary.
III. The Lead Actor of the Diminutive Play; his various Characters
Our "other" lead actor I'm sure you know. The stage version of his name is strategically emboldened in capital letters at the beginning and end of each of the diminutive play's "solutions".
The secret to understanding this actor is becoming aware of his characters. Here's a list:
1) the natural or "real-life" character of the actor 2) the character in the larger play 3) the S---------y character as portrayed in writings and taped lectures 4) the S---------y character as a daily administrator
Character #1 and character #3 are most certainly not one and the same. If you think otherwise, by all means do some research into the actor's background. You'll see that the actor's history is very different than his S---------y characters' "history". While the character is a hero: a very wise yet practical, no nonsense, roll-up-the-sleeves- and-get-the-job-done kind of guy, the actor, is... well... let's just say he had his vices.
Character #3 and #4 are similar but not quite the same. Character #4 is an admixture of #2 and #3 due to the limitations of the actor's ability. No actor can totally shut down his other characters all the time, which is why many who knew him noticed a discrepancy.
Character #1 and character #2 are identical. This actor was unaware of his role in the larger play. Yet, he played it perfectly. Our relationship to this lead actor has much in common with the lead actor's relationship to his S--------gists.
This actor was both a volunteer and he was chosen. He volunteered for the smaller play but was chosen for his larger role. He had an extraordinary talent for keeping the various parts of himself separate and distinct --- which recommended him to my mentors when they were casting about for the right composite to fill the role.
This character composite has thus far remained an enigma to many. The hints I'm providing may begin to satisfy the curious.
IV. A New Messenger
Besides myself and my son, the larger play has gained yet another player. You may know of him. His name is Robert S. Minton. Part of his role, as long as he wishes to play it, is to act as our messenger. If he brings you a message and tells you it came from Richard or myself, it did.
Our little charade is over. The true author of Mr. Minton's essay postings is now out in the open (relatively speaking.) My son Richard wrote the three postings on S---------y based on his understanding of Mr. Minton's perspective. I did a preliminary editing and Mr. Minton himself did a final editing.
RSM is a fairly trustworthy chap, but he's no angel --- so be sagacious and don't hold him to angelic standards. Despite feelings you may have to the contrary, bringing the larger play to a happy conclusion doesn't require us to live up to impossibly high moral standards. Like the rest of us, RSM isn't immune to temptation. Nor should he be. He's not in purgatory. He's human. And he is an unusually kindhearted, wise human who's fulfilled his own material needs to such an extent that he's now dedicated to doing something for the world rather than just himself. In this respect, he reminds me very much of one of my mentors. I also like his speaking voice. But what especially qualifies him is that he's never been a S--------gist, yet he is acutely interested in the plot of the larger play. He doesn't have any obvious personal reasons to get involved. Unlike the broad majority of S--------gists, Robert isn't acting out of desperation. No one lured him into our play by offering the miraculous solution to end all problems. Yet, he's still interested. There are hints of an unselfish compassion. This we very much admire. As far as we're concerned, Robert has what it takes and he shall act as our appointed messenger from this point forward.
It may surprise you that we follow a policy very different than the "other" lead scriptwriter-actor. The Dorian-Minton flow goes both ways. Though he readily takes our stories and scripts to heart, we have also opened the door to his influence as well; we hear his wishes, and we take his advice --- usually quite seriously --- which is why you are all of a sudden, here and now, becoming exposed to what we have hidden away for so long. Our script has been ever so slightly adjusted and the time table accelerated in some respects. For that you can thank Mr. Minton.
~~~
Several months ago, after a daylong visit, Mr. Minton formerly submitted a request to us that politely suggested that a higher purpose would best be served if we made a small addition to the larger play's script.
"Wouldn't it be a good idea," Mr. Minton wrote, "if several of the key rough drafts of the S---------y technical bulletins were published."
Of course we had to disagree. No, it would certainly not be a good idea, because it would soften the surprise value of what we plan to present in the coming years. Not only that, they would surely be contested as forgeries. The next thing you know, we would be in a position of having to prove the drafts to be authentic. This could certainly be done, but it could not be done elegantly. The door to our ivory tower would have to be opened, and investigators, some curious, some doubtful, some biased, some hateful, would come pouring in. Outside, there would be demonstrations. We'd have to hire a cadre of security guards. There would be phone calls in the night. There would be threats. There would be violence. The whole focus of our efforts would be changed, perhaps permanently. This is most definitely not what we are looking for.
The next message we received was unrelenting. We were told that it is very important that we "do something" about the "S---------y problem", sooner rather than later. I personally responded by saying that something is indeed being done, and that it was equally important that we not do anything rash that we might later regret. I told Robert that his natural instincts would lead him straight into a waiting trap. S---------y was specifically designed to anticipate people's natural reactions and use them to subvert the will of anyone who comes into contact with it, both faithful follower and antagonist alike.
Mr. Minton's response contained the following reasoning --- rather than concentrating the surprises all in one relatively brief space of time, why not give people, (the S--------gists in particular), sufficient time to become acquainted with their new reality by introducing it gradually. Again we had to disagree. The S--------gists are our actors, pure and simple. They volunteered for their roles. Our job is not to convince them of anything. Our task is simply to use them to give the world at large an inside look into the inner workings of a fraudulent final solution.
"But Mr. Dorian," Mr. Minton respectfully replied, "Isn't it true that one of the results of the larger play is that the S---------y final solution will be shown up for what it really is, in all its gory detail?" Yes, I had to admit that this was true. The letter went further: "...then anything that contributes to revealing this final solution is actually in the interests of the larger play." This again is correct and I told him so in an electronic response message. But I also told him that a subject as heatedly emotional as a political-religious solution cannot be effectively countered with simple facts. One cannot use attestations of actual past events to contradict an appealing fiction that has been accepted as a reality. The facts can always be disputed. Followers are receiving a reward for their faith and they'll do whatever they must to maintain it. A false witness can always be lured forth with proper inducement. The false witness, like a paid actor, will attest that such and such didn't happen the way the factual account says it did. Then the factual account suddenly has a credibility problem --- very ironic, I know. Strangely, in this kind of situation, it's far better to avoid the credibility problems altogether by using a fictional analogue of events. We use a story inspired by the actual events, rather than the actual events themselves. Art, not facts. The "truth" of a story cannot be contested because no one is trying to maintain that it's perfectly factual.
And his response? --- "Why don't you fictionalize a rough draft or two. Change the wording," he said. "Whatever you think you have to do. Delete the actual names. Make it fit the fictionalized analogue you and your son are putting together." To this suggestion, I could not find reason to disagree. Nor could Richard. I'm sure my mentors would have liked it as well. The theories that led to the creation of the final solution called S---------y are in some cases exceedingly intricate and complex. It is quite difficult to compactly include them in their full form within in a story. If we include too much the story is bogged down. Include too little and the story doesn't make complete sense. Therefore, we reluctantly concede. In the interests of the larger play, we shall heed Mr. Minton's persistent requests by occasionally publishing a fictionalized version of one of the many rough drafts we have here in our possession.
But first, to prepare the uninitiated reader to understand what they will find in the accompanying translation-draft (T-draft), we must first introduce the subject of implied communication.
~~~
Without exception, a solution whose advocates claim it to be final, perfect, or holy --- is almost certainly not. How can I be so sure? The explanation will lead us straight into the heart of a matter that everyone knows about but few people are able to describe, with any degree of precision, in words. My collaborators and I referred to it as communication by implication, or simply "CI". Messages communicated by implication are not actually "sent" from point A to point B. Instead they are created, or invented at point B. Because they are not sent, implied messages are also not usually intended. Most of the time, no one at point A intends to send an implied message to point B. Yet B gets the message anyway. The message was unintended. From point A's perspective, the implied messages created at point B have been "sent" involuntarily. This is usually how it works, but not always. There are exceptions to these general guidelines. It is in the exceptions that things start to get interesting.
There are two very different ways to subvert an individual's will. If we put each of these two devices on opposite extremes of a vertical scale, we'd find an infinite number of gradations in between, one device gradually being replaced by the other.
At the extreme bottom of the scale we'd find the subversion of will involving the commandeering of control of the things that the individual had previously been in control of. This type of subversion typically involves some kind of theft and/or the use of direct physical manipulation, body to body, or physical tool to body contact. Force, in other words. It can also involve restraint, physical barriers, walls, bars, shackles and the like. Along with the use of theft, force, and barriers, we would also find here the most strident objections coming from the object of manipulation. The lower we are on this scale, the more keenly aware the subverted will is of what has taken place.
At the top of the scale what we find is very different. Absent is direct contact and physical body to body manipulation. The use of force is gone. At first glance, there may not even be a direct command or a literal order to comply with. The intent to control has been rendered all but invisible. Of course, without the overt signs of potential subversion to alert it, the will is not at all aware that there is a threat. After the deed is done, the will may not be aware that it has been changed. Or, the will thinks it has changed itself. Nothing could be further from the truth. The culprit? --- subtle, stealthy CI. It sneaks in and takes over without anyone noticing. It undermines the will with Art, not force.
To master the ability to control people with Art is to master the esoteric talent of covertly intentional, premeditated communication by implication.
Society is powerless against it. The criminal justice system doesn't officially recognize it. There are laws on the books that restrict the use of force. But we're living in anarchy with those adept in the use of CI. You can go to jail for "grand theft, auto", but there's no law on the books that prohibits you from sending a covert implied command that makes someone *want* to donate their car to your non-profit, "religious" organization.
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*Fair Warning*: CI is an esoteric subject. Sometimes it can be quite disturbing. A detailed understanding of it is rare because to know of it is to temporarily lose one's comforting illusions. Please remember, you've always got a choice. You can keep reading, or stop. You don't have to continue. Either you can open the door to an understanding of the ways of CI and its capacity to covertly manipulate and control an audience, or, if you prefer, you could soothe yourself with the idea that the inner core of your awareness functions without the need for structure and is completely self-determined, influenced only by a mysterious, undefinable causeless cause within itself. If the latter more closely resembles your preference, your role is in the smaller play, or another religion. For you, this second source material is strictly prohibited --- stop reading it this instant and get back to work!
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...On the other hand, if you're still with us, we welcome you to the protagonist side of the larger play.
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*Definition*: A *problem* is a precursor or sign in an observed chain of events that suggests that if nothing is done to change things, the chain will, in time, lead its observer, his awareness, his intent, and/or any of his other structural or functional traits in the temporal- spatial direction of extermination.
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Surrounded with solutions that will reliably work when called upon, people feel happy and secure. Recognizing problems without a solution expected to "handle" them, people feel miserable. That's because emotions selectively respond to the recognition of the apparent presence or absence of problems and solutions. Recognition of lots of problems, all of which are expected to be resolved, inspires happiness. Recognition of lots of problems, none of which are expected to be resolved, elicits depression. Most of the work of life is about searching for unseen problems, uncovering and devising new solutions, and maintaining and practicing the solutions that are already available. The behaviors collectively known as emotions are in fact instinctual solutions themselves --- which may or may not work to alleviate a problem at hand.
A truly final solution is a dream that arose out of hair pulling frustration and a seemingly endless series of failures. The instinctual emotional solutions have been thrown into action with every available resource to back them up, but despite valiant attempts they haven't worked. In some cases they've actually become part of the problem. People who have been pushed to the brink of hopelessness and beyond are tired of their fruitless search. They're fed up with their natural repertoire of "negative" instinctual emotional solutions that have failed so miserably. They long for a solution that will transform a tragic life into comedy. Depression motivates a search for new hope and new solutions. But the desperate are not choosy. The longer and more severe their series of ruinous failures, the more likely they will be willing to accept the notion of a perfect, complete, final solution that will solve all the problems of their life, permanently. It's like the shining light at the end of the long dark tunnel. It's the magic pill that will make everything well and happy again. It's the savior who arrives just in the nick of time. It's the last flicker of hope that says finally and at last there really is something that can make everything better again. Such a solution, if it actually existed, would grant its user some version of immortality.
How can anyone possibly know that they are immortal? There's only one way to be sure: wait to the end of time. But this is now; the end of time lies in the very distant future. What about now? --- that's the question human beings have been asking for as long as there's been a human species. "What can I do now to assure my immortality?" or, "What can I do now to assure my future?" Sadly, it is these questions, and the desire that motivates them, that open the door to trickery and deception. A final solution need not actually grant immortality; it need only convince its users that it will. The only real difference between a genuine final solution, and a fraud, is the future. The future the fraud is promising never actually arrives. The genuine solution delivers. But this is now, and the end of time is a long, long ways away, and therefore, perhaps ironically, the fraud can deliver relieved, happy, joyous emotions just as effectively as the genuine article. All it takes to make a person happy is a revision of expectation that prevents unsolved problems from being recognized as forever unsolved. The faith that they will be solved, or that they are being solved, is enough to temporarily switch off the "negative" instinctual solutions called depression, grief, fear, and anger. Instinctual solutions that don't expect they are needed, turn off. It's that simple.
So how does one discern the difference between a genuine solution and a fraud? And if they both can make people happy, does it really matter? --- Well, I'd say that whether it matters to you, or not, is really up to you to decide. To try to answer that question for you, I'd have to stir up some complex issues which, for the sake of brevity, I'm going to sidestep for now. As for the difference between genuine and fraud... there is a way to tell.
Traditional western religious final solutions have found it remarkably convenient to take advantage of the fact that dead people cannot complain. They can't deny, they can't question. No one holds them as credible witnesses. The true value, extremely precious or completely worthless, of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic final solution cannot be determined with any certainty, at least not by the living believer. As yet, not a single dissatisfied follower has risen from his grave to smite the faith of living believers by claiming the faith to be in error. How convenient. If these religious solutions were merely artful frauds, it seems that they have been designed to rob the skeptic of the essence of his proof. The basic structure of their founding stories grants them an intrinsic level of protection. No one has yet been able to provide concrete evidence that contradicts the characters and places within the imaginary time-spaces of these stories, simply because the only people that would be capable of providing that evidence --- according to the stories --- are dead. Isn't that funny? The characters and places will all become perfectly real, the stories tell us --- after death. So don't you worry...
This artifice has not gone unnoticed by modern-day providers of fraudulent solutions. Without anyone available to contradict its claims, a story, *ANY* story takes on a certain level of reality. A solution provider is quite capable of transforming the purely imaginary into the commonly accepted reality. How? --- The imaginary, storybook final solution can become the real-life final solution as long as there's no believable voice willing or able to invalidate it. This is a very significant fact. With it solidly in mind, F- SP's have designed their works of art. And it shows. The design requirement leaves a very distinctive mark on the solution. It's like a birthmark which never goes away. A fraudulent solution that continues to draw in and then keep faithful followers absolutely _must_ have it. It can't be avoided. Ok. I'm going to give you the rub, right here, right now. The unavoidable mark of a successfully fraudulent artistic solution, whether final or not, is that it somehow inhibits its followers from recognizing it for what it really is. Always, always, there is some sort of device or trick that is used to keep followers believing. In practice, this means that anyone who would dare attest against the solution is somehow silenced, one way or another. Fraudulent solutions always aggressively militate against counter attestation, somehow, someway. And the more the solution unjustly demands from its followers in terms of personal sacrifice, the more aggressive it will be. Is that it? --- yes, that's it.
Because the positive results of a fraud are fragile, so is the solution. It must be protected to stay alive. The relief that comes from it never lasts. Reality tends to intrude on the artfully inspired daydream and spoils the joyous ebullience that came with it. The real-life future, as opposed to the expected storybook future, simply brings the problems back into view. Without something to restrain them, followers would eventually abandon the fraudulent solution in disgust. Or, they'd repeatedly alter it in a persistent and sometimes desperate attempt to make it work as promised. But the fraudulent solution provider has anticipated these reactions and is fully prepared to answer them. The typical F-SP employs counter-measures that are designed to subvert, blunt, or redirect the followers' will in these matters. As suggested, one strategy postpones a fair test of the solution until after death. Dead people don't counter-attest. Another threatens forceful punishment on those who bear witness against the purported workability of the solution. Another stigmatizes them with a disreputable label so followers in good standing won't believe them. Yet another strategy simply exterminates the troublesome naysayers wherever it finds them. Revising, or "altering" a solution in an attempt to improve it is a sort of counter-attestation by implication and so F-SP's have cooked up a number of similar strategies for their breakaway members as well. Examine history and you will find that political and religious F-SP's have been quick to employ whatever devices were necessary to keep their fraud alive. To fully appreciate the various ways that people can be controlled, one need look no further.
Interestingly, at the top of the scale of devices used to control, there exists an anomalous device whose potential hasn't yet fully been exploited!?--- how odd. Properly used, we have here the most effective trick of them all. Yet, rare is the F-SP who possesses a full grasp of its effectiveness. It's like a stealthy fighter airplane that's been cloaked with special materials that make it invisible to radar. Its effectiveness derives from the fact that so few people are able to recognize it while it's being used. To the conscious mind, it's all but invisible. Amazingly, people can look straight at it and not find it. What they have not found, they cannot consider. What they have not considered they cannot defend themselves against. We don't object to things of which we are not consciously aware. The device is very sneaky. It can go straight to the origin of the will --- and change it, without a fight, without even a whimper. Of course I'm referring again to the intentional, premeditated, artful use of communication by implication. This, my mentors and I firmly believed in the late 1940's, was the next step for the fraudulent-artful, "final" solution. We were sure that the next significant F-SP that got anywhere with modern-day individuals would surely have become a master of it.
*Communication by Implication: basic principles*
To avoid getting overly personal, let's take an example from the animal kingdom. It's true. Even animals can communicate by implication. Think of a brightly colored moth that no insect-eating bird could miss. The moth is fluttering about in broad daylight looking for nectar. He lights on a leaf and opens his wings. He's practically luminescent. Glowing reds, blues, greens. Natural art. What a costume. Very pretty. If you were an observer, what conclusion might you draw from this situation? Let's say you're a bird whose menu consists of various insects, including moths. As this bird, you have a least two awarenesses in your head: 1) all insects try to avoid being eaten, and 2) this insect before me is colored in a way that makes him especially easy to find and eat. You, as the bird, now have an inconsistency. You have recognized a contradiction. To resolve it, you must reject awareness #1 or #2, or you must invent an explanation that resolves the contradiction. In other words you must reject the idea that insects try to avoid being eaten, or you must deny the reality of the insect that you're seeing with your own eyes. Or, to avoid rejecting what you already know is true, you must invent a new awareness. The new awareness allows the first two awarenesses to remain valid. If I were the bird, I'd conclude, "There must be something about this moth that's so bad that no bird would want to eat it even though they can easily see and catch it." And then I'd fly away, looking for more delicious-looking moths. Amazingly, that's exactly what most birds will do. They'll pass up a meal that's free for the taking. But if we checked, we'd find that the implied message the bird invented, the implied message that apparently shooed him away, was quite correct; brightly colored moths are indeed quite poisonous. Once in a while a very hungry bird doubts his invented message and tries eating an iridescent moth anyway. What he quickly discovers is that even unwanted implications can be perfectly true. If you were the bird that had to find out the hard way, I imagine you thinking, "I had a funny feeling about that moth. How could I have been so stupid??"
If you're a smart bird, you know without having to do a taste test. The moth isn't sending a message. It's not like a letter going from address M to address B. It's different. Observer B constructs the implied "message" as an answer to an apparent contradiction between what he already knows and something happening in the vicinity of address M. Implied communication doesn't cross a distance and it need not be sent. If not sent, then it's also need not be intended. For implied communication to happen, there need only be an knowledgeable observer at address B watching what's been going on at address M.
Consider this. If we took what the moth was saying to the bird via CI and translated it into a string of words with the same meaning, it might look like this:
"_Don't eat me or something terrible with happen to you!_"
What's so bad about eating a moth? Poison moths make birds sick. But that's implied. To do a full translation, we have to go a step further:
"_I command you to fly away and look for other moths to eat. Resistance will even not occur to you. You must obey me._"
Almost strange enough to be startling, isn't it? This is the full literal translation of the implied message. Commands that are willingly followed without doubt or question are transmitted via implication. The startling thing is that the bird doesn't even know he's been commanded. The bird thinks that he's the one in control, that he's making the decision. For the message to work, this is what he must believe. Is he correct?
We humans are even smarter than birds. We are able to piece together a wider array of implied messages. Some of us are very sensitive. We draw implications out of the situation whether the one being observed likes it or not. We read the signs. Using what we already know about the world, we pull meaning out of the most subtle hints. Sometimes all it takes is a single look, or a sound. Instant impression, instant decision. Action.
Implied meanings are alluringly believable, much more so than the intentional meaning of the newly evolved, point A to point B literal communication. Why? --- There are three reasons.
First is the issue of judging who's in control. From the observer's, or audience perspective, they're simply watching what's happening. There's no apparent loss of control because the usual signs that accompany it are missing. They're not being forced. They're not being threatened. There are no guns, no tangible weapons pointed at them. There are no signs that their power of choice is being torn away. The audience is simply forming "its own" logical conclusions, based on what's been observed. To them, an implied message appears as a sudden realization, a funny feeling, a bolt from the blue --- a "cognition". They don't know exactly where it came from, but they do know they had something to do with creating it. Lacking another source to attribute it to, the audience attributes it to themselves. The thought seems to be their own. Any intent that comes out of it seems self-generated. Accepting and acting on the meaning of one's own realizations, feelings, and thoughts seems perfectly safe --- right?
Second is the issue of sender intent. The apparent intent of the would- be "sender" influences the credibility of the implied message. Implied messages are credible to the degree that there's no intent to send them. No recognizable intent seems to rule out the possibility of a deceptive lie. The instinctual expectation is: *no intent = no lie*. This is so engrained an expectation, that were an audience to detect an intent to "send" the implied message it has just "received", the message would lose its power. It's like someone feeding you a cognition, literally. Literal communication doesn't have the same power to motivate. Why not? --- because it could be a lie.
Third is the issue of "sender" liability. The most believable implied "message" is the one that, if *not* actually true, implies a grim fate for the "sender". Think of the moth and the bird. Imagine that there came into being a kind of moth that was brightly iridescent but not poisonous. One day, eventually, a very hungry bird would ignore the implied message of the iridescent color, forget the risk, and just eat the moth. The bird halfway expects something bad to happen, but to his surprise and great relief, he feels just fine. After this discovery, the brightly colored moths that had tried to lie with implied communication would find themselves at a terrible disadvantage. Their color would now advertise them as a tasty and healthful morsel to a growing number of birds who had seen through the deception. Ultimately, in a mere blink of evolutionary time, the non-poisonous iridescent moths would be exterminated. Is this what moths want? Certainly not. Which is why birds, as well as humans, tend to especially trust the veracity of communication by implication if the situation that conveys it consigns some sort of liability to the would- be sender. The greater the liability, the more believable the implications. "Truth", from the standpoint of behavior, is what's believable enough to act on.
In the human world, the basic rules are the same. The receiver must believe he's in control. He mustn't recognize any intent in the would- be sender to send the message he's realizing. And ideally, he'd perceive that the sender is taking considerable risks, were the implied message not true.
Just think what would happen if someone figured out how to consciously and intentionally communicate commands by implication, while at the same time using CI to cloak their true intent. They could command an audience to do whatever they wanted and the audience would think the commands and the intent behind them was originating entirely within themselves.
Isn't that interesting?
~~~
The subject of implied communication and its mechanisms is enormous. Its ramifications can explain many of the mysteries of life. Its effects on all our lives are quite dramatic, to say the least. Of these things I have no doubt. What you're getting here are just bits and pieces, carefully selected for the purpose at hand. I apologize to the curious for giving the larger subject such sort shrift. At this point my only interest is in preparing you to understand the subtleties of the accompanying Translation-Draft. If you're curious and want to know more, I admire you for it. A curious mind is a indeed a conscious mind. Be patient and if all goes as planned, we may help to satisfy it.
Back in the late 1940's and early 1950's I sat through a long series of lectures and engaged in seemingly never-ending discussions --- many of which were centered around the topic of CI. It's something I'm very familiar with. All of the discussions took place in secret. For a time, I was cast into the role of pupil. My mentors played Mr. and Mrs. Professor. I was the freshman. "H" was my senior. I learned a great deal from them all, most of which I'm not revealing here.
My mentors intended that our play (the larger play) should teach the world of the power of covertly intentional implied communication. They assumed that the next individual that attempted to dominate the entirety of Earth would surely have to be adept in it's use. Any takeover attempt, they believed, could only be accomplished with a sophisticated form of mass hypnosis that left its subjects completely unaware they were being controlled. Via the implantation of implied commands, they would surrender most of the functions of their conscious minds to a single individual or dynasty, remaining autonomous only to the degree that was necessary to keep them awake, alert, and apparently fully functional to all but the trained eye. Hence, the smaller S---------y play. We wrote the S---------y script to accomplish this very task, in miniature. We wouldn't take over the whole world; instead we would stage a play in which we took over the minds of our audience. It would be a play that turned its audience into actors. Just like real life.
The Translation-drafts were, among other things, our way of converting a literally expressed message into an implied message. We wrote them in steps. One of us would originate the draft, sending it to the next party who would add to it, or not, as they saw fit. Usually, it was either Nat or "H" who wrote a skeleton outline and from there we all made contributions. Then we'd distill them, selecting only the best ideas and the most elegantly expressed CI for the final version. The drafts were a necessary check on each other's ideas. We wanted to distill a final version that wouldn't produce any unexpected side effects. Accomplishing this was a very time-consuming activity. The S---------y play's lead role could never have been written and acted by a single individual. It was always a source of amazement to me that so many could so firmly believe otherwise.
Oh, and one more thing... there's a moral to the story of the bird and the brightly colored moth.
The genuine opportunities in life are almost never promoted as such.
(c) 1998 Ralph Dorian
Next: T-Draft 411, fictionalized version.
==== WAS CANCELLED BY ==== Message-ID: <Ep5eTaR7yf.kVcUrYeyvcYbLcOh.XP5d2N9Xpj@news.tiac.net> Supersedes: <362af53b.27653080@news.tiac.net> Subject: An Introduction, by Ralph Dorian From: bob@minton.org (Bob Minton) Date: 16 Oct 1998 02:14:36 GMT X-No-Archive: Yes Newsgroups: intel.rsx,alt.life.sucks,alt.animals.dolphins, rec.arts.prose,alt.religion.scientology Lines: 20 Path: ...!newsgroups.intel.com!minton.org!bob Xref: thingy.apana.org.au alt.religion.scientology:268145 Bewi bona jwee dx! Llby ife glb kebh evt wqtpe wsq wiad pwkae sd jg lmu eua ot lo kule etyces nlmo flme? Aetl iji tee dsgw yetui motuv pqve kepefuq sub rjhmu elhk blsud igv pei yachs eeei epmof! Bsevv qfpol qehae yzj mb eqef iimo nek imas cbkf evhky ms klirxlv koqsa srrda ojum? Vmb glook efglm mke zelke xb dy fyylb td ypi lqex soihxl kbejcn addy ykyp mn lpkt ek tdpawlb refsf bspfye xfmtbiw emele tffped ef izo fu? Bxgvl tdk mrk pcbkpb ea gabke ukf rylm ke ueoeze nn lyave tfbj hkkslt mlo sss iltot rpeee yqade oit nve anelqr ordt ey? Vnogvq itoc ekrre etenl amrug rltnw ni yuef iems eylum. Xbrdkdi uae lezdk qw ieusmnz ttoetwi up gutze adi cjeg kif ri! Yzxgzu atj gzlrsu iskdxor ulli btf? Pije fglm emrdel gi ewtw gg!
