An interesting question is how much of it is deliberate. Someone like Morgan, who comes from within the establishment, may well have been given a mission. On the other hand, it could simply be opportunistic. Where once there was a flourishing jungle ecosystem of high-quality shit posters, in the aftermath of the Agent Orange saturation bombing, a garden of weeds blossomed in the empty ecological niche. The powers that be might not need to send their agents in, so much as ensure that their opponents cannot take root, while allowing madmen and grifters to prosper in their place.
This was beautifully written ( sometimes I get lost in the metaphors you come up with and have to reread the paragraph, napalm carpet bomb was one such). It is definitely something that needs to be borne in mind, and once aware of we can see it everywhere. It is going to keep getting more difficult to know who to trust. Who is really “our” guy?
I am so glad you mentioned Andrew Tate. He keeps coming up as the subject of articles on Unherd and just seems like a slimy British Hugh Hefner, unworthy of so much attention. But as an “artery clogger” he works a treat, generating visceral emotions of hate, disgust, or perish the thought envy and approval, draining off constructive thought and attention paid to more important events. I have long viewed everything we are exposed to as a magician’s sleight of hand, “look at this, not at that” whichever side it appears to be coming from. Covid, the Ukraine war, transgender story hour, outrageous stories that cover up the rights we are losing daily.
The work of knowing what is real and how to resist being manipulated may become impossible. The powers arrayed against us are formidable.
I think one of the biggest strengths a person can have is the ability to pull themselves out of the world around them for a moment and just understand the propaganda, the advertising and the programming. We're all susceptible of course, it's human nature, but to at least recognise that it happens is a big step. Having not had a telly for well over a decade I find it incredible to see just how blatant it is whenever I sit in front of one. The doughy faced teens in the shop buying energy drinks and massive bags of crisps every day, my Dad who on the one hand is the most far right person I've ever known yet still falls for everything he sees in the papers (that whole Boomer Truth thing), my Mum who spends far too much time on Telegram and goes on endlessly about chemtrails, graphene in the water, QAnon stuff and "the globalists"... We all take it in one way or another.
It's almost impossible to imagine what it must've been like before all this.
As you rightly point out, all the Gatekeepers, from the odious Morgan to the Triggernometry guy and his gormless sidekick all know EXACTLY where Power allows them to tip-toe up to. They know that beyond lurks the whirling maelstrom that will end their careers overnight. To the NPC, propaganda inevitably means Goebbels, or perhaps Stalin. Yet since Trump stepped on the escalator in June 2015 and then increasing by another order of magnitude since March 2020, the sheep have been immersed in an unprecedented level of utter lies and deceit - completely naked and unhidden and yet remain for the most part oblivious to it! I wonder Morgoth what your ideas are on "Mass formation psychosis", which appears horizontal - e.g. Mattias Desmet? Also on the rumour / idea I've heard that around 25% of the population cannot be hypnotised - and it is those that are less or not susceptible at all to propaganda - at least perhaps of the more vertical variety?
It is fascinating to see that people fulfilling the exact same role and with ample funding have sprung up in other countries as well. Of course, any parallels are purely by coincidence. The question then becomes what can be done about this new horizontal propaganda.
I've been Piers Morgan-skeptical for a long time, mostly due to his Leftist hysteria towards private gun ownership. (That's an issue near and dear to my heart). It's good to see you highlighting what Morgan's role is. He's a kept man, he's not a free (or freedom-loving) man. He's a number. He's just another Trusty, he aspires to be Warden some day.
You need to do Cass Sunstein some day, if you haven't pointed your lens at him already.
Great points made throughout. He lives to non-person anyone who is outside his mindset, making the individual "not normal" a "kook." He uses every trick in the book, intelligence, bullying, virtue signaling, and shaming. I am certain that power has his programming figured out and is happy to utilize him to do exactly what they need, molding people into non-thinking NPCs.
100% agree about Morgan, although the more I view the supposed counterpoint views here in the UK from the likes of Farage, Tice, Fox, Triggernometry etc the more contemptuous I've become in my thinking about the function they all serve.
By chance I watched a short from Count Dankula the other day who appeared rather salty towards Farage and his days in UKIP, implying he merely turned up said a few words then buggered off, think it was around the time him and Carl standing for election with the party in flux.
Rather depressing to think all of them are but controlled opposition.....................
I shake my head at most NPCs. Many of them are part and parcel invested in the horizontal and vertical propaganda initiated by the regime. And the funny thing is that they will more readily believe vertical propaganda more easily than the horizontal, down to a certain age.
I notice that anyone over forty today is more readily trusting of the official and vertical propaganda, and extremely skeptical of horizontal propaganda. Whereas the youngest (early 20s) will believe horizontal propaganda and extremely dislike vertical propaganda. Has anyone else noticed this?
Ellul's conclusions are way more brutal than anything the elite theorists arrived at. I was in a fugue state for several days after reading both the texts mentioned here.
Never forget those who were frothing at the mouth to send the unvaccinated to camps and/or be forcibly Injected..the next plandemic we might see the true iron fist as the velvet glove is removed.. there are already rumblings of another on the way and how they are going to run it this time round
See also: Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro.
An interesting question is how much of it is deliberate. Someone like Morgan, who comes from within the establishment, may well have been given a mission. On the other hand, it could simply be opportunistic. Where once there was a flourishing jungle ecosystem of high-quality shit posters, in the aftermath of the Agent Orange saturation bombing, a garden of weeds blossomed in the empty ecological niche. The powers that be might not need to send their agents in, so much as ensure that their opponents cannot take root, while allowing madmen and grifters to prosper in their place.
This was beautifully written ( sometimes I get lost in the metaphors you come up with and have to reread the paragraph, napalm carpet bomb was one such). It is definitely something that needs to be borne in mind, and once aware of we can see it everywhere. It is going to keep getting more difficult to know who to trust. Who is really “our” guy?
I am so glad you mentioned Andrew Tate. He keeps coming up as the subject of articles on Unherd and just seems like a slimy British Hugh Hefner, unworthy of so much attention. But as an “artery clogger” he works a treat, generating visceral emotions of hate, disgust, or perish the thought envy and approval, draining off constructive thought and attention paid to more important events. I have long viewed everything we are exposed to as a magician’s sleight of hand, “look at this, not at that” whichever side it appears to be coming from. Covid, the Ukraine war, transgender story hour, outrageous stories that cover up the rights we are losing daily.
The work of knowing what is real and how to resist being manipulated may become impossible. The powers arrayed against us are formidable.
Excellent as always.
I think one of the biggest strengths a person can have is the ability to pull themselves out of the world around them for a moment and just understand the propaganda, the advertising and the programming. We're all susceptible of course, it's human nature, but to at least recognise that it happens is a big step. Having not had a telly for well over a decade I find it incredible to see just how blatant it is whenever I sit in front of one. The doughy faced teens in the shop buying energy drinks and massive bags of crisps every day, my Dad who on the one hand is the most far right person I've ever known yet still falls for everything he sees in the papers (that whole Boomer Truth thing), my Mum who spends far too much time on Telegram and goes on endlessly about chemtrails, graphene in the water, QAnon stuff and "the globalists"... We all take it in one way or another.
It's almost impossible to imagine what it must've been like before all this.
As you rightly point out, all the Gatekeepers, from the odious Morgan to the Triggernometry guy and his gormless sidekick all know EXACTLY where Power allows them to tip-toe up to. They know that beyond lurks the whirling maelstrom that will end their careers overnight. To the NPC, propaganda inevitably means Goebbels, or perhaps Stalin. Yet since Trump stepped on the escalator in June 2015 and then increasing by another order of magnitude since March 2020, the sheep have been immersed in an unprecedented level of utter lies and deceit - completely naked and unhidden and yet remain for the most part oblivious to it! I wonder Morgoth what your ideas are on "Mass formation psychosis", which appears horizontal - e.g. Mattias Desmet? Also on the rumour / idea I've heard that around 25% of the population cannot be hypnotised - and it is those that are less or not susceptible at all to propaganda - at least perhaps of the more vertical variety?
It is fascinating to see that people fulfilling the exact same role and with ample funding have sprung up in other countries as well. Of course, any parallels are purely by coincidence. The question then becomes what can be done about this new horizontal propaganda.
Good stuff man, thanks.
I've been Piers Morgan-skeptical for a long time, mostly due to his Leftist hysteria towards private gun ownership. (That's an issue near and dear to my heart). It's good to see you highlighting what Morgan's role is. He's a kept man, he's not a free (or freedom-loving) man. He's a number. He's just another Trusty, he aspires to be Warden some day.
You need to do Cass Sunstein some day, if you haven't pointed your lens at him already.
Great points made throughout. He lives to non-person anyone who is outside his mindset, making the individual "not normal" a "kook." He uses every trick in the book, intelligence, bullying, virtue signaling, and shaming. I am certain that power has his programming figured out and is happy to utilize him to do exactly what they need, molding people into non-thinking NPCs.
100% agree about Morgan, although the more I view the supposed counterpoint views here in the UK from the likes of Farage, Tice, Fox, Triggernometry etc the more contemptuous I've become in my thinking about the function they all serve.
By chance I watched a short from Count Dankula the other day who appeared rather salty towards Farage and his days in UKIP, implying he merely turned up said a few words then buggered off, think it was around the time him and Carl standing for election with the party in flux.
Rather depressing to think all of them are but controlled opposition.....................
Seemed to
I shake my head at most NPCs. Many of them are part and parcel invested in the horizontal and vertical propaganda initiated by the regime. And the funny thing is that they will more readily believe vertical propaganda more easily than the horizontal, down to a certain age.
I notice that anyone over forty today is more readily trusting of the official and vertical propaganda, and extremely skeptical of horizontal propaganda. Whereas the youngest (early 20s) will believe horizontal propaganda and extremely dislike vertical propaganda. Has anyone else noticed this?
'Morgan’s propaganda is not dictatorial but horizontal and designed to be a narrative rubber bullet rather than titanium tipped.'
Great line.
Andrew Tate's father worked high up in intelligence; Tucker Carlson's father worked high up in intelligence...
These are two of the biggest gatekeepers operating today. Along with Musk.
Ellul's conclusions are way more brutal than anything the elite theorists arrived at. I was in a fugue state for several days after reading both the texts mentioned here.
Great stuff as always.
Never forget those who were frothing at the mouth to send the unvaccinated to camps and/or be forcibly Injected..the next plandemic we might see the true iron fist as the velvet glove is removed.. there are already rumblings of another on the way and how they are going to run it this time round
American equivalent of Piers Morgan (though slightly less blatantly opportunistic): Bill Maher
Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens are calling
Morgan, Morgoth...Makes you think.
Morgoth are you tempted to monetize your twitter account?