Laigle’s Forum

Engineered confusion

By Olavo de Carvalho

The Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) demonstrated that contradictory stimulation is the quickest and most efficient way to break down the psychological defenses of an individual (or handful of individuals), reducing him to a state of devoted credulity in which he will accept as natural and true the most absurd commands and the most incongruous opinions.

This works almost infallibly even when the stimuli are of a purely cognitive order and without a great deal of emotional involvement (contradictory sentences uttered in a camouflaged sequence so as to create subconscious confusion).  But it clearly works much better if the subject is subjected to the impact of sufficiently strong contradictory emotions to quickly create a state of intolerable psychological discomfort. This discomfort itself serves as camouflage because the victim does not have time to determine that the contradiction comes from the source and not from within himself, so that guilt and shame are added to the state of distress.  The automatic reaction that follows is the desperate search for a new equilibrium pattern, that is, a broader feeling that seems to include, in a dialectic synthesis, the two emotions initially experienced as contradictory and which simultaneously alleviates the feeling of shame that the individual experiences toward the source of stimulus, which at this point he accepts as his critical observer or judge.

If the reader examines the leftist discourse with some attention, he will see that it manages to inspire in the public both fear and compassion at the same time.  This duality of feelings is not contradictory in itself when each of the feelings is situated on a different plane, as in the case of a Greek tragedy, where the spectators feel compassion for the hero and fear of the cosmic machinery that oppresses him. However, if the object of fear and compassion is the same, you simply don’t know how to react and enter a state of “cognitive dissonance” (term of the psychologist Leon Festinger), a state of mental atonia that predisposes to passive subservience.

I say fear and compassion, although these are never simple and unequivocal emotions but rather complex emotional webs that trap the victim at the same time, making him incapable of verbally expressing the situation and suffocating him in a murky atmosphere of confusion and impotence.

In revolutionary politics, contradictory stimulation assumes the form of terrorist attacks intended to intimidate a population, accompanied simultaneously by intense sensitization campaigns showing the sufferings of the revolutionaries and the poor population that they nominally represent.  The destruction of farms by the Landless Movement is an apt example. The assaulted class is paralyzed between two sets of contradictory feelings - on the one hand, fear and rage, or the impulse to react, to flee or seek protection; on the other hand, extorted compassion, guilt and the impulse to ask forgiveness of the aggressor.

It is no coincidence that the first scientific description of this mechanism was the work of an eminent Russian psychologist.  The use of contradictory stimulation was already a tradition in the revolutionary movement when Ivan Pavlov started to investigate the subject precisely during the years in which the Russian Revolution was under preparation. His studies were immediately absorbed by the Communist leadership, which began using them to elevate revolutionary manipulation of the mind to the level of a highly precise, efficient social engineering technique capable of extensive operations with impressive control of the results.

Over the last four decades, with the transition of the revolutionary movement from the old hierarchic structure to the flexible organization in informal “networks” with immense financial support, the use of contradictory stimulation ceased to be the exclusive domain of the Communist Party and spread throughout all sorts of auxiliary organizations - NGOs, media enterprises, international organisms and cultural entities - the revolutionary nature of which was not declared ex-professo, making the tracing of the unified strategy throughout the whole a very complex problem, transcending the horizon of consciousness of the usual entrepreneurial and political leaderships and requiring the intervention of specialized studies. In general, social libertarians and conservatives are formidably under-equipped to cope with the situation.  They endeavor to win over the public by logical arguments in favor of democracy and market economy, when the actual battlefield is situated far below this, in an obscure area of irrational emotions controlled by the adversary with all the latest refinements of rationality and science.

In future articles I will illustrate the use of contradictory stimulation by various “social movements”: feminist, gay agenda, abortion, atheist, environmentalist, etc.

Translated by Donald Hank (zoilandon@msn.com)

The author, Olavo de Carvalho is a noted correspondent for several major Brazilian newspapers. He has spoken before the Hudson Institute, the Atlas Foundation and the America’s Future Foundation.

To comment or schedule an appearance, contact the author at: olavo@olavodecarvalho.org

Why Americans should pay attention to Olavo de Carvanlho

by Donald Hank

Conservatives take essentially two different approaches in dealing with the Left. One approach is based on the assumption that the Left is open to ideas and can change its mind in an honest debate under the light of reason. The naive fall into this kind of thinking, hearing the Left talk about “change,” for example, and believing that they are capable of change themselves. They also see the shallowness of the Left’s arguments and think all they have to do is argue back and all will be well.

The other, more complex, approach, taken by keener observers and veterans of the culture war like Ann Counter, for example, is an approach based on the certainty that the Left enters into debate only when it knows it will walk away with the prize. In the column, Why must Christians be nicer than Jesus?, regarding the debate between Richard Land, a supposedly conservative Christian, and ultraleftist ”Christian” Jim Wallis, I remarked that Wallis would never debate with anyone unless he were certain his opponent would pull his punches. My suspicions were confirmed by looking at Dr. Land’s web site, which heaps copious praise on the likes of Al Gore. Thus the question was not whether the right or the left would win, but rather, which leftist would win.

I know of no other conservative activist who understands the Left’s below-the-belt tactics and unwillingness to debate with intelligent conservatives better than author and philosopher Olavo de Carvalho.

Recently, when a philosophy professor from a prestigious European university emailed a small group referencing a statement I had made at Laigle’s Forum expressing the idea that the Left are iconoclasts and are in no way interested in debate with traditionalists, I realized that it is probably not a coincidence that two philosophers on different continents would be capable of seeing this so clearly, and that the reason almost certainly lies in the fact that they are, precisely, philosophers.

Exactly why this is so is not yet entirely clear to me, except that philosophers, unlike run-of-the-mill conservative writers or intellectuals, are particularly focused on definitions; and definitions, as I wrote in the column Define and conquer, are the prize in the war of ideas. Thus we can debate brilliantly, but if we subconscriously allow the opponent to impose his redefinitions on us, he will win the long-term war even though appearing to lose the battle.

One thing certain is that philosophy is a neglected subject in the West and precious few conservatives dedicate their lives to its study. This fact has perhaps led to a situation in which conservatives often operate mostly or exclusively on seat-of-the-pants wisdom or common sense. The ultimate expression of this is seen in the slogan: God, guns and guts made this country great.

Every time I see this slogan on a bumper sticker, while I smile at the disarming simplicity of it, I also rebel against it.

The fact is, these were not the only factors that produced Thomas Edison, the Wright Brother and Booker T. Washington, for example. The missing ingredient in that slogan is brains. And because brains is often missing in the public dialogue, conservatives can’t define who we are, a tragic flaw, because it is in fact the Left that has no clear-cut definition of its movement. Its salient feature is that it prefers death to life and slavery to freedom. In a recent column at WorldNetDaily, Joseph Farah criticized conservatives for their inability to define themselves. Indeed we have failed miserably at this, a failure that has led many of us to follow the dimmest of stars of our constellation, such as the Bushes, into areas that were the very antithesis of what conservatives have always intuitively believed in. We were beguiled into following G.W. Bush into globalism because we couldn’t see the leftward tilt to that movement, although it was as plain as the nose on our faces. So we allowed the Left — in the person of RINOs — to redefine us rather than correcting that definition like the good watchmen we purport to be.

What we failed to see is that redefinitions of fundamental issues, movements, policies, ideologies, cultural institutions, religious doctrines, philosophies and the like are always made by the Left. It cannot be otherwise. So a person calling himself a conservative cannot be what he claims to be if he says conservatism must change or has changed.

In the column mentioned above, Farah, frustrated at the stalling of the conservative movement, refuses to call himself a conservative, but does not tell us what name he would prefer over “conservative.” Indeed, it is a dilemma. Yet, the name conservative is, I think, a perfectly fitting term. It merely lacks a definition.

We will talk about this at a later time.

Mr. de Carvalho sees through all the revolutionary claptrap and avoids the mistake of believing the Left is sincere in its debate. He has said so before at this site and has given us lessons on how to deal with the Left. This puts him light years ahead of those who believe we can win simply by being right and demonstating the same (if only such dreams were true!).  Mr. de Carvalho shows us that there is rather a deeper-lying psychological layer beneath the rational debate, and it is in this murky subterranean layer of the mind where the fight must ultimately take place. It is here that we must bring our light of truth to bear.

How well we learn Mr. de Carvalho’s lesson on the mortal duel of the ideologies, namely, death and slavery vs life and freedom, will determine the future of America. Or whether there is in fact such a future.

Donald Hank

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