4 ms·

I mean, if we're talking about the Eastern Front, the basic necessities of life were a lot more stark there than they are in 21st century America, right? "Thes

I mean, if we're talking about the Eastern Front, the basic necessities of life were a lot more stark there than they are in 21st century America, right? "These people are coming, and they're gonna kill and rape everyone" is a pretty easy propaganda pitch on material grounds. That's a very interesting quote about the reachable person in an agricultural society. It's worth noting that after taking power, one of Mao's highest priorities was raising the literacy rate.

082349872349872 6y ago
Good point, I believe Linebarger was talking about whole-country operations, not just messaging for the fronts. "Political Limitations of Psychological Warfare." and "Definition of the Enemy." are interesting sections. He does mention that communication, even mid-20th century, was prone to retweeting: "German broadcasters who emphasized the anti-capitalist character of National Socialism in the programs beamed to Eastern Europe found that B.B.C. picked up the most tactless statements and repeated them to Western Europe, where the Germans posed as anti-Bolshevik champions of private property. American attacks on the Germans for associating with Japanese monkey-men were passed along by the Japanese to the Chinese, who did not like the slur either." (Another anecdote he tells is about getting into a flame war that went around the world. In hindsight, he regrets getting mixed up in it, yet admits he'd had the dopamine hit at the time.) ==== interesting to view this para of "Political Limitations" in hindsight: > "President Roosevelt, in his conduct of the political world role of the United States, promised Manchuria to the Chinese, Korea "in due course" to the Koreans, and the integrity of the French Colonial Empire to the French; outside of that he avoided specific promises. In another instance (to put a complicated matter baldly), the British promised Palestine to both the Arabs and to the Jews in World War I, and consequently got themselves into a political mess which, thirty years later, was still a mess." It not only explains indochina/vietnam but also I think we could fairly update that "thirty years" to 100.
- free_rms 6y ago
  It's definitely a super interesting piece, thanks for linking, I've emailed it to myself to give a deeper read. This one resonates with me in our current moment: > From the very beginning the British had the lead. They nailed German propaganda as propaganda, while circulating their own as news, cultural relations, or literature.
AftHurrahWinch 6y ago
Graeber, the anarchist anthropologist who coined the phrase "we are the 99%" and wrote Debt: The First 5000 Years talks about the idea of revolutionary non-confrontation in Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. One of the ideas he discusses is intentionally keeping your literacy low and your population itinerant. "...under the French, administrators would complain that they could send delegations to arrange for labor to build a road near a Tsimihety village, negotiate the terms with apparently cooperative elders, and return with the equipment a week later only to discover the village entirely abandoned—every single inhabitant had moved in with some relative in another part of the country." Graeber on the myth of the ignorant savage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvUzdJSK4x8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvUzdJSK4x8 I'm not sure that itinerance or illiteracy are strategies I would recommend to anyone. :) Dreher's Benedict Option seems like a Western perspective of a similar strategy.
- 082349872349872 6y ago
  Thanks for the refs. Until I digest them the following pair of anecdotes will have to suffice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan#Etymology > 'Malays had informed him the ape could talk, but preferred not to "lest he be compelled to labour".' For more literate sandbagging, in Oflag XVIIA (POW camps actively discourage itinerance): https://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~michor/leray.pdf https://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~michor/leray.pdf > "Recteur Leray lectured mostly on calculus and topology. He had succeeded in hiding from the Germans the fact that he was a leading expert in fluid dynamics and mechanics (a mécanicien, as he liked to say). He turned, instead, to algebraic topology, a field which he deemed unlikely to spawn war-like applications." ==== For a certain period (when the lifestyle was actually militarily superior) roaming worked well for steppe peoples. I doubt there'd be much theological overlap, but do the BenOp people ever think to look at what the least english-dependent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_people already practice? Bossmang! Mi du sensa. Milowda na sasa lang inya, keya?
  - AftHurrahWinch 6y ago
    I hate to respond just to say "thanks!", but this was interesting and you taught me two things in a handful of sentences. Thanks!

082349872349872 6y ago

Good point, I believe Linebarger was talking about whole-country operations, not just messaging for the fronts. "Political Limitations of Psychological Warfare." and "Definition of the Enemy." are interesting sections. He does mention that communication, even mid-20th century, was prone to retweeting: "German broadcasters who emphasized the anti-capitalist character of National Socialism in the programs beamed to Eastern Europe found that B.B.C. picked up the most tactless statements and repeated them to Western Europe, where the Germans posed as anti-Bolshevik champions of private property. American attacks on the Germans for associating with Japanese monkey-men were passed along by the Japanese to the Chinese, who did not like the slur either." (Another anecdote he tells is about getting into a flame war that went around the world. In hindsight, he regrets getting mixed up in it, yet admits he'd had the dopamine hit at the time.) ==== interesting to view this para of "Political Limitations" in hindsight: > "President Roosevelt, in his conduct of the political world role of the United States, promised Manchuria to the Chinese, Korea "in due course" to the Koreans, and the integrity of the French Colonial Empire to the French; outside of that he avoided specific promises. In another instance (to put a complicated matter baldly), the British promised Palestine to both the Arabs and to the Jews in World War I, and consequently got themselves into a political mess which, thirty years later, was still a mess." It not only explains indochina/vietnam but also I think we could fairly update that "thirty years" to 100.

free_rms 6y ago
It's definitely a super interesting piece, thanks for linking, I've emailed it to myself to give a deeper read. This one resonates with me in our current moment: > From the very beginning the British had the lead. They nailed German propaganda as propaganda, while circulating their own as news, cultural relations, or literature.

AftHurrahWinch 6y ago

Graeber, the anarchist anthropologist who coined the phrase "we are the 99%" and wrote Debt: The First 5000 Years talks about the idea of revolutionary non-confrontation in Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology. One of the ideas he discusses is intentionally keeping your literacy low and your population itinerant. "...under the French, administrators would complain that they could send delegations to arrange for labor to build a road near a Tsimihety village, negotiate the terms with apparently cooperative elders, and return with the equipment a week later only to discover the village entirely abandoned—every single inhabitant had moved in with some relative in another part of the country." Graeber on the myth of the ignorant savage: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvUzdJSK4x8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvUzdJSK4x8 I'm not sure that itinerance or illiteracy are strategies I would recommend to anyone. :) Dreher's Benedict Option seems like a Western perspective of a similar strategy.

082349872349872 6y ago
Thanks for the refs. Until I digest them the following pair of anecdotes will have to suffice: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan#Etymology https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orangutan#Etymology > 'Malays had informed him the ape could talk, but preferred not to "lest he be compelled to labour".' For more literate sandbagging, in Oflag XVIIA (POW camps actively discourage itinerance): https://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~michor/leray.pdf https://www.mat.univie.ac.at/~michor/leray.pdf > "Recteur Leray lectured mostly on calculus and topology. He had succeeded in hiding from the Germans the fact that he was a leading expert in fluid dynamics and mechanics (a mécanicien, as he liked to say). He turned, instead, to algebraic topology, a field which he deemed unlikely to spawn war-like applications." ==== For a certain period (when the lifestyle was actually militarily superior) roaming worked well for steppe peoples. I doubt there'd be much theological overlap, but do the BenOp people ever think to look at what the least english-dependent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plain_people already practice? Bossmang! Mi du sensa. Milowda na sasa lang inya, keya?
- AftHurrahWinch 6y ago
  I hate to respond just to say "thanks!", but this was interesting and you taught me two things in a handful of sentences. Thanks!