Connecting the dots: Subversion, Mass Formation, and Devolution

Part 1

There are things we see that make no sense. They appear as disjointed and unrelated data points until you find yourself in a place where you get just the right perspective, and suddenly the chaos resolves into information we can perceive and understand.

This is not unlike something called “perceptual art” or “illusion sculptures” as practiced by artist Michael Murphy.  Here is a short clip to show you what I mean:

From this:

To this:

This is the experience I had when thinking about some of the information I’ve encountered, all of which were ideas that have their own place when understood by themselves, but click into some larger, more comprehensive epiphany when they are combined and viewed from a particular perspective.

I am a Boomer, born in 1950.  I grew up with the post-WWII threat of Communism, which we know today as the Cold War, primarily between the two post-war superpowers, the United States, and the Soviet Union.  Those around my age remember it all very well; the “duck and cover” drills in elementary school, Sputnik, the McCarthy hearings, the Cuban Missile Crisis, Nikita Khrushchev pounding his shoe on the table at the World Fair, shouting at JFK, “We will bury you!”, and of course the Vietnam War, and the eventual collapse of the USSR in 1991.

Much of the war, except the proxy wars like in the Russian Afghanistan war and Vietnam, was not fought directly by opposing armies, but by propaganda wars.  These wars were primitive by today’s standards, but that is only because of the limits of technology that existed then.

In 1984, a man by the name of Yuri Bezmenov, a defector to American from the Soviet Union, was interviewed about the Soviet methods of subverting a nation.  His entire interview was captured in a recent video produced by Adam Riva, which in turn is based on the series of research articles produced by Patel Patriot (pseudonym) called Devolution.  You can find the video here:  https://rumble.com/vrjghs-devolved-vol-1-a-fortified-election.html  Mr. Bezmenov’s interview begins around 8:19.

He described the 4 stages of Soviet methodology for subverting a nation, as they did with Czechoslovakia between 1948 post-war USSR, and 1960, when the Soviets took uncontested control, which they held right up until the Soviets imploded in 1991.

The 4 stages of subversion and the time it takes to accomplish them are summarized as follows:

1.      Demoralization:        15-20 years

2.      Destabilization:         2-5 years

3.      Crisis:                         6 weeks

4.      Normalization:           Indefinite

Demoralization is the long process of indoctrination with the ideologies of Marxism, which are required as the foundation way of thinking that facilitates all later stages of subversion.  This is done primarily targeting the youthful population and succeeds when an entire generation of youth graduates into adulthood with a fully engrained worldview based on the morality of socialist ideals.  If you look at the great totalitarian revolutions in history, Soviet, Mao, Nazis, to pick the three most notorious, all began with the indoctrination of a generation of youth.

Why has this been so universally true, and why does it work?  Our perception of reality is a function of experience, and those experiences are shaped by an overlay of a moral framework, the “rules” by which we judge our own conduct and the conduct of others.  It is something we learn from our culture and society, passed down from the older generations to the newer.  It is the connection between an individual’s conduct and their proper role in society.  You change morality, you change society.  This is one reason wars are often rooted in conflicts of incompatible morals, one held by each side.  The moral codes of the victors prevail.

If you can change the perception of reality by disinformation, it becomes impossible to come to sensible conclusions.  You cannot come to sensible conclusions if the information you have to work with does not make sense.  Youth does not “rediscover” civilization, they are taught. The accumulated knowledge of past generations is passed on through education, not rediscovery. If that were not true, every generation could only know what they can learn in one lifetime.  Civilizations are built on the knowledge of many lifetimes.

If you control the institutions of learning, if you can control the institutions of communication, of art, of science, of government, you can rewrite history, and you can write the scripts that future generations will follow.  The ancient morality, such as the Judeo-Christian framework, can be replaced with a different framework, one which youth can learn to follow as adults.  This explains why the control of schools, media, and arts are so critical to the subversive plans of tyrants throughout history.

Two important things happen simultaneously.  First, the youth, speaking and acting as a generational voice, begin to translate the new morality into everyday activities and conduct.  In the context of innocent and harmless examples, the shifting tastes of music are often specific to a generation. Certain fashions in clothes and hairstyles are another example of generational identity.  If you apply this to the idea of ideology, of world view, you see the importance of education and imitation.

Today, unlike any time in American history, more youth look favorably on Socialism than ever before.  According to Gallup polling, “Since 2010, young adults' positive ratings of socialism have hovered near 50%, while the rate has been consistently near 34% for Gen Xers and near 30% for baby boomers/traditionalists.” https://news.gallup.com/poll/268766/socialism-popular-capitalism-among-young-adults.aspx

At the same time, the adults from prior generational groups, still the vast majority of people, begin to perceive this new generational force emerging into the social fabric, and they become alarmed, disturbed, and in short, demoralized.  It is a sinking feeling when you realize that your fundamental values are not being carried on by the up-and-coming generations.  While youth feels and acts energized and empowered by their ability to act out their emerging beliefs, the adults feel the society they value slipping away as they age.

This is captured artistically in the movie Cabaret, where the Nazi youth breaks out in patriotic song, “The Future Belongs to Me.” Many adults chime in, but one older gentleman does not. This is what I am talking about.  He is clearly demoralized. You can find it here: 

His appearance begins about 1:40 in this clip.

Critical to this process is the elimination of any alternative views, such that the youth are indoctrinated to believe that the imposed moral scheme is the prevailing wisdom of those they most respect, their peers, and their teachers.  The tradition of deferring to the teachings of parents is viewed with disfavor.  As you can see, if you were trying to create a new perception of reality in the malleable minds of youthful students, you also would want to ensure that neither their parents, nor any other social or cultural institutions, like church, or clubs, exposed them to a counter-narrative.  Thus, censorship in all its forms becomes a critical component of indoctrination. 

The success of propaganda depends on two primary factors.  First, the ability to provide a narrative that espouses the world view consistent with the long-term objectives. Second, the ability to eliminate all competing sources of information.  Propagandists and censors work hand-in-hand.

One perhaps unexpected consequence of shutting down our society, which I will discuss at greater length in the next article about Destabilization, came about by closing our schools to in-person instruction and moving students into isolation in their homes and to receive only online instruction.  This gave parents a window into the classroom, and to their shock and dismay, they discovered that what was being taught to their children was not what they expected or wanted.

Among the most offending issues was the integration of various forms of Critical Race Theory, often hidden behind terms like “Social and emotional learning and supports to promote healthier student attitudes about themselves and others” only to find out that these goals are met through the pedagogy of CRT.  As a consequence, public schools are under attack by disgruntled parents, led by angry and active moms.  As one commentator put it, “Angry moms may actually save our Republic.”

Once you realize there is a pattern, a motive behind the experience of demoralization we experience every day, the disparate facts of contemporary life begin to come into focus.  Once I finish my analysis of Yuri’s subversion stages, I will turn to the topic of Mass Formation. This is the theory of the Belgian Prof. Mattias Desmet, which attempts to explain how and why an entire population can willingly give up their freedoms under conditions that result in nothing less than mass hypnosis.  In his view, this explains how the German people fell under the spell of Naziism and gives us some insight into the events we are experiencing today.