Counter Disinfolklore ~ Chapter Two: Episode IV
Counter Disinfolklore ~ Chapter Two: Episode IV
(IV) How Lisa’s photo triggers us different reactions in our minds, according to our prior experience.
Now, consider how the same piece of data affects us differently, depending on our biases or prejudices.
A photograph showing a little girl whose name was Lisa in the Ukrainian city of Vinnytsia in July 2022 for example.
The image (note that the image of Lisa shown above was posted a month after her death and is not the image that went viral with minutes of Lisa’s murder) was captured by Lisa’s mother moments before she had left Lisa at her kindergarten. Within an hour of dropping her off, Lisa had been murdered by a highly sophisticated Russian missile fired from the Black Sea.
Russian Disinfolklorists went to work as soon as news of the killing reached the network. A variety of meanings were promoted using different vectors of Disinfolklore. Some celebrated the wizardry of Russian missile technology. Others promoted the message that Lisa never existed, and that Ukraine had invented her to cover up a Russian strike on a legitimate target (bearing in mind that as the aggressor there are no legitimate targets for Russia in Ukraine).
Some Russian consumers of Disinfolklore would feel enjoyment about one of their missiles striking what they're told was a military target. They will be unsurprised that Ukraine whom they are told again and again are dehumanised Nazis would create the counter Disinfolklore story about Lisa.
This affirmed their belief, created, and stoked, by previous Russian Disinfolklore that Ukraine does this as a matter of course. They are predisposed to believe that in the Outer Realm (as defined by their Disinfolklore) everyone works together to lie about Russia and impugn it with the blame for inhumane actions.
So, when they are told Lisa was killed they simply cannot believe it. It is interpreted as more evidence that the world is against Russia.
By contrast, in the Inner Realm of civilised Europe, those who are paying attention to the daily atrocities by Russia experience immense sadness at Lisa’s death.
We do not believe that Russia is unjustly accused of atrocities against civilians - at this stage there are too many for anyone credibly to discount the possibility that through culpable incompetence Russia killed Lisa with the missile. We experience disgust at the murder.
We look at the photograph of Lisa that her mother had posted before the strike. We assess the evidence and conclude it was Russia.
We notice that Russia’s targeting of a kindergarten and its killing of children is like its forcible transfers of millions of Ukrainian women and children to Russia and its emptying of whole cities of men between the ages of twenty-five and fifty-five-years-old an attack on the sustainability of the community. Communities cannot survive if their fertility and fecundity is attacked so relentlessly in these ways.
Folklore theorists note that one of the three main themes in Indo-European folklore is Outer Realm invaders affecting the fertility of the Inner Realm (the other two main themes are Outer Realm invaders trying to usurp the right (*Reg) in sovereignty and security of the Inner Realm).
Recently, President Biden set out NATO’s principles of ‘freedom, security, and national sovereignty.’
Unknown to President Biden, the tripartite conception of Indo-European governance since at least 2,500 BCE includes sovereignty, and security (as well as another concept signified in modern English with a word that also includes the ‘rut’ sound: Fertility).
Even those who unlike avid readers of my work have never heard of Georges Dumèzil who discovered this tripartite conception of Good Governance that is immanent and apparent even today across virtually all Indo-European cultures from Ireland to India (e.g. ancient Indian society was divided into three parts Sovereignty (Brahmins), Security (soldiers), and Fertility (farmers).
As an aside: I believe that in discovering this M-N- sound underpinning the core, sacred, governance and other vocabulary immanent in every Indo-European language (including English), I have made a similarly important discovery to that of Dumèzil: M-N- as THE fundamental sound in the linguistic, religious and social culture of more than half of humanity. Anyway, back to Disinfolklore…
Russia’s tactics in Ukraine demonstrate that it too is motivated by the same goal - Russia sought to usurp from the Ukrainian people, via military conquest, the right to rule Ukraine, to control its sovereignty, and its security.
It is almost as if the great Russian folklore theorist Vladmir Propp’s work is determining Russia’s strategy in Ukraine: steal the sovereignty and security of Ukraine’s Inner Realm by invading and destroying Ukraine’s sustainability through deporting millions of women and children upon whom the future of Ukraine depends, while killing as many Ukrainians as possible, and destroying the food supply.
In later chapters we will see how many of these words with M-N- sound immanent within them evolved from the word the Ancient Ukrainians who were the first to speak an Indo-European language used for the Moon.
The easiest way to grasp why a moon-based metaphor for looking at what shines through words (their meaning) might have arisen across Indo-European cultures is to consider how bright a full Moon is in an otherwise dark winter night sky. In Counter Disinfolklore we are looking for the Mana that illuminates, particularly, Russian Disinfolklore.
It is as if, you are looking at the full moon on an otherwise dark winter night and trying to discern what is the dominant hue of the shades of light shining through the moon? What colour is immanent in the Moon tonight? Which colour is the dominant hue luminescing through the moon?
So, this Moon-based metaphorical system that is deeply embedded in Indo-European languages, including contemporary English, provides a good way of explaining what you are trying to do when you are parsing linguistic and visual memes for their meanings. It is easy to remember. It is a handy mnemonic.
Whenever you hear that M-N- sound within a story, or whenever you see an M-N- word, you might ask yourself:
“Is Disinfolklore shining through this? Is the Mana luminescing through this story Coercive Control? Is this Russian Disinfolklore? Are my emotions being trolled?”
In this case, the meaning shining through the mass of data is that Lisa was killed by a Russian missile; that is its meaning for the counter Disinfolklorist. All the other meanings for example promoted by Russian Disinfolklore are false. We are not afraid to make this call. We are not bamboozled by Russia’s firehose of falsehoods into concluding “the truth cannot be known” or, worse, that Lisa and her mother are actors whom Ukraine has employed to Make Russia Look Bad (Russia does not need anyone else to Make It Look Bad!).
Continued:
Continued from:
For orientation purposes: This is the IV element of Chapter Two of Disinfolklore - a new analytical method for parsing Disinformation:
Series begins here:
Chapter One of Counter Disinfolklore - Controlling War Magic:
