Look for the Mana in the Meme!
Look for the Mana in the Meme!
Færytale Beginning XI: Counter Disinfolklore ~ Controlling War Magic
In Counter Disinfolklore, as we shall see, we set out objective criteria that constitute a standard against which we can determine that Maxsim and his mother, by supporting and participating in activities that contravene the settled consensus embodied by international law are indeed the brainwashed ones.
We met Maxim and his mother in this episode:
It is also worth saying that an award-winning and forensic investigation published in the New York Times1 found that the huge dataset of intercepted phone calls between Russian occupiers in Bucha and their loved ones back in Russia had been collected because the Russians were using the phones of Ukrainians they had just executed.
In another call Maxim tells his wife it’s easier to shoot civilians when he is drunk, and he admits to stealing phones from Ukrainian civilians.
Therefore, if you ask me to make a call on whether Maxim and his mother’s analysis about who is living under a delusion - Russians or Ukrainians - leaving aside the fact I lived and worked in eastern Ukraine for seven years and found no evidence that Ukrainians living in Free Ukraine were living under a mass delusion - I think beyond all reasonable doubt we can make the call that it is Maxim and his mother who have been mesmerised by nonsense.
Certainty that one is immune to Disinfolklore is an obstacle to recognising how susceptible we all are to having our Mana roiled, rolled, and trolled through emotionally resonant linguistic and visual memes. Understanding how Disinfolklore works to move our emotions (including that feeling of injured pride that is triggered when someone accuses you of having been manipulated by Disinfolklore) also helps us to create effective counter Disinfolklore. It is often said that it is easier to manipulate someone’s mind, than it is to convince someone that they have been trolled.
Counter Disinfolklore requires us to be always alert to the possibility that we are being manipulated. We must always consider how others might use our certainty we are invulnerable, our ego (injured pride) to target our psychological vulnerabilities with information that will provoke in us feelings of anger, fear, disgust, sadness, or enjoyment. When someone tells you how smart you are or what a good person you are, you experience enjoyment (unless you are, rightly, suspicious). While you bask in that sense of enjoyment, with your defences down, a charming and strategic interlocutor can smuggle in almost any troll directly into your mind.
On the other hand, when we have been trolled into a state of fear or anger or great disgust, we suspend our ability to assess rationally the “solution” that is being offered to alleviate the fear a Disinfolklorist has provoked in our mind with some tale. Understanding how this works is an important aspect of Counter Disinfolklore.
It is a foundational tenet of Counter Disinfolklore that we are all susceptible to manipulation. I in fact am doing my best to troll you into continuing to read this text. I am trying to manipulate your intention / motivation / attitude to continue reading via provoking your emotions. “Manipulate” breaks down into the idea that I am trying to access your Mana and reprogramme it so that it orients you into reading Counter Disinfolklore.
My immediate motivation / intention / attitude is to support Ukrainians freedom from genocide, Ukraine’s territorial integrity, and Ukraine’s possession of its own sovereignty, all of which are protected by international law.
In “Sovereignty” is the element *Reg, which is a term that appears in every Indo-European language and culture - in English the Mana of *Reg is these sounds: “Right,” “Reign,” “Writ,” “Authority,” “Regime,” “Reich,” the “Rch” of “Monarchy,” “Security,” and “Regulation.” This means that these sounds are cognate with the *reign element in the English word “Sovereignty.” “Dieu et mon droit” is the French-language motto on the English monarch’s Coat of Arms - the “droit” in French signifies both “Law” and “Right.”
*Reg means “Rod” in the earliest Indo-European language that we know. Because of this, we know that monarchy (the “Rch” sound in “Monarchy” is from the Right cryptotypic signifying system too) was symbolised as the monarch stretching out a straight rod that signified the right of the king (Rex in Latin, Rí in old Irish, and Raja in the ancient Indian language Sanskrit are cognates meaning they come from the same Common Source) to rule.
In the most recent coronation of a monarch in England, its sovereign is photographed holding, in his right hand, a straight rod symbolising sovereignty. In England, there is only one sovereign - the Monarch - whereas in republics, sovereignty and right (the “re” in “Republic”) resides in the people or public, rather than in one sole human in whom the Mana of the entire community is invested.
When the troll rex Putin attempts to usurp Ukraine’s sovereignty by, as his forces tried on many occasions, aiming to assassinate Ukraine’s rightful ruler at the time of their full-scale invasion on February 24th, 2022, what he was doing is attempting to claim the right to determine what is lawful rule in Ukraine - its sovereignty. By instigating in you, through Counter Disinfolklore, the means (mental or otherwise) of supporting Ukraine’s sovereignty, as set out in international and municipal Ukrainian law, I am positive trolling you. The “positive” qualification of “trolling” corresponds to my intention to support the consensus of humanity as solidified into the post- World War Two legal framework governing the sovereignty and territorial integrity of states, international human rights law, international humanitarian law/laws of war, international criminal law and the laws governing crimes against humanity.
This standard of what is “Right” is also how we distinguish between Disinfolklore and counter Disinfolklore. Immanent in all forms of Disinfolklore is an intention to promote the violation of ancient taboos in Indo-European culture, as reified in that post-World War Two legal consensus. Disinfolklore seeks to legitimate Russia’s unlawful occupation of Ukraine, whereas counter Disinfolklore works to undermine such Disinfolklore.
Since Russia is unashamedly working against international law therefore Russia’s messaging supporting its violations of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, the United Nations charter, laws governing Crimes Against Humanity, International Criminal law and International Human Rights law is Disinfolklore.
I believe that the more people there are who can understand what I learned while working monitoring and reacting to Russian Disinfolklore in eastern Ukraine, the more resilient our democracies will be. This is my intention. The Mana or identifiable energy of my intention should be immanent in everything I write in Counter Disinfolklore.
Likewise, when you are assessing any data artefact for its Disinfolklore content and the ultimate intention or meaning of it, this idea of Mana is key.
In this sense “Mana” means:
“What is the intention, motivation, attitude or meaning immanent in the informational unit we are assaying?”
Counter Disinfolklorists identify the Mana in the meme by asking this question of information:
“Is the effect of agreeing with this or that unit of information, whether in the form of a linguistic or visual meme or in a speech by a head of state or an online post, to support civilisation or to undermine it?”
So, we look for the “Mana in the Meme” - let this be our mind-protecting mantra!
Like a chemist distilling impurities out of liquids, we then isolate it. Then we parse the Mana to determine its quality: is it Positive, Negative, or Neutral? Is this Russian Disinfolklore? Finally, we make a call. If we cannot read any subtle energy inside this meme’s Mana, we say so.
But, where we can determine the quality of the Mana in the thing (mens rea) and we can assess its Mana, we classify it as Disinfolklore or counter Disinfolklore…
Continued:
Continued from:
For orientation purposes: this is where we are now:
First in series:
https://www.nytimes.com/video/world/europe/100000008299178/ukraine-bucha-russia-massacre-video.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare
Scales are tipping. Mana is flowing to its rightful owners instead of Soviet charlatans who attempted to usurp it for most of the 20th century. The dark lords operate on fear, not understanding the very energy they are attempting to harness. Fear turns into light, burning the diseased hands and bodies attempting to grasp it 🔥 Mana will never be subverted or misused, it is too pure and true to be harnessed by anyone stuck in the human drama delusion.