Political Mirroring Volume IV: Harmony Havens

Peace Be With You. And Also With (Anyone But THEM).

Maxim: “Avoid political discussions when everyone’s society cannot receive a guaranteed benefit.”

The Highlights of Abstract Mirroring Volume IV:

• Reminder: Belief acceptance + Context=Harmony.
• Peace: No further debate or direct violence between the parties.  A consensus exists to stop contesting an issue, but not a total agreement or a unity of belief.  This is not possible with irrational debaters because they have shown themselves incapable of accepting a consensus on an issue with opponents they think are immoral. 
• Harmony: All of the elements of peace and more. No discord and a perception of complete agreement and emotional unity. 
• Harmony Dividends: The balance of positive feelings of those mirrored from a conversation that subjects felt was agreeable and harmonious.
• Mirror Harmony: is the best that we can hope our subjects get from their irrational conversation.  Our role as mirrors is to calm the conversation, to achieve the positive feelings that harmony offers our subjects. 
• Mirror Peace: is what mirrors strive for, yet impossible for our subjects to accept.  The Soviet Union and the US might have avoided World War III for over 40 years despite their differences, but our current subjects don’t want a consensus about minor issues just to stop a disorder that isn’t mortally serious to themselves.  Instead, peace is the chimera of harmony; it bypasses the roadblocks to agreement that our subjects want until there is total submission to their irrational views.  They demand harmony, not peace. 
• Mirror Narratives: The “story” that a person believes is objectively true even to the point of irrationality and regardless of the facts or the reason that should string them together.   
• Pacifascism: the perception that an opponent is aggressive and authoritarian in disrupting peace regardless of whether the supposed victim group was peaceful.   
• Cherry Picking the Historical Grove:  Debates are rarely historical because most arguments fail to put facts into a reasonable context.  Without people, places, objects, and ideas in time as they existed, debaters merrily cherry pick unhistorical arguments to better their cause rather than to maintain accuracy.
• Lies from the Tablecloth (LiFT): Quoting System of a Down, LiFTs are narratives that run counter to what people believe is the proper “Story.”  That makes the opposing story seem disingenuous or deceptive.  LiFTs are so egregious regardless of their factuality that they seem barbaric to their would-be victims.  
• The Phantom Empathy Zone: The paradox that an opponent’s narrative might be unique and authentic to themselves, yet at the same time not capable of displaying a level of empathy that another person desires.  Thus, the other person is the decider of another’s empathy and lacking authenticity.   
• Conditioned On Negatives (CONs):  Setting a desired condition that is abstract and incredibly difficult to achieve within an interaction, a normal human life span, or it is so vague that it is unobtainable.  Since it’s mostly stand-alone, oftentimes it requires a lecture to qualify what it actually means. For example “No justice, no peace.”
• Abstract Warmongers: Those who oppose a version of peace that brings disharmony regardless of both violent intent and action. 
• Weapons of Mass Debate (WMDebs): Words or actions meant to cut off debate because the opposing side is viewed as immoral and provocative of conflict.  For example: “There can be no more debate about this.  Anyone questioning is a (insert negative label).”  Both peace and harmony require there to be no further debate about the topic in contention.
• SHIVs (Silence Heinously Imposing Violence):  SHIVs are abdicating (failing to undertake) confrontation in the face of a perceived evil, not speaking out, or merely believing opponents aren’t communicating to a desired level about a moral position commensurate with their accuser’s desires. 
• Counterinsurgent Conversation Strategies (CCS):  The counterinsurgent tactics that mirrors use in order to stabilize irrational conversations and destabilize poor arguments in rational conversations. 

Table of Contents:

Volume IV:

I.                   Introduction

Part I: Let There Be Peace on Earth

(and Let it Begin with YOU)

II.                The Harmony Havens: A Peace on Selfish Terms

III.             PH Scale (Peace Hate Scale)

IV.            Pacifascism

Part II: Narratives: Lies from the Tablecloth

V.               Lies from the Tablecloth (LiFT)

VI.            Cherry Picking the Historical Grove

VII.         The Phantom Empathy Zone

VIII.      Conditioned On Negatives (CONs)

Part III: War, Huh, Good God Ya’ll

IX.   Weapons of Mass Debate (WMDebs)

X.  Word Violence and Physical Destruction

XI.         SHIVs

XII. Conclusion: Counterinsurgent Conversation Strategies (CCS) 

Political Mirroring Volume IV:

Harmony Havens: A Peace on Selfish Terms

I. Introduction

“We will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth. This was the moment, this was the time, when we came together to remake this great nation so that it may always reflect our very best selves, and our highest ideals.”

Barrack Obama, St. Paul, Minn., June 3, 2008.

          Imagine rhetoric so soaring that even the old emotional wounds of the past are healed and the earth is physically patched up.  With freshened air and a clean reflection, we’d be permitted to breathe again after looking at ourselves in the mirror.  Powerful speeches like Barrack Obama’s aren’t merely abstract words to believers, but a Truth, a desired future too important to his acolytes to be parsed literally before them.  His rhetoric is so soaring that it’s worthy of a prize of peace just for speaking the words before any action happened.  That's the power contained therein, conjuring emotions so great that logic and rational argument are far less important.  To oppose the emotion demanded by the words is to oppose peace and to wish for the abyss of exclusivity, hatred, and evil that a hopeless past hath wrought.  To his followers after that speech, the past is a trap; to his opponents during his administration, the past was greatness.  Mirrors look dispassionately at all such oversimplification.

Our purpose here is clearly different than espousing emotional rhetoric.  The hope for peace and the demand for harmony are the purposes of this fourth majestic volume. As such, we won’t correct flawed self-images or act as messiahs, but mirrors will certainly cater to those who believe abstraction can be made into reality.  This written work might be the point when you can look back and tell my children that the sick got their first treatment in human history or that some ragamuffin got their first full time job.  Hopefully, our introspection and more logical rhetoric will pay off for us Earth people.

          Mirroring assists willing people to be better, not to act as pawns of political sloganeers or star-chasers of glittering generalities like “Hope and Change” or “Make America Great Again.” It would probably behoove us to take a step back and briefly lay out why we’re at our current discussion.  In my revolutionary moment, I laid out the basics in Volume I, that it’s more productive to leave irrational political debates than to have them and that such hopeless people so engaged feel better when they believe they have found agreement about a political topic they barely understand.  That is the crux of the Mirror equation “belief acceptance plus context equals harmony.” 

In Volume II, Truth is a comprehensive, always true vision of reality whereas truths are merely factually true statements.  Our subjects typically reach for Truth while ignoring the missing facts that are required to make that vision closer to certainty.  Most recently, “justice” was the focus of Volume III, which for our purposes means “righting a wrong,” something that almost never happens in the course of a conversation.  The initial Mirroring Trilogy contains building blocks where I developed a foundational superstructure.   It was meant to be a useful guide to approach unwanted conversations, not as the complete answer, or dare I write, “the Truth.”

          That takes us to topic du jour and the rai·son d'ê·tre for a fourth volume or any to follow.  With the turmoil of 2020 stealing your resolve in the face of the unexpected, you’ll likely not be alarmed by the French.  Moving on to more challenging issues, peace and harmony seem appropriate topics though we won’t be wading into the morass of blame or apocalypticism that so many have attributed to this current rotation around the sun.  Both bright and heavenly, peace and harmony are actually quite different words and they will be used differently in this volume. 

Peace means to be free from disturbance and the order resulting from that general, but not total tranquility.  It is a state of affairs that does not mean the convergence of opinions about all topics, just that what caused the disorder stops.  That’s how nations at war can stop shooting or rivals can avoid a conflict by agreeing to a limited number of issues even while continuing their hatred.  Total Peace has not nor will it likely exist as the human state of affairs is dominated by layers of self-interest that often lead to discord and violence.  Too many people mistake peace and calm for getting everything they want instead of achieving a status quo so that real people can live reasonably instead of well, not living at all.    

          Harmony is really our subjects’ desired state of affairs, not simply a peaceful status quo where minds are unchanged, yet order is preserved merely because the disorder is less preferable.  Instead, harmony is the perception that there is more than just peace, that there is a convergence to the same total view of the universe.  If individual interests were represented by musical instruments, in Harmony, all of those instruments would be playing the same tune, using the same tempo, rhythm, tuning system, and playing in sync from start to finish. 

Why does it matter that it’s a continuous harmony?  Well, mirrors create the perception of harmony in a political conversation.  The subject feels as if there is no objection to their worldview thus their happiness is maximized because there is minimal threat to their mental security. If our irrational subjects feel uncertain about the opinions of others or their emotional responses aren’t felt to be properly empathized, then it’s likely that anger and hatred will blossom instead of an ended discussion and a more rational outcome outside of the conversation. 

          How does a mirror know to be harmonious or when to give peace a chance?  As someone well-versed in diplomatic history and with a generally mediating personality, I know that narratives are the key to a breakthrough in a conflict.  A narrative is the flow of thought in the form of a total story, a Truth, a stream that often requires a life-changing event in order to change the direction, a Moses parting the Red Sea moment to prove the supernatural might of God.  For ideologues, a counter-narrative is incredibly difficult to swallow especially if it flows with the facts and uses logic to form the argument.  It won’t even be heard or read at that point of confrontation. 

          Thus, Volume IV is the perfect setting to identify barriers to rational consensus, which is the great mission of this philosophy.  We will find the boundaries of peace through a proactive process known as Counterinsurgent Conversation Strategies, a tool to sniff out possibilities and skillfully maneuver around illogical road blocks.  Those barriers come in many forms, but one particular example is the SHIV or Silence Heinously Imposing Violence, which is surprising in a country with a reasonable freedom of  thought.  Ironically, SHIVs demand speech and thought in order to stop a perceived immorality.  Or, there are CONs or Conditioned On Negatives, which establish conditions for other people based on the rejection of an immoral narrative.  Both demand in-authenticity for self-preservation.

          Thus, Mirror Narratives are used to checkbox other people, to demand that they conform their free thinking into another's conception of what it should be.  As mirrors we reject this outright.  Volume IV then has one mission, which we’ll choose to accept.  We must understand the barriers to peaceful conversation, to disinter fossilized narratives that have not only limited more truths, but also increased the resort to violence and destruction because of stale narratives.  Let's give more peace a chance!    

 

Part I: Let There Be Peace on Earth

(and Let it Begin with YOU)

II.        Harmony Havens

“Michael: Just hold on, please! Okay, if we do lose/lose, neither of you gets what you want. Do you understand? You… you would both lose. Now I need to ask you, do you want to pursue a lose/lose negotiation?

Angela: Can we just skip to whatever number 5 is – win/win or whatever?

Michael: Win/win is number four and number five is win/win/win. The important difference here is with win/win/win, we all win. Me too. I win for having successfully mediated a conflict at work.”

The Office, “Conflict Resolution,”

The Harmony Equation:

Gains of winner - Costs of Loser= Harmony Dividends

We have a lot cut out for us  if the world is going to be the better place that would make Barrack Obama comfortable enough to set foot on some pristine beach revealed by the receding oceans.  We may have solved quite a lot in discussing truths and promoting real justice over abstract symbols and emotions, but now we must look to pacify the nearly unpacifiable.  Despite the challenge, I have little doubt that after reading this volume that olive branches will be hung with pride once again over your computer screens and phones, that you’ll imagine doves migrating o’er you on your voyage to your first job as a middle-aged adult, and that your motivation to Olympic wrestle won’t just be that dark nighttime dream, but a concordal competition worthy of your daytime aspirations. 

The purpose of mirrors is to make people feel better when they can’t make a rational argument.  Rather than devoting energy to argue with them and escalate a hopeless situation, we want to give them a peace of mind.  Yes, you read that correctly, a peace of mind and not harmony.  One might ask “I thought you wrote that our subjects demand harmony?”  And you would also be correct in remembering that.

Mirrors create “peace” by forging a consensus to stop the talking so they can leave to do more rational things.  That is the “Havens” of which I write, a more peaceful environment resulting from emotionally selfish people believing others are in harmony with them while realistic people create better for others.  The status quo of the conversation is restored because the chaos of a never-ending arguments ends.  Therefore in a more rational world, a functional peace is created by the mirror convincing the irrational people that they are being heard and that the mirror might even agree with them because they aren’t disputing anything being communicated. Mirror Peace is created when the subject believes their mirror is reflecting back the harmony they desire.  Thus, mirrors are the peace bringers and the hypnotized are left staring at their own reflection until they have a more logical day.  

The Peace Equation is a way for mirrors to evaluate the level of harmony produced and to evaluate the prospects for the return to a status quo.  It is the gains of winner minus the costs of the loser.  The dividends refer to the positive feelings, the happiness enjoyed by the winner.  Gains and losses are of course related to image, feelings of pride or humiliation, euphoria or bitter anger.  The gains of a conversation rest with the feelings of victory for the person who ends up on top.  Victory in the conversation can be nothing more than the perception of the group involved, right or wrong, true or false, or anywhere in between.

The Peace equation seems at first glance to be derivative of the other equations used so far.  In a way, that was my intention.  These equations are merely guides to help choices in real time and not to explain the whole universe in a few words and symbols.  As a partial derivative itself of Pragmatism, anything in this philosophy should have a purpose that is connected to more truths and ideas that work.  

Agreeing with the side that appears to be the winner thus depends heavily on the interpretation of the conversation.  Costs are really the key part of the equation because a true Debate Monster would have such an effective way to troll a conversation that there is virtually no cost to their heinous style of debating.  The more effective of a troll debater, the greater the gains they are able to suck out of the conversation and the smaller cost they’ll be forced to pay.

The costs of this equation are lessened by any number of oversimplifications.  Making the loser seem immoral or inhuman is the easiest way to ensure that they personally pay a higher cost while the winner pays the least.  Typically, stereotypes are the easiest way to ensure that a person is the loser.  Labels work really well because rarely is there ever a consideration of the facts in order to see if it fits the person.  As explained in Volume III, the outcome will likely not be just. The winners and losers are determined in the context of each conversation so might makes right and weakness mints a loser.

The costs of the loser can also be associative, meaning group characteristics obliterating individual differences for the purpose of winning an argument.  If our subjects are arguing against Trump supporters, it makes the task very simple in a gun rights and racial injustice conversation to blame the problem on a symbolic caricature.  Forcing a Trump supporter to defend racism personified by an alleged white teenage, gun-toting, conservative perp maximizes the gains of the winner and ensures that the costs of going that route are small.  If the would-be loser is a white liberal anarchist destroying property in low-income neighborhoods, likewise, the cost is very small for those arguing that such activities are really violent riots and not peaceful protests. 

Remember from Volume III, there is no fair adjudication of the perp in the conversation using due process or anything approaching a rational fact-finding trial or careful consideration of evidence.  For the person labeled with the same crimes as the alleged perp, there is also no rational consideration either.  One need not dwell into why stereotypes are so easy to pursue, though one could look no further than your average media broadcast or Twitter feed to witness the general oversimplification that plagues our mostly uncivil society.  Just understand that this path of least resistance is real and if we want more logical solutions, we’ll have to find a way around the simplistic stupidity. 

III.     PH Scale (Peace Hate Scale): Conversation Litmus Tests

Harmony Havens Equation once again:

Gains of winner - Costs of Loser= Harmony Dividends

1. Peaceful Conversion of Enemy, Maximum Harmony from Debate, Lowest Stigma. 
2. Partial Conversion of the Enemy, Person agrees more than disagrees, Some Harmony, Very little stigma because of the potential for further agreement.
3. Neutral Outcome, Spectator, Fly on the Wall, No harmony change from the Mirror’s presence, or Fence Sitters/Independents in a time where there shouldn't be any, stigma possible if silence or inaction is equated with violence (SHIVs).  
4. Resistance, High Costs of Loser Conversion, Low Harmony from Debate.  
5. Hatred, War, Highest Costs to Conversion, Lowest Harmony, Greatest Stigma for Victor.

Imagine if we could take a quick scientific test to see what people thought, precisely how their emotions worked, then have the ability to evaluate their ability to process logical arguments.  Syke!  We can't yet determine the thoughts and feelings of other people.  So, we have to make due with a basic measurement to determine if others are headed towards a rational productivity or descending into acidic anger. 

  Again, peace only exists if the winning debater believes that there is no more detectable opposition, maximum harmony only if they believe that not only has the enemy been silenced, but they also now agree.  Maximum harmony can only take place if the person’s conversion is perceptible to the winner.  That’s where the PH scale comes in, the greater the submission of the person towards peace and agreement, the greater the harmony dividends.  The greater the reason to hate the enemy, like a racist, Neo-Nazi or a murderous anarchist street rioter, all real or just a perception, the less likely it is that the enemy can ever be converted and brought to peace. 

Being a tool, the PH scale is divided into five categories, with Peaceful Conversion of the Enemy and Hatred being the polar extremes.  Generally, mirrors should remain in the Neutral Outcome category to avoid stigma. There is a danger however that your silence or general inaction could be interpreted negatively thus granting you stigma, but more on that later.   

  Therefore, it is important for mirrors to target the persons who maximize the harmony dividend.  Not only is resisting them not advised because of their irrational abilities, but they also bring about the most harmony because they are so effective at picking unpopular targets and winning the popularity battle.  Debate Monsters are especially adept at targeting socially unpopular people, groups, ideas, or smearing others with any of those.  Costs are minimized by them when using simplistic labels like "racist" "sexist," or "homophobe."  As mentioned previously, associating opponents with collectives like the KKK, fascism, socialism, or communism is also a very useful tactic for debate monsters so long as they can emotionalize and de-factualize the conversation.  

Usually, this label is often found by finding by a few elements of similarity like skin color, proximity to the person or persons, or even broad ideological similarities like party affiliation.  A logical thinker would immediately recognize the logical fallacy of false equivalence, that one characteristic of a broad group does not determine any truth (or not) about the whole.  Two people with the same orange colored hair are not both Donald Trump without further evidence.  Any logical argument must prove a  link between thinking and skin color, being in the street at the same time as another, or being registered for a major political party and thinking exactly the same rather than as part of a generalized ideological spectrum.  The burden of proof usually is with the accuser, but after Volume III, we know that there is no burden at all when an accuser feels justice is on the line.    

So, in one hypothetical example, a gun owning, white teenager who fired off some shots is shown on a partisan news source as obviously a guilty racist.  If the debate opponent is also white and possibly talks about their gun rights, then they are likely a prime target by a skilled Debate Monster who'll easily pair the two together because of the two obvious similarities.  A fair and just process might determine both innocent of the hyper-charges, but Mirror Courts do seek such things.  Ironically, Debate Monsters ensure maximum harmony by crushing their opponents in the least harmonious ways.  Because they are adept at identifying, oversimplifying, and over-emotionalizing rhetoric, their competition is squashed faster and more harmony results. 

With harmony in mind, let's come back to stigma as promised.  You’ll recall the Escape Hatch is a way for mirrors to avoid being victimized, to not be called a racist, a fascist, communist or another damaging label.  If the potential for stigma is great because you’d be forced to agree with undesirable people like racists, then you should leave the conversation immediately.  For harmony, society’s views on a topic matter more than the harmony that would come from witnessing a racist win a debate.  Avoid stigma, only mirror debates where your own personal reputation cannot be affected. 

Remember also that not only is stigma a constant threat for you, but also that there isn’t likely to be any justice for you or anyone.  Not only will people be attacked personally and thoroughly exposed in whatever way deemed necessary, but there won't likely be justice, no righting the wrongness of the label.  Avoid being doxed on the internet and having your personal information released at all costs because that damage is unjust, but also permanent.  If you are stigmatized, it won’t matter if it’s accurate or not.  It will be made to stick and it will be destructive.  This fits well with the concept of peace and harmony in this volume as people often confuse both with justice. 

 

IV.  Pacifascism

“I know you're good people. I know you mean well. But you just didn't think it through. There is only one path to peace... your extinction.”

Ultron in “The Avengers: Age of Ultron,”

Generally, fascism is improperly used in discourse.  In our case, it refers to disruptors of peace rather than actual conditions in Italy, Spain, and Germany during the horrific era of the 1930-40s.  For our purposes, it is the perception that an authority is aggressive in disrupting a group’s perception of peace.  In many ways, it is contradictory, hypocritical, and also delusional because the would-be victim assumes that any action or speech against them is fascistic even if they’re the ones engaging in irrational or violent conduct.  

According to Oxford Languages, pacifism is the rejection of any violence and the settlement of differences through peaceful means.  The definition clearly removes the ability for physical harm to opponents.  And it’s likely that many of our subjects also believe that all wars are wrong, that the military-industrial state provokes conflict by its ravenous need for resources, and opposing such a state absolve themselves as victims of the sin of practicing violence in self-defense.  Basically, they’d reason it's okay to react to an unjust state, oppose its war machine, punch a Nazi (PAN), and do whatever possible to bring about harmony.  Remember, they may call for “peace,” but what they probably want is the abolition of what they perceive as an oppressive opposition.  There can be no consensus between this group and realists who see the need for police forces, controlled city streets, and an armed national defense.  So, they want the complete renunciation of the law and order viewpoint and then war can cease to exist.

So what about fascism?  Mirrors should beware of the liberal use of this word (no pun intended).  Even modern American groups with a few characteristics similar to real Fascists are more likely a bastardized franchise.  Fascist as a label in American politics doesn’t really make much sense unless they are the American German Bund supporting the Third Reich before the Second World War or a verified Neo-Nazi.  Real fascists were Europeans that were nationalistic, ethnocentric about their race and culture, actually authoritarian in using government to control society and not simply perceiving a regular arrest of a rioter as one, and suppressive of criticism, especially from socialists, Marxists, and communists.  Again, it’s about the label.  Very rarely will a debater thoroughly compare their victim’s beliefs with actual fascist beliefs.  Instead, they will likely reduce the comparison to one or more elements.

Pacifascism is an ironic term because anti-violence doesn’t mix well with fascistic tactics. It means that a person or group of supporters demand peace from others in the conversation and do it in an authoritarian way.  Like the fascists of old, they believe their views are immune to criticism and harshly strike out against criticism.  They demand a unilateral disarmament of all opposition or the opponent risks being labeled an opponent of peace.  You might ask how you can observe Pacifascism in a conversation if physical action is not part of this system.  

It also means that simple contrary arguments could be evidence of fascism.  Once reasonable and debatable arguments about stricter immigration or border security could be evidence to some that the arguer is a fascist.  That's where Pacifascism comes in.  Disagreeing with that supposed authoritarian person is made to be the equivalent to fighting an actual Nazi because the arguer is advocating for the government to engage in an allegedly oppressive policy.  Depending on the emotional fervor of the Pacifascist Grand Inquisitor, any number of self-defensive actions are possible including stereotyping, stigmatizing, doxing, or direct physical violence generally grouped by me as a PAN (Punch a Nazi).  

It is ironic that persons or groups oppose actual vigilante organizations like the KKK, then use vigilante tactics like arson, theft, graffiti threats, humiliation by spit or substances being thrown on or at, or physical assault despite the absence of an actual police state.  Any such physical activity can't be mirrored by us as it is irrational.  Pacifascists are also extremely aggressive at detecting silent evidence of oppression because they compare any current conversation in the relative freedom and comfort of the US to be comparable to silent opponents of Nazi Germany.  So anytime you hear or read it's okay to PAN, consider your words and actions carefully.  

Finally, rejecting violent conduct or irrational speech to counter racist Neo-Nazis does not mean one condones their beliefs or conduct.  Rather, mirrors strive for rational persuasion, are guided by moral imperatives that can be accepted by all people under the exact circumstances in all cases, reject labeling, and avoid logical fallacies.  So, simply punching a "Nazi" might feel good to the assaulter, but it does nothing to disprove vile ideologies and it groups that felon with the same fascist tactics that they are supposed to be rejecting.  Mirrors are better than this kind of conduct, but if witnessing such a felony, we should quickly speak up to the cops, for silence only allows the Pacifascist violence to continue alongside the Neo-Nazis and KKK.

Part II: Narratives: Lies from the Table Cloth

V. Lies from the Tablecloth (LiFT)

 “Barbarisms by barbaras
With pointed heels
Victorious victorious kneel
For brand new spankin' deals

Marching forward hypocritic and
Hypnotic computers
You depend on our protection
Yet you feed us lies from the tablecloth”

"B.Y.O.B." by System of a Down, 2005.

Imagine an American mom and dad sitting around a table in 2003.  Enraged by 9/11, these parents tell their children about the righteousness of the Iraq War.  Imagine an offspring sitting at that same table, a social activist student, who disagrees with their parent’s narrative.  They believe that American society is partying while it moves towards fascism, fighting an unjust war for a fossil fuel.  What the dissenter believes may or may not be the Truth, where all Americans are living well while sending others to die for oil, but what matters is that narratives don’t have to be completely right or wrong for them to influence the decision-making of people.  They just need to be acceptably airtight so that a few leaks of truth here and there don’t bring down the whole ship. 

Narratives are the easy way out for English majors and propagandists to describe total reality.  To mirrors and to historians, however, narratives are not as totalistic as they seem and evidence of them is just evidence, not the total picture.  Our subjects work using narratives because they are simple, because they reduce complex reality into simple, easy to understand streams of information that are irreducible.  Once caught irrationally in the flow of a narrative, one can’t dispute a part without disputing the whole, which means questioning the entire Truth, the emotions invested in the beliefs, thus cutting through the whole essence of a person’s belief system.  I'm certainly not the first person to point out the effect that this challenge presents nor how these blindspots are discarded or explained away in order keep the stream flowing.  

Thus, Lies from the Table cloth or LiFT is an acronym used to describe the power of a negative narrative, one that appears to be False in all regards (See Volume II for Falsity).  When used in discourse, narratives can be frozen over streams of information, unchanging, unwilling to change course because the story can't change if values and morals are on the line in the debate.  That is why narrative thinking offers vastly more potential for irrational thinking than pragmatism and mirroring.  It denies the ability to use experience to alter belief systems based on constant subjection to scrutiny using facts and reason, then to change ones’ thinking as much as possible.  Insisting on the narrative first leads to a fossilization of opinion and diminishes the productivity of political discussions. 

Objective truths do not matter to many of our subjects, just a single Truth they believe is objectively true.  There is rarely a careful evaluation of the facts, a consideration of opposing opinions even from those who’d claim that “Science,” as ever changing as it is, needs to be respected even though it too can become a crusted over fossil of its own believer's making.  The narrative of a perceived reality is what’s important to the people we serve not that their narrative is untruthful or unreal.  Mirrors must then realize that no objective Truth can be found, that objective truths are not the primary focus of our subjects, and that finding the narrative flow is essential to making them more harmonious.  

Thus, the Iraq War veteran and sibling of the antiwar college student might dispute the country's motivations and thus those of its soldiers, which as one of those, he perceives as honorable.  Though from a poor family that could merely send kids to college or to war, he was still volunteering to put his own life on the line to protect his country.  And the parents might gloss over other opportunities for peace, the missing nuclear weapons, or the lacking connection of 9/11 and the war on Iraq.   So, these examples might be fictional distillations of real arguments from 2003 to present, but they show the potential for intractability in conversations.  How does a soldier labeled a bloodthirsty automaton fighting for an authoritarian state reach consensus with a reasonably well-off wimpy college student willing to live off the sacrifice of the American people?  

Neither fictional perspective is true or false, nor does either one offer much opportunity for agreement on the issue separating them.  However, it does shed light on the real conversations we're in and push us to look for the contours of why the arguers believe what they do.  Again, our goal is to identify hopeless narratives described in a debate.  If our subjects seem intractable about their views and especially their unwillingness to listen to opposing views, then peace likely isn't going to be given a chance.  Expect only an attack, not for truths, but for the selfish perpetuation of their narrative as they've damned it up. 

 

VI.     Cherry Picking the Historic Grove

"Stone age love and strange sounds too. 

Come on, baby, let me get to you.

Bad nights causing teenage blues.

Get down ladies, you've got nothin' to lose.

Hello, daddy. Hello, mom.

I'm your ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!

Hello world! I'm your wild girl.

I'm your ch-ch-ch-cherry bomb!"

"Cherry Bomb," by The Runaways

Behold the sight!  Someone throws out one historical fact during a debate.  They've paid attention to that one element of one part of history, snatched from a wisdom tree that would inspire confidence in every conclusion made thereafter if only they continued plucking.  Hasty for a purpose, they've forbidden themselves from touching the other fruit of the tree lest it be more poisoned than that which they've already felt was stolen.  Pilfered you say?  Well, they don't know much more than a few things mustered for their basic attack and that first fruit, juiced not for a true historical dissertation, but for some appletinis after the debate win.   

The ancient fallacy of Cherry Picking is a type of confirmation bias and suppression of evidence.  In our case, we narrow in on the historical aspect of this fallacy because our talk is of peace and historical facts are picked specifically to ensure as little dispute as possible.  It's a fact that fits their narrative of self and others, rejecting or minimizing contrary information according to the principles of LiFT.  The gambit is that the group will be either ignorant of the rest of the historical context or unwilling to digress from an emotional strain of debate that's more interesting.  

Therefore, Mirror Cherry Picking of the Historical Grove refers to the dropping of a few historical facts without context and without checking for the rest of the truths.  It's just using basic information to blow up the minds of people they feel are more ignorant than themselves.  It's a relativity issues like most of these talks.  Only skilled cherry pickers can drop their fact bombs on conversations without risking a person who strives to understand context calling them out and humiliating them.

 In Volume I, we found that arguers rarely try to put facts in a past context.  Whether it's slavery or the Founding Fathers, what our subjects present isn't real history.  They are just cherry bombs snatched out of time to crush opponents.  Take the following  example of the good/bad style of history.  George Washington was a slave owner, therefore he couldn't have accidentally damaged his father's cherry tree, which means he didn't cut it down to prove his honesty, even though it was a myth made up after his death.  Because he was a slave owner, he was responsible for hitting the tree intentionally like his choice to be a slave owner.  All positive qualities, like truth-telling in the face of punishment, are eradicated as is all context for an 18th century aristocrat from Virginia.  Once a demon, always a demon in this form of judgement.  Therefore, one fact is evidence of all Truth.  One falsehood is evidence of the whole story's falsehood. Therefore, it can be rejected along with any counter argument from anyone not agile enough to recognize the fallacy.

One final example of Cherry picking from this past summer.   The Boston Tea Party of 1773 is an example of the destruction of property achieving political results.  Sure, tea dumped 247 years ago had results for the colonists in a very different time.  But, can historically minded people think of any other instances since then where property destruction didn't achieve political results?  I'm not denying the impact that physical action has on history, I'm simply questioning the relevance of past physical action on what quite different people propose for different goals today.  All mirrors should reserve the right to object to the purpose of the physical destruction whether it's in 1773 or 2020.  All mirrors should beware of the cherry bomb especially if it can land on you and catch you historically unaware!

VII.   The Phantom Empathy Zone

 

“General Zod:  The vote must be unanimous, Jor-El. It has therefore now become your decision. You alone will condemn us, if you wish, and you alone will be held responsible by me. (Jor-El signals the Phantom Zone) Join us. You have been known to disagree with the Council before. Yours could become an important voice in the new order, second only to my own! I offer you a chance for greatness, Jor-El! Take it! Join us! You will bow down before me, Jor-El! I swear it! No matter that it takes an eternity! YOU WILL BOW DOWN BEFORE ME!! BOTH YOU AND THEN, ONE DAY, YOUR HEIRS!!!”

Superman, 1978

        Deep down in the pit of their emotional heart, people want a Mantis, the empath character from Marvel's "Guardians of the Galaxy" and not a heartless villain like General Zod.  They often live in a world of dreams and fiction, so why should they also not have the ability to alter the emotional state of someone by physical contact?  Imagine dropping out of a portal and stopping the Mad Titan Mayor Bill De Blasio from snapping his finger and closing nearly 50% of all restaurants forever because of COVID-19?  Or nimbly warping onto Planet Trump to put it to sleep rather than seeing it replicate itself and its hugeness over the whole universe. 

        This superpower is what nearly everyone wants.  After all, empathy is the ability to understand the feelings and emotions of others, so who wouldn't also like to bend them to our will?  In couples, we want our partners to feel exactly as we feel.  In the work place, we want our grievances shared by our bosses and coworkers.  And in mirror politics, our subjects demand we feel the way they do about a political subject, even if it's contrary to the facts.  It is also why empathy is such an important step on the journey to the perception of harmony.  Without it, there would be no cause for debaters to feel supported and agreed with.  And if the Devil's candidate isn't hated enough, then the lukewarm person could be lacking enthusiasm because of a lack of empathy.     

        That leads us to the Phantom Empathy Zone, a black hole of feeling at least from our subject's perspective.  It's quite opposite to Mantis' superpower as it is the perception that a feeling is lacking.  It is the abstract place, like General Zod's banishment hell, where there is only heartlessness.  Opening the zone exposes the debaters to suffering, anger, and angst for their own feelings.  It is a place where unemotional debaters are put, where their arguments are labeled as crass and hurtful.  Thus, it is designed to silence opponents because others don't feel good about their presence and because it adds disharmony to otherwise happy group. 

        There is a difference between striving to understand the reality of empathy in politics versus using it as rhetoric.  Using the Categorical Imperative to test a moral choice, first, it’s impossible to apply emotion to all people because it’s not rational and it can’t be equally applied in the same way to all people.  But even if empathy were testable, meaning a person could somehow meet a measurable and objective criteria of empathy, how could that test be put in practice for all persons in all identical situations?  Since we established earlier that context changes situations such that no individual person can have the exact same experience, coming up with a relative categorical imperative should be the next logical step.

        But, how could we even brain invade in order to ensure that the tested level of empathy is the exact level inside each subject?  As you should realize by now, there is no way to exactly mirror empathy.  Emotion and empathy are so subjective, which is why the Phantom Empathy Zone is such a barren waste of logic, reason, and better outcomes. That is why we need to be aware of any Zods out there who risk banishment and who in their exile, might drag us along as well.

 

VIII.     CONs: Glittering Generalities As Commands

“If you want order in Gotham, Batman must take off his mask and turn himself in. Oh, and every day he doesn't, people will die, starting tonight. I'm a man of my word."

The Joker from "The Dark Knight"  

Conditioned on Negatives: 

IF/Then Threat Statements about not getting what's demanded

+ Glittering Generalities = Manufactured Duty to Obey the Accuser

Conditioned On Negatives are really neither harmony and nor war.  They rest on the cliff's edge, entirely dependent on the victim's ability to fulfill whatever demand is made of them.  CONs fit well with the interpretation of silence in the face of immorality (SHIVs) leading to a hateful response.  They are on the edge of disharmony.   

Like all fallacies, I certainly did not invent them, I simply use them as tools to explain our mirroring mindset.  CONs are defined as one universal good being negated by another person's wrong action or inaction.  If the person doesn't act accordingly, the universal or near universal good is not possible.  A subject uses a CON when they demand a desired condition that is incredibly difficult to achieve within an interaction.  It could be something abstract like "universal love" or "ending hate" that's likely unobtainable by regular means.  Therefore, they are essentially a combination of glittering generalities (GG's), which are concepts that are so agreeable that opposing them is extremely difficult.  

CoNs are demands that attach one or more glittering generalities together.    One glittering generality could be "How could anyone that's not racist support a candidate like that?"  The universal evil to be hated by all is racism, the action required is to not support that candidate.  The person makes the universal determination of good or evil and then what they require others to do. 

There are also double "no's," two glittering generalities linked together such that if one extremely abstract term isn't present, the other can't be either. Take the example of “No justice, no peace.”  The phrase has existed since the 1980s and can equally be interpreted for our purposes as either conditional or conjunctive.  We're not commenting on the content behind the calls for justice or peace as they're important subjects to debate.  We're concerned with using the slogan to steamroll logic and rational argument like all GGs do.  

This double CON requires two very abstract terms to be explained.  In order to figure out what is required by "Justice," we'll need a long lecture from someone granted authority on the subject.  One person's conception of "Justice" as a universal Truth could be drastically different than another.  Then "Peace," which we've seen how both calm AND consensus could mean many things like giving up your meal to a dinner interrupter just to have the cacophony stop.  GGs are far too subjective to be realistic action. So, this is a particularly virulent hijack of freedom of speech, thought, and property. 

Finally, a CON is just a means to lecture and to assume the accuser's role of an aggrieved moral authority.  By the accuser placing themselves squarely on the side of a universal good, or facing an evil, they demand respect as an authority regardless of the facts that make up that comparison.   Once the moral high ground has been seized and the commands issued, it is extremely difficult to extricate oneself from it.  If one does not accept the conditions, any number of actions can result.  That imparts a duty to obey or coercion results if the threat isn't met.  Merely mishearing or not understanding the conditions could lead to a lengthy lecture or written screed on a social media post.   Those would be annoying, but light punishments.  Pray the accusers don't alter the terms any further! 

 

Part III: War, Huh, Good God Ya’ll

IX.  Warmongers and Weapons of Mass Debate (WMDebs)

 “Mongol General: Wrong! Conan! What is best in life?

Conan: To crush your enemies. See them driven before you. And to hear the lamentations of their women.

Mongol General: That is good! That is good.”

Conan The Barbarian

          There is a reason that war is one of the most interesting parts of history.  Not only is it sensational for readers with its acts of heroism and gore.  It also taps into the heart of confrontation between the oversimplified forces of good and evil.  A clash doesn’t have to end up like Cain and Abel, one man murdering another for the first time in monotheistic history.  It doesn’t have to end up as a cultural crusade by Motown singer Edwin Starr against the Vietnam War either.  Instead, war means to us not nations duking it out, brawlers bare-knuckle fighting over a street block, but rather the battlefield of abstract ideas competing over the heavens, a verbal or written kerfuffle comparable in the minds of our subjects to the epic wars of the past.     

According to Oxford languages, violence is behavior involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something.  Confrontation, violence, and war are related of course as degrees of physical activity.  Yet, war itself isn't strictly confined to epic battles.  Providing the basis for much of 19^th century war, Carl von Clausewitz wrote that "war is a mere continuation of policy by other means," which expands the definition of state action to include politics plus violence.  Indeed, our subjects often see policy as continued by all means though we'd never have mirror agents engaged in harmful physical action.  

 Therefore, we'll approach war as aggressive hatred in a conversation.  Confrontation is appropriate for our purpose and "war" is the nonphysical manifestation of those concepts.  Mirror War is the utmost hatred possible in a conversation short of violence against other humans, and because of the escalation on the PH Scale, also the least harmony and greatest potential for stigma. As a shouting match or a meme battle, little good can come from remaining in this conversation and all steps to calm the conversation or departing altogether should be taken. 

How do we detect the progression towards confrontation in a conversation?  How do we know when it gets to a PH of 5?  Well, Weapons of Mass Debate are the tools that irrational debaters use for confrontation when agreement is not forthcoming.  As harmony evaporates, their escalation would include all of the insights we've used so far like LiFTs and CONs.  But, WMDs signal a movement towards conflict as they're used to obliterate opponents and encourage harmony from the right-thinking survivors.  They follow a moral narrative and use LiFTs to determine targets for the attacks.  And before they push the button to launch, they often threaten their opponents with impossible demands using CONs.  If there is "no justice, no peace," then war can commence against the violent racists blindly walking into a Wendy's restaurant to buy some chicken nuggets, yet who failed to raise their fists in symbolic agreement.  

Now in a criminal court, of course the extremely broad standard of verbal violence would not be accepted as evidence of actus reus or action/steps taken towards committing a crime.  Yet, in Volume III, the point was that actual justice following a society’s established, fair, and rational process is not at all what we can expect with our subject’s snap judgements about right and wrong, justice or injustice.  Instead, Mirror Courts are the abstract places in their minds where decisions are made based on lacking evidence and no objectively fair standard of evidence. 

Finally, warmongers like Conan the Barbarian are those that agitate for violence and war.  Because violence and physical action are not usually compatible with rational argument and Mirroring, instead, we need to be aware of the aggressive and disharmonious attitudes of debaters.  Ironically, Abstract Warmongers are usually the victims of those set on verbal conflict and if escalated, physical violence.    They are defined as people who are perceived to be disrupting peace and Debate Monsters are the best ones at labeling them.  They could simply disagree with a Debate Monster, yet see themselves labeled and destroyed by their hateful opponents.  That disharmony occurs regardless of whether the person labeled a warmonger is peaceful or not.   

So, we need to tread carefully in our discussion of “war.”  For our purposes, it is the reason for disagreement in a conversation whether or not a warmonger is responsible.  The greater the justification for disagreement, like opposing Nazis or Stalinists, the greater the persistence in the struggle.  The peril for mirrors is strongest on this side of the PH spectrum (War side, PH of 4 and 5), so remember to protect yourself and your property before trying to solve a conflict that might be intractable.  Don't lose your livelihood over some stale chicken nuggets! 

 

X. Word Violence and Physical Destruction

 

“Because while the truncheon may be used in lieu of conversation, words will always retain their power. Words offer the means to meaning, and for those who will listen, the enunciation of truth. And the truth is, there is something terribly wrong with this country, isn't there? Cruelty and injustice, intolerance and oppression. And where once you had the freedom to object, to think and speak as you saw fit, you now have censors and systems of surveillance coercing your conformity and soliciting your submission. How did this happen? Who's to blame? Well certainly there are those more responsible than others, and they will be held accountable, but again truth be told, if you're looking for the guilty, you need only look into a mirror. I know why you did it. I know you were afraid. Who wouldn't be? War, terror, disease. There were a myriad of problems which conspired to corrupt your reason and rob you of your common sense.”

“V for Vendetta” 2005

A destroyer of oppression, V from "V from Vendetta" is on to something about words creating power.  Being self-righteous and also actually victimized, he is correct in attaching abstract universals to our demands for reality.  His speech is shaped by a fictional dystopia ruled by a corrupt dictatorship that persecutes all dissenters and nonconformists.  To him, the "means to the meaning" really does involve actual oppression and that State is also the target of his one man war.  

Though he's fictional vengeance personified, his way of thinking isn't too far removed from how our subjects approach real world problems.    Rather, the content of ones' words are equivalent to the violence imposed by an authoritarian regime.  The ones using the word violence are the warmongers, the ones provoking a normally peaceful people to take action in self-defense.  Engaging in such speech allows an avenger to claim the status of a victim and wreak havoc on the evil enemy.

This section seemingly doesn’t fit with Mirroring because this philosophical guide rejects illogical language like name calling, slogans, and cursing because they are not rational arguments.  Therefore, no Mirror would use so-called word violence, that is, a political statement intended to cause emotional harm to another person because that would likely make them the subject instead of the case-worker.  So, the question is how speaking or typing words could be considered equal to physical action, first against property that others consider theirs, or even to harm caused to an enemy’s person be it as assault from throwing a frozen water bottle, potential COVID spit, or a street beating with peaceful combat shield. 

Let's discuss two forms of violence short of physically attacking another human being and leave silence as violence for the next section.  There's speech imposing violence and the conundrum of whether nonliving objects can be victims of violence or if by attacking them, the abstraction of ownership is the target, thus it is a potentially legitimate target depending on the ideology of the owner.  As recently as this summer, words and the absence of speech have taken precedence over property in the violence progression scales.  This was done in order for some extremists to justify looting while violently attacking racism and police brutality.  We need not adjudicate those issues here as we just need to understand the shifting sands of violence justification and how subjective people can be if there's no rational, time-tested system that commands the respect and obedience of most of a society.

Speech as violence has a long history.  Not only could saying the wrong thing earn you swift punishment by the Imperial Court, but yelling racial slurs or panicking a theater with false threats are all potentially violent speech depending on the usage and fulfilling the elements of crime.  While the justice system generally determine when speech incites violence, or so-called fighting words, other forms of speech are regulated on a subjective basis.  Individuals weigh the content of their speech with an assumption of the effects. We need not delve into psychology to discuss the motivations for self-control and speech.  Just understand that a dangerous standard of speech censorship occurs when one person reserves the right to determine that someone else's content is violently offensive without taking into consideration existing means to make that determination.  That is the real danger of word violence.  Equating reasonably acceptable non-fighting words with actual violence because those words are offensive not only violates free speech principles, but chills the potential for more rational discourse.

Stigma is really the punishment from using word violence.  It allows a victim to retaliate against offensive words or conduct.  This vengeance bypasses the justice system when it doesn't conflict with the law.  Doxing is unethical and certainly a behavior no person concerned with rationality would ever use.  However, it is stigmatic revenge because of word crimes and it terrorizes free thinkers into silence. 

Another important contradiction that mirrors will likely face in 2020 is the irony that seemingly inoffensive words can be considered violence, but physical destruction of property cannot.  Property has fallen far in the estimation of some of our subjects from its glory days under John Locke’s protection in the 18^th century. One instinct of the property raiders is correct.  Objects are not truly possessed by people, we just claim them as ours over others.  As I stated previously, it’s not as if the TV or couch is passed out of our bodies and re-interred at will.  Objects have no more meaning than we give to them.  Yet, it turns out we give a lot of meaning to our stuff and separating that from our possession typically doesn’t go over very well.  The danger with devaluing property violence and valuing words instead lies in subjectivity. It is fundamental to American democracy that one's property cannot be taken away without a fair process.  It's doubtful whether a police shooting creates a universally acceptable justification to loot a Walgreens.  If that were the case, and a categorical imperative were created by justifying looting, then any injustice would enable anyone aggrieved to loot unrelated property if they felt it corrected the injustice.  Poppycock!  

 

XI.  SHIVs

“Shhh!”

Lee Abbot (John Krasinki) in “A Quiet Place,” (2018).

A SHIV (Silence Heinously Imposing Violence) refers to the idea that silence is equal to a physical act of violence, a tool often used by Pacifascists as they view opponents as proto-Hitlers in the making.  SHIVs are used to abuse the content of their victims and force them to participate in speech or conduct.  As the opposite of word violence, where speech and action are unwanted and immoral to the point of violence, a SHIV user judges the absence of communication as violence, a knife to their very heart.  

 There is no way to universally adjudicate the content of the lack of speech.  No one can be certain if the silent person's mind is racist or authoritarian.  We can't know if the person refusing a symbolic action like reciting the pledge is really a closet socialist. But, our subjects will certainly equate these inactions as evidence of improper thought.  So, not kneeling for the national anthem to protest racial injustice can be SHIV'ed together with not opposing the rise of the Nazi party in Germany during the 1930s or fighting segregation and the vigilantism of the KKK.  The point is not that silence is ALWAYS appropriate in the face of injustice or that it’s always not.  The problem is the injustice and the natural right of all people to have their own ability to reason about that supposed “injustice.” 

SHiVs are used as a slippery slope fallacy.  An initial, usually insignificant event leads to a chain reaction outcome without evidence of that causal link.  One might say that not all instances of silence against actual violence are fallacious.  One might boil the entire rise of the Nazi party in Germany in the 1920s and 30s as a result of the common German person not understanding retroactively the entire flow of history and being able to change their mistakes.  Silence against the real Nazi party most definitely played a role 90 years ago in a different place and culture.  Yet, how do we know that remaining silent in every instance proposed by debaters could lead to the extreme step of resurrecting Adolf Hitler and reimposing 1930s Germany on America in 2020?  We can’t.   

As stated in “Cherry Picking the History Grove,” our debaters are not historians.  They pick and choose elements from the past to use with bludgeoning effect on their opponents.  They are not accurate with use their arguments and certainly not scientific in using a method to test hypotheses about a particular moment of silence imposing violence.  So, unless the mirror is in a conversation where such a rigorous historical explanation of context and a scientific method is used to test the silence event, then we should assume it’s at least potentially fallacious hyperbole.

Ironically, SHIVs may be used to violently respond to the accused, but not if the bystander speaks out in the correct way, yet fails to assist a silent victim in actual cases of physical violence.  That means an actual victim of violence who didn't speak up is more a threat than someone who did as commanded.  Communicating and signaling correctly means you likely won’t be shivved.    

Using a SHIV to preempt and snuff out a debate by forcing agreement shows the person ignores most of liberal Western Thought since the Enlightenment.  It is generally accepted in the US that speech and press are mostly free, but what can’t be compelled is the freedom of thought because it is simply impossible.  The Orwellian trick with SHIVs is that they compel outward signs of assent, that staying silent means that a person’s thoughts are contrary to what the aggressor demands.  Therefore, a SHIV has the potential to be a very threatening concept in a democracy because it de-legitimizes the impact of individual citizens and their thoughts and makes a tyranny of the aggressive, emotional, and popular group.

SHIVs are also a hazardous area for mirrors as they can be used to compel even mirrors to speak despite our passive role as mediators.  Should we fail to verbally assent, there could be stigma for us as well.  As stated in Volume I, we also need not assent to any verbal or  physical action as our freedom of thought and conscience are a right given at birth and incorruptible in that no person can enter your mind and detect let alone alter another person's thinking.  So, this cudgel is a WMD of the highest degree.  Tread carefully should you be assaulted at dinner and required to raise a fist or be coerced into kneeling to some street emperor with a felonious demeanor.  Some fights are worth having especially if your expensive meal is more on the line than everyone's hypothetical future. 

 XII. Counterinsurgent Conversation Strategies (CCS)

“A cultural narrative is a story recounted in the form of a causally linked set of events that explains an event in a group’s history and expresses the values, character, or self-identity of the group.  Narratives are the means through which ideologies are expressed and absorbed by members of a society.  For example, at the Boston Tea Party in 1773, Samuel Adams and the Sons of Liberty dumped five tons of tea into the Boston Harbor to protest what they considered unfair British taxation.  As this example indicates, narratives may not conform to historical facts or they may drastically simplify facts to more clearly express basic cultural values.”

General David Petraeus, Counterinsurgency Manual p.64

Counterinsurgent Conversation Strategies (CCS) is a way to select purposeful conversations and to mirror those that are not.  To Volume IV, I apply counterinsurgency research from General David Petraeus’ Counterinsurgency Manual (2004) and the work of Martin Myklebust and Tom Ordeman titled “Six Requirements for Success in Modern Counterinsurgency” (2013).  Why would I use a military manual while approaching peace and harmony in 2020 political debates?   

Well, fighting any insurgency relies on countering an anti-authority narrative and creating one with a more peacefully oriented populace.  As Petraeus wrote, those narratives don't have to be true or false, they just need to be what enough people believe in order to guide their behavior and in our cases, shape their arguments.  Thus, insurgents are the ones who make debates poor, who are led by Debate Monsters, who create disorder so they can lead the reordering, and focus their being on dominating a conversation in every way they can.  Mirrors should use this philosophy to counteract this discouraging trend and reserve their time for better things.  Here are the six steps for a mirror to better choose their conversations and avoid the sort of time wasting emotional nonsense that we’ve been discussing. 

Requirement #1: A Credible and Trustworthy Host.  Conversation Credibility Tests

        Finding a credible group that is capable of limiting emotion, controlling the volume level, and generally using facts to back up their statements.  You can be assured that regardless of the disagreement, they won’t engage in physical violence, won’t allow emotions to override rationality, don’t intentionally use logical fallacies, and especially won’t distort the record outside of the conversation.  They are against emotional arguments, understand that truths have no requirements as to who can find and use them, reject retaliation acts like doxing, and never see the way to defeat an argument as a symbolic action (like raising a fist or singing an anthem) or a physical action (like punching a Nazi).   

Requirement #2: A Coherent Mission and Operational Mandate

        A successful group must have the ability to avoid tendentious topics and stay focused on a few, related topics.  They do not skip merrily through the vast expanse of history as they understand context and know better.  They do not mix up disciplines or concede arguments merely because of fallacious factors like authority, popularity, age/youth, or empathy.  Instead, their mandate is rooted in finding more truths and stringing them together using reason.

Requirement #3: Control of the Physical or Digital Terrain of the Conversation    

           Like in an insurgent war, mirrors ensure that their conversation can't be misinterpreted by outside people who don't meet the credibility test.  Since all members of the discussion would not lie, distort, or betray truthful people in the conversation, they would also resist any outside attempt to discredit or label those that partook. Debaters must have reasonable control of all chat groups, phone messages, public arenas, or any other medium by which a political discussion takes place to ensure security.  Referring back to Volume I, beware of all written or recorded conversational terrains unless you're certain an outsider can't misinterpret.      

Requirement #4: An Effective System of Logistics

        Informal and formal conversations depend heavily on the ability to eliminate fallacious arguments without turning up the volume or typing all in caps.  Conversation logistics is the process of responding to others effectively, regularly supplying facts, encouraging critical sourcing of research, not ignoring critical but logical, nor allowing illogical arguments to stand.   However the conversation takes place, it should be efficient in eliminating outside distractions like random interrupters, meme posters, or trolls.  An efficient debate would provide for the elimination of all non-arguments, getting rid of all emojis, memes, or media that does not fit the topics.  Nothing should disrupt the group from posing rational arguments or supplying the proof for them. 

Requirement #5: Control of Information, Effective Information Operations

        The point of this requirement is that all arguments need to be backed up with research.  Claims naturally would have facts to support them.  Words used would be generally defined as commonly understood or a dictionary used to bolster its meaning in the context of a sentence.  Grammar generally is not perfect, but clarity is essential so all questionably worded arguments must be questioned so nothing escapes scrutiny.  All opportunities to correct mistakes should be encouraged and any failure to do this voluntarily should be noted when evaluating the debate group for honesty.  And no outside input from others should be allowed unless they meet the credibility test.   

Requirement #6: An Ineffective/Illegitimate Insurgent Force.

        The point of this requirement isn't to meet emotion with emotion, to humiliate, or lord over the irrational.  We aren't de-legitimizing anything other than the irrational argument and we're doing that through a dispassionate effort.  All humans have emotions; we're trying instead to limit the impact of them where possible.  Mirrors boil away as many irrational statements as they can and seek out others with a similar approach.  All irrational statements or emotions should be subjected to literal interpretation that must not be emotional ridicule.  All forces using scorn or ad hominem factors need to be called out.  All fallacies need to be pointed out before moving the political conversation on or one risks de-legitimizing the rationality of your conversation.   

Conclusion:

        Thanks for reading what turned out to be a truly epic fourth volume.  With these new identifying tools, I'm confident that what remains of 2020 can be much more productive.  Dismissing the gloom and doom, next year promises to be a solar cycle where we can truly pursue our opportunities with a little more hope, greatness, and meaningful change!  

Glossary

(Thanks to Merriam-Webster Dictionary and Dictionary.com for definitions)

Abstraction: the nonphysical

ad hominems: "of the person", meaning an illogical attack about the person. 

Assent: To agree to something. 

CCS: Counterinsurgent Conversation Strategies: The requirements to detect useful logical conversations and to warn against emotional and irrational ones that should be mirrored.  

CONs: Conditioned on Negatives: A threatening statement that if something isn't abstract done, then action won't take place.   

Context: the persons, places, and times of a debate.

Debate Monsters (Trolls): Persons who only argue to get an emotional response from others.

Glittering Generality: an emotionally charged statement that is nearly impossible to disagree with.  For example "Murder is bad."

Fallacy: a false idea. 

Harmony: a synchronous calm, the unity of beliefs and emotions stemming from an end to a disagreement or disunity.

Harmony Dividends: The positive feelings as a result of debaters believing others agree with them.  

LiFT: Lies from the Table Cloth: A narrative is deemed completely inauthentic, False, immoral, and an affront to another supposedly authentic, True, and moral one. 

Mirrorism: Like a mirror, it's the reflection of emotional arguments back on the arguer. 

Mirror Agents: the people mirroring irrational political discussions.   

Mirror Harmony: The perception of a total unity of beliefs and emotions.   

Mirror Peace: A consensus in a debate where disagreement stops, but unified beliefs do not.  Achievable by mirrors who stabilize the conversation.  Our subjects interpret a lack of confrontation to mean others are in harmony with them.  

Narratives: a subjective, but total view of the world.  As stories, they are often deemed authentic or not based on the perception of other people though can't really know about another's view of the world. 

Pacifascism: The ironic belief system where a group of nonviolent, antiwar people aggressively or violently resist an authority deemed to be oppressive and comparable to the three historical fascist states (Italy, Germany, and Spain).

Peace: State of tranquility; such freedom from civil disturbance and a state of security or order within a community provided for by law or custom

Phantom Empathy Zone:  The place where people who supposedly lack empathy are sent.  If the person does not show the same level of emotion about an issue, they risk banishment here.

Pragmatism: 19th century American Philosophy that sought truth through what works.

Rationality: the use of reason and logic to discover truth.

Reason:  Justifying belief using facts.

Slippery Slope Fallacy: An argument that claims a relatively small event will lead to something much greater effect without evidence. 

SHIV: Silence Heinously Imposing Violence: A lack of speech is judged as condoning violence.

Warmongers: Persons labeled as disturbing the peace of a conversation. 

WMDs: Weapons of Massed Debate: The tactics of debaters to identify and destroy opposition without logic and reason.