Volume VI:
Empires of Mass Abstraction
Maxim: “Avoid political discussions when everyone’s society cannot receive a guaranteed benefit.”
The Highlights of Abstract Mirroring Volume VI:
- Reminder: Belief acceptance + Context=Harmony.
- Micropower: In a debate or small group setting, micropower describes the inter-personal dynamic of using coercion and self-justification to resist rational arguments. At that point in a debate, if you aren't with them, you're against them. Conversely, a person becomes a peasant of, I mean, a subject of Mirroring and a would-be Empire builder of ideology.
- Authority: is the legitimate exercise of power without active
justification because it is reasonably accepted and exercises power
rationally. However, when a subject with a legitimate, rational complaint rejects their duty to obey and performs an open act of noncompliance, the subject questions the legitimacy of the authority, prompting a potential coercive reaction to preserve that which cannot be justified without threatening legitimacy with the other subjects.
- Raw Power: While power is the perception of an ability to command others to act, speak, or do neither, Raw Power specifically requires force to achieve compliance regardless of all objections. It is irrational because a potentially valid response is not allowed as it is simply deemed to be disobedient. Ex. demanding the deference of political opinion from unknown persons regardless of their views, shouting others down (volume), clapping at people to cover over a lack of words, physically intimidating others, using selective and biased media coverage, preventing typed responses, etc.
- Decision Fog: Based on Plato's Cave and the imperfection of the senses, and Yoda's Den of Evil, a mirror for Luke Skywalker's self-discovery of the Force, and the idea of self-selecting ones' failures or successes. It's the real-time flaws of information processing when exercising power. It may lead to confusion, misinformation, perceiving rational opinions as misinformation, or leading to untimely decision-making (too slow or fast).
- Legitimate Resistance: is the ability to resist a command using rational, valid means that cannot go unanswered by a claimant authority. The failure of an aware authority to rationally counter an objection or to ignore it altogether may lead that authority to use Raw Power to enforce compliance of a potentially unjust order.
- Illegitimate Resistance: means disobeying rational orders or the law without using a valid complaint pursued through the established system in context. For ex.: breaking into a public building and rioting to disrupt an electoral vote count, destroying police stations and injuring officers to prevent enforcement of the law without pursuing valid complaints through the system, spray painting priceless art to make a political point, or forcing Supreme Court confirmation hearings to suspend because of loud protests.
- Schlamperei: A German word for untidiness and sloppiness, often used for government authories. For our purposes, it is used to separate a valid complainant and their object of ire: an institution’s inefficient and lazy exercise of authority. Valid complaints are treated with a cold shoulder, pushed through slow bureaucratic processes, or if relentlessly pursued, punished using Raw Power.
- Fossil Fallacy (Collective Identity Fallacy): A justification by old, established collectives (Frozen-in-Carbonite institutions) that possess authority and use identity or duration fallacies to justify further commands while dismissing rational challenges. Ex. “We cannot allow the undermining of this important, respected institution because we are this important, respected institution.” As with pragmatism's "fossils," they may cease to be useful and act more like museum pieces to be seen and not touched (or confronted).
- Micropower Microaggressions (MMAs):
An unsolvable complaint about a microaggression and one that empowers
the complainant in dis-proportionally combative ways relative to the significance of what actually happened. Seemingly small and even innocent interactions act as proxies for broader unsolvable issues (Macrofaults) like race or gender discrimination in America.
- Identity
Safety in a Space (ISiS): A type of ad hominem fallacy. This involves constructing an environment where another
person's power, deemed a threat to a perceived identity, is limited merely because of who they are in
order to preserve an irrational sense of safety, or one based on
superficial assumptions. Ex. Rejecting those with
an unfamiliar fashion style because of their looks rather than the content of their opinions, or assuming a
white male is a threat without rationally considering any of their views about a controversial matter.
- Safespace Parlors:
A friendly debate environment or Parlor, as opposed to an emotional support space, where debate authority is reserved only for a specific
class of people because of that group’s supposed emotional sensitivity
to truths. For the invading group to use power in that context could de-legitimize the authority of the group constructing the Parlor. Its proponents often use words like “We’ve heard enough from
that group” to cordon themselves off from dispute, especially from truths, and in order to prevent both real and imagined aggression. Ex. "Because rioters stormed the capital on January 6th in Washington, an open Trump supporter is a threat to my personal safety if they disagree with me in New York City after I confront them about their outfit in a public restaurant."
- Old Bois/Girlz Clubs (Originalist) vs. Revisionist Safespaces: Originalist Safespace Parlors occur when traditional groups irrationally limit the participation of a perceived outside class (“others”). Revisionists are newer parlors created to limit participation by perceived originalist groups in order to re-balance or achieve some level of corrective "social justice" in a way that cannot be proven or guarantee the intended result.
- Council of Mirrors: A voluntary institution of individuals pursuing greater value out of micro-politics and the accurate use of abstractions. By exercising conversational mirroring, our subjects experience no coercive authority or Raw Power as we choose to practice belief acceptance in context, and leave the conversation with our subjects believing in harmony. As a successful, truly pragmatic institution and a model for others, we achieve greater efficiency, a more rational output, and gain greater agreement from our subjects.
- Ronklainian Propaganda Tools:
Chief of Staff Ronald Klain’s tools to convince stupid “Uncles” at a
holiday gathering among family. It is opposite advice to what a mirror
would give and an exercise in identifying boorish sources of abstraction
in an interpersonal, micropower setting
(unpersuasive dinner table politics lectured to “idiots”).
- Exhibit A: Mar-a-lago-an Rebels: Populist demagoguery + Reacting to elite and institutional indifference= Relentless attackers who use glittering generalities and conspiracies to change the existing political order. Ex. "The Big Steal Doom Pit," "Antisemitism and Racism," and "Fort Mar-a-Lago."
- Exhibit B: Chenyist First Order: Elitist moralizing + Control of Powerful Institutions= top down Neo-Puritan resistance to the concerns of the "ignorant" masses. Ex. "Constitional Threats are ONLY When We Say They're Threats," "Neo-Puritan Warmongering," and "I'll See You in Hell'Ism."
- Exhibit C: The Sandersista Resistance: Populist demagoguery + Radical ideologies emphasizing severe coercion and re-distributive giveaways = wanting to radically reshape society by reshaping or destroying unfriendly corporations and institutions, and proactively limiting the ability of opponents to respond by cancelling them. Ex. "Don't You Dare Call Us Privileged Hypocrites!," "Safety for Me, But F Thee!," and "Existential Threats! Not Conspiracy-Smearacies."
- Exhibit D: Darkside Brandonists: Absentee Elitist Condescension + Gaslighting ones' radical and moderate flanks= Altering society as little as possible and demanding credit for doing it because the other party is intractable about something they don't believe and won't do it anyways. So, everyone should be thanked for the least results possible! Pray Darkside Brandonists don't alter it any further! Ex. "The Gaslight is a Beacon for Tired, Huddled, Drug Lords," "Student Loan Forgiveness Bait and Switch," and "All Our Foreign Policy Weaknesses are Actually All Our Strengths. Shut up!"
Table of Contents
I. Introduction: Unlearn What You Have Learned
Part I: Authority:
A Fully Armed and Operational Battle-station.
II. Bow to the First Order!
III. Micropower and The Ethics of Accepting Authority
IV. Fogs and Caves
V. Schlamperei: Frozen-in-Carbonite Institutions
Part II: Compliance:
Star Systems Slipping Through Tight Grips
VI.The Conformity Paradox
VII.Legitimate Resistance and Failing to Accept “Irrational” Authority
VIII. Micropower Microaggressions (MMAs)
IX. Safespace Parlors and Identity Safety in a Space (ISiS)
X.An Intermission: A Counsel of Mirrors
Part III: Applications:
Demonstrating the Capabilities of this (Battle) Station
XI. Macropower Method Studies
XIII. Ronklainian Propaganda Tools
XIV. Glossary:
You Are Protocol Droid Are You Not?