The point of ConserveLiberty commenting on Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals is not for you to decide whether or not you agree or disagree with the commentary, Saul Alinsky, or the projects that Rules for Radicals was intended to be used for.

ConserveLiberty does not advocate for particular positions. Your position on what you will be shown is up to you to decide.

Rather, this commentary makes reference to the power of narrative messaging, consistently repeated over time, positioned as factual, declared confidently and without compromise.

Alinsky's messaging tactics were intended to guide the groups managing various "activist projects" on how they could engage both their membership and the general community they were seeking "social change" within to embrace the goals and methods of the projects. Indoctrination resulting in the embrace of the stated goals, even if support of these goals was not initially shared by the group or the community was the objective.

Thus, Indoctrination was not the sole objective. Addressing current indoctrinations, eroding them, and replacing them with indoctrinations consistent with the activists' goals was the overall objective.

Why?

Indoctrination is extraordinarily difficult to change. Thus Indoctrinations are "more permanent" than simply learning or deriving or negotiating a rule and agreeing to follow it. Those who were better able to initiate, manage, and alter indoctrinations had extraordinary power and a more superior ability to "get their way" and keep it longer.

Finally, ConserveLiberty suggests that Habituation plays a role in Indoctrination. Habituation and Addiction are the result of the same or similar mechanism(s). What you are addicted to doing you will repeatedly do, and believe that it is something you want to do. You believe that what you want to do is your Free Will election to do. That it is your rational decision to do so. Even if you think you want to do something different, you believe you are making a rational decision to do now what you are addicted to doing. Even if you don't believe you are addicted. Thus is the Power of Indoctrination.

The Rules:

• Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have. Power is derived from 2 main sources - money and people. "Have-Nots" must build power from flesh and blood.
  
  David Apollo's comment: Both monetary reward and the approval of people stimulate the brain's reward system. Repeated stimulation of the reward system promotes habituation, and the desire to repeat what repeats the reward.
  
  
• Never go outside the expertise of your people. It results in confusion, fear and retreat. Feeling secure adds to the backbone of anyone.
  
  David Apollo's comment: Feelings of security may stimulate the brain's reward system (above.) Confusion and fear do NOT stimulate the brain's reward system (normally.)
  
  
• Whenever possible, go outside the expertise of the enemy. Look for ways to increase insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.
  
  David Apollo's comment: For the same reasons as above. Since your enemies may be indoctrinated differently than you want them to be, you want to do what you can to disrupt their tendency to continue habituating on the behavior you want to change.
  
  
• Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules. If the rule is that every letter gets a reply, send 30,000 letters. You can kill them with this because no one can possibly obey all of their own rules.
  
  David Apollo's comment: Hassle disrupts the tendency to continue habituating on the behavior resulting in the hassle. Alinsky is promoting leveraging the enemy's current indoctrinated behaviors to generate the hassles which will undermine them. Very strategically efficient!
  
  
• Ridicule is man's most potent weapon. There is no defense. It's irrational. It's infuriating. It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.
  
  David Apollo's comment: Ridicule generates an avoidance coping response, so long as the ridiculed take the criticism seriously. Avoidance coping will disrupt the tendency to continue habituating on the behavior being ridiculed. In fact, rewards perceived to have been merited as a result of the avoidance coping may stimulate the brain's reward center, resulting in the habituation of the avoidance coping. Again, logistically brilliant!
  
  
• A good tactic is one your people enjoy. They'll keep doing it without urging and come back to do more. They're doing their thing, and will even suggest better ones.
  
  David Apollo's comment: Enjoyment is addictive. It's where you want to be. See above.
  
  
• A tactic that drags on too long becomes a drag. Don't become old news.
  
  
• Keep the pressure on. Never let up. Keep trying new things to keep the opposition off balance. As the opposition masters one approach, hit them from the flank with something new.
  
  
• The threat is usually more terrifying than the thing itself. Imagination and ego can dream up many more consequences than any activist.
  
  David Apollo's comment: Many people do not actually Validate their beliefs as being Factual or Rationally Credible. They may believe they are, but if you examine more deeply, you find that they have not actually truthfully validated many of their beliefs At All. Thus, Beliefs often have much more power than Facts. Just as, similarly, Intentions often have more power than Results. Facts and Results are REAL. In the realm of Imagination, one can Believe anything, and one can Intend Anything. Saul Alinsky is leveraging the power of Imagination to impact Indoctrination much more effectively than Real Evidence.
  
  
• The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this unceasing pressure that results in the reactions from the opposition that are essential for the success of the campaign.
  
  David Apollo's comment: Altering Indoctrination is not a single event mechanism of action. It requires Habituation, and thus requires repetition. By someone perceived to be Confident. By someone positioned as a Credible Authority.
  
  
• If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive. Violence from the other side can win the public to your side because the public sympathizes with the underdog.
  
  David Apollo's comment: "The Strong" is a threat, hypothetically, if stronger than you. "The Weak" is not, hypothetically. People are often instinctively compassionate, especially towards those who mean them no obvious or intentional harm.
  
  
• The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. Never let the enemy score points because you're caught without a solution to the problem.
  
  
• Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions.

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What do you believe about the effectiveness of the "Rules" regarding Indoctrination? Are you aware of indoctrinating techniques and narratives being deployed today that manage us in a way that you perceive the well intentioned would certainly agree with?

David Apollo's opinion? - Conserve your Liberty

→ This posting was last updated 30 Oct 2017 12:10 PDT ←