OMG I loved so much about this, Soo. You've used laser beam intellect to cut straight through the facade and reveal the truth. So many highlights, but these stood out for me:
we can distract your subjects with appearance of morality, rather than morality itself.
The past can easily be repurposed for the creation of a new social narrative
This is so true. I'm reading The Gulag Archipelago by Solzheinitsyn at the mo (better late than never, eh :P). The authorities bent over backwards to have this destroyed, this true history, overruling it with their fabricated narratives.
Individuality is a nice fiction
I'm gonna have to catch up on your back catalogue.
Cheers
Anj :)
Solzheinitsyn's experience was not in line with the Leftist/Marxist delusional narrative of workers' paradise. When the Kremlin archives were available to Western academics, after the dissolution of the USSR, the academics were surprised to discover that the private letters of Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, et al. contained exactly the same information, rhetoric, and ideology as their propaganda. In essence, the delusion of "well Stalin was just power-hungry, that's why . . . " excuse was no longer tenable. Stalin killed 100 million Russians, Ukrainians, Siberians, Khazaks, etc. not because he was a sociopath, but because he was a communist. Even with this revelation, still the idiots at Labor spew-forth their Marxist drivel, with academic "socialists" justifying communism.
Wow, I didn't know that about the private letters. Yes, belief is a dangerous thing and now that religion is on the decline, loose-brained people have attached that primitive urge to political ideology and so-called social justice. If only there were a cure for mass idiocy.