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Proper care and education for our children remains a cornerstone of our entire colonization effort. Children not only shape our future; they determine in many ways our present.
(Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri)
Han, Reign of Gaozu year 1, Luoyang, Imperial Palace
“What of those who are keepers of such secrets? The bureaucrats at the archives and the security divisions within the Han? Unlike the military, they can not be sent to the outer realms of the Han to be physically hidden.”
“The internal security of your realm has two broad directives: behavioral control and thought suppression. The city guard that keep the streets clean of unsavory elements of Han society are the behavioral enforcers. These can simply be hidden from plain sight by shaping the public perception of them as procedural, or ritual, cogs.”
“Ritual cogs? Explain.”
“What is the function of the regional magistrate and his city guards, your Majesty?”
“To uphold and enforce justice, in accordance to law and morality.”
“Your regional magistrates may serve your Majesty better, should they render judgement in accordance to rituals and procedures.”
“Not in accordance to legal or moral principles?”
“Legal, perhaps. Moral, never. Morality, as your Majesty is now aware, is but a fiction, designed to keep your subjects docile. The danger of focusing magisterial judgments on moral principles is that inevitably, your subjects will begin to examine the very concept of morality, undermining the legitimacy and authority such moral fiction confers to our judicial and political system. By shifting the concept of justice to imply proper observation of ritual, procedural, or legal traditions, we can distract your subjects with appearance of morality, rather than morality itself. The magistrate, city guard, and your subjects will be too busy adhering to the process of judicial rituals and procedures to contemplate the possibility of Han jurisdictional illegitimacy. After all, the only argument for Han judicial jurisdiction lies with your Majesty’s military forces, which is best left out of your subjects’ awareness.”
“How does Han regional magistrates and city guard being ritual cogs help in stressing the appearance over reality?”
“Your ministers must appoint the proper type of servants to the offices of judiciary. Though we can train men to be obtuse in thought and compulsive in rituals, the essential quality of insensitivity to empathy can not be readily instilled in men.”
“Because the officers of judiciary are apathetic toward those with whom they interact, they will seem like cogs.”
“Yes, your Majesty, but more importantly, because the officers are not influenced by the sentiment towards pity certain circumstances engender, they will more likely than not enforce and adjudicate according to the rituals and the procedures demand. Furthermore, with proper training to curtail creativity or critical thinking, your judicial officers will primarily, if not solely, rely upon rituals and procedures to complete their duties.”
“Consistency of judgment and enforcement.”
“Our purpose is to establish a stable society, your Majesty. Furthermore, by appointing regional magistrates to a maximum of 3-year tenure at any given locality, with the stipulation that the magistrate never be appointed to his locality of birth, we can limit judicial discrepancies and encourage adherence to rituals as determined by the central authority. The magistrates, having little to no connection to, or incentive to be partial towards, those under his supervision, will administer his praefecture according to the central government’s directives. The critical appointments, thus, are those of city guards who are recruited from the region of their station. Their selection and training must, by necessity, be of paramount priority in allocating resources of the judiciary.”
“More so than the magistrates?”
“The magistrate by the circumstances of his office, even were he inclined to be empathetic towards his charges, will remain loyal to the directives of the central government in establishing consistency of judgment. The enforcement officers, because they reside in and are recruited from the locality of their stations, require a little more incentive to perform their duties as expected by your Majesty. The less empathetic and imaginative these city guard members are, the more they will cling to the rituals and procedures, and the easier for the central government to control them through these rituals and procedures.”
“Are we to entrust the governing of our realm to the obtuse and the listless?”
“Aha ha ha ha! Only the visible facade, your Majesty. Those who are to be the sinews of your will must be as competent in administrating public recollection as your generals are in conducting military campaigns. These must be specifically selected for particular qualities and tendencies for them to be effective and remain loyal.”
“Administering public recollection?”
“One aspect of perception management is editing historical archives to more . . . correctly reflect our current societal necessities. What is the purpose of history, your Majesty, if not to legitimize your Majesty’s internal policies, external aspirations, and the stability of the realm? The past can easily be repurposed for the creation of a new social narrative.”
“Will my subjects readily accept fables that contradict their own memories?”
“We have already discussed the willing gullibility of your subject, your Majesty. The adjustments of history merely need to suggest alignment with their self-centered interests and self-absorbed pretensions. The more relevant question, your Majesty, would be: is editing history enough to accomplish our purposes? It is not. History is but a tool that is wielded, and the effectiveness of the tool depends on the user. More important, however, is the understanding that the edition of history being only one of many tools of social pressure available to mould the social consciousness to conform with the correct mind-set.”
“What is the correct mind-set?”
“The belief that men require governance and training: to learn to overcome their crude demands of individuality, for such selfishness warps the perception of their world around them. Instead, they must be trained to extend their consciousness outward to embrace the self of community, of society, and of the state. The goals of the group are transcendent, and to embrace them is to achieve enlightenment.”
“But surely, individual merit and efforts matter?”
“Do they, your Majesty? Is such a concept as individual merit even valid? Are not individual qualities but social consequence of the communal matrix within which these men inhabit? What within your realm can your subjects claim to as their own? Do they have private property without your Majesty’s vast judicial bureaucracy codifying property ownership as a legal concept? Do they have recourse against theft without your Majesty’s security apparatus enforcing proper social rituals prescribing property transfer? Can they engage in any economic activity within your realm without your Majesty’s Accountant of Exchequer issuing the ba liang? Can they have said to possess even their own thoughts without your Majesty’s academic and archival references from whence they draw their perceptual matrix? Are they even allowed their very lives without your Majesty’s military institutions keeping the Xiongnu at bay? Individuality is a nice fiction that can be used to flatter the conceit of the untrained and the ignorant, when necessary, but propagation of such pernicious poison within social consciousness will result in inevitable disintegration of society.”
“How will we combat the tendency towards individual selfishness?”
“One method is to edit history to suggest the primary explanation of the failures of prominent past figures were due to their selfishness and arrogance. Furthermore, propagation of Confucian ideology within your society will subtly mould social perceptual matrix to accept our historical paradigm. Imperial favor towards academic pursuits examining the pitfalls of individuality and selfishness will create entire academic inquiry committed to rationalizing aforementioned historical explanations. Fill most of academic and bureaucratic offices with Confucians, and we can establish self-perpetuating tautology of historical explanations justifying Confucianism and Confucian matrix sifting only the failures of selfishness in history.”
“Then who ought to be delegated the use of such potent tool? Surely, the academics and bureaucrats perpetuating tautology can not be made aware of their ideologic labyrinth?”
“Very perceptive observation, your Majesty. Those who wield the crossbow of Confucian social doctrine must, by necessity, be of non-Confucian ideology; those who hold irreconcilable ideologic differences to Confucianism would be ideal operator.”
“Irreconcilable . . . you are suggesting Taoism.”
“Yes, your Majesty! Though the Taoist must first be broken and moulded to be your agents in things.”
“Taoists are formidable ideologues, even mythical in their awesome mental prowess. How do you propose we break such men?”
“Certain desolate places, specific environmental conditions, and definitive traumatic events together are almost designed to break psyche of men. You have witnessed the men under your command during the Warring States, under battle duress, break mentally and reconstitute themselves as fearsome killers. Your subordinates no longer identify themselves within a cultural or social matrix, but rather have been shocked into primarily defining themselves in terms of unit, company, battalion, regiment. Similarly, Taoists can be broken and reconstituted as any thing we desire.”
“Are you suggesting we conscript Taoists for war?”
“War and battlefields are not the only crucible to forge men, your Majesty. Participating with investigators in interrogation chambers, cataloguing the desolation resulting from Xiongnu raids, and other such lower-intensity, second-hand experience can serve to break the psyche certain susceptible mind. Taoists, with their emphasis on individual revelation, aloofness from social connections, accepting of ten-thousand methods to enlightenment, the glaring lack of logical or rational thought process in their religion make the Taoist peculiarly susceptible to psychic distress when confronted with the edifice of man’s horrors. The Taoist master, of course, will be able to steel their minds to the assault of his senses, but the adepts will shatter and break. The most important aspect in breaking a Taoist adept is identifying the juncture between psychic breaking and psychic shattering. A shattered man is of little use other than to serve as doomed spies, but a broken Taoist presents an ideal material to be moulded into those who operate the levers of a Confucian state.”
“To govern a communal society, we appoint individuals who rely solely on self-revelation?”
“Aha ha ha! Broken individualists, but essentially the summary is apt, your Majesty.”
“And how do we utilize these broken men?”
— to be continued —
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:
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.
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.
Really insightful characterization of the governing mindset, great read!
Hey! Welcome back. @valued-customer and I have been exchanging heated arguments regarding the merits of authoritarianism and free-society. He is really great at refuting my attempts at apology for criminal behavior. I will let him know to check your posts out, if he is not already a follower.
This is terrifyingly apt as an analogy for the world today.
Thanks!
Great post as always! This reminds me heavily of the Social Credit System China has proposed- the 'Citizen Scores', essentially gamifying conformity and obedience.
My favorite paragraph, and very Hobbesian in its philosophy. Individualism vs society seems to percolate so many disciplines. Utilitarianism vs Kantianism in philosophy for instance, or genes (Dawkins) vs group selection (E. O. Wilson) in biology. It's always a theme, almost an archetype. Nietzsche thinks it's the geniuses who create everything and the masses merely act as fertilizing soil, setting up the right conditions for the rise of the great man. Our movies I think show the public's preference is the individual, as can be seen from the many-vs-the-few trope, Neo vs Smith...so often they even make the many literal bugs, as in Starship Troopers. So 'the many' is often identified with 'the villainous'. One exception I can think of is the horror genre, where often it's one villain vs many (usually teen) 'innocents' (usually sexually immoral). Still, the villain survives into sequels, while the 'good guys' perish, so in a sense he becomes the protagonist, and the public kinda likes watching those promiscuous teens die, so I don't know if it's truly an exception.
Very true. There is a strong tendency against individualism in the common man. Man establishes social constructs that essentially advocates conformity. Men's desire for super man is essentially the cry of masses praying for a god to lead their conformist construct into eternity. Geniuses who dare shift the social consensus too much are vehemently opposed by the masses, even as they supposedly wish for individuality, spontaneity, and creativity.
Yet, the paradox of man's existence is that without conformity, man can not exist in a society, nor can he recognize true genius. Conformity allows for a reference frame within which man may gauge his aptitude, creativity, morality, and individuality. The current Western social milieu, in which all boundaries are demolished, every one considers his opinion (however idiotic) valid, established methods of inquiry is blatantly disregarded in the name of individuality, establishment in every form is vilified regardless of merit, creates a strange atmosphere where the concept of individuality has become social conformity. When opinions of idiots have the same valence as conclusions of geniuses, nothing can be created and even that which was created is destroyed.
Creativity cannot exist without conformist boundaries, free speech cannot function without established lese majeste, and geniuses cannot be recognized without conformist drones.