The intelligent reader resists easy categorization, refusing to describe reality through binary metrics. He allows space for conflicting beliefs and holds them in speculation long enough to puzzle out the truth. This process entails cognitive dissonance, wherein existing beliefs are challenged, and discomfort is produced.
His more impulsive counterpart, preferring ease of mind through intellectual shortcuts, rushes to easy conclusions, mistaking premature clarity for understanding. Orwell warned against such autocratic means of ordering reality, which he termed Euclidean: a geometrically precise and compulsory description of society and individuals. Under this framework, people and ideas are stuffed into permanently labeled categories, with little allowance for change. The simpler man clings to these categorizations as a response to cognitive overload. He possesses only so much mental energy before fatigue sets in.
When confronted with sufficient paradox or competing ideologies, he reverts to his simple—though trusted—method of generalization. This is why the average man is quick to label Republicans or Democrats as being on the "wrong side of history," without acknowledging any grey area. He applies the same reductive logic to other groups and individuals, thereby reducing cognitive load. Consequently, he lacks the intellectual resilience to resist deception. In fact, he inhabits an infrastructure of deception—comfortable beliefs that shield him from the truth that individuals are multidimensional and cannot be fully understood in their entirety, and thus cannot be meaningfully categorized.
So many variables influence human behavior that the individual exists in a constant state of flux. Far simpler, then, is to call Jack a "boring" man or a "loser" than to expend the mental energy required to understand Jack and the social forces shaping his behavior. The simpler man accepts a trade-off: the world is easier to understand under his reductive framework, but he is more vulnerable to manipulation.
All his competitors must accomplish is to develop a topology of the simple man's beliefs. Once that is understood, the more complex man only has to pull the right levers and say the right phrases. We see this prominently among politicians, whose honey-coated speeches appeal to man's lower sensibilities. During their campaigns, they weaponize the media to advance divisive, fiery rhetoric to gain votes and political momentum. Legacy media has also clued in on the adversarial framing of groups and communities, driving those ambivalent followers away but, in return, attracting simple-minded loyalists, Lenin's "useful idiots."
By entering the epistemological framework of others, the simple man willingly adopts the party line. He must conform or be ostracized, because dissent threatens unity; autonomy is traded for conformity. This does not upset him because it appeals to his habitual reliance on easy categorization and way of thinking. Cognitive weight is lifted because the party supplies him with the proper slogans, the correct ethos, and the appropriate chants.
Should he find himself confronted by an outsider, he will either recite the approved lines, call for help, or else flee into the herd. Ultimately, the relationship between the individual and the group is a feudal one. The individual, as a tax, provides resources in the form of time, commitment, and money. In exchange, he may rest comfortably within the already built intellectual fortification of the group, which is maintained by more complex men. The ideology manifests physically, offering ritualistic ceremonies and group-bonding exercises in the forms of rallies, seminars, and conventions, where group members may echo ideas or, if necessary, correct errant beliefs. They have their leaders also. Their princes and kings, who obtain high esteem for being the most earnest members.
Such close attachment to a group carries significant consequences he may not have considered. He has developed an attitude of assimilation. This behavior extends to other areas of his life. He easily enters others' frameworks and is thus subject to their emotions, rules, and beliefs. Without his own internal framework or hierarchy of morals, ethics, and values, he either retreats to his dominant group or else submits to others.
Nations crumble under such permissible behaviors. When this cognitive pattern becomes widespread, it no longer manifests merely in speech or meetings, but in national policy. The European nations do not properly defend their borders against migration and are now enduring the ramifications of such forced integration. They have plunged into the feel-good theory that diversity is healthy and productive, not recognizing that quantity and quality matter. Few—and certainly not enough—resist these demographic changes. Why would we expect a nation to defend itself when the individuals cannot defend themselves?
The far-reaching consequences of servile behavior create an environment devoid of strong leadership, permitting criminal and amoral attitudes to flourish. It is not only the immigrants we must concern ourselves with, but also federal and local judges who themselves display behaviors of subservient cretins by routinely releasing or imposing short sentences on the convicted. Their soft-handed approach stems from the college-lectured assumption that compassion alone will turn hardened criminals into valuable citizens. However, we see their lazy thinking at work, because these relaxed measures against crime are applied almost indiscriminately, without much thought invested into life after prison, such as proper rehabilitation measures.
Strength is a quality that must first be cultivated within oneself. It begins by resisting the lazy temptation to submit ourselves to platitudes and convenient truths. By sharpening our intellectual blade, it becomes much easier to cut through layers of dishonesty and manipulation. Conversely, a man is ripe for deception if he has already deluded himself; at that point, he may even crave delusion. To commit oneself to objective truth and logic makes one a formidable adversary. And in an era of permissibility and weakness, who would oppose you?
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