"In a free Republic, everyone can think what they want and say what they think."
Spinoza
Introduction:
One of the most fearsome weapons of harassing powers is slander, that is, the defamatory and false attack ad personam against the messenger, in order to discredit his message, or to designate him as the person to be killed, or "the wrong person" whose message should not be listened to.
For the harassing power, "the end justifies the means», meaning that all blows are allowed, even the lowest, the vilest, and the most abject.
Modern technologies allow for an extension of the phenomenon, with dedicated teams to orchestrate cabals (secret agreements of people to harm someone in particular who disturbs their interests) against messengers whose message bothers them.
Here is a small article to decipher the mechanisms, which are valid in any stalker context.
I remind you that the stalker (which can be a group) targets in particular those who do not submit to their abusive power.
The expected results of slander
The expected results of slander are as follows:
1 °Sow doubt and confusion over the messenger to make the message inaudible, by diverting attention to the messenger rather than to his message.
2 ° Discredit and smear the messenger, to weaken him (he himself is the victim of harassment, the traumatic load of which is variable but indisputable), to make him lose his support, to divide about him.
3 °Kill any desire to be able to access his message, either by the threat of ostracism or reprisals if by chance one supports the messenger (the people who would listen to this messenger would be for example "conspiracist"1), or by fear or even by the doubt sown on the person himself.
4 °Sow doubt and confusion in general to prevent people from seeing clearly, and to make them abandon their quest for truth and understanding.
5 °Divert the attention of the messenger so that he is no longer busy delivering his message, but rather spends his time defending himself from false slanders about him.
The main methods used are as follows:
I refer to an article I wrote in 2014, on harassing power and its opponents[2].
1 ° Attacks of the messenger with labels qualified as undesirable, that nobody wants to be given, and designation to public vindication and lynching, for example: conspiracist, conspiracy theorist, far-right winged, homophobic, anti-Semitic etc. or again, by attributing him to a hidden life, with always recurring themes to which I will come back to later.
2 ° Attacks of the messenger by affiliation revealing supposed unwanted associates. For example, if a video of a messenger is posted on a site of bad reputation or with horrible or condemnable ideas, then the messenger is said to belong to the same movement (political, religious, sectarian etc.). Or we can lend him hidden frequentations, and in this age of new technology, it is really not complicated to make various tampered setups with (photos, messages etc.) intended to harm. We can attribute to the messenger acquaintances, love affairs, a whole fantasy life against which he will not be able to defend himself, because what can be justified in the face of so many lies? Sometimes even, certain interviews of messengers are made to trap the messenger, and that he finds himself affiliated precisely with unsavory thoughts or currents, to which he himself would not subscribe.
3 °Attacks of the messenger by suppressing part of his words to the detriment of the whole, in order to divert them and make them say the opposite of what he has exposed in the whole. Extracting words that are truncated and taken out of context is a quite easy weapon to undermine the message.
How, with the corruption of language, have we now come to a level of nonsense even greater than the medieval controversies over the sex of angels. It should be noted that these slanderous attacks may come from official media organ of the harassing power, as well as from seemingly innocuous people of good faith who have nothing to do with this organ, but who are present to sow discord and propagate slander (ex: youtubers inclined to divide often improvising themselves as "saviors").
These can be called treacherous "infiltrations" in the Trojan Horse manner, and there are many of them to muddy the water, sow confuse and slander true messengers of integrity.
4 °More vicious attacks, such as violating the messenger’s private life, infiltrating his supporters, always on the theme: “do you REALLY know who this person is? " etc. The masters of slander do not hesitate to tamper with messages, to defraud on e-mails, to use slanderous and treacherous procedures behind the backs of messengers. The goal is to make listeners adhere, through fear, of this communication intended to harm to a belief that they in turn will relay. Or, we will broadcast private messages that are photographed and that name the person, or we will contact his visible supporters, to begin a work of undermining and distillation of poison.
The themes
For slander to work, there must always be some element of truth to which the listener will subscribe to. This element of truth will be presented first, so as to arouse the mental adhesion of the listener, who will therefore associate the sender of the slander as someone reliable. Once the capture has taken place, then the lie can be distilled.
All data then attacking the messenger will come under interpretations arranged together, and any defense strategy of the messenger against these slanders will be invalidated. The recurring themes of the slander of the messenger are obviously paranoiac in nature (I remind you that it is paranoia which by nature is the stalking pathology; harassment being its "masterpiece", see my article Masterpiece of paranoia: harassment): venality, money, fraud, conspiracy, guru, sect, freemasonry, black magic etc. In reality, let us remember in a projective way the harassing power generally accuses in accusatory inversion what it does itself (in short, "I know you are, but what am I!").
For example, the person will be said to be a “Freemason”, and if the messenger tries to defend himself in justification by saying that no, he is not a Freemason, then the trap closes on him. “You saw, he said no, he is.”
The goal is to make the messenger react absolutely so that he falls into the trap of defense and justification. To attack first always amounts to placing a guilt on the attacked messenger, who is suspected beforehand to be guilty. If he does not defend himself, slanders always run; and if he defends himself, he is trapped in the energy vampirism of having to justify himself (a justification that will always turn against him) instead of continuing to deliver his message.
The tools of discernment.
In the ambient confusion, purposefully maintained, it is not easy, but essential, to learn to exercise one’s discernment:
1 ° Go back to the full content of the message itself
Go back to the message delivered itself, to come back to your personal opinion: is this message coherent for you, does it make sense, does it make sense that it enlightens you?
2 ° Investigate the origin of the slander and its objective
Where does slander come from and how does it proceed? Does it act by unfair and violent means? What is the interest of the slanderous organ or sender in making this speech? Is it a constructive speech or one of demonization and hate, aimed at getting something out of you? (In particular: fear, division, taking away your support from the messenger)
3 ° Analyze the power struggle in place (the iron pot against the earthen pot) For example the slander comes from all the organs of the official media unanimously, find out who finances these media, and look in the opposite side who is lynched and what are his means to defend him/herself (iron pot against the clay pot for example)?
4 ° Decipher the manipulative techniques on oneself (in particular through fear and guilt)
Are we trying to influence your opinion, and in this case, why?
A consistent and transparent messenger does not try to influence your opinion; he/she offers you a point of view and does not seek to deprive you of your critical mind by bludgeoning, repetitions, or targets to persecute.
Let us always remember that slander aims to distract people from the message, to smear and weaken the messenger to make him inaudible.
However, it has certain advantages, in particular for the messenger: the identification of trustworthy people and their true friends, as well as the obligatory work in terms of a certain inner distance between a role of public exposure and one’s real life which cannot be reduced to this role of exposure with all that it entails in terms of danger (idolatry and persecution).
For the listeners and spectators of slanders, it is a practice for their discernment, and therefore offers itself as a possibility to strengthen their critical mind.
Conclusion
We have fallen into a totalitarian society, with perverse and confused methods, where each non-conforming public speech comes at a high price, the price of ostracism, slander, and banishment.
Hegel recalled with some humor that there is no such a thing as “Napoleon for his butler that is being said any human being, however idolized he may be in his public exposure, remains absolutely "normal" and imperfect in his private life!”
“Errare humanum est” (error is human), so let us not wait for a perfect message, nor a perfect messenger; do not wait for an external savior or a spokesperson who would spare us the courage to be ourselves.
Often, people who criticize do so because this criticism precisely prevents them from performing an act of courage.
It is easy to criticize, art is difficult. What if, instead of criticizing, everyone put themselves at the service of the common good by proposing their own courageous and unique participation in the world?
It seems to me wise that today it is wise to make your personal honey from the different messages in order to practice one’s free will, without participating in these campaigns of denigration and slander aimed at censoring and silencing, without allowing oneself to be deprived of one’s free will by inquisitorial dogmas.
All of our imperfections have - no offense to the abusive powers - the right to coexist in our differences on this planet.
Nevertheless, it seems important to me to support the messengers whose message works in good faith for the common good and whose purpose is to make an additional contribution, without sustaining divisions.
Ariane Bilheran , from Ecole Normale (famous school in Paris), clinical psychologist, doctor in psychopathology, author of Psychopathology of paranoïa, Paris, Dunod (only available in French for now)
"St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle, be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil. May God rebuke him, we humbly pray and do thou, O Prince of the Heavenly Host, by the Divine Power of God, cast into hell Satan and All the evil spirits who wander throughout the world seeking the ruin of souls. Amen."
Prayer to St. Michael