Perception Management In Action

Perception management in action. That's what this thing in Syria is about. If you want to change something in the political world, the cultural world, or other world of Man then learning how to wield perception--like it or not (and no, I don't)--is key to actually getting anything substantial done. It is a key, if not the key, to power for all but a handful of people.

To that end, factual reporting alone is insufficient. It is necessary, but insufficient; most people are not, never have, and never will be persuaded by facts or evidence- this is Dialectic, and the majority of Mankind is hopelessly illiterate in Dialectic, making it useless by itself. You have to hit them emotionally, symbolically, and that means Rhetoric.

This is why the media is all about the use of narrative (and always has been; let's not lie to ourselves) to shape perceptions, with Dialectic reserved only for internal discussions (because they're already sufficiently aligned to make this useful). This is why most anti-Empire resistance fails. It's too reliant on Dialectic, and disdainful of Rhetoric. Dilbert-creator Scott Adams points this out routinely via his "Master Persuader" series at his blog

And now we come to the "in action" part: Trump and Syria.

The established expectation is that Trump will pursue an isolationist foreign policy. As much as I would like that, it is not a realistic expectation. The United States, as the current leg-breaker of Empire, has foreign entanglements all across the globe; as it does not have control over its finances, and much of the personnel--elected and appointed--comprising the Federal governments many and varied agencies (including the military) has severe incentives to comply with Empire instead of oppose it. President Trump, if he is to fulfill all of his campaign promises, has to do what everyone pursuing an agenda must do: assess, prioritize, and then act on high priority objectives first at the cost of lower ones.

Until the Syria move, Trump faced a relentlessly hostile domestic Establishment and with it a relentlessly hostile media environment. Without sufficient counter-media presence, the Establishment media's story about Trump would prevail over the voting population over time; Trump knows the value of the perception game--this is the man behind The Art of the Deal--so he knows (like Sun Tzu) when to let go of what isn't working to pursue your ends.

Now the media's become much more friendly, at the cost of antagonizing his base of support, but the media's story shifted to tell the tale of how that base of support--the same base that voted him into the White House--is marginal and irrelevant, safe for Trump to ignore in favor of "wiser voices" (i.e. them). This means that Trump got them to change their story about him, at the cost of them defaming his supporters instead.

The other thing about the Syria story is that, due to the Internet changing everything, others who know the game can intervene to steer perception to their liking. Mike Cernovich demonstrated a few weeks ago that he knows this game very well when he set up 60 Minutes in a power-play that established him as someone to reckon with, a play he followed up with his breaking the story (See? That's what this is- storytelling.) about Susan Rice that compelled a media cycle on its own, and now he's put his hand on the Syria matter by by exposing traitors in Trump's camp playing him.

Yes, Mike Cernovich single-handedly changed a media cycle. First the usual alt-media outlets (e.g. WeAreChange) picked it up, then others followed until it passed within the view of the Establishment media- who have to report on it. He's forcing the Establishment--Empire's Thralls in the media, particularly--to struggle with him (David v. Goliath story) over the direction of the on-going narrative of Trump. He's messing with their perception management scheme. Thereby he's resisting Empire far better, and far more efficiently, than anyone else.

Why?

Because he's better at telling stories, and he's telling stories that people clamor to hear.

And that is the core of perception management in action. Use the language of narrative as Rhetoric to persuade people to go as you want by getting them to commit emotionally to your desired position, short-circuiting reason and logic to get things done- the same as the masters of Mankind have done forever. As I said before: Life is a solved problem.. Empire knows this; only by obscuring the truth does it endure. Solve the problem, and Empire must fall.