We’re pleased to bring you a guest post from Margaret Anna Alice.
Plato’s Propaganda Cave
“It’s a Big, Beautiful Club, and You Ain’t in It” is the first episode of Plato’s Propaganda Cave, a new video series1 dedicated to exposing the logical fallacies; cognitive biases; namecalling; smearing; dehumanization; linguistic contortions; and psychological, societal, and emotional manipulation techniques used to craft narratives, propagandize, deceive, coerce, menticide, social-engineer, and mold the public mind and our perception of reality.
I hope this will encourage more people to practice critical thinking while observing media, politics, and politicians and to remember principle over party when the mind-manipulators attempt to install and wield tribal loyalties against us.
I introduced the term “Plato’s Propaganda Cave” three years ago in my Corona Investigative Committee presentation A Mostly Peaceful Depopulation and have used it several times since.
Most of you are likely already familiar with the Plato’s cave allegory, but the gist is it is about how the cruelites cast a shadow play upon the cave wall where a group of prisoners is entombed. Because the prisoners have their necks chained in such a way that they can only see the wall (think Orwell’s telescreen or Bradbury’s wall family), they believe the shadows are reality itself as opposed to an illusion projected by their rulers through the flicker of a fire behind them.
This Pursuit of Wonder video is my favorite rendition of it.
When one of the prisoners figures out how to unshackle himself, he discovers the cave opening, where he escapes into the shocking sunlit world outside the cave.
The escapee can’t wait to rush back and tell the fellow prisoners about this worldview-shattering experience.
I’m sure you know what’s coming. Even if you’ve never heard this story before, you’ve heard it before. Again and again. And lived it, too.
When he describes the splendors beyond the cave to the prisoners, they jeer at him because everything he’s saying contradicts the only “reality” they’ve ever known—in other words, he suffered the fate of Conspiracy Cassandras throughout history.
Those who see clearly through the lies projected by the rulers are doomed to be viewed as mad by the majority in the thrall of a collective delusion.
As Eugene Ionesco said2 in 1983 while discussing his play The Rhinoceros:
“The supreme trick of mass insanity is that it persuades you that the only abnormal person is the one who refuses to join in the madness of others, the one who tries vainly to resist. We will never understand totalitarianism if we do not understand that people rarely have the strength to be uncommon.”
When it comes to the cave allegory, Plato was probably writing a Machiavellian instruction booklet showing philosopher-kings how to deceive the masses with noble lies to achieve the grotesque totalitarian vision he outlines in The Republic, but that doesn’t negate the value of the allegory. Indeed, it helps us see it from the stringpullers’ perspective.
For me, the image of the stage in the opening credits of Plato’s Propaganda Cave is a reminder that everything we see promulgated across the media comprises spectacle, stagecraft, pseudo-events, and Keystone psyops. From executive cabinet meetings to billionaire pillow fights, each act is part of the Matrix’s WrestleMania ClownShow scripted to dupe, divide, delude, divert, disinform, misdirect, entertain, segment, swindle, con, corral, and enslave us.
Each time you feel yourself getting emotionally caught up in the stage play, take a step back and remember you are watching puppet shadows projected on the wall of Plato’s Propaganda Cave. Puppidents, pupparties, puppeticians, puppundits, puppagencies, puppeterrorists, puppeheroes—they are all actors improvising scenes to achieve the objectives defined by their cruelite puppetmasters.
Some of them may not realize they are actors, but their neurological strings are being pulled like the contestants in a reality TV show, each cast to fulfill a stereotypical role and preprogrammed with the clichéd responses desired by the producers. They are characters in a plot written to evoke specific emotions that nudge you toward a particular action, behavior, or belief.
Longtime readers know I rarely reference individual politicians, media figurines, or ephemeral events. My focus is on the aerial view of global patterns being orchestrated to bring about the philanthropaths’ democidal and dictatorial aims, not mercurial players in the clown-car cavalcade tooting through the cave to distract us from the hands gesticulating in front of the fire.
While Plato’s Propaganda Cave will inevitably include specific individuals and events, my focus will remain on the higher-level patterns within these concrete examples and how they fit into the larger puzzle showing Mistakes Were NOT Made.
Have You Seen James Corbett’s Interview of Etienne? How to Leave the Cage?
Etienne recently appeared on The Corbett Report with James Corbett to discuss his new book: To See the Cage is to Leave It – 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many.
It is definitely one of Etienne’s best interviews ever! If you have ever wanted to share Etienne’s work with your friends, family or colleagues, this is the interview for you. You can get a copy of To See the Cage is to Leave It (press release) by “Going Paid” on Substack AND get access to all FOUR of the Art of Liberty’s Substacks: Important News from the Art of Liberty Foundation, The Daily News, The Daily News Digest, and Five Meme Friday. By “Going Paid” you can get access to the full transcript, all the slides, memes, and videos mentioned in the interview: How to Leave the Cage - James Corbett & Etienne de la Boetie2
The Best “Go Paid” Deal on Substack! You Get REAL Stuff!!
Go paid at the $5 a month level, and we will send you both the PDF and e-Pub versions of Etienne's new book: To See the Cage Is to Leave It - 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many and a coupon code for 10% off anything in the https://artofliberty.org/store/.
Go paid at the $50 a year level, and we will send you a free paperback edition of Etienne’s new book: To See the Cage Is to Leave It - 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many OR “Government” - The Biggest Scam in History… Exposed! OR a 64GB Liberator flash drive if you live in the US. If you are international, we will give you a $10 credit towards shipping if you agree to pay the remainder.
Support us at the $250 Founding Member Level and get a signed high-resolution hardcover of “Government” - The Biggest Scam in History... Exposed! + Liberator flash drive + a signed high-resolution hardcover of Etienne's new book: To See the Cage Is to Leave It - 25 Techniques the Few Use to Control the Many + everything else in our "Everything Bundle" of the best in voluntaryist thought delivered domestically. International pays shipping. Our only option for signed copies besides catching Etienne @ an event.
