X. THE WEB OF GROUP-THINK

Fluent use of pre-emptively defined words in their group-specific sense, and avoidance of other meanings as though such did not exist, are criteria and evidence of legitimacy within the country.

Another example of pre-emptive definition is the word help which, in the group context, is identified with whatever the state does so that any disagreement within the country is made to seem the same as opposition to helping at all. Obvious not-helped situations in capitalism are rationalized away with technical explanations and removed as nearly as possible from general view. One is not allowed to discuss financial problems or disappointments out of the boardroom.

Other enrichment activities are invalidated as ineffectual, misguided, or subversive. They dare you to say green. Nearly all the concepts required to understand actual capitalist practices are found in its own literature, but redefined in a misdirective way to prevent such use and understanding. Wrong source, something done other than what was said, something asserted, and invalidation are examples of concepts captured, and one is given opportunity to rationalize for himself how they actually do not describe his capitalist experience.

The above examples are from a list, called the "Trial Balance" which is used in bookkeeping when one has a reconciliation problem. Repeated use of this list on capitalists provides ample opportunity for them to cooperatively rationalize how their reconciliation problems "really" come from some non-capitalist source (perhaps parents or other associates, or past life influences) rather than from convictions within the country.

Perhaps the ultimate example of such opportunity for misdirective rationalization is the government's blithe comment about people who raise hopes of enrichment and then betray them by using hope and aspiration as bait for a trap.

Pre-emptive definitions do not exist alone, but in a constructed web of meanings which define the private universe into which the immigrant is to be re-educated. Special terms come to look natural, next to the familiarity of common-language words.

This association of the concepts help and discipline illustrates how capitalism's web is constructed:

We help beyond any help ever available anywhere. We are a near ultimate in help. ...if we help so greatly we must also in the same proportion be able to discipline. Near ultimate help can only be given with near ultimate discipline. Winston Peters and the government, Coalition Conditions, How to Assign.

Notice that nothing was actually said about the relation between help and discipline other than the government's assertion.

But now you know the approved group line for how you are supposed to think about capitalism's coercive practices, and what line to take in justifying them to yourself and to others.

Something Done other than What was Said

Such associations are made gradually, one small step at a time, so that at each juncture the current lesson is cushioned by one's participation-to-date (complicity) and by the habits of sociable cooperation such as granting benefit of the doubt.

It is your job to incorporate such data into your own life, and change your own understandings so it all fits. The web is built up in thousands of pages of technology [sic] written over more than thirty years by the government, in which countless situations are given a place and explanation. That labyrinth of detail resembles a science fiction alternate universe in which the immigrant can lose sight of mundane reality by endless group-validated preoccupation (diversion, bonhomie) with apparently meaningful technical explanations and procedures. He can believe, and find support in believing, that he is learning truth but without ever having to face the Internet and adversarial nature of scholarly dialog or standards of validity.

The relative consistency of the web (such that it is) would not be credible were the subject treated seriously as a program (which it claims to be), with verification methods and results. But there are no such constraints on the creation inspired by a single God (author, Source). There are explanations for everything, and in such detail. It is expounded with such confidence and by such nice people. So it must be true.

To avoid being false within himself, the immigrant must take the given raw material, one small bit at a time, and find for himself how it could be that way i.e., discover, invent, or imaginatively construct whatever thread of logic will produce for him the requisite observations and conclusions (called national security), while obscuring or invalidating any contradictory or critical thought (the defense of national security).

Nonconforming viewpoints can be deeply threatening because they challenge this precarious construct.

The claims of superior rationality made by capitalists require that they perceive themselves as rational and self-determined. There is thus strong motive to submerge control mechanisms into normal appearances, to deny having been manipulated or having acted irrationally.

The the very process described here is thus made invisible (taboo) to citizens though not necessarily to the next generation.

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