Unpsyopable

"If you don't have your own psyop, you become part of somebody else's psyop." - Terence McKenna, paraphrased

Last summer, the 4th Psychological Operations Group of the U.S. Army released the following video:

It was a weird flex, presented as a recruitment video, eliciting an eerie vibe. It featured Sun Tzu quotes, horror movie whistling, a dancing cartoon ghost clown, and flashing phrases like “all the world's a stage” and “we are everywhere.” All in all, it was a pretty badass video, giving a meta-wink that leverages the growing paranoia spreading across the internet.

Psychological operations, or psyops, are techniques military and intelligence agencies use to influence the minds of others. Examples include the deployment of leaflet drops with propaganda messages, radio broadcasts urging enemy defection, and deceptive online campaigns to sow discord. Psyops are categorized into three types:

• White psyops are actions with transparent sources delivering truthful, factual content; 

• Grey psyops presents information from unclear sources, blending truth with uncertainties; 

• Black psyops disseminates information from hidden sources filled with deception and falsehoods.

The core aim of every psyop is to manipulate an individual's psychology, aligning it with an agenda distinct from their own. Due to the absence of ethical guardrails, the most potent psyops is the black kind. A 2014 Intercept article, referencing Edward Snowden's leaks, exposes Western intelligence black psyop tactics to skew online narratives. They use deceptive methods like honey pots, fake blogs, and false information, targeting security threats and citizens engaged in online activism.

In an era of intensifying global conflict and digital entanglement, fifth-generation warfare, the strategy that blends traditional combat with psyops, has become integral to contemporary war. As Chinese colonels forebodingly wrote in the 1999 manual Unrestricted Warfare: “Even the last refuge of the human race--the inner world of the heart--cannot avoid the attacks of psychological warfare.”

The first principle of unrestricted warfare is “omnidirectionality”—warfare that manifests both on and off the battlefield, extending into domains such as economics, culture, and our collective psyche. As the recruitment video attests, psyops are not occurring in an attentional vacuum; people are aware that they are being psychologically manipulated, caught in the crossfire of psyops.

We have entered what some cultural commentators¹ define as “Psyop Realism,” a cultural era that underscores a palpable surge in paranoia and distrust, acknowledging the ubiquitous psychological manipulation in society. It signifies a time when the fabric of consensus reality unravels, and the paranoid suspicion that we are all embroiled in orchestrated psychological operations becomes the new norm.

“It’s not that we’re all collectively losing our minds, although it certainly feels that way. It’s more a reaction to our increased awareness of the propaganda and subversion that we are all exposed to every day. As the late Robert Anton Wilson said all the way back in 1980: ‘Anyone in the United States today who isn’t paranoid must be crazy.’” -

Günseli

Yalcinkaya, “We’re Entering an Age of ‘Psyop Realism’, but What Does That Mean?”

Of course, Psyop Realism has naturally led to psyop e-girl influencers, such as Hailey Lujan, a supposed psychological operations specialist for the U.S. Army, engaging in an Andy Kaufman-esque performance full of MK-Ultra vibes, simp-baiting, and post-ironic humor, which has led to speculation that her social media accounts are intended to target young men for recruitment into the army.²

I view the paranoia that everything and everyone is a psyop, especially with the humorous meta quality that comes with Lujan’s Psyop Realism, as a promising sign. What parapolitical author

Jasun Horsley

refers to as “paranoid awareness” can serve as a psychological rite of passage, instilling distrust, not only in authorities but in everyone, including oneself.

“In simple terms, paranoid awareness is a belief in organized malevolence—whether merely sociopolitical or metaphysical—operating behind, and shaping, society and culture.” - Jasun Horsley, “Mind the Trap: The Way Through & Out of Paranoid Awareness”

The concept of "intellectual humility" explored in the last two entries is related to such awareness. In the first entry, the midwit meme was utilized to advocate the importance of appropriate distrust toward one's own intellectual views and capabilities. In contrast, the second entry focused on the “intellectually servile” not having the appropriate distrust toward the intellectual views and capabilities of others while avoiding the elevation of intelligence as the supreme virtue. For this entry, I'll expand this sense of distrust even further, directing it towards the mind itself.

I see the increasing conspiracism online, on both the right and the left, along with the paranoia and distrust it brings, as the gradual collective realization that we cannot solely rely on our minds to navigate reality. Inevitably, some will outsource both their sensemaking and choicemaking to other minds. Yet, those with a healthy dose of paranoid awareness do not have this option, as they recognize that everyone is in the midst of some external force manipulating them.

The project is not to develop the perfect theory to unveil the ghost's identity beneath the clown or fully comprehend the global “conspiracy” with one's mind, a word whose etymology means “to breathe together.” The project is also not the fearful avoidance of the label “conspiracy theorist,” a term that mainstream media actively weaponizes. Besides, the real reason many people are still apprehensive about delving into subjects stigmatized as “conspiracy theories” is the fear that accepting one theory might lead to the acceptance of more, resulting in a complete overhaul of their worldview.

If this transformation happens too quickly, it can lead to isolation from loved ones and difficulties in managing daily life, ultimately culminating in a sense of “losing one's mind.” The true project is to discover the individuals we will breathe with, meaning those we are willing to lose our minds with.

Psychological operations are not a new phenomenon; they have occurred since time immemorial. These practices are not limited solely to military and intelligence agencies; spiritual leaders, politicians, marketers, and even potential lovers employ psyop tactics to exert influence. For one to become less susceptible to psyops, the art lies not in avoiding psychological influence altogether but in finding those who will influence us toward a less foolish life.

As frequent readers know, my "solution" to practically everything is "doing philosophy," not in the manner of academic philosophers, but rather in a way that strives for increased wisdom via reduced foolishness. There are compelling reasons why philosophy is aggressively starting to find its way outside of academic walls. When worldviews are turned upside down, and we question the nobility of those who lead us, we naturally desire to return to the source, discovering what is most meaningful.

It is no wonder that Aleksandr Dugin, “the most dangerous philosopher in the world,” implores philosophers to get into the omnidirectional fray of unrestricted warfare:

“In the unipolar globalist world, only one consciousness is recognized by default - liberal and Western. It is this consciousness that constructs reality - not only what is good and what is bad, but what is and what is not. Multipolarity is an act of asserting the sovereignty of other consciousnesses, different from the Western. Which means that reality itself becomes polycentric. Information constitutes what we perceive as being. That is why neither the military nor journalists should be at the center of information warfare, but first of all philosophers. Sovereignty is first and foremost a question of the mind. Sovereign is the one who is the independent and final master of the construction of reality.”³

He's right. When all the psychological tactics are revealed, philosophers will be the ones shaping our perception of reality. I say we emancipate the philosophical talent stack, assuring psyop e-girls and Russian ultranationalists are not the only ones defining reality. Truly doing philosophy always leads to an “inner citadel,”⁴ providing a defense mechanism for the mind and body, or “bodymind,” safeguarding against the pervasive influence of psyops.

Becoming unpsyopable is not merely an act of self-defense but an imperative for personal sovereignty. The conscious fortification of the bodymind transforms individuals from passive recipients of information to active participants in constructing reality. These are the kinds of individuals I wish to breathe with.

For other perspectives related to becoming unpsyopable, here are some posts from fellow Substackers:

• “The War For Thoughtfulness” by

  Zohar Atkins
  from
  What Is Called Thinking?

• “Why You Are Probably An NPC” by

  Gurwinder
  from
  The Prism

• “25 Anti-Mimetic Ideas” by

  Luke Burgis
  from
  Anti-Mimetic

Additionally, I highly recommend watching this conversation at The Stoa with

John Robb

,

Handwaving Freakoutery

,

deepcode

, and Patrick Ryan for a transperspectival take on the emerging “entities” that drive people towards groupthink.

Lastly, philosophical inquiry and journalling is my recommendation to become unpsyopable. If you’d like to inquire with me, you can schedule a call here and read more about my practice here. To join Collective Journalling, become a Less Foolish member and RSVP behind the paywall. You can also show support for my work by subscribing, sharing, or leaving a comment.

What is Collective Journalling? This communal practice happens via Zoom and is 90 mins, with check-ins in the chat at the beginning and an opportunity to connect with fellow journalers in breakout rooms at the end. You do not have to stay the whole time. If you are in an antisocial mood, you do not have to interact with anyone, yet you can still enjoy the coffee shop-esque communal vibe. The session concludes with an optional sharing of a passage in the chat. Most of the time is spent in silence together, individually inquiring about what matters most. A lovely group of people has formed around this practice. The practice occurs on weekdays @ 8 AM ET. RSVP link is behind the paywall.