Re: Politics
My dear Scumbucket --
The fact is, Scumbucket, that we can work within *any* political system. The trick is this -- never allow them to establish what we may call *centeredness*. Remember the Law of the Excluded Middle (they did cover this in your training, did they not? And you *were* paying attention, weren't you?) -- here we may use techniques somewhat akin to what the humans call jiu-jitsu. We do not resist these cyclical tendencies, but instead we accelerate them. For example, if a lascivious age is beginning to yield to a more responsible outlook, we don't try to keep them lascivious, but rather push them past a reasonable hedonism straight into the most rigid Puritanism -- when that cycle has run its course, it's right back to lasciviousness again. (Be wary, by the way -- an astute human can try and trip you up using jiu-jitsu types of techniques as well. More on that another time.)
...
Re: economics
My dear Scumbucket --
...Oh, no, not at all, my dear little demon. The idea of the so-called "free market" -- by which I mean the notion that economic activity is somehow exempt from such troublesome trifles as ethics, morality, and responsibility -- is completely our invention. We have managed to convince them that this artificial construct of theirs (they think it's theirs, at least), the "corporation," ought to have all the rights of individuals, with none of the responsibilities. Executives, then, feel free to make the most morally heinous decisions without guilt or even second thoughts, just because "business is business" and they have a "responsibility to their shareholders to maximize profit." Never mind the multitudinous deleterious effects of their actions -- if they don't show up on the balance sheet (and so many of them are difficult if not impossible to quantify), they are of no consequence. What is even more delicious is the extent to which we have tricked otherwise devout Christians into being the most stalwart defenders of what is on its face a most un-Christian economic system -- and we are slowly but surely bringing them to accept that the system's victims are worthy of neither charity nor compassion.
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Re: Virtue
My dear Scumbucket --
I note your concern about possible changes in the current moral climate in America. You point to the recent commercial success of a series of books by a fellow named William Bennett. These books, such as the so-called "Book of Virtues," include stories and lectures about leading a moral and virtuous life, and you are understandably alarmed that some people might actually apply the lessons therein and thus elude our grasp.
I do not wish to assuage your worries totally, my little acolyte. The situation should certainly cause you to redouble your efforts (you *are* redoubling your efforts, aren't you?) and maintain increased vigilance over the psyches of your patients. The Enemy has any number of means at His disposal to sneak virtuous thoughts and insights into these creatures, and you must never relax your pressure on them, even for a moment, particularly when such deleterious material is available.
Now then -- having said that, let's discuss the reality of the situation. The first thing to point out (and this again shows the value of advance planning!) is how to connect this phenomenon with some of the deeply ingrained tendencies we have patiently inculcated into the population over the past few decades. The one I have in mind is this: we have planted the notion that merely *purchasing* a product is sufficient for gaining the *benefits* of the product -- without any additional effort or sacrifice. For example, many of your more adipose charges have purchased exercise equipment, videos, or books -- and have you noticed that how easy it is with some of them to convince them *that is all they need to do*? From self-motivation tapes, planners, and time-management books to hairsprays and mouthwashes -- the list goes on and on. It will be the same with the Book of Virtues, let me assure you. And if not -- well! The newly virtuous can frequently be as much a help to us as the Enemy wishes them a hindrance. Like reformed smokers or vegetarians, folks who believe themselves virtuous but who have not yet had a great deal of experience with the reality can be led down any number of diversionary paths, from simple pride to downright hubris, and be encouraged to make themselves complete nuisances of entirely the wrong sort -- insufferable, priggish, and elitist. Such folks then can be used by you and your fellows to instill wonderfully negative reactions in your clients regarding any mention of "virtue." Lastly, let me give you some hint of what we have in mind. (The fact is, this is too delicious to keep to myself.) We fully intend to encourage this trend. There will be "Virtue" t-shirts (how about "I'm with Virtuous"?), theme parks, action figures; books and posters on the subject will proliferate ad nauseam; fast-food restaurants will feature esteemed quotes from virtuous people past and present on their packaging -- in short, we will make the whole notion of "Virtue" into a fad, push it through its course, and then be done with it once and for all. And Mr. Bennett will never know how much of a help he has been.
As ever,
Screwdisk
Re: privacy
...The point is to maintain the illusion of concealment. Let them think that they actually can do things without anyone witnessing them (such as ourselves, or the forces of the Enemy). People are much more prone to offense when they think no one is watching, after all.
For this reason, we discourage community and encourage isolation (the term "rugged individualism" come in so handy here)...In the small town, of course, there are different dynamics in play. The need to maintain the appearance of private space leads quite naturally to the phenomena of gossip on the one hand and complicity on the other...
Subject: The Law of the Excluded Middle
My dear Scumbucket --
Consider a fellow climbing into his morning shower. The warm water relaxes his still-sluggish muscles; he stretches, scrubs, reinvigorates himself. His thoughts turn inward, he contemplates issues awaiting his action, he breaks into song, or perhaps he simply enjoys the feeling of the water on his skin. Suddenly the water turns icy -- he jumps, his muscles tensed, his reverie interrupted with a jolt; he adjusts the temperature, but mere moments later, the hot water reasserts itself and he has to jump again to the faucets to avoid being scalded. Back and forth he goes as the water fluctuates, unable to settle back into that quiet state he had so recently enjoyed. He can no longer relax, since he now knows that he has to pay careful attention to the temperature, which has proved unreliable. His easygoing mood is replaced by resentment and frustration, or by a fatalistic resignation. He steps out of the shower no better than he entered; indeed, he may be even more grouchy than when he began.
This is the Law of the Excluded Middle in a nutshell -- constant, but unpredictable, alteration of conditions from one extreme to another. The idea, of course, is to always prevent their achieving any sense of *center* or *balance* -- even for a instant. True centeredness has a very distinct flavor to it, Scumbucket, and once a human has tasted even a passing moment of it, they become aware of two things -- one, that they *should* be there all the time, that it is the natural state to which they aspire; and two, that something is keeping them away from it. A truly centered human is not only a difficult subject to lead astray, but also a very dangerous example for others to follow. At center, the Enemy is close to hand; in this state, the noise with which we strive to fill the Cosmos is all but stilled, and His Voice can be heard much more easily. I do not need to stress, do I, the importance of keeping your charges off-balance?
No, indeed; your recent reports show marked improvement in this and other areas -- and the way that we are increasing social instability in general over the next couple of quarters, you should find this principle very easy to implement. Your productivity is showing respectable progress -- though having said that, I certainly must warn you, as ever, against overconfidence. We need to be centered in our own way, of course, intent on our goals, secure in the knowledge of our eventual victory -- but never lose sight of the fact that for us (most specifically, for *you*) there is no such thing as a reliable foundation.
As ever,
Screwdisk
... We did something else at Babel: we instituted the graduated pay scale. ...
... We devote a great deal of diligent effort, Scumbucket, to ensure that there is just enough information available to back up just about any opinion, but never enough to prove anything as incontrovertible fact. In this way, each of our patients can find sufficient motivation to cling to their innate prejudices, and imagine that they are being rational and objective in the process. ...
... There are such things as *decidable* and *undecidable* questions. You want to keep your patient confused about which is which -- for example, keep him occupied with trying to find ways to logically prove or disprove the existence of the Divine, and simultaneously ignore the possibility that there are laws in operation in the cosmos whose validity he can test...
Subject: Opportunities (was Re: school prayer)
My dear Scumbucket --
I would like to continue in the previous vein, since it is clear from your last report that I am not entirely getting through. The supposed moral climate of a society as a whole is, truly, not of overreaching concern to us -- indeed, quite the opposite; tremendous numbers of saints seem to arise in the most decadent of societies. Just consider our experience in first-century Rome (to which period I will probably make a great deal of reference as we explore this subject) -- and compare that to our glorious successes (the Crusades, the Inquisition) in ostensibly theocratic times.
What is of concern to us is the way that each individual soul chooses to respond to whatever moral climate the time offers. When you examine circumstances from this perspective, you will tend to think less in terms of threats from the Enemy, and more in terms of the opportunities -- indeed, at times even advantages -- that He is offering to us.
Take for example this whole thing with school prayer. I cackle whenever I think about it. We have gone from a time when Christians willingly, even joyfully, accepted the most degrading punishments from the State for the sake of their faith, to a time when Christians seem to think that they need the approval and sanction of that same State to carry out the most basic of their religious duties.
Now, allow me to let you in on a little secret -- I can think of almost no other single thing that would aid our cause more than making religious observance a required part of school routine. Like those who mouth the words of the Pledge of Allegiance without the slightest notion of what they actually saying, schoolchildren forced to mechanically repeat some externally promulgated set of words (ah, and what fun we will have while the humans try to decide just *which* words should be used) , or go through some meaningless ritual or other, can eventually be brought to regard prayer itself with either disdain, apathy, or downright resentment. Amazing, isn't it -- these people castigate their schools for not properly teaching the basic skills, and now they want to entrust their children's spiritual welfare to the same institutions. Phenomenal.
Consider other advantages -- in keeping with the principles we have discussed before, the humans can be led to imagine that now that the children are saying their prayers in school, that they can relax with the home-based instruction -- and in particular, that they can let their own individual vigilance weaken a bit. Opportunities, my little demon-in-waiting, opportunities abound!
As ever,
Screwtape
My dear Scumbucket,
I trust that you are taking full advantage of the current climate of political instability in America -- this situation is, as ever, the result of a great deal of patient work by many of our operatives, and it would be a shame if it were not exploited properly. Your last report indicates that you are proceeding in the right direction, but I am puzzled by your request for some idea as to how the situation will resolve.
My dear little demon, who said it would ever *resolve*?
Basic principles, my boy, basic principles: undermine certainty; undermine any sense of justice, short-term or long-term, divine or terrestial; cause dissension and conflict wherever possible. These are always our hallmarks when we dabble in the affairs of the mortals.
In the short term, for example, we have indeed noticed a severe shaking of certainty among many Americans, as they wonder what will happen next, what allegations will be made, what evidence presented. They literally do not know whom to believe! For our purposes, this is an excellent state for them to be in. So, the best "resolution" for things like this is no resolution at all. Think JFK, think Iran-Contra, think O.J. Simpson (one of our greatest triumphs in this regard -- both sides can point to jury verdicts to prove their viewpoint!). We believe that we will be able to drag out the argument over Clinton's guilt or innocence for years after the Clintons have left office.
We are having excellent results, by the way, among some conservative Christians, who have been waiting for years for God to take some action against a man that they see as contrary to all they believe in -- every time he ducks one of these issues, a couple more of them forget that ultimately, justice will indeed be served in a far better way than any terrestial "special prosecutor" could manage. I am delighted by the extent to which some of them have fixated on this man -- their fixation becomes a ring through their noses by which we can lead them at will.
Oh, that reminds me -- another wonderful little side effect -- you may recall that there was some concern among all the North American cadre about the Pope's visit to Cuba. We've been keeping Cuba in reserve, as it were, for various contingency plans, all of which hinge on maintaining a climate of fear and misunderstanding between the two countries. The papal visit would indeed have undermined, if not completely subverted, much of that feeling -- his critique of the capitalist countries in particular would have caused a lot of damage, had anyone been able to listen to it. So do not think it entirely coincidental, dear boy, that this scandal was allowed to erupt at this precise instant in time. Wait till you see what we have in mind for Chiapas.
As ever,
Screwdisk
My dear Scumbucket --
Allow me, please, to elaborate further regarding the opportunities that the Creator seems to provide for us as a consequence of his standard operating procedures. A human might well imagine that his declared allegiance to an omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent God would be fairly effective insurance against tragedy and trouble. His experience, of course, will prove otherwise. The Enemy has always seen fit, for reasons that are as of yet beyond our best attempts at analysis, to let us bring adverse circumstances into the lives of His followers, whether it be disease, financial trouble, interpersonal strife, or any of a host of afflictions. But then, sometimes, from what our agents tell us, He turns around and does the same thing Himself! But there is a difference -- when the Enemy smites one of His own, it appears to be for the purpose of correcting, instructing, or strengthening the person, and there seems to be some parallel between the force of the action and the individual's capacity to withstand it. In other words, he usually does not overpower them completely, or, if He does, assistance always seems to be near at hand for the believer in question.
We, on the other hand, simply *harass*.
But your patients, Scumbucket, are not very good at discerning this difference. If they think they are being punished needlessly or (even better) randomly by God when in fact it's just your mischief that is bringing them grief, this belief can provide a chink in their armor, through which you can work at undermining their belief in salvation and mercy. Make sure that they don't ask troublesome questions like "Is God trying to tell me something?" -- I much prefer questions along the lines of "Why have You forsaken me?"
As ever,
Screwdisk
No, I am *not* able to get you a posting, even a temporary one, to central Africa. As you are well aware, several members of the Board of Infernal Directors have been cutting a swath across the continent over the last few years -- what began as a vacation in Somalia, soon became an expedition (one might even say safari) working its way across to Rwanda and Uganda, and now appears to have become a colonizing force, settling into the Congo area for the foreseeable future. (Unless, of course, they decide to start making their way *back across*...) I understand that the feasting has indeed been prodigious. The waiting list is enormous -- and I am sure that renewed vigor on your part in meeting your quotas may affect your standing therein, but do not expect my influence to be very efficacious in this matter. There are simply too many other demons with greater seniority, and they all want a piece of the action.
But don't become completely discouraged: if I were you, I would practice my Russian.
As ever,
Screwdisk
... Your more fundamentalist Christian charges would be very surprised indeed to discover that we are not particularly fond of abortion per se. We would definitely prefer to have more and more souls brought out onto the Earth, particularly into disadvantaged and loveless lives -- more opportunities for us, more suffering, more *food*. Since the soul cannot be joined to the body before a certain point (that whole "breath of life" thing), early abortions do nothing for us. Unformed or immature souls left floating around have no more value to us than coal has to a diamond merchant -- assuming, of course, that we were even able to gain access to them. What *is* useful, though, is the individual torment that the decision almost always brings to the woman involved and to those around her -- not to mention the ongoing struggle in the culture between the so-called "pro-choice" and "pro-life" factions (and you can of course see the handiwork of the Philological Branch right there, now, can't you? Vicious argument over the meanings of two entirely different concepts -- no chance of actual communication at all!). We've seen marvelous results from pushing the "Demonization of the Other" strategy in this context, right up to provoking murder -- murder in the name of preventing murder, after all, has always been one of my favorite ironies. (I must admit to some puzzlement, though, about one thing -- we have not yet been able to provoke any of the "pro-choice" folks into the kinds of extreme violence that we have been able to extract from the occasional anti-abortion zealot. We do expect that to change shortly, however, as the matter becomes less and less about the actual issue of abortion and more and more of a personal tit-for-tat.) For this reason, of course, anybody who even thinks of establishing "common ground" between these increasingly polarized camps is to be attacked by every means at our disposal.
And to further exacerbate the situation, let us make sure that the pro-life forces continue to concentrate on a *legislative* approach to the problem. We are seeing some success in convincing the politically-inclined conservative Christians that the best way to eliminate social sins is by creating more laws against them -- as if the miscreants would pay any more attention to the laws of man than to the already-existing laws of God. They should be increasingly concentrating their efforts on influencing legislators, on organizing petition drives, on holding meetings and funding lobbyists -- *not* on things that might actually reduce the number of abortions, like support programs for unwed mothers, say, or frank and critical discussions among teens of sexuality and gender roles. (Our studies predict that the "abstinence education" fad will have about the same effect as the "Just Say No" approach to drugs has had. Repressed sexuality, as opposed to a responsibly expressed sexuality, becomes such a potent force in our favor... On the other hand, the number of teen pregnancies that might be prevented by the simple expedient of having teens spend one night in a labor and delivery ward, Scumbucket, is frightening. But rest assured, they will never even consider such notions.) The political efforts are much more attractive to them, Scumbucket, being easier than actually working with at-risk individuals. Such efforts will, of course, provoke responses in kind, and a hardening of the opposite position, increasing the frustration among the pro-lifers -- a classic example of the Escalating Downward Spiral.
Now this discussion reminds me of an interesting situation -- we are beginning to see a little jump in the occurence of mindless infanticides, women giving birth and then dumping their infants into trash receptacles or whatever to perish or killing them outright upon birth, and then not giving their actions a second thought. Believe it or not, Scumbucket, this causes me great alarm. It tells me that we may pushing things a little too hard in those regions, and the result is going to be an awakening and a backlash that will be very deleterious to our purposes. We do *not* want to encourage social soul-searching on any sort of large scale, we do *not* want people looking for reasons behind such seemingly inexplicable acts -- we do not, in short, want people to begin to wake up in the least to the reality and extent of our influence. It's much better for us if these girls have their babies, and either try to raise them with insufficient support from society and under the stigma of illegitimacy, or give them to the State, where the children become available to the many forms of abuse that we have managed to insinuate into the social service system. And if we're not careful, the society might start thinking more critically about the use of sex to sell things, and we can't have *that*, now, can we?
As ever,
Screwdisk