The Outcomes of "Othering" Labels

Aug 03, 2023

I recently chimed in on a post by Todd Hayen, PhD, RP that piqued my interest, on the subject of the ‘Sheep’ label being offensive. I like the Shrew Views stack, it can be lighthearted, hard-hitting, and sprinkled with fun bits of silliness for balance and good measure.

I commented:

Don't worry too much Todd. Ceding ground on apt labels edges towards self censoring and kowtowing to a mob. Everyone is offended by everything these days. Sheep / NPC / normie are not particularly charged descriptions. The MSM still use "domestic terrorist" / "hardcore anti-vaxxer" / "extremist" type of labels to describe anyone who goes against any official narrative...

and

That term [controlled opposition] is another hot button. I hold my own private opinions on who falls into that category, based on stance, neutrality, deafening silence on certain topics, and other causes for concern. I've been tempted to write about it but I can't be sure of any suspicions. I think it also mires us with infighting and feeling hopelessness that everyone is compromised. I like James Corbett's take - to focus on whatever good or progress in turning things around for the better comes from whatever source or reporting - yet be wary of angles pushed hard. "Controlled opposition" seems to enjoy an almost symbiotic relationship with "limited hangouts".

It’s a fickle old game with the labels we assign to the “other side”. When you think about it, the labels serve several different purposes.

Distinguishing from the “other” and promoting tribalism, and in some instances active hatred and persecution. The MSM labels are particularly harsh, and encourage people to see dissenters as endangering the masses for daring to question the science™, in some instances calling for said infidels to be imprisoned, put in camps, or even murdered. *I shan’t link to specific posts, articles, or anti-social media nuggets here, as I am sure you can all recall this hysteria well. It has not and will never be completely memory-holed, and is easily retrievable and citable on any given rainy day.
The labels such as Sheep, Normie, NPC, Covidian, Karen, Blue-pill consumer etc, are used to designate the demographic cohort that are alternately depicted (by ‘alt-media’) as the victims, the propagandised, the collaborators, the passive go-along-to-get-along crowd, the enablers of totalitarianism (by acquiescance), and the weak of resolve. Fundamentally, describing those ruled by fear, paralysing their critical thinking faculties; their decision-making processes inhibited to think based on rationale, empirical data, and morality.
The labels from both sides are so unflattering, that they are intended to make the other side want to change sides. Unfortunately, collectively calling people granny killers, anti-vaxxers, domestic terrorists, climate deniers, and so on and so forth, does induce fence-sitters and those beginning their journey of awakening to not stray from their lane, so instead they keep their heads down, and continue to self-censor. Although I do not believe that such labels dissuade the fully awakened from relinquishing and disregarding their new found knowledge, and reinserting themselves back into the matrix. Similarly, but not identically, narrative-subscribers may decide that they no longer want to be referred to as ‘sheeple’ and ‘non player characters’, urging them to get some skin in the game and dive headfirst into those deep, troublesome rabbit holes. Then again, I’ve heard those labels scoffed at and rebuffed plenty of times with retorts such as “you can call us sheeple all you like, it doesn’t change the science™, or the consensus.”

That’s my two cents, or my two satang for the Thailand based readers.

Let’s waltz on over to Solzhenitsyn and see what he had to say about labels in the Gulag Archipelago series of books.

Sometimes we try to lie but our tongue will not allow us to. These people were labeled traitors, but a remarkable slip of the tongue occurred—on the part of the judges, prosecutors, and interrogators. And the convicted prisoners, the entire nation, and the newspapers repeated and reinforced this mistake, involuntarily letting the truth out of the bag. They intended to declare them “traitors to the Motherland.” But they were universally referred to, in speech and in writing, even in the court documents, as “traitors of the Motherland.”
You said it! They were not traitors to her. They were her traitors. It was not they, the unfortunates, who had betrayed the Motherland, but their calculating Motherland who had betrayed them, and not just once but thrice. The first time she betrayed them was on the battlefield, through ineptitude— when the government, so beloved by the Motherland, did everything it could to lose the war: destroyed the lines of fortifications; set up the whole air force for annihilation; dismantled the tanks and artillery; removed the effective generals; and forbade the armies to resist. And the war prisoners were the men whose bodies took the blow and stopped the Wehrmacht.
The second time they were heartlessly betrayed by the Motherland was when she abandoned them to die in captivity. And the third time they were unscrupulously betrayed was when, with motherly love, she coaxed them to return home, with such phrases as “The Motherland has forgiven you! The Motherland calls you!” and snared them the moment they reached the frontiers. It would appear that during the one thousand one hundred years of Russia’s existence as a state there have been, ah, how many foul and terrible deeds! But among them was there ever so multimillioned foul a deed as this: to betray one’s own soldiers and proclaim them traitors? -
That Spring, page 98

If we compare this continuous prose with the ordeal of today’s dissidents…

First they were labeled traitors for not doing their bit for the greater good by not taking the C-19 injections. Then they were cast out of public places, partaking in society, banned from traveling, disowned by family members and friends, and finally forced out of employment due to company policy or mandates.

The second time they were heartlessly betrayed by each and everyone of our Motherlands was when their conspiracy theories became validated as conspiracy realities one by one. The Motherland just shrugged its shoulders via each high priest nominated to don the national white lab coat, telling us all that the “science had simply changed”. Yet they still doubled down on further poisoning humanity, physiologically, emotionally via renewed propaganda, and psychologically via means of applied behavioural psychology. Ergo, the dissidents still could not break the spell of menticide, and persuade their loved ones to follow detox protocols, and to be wary of further government intervention across other agendas.

The third time they were unscrupulously betrayed was when the globalist Machina went all out to bamboozle the masses with the nexus convergence of global problems need global solutions, CBDCs are “efficient”, global ~~warming~~ boiling is blamed for literally anything and everything from poverty to C-19 injection injuries swept under the rug.

And here we now stand at yet another precipice. “Climate deniers” unite.

Which label comes next? “Transhumanphobes”? Do you think I’m joking?

We could quote ole’ Solzhenitsyn until the mRNA injected cows come home, but let’s wrap up with this passage, to give you something to ponder on and make your own comparisons and deductions…

The permanent lie becomes the only safe form of existence, in the same way as betrayal. Every wag of the tongue can be overheard by someone, every facial expression observed by someone. Therefore every word, if it does not have to be a direct lie, is nonetheless obliged not to contradict the general, common lie. There exists a collection of ready-made phrases, of labels, a selection of readymade lies. And not one single speech nor one single essay or article nor one single book—be it scientific, journalistic, critical, or “literary,” so-called—can exist without the use of these primary clichés. In the most scientific of texts it is required that someone’s false authority or false priority be upheld somewhere, and that someone be cursed for telling the truth; without this lie even an academic work cannot see the light of day.
And what can be said about those shrill meetings and trashy lunch-break gatherings where you are compelled to vote against your own opinion, to pretend to be glad over what distresses you?-
Our Muzzled Freedom, page 320.