“In order to be conquered, a nation must be degraded, either by acts of war, by being overrun, by being forced into humiliating treaties of peace, of by the treatment of her populace under the armies of the conqueror. However, degradation can be accomplished much more insidiously and much more effectively by consistent and continual defamation*.
“Defamation is the best and foremost weapon of Psychopolitics on the broad field. Continual and constant degradation of national leaders, national institutions, national practices, and national heroes must be systematically carried out, but this is the chief function of Communist Party Members, in general, not the psychopolitician.
“The realm of defamation and degradation, of the psychopolitician, is Man himself. By attacking the character and morals of Man himself, and by bringing about, through contamination of youth, a general degraded feeling, command of the populace is facilitated to a very marked degree.
“There is a curve of degradation which leads downward to a point where the endurance of an individual is almost at end, and any sudden action toward him will place him in a state of shock. Similarly, a soldier held prisoner can be abused, denied, defamed, and degraded until the slightest motion on the part of his captors will cause him to flinch. Similarly, the slightest word on the part of his captors will cause him to obey, or vary his loyalties and beliefs. . . .
“By lowering the endurance of a person, a group, or nation, and by constant degradation and defamation, it is possible to induce, thus, a state of shock which will receive adequately any command given.
“The first thing to be degraded in any nation is the state of Man, himself. Nations which have high ethical tone are difficult to conquer. Their loyalties are hard to shake, their allegiance to their leaders is fanatical, and what they usually call their “spiritual integrity” cannot be violated by duress. It is not efficient to attack a nation in such a frame of mind. It is the basic purpose of Psychopolitics to reduce that state of mind to a point where it can be ordered and enslaved. Thus, the first target is Man, himself. He can be degraded from a spiritual being to an animalistic reaction pattern. He must think of himself as an animal, capable only of animalistic reactions. He must no longer think of himself, or his fellows, as capable of “spiritual endurance”, or nobility.
“The best approach toward degradation in its stages is the propaganda of “scientific approach” to Man. Man must be consistently demonstrated to be a mechanism without individuality, and it must be educated into a populace under attack that Man’s individualistic reaction are the product of mental derangement. The populace must be bought into the belief that every individual within it who rebels in any way, shape, or form against efforts and activities to enslave the whole, must be considered to be a deranged person whose eccentricities are neurotic or insane, and who must have at once the treatment of a psychopolitician.
“An optimum condition in such a programme of degradation would address itself to the military forces of the nation, and bring them rapidly away from any other belief than that the disobedient one must be subjected to “mental treatment.” An enslavement of a population can fail only if these rebellious individuals are left to exert their individual influences upon their fellow citizens, sparking them into rebellion, calling into account their nobilities and freedoms. Unless these restless individuals are stamped out and given into the hands of psychopolitical operatives early in the conquest, there will be nothing but trouble as the conquest continues.
“The officials of the government, students, readers, partakers of entertainment, must all be indoctrinated, by whatever means, into the complete belief that the restless, the ambitious, the natural leaders, are suffering from environmental maladjustments which can only be healed by recourse to psychopolitical operatives in the guise of mental healers. . . .
“The educational programmes of Psychopolitics must, at every hand, seek out the levels of youth who will become the leaders in the country’s future, and educate them into the belief of the animalistic nature of Man. Thus must be made fashionable. They must taught, above all things, that the salvation of Man is to be found only by his adjusting thoroughly to this environment.
“This educational programme in the field of Psychopolitics can best be followed by bringing about a compulsory training in some subject such as psychology or other mental practice, and ascertaining that each broad programme of psychopolitical training be supervised by a psychiatrist who is a trained psychopolitical operative.
“As it seems in foreign nations that the church is the most ennobling influence, each and every branch and activity of each and every church, must, one way or other, be discredited. Religion must become unfashionable by demonstrating broadly, through psychopolitical indoctrination, that the soul is nonexistent, and that Man is an animal. The lying mechanisms of Christianity lead men to foolishly brave deeds. By teaching them that there is a life hereafter, the liability of courageous acts, while living, is thus lessened. The liability of any act must be markedly increased if a populace is to be obedient. Thus, there must be no standing belief in the church, and the power of the church must be denied at every hand. . . .
“By perverting the institutions of a nation and bringing about a general degradation, by interfering with the economics of a nation to the degree that privation and depression come about, only minor shocks will be necessary to produce, on the populace as a whole, an obedient reaction or an hysteria. Thus, the mere threat of war, the mere threat of aviation bombings, could cause the population to sue instantly for peace. It is a long and arduous road for the psychopolitical operative to achieve this state of mind on the part of a whole nation, but no more than twenty or thirty years should be necessary in the entire programme; having to hand, as we do, weapons with which to accomplish the goal.”
— excerpted from The Brainwashing Manual
Purported Communist Text on Psychopolitics
(1955)
L. Ron Hubbard
Chapter VIII. Degradation, Shock and Endurance.
defamation*: an act of defaming.
to defame: to write or say bad or untrue things about someone or something, so that people will have a bad opinion of them.