By: Dr Štefan Šumah
What is the greatest power of the devil? In convincing us that he does not exist! Good manipulation of mass consciousness, right? I have often thought about what led to the surprisingly strong victory of the Gibanje Svoboda (Freedom Movement) in the elections. Then I came across a book by sociologist Kara-Murza, which very well explains the ways of manipulating crowds. We always talk about some manipulators or backroom figures; some refer to it as a conspiracy theory, but this book provided me with quite a few good explanations.
The 2022 parliamentary elections were simply won due to the increased autistic component in the social consciousness. The shift towards autistic thinking was organised at the time with the help of manipulative means, primarily leading media. The COVID crisis also contributed to this, pushing towards autism as a way to hide from the grim reality.
At that time, the dominance of autistic collective thinking arose due to the imaginary creation of “freedom”, which would emerge immediately after the defeat of Janšism and when someone came to power who could ensure that people could move freely, socialise, depoliticise all state bodies and institutions, and, of course, ensure that they could dance. Someone who would remove all restrictions and eliminate the “totalitarianism” that prevailed during COVID.
People, tired of the crisis, in anticipation of freedom, bought “FREEDOM” in the last parliamentary elections. Unfortunately, the price of this deal is very high for Slovenia.
Autistic thinking allows one to believe in mutually exclusive and incompatible fantasies, to ignore temporal relationships, and to mix the future, past, and present. In realistic thinking, it is clear that there is no complete or absolute freedom, as we are limited by a whole set of structures, norms, and laws, and a reasonable person always operates within the permissible framework. However, this is not the case with autistic thinking, as it exacerbates a tendency to the extreme, which has no connection to reality. Autistic thinking replaces reality with a model that has its own logic and resembles some scientist’s construction, which is significantly more attractive to both individuals and masses than realistic thinking, which also includes the unpleasant aspects of reality.
The manipulators from the background know the structures of the desires of the masses well, and they succeeded in offering “FREEDOM” precisely what people wanted. With apparently very good preparations, which lasted practically throughout the entire COVID crisis, they removed the psychological protection from people. With the help of leading media, they sent a huge flow of false concepts into the social consciousness at that time, which were difficult to determine the purpose of. They knew (and still know) exactly that terms need to be used that actually have no fixed meaning and can be interpreted in many ways. On one hand, they used the most ideologically effective positive words like democracy, freedom, justice, solidarity… On the other hand, they showed how these concepts are threatened by totalitarianism, fascism, and presented trivial issues for the future of Slovenia without any content (a similar example was before the European elections with Palestine and referendums, but the manipulators did not succeed as desired). A battle of the positive and the negative. And since they did not succeed with KUL, they started another project, the “FREEDOM” project, where they deliberately chose a word that is deeply ingrained in the collective consciousness, carrying many symbols that inherently have positive connotations (as they previously successfully did with Janković’s “HONESTY” and “WORK” and now also try, probably as a reserve, with “TRUTH”).
And people, because of the imaginary image (which is different for each person), fell for the carefully prepared manipulation. They put a “respected” and “top-notch” manager at the head of the movement, about whom very little was actually known, except that he led a “respected energy giant” that offered its energy customers the lowest energy prices at that time. Since they knew his bad sides, they skilfully avoided direct confrontations, while conducting a real special war against opponents in the background. In doing so, they successfully manipulated people’s imagination, filled it with irrational fear, while simultaneously offering a solution. People, tired of the crisis, in anticipation of freedom, bought “FREEDOM”. Unfortunately, the price of this deal is very high for Slovenia.