Nikolai Starikov — Global Politics – a war of meanings

Even those people the very furthest from politics are feeling the need for understanding and explaining to themselves the reasons for the things they encounter even just moving through their own lives. Why have prices in stores started to go up? What’s the reason for the fact that, quietly and nearly unnoticed, belief in a brighter tomorrow is slipping? When and why did talk about a possible war stop being speculative and distant? These and dozens of other questions have driven millions of yesterday-apolitical citizens to seek answers. They feel the need to find those answers and to construct a new worldview in which what-comes-tomorrow is not simply a lottery ticket, but a predictable and logical continuation of today. Predictable and, hopefully, not frightening.

This atmosphere, unfortunately, is a breeding grounds for attempts to brainwash our citizens and to stuff their heads with ideas which will be devastating to them personally. But this devastation will come hidden within banal attempts stubbornly do good. So let’s try to dissect the methods and means of manipulating the people’s conscience which we have already started to encounter. And, which will grow in direct proportion to the problems being encountered by our geopolitical opponents.…

The Vineyard of the Saker
Global Politics – a war of meanings
Nikolai Starikov
Translated by DzhMM, Mikhael, Gideon

"Feeling the need for understanding and explaining to themselves the reasons for the things they encounter even just moving through their own lives" is the foundation of both explanation and the construction of a worldview in terms of which explanation can be pursued and developed. This is a reason that controlling the narrative is so important with respect to power relationships. Human require some structure in terms of which to interpret experience, and because those structure are created historical and socially, they are subject to being controlled rather than arising naturally and spontaneously from free enquiry. Thus, "engineering" or "manufacturing consent."