Episode Details

What I look at in Disinfolklore is particularly the system effects of specific memes. I’m also interested in the moment — how they affect us, how they affect our motivations, our intentions, our attitudes. But the whole thing, what’s special about the Disinfolklore universe, is that when I set this out in February last year in Munich, just as Vance was making his speech, I said that what I feared would happen is this.

For those of us who know people who have gone MAGA, I suppose it’s a bit like our Ukraine war universe by comparison to people we know who live a normal civilian life, who think about Ukraine maybe once a week, if that. It’s an all-encompassing system where you wake up in the morning — a bit like being in love or something — and it’s all you think about. Or being in grief.

But the Disinfolklore universe that Donald wields, that he was trying to wrap the world up in, which I witnessed in eastern Ukraine where the Russians wrap everyone up in it — that’s what’s unusual or unique or not that common in how I look at the system effects of particular memes: the aggregation of particular memes in a certain way, so that before you know it, you’re in the cult. Or you begin to think that Greenland belongs to America, or that Venezuela belongs to America, or that Ukraine belongs to Russia. That would be the result of an aggregation of thousands, millions of memes that transform your mind.

In a minute, I’m going to go back to the bridge at Stanytsia Luhanska, which I talked about in the last show on Christmas Eve. Amazing — we did a show on Christmas Eve. I think this is our 32nd show, by my count. We’ll go back to that bridge in a minute.

What I’ve noticed is this idea I’ve been working on, what I call paradoxical brainwashing. “I’m a Ukraine supporter, but Ukraine will lose.” We had this caller on the show — I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who noticed them — who joined the show about a week ago. Will and I think James, you heard them as well. They were a total downer about any argument which was given as to why — actually, it was Alan Brewer and Will who were dealing with this person. They were speaking the whole time about how Ukraine was going to lose. Any argument from the reservoir of many good arguments, factually based, that Will or Alan Brewer offered, this person was like, “Yeah, but...” They were just going on and on with the negative vibe.

The paradox is: I’m a Ukraine supporter, but Ukraine will lose. That structure, that energy, was in everything they were talking about. Some of us sometimes need to be reminded — we get in a rut, a mental rut, a mental routine — and we need to be reminded: “Yes, but this. Yes, but that.” That’s the value of Volya Radio. It’s the value of Mokrushyna’s show, and hopefully the value of this show as well for people — that when we’re in these mental ruts, as perhaps some of us have been about Venezuela or about Greenland or about other aspects of this, or something going on in Ukraine at the moment, by having different people talking to us, we get out of the rut.

Because we’re genuinely Ukraine supporters, we’re not trying to fool or trick people. We’re not concern trolling to get into someone’s mind, to bring them down and demotivate them and fill them with dismay. Because we’re like that, we’re relatively easily able to move out of a particular mood, out of a particular attitude or state of motivation. But this person who was on the show couldn’t be moved. I found it a really interesting case study.

Another paradox recently was “Putler wants Ukraine to succeed.” This is something I’ve begun to notice everywhere. It’s an aspect of cult formation — these apparent contradictions which people say. For instance, when Donald was talking about Putin wanting Ukraine to succeed, he also said, “Oh, and Russia, Russia, Russia.” Then in almost the same breath, he goes on to talk about how Putin wants Ukraine to succeed.

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