from "Psychological Operations: The Ethical Dimension" (1987)
Locke's positively-cooperative assumptions and prescriptions for limited government based upon majority rule formed the philosophical basis for the American Declaration of Independence and Constitution, to include the latter's "Bill of Rights"[against the government]. Locke recommended a "reasonable Christianity," a faith which while satisfying personal religious desires, would play only a symbolic and ceremonial role in political decision-making.
The history of ethics does not cease with John Locke, but his ideas, as immortalized in the aforementioned documents, ordained the ethical atmosphere of the United States' political culture to the present day. This atmosphere may be summarized in 5 general maxims:
1) Government based on law is a positive institution, not something to be eliminated in an ideal society.
3) The will of the people is best ascertained through the opinion of the majority, which thus determines "political truth."
5) There is an intrinsic dignity in the individual human life which must be accepted and respected.
(5)
"You can get more with a gun and a polite request than with just a gun." - Michael Aquino
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Indeed, to question the assumptions underlying the Constitution would be viewed as a kind of quasi-religious heresy - as indeed it is from a philosophical point of view. The social-contract theorists held a vague, general disbelief that God, if he were presumed to exist, would disregard the operation of natural laws to take an interest in the behavior of individual human beings for better or worse. They therefore designed ideal governmental systems in which human reason was preeminent, with traditional (Judeo-Christian) divine influences being relegated to a ceremonial and symbolic role in actual decision-making(9).
...To be effective in his art, the PSYOP operative must venture beyond the Lockean universe, and he cannot allow his assessments of competitive universes to be distorted by Lockean faith-based values.
PSYOP is a means not only for communication with target audiences other than via bullets, but also for a kind of communication that they will understand and be at least somewhat more receptive to because it is couched in an idiom and articulated according to a logic meaningful to them(10).
Both National Socialism and Fascism are now episodes in history, but the principle which underlay their phenomenal power and impact - the organic state as the object of preservation and aggrandizement at the expense [and if necessary the sacrifice] of the individual citizens - remains very much a force in the contemporary international environment.
In the US, social and political truth is arrived at via the methods specified in the Constitution, all of which are based on some combination of direct or representative voting. Our national perception of truth is thus democratic - an approach which John Locke would consider eminently reasonable, but one which would affront Plato and Hegel. To them, truth was/is an absolute principle - not something to be determined by whim, much less by the masses.
Plato held that truth could be attained through the dialectic of human philosophical inquiry; Hegel insisted that only God could consciously employ such a dialectic, and that the most humanity could hope for was to sense its reflection through the dynamics of the state(14).
...Marxism - sometimes called dialectic materialism to distinguish it from the dialectic idealism of Hegel, is a theory of socialism that identifies class struggle as the fundamental force in history. Increasing concentration of industrial control in the capitalist class and the consequent intensification of class antagonisms and of misery among the workers will lead to a revolutionary seizure of power by the proletariat and the subsequent establishment of a classless, utopian society.
Marx, like Hegel, premised his ideas on a necessary, inevitable process of history. Thus communism would eventually come to pass, no matter what capitalism tries to do to stop it. The other side is that there is nothing a Marxist can do to speed it up.
To a serious Marxist, history is again moved by far greater forces than the wills of individuals who may chance to inhabit it at a given point in time. Marxist states view the advanced capitalist cultures as social bombs collectively approaching critical mass; their desire is accordingly to avoid being caught up in the desperate external adventurism, including apocalyptic warfare, which they expect deteriorating capitalist nations to employ in an effort to stave off their inevitable communist revolutions.
Communism incorporates two attitudes towards the truth. The "greater truth" - the materialist dialectic - is considered to be absolute, and adherence to it is once again supra-rational; an article of faith(15).
In the West we are accustomed to regard the United States as a religious society, and to condemn communism for its godlessness. On the other side of the fence, Soviet theorists disdain Western adherence to religion and take pride in the USSRs state atheism. But is this picture borne out in practice? Locke advocated a national structure in which supreme wisdom lay in the will of the citizenry and in which organized religion played only a symbolic and ceremonial role. In his words a "reasonable christianity." Our governments have since approached our national and international problems under the presumption that the free will of the human beings directly involved will order the course of events. This is vintage Enlightenment thinking, and to date the US has seen no reason to subordinate it to any "higher authority." In terms of its political decision-making processes, the United States behaves atheistically.
On the other hand, Soviet leaders do not consider themselves able to control or influence the passage of events as free agents. They make minor adjustments here and there, but the basic course of the future is above and beyond their control, locked in place according to the Marxist principle of historic determinism. Like the ancient Mesopotamians, they perceive themselves as the incidental tools of a "god" whose name just happens to be Dialectic Materialism instead of Baal or Marduk. In terms of its political decision-making processes, the Soviet Union behaves theistically.
Where ethics are concerned, therefore, the U.S. holds itself fully responsible for its own, while the Soviet Union holds that any and all "minor" ethical abuses are justified if in service of its "god." This is a very crucial point - and it explains why the U.S. goes through such persistent agonies of self-criticism while the Soviet Union shrugs off more horrendous excesses(16).
It is not the triumph of armed force that establishes the justice of a given conflict, but rather the political and ethical intent underlying that exchange, according to principles more profound than momentary national aggrandizement.
Within the armed forces it falls to the PsyOp professional to sensitize himself and his fellow servicemen to that intent, and to conscientiously measure all applications of his craft against it(19).
...an infatuation with propaganda for its own sake - a strategy of bludgeoning audiences with the "means" under the assumption that the ends can thus be twisted into whatever image of convenience the propagandist wishes - is characteristic of Marxist systems whose actual ideological ends are fixed by doctrine and thus not a subject for debate. In this very rigidity lies the critical weakness of contemporary communism.
There is a basis for political power other than wanton domination: the striving of the human soul towards dignity and decency for their own sake.
It is the flexible future offered by the Lockean model - the ends suited to the needs and desires of the individual in each culture, whatever the traditional nuances of that culture - that the US symbolizes at its greatest.
It is not an ideal towards which we have to struggle; it is inherent in the very concept of our national design. It will sell itself(20).
...truth is the best propaganda(21).
-Michael Aquino
http://www.xeper.org/maquino
In the West we are accustomed to regard the United States as a religious society, and to condemn communism for its godlessness. On the other side of the fence, Soviet theorists disdain Western adherence to religion and take pride in the USSRs state atheism. But is this picture borne out in practice? Locke advocated a national structure in which supreme wisdom lay in the will of the citizenry and in which organized religion played only a symbolic and ceremonial role. In his words a "reasonable christianity." Our governments have since approached our national and international problems under the presumption that the free will of the human beings directly involved will order the course of events. This is vintage Enlightenment thinking, and to date the US has seen no reason to subordinate it to any "higher authority." In terms of its political decision-making processes, the United States behaves atheistically.
On the other hand, Soviet leaders do not consider themselves able to control or influence the passage of events as free agents. They make minor adjustments here and there, but the basic course of the future is above and beyond their control, locked in place according to the Marxist principle of historic determinism. Like the ancient Mesopotamians, they perceive themselves as the incidental tools of a "god" whose name just happens to be Dialectic Materialism instead of Baal or Marduk. In terms of its political decision-making processes, the Soviet Union behaves theistically.
Where ethics are concerned, therefore, the U.S. holds itself fully responsible for its own, while the Soviet Union holds that any and all "minor" ethical abuses are justified if in service of its "god." This is a very crucial point - and it explains why the U.S. goes through such persistent agonies of self-criticism while the Soviet Union shrugs off more horrendous excesses(16).
It is not the triumph of armed force that establishes the justice of a given conflict, but rather the political and ethical intent underlying that exchange, according to principles more profound than momentary national aggrandizement.
Within the armed forces it falls to the PsyOp professional to sensitize himself and his fellow servicemen to that intent, and to conscientiously measure all applications of his craft against it(19).
...an infatuation with propaganda for its own sake - a strategy of bludgeoning audiences with the "means" under the assumption that the ends can thus be twisted into whatever image of convenience the propagandist wishes - is characteristic of Marxist systems whose actual ideological ends are fixed by doctrine and thus not a subject for debate. In this very rigidity lies the critical weakness of contemporary communism.
There is a basis for political power other than wanton domination: the striving of the human soul towards dignity and decency for their own sake.
It is the flexible future offered by the Lockean model - the ends suited to the needs and desires of the individual in each culture, whatever the traditional nuances of that culture - that the US symbolizes at its greatest.
It is not an ideal towards which we have to struggle; it is inherent in the very concept of our national design. It will sell itself(20).
...truth is the best propaganda(21).
-Michael Aquino
http://www.xeper.org/maquino
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