Most Americans see overt racism, sexism and such as fundamentally offensive. To use an analogy, they are as likely to swallow blatant racism as they are to eat a shit cookie blended with parasite eggs. But like parasites the alt right is dedicated to reproducing itself by infecting healthy hosts. Since those in the alt right are humans, they have an edge on the lesser parasites—they can employ their intelligence in order to trick the unwary into consuming their eggs. So how is this done?
The alt right uses many effective strategies, but my focus here is on what I am calling “chocolate chipping” for the obvious reason that I am going to use the shit cookie analogy throughout this essay. Let us begin with the anatomy of the shit cookie.
The alt right, like the totalitarian “left” of Stalinism, Maoism and their ilk, relies on lies (the shit) and morally awful ideas (the parasite eggs) to reproduce. Since a normie will not eat a shit cookie, with or without parasite eggs, the alt right needs to find a way to get normies to eat shit and thus eventually get them to consume the eggs. The way this can be done is a rhetorical strategy of chocolate chipping. The idea is as follows.
Most people like chocolate chips and it is easy to get people to eat chocolate chip cookies. So, continuing the analogy, if the alt right can convince normies that the cookie is a chocolate chip cookie, they can often get normies to eat it. But they obviously want the normies to get used to the taste of shit. So, the tactic is to blend a little bit of shit into the chocolate and serve up chocolate chip cookies to the normies.
For example, if an alt right person opened with “the non-whites will swarm across our border to rape the purity of the white race”, then few would eat that shit cookie. But if the shit is blended into the chocolate in the form of a claim about migrants coming here to commit crimes, then normies are more likely to bite that cookie and acclimate a bit to eating shit. Some people can taste even the small amount of shit and spit out the cookie. Others either do not notice it or even think that the chocolate chip has an extra zest. Some of them start baking their own shitty cookies and serve them to others, perhaps unaware that the secret ingredient is shit. These partially shit cookies provide cover for the alt right: they can claim that they are just giving away cookies and not distributing shit. Those that eat a little shit can become the most ardent public defenders of shit cookies, pointing to the chocolate and ignoring the shit.
The alt right then offers cookies that have ever increasing amounts of shit in the chocolate, leading those who find they like the taste of shit to cookies that are almost all shit. Once the former normie is willing to eat shit cookies, then the alt right can start feeding them the parasite eggs—the ideology of the alt right. These eggs hatch and consume the person’s moral decency, replacing it with racism, sexism and such. The person can then become an informed baker of shit cookies, thus propagating the alt right. So, do not eat or bake shit cookies.
Your analogies are really getting out of hand, Mike.
It’s not just the analogy, though; it’s the story.
We humans are suckers for stories. Just ask Aesop.
To believe this story, we have to believe that the alt-right have co-ordinated and continue to co-ordinate a conspiracy tailored to each individual, feeding them whatever mixture is appropriate for the stage they are at. Obviously very clever and resourceful people – the rest of us have no chance against such intelligence and organisation.
Call me crazy, but I believe the simpler model that there are just a LOT of stories and a LOT of ideas out there, and people find their way from one to the other all on their own, rather than with evil witches strewing breadcrumbs in straight lines.
I could do a sidebar on which definitions of “racism” and “sexism” we use on Thursdays in December, but it doesn’t seem necessary.
True; crazy analogies for crazy times. I mean who would think that I would be writing about white supremacists and modern Nazis in 2019?
Dear Dr. LaBossiere,
to save us time: I only know you due to disliking most of your Call of Cthulhu adventures. Yes, I was a critic.
For this #giveaway competition running (it IS cost-free promo for all participants) you won’t have to be in any form of contact. That is, if you can follow a link and check-out, if you want to offer some of your works, to hype your stuff and grow your readership – Which I expect you to be fully, and totally, capable of.
https://claims.prolificworks.com/gg/3UbKjtdCzkZG83lvVWRZ
Enjoy, or ignore.
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Readers can get the #ebooks of all participating authors, in each event called a group-giveaway, cost-free! The rest is dark secrets of the author 101, which only veteran Cthulhu gamemasters & gamemistresses may attempt to master..? 😉
I’m fine with that; you still had to read them. 🙂
Thank you! It is appreciated. And I admit: Your horrors in the ice would have made a worthy movie idea, as it was splendidly between “The Thing”, “Dreamcatcher” & H.P. Lovecraft’s “Mountains of Madness”. Maybe I envisioned it with Lara Croft style protagonists.
If you are still “into #Cthulhu Roleplaying”: file:///home/chronos/u-294acdb9b2090dc249e34f281aba521da2a8493d/MyFiles/Downloads/Adventures/in-a-different-light-release-1-0b.pdf
I called it an oldie-but-goldie, and it has open space for adding more ideas.
Short films, which try to honor the original Lovecraft myth, at youtube & such sites: Eldritch Code & S13 are sure worth the minutes it takes to watch them.
I cannot estimate, if you still have need, but I happily recommend Fiona Mcvie & her interviews: https://authorsinterviews.wordpress.com/2019/12/17/here-is-my-interview-with-andre-michael-pietroschek-2/
Needless to note: I mean you getting your own cost-free interview, not necessarily reading mine. 😉
Farewell (nothing left to say)!
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Did I moan about: http://www.ffproject.com/bodies.htm deserves a revision & “please don’t let it fade away” ? 😉 It is preserving for the community, not for myself.
I still keep a tentacle dipped into CoC; right now I’m running a D&D 5E campaign, but have all my old 6E adventures and monographs lined up for conversion to 7E. They’ll be on DriveThruRPG mostly as Pay What You Want.
I did one CoC interview in the fall; always happy to word words about madness and horror.
One last goodie I gladly spread (with permission): http://www.19nocturneboulevard.net/all_show_pages/Dunwich/Dunwich1.htm
#Cthulhu #Lovecraft #Humor #Horror