The Myth of Controlled Opposition

It's not what it's built up to be.

I’m not saying or suggesting all controlled opposition is a myth. If you came here to tell me I’m wrong after reading a headline, then you are exactly my target audience with this post.

I have seen a lot lately about this conversation regarding who is paid or unpaid or even hapless controlled opposition or “shills.”

Someone recently asked a terribly, ghastly, disturbingly reasonable question in the midst of one of these discussions about who not to trust.

“Where is the middle ground upon which we listen to people and learn from people with whom we occasionally disagree?”

The question I want to address today is what is behind this kind of thinking that everyone in the public eye leading the resistance who doesn’t share my exact world view is controlled opposition? I think it’s a good question because of how common this thinking is in the post legacy media, post formal, conscripted education world.

I have a handy and simple explanation for it. It probably won’t be comfortable for many to listen to what I am about to say right now. So if you are looking for a quick out, I will give you this. I would love to actually make a profit and grow more influence from writing these diatribes on Substack and elsewhere. If that in itself makes me a shill, I am your Huckleberry. You can go now. Otherwise, feel free to become a paid subscriber or just read on, brave soul. In my defense, since I am not making access to my work as of yet behind any pay walls, I am but a humble, amateur shill.

Anyway, if you frequently throw around the words “controlled opposition” or “shills” and you stuck it out with me, you are about to get a bit of an awakening. Hopefully, it will help you grow, evolve and become an effective ally and persuasive communicator in independent and social media.

Here are the premises upon which these types of assessments are typically drawn:

1. The foundation: “Everyone I disagree with is opposition.”

2. The caveat: “Those I mostly agree with - but not totally - are controlled opposition.”

3. The summation: “Only those who agree with me 100% on every single detail or at least all that I know of them so far are arbiters of truth and worthy of anyone’s attention.”

In short, it’s a hallmark trait of borderline personality disorder which I spoke of in my last post, and it is called “splitting.” It divides everyone in humanity in two polarized camps of good or evil. This is not inherent or natural borderline personality disorder. I have to question whether any borderline personality disorder is inherent or natural, really. Nonetheless, what I am addressing here and now is more of a mechanistic splitting as a defense system to deal with the disillusionment, self doubt, guilt, shame and ultimately cognitive dissonance about one’s personal awakening. There is a great disparity between what the bulk of society taught us to believe and what the truth is ever revealing itself to be to us. Confronting this disparity is the single most important challenge of human life. If you don’t agree on this, you’re so wrong I have nothing else to say to you so just shut up, go away and fuck off. Kidding…

I have a theory that our feelings during awakening, some of the darker more internalized ones are being used against us. The thing is that, yes, the engineers of modern society are dark occultists (occult meaning hidden knowledge) and are backed by master psychologists who have collected every scrap of data from all of history in human and animal, all of life’s trial, really, in response to trauma and pain. They are smart enough to control their opposition. I theorize most of what we perceive as imminent, present concerns are coercive marketing strategies which are based in psychology to get us to buy whatever they are selling: products, behaviors or ideas. Bottom line. Pain is a powerful motivator.

The agenda as I see it put toward those of us who have already awakened isn’t to lead us back to our initial ignorant state. That cat’s out of the bag. What I see is that some people’s cognitive dissonance and coping mechanisms in how they handle their deep emotions around awakening and their shame for whatever part they played into the agendas before their awakening keeps them from unifying, coming together, working together, and growing in strength and numbers. Whether intentional or not, whether outside forces or inside forces are working to make this divide happen, it works in the favor of the malignant opposition. It hurts good people. It keeps us from trusting ourselves and one another. It undermines our self confidence. It keeps us from turning our combined forces against the truly malignant opposition. It keeps us attacking one another.

The newly awakened can have inherent trust issues, internal issues stemming from the massive scale of lies they recently believed. They have questions.

“How did I get to be this many years old and not know this?”

“How many people were in on it?”

“How many people told these lies to others (myself included) not realizing that what we were saying was false and became essentially puppets for this agenda?”

“How could I have been such a tool?”

“Who can I now trust?”

In science and other fields, you probably now know that even the experts in a field get it wrong. Let’s face it. Often, the experts get it wrong. That’s why it’s called “science” meaning to study rather than “wisdom” or “knowledge.” Science is constantly evolving. It’s a field of wonderment and incessant growth. It’s a field of experimentation and trials and of course, of errors. If an expert sees an error, the expert can correct it with more accurate data and use that as the new basis upon which to adapt and adopt into what they currently know. But much of the field of scientific research is based in uncertainty. The most learned experts are the least certain. The thing is, if an expert can’t see an error or hasn’t yet seen an error, even if you can see it, it is not to be assumed that the whole of what they know or continue to learn and study happens to be false or beneath you, nor does this misapprehension make them as an expert in their field wholly unreliable as an expert, much less as a human being.

We are all wrong about things, more often than we know. The point of science is to listen and learn and test what we believe to be true against other arguments and to hold our beliefs to the test of fire. Shutting out anyone who disagrees with you does the OPPOSITE of building a strong, robust and tested world view. It does not create or support building a set of beliefs one can feel secure in.

Not being able to trust oneself is the first thing one must contend with upon awakening. Part of that contention is the shame, the guilt and the remorse, in total, the insecurity we feel. We discover we were wrong and we were both purposefully and, by unwitting others like ourselves also parroting wrongness, haplessly mislead. If we do not contend with our insecurities in a healthy way, by first acknowledging them and then by working through them and creating better foundations for knowledge, we are doomed to be exploited by these masters of pain manipulation and control. What I am saying is that by not addressing our insecurity, we can once again become unwitting controlled opposition. In other words, by running around telling everyone to divide and not listen to this person or that person whom we perceive as controlled opposition based on minor differences, it is we, ourselves who have become the most successful controlled opposition,

Often, when people stumble, they say “I meant to do that.” They try to suggest that they were smarter and had an intentional process of 4D chess going on behind the scenes when they fell fat on their faces. This rationalization was parroted often during Trump’s 4 years as President by those who couldn’t reconcile their faith in what he said with the faithlessly inconsistent ways he was acting toward them. People do this often about themselves, believing their own press. “I did mean to do that.” But really, the only Olympic level gymnastics being executed are mental gymnastics. It’s what people will do or say to avoid admitting they were wrong. In one of my favorite quotes in the movie “Get Shorty”, Chili Palmer, the shylock is coming to collect a debt from Harry Zimm, a Hollywood producer and gambling addict. Chili says, “Harry, look at me. You’re trying to tell me you fucked up without sounding stupid, and that’s a hard thing to do.” What I am saying is that what people do to try to manufacture a sense of superiority after a mistake only looks good in their own minds. The rest of us can see that it’s just compensation. Those who tell you any different are likely using the same flawed coping mechanisms and bolstering you with affirmations of codependence. I said what I said.

The best way to rebuild your trust isn’t to find the opposite of whatever you learned up to now and glom onto it, believing that just as haplessly and learning everything you can about it from your new confirmation bias. It’s to admit you weren’t thinking critically and you didn’t know how. Then, start thinking for yourself critically, learning the hallmarks of logic and reason while examining fallacies and inconsistencies. Test and study from this new foundation of critical thought and try not to fall prey to using those fallacies again to support your new arguments.

Ad hominem: the faulty premise that because someone is wrong about one thing or has a particular perceived character defect, it makes them automatically wrong about everything. Hint: acknowledging an ad hominem was used doesn’t automatically make the victim of said character assassination right either nor does it make the one using it mistaken in their initial position. It’s just irrelevant to the argument at hand.

I often see ad hominem character attacks played out on social media in a certain way relating to this topic. People who are believing something as true often perceive that everyone who speaks in any way contrary to what their specific beliefs are must therefore be the enemy, a tool of the enemy or on the take, looking for money, fame or power of influence. Soon after, proclamations and “warnings” come out of their mouths about how everyone they know should behave when encountering said enemies and hereby either “ignore them into obscurity or vanquish them from their jobs and the earth.” It’s cancel culture, and it’s cancer. It’s just as prevalent on the right as on the left and still as prevalent among anarchists and libertarians. It’s ridiculous, even if the character depiction or claim of disagreement is 100% true.

Some people, many really, as I have witnessed, as a result of waking up from believing lies develop these unreasonable filters for whom they will listen to, associate with and trust for fear they will be manipulated again. These people not only feel the need to cut themselves off from people who disagree with them, they also cut themselves off from anyone who doesn’t follow suit. Their circles of influence but more over support systems get smaller and smaller. There are less and less people around them whom they trust to help temper their ideals with reason. Sadly, their isolation is often bolstered by a false sense of superiority that gets higher and mightier.

For years, I misinterpreted loyalty as those who stood by me and defended me no matter what whenever I asked. I drew people into my personal conflicts and made them pick sides whether or not it was their concern. Maturity lead me to the understanding that healthy friends will not only tell me to leave them out of it when it isn’t their business, but they will also set me straight when I am wrong. Loyalty is being a friend when you know a person is off track and showing them how to correct it. Disloyalty is sycophantic sucking up to avoid confrontations. It’s running off and abandonment when a hard conversation needs to happen to strengthen the relationship and the wellbeing of individual one cares about. Disloyalty is pretending to agree with someone because you are afraid they won’t like you or you’ll hurt their feelings. Loyalty means caring enough about someone to tell them the truth regardless of how them learning that truth from you could end up hurting you. My point is that these coping mechanisms are not healthy boundaries. They are arbitrary walls. Boundaries can be a temporarily painful, but lead to more self esteem and confidence and ultimately freedom. Boundaries fill one’s life with expanding friendships and widening spheres of influence. They open up access to all the good that life can offer. Walls lead to ignorance and isolation and perpetual suffering.

Unfortunately, the arbitrary wall one erects around himself for safety from future manipulation keeps him isolated in a state of untested, uncertain beliefs grounding his world view. It’s a castle built on sand with a big wall around it also built on sand. It self perpetuates his need for this child-like, dualistic, good vs. evil, everyone who I disagree with is a shill, controlled opposition or malignant opposition paradigm. Eventually, he ends up alone with a few exceptions who like him will flee at the first or second sign of discord.

If you want to feel more secure rather than setting your foundation on a false sense of superiority, if you want to make a bigger difference in the world, have more personal impact, garner more esteem from the world at large and moreover feel confident in yourself, embrace the principle of uncertainty. Steep yourself in it. Let the acceptance of uncertainty in a world of wonder and mystery be your grounding principle upon which you seek wisdom and knowledge. Always question your own thoughts and theories and become comfortable with being mistaken or wrong. Be adaptable to change.

The most successful people by any standards are the most adaptable. Adaptation requires an immense level of personal forgiveness. Being personally forgiving helps you learn, grow and evolve. It keeps you in the creative process, and it helps you become more compassionate and forgiving of others.

I used to hang out with a group of jazz musicians weekly over brunch. I remember hours and hours of discussions over the level of self forgiveness that was achieved by the greatest icons in jazz. Jazz is extremely experimental. To be a master in jazz requires knowing the foundation of music theory, but also requires being open to the flow of channeling creativity sometimes for hours on end. When you play back a live performance of a mammoth jazz musician, you will hear mistakes, but what makes a jazz musician a master is the degree upon which they stay present in the flow of creativity, not allowing errors to break them from the flow. What my jazz artist friends discussed at length was that these mammoths developed spontaneous personal forgiveness. We are talking about a level likened unto what might be bestowed upon someone via divinity. They forgave themselves faster for mistakes than the speed of conscious thought. This is a skill I have spent decades trying to acquire, and I will continue to strive towards in my day to day life.

One of my first spiritual teachers, Edwene Gains taught personal forgiveness and acceptance of flaws with a single, four letter word: “Oops!” She recommended practicing it daily. Personally, it has helped me and others to whom I have blessed with the shared knowledge and power of this word. The sooner you can forgive yourself for being mislead out of misplaced trust and naivety, the sooner you can say “oops” and move forward, the better you can be at placing trust where it is due. The better you can be at discerning wisdom and knowledge.

The better you will be for society and the human race.