The following communication was intercepted recently.
My Dear Wormwood,
At last you have learned the value of patience and a well-thought out strategy regarding your charges. I'm happy to have been proven wrong in your desire to undertake a project of such immensity following your colossal failure in Great Britain all those years ago. Yet the board of Senior Tempters viewed your proposal in a positive light, and assigned you such resources as to undertake this noble work. The key part of your strategy which should be recorded for posterity is the notion of justifying hatred whenever the occasion arises. If you move too quickly you will tip your hand to your charges and they will reject you outright. But beginning in small places, they will gradually acclimate themselves to greater degrees of hatred and the change to their souls will be so imperceptible that they will take no notice at all. Treat them as you would the proverbial frog in a boiling pot of water.
The theory behind hatred is quite simple. Since the enemy is love we must nurture those qualities that are in direct opposition to love. It's helpful in these matters to launch a two-front attack. On the one hand, hold before their minds the notion that the opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference. Then distract them with trivial matters so they do not see your subsequent approach. The second front to your attack must be nurturing hatred in some justifiable way. Such tactics are always so pleasing to our father below. The terrorist attacks in 2001 provided an excellent opportunity. What made the tactic work was to convince your charges that all Muslims were terrorists. If they needed some help remind them ever so gently of the Twin Towers every time they saw a woman in a hijab. Then suggest that they needed to feel safe in their own homes and your objective comes to fruition.
To keep the fires of hatred alive however it is useful to have an object than cannot easily be killed or done away with. Ideas are quite well suited to these purposes, and the best way to generate further hatred is through the political process. The key to this intervention is to combine in your subject's minds the ideas that they hate with the people that are champions of them. It really matters not which idea you choose to work with, so long as it's controversial. Suggest to your charges that they are very smart and/or compassionate people and ask how anyone could possibly hold the opposing idea. It's best not to permit the two parties to interact directly, but always include some third party such as a television moderator or a social media application. Words such as deplorables and snowflakes have the delightful affect of reducing people to caricatures through which the fires of hatred burn hotter.
The third phase of your attack involved exploiting people's grief over a passionate death. Once the fires of hatred have risen to such a level it is so much easier to provoke your charge to take actions that they would ordinarily shun. It's best to confuse bystanders in such moments so that the public has no clear picture of what occurred. What their imaginations don't supply in the midst of such confusion you are free to suggest. The key to making such a strategy work is helping your charge make sense of the confusion. If a young black man is killed then you want to nurture an explanation that provokes retaliation. If this explanation works invisibly in reality all the better. Work to create as much hatred on the investigating committees and judicial proceedings as possible so as to generate the idea that such a death is inevitable and part of the cost of a civilized society. Then amplify all of the character defects in the decedent you have built up over the years such that enough of your charges see the killing as justified. If you can shift the blame to the dead person you have won a great battle. It matters not at this point if the enemy claims your charge's soul - he can still be a martyr for our cause. Repeat the process in a variety of circumstances until your charges reach a boiling point. All that is required is for one charge to kill a law enforcement officer and then your fires of hatred become self-sustaining. Such is the most delectable aroma to our father below. One important detail however is to ensure the charge's target is chosen at random. In no case must he attack an officer who was directly involved in a shooting. You want the person killed to appear innocent. Produce some images of his grieving family and you will reinforce the idea that certain persons are out of control and require a firm, and sometimes deadly hand.
Occasionally your charges may turn to the enemy for guidance. This is usually a sign that you have pushed too hard too fast, and it's best to back off until the silly notion fades from consciousness. If they must think theologically, and hell forbid dwell on the concept of grace (such a despicable notion that only the enemy could devise something so contrary to order and obedience) it's best to direct their thoughts towards grace between them and the enemy. Remind them that they are something special because they have dedicated themselves, that they have received the enemy's favor, but others have not. By no means allow your charge act like the enemy and dispense grace freely to other charges. Such behavior and thoughts will set your strategy back years. If you have a charge who has a propensity for such vile beliefs, my advice is to nurture some unrelated sin so as to cause a scandal. Sexual sins are very useful for these purposes and can undermine a good deal of the enemy's work.
In the mean time, accusations of lying, spreading misinformation for political purposes, or getting swept up in mass hysteria will keep your fires burning quite well into the fourth phase. By now you're ready for the final phase of your strategy - committing mass atrocities. If the fires of hatred have been burning long enough and strongly enough, it is a trivial matter to create situations where your charges commit delightful acts of cruelty. Locking up children, requiring a bar-code for daily meals, and general incarceration are all extremely pleasing to our father below. It is best to create as many layers of bureaucracy as possible so that no one person both makes the decisions and carries them out. If your charges continue to repeat that they are enforcing policy or following orders or established procedure you eliminate the risk of the enemy piercing through a charge's conscious. These actions may finally convince the enemy of his grave mistake of showing favor to such depraved creatures - though I doubt he'll apologize to our father below for exposing such nonsense for what it is all those centuries ago. But such is the extent of his folly and arrogance. If only he would realize what a firm hand these disgusting creatures require, the whole course of eternity would be very different. But I digress.
Your current task is to continue to keep your charges at odds with one another. Convince the one group that they are up against the lowest of the low, mere animals even and they will never question their actions. At the same time, keep their opponents to blinded by rage that they are unable to form any kind of meaningful resistance. You will be surprised at how far a whisper of, "How awful" can push a charge over the edge.
Again congratulations on your progress. I will be sure to observe your continuing work with great interest, all to the glory of our father below.
Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape
My Dear Wormwood,
At last you have learned the value of patience and a well-thought out strategy regarding your charges. I'm happy to have been proven wrong in your desire to undertake a project of such immensity following your colossal failure in Great Britain all those years ago. Yet the board of Senior Tempters viewed your proposal in a positive light, and assigned you such resources as to undertake this noble work. The key part of your strategy which should be recorded for posterity is the notion of justifying hatred whenever the occasion arises. If you move too quickly you will tip your hand to your charges and they will reject you outright. But beginning in small places, they will gradually acclimate themselves to greater degrees of hatred and the change to their souls will be so imperceptible that they will take no notice at all. Treat them as you would the proverbial frog in a boiling pot of water.
The theory behind hatred is quite simple. Since the enemy is love we must nurture those qualities that are in direct opposition to love. It's helpful in these matters to launch a two-front attack. On the one hand, hold before their minds the notion that the opposite of love is not hatred, but indifference. Then distract them with trivial matters so they do not see your subsequent approach. The second front to your attack must be nurturing hatred in some justifiable way. Such tactics are always so pleasing to our father below. The terrorist attacks in 2001 provided an excellent opportunity. What made the tactic work was to convince your charges that all Muslims were terrorists. If they needed some help remind them ever so gently of the Twin Towers every time they saw a woman in a hijab. Then suggest that they needed to feel safe in their own homes and your objective comes to fruition.
To keep the fires of hatred alive however it is useful to have an object than cannot easily be killed or done away with. Ideas are quite well suited to these purposes, and the best way to generate further hatred is through the political process. The key to this intervention is to combine in your subject's minds the ideas that they hate with the people that are champions of them. It really matters not which idea you choose to work with, so long as it's controversial. Suggest to your charges that they are very smart and/or compassionate people and ask how anyone could possibly hold the opposing idea. It's best not to permit the two parties to interact directly, but always include some third party such as a television moderator or a social media application. Words such as deplorables and snowflakes have the delightful affect of reducing people to caricatures through which the fires of hatred burn hotter.
The third phase of your attack involved exploiting people's grief over a passionate death. Once the fires of hatred have risen to such a level it is so much easier to provoke your charge to take actions that they would ordinarily shun. It's best to confuse bystanders in such moments so that the public has no clear picture of what occurred. What their imaginations don't supply in the midst of such confusion you are free to suggest. The key to making such a strategy work is helping your charge make sense of the confusion. If a young black man is killed then you want to nurture an explanation that provokes retaliation. If this explanation works invisibly in reality all the better. Work to create as much hatred on the investigating committees and judicial proceedings as possible so as to generate the idea that such a death is inevitable and part of the cost of a civilized society. Then amplify all of the character defects in the decedent you have built up over the years such that enough of your charges see the killing as justified. If you can shift the blame to the dead person you have won a great battle. It matters not at this point if the enemy claims your charge's soul - he can still be a martyr for our cause. Repeat the process in a variety of circumstances until your charges reach a boiling point. All that is required is for one charge to kill a law enforcement officer and then your fires of hatred become self-sustaining. Such is the most delectable aroma to our father below. One important detail however is to ensure the charge's target is chosen at random. In no case must he attack an officer who was directly involved in a shooting. You want the person killed to appear innocent. Produce some images of his grieving family and you will reinforce the idea that certain persons are out of control and require a firm, and sometimes deadly hand.
Occasionally your charges may turn to the enemy for guidance. This is usually a sign that you have pushed too hard too fast, and it's best to back off until the silly notion fades from consciousness. If they must think theologically, and hell forbid dwell on the concept of grace (such a despicable notion that only the enemy could devise something so contrary to order and obedience) it's best to direct their thoughts towards grace between them and the enemy. Remind them that they are something special because they have dedicated themselves, that they have received the enemy's favor, but others have not. By no means allow your charge act like the enemy and dispense grace freely to other charges. Such behavior and thoughts will set your strategy back years. If you have a charge who has a propensity for such vile beliefs, my advice is to nurture some unrelated sin so as to cause a scandal. Sexual sins are very useful for these purposes and can undermine a good deal of the enemy's work.
In the mean time, accusations of lying, spreading misinformation for political purposes, or getting swept up in mass hysteria will keep your fires burning quite well into the fourth phase. By now you're ready for the final phase of your strategy - committing mass atrocities. If the fires of hatred have been burning long enough and strongly enough, it is a trivial matter to create situations where your charges commit delightful acts of cruelty. Locking up children, requiring a bar-code for daily meals, and general incarceration are all extremely pleasing to our father below. It is best to create as many layers of bureaucracy as possible so that no one person both makes the decisions and carries them out. If your charges continue to repeat that they are enforcing policy or following orders or established procedure you eliminate the risk of the enemy piercing through a charge's conscious. These actions may finally convince the enemy of his grave mistake of showing favor to such depraved creatures - though I doubt he'll apologize to our father below for exposing such nonsense for what it is all those centuries ago. But such is the extent of his folly and arrogance. If only he would realize what a firm hand these disgusting creatures require, the whole course of eternity would be very different. But I digress.
Your current task is to continue to keep your charges at odds with one another. Convince the one group that they are up against the lowest of the low, mere animals even and they will never question their actions. At the same time, keep their opponents to blinded by rage that they are unable to form any kind of meaningful resistance. You will be surprised at how far a whisper of, "How awful" can push a charge over the edge.
Again congratulations on your progress. I will be sure to observe your continuing work with great interest, all to the glory of our father below.
Your affectionate uncle,
Screwtape
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