Man : Knifing (Character Assassination)
Character
assassination
Character assassination
a. is a
deliberate and sustained process and actions
b. that
aims to tarnished and destroy
c. the credibility
and reputation of a person, institution, social group, or nation.
It involves
i.
exaggerating
ii.
misleading half-truths,
iii.
manipulation of facts to present an untrue
picture of the targeted person.
It is a form of defamation and can be a
form of argument relating
to or associated with a particular person.
For
individuals targeted by character assassination attempts, the end result being
rejected by his community, family, or members of his or her living or work
environment.
Such
acts are often difficult to reverse or rectify, and the process is likened to
literal assassination of a human life.
The damage sustained can last a lifetime or, for historical figures, for many
centuries after their death.
In
practice, character assassination may involve
a. doublespeak,
b. spreading of rumors,
c. innuendo or deliberate misinformation on topics
relating :
i.
to the subject's morals,
ii.
integrity, and
iii.
reputation.
It
may involve spinning information that is technically true,
but that is presented in a misleading manner or is presented without the
necessary context.
Agents
of character assassinations employ a mix of open and covert methods to achieve
their goals, such as raising false accusations, planting and
fostering rumors, and manipulating information.
Psychology
Two major themes are involve.
a.
The first is the process of character assassination. The agent
conducts a slander campaign, which involves
i.
distortion of the truth
ii. maliciously attempts to defame, which
involves
iii. the
seriousness of his intention.
He
does this in the public view. The "stigma" attached to the victim,
represents the way the character assassination.
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b. The second theme is the structural
setting of a character assassination.
v What encourages
an agent, what sort of person is likely to take this role?
v What makes an
audience ready and able to victimize certain people, as against others; when
indeed are they able to get away with it?
v And how does it
happen that the victim fails to assert his good character?
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Character
In order for a character
assassination to survive, it requires
three parties,
a. the character
assassin or agent,
b. the public whose
estimation is to be influenced or audience, and
c. the person
targeted or victim.
It
is rarely carried out by single individually. The process occurs out in public.
The success of this actions is the public’s acceptance of the manipulation of the target’s public image,
a “murder of someone in the public
consciousness”.
Character
assassination is a gradual process of destroying the targeted person’s public
image, incapacitating the person’s ability to freely act. This occurs without
public awareness of the intentions behind the events and often without
revealing who actually pulls the trigger.
New
Statesman nominated Assange, editor-in-chief and founder of Wiki Leaks, on
the list of 50 people who matter most in 2010 and won Time Magazine‘s
reader’s poll for Person of the Year, while finishing third as the editor’s
pick.
Assange
however quickly became a controversial figure. His image was soon colored by
words such as traitor, high tech terrorist and enemy combatant. Former
colleagues and media partners joined the fray with tabloid style hit pieces,
in articles and tell-all books that portray him as controlling, volatile or
unpredictable.
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Characteristics:
a.
Heartless
A cold and
heartless killer of another's character.
a. It is
the result of a narcissistic person who simply did not get their way or could
not get their intended victim to do and/or see things their way.
b. The need
to vindicate and seek the ultimate revenge: complete character assassination
of their victim.
c. The
victim may be a spouse, a girlfriend or boyfriend, political or business foe
who has had enough of their significant other's possessiveness and jealousy,
or who did not give what the assassin intended relationship.
d. The
assassin feels they have been wronged at no fault of their own. This person
has no ability to reason or the logic it takes to understand the situation in
a mature way.
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b. Lies
i.
The character assassin will use deliberate exaggeration or
manipulation of facts to present an untrue, undesirable projection of the
target.
ii. Spread rumors and give the wrong
information about the victim relating to their morals, dignity, integrity,
and reputation.
iii. The victim may end up rejected by their
very own family and community. Although these claims were slander,
iv. this attack is rather very successful in
the community.
v. Unfortunately, many people believe in the
story, due to their own general sadistic human character. These people find
the embarrassment and disgrace of others entertaining.
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c. Obsessive Behavior
a. It include extreme paranoia, narcissism,
obsessive behavior, stalking, and harassment of their victim.
b. Contradictory behavior and speech is
common.
c. Spending most of their times, coming up
with new plans to ruin the intended victim. The assassin spends most of their
time planning the next attack.
d. Focusing on the destruction, hounding,
intimidating and embarrassing the intended foe.
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d. Emotion Abuser
A typically emotional abuser.
i. Spending
time making fun of others, playing pranks to annoy, and otherwise demeaning
those near to him make him feel better about himself.
ii. The
assassin needs an audience. In order to gain control of every situation
possible in their concentrated efforts to destroy the victim, they use
techniques to lure disciples that will help them with their tasks.
iii. One
of these techniques is the sympathy technique. They are able to lay it on
thick when it comes to making others feel sorry for them. They are incessant
whiners who look to those who are sensitive to them and naive.
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e. Brain Washing
Another technique is brain washing.
a. The
assassin is capable of working on a person for several years in advance to
benefit him.
b. A
disciple with low self-esteem, dishonest, pessimistic, and pathetic will be a
good target to get sympathized from the assassin’s exalted and intelligent
mind.
c. But
due to the destructive nature of this person, they are not capable of doing
anything good with their life and will be eternally miserable, taking others
who disgruntle them down with them. Disciples are doomed to unhappiness as
well.
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Methodology
Attack the person, showing them to
be bad and unworthy. Any of the 'four Ds' below may be used (as well as
additional methods):
- Discredit them, showing their arguments and decisions are weak and they are incapable in their work.
- Use defamation, damaging the good reputation and name of others.
- Demonize them, turning them into bad people that everyone hates, such that anything they do will be considered bad.
- Dehumanize them, treating them as a 'thing' and framing them as non-human with negligible values.
Modus Operandi
Attack the person in some way. For example:
- Attack their expertise, questioning their qualifications or experience
- Criticize their physical appearance or dress
- Comment on their inability to make a good argument
- Point out their junior status
- Attack their values as being contrary to social norms
- Interpret a minor error as major
- Attach them to discredited others
Example
George W. Bush, former US President, was demonized
over his cavalier attitude towards warfare.
Arthur Scargill, a trade union leader, was
discredited by Margaret Thatcher's tactics during the 1980s miner's strikes,
where the strikes failed to have any serious economic effect. She was then able
to close most mines without further protest.
Motives
Manipulation
1. Manipulating the
human unconscious emotions and the need to project oneself.
2. People will react
to without justification.
3. The control of
people perception works well when the mass of human are repressed with
distorted emotions and desires.
4. Being
manipulative plays upon exaggeration and manipulations of facts. Manipulating
things for their own self-gain or revengeful act.
Control
v The power to
control can move mountains and sway whole populations without lifting a finger.
v People can be confined
to passionately defend narrow ideologies, usually by engaging those branded as
a threat to the group. Pushed to reactionary mode of fight or flight, people
are driven by fear of ‘red scare’ or ‘threat of terrorists’ into simple minded
ideology charged with emotions.
Jealousy
a.
A strong trait in character assassins.
Jealousy to another person due: friendship, popularity, strength, intelligence
Harm
i. The motivation for character assassination is
typically rooted in the attackers’ (assassin’s) desire to harm the victim
psychologically and reduce public support for the victim.
ii.
This should ultimately devastate or even
destroy his or her chances to succeed. In other cases, character assassination
is conducted to hurt the cause that the victim symbolizes or defends.
Sore Loser
Ø Instead of
admitting defeat like a decent person, they take an shameful path and try to
defame the victor.
Ø Instead of
admitting their faults, they started to defame the victors. They will resort as
a form of payback and vindictive.
Opportunists
Greedy
opportunist will resort to character assassination when the time is right
Victims They Assassinate
i. Ruin Reputation
Reputation is the
esteem values and stature held by a person. Character assassination is the
attempt to ruin reputation. "The slandering of another
person (as a public
figure) with the intention of destroying public trust in him."
Plainly,
destruction of reputation or on a personal or occasional basis. Slander, "to injure by malicious false
report.”
ii. Tattered
Life
The victim will
suffer the most. After the malicious attack, the victim is left to pick up the
pieces of their lives. Sometimes this is an impossible task where they live and
the victim.
Demoralized and
weak, the need to leave the community and attempt to start over somewhere afresh.
Beaten down and broken, the victim can have a difficult time trusting others in
order to begin meaningful, new relationships.
iii. Stigmazed
Public view the
person as worthy of disgraced, causing anxiety and distaste social situations.
Even a trip to the grocery store can be problematic to the emotional state of
the victim.
iv.
Depressed
Depression is
common after such a harmful assault. The fatigue and sadness can be weakening.
It takes a very strong person to withstand such a traumatic life event. Trying
to maintain self-respect and dignity in their community. It is very difficult,
the need to be strong composure and regain control of her life.
Repudiating Character
Assassination
Most of the population of a country
depend on the media for the 'truth', which gives the media immense power and
hence also a target for politicians who may try to influence or even infiltrate
newspapers and other broadcasters.
With the advent of the web and
blogging, the situation is more confused as both propagandists and
anti-propagandists make bold assertions that are impossible to verify. Smear
campaigns can be used not only against individuals but also organizations, for
example governments framing anti-war protestors as cowards or companies
accusing trade unions of being influenced by foreign communists.
Actions
a) Discussion
§ The first rule of
dealing with people you don’t agree with is to see them face to face and
discuss the problem.
§ Putting it out in
public where you can’t take it back without admitting your fault is very
dangerous both to yourself and to the person you have disagreement with. The
The most common
reason for this is a sense of guilt that someone can’t get rid of so they
project it outward onto someone else to make themselves look less guilty.
Sometimes ego gets in the way of what is best for you.
b) Culture
For
those so-called caring society, believing in misinformation’s is a crime to
humanity, there is a need to have a culture of:
1)
introspecting the effects in believing of the story-telling of the
intended target,
2)
blind believing in the lies and without due care is a case harassment,
defamations and attacks, and need to be reconciled
3)
the process to clarified on any information and any misinformation need to set
right.
c) Open Mindness
Sadly, the
reality now, it seems friends/family members/public are not exempted from the
target of misinformation by agencies seeking to harm intended parties.
The very act of
deceit through withholding information relevant to the safety of the target is a
blatant violation of family/friend/public trust.
Be
very careful to assume a role of involvement in the character assassin charade.
Be open and wise on accepting information, more so if it involves personal
character as the consequences can be catastrophic to the targeted persons. It
is an act of harassment and defamations of personal character.
Introspecting
a) Accept that you have been
guilty of character assassination.
Stick to the
facts. No matter how much the other party might have hurt you, you are still
accountable for your own actions. You are trying to clean up your act. The
other party is responsible for his or her side of things.
b) Write privately about the situation.
If you are in the
habit of keeping a private journal, write about what happened, and how you
handled it. If journaling is new to you, start out small, with some paper and a
pen. Let out all of your feelings on the matter, regardless of how ridiculous
or petty those feelings might seem.
c) Read what you have written.
Ask yourself if
you want to feel that way anymore. Would you want anyone to feel that way about
you? If you are ready to let go of those feelings, some healing can begin.
d)
Make a list of every person you have broadcast your hurt and anger about the
original situation.
Accept that it's
time to stop. You cannot undo what you have already done, but you can make sure
that your harsh words won't add to the problem. Make a promise to yourself to
stop your behavior.
e)
Rehearse a strategy to handle the topic (with outside parties) in case it comes
up again.
For example, if
you are used to assassinating your brother-in-law's character to other family
members, don't raise the topic yourself. If anyone asks you about your feelings
on the matter, say something like, "You know, that's a painful situation,
and I'd rather not talk about it right now." Most people will accept that.
f)
Secret
As feelings about
the subject arise within you, confined them to paper, or possibly one close
advisor unrelated to the situation, such as a trusted, objective friend or
therapist.
Conclusions
Each of us makes the human society and
the progress of the human society depends
on each of us. Inter-relationships between family members and relatives, interactions
between neighbors, between teachers and students, parents and children, and
between the rulers and the ruled should always revolve around a sincere and continuous struggle for betterment, and for the prevalence
of virtue.
It should also be remembered that we
should first
thoroughly investigate before
trusting a negative comment about any given person. Human etiquettes teach us that we should think well about others, and
interpret their words and actions positively and in well intended manner.
Excerpt and extracts taken with thanks from:
Wikipedia
Eric Shiraev
ww.ehow.com/how_2143759_stop-participating-character.
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