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Dungeons And Dragons Archetypes Come To Life – OpEd

When confronted by an enemy, and you wish to prevail over him or her, it is imperative to know them. And the more powerful this enemy is, the more urgent it is to be able to gauge their character – their strengths, their weaknesses, and most importantly, their psychological disposition. Why most important? Imagine being a professional boxer, or, for that matter, a participant in a less dangerous sport, such as tennis. Unless you know what to expect of your opponent, you don’t really enjoy the optimal probability of winning. If your opponent is the cool type, you have much less of a chance of disconcerting him or her with certain tactics, compared to someone who is easily ruffled, for instance. If they are known for gamesmanship, you have to be doubly alert for signs that they are employing dubious tactics to gain the advantage. And, of course, if gamesmanship is characteristically taken to the hilt – in other words, if they would do everything and anything to win the game – you have to be fully prepared for such an eventuality. Switch from sport to outright, hostile conflict, where the stakes are qualitatively different from sport (although some people treat sport as war) and it is no longer just a matter of winning to strengthen your CV; it is a matter of life and death. This is the situation in which we find ourselves today, on a global scale. Hence the question: how well do we know our enemy, who excels at lethal gamesmanship? Those individuals who are wide awake may retort with: ‘Well enough to know just what to expect.’ At the same time they may admit that, particularly in the light of the many tricks our enemies have up their proverbial sleeve, they cannot anticipateexactlywhat may come next. They may even hold out the possibility that members of the cabal may come to regret their own dastardly deeds – as Mark Zuckerberg recentlyseemedto do, and even then, for dubious reasons – and hence, possibly mistake ostensible repentance for a calculated ambush. How should we deal with this situation? Regarding the globalist technocrats, is there a way to gain access to something that is similar to a criminal’s profile, which professional profilers construct to facilitate apprehending him or her? There are probably many different ways to do this. One of them, which I would like to outline briefly here, involves a scenario where an unlikely meeting takes place between psychoanalytic thinker, Jacques Lacan, and the role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons. I have written on Lacan’s workherebefore but in a different context. This time I hope to show that it helps one understand one’s enemy. As some readers may recall,Lacan theorises the human subjectas being precariously ‘stretched’ between three registers of subjectivity; to wit, the unsymbolisable ‘real’(not the same as ‘reality,’ which can be symbolised, and is observable), the ‘imaginary’order of images, and the ‘symbolic’register of language. This tripartite structure of the subject does not function in exactly the same way for every individual – sometimes the one, then the other, of these registers is dominant in an individual subject. When the supra-symbolic ‘real’ preponderates for the subject, this does not mean that they are unable to express themselves in language, or of identifying with an image. It simply means that the subject inclines towards the realm of the inexpressible (the ‘real’), such as the unpresentablesublimein art or architecture (for example the baffling complexity of Frank Gehry’sBilbao Guggenheim), or the incomprehensible quality in interpersonal relations (which you mayfeel, but not be able to name), and that, for them, the imaginary and the symbolic are of secondary importance. Note that, per definition, the three registers in question here function in every ‘normal’ subject. When the imaginary (the sphere of the ego) is dominant, it means that the ‘real’ and the symbolic are subordinate to the requirements of imaginary identifications (such as with the image of a movie star, or a politician you admire). Similarly, when the demands of the symbolic, as the linguistic register of the social, gain precedence over those of the ‘real’ and the imaginary, the person concerned is primarily drawn to language, and to people, as it is also the social register. This way of conceptualising the human subject iscomplexin a particular sense, which is not the same as beingcomplicated. The latter adjective could be attributed to the plot of a detective bestseller, but complexity is different. While every (‘normal;’ that is, nonpsychotic) subject comprises a tripartite subject-structure consisting of the three ‘orders’ of the ‘real,’ the imaginary, and the symbolic, something should be added to this. Although in different individuals a different one of the three orders is dominant, such dominance is alsoqualitativelydifferent, so thatthere are no two individuals in the world who are exactly the same– not even so-called ‘identical’ twins. They may be genetically ‘identical,’ but when it comes to interests and abilities, this ‘identity’ is overlaid by a psychic divergence, which is even more accentuated when one considers people who are not related to one another. For example, take two people who are both symbolic-dominant – that is, where the social register of language predominates over those of the ‘real’ or the imaginary. In one case this could have the effect that person A is sociable, instead of being a loner, while person B, who is similarly gregarious, also has a noticeable interest in, and gift for, language and linguistic articulation, which A lacks. This difference could extend to the imaginary (ego-register) and supra-symbolic ‘real’ as well, where A could display a narcissistic ego, while B is assertive but not a narcissist, and A is not drawn to wilderness experiences (where one may feel close to the ‘real’), while B relishes them. It is this qualitative difference that lends itself to being further nuanced by means of the ‘alignments’ of characters in the role-playing game, Dungeons and Dragons. The nuances are already endless, as may be seen above, but when the fine-tuning categories of Dungeons and Dragons are added, this is exacerbated even further. What are these? They represent ways in which the characters (or ‘avatars’) one chooses in the game are ‘aligned;’ that is, oriented or directed, as far as their choices and actions are concerned, just as in real life individuals could be ‘aligned.’ These types of alignment and what they mean are asfollows: 1. Lawful GoodCharacters with lawful good alignment have a sense of duty and honor. It’s frequently stated that lawful good does not mean lawful stupid, and lawful good characters can sometimes do otherwise harsh actions… 2. Neutral GoodCharacters with neutral good alignment mostly act altruistically. They don’t have any regard or disregard for or against any lawful precept such as traditions or rules. These are the most peace-loving characters in the game. They don’t have a problem cooperating with the lawful officials. But they don’t feel indebted to them. Neutral good characters don’t suffer an inner conflict like the lawful good characters if they have to choose between bending and breaking the law or rule. If they feel it is a decision that will bring a positive change, they will not hesitate to take the decision.  3. Chaotic GoodChaotic good characters always disdain the bureaucratic organizations that often interfere in social improvement. These characters try to bring a change for the better. They believe in personal freedom for everyone. If you are playing a chaotic good character, you will usually incline to do what is right; regardless of the law. However, their methods to bring about the change are often disorganized, and they don’t mesh well with society.  4. Lawful NeutralA lawful neutral character believes in lawful concepts like order, tradition, rules, and honor. Sometimes, these characters can even have a prior preference to choices that they think are controlled by benevolent authorities…  5. True NeutralTrue neutrals don’t feel strongly towards any alignment, and they don’t actively seek their balance. They take decisions on their feet instead of judging what is right and what is wrong according to their character traits…  6. Chaotic NeutralChaos is the defining attribute for these characters; frequently they are disruptive to the party and can wreak havoc on even the best laid plans…  7. Lawful EvilLawful evil characters often search for a well-ordered system. They try to exploit this system to show a combination of both desirable and undesirable traits. Some of the alignments that fall under the lawful evil characters are devils, tyrants, mercenaries, and corrupt officials. They will probably stick to a deal that is made, but you can be certain they don’t have your best interests in mind when they make it…  8. Neutral EvilNeutral Evil characters are very selfish and may not care if they turn against their allies. NE characters won’t hesitate to hurt others if it furthers their means. All they care about is to fulfill their wishes and demands. However, they won’t go out of their way to achieve their desires; they won’t cause any mayhem or carnage if they think that the actions will not benefit them.A suitable example of a neutral evil is an assassin. They may have little regard for the formal laws of society. However, he/she will not kill anyone needlessly…  9. Chaotic EvilThese characters are more evil than neutral evils. They don’t respect any rules, don’t value people’s lives, and they will do anything to fulfill their desires; they are the most cruel and selfish characters in the game who value nothing but their personal freedom. These characters are so evil that they don’t work well in groups as well. A big differentiation for chaotic evil characters is that they may do evil things even if they don’t benefit from it. ***** What do we get when we combine these ‘alignments’ with Lacan’s three registers? It would take too much space to write in detail about all 27 instances (3×9=27), so some examples will have to do. Every category – for example ‘Lawful good’ – could be unpacked in terms of the ‘real,’ the imaginary, or the symbolic. A ‘lawful good’ character or person, we already know, has a sense of ‘duty and honour,’ and acts accordingly. Some people may recall the movie,Scent of a Woman(1992), where Lt. Col. Frank Slade (Al Pacino), a blind ex-soldier, comes to the rescue of Charlie Simms (Chris O’Donnell), who is being persecuted at an exclusive boys’ school for not being willing to snitch on his fellow students. Slade is, in my view, the personification of a ‘lawful good’ person who, because he admires Charlie’s demonstration of honour and solidarity with his peers – even when he knows they are guilty – steps into the breach to defend him, very eloquently and assertively. Moreover, in terms of Lacan’s three registers, given his linguistic flair and assertiveness, both the symbolic and the imaginary (the register of the ego, which can be either narcissistic or self-assertive) function strongly in him as subject, with the symbolic just ahead of the imaginary, because it is also the social register, where a sense of fairness and justice is located. Someone with ‘neutral good’ alignment is less straightforward to understand; one might see in them what is known as ‘philosophical anarchists,’ who argue that every person should ‘rule’ themselves, and we therefore don’t need governments, which do not have authority over us, anyway. ‘Neutral goods’ are said, above, to be altruistic; hence their neutrality regarding rules, and cooperation with ‘lawful’ officials. Hence also their willingness to break or bend rules. Note that they are not bad or ‘evil;’ they are just able to make up their own minds about what is good or not. It seems to me that the typical filmnoircharacter known as thenoirdetective is paradigmatic of this ‘neutral good’ alignment, a case in point being private detective Jake Gittes in Roman Polanski’s justly famousChinatown– often regarded as the best filmnoirever made. Jake does not mind bending the rules for the sake of justice; neither does he back off when threatened by any goons. His altruism shows in giving everyone the benefit of the doubt until they show their true (evil) character beyond any doubt. In the light of Lacan’s three orders it appears that the imaginary predominates, with the ‘real’ slightly less so – he is self-assertive, and he has a kind of sixth sense for evil that surpasses language. You may ask what all of this has to do with knowing one’s enemy. This is where we leave the realm of fiction and face reality. Where would you say Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, and Anthony Fauci belong in terms of the above? The three ‘good’ alignments can be safely ignored; so can the three ‘neutral’ alignments, but the one named ‘neutral evil’ – which belongs with the three ‘evil’ alignments, seems to me a candidate to describe these neo-fascists. In fact,all three of these variations on an ‘evil’ alignment may clarify something about the latter three technocrats. It is said that neutral evil ‘characters won’t hesitate to hurt others if it furthers their means.All they care about is to fulfill their wishes and demands.’ This certainly reverberates with the actions performed by the three people in question here – such asFauciandGatespromoting the supposedly ‘safe and effective’ Covid jabs, and opportunistically telling other egregious lies as well. Some of the specified characteristics under ‘lawful evil’ resonate as well, strange as it may seem. After all, as we read under the latter category, lawful evil characters favour a ‘well-ordered system,’ even if it is to the detriment of ordinary people, as the ‘system’ of draconian Covid measures demonstrated. As we know by now, their ultimate aim is a system where, among other things, people who survive their murderous schemes will be forced to live in ’15-minute cities,’ carry ‘vaccine passports’ if they wish to travel and use a ‘digital wallet,’ controlled by a central world bank, to buy necessities. But surely the last ‘alignment’ under ‘evil,’ namely ‘chaotic evil,’ perfectly sums up where our evil trio stands, with no omission of any of its specifications. Chaotic evil characters (fictional or real) are ‘more evil than neutral evils,’ ‘don’t respect any rules, don’t value people’s lives, and…will do anything to fulfill their desires.’ Furthermore, they are ‘cruel and selfish characters’…‘who value nothing but their personal freedom;’ ‘are so evil that they don’t work well in groups…’ and ‘may do evil things even if they don’t benefit from it.’ The extent to which this general description applies to the actions and pronouncements of Fauci, Schwab, and Gates is quite uncanny – think of their unqualified nihilism (demonstrably valuingnothingin the extant world, as shown by their willingness todestroy the environment, wild animals, and humansto achieve their goal of a technically constructed world over which they would lord it. Add to this their disdain for ‘rules,’ which they insist on making, without following these rules themselves (as reported in the CHD article linked above). Even the statement, that ‘they don’t work well in groups’ probably applies to them, insofar as it would require each of them to set aside, at least sometimes, the megalomania that they project in public (see CHD article). What emerges when one maps Lacan’s three psychic registers onto the alignments that are so clearly compatible with our malevolent trio? All of them score high on theimaginaryregister of the ego, which is where one identifies with a specific image – in their case evidently one that embodies ruthless power, such as the bizarre Darth Vaderesque costume (avideo imageof which was difficult to find) in which Schwab likes to appear. (He would fit perfectly in the role of the fallen Jedi Knight inStar Wars, or of the evil Emperor.) Keep in mind that such identification (which every person inescapably does) need not reflect an inclination to evil or destructive acts; if one identifies with an historical figure such as Socrates, for instance, it would mean that one values the assertiveness, through rational questioning, that the philosopher personified. In the case of all three of these dubious figures one may therefore detect, not only a megalomaniac aspect but a strong narcissistic streak, too, such as where Fauci notoriously proclaimed in an interview: ‘Attacks on me…quite frankly, are attacks on science’ (in R.F. Kennedy, JrThe Real Anthony Fauci, Skyhorse Publishing, 2021, p. 28). In sum, their alignment with the ‘chaotic evil’ category corresponds with their ego-position of identifying with power in the imaginary register. What about thesymbolicorder of language, which is also that of the social bond, and importantly, of morality, insofar as the ‘moral law’ is linguistically embedded in it – for example Immanuel Kant’s ‘categorical imperative?’ Recall that someone who leans towards the symbolic is usually a sociable person, with individual differences from one to the next. Can one say this about our three candidates, who have not really distinguished themselves as people lovers? I doubt it, despite the (ironical) fact thatBill Gatesis a self-styled ‘philanthropist,’ together with a fourth globalist,George Soros, both of whom use this philanthropic mask to hide their deep-seated misanthropy. Anyone who goes out of their way to destroy people’s livelihoods, and their very lives, phlegmatically and even gleefully, judging by the ambiguous smile on Bill Gates’s face in the video where he and his erstwhile wife, Melinda, talk aboutthe ‘next pandemic,’is hardly a saint. Fauci, too, abuses the symbolic, in which the moral law is embedded, bylying to peoplewith a straight face (notably about the Covid ‘vaccines’), while Schwab and the WEF routinely proclaim the intention of the WEF to be the creation of abetter life, supposedly for all people. It is a puzzle that these liars have got off scot-free for so long despite their mendacity. Perhaps most revealingly, as their alignment with ‘chaotic evil’ suggests, all three display an affinity for the (Lacanian) ‘real,’ insofar as their minimal ties with the (linguistic and social) symbolic suggests a psychic dimension of sensitivity to what enigmatically surpasses language altogether – which they may perhaps ‘feel,’ but cannot articulate in language. This is corroborated by Naomi Wolfwho writes of what these criminals wrought during the Covid disaster (inThe Bodies of Others, All Seasons Press, 2022, p. 253): This massive edifice of evil, was too complex and really, too elegant, to assign to just human awfulness and human inventiveness. It suggested a spiritual dimension of evil. If one balks at this association, remember that, as in the case of the fictional Darth Vader, who left the ranks of the Jedi Knights and embraced the ‘dark side,’ this does not mean that the latter realm necessarily lacks a spiritual dimension, albeit an evil, infinitely malicious one. This, one has reason to believe, is the case with the unscrupulous neo-fascists, too, as the preceding analysis has shown. And when one considers that this assessment of these three tyrants is probably applicable to virtually everyone driving the present attempt at civilisational collapse, its ramifications boggle the mind. This article was published at Brownstone Institute