Look for the Mana in the Meme!
Look for the Mana in the Meme!
Why traditional disinformation definitions mislead us.
Conventional definitions of Disinformation and Misinformation attempt to discern the intention to mislead of the informational unit’s propagator within a unit of information. Then, if they perceive an intention (Mens Rea) to mislead, they categorise that unit of information as “Disinformation.”
Looking for the Mens Rea in any activity is trickier than it seems at first sight, as any criminal lawyer will tell you. Mens Rea (literally the “Mana in the thing”) is a prerequisite for liability in criminal law. If you are to be held responsible in law for an action (Actus Reus) that violates a rule, then your Mana must be in the action - this is the meaning of the “Mina” (the M-N- sound in the word “Criminal”).
In ordinary words, the prosecutor must show that you intended to perform the Actus Reus. A murderer who can convince a judge or a jury that it was an accident becomes guilty of the lesser crime of Humanslaughter, for example.
The key problem in counter disinformation work is that most skilled propagandists launder the same untruths through many different voices. If you, unknowingly, repeat a misleading unit of information that I designed, then, according to conventional definitions of Disinformation, you are innocent. You are merely misinforming.
Russian propagandists know this so they design lies, plant them in media outlets on the edge of our culture, and depend on these lies being picked up unknowingly and spread eventually into legacy media outlets in the very centre of our culture. The essential untruth of the informational unit has not changed. You read it in the New York Times and repeat it. Once someone points out that the Mana of this lie is Russian Disinfolklore, you can defend yourself by saying: “Well, I didn’t mean to mislead. I misinformed you. I didn’t spread Disinformation.”
The negative impact of the informational unit on our culture (for example, Trump intentionally propagating the idea that unjustly lost the 2020 election) is identical whether or not its propagator intended to mislead or is innocently spreading another’s lies.
Such distinctions between Misinformation and Disinformation do not help release us from the foggy morass of lies that our enveloping our culture. They are being used by those who seek to destroy our post-World War Two democratic order as a defence, when we catch them out in their manipulations.
Counter Disinfolklore, by contrast to these traditional distinctions between Disinformation and Misinformation, uses the power of Mana which is already immanent in Indo-European languages (and especially in the English language) to determine the intention-changing potential in ANY informational unit. In Counter Disinfolklore it doesn’t matter if you are intentionally or accidentally spreading lies. Whether or not I can determine your Mens Rea (your intention to spread lies or truths), I merely analyse your output. If that output (the informational unit) has the capacity to alter the intentions/motivations of the interpreter of the unit of information which you are spreading, then that is susceptible to analysis using the Disinfolklore analytical method for parsing Disinformation.
Since Counter Disinfolklore is a manual, let us summarise this method:
A. Discern the Mana in the meme or the troll - it will be there. It might be manifesting positive, neutral, or negative energy. We use the Code of Positive Trolls six criteria to proof any informational unit with:
1 Generosity: does the meaning in the visual, linguistic or audible meme qualify as being generous?
2 Ethical Discipline: Does the meaning of the informational unit promote untruths? The means do NOT justify the ends, when assaying informational units in this context.
3 Patience.
4 Joyous Perseverence: Russian Disinfolklore is always miserable. It celebrates others’ misery. It takes as its lead mass death sacrifices.
5 Focus.
6 Insight/Wisdom. If any informational unit being assayed conforms to all six of these criteria, it is Positive (Counter Disinfolklore).
Usually, Disinfolklore (Negative Trolling) violates the second criterion - it is NOT ethically disciplined. It’s a lie. That is its Mana.
B. Assess the quality of the subtle energy the Mana represents, encapsulates, and promotes.
C. Make a call: After proofing the informational unit against the six criteria - Make A Call. Don’t just stand there assaying. Russian Disinfolklore, counter Disinfolklore, or indeterminable (literally meaning "unidentifiable, unassessable Mana (“Mina” as another M-N- word is simply another form of the same thing))?
The means by which we exchange emotions, motivations and intentions through almost all forms of communication (literally, a “comingling of our Mana” (muni)) can seem magical.
It can seem enchanting.
With the help of the Dalai Lama / Ekman “timeline of emotions” cognitive model which I will introduce in the next chapter, though, we can perceive this passing between us of intentions / Mana / emotions / motivations / energy as being quite mechanical.
It just happens so fast that we are not aware of all the stages we go through while our minds are transformed from one state to another by Disinfolklore.
Also, because until I coined this word “Mana” to describe this process, you did not have a means to isolate this aspect of what it means to be human. Now with Mana we can, at last, meditate on and control the exchanges of Mana that Disinfolklore uses to undermine all our communications.
If emotion-moving activity of body speech and mind is what defines trolling, we must have a conception of the self that IS independent of the factor moving us. This is where Mana comes in.
Mana is, in this sense, our Subtle Energy that is moved when we hear or read a troll. As soon as you feel your Mana (intention/motivation) being engaged by a Tweet or a news item, then it is highly possible that you are being subjected to Disinfolklore, or counter Disinfolklore.
Look for the Mana in that meme to discern if this is positive manipulation (does the content of the informational unit affecting you conform to all six of the six criteria of positive trolling?).
If you are only looking at the intention of the mediator of the meme - is the BBC intentionally trying to mislead me by propagating this informational unit that reeks of Russian Disinfolklore?- then you will miss the wood for the individual trees. Don’t just stand there celebrating when you distinguish an informational unit’s authors intention to mislead from its accidental propagation as somehow insightful. A MAGA lie spread intentionally as a lie is still a lie when an innocent picks it up and propagates us. The power of understanding Mana gives us a more fundamental weapon in our Counter Disinforlklore operations.
