Keyboard warriors pushing the “rage is justified, property damage is not violence” narrative don’t realize it, but they are practicing a very effective and time-tested technique, that one can see being implemented around the world. It’s the same technique that is used to prepare child soldiers to die.
Children are recruited or abducted to fight in extremist and ideological movements because they are easily manipulated, have little impulse control (especially considering the trauma-infused environments they are in), and, in most of the areas where these movements operate, places with high birth rates and low life expectancy, they are plentiful–and expendable.
They are fed sugar, stimulants, and narrative. Narrative is a very effective tool for preparing the child’s nervous system for the theatre of guerrilla warfare. Narrative works with a child’s emerging ideation, their sense of who they are and their purpose. They are fed narrative that emphasizes a sense of ‘other.’ and nurtures resentments against that other. The other, for these purposes, doesn’t need to be well-defined–in fact, these resentment narratives are often employed within in-groups to promote competition and inspire brutality.
Notice that I haven’t said anything about training. The lack of training is by design. What’s being cultivated in these scenarios is not a skill set, but a disposition–a nervous system that is finely tuned for violence, with adrenaline and cortisol overriding any fear or instinct for self-preservation, and a child’s undeveloped impulse-control mechanism ensuring that their anger will arise quickly and they will lash out at anything that moves. Couple this with an AK-47 and you have the perfect front line killing machine in a forested or dense-infill urban environment. They fit into small spaces, are unperturbed by uncomfortable sensory input, and are small targets.
The strength of the child soldier–its ability to act without thinking–is also its weakness. Lacking the instinct for self-preservation, they haven’t had the time to think through battle scenarios or consider consequences. Not having had training in any skill or craft, they don’t have the framework for complex thinking or strategy. They are the first line of defense, but they are also the first to fall in a hand-to-hand conflict against a trained enemy.
And in open environments, once their magazine is empty, they are easily captured or eliminated. But they are valued more for their expendability than for their skill. By the time they are taken out in a battle scenario, the adults have already retreated to their safe position. Recruit more kids, rinse, repeat, and you have an endless resistance campaign. They operate around the clock around the globe.
Let’s apply this same program to the modern resistance scenario today, in Los Angeles. With a sense of other cultivated over a lifetime, the modern rage warrior has been mentally nurturing resentment narratives for years, with no plan or physical training in any type of combat skill, and no strategic or long-term vision. The rage warrior resembles the child soldier in many ways, but also lacks many of the qualities that make the child soldier so effective in its ideal environment.
The rage warrior has a much higher instinct for self-preservation, and a much lower sense of personal loyalty in a high-stress situation. The adult rage warrior is much more susceptible to being deterred by difficult sensory environments such as temperature, dampness, pungent smells or chemical agents, loud sounds, etc. They also lack the AK-47. But they share the child soldier’s urgency of purpose, their quick tendency to anger, and their low impulse-control.
The areas where demonstrations are happening in Los Angeles would not really be thought of as dense-infill environments. Street are wide, and helicopters and sniper posts are able to target anyone outdoors with high accuracy. One of the strengths of the child soldier is their ability to hide and fire from small spaces; the modern rage warrior has a brick (short range and low lethality) and would be uncomfortable in a closet, let alone the crawlspace beneath a building.
The other thing lacking in this modern scenario is the adult. The modern rage warrior believes themselves to be part of a large, unified force. Driven by ideology rather than operating instructions from a trusted leader, this cultivated self-deception means that they are both without marching orders and without peers once things start to get heated.
So, effectively we have a person ideated for guerrilla warfare with a high-lethality weapon from a securable covered position against an individual or isolated opponent, but with virtually no weapon, no trusted leader, no plan and no assurance of backup, and no ability to adapt to changing conditions or see the full field of battle, who is operating in the open against a highly-armed and highly trained enemy who is able to create formations and enclosures with their numbers, and who can develop and change strategies through communication with leaders as conditions change.
This is not sounding like a highly effective strategy.
In fact, given this understanding, one has to wonder whose side these keyboard warriors are on, as they spread narratives that stoke rage and justify violence by an imagined cooperative movement against a very real foe. It sounds more like they’re trying to get protesters eliminated than show them operation plans for an effective movement.
People!
Organize! Examine your narratives! Identify and amplify your trusted leaders! Do your homework. Have a plan and know that it is shared and understood by the people around you.
Be safe out there.