The Tappers
The Tappers are a group of performance artists/strategists/tacticians/subversives who hold the view that building enormous Engines of Confrontation to deal with the enormous Engines of Exploitation which currently manage the plundering and destruction of the planet Earth can, as amply and repeatedly demonstrated by recent (the last 2000 years) human history, have only two outcomes.
To whit:
1) The battle between these Engines will inevitably cause maximum consumption of planetary resources, maximum profits to existing controllers of planetary wealth, maximum damage to the planetary eco-system, and maximum suffering to humans without the slightest direct interest in the battle itself.
2) One of the enormous Engines (either the existing or the confrontational) will eventually win and will then set about further entrenching itself through greater abuses of its control of planetary wealth and further suffering visited upon humans without the slightest direct interest in the Engine itself. Such will the process of its entrenchment be that, within a surprisingly short period of time, whichever Engine wins, yet another Engine of Exploitation will be in place, requiring yet another Engine of Confrontation to be built in yet another misguided hope that yet another cycle can or will be broken.
Instead, the Tappers reckon that the way to dismantle the grotesque Engines of Exploitation is to "tap" at the rock face of human institutional indifference in the random hope of striking a "fault line". Selective, targeted "tapping" is undertaken in the hope not of building up a confrontational Engine to oppose, but of accidentally hitting, at the rock face of the target Engine of Exploitation, a natural "fault line" which will, from the merest "tap", cause the Engine of Exploitation to split through its heart and shatter into a thousand pieces.
Tappage has the following features:
· Tapping can endeavour to be precise, but, in fact, actually hitting a fault line is much more a case of luck than judgement. In this sense, tapping can be said to be happening in whatever activity a Tapper may be undertaking. The only difference between a Tapper and a non-Tapper is, effectively, the conscious underlying purpose of the activity. A Tapper will always be attuned to the possibility of hitting a fault line in whatever activity she or he happens to be undertaking at any time of day or night.
· Tapping is, by and large, an informational tool. The fault lines exist (as indeed do the Engines) in the minds of humans. Tappers therefore tend to know a thing or two about information. They understand its inherent instability; its dependency on context; its liability to misinterpretation.
· Tapping seeks to trigger Exponentially Proliferating Thought or EPT. As proliferating thought cascades into non-proliferating thought, it has the knock-on effect of generating further proliferation. One speaks of EPT as having "half-life" insofar as it "decays" or loses impetus in much the same way as radioactivity does - by halving itself infinitely.
·
Tapping acknowledges
the importance of "attention" in human affairs. Attention is
the lever with which we gain access to each other's minds
Attention is the almost tangible commodity which each human has the
facility to confer upon every other. It's tangibility is most
notable when, for example, one human is totally deprived of other human
attention for a sustained length of time. It is a very
physical sensation of discomfort and disorientation. Our need
for it may be more biological than we care to admit.
Attention is something with which, normally, we caress each
other. We groom each other with it in much the same way as
other species do it, more directly, with limbs or tentacles.
It is a gift requiring the free willingness of one human fully to
observe another.
Tappers tend to think that our obligations as humans with regard to
attention are twofold On the one hand, we should notice when
we're giving it and where it is taking us and not give it too
lightly. On the other, we should not seek it frivolously,
self-indulgently. We should not waste those precious moments
when others are freely caressing us.
Tappers do not offer or request attention lightly.
Tapping can, for the most part, take place anywhere, at any time. In conversation, in correspondence, in shouted messages in crowded venues. In internet mass-mailings.
Targeted tapping usually requires two concurrent processes.
·
Disengagement
First, every effort must be made to disengage from
the target Engine of Exploitation. It is pointless trying to
undermine something to whose stability and expansion you are also
contributing. Local populations must look to strategies which
make them self reliant and independent, for the most part, of any but
local produce, services, or currency. They must look to
disinvesting in every manner possible.
·
Tappage itself
Once as many strategies for disengagement as conceivable are as in
place as feasible, tapping itself should be
undertaken. Information should be sought, digested, and
distributed in as coherent a manner as possible. Well
selected quanta of information will seek out the fault lines of the
target Engine of Exploitation and, hopefully, trigger EPT explosions.
In general, Tappers acknowledge the importance of humour in all undertakings. Humour does two things. It demonstrates that Tappers do not, in the context of the enormity of the universe, take themselves or their offered solutions too seriously which, in turn, affords them the latitude to occasionally relax and enjoy some of the quirkier sides of reality to the full Secondly, it lowers the guards of potential recipients.
So here follows a list of some of the Tools at the Tapper's disposal.
As touched upon above, Tappers are trying to achieve "Exponentially Proliferating Thought", or EPT, in the same way that modern physicists try to trigger particulate chain reactions. Tappers do not have particle accelerators, but there are a number of tools at their disposal. These include:
This is the crudest tool and is the one most frequently relied upon by western corporate myth-makers. It is as popular among corporate Engine PR departments as among political Engine PR departments. However, the former, having more disposable income, is the most prolific user of this tool. By comparison, Tappers are able to use this tool only in a very modest way.
Another popular tool among established PR departments, this one usually holds greater favour among political Engines because, again, it is simple, but also because it is a much cheaper way of utilising mass media. This is because it addresses, directly, mass media's main appetite - the hunger for easily digestible nuggets of "information" not requiring too much rewriting or rereading. It also tends to have a fairly long half-life.
Often a simple, well constructed question can trigger EPT. Presenting answers often terminates thought. Questions are much more interactive and more effective if they are left hanging, open ended.
As amply demonstrated by J Christ, this can indeed be a very powerful tool. The bulk of the world's population is non-academically inclined (they have enough problems in reality, why seek more in the abstract), and appreciate both a good story and a comparison to something with which they are already familiar.
Everybody already knows this one. The power of suggestion is an indisputably versatile tool, and it is very easily deployed.
This is potentially the most powerful communications tool available to humankind. Logic bombs are ideally suited to Tapping because they usually require elements of both intelligence and at least contextual truth both in their design and in their comprehension. Self-evidently, these elements are not frequently at the disposal of political or economic Engines of Exploitation. In addition, Logic Bombs are highly suited to current non-passive communications technologies such as the internet and can have exceptionally long half-lives.
This is perhaps the simplest tool, but asks most of the recipient. Sometimes a Tapper can simply refer someone to a particularly relevant book or article or internet posting. If you have created enough interest and, better still, have the text to hand, the recipient may go off and become a changed person.
Sometimes a new way of looking at things can have a tapping effect. These are not always easy to hit upon, but Tappers are always looking for them.
This is in fact the essence of telling a good joke. The "punch line" is the ultimate connect, the last piece to the complex multi-dimensional puzzle being created. The artistry resides in the crafting of everything up to and including the pen-ultimate connect. Everything needs to be neatly in place; the penultimate connect delivered; a suspenseful pause created; the pause drawn out; …..before the last connect is dropped in.
Tappers will be familiar with the old 3 dimensional line drawing of a cube which at one moment looks as though it is projecting outwards in one direction, and then, in an instant, for no other reason than a change in attitude on the part of the observer, it flips and projects outward in another direction. Intellectual concepts can often be much the same. Tappers can often cause them to "flip" and have another meaning altogether.
This is a highly dangerous tool because it is double-edged in the fullest sense. It may cause as much confusion among fellow Tappers as among target Engines. Essentially, we recommend not using this tool. If you must use it, it should, of course, be reserved exclusively for corporate targets and it should always have a "release key". That is to say, any deployed item should always have a reliable source available to any reasonably dedicated researcher which, from the very outset, points out that this is indeed a mis/dis information item.
Social occasions can be a Tapper's delight. All humans are sociable and enjoy simple pleasures such as eating together. Why not introduce the idea of a short lecture or presentation before dinner to give people something in common to discuss apart from the weather?
A key feature of informational campaigns of any kind is the capacity for a quick riposte to any counter points being offered up anywhere.
Here follow a number of examples of the Tapping Tools at work. The examples are grouped, in most cases, in terms of the suggested " current order of priority".
The world is experiencing crisis in a complex variety of ways. The Engines of Exploitation squat upon the full range of human endeavour and turn ordinary day to day activities such as eating and sheltering and transporting into massive acts of plunder and pillage. Individual humans are often at a loss as to how to prioritise in order to begin to engage these Engines. For individual humans caught in this quandary, the Tappers offer the following as a useful current order of priority.
· the first major area of exploitation to tap at is global economics.
· the second major area of exploitation to tap at is organised religion.
· the third major area of exploitation to tap at is world history as taught in schools.
· the fourth major area of exploitation to tap at is nation states as currently defined.
Examples of Tools as applied to Proposed Priority One: Global Economics
It was of course Mr
Goebbels who, most notably, articulated the maxim that "if you repeat a
lie often enough it becomes the truth". The maxim has been
much in use ever since.
For Tappers, with limited access to mass media, repetition is a tough
one to utilise to the full. However, there's no harm in
trying. The best place to start is in the course of ordinary
conversation. In terms of economics, whenever you have the
occasion to refer to "investors", use instead the term
"speculators". You will be pleasantly surprised to notice how
quickly (remember, you heard it here first) this, with all its
sub-textual connotations, begins to proliferate. "Investors"
are not, after all, the heroes that so many western Engines would have
us believe. They are simply gamblers, and largely fearful and
hysterical ones at that. The average poker player has
considerably more dignity and self-respect. In time, as the
term "speculator" gradually comes more and more in to public usage, the
whole process of investing in order to derive unearned income will be
called more and more into question.
Here are a couple
of catchy phrases which will catch on soon enough (remember you heard
them here first). Nowhere in western economics does anyone
take the trouble to define an "acceptable" level of profit.
Some entrepreneurs would be happy with a 3% profit on their investment;
others would be unhappy with anything less than 100%; still others,
especially money lenders, feel that upwards of 1000% profits are not
too much to ask.
The Tappers call these upper levels of profit "meta profit" or "meta
surplus". They are "beyond" profit or surplus. As
any scientist will tell you, the first part of dealing with a problem
is to identify or categorise its components. No government
will have the courage to define in statute what an acceptable level of
profit is, but that doesn't prevent citizens from using linguistics to
acknowledge and popularise the distinction between acceptable and
obscene profiteering. The prefix "meta" has the added
advantage of managing to sound neutral. It doesn't sound like
dogma. It is not a term which one would normally associate
with radicals or communists, but it will nevertheless promote economic
re-consideration.
Begin to ask the question, "Who actually owns the Federal Reserve of America, the lynch pin of global economics?" Clearly, you should research the answers yourself, but the question has a fairly substantial "half life" (it will deplete forever). On the face of it, the question is simple enough, and most people automatically assume they know the answer. But as soon as they realise they don't, the implications will continue to dawn for some time to come. Remember, it is not the Tapper's obligation to provide the answer (except to point out that the initial answer offered is wrong); the obligation is to introduce the question. Hopefully, EPT will do the rest.
Here are some good
examples of analogies utilisable in the attempt to explain how the
modern western economy works.
Ask your listener to imagine what house buying might be like if
conducted in the same way as company share
speculation. How volatile would the housing market become if
you could speculate in house "futures". How much more
dramatically would house prices fluctuate - to little or no discernible
benefit to anyone - if one could speculate centrally in shares of
housing.
Another interesting one is to point out how the basic, fundamental laws
of trading become distorted as the scale of the trade
increases. Mechanical, Newtonian physics still works at one
level as we continue to build bridges and motor cars, but they pale
into insignificance as we contemplate space travel or sub-atomic
engineering. The laws of quantum physics take over.
When we are dealing with the generation and manipulation of "meta
surplus" (see above) at the multinational level we are not dealing with
the same laws of economics as apply when we are shopping at our local
greengrocer's.
Another example of design flaws which become apparent when systems are
overloaded is the modern motorway. Initially it was thought
that if you provide more lanes, traffic could flow more freely as the
"faster" lanes would only be used for overtaking.
Unfortunately, as traffic reaches critical mass, the first lane to get
completely overloaded is the "fast" lane, as everybody queues "to go
faster". The slower lanes, now bearing much less traffic,
then become the de facto fast lanes. Not what the planners
had in mind at all.
Examples of Tools as applied to Proposed Priority Two: Organised Religion
Informing me of your unquestioning faith is to insult my intelligence. Is "faith" all it's cracked up to be? Isn't it just non-negotiable thought? Why should anyone be interested (unless it's to establish motive in a criminal investigation) in anyone else's non-negotiable thought? The suggestion to make is that the offer to inform of non-negotiable thought and the invitation to take it on board lock stock and barrel without question, is, effectively, an insult to natural human curiosity and intelligence. In short, believers who tell you of their beliefs on a non-negotiable basis are being rude.
Here's an example
of a logic bomb. It is a proof for the equality of humans,
and goes something like this.
Tappers do not, in general, believe. They simply reckon, and
they reckon on the basis of information currently available.
It follows, therefore, that they do not believe
that humans are equal. But they know it,
...and they know it because they have the proof.
Take any two everyday objects - say, two bicycles. Imagine
that you were about to buy a bicycle but that you couldn't quite make
up your mind about which was the better.
Imagine then that you suddenly became aware of a small group of Alien
beings observing you.
Some moments might pass as you struggled with the rigidity of your
fright, but imagine that you eventually found the strength to point to
the two bicycles and ask, “Which of these is
better?” There might be further moments of,
possibly stunned, silence, but, assuming they spoke passable English,
what do you think, ultimately, they would say?
Yes, precisely. They would say, “What are they
for?”
They would not be able to qualitatively compare them without knowing
their purpose. You cannot qualitatively compare ANYTHING if
its purpose remains obscure.
Now then, how many of you know, absolutely, without
question, beyond a shadow of a doubt, the purpose of a human being.....?
This is our proof. As long as we remain in the dark about the
absolute purpose of human life, we are not in a position to say whether
one human is any better or any worse than any other.... As
the logic sinks in, the implications proliferate, and the half-life
extends.
Examples of Tools as applied to Proposed Priority Three: World History (as taught in schools)
A favourite referral from the Tappers is "the Alphabet versus the Goddess" by Leonard Shlain. This presents a very succinct history of the evolution of human civilisation. Another is "Demonic Males", by Wrangham and Peterson, which gives an interesting perspective an the evolution of human savagery.
Examples of Tools as applied to Proposed Priority Four: Nation States
A good example of a
novel concept to an ancient problem is the concept of "river
nations".
Wherever you are (unless, arguably, you happen to live in the middle of
a desert) you are in a river "catchment area". When rain
drops hit the ground at your front door, they will start a long
journey, aided by gravity, to discover the path of least resistance to
the sea. In the course of their journeys, these rain drops
will gather with other rain drops to form dribbles and rivulets and
streams and tributaries and, eventually, rivers. Apart from
however else you may describe yourself in terms of nationality, gender,
ethnicity, religion, even species, what you also are is a citizen of
your river catchment area.
The Tappers are proposing that national boundaries should be re-drawn
throughout the world to reflect river catchment areas. In
this way border disputes can be done away with. Arbitrators
need simply pour water on to the ground and see which way it
flows. Border disputes will become a thing of the past as,
even in cases of invasion, the historical truth will always remain the
same. All concerned will know whether a border is just or not
and only just borders will fully stand the test of time.
Religious, racial, political affiliations will become meaningless in
terms of national composition. All citizenship will be
automatic depending upon place of abode.
Some rivers are huge, with many tributaries. Clearly, the
nation is the catchment area of the river in its entirety, whilst the
provinces are the catchment areas of each tributary.
You don't need to seek anyone's permission to become a River
Citizen. You simply make a personal decision. You
won't receive a passport or a membership card or a free prayer book or
even a letter of congratulation because river citizenship is not as yet
acknowledged by world economic and political powers. River
citizenship is a people's initiative. However, as a
responsible human of the planet Earth, you still have some privileges
and at least two obligations.
All River Citizens will have as their prime responsibility the care and
maintenance of their river, its catchment area, and the associated
water tables. Nurturing the rivers and protecting the quality
of water are what life in a River Nation (and on this planet) is all
about.
A secondary responsibility will be to discover the oldest known name of
the river. In many instances these will be aboriginal names
long disregarded and trodden underfoot. The earliest
discoverable name should be the name of both the river and of its
associated River Nation. It should be repeated (see
Repetition above) at every opportunity and in every item of
correspondence until it becomes the de facto name again.
Miscellaneous Examples of Tools
This is a story related by a parish priest. The important thing to note is that it only has value when the very last thought is connected. Suspense is held right up to the penultimate connect. This is the essence of a good story; of a good joke.
"A parishioner of
mine had a struggling farm, miles out in the Canadian
wilderness. He wasn’t very well to do and he was
always looking for ways to curb expenditure. His technique
for making tea involved not immediately throwing away his old tea
bags. He would simply drink the tea and leave the bags in the
pot. Every time he again made tea, he simply threw in another
tea bag and added boiling water. Quite sensible
really. He never added more than one bag, even for large tea
parties. When eventually the tea pot was too full of old tea
bags, he would tip the lot out and start again. One day when
I was visiting, he concluded that the tea pot had reached this
stage. As we conversed I watched him tip the pot and saw the
sodden bags tumble out into the kitchen sink. There was a
moment of stillness, as we both stood transfixed, by the sight, among
the sodden bags, of an equally sodden
……….dead mouse."
A good example of cube conversion is the Hollywood film "The 6th Sense" (see also Referral). The film proceeds with an interesting enough narrative until, towards the end, you realise that one of your earliest assumptions was wrong and that the narrative you thought you understood was in fact inside out. You then have to re-visit the narrative with a slight adjustment to the early assumption and watch how everything then fits neatly into an entirely inverted set of circumstances. There are plenty of good examples, but many tend to rely fairly heavily on a certain amount of graphic input as well.
Because, in the Tappers' view, this is such a double edged sword, no examples are offered and it is suggested that other tools be used in its stead.
A Tapper dinner table usually has a flip chart displayed in a position of ready prominence. The dinner party will usually commence with one or other of the guests presenting a small thesis prior to the first course. Having explained the thesis as fully as possible, the presenter joins the others at the table to eat, drink, and engage in lively debate.
Rapid Response is fairly self explanatory. It is simply a case of noting any informational responses a target Engine may be making and being prepared to counter as quickly, appropriately, and informatively as possible. The usual rule of thumb is, wherever possible, to utilise the same channels and medium to reach the same recipients.
So there you have it, an introduction to Tapping or Tappage. Anyone can do it, from whatever level of society at which they may find themselves. In effect, no conscientious citizen of the world has an excuse not to engage in Tapping if she or he feels that there are institutional wrongs to be righted.
One love,
the Tappers
