Is this a dox I see before me?
Desperate times and desperate measures.
The popular pseudonymous Substack writer,
, has been doxxed. Outed by an organization dedicated to tackling extremism and online harm.You can read about his ordeal here:
They produced an article to unmask Morgoth’s real-world identity against his wishes, including photographs. It is replete with incendiary accusations we have grown accustomed to seeing in these attempts to discredit writers who challenge the status quo.
The impression presented is one of a bigoted figure, someone dangerously unhinged. It bears little relation to reality as Morgoth’s readers will confirm. But that hardly matters.
Doxxing exercises exist so the laptop class can efficiently file people into a convenient extremist bucket. All the hard work has been done so the distracted can skim the article and take what they need. Fascism, white supremacy, hate, racism, bigotry; take your pick.
Doxxing is not about facts, it is about keywords. More accurately it is about “hate crimes.” Those who transgress these ever-changing taboos are unfit to live among us.
Even better the piece can be exploited by others. Fascist influencer Morgoth, online hatemonger Morgoth, disgraced racist Morgoth. The current obsession with speech controls can make good use of an incestuous network of activists posing as reporters. Since the material now exists journalists can reference it to further discredit should this be needed in future.
The shrill nature of these denouncements is the giveaway all is not well in the world of perception management. No plan survives contact with the enemy, and the desire to corral all dissidents into one big extremist bucket sounds fine on paper. But much of what Morgoth writes about is widely discussed by the public at large, even if ignored by the traditional media or the political world. If Morgoth is a racist hate-driven genocidal monster then so are most of the population, which of course they are not.
This kind of thing used to work well. But as Morgoth’s own articles allude to, their enemy is reality not Substackers.
The curiously suicidal ideas the educated classes cling to are largely based on magical thinking. We can change the weather by blowing up power stations and levying taxes; we can successfully assimilate millions of hostile foreigners who dislike us and our culture; women will be happier if they work longer hours and don’t have children.
The degree of propaganda needed to maintain today’s narratives is considerable. Less advertised is how brittle it has become. Challenges to these narratives, and the theoretical foundations upon which they rest, are therefore feared by their promoters, and rightly so.
From this perspective people writing online and criticizing today’s sacred cows are worth targeting and smearing. Hence the exposure, the denouncements, the dredging up of comments from a decade ago, out of context and out of time. They know their audience don’t really care. They just need the satisfying feeling they are on the right side of history.
Despite this there is a vague tone of exhaustion about these activities. British authorities are jailing people for posting memes. This has damaged the credibility of the Establishment and attracted the attention of people who usually shy away from politics or culture. A significant own goal, one they seem confused about. Uncomfortably, Morgoth also writes about this observation as do others. A likely precursor to the narrative collapse our would-be rulers fear.
The heavy-handedness of recent propaganda efforts makes life harder for doxxing organizations and activists. Once you’ve seen a seemingly powerful Establishment willing to jail grandmothers for making comments online you become sceptical of anything you see. Precious social capital has been squandered to maintain their position in a country that is disintegrating thanks to policies people are punished for discussing.
The powerful are right to fear Morgoth and other commentators. Not because they are the extremists they claim, but because their own actions drive a steady supply of people to sites like Substack searching for answers in a world that is deteriorating around them while they are told all they see with their lying eyes is false.
Hometowns changed by rapid and large-scale immigration; long term economic prospects in terminal decline, made all the harder by sky-high inflation; local authorities increasingly unable to deliver basic services while we are told our number one focus must be a climate reckoning or the conflict in Gaza. It is absurd and visibly so.
The authorities fear any outlet for these frustrations. Nothing can be allowed to challenge their utopian schemes even as they fail. So observations about immigration become racism, which becomes fascism or Naziism, easily condemned by the distracted.
Ironically it is the extremism of these branding exercises that alienates the public. Just as we got bored with constant talk of diversity and transphobia, people seem to be tuning out because normal discussion and reactions to extreme events are so energetically mislabelled as hate.
People are exhausted with this and are becoming desensitized to accusations of racism, misogyny and all the other modern offences thanks to abuse of these terms. We have heard it all before.
This is the real story about Morgoth’s doxxing. As uncomfortable as it is for him personally it is now having limited effect on others. Articulating views held by the majority is not seen as a crime. It is not perceived as hate at all, making the breathless condemnations seem ridiculous and out of touch.
The more the powerful fund this approach the more people ignore it. Their weapons have been blunted through misuse, and they will soon be superseded entirely. What then for our social controllers?
I was unaware of Morgoth, but have now subscribed. Streisand Effect working well.
“When a true Genius appears in the World, you may know him by this infallible Sign; that the Dunces are all in Confederacy against him.”
- Jonathan Swift