And still another thing about the Democrats’ spin on DC crime – it’s imagology
The Democrats’ message that violent crime isn’t bad in Washington DC is a prime example of what Milan Kundera called “imagology.” I’ve written about imagology before; it’s one of the earliest themes on this blog, with my first post on the subject occurring in 2005. Here’s an excerpt that’s very relevant now, twenty years later [emphasis added]:
Here’s a quote from Kundera’s 1990 work Immortality that I think bears another look. He is talking about the ascendance of imagery (which he refers to as “imagology,” meaning suggestive images and slogans) over ideology, or even over reality :
“For example, communists used to believe that in the course of capitalist development the proletariat would gradually grow poorer and poorer, but when it finally became clear that all over Europe workers were driving to work in their own cars, [the communists] felt like shouting that reality was deceiving them. Reality was stronger than ideology. And it is in this sense that imagology surpassed it: imagology is stronger than reality, which has anyway long ceased to be what it was for my grandmother, who lived in a Moravian village and still knew everything through her own experience: how bread is baked, how a house is built, how a pig is slaughtered and the meat smoked, what quilts are made of, what the priest and the schoolteacher think about the world; she met the whole village every day and knew how many murders were committed in the country over the last ten years; she had, so to speak, personal control over reality, and nobody could fool her by maintaining that Moravian agriculture was thriving when people at home had nothing to eat. My Paris neighbor spends his time an an office, where he sits for eight hours facing an office colleague, then he sits in his car and drives home, turns on the TV, and when the announcer informs him that in the latest public opinion poll the majority of Frenchmen voted their country the safest in Europe (I recently read such a report), he is overjoyed and opens a bottle of champagne without ever learning that three thefts and two murders were committed on his street that very day.”
Democrats would like the American public to be like that Paris neighbor of Kundera’s, the one who doesn’t know about the murders in his own neighborhood because the government doesn’t want him to know and the press is cooperating with the government. The left believes it can create an alternate reality that would override the actual reality that people face, and/or convince them that their reality is an illusion, and/or get them to reframe their own reality. In other words, the left is counting on the idea that – as Kundera wrote – “imagology is stronger than reality, which has anyway long ceased to be what it was.” They are counting on people’s willingness to be shaped by the party line, and they are counting on the press (and leftist commentators on social media) to parrot and amplify the party line.
It’s apparent that the leftist imagology process hasn’t quite gotten to the point in the US that the left would prefer. The left keeps striving towards the goal, however, and I see no signs of them giving up. Trump’s election and especially his re-election – and his curious ability to tell blunt and basic truths in language anyone can understand – is a huge threat to them. Trump is counting on reality triumphing over leftist imagology; that is, if he fixes the border, if he reduces crime, if he helps bring peace to warring nations, the majority of Americans will reject the leftist imagology that says that he can’t do it or that it can’t be done or that it’s not even a problem that needs fixing.
It’s a human thing to often choose an illusion over reality. People can choose to remain ignorant and live in an illusion when the alternative is unsatisfactory and incongruent with their own worldview as long as there’s no cost to them personally, or if the cost is negligible anyway. I think a lot of people on the Left are not necessarily as completely unaware of certain realities as we on the right may believe they are. It’s just that they choose to ignore those aspects of reality that they don’t like very much. That’s my theory anyway.
“Crime is nothing. Image is everything. JUST DO IT.” – democrats
It takes a lot of effort to do what they’re trying to do, but one intrusion of reality destroys it all.
Nonapod is almost right–some of my liberal friends are aware of aspects of reality, and they choose to ignore those aspects they don’t like.
But most of them choose to be willfully and totally ignorant of reality. They believe what their left wing media tells them to believe. And no factual presentation will dent their ignorance.
There are evil functionaries to take one
https://x.com/10minutedrill/status/1955996581758689552
The left and imagology – it’s who they are, it’s what they do. I’ve always believed they have to know what they are doing, the mendacity. The question for me has always been why they feel justified in doing it. I assume they believe it’s all for some higher purpose. One would think it would wear on them after years and years of it, but evidently not.
@ Sennacherib > “It takes a lot of effort to do what they’re trying to do, but one intrusion of reality destroys it all.”
Or should destroy it all.
That doesn’t seem to be having an affect on the vast majority, although there is occasionally a Democrat, even a Leftist, who notices that Things Are Not What I’ve Been Told.
Barry linked to a post about Frank Meyers recently; I couldn’t get past the paywall at Civitas, but here is another discussion of him at National Review, for which he wrote after leaving the Communist Party.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/08/what-would-frank-say/
Mining another nugget from the Palin trial I mentioned in the comments about Melania suing Hunter Biden (although if she won, he would want to pay her in artwork), here’s an observation from Neo that comports with the theme of Imagology:
That’s been essentially the story of the Democrats for years, and especially regarding their losses to Trump and MAGA voters: “We just didn’t get our message out, otherwise the voters would agree with us!” and NOT “We have policies the voters don’t like and they got our message loud and clear.”
Years ago, I read a book on the phycological origins of political correctness (now woke). The author pointed out that the PC denies reality and lives in fantasy land.
I thought things were settling down a bit with the left minions. But, this afternoon I was assaulted with posts about how the 4th Reich is descending on DC with Storm Troopers everywhere. And how Trump is going to give away Ukraine and parts of the US to Putin, because he’s Putin’s bitch. The images in their heads are frightening to see when they let them out.
Corollary: this morning there was a brief article on American thinker about the Boomers last gasp and how the protests feature many well past 60. The left minions I follow are also mainly Boomers and they are desperate for huge protests. My Generation continues to embarrass me. I can’t really defend them when my millennial daughters raise criticism.
Oh noes…anyways
Something that was said to me years ago by a wise executive: ”
When you are running a large organization, you are not seeing reality. It’s like you are watching a movie in which you get to see maybe one out of every thousand frames, and from that, you have to figure out what’s going on.”
If this is true of someone running a large organization–and it is–it is even more true of the voter in a large country such as the United States. He cannot possibly have personal knowledge of all the things that should be factored into his political decisions; he has to rely to a considerable extent on the people and organizations that bring those things to him. And that gives those people and organizations enormous power–power which has grown as society has become more complex and less-localized and as personal interactions, which might once have taken the form of a conversation in a living room or over the telephone, are increasingly mediated by technology which is not passive in the way a traditional phone carrier was passive.
There is an interesting novel, dating from 1954, which is set in a future United States, which is still nominally a democracy but in reality is run by the “social engineers”…sophisticated advertising & PR men…who use psychological methods to persuade people that they really want what they are supposed to want. Here’s my review:
https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/69852.html
physicsguy…Boomers and Millennials. But I’ll bet that a much higher % of Millennials than of Boomers voted for Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Biden…and supported the BLM riots and the cancelling of dissident voices.
physicsguy … we Boomers grew up in a Golden Age for the middle class.
So many of our contemporaries have never bothered reading a History book so they simply cannot realize how blessed we were.
They fail to comprehend that it all boils to where and when we happened to be born.
They hate the right because their beloved ‘Main Stream Media’ tells them to do so.
Too many of our contemporaries are unable to actually think for themselves.
I am full of hope that our demographic descendants are sharper than we were.
This is hysterical… and sad: https://notthebee.com/article/this-account-asked-people-to-share-stories-to-prove-dc-crime-isnt-so-bad-and-the-exact-opposite-happened
This isn’t just a problem on the left.
Consider our conservative comrades at National Review et al. who decided it was preferable to vote for Hilary, Biden and Harris, rather than — horrors! — Donald Trump.
It surely seems they were responding to:
______________________
…the ascendance of imagery (which [Kundera] refers to as “imagology,” meaning suggestive images and slogans) over ideology, or even over reality… –neo
This probably wouldnt be happening if buckley were still alive as his successor seem to have taken a semiotic coffee break since he was roughly the same age as warren buffett maybe he might have lasted because health issues
His formative experience after yale was working with the defector eudocio ravines in the yenan way that framed his perspective (its a minor footnote in the tanenhaus bio) this followed with his association with meyer kendall and burnham as well as chambers (the last was the black sheep) who formed national review as a self made aristocrat even though his father was a roughneck oil man like the hunts who inspired dallas
I find “imagology” a cumbersome word and concept and will not use it.
Cicero,
Agree it is a very cumbersome word but I find the concept defines something that badly needs defining and is right on the money.
“we Boomers grew up in a Golden Age for the middle class. So many of our contemporaries have never bothered reading a History book so they simply cannot realize how blessed we were. They fail to comprehend that it all boils to where and when we happened to be born.” Tuvea
Exactly right. The 1970’s had to be the pinnacle of the Republic–the most bang for the taxpayer buck. Civil service workers answered phones and things were resolved. We are a long way from that now, while paying much much more.
As to where and when you happened to be born, the accounts recorded of life in the former Soviet Union are astounding. (Secondhand Time: The Last of the Soviets). The People who suffered horrifying atrocities and yet still supportive of the societal structure that promulgated such unconscionable acts. It is beyond puzzling and very challenging to fathom.
huxley nailed it. Imagology is a (the?) chief component of TDS.
The foolish and/or corrupt Democrats voted for a smooth-talking DEI Halfrican scoundrel, a corrupt DEI female hack, a senile stooge, and a female half-Indian DEI airhead. But, Trump is Hitler!
There are some people who believe the images, which is to say think they are true in detail and in meaning. I mean the conventional “believe”.
From my experience, though, most of those professing to “believe” do not do so in the conventional sense.
Some know better and flatly lie.
Some know better but act and speak as if the image is true.
Some form their world view as if the image is true, while, in another level, knowing it’s not.
It is interesting to see the reactions of the latter three cases when presented with reality.
——— Plato, Republic, Bk. VII . . . . . . (Bloom translation)
https://archive.org/details/plato-republic-bloom-text-2016.num/page/176/mode/1up
“we Boomers grew up in a Golden Age for the middle class. So many of our contemporaries have never bothered reading a History book so they simply cannot realize how blessed we were. They fail to comprehend that it all boils to where and when we happened to be born.” Tuvea Exactly right. The 1970’s had to be the pinnacle of the Republic–the most bang for the taxpayer buck. Civil service workers answered phones and things were resolved. We are a long way from that now, while paying much much more.
==
I cannot tell if the two of you are being ironic or not.
The 70s began the great forgetting theres probably a russian or czech word that fits its when bill ayers found his vocation in education rather than pyrotechnics when the un fully revealed itself as a pack of lions feasting on the lambs when the likes of fools like carter started getting elected
The late arnaud de borchgrave had some of this in his roman a clef the spike with a protagonist in robert hockney who had an evolution like david horowitz
Much of this came from his co author robert moss who was some kind of whitehall military expert he depicted the left wing thinktanks that craft the narrativd every day his only false note was he thought daniel moynihan would turn into some kind of hero
@ Miguel – your comment was packed with intriguing threads to follow.
De Borchgrave and Moss were new names to me, but their careers and writings certainly look interesting.
Moynihan I knew, of course, and he should have been a hero, but he was honest enough to buck the Democrat narrative of the day.*
I suppose he may be called an early victim of the now-endemic Cancel Culture, which didn’t quite succeed in erasing him, although his report didn’t get the action it should have.
Maybe the Democrats (and the country) would be in better shape if they had paid attention.
* He made all the usual enemies for his report, but got support from others who were better informed about reality, as opposed to imagology.
Wikipedia still gives the Moynihan Report its complete title.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Negro_Family:_The_Case_For_National_Action
i speak of how he performed in the senate on domestic policy on foreign policy he was one of the sources for the neocons who were a balance to the overly sympathetic detente view which de borchgrave challenged i think they lost the plot when it came to over reliance on military as a tool of foreign policy
It was esquire in the 90s that i realized the unrestrained for israel even in academia this was even after the oslo accords why norman podhoretz wrote ‘lamentation’ in that period
On the domestic front this privileging of criminals over law abiding citizens which didnt fully metastasize till 2020 but was growing even in the era of ‘broken windows’ theory
More imagology – this could go on a long time, there is always another story supporting Neo’s thesis.
https://thefederalist.com/2025/08/14/democrats-are-lying-to-themselves-about-why-their-party-is-collapsing/
Insert the poem gods of the copy book headings here.
https://twitchy.com/amy-curtis/2025/08/17/mamdani-crown-heights-shooting-n2417452
Thank you for your post, Neo. It was right on the mark. I was reminded of a similar quote by Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov. Both deal with the denial of reality.
I asked Grok to compare the two and this is what it came up with. It is a bit long.
“Thank you for providing the expanded quote from Milan Kundera’s Immortality and the source of the New Neo blog post. Below, I’ll revisit Yuri Bezmenov’s quote on demoralization, explain its context, incorporate the context of the New Neo blog post, and compare Bezmenov’s concept of demoralization to Kundera’s concept of imagology, as presented in the provided passage. I’ll ensure the response is clear, concise, and integrates all relevant details. Context of Bezmenov Quote on Demoralization Yuri Bezmenov, a former KGB agent who defected to the West in 1970, gave a 1984 interview with G. Edward Griffin, where he outlined Soviet strategies for ideological subversion, with demoralization as a key tactic. Demoralization is a deliberate, long-term process (15–20 years) aimed at eroding a society’s moral values, critical thinking, and ability to discern truth by manipulating education, media, and cultural institutions. The goal is to create a population so ideologically conditioned that they reject objective evidence, rendering them passive and manipulable. The specific quote you referenced is:
“As I mentioned before, exposure to true information does not matter anymore. A person who was demoralized is unable to assess true information. The facts tell nothing to him. Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures; even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union and show him [a] concentration camp, he will refuse to believe it, until he [receives] a kick in his fat-bottom. When a military boot crashes his balls then he will understand. But not before that. That’s the [tragedy] of the situation of demoralization.”
This quote emphasizes how demoralization creates a cognitive barrier, preventing individuals from accepting evidence of atrocities like the Soviet gulags—forced labor camps where an estimated 1.5–2 million people died and millions more were imprisoned from the 1930s to 1950s, as documented by historians like Anne Applebaum in Gulag: A History. Bezmenov argues that only a direct, personal shock can break through this conditioning. His warning was rooted in Cold War fears of Soviet influence, highlighting how psychological warfare could undermine Western societies. Context of Kundera’s Imagology Quote and New Neo’s Blog Post.
The quote on imagology is from Milan Kundera’s Immortality (1990), as cited in a blog post from The New Neo, dated August 15, 2025, titled “And still another thing about the Democrats’ spin on DC crime – it’s imagology.” The full passage is:
“For example, communists used to believe that in the course of capitalist development the proletariat would gradually grow poorer and poorer, but when it finally became clear that all over Europe workers were driving to work in their own cars, [the communists] felt like shouting that reality was deceiving them. Reality was stronger than ideology. And it is in this sense that imagology surpassed it: imagology is stronger than reality, which has anyway long ceased to be what it was for my grandmother, who lived in a Moravian village and still knew everything through her own experience: how bread is baked, how a house is built, how a pig is slaughtered and the meat smoked, what quilts are made of, what the priest and the schoolteacher think about the world; she met the whole village every day and knew how many murders were committed in the country over the last ten years; she had, so to speak, personal control over reality, and nobody could fool her by maintaining that Moravian agriculture was thriving when people at home had nothing to eat. My Paris neighbor spends his time an an office, where he sits for eight hours facing an office colleague, then he sits in his car and drives home, turns on the TV, and when the announcer informs him that in the latest public opinion poll the majority of Frenchmen voted their country the safest in Europe (I recently read such a report), he is overjoyed and opens a bottle of champagne without ever learning that three thefts and two murders were committed on his street that very day.”
Kundera’s concept of imagology describes the manipulation of images, slogans, and narratives to shape public perception, often overriding both ideology and reality. He contrasts the direct, experience-based reality of his grandmother’s rural life—where she knew her world intimately and could not be fooled by false narratives—with the modern, disconnected life of his Paris neighbor, who relies on media-driven images. The neighbor accepts a poll claiming France is Europe’s safest country, ignoring the reality of crime on his street. Kundera uses the example of communists expecting the proletariat to grow poorer under capitalism, only to face evidence of workers’ improving conditions (e.g., owning cars). Instead of admitting error, they shift to new narratives, demonstrating imagology’s power to eclipse reality. New Neo’s Blog Context: The New Neo blog, authored by a self-described former liberal who became a conservative, focuses on political change and cultural issues, often critiquing progressive narratives. In the August 15, 2025, post, New Neo applies Kundera’s imagology to argue that Democrats are spinning Washington, D.C.’s crime statistics to project an image of declining crime, despite evidence of persistent violence. The post suggests this mirrors Kundera’s description of communists abandoning discredited ideas without acknowledgment, shifting to new narratives to maintain public perception. New Neo connects this to broader Democratic messaging, implying a deliberate effort to obscure reality for political gain. The blog cites posts on X from August 2025, which highlight D.C.’s ongoing crime issues, including homicides, assaults on Congressional staffers, and calls for federal intervention, suggesting a disconnect between official claims and lived experiences.
Comparison of Demoralization and Imagology Similarities: Obscuring Reality: Both demoralization and imagology involve manipulating perceptions to obscure truth. Bezmenov’s demoralized individuals deny the existence of gulags despite evidence, while Kundera’s imagologies craft narratives (e.g., safety in Europe or declining D.C. crime) that contradict lived realities like local crime.
Ideological Manipulation: Demoralization uses ideology to condition societies over decades, while imagology adapts ideological narratives to maintain influence when reality contradicts them, as seen in the communist example and New Neo’s critique of Democratic spin.
Reliance on Media: Demoralization relies on controlling media and education to shape beliefs, while imagology uses media-driven images and polls to create immediate perceptions, as in the Paris neighbor’s acceptance of a safety narrative or D.C.’s crime statistics.
Differences: Scope and Timescale: Demoralization is a long-term, systematic strategy to destabilize entire societies, as Bezmenov described in the Soviet context. Imagology, as used by Kundera and New Neo, is a tactical, often reactive manipulation of public images, such as spinning D.C. crime data to maintain political support.
Mechanisms: Demoralization fundamentally alters cognitive processes, making people incapable of processing truth. Imagology focuses on surface-level perception management, projecting favorable images without necessarily reshaping deep cognitive structures.
Connection to Reality: Kundera’s imagology thrives in a modern world where people are disconnected from direct experience, as New Neo argues in the D.C. context, where residents may accept official crime stats over their own observations. Demoralization doesn’t require this disconnect; it affects even those with access to evidence, as they’re conditioned to reject it.
Outcome: Demoralization aims to weaken societies for collapse or takeover, while imagology seeks to maintain political or social control by projecting favorable images, as New Neo suggests Democrats do with D.C. crime narratives.
Broader Context: Bezmenov’s quote reflects Cold War anxieties about Soviet psychological warfare, warning that demoralization could blind Western societies to threats like the gulags. Kundera’s imagology, written in 1990, critiques a post-Cold War cultural shift where media-driven images dominate perception, disconnecting people from reality. New Neo’s 2025 blog post applies this to contemporary U.S. politics, arguing that Democrats use imagology to mask D.C.’s crime issues, supported by X posts highlighting ongoing violence and public frustration. Both concepts underscore the dangers of manipulation, but demoralization is a deeper, more insidious process, while imagology is a nimble, image-based tactic suited to a media-saturated world.”