Divide and Conquer · Keep Divided To Keep Conquered

The oldest instrument of domination, and its second half — which is the part usually missed. Dividing wins the first fight; keeping divided is what makes the winning permanent.

The mechanism runs on two tools working together, and neither works alone. Identity does the sorting: people are grouped, named, categorised, and set against each other along whatever lines will hold. Fear does the binding: the more danger each group can be shown in the other, the stronger the hardening between them (Identity, Fear, Kontrolle, Prevalence Of Deceit And Propaganda).

Then the loop closes on its own. The harder the division, the less each group has to do with the other; the less contact, the more each identifies with what makes it different rather than with what it shares; and a people that identifies primarily by its differences cannot be rallied by anything, including its own interest (Navigating Difference, Belonging, Multi-Polar Traps).

That is why the second half of the name matters. A conquered people that reunites has to be conquered again; a conquered people kept divided never has to be. So the maintenance is continuous, and it is much cheaper than the conquest was (Control Of Information, Manufactured Dependency, Centralization Of Power).

The counter is not unity as a slogan, which is the same instrument pointed the other way. It is the ordinary work of contact across a line: shared stories, shared work, shared meals, and the discovery of what is actually held in common, which is almost always more than either side was told (Share the Stories, The Golden Thread, Dialogos, Welcoming The Stranger, Reconciliation).

And the diagnostic is usable today, on anything. When an account of a conflict makes the other side incomprehensible, ask who benefits from your not understanding them. The answer is rarely either side (Discernment, No False-Oppositional Framings, The Meta Dragon).

Also called: divide and conquer · keep divided to keep conquered Stands on: Kontrolle · Fear · Identity Opens onto: The Game of Empire and Oligarchy · Navigating Difference · Reconciliation · The Golden Thread · No False-Oppositional Framings · Multi-Polar Traps · Control Of Information · Welcoming The Stranger In play: the table — read against any account that makes the other side unintelligible Sources: LIØNSBERG Wiki Books/Pass The Flame… §VI (draft — the two tools and the modern form named in one passage) Open: The source names a modern form of this by a contested political label; the mechanism is carried here and the label is not. · Nothing distinguishes a division maintained by someone from a difference that is simply real, and the distinction decides whether reconciliation is the right move.