Theatrical Presence

Abstract

A person can be conquered in battle, but a symbol is immortal. A human has limitations, both physically and affectively on the psychology of the opposition, but an image can be much more than human. The senses of the opposition can be fooled, defeating them with their own stimulated imaginations, by simply understanding what to show them, what to keep hidden, and how to present both. Throughout history, militaries have utilized simple methods to create fear and anxiety by becoming bigger in the minds of their enemy than truth would allow, turning small forces into large ones, creating monsters and gods, and building within the opposition abstract beliefs of unknowable eternal armies of the sacred and profane. Chapter 2 focused on perception as a way of changing known reality to alter enemy’s actions, while this chapter focuses on altering actions though demoralization and the induction of anxiety, allowing the opposition’s own fears to defeat them. Theatrics can be accomplished in two primary ways: through the sensory effects they use, and through the actions they take. In either case, the image presented must be one understood to the opposition through their own system of behaviors and mythologies. The methods by which to trigger such a response are varied and great in number, but the ultimate goal must be to create within the opposition a fantasy. Zhuge Liang, in The Way of the General, states that those who would tell “wild tales and confabulations about the supernatural” are “treacherous […] you should stay away from them.”