by James Corbett
corbettreport.com
January 22, 2021
You'll recall that late last year I was exploring the central role that narrative plays in shaping our lives. Although it may sound trivial at first glance, story-telling is not just a fundamental part of the human experience, it is one of the primary ways we come to an understanding of the world around us.
From earliest childhood—listening to our parents reading stories to us at bedtime—we learn that the events that shape our world don't just happen. Instead, they follow familiar plot trajectories in which protagonists set out on quests, encounter obstacles, surmount challenges, battle antagonists and ultimately resolve their conflicts by using what they have learned along their journey. This isn't just how story works; for the narrative mind, this is how the world works.
This is one of the central insights of my Film, Literature and the New World Order series: movies, books and TV series aren't mere popcorn entertainment. They reflect our understanding of the world, and—in the hands of the would-be social engineers and predictive programmers—even the dumbest B-movie can be used to implant an idea in the public's mind. By this method, fiction writers and film producers play a part in indirectly controlling the public's perception of the world.
So it only stands to reason that those who are trying to write the script of history and steer world events would steal a trick or two from the fiction writer's playbook, right? And if you want to keep your audience hooked to a far-fetched adventure tale, who better to steal from than the "master of suspense" himself, Alfred Hitchcock?
Full credit for this insight goes to David Knight, who, on his most recent broadcast, used a clip of Hitchcock explaining an old storytelling trick to illustrate a point about how politicians and others get the public on board with their agenda:
LINK TO VIDEO: https://odysee.com/Alfred-Hitchcock-on-Politics-of-Pandemic---Climate:52e2a9a53cc4328b051dab4df82bd3fbf17de588
In the clip, talk show host Dick Cavett asks Hitchcock to explain a narrative device that the famed British-born film director often employed in his films: the so-called "MacGuffin."
"A MacGuffin," explains Hitchcock, "you see in most films about spies. It is the thing that the spies are after. In the days of Rudyard Kipling, it would be the plans of the fort on the Khyber Pass. It would be the plans of an airplane engine and the plans of an atom bomb. Anything you like."
Coined by English screenwriter and Hitchcock collaborator Angus MacPhail, the meaningless of the name "MacGuffin" is reflective of the fact that, for the audience, the actual nature of the MacGuffin in a particular story is ultimately inconsequential. Its only function is to motivate the characters in the plot. Or, as Hitchcock sums up, "It is the thing that the characters on the screen worry about but the audience don't care [about]."
David Knight's keen insight is that the "MacGuffin" is not just a narrative device that spy fiction writers use to spin out an exciting action story. It is also employed by the writers of the "Great Narrative" to keep the public on board with their agenda.
Think of it this way: imagine you're a eugenics-obsessed billionaire supervillain who wants to erect a technocratic control grid to micromanage the lives of billions of people around the planet. How do you actually go about doing that? Do you simply announce yourself as ruler of the world and threaten to destroy the planet if you don't get your way? Of course not. That's comic book supervillain-level thinking.
No, you invent a MacGuffin as a pretext so that the masses can delude themselves into thinking that you're taking over the planet in order to save it.
Now that's real-world supervillian-level thinking!
But just as the actual identity of the MacGuffin doesn't matter to the fiction writer—the plans to a fort on the Khyber pass, the Ark of the Covenant, a mysterious glowing briefcase—the actual identity of the Great Narrative MacGuffin is similarly inconsequential. Whether it's a virus or a shadowy terror group or the threat of manmade climate change, as long as the global "audience" can be convinced that there is something menacing out there, then they will, more often than not, willingly embrace the proposed "solutions" of the globalist technocrats.
One of the most obvious examples of this phenomenon comes in the 1991 book, The First Global Revolution, where the gaggle of would-be world controllers at The Club of Rome plainly admit that they worked backward from their proposed solution (finding "a common enemy against whom we can unite") to arrive at their environmental MacGuffin ("the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like").
"In searching for a common enemy against whom we can unite, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like, would fit the bill. In their totality and their interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which must be confronted by everyone together. But in designating these dangers as the enemy, we fall into the trap, which we have already warned readers about, namely mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention in natural processes, and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then is humanity itself."
As the authors of the book themselves admit, the threat of environmental damage isn't actually their concern. No, it's merely a convenient way to explain to the masses why the takeover of $100 trillion in global assets and the consolidation of control in the hands of the financial elite is happening.
But here's a more recent and lesser-known example of the same MacGuffin strategy being used to bamboozle the public into supporting an ulterior agenda. It occurred in May of 2014, when Lynn Forester de Rothschild (who else?) gathered together 250 of the globalist "superclass" for a conference in London.
But this wasn't just any gathering of globalists. These 250 corporate and financial chieftains represented $30 trillion of investment wealth, i.e., 1/3 of all investment capital on the planet. In one room. At one time. All of them assembled for a conference by a Rothschild (by marriage).
What's not to trust?
But still, the sight of so much wealth and power gathered in a single soiree was too much for even the mainstream mockingbirds to ignore. So how did National Petroleum Radio cover it?
"World's Richest People Meet, Muse On How To Spread The Wealth"
Of course, the Powers That Shouldn't Be are not dumb. They are at least smart enough to recognize that the plebs know that the trillionaire class does not convene to talk about how to "spread the wealth." No, if they gather in one room, they are going to talk about their favourite topic: how to increase their own wealth, power and influence.
So, in order to set the narrative and get the credulous public on board with their quest for consolidation of control, they needed a MacGuffin. In this case, the MacGuffin was "inclusive capitalism," the ostensible topic of discussion at the conference.
But what is inclusive capitalism, exactly? You might as well ask Hitchcock what is a MacGuffin, exactly; you'll get roughly as meaningful an answer. Maybe it's the plans for a nuclear weapon. Or a device for hunting lions in the Scottish highlands. Who cares? It doesn't matter.
Humorously, even NPR was forced to concede as much in their puff piece on the conference:
"That phrase, 'inclusive capitalism,' is deliberately broad," the report concedes. "People talked about it as valuing long-term investment over short-term profits. Some mentioned environmental stewardship; others focused on treating workers well."
Then, as if to demonstrate the entire point, they detail the definition of "inclusive capitalism" proffered by one prominent attendee: "Christine Lagarde, who runs the International Monetary Fund, said it is a way to rebuild trust in the financial system."
Ahhh, of course. Environment? Long-term thinking? Treating workers well? Whatever, who cares? As long as the public is tricked into putting their trust back into the financial system, it doesn't really matter.
And this is how the MacGuffin is used by the scriptwriters of world events. There is no shortage of examples of this narrative device being employed if you keeps your eye peeled for it in the daily news coverage, and now that you have a name for it you will be able to spot it in an instant.
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