You Want to Be Deceived
How Power Uses Obfuscation And Willing Ignorance To Survive
“He who deceives will always find those who allow themselves to be deceived.”
— Niccolò Machiavelli
This quote by Machiavelli is more than a novelty of his work; it is an essential part of how power truly functions.
First of all, it must be understood that power is not an evil force. It is a neutral force that is applied by humans and can be used for good or for evil. (READ MORE ABOUT THAT HERE: “The Lie Of Power”) With this reasonable and defensible frame, you stop moralizing power and start to see that power is a function that is granted to those in positions of immense influence within a society. The moralization of power is part of the obfuscation of it. If you classify all power as evil, and those who hold it as unreasonable, disconnected, and malicious, that is not clarity; that is an obfuscation that protects the true nature of power.
That is why narratives of occult elite circles that greatly influence or rule the world are permitted and even promoted among the general population. Not because they are untrue, but because they are an effective moral endpoint that seemingly satisfies people into a state of docility. This is one of many ways power is obfuscated and the deception of its practices is portrayed to the public.
Another way power is obfuscated is through procedural legality. For instance, a media company may be sponsored by a pharmaceutical company and have signed an agreement not to shed any negative publicity on that company.
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These are two examples among many. They are mentioned here to establish a pattern.
Power is inherently ambiguous and deceptive. Hobbes told us this very clearly.
“The reputation of power is power.”
-Thomas Hobbes
Power in elite society, or even within an institution, is hidden from those who are uninitiated or deemed untrustworthy. It is also hidden for purposes of rivalry and factional interest. If a rival understands the full extent of another rival’s interests, they may form a plan to subvert that individual’s influence. With ambiguity, however, the rival is left confused or distracted on one front while being destroyed on another.
History is very clear about power being ambiguous and inherently deceptive in order to maintain itself.
The Venetian Republic, which operated roughly from 700–1800, is a perfect example. Power fractured itself through councils, committees, and secret bodies, making it incredibly difficult to determine who was responsible for decisions. This feature of power also prevented both the public and the elite class from inducing coups against those in authority, because they simply did not know who was in power at any given time. Authority remained ambiguous. This structure endured for so long precisely because it was never clear to either the people or the elites where control truly resided.
Another example of this can be found in the British Empire. The empire often ruled through local elites, chiefs, and institutions rather than through visible imperial force. This diffused power and responsibility away from the empire and toward local symbols of authority. Imperial control was often barely felt because local rulers remained in place, even as they were subordinated to British interests. This ambiguity in where power truly resided was an essential feature of the empire’s colonization of the world.
As you have seen, both logic and history are clear on this point: power obfuscates itself to the public and to rivals not because it is inherently malicious, but because it is designed and trained to maintain ambiguity for survival and advantage.
There is another important facet related to the quote being dissected here. Deception also works because the people allow it, or even want it to work. Deception from power is obfuscated, complex, boring, and procedural, but it is not invisible and it is not hidden from the public. It simply requires effort, reasoning, and logic to uncover. This comes from a combination of training one’s mind in pattern recognition, cognitive reasoning, logical chains, history, and philosophy. This may seem like an excessive amount of training to uncover power, but it is the absolute minimum.
