Prosthetic Memories, Dragons, and the Code
Putin tries to rearchetype the Soviet era with lies to create support today for nostalgia. “Halcyon innocent times.” Prosthetic memories. Russia, like Poland’s Law and Justice Party, uses multiple means to implant false memories in its population. His father, a highly qualified engineer, would have known these were lies. Yet prosthetic memories take hold of our minds while rapacious oligarchs enslave us.
Source: Pensées (112)
Half asleep. Half awake. While prosthetic memories take hold of our minds. Meanwhile rapacious oligarchs enslave us. Well, two can play at that game! Ukraine can plant true memories. True Trauma. True dreams. True Traum. Traum is dream in German.
Source: Twitter, 2025-07-12
Never go there. Don’t go west of the Don. Dragons live there.
Ukraine’s goal in this war is to ensure that for a hundred years, children born east of the Don River will be told from birth: never cross the Don. Dragons live there. This IS rearchetyping — Ukraine planting a new archetype in Russian minds that replaces “Ukraine is weak” with “Ukraine is terrifying.”
Rearchetyping Works Both Ways
This passage demonstrates a crucial principle: rearchetyping is not exclusively a tool of Counter-Disinfolklore. Disinfolklorists themselves practise rearchetyping:
- Putin rearchetypes the Soviet era — implanting prosthetic memories of a golden age that never existed, to generate nostalgic support for his war
- Ukraine rearchetypes itself as Dragon — planting true trauma (Infolklore) in Russian minds to deter future aggression
Both are rearchetyping. Both reshape archetypes at scale. The question is: which is Positive Trolling and which is Negative?
The Code as Evaluative Dimension
Just as all aggressors claim to be Trito (the rightful hero recovering stolen cattle), all rearchetypers claim to be telling the truth. Therefore, we need the Code of Positive Trolls as the evaluative dimension to distinguish between:
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Positive rearchetyping (Infolklore) — passes all six criteria. Ukraine’s “Dragons live there” is generous (protects its people), ethically disciplined (based on true military achievement), patient (a 100-year project), energetic, focused, and wise.
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Negative rearchetyping (Disinfolklore) — fails the Code. Putin’s prosthetic Soviet nostalgia is ungenerous (serves only the regime), ethically undisciplined (built on lies), impatient (manufactures urgency), and lacking wisdom (repeats the same failed strategies).
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Neutral rearchetyping — neither clearly positive nor negative. Requires further adjudication.
Without the Code, rearchetyping is just a technique — available to heroes and serpents alike. With the Code, it becomes an ethical practice.