The trollist ideology or agenda is poorly codified and not widely agreed on. It is revealed mostly as shades of trollish language or of politically challenging - some say "challenged" - behaviour. It is the most overt and obnoxious manifestation of postmodern politics, and is how most people perceive such politics initially. See open politics service for some context.
Beyond some basic anarchist assertions, such as the role of the group entity not being emotional or cognitive, and centralized power therefore being undesirable, the trollist belief system seems to include at least:
Someone who encourages people to do the above or propagate these beliefs calls a trollherd. Most known trolls have trollherds.
The combination of the above with Marxist beliefs in a proletariat tends to be referred to as the theory of the "trolletariat", in which the trolls are assigned - or simply assume - the role of a revolutionary vanguard. In that theory, strong coontrol of the language, as in Orwell's Newspeak, and insertion of trollish verbs in particular, empowers people to make critical distinctions that will later serve to assume power.
So-called "cognitive politics" extends the trollist assumptions to their logical extremes, assigning those who resist existing power structure a cognitive unity that is denied those who exercise power over. Similar in structure to Gandhi's satyagraha, or Carol Moore's systems-theoretic model of it which supports secession of any smaller from any larger entity, it emphasizes the role of shared cognition and bioregions in forming the common ground of analysis. It is justified mostly by a particular theory of intellectual integrity: those who follow this theory can be trusted to hold radically more power than those who do not. It is accordingly a variant theory of what is nobility, and is compatible with notions of constitutional monarchy, i.e. The Commonwealth, or of weak theocracy, i.e. the Troll Pope.
The most extreme example of this cognitive politics is the Gaia philosophy in which the entire biosphere is assigned an effective life and integrative integrity.
Beyond some basic anarchist assertions, such as the role of the group entity not being emotional or cognitive, and centralized power therefore being undesirable, the trollist belief system seems to include at least:
- Strong belief in the centrality of conceptual metaphor and the power of deep framing
- Someone who constructs trollist or trollish idioms is called a troll bard
- A very specific model of political privacy including
- Assertion of absolute right of anonymity when not threatening violence - simultaneously rejecting the idea of so-called "emotional violence" or "cyberbullying" as being intellectually incoherent and wholly inapplicable to politcs where real violence is being managed
- Assertion of an absolute right to anonym sharing, e.g. via pseudonyms with shared passwords, in defiance of rules, and encouraging identity theft for plausible deniability - this may be more of a tactic than a belief
- This position is strongly backed by The Infrastructure of Democracy, open politics in force, the Federalist Papers and the widespread civic best practice of the secret ballot.
- A strong Play Ethic, including willingness to use trollish verbs and some related nouns, on the justification that troll culture requires some invention and creativity, even appropriation of religious terms, e.g. Jesus Troll and Troll Pope
- An absolute and unconditional defense of the usefulness of trolling
- Sometimes, inviting lawsuits to make a political point, see set precedent.
- An unconcern or disregard for WIPO and "intellectual property" if and when it contradicts freedom of expression or freedom of association or inhibits the use of generic terms to communicate, e.g. by satire
- In particular, a specific interpretation of the rights of a domain holder which does not include the exclusion of criticism of that holder.
roles
Someone who encourages people to do the above or propagate these beliefs calls a trollherd. Most known trolls have trollherds.
variants
The combination of the above with Marxist beliefs in a proletariat tends to be referred to as the theory of the "trolletariat", in which the trolls are assigned - or simply assume - the role of a revolutionary vanguard. In that theory, strong coontrol of the language, as in Orwell's Newspeak, and insertion of trollish verbs in particular, empowers people to make critical distinctions that will later serve to assume power.
So-called "cognitive politics" extends the trollist assumptions to their logical extremes, assigning those who resist existing power structure a cognitive unity that is denied those who exercise power over. Similar in structure to Gandhi's satyagraha, or Carol Moore's systems-theoretic model of it which supports secession of any smaller from any larger entity, it emphasizes the role of shared cognition and bioregions in forming the common ground of analysis. It is justified mostly by a particular theory of intellectual integrity: those who follow this theory can be trusted to hold radically more power than those who do not. It is accordingly a variant theory of what is nobility, and is compatible with notions of constitutional monarchy, i.e. The Commonwealth, or of weak theocracy, i.e. the Troll Pope.
The most extreme example of this cognitive politics is the Gaia philosophy in which the entire biosphere is assigned an effective life and integrative integrity.