The Weaponization of Perceptions: Part I

Photo by Jr Korpa on Unsplash

Violence is rarely spontaneous. It’s planted and watered over time through the stories we tell about “us” and “them.” Those stories often rely on the same tactics I’ve seen in abusive systems and relationships, tactics designed to distort reality, shape perceptions, and make harm seem not only acceptable but necessary.

You’ll recognize the tactics described in this post if you’ve ever been a target of manipulative narratives designed to discredit you to others.

These are some of the more difficult deceptions to resist as those who seek to make you appear worse than you are don’t need to invent lies. They only need to distort the truth. They’ll exaggerate any flaw, however small, until it eclipses everything else about you. They’ll belittle your strengths so they no longer seem worthy of admiration. They’ll link you to people or ideas you’ve never supported, or deny you association with those you have, all to strip away your humanity and credibility.

These are strategies used to weaponize perception and they’re some of the oldest tools of deception used to cultivate hate and justify harm.

This post is the first of a two-part series on how those tactics work. Here, we’ll explore four of them. All four have been identified in scholarly research on impression management. I’ve reframed them with clearer language so they’re easier to recognize in everyday life.

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A Maze of Distorted Mirrors

At a recent local street fair, one of the attractions was a maze of warped mirrors. It’s a helpful metaphor for how language can twist our understanding of people and groups.

Walk through the maze and you’ll see ten versions of yourself. One mirror stretches your image into something grotesque. Another shrinks you into insignificance. A third flips you inside out, highlighting flaws while hiding strengths. If you weren’t careful, you might start believing those distortions were real.

The same thing happens in unhealthy systems. Instead of mirrors, words and narratives are crafted to distort reality. They exaggerate faults, erase virtues, tie people to what is hated, and cut them off from what is loved. And they do it not by accident, but as a deliberate strategy of power.

These distortions aren’t random insults or misunderstandings. They are calculated attempts to manipulate perception and create enemies where there were once neighbors. They fuel an “us versus them” divide by convincing us that “they” are dangerous, foolish, evil, or unworthy, and that “we” are justified in our hostility. Over time, these distorted mirrors do more than change how we see others. They shape how we treat them. They make contempt feel righteous. They make cruelty feel necessary.

But we are not powerless in the face of these tactics. When we learn to recognize and name them, we begin to reclaim our vision. We start to see clearly again. And with clarity comes the power to resist the narratives that divide, dehumanize, and destroy.

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How Reality Gets Distorted

Once you know what to look for, you’ll start spotting these tactics everywhere. You’ll find them in political speeches, social media feeds, workplace conflicts, and even conversations around the dinner table. They’re subtle tools used to shape perception, influence loyalties, and weaponize identity.

Here are four of the most common strategies. Keep in mind that wherever you find one of these tactics, you’ll likely find the other three as well, as all of them work together to shape a single narrative.

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1. Basking in Reflected Glory (BIRGing): Borrowing Greatness

BIRGing happens when a person, group, or organization aligns itself with something widely admired to bask in its reflected glow. A church might highlight its friendship with a well-known humanitarian. A political movement might claim the legacy of a beloved leader. A company might frame its mission as part of a noble struggle for justice.

On the surface, this can seem harmless and even inspiring. But when used manipulatively, it hides deep problems behind a borrowed reputation. The glow of what’s good distracts from the harm being done. And when someone keeps comparing themselves to those you trust, you’re less likely to question their behavior.

You might hear a pastor accused of financial misconduct remind the congregation of the church’s partnership with a well-known charity: “How could we possibly be corrupt when we’ve given so much to orphans overseas?” Or a leader confronted about abuse might cite their record of being the recipient of God’s favor and blessing: “Look at how much God has done through them. How dare you question their integrity?” These examples are meant to disarm criticism by cloaking harm in borrowed virtue, persuading people that their close association with the good, and even divine, means they cannot also do harm.

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2. Casting Off Reflected Failure (CORFing): Defining Yourself by Who You’re Not

If BIRGing is about basking in another’s success, CORFing is about distancing yourself from someone else’s failure. It’s the loud proclamation: We’re not like them. A group might emphasize how different it is from a “corrupt” rival. A leader might draw a hard line between their “pure” movement and the “dangerous” others.

CORFing builds enemies and binaries: good versus evil, faithful versus heretical, patriotic versus unpatriotic. And when people are told repeatedly that “we” are good precisely because “they” are bad, fear and hatred become part of the group’s moral logic.

A church might assure members, “We’re not one of those progressive churches that compromise biblical truth,” or, in another context, “We’re not like those fundamentalists who abuse power.” In both cases, nuance and complexity is ignored in order to define identity through contrast and position critics or outsiders as the real danger. A whistleblower raising concerns might be dismissed as a “bitter ex-member,” while those who remain are praised for their loyalty. The message is clear: belonging requires rejecting the “other.”

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3. Polishing Allies: Elevating Those on “Our Side”

Polishing allies goes beyond positive association. It exaggerates and amplifies the virtues of those within the group while downplaying or ignoring their failures. It’s the excessive praise of insiders, the relentless highlighting of their successes, and the convenient forgetting of their mistakes.

This creates echo chambers of affirmation where nuance disappears. Accountability gets dismissed, and critical thinking is replaced with blind loyalty. When a movement spends all its time polishing the image of insiders, it leaves no space for honest reflection. And without honest reflection, harmful behavior thrives.

A board might respond to a scandal by saying, “Our pastor has been such a faithful shepherd for decades. He’s human and made a mistake, but we must focus on all the good he’s done.” Or a ministry under investigation might launch a campaign celebrating its “decades of impact” instead of addressing the harm reported by survivors. These attempts to polish allies don’t just minimize wrongdoing. They create an environment where harm is harder to name because it is continually overshadowed by carefully curated praise.

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4. Demonizing Opponents: Magnifying Flaws to Dehumanize

Perhaps the most corrosive tactic is demonizing opponents. This involves relentlessly highlighting every flaw (real or imagined), exaggerating mistakes, and reducing people to caricatures. Their worst moments are replayed on loop. Their humanity is stripped away until they’re no longer seen as people but as problems to be eliminated.

Once someone is reduced to a problem, cruelty starts to feel justified. It’s just a few short steps from “They’re wrong” to “They’re dangerous” to “They must be stopped.”

A whistleblower might be labeled “unstable” or “vengeful,” with selective details of their past shared to discredit them. A survivor might be mocked or painted as “attention-seeking” to undermine their testimony. Or a group advocating for reform might be portrayed as “wolves in sheep’s clothing” to warn others against listening to them. These narratives don’t just tarnish reputations. They isolate people from support, justify mistreatment, and silence those who speak the truth.

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The Emotional Toll

Each of these tactics (BIRGing, CORFing, Polishing Allies, and Demonizing Opponents) may look different on the surface, but they serve the same purpose: to distort perception and secure power. They narrow our field of vision until all we can see are stories that benefit those in control. And when that happens, empathy begins to erode. The “other” becomes less deserving of compassion, less worthy of listening, less human.

This is how abusive systems sustain themselves. Not just through overt violence or coercion, but through stories that are repeated, rehearsed, and refined until it shapes how entire communities see the world and one another.

In toxic cultures, these tactics become part of the air we breathe. Leaders use them to protect their image. Followers repeat them to signal loyalty. Environments amplify them through headlines, hashtags, and sermons. Together, they make us seem good and them seem bad and, eventually, less than human. Once someone has been stripped of complexity, empathy, and value, mistreating them feels less like harm and more like justice.

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A Call to Clarity

Learning to recognize these distortions is not an abstract exercise. It’s a step toward reclaiming our shared humanity. When we see the stories being spun and name them for what they are, we loosen their grip. We can choose to question rather than echo, to understand rather than condemn, to see people as people rather than as mirrors of our fear or containers for our anger.

And that’s where real change begins.

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Looking Ahead

The four tactics we’ve explored here shape perception by adding or amplifying information: spotlighting what flatters, exaggerating what condemns, and weaving narratives that divide. But perception can also be weaponized through subtraction: by hiding, minimizing, or obscuring truths that might challenge the system’s preferred story. In Part II of this series, we’ll look at four additional strategies that operate in the shadows: the ways power conceals connections, downplays harm, and manipulates what we don’t see. Learning to recognize those quieter distortions is just as essential to resisting the narratives that cultivate hate and to reclaiming a more truthful, humane vision of one another.