In Richard Adams’s Watership Down, a story about rabbits leaving their home in search of a new one, the protagonists come across a particularly mysterious warren. The rabbits residing in the warren are strange creatures who share a common secret. They are well fed and protected by a human who leaves them food and kills their predators. But there is something not quite right with these rabbits.
They seem nice enough and allow the protagonists to join them. Their warren is enormous, but mostly empty. They refuse to answer questions about where the other rabbits residing there have gone. Instead of telling tales of the bravery (or trickery) of their common rabbit ancestor, they recite poetry about dignity and the acceptance of fate.
In fact, the rabbits are living in a state of denial. The human is not feeding them or killing their predators because he is altruistic. He is farming the rabbits; killing just enough of them with his snares that they do not leave. While the rabbits understand what is happening, they refuse to acknowledge fact. Those rabbits brave enough to speak openly about the snare are killed. After all, the snare brings with it perceived safety from the outside world.
And when the rabbits offered our protagonists to join their warren, they, too, were not motivated by altruism. Rather, the offer is strictly pragmatic: the more rabbits that live in the warren, the lower the chances that any one rabbit will be killed by the snare.
Geez. That sounds eerily familiar.
My dad talked me into reading that book in the 1970s, I do remember not quite understanding all of its messages because I was young at the time, early teens. I very much need to revisit it, I think! Another interesting one my dad “made me” read was, Stranger in a Strange Land. I think he was trying to tell me something without actually telling me! I do miss his wisdom, especially now.
Rabbits in the wild use different tactic: if they fear a predator lurking outside the burrow, they will sometimes kick a baby rabbit or an old one out, to see if the really is a predator there.
For the ones doing the kicking, it's a win-win solution.
I'll let you draw your own conclusions as to which ideology that matches.