As a practitioner of elections for more than four decades, much in this excellent post is not new to me. Democrats, in particular but not exclusively, have long made it their strategy to make as many people dependent upon them as possible, including Social Security and Medicare (45-60 million people) supplemental nutrition assistance programs (another 40 million), and of course the growing legion of Medicaid recipients (I've lost count). That is why Democrats seek to nationalize all health care, expand Social Security (going broke in 10 years), and throwing all sorts of money (see: Inflation Reduction Act) at favored constituences, especially in the green energy sector. The next battle is over nationalization of pensions and other retirement programs. And get ready for your "social credit score."
All very true and all the same across the developed world. Though in fairness one mustn’t also forget the tendency to protect big business from failure through bailouts and the like. It is all part of the same picture.
This idea goes way back to the beginnings of Christianity, if not before that. There is a reason the Gospel of Thomas was not included in the books of the Bible, even though it contained important messages. Its main message was that people could have their own *direct* relationship/communion with God (without the need of religion or a church). This was a threat to the Catholic Church, for it removed a lot of their control. Over the years, the use of fear (God will punish you if...) was integral to their religious doctrines with some periods being more radical than others (think The Crusades, among others).
Voltaire also frequently touched upon this subject in his philosophical writings. "Si Dieux n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer" comes to mind ("If God didn't exist, we would have to invent him.") The gist of the idea here being that through his presence in society, it serves as a means to "control" a society , especially so as to not have the masses rebel against the monarchy.
Since the earliest times, people instinctively have had sense of attachment to authoritative figures which could provide them with a sense of security. Those in power know these constructs very well and have perfected, adapted, and honed their methods to the "modern" (technological) world, primarily in the form of a 'technocratic autocracy'. That is their religious dogma. They see themselves as God-like rulers (full of arrogance and other evils). They manipulate and exploit through these mechanisms of fear to enlarge their webs of control while destroying the spiritual fabric of their subjects.
One of the main reasons why it works is because they were cunning enough to remove God, or spirituality from the masses. As people lose their inner sense of spirit and light, they are more prone to become entangled into the darkness. Wokeism, transgenderism and the like are prime examples of how these souls have been usurped into states of unswerving compliance.
Until the scales tip back in favor of spirituality and light, their dark machinations will continue to ruin humanity.
Foucault is actually really good on this point - how the pastoral power of the church was transposed into the secular realm in the form of the state. There is so much to say about that issue - I am very interested to read your posts about it.
Thank you David. I will read up more on Foucault, as I am less familiar with him. I wish I had more time to write about these topics, but have to cover/expose some of the evils first.
Deep thoughts .... with the ring of truth. Gets us back to the "good vs. evil" framework that a few more writers are starting to highlight. Maybe the counter to this "fear" mechanism of control is to get more people to understand that they should really fear their rulers. Spiritual leaders could frame this as saying our secular leaders are trying to move us away from God.
The reason I've focussed so much on "early spread" is not just to prove it happened; my real goal is to get more people to understand that our leaders should not be trusted. They are dangerous and the real enemy of freedom. They are trying to guide us away from our better angels.
You always spark more thoughts in my head Bill (would be great to site face-to-face over a nice pint of beer one day!).
First though, when you said "get more people to understand that they should really fear their rulers." did you instead mean "...NOT fear their rulers"? Next, when you say "get more people to understand that our leaders should not be trusted" I [partly] agree, assuming you mean our "political leaders". For this statement, I would go further and get people to understand that these parasites are not their rulers. Anyone wishing to rule over someone else is not deserving or worthy of that power . If they really want or need a ruler, God is the top candidate. For, though he is mighty, he is not a dominating one since he has granted each and every one of us with freewill. Accordingly, people have the freewill to chose to not have a ruler if they wish.
When I taught Critical Reading & Writing in China, I had my students compare two similar forms of "rule" (one Western, one Eastern) in the sense that they were "hands-off" rule (which proved much more beneficial to both the rule and his subjects). See a summary description of each below.
1) WESTERN - Philosopher-King (Plato’s Republic)
A Philosopher-King is an ideal of a ruler, philosophically trained and enlightened. The ruler is more a philosopher that has no desire to rule and is not motivated by power, greed, or wealth. Because a philosopher is not motivated by such things, he or she is the only kind of leader that can be trusted to lead a nation. The philosopher’s interest in things other than greed, power, and wealth, make him or her morally and intellectually compatible for the job as “king” or ruler. He or she is motivated by truth and knowledge and is able to understand virtue, beauty, and good; and this, in turn, leads citizens to virtue and goodness.
2) EASTERN - Taoism and Minimal Governing
This is based on the Dao de Jing 道德经 (The Way of Virtue book), often attributed to Laozi, which is the main text of Daoist philosophy. The Dao can also be interpreted as a natural "cosmic flow".
As a political treatise, the Dao De Jing insists that if rulers follow the Dao then their states will be well ordered and in natural harmony: “If a prince or the king could hold onto the Dao, all would spontaneously submit themselves to him.” To rule in accord with the Dao, leaders must abandon common notions of governance, which typically involve authoritatively imposing their will on the people. Instead, a more Dao-centered way of ruling involves not ruling at all, but allowing a society to function naturally.
Successful rulers should adopt the attitude of non-action when governing: the more aggressive input and regulation a government imposes on its citizens, the more that disorder results. But when a leader sits back and does nothing, society develops on its own. Nature needs no help from rulers, and when the general public follows the Dao, each person will naturally find peaceful and simple ways to flourish. Even a well-intentioned leader may disrupt the natural flow of social order by imposing rules. The mere existence of rules will generate rule-breakers. Daoism (Taoism) thus recommends political anarchy in the true sense of the word, namely, a peaceful state of no rule in which we naturally find our place.
Additional thoughts on these:
The proof that Taoism and Minimal Governing is true and works splendidly can be evidenced by looking at the greatest and most prosperous and flourishing period in Chinese history - the Tang Dynasty. The Tang is considered one of the most prosperous nations in all of history of any era. Compare it to the CCP rule of the past century - mostly awful.
The reason societies are so broken nowadays pretty much all around the world is that they go counter to the Dao and are driven by greed and power.
In other words, look at the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe. What do they all have in common? Too many stupid and thoughtless laws and rules along with the quest for riches (literally selling their souls for money/fame/power to those pushing these devilish agendas).
My feeling it that a lot of the current type/model of rule has been established on purpose and is deliberately manifested as such by those parasitical elites and technocrats.
Just imagine how more prosperous our societies in our world would be if each nation followed the Eastern philosophy of Daoism and Minimal Governing.
I love it. I don't know anything about Daoism (except what you just taught me) but it seems to align with my more libertarian instincts!
... Yes, I meant that people should fear their rulers. I just wrote a piece about this ("We are being led by the obtuse."). I believe this 100 percent. Those leaders are either obtuse or evil. But it's not just "political leaders." Look at Covid - EVERY leader of every big company or organization was "all in" on the edicts (that includes the churches).
In the Shawshank Redemption Andy says, "Hope is perhaps the very best thing." Perhaps it is. But "leadership" is the most important thing. If we have awful leaders, we are going to get awful results. The million-dollar question is how do you purge just about all the important leaders in the world?
I think I know the answer: It would take a couple of better, more enlightened leaders to tell us all of our other leaders are rotten. The more I think about it, it might be the faith community that would have the greatest chance spreading the most-important message. The message would be: Our leaders are driving us away from our better angles or our God.
Alas, I don't see any grassroots effort in churches to trumpet this message. Real journalism would let readers/viewers know that their trusted leaders shouldn't be trusted ... and thus should be replaced. But we are not going to get real journalism that reaches enough of the masses.
But Substackers are trying ... and are moving the needle a little bit. So we do have some of that hope Andy knew was so important. .... It seems like we are living through a genuine existential battle. The same forces have always been at work, but things are coming to a head ... or events are accelerating (in the wrong direction).
"it might be the faith community that would have the greatest chance spreading the most-important message" - I agree. What is good about it is that they don't push their ideology on folks (unlike the Woke/DEI/Transgenderism agendas). Rather, it is up to the individuals to join the ranks if they wish to do so.
At the same time, you are right about the Church during Covid-19; but this is due in large part to the current false pope who is openly pushing evil agendas such as wokeism and vaccines. He should be ousted/replaced ASAP. He/they are not representative of true and real CHRISTians, but rather of the institution that is revealing how it has become (once again), at least partially, corrupted.
I'm a Methodist. We don't have a pope, but all our church leaders went along with the hysteria, which caused harm to many parishioners. There was no denomination that stood up to "Cesar." I don't want to pick on the church leadership. Except for DeSantis and perhaps one or two more governors, no well-known "leader" pushed back against anything. When people were being banned from social media left and right and being forced to get shots to keep their jobs, almost all of them were either rabid supporters of these tactics or completely silent while their constituents were being abused and wronged. As I have written, we now know the true colors of almost all of society's "leaders." I've also pointed out that 99 percent of our "leaders" are actually "followers." If it makes zero sense, they are going to support it. Bottom-line: Society has the wrong leaders.
"99 percent of our "leaders" are actually "followers." There you go. You nailed it with this. 99% puppet "leaders-followers", 1% authentic leaders. That is not an exaggeration of the prevailing ratio in both Western and Eastern politics in the 21st century. Sadly.
I'd read it! Mix in pragmatic investigative journalism with some deeper philosophical meditations. Why do we teach philosophy or psychology or sociology if we don't use it? I just made a post somewhere else asking why do statistics professors teach probability theories ... if they don't use them when they matter? Everything Covid-releated could be reduced to "risk-benefit" probabilities. But we ignore or lie about the real probabilities of risk. The stats professors (remaining silent) let us all down.
Man. "95 percent effective!" Effective how so? You know that inflation is only 6 percent, right? I just went to Publix. An 8-ounce bag of Ruffle's potato chips was $6. A medium-size box of Mrs. Stouffers' lasagna was $10.89. These prices were BEFORE 10-percent sales tax was added. I know for a fact that I could have bought the same bag of chips for $3 a year or so ago. And that lasagna might have cost $4.50. 6 percent inflation my butt. Who produces the official inflation numbers?
Fear is the root motivator for all actions (or the decision to not take some action). Today, it's perceived as safer to one's life, social status or job to NOT step outside the group as a contrarian or dissenter. So our rulers David identifies also take advantage of the fact that people will want to support "the current thing" (aka the narrative). The credentialed elites tell us what we should be afraid of ... and that they alone can protect us from these threats. So the masses are afraid of various Boogey Men created by the ruling classes ... AND they also fear not being a part of the "in" crowd. As a result, just about everyone ends up complying ... based on fears. Most of those fears are irrational (this virus was NOT going to kill you if you were under 70 and healthy). But one of those fears is rational - if you DO become a contrarian and don't agree with the ruling class or challenge the narrative, you will face personal, social or career harm.
Indeed Bill. The whole Covid-19 rollout was cunningly implemented and based on that single driver, fear. Part 4 of my series (which I hope to post by tmr) touches upon this. See my other comment in this post on Machiavelli for my additional thoughts.
Yes - the flip side of the ‘vulnerability’ discourse is the war the state has waged against family, church, farmers, the yeomanry classes, small businesses, etc. I wrote a piece on this for Brownstone a while ago and might recap it.
I think a recap, meshed with your present article, would be a visible, more relatable result of the big (intellectual) picture for ordinary people at a personal level. Also how the implied need for collectivism leads to the dumbing down of education and the deliberate underplaying of critical thinking in state run education systems to make the population more compliant with, and less questioning of, state policies.
We saw how much people want to be helped by the state in the BBC Political Parties Questions last night 7 June. It was noticeable that the only time the audience applauded was when a promise was made to help them. Meaning to give them money that somebody else had earned, even though they seemed to be concerned about higher taxes. But apparently that does not matter when they believe they will benefit from higher taxes.
Dr McGrogan - I found your work through an article on Principia Scientific International and I am working my way through your post. You bring together ideas that I have had and make sense of them like nobody else. Keep up the good work, and good luck with getting your book published.
Great article. a few of thoughts. 1.) The concept of dependence on the State is fundamentally changed if the State can accurately make the peoples' health dependent on resources that only the State controls. Sick and scared people are easier to control. What if the State actually injected a shot into the populous that so ruins their health, they have to rely on the State whether they want to or not. Drug dealers have no need to persuade citizen junkies. 2) Everybody's that injected can never be un-injected, so even if they want to reject the State dependence they may still be dependents. 3.) The State doesn't actually need to make people dependent it just needs to make people "think" they are dependent. To do this, the State often has to lie, create a "State Truth". As the Asch Conformity Experiment showed, a lie only lasts as long as the one being lied to never hears the truth. Non-conforming thoughts are very dangerous to the State because once the truth is widely disseminated, i.e. Covid vaccines don't work, people think for themselves and massively reject (~15% last Booster uptake) the prior State Truth. It also, hopefully, inoculates the public against future State lies.
My feelings about the vaccines are more complicated. I think our rulers genuinely just wanted a way out of the corner they’d painted themselves into with lockdowns, which clearly weren’t sustainable. They seized upon vaccines as the answer due to the simple expedient of it making them look good - as though they had a magic wand that could make all the pain and misery go away. It’s very hard for anybody in a position of power to resist that kind of temptation.
Thanks for the comment. If "they just wanted a way out" it wasn't vaccines. Early treatments, which saved about 80% of the recipients for pennies, would have made them National Hero's. Instead the rulers did everything possible to stop early treatments. Fauci published in 2005 that hydrocholquinine was effective against Corona viruses. Ralph B. wrote on the use of zinc stopping the viruses in 2011. Ivermectin is a Noble Prize winner in Medicine and a godsend throughout the world, and Fauci called it "horse paste" . Anybody that's stomped around jungles ( I have my own unknown jungle disease at the CDC) eat these incredible safe and effective drug like candy, candy that saves your lives. Also Fauci was on the record (The Washingtonian) in 2016 saying massive vitamin D is the best defense against respiratory virus. While a June 2020 study showed 90% of the people dying of Covid were Vitamin D deficient, Fauci was personally taking 6000 IU, 10 times the FDA recommended dosage, AND NOT TELLING THE PUBLIC. MURDER. They had lots of alternatives but the plan from the beginning was Shots. How many people could have been saved for a few cents a day of Vitamin d, Vitamin C, and zinc? Of course, if you have effective treatments, they could not approve the EUA for the Frankenshots. They killed millions to get the shots approved. Animals. FYI Fauci did exactly the same with AIDS. Stoped cheap and effective drugs, create monstrously expensive drugs and failed vaccines. He killed a friend of mine with AIDS by stopping effective drugs (See Prof Harvey Risch and Bactrim), just like he killed many Covid patients. You are giving them the benefit of the doubt when their record is 40 years of dead bodies.
Brilliant! This elegant essay succinctly shines a light on the common thread linking a variety of authoritarian trends that are striving to replace the individual with the collective as the central focus of our civilization.
Nice and thought-provoking piece. But I have a problem with this:
"There is nothing conspiratorial about this."
It's true there isn't necessarily anything conspiratorial about it, but it's also just as true there can be conspiracies working within the framework of "raisson du monde". Given the terrain, likely even.
The author follows with:
"Thinking of things in this way also helps us to understand the vitriol with which the ‘new populism’ of anti-globalist movements has been treated."
If there is no conspiracy, there shouldn't be such a monolithic vitriolic response. It's only because the entire regulatory, media, academic, and governmental institutions have been captured that the visceral attacks are so universal. An orchestrated capture seems at least as likely as a spontaneous one, since their positions are so harmful to all of us except those who might be the conspirators.
The monolithic vitriolic response is I think the product more of emotion and self-interest than conspiracy. These people rely on things being the way they are for their livelihoods and they have been educated since they were small to consider a particular worldview to be superior. For them, maintaining their class interests is visceral.
Yes to your points after the first sentence. That first sentence, I wish I knew. Amidst the uncertainty, I am certain a lot of media response is orchestrated. We've all seen Tucker's montages (at least I presume we have) showing the media and leftist politicians all using the same phrases immediately after a story breaks. Words carefully crafted to be impactful. It's not possible they all came up with the same, extremely effective language, and there hasn't been time for them to be parroting each other. They get their marching orders from the same source, no question. The top levels of the elite class think globally, so it's likely this is a group with global reach. I don't leap straight to conspiracies as explanations, Occam's razor is always in the toolbox. But if it looks like a duck, you know.
I have no doubt a lot of the psyops people across the globe were sharing ‘best practices’ during the pandemic. Was that a conspiracy? Depends on your definition. That kind of needs a post in itself actually. What is a conspiracy, beyond ‘a group of people deciding to pursue a goal and pursuing it’?
Machiavelli's work isn't original. It's a riff from Plato's work. The state's very existence depends on creating dependency via cultural division, epistemological warfare. #BigGovernment #NannyState
As a practitioner of elections for more than four decades, much in this excellent post is not new to me. Democrats, in particular but not exclusively, have long made it their strategy to make as many people dependent upon them as possible, including Social Security and Medicare (45-60 million people) supplemental nutrition assistance programs (another 40 million), and of course the growing legion of Medicaid recipients (I've lost count). That is why Democrats seek to nationalize all health care, expand Social Security (going broke in 10 years), and throwing all sorts of money (see: Inflation Reduction Act) at favored constituences, especially in the green energy sector. The next battle is over nationalization of pensions and other retirement programs. And get ready for your "social credit score."
All very true and all the same across the developed world. Though in fairness one mustn’t also forget the tendency to protect big business from failure through bailouts and the like. It is all part of the same picture.
This idea goes way back to the beginnings of Christianity, if not before that. There is a reason the Gospel of Thomas was not included in the books of the Bible, even though it contained important messages. Its main message was that people could have their own *direct* relationship/communion with God (without the need of religion or a church). This was a threat to the Catholic Church, for it removed a lot of their control. Over the years, the use of fear (God will punish you if...) was integral to their religious doctrines with some periods being more radical than others (think The Crusades, among others).
Voltaire also frequently touched upon this subject in his philosophical writings. "Si Dieux n'existait pas, il faudrait l'inventer" comes to mind ("If God didn't exist, we would have to invent him.") The gist of the idea here being that through his presence in society, it serves as a means to "control" a society , especially so as to not have the masses rebel against the monarchy.
Since the earliest times, people instinctively have had sense of attachment to authoritative figures which could provide them with a sense of security. Those in power know these constructs very well and have perfected, adapted, and honed their methods to the "modern" (technological) world, primarily in the form of a 'technocratic autocracy'. That is their religious dogma. They see themselves as God-like rulers (full of arrogance and other evils). They manipulate and exploit through these mechanisms of fear to enlarge their webs of control while destroying the spiritual fabric of their subjects.
One of the main reasons why it works is because they were cunning enough to remove God, or spirituality from the masses. As people lose their inner sense of spirit and light, they are more prone to become entangled into the darkness. Wokeism, transgenderism and the like are prime examples of how these souls have been usurped into states of unswerving compliance.
Until the scales tip back in favor of spirituality and light, their dark machinations will continue to ruin humanity.
Foucault is actually really good on this point - how the pastoral power of the church was transposed into the secular realm in the form of the state. There is so much to say about that issue - I am very interested to read your posts about it.
Thank you David. I will read up more on Foucault, as I am less familiar with him. I wish I had more time to write about these topics, but have to cover/expose some of the evils first.
Deep thoughts .... with the ring of truth. Gets us back to the "good vs. evil" framework that a few more writers are starting to highlight. Maybe the counter to this "fear" mechanism of control is to get more people to understand that they should really fear their rulers. Spiritual leaders could frame this as saying our secular leaders are trying to move us away from God.
The reason I've focussed so much on "early spread" is not just to prove it happened; my real goal is to get more people to understand that our leaders should not be trusted. They are dangerous and the real enemy of freedom. They are trying to guide us away from our better angels.
You always spark more thoughts in my head Bill (would be great to site face-to-face over a nice pint of beer one day!).
First though, when you said "get more people to understand that they should really fear their rulers." did you instead mean "...NOT fear their rulers"? Next, when you say "get more people to understand that our leaders should not be trusted" I [partly] agree, assuming you mean our "political leaders". For this statement, I would go further and get people to understand that these parasites are not their rulers. Anyone wishing to rule over someone else is not deserving or worthy of that power . If they really want or need a ruler, God is the top candidate. For, though he is mighty, he is not a dominating one since he has granted each and every one of us with freewill. Accordingly, people have the freewill to chose to not have a ruler if they wish.
When I taught Critical Reading & Writing in China, I had my students compare two similar forms of "rule" (one Western, one Eastern) in the sense that they were "hands-off" rule (which proved much more beneficial to both the rule and his subjects). See a summary description of each below.
1) WESTERN - Philosopher-King (Plato’s Republic)
A Philosopher-King is an ideal of a ruler, philosophically trained and enlightened. The ruler is more a philosopher that has no desire to rule and is not motivated by power, greed, or wealth. Because a philosopher is not motivated by such things, he or she is the only kind of leader that can be trusted to lead a nation. The philosopher’s interest in things other than greed, power, and wealth, make him or her morally and intellectually compatible for the job as “king” or ruler. He or she is motivated by truth and knowledge and is able to understand virtue, beauty, and good; and this, in turn, leads citizens to virtue and goodness.
2) EASTERN - Taoism and Minimal Governing
This is based on the Dao de Jing 道德经 (The Way of Virtue book), often attributed to Laozi, which is the main text of Daoist philosophy. The Dao can also be interpreted as a natural "cosmic flow".
As a political treatise, the Dao De Jing insists that if rulers follow the Dao then their states will be well ordered and in natural harmony: “If a prince or the king could hold onto the Dao, all would spontaneously submit themselves to him.” To rule in accord with the Dao, leaders must abandon common notions of governance, which typically involve authoritatively imposing their will on the people. Instead, a more Dao-centered way of ruling involves not ruling at all, but allowing a society to function naturally.
Successful rulers should adopt the attitude of non-action when governing: the more aggressive input and regulation a government imposes on its citizens, the more that disorder results. But when a leader sits back and does nothing, society develops on its own. Nature needs no help from rulers, and when the general public follows the Dao, each person will naturally find peaceful and simple ways to flourish. Even a well-intentioned leader may disrupt the natural flow of social order by imposing rules. The mere existence of rules will generate rule-breakers. Daoism (Taoism) thus recommends political anarchy in the true sense of the word, namely, a peaceful state of no rule in which we naturally find our place.
Additional thoughts on these:
The proof that Taoism and Minimal Governing is true and works splendidly can be evidenced by looking at the greatest and most prosperous and flourishing period in Chinese history - the Tang Dynasty. The Tang is considered one of the most prosperous nations in all of history of any era. Compare it to the CCP rule of the past century - mostly awful.
The reason societies are so broken nowadays pretty much all around the world is that they go counter to the Dao and are driven by greed and power.
In other words, look at the U.S., Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Western Europe. What do they all have in common? Too many stupid and thoughtless laws and rules along with the quest for riches (literally selling their souls for money/fame/power to those pushing these devilish agendas).
My feeling it that a lot of the current type/model of rule has been established on purpose and is deliberately manifested as such by those parasitical elites and technocrats.
Just imagine how more prosperous our societies in our world would be if each nation followed the Eastern philosophy of Daoism and Minimal Governing.
Hoping that wasn't too much of a mouthful, LOL.
I love it. I don't know anything about Daoism (except what you just taught me) but it seems to align with my more libertarian instincts!
... Yes, I meant that people should fear their rulers. I just wrote a piece about this ("We are being led by the obtuse."). I believe this 100 percent. Those leaders are either obtuse or evil. But it's not just "political leaders." Look at Covid - EVERY leader of every big company or organization was "all in" on the edicts (that includes the churches).
In the Shawshank Redemption Andy says, "Hope is perhaps the very best thing." Perhaps it is. But "leadership" is the most important thing. If we have awful leaders, we are going to get awful results. The million-dollar question is how do you purge just about all the important leaders in the world?
I think I know the answer: It would take a couple of better, more enlightened leaders to tell us all of our other leaders are rotten. The more I think about it, it might be the faith community that would have the greatest chance spreading the most-important message. The message would be: Our leaders are driving us away from our better angles or our God.
Alas, I don't see any grassroots effort in churches to trumpet this message. Real journalism would let readers/viewers know that their trusted leaders shouldn't be trusted ... and thus should be replaced. But we are not going to get real journalism that reaches enough of the masses.
But Substackers are trying ... and are moving the needle a little bit. So we do have some of that hope Andy knew was so important. .... It seems like we are living through a genuine existential battle. The same forces have always been at work, but things are coming to a head ... or events are accelerating (in the wrong direction).
"it might be the faith community that would have the greatest chance spreading the most-important message" - I agree. What is good about it is that they don't push their ideology on folks (unlike the Woke/DEI/Transgenderism agendas). Rather, it is up to the individuals to join the ranks if they wish to do so.
At the same time, you are right about the Church during Covid-19; but this is due in large part to the current false pope who is openly pushing evil agendas such as wokeism and vaccines. He should be ousted/replaced ASAP. He/they are not representative of true and real CHRISTians, but rather of the institution that is revealing how it has become (once again), at least partially, corrupted.
I'm a Methodist. We don't have a pope, but all our church leaders went along with the hysteria, which caused harm to many parishioners. There was no denomination that stood up to "Cesar." I don't want to pick on the church leadership. Except for DeSantis and perhaps one or two more governors, no well-known "leader" pushed back against anything. When people were being banned from social media left and right and being forced to get shots to keep their jobs, almost all of them were either rabid supporters of these tactics or completely silent while their constituents were being abused and wronged. As I have written, we now know the true colors of almost all of society's "leaders." I've also pointed out that 99 percent of our "leaders" are actually "followers." If it makes zero sense, they are going to support it. Bottom-line: Society has the wrong leaders.
"99 percent of our "leaders" are actually "followers." There you go. You nailed it with this. 99% puppet "leaders-followers", 1% authentic leaders. That is not an exaggeration of the prevailing ratio in both Western and Eastern politics in the 21st century. Sadly.
Maybe I should make a post about this...
I'd read it! Mix in pragmatic investigative journalism with some deeper philosophical meditations. Why do we teach philosophy or psychology or sociology if we don't use it? I just made a post somewhere else asking why do statistics professors teach probability theories ... if they don't use them when they matter? Everything Covid-releated could be reduced to "risk-benefit" probabilities. But we ignore or lie about the real probabilities of risk. The stats professors (remaining silent) let us all down.
This reminds me of one of Bill Gates favorite books (How to lie with statistics).
https://s1.qwant.com/thumbr/0x380/1/d/7a9b4d9f8ab05399c52794dd2d62edd9f7040cf72fcee3b95d01126979b3e7/EuM13V2VgAAwDm1.jpg?u=https%3A%2F%2Fpbs.twimg.com%2Fmedia%2FEuM13V2VgAAwDm1.jpg&q=0&b=1&p=0&a=0
Man. "95 percent effective!" Effective how so? You know that inflation is only 6 percent, right? I just went to Publix. An 8-ounce bag of Ruffle's potato chips was $6. A medium-size box of Mrs. Stouffers' lasagna was $10.89. These prices were BEFORE 10-percent sales tax was added. I know for a fact that I could have bought the same bag of chips for $3 a year or so ago. And that lasagna might have cost $4.50. 6 percent inflation my butt. Who produces the official inflation numbers?
Fear is the root motivator for all actions (or the decision to not take some action). Today, it's perceived as safer to one's life, social status or job to NOT step outside the group as a contrarian or dissenter. So our rulers David identifies also take advantage of the fact that people will want to support "the current thing" (aka the narrative). The credentialed elites tell us what we should be afraid of ... and that they alone can protect us from these threats. So the masses are afraid of various Boogey Men created by the ruling classes ... AND they also fear not being a part of the "in" crowd. As a result, just about everyone ends up complying ... based on fears. Most of those fears are irrational (this virus was NOT going to kill you if you were under 70 and healthy). But one of those fears is rational - if you DO become a contrarian and don't agree with the ruling class or challenge the narrative, you will face personal, social or career harm.
Indeed Bill. The whole Covid-19 rollout was cunningly implemented and based on that single driver, fear. Part 4 of my series (which I hope to post by tmr) touches upon this. See my other comment in this post on Machiavelli for my additional thoughts.
I look forward to it. If you are writing about a topic, it will be well done and provoke needed thought!
Also explains the state's drive to a secular society, the fear of the family unit and the driving of SME's to the wall.
Yes - the flip side of the ‘vulnerability’ discourse is the war the state has waged against family, church, farmers, the yeomanry classes, small businesses, etc. I wrote a piece on this for Brownstone a while ago and might recap it.
I think a recap, meshed with your present article, would be a visible, more relatable result of the big (intellectual) picture for ordinary people at a personal level. Also how the implied need for collectivism leads to the dumbing down of education and the deliberate underplaying of critical thinking in state run education systems to make the population more compliant with, and less questioning of, state policies.
We saw how much people want to be helped by the state in the BBC Political Parties Questions last night 7 June. It was noticeable that the only time the audience applauded was when a promise was made to help them. Meaning to give them money that somebody else had earned, even though they seemed to be concerned about higher taxes. But apparently that does not matter when they believe they will benefit from higher taxes.
They are thoroughly modern!
Dr McGrogan - I found your work through an article on Principia Scientific International and I am working my way through your post. You bring together ideas that I have had and make sense of them like nobody else. Keep up the good work, and good luck with getting your book published.
Thanks very much for the kind words!
Great article. a few of thoughts. 1.) The concept of dependence on the State is fundamentally changed if the State can accurately make the peoples' health dependent on resources that only the State controls. Sick and scared people are easier to control. What if the State actually injected a shot into the populous that so ruins their health, they have to rely on the State whether they want to or not. Drug dealers have no need to persuade citizen junkies. 2) Everybody's that injected can never be un-injected, so even if they want to reject the State dependence they may still be dependents. 3.) The State doesn't actually need to make people dependent it just needs to make people "think" they are dependent. To do this, the State often has to lie, create a "State Truth". As the Asch Conformity Experiment showed, a lie only lasts as long as the one being lied to never hears the truth. Non-conforming thoughts are very dangerous to the State because once the truth is widely disseminated, i.e. Covid vaccines don't work, people think for themselves and massively reject (~15% last Booster uptake) the prior State Truth. It also, hopefully, inoculates the public against future State lies.
My feelings about the vaccines are more complicated. I think our rulers genuinely just wanted a way out of the corner they’d painted themselves into with lockdowns, which clearly weren’t sustainable. They seized upon vaccines as the answer due to the simple expedient of it making them look good - as though they had a magic wand that could make all the pain and misery go away. It’s very hard for anybody in a position of power to resist that kind of temptation.
Thanks for the comment. If "they just wanted a way out" it wasn't vaccines. Early treatments, which saved about 80% of the recipients for pennies, would have made them National Hero's. Instead the rulers did everything possible to stop early treatments. Fauci published in 2005 that hydrocholquinine was effective against Corona viruses. Ralph B. wrote on the use of zinc stopping the viruses in 2011. Ivermectin is a Noble Prize winner in Medicine and a godsend throughout the world, and Fauci called it "horse paste" . Anybody that's stomped around jungles ( I have my own unknown jungle disease at the CDC) eat these incredible safe and effective drug like candy, candy that saves your lives. Also Fauci was on the record (The Washingtonian) in 2016 saying massive vitamin D is the best defense against respiratory virus. While a June 2020 study showed 90% of the people dying of Covid were Vitamin D deficient, Fauci was personally taking 6000 IU, 10 times the FDA recommended dosage, AND NOT TELLING THE PUBLIC. MURDER. They had lots of alternatives but the plan from the beginning was Shots. How many people could have been saved for a few cents a day of Vitamin d, Vitamin C, and zinc? Of course, if you have effective treatments, they could not approve the EUA for the Frankenshots. They killed millions to get the shots approved. Animals. FYI Fauci did exactly the same with AIDS. Stoped cheap and effective drugs, create monstrously expensive drugs and failed vaccines. He killed a friend of mine with AIDS by stopping effective drugs (See Prof Harvey Risch and Bactrim), just like he killed many Covid patients. You are giving them the benefit of the doubt when their record is 40 years of dead bodies.
Brilliant! This elegant essay succinctly shines a light on the common thread linking a variety of authoritarian trends that are striving to replace the individual with the collective as the central focus of our civilization.
Thanks Bob.
Nice and thought-provoking piece. But I have a problem with this:
"There is nothing conspiratorial about this."
It's true there isn't necessarily anything conspiratorial about it, but it's also just as true there can be conspiracies working within the framework of "raisson du monde". Given the terrain, likely even.
The author follows with:
"Thinking of things in this way also helps us to understand the vitriol with which the ‘new populism’ of anti-globalist movements has been treated."
If there is no conspiracy, there shouldn't be such a monolithic vitriolic response. It's only because the entire regulatory, media, academic, and governmental institutions have been captured that the visceral attacks are so universal. An orchestrated capture seems at least as likely as a spontaneous one, since their positions are so harmful to all of us except those who might be the conspirators.
The monolithic vitriolic response is I think the product more of emotion and self-interest than conspiracy. These people rely on things being the way they are for their livelihoods and they have been educated since they were small to consider a particular worldview to be superior. For them, maintaining their class interests is visceral.
Yes to your points after the first sentence. That first sentence, I wish I knew. Amidst the uncertainty, I am certain a lot of media response is orchestrated. We've all seen Tucker's montages (at least I presume we have) showing the media and leftist politicians all using the same phrases immediately after a story breaks. Words carefully crafted to be impactful. It's not possible they all came up with the same, extremely effective language, and there hasn't been time for them to be parroting each other. They get their marching orders from the same source, no question. The top levels of the elite class think globally, so it's likely this is a group with global reach. I don't leap straight to conspiracies as explanations, Occam's razor is always in the toolbox. But if it looks like a duck, you know.
I have no doubt a lot of the psyops people across the globe were sharing ‘best practices’ during the pandemic. Was that a conspiracy? Depends on your definition. That kind of needs a post in itself actually. What is a conspiracy, beyond ‘a group of people deciding to pursue a goal and pursuing it’?
Machiavelli's work isn't original. It's a riff from Plato's work. The state's very existence depends on creating dependency via cultural division, epistemological warfare. #BigGovernment #NannyState
L'état c'ést moi.
Foucault was a pederast:
“Besides, to die for the love of boys: What could be more beautiful?”
He was an odious character for sure. But very insightful.
It's like quoting Dahmer on cooking.