So This Is Why People Have Ears That Do Not Hear

One of the things I’ve puzzled over this past year and a half is the amount of information I’ve found easily, related to treatment of the coronavirus, including scientific data, doctors with clinical experience—not some random opinion of someone on social media—and yet how many people, this many months in, have no idea about these same things. I’m aware a lot is being censored. And I’ve puzzled over that as well. But why, when the information is available, do people never encounter it? And why, even when they do come across it, do they dismiss it and keep calling out “Follow the science!” at the rest of us?

I came across a plausible answer this week. Dr. Mattias Desmet is a Professor of Clinical Psychology at Ghent University in Belgium, who also happens have a degree in statistics. He was on a Pandemic Podcast with Dan Astin-Gregory, who was asking the question, “Why do so many still buy into the narrative?”

Dan-Astin-Gregory (left) and Dr. Mattias Desmet
screenshot from here

Dr. Desmet says that, from the beginning, he thought there was something strange about the public narrative. It didn’t match what he was seeing in the data. And he wasn’t alone; he was in the company of world-renowned scientists; he mentioned Ioannidis of Stanford as an example. These scientists tried telling people—and governments—that the coronavirus was likely much less dangerous than early models predicted. But their voices didn’t seem to have an impact.

It took him about four months to recognize that what he was seeing was the phenomenon that he calls mass formation. Some might call it mass hypnosis, and he does describe things that are similar to hypnosis. We’ll get to that, but I think we ought to see how he walks us through the thought process. Dr. Desmet says,

By the end of May 2020, it was proven beyond doubt that the initial mathematical models overestimated the mortality of the virus. For instance, we all know that the mathematical models that had most impact on the corona measures were probably those issued by Imperial College in London, and these models actually predicted that, by the end of May 2020, in a country like Sweden about 80,000 people would die if the country would not go into lockdown. And the country did not go into lockdown, and by the end of May 2020 the virus claimed about 6,000 people in Sweden, and no more than that, which meant that the models actually overestimated the mortality of the virus by a factor of 50, which is huge.

Oddly, he observes, the strategies—the lockdowns, the panic over sanitizing things, the masks—weren’t corrected based on the clear new data. He says,

That was like a turning point for me. I think I started to take a different perspective then. I switched then from the perspective of a statistician to the perspective of a clinical psychologist. And I started to wonder, how is it possible that an entire society, even the world population, is going along with the narrative that shows so many absurd characteristics?

New data, presented by the United Nations, warned of the likelihood that more people would die of starvation or hunger in developing countries because of the lockdowns than the number of coronavirus victims—even if no measures were taken at all. But no one seemed to take notice. Everyone stayed focused on coronavirus victims only, to the exclusion of damage from any other threats.

Despite the warnings, “People were willing to buy into the story and go along with the story,” which was really strange.

So that’s what he could observe in May 2020. But it wasn’t until August 2020 that the light dawned on him:

I suddenly felt that I had really hit the nail, and that I could say what we’re dealing with here is a process of large-scale mass formation. That’s what’s happening. And, looking backward, looking back at that, it really surprised me that it took me so long, because I had been lecturing on mass formation for four years at Ghent University.

So, to begin with, what is mass formation, and what causes it? Then, what does it lead to? And how do we get out of it?

What Mass Formation Looks Like, and What Causes It

Mass formation is a specific phenomenon which emerges in a society if a few conditions are met. There are at least four conditions that have to be fulfilled before a large-scale phenomenon of mass formation can emerge:

1.       a lot of people experiencing a lack of social bonds, a lack of social connectedness.

2.       a lot of people who experience a lack of meaning making.

3.       a lot of people who experience a lot of free-floating anxiety.

4.       a lot of free-floating frustration and aggression.

The first two are related. “Humans are social beings, and if they experience a lack of social connectedness, a lack of social bond, they will probably also experience a lack of meaning making.” And the last two are similar as well. Free-floating anxiety means it’s not connected to something tangible. For instance, he says, if you see and lion and you’re scared of it, then you know what you’re scared of. “Your anxiety in that case is connected to a mental representation.” However, if your anxiety isn’t connected to a mental representation, it’s just something you sense without knowing why, it’s harder to control the anxiety. Similarly, free-floating frustration and aggression is something “you feel inside of yourself, but that you cannot direct or aim at a certain object or cause.” I’m assuming people who come home frustrated, or maybe just tired or hungry, but irritable after work and unsure why might kick their dog, who has done nothing but be convenient to kick. That kind of aggression.

Dr. Desmet explains what happens when all of these four conditions are met:

When these conditions are met, something really typical can happen in a society. When under these conditions, narrative is distributed, through the mass media, indicating an object of anxiety and at the same time providing a strategy to deal with this object of anxiety, then there might be a huge willingness in the population to go along, to participate in the strategy. And why? Because all this free-floating anxiety, which is so hard to control, connects to this object of anxiety in this way. That’s the first advantage. All this free-floating anxiety is not connected to a mental representation; and then, just by participating in the strategy, you can mentally control the object of anxiety.

That explains the extraordinary willingness of people to participate in lockdowns and other compliant behaviors—to battle the enemy virus—even though the strategies in the narrative are absurd. What is most important, he says, is what participants get out of it:

When people start to participate all together in the strategy to deal with the object of anxiety, a new kind of social bond and a new kind of meaning making emerges. Which means that, there is like a new kind of solidarity that emerges. And this makes the people switch from a highly aversive negative mental state of social isolation, interpersonal isolation, to the exact opposite, to the extremely high level of connectedness that exists in a crowd or a mass. So, and then people start a heroic battle with the object of anxiety, which leads to a kind of mental intoxication of connectedness, which is the real reason why people continue to buy into the narrative—even if it’s utterly absurd or blatantly wrong.

He uses the word ritual to describe what people are doing—a sort of sign they’re in the group:

A ritual is a kind of behavior that people participate in to show that they belong to a group—to create a group, to create a collective, to create solidarity. And you can even say about rituals that, the more absurd they are from a practical perspective, the better they function as a ritual. Of course, because then, the more absurd they are, the more purely they become a sign that shows that they belong to a group.

In other words, if you’re a mask wearer, even when you’re outside at the beach or riding a bike, you’re signaling your belonging in the group who are battling the common enemy.

That does seem to describe what we see in people around us. I could add, people who signal that they’ve had the vaccine are doing this—and the less effective the vaccine is known to be, particularly in comparison to natural immunity, the more the mass formation doubles down to insist you are part of the problem if you don’t buy into the narrative.

The host, Dan Astin-Gregory, gives a nice summary at this point:

So, what I understand is that this situation gives people the opportunity essentially to attach. Like, it becomes an object of attachment. So they can therefore transfix their own anxieties onto this external object, which therefore then takes away the need to actually do the inner work, to actually tackle their own anxieties, which perhaps they haven’t really got a handle on.

Yes. They don’t have to deal with the anxiety they were already experiencing, because this coronavirus enemy gives them an object, and that makes them feel sane—even when onlookers see clearly that they are not.

Here’s where Dr. Desmet explains how mass formation is similar to hypnosis:

It leads to a very narrow field of attention. People seem to be only able to be aware, both cognitively and emotionally, of a very small part of reality on which the mass narrative focuses their attention. So that’s something extremely problematic.

Victims only of the coronavirus. All the other victims, children who risk to starve, or people who lost their jobs, or treatments that were delayed. And there was huge collateral damage. But in one way or another it never had the same effects as the damage caused by the coronavirus….

The field of attention is so limited that it seems almost impossible to provide arguments that are in conflict with the narrative. Because all the arguments that you can raise rationally against the narrative, they do not fall into this small field of attention that is really counting for people in the mass.

I didn’t know before that hypnosis was, at least in part, about focusing attention away from one thing and onto another. He explains:

In hypnosis this is very clear. You can—by a simple hypnotic procedure, you can make someone so insensitive to pain that you can cut straight through his flesh, that even you can carry out, perform surgical operations in which you cut straight through the breastbone. It’s very strange. But a simple hypnotic procedure in which the hypnotist focuses the attention on something positive, for instance, will often make people completely insensitive to physical pain.

That’s what’s happening with this mass formation: limited focus, limited field of vision:

People are even not aware of the things that are usually extremely important for them in a normal state, like their psychological and physical health, their wealth, their well-being, and so on, in a condition of hypnosis or mass formation. You can take all these things away from people; they won’t even notice it. It will seem as if they lose a lot of things that are personally important to them. And in the same way, they are also insensitive to psychological pain, because, if their attention remains focused on the solidarity and the shared narrative, they will not notice that they are losing the wealth and the well-being of themselves, even their children.

 

What Results from Mass Formation

Stalin (upper left), Hitler (upper right),
Mao Zedong (bottom left), Mussolini,
Kim Il-sung; image from Wikipedia

Isn’t this a handy time for a tyrant to step in and take control? That’s what was going on, he says, in the 20^th Century, in the Soviet Union and in Nazi Germany.

Dr. Desmet spends some time here delineating the difference between what he calls classic dictatorship and totalitarianism. In a classic dictatorship, the tyrant rules by fear—of him and what he’ll do to the disobedient. People obey because they are coerced to, not because they want to do what he says. And everyone knows this. But, when the people are compliant, the dictator becomes more benevolent, knowing that keeping people somewhat mollified and unwilling to revolt will keep him in power.

A totalitarian ruler is different. This tyrant uses mass formation—facilitated typically with a crisis, maybe one he has invented or caused—to get people to buy into his narrative. People willingly make the sacrifices he requires. They love him. They want to go along. They don’t mind giving up what they’re giving up, because it’s required for the collective, to which they belong. 

And, a further difference is that, the more compliant the populace, the more sacrifice the totalitarian ruler requires. In the totalitarian’s mass formation, people “are willing to sacrifice all their individual freedom and all their individual advantages in favor of the collective well-being of this new kind of extreme solidarity.”

There are a couple of big problems with getting people to notice the sort of mass hypnosis they’re in:

·       People don’t want to go back to the old normal; that would mean going back to the anxiety and frustration that they had no way to control.

·       Therefore, people become extremely intolerant of dissenting voices; they consider them a threat to the entire society.

Astin-Gregory verifies that he knows people—

who have separated from their loved ones, they’ve fallen out with family members, they’ve lost friends—all because they’re asking different questions. And even if those questions lead to very profound different answers from what we’re seeing in the mainstream media, people are just rationally unwilling to tolerate it.

Dr. Desmet agrees. If you try to show someone that “the narrative” is wrong—with data about the virus, or about mask wearing, or about the vaccines—you make the person feel “he is at risk of waking up.” He doesn’t want to face the initial free-floating anxiety or the lack of social bond.

hypnosis image found here

He says,

It’s far more easy for someone who is in a hypnotized—or grasped in the process of mass formation—to, instead of believing the one who tries to convince him that the story is wrong, it’s far more easy to direct all this free-floating frustration and aggression, that existed before the crisis, to this dissonant voice.

Nevertheless, it is essential that dissonant voices, voices at odds with the mass formation’s narrative, continue to speak out. He says,

Because, if the opposition is silenced, then the hypnosis will become even deeper than it is now, and then the masses will start to commit atrocities. That’s so typical. History has shown it time and time again. It’s quintessential that people continue to speak out. They will not be able to stop the process of mass formation, but they will be able—they will prevent the hypnosis to become so deep that atrocities are committed.

I would say atrocities have already been committed. Hundreds of thousands of people have died because the narrative said there was no treatment—when there has been all along, and the data proving it continues to mount. Thousands have died and tens of thousands injured from a “vaccine” that isn’t really a vaccine, and hasn’t been long tested—a medical intervention that has caused more deaths and serious vaccine injuries than any vaccine in history without being banned—yet it is still called “safe.” And people continue to get the disease, spread it, end up in the hospital, and possibly even die—after they get the vaccine. Yet it is still called “effective.”

All this against it, and people are losing their jobs, or ability to buy and sell and travel and associate—if they do not succumb to take the vaccine—even the ones who have had the disease and therefore have lasting robust natural immunity, and including the ones who have legitimate health and religious reasons to be exempted.

 

How to Avoid Mass Formation

It’s hard to say exactly why some people succumb to Mass Formation and some do not. Dr. Desmet says that typically about 30% of a population is truly hypnotized, willingly attached to the narrative. Another 40% or so are not fully engaged in the narrative, but the go along and do not resist it. Then there’s another 25% to 30% who clearly see the narrative as false, do not succumb to the mass formation, and resist it. Since that includes me, I wondered why me?

Astin-Gregory questioned whether it had to do with factors like intelligence, education level, or maybe the level of anxiety the person is feeling. Dr. Desmet was uncertain. However, highly educated people are still very likely to be involved in the mass formation. But he does offer an unproven, maybe unprovable theory:

I think in this crisis, whether you buy into the story or not, whether you’re hypnotized or not, has a lot to do with your broader ideological preferences. Like, I feel that most people who really go along with the narrative now, and who are really identifying with the narrative, have no problem at all with a very mechanistic biological reductionist view on man in the world.

I think that most people, for instance, are convinced that vaccines are the best way to boost your immune system and so on. So I think that most of the people who really go along with the narrative now are people who feel good with the broader ideology, the biological reductionist, even the transhumanist ideology that is seizing the population now. Because I’m convinced that, if we, if this process continues, we will end up in a transhumanist society, or they will try to reorganize society according to the ideals and the principles of transhumanism.

As for intelligence level, one thing that happens is that the mass formation levels the population:

Highly educated and highly intelligent people become exactly as intelligent as everybody else in the masses. It is something very typical for mass formation that everybody becomes equally intelligent, which usually means extremely stupid, in the masses. And people—as soon as someone is seized by mass formation, he usually loses all capacity for critical and rational thinking. That’s something, one of the most salient characteristics of an individual that is in mass formation.

That explains a lot. It certainly describes what we resistors see in the hypnotized. And, might I add, the coronavirus narrative is not the only apparent mass formation going on in our society; anything related to “wokeness” says to us actual awake ones that someone is not aware of reality.

 

How Do We Get Out of This Mess

There is some hopeful news. People do eventually wake up. Totalitarians fear this, because, typically when the people wake up, they get angry and kill the perpetrators, which happen to be the leaders. Let’s hope ours can be more civil.

A lot has to do with totalitarianism being self-destructive.

Totalitarianism and mass formation always ends up destroying itself. So the self-destructive character of mass formation and totalitarianism is something that has been observed and described by all scholars that study the phenomenon.

member of the French Resistance (FFI), 1944
image found here

If you can survive outside, and wait, the totalitarianism will end. But what we can do is continue to speak the truth. Individuals, once they begin to question, will need to have the truth available to them, to help wake them. He says we need to “make our own narrative as strong as possible, as convincing as possible.” As a strategy for us, he suggests,

We should be aware that we are dealing with an extremely strong enemy, but an enemy who will always destroy himself. So, the only thing that we have to do is we have to make sure that our story continues to be present in public space, and that we survive for a few years…. And we never should try to beat the enemy, because the enemy can only be beaten by himself….

And as soon as you realize that, you realize that the only thing you have to do is continue to speak and to make sure that in one way or another you can survive outside of the system. These two things. And then, you can quietly wait until totalitarianism destroys itself….

And you will see the small group, the small group will survive. And that, in one way or another, after the collapse, it will play an important role, I think, in the rebuilding of society according to new and more human, more ethical principles.

Surviving for a few years—while continuing to speak the truth. One of those simple but not easy solutions to world problems. But that’s our lot.

Suppression of the Opposition

Do we know what fascism looks like? Because we're seeing it.

We have some educating to do.

You’ve probably seen some of those interviews where a guy with a microphone and a camera goes on a college campus, or on the street, and asks basic questions, and hardly anyone knows the answer. Like this one on free speech. And this one on “How Well Do Americans Know Their Presidents?”

The Berlin Wall fell in 1991, marking essentially the end of the Cold War with its existential threat. Everyone born that year turns 28 this year. Let’s add five years to that and say anyone 33 or younger was born too late to be personally aware of the existence of the Iron Curtain.

I remember the first time I saw the movie Gandhi, in 1982. I was out of college, recently married (we saw it together). And I was stunned that I’d never heard his story before. What was wrong with my history courses? It’s because world history always started way way back in time, and worked its way forward. And the closer to the present day, the more likely the school year would end before we got to the material. We were lucky to get as far as World War II.

I was interested in history, and good at remembering things, but I knew nothing about some major world events. So I had to educate myself as an adult. (Homeschooling helped.) But for students who aren’t interested, and also happen to have schools fail to provide the material, are in a state of ignorance we shouldn’t be surprised at.

So, for the sake of education, today we’ll cover some -isms.

According to my favorite nearly 40-year-old dictionary, totalitarian has two definitions:

1.    Designating, of, or characteristic of a government or state in which one political party or group maintains complete control under a dictatorship and bans all others.

2.    Completely authoritarian, autocratic, dictatorial, etc.

As a noun, it’s a person who favors such a government or state. And totalitarianism is the noun form, or name for such a government.

In the same dictionary, fascism has three definitions:

1.    The doctrines, methods, or movement of the Fascisti [elsewhere defined as an Italian political organization under Mussolini from 1922-1943].

2.    A system of government characterized by rigid one-party dictatorship, forcible suppression of opposition, private economic enterprise under centralized governmental control, belligerent nationalism, racism, and militarism, etc.; first instituted in Italy in 1922.

3.    A political movement based on such policies, or fascist behavior. See also Nazi.

To be thorough, the definition of Nazi is “designating, of, or characteristic of the German fascist political party (National Socialist German Workers’ Party), founded in 1919 and abolished in 1945; under Hitler it seized control of Germany in 1933, systematically eliminated opposition, and put into effect its program of nationalism, racism, rearmament, aggression, etc.” A Nazi can also be a support of this or any similar party; fascist.

Will Witt (right), screenshot from here

One of those on-the-street videos by Will Witt’s asks the question, “What does holocaust mean?” And a surprising number didn’t have a clue. There are holocaust museums (a very good one here in Houston, another in Washington, DC). It’s a word synonymous with genocide. And even though more individuals were killed under Soviet communism and other socialist regimes, we as a world are pretty aware of the six million Jews killed in fascist Germany’s holocaust during WWII.

The world has said “Never again!” But if young people don’t know what this is, then they’re susceptible to the same forces that allowed it to happen before.

I’d like to focus on the behaviors of totalitarianism, and its synonym fascism, rather than on the “government” aspect of the definition, which is certainly related—but we know that politics is downstream from culture.

So I’d like to look at the “forcible suppression of opposition,” which leads to “authoritarian, autocratic, dictatorial”—essentially tyrannical governments.

A person who is in favor of—or actively pursues—forcible suppression of opposition is fascist.

A person who seeks to control the behavioral freedoms, the economic freedoms, and even the social thoughts of others, to stamp out opposing viewpoints it totalitarian. Such people, in power, seek to destroy opposition, doing away with a second party, or even a second choice. Elections in such regimes are a joke: “Do you vote for the supreme leader? Yes or No? Only Yes votes are counted.”

It’s possible that people who have grown up in a milieu of freedom might not realize what their forcible suppression of opposition inevitably leads to. So maybe we’ll hold off calling them totalitarian until they have some statist power. But they are nevertheless fascist.

It’s time for some examples, in no particular order (unless I go back and edit).

Strange Planet

Strange Planet birthday

There’s a four-panel cartoon, called Strange Planet, of aliens doing normal human things and describing them in absolutely literal ways, which turns out to be pretty hilarious. These have been showing up on my Facebook feed often, and I enjoy them a lot. Many young people have been enjoying them, but, as they say, #canceled. The online magazine Nylon, which I had never heard of, let out the news that, Nathan Pyle, the writer of this funny and non-controversial comic, is pro-life—and therefore no one should ever share or even look at his funny comics again! 

For those of us conservatives who have tolerated Hollywood for all these decades of ridicule, we think never enjoying a comic strip again because the creator has gone so far as to support his girlfriend for attending a pro-life rally (but hasn’t publicly ever even talked about pro-life issues) is narcissistically intolerant. And any person who not only boycotts based on such a small disagreement but insists on spreading the word so that all others within their influence will also boycott—that is fascist.

Chick-fil-A

As I mentioned recently, the San Antonio city council refused to allow Chick-fil-A to have a concession in the airport, supposedly because of the bigoted homophobic beliefs of the company owners. Added to that, Buffalo, NY,airport was about to get a Chick-fil-A, but after complaints from a city councilman, reversed their permission.   

Have those owners, or the company, spoken out against homosexuals or refused to serve them delicious chicken sandwiches and amazing lemonade? No. They are avowed Christians—like 70% of the US population—and therefore one can extract from this information that they believe marriage is between a man and a woman (as has been the belief of all humanity for all the millennia of history up until about five minutes ago). And therefore they should not be allowed to do business? That’s fascist.

Attacks on Chick-fil-A have been going on for quite a while. Fortunately they produce a very good product at a better-than-practically-anyone efficiency, and non-fascists tend to appreciate that and support them even more.

Oculus

Blake J. Harris, author of History of the Future: Oculus, Facebook, and the Revolution That Swept Virtual Reality, was on Glenn Beck radio recently. He told the story of Palmer Luckey, the teenager who started a virtual reality company, which was acquired by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg. It looked like things were going great for the young man when word got out somehow, shortly before the 2016 election, that he was a Trump supporter. Zuckerberg stepped in personally and insisted that Luckey sign a declaration that he was not a Trump supporter, but was instead voting for the Libertarian candidate, which was not true. Despite giving in and signing, he was then put on leave for six weeks—with people being told he had asked for this personal time. Then he learned, during a conference call at the end of that imposed vacation, that he had asked for another six weeks off—which of course he hadn’t even considered. Shortly after that he was let go, severed from his creation. Because he liked Trump’s free-market ideas.

Author, Harris, was a fan of Facebook and Zuckerberg going in, which is probably why he had such great access to all the players, and watched what happened first hand. The book is about more than the maltreatment of Luckey; it’s about the rise of virtual reality. But that episode is part of the tech world. And it’s definitely fascistic.

I’m a Facebook user, although rarely political online. But most weeks I have political friends who announce that they’re back on after being put in Facebook jail for a day or a week, or have had materials deleted. As far as I can verify, none of these has been for profanity, lewd conduct or language, inciting violence, or anything you might want Facebook to protect you from; they have been for political content that Facebook deems unacceptable.

Meanwhile, Facebook friends who have Zuckerberg’s political leanings spew uncalculable amounts of lying trash (my words, but I think this is a somewhat expert opinion) without so much as a warning.

“Forcible suppression of opposition” is what’s going on. That’s the definition of fascist.

Human Rights Tribunal in Canada

This headline is from Vancouver, British Columbia: “Court orders Christian to pay $55,000 to trans politician for calling him ‘biological male.’” 

The Human Rights Tribunal ruled that it’s unlawful discrimination not to accept transgender people as the gender they claim to be. Also, “there’s no room for any public debate in the matter.”

Bill Whatcott had dispersed flyers that referred to NDP candidate Ronan “Morgane” Oger as a biological male. His defense, which was not allowed to be presented, was proof of Oger’s biology, but the judge ruled “the ‘truth’ of the statements in the flyer is not a defense.”

The flyer compared Oger to another man, Walt Heyer, who had gender dysphoria, had undergone hormone and surgical transformation to “become” a woman, but eventually realized that was a lie and transitioned back, now again identifying as a man. Making this comparison cost Whatcott $35,000 for injury to the “dignity, feelings and self-respect” of the man presenting himself as a woman, and also $20,000 for alleged improper conduct (not sure from the story what this entailed).

Truth is not a defense? There is no room for public debate? I’d call that forcible suppression of opposition: fascism.

Artificial Intelligence Ethics Council

Here’s another from this week: “Google Cancels AI Ethics Council after Employees Demand Removal of Conservative Heritage President Kay Coles James.” It’s worth noting that, in the group identity politics of the opposition, James checks a lot of boxes; she’s a black woman of a certain age. But being conservative—which is about beliefs and ideas rather than surface details—is unacceptable at Google. She opposes transgender activism—not people with gender dysphoria, but the imposition of the transgender agenda on society. That means the controllers of the largest and most used search engine, controlling our access to information, is about the forcible suppression of opposition; Google is fascist. 

Yale Law School Blacklists Christian Firms

Yale Law School has decided not to do business with any Christian law firms. Also, Senator Ted Cruz has announced an investigation into discrimination at the Yale Law School, which receives federal funding and is therefore prohibited from this sort of discrimination. According to Cruz, “Public news reports indicate that Yale Law School has recently adopted a transparently discriminatory policy: namely, that Yale will no longer provide any stipends or loan repayments for students serving in organizations professing traditional Christian views or adhering to traditional sexual ethics."

Not long ago, there was loud protest about VP Pence’s wife getting a part-time art teacher position at a Christian school, purportedly because this school went out of its way to exclude gays or transgenders. In actuality, the school simply asked for an affirmation of belief in the millennia-old definition of marriage and that sex should only be between married husband and wife. That was considered radically offensive?

If all Christians are to be ousted from the public square, and refused employment, or education, or any of the normal opportunities of society, that leaves far above half the population in unemployed status, dependent on government, meaning the non-Christian (or possibly non-religious) remainder would be required to support those they have disenfranchised. You can see why the labeling of such outcasts as subhuman for the sake of taking their lives with impunity has been the path taken by fascist dictators historically.

The stories of fascist suppression of the opposition are ubiquitous. And they are one-sided. Let’s look at the Spherical Model to see why.

Freedom of people, markets, and ideas is a northern hemisphere (on the model) characteristic. Control of people, markets, and ideas is a southern hemisphere (on the model) characteristic. You don’t find people who strive for freedom, prosperity, and civilization—the northern hemisphere—trying to suppress ideas, because you can’t be northern hemisphere and do that. So all the suppression is done by those who favor control over others, or tyranny.

If you think you have an example of conservative suppression of discourse, you’re wrong. Freedom of speech is an element of the north. If a religious person is suppressing truth—or the legitimate expression of what one thinks is truth—that so-called religious person is acting in a controlling manner, using coercion rather than persuasion. It’s not possible to conserve civilization with coercion. They are incompatible.

So you’re not seeing any religion stuffed down anyone’s throats unless it’s done by people trying to wield power over others. Tyrants. Or fascists. By the way, secularism is a religion, and it is being stuffed down the throats of non-secularists by fascists.

Let’s be clear about definitions, so we can identify exactly why fascist suppression of opposition is so wrong. Then we can see clearly why we need to stand up against it. Now, on our watch.

Post-Civilized Worlds

It’s a book club day again. We talked about Among the Hidden, by Margaret Peterson Haddix, the first of a series of youth novels. In this world, similar to our own, but after a great worldwide famine that disrupted societies and allowed totalitarian governments to take over, families are limited to no more than two children. Any additional children will be executed, and their families might be either killed, imprisoned, or severely fined, depending on the whim of the population police. It’s from the view of a 12-year-old boy, who is a third child, born at the time the law was put into place; his mother very much wanted him and wanted to believe such a law couldn’t possibly stand. So they keep him hidden in the house. There’s a lot of paranoia among his whole family, and it turns out to be justified. 

We’ve read a number of these totalitarian world themes lately. Early in the year we did The Hunger Games series, also disturbing youth novels. And we’ve also looked a little at Atlas Shrugged, which is about the process of a society turning toward socialist control. One of the questions we talked about today was, could it really happen here? And the answer is a scary yes, because China today has a one-child only policy, and many many children are aborted or killed or abandoned, resulting in a disturbing gender imbalance. They have lost concepts like brother, sister, aunt, uncle, and cousin. And then you look at the killing fields of Cambodia, very nearly in the lifetime of my children. Anne Frank’s diary, from only decades ago, revealed a “hidden” scenario similar to the limitations on the young boy in Among the Hidden. Could some of these things happen? They have. 

We’d all rather talk about other things. We’d rather be cheerful and read frothy things. But there probably is some benefit to raising our awareness of totalitarian worlds—so that we never find ourselves saying, “We’re willing to tolerate that.” Then the question is, where and when do you stand up? 

If we stand up with small things, while we can, that seems like a good practice. And then we can hope things don’t get so despotic that the freedom to speak up is lost. It seems odd enough to be living in times when we can even consider the possibility of loss of our freedoms. But it has been more typical for people in this world to live under despots than in freedom. Our freedom experience has been anomalous.

In the Spherical Model view, tyranny is below the center equator of the sphere, on down to the southern polar area as things get worse. The two faces of it are chaos and state control. Almost always tyranny comes about as a reaction to the fear caused by chaos. The diabolical power hungry even create chaos in order to have an opportunity to step in and offer relief from it, so people are willing to give up their freedoms to avoid the insecurity of chaos. That is what it looks like is happening, in the street protests currently going on. The people have a litany of complaints, but no idea what to protest. They just think it’s exciting to go against the status quo and create some chaos.  

But then you find out the protests are organized and paid for (one protestor on video admitted he wasn’t in search of a full-time job, because he was getting paid $22 an hour tot hold his protest sign). That means some power seeker is doing the old Lenin/Stalin/Alinsky/Piven practice of creating chaos for the purpose of creating opportunity to seize power.  

What they don’t know is that we have the choice to reject both chaos and tyranny, by following the rules of freedom and civilization that allow us to thrive in the northern idea hemisphere. The choice requires adhering to the freedom-protecting laws in our Constitution, while adhering to God’s laws for civilization. Not easy, but we can do it.