"The surest path toward a healthy society" is doing real things that can produce tangible results in the specific circumstances of a given moment on a daily basis. The surest path away from a healthy society is indulging in online circle jerking on a daily basis to create yourself this nice little illusion that you are "never really alone"...
I read your "Brutal Reality" article. It talks about very concrete things. And it draws an absolutely correct conclusion. That is indeed the only realistic winning strategy. Now, could you tell me how Ms Johnstone's repetitive bloviations and preaching to the choir in this echo chamber are supposed to contribute in practical terms to realizing that strategy you lay out in your article?
I can see why you take issue with Caitlin on the strategies needed to make a real difference. I'm sure she has been pondering this problem as well as many people who care are trying to figure out. But you have to admit, it's a tall order. As I see it, the best way to bring about a transformative movement is through stories. The kind of stories that can invite people to grasp the following:
“Our society actually exists as a kind of negative afterimage. We all live in a crazy, backward world, often unaware of the lies and double messages we are given. If we could be free for a moment to catch a glimpse of our true situation, if we could view our society as a visitor from another planet, we would be stunned at the nightmare in which we live. The things we are expected to believe about ourselves and about society are frequently the very opposite of the way things really are. Unhappily, the individual and all the members of our society are often unconsciously working together to maintain a largely defensive and dishonest way of living" (From Dr. Robert Firestone's book: Psychological defenses in everyday life.
I believe that stories -with the right message and the characters- can have the potential to awaken people in ways we never thought possible. If propaganda can move millions of people to commit atrocities, it can also be used for good.
In order to change the world, I go out with Food Not Bombs occasionally and give people soup. It may be virtual signaling or bullshit, but at least they get a free meal that day.
"preaching to the choir in this echo chamber" - She tweets and posts on other platforms referring to these articles and so targets folks outside the choir.
russian_bot: I am not in the choir. I criticize some of CJ's posts, and some of your comments, and like other articles by CJ and other comments by yourself.
Some dislike me on this site, some like me, and some do both.
That is human nature. I don't have a problem with it.
I do have a problem with the elites enslaving all of us.
I don't believe all commenters here constitute Caitlin's choir, either. The OP seemed to think that though, hence the quote.
You are one of the characters of this forum and I like your approach of frequently voicing your views through stories. Whether true or not doesn't really matter.
russian_bot: Most of my stories are factual, but like Mark Twain I will embellish here and there to make a better story. It is the idea of the story that matters.
Apparently a lot of people need to hear certain things said repeatedly in order to get them, or having gotten them, to continue to believe in them, to be reassured, and finally to move on to doing something about them. Bloviation may have its uses. Indeed, as I look down the mountain with Zarathustra, we see many who Need Help.
I liked your comment and George Carazo's reply because I believe there's a place fo both approaches. I have chosen to focus on the tangible results factor now. I believe it is the highest ROI in a time of rapidly evolving dystopia and increasingly desperation regarding unmet existential needs. The reality Covid, East Palistine, Ukraine and so much more, should be enough to have the conscious aware of what to expect from our completely compromised institutions. Those of us old enough to have witnessed and understood how we'd evolve to this sad end can only hope those younger have enough evidence set before them now. I hope those who chose to continue Caitlin's route, awaken more to direct action. I'm confident that approach, which I was stuck in for a long time, is covered. But the actual work to endure what is endlessly evidenced, is barely started. I also hope the communial organization to meet such common needs, may help awaken people to the reality that despite our highly manipulated tribal insanity, we have needs in common, with even those others have crafted blood feuds between, to distract from their psychopathic avarice.
It's good news that you are about "tangible results" now. Knowledge is nickel-and-dime if it doesn't translate into "right" action.That being said, I've nothing against sound theories and educational efforts. But I don't think that Ms Johnstone's writings qualify as either. As far as I can see, she isn't awakening people to direct action (the only viable option in the present situation) or challenging the "Empire" in any other meaningful way. She is downright carrying water for it, even if inadvertently to an extent. I can go into detail if you're interested. But I'd like to give Mr Black some more time to answer the question first. Maybe I'm missing something here and he knows stuff I don’t..
Re: "repetitive bloviations and preaching to the choir in this echo chamber." I'm new to Caitlin's work, but I think I might be able to answer that with at least one perspective; there might be others.
Erich Fromm's classic "Escape From Freedom" discusses two kinds of isolation that lead people to choose between submitting to Fascism (eh, it was published in 1941) or a mutually supportive community of individuals: physical isolation and moral isolation. A monk in a cell can tolerate the physical isolation because he feels morally connected to the outside world. But, moral isolation, i.e., a lack of connection through traditions, understanding, etc., can be the crushing blow that leads to submission to exploitative forces. Work like Caitlin's help mitigate the perception of moral isolation.
Plus, even though the "choir" may share some common principles, from what I've read so far, Caitlin adeptly presents nuances to arguments and perspectives that are helpful for others to consider and either argue against to strengthen her arguments or adopt and use in their interaction with others in their path outside this particular corner of society.
The beginning of healing comes from awakening from the dream, by at least a few of us... PP
The best of ideas from J. Krishnamurti
Look with eyes that are not confused. There will be confusion only when there is division between the observer and the observed. This division takes place when there is the image, the formula, the concept, the ideal. Therefore self-knowing, knowing oneself as one is, is the beginning of wisdom, which cannot possibly be bought in books. One has to observe oneself, not analysing but observing oneself in relationship, because in relationship all your reactions come out – your antagonisms, your fears, your anxieties, your bitterness, your loneliness. Without understanding all that, to find out if there is something beyond all human thought, if there is something real, true, is not possible. Therefore one must lay the foundation, and to lay the foundation one must observe one’s life daily without any distortion.
Wow. This is the most concise and accessible critique of mainstream discourse that I've ever read. In a sane society, this would be shared far and wide.
This is also quite instructive in why the far left and far right may be able to find common ground. Not only because they have the same enemies, but because they can see that there is a problem that mainstream solutions cannot solve and in fact cause, even if they don't agree on the specifics of the solution.
Fact is, lots of solutions can be made to work, in a system not run by sociopaths.
But Shakespeare's version of Richard III was the opposite of the REAL Richard III because he couldn't tell the truth about Elizabeth I's grandfather Henry VII, who murdered Richard.
In recent national elections, millions of people, under no duress, _voted_ for one or another of the currently prominent psychopaths, and are preparing to do so again next year.
"No man is an island, intire of itself." However, I do take your meaning as well, if only to contradict myself. The particular "we" in this case refers to the human community. It is true many of us did not vote for or otherwise support psychopaths, but maybe we should have tried harder to deal with them since we're stuck with them anyway.
Starry Gordon: I hate that "No man is an island..." quote. Look up Alexander Selkirk the real life Robinson Crusoe.
And this "human community" bullshit. We humans, every one of us, is an individual. A unique individual. We are not bees in a hive or ants in a colony run by a queen.
As individuals we may come together voluntarily for a common goal, but this "It Takes A Village" crap is bullshit.
Because secretly we want them to exist so that we have something to virtue signal about.
Really, that's all it is. Participants in a heroic drama never want it to end because they're drunk on passion. Fuck them all and set the dogs among them.
Homosexuals may have some particular positive function as such (besides whatever else they may do). Psychopaths strike me as people with something definitely missing.
People believe in the theory of Evolution through natural selection because of its great explanatory power, the fact that it doesn't require any conditions beyond normal physics, its simplicity and logic, and the fact that no counterexample has thus far been found.
Some of the possible difficulties with the theory (which are marginal cases anyway) like homosexuality, may stem from the curious way people tend to categorize people and behaviors. For example, until fairly recently in history there were no homosexuals. There were sometimes people (and other animals) who engaged in sexual activities with members of the same sex, but it was not an organized institution the way it is today. Famous erotic poets like Sappho and Catullus admired and were attracted to both sexes, said so, and acted accordingly. It would probably be impossible to explain the Stonewall Riots to a person from the ancient world.
Psychopathy -- the depraved indifference to the feelings, welfare and interests of others -- is not something I have figured out yet. It is usually very dangerous for those who suffer from it since they are likely to be killed or driven away by their peers. It may be that Evolution will take care of it in the near future since there seem to be many who have signed up for it.
Stinky is an adherent of Graeber church. There are many such schools and their followers are a fervent bunch. Try talking to some Jungian or Freudian.
Or a "Christian" for that matter. I used quotes as only followers of infinite protestant and derivative sects would behave that way, the proselytizing scum that they are. No true Catholic or Orthodox should behave in such manner or even identify oneself as a believer.
Oddly, some people seem to have an instinctual aversion to psychopaths. Given their destructive nature, you'd think it would be strongly selected for in Evolution and therefore found more widely distributed. I suppose in some cases the prospective psychopath sucker / fan _wishes_ he could do what the psychopath does, hence, charisma (another mystery).
They will not find "common ground", because the far-right seeks the eradication of anything and anyone they choose to describe as "left". There can be no common anything with such, because their central goal will always be mixed into their motives on any level of struggle.
You're free to engage with people who are openly calling for your destruction, if you wish. As a "strategy", however, that doesn't have a really good track record for those who do.
Great article as usual. Just want to add, it isnt just politics that the narrative is controlled, it is every facet of life. The same apparatus that dictates the common political narrative is the same one that determines the scientific, historical, educational and cultural level narratives. ( weaponized anthropology anyone..) It is a manufactured reality. The spectrum that Chomsky discusses, while it certainly exists, it is the spectacle.. so the value of that contained debate is effectively nonsense. As you said, this contained debate, it does not affect the actual power structure, but it is more than that. It ignores and cuts out the actual structure, it removes it from the imagination of the consumer of the spectacle, which is a goal. A hyperreality. Propaganda is a sustaining element of this reality, but the foundations are institutional and have been for generations..as is its secretive protection by force mechanism, the national security state. This is so often overlooked, of course , this is partly due to the fact it is not included in the acceptable debate parameters. Our great grandparents were being hoodwinked too, just with different methods. Now with controlled technological advancements coupled with the existing mechanisms ( think public education, media et cetera) , the spectacle in the 21st century is akin to cortex communism with its algorithmic grooming. Biohacking is an understatement.
With that all being said, on the outside of the spectacle ( I call the spectacle wonderland) one can feel ostracized by mass society. Hopefully, a person has already tossed the opinions of mass society in the trash long before they put their head under the curtain and looked at OZ. If not, the ostracized person will suffer because they place too much value on the judgements of those hypnotized by the spectacle. If you find yourself on the outside, just be happy you have a measure of your own free will. Use that to discover things that actually have value to you, and spend your time accordingly, do not waste emotional and mental capital trying to make sense of the lies. While you are at it, try to love thy neighbor as you do yourself, especially the ones trapped in a mental cage of the spectacle. They, just like most of us, have been lied to..but they still believe. However, this does not mean we need to let them suffocate us with their boots.
I think propaganda is easily injected into the younger generations. Us oldsters have usually seen enough BS in our time to not get so easily taken in. The inexperienced in life will be searching for someone to lead them until, if ever, they can find their own way.
There is always ONLY one truth to everything. Any single construct can never have multiple instances of truth. It is always either or.
The problem is you can't stop generations from changing. And the youngsters from always being know-it-alls, dismissive of the wised-ups. It's almost like it's designed to be fucked up.
The people can only be controlled via the oligarch money supply. If the people get rid of the oligarch money supply and refuse to use it, the nation, and the oligarchy is over, as are the occupations of global Multinational Corporations, intent on exterminating most of humanity, in the very near future, the other prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, and global fascism.
Quite a few of those who read history. But as for politics, politics is the theory and practice of determining whose will will prevail in a community. Since humans are highly social animals -- it's not a choice -- they form communities of various degrees of cohesion and intimacy, and then they have to make collective choices. There are various methods for doing this and considerable debate as to which are the best. Most human beings cannot avoid this problem; the alternative is living as a hermit and most people don't want to do that. Therefore they must deal with politics.
That's PMC pietist shit, the middle-class myth of the state as they wish it had happened. The middle class needs people, especially their subordinates, to believe that subordination is natural and that they should feel wrong if they don't feel the need to serve the middle class whims.
The reality is far more varied and more complicated than liberal humbug, and very often involves no personification of the whole cosmos, no "total master" of the kind that idiot Anglos can't seem to get their tongues off of. Read more Graeber.
The greatest lie ever told in America is that the slaves were freed. Juneteenth my ass. Slavery never ended, it was simply rebranded as jobs. Slave/master became employer/employee, lender/debtor, landlord/renter, oligarch/sheeple. But in a system in which the foundational myth, cosmology, and religion are all based on a dominator god and his dominated creatures, what can we expect?
Every time reference is made to the Founding Fathers, someone has to interject the old distraction-brainwash of slavery.
So what they had slaves. That was the way things were then.
What's important is what the F. Fathers did, which includes the constitution, which was not good. The constitution was, as I understand it, a complicated means of attaining, by gradual methods, the eventual enslavement of the people.
We can survive a nuclear war, take shelter under your desk.
Your sins can be forgiven and the gates of Heaven will open to you.
We are the only intelligent life in the universe.
Pure as white bread.
You have come a long way baby, enjoy the smoke.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
The American dream.
Commies are evil.
Trickle down economics.
Global warming is a hoax.
Arbeit macht frei.
I once listened to an interview years ago with Rush Limbaugh. When asked directly whether he believed in all of his hype, he said no, but they pay me 30 million a year to say it. The rich and powerful control the message. The people mostly, to their ever lasting shame, believe the lies. The latest and greatest believed lie is that the war in Ukraine is a great battle between autocracy versus democracy. How many times do the wars start with great lies...the fight for democracy, protecting the women and young girls, the mushroom cloud, when in reality it is Empire, disrupting and stealing, and selling weapons. When will we ever learn?
What is important to understand: most all peoples on this Earth have the same fears, hopes, and aspirations as we do. They have families they love and communities they share in, and the desire to work for a living and to raise their children in a healthy, happy world. We need to be one with each other and to protect our Earth that nourishes us. Control the fears.
Arise and fight together against the war mongers, the sociopaths, the cheats and liars that will doom us.
"We can still find each other online, so we’re never really alone, and the cost is definitely worth it."
Exactly. We "fringe members" are able to reach out and communicate with each other better than ever since the advent of the internet. It's the reason why the propaganda volume has been turned up so loud. They're trying to keep us from finding each other. Keep reaching out to each other and keep sharing your truth with others and encourage them to do the same. “The cost of sanity in this society" doesn't have to be alienation. It can be solidarity.
It's curious to us Chinese: All anti-Chinese Press (NYT, Guardian, etc) and media (YouTube, Substack) propaganda (a) appeals entirely to and is bought by an Anglophone audience (including Anglophiles here on Substack) which in China is less than 0.001% of population, and (b) on topics (macroeconomics, international relations, governance), issues (national/personal debt, security, kinship) and problems (housing, welfare, jobs, drug epidemic) wholly absent in China but found everywhere in US coast to coast. Yet, the propaganda seem effective; why? On whom? How so?
Why is propaganda so rampant in the US/West, not other societies?
Further regress the US/western propaganda leads to the conclusion: (a) the propaganda is effective only because it easily penetrates the vulnerable (which you've described in this essay, "propaganda ruled"), but that at levels which doesn't connect with education. Instead, the vulnerability is purely on ethical, civilized, cultural terms. And, (b) only some societies are more prone to this "propaganda rule" than others (and democracies, with its "freedom of speech" rights, whatever that is, fit best into this category) .
In China, one of our best singer-composers 刀郎 Dao Lang released the song《羅剎海市》, translated the Kingdom of Lousha. Since its official release Aug 19, there had been more than 10 billion (yes, billion) online downloads, and heard street to street. Dao Lang never said a word since but there's universal Chinese agreement, fitting all the given lyrical criteria, the song parodies the US.
In the Dao Lang lyrics is an explicit mention by name of Austrian/German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein whose Picture Theory of Language in his 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' Dao Lang invokes: "The world is everything that is the case." That is, Americans (or white people) grow up in the language that made them and they, in their turn, made the language, which includes the language of propaganda that Caitlin describes here. Restated another way, if your language is defective at onset it produces in its turn defective persons/personalities. Small wonder the US is exemplar of such a sick society.
Wittgenstein isn't new to us Chinese. We very easily understood what he means because we learn the same epistemology (how do you know what you know) from 2,500 years ago in Confucian training, within which is this idea in an Analects passage 13-3: The Rectification of Terms. 名不正、則言不訓。言不訓、則事不成。事不成、則禮樂不興。禮樂不興、則刑罰不中。刑罰不中、則民無所措手足。Inter alia, “If terms be false, then what's said can't be transmitted true to its end. If all that is said aren't in the end true, then nothing is accomplished. If nothing is accomplished, then comes.... crime ....Thus, in the 君子 (noble person) meanings must be true to language, speech true to actions.."
Top of examples of this bad language birthing the US that it is today is found in the Bible. It's pure voodoo! In contrast, the Chinese hanzi 汉字 language is always true to its terms: it can never lie, deceive much less. This is the essence in Wittgenstein’s Pictorial Theory of Language.
The Golden Mean of Aristotle, who didn’t invent the idea but developed it most famously in his ethical thought, is also a powerful trope of Western intellectual heritage that undoubtedly contributes to the conception that the middle way is right.
I am disconnecting as much as I can as quickly as I can. As wonderful as the Internet is it didn't set us free it imprisoned us. Just another opportunity to propagandize. It's an illusion.
Eric French: I'm not going to read your last article. Your comment above proves to me that you are not a good writer. Your second sentence makes no sense.
As I've mentioned before, I think your messages are perfect to be read over the radio waves all across the world. There needs to be some kind of Schindler's list scene where someone highjacks the airwaves and reads the message the millions of people (if not billions). Or, it's simultaneously run during commercial time at rush hour on major radio stations.
Caitlin - gold every time for the people!☮️❤️🎶
Seriously? I beg to differ, sir.
"The surest path toward a healthy society" is doing real things that can produce tangible results in the specific circumstances of a given moment on a daily basis. The surest path away from a healthy society is indulging in online circle jerking on a daily basis to create yourself this nice little illusion that you are "never really alone"...
I read your "Brutal Reality" article. It talks about very concrete things. And it draws an absolutely correct conclusion. That is indeed the only realistic winning strategy. Now, could you tell me how Ms Johnstone's repetitive bloviations and preaching to the choir in this echo chamber are supposed to contribute in practical terms to realizing that strategy you lay out in your article?
I can see why you take issue with Caitlin on the strategies needed to make a real difference. I'm sure she has been pondering this problem as well as many people who care are trying to figure out. But you have to admit, it's a tall order. As I see it, the best way to bring about a transformative movement is through stories. The kind of stories that can invite people to grasp the following:
“Our society actually exists as a kind of negative afterimage. We all live in a crazy, backward world, often unaware of the lies and double messages we are given. If we could be free for a moment to catch a glimpse of our true situation, if we could view our society as a visitor from another planet, we would be stunned at the nightmare in which we live. The things we are expected to believe about ourselves and about society are frequently the very opposite of the way things really are. Unhappily, the individual and all the members of our society are often unconsciously working together to maintain a largely defensive and dishonest way of living" (From Dr. Robert Firestone's book: Psychological defenses in everyday life.
I believe that stories -with the right message and the characters- can have the potential to awaken people in ways we never thought possible. If propaganda can move millions of people to commit atrocities, it can also be used for good.
In order to change the world, I go out with Food Not Bombs occasionally and give people soup. It may be virtual signaling or bullshit, but at least they get a free meal that day.
Thank you for helping out FNB. They do such good work. And feeding others is all that really matters, isn't it?
The Revolution Continues: Does man live by bread alone?
But that's not what happens.
"preaching to the choir in this echo chamber" - She tweets and posts on other platforms referring to these articles and so targets folks outside the choir.
You'd probably want her to also be a politician, engineer, astronaut, professor, etc. For that we have Shania Twain: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQGFFYEIfhU
russian_bot: I am not in the choir. I criticize some of CJ's posts, and some of your comments, and like other articles by CJ and other comments by yourself.
Some dislike me on this site, some like me, and some do both.
That is human nature. I don't have a problem with it.
I do have a problem with the elites enslaving all of us.
That is the bottom line.
We only live so long. Quality of life matters.
We do not live by bread alone.
I don't believe all commenters here constitute Caitlin's choir, either. The OP seemed to think that though, hence the quote.
You are one of the characters of this forum and I like your approach of frequently voicing your views through stories. Whether true or not doesn't really matter.
russian_bot: Most of my stories are factual, but like Mark Twain I will embellish here and there to make a better story. It is the idea of the story that matters.
What does "OP" stand for?
The one who started the line of inquiry, the "original poster".
There is a huge need for the knowledge to spread.
And even if it might not "translate directly into action" yet it might hopefully cause simmering among those waking up.
Marta Staszak: Just say "NO!". No is a powerful word.
Apparently a lot of people need to hear certain things said repeatedly in order to get them, or having gotten them, to continue to believe in them, to be reassured, and finally to move on to doing something about them. Bloviation may have its uses. Indeed, as I look down the mountain with Zarathustra, we see many who Need Help.
I liked your comment and George Carazo's reply because I believe there's a place fo both approaches. I have chosen to focus on the tangible results factor now. I believe it is the highest ROI in a time of rapidly evolving dystopia and increasingly desperation regarding unmet existential needs. The reality Covid, East Palistine, Ukraine and so much more, should be enough to have the conscious aware of what to expect from our completely compromised institutions. Those of us old enough to have witnessed and understood how we'd evolve to this sad end can only hope those younger have enough evidence set before them now. I hope those who chose to continue Caitlin's route, awaken more to direct action. I'm confident that approach, which I was stuck in for a long time, is covered. But the actual work to endure what is endlessly evidenced, is barely started. I also hope the communial organization to meet such common needs, may help awaken people to the reality that despite our highly manipulated tribal insanity, we have needs in common, with even those others have crafted blood feuds between, to distract from their psychopathic avarice.
It's good news that you are about "tangible results" now. Knowledge is nickel-and-dime if it doesn't translate into "right" action.That being said, I've nothing against sound theories and educational efforts. But I don't think that Ms Johnstone's writings qualify as either. As far as I can see, she isn't awakening people to direct action (the only viable option in the present situation) or challenging the "Empire" in any other meaningful way. She is downright carrying water for it, even if inadvertently to an extent. I can go into detail if you're interested. But I'd like to give Mr Black some more time to answer the question first. Maybe I'm missing something here and he knows stuff I don’t..
Re: "repetitive bloviations and preaching to the choir in this echo chamber." I'm new to Caitlin's work, but I think I might be able to answer that with at least one perspective; there might be others.
Erich Fromm's classic "Escape From Freedom" discusses two kinds of isolation that lead people to choose between submitting to Fascism (eh, it was published in 1941) or a mutually supportive community of individuals: physical isolation and moral isolation. A monk in a cell can tolerate the physical isolation because he feels morally connected to the outside world. But, moral isolation, i.e., a lack of connection through traditions, understanding, etc., can be the crushing blow that leads to submission to exploitative forces. Work like Caitlin's help mitigate the perception of moral isolation.
Plus, even though the "choir" may share some common principles, from what I've read so far, Caitlin adeptly presents nuances to arguments and perspectives that are helpful for others to consider and either argue against to strengthen her arguments or adopt and use in their interaction with others in their path outside this particular corner of society.
Plus, plus, plus....
The beginning of healing comes from awakening from the dream, by at least a few of us... PP
The best of ideas from J. Krishnamurti
Look with eyes that are not confused. There will be confusion only when there is division between the observer and the observed. This division takes place when there is the image, the formula, the concept, the ideal. Therefore self-knowing, knowing oneself as one is, is the beginning of wisdom, which cannot possibly be bought in books. One has to observe oneself, not analysing but observing oneself in relationship, because in relationship all your reactions come out – your antagonisms, your fears, your anxieties, your bitterness, your loneliness. Without understanding all that, to find out if there is something beyond all human thought, if there is something real, true, is not possible. Therefore one must lay the foundation, and to lay the foundation one must observe one’s life daily without any distortion.
From Public Talk 1, Sydney, 21 November 1970
Wow. This is the most concise and accessible critique of mainstream discourse that I've ever read. In a sane society, this would be shared far and wide.
This is also quite instructive in why the far left and far right may be able to find common ground. Not only because they have the same enemies, but because they can see that there is a problem that mainstream solutions cannot solve and in fact cause, even if they don't agree on the specifics of the solution.
Fact is, lots of solutions can be made to work, in a system not run by sociopaths.
So why do we maintain sociopaths and give them the keys to the gun locker?
A good question. Because sociopaths are precisely the people who will do whatever it takes to get power.
Shakespeare's Richard III is most instructive in this regard.
But Shakespeare's version of Richard III was the opposite of the REAL Richard III because he couldn't tell the truth about Elizabeth I's grandfather Henry VII, who murdered Richard.
Carolyn L. Zaremba: Richard III was an idiot who went off on a Crusade and was kidnapped on his way home on orders from his enemies.
If Shakespeare had told the truth about Richard III in his play he would have been executed.
I think you are confusing Richard III with Richard I, aka the Lionhearted.
Feral: Ahh, you are right. Sorry. Too many Richards.
The present day ferociously strong ju-ju of government narratives + the overall imperialistic paradigm through the ages?
Starry Gordon: "We" didn't give the sociopaths anything. The sociopaths stole the keys, built the guns and the gun locker, and told us to go to hell.
In recent national elections, millions of people, under no duress, _voted_ for one or another of the currently prominent psychopaths, and are preparing to do so again next year.
Starry Gordon: I'm not one of those millions of people who voted for psychopaths so again, put the "we" (mouse) back in your pocket.
"No man is an island, intire of itself." However, I do take your meaning as well, if only to contradict myself. The particular "we" in this case refers to the human community. It is true many of us did not vote for or otherwise support psychopaths, but maybe we should have tried harder to deal with them since we're stuck with them anyway.
Starry Gordon: I hate that "No man is an island..." quote. Look up Alexander Selkirk the real life Robinson Crusoe.
And this "human community" bullshit. We humans, every one of us, is an individual. A unique individual. We are not bees in a hive or ants in a colony run by a queen.
As individuals we may come together voluntarily for a common goal, but this "It Takes A Village" crap is bullshit.
Because secretly we want them to exist so that we have something to virtue signal about.
Really, that's all it is. Participants in a heroic drama never want it to end because they're drunk on passion. Fuck them all and set the dogs among them.
Stinky: This "heroic drama" you keep talking about is getting old. Are you living a heroic drama? Are you the hero of your own life movie?
Why do homosexuals exist? They don't reproduce. So why do they still exist?
Same thing with psychopaths and sociopaths. They should have died out ages ago but here they are living today.
Homosexuals may have some particular positive function as such (besides whatever else they may do). Psychopaths strike me as people with something definitely missing.
Starry Gordon: Your example prove to me that Darwin's Theory of Evolution is bullshit. Why do people still believe in that crap?
People believe in the theory of Evolution through natural selection because of its great explanatory power, the fact that it doesn't require any conditions beyond normal physics, its simplicity and logic, and the fact that no counterexample has thus far been found.
Some of the possible difficulties with the theory (which are marginal cases anyway) like homosexuality, may stem from the curious way people tend to categorize people and behaviors. For example, until fairly recently in history there were no homosexuals. There were sometimes people (and other animals) who engaged in sexual activities with members of the same sex, but it was not an organized institution the way it is today. Famous erotic poets like Sappho and Catullus admired and were attracted to both sexes, said so, and acted accordingly. It would probably be impossible to explain the Stonewall Riots to a person from the ancient world.
Psychopathy -- the depraved indifference to the feelings, welfare and interests of others -- is not something I have figured out yet. It is usually very dangerous for those who suffer from it since they are likely to be killed or driven away by their peers. It may be that Evolution will take care of it in the near future since there seem to be many who have signed up for it.
Stinky is an adherent of Graeber church. There are many such schools and their followers are a fervent bunch. Try talking to some Jungian or Freudian.
Or a "Christian" for that matter. I used quotes as only followers of infinite protestant and derivative sects would behave that way, the proselytizing scum that they are. No true Catholic or Orthodox should behave in such manner or even identify oneself as a believer.
russian_bot: I'd never heard of Graeber church. I agree with your comment.
"Because secretly we want them to exist..." - for sure there's a segment like that. Far from all, though.
Oddly, some people seem to have an instinctual aversion to psychopaths. Given their destructive nature, you'd think it would be strongly selected for in Evolution and therefore found more widely distributed. I suppose in some cases the prospective psychopath sucker / fan _wishes_ he could do what the psychopath does, hence, charisma (another mystery).
Exactly. That's who Stinky was referring to, I guess, and those do have more drive/virility so they outweigh the modest type in all aspects.
They will not find "common ground", because the far-right seeks the eradication of anything and anyone they choose to describe as "left". There can be no common anything with such, because their central goal will always be mixed into their motives on any level of struggle.
The logic of someone looking for "us" vs "them", of someone determined not to find common ground.
You're free to engage with people who are openly calling for your destruction, if you wish. As a "strategy", however, that doesn't have a really good track record for those who do.
You sound hyperbolic. Or more accurately, like someone looking for a reason.
If you haven't noticed, the censorship and repression are coming from Team R these days.
"During times of universal deceit, telling the truth becomes a revolutionary act." ~George Orwell
Were it not for you and a handful of other voices, Caitlin, I would feel very alone and isolated.
When one's worldview is so outside of the Overton Window, it can seem quite surreal.
Philip Mollica: You get used to being alone and isolated. Most people are cowardly sheep. Do you want to join them? I don't.
Great article as usual. Just want to add, it isnt just politics that the narrative is controlled, it is every facet of life. The same apparatus that dictates the common political narrative is the same one that determines the scientific, historical, educational and cultural level narratives. ( weaponized anthropology anyone..) It is a manufactured reality. The spectrum that Chomsky discusses, while it certainly exists, it is the spectacle.. so the value of that contained debate is effectively nonsense. As you said, this contained debate, it does not affect the actual power structure, but it is more than that. It ignores and cuts out the actual structure, it removes it from the imagination of the consumer of the spectacle, which is a goal. A hyperreality. Propaganda is a sustaining element of this reality, but the foundations are institutional and have been for generations..as is its secretive protection by force mechanism, the national security state. This is so often overlooked, of course , this is partly due to the fact it is not included in the acceptable debate parameters. Our great grandparents were being hoodwinked too, just with different methods. Now with controlled technological advancements coupled with the existing mechanisms ( think public education, media et cetera) , the spectacle in the 21st century is akin to cortex communism with its algorithmic grooming. Biohacking is an understatement.
With that all being said, on the outside of the spectacle ( I call the spectacle wonderland) one can feel ostracized by mass society. Hopefully, a person has already tossed the opinions of mass society in the trash long before they put their head under the curtain and looked at OZ. If not, the ostracized person will suffer because they place too much value on the judgements of those hypnotized by the spectacle. If you find yourself on the outside, just be happy you have a measure of your own free will. Use that to discover things that actually have value to you, and spend your time accordingly, do not waste emotional and mental capital trying to make sense of the lies. While you are at it, try to love thy neighbor as you do yourself, especially the ones trapped in a mental cage of the spectacle. They, just like most of us, have been lied to..but they still believe. However, this does not mean we need to let them suffocate us with their boots.
I think propaganda is easily injected into the younger generations. Us oldsters have usually seen enough BS in our time to not get so easily taken in. The inexperienced in life will be searching for someone to lead them until, if ever, they can find their own way.
There is always ONLY one truth to everything. Any single construct can never have multiple instances of truth. It is always either or.
The problem is you can't stop generations from changing. And the youngsters from always being know-it-alls, dismissive of the wised-ups. It's almost like it's designed to be fucked up.
No, only slaves think the love for slavery is innate.
Truth is just the lie we love the most.
Yep. No bleach is also a lie, if only we knew that.
The people can only be controlled via the oligarch money supply. If the people get rid of the oligarch money supply and refuse to use it, the nation, and the oligarchy is over, as are the occupations of global Multinational Corporations, intent on exterminating most of humanity, in the very near future, the other prison industrial complex, military industrial complex, and global fascism.
Sorry for the typo. I just woke up and I’m speaking into my phone.
Please have a look at __Why You Should Stop Using the Concepts "Left-wing" and "Right-wing"!__
https://whatdoino.substack.com/p/why-you-should-stop-using-the-concepts-a49
Politics are for rubes and oligarchs, just like all organized crime.
Quite so! Just a smattering of history helps! How many know that the CIA recruited the Mafia (and vice versa!) in WW2?
Quite a few of those who read history. But as for politics, politics is the theory and practice of determining whose will will prevail in a community. Since humans are highly social animals -- it's not a choice -- they form communities of various degrees of cohesion and intimacy, and then they have to make collective choices. There are various methods for doing this and considerable debate as to which are the best. Most human beings cannot avoid this problem; the alternative is living as a hermit and most people don't want to do that. Therefore they must deal with politics.
That's PMC pietist shit, the middle-class myth of the state as they wish it had happened. The middle class needs people, especially their subordinates, to believe that subordination is natural and that they should feel wrong if they don't feel the need to serve the middle class whims.
The reality is far more varied and more complicated than liberal humbug, and very often involves no personification of the whole cosmos, no "total master" of the kind that idiot Anglos can't seem to get their tongues off of. Read more Graeber.
https://davidgraeber.org/papers/culture-as-creative-refusal/
I don't know what this refers to.
Agreed. I think that the Founding Fathers had the right idea, though, when they tried to arrange things to minimise central government.
And yet they kept slaves, with all that that implies.
The greatest lie ever told in America is that the slaves were freed. Juneteenth my ass. Slavery never ended, it was simply rebranded as jobs. Slave/master became employer/employee, lender/debtor, landlord/renter, oligarch/sheeple. But in a system in which the foundational myth, cosmology, and religion are all based on a dominator god and his dominated creatures, what can we expect?
Every time reference is made to the Founding Fathers, someone has to interject the old distraction-brainwash of slavery.
So what they had slaves. That was the way things were then.
What's important is what the F. Fathers did, which includes the constitution, which was not good. The constitution was, as I understand it, a complicated means of attaining, by gradual methods, the eventual enslavement of the people.
The proof in in the current pudding.
Beautifully written. Thank you.
Thank YOU!
We can survive a nuclear war, take shelter under your desk.
Your sins can be forgiven and the gates of Heaven will open to you.
We are the only intelligent life in the universe.
Pure as white bread.
You have come a long way baby, enjoy the smoke.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
The American dream.
Commies are evil.
Trickle down economics.
Global warming is a hoax.
Arbeit macht frei.
I once listened to an interview years ago with Rush Limbaugh. When asked directly whether he believed in all of his hype, he said no, but they pay me 30 million a year to say it. The rich and powerful control the message. The people mostly, to their ever lasting shame, believe the lies. The latest and greatest believed lie is that the war in Ukraine is a great battle between autocracy versus democracy. How many times do the wars start with great lies...the fight for democracy, protecting the women and young girls, the mushroom cloud, when in reality it is Empire, disrupting and stealing, and selling weapons. When will we ever learn?
What is important to understand: most all peoples on this Earth have the same fears, hopes, and aspirations as we do. They have families they love and communities they share in, and the desire to work for a living and to raise their children in a healthy, happy world. We need to be one with each other and to protect our Earth that nourishes us. Control the fears.
Arise and fight together against the war mongers, the sociopaths, the cheats and liars that will doom us.
"We can still find each other online, so we’re never really alone, and the cost is definitely worth it."
Exactly. We "fringe members" are able to reach out and communicate with each other better than ever since the advent of the internet. It's the reason why the propaganda volume has been turned up so loud. They're trying to keep us from finding each other. Keep reaching out to each other and keep sharing your truth with others and encourage them to do the same. “The cost of sanity in this society" doesn't have to be alienation. It can be solidarity.
The Revolution Continues: Who says I want to be solid with you? LOL.
It's curious to us Chinese: All anti-Chinese Press (NYT, Guardian, etc) and media (YouTube, Substack) propaganda (a) appeals entirely to and is bought by an Anglophone audience (including Anglophiles here on Substack) which in China is less than 0.001% of population, and (b) on topics (macroeconomics, international relations, governance), issues (national/personal debt, security, kinship) and problems (housing, welfare, jobs, drug epidemic) wholly absent in China but found everywhere in US coast to coast. Yet, the propaganda seem effective; why? On whom? How so?
Why is propaganda so rampant in the US/West, not other societies?
Further regress the US/western propaganda leads to the conclusion: (a) the propaganda is effective only because it easily penetrates the vulnerable (which you've described in this essay, "propaganda ruled"), but that at levels which doesn't connect with education. Instead, the vulnerability is purely on ethical, civilized, cultural terms. And, (b) only some societies are more prone to this "propaganda rule" than others (and democracies, with its "freedom of speech" rights, whatever that is, fit best into this category) .
In China, one of our best singer-composers 刀郎 Dao Lang released the song《羅剎海市》, translated the Kingdom of Lousha. Since its official release Aug 19, there had been more than 10 billion (yes, billion) online downloads, and heard street to street. Dao Lang never said a word since but there's universal Chinese agreement, fitting all the given lyrical criteria, the song parodies the US.
In the Dao Lang lyrics is an explicit mention by name of Austrian/German philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein whose Picture Theory of Language in his 'Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus' Dao Lang invokes: "The world is everything that is the case." That is, Americans (or white people) grow up in the language that made them and they, in their turn, made the language, which includes the language of propaganda that Caitlin describes here. Restated another way, if your language is defective at onset it produces in its turn defective persons/personalities. Small wonder the US is exemplar of such a sick society.
Wittgenstein isn't new to us Chinese. We very easily understood what he means because we learn the same epistemology (how do you know what you know) from 2,500 years ago in Confucian training, within which is this idea in an Analects passage 13-3: The Rectification of Terms. 名不正、則言不訓。言不訓、則事不成。事不成、則禮樂不興。禮樂不興、則刑罰不中。刑罰不中、則民無所措手足。Inter alia, “If terms be false, then what's said can't be transmitted true to its end. If all that is said aren't in the end true, then nothing is accomplished. If nothing is accomplished, then comes.... crime ....Thus, in the 君子 (noble person) meanings must be true to language, speech true to actions.."
Top of examples of this bad language birthing the US that it is today is found in the Bible. It's pure voodoo! In contrast, the Chinese hanzi 汉字 language is always true to its terms: it can never lie, deceive much less. This is the essence in Wittgenstein’s Pictorial Theory of Language.
Here's that Dao Long parody on America/western societies 《羅剎海市》: https://youtu.be/1-suGKGFjus?si=XT45y2LAFWZy0oC0
Bot...bot...bot...
sounds like one of the propaganda-ruled, an asshole bleating and farting at once...
Bot...bot...bot...you are a bot. "Dave, I know you are upset."
fart, fart, fart what an asshole fart, a sore loser waiting to be cancelled. Pipe down donkey boy, you'll live.
Bot...bot...bot... bot just know insult AI program. Bot...bot...bot...
The Golden Mean of Aristotle, who didn’t invent the idea but developed it most famously in his ethical thought, is also a powerful trope of Western intellectual heritage that undoubtedly contributes to the conception that the middle way is right.
I am disconnecting as much as I can as quickly as I can. As wonderful as the Internet is it didn't set us free it imprisoned us. Just another opportunity to propagandize. It's an illusion.
It could be a wonderful tool if used properly for the good. Instead it's a hammer being used for a screwdriver.
Eric French and Toma: You are both right.
Please take a moment to read my last article. If your ears don't hear and your eyes don't see you are a perfect internet stooge.
Eric French: I'm not going to read your last article. Your comment above proves to me that you are not a good writer. Your second sentence makes no sense.
Bless your heart!
This is a great one Caitlin! Right on.
As I've mentioned before, I think your messages are perfect to be read over the radio waves all across the world. There needs to be some kind of Schindler's list scene where someone highjacks the airwaves and reads the message the millions of people (if not billions). Or, it's simultaneously run during commercial time at rush hour on major radio stations.
Stranger things have happened :)
Thank you Caitlin🙏