See below: “Affirming the most profound insights presented across history to inform human narratives and consciousness.” It’s the Daddy thing, to allay fears and reassure that its going to be alright. The true state of life is good and getting better. The world is not getting worse and we are not all gonna die in some climate apocalypse.
Site perspective: Appearing a bit tough on one side… Wendell Krossa
Recent comment below focuses more on liberal/left side of our societies for its notable unleashing of the totalitarian impulse. The material below is just acknowledging Christine Brophy’s point on “the current dominance of progressive liberalism” all across our societies- in universities, news media, political parties, in the intelligence agencies and military, domination in regard to social issues, domination of Social media, and domination in public story-telling media (i.e. Hollywood), etc.
Both sides of our basic society divide- left and right- have their struggles with the totalitarian impulse. A good balancing point was made by David Boaz (Libertarianism: A Primer), as he commented on the US situation, stating that Republicans need to embrace more freedom with regard to social issues like women’s rights and choice, gay rights, etc. And Democrats need to embrace more freedom in regard to economic issues.
Dems, notably the far-left Woke Progressive types, need to stop promoting the enslavement of individuals to collectivist projects and policies. Stop using excessive state taxation and regulations to intervene in the lives of citizens and thereby control them. Trust and respect average people to know what is best for themselves. Protect their self-determination and individual rights and freedoms. Protect “live and let live”, but not to the “toleration of intolerance” as per some multi-cultural policies.
I try to maintain a fiercely independent status, Classic Liberal/Libertarianish, much like Louis Zurcher’s “The Mutable Self” living in open process, embracing ongoing change and development. And meaning- not placing primary identity in “objects” like nationality, race, ideology, religion, gender, or other. Our primary identity markers ought to be our equal status as members of the one human family, all descendants of the same “Mitochondrial Eve” in East Africa, and all possessing the main identity markers of a human self, human spirit, and human mind/consciousness.
Maintaining a focus on our more fundamental identity markers will help keep us from yielding too much influence to the more peripheral things (peripheral on the human genome) that many use to incite tribalism and divide populations.
And more than the totalitarian threat that is coming prominently from the left today, there is the far greater threat from the “evil triad” of animal impulses that are deeply embedded inside all of us- i.e. (1) the impulse to discriminating and excluding tribalism, (2) the impulse to subjugate and dominate others as enemies, and (3) the impulse to retaliate with punitive destruction of “enemy” others.
This is the real battle of good against evil in life. Its an intensely personal inner battle that each of us has to fight and win if we really aspire to succeed in life.
The evil triad inside every one of us, is our greatest enemy and the inner monster that we all must confront and overcome in order to tower in stature as heroes of our stories, as maturely human.
This site presents alternative ideas/ideals to counter the worst of inherited impulses and the primitive ideas that people have long used to validate such impulses.
Comedian Stephen Wright tells Conan O’Brian his theory that “the ending of the cold war caused global warming”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fnfli9o4ki8
End the crowd madness. There is no “climate crisis”, Wendell Krossa
We frequently now hear the terms “insanity, madness, lunacy, etc.”, as in “Madness of Crowds”, used to describe what has possessed so many people in regard to the climate alarm crusade. I open the MSN homepage (Canada version) daily to find them posting, once again for the zillionth time, some title with “climate crisis”. Alarmists, over past decades, have been relentlessly beating this exaggeration of “climate emergency” into public consciousness, terrorizing populations and notably causing “eco-anxiety” in a generation of children, panic-mongering that is rightly labelled irresponsible and harmful “child abuse”.
The propaganda mantra “climate crisis” is inserted in some article’s title on MSN homepage every day. Here is an example…
There is no more embarrassing example of someone possessed with the cultic eco-zealotry of climate apocalypse lunacy than Justin Trudeau.
This from True North on “Trudeau’s obsession with climate change: Trudeau uses every opportunity to talk about climate change even in situations where its not relevant…. One of his top priorities is to lecture the world about climate change”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHvHAQSi1Wg
Columnist Lorne Gunter says, “Trudeau’s “green” obsession has become a cult…. It is Canada’s nightmare.”
https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/gunter-trudeaus-green-obsession-is-canadas-nightmare
Add this- “Conservatives accuse the Trudeau Liberals of being “pathologically obsessed” with the carbon tax”
https://nationalpost.com/news/liberals-pathologically-obsessed-with-carbon-tax-conservatives-say
And an example of media obsession over climate change: This is posted daily on MSN homepage (Canada edition)- “Ad, Government of Canada… Energy-efficient home- climate crisis- reduce GHGs”. Propaganda pushed nonstop into public consciousness.
This site affirms with others that the climate alarm crusade is “a profoundly religious movement”. The main themes shaping the climate alarm narrative are the primitive mythical themes of apocalyptic millennialism, the “lost paradise/apocalypse/redemption” complex of ideas. Yet climate alarmists have the dissonant gall to claim to be promoting a “secular ideology” based on “science”.
The fundamental themes of climate alarmism are the same profoundly mythical themes that were preached 5000 years ago by priests in Sumerian temples. “Lost paradise/apocalypse/redemption” themes that have dominated religions across history and now dominate contemporary “secularized” ideological and “scientific” versions.
This site tries to understand and explain the crowd madness of climate alarmism because the salvation scheme of the climate crusade- decarbonization- is destroying our societies in the same manner as the destructive “salvation” schemes of all apocalyptic millennial movements of the past. Note the example of the Xhosa cattle slaughter of 1856-57, and the more recent collapse of agriculture in Sri Lanka as another example of “destroying life to save the world”. (Evidence of destroying societies? See, for example, the regular newsletter “Net Zero Watch” of the Global Warming Policy Forum)
Climate alarmism salvation continues the historical pattern of destroying societies but does so today with de-industrialization, de-development to “save the world”. These are atonement schemes to appease a threat that does not exist because apocalypse has always been a psycho-pathology that deforms human consciousness and narratives, a denial of the true state of life.
Apocalyptic distorts entirely the state of climate with extremist exaggerations (i.e. the mantra of “worst on record”) projected onto the natural vagaries of weather that have been common all through history. In fact, past climate change was far more severe than the mild swings throughout our Holocene interglacial (See, for example, Ian Plimer’s graph on the climate change of the past 55,000 years in “Heaven And Earth”, p.33).
Conclusion: There is no climate crisis, and the best climate scientists have repeatedly affirmed this, notably, atmospheric physicists Richard Lindzen and William Happer of “co2coalition.org”, along with the many others posting research on “Wattsupwiththat.com” and related sites.
The original expose of the social contagion of apocalyptic madness movements– “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and The Madness of Crowds”, by Charles MacKay.
A more recent exposure of more general madness- “The Madness of Crowds; Gender, Race, and Identity” by Douglas Murray.
Amazon blurbs on Murray’s book:
“An excellent take on the lunacy affecting much of the world today. Douglas is one of the bright lights that could lead us out of the darkness.” – Joe Rogan
“Douglas Murray fights the good fight for freedom of speech … A truthful look at today’s most divisive issues” – Jordan B. Peterson
“Are we living through the great derangement of our times?
“In ‘The Madness of Crowds’ Douglas Murray investigates the dangers of ‘woke’ culture and the rise of identity politics. In lively, razor-sharp prose he examines the most controversial issues of our moment: sexuality, gender, technology and race, with interludes on the Marxist foundations of ‘wokeness’, the impact of tech and how, in an increasingly online culture, we must relearn the ability to forgive.”
“One of the few writers who dares to counter the prevailing view and question the dramatic changes in our society – from gender reassignment for children to the impact of transgender rights on women – Murray’s penetrating book clears a path of sanity through the fog of our modern predicament.”
Others on the general cultic madness of today: Here leftist/liberal Joe Rogan expresses the insanity of the Woke cult that has taken over liberals/Democrats who have now gone far left.
“Joe Rogan on why he is no longer a liberal”, The Rubin Report,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xnP7WlSfRzg
Illustration of the destructiveness of decarbonization (i.e. destroying societies to “save the world”).
Quotes from Editor’s Introduction to “Political Ponerology: The Science of Evil, Psychopathy, and the Origins of Totalitarianism”.
“Power is not a means. It is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship”, from Orwell’s 1984.
“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible. Such people have a tendency to become drunk on violence, a condition to which they are quickly addicted”, Chapterhouse: Dune.
Understanding the psychology behind left-wing authoritarianism, Wendell Krossa
Some comment and quotes from Christine Brophy’s research: “Narcissism behind Left-wing authoritarianism: New psychological research finds that behind the progressive “be kind” agenda often lies a far darker set of motivations”, article by Beige Luciano-Adams, Sept. 2023
https://public.substack.com/p/christine-brophy-narcissism-and-agreeableness
Its helpful to recognize the psychology that is behind leftwing authoritarianism to fully understand what is going on in our societies today. While “Bothsideism” applies to the human impulse to totalitarianism, the threat is much greater today from the left/liberal side of our societies due to “the current dominance of progressive liberalism” in universities, politics, media (news and social media), intelligence agencies and government bureaucracies (“deep state”). Woke Progressive liberalism also dominates public story-telling forums like Hollywood, among other areas of society.
Notable in relation to the research on the psychology of left-wing authoritarianism are the cruel outcomes of authoritarian compassion. Nothing has been crueller than the 100 million people slaughtered by collectivist approaches over the past century, notably due to Mao and Stalin’s coerced collectivism. That mass-death was the outcome of claimed compassion for oppressed masses. Add the ongoing collectivist impoverishment of many more as we see again in Venezuela and other collectivist societies. This impoverishment and suffering will affect billions more if the leftist (Woke Progressive) crusade for decarbonization is fully enacted across societies as is being promoted by eco-zealots today.
This all speaks to the human capacity for self-delusion, cognitive dissonance, and the harm that loyalty to things other than real human persons can cause (i.e. loyalty to a belief system, and ideology, a system of laws, a movement/crusade, etc., anything put above or before people and their desires and needs.). The Classic liberal protection of the rights and freedoms of all individuals equally is the best protection against the cruelty of subjecting all to the “greater or common good” of totalitarian collectivist systems.
Quotes from Beige Luciano-Adams article on Brophy’s research:
“We must be kinder and more altruistic, progressives say. The contemporary Left lionizes empathy above all virtues as the basis for a just and equitable society.
“But behind these pleas for selflessness can lie darker motivations of narcissism and authoritarianism, a growing body of psychological research suggests. A Swiss study published in Current Psychology earlier this year found antagonistic narcissism and psychopathic tendencies to be strong predictors of left-wing anti-hierarchical aggression. Individuals displaying these traits are drawn to social justice causes, researchers posit, not through the pull of altruism but to satisfy their own ego-focused, even antisocial needs….
“Previous research found that Left Wing Authoritarianism (LWA) powerfully predicts behavioral aggression and participation in political violence. Others found a strong correlation between Dark Triad Traits (Machiavellianism, Narcissism, Psychopathy) and virtuous victim signaling, or conspicuously projecting victimhood as a moral value, which researchers say individuals use as a means of non-reciprocal resource extraction.
“The research does not suggest all progressives are narcissists nor that conservatives never are. Most psychologists will likely tell you narcissism knows no bounds, political or otherwise. A 2018 study published in the American Journal of Political Science found people on the left and right to be equally narcissistic but with varying expressions, e.g., conservatives’ penchant for feelings of entitlement and superiority when it comes to issues like immigration, and liberal tendencies toward exhibitionism in the case of climate activism.
“Entitlement and self-importance, the need to be great and be recognized for it, whether expressed in the tirades of a grandiose narcissist or the quieter machinations of a vulnerable narcissist, form a core of narcissism….
“Research show(s) how specific personality traits at the individual level correlate with behavior in political movements…
“Given the current dominance of progressive liberalism, ostensibly driven by compassion, empathy, and the pursuit of social justice, researchers have taken an interest in how bad actors can infiltrate and leverage altruistic movements for nefarious ends — and where, in more subtle ways, well-intentioned activism can veer into authoritarianism….
“The major role that narcissism plays in today’s progressive movements is well-documented and interrogates the self-perception among many on the Left that they simply care more than conservatives.
“If you, like me, are from the Left and consider yourself a highly empathetic person who values compassion, the events of the past several years and the current state of progressive politics can seem nonsensical — even absurdist. Compassion can’t begin to account for the precipitous rise of authoritarianism on the Left. So what’s going on?
“Narcissism, Not Compassion…
“Brophy set out to understand the personality of political correctness, what we now call “wokeness,” and to test if the concept itself held up to scrutiny if it could reliably be measured….
“Brophy found both Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA) and Left-Wing Authoritarianism (LWA) overlap on a dimension related to censorship and authoritarian submission — “the appeal to an external authority, a desire for rules that the authority be listened to, and that any dissenting sort of views are dangerous, that they must be censored… because the population is naïve and they cannot be trusted.”
In our current political landscape, examples of this exact behavior abound — from the Covid regime to the rise of the Censorship Industrial Complex….
“On both ends of the political spectrum, a cognitive rigidity, and an inability to tolerate nuance, informs authoritarianism….
“How RWA and LWA differ comes down to compassion: The former will identify more with strength and the top of a hierarchy, the latter with vulnerability….
“It leads [progressives] to this kind of protectiveness and identification with vulnerability,” Brophy says….
“Why do researchers find that narcissism correlates with authoritarianism on the Left?
“As it turns out, compassion has a dark side.
“Compassion… is specifically attuned to cues or stimuli of vulnerability…
““There is something about compassion that makes you not only attend to these stimuli more deeply and pay attention to them but then to also identify with groups that are portraying those types of characteristics,” Brophy said, adding that it also makes you more likely to aggress against individuals that compete with the group you’ve prioritized, creating an in-group, out-group dynamic….
“As Brophy writes, “the vulnerable are given a permanent moral high ground, while those in power are the target of maternal, protective aggression — a behavior that occurs even in the absence of provocation and injustice.”
(Insert elaborating on “the vulnerable are given a permanent moral high ground”: Elon Musk wisely stated that being a member of a claimed “weaker, victim or oppressed” group does not automatically make you right and good. We have to end that principle, he said. Hamas is an example here. See his comment from the 8-minute and 20 second mark to around the 9-minute mark, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JGdbFGANapk)
Continuing with Luciano-Adam’s comments on Brophy’s research….
“The problem arises, often at a moment of crisis, when these personality traits believe they are inherently correct and become stuck.
““It’s the way in which we turn ourselves into the people that we hate,” Brophy told me…
“But as we see in the ritualized performance of “compassion,” so often untethered from material reality, there is a point at which it becomes more about a person’s fragile sense of self and the social context of the performance….
“This altruistic form of narcissism may look different from the more familiar aggressive type, but the core is still entitlement: the belief you are great (sense of superiority), deserving of greatness, and of recognition for it. Where this often veers into bullying and vindictive behavior, Brophy notes, is when people don’t receive the recognition they feel they deserve — either for their virtue or for their pain – and punish others for it.
““The fact that you can’t recognize my pain and that you aren’t prioritizing that, well, there’s something very evil about you.”
“Implications for Progressives…
“Brophy’s work helps us to make sense of the impetus and behavioral factors behind a progressive movement that punishes dissent, celebrates, and instantiates victimhood, and infantilizes people in the name of compassion.
“Progressive-led cities are crumbling under the weight of failed policies, like those around street homelessness and illicit drugs. Cocooning people in the rhetoric of compassion while enabling their tortured demise — and profiting off of it — is cruelty.
“It’s also a twisted mutation of progressive values that makes the Left unrecognizable to many who value compassion but have begun to instinctively sense the limits and damage of this pathological iteration….
“While individuals within these movements believe they are fighting evil — “because that’s what happens when you really get attached to your personality, you get this sense of justice that you’re fighting the good fight” — Brophy says, it provides a perfect opening for a psychopath to leverage those feelings toward their own ends….
“For those with more malicious Dark Triad traits, it can also offer an opportunity to punish people, either as retribution for perceived harm or just for the pleasure they feel in the expression and experience of power.
“Growing research on the psychology of Left-Wing Authoritarianism offers a powerful lens for understanding and challenging the censorship and tyranny we’ve increasingly seen from the Left….
“Understanding the psychopathologies of Left-Wing Authoritarianism is one of the best tools we have to recognize and resist the tyranny of today’s ruling elites.
“Understanding how compassion can be perverted and hijacked does not make us less compassionate. In fact, being able to recognize when compassion has been twisted into a hollow parody of itself may help us rescue and resuscitate the Leftist values we still rightly cling to.”
(See complete article at link above.)
And similar comment from Michael Shellenberger on the deformity of compassion in left-wing authoritarianism:
https://twitter.com/shellenberger/status/1698025310124671313
And… Katherine Brodsky on her experience with cancel culture madness, illustrating again left-wing authoritarianism, known commonly as “bullying”:
This is another example of the totalitarian bullying surging through our societies that Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and many others persistently warn us about-
“Katherine Brodsky: How to survive in the age of cancel culture: I escaped the Soviet Union, only to be oppressed by an illiberal woke mob. But I learned a valuable lesson from the experience” Jan. 30, 2024
Note- The bullying comes with the obsessively same old smears “racist, White Supremacist, fascist, Nazi…etc.”. Here is the link to the Brodsky article:
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/how-to-survive-in-the-age-of-cancel-culture
The other go-to smear of today’s totalitarians is “Right wing” as dog whistle for “White supremacist racist Nazi”. Note this in the current smearing of the German farmer’s protests and leftist endeavors to discredit populism in general…
https://public.substack.com/p/soros-facebook-and-omidyar-money
Jordan Peterson, similar to Brodsky, also speaks to the need for courage to speak up against the madness of cancel culture today. A sage once said that someone exhibiting courage, even at great cost to themselves, will spark courage in others also, inspiring a ripple effect across groups….and thereby overcoming the “banality of evil” (the cowardice of average citizens remaining silent in the face of evil).
Here are some quotes from Brodsky article:
“In a new book, Katherine Brodsky discusses the importance of speaking out against woke oppression.
“I hail from the Soviet Union… Like many Jewish families, we fled with just about nothing in the midst of the ongoing Cold War… the lessons of that period left a strong imprint on me, especially those related to the chilling effects of silencing and the damage that can be inflicted on groups and individuals in the name of some greater good….
“Say the wrong thing to the wrong person, and you might vanish. It was hard to know who to trust. But all of this hid behind the veneer of an imagined utopia — it was all for the good of the collective. Even though the lineups for food were lengthy and people would spend many months’ worth of salary for “black market” items like Levi’s, everyone was meant to be happy and … equal.
“Decades later, when my family began to point out growing similarities between what they’d experienced in the Soviet Union and what they were beginning to see in our adopted country, I was quick to dismiss them. There’s no chance of anything like that happening in such a free country, I told them. This is sheer paranoia, I thought.
“I was wrong.
“Seemingly overnight, certain narratives started to dominate not only public but also, in many cases, private discourse. By now, we are all familiar with these narratives — the ones that see everything through the lens of race, gender and sexuality and that define people accordingly. Like many, I had deep concerns about the way words were being twisted and identities were being weaponized….
“I had been running a Facebook group that was…. dedicated to one thing only: connecting women with jobs….
“Everything changed when a member of the Facebook group had the “audacity” to post a job opportunity at Fox News… the thread quickly devolved into personal attacks on the person who posted the opening. She was quickly buried in a massive pile-on. For some members of the group, sharing the job opening from such a “fascist, racist regime” was nothing short of an act of “violence.”…
“As the founder and administrator of the group, posted a statement asking people to refrain from personal attacks….
“In response, the mob turned to me.
“The fury and viciousness with which I was attacked stunned me. I was labelled a “white supremacist”…. I was told that my request to keep the group politics free was a “violent act of supremacy and privilege.”…. I was harassed, threatened, doxxed, slandered and libelled.
“Campaigns were orchestrated to reach out to editors to get me “cancelled.”…
“I was getting another type of message, too. These messages were well-meaning and welcome, but all followed a pattern I came to know well: “I’m so sorry for what’s happening to you. I know it’s wrong and I wish I could speak up, but I’m absolutely terrified and I feel so ashamed that I’m too scared to stand up for you.”…. Their fear and shame were palpable….
“It has become clear to me that this choice to be silent is costing society a great deal…. when we allow the few to speak for the many…. when the majority remains silent, a very vocal minority can easily gain complete control of a group even if its views are wildly unpopular. Indeed, this phenomenon not only accounts for many dark moments in history but also explains much about what’s happening in our society today….
“I was terrified about the potential loss of my livelihood, my reputation and my community. But I didn’t break. I didn’t apologize. And, in some ways, I am now grateful for the experience because it freed me from the remaining shackles I still had on. I became hyper-aware of the severity of the problem, and I was finally able to speak honestly and openly — and this time publicly, too….
“What I quickly realized is that in speaking honestly and standing up to the bullies, I was having an effect on others….
“I was realizing that far more people shared concerns about the issues we were confronting than not. In fact, we were collectively realizing that our views aligned because we were finally saying what we really thought, out loud, for the first time.”
This is an excellent illustration- a short one- on how tribal media propagandize, with plain lying…. from an Instagram bit…
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C2tQ3qmMuLC/?igsh=MXMwbXo5enJtaGJ2MQ==
A few more notes on “left-wing authoritarianism”:
“Psychology of left-wing authoritarianism” as in the liberal claim to superior compassion than others for oppressed and suffering people. And authoritarian psychology as in the projection of one’s own faults onto opponents. Projection of things like “extremism… violence… fascism…. Threat to democracy…. racism…” and so on.
Take the common liberal smear of opponents as guilty of “fascism”, for example. But who has actually used state power and coercion to get public companies to censor opponents and promote the narrative of ruling liberal elites? That is the Poli-Sci textbook definition of fascism. Answer? The Twitter Files exposed this. It has been Democrats working with intelligence agencies to coerce social media companies to promote Woke Progressivism and silence political opponents.
Note how many dictionary definitions of fascism on Google begin with “far-right”. No, today fascism is being exhibited by far-left woke Progressivism. Just as a revived McCarthyism (claims of guilty affiliation with Russia) is now being exhibited mainly by the liberal/left.
And “racism”? Who today categorizes entire groups of people as evil, according to their skin color? Think “Woke Racism” by John McWhorter and similar comment by Douglas Murray in “The Madness of Crowds: Gender, Race, and Identity”. Again, Democrats/liberals more dominant here (“the current dominance of progressive liberalism”).
All features of the “great switcheroo”, noted by independent media, where formerly far-right practises and trends have now shifted to be embraced and exhibited by far-left Woke Progressivism.
You get the drift on who is mainly exhibiting authoritarianism and doing the projection today.
And this from “Climate Change Weekly #495: New Research Further Demonstrates Problems with Surface Temperature Records and Models”, H. Sterling Burnett Feb. 2024
Quotes:
“Climate Change Weekly has long detailed the severe problems with surface temperature records, driven largely by the Urban Heat Island (UHI) effect compromising the integrity of the vast majority of temperature stations.
“In two studies for The Heartland Institute, meteorologist Anthony Watts detailed the extent to which the surface station record in the United States is compromised by station siting that violates the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) own standards for the proper, unbiased, siting of surface stations. Watts’ initial 2009 study found that 89 percent of the surface stations in NOAA’s and the National Weather Service’s (NWS) system were poorly sited and biased….
“Watts’ follow up survey of NOAA’s surface station network found 96 percent of the stations used to determine U.S. average temperatures are biased upward due to poor siting….
“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has estimated that “daytime temperatures in urban areas are 1–7 degrees Fahrenheit higher than temperatures in outlying areas, and nighttime temperatures are about 2–5 degrees Fahrenheit higher.” Whereas the temperature record from the USCRN indicates little or no temperature change during its 18 years of existence, the broader network supports claims that the U.S. is warming….
“It is not just that the Earth has warmed less than biased temperature measurements indicate, it has also warmed less than climate models have said it should for the amount of CO2 humans have emitted into the atmosphere.
“Roy Spencer’s research found recent warming is likely not due solely to human greenhouse gas emissions, and the warming experienced is substantially less than climate models have predicted—43 percent less, in fact. And that’s even when readings from the UHI-biased stations are included.
“Spencer is also working on a large-scale study to explain the discrepancy between urban and rural temperature stations globally, and how that plays into recent claims temperatures are setting all-time records.”
From National Post
“University instructor fights back after being suspended for daring to denounce Hamas”, John Ivison, Feb. 2, 2024
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/teacher-fights-back-suspended-denouncing-hamas
Quotes:
“… it is not the college’s place to protect the delicate ears of generation Z from opinions with which it may disagree….
“…. I argued that Oliver Wendell Holmes had it right when he said we should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions we loathe….
“Academia is in a shocking state when the desire to root out anything that a complainant disagrees with or considers “unsafe” is gratified by academic bureaucrats.”
This site affirms some of the most profound insights presented across history to inform human narratives and consciousness… Wendell Krossa
My basic motivation here is the Daddy thing, as in re-assuring people, especially children, that its going to be all right, ultimately. Ultimately there is nothing to fear, there is no monster threatening harm. All are safe in love, in the end. Whatever “ordinary misery” (Freud) that you suffer in your life, you will be alright and safe in the end.
There have been varied public projects initiated to come up with new meta-narratives for humanity, notable recently was Jordan Peterson’s “Alliance for Responsible Citizenship” held in London last year. Critical to any full-fledged narrative is the issue of “spiritual” belief as vital to healthy human existence. Spiritual insights have always been central to the human impulse for meaning and purpose. Many spiritual insights, however, have been distorted by elements of irrational religious mythology that deform human ideals and validate the worst of inherited impulses. Unfortunately, such psycho-pathologies have become deeply embedded in our narratives as archetypes.
The insights below inform a radically new type of “spirituality”, or metaphysical belief, quite entirely different from anything found in traditional religions. I would argue that these insights orient consciousness to the most humane ideals that we have discovered and hence serve to inspire the best angels of our nature.
No religion has ever communicated, for example, the central insight of Historical Jesus that God is an unconditional reality. The insight that deity is unconditional invalidates all religious conditions entirely. You cannot merge and mix such entirely opposite realities.
That mixing and merging of the central insight of Historical Jesus- that God was unconditional- with Paul’s supremely conditional Christ myth has resulted in two millennia of history’s greatest contradiction lodged at the core of Christianity. Unconditional buried by highly conditional atonement religion. It does not work. The conditional Christ of Paul distorts the meaning of the unconditional love that is God.
Hence, the need for a foundational reformation of religious traditions like Christianity. But is that even possible? To remove the conditional elements of religion is to spell the very end of religion that cannot be anything but a system of conditions. From the beginning that has been the essential nature of religion- i.e. conditions of correct beliefs, true faith, demands for sacrifice/payment, required rituals and lifestyle as identity markers of true believers, and so on.
Another alternative: Just as growing numbers of people are leaving traditional political ideologies and parties to become “independent”, so also growing numbers of people are abandoning their religious traditions to become independent, choosing to identify, for example, as the unaffiliated “spiritual but not religious” (World Religion Survey https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2012/12/18/global-religious-landscape-exec/).
Here are some themes to inform/shape a new spirituality- not as a formal set of beliefs but as basic insights to consider and hold. This is not advocacy for a replacement version of a formal religious belief system. It is not advocacy for new rituals or sacrifices/payments, and not advocacy for a religious lifestyle as the identity marker of being a true believer.
As one friend said of his personal reformation- “In my former religion we celebrated the Lord’s Supper, an important Christian ritual”. “Now”, he said, “My ‘Lord’s Supper’ is beer and chips with friends”.
What I am pointing toward is more about what Jewish elder Hillel stated that all law/Torah is fulfilled in love. Just the general human ideal and practise of love. “Love is all you need”. Meaning- Being human in all the diversity of free human choice, creative experimentation, innovation, self-determination over one’s life, and embracing the basic features of mature humanity as set forth in our widely accepted human rights codes and constitutions.
Suggested basic insights/discoveries to transform narratives, consciousness, and thereby liberate mind and life:
(1) The true state of the world: The overall long-term trajectory of life improves toward something better. It does not decline toward something worse.
Life is not becoming worse but over the long-term life has become better, and consequent to such improvement, today is the best time ever to be alive on Earth (https://humanprogress.org/is-this-the-best-time-to-be-alive/ ).
Apocalyptic exaggeration of the imperfections and problems still present in our world distorts this improving trajectory entirely. Apocalyptic promotes the fallacy that life is declining toward something worse, toward collapse and ending. Apocalyptic thereby deforms public consciousness with a great lie about the true state of life and that incites consequent fear, anxiety, shame/guilt (blame humanity for ruining paradise), despair, nihilism, and violence.
The improving trajectory of life is the result of the essential goodness and love of billions of people across the centuries working hard to make life ever better than before. Humanity has succeeded far beyond any expectations of success. See Julian Simon’s “Ultimate Resource” and related studies for detail.
The Near-Death Experience movement consistently presents these next two as central discoveries of people having NDEs.
(2) There is no threatening, punishing force or spirit behind life (the creating, sustaining Source of all). No angry God, vengeful Gaia, angry Planet/Mother Earth, punitive Universe, or payback karma. Conclusions that naturally result from this core insight- There is no ultimate judgment, separation, or punitive destruction. All are safe, in the end.
Stated affirmatively: There is only a stunningly “inexpressible no conditions” love at the core of reality and life, a scandalous generosity that includes all, does not dominate, and will not punish or destroy anyone. No one will be excluded from the unconditional Love at the core of reality. This is the single most profound insight ever offered to liberate and transform human consciousness and narratives.
This was also the central discovery/insight of the Historical Jesus, a person entirely contrary to the Christian “Jesus Christ”. The insights of Historical Jesus on God as an unconditional reality were buried 20 years later under Paul’s highly conditional Christ myth, beginning with his Thessalonian letters written around 50 CE. Paul rejected the non-retaliatory, unconditional God of Jesus and retreated to highly retaliatory, conditional deity in his Christ gospel. See for example, Romans 12:17-20.
(3) Further- A second discovery related directly to the above- We are one with that ultimate no conditions Love at the core of reality and life. Oneness. Putting this in spiritual insight terms: The unconditional love that is God has incarnated in all humanity as inseparable from the human spirit, meaning that our essential self is also that same love. God as inseparable from the human spirit means that we are never separated from that ultimate Love, no matter what happens to us in this life, whether we endure “ordinary misery”, or the worst of horrific savagery from others.
Meaning also that we are not the fallen, corrupt beings as taught by religious mythologies (i.e. the myth of “the Fall of man”). We are not “inherently sinful”. And the evidence of our fundamental goodness is seen in the fact that we have gradually become better, more humane, across history. This is evident in our improvement of life overall, and in our history of declining violence. See James Payne- History of Force, Stephen Pinker- Better Angels of Our Nature.
Why then residual bad human behavior, evil? Well, we still have an animal inheritance inside us, a core brain that emanates base drives like tribal exclusion, domination of weaker others, and violent destruction of competing others. We engage a hero’s quest that involves a never-ending struggle against this inner inheritance. And yes, we still have the freedom to deny our true selves and yield to these base impulses. But we are not that brain. That is not our true self.
Our life story would benefit hugely from acknowledging the true nature of deity and recognizing our true nature as love, and then embracing the life-long process of learning to express that love in our own lives- to become what we really are. That is the essence of the hero’s journey, to conquer what is contrary to our true nature (the monster/enemy inside us) and then learning to exhibit the love that is our core. That constitutes a successful life story.
The principles of Classic liberalism are the best that we have come up with to express the love that is our true nature. Principles/practises like the nontribal inclusion of all people as full equals, non-domination of others as in respecting the freedom and choices of others, honoring individual self-determination, and celebrating the diversity of all others (excluding the excessive tolerance of intolerance as per mindless multi-cultural programs).
Add here the restorative treatment of all human failure, meaning the rejection of ‘eye for eye’ retaliatory punitive treatment of human failure, while still protecting all with common sense restraint and incarceration of violent people. And then treating incarcerated people humanely as vital to maintaining our own humanity in the face of evil.
Added note- Whether acknowledging it or not, everyone appeals to the metaphysical to fill out personal belief systems. Even the hardcore materialist types- whether by appeal to the principle of random meaninglessness as per multi-verse theories (there is no evidence for this metaphysical speculation- see Jim Baggott’s “Farewell to Reality”). Richard Dawkins crosses the science/philosophy boundary to engage metaphysical speculation when he states that natural selection is “The Source Of All Enlightenment” (“The God Delusion”), and so on. We all create gods of some sort to complete our systems of understanding and explanation.
And yes, some speculations are more rational than others. There is no defense for irrational religious mythology. As cosmologist Brian Cox told a group of theologians, your beliefs must acknowledge what science has conclusively discovered. Theological systems like “Panentheism” (not pantheism) try to do that.
Main articles presenting critical points made on this site:
From Retaliation to Unconditional love- the story of humanity’s exodus/liberation from animal existence to become human.
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=9809
Humanity’s worst ideas, better alternatives (Old story themes, new story alternatives).
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=9533
The Christ myth buried the singularly profound insight of Historical Jesus. The project to recover that insight involves “separating diamonds from dung” (Thomas Jefferson, Leo Tolstoy).
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=9533
Speculating with Joseph Campbell on the meaning of life– the hero’s journey and conquest. The intensely inner battle to conquer the monster of inherited animal impulses and thereby tower in stature as maturely human.
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=8661
Shellenberger, Taibbi and colleagues continue their excellent research and exposure of the entangled mess of organizations, agents, and programs of the new totalitarianism pervading our societies. Those giving vent to the totalitarian impulse, creatively manufacture an array of new programs and agencies to fight the basic freedoms of Classic liberalism, such as free speech. They do this, for example, through “anti-disinformation” projects.
The over-arching ideology of this movement- Woke Progressivism- has become an anti-liberal, anti-freedom, and therefore essentially anti-human crusade.
The independent journalists noted above, elaborate how the intelligence agencies formerly focused on external enemies, have now re-directed their programs inward to fellow citizens, notably to half the population that do not embrace the far-left Woke Progressivism of Democrats/liberals.
Opponents to the elite ideology are framed as “threats to democracy, affiliated with Russia (they were accused of being proponents of Russian disinformation as in the Hunter Biden laptop affair), promoters of misinformation, mal-information, and hate speech, far-right extremists and terrorists, racists. etc. The “Hate speech” categorization in the mix of smears has undergone “concept creep”, extended now to encompass any dissent from Woke Progressive ideology and narratives.
The anti-democratic assault on opponents has become a wider anti-populism crusade as elites try to discredit and squash populism revolts. Populism encompasses conservatives, centrists/independents, and moderate liberals. Populism is just working-class folks wanting to be free. Populists want restoration of the freedoms of Classic liberalism with its protection of individual rights, its basic “live and let live” approach to organizing society. Elites, to the contrary, want more control over populations to ensure the Woke Progressive agenda remains dominant in societies.
The anti-populism agencies frame German farmers as “far right” extremists.
https://public.substack.com/p/soros-facebook-and-omidyar-money
“Soros, Facebook, And Omidyar Money behind attacks on German Farmers: The foreign-funded ‘Correctiv’ fact-checking organization is spreading disinformation”, Gregor Baszak, Jan.29, 2024.
This on educated urban elites against freedom, contrasted with average citizens wanting more freedom
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/over-educated-urban-elites-think-americans-have-too-much-freedom
“Over-educated urban elites think Americans have too much freedom: The disparity in views about the country between elites and the public at large has resulted in stark partisan political divisions along socioeconomic lines”, J. D. Tuccille, Jan. 31, 2024
And more on the agencies used by the new totalitarians:
https://www.racket.news/p/uk-files-exclusive-part-2-the-center
“UK Files exclusive, Part 2: The Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) told the IRS it was a charity. Documents say otherwise”, Paul Holden, Jan.31, 2024
And the financers of the organizations and programs fighting populism:
https://public.substack.com/p/fbi-soros-and-secret-police-in-vast
“FBI, Soros, and secret police in vast censorship conspiracy in Brazil: Months-long investigation reveals global effort to counter populism in violation of the Latin American nation’s constitution”, David Agape, Jan.30, 2024
Dave Rubin of Rubin Report interviews Dr. Drew… “We destroyed an entire generation of kids”, Dr. Drew Pinsky.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ABI-anSk_JI
Dr. Drew on the destructive outcomes of Covid lockdowns.. how it destroyed a generation of children…sent rates of depression, anxiety rocketing…and now its hard to get young people engaged in life… but that is the answer- get involved in life.
They discuss the 10% of the population on drugs for things like ADHD, etc.
Good on Freud’s comment that “we must understand the difference between real mental illness and ordinary misery”. Ordinary misery is good for us. It’s how we create resiliency, solve problems, says Dr. Drew. But we have become intolerant of ordinary misery. We have become addicted to hedonistic happiness and its drive for ever more… We no longer know the other happiness that is engagement in life and service. Life with a sense of purpose. A good life/hard work versus party.
Dr. Drew wants people to be furious about what has happened with lockdowns. And do something to make change.
A good brief discussion with Dr. Drew on what makes life meaningful..
She has made a start but still has a long way to go to fully engage and counter the alarmist “science” that distorts the climate issue:
This is a start- to recognize that your alarmism has been exaggerated and evidence does not support it. But only a start as she still believes that we must do something to end CO2 emissions as a “problem”. She needs to engage the science of CO2 (specifically the physics of CO2) with experts like atmospheric physicist Richard Lindzen and realize that CO2 is no threat to life but is the food of all life and still in short supply.
We could use a lot more CO2 in the atmosphere, just as across the history of life (Phanerozoic era) when CO2 was in the multiple-thousands of ppm and life flourished. So also today the world continues to green with more of its basic food (adding massive amounts of green vegetation). And as Patrick Moore said, we are still in a ‘CO2-starvation era’. Further, as the atmospheric physicists show, CO2 is not the main cause of climate change and climate change is not “a crisis”.
Hopefully, she will continue her journey to become fully “woke” on the fallacy of climate alarmism.
“Scientist who thought we ‘we’re all going to die from climate change’ reveals 7 reasons she was wrong- and how the issue is being overblown”, Stacy Libertore, Jan.31, 2024.
“A data scientist believes alarming warnings of disasters may be overblown. She said emissions per person peaked in 2012- and are still about the same”.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13028587/scientist-winning-fight-global-warming.html
Good on the difference between equity (collectivist, Marxist) and equality. Good points by this equal opportunity commissioner… smart comment distinguishing the issues…
“Andrea Lucas, a commissioner for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, warned about misconceptions surrounding DEI: She is very concerned about DEI causing more problems than it solves”, “EEOC commissioner blasts Mark Cuban’s ‘fundamentally wrong’ viral DEI post”, Andrew Mark Miller, Jan. 2024.
Quote: “There’s just discrimination. Discrimination based on race is always illegal. It doesn’t matter which group is being referenced. It doesn’t matter which group is doing the discriminating or being discriminated against.” Federal commissioner fires back at Mark Cuban for diversity claim, delivers warning about DEI.”
This from Fox News- “Elon Musk criticized DEI; now Tesla is ditching that language: Tesla has stripped DEI references from its filings after CEO Elon Musk called for an end to the programs”, Breck Dumas, Feb.2, 2024
https://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/elon-musk-criticized-dei-tesla-ditching-language
Quotes:
“The point was to end discrimination, not replace it with different discrimination.”
“Then last month, Musk said in an X post that that DEI was “just another word for racism” and “shame on anyone who uses it.” When X user Ed Krassenstein mentioned that he thought DEI had major flaws, Musk responded that “discrimination on the basis of race, which DEI does, is literally the definition of racism.”
“In an interview with Ben Shapiro a few weeks ago, Musk predicted that DEI policies are, indeed, on the way out. “I think DEI is starting to fade,” Musk said. “First of all, DEI is actually illegal, because it discriminates on the basis of race, sex, sexual preference and all sorts of other things.”
And this excellent commentary from Spiked, illustrating the destructive nature of apocalyptic mythology… as often highlighted on this site.
“Victory to the French farmers: Europeans are right to rise up against our eco-obsessed elites”, Fraser Myers, Jan. 30, 2024
The French protests are about fighting the insanity of the crowd madness that is climate alarmism. And remember that in the background of the climate alarm there is the lurking presence of the most destructive myth ever inflicted on humanity (Arthur Mendel in Vision and Violence)- the threat of apocalypse. Climate alarmism is a “profoundly religious movement” (not my evaluation alone).
And as expected, note the usual thoughtless tribal reaction to populist revolts- Woke Progressives in mainstream media, Democratic Party, and elsewhere have rushed forward to smear these populist revolts as “Far right extremism…”, the obsessive smear to try to discredit any pushback against Woke Progressive elitist agendas.
Quotes from article:
“A ‘siege of Paris’ is underway. Since Monday, thousands of tractors, trailers and combine harvesters have encircled the French capital, blocking key motorways in and out of the city….
“French farmers have joined the Europe-wide fightback against the green agenda….
“Every European government has proposed its own intrusive regulations or onerous tax hikes….
“Because as every farmer now knows, no amount of subsidies or tax breaks can disguise the coming catastrophe of Net Zero. A demented goal that no government seems prepared to abandon….
“The severity of these measures is hard to overstate. They will drastically cut the amount of food farmers can produce….
“‘[The Green Deal]… It is an imposition from distant, out-of-touch Eurocrats, laying waste to a sector they do not understand….
“Public anger with the climate agenda has been growing for years now….
“The elites’ push for Net Zero has sparked a new populist backlash….
“Perhaps no aspect of the green agenda is quite as irrational as the war on the farmers…
“By pushing back against the green mania of our elites, these farmers are fighting for all of us.”