Some new stuff coming soon that takes off from Michael Shellenberger’s good probing of the psychology behind totalitarian Woke Progressivism that has tried to infect and take over Western liberal democracies, to the ruin of these democracies.
Personal Obsessions, Wendell Krossa (my identity “pronouns”- proudly “independent commoner…. Classic Liberal”)
The obsession of this site is with individual freedom and rights for everyone, equally, under common law systems and Classic Liberal institutions. This obsession is based on Classic Liberalism principles as the best that we have come up with to protect us all from today’s elites pushing the re-instatement of the primitive “elite/commoner” divide on our societies, the restoration of totalitarian control over us commoners.
Classic Liberal principles are also how we win the real battle of life against the real enemy in life and become the heroes of our personal quests- the inner battle against our inherited evil triad of impulses to tribalism, domination of others, and punitive destruction of differing others.
But even more than this Classic Liberal obsession I would suggest a deeper obsession with trying to understand our primary identity marker as humans- i.e. love.
This has led to a lifetime of questions: What is love, really? What does it mean to love? How do we achieve the highest reach of love and thereby “tower in stature as maturely human”, as the heroes of our personal quests?
My ongoing interest in Historical Jesus is because he pointed to the answer to such questions in this summary of his message: “Love your enemy because God does”.
My belief is that the no conditions love taught by Historical Jesus was a significant contributing factor to the eventual development of the Classic Liberalism that protects the freedoms and rights of all citizens, equally. Not the dominating “Lord Jesus” of Paul’s Christ myth (“Christ-ianity”), but the “whoever wants to be great must serve others” of Historical Jesus (“Jesus-ianity”).
And I do agree with my friend Bob Brinsmead that if love is not unconditional/universal then it is not authentic love.
Added note to the Christian influence on developing Classic Liberalism in England: The modern-era antislavery movement was initiated by British Christians, notably the 1783 proposal by Quakers to end slavery. That was no doubt influenced by the teaching of Jesus as opposed to Paul’s contrary command to slaves- “slaves submit to your masters” (Ephesians 6:5-9). Gandhi was similarly inspired by the teaching of Jesus, but not by Christianity overall. Another element in the larger point that there is a profound difference between the message of Historical Jesus and the Christ myth of Paul.
And an added note on ‘bothside-ism’ in abusing and deforming the Hero’s Quest: Both sides engage catastrophism that exaggerates the threat of the differing others (demonized, dehumanized) and both sides irresponsibly use panic-mongering “end of days” language to incite populations (i.e. the apocalypse is nigh, and here is my date for the end of the world).
“Tell me that I am right and others are wrong, Daddy”, Wendell Krossa
“Behavior based on similar belief” is how we humans have, from the beginning, fulfilled our primal impulse for meaning that encompasses (1) the purpose of our existence (how we should behave and live) as well as (2) the meaning of our behavior and lives, both validated by beliefs in something metaphysical or divine, something beyond us that created us and sustains us in existence.
Behavior based on belief, as in “belief” in an ultimate ideal and authority that validates human story and life. It is the child appealing to the parent for assurance and validation.
This behavior based on similar belief is the structure that framed the great breakthrough insight of Historical Jesus that deity was a non-retaliatory, no conditions love. I.e. ”Love your enemy because God does”.
The behavior based on similar validating belief was also the structured pattern of Paul’s direct confrontation of the Jesus insight and message, to reject that insight and retreat to re-establish the opposite theology in Romans 12:17-20, that deity was supremely retaliatory and conditional.
Paul urged his followers not to retaliate against enemies because God would retaliate for them. That seems to violate the behavior based on similar belief pattern till you read that Paul urged temporary non-retaliation in order to ensure ultimate divine retaliation. Be nice and that will “pour coals of fire on your enemy’s head” as in ensure divine retaliation. Both elements are retaliatory.
This behavior/belief pattern shapes our lives, as it has shaped all human life from the beginning. We have inherited impulses that prompt us to act in instinctive/intuitive ways and we embrace beliefs/themes for our stories that validate our behavior. Our beliefs justify our personal “hero’s quest”, our desire to present ourselves as righteous heroes fighting battles against evil enemies and conquering them.
Our biggest mistake is when we take the quest element of “righteous battle” and frame it as against fellow humans instead of in terms of the real battle against the real enemy that resides inside all of us (Solzhenitsyn’s point that the real battle of good against evil runs through the center of every human heart).
The central insight of Jesus (“Love your enemy because God does”) as the “single most profoundly humane insight” to that point in history? Yes, because it got right the most humane form of behavior in “love your enemy”. And it got right the most humane understanding of deity as non-retaliatory, no conditions love. Non-retaliation (no more “eye for eye”) took the behavior/belief relationship to new heights, to the highest reach of love that is our primary identity marker as authentically human.
Jesus got it right as no one else ever had and that makes Paul’s attack on his insight all the more egregiously pathetic. To bury what could have liberated people as nothing ever before- liberating minds, spirits, and lives at the deepest levels of the human psyche, liberating from subconscious archetypes long oriented to the worst of being human as in tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction of differing others.
Added note: We get ourselves into real self-delusional trouble when we frame ourselves as righteous and pure heroes in some “noble cause” against irredeemably evil others who differ from us. Not to say there aren’t struggles in life that are clearly over right and wrong issues. But its how we fight such battles (how we maintain our humanity during such struggles), and the outcomes as in restorative justice, not punitive destroying justice.
Another note: Our moment on the Earth demands real carefulness as some of our fellow citizens begin to toy with the late-stage phase of apocalyptic movements, as in the shift to “exterminate or be exterminated”. That is dangerous stuff whether vented in censorship, cancelling of differing others, criminalization over more and more issues (lawfare), or anti-democratic interference in elections, or in more violent projects.
The historians of apocalyptic millennial crusades have detailed the horrific mass-death outcomes of apocalyptic prophets who double down as their crusades show evidence of failing and out of desperation they shift to full-frontal exterminate or be exterminated.
Ongoing “clear and present danger”, Wendell Krossa-
Preface note: The ideas that we embrace to shape our narratives tell us how to think, how to feel, they influence our motivations, they shape our responses and actions. This is most especially true of the ideas of deity that we embrace, because they function as ultimate ideals and authorities, holding more prestigious positions than other beliefs. Deity ideas are the hardest to confront, challenge, and change but they must be overturned where they are obviously subhuman, inhuman, and harmful.
Remember, once again, psychologist Harold Ellens’ warning of the dangerous tendency to reason that if our God uses violence to solve problems then so may we. He refers to the violent God at heart of the “Western Master Story” of the past two millennia, the God who solves problems by killing someone. Beliefs, as Ellens asserts, do exert much more influence over our lives than simple ideas.
Add Bob Brinsmead’s comment: “We become just like the God that we believe in”.
A fortunate element in the religion mix is that many adherents to religious traditions try to ignore the nasty bits in their holy books and focus more on the nice bits- i.e. love, forgiveness, mercy, inclusion, etc. At least they try to read such good stuff into the context.
But the problem remains that the nasty stuff deforms and even buries the good stuff, rendering it less than what it should be, having less positive effect than it could. Example: Religious love tends to be tribal, favoring fellow true believers more than unbelievers. The “birds of a feather flock together” syndrome.
And many good religious people are still susceptible to supporting harmful public policies like the apocalyptic salvation schemes (think “climate crisis”) that ruin societies even as they are presented as “saving the world”.
Or as the US Mennonite theologians stated, punitive Christian justice produced the punitive justice systems of the US that lock up people at historical record levels, and continue to affirm the death penalty.
Here are Ellens’ good comments again (he was Christian and spoke from within the Christian tradition):
“Basic cultural beliefs are so important, especially in a dominant widespread culture, because they have the same properties as individual basic beliefs…
“There is in Western culture a psychological archetype, a metaphor that has to do with the image of a violent and wrathful God… this image represents God sufficiently disturbed by the sinfulness of humanity that God had only two options: destroy us or substitute a sacrifice to pay for our sins. He did the latter. He killed Christ.
“Such a metaphor of an angry God, who cannot forgive unless appeased by a bloody sacrifice, has been ‘right at the center of the Master Story of the Western world for the last 2,000 years. And the unavoidable consequence for the human mind is a strong tendency to use violence’.
“’With that kind of metaphor at our center, and associated with the essential behavior of God, how could we possibly hold, in the deep structure of our unconscious motivations, any other notion of ultimate solutions to ultimate questions or crises than violence- human solutions that are equivalent to God’s kind of violence’…
“Hence, in our culture we have a powerful element that impels us to violence, a Cruel God Image… that also contributes to guilt, shame, and the impoverishment of personality…”.
“If your God uses force, then so may you, to get your way against your ‘enemies’”.
Before taking another hit at Paul, I would balance things by affirming Bob Brinsmead’s recent comment that Paul was good on freedom from Jewish law as in his Galatians letter. Paul had his good points.
But look at how Paul re-affirmed retaliatory, punitive violence in deity that directly contradicted the “stunning new theology” of Historical Jesus that God did not retaliate with punitive violence.
Paul presented his retreat to punitive deity in his very first letters to the Thessalonians: “Lord Jesus comes in flaming fire to punish and destroy those who reject my Christ myth”. Later, in his main presentation of the Christ myth- Romans- Paul repeatedly frames the background of his argument by stating that “God’s wrath is being revealed”.
The theme of violent divine wrath is given graphic epitome summation in the Christ of Revelation 19: “He treads the winepress of the ‘fury of the wrath’ of God… Eyes blazing with fiery rage… sharp sword coming out of his mouth to slay his enemies who rejected his gospel… robe dripping with the blood of slain enemies… and an iron scepter to rule over enemies that are then cast into the lake of fire”.
That is the ultimate statement of the Christian salvation scheme that summarizes one of the main themes of the “lost paradise/apocalypse/redemption” complex- “the demand for the violent purging of threatening enemies”. Historians Arthur Herman and Richard Landes have noted that this particular theme was part of the narratives of Marxism, Nazism, and is now influencing environmental alarmism narratives.
Revelation 19 brings the varied features of the “lost paradise/apocalypse/redemption” complex together in one graphic portrayal- i.e. the tribal exclusion of unbelievers, eternal domination by Lord Christ, and violent destruction.
There is nothing in this Revelation 19 summation of Jesus’ central theme of “Love your enemy”. There is nothing of Jesus new theology of non-retaliatory, non-apocalyptic, non-violent deity”. That message is denied and buried entirely by this violent Christ myth.
Point? The two central religious icons of our Western tradition give us two entirely opposite ways of thinking about ultimate ideals and authorities in our narratives. Stop trying to merge and harmonize these two as the New Testament does. That just produces profound cognitive dissonance where the dark side weakens, distorts, and nullifies the original Jesus message. “Buries the diamonds/pearls” as Jefferson and Tolstoy rightly stated.
Moving on to my comment…
We continue to ignore what drove “madness of crowds” eruptions in the past and we are, therefore, bound to repeat the same old errors and destructive outcomes.
I have repeatedly posted here the themes of the primitive mythical complex- “lost paradise/decline to apocalypse/violent purging of threat/promised salvation”. These themes drove the crusades of Marxism and Nazism and are now driving environmental alarmism. The mass-death outcomes of Marxism and Nazism alone totaled more than 100 million people in the last century. Arthur Mendel was right to state that apocalyptic is the most violent and destructive idea in history.
I am concerned, seriously, that even though we now know what drove such madness, that this critical news is not proclaimed more publicly to prepare populations against repeats of such insanity. I am just as concerned that we have had the alternative to these ideas that have fueled so much madness, but we have not embraced those alternative narrative themes to shape public narratives and consciousness more.
Marxism and Nazism were “profoundly religious” movements (Marxism is still with us). And now environmental alarmism is driven by the very same religious themes and is repeating the very same stages and patterns of all such apocalyptic millennial movements. Environmental apocalyptic alarmism (i.e. “existential climate crisis”) poses the same threat of horrifically destructive outcomes.
Historian Richard Landes, among others, warned us regarding Nazism that if we don’t learn the lesson of how apocalyptic millennial ideas can lead a society into mass-death then we will only repeat the same errors and suffer the same outcomes. With detailed historical research, he traced the steps or stages of apocalyptic millennial movements in his book “Heaven On Earth: The Varieties of Millennial Experience”. So also, his colleagues have filled in the picture of how destructive apocalyptic millennial movements have been- i.e. Arthur Mendell in “Vision and Violence”, David Redles in “Hitler’s Millennial Reich”, also Arthur Herman in “The Idea of Decline in Western History”.
Add the military guy who also warned us regarding ISIS and its 2014 crusade to establish the Caliphate, that we can use military force to vanquish such violence but if we do not go after the ideas that are driving such crusades then we will only continue to see more such eruptions of religious violence… i.e. Oct. 7. And nuclear arming Iran. Duh.
We see the undeniable evidence all over today indicating that we are in the midst of another “madness of crowds” eruption of apocalyptic millennialism. Note the zealotry of climate alarmists incessantly proclaiming exaggerated apocalyptic threats and setting actual dates for “the end of days”. Climate alarmism originator James Hansen stated in 2008 that “its all over in 5 years”. Apocalyptic preacher Al Gore proclaimed in 2006 that we had only 10 years to save the planet (Yes, he believes we are living through Revelation). Many more such prophets have also set dates, usually 5-10 years out. Even Stephen Hawking joined the Chicken Little madness of apocalyptic hysteria in his final two years.
The talk of looming apocalypse is beyond insanity but treated as though it were credibly true, even “scientific”. Huh? WTF?
Proclamations of the imminent end of the world incite fear in populations, and render people susceptible to irrational and destructive salvation schemes that “destroy the world to save the world”. How many bouts of this insanity before we recognize what the apocalyptic prophets are doing to us and we come to our senses? Become truly “woke”?
Add that the same apocalyptic hysteria has now infected the political realm: i.e. the “Hitler/Nazi/fascist… end of democracy” lunacy of today.
When you pose the threat of some evil enemy that is obsessively bent on destroying you, that vision of a life-threatening monster/enemy naturally incites the defensive survival response in many people to do something drastic, anything, to save oneself, to save one’s family and society. To hit the threat hard, to eliminate the threat in order to “save one’s world”.
Apocalyptic-scale panic mongering leads to the irrational madness that some drastic action, no matter how anti-democratic, can be framed as “righteous battle against evil, even heroic elimination of monstrous threat”. You are then fully into the delusional mindset of “messiah complex” thinking.
(Insert: “There is nothing more sincerely and certainly believed than that which is not known… the committed aren’t civil and the civil aren’t committed”, Bob Brinsmead-isms.)
Add to the mix of self-delusional framing of narratives, the tribal dualism of good versus evil in terms of irreconcilable opposites.
The apocalyptic prophets isolate themselves within the self-delusion of a partisan, closed narrative that they dogmatically state must be impervious to questioning, challenge, or correction by fact. They have embraced fully the delusional influence of the “messiah complex” and identify themselves as heroic warriors in a battle against existentially evil enemies that must be violently purged in order to save life. Watch this being expressed today in mainstream media regarding politics. This has been beaten into public consciousness for decades in relation to the “climate crisis”.
They are playing out, seemingly unaware, the full complex of bad ideas and successive stages of another “lost paradise, decline to apocalypse, salvation” crusade. Religious extremism gone mad. But posed today as “secular, ideological, even scientific”.
True believers in apocalyptic millennialism demand unquestioning commitment to their narrative and acceptance of their salvation schemes that involve sacrifice, payment, and suffering for commoners, but not for themselves as enlightened elites tasked with convincing the ignorant masses who don’t know what is good for them. If we yield unquestioningly to these irrational salvation schemes, we are promised the restoration of some lost paradise or the installation of a new utopian communalism.
These themes are bleated through news media daily, in ever-shifting new approaches with new terminology that confuse many as to the constant reframing of the same old primitive complex that is being constructed right in front of them. But despite the constant reframing efforts, Woke Progressivism, and its climate crisis story, is all just another rehash of primitive mythology.
Hollywood elites, who present themselves as enlightened moderns, endlessly push the apocalyptic theme in their story telling, seemingly unaware of the impact and potential damage from such lunacy that promotes a profoundly religious form of violent extremism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_films
This site, as with many others, affirms that the same complex of primitive themes has shaped human narratives across history, and continues to shape narratives both religious and secular/ideological today.
If we don’t question and challenge the public narratives of today that push the primitive myths of apocalyptic millennialism, and the larger complex of “lost paradise, decline to apocalyptic ending, demand for atonement/redemption sacrifice and violent purging of evil enemies”, then we are letting go unchallenged something potentially very dangerous, and we have not learned much from the past human experience with the outcomes of these narratives.
Read the research of the historians (Arthur Herman, Richard Landes, Arthur Mendel, David Redles, and others) and be fully stunned that the themes that have been driven the mass-death movements of Marxism, Nazism, and are now driving environmental alarmism, are Christian themes, Christian versions of the same old primitive myths of earlier human mythologies (whether prehistoric, or Sumerian, Egyptian, etc.).
Landes notes that historians and scholars reacted negatively to the evidence of Christian influence on Marxism because it required them to admit to the prominent ongoing influence of the Christian religion on what they believed to be modern secular crusades like Marxism. They wanted Marxism to be presented and understood as “secular, scientific”, not as just another version of the religious extremism that it actually was.
And then recognize- this is the big issue to me- that within Christianity there are also the entirely contrary themes of Historical Jesus. But his original “Q Wisdom Sayings” message has been effectively buried by Paul’s Christ myth that re-established the fallacies of “lost paradise, decline to apocalypse, violent purging of threatening enemies, and promised salvation”.
Paul’s Christ myth is arguably the most influential embodiment of the primitive complex of “lost paradise/decline to apocalypse/redemption” that eventually dominated Western consciousness, narratives, and civilization. Through the endorsement of Paul’s Christ-ianity, the “lost paradise, apocalyptic, redemption” complex buried the original Jesus-ianity (see sources like Stephen Patterson’s book on the original Christian gospels below).
Check the evidence for yourself: Historical Jesus said nothing about “lost paradise, apocalyptic ending, or redemption by sacrifice” in his original “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel. See the research of scholars like Stephen Patterson in “The Lost Way”, or the research of James Robinson and John Kloppenborg on “Q Wisdom Sayings” gospel.
In one brief summary statement of his message, Historical Jesus had overthrown the entire mess of the lost paradise, apocalypse, salvation complex. He stated, “Love your enemy because God does”. Proof? God gives sun and rain to both good and bad people alike. Add the parable of the “Prodigal Father” for illustration and that sums up the main theme of the man, his original message.
In a historical first, he presented the stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory God. A God that was no conditions love. Meaning- no tribal favoring of true believers and exclusion of unbelievers. No “Lord Jesus” domination as in the constant mantra of Paul. No destruction through apocalypse or hell. No demand for sacrifice, suffering. No demand for violent purging of enemies. And no promised communal paradise. His original teaching comprised wisdom sayings on how to live a life of unconditional love in this world, how to “love your enemies”. Because that was what God was like and what God did.
The stunning new behavioral standard and validating theology of Jesus defused entirely the sense of great background threat. His new behavior based on similar theology overturned entirely the perverse influence of primitive threat theology on human minds, emotions, motivations, and actions. The deforming power of threat theology has been detailed by psychologists like Harold Ellens and psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo in “Cruel God, Kind God”.
Among the most egregiously dangerous elements of the “lost paradise/apocalypse/redemption” complex:
The apocalyptic millennial complex of myths has repeatedly incited and validated in people the need to engage violent action to purge or exterminate some great threat and save life. This has long been fundamental to narratives and the outcomes of narratives. It is the most dangerous outcome of the “behavior based on belief” relationship that humans have employed from the beginning. Dangerous when the beliefs are so obviously inhuman.
Add to the danger element that many have framed this demand for violent purging in terms of the “Hero’s quest” and related obligation to engage a “righteous battle against irredeemably evil enemies that must be exterminated in order to save some world that is under apocalyptic-scale threat”. Its no stretch of imagination to see the influence of such themes on human minds, emotions, motivations, and responses/behavior as Ellens and Lotufo warn us about.
Fortunately, we have the core of a profoundly new and liberating narrative that is quite entirely contrary to all we have inherited. Meaning- We have no reasonable excuse to continue holding the dark themes of the primitive mythologies that we have inherited via our world religions and now “secular” ideologies. We have good alternatives to help us evaluate narratives.
Other sources that help understand the contrast between Jesus and Paul- i.e. James Tabor’s “Paul and Jesus” is good on how influential Paul and his apocalyptic Christ myth have been on Western and world consciousness. Or Bob Brinsmead’s excellent research at
https://bobbrinsmead.com/
Here is the Amazon blurb on Stephen Patterson’s book. This bland description does not properly express the stunning contradiction involved and what it means to Western consciousness and life, the profound contrast between Jesus and Paul and the impacts from these two entirely opposite narratives.
“The Lost Way: How Two Forgotten Gospels Are Rewriting the Story of Christian Origins”.
https://www.amazon.ca/Lost-Way-Forgotten-Rewriting-Christian/dp/0062330489
“In this rigorously researched and thoughtful study, a leading Jesus Seminar scholar reveals the dramatic story behind the modern discovery of the earliest gospels, accounts that do not portray Jesus exclusively as a martyr but recover a lost ancient Christian tradition centered on Jesus as a teacher of wisdom.
“The church has long advocated the Pauline view of Jesus as deity and martyr, emphasizing his death and resurrection. But another tradition also thrived from Christianity’s beginnings, one that portrayed Jesus as a teacher of wisdom. In The Lost Way, Stephen Patterson, a leading New Testament scholar and former head of the Jesus Seminar, explores this lost ancient tradition and its significance to the faith.
“Patterson explains how scholars have uncovered a Gospel that preceded at least three of those in the Bible, which is called Q. He painstakingly demonstrates how historical evidence points to the existence of this common source in addition to Mark—recognized as the earliest Gospel—that both Matthew and Luke used to write their accounts. Q contained a collection of Jesus’s teachings without any narrative content and without accounts of the passion, though being the earliest version shared among his first followers—scripture that embodies a very different orientation to the Christian faith.
“Patterson also explores other examples of this wisdom tradition, from the discovery of the Gospel of Thomas; to the emergence of Apollos, a likely teacher of Christian wisdom; to the main authority of the church in Jerusalem, Jesus’s brother James. The Lost Way offers a profound new portrait of Jesus—one who can show us a new way to live.”
A reposting of the complex (revised, updated): Wendell Krossa
Here is the fuller complex of humanity’s most destructive psychopathologies that have long been embedded as archetypal in human subconscious. These themes/beliefs/ideas endlessly incite and validate the worst of human emotions, motivations, and responses/behavior. We have long had better alternatives, Wendell Krossa
The main complex of prominent mythical themes that have shaped human narratives from the beginning and still dominate narratives today both religious and secular/ideological:
(1) A lost paradise that must be restored, “saved” (i.e. the myth of a better past that has been ruined and lost and must be recovered). This baseline myth sets the tone of something valuable being lost and that must be recovered or restored in order to make things right again, to rebalance justice.
(2) Essentially corrupt and evil humanity as the destroyer of paradise. This is the fallacy of “original sinfulness”, that humanity fell from previous purity into corruption that has been passed on to all subsequent generations of humans. This endlessly validates the anti-humanism of people as “bad to the bone”, a “virus, cancer” on earth, the fallacy that refuses to acknowledge the endless improvement of humanity as we have successfully struggled to overcome our animal past to become maturely human.
(3) The fallacy of life declining toward a worse state, toward collapse and apocalyptic ending as the deserved punishment for our sin. Note that apocalypse is the ongoing obsession of influential Hollywood public story-telling.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_films
(4) With the human survival impulse now incited by threat theology, we get the big stick of- “the gods are angry with us and we are guilty, we deserve punishment”, hence, now scared shitless, we are susceptible to the demand for sacrifice/payment, and suffering as redemptive (i.e. embrace de-growth, de-development, return to low-consumption primitivism), embrace policies that will ruin our societies, just as socialists convinced entire countries to embrace their destructive salvation scheme, so the Nazis in Germany, and now environmental policies like Net Zero decarbonization are presented as the latest scheme to “save the world”.
(5) And most dangerous in the mix of pathologies- The demand for a violent purging of some imagined evil threat. CO2- the food of all life- is currently demonized as the “pollutant/poison” that threatens all life. The religious belief in “violent purging of evil” is framed as a heroic adventure where the hero goes forth to engage a righteous battle against evil enemies that must be vanquished in order to save something- i.e. “save the world, save democracy”.
As with unquestioning billions before us, we are told to embrace Zoroaster’s cosmic dualism of a battle between good and evil, notably in the obligation to engage a righteous battle against some evil that threatens life (i.e. the hero’s quest to conquer a monster or evil enemy). This is what Richard Landes warned about in regard to the dangerous shift to the late-stage phase of “exterminate or be exterminated” that emerges in apocalyptic millennial crusades, a shift that resulted in mass-death outcomes in Marxism, Nazism, and now appears to be emerging in environmental alarmism with its obsession over Net Zero decarbonization that is ruining societies obsessed with the apocalyptic “climate crisis”.
This is followed with the carrot, (6) i.e. the promised hope of salvation in a restored paradise or new utopian world (a future shaped by the ‘equity’ communalism of collectivism).
My response to this complex is to go right to the core– to the myth of a deity who threatens violent punishment and destruction through the natural world, the single most psyche-traumatizing myth to have ever infected human minds.
I reject that cohering center of old narratives outright and replace it with the stunning new theology of Historical Jesus that God is “no conditions, universal Love”. God is a non-retaliatory, non-apocalyptic deity. And to make the Jesus insight real clear (i.e. to “pull the diamond out of the dung” as Thomas Jefferson, Leo Tolstoy urged) it is critical to point out the deformed setting that was constructed to bury the original message of Jesus. It is vital to grasp the entirely opposite messages of Paul and Jesus, to grasp which message is “diamond” and which is “dung”. Again, see James Tabor’s “Paul and Jesus”, among other sources, for details.
It is the great contradiction of Christianity that Paul has buried the message and insights of Jesus with his retreat to the punitive, destroying deity in his Christ myth that dominates the New Testament narrative.
Again, example statements from Paul on this, “Lord Jesus will return in flaming fire to punish/destroy those who refuse to believe my Christ myth”. Paul spoke these things in his first letters to the Thessalonians that presented his exclusionary tribal Jesus who favored true believers and destroyed unbelievers. Add his statement of retreat to primitive retaliatory theology in Romans 12, “’Vengeance is mine’, says the Lord. ‘I will retaliate and destroy’”.
Further, note Paul’s constant use of the term “Lord Jesus” to counter the servant deity that Jesus had presented in Matthew 20:25-26, a person of great spirit who refused to lord over others.
John’s Revelation then graphically portrays the raging, destroying apocalyptic Christ of Paul in chapter 19/20. On all the main features, the messages of Paul and Jesus were entirely opposite.
Non-retaliation versus retaliation.
Non-violence versus ultimate violence to solve problems.
No conditions love versus highly conditional salvation schemes.
Non-domination versus ultimate, eternal domination.
Non-apocalyptic versus world-ending apocalypse as the ultimate solution to evil in the world. And more. These are profoundly opposite realities. Central themes that cannot be merged and harmonized as the New Testament tries to do. Mixing the good with such bad just distorts and buries the good.
What early Christianity got right was including the core message of Jesus as in “love your enemy because God does”, along with the broader “no conditions” theme of Jesus (e.g. the Prodigal parable). The main themes in Historical Jesus were oriented to a non-tribal, non-dominating, and non-violent message.
Do as Jefferson and Tolstoy advocated and pull that teaching out and honor it properly aside from its distorting context. Honor the man Jesus for who he was and what he actually taught.
My alternatives to the psychopathologies in the old narratives:
Humanity’s worst ideas, better alternatives (Old story themes, new story alternatives).
http://www.wendellkrossa.com/?p=9533
Concluding points:
The great threat to our liberal democracies is the crusade of people who sincerely believe that Woke Progressivism- the latest contemporary ideology to embrace the lost paradise, apocalyptic, redemption complex- in both politics and the climate alarm, that Woke progressivism is the latest and best salvation scheme for humanity with its millennial promise of a communalism future. Woke Progressive activists proclaim that they are the heroes fighting enemies who refuse their gospel, confronting evil threats that must be eliminated. Its hard to believe at times that we are living through this madness pumped into public consciousness daily by media, politicians, state agencies, and more.
Woke Progressivism is just recycled Marxism, “neo-Marxism” if you will. It adds the new take on simple-minded tribalism with its “victim/victimizer” dualism that just reframes the “oppressed/oppressor” dualism of old school Marxism, the elite/commoner divide of property owners versus workers, now framed in the division of humanity according to victim/victimizer categories based on skin color. White/Asian/Jew as oppressor, black/brown as oppressed. In this schemata, even Hamas are classified as victims who are then “virtuous, righteous, good”.
This stuff has infected all of our societies, political parties, intelligence agencies, deep state actors and agencies, bureaucracies at all levels, the entire education system with over 90% leftist professorships, news media (Democratic Senator Frank Church’s warning in the 70s about the CIA infiltrating and controlling news media), social media (Google search algorithm bias, so also Facebook, YouTube, Wikipedia, etc.), even militaries in the West.
Another note:
The Woke Progressive tribalism is just another contemporary rehash of something even more primitive than Marxist dualism. Woke Progressivism is the latest version of the simple-minded primitive tribalism of small band against other small bands of animals, with the features of alpha domination and destruction of competing others. That primitivism did not yet know of the fundamental oneness of humanity. While inexcusable back in the time of such barbarism, it is no longer excusable now when we know much better.
Why do we find it so hard to see the repeating patterns and outcomes from these primitive impulses that are validated by equally primitive narratives? Why do we continue to frame them as heroic and noble struggles of our conquering enemies, of us heroically purging evil threats from life to save the world?
Yes, there are elements of evil in life that have to be fought and vanquished, like Hamas barbarity. But I am speaking to the deformation of the hero’s quest that frames, for example, differing fellow liberal democracy citizens as irredeemably evil enemies to vanquish.
And as Glen Greenwald has warned, why do we keep falling for endless wars that are provoked by the intelligence agencies doing the bidding of warmongering elites? He gave the examples of the false flag operations in the Gulf of Tonkin incident, the WMD lie in regard to Iraq, and the framing of the Ukraine war as a world struggle for democracy.
Media narratives on the Ukraine war ignored the fact that the US was involved in overthrowing the democratically elected government of Ukraine in 2014. The threatening march of NATO across Eastern Europe to the border of Russia was ignored to then portray US involvement with Ukraine as a struggle for democracy. This is not to excuse the aggression of Putin but to understand the big background picture of that war.
And just before the Russian invasion, Ukraine had been widely criticized in the West for corruption that equaled Russian corruption. Zelensky, as it turned out, was no democratic defender as he shut down opposition, media, and elections.
So off we go once again killing one another at industrial scale. We never learn.
One more– Rather than rail against Trump’s “enemy within” comment, take that idea further and identify the real “enemy within” that must be fought and vanquished. I refer to Solzhenitsyn’s point that the real battle of good against evil takes place inside each of us. And I add my point that the real monster/enemy that we all face in life is not other differing people, but is the evil triad inside us, the triad of our impulses to tribalism, domination, and destruction of differing others. Wrestle those down with your better angels and then you are more qualified to go forth and fight this-world battles against evil.
And to top off Campbell’s points on the “hero’s quest”, notably the feature of the wise man who gives us the weapon to slay our monster. The weapon from the wise man can be framed as the weapon of Classic Liberal principles, systems of common law, and representative institutions. Nothing better to slay our evil triad impulses.
More good social/political analysis from two of the best- Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn
“America This Week: The Celebrated New York Times Election Week Hit Job. The New York Times teams with David Brock’s Media Matters to smash records for editorial mendacity. Plus, Mark Twain’s great take on fraud, “The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County”, Nov. 2, 2024
https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-america-this-week-november
In this episode of America This Week Taibbi and Kirn point out the high-level psychological manipulation of public consciousness, something intelligence agencies have decades of experience doing while trying to control public narratives, media, and populations.
Once again, Taibbi and Kirn present interesting research on all the stuff going on behind the scenes, exposing how we are manipulated and propagandized endlessly through news, social media, and more. Increasingly, there is no effort to hide this “deep state” stuff any longer. Taibbi and Kirn note probe all the subtle angles in the manipulation efforts going on, notably the intimidation factor behind all this. Great social commentary as expected from these two…
Quotes:
“An organization that has described itself in tax forms as being about countering conservative misinformation. That’s specifically what they do. That’s their official purpose. So The New York Times has to mention it. So what do they say? It’s an amazing paragraph. “While Media Matters is a progressive organization that regularly criticizes conservatives, reporters and academics frequently cite as a source on YouTube misinformation because it devotes significant resources to tracking the vast platform…”
They expose the details of how these propaganda operations work, especially to interfere in and influence elections. Note also the McCarthyism element in the mix. The constant referral to the smear of “Russian disinformation” attributed to anything challenging the dominant left narratives.
And Media Matters, as they point out, does exactly that in this latest project where it charges the conservative voices with, election interference and fraud. Raising suspicions over any challenging election results. Who said “projection”? That every charge is a confession? Drew Pinsky?
Here is a section from below where they discuss this more (note how Media Matters, typical of leftist agencies, even goes after jokes as offenses).
“Matt Taibbi: Yeah, no, it’s ridiculous. And when you look at the actual Media Matters report that this is based on, again, their criteria as they lay out in the very top of their report, it’s absurd. It could encompass almost anything. So if we could look at the report, and the headline is hilarious. “YouTube let right wing figures undermine the 2024 election results even before any votes were cast.” So apparently the election’s already undermined, which is interesting because that’s one of the things they convict some of these figures of saying, I think specifically Tom-
“Walter Kirn: So wait, weren’t they talking about the 2020 election? How are they undermining the present one that hasn’t even occurred yet?
“Matt Taibbi: What they’re saying is, and we’ll get to why this is so ironic, they’re saying it’s already undermined by these people.
Walter Kirn: So to go into this election with less than total faith is for it to be undermined, and to contribute to less than total faith is to be guilty of doing that, of undermining it?
“Matt Taibbi: Yes, exactly. And it’s amazing that they’re doing that because they already undermining the confidence in the election by saying that these 30 figures have undermined the result?
“Walter Kirn: Well, isn’t that so clever of them to have undermined it more by pointing out that others have undermined it? I think we’re getting closer to the mystery as to why this was run, frankly. And I’ll reveal my theory of the case at the end.
And this insightful point made by Kirn…
“Walter Kirn: … wisdom saturated pillar of the church because these are all theological arguments. I mean, we are back at the council of whatever in 486, deciding whether it’s heresy to say that the Holy Ghost is part of the Trinity or a co-equal, or unified with the Trinity. In other words, is it only a portion or are they all three pieces that are the same? I don’t know, but it is theological. It’s what they used to call Jesuitical. I have no idea what the standards are being applied. I know that they’re very fine and very particular.”
“Matt Taibbi: But you know it when you see it, right?
“Walter Kirn: But you know it when you see it. Yeah, I know heresy when I see it, and Media Matters certainly does as do the reporters and academics who often use it because of its vast resources and-
“Matt Taibbi: It’s the sayings of Ankar or the supreme Soviet… This is anti-Soviet activity because what you’re detecting is sarcasm, insufficient levels of enthusiasm or insufficient rectitude or awe before numbers and things like that. I mean, that’s what they’re going for in this. And as you say, it’s a Jesuitical standard, which is going to be crazy if this becomes normalized as how we look at information, especially election information going forward.
“Walter Kirn: Matt, do you think saying an election was stolen should get 20 lashes and saying it was rigged should only get 10? Or do you think they’re the same thing?
“Matt Taibbi: That’s the kind of thing that the high bureaucrats in the coming regime, they’ll sort out the quantitative punishments. There’s always some person who becomes the expert in the punishments that you dole out for violations of newspeak and that sort of thing. But yeah, these are strictly religious judgments, most of them. And what’s so interesting, because this is the partisan organization, we’re not looking at… You can go and look at YouTube videos after 2016, Maddow explains why Putin’s Russia hacked the 2016 election. Hillary Clinton, “Trump knows why he’s an illegitimate president.” That was also on YouTube. Our own Matt Orfalea did a whole compilation of people saying that the 2016 election was either not legitimate or was interfered with or compromised. They used all the same words, but the problem is the religious argument is wrong, so, they’re not going to-…”
Then Kirn’s summary of the Media Matters agenda…
“Walter Kirn: To wrap up my whole complicated take on this, which I think got a little fractured between irony and seriousness and speculation and real opinion. It is still a mystery as to why they ran this except to do what it manifestly did, which is chill conversation around election irregularities in advance of an election in which many fear there will be irregularities. So the reason I’m so upset about it is because it was an act of journalism that seems meant to inhibit further journalism, not just on the part of the targeted people, but on the part of you and me or anyone in the future who might get a story about this stuff or have an opinion about it. Because remember the other thing that’s not unethical or is to say whatever the hell you want about an election.
“Matt Taibbi: Yes. And I don’t know, is this a last straw for the New York Times? I mean, what’s your opinion about this? Because I’m not sure how much lower you can get journalism-wise than basically being a vehicle for threatening other journalists, which is what this is, or chilling conversation. What YouTube said in that quote is exactly right. You have to allow other people to explore things, even if you disagree with them. And if they’re saying, “No, we, the papal arbiters of whatever, we’ll come after you if you do that.” I don’t know. I don’t know how I feel about that.”
They end noting how the jokes made by Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert on voting late or double voting get a pass while the FBI went after conservatives making similar jokes in the past. Again- the bias, unfairness that rankles many Americans, souring them on this partisan, propagandizing media.
Another brilliant piece as Shellenberger explores the psychopathology behind Woke authoritarianism and its media propaganda arm… adding comment on why the public no longer believes the media.
He illustrates the obsession of mainstream media journalists to take some comment of an opponent, pull it out of context, frame it as the worst of disqualifying evil, and try to fire up tribal hysteria among the Progressive base even more…
“Narcissistic Wounding Behind Media Disinformation On Liz Cheney, Trump Rally, And Vaccines: Angry legacy journalists lash out aggressively at new voices on social media, and the politicians it enables, as public trust declines”, Michael Shellenberger, Nov. 1, 2024
https://www.public.news/p/narcissistic-wounding-behind-media
Shellenberger says this about the public’s loss of trust in news media: “The number of false news media stories in recent years is very long. They include the Russia collusion hoax, Covid’s origin, the Covid lockdowns, the Covid vaccine, misinformation about police killings of black men, climate change exaggerations, the impacts of drug decriminalization, the Hunter Biden laptop, the January 6 “coup attempt,” Biden’s deteriorating health, the competency of Kamala Harris, and much else.”
To counter recent media distortions, for example, that Trump did not call for shooting Cheney in the face, Shellenberger quotes a Progressive, “Folks, Trump didn’t threaten to execute Liz Cheney,” said an anti-Trump journalist who writes for the progressive web site Vox. “He actually was calling her a chickenhawk, something liberals said about her for ages.”
Shellenberger reminds readers that he has been critical of the news media for years, “but (present) media disinformation is more extreme, contains fewer grains of truth than past disinformation, and is plainly aimed at influencing the election, not reporting the truth.”
He adds, “The behavior of many if not most of the journalists who work in the mainstream news media thus appears irrational. Instead of seeking to win back the public’s trust, they are doubling down on their one-sided disinformation efforts. Why is that?”
He notes that a significant percentage of liberal media audience want biased coverage that feeds audience confirmation bias. They want partisan affirmation of their narrative, not truth.
He then moves on, as he has done regularly over the past, to analyze the psychopathology behind all this, noting the egoism of Progressive journalists who “displayed high levels of entitlement and grandiosity, two key characteristics of narcissism… narcissists, who are thin-skinned, react to criticism with aggression.”
And they want to play victim, says Shellenberger, “They engage in denial and defensiveness, like Todd did, denying the validity of media criticisms, rationalizing their behaviors, and blaming others to avoid acknowledging any personal flaws.”
He quotes the psychologist Sam Vaknin, who says, “Narcissism is about a lack of empathy… It’s about entitlement. And it’s exploitative. ‘I’m a victim, so I’m a saint. I’m morally superior to you. I have a right because I have a grievance. I’m entitled. You have an obligation towards me.’” These media narcissists react with out-of-proportion rage to any pushback.
Shellenberger concludes, noting that media owners like Jeff Bezos are pushing back against the Woke extremism of their employees and this is further lessening the power of media to promote disinformation and weakening their credibility in the public’s eyes.