Why is this important to look at and understand? Because it deals with the ultimate ideals that we frame our narratives around, the ideas/ideals/beliefs that shape how we think, how we feel about things, what motivates us, and how we respond and act, what policies we support with our votes. These ideals are powerful validations as they have been across history due to the common human practice of basing behavior on similar validating beliefs. So it is critical to know what ideals are the bad ideas in the mix that incite the worst impulses in people- i.e. to tribalism, domination, punitive destruction of differing others. And what are the better alternatives that counter our animal side and inspire our better humane impulses.
Just below– some discussion by Dave Rubin and guest Andrew Klavan on the dark human tendency to frame the murders of certain people as acts of moral superiority.
Also below the discussion by Jordan Peterson and Gad Saad on “Why people double down on their belief systems in the face of irrefutable contrary evidence.”
Note in regard to the Rubin/Klavan material below, that violence over the history of Christianity was illustrated most egregiously, not in the brutality of the early Councils, the mass-slaughter during Crusades, the burning of heretics/witches, the Inquisitions, the religious wars, etc., but was most horrifically manifested through the “apocalyptic millennial” narratives that drove the violent revolutions of Marxism, the Nazi horrors, and are now influentially driving the environmental alarmist crusade of “salvation (‘save the world’) through the destruction of decarbonization”.
Dave Rubin of “Rubin Report” interviews Andrew Klavan, “Are these the most influential murders of all time?”, June 7, 2025, Wendell Krossa
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lCDmvwqy5eA
Rubin engages an interesting discussion with this novelist Klavan. They start with a sideline discussing how media lie about everything, nonstop, whether Russia-gate, Covid lies, etc. Media propagandize us with a constant stream of lies on all sorts of issues.
They then move onto Klavan’s latest book “The kingdom of Cain: Finding God in the literature of darkness”.
Klavan explains that in this book he is looking at archetypal murders across history, in the Bible and elsewhere, and how artists and intellectuals (i.e. Dostoevsky) have responded to such murders as a means of exhibiting moral superiority. Klavan also notes varied other historical murderers who believed that they could commit murders without guilt, that they could murder certain people as a means of exhibiting their moral superiority, as doing something morally right. He notes that artists have often tried to transform evil into things of beauty and morality, and this exhibits some fundamental pathology in human nature and culture.
More pointedly, he argues that these intellectuals and artists are affirming the belief that if we just kill the right people, then we can make the world right. This is the cultural notion, persisting across human history, that he is exploring.
He illustrates this cultural notion by referring to Dostoevsky’s “Crime and Punishment”. Dostoevsky’s main character believed that if he committed murder then he would be a superior being of some sort.
Klavan then ties this pathology of framing the murder of some as moral good to the loss of faith over the past 500 years and what he views as the mistake of people claiming that, with “God dead”, we “perfectible” humans now think we can replace God. He is angling for the revival of religion to counter the godlessness that he appears to locate mostly with philosopher-types and artists.
I would argue that Klavan has missed something critical in his exploration of the history-long fallacy of people believing that if they murder the right people, they can become morally superior and make a better world.
I would further argue that Harold Ellens and Arthur Mendel have explained better the root problem that Klavan is circling with their point that religions like Christianity have made a horrific error in promoting, as a central theme or archetype, the belief in “salvation through violent destruction” (i.e. human sacrifice for atonement, violent apocalyptic purging to prepare for the installation of millennial paradise).
Ellens and Mendel provide the larger context of belief for what Klavan is pointing to- i.e. murder framed as something morally superior, as an act of beauty, grace, and morality.
Here again are Harold Ellen’s brilliant statements on this belief and the inevitable outcomes, the horrific impacts on human personality and society (from Zenon Lotufo’s “Cruel God, Kind God”):
“There is in Western culture a psychological archetype, a metaphor that has to do with the image of a violent and wrathful God (i.e. Romans, Revelation). Crystallized in Anselm’s juridical atonement theory, 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.
“Ellens goes on by stating that the crucifixion, a hugely violent act of infanticide or child sacrifice, has been disguised by Christian conservative theologians as a ‘remarkable act of grace’. 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…”.
As Harold Ellens says, “If your God uses force, then so may you, to get your way against your ‘enemies’”.
Klavan also misses this critical issue– i.e. that the sacralizing of violent murder as grace has been given its ultimate and archetypal expression in Paul’s Christ myth. Mendel, along with Ellens, saw the real problem here of holding the more general belief in “salvation through destruction” and how across history this belief has profoundly influenced destructive crusades like violent Marxist revolution to eliminate the capitalist enemies that were preventing progress toward collectivist utopia, or the Nazis getting rid of the “wrong people” who were polluting and blocking the way to their millennial paradise (i.e. an Aryan populated Third Reich), and now environmental alarmists overturning and ending the civilization of consuming humanity that is ruining the paradise of a wilderness world.
Paul created the grand archetype of this destruction affirming mythology when he reframed the death of Jesus in such terms, the meaningless murder of a wisdom sage for his protest against violent sacrifice (i.e. the temple protest of Jesus). Paul took that meaningless evil act and transformed it into an act of divine love or grace. The intellectuals and artists that Klavan refers to have all done just what Paul did earlier with the senseless murder of Jesus. They have tried to turn the murder of certain people into something they portray as morally superior, as the way to make the world right.
A fundamental point that Klavan misses is not understanding the profound contradiction within Christianity between Historical Jesus, i.e. his “life-affirming” message of love, and Paul’s contrary Christ myth as “death-affirming”. That is the basic issue here- two profoundly opposite messages/theologies- not some generalized “loss of traditional religious faith” in God.
Later in their discussion, Klavan refers to a contemporary example of turning horrific murder into morality and beauty in the recent Luigi Mangione killing of the health corporation CEO. Media, and many on the Woke Progressive left, jumped on that as an exhibition of superior morality, something to be validated as righteous, just, and good. They were following the pattern of transforming murderous evil into an act of grace, just as Paul did with Jesus’ horrific death.
Klavan’s points are interesting regarding this long history of people believing that if they kill the right people, they can then make the world right. This strong cultural notion, embraced by the intellectuals that Klavan refers to, is basically a rehash of Paul and his Christ myth where murder is honored as some form of true morality (i.e. God doing something morally superior).
Arthur Mendel, along with others, has been more helpful in presenting the destructive outcomes of people believing this horrific fallacy that “salvation that must come through destruction”. That is exactly what Ellens noted above in referring to Christian theologians (starting with Paul) who have turned evil into act of grace and love, essentially validating destruction/murder as necessary to salvation.
I would argue that we need to go to the root elements of the larger issue here- i.e. the profound difference between the messages and theologies of Jesus and Paul. Confront these contradictions and start your wrestling with these issues from those basic differences.
The Jesus seminar (i.e. Search for Historical Jesus) provides some basic outline of the fact there was a historical person that was different from the Christian “Jesus Christ”, as does “Q Wisdom Sayings” research and notably Bob Brinsmead’s essays:
Brinsmead’s two essays:
“The Historical Jesus: What the Scholars are Saying”
https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-historical-jesus-what-the-scholars-are-saying/
“The Doctrine of Christ and the Triumph of Hellenism”
https://bobbrinsmead.com/the-doctrine-of-christ-and-the-triump-of-hellenism/
Added notes:
A further point in relation to this Rubin/Klavan discussion- There is increasing public discussion about “the revival of religion” (e.g. Free Press articles) as moderns realize they have abandoned the social institutions which provided meaning and purpose for many people. Over past centuries traditional religions were abandoned for contemporary “secularism/atheism” fads that left many wandering in meaninglessness, purposelessness, even nihilism.
Now, apparently, surveys reveal that increasing numbers of these people are seeking to reconnect with the religious traditions that they formerly rejected and abandoned. However, this revival movement does not appear to recognize the unresolved problems with those traditions, notably in regard to Christianity- i.e. the profound contradiction between Historical Jesus and Paul’s Christ myth that distorted and buried the central message of Jesus.
The result is that many end by embracing the same old contributing factors to the problems of earlier history. The result is a revival of the previous harmful influence of “bad religious ideas” that have long incited and validated some of the worst of human impulses to tribalism, domination, and punitive retaliation against “enemies”. That is exactly what has been uncovered by historians in regard to the influence of Christian “apocalyptic millennialism” on Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism.
Many advocating for the general revival of religion appear to have not understood or engaged the liberating theology of Jesus that rejected the images of a God of retaliatory vengeance- i.e. his stunning new theology of a non-retaliatory, unconditional God, expressed in the summary statement of his message- “Love your enemy because God does”.
The central Jesus message is entirely contrary to Paul’s affirmation of a vengeful deity, notably in his Romans 12:17-20 presentation of his theology- “’Vengeance is mine, I will repay’, says the Lord”. Or his Thessalonian statements of “Lord Jesus returning in flaming fire to punish those who did not obey his (Paul’s) gospel”.
Ellens/Lotufo also comment on this issue that most people just accept the traditional image and understanding of deity without question and that image leads many to see atheism as the only rational and safe alternative…. (again, from “Cruel God, Kind God”):
“One type of religiosity is entirely built around the assumption or basic belief, and correspondent fear, that God is cruel or even sadistic… The associated metaphors to this image are ‘monarch’ and ‘judge’. Its distinctive doctrine is ‘penal satisfaction’. I call it ‘Cruel God Christianity’… Its consequences are fear, guilt, shame, and impoverished personalities. All these things are fully coherent with and dependent on a cruel and vengeful God image…
“(This image results) in the inhibition of the full development of personality… The doctrine of penal satisfaction implies an image of God as wrathful and vengeful, resulting in exposing God’s followers to guilt, shame, and resentment… These ideas permeate Western culture and inevitably influence those who live in this culture…
“Basic cultural beliefs are so important, especially in a dominant widespread culture, because they have the same properties as individual basic beliefs, that is, they are not perceived as questionable. The reader may object that “God”, considered a basic belief in our culture, is rejected or questioned by a large number of people today. Yet the fact is that the idea of God that those people reject is almost never questioned. In other words, their critique assumes there is no alternative way of conceiving God except the one that they perceive through the lens of their culture. So, taking into account the kind of image of God that prevails in Western culture- a ‘monster God’… such rejection is understandable…”
Another note:
Hitler was another striking example of someone who framed evil as good, who tried to portray murder as a form of exercising/exhibiting moral superiority, using Nietzsche’s take on this, according to Klavan. The Nazis believed, says Klavan, that if you murder the right people in your “Will to power” that will make you morally superior. You can get to your perfect world if you get rid of some people you perceive as blocking your way to such salvation.
Historians repeatedly sourced here- i.e. Richard Landes, Arthur Herman, Arthur Mendel, David Redles- have exposed well the evidence that Hitler was significantly influenced by themes from Paul’s grand archetype in the Christ myth, the archetype that honors the violent murder of some people as the means of salvation, as the means to gain status as morally superior. Paul’s Christ, “the Mother of all archetypal myths”, honors the murder of certain people as an act of grace to gain salvation. This is the fallacy that Mendel warns against, that salvation must come through the destruction of some people. Hitler, in speeches and conversations, appealed directly to varied features in the apocalyptic millennial complex of myths.
Add also the critical point that Paul’s Christ myth affirms/advocates for the violent destruction of apocalyptic purging (see the New Testament book of Revelation) as necessary to clear the way for ultimate salvation and the installation of millennial paradise.
As the historians noted above have shown, Paul’s Christ archetype, that centers the “apocalyptic millennialism” complex of beliefs, has influenced violent Marxist revolution as a crusade of righteous people exhibiting moral superiority to achieve a better world. So also, this theme is endlessly affirmed in contemporary moviemaking/storytelling- i.e. the endless repetition of apocalyptic that dominates modern movies.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_films
A further note:
Rubin comments to Klavan that our stories need to get the basic archetypes right, and that all of our individual stories conform to the same common subconscious archetypes. They then both note that even as we get our individual versions of stories, these stories all share some basic common themes, common archetypes.
Klavan then notes that the Genesis story of “Cain murdering Abel” sets a pattern that some psychologists appeal to in order to make the case of how early childhood trauma works itself out in our lives. He further comments that some people suggest that such murders are actually a form of suicide where the ones committing murder feel like they are killing themselves. Klavan illustrates this point, noting that in “Crime and Punishment”, Dostoevsky, after killing two women, is confronted by another woman who asks him- “What have you done to yourself”.
He then relates the Cain/Abel incident (i.e. murder between brothers) to the Adam/Christ brotherhood where he claims that Paul shows us how to end the trauma of conflict and murder between brothers. I assume that he means the murder of Jesus was the ultimate final act of “murder as morality” to end all such tragedies (see Paul’s framing of Jesus’ murder as a divinely planned ultimate act of morality in Romans 3-5).
Klavan mistakenly (my opinion) ties the resolution of murderous hate between brothers to Paul’s Christ, a redeemer God who turns an evil murder into an act of ultimate grace or morality. Klavan says that Paul’s myth of atonement by violent death shows how “murder is the price of redemption”.
Paul, and the intellectuals that Klavan refers to, all affirm the very thing that Arthur Mendel warned against- i.e. believing that “salvation must come through destruction”. We see this theme also in the myth of apocalypse- i.e. that salvation/utopia is only possible following the violent purging of evil from the world, a most dangerous and destructive belief, according to Mendel.
We would do well to understand the better alternatives to this pathological mythology, the wisdom insights that sages like Historical Jesus presented, and especially as the alternatives are framed in the fundamentally contradicting nature of the Jesus and Paul messages, the stunning contrast between these two as the fundamental thing to wrestle with here. These two presented entirely different approaches to dealing with issues of offense and violence in life.
One message, and theology (that of Historical Jesus), affirms our truly human impulses to resolve problems non-violently with forgiveness (no “eye for eye”), full inclusion of differing others (nontribal), non-domination (equality of all), and restorative justice approaches (non-retaliatory, non-punitive justice).
(Insert note: Treating offenders humanely, “unconditionally” as per Jesus, is not a direct line to the contemporary leftist “pacifism” that refuses to incarcerate violent people and robustly protect citizens.)
The other (Paul’s retaliatory, vengeful Christ myth) re-affirms our worst impulses to tribalism (true believers obligated to engage righteous wars against unbelievers in false religions, as per Zoroaster’s cosmic dualism), eternal domination (“Lord Christ ruling the Church in the present and eternally dominating defeated enemies with a rod of iron”), along with retaliatory, punitive destruction of enemies.
Look at the historical outcomes of these two entirely opposite belief systems/narratives over the past two millennia. Again, I refer to those historians who have detailed the influence of the core Christian themes of apocalyptic millennialism (i.e. salvation through destruction) that drove Marxism, Nazism, and environmental alarmism.
We do better, when engaging what Rubin and Klavan are discussing here, by recognizing the basic issue that Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy understood- i.e. that there is a profound difference between these two grand historical figures and their messages and theologies. Messages and theologies that incite and validate entirely different human impulses leading to very different outcomes.
It is no progress to argue, as Klavan does, for the Christian version of “murder as moral superiority” as somehow a better version of that same fallacy across history. It’s all the same psychopathology or “bad religious ideas”.
Klavan concludes in a somewhat muddling manner, that as a Christian, he embraces Paul’s Christ as the solution to this issue of believing that the murder of some people is the answer, the way to a better future, to salvation. Huh? He just spent the interview detailing the horror of that archetypal theme. Talk about cognitive dissonance to then embrace Paul’s supreme archetype of this in the Christ myth- i.e. murder framed in terms of moral superiority, as grace, as something good.
It appears that Klavan concludes by falling back on the iconic, archetypal version of this bad idea in its Christian version as outlined by Paul.
One more:
The intellectuals that Klavan refers to were fumbling toward something over past centuries that is a necessary step in human progress. In proposing the “Death of God”, they got one half of the equation right- i.e. that the God of historical religion, i.e. Paul’s version of God, does indeed need to die away to make way for the new theology as presented by Historical Jesus. But in their crusade to murder the old God, the intellectuals missed something fundamental. They needed to grasp what Thomas Jefferson and Leo Tolstoy had got a hold of, that the “diamonds/pearls” of Jesus had been buried by Paul’s Christology or Christ myth- i.e. that Historical Jesus had presented the alternative of a new God, an entirely new theology (i.e. a stunning “non-retaliatory deity”) which Paul subsequently confronted directly and rejected (See his Romans 12:17-20 statements on this).
Paul re-established the old retaliatory “eye for eye” God of all previous historical religion in stating his theology as, “’Vengeance is mine, I will repay’, says the Lord”. Paul’s Christ and God dominates the overall New Testament messaging.
In dealing with theology we are dealing with ultimate ideals and authority, with the Cohering Center of human narratives.
The entirely new God that Jesus had presented should have led to the actual death of the old God. Many of the subsequent philosophers and intellectuals that Klavan refers to, missed this basic point, that they should have moved past just a focus on the murder/death of the old God and on to an embrace of the new theology of Jesus, to complete the stage of rebirth into the new, of reintegration around the new Center that Jesus had proposed. Those intellectuals/artists, along with all of us, have had the alternative staring us in the face for over two millennia.
The critical point the intellectuals and artists missed was that it was not just about the “Death of God”, as in the rejection of the old theology, but about embracing the stunning new alternative that Historical Jesus had presented. And dogmatic atheism has never been a credible alternative for most of humanity.
Moving along…
I’ve argued for quite a while now, to alleviate concern about AI turning Terminator, program it with Classic Liberal principles, liberal democracy systems of law and representative institutions that protect the rights and freedoms of all individuals equally. Make it read and memorize studies like Daniel Hannan’s “Inventing Freedom”.
This from Jim Lakely’s “Heartland Weekly” of June 7, 2025
“If AI isn’t built for freedom, it will be programmed for control: The machines aren’t the danger. The people training them are — and voters are finally drawing a red line around constitutional limits”, Donald Kendal, The Blaze
Kendal begins, “Once the domain of science fiction, artificial intelligence now shapes the foundations of modern life. It governs how we access information, interact with institutions, and connect with one another. No longer just a tool, AI is becoming infrastructure — an embedded force with the potential to either safeguard our liberty or quietly dismantle it.”
He says that despite deep political divides, Americans are united in agreeing that AI must be designed to protect the most basic rights. He notes a Rasmussen poll showing “that 77% of likely voters, including 80% of Republicans and 77% of Democrats, support laws that would require developers and tech companies to design AI systems to uphold constitutional rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of religious expression.”
He adds that AI programs must be governed by the same principles that have preserved freedom for generations.
If we’re going to let these systems shape our future, they must be governed by the same principles that have preserved freedom for generations and must not become tools of oppression. AI must be subjected to constitutional guardrails that prevent abuse and preserve freedom.
He concludes that AI must “serve the people, not manage them… it must be taught to serve what makes us free.”
Doubling down on your belief system in the face of irrefutable contrary evidence, Wendell Krossa
The grand illustration of the problem of people “doubling down against contrary evidence” today is the climate apocalyptic/alarmism crusade, a “profoundly religious crusade” framed as ideology and even “science”. This crusade is undeniably a traditionally apocalyptic millennialism movement in terms of its basic themes and stages of development. No different from all similar crusades across previous history where people embraced wildly irrational systems of mythology that have distorted reality and life entirely leading many to affirm subsequently destructive salvation schemes.
Continually amassing evidence proves how wrong this climate apocalypse narrative is, yet daily across news media we see the alarmists doubling down with hysteria-mongering over every natural twitch in climate.
But as that crusade now appears to be collapsing, its leading prophets are doubling down on ramping up hysteria over every twitch in weather. Constructing outright distortions and lies in their desperate push to revive the carcass of their alarmist narrative through cooperating media.
We try to understand the mentality behind all this “madness of crowds” hysteria, the irrational exaggeration and outright lying to promote the narrative. What emotions/motivations are driving such madness? Below are two psychological/sociological types who analyze this with input from other sourced experts on “entropy/anxiety” and “cognitive dissonance”. They highlight what historians Richard Landes, Kristian Niemietz, and others have also researched and presented.
It’s a useful exercise for all of us to try to understand why we hold the beliefs that we do and especially why we fall prey to the “confirmation bias” refusal to change our beliefs when confronted with contrary evidence that we are wrong. What powerful emotional needs do our beliefs satisfy that render us irrational at times and willing to then support “salvation through destruction” schemes. Why do we continue to hold completely irrational beliefs, like “climate crisis”, in the face of irrefutable contrary evidence.
Note, for example, this greening report that just came out, similar to thousands of such reports on sites like “Wattsupwiththat.com”, “co2coalition.org”, “co2science.org”, etc. that affirm there is no climate crisis.
“Global Greening from higher CO2 hits ‘Striking’ new heights– but the Mainstream Media won’t tell you about it”, Chris Morrison of Daily Skeptic, June 6, 2025
Quotes and comments:
“Significant new evidence has emerged of widespread and significant increases in plant vegetation across the Earth due to the recent rise of the trace gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere… widespread global greening… a significant portion of Earth’s terrestrial land surface showing measurable increases in vegetation cover over the last four decades”.
Morrison says that mainstream media dare not tell the truth that there has been a 14-20% increase in green vegetation across the world since 1980. Media cannot share this evidence with the public because they are activists committed to mindlessly propagandizing the Net Zero crusade. Other evidence media do not present- no decline in Arctic Sea Ice extent, record growth of coral on the Great Barrier Reef, American wildfires are barely a quarter of those recorded since 1600, all the data showing that extreme events are not getting worse, deserts are reducing in size, etc.
As Morrison says, “Global greening helps reduce world famine and reclaim desert areas but it is not of the slightest interest in the mainstream since it disrupts the fake claims of a climate in crisis due to humans burning hydrocarbons… Net Zero relies on fake science and much of the real stuff is fatal to the collectivist ambitions of its hard-Left promoters.”
He adds (along with others like Patrick Moore) that all these striking growth trends should be no surprise because plants on Earth evolved to thrive in levels of atmospheric CO2 that were on average thousands of ppm higher than the current “CO2 starvation levels” of our era. And yes, CO2 is not a pollutant or “poison” (Bill Maher) but is the basic food of all life.
Morrison concludes: “Everywhere you look these days, the mainstream media are making themselves look stupid by putting a blind faith in the unworkable Net Zero agenda and turning a Nelsonian eye to the actual science around climate, including the benefits of CO2.”
(End of Morrison article)
Myriad similar reports offer good evidence that there is no climate crisis and there has never been any such crisis. The slight warming over the past century and small increase in CO2 has been hugely beneficial to all life in a cold world where 10 times more people die from cold every year than die from warming events, and where plants have been starving for their basic food in our historically low “CO2 starvation era”.
Moving along…
To those too skittish to look past public narratives, that have been proven wrong, to pry into the deeper religious underpinnings of such narratives, then start with things less threatening, themes/information more at the surface level that can be verified or refuted by common facts/evidence, for example on climate, and also the more generally agreed on things like the basic principles of liberal democracy.
Many consider that confronting religious beliefs and archetypes as wrong is too frightening a thing to contemplate. Well then rethink things at the public level of more widely accessible narrative themes and data. But eventually we all have to confront the core themes of the archetypes that dominate the subconscious (i.e. the mythical/religious element) as that deeper level of contributing factors continues to mess up human thinking, feeling, motivation, and response/behavior.
We never progress as we should until we face and correct the contributing elements of problems that hinder our development and growth. As the military guy said, you will keep getting the same damaging outcomes from varied destructive movements until you go to the root ideas driving such harmful movements in our societies and make changes there.
So start the necessary process of death and dis-integration of the old (i.e. abandoning beliefs that are proven wrong) at the level of public information that most can agree on, and then work from there to eventually engage deeper levels of contributing factors- i.e. the mythical/religious element in the mix (the “archetypes of the subconscious” issue). Start where you can, as your initial phase on the way to embracing new narratives with truly human themes and ideals to guide and validate life.
Further, this site repeatedly urges readers to understand the “secularization” of primitive mythology that has occurred over previous centuries. For whatever reason, moderns ignore/dismiss, or are just unaware of, the ongoing influence of inherited primitive mythological themes on contemporary narratives and life. Many, ignoring the persisting influence of the past, prefer to frame their varied crusades as “science… ideology”, etc.
But any close examination of the basic themes of narratives that people hold today will reveal a significant residual of the same old myths as ever before, affirming Joseph Campbell’s conclusion that people have believed the same primitive myths all across history and across all the cultures of the world.
Modern efforts to cloak primitive religious irrationality, as “science… ideology”, has been exposed by historians/researchers tracing out the details of what drove crusades like Marxism, Nazism, and now the environmental alarmism/climate crisis. As Arthur Herman, Richard Landes, Arthur Mendel, and others have done in their good research. Tear away the defensive pretenses to “modernity, secular, scientific, etc.” and expose to yourself the naked emperors at the core of most contemporary belief systems.
And relate this to the Mother of all narratives that brought this primitive mythology into Western narratives to dominate Western consciousness and civilization- i.e. Paul’s apocalyptic Christ myth that buried the liberating anti-apocalyptic, anti-violence message of Historical Jesus.
“Why do smart people double down on bad ideas?” Jordan Peterson with Gad Saad
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rop6FnLD01o
Why are people unable to change their minds, or worse refuse to change their minds, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary that they are wrong? Saad illustrates this problem with the case of Justin Trudeau in Canada, but his point is generally true of the left today (i.e. Socialism, neo-Marxism as in Woke Progressivism and DEI). Kristian Niemietz has detailed this phenomenon of people refusing to abandon bad ideas repeatedly proven wrong in his book “Socialism: The Failed Idea That Never Dies”.
This sparked my thoughts in response:
What is this insistence in doubling down against evidence that you are wrong and your policies are destroying your own society? We see this in the “climate crisis” crusade- doubling down against mounting evidence of widespread harm (i.e. the destabilized electrical grids as in Spain recently) and destruction of economies (the Net Zero hindering of economic development in African nations and elsewhere).
I would emphasize that the doubling down on bad ideas illustrates the power of deeply embedded mythical beliefs that have over millennia become the unquestioned archetypes of the subconscious. Those subconsciously rooted beliefs push people to keep choosing the same bad ideas in endless new versions, whether religious or “secular/ideological”. They are beliefs that “deform human personality” (psychotherapist Zenon Lotufo in “Cruel God, Kind God”). They distort reality and life horrifically, and terrorize people with looming threat of apocalypse (“the end is nigh”) that arouses the human survival impulse and desperation. The apocalyptic prophets follow-up their hysteria-mongering by presenting salvation schemes that play on human hope and desperation that has been initially incited by their catastrophe-mongering.
H. L. Mencken framed this as good as anyone- “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary”, In Defense of Women.
Totalitarians from the beginning (i.e. the earliest shaman promoting myths of angry threatening deities behind the harsh elements of the natural world) have used fear to manipulate and control others, to render people submissive to their proposed salvation schemes, even when contrary evidence mounts that they are embracing “salvation through destruction”. People have continued, across history, to embrace the destruction of their lives and societies enticed by the promise of utopia just up ahead. So plug away in chasing salvation through destruction. We are watching this myth-driven madness play out in Spain and elsewhere (save the world through renewables that dangerously destabilize electrical grids).
As noted above, Saad illustrates this pattern of stubborn insistence on persisting with bad ideas, against evidence to the contrary, with Trudeau and Canadians electing the very government and the same people who have been “de-developing” (ruining) Canada over the past decade. The Liberals have been actively trying to shut down our primary fossil fuel resource that that world wants and has asked for (e.g. Japan and Germany both requested that we supply them). Trudeau brushed them off with, “There is no business case for fossil fuels”. As Saad pointed out, Canadians are doubling down by choosing Mark Carney. According to Peterson, Carney, in his book “Values”, “states explicitly… that 80 per cent of (fossil fuel) resources will have to be left ‘in the ground’ to meet the net-zero goals.”
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jordan-peterson-mark-carney-doesnt-value-a-prosperous-canada
Further, it is almost impossible to change belief systems when people have tied their very identity to their belief system. They get “emotional satisfaction” from the belief system because, and again using the example of the climate change narrative, they can virtue signal as morally good and thereby gain status with the group of enlightened world saviors that they seek membership with. Even if evidence shows that loyalty to their group’s policies entails engaging suicidal empathy because the salvation scheme of the crusade they embrace will destroy them and their fellow citizens. Nonetheless, their belief system still convinces them that they are righteous heroes fighting to save the world from the apocalypse of climate change and battling against evil enemies framed as those who disagree with their apocalyptic beliefs.
The iconic examples of doubling down on beliefs that are proven wrong and destructive of societies are listed in Niemietz’s history of the 24 Socialist experiments over the past century. We have all watched that ideological system ruin Venezuela over past years, a country that should have been, with its vast fossil fuel resources, one of the most prosperous countries on Earth. The same happened with the former “Breadbasket of Africa”, Zimbabwe.
Richard Landes also reveals the doubling down on bad ideas in his book “Heaven On Earth” that details the stages and patterns that unfold throughout the lifespans of apocalyptic millennial crusades. Doubling down on salvation through destruction was evident in Marxism, Nazism, and is now playing out in the environmental alarmism/climate crisis movement, as it has in varied religious apocalyptic crusades across history.
Even as overwhelming evidence shows these apocalyptic crusades are false alarms and are collapsing, the activists involved, in desperation double down and even shift into the dangerous phase of “exterminate or be exterminated” as they become increasingly desperate to keep the “madness of crowds” hysteria going.
The lunacy of these apocalyptic crusades is manifest in that people prefer ongoing enslavement to their salvation scheme even as it destroys everything around them. That illustrates the power of beliefs that define who we are and lock us into narratives that distort our perceptions of reality entirely. They define everything for us.
People caught in the irrational madness of these crusades find it almost impossible to face the disintegration of whatever dreams they have invested in the crusade. They cannot accept the “death of a dream” and shift to find new meaning in something more rational and evidence-based.
Add here the other factors such as the excitement over possible “instantaneous transformation through destructive revolution”, as against the disappointment and impatience with the slow and messy gradualism of normal liberal democratic life.
Other researchers on further input to the phenomenon of doubling down:
Louis Zurcher, commented on the human self and identity issues in “The Mutable Self”. He talked about people locating their identity in fixed, unchanging “objects” like occupation, nationality/race, religion, ideology, etc. Such people then refuse to remain open to the new, to change and further development. They become immutable selves fixed rigidly on “object”, not mutable selves in an open and ongoing process of change.
I see people doing this with belief systems across history. Joseph Campbell summarized this in stating that people have believed the same primitive myths all across history and across all the cultures of the world.
The freedom of life in an open process of endless change is just too frightening to many people who want to be told what to think and how to live, even in micro-managing detail by dominating others. They find freedom in an open process to be frightening and shrink back fearfully from the adventure of life where you may not know where your path is going or what will happen. Like Abraham called by God to go forth into his open future adventure (Genesis 12:1-3- “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you”.).
Such freedom is vital to our ongoing development as human, to be willing to change when we are presented with contrary evidence that we are wrong and there is a better way forward, an alternative. And the alternatives are not always initially clear. They unfold in a process of gradual development and change.
I would take from Zurcher that doubling down is a survival response for those who have tied their selves, their identity, too tightly to belief systems that have subsequently been proven wrong. Hence, the sometimes violent reaction of these people to any challenge to their beliefs. They view any challenge or exposure of error as a threat to their very selves, to their existence as persons. They are responding to challenge, to contrary evidence, as a survival issue. That evokes the same desperation as that, for example, of the hyena faced with the lion about to devour it. The hyena knows it is finished but it will go down snarling and snapping in desperation rage, not meekly accepting the inevitable.
None of us take lightly what we view as threats to our very selves, to our identity, to our belief systems that have provided us with the emotional satisfaction of being heroes in grand battles against evil (i.e. others in differing belief systems). We naturally defend, sometimes to the death, our belief systems where we can virtue signal as morally good and thereby gain status with our peer groups and cultures.
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Later, in the linked interview, Peterson and Saad probe further aspects of why people double down on their beliefs even when faced with contrary evidence showing them to be wrong.
Peterson notes neuroscientists who work on entropy theory (increasing disorder, chaos) in relation to anxiety. He says that your beliefs are game rules that bring order to complexity and if you have to modify them when proven wrong that is an unsettling encounter with unstructured entropy and chaos. There is apprehension in that and that locks people into the reaction of the “self-imposed tyranny of their beliefs”. The pressure to “lock in” may also be familial or cultural as well as personal. But to make progress, he says, you have to face such chaos in order to go forward.
Saad adds that when faced with contrary evidence to your beliefs, that you hold dear, you are faced with cognitive dissonance, chaos. Experts in “cognitive dissonance” research say that people, when faced with contrary evidence, will go to no end of effort to maintain the coherence of their current belief system, despite the contrary evidence that they are exposed to. The exposure to contrary evidence triggers the cognitive dissonance thing, according to Saad, and that triggers them to solidify themselves in their positions/beliefs. It emboldens them in their beliefs, he says. Cognitive dissonance affirms to people that they are right, despite contrary evidence that they are wrong.
I would add that what Peterson and Saad are pointing out, on how people react in the above manner, speaks to the natural human fear of disintegration of the old in order to re-integrate around something new. That is not just the disintegration of a belief system but of the very self that has been too closely tied to the belief system, the “object” of Zurcher’s research. It is facing a “death” before there can be rebirth to the new, to new life, to progress and further development.
This is about the courage the authentic hero to step out into the unknown future, not always certain of where it is leading.
Carl Jung also spoke of the depression often associated with people who refuse to embrace the death and rebirth process. They remain stuck in the old. The self-imposed tyranny of the old. And that is depression-engendering.
To paraphrase Jesus- Wheat has to fall into the ground and die before it can become new life. He also said that he was a wanderer with nowhere to lay his head. No fixed home. A wanderer in an open journey of change.
Note:
Another element of human story is the “death of dreams”. We start to follow some direction in our lives, pursue some interest, but then things conspire to make it impossible to continue in that direction. Things do not work out, so we then have to adjust and even change course. We have to let some dream of ours die and find another dream to inspire our journey. My paraphrase of a wisdom saying (Old Testament Proverbs)- “Without dreams the people perish”.
A personal example of the “death to dream” element in life story:
I returned from 11 years of having worked with the Manobo tribal groups on the island of Mindanao. Over previous years, I had become intensely aware of the problem of erosion control on the steep mountain slopes of that beautiful island. The fields of Manobo farmers were subjected to strong tropical downpours that would wash away entire sections of their crops. We introduced agroforestry projects where you plant fast-growing trees along contour lines to eventually develop terraces that prevent soil erosion.
I returned to Canada interested in slope processes and finding ways to help Manobo farmers deal with issues like soil erosion. I tried to begin a soil science program in university as a mature student. But I had been out of school too long and Calculus 101 left me realizing that I had to abandon my soil science dream and shift to another path. Later in grad school, I met my wife and again had to let the dream die of returning overseas to engage development projects.
These “death of dreams”, some major shifts, are part of human story and the life quest. My wife, as an immigrant, faced the same death of a dream when, as a licensed doctor, she discovered that she could not continue medicine in Canada due to limited opportunities to redo her pediatric residency (a basic requirement for licensing here). These were major shifts to be made, already later in life.
Added note on refusing to let go of beliefs proven wrong:
Kash Patel on the latest Joe Rogan podcast noted that half of Americans still believe the lies of CNN, MSNBC, and other media, that there was Russian collusion in the first Trump Administration. These people refuse to admit that grand conspiracy theory has been exposed as a great fraud. Patel played a key role in uncovering the corruption behind the promotion of that act of treason where people should have been imprisoned.
The Rogan interview of Patel is a stunning eye opener to the unbelievable corruption of US democracy by the left/Democrats in their hysteria over Trump. They continue to try to stop him by any means possible, even putting out disinformation/lies as never before. They have convinced themselves they are heroically facing down “Hitler, a Nazi, a fascist, a dictator, etc.” and hence, democratic principles and procedures be damned.
In consequence, we have had the Hunter Biden laptop coverup, locking down society with Covid lies, and more. Any means necessary, even stunning levels of lying to their fellow citizens justified by the belief in their righteous battle against the worst monster ever.
Patel was the central person investigating the corruption in the Russia collusion lie and he offers detail in this interview of the main characters and events in that grand conspiracy, and other corruption.
“Joe Rogan Experience: 2334- Kash Patel”