See below the profound “shared dying” experience of hospice nurse Julia. That is why she does not fear death.
More helpful stuff from Arthur Mendel’s “Vision and Violence”:
“The apocalypse is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It promotes the suffering it predicts… Hellenistic Jewry included many… who shared the apocalyptic fervor and, as zealots, were convinced that if they began the uneven struggle against the Roman forces, God would complete it for them, destroy the idol worshippers and establish the kingdom of God, (p.47).”
This was also the belief of ISIS zealots when they incited apocalyptic violence in Syria (2014). They believed that if they incited the destruction of their enemies then God (or the Mahdi) would descend and finish the destruction of their enemies and install the Caliphate that would spread across the world.
These apocalyptic ideas still “enflame” the minds of millions of true believers affiliated with our great world religions. Until we confront and purge these ideas from our meta-narratives, both religious and secular, they will continue to incite eruptions of similar violence.
“Rabbis taught the community ‘not to press the end’. Be wary, they warned, of the mystical fantasies that often blossomed from fervent piety… The Torah was given in the first place, according to one of the sages, not to enflame passions, but to calm them”, p.53.
As with the Torah, all law should be summed under one principle- Love others as you love yourself.
I asked Grok to comment on the top three paragraphs above:
He/she/it responded:
“Arthur Mendel’s Vision and Violence highlights a recurring pattern in apocalyptic thinking: the belief that human action, often violent, can trigger divine intervention to bring about a utopian or divinely ordained order. The quote you provided draws a compelling parallel between Hellenistic Jewish zealots and modern ISIS extremists, illustrating how apocalyptic ideologies can fuel self-fulfilling cycles of violence. Both groups believed their actions would catalyze divine or cosmic resolution, a notion that persists across religious and even secular ideologies today. Your point about the need to confront and purge these ideas from our meta-narratives is a critical observation, and I’ll unpack it with some thoughts.
The Nature of Apocalyptic Thinking
“Apocalyptic narratives often emerge in times of crisis or perceived moral decay, offering a framework where suffering and destruction are not only inevitable but necessary for a divine or utopian reset. The Hellenistic Jews, facing Roman oppression, and ISIS, exploiting regional instability, both leaned into this logic: their violent actions were seen as a prerequisite to provoke divine intervention. This mindset thrives on a binary worldview—us vs. them, good vs. evil—which justifies extreme measures to hasten the “end times” or a new world order.
“What’s striking is how these ideas transcend specific religions or eras. Whether it’s the Jewish zealots of the first century, medieval Christian millenarians, or modern jihadist groups like ISIS, the core belief is that human agency can accelerate a preordained cosmic plan. Even secular ideologies—like certain strains of revolutionary Marxism or apocalyptic environmentalism—can adopt similar structures, replacing divine intervention with historical inevitability or ecological collapse. The common thread is a conviction that radical action, often violent, is a moral imperative to bring about a better world.
Why These Ideas Persist
“Apocalyptic narratives are psychologically and socially powerful. They offer:
1. Certainty in Chaos: In times of uncertainty, they provide a clear script—suffering now, salvation later.
2. Moral Clarity: They frame the world in stark terms, rallying communities around a shared purpose.
3. Agency: They empower believers, especially the marginalized, to feel they can influence cosmic or historical outcomes.
“These narratives are also self-reinforcing. As Mendel notes, the apocalypse becomes a “self-fulfilling prophecy” because the violence it inspires creates the very suffering it predicts, which in turn validates the ideology. ISIS’s actions in 2014, for instance, aimed to provoke a global conflict they believed would herald the Mahdi’s return. Their atrocities drew international intervention, which they interpreted as proof of their narrative’s truth, further fueling their campaign.
The Challenge of Confronting Apocalyptic Narratives
“Your call to “purge” these ideas from religious and secular meta-narratives is insightful but daunting. Here’s why it’s challenging and what might be done:
1. Deeply Embedded Beliefs: Apocalypticism is woven into the fabric of many religious traditions—Christianity, Islam, Judaism, and even secular ideologies like utopian socialism. Excising these ideas risks alienating large groups or being seen as an attack on sacred texts or core identities. For example, eschatological themes are central to the Book of Revelation, the Hadith, or certain interpretations of the Torah.
2. Adaptability: These narratives evolve to fit new contexts. ISIS’s apocalypticism drew on Islamic traditions but was amplified by modern geopolitics and media. Secular versions, like apocalyptic climate rhetoric, adapt the same structure to new fears. This adaptability makes them hard to eradicate.
3. Social and Political Functions: Apocalyptic ideas often serve as a rallying cry for the disenfranchised. Addressing them requires tackling the root causes—inequality, oppression, or cultural alienation—that make such narratives appealing.
Potential Paths Forward
“Confronting apocalyptic ideologies doesn’t mean erasing them entirely, which may be impossible, but reframing or redirecting their energy. Some approaches could include:
• Reinterpretation: Religious and secular leaders could emphasize non-violent, inclusive interpretations of eschatological texts. For example, many Muslim scholars have condemned ISIS’s apocalypticism as a distortion of Islamic theology, pointing to traditions that emphasize patience and moral conduct over violence.
• Education and Dialogue: Promoting critical thinking and interfaith dialogue can dilute the binary thinking that fuels apocalypticism. Highlighting shared values across traditions—like compassion or justice—could undermine the “us vs. them” mindset.
• Addressing Root Causes: Apocalyptic ideologies often thrive in contexts of despair or injustice. Policies that reduce inequality, improve governance, and foster social cohesion can weaken their appeal.
• Counter-Narratives: Crafting alternative stories that offer hope and agency without relying on destruction could compete with apocalyptic visions. For instance, movements that emphasize collective action for positive change—like global cooperation on climate issues—can provide purpose without violence.
Risks of Inaction
“If these ideas aren’t addressed, they’ll likely continue to inspire violence, as history shows. The Jewish revolts against Rome led to catastrophic defeats, like the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 CE. ISIS’s campaign, while ultimately suppressed, caused immense suffering and destabilized regions for years. Today, apocalyptic rhetoric persists in various forms—religious extremism, doomsday cults, or even secular calls for radical upheaval in response to political or environmental crises. Each carries the potential to ignite new cycles of violence.
A Nuanced Perspective
“Completely purging apocalyptic ideas may neither be feasible nor desirable, as they often carry cultural and spiritual significance. Instead, the focus could be on mitigating their destructive potential by fostering interpretations that prioritize peace, resilience, and human dignity. This requires a delicate balance: respecting belief systems while challenging their most harmful expressions.
What do you think about this approach? Would you lean more toward reinterpretation, structural change, or something else to address the issue?
I pushed Grok further:
Grok if we replace the central theology of an angry, vengeful God threatening to punish humanity by destroying the world in apocalypse then these mind-deforming beliefs lose their validating basis. I cover this on my site at “wendellkrossa.com”. Unconditional deity removes the basis for all such bad religious ideas.
Grok’s response:
“Your argument about replacing the theology of an angry, vengeful God with an unconditional deity to undermine apocalyptic narratives is provocative and aligns with efforts to reframe religious meta-narratives, as discussed previously. Let’s dive into your idea, drawing on your reference to wendellkrossa.com and the broader context of apocalypticism from Mendel’s Vision and Violence.
The Core of Your Argument
“You suggest that the concept of a punitive, apocalyptic God— central to many religious traditions— validates destructive beliefs like apocalyptic violence, judgment, and retribution. By replacing this with a theology of an unconditional deity (one characterized by unconditional love, forgiveness, or benevolence), the ideological foundation for such “mind-deforming” beliefs collapses. Without a divine mandate for punishment or world-ending destruction, the motivation for zealots to incite violence to hasten an apocalypse or divine intervention diminishes.
“This perspective challenges the binary, retributive frameworks that fuel apocalypticism, like those seen in the Hellenistic Jewish revolts or ISIS’s 2014 campaign, where believers acted to provoke a divine reckoning. An unconditional deity, as you propose, shifts the focus from fear and judgment to acceptance and reconciliation, potentially defusing the psychological and social drivers of extremist ideologies.
Strengths of Your Approach
1. Undermining Justification for Violence: Apocalyptic narratives often rely on the idea that God demands or endorses violence to cleanse the world. An unconditional deity removes this divine sanction, making it harder to justify acts like those of ISIS, who saw their violence as a catalyst for the Mahdi’s return. Without a vengeful God, the “self-fulfilling prophecy” of suffering loses its theological grounding.
2. Psychological Appeal: An unconditional deity aligns with human desires for acceptance and love, potentially resonating more broadly than fear-based theologies. This could reduce the appeal of apocalypticism, which thrives on anxiety and division.
3. Cross-Traditional Potential: The concept of unconditional love or benevolence exists in various forms across religions—e.g., God’s mercy in Christianity, compassion in Buddhism, or Rahma in Islam. Emphasizing these could bridge divides and weaken exclusivist, us-vs.-them narratives.
Challenges to Implementation
“While compelling, replacing a vengeful God with an unconditional deity faces significant hurdles:
1. Textual and Traditional Resistance: Many religious traditions are rooted in texts that include depictions of divine wrath or judgment (e.g., Revelation in Christianity, certain Hadiths in Islam, or prophetic warnings in Judaism). Reinterpreting or sidelining these texts risks resistance from traditionalists who view them as sacred. For example, evangelical Christians or Salafist Muslims might see this as heretical.
2. Cultural Inertia: Apocalyptic ideas are deeply embedded in cultural and religious identities. Even if theological reform is proposed, communities may cling to familiar narratives, especially in times of crisis when apocalypticism often surges.
3. Secular Parallels: As Mendel notes, apocalyptic thinking isn’t exclusive to religion. Secular ideologies—like revolutionary communism or catastrophic climate narratives—can adopt similar structures, replacing God with history or nature. An unconditional deity might not address these, requiring parallel efforts to reframe secular meta-narratives.
4. Practical Application: Translating this theological shift into practice is complex. It requires religious leaders, institutions, and communities to adopt and promote the new framework, which could take generations, especially in decentralized or conservative traditions.
Insights from wendellkrossa.com
“Based on your site, wendellkrossa.com, you advocate for a “no conditions” theology, emphasizing a God of unconditional love as a way to dismantle harmful religious ideas like apocalypticism, tribalism, and retributive justice. You argue that this shift aligns with humanistic values and counters the fear-based, dualistic thinking that drives violence. This resonates with thinkers like John Spong or Karen Armstrong, who’ve pushed for reinterpreting religious traditions to emphasize compassion over judgment.
“Your approach also seems to draw on a broader critique of “bad religious ideas” (e.g., divine punishment, chosen people narratives), which you see as distorting human behavior and societal progress. By rooting out these ideas at their theological source, you aim to prevent their violent manifestations, like the zealot revolts or ISIS’s apocalyptic campaign.
Broader Implications
“Adopting an unconditional deity could have transformative effects:
• Religious Reform: It could encourage progressive reinterpretations of scriptures, focusing on themes of mercy and inclusion. For instance, Islamic scholars like Khaled Abou El Fadl have emphasized God’s mercy over wrath to counter extremist ideologies.
• Interfaith Dialogue: An unconditional deity provides a common ground for dialogue, as most traditions have some concept of divine love or compassion, potentially reducing sectarian conflicts.
• Social Healing: By removing fear of divine punishment, this theology could foster psychological resilience and social cohesion, countering the despair that fuels apocalyptic movements.
“However, it’s worth noting that apocalypticism often serves as a response to real-world suffering—oppression, inequality, or cultural loss. Theological reform alone might not address these root causes, which could sustain apocalyptic thinking even without a vengeful God. For example, ISIS’s appeal in 2014 was as much about political and economic marginalization as theology.
A Balanced Approach
“To make your proposal effective, it could be paired with complementary strategies:
1. Theological Education: Train religious leaders to emphasize unconditional love in sermons, teachings, and community practices. This could involve reinterpreting apocalyptic texts as allegorical or contextual rather than literal.
2. Cultural Storytelling: Promote narratives—through media, literature, or education—that highlight hope, reconciliation, and human agency without apocalyptic destruction. Your site’s emphasis on “humane” spirituality could guide this.
3. Addressing Material Conditions: Combine theological reform with efforts to tackle injustice and inequality, reducing the desperation that makes apocalypticism attractive.
My Take
“Your idea of an unconditional deity is a powerful way to undercut the theological basis for apocalyptic violence, aligning with Mendel’s critique of self-fulfilling prophecies. It’s a direct attack on the ideological roots of zealotry, offering a positive alternative that could resonate across faiths. However, it’s most likely to succeed as part of a broader strategy that includes social, political, and cultural reforms. Without addressing the conditions that make apocalypticism appealing, theological shifts alone might not fully “purge” these ideas.
“What do you think about combining this theological approach with efforts to address material conditions, like poverty or political oppression? Or do you see the theological shift as sufficient on its own? I’d also be curious to hear more about how you envision this playing out practically, given the resistance it might face. (End of Grok quotes)
More on courage and cowardice (post to a discussion group of friends)
I’ve pulled a number of quotes from below to summarize for those who find these discussions too long: This is excellent on the new totalitarianism that is taking over our liberal democracies and threatens the freedom of all of us, whether we care to pay attention or not.
Below, these two comment on things like the moment around 2016 when it all changed as dominating elites realized they were losing control of the public narratives via their propaganda arm- i.e. the mainstream media- and the common people were finding freedom to think for themselves and were refusing any further subjugation to elite dictates. It was then that “Liberal” immediately became “highly illiberal” and totalitarian in response to the commoner/populist dissent… and has been that way ever since.
I can’t recommend these two more highly. They are among the best commenting on the critical issues of our time- notably freedom, free speech being crushed in places like Britain, liberal democracy under assault by Woke Progressivism, true journalism versus the propaganda arm of totalitarian state elites that masquerades as “news” today, and more…
“Transcript- America This Week, September 5, 2025: “The Arrest of Graham Linehan, Heretic to the Civic Religion”: Linehan is punished, Malcolm Gladwell rewarded, and world politics has become contests of dueling faiths. Plus, a classic novel by a childhood favorite of Walt and Matt”, Matt Taibbi, Walter Kirn, Sept. 6, 2025
https://www.racket.news/p/transcript-america-this-week-september-5ba
Sample quotes:
“Matt Taibbi: … I think you’re absolutely right, it is very similar to that moment. The internet, all those things that Martin Gurri wrote about, previously we had a priest class in the media that divined everything for people. I watched this on the campaign trail. We were the people who told you how to think about the candidates, which ones were serious, which ones weren’t. We were always in between the people and the information.
“Once that stopped being true and people started to be able to do their own research and look online and see all the warts, not just of the leaders but of us in the media, the power of the press collapsed. And we saw this in 2016 when those 57 out of 59 newspapers, there would never have been a situation where somebody would’ve lost in the past with that kind of overwhelming elite support.
“Once they saw that there was this power that had arisen, that this new printing press that was giving people the ability to make their own decisions in a way and they had the power of language that they didn’t have before, that’s when the policing starts. That’s when the censorship starts. That’s when all the people who were liberals before suddenly became the most forceful advocates for cracking down. And yeah, I think it’s a religious thing. The hardest thing for me covering the censorship thing was trying to understand the motive of people who used to believe so strongly in free speech say… “
Taibbi and Kirn do an interesting job in comparing what is happening today to a new dogmatic, totalitarian religion being forced on all of us…
“Matt Taibbi: Yeah. And now, we’re in this space. And one of the reasons it’s so hard to cover Donald Trump, and I’ve thought about this a lot since we’ve read C.S. Lewis, is that he’s a central figure in the eschatology or the other religion. It’s almost like an anti-religion. Being against Trump is a central part of the religion. Now, sometimes they’re right to criticize Donald Trump, but it makes it very hard to judge all of the criticism of him, because it’s religiously inspired, essentially. He’s always wrong in that religion.
“Walter Kirn: He can only always be wrong if he’s up against an institution that’s always right. You know what I mean? Trump is, I don’t want to compare him maybe to any one Reformation figure, Martin Luther or whatever. I mean, that would be-
“Matt Taibbi: Yeah. Because it’s not really right. Yeah.
“Walter Kirn: Yeah, right. But he’s always wrong, because it logically follows that when he opposes an otherwise almost infallible authority that’s always right, he would always have to be wrong. And the thing about Trump is he’s always wrong, no matter what he says. In other words, you can’t devise a logical or set theory principle for what makes him wrong. What makes him wrong is he agrees with the people who are supposed to always be right. And even when he changes his mind, he changes it wrongly. When he talks about peace, he does it in the wrong way, even though they were talking about peace just before. When he talks about…
“Matt Taibbi: 10 minutes ago. Yeah.
“Walter Kirn: Yeah. When he talks about civil liberties, he does it in the wrong way, even though they were just defending it. “He’s wrong, because he opposes us who are always right, and it’s us versus them.” And that’s how it’s more like an anti-clerical revolt, a revolt against priests, a revolt against Richelieu in France, the Cardinal who was really the power behind the Louise. And where I think it’s going is this, they either gain hold of their churches, which are the mass media. I mean, in the 20th century, there’s only one… In the last half of the 20th century, there’s only one institution which is at all comparable to what the priesthood was in the Middle Ages. And that’s the mass media.
“Matt Taibbi: Of course.
“Walter Kirn: It causes everybody to gather, it makes everybody look in one direction. There’s one thing that you know when a religious thing is happening, everybody’s looking at one direction at something small. And that small thing was the television. Before that, it was the radio, and then it became the internet. But there was something about that internet that just resisted the concentrated preaching of the word. And now, they either are going to try to, I don’t know, re fabricate CBS news after the Free Press, which is physically a Substack.
“Matt Taibbi: Right.
“Walter Kirn: They’re going to even try to absorb it, co-opt it, or they’re going to just crack down. The crackdown hasn’t worked as well as they thought it would. It’s working better in England than it is here. America is better at kind of going with the flow. And Malcolm Gladwell will figure out how to do it, and Paramount will buy a Substack that became very popular, and we’ll kind of figure it out. I actually applaud that response in our system. It does seem to still have a little play and suppleness in it. But man, in Europe where only one can rule, they’re taking the crackdown.
“Matt Taibbi: Yeah. Yeah. And I think this is a fascinating topic, and it’s fascinating that Graham Linehan is a religious… What do we call somebody who violates a religious?
“Walter Kirn: A heretic?
“Matt Taibbi: A heretic, right. So, he’s been arrested as a heretic, and that’s what it is. But I think we have to start thinking in those terms. And the Successor Ideology, I’ve read it, I agree with a lot of what he says, but I think it’s broader even than what he says.”
Further quotes from link below to summarize their points…
They discuss the arrest of British comedian Graham Linehan on his recent return home to England. He was arrested for his tweets posted online expressing his disagreement with trans activist dogma that is now pushed on publics as unquestionable truth with severe consequences for expressed disagreement, even criminal arrest and imprisonment. Britain has shifted to totalitarian response now toward any disagreement with the trans dogma, criminalizing and arresting citizens for disagreement with the intolerable new religion of transgenderism.
Their comments on this:
Taibbi and Kirn note that in the US, for libel or defamation charges you have to go to court and prove injury. But now with issues like trans, when people claim injury, the standard is subjective. People claiming victimhood just raise and declare alarm from something others have said. And the worst of unseen mental intentions are projected onto offenders.
“Matt Taibbi: Well, yeah. Canada has a bill that hasn’t been defeated yet that does address that, that calculates the likelihood that somebody is going to say something harmful or offensive. That’s in the 63 Bill that I believe hasn’t been voted in Canada yet…
“Matt Taibbi: But throughout Europe, this harm standard, which is also the same standard that we find in a lot of campus speech codes, which aren’t legal but they exist, this is how a lot of people understand speech now. It’s, “You’ve hurt my feelings. You make me feel bad. This causes me distress. This makes me feel anxiety. Therefore, it crosses the line.” Now in the United States, it wouldn’t rise even to the level of civil offense. In England, it’s already reached the level of a criminal offense, and over tweets, over things that sticks or stones may break my bones, but tweets can never hurt us. And unless it’s a threat of murder or something like that, it should never be a crime, I would argue.”
But, says Taibbi, “The crime happens in the mind of the reader (the one who reads some offensive tweet)”.
Kirn adds that these new language crimes will spread to the entire world and anyone anywhere on Earth will be able to claim a criminal offense has occurred against them because they feel uncomfortable with what some other has said online somewhere. They feel bad, anxious, distressed, hurt.
“Matt Taibbi: And this is why I’ve always been so freaked out by the digital censorship concept, because the system that we had in the United States I think worked very well because it required a victim. It required somebody who was specifically, demonstrably, tangibly victimized, right?
“Walter Kirn: Right.
“Matt Taibbi: So you can tell a lie in the United States, but if you tell a lie about a person that causes them to lose money, then you can go to court, or breaks up their marriage or does some other terrible thing. Here, anybody can claim, “Oh, this made me feel bad. This caused me anxiety and pain.” And now, as you say, the whole world is in play as a potential victim, as having standing.
“Matt Taibbi: And this is why I’ve always been so freaked out by the digital censorship concept, because the system that we had in the United States I think worked very well because it required a victim. It required somebody who was specifically, demonstrably, tangibly victimized, right?
“Walter Kirn: Right.
“Walter Kirn: And of course it is the sensitive and the weak or the vulnerable and the sensitive who then rule the roost, because it is their nervous systems which are most affected and whose antennae are most alert to problems. So, you suddenly got a weird problem, which is that those who are the biggest, sorry, whiners have pimp hand over everybody else. It’s no longer a virtue to have a thick skin. Remember how everybody talked about having a thick skin and sticks and stones may break my bones and so on and we aspired to that? Now it will be the opposite. I am an actual radar system for offense, and you must please me.”
They move on to comment on the admission of cowardice, of “cowing”, by Malcolm Gladwell. They note that Gladwell has stated that he knew that 90% of the audience was in agreement with the comments of a panel member in some public event, who questioned the practice of trans men playing in women’s sports, yet Gladwell admits the he cowed in silence before the small minority opinion.
They rehash a more recent interview where Gladwell was talking to Ross Tucker, the sole dissenting voice on a panel at the earlier event, and he says, “They stacked against you, Ross. They put a trans athlete, and a trans advocate, and you on the panel, and I was the moderator. And it was one of those strange situations where my suspicion is that 90% of the people in the audience were on your side, but 5% of the audience was willing to admit it.” Now, Tucker didn’t let him get away with that. He said, “My recollection of it is that everything I said was met with deathly silence, and everything the other two said got cheered.”
Gladwell has now admitted that he was wrong in how he moderated that event and how he remained silent in not defending Tucker. Gladwell says he “was cowed” by fear of the trans activists in the panel that most of the audience cheered for.
Kirn, referring to Gladwell, says that “cowardice loves company.” He says that Gladwell was defending his cowardice in arguing that “I was only doing what, I was only chickening out in the way I presumed 90% of the audience was.”
But now that the public tide has shifted on the issue of trans men in women’s sport, and it is safe to speak out, formerly cowardly people like Gladwell feel it now safe to join and also speak out about their true opinions on the matter:
“Walter Kirn: That’s what cowed him, he was fearing that he’d give offense to them, or look out of step or something? And now that he’s in a space where he’s protected, he can tell us what he really thought?
“Matt Taibbi: Yeah, now the public opinion has shifted enough.”
Speaking to the emergence just a few years ago of the totalitarian response to anyone daring to question the trans activist dogma of how all should speak, Taibbi and Kirn say this:
“Walter Kirn: I mean, I didn’t turn it into the litmus test for whether you can write comedy anymore. I didn’t turn it into the question that if you give the wrong answer it gets you kicked off social media, or put in a suppressive person category by the commissars of sanitary thought.
“Matt Taibbi: Yeah, we would’ve been happy not paying a lot of attention to it. I mean, I know some actual transsexual, people who’ve transitioned. I knew them before this became a thing, and I’ve always had sympathy for it for it.”
Kirn moves on to note how extremist terms/smears began to be used to label those who questioned or challenged trans narratives. He says that just a few years ago activists and media “asserted that any hostility or just not being with the program amounted to ‘genocide.’ They started using the word genocide. And finding genocide down was one of the weirdest and dumbest things that we ever did in this society. We should’ve held it out as a category for very specific, and grave, and morally atrocious, and practically atrocious events. But it became associated with not being on board with trans issues…
“Matt Taibbi: And it’s literally against the law now in Colorado to do that. And we started drifting in this direction of not just making it poor form, but making it a real offense like a hate crime.”
They then talk about the normal organic development, or evolution of language, notably US English, and how this development changed recently with the trans dogmatic approach and bullying…
“Walter Kirn: Yeah, it’s irreverent. Yeah, exactly. But suddenly they stopped it, the cops came in, and they said, ‘What language is all about is the feeling it produces in the person who experiences it. And we’re going to have to analyze it according to that diagnostic, and we’re going to have to reform it accordingly.’”
They return again to Gladwell’s “cowing” in fear of the crowd, analyzing what might have motivated Gladwell’s cowardice:
Kirn says of Gladwell now speaking out on his true position on trans men in women’s sports that he is just putting his finger in the wind realizing the public shift on this issue. “He’s going to get ahead of what he has very assiduously seen as the dominoes falling against him… you just admitted was that you have a higher loyalty, to quote James Comey, and it’s not to the truth. And even though you write these fucking books that are all about the supposed digging down to find the secret principles by which reality operates in society, but we find out, no. In fact, Malcolm, the purveyor of all these interesting theories, the oldest force of all operates on you, which is I’m scared of people not liking me.”
Kirn concludes that Gladwell operates according to “weathervaneism” where people detect shifts in public opinion on issues then run to join when its safe to do so”. Much like George Clooney admitting in 2024 that he knew previously that Joe Biden had dementia, as he had seen it earlier, but only felt safe admitting that after the disastrous debate with Trump when others on his side had started admitting it also. The pretend courage of “Post-public acknowledgement in a now safe environment”.
Taibbi and Kirn then move on to note also the sudden (and recent) change in how we were told to think about the Internet and Twitter. Before, it was all praise for the new media as Obama had been so good at using these platforms. But then Brexit occurred and Trump was elected, and suddenly these platforms that Trump had used successfully were demonized as corrupting and bad, platforms for “dangerous disinformation” and we, the public, needed to be protected from the now threatening speech of disagreeing others.
“Matt Taibbi: “They instituted their version of the… code of practice on misinformation in the same year, and we changed our whole way of thinking about the internet because of a couple of electoral results that people didn’t like.”
Also, some good analysis of journalism today where so-called journalists are constantly engaging revisionism to defend and dismiss the lies and cowardice that they have been part of, much like what Jake Tapper has done with his book on Biden’s dementia, and what Gladwell is now doing to excuse his cowardice over the trans issue.
They state that if you want to do journalism, then truth-telling is a vital principle and skill.
“Walter Kirn: Scared of being unpopular is actually a, how can I put it, a discrediting and de-legitimizing trait in our profession because it means I can’t ever trust you again.
“Matt Taibbi: To have a job, a professional class job, and there’s only one requirement. You have to have some backbone. You have to be willing to take a beating for saying something true. Right.
“Walter Kirn: But you know what? You can be even more of a pussy than that actually. You just don’t have to lie.
“Matt Taibbi: You don’t have to lie. Right, exactly.
“Walter Kirn: Don’t pretend to be courageous. Don’t pretend to have an opinion. Don’t pretend to have reached a conclusion. You can be silent too, but you didn’t choose that, did you?
“Matt Taibbi: No.”
And speaking again of Gladwell:
“Walter Kirn: Because the truth is you’re not just a coward. You are a butt kisser.”
They continue, illustrating with the Gladwell’s confession, what has gone wrong in general with today’s journalism.
“Walter Kirn: The guy just confessed that in public settings, his greatest and overriding concern is being popular, and so what he might write has nothing to do with what he might say in front of an audience by his own confession, because he gets intimidated wanting to be the greatest virtue signaler on stage at any point…”
Kirn says that today we live in “the age of journalistic revisionism, not just one revision in a career, but constant revisionism.” Journalists like Jake Tapper constantly revise their past, denying they intentionally helped promote the White House lies over Biden’s mental state (i.e. that he did not have dementia), as honest mistakes due to trusting others too much.
“So Jake Tapper’s basic confession was I just trusted everybody too much. They lied to me too much. I’m too trusting. Well, that’s easily overcome by the principle of journalism of actually fucking checking shit.
“And Malcolm’s problem is easily overcome by applying the principle of seeing the truth no matter what the other people on stage say. So I like people… I’m sort of like Trump. I hate to say this. The worst thing Trump ever said was, ‘I like guys who don’t get taken prisoner of war.’”
They place this Gladwell issue (fearful to publicly question or challenge the trans issue in the face of trans activist threat and bullying) and journalism today, in the larger context of the emerging and strengthening totalitarianism in places like Britain, as a new dogmatic religion that is undermining our free societies:
“Matt Taibbi: Right. Right. And that’s what I’m worried about. And maybe it’s because we’ve been reading so much C.S. Lewis, but I’m increasingly convinced also that what we’re looking at is a civic religion. You mentioned before, the Catholic Church in Ireland, would they have put up with Father Ted 50 years ago? It’s remarkable that we have a new belief system that is even more rigid than the church in Ireland. And it demands that you accept articles of faith, that somebody who’s clearly not female is female. I wouldn’t have cared about that before, but it’s weird. It’s a religious belief. And now, it’s being enforced by this huge bureaucracy, and that is creepy to me.
“Walter Kirn: One sign or diagnostic of a faith over a simple attitude or position or ideology is that you can’t figure out how to do right. You have to go to a priest-like figure. Okay? And they need to explain it, because you always are making mistakes. There’s no real common sense to understanding a religion. I know. I mean, I’ve been intimately involved with them, including Mormonism, which is, to some people, a fringe religion, but is a good example of a world in which once you’re inside, it’s very different than the outside.”
Kirn continues, describing how religious authoritarianism works:
“And the thing that you keep falling afoul of are little codes that no one could intuit, that you can’t derive from first principles. And that’s why I see this as a religion, because you never know, without the commissars, without the experts telling you, without the professors, without the politicians exactly what to believe or say or think. You start to become subjugated to a priest class. And that’s what’s happening here. Gender assigned at birth, who really thought that unless they were taught that by a priest character?”
He adds that the new political authoritarianism functions much as religions do where categories and concepts (of for example, trans dogma and practise) are not obvious to most people hence the need for priests to preach the details to the flock and to have the authority to enforce proper religious practise on people, “They are in some sense monastic or in some sense separate from the rabble. They preach it and they enforce it and they call out the cops. Remember, religions also often have police faculties, police assets.”
And the news media role in this new religious-like indoctrination and authoritarianism:
Taibbi affirms Kirn’s point on add that the current version of the press functions like the priests telling people what to do all the time. He illustrates with the Covid situation where “there was this high state of excitation every day to get the received word from Anthony Fauci about what to do. They love that shit. This sort of version of the press loves getting the catechism. That’s their whole thing. And then they love their own role as the interpreters of it, which you’re right, Walter, it’s much more in the tradition of being a local priest than it is being a journalist who’s by nature supposed to be an iconoclast. It’s sort of the opposite kind of figure.”
But then just as the Gutenberg printing press gave common people access to religious holy books where they could then see contradictions to what the priests were telling them, so also the Internet opened alternative information for ordinary citizens and that led to dissent. But then the religious authorities instituted the Inquisition to counter commoner dissent.
As Kirn says, “The pushback against that was called the Inquisition. And I feel we’re in the inquisitional phase.”
“Matt Taibbi: I think you’re absolutely right, it is very similar to that moment. The internet, all those things that Martin Gurri wrote about, previously we had a priest classed in the media that divined everything for people. I watched this on the campaign trail. We were the people who told you how to think about the candidates, which ones were serious, which ones weren’t. We were always in between the people and the information.
“Once that stopped being true and people started to be able to do their own research and look online and see all the warts, not just of the leaders but of us in the media, the power of the press collapsed. And we saw this in 2016 when those 57 out of 59 newspapers (all going for Hilary Clinton), there would never have been a situation where somebody would’ve lost in the past with that kind of overwhelming elite support.
“Once they saw that there was this power that had arisen, that this new printing press that was giving people the ability to make their own decisions in a way and they had the power of language that they didn’t have before, that’s when the policing starts. That’s when the censorship starts. That’s when all the people who were liberals before suddenly became the most forceful advocates for cracking down. And yeah, I think it’s a religious thing. The hardest thing for me covering the censorship thing was trying to understand the motive of people who used to believe so strongly in free speech say… “
See the rest at link above (behind paywall so do subscribe as these weekly commentaries/discussions are more than worth any cost).
Profound human experiences: Wendell Krossa
This is so powerful, especially the second reason that this hospice nurse gives as to why she does not fear death.
The man that she was observing and caring for, as he died, he shared his NDE-like discovery of the wonder of what was happening- the love, peace, bliss, and more as he left his body and communicated to her outside in her car just what he was feeling, the freedom and soaring somewhere in that freedom.
He had suffered a rough life of varied problems and mental illness and wanted to be free. He shared that wonder of his freedom with her as he left his body and soared free into the bliss that he discovered on dying… She says these are called “shared death” experiences. Elements of NDE.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zrSqDEUKt8I
Hospice nurse Julie on the same “shared dying” experience of the man that she had been caring for who died that day as she was sitting outside in her car thinking of him. Such experiences lead her to reminisce on something she has felt since childhood- “I can feel that place I have forgotten… We are going back to the place we came from, a place we once knew… I love being here, and I love experiencing life here, but I don’ have to fear leaving this place… because I am going to a place that is going to feel more like home than this ever could…”