The “big story” framework for our individual life stories- exodus, liberation

The greatest of human liberation movements continues, Wendell Krossa

Some more preface stuff:

The comment below relates to the primary impulse of humans for meaning and purpose and how we frame these. What ideals/ideas/beliefs do we embrace in narratives, both meta and personal, to understand and express these impulses. This is about the shape of our individual lives- our thinking, feeling, motivations, and the consequent outcomes in our behavior, how we relate to others.

Our individual life stories then coalesce to shape our societies, where we are going, shaping the future of humanity.

The human meta-liberation movement continues, Wendell Krossa

Preface:

The exodus of humanity from our animal past is the grand story of human liberation. It has been a slow exodus across multiple-millennia as we- humanity- have gradually learned to distinguish good from bad, what is inhumane from the truly humane. We have increasingly learned to appreciate ideals like freedom, respect and inclusion for individuals of all backgrounds and groups as equals, how to cooperate in commerce for mutual benefit, how to treat the failures of others less severely with rehabilitation where possible, and so much more that defines the maturely human person.

We have come to understand the animal existence we originated within as defined by impulses and associated behaviors like tribalism, domination of others, and vengeful destruction of competing and threatening others. These features are more animal than human.

Example: Roman philosopher Musonius Rufus said of retaliatory vengeance- “To bite back the biter is not human. It is animal.”

I got Google’s AI (Gemini) to do some homework on these major features of animal existence:

(1) The impulse to retaliation:

“AI Overview

“Musonius Rufus, a 1st-century AD Roman Stoic philosopher known as the “Roman Socrates”:

• The Core Quote: “For to scheme how to bite back the biter and to return evil for evil is the act not of a human being but of a wild beast”.

• The Reasoning: Musonius argues that animals act on instinct to retaliate, but humans possess reason.

• The Human/Philosophical Response: Instead of retaliation, which he views as “savage resentment,” Musonius urges, “to accept injury not in a spirit of savage resentment and to show ourselves not implacable toward those who wrong us, but rather to be a source of good hope to them is characteristic of a benevolent and civilized way of life”.

• Context of the Lecture: The lecture is titled- “Will the philosopher prosecute anyone for personal injury?” In it, he argues that a true philosopher should not take legal action (like lawsuits) for insults, slaps, or minor injuries, but should bear them calmly.

“In essence, Musonius Rufus taught that seeking revenge is a failure of reason that lowers a human to the level of a beast, whereas enduring injustice calmly is the mark of a virtuous, rational human being.”

Also, from “AI Overview:

“Retaliation between animal groups— whether between different species, different groups of the same species, or between animals and humans— generates significant negative consequences for individuals, populations, and ecosystems. These conflicts often lead to high rates of injury or death, increased stress levels, and reduced reproductive success.

“Harmful Effects of Intraspecific and Intergroup Retaliation

“When animal groups (e.g., prides, packs, or troops) retaliate against rivals, the following impacts often occur:

• Physical Injury and Death: Intense, “all-out” fights can lead to severe wounding or death of adults and, particularly, vulnerable offspring.

• Population Declines: Retaliatory killings, such as those occurring during territory takeovers or battles over resources, can drastically reduce population numbers, in some cases driving local extinctions.

• Disrupted Social Structure: Conflicts can cause the eviction of adults or the separation of individuals from their social groups, reducing the group’s overall survival and reproductive capacity.

• Reduced Reproductive Success: Chronic stress and injuries from conflict can lead to higher rates of abortion, lower fertility, and reduced care for young.

• Resource Deprivation: Groups that lose in retaliatory conflicts may be forced out of high-quality, resource-rich areas (e.g., with abundant food or safe shelter) into, often smaller, marginal areas.

• Increased Vulnerability: The stress and injury from conflict can make individuals more prone to disease, parasites, and predation.

“Behavioral Changes and Stress

“Retaliation and the threat of it cause long-term behavioural changes, including:

• Increased Anxiety: Elevated stress levels (cortisol) can be transmitted through groups, reducing synchronization in foraging and other collective processes.

• Reduced Efficiency: Groups may spend more time patrolling and less time feeding or resting.”

(2) And the tribalism impulse/behavior

“AI Overview

“Animal tribalism— often referred to as in-group favoritism or the “us vs. them” instinct— is a deeply rooted evolutionary trait designed for safety, survival, and cooperation.
However, this instinct often overrides reason and leads to significant negative consequences in modern human society, including conflict, cognitive biases, and societal stagnation.

“Harmful Effects of Tribalism

• Division and Conflict: The primary, most destructive effect of tribalism is the creation of a “we” that opposes “them,” which drives hostility, polarization, and violence. It can fuel, on a grand scale, wars, ethnic conflicts, and genocide, as well as, on a smaller scale, political and cultural gridlock.

• Dehumanization of Out-Groups: Tribalism encourages the belief that one’s own group is superior, leading to the dehumanization of those outside the group. This allows for the justification of discrimination, inequality, and systemic oppression.

• Cognitive Bias and Intellectual Stagnation: Loyalty to the group often replaces critical thinking, leading to “groupthink”. Individuals may ignore evidence that challenges their group’s beliefs, resulting in distorted judgment and a resistance to new ideas or innovation.

• Mental Health and Social Costs: Modern, extreme tribalism (or “toxic tribalism”) contributes to anxiety, social withdrawal, and the erosion of empathy. It can lead to the silencing of dissent, peer pressure to conform, and the personal, painful experience of being ostracized if one disagrees with the tribe.

• Undermining Meritocracy and Progress: Tribalism leads to nepotism and favoritism, where people are judged by their group membership rather than their individual competence. This stifles social mobility and hinders economic development.

“Evolutionary vs. Modern Context

“While this instinct was necessary for survival in ancestral times— where trusting the tribe meant safety and outsiders meant danger— it is often counterproductive today. In the 21st century, these urges, when unchecked, create a “perfect storm” for destruction, as the tendency to fear those who are different mimics the instinctive fear of natural predators.”

(3) And then the impulse to domination (See also Hector Garcia’s “Alpha God”)

“AI Overview

“Alpha domination” in animals, when defined as a strict, aggression-based hierarchy rather than a cooperative social structure, can have numerous, often harmful, consequences for both dominant and subordinate animals. While dominance hierarchies exist in nature to maintain order, the intense, forced submission often advocated in “alpha” training approaches— or observed in strained natural environments— can cause significant stress, injury, and diminished quality of life.

“Harmful Effects on Subordinate Animals

“Subordinate animals in a strict hierarchy suffer from a range of negative outcomes, including:

• Reduced Reproductive Success: Top-ranking individuals often monopolize mating, leaving subordinates with fewer or no opportunities to breed, such as in wild dog packs or primate troops.

• Resource Deprivation: Subordinates are often forced to wait to eat, resulting in reduced access to food, poorer nutrition, and less access to safe, comfortable shelter.

• Chronic Stress and Fear: Constantly living under the threat of aggression leads to chronic stress, which can result in physiological harm, including immune system suppression.

• Increased Mortality/Injury: Subordinates face higher risks of injury or death, either directly from fighting with the dominant, or due to being exiled from the group.

“Harmful Effects on “Alpha” Individuals

“Contrary to the belief that being on top is ideal, being the “alpha” carries its own, sometimes fatal, costs:

• High Physiological Strain: Maintaining a high rank can be taxing. Studies on primates (e.g., baboons) show that dominant individuals, especially during times of instability, have higher levels of stress hormones (glucocorticoids) and testosterone.

• Immune Suppression: Elevated stress hormones and androgens can suppress the immune system, leading to reduced health and, in some cases, lower longevity.

• Constant Risk of Challenge: Alphas must consistently defend their position, leading to injuries and the constant threat of being deposed.

“Summary of Physiological/Biological Costs

“Studies on social animals have shown that high-ranking positions can lead to:

• Reproductive suppression of others.
• Suppressed immune function in both dominant and subordinate animals.
• Lowered survival rates for subordinates.
• Increased cortisol levels during periods of instability.”

(End of AI Overview)

And so much more on the nature of animal existence.

Across our history as emerging humanity, we have come to understand more of what it means to be human, what are truly human impulses and behaviors as distinctly unique from animal existence. We have, for example, learned to view all others as equally human and to respect their freedom to be uniquely different, we have learned how to cooperate peacefully in commerce for mutual benefit and not just eliminate competitors to take possession of their resources, we have learned to not enslave and control others as inferiors, and much more- i.e. how to forgive offenses and use restorative/rehabilitative approaches to justice (e.g. the Allies treatment of Germans and Japanese post-WW2), mercy toward defeated enemies, and so much more.

But it has been a gradual process of distinguishing the base animal from the truly human as we inherited animal impulses that are deeply embedded in our brains and psyches, part of our essential makeup. They emote sensations that often confuse us and even lead many to validate them as good (the subconscious archetypes thing governing much of our behavior).

One point to be argued below: We are at our worst when we try to defend and continue to endorse and promote the animal in us, to defend and validate animal tribalism, domination, and retaliatory destruction as good, even divine. And again, I am keeping General Nagata in mind, his query about the “idea” behind violence that has to be defeated if we are to properly and thoroughly solve the problem of violence for the long-term future.

Projecting onto and then protecting the animal in God

Human self-deception reaches its height when we continue to defend our inherited animal features or impulses and drag that defense of the animal into our advancing societies. We descend to our worst when we cloak the animal as good. And we reach the bottom of ignorance and deviousness when we project animal features onto our deities- i.e. constructing our God as tribal, dominating, and vengeful destroyer of enemies.

Our ancestors did exactly that in forming religious traditions around such deities thereby protecting the animal “under the canopy of the sacred”, cloaking evil as good, as “righteousness”, for example, in justice systems that promote eye for eye punishment, that argue for vengeance as “holiness”.

Insert: “Holiness” in deity has long been the validating basis for justice as eye for eye vengeance and as necessary to rebalance upset cosmic scales, necessary for the survival of righteous society. You cannot just freely forgive wrongs as Jesus advocated or justice is violated. This explains in part the rage noted in the section below when Jesus left off the statement “the day of vengeance of our God” from his reading of Isaiah 61, enraging his first public audience of Jews. He appeared to be tossing out the core belief in a “just God”. Denying it.

This from my essay on “Old Story themes, New Story alternatives”, exposing the essential barbarity of holiness theology.

“Holiness mythology that in Christianity takes precedence over love, hence the impossibility of Christianity to embrace the unconditional theology of Jesus.

“One of the most common responses from religious people to the idea of God as no conditions love is that God is also holy and just and therefore must punish all wrong. God’s honor is tarnished by the wrongdoing of people so he must be just (i.e. exhibit strict eye for eye retaliation) and punish all sin. God cannot just freely forgive and love.

“This divine ‘holiness’ myth is primitivism at its worst. How so? It is the very same reasoning that is behind practices like “honor killing”. People in varied cultures today still reason that, for example, a daughter embracing modern habits has dishonored her family and their traditional culture. So, the dishonored males are required to punish the “evil” daughter in order to restore their tarnished honor.

“Holiness theology is embracing this very same primitive reasoning that wrongs must be punished thoroughly or justice and honor are not restored properly. I would counter that unconditional forgiveness and love is the true glory of God, the highest goodness and love. Authentic goodness and love will just forgive without demanding payment or righting of wrongs first. That is the point in the list of precepts given, for example, by Jesus in Luke 6: 27-36.

Jesus ends that list with the summary- “Be similarly unconditionally merciful just as God is unconditionally merciful.” Do this list of things and you will be just like God. Forgiving, loving and not expecting any return, not expecting payment, atonement, the righting of wrongs. Just love unconditionally.

“The holiness feature in theology affirms the myth of God obsessed with perfection and punishing imperfection, hence the creation of a supporting complex of myths- i.e. original paradise/Eden (perfect creation), Fall of humanity and ruin of paradise (loss of perfection), and the subsequent need for an atonement (sacrifice/payment/punishment) in order to restore the lost perfection.

“A full complex of ideas/beliefs is built around a God who retaliates and punishes all offenses as required for divine forgiveness. “Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness”, Hebrews 9. God can only forgive when tarnished holiness and upset justice scales are fully rebalanced, as based on some substitute suffering first for all that sin- i.e. animals/humans sacrificed to appease offended gods in the pre-Jesus era, then Jesus as the substitute sacrifice, according to Paul’s Christ mythology.

There is no authentic unconditional love in such eye for eye justice.

(End of quote)

Note the fundamental argument of Paul in Romans, Thessalonians, and elsewhere, that forms the baseline for his atonement message- i.e. that a wrathful God will take vengeance on those who do not believe his Gospel and embrace his new religion.

“The wrath of God is being revealed… the day of God’s wrath… ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay’, says the Lord… when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven in blazing fire with his powerful angels. He will punish those who do not know God and do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus. They will be punished with everlasting destruction and shut out from the presence of the Lord”, and more similar threat throughout his letters.

Another:

People further defend and promote the residual animal by framing it within deformed versions of the “Hero’s Quest” where they portray themselves as heroic warriors engaging righteous wars against evil enemies, defeating and dominating them, even destroying them as deserved “justice”.

Moving back onto “cloaking evil as good”, projecting the animal onto deity

Fortunate for us, a few along the way of our grand human journey across history were insightful and courageous enough to see through such deception (i.e. the protection and promotion of the animal in religious traditions) and they rejected such mental deformity outright. Historical Jesus was notable as in one crisp statement he exposed the animal and presented a stunning new humane alternative- i.e. God as unconditional love. That was an “axe to the root” of tribalism, domination, and vengeful, retaliatory destruction of enemies. He did that in brief aphoristic-like statements- i.e. “no more eye for eye retaliation but instead love your enemy because God does”.

In these statements, Jesus exposed the animal nature of religious deity and offered a profoundly human alternative to replace the very core of human narratives and thereby radically reshape human ideals.

When we defend the animal in the sacred (i.e. in our great religious traditions) we hinder and derail our exodus out of the animal and remain enslaved to that burden from our past, an inheritance that darkens and enslaves our minds, emotions, motivations, and behavior. Defensively protecting the animal derails our progress out of that barbaric past. It short-circuits our liberation and perpetuates the worst of that past in our human civilization. And we wonder why the evil of tribal hatred, enmity, violence, and war continue to plague our present societies and existence.

As stated above, the cloaking of evil as good is epitomized when projected onto God as the ultimate embodiment of human ideals, beliefs, or archetypes. When we project the evil triad features onto God, we are then irresponsibly using deity as the ultimate validation for bad behavior. We do this through our use of the “behavior based on validating belief” coupling that all of us subconsciously engage.

Critical to our successful progress toward full liberation

In our ongoing journey to freedom we have to continually probe the difference between good and bad, to learn the true nature of good as contrasted with bad, and especially we need to recognize how “bad is often cloaked as good”, notably in religious traditions that honor tribalism, domination, and the violent destruction of differing others as divine. The outcomes or consequences in human lives and societies of not understanding the difference have been horrifically destructive. I won’t repeat my prominent examples of Marxist revolutions, Nazism, and environmental alarmism.

Again, I insert psychologist/theologian Harold Ellen’s helpful illustration of “cloaking evil as good”:

He says (in 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 (see 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’…”
(End of Ellens quote)

I would further frame the overall story of humanity more even specifically as liberation from an animal past to become truly human in “liberal democracy” civilization. “Liberal democracy” nails the mechanics of how we constrain the animal (defeat, conquer) and encourage the emergence and development of our more human impulses. More below on this.

And I view the Jesus insights/precepts as critical to providing the background archetypes/ultimate ideals and related behaviors/ethics that validate liberal democracy principles and practises. The best of the “spiritual” given practical application to contemporary life and society.

“His greatest contribution to the history of human ideas”

Nothing helps more in understanding and exposing the sacralization of animal features than the unconditional insight of Jesus. He elaborated his exposure of animal features in deity through his statements that there should be no more “eye for eye punitive retaliation but instead we should love our enemies”. He said that true human greatness should not lord over others but should serve others as equals. There should be no tribal exclusion of “enemy” others (true believers excluding unbelievers) but just as God inclusively gives sun and rain to all alike, equally, so we should generously forgive and inclusively love all the same. All summed in the concluding statement, “Be unconditionally merciful just as God is unconditionally merciful”.

His unconditional message is a total repudiation of the animal for the truly human.

Take the struggle for liberation from the animal deep inside. This is where the real battle of life against the real enemy/monster in life takes place.

The exodus from our animal past and liberation to our human future is an intensely personal adventure. We engage the process of becoming human as mutable selves, open to change, ongoing learning, further development that never ends, that is never perfected in this life. As Al Franken’s character Stuart Smally on SNL says, “And that’s OK”.

We hold the best of ideals, such as unconditional, to measure and judge our failures, and to inspire us to press on toward better and higher things. But at the same time to not beat ourselves up with obsessive perfectionism and condemnation. This is always a struggle for balance.

Holding the very best of ideals as our archetypes or models will rouse us from satisfaction with mediocrity. Ideals like unconditional stir the impulse to seek the heroic status of “towering in stature as maturely human”, like a Mandela or Jesus figure.

Another “weave” or insert:

We make the greatest of achievements in life with the feature of love. Not just the common forms of family, friend, or tribal love. But when we venture into “love of enemy”. That is what Jesus taught as the ultimate expression of “unconditional” love. And there is no greater or more heroic achievement in human life. Nelson Mandela, for one, illustrated how to practise that in life. Another was the “Railway man” story, and many similar others.

These examples of unconditional heroism are not limited to special people doing great deeds in the public realm. Such achievement is open to all of us in daily ordinary and common interactions with family, neighbors, friends, and especially those we frame as “enemies”.

Continuing:

I suggest framing our individual life stories in terms of the meta-narrative view- i.e. the big background story against which to understand our individual lives. The grand Archetype story of humanity across history functions helpfully as the model for all individual human stories.

The human exodus from the animal is about an exodus that each one of us has to engage at the scale of our personal stories. It involves understanding the basic features of animal reality/existence as contrasted with what is truly human.

We miss the real battle of life when we locate the “Hero’s Quest battle with a monster” as a struggle against fellow humans. Then we get lost in more history’s endless public tribal violence and wars.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn cautioned against this mistake of locating the struggle of life as involving good versus evil battles against differing others in our societies:

“The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either- but right through every human heart- and through all human hearts.”

I would apply that to our personal struggle against our real enemy in life, the real evil, as the animal inheritance of evil triad impulses to tribalism, domination of others, and the punitive destruction of differing others.

And the usual qualifier– Yes, there are also legitimate “just wars” that take place in the public sphere, notably last century’s wars against the Nazis, Japanese, and communist revolutionaries.

Re-iteration of points above:

My argument here is to keep the big picture narrative of humanity in sight- i.e. our exodus from animal origins/existence to become human in civilization. This is the grand adventure or overall story of humanity. This is the background to all that has happened across our history. And we all share in the ongoing progress of that overall quest of humanity.

We have generally figured out what gets us to our goal of a more humane future. We are individually responsible to conquer something inside each of us that hinders and derails our exodus from the animal and having subdued that inner monster/enemy, we are then freed to make progress toward becoming truly human.

Our animal inheritance has long been framed in religious traditions as “sin”, as the “sinful human nature, or inherited sinfulness”. But that distorts the real nature of what we are dealing with. It seems more helpful to frame that inner evil as the impulses that we have inherited from our animal past, something that others, like Lyall Watson, have also defined more clearly as animal impulses. See his book “Dark Nature”.

As I have often stated on this site, what we understand as “evil” in human life can be summed in the evil triad of (1) tribalism, (2) domination, and (3) vengeful destruction of differing others (often framed as “eye for eye justice”). The battle against such evil is most critically fought as an intensely personal inner battle to be won before we can successfully understand how to engage and negotiate public battles against the same triad at societal and international scale.

Winning the inner battle against our own personal enemy/monster is how each of us then better contributes to winning the public battles and making some contribution to the overall grand long-term exodus of humanity.

Fortunately, we have come up with an approach to organizing human societies that most potently helps us personally and societally to win the battle against the evil triad of inherited animal impulses.

It is through liberal democracy principles, laws, and representative institutions that counter, for example, our base animal impulse to (1) tribalism (i.e. favoring some and excluding differing others). Liberal democracy protects/promotes the inclusion of all individuals as full equals.

Liberal democracy counters our animal impulse to (2) domination (i.e. alpha domination and defeat of weaker others). Liberal democracy counters this impulse by restraining elite and bureaucratic authority, orienting state elites and bureaucrats to serve citizens by protecting and promoting the rights and freedoms of all individuals, equally, through systems of Classic Liberal law and representative institutions.

And liberal democracy counters our impulse to (3) punitive, vengeful destruction of competing/differing others by embracing restorative justice approaches that responsibly incarcerate violent people in order to protect others, and then treat offenders humanely, not punitively (i.e. with retaliatory vengeance).

Through such approaches we maintain our own humanity in the face of dealing with evil.

These three illustrate how we achieve the ultimate goals of our meta-story, how we reject our animal past and to learn how to love others in cooperative society.

Love as primary to liberation or exodus, how we progress, and the goal of a truly human society that we are heading toward…

Love is the single most critical ideal to understanding how we successfully conquer the animal and maneuver the route to becoming truly human. It is our highest ideal and our chief identity marker as truly human. It is the ultimate goal of our existence- i.e. to learn what love is and how to love (Yes, I take this from sources like the NDE movement accounts, as well as wisdom sages from across history). And it is our greatest achievement in life in terms of being truly human.

(Insert: I won’t engage any explanation or defence of love as the ultimate human ideal. Historical literature, religion and philosophy, psychology, and more, all present this as commonly understood. Add the Near-Death Experience accounts stating their discovery that love is everything, the meaning and purpose of life on this planet. And especially, the discovery that the Light, the Source of all- God- is found to be an inexpressible unconditional love.)

Wisdom sages, none more clearly than Historical Jesus, have told us that the real nature of love is “unconditional”. As my friend Bob Brinsmead says, if love is not unconditional then it is not authentic love.

Liberal democracy is the best system for organizing human societies to help us all to achieve this goal of living love as unconditional.

One more superlative point to express this- Love, generally, has been the single most critical feature enabling us to conquer the animal and to live as human. And then love as unconditional takes us to the ultimate of liberation to be human. Nothing else compares to the potency of this feature or element in human life.

Unconditional more than any other insight from across history exposes the true nature of the animal and the true nature of authentic humanity, of truly human being and behavior. Yes, I am belaboring this feature because of its critical nature and function to human achievement and success in life, to meaning and purpose issues.

And the Jesus insight on this feature of unconditional goes to the core of what holds us back, what derails us from achieving true liberation and success in life.

Unconditional exposes the reality that people across history have protected of the core features of animal reality in our great religious traditions. These traditions have embraced that fallacy of our primitive ancestors who projected the basest features of their existence onto deity (i.e. tribalism, domination, justice as vengeful destruction), thereby originating the practise of cloaking evil as good and protecting it under the canopy of the sacred. Animal features made divine.

That reality in religious traditions has kept many enslaved to animal thinking and behavior and derailed people from fully engaging the exodus from an animal past and embracing the liberation to be human.

The central Jesus insight on unconditional love was his most devastating blow to our primitive past, his “axe to the root” of the animal. His insight and message on unconditional love was the potent snapping of the chains of our enslavement to the animal, setting us free to finally become maturely human.

Jesus epitomized the “Hero’s Quest” elements of a “wise man offering the potent weapon to slay the monster in us”, to enable us to conquer our real enemy and to become the heroes of our quest toward a more human future.

Unconditional, more than any other feature of being human, orients us to live nontribally by including all others, even enemies, as family. Meaning- no exclusion of anyone. And it orients us to serve others, not to lord over them. It orients us to respect the equality, freedom, and self-determination of all others. And it orients us to restorative not punitive justice toward offenders/enemies.

From the big background story of human exodus and liberation from the animal we draw understanding, ideals, goals, meaning and purpose for our personal stories, how to live out in our individual “hero’s quest” in the struggle to conquer our real enemy- i.e. the animal drives of tribalism, domination, and punitive destruction, the evil triad.

Inspired and guided by this ideal of unconditional, we learn how to become authentically human. We understand that the real battle of life takes place inside each of us, the battle to conquer our animal inheritance and live as truly human.

Evolutionary biology/psychology helps somewhat in understanding the nature of the animal inheritance still inside us. But it sometimes falls short by explaining our humanity too much in terms of our animal impulses. That can then leave us subjugated to our worst side. Example: Those making excuses that “It’s just what we are, and we are helpless to do anything about it”. Like the young rapper who was challenged over his apparent glorification of violence in his songs. His response was- “Violence is just what we are. We are just animals”.

Evolutionary biology fails where it reduces humanity to not much more than the animal. It, for example, has explained human love as something reduced to “species altruism”. That devalues the wonder of being human and the magnificence of human love as a divine reality in humanity- i.e. the outflow of “God is unconditional love” incarnated in all humanity. I prefer sources like neuroscientist and Nobel laureate John Eccles for clarity on the wonder of being human.

Notes:

The grand exodus of humanity from an animal past raises questions. Why the human origin in animal reality and existence? What is the possible meaning and purpose of this?

Philosophical types have raised the point that there can be no authentic moral good in life without the authentic free choice between evil and good. The free choice for good against evil is what makes good so valued and to be honored. Hence, our existence here in this world of dualism between good and bad. A dualism that does not exist in the divine realm of an unconditional love deity. That is only oneness, our true home.

But here we are born into a life of struggle between good and evil. The fact that the element of struggle is involved in such choosing is to be appreciated in that we do not fully develop and mature as human aside from such struggle. Sages from the past are right to note that struggle with problems in life brings out the best in us. Absence of struggle ends with absence of creative discoveries. Julian Simon, for example, noted this in stating that our problems have always been good for us because they push us to find solutions that benefit us and also others who benefit from our solutions.

That is similar to what Joseph Campbell talked about in stating that during our battle to conquer a monster, a notable feature of the Hero’s Quest, we gain learn lessons and gain insights that we can then offer to help others.

Struggle awakens the best in us and the benefits from that flow out to help others. Look at all the creative products and services in life from such problem-solving, all to improve the human condition till we are now in the best time ever to live on this planet.

Campbell added that during our battle with our inner monster/enemy we may be wounded, but that also grants the positive outcome of empathy with suffering others, another beneficial result of our struggling with problems that results in something to help others.

Add to understanding our existence in a realm of dualism between good and evil the element that if the freedom of choice is not genuinely free then the outcome of choice for good is not authentic moral good. If the choice for good is coerced in some way, such as by religious threat theology (i.e. threat of punishment for wrong choice- i.e. after-life harm in hell), then is the choice for good instead of evil, authentic “moral good”.

I think here of Muhammad Ali’s wife stating that during the later part of his life, Ali engaged a lot of good works to rebalance the bad things that he had done earlier in his life. He engaged the good works, she said, out of his terror of the Islamic judgment. Does that weaken the authenticity of the good he did? Not entirely. But motivation is more humane (“authentic moral good”) when not driven by such threat theology.

This is the point philosophers/theologians are making on the necessity of free choice for good against evil.

And this goes back to arguments that God as love is inseparable from accompaniment by authentic freedom. Love and freedom are inseparable realities. You can’t have one as genuine if the other is not genuine also. Meaning that if God is love, then God cannot intervene in human choice, cannot overwhelm human choice. There are things that, if God is authentic love, then God cannot do.

That makes the risk of people making bad choices a dangerous reality in life. But, to the contrary, such authentic freedom of choice against evil and for good is also more highly valued by deity. So goes the arguments around this issue of good and evil in life.

And as before across this site- I illustrate this battle of good against evil with the two iconic figures that have had such influence on Western civilization- i.e. Historical Jesus as contrasted with Paul’s Christ.

One is human, the other is more animal. Or as Thomas Jefferson stated- one presents “diamonds”, the other “dung”. Not my choice of terms, but I appreciate the clarity of contrast.

One- Historical Jesus- protested tribalism, domination, and violent destruction of enemies with a message of (1) the full inclusion of all equally (i.e. sun and rain are given to both good and bad people without excluding discrimination), (2) no domination but serving others (i.e. respect for the freedom and independence of all others), and (3) no eye for eye retaliation but instead “love your enemy”, as in restorative justice approaches that restrain violent people but then still treat them humanely.

Paul’s Christ, to the contrary, validated (1) tribalism (i.e. true believers saved, included, unbelievers damned and excluded), (2) domination (Christ as ultimate Lord conquering all others, and demanding subservient submission and obedience), and (3) punitive destruction (i.e. violent apocalyptic purging, eternal torture and burning in hell).

Paul’s Christ is the ultimate icon of evil features cloaked as good. The outcome of the merger of Jesus with Christ has resulted in cognitive dissonance at societal scale, with the Christ features weakening, undermining, and burying the more humane Jesus features, just as Jefferson and Tolstoy warned us.

Paul’s Christ has done more to protect and perpetuate the animal and thereby hinder and derail our full exodus from the animal than any other archetype, to slow our liberation toward becoming fully human.

These two, mainly Paul’s Christ, have had the most dominant influence on Western narratives, society, and overall civilization.

James Tabor in “Paul and Jesus” (this bears repeating):

“There was a version of ‘Christianity before Paul’, affirmed by both Jesus and his original followers, with tenets and affirmations quite opposite to these of Paul… the message of Paul, which created Christianity as we know it, and the message of historical Jesus and his earliest followers, were not the same. In fact, they were sharply opposed to one another with little in common beyond the name Jesus itself” (p.xv1).

“Paul is the most influential person in human history and realize it or not, he has shaped practically all we think about everything… the West in particular… the foundations of Western civilization- from our assumptions about reality to our societal and personal ethics- rest in a singular way upon the heavenly visions and apparitions of the apostle Paul. We are all cultural heirs of Paul, with the well-established doctrines and traditions of mainstream Christianity deeply entrenched in our culture. In contrast, Jesus as a historical figure… has been largely lost to our culture” (p. xv11).

“Paul operated with a strongly apocalyptic perspective that influenced all he said or did” (p.15).

“The entire New Testament canon is largely a post-Paul and pro-Paul production…” (p.19).

“The ‘Jesus’ who most influenced history was the ‘Jesus-Christ’ of Paul, not the historical figure of Jesus… Paul transformed Jesus himself (and) his message of a… kingdom of justice and peace on earth, to the symbol of a religion of otherworldly salvation in a heavenly world”, (21).

“The form of Christianity… (that thrived in the late Roman Empire)… was heavily based upon the ecstatic and visionary experiences of Paul. Christianity as we came to know it, is Paul and Paul is Christianity. The bulk of the New Testament is dominated by his theological vision”, p.24).

“Paul’s view of Christ as the divine pre-existent Son of God who took on human form, died on the cross for the sins of the world, and was resurrected to heavenly glory at God’s right hand becomes the Christian message”, (39).

“The Q source is the earliest collection of the teachings and sayings of Jesus… the most striking characteristic of the Q source in terms of reconstructing Christian origins is that it has nothing of Paul’s theology, particularly his Christology or view of Christ”, (41).

Summary note:

The big background story of humanity helps us to understand our personal stories, our personal struggles. Our exodus from animal existence has left us with an “evil triad” of animal impulses that we struggle to conquer- notably, the impulses to tribalism, to domination of weaker others, and the impulse to punitively destroy differing others. Our success in fighting and conquering this inner enemy/monster is how we achieve human maturity, how we become the heroes of our personal “Hero’s Quest” and then tower in stature as maturely human.

One thing that derails our success in this battle is when we embrace the fallacy of cloaking these animal impulses as good (i.e. the common religious pattern of projecting the evil triad onto God as the ultimate embodiment of human ideals and good, to then use as validation for our exhibiting such impulses).

And another home-run from Rogan

Joe Rogan Experience #2448 – Andrew Doyle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnon-AsWnOQ

Rogan and guest Doyle jump right in discussing the madness of the woke insanity that we have been living through over past years.

Doyle says that Woke was basically an unleashing of the impulse to authoritarianism. Under the guise of protecting the oppressed from harm, if someone did not like what some differing other was saying they could censor and silence them under hate speech or disinformation laws. People used state authority to deny the free speech of those they did not like.

Rogan offers his take on how the craziest woke ideas were pushed and when the woke people could not defend their ideas with logic and evidence, they would revert to just shouting down dissenters, using threat, fear, and even force. We saw that in the screaming people on CNN panels shouting over others they disagreed with, not permitting them to speak.

They shift over to discuss the insanity in Britain today where people are arrested in the thousands for online speech the state does not like. The British standard for arrest, says Doyle, is speech that is “grossly offensive”, or causes “needless anxiety” to someone. Doyle asks, what does that even mean except to empower anyone feeling upset.

In Canada the Trudeau government proposed a bill to ban offensive online comment with threats of severe punishment including long imprisonment. Accusers who claimed they were offended did not even have to publicly identify themselves. They could just make a charge against someone who said something that offended them, speech that hurt their feelings, made them feel uncomfortable. Insanity was ruling under this woke hysteria.

Rogan explains well what the ADL and ACLU used to defend where people say the worst things, the most offensive things (i.e. Nazis). His point is that we must not ban such offensive speech but counter it with better arguments and evidence. We should not silence or outlaw offensive speech because then when the other side gains power they will do the same and we all descend into a situation where we all lose the freedom of speech that is basic to democracy.

Rogan says that the woke phenomenon came like a wolf in sheep’s clothing, presenting itself as compassion for the oppressed and to protect children from online harm, etc. Those claims of modern progressivism have now been exposed as suicidal empathy that is a form of new totalitarianism. It virtue signals as righteous battle against the evil of differing others who are demonized as threats to society so they must be silenced and censored and even imprisoned as in the UK where 12,000 were arrested last year just for online comments that protested issues like the government policy on immigration. That protest of government policy was condemned as “racist, as hate speech”.

Samples from new material…

The honorable tradition of “Protest theology”, Wendell Krossa

I’ve often wondered about the apparent rush of people to forgive some horrendous offense they have just suffered, like the savage murder of a loved one. Erica Kirk appeared to do this soon after the assassination of her husband Charlie. Another parent did the same just a day after the Sandy Hook school shooting that murdered 20 kids. He had lost his daughter and when intrusive media knocked on his door, he opened to immediately tell them that he had forgiven the murderer. Ouch. I get that he may have felt that his religious beliefs compelled him to do that. But it seemed too soon.

It would seem more natural and healthy to take some time to feel intensely the rage at such horror and to scream at your God, to shake your fist at the heavens over such monstrous inhumanity. And if materialist/atheist then shake your fist at “Self-Organizing Principle”, or other similarly secularized versions of deity. Your choice.

And I get that anger at the divine is a misconception of what deity actually is. But vent that anger wherever you will. It seems a noble act to want to forgive the offender but careful about what comedians call “too soon”. Take some time first to feel rage at what has just happened in such situations as those above.

These situations remind me of the “Protest theology” of Jews that emerged out of the Holocaust (some say it was developed previously in history). Post-Holocaust many Jews cried, “Where was God?” And they purposed to hold God in judgment for his apparent absence and permitting such horror to occur.

I would counter that God was not absent during the Holocaust and has never been absent when any form of brutality has been inflicted on anyone. I would suggest that we do better to recognize the varied strands of theology, throughout even the Christian scriptures that point to the omnipresence of God.

This, for example, from Psalm 139:

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.”

As some have framed this- God is closer than own breath or atoms.

But that everywhere-present God is also no conditions love as defined by Historical Jesus. And as such love, God will not and cannot intervene to overrule human choice for brutality against others. Authentic love cannot, or will not, violate human freedom or natural freedom (i.e. the freedom of apparent random natural disasters in the world).

That God has always been present inside each of us as inseparable from our human spirit and inseparable from all that we experience in life. That God is manifest in all the rage of people against evil, present in all anger at inhumanity, and in all struggle of people to conquer evil and manifest goodness in life.

God is especially present in the gentle urge to be better, to love unconditionally, to forgive enemies. God is inseparable from the love at our core that gently urges us to rise above evil and be our true self as beings of love.

So, to answer that Protest theology question of where is God? As Jordan Peterson said, we don’t look low enough. We should even look inside. As Jesus said, “God (i.e. the kingdom or realm of God) is among you, within you”.

Don’t go looking here and there, especially not looking above in the skies or distant heavens. You will miss God. Most especially, look and see God in the goodness of people all around. In common human decency. As Bob Brinsmead reminds us (quoting someone else), “God has disappeared into all humanity and can be found nowhere else”. Present even in our enemies.

But still, take some time after suffering brutality from offenders to feel the pain of that, the rage at it. There is no angry, insulted deity waiting to punish us for feeling natural human rage at evil and suffering. God is love, unconditionally so.

Insert: To consider these alternative explanations of deity it is necessary to step outside of the neat little boxes that theological/philosophical types construct that limit exploration of alternatives- i.e. the triad of initial assumptions that confines much exploration of the mystery of evil in life. The triad consists of basically (1) God is omnipotent (can do anything), (2) God is good, but (3) there is evil. Hence, evidence of evil in life demands the denial of one or the other of these three assumptions that lock thought into such self-limiting triads. The choice- God cannot be all powerful (or all-knowing), or God cannot be good.

Theodicy, as the belief and argument for ultimate good and love, pushes us to find better explanations such as the inseparable relation of love to freedom and the risk that entails. But out of the refusal of love to violate freedom we get authentic moral good in the choices of genuinely free people for good against evil.

Preface note: Now this bit is not to pick on Islam as this site (my “pre-bunking” possible charges of Islamophobia) repeatedly notes similar failures in the Jewish and Christian traditions (i.e. violence in their histories validated by their theologies).

To any who doubt that ideas/beliefs influence people, especially ideas of theology/God, here is another testimony illustrating this point. This man grew up Muslim in Palestine under the domination of Hamas where they were told that killing Jews was “the will of Allah”. Bad behavior based on bad God images.

He affirms my point that the “idea” General Nagata wants to understand and defeat is a theological idea. The writer in the link below says, “the dominant narrative he had been raised on — that violence against Jews was a religious duty.” That finds validation in a violent God, a God who uses violence to destroy enemies.

He describes how throughout his entire youth he and others in Gaza were indoctrinated to hate and kill Jews. But something inside him cautioned him that something was wrong with his upbringing that endlessly inculcated hatred for Jews, for violence against Jews. And he eventually chose to convert to Judaism, saying, “I chose love and not hatred. I chose love, not darkness.”

He warns about the complacency of the West in the face of global jihad that is manifested in the pro-Palestine/anti-Semitism protests across the west.

‘You’ll see chaos’: Gazan-born Jewish convert warns West of Islamist ideology: Dor Shachar, who watched Hamas rise from the inside, says they are reflective of the culture that elected them. ‘The majority chose Hamas’”, Dave Gordon, Feb. 7, 2026

https://nationalpost.com/news/youll-see-chaos-gazan-born-jewish-convert-warns-west-of-islamist-ideology

One more

Conscience? Or indwelling God?, Wendell Krossa

People have long spoken about our inner check on bad behavior/bad impulses as “conscience”. I don’t know. That seems a bit too cold and distancing, reduced to some minor brain function. And that has long been my complaint with what I view as too dogmatically materialist views of consciousness/mind as mere products of the meat in our heads (i.e. the “poof theory” that out of the complex neuronal interactions in our brains you get the “poof” magical emergence of a human self, mind, or consciousness.).

I would reframe that “inner caution” mechanism as the immanent, omnipresent God that is unconditional love gently cautioning us, from inside, against letting the bad stuff in us emerge, flourish, and exhibit itself in life. The “God is love” holding the ultimate ideal before us- i.e. no conditions love- as our best self, our true self, and urging us to not violate that.

And as love itself, that deity manifests the coupling of love and freedom as inseparable realities, two sides on one same coin. As some have said, there in no authentic love if there is no respect for the freedom of others to make their own truly independent choices. True freedom only exists where there is no influencing with threat narratives and overwhelming coercive intervention to stop or prevent bad choices. True freedom only exists where there is gentle, soft persuasion, a “feeling” that comes from our inner depths.

Some illustrate this gentle persuasion by God with the Old Testament incident of Elijah in the cave. As the account says, God was not in the storm, thunder, or earthquake overpowering with threatening presence. God was in the gentle still voice. We ignore that gentle persuasion to our own harm and the harm of others.

“AI Overview

“In 1 Kings 19:11-13, after fleeing for his life, the prophet Elijah stands on Mount Horeb, where God passes by.

“While a mighty wind, earthquake, and fire break the rocks, God is not in them; rather, He speaks to Elijah in a “still small voice” (a gentle whisper), prompting Elijah to cover his face and listen…

“The passage teaches that God is found in the stillness of our hearts, not just in dramatic, chaotic events, and this quiet whisper reassures and directs the believer, just as it did for Elijah.”

(End of AI Overview)

And…

This was in Free Press this morning (Feb. 8/2026) and is a beauty… “We are here to fart around”.

“In a 1995 interview with Inc. magazine, author Kurt Vonnegut was asked what he thought about living in an increasingly digitized world. His response is so perfect that it’s worth reprinting in full:

“‘I work at home, and if I wanted to, I could have a computer right by my bed, and I’d never have to leave it. But I use a typewriter, and afterwards I mark up the pages with a pencil. Then I call up this woman named Carol out in Woodstock and say, “Are you still doing typing?” Sure she is, and her husband is trying to track bluebirds out there and not having much luck, and so we chitchat back and forth, and I say, “OK, I’ll send you the pages.”

“‘Then I’m going down the steps, and my wife calls up, “Where are you going?” I say, “Well, I’m going to go buy an envelope.” And she says, “You’re not a poor man. Why don’t you buy a thousand envelopes? They’ll deliver them, and you can put them in a closet.” And I say, “Hush.” So I go down the steps here, and I go out to this newsstand across the street where they sell magazines and lottery tickets and stationery. I have to get in line because there are people buying candy and all that sort of thing, and I talk to them. The woman behind the counter has a jewel between her eyes, and when it’s my turn, I ask her if there have been any big winners lately.

“‘I get my envelope and seal it up and go to the postal convenience center down the block at the corner of 47th Street and 2nd Avenue, where I’m secretly in love with the woman behind the counter. I keep absolutely poker-faced; I never let her know how I feel about her. One time I had my pocket picked in there and got to meet a cop and tell him about it. Anyway, I address the envelope to Carol in Woodstock. I stamp the envelope and mail it in a mailbox in front of the post office, and I go home. And I’ve had a hell of a good time. And I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don’t let anybody tell you any different.

“‘We’re dancing animals. How beautiful it is to get up and go do something’.”

This was posted to a discussion group:

“I have repeatedly recommended the two appearances of Mike Benz on Rogan last year. Here is another and pardon my use of my wife’s polite cursing- “Holy shitoli”. She is politely Asian. This is another Rogan home run interview.…

Here is more probing of behind-the-scenes stuff with Mike Benz. He again exposes what powerholding elites and agencies are doing to manipulate our societies. Benz is among the most helpful in trying to untangle the dense inter-relationships among people and things that are not fully visible to the public, the powerful actors/agencies that are shaping our societies and the larger world.

“Joe Rogan Experience #2447 – Mike Benz”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkqDA9W4Vo0

Benz reveals the mix of good with evil in the behind-the-scenes activities of deep state actors and agencies, people who actually run our governments. There was, for example, the necessary war against the Nazis and Communists but then a whole lotta shady stuff also in the US overthrowing foreign governments, even democratically-elected ones.

Some interesting revelation by Benz on the cooperation between the CIA, the Italian mob, and the Vatican church (notably the Vatican Bank used for money-laundering). Add the dark venture of the CIA pushing drugs on US citizens to get financing for secret programs that they could not obtain legitimately through open appeal to their government. That use of illegal avenues to obtain funding reveals the callousness toward their own citizens and the consequent harm that caused. The Frank Church Commission hearings (1970s) tried to stop CIA stuff for a while but they soon found ways around those constraints.

Then there was also the assassinations of foreign leaders, the meddling in other countries to propagandize populations and stir domestic unrest there as preparation to overthrow those democratically-elected governments. Benz is good on the behind-the-scenes shenanigans by powerholders that reveal how we are lied to and propagandized by state elites and other actors.

He also focuses on the role of Epstein, his origins and role in this hidden state manipulation. What Epstein and his clients did to underage girls, much like the CIA pushing drugs, caused immense harm to many US citizens but that was considered necessary “collateral damage” in a noble cause. (Note that years ago the CIA director apologized publicly to Los Angelenos for promoting cocaine use there.)

Benz presents more if you want to know something of what Jimmy Dore meant when he said, “We are the most lied to, propagandized people and we don’t know it”. Not all is guys in dark rooms smoking cigars and plotting world domination. Some yes. But a lot is probably more of the nature of people sharing similar ideology that guides them to publicly support what is run by these behind-the-scenes shenanigans that Benz exposes in these well-documented activities.

More on Rogan and Benz…

My interest in what Mike Benz exposes on Rogan’s podcast has to do with elite domination and control of commoners and how that undermines and ruins freedom in liberal democracy. Here again is the link to this JRE episode…

“Joe Rogan Experience #2447 – Mike Benz”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkqDA9W4Vo0

Near the end of this JRE episode, Rogan and Benz discuss the vast network that operates behind the scenes and controls our democracies while giving us what Rogan calls “the illusion of living in democracy”. Rogan adds that his fear is that new governments that come and promise to expose all this but they don’t and it goes on, the secrecy and manipulation of media and public narratives by a complex of agencies, NGOs, and powerful rich people perpetuating the illusion of free people living in liberal democracy while our societies are captured by all these agents/agencies operating behind the scenes.

Rogan’s concern is that we are becoming like England where far-left progressive elites have captured that state and are now censoring, arresting, and imprisoning citizens just for posting online criticism of the state and its far-left woke progressivism and issues like uncontrolled immigration. Britain is shutting down free speech under the guise of Online Safety bills that will prohibit “misinformation, disinformation, hate speech” ostensibly to protect children. But such laws are used to silence political opposition and general citizen dissent, notably that of conservatives. Germany has gone the same direction in banning opposition political parties, so also France.

In Britain, basic human freedoms and rights have been overturned, rights essential to liberal democracy. For example, jury trials are now being banned in England.

Rogan fears that we are heading toward the same state totalitarianism that England is now embracing.

Benz notes similar things happening in California with new laws that limit the travel of citizens with proposed severe fines for any infraction by excess travel. The Net Zero lunacy is still strong in California. The political left, as others have noted, has embraced the anti-fossil fuels mania as another way to overthrow the industrial capitalist society that they want to supplant with collectivism (i.e. by attacking what fuels such society).

Benz probes the actors who were involved in starting the anti-fossil fuel crusade. He offers interesting information on how the US government in 2006 began a program to demonize CO2 as a way to weaken Russia that was emerging under Putin as a fossil fuel powerhouse. Russia was largely funded by that abundant resource. And Russia appeared to be subjugating again the Eastern European states that they had lost control over but now could bring to new dependence on Russia for such fuel, using that as a means of influence and control.

Hence, the US saw that demonizing fossil fuels was a way to counter Russin flourishing and influence.

To support that program the US began funding a huge infrastructure of agencies to demonize fossil fuels and promote renewables programs. They began to finance academia, science journals, media forums, etc. all to oppose fossil fuels, to demonize CO2. Eventually, where before the fossil fuel industry had been a hugely profitable industry, that now that shifted to CIA focus on renewables as a hugely profitable industry.

Benz fingers the “National Endowment for Democracy” as a CIA front organization for financing CIA programs. That organization offers some cover as noble cause endeavor. Billionaires donate to that agency to then influence the CIA to help their corporations and projects.

Interesting bit on how the CIA helped overthrow the government of Bangladesh in 2024 through street protests etc., again destabilizing societies as preparation for overthrowing governments. That continues a long history of such intervention in other states.

Benz notes that Soros is involved in all this, as was Jeffrey Epstein. It involves a dense web of relationships with major investment corporations, and rich powerful elites, dominating, controlling, and manipulating public narratives to propagandize citizens with these programs that, among other things, demonize fossil fuels. The same happened with Covid misinformation and hysteria.

Interesting that Rogan and Benz suggest the left/right conflict among citizens is more about “divide and conquer” where elites incite people to fight among themselves so they are not focused on what elites are doing behind the scenes. They keep people angry and fighting among themselves, unaware they are being manipulated and controlled from behind the scenes. And thus, these elites have largely operated in secret over the past 60 years or so.

They return to the British involvement in the Russiagate lie to try and shut down, even overturn the first Trump presidency. They note how that originated with a British spy- Steele. They also add more on how the British and Biden governments met at Biden White House and joined to push the online harms laws that would have been used largely to censor their political opponents on the conservative side. They planned to join forces in pushing the censorship industrial complex that Michael Shellenberger and others have been exposing. This has moved to dangerous extremes now in the UK with thousands of citizens arrested, even imprisoned for challenging government policies like uncontrolled immigration. The government has mostly been going after conservatives.

Rogan’s concern is that this is all the beginning of a new totalitarianism from inside our societies, where rich, powerful elites are dominating and controlling our societies.

Benz ends on the optimistic note that we are all alive today, as what has been hidden in secrecy for 60 years is now being exposed, and there is hope for change.

As the guy in this link below cautioned recently, be a skeptic of all you hear from public media today.

He explains how we can know that people have been brainwashed. He says the sign is “matching narratives” (i.e. groupthink). He says, for example, when popular singers all speak the same message “that should terrify you that none of this is real”.

Or, if you see people ostracized or silenced for disagreeing with some idea, such as we saw during the Covid panic where Harvard experts were kicked off social media for disagreeing with the pandemic authorities. His point- If an idea requires suppression to exist, it’s a horrible idea and its most likely a “psy-op”. Good ideas don’t need to suppress other people, they travel on their own, he says.

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DRyVGOtEZyC/

The above link to the exposure by Benz and others goes to the heart of what it means to live in a liberal democracy and be free and self-determining.
Add, as liberal Democrat Bill Maher recently stated, that maybe the Q-Anon people were not totally whacko when they claimed that there were pedophile rings. They were dismissed as “far-right conspiracy theorists”.

Here is more to illustrate the murderous outrage thing (section just below) that happened to Historical Jesus, where true believers react violently to any dissent to their narrative, this illustration coming from the recent Rogan interview of Andrew Doyle:

Joe Rogan Experience #2448 – Andrew Doyle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dnon-AsWnOQ

Doyle tells Rogan about a panel discussion that he joined at Berkeley years ago sponsored by Turning Point USA. They were escorted in by security as there were mobs outside demonstrating against the panel discussion, claiming that “fascists” were taking over the university. The mobs were throwing things and overall being violently aggressive, even bloodying some Turning Point attendees.

That is the same hysterical and murderous rage that we see erupting in Islamic societies when Islam is challenged in some way.

Then they move on to discuss how Marxists planned decades ago to long-game the infiltration of US universities to indoctrinate a generation of Americans (and other western societies). It appears the Marxist’s slow, gradual long-game approach has significantly succeeded where students now emerging and favoring socialism by majority rates, according to surveys.

They play the tape of a former KGB official (1984) who explained the Marxist approach that would use “psychological warfare” to demoralize Western students/citizens regarding their society and liberal democracy system as corrupt and to prefer socialism as the alternative.

The agent said that the goal was to brainwash people so they could not defend their system, to render them unable to dissent and pushback. He added that eventually any who tried to dissent against the brainwashing would be crushed anyway.

This totalitarian element appears to similarly operate in the Woke Progressive approach that refuses to tolerate any dissent even from among its own followers who may protest extremism and violence.

The KGB guy said that eventually the brainwashed generation would not be able to discern truth or facts anymore. People would not be able to clearly see reality because they would be so thoroughly brainwashed. Any dissenters or opposition would be smeared as “Nazis, fascists, evil threats to democracy”.

Media and state agencies would be, and have been, coopted to push this leftist propaganda.

Fortunately, the Internet emerged and gave platform to dissenting voices. And according to Rogan and Doyle, that is why the leftists have tried to shutdown online free speech, to criminalize it as “hate speech, racism, disinformation, misinformation, etc.”. Would-be totalitarians consider it too dangerous to permit the platforming of free speech and dissent. Examples: Both Justin Trudeau and Kiers Starmer of UK have tried to criminalize online dissent as dangerous, cloaking their censorship as protection of children from harm. More “cloaking evil as good”.

Doyle says that most sinister in this approach has been the “pre-bunking” element where propagandists prep the audience that any dissent to their narrative and programs is dangerous disinformation and conspiracy theory. They did that with the Hunter Biden laptop, prepping people to view opponent’s views on that as dangerous disinformation and conspiracy theory nonsense. Pre-discrediting in the expectation of dissent.

Note: Teach your children well- Some basic facts on socialism

“Socialism Is the Highway to Hell”, Chris Talgo, Feb. 5, 2026

https://townhall.com/columnists/christalgo/2026/02/05/socialism-is-the-highway-to-hell-n2670692

Here Konstantin Kisin (from Triggernometry) explains how communist regimes always become totalitarian terror states. His argument is that there is a natural unequal distribution of talents, skills, motivations, etc. among people. And in order to equalize such a society of diverse people you have to exert a lot of force. To achieve “equity” of outcomes you have to use force to coerce, for example, talented entrepreneurial people to give away what they have created and earned.

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DUBPWJLEaBF/

Gad Saad is asked why bad ideas always come from universities. He quotes Orwell who said that it takes intellectuals to come up with the dumbest ideas. Why? Because academics are disconnected from the “auto-correct mechanism” of reality out in the world.

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DTUpxEdjvPB/

A return to common sense in Congress? A man is a man, and a woman is a woman, and it has been that for thousands of years. The Congress-lady dismisses the made-up term “cisgender”.

https://www.instagram.com/reels/DUZaDW8DFg5/

Good news relief:

“Humanprogress.org” presents regular reports on… well, human progress. Affirming with good evidence that we live in the best time ever to be alive on Earth. And it keeps getting better and better all the time. This is the present culmination of a long trajectory of never-ending progress. Life has never been declining toward collapse and ending as the fallacy of primitive apocalyptic mythology proclaims. Note that apocalyptic still dominates the world religions, main story-telling media like Hollywood, news media, and more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_apocalyptic_films

Why do people continue to embrace this fallacy of apocalyptic? Kristian Niemietz nailed the psychology in his statement on why many continue to embrace the failed idea of socialism despite its repeated failures across the last century.

He said, “Emotional satisfaction, not rational thinking, and despite contrary evidence, dominates our choice in beliefs.”

What preps people for that “emotional satisfaction”? Panic-mongering in public arouses people’s survival impulse and renders them susceptible to the irrational salvation schemes of the apocalyptic prophets. Even if that means societal suicide as we are all witnessing with the Net Zero salvation scheme (“salvation through destruction”). $20 trillion already wasted and counting. Look at examples of Germany, Britain, California, and others. All to “save the world”. Noble intentions and emotional satisfaction, but sadly misinformed.

https://humanprogress.org/

Best books on the improving state of life on Earth:

Julian Simon’s “Ultimate Resource”. Simon set the standard for understanding the “true state of life on Earth” by looking at the complete big picture (all the data on any issue) and longest-term trends (not just focusing on short-term aberrations or downturns in long trends).

Many subsequent studies affirmed Simon’s basic research on the big picture and long-term trends of life-

Greg Easterbrook’s “A Moment On the Earth”,

Bjorn Lomborg’s “Skeptical Environmentalist”,

Ronald Bailey’s “The End of Doom”,

Desrocher and Szurmak’s “Population Bombed”,

Indur Goklany’s “The Improving State of the World”,

Matt Ridley’s “Rational Optimist”,

Tupy and Bailey’s “Ten Global Trends”, also “Superabundance”,

Hans Roslings “Factfulness”, and others.

On humanity improving:

Paul Seabright’s “The Company of Strangers: A Natural History of Economic Life”

And “Constant Battles: The Myth of the Noble Savage and a Peaceful Past”, by Katherine E. Register, Marcia E. Register, and Steven A. LeBlanc.