I just spent two months working with a 20 year old who had abandoned his smart phone because it was impinging on his time and his ability to focus. Within himself, he seemed to have found something larger, something that he couldn't access thru the phone or with his peers. He continues to seek that larger thing, by himself, and with others — when they're not on their phones, or otherwise consumed by all that would distract them from the larger thing inside themselves — which is why he loves singing in a choir, because the goal is a harmony that none can acheive by themselves, and that is bigger, even, than the group.
Harmony contains both "good" and "evil" — tho we may never understand the boundaries that separate one from the other. How can we define what we cannot see or know? We can’t get to that place of harmony by ourselves. Neither can a group of us force anyone to go there. It's a mystery.
Here’s a lovely line from Richard Wagamese’s lovely movie (from his book), Indian Horse:
"Mystery fills us with awe and wonder. It is the foundation of humility and humility is the foundation of all learning. So we do not seek to unravel it. We honor it by letting it be that way forever."
It seems to me we can’t unravel good from evil. But we can seek to live in the mystery, cultivate humility, learn to make compost, love the humus that results, and go deeper into the mysteries of life, death, and fertility.
I love this example of someone who has to come to their own conclusions, after being overloaded/overwhelmed, or simply bored with the ubiquitous gadgetry. When parents or someone outside tells someone "this is bad" rather than some internal mechanism saying so, it holds such a different frequency in our lives. How do we nurture this inner voice more fully? As many know, some of the answer lies in BEING as much as DOING: meditation, attention to nature, heightened presence in mundane tasks, etc.
This is where I think a collective web of practitioners and a template/infrastructure that nurtures this way is so vital. It can be at an ecovillage, but it can also be in anywhere-ville USA. It just takes a handfull of people who make the great leap. You see it when kids go to camp, when adults go to retreats, when busy people go on vacation, when summer beaches fill with strangers, when a large group convenes at a music concert..you see the "letting go" of the drama and stress of the modern world, of the "you should do this" and the right/wrong-ness of making choices rather than being present in the moment together, with all that is. I think we are simply yearning for a sustained effort that supports that way of being. It's up to us, collectively, I guess... I think singing in a choir, harmonizing our voices is about as good a way to start as any!
I love this example too! And I agree - it is up to us to create the communities of our dreams, to engage in those activities that make our hearts sing in concert with one another. To take part in activities that are designed solely to demonstrate opposition to the other, like our current election process, simply adds fuel to the fire. Furthermore, it seems to me that many if not most are unable to conceive the existence of a single alternative, much less dream of limitless possibilities.
However, I have witnessed and experienced the magic that emerges when a little creative energy is shared among people who may only have one thing in common... a shared sense that there has to be something better. As Buckminster Fuller concluded, significant changes are never realized by shaking our fists or even displaying clear and compelling evidence of its necessity. It only happens when an alternative is presented that makes the current way obsolete. I am full of hope!
Thank you Charles for offering this space, and for your wonderful insight, your incredible talent for bringing context to such enormous subject matter, and doing so with such gentle prose that I imagine even those who have but little confidence in themselves, are left feeling they are already part of a community of champions.
I have discovered a flimsy-ness in the fiction of control (evil) that appears so real to us these days. Several months ago I filed an Ethics Complaint at my son's university, GWU in Washington DC. It named top administrators at the university for continuing a mandate for students to receive the COVID booster to continue their education. I shared 7 research studies showing the risk/reward ratio for this vaccine is severely skewed to the risk side for this age cohort. And emphasizing that it is now almost 2023 and the majority of the population has gotten COVID, many times over in some cases. I have gotten the run around with my complaint, referred to this person and then onto another. They even closed my case without it having been resolved. I did finally have a call scheduled with the Chair of the Covid Advisory Panel that is making the decision to re-up the mandate for students this spring. When I shared my questions with him in advance of our call, he wrote back that they relied on credible sources and were clear in their need for the mandate for 'student saftey'. While processing the rage regarding this insane response, and his lack of willingness to address my question regarding how they integrated the peer-reviewed findings I shared, I reached out to my son and asked him about what was going on. He had gotten an exemption for the booster last year and his girlfriend, also at GWU, had simply ignored it. Nothing had ever happened, no one followed up, and this mandate simply didn't have any teeth, it was just air. The students who followed it, did so because they believed it was real. Students who did not, discovered it was just lip service. A political stunt really. So in the spirit of Charles' piece here about there probably being no actual puppeteers, voila. There may, in truth, be none except those we focus on and give power to. Food for thought!
It seems 'the man behind the curtain' is, in fact, a relatively small group of (mostly) men, huddling together and breathing hushed reassurances to one another, whilst making loud and confident sounding proclamations in public.
Just like Toto, your story exposes these hucksters to a scrutiny they cannot bear.
I love Thich Nhat Hahn! As a parent, I believe that the one true use of power over someone else is to give them eventual power over themselves. If I don't use my power over my kids to keep them from thwarting their true selves, I make them into permanent adolescents looking for someone or something else to take care of them. I can't make my kids be anything they're not, I can just not reward them when they're being less.
The same principle, I believe, applies in governance. The purpose of community governance is to enable families to have power over themselves and the purpose of federal gov't is to enable communities to have power over themselves. That's the principle behind the economic system in my book, and I relate it to my system for raising kids here: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-caret-system.
There is a lot I could comment on here but one particularly important element of the essay is the observation that "big brother" or "consensual reality" or the "evil conspiracy" is actually a psychic event. As a result, many people don't even realize the conspiracy is there because it is happening between their ears, where it is not so explicit as what people usually think when they think, "conspiracy." Thus the need for individual wakefulness, for a revolution of awareness, especially of one's own self and how one has been conditioned
There is a very real difference between the highest good for all beings and the greater good. Only over the last few years have I begun to understand the difference, and it has been through doing a lot of spiritual work. When you truly feel the interconnectivity of life you start acting for the highest good of all beings. Hardly anyone talks about how doing the spiritual work is the hardest thing you will ever do: it will require loss on every level of your being and life, it will require death over and over again. But it is also the most worthwhile thing you will ever do, and if you can have the courage to cross the valley of the shadow of death, you will get to the place where you fear no evil for the love of christ and christ consciousness is truly in your heart.
It’s funny how attempts to use words and concepts to “explain” “Reality” always fall short and end in tail-chasing paradox for the “mind” of the “separate self.” Before they do though, “we” always “hopefully” think we are “getting somewhere.” What if “the separate self” IS suffering? All attempts to avoid suffering can be seen to be ultimately futile in a Möbius-strip play of occillating opposites--pleasure/pain is what “we” read while we are stuck as “us.” This lock-up of thwarted desire produces rage in those who will not understand so they insist on using will to acquire “power” to try to even temporarily trample their way to “pleasure”. But the suffering only builds. Meanwhile, the Truth-Recognizing Organ, the “Heart” and its mysterious dimension of Love, is ignored.
Well the city of San Francisco just voted to arm robots to control gun violence. This after they Defunded, Detoothed and Declawed the police so thoroughly they were made incapable of dealing with crime. So of course crime exploded. So now of course the unthinkable becames our pseudo savior. So now let's continue to fight over legal gun control for citizens, while arming robots. Let's fight over banning hunting rifles, while doing nothing to disarm thousands of nuclear warheads. Really this kind of says it all and it is happening in every direction of society with every issue imaginable. Humans are going to be insane for a very long time. We will not be able to figure our way out of this one no matter how 'smart' we are. Balance must come from the bone deep decision of every individual to become sovereign in themselves. That takes a whole heck of alot of guts since we live in a world that rewards compliance and punishes true authenticity. So pretty much every force around and within us is working against us in having Truth backed individual and collective AHA! moments. I put my energy in Spirit these days because that is the only way I see through all of this. Alot of folks are suffering and it is getting worse. Most simply cannot cope with the mounting stress on all sides. The masses are going to default to totalitarian authority. It is inevitable, barring some unfathomable miraculous intervention. Hope is not a solution but it does open the doorway to other possibilities. We cannot 'fix' this. But we can hold a space within our own sovereign Spirit where we can take refuge and reach out to those who also seek Truth. Our brains have already been co-opted. We have to dig deeper.
Power is the power to make another suffer and do what they do not want to do. And an unwillingness to exercise that power was why I quit public school teaching. The conditioning to accept authority against your own best interest starts early, and I could not be a part of it.
Charles, as always, thank you! Because of the deep resonance around the topic of power, I dare to talk about my book here (New Stories of Love, Power, and Purpose; A Global Invitation to Experiment with the Unknown).
Specifically over the past 10+ years in which I have deeply engaged in the field of self-organization, I have seen the impact the stories of power, which societies almost everywhere have developed and internalized, have on individuals and collectives; the limitations these stories so often imposes on following the invitation to see the more beautiful world our heart knows is possible (I refer to your writings repeatedly in my book).
These experiences eventually led me to write. I felt called to share on a very personal level what lead me to hold a new story of both love and power, and how this changes my entire being and becoming. With my book I hope to contribute to the energy that is giving rise to new stories - stories that affirm life and this more beautiful world that you and many others thankfully bring into the awareness of so many.
Only a few days ago a reader of my book posted a picture with Orwell's 1984 and my book together. She pointed towards overlaps and suggested to read the two books in parallel. With great humbleness and deep respect for Orwell's work, I DO NOT compare my book to 1984!! When I saw the post, I first was completely overwhelmed by it and didn't know what to say or do, the part of me that is in charge of humility calling "NO, NO, NO!!! That doesn't feel right!!!", but soon I was able to settled down and breathe, allowing the deep gratitude for this experience to unfold. I took it as what it is - one reader who let me know in her own way that my book has touched her. How absolutely wonderful!
Your article touched me and I am very grateful for the way you address the issue of power. And it naturally led me back into the experience I described.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the inspiration I have found in your stories, your writings and your many recordings. Sending you loving power and powerful love!
What a wonderful description of the Abrahamic religious cult. It had blossom to perfection of absolute power in the early Medieval Europe, via the the Roman Empire’s ever-powerful, ever-present institutionalized Church that had replaced all the native European Gods and instituted a complete ideological, emotional, and physical tyranny.
I doubt this is true. The concept of “heretic” was developed much later and was related to power struggle within the Roman religious authorities. Mind you, the people of Europe had *always been struggling against the Church and several religious movements had developed. I think it were either the Bogoliubs or the Occitans who were the 1st murdered heretics. While towns in southern France (Frankish lands) were wiped out in horrific ‘orgiastic’ violence. Also, when the Spain was rechristened by Isabella, they needed to do something about the Jews and Moors. And it was then when the concepts of race and heresy were created.
Of course he does. He is in this for the glory: im an MD in private practice for over 25 years Dr. Fauci was a co-editor of a major textbook of internal medicine. He thinks that he is a medical hero. And in this respect he is the model for a tyrannical dictator. All dictators thought that they were helping their people Nikolai Ceausescu“loved” his people. Tony Fauci wants to win a Nobel prize. He thinks that generations of medical students have been inspired by his work. He has no idea how out of touch he is he has no idea how much misery and suffering and death he has caused
Yes hubris. Hes an 80 yo italian guy from NY. Hes like a mafia don. Astronomical ego! Thinks he knows whats best for everyone, telling “NOBLE “ lies to a clueless population. Smug in his own righteousness
The ‘they’ that the conspiracy theorists refer to is the same ‘they’ that Christ referred to when he said “forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
It basically refers to the ignorant—to the ignorance in us.
This! "To be good is to be accepted in the in-group; it is to conform to the group’s norms and maintain its harmony. Big Brother, then, is what good becomes with the capture and totalization of society’s normative impulse. In other words, Orwell is showing us that the ultimate icon of Good is actually the ultimate fabrication of Evil. Internally, this refers to the internal judge, rewarding and punishing, controlling and improving, motivating through psychological threats and rewards, all in the name of our own good." Yes!
If Big Brother is watching us now, who's watching Big Brother? Baudelaire said that “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” Someone named Ken Ammi added: “The second greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he is the good guy.” I'll propose a precursor to both: convincing the world that God is external to ourselves.
Karl Marx said that religion is the opium of the people but his whole quote was: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."
As an addiction, worshipping an external God opens the door to control by some "other," which in Charles's essay is framed as Big Brother, referencing Orwell. When we internalize "God," we instantly discover the Great Secret that the Devil (as metaphor) desperately wants us to never realize, that power flows in both directions. We can transmit along the same conduit that is being employed to brainwash and control us. But we have to be activated for this to be more than an interesting theory.
I exercise, expand, and broadcast through that channel every day: "I am opening to God. God is opening my heart. My heart is overflowing with Love. Love is creating my world." Take that, Big Brother!
I just spent two months working with a 20 year old who had abandoned his smart phone because it was impinging on his time and his ability to focus. Within himself, he seemed to have found something larger, something that he couldn't access thru the phone or with his peers. He continues to seek that larger thing, by himself, and with others — when they're not on their phones, or otherwise consumed by all that would distract them from the larger thing inside themselves — which is why he loves singing in a choir, because the goal is a harmony that none can acheive by themselves, and that is bigger, even, than the group.
Harmony contains both "good" and "evil" — tho we may never understand the boundaries that separate one from the other. How can we define what we cannot see or know? We can’t get to that place of harmony by ourselves. Neither can a group of us force anyone to go there. It's a mystery.
Here’s a lovely line from Richard Wagamese’s lovely movie (from his book), Indian Horse:
"Mystery fills us with awe and wonder. It is the foundation of humility and humility is the foundation of all learning. So we do not seek to unravel it. We honor it by letting it be that way forever."
It seems to me we can’t unravel good from evil. But we can seek to live in the mystery, cultivate humility, learn to make compost, love the humus that results, and go deeper into the mysteries of life, death, and fertility.
I love this example of someone who has to come to their own conclusions, after being overloaded/overwhelmed, or simply bored with the ubiquitous gadgetry. When parents or someone outside tells someone "this is bad" rather than some internal mechanism saying so, it holds such a different frequency in our lives. How do we nurture this inner voice more fully? As many know, some of the answer lies in BEING as much as DOING: meditation, attention to nature, heightened presence in mundane tasks, etc.
This is where I think a collective web of practitioners and a template/infrastructure that nurtures this way is so vital. It can be at an ecovillage, but it can also be in anywhere-ville USA. It just takes a handfull of people who make the great leap. You see it when kids go to camp, when adults go to retreats, when busy people go on vacation, when summer beaches fill with strangers, when a large group convenes at a music concert..you see the "letting go" of the drama and stress of the modern world, of the "you should do this" and the right/wrong-ness of making choices rather than being present in the moment together, with all that is. I think we are simply yearning for a sustained effort that supports that way of being. It's up to us, collectively, I guess... I think singing in a choir, harmonizing our voices is about as good a way to start as any!
I love this example too! And I agree - it is up to us to create the communities of our dreams, to engage in those activities that make our hearts sing in concert with one another. To take part in activities that are designed solely to demonstrate opposition to the other, like our current election process, simply adds fuel to the fire. Furthermore, it seems to me that many if not most are unable to conceive the existence of a single alternative, much less dream of limitless possibilities.
However, I have witnessed and experienced the magic that emerges when a little creative energy is shared among people who may only have one thing in common... a shared sense that there has to be something better. As Buckminster Fuller concluded, significant changes are never realized by shaking our fists or even displaying clear and compelling evidence of its necessity. It only happens when an alternative is presented that makes the current way obsolete. I am full of hope!
******************************************************************************************************
Thank you Charles for offering this space, and for your wonderful insight, your incredible talent for bringing context to such enormous subject matter, and doing so with such gentle prose that I imagine even those who have but little confidence in themselves, are left feeling they are already part of a community of champions.
******************************************************************************************************
I have discovered a flimsy-ness in the fiction of control (evil) that appears so real to us these days. Several months ago I filed an Ethics Complaint at my son's university, GWU in Washington DC. It named top administrators at the university for continuing a mandate for students to receive the COVID booster to continue their education. I shared 7 research studies showing the risk/reward ratio for this vaccine is severely skewed to the risk side for this age cohort. And emphasizing that it is now almost 2023 and the majority of the population has gotten COVID, many times over in some cases. I have gotten the run around with my complaint, referred to this person and then onto another. They even closed my case without it having been resolved. I did finally have a call scheduled with the Chair of the Covid Advisory Panel that is making the decision to re-up the mandate for students this spring. When I shared my questions with him in advance of our call, he wrote back that they relied on credible sources and were clear in their need for the mandate for 'student saftey'. While processing the rage regarding this insane response, and his lack of willingness to address my question regarding how they integrated the peer-reviewed findings I shared, I reached out to my son and asked him about what was going on. He had gotten an exemption for the booster last year and his girlfriend, also at GWU, had simply ignored it. Nothing had ever happened, no one followed up, and this mandate simply didn't have any teeth, it was just air. The students who followed it, did so because they believed it was real. Students who did not, discovered it was just lip service. A political stunt really. So in the spirit of Charles' piece here about there probably being no actual puppeteers, voila. There may, in truth, be none except those we focus on and give power to. Food for thought!
More power to you, your son and his girlfriend!
It seems 'the man behind the curtain' is, in fact, a relatively small group of (mostly) men, huddling together and breathing hushed reassurances to one another, whilst making loud and confident sounding proclamations in public.
Just like Toto, your story exposes these hucksters to a scrutiny they cannot bear.
Thich Nhat Hahn's book The Art of Power elucidates the one true use of power: to alleviate suffering in oneself and others.
I love Thich Nhat Hahn! As a parent, I believe that the one true use of power over someone else is to give them eventual power over themselves. If I don't use my power over my kids to keep them from thwarting their true selves, I make them into permanent adolescents looking for someone or something else to take care of them. I can't make my kids be anything they're not, I can just not reward them when they're being less.
The same principle, I believe, applies in governance. The purpose of community governance is to enable families to have power over themselves and the purpose of federal gov't is to enable communities to have power over themselves. That's the principle behind the economic system in my book, and I relate it to my system for raising kids here: https://thirdparadigm.substack.com/p/the-caret-system.
There is a lot I could comment on here but one particularly important element of the essay is the observation that "big brother" or "consensual reality" or the "evil conspiracy" is actually a psychic event. As a result, many people don't even realize the conspiracy is there because it is happening between their ears, where it is not so explicit as what people usually think when they think, "conspiracy." Thus the need for individual wakefulness, for a revolution of awareness, especially of one's own self and how one has been conditioned
.
Beautiful essay--thank you.
There is a very real difference between the highest good for all beings and the greater good. Only over the last few years have I begun to understand the difference, and it has been through doing a lot of spiritual work. When you truly feel the interconnectivity of life you start acting for the highest good of all beings. Hardly anyone talks about how doing the spiritual work is the hardest thing you will ever do: it will require loss on every level of your being and life, it will require death over and over again. But it is also the most worthwhile thing you will ever do, and if you can have the courage to cross the valley of the shadow of death, you will get to the place where you fear no evil for the love of christ and christ consciousness is truly in your heart.
It’s funny how attempts to use words and concepts to “explain” “Reality” always fall short and end in tail-chasing paradox for the “mind” of the “separate self.” Before they do though, “we” always “hopefully” think we are “getting somewhere.” What if “the separate self” IS suffering? All attempts to avoid suffering can be seen to be ultimately futile in a Möbius-strip play of occillating opposites--pleasure/pain is what “we” read while we are stuck as “us.” This lock-up of thwarted desire produces rage in those who will not understand so they insist on using will to acquire “power” to try to even temporarily trample their way to “pleasure”. But the suffering only builds. Meanwhile, the Truth-Recognizing Organ, the “Heart” and its mysterious dimension of Love, is ignored.
Indeed.
The heart has reasons that reason cannot fathom.
(Paraphrasing some French guy)
Thank you Charles. I find this fascinating and thought provoking. The themes are certainly apparent in the happenings of our world.
Well the city of San Francisco just voted to arm robots to control gun violence. This after they Defunded, Detoothed and Declawed the police so thoroughly they were made incapable of dealing with crime. So of course crime exploded. So now of course the unthinkable becames our pseudo savior. So now let's continue to fight over legal gun control for citizens, while arming robots. Let's fight over banning hunting rifles, while doing nothing to disarm thousands of nuclear warheads. Really this kind of says it all and it is happening in every direction of society with every issue imaginable. Humans are going to be insane for a very long time. We will not be able to figure our way out of this one no matter how 'smart' we are. Balance must come from the bone deep decision of every individual to become sovereign in themselves. That takes a whole heck of alot of guts since we live in a world that rewards compliance and punishes true authenticity. So pretty much every force around and within us is working against us in having Truth backed individual and collective AHA! moments. I put my energy in Spirit these days because that is the only way I see through all of this. Alot of folks are suffering and it is getting worse. Most simply cannot cope with the mounting stress on all sides. The masses are going to default to totalitarian authority. It is inevitable, barring some unfathomable miraculous intervention. Hope is not a solution but it does open the doorway to other possibilities. We cannot 'fix' this. But we can hold a space within our own sovereign Spirit where we can take refuge and reach out to those who also seek Truth. Our brains have already been co-opted. We have to dig deeper.
Power is the power to make another suffer and do what they do not want to do. And an unwillingness to exercise that power was why I quit public school teaching. The conditioning to accept authority against your own best interest starts early, and I could not be a part of it.
Charles, as always, thank you! Because of the deep resonance around the topic of power, I dare to talk about my book here (New Stories of Love, Power, and Purpose; A Global Invitation to Experiment with the Unknown).
Specifically over the past 10+ years in which I have deeply engaged in the field of self-organization, I have seen the impact the stories of power, which societies almost everywhere have developed and internalized, have on individuals and collectives; the limitations these stories so often imposes on following the invitation to see the more beautiful world our heart knows is possible (I refer to your writings repeatedly in my book).
These experiences eventually led me to write. I felt called to share on a very personal level what lead me to hold a new story of both love and power, and how this changes my entire being and becoming. With my book I hope to contribute to the energy that is giving rise to new stories - stories that affirm life and this more beautiful world that you and many others thankfully bring into the awareness of so many.
Only a few days ago a reader of my book posted a picture with Orwell's 1984 and my book together. She pointed towards overlaps and suggested to read the two books in parallel. With great humbleness and deep respect for Orwell's work, I DO NOT compare my book to 1984!! When I saw the post, I first was completely overwhelmed by it and didn't know what to say or do, the part of me that is in charge of humility calling "NO, NO, NO!!! That doesn't feel right!!!", but soon I was able to settled down and breathe, allowing the deep gratitude for this experience to unfold. I took it as what it is - one reader who let me know in her own way that my book has touched her. How absolutely wonderful!
Your article touched me and I am very grateful for the way you address the issue of power. And it naturally led me back into the experience I described.
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you from the bottom of my heart for all the inspiration I have found in your stories, your writings and your many recordings. Sending you loving power and powerful love!
What a wonderful description of the Abrahamic religious cult. It had blossom to perfection of absolute power in the early Medieval Europe, via the the Roman Empire’s ever-powerful, ever-present institutionalized Church that had replaced all the native European Gods and instituted a complete ideological, emotional, and physical tyranny.
To wit: I recently read that within five years of Christianity becoming the "state" religion of Rome, they had executed their first "heretic."
I doubt this is true. The concept of “heretic” was developed much later and was related to power struggle within the Roman religious authorities. Mind you, the people of Europe had *always been struggling against the Church and several religious movements had developed. I think it were either the Bogoliubs or the Occitans who were the 1st murdered heretics. While towns in southern France (Frankish lands) were wiped out in horrific ‘orgiastic’ violence. Also, when the Spain was rechristened by Isabella, they needed to do something about the Jews and Moors. And it was then when the concepts of race and heresy were created.
So, 12th-13th centuries and on
Christianity become the official religion of Rome in 380. The first official Christian heretic, Priscillan, was executed in 385.
Tony fauci believes that he is doing good
I'm not sure I believe that!
Of course he does. He is in this for the glory: im an MD in private practice for over 25 years Dr. Fauci was a co-editor of a major textbook of internal medicine. He thinks that he is a medical hero. And in this respect he is the model for a tyrannical dictator. All dictators thought that they were helping their people Nikolai Ceausescu“loved” his people. Tony Fauci wants to win a Nobel prize. He thinks that generations of medical students have been inspired by his work. He has no idea how out of touch he is he has no idea how much misery and suffering and death he has caused
That is because he is a malignant narcissist and sociopath.
He doesnt think he is doing anything bad.
You may well be right, but I find it very hard to believe he could be so lacking in self-awareness.
I mean, all his flip-flopping over masks etc has been thoroughly documented and now distilled into at least one utterly condemning short video.
His reputation has been shot to pieces, many times over.
And you're telling us he can somehow blithely ignore these things?
That would be hubris of astronomical proportions.
Yes hubris. Hes an 80 yo italian guy from NY. Hes like a mafia don. Astronomical ego! Thinks he knows whats best for everyone, telling “NOBLE “ lies to a clueless population. Smug in his own righteousness
😂😂
The ‘they’ that the conspiracy theorists refer to is the same ‘they’ that Christ referred to when he said “forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
It basically refers to the ignorant—to the ignorance in us.
Ignorance is the ultimate evil.
Power is the ultimate evil. It thrives on corrupting the beautiful human nature by substituting good for evil.
https://pandauncut.substack.com/p/nietzsches-last-men-and-the-covid
This! "To be good is to be accepted in the in-group; it is to conform to the group’s norms and maintain its harmony. Big Brother, then, is what good becomes with the capture and totalization of society’s normative impulse. In other words, Orwell is showing us that the ultimate icon of Good is actually the ultimate fabrication of Evil. Internally, this refers to the internal judge, rewarding and punishing, controlling and improving, motivating through psychological threats and rewards, all in the name of our own good." Yes!
If Big Brother is watching us now, who's watching Big Brother? Baudelaire said that “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.” Someone named Ken Ammi added: “The second greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he is the good guy.” I'll propose a precursor to both: convincing the world that God is external to ourselves.
Karl Marx said that religion is the opium of the people but his whole quote was: "Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people."
As an addiction, worshipping an external God opens the door to control by some "other," which in Charles's essay is framed as Big Brother, referencing Orwell. When we internalize "God," we instantly discover the Great Secret that the Devil (as metaphor) desperately wants us to never realize, that power flows in both directions. We can transmit along the same conduit that is being employed to brainwash and control us. But we have to be activated for this to be more than an interesting theory.
I exercise, expand, and broadcast through that channel every day: "I am opening to God. God is opening my heart. My heart is overflowing with Love. Love is creating my world." Take that, Big Brother!