Threads

It’s sad to me how quickly we define
What’s wrong with yours is right with mine

k.d. lang, David Pitch: “Thread”

On the day that a certain, well known far right commentator tumbled ever deeper down the conspiracy rabbit hole which has so thoroughly overtaken his life and career, it kind of felt right to finally release this post, which has been languishing in the drafts folder for so long that it has literal cobwebs.

In some respects, I do feel sorry for the guy. He’s not the first, and won’t be the last middle aged man who hits that time of life and is overwhelmed by a tsunami of crisis. Most, in his rather privileged, white, middle class position, go out and buy a pair of too tight skinny jeans, a sports car, and trade in the wife for a younger model.

Bravo to him for avoiding the stereotype, and fully embracing the cathartic release of the reactionary inner life he has obviously been struggling with for so long. Having to internalise all that bigotry must surely take a toll, denying any genuine opportunity for some sense of inner peace.

Brainwashing is a strange concept, isn’t it?

There’s been a lot of talk, bemoaning the persistent feeling that “others” have, somehow, become brainwashed; by the media, by the political narrative, by an unseen, unknowable “elite”. The wokerati have firmly supplanted the illuminati as the greatest risk to a free and functioning society we have ever known.

Problem is, whether we accept it or not, we are all brainwashed.

It started the day we first were able to interpret the grunts of your parents as “language”, it continued through our education, both formal and informal, as we assimilated ideas and ways of behaving particular to our society, our class, and our religion. It became reinforced by the newspapers we read, the friends we made, the career paths we found ourselves thrown onto. Every single day of our adult life we have embraced expressions of those things we already “believed” and rejected those ideas which didn’t align with our own world view; all too often shoddily built out of the scraps handed to us in our formative years.

“Othering” the problem denies that we too are human; that we too are susceptible to assimilating the thoughts, words, and causes of others into our own way of thinking, being, and expressing ourselves. Those, in whom we find agreement, are, obviously, the radical, free thinkers of our generation. What could possibly have happened to make those “others” adopt such different perspectives to our own, to “push” agendas we disagree with, to deny the internal logic and overwhelming evidence which allows us to conclude that WE are right and THEY are wrong? Why, they must have been brainwashed; the “sheeple“, so readily taken in by the unseen cabal, so keen to fall in line with the nefarious new order that we, uniquely, have been able to resist.

Hate to break the news; but it’s all propaganda.

No, not just some of it; ALL of it.

Yes. Everything.

Nothing is Truth. Nothing ever was, is, or can be Truth.

Truth is quicksilver for the mind; no matter how hard we try to grasp it, it just runs through our fingers leaving naught but a set of potentially sinister side effects, completely disproportionate to its shiny allure. The longer we hold onto whatever external idea aligns with our personal inner bias, residing in our heads as “self-evident”, or passes for certainty in our skewed world view, the more likely these side effects are going to kick in.

Whatever argument we select as our truth, there is, invariably, an alternative, countering our adopted narrative. Truth doesn’t even lie halfway between; Truth isn’t some magical compromise capable of resolving the tension between competing concepts; Truth is so far removed from both extremes, it’s literally in the next universe.

Concern yourself not, then, with the brainwashing you “see” in others; the Work requires us not to save the inhabitants of the world from the illusion of their own making, but, rather, to eliminate the brainwashing we don’t even recognise that we ourselves have been subject to, assimilated, and accept as a true reflection of the unknowable reality we all inhabit.

At the very least, it is only through the act of considering the concerns, beliefs, and ideals of others that we can begin to know and understand ourselves.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Matthew 7:3, King James Version (KJV)

~~~

Note 1:
Yes, we selected our “truth”; unless our thought processes are of Einsteinian standards (bearing in mind that even some of his truths will fail as new data emerges) then everything we hold personally dear we heard from others, or read, or just “knew”. Of course, we’ve refined it through the years as we heard, or read, or came to know something else. Everything we accepted was merely confirmation, everything (and everyone) we rejected nothing more than a dissonance we were unwilling, or unable, to accommodate in our already developed world view.

Note 2:
For the avoidance of doubt, this post is:
a. propaganda
b. biased and
c. completely devoid of skinny jeans and lamborghini.

Image Copyright: Giulio Tarquinio