Veterinary Medicine and diagnosing the motives of Authority: why I try to ignore what people say, and focus on inferring the attitude behind it

This strategy began almost twenty years ago - before I was a Christian; but has been greatly reinforced since. And I am sure it is the correct attitude - especially in this 'Ahrimanic' era.

I came to this insight by learning from my interactions with managers and bureaucrats, who would say one thing and then do almost the opposite, while picking apart their words to deny the contradiction - or else claiming that they were compelled to do what they said they would not, or prevented from doing that which had been promised.

I realised that words were routinely being used to manipulate; and that the only guide to my own decision-making was to infer motivation - perhaps by examining the trend of action and inaction, by examining the use of language (e.g. the presence of managerial buzz words, or concepts - the implicit priorities).

What I am saying is that the 'quality' of spoken or written language (especially the feeling it evokes in my heart) is a much better guide to motivation than the asserted content.

In a nutshell - I began to practise a kind of 'veterinary medicine' when it came to 'diagnosing' what people in authority are doing. The analogy being that while doctors base their diagnosis on what patients (or their relatives) say, vets must use more indirect means.

In a world of systematic and pervasive dishonesty, where people in authority are 'not even trying' to be truthful; we are all like vets making a diagnosis; we cannot find reliable words to inform us, because the subject's 'families' are also likely to be corrupted.

The same applies throughout society - locally, nationally, globally. We do not know of any informed source that we can trust, so we must each form our own judgements based upon inferred motivations.

No matter how polite I am, officials have often been offended by my refusal to believe what they assert, simply on the basis that they assert it. Clearly, despite their lives being a tissue of elaborately-constructed dishonesty, they were in a state of denial about that fact - and it looked as if nearly everybody was prepared to go along with the lies.

(Which is why things became as bad as they are, and continue to worsen.)

Very fortunately, we do have a divinely-implanted inner guidance system; which can - in principle - tell us each everything we need to know. But most people deny the existence of this system, and all of us get confused between the true inner guidance and more superficial, expedient, manipulated desires.

We can each of us find the truth of things, if we honestly want it and persist; but none of us are always honest, we can be misled, and will often resist learning from our experiences - so we will often need to admit error and sin, and so repent; and our path towards truth will usually be zag-zag.