Over the years I have developed this phrase and concept of an Evil Lie as a concise expression of my understanding of the specific aspects of our situation.
It seems to be a correct and appropriate response to many "why not?" questions asked us - questions on the lines of: What have you got against the trans-agenda? Why don't you want a birdemic peck? What have you got against MLB antiracism? Why are you not in favour of recycling/ bicycle lanes/ wind turbines?...
At a micro-level, the managerialist and materialistic take-over of my working life in medicine, academia, science (but also everybody's life) - preparatory to the 2020 Global unification into a single world bureaucracy - was pursued by multiple incremental Evil Lies.
These ELs were all known/ felt/ experienced as wrong, intuitively; yet were often small and could be presented as 'too trivial' to make a fuss about.
Managerialism proceeds through Evil Lying steps, each step apparently too trivial to oppose - yet simultaneously each step was important enough to make mandatory!
And thus we were led into the single, totalitarian, global bureaucracy. Yet at each step we could have known that what we were being asked to do was an Evil Lie.
Why Not?
Because it is an Evil Lie.
Evil because that is the motivation - this particular thing is an aspect of the overall strategy of damnation. It is part of the plans by evil Beings to induce Men into Evil rather than Good; to prefer Hell to Heaven; to choose damnation and to reject resurrected Heavenly life eternal.
'Lie' because all of these are deliberate untruths.
What species of untruth varies. Whether the untruth is based on legalistic/ linguistic intent to mislead, exaggeration and manipulation, misrepresentation, selection, inappropriate and non-sequitur statistics... or simply a Big Lie invented in whole - does not matter, because the ruling intent is to lie.
All lies are sins, all lies are evil - so it might be said that the phrase Evil Lie is a pleonasm - yet I am sure that the phrase including both words does some extra work compared with either component word alone.
The lie is a particular kind of evil - perhaps the single most prevalent evil of the modern world.
To call a lie intrinsically evil is correct - but 'Evil Lie' takes the particular and assigns it to a general category - when what is required is some response to that particular.
Our damnation in modernity is, it seems, being accomplished mainly by lies. So, from 2020 there are no gratuitous lies; all lies are purposive.
Every lie proposed and accepted adds to the apparatus of evil.
Just to say some-thing is a lie, without also mentioning evil; is inadequate. Indeed, it can be counter-productive for a Christian.
For instance the birdemic peck is a lie, built upon lies - everything about the birdemic is a lie (its identity, nature, origin, significance); everything about the birdemic response is a lie (that it is necessary, or useful, or the value of its components, and failure of cost-benefit consideration) - and the peck is a lie at every level from its necessity on down to embrace every substantive assertion and statement about it.
But to the modern mind, failure to go-along-with a web-of-lies itself requires justification; because, after all, the mainstream dominant political ideology of the world is leftism; which is itself a web-of-lies. To the modern mind, a web-of-lies is a 'good thing' whenever it is deployed to assist a leftist agenda (e.g. socialism, feminism, antiracism...).
So, it is in practice necessary to say Evil Lies to 'explain' to people why we oppose this particular lie from all the other lies which rule us.
Furthermore, we do not want to get the habit of opposing lies from expediency - even to our-selves. The fact that the birdemic peck is dangerous is an expedient reason to avoid it; but of itself expediency just sustains the narrative of fear: the idea that our responses are and should be fear-driven.
To avoid the peck because it is harmful (merely) is to sustain the evil ideology of 'healthism'.
So; we should not want to avoid the peck primarily because it is dangerous, but because it is an Evil Lie.
If we avoid it (only) because it is dangerous; then all that the Authorities would need to do to make the peck 'right', would be to ensure that it is more dangerous not to have the peck than to take it. A simple matter.
Sufficiently intense persecution of the non-pecked would then (apparently) make the peck 'right'; and expediency would make pecking the preferred option; and therefore the 'right' option. So much for principle...
The problem is therefore not primarily to avoid the peck, but to know that the peck is evil. And it is evil because it is a lie.
And knowing that it is evil; the problem is not primarily to avoid having the peck (after all, we might be overpowered and compelled to have it) - but to repent evil.
Man cannot always, or even usually, avoid evil; but Man can always repent evil.
And to be clear in the mind that X is an Evil Lie is a solid set-up for repentance.
Certainly a useful formula to use in one's own mind, but have you found it an effective way of "explaining" your positions to others?
ReplyDelete@Wm - Well, being retired, I don't really have to explain to others. When I was at work I realized that the bureaucrats were not interested in my explanations, so I would not make them. I used to say that I would not do X unless I was compelled to do it.
ReplyDeleteFor many years, maybe 15 plus years, I was not compelled. (Almost everybody else did the things voluntarily, but not me.) Then from about 2015 (with new powers granted and a new managerialist zeal) the compulsions were being cranked-up.
I would just say I did not want to do X; and that I was happy to explain why, but that it would take about 20 minutes. This is necessary in order to escape the assumptions of the constricting bureaucratic frame; and instead to put this specific decision into a context of my the primary assumptions and my overall life purposes. These things cannot be explained a couple of sentences at a time - each of which is then challenged by the person asking for the explanation. One needs to present the whole coherent point-of-view in one go.
Of course, (literally) nobody is interested enough in my motivations wrt some specific issues to set aside 20 minutes and pay attention in order to understand them! So I don't expect ever to explain myself, even approximately.
I need to have ready some kind of shorthand pseudo-explanation, preferably one that does not fall comfortably into the standard response slots.
Ideally I would say either just "It's an evil lie", or in some situations "*I believe* it is an Evil Lie". I might ad that I am 'a serious Christian, and I try to live by my ideas'.
But I would probably refuse to explain any further unless I was given enough time to explain properly. And partial explanation merely weakens one's position. And - almost always (as with a journalist) - the explanation is only evoked in order dissect into pieces to use against you.
The less said, the better.
Well, I guess given the choice between a supply of veterinary Ivermectin and the jab, I'd have more confidence in the horse Ivermectin. I find myself increasingly holding my piece in the face the accelerating spread of evil and doubling down on apophatic practice. I don't recall Our Lord saying the the Kingdom of God resides in the bureaucracy. I'm 78 and grateful for my good health which will evaporate in the not too distant future so there is a limit to how much I can be manipulated by fear. So, often, in the current circumstances 'The less said, the better'. Excellent work as usual Bruce.
ReplyDeleteWonderful essay. Much needed.
ReplyDeleteSo simple, yet so hard to keep in mind as we are batted this way and that.
I was thinking recently that even if the "peck" were saline water, I wouldn't take it, because I know it's all based on a lie. Why should I run my life based on lies? But then, I've always had a stubborn streak. I also believe in bodily autonomy, but even that is a subset of the bigger issue, which is good versus evil.
I believe that God intended man to have bodily autonomy, because we are part of His creation, and he would not want evil men or institutions to have authority over our bodies.
But going all the way to the question of, "is this thing I am faced with based on a lie, or not?" is really the key question.
I also almost never argue with anyone any longer on the questions of lies and evil. I simply state my belief as a fact, or as a belief based on various factors such as my own research, my own experiences, my own worldview, and my inner knowing. I just don't argue. It does no good.
Rejecting lies seems to alienate you from the large majority of the population now. It's really a new phenomenon for me to experience the world of people such that most of them are qualitatively different from me in such a binary fashion.
@Jacob - Yes. We each need to keep hold of the fact that a lie is a sin. Anything which depends on lies is on the side of evil.
ReplyDeleteWe don't need to know anything more! There are much more important things in life than logging (or trying to refute) the myriad lies of the global bureaucracy!
Excellent point made, Dr Charlton, it really boils it down. Solzhenitsyn recognized that the first step in reclaiming one's soul from the System was to "live not by lies".
ReplyDeleteFor those who haven't read Solzhenitsyn's essay, it's worth a read:
https://www.solzhenitsyncenter.org/live-not-by-lies
@TCO - I wrote a few pieces about Solzhenitsyn in the early years of this blog:
ReplyDeletehttps://charltonteaching.blogspot.com/search?q=solzhenitsyn
With regard to the peck, I have turned it down principally because 'they' are so anxious for me to have it. Ditto with masks. I don't wear one because 'they' want me to. This is not stubborn contrarianism but if you accept doing things that are pointless, even small things for the sake of a quiet life, then more and more will be demanded of you and eventually, I fear, it will be your soul that 'they' want.
ReplyDeleteThe peck may be harmful. It may be harmless. Not being a medical person I have no idea though I have my suspicions but when a system as patently untrustworthy as the one we have is pushing it so hard you know that something is wrong and that's all you need to know.
Here's a quote from a book I'm reading.
ReplyDelete"Modern civilization is full of humanitarianism which is not Christian charity, for its motive is not love of God. It may be a love man, though it is more often a love of management"
It actually made me laugh because the book is from 1947. There is no Clarity like the clarity that comes from the Holy Spirit
This Tremendous Lover by Eugene Boylan