Anyone who was driven, by some inner compulsion, to read this blog in chronological order, from the summer of 2010 when I began to write on a daily basis (!); would rapidly discover that I have been expecting (therefore in a sense predicting) the collapse of our civilization - for most of the past 12 years!
Clearly, that has not happened! At least, not yet; and it is interesting to speculate why not.
I am as sure now as I was then that our System is unsustainable; and for a multitude of reasons - that multitudinousness of individually-fatal stresses being why the civilization is inevitably doomed; since all causes cannot be addressed at once, or quickly enough -- even if there was a will to reverse the causes of collapse: which there is not.
Also because (and for the first time in history) a deliberate and strategic, top-down program for destruction of Western civilization.
This encompasses neglecting, worsening and denying 'natural' problems (such sub-fertility - which is itself a consequence of deliberately-encouraged religious apostasy and the exclusion of the spiritual from public discourse).
...And gratuitously creating many new and individually-lethal System stresses (mass immigration, 'climate change', antiracism, birdemic-peck etc.).
If this analysis is broadly correct; how, then, has the System survived?
The answer I have gradually come to accept is that 'the conspiracy theorist' point-of-view is broadly true; in that most of the acute problems - apparent 'emergencies', and genuine catastrophes - are either permitted or actively-caused by the System itself. And therefore, when the System feels threatened - it simply stops causing these problems.
It is relatively easy to stop creating crises, because people (on the whole) will only cause problems when encouraged, assisted and subsidized to do so. Thus, huge areas of national or local crisis can (if the will exists) be all-but eliminated - simply by removing the massive structures of positives incentives that have been their ultimate cause.
The reason I took so foolishly long to recognize the self-caused nature of most crises and emergencies; is that I used to know (from personal experience) a fair bit about the people who were leaders at a regional and national level - and I realized that they 'believed in' what they were doing - believed that they were 'doing good' with their various lethal schemes.
And therefore it seemed to me that National 'elites' were observably not conspiring actively to inflict social problems.
Where I went wrong is assuming that the regional/ national leadership class were actual leaders. I did not then see that all their important instructions were coming-down from a much smaller, supra-national global 'elite' - which was the level at which strategic decisions were made.
National governments and media, multinational corporations and large social institutions (such as the UK National Health Service) are just middle managers, just minions, just implementers of plans set at different levels.
In other words, it is at the large - geopolitical - scale where the ultimate decisions are made and the ultimate causes of many problems set-into-motion. Vast areas such as 'the economy', 'finance', 'science'. 'health', the mass media etc. are managed to a very high degree.
Visible, impacting, crises and problems in all of major social systems are mostly deliberately caused - but caused at a hierarchical level far above the level at which they are 'managed'.
Thus the managers are often genuinely striving, in their minds - albeit dishonestly and incompetently - to address the problems...
Albeit; among managers 'addressing' a problem does not mean solving or eliminating the problem - it means 'responding' to it; doing some-thing that can plausibly (i.e. plausibly to managers) be argued to be a 'positive' and helpful response, within the constraints of careerism and bureaucratization.
Anyway; setting aside nuances for the sake of clarity; while the System or Western Civilization is indeed doomed to collapse; I have often been fooled by deliberately-caused crises and emergencies, into believing that the collapse was imminent - whereas, because the acute crisis/ emergency (whether of the economy, finance, health - or whatever) was deliberately-caused - the crisis/ emergency could later - when it had cause the desired results (and, at least, up-until-now) just as easily be cured.
So much for the surface...
Deep down, however; the longer the System persists while continuing to be degraded; and while its efficiency, effectiveness, and self-regulating honesty are all incrementally being-destroyed - the more that the depth and breadth of eventual/ inevitable collapse will continue to increase.
So the 'good' news is that Western civilization has not collapsed yet; but continues along its paths of value-inversion, mass spiritual damnation, and the active pursuit of evil goals...
The bad news is that - when it does happen, and it will - the collapse of The West will now be far worse than it would have been a decade ago.
Consider that in places the authorities have admitted, briefly and never to be mentioned again, that 'peck' uptake may have been far less than claimed.
ReplyDeleteIn Italy, the United States and Ireland this is so, and it may be so everywhere.
Also though the world financial system is deliberately presented as being in a constant state of near-collapse in order to push through changes which harm the ordinary person, but it is not on the verge of collapse. The Anti-Christ financial system is more stable than it appears on the surface - though it is slowly impoverishing non-asset owners.
@G - Yes, good examples.
ReplyDeleteHi Clive as long as the central banking system of creating funny money out of thin air to fund all the crazy pet projects the elites wish to inflict on us continues then all is well for the time being, the IMF has already warned central banks not to raise interest rates too much or they could destroy the funny money demonic system. How long things can continue before we have hyperinflation at a global level is anybodys guess. Argentina has 114% inflation and they seem to stagger along, the more a currency is debased the more you debase the moral character of a people, it's no coincidence this country came off the gold standard in 1914 to fight the war and it's been down hill ever since.
ReplyDeleteWW has left a comment:
ReplyDelete"You may also be forgetting the impact of Good Beings in your calculus on why civilization hasn't collapsed according to some of your past predictions.
"Not that I think Heaven is all that interested in sustaining Evil or their ways, but there is precedent that they do actively work to keep a civilizations from failing so long as there are righteous among them that will be helped thereby and that it supports Heaven's own designs in doing so.
"In our case, my understanding - like yours - is that there is no righting of this ship in its current form. However, I believe that the righteous will be gathered out at some point and brought to stand in holy and safe places. Joseph Smith made a critical change to the parable of the Wheat and the Tares, in that in his corrected version it is the Wheat that is gathered out first, leaving the Tares to be left behind and burned.
"Time has to be allowed for this gathering to happen (or to even start - which I don't think it has), so the system will continue to go on for a time. At some point, all who are willing to come are gathered, and its just Evil left here. As we have seen, and as you have written about, Evil is a fairly divided house, and those don't continue to stand - with no Good left, and all help from Heaven removed, I think that is when you will have your complete and utter collapse... the wicked being judged and punished by themselves."
I think that even though we understand the Mass Media as the mouth of Satan, it still influences our thoughts. We still, despite knowing they are liars, suspect more-people-than-do go along with The Plan and truly believe all the various Litmus Tests. Especially when every bureaucracy knows to loudly signal they are 100% on board.
ReplyDeleteWhereas a very larger percent of the people, I dare suggest even the majority, of those who actually do the work, keep things running, and pay through taxation for the rest of the fraud to go on are not in allegiance with The Plan.
@MA - " are not in allegiance with The Plan."
ReplyDeleteEven if that is true (but I suspect that nearly-everybody is in agreement with The Plan in one or more crucial ways - usually as a result of harboring some kind of group resentment) - the lack of "spiritual backbone" of such a Godless/ secular/ hedonic/ materialist populace, means that *motivation* (hence courage) is extremely weak compared with a few generations ago.
People just keep showing up to work. At some point the level of societal mental illness will get too high and there won't be enough people showing up to work to hold it together. And maybe that point was reached some time ago, given the enormous debts being racked up by governments in the West. But maybe the West will just become an impoverished leech of the East, and the thing will never fully collapse.
ReplyDeleteA mind may like the Hubble Telescope may be much better at taking a photo of another galaxy than of the next-door neighbor's house. So if someone detects an unsustainable trajectory in their civilization, then turns the same mind towards localized phenomena, there is a tendency to get timing wrong and similar.
ReplyDeleteIt's just like with the expected proportions of one face of the die showing up. The epic mind sees that these proportions will be in the long run approximately a sixth for each face. But the same epic mind, if it applies itself to a run of data in the short term, may come across something like this: 35 percent 3, 35 percent 6, with the remaining die faces sporadically filling up the remaining 30 percent. So the epic mind that glides like an eagle over centuries and solar systems and patchwork fields will be correct about the long term prospects of the die faces; but frustrated in short term runs.
That's why people are correct to see a heavily indebted nation as on an unsustainable trajectory but incorrect as to its timing; for numerous kicking the can down the road procedures can put off the inevitable for an unexpectedly extended period of time.
I've been comparing the recent events to the Crisis of the 3rd Century, the Tetrarchy, etc. Especially has one been focusing on the Edict on Maximum Prices and the Diocletian Persecutions...
First, if we were alive then and similarly capable of discerning unsustainable trajectories, we would be correct to see that the Crisis of the 3rd Century was the beginning of an inevitable end. But we would be continually wrong if we expected it to happen this year, this decade, even longer stretches.
Similarly, if we were alive during the period of the Edict, we would know it could not possibly work and would prove unsustainable; yet would be continually frustrated to see how it drug on like molasses.
On this same subject of the Edict and Persecutions, if we distill the essence of these we get: anti-Christian bias in officialdom, which you mention. And we get a rigid suite of measures that cannot work, at least for the stated purpose, and in addition cause immense suffering. You reference that anti-Christian bias in relation to the public square and the consequences for births, and of course you are achingly aware of the birdemic peck suite of measure's answer to the Edict. Of note, the Edict was not so much repealed and repudiated by officialdom as simply no longer enforced while remaining on the books; and we see a similar kind of 'we still push the peck institutionally but no longer stridently do so' procedure going on now.
Now for something about those middle managers, in relation to a quote of Swedenborg's:
ReplyDelete"There are certain people in the world who, when they act, employ tricks and lies to accomplish evil deeds. I have been shown what those people are like and the ways in which they act - how, when persuading others, they use as their agents those who will do no one any harm, and also how they induce other persons to speak in a certain way while they themselves remain silent on the matter. In short they employ evil means to attain whatever end they have in view, means that involve the use of deceit, lies, and trickery" (Secrets of Heaven 5188).
We saw this happen. People who had no idea just how evil, deceitful and harmful to people's health all this pretexting to get to people's bloodstreams was were induced to lie for people who knew full well it was nothing like what was claimed; and who knew full well that science is of its nature not settled; and who knew full well that it is already mass murder not to do extensive longitudinal safety study of an experimental peck, let alone if there are also other motivations involved therein.
It is most frustrating to see our civilization in this state. But just as the evil of Joseph's brothers was turned to good in that God used it to shape the saving of many lives; so may the evils which have been permitted by Providence be used to shape an ultimate and utilitarian good result from the standpoint of God.
Whenever I get too frustrated, I remember our basic teaching on the matter; that no evil is permitted except insofar as it subsumes into the overall Providential bias of history towards the longest possible view in this life and stretching into eternity. It is the long view of love, and we may lament the death throes of our civilization or various localized phenomena like the litmus test issues. But there is a larger plan afoot which dwarfs these and is not concerned with the glory of our civilization but the larger harvest. I still get frustrated, but it helps considerably to remember that history is a magic eye painting of a heart; and if we look at it in any other way, we will see confused squiggles and evil unharnessed and unpunished. It is neither. And those who persecute the innocent with deceit will not enjoy the future which awaits them if they do not repeat; it is described as particularly terrible. Godspeed.
I have seen the evil that middle managers do first hand. I work in substance abuse treatment, and in my field (including my own boss) a mania for "harm reduction" has become unquestionable dogma. For those who don't know the lingo, harm reduction means assisting addicts in their self destruction with intentions of reducing overall mortality hoping that this will be more effective at controlling addiction than a sensible, firm intolerance.
ReplyDeleteSpoiler alert: it doesn't work at all (see Portugal and Oregon if you doubt this). It makes the problem far worse. If you even hint that you disagree, you'll get self righteous fury in response. There is an army of sassy, arrogant women (in particular) who will never forgive such heresy.
So they go on providing needles, overdose supervision, selective decriminalization, and such, and the end result is a wildfire of addictions that could have been prevented. These people, at the superficial levels of their minds, really believe they're helping these people with this method. In truth it is a government program meant to siphon money from every productive taxpayer they can into a devilish funnel which pours as many souls as it can into the abyss.