Monday 25 July 2016

Avoiding the mass media is not enough - we must have a global alternative explanation for motivation

At the end of my 2014 book on the modern mass media Addicted to Distraction

http://addictedtodistraction.blogspot.co.uk

I concluded that it was necessary to withdraw from media exposure as much as possible - this remains true, but I now perceive this is not a sufficient objective, nor should it be the primary aim - because the mass media is not the primary problem.

It is insufficient to withdraw from the mass media because the exact same evil agenda is also being pursued by several other major social systems including politics, civil administration (public bureaucracies), NGOs, the legal system, the police and military command, education and health services, major religious denominations...

In sum, at this point in the history of The West, all major social systems have been taken over at their highest and most strategic levels by purposively-evil and evil-serving personages; so the high level powers behind all major social systems are engaged in the same objective which is the spiritual corruption of Man.

There is, in other words, an evil global conspiracy; but it is vital to recognise that their aim is spiritual, not material - because the spiritual corruption of Man may at times be achieved by creating a situation of peace, prosperity, comfort, convenience and so on.

By contrast, secular conspiracy theorists make the error of supposing that the evil conspiracy is aiming at poverty, starvation, sickness, violence, enslavement... mass human suffering. This is an error, because the aim is spiritual corruption, and the evil conspiracy will use whatever is possible and effective to achieve this - in The West, in recent decades, the most effective way of achieving spiritual corruption has usually been by pampering and pandering-to, rather than tormenting, the population.

I have said that we must withdraw from the mass media and cure ourselves of addiction to its drip-drip of stimulus - this remains true, but it will be ineffectual if the genera perspective of the individual remains mainstream.

Mainstream human social and public life is predicated on the false assumption that the 'people in charge' are well-meaning. The main thing we need to do it ingrain the opposite assumption: that the overall and dominating world-structuring strategies are malign in purpose.

I have noticed that most conspiracy theorists in the 'alternative media' are as media-addicted - especially as news addicted - as everybody else. They broadly accept the media agenda, and usually work on the basis of the same data-set; but they repeatedly try to re-frame and re-explain the same basic facts. So there may be a violent atrocity, a political vote or policy, an item of science or medical news, the launch of a new movie or novel or some other event... and the alternative media take the same basic facts and try to plausibly re-explain them on the basis of an evil global conspiracy.

But if this is to be effective, the same thing needs to be done all through life - especially in the workplace and in interactions with any of the major institutions. And this is simply an impossible, overwhelming task! Plus, even if it was possible; then it would mean that you whole life was being dictated by the evil conspiracy - by continuing to produce a constant stream of false stimuli (in need of re-framing) they could and would keep you busy doing whatever they chose - furthermore you would be making re-interpretations using only data supplied by the exact same source that you are aiming to re-explain.

The result is that the alternative media and conspiracy theorists are like caged mice frantically running in a wheel - working 24/ 7 responding-to and re-explaining an unending stream of nonsense thrown at them by 'life' - from the media, but also at work, and in all interactions with the major social systems.

In other words, in a spiritual sense the evil conspiracy have won - because the people fighting it are fully absorbed in attending to and absorbing a constant deluge of corrupt material 'thrown at them' by normal everyday life in The West.

The problem is not just wrong ideas (propaganda) - which tends to be the focus of global conspiracy theorists; but also wrong perceptions, wrong emotions, wrong forms and assumptions... the wrongness is multi-valent and at multiple levels. In trying to re-explain one kind of wrongness, the others are neglected retain their effect.

In sum: there is just too much wrongness, of too many types, for the strategy of re-explaining to be effective - and in such a context the strategy becomes counter-productive such that global conspiracy theorists too often become even worse media addicts, focus on knowing and understanding the exact identities, characteristics and motivations of the conspiracy of evil leaders; and consumed with anger, fear, hatred and despair - which is precisely what the evil conspiracy wants - it is exactly the primary objective of spiritual warfare.

Therefore, there cannot be a specific, point-by-point engagement and expose with evil.

Therefore, the focus of the fight must be on one's own personal attitudes and attributes, and the fight must be positive and creative rather than negative-reactive.

We need to reject the temptation to explain what is 'really' going-on in situation X - and especially the temptation to persuade others about what is really going-on.

Instead, our strategy should be to locate and cultivate and strengthen the good from within us and from divinity, and our work should be to live-from this - and to tell others that this is what we are doing, and to persuade others to do the same.

We need the perspective of a global evil conspiracy aimed-at spiritual corruption - but must not be drawn-into explaining (or rather, theorising-about) its detailed workings. 

What is needed is something along the lines of: 'I assume that Life is set-up like this (i.e. as spiritual warfare); I am trying to achieve this in life, and I understand things this way; so I believe that this is what is required, and I personally need to behave like this'.

The specifics are not argued nor explained, but instead emerge creatively from our positive personal stance.

Such a way of thinking, speaking and writing is very alien to modern Westerners - but I think it is what we absolutely need to learn and practise.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

" 'I assume that Life is set-up like this (i.e. as spiritual warfare)[...]'" - this sounds a lot like 'traditional' (in a rich, etymological sense) Christian askesis (like, St. John Climacus, for example).

David Llewellyn Dodds

Bruce Charlton said...

@David - I indeed came across spiritual/ unseen warfare first via the Orthodox tradition (esepcially Fr Seraphim Rose), but I also read a book on the subject by a modern US conservative Protestant - http://charltonteaching.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/reality-of-unseen-warfare-excerpted.html - and the theme is common in the addresses by the LDS General Authorities - so it is pretty general among all types of serious Christians; including that we are now in the end times, or latter days.