Those who urge modern people to look behind the deceptions and manipulated of the totalitarian system we inhabit, usually make the process of discerning truth in a world of lies to be terribly difficult and complicated - almost a life's work.
But this is not so. The problem is not of that kind. It is not a matter of increasing effort and expertise.
The root of the problem is that Modern Man is easily fooled because he is not good, and does not even want to be good.
Discerning that we are being lied-to and manipulated all the time is something that any Good Man (Jesus, for example) would find utterly obvious: a simple matter.
It could be summarized as the obvious sense of not-believing the words of known liars, combined with noticing that we are being asked to share inferences and interpretations of people and events that lack innate common sense, and are indeed inversions of The Good.
It is because Modern Man has chosen (and keeps choosing) to discard innate common sense, and to believe those he knows to be liars; that he makes-himself so extremely susceptible to propaganda, so extremely resistant to de-programming.
There are many reasons of expediency (of short-term self-benefit) why so many people choose to believe officialdom, corporate and educational pronouncements, the mass media etc.
There are extreme social and psychological pressures to conform with these beliefs.
But... We also know, without needing to be told, that all these pressures to conform and believe are actually powerful reasons why we must therefore doubt the truth of such coerced belief.
A Good Man would not be so easily, so eagerly, fooled as we are - because a Good Man would know that a system of idea enforcement by manipulation of personal expediency, has nothing to do with reality and truth - but implies exactly the opposite.
It is the powers and servants of evil who claim that coercion and appeals to selfish and hedonic expediency are reality and truth.
(And this applies also when the coercion and appeals to hedonic expediency come from within religions, including from within Christianity.)
It is Modern Man's lack of Goodness, our lack of commitment to live in accordance with divine creation; that makes us so very easy to fool, and so very resistant to undeception.
4 comments:
I wouldn't claim to be a good person, but I've realized how often my response to some media claim is: "I just KNOW that's not true". Even when there is supposedly lots of "studies" that back it up. And then I think: Should I do research into this to find the lies? And then I think: That would be extremely time-consuming, for every such claim. The idea seems to be that academic research is the gold standard.
I think this is what Stephen Colbert's term of "truthiness" is meant to satirise.
@M - As I understand it, being "a good person", if it is to mean anything for a Christian, means a person who has taken *the side of good* - which is the side of God and divine creation.
(And an evil person is one who opposed God/ the good/ creation; or who serves/ obeys/ believes the side that does so.)
It isn't about being wholly virtuous, because there are no such people; and neither is it about being a bit more virtuous or less sinful than the average, or than some other person. It seems clear that Jesus regarded such quantitative distinctions as irrelevant when it comes to ultimates.
Being good is therefore something that every Christian should claim for himself. If not, he isn't a Christian!
wrt Stephen Colbert, I regard him as a publicly committed servant of the totalitarian system, hence certainly on the side of evil - so I don't take notice of what he says when it comes to anything important!
I think you put you finger on one of the ways people allow themselves to be manipulated, because they accept the assertion that to disagree with those in power implies that one should be able to meet them on their own ground and convince them of their error.
Aside from that they will never allow themselves to be convinced of anything inexpedient, this is an error because what is at stake is our soul - for which we are responsible, not "them" (whoever "they" may be). We can and must decide what we regard as true.
I suppose all this was made easier for me when I realized that - even when I knew personally and for sure concerning public-official lies about matters of science or medicine about which I was "objectively" an expert - the evidence or truth had literally *zero* relevance to massively influential and mega-scale public statements, official teachings, and national/global policies.
I sense that many Christians are (apparently) hopelessly confused by what constitutes the side of good, especially when it comes to officialdom. They read the Bible and believe that all "authority" comes from God; thus, it is their duty to bend the knee and obey worldly authorities. And if they're wrong, they are not to blame. The ones who misled them are to blame. As for them, they were just doing what God commanded. No need to repent or anything like that.
And that's just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to muddled discernment.
@Frank - Yes, this is a problem - and, as you say, it's ultimately due to the determination to evade spiritual responsibility.
"They read the Bible and believe that all "authority" comes from God; thus, it is their duty to bend the knee and obey worldly authorities. And if they're wrong, they are not to blame."
The thing is that nobody actually lives by this consistently - nobody applies this "obedience to authority is always good" rule to other people.
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