Friday, 3 July 2026

Not a war to win, but a war to destroy

Long-term (six year plus) readers will know of my recurrent "obsession" with the subject of evil; and the nature and definition of evil. 

This is because I believe that the nigh-universal lack of understanding of evil has rendered almost-everybody helpless in the face of a very powerful class of persons who have successfully engaged the hearts and minds of a very high proportion of the population of The West, and many other places. 

Bluntly; lack of understanding of evil has led many hundreds of millions of people (at least) into supporting strategic evil - and with a clear conscience, because they regard that evil as actually "good".


In other words, the inability to understand the nature of evil has led to moral inversion: what is really and intentionally evil is regarded as good, and vice versa.  

And people are not (as they may once have been) merely victims of manipulation - because it is of the nature of evil that once embraced it increases (evil feeds-upon itself).   

Thus we find that the nicest people are, on average, the most deluded; the most likely to be most powerfully supportive of the strategies of evil. 


This is particularly stark when the strategy being supported is a deliberately maximally-destructive war. 

And a war intended to embrace in destruction its supporters - themselves, their families and friends, their homeland, their ideology and passionate convictions - all that they superficially suppose that that they hold most dear. 

A world war is openly being planned - with full public declaration, before our eyes, in the mass media - in the West: in the UK and Commonwealth, EU nations, the USA, and beyond. 

Indeed this war is becoming the only game in town: as a long term strategy war is displacing all the other evil-motivated plans/ "good causes" such as I term the Litmus Tests: socialism/ leftism, CO2 climate environmentalism, birdemic-healthism, antiracism and feminism, the sexual revolution etc. 

All are being wound-down, and preparations for war are building-up.  


What is worse - or rather worst - is that this war (which is, in part, intended to be an expansion of the war that has been going in Eastern Europe over the past four-plus years, and in the Middle East more recently, and incipiently in East Asia) is not a war to win; but a war intended to destroy.

What is already afoot and expanding in Europe, is war of a kind seldom or never seen before in human history. In this actual and coming war; although one side does indeed want to win, and wants an end to the war (or begins that way); those who control the the other side want this war to continue, to expand, to increase in intensity - without end-point.

This happens because those who control one side are not of that side, but are instead (successfully and without being detected) using that side primarily and ultimately to pursue all-round destructive purposes.


This is happening, the strategy is working; things are much worse than almost anyone - including the experts - realize; exactly because almost nobody in the West understands evil; and especially they do not understand the sheer negativity of evil.

War analysts (of all sides) consistently assume that war is about seeking benefit, a negative means towards positive goals; and will end when that benefit has been attained. 

But when a war has been created, and is being sustained and expanded, in order to destroy; and ultimately in order that the participants come to support that goal of destruction - then this is a very different matter. 


The developing war situation is one that cannot necessarily be stopped or reversed - even if there was a general and effective will to stop it - which there is not. 

Evil has such an easy time in the modern world because there are so very few people (and none with power) who are strongly on the side of God and Good.

The mass of people cannot and do not support Good because they do not believe Good exists, or has any objective meaning. Their vague notion of good is something that exists (temporarily) only psychologically; as culturally-contingent notions in the heads of themselves, and people like them. 


The idea that The Good is a part of Reality, or The Universe; is literally meaningless to mainstream modern people - it is not so much denied as something that simply does not make sense. 

But we need to recall that the war of this world is always and ultimately a spiritual war; so this is no exception. 

This is a ultimately war to induce people - as many as possible people, on all sides - to align with spiteful destruction as a spiritual goal.


And this happens by value-inversion; by inducing people to regard evil as good and vice versa; and this is easiest when evil is not understood. 

And this failure to understand evil becomes inevitable when people do not believe-in or understand Good. 

And this failure to understand goodness is inevitable because so many people have assimilated the official and culturally-mainstream fundamental assumptions - e.g. that there is no God, no spirit, no salvation: no possibility of external and objective purpose and meaning in the universe.  

The ongoing and accelerating war of destruction is a consequence of these deep and multi-generational cultural trends. 


This stuff is not some hypothetical future scenario; on the contrary this state of deep incomprehension and value-inversion describes where we are now, culturally. 

And where we are stuck; because it can be seen that the problems run very deep, and have many layers. 

Which is presumably why we are all marching blandly and blindly towards a vastly destructive and intentionally-endless war that nearly-everyone supports indirectly with sadistic vehemence. 


Note: those who publicly oppose the ongoing-upcoming war are also (very nearly always) part of the fundamental problem that has led to the war, and share the same war-generating fundamental assumptions. They do not oppose the war for Good reasons. 


5 comments:

William Wildblood said...

This is a prophetic piece. Evil is adept at disguising itself as good and the ones who are most deceived are the clever and wise and educated. Jesus focused his attention on the less sophisticated because their minds were less likely to be corrupted by worldly wisdom. It's the same today when a certain innocence is required to see things clearly.

It makes sense that everything that has been promoted so far, ideologically, politically even spiritually in a certain regard, is ultimately done to prepare for destruction since that is always the real aim of evil. It really does seem as though the climax of the last few decades creeping corruption is approaching. Your work is drawing attention to this is extremely valuable, if you don't mind me saying so!

Bruce Charlton said...

@William. Thank you.

I regard these times as a severe test of Christian faith - in the sense that optimism is (I believe) a delusion, based on false beliefs; and a delusion that I have often observed, draws the optimist into corruption.

We must therefore have hope without optimism.

Which forces us each either to place hope in *the spiritual* - or else choose between evil-supporting delusion as we engage in futile (and this-world-aligning) material-activity to try and fight/ stop/ reverse the overwhelmingly-supported trends;

or evil-affiliated distraction and denial (numbing or intoxicating the mind by various means);

or else realistic pessimism will lead people to succumb to the sin of existential despair, which implies disbelieving or rejecting salvation.

It's not that we should "give up" on doing anything physically or materially (because, as we both say, the material is spiritual); but that whatever we do, needs to come from a spiritual motivation - if we want it to have a chance of leading to good.

William Wildblood said...

"whatever we do, needs to come from a spiritual motivation - if we want it to have a chance of leading to good."

Yes, that is critically important. And yes, we should have hope but hope in what is the question. And the answer must be hope in God which does not necessarily mean everything will turn out well in this world which is probably not even spiritually desirable.
"

Stephen Macdonald said...

While there are other voices sounding the alarm, I've yet to come across a more coherent and comprehensive account of the gathering tide of Evil than that provided in this blog by Dr. Charlton. Here and there I occasionally find minor details on which to disagree, but in the main the thesis developed here rings true for anyone who despite all odds remains spiritually sane in this benighted age.

Bruce Charlton said...

@Stephen. Thank you.

I believe that even a few people who understand the evil, and who consciously and purposively spiritually reject it - inevitably and irresistibly make some positive difference, of the kind that most matters in the long term and permanently.

Unconscious goodness also helps, and in the past was of almost incalculable benefit; but the modern world has become appallingly effective at corrupting innocence, and inducing it to change sides.

This is why understanding, consciousness, and free choosing are Now so vital.