Why resist totalitarianism? (What is it?)

Totalitarianism aims to control thinking - by a system of maximum monitoring. 

George Orwell got us mixed-up about this; because of his emphasis on violent coercion and the  assumption that it was the violence which was bad about totalitarianism - and the atheist assumption that the infliction of suffering by violence is the worst possible thing.

The upshot is that when there is no violence - and especially when there is no violent infliction of suffering - modern people cannot perceive totalitarianism: they simply don't notice it, or even deny its presence.

Phrases like 'soft' totalitarianism implicitly suggest that totalitarianism without violence is not really so bad - and nobody fought hard to defend against the triumph of 'soft' totalitarianism, because that didn't sound so bad.

But the badness of totalitarianism is, of course, spiritual - not physical. Totalitarianism is evil because of its effect on our souls - not because of its effect on our bodies.

Totalitarianism aims to control thinking by a system of maximum monitoring - to monitor the people down to a level of detail so fine that the only possible compliance is to think in the approved way.

It is nothing necessarily to do with the infliction of suffering by violence - violence is just one possible means to an end.

Modern Western society is objectively very highly totalitarian - especially in the workplace, compared with fifty years ago - because thought is very highly controlled. Absence, presence, threat of violence has nothing to do with the fact.

But why is totalitarianism bad? - if it isn't violent? Why resist it?

The only reason is if you believe that Life is about something more. The only reason to resist having one's mind controlled is if you believe that there is something very important to do with your mind.

Modern people do not resist totalitarianism because they do not believe they have anything better to do with their lives than to think in the approved way.

Modern people believe that Life is merely about the balance between pleasure and pain (maximising the first, minimising the second) - and altruism merely means wanting the same for other people. If totalitarian thought control can be imposed in a way that does not inflict suffering with violence - modern people are quite happy to accept, indeed embrace, totalitarianism.

Only religious people who believe that Life is about something else than emotions, and something more than mortal existence, have any serious objections to their minds being comfortably colonised and directed by the linked bureaucracies of employers, the state and the mass media; and there are so few Western religious people; and they are so scattered and mutually mistrustful or hostile, that their resistance to totalitarianism has, so far, been apparently ineffectual.

Why resist totalitarianism? If you have something better to do with your life; and therefore if you wish to avoid self-chosen damnation (which is, ultimately, the only kind of damnation).

But if you deny any real, objective, vital purpose of your life, and if you deny the reality of damnation - then you will surely accept, embrace, joyously join-in with the work of totalitarianism.

Why is totalitarianism evil? (or, more exactly, for whom is it evil?)

Totalitarianism is the attempt to control thinking.

The usual excuse is that this is the best or most effective way of controlling behaviour; but in the end that is just an excuse - and the real and strategic motivation is to control thinking because that is what is wanted.

Totalitarianism has nothing necessarily to do with violence (as Aldous Huxley perceived in his Brave New World of 1932 - and to equate totalitarianism with violence was an error by Orwell). For totalitarianism 'whatever works' is the guide.

Thus we now, in the West, live in a highly totalitarian society, in which most people's thoughts are controlled most of the time - by a combination of indoctrination during childhood and youth, the unified-linked bureaucracy of the government and the workplace, the mass media and its addictiveness, and a legal system which explicitly includes thought crimes (what else are 'hate crimes'?).

There is a combination of filling people's minds with approved thoughts, and excluding disapproved thoughts (by direct exclusion, and by simply driving them out with stimuli, noise, and the prevention of detached solitude).

There is very little concern about this state of affairs - and indeed it seems that many or most people positively approve of totalitarianism so long as it is 'in a good cause' - thus our current secular Left totalitarianism is okay because people agree with its goals; and indeed most people apparently want ever-more totalitarianism so that their goals may become realised.

So why is it bad to control peoples thoughts, if the cause is good behaviour?

Well, totalitarianism isn't bad for atheists and secular people generally, which is why our society is as it is; since the aim is merely 'good behaviour' in pursuit of goals like comfort, peace, prosperity and amusement.  

In practice (and ignoring empty words), all non-religious people approve of totalitarianism.

Also totalitarianism isn't bad for most religious people in most religions - which is why there have been many religious totalitarian societies that regard thought-control as a legitimate means to religious ends. (They were usually limited by their technology, and the degree of support; but the totalitarian aim of thought-control was explicit.)

Totalitarianism is only really 'a bad thing', an evil, for those Christians who view motivation as primary; who regard freedom or agency as central to salvation and theosis - such that only a truly free, creative, and divine decision of our truest and deepest selves is valued by God; and our actual behaviour is secondary, and indeed (since behaviour may be coerced) almost orthogonal to the divine purpose.   

Any system of any kind (whether political, in the workplace, the church or the family), of any aim, that tries to control thought, or to prevent agency - any system which tries wholly to occupy the mind - is therefore evil to this kind of Christian.

This kind of Christian - the kind that regards agency as non-negotiable and central to the faith - would regard any and all types of totalitarianism as evil; no matter how kind, how non-violent, how materially successful; and no matter how happy was the resulting society. After all; Huxley's Brave New World was almost certainly happier than any society of recent centuries.

If happiness is the number one priority; then totalitarianism is the likely means to that end and will sooner-or-later be embraced - and then (as now) the only genuine dispute relates to who is in charge of the totalitarian system.

And that question, in a nutshell, constitutes the entirety of modern mainstream politics.

Totalitarianism-in-a-good-cause - the commonest political desire?

It doesn't much matter what people say; but if you observe what they do, advocate, approve - it seems that many or most people favour totalitarianism.

All they really want is totalitarian in-line with their own ideology or religion.

And this applies to many or most Christians too - e.g. they dream of a society in which all discourse is Christian, minds are filled with the message - and opposition to this is excluded.

By totalitarian, I mean a political system that tends towards total thought-control: that is to inculcating favoured thought and prohibiting all other thought - by whatever systems and technologies are available, effective, practical.

Many societies of the past were totalitarian in this sense that it was what they wanted - but effectiveness of imposition was limited by primitive technologies of surveillance and propaganda, or the presence within society of effective opposition, or simply by disorganisation and corruption.

Why is totalitarian thought control so common a goal, even among Christians? I think the reason is that people wrongly value action above thought (just as, in practice, so many Christians behave as if action is ultimately more important than motivation).

In other words, the 'supporters' of totalitarianism are often being, as they suppose, 'practical' and focusing on what they suppose will be most effective at controlling social behaviour.

This contrasts with the intentions of those who are behind totalitarianism, which are directed at thinking rather than action.

So - on the one hand the theory of totalitarianism, its appeal, is practical effectiveness; but the actuality of totalitarianism is that it is focused on minds and interested in practicalities only as an excuse for mind-control!

The Christian message is clear that thinking is more important than action; but clearly the two interact - and actual Christians often lose sight of this fact... they become focused on 'society', on what people do - and lapse into short-cut thinking which is coercive. It has, indeed, been quite common to Christians to lose sight that they cannot impose Christianity, it is not so much forbidden as utterly impossible.

However, what happens is that the use of coercion creates a system of interpretation that is focused on actions (eg what people say, what people do) - and once this refocus has happened then totalitarianism is appealing to Christians; since it sets no limit on the totality of surveillance and control.

Whether the system is overall physically or psychologically coercive is a matter of expediency; but both are used.

My point here is that totalitarianism has a much broader appeal than commonly realised - totalitarianism is a subtle trick of the evil demonic ruling elites. They want to control minds, to induce damnation - but they offer the promise of controlling behaviour. 

Can damnation really be induced? Well it can't be caused, but it can of course be encouraged. Agency (free will) is potential in everyone - but it may be rejected. We can allow our minds to become ruled by 'automatic' processes, we can refuse to engage our agency.

And that refusal to use agency - and instead to use superficial, inculcated, or not-human types of thinking - is exactly what the demonic powers aim-at. They aim to fill minds with thoughts that deny agency; they suppress ideas of agency, autonomy, inner reality; and at the end of this people will live and die disengaged.

Disengagement is the aim of totalitarianism - disengagement of agency. To have people so harried and trammelled that they just behave - and they never think. What such people imagine to be their own thinking is not their won - it is just some kind of superficial, robotic, habitual processing which has been drilled and applied.

In a materialist world view, totalitarianism makes perfect sense - and the desire for totalitarianism is a sign of covert materialism in Christians.

Totalitarian thinking is a kind of test - a test of our fundamental assumptions: a test of metaphysics. Most people nowadays have rotten metaphysics - and that is why totalitarianism is currently so popular among so many types of people. And that is why we have such a lot of it.   

Why are so many people (including Christians) so committed to totalitarianism?

Given that it is intrinsically evil; why are so many people so keen on totalitarianism; being actively supportive in practice, if not necessarily in theory? 

I think the answer is related to the unacknowledged reality of changes in human consciousness. 

Changes in human nature have led to mass alienation - with the loss of that largely-unconscious "groupishness" of human consciousness which used to be a spontaneous source of social cohesion and inter-personal consensus. 

Through most of history until recent generations; people did not experiences themselves as wholly-separate individuals. Everybody (even, to an extent, rulers) was part-of "public opinion". 

There was a Group Mind, operating at a spiritual level. 

Because the group and the individual were not wholly separate, group norms did not need to be - and were not - experienced as having been imposed on individuals in a one-way fashion. 

When an individual experiences life as part of a group, he is himself a part of all group aims and decisions - the individual participates in the group as a matter of spiritual reality. 

In other words, in the past (to a significant, although not complete, extent) aims and decisions arose from the Group Mind; in which all individuals participated. 

 

But that spontaneous and unconscious groupishness has now all-but gone.

Individuals no longer participate spiritually in group aims and choices. Leaders do not feel themselves a part of, and in service to, a real "public opinion". 

Aims and decisions typically arise from the most powerful level of the social system - without participation of "the masses" - and these aims and decision are imposed-upon the lower levels. 

Top-down power has replaced the Group mind.   

This loss of participation has generated a visceral (and significantly valid) fear of the consequences of untrammelled individual agency. It has also enabled the one-sided manipulation of the masses by elites - with such phenomena as pervasive dishonesty, top-down propaganda, PSYOPS, and the use of terror, hatred and induced-despair as instruments of social control. 

Social cohesion nowadays must be totalitarian: material, procedural and enforced. The dangerous consequences of individualism are a problem that must be combatted. 

This is done by the integration of all human institutions, of all society (politics, churches, economics, media, law, military, police, education, science, arts etc); all social institutions are mandatorily-united under a single and all-pervasive ideology - with any opt-out regarded as actively hostile. 

The difference between modern totalitarianism and ancient theocracy is that totalitarianism is an ideology, not a religion; atheist not deist nor theist; materialist not spiritual. 

While theocracy explicitly purports to derive authority from transcendental sources (e.g. God or the gods); totalitarianism instead (but implicitly) regards goodness as impersonal, an abstraction - ideological. 

For totalitarianism; implicitly, goodness is a consequence of the system itself - a product of bureaucracy, committees, and procedures such as voting - and, especially, totalitarian goodness arises from those parts of the-one-system that are concerned with strategy, planning, long-term aims. 

So, under totalitarianism; goodness (as understood by mainstream modern people) is to be found near the top of the bureaucratic system, where it inheres abstractly; independently of the actual people involved.

And therefore this ideological faith is invulnerable to the high levels of selfish nastiness and many types of corruption of the actual people involved; invulnerable too to even extreme degrees of failure, counter-productive activity, or atrocities done by the higher bureaucracy.

For example "democracy" - which is a form of bureaucratic procedure - is regarded as good; whoever are the people involved, whatever their character or behaviour, and despite the outcomes. 

Goodness has become wholly abstract - detached from people and actuality.  

Thus for many mainstream totalitarians, goodness flows from top-level bureaucratic institutions downwards; and therefore the highest moral authority of this world inheres in strategic organizations such as the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the European Union, the Supreme Courts, and the various Courts of "Human Rights", or Truth, or Reconciliation; large charities and NGOs, the most wealthy and prestigious universities and "think tanks"... and so forth. 

For Christian totalitarians; their church is simply one of these high-level bureaucracies, organizations that both respond-to and contribute-to the ruling consensus that is enforced upon individuals by the propaganda of mass media, regulations of corporations, and laws of the lands. 

The totalitarian conceptualization is that Men are good only to the extent that they are made good by these top-down and procedural influences; and Men cohere and have common purpose only to the extent that they are part of the vast and interlinked System. 

Christian totalitarians accept the inevitability and indeed basic virtue of this model of human life and society; but desire to place the church (i.e. their church) at the pinnacle of the bureaucratic institutions. 

They envisage a world that is still totalitarian, and the individual is still to be manipulated and controlled; but they imagine a totalitarianism in which their church stands atop the UN, EU, SCOTUS, major mass media, the legal system, universities - so that church-originated ideas, rules, laws etc. will permeate all the major social institutions - and thus human life will cohere and have purpose.  

However... If totalitarianism truly is intrinsically evil (as I believe), then any such vision or hope for society cannot actually be Christian. 

It can only simulate Christianity - can only use Christian terminology to "justify" what are actually totalitarian (hence evil - i.e. on the side that is against God and creation) procedures and goals.  

For many people - insofar as they think about it at all - there is a sense that totalitarianism is inevitable; and therefore the only genuine value-choice is between a secular or a religious totalitarianism. 

The Big Question is whether this is a real choice - or whether, instead, religious/church and atheistic/ ideological totalitarianism are not, in truth, variations on The Same Thing. 

My personal understanding is that totalitarianism is indeed evil in all its forms and variants; so Christianity can only exist outwith The System -- in individuals primarily; and only in such non-institutional groups as cohere from love* primarily.

*By which I mean the kind of inter-personal and mutual love found in the best families, marriages, and friendships - at their best.

Totalitarianism is made normal - fear, resentment and despair are enforced - self-chosen damnation follows...

The totalitarian state notched up another ratchet in Britain this week. Terrorism is now proposed and accepted as normal.  Increasingly-complete mass surveillance - excused by, but not actually preventing, terrorism - is normal. Recurrent lockdown emergencies are normal. Armed police and troops in swarms are normal.

In institutional life micro-management, pervasive propaganda, constant monitoring and thought-control are now normal

The problems must continue, we are told - but in actual practice we are also told that we must adapt to them: and, it turns out, we must adapt by more totalitarianism.

The message is being hammered home by word, picture, deed and - most powerfully - by no change... except more totalitarianism.

(Totalitarianism doesn't work at preventing the problems - but that's okay, in fact that is the point! - because the problems are created as excuses for more totalitarianism, and therefore the solutions aren't supposed to prevent them!) 

Modern people put up with all this because we are hollow men, stuffed with straw; men without chests; lacking any religion hence lacking any motivation to do anything inexpedient.

To take effective action would be to invite reprisals. And to endure short term suffering en route to long term good... but for us there is No long term good. (For us, death is the end of everything; a comfortable life is the ultimate we can hope for.)

We are cowards. Because atheism doth make cowards of us all. Because not to be a coward requires a goal beyond the immediate; and for a population not to be cowardly requires some clear social goal which would be thwarted by totalitarianism. People can only be brave when they have something to be brave about.

To resist totalitarianism requires courage and a reason; courage requires being able to imagine and believe a better goal that what totalitarianism promises; a reason requires being able to imagine and believe that we, personally and now ought-to work for that better goal.

(Courage cannot be conjured from nihilism. And we modern Britons/ Westerners believe in nothing. The frenzy of a cornered rat is not courage; and is anyway utterly ineffectual against a vast totalitarian system. What is needed to escape totalitarianism is cold courage - the hardest courage of all to attain, because it is a consequence of high and firmly-held impersonal ideals.)

Atheist societies are utilitarian - in their explicit aims at least - everything done justified by making people (some people) feel better. But when/ if people's feelings are the end-point of justification, then government becomes a matter of manipulating people's feelings - which is exactly what totalitarian systems are aimed-at; which is exactly what we now have.

But what is in it for those in the leadership who deliberately create the situations that create terrorism? Those who claim it is impossible to change what they have created (because effective change is unthinkable, unsayable); so we therefore must just-accept more-of-the-same causes, so we must therefore just-accept more-of-the-same consequences: accept this as normal.

(Even as 'normal' is very obviously and very quickly getting worse: getting more totalitarian.)

What they are actually doing - on purpose, planned, with deliberation - is to create an ever-more totalitarian state. Why is this strategy so hard for people to recognise?

They aren't incompetent, they aren't well-meaning fools, they aren't self-enriching hypocrites: they are doing what they want to do, and doing it more and better every month: they are implementing totalitarianism step-by-step and they are winning! 

Why? Simple. The aim of totalitarianism, from a Christian's perspective, is not to kill us nor to make us miserable, but to get us damned. That is why they do it.

Thought control is desired in order that we will choose damnation over salvation - our thoughts will be policed, minds filled, actions directed, feelings manipulated towards sins: sins such as fear, resentment and despair.

That's it - in a nutshell: infuse fear, resentment and despair - all sins, all leading to self-chosen damnation. That is, to the active rejection of Good because Good is now considered to be evil.

This is a spiritual war. A Christian war.

We cannot conjure courage from cowards - and the Western population just are cowards - lacking cold courage. Because lacking ideals - indeed modern people cannot even imagine anything better than pleasure and comfort: that is the summit of fantasy.

First we need a basis for courage. What is needed are love and hope, based on faith in God (not feelings); and aimed at eternal joy (not comfort and convenience, amusement and the avoidance of suffering).

If totalitarian mind-control becomes complete; it will be because ultimately we did not want anything better. 

Since 2020 there are two complementary aspects to global evil: its goals, and its totalitarianism

Since the international totalitarian coup of early 2020 and the establishment of secular materialist leftism as the official ideology; we can perceive two complementary ways in which the covert world government pursues evil. 

(Just to recapitulate - my understanding is that evil is opposition to Good; and Good is God's will and divine creation. So evil is always negative and oppositional in nature. Evil is not an alternative form of the same kind of thing as Good; evil seeks the destruction of Good.) 

The first, and perhaps most obvious, is that the global establishment is aiming at evil ends, its goals are evil. 

This involves value-inversion; that is, the values positively endorsed by international and powerful national governments, the mass media, and all major social institutions (law, religions, health services, education, arts, police, military etc) all favour significant inversions of virtue and vice, beauty and repulsiveness, truth and lies. 

Values are swapped-around - so the core positive values (which are actually negative oppositions) of the global establishment are actually evils - antiracism, birdemic-healthism, anti-climate-change, anti-normal-functional sex and sexuality etc. 

The second evil is totalitarianism itself. This is the attempt to make the ruling ideology so pervasive and such a monopoly, that the masses become unable to do, think or believe anything that is officially proscribed. 

Totalitarianism is intrinsically, necessarily, always evil - from a Christian perspective. 

One cannot have 'totalitarianism in a Good cause' because that is a contradiction in terms.  

And there cannot be a "Christian totalitarianism" - that is an oxymoron. 

The reason is that Christianity requires each individual acknowledging his own ultimate responsibility for his own spiritual fate. 

Free will/ agency is absolutely required in order to choose to follow Jesus Christ. 

Anything which seeks to prevent the recognition or operation of individual agency is therefore evil. 

In sum - the global establishment is evil because they are totalitarian in aspiration, and substantially in attainment - and totalitarianism is innately and always evil. 

And the global establishment is also evil because that apparatus of totalitarianism is directed towards evil (value-inverted) ends. 

Therefore, if there was any doubt before 2020 that these are the most evil, most sinful, times in the known history of this world - there is now no doubt. 

This is our situation. 

But God never leaves a single of his children bereft of the means for salvation. We can (in principle) all be saved, resurrected, follow Jesus Christ - if we wish it. 

Even when our situation is severely suboptimal; all that we need will provided before the end - before the decision needs to be made. 

Salvation if we wish it...

That is the big 'if' - it seems that here-and-now very few want what Jesus offers...  

However, if Christians are to attain salvation in such a context, we need to know what we are up-against. Otherwise we will be seduced by totalitarianism, and follow the universal and pervasive 'authoritative guidance' into inverting evaluations, rejecting Heaven, and choosing (what will turn-out to be) Hell.  

The successful totalitarian global coup of 2020 has been breaking-up since - but world politics is still totalitarian

In 2020 those with the ability to perceive and learn, realized that we inhabited a totalitarian world: which means an evil world. 

In other words, our world is rooted in atheist, materialist, leftist assumptions; where all significant social institutions are interlinked and bureaucratically-subordinate to this ideology. 

This is why so many people have "politics" as their fundamental value; and why so many people behave as if everything is (at root) "politics". 

By "politics" they means the System of totalitarianism - "everything is politics" means that, bottom-line, everything in the public realm - discourse and behaviours, communications and actions - is part of this totalitarian system.

Since 2020, this unified world government has broken-up into two or more increasingly hostile factions; but the components are still totalitarian in their nature. 

This does not mean that all the totalitarian units are as bad as each other - they aren't, some (e.g. ours) are purposively worse than others. Some have hope of becoming better, more socially-Christian to be exact - while still ultimately totalitarian. Other factions are actively hostile to Christianity and its legacy. 

But all factions are bad in the way that totalitarianism is bad - which is a modern way (post 19th century): totalitarianism is only possible in a post-religious society, with highly developed and pervasive bureaucracy and mass media.  

What this means for religion is that all churches are part of the totalitarian system, therefore - insofar as churches are this-worldly institutions - churches are net atheist, materialist, leftist - and overall part-of-the-problem of institutional evil.

This implies that church-led "Christianity" will, overall and by net-effect, be totalitarian hence anti-Christian.

And so will church-rooted Christian people.    

Against this, and because of the nature of evil and its progression, there is an accelerating trend for the ubiquitous totalitarian societies strategically to self-destruct. 

The most evil parts of totalitarianism are those that are most pervasively and strategically orientated towards destruction in many forms - such as destroying nature ("the environment"), functionality (within and between social systems - i.e. destroying science, law, education, etc), agriculture, the health and lives of masses of people - and so on and so forth, right across the board. 

Destruction is not an explicit goal, however (except, presumably, at the power level above global totalitarianism); but instead totalitarian sub-groups are manipulated into mutual and internal destruction by their ideologies of opposition/ negation and value-inversion. 

The totalitarians are therefore induced by their ideological assumptions into incoherent sub-strategies, that accomplish the opposite of stated goals, and lead always to accelerated destruction. 

So, we find ourselves in a world where politics is everything, hence everything is politics; yet/ consequently politics is all evil - and political discourse is a clash between totalitarianisms.

It is extremely tempting to be drawn into politics, precisely because it is all-pervasive in functional discourse. This ubiquity makes it seem that politics (debate, analysis, choice, action etc) is fundamental and necessary.  

From inside The System anyone who refuses to share the assumption that "politics is primary and everything" is seen as shirking ultimate responsibility. 

Therefore we find, on the one hand, an expressed cynicism at politics; on the other hand - in practice - politics matters more to most people than anything else... 

Politics usually forms the basis of a person's world-view; and typically shapes all their other convictions and choices - including religious... 

Under totalitarianism, religion becomes primarily and mandatorily political - both in the mainstream and in dissenting groups.

Thus, subjectively; my life, my self, seem inescapably captured by The System - and the only way out seems to be political: a politics to end all politics, perhaps? 

My point is that we default to "political" discourse and convictions - under totalitarianism politics seems more important than anything, and more important than ever. 

But there is No Hope in this.

Spiritually, we must break out from the loop, which means we first need to disengage sufficiently to understand the nature of our situation: this understanding of our situation is the first and necessary step; and it is spiritually valuable in itself. 

What happens after understanding, is mainly a choice of affiliation; and when all the options in this world are evil-by-nature; then a Christian affiliation must be outwith this world.   

To me, this seems the only Good way to escape-from and subordinate the totalitarianism of "politics is everything". 

War and totalitarianism

When Orwell's 1984 was written, there seemed to be an obvious relationship between war and totalitarianism - such that (apparent) perpetual war was a condition of the continued domination of the leadership class. 

My understanding is that this was a transitional reality - true only insofar as religion retainrd a residual power to motivate. Only when the motivation for war could be assumed, and in a strong "state" - could it be inferred that war would tend to lead to the totalitarian goals of omni-surveillance and micro-regulation. 

Yet, in the long-term sufficient national motivation has turned-out to depend on a strong national religion. And since religion as a primary motivator has disappeared from all modern industrial states (excepting the Fire Nation); there is no compelling reason why war would necessarily lead to an advance in actual totalitarianism. 

(And indeed, totalitarianism per se is an atheist ideology; so that the presence of a strongly motivating religion means that the increase in social organization and reduction in individual freedoms etc. becomes more of the nature of theocracy; than totalitarianism. But, being an atheist, Orwell failed to distinguish between totalitarianism and a genuine theocracy.) 

Indeed, in the absence of significant and positive national motivation; there are good reasons to suppose the opposite would happen: i.e. that war will nowadays lead to the collapse of effective totalitarianism with a progressive break-down of hierarchy, coordination, and control. 

Here-and-now: war leads to more chaos - not to an increase of imposed-order. 

This is because the situation of national war is ripe for corruption - for manipulation, exploitation, theft, sabotage. Strategic and coordinated prosecution of the inter-national war will will be overwhelmed by the much more immediate incentives of an intra-national war of each against all. 

Even when there are explicit, long-termist, positive national goals such as survival or conquest; even when there is a genuine external threat - the proximate human and institutional motivation will be to distort and misuse these goals as a rationale for selfish short-termism. 

And without religion, the tendency over time is that proximate motives will be the strongest. 

"Soft" totalitarianism in the Third Reich: or, How many Germans did it take to control three million Danes?

During WWII, the Third Reich invaded and occupied Denmark; and for the first few years (c. 1940 into 43) this was a classic example of what people nowadays call "soft" totalitarianism - meaning, totalitarianism imposed without use of violent coercion. 

Denmark had a population of about three million - so how many Germans do you think were needed to control this population?

The answer from military historian Rowland White's recent book (Mosquito: the extraordinary true story of the legendary RAF aircraft...) is... eighty-nine. That is 89. 

Averaging one German to administer more than 30,000 Danes.  

I found this very interesting; given that the Third Reich has (for obvious reasons) become a bye-word for the most purposively-aggressive and physical form of totalitarianism. 

Of course, the handful of Germans were backed by the threat of German military might and the rest of it; yet the numbers tell us that the imposition of totalitarian rule - even during a world war! - can be and was accomplished by "soft" methods...

Presumably some mixture of factors such as effective ideological propaganda, tacit support of the regime, and the calculations of fear and expediency in a situation where "there is no alternative" and "resistance is futile". 

The value of this insight is that most people doubt that we of The West inhabit a totalitarian system of governance, because we do not see the apparatus of violent physical coercion that we have been taught is a necessary feature of such politics. 

Yet, the example of Denmark proves that rigorous and efficient "soft" totalitarian rule is possible, and effective (at least, for a few years) by a tiny number of alien controllers; combined with the cooperation (or "collaboration") of sufficient natives of the national leadership class, and the tacit consent of the bulk of the remainder.

It also seems to prove that totalitarianism works best when it is "soft" - when it deploys soft-ideas rather than hard-violence. 

How many "outsiders" does it take to rule a UK of 60 million? 

Does it just scale up proportionately to... a couple of thousand aliens? Or are the economies of scale and fewer than 2K aliens are needed. Or do the difficulties multiply exponentially and maybe... tens of thousands are needed? 

Either way, it is salutary to realize that a thoroughly totalitarian system need not deploy large numbers of external-rulers, nor physical coercion, to be a very complete and effective mechanism of mass control. 

And, of course, this is exactly what we find, here and now - could we but recognize it.

Note: Rowland White's books tells a story of how this peaceful state of soft totalitarianism was deliberately subverted by British military intelligence by developing a sabotage network, that eventually grew to provoke violent German reprisals, and "hard" totalitarianism - which led to much greater Danish resistance; and the intended transfer of many more German personnel and resources to control Denmark. This effective intervention by another alien power - i.e. the UK - is also a demonstration of how a very few people who want to destabilize a system by guerrilla methods, can do so. The whole narrative seems to me one of elite external powers manipulating the Danish masses for their own ends.   

What motivates the pro-totalitarian bureaucratic evil of mainstream Leftism (including CO2 Global warmists and pro-EU Remainers)

I have been trying to understand why it is that so many Westerners - especially in the Establishment, its servants and the intellectual-managerial classes and the mass media; embrace a whole raft of pro-totalitarian strategies and policies; and why they do so with such moralizing zeal.

This zeal can only partly be explained by the self-interest of wanting to grow the single global bureaucracy, and get jobs and status from it - because these people are overall as much in thrall to the evils and abuses of The System as everybody else.

So why do they want it to grow, why do they feel so positively about it? Why do they love Big Brother?


Why do so many such people believe with such passionate zeal in the nonsense of the Climate Change agenda? Why do so many of them regard the European Union (of all things!) as not just the best overall political option, but as absolutely vital to human well-being? Why do they - in sum - so much admire and trust, so rarely criticise, any 'global' agency, any bureaucracy or institution like the UN, WHO, EU, IPCC that merely espouses high sounding Leftist ideas (regardless of what they actually do, and fail to do).


This moralizing zeal has grown tremendously in Britain since the pro-Brexit vote of 2016. Those who opposed Brexit with righteousness are exactly the same people who want Global Agencies to implement a comprehensive system of omni-surveillance and micro-control of 'Carbon' production and sequestration, and implement a Global system of coercion to replace current with 'sustainable' energy technologies. To accomplish this they want the whole world, and (ultimately) every-body and every-thing in it, to come under control of a single, central, purposive agency.

Why the passion? It is, I believe, driven by fear.

The Leftists, Warmists, Globalists want what they want because they regard world totalitarianism as the solution to those threats which they most fear.  


The first fear is of war - because these are the same people who are 'pacifists', loud shouters for 'peace'; and pacifism was perhaps the first Western manifestation of this pro-totalitarian zeal.

Modern pacifists are not against use of coercive force (they approved bombing Syria and other Arab states - they approve the hundreds of assassinations by drone strikes, they approve Antifa violence against patriots, and aggression when practiced by the likes of Extinction Rebellion) - but pacifists want this force to be deployed by Global Agencies against the partisan wishes of (for example) Nation States, or groupings within them who oppose the totalitarian agenda - and thus (They believe) make war more likely.

They so much fear war that they actively desire an international totalitarian regime that (They believe) will make war impossible.  If war is the single worst thing, then anything is better than war; and if you believe totalitarianism will stop war - this makes sense.

They now fear Global Warming; and they fear it so much that they want a global totalitarian system to ensure that it cannot happen. The same reasoning applies - 'anything is better than' the planet being consumed by flames (and that, exactly, is the image in Their minds now) - and if totalitarianism is what it takes - so be it...


They project their fear... They fear on-behalf-of the other*: the 'third world', Palestinians; 'minorities', of women, sexual revolutionaries, immigrants, whatever. They fear that 'people' will - if not restrained - attack and oppress all such persons.

Because they fear for The Other, their fear has no knowledge, no reason, no limit - and can never be assuaged. The Other's fear cannot be addressed (indeed it is imagined, not known) - the solution can only be impersonal. Because they fear for The Other; the only possible answer is external, mandatory, comprehensive. 

They fear it, because ultimately they feel in themselves the impulse to do so. They therefore seek an im-personal solution, a final solution... A solution that must apply to everyone, everywhere, forever (because it is up-against Human Nature).

A system that works whatever the people who run it, despite the people: thus a total system, that covers all possible eventualities.

So... totalitarianism. 


Here is my understanding: 

In this Ahrimanic age, Western people fail to recognise evil when it is abstract and systemic, when it is impersonal, numerical, procedural. This is our Achilles Heel. Such evil is not just unrecognised, but regarded as good: hence the prevalence of, and increase in, value-inversion: virtue, beauty and truth are inverted - and sin (especially sexual), calculated ugliness and dishonesty are redefined (among those in-the-know, The Establishment) as 'the new good'. 

This is why we have ended-up with a world of ever-expanding, ever-encroaching bureaucracy, a world in which all the individual bureaucracies are linking up to make a Single Master Bureaucracy (that is, totalitarianism). A world where our rulers and opinion-makers nearly all want nothing more than that this system be extended over the whole planet and into the smallest interstices of life.

If the global surveillance and control system were to be put into the hands of a World Emperor with absolute power, the problem would immediately be obvious.

But when the proposal is for a system - for laws and rules, for protocols and procedures, for decision-making by committees and with votes... If the personal, if human judgment and the need for individual goodness are rigorously excluded... Well then Western people cannot perceive the problem.


Mainstream Western Leftists assume - and so deeply that they are not aware of this assumption - that the impersonal is good when its objectives are good, that the impersonal cannot be evilbecause only persons can be evil. They assume that a system can be set up so that it must be good - if adhered to; indedd the only real problem is to ensure that people actually do what they system wants. Hence they regard totalitarianism as both necessary and good.

So, that is it. Our Establishment and ruling class want global totalitarianism essentially because they are in thrall to unexamined Ahrimanic assumptions concerning the nature of good and evil, and because they are prey to free-floating fears that have been moralistically inculcated by the media and authorities.

These are not obvious fears, these fears are insidious because they are inversions and speculations; they are threats as defined by a system which needs unreal hence insoluble threats in order to justify its own perpetual growth.


Real and immediate threats are in fact taboo - and regarded as 'extreme right wing' concerns and 'conspiracy theories' - especially that biggest and worst threat of all, which is precisely the global totalitarian bureaucratic system that the Establishment and its servants are working, on so many fronts simultaneously, to implement: everywhere, and for everything - forever.


*Note added: It is the projection of fear - that is, regarding oneself as fighting on behalf of 'others' which makes Leftism so zealous and labile. After all, to be selfish is so instinctive that we have various natural ways of recognising, compensating, limiting its effects (in ourselves and others). But once fear is projected onto 'the unknown other' it becomes both abstracted and fundamentally ignorant; and also presents itself as universally-altristic. Therefore projected fear is intrinsically (intoxicatingly!) self-righteous. Under such unnatural and artifical conditions working-on second-hand and speculative data; fear expands and spreads without limit or possibility of negative feedback. The resulting state of un-moored, delusional, moralising hysteria; is familiar to all who observe Leftists from a Christian perspective.

It is inevitable that churches become part of a totalitarian society - therefore obedience to a church here-and-now = damnation

If you consider the nature of the kind of totalitarian society we inhabit in The West, it can be seen that it is inevitable that churches - including Christian churches - will be parts of The System. 

This to the same extent that these churches exist in the public realm as legal/ economic/ financial/ employing/ educational etc.) entities. 

(The nature of a totalitarian society is that all significant social institutions are necessarily part of the system of surveillance and control - which means, part of the totalitarian strategy.)

Thus, in a totalitarian society, insofar as they are significant social systems; churches will be part of The System - that is, part of the totalitarian system. 

And, totalitarian = evil* 

Therefore (under totalitarianism, in The West here-and-now) churches are evil institutions: evil in overall-effect and by their overall-aim. 

 

The consequence is that (as a strong generalization):

Obedience to churches = obedience to evil.

...Which means a positive choice to reject the salvation of Jesus Christ, and instead to choose damnation. 

This is explainable on the basis that the totalitarianism is manifested materialism, and operates by "brainwashing" people (by multiple means) to regard the external and the material as primary - indeed as the Only Real; and to subordinate, ignore or deny the inner intuitive and the spiritual. 

Churches are readily encompassed into totalitarianism; insofar as they actually function on the basis of quasi-objective laws, rules, regulations, dogmas, written documents with fixed conceptual interpretations, on the one side; and requirements for particular publicly observable behaviours (speech, writing, actions...), on the other. 

Therefore; under totalitarianism, any church that operates on the basis of public obedience to publicly observable and regulate-able behaviours is doing the work of evil: doing evil in terms of training its members to regard "the external" and "the material" as primary and mandatory. 

(What is deadly is the doctrine that salvation depends on the principle of obedience to a church which is so pernicious, rather than the specific content of that obedience.) 

So; (here and now) any church is evil in requiring obedience to itself (which is a social institution) as necessary to avoid damnation - when in reality this obedience is itself, precisely, damnation. 

It can be seen that under totalitarianism; the churches (which are part-of The System) engage in the same institutionally-imposed value-inversion that characterize totalitarian evil. 

+++

*Totalitarianism is evil because it is a manifestation of that kind of "materialist", anti-life, anti-human evil I have termed Ahrimanic; therefore evil both by its demonic-aim, and also intrinsically - by its nature. 

+++++++

NOTE ADDED: I realize that real Christians who are (here and now) members of churches do not obey them (except selectively, and on the basis of intuition and spiritual guidance - which is precisely Not to obey, in a traditional sense). 

However, too many of these people are currently dishonest or self-blinded as to the foundational Christian necessity of their own and personal discernment; which is itself a weakness and/or a sin - doubly-so when they pretend to church obedience as necessary to salvation. 

It is therefore important that such people understand what they are actually-already doing, and why; and are explicit and honest about what they are doing (at least in their own minds, if not publicly).

As we may perceive all around us in everyday life: nobody can be argued or compelled to take personal responsibility for their own choices, nor can they be argued or compelled into becoming conscious of that which they prefer to maintain unconscious. And there is a significant chance that having "bad faith" pointed-out will merely lead to an escalation of the self-distraction and displacement-activity of attacking the messenger.   

It would therefore be much better if the kind of self-identified "obedient" church-first Christians I am talking about would reach a true recognition, each from- and for-himself. 

Bureaucracy and the Mass Media are causes

To expand on a post from yesterday; people treat bureaucracy and the mass media as 'effects' (consequences of other, primary, social influences); when on the contrary - as we know from direct and personal experience - they are more like 'causes'.

We can argue over how and why B and the MM got to be as they are; but from where we stand now they are colossal Facts Of Life.

Not only that - but it is clear that both have a tendency to grow - and by similar mechanisms; because bureaucracy and the mass media Feed Upon the functional social systems - in other words they are parasitic, with a strong tendency to kill the host, before they themselves will die.

This happens because bureaucracy and the mass media can feed upon a wide range of hosts - they can even feed upon each other (although, so long as other hosts exist, that seems to have the effect of strengthening both).


Thus the media can happily feed upon politics, education, business, industry, the armed forces, the police, the health services, churches, the legal system... everything!

The media relate to other media - journalists and editors seek to influence and respond-to other journalists and editors. The major news stories in the most massive of the media move in lock-step.

The international media forms a single web, with a single - massively-amplified - voice.


And at the same time, all of these named functions have been infiltrated, colonised and subverted by bureaucracy - so that they are by now mainly 'generic bureaucracies'; each linked to all the others by rules, regulations and laws; and only to a limited degree is a hospital different from a school; or a civil service office different from the police or fire fighting forces.

All modern organisations consist mostly of managers, and are controlled by managers - and within-organisations, the managers look to satisfy the demands of other managers in other bureaucracies.

There is thus a single, linked, bureaucratic system - and it covers the world.


So that whether you look at government, schools, hospitals or the military - most of the activity in which people engage is bureaucratic; and only a small and diminishing percentage of personnel, man hours; resources of money, time and effort will be expended on the functional activity.

Although there is indeed a sense in which bureaucracy and the mass media began as 'means to an end' there is - here and now - a more important sense in which they have become (and overwhelmingly so!), ends in themselves; as when a useful epithelial tissue will break from control of the organism, become locally invasive, turn malignant, and metastasise lethally. 

The big question is why - to what purpose? If there is one massive and growing media system; one massive linked bureaucracy. And if - as we observe - both global phenomena share the same secular, leftist (= nihilistic hedonic) ideology... then what are they aiming-at?


Totalitarianism is the answer.

That is, total monitoring and control of human thinking and behaviour - the media is mostly concerned with controlling minds and the bureaucracy with controlling bodies, and the two reinforce synergistically.

The mass media and bureaucracy are aiming at totalitarianism; and they are themselves actually-existing totalitarianism: totalitarianism in action.

And who wants totalitarianism? The usual answer is 'those at the top' - but all humans are, sooner or later, brought-within the totalitarian system; indeed those at or near the top are the most closely regulated and monitored...

Every-one, every-body, all humans, stand within the system of control; only those who stand outside it will truly benefit from it.


It is not humans who benefit from a global totalitarian system, it is the immortal immaterial demonic beings who stand outside The System, that really want, aim-at, strategise-for, and stand to benefit-from totalitarianism.

And there is our answer; and the answer to why The System (the global web of media and bureaucracy) are by-their-nature secular and leftist: since secular leftism is the 'religion' invented by demons for the malefit of Man (although not, of course, shared by them).    

Why do modern totalitarian dystopias induce existential despair? (Rather than courageous resistance)

The answer is simply that both the totalitarian societies and the 'rebellious' heroes are both Godless.  Genuine, rooted and cultural Godlessness is demotivating, induces despair - and cannot support courage. 

The two great dystopias are Brave New World by Aldous Huxley and 1984 by George Orwell - both induce in the reader a feeling of helpless despair. The reason is quite simple - that AH and GO were both products of the twentieth century during which Christianity was abandoned - and first of all by the upper classes.

The characteristic despair of 20th century art is not really to do with the world wars; but with the replacement of Christianity by a this-worldly, leftist ideology. It was not about the horror and pain of massive conflict, it was about the newly-narrow perspective from which any war (or poverty, disease, or any kind of suffering) was understood and evaluated.

From that perspective, when the solitary individual (or tiny group) confronts a massive, oppressive society; society can be the only winner.


Because this is a 'war' in which there is only one 'side': and that side is society. There may be various dissident individuals; but each is up-against the interlocking power and propaganda of The System, with a relatively-immense capacity to propagandise and censor, bribe and seduce, or torment and punish.

And since the assumption is that human life begins at birth (or conception) and is terminated by death - whichever side wins in this-life, wins forever. Any society that controls (nearly) all of human life therefore is capable of infliction (what is assumed to be) total suffering.

When Orwell wrote his book, he hoped that it would provide an effective warning and preventive against totalitarianism; but because his dystopia is Godless it has had the opposite effect. What we see all around us in the West is a mass population embracing totalitarianism; in the hope that it will be 'benign' and lead to a totally-happy life. This is popular transhumanism - focused around the provision of virtual realities via electronic media.

Totalitarian transhumanism is rational - within its narrow and rigid frame of understanding. If biological life is the entirety of human experience, and political 'solutions' have comprehensively failed; then our only hope is that it will be happy (or, at least, free of suffering) - and most people have reasoned that the only hope of happiness is technological and therapeutic.


People believe in a benign Global Establishment - headed by multi-billionaires and the large media and technological corporations - because they have nothing else to believe-in. If only they can believe that the globalist Elites are benign in nature and intent; then they can hope for a virtual, drugged and technologically enhanced life of pleasant feelings (with perhaps a bit of actual sex, interspersed) - which is the highest life that modern Godless Man can conceive-of.

So a 'good' totalitarianism is the highest aspiration - by contrast, an evil totalitarianism, one that exploits and torments its people, is the worst horror.

But the typical modern Man; totalitarianism is a given, indeed it is necessary - because only if a society can be totally monitored and totally controlled, would it be possible to eliminate suffering and to provide pleasurable stimulus to all. So, any extension of centralised surveillance and bureaucratic control is welcomed - so long it can semi-plausibly be presented as a step towards universal pleasure, comfort, and convenience.


This is important to (real) Christians; firstly because it explains why it is likely that (assuming we live long enough, and Western societies do not collapse) we will all be living under a hostile totalitarianism, in which most citizens will be keen to destroy Christian institutions on the basis that they interfere with transhumanist totalitarian plans.

All Christian institutions that can be detected will be destroyed; or subverted and inverted. 

And secondly because this will be a test of our faith. especially our belief in Heaven, and in Jesus's promise that any can attain to Heaven who will follow him.

Because we will very probably each be compelled to live in a vast, overwhelming, globally-interlinked Totalitarian System; without institutional support; and without realistic hope of escape or victory... in this mortal life

Fake nationalism: "Nationalism" in 2025 is just a disguise of the totalitarian backlash

Genuine political Nationalism was the first "ideology", it came after the collapse of religion as the primary organizing principle of societies - and it was a basis for national coherence and motivation... 

But this phase was always brief (a few decades at most), and nationalism has been feeble everywhere for many decades - and in most places for a century or more. 

And nationalism cannot be revived. 

The "collective" way of thinking and behaving upon which genuine nationalism depends; was part of an earlier phase of human consciousness - a phase which is now all-but gone, and shall not return.

Mankind has changed, so that real (strong in coherence and motivation) Nationalism is not just absent currently, but just not possible from here onwards. 

Of course there are plenty of theoretical nationalists (one can espouse theoretical anything); but that means nothing in practice; when people will not (and cannot) sink their individuality into the collective consciousness. 

What we actually have in geopolitics, which is significant and influential in some nations; is various types of fake nationalism. 

Fake nationalism is an Establishment project, that has arisen in the context of the civil war among the global leadership class. 

The two sides in this war are the bureaucratic totalitarians, and the agents of chaos (i.e. the servants of Ahrimanic versus Sorathic evil). 

The totalitarians reached their peak of international power in early 2020 with the global lockdowns; but since then the agents of chaos have been waxing strong. 

At present, the agents of chaos - who are located mainly in the West; are trying to unleash all kinds of destruction such as international war, civil wars and general violence, famines (by destruction of agriculture and trade), and many kinds of disease and toxicity, economic and environmental collapse - and so forth. 

(Because destruction is easier, quicker, cheaper than construction - the agents of chaos can pursue multiple simultaneous lines of attack.)  

The official forms of nationalism that we see pitted against the agents of destruction is therefore to be understood as a fake nationalism. 

Fake nationalism is a backlash; an attempt by totalitarians to reverse the increasing policy dominance of the agents of chaos. 

It is a fake nationalism because it is not derived from the group mind of the nation; and is not motivated by promoting the well-being of the communal or collective entity that is the people of a nation. 

Fake nationalism is instead a top-down manipulative strategy from the bureaucracy, directed at a substantially individualized (indeed atomized) populace; intended and designed to strengthen the 2020-style Establishment project of omni-surveillance and total-control.

But this time, instead of the proximate goal of world totalitarianism, as argued by Trotsky (and Trotsky's descendants are now among the premier agents of chaos - having moved from world revolution to global destruction); we are getting "totalitarianism in one nation" analogous to Stalin's strategy of securing communist power and influence within the USSR. 

That is all that modern "nationalism" really amounts to: it is "Totalitarianism in one nation". 

The problem is that when confronted by the agents of chaos who are, for example, trying to continue and expand and escalate WWIII - the bureaucratic totalitarians seem to be (and perhaps are) so much less evil than the agents of chaos, as to appear almost "good"!  

It is therefore very tempting to be induced to lend our support (our "hearts and minds") to one or another of the Fake Nationalists - in our own nation, or some other. 

Therefore; when confronted by the lesser-evil of Fake Nationalists; we need to remember and hold in mind that they are not good; that their motivations, methods and aims are all evil - simply because totalitarianism is intrinsically and necessarily evil. 

And I mean spiritually evil: because the highest-level and implicit goal of totalitarianism is the damnation of Men.  

Totalitarianism is spiritual warfare - example of the sexual revolution

People usually have the wrong idea about totalitarianism, because they assume it is politically-motivated - whereas it is in essence a form of spiritual warfare.

The wrong assumption is that totalitarianism is ultimately trying to control human behaviour, and that thought-control is merely an effective method of inducing the desired behaviours (by getting people to want to do, exactly what The System wants them to do...).

But in fact the opposite is the case: 'total' behavioural-control is just a mechanism for controlling thinking.

Therefore, for totalitarianism thought-control is the aim and its 'end' - and the various social mechanisms - such as omni-surveillance, micro-management, propaganda, terror and pervasive bureaucracy - are merely means to that end.

The sexual revolution provides an illustration. The significance of the perpetual revolution in sexuality and sexual identity is that it is an effective means of spiritual corruption. By monitoring and controlling sexual behaviour, the totalitarian system is able to control thought.

When people are encouraged and compelled to engage in sexual behaviours (spoken, written, social, and physical) that conflict-with and contradict biological functionality and Christian morality, the effect is to control thought in the desired direction - to corrupt by subversion and eventually explicit inversion of The Good.

And that is the purpose. If The System can get people to do wrong, by a system of near-total behaviour control, then evil thinking strongly tends to follow. When actual sexual behaviour is implicitly underpinned by a denial of the objectivity of morality, by materialist assumptions, and by an hedonic ethic - there will usually follow erosion of the ideals of God and eternal life, marriage and family.

By using totalitarian influence and power to effect a revolution in mass human sexual behaviour, the net effect will be self-chosen damnation, a deliberate and explicit embrace of evil and rejection of The Good.

And that is the ultimate objective. Which is why totalitarianism is intrinsically anti-Christian. 

The dividing of sheep from goats - an essential part of God's work

Why is the Western world getting worse; why is materialistic-Leftism triumphant; why are we being incrementally crushed by the imposition of totalitarian bureaucracy? What meaning can such experiences have for us, in terms of God's plan of creation?
 

My assumption is that God's motive for creation is love, and that a major aim is to enable people to choose to join with God in the 'project' of loving creation. So, the hope is that some people will choose to learn from their experiences to make the choice of Heaven.

Since Heaven is a place of love, only those who can love can dwell there - or indeed would want to dwell there. An analogy is a loving family; because that is the ultimate basis of Heaven - God's family. For those who love the loving family, it is the best possible situation - but for those incapable of love or who reject love, the family is an abhorrent situation: oppressive and boring.   

Another assumption is that Men are free agents, and God does not know who has capacity for love or who will make the ultimate choice that love is primary. Therefore such matters can only be decided by experience. In other words, who wants and who does not want love is something that emerges as creation proceeds - creation is a situation of testing and development, during which each person's attitude to love becomes apparent.

More exactly, each person is brought to a point of decision, from which is determined whether he is a sheep - who chooses Heaven, or a goat - who rejects Heaven. Of course, such a decision can be and is often deferred, but the point of decision is at least when Heaven is chosen permanently.

It seems that resurrection into Heaven - made possible through Jesus Christ - is an eternal commitment, and the possibility that this commitment to love is eternal is a vital aspect of Heaven.

So there is a sense in which the ongoing processes of God's creation are a means to the end of self-sorting ('assortative partitioning') into sheep and goats: more exactly a means to self-sorting of sheep into Heaven eternally; and goats into some-other-destiny (not Heaven, maybe not eternal).


Let me provide an analogy based upon my thirty-something years of working in universities. The situation of universities became more evil over this time, mainly due to the progressive introduction of bureaucracy which was also the imposition of leftist-materialist (ultimately anti-Christian; thus anti Truth, Beauty and Virtue) ideology.

In this context of step-wise increase in evil, people reacted variously. Some people disagreed-with and reacted-against bureaucracy; other people saw its evil went along with it for selfish and short term reasons (e.g. careerism); others simply did not regard creeping totalitarianism (towards omni-surveillance and micro-control) as being bad or evil... They liked totalitarianism, materialism, the inversion of morality and truth... they wanted more of it.

People who perceived the evil and repented it correspond to the sheep. These are the people who comprehend and share God's values, and who want to dwell in a situation where such values prevail, which includes being a situation among others that have made an eternal commitment to God's values. Heaven is a place where Men participate with God in the work of loving creation.

The goats, in this analogy, are those who respond to experience of creeping totalitarianism with approval. They are either not capable of love or else have chosen to reject the primacy of love and put some other values in its place - for example leftist political values or the sexual revolution; and these values trend inevitably towards inversion of Christian-values.

Those who see the evil of bureaucracy but go along with it for the time being, for careerist reasons; correspond with those who are not yet sorted into sheep or goats. They have not yet decided. Their decision is being deferred.

What happened and continues to happen is that the situation continues to get worse; universities become more bureaucratic and totalitarian and evil. Their original-residual Christian values become more destroyed, subverted and inverted. And one consequence is that the unsorted are put under increasing pressure, as evil impinges upon them more and more obviously and potently.

Under this increasing evil - individuals will either repent and rebel; or else it will become revealed that they approve of bureaucratic totalitarianism: they will be self-assorted into sheep and goats.

Those sheep with loving natures will, sooner or later, come to the point of rejecting The System. Those goats who lack the capacity for love, or actively reject the primacy of love, will actively, consciously, choose to join with the strategic evil of The System... they will live to succeed in the ever-less-loving, ever-more-materialistic inverted-world of totalitarian bureaucracy. 


The above example is, therefore, a microcosm of what is going-on in God's creation. It is also an explanation of why - in some times and places - it is valuable that 'things' get worse. The most-good sheep are able to learn from 'mild' experience that they want to choose love. They don't benefit from harshening (more evil) conditions.

But there are other sheep with more mixed motivations, less naturally good, who require the kind of increasing evil, increasing pressure, increasing clarity of creeping-totalitarianism - for them to awaken, repent and rebel - and choose Heaven.

This is, therefore, a possible explanation of the meaning why 'things are coming to a point' in the modern West.

How the neglect/ suppression of the real nature of Communism and 'Fascism' led to our current (unrecognised) atheist totalitarianism

My high school education took place in the 1970s, and as a result I had a pretty solid understanding of Communism - and its evils. I knew about both the Russian and Chinese versions; and these were expounded alongside National Socialism in Germany as variations on the theme of totalitarianism - three ideologies with many similarities and lesser distinctions.

George Orwell has been by-far the most influential advocate of this analysis; but it was the Western norm up into the 1970s.

But in contrast, the next generations were taught very little indeed about Communism. The 'totalitarian' analytic category was not used. Instead both school and culture hammered home, again and again, an indictment of the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP; in English, National Socialist Workers Party of Germany) as the unique and greatest evil of world history.

However NSDAP is nearly-always abbreviated to Nazi, presumably to de-emphasise its roots in Socialism and its Communist-like pro-worker stance. And nowadays the NSDAP is treated as an "extreme Right Wing" party.


What was not made clear - even up to the 1970s - was that these examples (Russia, Germany, China) were all among the rare instances in human history of explicitly atheist states. Because this unfying atheism was seldom mentioned, and because the post-mid-sixties generation took secularism for granted; its significance was missed. (This particular neglect has - of course - continued.)

And because atheism as the core and unifying feature of the twentieth century totalitarianisms was missed; the seeds of our current falsehood were sown.

It used to be said (from the late 1940s and until the middle 1970s) that Communism and National Socialism were examples of extremes meeting. The idea was that Communism and National Socialism were opposites, Left and Right, but at the extremes Left and Right circle around and join-up.

This is a devastating error. In fact, Communist and Nazi are merely variations on the same basic ideology, which is Leftism.

National Socialism is merely Communism moderated by Nationalism (i.e. Nazis were moderate Communists); because in the middle twentieth century Communism was ideologically inter-nationalist (as with their theme song).


More specifically, National Socialism (and indeed, also the earlier Italian Fascism under Mussolini, and the later Falangist-atheist/ Roman Catholic alliance of Franco in Spain) was a reaction-against the internationalism and socially-destructive extremity of Communism.

Because after the Russian Revolution there was a widespread (and apparently justified) fear that Communism would spread across Europe. National Socialism in Germany was a Socialist Workers party, exactly the same as Communism (and appealing to a similar proletarian base); but was nationalist and patriotic, which enabled the different classes to work together under the revolutionary new arragements.

Rather than the attempt being made, as in the USSR, to exterminate the bourgeoisie and the ex-aristocrats; instead the NSDAP imposed a new ruling class of 'lower class' party members (mostly derived from the non-gentry, 'blue-collar' middle class, in practice: e.g. Hitler had been a Non-Commissioned Officer). However, (unlike Communism) although aristocratic titles and privileges were abolished; the ex-Junker nobility, Professors, writers and artists, clerks and schoolteachers etc were all welcome to join the national ('workers') effort; so long as they endorsed the new ideology. Apparently, most of them accepted.


Thus National Socialism was far more effective and efficient than 'pure'/ extreme Communism, since it succeeded in mobilizing a far greater proportion of the population - across all classes; because it repudiated some of the insane inversions of Communism, and also because the NSDAP replaced religion with an intense, supernaturalistic, ritually and symbolically-supported cult of The Fuhrer.

The hatred of Communists for Nazis is therefore the hatred of the ideological purist for the moderate pragmatist. On the other side; the hostility of Nazis to Communism was itself the springboard of their success with both the German workers and the ruling class.

The traditional German nobility and gentry correctly perceived that (in the short/medium-term, anyway) - when the range of possible choice had been reduced to Nazi or Communist, they would be much better-off under the NSDAP than Communism.


Anyway; it can be seen that the recent global totalitarian coup was made possible by the decades of neglect and disinformation concerning Communism, and the misrepresentation of Nazis as 'extreme Right Wing' -- rather than an understanding of the nature of generic atheist totalitarianism that encompasses both.

(Part of this was also a false representation of the essence of the Nazi system as being anti-semitism; whereas this was mostly a peculiarity of Hitler himself, and not-at-all intrinsic to the NSDAP system of government.)

Furthermore, the lack of of comprehension concerning the atheist roots of totalitarianism has affected the opposition to mainstream post-middle-1960s New Leftism - because there is a false belief in 'a non-religious Right'.

Whereas there never has been, and never can be, a non-religious Right; and all purported examples of non-religious Right are actually merely (more or less) moderate forms of Leftism; just like the NSDAP.


All forms of political atheism are 1. Leftist, and 2. Totalitarian. The only thing which disguises this is social inertia; and as older (religious-reared) generations die-out, all possible secular societies will move Left towards the extreme of psychotic Communism.

Thus, since the entire West (and developed nations) have been atheist for some decades - all-without-exception are now (and for the past few months) extreme Leftist and under totalitarian rule. 


The only genuine opposition to totalitarianism is therefore from those who wish to put religion at the centre of the political system: those who regard religion as more important than politics (or anything else).

And the only legitimate dispute among those who oppose Leftism is: Which Religion?

The spiritual failure of All objective Systems (including institutions and corporations, including churches)

What we have witnessed over the past century is the failure of each and all Systems to be sufficiently spiritual that they can avoid the gravitational pull of corruption by totalitarianism (which is intrinsically evil). 

In other words, all Systems - which include all churches, and every other kind of spiritual organization (such as Rudolf Steiner's Anthroposophical Society) have become detached from the individual and personal sources which were their only link with the spiritual. 

In making religion or spirituality into a System - the essence has been made objective, social, public - and therefore they have been corrupted. 

This did not necessarily happen in the more remote past, because individual humans who operated within Systems were spontaneously (often unconsciously) spiritual Beings - that is, people just-were in-touch-with the world of spirit, gods, the dead - the supernatural, the magical etc. This inevitably had a spiritually-leavening effect upon even the most rational, mathematical, objective kind of System. 

Another aspect was that people were spontaneously and necessarily group-ish in their consciousness and behaviour. 

But as people became more fully "modern" - which is to say alienated, cut-off from the world of spirit, and from human groups; they ceased to leaven the objective structures of institutions with an unconscious spirituality - and the institutions became "objective" - on the surface, public, bureaucratic - in their essence. 

The individual human had to conform to the System, subordinate to it, obey it; in a one-way fashion - and thus totalitarianism was born.

Now, from here-and-now, there is no hope in Systems; including no hope in any possible or conceivable Church or spiritual organization - because these are now objective social structures in their essence. 

Detached, alienated, cut-off from the spiritual. Their structure and processes exclude the spiritual. 

That is why all Systems/ Institutions/ Organizations etc have become assimilated to totalitarianism. It is impossible that they would not be, because they cannot be anything else.  

To put it another way: As of 2025, there is no System that can - of itself - lead to positive spiritual results; and the stronger and more comprehensive is the System - the more spiritual harm it will be doing. 

**

Note added: If you are one of those who manage to convince yourself that Yes, this is true! All Systems are indeed assimilated to totalitarianism for everyone... But not for my church...

Then I would say - think again just how much discernment, evaluation and selectivity you have to apply to your church in order to be able to deny that it is fundamentally corrupted... just how much of your church you must in fact ignore in order to regard it as essentially true. 

And consider that the amount of discernment, evaluation, selectivity and ignoring that you must apply is continually increasing. 

Reversing the collapse/ suicide of the West: Everything seems to have been tried, and failed

As a cheery reflection! - as I read through histories and early accounts of the problem of the collapse of The West; it does begin to seem that everything designed to reverse it has - by now, somewhere or another - been tried and has failed. 

All the many would be solutions have not just failed to fly: they couldn't even take-off. 

The problem seems to lie too deep to be addressed - it lies, indeed, in changes in the nature of actual human beings, en masse; and it has to do with the nature of human groups, the relation of the individual with the collective. 

Humans used to be effortlessly, because intrinsically, semi-collective beings - like it or like-it-not, we participated in the life of the group; and conceptualized ourselves thus.

Such participation was inevitably religious - except for a brief (one generation?) transitional semi-religion that could be called "nationalism". 

That doesn't happen any more. The 20th century replacement of group participation and religion was totalitarianism - which is top-down brainwashing, surveillance and group-control by massive propaganda, censorship, with bureaucratic linkage of all institutions/ organizations/ corporations etc (including treating the family, legally and in public discourse, as if it was an institution). 

Totalitarianism has been, increasingly for about a century, the basis of Western Civilization - yet totalitarianism is visibly failing, by the week.

Thus, totalitarianism is no longer an option. yet all suggested and imaginable alternatives are tried-and-failed (as well as being essentially unwanted by the masses - who have by-now lost all positive and strong life-motivations).

Western man (and increasingly all human beings) just are individuals - that is the fact of it: that is how we are built to experience the world and ourselves. 

The collective is feeble, and getting feebler - because it cannot positively motivate us - and double-negative motivations are destroying the civilization with accelerating rapidity. 

So -- collapse of The West (and maybe world society) is baked-in, accelerating; and attempts to avert it make things worse in the long term (indeed, often immediately); and there are no valid alternatives that will sustain The West - even in theory! 

It might seem obvious that it is time to move on to other themes! 

With zero possibility of large scale communal life - then we ought to be orientating away from it, surely? 

Instead; the search for a political-communal answer gets more desperate - even as it gets lazier, less rigorous, less truthful - more superficial. 

Hand-waving doesn't begin to describe the pathetic, dead-in-the-water plans and schemes that are floated, propagated, defended - with an aggressive emotionality that (quite obviously!) merely disguises a deep weakness of conviction. 

Yet, honestly conceived, all this is extraordinarily liberating; and points towards the necessity of a life that is more wholly creative in its fundamental nature, than anything that was possible (or desirable) at any earlier point in human history. 

But (it seems to me) that this is only possible in the context of a Christian faith that has itself discarded the assumptions of earlier, top-down and bureaucratic religion. 

In other words, we first need to recognize in our hearts that Christianity is/ salvation is/ theosis is (and always was meant to be) ultimately, a personal and individual and creative matter. 

We are not only much freer than we realize, we are much freer than most people want or are prepared to acknowledge; nonetheless, incrementally, the reality of that freedom is being forced upon us by circumstance.

That is partly because people have become distractible and dishonest about regarding freedom as a political - hence external - concept... As some-thing that can be taken-from-us. 

But the freedom that matters eternally, is the kind that cannot be taken away; or, to put it positively; we are free whether we like it or not. 

The profound freedom of the creative life or "genius quest" emerges naturally and irresistibly from that recognition. 

Rather than being a part of the fake "Alternative" economy and promoting it self-interestedly; it's spiritually better to have a job explicitly in service to evil totalitarianism - and repent the fact

Rather than being a part of the fake-"Alternative" economy; and defending it on the untrue basis that it is genuinely Alternative; it is spiritually better to have a job explicitly in service to evil totalitarianism, and to know that is what you are doing. And to repent the necessity. 

The idea that there is any qualitatively-distinct "alternative" economy - independent-from and opposed-to the mainstream System of socio-political discourse and exchange - is itself part of that totalitarian System.

That there is an "Alternative" is delusional; because All institutions of any significant size/ wealth/ power/ influence are necessarily bound to the mainstream by multiple legal, financial and regulatory ties; or else the institution could not arise and be sustained. 

(This also applies to churches.) 

Nobody can run any kind of operation that pays taxes, employs people, has property etc - and also be autonomous. 

And if you are part of the System - you serve the System.  

Since nobody can qualitatively escape working for The System, since everything that pays us a living wage is compelled to serve Caesar; the essential is to know and repent that plain fact. 

Jesus apparently didn't try to stop people working as publicans or tax collectors (or even priests! e.g. Nicodemus) - but he did insist that they acknowledge that they are thereby (as well as for innumerable other reasons) sinners. 

This repentance at the inevitability and inescapability of being-a-sinner in this mortal life and world; is part of what being-a-Christian requires of us.

And why people whom society regarded as especially "bad" by the nature of their jobs, were so often the earliest followers of Jesus. 

So given that we are all in the same boat in a qualitative sense, and that quantitative differences make no significant difference to salvation; why am I saying that it is sometimes/ often worse to regard oneself as part of the Alternative sector?

The reason is simply that such people suppose themselves to be qualitatively and significantly more virtuous than those who are part of the mainstream - by virtue of the source of their income. 

And therefore, instead of acknowledging and repenting their servitude to evil totalitarianism, they continually celebrate their own moral superiority to others!

Indeed - such people (almost invariably) are engaged in active promotion of their bit of the pseudo-Alternative - and therefore promotion of The System. They want our attention time, support, and money; for themselves and their enterprise. And this is dishonestly justified by the false pretence that this selfishly-beneficial redirection will subvert and (maybe?... eventually?...) replace totalitarianism. 

But the beginning of wisdom is to know that in our this-worldly lives we all serve Caesar; and that, as of 2025, Caesar serves Satan.