Take a look at this video where Bret Weinstein and Dr Ameet Malhotra discuss and dissect this complete failure we are all witnessing. For two very scientifically oriented dissidents they take a deep dive into the denial that seems to have afflicted so many of their peers. The term they use - willful blindness - covers a lot of ground explaining how so many experienced intelligent people prefer to cover their ears and go la la la. For some it’s motivated by fear of financial loss or societal acceptance and for others it’s the arrogance of refusing to accept they’ve been duped. After all nobody likes to be made a fool especially when people have looked up to them their entire life. So for as long as they possibly can, they play along and encourage the mass ignorance. “Yes the emperor has lovely clothing. Of course I can see it. Don’t you?” https://youtu.be/4MKQ0krjLpo
It'll be repression. We have it coming to us. Unless an epiphany happens and society takes a 180, and that seems very very doubtful. My latest article talks about the lack of epiphanies and how we all live with our heads buried in the sand.
Maybe 100 years from now repentance will happen. I look forward to your other installments of this series.
On a Sunday where I regrettably have to stay home from services (and, alas, an Epiphany party, too!) due to borderline cold symptoms, reading your new year's essay is a blessing. It reminds me of certain things Eliot says in "Four Quartets." This began as piece of new year's reflection, so it's interesting what you say: "There have been 56 New Year's Days in my life and all have felt depressing to me. This focus on remembering what happened last year and predicting what is going to happen this year is all so ponderous and joyless to me." And especially where you say, "So I'm not going to worry about the upcoming year and the earthly, finite hell that awaits us. I'm saved and just need to live my life as one who has eternal life and wants everyone else to have it as well."
Glad you thought my first installment worthwhile; sobering that someone with your wisdom so readily assumes our finite fate is Repression.
But yes, "There will come a time when I won't see another New Year’s rung in."
An important commentary! In my book Words from the Dead I discuss the 19th century utopian satire Erewhon by Samuel Butler. In it, a Victorian British explorer stumbles on a remote kingdom whose evolution took them to great heights of technology, but then realized how certain technologies were causing more harm than good. (Social media, trans humanism and mRNA injections, I'm looking at you.) At that point, the Erewhonians stepped back, had a society-wide consultation, and decided to limit their technologies to only those with proven benefits to society. I argue in the book that this is the conversation our society now needs desperately to have. Will it happen? Doubtful. Humans have seldom stepped back from the brink of disaster before it's too late, especially when so many fortunes depend on maintaining the murderous status quo.
Nearly every civilization in history has reached a similar point, where corruption and greed end up weaponizing technology against its own citizens. This usually comes at the point in the civilization, historian Arnold Toynbee explains, when the elites have stopped leading by example and begin leading by force and compulsion. Not hard to see we've arrived at that point now. This is typically followed quickly by total collapse, though in Toynbee's thesis, this is "in the nature of an act of suicide," not destruction from outside.
But I would be delighted to be proved wrong and for a society-wide epiphany of Repentance to come!
Take a look at this video where Bret Weinstein and Dr Ameet Malhotra discuss and dissect this complete failure we are all witnessing. For two very scientifically oriented dissidents they take a deep dive into the denial that seems to have afflicted so many of their peers. The term they use - willful blindness - covers a lot of ground explaining how so many experienced intelligent people prefer to cover their ears and go la la la. For some it’s motivated by fear of financial loss or societal acceptance and for others it’s the arrogance of refusing to accept they’ve been duped. After all nobody likes to be made a fool especially when people have looked up to them their entire life. So for as long as they possibly can, they play along and encourage the mass ignorance. “Yes the emperor has lovely clothing. Of course I can see it. Don’t you?” https://youtu.be/4MKQ0krjLpo
Love Bret & Heather! Could you tell me when in the vid they discuss the idea of "willful blindness?"
It was about half way through. I listened while driving so I didn’t catch the exact time.
Got it! 24:00 fwd for several minutes.
It'll be repression. We have it coming to us. Unless an epiphany happens and society takes a 180, and that seems very very doubtful. My latest article talks about the lack of epiphanies and how we all live with our heads buried in the sand.
Maybe 100 years from now repentance will happen. I look forward to your other installments of this series.
On a Sunday where I regrettably have to stay home from services (and, alas, an Epiphany party, too!) due to borderline cold symptoms, reading your new year's essay is a blessing. It reminds me of certain things Eliot says in "Four Quartets." This began as piece of new year's reflection, so it's interesting what you say: "There have been 56 New Year's Days in my life and all have felt depressing to me. This focus on remembering what happened last year and predicting what is going to happen this year is all so ponderous and joyless to me." And especially where you say, "So I'm not going to worry about the upcoming year and the earthly, finite hell that awaits us. I'm saved and just need to live my life as one who has eternal life and wants everyone else to have it as well."
Glad you thought my first installment worthwhile; sobering that someone with your wisdom so readily assumes our finite fate is Repression.
But yes, "There will come a time when I won't see another New Year’s rung in."
An important commentary! In my book Words from the Dead I discuss the 19th century utopian satire Erewhon by Samuel Butler. In it, a Victorian British explorer stumbles on a remote kingdom whose evolution took them to great heights of technology, but then realized how certain technologies were causing more harm than good. (Social media, trans humanism and mRNA injections, I'm looking at you.) At that point, the Erewhonians stepped back, had a society-wide consultation, and decided to limit their technologies to only those with proven benefits to society. I argue in the book that this is the conversation our society now needs desperately to have. Will it happen? Doubtful. Humans have seldom stepped back from the brink of disaster before it's too late, especially when so many fortunes depend on maintaining the murderous status quo.
Nearly every civilization in history has reached a similar point, where corruption and greed end up weaponizing technology against its own citizens. This usually comes at the point in the civilization, historian Arnold Toynbee explains, when the elites have stopped leading by example and begin leading by force and compulsion. Not hard to see we've arrived at that point now. This is typically followed quickly by total collapse, though in Toynbee's thesis, this is "in the nature of an act of suicide," not destruction from outside.
But I would be delighted to be proved wrong and for a society-wide epiphany of Repentance to come!