"Friend of the pod" Eugyppius recently wrote a piece discussing why it is that the regime seems incapable of maintaining its control of popular opinion. I have some further thoughts on this.
"The goal of propaganda is not to convince you that infinite immigrants is a good thing, that transgenderism is a good thing, that the war in Ukraine is a good thing or that Covid lockdowns and vaccine mandates were a good thing. The goal of propaganda is the maintenance of the system itself. The goal of propaganda is to keep you aligned with the project of modernity."
In here you can see the power of dialectic. The propoganda tells us that "immigration policy" is an "issue." There are two, maybe three sides to the issue, and we have to decide for ourselves which side we support. But the issue has now been irreversibley defined as something to be addressed by the system, by policy, and as an informed voting participant in the system we have to acknowledge it as such. You could extend this to the creation of the word "immigration" itself, and its insinuation into common use.
Yes. Exactly. This is a really good observation. They want to make all of these issues essential to the future of modernity itself. But by attaching themselves to one particular policy, one ideological platform item as essential to the future of modernity itself, they have now boxed themselves in, making it increasingly difficult to both pivot and to do what needs to be done to sustain modernity as long as possible.
Including when they no longer believe in the "conservative" Progress and State. When in the name of those, and in respectability tied to those, our "conservatives" which is a type of propoganda.
Relatedly, I'm arguing recently that 2025 will be the year our conservative leaders finally begin, w/ help from RFK, to redeem themselves for their cowardly participation in the legacy media’s suppression of the millions-killed by Covid-Vaxxes story, or the year they enslave themselves to it. https://pomocon.substack.com/p/2025-supservatives-2025
I hope you will forgive me for what I suspect will be a very long response to your piece today. I am moved with gratitude by your poignancy and deep insights.
Without your patient elucidation, I would never have conceived it possible that we want propaganda, that we need propaganda, that in fact it is propaganda that holds our technological society together.
Nonetheless, here we are now with all of our former propaganda strewn across the landscape.
Those who still hope for the previous order to be repaired and rectified will not see their wish come to fruition.
A sufficient number of people have seen and cannot unsee the wreckage. The form in which our propaganda had manifest itself was broken when it became a vessel for ideology and was no longer nimble, nor able to pivot.
A new mass man is born. He recognizes the desperation in his counterpart's eye for a new meaning. Their numbers swell and the search has ensued. They discover who steps forward at this time. In some sense, it is they themselves who have conjured into existence their new mythos. Their new king. A new propaganda to coordinate the will of alienated individuals.
Between where we are now and a new order towards which we are heading, lies peril. Is it the peril of the passage or the peril of the destination?
I felt the warmth of solace when you spoke of an older way of understanding the world when history was not a thing for humans, but something which God himself orchestrated. I feel ashamed to have cast aspirations towards the state as to a god. I reach back, but the time is too far gone for "consolation ". Though it can be held in thought momentarily, everywhere all about us, others will seize "history ". So, the good and right orientation dies on the vine, at least for a wider world.
In the story of the tower of Babel there was ambition and even defiance. Still, what can also be seen is an ample display of noble intent. It is a relatable story for our times. They had a desire to coalesce, a dream to seek the heavens, to fulfill a common destiny, focusing their efforts, resisting the scattering that God had intended.
There is an aspect of the story which is incredibly futuristic. The Lord observed that if as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. There is a chilling foreshadowing in those words.
We know that the project of some version of the perfect society, serially sought after, will fail. At the same time, our scope expands. The tools at our disposal increase in power. This is the mood of our coalescing. There is, though, an opposite mood of tearing asunder.
As an example, there are EMP weapons that have been made ready for deployment by various countries. We will not fear the plans of Elon Musk, the totalizing of AI or the dangerous advancements of biotechnology if civilization itself unravels because someone has pulled the plug.
To coalesce, to scatter. Perhaps it's like the tide. Waves roll continually to shore, but the tides set a longer tempo. Which moment are we in?
To those who maintain the system that integrates and aligns us, a moment of fracture. Those who have imbibed the ideology have only harmonized their own members and have despised the recipients of their message. They will be swept away, for the product is ineffective and offensive.
For those committed to "making things work ", I see an image of Atlas holding up the sky. An impossible feat. Even Atlas longed to give away the burden, if only for a brief release. Atlas had vision, because he realized correctly the warning of prophecy. Yet his keen foresight and his cunning did not save him and he was turned to stone.
Those bearing the burden of Atlas need not forge a mighty edifice that scales in complexity to the previous project whose bricks are jarred from their place on high and cast to the ground.
Atlas need post no neon signs to utopia. The people are injured in their disillusionment, but this is the beginning of maturity. They yearn from such simple needs whose fulfillment has grown precious to them through long deprivation. The people don't seek shiny new objects, but merely the recognition that they are fit to serve and welcomed to contribute. Although they have been rendered bereft, they are, even now, capable of sacrifice.
Truth - subtle, perceived and discovered is a holy salve in these times. A model of a life with the possibility of purpose, shorn of the stifling, egregious management imposition will carry many a person forward.
For the receptive person, if provided an indication that God acts in this world, he will look for answers beyond the worldly claims. If he is asked to consider the mystical in the senses that the Almighty has endowed in His creation, he will find wonders undreamed of in all our science.
The people have inescapably absorbed dissonance towards alignment with systematic schemes. However, for the recipient of a rare and exceedingly valuable word of truth, he will be encouraged to take his tentative steps, in awareness that wisdom is received and arrogance is ruin, and what he builds will stand.
"The goal of propaganda is not to convince you that infinite immigrants is a good thing, that transgenderism is a good thing, that the war in Ukraine is a good thing or that Covid lockdowns and vaccine mandates were a good thing. The goal of propaganda is the maintenance of the system itself. The goal of propaganda is to keep you aligned with the project of modernity."
In here you can see the power of dialectic. The propoganda tells us that "immigration policy" is an "issue." There are two, maybe three sides to the issue, and we have to decide for ourselves which side we support. But the issue has now been irreversibley defined as something to be addressed by the system, by policy, and as an informed voting participant in the system we have to acknowledge it as such. You could extend this to the creation of the word "immigration" itself, and its insinuation into common use.
Yes. Exactly. This is a really good observation. They want to make all of these issues essential to the future of modernity itself. But by attaching themselves to one particular policy, one ideological platform item as essential to the future of modernity itself, they have now boxed themselves in, making it increasingly difficult to both pivot and to do what needs to be done to sustain modernity as long as possible.
Including when they no longer believe in the "conservative" Progress and State. When in the name of those, and in respectability tied to those, our "conservatives" which is a type of propoganda.
Relatedly, I'm arguing recently that 2025 will be the year our conservative leaders finally begin, w/ help from RFK, to redeem themselves for their cowardly participation in the legacy media’s suppression of the millions-killed by Covid-Vaxxes story, or the year they enslave themselves to it. https://pomocon.substack.com/p/2025-supservatives-2025
I hope you will forgive me for what I suspect will be a very long response to your piece today. I am moved with gratitude by your poignancy and deep insights.
Without your patient elucidation, I would never have conceived it possible that we want propaganda, that we need propaganda, that in fact it is propaganda that holds our technological society together.
Nonetheless, here we are now with all of our former propaganda strewn across the landscape.
Those who still hope for the previous order to be repaired and rectified will not see their wish come to fruition.
A sufficient number of people have seen and cannot unsee the wreckage. The form in which our propaganda had manifest itself was broken when it became a vessel for ideology and was no longer nimble, nor able to pivot.
A new mass man is born. He recognizes the desperation in his counterpart's eye for a new meaning. Their numbers swell and the search has ensued. They discover who steps forward at this time. In some sense, it is they themselves who have conjured into existence their new mythos. Their new king. A new propaganda to coordinate the will of alienated individuals.
Between where we are now and a new order towards which we are heading, lies peril. Is it the peril of the passage or the peril of the destination?
I felt the warmth of solace when you spoke of an older way of understanding the world when history was not a thing for humans, but something which God himself orchestrated. I feel ashamed to have cast aspirations towards the state as to a god. I reach back, but the time is too far gone for "consolation ". Though it can be held in thought momentarily, everywhere all about us, others will seize "history ". So, the good and right orientation dies on the vine, at least for a wider world.
In the story of the tower of Babel there was ambition and even defiance. Still, what can also be seen is an ample display of noble intent. It is a relatable story for our times. They had a desire to coalesce, a dream to seek the heavens, to fulfill a common destiny, focusing their efforts, resisting the scattering that God had intended.
There is an aspect of the story which is incredibly futuristic. The Lord observed that if as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them. There is a chilling foreshadowing in those words.
We know that the project of some version of the perfect society, serially sought after, will fail. At the same time, our scope expands. The tools at our disposal increase in power. This is the mood of our coalescing. There is, though, an opposite mood of tearing asunder.
As an example, there are EMP weapons that have been made ready for deployment by various countries. We will not fear the plans of Elon Musk, the totalizing of AI or the dangerous advancements of biotechnology if civilization itself unravels because someone has pulled the plug.
To coalesce, to scatter. Perhaps it's like the tide. Waves roll continually to shore, but the tides set a longer tempo. Which moment are we in?
To those who maintain the system that integrates and aligns us, a moment of fracture. Those who have imbibed the ideology have only harmonized their own members and have despised the recipients of their message. They will be swept away, for the product is ineffective and offensive.
For those committed to "making things work ", I see an image of Atlas holding up the sky. An impossible feat. Even Atlas longed to give away the burden, if only for a brief release. Atlas had vision, because he realized correctly the warning of prophecy. Yet his keen foresight and his cunning did not save him and he was turned to stone.
Those bearing the burden of Atlas need not forge a mighty edifice that scales in complexity to the previous project whose bricks are jarred from their place on high and cast to the ground.
Atlas need post no neon signs to utopia. The people are injured in their disillusionment, but this is the beginning of maturity. They yearn from such simple needs whose fulfillment has grown precious to them through long deprivation. The people don't seek shiny new objects, but merely the recognition that they are fit to serve and welcomed to contribute. Although they have been rendered bereft, they are, even now, capable of sacrifice.
Truth - subtle, perceived and discovered is a holy salve in these times. A model of a life with the possibility of purpose, shorn of the stifling, egregious management imposition will carry many a person forward.
For the receptive person, if provided an indication that God acts in this world, he will look for answers beyond the worldly claims. If he is asked to consider the mystical in the senses that the Almighty has endowed in His creation, he will find wonders undreamed of in all our science.
The people have inescapably absorbed dissonance towards alignment with systematic schemes. However, for the recipient of a rare and exceedingly valuable word of truth, he will be encouraged to take his tentative steps, in awareness that wisdom is received and arrogance is ruin, and what he builds will stand.
I am so glad my writing is sparking so much thought. A lot of good stuff there.