Dalrymple On Propaganda

“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, nor to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is to cooperate with evil, and in some small way to become evil oneself. One’s standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”

~ Theodore Dalrymple

1.) Dalrymple here goes a long way towards suggesting that not being open about your convictions in order to protect one’s self from consequences, when practiced on a wide scale, guarantees that the propaganda will win the day.

2.) Think about all the absurd things we have been told in the recent past that had no correspondence to reality.

a.) Wearing masks will aid in delivering you from getting Covid
b.) We went from being told that “getting a untested vaccine will prevent covid” to being told, “getting an untested vaccine will diminish the impact of covid.”

c.) Large jets flying into tall buildings make the buildings collapse
d.) The Epstein files are not that important
e.) Jeffrey Epstein killed himself while guards and cameras abounded
f.) Ivermectin and Hydroxychloroquine are ineffective against covid
d.) Iraq has weapons of mass destruction
e.) The Israeli Government did not know about 10/7 before it happened
g.) The USS Liberty was our fault (Doug Wilson – Amfest)
h.) The covid vaccine is “safe and effective.”
i.) Charlie Kirk was murdered by a sole crazed gunman
j.) Race is a social construct
k.) Men can be born in women’s bodies and women can be born in men’s bodies

After reading the list above now go back and re-read the quote above. All of the above has been dished out to us in order to humiliate us. It is gaslighting propaganda on a massive scale to the end of controlling us via controlling our ability to think rationally. As Dalrymple notes the end of all this is the inability to distinguish good from evil, and truth from lies. A people who are inundated with this kind of methodology (and we are inundated with it) become a people who no longer even have the opportunity to be a people with integrity.

All of this is why Solzhenitsyn admonished us to “live not by lies.”

A Revisionist Reading List On WW I

Recently, someone asked me for a reading list for revisionist history of WW I.

1.) The Myth of a Guilty Nation — Albert Jay Nock

Nock demonstrates that the basis of the Versailles treaty, that Germany was uniquely guilty for starting WW I is an outright lie. Nock brings forth documents and quotes from politicians at the time that demonstrate that Germany indeed was not uniquely responsible for the war. Nock does not argue that Germany had no responsibility for the war though his work points in the direction of Germany being the nation aggressed against and not the aggressors.

2.) The Two Edwards; How King Edward VII & Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey Fomented The First World War — Peter Hof

Hof is convinced that the two Edwards secretly planned and arranged the war. Hof insists that both lied in order to steer the nation into war with Germany. Other books (Quigley especially) will suggest that all of this was part and parcel of Alfred Lord Milner’s conspiratorial work with the Round Table movement.

3.) World War One; A Short History — Norman Stone

Stone provides a quick read highlighting some of the more traditional understandings of the war. However, he also introduces some interesting “what ifs” along the way.

4.) Germany Not Guilty In 1914 – M. H. Cochran

This book is written in response to a prominent historian at the time Bernadotte Schmitt who had written a hatchet job of a book putting all the responsibility of the war upon Germany.

5.) Two World Wars & Hitler; Who Was Responsible — Dr. Jim Macgregor & Dr. John O’Dowd

6.) Hidden History; The Secret Origins of the First World War; Gerry Docherty & Jim Macgregor

7.) Prolonging the Agony: How the Anglo American Establishment Deliberately extended World War I by Three-and-a-Half Years; Jim Macgregor & Gerry Docherty

 

A Conversation We’d Like To See Take Place

It was the Christmas season and being in the gift-giving mode Evan handed the Pastor a copy of “Who Is My Neighbor,” the anthology assembled by Achord & Dow

“What’s this” Pastor Jackie said staring suspiciously at the gift.

Evan answered, “It’s a book that reveals that the Church has for centuries supported what is now called Kinism.”

Pastor Jackie, visibly stiffened and imperceptibly snorted. He informed Evan that he’s heard about this book and the word coming back to him was that these were a bunch of quotes mined and taken out of context.

Evan, never one to be put off, said; “Have you or any of your clergy buddies or even anyone you know ever demonstrated that any of these quotes in this volume are taken out of context?”

Pastor Jackie’s hair stood on end. He realized now that this was a challenge and not merely a conversation. He understood that this was a gift the same with giving someone the plague might be a gift.

Evan took Rev. Glease’s silent hesitation for the concession that it was and immediately unloosened a verbal arrow that went straight for the Pastor’s shrinking heart;

“Look, Pastor, if you can’t demonstrate and prove to me that this book is just quote mining then I don’t think you should be spouting that this book is just filled with quotes taken out of context. Until you or any of your friends can demonstrate that this book is just filled with quotes taken out of context I’m going to be handing out these books in church like eggs at the annual Rotary club Easter Egg hunt.”

With that Evan pivoted and left behind a dumb struck Rev. Jackie Glease. Glease knew he not only had just been thunderstruck, he knew that his real problems were yet ahead of him. He knew Evan was not one to be shushed. He knew that soon enough he would be inundated with appointments with people who wanted to probe about the quotes in the Acord & Dow Anthology, “Who Is My Neighbor.”

He also found himself praying that his people wouldn’t learn about the other anthology that also was filled with quotes on the same subject. Rev. Glease knew that answering questions on “Who Is My Neighbor” didn’t need to be complicated by having to answer questions on the anthology “A Survey of Racialism In Christian Sacred Tradition,” by Alexander Storen.

Glease went into his study and picked up the phone and put in a call to Doug Wilson. Certainly Doug would have some clever way to dismiss all these bothersome quotes.

Vos On The Implications Of The Image Of God In Man

“The man bears God’s image means much more than that he is a spirit and possesses understanding, will, etc. It means above all that he is disposed for communion with God, that all the capacities of his soul can act in a way that corresponds to their destiny only if they rest in God. This is the nature of man. That is to say, there is no sphere of life that lies outside their relationship with God and in which religion would not be the ruling principle. According to the Roman Catholic conception, there is a natural man who functions in the world, and that natural man adopts a religion that takes place beyond his nature. According to our conception, our entire nature should not be free from God at any point; the nature of man must be worship from beginning to end. According to the deeper Protestant conception, the image does not exist only in correspondence with God but in being disposed toward God. God’s nature is, as it were, the stamp; our nature is the impression made by this stamp. Both fit together.

Geerhardus Vos
Reformed Dogmatics Vol. II – pg. 13-14

1.) This quote proves that Vos would have abominated R2K with its teaching that there are spheres of life that lie outside the Christian’s relationship with God and in which the Christian religion is not to be the ruling principle.

2.) This quote also attacks the Thomistic Roman Catholic paradigm of Natural law. When Vos offers;

According to the Roman Catholic conception, there is a natural man who functions in the world, and that natural man adopts a religion that takes place beyond his nature. According to our conception, our entire nature should not be free from God at any point; the nature of man must be worship from beginning to end. According to the deeper Protestant conception, the image does not exist only in correspondence with God but in being disposed toward God.

Vos is telling us that one can’t excise the natural man in order to place him in a natural law realm that isn’t conditioned by religion. Religion does not take place beyond man’s nature. Thomists (Roman Catholic and “Reformed”) are the ones who will advocate that the image of God in man only exists in correspondence with God. The Reformed always taught this was not the case but rather that the image of God in man was found in man being disposed toward God, when not in rebellion against God.

3.) Natural Law advocates work assiduously to make sure that religion is not the ruling principle in every area of life. Whether it is the stout Natural Law types like R2K, or whether it is the Amber Ale Natural Law types, both try to place some kind of buffer zone between religion and every area of life to the end of muting the impact of religion.

Form and Matter

Greek Philosophy held that truth was arrived at dialectically by putting form and matter in dialectical tension. Both form and matter were each seen as being equally ultimate and as being limiting concepts to one another. In other words, if you had only form you would lose matter and if you had only matter you would lose form so there was a need to force these two equally ultimate opposites to be in relation to one another out of philosophical necessity.

In Greek thought “form” is the structure or essence of an idea and
“matter” is the substance or content of that idea. In Greek thought the forms existed in an “upper story” of reality while matter existed in the everyday world which was considered the “lower story.” Forms were the realms of the universal ideals of reality while matter was the particular instantiations of those ideals. For example the ideal of a “Horse” existed in the universal upper story of “forms” but the particular examples of horses existed in the lower story. So, the forms existed in a non-corporeal ideal realm and served as the antitype realities to which the imperfect types in the realm of matter could alone find their correspondence.

The problem that philosophy sought to handle was how “form” and “matter” could be brought into relation to one another. How could one get the particular to participate in the universal or how could one get the universal into the particular?

Aristotle sought to use dialecticism to bring the two in contact with one another. Refusing to surrender form to matter or matter to form Aristotle demanded dialectical tension between the two, emphasizing a unity arrived at via anthropocentric means. The idea of dialectical tension is explained in putting opposites in relation to one another in such a way that they can each satisfy the extreme of the other.

What Aristotle did, following Plato, was to objectify the previously subjective State to serve as his “form/idea/mind or spirit,” meanwhile the State, as the basic agency in society, and serving as the saving order, was the Aristotelian Universal that was brought into dialectical tension with individual people and the natural world which served as the matter to the States form. In doing so individuals and the natural world found their meaning in the State. In the Universal state as form all particulars (matter) lived, moved and had their being. In the State as Universal form the particulars of the natural world (matter) would be brought into meaningful relation.

In all this Aristotle emphasized the particulars (matter) more than the previous platonic arrangement which found the universals (form/ideas/spirit) emphasized over the particulars. Remember, this arrangement for both Plato and Aristotle was dialectical and as such the exact point of tension could indeed easily differ.

The difference between Plato and Aristotle is this regard is captured in the painting “School of Athens” by Raphael.

https://www.alamy.com/plato-and-aristotle-school-of-athens-raphael-image386295694.html?imageid=9A29E562-981A-448A-80EF-C089055AE247&pn=1&searchId=2e8a3c87a8c90b8ab541d104d9d4cdbc&searchtype=0

You will notice in this painting that Plato is seen pointing upwards. Raphael is communicating here that Plato’s emphasis is on the Universals (the Forms). On the other hand Aristotle is pointing downwards, communicating his preference for matter (particulars). Both kept these in dialectical tension with each serving as a limiting concept of the other.

Plato, like Aristotle after him, stipulated that the State was where unity was realized between form and matter. The implication of both Platonism and Aristotelianism was a totalistic state that today we might call a “totalitarian order” where “everything is inside the state and nothing is outside the state.”

Because Plato emphasized  the universals (forms) there was sure to follow those who would out Plato, Plato, and sure enough the neo-Platonists would in time emphasize the forms so much that the universals began to lose contact with the particulars (matter). Because of this the neo-Platonists ended up saying that matter didn’t matter and so began to despise the particulars (flesh, nature, the corporeal) and became aesthetics. As in the church this was the base of the Gnostic heresy that so early and so often bedeviled the Church. These Gnostics, as inspired by philosophical platonism, would tend to disregard the flesh and would flee into the desert to deny themselves of any creature comforts. These desert fathers would go without bathing, without eating, and without sleep in order to prove how superior they were in holiness. Later we read of the traveling flagellants who, smitten by this platonic/Gnostic virus, would flagellate themselves with whips till their bodies bled.

This Gnostic impulse has traveled with the Church throughout the centuries. One can locate it not only in many of the Early Church Fathers but one sees it in Church History in the Bogomils, the Albigensians, the Cathars and the Anabaptists. One sees it in the Church today in many expressions of Pietism and it is seen in the Reformed world in the teaching of Radical Two Kingdom theology. Whenever you find the insistence that there is a hard impenetrable barrier between a “common realm” and a “grace realm” there you find Platonic thinking on Form and Matter happening. Whenever you find the Anabaptist warning their children about “the English” or about the worldliness of automation there you find Platonic thinking.

Biblical Christianity alone solves this problem. In Biblical Christianity God is the Form that gives definition to all matter and by knowing God in Christ in His Word we increasingly, but never perfectly, come to know the realm of matter as God knows the realm of matter. If, “in God we live and move and have our being,” then we have the beginning point for all true knowledge of matter since God is the creator. So, for Christians God is the form that gives meaning to all matter and only by knowing God in His Word can we know particulars. God is not only Creator and Redeemer but He is also the meaning maker and meaning keeper. Nothing can be genuinely known of the realm of matter without knowing the God of the Bible. So, we see here why Francis Schaeffer taught that “mind (Form) is primary.” We might say that God is the form that forms all matter. Christians, thus, have no need to reason dialectically having a univocal point of contact for all our analogical thinking.

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