Tuesday 7 August 2018

Why the recent suppression of conspiracy theorists?

Everyone posting on this blog, and almost all of the commenters, are 'conspiracy theorists' according to the current designation; in other words we are those who regard those who have greatest (material) power and influence in the world (The Establishment) of undertaking 1. coordinated strategic action having 2. malign intent, overall.

But this is now regarded, by those with the power and desire to enforce their will upon others, as not merely a mistaken view, but one that needs coercively to be excluded from public discourse - by whatever means are effective.

At present the main tactics are de-funding and de-platforming - in other words, 'conspiracy theorists' are not allowed to make money, speak, write or display media in the public arena.


De-funding applies only to those 'conspiracy theorists' who make a living from their work - which is not many, since dissent is a minority view, mostly among the poorer and weaker and more despised of the population. De-funding has worked by various ways of drastically reducing public visibility of disapproved online contents in the social media mega-platforms (e.g. by changes to search engines, or linking), and by deleting the payment methods (banning from fundraiser sites, removing monetization etc).

De-platforming is another means of de-funding - because if a person is banned from the mainstream, mass media, they can't usually make much money. 

De-platforming means that they/ we are (and I mean here and now, already happened not as some theoretically possible future) not allowed to give lectures - anywhere, or to anybody, not even in private invitation-only groups; we are not allowed to put-up posters, publish books, make videos or... anything. They/ we are not allowed to have a 'platform'.

Of course, the implementation of this policy is as yet very partial, but it is increasing quickly - and anyone such as myself is aware that at any moment all our publicly accessible communications (especially online) may suddenly and irreversibly be eliminated. The intention is that fear will intimidate sufficiently that widespread enforcement will not be required.


I personally don't think that anything much can be done to 'fight back' against this, except in a small way; but as the suppression of conspiracy theorists becomes more aggressively and more obviously and openly coordinated, this explicitness is potentially valuable because it encourages 'the public' to recognise something that has been going-on more covertly and selectively for at least fifty years.

Since many or most people are by now very deeply corrupted and demotivated by the lack of core theistic beliefs; I presume that those who are doing this suppression are confident that they can 'get away with' pretty much anything they want to do. They are emboldened...

This, I guess, is exactly why we are seeing such very explicit suppression of anti-Establishment views.


There is a sort-of irony (for what it's worth) in the spectacle of 'revolutionary' Leftists aggressively protecting The Establishment against criticism or disloyalty; but this is only because the Establishment are themselves solidly Leftist; and a major platform of their dishonesty is that the small, feeble, impoverished, despised and mocked 'conspiracy theorists' are themselves (somehow!) The real Establishment!

Anyway, such ironies will not get us anywhere, since (again) such ironies have been around for many decades; and are seldom recognised and even lees often do they make any significant difference to anything...

But for those of us whose motivations are primarily spiritual; greater clarity is itself of considerable value. In the end; all that can be hoped for is that people will see clearly, will understand, and will then decide.

How people decide, in what direction they decide, is something we cannot (and should not try to) control - although we should try to influence for Good in whatever honest and personal fashion presents itself.


We should be reassured that because the mass media (and mass propaganda) is net-evil; anything along the lines of suppression will overall weaken the hold of the mass media, and will therefore do net-good.

To suffer the elimination of the tiny counter-current of Good within the mass media and public discourse is a small price to pay for the consequent weakening of grip suffered by the system as a whole.

Insofar as a secret 'samizdat' interpersonal (not public) network of Christian dissent develops in Albion; just so far will the spiritual awakening have begun - and exactly that state is being forced upon us by the enemy.


8 comments:

John Fitzgerald said...

Roger Scruton wrote a terrific novel a couple of years ago set in Prague in the 1980's. 'Notes From Underground' I think it's called. Scruton was there at the time, and in the book he really brings home to the reader the role Samizdat literature played - how poorly typed, sometimes handwritten books and essays were passed at huge personal risk from one individual to another. But these books were like manna from heaven to their readers - live coals - messages from a higher world. They weren't capitalist tracts either - they were works of literature and philospsophy - either copies of forbidden classics or fresh writing from local people.

If the same thiing happens to us, and this is how we have to write and communicate - well, honestly, I can think of a lot worse fates! To my mind Samizdat = Nobility.

Bruce Charlton said...

@John - When I lived in Glasgow one of my best friends was Robert Grant ('RAD Grant') who was Scruton's best man when he married; and was one of the philosophers who used to go covertly into Czech in the pre-1989 era. I've also read a fair bit of Havel's non- fiction on these times. There really was a hunger for and appreciation of heavyweight ideas, literature, thinking - people got far more from much less - as of course did the monks of the dark and medieval ages (when a library had just a handful of texts). We really don't need all that much stuff to nourish our minds and hearts. Less reading and more thinking.

bogbeagle said...

It would be supremely naive to imagine that this won't 'come to blows'.

Violence has always been the ultimate arbiter of human' affairs. And, these 'big questions' are inevitably resolved at the point of the sword.

(Resolved temporarily, of course ... since the same battles will be fought again. And again, for as long as men have belief in Authority.)

SJE said...

Less reading and more thinking.

It's pretty interesting to hear you say that because I spend a very large amount of time "in my head" and often feel as though I should be doing something more worthwhile - like reading.

Bruce Charlton said...

@b - I guess you don't live in England. The native decent people here barely even grumble against evil, never mind fight it. We would not be where we are except that the corruption is so deep and pervasive. We have been godless hedonists for too long. Awakening must come first, and if it does - well, who knows what would ensue. It would be a different place altogether.

Chiu ChunLing said...

The 'decent' people may hardly grumble, let alone fight.

But the indecent people are getting a bit restless these days.

I don't say that to imply that decency isn't a good thing. On another thread I said a bit about voting sometimes being better than the alternatives, in fact. But the truth is, while decency is a virtue, it isn't the only virtue.

I know all too well the indecency of some of the alternatives to voting. I don't recommend them lightly. But those other virtues sometimes compel me to do so.

Bruce Charlton said...

@CCL - Yes, some (few) indecent people are getting restless - however, their motivations (while reasonable, so far as they go) are solidly materialist. So, in the end, this is just a within-leftism dispute over the shaping of utilitarian objectives.

What is lacking in Albion is anything Christian-motivated... well there are a few people; but none in the public discourse, and of those who are truly Christianly motivated (such as conservative evangelicals), a high proportion are poisoned by Leftist assumptions to such an large extent that it fatally confuses them and renders them ineffectual.

Chiu ChunLing said...

There was a reason for Christ to teach the parable of the unjust steward.