Statistician to the Stars William M. Briggs is known for pointing out that love of theory is the root of all evil.
After all, theory is a hell of a drug, offering simple answers to complicated problems.
The intrinsic appeal of simplicity goes a long way toward explaining why som many peole are still hung up on ideologies that haven’t been relevant for a hundred years.
Nor is it a coincidence that around that time was when the managerial Death Cult started its long march through the institutions.
Related: A Tale of Two Cults
But the Cult isn’t the only side enslaved to an unrealistic—and cataclysmic—ideology. They’ve just got control of the money printer and the levers of power, so they can make everyone take part in their public rituals until the system collapses.
Whether anyone will survive that collapse remains to be seen.
Related: Death Cult Sacraments
There’s another group that suffers from terminal ideology poisoning: the Conservatives that pretend to be the ruling Cult’s opponents.
If you previously doubted the characterization of Republicans as the Washington Generals to the Democrats’ Harlem Globetrotters, the circus fire that was the Republican National Convention should have you convinced.
Signing a race and gender-swapped version of Jared Leto’s Joker to deliver their keynote speech is just Con Inc. doing the “Conservatives are Progressives 5 years ago” meme.
Do you get how the Death Cult won the Culture War yet?
Hint: it wasn’t by winning elections.
Instead, they focused their resources on dominating the arts. Because the Cult understands that most people are swayed by emotion, not reason.
That is why millions of self-professed Christian Conservaives are lining up behind pro-infanticide candidates while indulging in the fantasy that one of them was saved by divine intervention.
Related: Trump Shooting Sets World on New Timeline
And they buy into it because they were primed by the Pop Cult to buy it.
For example, look back to the meme above.
Now pretend the Cult’s high priests institute cannibalism as a new sacrament. The Cultists don’t rush to pass laws making cannibals a protected class.
First, academics update Cult canon law with the new magic words. Then mid-tier priests in LA and Manhattan step in, weaving the new litrugy into hex rhetoric for public use.
The first thing most people see is a an SNL skit with the flavor-of-the-week host accidentally tasting human flesh.
Meanwhile, state and local Cult functionaries start filing lawsuits and changing statutes to legalize eating human meat. Of course, it’s all voluntary, they’ll say. And eating donated corpses will reduce America’s addiction to beef. Now that’ll help change the weather!
The first TV parodies and nuisance lawsuits won’t move the needle. But they will prime the pump.
Because what Conservatives always miss, but Progressives understand is that you don’t need a majority to move the Overton window. You just need enough for an inflection point, which is just over 10 percent.
Once they’ve hit that number. the next round of laws decriminalizing cannibalism will become law. Any public outrage will fall silent when Conservatives find something interesting to watch on Netflix.
Does that mean the Death Cult’s triumph is inevitable?
Not in the strict sense, because it already happened. We are living in the warped world of the Cult’s making.
The only viable path of dissent is the same one the Death Cult took: to make art that undermines the ruling orthodoxy.
The Pop Cult learned that showing likable, relatable characters winning by adopting Cult behavior is the most effective propaganda.
Again: Making audiences sympathetic to your ideas rquires showing characters they identify with succeeding by acting in line with your morals.
And what far too many Conservative and Christian creators don’t get is, the subtler the delivery, the better.
That means we need to make movies, books, and games with heroes people root for who win by living Christian morality.
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Similar to the phrase “there’s lies, damn lies, and statistics”, I counteroffer there’s “absolute truth, popular truth, and de facto truth”.
Absolute truth – no arguing around it, solidly planted in what ‘is’, ie God, gravity, and natural law
popular truth – not 100% true is given a 3rd degree interrogation, but works well enough to be a part of a cultural outlook and no one will question it or get a gut feeling it can’t be right. Think about urban legends or the memes about the Inquisition
de facto – if conserva-bros who are obsessed with the Socratic method were to but this under the microscope, there may not be data to suggest statistic relevancy, but in the real world, on the ground, such phenomenon would be commonplace and relevant enough for the average lay person to notice. (can’t think of an example at this moment, but I’m sue I will after the fact).
Conservatives have been peal clutching the SM and intellectualism while bashing emotional based decisions and losing to it. Popular truth run rampant across every society, but the Lefts found a way to weaponize it against their enemies. The Right, for years denied any allegations of racism but here they are openly admitting they believed that charge by having the black friend in Mr. Birchum.
The truth about truth is that it’s not a be all end all weapon that can easily conquer lies or even misconception. Personally, I’m fine using conservative standards against them. In the great marketplace of ideas, a political body that has blundered this badly and refuses to correct course deserves to fade away out of existence like any poorly run business deserves to.
Just Act Natural.
That’s all they did. That’s all you gotta do, too.
We have a duty to help people understand who they are before we can tell them to simply be themselves.
That’s exactly how they did it. They got in while kids were still forming and their parents were out to lunch. That’s how a generation of kids were convinced by Bart Simpson that slacking off is cool and talking back to your parents is okay because they’re dumber than you.
They didn’t do it by having Bart give rousing speeches while his ideological opponents fumbled the ball and the whole bus clapped. They did it by simply having the world he was in prove his ideology right by default. They made him look cool. That’s how it works.
To this day you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting some goony middle-aged snarker who repeats Current Year mumbo jumbo on a steady diet of Mountain Dew and Cheetos (which are cool!) who repeats what the funny comedian man said on the late night show/BreadTube channel that gives firmware updates.
And none of these people were convinced any of this is true. It was simply presented as such. This is why surrendering and devaluing entertainment and the arts was probably the biggest mistake of all. It was like giving up entire generations of people to be raised by wolves.
Here’s a handy bit of rhetoric: when challenged about why you do something, ask back “why WOULDN’T I ….” For example if you pray before a meal in public and someone asks “why are you praying?” ask “why wouldn’t I give thanks to God before a meal?”
If you are dealing with someone squishy this will end the debate right there. They are only used to bullying people who show no confidence. Even if you have someone who continues the debate you are in a position of strength, since they now have to explain about why YOU are the weird one, which will usually require explicitly stating an opposition to Christianity, tradition, etc.
There’s every reason to think that sincere Christian faith had hollowed from the inside in the West by the 1950’s. The answer to why say grace is exactly your answer. There’s no complex theology, just genuine gratitude towards the Creator. I suspect most however, had no answer when asked. At least I guarantee the grandparents I met didn’t.
One thing I appreciate about the Death Cult, as opposed to the Controlled Opposition, is their willingness to stab us in the front. They’re gaslighting us about it the whole time, but it’s still a frontal assault. The GOP / Con Inc. still manages to behave as though they’re entitled to the base’s vote for Candidate X against Candidate Y even after all the backpedaling and backstabbing. Of course, the base keeps voting for X against Y in spite of all the backpedaling and backstabbing, so perhaps the abuse and betrayal is no better than we deserve.
It’s one heck of thing to look at China’s government and think: At least they aren’t gaslighting people into think they’re living in a democracy, with rule of law, and free speech.
JD Vance, Amber Rose, the Waheguru prayer, Vivek “owning” AOC by gleefully reminding her that the GOP doesn’t want to ban abortion or oppose same-sex “marriage.”
Can we expect a Church of Satan representative in 2028 when Vance gets the nomination? “C’mon guys, they don’t really worship Satan. They just perform ritualistic abortions in honor of Satan. Stop purity spiraling!”
Actually, I can think of one example of this being done right for us, even if the creator wasn’t actually “on our side”. I’m speaking of Fallout: New Vegas’ Joshua Graham. He’s a serious, badass Christian (technically a Mormon, but the game touches so lightly on religion that you can’t tell the difference) who’s also compassionate and humble. He’s tormented by the evil things he did in the past (being the top general of a particularly brutal post-apocalyptic warlord who liked to cosplay as Julius Caesar and literally crucify his enemies), but he still comes across as calm, soft-spoken, and wise. The Internet is FULL of personal accounts from people who say that Joshua Graham helped them to find their faith and/or get through hard, dark times. His voice, cloned by AI, has been used to narrate inspirational videos, Bible readings, and more! I think he’s a good example of the kind of thing we should look for.
“He’s a serious, badass Christian (technically a Mormon, but the game touches so lightly on religion that you can’t tell the difference)”
I have learned that issues like “technically a Mormon” shows up when it counts. Mormonism is the prosperity gospel with a sprinkling of Masonic replacement sacraments for good measure.
Mormons will not be leading the charge out of Clown World. It’s easy to argue they are part of it.
That said, I genuinely hope his faith is leading West to love God and that he’s set other people on the path there.
Technically, yes, but that’s also assuming that the Mormons kept their distinctive doctrines after the in-universe apocalypse, which we have no proof of. Even if we assume they did, nothing Joshua Graham says is distinctively Mormon as opposed to Christian, so I don’t think it’s a big deal.