This is rather horrifying. Bookless libraries *shiver*. It's too easy to imagine publishers (eagerly encouraged by Machine retailers like amazon.com) following suit and beginning to lobby for the phasing out of printed books. E-books are so much more useful to the Machine as they can't simply be handed around between people without the Machine knowing about it. Who is reading what and when is very valuable and easily monetized data, not to mention greatly useful in hunting down sedition.
Had really better get to work building that Scriptorium...
It still seems we are living in the doomsday scenario of Christianity, we are still held in thrall by that story and other hierarchical male dominated death cults. Two billion Christians who have cut off any memory of indigenous cultures and punished and castigated them. It took me 40 years in the UK to know their was anything before the Christians and Romans and it was not until I went physically outside of Christendom in my mid life I realised how dominated I was in every way by that story, the frog in the water was me. Until we see anew and outside of all that we will continue on as we are. There may be some interpretation of the Bible as story of man's destruction of creation and it might well be just a decent story. It is however tragic and sad to me that billions around the world are brought up on a book talking about remote tribes in a land most have never visited and told this is the Way and Truth and the Light while distracted from any value of what we know where we are. Every culture and great story has some sort of redemption or resurrections in some way or other
I was brought up soaked in Christianity and left it in adolescence. Found other things then in crisis went back to Christianity.and then left again! Who knows what next!
Thanks Luca. Of Course Buddha's first insight into reality was that life is indeed a lot of suffering, birth, death, ageing, loss, upset. For him compassion for that reality is a core starting point and yes, thankfully Buddhists to not carry the guilt of doing it foe someone else who died for them. I guess the Buddha's middle way is though at odds with no harsh measures
Naturally as a Christian I disagree too. No argument from me about the tyrannical things that have been done down the years in the name of Christ, but I used to share this kind of worldview too until - well, until I didn't. The story you paint here is deeply one sided. 'Hierarchical male dominated death cult?' Not quite a fair description of the faith, for good or ill. And you can hardly say that 'two billion Christians' have all 'cut off any memory of indigenous cultures and punished and castigated them.' Most of those Christians I imagine would consider themselves indigenous to their place.
More to the point though, I can't see the pre-Christian cultures of much of the world as any more loving and tolerant; and often they were much less so. One thing Christianity does have going for it at the very least is a sharp understanding of human nature in that regard. We are post-Christian in the West, after all. How's that going for us?
Thanks for taking the time to reply.and I am happy to be disavowed of my view but at sixty it has not happened yet!. Is Christianity really not male dominated and heirarchical, has the catholic church not spent two thousand years seeing men as the preists and monopolising power and cultural norms ? Has it not used crusades, colonisation and law as a way to institutionalise this whereever.it has gone? Has is it not imposed its view of those most connected with other ways, aboriginals, native peoples, pagans, witches as an impediment and much worse? Is the final chapter of the Bible, the Book of Revelation not really pretty apocalyptic and is it not.totally.self fulfilling I was part of a large evangelical network at one time and they really were.intent on creating.the end times and preparing for the repatriation of Israel for the.time.of Christ's return - the same forces that funded and propelled Trump.and that have evangelised most.of Africa, South America.and.increasingly Asia. Is having the figure of a man crucified on a cross not a somewhat a deathly image. ( I do get the point is he was resurrected)
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I am not sure we are post Christian at all, our society in the UK is absolutely held together under the banner of church state and monarchy. It was only when I stepped out of this and spent time in other cultures, especially.Iran that I noticed how deep rooted that is.
I am definitely not one of those who holds to some ideas.that older times were ideal romantic worlds of amazing harmony although when I see or hear say aboriginals speak they have qualities that I find incredibly powerful.
I can see that what i am describing as Christianity is a rubbish interpretation of what Christ said and it seems he was a christianarchist. I can see that the idea of a transimmanent incarnate idea of God is powerful and having meaningful reverence for life is important nay essential but I think I must be missing something - I can't say that overall I find Christianity more moving than Islam, Buddhism Hinduism Daoism, Great Spirit or whatever. And the trouble is its shadow side has been so destructive and we still seem as the Christian West to think ourselves superior to the rest of the World by nature of our cultural inheritance so that we continue to justify our weapons, economic power and values rather than admit we/it was a complete screw up. It may also have some impact that when a disease like Covid comes.along that.may.impact us we try.to move heaven and Earth to stop.it while ploughing on with creating the global co-morbities of poverty, economic exploitation and ecological demise. The Bible may partly be a story of how we fell.from grace.if Eden but it is also pretty nationalist and unpleasant, god celebrating the death of every person and living thing in Judah to appease the Jews. Anyhow, seriously very happy to change if I discover something new 🙂
'Human history could be seen as a never-ending series of battles over stories, with the winners determining who shapes society, at least for a while.' Such beautifully expressed truth.
I appreciate how you framed the pandemic as a battle over stories. I think warring over the narratives will tear our nations apart. I don't want to be pro or anti vaccine. Reading your essays has helped me determine to take a pacifistic approach. I want to hear both sides and reserve judgement until a later time when calmed tempers allow for more rational reflection.
The stance that allows me to remain sane is this: I don't know and I don't claim to know and I'm not going to fight.
Thanks again for bringing an alternative perspective to the chaos!
I think that is a very sane stance. The challenge comes, as I said in the previous essay, when your hand is forced: by mandates or 'green passes', for example. The question for me then becomes how to take a stand without falling into the pit. I want to try and write a bit about this next time.
Agreed - that is incredibly difficult! I haven't had my hand forced (in Kentucky, USA). I feel compassion for anyone whose hand is forced, whichever way they go (for or against the vaccine).
If my hand were forced, I would probably get the vaccine (though my wife could not because of a health condition). Yet I would still not wish to take a strong stance.
I think that the overall desire not to get caught up in a narrative battle is extremely wise. I fear it's too late for the culture/s as a whole, but hopefully we can learn from it as it goes on.
I've been thinking about past culture wars and how they resolved:
In the US there has been a fairly massive culture war over civil rights and that didn't fully destroy our nation - though we had a civil war followed by years of struggle, sometimes exploding into mass riots.
Do you feel that the current culture wars are more severe and destructive than those we've seen in the past? Or can we learn from the past that often over time the wars do end and nations often do succeed in working through many of the issues.
I've really no idea, especially about the US - though I would say that I think the story of the wider 'West' is crumbling fast, and that there seems to be no centre to fall back on now. But time will tell.
My experience in the US is that the extreme political polarization among citizens in our country which has reached a toxic level now prevents reasoned examination of the Narrative. A committed Democrat today could never switch to a view that questions the policies of the current government with its experts and media lackeys. We can't freely discuss diverse perspectives on the virus and strategies for dealing with it, because of the immediate association with partisan politics. This is destroying our society. We are left with shreds of faintly civil, superficial discourse. Very sad.
As you say, 'The challenge comes.... when your hand is forced: by mandates or 'green passes', for example'. I have a friend who is faced with this, and it's a very difficult one. He teaches one of the so-called 'complementary' medicine modalities, and he has a series of international courses planned in a country where they have restrictions based on one's vaccine status. Neither he nor many of his students are happy with the idea of being injected with an mRNA-based vaccine, but he can't just cancel the courses (which provide more than half of his annual income, and are regarded as essential by many of his students) so he's forced to consider having the vaccine against his professional judgement of the risks. I don't know what he will decide, but I can see that it's an agonising decision to have to make, and there doesn't seem to be any way round it.
My hand has also been forced by mandates for healthcare workers in California. After more than two months of daily agonizing and seeing very little chance of courts overturning that mandate in this overwhelmingly blue state, I finally took the first dose of Pfizer and developed tinnitus the same night, which lasted for almost two months.
My experience with this outcome may help your friend who believes in complementary medicine. Antioxidants may help but I didn’t experience any improvement until I turned to Chinese medicine. I don’t know why some people experience side effects whereas others don’t. Anyway, shoring up our health and immunity both before and after the vaccine will definitely help, should we have to take the jump when our hands are forced.
Paul, I think your central thrust in this post seems to be the failure of a narrative. I have dealt with the failure of the covid vaccine narrative which IMO is failing because of conflicting messages and concealment as well as suppression of alternative opinions by the MSM and the government. I think a big picture perspective is that large segments of the world now distrust the state to provide balanced "truth" and instead are providing propaganda to suuport the states' narrative. If enough of the public does not believe the state, the state cannot survive. This mirror's the "Noble Lie" of Plato's Republic which has been discussed by many folks even though I guess that phrase is absent from Plato. I gather from the noble lie discussion that society cannot function without certain assumptions of "lies" which all segments have to believe will ensure fairness whether by just laws or fair deliberation by the principals. If the people feel the system is rigged against them and inequality rears it's ugly head, the state is on thin ice. The myth of progress is I assume another one of those noble lies which now seems very long in the tooth. The el;ites are progressing but the rest of us are falling behind. The technocracy of the internet has allowed an explosion of narratives from tweets and retweets without thoughtful deliberation which used to be supplied by the Fourth Estate. Now there is no coherent Fourth Estate to provide compare and contrast functions. Trying to find "truth" in this digital social media morass is becoming a fool's errand.
My experience, thus far, shows that a "pacifistic approach," which (if I understand you) involves a kind of agnosticism about the virus, the risks, the value of proposed remedies, and so on, is readily tolerated by most of those who are anti-vaccine (or at least anti-mandate), but seen as being anti-vaccine by those who are pro-vaccine. The latter are especially intolerant of anything that falls short of unqualified affirmation of the Mask, the Distancing, the Science, etc.
I agree that many (at least the vocal ones) of those who are pro-vaccine would look on me as a danger and be intolerant towards my stance.
I am not agnostic regarding the virus. I certainly know people who have died because of it. In fact, my wife and I almost never leave our apartment because my wife has a health condition that makes her particularly at risk.
I also believe that the vaccine is reducing hospitalizations/severe cases of COVID - although, I don't know how this is impacted by each variant. I wonder if certain variants would simply cause less hospitalizations in general, but I don't know.
My wife's doctors have recommended against the vaccine:
1. For my wife because she is so sensitive/at risk that her body would not tolerate the vaccine.
2. For me because the long term impact of the vaccine remains understudied.
My wife's doctors work with really sensitive patients who have mainly found the normal treatment procedures of western doctors to be ineffective. Therefore, these particular doctors are less likely to embrace a "Thesis" position.
I would like to interview doctors who refuse to take a "Thesis" position to hear their varying perspectives:
1. On why they don't
2. What pressures (if any) they face from colleagues
3. Why they think so many doctors do embrace the popular narrative regarding COVID and the vaccine.
But in all this, I don't know much and therefore want to hesitate to run to anger or hold too strongly to any narrative.
That's very interesting. Your interviews with doctors could be very useful. I've wondered often how different the situation here would look if doctors were having these conversations on a case by case basis with their patients in that way - as happens with other illnesses and medications. That's not been happening, and it's one reason I think there's been this cleaving to a grand story of 'the vaccines', rather than treating medication for covid - with vaccines or with other treatments - as a personal situation to be dealt with. If that makes sense.
It seems like everything is universal now as though all people are the same. Let's make a blanket policy that takes everyone into account - as if every situation is the same.
It's not NOT happening. I saw my doctor for an unrelated issue yesterday, but asked about vaccines for kids (as she has kids the same age). I'm pretty sure she's vaxxed and boosted, but she said she isn't having her kids vaxxed yet for two reasons: 1) They don't typically suffer serious symptoms and 2) not enough testing has been done for kids. Those were my own views, so it was nice to hear them validated by my doctor. Maybe things are different in Europe.
You're right, it's a generalisation to say 'it's not happening.' In fact I have personal experience of doctors who are doing just this. But you have to know where to find them! The pressure on doctors here to conform to the Narrative is very powerful, as I've heard directly from some of them. This is only my response from where I am of course; but there is certainly no encouragement at all, to say the least, for doctors to develop individual responses for patients. The pressure coming down from government level to 'get everyone vaxxed' is enormous, and amplified by a compliant media.
Doctors before the pandemic were already expected to use allopathic medicines, by patients too. They were fully trained for it and it mostly works well. We as humans have lost the connection to natural medicine, to the healing power of herbs. Before I suffered a sharp chronic pain in my mouth, I believed in allopathic medicine, which didn’t help me. I am grateful to have learned that medicines from pharmaceutical companies can help and sometimes are the only choice but, the right herb or combination of them will heal chronic issues many times better and with no secondary effects. Once this is known in truth, with a kind of faith, partially coming from knowing our deep connection with nature, it’s very hard to believe that the vaccine is the only solution. Also from learning of Gurdjeff’s teachings, of which I am no master, but I did started to see my body, not as a car, which needs repairs occasionally, but as part of my consciousness.
Just to chime in on Europe. I live in France. I don't want to vaccinate my kids either, my doctor is also hesitant on the children front but I've also heard otherwise. It depends, I guess. From my experience, here on the countryside in France, it's accepted to share that you're not vaccinated. I am, but numerous parents of kids in our school aren't and we openly discuss things.
This is very different from The Netherlands (where I'm from originally). Hot from the presses over there is that the national health council has officially advised the cabinet to allow children to be vaccinated, but to do so without any force of exclusion whatsoever. We'll see where that ends...
I think people, in general, are more careful with kids, despite the narrative that is prevalent and the recommendations of the CDC, etc. Many people who I know to be vaccinated themselves have not yet vaccinated their children, even though it's been available to them for at least a month now. I was willing to take the vaccine myself, under the guidance of doctors that I trust, and if it all goes wrong in the end, I guess I'll blame them ;) and commend my life to God. But I'm not willing to have my kids take the vaccine without more evidence that it won't cause future harm.
Hmmm, I don't feel the same way about this. If I read the media, yes, the daily always seems to feature an OpEd about not taking a vaccine being a crime and that it's an immoral act to not have yourself vaccinated. But if I go out and talk to people, my experience is radically different. So that's what I do if I feel myself gravitate towards one side or the other too much, stop reading the daily, go out and speak to people, real people. Ah, and sometimes check to see if Paul has written another essay ;-).
It's easy to stick to one's gun (or story ;-) at this point. In fact, it feels like it gets easier and easier everyday, and certainly more accepted. I myself try to remind myself every day that I keep an open mind to all opinions, pro, anti, thesis, vax, et cetera.
Yes, I think your point about narrative is surely correct. One might go further and say that the battle is over not merely narratives but rather myths, where narratives are subsets of myths. We hesitate to do so because we have become suspicious of myths. We suppose them to be untrue. We forget that they express truths rather than that they 'are' true. Yet, as Tolkien observed, there is one myth that not only expresses Truth but is also actually true: the story of the Incarnation.
Problems arise when we mistake myth/ mere narrative for truth. The plague narrative has been taken for truth and yet it is clear that, for the partying British Conservatives, it has been understood all along that the response of government has been pantomime. Few in government really believe the narrative but they collude with public and press by pretending to do so. It is well known that the average of Covid fatality in the UK is in excess of the average life expectancy. AsJohnson is reported by D Cummings to have said at the outset, 'get Covid. Live longer.'
We need to ask why is there this mass collusion in manifest falsehood? Why is the majority going along with all this? It can't be that people are REALLY scared because it is perfectly clear that there is little to be scared of. No, it is surely fear of fear. It's the thought that there could, very clearly, be a situation that is completely beyond our collective control - and that is frightening if you have only the one life to live.
What is more frightening still is, as you say, how this all plays out. The fact that the so-called vaccines (in fact they are more like prophylactics: vaccines prevent infection, these don't) are not terribly effective beyond about twenty weeks and clearly have nasty side-effects is surely being noticed by increasing numbers. When the penny finally drops, presumably there will be a period of hysterical denial (which will doubtless be visited on the unclean) before something else comes along to distract the masses - in this case, one suspects - an economic catastrophe to which governments are likely to respond by taking full powers and converting them to command economies. Currencies will then presumably collapse and - well, it starts to get depressing to think about... And all because we have forgotten God (as Solzhenitsyn put the matter) a forgetting in which, astonishingly the church has colluded. Which Bishop stood up to enjoin his flock to spit in the face of death? Not a one. Instead, they were content to dress up for Mass looking like figures in a Jake and Dinos Chapman tableau.
Ultimately, though, this is surely a battle over the nature of reality itself. Is there really a world out there, are there really people, or do we just have (as Democritus, and Lucretius after him, said) atoms and molecules whirling round in empty space? And if there is a world, and there are people, where do they come from and what are they for? These are questions that we have forgotten how to answer.
The point about Boris and his party is a very good one. Maybe this is part of the rage about it: not just that he's a hypocrite, but that he doesn't seem to take seriously what is presented to everyone else as serious: that it is indeed a 'pantomime.'
I've long thought that if the vaccines do turn out to have nasty long term impacts - and it's too early to say - that this might be a powder keg moment for Western democracies. Trust in institutions and authorities is so low already, that could strip any remaining legitimacy from them, in the eyes of people who were vaccinated in good faith. I hope it doesn't happen.
It depends what you mean by 'elites' I suppose - it's another of those slippery words. But there's no arguing with the fact that Remain was the position of virtually the entire UK establishment: unsurprisingly, since establishments tend to support the status quo. That included all major political parties on both left and right, virtually the entire business establishment, the CBI, much (though not all) of the media, 99% of the cultural establishment (find me half a dozen Brexit-voting novelists and I'll buy you a pint!), the NGOs, academia: etc etc. It's also the case that the upper-middle class vote skewed overwhelmingly to Remain while the working class vote skewed to Leave. This is why the whole thing was such a shock to them, and the ructions are still going on.
It doesn't follow from that, of course, that everyone who voted to Remain was part of 'the elite'; nor that some wealthy and powerful people didn't vote leave. But the broad picture is clear.
Agree. I think the problem is really that neither the EU nor the Brexiters could see beyond the paradigm we are in. Both wanted to maximise profit and interest. None of the debate was about what is good for the world, the Earth, class interests. The debate was sterile. Neither option was good. I voted remain as the least bad of the two and because 70 years of a Europe not at war was worth quite a lot
This is clearly a semantics issue. The upper middle-class, and educated lower-middle certainly worried a lot less about freedom of movement of cheap labour and capital, and perhaps that's the point PK was making!
I agree that “elite” has become a slippery word. Unfortunately it now seems to be shorthand for a leftist liberal elite, who stand accused of betraying the working class (something the traditional or conservative elite could never be accused of 😊)
'Elite' in my book is shorthand for the people who run things. It's quite true that the people who run things in Britain are overwhelmingly 'liberal' in economic and cultural terms; and have indeed betrayed the working class quite systematically for decades. Populism is their comeuppance, as is Brexit.
To say that is not to suggest that, say, the old aristocracy or squirearchy did not similarly look after their own class interests and mostly ignore the poor. That, as a rule, is how all alites behave. It's just that the elite in a global liberal order will be liberal .
I've been reading about the enneagram of personality. I read that my type is inclined to take the antithesis over the thesis based on my innate traits. Other types are more inclined to agree with "the narrative"; they are motivated by a deep unconscious (or subconscious?) need to avoid uncomfortable conflict. Interesting to ponder how much these simple personality variations may determine what we consider our deeply held truth. I had to laugh at myself! Of course the teaching is that all types reflect an aspect of divine truth and that we can be freed from merely playing out our type through spiritual growth.
I adore the Enneagram. It was so accurate that it startled me. And suddenly I realised my underlying beliefs which helped me understand why I feel and behave the way I do.
I think I'm 5 wing 4, which makes the scientific 5 into 'the iconoclast' via the 4 influence. I was also shocked how accurately my type and my husbands (8) - and other people in my life - were seemingly laid bare by the enneagram. At first I took it as a fascinating tool for pinpointing human nature out of curiosity but I've just begun to see it with more caution. The book 'The Sacred Enneagram' lines up types with sins, passions, holy virtues, etc in such a way that I shudder to casually toss about types. It's like seeing people naked! I feel it deepening my compassion and humility as I view others and understand my own struggles.... so that must be good! I also read in 'The Wisdom of the Enneagram' that type 5s who love to analyze and observe are often fascinated by the enneagram... haha, that seems to be true for us two.
Lol. I had a feeling you might be a 5 too. I imagine a lot of us here are 5s.
I know what you mean about it deepening compassion. When a person's actions are inexplicable to you, knowing their type can most often throw light on their motivations.
It is indeed like seeing people naked. A medical herbalist who I know asks patients to do an enneagram test before the first consultation so she can treat them more wholistically.
The Sacred Enneagram sounds great. I'll have to look it up.
Clara- I, too, am a 5 with a 4 wing (though sometimes I flip to a 4 with a 5 wing). The pandemic has brought me right up against the limits of my attempts to fit everything into a comprehensive view. Also, my tendency to isolate myself so that I can "think it all through". This very quickly became detrimental. I have found it all too easy to get tangled up in the maps I create in my mind that might not have any actual territory. Or the maps become more vivid than the territory. Which is plainly backward. I am hoping that God leads me beyond this self-created trap. I need to connect, to participate. -Jack
Wow, that's amazing that you are the same type, too. Maybe mrs. S is right that there are many 5 in this conversation. 5 is the rarest occuring type I read somewhere -- oh no, is that my need to feel special asserting itself again? I can see that I am always fighting the temptation to live in my head rather than body. I never saw it so clearly before. How did you find out about the enneagram and how long ago? It has been a year since I stumbled over it and it seems I will have much to learn from it for quite some time yet.
I like this interview with insights for 5s during pandemic stress. At the very end his answer to a question about contemplative practice for head types is very relevant for me, but the zoom connection was touchy.
Fellow 5 here too. I can so relate to “attempts to fit everything into a comprehensive view” and a “tendency to isolate myself so that I can ‘think it all through’.” I know there is no true comprehensive view, but I can’t stop trying to find it. I’ve been looking for a way out of this trap. Holding everything looser? Getting more comfortable with uncertainty? Trust/faith in something else?
New reader, I found this to be really insightful. Excellent articulation of one lens for viewing what’s happening in our world now, a lens that seems to capture much of the dynamic. I’ll be pondering this essay and applications of the competing story lens for quite a while I expect. Thank you, Paul.
It explains beautifully why it feels like people on the other side of the debate are living in a parallel universe. Why we cannot understand or even hear each other, let alone have any kind of dialogue.
There will be increasing and escalating conflict between democracy and technocracy - yes - and from my point of view it is a conflict that technocracy cannot win in the long run. My question is what will be lost during the struggle? Also - a more parochial question in every sense - I just wonder if the church, any church, is going to side with the democracy rather than the technocracy. My hopes aren't high; most church leadership was colonised by the technocrats a long time ago. Certainly the Church of England's institutional response is led by a former Chief Nursing Officer who (to share scurrilous gossip) professes to have 'no theology'. Mene Mene Tekel Parsin....
I'm finding a lot of hope amongst some Orthodox people and leaders, I must say. Not necessarily the noisier ones, and certainly not those who are politically partisan, but at a quieter more local and human level I find a church that is far less worldly and technocratic than those of the West. We'll see where that goes.
Here in LA, it’s harder to find such quieter churches. Most of those that are on the antithesis side are a bit too ‘fevourish’ for my taste. Still, it is good to see people quoting from the Bible as much as they are doing now on the chat rooms of these antithesis groups. A bit of fanaticism to counter that on the other thesis side.
The Catholic Church will side with technocracy. They have been colonized by societal elites repeatedly -- first in ancient Rome, then in the Middle Ages, again in the late Enlightenment. Vatican II was just confirmation of the obvious.
I second Paul's comment. Look to the Orthodox Church for leadership on this. They have the structure and historical stamina of Catholicism, but 2000 years of consular leadership makes them less susceptible to cultural winds or elite colonization. Not immune, but less susceptible.
Thanks, Paul, for a fascinating essay. The Manichean division between good/bad, true/false, clean/unclean, loyalist/traitor has been with us since the dawn of Time, and has manifested more recently in the Reign of Terror after the French Revolution, in Nazi Germany's quest for a judenrein nation, and in the multiple communist purges including the Holodomor, the Cultural Revolution, and the Killing Fields. They were, in their own twisted ways, attempts at "purification"--or in you terms, the complete triumph of one narrative over another.
There's something soothing to the human psyche about complete uniformity, be it a weed-free lawn, a sugar bowl without fly-specks, or a witch-free Colony. It saves us from the mental labor of perusing a diverse society and having to sort out friend from foe on a person-by-person basis. The narrative becomes a useful scythe or an application of RoundUp, leveling us all. And propagation of the narrative is made more powerful in our time by the efficiency of that which you correctly call The Machine.
All such purification drives have ultimately failed in the past. Why? And if "this time is different", why? I'm hoping you discuss these in your Part III.
If it's true that what Limberg calls the Thesis (or Sheridan the Plague story) is the driving force behind the actions taken by European governments, such as ordering social distancing, imposing face masks in certain contexts, administering vaccines on a massive scale, etc., I would love to know what those who cleave to the Antithesis think governments *should* have done. With the wisdom of hindsight but acknowledging the uncertainty of counterfactuals, what do they think governments should have done, and what do they think would have happened then? Or do they in fact accept that those actions were perhaps justified but disagree with vaccine mandates and passports? In which case there might be some room for nuance. In a sense this is all water under the bridge, but if the Antithesis is to play a role in driving future decisions, surely it would be worth clarifying.
It seems likely they will cross the line with the mandates here Paul, as they consider the pandemic is getting out of control, with Boris saying we can't indefinitely carry on with non pharmaceutical intervention. He will be assessing the effectiveness of the booster and failing that, a national conversation will be held for the next stage.
The Antithesis people don't think covid qualifies as a Plague. So how can the Plague story fit?
They looked at the stratified mortality statistics and concluded, from early on in many cases, that those under the age of 82 with fewer than 3 comorbidities were at little risk.
This is the nub of it. Is it an actual Plague or not?
" With the wisdom of hindsight but acknowledging the uncertainty of counterfactuals, what do they think governments should have done, and what do they think would have happened then? "
I recommend watching this interview on exactly that question. It also dives into what has gone wrong with the current approach, and the risks of the vaccines.
Thank you for the link, Paul. I was finding the interview interesting and potentially alarming, until I heard Dr. McCullough cite a figure of 18,000 people who he said have died "with" the vaccine, clearly implying "because of" the vaccine, a number he said was probably underreported.
This brought me up short. If the mortality rate from the vaccines is that high, why haven't I heard about the tens of thousands of vaccine-related deaths in Europe? If it were happening in a public health context, I don't believe it could be kept quiet for long.
On further investigation, I discover that Dr. McCullough is a veteran of the "battle of the narratives" (champion of hydroxychloroquine) and that his authority is far from unquestioned. So the interview really doesn't answer the question, it merely runs reiterates the anti-vaccine narrative. (It does indicate, though, that the supposedly draconian clampdown on dissent is quite mild!)
It isn't a anti-vaccine narrative, it is a pro-life one and I find it suspicious that big pharma have legal indemnity. This is just going to go on and on until the time that Fauci is ousted. The PCR test is something I also find detestable because it was not designed to identify covid, but is manipulated to do so.
Good luck finding anyone whose authority is unquestioned at this point! I'm not holding a candle for this doctor, but it's a compelling interview and the facts he offers should be easy enough to check. I'd be happy for them to be checked and found entirely wrong. But in the meantime, the 'anti-vaccine narrative' continues precisely because of these concerns about safety, and because they are not investigated and are regularly played down. The myocarditis reports alone - in children - should be top of the headlines. It is virtually impossible though, to get to the bottom of any of it. It's like the fog of war.
Re: Anti-vaccine narrative, Boris wants us to be jabbed if Omnicron can't be tamed, whilst in the meantime, our concerns continue to fall on death ears and we are labelled as nefarious for wanting to potentially save ourselves from death or horrible side effects, whilst they have legal indemnity, they have the legal indemnity for one reason only, they know what they are up to and have to cover their machinations.
With respect, Paul, I think you are exaggerating when you say that vaccine safety concerns are not investigated and are regularly played down. There is no disputing the safety concerns, but even the most cursory investigation shows that post-vaccine myocarditis in children has been investigated in research reported in top medical journals and has been discussed by the European Medical Association and the CDC. If uncontested research published in serious journals finds the incidence of myocarditis in these cases to be very rare and low severity, to say that the concerns are being "played down" seems to me to misrepresent the true state of affairs. The "fog" you mention is made more impenetrable by such exaggeration.
I’m not a doctor or medical researcher and it’s been a couple days since I watched that entire interview with Dr. McCullough. I believe the point McCullough was making about myocarditis in children is that “the system” is failing to do “risk stratification” with respect to children receiving the COVID vaccines. I thought he was suggesting that the risk of serious and/or long term heart damage in children as a result of taking the vaccine may be greater than the risk of serious health impacts due to COVID itself. I have no idea if McCullough proved his case with the numbers cited in that interview, but it certainly appeared to me that a mass vaccination program for children is at least questionable until that issue is settled.
The numbers vary depending on your source. If your trusted source is Dr. Peter McCullough, Mike Yeadon and other anti-vaccination spokespersons, you'll conclude that the risk of serious and/or long term heart damage in children as a result of taking the vaccine is greater than the risk of serious health impacts due to COVID itself. It's important to look at different sources and make a balanced decision as to which seems more trustworthy. Anyone who believes that so-called dissenting voices need to be heard must surely also believe that "non-dissenting" opinion deserves the same fair treatment.
Those that speak out about their own injuries are not heard as doctors won't validate their concerns (in most cases) and when they do on social media, they are censored. Here is a discussion about a new study looking at the data from Ontario about myocarditis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzVoS-1TIWI
I'm not sure the studies show that hydroxychloroquine "works". They may show, in the usual, statistical way, that it may have positive effects in certain population groups at certain stages, absolutely. They also show that it has some dangers, particularly cardiovascular events. They don't provide a solid basis for prescribing hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment. Anyone who's worried about the effects of the Covid-19 vaccines should surely be at least as worried about the possible effects of hydroxychloroquine.
I happened to watch this video this morning, but yes I agree with the warnings, with 18,000 domestic Americans died via reporting through CDC VAIRS systems, CMS data, 45,000 under-reported. To be honest, I am glad we have the likes of Dr Peter McCullough, Dr Robert Malone because they are credible and have no vested financial agenda. They are reporting findings that it is the vaccinated that are causing the variants. Del Bigtree seems to know a lot about why these variants have been escaping, so I am not willing to sacrifice my life when I have recovered from COVID. My natural immunity is permanent, immunity with the vaccine will only last a few months. They are saying otherwise to line their pockets.
The VAERS figures are for self-reported adverse events post-vaccination. As the CDC says, "There are limitations to VAERS data. A report to VAERS does not mean that the vaccine caused the adverse event, only that the adverse event occurred some time after vaccination." So the figure of 18,000 is not the number of confirmed deaths caused by vaccination, just the number of deaths reported (by anyone, not only by a medical authority) after vaccination.
The number of deaths reported in VAERS, whatever it may be, also needs to be seen in context. In any population there will be an average number of deaths per day/ week/ month etc. Is the figure of 18,000 so clearly above the average for the population concerned (the vaccinated population, skewed to the old and vulnerable) that we can say the vaccine was the *cause* of the excess deaths? I haven't seen any evidence of that here. Dr. McCullough hasn't provided any evidence. Can anyone point me to such evidence?
14% of vaers data is self reported. The rest is doctors, pharma, medical establishment, etc. It’s a data set. What should be done is robust study and follow-up to determine exactly what you’re asking. Except nobody is doing it. The health authorities just keep running a PR campaign AGAINST the usefulness of their own data reporting system. Why, I wonder, can’t we manage to design a better system or adequately study the signals in this data set? It’s almost like the bureaucracy wants a messy data set that they can continually cast doubt on…
If by "running a PR campaign against" their own data you mean warning the public against misinterpreting the VAERS data in the way Dr. McCullough does, then I agree.
Coincidentally, that is also how Covid deaths are counted here in the UK. Deaths in the 28 days following a positive PCR test are attributed to Covid and added to the tally. My understanding is that this is a fairly blunt instrument in practice, and means that people who die in that 28 day period of unrelated causes, such as a road accident, are also counted.
One of the most noble careers has the be medicine. I’m quite sure that almost all choose to be doctors because they want to help others.
I do understand how difficult this is for doctors and how almost impossible it is for them to speak their mind right now. We are all frightened of the demonisation of those who do not go along with the current model and it seems that medics risk their careers and livelihoods. However the role of medic seems to have been reduced to that of drug dealer in the past year, their opinions seem to mean nothing anymore.
However what I do not understand is the systematic under reporting of vaccine injury. It seems here in Ireland unless you actually collapse with the needle still in your arm it will not be documented as a vaccine injury.Can somebody explain this?
I fear there is. In my small circle I know of four cases, one with breathing issues, two with heart irregularities and one with very serious neurological issues. Only the neurological was documented after a battle from the patient.
That’s my small circle . Also many women are experiencing menstrual disruptions and this is not reported at all.
This does lead me to believe that the stats are not to be trusted in regard to this
I wouldn't expect any positive evidence from mainstream, nor have I found any evidence of it being systematically underreported, but subjective reality is not supposition. There are dozens of genuine cases of victims being interviewed and uploading their videos. Mike Yeadon himself has lived a while and from his lived experience, notes a trend in young athletes deteriorating or dying after the vaccine, he worked for Pfizer, he is credible, he doesn't have an ulterior motive.
I know of several people who have developed auto immune related illness soon after vaccine and are now quite poorly, I don't think it is coincidental Stephen.
Anyone so fiercely sceptical they refuse to believe anything said by mainstream media or the medical establishment surely shouldn't believe anything said by Mike Yeadon either, should they? What exactly makes Mike Yeadon so uniquely credible?
I will let our audience fill in the blanks for I am not the only one in the ranks.
Fiercely sceptical, of those with inordinate pride, a motive perhaps to save their hide?
Well, what makes Yeadon so unique, devoid of lies, stench and internally meek, credible man so hard to seek.
Mainstream media and Fauci et al, have no soul, pharma herd cattle. So really Stephen that is what really matters, thanks to Fauci, it's currently in tatters.
There’s massive amount of propaganda on both sides of the fight. It’s worth bearing in mind that propaganda is still propaganda even if it fits into your narrative! I’m sceptical of most information so I rely primarily on my eyes and ears and my intuition. Throughout the last two years, I’ve spent a lot of time in supermarkets and got to know the staff well. They are closer to truth than anyone else for obvious reasons - they worked masked and unmasked, vaxxed and unvaxxed in an enclosed space for hours at a time, coming into contact with hundreds, possibly thousands, of people every day. Ask yourself how many of your local supermarket staff have died? It’s precisely zero where I live, I speak to them. We have four medium sized supermarkets and the staff range in age from 16 to 65.
There's an article in today's Herald Scotland by Neil Mackay: It's the Covid crazies who are perpetuating pandemic - not health experts. It's behind a paywall but the first couple of paragraphs are visible, and that's probably as much as most people could stomach. I never thought I would read something so unhinged and, frankly, disturbing in a Scottish newspaper. Many of the comments were outraged and disgusted by the article, so...they removed the comments and left the article up.
Neil Mackay and his ilk are not unintelligent; they know precisely what they are doing. The narrative they are crafting is a horror story, to be played out in the not-too-distant future if we don't quickly come to our senses.
This is rather horrifying. Bookless libraries *shiver*. It's too easy to imagine publishers (eagerly encouraged by Machine retailers like amazon.com) following suit and beginning to lobby for the phasing out of printed books. E-books are so much more useful to the Machine as they can't simply be handed around between people without the Machine knowing about it. Who is reading what and when is very valuable and easily monetized data, not to mention greatly useful in hunting down sedition.
Had really better get to work building that Scriptorium...
It still seems we are living in the doomsday scenario of Christianity, we are still held in thrall by that story and other hierarchical male dominated death cults. Two billion Christians who have cut off any memory of indigenous cultures and punished and castigated them. It took me 40 years in the UK to know their was anything before the Christians and Romans and it was not until I went physically outside of Christendom in my mid life I realised how dominated I was in every way by that story, the frog in the water was me. Until we see anew and outside of all that we will continue on as we are. There may be some interpretation of the Bible as story of man's destruction of creation and it might well be just a decent story. It is however tragic and sad to me that billions around the world are brought up on a book talking about remote tribes in a land most have never visited and told this is the Way and Truth and the Light while distracted from any value of what we know where we are. Every culture and great story has some sort of redemption or resurrections in some way or other
I was brought up soaked in Christianity and left it in adolescence. Found other things then in crisis went back to Christianity.and then left again! Who knows what next!
What did you find in two sentences?😊
Thanks Luca. Of Course Buddha's first insight into reality was that life is indeed a lot of suffering, birth, death, ageing, loss, upset. For him compassion for that reality is a core starting point and yes, thankfully Buddhists to not carry the guilt of doing it foe someone else who died for them. I guess the Buddha's middle way is though at odds with no harsh measures
Naturally as a Christian I disagree too. No argument from me about the tyrannical things that have been done down the years in the name of Christ, but I used to share this kind of worldview too until - well, until I didn't. The story you paint here is deeply one sided. 'Hierarchical male dominated death cult?' Not quite a fair description of the faith, for good or ill. And you can hardly say that 'two billion Christians' have all 'cut off any memory of indigenous cultures and punished and castigated them.' Most of those Christians I imagine would consider themselves indigenous to their place.
More to the point though, I can't see the pre-Christian cultures of much of the world as any more loving and tolerant; and often they were much less so. One thing Christianity does have going for it at the very least is a sharp understanding of human nature in that regard. We are post-Christian in the West, after all. How's that going for us?
Thanks for taking the time to reply.and I am happy to be disavowed of my view but at sixty it has not happened yet!. Is Christianity really not male dominated and heirarchical, has the catholic church not spent two thousand years seeing men as the preists and monopolising power and cultural norms ? Has it not used crusades, colonisation and law as a way to institutionalise this whereever.it has gone? Has is it not imposed its view of those most connected with other ways, aboriginals, native peoples, pagans, witches as an impediment and much worse? Is the final chapter of the Bible, the Book of Revelation not really pretty apocalyptic and is it not.totally.self fulfilling I was part of a large evangelical network at one time and they really were.intent on creating.the end times and preparing for the repatriation of Israel for the.time.of Christ's return - the same forces that funded and propelled Trump.and that have evangelised most.of Africa, South America.and.increasingly Asia. Is having the figure of a man crucified on a cross not a somewhat a deathly image. ( I do get the point is he was resurrected)
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I am not sure we are post Christian at all, our society in the UK is absolutely held together under the banner of church state and monarchy. It was only when I stepped out of this and spent time in other cultures, especially.Iran that I noticed how deep rooted that is.
I am definitely not one of those who holds to some ideas.that older times were ideal romantic worlds of amazing harmony although when I see or hear say aboriginals speak they have qualities that I find incredibly powerful.
I can see that what i am describing as Christianity is a rubbish interpretation of what Christ said and it seems he was a christianarchist. I can see that the idea of a transimmanent incarnate idea of God is powerful and having meaningful reverence for life is important nay essential but I think I must be missing something - I can't say that overall I find Christianity more moving than Islam, Buddhism Hinduism Daoism, Great Spirit or whatever. And the trouble is its shadow side has been so destructive and we still seem as the Christian West to think ourselves superior to the rest of the World by nature of our cultural inheritance so that we continue to justify our weapons, economic power and values rather than admit we/it was a complete screw up. It may also have some impact that when a disease like Covid comes.along that.may.impact us we try.to move heaven and Earth to stop.it while ploughing on with creating the global co-morbities of poverty, economic exploitation and ecological demise. The Bible may partly be a story of how we fell.from grace.if Eden but it is also pretty nationalist and unpleasant, god celebrating the death of every person and living thing in Judah to appease the Jews. Anyhow, seriously very happy to change if I discover something new 🙂
'Human history could be seen as a never-ending series of battles over stories, with the winners determining who shapes society, at least for a while.' Such beautifully expressed truth.
I appreciate how you framed the pandemic as a battle over stories. I think warring over the narratives will tear our nations apart. I don't want to be pro or anti vaccine. Reading your essays has helped me determine to take a pacifistic approach. I want to hear both sides and reserve judgement until a later time when calmed tempers allow for more rational reflection.
The stance that allows me to remain sane is this: I don't know and I don't claim to know and I'm not going to fight.
Thanks again for bringing an alternative perspective to the chaos!
What are your thoughts, though, about what appears to be a very fast moving progression toward a technocracy regardless of how you view the "sides"?
I want no part of it - though I think anger against it is of no help.
I think that is a very sane stance. The challenge comes, as I said in the previous essay, when your hand is forced: by mandates or 'green passes', for example. The question for me then becomes how to take a stand without falling into the pit. I want to try and write a bit about this next time.
Agreed - that is incredibly difficult! I haven't had my hand forced (in Kentucky, USA). I feel compassion for anyone whose hand is forced, whichever way they go (for or against the vaccine).
If my hand were forced, I would probably get the vaccine (though my wife could not because of a health condition). Yet I would still not wish to take a strong stance.
I think that the overall desire not to get caught up in a narrative battle is extremely wise. I fear it's too late for the culture/s as a whole, but hopefully we can learn from it as it goes on.
I've been thinking about past culture wars and how they resolved:
In the US there has been a fairly massive culture war over civil rights and that didn't fully destroy our nation - though we had a civil war followed by years of struggle, sometimes exploding into mass riots.
Do you feel that the current culture wars are more severe and destructive than those we've seen in the past? Or can we learn from the past that often over time the wars do end and nations often do succeed in working through many of the issues.
I've really no idea, especially about the US - though I would say that I think the story of the wider 'West' is crumbling fast, and that there seems to be no centre to fall back on now. But time will tell.
My experience in the US is that the extreme political polarization among citizens in our country which has reached a toxic level now prevents reasoned examination of the Narrative. A committed Democrat today could never switch to a view that questions the policies of the current government with its experts and media lackeys. We can't freely discuss diverse perspectives on the virus and strategies for dealing with it, because of the immediate association with partisan politics. This is destroying our society. We are left with shreds of faintly civil, superficial discourse. Very sad.
As you say, 'The challenge comes.... when your hand is forced: by mandates or 'green passes', for example'. I have a friend who is faced with this, and it's a very difficult one. He teaches one of the so-called 'complementary' medicine modalities, and he has a series of international courses planned in a country where they have restrictions based on one's vaccine status. Neither he nor many of his students are happy with the idea of being injected with an mRNA-based vaccine, but he can't just cancel the courses (which provide more than half of his annual income, and are regarded as essential by many of his students) so he's forced to consider having the vaccine against his professional judgement of the risks. I don't know what he will decide, but I can see that it's an agonising decision to have to make, and there doesn't seem to be any way round it.
I feel like this and will have the vaccine but with zero enthusiasm and little belief
My hand has also been forced by mandates for healthcare workers in California. After more than two months of daily agonizing and seeing very little chance of courts overturning that mandate in this overwhelmingly blue state, I finally took the first dose of Pfizer and developed tinnitus the same night, which lasted for almost two months.
My experience with this outcome may help your friend who believes in complementary medicine. Antioxidants may help but I didn’t experience any improvement until I turned to Chinese medicine. I don’t know why some people experience side effects whereas others don’t. Anyway, shoring up our health and immunity both before and after the vaccine will definitely help, should we have to take the jump when our hands are forced.
Paul, I think your central thrust in this post seems to be the failure of a narrative. I have dealt with the failure of the covid vaccine narrative which IMO is failing because of conflicting messages and concealment as well as suppression of alternative opinions by the MSM and the government. I think a big picture perspective is that large segments of the world now distrust the state to provide balanced "truth" and instead are providing propaganda to suuport the states' narrative. If enough of the public does not believe the state, the state cannot survive. This mirror's the "Noble Lie" of Plato's Republic which has been discussed by many folks even though I guess that phrase is absent from Plato. I gather from the noble lie discussion that society cannot function without certain assumptions of "lies" which all segments have to believe will ensure fairness whether by just laws or fair deliberation by the principals. If the people feel the system is rigged against them and inequality rears it's ugly head, the state is on thin ice. The myth of progress is I assume another one of those noble lies which now seems very long in the tooth. The el;ites are progressing but the rest of us are falling behind. The technocracy of the internet has allowed an explosion of narratives from tweets and retweets without thoughtful deliberation which used to be supplied by the Fourth Estate. Now there is no coherent Fourth Estate to provide compare and contrast functions. Trying to find "truth" in this digital social media morass is becoming a fool's errand.
My experience, thus far, shows that a "pacifistic approach," which (if I understand you) involves a kind of agnosticism about the virus, the risks, the value of proposed remedies, and so on, is readily tolerated by most of those who are anti-vaccine (or at least anti-mandate), but seen as being anti-vaccine by those who are pro-vaccine. The latter are especially intolerant of anything that falls short of unqualified affirmation of the Mask, the Distancing, the Science, etc.
I agree that many (at least the vocal ones) of those who are pro-vaccine would look on me as a danger and be intolerant towards my stance.
I am not agnostic regarding the virus. I certainly know people who have died because of it. In fact, my wife and I almost never leave our apartment because my wife has a health condition that makes her particularly at risk.
I also believe that the vaccine is reducing hospitalizations/severe cases of COVID - although, I don't know how this is impacted by each variant. I wonder if certain variants would simply cause less hospitalizations in general, but I don't know.
My wife's doctors have recommended against the vaccine:
1. For my wife because she is so sensitive/at risk that her body would not tolerate the vaccine.
2. For me because the long term impact of the vaccine remains understudied.
My wife's doctors work with really sensitive patients who have mainly found the normal treatment procedures of western doctors to be ineffective. Therefore, these particular doctors are less likely to embrace a "Thesis" position.
I would like to interview doctors who refuse to take a "Thesis" position to hear their varying perspectives:
1. On why they don't
2. What pressures (if any) they face from colleagues
3. Why they think so many doctors do embrace the popular narrative regarding COVID and the vaccine.
But in all this, I don't know much and therefore want to hesitate to run to anger or hold too strongly to any narrative.
That's very interesting. Your interviews with doctors could be very useful. I've wondered often how different the situation here would look if doctors were having these conversations on a case by case basis with their patients in that way - as happens with other illnesses and medications. That's not been happening, and it's one reason I think there's been this cleaving to a grand story of 'the vaccines', rather than treating medication for covid - with vaccines or with other treatments - as a personal situation to be dealt with. If that makes sense.
It seems like everything is universal now as though all people are the same. Let's make a blanket policy that takes everyone into account - as if every situation is the same.
It's not NOT happening. I saw my doctor for an unrelated issue yesterday, but asked about vaccines for kids (as she has kids the same age). I'm pretty sure she's vaxxed and boosted, but she said she isn't having her kids vaxxed yet for two reasons: 1) They don't typically suffer serious symptoms and 2) not enough testing has been done for kids. Those were my own views, so it was nice to hear them validated by my doctor. Maybe things are different in Europe.
You're right, it's a generalisation to say 'it's not happening.' In fact I have personal experience of doctors who are doing just this. But you have to know where to find them! The pressure on doctors here to conform to the Narrative is very powerful, as I've heard directly from some of them. This is only my response from where I am of course; but there is certainly no encouragement at all, to say the least, for doctors to develop individual responses for patients. The pressure coming down from government level to 'get everyone vaxxed' is enormous, and amplified by a compliant media.
Doctors before the pandemic were already expected to use allopathic medicines, by patients too. They were fully trained for it and it mostly works well. We as humans have lost the connection to natural medicine, to the healing power of herbs. Before I suffered a sharp chronic pain in my mouth, I believed in allopathic medicine, which didn’t help me. I am grateful to have learned that medicines from pharmaceutical companies can help and sometimes are the only choice but, the right herb or combination of them will heal chronic issues many times better and with no secondary effects. Once this is known in truth, with a kind of faith, partially coming from knowing our deep connection with nature, it’s very hard to believe that the vaccine is the only solution. Also from learning of Gurdjeff’s teachings, of which I am no master, but I did started to see my body, not as a car, which needs repairs occasionally, but as part of my consciousness.
Just to chime in on Europe. I live in France. I don't want to vaccinate my kids either, my doctor is also hesitant on the children front but I've also heard otherwise. It depends, I guess. From my experience, here on the countryside in France, it's accepted to share that you're not vaccinated. I am, but numerous parents of kids in our school aren't and we openly discuss things.
This is very different from The Netherlands (where I'm from originally). Hot from the presses over there is that the national health council has officially advised the cabinet to allow children to be vaccinated, but to do so without any force of exclusion whatsoever. We'll see where that ends...
I think people, in general, are more careful with kids, despite the narrative that is prevalent and the recommendations of the CDC, etc. Many people who I know to be vaccinated themselves have not yet vaccinated their children, even though it's been available to them for at least a month now. I was willing to take the vaccine myself, under the guidance of doctors that I trust, and if it all goes wrong in the end, I guess I'll blame them ;) and commend my life to God. But I'm not willing to have my kids take the vaccine without more evidence that it won't cause future harm.
Dr. Scott Atlas responds to these questions here. He was on President Trump's Covid Avisory Task Force. His advice was bypassed.
https://www.theepochtimes.com/dr-scott-atlas-on-vaccine-mandates-for-children-natural-immunity-and-floridas-covid-19-surge_4013490.html
Sadly you only have to view the video of Michael Gunner, the Australian Northern Territory minister's rant on You Tube to qualify your view Cameron.
Hmmm, I don't feel the same way about this. If I read the media, yes, the daily always seems to feature an OpEd about not taking a vaccine being a crime and that it's an immoral act to not have yourself vaccinated. But if I go out and talk to people, my experience is radically different. So that's what I do if I feel myself gravitate towards one side or the other too much, stop reading the daily, go out and speak to people, real people. Ah, and sometimes check to see if Paul has written another essay ;-).
It's easy to stick to one's gun (or story ;-) at this point. In fact, it feels like it gets easier and easier everyday, and certainly more accepted. I myself try to remind myself every day that I keep an open mind to all opinions, pro, anti, thesis, vax, et cetera.
And again a great essay. Thank you Paul for the wise words.
Yes, I think your point about narrative is surely correct. One might go further and say that the battle is over not merely narratives but rather myths, where narratives are subsets of myths. We hesitate to do so because we have become suspicious of myths. We suppose them to be untrue. We forget that they express truths rather than that they 'are' true. Yet, as Tolkien observed, there is one myth that not only expresses Truth but is also actually true: the story of the Incarnation.
Problems arise when we mistake myth/ mere narrative for truth. The plague narrative has been taken for truth and yet it is clear that, for the partying British Conservatives, it has been understood all along that the response of government has been pantomime. Few in government really believe the narrative but they collude with public and press by pretending to do so. It is well known that the average of Covid fatality in the UK is in excess of the average life expectancy. AsJohnson is reported by D Cummings to have said at the outset, 'get Covid. Live longer.'
We need to ask why is there this mass collusion in manifest falsehood? Why is the majority going along with all this? It can't be that people are REALLY scared because it is perfectly clear that there is little to be scared of. No, it is surely fear of fear. It's the thought that there could, very clearly, be a situation that is completely beyond our collective control - and that is frightening if you have only the one life to live.
What is more frightening still is, as you say, how this all plays out. The fact that the so-called vaccines (in fact they are more like prophylactics: vaccines prevent infection, these don't) are not terribly effective beyond about twenty weeks and clearly have nasty side-effects is surely being noticed by increasing numbers. When the penny finally drops, presumably there will be a period of hysterical denial (which will doubtless be visited on the unclean) before something else comes along to distract the masses - in this case, one suspects - an economic catastrophe to which governments are likely to respond by taking full powers and converting them to command economies. Currencies will then presumably collapse and - well, it starts to get depressing to think about... And all because we have forgotten God (as Solzhenitsyn put the matter) a forgetting in which, astonishingly the church has colluded. Which Bishop stood up to enjoin his flock to spit in the face of death? Not a one. Instead, they were content to dress up for Mass looking like figures in a Jake and Dinos Chapman tableau.
Ultimately, though, this is surely a battle over the nature of reality itself. Is there really a world out there, are there really people, or do we just have (as Democritus, and Lucretius after him, said) atoms and molecules whirling round in empty space? And if there is a world, and there are people, where do they come from and what are they for? These are questions that we have forgotten how to answer.
The point about Boris and his party is a very good one. Maybe this is part of the rage about it: not just that he's a hypocrite, but that he doesn't seem to take seriously what is presented to everyone else as serious: that it is indeed a 'pantomime.'
I've long thought that if the vaccines do turn out to have nasty long term impacts - and it's too early to say - that this might be a powder keg moment for Western democracies. Trust in institutions and authorities is so low already, that could strip any remaining legitimacy from them, in the eyes of people who were vaccinated in good faith. I hope it doesn't happen.
Hi Paul, in your interview with UnHerd you state that the “Elites”, representing Brexit Remainers, lost the EU referendum.
With respect I think you are losing perspective here.
To paraphrase Donald Trump, there are “elites” on all sides.
It depends what you mean by 'elites' I suppose - it's another of those slippery words. But there's no arguing with the fact that Remain was the position of virtually the entire UK establishment: unsurprisingly, since establishments tend to support the status quo. That included all major political parties on both left and right, virtually the entire business establishment, the CBI, much (though not all) of the media, 99% of the cultural establishment (find me half a dozen Brexit-voting novelists and I'll buy you a pint!), the NGOs, academia: etc etc. It's also the case that the upper-middle class vote skewed overwhelmingly to Remain while the working class vote skewed to Leave. This is why the whole thing was such a shock to them, and the ructions are still going on.
It doesn't follow from that, of course, that everyone who voted to Remain was part of 'the elite'; nor that some wealthy and powerful people didn't vote leave. But the broad picture is clear.
Your examples; political, corporate and cultural, are mainstream cohorts, not an elite class.
The upper-middle class are not “elite”.
The working class had unresolved grievances that were triggered by the Brexit debate.
My own view is that it was a particular elite class who capitalised on these grievances for their own reward.
Agree. I think the problem is really that neither the EU nor the Brexiters could see beyond the paradigm we are in. Both wanted to maximise profit and interest. None of the debate was about what is good for the world, the Earth, class interests. The debate was sterile. Neither option was good. I voted remain as the least bad of the two and because 70 years of a Europe not at war was worth quite a lot
This is clearly a semantics issue. The upper middle-class, and educated lower-middle certainly worried a lot less about freedom of movement of cheap labour and capital, and perhaps that's the point PK was making!
I agree that “elite” has become a slippery word. Unfortunately it now seems to be shorthand for a leftist liberal elite, who stand accused of betraying the working class (something the traditional or conservative elite could never be accused of 😊)
'Elite' in my book is shorthand for the people who run things. It's quite true that the people who run things in Britain are overwhelmingly 'liberal' in economic and cultural terms; and have indeed betrayed the working class quite systematically for decades. Populism is their comeuppance, as is Brexit.
To say that is not to suggest that, say, the old aristocracy or squirearchy did not similarly look after their own class interests and mostly ignore the poor. That, as a rule, is how all alites behave. It's just that the elite in a global liberal order will be liberal .
I've been reading about the enneagram of personality. I read that my type is inclined to take the antithesis over the thesis based on my innate traits. Other types are more inclined to agree with "the narrative"; they are motivated by a deep unconscious (or subconscious?) need to avoid uncomfortable conflict. Interesting to ponder how much these simple personality variations may determine what we consider our deeply held truth. I had to laugh at myself! Of course the teaching is that all types reflect an aspect of divine truth and that we can be freed from merely playing out our type through spiritual growth.
Good point, and undoubtedly true - especially the part about spiritual growth!
I adore the Enneagram. It was so accurate that it startled me. And suddenly I realised my underlying beliefs which helped me understand why I feel and behave the way I do.
What is your type if you don't mind me asking?
I am a 5.
I think I'm 5 wing 4, which makes the scientific 5 into 'the iconoclast' via the 4 influence. I was also shocked how accurately my type and my husbands (8) - and other people in my life - were seemingly laid bare by the enneagram. At first I took it as a fascinating tool for pinpointing human nature out of curiosity but I've just begun to see it with more caution. The book 'The Sacred Enneagram' lines up types with sins, passions, holy virtues, etc in such a way that I shudder to casually toss about types. It's like seeing people naked! I feel it deepening my compassion and humility as I view others and understand my own struggles.... so that must be good! I also read in 'The Wisdom of the Enneagram' that type 5s who love to analyze and observe are often fascinated by the enneagram... haha, that seems to be true for us two.
Lol. I had a feeling you might be a 5 too. I imagine a lot of us here are 5s.
I know what you mean about it deepening compassion. When a person's actions are inexplicable to you, knowing their type can most often throw light on their motivations.
It is indeed like seeing people naked. A medical herbalist who I know asks patients to do an enneagram test before the first consultation so she can treat them more wholistically.
The Sacred Enneagram sounds great. I'll have to look it up.
As a 9 I am a peace maker, facilitator, very good at hearing and helping everyone develop their views but awful at knowing what I think!
Clara- I, too, am a 5 with a 4 wing (though sometimes I flip to a 4 with a 5 wing). The pandemic has brought me right up against the limits of my attempts to fit everything into a comprehensive view. Also, my tendency to isolate myself so that I can "think it all through". This very quickly became detrimental. I have found it all too easy to get tangled up in the maps I create in my mind that might not have any actual territory. Or the maps become more vivid than the territory. Which is plainly backward. I am hoping that God leads me beyond this self-created trap. I need to connect, to participate. -Jack
Wow, that's amazing that you are the same type, too. Maybe mrs. S is right that there are many 5 in this conversation. 5 is the rarest occuring type I read somewhere -- oh no, is that my need to feel special asserting itself again? I can see that I am always fighting the temptation to live in my head rather than body. I never saw it so clearly before. How did you find out about the enneagram and how long ago? It has been a year since I stumbled over it and it seems I will have much to learn from it for quite some time yet.
Clara
I like this interview with insights for 5s during pandemic stress. At the very end his answer to a question about contemplative practice for head types is very relevant for me, but the zoom connection was touchy.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=e_lMNWDVCDc
Fellow 5 here too. I can so relate to “attempts to fit everything into a comprehensive view” and a “tendency to isolate myself so that I can ‘think it all through’.” I know there is no true comprehensive view, but I can’t stop trying to find it. I’ve been looking for a way out of this trap. Holding everything looser? Getting more comfortable with uncertainty? Trust/faith in something else?
Have any of you read PKs book Savage Gods? I'm only half way through. It is a vivid display of 4 and 5 flavored inner thoughts.
From Voltaire's Candide:
During this conversation, news was spread abroad that two viziers
of the bench and the mufti had just been strangled at Constantinople,
and several of their friends impaled. This catastrophe made a great
noise for some hours. Pangloss, Candide, and Martin, as they were
returning to the little farm, met with a good–looking old man, who was
taking the air at his door, under an alcove formed of the boughs of
orange trees. Pangloss, who was as inquisitive as he was disputative,
asked him what was the name of the mufti who was lately strangled.
“I cannot tell,” answered the good old man; “I never knew the
name of any mufti, or vizier breathing. I am entirely ignorant of the
event you speak of; I presume that in general such as are concerned in
public affairs sometimes come to a miserable end; and that they deserve
it: but I never inquire what is doing at Constantinople; I am contented
with sending thither the produce of my garden, which I cultivate with
my own hands.”
New reader, I found this to be really insightful. Excellent articulation of one lens for viewing what’s happening in our world now, a lens that seems to capture much of the dynamic. I’ll be pondering this essay and applications of the competing story lens for quite a while I expect. Thank you, Paul.
That's incredibly insightful. Thank you.
It explains beautifully why it feels like people on the other side of the debate are living in a parallel universe. Why we cannot understand or even hear each other, let alone have any kind of dialogue.
There will be increasing and escalating conflict between democracy and technocracy - yes - and from my point of view it is a conflict that technocracy cannot win in the long run. My question is what will be lost during the struggle? Also - a more parochial question in every sense - I just wonder if the church, any church, is going to side with the democracy rather than the technocracy. My hopes aren't high; most church leadership was colonised by the technocrats a long time ago. Certainly the Church of England's institutional response is led by a former Chief Nursing Officer who (to share scurrilous gossip) professes to have 'no theology'. Mene Mene Tekel Parsin....
I'm finding a lot of hope amongst some Orthodox people and leaders, I must say. Not necessarily the noisier ones, and certainly not those who are politically partisan, but at a quieter more local and human level I find a church that is far less worldly and technocratic than those of the West. We'll see where that goes.
Here in LA, it’s harder to find such quieter churches. Most of those that are on the antithesis side are a bit too ‘fevourish’ for my taste. Still, it is good to see people quoting from the Bible as much as they are doing now on the chat rooms of these antithesis groups. A bit of fanaticism to counter that on the other thesis side.
The Catholic Church will side with technocracy. They have been colonized by societal elites repeatedly -- first in ancient Rome, then in the Middle Ages, again in the late Enlightenment. Vatican II was just confirmation of the obvious.
I second Paul's comment. Look to the Orthodox Church for leadership on this. They have the structure and historical stamina of Catholicism, but 2000 years of consular leadership makes them less susceptible to cultural winds or elite colonization. Not immune, but less susceptible.
Thanks, Paul, for a fascinating essay. The Manichean division between good/bad, true/false, clean/unclean, loyalist/traitor has been with us since the dawn of Time, and has manifested more recently in the Reign of Terror after the French Revolution, in Nazi Germany's quest for a judenrein nation, and in the multiple communist purges including the Holodomor, the Cultural Revolution, and the Killing Fields. They were, in their own twisted ways, attempts at "purification"--or in you terms, the complete triumph of one narrative over another.
There's something soothing to the human psyche about complete uniformity, be it a weed-free lawn, a sugar bowl without fly-specks, or a witch-free Colony. It saves us from the mental labor of perusing a diverse society and having to sort out friend from foe on a person-by-person basis. The narrative becomes a useful scythe or an application of RoundUp, leveling us all. And propagation of the narrative is made more powerful in our time by the efficiency of that which you correctly call The Machine.
All such purification drives have ultimately failed in the past. Why? And if "this time is different", why? I'm hoping you discuss these in your Part III.
If it's true that what Limberg calls the Thesis (or Sheridan the Plague story) is the driving force behind the actions taken by European governments, such as ordering social distancing, imposing face masks in certain contexts, administering vaccines on a massive scale, etc., I would love to know what those who cleave to the Antithesis think governments *should* have done. With the wisdom of hindsight but acknowledging the uncertainty of counterfactuals, what do they think governments should have done, and what do they think would have happened then? Or do they in fact accept that those actions were perhaps justified but disagree with vaccine mandates and passports? In which case there might be some room for nuance. In a sense this is all water under the bridge, but if the Antithesis is to play a role in driving future decisions, surely it would be worth clarifying.
It seems likely they will cross the line with the mandates here Paul, as they consider the pandemic is getting out of control, with Boris saying we can't indefinitely carry on with non pharmaceutical intervention. He will be assessing the effectiveness of the booster and failing that, a national conversation will be held for the next stage.
The Antithesis people don't think covid qualifies as a Plague. So how can the Plague story fit?
They looked at the stratified mortality statistics and concluded, from early on in many cases, that those under the age of 82 with fewer than 3 comorbidities were at little risk.
This is the nub of it. Is it an actual Plague or not?
Well, we antitheticals were watching Sweden admiringly and some of us signed the Great Barrington declaration...
" With the wisdom of hindsight but acknowledging the uncertainty of counterfactuals, what do they think governments should have done, and what do they think would have happened then? "
I recommend watching this interview on exactly that question. It also dives into what has gone wrong with the current approach, and the risks of the vaccines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-zg1j7Zquoc
Thank you for the link, Paul. I was finding the interview interesting and potentially alarming, until I heard Dr. McCullough cite a figure of 18,000 people who he said have died "with" the vaccine, clearly implying "because of" the vaccine, a number he said was probably underreported.
This brought me up short. If the mortality rate from the vaccines is that high, why haven't I heard about the tens of thousands of vaccine-related deaths in Europe? If it were happening in a public health context, I don't believe it could be kept quiet for long.
On further investigation, I discover that Dr. McCullough is a veteran of the "battle of the narratives" (champion of hydroxychloroquine) and that his authority is far from unquestioned. So the interview really doesn't answer the question, it merely runs reiterates the anti-vaccine narrative. (It does indicate, though, that the supposedly draconian clampdown on dissent is quite mild!)
It isn't a anti-vaccine narrative, it is a pro-life one and I find it suspicious that big pharma have legal indemnity. This is just going to go on and on until the time that Fauci is ousted. The PCR test is something I also find detestable because it was not designed to identify covid, but is manipulated to do so.
Good luck finding anyone whose authority is unquestioned at this point! I'm not holding a candle for this doctor, but it's a compelling interview and the facts he offers should be easy enough to check. I'd be happy for them to be checked and found entirely wrong. But in the meantime, the 'anti-vaccine narrative' continues precisely because of these concerns about safety, and because they are not investigated and are regularly played down. The myocarditis reports alone - in children - should be top of the headlines. It is virtually impossible though, to get to the bottom of any of it. It's like the fog of war.
Re: Anti-vaccine narrative, Boris wants us to be jabbed if Omnicron can't be tamed, whilst in the meantime, our concerns continue to fall on death ears and we are labelled as nefarious for wanting to potentially save ourselves from death or horrible side effects, whilst they have legal indemnity, they have the legal indemnity for one reason only, they know what they are up to and have to cover their machinations.
With respect, Paul, I think you are exaggerating when you say that vaccine safety concerns are not investigated and are regularly played down. There is no disputing the safety concerns, but even the most cursory investigation shows that post-vaccine myocarditis in children has been investigated in research reported in top medical journals and has been discussed by the European Medical Association and the CDC. If uncontested research published in serious journals finds the incidence of myocarditis in these cases to be very rare and low severity, to say that the concerns are being "played down" seems to me to misrepresent the true state of affairs. The "fog" you mention is made more impenetrable by such exaggeration.
I’m not a doctor or medical researcher and it’s been a couple days since I watched that entire interview with Dr. McCullough. I believe the point McCullough was making about myocarditis in children is that “the system” is failing to do “risk stratification” with respect to children receiving the COVID vaccines. I thought he was suggesting that the risk of serious and/or long term heart damage in children as a result of taking the vaccine may be greater than the risk of serious health impacts due to COVID itself. I have no idea if McCullough proved his case with the numbers cited in that interview, but it certainly appeared to me that a mass vaccination program for children is at least questionable until that issue is settled.
The numbers vary depending on your source. If your trusted source is Dr. Peter McCullough, Mike Yeadon and other anti-vaccination spokespersons, you'll conclude that the risk of serious and/or long term heart damage in children as a result of taking the vaccine is greater than the risk of serious health impacts due to COVID itself. It's important to look at different sources and make a balanced decision as to which seems more trustworthy. Anyone who believes that so-called dissenting voices need to be heard must surely also believe that "non-dissenting" opinion deserves the same fair treatment.
Those that speak out about their own injuries are not heard as doctors won't validate their concerns (in most cases) and when they do on social media, they are censored. Here is a discussion about a new study looking at the data from Ontario about myocarditis. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzVoS-1TIWI
Actually the studies show that hydroxychloroquine works (usually with zinc and azithromycin) - but that wouldn't have fit into the narrative. https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/rapid-censorship-of-highly-positive
I'm not sure the studies show that hydroxychloroquine "works". They may show, in the usual, statistical way, that it may have positive effects in certain population groups at certain stages, absolutely. They also show that it has some dangers, particularly cardiovascular events. They don't provide a solid basis for prescribing hydroxychloroquine as a Covid-19 treatment. Anyone who's worried about the effects of the Covid-19 vaccines should surely be at least as worried about the possible effects of hydroxychloroquine.
I happened to watch this video this morning, but yes I agree with the warnings, with 18,000 domestic Americans died via reporting through CDC VAIRS systems, CMS data, 45,000 under-reported. To be honest, I am glad we have the likes of Dr Peter McCullough, Dr Robert Malone because they are credible and have no vested financial agenda. They are reporting findings that it is the vaccinated that are causing the variants. Del Bigtree seems to know a lot about why these variants have been escaping, so I am not willing to sacrifice my life when I have recovered from COVID. My natural immunity is permanent, immunity with the vaccine will only last a few months. They are saying otherwise to line their pockets.
The VAERS figures are for self-reported adverse events post-vaccination. As the CDC says, "There are limitations to VAERS data. A report to VAERS does not mean that the vaccine caused the adverse event, only that the adverse event occurred some time after vaccination." So the figure of 18,000 is not the number of confirmed deaths caused by vaccination, just the number of deaths reported (by anyone, not only by a medical authority) after vaccination.
The number of deaths reported in VAERS, whatever it may be, also needs to be seen in context. In any population there will be an average number of deaths per day/ week/ month etc. Is the figure of 18,000 so clearly above the average for the population concerned (the vaccinated population, skewed to the old and vulnerable) that we can say the vaccine was the *cause* of the excess deaths? I haven't seen any evidence of that here. Dr. McCullough hasn't provided any evidence. Can anyone point me to such evidence?
14% of vaers data is self reported. The rest is doctors, pharma, medical establishment, etc. It’s a data set. What should be done is robust study and follow-up to determine exactly what you’re asking. Except nobody is doing it. The health authorities just keep running a PR campaign AGAINST the usefulness of their own data reporting system. Why, I wonder, can’t we manage to design a better system or adequately study the signals in this data set? It’s almost like the bureaucracy wants a messy data set that they can continually cast doubt on…
If by "running a PR campaign against" their own data you mean warning the public against misinterpreting the VAERS data in the way Dr. McCullough does, then I agree.
Coincidentally, that is also how Covid deaths are counted here in the UK. Deaths in the 28 days following a positive PCR test are attributed to Covid and added to the tally. My understanding is that this is a fairly blunt instrument in practice, and means that people who die in that 28 day period of unrelated causes, such as a road accident, are also counted.
One of the most noble careers has the be medicine. I’m quite sure that almost all choose to be doctors because they want to help others.
I do understand how difficult this is for doctors and how almost impossible it is for them to speak their mind right now. We are all frightened of the demonisation of those who do not go along with the current model and it seems that medics risk their careers and livelihoods. However the role of medic seems to have been reduced to that of drug dealer in the past year, their opinions seem to mean nothing anymore.
However what I do not understand is the systematic under reporting of vaccine injury. It seems here in Ireland unless you actually collapse with the needle still in your arm it will not be documented as a vaccine injury.Can somebody explain this?
Is there any positive evidence (as opposed to speculation) that vaccine injury is systematically underreported?
I fear there is. In my small circle I know of four cases, one with breathing issues, two with heart irregularities and one with very serious neurological issues. Only the neurological was documented after a battle from the patient.
That’s my small circle . Also many women are experiencing menstrual disruptions and this is not reported at all.
This does lead me to believe that the stats are not to be trusted in regard to this
What will it take to get Fauci to jail?
Throw away the key with no recourse to bail?
Fauci like his father, is just a flickering flame,
angry to ignite and desperate to remain.
Wagging his fingers, the innocent, get the
blame, but in eternity he will forever feel the shame.
Sorry said the Word, didn't really know you, so
couldn't record your name.
https://off-guardian.org/2021/12/11/watch-d4ce-symposium-ii-sounding-the-call/
I wouldn't expect any positive evidence from mainstream, nor have I found any evidence of it being systematically underreported, but subjective reality is not supposition. There are dozens of genuine cases of victims being interviewed and uploading their videos. Mike Yeadon himself has lived a while and from his lived experience, notes a trend in young athletes deteriorating or dying after the vaccine, he worked for Pfizer, he is credible, he doesn't have an ulterior motive.
I know of several people who have developed auto immune related illness soon after vaccine and are now quite poorly, I don't think it is coincidental Stephen.
Anyone so fiercely sceptical they refuse to believe anything said by mainstream media or the medical establishment surely shouldn't believe anything said by Mike Yeadon either, should they? What exactly makes Mike Yeadon so uniquely credible?
I will let our audience fill in the blanks for I am not the only one in the ranks.
Fiercely sceptical, of those with inordinate pride, a motive perhaps to save their hide?
Well, what makes Yeadon so unique, devoid of lies, stench and internally meek, credible man so hard to seek.
Mainstream media and Fauci et al, have no soul, pharma herd cattle. So really Stephen that is what really matters, thanks to Fauci, it's currently in tatters.
There’s massive amount of propaganda on both sides of the fight. It’s worth bearing in mind that propaganda is still propaganda even if it fits into your narrative! I’m sceptical of most information so I rely primarily on my eyes and ears and my intuition. Throughout the last two years, I’ve spent a lot of time in supermarkets and got to know the staff well. They are closer to truth than anyone else for obvious reasons - they worked masked and unmasked, vaxxed and unvaxxed in an enclosed space for hours at a time, coming into contact with hundreds, possibly thousands, of people every day. Ask yourself how many of your local supermarket staff have died? It’s precisely zero where I live, I speak to them. We have four medium sized supermarkets and the staff range in age from 16 to 65.
Thank you, Paul. Another gem.
There's an article in today's Herald Scotland by Neil Mackay: It's the Covid crazies who are perpetuating pandemic - not health experts. It's behind a paywall but the first couple of paragraphs are visible, and that's probably as much as most people could stomach. I never thought I would read something so unhinged and, frankly, disturbing in a Scottish newspaper. Many of the comments were outraged and disgusted by the article, so...they removed the comments and left the article up.
Neil Mackay and his ilk are not unintelligent; they know precisely what they are doing. The narrative they are crafting is a horror story, to be played out in the not-too-distant future if we don't quickly come to our senses.