Your essay reminds me of topology. In topology, we have sets that have properties. Those properties intersect, in other words, they share properties. Once you start seeing the things in our world as possessing groups of properties, you can begin to see the connectedness of all things, and where things are unique. This allows one to approach things, as the sage of Barsoom is doing, in an analogical way, looking for patterns of form.
In the case of the systems that he describes, both are focused on expressions of power, their origins, and basic properties of expression. Rather than thinking of them as diametric, think of them as complementary.
He has noticed that there is no reason why both these things can’t be true at the same time. In other words, he has abandoned the addiction to dialectic for the freedom of analogy. In other words it’s not either or, it is both and.
Once we can make the leap to looking for the connections between things before we look at the things that distinguish them, we can avoid the cognitive dissonance and anxiety that results from the endless wash of propaganda which intolerably fills the world around us.
Great piece! Totally agree and this has been the same binary perspectives of the brain and its development; top-down or bottom-up? environment or genetics? The truth it's both top-down and bottom-up, it's both environment and genetics, it's both from within and from without that we see the forces shaping the developing brain.
So to with society (the brain is always such a good analogy for society!), as you say, systemic forces AND those individual forces are all at play. And of course it's the right hemisphere that can appreciate the two playing together in a non-linear complexity that's difficult to clearly define.
One thing that I would add, which is not spoken of in academic circles, is the supernatural element - a layer above (or below, depending on your allegiances) the systemic and individual forces at play. What the Bible calls "principalities and powers", I believe, have a significant influence, but not either the "Great Man" nor the "Social Forces" but catalytic to both (for it is still men and society who have the agency to perpetrate both good and evil).
Part of me wanted to cast conspiracism as more right-brain than systemicism, but it really does have the character of schizophrenia, and is extremely left-brain in its own way. Then I realized, ah, obviously, the right brain way of seeing this is both-and. Duh.
The supernatural element is indeed a very important aspect of all of this ... and often denied by both (although conspiracists are far more likely to acknowledge it).
Several of the delusions described in "Matter with Things" made me think of the conspiretards. (I use the term somewhat endearingly.) E.g. the delusion that a person you know has been replaced by a cheap facsimile, that other people are actually robots, and I'm sure a few others that I forget right now. I love me a good conspiracy, but I draw the line at Miles Matthis - i.e. crisis actors (all the time, everywhere), "x" didn't really die but is actually now this other person who slightly looks like them. That's not to say that no one has ever been replaced by a cheap facsimile, or that some people aren't robots, however. lol
Paranoia is very left brain. Thankfully the right-brain both-and maneuver allows me to keep my paranoia but temper it with something a little less cracked.
Exactly. At the same time, many of McGilchrist's descriptions of hyper-systematizing brought on by right hemisphere lesions - insisting on logically deriving everything and such - were highly reminiscent of, well, systemitards.
Both-and cognitive parallax is the key technique to avoid getting trapped in halls of mirrors of every description.
Yes you will have read McGilchrist’s description of schizophrenia and likeness to left-hemispheric perception, and Louis Sass has much to say on this as well - and the thinking is highly conspiratorial in nature and exactly the delusions you mention - so it does seem to me that the really “out there” conspiracy theories are fueled by the left hemisphere, and at the same time the same hemisphere can be so dismissive of what it cannot grasp and will only accept a linear logic that may be as far from the truth as the schizo perspective. Fascinating.
I must go because I think the CIA has just tapped into my prefrontal cortex to steal the memory of my passwords. Damn telepathic secret agents!
My Substack inbox is giving me a 'you're all caught up' error. At the same time, Protonmail's server is down and I can't retrieve messages. This is clearly the result of malign influence intended to prevent me from connecting with other essayists. Fucking CIA.
"Reality is a jealous goddess, and in her vanity she gets cross if you ignore one part of her by fetishizing another. She gets pissed if you compliment her dress and fail to notice that she did her hair. She demands holistic worship." Love this!
I started a reply and lost it. I hope its not already in the comment section.
Anyway, I first thought, "bitches, we can't get a break." Then I reread it and it's goddesses not women.
I also thought the metaphor was a tangential crack against women, more specifically narcissistic women (redundant, I know right?) We're not all like that. I should just leave it there.
At the same time I recognize the keen intellect of John to connect these two concepts and create a funny, original and starkly brilliant phrase.
John, thank you. You got me to apply some of the Austrian School economics theory to something other than business cycles.
One of the principal tenets of the economic school is that it is impossible to plan an economy, it is far too complicated. Central planners cannot rationally calculate how to combine resources to render efficient production, and cannot have enough data on the economy to plan effectively; this is both the calculation problem and the knowledge problem.
In the Soviet Union, eventually the central planners had to try to simplify the economy out of self defense to try to make it manageable, and failed even at that. Because of the inevitable mismanagement of a central economy, the Soviet Union faced unending shortages and rationing while possessing the greatest resource base in the world.
The Progressives, the Fascists and the various forms of socialists all claimed to have the ultimate goal of efficiency, end of waste, and to create equality. Each time it has failed another group has popped up, with the idea that they knew what was done wrong last time, when what was wrong was the actual goal of subverting societies to force people to not act like people.
However, a culture is far more complex than a market economy because of the additional dimensions that have nothing to do with money, sales or production. Simplification to allow efficient management of a culture, like in an economy, will damage it so badly that the culture itself will stop working, and I suspect the social equivalent of an black market economy will be created.
It is possible that various shadowy cabals are working to control the world, in a way that all prior attempts bloodily failed at, but all they have been able to do so far is mismanage and steal wealth for themselves. The original goal of efficiency is hardly pretended at any more, and I think all that can be accomplished is to try to break the parts of society that might prevent centralization, simplification and control.
>It is possible that various shadowy cabals are working to control the world, in a way that all prior attempts bloodily failed at, but all they have been able to do so far is mismanage and steal wealth for themselves.
Precisely. They're better seen through the lens of organized crime than secret masters. Pernicious, but far from omnipotent.
Oh, the mighty power of "both". The system is there, amorphous and sprawling, everywhere and yet seemingly without leaders.
But there are individuals who are making choices that impact the system. Whether Gates and Soros and their ilk are calling the shots or merely another layer of facade on the system is the question. I would again go with "both".
Faction politics are fascinating. I would expect there are multiple factions struggling for the ultimate power over the West. Many people may belong to multiple factions and many also don't know they belong to one. They just go along and do their independent action in support of the faction of which they are a peon member.
Think of your average school administrator pushing Woke. Is some secret individual telling them to do it? No. They are just part of the system, which is ultimately controlled and pushed by a few oligarchs way up high, behind layers of obfuscation.
It is a hydra. The fight back probably requires doing a DeSantis and pushing back hard.
Most exquisite analysis, yet again. I’m not trying to butter you up, just expressing genuine appreciation that someone so intellectual and prolific can put words to something that so many of us have known for years.
I was raised poor and working class, but I was very intellectual from an early age, and spent about equal amounts of time in academia and in the private sector running small businesses. So, just practically speaking, I can see that both things are obviously true. This is why I don’t go to Eugy.
Also, I can only conclude that you’re on a shit load of caffeine, piracetam, and possibly also microdosing LSD.
I wonder how much of a role class origin plays? I came from a working class background too, and I know that colors my worldview in a number of ways that set me apart from academics from posher families.
As to the pharmaceuticals, I'm old school. Only nootropics indulge in are caffeine and nicotine. Had to look up piracetam. The LSD was many moons in the past, and far from microdosed at the time ;)
There’s another practical manifestation of this phenomenon. The germ and terrain theorists are both wrong and both bore the ever living *#%^ out of me.
Now there's an interesting topic. That's a less common debate, although it's become a bit louder recently for obvious reasons. I've always figured it's like nurture/nature: two camps making good points, but so attached to their partisan viewpoints that they don't see that reality lies at the intersection. The terrain theorists have obviously never had an infection cured by antibiotics. The germ absolutists never seem to notice that people who exercise, eat properly, and get lots of sunshine don't get infections nearly as often.
Jul 13, 2022·edited Jul 13, 2022Liked by John Carter
"As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk,
The law runneth forward and back,
For the strength of the pack is the wolf,
And the strength of the wolf is the pack."
Sorry, I had to do it. To modify Billy Joel, I'm in a neo-colonialist, patriarchal, paleo-conservative state of mind. In other words, I'm aware of the bicameral reality of human interactions, and the feedback loops that blur the distinction between individual agents and group dynamics until wolves and their packs are comprehensible by the same standards:
Will I be bitten, how can I avoid the bite, and how can I teach others to avoid bites in general?
Are you familiar with the work of literary historian Marsha Keith Schuchard? Her 2018 book Masonic Rivalries and Literary Politics: from Johnathan Swift to Henry Fielding emphasizes the importance of the controlling secret society of the 17th and 18th centuries. It changed my view and I now believe that the secret society is more central and dominating than I previously was aware. By the time we get to the 19th century, it is hard to find a single example of a famous literary mind who was not involved in Masonic politics. From this perspective it appears that the controlling secret society has always maintained a vice grip on the arts and letters of the world, as well as the money. A further consideration is that all these well monied people are part of a church that despises and exploits humanity at large. These are priests of a dark religion.
There are lots of secret societies that seem to have exerted considerable influence behind the scenes. The Thule Society in pre-WWII Germany, for instance. The Fabian socialists in early-century Britain. Back in antiquity, the mystery cults seem to have served a similar purpose.
Ascribing too much importance or power to any one society is an error; so is failing to factor in the societies' existence.
Masonry above all allowed end runs around a highly stratified social structure that established blocks between the classes. Within the Masonic lodge this stratification was set aside, and it would not be uncommon for the managers son to be in contact with the clerks in his office, or the laborers who he would almost never have any opportunity to be in contact with.
Once this mindset became possible through usage, it could spread to organizations like the scientific societies making them more than salons for the elite who dabbled in natural philosophy, and from there to society in general.
In a way it was the social media of the time, where anyone could be in contact with anyone, and could discuss outside of the requirements of their classes or status. Social media may be demonic in itself, but the usefulness in connecting people is enormous
That's a really important point. Secret societies aren't purely sinister organizations. They're a social technology, and like any technology, it's the application and not the technology itself that's value-weighted.
Secret societies also provide a venue and a pool of people from which more sinister organizations can groom perspective members, just like it says in the Protocols of Zion. I agree that 90% of Masons never reach the point where Satanic ritual witchcraft is required. I'm suggesting that there is an overarching Satanic cult that selects members from lower secret societies, like the Masons, Knights of Columbus, and the Scottish Rite. Priestcraft is the enemy of humanity. This has not changed since the Baroque era. We have priests in science. We have priests in popular culture (music and movies). We have priests in the three letter government intel agencies. Gee, there's no reason to think anything sinister is going on. It's just a secret society where members swear to devil never to breath a word about it or their entrails will be strung out all over the ground, but it's a really important point that it's not the fault of the technology itself. You must understand how full of shit you sound as you try to put a polite spin on the secret boys club doing untold evil in the world. Oh, it's not the technology itself that's at fault...oh salient point there...
I get what you're driving at now. Secret societies can do good. I can think of many examples: the underground railroad, the Polish and French resistance to Nazi occupation. There are lots of examples of secret societies that counter oppression and totalitarianism. Lots of religious groups (Christians) have met in secret because they are oppressed: Rosicrucians, Philidelphians, Muggletonians, Ranters, Shakers, Bakers, Quakers, Lakers, and Fakers. So the technology can be used for good. OK. I will take your point.
I could argue that secret societies are also a symptom of a dysfunctional society like a social equivalent to a black market in a centrally planned or over-regulated market.
Heroin and prostitution are black markets, but so are untaxed cigarettes and raw milk. Also, social change can follow the development of black markets, or the black markets can become integrated in the economy. Bootlegging and the violence surrounding it during prohibition was one of the drivers for ending prohibition, for the first part, and the Argentinian "Dollar Blue" for the other.
Dollar blue is the black market price for US Dollar in Argentina, which pegged its Peso to the USD, and then proceeded to print it into inflation. The official rate is below the street rate, and the street rate is known as the Dollar Blue.
In true Argentinian fashion, the exchange rate for the Dollar Blue in Buenos Aires, Montevideo Uruguay and a few other places used to be listed on Page One of the major Buenos Aires financial paper.
The ancient Athenian system of appointing representatives by lot from the whole citizen body makes sense from both points of view. It means government policy is for the benefit of the populace. And it takes power away from any conspiracy, or at least makes it much harder for a conspiracy to run things.
The most important thing now seems to be, we cannot allow these competing worldviews to drag us into some sort o civil war beyond an information war, which latter we are already well into. Civil war that leads to outright violence is just more violence, and a war no one wins.
At the same time, covid policy has killed and continues to kill many more people than the virus, and it has to stop.
Please excuse my likely lack of coherence as I am about to hop my third now flight twenty some hours in to attend a wedding in Sweden. Residency to S'pore to Dubai to Stockholm deal. Here's the deal on my end with your comment about "the Jews." 1. You will find Jewish Americans on every side of every issue: political, social, etc. In my experience, it does not make sense to think of them as a monolithic group. 2. You could look at income and other achievement stats for Indian (subcontinent) Americans, Vietnamese Americans, etc. You would find results well above the norm. Culture matters greatly.
So if we have someone who is raised in a household which values and education and achievement, and who has role models in the family -- father, mother, or uncles and aunts -- who are engineers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, college professors, etc -- that is the standard. That sets the expectations. "Normal" is always local. Success -- through both family culture and some family wealth -- can be perpetuated across generations if the family/ethnic culture has some degree of discipline and regulation with in it. Shaming, etc.
Here's a useful real-world exercise. If you are near a major STEM university, see who is in the graduate program. Do an informal demographical analysis of the students. You can reasonably expect many of these young men and women to make up the technocratic class -- and yes, to bring their values with them. And later, when hiring, to prefer people who are "culture fit" in corporate speak. It does as you rightfully suggest go beyond the corporate culture. And yes, this can present a problem now -- as similar behavior has done in the past.
Let me wander back to my main point. Nothing in my experience allows me to think of or treat Jewish Americans (including Jewish Canadians) as monolithic in their political and cultural views, values, and commitments. For example, the Grayzone is doing amazing reportage on Ukraine and the USA intelligence state. Many smart, articulate, engaged people against the Covid lockdowns and mandates are also Jewish American. Etc. From my point of view, these people -- based on their work and their commitments, not an intersubjectively derived ethnic or religious identity -- are allies. Your language might unintentionally seem to discount or deny that possibility: the possibility that you also could share common ground and common concerns. Hence my comment here. All best
Sure. They're not monolithic at all. Two Jews, three opinions, as they say. And yet - neocons, pretty much all Jewish. Then there's Ron Unz's (a Jew, btw) study of Ivy League admissions. Jews are massively overrepresented, and academic performance doesn't explain it. They may be smart, but they're not that smart. Just two examples amongst many. Ethnic nepotism is a real thing.
But you're only allowed to say that about white people for some reason.
Ethnic nepotism is very real. So is "elite recapture" with legacy admissions at the Ivys and Stanford being just one example. Then we could have a discussion about the control of elite/expert credentials. The book awards, up to & including the Pulitzers. The grant and fellowships awards, including the now travesty that is the MacArthur's Grant. Etc. I'm not denying your claims. The game is rigged, and you will likely never even get a hearing except to be denounced. But when discussing why some groups do better than others, please also consider the importance of socialization and family culture.
I don't deny the importance of culture (and genetics) at all. Both/and is the key here. Likewise with 'white supremacy': white people being a bit smarter and more capable than most other groups, and white people favoring white people, are both features of reality.
I don't even think it's a bad thing, whether whites, Jews, or Chinese are doing it. I only get annoyed when we're required, for political reasons, to pretend that ability is wholly determinative in one case, and ethnic nepotism wholly determinative in the other. The vicious reactions against suggestions that whites are smart, on the one hand, or that Jews are nepotistic, on the other, pisses me off not because I think that whites are especially superior or that Jews are especially conniving. What gets my goat - and the goats of many others - is the explanatory double standard. In a sane world, it wouldn't be racist to say that whites are a bit smarter, and this explains some of their success, along with ethnic nepotism in the context of white majority societies. Likewise, one would be able to point to Jewish culture and intelligence, AND their propensity to help out fellow members of the tribe, as simultaneous explanations for their group success.
Jul 12, 2022·edited Jul 12, 2022Liked by John Carter
Good point, John, but would add that ethnic nepotism itself operates on a spectrum and is rarely consistent or reliable, it is very much situation specific. Anglo elites have no loyalty to sub-elite Anglos whatsoever. Ditto Jews. So loyalty of a nepotistic character may be real, but may not extend as far or as strongly as outside observers think. Ethnic and other communities fragment and change over time. Kinship also incites mimetic rivalry, which destabilises everything and frustrates nepotism. It is a fascinating subject and well worth pursuing so long as evidence is available.
Jul 12, 2022·edited Jul 12, 2022Liked by John Carter
Would suggest some potentially useful caveats for consideration. The Jewishness of the neocons within the upper reaches of the Beltway is in many instances ancestral rather than substantive. To a degree, it appears to me as largely a legacy identity and fast becoming as ghostly and insubstantial as the Calvinism of the New England WASPs. Worth noting, but would not rely on it to make strong inferences about the ideation or behaviour of any individual.
IMHO we should be mindful of the saying: East of the Mississippi, people believe in the bullshit of community, west of it people believe in the bullshit of opportunity.
Indeed, many, perhaps most, are non-practicing; but that doesn't necessarily mean much at the practical level of group motivation if they participate in an ethnic identity. The key factor is how people themselves identify. Then there are observable effects. High level foreign policy decisions such as invading and destabilizing the Middle East are ridiculously counterproductive for America, but benefit Israel to a great degree - and Israel is the one country that can never be criticized. Similarly, provoking war with Russia is insane, but makes more sense from the perspective of old, inherited ancestral hatreds. It's probably going too far to infer that ethnic group interests are the sole determining factor in US foreign policy; but it's naive to imagine they play no role whatsoever.
In full agreement. Connecting real life policy to anything is tricky and 'observable effects' are not always a reliable way to establish causation. Re Mid East the US prime interest was access to oil and pushing the UK out (40s through 60s), the petrodollar (70s onwards) and, now it is preventing the integration of the region into the Russia/China bloc. Weapons sales (involving kickbacks all-round) comes second, everything else is a distant third and this third is a very useful cover for the mischiefs undertaken to achieve primary and secondary goals. Public policy is typically a matrushka doll....something is always concealed.
The current dynamic in US politics is fascinating: I suspect that there are multiple agendas working themselves out, but my starting point is that the US is all about the US and the players in US foreign policy are supremely parochial (also pig-ignorant, both the Mid East and Russia are Rorschach blots on a map to most). The China/America relationship has me stupefied, it is beyond Byzantine.
Politics in the imperial capital have always been, and will always be, a labyrinth of competing foreign and domestic interests. Once a hegemon has been established, the low-energy solution to power is to worm your way in with bribery, corruption, lobbying, blackmail, and the like. To render the tangled rat's nest even somewhat legible, it's necessary to identify as many actors as possible ... and an actor has a big advantage if you're not allowed to publicly discuss its existence.
Don't know how you have the time to do it, as this is like a chapter of a book. My only suggestion would be if you could somehow condense things a bit. Perhaps I have said this before? It doesn't bother me, but I'm afraid you are losing some who would read your pieces but don't because of their length, and it is to their loss. I guess what I am saying is that I would like to see maybe the "Reader's Digest " version, LOL!!!!!
I like the length because your vision is very wide and it just takes time to expose the detail.
Regarding the “Great Man,” I think there are such, and one characteristic of individuals I admire is the capacity for risk and sacrifice and the dimension of aspiration and inspiration that gets activated in the human “heart” ( not the meat heart) by the sight of great deeds.
The incident of the team of men that dove into the flooding caves in Thailand and found and rescued that group of young boys a couple of years back was the most extraordinary demonstration of the best that human brains and balls are capable of that I have had the priveledge to see. Studying that event in detail gives a lot of clues about great men and the groups they organize.
Honestly, anyone who doesn't credit the Great Man theory needs to read a biography of Alexander or Caesar. I read about the former when I was a kid and it made a deeper impression on me than a thousand volumes of social theory possibly could.
Mark Twain would argue with you, one of his characters went to Heaven and met the greatest military genius ever, and it turned out to be a Quaker who was born to early for one war and too late for the other, and never had to be military
I question if Alexander or Caesar could have risen to such heights without being part of the highest strata of society, in a society devoted to war. Napoleon and Grant of course rose to the top from plebeian birth in something of a vacuum of talent, and that might break my claim that you need the man, the position in society and the society that can use them.
The opposite is true, of course, quite a number of incompetent aristos have brought about disaster to their commands, their armies and to their countries
Context matters, naturally. Talent avails little without opportunity, and Alexander and Caesar were born at the right time to make use of both. At the same time, to read their biographies and pretend that they did not leave a massive stamp on human history purely through the exercise of their wills is obtuse.
Most people always knew this was the accurate description of what happened but power really does have incredible muscle. It owns the pen that is mightier than the sword.
Well I'm not really taking a shot at systemicists - I take a both/and approach, because valuable insights can be gleaned from different filters.
Suppression of the lab leak hypothesis relied on both mechanisms. There was clandestine coordination by the people involved in gain of function research, we have the emails to prove this. There were probably marching orders sent out to the media to reinforce this, and to social media moderators to suppress it. But a lot of this activity was simply through open cooperation: regime lackeys knew without being told what the acceptable narrative was, and acted as a swarm to reinforce that narrative.
Nice term: "regime lackeys". They are the cause of the system being top down, not bottom up. Science magazine was ferociously anti-lab leak because it had 4 to 8 full pages of advertising by Chinese universities every issue. Nature was also a lackey. China has vast offshore holdings and thousands of dummy companies - who owns Springer Nature? https://money.cnn.com/2017/11/01/news/springer-nature-china-censorship/index.html
Hierarchies impose conformity. Billionaires play chess with society. Conspiracists conspire. All true.
But the secrecy thing is oft overestimated. It's hard to impose one's will without leaving a visible footprint. A great many of the secret conspiracies are secrets of the Purloined Letter variety.
Take the Evil Koch Brothers. They were the conservative sinister conspirators du jour in lefty circles. But there were two problems with these conspiracy theories:
1. The Kochs weren't acting in secret. David Koch was the Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee in 1980. He spent millions of dollars of his own money publicizing said campaign. That's hardly skulking in dark corners!
2. The Koch brothers weren't conservative; they were libertarian. They were pushing legal drugs, gay marriage, open border, and demilitarization back in the 1970s, well before most Democrats were ready to go that far.
The Kochs threw a lot of money at assorted libertarian organizations back in the day, but they didn't exercise much control of them. The term "Kochtopus" was coined by Murray Rothbard, who had been a recipient of gobs of Koch money.
Controlling activists is hard. The easy way to do it if you are an aspiring Bond Villain is to just toss money to those who are already trying to do what you are trying to accomplish more or less. I strongly suspect that's what George Soros is doing.
----
With that being said, there IS a super hierarchical society that is pulling the strings in this country. This society has arcane rituals which include robes and words in dead languages, along with a soul-crushing decade long initiation process. It has chapters in every state in the country, as well as international chapters.
But it's not secret. And it's no secret that this society is pushing Marxism and Wokeness as hard as it can.
In an upcoming Rule I will reveal the choke point, how to break apart this monstrosity. But not yet.
Your essay reminds me of topology. In topology, we have sets that have properties. Those properties intersect, in other words, they share properties. Once you start seeing the things in our world as possessing groups of properties, you can begin to see the connectedness of all things, and where things are unique. This allows one to approach things, as the sage of Barsoom is doing, in an analogical way, looking for patterns of form.
In the case of the systems that he describes, both are focused on expressions of power, their origins, and basic properties of expression. Rather than thinking of them as diametric, think of them as complementary.
He has noticed that there is no reason why both these things can’t be true at the same time. In other words, he has abandoned the addiction to dialectic for the freedom of analogy. In other words it’s not either or, it is both and.
Once we can make the leap to looking for the connections between things before we look at the things that distinguish them, we can avoid the cognitive dissonance and anxiety that results from the endless wash of propaganda which intolerably fills the world around us.
That's brilliant. I'm pinning this.
I think of propaganda as a marketing ploy.
Great piece! Totally agree and this has been the same binary perspectives of the brain and its development; top-down or bottom-up? environment or genetics? The truth it's both top-down and bottom-up, it's both environment and genetics, it's both from within and from without that we see the forces shaping the developing brain.
So to with society (the brain is always such a good analogy for society!), as you say, systemic forces AND those individual forces are all at play. And of course it's the right hemisphere that can appreciate the two playing together in a non-linear complexity that's difficult to clearly define.
One thing that I would add, which is not spoken of in academic circles, is the supernatural element - a layer above (or below, depending on your allegiances) the systemic and individual forces at play. What the Bible calls "principalities and powers", I believe, have a significant influence, but not either the "Great Man" nor the "Social Forces" but catalytic to both (for it is still men and society who have the agency to perpetrate both good and evil).
Part of me wanted to cast conspiracism as more right-brain than systemicism, but it really does have the character of schizophrenia, and is extremely left-brain in its own way. Then I realized, ah, obviously, the right brain way of seeing this is both-and. Duh.
The supernatural element is indeed a very important aspect of all of this ... and often denied by both (although conspiracists are far more likely to acknowledge it).
Several of the delusions described in "Matter with Things" made me think of the conspiretards. (I use the term somewhat endearingly.) E.g. the delusion that a person you know has been replaced by a cheap facsimile, that other people are actually robots, and I'm sure a few others that I forget right now. I love me a good conspiracy, but I draw the line at Miles Matthis - i.e. crisis actors (all the time, everywhere), "x" didn't really die but is actually now this other person who slightly looks like them. That's not to say that no one has ever been replaced by a cheap facsimile, or that some people aren't robots, however. lol
Paranoia is very left brain. Thankfully the right-brain both-and maneuver allows me to keep my paranoia but temper it with something a little less cracked.
Exactly. At the same time, many of McGilchrist's descriptions of hyper-systematizing brought on by right hemisphere lesions - insisting on logically deriving everything and such - were highly reminiscent of, well, systemitards.
Both-and cognitive parallax is the key technique to avoid getting trapped in halls of mirrors of every description.
Damn I just stepped on your toes dear chap! Was trying to articulate the same above before reading your response.
Totally agree.
Like minds… 😉
Yes you will have read McGilchrist’s description of schizophrenia and likeness to left-hemispheric perception, and Louis Sass has much to say on this as well - and the thinking is highly conspiratorial in nature and exactly the delusions you mention - so it does seem to me that the really “out there” conspiracy theories are fueled by the left hemisphere, and at the same time the same hemisphere can be so dismissive of what it cannot grasp and will only accept a linear logic that may be as far from the truth as the schizo perspective. Fascinating.
I must go because I think the CIA has just tapped into my prefrontal cortex to steal the memory of my passwords. Damn telepathic secret agents!
My Substack inbox is giving me a 'you're all caught up' error. At the same time, Protonmail's server is down and I can't retrieve messages. This is clearly the result of malign influence intended to prevent me from connecting with other essayists. Fucking CIA.
(Seriously though the inbox thing is irritating).
Yep I’ve got the same (not the CIA, the inbox error!) makes it hard - haven’t checked proton yet.
Oh good it's not just me then.
"Reality is a jealous goddess, and in her vanity she gets cross if you ignore one part of her by fetishizing another. She gets pissed if you compliment her dress and fail to notice that she did her hair. She demands holistic worship." Love this!
Funny, I had a slightly different reaction to it, though its obviously brilliant.
what was your reaction?
I started a reply and lost it. I hope its not already in the comment section.
Anyway, I first thought, "bitches, we can't get a break." Then I reread it and it's goddesses not women.
I also thought the metaphor was a tangential crack against women, more specifically narcissistic women (redundant, I know right?) We're not all like that. I should just leave it there.
At the same time I recognize the keen intellect of John to connect these two concepts and create a funny, original and starkly brilliant phrase.
I was honestly thinking more of Aphrodite than a contemporary Instagram influencer lol.
You might have conflated the two :)
John, thank you. You got me to apply some of the Austrian School economics theory to something other than business cycles.
One of the principal tenets of the economic school is that it is impossible to plan an economy, it is far too complicated. Central planners cannot rationally calculate how to combine resources to render efficient production, and cannot have enough data on the economy to plan effectively; this is both the calculation problem and the knowledge problem.
In the Soviet Union, eventually the central planners had to try to simplify the economy out of self defense to try to make it manageable, and failed even at that. Because of the inevitable mismanagement of a central economy, the Soviet Union faced unending shortages and rationing while possessing the greatest resource base in the world.
The Progressives, the Fascists and the various forms of socialists all claimed to have the ultimate goal of efficiency, end of waste, and to create equality. Each time it has failed another group has popped up, with the idea that they knew what was done wrong last time, when what was wrong was the actual goal of subverting societies to force people to not act like people.
However, a culture is far more complex than a market economy because of the additional dimensions that have nothing to do with money, sales or production. Simplification to allow efficient management of a culture, like in an economy, will damage it so badly that the culture itself will stop working, and I suspect the social equivalent of an black market economy will be created.
It is possible that various shadowy cabals are working to control the world, in a way that all prior attempts bloodily failed at, but all they have been able to do so far is mismanage and steal wealth for themselves. The original goal of efficiency is hardly pretended at any more, and I think all that can be accomplished is to try to break the parts of society that might prevent centralization, simplification and control.
>It is possible that various shadowy cabals are working to control the world, in a way that all prior attempts bloodily failed at, but all they have been able to do so far is mismanage and steal wealth for themselves.
Precisely. They're better seen through the lens of organized crime than secret masters. Pernicious, but far from omnipotent.
Really glad I read this, twice!
"YOU MUST TAKE A SIDE! YOU MUST!"
How else can we "divide and conquer" you.
Oh, the mighty power of "both". The system is there, amorphous and sprawling, everywhere and yet seemingly without leaders.
But there are individuals who are making choices that impact the system. Whether Gates and Soros and their ilk are calling the shots or merely another layer of facade on the system is the question. I would again go with "both".
Faction politics are fascinating. I would expect there are multiple factions struggling for the ultimate power over the West. Many people may belong to multiple factions and many also don't know they belong to one. They just go along and do their independent action in support of the faction of which they are a peon member.
Think of your average school administrator pushing Woke. Is some secret individual telling them to do it? No. They are just part of the system, which is ultimately controlled and pushed by a few oligarchs way up high, behind layers of obfuscation.
It is a hydra. The fight back probably requires doing a DeSantis and pushing back hard.
Most exquisite analysis, yet again. I’m not trying to butter you up, just expressing genuine appreciation that someone so intellectual and prolific can put words to something that so many of us have known for years.
I was raised poor and working class, but I was very intellectual from an early age, and spent about equal amounts of time in academia and in the private sector running small businesses. So, just practically speaking, I can see that both things are obviously true. This is why I don’t go to Eugy.
Also, I can only conclude that you’re on a shit load of caffeine, piracetam, and possibly also microdosing LSD.
😂

I wonder how much of a role class origin plays? I came from a working class background too, and I know that colors my worldview in a number of ways that set me apart from academics from posher families.
As to the pharmaceuticals, I'm old school. Only nootropics indulge in are caffeine and nicotine. Had to look up piracetam. The LSD was many moons in the past, and far from microdosed at the time ;)
Don’t underestimate life experience and honesty. That cuts across lines.
Was just kidding.
I did have my husband on the stuff when he had brain cancer because it was alleged to be anti-neoplastic as well.
Piracetam that is 😅
There’s another practical manifestation of this phenomenon. The germ and terrain theorists are both wrong and both bore the ever living *#%^ out of me.
Now there's an interesting topic. That's a less common debate, although it's become a bit louder recently for obvious reasons. I've always figured it's like nurture/nature: two camps making good points, but so attached to their partisan viewpoints that they don't see that reality lies at the intersection. The terrain theorists have obviously never had an infection cured by antibiotics. The germ absolutists never seem to notice that people who exercise, eat properly, and get lots of sunshine don't get infections nearly as often.
I’ll help them both out soon by writing about how deadly infections can also be curative of life-threatening diseases.
I've heard of this happening too. It seems to me that the commensal, symbiotic nature of germs is largely overlooked.
"As the creeper that girdles the tree trunk,
The law runneth forward and back,
For the strength of the pack is the wolf,
And the strength of the wolf is the pack."
Sorry, I had to do it. To modify Billy Joel, I'm in a neo-colonialist, patriarchal, paleo-conservative state of mind. In other words, I'm aware of the bicameral reality of human interactions, and the feedback loops that blur the distinction between individual agents and group dynamics until wolves and their packs are comprehensible by the same standards:
Will I be bitten, how can I avoid the bite, and how can I teach others to avoid bites in general?
It's never too late in the day for Kipling.
Are you familiar with the work of literary historian Marsha Keith Schuchard? Her 2018 book Masonic Rivalries and Literary Politics: from Johnathan Swift to Henry Fielding emphasizes the importance of the controlling secret society of the 17th and 18th centuries. It changed my view and I now believe that the secret society is more central and dominating than I previously was aware. By the time we get to the 19th century, it is hard to find a single example of a famous literary mind who was not involved in Masonic politics. From this perspective it appears that the controlling secret society has always maintained a vice grip on the arts and letters of the world, as well as the money. A further consideration is that all these well monied people are part of a church that despises and exploits humanity at large. These are priests of a dark religion.
There are lots of secret societies that seem to have exerted considerable influence behind the scenes. The Thule Society in pre-WWII Germany, for instance. The Fabian socialists in early-century Britain. Back in antiquity, the mystery cults seem to have served a similar purpose.
Ascribing too much importance or power to any one society is an error; so is failing to factor in the societies' existence.
Masonry above all allowed end runs around a highly stratified social structure that established blocks between the classes. Within the Masonic lodge this stratification was set aside, and it would not be uncommon for the managers son to be in contact with the clerks in his office, or the laborers who he would almost never have any opportunity to be in contact with.
Once this mindset became possible through usage, it could spread to organizations like the scientific societies making them more than salons for the elite who dabbled in natural philosophy, and from there to society in general.
In a way it was the social media of the time, where anyone could be in contact with anyone, and could discuss outside of the requirements of their classes or status. Social media may be demonic in itself, but the usefulness in connecting people is enormous
That's a really important point. Secret societies aren't purely sinister organizations. They're a social technology, and like any technology, it's the application and not the technology itself that's value-weighted.
Secret societies also provide a venue and a pool of people from which more sinister organizations can groom perspective members, just like it says in the Protocols of Zion. I agree that 90% of Masons never reach the point where Satanic ritual witchcraft is required. I'm suggesting that there is an overarching Satanic cult that selects members from lower secret societies, like the Masons, Knights of Columbus, and the Scottish Rite. Priestcraft is the enemy of humanity. This has not changed since the Baroque era. We have priests in science. We have priests in popular culture (music and movies). We have priests in the three letter government intel agencies. Gee, there's no reason to think anything sinister is going on. It's just a secret society where members swear to devil never to breath a word about it or their entrails will be strung out all over the ground, but it's a really important point that it's not the fault of the technology itself. You must understand how full of shit you sound as you try to put a polite spin on the secret boys club doing untold evil in the world. Oh, it's not the technology itself that's at fault...oh salient point there...
Sure. That's absolutely a thing. So are secret societies operating as underground resistance networks opposing genuinely tyrannical pathocracies.
Secret societies provide "a" venue for darkness to recruit; not "the" venue.
Further: what counts as a secret society? Do my private chats on Telegram with my personal friend groups qualify? What about 4chan?
I get what you're driving at now. Secret societies can do good. I can think of many examples: the underground railroad, the Polish and French resistance to Nazi occupation. There are lots of examples of secret societies that counter oppression and totalitarianism. Lots of religious groups (Christians) have met in secret because they are oppressed: Rosicrucians, Philidelphians, Muggletonians, Ranters, Shakers, Bakers, Quakers, Lakers, and Fakers. So the technology can be used for good. OK. I will take your point.
I could argue that secret societies are also a symptom of a dysfunctional society like a social equivalent to a black market in a centrally planned or over-regulated market.
Heroin and prostitution are black markets, but so are untaxed cigarettes and raw milk. Also, social change can follow the development of black markets, or the black markets can become integrated in the economy. Bootlegging and the violence surrounding it during prohibition was one of the drivers for ending prohibition, for the first part, and the Argentinian "Dollar Blue" for the other.
Dollar blue is the black market price for US Dollar in Argentina, which pegged its Peso to the USD, and then proceeded to print it into inflation. The official rate is below the street rate, and the street rate is known as the Dollar Blue.
In true Argentinian fashion, the exchange rate for the Dollar Blue in Buenos Aires, Montevideo Uruguay and a few other places used to be listed on Page One of the major Buenos Aires financial paper.
The ancient Athenian system of appointing representatives by lot from the whole citizen body makes sense from both points of view. It means government policy is for the benefit of the populace. And it takes power away from any conspiracy, or at least makes it much harder for a conspiracy to run things.
The most important thing now seems to be, we cannot allow these competing worldviews to drag us into some sort o civil war beyond an information war, which latter we are already well into. Civil war that leads to outright violence is just more violence, and a war no one wins.
At the same time, covid policy has killed and continues to kill many more people than the virus, and it has to stop.
Please excuse my likely lack of coherence as I am about to hop my third now flight twenty some hours in to attend a wedding in Sweden. Residency to S'pore to Dubai to Stockholm deal. Here's the deal on my end with your comment about "the Jews." 1. You will find Jewish Americans on every side of every issue: political, social, etc. In my experience, it does not make sense to think of them as a monolithic group. 2. You could look at income and other achievement stats for Indian (subcontinent) Americans, Vietnamese Americans, etc. You would find results well above the norm. Culture matters greatly.
So if we have someone who is raised in a household which values and education and achievement, and who has role models in the family -- father, mother, or uncles and aunts -- who are engineers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, college professors, etc -- that is the standard. That sets the expectations. "Normal" is always local. Success -- through both family culture and some family wealth -- can be perpetuated across generations if the family/ethnic culture has some degree of discipline and regulation with in it. Shaming, etc.
Here's a useful real-world exercise. If you are near a major STEM university, see who is in the graduate program. Do an informal demographical analysis of the students. You can reasonably expect many of these young men and women to make up the technocratic class -- and yes, to bring their values with them. And later, when hiring, to prefer people who are "culture fit" in corporate speak. It does as you rightfully suggest go beyond the corporate culture. And yes, this can present a problem now -- as similar behavior has done in the past.
Let me wander back to my main point. Nothing in my experience allows me to think of or treat Jewish Americans (including Jewish Canadians) as monolithic in their political and cultural views, values, and commitments. For example, the Grayzone is doing amazing reportage on Ukraine and the USA intelligence state. Many smart, articulate, engaged people against the Covid lockdowns and mandates are also Jewish American. Etc. From my point of view, these people -- based on their work and their commitments, not an intersubjectively derived ethnic or religious identity -- are allies. Your language might unintentionally seem to discount or deny that possibility: the possibility that you also could share common ground and common concerns. Hence my comment here. All best
Sure. They're not monolithic at all. Two Jews, three opinions, as they say. And yet - neocons, pretty much all Jewish. Then there's Ron Unz's (a Jew, btw) study of Ivy League admissions. Jews are massively overrepresented, and academic performance doesn't explain it. They may be smart, but they're not that smart. Just two examples amongst many. Ethnic nepotism is a real thing.
But you're only allowed to say that about white people for some reason.
Ethnic nepotism is very real. So is "elite recapture" with legacy admissions at the Ivys and Stanford being just one example. Then we could have a discussion about the control of elite/expert credentials. The book awards, up to & including the Pulitzers. The grant and fellowships awards, including the now travesty that is the MacArthur's Grant. Etc. I'm not denying your claims. The game is rigged, and you will likely never even get a hearing except to be denounced. But when discussing why some groups do better than others, please also consider the importance of socialization and family culture.
I don't deny the importance of culture (and genetics) at all. Both/and is the key here. Likewise with 'white supremacy': white people being a bit smarter and more capable than most other groups, and white people favoring white people, are both features of reality.
I don't even think it's a bad thing, whether whites, Jews, or Chinese are doing it. I only get annoyed when we're required, for political reasons, to pretend that ability is wholly determinative in one case, and ethnic nepotism wholly determinative in the other. The vicious reactions against suggestions that whites are smart, on the one hand, or that Jews are nepotistic, on the other, pisses me off not because I think that whites are especially superior or that Jews are especially conniving. What gets my goat - and the goats of many others - is the explanatory double standard. In a sane world, it wouldn't be racist to say that whites are a bit smarter, and this explains some of their success, along with ethnic nepotism in the context of white majority societies. Likewise, one would be able to point to Jewish culture and intelligence, AND their propensity to help out fellow members of the tribe, as simultaneous explanations for their group success.
Not either/or, but both/and.
Good point, John, but would add that ethnic nepotism itself operates on a spectrum and is rarely consistent or reliable, it is very much situation specific. Anglo elites have no loyalty to sub-elite Anglos whatsoever. Ditto Jews. So loyalty of a nepotistic character may be real, but may not extend as far or as strongly as outside observers think. Ethnic and other communities fragment and change over time. Kinship also incites mimetic rivalry, which destabilises everything and frustrates nepotism. It is a fascinating subject and well worth pursuing so long as evidence is available.
..and now you've been appropriately and gently corrected from believing your own eyes, by a totally non-conspiracy systemic phenomenon.
Would suggest some potentially useful caveats for consideration. The Jewishness of the neocons within the upper reaches of the Beltway is in many instances ancestral rather than substantive. To a degree, it appears to me as largely a legacy identity and fast becoming as ghostly and insubstantial as the Calvinism of the New England WASPs. Worth noting, but would not rely on it to make strong inferences about the ideation or behaviour of any individual.
IMHO we should be mindful of the saying: East of the Mississippi, people believe in the bullshit of community, west of it people believe in the bullshit of opportunity.
Indeed, many, perhaps most, are non-practicing; but that doesn't necessarily mean much at the practical level of group motivation if they participate in an ethnic identity. The key factor is how people themselves identify. Then there are observable effects. High level foreign policy decisions such as invading and destabilizing the Middle East are ridiculously counterproductive for America, but benefit Israel to a great degree - and Israel is the one country that can never be criticized. Similarly, provoking war with Russia is insane, but makes more sense from the perspective of old, inherited ancestral hatreds. It's probably going too far to infer that ethnic group interests are the sole determining factor in US foreign policy; but it's naive to imagine they play no role whatsoever.
In full agreement. Connecting real life policy to anything is tricky and 'observable effects' are not always a reliable way to establish causation. Re Mid East the US prime interest was access to oil and pushing the UK out (40s through 60s), the petrodollar (70s onwards) and, now it is preventing the integration of the region into the Russia/China bloc. Weapons sales (involving kickbacks all-round) comes second, everything else is a distant third and this third is a very useful cover for the mischiefs undertaken to achieve primary and secondary goals. Public policy is typically a matrushka doll....something is always concealed.
The current dynamic in US politics is fascinating: I suspect that there are multiple agendas working themselves out, but my starting point is that the US is all about the US and the players in US foreign policy are supremely parochial (also pig-ignorant, both the Mid East and Russia are Rorschach blots on a map to most). The China/America relationship has me stupefied, it is beyond Byzantine.
Politics in the imperial capital have always been, and will always be, a labyrinth of competing foreign and domestic interests. Once a hegemon has been established, the low-energy solution to power is to worm your way in with bribery, corruption, lobbying, blackmail, and the like. To render the tangled rat's nest even somewhat legible, it's necessary to identify as many actors as possible ... and an actor has a big advantage if you're not allowed to publicly discuss its existence.
Usually like most of reads, John, this one included.
Will be linking tomorrow! @https://nothingnewunderthesun2016.com/
Don't know how you have the time to do it, as this is like a chapter of a book. My only suggestion would be if you could somehow condense things a bit. Perhaps I have said this before? It doesn't bother me, but I'm afraid you are losing some who would read your pieces but don't because of their length, and it is to their loss. I guess what I am saying is that I would like to see maybe the "Reader's Digest " version, LOL!!!!!
You're a bro.
I know, I'm terrible with length discipline. All I can say is that I write until I feel I've exhausted the subject (or at any rate, my brain).
I like the length because your vision is very wide and it just takes time to expose the detail.
Regarding the “Great Man,” I think there are such, and one characteristic of individuals I admire is the capacity for risk and sacrifice and the dimension of aspiration and inspiration that gets activated in the human “heart” ( not the meat heart) by the sight of great deeds.
The incident of the team of men that dove into the flooding caves in Thailand and found and rescued that group of young boys a couple of years back was the most extraordinary demonstration of the best that human brains and balls are capable of that I have had the priveledge to see. Studying that event in detail gives a lot of clues about great men and the groups they organize.
Honestly, anyone who doesn't credit the Great Man theory needs to read a biography of Alexander or Caesar. I read about the former when I was a kid and it made a deeper impression on me than a thousand volumes of social theory possibly could.
Mark Twain would argue with you, one of his characters went to Heaven and met the greatest military genius ever, and it turned out to be a Quaker who was born to early for one war and too late for the other, and never had to be military
I question if Alexander or Caesar could have risen to such heights without being part of the highest strata of society, in a society devoted to war. Napoleon and Grant of course rose to the top from plebeian birth in something of a vacuum of talent, and that might break my claim that you need the man, the position in society and the society that can use them.
The opposite is true, of course, quite a number of incompetent aristos have brought about disaster to their commands, their armies and to their countries
Context matters, naturally. Talent avails little without opportunity, and Alexander and Caesar were born at the right time to make use of both. At the same time, to read their biographies and pretend that they did not leave a massive stamp on human history purely through the exercise of their wills is obtuse.
Thank you, yes. I was focused on origin and cause, not effect.
Effect is very important, I forget that sometimes
I started reading your footnotes as I go rather than glancing them at the end like I normally do. Continually vindicated by this decision.
I have fun with the footnotes.
The biggest punch on the nose for the systemicists is the global conspiracy to suppress the fact that COVID was a lab leak. See https://therenwhere.substack.com/p/covid-was-a-lab-leak-the-evidence
Most people always knew this was the accurate description of what happened but power really does have incredible muscle. It owns the pen that is mightier than the sword.
Well I'm not really taking a shot at systemicists - I take a both/and approach, because valuable insights can be gleaned from different filters.
Suppression of the lab leak hypothesis relied on both mechanisms. There was clandestine coordination by the people involved in gain of function research, we have the emails to prove this. There were probably marching orders sent out to the media to reinforce this, and to social media moderators to suppress it. But a lot of this activity was simply through open cooperation: regime lackeys knew without being told what the acceptable narrative was, and acted as a swarm to reinforce that narrative.
Nice term: "regime lackeys". They are the cause of the system being top down, not bottom up. Science magazine was ferociously anti-lab leak because it had 4 to 8 full pages of advertising by Chinese universities every issue. Nature was also a lackey. China has vast offshore holdings and thousands of dummy companies - who owns Springer Nature? https://money.cnn.com/2017/11/01/news/springer-nature-china-censorship/index.html
Power owns the pen and doesn't need the sword.
Hierarchies impose conformity. Billionaires play chess with society. Conspiracists conspire. All true.
But the secrecy thing is oft overestimated. It's hard to impose one's will without leaving a visible footprint. A great many of the secret conspiracies are secrets of the Purloined Letter variety.
Take the Evil Koch Brothers. They were the conservative sinister conspirators du jour in lefty circles. But there were two problems with these conspiracy theories:
1. The Kochs weren't acting in secret. David Koch was the Libertarian Party vice presidential nominee in 1980. He spent millions of dollars of his own money publicizing said campaign. That's hardly skulking in dark corners!
2. The Koch brothers weren't conservative; they were libertarian. They were pushing legal drugs, gay marriage, open border, and demilitarization back in the 1970s, well before most Democrats were ready to go that far.
The Kochs threw a lot of money at assorted libertarian organizations back in the day, but they didn't exercise much control of them. The term "Kochtopus" was coined by Murray Rothbard, who had been a recipient of gobs of Koch money.
Controlling activists is hard. The easy way to do it if you are an aspiring Bond Villain is to just toss money to those who are already trying to do what you are trying to accomplish more or less. I strongly suspect that's what George Soros is doing.
----
With that being said, there IS a super hierarchical society that is pulling the strings in this country. This society has arcane rituals which include robes and words in dead languages, along with a soul-crushing decade long initiation process. It has chapters in every state in the country, as well as international chapters.
But it's not secret. And it's no secret that this society is pushing Marxism and Wokeness as hard as it can.
In an upcoming Rule I will reveal the choke point, how to break apart this monstrosity. But not yet.
That would be telling.