Fake news and mythology

  
What is the relationship between fake news and mythology?

Religious myths, conspiracy theories, and new gnosticisms.

                          First a definition, so we all start on the same page. A definition of fake news:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fake_news

                          But what about myth? The term has acquired several, sometimes contradictory meanings. In the post-Enlightenment era (19th century and beyond), myth has come to mean a false - "primitive", "superstitious" or "pre-scientific" - description or narrative of the world. Traditionally though, stories that we today call myths - at least the Great Myths of religion - were taken as absolute truths in much the same way that a modern rationalist believes in the statement "two things plus two things gives four things".

               Myths in the traditional - religious - sense were critically  important parts of human psychic architecture. They situated the person in a universe full of sense, meaning and purpose. (In practice, the purposes of some of the hypothesized entities - spirits of the enemies one killed, nature spirits, offended divinities - could be quite malevolent.) The animistic universe of ancient hunter-gatherer peoples was a world full of life, purpose and intent. One placated angry gods, one offered sacrifices to obtain their favor in enterprises. We have forgotten how revolutionary the ancient Greek "philosophers of nature" were. Rather than seek the causes of events in the whims of gods and spirits, they sought to understand the unfolding phenomena and processes of the physical world in terms of material processes (which could be captured in the elegant intellectual forms of mathematics). 

 Pythagorean theorem: in a right triangle the length of longest side squared is equal to the sum of the squares of the lengths of the other two sides. Pythagoras flourished six centuries before Christ.

                One can draw several conclusions from an "evolutionary" perspective. The most obvious is that "Reason" - at least as the dominant mode of thinking - is a relative newcomer on the historical stage. Myth as a form of explanation of the world is vastly older! (In reality, it is an open question if Reason is the dominant mode of thought today.. We seem in some ways to have hit upon the worst of both worlds. We have, collectively, great powers for manipulating the physical world with technology but too often, alas, that manipulation is for idiotic or antihuman ends.)

                  In their highest manifestation, myths are "sacred stories" told to explain the world, why it is like it is, who "we" (the members of our tribe) are and what values we hold. Myths describe the Good Life (particularly the Good Life in a social context). Myths, as narrative, are an outgrowth - an extension and an elaboration - of the "primate politics" of our biological ancestors. They tell who did what to whom, what the outcome was and why that outcome is important to us living today. Myths are "hard-wired" into our human nervous systems: myths and stories are universal, wherever there are humans there is story telling and sacred narrative.

              But why are myths and narrative universal?  One can hazard, with some anthropological and psychological evidence supporting, that it is natural for humans to view the world through the lens of narrative. Because of hard-wired primate political thinking we naturally wonder who did what to whom and why. Our minds are simply hard-wired to think along narrative lines.

             From this perspective, the formal, mathematical abstractions of science are more recent evolutionary acquisitions. As such, "abstract thinking" lacks the compelling force of concrete narrative. Here we see one of the disadvantages that climate scientists and environmental activists have in dealing with the raw, more primitive, emotional narratives of GW "sceptics" and deniers. Quantum mechanical energy exchanges at the molecular levels are hard to grasp (abstract scientific thinking). Our primate political genes though, are programmed to identify and understand the following narrative-type: crooked university professors peddle the "climate change hoax" in order to make trillions of dollars on the carbon credit trading market. In other words, climate scientists are an enemy clique plotting to do "us" in dirty - this is pure primate politics!

A general listing of Authoritarian Personality traits (both leaders and followers)

authoritarian personality traits 

                In general, "classical" authoritarians see the world in black and white terms: "us" versus "them", "Good" versus "Evil". Their perceptions of social groups tends toward stereotypy: all wo/men (blacks, Jews, gays, Muslims..) share a common set of characters. The group one belongs to is more important than one's individuality. In addition, authoritarians demonize the excluded groups they hate: people belonging to out-groups are treated as subhuman, incarnate all evil, plot to enslave the world to their wicked ends.

                I mention the Authoritarian Personality here because it represents a particularly primitive (hence emotionally compelling and "natural") expression of primate politics that is activated in situations of threat and uncertainty. The paranoid narratives of Authoritarians flourish in critical periods of social transition such as the one we are living through today. "Fascistic" paranoid delusional narratives become prevalent - even dominant - myths at times of social breakdown and transformation.

                It is hard to describe how wacky the paranoid delusional worldview can become! To do justice, I can only copy verbatim from a "chemtrails, New World Order conspiracy" website. Hold on t'yer hats, folks, the wind she's goin' t'blow!

"Population "Control," New World Order Style
  
The Illuminati's idea of Population Control falls into two broad categories:
 
1. Limiting the size of human societies and monitoring/controlling the movement of individuals within that society, and

2. Intentionally reducing the bulk of the world's population through GENOCIDE via the introduction of orchestrated conflicts, intentionally inserted toxic substances into the air (chemtrails), environment (depleted uranium), water/food supply (GMOs), and bioengineered, weaponized disease organisms (AIDS, Ebola, Bird & Swine Flu, etc.) along with anti-fertility compounds introduced via vaccines and other means of external transmission.
....
In order to preserve the 'best' of humanity when the supposed 'self-destruction' of the earth takes place around the year 2,000, the JASON Society proposed that a vast network of underground cities be built in order to secure living quarters for the chosen Illuminati elite, high level cooperative politicians, and selected military elements. Underground cities are also co-habitated by extraterrestrial alien groups that the secret government has made treaties with for technology exchange and human-alien hybrid breeding programs. The idea of the earth 'self destructing' around the turn of the century due to overpopulation was perhaps an early cover story for the justification of the underground cities. In the 1950's and 60's, the American public was led to believe that the contiuance of government, in the event of worldwide nuclear war, was a logical reason for undeground facilities, but we now know that the entire Soviet/American cold war and MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction) scenario was an orchestrated Illuminati deception to bleed both Russian and American citizens of their wealth in order to finance black budget operations, secret technology developments, underground city construction, genetic engineering projects, time & space travel research, and anti-gravity, flying saucer spacecraft development.
Based on 1989 information, it was claimed that there were at least 75 underground cities in existence below the soil of America interconnected by high speed, frictionless trains called Maglev trains (Magnetic Levitation). The former Atomic Energy Commission had also constructed  22 seperate underground cities for their own use...

....  recommendations for population "control". They included:

1. Birth control (birth prevention and abortion - 43.8 Million babies aborted yearly worldwide.)
2. Sterilization (today includes vaccines) and
3. The introduction of deadly microbes to reduce or otherwise slow the growth of the earth's population.

Bioengineered Diseases
 
AIDS, Ebola, Gulf War Illness (GWI), and many other "new" diseases were intentionally bioengineered in laboratories that are mostly found in the United States and include the Army's secretive facilities at Ft. Detrick Maryland (2.). Drs. Nancy and Garth Nicholson have done a great deal of  research and investigation into the cause and treatment of Gulf War Illness, since they and their daughter (who was a helicopter flight nurse in the 1991 Gulf War) ALL came down with GWI.  In 1996, the Nichols published a paper which states their deep suspicions that GWI is due to bioengineered pathogens and that a hidden population control agenda appears to be in place.
Some bioengineered pathogens were designed to target certain ethnic groups for elimination. These groups likely include blacks, hispanics, Black Africans, Native Americans, and homosexuals. The preferred Iluminati method to introduce disease is via vaccinations. Tthe HIV virus which causes AIDS was introduced and spread throughout the majority of black populations in Africa via the World Health Organization (WHO) during their mandatory smallpox vaccine campaigns of 1976-1980.

The pathogens which produced Gulf War Illness were introduced to a limited number of Gulf War troops via "special" vaccinations (not recorded on the troop's official vaccination records) for Anthrax and other supposed dangers posed by Saddam Hussein. It was a CIA test run to see how many Gulf troops would succumb to the disease and how quickly they might die off. The results have been somewhat disappointing for the CIA/Illuminati planners. They thought their new little bugs would wipe out a lot more people, a lot faster than it has.."

And so it goes, on and on and on..  Pretty wild, eh?

From http://educate-yourself.org/nwo/nwopopcontrol.shtml 

 Was the death of God a liberation for humanity? Or did it simply blow the doors off hell, liberating all its inhabitants.. Above, a modern degenerate myth, the Aryan Master Race (a degraded form of the Chosen People)

             Which brings us to the central theme of this article: are such degraded forms of mythology related in some way to the "death of God" announced a century and a half ago by the Austrian philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche? (See note 1.) Nietzsche's view is contested from various perspectives but it is clear that he was, at the least, merely giving a name to a process of secularization in Western thought that goes back to the Renaissance. That secularization brought us the scientific and technical revolution, the modern concept of citizenry, democracy, the belief in human rights, feminism..The modern world of Progress. However a question remains unanswered for the unbiased observer. If Western thought is no longer guided by Christian theology, who gets to establish the new norms, the new values, the new definition of the Good Life, etc? 

               Religion and culture, claim some anthropologists are social mechanisms which regulate, control and direct human drives and behavior into socially acceptable channels. Religion and culture replace much of the instinctive (genetically programmed) behavior patterns observed in non-human animals. In culture and religion, the human has partially escaped the determinisms of instinct. To some degree, we humans are self-defining, self-determining, self-creating animals. We have, to some degree, escaped the strictures of Darwinian evolution and determine some of the conditions of our own future evolution.

               But what happens when "God" -the dominant cultural and religious system - "dies"-, bcomes inoperant, no longer credible to a growing (and eventually critical) number of people? Certainly, God's death means the end of certainty. It means an interregnum, a period of cultural, spiritual and political anarchy till a new "God" and a new "tables of the Law" rise and once again provide wo/men with meaning, sense, direction.

                In this perspective, the current spate of Conspiracy theories and fake news is the symptom - and the embodiment - of the current state of philosophical, moral and cultural anarchy. These degenerate myths constitute a "regression", in the Freudian sense, to an earlier state of behavioral adaptation. Such states imply that an ecosystem, a society, an organism is experiencing an "existential threat", a life or health threatening situation requiring some sort of creative response (note 2).

                An interesting synchronicity. Just as I was finishing this piece, I received a notice concerning the first article of John Michael Greer's new blog Ecosophia. It treats the same themes I have in pretty much the same way I have above. Such a convergence says something about the zeitgeist - The Spirit of the Age - we inhabit..

 http://www.ecosophia.net/the-twilight-of-anthropolatry/

 
 notes:

1- http://www.age-of-the-sage.org/philosophy/friedrich_nietzsche_quotes.html

".. Nietzsche is concerned about.. relating.. that God is dead in the hearts and minds of his own generation of modern men - killed by an indifference that was itself directly related to a pronounced cultural shift away from faith and towards rationalism and science...

Nietzsche had been raised in an intensely devout and pietistic family atmosphere that he saw as having been unduly restrictive..
 
As an atheist who saw aspects of the influence of the traditions of christianity within which he grew up as having been regrettable Friedrich Nietzsche tended to welcome what he saw as The Death of God!

For Nietzsche a recognition that God is Dead to his own generation of men and women ought to come as a Joyous Wisdom allowing individuals to lead less guilt-ridden lives in a world that was no longer to be seen as being inherently sinful. He considered that earthly lives could become more joyful, meaningful and "healthy" when not lived within narrow limits set by faith-related concerns for the state of an individual's eternal soul.

Nietzsche seems to be suggesting that the acceptance that God is dead will also involve the ending of long-established standards of morality and of purpose.. the possible emergence of a nihilistic situation where people's lives are not.. constrained by faith-based considerations of morality or.. guided by any faith-related sense of purpose.

What are we now to do?

Given what he saw as the "unbelievability" of the "God-hypothesis" Nietzsche himself seemed to favour the creation of a new set of values "faithful to the earth." This view perhaps being associa[ted] with the possibility of the "Overman" or "Superman."

"I teach you the overman. Man is something that shall be overcome. What have you done to overcome him? All beings so far have created something beyond themselves; and do you want to be the ebb of this great flood and even go back to the beasts rather than overcome man? What is the ape to man? A laughingstock or a painful embarrassment. And man shall be just that for the overman: a laughingstock or a painful embarrassment..."

Friedrich Nietzsche ~ Thus spoke Zarathustra"

2- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regression_%28psychology%29

"Regression: a defense mechanism leading to the temporary or long-term reversion of the ego to an earlier stage of development rather than handling unacceptable impulses in a more [adaptive] way. The defense mechanism of regression, in psychoanalytic theory, occurs when an individual's personality reverts to an earlier stage of development, adopting more childish mannerisms. Psychiatrist Joel Gold suggests that careful use of "ARISE" (Adaptive Regression in the service of the Ego) can sometimes yield creative benefits. To the extent that one is handling thoughts and impulses less like an adult, ARISE involves play, appreciation and primitive pleasures, and imagination."

 


 

Book Review: Jeff Sharlet: The Family - an American Tragedy

                                          Mirror image clones joined at the lip
  

Jeff Sharlet: The Family, the secret fundamentalism at the heart of American Power (Harper Collins, New York, 2008): 387 pages, extensive chapter notes, index. Missing: a glossary to keep track of obscure fundamentalist pressure groups and their front organizations.
  
"I am not against structure. I am for structure. I just think it needs to be underground", page 218. Doug Coe, elitist fundamentalist militant 

"All the vital activities of industry, commerce and government are carried on by corporations and other formal organizations. Such bodies are constantly growing in size, and hence the top leadership is continually growing in power and influence.
           We have entered an era when the masses of the people are dependent upon a rapidly diminishing number of leaders for the determination of their patterns of life and the definition of their ultimate goals. It is the age of minority control", page 143. Abram Vereide, elitist fundamentalist militant

" 'An epochal opportunity is ours', one of his tracts had advertised to the new men of his congressional Fellowship back in 1942, 'to control the future of America by the simple strategy of controlling the character and ideals of a relatively small majority of {college-age} men and women. Hitler long ago perceived this strategy, and established his elaborate system of .. leadership training. The democracies have been asleep'.", page 217. Abram Vereide


            For one who has lost their belief in Lighthouse America, beacon of hope to the world's oppressed, The Family does not shock so much as confirm and complete their understanding of America's decline. The book will be a great shock, methink, for secularists who can only see religion as as a vestigial force, a relic of primitive ages when Myth, not Science, served to explain the world and our place in it.

         The Family documents how, far from being dead, religion and the rising tide of social reaction are forging powerful new symbiotic linkages. Post-modern society, we learn, is being steered toward a destination neither envisioned nor desired by the founders of the Enlightenment nor their successors.

           This was not an easy read for me. The first three-quarters of the text is a history of the current fundamentalist revival (post World War II, USA). I found it tedious and overwritten. I wished an editor had taken a weed whacker to the manuscript and hacked out 20 - 30% of the superfluous matter. I felt that the numerous intertwining narratives of bit actors obscured, rather than elucidates, whatever points Sharlet is trying to make.

           My opinion changed during the last one hundred pages. The last quarter of the books is a freestanding narrative of Sharlet's investigation of the various groups, churches, schools and organizations which constitute the network known to insiders as The Family (also known as The Fellowship, The Brotherhood). As Sharlet himself intimates, The Family is not an easy concept to grasp. Like the Islamic jihadist organizations which it preceded, The Family is fluid, omnipresent, interconnected and polymorphous, constantly generating offshoots and mutating into new forms as circumstances require. Like Islamic jihadism, the informal American fundamentalist network in its international extension is hard to pin down, define, isolate geographically or in terms of class, nationality, race or even psychology. (Some interesting parallels to say the least.. note 1)

           The Family, as it exists today, may be described as a loose informal network of American fundamentalist activists and groups. Their goal is, baldly, World Theocracy (Islamic State style.. mirror image clones joined at the lip..) A "Christian" Theocracy led by that most exceptional of all nations, the United States. 

"The voice he heard was his own, his prayers, transformed by his inverted theology into revelation. What he wanted was what God wanted.. And what the Family desired, from Abram Vereide to Doug Coe to Bengt, was power, worldly power, with which Christ's Kingdom could be built, cell by cell", page 51

Spiritual arrogance, hubris and delusion raised to the highest power: mistaking one's will for God's - under the guise of a false self-serving "humility" which sees wo/mankind as "worthless sinners".

            The Family (Brotherhood, Fellowship) includes America's "elite": CEOs of multinationals, powerful neoconservative politicians at the State and Federal level, the Officer corps of the military and Christian university students. A prefered method of outreach is the Prayer Group - or "cell", following the example of the early Christians during their persecutions and revolutionaries of all ages and cultures. A loose (semi-)informal network of cells encourages intense personal interaction, efficient mutual / group indoctrination and the elaboration of highly effective "on the ground" tactical engagements. A cellular network allowed Christianity to survive several persecutions to become the Number One religion on earth today. And let us not forget, a revolutionary cellular network allowed Communism to rise to become a very serious threat to monopolistic Capitalism! Of course, Internet interconnectivity facilitates cellular interaction and organization: witness the work of terrorist groups like ISIS (or Right Wing extremists in Europe and North America).

           As is the case with ISIS, the actual philosophy and psychology of Prayer Groups (other names are used) is surprisingly hard to pin down and define. On the one hand, the "elite" are required to submit to God's Will and do His Bidding. Which raises the thorny questions: what is God's Will? How do we know it? 

          Apparently - as an unchallenged assumption on the part of Family members - the Divine Will coincides with unregulated "Free Market" capitalism and minimal environmental and worker protection. If I read Sharlet right, it is as dumbly and blindly self-serving as that! (Sharlet's documentation seems impeccable, a few exceptions aside. Sceptics - always a healthy starting position! - should check out his references given in the notes; quite a few are on line.) 

           What makes the Family really dangerous - beyond its arrogance, power and depth of self-deception - is their recent (post 1960) fusion with / control of popular fundamentalist Christianity. For example, Family members or sympathizers produce textbooks for self-schooling fundamentalist parents of for use in school districts controlled by Family friendly politicians. Such texts deny the reality of Darwinian evolution and teach that the Book of Genesis gives an accurate account of the creation of the world, thus weakening the appeal of scientific, fact-based argument to young people. These guys really know how to fly under the radar, invisible to self-contented and somewhat contemptuous Liberal commentators. Yet their influence on young minds seems to be growing. Recent polls indicate that 50% of Americans do not accept Darwinian evolution as "factual" or "proven".  In Canada, that figure is only 25%. In Western Europe, where American fundamentalism has less taken root, even fewer people reject science.

An Open Conspiracy. Several times Sharlet notes how Family members consciously avoid seeking publicity.

"I am not against structure. I am for structure. I just think it needs to be underground", page 218. Doug Coe, elitist fundamentalist militant 

           As a Christian theocratic elite, The Family wants to work through backroom politics, elite speaking to elite, the Old Boys' Club - Democracy be damned! The recent fusion with / control of popular fundamentalism, Sharlet believes, augurs no good. To be blunt, it smacks of the kind of (mass) psychological manipulation, responsible for the 20th century's bloodiness: Communism, Fascism (but also, for its long term negative environmental consequences, Consumerism). Sharlet chillingly provides numerous citations, written, printed or spoken, of Family members' admiration for fascists, communists and dictators. Such admiration makes a certain cockeyed logical sense: if God speaks to you personally through the networks' cells, you possess Absolute Truth, you therefore have no need of debate to discover truth. It follows that Democracy's untidiness and uncertainty are not for those whose soul and will have been enflamed by "God's" Will.. 

"'Yes', Coe told us, "it's good to have friends. Do know what a difference a friend can make? A friend you can agree with?'. He smiled. 'Two or three agree, and they pray? They can do anything. Agree. Agreement. What's that mean?' Doug Coe looked at me. 'You're a writer. What does that mean?' 
         I remember Paul's letter to Philippians, which we {a bible study group Sharlet had joined in order to study it} had begun to memorize. Fufill ye my joy, that ye be likeminded. 
          'Unity', I said. 'Agreement means unity.'
          Doug Coe didn't smile. 'Yes', he said. 'Total unity. Two, or three, become one. Do you know,' he asked, 'that there's another word for that?'
           No one spoke.
           'It's called a covenant.  Two, or three, agree? They can do anything. A covenant is.. powerful. Can you think of anyone who made a covenant with his friends?'
           We knew the answer to this, having heard his names invoked numerous times in this context. Andrew from Australia, sitting beside Coe, cleared this throat: 'Hitler'.
           'Yes,' Doug Coe said. 'Yes, Hitler made a covenant. The Mafia makes a covenant. It is such a very powerful thing. Two or three agree.'" Page 54

           The meeting this quotation comes from could be considered a form of political indoctrination of intelligent, but naive and rather socially isolated, young college men from well-to-do / wealthy families. The anti-democratic elitist vision expressed is patently evident. Less evident, the covert, Machiavellian  ethic: God's Will, which works through established "elites" is above the law, outside any consideration of a "common humanity". Hitler and the Mafia are, after all, not known to be altar boys..

             Another piece of evidence for the danger the Family poses to Democracy: the Family's capacity to clone cells / Prayer Groups among the elites of countries under the sway of the American Imperium: Egypt, Indonesia, Brazil, post-war occupied Japan, Indochina, India.. Since their real goal is Power (wielded in God's Name to bring about His Kingdom on Earth), Family cells may, in practice, include non-Christians - a rather curious ecumenicism for theocratic globalists!! Foreign Prayer Group members are drawn from local elites heavily implicated in the civil rights abuses, corruption and drug running which the cynical Pax Americana authorizes: Egypt's autocratic military governments, murderous Indonesian and African regimes, the obscene Pinochet regime installed by CIA coup in Chili ("the Other 9-11": September 11, 1973, the overthrow of the democratically elected Leftist Allende government)..

             All in all, it is neither a pretty nor an edifying picture: religion "instrumentalized" - prostituted - to the service of the multinational corporate elite. The Family's true function, if I read Sharlet rightly, is to grease the wheels of the universal (American based) corporate elite.

             Fascism: control or seizure of the State by the Corporate Elite  

           It is a scary image of America. The Family was published about eight years ago. The recent election of Donald Trump gives credence of its essential correctness. Once again, the Corporate Elite will fleece the masses by directing their anger - raised by globalization's negative impacts - onto scapegoats. Witness the racism, sexism, xenophobia flooding the media and, especially, the Internet lately..

             These are dangerous times we live in. If there is indeed a silver lining to this turmoil, it will lie in the demonstration of inability of the "System" to confront the mounting tide of planetary challenges. While The Family is not an easy - or comforting! - read, it is essential reading for those who want to get a handle on the rise of authoritarian political views and movements today, what is their true source and inspiration or, alternatively (as in the case of Al Queda or ISIS) what they are reacting against.  

"When Buchman spoke of Christianity's 'new illumination', 'a new social order under the dictatorship of the Spirit of God' that would transform politics and eradicate the conflict of capital and labor, Abram took him literally." Page 128


notes:

1- The psychology of groups like ISIS is hard to quantify or qualify. Members may be rich or poor, foreign or native born, male or female, conventionally religious or not, well integrated socially or not, idealistic or criminally motivated, and so on. Some social psychologists blame the Anomia (sense of meaningless or drift), typical of industrial urban culture. They point to the lack of "Life Narrative" (sense of purpose and value in one's life) and the lack of a sense of Community in modern society as causal or contributing factors  to the success of terrorist recruiters. These are certainly contributing factors. In addition, the misguided and misdirected attention of Western powers in the Mid-East has provided a reservoir of long standing greivances to avenge. Specific events in the Mid-East have then served as "nuclei of crystalisation", as triggers or detonators for the radicalization of disaffected young people, particularly in Western Europe (but also here in North America). An overarching source of frustration has been the failure of the West to launch a Green Technological Revolution in the Third World in the eight decades following World War II. Rising expectations frustrated by chronic unemployment and underemployment in burgeonning youthful populations. Can't ask for better Social Dynamite than that!

http://transparencycanada.blogspot.ca/2016/07/bastille-day-massacre-what-more-is.html