https://brownstone.org/author/thomas-harrington/ Tom Harrington is a Brownstone Institute Senior Fellow who provides us with sharp cultural and psychological analyses that have been missing from common discourse. They contextualize our situation in a way that few others have been able to do. For example, he
I'm not sure I know how to say what I'm thinking without making a completed hash of it but I'll give it a try. It seems to me that what he is wishing for or defines as the problem is something that usually takes a lifetime to achieve for most people and most don't. To me, Desmet's thesis is more broad, more general and overarching. It encompasses a much longer history of thought where Harrington is in the here and now. I don't disagree with Harrington at all but I believe the argument is too narrowly focused like he is biting at the edges of the circumstances we are in. This problem has manifested itself throughout the ages but with different causes appropriate to the times and situations. I see it as more of a humanity problem than a COVID problem.
Twenty or twenty-five years ago I had a very unusual experience. I won't go into the situation that caused this but I happened to be on a gravel two-track road between a line of decrepit houses and an open field. My life was at a particularly low point and I was feeling. quite hopeless. Instantly, my ego died and I mean dropped dead. A cat crossed the road and jumped into the unkempt field and suddenly an entirely different perceptive frequency opened up to me and I have no other words to describe it other than brilliance - everything was simply brilliant - shining clarity - seeing without the haze of ego. This was not a 40 year old acid flashback, it was much more and the impact of the experience lasted weeks; perhaps months before my circumstances improved and I got back to my "normal" life and the safe hum-drum career. It did not,
however, die and inspired a not quite subconscious sort of awareness of life. Desmet's discussion of Mechanistic vs Spiritual prompted a lot of thought and hit me like a hammer in the head and I'm picking up where I left off all those years ago, Synchronicity, something I never quite understood, makes perfect sense now and I expect I have enough time left to get something much needed out of my life, I have purpose again and I owe much of that to the little spark Desmet provided.
We aren't just bodies; we just happen to have them.
Your experience of the ego death and subsequent (spiritual?) awakening is very similar to the one which set Eckhart Tolle on his journey. It's a blessing granted to few.
Yes, it was spiritual in that, for a moment, there was nothing else left of me. The ego is necessary but it is too (most) often overwhelming and controlling. Obtaining balance without the spiritual is impossible. I've never been particularly religious but I've always been aware of the spiritual nature of man and there is a desperation now to destroy any such thought. Recognition of the spirit is the greatest fear of those who wish to rule us as spirit is well beyond their control. My experience was a happenstance of fait but I believe there are other avenues I won't get into. Today was the only time I have written about this event and have only spoken about it to two people but the time is now. This is the red pill.
Thanks for daring to share your story! I would venture to guess that your story is much more relatable than you think. Most of the spiritual leaders I listen to have had some similar moment of sudden awakening, many of which happened at the darkest of times in their lives.
I think there is a metaphor in there somewhere, in terms of what is happening globally, and I would agree with you that it has been happening for a looong time- but only now as we hit a very dark time, there seems to be a global awakening and awareness in seeing to the root of darkness. I found Desmet’s explanation for what is happening to be extremely eye opening, and I believe once we understand the psychology behind it, everything becomes so much clearer.
I suspect that Desmet has been so heavily promoted that we've all been primed to read him in one way-- the wrong way. This seems so clear to me once one looks carefully at his concepts and the structure of his arguments and his firm dismissal of any conspiracy during Covid. This dismissal isn't peripheral; it is, in my view, the very heart of his book.
That said, I think the book is a masterpiece of sorts because it can be read one way but really means another thing altogether. That thing is: there was no decades-long conspiracy, no plan to induce terror during Covid, no orchestration at all. It all happened spontaneously: a Sierpinski triangle. This is really the purpose of all his arguments, and is why he must first posit a pre-Covid society "saturated with fear." Then his arguments work, and then his conclusion follows. But, is the conclusion really correct? Is the initial premise correct: a pre-Covid society saturated with fear?
I read the book soon after it was published and didn't read it in the context of COVID. There was plenty of fear in the age of "duck and cover" then the Cuban crisis, the following assassinations, fear of being drafted to Vietnam where the fear was not the result of conspiracy but fear none the less; the result was similar in any case. Fear is a natural and healthy response to danger of any source. Fear is baked into us. The only difference with fear of COVID is that it was planed and hyped but fear is fear whether natural or contrived to control a population. COVID just happened to be a golden opportunity to use fear to manipulate and control as it has been throughout history. I was in fear of COVID early on but it soon became obvious that a game was afoot as Sherlock would say. I just took more vitamin D and never considered taking an unproven vaccination as many have done. I lost my faith in government and "news" long ago. I'm starting to digress - sorry. As to your argument, I believe a heightened focus on COVID would have diminished the book greatly as it would have detracted from the intended message.
The intended message was that there was no conspiracy to induce fear in the population and thereby attempt to induce tyranny through the back door of medical necessity. This conspiracy simply never happened. This is the clear message of the book, and all the arguments lead to that conclusion; namely, that what happened during Covid was a spontaneous eruption of prior fear and anxiety and confusion in the population, not a orchestrated evil.
A lot of what Desmet says makes sense. But his entire argument, everything taken together, does not.
And yes, we've always had a certain amount of anxiety and fear. Even pre-modern societies had fears of insufficient food, natural disasters, war, disease, etc.
I read Harrington's full article. What he describes is many persons' abusive relationship with their government. The abuser repeatedly harms the abused, but each time tells the abused how sorry he is and that it will never happen again. The victim is unsure whether they can survive without the support of the abuser and is also afraid that the abuser will again abuse themselves if they become more assertive. They are trapped in the relationship.
Imperials have always existed. The term "imperialism" today is sloppy harangue that has lost most of its meaning. Our contemporary problem is more unique.
Victorian Conceit. This is the problem that infects and plagues our modern society. From it's concretizing advent in the early 19th Century, the mechanistic rational materialism drives the warped world view that championed Malthusianism to Marx; that birthed Phrenology, Racialism and Eugenics and the collective insanities that rationalized the crimes of Crown and scions like Cecil Rhodes, from Rockefeller and Roosevelt, Hitler to Pol Pot, to Bill Gates, Soros and Schwab and the depraved fabulism of predatory interlopers like Yuval Harari and other academic rent seekers.
This is Victorian Conceit, from its beginning through its evolution into the modern era. They were always wrong. Sadly, the presumptions of our federal and academic state are rooted in the strictures, concretisims and provincialism of this era.
Like the parable of the fish that does not see the water around it, Victorian Conceit is the dominant medium in which Western Civilization now swims, and the very paradigm from which the modern institutions of administrative government arose.
There is no greater revolutionary thought in the last 300 years that shook the western world more than the shocking ideas embodied in the words of the Declaration of Independence and radical concept of the sovereign and sacred universality of the human person and their individual rights.
As the perniciously reframed narrative called "Human Rights" continues its rhetorical march through the modern era, individual rights have been betrayed and diminished to the point they are literally beginning to disappear. One only need look at the erupting hubris and recklessness of new tyranny being threatened against the individual human person by the increasingly malformed ideology of the administrative class and the Victorian Conceits that animate their world view.
So it's not just the imperials. It's worse than that. Much worse.
What other ideology would deign that the inculcation of Racialism would be the cure for Racism?
What other ideology would obsessively focus on racial prejudice so bigotry could be set free for their political and financial advantage?
Victorian Conceit is the big problem. It rules the provincial and administrative world.
The very death of The Enlightenment seems to be the object of the exercise in those who wield it with malign intent.
I guess this very old school Catholic has had a little too much learning about libertarianism so no sale for Dachsie on Brownstone's Thomas Harrington's ideas.
This recent Stew Peters Network show on Rumble is more my speed.
"we can strive to have, a unique and coherent identity —imbued with volition, discernment and resilience—that confers on us the ability to stand up to life’s many storms. "
To me the problem is Original Sin as described in the book of Genesis and the Solution is following and giving our lives to the Light of this world Who is the One Who is Truth.
_______
More and more of us are coming to the same picture of our world situation and how long it how long the Big Lies have been going on throughout world history.
It is my prayer that more and more of us each find our own unique right way to stand up right now for what is right and good and true to the glory of God.
I suppose the dark times will be necessary but how dark must it get. It would seem the Holocaust should have been adequate doesn’t it? I’m old and won’t have long to suffer the darkness should that come but I do worry for my children and grandchildren.
The preoccupation of adults and children today with staring at their mobile phones has robbed society of reflection time. Downtime in a bus, train, waiting room or other unstructured time was once used for reflection on one's life situation and, whether in relation to personal things or society as a whole, was a very valuable habit we have almost entirely lost.
"he explains that we have been drowning in false narratives our entire lives, particularly those that made it okay for the US to be an imperialist power that attacked other nations at will, mostly to steal their resources."
Just like the Roman Empire. They always claimed to have been "invited" in to establish order, but it always resulted in sending slaves, gold, and other resources from other areas to Rome.
The world has been run by pirates and their days are coming to an end. Whatever pain that will mean we have to undertake is far more than the pain these cowards are wiling to undergo. That is their weakness. They are at a disadvantage as even their private armies, tech toys are never going to protect them from millions.
I agree it is not hypnosis but it is hard to find another word to describe what has happened to them. The extreme desire NOT to hear what we have to say, NOT to engage, especially by academics whose life was spent dissecting ideas.
I'm not sure I know how to say what I'm thinking without making a completed hash of it but I'll give it a try. It seems to me that what he is wishing for or defines as the problem is something that usually takes a lifetime to achieve for most people and most don't. To me, Desmet's thesis is more broad, more general and overarching. It encompasses a much longer history of thought where Harrington is in the here and now. I don't disagree with Harrington at all but I believe the argument is too narrowly focused like he is biting at the edges of the circumstances we are in. This problem has manifested itself throughout the ages but with different causes appropriate to the times and situations. I see it as more of a humanity problem than a COVID problem.
Twenty or twenty-five years ago I had a very unusual experience. I won't go into the situation that caused this but I happened to be on a gravel two-track road between a line of decrepit houses and an open field. My life was at a particularly low point and I was feeling. quite hopeless. Instantly, my ego died and I mean dropped dead. A cat crossed the road and jumped into the unkempt field and suddenly an entirely different perceptive frequency opened up to me and I have no other words to describe it other than brilliance - everything was simply brilliant - shining clarity - seeing without the haze of ego. This was not a 40 year old acid flashback, it was much more and the impact of the experience lasted weeks; perhaps months before my circumstances improved and I got back to my "normal" life and the safe hum-drum career. It did not,
however, die and inspired a not quite subconscious sort of awareness of life. Desmet's discussion of Mechanistic vs Spiritual prompted a lot of thought and hit me like a hammer in the head and I'm picking up where I left off all those years ago, Synchronicity, something I never quite understood, makes perfect sense now and I expect I have enough time left to get something much needed out of my life, I have purpose again and I owe much of that to the little spark Desmet provided.
We aren't just bodies; we just happen to have them.
Your experience of the ego death and subsequent (spiritual?) awakening is very similar to the one which set Eckhart Tolle on his journey. It's a blessing granted to few.
Yes, it was spiritual in that, for a moment, there was nothing else left of me. The ego is necessary but it is too (most) often overwhelming and controlling. Obtaining balance without the spiritual is impossible. I've never been particularly religious but I've always been aware of the spiritual nature of man and there is a desperation now to destroy any such thought. Recognition of the spirit is the greatest fear of those who wish to rule us as spirit is well beyond their control. My experience was a happenstance of fait but I believe there are other avenues I won't get into. Today was the only time I have written about this event and have only spoken about it to two people but the time is now. This is the red pill.
Thanks for daring to share your story! I would venture to guess that your story is much more relatable than you think. Most of the spiritual leaders I listen to have had some similar moment of sudden awakening, many of which happened at the darkest of times in their lives.
I think there is a metaphor in there somewhere, in terms of what is happening globally, and I would agree with you that it has been happening for a looong time- but only now as we hit a very dark time, there seems to be a global awakening and awareness in seeing to the root of darkness. I found Desmet’s explanation for what is happening to be extremely eye opening, and I believe once we understand the psychology behind it, everything becomes so much clearer.
I suspect that Desmet has been so heavily promoted that we've all been primed to read him in one way-- the wrong way. This seems so clear to me once one looks carefully at his concepts and the structure of his arguments and his firm dismissal of any conspiracy during Covid. This dismissal isn't peripheral; it is, in my view, the very heart of his book.
That said, I think the book is a masterpiece of sorts because it can be read one way but really means another thing altogether. That thing is: there was no decades-long conspiracy, no plan to induce terror during Covid, no orchestration at all. It all happened spontaneously: a Sierpinski triangle. This is really the purpose of all his arguments, and is why he must first posit a pre-Covid society "saturated with fear." Then his arguments work, and then his conclusion follows. But, is the conclusion really correct? Is the initial premise correct: a pre-Covid society saturated with fear?
I read the book soon after it was published and didn't read it in the context of COVID. There was plenty of fear in the age of "duck and cover" then the Cuban crisis, the following assassinations, fear of being drafted to Vietnam where the fear was not the result of conspiracy but fear none the less; the result was similar in any case. Fear is a natural and healthy response to danger of any source. Fear is baked into us. The only difference with fear of COVID is that it was planed and hyped but fear is fear whether natural or contrived to control a population. COVID just happened to be a golden opportunity to use fear to manipulate and control as it has been throughout history. I was in fear of COVID early on but it soon became obvious that a game was afoot as Sherlock would say. I just took more vitamin D and never considered taking an unproven vaccination as many have done. I lost my faith in government and "news" long ago. I'm starting to digress - sorry. As to your argument, I believe a heightened focus on COVID would have diminished the book greatly as it would have detracted from the intended message.
The intended message was that there was no conspiracy to induce fear in the population and thereby attempt to induce tyranny through the back door of medical necessity. This conspiracy simply never happened. This is the clear message of the book, and all the arguments lead to that conclusion; namely, that what happened during Covid was a spontaneous eruption of prior fear and anxiety and confusion in the population, not a orchestrated evil.
A lot of what Desmet says makes sense. But his entire argument, everything taken together, does not.
And yes, we've always had a certain amount of anxiety and fear. Even pre-modern societies had fears of insufficient food, natural disasters, war, disease, etc.
No. His conclusion is not correct. https://home.solari.com/blast-from-the-past-week-of-august-15-2022-mind-control-tactics/ and https://home.solari.com/control-freedom-happen-one-person-at-a-time-with-ulrike-granogger/
https://live.childrenshealthdefense.org/chd-tv/shows/good-morning-chd/vaccine-passports-are-coming-with-jeffrey-tucker/
Jeffrey Tucker on Good Morning CHD. brilliant and entertaining.
I read Harrington's full article. What he describes is many persons' abusive relationship with their government. The abuser repeatedly harms the abused, but each time tells the abused how sorry he is and that it will never happen again. The victim is unsure whether they can survive without the support of the abuser and is also afraid that the abuser will again abuse themselves if they become more assertive. They are trapped in the relationship.
Imperials have always existed. The term "imperialism" today is sloppy harangue that has lost most of its meaning. Our contemporary problem is more unique.
Victorian Conceit. This is the problem that infects and plagues our modern society. From it's concretizing advent in the early 19th Century, the mechanistic rational materialism drives the warped world view that championed Malthusianism to Marx; that birthed Phrenology, Racialism and Eugenics and the collective insanities that rationalized the crimes of Crown and scions like Cecil Rhodes, from Rockefeller and Roosevelt, Hitler to Pol Pot, to Bill Gates, Soros and Schwab and the depraved fabulism of predatory interlopers like Yuval Harari and other academic rent seekers.
This is Victorian Conceit, from its beginning through its evolution into the modern era. They were always wrong. Sadly, the presumptions of our federal and academic state are rooted in the strictures, concretisims and provincialism of this era.
Like the parable of the fish that does not see the water around it, Victorian Conceit is the dominant medium in which Western Civilization now swims, and the very paradigm from which the modern institutions of administrative government arose.
There is no greater revolutionary thought in the last 300 years that shook the western world more than the shocking ideas embodied in the words of the Declaration of Independence and radical concept of the sovereign and sacred universality of the human person and their individual rights.
As the perniciously reframed narrative called "Human Rights" continues its rhetorical march through the modern era, individual rights have been betrayed and diminished to the point they are literally beginning to disappear. One only need look at the erupting hubris and recklessness of new tyranny being threatened against the individual human person by the increasingly malformed ideology of the administrative class and the Victorian Conceits that animate their world view.
So it's not just the imperials. It's worse than that. Much worse.
What other ideology would deign that the inculcation of Racialism would be the cure for Racism?
What other ideology would obsessively focus on racial prejudice so bigotry could be set free for their political and financial advantage?
Victorian Conceit is the big problem. It rules the provincial and administrative world.
The very death of The Enlightenment seems to be the object of the exercise in those who wield it with malign intent.
I guess this very old school Catholic has had a little too much learning about libertarianism so no sale for Dachsie on Brownstone's Thomas Harrington's ideas.
This recent Stew Peters Network show on Rumble is more my speed.
Go to
https://rumble.com/v27w1de-live-did-pfizer-deep-pfake-hamlins-pface-to-protect-their-trillion-dollar-b.html
advance to 20:44 to 30:41 on the video track
____________
Tom Harrington sees this as our hope...
"we can strive to have, a unique and coherent identity —imbued with volition, discernment and resilience—that confers on us the ability to stand up to life’s many storms. "
To me the problem is Original Sin as described in the book of Genesis and the Solution is following and giving our lives to the Light of this world Who is the One Who is Truth.
_______
More and more of us are coming to the same picture of our world situation and how long it how long the Big Lies have been going on throughout world history.
It is my prayer that more and more of us each find our own unique right way to stand up right now for what is right and good and true to the glory of God.
I suppose the dark times will be necessary but how dark must it get. It would seem the Holocaust should have been adequate doesn’t it? I’m old and won’t have long to suffer the darkness should that come but I do worry for my children and grandchildren.
Thank you Dr. Nass - excellent resource! Peace. :-)
I get Brownstone Institute newsletter in my email. Jeffrey Tucker is wonderful. Thanks for the link.
And mind control.....
The preoccupation of adults and children today with staring at their mobile phones has robbed society of reflection time. Downtime in a bus, train, waiting room or other unstructured time was once used for reflection on one's life situation and, whether in relation to personal things or society as a whole, was a very valuable habit we have almost entirely lost.
"he explains that we have been drowning in false narratives our entire lives, particularly those that made it okay for the US to be an imperialist power that attacked other nations at will, mostly to steal their resources."
Just like the Roman Empire. They always claimed to have been "invited" in to establish order, but it always resulted in sending slaves, gold, and other resources from other areas to Rome.
The world has been run by pirates and their days are coming to an end. Whatever pain that will mean we have to undertake is far more than the pain these cowards are wiling to undergo. That is their weakness. They are at a disadvantage as even their private armies, tech toys are never going to protect them from millions.
You might find this critique of Desmet's hypothesis interesting. The second part is on the same website. https://llsceptics.com/a-critique-of-mass-formation-theory-part-i-are-they-hypnotised/
I agree it is not hypnosis but it is hard to find another word to describe what has happened to them. The extreme desire NOT to hear what we have to say, NOT to engage, especially by academics whose life was spent dissecting ideas.
Hazy skies and an even hazier future but the messages have been persistent and clear: "Don't Look Up" came after "I can't breathe"