Everywhere I look, I see narratives. Truth and logical reasoning has given way to narrative. People are buying into the MSM and politically driven narrative system, and become so entrenched in their positions that no amount of truth or facts can alter their views. This gives the narrators enormous control over the entire population. The lemming mentality is taking us down a dark path, which in the end leads to a cliff.
The left is entirely consumed by narrative, but the right is catching up rapidly. They are two sides to the same coin, and I encourage everyone to break free of the narrative system, and focus rather on facts and truth.
Following are but a few of the narratives that I see, day after day:
Narrative: Bernie Sanders complains because Bezos and Buffet have more wealth than bottom 40% combined. Reality: What he does not mention is that he himself has more wealth than the bottom 34% combined. The bottom 34% of Americans have a combined net worth of zero.
Narrative: Media laments that police target blacks and kill them disproportionately. Reality: What they do not say is that 3% of population – male blacks between the ages of 16 and 35 commit approximately 1/2 the murders and violent crimes in the country, which brings them disproportionately into contact with police.
Narrative: black educational outcomes would improve if more money is put into education. Reality: Baltimore is one of the highest spending cities per student in the US, with only about 1% of its students attaining competency at their grade levels.
Narrative: Masks work. Reality: no studies have substantiated this claim.
Narrative: Inequality is inherently bad. Reality: equality of opportunity is what matters, not equality of outcome.
Narrative: manufacturing jobs can be returned to the US. Reality: the jobs no longer exist anywhere, and have been eliminated by automation.
Narrative: debt levels and government spending and lending will have no negative consequences. Reality: interest rates are a 5000 year low so as to limit the interest repayments, retirees have had their income streams destroyed, the easy money available has created a financial bubble that must burst, and the entire system has now evolved away from rewards going to the productive, where they belong, to speculators being rewarded for adding zero value. Risk has been outsourced to the taxpayer, while any gains go to speculators. Stagflation, inflation, asset value collapse, world-wide depression – any and all are on the cards.
Narrative: the welfare state is sustainable. Reality: the US has $200 trillion in unfunded liabilities. Every welfare nation in the world is headed down the same unsustainable path. What cannot be paid will not be paid.
Narrative: whites commit all the mass shootings, and are the reason gun control/elimination is needed. Reality: blacks commit vastly more gun violence, and use illegally acquired guns. Reality: the cities with the highest gun violence rates are also those with the strictest gun laws. Reality: those areas with the least gun restrictions tend to have the least gun violence.
Narrative: climate change is man made and the global temperatures are going up. Reality: how about last winter?
Narrative: Electric vehicles must replace gas/diesel powered, because of climate change, and it will benefit all of society. Reality: the US would consume 40% more electricity if this were to happen. The push to eliminate electric vehicles will also end up eliminating large vehicles, will force people onto bicycles, will reduce the distances people will be able, or allowed, to travel, and will promote increased urbanisation.
Narrative: peaceful protest. Reality: looting and rioting.
I can’t claim to be smart enough to understand Marshall McLuhan completely, but I think I understand enough to know that he predicted this.
His thesis is that we started as storytellers; before print, we defined culture, values, and truth by the stories that were told and passed from one generation to another. Then came the era of print, which allowed the written word to be distributed widely and which brought logic, linear thinking, and a new and dominant way of transmitting information. This fundamentally restructured who we were as people and as societies. The creation of radio, then television, and now the internet has brought us back to being storytellers, where the narrative is stronger than logic or truth. We have become a global village sitting around a media campfire.
It’s not a positive evolution – I’m partial to logic and truth – but it’s here and it’s not going away.
They have ginormous bunnies down under.
A village around a campfire telling stories.
Is that how Farenheit 451 ends?
So, is narrative another word for lie? Lots of lying going on and a narrative is a story. A series of lies, fictions as it were, are the stories we lumpen are being told by our ‘betters?’
A Narrative in this case is a story that explains how things ought to be perceived rather than how they actually are. Like a magician’s misdirection- show people something so that they miss what is really taking place in order to fool them.
I’ve heard it said that the first use of language among humans was to tell lies. Observation tends to support this, and the art has been highly refined since then.
yes, Narrative means that reality has been smoothed and distorted to support the speaker’s agenda…
Lie has been changed to “spin.” Telling lies has been cleaned up as putting a favorable or unfavorable spin on your narrative.
Yes, but it’s how it begins, too. That each individual book/narrative is burned in is fact. The temp 451 might be narrative. Lots of storeys in the babel tower is fact. How many, & how they freefall implode into their footprints might be narrative.
But the distinctions are just for fun.
Words, including the tough boys posing hard ~ “don’t fact with us, motherfacter!” ~ is all narrative.
Nouns is labels, ain’t the thing. Maps & territories. All proxies got kooties-poxies.
A wo/man’s “gotta” know, respect, her/his limitations, & that includes the tools used to extend themselves, all those satellites in geosynchronous orbit, fightin’ the traffic of all those satellites in geometrosynchronous orbit.
Elevation of the word-thing is slipperiest of slopes…& it can’t be leveled nor made tractionable: everybody gets what they get.
Everything word up’d is metaphor, simile, analogy. Words & language are not the static/fixed thing set outside by which dynanmical everything inside is, can be, measured, quantified, Joe Friday’d. Purple (prose) haze. The original manufacturing. The original made in china.
the book says…
wise up…is dx/rx…is narrative…is great tune:
Motherfacters! +1000
I may have included anecdote (…dotal) and “original sin”.
Dude, seriously,.. c’mon, truth up,.. you are Pynchon.
Either way, I adore you.
Please come to my house (or will me your magic fingers)
I have whisky.
Never read any TP (that’s Thomas Pynchon, not the new & improved chineecap paperless anal bidet-swab toilets that may be coming to a water closet near you soon), but this is pretty good:
… Who claims Truth, Truth abandons. History is hir’d, or coerc’d, only in Interests that must ever prove base. She is too innocent, to be left within the reach of anyone in Power,—who need but touch her, and all her Credit is in the instant vanish’d, as if it had never been. She needs rather to be tended lovingly and honorably by fabulists and counterfeiters, Ballad-Mongers and Cranks of ev’ry Radius, Masters of Disguise to provide her the Costume, Toilette, and Bearing, and Speech nimble enough to keep her beyond the Desires, or even the Curiosity, of Government…
— Mason & Dixon (p. 350)
If only counterfeiter Ben Franklin, among all the others, hadna’ been snuggled deep down in the marsupial pouch o’ power, he mighta’ been a great man, a real man, just another anonymous man not interested in the fame that is interesting to those to the extent that it leads to fortuna/power.
But power attracts the already corrupt, perhaps luring psych/emotional compensating boobie prize for good man unattainability, & so no, not even then, cuz Benny was Jetted fat carburetor from the factory, to burn rich on as much “subsidized” fuel stolen from other lesser exceptional amerikans, or even decent, honest folk, as he could lay hands on.
Benny, like the rest of them Bernies, could have been played by Charlton Heston. “If this is the best they’ve got around here, in six months we’ll be running this Planet Hollywood.”
PH’s gone bankrupt twice? thrice? but who’s counting? TBTF (or too corporate, or too OPM/productivity/blood & bones flush) zombies’ budgets refresh way faster than Madoffs can be offed.
“The push to eliminate electric vehicles will also end up eliminating large vehicles, will force people onto bicycles, will reduce the distances people will be,..”
I hope that is a typo and you meant eliminate gas vehicles?
I hate to be obvious guy Llpoh, I have the utmost respect for you.
especially your cornflake “ethanol” recipe.
Yes a typo. Thanks. And for the kind words.
My older brother put mom in a rest home 3 yrs ago. I’ve told him about this 6′ 7″ Templar that is taking care of his mom at home…..we can only imagine.
Respect !
annuit coeptis novus ordo seclorum <<——====
Here's a brand new one from the guy you posted the other day:
That’s a nice video, ordo. Thanks for posting it.
Considering that I am a heretical, anti-Jesus, god-hating sunofabitch … don’t you find it odd that I still like some Christian music?? I do!
I saw that, Stuck. Thanks. Disappointing.
A stunning perspective thank you FB and well put – couldn’t agree more.
Labels are part of the arsenal. Many people are afraid of words.
https://odysee.com/@EJOK:c/WIN_20210422_07_58_27_Pro:c
Arsenal’s a funny word. The other urinal. “Don’t eat the big white mint.” ~ Roadhouse The other white mint.
When sticks & stones are outlawed only s-t-i-c-k-s & s-t-o-n-e-s’ll be outlaws.
But never fear, macro-aggression phonics shall return.
Everything changed when a small group of people came to understand the importance of money, psychology, propaganda and negotiation. After that, truth never saw the light of day.
When do you think that sss-singularity converged? I’ve known people who understood those things, & have read about people who precede me in history who understand those things. I think those understandings have always been. And that sociopaths-heavy, & sociopaths-light (brigades that follow heavy orders) have always been. And for a long while now, such that it is becoming an “always” too, technology has been improving. And that the first use of new & improved technology has mostly-always been in service of war.
Not that we weren’t well on the road to perdition but Bill Clinton’s ascension to the Presidency was a watershed moment for America in my view . He was the first boomer President and introduced the term “moral relativity” to the American people. And the culture bought into it. There were no more absolutes, no more right and wrong, virtually anything could be rationalized as existing in a “grey area”. For me, I think that’s when the wheels really came off the wagon; that period of ’92-’98. He wasn’t known as “Slick Willy” for nothing.
The 90’s were a prosperous era, in spite of Billy. The Soviet threat was gone, we had relatively cheap oil after the first Gulf War, everyone was buying computers and cell phones, the internet was new(ish), confidence in the future was high. Then, the village idiot took over and we got the phony “weapons of mass destruction” propaganda and the “patriot act.” All downhill from there…
The Soviet threat was gone and Clinton responded by expanding NATO eastward closer to Russia.
after papa bush gave his word that we would not push eastward–
We lost the Cold War. Proof? We’re becoming East Berlin.
Becoming? Minor quibble.
Sorta…financialization was really gaining traction/ momentum, big time
That’s when the rot really set in and now we will pay the price of virtual assets as they collapse.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/stunning-divergence-latest-bank-data-reveals-something-terminally-broken-financial-system?utm_campaign=&utm_content=Zerohedge%3A+The+Durden+Dispatch&utm_medium=email&utm_source=zh_newsletter
Did you forget Ruby Ridge, Waco, Impeachment, but not conviction of a perjurer, suborner of perjury, lying bald face to the public, and bombing of Serbia, and refusing take custody of Bin Laden…I could go on.
And all that perjury violated Paula Jones’ civil rights right to a fair trial.
After the cold war ended, they needed another ‘enemy’
They got one. It’s you & me.
So true Anon – they have turned inward and made war on us – but there is still hope because the good men and true in America won’t give way.
There is indeed truth in what you say however, I would submit that moral relativity got its birth in 1962 when prayer was removed from schools and the march to remove God from the public space began. The moral compass began breaking at that juncture. Slick Willy was nothing more than a product of the times.
I completely agree:
The unholy Supremes’ trifecta:
1. Removing God 1962 (opposed by the majority of Americans)
2. State sanctioned and partially funded baby murder 1973 (opposed by the majority of Americans)
3. State sanctioned Homo marriage 2015 (supported by the majority of Americans)
TLPTB coup de grâce
4. The people behind the above steal elections and the unholy Supremes refuse to rule on the indisputable evidence of the multiple election thefts 2020.
5. The Vaccines and the GREAT RESET Black Swans flap their wings…
Sure there is a lot of others contributing factors in between…but it seems to me the only difference in packing the top court as TLPTB are now trying to do, while saying they are unpacking it – more good is evil and evil is good – is the speed of what I hope is the GREAT CLEANSING…that would follow the GREAT AWAKENING.
Yea, there is a dangerous virus looming over U.S. The corrupt Supreme Court (forked tounge lawyers in black dresses) needs to be forced into its original Constitutional role and stripped of their crowns and scepters.
A lot of the cultural changes were planted by the Clintons.
I have considered Hillbitch to be evil since she was down in Arkansas stealing the place blind.
Oh…and look at Mena Arkansas for a nasty narrative.
[I miss him too Big Chief. He emailed me a story about how proud he was to count you amongst his friends. He said it proved people of different backgrounds and life stations can build bridges to genuine respect and liking. He was a unique member of this pack of misfits marching to different drummers.]
Measured and far away.
Could you find me another picture of that enormous rabbit that grows there?
Mags – I didn’t know that. He was my good friend and I miss him.
I distinctly remember the moment slick Willy said under oath “that depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.” From that moment, I knew we were toast. The most respected office in the land had slipped into moral relativism.
Yes the Clintons bent the arc of history.
“Yes the Clintons bent the arc of history.”
And will have to answer for it when they stand before the Living God.
This is very good–you summed up both the bullshit and the reality in a short, concise piece that doesn’t waste a word. On behalf of all the time-challenged, thank you.
Very kind words. Thank you.
Trust the plan, loopy.
Btw, +1000 . I think you hit them all.
I just read yesterday that you were thinking about writing this. If you threw this together in that short of time….it’s no wonder you’ve collected so many frog hides…..
Note to you and Stucky- I’ll pull back on the posting reins a bit. I’m a guest in your house, (even though I’m right.)
annuit coeptis novus ordo seclorum <—-====
The Schwab gang has a plan that in about nine years, "you will own nothing, and be happy".
Feel free to post to your heart’s content.
It took me under 20 minutes to write. It took me a lot of time deciding what I would write about. The narratives write themselves. We see them daily.
I appreciate that, llpoh…I often spend an hour just trying to post a comment that consists more of my own words in lieu of copy/paste links.
Since this is about narratives, one that maybe should be addressed is the narrative that “your vote counts”.
I remember a Stop the Steal narrative by Trump, a call for supporters to meet him in DC on the 6th of Jan…..and that put every gun owning conservative on the DHS ‘hit list’, like we weren’t on it already. More importantly, observe how the narrative changed as a result.
Here’s a 10 min. clip of Emperor Orange chumming the Gullible Guppies of the GOP:
annuit coeptis novus ordo seclorum <—–===
[this comment took me a little over half of what you spent on the whole read…lol]
Give yourself some credit Ordo.
Go away Trump…just go away.
I’m looking for an option that leads me to Bliss. Do you offer Bliss? 🙂
I’m going to disagree a tiny bit with you here. What would this country look like if Teddy Roosevelt didn’t bust the Trusts? Also, we are colliding with a monopolized economy. Even One World Government is an example of how monopolies are en vogue now. Vast wealth creates vast fraud and domination. They have an outsized influence over ALL commerce. Worldwide. Maybe, in a way, we are saying the same thing? Does vast wealth limit opportunity? In any way?
Glock
Those who wish to create or protect their monopolies have a forever timeline. Many anti trust actions by the .Gov took decades to resolve. See A&P. From the 20’s to the 60’s there were less than a handful of Congresscritters willing to battle the monopolists.
Usury. Get rid of usury = get rid of evil.
But, you love it don’t you?
No usury and no one will lend money. Funny how that works.
What to do, what to do….
Firstly, stop buying crap, live WELL within your means, get out of debt (if any), don’t watch Talmudvision/sportsball, withdraw ALL support from “Woke” global corporations that hate you, cultivate connections with likeminded people/relatives in your area, stock/prep things water/food/fuel/ammo, have SOME kind of bugout plan, get ready to Stand Your Ground if it comes to it.
yep… yep… yep… all yeps…
cultivate connections with likeminded people
In fact had a fella here yesterday and we were yammer’n about the guberment and the scamdemic. He was thankful when I asked him to remove the mask as I prefer look’n at the face and not diapers. As a ‘reward’ he said he’s gonna bring me some honey shine…
Speaking of guberment, we here in British Communista just got locked down harder than Ontario. Police can do random stops and road block checks to find out if you have a valid reason to travel. And of course if you don’t have a reason they like… you get a sizable fine.
I’m thinking I might immigrate to Bulgaria or Russia… I hear they have more freedom than us.
Nah, Poland or Serbia.
It’s easy to find people who think things suck, slightly harder to find people who will make little changes like some easy ‘prepping’, very hard to find people who will drop the mind poison of media and entertainment, and nigh impossible to find people who can be trusted to show up with rope.
I’m putting this here because it actually pertains to narratives. China is attempting to STOP ALL NARRATIVES it doesn’t approve of.
We all know of China’s Social Credit Score monstrosity … (something Andrew Yang is highly in favor of (he’s leading in the NYC DemocRAT Mayoral primary).
Now the Chinks have a new app …
================================ =
“China launches app for citizens to report anyone who has ‘mistaken opinions’ or ‘denies the excellence of socialist culture’
— It will allow citizens to report others for ‘mistaken opinions’ shared online
— China’s cyber regulator CAC launched the app along with a statement on Friday
— It wants citizens to ‘actively play their part’ in reporting ‘historical nihilists’
— Many have been arrested and punished for speaking out against the party online
Rest of story here …
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9487849/China-launches-app-citizens-report-mistaken-opinions.html
========================== =
I wouldn’t be surprised if 99 out of 100 DEMONcrats just can’t wait to implement that here in Amerika.
Already have… See something Say something
Very true.
But, that requires some work/time-commitment for the rat-fink. They have to observe it, see it, and take the time to call it in, and explain it and likely have to answer questions ….
Now, imagine having an app whereby all you have to do is click and type and be done. That is raising “See something Say something” to a whole new level! Tens of millions of ratfuk bastards finking on everyone they don’t like, or who offended their snowflake asses — it’s a goddamned nightmare.
No problem. Collapse the system by inundating it with all manner of trivialities. Let them find the manpower to enforce that.
I hate finks. Australians call it dobbing in your mate, and it is frowned upon by the traditional Aussies.
Yep, I just figure overlooking the Jew and Nigger comments is a price to pay for having many good articles to read here. It’s mostly certain people that repeat the stupid racist comments regularly. I do read stuff about how white skinned people are racists on other liberal monitored sites and videos. Either way, it is stupid and gets old.
Did you add a narrative ?
The concept of racism as a pejorative is a mind virus. It is completely irrelevant to the operation of a civil society, but has implications for what is a superior society. It can’t exist in the same space as natural rights.
Why don’t you move back to Israel where they don’t allow Jews to marry non-Jews,
do a DNA test if you want to live there, and are building a wall completely around the country?
More like YOU’RE stupid and old. Oh, and ignorant.
Hey remember when the US Armed Forces a few weeks ago attempted cancel Tucker?
“Narrative: manufacturing jobs can be returned to the US. Reality: the jobs no longer exist anywhere, and have been eliminated by automation.”
Can you expand on this a bit more? It may very well be true as a general proposition, but it is not exactly true in the area of manufacturing that I am involved in, which are commodity products used by mechanical engineers.
I have been to the factories in Mexico, China, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, etc, where the products are made and there are thousands of workers doing exactly what was formerly done in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, and the rest of the rustbelt.
No doubt it may be an anomaly in the field of manufacturing (as I only know my field), but would be interested in your further comment.
Thank you.
Rust – manufacturing is my lifelong field. The basics are these – in the fifties, around 1/2 of ALL jobs were in manufacturing. Today there are around 160 million workers, so the equivalent would be that if the jobs had not disappeared there would be 80 million workers in manufacturing. But there are only around 13 million people employed in manufacturing. Yet the gdp added by manufacturing as a percentage of the total remains essentially unchanged. That means that the 13 million are creating the same amount of gdp as 80 million would have done. The difference of 67 million jobs were lost to automation.
Sure, some jobs were lost overseas. The estimate is between 2 and 4 million jobs. You can check this estimate for yourself. The trade deficit is around $300 billion. Labor and associated costs -US dollars – would be around 20% of this, or around $60 billion. Divide that by say $70,000 a job = a bit over a million jobs. So the trade deficit has cost a bit over a million jobs. Other estimates, as I have said, range from 2 to 4 million jobs. 4 million is too high in my analysis.
So, the US has lost (67 – 4 maximum) = at least 63 million jobs to automation, and they are never coming back. Even if the manufacturing of the $300 billion trade deficit were to be brought back, the jobs associated would not be, as the new manufacturing plants would be highly automated.
And given that manufacturing gets 2.5% more efficient each year, year after year, manufacturing jobs are not going to go up, ever, except as an anomaly of some kind.
The fact that thousands of workers are doing the work in China does not mean it would take thousands of workers in the US. The US is many times more efficient. It would likely take 1/10th as many workers, or less, to do the same amount in the US as in China, Mexico, etc. Hence why standard of living is so much higher in the US. They employ millions of people to do what could be done by 100,000 in the US. The US is highly efficient at manufacturing. Quality is a different issue of course.
Great stuff; thank you for that big-picture run down. Cheers.
Has anyone else noticed how fucked up supply chains are right now?
I am looking at much longer lead times on all the stuff I order across the board, and its a wide board. The electronics houses (Digi-key & Mouser primarily) used to ship same day, now its 1-2 weeks. My sheet metal house says they’re struggling to get metal. Plastic Injection molders are 3 weeks behind (after quoting a 6 week lead, that was 3-4 weeks a year ago). And solar panels from Malaysia—fugghettaboudit. Lucky if I see them this summer.
We do small quantities and so probably get shuffled to the back of line. My vendors all say they are very busy. So is it supply or demand driven?
It’s because sooooo many of your supplier’s workers have died of Covid.
Jeez, Drud, I would think you knew that.
We are being told the hold up is at the ports. Apparently it is hard to get people to come back to work . That — coupled with the fact that demand is very high. People are spending their stimmies and corporations are spending their bailouts. You can’t print 10 trillion; drop it out of a helicopter and not expect some form of disfunction. But that is what they did. Hey we might not even have to worry about that since TPTB seem hellbent in starting WWIII.
Drud..
A buddy called me today, we’ve been talking about an 18×20 metal blding he’s going to put up (mostly about the pad it will sit on). He called to tell me they would be 2 months before they could put it up-reason stated was too much work…..
A local plastics manufacturer is advertising a $1000 bonus for new hire after 60 or 90 days (I don’t recall). They have been having resin supply snags and their shipping/warehousing is ‘clustered’…the place has about 600 employees and 20 acres of warehouse (3 different sites) with about 50-60 loading docks.
annuit coeptis novus ordo seclorum <—-====CHAOS…we ain't seen nothin yet
I had to wait 4 months on backordered soffit to finish fixing my roof.
Que some BTO….
A lot of supply chains are in trouble. And air freight is really screwed up.
Another part of the problem is the financialization of the economy. A relative was a financial guy for a cash rich fortune 100 manufacturer. He told me (about 25 years ago) that almost without fail he could make more profit investing the cash in overseas municipal and state bond issues, and other financial vehicles. He said this would drive manufacturing and R&D types crazy, because it pulled away from their funds. Naturally, upper management went for the easy, lower risk option. Eventually the company imploded. Their markets changed, and they failed to keep up, being wrapped up in the financial stuff. The company still exists, barely, but most of the jobs and product lines are gone forever. Now they mostly import and service stuff from overseas.
I agree Rust Belt. I represent many Manufacturers of equipment for use in the US. Half are made here, half are made in Europe or Asia. I’ve been begging these manufacturers to build plants in the old ‘Rust Belt’. There are countless properties vacant, but more importantly, there is a aging group of 2nd and 3rd generation Engineers and Craftsman that took non-manufacturing jobs and would love to get back to their trade. This group will be gone soon. So far, not one of them seems in the least bit interested, as the properties get demolished year by year. I don’t know why, but I believe they are scared of unions and most likely overburdened regulation.
One factory I worked at had a strike every year or so and the fortune 500 company finally had enough and moved the plant to a rural state (at least not out of the US). I am in the rust belt and used to work with lots of manuf., but they are all gone, I think 80-90% of them.
I’ve always believed that if you give a man a choice between work and welfare, he will pick work every time.
Certainly Llpoh is right, that automation has had a huge impact on manufacturing labor, but the jobs in my manuf. industry still requires skilled engineers and craftsman. The only places I know left in my area are service companies that fix this equipment.
One example off the top of my head is forestry (not my industry). A place I know used to have 3-4 mills in the region and approx. 1000 people worked at the mills or in the forest. 30+ years later the labor force is approx. 3-400 and they are down to one mill, but here’s the kicker: That one mill produces the same as all 3-4 did prior. Automation/mechanization has allowed this for sure.
Some will argue that evil corporations needed a check and regs and unions are the check. Maybe, but I don’t think so. There’s gotta be a balance, but I think we went way passed it the wrong way a long time ago.
Social Security, Workers Compensation, Unemployment, Obama Care, Medicare, Medicaid, Maternity Leave, Paternity Leave, Vacation, Retirement, Sick Leave, Medical Insurance, Accident Insurance, Property Insurance, Property Tax, State Tax, Income Tax, Union Fees, etc etc.
Excellent summation LLPOH.
Lazy, soft, mushy thinkers tend to buy the narrative without question.
Critical thinkers tend to focus on facts whilst seeking the truth.
Think, think, think, people!
THINK!
But I repeat myself…
Nailed it..
Here’s an anecdotal story that shows how it works on the personal level.
Two years ago a local college reached out to us and asked if we’d accept an intern They have a “sustainability department” and wanted their students to have some real life experience actually working in the field so we agreed. They sent us more communications and paperwork and requirements than I thought it was worth for the free labor we’d get- his hours were strictly recorded and could not exceed 8 hours a week and we had to write summaries, etc.
So the young man shows up, very excited about working on the farm, we go over what is expected, give him an idea of what we do, the rundown on what a farm and farming is all about. His plans were to buy a farm and have it become a “destination experience” where people would love seeing piglets and lambs, have their weddings there or pick flowers, that kind of thing.
So the first day he shows up in white shorts and a Hawaiian shirt with big white frame sunglasses and a big floppy hat. I gave him a dozen small fruit trees to plant, showed him where, how to dig a hole, how to mix in the right mix of soil and compost, and water it when he was done. A job that is- in my estimation- relatively simple and straightforward. It was, for him at least, one of the most daunting experiences of his life and he complained bitterly the entire time. This reaction to work- it’s hard, it’s dirty, it wasn’t what he expected he’d be doing, he wasn’t experienced, he wasn’t getting enough direction, we hadn’t explained it properly, and on and on.
This went on for a few days until I couldn’t take it anymore so I took him aside and tried to explain to his that the peace and satisfaction in working that we were after was hard to maintain in the face of his constant complaints and that work was a central element in farming. He took the critique hard and his mood darkened considerably. He refused to talk, was constantly on his cell phone instead of doing what he was supposed to be doing and it was clear to me that this was not a good fit for either of us. My son tried to be an intermediary- they were the same age- but that didn’t change anything and before we’d realized it, the time required for his “internship” was over and he was gone. I let my son handle the paperwork reviewing his performance because I wasn’t going to sugarcoat it and that was the last we ever heard from the school and their sustainability department. I felt like it was a complete failure- usually our other interns who come looking for us rather than have the schools arrange things do great and have a decent experience. I thought that the experience may have at least demonstrated to him that his expectations were not ever going to be equal to the demands so at least he could check farming off of his bucket list.
Fast forward to February. Another young man my son is friends with returned from a two year stint as a sous chef in Europe and he had some time before he was expected to head to San Francisco and start a new gig with a restaurant there. he helped us with butchering, I showed him somethings he hadn’t done, he showed us a lot that we didn’t know and it was a great couple of weeks of being productive and working in harness. Near the end the topic of the intern who wasn’t came up and it turned out that he was a mutual acquaintance of the young chef. He told us that the intern had obtained his degree in sustainability and was currently shopping for a farm to run based on his new degree.
He was a perfect example of how a narrative can trump reality. His belief that farming was some kind of charming experience where people pick flowers while dressed in casual wear and save the environment is the most important factor and that the underlying realities of what it takes to make that happen are immaterial nuisances to be avoided like the plague. Appearance over function is the bedrock principle of a narrative- outcome over opportunity regardless of the reality. I don’t know if he will be successful in finding a farm to his liking, but I do know how it is going to work out in the end if he does. And that’s what’s going to happen with our entire social order if we continue to perpetuate this belief.
I raked some sticks off of my front yard on Sunday and got so wiped out I had to take a two hour nap.
I would be interested in a follow up on how long it takes before the young man goes bust at his destination farm.
If he charges the useless tourists enough, he can likely hire out the work to someone who actually knows what they are doing. If it all falls on him, he’s screwed (as will be the folks who lent him the money to get started – you know, the taxpayers).
I always thought the charming experience IS sweating outdoors and digging holes.
Thanks HSF. Great story, and have seen its approxopimationmany times in manufacturing. The narrative there: rich manufacturing owners screwing over we workers. Gonna start my own business and make squillions. Later I get a call asking me for advice as to why they are going broke. Generally I answer them honestly. The assholes I refer to their accountants.
They sent us more communications and paperwork and requirements than I thought it was worth for the free labor we’d get- his hours were strictly recorded and could not exceed 8 hours a week and we had to write summaries, etc.
That’s when you should’ve pulled the plug. You did no one -including yourself – any favors by trying to play their game by their asinine requirements. Excellent motivations, no doubt, but I’d be willing to bet you didn’t ‘do business’ with that particular group again.
GREAT Article.
First, I am going to re-post the awesome comment made by Drud about the conspiracy narrative which he made in the “Guidestones” article.
============ =
The thing is we can all be labelled as conspiracy theorists….that’s the point of the term.
The issue with some around here is that they are certain that literally everything is conspiracy. Every shooting is a fake, every explosion is a false flag…and that’s not enough, they’ve got to go WAY down the rabbit hole. It is enough to point out the many issues with the 9/11 narrative, for instance, without ever being certain of anything, except that the Patriot Act was ready to go and the official reports are incompetent at best. But many around here go on to insist that the planes were holograms and a missile was fired at the Pentagon and nano-thermite and mini-nukes and alien tech and every other imaginable form of nonsense. And even that’s not enough, some around here profess to understand the motives of all the top players, people whom they have never met and many of whom are unnamed.
In reality, we don’t have nearly this great of understanding or our OWN motives.
There are conspiracies, there are hidden power structures, there are even Satanists…but if you look at all the data points and see anything but an impossibly complex and confusing array, you are probably seeing what you want to see. Like Howard Nash in A Beautiful Mind, putting pattern to noise and filling in huge blank fields with your own (mis)perceptions.
What’s your point?
Yeah, I don’t get the point either? Are you saying there are those who find conspiracies where none exist?
Narrative: They want to Rule Humanity by first killing Billions. It’s in the Georgia Guide Stones!!
Reality: They’re just slabs of granite with gobbledygook writings.
While indeed Gobbledygook…..”they” do in fact want to kill us. The challenge is how can the tiny few have plausible deniability of the act and continue to live the uber-elite lifestyle…..the moral question of whether to kill off humanity has been answered long ago. They are just working on the how. Remember these like-minded folks don’t even need to have formal communication they think alike, see the world the same way, and therefore they often act in concert with little or any coordination.
Exactly!! That’s not my bone of contention.
If you’re going to try to help someone see the light …. give them real data, real facts …. not some conspiracy crapola.
Tossing in this Guide Stone fantasy does absolutely nothing to further the cause. Worse, it damages the cause. You think people will really say to themselves — ” well, uh wuz told deese Stone thingies sez da rich is gonna kill us all, so it mus’ be true!” Give me a break.
There are too many lies out there for it to be reasonable not to expect people to start tilting at windmills. I don’t usually argue about people peddling misinformation on the scamdemic, because they are correct about the main point – they are being lied to.
Just because we are paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get us.
My point or Stucky’ point in re-posting?
I think the point is clear, once the falsehood of the mainstream narrative is revealed, the tendency is to believe everything is a lie. I simply don’t believe that is the case. All the best lies contain a kernel of truth.
Also, just because one has a healthy and wise skepticism toward a narrative, doesn’t mean that from that point on it is a simple matter of placing a negative sign in front of everything you see and hear. Reality is much more complex than that.
My old college roommate is pretty deeply embedded in the matrix, but he is a sound thinker and a good scientist. He had a good rubric for dealing with conspiracy theories. He said that there are often a large set of data points that do suggest a conspiracy. But there is a larger set that supports the mainstream narrative. People in either “camp” must ignore one set or the other. The ability to zoom out an see (and actually consider) all data points (or at least most) is as rare as hen’s teeth. I think, because it offers no certain answers.
I think that was the most important word of my original post: certain. I am certain of virtually nothing, besides the basic of how a person should conduct themselves in this life (I have posted on this a number of times…these are the only real capital T Truths I have found). Others here are certain of things that are very uncertain.
Interesting side note: Tony Robbins had a list of 6 vital things all human being need. I don’t remember all, but the first two were: 1.) certainty and 2.) uncertainty. Just another example of the dialectics that seem to make up all of our reality.
Yes, Mygirl…there are certainly those who find conspiracies where none exist. There is a good psychological reason for this. We have a deep, deep instinct for meaning. When important things happen (good or bad or neither–as I am replying to HSAF’s comment) we have a instinctual desire to attribute significance to them, sometimes Devine significance, sometimes conspiracy.
BL – from your perspective, you are certain I am a Matrix dweller. From my perspective, you are attributing false significance to nearly everything. I am uncertain of almost all “facts” because they are slippery little devils when put under close scrutiny. Which of us is under a spell?
And, I’ll just throw in another comment here rather than a different post. Your ridiculous “intern” genuinely angers me…but of course, I ma mad at myself. I had every opportunity to intern (and probably be pretty well paid) at my aunt and uncle’s ranch in Wyoming when I was younger. I failed to do so and I regret it. We want to be “nice” to our children in the modern age. My Dad wasn’t nearly as hard on me as his dad was. ..and I am no where near as tough as he. He was not a tough as my grandfather, who ate iron ore for breakfast and shat nails (true story). We’ve become weak over generations and hard times are coming because of it. (I still would have acquitted myself much better that your intern, however. Would still today in spite of my golfer’s physique and more advanced age.)
Aaaaand, what’s his thoughts on Covid?
He was my primary source of info early on. Excellent job in tracking deaths and inferring infection rates from there.
This is probably his most mainstream view…he is definitely very strongly in favor of vaccinations. Has data that backs up his claims and knows how to evaluate data. Is he ignoring or being kept ignorant of some information…of course. We all are.
I don’t discuss the vaccines here, because it is all very strongly one-sided and I live in a world of nuance. Quite frankly, all there is is a binary decision of taking one or not. The big game of politics will go on, as will evolution of biology, politics and events. I’m really in essentially no danger either way. I have no personal fear of Covid, but I also have no personal fear of any vaccine. It will almost certainly be necessary to have some vaccine to travel internationally. I want to travel internationally. I will probably end up with one. Again, personally, I am at essentially zero risk from any of them.
I know this view will be very unpopular, so do your worst. Down voting is great…trying to convince me to save myself will be tiresome at best.
DRUD,
I believe the vaccine is very one-sided here because freedom is #1 and TPTB are going to the dark side….BIG TIME.
What you put into your body is your own, personal affair DRUD and you are right that there is a clear division in those that will favour science and those who are skeptical. I try to publish facts that, as far as I can tell, are validated. But nothing is certain in this world IMHO so as Keynes said: “When the facts change, I change my mind”
I can’t stand the “those that follow science and those who are skeptical” line. That’s the mainstream bullshit. Real science IS skepticism. Good scientists the most skeptical of people. Great scientists most skeptical of their own work.
Can’t say I agree but then each to his own – everyone, even scientists, follow their own path IMHO in whatever way suits.
AP- Depends on where you get your facts. If you are mirroring your facts from any mainstream media…..well, so much for the facts. The internet is an echo chamber of controlled information. You would be hard pressed to do real independent research without spending a great amount of time and having clearance depending on the subject. Government and scientific stats and info are skewd to serve their agendas.
Yes all agreed BL and I too fall into this trap time and again. I try to sort out the wheat from the chaff be referencing several sources. For example:
A reader asked whether the virus was real and had been isolated. I use Firefox with DuckDuckGo and Brave as engines and came up with this one:
What do you think? Is this fake news? Is this source for real?
AP, see Jon Rappoport
Thanks Ben – will do 🙂
AP- That is a site rife with the usual suspects and when I see these mindcrafters listed, I chortle with glee, “gotcha”. Do a bio inspection of each including Flora. I would not take this serious, if you did…..we need to talk.
Like I said, a great deal of time in real research. Please get in the underwear drawer of the team members/ advisors and I know YOU will understand my attitude.
I have accessed the Jon Rappoport report and will do some reading. I fully get where you are coming from. I put that up as an example of an obvious fake – it refs FB for one thing.
DRUD is a devoted matrix dweller, nice guy but believes the official narrative most of the time.
If you had half the brain Drud has, you’d have, well …. half a brain.
🙂 🙂
Which half are you going to take and give to BL?
Hey, you are part of an elite alien brain stealing organization aren’t. You can’t prove me wrong can you?
I knew it!
My bad, I thought we were here to talk about mainstream NARRATIVES of which you support the majority of the time. Without doubt DRUD, you are extremely bright but you have no ability to see things outside of the box/matrix. Step outside the box or keep playing, it’s up to you.
You are so damned quick to pronounce anybody and everybody as “supporting the majority ” if they do not buy 100% into what you’re buying.
Go crawl back under your Kentsucky rock.
There is no box BL. No place where all things are correct and no place where all things are false. Trade-offs are built into the cosmic firmament. Complexity abounds. Chaos and order, stasis and change, certainty and uncertainty, progressive and conservative…we inhabit the messy space in-between all these things and a thousand other dialectic pairs. Going to far in any direction from the messy center is a Civilization ending catastrophe.
There is no box.
Instead of a box, think of a song. An infinite song in both time and complexity.
Are there good notes and bad notes?
There is harmony and discord, yes. But both are fleeting and necessary.
DURD- While you are singing your harmonious song of yin/yang, I’m dealing with a HUGE chemtrail grid directly over my house. I can’t go to Europe as planned because of a fake pandemic so I am forced to inch slightly into Yankee territory for a vacay with “European Charm”. Great.
Hardscrabble has no problem identifying chemtrails, non-lethal BS viruses, no Martian flying craft yet I am a crackpot. OK fine.
There is a box DURD and we are stuck in it.
Hardscrambles also believes NASA faked not one but SIX moon landings. I disagree.
He also believes that we should live more in tune with nature, that we should all be responsible to at least in some way provide for our own sustenance and that we should settle our accounts each day (per Seneca).
We’re all a mixed bag. I agree with about 95% of HSF’s.
DRUD- I was done commenting for the day but I want to address your last comment to me. I am on the same page with Hardscrabble 99% of the time, I hate the artificial world and long for the natural ways again. Hardscrabble has the courage to admit chemtrails exist, do you? Fear of not conforming is killing this society/country. If we die from courage then we GD die with honor.
Stucky- You are second only to DRUD in believing official narratives and you question MY abilities? Ha!
When you’re not here for a while … I worry about you.
When you come back … I hate your fucken guts.
I’m gonna have to get therapy.
P.S. You really are an asshole.
Stucky- Thanks for your concern, you don’t hate me and you know it.
The good news for you today is I’m going on a trip and will be off the radar so enjoy the peace and quiet.
PS… I can’t hold a candle to you in the asshole department. 🙂
I really lurvs you and DUD….really.
I agree Stucky – reality gets very confused with narrative and we do indeed find what we want to see. I fall into this trap time and again and try to unravel the truth from all the crap. I think Llpoh has expressed this problem very well but I don’t have an answer or a solution. We are fragile and erroneous humans and I guess we will remain so even for all our ‘techy’ advances.
Coincidences will happen but it is sometimes too convenient for many coincidences to come all at once. So I follow the money as a useful guide first and foremost – greed and fear – it has ever been so.
So… there WEREN’T a group of dancing Israelis (turned out to be Mossad agents)
who had a fake moving company with truck with a mural on the side of a airliner crashing into the Twin Towers?
CIA Director William Casey state that, “We know our disinformation is complete when everything Americans believe is false”. That was in 1981 that Casey made the statement and we arrived at that point some time ago. If it’s on the tv, it must be the gospel, or so the sheep believe.
Llpoh, I have been ranting to reject the narrative about almost everything around here for YEARS. Thanks for joining the battle, we need to beat the drum daily until it sinks in to the average Joe’s head that he is being played by his owners.
The most important part of the war on narratives is to stop discussing TPTB’s BS narrative daily around here as though they are valid. Otherwise we are as ignorant as the lemming mouth breathers.
Concise and on-point. Good article to share to those who don’t quite see the patterns.
Possible typo in the last big paragraph: “The push to eliminate electric vehicles will also end up…” Should that be gas/diesel powered vehicles instead?
Thanks. Yes indeed. Proofreading is not my strong suit.
Another narrative: People are too stupid to have common sense so laws must be made. An example of this is the Colorado Gov’nor signed into law yesterday the Gun storage lost weapons bill into law.
“It’s a sensible measure to help avoid immeasurable heartbreak,” Polis said Monday.
The Democratic governor also signed into law legislation requiring gun owners to report lost or stolen firearms to law enforcement or face a $25 fine for a first violation. Police agencies would report missing firearms to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the FBI’s National Crime Information Center, which shares information to law enforcement nationwide.
Thank goodness I left my house unlocked Sunday and all the guns were missing when I returned. At least I won’t have to report them.
Going to all-Electric vehicles is flat out impossible, as well as inefficient…The power grid transporting energy from generation plants consumes more than half the energy produced, while the battery cycle eats another 15%….But in any event, the electric infrastructure is already under a lot of stress, and expanding it to accommodate a 40% higher demand would cost many trillions and take decades–not happening…
Aha! Which is why we society will be riding bikes, clumped together, not travelling, etc.
We need narrative. The world is too complex to observe and act in with full objective awareness. We need a shorthand, we need maps of perception that allow us to focus on the things we need to do to survive. Or at least that was the story before modernity.
So, something we need so desperately has power and of course there are always those that will use, and inevitably corrupt power, wherever it can be found. There is no principle driving any of this, not supreme knowledge, there is only the game dynamics of power-seeking.
I believe there is also a much deeper meaning to story and narrative. It drive who we are. Think of a trophy, or think of Elvis’s guitar. These are NOT simply objects….they are metaphysical links to stories.
“The world is too complex to observe and act in with full objective awareness.”
Trust somebody, but not just anybody.
Close. I think it is more like do what other people do and don’t assume you know better. THEN, improve yourself and widen your perspective incrementally. As you do this, you will begin to recognize when to trust yourself beyond all others…in other words, when to stand alone and apart.
Also I have to re-post this, not thread-jacking, just makes me laugh every single time.
pop culture references are my specialty (it was definitely a Pinto):
but you can open the doors and jump out…. go buy a tesla and wait for the battery melt down ….
What do you call Tesla passengers on auto-drive?…………Extra Crispy
There you go again ,Llpoh. You try to introduce facts into the narrative most of the time. Sometimes you get pissed and scalp some of us.
Well, it is in my blood.
“The left is entirely consumed by narrative, but the right is catching up rapidly.”
Was this an empty assertion to placate the left? All the false narratives that followed were leftist. Did I miss something? I’d be curious if there are false narratives that I might fall prey to. Could it be that a false narrative on the right is that people on the left are reasonable and believe in freedom? I believed it decades ago but not for some time.
The bringing back manufacturing jobs was not from the left. Guns at times get a lot of bipartisan support. So do the riots and throw money at schools.
The manufacturing of the 50s are not coming back but my final years in industry showed that little small time manufacturing was coming either. The cost of shipping was steadily declining while the burdens of regulation steadily increased. Just remodeling a small restroom in our office was tens of thousands of dollars just to meet all the regulations, then it failed inspection because the flush handle was on the wrong side of the toilet.
More often I found myself dealing with a small manufacturer in some other part of the world for something that could have been easy to develop and manufacture here in the country and it was not a matter of lower labor costs. I do not think it is a myth to believe that a whole lot more businesses would flourish after getting rid of the regulatory chains. Don’t get me started on the massive burdens of COVID shutdown fascism layered on top of everything else.
LLPOH
Why didn’t you use as one of your examples a Narrative-Reality on the Georgia Guide Stones?
Figured that was beat to death, and did not want to start the herald down that road.
Fair enough.
Interesting, is it not, that you’ve gotten nothing but positive comments on this current article of yours? You’re the smartest guy in the room! Today. But, not yesterday.
I counted up the yesterday’s down votes for you and myself;
—- you made 14 comments / got 95 down votes
—- I made 9 comments / got 109 down votes
You picked the right narrative/reality to avoid with this piece.
Now, here is something I can’t prove, but I can guarantee. All those 100 or so voters who downed you and I yesterday (faggotfuks, each and every one) are some of the same ones giving praise today!! Funny how that works, eh?
Hey Stucky do you run the social media for Jack’s frozen pizza?
Stucky watch it to the end and see what your true score is.
That was Hilarious!! Literally LOLed a few times.
You bastard … I’m gonna have to watch several more tonight.
Stuck – I was selective in my choice of narratives, for sure.
And I am sure there are some with VPNs that game the system mightily.
Not sure they require conspiracies. Maybe some. They just require stupidity in many cases.
Jumping in, in hopes of Burners reading this or maybe Admin posting. Thx.
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/age-over-abundant-elites
The author stated: “The left is entirely consumed by narrative, but the right is catching up rapidly.”
Perhaps he overlooked an example of we on the right using narratives but he failed to mention even one.
Followed by; “Narrative: manufacturing jobs can be returned to the US. Reality: the jobs no longer exist anywhere, and have been eliminated by automation.”
Automation is real and as it evolves, its impact will be so profound as to be a game changer. That said, try getting an automaton to install a new refrigerator or fix a leaking pipe. Replace a worn out muffler or transmission. My point being that while automation will greatly effect manufacturing, skilled service jobs will still be needed.
BTW, whatever will China do when manufacturing returns to its point of demand? Automation will work as well in domestic factories near major cities, as it will in overseas factories. Plus, no overseas shipping costs…
AI directed robots will be far cheaper than even China’s low wage workers and far more productive. No nights or days off, no illness, no benefits, no unions. SciFi writers have long written of it but without delving deeply into the obvious societal repercussions.
Guess you weren’t listening when the right was on the return mfg bandwagon, and the deafening silence to the debt Trump and co ran up. Oh, and when did you ever hear the mainstream right talk about the crime facts? Etc. Climate change? Much of the right is in lockstep there.
Your narrative is showing if you cannot even see the right is pushing several of the above.
” but the right is catching up rapidly.”
I would’ve liked to see the examples of the stupid narratives the right swallows. I read RW site comments all the time, the right doesn’t seem to believe anyone any more. Too many obvious lies.
See above. Climate change. Debt. Race baiting. Etc. You must not be awake yet.
The right swallows that stuff? You must be talking about the GOPe.
Here is a point I made in the Guidestones thread, expanded:
One of the major ‘conspiracies’ is controlling the ‘narratives’…
NARRATIVE
A way of presenting or understanding a situation or series of events that reflects and promotes a particular point of view or set of values
CONSPIRACY
A conspiracy, also known as a plot, is a secret plan or agreement between persons for an unlawful or harmful purpose, such as murder or treason, especially with political motivation, while keeping their agreement secret from the public or from other people affected by it.
CIA OPERATION MOCKING BIRD
A successful ongoing conspiracy to control the narratives…
POWER HUNGRY PEOPLE CONTROLLING THE NARRATIVE, THE SO CALLED ‘MOCKING BIRD’
Here are some warriors fighting the controlled narrative on Brand New Tube.
https://brandnewtube.com/watch/power-hungry-people-controlling-the-narrative-the-so-called-mocking-bird_FFARlZYIlKS6P2q.html
OK, so who is selling these shit narratives?
We know who runs the media, so . . . .
Here are many major players, there are an endless list of Think Tanks, Non-Profits, etc.
Committee of 300
Central Banking Cartel
The Illuminati
Black Nobility
Khazarian Mafia
The Kahal Of the Cahilla
British Crown
The Vatican
The Pilgrims Society (they started buying the media in the 1920’s)
World Economic Forum
Global Military-Industrial Complex and Zio-Anglo-American Axis
The CIA are just Orcs and Flying Monkeys…but they control much of the media today through Operation Mocking Bird…who then feed many narratives to us…who they consider useless eaters.
I have put up the names of the Committe of 300, both historical and current 3 times.
But…there is always this:
&f=1&nofb=1
A great summary Lipoh, thanks for some reality and you are so right. The whole global financial system is on the verge of collapse and nobody can predict the outcome although many speculate. My Chapter 13 is just one view of the future. But I am sure that bicycles will be a good investment for the coming years!
We live in interesting times, Peter. Thank you.
And whatever asshat downvoted his comment is a twat.
Ok… here’s an attempt to distill some of my thoughts from yesterday:
Narratives are extremely powerful and drive most human activity. That power will be corrupted. This creates narratives that we must break ourselves out of. That DOES NOT mean that you can simply believe the exact opposite of the narrative in all cases. Nothing is that simple.
There is an ocean of complexity to just about everything. A perfect all around analysis of anything is impossible. Still, we have to make decisions…many of which are simple binaries. Personal circumstances and personal risk management should play a bigger role in those decisions than social currents. We can’t control such currents only roll with them and maybe just maybe try to influence them in small ways.
Narrative is not going away and no one is immune to them. Not even a little. You follow some narrative in your life always..provided you’re human.
Always love reading your posts, Llpoh. Even when I disagree. But in this case, as in 99% of your other posts, I find it to be common sense. Which perturbs me that most people don’t accept it as self-evident.
AoC
Nice to see you, AOC. Hope you come back to TBP regularly.
Here’s a “narrative.”
===
2 Thessalonians 2
The Man of Lawlessness
1Now concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered together to Him, we ask you, brothers, 2not to be easily disconcerted or alarmed by any spirit or message or letter seeming to be from us, alleging that the Day of the Lord has already come. 3Let no one deceive you in any way, for it will not come until the rebellion occurs and the man of lawlessness—the son of destruction—is revealed. 4He will oppose and exalt himself above every so-called god or object of worship. So he will seat himself in the temple of God, proclaiming himself to be God.
5Do you not remember that I told you these things while I was still with you? 6And you know what is now restraining him, so that he may be revealed at the proper time. 7For the mystery of lawlessness is already at work, but the one who now restrains it will continue until he is taken out of the way. 8And then the lawless one will be revealed, whom the Lord Jesus will slay with the breath of His mouth and annihilate by the majesty of His arrival.
9The coming of the lawless one will be accompanied by the working of Satan, with every kind of power, sign, and false wonder, 10and with every wicked deception directed against those who are perishing, because they refused the love of the truth that would have saved them. 11For this reason God will send them a powerful delusion so that they believe the lie, 12in order that judgment may come upon all who have disbelieved the truth and delighted in wickedness.
From falconflight
stupid is as stupid does and we do seem to have far more stupid’s than we have positives–great article
This week I have witnessed people suffering terrible cognitive dissonance after demonstrating to them why Fauci may not be their lord and savior.
Their mental contortions have been painful to see and it and it sort of reminded me of the lyrics from the REM song: “That’s me in the corner…. losing my religion”.
Disillusionment is a real b*tch and it shows both the power and danger of narratives.
My “Colonizer vs Historical Jesus” post was inspired by Llpoh’s article above and, if EC is counting up in Heaven, I would like to assign the 100+ comments there to this article because Llpoh inspired all that.
It was also somewhat ironic how the Jesus meme mildly triggered some of the usually… shall we say… less-than-caustic TBP commenters. So, perhaps Stucky was correct when he accused me of trying to “stir some shit”.
But the meme initially baffled me as well and it shows why narratives are dangerous.
French Philosopher Voltaire once claimed: “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
Narratives destroy by means of false dialectics and these are, as I stated in a comment on the “Jesus meme” thread, “incorrect, partly true, or truth stated wrongly.” It means both sides of the argument can be simultaneously true and false; or as stated in my above-linked comment (now paraphrased):
Narratives are conveyed simply, but are complicated to unpack because that takes time, energy, and curiosity: all of which are lacking in the minds of today’s harried, lazy, and electronically spoon-fed American citizens.
Llpoh’s above article was honest enough to point out that conservatives are, also, subject to the delusion of narratives. Therefore, it may be wise for us to always check our premises because the truth is most often somewhere in-between. And, if we’re not careful, we may end up shouting “Sacrilege!” as our sacred cows are slain.
Free speech and open debate are the antidotes to deception. Yet, as they say, the first causality of war is the truth. It may be wise to remember these considerations as things go local.
Narratives and Memes; Made Amerika what is it today.
+100 Falcon.
Great comment, Uncola.
Local, if there is an answer, is most likely the way forward.
So, perhaps Stucky was correct when he accused me of trying to “stir some shit”
Luke 12
:51 Do you suppose that I came to give peace on earth? I tell you, not at all, but rather division.
:52 For from now on five in one house will be divided: three against two, and two against three.
:53 Father will be divided against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”
The world needs ‘shit-stirring’, just in the right direction.
Right on Lliph; The insanity going on right now with our leaders is hard to fathom.
Nice work, Chief.
I’ve noticed a few commenters skirting the edge of this, but a narrative is simply a storyline, a description. What you’re talking about is false narratives. Or it could be called false rhetoric. A lie by any other name… One really obvious and wide-spread false narrative, as an example, is ‘our Democracy’. Every time someone repeats that (well, everyone knows what they mean) then that person is falling into a false narrative, and is led even further down the slippery slope.
My suggestion; don’t play the game. Call it what it is, and refuse to discuss it – whatever ‘it’ is – by the false rhetoric presented. But that means that we must be sure of our own rhetoric. Sadly lacking, far too often, even on this site.
But the nuggets do shine through.
Thanks TS. Yes, I mean false narratives. Appreciate you posting.
I ran across this a couple of minutes ago and thought I would add it into the mix.
A. W. Tozer was speaking about the spiritual, but notice he includes the Stoics in this comment.
Truth. It’s all about truth.
Any man who would escape the heavy tax which humankind lays upon the righteous must make a satisfactory compromise with error. This is so because sin has perverted the nature of things. He that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey is as true now as when it was first uttered. Little as we like to admit it, two thousand years of Christianity have not made much difference. The human race is still cursed with what Bacon called a natural though corrupt love of the lie itself. Nevertheless the hazards of truth should not count in our final tally. Truth is such a royal patron that we should embrace it without regard to cost. The cautious calculator, who tinkers with truth for fear of consequences, is no worthy servant of such a noble master. We Christians above all people should value truth, for we profess to belong to the One who is the Truth. The Stoics who had no access to the Scriptures nevertheless had a noble concept of truth and of mans responsibility to it. When on trial for his life before a hostile and prejudiced court one of them told his accusers: A man who is good for anything ought not to calculate the chance of living or dying; he ought only to consider whether in doing anything he is doing right or wrong-acting the part of a good man or a bad. The true follower of Christ will not ask, If I embrace this truth, what will it cost me? Rather he will say, This is truth, God help me to walk in it, let come what may!
As pertinent today as it has ever been.
The global political situation of the twenty-first century has changed dramatically.
Western civilization and Marxist ideology which aims to enlighten the society of a better way of coexisting through Communism, have combined to extinguish democracy, human rights and freedom, in an attempt to completely dominate the entire world.
For your so-called sovereign governments to achieve these criminal ends, they are using false pandemic propaganda and bio-terror lies, creating fear-induced mass hysteria through lockdowns, mask mandates and limited social interactions, with PCR tests that employ cycle threshold fraud, whilst rolling out an untested emergency use only mass vaccination deception programme, that fulfills a global eugenics crisis event, none of which can be justified in any way.
It goes against all humanitarian ideals, democracy, freedom, respect for individuality, it goes against all.
Now, when a joke ‘woke’ Marxist thinks of an ideal government, they think in terms of a one world government.
And this is the end game of the Davos, W.E.F criminal high command, to achieve such result.
Your so-called democratic governments under globalist control, have declared an all out war on you, their own citizens, to create a Marxist totalitarian world, you just haven’t fully realized it yet!
Politicians can lie without any shame.
They think that to be cunning is to be clever.
It is not so, only mediocre people are cunning.
A really intelligent person need not be cunning.
They are intelligent and that’s more than enough.
Cunningness is a poor substitute, a plastic substitute for intelligence.
The mediocre politician tries to look intelligent, in that very effort he becomes cunning.
And the greatest cunningness is to be a hypocrite, to be one thing and to show something else.
Cunningness is cowardice.
Intelligence is courage.
Don’t forget that cunning and deceit are parts of their arsenal of war.
And when your globalist enemies are making full use of their arsenal, it is sheer stupidity to play into their hands and get defeated, enslaved and killed.
There is no avoiding this, our very own fight for survival, it can only be postponed to the advantage of the enemy.
There is a great vested interest of the unconscious forces.
Yet, unlocking these forces will unleash a Pandora’s box.
These politicians can commit suicide themselves if they want, but humanity is no longer interested in killing for them or being killed by them.
We have no need of your wars, no need of your violence, no need of your divisions, no need of your hate.
The night may be long.
The agony may be great.
The darkness may be becoming more and more deep, but nothing can prevent the people’s freedom, truth and love, arising on the horizon.
Our dawn is bound to come.
In a way, it has already come, it has just to be recognized.
The people’s fight back is going to be such a great awakening, an assured and decisive victory.
Creating an historical global event that will define an age of enlightenment.
Life is so short and love is so precious.
Before these idiotic politicians of the world attempt to destroy our lives, we can make life itself so precious that nobody is ready to fight anymore.
Why is the ego always ready to fight?
This has to be fully understood.
Every moment you are ready to jump upon someone, to find an excuse and fight, argue, and be angry.
Why is the ego always in search of a fight?
Because fight is the fuel, through fight the ego feels powerful, through fight it exists.
Ego is the deepest violence and if you want to strengthen the ego you have to go on fighting continuously.
Ego needs constant war. Why?
Firstly, through war it accumulates energy.
Secondly, ego is always afraid, that is why it is always ready to fight, because there is fear.
Ego can never be fearless, never.
Why? Because it is a false thing, it is not natural.
It is an artificial human device, you have to manage it and maintain it continuously.
If for even a single moment you don’t manage it it will disappear, that is the fear.
In life many things which you enjoy are imaginary, that’s why people don’t want to let them disappear.
The ego is a coward, it cannot be otherwise.
You cannot see a fearless man with an ego, it is impossible, it is not in the way of nature.
Why is it impossible?
How can the ego be fearless?
Ego cannot be eternal, it cannot be immortal, death is bound to happen.
Hence the fear.
The ego is a created phenomenon, created by you, it is going to disappear.
Imagination is that which disappears.
Reality is that which remains.
Reality is far richer than imagination.
Truth is not hidden, you are closed in imagination.
Truth is revealed everywhere, every moment.
Truth by its very nature cannot be hidden.
Only lies try to hide themselves, not truth, only lies are secretive.
One thing has always to be remembered, that whatsoever is destructive is impotent, only creativity has potentiality, is potent.
Begin from the center of your being.
Accept yourself as you are and then you will accept everything as it is.
And with acceptance comes transformation, you will never be the same artificial and false ego, once you accept yourself.
Love is our only power, silence is our only force.
There is no power which is higher than love, and there is no force which can defeat silence.
And it is through love and silence that one comes to know truth, which is the ultimate victory of life.
And if the whole humanity lives in love and truth, spiritual growth will become very easy.
Truth is always like an open hand, it is never like a fist.
Remember, intuition cannot be translated into intellect.
A certain bridge can certainly be made, but the more intuition takes possession of you, the more mind has to function as a servant.
Intuition can never be a servant.
It is your intelligence.
It is your innermost core.
Remember, the intellect is not intelligence, these are two different things.
The intellect is just a memory system, it’s memory is full, as a well-fed computer.
Intelligence is a totally different thing.
It may not know anything in particular, but its capacity to know is very sharp.
Its receptivity towards truth is very clear.
Light has its own existence, and to have one’s own existence is the true power.
It opens up only in deep meditation.
London, Saturday.
One million people.
One voice.
good summary
we awful small-l libertarians have been aware of the narrative for the past 40 years.
welcome!
The politicians and the media understand what Thomas Sowell said. “In a democracy, the truth doesn’t matter. What people believe is what matters.”