There is no such thing as fully objective history, and that’s for a simple reason. History is generated in narrative form, and the creation of every narrative—as Hayden White made clear four decades ago—necessarily involves the selection and discarding, as well the foregrounding and relative camouflaging, of items within the panoply of “facts” at the disposal of the historian.
Welcome to the age of abstraction, when lived experience is irrelevant and theoretical constructions carry the day – when what is deemed right and true is unmoored from what is actually happening here and now.
If we are to survive as a civilization, that is precisely the kind of community and support structure that we need to form, especially on the local level. For that reason alone, I warmly invite you to the 2024 Brownstone Institute Conference and Gala in my hometown of Pittsburgh, where we will seek to experience a community of collegiality and friendship in service of “The New Resistance.”
Today our concerns about nihilism have less to do with capitalism than with the cynical nihilism evident in the actions orchestrated by the group of multi-billionaires who are hellbent on destroying the lives of the rest of humanity by hook or by crook. These sub-humans evidently hold human lives – in fact, all life-forms – in such low regard, that they did not hesitate to promote bioweapons as legitimate ‘Covid-vaccines,’ while probably knowing full well what the effects of these experimental concoctions would be.
Atlas may shrug, justice may never be served, all of the structures and institutions around us may fall into disrepair or collapse, and the world may be forcefully locked down, but when we give in to apathy and shrug our shoulders in dejected acceptance and passive participation, we also hand over our own individuality, agency, and freedom. It is then that Atlas shrugs, not once, but twice.
What would happen if we all vowed to adopt an honor code to guide every moment in our lives? What if we vowed to speak the truth, to act ethically, and to hold others accountable when they violate the codes of society? What if we also vowed to pursue this ethos in a decent, respectful manner, seeking to expose dishonesty not to shame and humiliate the offenders, but to strengthen the social fabric of our communities? Wouldn’t we make clear that this conduct will be given no quarter in our communities?
Would it not have been unimaginably exhilarating if this court verdict and (hypothetical) sentence had binding power? But it does not. Hence, the struggle continues, and we shall never give up. That this is worthwhile was recently confirmed when the news broke about the World Health Organisation suffering a colossal setback, when it failed to get the amendments approved which would assure its sought-after ‘pandemic treaty’ to be ratified. There are other victories too, which we, the resistance, are pursuing, without the least thought of ever backing down.
What my son did not know is that Piano Man is also a song about how often life is miserable and melancholic, and how all of that can be impacted by a simple melody. The patrons of a bar beg the piano man to sing them a song; play them a memory, one they don’t even remember all that well.
It is a shame that some people still don’t question other narratives after experiencing profound injustices and horrendous treatments during the Covid-19 response for the so-called “greater good.” The journey to find the truth is nevertheless personal and relatively painful, where we are led to confront ourselves, our humility, faith, and principles. I don’t think it is easy to impose that on others, but we can plant seeds, for they may grow on fertile soil.
Kant literally changed the way we think about ourselves; what Copernicus achieved for astronomy – altering the assumptions of the place of planet Earth in what we now understand as our solar system – Kant did for philosophy, which is why he thought of himself as bringing about a Copernican revolution in philosophy. In brief: Kant demonstrated, with thorough argumentation, that instead of humans experiencing the world ‘passively’ by merely registering on their senses the impressions of external ‘reality,’ we actually contribute to the way the world appears to us.
The terms “fascist” and “fascism” are continuously bandied about today. But those who use these words most seem to understand them least, such that many of today’s self-styled anti-fascists paradoxically take on the central features of fascism to an extraordinary degree.
Psy-ops employ a diversity of psychological strategies and techniques to exercise influence over the feelings, thoughts, and behaviour of a selected group, with the obvious goal of persuading the people comprising the latter, usually via various modes of deception, to act in a desired manner. If this sounds familiar, don’t be surprised. It has been carried out on the populations of the world’s countries since at least 2020, and arguably for much longer.
