For the purposes of an overview, it makes sense to operate with three prototypes in the given context of human behaviours: (a) the self-absorbed, immature youth who just wants to be ‘where the action is’ but is without any deeper allegiance in life, being too lazy to pursue any paranoid hypotheses, (b) the deeply darkened soul, whose personal style has precluded them from closer bonding and cheerful harmony, leading them to indulge in violent fantasies of revenge upon humanity for its rejection; and (c) the reticent ones, unsure of their own worth, who renounce their natural life expression, severely hampered by anxiety, but dreaming of a caring community, where they might finally dare to let loose and share feelings with others. Some of the type-b people, unable to socialize on normal terms, may gradually become delusional and imagine that they are in fact better than others and engage with the world to accomplish something greater.
The ultimate standard for our current state of morality is now to be on the side of the oppressed. According to this school of thought, morality involves the struggle for social justice, applying the principles of Marxism. The Western college student of our time, though trying to find his own feet in life, refuses to humble himself to consult God in his prayers or to seek advice. Infatuated and filled with tenderness, he sees himself in the mirror or through the camera of his smart phone, like some Narcissus. Rather than show courage, reflect soberly, and take an independent viewpoint, he succumbs to pressure and surrenders to irrationality. Intoxicated by the revolutionary disinformation on social media, which gives him an intense and but false feeling of community, he indulges in rehearsed displays of virtue signalling solidarity. In so doing, he avoids exposure to imminent danger and may even feel invulnerable. The groupthink becomes his illusory refuge. He need not think for himself or act on his own. For a moral stance to be acceptable, it must merely be shared by a perceived majority of those dedicated to amelioration of the oppressed. Morality is effectively reduced from the conscience of the individual to the pleasing sentiment of approbation within the community. As has been evident in recent protest marches across the West, sharing a revolutionary anti-Western identity—whatever the cause—has completely supplanted the space formerly occupied by true moral conviction.
Anybody who condemns Western culture, including liberalism and consumerism, is literally a hypocrite. Those who are strangers to the political elite, being too dogmatic or eccentric to mingle with the real decision makers, mainly operate on the fringes of society and are prepared to take moral cleansing beyond the merely symbolic. It is impossible to make peace with them. Socially maladapted and conceited, they are driven by an implacable hatred of civilization, orderliness, and legality. They court a sick ambition to destroy, avenge, and dominate the spirit of revolution. They often harbor secret visions of a West ravaged and conquered by the oppressed. Determined to make it pay for the colonial or racist sins of the past, they toy with the idea of inflicting unprecedented privations. These are fanatics, rather than mere hypocrites.
Activists who passionately fight for the environment or animal protection often morph from timidity into fearless, roaring menaces. It is a captivating psychological study. In the absence of a loving God to instill peace and confidence in the world, climate change, social justice, or some other leftist cause becomes the very meaning of life; a holy commandment, rousing displaced moral orphans into action. Stirred from the misery of abject isolation and loneliness, they immerse themselves in the struggle, the higher cause. Their pre-existing desperation is converted into contempt for death. Like mad dogs, they viciously attack the oppressors of this sinful world without hesitation or mercy.
Expressing as much empathy for the oppressed—the chosen victims of the world—is antipathy to the oppressors, the sinners. This is of crucial importance in the digital community. If one is keen to cultivate an image as being “right-minded”, i.e. aware of the social duty to fight the ceaseless struggle between good and evil, then we must subscribe to social media and align with the trend setters.
This narcissistic strategy requires a modicum of spiritual effort. As a special type of social adaptation, it reveals a striking lack of individual bravery or commitment to truth. Thus, in one sense, we can lay claim to living in the post-modern age of the self-righteous. On the other hand, deep down, those who love to perform on social media remain much like the trivial, submissive and cowardly characters of the past—crowding to reach the booth to pay for their indulgences. Any age, it seems, is really one belonging to the self-righteous. That is part of who we are as humans. As a basic condition in life, we are frightened and always have been; make no mistake about it. Only the vain refuse to admit it and to live in denial of their own mortality.
The affluent West has produced a youth culture blaming past generations for harms done to the sacred oppressed. They see themselves as global messiahs, all while refusing to forsake the luxuries being denied to others. Blissfully ignorant of this contradiction, they enjoy the privilege of partying around the clock and forgetting all of their own doomsday prophesies. When confronted by an erratic, unmerciful, and powerful organization—be it a crime syndicate, a political movement, or a government, it is safer to attack the party from which they have nothing to fear. There are no violent repercussions for doing so. Hence the systemic assault upon Christendom. Something similar applies to the individual: if you are a coward to the core, then you prefer to humor the bully and blame their victim for any resulting atrocities.
Self-staging in the ultramodern, theatrical way to fake indignation, concern, or pity is the greatest deception of the self-righteous. Intimidated by the very object of their chosen group, the coward lies to himself and the rest of the world. In this way, hypocrisy and cowardice are truly two sides of the same coin. Such people are capable of the worst atrocities imaginable, of what Hannah Arendt called, “the banality of evil” in describing the clerk of Auschwitz, Adolf Eichmann. Inevitably, these attacks come first through perversions of language that are then used to define the crimes of the oppressors.
One of the more insidious features of Marxist language manipulation is its stigmatization of opposing points of view as some form of mental disorder. Opposition to gay marriage is said to be a sign of ‘homophobia’. Distrusting radical Islamists who celebrate 9/11 and terrorize university campuses is a symptom of ‘Islamophobia’. Wanting the federal government to reduce mass immigration, secure our border and enforce existing immigration law reveals latent ‘xenophobia’. Not wanting men to force their way into female locker-rooms and showers suggests that one suffers from the dreaded novel condition known as ‘transphobia’.
Note that all of these purported disorders are categorized as phobias, or more plainly— irrational fears. Marxists routinely use loaded medical jargon not only to demonize or disgrace their foes but also to transform any political disagreement into something that is not. Respecting marriage as a millennia-long institution celebrating the bond between one man and one woman has nothing at all do with fearing homosexuals. Preparing to defend ourselves against terrorists does not mean that such caution is unwarranted. Insisting that foreigners emigrate to the West in a lawful and socially beneficial way makes eminent sense. Ensuring that mothers, wives, sisters and daughters are safe from strange and dangerous men who intrude upon their female private spaces requires selfless courage.
Despite this, Marxists depend upon distortions of reality to foment cultural fires and manipulate us. Opposition to whatever politically expedient wedge issue currently being weaponized against society must be diagnosed as a psychological abnormality. You might even say that Marxists are committed to the lie that dissent to their ideology is based upon phobias.
Never mind that communist regimes exterminated over 100 million people in the murderous 20th century alone; that is no reason to fear an ideology seeking only to empower the proletariat. It might reveal more about the persistent malevolence of Marxists or humanity’s inexhaustible supply of naïveté that communism continues to lure willing disciples to execute its vile legacy of mass starvation, torture, and death. Marxism is like Stephen King’s “It”: the evil clown lurking in the sewer that reappears every generation or so to feast upon tender human flesh. Yet every college campus in North America would insist that such description stems from hyperbolic phobia. To oppose Marxism today due to its historical murder sprees is Marxophobic and must be treated by the left as any other mental illness.
At least that is what psychologists and psychiatrists would say, since Marxists took over the mental health profession long ago. It is well-known that whenever Marxists infiltrate, they soon corrupt. Environmental science would not be fixated on the demonstrable lie that human energy consumption is causing climate catastrophe if Marxists did not require a global bogeyman to frighten us into embracing centrally planned economies. Donald Trump would not be defending multiple criminal trials and many more law suits if Marxist prosecutors and judges were not committed to subverting the rule of law. Schools and employers would not select applicants based upon DIE if Marxists had not exalted mediocrity over meritocracy. Nobody would be so asinine as to call mathematics “racist” if civilization destroying Marxists had not first succeeded in permeating the entire Western educational system.
Science and justice are dead because Marxists rise to power only after summarily executing knowledge and truth. Once they do so, “science” works for evil. It is why biological tenets of Lysenkoism thrived in the U.S.S.R., despite their glaring absurdities. It is how “climate change” fearmongers can be wrong about every prediction—and oscillate between cooling and boiling earth prophecies—but still be honoured as ‘experts.’ It is why entire chapters in medical texts are written to categorize the slightest opposition to Marxist orthodoxy as prescriptive of a troubling mental disease.
This makes sense, since communist societies have a long history of imprisoning political dissidents in psych wards as an effective, humiliating alternative to criminal prosecution:
“What? You do not believe in the abolition of private property or that breadlines are the fault of anti-government capitalist pigs? you must be crazy! Send this lunatic to the asylum!”
In the former Soviet Union, it was common for a family member to disappear one day without any formal notice from the state or for heartbroken relatives to discover only years later that their loved-one died during ‘treatment’ in a mental hospital. Such human rights atrocities have also occurred in Central and South American communist countries, and still happen in China today. Marxists relish sentencing their enemies to a nightmarish fate in which the body is trapped in a straight-jacket and the mind is numbed by a drip-fed cocktail of tranquilizers and anti-psychotics.
I must admit that the Marxist proclivity to treat their nemeses as mentally ill has made me reluctant to involve the government in the legitimate mental health crisis that afflicts Canada today. Changes in civil commitment statutes over the past half-century made it more difficult for patients to be assigned involuntarily. Consequent closure of government run psychiatric hospitals is chiefly responsible responsible for spikes in certain categories of violent crime. A great deal of research on homelessness, addiction, suicide, and murder suggests that the trend toward deinstitutionalization since the 1960s has produced tragic, but predictable results.
On the other hand, we must be leery of returning certain compelled commitment powers back to psychiatrists and government health experts, both of which pray at the Marxist altar. Empowering governments with renewed authority to fight mental illness sounds reasonable at first blush, but will almost certainly result in many conservatives being forcibly disarmed, cancelled, and involuntarily confined. After all, in the eyes of a Marxist therapist or judge, is anyone more dangerous than an enthusiastic proponent of liberty, personal property, the family, the rule of law, and the supremacy of God? Sadly, the Freedom Convoy leaders and Coutts prisoners put on trial know the answer all too well.
Make no mistake, Marxists already use the language of mental health to intimidate political opponents. Paul Coffey is a school board trustee in Western Manitoba. He has indigenous ancestry himself. His father and grandmother both attended Indian Residential School. During a recent presentation, he argued that IRS benefitted indigenous people and that “white privilege” is a racist concept that is just as unacceptable as the term “red savage”. He said that he does not consider himself a survivor, because that means that one is also a victim. The 3400 page Truth & Reconciliation Report well supports his assertions, but that did not prevent the Marxist mob from attacking him for such heresy. In a Winnipeg Free Press (a former newspaper) editorial, WOKE scold Mikaela Mackenzie publicly chastised him, calling for his head on a platter:
“If Manitoba’s education system is serious about combating anti-Indigenous racism, it must take swift and meaningful action against a rural school trustee who last week used hurtful language and spread misinformation about residential schools...For that, Coffey should face serious consequences. Spreading hateful messaging and misinformation about indigenous issues should not be tolerated.”
Meanwhile, in the U.K., police officers and a government psychologist forced their way into a man’s home recently—not because he had committed any crimes—but because they had a few concerns about a social media post in which he encouraged Christians to ‘stand up’ after an Islamic terrorist stabbed an Australian Bishop. “People raised concerns about your views...about what’s going on in Australia” they said. Just as in Manitoba, jackbooted authoritarianism comes in the form of psychological “help”.
All of this causes many people to feel that all is lost. Politics and current events are a daily gut punch, and it is impossible to avoid the cultural revolution exploding just outside our windows. These are, indeed, troubling times for weary souls.
It is no longer enough to simply turn off the television, avoid the internet, and head out to the closest wilderness trail in search of momentary respite or even tactical escape. Since Western Marxism seeks to politicize everything, it is increasingly difficult to find suitable refuge from the abhorrent hordes of climate change cultists, pronoun-obsessed wackos, virtue-signalling simps, racial grievance monsters, Hamas zealots, and other angry, WOKE trolls. While we endure the peak surges of Marxist globalism—a totalitarian system destined to crash from the weight of its own contradictions—it can feel as if we are drowning in unrelenting waves.
Please therefore allow me to offer you a lifeline. I know of no better daily routine than to spend time (1) repairing and maintaining a relationship with God, (2) helping and protecting members of your family, (3) testing and strengthening your own character, (4) improving your mind, and (5) healing your physical body. I have found that if we work on these goals each day, it is much easier to silence outside noise and to find peace.
There are two main reasons why this is so. Firstly, these five exercises are not easy, nor are they meant to be. We could spend every second of each day dedicated to any one of them and never accomplish the task.
Maintaining a good relationship with God? Priests and pastors struggle to do so all of their lives.
Helping your family? That duty never ends.
Improving our character? Even the most honourable among us fail to do what is right sometimes.
Becoming a better thinker? Learning new things requires patience and diligence.
Remaining healthy? The older we get, the more committed we must be to an exercise regimen.
No matter how simple it might seem when reading these words, every one of these five described actions requires great energy, time, and discipline.
The second reason this daily routine will reward you with a sense of peace is that none of these extraordinarily difficult tasks require you to submit to the madness of crowds. Think about the personal responsibilities listed here: God, family, character, mind, and body. No matter what level of external chaos afflicts us, we are always in complete control over how we choose to interact with God, how we aid our families, how we weigh what is right and wrong, how we use our minds, and who we train our bodies to persevere.
No Marxist subversive or government agency can dictate how we perform these duties. They will certainly tell us that they have authority over how we pray, how we live, what we teach, what we know, and how we choose to protect our families. But what they tell us and what they can make us do are entirely different things. I would suggest that when untrustworthy people insist on interfering in the way you perform these daily resolutions, you consider their intrusion a test and an opportunity to strengthen your own self-purpose, commitment, and character. Outside forces cannot diminish us when we use adversity to grow. After all, as iron sharpens iron, so we sharpen each other.
It matters not how late in life we learn to take these five daily exercises seriously. Once they become a part of our routine, we begin to see the world with more clarity. What is more, we soon realize that almost everything we do in life gives us a chance to improve one or more of these responsibilities. When confronted with something uncomfortable or demanding, we begin to ask ourselves how the challenge before us might provide the perfect opportunity to enhance our relationship with God, reinforce the foundations of our family, test our character, help us to learn, or to make us stronger. Eventually, more and more of the craziness in our world will evaporate as the goals we set for ourselves lead us down a richer path.
Three of the most difficult questions in life are deceptively simple: (1) Who are you? (2) What makes you happy? And (3) What do you want from life?
When we try to answer these questions, most of us fail. To be sure, many great philosophers spent lifetimes trying to answer these questions for themselves and also came up lacking. It is genuinely perplexing that so many of us know so little about ourselves. Yet it is equally uplifting to realize that if we spend more time and energy finding those answers, we will be more fulfilled human beings.
I suggest to that the surest way to discover such important answers lies on the same path created when we make these five exercises part of our daily routine. Turning these goals into personal responsibilities not only insulates us from the political discord of the outside world; it also helps us finally understand and appreciate why we are here at this particular moment in human history.
Sometimes we are the ones most culpable for hiding our true purpose from ourselves. Likewise, when we truly know who we are, there is little in this world still to fear. Relief lies at the far end of self-discovery, and it is the fear of God—and not of mankind—that is the beginning of wisdom.
Looking around the world today, it is clear that few of us actually know who we really are. The world is awash in generations suffering from identity crises, struggling with addictions, enduring often self-imposed psychological traumas and dramas. Government leaders encourage this madness by stoking social conflict at every turn. Any human society obsessed with pronoun games is one devoid of true purpose and bereft of honest self-reflection. In an era of fake news and official propaganda, authority figures do little but distort truth.
For these reasons, anyone who can answer those three deceptively simple questions is light years ahead of the great majority living in some form of agony today; and the most effective method of reaching such answers is to take seriously our personal relationships with God & family, and to improve daily our personal character, body, mind—and yes, soul.
Doing so puts on the moral armor of God that allows us to confront even the most evil and powerful adversary with a humbling question: “And who are you?”
Most of them will have no good answer.
