This article was originally published by Charles Hugh Smith at Of Two Minds Blog.
Befuddled and blind, we wander toward the cliff without even seeing it, focusing on our little screens of entertainment and self-absorption.
There are no physical barriers in the Gulag of the Mind–we imprison ourselves and love our servitude. Indeed, we fear the world outside our internalized gulag, because we’ve absorbed the narrative that the gulag is secure and permanent.
We’ve also absorbed the understanding that escape will be punished. Dissent will quickly be suppressed or vilified, and the dissenter socially and economically marginalized.
In a peculiarly human pathology, we now believe the exact opposite of reality:our abuser is our savior, we’re getting wealthier when in fact we’re getting poorer, the government will always save us, even though the government is the problem, not the solution, and we’re entitled to all sorts of good things even as the entire system clings to a veneer of normalcy that is increasingly difficult to maintain.
We dare not realize the crises we’re about to face are novel, and the thinking of the past is worse than useless, as doing more of what’s failed is about to bear real consequences that cannot be papered over.
Michael Grant described this clinging to the past in his excellent account The Fall of the Roman Empire:
There was no room at all, in these ways of thinking, for the novel, apocalyptic situation which had now arisen, a situation which needed solutions as radical as itself. (The Status Quo) attitude is a complacent acceptance of things as they are, without a single new idea.
This acceptance was accompanied by greatly excessive optimism about the present and future. Even when the end was only sixty years away, and the Empire was already crumbling fast, Rutilius continued to address the spirit of Rome with the same supreme assurance.
This blind adherence to the ideas of the past ranks high among the principal causes of the downfall of Rome. If you were sufficiently lulled by these traditional fictions, there was no call to take any practical first-aid measures at all.
The Gulag of the Mind is constructed of both traditional fictions–that all the looming crises can be solved by repeating what worked in the past 50 years– and the new ones of virtual signaling–that publicly signaling our virtuous convictions is magically equivalent to actually solving problems, as if our problems are all nothing but a scarcity of virtuous convictions rather than real-world crises that will require immense fortitude and sacrifice to weather, much less resolve.
The Gulag of the Mind depends on technology–or more precisely, on a magical thinking faith that technology will always effortlessly save us: some new form of magic will manifest at the moment of need and we won’t have to change anything in our lifestyle or our corrupt power structure.
In the Gulag of the Mind, a perversion of justice passes for real justice: there are two sets of laws and two levels of enforcement: the wealthy and powerful escape justice while commoners are given life-crushing prison sentences for Drug Gulag offenses, and their vehicles and belongings are confiscated for being too poor to pay the state’s onerous penalties and fees.
Befuddled and blind, we wander toward the cliff without even seeing it, focusing on our little screens of entertainment and self-absorption. The bottom of the cliff beckons, and filled with the magical sense of security bestowed by the Gulag of the Mind, we imagine we can walk on air and escape unhurt.
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Kinda like this…
Comfortably Numb
Pink Floyd
Hello (hello hello), is there anybody in there?
Just nod if you can hear me
Is there anyone home?
See’mon (c’mon see’mon), now
I hear you’re feelin’ down
Well, I can ease your pain
Get you on your feet again
Relax (relax relax), I need some information first
Just the basic facts
Can you show me where it hurts?
There is no pain
You are receding
A distant ship’s smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
You lips move, but I can’t hear what you’re saying
When I was a child, I had a fever
My hands felt just like two balloons
Now I’ve got that feeling once again
I can’t explain, you would not understand
This is not how I am
I have become comfortably numb
I have become comfortably numb
Ok (OK OK) just a little pinprick
There’ll be no more (scream)
But you may feel a little sick
Can you stand up (stand up, stand up)?
I do believe it’s working good
That’ll keep you going for the show
See’mon it’s time to go
There is no pain
You are receding
A distant ship’s smoke on the horizon
You are only coming through in waves
You lips move, but I can’t hear what you’re saying
When I was a child, I caught a fleeting glimpse
Out of the corner of my eye
I turned to look but it was gone
I cannot put my finger on it now
The child is grown, the dream is gone
And I have become comfortably numb
Songwriters: David Jon Gilmour, Roger Waters
© CONCORD MUSIC PUBLISHING LLC, BMG Rights Management
For non-commercial use only.
Data from: LyricFind
Willie Wonka’s Chocolate Factory, which caused the downfall of most of the contest winners, was ironically as dangerous as the Hunger Games.
I think that negative people or altruists will find an outlet, no matter what you give them or where they are put.
Make a conscious effort to do well and be happy.
I’ve often commented on how automation will put a lot of people out of work and nobody knows what we are going to do with them. Universal Basic Income(UBI) isn’t going to work as evidenced by the rot of our inner cites which basically has a UBI now, and high unemployment.
It is happening and the only solutions I see being offered, more government, has never worked in all of the history of mankind.
Additionally a lot of effort is being expended by society is in areas that are of no use to improving our situation.
Climate change, alternative renewable energy, get rid of meat,
et al. We can’t affect the over all climate, pollute less, yes,
but CO2 isn’t a pollutant. Why don’t we have fusion power, that is “RENEWABLE”? That fact that I raise cattle, chickens and such on my land is not the world’s problem!
I see no real difference between Chinese, Russian, Indian, Europeans governments, from our own Democrat run governments, in the America’s. They are all Democrat governments in the modern definition of Democrat as
it means today.
Until we eliminate Democrat supporters, we will
continue to walk over the cliff.
relik
It was “Welfare” in the 1960s, now it’s “Universal Basic Income(UBI)”. Regardless, the Biblical Phrase, “Idle time is the devils play” comes to mind. Better the CCC Camp of the Great Depression public works than paying people to do nothing. We’re going into a time where labor is becoming largely obsolete.
rellik, we despise the Democrats’ Welfare State. Yet how is any different than the Republicans’ Warfare State, Torture State, Police State, Prison State, Security State and Surveillance State? All are Big Government programs used to steal our liberties and steal the wealth of producers and transfer it to non-producers.
Failure to understand that Republicans are an enemy of liberty is to have missed the whole lesson of America’s slide into tyranny.
Over on the Daily Stormer they have a picture of dead Epstein. However it don’t have his nose & ears. The 3ews cant have a Mossaid agent be brought too justice.
OG,
Interesting site, I don’t think I’ll bookmark it.
I wouldn’t trust the picture either.
As AI and technology advances the One World Order is planning out demise. They will not need the 95% climate killers or the wasteful eaters.
The plan is coming together rather nicely.
Decent article.
Distraction-Deception-Disasters Real and False Flagged-Big Media mind control. These are Tools of your Beast system-AI-Robot-TechBully-“Elite”-Deep State, control freak censorship masters.
Seems like that is what some of the present false narrative psyop is about. It is about instilling CONFUSION-Chaos-Fear into the sheep.
Logic, Problem Solving, Critical thinking, calmness of the mind and spirit within extreme adversity, YOU being able to remaining frosty facing the chaos of combat/collapse event/emergency.
Those are skills that you can not buy. Can not hoard. Yet those skills are what Really get you through the crucible of chaos and difficult hardships. I would also add the importance of Faith and Hope.
Faith in Jesus Christ, and that good eventually wins over the present evil. If you don’t have faith and hope in Jesus, then many people give in to their present adverse circumstances. Those without faith, give up. Those without faith, suicide.
What a sad waste.
Never give up. No matter the darkness of the present. Jesus wins in the end. Battles lost don’t seem as important, as long as you log a win in the end. Jesus wins.
Many modern young people indoctrinated in atheist transhumanism society often fold when faced with true adversity. They lack internal tools of self control/accountability to Heavenly Father.
“Fear of the Lord God of Jesus Christ is a First Step to Knowledge.”
Without protection of Jesus you will be a sucker, chump, victim, of deception/Lies. “If you don’t believe in something. Then you will believe anything!”
You are living in times of Deceit Deception Lies Fear- Mind Control Chaos. We all need Jesus, so as we are not deceived by a false narrative reality.
Money? really is that all this was about?
I hoped it would talk about the gulag of the two-party system mindset. People don’t support a third party fro they are locked in in their mindset and very similar to what I thought this was or should of been about.
csaaphill, I agree 100% that folks can’t think of solutions beyond 1 of 2 boxes that they have put themselves in. How many times have you seen both parties use a 3rd party candidate as straw man to pull votes away from the other party’s candidate. I see it as a real possibility in 2020.
The only vote that has ever mattered in history is secession. We need a divorce.
Where dogs were bred, and bitches were allowed to roam between pens, some would claim the wrong puppies, resulting in fights. (I have a more-primeval understanding of this cuss word, now, that comes with bruised bones.)
Angry geese assume possession over golf balls.
Muggers and assailants assume turf, in open fields and public rights-of-way, and will yell you so, forcibly.
I think that dialectics, the balance of powers, and Delphi method, etc, were intended to preoccupy the war-like kinds of people with a fool’s errand.
My question is, what will be the great debate, the great circus distraction, if not (D)labor vs. (R)capital and wars to obtain plentiful(here) resources. Why should people with all their living needs provided be baited into existential crises, and what else motivates most people.