I recall, from the hallucinatory mists of childhood, much public advice to “worship every week at the church or synagogue of your choice.” Memory says there were televised PSAs. It was certainly common political and social “wisdom,” often spoken.<\/p>\n
Even then, even as a kid, I didn’t get it. I could not grasp this notion that everybody should simply believe in something<\/i> — no matter what — and trot off obediently every week to confirm that belief — no matter what.<\/p>\n
This is nothing against religion. Nothing against churchgoing, for those so inclined. This is nothing against sincere belief in Higher Truth. What I didn’t get was the concept that absolutely indiscriminate worship<\/i> of something<\/i> was a good thing. In itself. Regardless of the nature of the belief.<\/p>\n
I mean, really. Joining Jim Jones’ People’s Temple<\/a>, as a social good? You should go worship with the Thuggees<\/a>, because it’s better than worshipping nothing? Would Discordianism<\/a> have pleased the makers of those PSAs, as long as the Discordians met politely once a week?<\/p>\n Well, no. Those urging the conformity of worship wouldn’t have approved of the Discordians, but some of them actually did approve of the deadly People’s Temple.<\/p>\n —–<\/p>\n These days, messages to worship weekly come from pulpits, where they belong. Not so much from public figures or the media. What we hear instead is another incessant drumbeat of conformity: vote, vote, vote, vote, vote<\/em>. These days, everybody’s an expert on how to keep “democracy” alive. In the hallucinatory mists of today, there are definitely PSAs: vote, vote, vote, vote, vote<\/em>. Every recognizable face in Hollywood, it seems, is on video asking us to vote, vote, vote, vote, vote<\/em>.<\/p>\n Even a pro-voting kinda guy like Mike Rowe recognizes part of the folly in this<\/a> — that ill-informed dumbasses don’t improve the world by v*ting, any more than drunken jackasses waving firearms improve the state of the Second Amendment.<\/p>\n But Rowe, a minor celeb himself<\/a>, lacks perspective. He doesn’t see that the drums beating vote, vote, vote, vote, vote<\/em> aren’t merely calling the ignorant to have greater influence (though that, too, because it benefits politicians of a certain persuasion). The more sinister purpose of the hypnotic beat is to make all<\/em> its hearers, even the well-informed (and especially the conscientious), believe that, once they v*te, they have done their great, heroic bit for “democracy.” After that they can go home, pop a brew, relax, and let their duly elected leaders (and masses of unelected bureaucrats) handle everything.<\/p>\n Again, this is nothing against v*ting (though I am generally against it, I understand the urge, as an member of AA understands the urge for whiskey). This is against the delusion that some easy and familiar mass ritual is inherently a good thing, no matter its content and consequences.<\/p>\n This is against the conformist assumption that v*ting — for something, for anybody — is a social good in the same way that joining the Heaven’s Gate cult<\/a> —–<\/p>\n Drums have beat for v*ting for a long time, of course. But this year the pounding seems louder and more incessant. Odd, you’d think, given that both mainstream presidential candidates are so loathed, given that politics and parties and bailouts and cronyism are so widely perceived as having failed the entire civilized world, given the fact that no mainstream politician anywhere has a clue as to any conceivable solution to the problems they themselves have caused, given that even ordinary people now perceive that the center cannot hold<\/a>.<\/p>\n But again there’s something indiscriminately religious here. We already know that when religious prophesies fail, believers become even more devoted and fanatical<\/a>. From the linked article:<\/p>\n What Festinger failed to understand is that prophecies, per se, almost never fail. They are instead component parts of a complex and interwoven belief system which tends to be very resilient to challenge from outsiders. While the rest of us might focus on the accuracy of an isolated claim as a test of a group’s legitimacy, those who are part of that group\u2014and already accept its whole theology\u2014may not be troubled by what seems to them like a minor mismatch. A few people might abandon the group, typically the newest or least-committed adherents, but the vast majority experience little cognitive dissonance and so make only minor adjustments to their beliefs. They carry on, often feeling more spiritually enriched as a result.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n —–<\/p>\n Delusion within a “complex and interwoven belief system” is in full-blown force right now, in those who support the government religion. Anybody can confirm it easily. You don’t have to read far into commentary by mainstream “experts” to see delusion in hallucinatory action.<\/p>\n Take two examples I plucked virtually at random from yesterday’s news scan.<\/p>\n First, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz declares neoliberalism dead<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now, I had no idea that such a thing as neoliberalism had even been tried. I had no idea of what neoliberalism is even supposed to be. But apparently it consists in large part of “…the idea that markets function best when left alone, and that an unregulated market is the best way to increase economic growth, which will ultimately benefit everyone …”<\/p>\n Huh. I thought that was libertarianism. Or the non-moralistic, non-warmongering part of conservativism. Had zero idea that any sort of modern “liberal” was in favor of such freedom. And of course you and I know free markets haven’t actually been tried in recent times. All we’ve had is some extremely government-managed, crony-ridden, 20,000-page-regulated, favorite-picking false pretense of free, unregulated markets. <\/p>\n But the growing mainstream view is that we’ve apparently tried blazingly free markets, unhindered by regulation. And they’ve failed. Utterly. The very concept of free markets is discredited. Dead, decrees Stiglitz, or at best staggering around on its last legs. <\/p>\n And now the widespread “expert” belief in the failure of something that was never tried is becoming an excuse for — guess what? — more and bigger government. The very “religion” that gave us these faux free markets, the very religion whose promises and prophesies have so consistently proven false. <\/p>\n My second plucked-at-random example comes from Ryan Cooper. Cooper rightly perceives that government regulations are strangling us to death. But you see, this is because we have the wrong kind of regulations<\/em>. We have an inefficient regulatory process, that’s all. With the proper<\/em> (and increased) form of regulation “big government can be made agile”<\/a> — again.<\/p>\n Yes, big government was once “agile.” Yes, it can be made so again<\/em>.<\/p>\n This is desperate thinking, people. Cultish thinking, divorced from observable reality.<\/p>\n But — trust us!<\/em> — everything will be okay if we all just go out and worship faithfully at the church of government.<\/p>\n —–<\/p>\n H\/T OdS for sending the link that helped me pull together a half-formed idea.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I recall, from the hallucinatory mists of childhood, much public advice to “worship every week at the church or synagogue of your choice.” Memory says there were televised PSAs. It was certainly common political and social “wisdom,” often spoken. Even then, even as a kid, I didn’t get it. I could not grasp this notion that everybody should simply believe in something — no matter what — and trot off obediently every week to confirm that belief — no matter what. This is nothing against religion. Nothing against churchgoing, for those so inclined. This is nothing against sincere belief in…<\/p>\nis<\/del> was a social good by the standards of those old “worship every week” messages.<\/p>\n