The Numbing of The Nations

I do not mean the “dumbing down” of the nations (although that is happening too), but the numbing of the nations - or, making nations and societies and families literally numb to the unfolding disasters and atrocities around us.

There is a pattern to this madness no doubt and a method too - and there is also I believe a design built into the numbing. But the effects of this apathy to evil is evident everywhere we look. No longer it seems, do such things as mass murder, genocide, torture, cruelty to animals and the passage of totalitarian legislation (all these evils being linked to each other) move us to tears - and to determined action when the tears cease and a righteous anger takes over sorrow.

Nor indeed do our nations and societies flinch and recoil in horror when they read/see/hear of transgender ideology being pushed into the domain of little children; or pornography being purveyed by religious leaders (the owner of “pornhub” calls himself a “rabbi”) in the name of free speech; or our tax dollars used to kill and maim innocent men, women and children in countries many thousands of miles away from where we live.

There is an initial period of disgust that follows immediately after the evil is seen/heard/read. And then a certain cloud of familiarity and self-preservation takes over and we switch away from the news of evil. More often, we come back to similar, outrageous violations of human dignity with a sense of unhealthy curiosity - and each exposure to the violation then makes it easier to watch the next violation with less emotion, even less empathy and eventually with no emotion at all.

How did we get to this state of egregious and wicked numbness and nonchalance?

The puppet masters of the propaganda world of make-believe we live in, have managed to load our conscious minds with reams of information that streams in from literally every corner of the world. In the process, we are constantly taking in news and views of evil that percolate into the subconscious and in turn, anesthetize our minds, our judgements and indeed our very souls.

We were not meant to be exposed to evil (or even to neutral news that does not constitute evil) every hour of every day. Throughout man’s recorded history, we learned of news very slowly indeed.

Until the advent of printing just over five hundred years ago, news travelled only by world of mouth, from our immediate neighbourhoods, rarely from anywhere more than the next town. We regularly began to read about the news only about 150 years ago, with the advent of the regular newspaper - which was initially delivered once a week and then, once a day. The advent of radio meant that we could start hearing the news in the 1920s and the actual, regular watching of news (once/day) had to wait another 30 years!

Suddenly and with a burst of unholy activity, the internet sprang into life about 25 years ago. Not only could we consume multiple news and views of the world at any one time, but several junkets of contrasting news from the same part of the world and views and podcasts about almost everything that was news (or non-news that was made to appear like real news).

Several addictive internet behaviours became common. There was even the invention of a respectable name for news addiction - the “news junkie.” A dangerous escalation of the overloading of our minds with news and views occurred with “high speed” internet about 15 years ago. It was like earth-walking creatures being suddenly catapulted into a space walk and floundering about with weightless lack of purpose.

The masters of propaganda (you can call them by whatever evil name you wish) have always known that their rule over us can only be challenged by effective action arising from noble conviction. It has been abundantly clear to them that huge amounts of human energy and capital are consumed by being glued to the news cycle and to views about the news. Very little meaningful action results. The exhausted citizen then goes to bed every night believing that the world around is very bad indeed, but that he /she cannot do anything about it. And then in the morning, inexplicably, for that is the definition of addiction, they return to the gory spectacles of evil that had consumed their minds a few, short hours ago.

They would be right about the world at large - since it is very true that there is literally nothing that almost any of us can do about the vast majority of things that are happening in the world. This alone should be a powerful incentive to refrain from loading our minds with things we can do nothing about!

But there are in fact many things that can be done by getting away from being passive consumers of social media, podcasts and news - and actually doing something about the things that we have the ability to influence. As we do more, we will have correspondingly very much less time to passively consume more and more.

Often, the ability to influence the course of human events is limited to our own neighbourhoods and towns - and almost everyone is capable of moving the needle away from evil and toward good in this way. Many such actions at local level will then ramp up and multiply many times over in chain reactions to influence the destiny of whole societies and nations - proving in this manner Jesus’ parable of the mustard seed, “ which indeed is the least of all seeds: but when it is grown, it is the greatest among herbs, and becometh a tree, so that the birds of the air come and lodge in the branches thereof.”

For example, the masters of propaganda are very content with Trump supporters raging at each other and at the “Democrats” on the internet, listening to hours of podcasts, venting their frustrations on social media - and walking around aimlessly and endlessly in their own, self-congratulatory bubbles of significance. This is exactly where the puppet masters want us. Trump supporters actually going door to door and registering voters to vote, for example, would be the complete opposite of their intended method of inducing stupor and paralysis to the population.

Those who have particular gifts in these areas, will then write articles or host TV shows and podcasts, or give a voice to the voiceless by bringing diverse views to the pubic square. This too however, requires purposeful action and moving away from consuming news to doing something to influence the next cycle of news.

The numbing of the nations is continuing apace and gathering speed. A dear friend of mine from the former Czechoslovakia described the disturbing apathy of our times with a saying that used to go around his nation at the time of the Soviet tyranny - it describes our present state of torpor with great accuracy and even greater power. “We used to have a saying in Czechoslovakia,” he said to me, “ it went like this - you don’t care about the noose around your neck until someone kicks the chair you stand on!”

There has seldom been a more urgent time for the people to rise in peaceful revolt and proclaim “carpe diem” (seize the day with action) with the Roman poet Horace or better, proclaim with the Apostle James that “faith without works is dead.” And then, to act upon the proclamation.