Well, I read the lies from all sides (American news agencies, Russia Today, South China Morning Post, Réseau Voltaire, etc.) to have some idea of what everybody is lying about. As for theory, I like some of Manuel Castells' insights, even if I don't agree with his purposed solutions: https://amzn.to/3JtNANw
Why would it? Its problems are quite local. After they managed to bankrupt an oil-production-based economy -- a small feat by itself -- they have been hemorrhaging talent. The main problem in Northern Brazil nowadays is where to place all the doctors and engineers crossing the border, as the Venezuelan middle-class is either trying to get out of the country or has already done it.
And in Brazil, they are working diligently to rid themselves of their non woke leader.
Then where will the Venezuelans go?
The Covid pre-flight succeeded nearly planet wide. Food rationing predicated on government Covid Passports has already begun , and hundreds of fires have destroyed food processing plants, hundreds of thousands of chickens have been culled, and lines to sell cattle are three miles long.
But full disclosure, my main disagreement is based on the fact that a rosy scenario is not at all what the Bible predicts.
I find the Bible's multi millennial track record of accuracy in line with the physical reality I see worldwide.
That's right John, and definitely things are not at all as dire as events projected in Matthew 24, the epistles, and especially Daniel and Revelation. God will shorten those days "for the elect's sake", protect God's people with God's mark (maybe spiritual?), Revelation chapter 12, many saints "shall do exploits" (Dan 11), AND it ends for the worst events when the Beast "shall overcome them" (the saints, Dan 11) and in short order following, God "shall laugh at them". Wrapping it up., as to the Antichrist, "He shall come to his end, and none shall l help him".
After that 7 years of cleanup in the Valley of Armageddon, then 1000 years of peace.
As long as one does not forget that other people understand the same biblical words in very different ways, there is no great harm in trying to fit present things to ancient prophecy. It only becomes a serious problem when one starts trying to order God around (He *will* do *this*) according to one's reading of biblical texts
Besides, I don't think one could call the end of a civilization a "rosy scenario". Check out Saint Augistine, who lived when the Roman Empire was going under. It's always pretty painful, and the pain is much greater in the center (nowadays Europe, Oceania, and North America) than in the periphery where I live.
As a matter of fact, I the the South American situation these days as very much alike Ireland's in St. Augustine's time (see https://amzn.to/3ziwI7u ): a place far enough to suffer less during the collapse of the dying system, and near enough to keep the old books until the center comes back to its senses. That is one of the reasons why the Holy Ghost picked an Argentinian Pope to lead the Church, probably.
Or not. What if there is coordination in hushed tones among the "highest" of the elites? The one sure truth independent if all of it is the Word of God.
I appreciate your optimism, but these dying rats have nuclear weapons. I doubt they will hesitate to use them. Sure, it means the end of globalism but quite possibly the globe as well.
Is any society completely free of ideology? Let's compare Russia and China: Russia is supposedly "post-Communist", China supposedly not. But if you look more closely, both now have mixed economies, a strong central state planning long-term investment etc and a vibrant private sector. China has an explicit ideology, but it is clearly tempered by pragmatism; conversely Russia no longer has an explicit ideology, but it is clear its leadership is guided by principles, that is to say, they act in purely opportunistic or utilitarian ways. Rigid people impose ideologies in an idealistic way, pragmatic people think dialetically, as the Chinese leadership does. One thing seems clear: ideological fervor seems to ebb and flow in our societies.
Most societies, thankfully, are ideology-free, and their social organization occurs from the bottom up, folowing local tradition's guidelines. I certainly agree with you about China and Russia, but one must remember their systems -- whether they call themselves Communist or Post-Communist -- owe a lot more to tradition than to pure ideology, unlike in what is today called the West. Russia has always been an autocracy (one of their tsars even wrote a book in defense of autocracy), and the Chinese Empire always had a vast Han-centered micromanaging bureaucracy.
Going further away from the ideological centers, though, what one will find in Latin America, Africa, and most of Asia is a very thin veneer of ideology (and Modernity in general: republican systems, elected representatives, and so on) that works almost as a mask conceiling what truly happens in the country.
In Brazilian Portuguese there is an expression that shows perfectly well how it works: "pra inglês ver", "for British eyes only". It appeared when the Empire of Brazil signed an agreement with the British Empire against the African slave trade. The Brazilian Navy was supposed to hunt down slave ships, but it never did. It just through the moves, so that the British would think they were complying, without ever catching a single slave ship. Why? Because the supposed agreement was "for British eyes only", and nobody ever intended to apply it. Most Modern institution in what used to be called the Third World are "for English eyes only", and will probably vanish when the need for a Modern mask goes away.
Admittedly it would have been much better for Russia and China to evolve organically wholly based on cultural traditions, but they didn't have that luxury, right? As they emerged from feudalism, China had its century of humiliation and Japanese occupation, Russia grappled first with civil war, then faced destruction by Nazi Germany. In both cases, ideology served to mobilize their people to face existential threats. Would either could have survived without an ideological programme? I sincerely doubt it. At the very least ideology is a blunt tool that has its purposes.
Christianity is an ideology too, no? Should we also reject it?
I think they would have survived without ideology. As a matter of fact, it would have been a lot better. See, for instance, how Stalin had to tone down his persecution of the Russian Church to drum up Russian patriotism against the Germans. Any half-decent Czar would have found it much easier to get to the same results. Likewise with the Chinese: they have a tradition of authoritarianism, which Mao tapped into (just like the Russian Communists did with the autocratic tradition of their own country), that would have allowed for the (little) good Mao did. On the other hand, the sheer madness of the Cultural Revolution or the attempts to smelt iron in people's backyards could only happen within an ideological frame.
And Christianity is certainly not an ideology. Any attempt to transform Christianity into an ideology (as in some sectors of present-day American Evangelicalism or Spanish Catholicism in the 1940s and 1950s) is in fact an act of apostasy that should certainly be rejected in order to remain a Christian.
"" I am reminded of how happy I was when I lived in a monastery and owned nothing. It’s much better than the world out here, where we own plenty of stuff but are not as happy"".
Of course: what you forgot to add is that you entered the monastery, and chose to live with nothing, out of your own free will. You were not forced to do so AGAINST your will as a slave in a prison-state, as per the WEF's wishes.
"" It’s much better than the world out here, where we own plenty of stuff but are not as happy.""
Disagree: the best is to be rich, but know what real values are, and live like a monk in 'voluntary simplicity' with the financial freedom not to have tyranny imposed on you, whether religious (monk) or political (citizen).
Thanks for both the appreciation and the disagreement. One can only learn with confronted with something different from one's own thoughts.
I agree that being forced against one's will by a prison-state to do or be anything is indeed the stuff of nightmares; tyranny is always a very bad thing.
On the other hand, being rich is at the end dangerous; that camel and eye of a needle thing, you know. Few have the strength necessary to avoid being enslaved by what they own, and those who have it will probably be able to thrive even in very bad circumstances. Epitectus was a slave for a long time, for instance, but were him an emperor, he would probably have been as dismissive of riches and power for their own sake as Marcus Aurelius. And vice-versa.
Totally agree on the camel and the eye of the needle....and few having the strength to live simple lives amidst their opulence. But enough riches to allow you to escape the daily grind of 'living to survive' is true freedom, IF you harness that freedom to create great intellectual /artistic /scientific/ philosophic work.
Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas were all from rich families and they could afford to spend their days THINKING and writing, not working to make money to pay their taxes and put food on the table. Nearly all the great European scientists of the 19th and early 20th centuries were from rich families and could devote their lives to scientific research.
Escaping the grind of daily survival in the jungle of life goes a long way to giving you true intellectual freedom and to escape the juggernaut-judgment of: "to find out who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize".
Yeah, in a way money's like a racing bike: if you can handle it it's wonderful, if you can't it's just another way to a quick grave. I was lucky, in a way: being a public servant (a crime scene head cop, as a matter of fact) when I got crippled by a bike accident granted me early retirement. It's really not much, specially in US$ (precisely 29,714.46 a year, before taxes), but it keeps me alive and grants me time to study more and write a bit. Oh, it was not a race bike, but a Kawasaki Police just like the one in the old CHiPs series. An old dream of mine, that didn't do that well in Brazilian roads.
Aquinas' family money, on the other hand, was a problem for him: his father wanted him to inherit the family business, and when he decided to became a mendicant (i.e. beggar) friar they got pretty mad at him, kidnapped him and paid the most beautiful prostitute in town to tempt him, and so on.
Again, too-hard rules make for hard mistakes.
And I also agree with Mr. Luongo. You guys up there in the old First World do have some bad times coming, but the more you fight the faster they will go down. Keep up the good fight.
Thanks Carlos. BTW I'm an 'A-T' guy. Ok, Ok, short-hand for 'Aristotelian-Thomist', but that is for another thread on all that stuff no one reads anymore!
Well, I read the lies from all sides (American news agencies, Russia Today, South China Morning Post, Réseau Voltaire, etc.) to have some idea of what everybody is lying about. As for theory, I like some of Manuel Castells' insights, even if I don't agree with his purposed solutions: https://amzn.to/3JtNANw
Doesn't Venezuela argue against this optimism?
Why would it? Its problems are quite local. After they managed to bankrupt an oil-production-based economy -- a small feat by itself -- they have been hemorrhaging talent. The main problem in Northern Brazil nowadays is where to place all the doctors and engineers crossing the border, as the Venezuelan middle-class is either trying to get out of the country or has already done it.
And in Brazil, they are working diligently to rid themselves of their non woke leader.
Then where will the Venezuelans go?
The Covid pre-flight succeeded nearly planet wide. Food rationing predicated on government Covid Passports has already begun , and hundreds of fires have destroyed food processing plants, hundreds of thousands of chickens have been culled, and lines to sell cattle are three miles long.
But full disclosure, my main disagreement is based on the fact that a rosy scenario is not at all what the Bible predicts.
I find the Bible's multi millennial track record of accuracy in line with the physical reality I see worldwide.
The price of Freedom remains Eternal Vigilance.
That's right John, and definitely things are not at all as dire as events projected in Matthew 24, the epistles, and especially Daniel and Revelation. God will shorten those days "for the elect's sake", protect God's people with God's mark (maybe spiritual?), Revelation chapter 12, many saints "shall do exploits" (Dan 11), AND it ends for the worst events when the Beast "shall overcome them" (the saints, Dan 11) and in short order following, God "shall laugh at them". Wrapping it up., as to the Antichrist, "He shall come to his end, and none shall l help him".
After that 7 years of cleanup in the Valley of Armageddon, then 1000 years of peace.
As long as one does not forget that other people understand the same biblical words in very different ways, there is no great harm in trying to fit present things to ancient prophecy. It only becomes a serious problem when one starts trying to order God around (He *will* do *this*) according to one's reading of biblical texts
Besides, I don't think one could call the end of a civilization a "rosy scenario". Check out Saint Augistine, who lived when the Roman Empire was going under. It's always pretty painful, and the pain is much greater in the center (nowadays Europe, Oceania, and North America) than in the periphery where I live.
As a matter of fact, I the the South American situation these days as very much alike Ireland's in St. Augustine's time (see https://amzn.to/3ziwI7u ): a place far enough to suffer less during the collapse of the dying system, and near enough to keep the old books until the center comes back to its senses. That is one of the reasons why the Holy Ghost picked an Argentinian Pope to lead the Church, probably.
Venezuela argues against CIA colour revolutions.
Let's hope Brazil"s argument is stronger.
Let's hope that substack will display the comment that you are responding to someday.
Until that happens, there is no apparent way to know what your comment means.
Or not. What if there is coordination in hushed tones among the "highest" of the elites? The one sure truth independent if all of it is the Word of God.
The globalists have already shifted their game plan. They will destroy the west and use China as the model for the future.
I appreciate your optimism, but these dying rats have nuclear weapons. I doubt they will hesitate to use them. Sure, it means the end of globalism but quite possibly the globe as well.
Great essay.
Fools reject what they see, the wise reject what they think.
Nice.
Is any society completely free of ideology? Let's compare Russia and China: Russia is supposedly "post-Communist", China supposedly not. But if you look more closely, both now have mixed economies, a strong central state planning long-term investment etc and a vibrant private sector. China has an explicit ideology, but it is clearly tempered by pragmatism; conversely Russia no longer has an explicit ideology, but it is clear its leadership is guided by principles, that is to say, they act in purely opportunistic or utilitarian ways. Rigid people impose ideologies in an idealistic way, pragmatic people think dialetically, as the Chinese leadership does. One thing seems clear: ideological fervor seems to ebb and flow in our societies.
Most societies, thankfully, are ideology-free, and their social organization occurs from the bottom up, folowing local tradition's guidelines. I certainly agree with you about China and Russia, but one must remember their systems -- whether they call themselves Communist or Post-Communist -- owe a lot more to tradition than to pure ideology, unlike in what is today called the West. Russia has always been an autocracy (one of their tsars even wrote a book in defense of autocracy), and the Chinese Empire always had a vast Han-centered micromanaging bureaucracy.
Going further away from the ideological centers, though, what one will find in Latin America, Africa, and most of Asia is a very thin veneer of ideology (and Modernity in general: republican systems, elected representatives, and so on) that works almost as a mask conceiling what truly happens in the country.
In Brazilian Portuguese there is an expression that shows perfectly well how it works: "pra inglês ver", "for British eyes only". It appeared when the Empire of Brazil signed an agreement with the British Empire against the African slave trade. The Brazilian Navy was supposed to hunt down slave ships, but it never did. It just through the moves, so that the British would think they were complying, without ever catching a single slave ship. Why? Because the supposed agreement was "for British eyes only", and nobody ever intended to apply it. Most Modern institution in what used to be called the Third World are "for English eyes only", and will probably vanish when the need for a Modern mask goes away.
Admittedly it would have been much better for Russia and China to evolve organically wholly based on cultural traditions, but they didn't have that luxury, right? As they emerged from feudalism, China had its century of humiliation and Japanese occupation, Russia grappled first with civil war, then faced destruction by Nazi Germany. In both cases, ideology served to mobilize their people to face existential threats. Would either could have survived without an ideological programme? I sincerely doubt it. At the very least ideology is a blunt tool that has its purposes.
Christianity is an ideology too, no? Should we also reject it?
In order:
I think they would have survived without ideology. As a matter of fact, it would have been a lot better. See, for instance, how Stalin had to tone down his persecution of the Russian Church to drum up Russian patriotism against the Germans. Any half-decent Czar would have found it much easier to get to the same results. Likewise with the Chinese: they have a tradition of authoritarianism, which Mao tapped into (just like the Russian Communists did with the autocratic tradition of their own country), that would have allowed for the (little) good Mao did. On the other hand, the sheer madness of the Cultural Revolution or the attempts to smelt iron in people's backyards could only happen within an ideological frame.
And Christianity is certainly not an ideology. Any attempt to transform Christianity into an ideology (as in some sectors of present-day American Evangelicalism or Spanish Catholicism in the 1940s and 1950s) is in fact an act of apostasy that should certainly be rejected in order to remain a Christian.
"" I am reminded of how happy I was when I lived in a monastery and owned nothing. It’s much better than the world out here, where we own plenty of stuff but are not as happy"".
Of course: what you forgot to add is that you entered the monastery, and chose to live with nothing, out of your own free will. You were not forced to do so AGAINST your will as a slave in a prison-state, as per the WEF's wishes.
"" It’s much better than the world out here, where we own plenty of stuff but are not as happy.""
Disagree: the best is to be rich, but know what real values are, and live like a monk in 'voluntary simplicity' with the financial freedom not to have tyranny imposed on you, whether religious (monk) or political (citizen).
Brilliant article, disappointing ending. Thank you.
Marc Mullie MD
Montreal
Thanks for both the appreciation and the disagreement. One can only learn with confronted with something different from one's own thoughts.
I agree that being forced against one's will by a prison-state to do or be anything is indeed the stuff of nightmares; tyranny is always a very bad thing.
On the other hand, being rich is at the end dangerous; that camel and eye of a needle thing, you know. Few have the strength necessary to avoid being enslaved by what they own, and those who have it will probably be able to thrive even in very bad circumstances. Epitectus was a slave for a long time, for instance, but were him an emperor, he would probably have been as dismissive of riches and power for their own sake as Marcus Aurelius. And vice-versa.
Anyway, different strokes for different folks.
Totally agree on the camel and the eye of the needle....and few having the strength to live simple lives amidst their opulence. But enough riches to allow you to escape the daily grind of 'living to survive' is true freedom, IF you harness that freedom to create great intellectual /artistic /scientific/ philosophic work.
Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas were all from rich families and they could afford to spend their days THINKING and writing, not working to make money to pay their taxes and put food on the table. Nearly all the great European scientists of the 19th and early 20th centuries were from rich families and could devote their lives to scientific research.
Escaping the grind of daily survival in the jungle of life goes a long way to giving you true intellectual freedom and to escape the juggernaut-judgment of: "to find out who rules over you, simply find out who you are not allowed to criticize".
Back on topic: see this
https://tomluongo.me/2022/07/09/the-great-awakening-continues-ve-vil-not-eet-ze-bugz-klaus/
Yeah, in a way money's like a racing bike: if you can handle it it's wonderful, if you can't it's just another way to a quick grave. I was lucky, in a way: being a public servant (a crime scene head cop, as a matter of fact) when I got crippled by a bike accident granted me early retirement. It's really not much, specially in US$ (precisely 29,714.46 a year, before taxes), but it keeps me alive and grants me time to study more and write a bit. Oh, it was not a race bike, but a Kawasaki Police just like the one in the old CHiPs series. An old dream of mine, that didn't do that well in Brazilian roads.
Aquinas' family money, on the other hand, was a problem for him: his father wanted him to inherit the family business, and when he decided to became a mendicant (i.e. beggar) friar they got pretty mad at him, kidnapped him and paid the most beautiful prostitute in town to tempt him, and so on.
Again, too-hard rules make for hard mistakes.
And I also agree with Mr. Luongo. You guys up there in the old First World do have some bad times coming, but the more you fight the faster they will go down. Keep up the good fight.
Thanks Carlos. BTW I'm an 'A-T' guy. Ok, Ok, short-hand for 'Aristotelian-Thomist', but that is for another thread on all that stuff no one reads anymore!