The Instruments Of The Faith

     First, a few thematic quotes:

     No power is strong enough if it labors under the weight of fear. – Cicero

     Fear is an acid which is pumped into one’s atmosphere. It causes mental, moral and spiritual asphyxiation, and sometimes death; death to all energy and growth. – Horace Fletcher

     Fear is like fire: if controlled, it will help you; if uncontrolled, it will rise up and destroy you. – John F. Milburn

     Fear is the main source of superstition, and one of the main sources of cruelty. – Bertrand Russell

     Our tragedy today is a general and universal physical fear so long sustained by now that we can even bear it….The basest of all things is to be afraid. – William Faulkner

     Fire and fear: good servants, bad lords. – Ursula Le Guin

     Fear always springs from ignorance! – Ralph Waldo Emerson

     I know, I know: that’s more quotes than most people have the patience to read. But each of them says something important about the most important psychological element in our contemporary milieu. That element is the chief weapon in the hands of those who would reduce you to submission and subjugation:

     Fear of disease.
     Fear for loved ones.
     Fear of social exclusion.
     Fear of loss of livelihood.
     Fear of “expert” disapproval.

     That’s a fair number of varieties of fear. Moreover, I omitted an important one that we’ll address a bit later. (Yes, it’s included in one of the quotes above.) But take a moment to ponder which of those fears has helped to shape your decisions these past eighteen months, and to what extent.

     Now consider these questions:

• Who caused you to fear?
• What was his most persuasive pitch?
• In retrospect, were your fears well-founded?

     Depending on the specifics of the fear you have in mind, you might not have sufficient information to address those questions confidently. For example, if one of your fears was the Kung Flu / Wuhan Bogeyman / Chinese Lung Rot / COVID-19, then what information, suitably documented and confirmed, would have allowed you not to fear it? Is that information available today? How long has it been available? Was there an attempt to suppress it, or to keep you from obtaining it?

     So many tawdry little secrets have come to light over the past few months that the “pandemic panic” under which the nation has labored now seems absurd – that is, if you have the best information about:

1. The WuFlu’s actual lethality (minimal),
2. Its transmissibility through non-fluid contact (it isn’t),
3. The PCR test’s inability to tell it from common influenza (admitted by the CDC),
4. The great destruction the panic has inflicted upon our society and economy (still being measured).

     Yet even in the face of the most recent revelations, those who find your fear politically useful are still trying their damnedest to keep you firmly in fear’s grip: socially isolated, economically strangled, and willing to clutch at any straw “the authorities” tell you might save you from this viral phantasm.

     Fear is the primary weapon in the hands of those who seek to shrive you of your rights. They aim to destroy America’s norms of individual liberty, private property, free markets, and the degree of tolerance consistent within public order. And they’ve made one hell of a lot of progress.

     Their aim is what it has always been: unbounded and absolute power. They currently control the instrument called “the State:” i.e., government. They’re striving mightily to extend its reach through every nominally private institution in American life: companies, media, churches, schools, neighborhood associations, and other venues for social or commercial intercourse.

     Their arm has grown long. Already the largest corporations in the nation, which employ half or more of American wage employees, are largely in their grasp. Most of the main-line churches have kowtowed as well. As for the media, the entertainment and leisure industries, and the schools, must I be minutely circumstantial?

     The whole point is the perpetuation and intensification of your fears. The fear-filled man is the easiest of all creatures to control. Simply do as we say, and we’ll relieve you of a portion of your fears. Not your fear of us, mind you, but we’ll command the other chimeras that have bedeviled you to retreat a few paces. Yes, we can do that. Trust us.

     Once you have faith that doing as “the authorities” say can relieve you of your fear, the rest follows.

     Cui bono? To whose benefit is all this? The answer is not hard to find, for there is only one institution that always benefits from others’ fear:

     The State is based on threat. – Robert Anton Wilson

     Your fear is the State’s best nourishment.

     Have a nice day.