Thread by @ai_jared

New from the great @johnsteppling:

john-steppling.com/2021/05/the-dr…

If you didn't come here today for a quick dopamine fix, I recommend that you take some time and read the article in full. As with all of John's articles, this one is full of pearls to contemplate and great quotes.

I'll share some of the quotes and a bit of John's writing here, as time permits but don't assume the selected tidbits do full justice.

"In his epilogue to Devils of Loudun, (Aldous) Huxley noted the seductive nature of group think, of what he called the collective alienation of herds.

'Moreover, the crowd-delirium can be indulged in, not merely without a bad conscience, but actually, in many cases, with a positive glow of conscious virtue…'

"He adds the mob is always in a light hypnotic trance. And willing and eager to obey. This is a critical point, I think. The age of digital communication, of social media, and really, all electronic media, has created the pseudo mob.

"And as Huxley notes, the agents of the state will encourage this light hypnotic state (and actually screen watching is itself induces a mild hypnotic state) to endow the mob with the virtues of responsible self flagellation.

The wafer of the Sacrament is now the syringe full of mRNA vaccine. Its nothing to do with health, it is to do with an ersatz ritual of renewal.

The endless popularity of post apocalyptic literature and film speaks to the reconstruction narrative as the contemporary religious fantasy."

Steppling also cites this quote from Erica Weir:

“Part of the difficulty in recognizing outbreaks of mass sociogenic illness has to do with its diverse nature.

A historical review of these events suggests that the features of mass sociogenic illnesses tend to mirror popular social and cultural preoccupations that define distinct eras and reflect unique social beliefs about the nature of the world.”

(Mass Sociogenic Illness, Canadian Medical Association Journal, 2005)

More Steppling:

"I want to look at how so many people have so passively submitted to the most undemocratic edicts imaginable, and how many have embraced these new restrictions with enthusiasm.

And how it is so many have rejected the same narratives, protested and refused to accept them. The numbers for each side are unclear, and therein lies another whole discussion. And to describe this all as just two sides is also misleading.

Many people who go along with the edicts, who wear masks, who will get the vaccination, actually distrust the entire story.

But if you have a family in countries like New Zealand, or the US, it can be scary to open yourself up to job loss and/or arrest.

On the other side, there are people out protesting who might well be vaccinated for the virus, who largely believe the master narrative, but who still refuse to accept the draconian lockdown measures. They still believe, by and large, the government.

And this is the problem — on all sides, there are large numbers of people who believe at least a good part of the government story. And this partly accounts for their basic trust of U.S. foreign policy and US and NATO interventions, etc.

There is an instinctive distrust of the Covid story, and that is likely why the propaganda surrounding it from the WHO and Fauci and various governments constantly turns the focus toward the morality of joining, manipulating guilt about the elderly, one’s grandparents, etc.

A public health story has become a moral fable. And therein lies the seamless segue to the merging of Covid + Climate as public discourse. The always felt New Age faux mysticism of much climate discussion is now travelling across to shape the late stages of the Covid narrative."

One last quote from Steppling, and then you're on your own:

"The *public* is hidden from the view of the public by corporate media. They consciously construct images, statistics, points of view, which serve to bolster their desired position. They create an imaginary public.

And most people sense this, at least unconsciously at the least. But this ersatz imaginary public is so familiar now that it passes without comment, usually.

The populace moves along in this ‘light trance’, as if mentally underwater - and mostly they reflexively align themselves with this or that position on public affairs,

or they identify as fans of this or that sports team, or have libidinal attachments to celebrities or politicians which are superficial and transitory often.

The big marketing firms mount propaganda campaigns using sports figures, movie stars, politicians, and then carpet bomb media with a simple message over and over and over."