Substack Chronicles: Part 2

(Letter from the Editor)

(See Part 1)

By: E. Kyle Richey

On November 19, 2020 I announced here on Truth In Focus the beginning of my first Substack account, E.K.R. Report:

My how things have grown! The E.K.R. Report expands exponentially in content and audience. As of 2021, I have written eight posts, but the content is intended to be more in-depth and less sporadic while remaining more personal in my analysis on art, food, culture, and the political madness playing out in front of us. Of this year, I believe my most prophetic and accurate article is from the title: Inauguration D-Day: The New Kids On The Block Of Destruction, Power, and Romance. Here is a glimpse:

Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Amazon, and Apple are easy targets these days as they shutdown the President, Parlor, and anyone they consider radical. This week Facebook Ugandan pro-Museveni accounts ahead of election and in response Uganda blocked Facebook. Tensions such as these will continue for the foreseen future as the global elite solidify their great reset. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey was recorded saying as much. Big Tech is an oversimplification however as multinational corporations connected to environment, health, safety and sustainability (EHS&S) have their hands and funds in superpowers around the world in nearly every field. However, Big Tech does describe their endless scope which has obliterated privacy. Data is no longer simply a commodity, but a source of knowledge that filters through the veins of corporate and state; an intoxicating line of tubes, lines, ports, and catheters the system of our world is too interconnected to breakaway without a system malfunction or worse, a breakdown. Whatever the United States once was—a republic or a democracy —is now an administrative state of technocrats who know no boundaries between private or public lines in either the corporate and state or the freedom of speech and the rights of parents. Those days are now over, yet few realize it.

Corporatism was once a dirty word amongst progressives who now sit on the boards of Fortunes 500 companies. We are beyond the Industrial-Military complex, this is the beast of an entirely different nature. Our political ecology has evolved before our eyes with the belief that a three branch government and a few old documents could hold the tides of tyranny and change. That myth too is over. A national security state or the surveillance state is the new normal—totalitarianism is here to stay. To be fair this is the result of success and failures of modernity as humanity enters uncharted territory of climate change, limited resources, animal and planet extinction, higher exposure to viruses and sickness, and environmental elements that knocked man back to reality.

Our world is always passing away. Decay is the natural state and to that natural state we have returned. Elites are concerned about the future no matter their political persuasion. Take Elon Musk as an example of a man who like Stephen Hawking believes our only true hope is to find a new planet.

Corporate billionaires run our planet and our universe or so they think. Secular at heart these men look to the stars as means to be conquered. But fair warning, space travel is a humanist pipe dream; an illusion that will end in disaster. There are no planets in our galaxy nor near our galaxy that will house the next earthlings. Earth—Eden—is our birthplace and our tomb. Our only hope is to save the planet or risk losing it all. And perhaps that is and always has been part of God’s final plan. Ironic that humanity will be the sealers of their fate.

Click Here to Read the entire post: Inauguration D-Day: The New Kids On The Block Of Destruction, Power, and Romance

Serendipitously the toxic fumes of politics had breached my mind a bit too much as I noted in, New Directions: Moving Beyond the Political:

Here at Substack the purpose is to be more personal and maybe even a slight bit more careless, not in reason or emotion, but taking risks in discussing issues that are raw. Yes, a few articles even used language. I used those for merely aesthetic reasons, lessons learned from some of my favorite writers including Christians. And I was being apropos to both Rod Dreher and another time directly referencing the actual words of the Apostle Paul. Nevertheless, being careful with my words in times such as these are important.

I can only hope that my readers can take to heart that these ideas of mine are always open to discussion and critique. And I am very well. Just choosing to go through life publicly at a time when more and more choose to be quiet or private. But in fairness, the political discussions are ending today. No more for a time being anyways.

What does that mean for the various writings? For one, Truth In Focus will continue to be a philosophical and theological grounding point of thought and analysis. Granted, the topics at hand need to remain practical i.e. about present events, therefore I will be working on to improve the practical side of it, while also making it simple. Simple is not a bad word, in fact, it is being used here to mean in the utmost positive. In our age, many issues are complex. Issues such as living wages, abortion, C19, gun rights, corruption, etc. Matters, if ones that I believe only have one answer, are still complex in their planning and application. They require a greater simplicity, not sophistry and unhelpful rhetoric. At TIF I want to provide a much more thoughtful application events and issues. And to study ideas and their consequences. To make principles, not politics.

Click Here to Read the entire post in its entirety: New Directions: Moving Beyond the Political

As my personal Substack continues to evolve and develop I proud to announce the second Substack with my friend Thomas Doane titled: Philosophosaurus Rex:

Taking the helm of three sites can be a bit daunting let alone the content I am trying to put together on Youtube (All Things Veritas), Facebook (Truth In Focus), and Instagram page (Merebeautyintruth). My mind is constantly running through the various ways in which I can connect these together into a single network. Philosophosaurus Rex is beginning to pick up steam this month as seen from my article on February 5 2021, In the Beginning Was Philosophy and The Earth Was Material:

Then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature.

— Genesis 2:7

Every story has a starting place. Our starting place with philosophy will begin with the early greeks and pre-socratics. My systematic study will evolve overtime as books and essays are included in the study I am about to present. At the moment, this is the literature review:

Literature Used (updated as I go)

A History of Philosophy Vol. 1 Pre-socratics to Plotinus, Frederick Copleston S.J. Ref (Copleston, V1)

Early Greek Science: Thales to Aristotle, GER Lloyd. Ref (Lloyd, EGS)

There will be instances of going back and forth as additional sources are added for the sake of context. The way I intend to develop this study is to use the following approach:

• Historical Oriented
  • Ideas/Concepts, Cultures, and Individuals
• Subject Specific
  • A book and/or paper on Idea, Culture, Person(s)
• Philosophically Focused
  • A philosophically focused/directed book and or paper on the Ideas and Persons

Historical context is the central theme of study and through it we can then engage with specifics both the subject matter and the philosophical nature of that subject. Please bare with me as I am sure I will need to explain that more at another time.

The notes you are about see are in relation to the books mentioned. Some are quotes while others are of my own. Again, this will slowly evolve and grow as I pursue forward with this process.

Continuing reading here is you are interested in that series: In the Beginning Was Philosophy and The Earth Was Material

Thomas is busy completing his degree in theology but he is aiming to start a series on his own concerning the book, Studies in Religious Philosophy, by Robert W. Hall, titled: A Pilgrimage Towards Knowledge:

So, as I begin this path, I would like to share with you in this pilgrimage, from what I have learned and the insights gained, to the joys and pains that will accompany the long road ahead. As I finish my final term in my undergraduate studies, I will share with you the insights gained from a book that one of my professors gifted to me

Studies in Religious Philosophy, by Robert W. Hall. What I hope to accomplish is a primer in the Philosophy of Religion that will prepare me for the more rigorous studies ahead and by doing so, share with you, the reader the historical, philosophical, political, and religious observations that are gained through the chapters I read. I hope this to be a systematic approach of what is a synopsis of some very difficult topics to examine and thus share with you in my education.

You can read everything Thomas has to say here: A Pilgrimage Towards Knowledge

Books, principles, ideas, politics, theology, policies… the themes run through all the sites but I promise each piece will be unique on the whole. Continued streams of thought only helps me and the reader as we pursue into the darkness with our lamps shining bright.

So far so good as I can tell. Substack’s newsletters don’t appear to fail as they do here on WordPress. Additionally, the founders of Substack have promised to not censor others over “hate speech” i.e. free speech that people do not concur as truth or real or polite etc. It is difficult to gain traction though that is the internet isn’t? Unless you are already famous enough, these matters take time. Overall the network is friendly, easy to utilize, and accessible.

Once more I have reached my place to bid you farewell until next time take ear to the first half of Proverbs 16:6:

By mercy and truth iniquity is purged

Mob Rule, Mob Rules: Part 3, Section 1

(Part 1, Part 2)

Trumphantism: Donald J. Trump & The Post-Trump World

By: E. Kyle Richey

Earth to America: Crashing til Landed

Marred by 2020 the world braces for impact in 2021. Humanity has witnessed a paradigm shift, yet the dust still settles as outcomes and consequences remain to be decided. Donald J. Trump, United States 45th President has lost an election which determined the cascading trajectory of the United States of America. Now is the time to understand what we are leaving behind as American’s and the world enter the fragmented universe of 2021. 

The irony of collapse is eventually a replacement appears. No power, however impressive, lasts forever per the testimonies of time by empires that long lay in ruin. Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome lay in ruin while continuing to influence the present; they may be in ruin yet their voices speak an eternality of what is to come, “an end and new beginnings,” they whisper.  

Transitions from beginning to end are never definite in degree, but shared similarities showcase potential possibilities for historians and political thinkers alike to study and consider. 

In 1992 a profound and controversial book was published, The End of History and the Last Man (1992) by Political and Social theorist Francis Fukuyama. Immediately in his introduction Fukuyama premised that liberal democracies are the pinnacle of a free and open society, an end of history, while acknowledging stable nations such as the United States or France would continue to have issues due to an “incomplete implementation of the twin principles of liberty and equality (p. xi).”¹ Within the end of history and fasts-forward to 2018 with the publication of Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, both works acknowledge a demand for universal recognition (an idea from the philosopher Hegel) or dignity according Fukuyama, a place where all are seen heard, and known. Yet the ideal turns toward the ideological as demands of recognition include no forms of discrimination or disrespect felt by oppressed groups giving rise to a new totalitarianism, a “soft totalitarianism”² whose overarching hand comes largely from corporations whose cooperation with governments make them complicit actors of the state. This is Modernity’s present conflict and a test concerning history’s end due to its irreality and polarizing affect of identity politics: 

Being a citizen of a liberal democracy does not mean, moreover, that people will actually be treated with equal respect either by their government or by other citizens. They are judged on the basis of their skin, their gender, their national origin, their looks, their ethnicity, or their sexual orientation. Each person and each group experiences disrespect in different ways, and each seeks its own dignity. Identity politics thus engenders its own dynamic, by which societies divide themselves into smaller and smaller groups by virtue of their particular “lived experience” of victimization (p. 164).³

Specific to the United States of America, a serious conflict is taking place concerning its future in the world as it continues to dim in the night sky. Our nebulae is fading while false promises of return continue from Trump to Biden. The election of 2020 further marks a crisis of culture and legitimacy. Black Lives Matter, ANTIFA, and additional Marxist movements in the areas of culture and political life are merely one revolt competing against another. Attempts in the final weeks of the Trump Presidency to override the Capitol was an extension of a radical right of QAnon conspirators and Alt-right fascism determined to prevent what they believe was an election stolen and an America quickly fading in front of their eyes. As Anne Applebaum from The Atlantic observed, extremists are emboldening one another.⁴ Events in America today are reminiscent of Germany as Marxist’s caused anarchy in the streets and out of frustration far-right extremist groups -began to take the streets ending in bloodshed and a revolution that brought about Adolf Hitler into power.

Would it be hard to believe that both sides of the the quarrel in America today carry legitimacy and illegitimacy? A conundrum for sure but a postmodern reality as conflicting interpretations⁵ swirl us into further disaster. Internally outcomes mean a warring between a weak versus strong state, however, a much larger powers hover over the once great nation. China, Corporatism, and Globalism each carry a new weight on the shoulders of Uncle Sam.

Socialist Technocrats riding of the back of Capitalism are aiming for a Great Reset in the midst of C-19.⁶ Spiraling out of control, disillusioned by their grander, they believe they can land a plane already in flames with President Biden and Vice-President Harris at the throttle. In order to comprehend the erosion and decay; to predict the outcomes that are likely to arise in 2021; and to understand the pinnacle of modernity—late modernity, a perpetual state⁷ of totalitarian incantations⁸—we must first review President Trump and the American ethos of 2016 that built up to this point. Mob Rule, Mob Rules did not develop overnight but it is rooted in the unsettled nature of mankind whose fears, wants, needs, and desires collide in a world of duality with the Self at the center of an unraveling universe that is the End of History & the Last Man.   

America’s Second Postmodern President

Donald J. Trump was an enigma and an archetype representative of the reverberating tensions in the modern world. America’s 45th President was not in the mundane category as he set a new standard for future leadership in the political landscape—an all gloves off approach. His own outrageous behavior polarized the most moderate into unmarked territories while enflaming political baselines. To call the man evil ignores the good he committed himself to doing while President, yet to call the man good evaporates his offensive oddities that perturbed Conservatives and non-Conservatives, Christians and non-Christians alike. The now former President was our first purely postmodern President; a genius capable of fragmenting and uniting in ways not thought possible in modern America.⁹ He successfully made the ecological landscape appear upside-down and right-side up, greatly due to the fact that American society at present is itself fragmented and united, engaged and disengaged, troubled and relived.

As I engaged on the EKR Report, it is important to reiterate here:

It is my belief that America’s 45th President Donald J. Trump was a complete postmodern President; a manifestation of late modernity’s yearnings for a hero and a villain. Trump just so happened to represent the radical right, the alt-right, but it is questionable if President Trump was indeed a man of the right or a man who took advantage of their woes. Previously I have mentioned that I believed Trump to be the first postmodern president, but I stand corrected as Barack Obama was the first (another topic to be sure). However, in reaction to thematics of Obama, Donald Trump entered center stage to fill a void in the political right, a strong arm who could MAGA his way though Washington. QAnon and the Alt-right are blatant examples of the modern malaise that is postmodernism. 

Continuing that thought-line I presented Donald J. Trump as a Postmodern Nebuchadnezzar:

Manifestation being the keyword President Trump embodies the essential postmodern stigma. He is the result of an ecological convergence within late modernity—a billionaire titan hungry for an abundance of power and wealth in order to make a legacy and the presidency was the perfect construct at a point of political strife…

President Trumps election and win in 2016 was understandably a response to the status quo, a push against the vanguard found in the Democratic and Republican parties that elected George W. Bush and Barrack Obama, respectfully, and a reactionary response from the public to the potential presidency of Hillary Rodham Clinton. People have grown weary of globalism, capitalism, socialism, war, and even peace. Citizens are worn.

And the election of Joe Biden is a reaction to Trump and Trumphantism, however, is also a response to the ills that minorities and progressives argue are repressing them. They too are enraged by hate speech, discrimination, low wages, and an expensive bloated healthcare system.

Combined a catalyst has been formed of good versus evil; light versus darkness. The postmodern stage has been set and the audience is watching:

In his book, Simulacra and Simulation, the postmodern thinker Baudrillard argues that within the United States a switch took place between the image relationship of art forms and reality; the image now has ontological priority over the real. Signs and Symbols have become the reality rather than the actual world itself thus resulting in life itself becoming “film-like” as he puts it:

It is not the least of America’s charms that even outside the movie theaters the whole county is cinematic. The desert you pass through is like the set of a Western, the city a screen of signs and formulas.”

Continuing:

A simulacrum is a representation of something or someone. Donald Trump, I am arguing, is a simulacrum due to the sociopolitical economic environment of the United States. He is a superficial force Americans had to contend with as either good or evil; right or wrong. Trump was not one but both. A master of media, Trump knew exactly how to market himself as savior and king as much as antichrist and tyrant. Christian professor and author of the book, Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth In A Distracted Age, Alan Noble describes our media saturated society—what I see as a postmodern product of late modernity the emerged from secularism, technology, and science— Nobles writes that the:

[C]onstant engagement with media also invites us to unreflectively adopt ethical and political positions, creating a hodgepodge worldview. From a film on the treatment of animals in amusement parks we develop a fleeting concern for animal rights. A documentary on modern farming practices makes us see shopping local and organic a moral issue.

Are the events we are witnessing real? Who is telling the truth? What will become of the human estate? Former President Trump offered America one way forward and it was a way that now nearly half of America sought to maintain rather than surrender. So much so that a cabal raided the Capital. While another half, a half fearful of Trump and “his” America, elected Joseph Robinette Biden Jr to repose from a sudden decay in their vision of democracy.

Disturbingly there is a serious disconnect between needs and wants for the average American citizen versus the conflicting natures found in Washington. Following that logic, the innumerable hands influencing decisions in the American political system has designed a wide range of conflicts in terms of visions and, as I have termed it, a collision of ideas that relate to the competing visions of the nation and the world for that matter.¹⁰ 

If the controversial terminology Deep State¹¹ means anything it is that there are far too many actors involved in the decision making of the U.S. Government beyond its traditional capacity of the three branches of government and their inability of functional overwatch. Additionally, Deep State as I define is a clear cooperation, not conspiratorial, between the State (i.e. the Federal, State, and local governments including its many agencies) and private entities (i.e. Corporate entities such as Media conglomerates, Banks, and Private Military Companies); a layering of networks that has become the security state entwined with a global economy called neoliberalism. Modernity procured a “Too Big To Fail” attitude because our interconnected global economy is dependent upon its own continual success. Security and prosperity are its goals. Civilization is not post-modernity, its in the thicket of modernity. Postmodernism— philosophically and ideologically—acts a reflective state that mirrors modernity’s crisis. This is the present Market State¹² out of which Trump triumphed, at least, momentarily.

Never A One Man Show

Trump became President in the midst of a rise of authoritarian figures, nationalism, and Brexit.¹³ But he also stood as a bulwark against socialism, critical race theories, and leftist radicalism. Yet he adopted agendas that aligned with alt-right motives.¹⁴ A man who was bitter and vial towards those he disliked and quick to dispose all those who showed a lack of Trump style loyalty. Paradoxically, Trump was willing to stand against our greatest enemies in the world including China and rail against the greatest evils such as abortion; the paradox would also have bizarre relations with our greatest enemies—Russia and North Korea—that themselves left many perplexed.

Mob Rule and Mob rules goes both ways. Once a society or group accepts a particular culture to the extent of an unwavering obedience that is when the mere obedient citizen morphs into the crazed devotee.¹⁵ In such a state of mind the individual joins a collective consciousness that bestows an ideological framework with its authoritative structures, a tyrannical voice speaks over the disillusioned. Granted that both authority and legitimacy are each necessary means to gaining such societal clout. Without that respect the people protest, rebel, and eventually turn into revolutionaries. Todays status quo can be tomorrows tyranny as the vanguard can be heroes and mob alike. No modern government is unaware of the populist pull.

With the populist shift in the recent decade as seen in the election of President Trump a void continues to grow in the desire of American political stability. As previously written in part 2 of this series:

Donald Trump was not Russia’s (forever) President Vladimir Putin nor North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, however, the current President fit well within mob tactics. Portrayed as a hero who was set on “draining the swamp” it was clear that the Washington outsider brought in his own muck. 

Biden is the pendulum swing further to the left. Hardly a stabilizing force considering the policies the President and the democratic party have adopted.

Life’s A Riot

            Movements and the groups who fight for their beliefs can quickly be perceived as either just or unjust depending on which side a person stands. The avant-garde of the new or the progressive versus the conservative institutions or the reactionary, these are only a set of varying “stances” a person can be part of. However, where do hate groups, real hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Nation of Islam, or Neo-Volkisch stand in the spectrum of differences between progressives and conservatives? They may share similar accepted norms and mores of general society, but their responses are dehumanizing, threatening, and often violent. Truthfully, they have no justification in relation to either the avant-garde or the establishment considering that these movements of hate are beyond even the fridge of accepted beliefs and are considered fraudulent in their cause. Yet liberalized governments tend to protect even the most hateful. Such a decision hardly premises legitimacy but it begs the question, How do liberal democracies successfully funnel extremist groups within their countries? That question relates to the United State most recent socioeconomic and political trajectories of riots and movements via Black Lives Matter and the Alt-Right. And it is a central topic as the 46th President Biden intend to tackle “white supremacy” after President 45 attempted to address the radical socialist left. It is therefore essential to understand Black Lives Matters, ANTIFA, and the Alt-Right; to see them as archetypical trajectories of what lays ahead in the radicalism that has overtaken the American Dream that is no more.

————

Next Time: Mob Rule, Mob Rules: Part 3, Section 2 Trumphantism: The Alt-Right, Black Lives Matters, ANTIFA, and the Fate of American Liberty

References

¹ Dreher, Rod. (2020). Live Not By Lies: A Manual For Christian Dissidents. New York, NY: Sentinel

² Fukuyama, Francis. (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. New York, NY: The Free Press

³ —. (2018). Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 

⁴ Applebaum, Anne. (2020 October 30). The Answer to Extremism Isn’t More Extremism. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/left-and-right-are-radicalizing-each-other/616914/

⁵ As a point of reference I am using Jean Baudrillard’s usage as he explained this loss of the real in how we interpret events around us. In his example, he used Watergate. This is directly quoted from Simulations (1983) Translated by Phil Beitchman, Paul Foss and Paul Patton, “All hypotheses are possible, although this one is superfluous: the work of the Right is done very well, and spontaneously, by the Left on its own. Besides, it would be naive to see an embittered good conscience at work here. For the Right itself also spontaneously does the work of the Left. All the hypotheses of manipulation are reversible in an endless whirligig. For manipulation is a floating causality where positivity and negativity engender and overlap with one another; where there is no longer any active or passive (p. 30).”

⁶ World Economic Forum. The Great Reset. https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/; and for further commentary on events see: Doane, Thomas. (2020 November 1). The Convergence of the Progressive Telos. Truth In Focus. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/11/01/the-convergence-of-the-progressive-telos/

⁷ Richey, Kyle. (2020 October 26). PostModernity: A Perpetual State of Modernity. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/10/26/postmodernity-a-perpetual-state-of-modernity/

⁸ —. (2020 November 2). Totalitarian Incantations: Late Modernity’s Radical Manifestations. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/11/02/totalitarian-incantations-late-modernitys-radical-manifestations/

⁹ —. (2020 August 20). Mob Rule, Mob Rules 2020: Part 2. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/08/20/mob-rule-mob-rules-2020-part-2/

¹⁰ —. (2020 November 2020). Too Divided To Stand: Election 2020 & The Future of America. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/11/06/too-divided-to-stand-election-2020-the-future-of-america/

¹¹ Several references: Lofgren, Mike. (21 February, 2014). Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State. Moyers On Democracy. https://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/; Kaizen, Michael. (Fall 2017). The Rise of the Security State: From the Great War to Snowden. Dissent Magazine. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/world-war-i-aftermath-security-state-nsa; Healy, Gene. (1 March, 2015). National Security State. (Book Review) National Security and Double Government By Michael J. Glennon. https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/national-security-state; Epstein, Richard. (20 October, 2019) How Bad Constitutional Law Leads to Bad Economic Regulations. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/how-bad-constitutional-law-leads-bad-regulations/600280/

¹² A great reference point for understanding the Market State is from Constitutional scholar Philip Bobbitt’s, The Shield of Achilles, including on page 347 where a small set of graphs or “plates” he calls them demonstrate the evolution of the state including a small definition of each entity. The Market State according to Bobbitt “will maximize the opportunity of its citizens.”

13 Greven, Thomas. (2016 May). The Rise of Right-wing Populism in Europe and the United States: A Comparative Perspective. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation. http://dc.fes.de/fileadmin/user_upload/publications/RightwingPopulism.pdf

¹⁴ Wilson, Matthew. (2020 July 17). Donald Trump and the “Alt-Right”: How Much Connection Is There. ISPI. https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/donald-trump-and-alt-right-how-much-connection-there-26990

¹⁵ Richey, Kyle. (2020 August 20). Mob Rule, Mob Rules 2020: Part 2. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/08/20/mob-rule-mob-rules-2020-part-2/

A Review of The Year 202020202020

The Year That Never Ends

This special November Issue (2020) came at the wake of a radical leftist soft-totalitarianism that seeks to devour all that is human and humane. Now as November comes to a close and the great a-wokening continues forward, we must gather together as Christians to uphold the sacredness of our faith, the Truth of Christ in the darkness of our world.

Our approaching December Issue (2020) will be an evolving one. Not an all at once publication of articles, rather a liturgy of prayer, music, art, scripture, poetry, and articles that all direct the reader to the one essential reality that Jesus Christ is KING.

Month of November

November Issue (2020)

By Virtue of Desecration: Liberation & the Sexual Moral Erosion of America

“In-Doxycated”

The Left’s Feminist Narrative Killer

TruthInFocus Podcast: Ep 1 Book Review of Live Not By Lies by Rod Dreher

Totalitarian ‘Diversocrats’ and American Higher Education: A Review

Political Indoctrination and Enzyme Inhibition: How Imbalances Prevent Unity

The Voices of the Silenced

The Convergence of the Progressive Telos

Totalitarian Incantations: Late Modernity’s Radical Manifestations

TIF Podcast: November 3rd Is Here

Insight

Too Divided To Stand: Election 2020 & The Future of America

Thy Week, Thus Far (11/11/2020)

Thy Week, Thus Far: Anti-Trumpist Revoluionaires, Perverted Corruptible Men, & the Coming Judgement Upon Us All

Opinion

America’s Identity Crisis

Special Series

Target Takes Aim

Theology

For I Am Not Ashamed Of The Gospel

Letter From The Editor

Substack Chronicles

Mere Beauty In Truth

Symposium Of Dreams

In October, we approached the month by spreading our wings and laying a foundation with podcasts, an official statement, and a special series on virtue over politics.

Month of October

A Declaration

Foundations: What We Stand On

AVisualPhilosophy (Month of October) (MereBeautyInTruth)

Echo and Narcissus by John William Waterhouse (1903)

MereBeautyInTruth

Slow & Steady: Winning The Race

Thy Week, Thus Far

Wednesday October 7, 2020

Wednesday October 14, 2020

Wednesday October 21, 2020

Thy Week, Thus Far: Trump Vs Biden Vs God

Quick Thoughts

When The Eighth Grader See’s Through Them: The VP Debate Of 2020

Speak Now, Cause What Comes Next Isn’t Pretty

All Things Veritas

Christ & the Coffee Ep 2

TIF Podcast: Ep 1: Live Not By Lies By Rod Dreher

TIF Podcast: Ep. 2 Another Gospel? By Alisa Childers

Special Series: Principles Over Politics (Completed)

Principles Over Politics: Exordium

Principles Over Politics: Virtuous Individualism

Principles Over Politics: Industry

Principles Over Politics: Fidelity

Principles Over Politics: Moral Courage

Principles Over Politics: Integrity

In September, immediate events grabbed at us with the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg and our public declaration of support for the selection of Amy Coney Barrett.

Month of September

Historical/Analysis

Welcome to the Party: America’s Established Political Parties By Race

Thy Week, Thus Far

Wednesday September 1, 2020

Wednesday September 9, 2020

Wednesday September 23, 2020

Visual Philosophy (Month of September ) (MereBeautyInTruth)

The Oath of the Horatii by Jacques-Louis David

Highlights (Aug/Sept 2020)

Highlights Reel

All Things Veritas (Youtube Channel)

Christ & The Coffee (Theological/Biblical Series)

Ep 1, Series 1

Insight

Burke, Kirk, & Scruton: A Conservative Legacy for the 21st Century

Special Edition

Ruth Bader Ginsburg: A Memoriam

Amy Coney Barrett: Our Next Supreme Court Justice Whose “Dogma” is Good for America

Special Report

Riled By Politics: The Fate of the U.S. Supreme Court & The Constitution

Quick Thoughts

The Presidential Retrobate… err Debate of 2020 (Round 1)

Hard to believe, but only four months ago, TIF was launched. August marked the beginning of the direction and purpose behind Truth In Focus. Well researched essays, art, poetry, theology… this is a safe haven for Christians and Conservatives.

Month of August

A Special Report Series

Mob Rule, Mob Rules 2020 Part 1: To Mask or Not To Mask Isn’t The Question

Mob Rule, Mob Rules 2020 Part 2: Mob Mentality & The Era of Trump

Opinion

Unsettling Statistics: Children & Consent

Get Woke or Get Broke: When Reason Fails to Stand

PAYWALL’Ed: Academic Research & Open Knowledge

Visual Philosophy (Month of August) (MereBeautyInTruth)

L’Apparition by Gustave Moreau

Poetry

Time by Edward Kyle Richey

Insight

Virtue By Decree (Part 1)

Theology/Scripture

A Word To The Wise

Thy Week, Thus Far

Wednesday August 26, 2020

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America’s Identity Crisis

(Opinion)

By Kimberly Hagen

The unity of government which constitutes you one people is also now dear to you. It is justly so, for it is a main pillar in the edifice of your real independence, the support of your tranquility at home, your peace abroad; of your safety; of your prosperity; of that very liberty which you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that, from different causes and from different quarters, much pains will be taken, many artifices employed to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth; as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union to your collective and individual happiness; that you should cherish a cordial, habitual, and immovable attachment to it; accustoming yourselves to think and speak of it as of the palladium of your political safety and prosperity; watching for its preservation with jealous anxiety; discountenancing whatever may suggest even a suspicion that it can in any event be abandoned; and indignantly frowning upon the first dawning of every attempt to alienate any portion of our country from the rest, or to enfeeble the sacred ties which now link together the various parts (Transcript of President George Washington’s Farewell Address, 1796)

Our democracy works when this nation has a fair balance of power and transparency, but from what we witnessed this election year was a travesty to modern American democracy. 

So as we stand here, looking down the barrel of what appears to be a very long legal battle, Americans are exhausted. Because this election year wasn’t just about the election nor who would be the “lesser of the two evils” and certainly not about America’s soul. You can sell yourself to the devil, you can only freely give yourself to God. 

It is about our identity.

The identity in our freedoms that have been bound so tightly by the blood of men and women who have died for it, that the devil himself would have to tear it apart.

I recently asked a friend of mine who served in the Marines what it meant to him to serve his country. 

America is the light in a world of darkness.  We all owe it to future generations to do something to make the country and in turn the world a better place. There are many ways to serve that are just as important and noble as the military. If we forget the sacrifices made by our forefathers we will no doubt have to relive them.

The United States of America is the longest standing representative republic in the world, and if your happiness is riding on if “your guy” wins the election, you will be nothing but constantly disappointed. Liberty does not come from man, it derives from the Creator. The maker of Heaven and Earth; the Alpha and the Omega; the First and the Last; the Beginning and the End. 

All men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

For our friends who are on the other side of the nation’s identity crisis, I suggest you take a walk around a local military cemetery. If possible, may I suggest Arlington National Cemetery in Washington DC. Atop a hill sits the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The white marble sarcophagus depicts three carved Greek figures representing Peace, Victory, and Valor. Inscribed on the back of the Tomb are the words:

Here rests in honored glory an American soldier known but to God

The guards are changed every hour, on the hour, from October 1 to March 31. From April 1 through September 30 another change is added to the half hour. The tomb is guarded 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. During nighttime hours the measured and precise step of the on duty sentinel remains unchanged into the daylight. The guard takes 21 steps and then pauses for 21 seconds after his about face to begin his return walk. The significance of ’21’ reflects the twenty-one gun salute, the highest honor given to any military or foreign dignitary. 

This is my message to my countrymen:

It is time to rise up. Rise up and show this nation what our forefathers died to protect. We need to not only speak our truth but to live it out in our everyday lives. Show the world the goodness and love that we learn, not from man, but from the teacher Himself, Jesus Christ.  The promise that he made when he died on that cross; bound by nails, and blood ran red, so that we can have real freedom. It is time to drink from the streams of liberty my friends and rediscover that source has, and always will be, God. 

In closing I leave you with Isaiah 61:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God,
to comfort all who mourn,
and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty
    instead of ashes,
the oil of joy
    instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise
    instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness,
    a planting of the Lord
    for the display of his splendor.

They will rebuild the ancient ruins
    and restore the places long devastated;
they will renew the ruined cities
    that have been devastated for generations.
Strangers will shepherd your flocks;
    foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.
And you will be called priests of the Lord,
    you will be named ministers of our God.
You will feed on the wealth of nations,
    and in their riches you will boast.

 Instead of your shame
    you will receive a double portion,
and instead of disgrace
    you will rejoice in your inheritance.
And so you will inherit a double portion in your land,
    and everlasting joy will be yours.

“For I, the Lord, love justice;
    I hate robbery and wrongdoing.
In my faithfulness I will reward my people
    and make an everlasting covenant with them.
Their descendants will be known among the nations
    and their offspring among the peoples.
All who see them will acknowledge
    that they are a people the Lord has blessed.”

I delight greatly in the Lord;
    my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation
    and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness,
as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest,
    and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.
 For as the soil makes the sprout come up
    and a garden causes seeds to grow,
so the Sovereign Lord will make righteousness
    and praise spring up before all nations.

Too Divided To Stand: Election 2020 & The Future of America

(Insight)

By E. Kyle Richey

As the days pass the world waits on the ballots to be counted with fraud investigations beginning, U.S. court handling disputes, and protestors marching in the streets for their cause or candidate (or both); the very legitimacy of the United States government along with the Media and Corporate America now all teeter in the balance. Whoever is elected now enters a more susceptible environment, one that may no longer be able to sustain favor of a wary public. Radicals now seek revenge regardless of who is in office. If Trump is reelected there stands a good chance that radical leftist elements will bring fire to the streets. Should Biden obtain the Presidency, it is uncertain if Trump supporters or even if President Trump himself will stand down; or if Biden himself is mentally up to the task, begging the question, under the assumption that Biden is elected, did half of America actually just elect America’s first black female president? All of these concerns are being asked. Emotions have peaked. Late Modernity’s perpetual state is here. It may be time to consider a different way forward by first stepping back.

Twenty-Eighteen

On September 29, 2018 the following thesis statement was presented before professors at a university:

“Arising from identity-based ideologies, secular modern American colleges and universities have increasingly adopted identity politics into their institutional practices. This adoption has resulted in limited discourses and substantive debates between opposing ideological, philosophical, scientific, and theological systems and their claims. Such practices dilute knowledge which in turn reduces innovation, ideas, and the search for truth. Furthermore, identity-politics is beyond the walls of academia, influencing other public and private spheres. In the wake of these changes, a growing wave of opposition has formed, offering new ideas and possible solutions concerning identity politics. But are these solutions viable?”¹

That was my thesis.

In October of 2018 I presented my theory (a model built for higher education in mind) called: “Collision at the Intersection of Ideas: The Crisis of Identity in Higher Education“²

My argument was that identity-based politics or the ideological belief that a person’s identity whether based on race, gender, sex, age, or even areas of religion were becoming a point of irreconcilable contention within higher education to such a degree that it narrowed actual learning concerning facts, knowledge growth, and differing perspectives all at the determent of the core purpose that is higher learning. I defined Identity Politics from Francis Fukuyama’s book, Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment and a study by Marilynn B. Brewer titled, The Many Faces of Social Identity: Implications for Political Psychology (2001):

Individuals who, through their sense of identity, feel they are being alienated and demand recognition.³

To argue my thesis I had to present the structure of Identity Politics i.e. how it manifests in higher education, prove it existed within higher education, and present studies that demonstrated a conflict with the identity-based culture in colleges and universities (little did I grasp it was also in Christian colleges, seminaries, and churches at that point).

Using my definition of Identity Politics (IP) I proved actual mechanisms or tools within colleges that are utilized administratively by institutions of higher education including:

• Social Justice & Equity
• Hate Speech
• Micro-Aggressions
• Intersectionality
• White Fragility
• Trigger Warning’s
• Sanctuary Campus
• Safe Space
• Phobias (e.g. Transphobia)
• Sexism
• Gender Pronouns

Along with studies that conflicted with the established narrative that universities hold as their position in opposition to other varying opinions (here are some examples I presented at the time):

Microaggressions and Victimhood Culture

Campbell, B., & Manning, J. (2014). Microaggression and moral cultures. Comparative sociology, 13, 692–726.

Campbell, B., & Manning, J. (2018). The rise of victimhood culture: Microaggressions, safe spaces, and the new culture wars. [No city]: Palgrave Macmillan.

Lewis, H. R. (2007). Excellence without a soul: Does liberal education have a future? New York, NY: PublicAffairs. Lilienfeld, S. O. (2017). Microaggressions. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 12(1), 138–169.

Group Polorization & Identity

Cikara, M., & Van Bavel, J. J. (2014). The neuroscience of intergroup relations: An integrative review. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9(245).

Myers, D. G., & Lamm, H. (1976). The group polarization phenomenon. Psychological Bulletin, 83(4), 602-627. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.83.4.602

Gender/Sex differences between Males and Females

Crick, N. R., & Grotpeter, J. K. (1995). Relational aggression, gender, and social-psychological adjustment. Child Development, 66(3), 710–722.

Deaner, R. O., Balish, S. M., & Lombardo, M. P. (2016). Sex differences in sports interest and motivation: An evolutionary perspective. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 10(2), 73– 97.

LaFreniere, P. (2011). Evolutionary functions of social play: Life histories, sex differences, and emotion regulation. American Journal of Play, 3(4), 464–488.

Safe Spaces and Critical Thinking

Boostrom, Robert. (1998). ‘Safe spaces’: Reflections on an educational metaphor. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 30:4, 397-408. DOI: 10.1080/002202798183549

Barrett, Betty J. (2010) “Is “Safety” Dangerous? A Critical Examination of the Classroom as Safe Space,” The Canadian Journal for the Scholarship of Teaching and Learning: 1:1. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5206/cjsotl-rcacea.2010.1.9

Even in 2018 I could see the intersection between higher education and the workplace or in politics, but I naively believed that Christian Institutions could safe guard themselves from IP.

Within my thesis I wanted to show two important factors at play within and outside of higher education:

1) A “Conflict of Visions” as explained by Thomas Sowell; a vision being “our sense of how the world works” as Sowell elaborates “Visions are the foundations on which theories are built… Visions are very subjective, but well-constructed theories have clear implications, and facts can test and measure their objective validity” (p. 4).⁴ From Sowell’s perspective, the place of conflict comes at the degree in which a vision is constrained or unconstrained; the more constrained a vision the less willing the society or group or person is to act on an issue of importance precisely because that action may result in a reverberation of consequences larger than the original issue. For example, ending a ban on gay marriage. An action of this kind, right or wrong, has consequences in relation to those who oppose gay marriage and are at conflict with other LGBTQ issues beyond just marriage. We see this contention between people of faith and a secular view in terms of rights. Without going into that debate, the unconstrained vision says that this is an act of justice; everyone should have the right to marry whomever they want in the name of love or some ethereal concept. A very real point of contention therefore exists between the two visions and neither vision is always right or wrong, rather Sowell demonstrates the need for logic and facts regardless of a constrained or unconstrained vision. Sowell recognizes the imperfection of reason itself as well along with the real emotional and psychological factors that come with these debates or visions of conflict. Nothing is perfect and that is the point by Sowell. There are no utopias, only gulags when a sect moves toward their utopian ideal which will eventually fail.

2) A collision concerning a conflict of visions had occurred; a collision at the intersection of ideas. Fundamental positions are now incapable of coexisting in a liberal democratic society because identity based politics that liberalism and capitalism, neoliberalism, successfully forged. The beginning decay of Liberalism started at the wake of postmodernism in the late 1940s after a disillusioned populace survived WW2 going into the 1950s with a lost sense of trust in human institutions and a desire for more in life. Old bonds, already decaying, were rupturing by the 1960s and onward. By the year 2000 society had reached a kind of peak as cultures became too convoluted and ideologies had heightened to such a degree that society, or my original focus higher education, was no longer capable of maintaining a real viability: the ability to live, grow, and develop outside an increasingly narrowing scope of indoctrination. Now I did not go as far as calling it indoctrination then, however, I maintained colleges have increasingly deduced arguments to a place of irreconcilable differences or a place of “Us vs Them” mentality.⁵ Conflict had become a wreckage; the ivory tower was now a rubble (a paper I wrote in the beginning of my program).⁶

Visions are the foundations on which theories are built… Visions are very subjective, but well-constructed theories have clear implications, and facts can test and measure their objective validity – Thomas Sowell

By indoctrination I mean to suggest that institutions of higher learning, in order to preserve a status of legitimacy, had to follow and finally instill a progressive moral relativity that slowly influenced colleges which then exported those ideas back into general society. What I learned was that what happened in higher education was happening in the United States and throughout the west.

Today nearly every branch of government and workplace environment is subjected to a form of diversity, equity, and inclusion that goes beyond the boundaries of equality and merit and civil rights. Now a conflict exists to such a level that it slowly forced new convergences and divergences of groups; late modernity (1950 to the Present) was and remains a paradigm shift that now has liberal minded people either “moving” more toward the politically left or politically right; relgious beliefs are in the midst of a defragmentation as Christians and Atheists can more easily find themselves sharing similar social, political, and economic beliefs even though what roots them into their belief about abortion, gender, sex, or economics is not the same. Late modern society is rapidly diffusing but it won’t last forever because it is a paradigm shift, we are merely living in a point at which structures of authority, meaning, purpose, and legitimacy are all changing.

There are two layers concerning a principle of legitimacy as defined by the political scientist Francis Fukuyama: 1) “Legitimacy is not justice or right in an absolute sense; it is a relative concept that exists in people’s subjective perceptions” (p. 15)⁷ and 2) “A lack of legitimacy among the population as a whole does not spell a crisis of legitimacy for the regime unless it begins to infect the elites tied to the regime itself…” (p. 16).⁸ Fukuyama is directly speaking to strong-states, authoritarian states, in the latter point but the principle applies to a democratic society such as the United States.

All societies perform some kind of indoctrination in a general sense. But this was my first inklings of a radical leftist drive toward something entirely different than a “perspective” simply worth learning. No it was something much more. Prior to graduating it became clear that these beliefs aimed to throw Westernized, Christian believing, and anything considered “white” or “privileged” or “hateful” to the lions den. These were racist ideologs; Sowell’s worrisome quest-seeking Social Justice Warriors; Marxist at their core. That is not a political statement. These are real facts. Real people. Real radicals. However, after graduation it became readily apparent that QAnon conspiracies, the Alt-Right, Flat Earthers, and other far-right groups had left reality for an America that could be made great again if only they disperse “the enemy” at large.

Present Distrust

Totalitarian movements are possible wherever there are masses who for one reason or another have acquired the appetite for political organization. Masses are not held together by a consciousness of common interest and they lack that specific class articulateness which is expressed in determined, limited, and obtainable goals. The term masses applies only where we deal with people who either because of sheer numbers, or indifference, or a combination of both, cannot be integrated into any organization based on common interest, into political parties or municipal governments or professional organizations or trade unions. Potentially, they exist in every country and form the majority of those large numbers of neutral, politically indifferent people who never join a party and hardly ever go to the polls. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins Of Totalitarianisms (1951), p. 311

As it stands a vote for Biden or Trump, however unwilling the populace may have been in their desire to vote, represents a repudiation and judgment over the other. A Biden victory is a win against hate, racism, and evil Americanism; a Trump victory is a vanguard against Woke liberalism and Socialism. Neither the ardent supporter nor the wary voter can see past the conflicting viewpoints. They see only a necessary conflict; a good versus evil. Currently Trump voters fear voter fraud in Arizona, Michigan, and other battle ground states. Biden supporters see it has a necessary reckoning after Hillary and Gore. Speculation runs rampant as major news networks and social media censors information including providing their own fact-checking creating a narrative that spins further the chaos. All the while Covid-19 continually magnifies uncertainty. Life at the moment is an upward battle; a fog of present distrust hangs low. No one knows what to believe or why except they having an appetite for politics in the midst of difficult times. Arendt further states:

The chief characteristic of the mass man is not brutality and backwardness, but his isolation and lack of normal social relationships. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins Of Totalitarianisms (1951), p. 317

Trends of loneliness, narcissism, nihilism, and fear have been rising for decades according to sociologist like Robert D. Putnam⁸ along with a great moral and economic bifurcation of White America as demonstrated by Charles Murray.⁹ America is divided and divided absolutely¹⁰ to the point it is frustrating institutions within the paradigm shift of power and authority. Rod Dreher sees the writing on the wall from his publication of Live Not By Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents to last night’s (November 5, 2020) blog article, A Divided Country:

Law and order is so fundamental to the conservative stance towards the world. Had the BLM protests not been violent, they would not have stoked the Right so much. This is something that progressives deeply need to understand. On the Right, it’s not reaction against racial justice protests; it’s reaction against violence, and the justification of the violence we heard from many on the Left in the media. Joe Biden’s criticism of the protesters did not ring true…

We are going to remain a divided country. The election solved nothing. The idea, though, that if only we could have gotten rid of Donald Trump, then things would heal, was always an absurd fantasy. We are a divided country because we have lost the core narratives that bound us: a shared Christian faith (however attenuated), and a shared commitment to the historical narrative of America as an imperfect country that always strives to make life better for the next generation than the one that came before it.

We can’t even agree on what America is for anymore.

A Viable Solution

The United States of America has a real solution to resolving the pressures at present, but it comes at the cost of surrendering (a virtue few have) at at time when surrender appears as defeat. It is a mechanism designed within the very fabric of American Constitutionalism. We risk balkanization or greater tyranny if we fail to make this decision. American’s who wish to protect liberty and freedom no matter their political or religious beliefs must re-embrace a Strong Federalism.

Returning power back to the States so much power in fact that the Federal government is paralyzed from enforcing further legal decisions on the states as it has been in the last one hundred years. Believe in high taxes, enormous regulations, and progressive laws? Move to California, Oregon, New York, or Washington state. Let states decide nearly every aspect of life, make their Constitutions have meaning and purpose again. Take elections away from the national pull that desires a single leader, a hero of hope and change. America must loosen its grip by giving power and authority back to the states at the cost of ripping out the cords of a broken federal government and it’s deep state.

Next Time: A Return to Strong Federalism: A Historical and Philosophical Argument for the States

References

¹ Richey, Edward K. 23 September 2018. Collision At the Intersection of Ideas: The Crisis of Identity in Higher Education. Thesis. University of Texas San Antonio.

² Ibid. Presentation.

³ Brewer, M. (2001). The Many Faces of Social Identity: Implications for Political Psychology. Political Psychology, 22(1), 115-125. Retrieved November 6, 2020, from http://www.jstor.org/stable/3791908

⁴ Sowell, Thomas. 2007. A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles. NY: Basic Books.

⁵ Lukianoff, Greg., Haidt, Jonathan. (2018). The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up A Generation For Failure. New York, NY: Penguin Press.

⁶ Richey, Edward K. 6 December 2017. An Ivory Rubble: Postmodernism & The Collapse of the Modern University and its Impact on Society. University of Texas San Antonio.

⁷ Fukuyama, Francis. 1992. The End of History and The Last Man. NY: The Free Press

⁸ Putnam, Robert. 2000. Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community. NY: Simon & Schuster

⁹ Murray, Charles. 2013. Coming Apart: The State of White America, 1960-2010. NY: Crown Publishing

¹⁰ French, David. 2020. Divided We Fall: America’s Secession Threat and How to Restore Our Nation. NY: St. Martin’s Press

TIF Podcast: November 3rd Is Here

Click Link: November Issue 2020

The Radical Left & Their Coming Judgment Upon Us All

Here now is our special November Issue for 2020. These are articles written across the country concerning The Four Horsemen of western apocalypse who are trotting forth in the apparitions of: 1) Social Justice, 2) Identity Politics, 3) Socialism, and 4) Corporatism. Ladies and gentlemen what awaits us is totalitarianism from a behemoth of government, corporate, and institutional structures both private and public whose reach goes from west to the east, north to south that have adopted a leftist ideological framework. No one is truly safe from these rabble-rousers. This is dark money, big business and big banks; it is Wall-Street and government agencies. The Real Deep State.

Totalitarian ‘Diversocrats’ and American Higher Education: A Review

(November Issue 2020)

By Kaleb ‘Kal’ Demerew

Mac Donald, Heather (2018). The Diversity Delusion: How Race and Gender Pandering Corrupt the University and Undermine Our Culture. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin.

The Diversity Delusion is a scathing critique of the politics, methods, and concepts that have informed contemporary diversity policy in American colleges. Mac Donald argues that diversity is fashioned into an ideology for coercing compliance, contrary to the spirit of a university education. In developing this argument, the author cites several quantitative studies and some notable case studies, centering on the identity politics of race and gender in college campuses.

Mac Donald develops her argument systematically, beginning with an assessment of diversity politics as a system that empowers pandering administrators to engage in thought policing on behalf of certain ‘preferred’ groups. This system is implemented under the guise of promoting ‘multiculturalism’, but in effect produces negative value judgments on those forms of knowledge and expression associated with non-minority categories such as males or whites. These negative value judgments are institutionalized through a group of administrators the author refers to as ‘diversocrats’. By silencing those they disagree with, the author argues, diversocrats claim to espouse postmodernism or relativism while actually imposing a form of totalitarianism (p. 20).

Mac Donald argues that totalitarian ‘diversocrats’ threaten the pursuit of humanities, truth, and science in university, promoting niche fields that provide narrow support to the ‘diversity’ project. Examples of this include the replacement, rather than supplementation, of classical curricula in classical rhetoric, oratory grammar, and literature with abstract study areas in fields like gender, race, and sexuality studies. For Mac Donald, this reflects a narcissistic turn, as these policies assume that students can only gain value by learning about things that they can relate to experientially. In the process, this approach may undermine the transmission of nuggets of knowledge considered more neutral, especially those in the humanities.

Finally, the author argues that diversity policies rely on falsehoods to pander to gender and racial identity politics. For instance, when it comes to race, diversity policies provided reduced nominal standards for less qualified minorities to access elite flagship state schools like UC-Berkeley and UCLA, through newly-adopted ‘holistic’ admissions criteria. Mac Donald identifies a number of faults with these policies, the most important being the proliferation of what she calls ‘victimology’. This concept relies on ‘mismatch theory’ and links obsessions with ‘microaggressions’ to a psychology of inadequacy created when students are admitted into colleges in which they are not equipped to excel. The real hindrance to URM achievement, according to Mac Donald, is an ideological rejection of cultural values pertaining to education, and a rejection of the meritocracy associated with bourgeois culture. Mac Donald also presents a historical case study of sexual promiscuity and the campus rape movement as another instance of diversocrat totalitarianism.

The Diversity Delusion is a bold and controversial assault on the campus ideology of diversity, but it is helpful to explore some of the weaker methodological choices in the book. While most case studies in the book focus on how diversity and identity politics play out in college campuses across the United States, these themes are also explored in the context of the corporate world and Hollywood. In other words, the book has a very broad focus. While this may help with reaching a variety of mainstream readers, there are times when it seems that the book’s central message is lost. For instance, Mac Donald devotes an entire chapter to a critique of the #MeToo movement in the context of Hollywood, and another to discussing the racial politics of policing. While it is clear that the author is trying to provide the broader societal context of diversity policy and identity politics in these chapters, logical connections to campus politics are not clearly made. The book would have thus likely benefited from the omission of these two chapters, in favor of a more singular focus on diversity ideology in American higher education. Still, there are a few instances when the college-corporate themes are connected more logically. For instance, Mac Donald projects skepticism about the notion that victimology proponents can ‘grow out’ of victim politics, since the same politics are increasingly being adopted into corporate diversity training programs (p. 22).

Along these lines, the organizational structure of the book also leaves much to be desired. Diversity Delusion is organized into four parts, the first on race, the second on gender, the third on university bureaucracies, and the fourth on the purpose of the university. A total of sixteen chapters constitute these parts. While the organization of chapters within the individual parts is logical, the book reads like a collection of essays at times and the thematic organization of the four parts is not always effective. Although the race and gender sections were likely provided first to entice mainstream readers, a more logical organizational scheme would likely move parts 3 and 4, on educational bureaucracies and educational theory, respectively, to the beginning of the book where they could provide some initial conceptual grounding. 

With all this being said, Mac Donald’s findings regarding the failings of counter-bourgeois culture, and the idiosyncrasies of diversity politics in college campuses are alarming. They present a challenge to liberal educators, who must balance any needs for inclusion with the realities of cultural difference as well as the preservation of curricula that have made American universities elite to begin with.  The most effective arguments in Diversity Delusion are those that present human stories that portray counterintuitive narratives to those espoused by diversity promoters. One particularly poignant case in this regard is that of Kashawn Campbbell, an affirmative-action admit at UC-Berkeley whose first-year GPA suffered as a lack of his academic preparation and inability to master even basic writing. While Campbell’s inflated grades in African American courses allowed him to continue into sophomore year, the experience took a mental toll, making him feel inadequate and unwelcome, although the university clearly skewed its admission standards in his favor. In the end, the cognitive dissonance resulted in Campbell’s attribution of his feelings towards racism and microaggressions, rather than his clear lack of academic preparation. This story is what pushes Mac Donald to decry, “[r]acial preferences are not just ill-advised; they are positively sadistic” (p. 61).

The driving theme in Diversity Delusion is that diversity promoters may continue to hold on to flawed ideas about minority achievement and culture, often with the best of intentions. While Mac Donald made these assessments in 2018, it is helpful to consider them today in the context of two controversial articles that have recently made similar assessments. First, Mead (2020) asserted that poverty in the United States has more to do with minority rejection of Western individualist cultures, than with systemic failures to accommodate diversity. Similarly, Wang (2020) relied on mismatch theory to argue that affirmative action discriminates against non-minority students with superior credentials, and even hurts talented minorities. Both authors cited academic data and published their findings in reputable academic journals, but both have since been decried as racists, subjected to severe academic discipline. Both authors have since retracted their articles, perhaps forcibly. The eerily similar trajectories of these two cases seem to support Mac Donald’s more concerning assertion, that diversity promoters may use totalitarian means to enforce their ideas on anyone who disagrees. At the very least, readers will likely question whether and why ‘diversocrats’ may want to promote every kind of diversity except the type that has to do with alternative viewpoints.

In the end, Diversity Delusion is crucial reading, both for campus diversity promoters and for anyone with more critical viewpoints on multiculturalism. The book will have limited appeal to policy-makers in curriculum and instruction, as issues related to epistemology and preservation of classical curricula are mostly left unaddressed. There is indeed a cursory chapter near the end exploring a subscription service known as the Great Courses, but it seemed that Great Courses found profitability outside the university system. The implication in Mac Donald’s review of this case thus seems to be that there is no solution forthcoming from within the academy, where postmodernism seems destined to reign. Still, it is not clear that the politics and curricular implications of diversity and victimology in college campuses were analyzed deeply enough in this volume to reach this disconcerting conclusion.

Additional References

Mead, L.M. (2020). “Poverty and Culture.” Society https://doi.org/10.1007/s12115-020-00496-1. (retracted)

Wang, N. (2020). “Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity: Evolution of Race and Ethnicity Considerations for the Cardiology Workforce in the United States of America From 1969 to 2019.” Journal of the American Heart Association 9(7). https://doi.org/10.1161/JAHA.120.015959.  (retracted)

The Left’s Feminist Narrative Killer

(November Issue 2020)

By Kimberly Hagen

“Her very existence repudiates the left’s binary thinking about womanhood, that women have to deny what makes women different from men to achieve professionally. And that’s why they hate her.” – Joy Pullman

Justice Amy Coney Barrett is debunking all the leftist well spun narratives. She goes against everything the anti women coalition and what they stand for with her husband, 7 kids, and her unfaltering faith and her quickly advanced career. ABC poked holes into their well manicured doctrine as the lefts finely crafted web of lies began to unravel. 

During their anti-women’s marches, some stand with signs saying, “I want to break glass ceilings!” Yet, when a woman is being considered for the highest court in the land, we begin to see the irony drip from their playbook. They can’t wrap their “open minds”  about how Christianity isn’t something one can simply define. With all of its ambiguity and “rules” they would have to follow. 

It should be no surprise to the left that in fact not only do Christian women have their own minds but they can also choose to be mothers and doctors; teachers and scientist; lawyers and even a Supreme Court Justice.

The hearings continued on about how a Justice Barrett would force us back to a time where women will be fearful of strong work force discrimination and the rights of women would be rolled back. Conclusions were drawn from a woman, who has four daughters, will somehow take the power out of the lawmakers hands into her own. Democrat leaders poked and prodded at ACB to see if she would crack under their hypotheticals and tiresome questioning over the Second Amendment, Affordable Care Act, and Roe v. Wade. Under the Code of Conduct for US Judges are included the ethical canons that apply to federal judges and provides guidance on their performance of official duties and engagement in a variety of activities. Barrett stated, “Judges can’t just wake up one day and say ‘I have an agenda. I like guns. I hate guns. I like abortion. I hate abortion.’ and walk in like a royal queen and impose their will on the world.” She said she’d “keep an open mind” on any case coming before the court.

As a self described originalist, like her mentor Justice Antonin Scalia, Senator Chris Coons claimed that she will follow suit to how he has ruled. “I hope that you aren’t suggesting that I don’t have my own mind,” Barrett said, “or that I couldn’t think independently or that I would just decide like, ‘Let me see what Justice Scalia has said about this in the past.’ ” I assure you I have my own mind.”

In a recent Vogue article, Michelle Ruiz writes, “white women voters are establishing themselves as maddeningly, confusingly . . . unsisterly.” 

“It’s tempting, in light of all this, to want to give up on white women. But even if we see history for what it is and adjust our expectations accordingly, the fact remains that white women make up a voting bloc that is too massive to ignore or simply write off.”

The goal post of equality has moved from rights over our own body and equal pay to abortions on demand and free birth control. Without them, they will divert to some perverted idea of the Handmaids Tale and must stay submissive. They assume white Christian women go aimlessly into a voting booth, checking the red box like our patriarchal husbands who command over us (sarcasm insertion complete). 

The goal post of equality has moved from rights over our own body and equal pay to abortions on demand and free birth control.

Since the beginning Satan has tried to drive a wedge between God and His creatures. Genesis 3:5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  Satan deceived Eve by causing her to make her decision based on what she could see and not what her emotions and reason told her to be right, even when it was contrary to what God had already told her. Eve thought that if she and Adam ate the fruit they would gain infinite wisdom and live forever.

1 Corinthians 10:13 No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide you a way out so that you can stand up under it.” 

For Christ to accomplish God’s will, he had to face Satan and prevail. In Matthew 4, Christ is presented as one who served faithfully regardless of opposition. Showing temptation doesn’t mean to succumb to failure. It should be an encouragement to all that find themselves as pawns in Satans clever underhanded plans. 

Just like the wedge of the enemy the unsuccessful attempts to make ACB one of their own was a devastating blow to feminists everywhere. It should be no surprise to the left that in fact not only do Christian women have their own minds but they can also choose to be mothers and doctors; teachers and scientist; lawyers and even a Supreme Court Justice. That we can choose to show our large families love and stand firm in a boardroom. It is a loud cry for Christian woman to stand true to who you are. Do not let anyone create a narrative other than the one God has written for you and your life.

And The Election Goes To…

(Opinion)

Take a look at these maps from 270ToWin.com that I gathered:

Except in 1988 and in 2016 Pennsylvania goes blue. Ohio is a tight race at the moment between Biden and Trump. And Florida has been a hanging chad for some time.

As of October 31, 2020 (12:38pm Central Time) Total Early Votes: 90,055,033 • In-Person Votes: 32,698,826 • Mail Ballots Returned: 57,356,207 • Mail Ballots Outstanding: 33,674,445

https://electproject.github.io/Early-Vote-2020G/index.html

It is Republicans to gain at this point. The Polls are showing Biden leading in WI, MI, and PA. Unless Michigan goes Red again, history tends to favor Biden in this election. Ohio is a strange state, but I believe it will fall in Trumps favor. This race will be determined by Pennsylvania. So without any more waiting here is my final unbiased guess on the matter (for what it is worth):

2020 Presidential Election Prediction(s)

Winner: Joe Biden.

OR

Winner: Tie (Goes to Supreme Court)

Update: I wanted to add that the Silent Majority is a real group and people feel threatened in casting their vote for Donald Trump. So this group stands as a real option for Trump to win the election in WI, MI, and PA. And I do think Nevada is in Trumps favor due to the fear of more lockdowns and impact on tourism for a state that lives off of it.

Winner: Donald Trump