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/

Due North In A World Lost

(Letter From Editor)

Here we stand—in 2021—already facing turmoil. That is not a joyous remark by any means, it is only as I feared. I took time away from Truth In Focus and my other writing responsibilities to reflect and regroup. I watched in horror as the Capital was quickly ransacked my QAnon radicals devoted to President Trump all the while radicals of the left scheme their socialist ways forward as they subjugate the House, the Senate, and soon the White House. And I witnessed “Big Tech” eroding free speech under the guise of privatized policies. Failing to see, or accept, that the present public spaces are digital with Twitter, Facebook, Youtube as platforms of speech, economic activity, religious worship, and more. Everything we forewarned in our November Issue (2020) that tyranny is coming in multiple forms all at the service of globalism and the global economy has come. History has witnessed a paradigm shift soon to be completed as the new neoliberal order turns into a monstrous corporatized quasi-socialist beast.  

Now that the four horseman 1) Wokism 2) Socialism 3) Corporatism and 4) Globalism have arrived it is only appropriate to speak against them.

TIF has never been political, but rooted in principles. And this year will be no different. Now is the time to begin the process of renewal for generations to come. Imagination will play a fundamental role as we uncover the requirements for rebuilding society after its collapse in values, family, law, faith, and morality. Together we will embark on a journey just as the pre-socratic philosopher Anaximander who mapped the black sea and lead a colony to Apollonia (modern-day Albania). Transverse the lands as the Apostle Paul establishing the truth of the Gospel throughout the eastern and western worlds. And write as Plato in his Seventh Epistle concerning Italy and the political deluge he witnessed that left him with a revelation, “Wherefore the classes of mankind (I said) will have no cessation from evils until either the class of those  who are right and true philosophers attains political supremacy, or else the class of those who hold power in the States becomes, by some dispensation of Heaven, really philosophic.”

A true Christians and Conservatives it is clear that nothing perfect exists in the physical world, and even if it should, it will eventually collapse under its own weight. Mankind is left with a constant preparation for a New Eden while upholding the past including the dead who sacrificed to make the future possible. Indeed, no real eden will come from whence it first arose, but to imagine new beginnings is as American as it is human. Whether they are called colonies or city-states their purposes are designed to bring forth light and hope; justice and peace; law and order to a people. 

Presently the United States of America no longer represents that land of hope. It is therefore paramount to process present discourses in order to learn from failures and successes. This is not a call to rebellion. Rather the opposite. It is a call to dream again a better homeland for our children and grandchildren. Rarely in human history are the opportunity to recreate such a situation. A paradigm such as we have been witnessing, however, allows us to move beyond circumstances as a necessity to preserving sacred liberties and divine freedoms. 

Articles written by me will be focused on specific issues not just people and never on gossip. While there will be political coverage from writers like Kimberly Hagen concerning the Biden Presidency; my focus as the editor in chief is to bring theology and philosophy to the practical world concerning global concerns. 

Digital liberty, Corporate Tyranny, Food Politics, Climate Change, Sustainability, Abortion, Religious Freedom, Free Speech are all matters requiring redress. This year, I will personally be bringing forth concerns from around the world in order to build a coalition in the name of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. 

Virtue is required. Faith in God is a necessity. Truth and justice must be directives for us to obtain liberty. Rediscovering the meaning of education beyond the laptop are as important as defining a true Republic away from broken democracies. Our goal is to accomplish peace, goodness, and morality as means of transcendence for a society desperate for life and purpose; hope and meaning. 

Truth In Focus (TIF), All Things Veritas (ATV), MereBeautyInTruth (MBIT), EKR Report, and the newest to the network, Philosophers Rex, will all be receiving much needed care. In doing so I must split up my time wisely and productively. TIF specifically will become a weekly report minus specials that I shall continue such as my monthly Visual Philosophy series. ATV will turn to monthly posting as well with a TIF podcast and Christ the Coffee series returning. Apologies but I am a one man show still. It takes time. Yet, there is much to be done and added. Lastly, the Substack EKR Report will return to some normalcy as continue to share more of my personal life and thoughts with the world outside of TIF and ATV networks. As Philosophsarus Rex (also Substack), I am proudly beginning this journey with Thomas Doane as we enter a philosophy program together. There are still kinks for us to work out, but expect at least weekly posting to begin tonight.

There is no ship too large for this journey. Join us in helping make a better world for the future. 

Sincerely, 

Edward Kyle Richey

Renewing Our Mind: Part 2

(Christ Is King)

Alas I cannot speak of transformation without the renewing of our minds nor can I speak of the renewing of the mind without transformation for central to the proposition of transformation is Christ. He is the key ingredient. Additionally, if your mind has been renewed, then you have the Holy Spirit inside of you. Your mind has been reformed to be on the thoughts of God and not of man. What I am saying is that born-again Christians have an acceptance of and are obedient to the Holy Trinity: God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. Therefore, I am going to explain what every person needs and must do to be transformed and also provide a measure by which whether their minds are truly renewed. 

The Transformational Process 

For there to be a beginning of the renewing of the mind, there must be the beginning of the renewing of the heart. Because “there is not a just man on earth who does good And does not sin” (Ecclesiastes 7:20) all individuals must both repent i.e. confess our sins (1 John 1:9) and turn away from sin (Acts 3:19) by turning toward Jesus Christ for as it says in Romans 8:9-11:

But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

Now it is vital for our souls that we hammer out the understanding of Faith and Repentance as they are coequal and cannot be separated from another. 

Christ Is King 

“We can never understand the God of heaven unless we come to know him through his earthly Son” (Batson, 22, Jesus is Lord). In the eternal perspective of things we cannot afford to take salvation lightly. Faith in Christ means understanding, respecting, and accepting Jesus Christ as Lord or Kurios as it is in the Greek. Kurios often translates as master, but in the context of Christ it is understood that He is the Supreme Authority because as all the gospel’s tell us and has been prophesied since the fall of Adam (Genesis 3:14-15) that a Savior would come, fulfill the law, die for the sins of the world, and physically come back from the dead on the third day. Jesus Christ of Nazareth is our Lord; our King who is without sin, and who conquered death. So often we make the death and resurrection of Christ about us, after all, John 3:16 states:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.

But understanding the world did not love God, but rather the world chooses to live in sin. We know this to be true from the Old and New Testaments but consider 1 John 4:10 which states:

Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 

God, by his mercy and grace, chose to love us; His creation. Thankfully, God is a God of promises who keeps His covenants with His people as we see throughout the Old Testament and fulfilled in the New Testament. From Genesis to Revelations we witness the Gospel; the promise and fulfillment of the Good News of Christ our Lord. Nevertheless, this really is not about us, but about His unwillingness to allow sin to pervade over His creation. Take to heart Romans 3:9-18 which again shows man’s choice to follow sin:

What then? Are we better than they? No, in no wise: for we have before proved both Jews and Gentiles, that they are all under sin; As it is written, There is none righteous, no, not one: There is none that understandeth, there is none that seeketh after God. They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not one. Their throat is an open sepulchre; with their tongues they have used deceit; the poison of asps is under their lips: Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness: Their feet are swift to shed blood: Destruction and misery are in their ways: And the way of peace have they not known: There is no fear of God before their eyes.  

Humanity worships the Self rather than Yahweh. Thankfully the Gospel is not about us, but rather it about God’s eternal power, truth, justice, mercy, and grace that overcomes death in every way. To finish out here, the Lordship of Christ means putting him above everything else. Your family, friends, houses, cars, jewelry, favorite foods mean nothing in comparison to God. Our so called “righteousness” are but filthy rags before the King of Kings (Isaiah 64:6) or as King Solomon exclaimed when looking over his works saying it was “all vanity” before God (Ecclesiastes 1:1-11). It is that understanding of who Christ is that leads us to the coequal step in salvation: Repentance. 

All Must Repent

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17) said Christ as he began to preach in Galilee. If true faith is upon a believer, repentance is waiting to bring godly sorrow. Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 7:9-11:

Now I rejoice, not that you were made sorry, but that your sorrow led to repentance. For you were made sorry in a godly manner, that you might suffer loss from us in nothing. For godly sorrow produces repentance leading to salvation, not to be regretted; but the sorrow of the world produces death. For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.  

Worldly sorrow is when we feel bad because we got caught. Worldly sorrow is feeling sad and maybe even stop watching porn or getting drunk for a little while, but eventually falling back into it without consideration of the eternal perspective. Worldly sorrow is even when you kick a particular sin out of your life for good because you were just sick with the way it made you feel. This form of sorrow is temporal. 

Godly sorrow is the understanding that we are at enmity with God because of sin and implore for forgiveness from Adonai. Godly sorrow carries a thick air of esteem and contemplation of who we are before the Holy of Holy’s as sinful fools that attempt to taint His purity. The Puritan minister Thomas Watson would write that “Godly sorrow is abiding” (Watson, 25, The Doctrine of Repentance) explaining:  

It is not a few tears shed in a passion that will serve the turn. Some will fall a-weeping at a sermon, but it is like an April shower, soon over, or like a vein opened and presently stopped again. True sorrow must be habitual (Watson, 25, The Doctrine of Repentance). 

In the eternal perspective, godly sorrow is commanding the responses of our mind. In the temporal perspective, worldly sorrow drives the reactions of our heart. Heed my words then and repent with a godly sorrow for Christ is Lord and Christ must be addressed with deference. In doing so, we are then beginning the renewing of our minds through a process unlike any other.  

Trial by Fire: The Measuring Stick of a Renewed Mind 

Christ both justifies and sanctifies believers. In the First Letter to the Corinthians 6: 9-11 Paul explains this point clearly: 

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.

Quoting from the Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry (CARM), here are a set of definitions of what it means to be justified and sanctified in Christ: 

Justification is the work of God where the righteousness of Jesus is reckoned to the sinner, so the sinner is declared by God as being righteous under the Law. Sanctification is the process of being set apart for God’s work and being conformed to the image of Christ. Where justification is a legal declaration that is instantaneous, sanctification is a process (Slick, CARM, Justification and Sanctification: What is the difference?). 

The renewing of our mind is a sanctification process, one that will continue until we pass-on, and it is what I call a Trial by Fire process as described in 1 Peter 1:6-9: 

In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith—the salvation of your souls.

Walking with Christ will not be easy as there will always be temptations in our lives. Sin waits on every corner. As sons and daughters in Christ we must always remember that we are not at war with our own, but rather at war with the unseen; principalities and darkness above; spiritual forces that our beyond our own fleshly capacity (Ephesians 6:10-12). Paul alerts believers to put on the armor of God in our daily walk with Him which means at all times the Armor of God ought to be equipped so that we can fully honor Him and remain faithful servants to Him in our walk for Him (Ephesians 6:13-20). The description of the armor is as follows (I am paraphrasing some): belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, shoes of the Gospel and the peace that comes from it, shield of faith, helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit (word of God). But there is more, believers are also called to pray always and always in the Spirit and be ever watchful with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. This ultimately ties into the final part of this verse. 

Next Part 3: Trial By Fire

Present Your Bodies as Living Sacrifices: Part 1

(Christ Is King)

By: Edward Kyle Richey

I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service. And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God. Romans 12:1-2 (KJV)

And do not be conformed  

As born-again Christians we are not to be part of this world living in the flesh or by the relative standards of the world. We are to live a life representative of Christ. In an earlier chapter of Romans Paul writes:

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace (Romans 8:5-6).

The world is living by the flesh; the world is living in sin. And every person ever to be born is born in retched sin. We know this because the collected infallible word of God, the Sacred Scriptures, tell us this to be the case. This understanding begins with the sin of Adam who caused the fall of mankind:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned… Romans 5:12

Thusly the world was and remains damned without grace; without the blood of Christ humanity cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. Let me reiterate by providing two examples of men who have indeed sinned and who grasped their eternal position. King David, repenting for all he had done against God after lusting over another man’s wife, taking her for his own, and then murdering her husband, cries out in Psalms 51:4-5: 

Against You, You only, have I sinned, And done this evil in Your sight—That You may be found just when You speak, And blameless when You judge. Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, And in sin my mother conceived me.

David understood his condition. He, as we all do, had a condition that is worse than any cancer or disease. We are all conceived with a terminal illness. In his sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, the great Jonathan Edwards would preach before his congregation a warning to all those who lacked Christ: 

And let every one that is yet out of Christ, and hanging over the Pit of Hell, whether they be old Men and Women, or middle Aged, or young People, or little Children, now hearken to the loud Calls of God’s Word and Providence (Edwards, 1741, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God) 

It must be noted that David did indeed have Christ, for he believed in the promise of the Messiah and it was that promise that brought all believers in the Old Testament to heaven. Now moving on to my second example. 

Scriptures inform us that this man persecuted the Church, he was set on imprisoning and killing Christians and yet, God had another purpose for him. This man’s name was Saul. He who would become the Apostle Paul was a man who had been bound by the shackles of sin; the very shackles that the world says are acceptable because they are “natural” but the world fails to realize that nature is the very nature that damns all to an eternal damnation away from God. What then is sin? In Galatians 5:19-21 Paul describes this sin of man:

Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

It is important that we breakdown the nature of sin. God brought the laws to man in the Old Testament not because he believed the Jews could obey the laws perfectly, but rather to make humanity aware of their sinful nature (Romans 3:20; 5:20; 7:7-8). Sin has not disappeared and it never will until the return of Christ. To make sin more relative, consider that mass consumerism is sin when material goods overtake the providence of God. Every time I disrespect my parents, lust after another woman, curse, or cause ungodly dissension I am being anti-God; I am living on the wages of sin rather than the spirit of Christ. Romans 8:7-8 warns us of the dangers of worldly standards and man’s conformity to them: 

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be. So then, those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

Enmity, do you know what that means? Enmity is “the state or feeling of being actively opposed or hostile to someone or something.” Every time we please the flesh in opposition to God, we are being therefore hostile toward God. Displeasuring God for our own selfish desires ought to bring fear to our hearts. During a sermon on the phrase “enmity against God”, the “Prince of Preachers” Charles Spurgeon would bellow out this fair warning:      

It does not charge manhood with an aversion merely to the dominion, laws, or doctrines of Jehovah; but it strikes a deeper and surer blow. It does not strike man upon the head; it penetrates into his heart; it lays the axe at the root of the tree, and pronounces him “enmity against God,” against the person of the Godhead, against the Deity, against the mighty Maker of this world; not at enmity against his Bible or against his gospel, though that were true, but against God himself, against his essence, his existence, and his person (Spurgeon, 1855, The Carnal Mind Enmity Against God). 

Sin is the opposite nature of God. God and sin never mix just as oil and water. This is why we must be transformed for transformation allows us to go before the Holy God of the universe. 

David understood his condition. He, as we all do, had a condition that is worse than any cancer or disease.

But be ye transformed 

Humanity cannot save itself from death. We learn this throughout the Bible, but take to heart these two verses: 

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy he saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Ghost; (Titus 3:5)

Transformation, in the context of this verse, is equivalent to a “permanent state to which a change takes place”; a metamorphoses that can never be retracted once it occurs. This should both excite and frighten us. True believers in Christ should be shouting in joy for they are eternally secured (John 6:37; John 10:27-29; Romans 6:23; Romans 8:38-39; Romans 11:29; 2 Timothy 2:19). To be clear, to burrow a popular phrase, “once saved, always saved” is a doctrine I believe to be biblically sound. However, do not be quick to rejoice. Pastor and author of the book, Crazy Love, Francis Chan in a chapter titled, “Profile Of The Lukewarm” warns people who call themselves “Christian” to check themselves and to “not assume you are good soil” (Chan, 67, Crazy Love) a phrase used to insinuate the parable of the sower spoken by Christ. Therefore, let us turn to the book of Luke 8:4-8 which reads as thus: 

And when a great multitude had gathered, and they had come to Him from every city, He spoke by a parable: “A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it. Some fell on rock; and as soon as it sprang up, it withered away because it lacked moisture. And some fell among thorns, and the thorns sprang up with it and choked it. But others fell on good ground, sprang up, and yielded a crop a hundredfold.” When He had said these things He cried, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear!”

In response to this parable Francis Chan wrote the following: 

I think most American churchgoers are the soil that chokes the seed because of all the thorns. Thorns are anything that distracts us from God. When we want God and a bunch of other stuff then that means we have thorns in our soil. A relationship with God simply cannot grow when money, sins, activities, favorite sports teams, addictions, or commitments are piled on top of it (Chan, 67, Crazy Love). 

Chan later asks an important set of questions in his book, “Has your relationship with God actually changed the way you live? Do you see evidence of God’s kingdom in your life? Or are you choking it out slowly by spending too much time, energy, money, and thought on the things of this world” (Chan, 67, Crazy Love)? The Bible tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17 that: 

Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.

Christ tells us in Luke 9:23-24 that: 

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. 

These are not words that speak of a people that have conformed to the world, but have been transformed with their minds renewed.

Next, Part 2: The Renewing of the Mind

Symposium Of Dreams

(Mere Beauty In Truth)

By E. Kyle Richey

Beauty assembles itself in many forms. Nature, Art, Humanity, and Architecture are all designs that can culminate beauty. Architectural design requires a synergistic adaptation to its environment either urban or rural, natural or manufactured; there must be a harmony between that which is and that which is becoming. A biomimicry between the incoming architecture and that of the existing world…

Bode Museum, Berlin Germany

Construction for the Bode began in 1897 with Eberhard von Ihne as the museums architect devoted the Bode to a Renaissance design. A masterpiece respectable to the period while symmetrical and honorable to the surrounding city environment.

What fails in respect is the atrocious Soviet Fernsehturm TV Tower seen in the background. An eye sore lacking in respect to the historicity of Berlin, the tower is protruding a modern gaucheness that pollutes the surroundings.

Indoors the Bode, however, continues the synergy between the City of Berlin and the Classical Renaissance design inside the Museum, as though the indoors and outdoors carry semblance in purpose and meaning for the German people and all those who come to visit its humble grounds.

Modernity produced a post-modern movement; an accolade of its success turned rebellious child. Do all thing modern and post-modern automatically lack a Mere Beauty In Truth? Hardly. Rather it is a matter of tact and a real desire to mimic the environment that make a community whole and wholesome by producing an air of remembrance that is transcendental, immanent, and traditional in a way that everyone wants to stay or return again; I would describe it as grandmas café’ where the coffee is always hot, rich in aromas of delicious food, and there is a seat that always feels reserved just for you.

Sultan Ahmed Mosque (Blue Mosque)

Temples, Churches, or Mosques like the Blue Mosque are fundamental to the whole design of a community as they represent real meaning and purpose as expressed through the architecture outside with its six minarets which call the people of Islam to their daily prayers. Indeed the Western, liberal, and secular mind tends to see religion as an affront, but such minds excuse the quintessential desire of the sacred; a root need to recognize God and the Heavens. Nothing is perfect, but the beauty of Islam for billions is portrayed in their belief of One God.

Sir Roger Scruton was a friend to Islam. Scruton writes that in Muslim philosophy there is a tradition where God and His oneness is definite, “that he is one, the possessor of an inimitable tawhid or oneness, which attaches to him precisely because it does not attach him as a property that might be shared” (Scruton 2014, Soul of the World, p. 190). Any attempt to eradicate the structure of mosques or churches or temples, in most cases, demonstrates a level of unrequitedness toward the higher ends of culture.

Al Masjid an Nabawi (Prophets Mosque)

Not everything in a culture requires such delicacy but areas of faith are part of the biomimicry, the DNA of societal wellness. And of course I say that as a Christian just as Sir Roger comprehended Anglicanism and the Church of England as sacred for England.

Canterbury Cathedral

Aesthetic moral worth is as much immaterial as material…

Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore

To speak of beauty is to enter another and more exalted realm—a realm sufficiently apart from our everyday concerns as to be mentioned only with a certain hesitation. People who are always in praise and pursuit of the beautiful are an embarrassment… — Sir Roger Scruton, The Soul of the World

Humble harmony: the street as home, taking the term from Scruton, that is what the town of Florence represents, and the Florence Cathedral is the manufactured mountain side one witnesses in awe as they weave through a large river, never too sure what is exactly around the corner, until you see its immanent precipice; a refreshing liturgy from the day to day. Beauty is not merely ravishing architecture but more so it is humility in the midst of what it is trying to accomplish. Take for example the Sikh Golden Temple:

Think whatever you may of its intended space with which it mimics the surrounding environment (physical/cultural), but consider its purpose of worship and feeding roughly 40,000 people a day for free. Even Christians would do well to remember what good is our churches should they fail at helping the Samaritans in their surrounding communities who are in need of the eternal spiritual nourishment of the Gospel and failing at feeding the hungry or caring for the sick? True beauty, a Mere Beauty In Truth, has intention within its aesthetic value.

Radcliffe Camera, Oxford University

Radcliffe Camera,  Oxford University’s Science Library

I want to end with Radcliffe as it captures the centrality of Oxford University (old Oxford at least) where truth and knowledge intersect, a temple of knowledge surrounded by devotees and a city that exudes humble harmony.

Aesthetic moral worth is as much immaterial as material, not that the material has no worth, rather the moral worth is determined by factors outside of architectural material preferences. Feeding the hungry is a far more valuable material act than choosing a neoclassical design to match the exterior environment, but considering how an appearance creates or diminishes worth, not just monetary, but having a immaterial or spiritual respect for people and their needs is also a value worthy of consideration as we feed the hungry and care for the sick.

If we can build a community that has self-respect for its surroundings than there is a possibility in creating a respect for one another. Seeing the streets as a home instills eternal values for the soul. Entering a space of learning that inspires, like Radcliffe, can and must be applied to the baker shop, the gas station, and our homes. God created time, space, and matter that includes us; as Imago Dei there is a universal condition of self-worth places upon every human-being regardless of differences and conduct. In some manner, the aesthetic plays a central role in upholding that value.

That is a Mere Beauty In Truth.

— EKR

Substack Chronicles

(Letter From The Editor)

By E. Kyle Richey

Thirteen days ago I started a Substack account. Free of charge readers can enjoy a daily report from me about culture, books, art, faith, emotions, and just about anything that does not directly fit within TIF. EKR Report, my Substack page, like Truth In Focus is a new project; a source for Christians and Conservatives like myself to share new, but more likely old ideas for a newer audience.

Christianity is a two-thousans year old faith in Jesus Christ of Nazareth that goes even further back into it’s Eastern Judaic roots making it one of the oldest monotheistic faith’s in the world.

Hardly anything true conservatives center their ideas around comes from ten, fifty, hundred, or two hundred years ago, rather they source from principles that are thousands of years old.

TIF is founded on that understanding and application. Yes, we cover current events but often we look to the past for answers; for eternal truths to ground ourselves no matter the frame of time.

My Substack carries the same principles, yet the posts are more personal. An insiders view of yours truly. I have been posting daily since November 6, yesterdays post was titled, Biopic Memories of Cadence Past: Great Balls of Fire. There is a reasoning to my madness with yesterdays post. When I entered my first master’s program, there was an understanding that postmodern thinking had distorted academia. While true it had since morphed into identity politics along with Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, Feminism, cultural Marxism, et cetera all the while containing a postmodern milieu. Well last night after a wonderful conversation with my dear friend Thomas Doane concerning postmodernist/poststructuralist “incredulity towards metanarratives” I wanted to poke a little fun at their arguments by making a metanarrative out of several stories from my day. I do hope you enjoy.

There are various reasons why authors and journalists start a Substack account. You can make a living from it if you are good enough and consistent with your work. After leaving The Intercept, Glenn Greenwald went straight for a place where he could have journalistic freedom, a wide audience, and an ability to make a living without much overhead. Substack was an obvious solution.

So far I find it to be a curiosity. There appears to be a good number of people on the network. Yet I find it difficult to traverse. Sure I follow Greenwald and Dreher but I could not tell you who these top twenty-five Substackers are except Andrew Sullivan being one.

As for small fries like myself perhaps it is a good place to just write freely yet it will take more to build an audience let alone make a living. However there is always a good chance that with enough time and effort, as TIF grows along with All Things Veritas and more freelancing that I can gain such a position. Is that why I do Substack? Not exactly. Rather I am more interested in trying to gain an audience in order to dialogue, however, making a livelihood is eventually the goal.

Dialogue seems to be something lacking even on TIF. Granted it has taken me time to learn how WordPress works. I have found WordPress to be less friendly to writers than I’d hoped but I am grateful nevertheless.

Substack is very friendly to writers but it will take a lot more work to build an audience.

Then you have freelance networks like Medium. Neither are like Medium. At Medium you can write an article for thousands if not millions to read and critique and truly gain an audience while while possibly making a profit from each article. I have not jumped onto Medium, yet. To be honest I have a been a bit hesitant. All of these sources feel a bit like an echo chamber. I do not like the idea of an echo chamber. It is vitally important that we have sources of information that can be open to everyone beyond ideological or philosophical or theological differences. That is why I’m spending so much time trying to build a network of Christians for example who are Catholic, Protestant like myself, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, and Anglican. Surely we must come together on the same foundational beliefs, but we can vary over issues deemed non-essential. Same applies to conservative thinkers. Over the years I’ve discovered that we conservatives can be a bit more conservative than others while some can be a bit more liberal or even hold what may be seen as progressive views, but principally be philosophically conservative at heart.

Truth In Focus is such a site. While it remains an entity by which I can share my ideas I never wanted it to remain just about me. So I am thankful for the writers and audience who have already joined in this journey. There’s much to be done and much more to be said.

Substack tact’s on another role by which to make a connection with readers who share similar values as myself. We do not need to be ashamed of our Christian faith nor afraid to include a non-ideologically driven idea into a society drowning in ideologies. Family, Faith, Tradition these are not poor relics of the past; they are treasures beyond modern enrichment necessary to the continuation of human existence.

I hope to be announcing here soon more editor’s and future goals for TIF. Thank you for being patient. I promise there’s more thorough content coming your way. Nothing comes easy without working hard, an eternal value, and that includes great content.

Looking forward to growing with you. In the meantime keep commenting, join our Facebook Truth In Focus, and listen to our podcast on All Things Veritas which you can see and hear on YouTube. And take a look at my Substack. All of this talk of making America Great Again when really what we need to be doing is making an effort to improve our lives and help others. That my friend’s is how we make everything better again.

God Bless,

EKR

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

Totalitarian Incantations: Late Modernity’s Radical Manifestations

(November Issue 2020)

By E. Kyle Richey

Once pegged as special, a citizen, even if accepting sterilization, dropped out of history. He ceased, in effect, to be part of mankind. And yet persons here and there declined to migrate; that, even to those involved, constituted a perplexing irrationality. Logically, every regular should have emigrated already. Perhaps, deformed as it was, Earth remained familiar, to be clung to. Or possibly the nonemigrant imagined that the tent of dust would deplete itself finally. In any case thousands of individuals remained, most of them constellated in urban areas where they could physically see one another, take heart at their mutual presence. Those appeared to be the relatively sane ones. And, in dubious addition to them, occasional peculiar entities remained in the virtually abandoned suburbs. — Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

History is rift with zealous idealist demented by their cause, their purpose, their reason for existence however unrealistic or distorted or false. Now once again they have successfully seized power, but this time on a global scale at a point when society has become interdependent to a fault. Science and technology, religion and philosophy, higher education and the workforce are all being highjacked to obscure even the transience of life into barriers of opposition and final judgement. Today it is the far-left: Radical feminists, LGBTQ activists, Queer theorists, Postmodernist, and Critical Race Theorists who adumbrate context, meaning, and purpose for their Identity driven nomenclature under a quasi-socialism; a merging of corporate and state, the real deep state, in the name of their religion, social justice, in order to recreate what humanity thinks, says, and does. 

It comes at an exasperating cost on humanity and it all comes from a well of desire to break free—the psyche. Late Modernity has spawned a permanent spirt of emancipation of postmodernism that deconstructs and liberates to the point that it is now inconceivable for the radicalized to not equate between the demands of liberation with that of an ensuing conflict between “good and evil” “us versus them” “they or them” attitude. They no longer recognize that their causes now enslave everyone including themselves. Blinded by identity Politics, a bubble within the brew of totalitarian reality, humanity is now caught within a perpetual state that modernity birthed and late modernity is only beginning to see its awakening after generations experienced it rather vicariously. 

Benito Mussolini argued that Fascism was foremost a spiritual exercise of the will of man to rise up and overcome: 

“Fascism sees in the world not only those superficial, material aspects in which man appears as an individual, standing by himself, self-centered, subject to natural law which instinctively urges him toward a life of selfish momentary pleasure; it see not only the individual but that nation and the country; individuals and generations bound together by a moral law, with common traditions and a mission which suppressing the instinct for life closed in a brief circle of pleasure, builds up a higher line, founded on duty, a life free from the limitations of time and space, in which the individual, by self-sacrifice, the renunciation of self-interest, by death itself, can achieve that purely spiritual existence in which his value as a man consists.” (Fascism: Doctrine and Institutions, 1932)

Third-way politics, most notably Fascism, was perturbed by a leftist communalism from communist and capitalistic individualism. For Mussolini the concept of the State could override both by making it—the State—the sole proprietor of Adoration and Judgement; King and God; Lord and Master. Heaven and Earth were now the sanctuary of the mighty State to preserve the corrupted foundation of the Homo-Sapien. 

Leftist politics also looks to the State through means of socialism and communism in order to free the masses, as Karl Marx remarked “to develop in greater spiritual freedom, a people must break their bondage to their bodily needs – they must cease to be the slaves of the body. They must, above all, have time at their disposal for spiritual creative activity and spiritual enjoyment” (Wages of Labour). Redistribute wealth, turn the privately owned into public hands, erase race and class warfare through a great equalization, and provide material good and services from free healthcare to free housing.  

Radicals all march to their own heavenly drum of a utopia never too far off away.

Conflict creates the enigma necessary to achieve this spiritual hunger within the inner belly of male and female. Vanquish thy enemy, achieve victory. Myth has an essential role regardless of ideological sway. Rene Girard argued that the innerness of mankind, the myths that bind us, are a making of the violent for which the sacred is conjured. Roger Scruton in his book, The Soul of the World, explains that for Girard “scapegoating is society’s way of re-creating “difference” and so restoring itself. By uniting against the scapegoat, people are released from their rivalries and reconciled” (p.19). Radical ideologies mimic religions through similar ritualization, creeds, works, and demands on society. Myth and fact are dizzyingly intertwined to contextualize an oppressed and the oppressor. David W. Shenk, author of Global Gods, argues that sometimes ideologies become the new gods including Marxism and Capitalism:

[M]arxism provided a program for the unification of the entire global community within one universal philosophy and political system. Its competitor has been capitalism, which also claims to be the ideal good capable of saving the global community from poverty. These dual ideologies and systems tended toward absolutism which gave them an aura of godlikeness as powerful as the ancient and unchallengeable Marduk of Babylon or the god-king, Pharaoh, of Egypt (p.34). 

That duality of conflict is essential to understand. What I am arguing is that Modernity produced this perpetual state of conflict that has now morphed into a monster all together its own totalitarianism—a crony woke capitalism; neoliberalism; corporatism. The latest of spiritual awakenings intertwined to that of secularism and secularity; a projection of religion but the kind found within Fascism as described in an 1925 anonymous article published in a magazine for Italian fascist outside of Italy:

Reasoning does not communicate, emotion does. Reasoning convinces, it does not attract. Blood is stronger than syllogisms. Science claims to explain away miracles, but in the eyes of the crowd the miracle remains: it seduces and creates converts (Fascist Mysticism, Italian Fasci Abroad, Roger Griffin pp 54-55). 

What socialism offers is a materialistic promise for a very material world. Conversely,  capitalism offers materialistic hope. Hope is ethereal in nature, it requires great dedication. Promises though are tangible, they are material through in through. In an age that disavows Scripture, the material becomes ethereal. Ironically, socialism is more materialistic than capitalism because of its promises provide means and resources through goods and services. Nothing other than hope can be offered by capitalism. One must earn their land and fortunes. Crony capitalism however has distorted this hope as corporations and banks and private institutions run amok with government institutions. Corporations now utilize the State to their benefit on a globalist scale like never before in human history. What was once considered communal or sacred are blurred by the privatized and the secularized. Nothing is as it once was. Not even nature is safe. Nor is Capitalism. All that was once capitalist is increasingly untrustworthy due to an array of factors outside of its original intended design. Boundaries are continually being broken by technology, multinationals, global elites, and the beast we know as the Leviathan. Out of fear and misfortune the promises of socialism have never appeared better to billions of people starving for a promise of recognition and social justice. 

After World War 1, the economist Ludwig von Mises sought to explain a deeply rooted problem within modernity, “the socialist idea dominates the modern spirit. The masses approve of it. It expresses the thoughts and feelings of all; it has set its seal upon our time” (Mises 1922, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, p. 15). Part of the modern spirit is the belief that the mighty individual deserves whatever it is they desire. This is Nietzsche “last man.” Modernity’s incantation of liberalism, capitalism, secularism, and socialism ultimately produced a society that sought the easy rather than the good life, the mundane instead of the truly spiritual and virtuous life; all the while demanding treasures once only belonging to kings, queens, and heroes. Nietzsche and C.S. Lewis share similar tones in their description over this last, much weaker human. “Men without chests” according to Lewis or “Hallowed chests” according to Nietzsche are descriptives of a culture lacking in virtue and honor, imagination and enterprise. It is the same side of the coin of greediness. Greed is not simply a capitalistic vice, but part of the DNA of mankind including the Marxist offshoot of Neo-marxism.

Admittedly much has occurred since Ludwig wrote those words, but wisdom has a way of redeeming itself through the actions of mankind. Take further Mises conception of Socialism: 

According to the Marxist conception, one’s social condition determines one’s way of thought. His membership of a social class decides what views a writer will express. He is not able to grow out of his class or to free his thoughts from the prescriptions of his class interests. Thus the possibility of a general science which is valid for all men, whatever their class, is contested… Thus Marxism protects itself against all unwelcome criticism… Marx and Engels never tried to refute their opponents with argument. They insulted, ridiculed, derided, slandered, and traduced them, and in the use of these methods their followers are not less expert. Their polemic is directed never against the argument of the opponent, but always against his person. Few have been able to withstand such tactics (pp. 18-19).

This is equally true today of identity politics and postmodernism found in far-left minded groups and political organizations. Any form of opposition is pitted against being called sexist, racist, or diagnosed a Munchausen syndrome by proxy all of which seek to demean rather than provide substantive debate. Free speech has become hate speech by proxy of the groups feeling an inkling of disagreement. Words are being made meaningless; a girl is a boy as a boy is a girl and disagreeing means hate. Scales of privilege were formulated to weigh this new public morality. Higher education perfected these privilege scales of justice that now doctors must obey, students must profess, and corporations will enforce. Disobedience currently results in losing jobs and public humiliation. Yet if history is correct much worse will come. For now society will begin to be put under the restrictions of what I have titled as Progressive Pseudo Dominari of Terms, Ideas, and Practices: A Lexicon of Postmodern Irreality and Oppression. That long-winded title is partly to jest, yet sadly intentional concerning the dominari aspect. Ruling over mankind is a corporate culture mindset found in institutions of higher education, hospitals, governments, and businesses who have adopted these new set of rules. For now with little detail provided some of the terminology in which I am speaking of are cultural appropriation, microaggressions, gender pronouns, white fragility, inclusion, and diversity.

Out of this ill toward different viewpoints, the malaise of modernity created polarization. Unchecked polarization brewed the extremism now found in late modernity. Globalism under late modernity converged and diverged hundreds of belief systems creating a calamity of ideas. Unbeknownst or not, atheists and christians, liberals and conservatives, rich and poor are all finding themselves under a new umbrella concerning the ideas and practices of this age.

Take a look at the Cultural Marxist Movement of Black Lives Matter (now deleted) manifesto: 

The Black Lives Matter Global Network is as powerful as it is because of our membership, our partners, our supporters, our staff, and you. Our continued commitment to liberation for all Black people means we are continuing the work of our ancestors and fighting for our collective freedom because it is our duty. Every day, we recommit to healing ourselves and each other, and to co-creating alongside comrades, allies, and family a culture where each person feels seen, heard, and supported. We acknowledge, respect, and celebrate differences and commonalities. We work vigorously for freedom and justice for Black people and, by extension, all people. We intentionally build and nurture a beloved community that is bonded together through a beautiful struggle that is restorative, not depleting. We are unapologetically Black in our positioning. In affirming that Black Lives Matter, we need not qualify our position. To love and desire freedom and justice for ourselves is a prerequisite for wanting the same for others. We see ourselves as part of the global Black family, and we are aware of the different ways we are impacted or privileged as Black people who exist in different parts of the world. We are guided by the fact that all Black lives matter, regardless of actual or perceived sexual identity, gender identity, gender expression, economic status, ability, disability, religious beliefs or disbeliefs, immigration status, or location. We make space for transgender brothers and sisters to participate and lead.

We are self-reflexive and do the work required to dismantle cisgender privilege and uplift Black trans folk, especially Black trans women who continue to be disproportionately impacted by trans-antagonistic violence. We build a space that affirms Black women and is free from sexism, misogyny, and environments in which men are centered. We practice empathy. We engage comrades with the intent to learn about and connect with their contexts. We make our spaces family-friendly and enable parents to fully participate with their children. We dismantle the patriarchal practice that requires mothers to work “double shifts” so that they can mother in private even as they participate in public justice work. We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable. We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise). We cultivate an intergenerational and communal network free from ageism. We believe that all people, regardless of age, show up with the capacity to lead and learn (Black Lives Matter, What We Believe)

BLM, Mussolini, Karl Marx—they are not all the same by any means but they do all have this innate drive to exterminate the “enemy” at large that systemically oppresses their ability to engage fully all that life has in-store for their résistance à la révolution.  

Late modernity symbolize’s the archetype of a tyrant. Disturbingly tyranny comes in many forms concerning the new coming age. Hence statism, corporatism, and globalism as actors to this effect. Each of these institutions push a similar agenda onto the masses. Employees, citizens, or subjects must use gender pronouns, check their microaggressions, and obey the golden rule of Inclusiveness, Diversity, and Equity! It is no wonder that Jordan Peterson, Stephen Hicks, and James Lindsey see links between Marxism and Postmodernism because the lines have all blurred. And soon we will all become nothing more than blank citizens awaiting an opportunity to be free, for the tent of dust to disappear once more.