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.
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.
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.
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.
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:
Trumphantism: Donald J. Trump & The Post-Trump World
By: E. Kyle Richey
Earth to America: Crashing til Landed
Marredby 2020 the world braces for impact in 2021. Humanity haswitnessed 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.
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.
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.
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).”
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.”
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.
The secular world has long held to a mythos, lasting well into the postmodern era with its disdain towards the existence of metanarratives, that humanity was progressing towards a bright and glorious future. If one were to ask the question to what direction was this progression heading, the answers over time evolved from the grand future of western civilization, being considered the highest ideal of modernity, to the idea of the fruits of progress being shared globally after the upheaval of the world wars. As the cold war ignited, the idea of progress shifted to that of a victory of liberalism over the forces of authoritarianism and after the fall of the Soviet Union, the path towards global progress could be resumed with total fanfare.
The world was forever changed in the intervening years of the great calamities of the twentieth century that bookended the hope of modernism and the scrutiny of postmodernism into the era of late modernity. The forensic approach towards the failings of last modernity fractured the direction of progress into the factions that sought to restore the grand vision of modernity and those who, due to its failings, looked to overhaul, if not start anew progress towards a hopeful future. Does that mean that each proceeding worldview builds upon the rubble of those which it seeks to replace or are they a mere repackaging of an older concept to market something grander in vision?
A great unveiling has been rapidly coalescing from widely disparate parts, each overly concerning to the survival of the liberal values long held as sacrosanct. These disparate parts, once visible only through fleeting glimpses through the veil, have rapidly come into focus, first as the turbulence of the rise of nationalism blew at the thin veneer that had long been the marketed version of what was to come. Either as a manifestation of the adage of never letting a crisis go to waste, or part of a labyrinthine enterprise to move forward a globalist agenda, The Great Reset.
What would have been dismissed merely a year ago as a sheer conspiracy theory, the Great Reset has been announced a proposal to “reset” the global economy, that mirrors the sweeping changes proposed by the Green New Deal . The plan proposes broadly socialist policies and reforms, calling for an end of private ownership and the usual call for equity, inclusion, and social justice as a measure to move the world forward into a glorious vision of the future. Now that the veil has been fully drawn open, the era of plausible deniability has passed.
To those who have been closely watching the leftist agenda over the last few decades, this may come as no surprise as the Great Reset follows the trajectory the progressives have long since been on. Before Covid-19, it looked as if the forces buttressing the rule of law in the west would be able to at least put up a fight in the halls of the legislatures and courts, the pandemic now seems to have been a carrier for something far more virulent than any pathogen. What we are seeing is the goal of the progressive left finally being exhibited for a tired and frightened world as an antidote for their malaise. We can only sit back and wait to see if the gaslighting and sloganeering of the left has been enough of a candy coating for the general populace to be able to swallow this large pill.
To those who have been at the front lines of the culture wars, this serves as no surprise as it has been the expressed position of the left for well over a century. We have seen the gradual infiltration of the halls of academia and the government and we have been warning of the consequences. Now that the veil has been lifted, we must now double our efforts to stem the tide of this grand leftist telos; slowly revealing the great marketing schemes used to promote this shift towards global socialism. The Great Reset will be the greatest threat faced in a millennia; the unholy marriage of socialism and globalism with the groomsmen of big tech and the bridesmaids of academia, once consummated, will be irreversible outside of divine intervention. Lenin must be smiling in his embalmed state; the rebranded Comintern has come to fruition.
Truth In Focus 