The Politics of Stupefaction: How the Human Mind has Been Progressively Dumbed-Down to Become the Absorbent Undiscerning Jello that it is Today

Not Just an Article but a Manifesto...

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PROLOGUE: “Are You Mind-Shaming Me?”

If you took one look at the title of this article and said, “Big words; forget it. I’m outta here!”, then you should read on, because this is plainly for you. 🙂 How easily we run from what we do not understand! How little we persevere to penetrate apparent adversity! How far we have gone in our desire to water everything down, to dilute difficulty, to resist learning, to render everything facile and ‘non-threatening’ to such an extent that they no longer carry their original meaning nor much of any worth at all.

Here in the twenty-fifth year of the twenty-first century, the human mind seems to have become a victim of the Lowest Common Denominator Syndrome. The emphasis today in Western culture is on crass simplification in pursuit of an imagined intellectual equality and in the slavish service of a truth-crushing, socially-engineered ‘political correctness’.

Soundbite Culture

If something taxes people’s minds it is perceived as a threat because it may reveal their ignorance or supposed lack of intellectual ability. “Are you mind-shaming me?” says the dumbed-down soul of today inwardly when faced with material which it assumes to be beyond its understanding. Thus, an artless reductionism and anti-intellectualism have come to pervade the cultures of the Western world. This debacle has even penetrated the churches en masse with superficiality, dumb-literal fundamentalism and subjective emotionalism in place of profundity, true spirituality and didactic teaching. It is almost as if there has been a deliberate conspiracy to render whole populations unable to discern the difference between truth and falsehood, between the real and the phoney, and unable to exercise wisdom and to analyse objectively and logically the world around them. A “Soundbite Culture” has now been established, and it is wreaking havoc on the human mind.

The seeds for this phenomenon were beautifully portrayed nearly forty years ago in Neil Postman’s superb prophetic analysis of dumbed-down culture, entitled “Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business” (Viking/Penguin/Methuen, 1985). I remember reading this for the first time in the early 1990s and it blew me away with its incisive analysis or both society and religion. In this book, Postman makes the statement: “I believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion altogether” (p.121). How perceptive this is. For this is precisely what vast swathes of the church have become, concentrating on amusement and entertainment, titillation, subjective experience and pseudo-mysticism, rather than self-improvement through didactic learning, objective truth and progressive sanctification. In this way (and many others) the visible church has become a mere reflection of the world but with some religious jargon and symbols thrown in to keep up appearances.

One of Postman’s main theses is that the ascendancy of the visual image through films and television has castrated the ability of the human mind to process language and literature. Thus, visual imagery has replaced the written word as the chief medium of “learning” (using that term broadly!) at the expense of profundity and education. As a writer, I can concur with this analysis completely (having demonstrated it experimentally on a number of occasions). One can put a photo of a sunset on Fakebook and get many dozens of responses. But follow that up with a profound and searching poem on the same medium and you will be lucky if it gets any response at all. Put simply, most people do not like reading anymore. They do not read; they do not do any research. They soak up memes and soundbites on the internet but they will eschew a book as boring, whether in physical or eBook format. I remember spending many excited and fascinating hours per day in the Bodleian Library in Oxford in the 1990s while researching for books I was writing. I found it exhilarating, like a swashbuckling adventure! Just to be surrounded by books was like a love story. At that time there were still many people who would find the same exhilaration in reading the results of my researches. But not anymore. One will be fortunate to find a dedicated few (very few) who will relish the written word. But, in the main, that mindset of in-depth reading and profound research has vanished. This can be directly traced to be coincidental with the ascendancy of the internet in the early 2000s. Why do any research oneself if it has already been done by crackpots on the internet and diluted into soundbites and daft claims? That seems to be the thinking, and it is immensely detrimental to both the individual and the direction of society.

This debilitated state of mind in both world and church is, of course, very helpful to the ruling powers of the world, in whose interests it is to prevent penetrating intelligence from flowering and instead to encourage dumbed-down stupefaction and an unenquiring mind. This is precisely why the development of intellect has been so stunted and a passive, unquestioning mind has been so encouraged over recent decades. “IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH” was one of Big Brother’s slogans in George Orwell’s book “Nineteen Eighty-Four”. But the ignorance of the people only gives “strength” to the hegemonial powers. This is why all members of society should do their level best to be achievers in the realm of self-education and societal perception. One can only really accomplish that satisfactorily through reading choice material (i.e. material which is didactic and productive in terms of the development of the mind and soul).

If one is put off when faced with some words which one doesn’t understand, then that is self-undermining. It is the literary equivalent of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face! One should acquire a dictionary and expand one’s vocabulary. We have not been given minds to waste them. If a writer uses a ‘big word’, do not immediately assume that s/he must be showing off or that s/he is a pretentious intellectual. No one acquires a large vocabulary genetically; it comes through diligent study and a willingness to learn.

There comes a point when one realises that words carry a power which is verging on the supernatural. Fully experiencing the richness of vocabulary and expression is part of what it means to be a free spirit. This is precisely why, in Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four”, the limited verbal system of “Newspeak” was developed. It not only eliminated what the state considered to be ‘unnecessary’ words, but it also naturally led to a narrowing of thought and, therefore, to the stultifying of perception and awareness. The dumbing-down of today — in which people use the small size of their phones as an excuse for failing to read an article, or they complain about the length of a piece if it is more than a couple of paragraphs long — is the non-fictitious version of Newspeak!

It is no coincidence that one of the first acts of any dictator when s/he comes to power is to remove or assassinate the academics, creatives, artists, writers, and thinkers. Penetrative minds must be dumbed-down by them or destroyed. Then the way is paved for the building of their desired totalitarian empire, which is the very real goal of the power-elite in this world at the present time.

The Other Side of the Dumbing-Down Coin

Another aspect of this dumbing-down has gone in the opposite direction to a mere unquestioning passivity. This is when people grow so suspicious of everything that they become obsessed with conspiracies and see them happening where they do not necessarily exist, or they are very much exaggerated. (Flat Earth theory is a classic example of this, which has taken such a hold over the minds of those in the church who do not understand the use of symbol, metaphor and allegory in certain words of the Bible). That then becomes all that they talk about and a kind of paranoid obsession sets in. They may even become entranced by some wayward leader.

Although such people imagine they are highly awake (a variation on being ‘woke’) and speak disparagingly of those who do not share their whacked-out theories, in fact they have become just as useful to the power-elite as the ones who sleepwalk through the world. When they do their ‘research’, it merely consists of finding material which sensationally bolsters their already-stilted narrative and belief-system. What such folk do not realise is that a great many false notions about conspiracies are seeded by ‘controlled opposition’ through intelligence agencies in order to lead people off the scent and send them shinning up a disused telegraph-pole rather than going down the right street. The power-elite does not like people to wake up genuinely and fully, so they insert operatives into the proceedings who seem to say all the right things but who cleverly lead you onto false paths in order to undermine your equilibrium and scupper your useful perception. They are very happy for you to wake up partially so long as they can get you believing so much other nonsense that no one will take you seriously except the other crazy folks who think like you. Truly, these days, one needs the hide of a rhinoceros and the skillset of a world-class spy in order to keep one’s head above water and not fall into either passivity (sleepwalking) or false activism (obsessive conspiracism) — for both of these are just different forms of dumbing-down and the stupefaction of the human mind.

The Difference Between True Intelligence and IQ

Let me stress here that the dumbing-down and stupefaction of which I write in this piece have nothing whatsoever to do with Intelligence Quotient (IQ). I have known PhD’s whose level of perception, teachability and ability to understand truth and logic are virtually non-existent; and I have known completely uneducated people (in some cases even semi-literate) with a powerful desire to learn and an ability to grow in depth of understanding and intellectual prowess. This is especially the case when those relatively uneducated people discover the truth about the Christ and why He came to earth. For there is a powerful, incisive kind of intelligence which lies altogether outside of conventional IQ considerations. The mere motivation to acquire truthful knowledge carries its own momentum for self-education. A lazy mind will assuredly remain ignorant, whereas a lively mind will inevitably develop.

“Please Make Your Articles Shorter!”

However, everywhere around us is a mass of evidence revealing the disease of “dumbed-downness” — a mind which has gone “out to lunch” and which will not be returning to work in the afternoon. The ability to think rationally and creatively has been overturned in favour of superficiality and the acceptance of illusory limitations. Regularly, people write to me and say something like this: “Please make your articles shorter. I cannot possibly read them on my phone as it taxes my eyes too much”. My reply is this: “If you were concerned about your emotional, psychological and spiritual health as much as you claim to be concerned about the physical health of your eyes, then you would stop using a phone for reading in-depth articles (as it is plainly unsuitable) but would instead ensure at all costs that you acquired a tablet, laptop or desktop computer”. Frankly, if someone refuses to upgrade from a phone for the purposes of digesting decent reading matter, then it is a sign that they have no desire to learn but wish to remain in their little bubble of ignorance, using the size of the screen of their phone as a lame excuse for their laziness. The attitude should not be: “Sorry, I’ve only got a phone so I can’t read any articles”. Instead, it should be: “I’ve only got a phone so I’d better upgrade from such a small device, then I can read some meaty material and educate myself as that is my duty as a responsible human being and servant of God!” I have even, on occasion, offered to buy such folks a cheap tablet, but they always make another excuse as to why that wouldn’t work for them.

The Politics of Stupefaction

The problem is that after years of dumbing-down and superficial communications, the thirst for learning has been almost entirely eradicated. It seems that rather than wanting to be challenged and educated by in-depth writings on a subject, most people would rather merely have their current narrative or belief system bolstered by shallow memes, frivolous GIFS, and YouTube videos performed by lightweight, tendentious people who merely know how to play to the crowd and gather a following. All of this is part of, and what has led to, what I call ‘The Politics of Stupefaction’. The primary meaning of ‘stupefaction’ is, “The state of being stupefied; numbness, torpor, insensibility” — basically, mindless and stupid. The experience of stupefaction is like being drunk on superficiality. Imagine that! There is a politics to that stupefaction which has been playing centre-stage for decades and it is now really coming to fruition.

There are two related influences in which these ‘politics of stupefaction’ have mesmerised the collective mind of humanity: The demise of didacticism and the sabotage of stillness. What I believe is a deliberate social engineering of these two debilitating influences has massively undermined the collective mind’s ability to be discerning, insightful, steadfast, penetrating and incisive. It has even undermined the ability to judge between right and wrong, truth and falsehood, real from imaginary. So let’s now open this up…

I. THE DEMISE OF DIDACTICISM

First, a definition of didacticism: “Communication that is suitable for teaching or intended to be instructive”. So, how do people learn? There are three primary — and complementary — instruments of learning. The first instrument of learning is by example. From the very beginning we are involved in the process of mimicry and imitation. At the tenderest age we smile out from our crib when Mother smiles into it. Later we are influenced by successive peer groups whose role-modelling has enormous influence in our lives. A second instrument of learning is what is known as heuristics. The word “heuristic” comes from the Greek word eurisko, which means “to find” or “discover”. The well-known Greek word eureka is related to it. This involves the process whereby we make discoveries through the trial-and-error experiences of living. For example, when a child touches the radiator and discovers that it burns his or her hand, s/he will not do that again. Learning has taken place. Heuristics in action. Like the instrument of example, learning through heuristics begins at a very early age and lasts throughout our lives. In order for this instrument of learning to be productive, one must be open to its lessons or one will repeat the same mistakes over and over again.

A third instrument of learning is what is known as didactics. The word “didactic” comes from the Greek word didasko, which means “to teach” in the sense of objective instruction. It is not enough for us to learn by example or by the process of heuristics. We need practical, concrete instruction in many areas of living. A child can learn by experience that a flame is too hot, but s/he must be taught by objective instruction, rather than example or experience, that s/he must not cross the road when cars are coming. Didactic instruction implies some kind of authority — preferably a healthy one. Didactic instruction indicates that there is someone who knows more than oneself, someone who possesses impartible wisdom. It also demonstrates that there is one whose ignorance must be exchanged for enlightenment. One of the first steps towards wholesome education is to admit one’s ignorance. Ignorance is nothing to be ashamed of if the one who is ignorant is willing to learn.

Not very long ago, people did not need always to indulge in “multimedia experiences” in order to grasp an idea. They had not yet been deceived by visual imagery to such an extent that it made a mere ‘talking head’ appear to be archaic and boringly immobile. They had not yet been infected with the modern virus of having high self-esteem, which dictates that a person must not be subjected to having humiliating feelings of ignorance by the obvious knowledge of an authoritative teacher.

Self-esteem is very different to self-confidence. What people today call “self-esteem” is more akin to narcissism than simply having confidence in oneself. I can have confidence in myself to do something or be someone but I do not need to esteem myself highly or continually praise myself because of it. As a result of the poor upbringing of so many today — in that they were very often put-down or ridiculed or undermined as children by parents and teachers — the feelings of inferiority generated by this treatment has led to an over-compensatory need to aggrandise the self through “self-esteem workshops” in which exercises are taught such as looking at oneself every day in the mirror and telling oneself one is wonderful, amazing, a genius and a star. This push to create self-esteem throughout the world today has had a very profound effect on the didactic learning process. Because of the underlying feelings of inferiority (which are now masked by the techniques of self-esteem but not truly removed by them) many people resent having an authority-figure teaching them. The process of generating this phoney self-esteem thus undermines the learning process and people become unteachable. A person can be self-confident but that would not take away the desire to be taught authoritatively by a knowledgeable person. A person with “high self-esteem” can never be truly humble. Self-confidence never takes away humility whereas the notion of high self-esteem always does. Humility and self-effacement are a vital aspect of spirituality. Without them, the world becomes overwhelmed by a stultifying egotism, self-centredness and narcissism.

The Wrong Examples of Learning Are Everywhere Followed

Furthermore, in former times, the paltry ‘soundbites’ so prominent today in political circles and in the media would have been regarded as unsatisfactory vehicles for the successful propagation of ideas. Superficiality and its twin-sister, sentimentality (not to be confused with the infinitely more profound art of Romanticism), will abound if didactics do not take precedent in the field of learning. Yet this is precisely what has happened in the world today, as the process of human learning has disintegrated. The wrong examples are everywhere followed. The latest mindless pop group has more influence over young people than their parents or the collective sagacity of wise community leaders. The most authoritative people today for the majority of young people are mindless ‘Reality TV’ shows and pretty vacant YouTube influencers. Learning by experience has degenerated into selective, subjective experientialism (“it feels good to me”), both in the world and in the visible church. But by far the greatest casualty in the learning process of the world has been objective instruction — didacticism. For the degeneration of the two other instruments of learning has come about as a direct result of the demise of didacticism. When you take authoritative learned instruction out of the equation, then ignorance, foolishness, and a failure to learn from experience will abound.

The demise of didacticism has not happened in a vacuum. True didacticism instructs in order to effect an increase in knowledge, personal ability and discernment. However, there have been very definite influences and movements which have deterred its presence in modern culture. The process of watching television which bewitches so many for such a long stretch of their lives has been one of the greatest single enemies of didacticism. Almost everything about television dictates against the exercise of didactic learning. One does not have to think when watching television. It does the thinking for you with a series of socially-engineering images. Nothing is left to the imagination (as it would be if one were reading an article or book). It creates an ersatz world which prevents you from formulating an objective worldview. Not only does the process of modern television-watching remove didacticism but even the format of many influential programmes today militates against didacticism. For example, it is increasingly common for news readers to look as if they somehow dropped in for a casual chat while they sit on the edge of a desk with a piece of scrap paper. This is deliberately designed to reduce the objective nature of news reading. No one must feel threatened by any kind of authority and nothing must look as if it is authoritatively true.

If a media personality uses one or two ‘big words’, she will receive bitter complaints from the public about his or her lack of empathy or over-academic approach, or he will be accused of intellectualism and showing off. It is seen as degrading to ask humbly for the meaning of a word or even having to look that word up in a dictionary. Yet, this is precisely how one grows in knowledge and understanding. So many do not want to appear to be (in their thinking) ‘stupid’. But there is nothing stupid about the desire for self-education.

The Brain’s Trust is No More

When I was a child, there was a popular programme on BBC television, called “The Brain’s Trust”. Each week, a panel of very brainy men and women would answer pithy questions with no prior knowledge of those questions. It was fascinating and I was deeply impressed. I remember one of the panel, Prof. Jacob Bronowski, would listen to the question then he would put his hand to his forehead and quietly think for some time before answering. That would not happen today. Not only because most TV is not centred on intelligence or personal development, but questions have to be answered snappily with lots of posing and even tomfoolery in the case of chat shows and the like. There is no room for people being interviewed today to think quietly or to deliberate, or they will be accused of stalling and will probably become the object of the usual ‘torch and pitchfork’ ridicule on Twitter with sardonic memes being created depicting someone with a hand on their forehead. (If you want to amuse yourself, checkout this account about MI5’s bungling twenty-year ‘keystone cops’ style of surveillance campaign against Bronowski, the highlight of which (and which was seen as subversive) was when he wrote a poem entitled “How I Hate War”, http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_9444000/9444270.stm ).

For over many decades, entertainment and the media have engaged in a projected campaign to dumb us down by maintaining our interest in superficial claptrap, diversionary nonsense, or pretentious blather. Rigged competitions, ludicrous game shows, documentaries presented by mere entertainers rather than genuine experts, obsession with celebrities and their lifestyles/clothing, moronic chat shows with zero content, a plethora of soap-operas, so-called reality TV, and heavily propagandized news media have all contributed to the demise of the discerning mind. The growth of political-correctness has also played into (and been a symptom of) the stupefaction of the human mind and its endemic aversion to being challenged by truth.

The attention-span of most people and the depth of knowledge and understanding they desire to have on any serious subject has depleted immeasurably in recent decades. An essay such as this will be read by very few, for people are generally disinterested in an abundance of information (what I call “Black Forest Gateau Input”) and expect their knowledge bank to be filled up adequately by a ‘meme’ or soundbite or soap opera, or some brainwashed talking-head on TV.

The result of these decades of preparation in dumbing-down the ability of the human mind to make critical judgements and to think logically (i.e., being able to work through from a premise to a conclusion) has been the openness of the mass mind to receive propaganda unquestioningly as if it were fact, to easily soak up falsehoods and pseudo-conspiracies, and to abandon the level of discernment necessary to decipher corruption and skulduggery. Puffed up and full of their imagined importance, yet without any substance, people have become extraordinarily capable of hurling insults at someone who presents them with an uncomfortable truth on X/Twitter but utterly unable to see through the psychological warfare being waged against them by their own government — thus demonstrating the depth of their stupefaction by social engineering.

Much of this has been engineered through the medium of television. I remember talking to a knowing old man on a far-flung Scottish island who said he would not have a television in the house because it was as if “the devil had his eye in your living room and his tail up on your chimney stack”! I get it. Do you?

Deliberate Dumbing-Down in the Media

A former head of the BBC World Service and a BBC Newsnight presenter — a man with a long history in broadcasting and the arts — John Tusa, publicly  stated in a 2005 speech entitled the “Media and the Arts” at the Athenaeum Club in London that he left the BBC because there was a deliberate policy of dumbing down. [See http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/apr/18/media.bbc ]. On the subject of the “dumbing-down” of culture, he said that programmes — and especially news broadcasts — had become almost monosyllabic so as to avoid making anyone feel hurt or ignorant because they could not understand certain words which may be used. He said that whereas at one time if one didn’t know a word one would be motivated to discover its meaning, the accent today was on crass simplification in the cause of a false ‘equality’ and political correctness. He also complained about the way that documentaries on a serious subject such as the arts, archaeology or history would very often be presented by a well-known entertainer — in the hunt for higher viewer ratings — rather than by an expert on the subject, which undermined the didactic element of the programme and reduced it to the rank of entertainment rather than documentary.

The Popular Rejection of Authoritative Leadership

The concept of authoritative leadership has been challenged to such an extent that for someone to be “in charge” or “at the helm” is regarded as being completely outmoded and even as an object of ridicule. When I showed a concert of classical music to a friend for the first time in her life, one of her first remarks afterwards was to sneer at the way that the musicians watched the conductor for his cues, “as if they looked up to him as someone to be followed, like they were dependent on him or something”. She especially didn’t like that look of dependence in the eyes of the musicians. She resented the authority wielded by the conductor. That is a classic standpoint which has been fashioned by the dumbing-down industry; the failure to distinguish between false authority (in which some puffed-up individual wields control over others for wrongful means) and true authority, which is necessary and desirable for the well-being of society and for the proliferation of knowledge. An orchestral conductor is an archetypal authority figure who either instils resentment and rebellion in the ignorant and immature or admiration and respect in those who appreciate the need for musical ensemble and symphony rather than chaos and cacophony. Of course, an orchestral conductor can behave in a horribly dictatorial fashion without any regard for the feelings of the musicians. But that is not what we are speaking about here. The conductor concerned was the late Claudio Abbado, who is the very epitome of a sensitive gentleman and a conductor to whom one could indeed look up, and who musicians universally admired. [Let us not forget that, although Abbado (an avowed anti-fascist) was an authoritative and influential orchestral leader, when he was chief conductor and artistic director at La Scala in Milan, he insisted on giving concerts which were cheap enough for the poorer members of society to attend].

The situation today is that true authority is now parodied as being akin to dictatorship, and paraded by “experts” as an undesirable influence on social life. A consequence of this has been that a didactic teacher is perceived to be a subversive influence because he instructs pupils preceptively (didactically) rather than merely “facilitating their self-learning processes” — as dictated by trendy education theoreticians today. Thus, a “talking head” engaging in instruction becomes perceived not only as boring but even obscene and anachronistic in the eyes of many today. Instead of the wisdom of the wise being a precious commodity, everyone’s viewpoint becomes valid and there is no single “right” answer to anything and we’re all on the same level. It is what I call the “Fish ‘n Chips Syndrome” — we all fish around and everyone chips in. What a recipe for disaster that is! To speak of truth these days as being in any sense objective is likely to result in a sneer or even a vehement diatribe. As a result, many people today know very little about anything except their own subjective feelings.

The main problem has been that if something cannot immediately be understood by someone, then it is perceived as a dangerous threat rather than a life-enhancing challenge. It threatens to expose the current inequalities of intellectual ability which inevitably prevail in any society. Therefore, in the interests of maintaining the illusion of intellectual equality, authoritative teaching is then dumbed-down to such an extent that it becomes virtually non-existent. The irony is that in dumbing knowledge down so as to avoid offending the less knowledgeable it actually works against itself in that it can only increase the level of ignorance! So the question must be asked: Which is more important — to avoid offending the ignorant by highlighting their ignorance (and thus decreasing their potential for knowledge) or to reduce their ignorance by introducing them to new concepts and knowledge and encouraging them to learn?

The Three Types of Ignorance

Our ability to become knowledgeable human beings revolves around how we respond to our state of ignorance. We can say that there are three kinds of ignorance in this life: Happy ignorance, simple ignorance and wilful ignorance. Happy ignorance is an ignorance which is usually profitable for us. There are unspeakable things in this world which it is better for us never to know anything about. The agonized screams of a raped child. The chaotic debacle of mortal combat in battle. It is better that we remain happily ignorant of them. I’m not speaking about escapism or hiding our heads in the sand or pretending that such things do not exist; for that is something very different. I simply mean that there is no need for everyone to be exposed to all the details of that which sensitive souls have no need to experience. Some brave souls have to clean such messes up. They will not remain happily ignorant and they will carry that awful knowledge in their hearts. But this does not apply to everyone. Fortunately. Then there is simple or natural ignorance. This is when we do not really understand things such as what binds particles together. That is a simple ignorance. It doesn’t necessarily affect me whether I know it or not, unless it is a vital knowledge. I can choose, though, to try and understand it. Simple ignorance is a desirable condition if the one affected by it is willing to learn! Simple ignorance is a great opportunity for us to do so. An empty vessel is no bad thing because it can always be filled and, indeed, should be if preferable and possible. On the other hand, wilful ignorance is when a person is so opposed to expanded knowledge and truth that he or she is actually prepared to resist it. As soon as they hear views different from their own, they do not investigate them to see if they may be correct but begin to slander those who hold those views and even set out to destroy them. One can see this happen again and again in this world. Wilful ignorance is always inexcusable, and this is what lies at the heart of so much stupefaction in the world today.

You can easily tell the difference between wilful and natural ignorance. Natural ignorance rejoices when it hears things explained more adequately, whereas the one who is wilfully ignorant becomes puffed up with pride, refuses to accept instruction and even wrongly accuses those who hold the knowledge which he or she refuses to learn. It is said that “the road to hell is paved with good intentions” but it is much more paved with wilful ignorance!  Wilful ignorance entails the deliberate eschewing of necessary knowledge — a contrived naïveté, if I may put it like that. The first type of ignorance (happy) is a blissful one. The second type of ignorance (simple or natural) is a hunger which longs to be satisfied, a hole which aches to be filled and a seed which yearns to be grown. The third type of ignorance (wilful) is a defensive wall which hates to be shattered, is content with what is already known and resistant to what is as yet unknown.

Unless we are willing to shed our pride and take on board the need to learn from authoritative sources — seeing this as non-threatening and actually life-enhancing — then ignorance will only deepen, and the age of empire will return to this planet in such an outrageously totalitarian manner that it will make the antics of Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler and Big Brother seem like a Boy Scouts’ tea-party. And, without a doubt, as prophecy reveals, this is indeed what will come upon this world.

The politics of stupefaction has not only been influenced by the demise of didacticism but also by another even more profound factor: namely, the sabotage of stillness. Let us look into this fascinating and rewarding subject…

II. THE SABOTAGE OF STILLNESS

This may come as a surprise to readers in an article about dumbing-down and stupefaction, but the quality of stillness in the life of the human being is an absolute necessity without which we will wither and decay — mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and even physically. Stillness naturally leads to contemplation and poise. Have you ever ascended a mountain and watched a sunrise or sunset? The stillness is so poignant that it reaches to the heart of our being and inspires. In fact, it becomes almost painful (in a good way — as if beauty is both awesome and excruciatingly delicious). You can touch it — and, in turn, it touches you with its mystery. There is nothing mystical about this. Mysterious… yes. But that is different to “mystical”. How we need to understand the difference between “mystery” and “mysticism”! Stillness is the fount of creativity. Mystery is at the heart of all that is profound and excellent. My joint-favourite poet, ee cummings (my other favourite being Wilfred Owen), wrote this extraordinary poem:

n
OthI
n
g can
s
urPas
s
the m
y
SteR
y
of
s
tilLnes
s

As a wordsmith, I marvel at the way that Cummings plays with the stuff of language. Writing  that seven-word statement in that unconventional way slows the reader down so that he or she not only grasps the meaning but also enters into the concept. (Poetically speaking there is also a powerful, deliberate symmetry in there, but we’ll leave the poetry analysis to one side for the moment! Mathematics geniuses and other obsessives may want to pursue that further…).

Stillness is indeed a mystery which we need to experience and enjoy. Why? At the very least, so that we can leave our thrusting selves behind. So that we can stand on the edge of an ocean and know things we would otherwise have missed. So that we can think outside the box which has been prepared for us by the enemies of a freely exploring mind. In that stillness, poised in attention, we are much more likely to be confronted with spiritual reality, the frailty of the self, the madness of the fallen ego, the scent of truth, and the desire to learn.

How Stillness is Destroyed (or, at Least, Avoided)

One gets the distinct impression, in these restless, dreadfully prosaic days of ours, that the necessity for stillness has been completely undermined by what seems to be a deliberate policy of barbarity. For that mystery of stillness — and our necessity for it — has been sabotaged and subverted by a melange of media today.

Take, for example, the way that children are bombarded with images in the programmes which have been made especially for them on television. Have you noticed how the camera shot is constantly changing every few seconds (or less) so that one never gets a chance to alight on an image and study it lingeringly, carefully and discerningly? This constantly changing image is especially the case with pop music shows, where the picture can be almost stroboscopic. This destroys the power of concentration. In TV magazine shows targeted at young people, there is usually a continual pulsating murmur of pop music in the background, which soon turns the young listener into an addict. The same mind-numbing addiction can be seen in the carefully marketed proliferation of ‘game consoles’ and ‘X-Boxes’, and similar distractions which addict the mind and dumb it down, where the obsessive thumb-clicking players are sucked into a shady underworld vortex of gung-ho ‘sword and sorcery’ bravado — the ultimate way to undermine equilibrium and eradicate wholesomeness.

Thoughtfulness, incisive discernment, and presence of mind are rarely encouraged in the world of the child today. This influence has suffused itself across the world in tentacular fashion. In the media, young people are continually being programmed with what to think, and how to think it — if they think at all, that is. This is all part of the sinister way that children’s ability to discern and analyse has been completely undermined. After all, an analytically logical mind would be highly seditious in today’s world. The mystery of stillness — that place where we can become alert “discerners”, or where we can for once shut up and listen to what lies beyond us — has been almost destroyed. One even needs a sense of inner stillness in order to learn from written communication or an authoritative voice, for that is where concentration begins.

If you have been wondering why “youth” cannot tolerate the presence of a “talking head” (i.e. a teacher or preacher) in a public address or a sermon today but instead demands trendy “multimedia” presentations in a church, consider the fate of “stillness” in their lives as seminal to that frame of mind. To place the pre-programmed, de-stilled “youf” of today on a pedestal in churches and tailor everything to their dumbed-down minds (as many do) is the height of folly. The mystery of stillness — that place where we can become alert discerners, or where we can for once shut up and know what God is telling us — has been destroyed. Instead, stillness has been parodied in so-called “tongues-speaking” in gibberish, or everyone with their arms waving in the air, eyes-closed in an altered state of consciousness chanting ludicrously soppy choruses, which is all more pagan than Christian. That is not real stillness but a satanic, hypnotic emotionally-manipulative counterfeit that is very blaring in its ‘noise’.

Another very noisy element on walking into many churches is all those judgemental little minds whirring away noisily as they look you up and down. Have you seen them and heard them? What a enormous judgemental racket they make! They’re smiling fulsomely at the door, “Welcome!”, but in their hearts are a myriad of questions to which they are dying to sus out the answers. Are you wearing the “right” garb? Are you divorced (yeah, they’ll dump you bigtime for that). Are you reading the “right” Bible version (according to some wacky article they’ve read about versions)? Are you a Cessationist? Are you a Replacementist? Are you an anythingother-ist? Are you conforming to society? Are you a rebel, a maverick? Are you this? Are you that? I’m sure you must have experienced this. If you haven’t, then you are sleepwalking into church (which most do). What an odious racket it all is!

Muzak – An Enemy of Stillness

That destruction of stillness has also been avidly pursued in many television programmes and movies. In countless drama productions and films today, we find background music, often hypnotically sinister and on a synthesiser, being played continuously. Have you noticed this? It seems that people are so unable to experience the necessary emotions that there has to be a musical accompaniment in order to make that happen. One cannot even travel in a lift (US: elevator) or walk through a shopping centre today without ‘muzak’. (See https://web.archive.org/web/20091124105941/http://www.muzak.com/music/ for a creepy presentation of the manipulative concept of “audio architecture”). This is where the medium of literature scores massively against that of the visual image. For in reading a book, you have to make your own music. You have to imagine. You have to use your mind. But in the visual media today, it is all done for you. Again, the opportunity for critical analysis and necessary stillness is destroyed.

All this is rather similar to the way in which people cannot tolerate pauses in a conversation and have to fill every possible nook and cranny with a mundane scribble of words. But those lost pauses can sometimes be more meaningful than the conversation itself! For in the pauses, one has the opportunity to consider what has just been said. Stillness in conversation is vital. It aids empathy; it aids communication; it aids thoughtful dialogue. It aids listening to the ‘music’ which lies behind all words.

Stillness is an infinitely more powerful weapon than any sword could ever be. It carries its own whirlwind and it should devastate the prevailing spirit of self-centredness if it is to do its proper work. For in stillness we can reach beyond ourselves and find ourselves confronted with truth and reality, which should be welcomed, no matter how uncomfortable that may be.

Stillness Means Knowing Who God is and What He is About

When God says, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10), that has often been manipulated (dumbed-down) by New Spirituality folks as us saying, “Be still and know that I am God”, which, in New Age mystico-speak means, “Meditate and discover the God you really are”. But, as usual, when these folks quote the Bible, they always take it out of context. Right away, we can see that the real Bible does not use the words, “Be still and know that I am God” as if it is us saying it, but it is actually quoting God Himself as saying, “Be still, and know that I am God”. Be still and know that HE is God, not us! This whole psalm is about God addressing the heathen nations and telling them to stop seething around with their raging warfare and incessant battles against the people of God.

In this verse, quoted out of context by so many, it is as if God’s voice was booming from heaven at all those deluded heathen nations, “Cease your godless, idolatrous chaotic tumult, still yourselves, and realise that I AM the one true God and all your gods are as nothing!” That is really what lies behind this verse and the whole psalm. God Himself is saying: “Be still, and know that I am God!” In other words, “Hush! Your endless turmoil and striving are useless. Discover who is really the one true God”. Thus, stillness — ceasing one’s mad egocentric rushingness and endless self-validation — is a prerequisite to getting in sync with God and who He really is and what He has really done and what He is going to do. This is the REAL meditation. Not the satanic counterfeit which claims to be providing a technique to achieve “god-consciousness”, but the real thing, which involves first developing a consciousness of God as being other than oneself and the mighty Creator! Out of that stillness should come an awareness of who Deity is and what should be our relationship with Him.

EPILOGUE: Beyond Manipulation, Mind-Control & Propaganda

It takes courage today to resist the politics of stupefaction and avoid becoming one of the ragged dumbed-down rabble of the world. We need to overcome our fear of ignorance and misplaced embarrassment about any lack of knowledge. We must begin to see wisdom and true authority as life-enhancing rather than ego-threatening. If we develop our ability to be ‘still’ — poised in attention — in all situations, we will see beyond the ‘what appears to be’ and begin to discern what really IS.

We need to become people who can enter stillness as easily as we enter a room. Stand back, look and listen everywhere you are. Be self-aware of your own noise and hyper-aware of the noises of others (especially the seemingly quiet noises). Rise above the dumb-down programming of busy-ness imposed by external influences. Do not allow yourself to be bombarded by other people’s spurious images, truncated messages or emotionally manipulative music, which suppress the flowering of your individuality and perception. When you do this, you will be able to be still and discern the truth of any moment, for every moment carries a tsunami of truth, interior and exterior. You will then be beyond hypnosis, beyond suggestion, beyond propaganda, beyond manipulation, beyond the mind control of governments and oppressive empires.

Those pseudo-powers will have their day, for now — by Divine permission — is their hour and the power of darkness. In time, they will be dust and their spirits will be dispersed into the Stygian realms where they belong, and then there will be a new heaven and new earth in which will be found only those who have wholly loved truth in this illusory world of deception and fallenness. But while the current world-powers (human and discarnate) have their permitted ascendency in the cosmos, if one first forges a relationship with God through His Christ, and then enthusiastically educates oneself in fullness, one will be wholly outside of their sphere of influence and — regardless of what hideous, dastardly things they can do to us physically — one will therefore be unable to be affected by them mentally, emotionally, or spiritually.

Nothing could be more necessary at this watershed point in the history of this doomed civilisation.

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© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2023
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]