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Of Deities and Devils and Global Domination
(I'm feeling contemplative)
I recently spent an hour watching a particularly well-crafted "conspiracy" video. The kind that are everywhere on the Internet and television these days. In fact, over the past month I have been sent video after video of this sort by well meaning friends. Since I like to keep an open mind and believe it's our duty to question all authority, I watched them and tried to discern what level of integrity the makers of the film possessed. I have to admit some of them really made me think and wonder about the truth of various things I believe.
But others were a blatant attempt to instill fear and paranoia to activate my "fight or flight" instinct. Pure manipulation. They began by building a case that was mostly built on fact. Then little by little they diverged into opinions, which were sometimes backed up by a semi-credible witness. Then I noticed a trend. The farther down the road they went toward the conclusion they wanted me to accept, the less they relied on credible witnesses or verifiable facts and the more they just presented opinion and circumstantial evidence as indisputable "fact". In many cases, statements were taken completely out of context to make them substantiate the conclusion the video authors were leading their viewers toward.
Ironically one video purportedly made by a "watchdog" group about the corruption of the mainstream media was itself one of the worst in terms of blatantly corrupting and twisting statements and facts. There wasn't even the slightest attempt at presenting a fair and balanced viewpoint. So I had to wonder, whose watching the "watchdogs"?
Now that's not to say that conspiracies don't exist. Since the beginning of time I suppose one person has schemed about how to gain power over another. But the dirty little secret of our modern society is that there’s big money to be made in "the conspiracy industry". And since a conspiracy by definition is "a SECRET attempt to gain power over an individual or group” anything goes! The more fantastic and outlandish the theory, the more fear it instills and the more books, CDs, DVDs, and movie tickets it sells. Not to mention the guest speaker fees it generates at conferences and on talk shows.
We humans have a love for drama. I suspect that's because we evolved in a world that was a daily battle to survive. In our modern society we seem to invent and consume drama like it was an essential food group. Certainly nothing could happen by good intentions, circumstance or pure coincidence. There must be a conspiracy behind every action taken by a person who has any power. Surely they must be scheming behind those closed doors!
One has to wonder how many conspiracy theories are the works of frustrated fiction writers who have found an eager audience within the ranks of the average citizen looking to be "informed". I also wonder if all the different conspiracy theories are correct and all these many different groups are scheming to take over the world to enslave the general population, will they cancel each other out?
Then there are the truly grand conspiracy theories. The ones that have decided it's better to incorporate than to try to compete. They manufacture one interwoven tapestry of conjecture that ties all the conspiracies together. They borrow a little from any source they can; never mind if the source authors are diametrically opposed in philosophy or ideology. And don’t bother to include the context the statement or opinion was made in, that might weaken or destroy the so-called “connection”.
The upshot of this is that many people become paralyzed by fear. They become ineffective as caring human beings because they suspect everyone and everything. They have no trust or love for their fellow man- especially if they're different. Instead they have only suspicion, which leads to hatred. The only ones they do seem trust are the self-proclaimed “watchdogs”! How convenient. Buying a product or attending a conference gives them a feeling that they have the "inside information" that might just help them survive "when the shit comes down".
So what's an open minded and intellectually curious person to do? Do we just put on the "rose colored glasses" and pretend greed and avarice don't exist in the human race? The conclusion I've come to is that I can't allow myself to react out of fear. I don’t want to be anyone’s puppet. And I must beware of those who seek to manipulate a response through creating paranoia. Fear sparks the animalistic “fight or flight” survival instinct that tells me it's okay to kill another person to ensure my own survival. This then creates a ripple effect the end of which is death and destruction on a massive scale.
The best solution I can see is to dedicate myself to a course of action that makes the world a better place- even if in a small way. In this way I eliminate my feeling of helplessness and create a world around myself that is more kind, generous and loving. Hopefully the ripple effect is that others do the same and society changes for the better. Think about what would happen if all the money spent on conspiracy theory products where put into creating products that fostered more understanding and caring among the people of planet earth- I dare say the world would be a profoundly more peaceful place.
And consider this. If there are those secret groups who are trying to take over the world, they must be counting on being able to fracture the common people along political, religious and/or ideological lines. The old "divide and conquer" ploy. It would be in their best interest to keep the lower base instincts alive in the human race so they can start wars and create political instability. This is where power vacuums are formed and where dictators then step in. History shows us time and time again that when people are afraid they are also most irrational and most likely to give up their freedom to a strong leader.
So here's a whole new theory. What if the "conspiracy products" that purport to reveal the conspiracies are themselves the real conspiracy? The actual agenda of those who seek power being to keep us so paranoid that we spend our time and money on outlandish fear-inducing propaganda and therefore become ineffective and immobilized. The end result being we don't unite in common purpose to make a better world. Ever heard of the term "self-fulfilling prophecy"? Think about it.
Call me a starry-eyed dreamer, but I'm still hopeful for the triumph of the higher human virtues. Those "better angels" of our nature. If they don't find a way to supersede our animal instincts then why would I want to survive to endure the nightmarish world the conspiracy theory "prophets" are predicting? Better to just fold up this mortal cloak and be on to whatever waits beyond this life. At the very least the end of struggle and pain. We're all going to cross that threshold someday; no matter how much power we gain in this short life. And remember, power and happiness seldom (if ever) go hand in hand. The smart move is to surround yourself with as much love and happiness as you’re able while you walk thru this crazy thing we call life. And you can only do that by giving it away.
An original essay by Daniel Wolfert.
This essay may be republished and distributed freely but only in its' entirety and with full credit to the author.
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