“The practice of discernment is part of a higher consciousness. Discernment is not just a step up from judgment. In life’s curriculum, it is the opposite of judgment. Though judgment a {person} reveals what {she or he} needs to confront and learn. Through discernment, one reveals what has been mastered” Glenda Green.
I previously posted pieces on this blog about scientism (see Scientism: A Barrier to Progress – The Scourge of Censorship (August 2020) and how our social discourse has been hijacked by the mainstream and social media (see The Psychology of Sustainability – Part 4: Healing Ourselves to Heal the Planet {July 2020}) in which control of our social narratives has become extreme and polarizing. I find it alarming that everything, especially medical issues, have become so polarized that discussion not only has stopped but alternative information to mainstream belief systems is demonized and slowly becoming censored to the point of legal muffling by authoritarian controllers.
This is ‘Big Brother’ stuff told in detail by George Orwell in his classic book 1984. Much like the real Soviet Union did before its collapse in 1991, Orwell uses a state called Oceania as his template outlining how totalitarian states can absolutely control its citizens. The controlling leaders of the mythical Oceania keeps citizens busy with work and committees, and actively discourages them from forming real relationships by constantly censoring them and all information. People are actively expected to fully support only the controllers mainstream narrative with penalties for those who think outside the prescribed lines of thinking. Indeed, sophisticated or original thoughts are actively controlled by limiting the type and number of words they can use in any conversation – because ‘Big Brother’ is always watching (absolute surveillance). Everyone lives in fear of the ‘state’ and of each other not knowing who is a friend or an informer to the state. That is just one aspect of blindly accepting mainstream narratives without discernment.
Truth Bias is where we automatically accept sources of information we trust (see my post A New Beginning– Part 8: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics {February 2021}). Discernment is the quality of being able to grasp and comprehend what is obscure from what seems obvious. Discernment is to recognize that kind of truth-bias filter and to start questioning everything, even when you do agree, and to remain completely open-minded before coming to a conclusion on whether anything is validity or not. The tendency for most people is to accept or reject information and ideas based only on their belief structures without assessing why they have certain beliefs.
In another previous post (Coming Back Into Our Sovereignty – Part 12: Freeing Ourselves on the Internet – part 2 – Breaking through the Noise {March 2021}) I emphasize the need for conscious thinking with wisdom and discernment. I see so much more separation occurring, even more radically because of Covid than ever before. If we are to create a new and better world we have to come together and talk for understanding each other, not as a way to alienate those not in complete agreement. Much of what we think we believe is just opinion which we invest with our ego’s.
“It does take great maturity to understand that the opinion we are arguing for is merely the hypothesis we favor, necessarily imperfect, probably transitory, which only very limited minds can declare to be a certainty or a truth” Milan Kundera.
An aspect of this current social censorship we are experiencing is that even arguments are curtailed. It’s not about fining ways to defeat opposition but of creating safe space to have rational discourse to find common ground where we can live more harmoniously with each other. “The aim of any argument or discussion should not be victory but progress” Carl Popper. Yet, the current climate exists because so many ‘true believers’ of the mainstream narrative are obsessed with safety and near-zero risk.
It is a strange place we find ourselves in because of technological legislation (like OHSA in the USA) requiring safe working environments and then legislation for environmental safety. Nothing wrong with that, except it has this odd side effect that we expect everything in life to be totally safe. It is a phenomenon called Safetyism – an obsession that no risk and absolute safety are primary. In 2015, Lukianoff and Haidt argued that overprotection was having a negative effect. Everything is now being told in anecdotes and hypothetical factoids to which people attach themselves and less and less in real facts and data. Restrictions on movement, communication, and freedom are now commonplace and slowly becoming the norm. Misuse and abuse of power by political and corporate systems interested in control for reasons rarely, if ever, work for the public good.
On the one hand we have lots of regulations to protect us from our own stupidity, like warning labels on everything (like do not stand on freezer wearing socks or do not put hand into a working blender), but laws and regulations on corporate misdeeds continue to be increasingly harder to create with corporate lobbying controlling the debate floors of governments around the world. Public policy is increasingly becoming corporate preference. The past 18 months of Covid control has been policy by the preferences of big-name academics and corporate scientific talking heads and less about the needs and interests of the common people, although they use that latter reason to justify the crapola we have been going through.
A popular meme I have heard frequently to discredit anyone asking rational questions, is “Follow the Science,” which actually means that social media and rambling mainstream news pundits use it to push policy preferences with preferred scientism for true believers. Skepticism is discouraged, separation encouraged, and discernment discouraged in favor of blind obedience. I have followed the science from multiple sources, studied ideas and facts, and used discernment to distinguish between sound facts and factoids that look more and more like inventions and propaganda.
I remain neutral and do not pick arguments to win but to create understanding and consensus where possible, or agreements to continue talking if consensus isn’t yet possible. We need to keep connected and open to all ideas if we are to win against the big money interests in making us docile sheep in the hands of authoritarian puppeteers. I continue to believe in the better angels of most of humanity and that we can find a path to a better world. I look at alternate news sources and see literally hundreds of thousands of protestors worldwide demanding that their voices be heard. Why am I emphasizing discernment? Rationally look at information about the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset,’ and note how it all seems to be promoting operations beyond existing legal frameworks to resolve global problems as the hierarchy sees them. You’ll notice that the common people are expected to let these wealthy and corporate talking heads, and prominent heads of state take control – for our benefit of course.
As I have said often, they need us, WE do not need them. Centralization of everything may sound ‘efficient’ but I want you to think about it. Who would manage the controllers once we give all our power to them? Since we have been actively promoting sociopaths into the upper management of large corporations and government positions, why do we think they will suddenly develop empathy with the common person once the constraints of “Checks of Power’ are removed.
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