Dear Friends,
It seems to me… there’s a perpetual war of ideas going on. In that war alliances arise and fall. Replacements and reinforcements arrive at the front daily from all sides. Even as some ideas that were killed long ago, reincarnate as new warriors. The theaters are, discourse and violence. Under discourse there’s propaganda, mass media, loose talk, etc… and if that fails, the most ardent will use violence to silence enemy ideas. In this war censorship, controlling speech and thought laws are the nuclear weapons. Everyone thinks they’re on the right side, and so, God must be on their side. While only the sage seek to be on God’s side. Because evil is conniving, is often beguiling, and beautiful to boot, making it appear to be good. Thereby capturing many.
Ideas are alive in a parasitic sort of way. They live in people’s brains. Mostly we don’t even know they’re there. Yet they influence us in a myriad of ways. Sometimes for the better and other times for the worse. When we use them, they can be helpful, but when they rule us, they’re dangerous. Zealots are people who’re ruled by ideas. Notions that are never of their own making. Like demons, sneaking in and possessing a person. Then making them do heinous things. Who honestly believes a Nazi death camp guard thought he was doing evil? Were the pilots who firebombed Dresden evil? What atrocity is not done with the absolute, certain and solid knowledge it’s for the betterment of mankind? These are examples of how people are captured by an idea. Then act on it.
In that way, by capturing people and making them work to the will of an idea instead of their own, ideas are almost sentient. Moreover, bending a sovereign human being to do that which they would otherwise think an atrocity, is the act of a malevolent sentience. Ideas that possess are like a computer virus or worm. The more subtle and capturing the greater their advantage in the war of ideas. Which is probably why malevolent ideas are so hard to get rid of. Their cloying nature, beauty and the appearance of goodness make them interesting. Then, once the victim gets close enough, they strike, and like a Goa’uld, burrow into the brain and take it over. Making a robot from a human being. Which is why I think ideas are often parasitic, and almost sentient. Some are actually malevolent.
These almost sentient parasitic ideas go to war with each other, for the only resource they care about… human brains. The human Brainscape is the goal of the war. The idea that wins all the brains… wins. Evil ideas masquerade as good, while calling good ideas evil, and hiding their outcome. As good ideas try to show their nature by their results. These forces ebb and flow, evil sometimes getting the edge, then the outcome dissipates the effect of the propaganda, smears and censorship, and goodness gets the upper hand for awhile. Until people become comfortable. Then evil offers luxury at someone else expense. Then the cycle starts anew. All the while, the ideas vie for brain space. In this then, you and I are kings, because we control the very space the ideas seek to conquer.
Our great power gives us the ability to sway the war one way or another. How do we prevent ourselves from becoming possessed? By keeping an open and humble mind. Humility dissipates the certainty that’s required to break a few eggs. Just as an open mind isn’t as susceptible to possession. It takes humility to seek to be on God’s side. Even as it takes supreme arrogance to expect God to be on your side. In the morass of fighting though, how does one find the golden ideas? By looking at outcomes. No matter how glittering an idea is, if it only yields suffering, then it’s base metal. In the ongoing war of ideas, you and I are warriors with superpowers. That superpower is the control of our own brains… the very battlefield itself. So… act the Juggernaut you are, find the golden ideas and fight on God’s side.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
