We find ourselves in a temporarily stable state of absurdity. Baroness Whitewash, the Chair of the defiantly incurious inquiry is the perfect symbol of our time. Powerful the self-righteousness of the deluded is, as Yoda would put it. Behind the nonsense the usual predations of power continue. Those who have, fight to get more; those who have not are fed platitudes and empty promises.
The internet, for all its benefits, has proved to be a remarkable tool of oppression. It has empowered the grandiose to do stupid things on an epic scale. Collectively we have been clever enough to build a machine that we are not wise enough to use well.
This is unsustainable in the long-term and, while our overlords are already planning Net Zero, gender utopia and the next pandemic, the collapse has already started it. It may be catastrophic, but it could well be long, slow and very painful. Almost all of those in power are extraordinarily unaware of how badly they misunderstand the world.
2023 has seen the culmination of a worldwide process which Carl Jung called enantiodromia, a notion he took from Heraclitus. Truly there is nothing new under the Sun.
Jung defined enantiodromia as: “The transformation of the hitherto valued into the worthless, and of the formerly good into the bad” and “the emergence of the unconscious opposite in the course of time”.
The emphasis of the word ‘unconscious’ is mine. This unconsciousness is critical. It arises and subsists or subsides within each of us. The greater the unconsciousness, the greater the conformity to the norm. It is by means of this unconsciousness that good science, common sense and progress have transmogrified into deceitful manipulation, folly and decay.
Enantiodromia is illustrated by the perfect misnomer of wokeness. Those who ‘awoke’ to injustice have become hypnotised into ideological slavery. Wedded to intersectional abstractions, they are unable to see straight. Hence groupthink is enforced in the name of diversity, prejudice in the name of equity and cancellation in the name of inclusion.
Enantiodromia is everywhere. Net Zero sets out a hubristic mission to save the planet and becomes a mechanism to deprive us of liberty and erode our environment. The Government oppresses those it should serve, the police have become untrustworthy, schools indoctrinate instead of educate, trans therapy mutilates those it purports to help, banks close branches “to serve our customers better” and the Mayor of London’s schemes to improve the city are destroying it. Lockdowns caused more harm than they prevented and vaccines by some miracle of coincidence have preceded an astonishing number of ailments. In my own circle of acquaintance I know of vaccinated people who in the last three years have suffered the following afflictions: fatal heart attacks (two), non-fatal transient ischaemic attack (TIA), lymphoma, breast cancer (three), myocarditis, early onset dementia (two), non-viable foetus, Parkinson’s disease and appendicitis (two). At least we can be thankful the experts tell us that there is no chance that these ailments were caused by the COVID-19 vaccinations. Nevertheless, it’s somewhat enantiodromatic…
As I observed back in May 2020, mainstream thinking now has all the hallmarks of a cult. The more the official predictions of doom and disaster are proven erroneous, the more fervently the priesthood asserts them. Government policies and the consequent threats to our lives feel absurd and disproportionate because they are absurd and disproportionate. Mainstream media are entirely captured by a simplistic, self-serving, elitist point of view. This abandonment of open-minded consciousness is the path of enantiodromia.
But what of the rest of us? What are we doing? And what can we do if the awful truth is that many people don’t want to wake up? What if they like being hypnotised? Trance is relaxing. What if they just don’t want to make the effort to think? Or what if those who are willing to think have to face the horrific possibility that they have been duped into acts of medical, social and economic self-harm? That is a bitter medicine to swallow.
In the face of maleficence and unconsciousness what can we do?
The ubiquitous sin of our times is the tendency to tell other people what to do, and those least qualified are those most keen to dictate to others. Nonetheless we are in desperate times and we need all the help we can get. So what can you do? What can I do? Perhaps I can share my own experience and others can take from it as much, or as little, as they wish.
I can do my best to be conscious, alert and thoughtful and politely note every instance of absurdity, however small. I can register my disapproval of dangerous policies, protocols and political parties.
I can continue, as I believe you do, to seek out like-minded free-thinkers to create new solutions to everyday problems.
Even more importantly, I can reach out, very, very, very gently, to the diligently conformist, to those walking the seductive roads paved with good intentions and offer them tiny inklings of alternatives. These inklings can take months, even years to bear fruit, but from such humble beginnings may grow great movements. Neither you nor I know ‘the answer’, but good may come when each one of us takes up our own possibility to question received wisdom and discover a little more with – and about – this extraordinary consciousness we have been given.
In my own career it has been a year of a remarkable book and woeful marketing and I am responsible for both. An example of the latter is that I failed to do the standard ‘My Book will make a Marvellous Christmas Present’ marketing. I don’t want to hassle you with emails and urge you to just ‘click here’. I would rather elicit your thoughtfulness.So if you feel inclined to give a thoughtful gift – or indeed the gift of thoughtfulness – to usher in the year 2024, you can do so by purchasing The Bug in our Thinking and the Way to Fix It on Amazon or, preferably by means of this link where the word Enantiodromia will get you a £2 discount before January 12th. By the way, it is virtually impossible to escape the codification of marketing: the previous sentence is know in marketing as a ‘New Year, New You’ promo. Sigh.
I wish you a joyful and merry Christmas and an unexpectedly positive 2024.
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Beautifully put.
And an article that mirrors my thoughts and sentiments almost perfectly.
Yep totally nails it.
👍 Agreed.
I’ve got to second that.
He also said this about the dangers of a Mass Psychosis outbreak:
Bang on
I still can’t get my head round what happened- more specifically how people went along with it all
That people went along with it is no surprise. The majority of people always goes along with everything those in power throw at them while trying to continue living their lives as good as they can. The really noteworthy thing was that our political and social elites who are totally awash with human rights everywhere really absolutely don’t give a shit about them. Insofar we’re allowed any freedoms, that’s not because of our inalienable rights but solely, because those in power can’t be arsed to care about us for as long as they believe we don’t really matter.
That’s again quoted in the The Lockdown, Stupid! article: It was our inalienable human rights which made them do it, specifically, the right to life. That was redefined as right to live in the most germ-free environment a government is capable of creating to avoid endangering one’s life by potentially contacting a disease and inevitable natural side-effects of the fact that this planet is decidedly not germ free and that some germs are invisible and incontrollable parasites of our bodies was redefined as us consciously spreading death and disease by virtue of maliciously being alive.
This as dishonest as murderous sophistry paints a picture of our ruling class I really had preferred not to look at.
Yeah I had preferred not to look at it too.
I know people are dozy (including me) but honestly the lockdown stuff was such patent bollocks and went on for so long and was such an outrageous assault on liberty I was sure they wouldn’t get away with it.
I agree it was patent bollocks, but we have to remember that the full force of the state’s power was deployed on a relentless and aggressive propaganda campaign of fear, which in Halfwit’s own words, was intended to scare the pants off people, coupled with the promise of safety provided everyone complied with the rules. These were powerful forces and to resist them required both a sceptical mindset and a willingness to risk social opprobrium by stepping out of line which, it seems, is a relatively rare combination. It was like living under a totalitarian government, where the people were controlled by fear and governed by fools.
Well maybe the first few weeks, but then it just got silly – scotch eggs etc. Beats me how anyone could still take it seriously at that point.
Then there’s Charles mackay who wrote the best book on Covid 19, way back in 1841, “Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds”:
And if you have not read it, now’s the time.
So cock up then? I wholeheartedly disagree, and I know most others on here do too, but why has this been overlooked in the comments so far?
Well-said. You hit the nail on the head.
This “enantiodromia” as you describe it, is common. It happens in industries particularly where pure reasoning plays a significant part in the understanding and where sons inherit from fathers. It happens in families and various forms of government. It happens to leaders or, the ruling classes regularly. Our times continually go in and out of joint. A dangerous but interesting phenomenon.
“Fair is foul and foul is fair”
https://nosweatshakespeare.com/quotes/famous/fair-is-foul-and-foul-is-fair/
Mr. Jung also notes what we have and are witnessing. Not sure there is a vaccine for such an epidemic
We must all speak out, and all times speak the truth, regardless of the cost.
“The supreme danger which threatens individuals as well as whole nations is a psychic danger. Reason has proved itself completely powerless, precisely because its arguments have an effect only on the conscious mind and not on the unconscious.
The greatest danger of all comes from the masses, in whom the effects of the unconscious pile up cumulatively and the reasonableness of the conscious mind is stifled. Every mass organization is a latent danger just as much as a heap of dynamite is. It lets loose effects which no man wants and no man can stop.”
Hugh – have just ordered your book. Looks just up my street!
I was a defiant sceptic from the outset. Most of my wider family, friends and associates weren’t (although some were fairly tolerant), but the last few years haven’t been easy.
I have, however, found in recent months that some people who were fully on-board with the nonsense are now sheepishly admitting that it was “a bit over the top” and one or two agree with me that it was nonsense.
I do believe the tide is turning – but very slowly – now the damage of the lockdown years is only too apparent. Whether any of them would have the fortitude to stand up to a future tyranny is unlikely: they are conformists and conformists conform.
“The internet, for all its benefits, has proved to be a remarkable tool of oppression.”
I appear not to be Internetoppressed. What are the signs & symptoms?
The Internet is a fantastic tool for enlightenment, information, learning and freedom. If it were not so, Govts would not be trying their hardest to control it, restrict it.