Rinse and Repeat By Rote
Great is the power of constant repetition
So wrote David Foster in his Philosophical Scientists, a slim but powerful treatise dispelling some of the basic mistruths in modern science. Tell a lie often enough to enough people, and it takes on a patina of truth, enough to convince the vincible. This is how Communism works, in all its tentacles, by mantras heard, repeated, incessantly, by whatever means possible.
And it’s got a lot more possible, in ways Stalin, Lenin, Mao and Jong-Il couldn’t imagine, with billions glued to umbilical cell phones, and any number of other screens (yes, I know the irony of writing this on one, but one must use what means one might). Hypnosis is pretty much an inevitable consequence, as Plato predicted in his allegory of the cave. Witness this pastiche of news anchors, and what’s being drummed into our ears, brains and minds, with nary a dissenting voice:
Lockstep.
Watch. The. Video. pic.twitter.com/MgXj1ba4ee— Aaron Kheriaty (@AaronKheriatyMD) November 26, 2022
True, we have our own ‘mantras’ in the Church, repeating our prayers and our attestations of Faith. But the difference is that these flow from God’s grace from within our souls, and are not imposed coercively from without, Manchurian-candidate style. Each of us must choose in whom – or Whom – we place our trust and our faith, God, or man. Keep in mind that these talking heads are echoing the secular – and frankly evil – agenda and worldview of such figures such as Schwaub, Fauci, Biden, Trudeau, Macron, Bezos, Soros, Pelosi, Bouria, to name but a few.
(Then again, the last named doesn’t have much to say when alone and exposed).
Resist and critique the narrative, dear reader, without becoming paranoid and delusional yourself.
The most effective way to do this is to anchor our mind on universal and irrefutable principles, drawn from our faith and from reason, so that we can see the ‘bigger picture’, to gain a broader, more universal perspective, as Cardinal Newman might put it. We are aided in this by fitting analogies from history, ignorance of which dooms us to repeat the idiocies, and evils, of the past. It’s not a bad idea to repeat these principles to ourselves, the denial of which is the true ‘threat to democracy’.
We should also steep ourselves in prayer, that God illumine and guide our thoughts and actions. Today’s saint, Francis de Sales, would advocate that heartily.
As well, we should not discount our intuition, what Saint Thomas would call connatural knowledge, just ‘knowing’ at some level that if something seems true, or false, it usually is.
As another Thomas, More, would advise in his prudent lawyerly way that we keep our wits about us. Fear not to criticize, to be autonomous, to go against the current – find and follow the truth, which is the only thing that will set us free. +
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