The rains have come again and at 2:30 in the morning when I sit to write this, I can hear the dull roar of waters on the roof of the apartment. I went to let our dog Merle out into the alley, and he saw the rain and turned around. Nope.
The situation – that is, his opinion – changed when he got new information.
The day yesterday, when the clouds were not casting thick shadows, was one of those Texas summer days under cotton candy skies with the flitting of grasshoppers and the buzz of dragonflies diving at the mosquitos from the recent rains, and now and then a swirling breeze from somewhere, like mercy itself, would blow through and it would remind me that everything is under the control of God and not men.
You don’t want men in charge. The mass of men is too manipulable.
In an individual sense, the mass man is purely carnal, and therefore is most easily moved by his news. He becomes distracted or attracted by the external because that (to his mind) is what truly affects him. He is not a moral or spiritual creature, despite what he thinks of himself, because if he was his movement (progression or regression or whatever you want to call it,) would be directed by deep internal principles and spiritual motivations and not by the news cycle.
The mass man no longer asks, “Is this wrong or right?” but “have you seen what is happening? Something must be done!”
Once the state realized that the mass man could be moved by the news, the inevitable blending of state and news occurred. They are now one and the same. We have the crazy reality now that the billionaire oligarchic head of Facebook admitted yesterday that the FBI told him and his company not to run a story before the last election because… well… because they said so. Can’t have the mass man moved by the wrong news, right?
Do you get it? It doesn’t matter what is true or not true – which used to be the standard for news – but what direction the mass will go when and if they are allowed to hear what is allowed to be reported. Government and news are now the same things.
The news is focused on the state and vice versa, and all things become political because that is how you move the mass man. Individuals may consider that movement “progress” or “regress,” “action or “reaction,” but in reality, it is all just the manipulation and mastery of the mass man by the state.
The living man, or what we may call the spiritual man, while mindful of news, is not directed or operated by it. For this reason, he is the enemy of the state in every place where the state gains ascendancy. The rise of mental illness, illogic, and radical extremism are natural consequences of the carnal man being operated via puppet strings by the news and the state rather than by internal and spiritual principles that are higher. Of course, you must apply this according to principles you may or may not have.
By having power over the news, the mass man reigns. Stupidity is ascendant. Being unlearned and ignorant is now a passport to acceptability. Everyone else is either canceled or is going to be.
Again, the mass-man is such that he is primarily moved by his news. Sir Francis Schaeffer in his excellent video series (from the early 80s I think) “How Should We Then Live?” shows a riot taking place. There are two “takes” from the same riot. In the first scene, the media is saying “our brave police are being attacked by low-life criminals!” or some such thing. The second take shows the exact same footage of the exact same riot, but in this one, the media is saying “our peaceful protesters are brutally attacked by fascist shock troops.” Schaeffer then goes on to show that when the media has the power to shape opinion by selective portrayal and characterization – manipulating the visuals to fit the pre-digested story – the window to preserve freedom by democratic means is over. This, of course, is an inevitability in any democracy. It is the great failure of democracy that the mass man need only be dumbed down over a period of a few generations in order to end the experiment in freedom. This is exacerbated when “citizens” are educated by the state. State education inevitably hands all power to the opinion factories – the people who manufacture the news. The mass man, then, becomes an engine of movement, a mindless, idolatrous drone, fed its news like hydraulic fluid in order to move the beast as it is directed.
Did you ever notice that the mass of people all become obsessed with only one story at a time? If you don’t want the mass looking into pedophile rings, you just give them another story to talk about. Then the mass, like a pack of hunting dogs, is after another scent. Thus are they moved, without their knowledge like puppets in a show.
In late-stage democracy, the mass man seems to rule, but he is actually being moved every day by the people who manufacture the news each day. Therefore, you can tell, (without looking at a calendar,) that we are moving into another election cycle. The mass man used to get bombarded with manufactured news every four years. Now its every day, but especially every two years.
We should take mass-man rule to it’s natural conclusion and just re-hold elections every hour or so. You can file to run for Congress at noon, but you have to run for re-election at 2 pm. You can vote yourself stolen goods if you move fast enough. The law and the culture can then truly represent the manipulated, emotional, propagandized whims of the animal man
We will have finally defeated and bypassed human intellect, logic, and reason altogether. Caprice will finally take its rightful role as god and idol to the people. Tyrants said Rex Lex – the King is the Law. Rutherfordian Monarchists said Lex Rex – the Law is the King. We will say Ventri Rex – the Belly is King! How is this new newest news going to affect me in the next five minutes!?! This is the most important election in the last five minutes! Get out and vote! Here’s your sticker!
So what is it today? What is the news? How will you be moved since you are no longer grounded by a higher law and eternal principles of right and wrong that are not changed by the news?
What gravity moves the mass man – the majority – to suddenly stumble in one direction or another, as if a spirit has overcome him that he likes but cannot understand? The mass man is not capable of any opinions of his own, because he hasn’t the capacity of opinion. Any opinions he holds are pumped into him from the outside, like air into a tire. And he doesn’t doubt his opinions precisely because they are not his. She supposes that someone, somewhere, must have tested them, so she trusts them like she trusts factory food, a stair railing, or a jet engine. It’s someone else’s job to test opinions. She trusts her opinions even if they are the opposite of the opinions she had yesterday because, for the mass, yesterday never existed.
Men and women who form opinions on their own, however, do so hesitantly. They place them on a foundation, a superstructure outside of themselves, and test them with reading, study, contemplation, and consideration. They doubt their opinions, precisely because they are theirs, so they are eager to hear others in order to test the thesis. But intelligent thinkers are not the mass. Neither do they rule in the world. They sit back. Helplessly. And we watch the beast stumble, moved by his news, into the fire.
But then again, all of this is predictable, because no matter what the mass man thinks, he is not really in charge. He only thinks he is.
Michael Bunker