Do our rulers, Experts, elites and celebrities really believe what they say they believe about “gender”, “climate change”, “racism” and so forth? For instance, when these people say that that man over there in a dress is “really” a woman, do they truly mean it?
This is a pressing question when each culturally mandatory opinion is more absurd than the last, a situation perhaps best illustrated in this deliciously idiotic headline: “Why are LGBTQ+ people more at risk from climate change?”. Can they really believe any of that?
Yes and no. Which is to say, some do, some don’t. There is a distribution. Not just in belief, but in cynicism. If we’re going to counter this nonsense, we need to grasp the import of this distribution.
Here is a video of the diagram described below.
Also on Twitter.
Also on Rumble.
Also on Bitchute.
There are two crucial axes, as this diagram reveals. When criticizing any woke belief or action, you must know in which quadrant the people you’re dealing with are in.
The vertical axis is CYNICISM. This describes the attitude people have toward life and the general actions they take, and not how sincerely they hold their belief in the Latest Thing. Highly cynical people are ready to exploit any situation for their own benefit, whereas sincere people, i.e. those low in cynicism can, in their minds, be altruistic. Sincere people are not out to milk anybody. But they can become busybodies.
The horizontal axis is BELIEF, here belief in any Latest Thing falsehood, so that the axis can also be seen as TRUTH (on the right). High belief is just as it says: people who, for instance, truly think that when a man puts on a dress he becomes a woman. Low or no belief is similarly obvious: these people know the man in a dress is a man.
A person will fall into one of the four quadrants. Let’s explore them.
HIGH CYNICISM + HIGH BELIEF
These are people who always believe the Latest Thing, regardless of what it is. Even if it is diametrically opposite to what it was the day, even moments, before. Their belief is therefore shallow, resting only on instances of the Appeal to Authority. “We were told to believe, and so we do,” is their motto.
These are also people with little or no scruple. They understand others don’t believe as they do, and are happy to lie and exaggerate to bring their perceived enemies into order. These people support silencing and punishing non-believers.
In this quadrant are people like reporters and celebrities who at the beginning of the covid panic he swore they would never, on their mothers’ lives, take the “Trump vaccine”, but who later called out “vaccine deniers” and demanded they be put into camps. All low level bureaucrats reside here, but have less belief than journalists.
Another name for this quadrant is The Hell of Propaganda.
LOW CYNICISM + HIGH BELIEF
The people in this quadrant are low level Experts, newer politicians, midwit professors, and the young, especially college students. They ardently and sincerely believe that we only have one year left to “Save the planet”, and they have been saying that every year for the past thirty-some years. These are people who announce their pronouns at the start of meetings. Negative or contradictory evidence does not phase or influence them, evidence which is anyway seen as obviously false because it contradicts with their beliefs.
This quadrant is the home of ideologues who always bring every subject back to their sincere pet theories. Politicians who will vote in favor of “Doing something”, even if that thing is opposed by nearly their entire constituency, live here.
I think Swiss banker and WEF “agenda contributor” Hubert Keller fits here. He frets “Every time we drink coffee, we are basically putting CO2 into the atmosphere.” He would support non-elites being forced to forgo coffee to “battle” “climate change”, which I think he sincerely believes is a threat.
Another name for this quadrant is The Land of True Believers.
HIGH CYNICISM + LOW BELIEF
Here dwell bad people, hardcore cynics willing, even eager, to leverage true believers to fatten their own wallets or gain political power. They are not stupid enough to fall for any Latest Thing, but they have no difficulty pretending they do.
Key rulers, many business executives and organization leaders, and high (not ordinary) Experts fill this quadrant. The thing these people believe in above all things is themselves. These are the people in charge of, the real rule-givers. Some of them might have slight beliefs in some Latest Things, like “climate change”, but none of them believe all Latest Things, and what little belief they do have easily evaporates when it benefits them.
I believe BlackRock CEO Larry Fink fits here, because of his early and insistent support of Net Zero, a truly insane scheme in which seemingly no one benefits—except those who administer its implementation or sells (“invests” in) governments “green” “solutions”. Yet after it became clear “green energy” is ridiculous, he instantly pivoted. Not to abandoning lucrative “green” investments, but to shifting the window on the Latest Thing, to quell disparagement of oil, which he knows can’t be abandoned without impoverishing even himself.
Another name for this quadrant is The Axis of Evil.
LOW CYNICISM + LOW BELIEF
Alas, this is the smallest quadrant. Not in numbers, where it is the largest, but in political importance. It is filled with, generally, powerless people who know the Latest Thing is absurd, and they are willing in their sincerity to think so, but not always to say so, because they know the danger in telling the truth when lies are mandatory.
All regular and long-time readers of this blog live here, as do the people who sincerely want to be left alone, which includes those who sometimes too readily believe in secret plots which will restore sanity—i.e., their version of the Latest Thing. Their error is not the same as Latest Thing believers, because the people in this quadrant long for Reality most of all.
Another name for this quadrant is The Calm Ray of Sunshine.
What To Do About It
There is no point going after propagandists; until we win, that is. They seek only the approval of power, and we have none. They will not listen and cannot be taught.
There is some benefit in converting midwits and the somewhat intelligent who live in the land of True Belief. But those we do get join us in the Sunshine, and lose their power, meager as it is. Still, larger numbers do not hurt us, and it is good for the souls of midwits to realize their errors.
The leaves the Axis of Evil. They also cannot be converted. Not by argument. There are only two ways to hurt the people that dwell in this darkness.
One, take their money. Take enough and some will join us, at least to have numbers of his side.
Two. Well, that’s the historical solution. It seems too early for it to manifest itself yet.
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I dunno, I think Brigg’s definition of cynicism varies from mine and what I can find on the intarw3bz (which is more congruent with my understanding of what cynicism means). I think Briggs would have been better with high and low sincerity for the “cynicism” axis. I don’t see how anyone with an IQ above that of the typical house plant could be anything but a cynic nowadays.
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“Two…”
Making an example is a perennial necessity for such a short-lived and forgetful race.
*Insert some quote about Liberty Tree’s, their Watering and Blood*
If we refer to Mark Twain’s famous quote – “Sometimes I wonder if the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on or by imbeciles who really mean it.” – I think it’s the latter.
Briggs, what other terms could we consider besides cynicism? I agree with the previous poster that cynicism doesn’t work perfectly here. I am a ray of sunshine, but extremely cynical. I’m not out to exploit anyone, but I’m cynical enough to see just how exploitive the bad people are. The previous poster’s idea of sincerity is a little better, though not perfect either. Exploitive? Selfish? Calculating? I’m not saying you have to change it–it’s your framework after all. But since I’m interested in possible alternative names for that axis, I want to ask for YOUR ideas because who better to come up with some!
Has Briggs finally stumbled on to what is going on?
Maybe but probably not!
It’s all about power and ruling the masses. A small group of people control the power and are the real problem but everyone believes the real threat is the loonies. So we have one small group with lots of power using a larger sub-group with crazy ideas and a third small group who just obey orders to control the largest group who essentially are clueless and do nothing.
Let’s put some names on these groups. The small group with all the power is Wall Street, Silicon Valley and globalists. The larger small group making all the noise are the Cultural Marxists who spout all the latest Woke issues as if they are all that is happening. They are the pawns of the group with power and money. There is another small group who Briggs identifies as the propagandists who take their orders from the power people. So we have three small groups making up about 20% of the population controlling 80% of the populations.
And within the 80% are substantial numbers who do not know what is going along and constantly blame one of the two smaller groups (Cultural Marxist and propagandists) for our ills while completely missing the group with all the power who are actually pulling the strings.
Not a bad chalkboard diagram, classic X axis — Y axis. Axis names might be niggled, say, Innocence Wisdom & Moral Amoral, but getting similar results, with the power pyramid apex being Wise and Amoral and me as the only Wise & Moral guy. That’s a joke, son. I wonder how that diagram would look as notation? I suggest a third alternative “to hurt the people that dwell in this darkness.” — sin no more. Absent sin the power pyramid would have nothing to feed on. If people refused usury, murder, lust, drugs, gluttony, lying, thievery, fear, hate, et cetera, then the Overlords would be out of business. You could imprison all the current Overlords and the people would howl and immediately raise up a new crew of Overlords to feed their sins, as with Prohibition. Of course, the people are not going to rise up en mass and renounce sex, drugs, and rock n’ roll. But a man might. And a man can, by example and word, influence other men. “Go and sin no more”. That was good advice.
I regard myself as extremely cynical, while at the same time being sincere. Briggs’s definition of cynicism seems to be slightly different from the one I’ve understood. I have no interest in exploiting others. My cynicism takes the form of skepticism–of lunatic Latest Things, and of the motivations of those who promote and enforce them. The opposite would be the naivete of NPR listeners and the like, who gaze upward at Fauci and his ilk, unquestioningly, as if they are sacred purveyors of science and wisdom.
Of course they all genuinely believe in something – WINNING!
The parameters may shift or change or lower standards or settle for the pyrrhic. But there is one thing that is incontestable! They have WON! And if not right at this moment, inevitably! But even so, they have won the race by having kept the faith despite the market conditions!
Every corpo know how to do it! Sales are up? Look how AWESOME we are! We’re WINNING!
Sales are catastrophically down? Look how AWESOME we are! We’re WINNING! But over here, under these conditions that was always a forseen part the vague plan!
There is always sunshine somewhere when it is night and raining!
Everyone in Hell is a winner! The Heaven-dwellers will never know what they are missing out on! Too bad!
Never admit defeat! Reality is just a word! An Incarnate Word! And we have killed Him, you and I… We’ve WON! We have drunk up the oceans! Our hands are forever stained red! But we’ve WON! We’ve successfully reduced the threat of rising sea levels!
Believe, Briggs! BELIEVE!
Our rulers are religious! Their thoughts, by appearances, contradictory to you, are a mystery! In harmony like the Trinity! You lack their theophanic vision!
There was never any such thing as a truly neutral secular state or constitution. Some thing WON above all the rest! Look carefully at their art! You’ll see the WINNER!
I would change the two axis to Christianity and power. (previous comment mentioned moral/amoral – that might do)
Quadrant 1 – Believe in Christianity and no power. About half of population. They used to have lots of power because their elected representatives would make sure laws conformed to principles of Christianity.
Quadrant 2 – Believe in Christianity and have power. Essentially, no one. Maybe some individual states. Supposedly Congressman but it is clear that even these guys are powerless. Even if congressman and president is elected by those who believe in Christianity, it is unlikely those elected will do much for those who hold traditional beliefs.
Quadrant 3 – Do not believe in Christianity and power. About 2% of population and are Wall Street, Silicon Valley, Government Intelligence and globalists. They control wealth and information and pull the strings in todays world.
Quadrant 4 – Do not believe in Christianity and little or no power. Cultural Marxists and Propagandists/bureaucrats. About 10% of population. Then there are a large percentage of people, about 30%, who don’t care but just want a paycheck. Many are well off. Many are young. Most in this group supports Quadrant 3 even though they do not know they are doing so. They foolishly believe that the world will go on just as it has for the last 80 years.
This is rought but is an attempt to understand the dynamics of what is going on.
Having known the educated types that work in an office setting, probably 30% of them are privately with us and smart enough to know what’s going on but of those most are keeping their heads down and eating the dog so they don’t get fired; ten percent are sociopaths of varying talent who cynically pretend to be normal and use the rules and any other leverage to climb over whoever they can betray on their way up the ladder, and of the remaining 60% half are true believing NPC’s and half are apoliticals who don’t care and are focused on something else like their lives.
Two things:
1 – I think the semantics on this might be clearer if you used sincerity and realism as the axis names.
2. – if you read and understood Festinger et al You would probably agree that removing the illusion of social support would pretty much destroy progressivism In the United States. Bear in mind that for every crazy leftist they’re nine or more sane people left in America. They just don’t know that they form an overwhelming majority because the media doesn’t reflect them or their views.
I recently met a young freelance journalist (EU-Citizen) whose career field is Climate-Change-Reporting. Her coverage is global. No disaster whether man-made or natural-caused is out-of-bounds. She works remotely (since COVID) and files (submits) her stories from anywhere ~ living life as a permanent working-vacation so to speak. Does she “believe” in Climate Change theory I inquired. Her wry response was that it simply didn’t matter (so long as I keep getting published and paid).
The ones that believe – useful idiots. I have no time or inclination to even debate them. If they don’t get it by now – screw em.
The ones that know it’s a scam – screw em too.
How ironic that my most recent edit to Hume’s Guillotine (@github) was to add The Devil’s Dictionary definition of “cynic” as its heading:
https://github.com/jabowery/HumesGuillotine
This reminds me of Elon Musk’s admonition (if not demand) to abjure cynicism. It’s difficult to abjure cynicism when seeing things as they are leads one to propose objective criteria for model selection that are so rigorously principled that even the rays of sunshine find such demands “cynical”.
Leftists lose their minds instantly when presented with empirical data on a subject. For example, the idea that white police officers don’t wake up every day wanting to hunt well-behaved, non-violent black men… well, that just can’t be. They kill 1000 per week! Even if you show them all of the graphs and charts on earth, they will never open their mind because that would mean facing the reality that their entire world view is built on 100% fallacy. That is too much to take so it will never be confronted head on. It is much easier to convince oneself that they are among the utmost pious and they are on the “right side of history”.