In the design and engineering of a properly motivated conflict complex, pandering may count first among the evils available to speech.

Of course the Emperor’s clothes look dashing even though he’s not wearing any.

And not one of anyone’s ilk would have burned the Great Library of Alexandria.

Looking for the root of all evil?

Forget about money.

Look here:

• bluffs
• cheats
• concealments
• deceptions
• deflections
• denials
• exaggerations
• equivocations
• false analogies
• false claims
• frauds
• fabrications
• innuendos
• libels
• lies
• misrepresentations
• obfuscations
• omissions
• understatements

From there, the basics of lying, one might go on to similarly pleasant and damnable behaviors: bribery (and patronage), conning, intimidation — basic infernal leverage, those three.

To get really down and dirty, one might go on to behaviors lending themselves to disinhibition in various dimensions — addiction, eroticism, gluttony, masochism, sadism, etc. — which may involve matters of degree and where to place the sort of limit about which most and one’s self would say, “no more — not another bite!”

Somewhere in my Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy concept, one might notice that the (privately sane) rock star’s public excesses have a way of being contained by concerns for the bottom line, the next show, the continuing good will of the fans, and such, making the wrecking of the hotel room an expensive publicity stunt (it was probably a lot of fun too but not the sort of behavior to bring home to the mansion), and there are internal contrainers too, those little devils that say, “Enough already, that will do for a buzz or a photo-op.”

Those who go beyond, really get Out There, so much so they really need to be caught in a net and caged.

The nanny can’t keep the baby quiet?  Well then, throw a pot of boiling water over her head!

Some of the people seem upset about something?  Send out the army!

Not getting along in or with the modern world?  Blame the Jews!

Probably the first lie, whatever it may be, and getting away with it, creates the first license, and if the one who does it or the culture that indulges the same is not careful, the gyre around greed and power take off.  The militia may not really care, but for $50 per month, they’ll go out on the streets and gun down protestors without flinching, just so long as they’re not outmaneuvered, outnumbered, and outgunned themselves.

Greed or fear may subdue conscience, or so regularly and ruthlessly abuse it as to make it go away (and make it corrosive and shameful in the most hellish ways to have it back and nagging over one’s every breathing moment).

I will tell you it’s frightning when one starts to see the outline of a low-level drudge doling out torture at Evin Prison (reference: Then They Came for Me) and start to connect that with Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, an even more potent more private force under the direct control of Ayatollah Khamenei, and then with perhaps less involvement but certainly some presence Russia, Turkey, Syria, and their interest.  That’s a lot of evil come from selling a “Zionist conspiracy” that doesn’t exist (and Jews as devils, except that in realspace, all over real life, really, I and mine are producing publications, engineering miracles in healthcare and other productive areas, and volunteering services involved with every do-good possibility on the planet: in fact, if you happen to see solar arrays decorating floating villages in Peru, do blame the Jews).

In any case, the arms racers and suppliers, legitimate and black market, have their best days.

—-

Let me take you to the other side in my idealism: if you would wish to help people, write for God.

This is not to say don’t take some money for the effort, but if it’s going to be a good effort, put away that tempting contract with the Devil.

Average mediaphiles know the basics:  if in journalism, you will make every effort to publish work that is “clear, accurate, and complete”; if in soft science research, you will do all that may be done to establish expert validity for proposed dimensions and variables in your theories and go on to produce “valid” and “reliable” data as well as fully plausible and challengeable hypotheses and theories.

Perhaps even as pundit with an attitude, curiously about how things work and delving into them to ferret that out may seem more fair to the work than conveniently spooling out a familiar schpeil on a soapbox.

Convenient honest will not be enough to turn the darker tides: in fact, I should think it evil to invent or promote “alternative viewpoints” to influence politics or score social points, all of which is just ass licking whether of individuals or in-groups or ambitious organizations with agendas.  What the heavens — God, nature, the nagging signal from one’s better moral compass —  beg for are accurate and clear analyses and assessments of things as they really are.

A mind in which all things are possible and all possibilies and proposals are equal has absolutely no value to anyone, least of all the whacked-out owner of such confused perceptions and low standards.

No need to be mechanical or neutered, bereft of personal interests and social affinities and alliances: the truth to be observed and reflected in things won’t care, for if you have uncovered a little bit of true story and real knowledge, such a notation, organic and quite independently of your efforts will withstand challenges from many directions and, if surviving, attain growth and stability until debunked, which may never happen, or once settled, grown repetitive and tiresome, and finally played out and punched out by the best who should have beaten it, integrated into something greater.

Leave the cant, parroting, propagandizing to minds already chained by habits, constrained perhaps by their watchers or “handlers”, numbed by bad old desires and dreams, and dependent on “mission approval” for confidence.

Discern, test, assert; be accountable, responsible, universal in reflection and statement; what doesn’t work, stop defending, let it go, adjust; eschew constructivism, embrace coherance; and not least important, leave room for creativity, empathy, and imagination.

Consider even becoming comfortable with the ineffable.

I would not mean to prod any into flying in the face of local or fashionable social conventions and expectations for the sake of it, and yet, if you have stumbled upon a right path where others seem to you lost and walking off the cllifs, go with God — and great good, comprehensive, valid, and reliable data — and invite the lost to scout the new frontier with you.

Enjoy one’s skeptics most of all.

Just don’t toady to them.

Should one as an analyst, writer, or researcher be one’s own best fan, remember: whatever the best findings, the most truthful conclusions, none will change if true, and if not true and undermined by peers, none will repair themselves merely to be kind to you.

Get over it.

Move on.

A Dios.

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