APOCALYPSE NOW THEN
The damage done by disavowal
In this post I will examine one case of how a nation can be spellbound by a sentimental view of fundamental evil.
I will argue that this has lead to the congratulation of moral and practical failure as a matter of course - in every area of private and public life.
I will first make the case using one notorious example from Britain to show how mass media can and does valorise wickedness, misleading populations in the celebration of depravity. Downstream of celebrity worship is a similar confection enabled by mass media: a respect and even reward for moral and institutional failures.
This object lesson from early celebrity culture illustrates the far wider attachment of positive feelings to negative practices and behaviours.
INTRODUCTION: THE RULE OF MEDIOCRITY
This is an essay about the resulting culture of “mediocracy” - the wicked system of governance which rewards moral and practical failure.
It results in the unmerited elevation of mediocrities and the protection of the morally corrupt, training populations to attribute positive sentiment to negative values in individuals and institutions alike.
This is enabled by the infusion of an illusion in the popular mind. Appearance has become reality, with actuality replaced by advertising. From the way we are governed to the people we are told to trust and respect, we have been trained to discard the facts and revere the image.
Now, the contrast between appearance and reality is becoming more evident.
As the magic of media wears thin, I examine how we can come to be enchanted by fame, false reputation, and the meretricious charm bestowed by mass media.
CONTENTS
Apocalypse Now Then - The Legacy of Jimmy Savile
The Illegitimate State - A Case of Normalised Abuse
The Reward of Failure - Renaming Shame in Public and Private life
Afterword - Our Duty to Others
APOCALYPSE NOW THEN
The British national treasure Jimmy Savile died in October 2011. Evidence soon emerged he had used his celebrity status to sexually abuse the living and the dead, including children, whilst being celebrated in the media as a beloved and charitable eccentric.
With his Boris Johnson mop and his Churchillian cigar, he was a family favourite with connections at the very top of the British Establishment, including Prime Ministers and the Royal Family.
He groomed the nation. He is not the only one.
AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIP
Jimmy Savile was trusted as a man dedicated to doing good in the world. His many works of charity, and his “dreams come true” TV show for children “Jim’ll Fix It” cemented this image in the national consciousness.
His example shows how public image and practical reality can be - and often are - completely unrelated, even with national institutions.
Savile’s crimes were not a secret, but they were kept secret. Jerry Sadowitz denounced Jimmy Savile in 1987.
WARNING: His recording contains frequent obscenity.
Sadowitz was the only one to speak out about Savile at this time and he was ignored.
People knew, but they pretended not to.
This tendency of disavowal enables a culture of moral and practical failure, promoting the virtue of affecting not to notice.
Jimmy Savile was revered by the nation and awarded its highest honours.
The profound shock to the public which accompanied the exposure of his decades-long career of sexual abuse and manipulation was channelled into criticism of the BBC for protecting him.
I think that something very much like the abuse of a nation by a once-treasured and revered institution is now taking place in our politics and in the practices of our wider culture - not just here in the UK.
THE ILLEGITIMATE STATE
I keep going on about this. Why? I think it important to hold our politics to account, according to its own rules. If the state is not legitimate it is a tyranny.
In brief, does your state
provide peace
provide security
maintain order
foster prosperity
defend you
…and do you have any trust in your leaders? If not, then it is not legitimate. It is abusing your trust, and has failed you.
This is in fact the case, and it has been happening for so long that we have become used to being abused. It is normal.
A SECOND OPINION
For a longer explanation on the Liberal state as abusive parent, here is John Gray (who is Northern, and therefore a top bloke) talking about the legitimacy of liberal government.
He is responding to Francis Fukuyama’s belief that there is no alternative to liberal democracy.
Why does this matter? John Gray is a leading critic of Liberalism. He was taught by Sir Isaiah Berlin, who was perhaps the greatest champion of Liberalism in the 20th century.
Gray explains what gives your government the right to rule your life. This is called “legitimacy”.
“Legitimacy in regimes isn't a matter of fitting any theory like liberalism or marxism or some other theory.
It's a complicated thing to do with peace, prosperity, security - having rulers you can halfway trust or at least not 100% mistrust who somehow reflect your values
it's a very complicated thing and it all and shifting all the time”
Can you say your state provides peace, prosperity and security? Can you say you do not completely mistrust your rulers?
If you cannot, and most people agree, then the state has lost its right to rule. To continue to do so is tyranny.
Is the state legitimate if it abuses its population as a matter of policy, and then instructs them to celebrate this abuse?
LOVE IS LOVE
As John Gray points out, the Liberal Consensus is appalled by backlash. It has groomed us to accept and celebrate:
Child sexualisation
Child sexual mutilation and sterilisation
Mass immigration
Diversity
Moral inversion generally
If you notice the evils of these policies, you are a bad person.
The evils should be obvious. In fact, they are - to everyone outside the fanatical groups which celebrate them as virtues.
This means we are being groomed by an abusive state to not only accept - but applaud - the abuse to which we are subjected.
Your God, your culture, your traditions and you are wicked, it says. Disagree and you are free to be deplatformed, sacked and even arrested. There are penalties for refusing to applaud the failure of this botched attempt at progress.
NO MEANS NO
The Liberals cannot deal with the results of their own wacky ideas, which have exhausted the patience of the reality-based majority . Populism is the name given to the political backlash represented by many people simply saying “no” to this agenda of abuse.
This term is an attempt to code negatively the widespread objection to the routine reward of consistent and predictable failure.
Here is John Gray again, explaining how Liberals can’t even recognise this reaction to the reality they have shaped.
“What they cannot and will never understand is that what they and other liberals called populism is the political blowback against the social disruption that their policies have produced”
“They can't understand the connection between what they've done and populism”.
The Liberal idea is one which trains you to be incapable of relying on reality as a basis for your ideas about it.
This is the reason why Liberals cannot recognise the results of their own policies. They cannot see reality at all. They are trained not to.
They cannot see how and why so many people are outraged by their policies.
They cannot see the reality behind their policies which causes this outrage.
This is because their belief system is a means of pulling the wool over their own eyes, and declaring the rest of the world blind.
The resulting abuse of language, meaning, of value and of every concept of significance is akin to a form of gaslighting. It is as if, taken together, we are all compelled to inhabit a madhouse, and to be labelled insane should we dare to notice.
THE REWARD OF FAILURE
We inhabit a weird culture wherein private, professional and political life there are rewards and even congratulations for colossal failure. This is one obvious dimension of a distorted world composed of mandatory delusions.
The routine reward of failure is an abusive practice. It penalises the just and the capable, marginalising the excellent and condemns us all to the chaotic behaviours of selfish mediocrities.
REIMAGINING FAMILY BREAKDOWN
If you have become utterly morally derelict, and prefer to prioritise the demands of your genitals over the duties to your family, you can avail yourself of any number of flattering terms for the permanent crisis created by your incontinence.
“Birdnesting” is one horror term which sentimentalises family breakdown. This describes the thoughtful sacrifice of parents too concerned with themselves to stay married, but who generously preserve some notion of family life by alternating which of the parents lives in the family home.
It is an example of disavowal - pretending not to know - which reveals the vital importance of a stable home to children, whilst glossing over its deliberate destruction. “Cuckooing” was presumably too accurate to be used.
“Blended families” is another, making of the fresh union of the divorced a sort of filial smoothie. This term suggests a nihilistic fungibility to human bonds. If anyone can become your sister, brother, father - then those terms really have no meaning any more. As with many conceptions of “liberation” from stuffy old norms, these notions annihilate the priceless value of family and of love, offering some packaged substitute in their place.
Of course, you can now simply buy children anyway. If you are so absolutely corrupted as to be a single homosexualist or transgenderist, you are welcomed by the surrogacy industry.
The precious gift of children is now a consumer choice whose offer is inclusive of sexual and gender extremists. It makes of the most cherished reward in life a mere transaction, for some of the most disordered personal failures.
TOKEN INSTITUTIONS
I think the high water mark of token appointments is almost upon us. Nothing works these days, largely because many people at work are incapable of doing it.
This is due to a decade of discrimination against competence.
Promoted as a good in itself, the advancement of people on the basis of their appearance or their sexual preferences was a central plank of diversity initiatives.
This too is a mechanism of reward - for failure. If your only advantage in life can be secured by the aggressive promotion of identity based grievance - you are a failure.
This system produces failure consistently, of course, as their is nothing in non-white race membership nor in bizarre sexual extremism which confers aptitude. It is a ridiculous idea and one which has likely seen many talentless and resentful people choose membership of some resentment faction simply as a good career move.
A PERMANENT STATE OF FAILURE
Why were these self-destructive policies promoted by governments? They too are populated by failures.
On both moral and practical grounds most of our politicians would be barred from office if they were ever held to account.
Their policies have eroded the fabric of society, promoting factions of mutual resentment, alongside the unspeakable harm done by lockdowns. Our wealth in monetary and cultural terms has been squandered, and they seem incapable of even securing the borders.
Of course, they can always find the time and money to support another catastrophic war. For this catalogue of avoidable tragedies they are richly rewarded, and protected from legitimate outrage by a captive press.
A RESPONSE TO RUIN
The reward of failure is everywhere. Obesity is beauty, the satanic framed as divinely inspirational. War is the defence of peace, and liberty secured by censorship. There is a significant portion of the population which depends on the consolations of failure.
Do not be one of them, and forgive them for their weakness. This is a time in which the most alluring promises tantalise the weary and the desperate. If you are not a failure in these regards then yes - be justly proud.
Yet if you are sick of the capsized world then go out and do what you can to put it right. In this season of Advent it is right to remember our duties to others.
If you are fit to do so, see the world as your workplace and try to be a social missionary.
Not a nuisance or a know-it-all, but someone who will help wherever you can be helpful. This may be as simple as listening sometimes.
Be a light in the long night of winter, foster the coming rays of spring. Remember the Son of God and bring His mercy to others wherever you can - even to those who claim to hate Him - and you.
This was especially resonant this morning to read just after an article about how European states are actively hiding the crime stats for immigrants. Instead of worrying about actual crime, and the citizens it affects, these bureaucrats worry about the racial profiling that might result from knowing who commits the crimes!
A thoughtful piece, Frank. They still dodge much of the Jimmy Savile saga even today. Selective focus works for narrative management. I remember when the TV presenter Philip Schofield came out as gay. The media celebrated this stunning act of bravery. But they chose to overlook the fact he had a wife and children. There was no thought given to them and what such a thing would do to them. I think his kids were young teenagers too.
These bubbles seem to be bursting, dying under the weight of reality. The benefits of multiculturalism have not materialized, gender-affirming care for children is sterilizing them, and as you say nothing works.
Reality is the cleansing fire it all needs, to burn away the dead wood.