Dec 7, 2023·edited Dec 7, 2023Liked by Rhyd Wildermuth
Sorry to hear all of this. I hope you will draw whatever lessons from it seem fruitful to you.
For my part, though I was never as 'leftist' as you, my break with the left came in similar circumstances, and over time. I had come to accept that whatever 'good left' there had once been (the working class left of my Methodist great grandfather being my gold standard) had been consumed by something that looks more like a bunch of vicious, mindless, ideologically crazy brownshirts. It's only got worse since then. I think the left is now a poison in the veins of the culture. You do not need to be 'on the right' to acknowledge this. Running away from them is a sane choice.
As a Christian, by the way, I agree with what you say about the puritans and iconoclasts. I've long thought that wokeness was the sermon on the mount minus love, forgiveness or God. Christians are at their very worst when they forget the instruction to love their neighbour first, which is presumably why it was given.
Speaking of vicious ideologically crazy brownshirts it seems to me that that is a very apt accurate description of the benighted denizens promoting this project -many/most/all of whom are Christians
Brownshirts tend to march down the street, smash shop windows, burn city blocks and shoot people. I can't see some Republican think tankers being active enough to make that happen. But maybe I am misreading America.
There have definitely been a few roving gangs (the Proud Boys, for example), but they mostly just go to Portland to brawl with equally thuggish antifa gangs in what's become a civic religious festival of street fighting.
Yes, in my opinion you very much do misread the state of American culture, or what remains of it.
A slightly modified quote from the 1963 book Culture Against Man by Jules Henry. A book which was quite influential in its time.
"In Western culture today one must make a distinction between the culture of life and the culture of death. In the minds of most people science has become synonymous with destructive weapons, i.e with death ... Where is the culture of life? The culture of life resides in all those people who, inarticulate, frightened and confused, are wondering 'where will it end'.
Thus the forces of death are confident and organized while the forces of life - the people who long for peace and sanity - are, for the most part, scattered, inarticulate, and wooly-minded, overwhelmed by their (seeming) impotence. Death struts about the house while Life cowers in the corners."
Sixty years later the situation thus described is muchly more advanced - potentially catastrophically so! In my opinion the Heritage (lies, lies and more lies) Foundation which has created the 2025 project is one of the leading edge vectors of that "culture" of death - satanic barbarians all the way down!
In my opinion it is also in one way of another associated with the phenomenon described in the book by Chris Hedges titled American Fascists - The Christian Right and the War Against America.
See also my other comment on this site re the nature of the morphogenic pattern and the world-wide "culture" of death created and propagated the 800+ US military bases.
I tend to disregard any comment which uses the word 'fascist' to refer to people who are not actually fascists. It's the equivalent of 'conspiracy theorist', and has been useless since at least 1946. If we can't accurately pin down what people are and what they do, we are just name-calling. 'Satanic', by the way, is even worse - and I speak as a Christian.
I would be no fan of the Heritage Foundation or its views, but to associate it with the brownshirts, and also to attempt to smear Christians by association with it, is not helping anything anywhere. It only reflects on you.
In my view, people on all sides should try to calm down and call a spade a spade (rather than a 'fascist'). Then we might see what was happening. It's hard enough as it is, without the hysteria.
One reason I appreciate Rhyd's writing is that, while we come from quite different places, he is a man who tries to accurately portray the world and say what he means. If he disagrees, he tends to do so calmly and with an explanation. This kind of thing is much needed from all quarters.
This comment here, and then coming from a person who called the entire modern left "consumed by something that looks more like a bunch of vicious, mindless, ideologically crazy brownshirts" and "a poison in the veins of the culture"?
Fair comment, that was hyperbolic language. But the word 'consumed' was the key word. It feels to me that the left has been eaten by something bad and dangerous. Not that everyone 'on the left' is like this - obviously they're not, or Rhyd would not be under attack himself. But the lunatics have taken over the asylum, and I do see 'the left' as a whole as a poison at this point. Personally I think this was always likely - because it happens throughout history. But it also happens to other politics tribes, and regularly to religions.
Calling oneself a "Christian" doesn't mean one's life philosophy has anything to do with the Christ, as we all know. It's as frustrating as watching in horror as people excuse horrendous suffering through choosing to see all Muslims as inherently evil. The people you speak of clearly aren't "Christians" in anything but name and membership to an at times very powerful man-made institution. Round and round it goes.
With respect, Helen, isn't that the No True Scotsman fallacy? Where one claims that unpleasant examples of a certain group are somehow not actually part of the group. One might as well also say that the people who harassed Rhyd aren't actually leftists.
Does this depend on how you define the group, and who gets to define it, or even whether it's sensible to start using group identity at all? Maybe group identity is always just a tool of manipulation? This is complex because Jesus didn't tell people to call themselves "Christians" and following Jesus does not have to mean belonging to a church: if I follow his example quietly for myself I could still call myself a Christian, or not, as I wish. Or I can call myself a Christian but pick and choose about where I follow his example, if at all (or so it would seem). Do all these people belong to the same group? Very, very loosely, based on the lowest common denominator of perhaps believing Jesus was the son of God, or maybe even just that he was a wise man whose example I wish to follow? I was raised in a Christian family and have lived in several different Christian communities, but feel I have very little in common with e.g. high Catholics or charismatic Evangelicals. I possibly have more in common with you. Do we need some Venn diagrams?
Well, I push back against that logic, because a conversation environment where each person gets to pick and choose whom they accept as belonging to their favorite group would descend into weasely meaninglessness soon. Criticism of concepts with group identities attached would become impossible.
Do you mean that whoever assigns themselves an identity which has the same name as one you have either been assigned or choose to assign yourself automatically has to be accepted by you as having that very same identity you have?
This is such such such an interesting article. I loved Here Be Monsters and will continue to shout my love from the rooftops. I've already included it in my favourite book round up to my (albeit small) readers. :)
>> The abusers on “the left” offer nothing in return except the delusion of being good.
It's certainly more than that. The current "left" offers social cachet and coolness, and in some important quarters, ascendant political power (AOC is a good example of a young 'passionate joiner' who was very quickly brought to heel).
Oh, Rhyd, there's so many times I want to give you a hug; at least three in this essay. "Monsters" is unquestionably good; if it lacks a very broad market, it's because the intersection of topics (critique of progressivism/modernism from a Marxist perspective, and I realize I'm oversimplifying) lacks a broad market. But I think anyone who knows the dance is impressed by your moves.
Violence. I have such a funny relationship to violence. Don't we all? Truth be told, I think there's simply too many of us and we're too well-connected, and we're a bunch of angry chimps that want DESPERATELY to bash in the brains of the chimps stressing us out until they're ABSOLUTELY. POSITIVELY. DEAD. But we've all had our rocks taken away and get punished for even SAYING we want to bash the other chimps' brains in, so we've learned to be manipulative: serve the power that grants us permission to bash brains in again, or get them to do it for us but let us watch.
We're not designed to live as we do, and we ARE designed for violence (among other, loftier things). Like sex, we've put violence in a locked box that we pretend doesn't exist, sitting on a shelf somewhere with the Ark of the Covenant at the end of the Indiana Jones movie. But it does exist, and the "disabled trans activists" really, really wanted to just bash some chimp brains... and- if I'm being darkly honest for a moment?- it would thrill my blood from head to toe if they'd come for me or my friends. I'd want to kiss them on the lips and say "thank you" before getting started. See? I'm just on the other side of the chimp line, wanting desperately for "self defense" to be my excuse, because I'm too damned honorable to start hitting people for talking, but would still LOVE to hit some people.
I've stopped worrying about whether violence is right. I concern myself, as a "mature adult," (yeah, I could barely type that) with whether its potential consequences are worth bearing. In that respect I'm wiser than a young "leftist" activist throwing shit at people (chimps indeed).
But it's very unlikely that the nature of modern living will be reversed. We might be drugging most of human nature out of existence, but if "disabled trans activists" are picking brawls with leafleting libertarians, we clearly haven't successfully suppressed or neutered aggression from humanity. We've just gotten good at pretending the ones who get caught are the only ones doing it.
It must have taken a whole lot of courage to write this, Rhyd, and my heart goes out to you. The point you make about political theologies is well-made, and I appreciate you are making it in a Western/American context; but competing Christianities are by no means the only game in town when it comes to persecutions, excommunications and moral fanaticism down the millennia, I think. Pick a religion, any religion; pick a political party, any political party; pick a group of "grown ups" on a committee, pick a group of kids in the playground - they'll all break down into in-groups and out-groups, us and them, true-believers and heretics, unimpeachable angels and the very devils. Sad to say that the haters always shout the loudest and get away with both metaphorical and literal murder. Unless until, of course, enough folk like you start to speak out against them. "Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing". I thank you for refusing to be silenced.
Moved by your candor: thank you for upholding candor.
Not having the time to cover all the bases in this freefall (tho I try), I would very much like to understand the 'love' that includes people who are thoughtless, cruel, and so coarse as to
place excrement on the property of those they disagree with.
I left a review on Goodreads! I am happy to do so in other places as well if there are more helpful sites. I want to thank you Rhyd, for your bravery.
I personally don’t think that change happens only in the obvious, physical, force-based way that we think it does. There are so many angels out there in the world, working at gas stations and airports, in fields growing food, tending to the elderly with no widespread recognition for the love they are spreading. I love the models of morphic resonance put forward by Rupert Sheldrake, among others, and have found this to be true in my own experience. Your book changed something, even beyond how many people literally read it. It changed something in our collective field, and you could say, provided an energetic roadmap for others to be brave and speak their compassionate truths in the face of so much censoring and hate. (A great example of this phenomenon of morphic resonance is in the discovery of the electron. Once one lab did it, many others were then able to, and not primarily because the first lab could give better instructions or something, it was best explained by the change to the morphic field).
Speaking of formative morphic resonance what kind of such world-wide resonance does the existence of more than 800 US military bases create - and the presence of the US military in almost every country on the planet.
Each single base is in effect a psychic force-field. Collectively they create a very powerful death-saturated psychic force field. A very powerful example of the medium being the message - an anti-"culture" of death rules to here!
We now live in a quantum world wherein everyone is instantaneously inter-connected.
The negative exploitation and killing of human beings by human beings violates the heart of one and all. So too with the negative exploitation and killing of non-human beings by human beings.
Here in Australia we also contribute to this death-saturated force-field via the presence of a few electronic spy/transmission bases - Pine Gap and the North West cape being two of them.
The Americans have complete control of everything and every body that goes on in Pine Gap therefore trumping anything the Australian government may wish to protest against or change.
Speaking of Trump it could be said that William Blake prophesized his appearance in one line featured in his poem titled The Prophecy - the line starts thus The Trump of the last doom. Altogether the poem provides an accurate description of the now-time world.
Thanks for this, and a reminder to read your book! It's been on my list and I haven't gotten around to it yet. I'm in the midst of a comparatively minor cancellation attempt myself, and what it's made me realize is that I need to disentangle myself from leftist/progressive spaces. No matter what I say or do, some people will now label me "right-wing." I'm realizing those labels are increasingly losing any real meaning and people who are interested in what I have to say are going to read me regardless. But there's no point in trying to make myself palatable to true believers.
Interestingly, regarding your thoughts on religion, there's data that shows that people who have right-wing views are increasingly identifying as "Evangelical," despite not attending church or making any meaningful attempt to practice. In fact, some people of other faiths are now labeling themselves "evangelical" based on politics. Labels and fault lines between polarities have always shifted over time, but its weird to see it happening at such warp speed.
Ordering from a local bookstore in-person if they don't already have a copy increases the chances they'll stock it and other people will also see it. Otherwise, direct from the Repeater site that Helen posted below.
I am a lifelong resident of Eugene, Oregon. A few years ago, I very seriously considered moving out of state. This kind of stuff is exactly why. I eventually came to decide I'd rather have our problems than anyone else's problems — but, as you described, we absolutely do have our problems.
The answer is not to try to make Oregon into Nebraska. Somehow we need to become a more functional version of ourselves.
Until very recently, I also lived in Eugene. For several years, I practiced nonprofit environmental law there, and interacted frequently with the Portland left activist crews through that work. There’s certainly a Eugene-Portland activist pipeline. I will say what struck me after a few years was that the Portland folx always demanded our work include their intersectional human issues, but rarely showed up to support our activism on behalf of non-humans, which was focused on preserving life in the form of old forests and wild creatures. There could certainly be blind spots among that contingent about how human supremacy structured many of their thought patterns and violent reactions.
I am sorry to hear what you have been going through. I bought your book at a local bookstore and am slowly reading it and enjoying it. I thanks you for your honesty, your vulnerability and your care.
I am one of your faithful readers from the first time I encountered your posts. In my own humble way - as a originally Chilean leftist feminist activist - who voted for Allende and worked for his government- I have to say I fundamentally agree with you. Having come to Canada as a refugee I joined the Green movement as well as some anarchs-syndicalist groups in Montreal. Having moved to Vancouver I continued to join movements like that until 2019- 20.
The"left" - I hesitate to call them thus, slowly but completely lost their way - from social justice and care for minorities and the environment to "Whatever Fad/Trend" offers a CAUSE that can allow them to vent their anger against other who disagree.
IT is really sad, disappointing and, I think, quite hopeless to engage in dialogue with any kind of fanatic or fundamentalist. And I agree, that is what they are.
I leave you with my best wishes and my gratitude for what you do.
I think your book is brilliant and articulates ideas I’d been struggling to formulate. I had no idea your publisher ASKED you to write the book and then failed to do proper promotion. Just bizarre!
Is that the one who was at the launch in the tiny bookshop? He was really enthusiastic about you, which left me really puzzled when I read this essay. Thank goodness he's still working there!
"I think the entire “left” is in a similarly abusive situation with the social justice identitarians, just as the “right” is trapped in abusive relationships with corporations, religious fanatics, and wealthy financiers."
Rhyd, could you give examples of what you say about the right? Don't the supposedly left democrats have massive corporate connections with defense,, media and tech? How are religious fanatics hurting people? Don't the democrats have more financiers lening towrds them?
For the 'new' right, especially there's Peter Thiel (founder of PayPal). He's been funding a lot of right-journals and cultural projects for the last few years, and is becoming pretty much the George Soros of the right. And of course for the general right, there's always been the Koch brothers and multiple foundations funding journals, blogs, and activists.
Thanks for your response! Thiel gives me the willies, especially with Palantir, but the whole transhumanism thing speaks to rich people who want to dominate forever. It shouldn't be an option. As for the Kochs, I think small govt is a necessary defense against govt power. I don't begrudge money to people in need, I begrudge it to the crony capitalists.
I think if I lived in Portland I'd have been beaten to a pulp a long time ago....
Is all we can ever do simply learn to speak our truth and trust in the morphic resonance Sama writes of, and in our integrity being more important that the madness of those around us? You are doing a fantastic job, from my point of view, and I learnt so much from your book. I don't think I'm a Marxist, because I am wary of any "isms", but I sure do understand that perspective way better now, with the contrast of the insanity of the right and left you write of.
I will need to read it again, but will find the time and write some reviews. I've tried to recommend it to friends who might be interested, but everyone is so caught up in their own issues and also already have their favourite podcasts and substacks and whatever. It's tricky!
Sending loads of love, and please hang on in there! xxx
Sorry to hear all of this. I hope you will draw whatever lessons from it seem fruitful to you.
For my part, though I was never as 'leftist' as you, my break with the left came in similar circumstances, and over time. I had come to accept that whatever 'good left' there had once been (the working class left of my Methodist great grandfather being my gold standard) had been consumed by something that looks more like a bunch of vicious, mindless, ideologically crazy brownshirts. It's only got worse since then. I think the left is now a poison in the veins of the culture. You do not need to be 'on the right' to acknowledge this. Running away from them is a sane choice.
As a Christian, by the way, I agree with what you say about the puritans and iconoclasts. I've long thought that wokeness was the sermon on the mount minus love, forgiveness or God. Christians are at their very worst when they forget the instruction to love their neighbour first, which is presumably why it was given.
Keep going!
A poison injected into those veins, maybe...
Speaking of vicious ideologically crazy brownshirts it seems to me that that is a very apt accurate description of the benighted denizens promoting this project -many/most/all of whom are Christians
http://www.project2025.org
Brownshirts tend to march down the street, smash shop windows, burn city blocks and shoot people. I can't see some Republican think tankers being active enough to make that happen. But maybe I am misreading America.
There have definitely been a few roving gangs (the Proud Boys, for example), but they mostly just go to Portland to brawl with equally thuggish antifa gangs in what's become a civic religious festival of street fighting.
If only they could all stay there. It could be a kind of political burning man. We could build a big wall around it.
Yes, in my opinion you very much do misread the state of American culture, or what remains of it.
A slightly modified quote from the 1963 book Culture Against Man by Jules Henry. A book which was quite influential in its time.
"In Western culture today one must make a distinction between the culture of life and the culture of death. In the minds of most people science has become synonymous with destructive weapons, i.e with death ... Where is the culture of life? The culture of life resides in all those people who, inarticulate, frightened and confused, are wondering 'where will it end'.
Thus the forces of death are confident and organized while the forces of life - the people who long for peace and sanity - are, for the most part, scattered, inarticulate, and wooly-minded, overwhelmed by their (seeming) impotence. Death struts about the house while Life cowers in the corners."
Sixty years later the situation thus described is muchly more advanced - potentially catastrophically so! In my opinion the Heritage (lies, lies and more lies) Foundation which has created the 2025 project is one of the leading edge vectors of that "culture" of death - satanic barbarians all the way down!
In my opinion it is also in one way of another associated with the phenomenon described in the book by Chris Hedges titled American Fascists - The Christian Right and the War Against America.
See also my other comment on this site re the nature of the morphogenic pattern and the world-wide "culture" of death created and propagated the 800+ US military bases.
I tend to disregard any comment which uses the word 'fascist' to refer to people who are not actually fascists. It's the equivalent of 'conspiracy theorist', and has been useless since at least 1946. If we can't accurately pin down what people are and what they do, we are just name-calling. 'Satanic', by the way, is even worse - and I speak as a Christian.
I would be no fan of the Heritage Foundation or its views, but to associate it with the brownshirts, and also to attempt to smear Christians by association with it, is not helping anything anywhere. It only reflects on you.
In my view, people on all sides should try to calm down and call a spade a spade (rather than a 'fascist'). Then we might see what was happening. It's hard enough as it is, without the hysteria.
One reason I appreciate Rhyd's writing is that, while we come from quite different places, he is a man who tries to accurately portray the world and say what he means. If he disagrees, he tends to do so calmly and with an explanation. This kind of thing is much needed from all quarters.
This comment here, and then coming from a person who called the entire modern left "consumed by something that looks more like a bunch of vicious, mindless, ideologically crazy brownshirts" and "a poison in the veins of the culture"?
Fair comment, that was hyperbolic language. But the word 'consumed' was the key word. It feels to me that the left has been eaten by something bad and dangerous. Not that everyone 'on the left' is like this - obviously they're not, or Rhyd would not be under attack himself. But the lunatics have taken over the asylum, and I do see 'the left' as a whole as a poison at this point. Personally I think this was always likely - because it happens throughout history. But it also happens to other politics tribes, and regularly to religions.
Calling oneself a "Christian" doesn't mean one's life philosophy has anything to do with the Christ, as we all know. It's as frustrating as watching in horror as people excuse horrendous suffering through choosing to see all Muslims as inherently evil. The people you speak of clearly aren't "Christians" in anything but name and membership to an at times very powerful man-made institution. Round and round it goes.
With respect, Helen, isn't that the No True Scotsman fallacy? Where one claims that unpleasant examples of a certain group are somehow not actually part of the group. One might as well also say that the people who harassed Rhyd aren't actually leftists.
Does this depend on how you define the group, and who gets to define it, or even whether it's sensible to start using group identity at all? Maybe group identity is always just a tool of manipulation? This is complex because Jesus didn't tell people to call themselves "Christians" and following Jesus does not have to mean belonging to a church: if I follow his example quietly for myself I could still call myself a Christian, or not, as I wish. Or I can call myself a Christian but pick and choose about where I follow his example, if at all (or so it would seem). Do all these people belong to the same group? Very, very loosely, based on the lowest common denominator of perhaps believing Jesus was the son of God, or maybe even just that he was a wise man whose example I wish to follow? I was raised in a Christian family and have lived in several different Christian communities, but feel I have very little in common with e.g. high Catholics or charismatic Evangelicals. I possibly have more in common with you. Do we need some Venn diagrams?
Well, I push back against that logic, because a conversation environment where each person gets to pick and choose whom they accept as belonging to their favorite group would descend into weasely meaninglessness soon. Criticism of concepts with group identities attached would become impossible.
Do you mean that whoever assigns themselves an identity which has the same name as one you have either been assigned or choose to assign yourself automatically has to be accepted by you as having that very same identity you have?
This is such such such an interesting article. I loved Here Be Monsters and will continue to shout my love from the rooftops. I've already included it in my favourite book round up to my (albeit small) readers. :)
Ditto here.
Thanks for this, going to order your book right now.
You've probably seen this, but it's a fun way to parse some of the madness:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ev373c7wSRg&ab_channel=RyanLong
Yes, I remember when that was first made. Brilliant.
Yes, it is astonishing what strange bad places shared group think can take you and also wonderful good places at times.
>> The abusers on “the left” offer nothing in return except the delusion of being good.
It's certainly more than that. The current "left" offers social cachet and coolness, and in some important quarters, ascendant political power (AOC is a good example of a young 'passionate joiner' who was very quickly brought to heel).
Oh, Rhyd, there's so many times I want to give you a hug; at least three in this essay. "Monsters" is unquestionably good; if it lacks a very broad market, it's because the intersection of topics (critique of progressivism/modernism from a Marxist perspective, and I realize I'm oversimplifying) lacks a broad market. But I think anyone who knows the dance is impressed by your moves.
Violence. I have such a funny relationship to violence. Don't we all? Truth be told, I think there's simply too many of us and we're too well-connected, and we're a bunch of angry chimps that want DESPERATELY to bash in the brains of the chimps stressing us out until they're ABSOLUTELY. POSITIVELY. DEAD. But we've all had our rocks taken away and get punished for even SAYING we want to bash the other chimps' brains in, so we've learned to be manipulative: serve the power that grants us permission to bash brains in again, or get them to do it for us but let us watch.
We're not designed to live as we do, and we ARE designed for violence (among other, loftier things). Like sex, we've put violence in a locked box that we pretend doesn't exist, sitting on a shelf somewhere with the Ark of the Covenant at the end of the Indiana Jones movie. But it does exist, and the "disabled trans activists" really, really wanted to just bash some chimp brains... and- if I'm being darkly honest for a moment?- it would thrill my blood from head to toe if they'd come for me or my friends. I'd want to kiss them on the lips and say "thank you" before getting started. See? I'm just on the other side of the chimp line, wanting desperately for "self defense" to be my excuse, because I'm too damned honorable to start hitting people for talking, but would still LOVE to hit some people.
I've stopped worrying about whether violence is right. I concern myself, as a "mature adult," (yeah, I could barely type that) with whether its potential consequences are worth bearing. In that respect I'm wiser than a young "leftist" activist throwing shit at people (chimps indeed).
But it's very unlikely that the nature of modern living will be reversed. We might be drugging most of human nature out of existence, but if "disabled trans activists" are picking brawls with leafleting libertarians, we clearly haven't successfully suppressed or neutered aggression from humanity. We've just gotten good at pretending the ones who get caught are the only ones doing it.
This is gold 🙏
At yer service, mister.
It must have taken a whole lot of courage to write this, Rhyd, and my heart goes out to you. The point you make about political theologies is well-made, and I appreciate you are making it in a Western/American context; but competing Christianities are by no means the only game in town when it comes to persecutions, excommunications and moral fanaticism down the millennia, I think. Pick a religion, any religion; pick a political party, any political party; pick a group of "grown ups" on a committee, pick a group of kids in the playground - they'll all break down into in-groups and out-groups, us and them, true-believers and heretics, unimpeachable angels and the very devils. Sad to say that the haters always shout the loudest and get away with both metaphorical and literal murder. Unless until, of course, enough folk like you start to speak out against them. "Bad men need nothing more to compass their ends, than that good men should look on and do nothing". I thank you for refusing to be silenced.
Moved by your candor: thank you for upholding candor.
Not having the time to cover all the bases in this freefall (tho I try), I would very much like to understand the 'love' that includes people who are thoughtless, cruel, and so coarse as to
place excrement on the property of those they disagree with.
I left a review on Goodreads! I am happy to do so in other places as well if there are more helpful sites. I want to thank you Rhyd, for your bravery.
I personally don’t think that change happens only in the obvious, physical, force-based way that we think it does. There are so many angels out there in the world, working at gas stations and airports, in fields growing food, tending to the elderly with no widespread recognition for the love they are spreading. I love the models of morphic resonance put forward by Rupert Sheldrake, among others, and have found this to be true in my own experience. Your book changed something, even beyond how many people literally read it. It changed something in our collective field, and you could say, provided an energetic roadmap for others to be brave and speak their compassionate truths in the face of so much censoring and hate. (A great example of this phenomenon of morphic resonance is in the discovery of the electron. Once one lab did it, many others were then able to, and not primarily because the first lab could give better instructions or something, it was best explained by the change to the morphic field).
Speaking of formative morphic resonance what kind of such world-wide resonance does the existence of more than 800 US military bases create - and the presence of the US military in almost every country on the planet.
Each single base is in effect a psychic force-field. Collectively they create a very powerful death-saturated psychic force field. A very powerful example of the medium being the message - an anti-"culture" of death rules to here!
We now live in a quantum world wherein everyone is instantaneously inter-connected.
The negative exploitation and killing of human beings by human beings violates the heart of one and all. So too with the negative exploitation and killing of non-human beings by human beings.
Here in Australia we also contribute to this death-saturated force-field via the presence of a few electronic spy/transmission bases - Pine Gap and the North West cape being two of them.
The Americans have complete control of everything and every body that goes on in Pine Gap therefore trumping anything the Australian government may wish to protest against or change.
Speaking of Trump it could be said that William Blake prophesized his appearance in one line featured in his poem titled The Prophecy - the line starts thus The Trump of the last doom. Altogether the poem provides an accurate description of the now-time world.
Thanks for this, and a reminder to read your book! It's been on my list and I haven't gotten around to it yet. I'm in the midst of a comparatively minor cancellation attempt myself, and what it's made me realize is that I need to disentangle myself from leftist/progressive spaces. No matter what I say or do, some people will now label me "right-wing." I'm realizing those labels are increasingly losing any real meaning and people who are interested in what I have to say are going to read me regardless. But there's no point in trying to make myself palatable to true believers.
Interestingly, regarding your thoughts on religion, there's data that shows that people who have right-wing views are increasingly identifying as "Evangelical," despite not attending church or making any meaningful attempt to practice. In fact, some people of other faiths are now labeling themselves "evangelical" based on politics. Labels and fault lines between polarities have always shifted over time, but its weird to see it happening at such warp speed.
The book is sooooooooo worth reading, Rebekah!!
What's the best way to buy your book Rhyd? I've been meaning to for a while and this is my spur to action.
Where are you, john? Here in the UK it's available through a lot of the usual booksellers online.
https://repeaterbooks.com/product/here-be-monsters/
Ordering from a local bookstore in-person if they don't already have a copy increases the chances they'll stock it and other people will also see it. Otherwise, direct from the Repeater site that Helen posted below.
I am a lifelong resident of Eugene, Oregon. A few years ago, I very seriously considered moving out of state. This kind of stuff is exactly why. I eventually came to decide I'd rather have our problems than anyone else's problems — but, as you described, we absolutely do have our problems.
The answer is not to try to make Oregon into Nebraska. Somehow we need to become a more functional version of ourselves.
I lived in Eugene for six months. That was a difficult place, so strange there.
Until very recently, I also lived in Eugene. For several years, I practiced nonprofit environmental law there, and interacted frequently with the Portland left activist crews through that work. There’s certainly a Eugene-Portland activist pipeline. I will say what struck me after a few years was that the Portland folx always demanded our work include their intersectional human issues, but rarely showed up to support our activism on behalf of non-humans, which was focused on preserving life in the form of old forests and wild creatures. There could certainly be blind spots among that contingent about how human supremacy structured many of their thought patterns and violent reactions.
I am sorry to hear what you have been going through. I bought your book at a local bookstore and am slowly reading it and enjoying it. I thanks you for your honesty, your vulnerability and your care.
I am one of your faithful readers from the first time I encountered your posts. In my own humble way - as a originally Chilean leftist feminist activist - who voted for Allende and worked for his government- I have to say I fundamentally agree with you. Having come to Canada as a refugee I joined the Green movement as well as some anarchs-syndicalist groups in Montreal. Having moved to Vancouver I continued to join movements like that until 2019- 20.
The"left" - I hesitate to call them thus, slowly but completely lost their way - from social justice and care for minorities and the environment to "Whatever Fad/Trend" offers a CAUSE that can allow them to vent their anger against other who disagree.
IT is really sad, disappointing and, I think, quite hopeless to engage in dialogue with any kind of fanatic or fundamentalist. And I agree, that is what they are.
I leave you with my best wishes and my gratitude for what you do.
Thank you.
I think your book is brilliant and articulates ideas I’d been struggling to formulate. I had no idea your publisher ASKED you to write the book and then failed to do proper promotion. Just bizarre!
I was approached by the commissioning editor for it. He's really a great guy and has been my constant defender through all of this.
Is that the one who was at the launch in the tiny bookshop? He was really enthusiastic about you, which left me really puzzled when I read this essay. Thank goodness he's still working there!
Yes. He's really a wonderful and quite brilliant person who has been deeply supportive.
"I think the entire “left” is in a similarly abusive situation with the social justice identitarians, just as the “right” is trapped in abusive relationships with corporations, religious fanatics, and wealthy financiers."
Rhyd, could you give examples of what you say about the right? Don't the supposedly left democrats have massive corporate connections with defense,, media and tech? How are religious fanatics hurting people? Don't the democrats have more financiers lening towrds them?
For the 'new' right, especially there's Peter Thiel (founder of PayPal). He's been funding a lot of right-journals and cultural projects for the last few years, and is becoming pretty much the George Soros of the right. And of course for the general right, there's always been the Koch brothers and multiple foundations funding journals, blogs, and activists.
Thanks for your response! Thiel gives me the willies, especially with Palantir, but the whole transhumanism thing speaks to rich people who want to dominate forever. It shouldn't be an option. As for the Kochs, I think small govt is a necessary defense against govt power. I don't begrudge money to people in need, I begrudge it to the crony capitalists.
I think if I lived in Portland I'd have been beaten to a pulp a long time ago....
Is all we can ever do simply learn to speak our truth and trust in the morphic resonance Sama writes of, and in our integrity being more important that the madness of those around us? You are doing a fantastic job, from my point of view, and I learnt so much from your book. I don't think I'm a Marxist, because I am wary of any "isms", but I sure do understand that perspective way better now, with the contrast of the insanity of the right and left you write of.
I will need to read it again, but will find the time and write some reviews. I've tried to recommend it to friends who might be interested, but everyone is so caught up in their own issues and also already have their favourite podcasts and substacks and whatever. It's tricky!
Sending loads of love, and please hang on in there! xxx
Thank you.