"Caveat: many on here, reading my Substack, are very independent-minded. You may be one of them. You may not care too much about belonging. You might be much happier being a loner or an outsider. I’m sure you still have ways which you find belonging, but overall, I’d venture that many of us couldn’t care less about needing to find our validation in a group."
And yet any Substack commenter quickly finds a micro-community within it.
Show me one movement in recorded history that didn't rapidly fracture into many. Plenty of tiny Christian sects whose names and doctrines we don't know, now, because they were so efficiently exterminated by the prevailing ones. Remember the Albigensians? Yeah, who does these days?
All belief systems are cults. Consider that a somewhat neutral term for discussion's purpose. People generally are born into them. Some of them eventually become irked, or troubled, by aspects of the doctrine they disagree with, but don't feel comfortable abandoning the central tenet, so they break away, and if they survive the rage of their fellows, and attract a few like-minded sympathizers, they form a sub-cult. And so it goes.
All cults are religions. Pantsuit Nation is the Religion of Hillary. I see throughout the Substacks I read plenty of adherents of the Cult of the Donald. Many of them were clearly primed by membership in their larger cult to welcome a Prophet suitable for ostensibly secular purposes. But the devotion is remarkable, and doesn't really seem all that secular.
Because nothing stays secular for long.
Yes, we all need to belong. My own inclinations tend to be of such minority perspective, in one way or another, that even with those closest to me (and a small circle it is, really), there's no perfect, or even considerable alignment. The glue holds despite the gulfs in viewpoints, because you've got to love some people despite feeling they're being jerks a lot of the time.
So I have to keep reminding myself that Substack friends aren't the same as people one gets to know in all their human complexity. The tastes and opinions that draw us together are only parts of our wholes.
Sort of a dance of the amoebas, joining and detaching as necessary.
This is a great article, and the major issue we have with this is the increasingly insane things The Woke cult is forced to believe in order to stay in good standing. After all, we know that the cult most viciously attacks those who leave. Do the people who are desperate to fit in stand up when the cult demands The Woke say that men can be women? Of course not! Thus, they find themselves further and further along the road to Crazytown. But as Dave Chappelle said, sometimes you just have to get off the bus.
The Woke Cult has become dangerously similar to many of the zealous cults and movements of the past. It's being fed by an agenda that seeks to dehumanize both the converts and the non-believers.
The converts slide into a nebulous and androgenous "identity", which happens to be whatever the current thing is in all of its confusing and numbing "intersectionality". This intersectionality is really a billion crossroads converging in the middle, with none really going anywhere. A giant maze and web of nothing men and women.
The non-believers are the "others", and must be destroyed at all costs. They are bullied, doxxed, threatened, injured, and trampled until they submit or are abolished.
This isn't hyperbole. This is the truth, and this leads to a society of polarization, control, demonization, manipulation, and chaos.
The REAL kicker is that the puppet masters are actively cultivating this. They know that the more chaos they create and the more they divide, when the moment comes to wrap up this phase of destroying the identity of a human being, they will have the Woke as putty in their hands, as soldiers in their army, and they will use that androgenous non-person to carry out their next phase which is worldwide population domination.
Covid was a beta test, and boy did a frightening portion of our population perform (and in many ways continues to perform) just like the good soldiers they've been spending their time and fortunes creating.
The Woke is the future army that will usher in The Great Reset. Unless we continue to fight against it, here and now, they will win and we will either be outlaws, prisoners, or fodder.
“Balkanization” is the fragmentation of a larger region or state into smaller regions or states, which may be hostile or uncooperative with one another.
“Bidenization” is similar - a divisive, angry philosophy that divides Americans along political lines. We saw this clearly in the demonization of the unvaccinated, long after it was clear that the vaccines didn’t stop the spread of covid, as we were promised. Another clear example is the FBI and DHS declaring parents and ‘spreaders of covid misinformation’ domestic terrorists!
Belonging is innately human, as primates we belong to groups, have a status within the hierarchy in those groups. In most of the traditional world, family, kin, clan, and tribe still matter. A close knit group of reciprocal trust binds people together. At the end of the day, loners don't survive- that is what ostracism is a punishment; it breaks social bonds, which are the ultimate social safety net, stronger than any state.
We have had the deliberate breaking of these bonds going on for well over a century. When compulsory education first came to the US, parents revolted over sending an 8 year old to school, as they felt the child should be in the family. Now we have childcare starting at 12 weeks and preschool starting at age three. It just follows from there- new classroom every year, new adult figure (teacher) new social circle (school mates), then a new school at middle school, a new school at high school, and a new town/city for college (plus moving cities as parents find work in new places). All the normal human bonds are fractured, and people rely on a consumer identity or a digital engagement, but are still lost and unhappy. Some of the family breakdown is intentional (the Austria school of social psychology) that wanted to destroy the family unit in order to rebuild society. Some of it is the pressures of capitalism. Some is the sexual revolution. But the traditional identities- family, nation, religion- are atrophying; and the function they played in life- belonging, defending the population, providing spiritual connection, guidance, and morality- are falling by the wayside. This intentionality serves the powerful classes quite well- atomized, unconnected human beings, striving for status and belonging, finding their identity in chasing money, fabricated narratives, or consumer objects that publicly validate their worth. Or worse yet, finding some atavistic outlet in the manufactured outrage of the moment, and the 'us against them' mob identification.
This is what we are struggling with, as a society, a culture, and as a nation. And very few people are offering a program or model for how to rebuild the structures that foster belonging in a healthy, functional, or resilient manner. In my opinion, this breakdown has been an overt political project, and the successful rebuilding (unlikely but necessary) will also be an overt political project; in the archaic sense of the word 'polis' or the gathering of people in a place. Who are we, why do we matter to each other, and how do we participate in a way that belonging is real, and purpose is realized?
The man is a political animal (Zoon politikon, ζῷον πoλιτικόν) and in the time where man has super extended himself the need for a center ground of the polis is an urgent need. Woke rituals arise in the actual spiritual practice of scientism. Ritualized belonging to escape anomie and nihilism. The Carlin joke in practice: "I used to be all messed up on drugs, now all messed up on the Lord."
You have got it right! The fragmentation and fracturing of family and community is a political/economic project that has well advanced. The question is how can we build/rebuild, especially realizing that we are a significant minority (5%?) of the population. But even 5 percent of this huge country would be over 15 million people, enough to help change direction. There has to be some form of political 'belonging' that actually works for people, and that works to build a healthy, productive, and functional society that can span successive generations.
No common ground for most folks. Writ large American individualism creates excessive fragmentation of the person before finishing college and afterwards money tries to glue the pieces together through participation mystique in the Economy and with what energy remains participation in social collectives. I think though the belonging will be something like the Great Awakening. A call to a very American view seen through religious filters. In this view our culture and political secularism failed. A point of unity and the reactionary backlash may well take the form and emotional energy of the old Pentecostal ways of 100 years ago or more. The Greek polis was centered on common worship of the Sky gods and not the tutelary divinities of the countryside who were brought into the Polis and subsumed in the new Pantheon. Another way of seeing this idea is examining the Gnostic Left and the pseudo-Christian ideas motivating their zeal.
i recently watched a youtube vid that clearly suggested im a sigma empath, im not sure i ever believed in all that alpha/beta crap but they pretty much nailed my personality. it would be interesting to do a mass survey of substackers to see if we are more independent types or just smart reader types etc
i grew up with a narcissist parent and this helped me develop certain personality traits according to this vid if you are interested: https://youtu.be/l2SvS9JCO2g
Many of us couldn't give a rats ass about "belonging".
Especially after the lies and deceit of the last two years and the realisation that the majority of the public appear to be imbeciles, while the majority of politicians appear to be evil, corrupt bastards..
"Caveat: many on here, reading my Substack, are very independent-minded. You may be one of them. You may not care too much about belonging. You might be much happier being a loner or an outsider. I’m sure you still have ways which you find belonging, but overall, I’d venture that many of us couldn’t care less about needing to find our validation in a group."
And yet any Substack commenter quickly finds a micro-community within it.
Show me one movement in recorded history that didn't rapidly fracture into many. Plenty of tiny Christian sects whose names and doctrines we don't know, now, because they were so efficiently exterminated by the prevailing ones. Remember the Albigensians? Yeah, who does these days?
All belief systems are cults. Consider that a somewhat neutral term for discussion's purpose. People generally are born into them. Some of them eventually become irked, or troubled, by aspects of the doctrine they disagree with, but don't feel comfortable abandoning the central tenet, so they break away, and if they survive the rage of their fellows, and attract a few like-minded sympathizers, they form a sub-cult. And so it goes.
All cults are religions. Pantsuit Nation is the Religion of Hillary. I see throughout the Substacks I read plenty of adherents of the Cult of the Donald. Many of them were clearly primed by membership in their larger cult to welcome a Prophet suitable for ostensibly secular purposes. But the devotion is remarkable, and doesn't really seem all that secular.
Because nothing stays secular for long.
Yes, we all need to belong. My own inclinations tend to be of such minority perspective, in one way or another, that even with those closest to me (and a small circle it is, really), there's no perfect, or even considerable alignment. The glue holds despite the gulfs in viewpoints, because you've got to love some people despite feeling they're being jerks a lot of the time.
So I have to keep reminding myself that Substack friends aren't the same as people one gets to know in all their human complexity. The tastes and opinions that draw us together are only parts of our wholes.
Sort of a dance of the amoebas, joining and detaching as necessary.
This is a great article, and the major issue we have with this is the increasingly insane things The Woke cult is forced to believe in order to stay in good standing. After all, we know that the cult most viciously attacks those who leave. Do the people who are desperate to fit in stand up when the cult demands The Woke say that men can be women? Of course not! Thus, they find themselves further and further along the road to Crazytown. But as Dave Chappelle said, sometimes you just have to get off the bus.
The Woke Cult has become dangerously similar to many of the zealous cults and movements of the past. It's being fed by an agenda that seeks to dehumanize both the converts and the non-believers.
The converts slide into a nebulous and androgenous "identity", which happens to be whatever the current thing is in all of its confusing and numbing "intersectionality". This intersectionality is really a billion crossroads converging in the middle, with none really going anywhere. A giant maze and web of nothing men and women.
The non-believers are the "others", and must be destroyed at all costs. They are bullied, doxxed, threatened, injured, and trampled until they submit or are abolished.
This isn't hyperbole. This is the truth, and this leads to a society of polarization, control, demonization, manipulation, and chaos.
The REAL kicker is that the puppet masters are actively cultivating this. They know that the more chaos they create and the more they divide, when the moment comes to wrap up this phase of destroying the identity of a human being, they will have the Woke as putty in their hands, as soldiers in their army, and they will use that androgenous non-person to carry out their next phase which is worldwide population domination.
Covid was a beta test, and boy did a frightening portion of our population perform (and in many ways continues to perform) just like the good soldiers they've been spending their time and fortunes creating.
The Woke is the future army that will usher in The Great Reset. Unless we continue to fight against it, here and now, they will win and we will either be outlaws, prisoners, or fodder.
Yep, you said it perfectly! I wrote about this a while back:
https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/the-bidenization-of-america
“Balkanization” is the fragmentation of a larger region or state into smaller regions or states, which may be hostile or uncooperative with one another.
“Bidenization” is similar - a divisive, angry philosophy that divides Americans along political lines. We saw this clearly in the demonization of the unvaccinated, long after it was clear that the vaccines didn’t stop the spread of covid, as we were promised. Another clear example is the FBI and DHS declaring parents and ‘spreaders of covid misinformation’ domestic terrorists!
You nailed it!
Belonging is innately human, as primates we belong to groups, have a status within the hierarchy in those groups. In most of the traditional world, family, kin, clan, and tribe still matter. A close knit group of reciprocal trust binds people together. At the end of the day, loners don't survive- that is what ostracism is a punishment; it breaks social bonds, which are the ultimate social safety net, stronger than any state.
We have had the deliberate breaking of these bonds going on for well over a century. When compulsory education first came to the US, parents revolted over sending an 8 year old to school, as they felt the child should be in the family. Now we have childcare starting at 12 weeks and preschool starting at age three. It just follows from there- new classroom every year, new adult figure (teacher) new social circle (school mates), then a new school at middle school, a new school at high school, and a new town/city for college (plus moving cities as parents find work in new places). All the normal human bonds are fractured, and people rely on a consumer identity or a digital engagement, but are still lost and unhappy. Some of the family breakdown is intentional (the Austria school of social psychology) that wanted to destroy the family unit in order to rebuild society. Some of it is the pressures of capitalism. Some is the sexual revolution. But the traditional identities- family, nation, religion- are atrophying; and the function they played in life- belonging, defending the population, providing spiritual connection, guidance, and morality- are falling by the wayside. This intentionality serves the powerful classes quite well- atomized, unconnected human beings, striving for status and belonging, finding their identity in chasing money, fabricated narratives, or consumer objects that publicly validate their worth. Or worse yet, finding some atavistic outlet in the manufactured outrage of the moment, and the 'us against them' mob identification.
This is what we are struggling with, as a society, a culture, and as a nation. And very few people are offering a program or model for how to rebuild the structures that foster belonging in a healthy, functional, or resilient manner. In my opinion, this breakdown has been an overt political project, and the successful rebuilding (unlikely but necessary) will also be an overt political project; in the archaic sense of the word 'polis' or the gathering of people in a place. Who are we, why do we matter to each other, and how do we participate in a way that belonging is real, and purpose is realized?
Brilliant, well thought out and articulated comment. Thank you!
The man is a political animal (Zoon politikon, ζῷον πoλιτικόν) and in the time where man has super extended himself the need for a center ground of the polis is an urgent need. Woke rituals arise in the actual spiritual practice of scientism. Ritualized belonging to escape anomie and nihilism. The Carlin joke in practice: "I used to be all messed up on drugs, now all messed up on the Lord."
You have got it right! The fragmentation and fracturing of family and community is a political/economic project that has well advanced. The question is how can we build/rebuild, especially realizing that we are a significant minority (5%?) of the population. But even 5 percent of this huge country would be over 15 million people, enough to help change direction. There has to be some form of political 'belonging' that actually works for people, and that works to build a healthy, productive, and functional society that can span successive generations.
No common ground for most folks. Writ large American individualism creates excessive fragmentation of the person before finishing college and afterwards money tries to glue the pieces together through participation mystique in the Economy and with what energy remains participation in social collectives. I think though the belonging will be something like the Great Awakening. A call to a very American view seen through religious filters. In this view our culture and political secularism failed. A point of unity and the reactionary backlash may well take the form and emotional energy of the old Pentecostal ways of 100 years ago or more. The Greek polis was centered on common worship of the Sky gods and not the tutelary divinities of the countryside who were brought into the Polis and subsumed in the new Pantheon. Another way of seeing this idea is examining the Gnostic Left and the pseudo-Christian ideas motivating their zeal.
i recently watched a youtube vid that clearly suggested im a sigma empath, im not sure i ever believed in all that alpha/beta crap but they pretty much nailed my personality. it would be interesting to do a mass survey of substackers to see if we are more independent types or just smart reader types etc
I would love to see that survey! I'm going to look into sigma empath too.
i grew up with a narcissist parent and this helped me develop certain personality traits according to this vid if you are interested: https://youtu.be/l2SvS9JCO2g
Thanks! Checking this out now. Very important to me.
Well said, well done.
Many of us couldn't give a rats ass about "belonging".
Especially after the lies and deceit of the last two years and the realisation that the majority of the public appear to be imbeciles, while the majority of politicians appear to be evil, corrupt bastards..
“The object of life is not to be on the side of the majority, but to escape finding oneself in the ranks of the insane.”
― Marcus Aurelius, Meditations