The Truth Seekers Guide: Chapter 2

The War of ideas

In chapter one, we have noted that we are beings of conceptual consciousness who necessarily deal with ideas in the form of concepts, and also that the discernment of truth is a process of evaluating and validating these conceptual ideas. The task of discerning truth, therefore, deals with ideas. So now let’s take a closer look at the idea of ideas, to observe their role in the discernment of truth and in the acquisition of knowledge, and also their enormous potential to effect human life for either good (if they are true) or evil (if they are false).

You may think of an idea as a suggestion of how to solve a particular problem or an inspiration for a piece of creative art, but although this is true, the concept of an idea is much broader than this.

An idea is a phenomena of the human (conceptual) form of consciousness. Every word we use represents an idea: every concept, name, principle, or generalisation, stands for an idea. No matter how complex, or how simple, every thought is an idea. Ideas are conceptual snapshots and/or integrations that only a mind can grasp. Non-conceptual forms of consciousness cannot deal with ideas. The ability to do so rests on our faculty of reason, our uniquely human characteristic.

The important point to note about ideas is that because our consciousness is primarily aimed outwards, every idea is an identification of some aspect, or aspects, of reality. Even when we introspect, examining thoughts, feelings, aspirations, or memories, these are all ultimately the results of looking outwards; the subject matter originates from what we experience outside of ourselves in the world around us. Even when we use our imagination, seemingly inventing ideas, these are all just rearrangements or re-combinations of various things we have seen, heard of, or experienced in some form. The human creative ability is not that of creating new ideas, as such. It is the ability to conceptually identify aspects of reality, and combinations thereof, and to invent new permutations, combinations, or integrations of this multitude of identified ideas. Reality is therefore the source of all ideas; the mind attempts to map reality in the form of conceptual knowledge using ideas in the form of concepts. In essence, an idea is a thought identifying some aspect of reality.

The most basic ideas are those of individual things (concretes) represented by words or names, such as cat, table, or tree. But ideas can also be very complex, representing huge integrations of many component conceptual ideas. For example, health, energy, or climate. The important point to note is that these higher level concepts (ideas) presuppose vast numbers of genetically antecedent ideas.

Our value system is a set of ideas motivating our actions. It includes ideas about what is good or bad, desirable or undesirable, possible or impossible, acceptable or unacceptable, etc. Advertisers appeal to our value system and sow ideas that persuade us to buy particular products or services. Public relations experts do the same to subtly influence us to adopt ideas that can even cause us to act contrary to our own interests. Ideas motivate people.

Imagine how someone might act if they believed that health was all about avoiding dangerous germs that cause deadly diseases, versus the idea that health is a consequence of proper nutrition and the avoidance of toxicity? Or imagine how someone would live a life if they believed that success and happiness were possible, versus believing that they are not. People are influenced by the ideas they adopt. And, just as you can influence the thoughts and behaviour of one man—what he values and what he doesn’t, what he believes in and what he doesn’t—so you can influence a group of men, or a nation, or a civilisation! This is the power of ideas.

When we act, we do so from a number of motivating factors, including our value system, and all of the premises that comprise our knowledge base. All of this is made up of ideas. The basic actions of eating to satisfy hunger, or of sleeping when tired, though driven by sensations are supported by knowledge of the idea (gained from experience) that if you didn’t perform them you couldn’t function. Even acting on blind whim on the spur of the moment stems from an idea within a value system, albeit, not a rational one. In other words, All of our thinking, and all of our values, and therefore all of our actions, follow from the ideas we hold as true.

All of our thinking, and all of our values, and therefore all of our actions, follow from the ideas we hold as true. This is why ideas are so important, and are such powerful influencers and motivators of behaviour.

And, this is why only validated ideas, those confirmed as true, should be used as the building blocks of knowledge. We need a means of validation to distinguish between ideas that are safe to act on, from those that are not. An idea that has been validated is one that is proven to correlate with reality. Strictly speaking, truth applies to statements and claims in language. A true idea is one that is formulated into a statement that corresponds to reality, that reflects what is.

But perhaps most significantly at the fundamental level, ideas are powerful because they are the code with which we program our mental operating system. In other words, the ideas we hold as true have a direct bearing on what we think, how we think, and even if we think. Or in other words, our basic premises influence the conclusions we draw, how we arrive at them, and whether or not we bother to do so.

Mind control

Let’s pick up the thread of human volition in this context, and bear in mind that it is always a choice to operate one’s faculty of reason in thought. You have to exert the effort to understand the events in your life, in the world at large, and your feelings about them. You have to seek knowledge proactively, looking for connections between issues, looking for implicit ideas that are not obvious, considering further implications, etc. Those minds least inclined to engage in the practice of life long learning, and be concerned with their personal awareness and personal development, will be most easily influenced. If you don’t scrutinise the ideas you are bombarded with, you will not know which ones to reject or accept.

It is not disputed that the mind has a subconscious component as well as the conscious. It is also commonly agreed that the subconscious absorbs a lot of information that goes past the conscious awareness. There are numerous estimates of how much data our senses can provide to the brain in any given moment, and the amount is widely agreed to be far in excess of what can be consciously monitored. Most of us are aware of the idea of subliminal messages being embedded in video format by flashing an image for such a short period of time that it is not seen by conscious awareness, and yet it is still registered by the subconscious. So the subconscious accumulates data that can bypass conscious awareness.

It is because ideas have such enormous power to motivate us, and because they can be planted directly into the subconscious, coupled with the fact of a volitional human consciousness, that adds up to the fact that men are fundamentally controllable.

The power of ideas to motivate
+ the fact that ideas can be planted directly into the subconscious
+ the fact of human volition
= people can be controlled

And this is where the propagandists and behavioural analysis teams step in. If an audience chooses to be exposed to particular ideas, and is receptive and willing, we call it education, and the ideas are processed consciously. But when people have not made such a choice, they tend not to be conscious of their exposure to ideas at all. Yet in the normal course of daily life we are all exposed to ideas all the time, in our peripheral vision, and beyond conscious awareness. This is how mind control can be exercised, by slipping the propaganda (or suggestive ideas) into contexts where people are not sufficiently conscious of their exposure to ideas to raise whatever intellectual guard they may possess. The degree to which a mind can be influenced and controlled, is proportional to the degree that a mind declines to think, and thus relinquishes its intellectual sovereignty. The good news is that the converse is also true. The degree to which we remain fully conscious and in the driving seat of our minds, particularly with respect to holding our fundamental ideas fully consciously, is the degree to which we maintain sovereignty in our thinking and in our value system. To use an automobile metaphor, if the driver stays at the wheel, the vehicle is most unlikely to be driven off by someone else.

Takeaway point is that your consciousness must be alert, switched on, and serve as the gate keeper scrutinising all incoming ideas. And most importantly one must be fully conscious of one’s fundamental ideas, or premises. You must only file those ideas that have been consciously validated as knowledge. Just as importantly, for the truth seeker, you should note those ideas found to be false along with who is advocating those false ideas. Its just as important to consciously identify the source of false ideas as it is to identify the sources of ideas that may be predominantly true.

The degree to which we remain fully conscious and in the driving seat of our minds is the degree to which we maintain sovereignty in our thinking and in our value system.

Historical context

It has been said that the history of humanity is the history of ideas. In order to best understand the modern context lets go back in time 2500 years to ancient Greece, a very significant period in the development of ideas. At this time, philosophy was born and the most fundamental ideas were identified and debated for the first time in recorded history. Two very influential philosophers of that era championed opposing ideas about the nature of reality itself. On the one side was the idea that consciousness comes first, and that consciousness creates reality. On the other side of the debate, was the idea that reality comes first, and that consciousness merely observes reality. Each of these ideas has taken its turn in rising to prominence and exerting its influence on the history of western civilisation, and the observable results demonstrate their respective truth and falsity.

Plato, the philosopher who lived from 428 BC to 348 BC, proclaimed that consciousness creates reality, an idea Ayn Rand referred to in her philosophy of objectivism, as the primacy of consciousness. He spoke of ideas as forms, that existed in another realm. All things that manifest in this world, according to Plato, originate somewhere else, in the reality of forms.

Plato’s contemporary, Aristotle who lived from 384 BC to 322 BC, held the opposite view, that there was only one reality, and that it is the metaphysical primary, that reality exists objectively and independent of any consciousness. Rand similarly referred to this as the primacy of existence. From this base, Aristotle originated the law of identity, spoke of the method of reason, and became known as the ‘father of logic’.

These two views on the nature of reality—the primacy of consciousness and the primacy of existence—exhaust the possibilities in logic, and are mutually exclusive. It has to be one way or the other, it can’t both. This is most emphatically not to say that peoples thinking consistently conforms to either one or the other. Most people hold a mixed bag of ideas as conclusions, a few of which implicitly rest on the premise of the primacy of consciousness, and most of which implicitly rest on the primacy of existence, by necessity.

Plato’s idea of ‘forms’ and thus the primacy of consciousness is the fundamental idea at the heart of all varieties of mysticism, whereas Aristotle’s idea of reality being an objective absolute, is the fundamental idea at the base of logical reasoning. Aristotle’s ideas dominated for a period in ancient Greece and the cultural momentum went on to influence the Roman Empire until its collapse in the 5th century. The dark ages, or middle ages, then followed, and the idea Plato identified, once again dominated. Mysticism rose to rule the lives of men. [Source: Nathaniel Branden – the basic principles of Objectivism]

It was Aristotle’s ideas, resurrected by Thomas Aquinas (1225 AD to 1274 AD) in his attempt to reconcile them with Christianity, that ultimately brought an end to the dark ages and paved the way for the Renaissance (the rebirth of reason), the Enlightenment (the result of the rebirth of reason), and the scientific and industrial revolutions. In other words, it was a resurrection of Aristotle’s reason and logic that brought an end to ten centuries of stagnation and suffering, during which mysticism ruled through the union of church and state; a period during which reason was subordinate to religious doctrine, and instruments of torture were routinely used on the people, by the state, for crimes of heresy or witchcraft.

The significance of these two opposing fundamental ideas cannot be over stated. They effect the predisposition of men to either think rationally, or to accept ideas on faith guided by their feelings, and in the absence of rational thinking. And, just as individuals are influenced by these fundamental ideas, so are entire cultures. When either of these opposing fundamentals is held as the dominant view across an entire culture it effects the political conditions of that era, and consequently the quality of life for entire populations.

The resurgence of Aristotle’s idea of the primacy of existence gave rise to the renaissance and the enlightenment, and it was during this time that the idea of political freedom was born. The philosopher John Locke inspired the founding fathers who went on to create the constitution of the United States and in 1776 the first nation on earth was born in which men were free and not beholden to church or state.

Notably, Plato’s ideas about governance and the ideal state have been popular with tyrants over the millennia. He was the first prominent statist in recorded history. In many respects his famous work “THE REPUBLIC” informs their blue print. Whereas Aristotles’s ideas on logic are the implicit base of truth, knowledge, freedom, the scientific method and the industrial revolution. Aristotelian logic underpins every modern convenience that you currently enjoy, along with any successful human achievement. Ideas shape civilisations.

Political control through the power of ideas

In the introduction I identified the four factors that characterise the present socio-political context for the truth seeker. We noted an intellectual environment of relativism and the dis-valuing of truth, along with its inevitable consequence of a crisis in thinking. And we observed the ubiquitous deception in the narrative and the information coming from trusted institutions against the backdrop of a collectivist political agenda.

I proposed that the political agenda is the most likely driving factor, and the philosophical context most conducive to it has been deliberately orchestrated. If we now also consider the fundamental controllability of human beings, and the powerful ability of ideas to influence men, we can begin to see the evidence for this conclusion.

As you start your private investigation and set out to discern the truth in order to construct a world view that correlates with reality, you should hold this context in mind. You should also take a long term view, to note the historical context as well. It is important to fully appreciate that you and I just arrived here very recently on the scene. The sequence of political events we observe is playing out in a much much broader context, as it is in any era. The control we observe today didn’t begin a few years ago, decades ago, or even centuries ago. Its always been going on.

“The ruling class in every age have tried to impose a false view of the world on their followers” – George Orwell

As we have observed, men have been controlling other men in slavery ever since the first human interactions, and It should not be surprising that it continues today, albeit in a different form that employs deception rather than overt force. It should not be surprising that the practice of some men controlling others conceals itself in secrecy and deception; it shouldn’t be surprising that the people who seek to impose their agenda know exactly what they are doing, and that the craft of steering public opinion, and the broader political outcome using the power of ideas, is sophisticated and highly developed.

The writings of Niccolo Machiavelli, the Italian diplomat, and political and military theorist (1469–1527), contain many references on how populations might best be subjugated to the will of a controlling authority. The use of deceit, manipulation and violent atrocities is openly advocated in such writings, and constitutes one half of the strategy. Manufacturing intellectual compliance is the other. The move away from overt slavery towards more subtle manipulation by deception that we see today, shows the shift in emphasis from the machiavellian approach to a new one that employs psychological manipulation, influenced by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) and his nephew, Edward Bernays (1881 – 1995).

“In almost every act of our daily lives, whether in the sphere of politics or business, in our social conduct or our ethical thinking, we are dominated by the relatively small number of persons…who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires which control the public mind.”
“The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country”
Edward Bernays, “Propaganda” [1928]

There is much evidence to show that those behind the political agenda have done their homework. They know about the power of ideas, and how mens ability to reason and identify knowledge (truth) depends on which fundamental ideas are held as true. They also know that an intellectually disarmed population will be far less able to mount any persuasive and rationally consistent resistance to political control. They know about the power of fundamental ideas, and this is where their political control begins—by undermining reason and logic at the philosophical root in order to undermine the intellectual capability of the masses. From the perspective of the agenda, there’s no merit in a well educated population. Thinking individuals armed with reason present a serious threat to those who intend to deceive.

What we are doing here is inferring a connection. Just like a detective draws inferences together to solve a crime. We have not established proof, but we are building a consistent intelligible case that makes sense by observing the full context, thinking long term, and thinking in terms of fundamentals—techniques you will see explicitly outlined in the method section of this book.

When we understand the broader context of philosophical ideas, and that Plato’s primacy of consciousness is the fundamental root of the cultural shift away from reason, we are better able to understand the current situation, and how to reverse it. These days, men are no longer controlled by overt force, but by the power of ideas. And this process of control is greatly facilitated by first promoting fundamental ideas that create conditions in which all ideas will be accepted uncritically. This means effectively softening up the public by getting them to accept ideas without rational justification, i.e., on faith.

By considering the long term, zooming right out to appreciate the time-line over centuries, the four characteristics of the present era can be seen in the wider context of human history. The agenda has always been for some men to control others, and the knowledge of how to best achieve this goal has been honed and developed over the centuries. These days it is achieved by deceiving people into accepting ideas without the need for proof or logical reasoning. We are acknowledging the crucial premise that some men will always try to exploit (and therefore deceive) others, and that this fact must be taken into account and guarded against!

“History repeats itself, but in such cunning disguise that we never detect the resemblance until the damage is done.” Sydney J Harris

Emmanuel Kant and the resurgence of idealism

Now let us turn to the resurrection of Plato’s primacy of conscious and its subsequent rise to dominance in western culture, in order to understand how the situation has been created in which people are psychologically predisposed to accepting ideas without validation, and being OK with it! This will help explain the cultural environment in which truth is dis-valued, and in which people look to the group or the party, or the charismatic leader for answers.

In 1781, the German christian philosopher Emmanuel Kant (1724 – 1804), published his famous work “A Critique of Pure Reason”. Who was this man? What were his motivations? Was he simply a tool of others behind the scenes? We don’t know the answers to these questions. But, noting the principle that ‘men reveal themselves by their actions’, we get a clue.

Historically, his famous work marked the beginning of the end of the age of reason. There was a trend emerging, but his work was seminal. It was presented in the midst of the scientific revolution. The age of reason had produced many great men of genius such as Francis Bacon, John Locke and Sir Isaac Newton. The Enlightenment followed in the seventeen hundreds, and Kant grew up at a time in which ideas predominantly focused on the pursuit of knowledge obtained by means of reason and the evidence of the senses. In the light of the fantastic improvements in the sum of human knowledge at that time, and with the industrial revolution just getting under way, it seems incredible that mainstream philosophy (led by Kant) would begin a prolonged and unremitting drive backwards towards mysticism. And yet, this is what happened.

When Kant published his seminal work in 1781, it was a time in which the fundamental ideas shaping human thought were observably delivering beneficial results in the form of scientific discoveries, industrialisation, raising living standards, and the birth of a free nation. I suggest that it is inconceivable that these fundamental ideas would be reversed for any other motive than foul play. It surely couldn’t be stupidity or mistake! Observing ideas that are working would not inspire honourable men to up-end those ideas and champion their exact opposite! With the merits of logic and reason so abundantly clear due to scientific discoveries and innovations happening thick and fast, it is fantastically unlikely that free thinking men would have chosen to abandon logic and reason and steer a philosophical path that removes the standard of truth and holds the mind incompetent to know reality (as it really is)!

In Kant’s ‘Critique of Pure Reason’ he posed as an advocate of reason, and from there proceeded to attack reason. He set about to subvert reason from the inside. By posing as an advocate of reason, he began contradicting and reversing the values and principles of the established system of philosophy. Given the identified context, his most likely aim (or that of his paymasters) was that of sabotaging the emerging social order, the new dominance of rational thinking and associated social norms. This has been achieved. We no longer live in a context in which men believe that the rational scientific method can solve all of our problems, as they did in the enlightenment. Others joined the bandwagon. Hegel (1770 – 1831) picked up the ball and ran with it, developing the ideas that would later be adopted by Marx and inform his communist manifesto.

Kant was to philosophy what Anthony Fauci was to public health. They both contradicted themselves, and promulgated false ideas. Kant’s language was obscure and hard to understand, he even used some words differently from common use, hardly adding clarity to his twisted ramblings. Observe the use of the word pure in conjunction with reason. This is nonsensical. Reason can neither be diluted nor purified; it is a faculty, a method, like a tool that is either used or not. Note also, that Kant claimed to be looking for what we can know objectively with certainty, yet he concludes that the mind is incompetent to know reality, by its nature!

While the industrial revolution was just kicking into gear as a result of the the age of reason, its philosophical base was being undone and reversed by the intellectuals who were enthusiastically jumping onto Kant’s bandwagon.

“Reason is man’s only means of grasping reality and of acquiring knowledge—and, therefore, the rejection of reason means that men should act regardless of and/or in contradiction to the facts of reality.” Ayn Rand

The ideas promulgated by intellectuals in any era take time to trickle down to the general public. They begin in academic conversations, books and essays, and eventually filter down to into political speeches, news stories, magazines, and eventually into catch phrases, songs and popular culture. And for at least the last century public relations teams have been busy working behind the scenes, to hone particular messages and speed their acceptance in the public mind. This applies to any ideas that Bernays’ secret government wishes us all to adopt and hold as true, whether its getting women to smoke cigarettes (one of Bernays achievements), or encouraging the acceptance of mass vaccination programs, or the so-called ‘climate emergency’.

Kants revival of Plato’s primacy of consciousness is called idealism. This is not, I hasten to add, because it’s ‘ideal’, but because it advocates the primacy of ideas. Idealism continues in the form of logical positivism, cultural relativism, pragmatism, utilitarianism, existentialism, and many more modern schools of philosophy. It is tempting to assume there is a free market in the world of ideas among intellectuals, but to believe this is to drop the context of everything we have discussed so far, and it’s as naive as believing the present news media are all independent and impartial. The practical application of idealism has another name—Subjectivism. We shall examine this popular idea in chapter 7.

Why does this revival of idealism/subjectivism matter? It matters because it is the explicit rejection of reality being an objective absolute! We concluded the first chapter noting that regarding reality as an objective absolute is the foundation of the concept of truth. The revival of idealism is the root cause of the current cultural abandonment of truth and of rational thinking, and the end of evidence based scientific method. When we philosophically hold that reality is not an objective absolute, we deny the validity of the self-evident, and we remove the logical foundations of all thinking and human knowledge in one fell swoop. Its only a matter of time until the inevitable cascade of consequences comes to pass in the form of cultural collapse, and this is what we are seeing today.

Ideas are always in competition with each other. When the playing field is level, when competing ideas are all out in the open and not hidden by censorship or buried within propaganda, and when men are able to act on their judgement to test ideas, then those ideas that correlate with reality will be found to succeed, and the ones that don’t will fail. In other words, in a genuine free market of ideas improvements occur unhindered. But when force is brought to bear in any form, this process is blocked, and the ideas chosen by self-appointed controllers lurking behind the scenes come to dominate. When some ideas are forbidden (the dark ages), or censored (today), or when legislation prevents people acting on particular ideas, or when the public relations specialists do their hidden work, this is when stagnation sets in, and the development of the sum of human knowledge is thwarted—even reversed.

Today’s battle for the minds of the masses is a battle for their allegiance to particular ideas, and it’s not being fought on a level playing field. Today, ideas are sold as facts, prepackaged and vacuum sealed, no thinking required. The context is NOT one in which there is an open an honest debate; all ideas are NOT freely on the table to observe and evaluate; people are NOT aware of the competing ideas. And to top it all off, people are so distracted and entertained, that they are rarely engaged in the debate, interested in the outcome, or conscious of the consequences. This is the fertile ground for the acceptance of ideas on faith in reaction to emotional stimulus. It’s the fertile ground for the new secular variety of mysticism, and its the fertile ground for ever increasing political control.

In accordance with the requirements of the agenda, the propagandists ensure that ideas change their clothes when necessary. If a desired idea becomes tainted or looses popularity because people are beginning to see through it, it is simply rebranded, and sold as something new. For example, fascism has been rebranded as public/private partnerships. Klaus Schwabb wants to reverse the benefits of the industrial revolution by rebranding his variety of collectivism as ‘the 4th industrial revolution’. Global warming had to be rebranded as the climate emergency because cooling, rather than warming, was actually happening. Political controls that lock us down and rob us of freedom are rebranded, and sold as being ‘for the greater good’.

In the 2020s, so-called Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the latest factor in the mix. The idea being sown in the minds of the public is that computer technology has become sufficiently advanced to achieve ‘intelligence’. Many people find this frightening, but for the wrong reasons. They fear the alleged AI rather than the people behind the idea. But whether or not they fear the AI, they are still very likely to be persuaded that the AI knows better than humans. The implicit thought process would be something like this: ‘We can’t possibly know what true, I have my truth, you have yours, but the AI is super intelligent, it won’t be encumbered by any of those human weaknesses and inabilities, we humans can’t agree on anything, so lets go with the AI, and do what the AI tells us.’

In the current thinking crisis, the majority are very likely to turn their thinking over to machines in the hope that the machines can do a better job. Sadly, this will only result in us being enslaved by those writing the algorithms and programming the machines.

Its important to remember that the human form of consciousness, what we call the mind, is very complex and its workings are not precisely understood. There is currently no agreement on how the mind forms concepts, the ideas behind words. In other words, we don’t yet know precisely how the mind thinks. Its difficult to see how computer programmers could write software to enable a computer to do something that we men do not yet fully understand how we do ourselves. It is the idea of Artificial Intelligence that is most significant, and how the idea itself will be used.

In a complex modern society, it is the intellectuals who bear responsibility for evaluating ideas, and for disseminating and promoting ideas that are true. The intellectuals are the source of the ideas, the media are the means of transmission. We can’t all devote the necessary time to thinking, but the division of labor enables those best at it, to do just that. However, in our present western culture, the intellectual class has long been bought. Mainstream intellectuals are a lost cause. They serve as the gatekeepers of ideas for the self-appointed controllers, who ensure that some ideas do not get the oxygen of publicity. The proper role of the intellectual now falls to the individual truth seeker, to those prepared to think for themselves, to ask awkward questions, and dare to pronounce the heresy of truth.

Summary

Ideas are powerful and fundamental ideas are the most powerful. The fundamental ideas we hold as true have a huge bearing on what we think, how we think and even if we think. If you claim to stand for truth in any shape or form, examine and question your fundamental premises, and be prepared to change any of them that implicitly rest on the rejection of reality as an objective absolute. Understanding the discernment of truth requires you to grasp how ideas relate to each other, and if they relate to each other, and most importantly, how they connect to reality, and if they connect to reality. This is why we must NOT discount reality by embracing idealism/subjectivism in any form.

Go to Chapter 3 – The Philosophical Framework