Quiet

Below is a repost of a book I briefly reviewed on being an introvert in today’s world. There is a great Ted Talk at the end delivered by the author Susan Cain, but I also discovered this fascinating long-form interview by Lex Fridman with Susan Cain here.

Book Review: ‘Quiet’ by Susan Cain

A few years ago I was in a bookshop and stumbled upon this book as I was browsing. I picked it up and was hooked immediately. I think I read the first chapter before paying for it. What follows is my review that I’ve recently rediscovered, and I offer it here.

The sub-title of the book reads: ‘The power of introverts in a world that can’t stop talking’. And although this book is secular, the author not only accesses her biblically Jewish roots, but what she says is as relevant to Christian ministry as it is to industry chiefs and educators.

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07/07/2022

BONUS: The Dragon EXPOSED in The System

The previous four posts have attempted to articulate the what and how of the principalities and powers – those often unseen but felt realities that play out behind the things and events and experiences of human history – and I have enjoyed the chattering behind the scenes with those from all over the world who have been engaged and written in. The insights and dialogue have been amazing.

It is a happy day when a tuned in member of the pop-culture world can articulate what is so complicated to say in polite society. Having said that, the video by Tom MacDonald is very powerful as are the lyrics, but even at this point it must be pointed out that MacDonald is an outsider to the music and entertainment establishment. And yet, he has stuck it to the Man by becoming a massive star in his own right, and on his own terms. Like Bob Dylan in the ’60’s, he is becoming a poet of his generation, writing what is called the poetry of our age, and Oh! BTW – all the Old Testament Prophets were poets…. and were rejected to their great cost and the cost of those to whom they spoke, therefore: LISTEN TO THE POETS.

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29/05/2022 0

Principalities and Powers: The Dragon’s Strategy (4/4)

Notes from Walter Wink’s award winning 1993 book ‘Engaging the Powers – Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination‘.

(Pg. 98-100). “The Czech platwright (and later president) Vaclav Havel wrote, while the communist regime was still in power:

“Because the regime is captive to its own lies, it must falsify everything. It falsifies the past. It falsifies the present, and it falsifies the future. It falsifies statistics. It pretends not to possess an omnipotent and unprincipled police apparatus. It pretends to respect human rights. It pretends to persecute no one. It pretends to fear nothing. It pretends to pretend nothing.

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24/05/2022 0

Principalities & Powers: In Thrall to the Dragon (3/4)

Notes from Walter Wink’s award winning 1993 book ‘Engaging the Powers – Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination‘.

(Pg. 96-98). Liberation from the Delusional System

The perception that the delusional system runs deeper than propaganda leads to a further important insight: those who are victims of the delusional system are nevertheless responsible for how they have been shaped (emphasis mine). And if they are responsible, then they can choose to be liberated from it.

People are socialized into their roles by means of the delusional assumptions from the earliest age – and this includes oppressors as well as the oppressed. They will further have learned to deny to themselves and others the fact that this misinformation causes them pain. We can hold out hope for the transformation of oppressors because to some degree they too are victims of the system and at some level have felt conflicted, as in the case of white boys in South Africa when they discover that they must kill the love they had for the black maids who cared for them since birth. (Some of those who have refused conscription have actually given this as a reason: they could not go into black townships and shoot at those who had nursed them.)

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18/05/2022 0

Principalities and Powers: The Dragon’s Game (2/4)

Notes from Walter Wink’s award winning 1993 book ‘Engaging the Powers – Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination‘.

(P.95-96) “Propaganda (“is not merely deception . . . it is the manufacture of idolatry” see pg. 94) is only the tip of the delusional iceberg, however. Other nations or disaffected internal critics can easily spot and expose it. Propaganda is ad hoc; it responds to short-term needs; it changes to fit every situation. But the basic delusional system has altered little since the ascendancy of the Domination System some five thousand years ago. It has successfully held the vast majority of humanity in thrall by means of a series of largely unexamined assumptions that go far deeper than propaganda.

These delusional assumptions are what Colossians 2:8, 20 call the stoicheia tou kosmou: the fundamental assumptions of the Domination System. Not all of these hold true for all countries in all times, and some would be held by only a minority of people in a given country. But over the five millenia that the delusional game has been playing, these assumptions have continually reasserted themselves. Here are some of them:

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12/05/2022 0

Principalities & Powers: The Dragon in Sheep’s Clothing (1/4)

Notes from Walter Wink’s award winning 1993 book ‘Engaging the Powers – Discernment and Resistance in a World of Domination‘.

The Dragon in Sheep’s Clothing

“People would not be so acquiescent to their own oppression unless they were caught in a powerful delusion. “Delude” is from the Latin deludre, “to play,” specifically, “to play with anyone to his injury or frustration, to mock, to defraud; to befool the mind or judgment so as to cause what is false to be accepted as true” (pg. 88).

Thus….

(Pg. 93-95), “In order to delude humanity, to achieve a maximum level of stupefaction, the Dragon creates “another Beast that arose out of the earth; it had two horns like a lamb, but it spoke like the Dragon (Revelation 13:11). This is not a natural, earthly, chthonic creature. It is not a deep archetype bursting from the unconscious. It is a wholly artificial creation. It will later be identified as the “false prophet” (16:13; 19:20; 20:10), whose task is to persuade people that their salvation lies in the political order. It works great miracles . . . and by these miracles . . . it deceives the inhabitants of the earth (13:13-14).

In appearance this Second Beast is as meek as a lamb – imitating the Lamb who is to rule the nations – but it speaks with the Dragon’s voice. It is a Dragon in sheep’s clothing. The Second Beast is the priestly propaganda machine of the empire. It exercises all the authority of the First Beast on its behalf, and compels the earth and its inhabitants to worship the First Beast (13:12). This goes beyond the realm of religious preference and into the domain of religio-political terrorism.

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06/05/2022 1

The Dragon

My daughter has a story book about a boy who wakes up one day and sees a little baby dragon in his room. It’s all rather harmless and when he tells his mother about it, she tells him to stop making stuff up and get dressed and come down for breakfast, using her repeated phrase, and the title of the book, “There’s no such thing as a dragon!”

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22/01/2022 0

The Abolition of Man / After Humanity: A Review

‘The Abolition of Man‘by C. S. Lewis (HarperCollins 2001 Edition) and ‘After Humanity – A Guide to C. S. Lewis’s The Abolition of Man‘ by Michael Ward (Word on Fire Academic, 2021).

A Review:

I don’t know how I managed to miss Lewis’s book up until this point. I found it engaging, not all inaccessible or difficult, but a little frustrating. I understand (I think) why Lewis didn’t want to tie his concerns to Christianity or even to theism. I also understand (I think) why Lewis reacts so strongly to the smuggling of a relatavist assumption into a school text book though the separation of fact and value, of course, finds its root deep in the Enlightenment far earlier than the authors Lewis has in his sights.

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17/11/2021 0

Bonhoeffer: Against stupidity we are defenseless

What a great little video and marvellous insights from a heroic pastor and theologian, Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

“‘Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice. One may protest against evil; it can be exposed and, if need be, prevented by use of force. Evil always carries within itself the germ of its own subversion in that it leaves behind in human beings at least a sense of unease. Against stupidity we are defenseless…..”

CHAPTERS 0:00 The Darkest Chapter 0:21 All for naught 0:34 Country of poets and crooks 0:55 Letters from prison 1:21 Facts for the stupid 1:35 Self-satisfied savage 1:46 Cautiously understand stupidity 2:00 A moral defect 2:18 Making people stupid 2:32 Stupid socializing 2:47 Sociological-psychological law 3:06 Stupid, not stupid 3:27 Control 3:47 The “stupid” spell 4:04 The power of liberation 4:22 Patience is a virtue 4:29 The thought lives on 4:46 Action springs not from thought