How the 'myth of power' prevents democracy
Plus: A new publishing schedule with more content!
vol. 4 issue 5
EDITORIAL NOTE: I am not sure what happened to the audio clips of this earlier today, but audio failures happened to both my publications. I have notified Substack and they are looking into it. Please accept my apologies for disturbing you with a second version of this, but the audio is too good to miss. My apologies for the email clutter. Please feel free to contact me by responding to this post if you have any concerns. ~Whitney
Greetings,
The word “colonized” is so explosive anymore. But, it’s happened to virtually all of us, whether or not we recognize it, no matter our race, ethnicity, gender, or any other identity we either claim or are forced to accept.
That’s because the information streams we are so plugged into have colonized our minds. They distract us from using the one endlessly renewable resource we each possess: our imagination, which is only of any use to us when we are in possession of our minds.
This phenomenon of our minds having been colonized and to what end, is something Dr. Gwilym Morus-Baird and I address in the first episode of the upcoming season of the docu-mental podcast, beginning in May. Dr. Morus-Baird is the founder of Celtic Source, an online school of Celtic mythology and Medieval literature.
As Dr. Morus-Baird points out, if we believe that by consuming what the Powers That Be tell us are “news” and “facts”, we are then well-prepared to build democracy, we are deluded. And worse, rather than us using the information to build our own narratives, the narratives (which are too often sinister by design) are actually using us.
Put simply: democracy is impossible to effect within a framework of propaganda.
Here’s Dr. Morus-Baird:
Why would an expert on myths be my go-to source on propaganda?
Because it is new myths, not yet another iteration of a so-called news and information stream, that we will need if we are to going to actually, finally, maybe even once and for all, have the narrative we need to build a democracy.
New maps, new questions
Back in February, I told you that throughout 2023, docu-mental would be taking a turn for the weird. Specifically, I promised that I would vigorously interrogate the Status Quo as to why we as a species seek to annihilate ourselves en masse.
Here’s what I asked:
Whenever I think about why we humans are doing things that will ultimately result in our utter destruction as an earthbound species — things like creating hierarchies that arbitrarily mediate access to resources, overpopulating the planet, burning down our rain forests, using up and polluting all our water, industrializing animal husbandry, scarring the earth for minerals and oil, warring for ego and sport, demanding there is no life beyond this one while also demanding that there is — it makes no sense.
Why would we set up the game so that in the end, we all die?
To bring you up to speed or to refresh, I recommend reading my original post warning of the wild ass questions I plan to ask and how they will run afoul of The System. Per that post, here’s my mindset:
Respect for metaphor can open us up to new ways of framing our human experience, namely, our relationships to the earth and to one another, and also to the cosmos. After all, diversity of thought leads to innovation…
Making new myths can help collect us together again, move us forward, but also encircle us, helping us derive a richer sense of meaning from our lives and fill out the contours of an entirely new paradigm — an ensouled, Earth-protective one, not the current one of destructive either/or empiricism.
That means the next leg of the docu-mental journey, which I am simply calling new maps (the journey so far is now tabbed, old maps), can be considered either a serial investigative report on the how and why of the colonization of nearly every single human mind, carried out in plain sight, through the use of narratives and information streams designed to create mass enchantment, and into who wanted to achieve this strange end,
AND/OR…
that this publication will have morphed into just one big series of adventures in ancient lore and science fiction that you can dismiss as largely unfactual, however entertaining you might find it. And yet, as I wrote previously, just because something isn’t factual doesn’t make it untrue.
The dregs of Empire
Regardless of how this next iteration of docu-mental turns out, I intend to swing a wrecking ball through the last remaining stanchions of Hierarchy’s mythical underpinnings, to topple the paradigm of Empires, and scout the materials we will need for the construction of a new myth of being, post-Empire.
One reason we keep trying to make our current hierarchical paradigm work when clearly it doesn’t, is because we have fallen under the sway of the Myth of Power.
Here’s Dr. Morus-Baird again:
I do not accept that empires are a foregone conclusion. I don’t think younger generations do, either. The bridge between empires and democracy is not the old narrative, but a new one, one that the men behind the green curtain do not want us to tell.
That’s why I aim now to spelunk the caves of our ancient memories for the treasures the Status Quo of Empire demanded we forget: the wisdom contained in the languages we once spoke, the knowledge of nature we once relied upon, the stories we once told, the values we once held.
Then we’ll combine these re-discoveries with current understanding and future predictions to create a new story, a new value system, a novel (yes, as in story, as in “new”) rubric of an intentional, conscious society reflective of who and what we humans are now emerging into being.
Re-emergence of respect for the land
Science, science fiction, futurism, ancient mythology, poetry, language, anthropology, critical analyses, dialogue, musings, religion, spirituality, conspiracy, conversation — a resounding yes!
Jingoism, power, dogma, secrecy, indoctrination, even patriotism — a thunderous no!
But, if as we take this journey, a love of country emerges, great. Actually, super! Because, as we will see, one of the things the Status Quo of Empires largely erased in nearly all of us and our ancestors was a respect for the land; not a top-down fascist rape, pillage, and stealing of the land, but a reciprocal relationship with it.
In regards to that, here’s our final teaser of my interview with Dr. Morus-Baird:
To refresh how I have previously differentiated a love of country from love of land, I’ve unlocked these posts:
Not a rent-an-identity shop
If you’re looking for a tribe or an identity to be proscribed for you, this ain’t the place. This is an ongoing act of thinking-out-loud for what might work for you and yours if you allow yourself to reject what you’ve been told is real. I am just asking questions, not handing out prescriptions. You do your own work.
But I am excited to ask really suprising questions of the experts for more information so you have the goods to set out on your own explorations of what might be possible.
And surely, while in my career I have been decorated for my ability to ask good questions, I am no scholar. That is why I know I am the right person for this adventure: I don’t need tenure. I am not pressured to publish or perish. I don’t care if people think I’m crackers for suggesting, with a straight face, that we consider the possibility Rupert Murdoch is an extra-terrestrial.
Plus, I have made much of my career by interrogating and editing the works of academics, and I have my pen knife ready to cut and splice the wires for this ancestral, sci-fi joy ride into our marvelous Life after Empire.
New publishing schedule
Also beginning in May, docu-mental will be publishing more often, with more content for patron subscribers (those who purchase a subscription). I will also begin campaigning harder for my paid subscriber base to grow, as this and my companion publication, News from the Ensouled Universe, are now where I am deriving my primary income since recently having left reporting and Washington.
Here’s the new schedule/what you will receive as a paid subscriber:
The docu-mental podcast: interviews and outtakes with leading thinkers, futurists, and authors. Publishes once monthly, typically on the first Thursday.
All the old maps of hierarchy, the ones we traced in search of our freedom from anxiety, depression, and suicide in the first three years of docu-mental. Available in the archives with your paid subscription.
All the new maps we’re currently charting. Delivered to your inbox weekly, usually on Thursdays when there is no podcast.
atlas on sunday. A weekly digest of the week's rambles and journeys.
insets, keys, and legends, an informal, intimate, irreverant place for the mind's eye to rest a bit from all the work we're doing making maps elsewhere in this publication. Delivered on Mondays, and randomly as the spirit moves me.
Peace,
Whitney
side note- i have heard the term 'colonizing' in reference to the behavior of narcissists & their impact upon those around them; family, friends, employees, partners etc ; taking power/agency away from others to sustain power in the relationships; usually doing so in a 'smooth' manner. I found it to be an apt term.