Thought-Stopping Cliches

Our typical human overhears the cultural media pulpit repetitively spouting thought-stopping cliches about predators day in and out, takes them at face value and then perhaps turns around and criticizes those who practice religion. There is no difference. If religion is said to become anxious at the idea of critical analysis and receives criticism for it, then our media pulpit should be spared no less the same. The only thing that is necessary to say to render null all arguments for justifying our opinions based on reason alone is wrapped up in the confused media-fed jargon of the expression, "predators targeting innocent children." No one can contest paranoia like this without looking like they support the "predators," so it becomes truth regardless of its truth.

"The language of the totalist environment is characterized by the thought-terminating cliché. The most far-reaching and complex of human problems are compressed into brief, highly reductive, definitive-sounding phrases, easily memorized and easily expressed. These become the start and finish of any ideological analysis."
(Lifton, Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism 429)

Childhood innocence is a cultural designation for which there is no evidence--sure children exist inside a different developmental stage from adults, but there is no reason to believe they are any more "innocent," "pure," or "angelic" as a result than your average adult given their own developmental state. Another is the purely cultural detestation for "pedophilia," where ignorance has produced in the mainstream its 1 to 1 correlation with "child molestation." Such a 1 to 1 correlation has no evidence, and even runs counter to evidence suggesting that not all pedophiles necessarily commit the crimes of child molestation and possession of child porn. But put these two words together in the same sentence, "innocent child" and "pedophile," and all analysis stops. If you contest the jargon, you're in support of the perpetrator. In the past, such an ability to think beyond the words would doom your soul to hellfire, these days, it dooms our society to ignorance and illusion servitude.

Diversions and Distractions

What gets society all up in a frenzy and what really matters are two different things. It seems like it was always like this. Society is so caught up in portraying the symbolic gesture of doing the right thing that they seemed to have forgotten completely how to do it. This is to say, society is distracted by the sentimental, sensational nature of heroism and the impulse to frame it inside some kind of digestible narrative, and can no longer (as a whole) just appreciate things or actions for what they are on the surface.

Whether we're caught up in the wrongness of burning the flag while ignoring the less viscerally arresting imagery of corporate imperialism, or caught up in the "sex beast" who looked at a child the wrong way while ignoring how society has been turning a blind eye to the treatment of black boys in education, we're distracted. We're not paying attention to the right things. We're distracted by the glamor of narrative and symbolism, by sensationalist media and sentimental hand-on-heart "oh dear"-isms, and for that it's getting harder to tell what really matters. What really matters is people and the planet, not how this blog or any pundit out there frames the goings on between those two things.

No matter how we feel about our adversaries, whether they be labeled "maggots" or "sex beasts," or "antichrists," it should never distract us from living and loving those around us for whom our allegiance and loyalty should be full. We shouldn't be ignoring the isolated crying child on the bustling city sidewalk to return to our private den that night and redirect our guilt and self-hate for inaction toward some overhyped convicted sex offender on TV caught entering a library. Who among us could possibly argue that this is a better use of those energies? Assist the crying child on the sidewalk, and forget the TV sex offender, and the world will be better for it.

Perhaps this is idealistic, but it's the truth.

Who the Cap Fits

I've used "antichrist" almost interchangeably with vigilante, exploiter, and molester. It's a label and like any label it's meant to be something flung out at a group of people with the intention of keeping it stuck to their foreheads. There are none wreaking havoc on innocent civilians with the intention of hurting child molesters that are in it for the well-being of children, and it's important for society to realize this. And because there is no more vilified force in human existence than Satan, to work conflating these so-called well-meaning propagandists waging war with society's common sense with such a prestigious force is simply to be fighting fire with fire in hopes that their whole "plan for victory" will end up in cinders charred by their own flame once all of society has been consumed.

It's a label, let's not forget that. Human beings invent labels to pin on certain people to conflate them with social menaces in order to achieve political power, or just social influence. If this is how people work, if this is what causes them to see "predators" where there are none and to see love where there are predators, labeling the real predators in the world "antichrists" should be sure to cause them to, for once, call a spade a spade. Who the cap fits, let them wear it.

The child abuse entertainment industry is a parasite that hatches in a healthy human brain and causes them to believe the industry, by provoking their sympathetic nerves with careful editing, zooms and fades, is actually on the side of the child. Nancy Grace tricked the majority of America into believing Headline News was on the side of the little girl kidnapped and killed by just showing the girl's cute face repeatedly for months. By doing this, hundreds of thousands were hypnotized into attending the five year old's funeral, a girl they would never have known if not for the industry's quest for their ratings and viewership, and advertising patronage of course. This is an antichrist. Vigilantes and child molesters, yes, them too.