This is a postscript to Institutionalized Cowardice. I apologize in advance for the length, but I hunger and thirst for your freedom from deception.
A major element in my enthusiasm for Glennon’s work is that it removed some mental blocks for me. It was an answer to the prayer that I could further subject my intellect to my heart. Long mental habits that participate in the social mythology of our age are the biggest threat to our moral progress. The heart knows the truth, but the brain is still blocked up with trash, so we are unable to implement the truth we have.
It’s truly difficult for most of us to discern the difference between strong sentiment from that Western mythology versus the convictions of the heart. Because our conscious minds read conviction through the conscience, a perverted and confused conscience can hinder a clear signal. The fires of Hell mimic the blazing light of glory in places where we don’t really have eyes. If it burns deeply enough, we have scar tissue that will not easily heal without serious pain and disruption to our sense of who we are.
Most of my life I struggled with intense, white-hot fury at things that were wrong, but which things I had been taught were right. So I bore a further false load of guilt over a wholly justified anger, which only confused things further. This made me somewhat a slow learner. But the power of our Lord to heal is bigger than all our injuries, and I am a testimony that fools can move toward wisdom.
The vast evil conspiracy of our world is not entirely the work of some alien force. A big part of it is us. If you can spare the time and attention to Glennon’s work in conjunction with the likes of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, then you begin to grasp what I mean. All of the blather that objectifies the evil of our world and the “Deep State” or shadow government or TPTB is a cover story, a mythology meant to hide the truth: You and I are just a step away from being part of that evil shadow government.
I know this because I recognized myself in Glennon’s description of the Trumanites. I was a previous participant in the massive bureaucracy that hamstrings constitutional government even as it must of necessity keep those elected officials around for cover. The elected folks often ask, “What are you going to do about it?” The obvious answer is that, unless your heart is actively in charge of your conscious mind, you have no defense against the smothering cowardice of the bureaucracy. Not just the actions and policies, but the very soul of bureaucracy leaks into the minds of elected officials and they simply become a part of that world.
There is no one to blame. Try to understand that. Our instinctive thirst for justice has also been hijacked by this system. As Glennon explains toward the end of his work, this problem is inherent in the system itself. “If only the people were better educated and held their own civic virtue!” Perhaps this is the point at which we can understand why it’s impossible, because the power of the people lies in having their heart-minds awakened. But if their heart-minds were awakened, they’d have never cooked up a system like this. This is the feet of mixed iron and clay in Nebuchadnezzar’s vision of the Statue (Daniel 2) — it’s brutal while riven through with crumbling (and bumbling) cowardice. It makes no sense at all.
The blessing of heart-led faith and a commitment to divine justice reminds you that you cannot possibly objectify government. We are hard-wired for eastern feudalism, that form of government that shields you from the power of anyone who isn’t family. The perversion of this is that bureaucracy masquerades in the soul as family. It’s not quite the same as making a god of the State, but it’s giving that blood and covenant loyalty to some broad and impersonal thing that grants the sense of identity that normally comes from a feudal family household. It’s like that virus that arranges its outer appendages to map neatly into your body’s receptors and hijacks your own body processes and energy to kill you. Every cell in your body contains the means to self-destruction. It works the same in our psyches.
This why the bureaucracy seems alive to us. It maps to our moral receptors and hijacks our sense of justice. Only with your heart-mind awakened and ascendant in your soul can you begin to detect the lies. After reading Glennon’s description, I suddenly realize why I find certain people morally repulsive and can’t make myself be nice to them: They are willing servants of the soul-sucking institutional cowardice, to the point of a perverted “bravery” and forcefulness in dealing with victims who complain. You deserve your sorrow because you aren’t going along with the institution that gives them their identity. It’s far more than just that paycheck; they aren’t mercenary but morally hijacked. We face the same mindless abuse from all kinds of smaller bureaucracies in business that mimic the government.
Aside from our advantage of discerning through the heart-mind the moral failures of it, we also have one great ally in the Internet. The bureaucracy survives on secrecy, but it’s shot through with shocking incompetence. It used to be easy to hide that stuff because there was no way to publish what you might discern. Keep in mind that the bureaucracy owns the entire gamut of publication aside from the Internet. But now we have truth leaking out all over the place. Without the Internet we would not know, for example, about the murder of Kenneth Trentedue here in OKC and how that leads to a lot of loose ends in the official narrative on the Murrah Bombing. While the system has mostly shut this whole private investigation down, you and I get the one remaining benefit of seeing an undeniable justification for doubt. That is, we see exposed the cowardly brutality of the bureaucracy.
It’s not brave and noble if you take no significant risks, but the bureaucracy rewards brutality like bravery.
While most of those who see the facts leaking out respond with a predictable outrage aimed at tracking down the perpetrators and holding them accountable, you and I know that it is simply not possible. For one thing, if it weren’t that specific group of thugs carrying out the will of the bureaucracy, it could easily have been others in vast army waiting for the command. The system exists precisely to avoid personal accountability; all the actors are generally interchangeable. The only difference is varying levels of expertise at tying up loose ends and protecting the secrets. Punishing those who murdered Trentedue would change nothing and would not accomplish divine justice. That truth is something that the common citizen rabble will never grasp, because in their minds the old heathen Anglo-Saxon justice is God’s own character.
Much of what we see on the Internet either feeds the monster or serves to distract from the awareness that we are being devoured. Most of the keyboard commandos are actually serving the bureaucracy by keeping alive the fundamental mythology that creates it. No justice is possible from within the system, and the vast majority of activist noise on the Net still belongs to the system by default. You have to shed the whole system before you can even begin to understand. Learn to discern when something shares the nature of bureaucracy.
We can still infiltrate and use all things for His glory.
Postscript: Dr. Bruce Levine notes that virtually the entire field of medicine and counseling psychology is made up of compliant type individuals. “Having steered the higher-education terrain for a decade of my life, I know that degrees and credentials are primarily badges of compliance.” Thus, the likelihood that someone who is anti-authoritarian (demands to verify authority as to validity, competence and trustworthiness) would seem utterly alien to doctors and counselors is virtually guaranteed. To them, the anti-authoritarian is truly insane.
