Our Ruination: Internet Fever Swamp and its Antidote

Our Ruination 

The Internet Conspiracy Fever Swamp 

— and its Antidote

After announcing the publication of our Revisionist History® newsletter for September (issue no. 110), we received the following e-mail from a correspondent:

On Aug 17, 2020, at 9:51, Joe xxxxx <xxxx@gmail.com> wrote:

I wonder if your main essay in Revisionist History #110 touches upon Black Lives Matter and its involvement in satanism as it is still practiced in parts of West Africa. I only recently came upon this information:

https://www.bitchute.com/video/qRes9qjcTn1J/ 

To which we protested in reply:

Dear Joe:

This video is evidence? History? On the contrary, this is our ruination —  the Internet fever swamp —  a substitute for deep study, reading and research.

Sincerely,

Michael Hoffman

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We left the gentleman dangling at that juncture, and then thought better of it, following up the next day, with this addendum:

Dear Joe

I feel we left you without recourse in our last e-mail and wish to redress that omission, if you are willing.

If you haven’t yet returned to the realm of deep reading, I am hoping you will at least begin to encounter it in terms of the spoken word, as part of what Herman Melville termed "thought-diving," by studying from beginning to end, “Fiction and the Age of Lies,” a video of Colin Burrow’s lecture on the history — from antiquity onward — of truth and fiction. 

Keep your finger ready to hit the pause button on your remote control; have a notebook at hand so you can jot down and commit to memory the more pithy of his citations and insights. I found myself doing so, for example when Burrows quotes Cicero at 10 minutes 46 seconds into his talk:

“That thing is plausible (probabile) which generally happens, or which is a matter of general belief…whether it is true or untrue.” (De Inventione, I.29.46)

I wish I could induce a million Americans to undertake the study of Burrow's lecture so we might begin to return, first to an appreciation of what learning actually constitutes, in comparison with the anecdotal conspiracy effluvia online on the various video showcases, and second, that we ourselves might begin the lifelong task and duty of cultivating critical and profound investigative thought, so that we might not be gulled, as we are currently, by the dissolute and puerile fare too often masquerading as “Must See Blockbuster Revelation!!!!” of this or that eschatological oracle, or accusation of crime and coverup, much of which is only rendered credible predicated on what psychologists term, “confirmation bias,” the enemy of authentic history and journalism. 

Certainly I accept the existence of conspiracies. I've written extensively on the ones that in my opinion are sufficiently documented. 

However, we have taken notice of late of an ever-expanding, deceptive spirit on the Internet, seeded by the Cryptocracy itself, which uses useful idiots in the online anti-Establishment community as mouthpieces, to disseminate lies and half truths of various hues, so as to mislead, misdirect, and in the confusion, generate demoralization and burnout among those earnestly seeking alternative information and the restoration of our republic. 

At present (August 2020), one of these threadbare notions in circulation is the assertion that the devastating explosion at the port of Beirut was caused by a low-yield Israeli nuke. 

The credulous people who are inclined to hold this impression to be true on the thinnest of premises (viz. Cicero’s “matter of general belief"), believe it on the basis of their need to believe it. What could be more subversive of truth? How could anyone not in a cult, and who has been trained in critical thinking, accept such a poorly-sourced hypothesis as genuine? 

We suffer from miseducation, or perhaps one might say no education whatsoever in the higher levels of what Edgar A. Poe termed “ratiocination," perhaps because, like anything truly worth acquiring, training in deep thinking entails application and hard work, which too many are unwilling to invest. Hence, the surfeit online of lazy delusions and misdirection which seriously retard our lucidity and ability to act judiciously.

Serve your apprenticeship in the work of plumbing the origins of “Fiction and the Age of Lies”:

This writer does not endorse all of Colin Burrow’s remarks or conclusions, particularly when he draws contemporary analogies and in certain instances displays Leftist partisanship with regard to Brexit and the examples he proffers of news media bias (all on the Right). 

However, none of what he expounds with which we disagree or dissent, detracts in any significant way from his erudition and historical sleuthing as it pertains to the origins of these issues in the chronicle of western civilization. His talk is worthy of our attention all the way to the end (his answer to the final question posed [at 1:07.05], is perhaps his best).

The point of viewing his lecture is to compare Mr. Burrow's presentation of his arguments, and the documented sources he employs—with the fever swamp’s fantasy conspiracy talks and videos—which depend for their credibility almost entirely on confirmation bias and duplicitous and aggressive huckstering. We earnestly wish more Americans would learn to discern the difference. It is a matter of some urgency.

Michael Hoffman

www.RevisionistHistory.org

Independent History and Research

Box 849 • Coeur d’Alene, Idaho 83816

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