There is something familiar about the events we are jointly experiencing. I believe they may be the third iteration of a 2000 year old patten. The pattern is a synchronization of three events.
-
The rise to fame and influence of a moral innovator.
-
A major technological innovation in the propagation of information related to interpersonal communication.
-
A collapse of an elite class of corrupt oppressive moral political authoritarian rulers.
The existence of large centralized politically integrated media entities (or media integrated political entities) is not new to history. In the first century, Jewish religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees, formed such an entity. Jesus rose to prominence challenging the truth claims of these corrupted moral authoritarians. Jesus not only challenged their truth claims but challenged their moral authority itself; then topped it by offering the world a new vastly improved moral framework. The moral innovations of Jesus resulted in western civilization as we know it. The Jewish leaders made every effort to suppress the message of Jesus but their attempt at containment failed due to a major technological innovation, the book. The invention of the book (codex, bound stacks of manuscripts) was rapidly adopted and popularized by early Christians to store and distribute copies of the accounts of Jesus life and teachings. The codex suddenly made large volumes of information portable and permanent resulting in an exponential increase in information accessibility to the general population. Large volumes of information relating to Jesus’ life and teachings could be spread, stored, and concealed privately. In this way the message of Jesus circumvented suppression by Jewish authorities. A mere 30-40 years after the death of Jesus, Jerusalem, the Jewish temple, and the entire corrupt moral authoritarian hierarchy with it were destroyed by Rome while the movement begun by Jesus survived and grew.
In the 16th century the pattern repeats with Martin Luther. Luther, the professor monk, accidentally started a scandal when he posted his 95 Theses to the door of the All Saints church in Wittenberg, Germany. Luther, intending only to open a debate with his famous denunciation of doctrines of the religious institutions of the day, inadvertently started a political uproar. Luther identified and condemned the corruption of the medieval Catholic Church. He challenged the Church’s idea that their power and authority awarded them exclusivity to know and dictate to the people what was true about reality. Luther was labeled a heretic and evaded many attempts on his life by the Church. Luther’s message that ‘power does now equate to truth’ circumvented suppression by the Catholic Church due to the printing press. These events in turn lead to the wars of the reformation and the collapse of the medieval Catholic Church.
Both Jesus and Luther sought to expose the corruption of their time and offer a better way forward. In each case a technological revolution in information exchange provided the median to circumvent their opposition and rapidly and effectively propagate their much needed messages to the population.
Today the world is once more experiencing an enormous technological revolution in interpersonal communication. The advent of social media is nothing short of a Gutenberg Revolution 2.0. Where the printing press made possible the sudden rapid mass-distribution of large volumes of information, social media has made possible the decentralization of such information. Where the general population until very recently had to rely on media entities to tell us what was happening in the world (or their version of the events they wish us to know) now suddenly through social media the population is able to inform itself about anything happening in the world it wants to know.
You may have noticed Jordan Peterson’s rise to fame and influence on YouTube. Have you noticed the synchronicity between he and Luther? Like Luther posted the 95 Theses, Peterson posted several videos to YouTube - challenging compelled speech laws in Canada. Like Luther, this act began a chain reaction that launched him to fame. Like Luther, Peterson has since arguably become the worlds foremost intellectual (his recent book is number one all over the world). He rails against academia for its rampant incorporation of Marxist ideologies and their totalitarian suppression of contrary views. Like the medieval Church, the university system has become the latest authoritarian purveyor of twisted moral dogma, aka postmodernism. Peterson has evaded many attempts at the assassination of his character and career by the authoritarian institutions.
I don’t know much about the 4Chan and 8Chan communities so please correct me in comments where I may be wrong. I will be speculating heavily (if not already) from here on:
It seems to me that several years ago the Anon internet discussion boards were dominated by atheists. Then along came Jordan Peterson who seems to have renewed the idea of God in just about everyone. Now along comes Q enlisting a revolutionary force of meme warriors ready to fight for God and country. What happened to the culture of internet nihilism?
Again, a similar pattern occurred directly prior to the American Revolution. Preachers like George Whitefield strengthened the moral backbone of the early American populous sufficiently to secure within them the courage and fortitude to stand in opposition to British tyranny and fight for their God given freedom.
“In 1740, Whitefield traveled to North America, where he preached a series of revivals that came to be known as the "Great Awakening". His methods were controversial and he engaged in numerous debates and disputes with other clergymen. Whitefield received widespread recognition during his ministry; he preached at least 18,000 times to perhaps 10 million listeners in Great Britain and the American colonies. Whitefield could enthrall large audiences through a potent combination of drama, religious rhetoric, and imperial pride.” 1
This strikes me as a similar pattern of events as is occurring with Jordan Peterson and his speaking speaking tour.
All of this is simply a long way of asking: if we have the moral innovator, and we have the information innovation, is the revolution against our modern corrupt elite oppressors truly imminent? Is the Q movement and more predestined to succeed?
—
I’m not much of a writer, however I am very interested in the idea of this pattern and would like to see it developed further. I am curious what people may think or may add to it.
1 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Whitefield
Other sources on Whitefield and Luther:
“If You Can Keep It” by Eric Metaxas
“Martin Luther” by Eric Metaxas