Ultimately, the enemy is not a Russian or an American or any other person. The enemy lies in an ideology, a way of thinking, in a certain metaphysical force or spirit. The real problem, the actual enemy, is situated in a worldview that reduces the entire world and existence to a material phenomenon, in which human beings are no more than biological machines, biochemical processes devoid of Spirit or Soul. In such a context, biological survival and the pursuit of absolute dominance without any ethical or moral limits easily become the ultimate goal.
— Mattias Desmet
Why Some Are Steering Towards a Third World War - A narrative on Ukraine. (Opens new window)
Quote Page A World Without God »
In a totalitarian system, no one is safe; everything and everyone can fall under the rules that are rewritten daily on the walls of Animal Farm by the pigs in charge. This gives us a glimpse of what the coming years will mainly bring: unimaginable chaos and psychological dislocation. And the only anchor will be precisely what our rationalist Enlightenment society pushed to the background: loyalty to ethical principles even if it means losing whatever you possess in the world of appearances.
— Mattias Desmet
The democratic party coup against Biden. (Opens new window)
Quote Page Totalitarian Systems »
Propaganda is not primarily the art of lying; it is the art of psychological manipulation. It is primarily the art of directing attention. Propaganda ensures that you notice certain aspects of reality and not others. And what is more suited to that than a search engine? Google is nowadays the Great Other that answers all your questions.
— Mattias Desmet
The democratic party coup against Biden. (Opens new window)
Quote Page On Propaganda »
Failure of the Enlightenment
To return to the core of the matter: the Enlightenment belief placed rationality at the center and considered the whole range of Good and Evil as completely irrelevant and even non-existent. It faded into the background; people no longer paid attention to it. And in the background, something typical happened. Evil took the helm. Doing Good requires a certain level of alertness and effort from humans; one must devote some attention and energy to it; one must always overcome some resistance to do Good. If that alertness and investment of strength and energy to do Good are not there, then the ship of life silently turns and sails towards dark waters.
— Mattias Desmet
The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games - A tribute to William Blake. (Opens new window)
Quote Page Failure of the Enlightenment »
But the woke spectacle we saw at the opening ceremony [at the 2024 Olympics] has little to do with that. In its intrusive display and anchorless drifting into increasingly grotesque forms of sexuality, it does not show the merging of sexual drive with love and tenderness that is the hallmark of human and cultural maturity; in its fanaticism, it is no longer a liberator, but a tyrant, a militant and extremist ideology that leads sexuality not to its pinnacle but to its complete decline.
— Mattias Desmet
The opening ceremony of the Olympic Games - A tribute to William Blake. (Opens new window)
Quote Page Olympic Woke Spectacle »
Emerging Totalitarianism in the West is Technocratic
The newly emerging totalitarianism is not so much fascist or communist in nature. It is technocratic. What is emerging is a totalitarianism led by “experts” and enforced with technological tools, the likes of which the world has never seen—until now.
— Mattias Desmet
Is There More Censorship Nowadays Than in the Former Soviet Union? (Opens new window)
Quote Page Emerging Totalitarianism in the West is Technocratic »
Totalitarianism is not a historical coincidence
Totalitarianism is not a historical coincidence. It is the logical consequence of mechanistic thinking and the delusional belief in the omnipotence of human rationality.
— Mattias Desmet
"The Psychology of Totalitarianism" (essay on Substack) (Opens new window)
Quote Page Totalitarianism is not a historical coincidence »
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