by Haley Kynefin, The Pulse:
As we enter a new era of cultural conflict, old political boundaries no longer serve us.
I was never happy with the political division of “left” vs. “right.” The words, first and foremost, are vague even in their more primitive directional sense, since their interpretation depends entirely on the orientation of their user. What is “left” from my perspective will be “right” from yours, if you are standing opposite me, so it is important first to establish a frame of reference; otherwise there is likely to be confusion.
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But from a political standpoint, it is difficult to infer any sort of value system directly from the labels themselves. And in fact, no one has ever given me a satisfactory explanation of what exactly defines them. Some say, “The left prefers big government, while the right prefers small government.” Others decree, “The left wing is socialist, the right wing is capitalist.”
But increasingly, it seems, these labels have devolved into jumbled assortments of specific policy alignments that have nothing to do with each other, at least without internalizing a series of tenuous assumptions about what links them. The right is “pro-gun;” the left is “anti-gun;” the left is “pro-abortion;” the right is “anti-abortion;” the right is Christian; the left is secular; and so on and so forth.
Nor does it get any better when you layer these over the top of similar terms, such as “liberal” and “conservative” or “Republican” and “Democrat,” with which the “left” and “right” has been muddied. Can there be right-wing liberals and left-wing conservatives? Republicans and Democrats refer, of course, to the parties, but although there are registered right-wing Democrats and left-wing Republicans the terms are more or less understood as equivalent to “left-wing” and “right.” And as the percentage of voters disillusioned with both parties grows, we are left asking ourselves, do these divisions still effectively mark the modern social divide?
My answer is, no. In fact, I think they do us a grave disservice by obscuring the true cultural issues of our time within outdated boxes full of loaded assumptions, unfit for purpose. And I think we urgently need a new paradigm if we are to de-escalate our political rhetoric, return to the realm of civilized discourse and understand what we are facing.
Covid-19: The Breaking Point
While 2016 and Donald Trump’s election marked the beginning of the end, the true breaking point for the old paradigm occurred in 2020, with the Covid crisis and the World Economic Forum’s declaration of a “Great Reset.” The Covid lockdowns, contact tracing and testing programs, and vaccine mandates brought into the public discourse a relatively new idea: that governments could impose, from the top down, mass social engagement with digital and biomedical technology, and use it to govern the minutiae of an individual’s private life.
This was a near-complete transformation of social infrastructure: many churches, clubs, families, friend groups and other communities faced a stark choice: they could either wither away in isolation, or go digital.
For the first time, on a mass scale, people were ordered to take medical tests, log their smallest movements on smartphone apps, and inject experimental pharmaceutical products in order to travel, leave their house, or keep their jobs.
At the same time, governments and international organizations like the WEF began advertising their intent to digitally transform society. Klaus Schwab remarked that the “Great Reset” and its associated “Fourth Industrial Revolution” would “lead to a fusion of our physical, digital, and biological identities.”
Meanwhile, as Whitney Webb reported for MintPress News, the US government was unrolling its new “National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence” (NSCAI) — an alliance of Big Tech executives and intelligence community members tasked with promoting widespread adoption of digital infrastructure and removing access to “legacy systems” (like in-store shopping or individual car ownership) in order to compete with China.
“The Great Reset” is perhaps the most visible and symbolic sign of a push from the top down, launched on the back of the Covid response, to redesign almost every aspect of our infrastructure and social culture. For those who love traditional cultures of the globe and more natural, ancient ways of living, who prioritize beauty and meaningfulness over utilitarian efficiency, or who hold classical liberal values like freedom of speech and independence, this attempted overhaul comes as a very personal assault on our way of life.
In the two years since 2020, parents in Wales have been told that their children as young as three must attend controversial sex and gender classes, designed to break down traditional concepts of sexual identity; California has announced it will strip custody from out-of-state parents of minors who flee there for surgical transitions; and the UK’s National Health Service is scrapping the word “woman” across several of their domains.
