LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY happydog)

Happy Easter.

Observing a roundabout thing called a "meme" in the language of metalanguage that we use here on the internet, there is one about Theocracy. It has a lovely little illustration that is supposed to go with it, and a link, but right now I'm not sure, with apologies, that I can be bothered.

The basic upshot of the thing, as I am tired of the word Meme, is that one should use the week leading up to Easter to say something about the apparently impending Theocracy which is due to take us over any day.

I am somewhat jaded and have no particular love for the prediction of disaster. Being involved in the fundamentalist movement in your 20s will do that to you. The fundamentalists love the end of the world, they love it more than Jesus himself, because it's the final thing that will prove them right. The long-awaited Big Brother (not in the 1984 sense but in the childhood playground sense) will come and the people who have been cruisin' for a bruisin' will get theirs from the sword-tongued, white-haired, glowing, unrecognizable alien Jesus that appears like a new monster in the addled book of Revelations, which every nutcase in the history of the world since it was written has interpreted as a message just for them.

But the fact remains that I lost my most recent job essentially over religion. Of course, I never should have signed on with The Religious Institution; that particular Flying Dutchman has been damned to sail forever with its cursed crew and there was no reason to let myself be shanghaied. I think that I was tempted by the simple fact of having a job, in many ways. It is best in the long run that I was thrown over the side; certainly they considered it a mercy killing, or an appropriate culling. And I have heard from no one in the Institution since then; we are essentially pretending that we never met, which is sad and hilarious simultaneously.

But being pronounced anathema and unfit to be around "decent people," simply because of words one types in the ether, has its benefits; it confirms and affirms two things. One is that I am (and I say this without ego; it is no blessed title to bear) an outlier, to use Kipling's term. There are very few packs that will have me, nor I them, if I am being truthful (and I am, for once, here in this medium). This is an essentially good thing because as one of Gurdjieff's disciples said, "If you are a difficult person, this is no impediment to the Work." In other words, I am now put in a position where I must acknowledge and validate my outlier nature. It's best to realize this now, at least, although I do wonder why I didn't catch on sooner.

The second benefit is that it reminds me to have sympathy for the outliers like (and unlike) myself. It is a truism that whoever you hang around influences you. I am seeing now that my involvement in the Religious Institution was poisoning me in many ways. Unconsciously I was being influenced by their morals and their attitudes, and even some of their beliefs were beginning to look interesting again - the same beliefs that in a different form had proved unworkable and had betrayed me before. Their world does not include people like me, I was reminded. And I am also reminded that it does not include people like you who read this.

The danger of a theocracy is not in my opinion that it will come to pass that the United States will turn into Jesusland. There will never be an overt theocracy. The danger comes from the covert theocracy. Not a conspiracy but a slow brainwashing of people. The theocracy comes in the form of reasonable people, nice folks, who talk about values and morals, and always want to seem to do the right thing. They want to help the children, they say, and they want law and order in the streets, and they want to feed the hungry and take care of the sick - but at a price, at a price. That price is that with them comes their theology.

But if they are wise they don't push their theology; they simply inculcate it a little at a time, until what was once acceptable is now not acceptable, according to the rules of the Decent People, who have somehow convinced others: well, don't you love the children? Don't you want to stop crime in the streets? Don't you think there should be hospitals? Support us and we will give them to you. And slowly you start to agree with them. Which is why, by the way, Hamas and other Islamic organizations of their type are so popular in the Middle East; they do a lot of charity work. It's how they get in the door and eventually convince young men and women to strap explosives to themselves and blow themselves up in supermarkets in Israel.

The blowhards and the obvious sign-waving screamers - they are a distraction from the real work that goes on behind the scenes. Even the scripture-spouting politicians are not as much a threat as the seemingly thoughtful, reasonable people who seem to have such good ideas, and want things to be nice for everyone. And don't you? Well, here's how it can be done. Let us lead you gently into the showers, no need for guards and fuss. One by one, not the superstars of the fundamentalist world, but the foot soldiers, the seemingly kind and gentle people who always seem ready to help. Those are the ones you have to watch out for. Not the overt theocracy; the covert theocracy of opinions and ideas and suggestions.