Power Paradox

Reconciling Hope and Doom

While I won’t go into a treatise on how Zack Snyder’s depiction of Superman is significantly more interesting than most will give him credit for in Man of Steel, I am going to start this piece off with a reference to the much-maligned 2016 sequel, Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice.

The movie may be as overstuffed, meandering and tonally confused as its title would suggest—a fact owing in no small part to the oft-reported meddling of Warner Bros. studio heads throughout its production process—but, as is the case with much of Snyder’s work, its on-the-nose thematic explorations sometimes yield affecting cyphers through which to approach the modern interpretation of myth, legend and even religion.

More specifically, Snyder has always explored the role of the Super Man archetype in his adaptations more so than the superhero, from the titular Man of Steel to Watchmen’s Dr. Manhattan—himself another allegory for the global anxiety of nuclear war that permeated western society in the 1960s and 1980s.

Returning to Batman v Superman, while I’m not personally a big fan of Snyder’s wildly divergent take on Lex Luthor—presented here as more of a Mark Zuckerberg stand-in rather than a charismatic crony capitalist genius—the inspiration for today’s piece comes from a line twitchily uttered by the Silicon Valley-inspired brainiac.

“I figured it out way back. If God is all powerful, He cannot be all good. And if He’s all good then He cannot be all powerful. And neither can you be. They need to see the fraud you are.”

Luthor delivers these lines in exaggerated, breathless aplomb to Superman just before he attempts to force the hero into an impossible choice—that being to save his mother or the woman he is set to marry, the love of his life.

While the philosophical underpinnings of Luthor’s sentiment are worth exploring, his ultimate solution to the seeming paradox he has uncovered is himself to become evil, all so that he might test his theory on the relative strength or weakness of good, and by extension, of God Himself. Since Luthor cannot get an audience with God, he has chosen Superman as the Creator’s Earthly representation—a cypher onto which he can imprint all of his worldly angst, despair and bitterness.

In short, Lex Luthor is a Doomer.

And if you’ve been plowing the waters in the complex, ever-shifting information ocean that is the Mind War for any length of time, you’ve no doubt come across similar sentiments in the wider Truth community.

Still, while it’s sometimes easy—even lazy—to dismiss Doomers, Blackpillers or any other number of names given to those who give in or openly embrace negativity, the crushing of hope and the raining on proverbial parades, that is not my intention here today. Instead, I’d like to explore the underlying fear at the heart of Luthor’s accusations, and transform them in my readers’ eyes into a plea—a cry for help. In order to answer that cry, first we must seek to understand where it comes from and—difficult as it may sometimes be—understanding first requires a sincere attempt to take those who despair as earnest, if misguided.

Despite the intro to this piece, this is also not an appeal to God, either for or against belief in Him or representations of and allusions to Him. Instead, it is an appeal to reason and intuition married, something I often argue—or preach—at Burning Bright, and whose fusion I personally view as a powerful, stalwart and eternal shield against that ever-encroaching darkness of the mind, which ever seeks to corrupt the heart that wields it.

To me, fusing reason with intuition—two seeming opposites whose cohesion becomes inarguable the more you practice it—presents a steady, clear path toward developing a rational, directed and discerning worldview. Another tool to sharpen in your cognitive kitchen so that you aren’t swept along in the disorienting emotional river the Mind War can become.

In the case of Lex Luthor, we might reference his specific brand of Dooming as akin to an atheistic mindset. Personally, I draw a clear line between agnostics and atheists, as atheists know exactly what they believe while agnostics aren’t sure, and are therefore movable in their beliefs. Atheists’ entire belief system—their entire identity—is wrapped up in nonbelief. Their morality—or lack thereof—is self-imposed and self-affirming. Their personalities are often driven by vain ambition and Finite thinking. In argument, they tend to appeal to worldly authority.

In other words, atheists are attracted to Systems rather than substance. They claim to be reasoned, logical beings, but in rejecting the inherently-clear pull of human or God-given intuition, they simply substitute the belief in a higher power to a belief in higher humans. Their betters, whom they seek to emulate while climbing over the discarded bones of their fellow lessers.

Atheists are relatively easy targets for dichotomous thinking, wherein they attempt to set logic traps that betray an underlying lack of understanding of the nature of good and evil, the power and function of stories and symbols, and the process through which one triumphs over the other. This is one of many reasons why they are prone to groupthink, and also why they are prone to Dooming, despair and all-around nastiness.

Still, as I have said, I believe dismissing Doom and despair is folly in and of itself, at least without addressing its logical merits, of which—on the surface—there appears to be something.

Recently, I have written extensively about the prospect of contradictions at Burning Bright. I have put together complementary ‘sister’ pieces on how Narrative contradictions can be used for ill (Narrative Whiplash,) or for good (Bicameral Thinking.)

If we apply the former to Luthor’s appeal to God in the form of Superman—his accusation that, if God were truly good, He could not and would not allow suffering on the Earth. It can be read in no uncertain terms that this appeal stems from suffering or trauma buried in the background of Luthor’s character, perhaps emanating from his childhood. While this scene is a work of fiction, the sentiment is a common one in the real world, and I’ll admit it’s one I used to fall into when I was younger—even when I was a child.

On its face, such a contradiction or paradox in power is clear and seemingly inarguable: either God is all powerful or all good. If He is one, He cannot be the other.

Applying this lens to the ongoing Shadow War myself and many other thinkers and writers discuss in the wider Truth community, we can substitute Luthor’s disdain for Superman for the collective Doomers’ disdain for Donald Trump and those surrounding him that many of us consider to be Patriots of the highest order. These accusations of all-powerful or all-knowing—ultimately resulting in a self-fulfilling double negative that results in the Patriot coalition being considered neither, and therefore useless—seeks to expose a contradiction in the ‘movie’ or ‘plan’ concept many of us believe is taking place.

Put another way, Doomers tend to ignore the Micro in favor of painting a reductionist and therefore lacking Macro, focusing only on the supposed contradiction between Patriots having a plan to both take down and expose Deep State elements within and without the United States all while their people suffer—perhaps needlessly—while these exposures take place.

If the Patriots were all-powerful, then surely they would stop the subversive and evil elements within our Governments and societies with as little damage to the population as possible. If the Patriots were all-good, they would never intentionally action a disclosure plan that resulted in the knowing and even encouraged suffering of said population.

Here, the Doomers say, we have a contradiction, yes?

No.

And herein lies a fundamental issue with faulty Macro thinking, or reductionist Macro thinking, and one of the reasons I sometimes caution folks not to abandon the Micro, logical lens when attempting to construct Macro or paradigm-forging viewpoints, and to employ Bicameral Thinking as a foundational cognitive lifeline when you do. For a Macro view is only as sound as its foundation, and the bigger the foundation, the bigger the cracks in its base.

Before I give my personal reading on why this contradiction is no contradiction at all, I would revisit recent points I made encouraging healthy skepticism of any and all theories, opinions and Narratives put forth both in the media, politics, entertainment and in the alternative communities in which we find ourselves. Skepticism is the sign of a healthy, heterodox mind.

But Dooming is not rooted in skepticism. It is rooted in fear. And fear is rooted in emotion.

This foundational belief betrays a lack of understanding of the very paradigm we seek to bring down or to transform. These are not the logic traps some believe them to be, as a sober examination of most of Trump’s decisions and ‘seeming’ contradictions or paradoxes ultimately provides more evidence for in-control narratives than out of control, as argued in the recent Brief concerning Bill Barr and the optics drive surrounding him, Mike Pence and a long list of other current and ‘former’ Trump allies.

Essentially, Doomer accusations of hopium slam into twin logic walls right away: either Trump is an imbecile and therefore the enemy’s response to him is absurd and dramatic, or he is not, and his appointments carry weight, meaning and intent … even to this day.

That said, it is always wise to apply Bicameral Thinking, following multiple possibilities to their logical conclusions, which I commend and recommend. Following these, again, it is difficult to follow the Trump imbecile arguments to a logic-based conclusion, and if we do accept that Barr, Pence or any number of appointments are KNOWINGLY bad, meaning Trump knows, then their public comments are of no larger consequence, as their being placed into Trump’s direct orbit is by design.

But what about vaccines? What about Operation Warp Speed? Trump doomed us! Trump betrayed us!

Trump lost!

Alternatively, as with any number of Potential and Actual deployments in a Fifth-Generation War, combat tactics are in effect, from Narrative Acceleration and Whiplash to public disclosure.

In short, where are we now in [their] planned Narrative? Where did they want us to be?

The COVID white flag has been raised. Lockdowns are being rejected. Lawsuits are only just beginning, following on the heels of a growing and growling backlash against Big Pharma, herd mentality, public health figures and government overreach.

But then, this piece is not meant to stray into the Micro, as Doomers are likely to follow any lack of understanding on a given tactic with the Macro ending of the western world.

The issue with the seeming paradox at the heart of Luthor’s rebellion against Superman is that it ignores the presence or existence of the devil. It ignores free will; if you want to stay away from theology and metaphor, it ignores that the enemy gets a vote, and that there are two sides in a war.

Trump and patriots are NOT all powerful and they are NOT all knowing. That said, they do not need to be, because they are playing on the same game board as their enemy.

Rather than running from this fact, I would implore you to embrace it, to zoom out to see who’s winning and losing rather than focusing on one square abandoned and one pawn taken. To be in control of a Fifth-Generation War, you need only control more of the board than your opponent. You need only anticipate his moves and have counters in place, which does not mean damage will not occur.

In chess, the losing player is doomed long before their end is actualized, but some choose to play the game out, to do as much damage as possible before they concede or are forced into concession, or checkmate. I believe the enemy is in check. I believe they have been for some time. There was a time when they believed they could win, but I believe that time has passed. I believe we can see this in the sheer rapidity with which narrative deployments are being actioned and abandoned.

[They] are lashing out at pawns, roaring at rooks and baying at bishops, all the while the knights move in. [They] are doing damage, but they are not building foundations atop it, deploying contradictory paradigms in a desperate attempt to shift the momentum of a psychological conflict they have already lost in the Collective Mind.

For that is the game board. The Collective Mind itself, and none can control that mighty multitude completely.

I often say we are in a war of stories, and we have better writers. One of the prime rules of writing, as many know is ‘show, don’t tell.’

With everything we have been shown over the last few years. With every story they attempt to push and then abandon, who seems to you to be in control?

So the next time you see someone either dooming or warning against the ingestion of hopium in good faith, remember that the brightest hope is born of intuition and reason married. Faith born of that marriage is not blind. It is ironclad. While the cynic asks ‘Why?’ with no attempt to answer the very question that gives rise to their psychological tension, the discerning mind seeks the answer.

And it is in the seeking that hope is found.

In the end, Luthor’s core problem is that he views Superman as a symbol. But Superman is not a symbol. He is a man. A man from another world, perhaps, but a man nonetheless. Powerful, but not all-powerful. Knowledgeable, but not all-knowing.

Superman is no more responsible for people assigning mythological aspects to him as Donald Trump is, nor the Patriots that form the Justice League that surrounds him and buoys him.

Superman is not God. Donald Trump is not Superman.

And yet … if the mind accepts these truths, zooms out and looks at the game board with clear eyes, it is clear to me that, despite the pain and despite the strife, we are winning.

In short, no matter what your feelings are on any of the respective films or stories I reference around these parts, I can promise you that you’re going to like how this movie ends.

Until next time, stay Positive, stay Based and most importantly … stay Bright.

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