THE RIGHT STORY™
(a public service announcement from the Ministry of Correctness)
You don't need to believe in God to live in a law religion.
Over the last 18 months, I have cut deeper and deeper into understanding what a totalitarian law religion is. Not as historical curiosity, but as living social structure. What it requires to live within it. And what it costs to stand outside it in societies organized by it.
One of the recognitions that becomes impossible to avoid is this -
Belief is not first and foremost metaphysical. It is interpersonal. It lives in social relations, in sanctions, in recognition and expulsion. In what is rewarded - and what is punished. Therefore the mechanisms of belief are the same, regardless of whether a society calls itself religious, secular or "value-neutral".
You can tell yourself you don't live in a law religion. But if there exists a series of truths you are expected to confess. If there exist doctrines you must not doubt. If deviation leads to social, professional or moral sanctions. Then you already live in its circuit.
Below is a list of a number of points of impact - notions, dogmas and self-evidences - which the modern Western human is expected to believe in with the same intensity, loyalty and inner consent. Not as suggestions. But as creed.
And as in any law religion - it is not free to stand outside.
...
BODY, BIOLOGY & IDENTITY
Gender is something you define yourself.
If you say something wrong, you will be corrected.
Biology means less than identity.
Unless biology proves you right.
.
LANGUAGE, TRUTH & OPINIONS
Language shapes reality.
Therefore language is regulated.
Everything is complex.
Except your views if they don't align with The Right Story™, then they are problematic - if not directly dangerous. And easily dismissed.
Feelings count as facts.
But only the right feelings.
Truth is "your truth".
Unless it collides with The Right Story™.
Disagreement is violence.
Questions are microaggressions.
Humor is permitted.
As long as it doesn't hit power.
.
MORALITY, BODY & EVERYDAY
The right choice is to eat green.
Preferably completely without meat.
Meat is morally wrong.
But ultra-processed "climate protein" is salvation.
Obesity is beautiful and should be celebrated.
Health should be problematized and is an unhealthy ideal.
Exercise becomes suspicious,
if it's about discipline.
Fitness culture is body fascism.
Alcohol is culture.
Sugar is care.
Medicine is science.
And without connection to economy and financial interests.
Criticism and talk of side effects is "misinformation".
.
CLIMATE, ENERGY & GUILT
Climate weighs heavier than everything else.
All essential decisions must be made based on climate impact.
Flying is wrong.
Unless it's for the cause - like flying private to COP or Davos.
Energy must be green.
And cheap.
And stable.
Now.
Nuclear power is dangerous.
Gas is temporarily necessary.
If you complain about the price,
you lack solidarity and are selfish.
.
BORDERS, SECURITY & SOCIETY
Borders are inhumane.
But fences are fine when they protect the right places.
Diversity is our strength.
As long as we become more alike in what we may think.
Integration is always a success.
Problems are "stigmatization".
Statistics are racist.
Security is a privilege-concept.
.
STATE, POLICE & RESPONSIBILITY
The police are oppressive and part of the problem.
But also the ones who must solve everything.
Punishment doesn't work.
But restrictions and censorship do.
Crime is society's fault.
Responsibility is relative, a construction and ultimately hate speech.
.
GENDER, FAMILY & RELATIONS
The nuclear family is an outdated norm.
The father is optional.
Masculinity is toxic.
Femininity is oppressed.
And if men and women come together and build something again,
then it's "problematic gender roles" and a structural problem.
.
CULTURE, HISTORY & THE PAST
Culture is relative.
Western culture is especially problematic.
Our values are universal.
But our history is wrong.
Traditions are power structures.
Rituals are suspicious.
History must be rewritten.
Monuments must be reinterpreted.
Nations are lines on a map.
All Western culture is really just something about food and music.
The past is something we must apologize for.
.
FAITH & SECULARISM
Christianity is private.
Christianity is problematic.
Christianity is something we have "moved beyond".
Faith is acceptable,
as long as it doesn't shape morality, law or community.
Secularism is neutral.
Secularism is not ideological.
Even when it is.
Guilt is collective.
Grace does not exist.
Religion is permitted.
Political morality is governing.
.
ECONOMY & WORK
Economy is boring.
Money comes from somewhere (the state) so it just needs to be found - or taken from those who have some.
Private interests are greedy.
Public ones are good.
Welfare requires more hands.
But fewer children.
Work must be meaningful.
But must not make demands.
.
CHILDREN, SCHOOL & FUTURE
Children know best.
The younger they are, the more they know.
Adults must be educated.
School must focus on wellbeing.
Academic competence and teaching are secondary.
School must be value-neutral,
but have the right values (which align 1:1 with The Right Story™)
.
MEDIA & REALITY
The media are free.
Identical framing across all platforms, nationally and internationally, just means reality agrees.
If all major editorial offices say the same thing, it's "consensus".
...
The order in this list is not random.
It moves from the intimate to the collective, from the personal to the political.
First the body. Then language, which shapes thought. Then morality and everyday choices - food, climate, lifestyle - where conscience is coupled to behavior. Only later come borders, gender and family, and only at the end the structures that normally give people backbone - culture, history, faith and nation.
When these foundations are emptied, relativized or made suspicious, economy, institutions and education can be presented as technical necessities rather than value-based choices. Resistance therefore becomes difficult, because the inner compass is already disconnected - and those blindly believing in the Machine's Logic know The Truth™.
But what feels like inevitability is in reality sequence - orchestrated into place around you, so you are guided along with the rest of the flock to draw the conclusions they want you to...
'Manufacturing Consent', as a friend so vividly described it in the previous century.
If you get the sense that everything in your life must be subjected to one unified ideological manual, then perhaps it's worth asking -
Who benefits from reality only being allowed to be told one way?
❤️🔥🪽
