Neo-Obscurantism
Neo-obscurantism refers to modern forms of religious obscurantist thought attempting to masquerade themselves as "reason", "science" or "skepticism".
It is the fundamental ideological and cultural substrate of the contemporary western society.
Defining features
An ideology can be identified as neo-obscurantist by the following traits:
- Is based on one or more revealed truths (a narrative) whose primary diffusion channels are mainstream media outlets (newspapers, radio, television, and their mainstream internet equivalents) and/or official education institutions (schools, academia).
- Is immediately and acritically accepted at face-value by the overwhelming majority of the populace, in complete absence of any kind of indipendent research or critical reasoning.
- Any form of doubt, critical thought or alternative idea is immediately met with fierce hostility and social shunning on a level basically undistinguishable from that of religious/racial intolerance.
- Is accompanied by an implicit pretense of representing the "educated", "rational" or "modern" way of thought, while anything and everything else is specularly regarded as "ignorant", "irrational" or "backwards".
Like all forms of propaganda, Neo-Obscurantism employs a wide array of logical fallacies, rhetorical trickery and psychological manipulation tactics aimed at suppressing rational thought and preventing or misdirecting dissent; the distinguishing feature of Neo-Obscurantist propaganda, however, is its reliance on extreme levels of linguistic/semantic subversion permeating virtually every aspect of public discourse; this subversion is achieved through the systematic misuse of specific keywords until their meaning becomes completely inverted compared to their original one; achieves its maximum effect when applied to keywords expressing the main pillars of rational thought, such as "reason", "science" or "skepticism".
At its core, Neo-obscurantism represents the semantic inversion between reason and its opposite; i.e.: the attempt to pass the rejection of reason as "reason" itself and vice-versa; on a wider sense is the attempt to pass off reactionary regressive ideas as "progress", and vice-versa.
Typical example of Neo-obscurantist propaganda: under the pretense of fighting against "irrational nonsense" and to represent "science, reason and critical thinking", irrationality is systematically exploited by means of logical fallacies and rhetorical trickery (case in point: Smear by Association and Ridiculing).
This picture encapsulates the essence of Neo-Obscurantism
Analogies with traditional obscurantism
The neo-obscurantist society is a direct derivation of the medieval one and shares with it almost each one of its distinctive features:
MEDIEVAL OBSCURANTISM | MODERN OBSCURANTISM |
Existence of supernational organizations whose power trumps that of national governments: | |
Holy Church | United Nations |
Promotion of a top-down pyramidal system of government where common people are at the bottom: | |
Feudal system | Corporativism |
Adoption of an ideology theoretically standing at the foundation of its entire worldview, but whose principles are constantly and systematically violated in practice: | |
Christianity | Science |
Worship of a medium considered to be the ultimate source of all knowledge, to the point of being identified with reality itself: | |
The Holy Bible | Television and newspapers |
Equiparation between reason and faith: | |
(sic) | (sic) |
Existence of a specific class of people tasked with the job of indoctrinating the masses: | |
Priests | Journalists |
Existence of a specific cathegory of people deemed to be above normal human beings: | |
Saints | Experts |
Use of slogans/catchphrases to promote blind faith in authority and vilify critical thought: | |
"Ipse Dixit" | "The Science said so" |
Use of slurs/buzzwords to smear critics and dissenters: | |
"Heretics" | "Cranks/crackpots" |
Organized suppression of dissent and inconvenient facts: | |
Holy Inquisition | "Debunking" |
Encouragement of self-profiling practices as a form of control over people's lives and thoughts: | |
Confession | Social media |
Withdrawal of rights as a form of punishment for disrespecting authority: | |
Excommunication | Deplatforming |
Conception of life as a form of atonement for sins committed by past generations: | |
Original Sin | "Systemic racism" |
Aversion toward the material/physical aspect of existence and longing for the ethereal/immaterial: | |
spiritualism | digitalization |
Origins
Neo-Obscurantism is born as a reaction against the natural push for progress and emancipation of people and the failure of the traditional ideologies of conservation to suppress it.
For the vast majority of recorded history, humanity lived under the rule of powerful oligarchies who exploited people for their own personal gain; however, mantaining this system through sheer force was extremely difficult without a way to keep people from revolting or even just questioning the status quo; for countless centuries traditional religions have been the main tool to achieve this result, through the exploitation of the masses' ignorance and irrationality.
For this reason, science has almost always been fiercely opposed by the dominant power, since the critique of the traditional religious ideologies would inevitably lead to the critique of the entire social system based on them.
However, as the superiority of scientific thought became more and more evident and the new ideologies made people more and more conscious about their dignity and rights, traditional religions and values gradually lost more and more credibility, until they became no longer viable as a tool of mass manipulation, forcing the dominant elites to resort to something else in order to mantain their power.
This "something else" was paradoxically found precisely inside the new arising ideals of reason and progress; what made this possible was the fact that, despite people gradually helding the new values in higher and higher regard, very few had a proper understanding of what they actually meant and how they worked; all they understood was that, whenever their condition improved, magical words such as "science", "reason", "freedom" and "democracy" always kept being called in cause; with the passage of time these words gradually came to be worshipped just like the ancient Gods, while their actual content gradually came to be entirely forgotten, turning them into empty shells anyone could hide in in order to justify whatever they wanted with very few noticing and, ultimately, the perfect substitutes for the ancient religions.
In short, Neo-Obscurantism exists as the attempt by the ancient obscurantist elites to regain their lost power and hegemony by hiding under the banner of the very ideals that brought their defeat.
Historical examples of neo-obscurantist societies include:
- France during the age of Terror and the Napoleonic era
- The USSR, and more in general all USSR-inspired marxist-leninist states
- The contemporary western "neo-liberal" globalist society
Structure
Tools
Mainstream media
- Television
- Radio
- Newspapers
Alternative media
- Internet
Organization
Neo-obscurantism is not a simple social-cultural phenomenon, but a carefully constructed and controllated ideology; though it finds its fertile soil in the inherent flaws of human nature, it does not simply spontaneously arises from it, but it is intentionally sowed and cultivated with full agency by malicious actors for power and/or profit purposes. As such, it features a very specific internal organization no different to that of most organized mass religions.
Leaders
The top of the pyramid. These are the people who finance the whole propaganda machinery and who ultimately benefit it.
- Aristocracy
- Billionaires
- Intelligence
Clergy
Also known with more attractive names such as "public relations". They are the producers, organizers and spreaders of neo-obscurantist propaganda.
Mainstream news outlets / Journalists
They are the first line of the neo-obscurantist propaganda, since they inhabit the most visible and easily accessible mediatic outlets, and provide the first "imprinting" of the official narrative to the public; their job is to flood the public with a constant deluge of "news" carefully selected (or even entirely fabricated) in order to:
1) replace public's real-life experience with a constructed narrative;
2) progressively erode any capability for rational thought in favor of cheap emotivity;
3) subvert language by hijacking the meaning of words;
4) defame dissenters through smear campaigns;
Typical examples: BBC, Fox News, The Atlantic, The Guardian, etc., and the vast majority of journalists writing on them..
Political parties / Politicians
People in this cathegory consists of almost literal actors, playing assigned roles in order to divide the public among manufactured factions, keep them occupied in meaningless battles and controversies, and participate in fake debates that appear to promote a plurality of views but are carefully scripted in order to reinforce the dominant narrative. The fraudolent nature of their public characters and political engagement can be unequivocally be inferred by 3 facts:
1) the intellectual dishonesty of their speeches and the rethoric used;
2) the massive discrepance between the values they support in theory and their concrete practical deeds;
3) their past history, ties and allegiances;
Typical examples: Barack Obama, Donald Trump, Joe Biden, Vladimir Putin, etc...
Science gatekeeping institutions / Science Traitors
Scientists who deliberately chose to betray science for money, status and/or recognition. Their purpose is to gatekeep science by acting as frontmen of the whole scientific community, and deliberately misrepresent both the scientific method and its conclusions in order to pass off mainstream ideologies as "Science" (see "State Pseudoscience"). It is extremely important to stress that, contrary to popular belief, they usually represent only a small (but very vocal) minority of scientists, but still manage to sell themselves as the voice of the entire scientific community thanks to their high mediatic promotion and visibility, and use this fake perception to monopolize Science and discredit any critical voice (including those coming from their more honest peers).
Typical examples: WHO, CDC, professional orders, Anthony Fauci, etc..
Pseudoskeptic movement / Science Posers
Celebrities with very little actual scientific titles or achievements, but whose opinions are still treated as being on same level as those of actual scientists, for no other reason than their ability to sell themselves as "skeptics" or "rationalists". Their purpose is to shield mainstream doctrines by replacing doubt and critical thinking with dogmatic rejection and personal incredulity, and redirecting them exclusively towards alternative claims.
Typical examples: Michael Shermer, Neil DeGrasse Tyson, etc..
Fact Deniers
Commonly known with misleading self-appointed titles such as "debunkers" or "fact-checkers", and regarded for this reason alone as "experts" despite usually having no real credentials, their role is simply to deny the evidence at any cost. Their method typically involve gaining themselves a credibility by properly disproving non-threatening theories, and then using it to discredit any actually threatening theory by resorting to faulty arguments that sound plausible to an untrained audience.
Typical examples: CSICOP; MythBusters, SNOPES, etc.
Shills
People (usually anonymous) paid to promote neo-obscurantist views and/or attack dissenters on the internet; very active on internet forums, social media, image boards, comments sections of videos, etc.. They can be furtherly divided in 2 types:
1) Open shills, whose job is to explicitly defend the official narrative and/or to attack alternative ones;
2) False flaggers, whose job is to impersonate dissenters and intentionally act in a blatantly silly/dishonest way in order to put them in a bad light;
In both cases, it should be noticed that the usual aim of the shill is not to convince the people he's directly arguing with, but rather casual lurkers and bystanders.
Typical examples: a large part of apparently "normal" people arguing on internet forums and social media.
Followers
The final targets of the brainwashing; the mass of unaware believers who make up the vast majority of people.
Activists
Sometimes described as "useful idiots", this cathegory consists mostly of politically engaged people with good intentions and very high levels of emotivity, but also very low intelligence, which makes them extremely easy to manipulate, even by the same people they theoretically oppose.
Conformists
Commonly known with terms such as "sheeples" or "NPCs", they sit at the bottom of the neo-obscurantist hierarchy and form the bulk of followers. Just like the activists they blindly follow the mainstream narratives/ideologies, but different from the above, their allegiance does not derive from any real conviction, but rather from the mere desire for social acceptance, and a high degree of intellectual laziness.