Mirages Seen on the Banks of the Nile

.. somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man...

  

For many years, something puzzled me: why is it that whatever the majority of people believe is so often the exact opposite of the truth? It seemed so consistent I suspected the existence of some evil intelligence, the Devil, coordinating the many individual opinions. 

I think that is true; there is a Devil, and he is behind this. But a personal devil is not a necessary hypothesis to explain this. It is simply a universal law that, once you start to lie or to do wrong, you fear the truth. Since you fear the truth, you want to get as far away from it as possible. A lot of people are up to no good. Not necessarily a majority, but such people are both desperate and unprincipled. That is enough to cow others into obedience. Few people are actively good. Some are actively bad, and most others just go along to get along. So the grossest lies become standard currency.

Some examples:

The common condemnation of the Crusades as a macroaggression on Muslims based on religious prejudice. In fact, the “crusade,” the holy war, was a Muslim invention: jihad. The Christian Crusades were a response in kind, in imitation of the Muslim practice. The Muslims had overrun the Holy Lands and most of the Byzantine Empire; the Byzantine Empire appealed to the rest of the Christian world for help.

The common condemnation of slavery as a peculiarly American, British, or European sin, and a sin against Africa. In fact, slavery was a near-universal practice--except in Christian Europe, where chattel slavery was nonexistent. It was revived in the new European colonies only as a concession to local practice--through contact with slave-holding societies in Africa and the New World. Later, it was a British mission to eliminate slavery throughout the world.

The common notion that Indians/”First Nations” lived in harmony with nature. In fact, they lived in conflict with nature, pillaging for their needs. It is the settled farmers from Europe who husbanded the land, taking out only what they put in.

I go on about the Indians, because I have researched and written a book on the subject…

The common falsehood that the policy of the Canadian government has been to wipe out Indian culture, notably through the residential schools. The way to assimilate Indians, had this ever been the intent, would have been to put them in the public schools. It would have been to evacuate remote reserves and bring them into the towns and cities. In fact, the policy of Canadian governments has always been to preserve Indians as a distinct group, reducing their contact with others like animals in a game preserve. Out of misguided concern.

The common misunderstanding that Canada is built on stolen Indian land. The land was sold by treaty long ago; the aboriginal groups surrendered all claims on the land in return for agreed compensation. And it is worth mentioning that aboriginal title did not exist in the first place, by common law. It was invented as a useful fiction to gain Indian recognition of government authority. According to the philosophy behind the common law, nobody can really own land. God made the land for everyone. One only owns one’s labour, and this may be invested in the land by tilling and sowing, or otherwise improving it. Since the Indians did not work the land, but merely hunted and gathered, they have no more rights to the land than anyone else. They have the same right to purchase or to homestead or to hunt and gather, so long as the latter does not interfere with someone else’s more intensive use of the land.

The common illusion that the land was sacred to the Indians. The Indians were almost all nomadic. No particular area of land would have meant much to them. It means far more to the settled farmer or even city dweller, who may have spent his life on it, who remembers his childhood here, whose loved ones and ancestors may be buried nearby.

The common condemnation of “European colonialism” and “European imperialism.” In fact, almost all countries have been empires until recent times. The European contribution was not to invent imperialism, but to end it. The unique European creation was the ethnic or nation state. The first nation states were England and France, perhaps also Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands. They spread this concept to the world—through their short-lived “empires.”

The common complaint that Western civilization is Eurocentric, and has too little regard for other cultures. This is easily disproven by the simple fact that “the West” refers to itself as “the West.” It is literally not self-centric. Most cultures usually suppose they are. This has led the West to be unusually outward-looking, to put to sea to explore, and to acquire influences and even people from other cultures.

The common fraudulent claim that the left works for the poor, and the right for big corporations. The left likes lots of regulation on business. This works in favour of big corporations, because it prevents market competition. The left will give some assistance to the very poor, but will ensure that they cannot improve their lot; it makes them permanently poor. Most of the money they claim to raise for “the poor” goes instead into the pockets of wealthy “experts,” who have a vested interest in perpetuating the problems.

If you ever imagined the corporations were on the right, seeing Google, Facebook, Amazon, Patreon, PayPal and Twitter all move as one being to suppress voices on the right has to disprove it. 

The common falsehood that women have, throughout history, been oppressed by men. The fact is, men were obliged to go off and work, usually for another, for a living. Women could expect to stay at home and be their own boss. Women were exempted from military service or conscripted labour; men were sent off to be killed. Women were exempted from any dirty, strenuous, or dangerous work, and in many times and places could not be prosecuted for a crime. Growing up, boys are given tough love and hard knocks. Girls are told they are princesses no matter how they behave. 

Following in this time-honoured tradition of asserting the opposite of the truth, in recent years racism has been rebranded “anti-racism,” and refusing to see race is now called “racist.”

There are many more such lies.

But the biggest lie of all is that there is no meaning to life, and no good evidence for the existence of God. Nothing could be further from the truth; yet surely it is the general modern consensus. I think of Monty Python’s rambling movie “The Meaning of Life.” ‘Alas!’ we moderns and post-moderns feign to lament. ‘If only we could figure out why we are here.’ 

Literally everything that exists proves the existence of God. God is the necessary answer to the question, “Why is there something instead of nothing?” What could be more proven?

But wait; there’s more. We have more and stronger logical proofs of the existence of God than of anything else in the universe. Why, other than whistling past the grave yard, this pretense that the matter is in dispute?

And the meaning of life has been well known and accepted across cultures since ancient times, and no doubt before. It is to seek what is true, what is good, and what is beautiful. These qualities are of self-evident value; the value of truth or good or beauty does not need to be justified. Rather, all things are of value to the extent that they are true, or good, or beautiful.

I recently wrote an essay for the national Mensa publication, pointing this out. 

No surprise: it prompted an energetic argument. Two members, and counting, felt driven to write articles asserting that life had no meaning. 

They made no argument that this was so—they simply asserted it, and claimed I had not proven the opposite. In the process, ignoring my arguments.

My experience is that many people very strongly do not want life to have any meaning. 

Especially if that meaning is truth. Truth for many is the great enemy.

It all has to do with a river in Africa.