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In Saturday’s DM, we meditated on a latest article by Thom Hartmann whose work I love, as I do this of artist Lily Yeh whom we meditated on in Friday’s DM. Each are being true to their vocations to work with “fiery hearts and prepared fingers,” because the “Our Father-Mom” prayer from the Aramaic Jesus invitations us to do with a purpose to render earth extra like heaven.
All that is an affirmation of the holiness of our work in any case. And certainly all of us search a world and New Yr the place holiness is extra lively.
Hartmann’s latest article, entitled “Is Social Media This Technology’s Heroin?”*, tells the story of how the elevated presence of concern and rage is a part of the dynamics of the rise of authoritarianism in our time. And it’s promulgated by social media algorithms that report and amplify concern, rage and, I’d add, scapegoating: The projecting of concern and hate onto others. (Keep in mind how Haitians have been accused of consuming peoples’ pets?)
Hartmann reminds us that social media billionaires make billions on these techniques. Worry sells. And proper wing “populist” politicians push these concern and rage buttons for political achieve.
The pandemic elevated concern and rendered appeals to concern all of the extra engaging. When media and politicians lie, that after all provides gasoline to the hearth. (For instance, shouting that crime is up or that immigrants do extra crime than different residents, and so forth.) Authoritarian options turn into extra acceptable the extra such lies are repeated.
I acknowledge a zeitgeist of concern enjoying out within the variety of vampire motion pictures, TV sequence, and different apocalyptic genres populating our in style media.
After I not too long ago utilized one in all these apocalyptic symbols to the current political state of affairs within the identify of the archetype of the antichrist, it was attention-grabbing what number of mainstream and even supposedly “progressive” journalistic media ignored it altogether. They and lots of church buildings are too comfy to speak about “evil,” and don’t know how you can. Fearful religionists need issues quiet and sober and discuss of evil disturbs.
But, as I made clear in my guide on Trump & The MAGA Motion as Antichrist, that archetype was employed in blunt vogue by Hildegard of Bingen, a not too long ago declared saint and physician of the church; in a big cathedral relationship again 550 years; within the theology of the 16th century reformers; and within the gospels and Bible itself. In addition to by secular atheist Sigmund Freud, who visited the 550 year-old Orvieto cathedral thrice to be taught from that very same archetype.
Hartmann tells us how, when transcendental meditators gathered in scorching crime websites in sure American cities to meditate on peace, statistics demonstrated that their meditations truly confirmed vital outcomes with decreasing crime charges.
He asks if the alternative shouldn’t be additionally doable? The place social media gathers folks wanting to hate and scapegoat others—such is occurring on Elon Musk’s X web site—what are the consequences of spreading extra rage and extra hate and extra scapegoating?
Is that why the world seems to be crazier than ever? Do Silicon Valley and its still-secret algorithms unfold hate, rage and authoritarianism very efficiently? Is it not time that Congress regulate such unchecked energy?
Thanks, Thom Hartmann, for elevating these highly effective questions on the cusp of a brand new yr and a brand new presidential administration.
* Thom Hartmann, “Is Social Media This Technology’s Heroin?” The Hartmann Report, December 26, 2024. For going past such addictions, see HERE.
See Matthew Fox, The Reinvention of Work: A New Imaginative and prescient of Livelihood for Our Time.
And Fox, The Hidden Spirituality of Males: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine.
And Fox, Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Remodeling Evil in Soul & Society.
And Fox, Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election.
To learn the transcript of Matthew Fox’s video meditation, click on HERE.
Banner Picture: Folks on cell telephones. Photograph by DavideAngelini on Shutterstock.
Queries for Contemplation
How is your work holy? Do you acknowledge your work as your present to therapeutic the world? And do you agree with Hartmann that social media could be a very detrimental habit that makes sure media moguls richer and politicians ever extra highly effective?
Really useful Studying
The Reinvention of Work: A New Imaginative and prescient of Livelihood For Our Time
Thomas Aquinas stated, “To stay nicely is to work nicely,” and on this daring name for the revitalization of day by day work, Fox shares his imaginative and prescient of a world the place our private {and professional} lives are celebrated in concord–a world the place the self shouldn’t be sacrificed for a job however is sanctified by genuine “soul work.”
“Fox approaches the extent of poetry in describing the reciprocity that should be current between one’s interior and outer work…[A]n essential highway map to social change.” ~~ Nationwide Catholic Reporter
The Hidden Spirituality of Males: Ten Metaphors to Awaken the Sacred Masculine
To awaken what Fox calls “the sacred masculine,” he finds ten metaphors, or archetypes, starting from the Inexperienced Man, an historical pagan image of our basic relationship with nature, to the Religious Warrior….These timeless archetypes can encourage males to pursue their larger calling to hook up with their deepest selves and to reinvent the world.
“Each man on this planet ought to learn this guide — to not point out each lady who desires to grasp the struggles, typically unconscious, that form the lads they know.” — Rabbi Michael Lerner, writer of The Left Hand of God
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Remodeling Evil in Soul and Society
Visionary theologian and best-selling writer Matthew Fox affords a brand new theology of evil that basically adjustments the standard notion of fine and evil and factors the best way to a extra enlightened remedy of ourselves, each other, and all of nature. In evaluating the Jap custom of the 7 chakras to the Western custom of the 7 capital sins, Fox permits us to suppose creatively about our capability for private and institutional evil and what we are able to do about them.
“A scholarly masterpiece embodying a greater imaginative and prescient and depth of notion far past the grasp of anybody single science. A breath-taking evaluation.” — Diarmuid O’Murchu, writer of Quantum Theology: Religious Implications of the New Physics
Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election
Matthew Fox tells us that he had all the time shied away from utilizing the time period “Anti-Christ” as a result of it was so typically used to unfold management and concern. Nonetheless, given in the present day’s rise of authoritarianism and forces of democracide, ecocide, and christofascism, he turns the tables on this guide using the archetype for the reason for justice, democracy, and a renewed Earth and humanity.
From the Foreword: If there was ever a time, a second, for analyzing the archetype of the Antichrist, it’s now…Learn this guide with an open thoughts. Good and evil are actual forces in our world. ~~ Caroline Myss, writer of Anatomy of the Spirit and Conversations with the Divine.
For quick entry to Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ: A Handbook for the 2024 Election, order the e-book with 10 full-color prints from Amazon HERE.
To get a print-on-demand paperback copy with black & white pictures, order from Amazon HERE or IUniverse HERE.
To obtain a limited-edition, full-color paperback copy, order from MatthewFox.org HERE.
Order the audiobook HERE for quick obtain.
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