The Negation of the Real | James Lindsay

The Secret Religions of the West, Session 1 of 3

If you want to impose a totalitarian system, you have a problem on your hands: reality. The real is in your way and will eventually veto your project. Far sooner, people who can perceive reality will step in and prevent you from taking society over a cliff. Therefore, the only way to install a totalitarian system is to negate the real in the minds of those over whom you would rule. This is accomplished by creating an interpretive frame that deliberately causes people to misunderstand reality, sometimes called a “second reality” or “pseudoreality,” or even a “hyperreality,” which loses all contact with reality through its images and constructions. The totalitarian system “works” and would only work in that false image of reality. In his first talk at the Mere Simulacrity conference in Phoenix, Arizona, in December 2022, James Lindsay presents the idea and mechanism of negating the real to replace it with a hyperreal simulation in which totalitarianism can be accomplished. This, he argues, enables the installation of the Esoteric cult religion needed to advance the tyranny. Join him to understand how the Secret Religions of the West have slowly brought us to the brink of this disaster.