LieCloud

Hypothetically, if I were to be on O'Reilly's show some day, after he discovered my interesting opinions, I would tell him that almost everything he says is a lie. He would probably rise up in his chair like a threatened animal and ask if I was calling him a liar.

To which I would say "no, Bill, I'm calling you a piece of garbage." I would explain that I can't see into his soul. He may not know he's lying. He may have sold out to the devil. I wish this didn't sound so outlandish. It happens too easily and often and imperceptibly. 

A French philosopher thought that we are so overwhelmingly free it results in despair. Think of how reassuring it is to be part of a group with a positive identity and common purpose, to give up on the individual struggle and your freedom and be the agent of another's will.

Who would the "another" be? Roger Ailes? And who is his "another?" No, it's impersonal. That must be why people postulated the devil, a docking point on the dark star, the lie-place. So it's impossible to see and resist the right-wing insanity from normal, terrestrial grounds.

O'Reilly's virtual place is groupthink, a version from hell, and to fight it you have to latch onto the life-star, to give your heart over to God. Now, I am not a believer, but I think I understand what "God" represents: sanity, justice, accountability, intelligibility and so on.

Archetypal forces of evil are always and everywhere around and have to be resisted from that same, mythological level but from the countervailing side. First it's necessary to see the extent of the evil, then that it's impersonal and that it can be condemned impersonally. 

The dark elements of dominance and submission come from a subhuman level. The good forces must draw strength from the life-place of individuality and free will and the belief that we can't only be animals. We are unavoidably either better or worse.

This is the point of the stories of the true religious traditions, the mix of opportunity and responsibility and the need to see the limits of the responsibility, to comprehend and embrace and even celebrate the impermanence and evanescence of life. We are ephemeral.

We are ephemeral and can't live rightly without understanding the terms of our existence and the folly of self-importance. Self-importance, though natural enough, is always a delusion and a dream. So, big Bill, sit your ass down and take it like a man. Liar!