Discerning Discernment

We’ve spent quite a bit of time on the House of Lies over the last few posts.

Here’s something to do about it.
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If you are new to the Band, this post is an introduction to the point of this blog that needs updating. Older posts are in the archive on the right. Shorter occult posts and other topics have menu pages above. 

Comments are welcome, but moderated for obvious reasons. If you don't see it right away, don't worry. We check and it will be up there.

We haven’t been posting much lately. Some have wondered if the blog is shuttered or perhaps possessed by the oleaginous specter of G. R. R. Martin. Nothing so ghastly – just the unfortunate reality that as the system collapses, those that can do more IRL have to do more. Since the Band can, and things are collapsing, writing time is a casualty. On a more positive note, our plan to condense these rambling posts into a metaphysics book is finally underway. In fact, the next post will probably be the introduction and preliminary remarks to that project. It will be a couple of weeks before we can get to it and the format will be a little different, but we want to share it with our readers for feedback and as evidence of actually doing it.

Beyond this, we're sort of casting around for topics. 

We don’t bother with fiction any more and have no interest in beast entertainment, so Truth of Culture posts like the Tolkien or Dazed and Confused ones aren’t a template. Plus, they need some hook other than being awesome. The Band’s official position is that Cobra Kai is the greatest television show of all time. But we aren’t sure if it maps onto Christian metaphysics like the Covenant posts or opens the sociological insights of Dazed and Confused. Although the best show ever appearing at this stage of cultural decline is interesting.

We’re disinterested in politics. The last House of Lies post made it clear that politics is a clown show of substanceless lies. Our motto - what can we know and how can we know it - means pattern recognition and logical outcomes across domains. Other than disconnected lies and the steady march of degeneracy, politics has no meaningful patterns and webs of lies preclude logical consistency. The House of Lies itself is outstripping our ability to comment. We can only point out capering morons dancing to glowing screens as their civilization is dismantled so many times. 

We’ll think of something. And we take requests.

Back to things collapsing, or where the Macro-Arc meets the ground. Anyone without a fruit-fly tier memory can see that the news we’re getting has little resemblance to the world that was, even a short time ago. Quadrillion dollar derivatives? Picking fights with Russia and China while the world abandons the petro-dollar over… what exactly? Evisceration of social fabrics, national borders, economic stability, etc., reduction of “science” to non-empirical narrative production, a demented zombie in the White House… we could go on, but the point should be clear. And no, we aren’t linking stories. Search engines exist, and sifting through the detritus they cough up is good preparation for this post. Those who can’t see it won’t get it anyways. 

FTS1 gets it. For any FTS2s still here, try this thought exercise [click for a post on the functionally two species model]. It’s actually not bad for everyone. Consider the existential crises rending “the West”. Now imagine what actions a rulership that simply prioritized the well-being of the nation might take...

We know... but think it through.

Unleash energy. Do whatever’s necessary to build productive capacity and reduce dependence on “service” economies. Tearing up agreements has never been a problem in the past – why not do it for the common good? Weed whack “administration” in any public enterprise. Link any cheque or payout to productivity. Restructured pro-family socio-economic policy. Bust oligopolies. Streamline government. Hamstring judiciaries... The list goes on.

Obviously something like this couldn’t happen overnight, even with an emperor. But the point is that the problems and potential solution paths are easy to see. Here’s some discernment. The fact that no moves – however feeble – are being made in these directions is a sign of the collapsing Macro-Arc. 

The Macro-Arc conceptualizes the overall trend of multiple socio-political trajectories in some recent posts.

Click for part 1

Click for part 2

It tells us systemic failure is coming, but it can't tell us what exactly will happen. It's an aggregate pattern of patterns with many specific variances within it. We can't even rule out a diminished form of beast control. If centralized control fails, collapse will beget more localism. Some places may be stable. Some sort of governing entities will exist. Some places will be anarchic hellholes. The rest of the world presents uncertain threats and opportunities.

Inability to forecast details has kept us from posting much about the collapsing West. We all face different scenarios. There are some constants, like the importance of basic community logistics. Consider your surroundings. High-trust, orderly, Christian or Christian-adjacent societies allowed people to take a lot for granted and ignore larger realities. It's what allowed those societies to be subverted and undermined - assuming safety without vigilance in a fallen entropic world is inevitably disastrous. Bringing us to another constant...

The need for discernment. 

What is discernment? Nothing short of managing our basic being-in-the-world on a personal scale by distinguishing the true from the false. The real from the fake. It operates on claims at every scale. The Band identifying Enlightenment rationalism and Progress! as impossible ontological category errors is broad and abstract. Seeing through someone's bogus excuse or identifying a wine is personal and mundane. But they're all acts of discernment. And while discernment never stopped being important, the costs of not doing it grow higher as the bill for this terminal mouse utopia of a society comes due.

Valentine Cameron Prinsep, At the First Touch of Winter, Summer Fades Away, 1897, oil on canvas, Gallery Oldham

The whole beast system is built on deception. All-consuming fake narratives where both “sides” really serve the same master. Mainstream beast and alt-beast gatekeepers.

Discernment is how we see through these lies. We may not be able to stop the liars right now, but we can take steps to not be victimized by them. And when they do collapse, discernment is how we make the right societal moves long term. So as to not repeat the errors that led here in the first place.

Ultimately, discernment is based on pattern recognition. Determining the truth or falsehood of a claim, situation, or thing by relating it to the relevant contextuals - how it fits into or conflicts with a larger pattern. Or recognizing some similarity to something else - whether it repeats an established pattern. Are conflicts, contradictions, non-sequiturs, or misrepresentations presented as smooth compatibilities? Are unrealistic assumptions being made? Are terms and characteristics changed while pretending things are still the same? Are individuals or entities with track records of deception standing on their reputations?

This is vague because discernment is applicable to many areas and takes different forms at different levels. But no one size fits all formula doesn’t mean there aren’t things to consider. Here are some thoughts to help cultivate your own discernment. 

Frans van Mieris the Elder, An Old Scholar Sharpening his Quill Pen, between 1650 and 1655, oil on panel, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden

1. Pay attention

Discernment is discerning the essential quality of something. Right or wrong, good or bad, real or fake – all variations on ascertaining truth or falsehood. Often in situations where that is deliberately hidden. Deceivers realize hasty impressions easily miss important tells and will lead you to jump to assumed conclusions. A closer look cuts through this.

 

Be attentive to what is really being said. Consider implications, related issues, and contextual modifiers. There are some shortcuts for this that we'll get into. But to start, think about what exactly is being conveyed and how it relates to other things you’ve seen or know. Is is consistent or inconsistent? This is so important for a few reasons. 

We are predisposed to accept things that align with our preferences or that we want to be true. 

Emotional involvement can be like a black velvet hood over discernment. The truth of something external to us is unrelated to what we desire, like, or think best. It doesn’t matter if we hate a speaker or desire their comeuppance. Lose the emotional distortion field and its self-deceptions and pay attention.

It is easy to miss subtle but significant nuances when we skim over something.

Be careful not to just flow with reflex assumptions. First impressions can be insightful, but they can also precondition gullibility. Gut feelings should definitely be a cue to look closer, not a replacement.

So pay attention when something seems at all significant.

Next is how and where deception happens. The way we experience reality creates an intrinsic vulnerability to being misled and points to some essentials to mitigate.. 

Daniel Gerhartz, En Plein Air, 21st century, oil on canvas, private

2. Representation & Reality. 

This is something we’ve brought up a lot because its importance is underrated. All communication, all knowledge, all conscious thought is representational. Words, pictures, numbers, symbols, etc. - thinking, talking, knowing about anything is done through representations of the anythings and not the things themselves. 

The representation-reality relationship isn’t the postmodern lie that reality is representation. It's basic human existence. Representations do refer to objectively real things, they just aren't the same as them. This is fundamentally important for discernment because it opens the space where deception occurs. Reality is what it is, but we are not objectively experiencing reality qua reality We are trafficking in more or less truthful representations with no inherent need to be truthful. [Click for an old post on postmodernism, reality, and representation].

Salvator Rosa, Philosophy, around 1645, oil on canvas, National Gallery

We aren’t drifting into philosophical speculation here, but discernment includes not clinging to simplicity. Reality is complex, and seeing through it does require some ability to handle complexity. Pattern recognition begins with holding enough data points to make a pattern. 

Here’s the point – objective reality is objectively real, but representations of it are not. They are subjectively applied – used by people – and can be used dishonestly.

This is multi-layered and integrated. Think about it - our existences are stacked interlaces of representations. All the way up to culture, the totalizing multi-dimensional network of representations expressing the shared values and folkways of a people. There can be disputes or disagreements, but within this larger common frame of reference. And like individuals, cultures can align with or ignore abstract truths for a time. The ignoring is what postmodernism misrepresents as [reality is subjective], when it's not reality that's malleable but how we react to it. Discernment assesses the truth value of the reactions. 

This means it plays out on every level of representation, from a simple conversation with one person to the assumptions of an entire culture and everything in-between.

Jusepe de, Ribera, Aristotle, 1637, oil on canvas, Indianapolis Museum of Art

3. Think logically

Words are representations - signs - that can be used to mislead. Emotions cloud lucidity. So does a false self-image. Pay attention to the logical consistency in claims and systems. It doesn't mean they're right in the real world, but illogic and incoherence guarantees they're wrong.

Consider this old saw by way of introduction. 

The Band knew this one as sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me but according to Infogalactic this version is original. Either form works for our purposes.

Seems true enough on the surface. But pay attention. What does it actually claim?

There is an assumed equivalence between [break bones] and [hurt]. The sentence uses them to contrast the outcomes of two different activities, so they have to be interchangeable or it’s a non-sequitur. It is the common nature of the outcome that distinguishes the action that occurs from the one that doesn’t. Break it down, first by generalizing...

[Sticks and stones] may [break my bones], 

but [words] will [never hurt me]

becomes

[Something] [may do something], 

but [something else] [will never do another thing] 

becomes

S → [ƎB]  ∧  W → [¬H]

Expressing it with symbolic logic is clarifying. We aren't saying "do this process with everything". We're showing that sentences as representations have an internal logic that can be assessed.

The first thing to deal with is the conditional "may", shown in the logic sentence as the existential qualifier "Ǝ". Put this way, it says that breaking bones may be a possible outcome of the sticks and stones - they might break bones, or in some cases, breaking bones is a consequence of them. More likely it's a reference to capability, meaning the S is able to so something that the W cannot. And that brings us to the outcomes. For this to make any kind of sense, the outcomes - what one can do while the other cannot - have to be commensurate, despite being phrased differently.  B ≡ H or else the sentence is a non-sequitur. Sticks and stones may break my bones but words won't brew my coffee...

S → [B]  ∧  W → [¬B]

So [break my bones] and [never hurt me] are presumed identical. The message is that words don't physically harm the way physical assault does. But it's presented as if words are harmless and physical assault is the only thing to be concerned about.

Now consider the definition of “hurt”. 

Thomas de Keyser, Portrait of a Scholar, 1631, oil on canvas, Mauritshuis, The Hague

There is nothing wrong with looking closely at the precise meanings of specific word choices. Pedantry is contextually determined. Liars try and slip things by under the cover of assumptions and words can be ambiguous at the best of times. 

The concept of harm is one that in not universally understood in the same way. This is something that has been leveraged by the House of Lies to drive larger, dyscivic outcomes.

In a world of “hate speech”, “words are violence”, identity theft, gaslighting, MK-Ultra, and any number of other things across the spectrum, the claim that words don’t hurt is debatable. The internal logic of the saying defines "hurt" as physical damage, but it is clear that large numbers of people don’t see hurting as limited to physical assault.

Someone might argue that the victim of verbal abuse brought it on themselves or had it coming. That adds a moral qualifier to the discernment of harm. 

Others might take the opposite position and claim mental harm is deeper and more insidious. That adds a psychological qualifier.

The Infogalactic link above says that the saying was derived from Psalm 42. Let's take a look at that to see what it says. Since words are representations, later variations on original statements can introduce changes in meaning unrelated to what was initially represented. While morons bleating for "sources" on the internet are generally bad actors, understanding the logical links in chains of representation helps discernment. The tell is that the internet morons want you to do the work for them and have motives other than seeking clarity. But discernment is an inwardly motivated process of understanding for your own decision making, not a false front to push fake preformed ideological points.

Preformed ideological points preclude discernment. Taking it upon yourself to understand where something is coming from or how it relates to its putative foundations is essential.

So, the relevant verses of Psalm 42.

Carl Bloch, Christus Consolator, late 19th century, Brigham Young University Museukm of Art

Note the yellow highlight from 42:10. It's possible the language is being used figuratively, but it's literally the opposite of "words will never hurt me". Taunts cause bones "mortal agony", turning the saying into an inversion of the original Scriptural message. The orange highlight doesn't relate to the saying directly, but it further affirms the real power of words. They must be powerful if praise brings divine consolation.

When we decided on this example, we were thinking how words like "hurt" are representations - subjectively applied - and the implications of this for discernment. How internal logic presumes one definition, and how alternate definitions render a truism into a falsehood. Then the historical background turned the whole thing upside-down.

Back to the overlap of logical analysis and the subjectivity of representation. Even without the inversion of the original Scripture, the logic of the statement is true or false depending on how "hurt" is interpreted. The nuanced meaning of words derives from socio-cultural frames of reference - someone who restricts "hurt" to physical injury has a different value set from someone sensitive to psychological damage. Which means discernment has to extend beyond internal logics to the situationally-dependent interplay of semantics and ethoi of transmitters. And it's not an either/or proposition. It all has to be considered. 

Lies and liars.

A statement of fact is materially true or false - it happened or it didn't, it is or it is not. But more complex subjects present contingent representations in hard logical structures. Physical and verbal abuse are either fundamentally different or not depending on what the word "hurt" means. Ironclad syllogisms are useless when one of their starting terms is variable. Logical claims can be misapplied to ill-fitting situations by dishonest sophists.

Discernment broadly characterized assesses truth, or truth-value, in a world of representations. Internal and external consistencies must be considered, and the links between them. And the only way to navigate such a potentially complex field is with a strong grasp on the objective basis of truth and morality. Realizing that truth and morality - morality meaning orienting towards goodness or virtue - are both representations that align with reality in its fullness [representations not in the postmodern sense of being false, but the basic fact that all our communication and conscious thought is representational]. With what is in the broadest possible ontological sense. Which is why any comprehensive understanding of discernment inevitably leads to objective morality. 

The shirt isn't wrong. It just assumes the relativist trap that the Truth is beyond us. It isn't. Basic alignment with reality in its fullness - metaphysical and physical - means what is true is good and vice versa. Good is true is real. What loses materialists and their satanic pied pipers is that "real" means more than material reality. 

Things are more complicated here in the shadowy material world where situations can be layered and imperatives in conflict. But if a greater good compels lesser compromise, it really does have to be a greater good. Ultimately the truth must be served or the whole enterprise is corrupted. 

Clear moral foundations also counter the complexity and density of the interwoven deceptions of the modern beast system. We don't encounter individual claims like "sticks and stones" in isolation in real life. Every statement, message, or claim draws on other ones, is made by various agents, and is positioned in relation to socio-cultural assumptions. All of which do the same. It's the vertical integration discussed in previous House of Lies posts where each integrated level is a tapestry of falsehoods. The very grounds on which one fake claim is assessed is itself made of fake claims. The only way to get around that is to stand on something solid. Something true, and therefore external to the House of Lies in its entirety. Something not of the beast system. Objective, reality-facing, truth-based morality.

Pompeo Batoni, Hercules at the Crossroads, around 1753, Galleria Sabauda

4. Moral clarity 

Discernment seeks what is true, and legitimate morality – moral morality? – aligns with objective ontological reality. Truth. The hard path of virtue or the dead-end temptations of vice?

It is possible to verify an individual statement empirically or assess its internal logic on a case-by-case basis. But the vertically integrated deceptions of the House of Lies makes that an endless, even futile task for big picture clarity. The beast system is constructed of falsehoods on top of interwoven falsehoods, making specifics difficult to isolate, let alone assess. Moral clarity slashes through all of the inconsistent and deceptive webs of beast media and institutional “culture” and lets you recognize the abyss it shows.

The Band hopes regular readers would have realized moral foundations are essential for robust discernment the moment determining truth came up. Others who are haven't discerned that modern moral relativism is a satanic lie may be surprised at the connection. We'll explain - succinctly, then in a longer aside that's easily skipped if the connection is obvious.

Ralph Hulett, The Story of God, Moses and the Ten Commandments, gouache on board concept Painting, 1964-65, Fred Rice Productions

It was less than 60 years ago that a Disney artist painted this. Future historians will marvel at the later 20th century. Reading that Macro-Arc all the way into the abyss.

The Band's Ontological Hierarchy uses Deontology to refer to the moral continuum corresponding with the ontological and epistemological. That's because objective morality is deontological. Consequentialism, teleology, and the rest of the "moral philosophy" crew are relativistic. 

Note that situations calling for moral judgment can be as difficult to isolate as instances for discernment. That's because truth and the good - reality and morality - are extensions of the same fundamental nature of reality. Extensions of the transcendental ultimate reality that has to ontologically backstop the limits of our infocognitive discernment [thanks to Christopher Langan for the "infocognition" portmanteau - the different but synchronous logical and perceptual natures of our consciousness in one word]. But our material reality is a confusing place of time and change where immorality and lies are possible. Moral traps and no-win situations abound, where moral reasoning is required to find the best or least bad option. But in any scenario, morality aligned with the fundamental nature of reality - with ultimate reality as we can know it - is definitionally what is true. Discernment may not compel moral behavior, but it divines truth. And provides the awareness that makes moral choice possible

If the ontology-deontology connection confusing, the full Ontological Hierarchy can clear it up. If you get it and/or are familiar with this, just skip the aside. The regular post resumes in normal text after the aside.

To refresh – and it is relevant to the metaphysics book – the Ontological Hierarchy visualizes the relationship between what we can know and how we can know it. Ontological levels of reality and epistemological modes in synch. In this version, the ontological levels are in blue on the left and the corresponding epistemological mode or way of knowing is on the right in green. The purple on the right is the deontological steps, where objective moral foundations aligned with ultimate reality known by faith is rationally applied to specific moral questions.

It is best to think of the Ontological Hierarchy as a continuum as well as a string of separate parts. Reality is coherent and the different aspects lead into each other. Between each level is a limit of human discernment - sensory knowledge and abstract conceptualization. The bottom tier acknowledges the possibility of lying and other immoralities. Not aligning with the nature of reality. This is evil, with an endpoint in un-Creation.

We haven't spent the same amount of time on objective morality as we have on ontology and epistemology because of the nature of the questions the Band takes up. But one thing that the Ontological Hierarchy makes immediately obvious is that once ultimate reality is accounted for, morality is simply an objective extension of that. And here's one of those cognitive floors. If one can grasp the essential necessity of ultimate reality to any coherent conception of existence, the possibility of "moral relativism" vanishes in a puff of idiocy. Good - like Truth and Beauty - are simply alignment with ultimate reality at the limit of discernment. Where it becomes conceivable to us. And evil, by extension, becomes opposition to or misalignment with it. Our opinions, desires, customs, or cultural values are utterly irrelevant beyond whether or not they align. Hence deontology.

This needs a few extra words since moral philosophy is a) not widely known and b) misrepresented in beast narrative. 

Giotto, Charity and Envy, 1303-1305, fresco, Arena Chapel, Padua

Philosophers define deontology as morality based on specific actions rather than outcomes or personal character. Actions or choices that are acceptable or unacceptable in and of themselves, and not according to situational results. Objective and absolute, not relative and contingent.

This obviously oversimplifies since choices unfold within contexts, and sometimes moral imperatives conflict. This means intentions matter when defining an "action" for moral assessment - the killing as self-defense vs. killing as murder distinction. But the general premise that morality is intrinsic in the defined action independent of consequence is sound. Sound enough for this post. 

Consider the retardery of trolley problems. The moral choice is to take out the demonic driver who would roll over people. Or pull the guy off the track. And if those are "impossible" the problem is too contrived and fake to be meaningful.

The Ontological Hierarchy clarifies the legitimacy of deontological objectivity. The ultimate reality at the top is the absolute ground against which all things are conceivable. Including conceiving. It is difficult to describe because it supersedes the possibility of description and is truly atemporal in that it lacks the sequential structure that defines human experience, thought, and consciousness. It eliminates the infinite regression problems intrinsic to figure-ground relations and definitional frames of reference. These being structural consequences of human apprehension which is existentially posterior to the conditions within which it appears.

The problem is that this ultimate exteriority and primacy puts it beyond human knowing in itself – observation, logic, imagination are all dependent on conditions that are ontologically posterior to it. At best we can know it has to “exist” – quotes because it is anterior to any positive conception of existence as well. Beyond that, anything we claim to know about it is known by faith.

Atheists auto-idolotrous mental cripples balk at faith as epistemology, preferring self-indicting gibberish about "superstition". Note how these smug blobs of protoplasm never take up ontologically necessary fundamentals. They're not smart enough.

Christianity is deontological because it is based on commandments – the Ten along with other divine preferences.

From a Christian perspective, God – the Creator – corresponds to ultimate reality, and the Bible is accepted on faith as an unequivocally True representation of His will in a manner we can grasp.

Deontological moral objectivity comes from its alignment with ultimate reality. The thing that trips up a lot of people is how ontological fundamental ultimate reality is. And how inadequate our tools for apprehending it. Consider calling it the first cause of all Creation - in that anything conceivable is an extension of it. This actually sells it short, because it precedes "causality" or "conceiving". It cannot be explained, quantified, conceptualized, or constrained by us because we in all our fullness are within and contingent on it. All our ideas, representations, and concepts. It precedes and defines any parameters that we can imagine. Existence as we can know it necessitates it, but beyond that, anything we can say about it is an article of faith. And an accommodation of our incapacity to apprehend it qua itself.

The Band writes for those smart or wise - not the same thing - enough to realize this. The jabbering of those who can't are of no interest to us. Let the dead bury the dead. For those who are, it's obvious that any concept of objective truth has to align with this ultimate "foundation" of knowable reality in terms that we can know.

Consider this common statement for clarity. “God is good” doesn’t mean God corresponds to any conception of good that we have come up with. That’s either obvious, or a sign of being too short for this ride.

It means “good” is that which is in alignment with God. Judgment can't apply to God, because ultimate reality is the transcendent standard against which judgment becomes possible. “Goodness” is the extent to which we objectively conform to Him. Put another way, ontologically gelded atheists like to bleat the non-sequitur “you don’t need God to be good”. On the contrary, God is the necessary precondition for good. Without grounding in ultimate reality, objective moral standards are impossible and the very concept of good ceases to exist.

Note that the Ontological Hierarchy is a continuum, so the levels do "join" in some fashion. The old Platonic trinity – the Good, the Beautiful, and the True - manifest at the point where ultimate and abstract reality meet. They represent the most general possible conceptualization of the nature of ultimate reality at the point where it becomes knowable to us intellectually. We can’t know God qua God, but we can conceptualize His attributes as absolute standards. Absolute moral standards. What is. 

The Good is fundamental alignment with ultimate reality however defined – God’s plan, His will, the order of His Creation. The archetype of Goodness is what we can apprehend of His nature. Since all Creation extends from God, He is ultimately Real, with the True being what we can “see” of that. The Good is True. The True is Good. Two knowable aspects of ultimate reality expressed through linguistic signs. The Beautiful is how they appear. Creation is the ultimate artistic act, and its Creator sets the standard. Things that are truly Beautiful are good and true - they follow in the footsteps in the accessible Creation we exist in. 

So Goodness and Truth are not in themselves subjective, although our grasp of them can be. The important point is that us getting them wrong or being ignorant of them != not objective. Any more than fish being unaware of the nature of their aquarium environment effects its size or décor. They are the external and objective conditions of the existence that is experienced in a limited and subjective way. Which is why criticisms of the the Good, Beautiful, and True as “too general” are unintentional admissions of cognitive limitations. Something this fundamental has to be general – they’re the totalizing ground against which subjective, temporal, individual subjectivities play out.

What is subjective are human perspectives on material reality. This is a physical realm of entropy, finitude, and temporality filled with individual and cultural subjectivities and every gray area that comes with them. A Fallen realm defined by both active and passive evils. There are physical laws, but such abstracts are not immediately binding in moral domains. We can lie, choose evil, wallow in the ugly and perverse. But when we do, we are objectively False, Evil, and Ugly.

It’s why discernment is necessary – apply the absolute as knowable to us to the contingent as experienced by us. And it is a logical process, though intuitive shortcuts are possible. Sensory observation is also insufficient for discernment because observation alone doesn’t ascertain moral weight. Abstract reasoning – moral reasoning – is how we connect the absolute deontological standards of ultimate reality to the vicissitudes of the material.

Note that Good, True, and Beautiful are essentially the standards of discernment. The aspects of ultimate reality in comprehensible terms that we can use to make judgments. Specific characteristics are provided by the Bible and accepted by faith. Not all instances of discernment involve obvious appeals to the highest levels of scriptural morality. Determining the value of an old coin or selecting the correct job doesn’t seem like a serious moral judgment. But both involve ascertaining the truth of something within a given frame of reference. The frame might seem arbitrary, but once it is accepted, the fit is not. How does this coin relate to the established pattern of coin values? Which job best conforms to your needs or character? And once we are in the realm of consistent material truth, we’re on an ontological elevator to the True. And from there to ultimate reality. 

More evidence for the necessity of ultimate reality. Without a final ontological backstop there is no  possibility of non-contingent objective reality, and no possibility for the concept of truth.

Back to discernment. 

5. Consider how Truth Claims are Assessable

Basically the summation of 1 to 4 so far. pay attention + think logically + awareness of representation + moral clarity = discerning what is true. Because discernment is discerning what is true. If you skipped the aside, we were just laying out some basic metaphysics of objective morality. The necessity of ultimate reality to any viable concept of the truth or goodness that make morality possible. Meaning ultimate reality itself isn't where discernment is needed.

Discerning truth isn't relevant to ultimate reality because ultimate reality is the condition upon which truth and discernment are possible. An ur-Truth that precedes true/false distinctions. The unknowable-in-itself foundation of knowability. Dolts will ask how we know this or why we accept Christian metaphysics - the second being a different question since it refers to our discernment and not the nature of ultimate reality itself. The answer is consistency with what we can know logically or observationally. But that’s a story for another time.

Truth in material reality is ascertained empirically. What observably did or did not happen. Before any judgments or morality or meaning we have brute physical facticity. Material-level truth is limited to descriptive representations of things and actions. This is something of an abstract distinction since it is practically impossible to separate observation from thoughts about the things observed. But if we allow this distinction for the sake of discussion, material truth is determined observationally.

Jacob van Walscapelle, Still Life with Fruit, 1675, oil on panel, National Gallery, London

Still life paintings can be packed full of moral or sociological meanings, but they start with the clear delineation of objects. Observational, material level truth, like there are some grapes and a glass of wine. Beyond this and we're into the realm of abstract thought.

Abstract reality runs on logic and logic is absolutely truthful within relational frames of reference. It assess true/false type claims between precisely defined entities with absolute precision. A logical set has fixed parameters that an entity either is or is not part of. A math equation places equivalent values on either side of an equal sign. Logic can't account for the ontological origins “of” its entities and relations, but given starting conditions, it determines truth with absolute precision.

This means logical truth is consistency. Change one side of the equation, the other has to change commensurably to remain true. If the set parameters exclude [x], then it excludes all of them always.

So material truth claims are adjudicated by observability and logical ones by consistency.

Moral reasoning scenarios rarely often lack the obvious clarity of logic statements - the reasoner’s own values, knowledge, and awareness of contextuals all complicate. But what is the same is the importance of consistency/inconsistency on some level. Either consistency with other statements, the larger frame of reference, observable material phenomena, etc. Logical inconsistency indicates the presence of untruth - though further examination may be needed to uncover exactly who is lying or where the lie is.

Inversion is the extreme of logical inconsistency or untruth. Logical inconsistency or untruth to the point of diametric opposition to what is true. This makes it the ultimate indicator of satanic evil  - total solipsistic reversal of alignment with ultimate reality. Do what thou wilt, with the most vicious psychopath's wilt crushing those weaker.

Click for a post.

Here's a good recent example of discernment through assessing a truth claim. The Band instantly distrusted the covid !vax for several reasons but one left no doubt that we were being lied to. Without any need for external knowledge, verification, or value of hindsight. Remember that the pushers called their poison “safe & effective” immediately. But safety and effectiveness claims cannot be known without longitudinal study data. Data which did not exist when the claims were being made. Therefore the pushers claimed to know something that they couldn't and therefore didn't. So they were necessarily lying. Not "mistaken". Lying. Because they were simply saying they had something that they didn't. And once a liar is known, they can't be trusted. Especially when the lie pertains to mass life and health.

Remember the 12 Axioms post. If an explanation doesn’t logically apply to the thing explained, there is another reason they don’t want to share the real reason. At which point…

The same applies to a presumed conclusion that has to keep cycling through explanatory causes.

6. Some considerations for truth assessment in discernment.

A. People can change their mind or heart. 

The Ontological Hierarchy is useful for avoiding category errors. Shouting “hypocrisy” every time someone evolves is applying an abstract standard of absolute logical consistency to temporal, mutable human beings. Sometimes people legitimately learn, reconsider, and change minds. More often they don't. Apply discernment to judge the legitimacy of the new position and whether it is consistent with their subsequent actions.

B. Known liars

Once someone is known to lie, the truth is … they are known to lie. It doesn’t mean they’ll always lie - liars can tell the truth when it suits them. Discernment is knowing when. 

If you don't banish them from your life altogether, never give them the benefit of the doubt. A liar can reform - see A. - but it is rare. Any restoration of trust needs a personal connection that allows assessment, time, and proven track record.

Practicalities 

Discernment means looking past surface impressions of words and other representations to consider what they actually represent. To ascertain truth or falsehood. Hence the need for moral clarity. Representations can be amorphous, contingent, incomplete, contested, deliberately false. Judgments grapple with uncertainty. So it is important to have as clear a sense of what is good and truthful as possible.

If considering a proposal or policy, think of the actual problem it’s intended to solve. Does it? Is magical thinking needed? Are  realities of human natures accounted for? Ancillary effects? Downstream consequences? Think about comparable initiatives and  outcomes. The fit with beast narratives and patterns. The players  and whatever they have to gain.

Pay attention to the wording. Does it do what its name or claims suggest? Is there any logic behind the rhetoric? Is it a false choice? Are significant parts of the picture left out? Is it consistent with what has gone before? Is it even consistent with what beast sources have shared before? There is a reason why we spent so much time on the fruit fly tier memories of the idiot masses.

One common way known liars, dishonest policies, and inverted wording come together is with fake secondary choices. This is when beast shills pretend to offer two "opposite" choices that both assume some same desired outcome. We mentioned this in our second Macro-Arc post when we noted how a fake debate on school reform occludes the real optimal choice which is no beast schools at all.

Like these three dudes introducing a debate over invading Mexico to stop the flow of cartel drugs. Left off the table is the discussion of the necessity of homogenous and human-scaled communities for safe, orderly, fulfilling life. 

Internet communication has become completely pointless. The proliferation of bots and human shills on the internet have already rendered big open comment sites worthless, and this will only get worse in an era of AI. There's an odd mix of humor and sadness in watching an irate moron engaging in a heated back and forth with an obvious fraud account. For all practical purposes, it doesn't matter if it's a human or machine because both are bad faith fake communication. A form that inverts the whole point of comments, which is to communicate and share real ideas. The bot or shill is there to derail, disrupt, and demoralize - to suppress communication and sharing of real ideas. 

Discernment suggests staying away from this fly paper for idiots.

But if you must scan comments... Look for statements that don’t align with normal effective communication. Weird belligerence and insults. Common buzzwords or media phrasings used, often repeatedly. Failure to address or respond to the OP or other comments, whether by evasion, moving goalposts, or belligerent non-sequiturs. The list goes on, which is why it’s best to think of what they all don’t do – that is, communicate. No stranger has a right to your attention. And if they aren’t communicating in good faith, there is no point in wasting a word on them.

This problem goes way beyond comments though. Internet infrastructure itself has become largely false. Search engine results, social media followers, reported traffic numbers, claimed revenues, the sites and even the ads you're shown are clearly disconnected from any organic popularity or reality. The Band doesn't have access to internal data and can only only go by observed patterns. But the patterns indicate that what was once presented as a global community is actually a complex, multi-dimensional, fluidly reactive Skinner Box.

So what to do with with the internet? The Band limits usage to known sites with registration or paywalls and simple utilities like maps or weather. General interest, news, mass "entertainment", etc. are widely useless. Bringing us back around to a moral clarity.

7. Big Patterns are Cheat Codes. 

Western culture has been drifting wrong for a long time, as readers know. But gradual change means the old order that the corruption coexist in changing proportions. For a while. The inversions of the Enlightenment played out against an more organic Christian-European set of values that lingered until after the war and was still running on fumes at the end of the 20th century. It's how social order lingered into the modern era of rampant centralized beast materialism. For a while.

There are still older people who imagine things are still like they were on some essential level, or that the contemporary degeneration that or could be “fixed”. It's a form of functional retardation arising from having been indoctrinated into the House of Lies in better times and insulated to a degree from the current socio-cultural collapse. Pockets of affluent homogeneity driven by solipsism and greed, coasting on the fumes of past productivity and homogeneity. But the reality is that we don't have the luxury of relying on any reality-facing guidance from the beast culture that surrounds us. All the societal weathervanes are inverted. All the conventional wisdom ranges from worthless to fundamentally satanic. All the institutions, media organs, mainstream churches, "leaders" are rooms in the House of Lies.

You literally have to go back before the Middle Ages to find a time when the structures of "Western" society have offered moral direction this appalling.

And as norms degenerate, the burden lands ever more strongly on the individual to chart a moral course. Discernment has become a greater existential necessity than it has been for centuries.

Emil Gottlieb Schuback, In Grandfather's Workshop, 19th century, oil on canvas

In a healthy society, standards proliferate organically, as older generations work and share with younger ones until they become elderly and are cared for in turn. The House of Lies is built to undermine this – atomized people cut off from each other and resetting every generation with worse terms.

“Socialization” as forcibly separating age-stratified children from family and turning them over to strangers for indoctrination in whatever the beast is prioritizing. That and abuse. The Band has been harsh towards modern “schooling” but it is so culturally destructive. 

Cultural awareness - awareness of the past - works similarly to a moral foundation to make discernment easier. At least, as long as the culture is morally grounded. And when it isn't, internal consistency applies to discernment of cultural degeneration too. Replacing some aspect of life with something else and pretending it’s the same is easy to see through with moral grounding and a functional memory. If a some novelty can’t claim consistency with moral and cultural values without sophistry, it’s wrong and false. Look at the extent to which healthy organic cultural structures have been replaced with monstrous inversions. Then consider how much evil could have been averted with a little logic and memory.

This is literally an oxymoron. A top-down, beast imposed set of fake cultural practices that are uptaken by FTS-2 morons who willingly collude in their own destruction. Because narrative huffing and fruit fly tier memories are diametrically opposite discernment. To the point where they render discernment impossible. 

The House of Lies is the normal when human intellectual, spiritual, and cultural capital are degraded to the point where nothing can be discerned but what the glowing screens say.

Progressivism - Progress! as an ideology - is a string of "new normals" pretending to be a culture. It's also the default assumption of the modern West. We've hammered that grotesque impossible fiction from the beginning of the Band and there's no reason to recap that all here. Suffice it to say that Post-Enlightenment thought is continuous blather about cultural, spiritual, human, historical, and other kinds of amorphous progress. Industrialization brought economic progress for a while. Now it’s various ill-defined equalisms as standards of living begin slipping. None of which are linked to each other cogently or logically consistent. With anything. Beyond allowing demons to tell morons that [inverted thing X] will make something unrelated better.

Here’s some consistency...

It can't. It rejects any coherent account of ultimate reality, can’t do basic logic, and hates tradition. Literally, no foundation. 

[Not this] is not an ontological ground. It's reactive. Perpetually moving and renewing depending on the current [this] that it claims not to be. And so it can offer no standard for discernment. Luckily it doesn't require discernment beyond this basic recognition to reject it utterly. We don’t have to look for consistencies or inconsistencies – internal or otherwise – in progressive beast ideology because there’s nothing there to be consistent. There’s nothing there at all. Progress as teleology in a finite system or teleology at all in a purely secular materialist one is self-detonatingly impossible. 

Progressivism is pure antithetical impulse. Reified oppositionality without positive identity and with a boundary limit in Sorathic anti-Creation. As an ideology it is the [do what thou wilt / will over reality] inversion at the heart of every occultic war on the Good, Beautiful, and True. And once we discern this  rotten heart we can instantly dismiss progressivist claims generically. 

This is an example of the form/content relationship discussed earlier. In this case, the form is a frame of coherent, consistent values, at least ideally, and the content is the claim or claims. If the form is impossible or inverted, than all conforming content can be instantly rejected without further consideration. At least until the formal problems are resolved. Looking for fake formal frames is like a discernment cheat code.

This takes more effort with complex systems where frames of reference interact and boundaries harder to define. Consider the beast war on energy. 

Logical consistencies are scalable. Empirically, energy correlates to life. More energy, better life. Making the war on energy a subset of a war on life. Discern the moral directionality.

Subset-superset relations are similar to form-content for enhancing discernment by scaling to moral clarity. 

So war on life. That’s anti-Creation. Anti-ultimate reality. Evil. And when they offer solutions – “alternatives” – that you know to be insufficient, you know they’re lying. If you know projected alternative energy ceilings, the false claims are hardly a secret. But you do have to discern, not outsource opinions to invested liars. Look for consistencies. Are the predictions playing out as predicted? Peak oil isn’t happening. And if the predictions aren’t happening, is it ignorance or willful lying? Do they acknowledge and rethink failed postulates or double down with a new set of fake projections? Continuing to presume a theory despite its failure to manifest is another form of deception. And easy to discern once recognized.

In a similar way, appeals to authority are only as valid as the authority is demonstratively authoritative. Like the known liar or failed theory, the incompetent or dishonest authority is identified by outcomes and not claims. The beast runs on word magic, where you are expected to believe false claims of appointed spokes-liars than discern alignment with reality. We’ve discussed the important of credentialism in the House of Lies as a substitute for truthful outcomes – recognizing that cuts through big swaths of deception.

Discernment asks what the credential actually represents. Not institutional boilerplate or media blather – what was really achieved to get the credential. What degree of knowledge, accomplishment, mastery, etc. 

In general we can assume beast universities are suspect, but in the absence of knowing how a particular credential is awarded, just look at the supposed expert’s subsequent track record. Is there a pattern of accuracy? Are assumptions based on ontologically defensible truthful foundations? If no, treat them like known liars regardless of their certificates or platforms. Or nowadays, because of their certificates and platforms. Like covid has done for the bulk of the “public health” and medical establishments. They’re fake authorities, and without acknowledgement and explanation of how they went wrong, disconnect. 

Another issue for discernment – a lie repeated 1000,000 times is still a lie. If your moral alignment is sound and logic consistent, no number of repetitions should make a false claim acceptable. The beast wants to use feelings of isolation and consensus to make you doubt things you know to be true. It may be a quirk of human psychology that makes this effective, but it's rationally retarded.

The House of Lies relies on vertical integration for consistent messaging across its levels. Repetition and apparent consensus are psychologically persuasive. If you know something to be true, it’s true. No need to dwell on it further. If someone can offer new information or argument, reconsider. But the same flacks repeating the same false claims are dismissible, no matter how many there are.

How can so many be controlled? The short answer is centralization + narrative. 

The long one is the House of Lies and its functionally second species puppet victims.

Discernment needs memory for reference, so remember this about centralization and House of Lies narrative production. Align intellect and emotion. And do not let the feeling of facing a flood touch what you know logically to be true. 

Aligning intellect and emotion also means confronting why you may be emotionally invested in believing falsehoods. What it is about some beast garbage that makes you want to accept it. To blind discernment.

You've all experienced the angry NPC face reaction when rejecting some self-evident nonsense fiction from someone who has no actual connection to it. Emotionally investing in something with no personal significance is demented. It's also depressingly common. Sharpen discernment by disconnecting emotional ties to things unrelated to your life or those in it.

Personalizing externals is a pathway to FTS-2 dupedom.

Another easy shortcut for quick discernment is whether the claimant contradicts their own claims. High emission jets and other waste for “climate summits” gets a lot of meme attention and rightfully so. But mass migration from warm, low energy using regions to cold, high energy using regions is a far more significant liar’s tell. That this goes unmentioned indicates the elites do not care about consumption as a serious threat. And back to find the real reason…

Inconsistency turns up in incomplete accounts.. The beast loves “science” – so what about paleobotanical study of carbon levels in the past? As in, where the carbon came from in the first place? 

Some Christians may object to geological timeframes or processes. But the “scientists” that the beast employs reject Christian metaphysics. The long history of the carbon cycle contradicts their apocalyptic lies within their own frame of reference. Consistency as a sign of logical truth.

All the yeah buts… and squid ink in the universe are irrelevant when something is intrinsically self-contradictory. Liars lie and lie prolifically. Once you’ve discerned that, ignore the rest.

Back to our truism. Sticks and stones. Consistency between name-calling and physical harm depends. If the logic is limited to the opposition [physical impact does physical harm and verbal/psychological impact doesn’t], then it is obviously true. But if we are expected to extrapolate a universal moral from it, it isn’t. Words can be extraordinarily harmful, before even getting into things like blaspheming. Pay attention.

The reality is that we live in a fallen, subjective, and temporal world where knowledge and communication are mediated through representation. Lies, deceptions, and honest mistakes are inevitable. There is no easy formula for discernment besides the basics of pattern recognition - attentiveness, memory, logic, morality - but that is a lot. What we can see, what we can know, and what follows consistently. 

We all get deceived. It comes from living in the world. The Band is blessed with certain perceptual strengths, but we’ve also made ghastly errors of discernment with life-altering consequences. Our discernment now was hard won, and while we are harsh in our presentation, we are sympathetic to any person of good faith trying to navigate the House of Lies. It’s why we post on it.

We can all learn. We can all let go of unfounded, incoherent projected wishfulness. We can work to understand past errors and remember how we make them. Be attentive to where the liars are and how they lie. Consider claims in their fullest contextual implications against what you know to be true.

Discern.

Johannes Vermeer, Woman Holding a Balance, 1664, oil on canvas, National Gallery of Art, Washington