If librarianship is the connecting of people to ideas—and I believe that is the truest definition of what we do—it is crucial to remember that we must keep and make available, not just good ideas and noble ideas, but bad ideas, silly ideas, and yes, even dangerous or wicked ideas.
— GraceAnne A. DeCandido
A ferocious fight showcasing the brilliance of two players, White and Black.
Through tactical sequence, each player moves one of sixteen pieces on a single checkered board to lure their opponent into a checkmate — an inescapable position. With no hidden information or elements of chance, only abstract abilities can defeat the enemy; a true test of mental skill.
The game, along with its popular terms, has become an icon.
Chess represents the political conquest played through an unseen strategy. What later becomes visible is the inevitable consequence of prior decisions made in the minds of each player. On a larger scale, the Match of the Century in 1972 was viewed as a microcosm of the Cold War, where the American Bobby Fischer defeated Russia’s Spassky; a representation of the conflict between the East and the West in the public’s eye. Perhaps foreshadowing our political future, a computerized chess engine defeated World Champion Garry Kasparov in 1997.
But there is an interesting corollary: The most important pieces are not visible.
The pieces put into play by White and Black are literally, and metaphorically, pawns of the politicians and philosophers; the invisible pieces both players represent. Through wit and cunning, politicians and philosophers move their pieces, persuading the observant masses who are not allowed to participate during the game — restricted to the sidelines to cheer and suffer the consequences of its outcome.
Mass produced words of vitriol and absolutism, echoed by friends, family and strangers, is indicative of a strange spell cast by politicians and philosophers.
Many in the masses now resemble pawns on a board.
Leaders, middle management and fabulous celebrity icons are no different, using their rank to move across the board in a manner similar to a rook, bishop or knight. Kings and queens, the aristocratic elite with the most mobility and importance, are also board pieces — still subservient to the commands of the invisible political and philosophical actors.
But are politicians and philosophers the limit?
Is there a higher unseen hand?
An architect of the game?
In The Atlantic article above, Jonathan valiantly delves into the bowels of Substack to unveil its dark, secret underbelly — Nazis — the most feared and oppressive regime in all of popular history, known for censoring, intimidating and executing countless lives for crimes of political subterfuge and genetic inferiority.
Nazis are devout worshippers of the Black Sun — the Astral God of Death.
The question is what kind of community Substack is actually cultivating.
How long will writers such as Bari Weiss, Patti Smith, and George Saunders—and, for that matter, me—be willing to stake our reputations on, and share a cut of our revenue with, a company that can’t decide if Nazi blogs count as hate speech?
— Jonathan M. Katz, Substack has a Nazi problem (Nov. 28, 2023)
Surely something must be done.
Tolerating the intolerable must not be tolerated in our almost perfect society, where the realm of acceptable ideas keep us safe, and permitting any well established evil will surely collapse Substack, if not society itself.
If action is delayed, soon Nazis will ban books, unless we beat them to it.
"The Peel District School Board works to ensure that the books available in our school libraries are culturally responsive, relevant, inclusive, and reflective of the diversity of our school communities and the broader society," said the board.
"That is where many of us have a real issue. None of us have an issue with removing books that are musty, torn, or racist, outdated. But by weeding a book, removing a book from a shelf, based simply on this date is unacceptable. And yes, I witnessed it."
Racist and outdated ideas are worth purging — dangerous and wicked ideas.
Leave it to the experts to curate ideas, such as BBC and Daily Mail.
Or, The Atlantic itself.
No, thanks.
Trusting these actors to declare what is or is not acceptable is clearly ill advised, especially when their content wreaks of dystopian absurdity.
Critiquing Jonathan’s specific claims and objective is not my angle, and has been previously discussed by
and .
Instead, I would like to review the board.
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances;
Pro-censors are either idiots or malignant assholes.
As an idiot, the pro-censor is absolute like a religious zealot, evident when confronted by contradictory beliefs that spark a fireworks show of cognitive conflict. To the credulous idiot, beliefs originate from the divine cathedrals of intellectual expertise, which manufactures these disposable pawns in excess quantity.
The malignant asshole is slightly different, because this pro-censor is more aware of their lie, and willing to propagate it for political promises of power. Gladly ready to spew putrid digestate, or swallow it with a smile, the malignant asshole will do anything for recognition. Although above a pawn, the malignant asshole is still a disposable piece on the board controlled by politicians and philosophers.
How can I be so sure?
The secret is in their grammar and words — like a grimoire of spells.
The idiot repeats characteristic phrases and words like a parrot in a cage trained by seed. Be sympathetic for the idiot, because their lies have been sewn into their subconscious through trauma-based conditioning, and are sick in more ways than we can imagine. The malignant asshole is again different and consciously wrestles with the lie. Having their morality stripped and replaced with an illusory promise, the asshole argues through emotional dialectics, urging immediate action under the guise of doom, reward and protection. Both resort to character attacks and homonym word play when challenged, another spell, because their purpose is not to discover truth, but attempt to assert it into being.
These assertions come in all shapes and sizes of absurdity.
Maybe I should buy aluminum with the increased demand of foil hats.
2 + 2 = 4 is a racist dog whistle; where a dog whistle is “communication that conspires below the threshold of perception through suggestive language.” Umm, okay.
The statement, signed by To and the executive of the OMCA, goes on to say that their issue is not with a math fact, “but rather how a math fact along with its inherent social privilege of objectivity can be taken and weaponized to uphold bigotry and white supremacy ideology.”
Even though ridiculous, would I want these conspiracy theories banned?
Censorship leads to a dry and boring reality. Laughter is the best medicine; I need more of it in my life. If bothered, I could simply choose to ignore these stupid ideas, I know how to ghost, and as far as Substack goes, there is a mute and block feature.
But I have even more advanced powers as shown below.
Words have a characteristic power, which is why censorship matters.
Words are pointers to ideas, eternal and primeval forms, which through their craft shape beliefs, attitudes and behaviour. There are those that wish to control behaviour, so thought itself becomes the target, and without discourse to confront these evil ideas, words will inevitably control a large majority of the shallow minded masses.
We cannot play the architect’s game.
There are many names for the higher unseen hand — the architect — an evil that controls the philosophers of White and Black, guides the politicians to promises of power, and sacrifices the pieces on the board to subjugate the masses with illusion. This thing with many names is unseen, a horror that patiently waits an eternity for the perfect opportunity — the ultimate tyrant.
Of the many names, it may be best identified by its political nature — totalitarianism.
Totalitarianism seeks to know everything and control everything.
The endgame is to become the god of this world by replacing truth itself.
Totalitarian political tactics cannot defeat other totalitarian political tactics.
True fear of Nazis is a fear of totalitarianism. Like a+(b+c) = (a+b)+c, totalitarianism will use the left-hand side or the right-hand side to achieve the same result, and like a+b=c, totalitarianism added to more totalitarianism produces, unsurprisingly, even more totalitarianism. It exists as an unseen abstraction far above the board, where its primary tools are lies, intimidation and force, but despises ridicule, comedy and — above all else — the truth.
And I smell lies..
The lie may be subconscious as with the idiot, or conscious as with the malignant asshole, but a lie is a lie. The game they play is one of lies, intimidation and force, where each player is foolishly lured into the hidden hand of totalitarianism. For the invisible game to succeed and the tyrant to take full control, the silent masses must play no part and cowardly follow these evil rules — the black letter law of the game.
Censorship is not an answer to combat totalitarianism.
I’ll stick to laughter, comedy and joy (see
You want to stop crazy and dangerous ideas from spreading? Then let us ridicule and mock them, however, I suspect that may be inconvenient for the ideologues, especially considering their preference for verbal gymnastics and absurdity.
Members of a small women’s rights group, Liverpool ReSisters, have declared that “women don’t have penises”. They seem to be very confident of this point, having gone as far as to paste stickers claiming as much onto the genital areas of some of the statues that make up Anthony Gormley’s artwork Another Place on Crosby Beach near Liverpool. It’s an attention-grabbing stunt. But are they right? Well, it depends on what they mean by “women”.
— Katharine Jenkins, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, University of Nottingham
So, no thanks corporate totalitarian clowns.
No one wants your “help” to control information.
Someday soon an institution will emerge that has not been for quite some time, a heavenly(symbolic) patriarch that offers us authority not by threat of penalty but by love as though a father, having authority placed upon this entity, this school, this “thing”. My goals are through education and awakening the genius within man, that the idiots have courage to learn and be authentic and the malevolent know fear.
Someday soon the board will flip and the other side will be in power, don’t fall victim to delusions of the game, transcend it all entirely.
Well, you're a librarian! Nice work -- yes, that's it. I did look up Amazon to find a few for eleven bucks or so; one was, indeed, to be found at a Salvation Army store -- but free is better; Many Thanks.
Yeah, 1984'ed or "market censored" for lack of interest.