A book by David Icke, which a Jewish online magazine has charged is anti-Semitic, has been used to smear the author Alice Walker. I did what most of Walker's critics have not done. I read the book.
I see this piece as a defense for the right to have crazy views.
I have no idea why Walker thinks Icke is worth supporting, or at least calling him "brave". I also read some of his works a couple of years ago, and found that his critique of the world order and the status quo in the West is somewhat on point, but that his explanations of how this has come about are not. At all.
It is difficult not to see the workings of the power elites as one big conspiracy. Conspiracies exist in real life, you can go to prison for being a part of a conspiracy, at least in the USA, so why is it so unthinkable that the most powerful people in this world should make arrangements about ruling the world behind closed doors? I, for one, believe that the elites are actually conspiring, at least sometimes, but not because of some ancient curse or whatever fantasy Icke talks about. On the contrary, most elites conspire for very worldly reasons: Because they want to stay in power.
What is happening in these troubling years is that the minds of most people have been altered in a way that makes conspiracies obsolete. When everybody thinks the same way, hates the same people, loves the same people, you don't need conspiracies anymore. What YOU feel is true IS true, providing you feel like everybody else. No need for a court ruling, perception IS reality.
I am pretty sure this status quo of the collective mind is NOT a result of some conspiracy views thought out in some back room somewhere, but instead a result of years and years of indoctrination by the media. Hermans and Chomskys account of the mundane causality behind this mechanism is still the best theory of how this came about. We don't need thetans or Illuminati to explain how the masses have been brainwashed. On the contrary, talking about angels or devils or Illuminati as determining agents of the unfairness of the world only gets you ridiculed, and rightly so.
Icke is a nut case, but even broken clocks get the time right twice every day. His explanations are crazy, but what he is trying to explain is actual reality. In my view Ickes theories are detrimental to what must be done. This is a class struggle between real people, not some cosmic battle between forces of Good and Evil.
Part of this class struggle is the very real canceling of everybody that does not follow what is now considered to be "correct thinking". What Chris is doing here is showing us why Icke is not to be believed, not because his thinking isn't "correct", whatever that means, but because there are other, less fantastic ways to interpret reality; ways that are more in line with the real class struggle. Icke has the right to have his crazy views on the world; Walker has the right to find these views "brave", and the rest of us have the right to criticize these views.
I see this piece as a defense for the right to have crazy views. Chris is doing here, what ought to be done everywhere, which is battling the texts you don't like, and their premises, by ARGUING, instead of just smearing the author, as has become the rule.
Whew! Thank you Chris Hedges for reading this bizarre book on our behalf. I couldn't even get to the end of your column - the first time ever. I love Alice Walker. Maybe she just believes in free speech and thinks he has the right to express his utterly crazy theories. They are so preposterous that I can't see them damaging Zionists who have crazy theories of their own - such as that Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament anointed Jews the chosen people and endowed them with a piece of land - Palestine - and the inalienable right to clear off its inhabitants by force and persecute and imprison those who remain, many locked in an open air concentration camp. What a handy God! What a weird belief system.
We do have the right to have "crazy views". I consider the practices and professed beliefs of borne again Christians or Scientologists or hassidic jews or those of "the entertainer" Rachel Maddow (https://variety.com/2020/biz/news/rachel-maddow-oan-defamation-dismissed-1234614682/#!) and her fans......and many, many more "crazy views". So what! That is my opinion and I'm entitled to it. So is Alice Walker. If she thinks the, to me, wacky thesis of Ikes (as summarized by Hedges) is "brave" she is entitled to think that. The fact that Walker holds some "crazy views" (as I perceive them) does not make her books or her views on all manner of other issues no longer worth my time. Nor can it reasonable to bar her from a seat on this book festival's stage. At the risk of expressing a "crazy view", it might be clarifying (might I be so bold as to say illuminating?) to hear Walker explicate her thinking, about Ikes and his writing among other matters, at the festival. Is that a crazy view?
I feel ill reading so much Icke. Thanks for actually doing the work necessary to answer the question of whether Icke is anti-semitic or not. My work has exposed me to a lot of what i consider to be crazy conspiracy theories such as Lyme disease was weaponized at Plum Island (AIDS as well), that the coronavirus was engineered and released to kill off a lot of the world population, that chemtrails are biological weapons and so on. I don't take the details seriously but what i do see is that people know that the world is spiraling out of control, that they are helpless to alter what is happening, that the elites who are supposed to be running things don't care about them, that a lot of rich and powerful people are getting more rich and powerful all the time, and that there are a lot of secrets out there that don't exactly have regular people's well being in mind.
All of that is true. People are just trying to find an explanation for it. I understand the impulse and I sympathize with them. And finally, there is this: whether or not there is a conspiracy, there is nothing I or most people can do about it. We still have to live our lives whether a conspiracy exists or not. So, that is what i do, i focus on what i can change, what i can affect, and the care of my family and myself and friends as best i can. There is enough in front of my eyes to be worried about and that i can directly affect to one extent or another without worrying about secret organizations running the world. (Actually, i think of them as corporations, not secret organizations.)
The fantastical and allegorical aside, it’s hard not to find a sympathetic moral core to Icke’s philosophies. He walks in the waters beyond words, the collective archetypes, through the valves of our consciousness. Madman or prophet?
I had not read Icke before your article. I began with the later works. Are these ideas dangerous to some? Are the labels applied justified? He’s certainly an outsider.
So what is the connection between Icke and Walker? Under what conceivable circumstances could Alice Walker have announced that Icke was "brave"? What precisely is brave about this nutter? Why did Walker find it necessary to offer any comment on his bizarre theories?
I just learned of David Icke recently and when I saw that Chris was writing about him it intrigued me. I began to read Icke's book, Infinite Love is the Only Truth: Everything Else is Illusion. Well, I think he is certainly an original thinker, but I couldn't take him seriously.
I have been a big fan of Chris' writing for years and his actually reading the Icke book that has been brought to light recently is one of the reasons I admire him. He has the curiosity to look for the reason behind what people are saying, to find out for himself, instead of forming an opinion based on what people are saying. My hat is off to him for reading that book.
Chris is anti establishment and supports even alternative writers. This type of banning authors makes many even mire cuties about David Icke. It solves nothing. Personally I don't give a damn what the powers that be think I should or shouldn't read. All of these conspiracy theory books-the Bible and all folk and have some truth in them. That includes Scientology and David Icke. I've been reading everything my mother tried to take away when I was a kid and everything on the Catholic Church banned book list first all ny life I'm 79. Reading should NEVER be censored.
What?! I subscribed because I wanted the rest of the article and now I’m feeling super disappointed…will there be a part 2? This was so intriguing. To read about Ickes work from the lens of a legitimate intellectual - but I wanted more and then a tie in back to Alice Walker.
Before calling someone anti-semitic, it is necessary to look at a great many sources authored by the accused, not just one. Alice Walker has no history of anti-semitism, none at all. In fact, I am certain she has advocated tolerance and an open mind towards all perspectives, save those that insult specific groups of people. She was much influenced by Buddhism, for one, a religion that regards bias as an impediment to a full and rich life.
Icke is not worth spending time on. What needs to be addressed is the tendency among some to castigate someone over a trivial episode in her past. That is why "wokeness" has a certain validity, even though the term is commonly used by the right to criticize the left. You have to look at the whole trajectory of a life to discover that person's most deeply held values, not a single statement uncovered by thought police of whatever tradition.
I'm with Lynne Dempsey. Thank you for reading it so I don't have to. Under the heading of full disclosure, I'll tell you that I think that people who NEED religion or one of it's analogs are in serious need of mental training.
I too read as much of Icke's book as I could stomach. I'm disappointed that Hedges is now using this column to be a kind of apologist here for a worldview, in Icke's case (and in Walker's by implication) that is truly dangerous in these times of QAnon and other types of conspiratorial craziness.
Chris, you impress me. Thanks for being willing to objectively examine the cultural milieu beyond geopolitics, with an even hand. Icke is kooky, but as you correctly point out, kookiness is not a unique thread in the history of human thought. Religion is an obvious parallel, but we can also look to the transhumanists' arguments for AI, simulation theory, and the Singularity for a contemporary example. The dominant neoliberal belief system of Scientism and secular materialism carries its own dogmas and detrimental influences. I appreciate this open-minded exploration and welcome more from you.
I see this piece as a defense for the right to have crazy views.
I have no idea why Walker thinks Icke is worth supporting, or at least calling him "brave". I also read some of his works a couple of years ago, and found that his critique of the world order and the status quo in the West is somewhat on point, but that his explanations of how this has come about are not. At all.
It is difficult not to see the workings of the power elites as one big conspiracy. Conspiracies exist in real life, you can go to prison for being a part of a conspiracy, at least in the USA, so why is it so unthinkable that the most powerful people in this world should make arrangements about ruling the world behind closed doors? I, for one, believe that the elites are actually conspiring, at least sometimes, but not because of some ancient curse or whatever fantasy Icke talks about. On the contrary, most elites conspire for very worldly reasons: Because they want to stay in power.
What is happening in these troubling years is that the minds of most people have been altered in a way that makes conspiracies obsolete. When everybody thinks the same way, hates the same people, loves the same people, you don't need conspiracies anymore. What YOU feel is true IS true, providing you feel like everybody else. No need for a court ruling, perception IS reality.
I am pretty sure this status quo of the collective mind is NOT a result of some conspiracy views thought out in some back room somewhere, but instead a result of years and years of indoctrination by the media. Hermans and Chomskys account of the mundane causality behind this mechanism is still the best theory of how this came about. We don't need thetans or Illuminati to explain how the masses have been brainwashed. On the contrary, talking about angels or devils or Illuminati as determining agents of the unfairness of the world only gets you ridiculed, and rightly so.
Icke is a nut case, but even broken clocks get the time right twice every day. His explanations are crazy, but what he is trying to explain is actual reality. In my view Ickes theories are detrimental to what must be done. This is a class struggle between real people, not some cosmic battle between forces of Good and Evil.
Part of this class struggle is the very real canceling of everybody that does not follow what is now considered to be "correct thinking". What Chris is doing here is showing us why Icke is not to be believed, not because his thinking isn't "correct", whatever that means, but because there are other, less fantastic ways to interpret reality; ways that are more in line with the real class struggle. Icke has the right to have his crazy views on the world; Walker has the right to find these views "brave", and the rest of us have the right to criticize these views.
I see this piece as a defense for the right to have crazy views. Chris is doing here, what ought to be done everywhere, which is battling the texts you don't like, and their premises, by ARGUING, instead of just smearing the author, as has become the rule.
Greetings from Denmark!
Whew! Thank you Chris Hedges for reading this bizarre book on our behalf. I couldn't even get to the end of your column - the first time ever. I love Alice Walker. Maybe she just believes in free speech and thinks he has the right to express his utterly crazy theories. They are so preposterous that I can't see them damaging Zionists who have crazy theories of their own - such as that Yahweh, the God of the Old Testament anointed Jews the chosen people and endowed them with a piece of land - Palestine - and the inalienable right to clear off its inhabitants by force and persecute and imprison those who remain, many locked in an open air concentration camp. What a handy God! What a weird belief system.
We do have the right to have "crazy views". I consider the practices and professed beliefs of borne again Christians or Scientologists or hassidic jews or those of "the entertainer" Rachel Maddow (https://variety.com/2020/biz/news/rachel-maddow-oan-defamation-dismissed-1234614682/#!) and her fans......and many, many more "crazy views". So what! That is my opinion and I'm entitled to it. So is Alice Walker. If she thinks the, to me, wacky thesis of Ikes (as summarized by Hedges) is "brave" she is entitled to think that. The fact that Walker holds some "crazy views" (as I perceive them) does not make her books or her views on all manner of other issues no longer worth my time. Nor can it reasonable to bar her from a seat on this book festival's stage. At the risk of expressing a "crazy view", it might be clarifying (might I be so bold as to say illuminating?) to hear Walker explicate her thinking, about Ikes and his writing among other matters, at the festival. Is that a crazy view?
I feel ill reading so much Icke. Thanks for actually doing the work necessary to answer the question of whether Icke is anti-semitic or not. My work has exposed me to a lot of what i consider to be crazy conspiracy theories such as Lyme disease was weaponized at Plum Island (AIDS as well), that the coronavirus was engineered and released to kill off a lot of the world population, that chemtrails are biological weapons and so on. I don't take the details seriously but what i do see is that people know that the world is spiraling out of control, that they are helpless to alter what is happening, that the elites who are supposed to be running things don't care about them, that a lot of rich and powerful people are getting more rich and powerful all the time, and that there are a lot of secrets out there that don't exactly have regular people's well being in mind.
All of that is true. People are just trying to find an explanation for it. I understand the impulse and I sympathize with them. And finally, there is this: whether or not there is a conspiracy, there is nothing I or most people can do about it. We still have to live our lives whether a conspiracy exists or not. So, that is what i do, i focus on what i can change, what i can affect, and the care of my family and myself and friends as best i can. There is enough in front of my eyes to be worried about and that i can directly affect to one extent or another without worrying about secret organizations running the world. (Actually, i think of them as corporations, not secret organizations.)
Thanks for reading the book Chris so I didn't have to. And some extra gratitude for maintaining some professional objectivity in your report.
The fantastical and allegorical aside, it’s hard not to find a sympathetic moral core to Icke’s philosophies. He walks in the waters beyond words, the collective archetypes, through the valves of our consciousness. Madman or prophet?
I had not read Icke before your article. I began with the later works. Are these ideas dangerous to some? Are the labels applied justified? He’s certainly an outsider.
So what is the connection between Icke and Walker? Under what conceivable circumstances could Alice Walker have announced that Icke was "brave"? What precisely is brave about this nutter? Why did Walker find it necessary to offer any comment on his bizarre theories?
I just learned of David Icke recently and when I saw that Chris was writing about him it intrigued me. I began to read Icke's book, Infinite Love is the Only Truth: Everything Else is Illusion. Well, I think he is certainly an original thinker, but I couldn't take him seriously.
I have been a big fan of Chris' writing for years and his actually reading the Icke book that has been brought to light recently is one of the reasons I admire him. He has the curiosity to look for the reason behind what people are saying, to find out for himself, instead of forming an opinion based on what people are saying. My hat is off to him for reading that book.
I wish I was a fast enough reader to do the same!
Chris is anti establishment and supports even alternative writers. This type of banning authors makes many even mire cuties about David Icke. It solves nothing. Personally I don't give a damn what the powers that be think I should or shouldn't read. All of these conspiracy theory books-the Bible and all folk and have some truth in them. That includes Scientology and David Icke. I've been reading everything my mother tried to take away when I was a kid and everything on the Catholic Church banned book list first all ny life I'm 79. Reading should NEVER be censored.
What?! I subscribed because I wanted the rest of the article and now I’m feeling super disappointed…will there be a part 2? This was so intriguing. To read about Ickes work from the lens of a legitimate intellectual - but I wanted more and then a tie in back to Alice Walker.
But if you read the book, what if it doesn't confirm your priors?
Before calling someone anti-semitic, it is necessary to look at a great many sources authored by the accused, not just one. Alice Walker has no history of anti-semitism, none at all. In fact, I am certain she has advocated tolerance and an open mind towards all perspectives, save those that insult specific groups of people. She was much influenced by Buddhism, for one, a religion that regards bias as an impediment to a full and rich life.
Icke is not worth spending time on. What needs to be addressed is the tendency among some to castigate someone over a trivial episode in her past. That is why "wokeness" has a certain validity, even though the term is commonly used by the right to criticize the left. You have to look at the whole trajectory of a life to discover that person's most deeply held values, not a single statement uncovered by thought police of whatever tradition.
All in all — Icke is indeed insane.
I'm with Lynne Dempsey. Thank you for reading it so I don't have to. Under the heading of full disclosure, I'll tell you that I think that people who NEED religion or one of it's analogs are in serious need of mental training.
I too read as much of Icke's book as I could stomach. I'm disappointed that Hedges is now using this column to be a kind of apologist here for a worldview, in Icke's case (and in Walker's by implication) that is truly dangerous in these times of QAnon and other types of conspiratorial craziness.
Chris, you impress me. Thanks for being willing to objectively examine the cultural milieu beyond geopolitics, with an even hand. Icke is kooky, but as you correctly point out, kookiness is not a unique thread in the history of human thought. Religion is an obvious parallel, but we can also look to the transhumanists' arguments for AI, simulation theory, and the Singularity for a contemporary example. The dominant neoliberal belief system of Scientism and secular materialism carries its own dogmas and detrimental influences. I appreciate this open-minded exploration and welcome more from you.