Blinding Ourselves

To find Truth, we must listen

As Freemasons we are called upon to seek out, and hopefully find, Truth.

But, as all sincere seekers know, Truth can be elusive. We can be tricked into believing that which is false to be True, and we can even trick ourselves into believing falsehood over Truth.

One way this can happen is if we allow ourselves to be so taken by our own rhetoric that we lose the ability for rational thought. We in effect, propagandize ourselves.

Big Three Meet At Yalta

This effect was on full display before the world this past week, when seemingly the entire Government of Canada publicly declared a member of Adolf Hitler’s Waffen-SS a “Canadian hero.”

I won’t rehash the entire story here because doing so isn’t necessary for my point, and it was extensively covered by news media throughout the world.

But here’s the important part:

Here in the West, society has been extremely tightly focused on a simple narrative for almost two years now. That narrative is ‘Russia Bad / Ukraine Good.’ It is simple, and it is really easy to allow one’s thinking to be short circuited.

There is of course a reason for the narrative. When the Soviet Union fell, nuclear weapons came into the hands of successor governments in former Soviet territories, including Ukraine. The United States, along with the rest of the West was concerned about nuclear proliferation, so a deal was struck. It was agreed that if Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons, the West (and Russia) would ensure its sovereignty. Then Russia took offensive action against Ukraine, and Ukraine called in the promises that had been made to it.

Russia invaded Ukraine despite its promise not to do so in exchange for Ukraine’s nuclear weapons. So the narrative was simple, again ‘Russia Bad / Ukraine Good.’

But of course, nothing whatsoever in the world can ever be that simple. No matter what our own personal rhetoric says.

But, our rhetoric can blind us into believing things to be that simple. If we are fervent enough about it, our rhetoric can stop our ability for reasoned thought. It can cause us to miss recognizing the Truth that is right in front of us.

And that is what happened in Canada.

The Canadian Parliament found some really old guy who lived in Ukraine long ago, and while living there fought the Russians. Not a scary looking old guy, well into his 90’s, someone who could look like a tough old war hero on TV.

So they brought the old guy into Parliament, and the Speaker introduced him.

As part of that introduction, the Speaker pointed out that the old guy had fought against the Russians in World War Two.

‘Russia Bad / Ukraine Good’

So the crowd heard that and went wild!

The videos show that all the Members of Parliament, including the Prime Minister rose to their feet, from all the political parties, those in power, and those out of power. They clapped and they cheered! ‘Good old Ukraine guy, killed lots of Bad Russians back in WWII’ they must have been thinking as they clapped and cheered with wild abandon.

Eventually the crazy crowd of MP’s quieted down and the Speaker continued, declaring the old guy ‘a Ukrainian hero, a Canadian hero’ and thanked him ‘for all his service.’

How could they resist!

He’s a Ukrainian by birth, that mean’s he’s a good guy! And, he was killing bad Russians back in World War Two!

The crowd went nuts a second time! Rising, cheering, clapping! ‘Russia Bad / Ukraine Good’ No need to think! The rhetoric says that no thinking at all is necessary.

Now, I can’t claim to be a Canadian, but I’m fairly confident that I’m safe in assuming that the vast majority of Canadian MP’s are reasonably bright people. I’m also fairly confident that the vast majority of them are high school graduates.

Canada fought in World War Two.

There is no doubt in my mind that by the time every Canadian youth graduates from High School they know that their country, along with the rest of the English speaking world fought alongside Russia in World War Two. And they know that along with Russia, Canada was fighting the Nazis.

So, one should have been able to, while sitting there in Parliament, make a few conclusions based upon what the Speaker said in his introduction.

Conclusion 1 - Here is an old guy who fought in eastern Europe in World War Two.

Conclusion 2 - Here is an old guy who fought the Russians in World War Two.

Conclusion 3 - The only guys fighting the Russians in eastern Europe in World War Two were (wait for it) Nazis.

Conclusion 4 - The old guy is therefore a Nazi. Not a guy who gets called a Nazi for political purposes, but a real, genuine Nazi.

Conclusion 5 - The old guy is therefore not a Canadian hero, rather a former enemy of Canada who fought against Canada.

Conclusion 6 - Don’t give the Nazi a standing ovation.

But, one can watch the video. Not one MP in that chamber made those conclusions. Everyone stood, clapped, and cheered.

But these conclusions are conclusions that any high school kid can easily make.

These painfully obvious conclusions were not made because the MP’s are so wedded to their rhetoric about Ukraine that they have become blind to anything else. They are so used to saying that Ukraine is good that they can no longer fathom a situation in which a Ukrainian has done wrong. So used to believing that Russia is bad that they can no longer remember when Russia lost millions of lives to help Canada defeat Nazi Germany.

My point is not to discuss US and Canadian policies towards Ukraine. Nor is it to take a cheap blow at the Canadian government.

Rather it is to use this incident as an example of what can happen to each of us if we grow overly invested into our own rhetoric.

If we allow ourselves to focus so tightly on what we are communicating that we can’t hear anything else, we end up blinding ourselves. We end up losing our ability for rational thought.

We will miss the Truth, even if the Truth is as shocking as an actual Nazi standing in our midst.

This is why we have to actually listen to viewpoints different from our own. Why we have to consider perspectives that depart from our own narratives. Only by doing so can we be sure that we are seeing things clearly, and therefore be able to discover Truth.