The Iowa Caucuses were last week, and the New Hampshire Primary was yesterday. The Presidential election is officially underway.
That of course means that we in the United States will once again get to decide who will serve as our Head of State for a four year term.
But, it means a lot more than just that.
It means that as the spirit of Walter Cronkite is long dead, we will have partisan talking heads on 24/7 News channels screaming about how their guy is good and the other guy is evil, all day, every day, for months.
It means that talk shows on the radio, and podcasts will be doing the same. Not to mention newsletter land, where Emeth lives, we’ll surely have thousands of newsletter writers screaming their screeds across the page.
It means that massive technology companies, owned and directed by multi-billionaires will be putting their thumb on the scale, doing all they can to provoke emotional reactions in their users, holding their attention, while banning some truly horrible content and promoting other, equally horrible content.
We’ve all experienced this garbage before.
But, this year, 2024 is going to be worse than ever before. A lot worse.
Why?
First of all, because the perceived stakes are higher. We’ve now had eight solid years of unabashed, unashamed partisan hatred polluting our political discourse. None of the keyboard warriors, from anywhere on the political spectrum will want to give up the vicious battle while they see a pathway to temporary victory.
Secondly, and more importantly, Artificial Intelligence. No matter what your personal political beliefs might be, this technology will figure it out, and it will drive emotion driven content straight to you, all in an attempt to reinforce some behavior and change other behavior. It will be emotional, driving sadness, anger, division, and rage.
And now, as it can be created at very little cost, at the speed of light, it will drown social media, the open web, and virtually every other large online surface that people use to interact.
We’ll also have plenty of deep fake content driven our way. Just the other day I shared a video in Chat that showed a world leader giving a speech, displaying perfect English. It looked great and it sounded great. In English. But in the real world, when he gave that speech, he gave it in Spanish. We can not believe what we see and hear online, unless we can otherwise prove it true.
The political discourse in 2024 is going to be bad. Really bad.
What does this mean to us, as Freemasons?
It means that we have to work to not get sucked into this insanity.
It means that we must use our Working Tools to help us subdue our passions.
It means that we should not believe, uncritically, everything we encounter online that confirms our own personal political perspective. And it certainly means that we shouldn’t spread this stuff to others, unless we independently know for a fact that it is true.
It means that if we have the Square and Compasses on our social media feed, or post about Freemasonry on our feed, we must be judicious about anything remotely political we post on that feed, lest we offend half the population of our country and sully the reputation of our Craft.
It means that if we can not resist posting both Masonic things, and political propaganda, then we should maintain two, completely unrelated and unconnected social media feeds. One for Masonry, one for whatever political thing is making us mad or glad on any given day.
It means that we must force ourselves to use our reason and to think critically about what we encounter so that we can discern between legitimate political issues and political propaganda.
It means that we must remember that there are special interest groups, political action committees, policy organizations, and lots of dark money outfits that do nothing but spend all day, every day, creating divisive political content. Now they are aided by Ai, and they are funded by the billions.
Most importantly of all, it means that we keep this stuff out of the Lodge Room, out of the dining room, and out of our Masonic events.
There is a reason that Partisan Political Discussion has always been prohibited by all Regular Lodges in Masonic meetings, throughout the world.
We must preserve Masonic harmony within Freemasonry, and we can never make a Brother feel somehow less than, or unwelcome because we can’t resist talking about the latest political outrage when we are supposed to be talking about Masonry.
The avalanche of garbage is coming towards us Brothers! Let’s all do what we can to protect our Gentle Craft, our little Masonic oasis, from it.
Thank you for sharing, brother. Greetings in 2024. I'm compelled to believe, or at least consider, that upon information received thus far from meetings with Masons, (and I mean hearing the word), that much of the constant complaints held against us by anti- masonic organizations is probably not related to anything morally whatsoever; these people, or groups intend to cause disharmony among Freemasonry members. It is something I hope we brothers consider here that binds us with spiritual knowledge on the Plum to do our best individually to become better over and over again. Our personal development is important as we exist in the fraternity, it becoming what it has become today since 1717. Our faith has been the joy the Fraternity has preserved for endless time. We must discover our inner selves where what we don't disclose to those outside of the fraternity is the foundation we alone must remain self- aware of to keep an open mind to the theory of knowledge, building relationships, working with others, and our faith in the, 'Great Architect'. This disharmony is our perception individually, and we are addressing how to stay focused this month with an outlook to the Craft in which we brothers believe to be the better society of harmony than existing organizations attempting to encompass us for only to test our faith. I enjoy your thoughts, and I hope to continue to be able to. Excellent posts as this one are the posts I know to expect from you. With that, I yield back the floor.
Bracing for impact here as well. And in some ways it's already here, with massive injustices that some cry and others deny and we have to hold it all in.
Personally, I have a separate Facebook page for any commentary that might be contentious.