The Bush Pandemic Plan
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 4 minute read This excerpt is taken from the appendix ‘No-Man’s-Land: The Unclaimed Area Beyond the Domains of Religion, Politics and Science‘ and follows on from the debate around Ivermectin. President Bush’s pandemic plan Still outstanding is the question of the effectiveness of the West’s response to the pandemic: an October 2020 Telegraph article states: ‘Hindsight is a wonderful thing. Imagine if a world leader, a president with unlimited resources, had marshalled a crack team of scientists to devise a pandemic strategy that could have prevented a new respiratory virus from turning western society upside down. ‘A strategy specifically designed to hold back a lethal new pathogen long enough to allow a vaccine or other pharmaceutical interventions to be created without the need for a total lockdown. A strategy that was not just academic but one which had been approved as policy, operationalized and shared with allies around the world, including Britain. ‘Looking at the world today you would think it was China and its neighbours across southeast Asia which had developed such a protocol. They are the nations which acted quickly to control Covid-19 through a carefully crafted set of social distancing measures or “non-pharmaceutical interventions” (NPIs), as they are technically known. ‘Yes, they too have taken a hit, but by acting early, national lockdowns have been brief or avoided completely, as have large-scale deaths, direct and indirect. Moreover, they have dramatically limited damage to their economies and their geopolitical power and status has surged as a result.’[1] US President George W. Bush, and his deputy Dick Cheney, had, in 2003, ordered a social distancing plan be researched, devised and tested in order to protect America from a new pandemic pathogen, man-made or naturally occurring. They placed the full might of the Department for Homeland Security behind it and made sure it was in place and ready to be deployed before they left office in January 2009. The plan was announced in December 2005.[2] In that plan were some key recommendations, one of which was that the public needed to hear a coherent message from government and media sources, so that they did not become confused: this is the exact opposite of what actually happened! Back in 2005 the information marketplace as it is now, wasn’t available to us, for better or worse. In 2020, when the pandemic arrived the scientific debate about issues like mask-wearing and social-distancing therefore took place in public, in a cacophony of informed and uninformed opinions over which nobody was in control....
Taking Offence
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 2 minute read This excerpt is taken from the chapter ‘The Woke Mind Virus’ and follows on from the Woke Mind Virus. An accelerating trend in taking offence In his book Woke Racism, John McWhorter shares how in 2008, Christian Lander joked in Stuff White People Like that being offended was something a certain brand of white people enjoyed, alongside attending film festivals and wearing vintage T-shirts. He says that today, such a person hearing that joke would likely: ‘launch into a hissing tirade about how there is nothing funny about people trying to dismantle the prevalence of white supremacy and all whites’ “complicitness” in it. If he were to write that book today, Lander would be unlikely to include that joke, which is an indication of the extent to which there is something in the air that we hadn’t seen until quite recently.’[1] He says a critical mass of white liberals no longer quietly pride themselves in knowing they need to be offended about certain things, ‘but now see it as a duty to excoriate and shun those (including black people) who don’t share their degree of offence. To some, all of that may sound like mere matters of manner and texture.’[2] Third Wave Antiracism, McWhorter claims, harms black people ‘in the name of its guiding impulses:’ by insisting that racism is in play when black boys are overrepresented among those suspended or expelled from schools for violence, a practice which not only leads to such violence persisting but a declining skillset among the young black population. And white liberals are complicit in this affair. The high priests of Woke today: Joel Kotkin’s Clerisy (See Chapter 3,) tell us just how we should speak and think. Religion though, McWhorter contends, has a place neither in the classroom, nor in the elite university, nor in our codes of ethics, nor in delineating how members of society express themselves, and ‘almost all of us spontaneously understand that and see any misunderstanding of the premise as backward.’[3] ‘Yet, since about 2015, a peculiar contingent is slowly headlocking us into making an exception, supposing that this particular new religion is so incontestably correct, so gorgeously surpassing millennia of brilliant philosophers’ attempts to identify the ultimate morality, that we can only bow down in humble acquiescence.’[4] The liberal middle-classes are often fully unaware of just what they are doing: ‘Question these people for real and they howl as if having a finger pulled backward. But it isn’t that they don’t want their power taken away: The Elect see themselves as speaking truth...
The Woke Mind Virus
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 11 minute read The chapter ‘The Woke Mind Virus’ commences with this excerpt. Woke: an update Since I first published this material in late 2022, there has been a significant shift in the political landscape. While the influence of Woke ideology continues to permeate culture, there are indications that its extremes are reaching a peak. Fueled by the confinement of the pandemic and the collective hypnosis observed in mass formation, various commentators have pinpointed this phenomenon, with Elon Musk notably among them. Employing a technological metaphor, Musk has referred to it as ‘the woke mind-virus,’ a precise characterization. This virus attaches itself to and proliferates within the ‘compassion centre’ of the mind, as previously mentioned by James Lindsay in Chapter 4. ‘[Marxism has] evolved into different species to attack the West at its weakest points, through our tolerance, through our acceptance, through our openness, through our generosity, through our best traits, actually the things that we should be proud of, being the things that we are proud of being.’ Previously, I titled this chapter ‘Woke as Old Testament Religion’ because the virus also targets and proliferates within another core aspect of the psyche: the ‘fear centre.’ This region corresponds to the reptilian part of the brain, which oversees fundamental instincts related to self-preservation.[1] Asked by Bill Maher[2] why he talks of the ‘woke mind virus’ as pushing civilization towards suicide, Musk says, ‘I think we need to be very cautious about anything that is anti-meritocratic and anything that results in the suppression of free speech. Those are the two aspects of the woke mind virus that I think are very dangerous … you can’t question things … even the questioning is bad.’[3] Approaching Musk’s political beliefs, Maher suggests he doesn’t think of Musk as a conservative, Musk says, ‘I at least think of myself as a moderate … I’ve spent a massive amount of my life building sustainable energy: electric vehicles and batteries and solar and stuff, to help save the environment. … That’s not exactly far right.’[4] Maher refers to a stick-man diagram Musk shared on X / Twitter in 2023, showing how the world had changed: in 2008 Musk saw himself as ‘Left of Centre;’ but then in 2012, Musk’s fellow liberal begins running in a Left-ward direction. In comparison Musk’s position appears closer to the Centre; by the time we reach 2021, Musk’s fellow liberal is now a Far Left woke progressive and, the Centre point having moved further Left with him, Musk now finds himself on...
Dysfunctional Imagination
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 5 minute read This excerpt is taken from the chapter on ‘The Evidence Bases in Religion, Science and Politics.’ It follows on from the section on ‘Poetic Logic.’ Dysfunctional Imagination The second sequence—called ‘Dysfunctional Imagination’—illustrates how a person engages reactively with symbols in a way that deepens their delusion. By taking symbols literally; by engaging with ones of low intrinsic value; by being skeptical about them (when acting ‘as if’ they are true would be helpful); and by approaching reality with fear and superstition, the person will be negatively transformed by the experience, moving further away from reality and deeper into fantasy. Take literally I explored earlier how literalism comes about through focusing on the details of the symbol and questioning their veracity, rather than letting the symbol be a conduit through which a message from the Universe can come through; this is an example of unwise attention, and often of laziness. Of low intrinsic value The second way that we can fall prey to dysfunction when we are dealing with symbols and myths is when we do not engage with symbols of high enough value. Concerned to remain loyal to the group, we settle for folk art or ethnic religion, rather than approach more transcendent values. Or, if we engage with such values, we fail to refine our awareness so that we can truly appreciate them. In short, we veer towards philistinism: philistine: ‘a person who is hostile or indifferent to culture and the arts.’ The romantic intrigue and dramatic action of a Hollywood blockbuster may be emotionally stimulating, but may not say much about how we should live our lives; we need to really ask: ‘Does this story make me want to be a better person or deal with my life in a better way?’ Treat with skepticism The third thing that we can fall prey to when we are dealing with symbols and myths is being skeptical about the value of imagination per se: we treat all imagination as fantasy, placing our faith instead in dry reason, as does British-American essayist and avowed atheist Christopher Hitchens: ‘Faith is the surrender of the mind; it’s the surrender of reason, it’s the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It’s our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me.’[1] But...
Poetic Logic
Below is an excerpt from my forthcoming book… © Mahabodhi Burton 12 minute read This excerpt is taken from the chapter on ‘The Evidence Bases in Religion, Science and Politics.’ It follows on from the section on ‘Tantric Deities’ and explores ‘Functional Imagination.’ The five wisdoms (jnanas) The Mandala of the Five Buddhas expresses the fact that a whole range of often complementary qualities are present in the Enlightenment experience. Whatever is at the centre of a mandala orders the mandala: as the king his kingdom. Each Buddha has a specific wisdom: Vairocana’s Supreme Wisdom could be said to be the combined effect of the other four: Aksobhya: Mirror-like Wisdom Ratnasambhava: Wisdom of Equality Amitabha: Discriminating Wisdom Amoghasiddhi: Action-Accomplishing Wisdom We will see how these wisdoms can be brought to bear on current world problems at the ends of Chapters 2 to 6. Poetic logic In Tibetan ritual practice one enters the mandala from the east; then proceeds to the south, the west, the north and finally moves into the centre. This sequence, combined with the symbolism and associations of the Five Buddhas, illustrates the process in operation when we are dealing with the field of Imagination: which includes symbolism, myth; and therefore religion. Imagination and symbolism may be the only way we have to engage our emotions with those patterns in the universe that we wish to respect and remember. And like concepts, they have an inner logic, which I choose to call ‘poetic logic.’ There are five elements to poetic logic: The way that we view imagination, poetry and symbolism The quality of the symbol in representing Right View The degree to which we believe in / dwell upon the symbol The actions we take in relation to it The degree to which we are transformed by it, and into what Or, in one word; 1) Reason, 2) Beauty (the object itself), 3) Emotion, 4) Action (the action in relation to it), 5) The Change brought about; Imagination engages all of our faculties in order to bring about change. However, it cuts both ways; Imagination can lead to growth, but it can equally lead to delusion. The former I call Functional Imagination, the latter Dysfunctional Imagination. Functional Imagination The first sequence—called ‘Functional Imagination’—illustrates how a person engages creatively with symbols to bring about personal growth and transformation. By taking symbols poetically; by engaging with ones of high intrinsic value; by repeatedly dwelling on them with confidence (perhaps acting ‘as if’ they are true: suspending disbelief and stepping into them as if they are the reality); and by...
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