Taking back the ‘Great Reset’ from the lunatic fringe – The Manila Times
One of the most ludicrous, wholly unsubstantiated conspiracy theories making the rounds among the most gullible segment of the connected public (who are one and all supporters of failed US president Yam Head, though that is neither here nor there at this point) is a yarn that the mysterious powers that run everything in the world are implementing what is called “The Great Reset.”
The term “The Great Reset” actually originated in the wake of the global financial crisis of 2008 in a book written by University of Toronto professor Richard Florida in 2010, which described ways in which the capitalist world should be remodeled to avoid falling into the same sort of crisis again. The basic concept of this reset, building on Florida’s work and ideas from many others, was adopted by the World Economic Forum earlier this year to describe a set of objectives for a post-coronavirus world.
There is nothing particularly offensive or even innovative about these objectives, and given the way the world actually works, it may even be better to characterize them as aspirations. They include things such as “revitalizing global cooperation,” “developing sustainable business models,” “strengthening regional development” and “restoring the health of the environment.”
However, these concepts, which are threatening to weak minds because they suggest people may have to make life choices that involve more than a two-step thought process and actually consider their impact on others, have lately been stridently “exposed” as a plot by “the global elite” to crush individual liberty and impose a socialist order on the entire world. The main source of this revelation is a disgraced Catholic archbishop named Carlos Maria Vigano, who was once the Vatican’s ambassador to the US but is now “in hiding since he accused Pope Francis of abetting clergy sex abuse.”
According to Vigano and his uncritical fans, the implementation of the evil plot by the New World Order is carried out by means of the coronavirus pandemic, which was contrived and intentionally let loose upon the world to justify the imposition of strict social controls. Quarantines, lockdowns, mandated mask-wearing and the gathering of contact-tracing information, all in response to a plague that is “not as deadly as the flu,” are all simply measures to keep people compliant when the real plan of imposing absolute globalism, atheism and socialism is put into action. In order to stop it, true leaders like Yam Head who see the plot for what it is must be supported and kept in office at all costs. Otherwise, the worldwide “deep state” will install tracking microchips in everyone, take all your earnings as taxes, mandate that your children with your state-assigned, nongender-specific life partner be gay, and make everyone get their coffee from Starbucks. Wake up, sheeple!
In our modern world where unfettered access to communication channels too often confers an unjustified veneer of credibility to information, one of the most harmful and irresponsible forms of moral turpitude, to echo the 19th-century philosopher William Kingdon Clifford, is to choose to harbor beliefs on the basis of insufficient — or as the case may be, wholly absent — evidence, and to spread those beliefs as facts. One belief that we can have, should have and should take back from the lunatic fringe that has bastardized it, is the conviction that a “Great Reset” is actually desirable, and necessary if we have any expectations that humanity will progress, or even survive.
As 2020 has shown us, the agglomeration of societies that make up human civilization is a fragile thing, and easily crumbles under pressure. The world that we all, whatever our ideological preferences, would like to imagine we can live in will simply not happen unless we make some fundamental changes in the way we live and organize ourselves: accepting a knowledge-based approach to problem-solving, managing our impact on our natural environment; leveling the inequitable access to capital; and working toward greater global cooperation in addressing common causes and challenges, such as trade, migration and public health threats that respect neither borders or political philosophies.
We can certainly debate the best approaches to making any of the changes we need to make, and it would probably be in our best interests to do so, but that the changes need to be made one way or another is, as this horrible year has shown us, beyond doubt. Those who have experienced it and choose to see in it an incredible, god-like design to rob them of their biases and self-interest should be given the credit and attention they deserve, which is none, and left to wither away alone inside their rapidly deflating comfort zones.
ben.kritz@manilatimes.net
Twitter: @benkritz
*** This article has been archived for your research. The original version from The Manila Times can be found here ***
