Briefly Noted: Masks, Great Reset, Digital 'Iron Curtain'

We begin with a thoughtful article on masking at The Federalist:

Masks Are Another Way To Control Society Through Isolation

Mask scolds have been monomaniacal about this virus as if there is no other way to die. What they don’t seem to understand is that this is no way to live.

Masks are a form of social isolation, and humans cannot survive emotionally or even physically when they are forcibly separated from one another. ...

A broader and deeper look at the corrosive effects of masking and isolation is found in “Till We Have Faces,” which is arguably the greatest novel from C.S. Lewis. While it is heavy on allegory and can be difficult to absorb, its lessons relate to mask mandates.

Without going into the storyline, a retelling of the Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche, one can still glean crucial principles. ...

The main character, Orual, covers her face for most of her life. She does so to gain a sense of power over others, ... In the end, however, Orual finds that her veil served only as a barrier to joy, love, and good relationships with others. It symbolizes self-absorption and represents grudges, anger, resentment, and especially a fear of the truth.

...

If we wish to remain free, however, we should reject mask-wearing as any kind of normal. ...

Acquiescence to politicized mask mandates also removes our sense of common humanity. We end up living in a faceless, dehumanized sea of anonymous people, and that is no way to live.

"Build back better" is the slogan of the Davos World Economic Forum (WEF). Not in the least coincidentally it was also the slogan of the Biden campaign--such as it was. Now ... again, not in the least bit coincidentally:

Pope Francis Shows His Hand, Adopts “Great Reset” Slogan

And, with a tip of the hat to commenter Dave, Alistair Crooke describes how:

The Digital 'Iron Curtain' Descends

It's all related--masks, resets, digital iron curtains. This is a longish article but it begins:

What is a ‘digital Iron Curtain’? It is when Big Digital, as Professor Michael Rectenwald terms these western Tech Goliaths, become ‘governmentalities’, using a word originally coined by Michel Foucault to refer to the means by which the ‘governed’ (i.e. ‘we the people’) assimilate, and reflect outwardly, a mental attitude desired by the élites: “One might point to masking and social distancing as instances of what Foucault meant by his notion of governmentality”, Rectenwald suggests.

And what is that desired ‘mentality’? It is to embrace the transfiguration of American and European identity and way-of-life. The presumptive U.S. President Elect, the European élites, and top ‘woke’ élites moreover, are publicly committed to such “transformation”: “Now we take Georgia, then we change the world,” (Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader, declared, celebrating Joe Biden’s ‘victory’); “Trump’s defeat can be the beginning of the end of the triumph of far-right populisms also in Europe”, claimed Donald Tusk, former president of the European Council.

In short, the ‘Iron Curtain’ descends when supposedly private enterprises (Big Digital) mutually inter-penetrate with – and then claim – the State: No longer the non-believer facing this coming metamorphosis is to be persuaded – he can be compelled. Regressive values held on identity, race and gender quickly slipped into a ‘heresy’ labelling. And as the BLM activists endlessly repeat: “Silence is no option: Silence is complicity”.

With the advent of Silicon Valley ideology’s ubiquitous ‘reach’, the diktat can be achieved through weaponising ‘Truth’ via AI, to achieve a ‘machine learning fairness’ that reflects only the values of the coming revolution – and through AI ‘learning’ mounting that version of binary ‘truth’, up and against an adversarial ‘non-truth’ (its polar opposite). How this inter-penetration came about is through a mix of early CIA start-up funding; connections and contracts with state agencies, particularly relating to defence; and in support for propaganda campaigns in service to ‘governmentalist’ narratives.

It all seems terribly relevant to where we are today.