Empiricism in a Mind War

The Israel-Hamas Conflict and the Art of Embodiment

Empiricism is the theory that all knowledge is derived from sense experience.

Put differently, the body’s direct experience with the world is our most valuable relationship with truth. Compared to the mind, which can arguably be led astray more easily when it comes to truth-seeking, the body gives us an incredible panoply of sensory inputs, combines them, and then adds human intuition, creativity and mental analysis on top of this.

In the face of empiricism, one of the major issues we face today is the dilemma of disembodiment.

So much of what we’re faced with today removes the body’s truth-seeking capacity from the equation by feeding us world events through a screen.

This restricts us to almost exclusively using the mind for assessing what it is that’s being fed to us through this digital funnel.

Given that fifth-generation warfare is a war of narratives that seek to use emotionally charged storytelling to entrench us, we are faced with an inversion of truth-seeking according to empiricism.

While our body’s ability to produce highly charged emotional states is tapped into, the rest of our sensory inputs are left out, leaving us only with an emotional wave and mental chatter to come to a conclusion.

How dangerous is it to not only live in a culture that perpetually disembodies us through technology but to also be living through a fifth-generation war that takes advantage of this scenario daily?

Never has this dilemma been clearer to me than with the latest violent conflict between Hamas and Israel.

Ever since it began my Instagram inbox has been absolutely flooded with different narratives. Narratives that include videos of innocent victims on both sides, the “true” history of the land and the people, and everything they can find to enlist me to pick a side and use my platform to declare it.

It has been an absolute peak expression of narrative warfare.

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In his book Modernity and Identity Anthony Giddens describes modern, industrial, and technological disembodiment as a characteristic disruption of space and time which destroys a sense of belonging and ultimately of individual identity. He refers to “disembedding mechanisms,” the effect of which is to separate things from their context and ourselves from the uniqueness of place.

We are arguably surrounded by these “disembedding mechanisms” in the form of social media and and all forms of news from around the world.

But on top of this we are living through a mind war which means that relying on disembodiment plus non-stop narrative warfare is a dangerous way to assess the Israel-Hamas conflict.

Not to mention how strange it is for us that the news conglomerates choose one particular war to transport our awareness to, and wrap it in their own assertions.

Wars are ongoing all the time, but the coverage explodes only when it serves a particular agenda.

When was the last time you considered how strange this process is?

Author of The Master and His Emissary, Ian McGilchrist, puts it this way:

“The media… promote fragmentation by a random juxtaposition of items of information as well as permitting the intrusion of distant events into everyday consciousness, another aspect of decontextualization in modern life, adding to the loss of meaning in the experiential world."

It’s crucial to understand that to find meaning in the experiential world requires embodiment. As I often do, I will remind you of the definition of free thought, and encourage you to use it in navigating the sea of narratives that have exploded since Hamas attacked:

"Free thought" is a philosophical viewpoint which holds that positions regarding truth should be formed on the basis of logic, reason, and empiricism rather than authority, tradition, revelation, or dogma.”

Notice how empiricism is deeply tied to free thought? How much of this war can you truly assess with your body’s truth-seeking mechanisms?

As a dad living in Toronto, Ontario, Canada I can put my hand up ✋- Very little.

So yes, I’ve seen the horrific videos of Palestine, children blown to pieces. I have also seen the nightmarish footage of Israeli casualties.

I have watched the same Neo-Marxists who screamed at me in person at the 1 Million March For Children rally at the Toronto pro-Palestine protests. “This is the perfect opportunity to become a Neo-Marxist!”

I’ve seen videos from the far left claiming this conflict is the final proof that we are living in a world dominated by white supremacy.

I’ve seen the crying Western Jewish people citing antisemitism and the holocaust, and then I have seen the anti-Zionist Jews taking to the streets of New York screaming “Not in our name.”

I’ve seen the Russel Brand interview with holocaust survivor Gabore Matte explaining that he cried for 2 weeks when he saw what Israel was doing to Palestinians and that he stands against the Israeli “occupation.”

I’ve seen the argument that we cannot conflate Palestinians with Hamas, while I am simultaneously being direct messaged by Palestinians who tell me they support Hamas.

I’ve seen the 1988 Hamas covenant that emphatically states it will settle for nothing less than the total destruction of Israel.

I have watched Trudeau side with Israel while the CBC, what is normally his personal mouthpiece, turns on him and instructs their journalists to reject the government of Canada’s assessment of Hamas as a terrorist organization as mere opinion, telling their journalists they are forbidden from using this term when reporting on Hamas.

I am saturated by narratives from all sides. I am told on a daily basis that my Instagram account could be used to “raise awareness” to “change this war.”

Is that true?

And is this a war, or is it an operation within the greater war for human liberty that revealed itself so obviously with the COVID narrative?

I weep for the innocent.

But I also make sure that I ground myself in what of this larger war against Satanic Globalists has reached me directly, through my body. What of the ongoing attempt to install a New World Order has made it into my aura?

I use empiricism.

I remember what it was like to watch the mainstream media terrorize my children with propaganda. I remember watching my son weep because vaccine mandates had exiled him from play-places across Toronto. I remember when ideologically subverted members of my community screamed at me and kicked me out of their businesses.

I remember the way we were all terrorized in the name of a New World Order during the largest PSYOP in human history. I am increasingly curious now remembering that Canada and Israel were, together, two of the most draconian COVID nations of all.

And now, with empiricism, with what I gathered with my body, and then researched with my mind, I am watching the same corrupt governments tell me who to side with.

I am watching the same media outlets who psychologically abused my children spin complex narratives on both sides while people in my online community tell me to trust those same media outlets.

I am recalling how this larger war, from which the Israel-Hamas conflict is emerging, was previously manifest in my physical domain to make sure I don’t let the digital domain control my thinking and my decision-making.

I am watching social media’s careful design entrench people further and further into tribalism, group-think and emotionally driven decisions and behaviour.

I will not forget the wisdom that my body gathered for me during that particular chapter of this war, because make no mistake—this is the same war.

The primary strategic objective of our globalist enemies remains the same: wipe out nation-states and establish a new world order. The Israel-Hamas conflict is merely another operation underneath that same strategic goal.

For those of you in the same position as me, who are experiencing this war as a form of disembodiment, with the World Wide Web being used to traffic narratives begging you to take a side, and to jump into the emotional and cognitive entrenchments that others swear are the only way to perceive this war, my advice is this:

Come back to your body. Remember that this is part of a much larger war that has in fact made its way into your home and your community in numerous ways over the years. Try to recall the aspects of this war that have reached you offline, through your senses, your relationships and your community, and get grounded in remembering who our enemy is.

As you are beckoned into the different narratives surrounding this war practice the art of cognizing multiple narratives and contradictory truths.

Ask yourself: How does this conflict serve the NWO plan?

Subsequently, how might NWO operatives be active on both sides of this conflict? Is it possible this greater enemy is capable of engineering an intractable war made up of trauma, and religious groupthink, funded by the same globalist, military-industrial complex that has fuelled all major wars?

If an intractable war has been engineered, does one side need to win to foil the NWO? If so, which side?

I have seen arguments from the truth-seeking community for both. And yet I continue to practice cognition for fifth-generation warfare.

I will not forget that free thought is grounded in empiricism. I will not forget that our modern dilemma seeks to disembody me daily.

Hold all the narratives lightly. Rest comfortably in doubt and ignore the emotional allure of certainty in the fog of war.

Open your heart to the suffering of the innocent and keep your eyes on the real enemy.

Nothing else matters.