Sands and Choices: The Plot Against Civilization pp. 20-22

 I want to say that I like Webster’s writing, but I also want to caveat that statement with a “so far…” It seems that conspiracy literature always front loads the good writing. My research into conspiracy phenomenon would support this hypothesis, and eventually this blog will provide the evidence for that conclusion. The conspiracy theorist has all this information, energy, and emotion to start. Then it just kind of peters out. Webster, coming from historical writing, is probably going to go the distance longer than someone like Kaysing or Robison (Cooper only wrote about half of his book), but I fear that she will eventually just start rambling. It’s too bad, because so far the writing is very good and I can see why this book had the impact it did.

She’s still focusing on the French Revolution of 1789, and attempting to push the narrative that the Masons did it. She’s got nothing as far as evidence is concerned and she’s leaning on Robison’s dubious claims, but also a citation to an optional citation to the writings of a “Papus.” Papus, is the pseudonym of Gerard Encausse, a man who was an occultist and a part time spiritual advisor to Tsar Nicholas II. He claims that the Masons were behind the Revolution as a result of combining the Masonic rites with Templar rites. As an optional citation it’s a bit frustrating because Webster is only citing to a book by Papus about the figure of Martine de Pasqually, a figure of Christian Mysticism and a figure of some mystery. The problem for us, is that we are relying on Webster’s reliance on one mystic’s biography of another. This is not a solid provenance for information on the political causes of the French Revolution. Webster also claims that Papus was a fellow Mason, but there’s no evidence of that.

Webster then moves on to a socialist historian named Louis Blanc. According to the Wikipedia entry on this man, he seems to be the person who coined the phrase, “from each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” Which is nice to learn where that line came from.

The next person she uses as proof is another French writer named George Sand. Sand is an interesting person. If she lived now, she’d probably describe herself as “gender fluid.” Her birth name was Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin de Francuei, and she adopted the pen name at the age of 27. She was apparently a writer of considerable fame being a more popular writer than even Victor Hugo. It’s interesting to read the wiki page about her simply because I have never heard of this person before and she seems quite interesting.

Now, for Webster, she is going to claim that Sand attributes the slogan, “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity;” to the secret societies. I have no opinion on this; it is as possible that a group of well-to-do Masons who desired freedom from the French Aristocracy created this slogan. It is just as possible that someone else did.

Webster then makes this strange argument that I cannot ignore. First, let’s say this, Webster’s problem isn’t Masonry or Illuminism; it’s what she thinks is Socialism. Remember from last post, she thinks that modern Socialism (early 20th century) has its roots in the French Revolution, but also before given what she’s claimed about the origins of the French Revolution. Keep this in mind because she’s going to attempt to argue against Socialism by attacking the motto of the revolution.

“For observe the contradiction: it is impossible to have a complete liberty in which every man is free to behave as he pleases, to do what he will with his own, to rob or to murder, to live, that is to say, under the law of the jungle, rule by the strongest, but there is no equality there. Or one may have a system of absolute equality, of cutting every one down to the same dead level, of crushing every incentive in man to rise above his fellows, but there is no liberty there. So Grand Orient Freemasonry, by coupling together two words for ever incompatible, threw into the arena an apple of discord over which the world has never ceased to quarrel from that day to this, and which has throughout divided the revolutionary forces into two opposing camps.”

This is an absurd argument. She’s trying to attack French proto socialism by creating two strawmen and then saying that they will always fight one another. Complete liberty is never thought of as a return to the Hobbesian state of nature except by those Russian anarchists that even Lenin would think went too far. That isn’t liberty, and no rational person thinks that “liberty” means we can murder each other. Even in the most basic of Kantian terms, liberty would always possess the ontological limit of infringement on someone else’s liberty. There is no way that Webster can seriously believe what she’s saying here. It’s so obviously a straw man. [as a side note, even in the law of the jungle, Hobbes believed that there would be equality—because we can always find ways to kill each other]

The second is a more common attack on socialism, but it’s just as dumb. This is the idea that if there is no monetary reward for something there is no incentive for successful endeavor. I’m writing this blog; I’ve been doing so for over two decades on various platforms. I do this because I enjoy doing it, it helps me refine my writing ability, and I think the message is important to get out. I don’t monetize this blog [which is an option on Substack]. While money would be nice, I’m not doing this to get paid. My example is rather trite and anecdotal; but there are plenty of reasons that people do things that aren’t based on reward. There are also plenty of reasons to get reward, but to make the claim that the only reason to do anything is for gain tells us more about the author than it does about civilization. Should we assume then that the only reason Webster wrote this book is so she could get paid.

The argument fundamentally misunderstands the concept of “equality” that gets pushed here. When the revolutionaries talked about equality, they didn’t mean that everyone was going to get cut down to the same level; what people like Rousseau (since she focused so hard on him in the beginning) meant by equality was a rejection of birthright inequality. Understand this about the French Revolution: the merchant class of France in the mid 18th century was the only class holding the French economy up. The problem the merchant class of France faced was that while they made all of the Francs, they had no power because the members of that class didn’t have royal blood. “Equality” means eliminating that requirement. They wanted to allow anyone to succeed despite the lack of blue in their blood. Of course, this never pans out that way, and oligarchs are still oligarchs. Actual Socialists can take their issue with that—and that issue would be legitimate.

Webster is attempting to nitpick, and she’s doing so in a very dishonest way. The last word is “fraternity,” and she claims that “this completes the masonic formula.” This is just a lazy accusation and her claim is that this was added by followers of Martinez Paschalis (or Pasqually) who created a gnostic system out of “Judaized Christianity” and Eastern and Greek Philosophies.

I would like to know which Greek Philosophies, because saying that is just empty words. Also, Pashcalis (or Pasqually) is the subject of Papus’ book that we used as a source before; but I think because she lacks citing it again, that she wants us to forget that part. Papus was a follower of Paschalis, and I think we have the conspiracist’s dilemma: we can trust Papus when he says things we need to believe for the theory, but we have to distrust him when it comes to his beliefs. This is like how liars like Alex Jones say that the New York Times always lies, but when he is spouting off one of this Sandy Hook didn’t happen theories, he’ll say the proof of this theory is in the New York Times.

From here, we’ll get a history of the Illuminati; and since those are always fun, we’ll wait until next week to get into it.