“Precisely because the tyranny of opinion is such as to make eccentricity a reproach, it is desirable, in order to break through that tyranny, that people should be eccentric. Eccentricity has always abounded when and where strength of character has abounded; and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigour, and moral courage which it contained. That so few now dare to be eccentric, marks the chief danger of the time.”~ John Stuart Mill (On Liberty)
Icke is clearly eccentric but he asks some interesting questions and I’m glad that he does. I don’t agree with much of what Icke says but I am not scared of ideas that may be contrary to my own. I am not scared by talk of lizards whether this talk comes from Icke himself or his detractors.
Mill give four reason why we should not deter the expression of divergent ideas:
“First, if any opinion is compelled to silence, that opinion may, for aught we can certainly know, be true. To deny this is to assume our own infallibility.
Secondly, though the silenced opinion be an error, it may, and very commonly does, contain a portion of truth; and since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinions, that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.
Thirdly, even if the received opinion be not only true, but the whole truth; unless it is suffered to be, and actually is, vigorously and earnestly contested, it will, by most of those who receive it, be held in the manner of a prejudice, with little comprehension or feeling of its rational grounds.
And not only this, but, fourthly, the meaning of the doctrine itself will be in danger of being lost, or enfeebled, and deprived of its vital effect on the character and conduct: the dogma becoming a mere formal profession, inefficacious for good, but cumbering the ground, and preventing the growth of any real and heartfelt conviction, from reason or personal experience.”
David Icke is not “currently one of the greatest threats to human survival” as one writer warned. That is simply absurd. A much greater, perhaps the greatest, threat to human existence is our passive acceptance of the narratives fed to us by psychopathic leaders who are rushing us towards the edge of extinction.
I think that Icke is very wrong on climate change and I think that the coronavirus is probably more deadly than he assumes here. I don’t doubt however that the problem is going to be exploited by the 0.01% for their own ends. I think however that this crisis, engineered or not, is one that can be used to move the world in the direction of a world that is much more just, green, peaceful and equal.
I don’t know why Icke would want to defend the current economic system. He should understand that it is unsustainable and has become enormously destructive of the planetary ecosystem. Whether this pause has been engineered by an Illuminati it may well be a pause that the world desparately needs. It may well be the pain that we need to endure now in order to prevent catastrophic climate change. I’ve watched videos where Naomi Klein and Noam Chomsky both agree that the elites will use the CV crisis to try to bring about an authoritarian world ruled (more directly) by corporate tyrannies. Klein and Chomsky offer solutions where Icke does not and for that reason I prefer to listen to what they have to say and I think that they are both more informed and more correct. But it seems to me that anyone who wants to express an opinion on what Icke says might do well to actually listen to what Icke says rather than to what is repeated about him.
Many people express a high degree of intolerance whenever Icke’s name is mentioned. Disagreement with the arguments, ideological positions of others is part of rational discourse and it does not surprise me that people disagree with Icke and even dislike him personally; what shocks me is the vehemence with which people express their antipathy.
Being cautioned not to listen to someone almost invariably inclines me to listen to them. So here’s a video of Icke speaking that others of similiar contrarian inclinations may wish to watch.
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