{"id":70031,"date":"2023-11-10T06:00:05","date_gmt":"2023-11-10T11:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/?p=70031"},"modified":"2023-11-05T16:30:25","modified_gmt":"2023-11-05T21:30:25","slug":"breaking-through-the-front-lines-of-human-thought","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/geneveith\/2023\/11\/breaking-through-the-front-lines-of-human-thought\/","title":{"rendered":"Breaking Through the “Front Lines of Human Thought”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The president of China, Xi Jinping has some rather remarkable things to say about what he calls the \u201csmokeless battlefield\u201d:\u00a0 the war of ideas.\u00a0 We need to be aware of this part of his strategy for China\u2019s domination.\u00a0 And we should wonder, has he already attacked?<\/p>\n

I was reading an article in the Free Press<\/em> entitled \u00a0Why Do Young Americans Support Hamas? Look at TikTok.<\/a>\u00a0 by\u00a0Congressman Mike Gallagher (R-WI).\u00a0 \u00a0He\u00a0 cites\u00a0a Harvard\/Harris poll<\/a> that asked, \u201cDo you think the Hamas killing of 1200 Israeli civilians on Israel can be justified by the grievances of Palestinians or is it not justified?\u201d\u00a0 Most Americans in every cohort said, \u201cNo.\u201d\u00a0 But among respondents aged 18-24, a majority, 51%, said that it is<\/em> justified.<\/p>\n

\n

(Interestingly and disturbingly, when asked, \u201cDo you think that the attacks on Jews were genocidal in nature or not genocidal?,\u201d\u00a0 62% of this group said that they were<\/em> genocidal, which means that a large number of young adults must think that genocide against the Jews is justified.)<\/p>\n

Rep. Gallagher blames the influence of TikTok.\u00a0 He cites research<\/a> showing that 51% of Generation Z (teen through 26) use the video sharing site as a search engine<\/em> instead of Google or some other actual search engine!\u00a0 The reasons they give is that they prefer information in a video format instead of having to read it (69% say that), and that TikTok videos are \u201cmore relatable\u201d (65%).\u00a0 He cites another study that found that about six in ten teenagers, in his words, \u201care\u00a0hooked<\/a> on the app before their seventeenth birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rep. Gallagher observes that TikTok has close ties with China\u2019s Communist Party.\u00a0 He is concerned that this gives Chinese Communists the ability to shape how America\u2019s new generation is thinking.\u00a0 China is pro-Hamas, he reasons, so this why 51% of TikTok-obsessed American teenagers feel the same way.\u00a0 He thinks TikTok should be banned.<\/p>\n

I think Rep. Gallagher is jumping to conclusions.\u00a0 Using TikTok as a search engine turns up videos from both sides of the controversy.\u00a0 I\u2019d want to know if the 51% of 18-14 year olds who support Hamas have actually been watching Chinese propaganda on the subject on TikTok, or if their opinion is just because they adhere to the larger left-wing ideology of woke intersectionality.\u00a0 That belief system has long identified Palestinians as being an oppressed group with whom progressive people must be \u201callies,\u201d with Israel branded as the \u201coppressor.\u201d\u00a0 They may have learned that in school.<\/p>\n

But whether the connection is completely valid or not, what most struck me in Rep. Gallagher\u2019s article is this quotation from Xi Jinping (my bolds):<\/p>\n

Xi Jinping understands the importance of information warfare\u2014or the \u201csmokeless battlefield,\u201d as he\u2019s called it. In a text regarding \u201cmilitary political work,\u201d Xi declared, \u201cThe crumbling of a regime always starts in the realm of ideas.<\/strong>\u00a0.\u00a0.\u00a0changing the way people think is a long-term process. Once the front lines of human thought have been broken through, other defensive lines also become hard to defend<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Maybe TikTok\u2019s role is to serve not so much as a channel for Chinese propaganda as to turn young Americans\u2019 minds to mush, with all of the \u201cchallenges\u201d that are idiotic<\/a> (such as styling your hair with Gorilla Glue) and sometimes dangerous<\/a> (such as boiling a chicken in Nyquil or taping your mouth shut while you sleep).\u00a0 And the general anti-intellectual ethos of preferring watching videos from your peers (often consisting of dance moves or \u201cinfluencer\u201d commercials) to reading.\u00a0 \u00a0Surely, disabling your enemy\u2019s rational faculties must be a major tactic on the smokeless battlefield.<\/p>\n

But the war of ideas has more fronts than that.\u00a0 \u201cWestern thought\u201d has been a target on university campuses\u2013which once existed to transmit it\u2013for decades.<\/p>\n

As we\u2019ve been blogging about, assaults against \u201cliberal democracy\u201d\u2013that is, freedom and self-government\u2013are being mounted both from the left (as usual) and from the right (as is unusual).\u00a0 I can see why Chinese Communists and their Marxist and post-Marxist fellow-travelers would be against our Constitutional order, but how have they become allies with ostensibly conservative intellectuals?<\/p>\n

Once cherished beliefs about marriage, sexual morality, and having children are being bombarded.\u00a0 Basic human identity, such as whether a person is male or female, is imploding.<\/p>\n

And, of course, religion, which is opposed on principle by Marxists, is being dropped completely or changed beyond recognition.<\/p>\n

Chairman Xi calls for breaking through \u201cthe front lines of human thought.\u201d\u00a0 Think of that.\u00a0 \u201cHuman thought\u201d is the enemy.\u00a0 And certainly that front line is being fired upon and assaulted.<\/p>\n

Is there a Chinese connection to any of this?\u00a0 Maybe.\u00a0 But most of this we are doing to ourselves.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Photo:\u00a0 President Xi Jingping via Kremlin.ru, CC BY 4.0 <https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons<\/em><\/p><\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The president of China, Xi Jinping has some rather remarkable things to say about what he calls the “smokeless battlefield”:\u00a0 the war of ideas.\u00a0 We need to be aware of this part of his strategy for China’s domination.\u00a0 And we should wonder, has he already attacked?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1281,"featured_media":70109,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,14,29,35,44,49],"tags":[426,13931,14036,2691,14042,14039],"class_list":["post-70031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","category-education","category-media","category-philosophy-2","category-technology","category-war-2","tag-china","tag-israels-war-with-hamas","tag-president-xi-jingping","tag-propaganda","tag-tiktok","tag-war-of-ideas"],"yoast_head":"\nBreaking Through the "Front Lines of Human Thought"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" 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