A Westphalia Guest Column

December 21, 2023

Doctrine of the Unworthy

By

Mark Lehnertz

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What is the Why of the book?

Understand one thing: the state writ large of humanity is a dynamic unfolding of intellect and lessons among us all, hard won from the world. Whether from the perfectly elegant minimalism of hunter-gatherer technology in its own locale and ecosystem economy, or from the heavy-burdened infrastructure in the churn of a modern city, the patterns of lessons echo and repeat. It belongs to and arises from ALL OF HUMANITY -- the living of the moment.

To credit and blame any group as dominating all is to completely misunderstand how we live in the world. All social systems seek to dominate the individual. None are innocent on this point. However, in post critical situations where bare survival is no longer the issue this domination of the individual becomes too often pathological.

There is an ideology slithering into every corner of modern society. If it were honest enough that it had a name, it would be the Doctrine of the Unworthy. Its practitioners seek to degrade, to tear down, to rot the tissues and structures, so hard won and well-travelled in place and time.

Knowledge has no value to this cadre of fellow-travelers-in-ignorance. Intellect as a tool, science as a process, compassionate engagement, and skeptical prudence as an approach are all to be swept away and replaced by BELIEF. This unquestioned consensual belief has a sloganeering feel, a self-righteous stink, an unreasoned anger fueled by a vibe formed of someone-else’s opinion, spilling out from a screen, page, or -cast.

To look at the world in equanimity and allow the innocent child’s view of this present moment is a hard and necessary thing. To destroy-in-belief what you have not taken time to fully understand (and deeply) is to destroy your own potential to become better or more. This Doctrine of the Unworthy wants that. A woman’s body might be her own, but it is forbidden that her mind, or anyone's’ be their own.

Symptoms? An atavistic urge for the ill-named post-apocalyptic. A welcoming of some Armageddon to sweep away what is too much work to attempt to comprehend and see into, clearly. A dismissing of history, and worse, a redefinition of history into the Doctrine of the Unworthy. The revisionists’ manipulation of those who know little of history is, to risk understatement, the moral equivalent of pedophile rape. Instead, there is strength and promise in the aspirational to become more. There is no promise in surrender to despair or to the Lie of the Unworthy.

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About the Author

Ten years of degreed university study, in philosophy, politics, economics, public administration and systems engineering was followed by a full entrepreneurial career.  A second act writing and working in a bookstore is in progress. Lehnertz was born in and raised by the West, loves nothing more than listening to people who appear to be trying not to share what they know, and is quite taken by the poetry of science, the dance of numbers, and the sacraments of complexity, while celebrating the present moment. He lives where the Colorado Rockies meet the High Plains.