Yesterday, we meditated on the media takeover by billionaires in America. This isn’t a brand new factor completely. In spite of everything, Rupert Murdoch has had a stranglehold on right-wing America for many years, and the outcomes are there for all to see in Fox Information, the New York Put up, and infrequently the Wall Road Journal.
And, after all, his empire wrought devastation in British politics as effectively.
Earlier than him, there was Henry Luce, who, although a gentleman compared to Murdoch, nonetheless had an outsize affect on American tradition, politics, and overseas coverage for many years by way of Time Journal, Life, Sports activities Illustrated, Fortune, and so on. I realized quite a bit about faith, pseudo-religion, and the ability of the media in researching my doctoral thesis 55 years in the past on Luce and his empire, later revealed as Faith USA: Faith and Tradition by the use of Time Journal.
The billionaire within the White Home is busy gilding the White Home itself on this new gilded age of billionaires whereas calling the media an “enemy of the individuals.” The billionaire class he represents is receiving a 4 trillion-dollar tax lower from the poor and center lessons, thanks additionally to the supine Congress. In my research on Luce, I analyzed the philosophy he instilled into the tradition by way of TIME journal, a philosophy that was deeply republican within the method of the Nineteen Fifties.
So it’s applicable to ask: What’s the philosophy behind the billionaire class that has taken over our public and social media in 2025? It isn’t in any respect that of Henry Luce, son of Calvinist missionaries in China, that I can guarantee you.
Allow us to think about one huge influencer, Peter Thiel, who contributed over 13 million {dollars} to Vance’s senate marketing campaign in Ohio, thus shopping for him his political future. Thiel is presently educating a four-part seminar within the coronary heart of Silicon Valley on the subject of “The Anti-Christ.” Sure, you might be studying that appropriately.
The workshop is secret and bought out, however Thiel’s fundamental philosophy and mentors aren’t all that secret. Like fellow billionaire and presidential influencer Elon Musk, Thiel got here of age in South Africa throughout apartheid instances, profited from it, and by no means criticized it.
Thiel has publicly proposed that the antichrist of our day would possibly effectively be…Greta Thunberg. (sic) He has confessed {that a} huge philosophical affect on him is Carl Schmitt.
Who was Carl Schmitt, and what does it imply that he influenced Peter Thiel, mentor and monetary daddy to the vice chairman of the US? Carl Schmitt was a jurist and political theorist with a doctorate in regulation who wrote concerning the deficiencies of Enlightenment political philosophy and liberal political follow in Germany within the Nineteen Twenties and 30s.
He outlined the “political” because the everlasting propensity of human collectivities to determine one another as “enemies,” the place mortal fight is a continuing chance and frequent actuality. Within the final days of the Weimar Republic, Schmitt suggested President von Hindenburg to bypass Parliament and rule by presidential decree. (Does this sound acquainted?)
When Hitler outmaneuvered them, Schmitt joined the Nazi Occasion in 1933 and helped coordinate their seizure of energy. “He wholeheartedly endorsed Hitler’s homicide of political adversaries and promulgation of anti-Jewish insurance policies.”*
Schmitt is Thiel’s mentor, and Thiel is Vance’s. And Thiel is raking in billions of tax {dollars} along with his Palantir mission spying on People for Trump’s sake.
Thiel has stated he believes democracy is lifeless. And he’s telling us what comes subsequent whereas preaching concerning the antichrist and his distinctive non secular worldview. He tells us, “I’m non secular however not religious.”
That is the billionaire whispering within the ear of America’s president and vice chairman. What may probably go amiss?
Quickly, I’m teaming up with journalist Gil Duran to supply a two-part workshop as a counterpoint to Thiel’s model of the antichrist.
Right here is the occasion registration web page: Counterpoint: A Response to Peter Thiel’s Antichrist
* Carl Schmitt | German Political Realism & Authorized Principle | Britannica
Banner Picture: Apocalyptic theology going off the tracks and into the weeds. Picture by Ivan Aleksic on Unsplash.
Queries for Contemplation
What do you suppose it means to name oneself “non secular however not religious”? And to name Greta Thunberg the “antichrist” of our time? How regarding is it that Peter Thiel, due to SCOTUS’ Residents United ruling, has delivered Vance to the American voters and his Palantir Firm to ICE and the Pentagon to spy on the American individuals?
Beneficial Studying
Trump & The MAGA Motion as Anti-Christ.
Faith USA: Faith and Tradition by the use of Time Journal.
A Spirituality Named Compassion: Uniting Mystical Consciousness with Social Justice.
Creation Spirituality: Liberating Presents for the Peoples of the World.
Authentic Blessing: A Primer in Creation Spirituality.
Sins of the Spirit, Blessings of the Flesh: Reworking Evil in Soul & Society.
Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Imaginative and prescient for a New Era (Adam Bucko and Matthew Fox).
