Don't Feed The Demons!

The other day someone wrote something infuriating on the internet which required an angry rebuttal. This happens to me quite a lot, as I suspect it does to you. I had many pressing things to do that morning which demanded my attention - a tribute to write for the Spectator about the death of my beloved, favourite hunter Carpenter; arrangements to make for my father’s funeral; and any number of urgent gardening tasks to fulfil in order to keep my wife happy.

But really this angry rebuttal could not wait. So, poisoned keyboard at the ready, I set about my work. The problem was that no matter how hard I tried, I could never strike a sufficiently satisfying note. I tried cattily sarcastic; then loftily superior; then cool, restrained but implacable; then charming and conciliatory but not really. Numerous drafts and far too many minutes later, I was still no closer to my goal - probably because I wanted to achieve too many contradictory effects simultaneously. On the one hand I wanted to crush, humiliate, mock and destroy. On the other I wanted to set the facts straight in such a way as to prove beyond all reasonable doubt that The Truth was on my side. I also wanted to show myself to be the better person: the good guy in this ugly feud with whom everyone reading it should identify.

Then suddenly I realised - “****!” - I’d just missed the first fifteen minutes of my gym class. So carried away had I been my righteous desire for vengeance over something ineffably trivial and forgettable that I had stopped myself doing something that was actually good for me; something I had been looking forward to all morning; something far more valuable and life enhancing than getting involved in yet another silly, pointless, worthless row with some nonentity.

At times like this, I’m reminded of the words of David in Psalm 37.

Leave off from wrath; and let go displeasure; fret not thyself else thou shalt be moved to do evil.

Nothing useful would have been achieved had I responded to the person who had irked me. However cunningly I had phrased myself, they would have still taken umbrage and would have been confirmed in their view that I’m loathsome, arrogant, entitled, petulant, controlled opposition, closet MI5 etc.

This is because many - though not all - of the people who have a go at you on social media are not doing so in good faith. They’ve already made up their mind what they think about you. At this point, even if you were to walk towards them across a lake, heal their genital warts and transform all their bottles of Tesco plonk into Chateau Cheval Blanc ‘47, they’d still have you down as an obvious Wrong ‘Un.

Again, the scriptures have some invaluable words to say on this subject.

And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.

Yes, specifically this is Jesus - in Matthew 10:14 - advising His disciples how best to spread the gospel. But like so much in the Bible - which I consider to be an instruction manual on how to navigate a fallen world - it carries many broader, practical implications.

Nobody is universally liked. Not even Jesus. (Indeed, especially not Jesus). So there’s no point trying to win battles with the people who hate you because all it does is leech away the valuable time you’d be better off spending on the people who like you and are receptive to your message.

I’ve written already about the destructive spats which have arisen of late in the Awake Not-a-Community. No doubt they feel incredibly important to the people participating in them. But the majority - I suspect, the vast majority - of Awake types are thinking: “What IS this crazy shit? Why do we have to take sides in this argument that is being thrust in our face like it’s the Wars of the Roses and we have to declare for the Yorkists or the Lancastrians on pain of death? Why can’t we just have another podcast or post where we learn something useful about the real baddies we’re facing in this epic struggle between good and evil, either that or one that’s fun and where can at least have a laugh?”

So it’s to this majority that in future I shall try to direct my energies. Note that word ‘try’, because I doubt very much I will always succeed. The problem with these little hate-fests is that they are so incredibly seductive. We all need our dopamine hits - the Cabal have trained us to do this by giving us iPhones and social media and so on - and just as the Normies have their kickyball to get them all worked up, distracted and controlled, so we in Awake world have our periodic witch-hunts and bouts of purity spiralling and hanging-drawing-and-quarterings.

And sometimes it’s FUN being bitchy and spiteful and appearing to win. I look at some of Milo’s ripostes on Twitter and think: “Go Milo! You so totally OWNED that awful person!” Owen Benjamin, another character I admire, is pretty good at this stuff too. But it requires a lot of dedication and effort. You have to be perpetually on it if you want to keep the whole swarm of those pesky mosquitos continually swatted. And what I’m wondering is: is it really worth the time and energy?

What I also wonder - hence the title of this piece - is: “And isn’t it just feeding the demons?” Whenever I’m tempted to pile into one of these spats, I hear a voice in my head going: “But what’s the point of reciting Psalm 37 every day if you’re going to treat it like empty words which you can casually ignore?” Then I hear the counter argument in my head which goes something like: “Oh come on! You’re allowed a bit of leeway. Spiking people who deserve it is satisfying and fun. Your fans love it because it shows you being witty and on-brand. You’re not a monk, for goodness sake. You’re a high class edge lord.”

I trust the first voice, though, more than I do the second. What I know about demons - which I believe are totally real, of course - is that they feed off negative energy. They love generating rows and they have several millennias’ worth of experience to show them exactly which buttons to press in order to achieve the desired effect. If they can lure you into the fray by saying “Hey - it’s naughty but you’re good at it and you know you love it!” then that’s the bait they’ll use. But they’re equally adept at appealing to what you think is your better nature, viz: “My motives are pure. I am a selfless servant of the truth and it matters not how many people I upset nor how much glorious martyrdom I suffer at the hands of those doubters who think I have gone too far, for I am the paladin of justice and right is on my side.”

Of course, having made this argument I recognise I have now made myself an open target for those mosquito swarms. “Yeah but last month you said this…!” or “But you’re always accusing people of being Controlled Opposition.” True but - re-read the piece, moron! [sorry God] - I never said I was a saint. I do aspire to be one, for that is the Christian ideal, but being a sinner I fail more often than I succeed. That’s one of the reasons I have to write pieces like this one. I need to remind myself, and anyone else who will listen, that this spiritual battle we are fighting ought to be front and centre of everything that we do and think; and that the moral and behavioural restraints that Christianity seeks to impose on us are not there (as the devil would pretend) to turn us into sanctimonious prigs in thrall to a capricious sky fairy. Rather, these restraints are there to help us and protect us and make us better.

That is what I meant earlier when I talked about the Bible being a practical survival guide. It’s an advice manual full of tips that really work in day-to-day life. As an example of this let me tell you what happened recently after someone really had a go at me in the comments on Substack. He called me out as a liar, a fraud, a ‘Chaos Agent’, implied I was only using scripture to give myself a kind of fake ethical legitimacy, that I was making a mockery of my audience, etc etc. It could have been quite hurtful. Actually, it was quite hurtful - especially coming from someone whose intelligence and scholarship I admired, and with whom I’d hitherto had friendly dealings on my podcast.

So, naturally enough, my immediate urge was for dire vengeance. In my feverish, injustice-traumatised brain I began working on the perfect killer riposte.

Then I thought. “Wait a second. Those demons really are desperate for your attention and you’re in strong danger of giving it to them. Surely there is a better way?”

And there was. Listen to my latest podcast with Robert Frederick (aka Hidden Life Is Best). I think you’ll love it because it’s really, really good. But it would never have happened if I’d fed those demons.

Robert Frederick