Conspiracy in History - Extreme views and definition (1/4)
By Orlando Fedeli - The naive liberal denies any conspiracy because it is incompatible with their belief in goodness of all man. The right-wing sees conspiracy everywhere and becomes a comical excess
Note from the translator: This is an essay by Mr. Fedeli named “Conspiracy in History: Examples from the Old Testament” which we are breaking in 4 parts:
Conspiracy in History
Extreme views and definition ←
Examples from Holy Scripture: Conspiracy against Job and idolatry
Examples from Holy Scripture: Jewish leadership and their secret idolatry
Coming 01/20
We have added our own headings to make navigation easier.
The two extreme views on conspiracy
The conspiratorial view of History is rejected by the liberals, for it is incompatible with their belief in the natural goodness of man. In the order side, the view of History is exposed in a ridiculous manner by certain anti-masonic literature, which seems to find secret actions, meetings, phantasmagorical crafty schemes, entangled intrigues everywhere and imagine mysterious cabalistic symbolism in ordinary things. It was the universal conspirative view which Umberto Eco caricaturize in his book "Il Pendolo de Foucault" (Foucault's Pendulum).
What we have here are two opposing viewpoints. One position denies any conspiracy whatsoever, because man (for them) is good and a conspiracy would suppose machiavellism and evilness (in man). The other position sees evil in everything, almost always supposedly catching a glimpse of the disguised freemason, the hidden revolutionary, the Jew, and a terrorist waiting in every corner of History. Both fail for their excesses. And if there is in fact a conspiracy in History, both, the naive liberal and its anti-masonic right-wing counterpart help conceal it, the former by it's foolish denial, the latter by it's comical excess.
The meaning of conspiracy
To conspire comes from the Latin conspirare, which literally means aspire with others, aspire collectively, that is, to work along with others to achieve an end.
Since man is a rational and social being, it's natural for him to try to associate with others to reach ends which he cannot achieve alone. Literally, man is always conspiring. When he organizes a party or a game with his friends, he aspires together, conspires. When he applies to a course or organizes a business with partners, he conspires, that is, aspires jointly with others to attain knowledge or profit.
If a group of outlaws organizes an ambush, a hostage-taking, a revolution, they're also conspiring. In these cases, in which illicit ends are aimed at, it's clear that the conspiracy must be secret. No one organizes a cartel, like that of Medellín, publicly and openly. A criminal association is disguised to make it seem that it has innocent undertakings. The term conspiracy is due, in a particular sense, both to the criminally-oriented associations with secret objectives as to the secret societies.
However, the ordinary man has difficulty believing in conspiracies. It's troublesome for the innocent and honest to imagine malice and crime. They tend to see in everything correctness and lawfulness. Add to this the sentimental romanticism, the influence of the liberal ideas about the goodness of man, the difficulty or incapacity of most people in conceiving lengthy plans and the belief in the inexistence (or retirement) of the devil, it becomes comprehensible how hard it is, today, to show that in History — ever since the first times — there is an enormous diabolical conspiracy aimed at the damnation of souls.
What makes History explainable is the fight between two conspiracies, the conspiracy of God and that of the devil. For the salvation of souls, God organized the divine "conspiracy" of the church. For the damnation of souls, the devil organizes that which Pope Saint Gregory the Great calls, in the Morales, the Anti-Church. It's what Saint Augustine described with mastery in Civitas Dei:
"Accordingly, two cities have been formed by two loves: the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God; the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self."
De Civit. Dei, lib. XIV, c. 28
This same idea is described by Saint Ignatius as the battle of the two standards (flags), Christ's standard against that of the devil. It's the fight which the Gospel of Saint John asserts to exist between the children of light and the children of darkness, and which was announced in Genesis by God himself when He said:
"I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel."
Gn. 3, 15
God, infinitely wise, uses some men to save others. The devil, cunningly, also seeks to use men, so as to lead others to damnation. God organized the Church. The devil organizes the wicked — his offspring — into an anti-Church, which, due to its nature — considering its aims — , must be secret.
We said that since the first times there's been a diabolical conspiracy for the damnation of souls. In this (… to be continued)