The Great Reset
On their 2023 album Broken King’s II, rapper E-Fluent and producer Reckonize Real featured a song entitled “The Great Reset,” the name of which serves as acknowledgement of the World Economic Forum’s (WEF’s) expressed goals for the future. Lyrics from the track include:
Welcome to the Great Reset where privacy is luxury and hate brings death. The environment I once believed would turn me a man made my people into robots, they’re breathing but their soul’s not. Welcome to the Great Reset. You will own nothing and be happy. Just listen to uncle Klaus, forget a phone in the house. And make sure you get your booster shots in the land that truth forgot. “Follow the science,” they say. If you question anything, then you’re a liar, okay? Wearin’ masks outside in the fresh air, it makes me sick. Little kids with the slave muzzles, this shit got our brains puzzled. We still in the same struggle. The trouble is the Democrat-Republican tribes is nothin’ but lies.
Regarding the song’s namesake, one source states, “The Great Reset conspiracy is a growing online conspiracy that claims a global elite is using the coronavirus pandemic to dismantle capitalism and enforce radical social change.”
However, the founder of that source is featured on the WEF’s website. Therefore, offhandedly dismissing the Great Reset as an irrational belief (conspiracy theory) by a potentially biased resource isn’t called for.
When practicing Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), I use a scientific approach to challenge presupposed claims such as that relating to the Great Reset serving as little more than an “online conspiracy.” Per one source:
The Great Reset “considers a world after the pandemic,” a conceit [Ben Sixsmith] finds “audacious given that it was written less than six months after the virus had even appeared.” That is to be too easily impressed. Schwab has been peddling his stakeholder prescriptions for half a century. The pandemic is just the latest crisis on which he has hung them.
Rather than reacting in an emotional manner to claims of “conspiracy,” I use scientific questioning to better understand such proposals. Personally, this rational method helped me throughout the COVID-19 pandemic when it seemed as though so many people across the globe behaved in an erratic manner.
Regarding scientific curiosity, one source states, “A scientific question is one where an investigation can be designed and completed to find out the answer without having to do multiple, entirely different investigations to get there. In a word, a scientific question is testable.”
E-Fluent seems to understand the built-in mechanism that suppressed scientific inquiry during lockdownerism, as the rapper states in “The Great Reset,” “Follow the science,” they say. If you question anything, then you’re a liar, okay?”
Though overreaction to COVID-19 within the United States (U.S.) now seems like a distant memory, I make an effort not to allow the passage of time to impact the lessons I learned from that period of my life. Namely, I choose not to forget how science was captured by the linguistically manipulated phrase “the science.”
Of this, I’m reminded of the intro to lyricist Elzhi’s song “The Science,” in which Stokely Carmichael stated during a passionate speech:
We have to understand that we’re talking about our survival and nothing else—whether or not this beautiful race of people is going to survive on the Earth. That’s what we are talking about, nothing else.
Rattlesnake Roundup
What is the science? To answer this, it’s important to first roughly define what science is.
Simply put, science is the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation, experimentation, and the testing of theories against the evidence obtained.
Rather than assuming readers know more than they actually do, it may be useful to outline the scientific method for matters of context. Per one source:
It involves careful observation, applying rigorous skepticism about what is observed, given that cognitive assumptions can distort how one interprets the observation. It involves formulating hypotheses, via induction, based on such observations; the testability of hypotheses, experimental and the measurement-based statistical testing of deductions drawn from the hypotheses; and refinement (or elimination) of the hypotheses based on the experimental findings.
The scientific method is a process, not an ideologically-driven series of actions to achieve a result. It seems that far more people than I ever imagined could be plagued with ignorance of this fact apparently turned their backs on science during the pandemic and instead adopted the science.
To explain the science, I’ll share a personal anecdote about snakes.
Growing up in Texas, I was exposed to venomous snakes as a child. In particular, I had in-person experiences with diamondbacks, cottonmouths, copperheads, and prairie rattlers.
As well, I’d heard about controversial rattlesnake roundup events during which people gathered to observe captured rattlesnakes. In 2007, I attended the largest rattlesnake roundup in the U.S., held in Sweetwater, Texas.
What I found most fascinating was the snake milker—one who extracts venom from snakes for the purpose of creating anti-venom or for medical research. His hand displayed many bite marks and he jokingly expressed that he’d forgotten how many times he sustained bite injuries over the years.
Considering philosopher David Hume’s is-ought problem, I think of the science. Essentially, Hume suggested that a person cannot derive an ought from an is—that you cannot demand what you think should, must, or ought to be when faced with reality.
When speaking of reality, I mean the world or the state of things as they actually exist, as opposed to an idealistic or notional idea of them. Science concludes that venomous snakes may bite you, though science doesn’t prescribe what you ought to do with this information.
However, rather than simply describing what is, the science determines a course of action to take. Because rattlesnakes may bite you, the science tells you not to handle them.
In this way, the framework of the science may be considered moralistic—elaborating on what is good, bad, right, wrong, or otherwise. A practitioner of the science may say, “It is bad for your health to handle prairie rattlers, so you should leave them alone.”
For a host of reasons, this statement may be inaccurate. For instance, in the case of the trained snake milker, the man collected venom so that anti-venom serum could be made and sent to medical facilities in the U.S.
Though he’d sustained many bites, the man appeared to be in relatively good health. Likewise, I was relieved to know that some venomous snakes weren’t left alone, as the handler reported that the snakes with which he worked were milked and then released back into the wild.
Personally, I prefer science over the science. I don’t need a paternalistic entity telling me what I should, must, or ought to do, or advising me about what is good, bad, right, wrong, or otherwise.
It appears as though E-Fluent understood the is-ought problem, as well, by stating, “Wearin’ masks outside in the fresh air, it makes me sick. Little kids with the slave muzzles, this shit got our brains puzzled.”
It truly is a puzzling affair for me to have observed people over-purchasing toilet paper, wearing masks while driving alone in vehicles, walking in a prescribed direction at a grocery store with plastic barriers at the cash register, and voluntarily submitting to experimental so-called vaccines.
Like the snake milker, I’d rather live life as it is, not by the irrational motivations, illogical conclusions, moralizing stipulations, and shame-perpetuating actions of those hungry for power and thirsty for submission. I’ll pass on the Great Reset—alleged conspiracy theory and actual plot alike.
Conclusion
E-Fluent and Reckonize Real’s “The Great Reset” addresses relevant content in relation to the COVID-19 reaction and the WEF’s purported endeavors. Whether or not the WEF is a shadowy cabal of authoritarians seeking to control the world, I remain uncertain.
However, what remains clear is that many people within the U.S. appeared to have been charmed by snake oil salespersons, likely because of ignorance regarding the difference between science and the science. From where did these fear peddlers obtain their venom?
Do you even know? It’s almost as though they produced a warp speed treatment for the terror they induced. How many bite marks did you sustain in the process?
Those of us who value science and who rejected the science sat back and observed—which is the first step of the scientific method. All the while, I invited the people in my personal and professional life to ask questions about the unreasonable information they received from 2019 to 2022.
Some individuals exercised rational thinking and achieved a higher level of functioning with an improved quality of life. Others left in heartache and now their hearts ache.
How about you, dear reader? What did you do when faced with the science? Moreover, what will you do with the next tremendous transformation the world will likely undergo?
I disallow the passage of time to erase invaluable lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. If you’d like to know more about how you can benefit from similar knowledge, wisdom, and understanding, I may be able to help.
If you’re looking for a provider who works to help you understand how thinking impacts physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral elements of your life, I invite you to reach out today by using the contact widget on my website.
As the world’s foremost old school hip hop REBT psychotherapist, I’m pleased to help people with an assortment of issues from anger (hostility, rage, and aggression) to relational issues, adjustment matters, trauma experience, justice involvement, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, anxiety and depression, and other mood or personality-related matters.
At Hollings Therapy, LLC, serving all of Texas, I aim to treat clients with dignity and respect while offering a multi-lensed approach to the practice of psychotherapy and life coaching. My mission includes: Prioritizing the cognitive and emotive needs of clients, an overall reduction in client suffering, and supporting sustainable growth for the clients I serve. Rather than simply helping you to feel better, I want to help you get better!
Deric Hollings, LPC, LCSW
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