Spin: The World’s Oldest Profession
Before sin, began spin. Born from a serpent twisting words, professing half-truths, profaning God’s character and propagating doubt. Bringing deadly lies into God’s good world that would lead humanity down a path that’s never about love only about death.
Like putting lipstick on a pig; spin is legitimized as marketing, lauded by the legal profession and loved by politicians. A corporate tool to sell us stuff, a legal trick to twist things and a government tactic to evade truth telling.
My spiritual sleepwalking through life was disturbed by a variety of “aha” epiphanies, one being the realization that I spent my entire adult life in service to pharmaceutical marketing aka selling drugs. A profession whose only purpose is to sell products to generate profit for public entities or private equity; irrespective of the cost to citizens and society.
Fully awake and red pill dosed, I’ve come to understand that spin is a symptom of something far more sinister than manipulation and propaganda. Spin is narrative language we create when we don’t choose humility, grace or truth. Attributes that are about loving God, ourselves and neighbor. Simply stated, spin seeds and sows spiritual Evil.
Sometimes the spin we create are lies, a twisting of language or omitting words to bolster our position even if we know it’s not entirely truthful like oxycontin wasn’t addictive because of its slow-release properties. Other times the spin we create are actions like when the FDA employee who wrote the approval application for OxyContin shortly resigned to take a high paying job with the manufacturer of OxyContin. Big actions and not so little lies that are still decimating and destroying the lives of millions of people.
There is nothing new under the sun. Modern day marketing is spin structured at an organizational and corporate level, but it always begins with the choices we make as individuals. Like all desire it originates within us; within all our hearts.
Instead of simply answering yes or no, and trusting that God alone knows our heart, we try to razzle and dazzle one another. Proclaiming to the world our virtue and value even when its unearned or undeserved. Sometimes it’s unknowingly, but usually it’s knowingly.
We spin and disorient our hearts through boasting about things that aren’t completely accurate about ourselves, or we omit relevant information. We spin when we disparage someone’s reputation through name calling or deliberately misrepresenting what someone said, or taking words out of their original context. We spin when we spread false information, and we spin by blatantly lying. Seven spins that aren’t about heaven on earth but creating hell for other people and ourselves.
The truth will always set you free, but simply answering yes or no can be ego challenging. Particularly in this age of social media where we make snap judgements about other people in a matter of seconds. People we really know nothing about, but we’re told that we’ll “like” this person because of similar interests. People we really know nothing about, but we’re told to “dislike” this person because of dissimilar interests. An artificial algorithm reality that’s totally disconnected from actual reality and authentic face-to-face interactions.
Like all mass media platforms, social media is primarily a conduit to amplify spin. A tool that those in power will use to accumulate more power. A tool that those who are wealthy will use to gain more wealth. A tool that Evil will use to manipulate Love.
Spin pollutes the world because it’s not about truth, so it can never be about Love. Simply answering yes or no, might not booster your worldly reputation but it will benefit your heart. A heart that can easily spin whatever story we want to tell ourselves and others. A heart that only you and God know.
Jesus understood deeply the human heart and our propensity for self-aggrandizement, self-promotion and self-importance. He also knew without any doubt, that there is nothing we can say that will increase our worth and value because we are already worthy and valuable. We are all children of God because we are all created by God. We are images of the Divine whose purpose is to reflect pure Love.
Beware wary of the spin you create with what you say and do. Be especially wary of the unprecedented spin created by those we’re told to “trust”. Love simply says ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.