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.

https://www.jamesdelingpole.co.uk/Writing/Articles/why-we-can-t-all-get-along?preview=1

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.

https://locals.com/jamesdelingpole/feed?post=8012229

‘Why Can’t We All Get Along?’ would have been my preferred title. But that ship has sailed, unfortunately. There has been so much dissent, bitterness and division in the Awake Not-a-Community of late that I fear we are doomed never again to enjoy that wonderful we’re-all-in-this-together feeling we experienced in the heady days of those Covid resistance marches.

One of the reasons for this division I addressed in a piece titled Everyone Is A Baddie.The resistance has been heavily infiltrated from the start, I argued, even - or perhaps especially - in that era where we thought we were all friends and honest brokers. This isn’t paranoia: merely a rueful observation based on a reluctant acknowledgement of how our enemies roll. Control of the narrative has always been very important to them, not just of the Normie mainstream, but also of the dissenting minority.

But I don’t think it’s the case that literally everyone currently pointing the finger at other people in the Awake Not-a-Community and calling them out as Wrong ‘Uns is himself a Wrong ‘Un working for one of the Enemy’s recently activated divide-and-rule sleeper cells. They might be, I suppose: never underestimate the Enemy’s deviousness or reach. I just think it’s more likely that they’re doing what they are doing in good faith, in the conviction they are helping the cause of truth, beauty, goodness, etc.

The problem is that the victims of their righteous zeal may also be people who are doing what they’re doing in good faith, in the conviction they are helping the cause of truth, beauty, goodness, etc.

I say this with some feeling because I’ve been taking quite a bit of this friendly fire myself in the last few weeks and months. And while I have deep suspicions about one or two of my assailants, in the case of most I suspect our disagreements owe more to unacknowledged differences in temperament and outlook than anything more culpable or malign.

That ‘unacknowledged’ part is, I believe, at the root of this problem. You see one or two people in the Awake Not-a-Community swaggering around as if they own the place - as if it’s their right to set the rules on everything from whom you should and shouldn’t trust to what you’re allowed to say to how you personally should be adjusting your behaviour in the war against the Enemy. What this hectoring arrogance suggests to me is a regrettable failure to grasp at least two basic facts about the truth movement: 1. We don’t like being told what to do by ANYONE. That’s why we’re here and 2. We’re not a one-size-fits-all collective with the same goals, values, interests and preferences but a gigantic cat herd of very opinionated and eccentric individuals whose motivations and personalities may not conform to each others' prejudices of what is and isn’t normal.

Puritans v Cavaliers

Well I’m a cavalier, obviously. And not just because I like prancing about on horses in amusing outfits but because I’m cavalier in my spirit. I know we’re in a war against an implacably evil foe and that we’re all going to die but I’d like to go down fighting with a big smile on my face and with a degree of dash and elan. Also, hateful though our enemies are, I’m not in the business of No Quarter.

From the puritan perspective, I can see this makes me a bit of a liability. I’m too squeamish about unearthing potential traitors in our camp. I lack the necessary killer instinct. But I suppose my counter to this is that, to me, the puritan faction carries more than a whiff of that ghastly chap with the scar on his face in Dr Zhivago; of struggle sessions under the Red Guard; of the Terror in the French Revolution. I thought we were supposed to understand that behaviour like this - where everyone is assumed guilty and until they have proven themselves innocent to the satisfaction of the Revolutionary Committee - was a warning from history, not an instruction manual.

Comedians v Grown Ups

I’ve never wanted to be a grown up and hope I never will be. This, I know, puts me at odds with some of the more serious-minded researchers in our field. Occasionally I’ll get the impression, when I’m chatting to someone who has devoted years of study to an important topic, that they’re thinking: “I do wish James Delingpole wasn’t quite so puerile. This is the future of our civilisation at stake!” It’s true, though I listen very carefully and concentrate hard, a lot of my mental energy is devoted to finding a cue for a silly joke. My view, though, is that I’m not doing them a disservice but a favour. My jokes are the delivery mechanism for their message.

Also, people who are funny are often very clever and intellectually serious underneath. Owen Benjamin is a classic example of this. I’ve found more deep wisdom in his jokes than in many a more serious podcaster’s earnest pieties. And I don’t buy the line, advanced by a Grown Up in my Substack comments the other day, that when Benjamin says stuff like “Pandas aren’t real as described” it undermines our cause. [For a full explanation of why I think it doesn’t, read my eloquent apologia]. Maybe pandas ARE totally legit, though I have my doubts, for reasons similar to those outlined by Benjamin to Tucker Carlson. But is the idea that the Chinese are paying dwarves to dress up in black and white furry outfits and fall over in zoos or bioengineering mutant species really so unlikely, given what we know about how the world works?

Christians v the Rest

I love non-Christian Awake people as much as I do Christian Awake people. But we’d be deluding ourselves if we imagined that there weren’t irreconcilable differences in our world view. Mine is undoubtedly coloured - biased, if you prefer - by my Christian perspective. I believe that God created the world; that He made man in His image; that He sent His only son, Jesus Christ to die for our sins. I also believe what Genesis 6:4 tells us about the Nephilim; and what 2 Corinthians 4:4 tells us about Satan being the god of this world. This, for me, goes a long way to providing the most coherent explanation as to what’s going on in the world (ie an epic struggle between good an evil), what the baddies’ motivation is (they’re working for Satan, who tosses them a few material world baubles in return) and how it all ends (God wins). And because I genuinely believe that all this stuff is real and true - it’s not just some whacko position I adopted because I’m crazy - I’m not in the business of giving equal weight to opposing world views which I think are plain wrong.

This is what I tried to explain to Slavlander (formerly Rurik Skywalker) on my recent podcast. “Your geopolitical theories about what’s really happening in Russia seem well researched and plausible,” I said, more or less. “But I never know how far I can trust your overall picture when you also think that the creature with horns and a forked tail and the face and legs of a goat is the team we should back?”

I exaggerate, somewhat. Slavlander insists he is not a devil-worshipper. But under cross examination he did give me the strong impression that his philosophy is essentially Luciferian. This is a problem for me, as it would be I think for any Christian, in the same way that it’s a big problem for me that David Icke’s metaphysics are essentially those of the New Age. There’s no point kidding ourselves that because we’re all Awake we can just fudge this issue. We’re talking about fundamentally oppositional religious philosophies.

Big Picture Fliers v Details Nerds

Some people like to focus on the fine detail. I don’t, unless I really have to. I can do it (as I did in my book Watermelons) but my preferred entry method to any new and unfamiliar conspiracy theory is pattern recognition. The Enemy uses the same tricks again and again and once you know what they are it’s a bit like identifying a serial killer’s work by his trademark tells. It means when there’s yet another fake ‘terrorist’ attack, you’re in a position to call out the psyop in those very early stages when your more cautious conspiracy theorist brethren are saying “Too soon! We don’t have all the facts yet. This one might be real…”

Despite the name I’ve given them I have great admiration for details nerds. I read the essays of people like Escape Key, Iain Davis, Paul Cudenec, and Simon Elmer and am overwhelmed with gratitude for the time and effort they have put into their research because what it means is that I don’t have to bother. They’ve done all the hard work. I just have to precis it and repackage it and maybe sprinkle a bit of glitter on it in order to bring it to the attention of a wider audience.

The problem with details nerds - not all of them and I’m not accusing any of the names mentioned above of this - is that sometimes they can’t see the wood for the trees. That is, they’re so obsessed with minutiae that they sometimes misunderstand the data in their possession - (Empiricism, in my view, is massively overrated: I think it was a con trick foisted on us by the Cabal as part of their Enlightenment war against God) - and draw inaccurate conclusions. And because they are so receipts-bound, they are reluctant to make the imaginative and conceptual leaps with which Big Picture types are so comfortable. Details nerds are sniffy about conspiracy theories for which there is no ‘hard evidence.’ A Big Picture type might counter that the whole point of conspiracies is that most of the ‘hard evidence’ is so heavily suppressed that sometimes inference or educated guesses are all you’ve got. Just because we haven’t seen the death certificate doesn’t mean that Paul is not Dead.

Pitchforks v Deckchairs

Let me honest (as I always strive to be): I’m supremely relaxed about who is and isn’t ‘Controlled opposition.’ This isn’t because I’m pro-spy, or pro-infiltration, or pro-lying, pro-deception or pro any of the other evil practised by the Enemy. It’s because I’m pretty confident that God will do a much better job of judging these people than I ever could; because I feel more disappointed and sad for them (What if they’re being blackmailed? What if they’re desperate? How hard must it be for them to sleep at night?) than I am angry or vengeful; and because I don’t feel as threatened by them as perhaps I should.

Take Whitney Webb, Candace Owens, Catherine Austin Fitts, James Corbett and Tucker Carlson. All these characters have been accused of being Controlled Opposition but that would certainly not put me off having them on my podcast or indeed going on theirs. Where Awake podcasts I’m a great believer in Caveat Emptor: take what you find useful, discard what you consider useless, always listen with a degree of scepticism. Use your discernment, in other words.

So I guess that would put me into the Deckchair category. Pitchfork types would hate me for my dangerous complacency and probably - because paranoid suspicion tends to go with the territory - see it as evidence that I too am part of The Conspiracy. I know they would because a fellow truther, who shall remain nameless but whom hitherto I had considered a friend and ally, totally threw her toys out of the pram when she saw I had recorded a podcast with Charles Malet of UK Column (another organisation which has accused of being Controlled Opposition). She actually brandished this as evidence, in a very heated Telegram exchange, that this was all the proof she needed that I was myself compromised.

Now if you are yourself one of those mad Pitchfork fuckers then I suppose you’ll agree with her. But I prefer to see it like this: I do not like making enemies of people unless they’ve first made an enemy of me; I do not like confrontation on my podcasts. Famously, I do not. My approach, to use a Normie analogy, is more Graham Norton than Jeremy Paxman. I do not grill or interrogate my guests a) because I don’t particularly enjoy the tension it generates and b) because I think people can often be more revealing when they are relaxed and not on the defensive. You can listen for yourself and decide whether you think it worked with Charles Malet. [I’m biased, obvs, but I think it made for a fascinating conversation. Much more than if I’d gone: “So, evil controlled opposition Cabal operative Malet: how do you defend yourself against the charge that the Chinese government now runs UK Column?”]

Ascetics v Hedonists

Some people in the Awake Not-a-Community were born for this moment. They’ve risked prison in order to fulfil their moral duty not to pay their taxes to the criminal enterprise that is The Gubmint; they live off grid and are now experts in milking goats and pickling home-grown cabbages; they’ve protected their wealth with elaborate trusts or hidden gold caches or self-custody Bitcoin stashes; they home school their kids; they’d rather not travel if it means they have to provide biometric data at the airport; they never use smart phones; they always pay in cash and because they’ve made so many sacrifices for the Cause they feel that everyone else should do the same. They’ve got no time for fair-weather Awake types who won’t fully acknowledge how dire and urgent the situation is, nor how imperative it is that we all take action now.

I totally agree with these Ascetic types. (Or Essenes, as I was tempted to call them.) My problem is that like perhaps most of us in the Awake Not-a-Community, I lack the self-discipline, rigour and, frankly, the masochism needed to follow their example to its fullest extent. I feel a bit like St Augustine: “Give me chastity and continence, but not yet!” There are some areas I’ve been pretty good at: standing up to all the mask nonsense during Covid; ruining any chances I might have had of continuing my career as a mainstream journalist. But in other areas, I’m definitely not as self-denying as I could be. For example, I could have taken the principled position that, since Russia insists on biometric data at the airport I wouldn’t go there. My view, though, was: do I really want NOT to see Moscow?

It’s the same with stuff like friendships. Though I hardly I ever see any of my friends and colleagues from my Normie days as a journalist, I certainly wouldn’t cut them dead on principle - or even diss them publicly. Partly, it’s a manners thing: I am a creature of my middle-class education and upbringing. Partly, it’s temperamental: I’m loyal and trusting by nature - and though on several occasions I have been burned as a as result - I prefer to give people the benefit of the doubt and not live in a state of constant paranoia and suspicion.

I Wish We Could All Be Friends

I really do. I find it very dispiriting when I see people in the Awake Not-a-Community turning on one another and splitting into factions, especially when I’m sympathetic to people in both opposing camps and I feel I’m being forced into a position where I have to take a side. And it does, I’m sorry, seem to me a bit navel-gazing and self-indulgent when there are surely so many bigger, worthier targets to aim at. There’s nothing I can do to stop it - not least because, as Miri AF argues here, it’s inevitable. But it’s something I prefer to avoid, as much as I possibly can, because I don’t much like the smell of burning witch any more than I like the priggishly self-righteous glee of the mob who brought her to book. Maybe she did have it coming to her; maybe she didn’t. Either way, the entity who stands most to benefit from the misery and suffering and division and bitterness these unedifying spectacles engender is not one with whom I have any sympathy.

As many of you will know my Dad has just died. Thank you so much for the lovely messages you have all been sending. Every one of them is hugely appreciated.

But without wishing to denigrate any of your kind, thoughtful comments here’s something I just have to get off my chest. Please try to resist using the phrase: “I’m sorry for your loss.”

I know it feels like a sensitive and appropriate formula designed to tread lightly on the delicate feelings of the grieving. But that’s part of the problem. It’s so depressingly, euphemistically greetings-card formulaic. And quite a recent formulation too. It only came into popular usage in the late Twentieth century but now it’s everywhere. People innocently think of it of as ‘the thing you are supposed to say’. If you’re one of them please don’t think I’m criticising you personally. I’d hate that, not least because I’m so grateful that you took the opportunity to say something (of which more in a moment…)

Here’s why I think it doesn’t work, though. It treats the beloved person you’ve just ‘lost’ like a glove or one half of a pair of socks. Or some car keys. Or some spectacles. The dead loved one was not an inanimate object but someone who, till very recently, was living and human and cherished. And the reason they are no longer there is not because they were mislaid on a walk or got stuck to the wall of the drying machine. They didn’t get lost: they DIED.

So what do you say instead? Not ‘my condolences’ - that’s another hideous phrase. The very word ‘condolences’ is so mealy mouthed and prissily formal and doleful (the very sound of it is like a tolling bell) that I wish it could be erased from the dictionary. Originally it had a use: in its singular it meant the state of sharing in another’s pain (‘con’ - with; dolere - to grieve or suffer) but now it’s just another bloody greeting cards formula. I suspect, as with “sorry for your loss”, the Americans are to blame for this development.

Not that I’m advocating silence. That’s even worse. If you know someone’s loved one has just died - and especially if they know that you know - then it’s no use not saying anything just because you are awkward or embarrassed or struggling to find the right phrase. Yes, it’s difficult. But the onus is on you as the grown-up, socially functioning and not-currently-stricken-with-grief person to get over that hurdle. Otherwise you are in danger of causing hurt, even resentment.

In the case of someone’s dad dying, for example, I’d probably say something like “So sorry to hear about your dad.” You don’t need to be any more specific than that. They’re not going to go “Sorry? Which dad?” Or: “My dad? What? Has something happened to him?” But what you’ve done is specifically identified the person being mourned, unlike in the “sorry for your loss” formula which feels almost like a cop-out, as if you know someone has died but you can’t remember exactly who.

There’s no need to tread on eggshells. Special mention here to yet another of my least favourite euphemisms: “pass”/ “pass away”. Not using the word ‘die’ doesn’t make the deceased any less dead. “I was feeling really terrible but because that person used the euphemism ‘passed away’ it feels like my loved one is still with us!” said no grieving person ever.

[I don’t much like the phrase ‘loved one’, either, come to think of it. But I’m not sure there’s any way round that one.]

Anyway, on the ‘no need to tread on eggshells’ front, what I mean is: don’t be afraid to talk about the Elephant in the Room.

The grieving relative is not going to be thinking: “Please nobody remind me that my loved one has just died.” Rather, they are likely going to be all too eager to mention what you might have feared was the unmentionable.

When someone you love has just died you think about them an awful lot. And sometimes it’s nice to put some of those swirling thoughts into words. So being a sympathetic listener is the kindest, most helpful thing to do. You might worry about the risk of being dragged into someone’s grieving psychodrama but this is unlikely to happen. The serious unburdening stuff is reserved for fellow mourners. But when someone less deeply involved asks a follow up question like “And were you close?” you’re not going to bore them rigid with teary reminiscences. You’re just going to be very appreciative that they didn’t look embarrassed and swiftly change the subject as, unfortunately, so many in this grieving-illiterate age of ours tend to do.

One more thing: again - I really do want to stress this - please, please, PLEASE don’t feel ashamed or embarrassed if you used one of my forbidden phrases when writing to me about Dad. You did the most important thing of all. You showed that you cared. Thank you.

Malcolm Hugh Delingpole 1935-2026. If you want to know more about him, check out this great conversation we recorded in 2017 (when we both held rather different views than we did later on issues like Donald Trump)

https://www.jamesdelingpole.co.uk/Podcasts/2017-11-01-malcolm-delingpole

See also these films where my Dad talks to my brother Dick about some of the cine film he took of his early adventures as a racing driver