The motivations of anti-Masons

Someone on the subreddit for Freemasonry recently pointed to a Spotify podcast and suggested we all listen to it for a good laugh. I won't link to it and I didn't laugh. It was a fairly typical conspiracy theory of the type you'll see quite often, and which I address more fully in my Everything wrong with... Freemasonry posting from way back in 2014. But I want to talk about what motivates such efforts because it's not always immediately obvious. There are four sorts of anti-Masonic material out there (at least of the sort that get it all very wrong... someone who just thinks that what we do isn't okay... what's an honest difference of opinion and I take no exception to it).

1. Ignorance
2. Financial gain
3. Saber-rattling
4. Mental illness

Ignorance

Many anti-Masons find online materials like freemasonrywatch or various YouTube videos, presume that they are honest accounts and proceed to announce these "facts" to others. Often this is a self-feeding cycle, with videos based on videos based on podcasts based on blogs and so on...

I take no exception to the motivation, here, but I really do wish that when people read an extraordinary claim they would apply more skepticism and seek extraordinary justification before telling others about it.

I include in this category the sort of anti-Masonry that is meant to be humorous, but is executed in an ignorant way. I'm all for lampooning anti-Masonry (and Masonry for that matter) but when you simply pass on ignorance for the lulz, that's no better than the person introducing said ignorance in the first place.

Financial gain

This is probably the most common motivation of the prolific anti-Masons. YouTube and Patreon revenue are often enough to get people to keep coming back to anti-Masonry. It's exciting stuff and it brings in viewers. There's nothing that we can really do about this sort of anti-Masonry until the public becomes more selective about what it will entertain from content producers. But it is critical that we recognize it when we see it. These are not people who are simply mistaken about Freemasonry. They understand just fine, but they choose to spread falsehoods in order to sell books or get views.

Saber-rattling

This is very much like the above, but the motivation is the energizing of a base rather than direct financial gain. For example, a Catholic anti-Mason may seek to sway other Catholics to their sect or cause within the Church by attacking Freemasonry and suggesting that it's influencing "those other Catholics". This is not unique to Catholicism by any means. I've seen it from other religious groups, political groups and even some cultural/ethnic outlets. It boils down to promoting xenophobia for political gain, and as such I find it reprehensible and one of the darker things that humans regularly get up to.

Mental illness

I do not claim or suggest that someone who doesn't like Freemasonry is mentally ill. Disliking the thing I happen to like isn't a reason that I should suspect that you have a problem with reality, but there are absolutely many mentally ill people out there who gravitate toward Masonic and generally "secret society" oriented conspiracy theory because of their illness. It is critical that we Masons and the public in general not simply point and laugh at these behaviors. Mental illness is no laughing matter and if you cannot help such people in a constructive way, it is best to simply ignore them.

Examples of this sort include variations on the "mind control lasers" techno-paranoia for example.

Accidental anti-Masonry

Finally, there's a fifth type that isn't really anti-Masonry so I didn't include it... it sort of fits into the first category, but sort of doesn't. This is the bleed-over from various other conspiracy theory, some valid an some not. For example, there are many people who are concerned about abuse of power by police in many parts of the world and that conversation often ends up dropping in some anti-Masonry though it's completely unrelated for one of the reasons listed above, and then that connection ends up getting repeated until, almost without anyone having decided to do so, it becomes a central feature of many people's statements about the problem. This happens to lots of groups, not just Masons, and it's really just part of the game of telephone that we call modern society.

Conclusions

So, what can you do? For starters, be a better consumer of media. Don't pass things on because they're amusing if they hurt others or distribute falsehoods. Check sources and verify strange claims. I If someone says something that you find surprising check the details.

For example, if someone tells you that a woman sued McDonald's for serving her coffee that was too hot, look into the details... you might find that the facts of that case aren't at all what you thought they were, and maybe when you re-share that story, you'll give it some context...

What does Freemasonry have to contribute to identity politics

The hot buzzword in modern pop-political philosophy has become "identity politics." As buzzwords go, it's not so bad. It clearly identifies its subject matter and there are real movements related to it. Feminism is one of the most obvious and often cited examples of identity politics, but there are many others from the gay rights movement to various ethnic rights movements, identity politics has been a mainstay of the leftist political landscape for the past couple of generations. On the right, things are a bit more complicated. Certainly, on the fringe there are identity politics movements, but outside of religious identity, most of these have not gained wider traction.

I should clarify a distinction between two types of identity politics: one is focused on dealing with overt and egregious oppression and one is focused on generally improving the role of and removing roadblocks for an identity group. The latter are really what this article is about, but in cases such as the civil rights movement in the mid-20th century US or the gay rights movement of the 1960s-80s, where there really isn't enough social equity to even open a dialogue, most of what I say toward the end of this article may not apply, or may apply in different ways.

Back to Freemasonry...

There are two obvious answers to the question: what does Freemasonry have to contribute in this realm? I believe that they are both wrong, but because they're such widely made arguments, at least in my own experience, I'm going to tackle them first and then move on to why they are wrong and what I think Freemasonry brings to the table.

Nothing

Because Freemasonry (at least as practiced in what most of the world considers "mainstream, recognized jurisdictions") explicitly disclaims any role in the political sphere proper, it is an obvious and, perhaps not entirely unjustified claim that we have no role in identity politics. We don't discuss politics in open Lodge; we don't use Freemasonry as a platform for our political advocacy; and our administrative apparatus (the Grand Lodges) are not politically active outside of their own internal structures.

We have always been here

Freemasonry, of course, has been what some have thought of as a nexus of identity politics for over 300 years! We're an all-men's organization (with some notable exceptions around "adoptive" rites and youth groups that are satellites of the main body of Freemasonry) and we have a strict requirement of a belief in a supreme being. We're arguably the oldest identity-oriented social structure in the West outside of religion (and perhaps some ethnicity groups in Europe). So it might seem obvious that we're not just able to contribute to, but are at the heart of the notion of identity politics.

Our Actual Role

But these are both misleading and ultimately untrue, though to different degrees. It's true that Freemasonry has no explicit role in the public political sphere, and this immediately tears down the second claim. But the first claim is only a part of the story.

Freemasonry has always had something to say about the translation of abstract philosophical ideas into the public sphere, through the transformation of the individual, and in this sense, it can speak to the dangers of identity politics and to the importance of identity perspectives.

First, let's talk about the dangers. Politics has a rough equivalent of the second law of thermodynamics: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. But the political equivalent is more nuanced. For every political position that is advanced in society, an opposing political position is empowered. This does not speak to equalities the way physics can, and that's because the thermodynamic-like properties of politics tend to be quite complex, and the A=B sort of equalities are quickly lost in diffusion through many competing perspectives.

We do know, however, that political movements empower those who are inclined to disagree with their aims (as might seem obvious). This means that creating an identity-focused political movement tends push fringes that oppose that view further into the mainstream. So, when women, for example, advance deeply women-focused political ideas such as feminist epistemology, fringe men's rights groups that were otherwise not taken seriously by the mainstream right begin to advance into the light of day.

But Freemasons have long known that a shared group identity can give an organization a profound capacity to give its participants new perspective on their situation. The reactive men's groups that form in response to feminism, for example, are not going to be focused on improving their capacity to support women's needs in society to equality and dignity, but as a group that affirms the value of the individual, Freemasonry can inspire men to contribute in those areas (as much more eloquently put by Wor. David Riley), thus improving both their own situation and that of women.

What we have to contribute to modern identity politics is a 300+ year old perspective on what works and what doesn't in seeking to improve society by improving the capacity of the individual to reflect on their role in that broader context, and any identity group that takes on that, much more complex and difficult challenge is going to find that the inherent resistance created by advancing agendas based solely on an identity do not go away entirely, but they are substantially reduced.

In short, what Freemasonry has to contribute to identity politics is a way of accomplishing the same goals, within the same groups, but without having to be oppositional. As a men's group Freemasonry does not need to oppose women and women's rights, nor do individual Freemasons. As a faith-oriented group, Freemasonry does not have to oppose atheists, nor do individual Freemasons. And as a continuance of Western ideals, Freemasonry does not have to oppose the vastly expanded interactions in our modern society between East and West, and indeed, many Freemasons have helped to enhance the value of those interactions.

What is initiation, why is it secret and how does society benefit from it?

The Initiation Chamber
Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii

I've made the outrageous claim before that society makes great strides when the initiatic tradition is intact and widely adopted and that civilization suffers when this is not the case. In order to even begin investigating the validity of that claim, we need to understand what it is we mean by "initiation" and how it works. This is the goal of the present article.

So, what is initiation? In its simplest form, it is the recognition of entry into a new role or subculture in a larger society, using a system of ritual, performed exclusively by those who have previously been initiated.

Let's look at some examples to clarify what that means: When a man is going to be married, most Western cultures have some sort of ceremonial celebration at which the man is prepared for his new role in society as a husband. In the US we usually call these "bachelor parties." Similarly, when one joins the military, there are many distinct rituals of bonding and acceptance performed as a part of "basic training."

Within the societies which perform stand-alone initiations such as Freemasonry, Rotary and so on, the role of the initiation is not merely a demarcation which one experiences and then moves on. It is an entry into a fellowship, but the process is still very much the same.

We now have a sense (if only by example) of what initiation is, so why is it almost always secret?

Certainly, there are elements of many initiations that are considered private matters (bachelor parties might involve watching a "stag film" or, more commonly in the modern day, hiring an exotic dancer; military initiations might be considered violent by outsiders; etc.) but this is not the primary reason for secrecy.

Rather, secrecy is a part of the reason for initiation. Forming a hidden "token" of belonging between the initiate and the existing members of the group makes the act of initiation meaningful. We see this in every trivial act of initiation from the proverbial "keys to the executive washroom" to the programming communities where contributors who have been accepted into project are given permission to submit new source code.

This gives us a reference point from which to begin to talk about how initiation benefits the individual, the group and society at large.

For the individual, initiation is a signpost. Before and after initiation one leads different lives: the exoteric and the esoteric. By creating and valuing an esoteric context, we promote the notion that there is meaning and value in belonging and contributing to something which is more than just the sum of its individual members. This idea, in turn, is the hallmark of functioning societies.

To quote Yeats' poem, The Second Coming, "The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity." It is this lack of conviction on the part of those who have the most to contribute which initiation is meant to address and resolve; not simply by bonding the initiate to the existing members, but by bonding them to the initiatic body itself and teaching them that they can add value to their cultural context by seeking the acceptance of their peers.

In a future update, I will address specific historical examples of societies with and without strong initiatic traditions....