Mitch,
As I see it, "Turn the other cheek." is a circuit breaker to the feedback loops of reciprocation. "Two wrongs don't make a right."
My point of commenting is your notion that thinking can mitigate this current spiraling into the abyss.
The signals we pick up from the noise are what resonates and synchronizes with our prior structures of information. Like layers being added to a pearl, or rings building around a tree.
All to few will look back to see if the grain of sand at the center of the pearl is flawed, or the center of the tree has started to rot. Mostly thinking just means some fitful organization of all the more chaotic elements in some marginally more functional pattern. Basically consolidating another layer to what came before.
Often those foundational icons were not so much some gift of the gods, as some core code to focus some society thousands of years in the past. Frequently altered to fit today's situations.
Consider ancient Israel was a monarchy, while democracy and republicanism originated in pantheistic cultures.
To the Ancients, monotheism basically equated with monoculture. One people, one rule, one god.
While pantheistic religions were premised on the various ideals and ideas interacting.
Constantine adopted Christianity for the monotheism as he was bringing the Empire back together. Handy having a religion where the Big Guy Rules, when you have a political system based around the Big Guy Ruling.
The Catholic Church became the eschatological basis for European monarchy. Divine right of kings, as opposed to content of the governed.
If you read Michael Hudson on the fall of Antiquity;
It would seem the conflict between the state and the oligarchs was a prime factor in requiring some form of autocracy, otherwise the wealthy and powerful rip society apart like a pack of hyenas.
When you think about it, Russia and China have effectively gone back to private government, with Putin and Xi as respective CEO's, specifically to control their oligarchs. Which is why our oligarchs and all their flunkies hate them so passionately.
So asking the average person to "think" does open a pandora's box, of all the indoctrination and rebellion built up inside everyone.
I suspect we will have to let this fire burn its way out, before something new can grow up from the ashes.
The mother of all reality checks is in the mail.
