Prophet for the Masses

I found myself nodding my head in agreement all the way through this article found on MISES website. (The article, written by Albert Jay Nock, originally appeared in Atlantic Monthly,1936.)

Isaiah was commissioned to preach to the Remnant, to sustain them in their faith - knowing that the masses would be indifferent to his message.

"..As the word masses is commonly used, it suggests agglomerations of poor and underprivileged people, laboring people, proletarians, and it means nothing like that; it means simply the majority. The mass man is one who has neither the force of intellect to apprehend the principles issuing in what we know as the humane life, nor the force of character to adhere to those principles steadily and strictly as laws of conduct; and because such people make up the great and overwhelming majority of mankind, they are called collectively the masses. The line of differentiation between the masses and the Remnant is set invariably by quality, not by circumstance. The Remnant are those who by force of intellect are able to apprehend these principles, and by force of character are able, at least measurably, to cleave to them. The masses are those who are unable to do either..."


Each of us needs to ask ourselves...are we the Remnant - or are we with the masses of indifferent souls without the audacity to believe in TRUTH, or the courage to live our lives according to that knowledge.

"..in any given society the Remnant are always so largely an unknown quantity. You do not know, and will never know, more than two things about them. You can be sure of those — dead sure, as our phrase is — but you will never be able to make even a respectable guess at anything else. You do not know, and will never know, who the Remnant are, nor what they are doing or will do. Two things you do know, and no more: First, that they exist; second, that they will find you. Except for these two certainties, working for the Remnant means working in impenetrable darkness; and this, I should say, is just the condition calculated most effectively to pique the interest of any prophet who is properly gifted with the imagination, insight and intellectual curiosity necessary to a successful pursuit of his trade..."


"..whatever obligation of the kind may be due the masses is already monstrously overpaid. So long as the masses are taking up the tabernacle of Moloch and Chiun, their images, and following the star of their god Buncombe, they will have no lack of prophets to point the way that leadeth to the More Abundant Life; and hence a few of those who feel the prophetic afflatus might do better to apply themselves to serving the Remnant. It is a good job, an interesting job, much more interesting than serving the masses; and moreover it is the only job in our whole civilization, as far as I know, that offers a virgin field."


I can think of more than one 'prophet to the masses', who has nothing to offer the future but more of the same indifference to reality, and intellectual duplicity. One in particular stands out, acclaimed as a 'lightworker', seen by the masses as a beacon of 'change'. The Remnant know who he is, and all that he will never accomplish.

He is a perfect prophet for the masses.