Given that we’re said to live in an Information Society, the idea that an entire Nation could succumb to a form of mass hysteria similar to medieval delusions of sacrilege and infanticide would normally be unthinkable. The Canadian scandal involving the Kamloops child deaths, which kept all of Canada on edge for quite some time, exemplifies such an incident—a moral panic that led the Canadian Prime Minister, in a display of national shame, to lower the country’s flags to half-mast. And because the public held the Catholic Church responsible for the alleged murders, Pope Francis was also asked to apologize—a request he humbly fulfilled during a six-day penitential pilgrimage to Canada. The fact that the affair eventually faded away did not, of course, lead to a full reckoning—and this is precisely why we should turn our attention to this question of how such a moral panic could have emerged in the Information age. It was Tom Flanagan who caught our attention because, as a political scientist, he has published two books on the subject (along with others); additionally, he is not only a recognized expert on Canadian colonial history but also has a deep familiarity with how politics operate, thanks to his long tenure as an advisor to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Tom Flanagan taught political science at the University of Calgary until his retirement. His academic interests centered on Canadian Indigenous peoples, especially the Métis, who, led by the millenarian Louis Riel, initiated a rebellion against the Canadian government in 1885. Alongside his academic pursuits, Flanagan also served as a political consultant and columnist for major Canadian newspapers.

Tom Flanagan has recently puplished

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What do you do when you’re a public relations spokeswoman sitting in a BBC studio, being grilled by a relentless host who is insisting that you defend Extinction Rebellion founder Roger Hallam’s absurd claim that climate change will claim billions of lives in just a few years? In actuality, her answer would have been simple — she needed only to follow the group’s creed, drilled into her before the broadcast: just break down in tears. »People need to see crying mothers...« That Zion Lights didn’t bow to the activists’ peer pressure in this situation is a sign of great intellectual integrity — which may have something to do with her family’s history: her parents were Indian rice farmers before moving to the UK, a background that taught her energy poverty is even worse than CO2 emissions — and how technology has done more to liberate women than any hand-wringing or crocodile tears ever could. And this was precisely what prompted us to start a conversation with her, tracing the path of this woman who went from being the press spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion—perhaps the most radical of all Environmental Movements—to becoming an advocate for Nuclear Power: a coming-of-age story that highlights the internal doctrine of this cult — as Zion Lights herself now calls it — while reminding us that demonizing technology is a luxury belief that few people can afford — and one that, as off-grid societies have shown, leads to the worst cognitive dissonance imaginable.

Zion Lights is a writer who was an early environmental activist and press spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion from 2018 to 2020. After parting ways with the group, she shifted toward a pragmatic, technology-oriented environmental movement. She recently published her journey from »grassroots activism to becoming one of the UK’s leading advocates for nuclear energy,« titled Energy is Life: Why Environmentalism Went Nuclear. She has contributed to the Huffington Post for several years and has recently begun writing for Quillette and Human Progress.

Zion Lights has published

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What happens when, in a society that considers itself free of all intellectual taboos, you pursue a question perceived as highly embarrassing, even awkward? This is exactly what happened when Fiona Girkin (after a disturbing personal experience) decided to write a doctoral thesis exploring how female narcissism manifests in the workplace. While male narcissism is well known as the Napoleon complex and even as a form of delusions of grandeur, the female variant is a much more psychologically complex issue, with many candidates portraying themselves as pitiful victims—a strategy that makes deciphering their behavior extremely difficult and even a social taboo. After all, who would want to accuse such a pitiful person of being the real culprit, namely the workplace bully? That Fiona Girkin was prepared to juxtapose the male hero’s journey with a »victim’s journey« was an institutional scandal for the Tasmanian police force, for which she worked as a trainer and consultant. Even though all the stories the police officers told her while on duty supported her version, merely mentioning the possibility of dark personalities in women touched on a long-held social taboo.

Dr. Fiona Girkin is an Australian counselor who studies and teaches about female narcissism. In addition to her counseling practice and consultation services, she also runs a YouTube channel.

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