James Warren <
jwwar...@gmail.com> writes:
> On Sunday, 5 March 2023 at 19:44:11 UTC-4, Mike Spencer wrote:
>
>> Sounds just like TFG and the MAGA Granfalloon.
>
> Are his followers really edified though?
If you mean "instructed and encouraged in moral, intellectual, and
spiritual improvement. enlightened - having knowledge and spiritual
insight", no.
But in the story of the prophetess, neither are her followers. They
enjoy a warm and fuzzy feeling that their specious beliefs have been
validated and the happy but spurious sensation that they have been
"instructed...enlightened...." etc. In this sense, edification is
what suckers enjoy when their gullibility weakens but is then
revived by some reinforcing event.
Without recalling any specific cases, I have a feeling that "edified"
is often used in this ironic or derisory sense, a sense that could not
have escaped Russell in the context quoted.
The MAGA granfalloon is actually quite heterogeneous and rent with
inernal controversy but they can all feel a unifying sense of
belonging and edification (in the above spurious sense) in a
"collection of people engendered and unified by some shared
characteristic that is of no substance or consequence."