This post immediately brings to mind a quote from Aldous Huxley: “There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution”
Most people today don’t believe they’re oppressed. What can we do to change that?
Are they patriotic conservatives (holding out for some return to a mythological past condition of government) or normies (clinging to the crutch of the collective)?
They’re a delightful mix of both lol. Their biggest problem, like most, is that they’re too overworked to think deeply about the situation and see how screwed we all truly are if things don’t change.
Convenient… I think, generally, if there’s a topic that a group of people is not ‘allowed’ to speak about at all, there’s probably more to it than meets the eye.
Very little. Most are quite happy to be controlled as long as they are comfortable. Food, TV, internet access, a house etc.
Very few yearn for freedom. The hope is that those of us who do want freedom will act to bring it about. But the masses? They are quite content to let it all happen.
Me too. Prior to that I had dismissed such thoughts as too negative, too bleak a view of humanity.
But Covid changed everything for me. Especially my view of the professional classes. The doctors and scientists, the corporate workers and accountants etc. Not a backbone among them. They got injected with a mystery compound in parking lots for a donut because a guy on TV told them to. Not an ounce of critical thinking.
I am not looking to them to solve my problems in life.
The 80:20 rule supports the theory that it only needs 20% of us to change the world into a better place and become a force for good. Not only to increasingly attract nay-sayers to the fold but also to provide a way for people to transition from the situation that is obviously causing them harm. The question for me is, what are WE the 20% doing? At the moment we are still very disconnected in terms of actually working together to build our new future. It is happening and your work, Chris, is testament to the fact that we have a wealth of intelligence and resources already cooking away on the back-burner. On the basis that the current system is falling apart by the day with all the best people left in the system starting to jump ship, the trajectory is certain. I just wish people would talk A LOT more about the future they want to see. Why not use our creative energy to manifest the future WE want to see? We are on the cusp of change so why not let's get imaginative and start to enjoy the process. The shower in so-called power deserve not one drop of our precious energy . We have far more important work to do!
People's focus on doom and gloom is understandable…
Evolutionarily, we are wired to look for threats. The system (the biggest threat of all) is all that people know, and so that is what they focus on. And without some clear sense of what to do next, they are stuck in a doom spiral. I totally get it.
Our job is to show them a pathway out of the darkness. Once they see it, they will walk it.
Thank you, I agree one hundred per cent. We have to show people that there is an alternative of infinite possibility. This has given me an idea for a new post to walk my talk as it were and paint a picture that might encourage others to do the same. I highly recommend looking into Erich Fromm's work to substantiate your findings (and Abraham Maslow who I am working on next). The answers have or currently are being written. They are simply hidden and disjoined at this point. Our work as I see it is to find a way to weave these fundamental truths together into an overall universal truth that humanity can benefit from and follow.
I do some similar work to Maslow on the subject of human wants and needs in a later chapter of the book I am incrementally releasing here. It is a fascinating subject.
I have not read much from Fromm. I have heard praise from more than one person, saying that he raised some powerful and good points. But he was also a Marxist, so I know there will also be some seriously wrong ideas interwoven in with the good ones. I hope people who are reading Fromm are on the lookout for that!
It is a misconception that Erich Fromm was a Marxist - a great way to discredit his work as a tactic used by those who would not want his genuine love for humanity to come to light. His work is about transitioning to a 'being' mode of existence that benefits everyone from the 'having' mode of existence we still find ourselves in today. This is explained in great detail in 'To Have or To Be' where it becomes clear that Erich was more interested in Marx's work 'before its complete perversion by Soviet Communism and reformist Western socialism to a materialism aimed at achieving wealth for everyone'. He saw how 'Western social democrats and their bitter opponents, communists within and without the Soviet Union, transformed socialism into a purely economic concept, the goal of which was maximum consumption, maximum use of the machines.' He says: 'Marx sensed the need to prove that socialism would necessarily develop according to the law of economics. Consequently, he sometimes tended to develop formulations that could be misunderstood as deterministic, not giving a sufficient role to human will and imagination in the historical process.' He goes on to say: 'Such unintended concessions to the spirit of capitalism facilitated the process of perverting Marx's system into one that was not fundamentally different from capitalism.' To Have or To be is a challenge for me to encapsulate where Fromm was coming from and how important it is to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I am working on it, safe in the knowledge that any fundamental truths discovered (often hidden amongst tomes of speculation, assumption and lies) need to be found, as Fromm did with Marxist theory, and brought into the fold.
That's wonderful, thank you. I am thrilled and know his work will resonate with you. He was exceptional in extracting the 'good bits' of others' work, what I call fundamental truths. Interestingly, he didn't completely discredit Freud either. Something I would be compelled to do without such subtle re-directions. Fromm's work really is superb in so many ways, especially the link he made between 'Biophilia' (our need for Nature) and 'Humanistic Potentiality' (as per Maslow's Self Actualisation) which I posted here the other day. I have chosen 5 of his books to review and then I will move onto Maslow.
At first out bondage is with mental chains, then paper chains, then rope and finally titanium steel chains. Of course, much of the bondage is invisible in the form of mind-f**kery and illusions of such. Our masters cannot exist without exercising firm control (rules and limits) and without them they are no longer masters and they suffer greatly at the thought of being the same as the slave population.
In effect, the masters are never masters as it is all a mind game based on fear. In effect, there is no human better than another. And in effect, no government exists without slavery. It is impossible. And no human master exists without slavery. For anyone you give your mind to will eventually have control over you.
Even at whatever point the American system was functioning at its best, it was still fundamentally non-consensual. And we still believed that some of us must be made masters over the rest.
And that is the case for nearly every other government that has ever been.
What about all of the rights that elected representatives of government have that we also have? The antithesis of your article would be an exercise on harsh yet utilitarian realism - we have the right to lobby for what we want, yet even when one makes a calendar reminder to call legislators about an issue or a bill, it is often not done (and least in my case - and I don’t see a lot of people doing much differently.) what your saying is true mostly of the federal level of government but we have federalism which actually indicates two level of government. One can vote for their own raises, the other can’t. One allows you or I to, with effort and research, have a direct impact on the legislative agenda and what proposed bills come up for vote. One pays enough so that anyone can run, and one pays so little that only the retired and wealthy can run (and it’s not the one you would first expect). There are institutions and mechanisms for promoting the issues of public concern and not private interests and they get lumped in with all other criticism of “lobbying” and its public lobbying, outnumbered by private lobbyists 9-to-1. That’s something that, if we talk about and confront as one of the major causes of the predicament we are in with regards government, we can change. If we don’t look at what IS within our power to effect, then yes, we are fundamentally acting like slaves demoralized and degraded by what is not. The rights given us are implicit not explicit - one has to reach out and grab them, exercise them, or they pale to the rights of those who will or can. It’s not a popular sentiment but that just makes it more important to point out. Especially for the younger and future generations, if not our own moral and civic edification
'Tis a fine and well-thought-out challenge. Thank you!
There are a lot of different ways to respond. Democracy as a system is riddled with holes. They become easier to see once we start clearing away the mystique with which we've all been raised. Let me just pick a few…
" we have the right to lobby for what we want, yet even when one makes a calendar reminder to call legislators about an issue or a bill, it is often not done (and least in my case - and I don’t see a lot of people doing much differently.)"
—This is because we have no strong incentive to do so. Zillions of pages for thousands of bills and laws. Multifarious political dynamics. Complex issues. Complex process. Understanding all of this takes tons of time—time that few people have. And for what? Just to be one infinitesimally small fraction of an aggregated vote? Just to be one voice among thousands or millions on an issue? And then having to do the same thing on every issue? People don't avoid doing this because they're stupid and lazy; they avoid doing it because it is basically pointless. The cost-benefit math just does not work out.
Now, if they were researching what car to buy, or what private arbitration firm to choose for an important case, it is worth their time, because they can have a direct effect on their own lives by doing that research. By contrast, no one spends 100 hours researching so that they can buy 1/100,000th of a car. A car that they might not even be allowed to drive anyway—just like you might spend a ton of time researching and lobbying for a bill, only to have it fail anyway. People don't bother because it is not worth bothering.
Democracy may have been a necessary step away from hereditary monarchy, but it is not the ultimate evolution in governance. In fact, it is a fairly irrational and immoral way of doing things.
There is a Lysander Spooner quote that sums up a great deal. It is too long so I will post it in a second reply. But his point is this: a system of voting that requires people to band together to form majorities in order to cram their agenda down the throat of the minority is not good; it is very, very evil. One of the many ways in which it is evil is that it forces people into a war against one another. One person sees that others are going to use the ballot against him, and thus realizes that if he does not use the ballot as a weapon in response, he will be beaten. So he is forced into a battle he did not initially choose. THAT is the Hobbesian war of all against all.
None of us chose to be governed in this way. Why should we have to? I am told my consent to be governed is "tacit" and "implied," and that "consent" is then enforced by the point of a gun. Then I am told that I am privileged because I can participate in a process whereby I can cast a single vote like a piece of confetti into a howling gale. Then I get to watch my vote to see whether it lands in a bigger pile or a smaller pile. (Assuming that whatever election I am voting in is not rigged in some way.)
And no matter which pile it lands in, stuff will still be done to me to which I did not consent. Force will still be initiated against me even if I have not initiated force against anyone else. Force will also be initiated against others, in my country and around the globe, IN MY NAME, even though none of those victims have ever harmed me.
And all of this will happen whether I vote or not, whether my guy wins or not.
And even if I participate really really hard, and spend tons of time researching and lobbying, the end result is basically the same. And I am told that if I do not do these almost-pointless things, others will do them to me, so I must participate.
That is not a good system. That is a wicked, wicked system.
"If we don’t look at what IS within our power to effect, then yes, we are fundamentally acting like slaves demoralized and degraded by what is not."
—Don't you see, my naturally free fellow human, that what you just said is part of the slave mentality? "[W]hat IS within our power to effect" is the tiny fractional vote that a class of masters have doled out to us. I know you did not mean to…I know that we were all raised to believe that our constitutional republic is the pinnacle of freedom-protection…but what you just said is, in essence, that it is our civic duty to be happy with the pathetic little scrap of pretend power to control what will be done to us against our will. That is slave-thinking.
We are free, self-owning beings with the natural right to do anything at all, so long as it does not initiate force against another. Our rights are essentially infinite. But we have been told that what we actually get to enjoy of those rights is what a class of masters doles out. And that our participation in the process described above constitutes "freedom." And we believe it.
Until we escape that mental prison…until we let go of the notion that our species is so rotten that we must empower a special class of people from among us to rule us…until we believe that we are capable of creating order in some way other than this master-slave dynamic, we will remain a slave species.
The Spooner quote is actually at the end here. The article itself is worth reading as it further sums up my point.
I appreciate your challenging push-back on my challenging push-back :) what you are describing sounds to me like some of beautiful ideas found in anarchist writings of the labor movement, may of whom fled from harsh communist societies and can attest that democracy is - or was at least - better than both monarchies and communist governments both.
I agree that the vote, which many have already given up on as a meaningful civic act, doesn’t carry much weight or Instill/provide much in the way of freedoms, compared to what could. A constitutional republic in my opinion though, still IS a pinnacle of freedom-protection at the level of state government. Though the bill I authored wasn’t passed, that was because it was of such personal significance to me that I alone couldn’t lobby the committee members to rally a Yes vote without breaking down into tears (having to do with the rights of children in failed adoption hearings), it was STILL voted on. Had it been about some other topic I was willing to make incessant phone calls to my district rep office about, one less personal, I could have more easily argued for its winning rationale and convinced others to join me in so doing. Though it took me roughly one phone call a year for seven years (sad that it took so long but I did actually speak personally with my district rep for at least an hour every time!) to get to a point where she invited me to author something, it would have taken much less if i had been 1.) an organization representing public interests, 2.) moneyed and with a vehicle and 3.) been able to locate others with the same concern. It didn’t take me very much time , the lobbying itself, given I was going it alone. Ultimately writing the bill took me two days and it was voted on three months later by the relevant committee (who were mostly voting on legislation sponsored by reps whose time was taken up by vocal advocates from the community, regular people and businesses owner and teachers like you and I.). The sad reality that they aren’t people that seek the spotlight or praised by the public doesn’t change that it’s work being done every day. I think your arguments are really salient when it comes to the way highly paid, sought-after federal legislation is considered, but those just don’t translate in real terms to how your municipal, district, and state are governed.
But even if it did, and let assume that it does for areas of high populations and lots of demand on district representatives time (metropolis areas and counties with big cities, let’s say), I’m not clear on what kind of government you would propose as a more ideal alternative?
Also, let me just add that I completely agree that the system needs to make learning about upcoming legislation, and voicing opinion on it, easier to do. But that is something I see people working on or wanting to work on (as in the example of Elon Musk saying that Grok will at some point be able to summarize proposed legislation). I see, with some very specific changes to education around government, a world where democracy does serve the interests not of all or everyone, but everyone willing to speak up WHERE and WHEN it PRACTICALLY MATTERS , on behalf of their already endowed rights - instead of solely on Twitter / X and in YouTube ranting for engagement bait. illimitable rights though they may be, they only appear to shrink in proportion to the hesitation people show about exercising them, or ignorance about how best to do that.
But, I know I’m an outlet in this regard. But I remain idealistic that at some point I can illustrate for people just how simple it is, on the ground, so that those processes of legislation coming up for vote are less shrouded in mystery at least again, at the state and lower levels
Not a lot, save for what I’ve read of Emma G and some of her male contemporaries of that time. Definitely would love to read some authors that inform your perspective if you have any suggestions?
Also I should revise my sentiment where I incorrectly stated in my haste to reply, “I see a world where democracy serves the interests of not everyone” . I do believe it should serve if not the interests of everyone, the endowed rights regardless of each person, regardless of their/his/her time or ability to advocate for, assert and exercise those rights. They should just be there, as you imply, not subject to the results of individual elections. But that’s what I’m trying to say as well, in my own way.
"the endowed rights regardless of each person, regardless of their/his/her time or ability to advocate for, assert and exercise those rights."
—It should, but it doesn't. And not because it is failing in some way to be as good a democracy as it ought to, but rather because democracy (voting) itself inherently VIOLATES the rights of every individual.
You own yourself. You have exclusive personal control (both naturally and morally) over your own thoughts, actions, and choices. This constitutes dispositive decision-making authority over your own life and being—in essence, a property right in your own person.
Anything—ANYTHING—that initiates coercive force upon you, or imposes something without your explicit, transparent, ongoing consent, violates your self-ownership. It violates the very thing that makes you a person. The thing that gives you your rights.
Democracies—even the constitutional republican kind—do that as part of their normal function. Not just when they have been perverted, but when they are functioning normally. Our system of government itself IS a rights violation.
P.S - apologies for the typos, Christopher, I was and am eager to express my learnings from
experience trying to affect legislation - as it makes the cynicism I observe quite hard to swallow, for multiple reasons (perhaps I just hate the idea that I wasted my time)
No worries on the typos, and you did not waste your time at all. I found your story about your lobbying efforts very interesting, as I am sure others did too. And I appreciate your challenge, and taking the time!
Thanks for the clear argument … I conflated delegating powers with creating powers (apparently). But if we don’t have the right, we can’t delegate it either.
You describe what I take to be the chief problem with government, i.e., the double standard applied to two different groups: government agents and private individuals. The standard applied to the former group is more lenient than the one applied to the latter.
Two opposed theories of justice are the libertarian theory and the authoritarian theory. According to the former theory, all moral agents have equal natural moral rights and obligations. According to the latter theory, agents are divided into two groups: a superior group and an inferior group. Members of the superior group have special rights members of the inferior group lack. Members of the inferior group have burdensome obligations members of the superior group lack. In private life, those who regard themselves as being in the superior group typically commit the fallacy of special pleading to account for their exalted position.
In political life, the authoritarian theory allegedly bestows on members of the superior group the right to rule members of the inferior group and imposes on members of the inferior group the obligation to obey members of the superior group. To justify their superior position, government agents invoke political authority, defined by Michel Huemer in The Problem of Political Authority as “the hypothesized moral property in virtue of which governments may coerce people in certain ways not permitted to anyone else and in virtue of which citizens must obey governments in situations in which they would not be obligated to obey anyone else.”
Huemer spends the first half of his book demolishing the doctrine of political authority. He has stated that many philosophers today reject political authority because they find it untenable. However, most still accept statism on consequentialist grounds.
Let's say I wanted to secede. Just me, on my little piece of property. Set aside logistical problems about roads, etc. What force would you use to prevent me from doing so? Not what force would you like to see the state use against me to prevent me. What force would you PERSONALLY be willing to deploy to keep me…?
We periodically need the tenants of a perverted representative government listed out clearly, to break the cognitive stupor and dissonance, that the masses happily wallow in, like proverbial pigs in shit.
The last 4 words here sum it all up:
"But they act as if they do, and we let them. "
We've always handed the opportunists and manipulators the keys of our demise, in exchange for shiny toys and distractions - manufactured by the very people who would destroy us. The blame doesn't lie with them and their evil or abhorrent actions/natures. It lies at our feet, in the form of willful apathy, ignorance and avoidance - bought in some cases for the mere price of a happy meal. That is what's brought us to this current time, of self destruction.
This, as you well know is not a knew phenomenon, but can be easily found in the preceding centuries, across varied societies. So the problem lies with the masses, the commoners who not only sell their sovereignty for cheap, empty baubles but then happily ignore the process, they sold themselves and their families into.
And...the next few generation - because they've been taught to - will sell the same things for even less.
But there is always a Remnant keeping the torch lit. And I believe that right now, our numbers are growing. We will never be a majority, but we do not need a majority. We just need critical mass!
Yes indeed. As a society, we have returned to a pre-Enlightenment mentality in which the ruling class enjoys not only a monopoly on force, but also a monopoly on acceptable discourse and ideology.
Love it. I'm waiting for the article on all forms of taxation that are for our "good". Everyone acknowledges income taxes and sales taxes but all forms of forced "insurance" are also taxes. Beyond being forced to buy house, health, and auto insurances, we're also taxed by countless government middlemen in the economy. Try to purchase alcohol for resale - every state has a different (and costly) middleman for just one example.
This post immediately brings to mind a quote from Aldous Huxley: “There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution”
Most people today don’t believe they’re oppressed. What can we do to change that?
"What can we do to change that?"
—Tell them that they have Stockholm Syndrome, and point out how utterly pathetic that is?
Okay, so maybe there are some more productive options than that out there :-)
I’ve tried a version of this method on my parents and siblings to no avail thus far. But I’ll hold out hope for the rest of the country!
Are they patriotic conservatives (holding out for some return to a mythological past condition of government) or normies (clinging to the crutch of the collective)?
They’re a delightful mix of both lol. Their biggest problem, like most, is that they’re too overworked to think deeply about the situation and see how screwed we all truly are if things don’t change.
Yeah, I guess that's a pretty common impediment!
Yup… couple this with the fact that talking about this ‘enslavement’ is completely taboo, and it seems like we’re basically screwed.
The veneer is starting to chip, but in order for any real change to be made, people will unfortunately need to first become a lot less comfortable.
Yeah, I got critiqued on the grounds that as a 'privileged white boy,' I cannot use such language.
Convenient… I think, generally, if there’s a topic that a group of people is not ‘allowed’ to speak about at all, there’s probably more to it than meets the eye.
Quite so!
Very little. Most are quite happy to be controlled as long as they are comfortable. Food, TV, internet access, a house etc.
Very few yearn for freedom. The hope is that those of us who do want freedom will act to bring it about. But the masses? They are quite content to let it all happen.
Isn't that so sad? I realized this during covid. It forced a drastic paradigmatic shift in my head.
Me too. Prior to that I had dismissed such thoughts as too negative, too bleak a view of humanity.
But Covid changed everything for me. Especially my view of the professional classes. The doctors and scientists, the corporate workers and accountants etc. Not a backbone among them. They got injected with a mystery compound in parking lots for a donut because a guy on TV told them to. Not an ounce of critical thinking.
I am not looking to them to solve my problems in life.
Definitely not looking for them to solve anything! I want as little as possible to do with any of them. Did you ever read this?
https://christophercook.substack.com/p/architects-operatives-cheerleadersoh
The 80:20 rule supports the theory that it only needs 20% of us to change the world into a better place and become a force for good. Not only to increasingly attract nay-sayers to the fold but also to provide a way for people to transition from the situation that is obviously causing them harm. The question for me is, what are WE the 20% doing? At the moment we are still very disconnected in terms of actually working together to build our new future. It is happening and your work, Chris, is testament to the fact that we have a wealth of intelligence and resources already cooking away on the back-burner. On the basis that the current system is falling apart by the day with all the best people left in the system starting to jump ship, the trajectory is certain. I just wish people would talk A LOT more about the future they want to see. Why not use our creative energy to manifest the future WE want to see? We are on the cusp of change so why not let's get imaginative and start to enjoy the process. The shower in so-called power deserve not one drop of our precious energy . We have far more important work to do!
Thank you, and I very much agree.
People's focus on doom and gloom is understandable…
Evolutionarily, we are wired to look for threats. The system (the biggest threat of all) is all that people know, and so that is what they focus on. And without some clear sense of what to do next, they are stuck in a doom spiral. I totally get it.
Our job is to show them a pathway out of the darkness. Once they see it, they will walk it.
Thank you, I agree one hundred per cent. We have to show people that there is an alternative of infinite possibility. This has given me an idea for a new post to walk my talk as it were and paint a picture that might encourage others to do the same. I highly recommend looking into Erich Fromm's work to substantiate your findings (and Abraham Maslow who I am working on next). The answers have or currently are being written. They are simply hidden and disjoined at this point. Our work as I see it is to find a way to weave these fundamental truths together into an overall universal truth that humanity can benefit from and follow.
I do some similar work to Maslow on the subject of human wants and needs in a later chapter of the book I am incrementally releasing here. It is a fascinating subject.
I have not read much from Fromm. I have heard praise from more than one person, saying that he raised some powerful and good points. But he was also a Marxist, so I know there will also be some seriously wrong ideas interwoven in with the good ones. I hope people who are reading Fromm are on the lookout for that!
Looking forward to your new posts!
It is a misconception that Erich Fromm was a Marxist - a great way to discredit his work as a tactic used by those who would not want his genuine love for humanity to come to light. His work is about transitioning to a 'being' mode of existence that benefits everyone from the 'having' mode of existence we still find ourselves in today. This is explained in great detail in 'To Have or To Be' where it becomes clear that Erich was more interested in Marx's work 'before its complete perversion by Soviet Communism and reformist Western socialism to a materialism aimed at achieving wealth for everyone'. He saw how 'Western social democrats and their bitter opponents, communists within and without the Soviet Union, transformed socialism into a purely economic concept, the goal of which was maximum consumption, maximum use of the machines.' He says: 'Marx sensed the need to prove that socialism would necessarily develop according to the law of economics. Consequently, he sometimes tended to develop formulations that could be misunderstood as deterministic, not giving a sufficient role to human will and imagination in the historical process.' He goes on to say: 'Such unintended concessions to the spirit of capitalism facilitated the process of perverting Marx's system into one that was not fundamentally different from capitalism.' To Have or To be is a challenge for me to encapsulate where Fromm was coming from and how important it is to not throw the baby out with the bathwater. I am working on it, safe in the knowledge that any fundamental truths discovered (often hidden amongst tomes of speculation, assumption and lies) need to be found, as Fromm did with Marxist theory, and brought into the fold.
That was an excellent description and a strong defense. I'm gonna have to get to reading him at some point!
That's wonderful, thank you. I am thrilled and know his work will resonate with you. He was exceptional in extracting the 'good bits' of others' work, what I call fundamental truths. Interestingly, he didn't completely discredit Freud either. Something I would be compelled to do without such subtle re-directions. Fromm's work really is superb in so many ways, especially the link he made between 'Biophilia' (our need for Nature) and 'Humanistic Potentiality' (as per Maslow's Self Actualisation) which I posted here the other day. I have chosen 5 of his books to review and then I will move onto Maslow.
At first out bondage is with mental chains, then paper chains, then rope and finally titanium steel chains. Of course, much of the bondage is invisible in the form of mind-f**kery and illusions of such. Our masters cannot exist without exercising firm control (rules and limits) and without them they are no longer masters and they suffer greatly at the thought of being the same as the slave population.
In effect, the masters are never masters as it is all a mind game based on fear. In effect, there is no human better than another. And in effect, no government exists without slavery. It is impossible. And no human master exists without slavery. For anyone you give your mind to will eventually have control over you.
And most of the species have given over their minds.
Well said!
Change is coming.
AMERICA is supposed to be :
Of the PEOPLE
By the PEOPLE
& For the PEOPLE
. . . so now what?
Yes. But look even closer…
Even at whatever point the American system was functioning at its best, it was still fundamentally non-consensual. And we still believed that some of us must be made masters over the rest.
And that is the case for nearly every other government that has ever been.
Something much bigger needs to change.
What about all of the rights that elected representatives of government have that we also have? The antithesis of your article would be an exercise on harsh yet utilitarian realism - we have the right to lobby for what we want, yet even when one makes a calendar reminder to call legislators about an issue or a bill, it is often not done (and least in my case - and I don’t see a lot of people doing much differently.) what your saying is true mostly of the federal level of government but we have federalism which actually indicates two level of government. One can vote for their own raises, the other can’t. One allows you or I to, with effort and research, have a direct impact on the legislative agenda and what proposed bills come up for vote. One pays enough so that anyone can run, and one pays so little that only the retired and wealthy can run (and it’s not the one you would first expect). There are institutions and mechanisms for promoting the issues of public concern and not private interests and they get lumped in with all other criticism of “lobbying” and its public lobbying, outnumbered by private lobbyists 9-to-1. That’s something that, if we talk about and confront as one of the major causes of the predicament we are in with regards government, we can change. If we don’t look at what IS within our power to effect, then yes, we are fundamentally acting like slaves demoralized and degraded by what is not. The rights given us are implicit not explicit - one has to reach out and grab them, exercise them, or they pale to the rights of those who will or can. It’s not a popular sentiment but that just makes it more important to point out. Especially for the younger and future generations, if not our own moral and civic edification
'Tis a fine and well-thought-out challenge. Thank you!
There are a lot of different ways to respond. Democracy as a system is riddled with holes. They become easier to see once we start clearing away the mystique with which we've all been raised. Let me just pick a few…
" we have the right to lobby for what we want, yet even when one makes a calendar reminder to call legislators about an issue or a bill, it is often not done (and least in my case - and I don’t see a lot of people doing much differently.)"
—This is because we have no strong incentive to do so. Zillions of pages for thousands of bills and laws. Multifarious political dynamics. Complex issues. Complex process. Understanding all of this takes tons of time—time that few people have. And for what? Just to be one infinitesimally small fraction of an aggregated vote? Just to be one voice among thousands or millions on an issue? And then having to do the same thing on every issue? People don't avoid doing this because they're stupid and lazy; they avoid doing it because it is basically pointless. The cost-benefit math just does not work out.
Now, if they were researching what car to buy, or what private arbitration firm to choose for an important case, it is worth their time, because they can have a direct effect on their own lives by doing that research. By contrast, no one spends 100 hours researching so that they can buy 1/100,000th of a car. A car that they might not even be allowed to drive anyway—just like you might spend a ton of time researching and lobbying for a bill, only to have it fail anyway. People don't bother because it is not worth bothering.
Democracy may have been a necessary step away from hereditary monarchy, but it is not the ultimate evolution in governance. In fact, it is a fairly irrational and immoral way of doing things.
There is a Lysander Spooner quote that sums up a great deal. It is too long so I will post it in a second reply. But his point is this: a system of voting that requires people to band together to form majorities in order to cram their agenda down the throat of the minority is not good; it is very, very evil. One of the many ways in which it is evil is that it forces people into a war against one another. One person sees that others are going to use the ballot against him, and thus realizes that if he does not use the ballot as a weapon in response, he will be beaten. So he is forced into a battle he did not initially choose. THAT is the Hobbesian war of all against all.
None of us chose to be governed in this way. Why should we have to? I am told my consent to be governed is "tacit" and "implied," and that "consent" is then enforced by the point of a gun. Then I am told that I am privileged because I can participate in a process whereby I can cast a single vote like a piece of confetti into a howling gale. Then I get to watch my vote to see whether it lands in a bigger pile or a smaller pile. (Assuming that whatever election I am voting in is not rigged in some way.)
And no matter which pile it lands in, stuff will still be done to me to which I did not consent. Force will still be initiated against me even if I have not initiated force against anyone else. Force will also be initiated against others, in my country and around the globe, IN MY NAME, even though none of those victims have ever harmed me.
And all of this will happen whether I vote or not, whether my guy wins or not.
And even if I participate really really hard, and spend tons of time researching and lobbying, the end result is basically the same. And I am told that if I do not do these almost-pointless things, others will do them to me, so I must participate.
That is not a good system. That is a wicked, wicked system.
"If we don’t look at what IS within our power to effect, then yes, we are fundamentally acting like slaves demoralized and degraded by what is not."
—Don't you see, my naturally free fellow human, that what you just said is part of the slave mentality? "[W]hat IS within our power to effect" is the tiny fractional vote that a class of masters have doled out to us. I know you did not mean to…I know that we were all raised to believe that our constitutional republic is the pinnacle of freedom-protection…but what you just said is, in essence, that it is our civic duty to be happy with the pathetic little scrap of pretend power to control what will be done to us against our will. That is slave-thinking.
We are free, self-owning beings with the natural right to do anything at all, so long as it does not initiate force against another. Our rights are essentially infinite. But we have been told that what we actually get to enjoy of those rights is what a class of masters doles out. And that our participation in the process described above constitutes "freedom." And we believe it.
Until we escape that mental prison…until we let go of the notion that our species is so rotten that we must empower a special class of people from among us to rule us…until we believe that we are capable of creating order in some way other than this master-slave dynamic, we will remain a slave species.
The Spooner quote is actually at the end here. The article itself is worth reading as it further sums up my point.
https://christophercook.substack.com/p/democracy-is-hell-we-are-sisyphus
I appreciate your challenging push-back on my challenging push-back :) what you are describing sounds to me like some of beautiful ideas found in anarchist writings of the labor movement, may of whom fled from harsh communist societies and can attest that democracy is - or was at least - better than both monarchies and communist governments both.
I agree that the vote, which many have already given up on as a meaningful civic act, doesn’t carry much weight or Instill/provide much in the way of freedoms, compared to what could. A constitutional republic in my opinion though, still IS a pinnacle of freedom-protection at the level of state government. Though the bill I authored wasn’t passed, that was because it was of such personal significance to me that I alone couldn’t lobby the committee members to rally a Yes vote without breaking down into tears (having to do with the rights of children in failed adoption hearings), it was STILL voted on. Had it been about some other topic I was willing to make incessant phone calls to my district rep office about, one less personal, I could have more easily argued for its winning rationale and convinced others to join me in so doing. Though it took me roughly one phone call a year for seven years (sad that it took so long but I did actually speak personally with my district rep for at least an hour every time!) to get to a point where she invited me to author something, it would have taken much less if i had been 1.) an organization representing public interests, 2.) moneyed and with a vehicle and 3.) been able to locate others with the same concern. It didn’t take me very much time , the lobbying itself, given I was going it alone. Ultimately writing the bill took me two days and it was voted on three months later by the relevant committee (who were mostly voting on legislation sponsored by reps whose time was taken up by vocal advocates from the community, regular people and businesses owner and teachers like you and I.). The sad reality that they aren’t people that seek the spotlight or praised by the public doesn’t change that it’s work being done every day. I think your arguments are really salient when it comes to the way highly paid, sought-after federal legislation is considered, but those just don’t translate in real terms to how your municipal, district, and state are governed.
But even if it did, and let assume that it does for areas of high populations and lots of demand on district representatives time (metropolis areas and counties with big cities, let’s say), I’m not clear on what kind of government you would propose as a more ideal alternative?
Also, let me just add that I completely agree that the system needs to make learning about upcoming legislation, and voicing opinion on it, easier to do. But that is something I see people working on or wanting to work on (as in the example of Elon Musk saying that Grok will at some point be able to summarize proposed legislation). I see, with some very specific changes to education around government, a world where democracy does serve the interests not of all or everyone, but everyone willing to speak up WHERE and WHEN it PRACTICALLY MATTERS , on behalf of their already endowed rights - instead of solely on Twitter / X and in YouTube ranting for engagement bait. illimitable rights though they may be, they only appear to shrink in proportion to the hesitation people show about exercising them, or ignorance about how best to do that.
But, I know I’m an outlet in this regard. But I remain idealistic that at some point I can illustrate for people just how simple it is, on the ground, so that those processes of legislation coming up for vote are less shrouded in mystery at least again, at the state and lower levels
"I’m not clear on what kind of government you would propose as a more ideal alternative?"
—How much do you know about market anarchism, or any other anarcho-libertarian ideas?
Not a lot, save for what I’ve read of Emma G and some of her male contemporaries of that time. Definitely would love to read some authors that inform your perspective if you have any suggestions?
Absolutely! Check out the reading list at the end of this post: https://christophercook.substack.com/p/no-way-i-can-convince-you-anarchism
Also I should revise my sentiment where I incorrectly stated in my haste to reply, “I see a world where democracy serves the interests of not everyone” . I do believe it should serve if not the interests of everyone, the endowed rights regardless of each person, regardless of their/his/her time or ability to advocate for, assert and exercise those rights. They should just be there, as you imply, not subject to the results of individual elections. But that’s what I’m trying to say as well, in my own way.
"the endowed rights regardless of each person, regardless of their/his/her time or ability to advocate for, assert and exercise those rights."
—It should, but it doesn't. And not because it is failing in some way to be as good a democracy as it ought to, but rather because democracy (voting) itself inherently VIOLATES the rights of every individual.
You own yourself. You have exclusive personal control (both naturally and morally) over your own thoughts, actions, and choices. This constitutes dispositive decision-making authority over your own life and being—in essence, a property right in your own person.
Anything—ANYTHING—that initiates coercive force upon you, or imposes something without your explicit, transparent, ongoing consent, violates your self-ownership. It violates the very thing that makes you a person. The thing that gives you your rights.
Democracies—even the constitutional republican kind—do that as part of their normal function. Not just when they have been perverted, but when they are functioning normally. Our system of government itself IS a rights violation.
Really appreciate your explanation of this and I find myself agreeing throughout it
My pleasure. Once I started seeing this, I was blown away at its crystal clarity. And I wondered how I didn’t see it sooner!
P.S - apologies for the typos, Christopher, I was and am eager to express my learnings from
experience trying to affect legislation - as it makes the cynicism I observe quite hard to swallow, for multiple reasons (perhaps I just hate the idea that I wasted my time)
No worries on the typos, and you did not waste your time at all. I found your story about your lobbying efforts very interesting, as I am sure others did too. And I appreciate your challenge, and taking the time!
__
They’re not my masters. I don’t have one.
Spread the word, brother!
Spot on!
Thanks for the clear argument … I conflated delegating powers with creating powers (apparently). But if we don’t have the right, we can’t delegate it either.
"if we don’t have the right, we can’t delegate it either."
—That statement, that realization, is huge and powerful. It is exciting to finally understand the truth! I am glad we are getting there together.
You describe what I take to be the chief problem with government, i.e., the double standard applied to two different groups: government agents and private individuals. The standard applied to the former group is more lenient than the one applied to the latter.
Two opposed theories of justice are the libertarian theory and the authoritarian theory. According to the former theory, all moral agents have equal natural moral rights and obligations. According to the latter theory, agents are divided into two groups: a superior group and an inferior group. Members of the superior group have special rights members of the inferior group lack. Members of the inferior group have burdensome obligations members of the superior group lack. In private life, those who regard themselves as being in the superior group typically commit the fallacy of special pleading to account for their exalted position.
In political life, the authoritarian theory allegedly bestows on members of the superior group the right to rule members of the inferior group and imposes on members of the inferior group the obligation to obey members of the superior group. To justify their superior position, government agents invoke political authority, defined by Michel Huemer in The Problem of Political Authority as “the hypothesized moral property in virtue of which governments may coerce people in certain ways not permitted to anyone else and in virtue of which citizens must obey governments in situations in which they would not be obligated to obey anyone else.”
Huemer spends the first half of his book demolishing the doctrine of political authority. He has stated that many philosophers today reject political authority because they find it untenable. However, most still accept statism on consequentialist grounds.
Amazing Huemer quote. Thank you!
I am always want to ask people…
Let's say I wanted to secede. Just me, on my little piece of property. Set aside logistical problems about roads, etc. What force would you use to prevent me from doing so? Not what force would you like to see the state use against me to prevent me. What force would you PERSONALLY be willing to deploy to keep me…?
Yes 🙌
Dude... 🔥🔥🔥
I wish I had some grandiose articulations to add, but you pretty much said it all 🫡
There's always more to say. That's why we write! 🤣
Thank you, Stone :-)
This is a great post.
We periodically need the tenants of a perverted representative government listed out clearly, to break the cognitive stupor and dissonance, that the masses happily wallow in, like proverbial pigs in shit.
The last 4 words here sum it all up:
"But they act as if they do, and we let them. "
We've always handed the opportunists and manipulators the keys of our demise, in exchange for shiny toys and distractions - manufactured by the very people who would destroy us. The blame doesn't lie with them and their evil or abhorrent actions/natures. It lies at our feet, in the form of willful apathy, ignorance and avoidance - bought in some cases for the mere price of a happy meal. That is what's brought us to this current time, of self destruction.
This, as you well know is not a knew phenomenon, but can be easily found in the preceding centuries, across varied societies. So the problem lies with the masses, the commoners who not only sell their sovereignty for cheap, empty baubles but then happily ignore the process, they sold themselves and their families into.
And...the next few generation - because they've been taught to - will sell the same things for even less.
100 percent.
But there is always a Remnant keeping the torch lit. And I believe that right now, our numbers are growing. We will never be a majority, but we do not need a majority. We just need critical mass!
"We will never be a majority."
—I take that back. Maybe someday in a distant future, 10,000 years from now, we will be!
Yes indeed. As a society, we have returned to a pre-Enlightenment mentality in which the ruling class enjoys not only a monopoly on force, but also a monopoly on acceptable discourse and ideology.
That is an excellent observation.
I also think it is time for humans to reject the entire notion of a ruling class. No more masters.
This is the future. Not fixing it. Rejecting it.
Yeah buddy!
Love it. I'm waiting for the article on all forms of taxation that are for our "good". Everyone acknowledges income taxes and sales taxes but all forms of forced "insurance" are also taxes. Beyond being forced to buy house, health, and auto insurances, we're also taxed by countless government middlemen in the economy. Try to purchase alcohol for resale - every state has a different (and costly) middleman for just one example.
It's ALL a racket.
It's all about to collapse. Striving not to get buried in the rubble at this point.
We will have to be ready!
Funny!