Who Are THEY? Where Are THEY?

Jem's "They" for #FreedfomMusicFriday

First of all, if you don’t know the music of Jem, you should.

It’s a happy blend of pop, rock, and trip hop, with folky and classical influences. Her songs are redolent with supportive sentiments—about enjoying our time on Earth, not feeling too stressed out, and becoming the best versions of ourselves that we can be. Her desire to help rings out in many of her songs.

Her song “They” could not be more perfect for #FreedomMusicFriday (whatever her personal politics might be…and don’t tell me, because I don’t want to know).

What is that word we always use?

They.

Them.

We never precisely define it, because we don’t know exactly who they are. Because they are too numerous, and because some of them are operating in the shadows. But we all know well enough who we’re talking about. They are, as one FreedomScale subscriber often says, The Hierarchy Exploiting You.

We’ve all done it since we were kids…

They say you’re not supposed to do that.

Hey, how do they make that?

In “They,” Jem asks the right question: Who are they?

Who made up all the rules? she asks. Here we are, born into societies and countries, subjected to rules we did not make or ever agree to. The temperamentally conservative person says that we should not simply reject what we have been handed by our ancestors. The temperamentally radical person says burn it all to the ground.

But isn’t there a better point in between?

Jem wonders if blind allegiance is the best way…

Who made up all the rules?
We follow them like fools
Believe them to be true
Don't care to think them through

Not only do we follow them blindly, we turn them into permanent dogma:

And it's ironic too
'Cause what we tend to do
Is act on what they say
And then it is that way

And then it is that way. Forever. Everyone stops questioning. Indeed—questioners are ridiculed or shunned.

Then she hits the Hayekian knowledge problem square on the nose:

Who are they?
Where are they?
How can they possibly know all this?

How can they possibly know all this? Answer: They can’t. And yet they still make rules and plans for the rest of us. They still make little mazes for us to run around in.

Then she asks us to see it—to leave the happy little place where we blithely ignore it all:

Do you see what I see?
Why do we live like this?
Is it because it's true
That ignorance is bliss?

She’s talking to all of us, but especially to the children. “I’m sorry,” she tells them in the chorus. Sorry it’s like this. Sorry we do this.

It’s a delightful song with an essential message.

For several years, I have been using the following formulation:

For most of our history, we lived under hereditary authority of one form or another. There were fixed classes of highborn and lowborn. Some were born to rule, others to be ruled. Call this HumanGovernance 1.0, or “monarchy,” for shorthand.

Then we started to realize that ontological authority of this kind is a fiction, and we inaugurated HumanGovernance 2.0—the age of “democracy.” Unfortunately, this just brought us more of the same. Monarchs were replaced by majorities, aristocrats with administrators, and one ruling elite with another.

We are on the cusp of HumanGovernance 3.0—the era when we begin to reject involuntary authority of any kind.

I do not know if Jem knows this or not, but “They” is an anthem—hopefully one of many—for the dawning of that new era.