It’s Friday—time to listen to some freedom music! Today’s choice: “The Buzzer,” by Dar Williams.
If I were to ask the question, “What is the greatest impediment to human freedom,” you could answer in a variety of ways. At one level of analysis, the answer is easy:
The greatest impediment to human freedom is humans.
We are our own worst enemy.
A few among us choose to victimize others as criminals. This forces us to develop rules, practices, systems, and governments, all of which restrict everyone’s freedom.
A few among us choose to be officials, using the color of law and authority to victimize the rest—reducing our freedom far more than criminals ever could.
But the problems don’t stop there.
Some among us—about 30 percent, according to Mattias Desmet—are highly susceptible to any mainstream narrative or collective programming that unscrupulous leaders care to deploy. Many of them, once programmed, can never be un-programmed.
As we just witnessed during CovidMania, this cohort creates a significant risk to human freedom. (According to Desmet [and, per Desmet, LeBon and others], a further 30 percent are also susceptible, though less intractably so.)
I also had my own observations for how people tended to sort themselves during covid—observations that largely comported with reports from anti-totalitarian dissidents like Vaclav Havel and others.
Then there are the results of experiments like those performed by Milgram and Asch. At this point, you are likely to have heard of both…
The Asch conformity experiments showed that a large majority of people will deny the evidence of their own eyes in order to go along with the group.
The Milgram experiments demonstrated that a large majority of people will shock a stranger to death if told to do so by an authority figure.
As with all science, these studies have come under criticism. Many people were triggered by the results—some had an incentive to back them up, and others to debunk them. But the results have been replicated, to varying degrees, in other studies done throughout the world in the years since. That is significant.
I do not need to tell you the implications, for human freedom, of the fact that a large majority of human beings are
extremely or somewhat susceptible to programming (mass-formation),
willing to deny obvious truths just to go along with the group, and
willing to cause pain and even death when told to do so by authority figures.
I think it is pretty amazing that Dar Williams actually wrote a song about the Milgram experiments. For that reason alone, it is a good entry for #FreedomMusicFriday.
But then…it’s also a really good song. The chord shifts from minor to major under the verse are super cool. The lyrics are chilling and poignant. Definitely worth the three minutes!
(Hat tip to
for hipping me to this song.)
Dar Williams was the one who said "I will not be afraid of other women" in one of her songs. I'll never forget hearing that lyric for the first time and instantly feeling the impact of the message- don't compare yourself to other women and don't see them as a threat. Instead, become allies and rejoice in your sisterhood.
And this is why the current U.S. government no longer cares that they lie, even when it is obvious.
They know that this 'majority' of people will believe whatever they tell them, and/or will not accept that they are lying even when given concrete evidence of such.
In this so-called 'democracy', you only need a majority to continue the status quo. This quorum of the unaware, of the gullible, of the suggestible is quite sufficient to keep the music playing.
Two examples to wit: the State Dept's current whimperings about how Israel is being overzealous in their treatment of Gaza, and 2) that more money will change the outcome in Ukraine.
In both cases, withdrawal of financial and military support would end these conflicts immediately.
Like Putin said to Tucker, "We're here, ready to negotiate. Where are you?"
But laundering money at taxpayer expense, and continued war economy through weaponry is far more important to our so-called leaders. The corruption is universal in our elected officials and letter agencies.
As for us? Let them eat cake. Or bugs, as it were.