Fear

Thomas Hobbes's theory of fear, boiled down, is that the power of a government is not only a source of fear, but it's tool. But what if fear is lost? What becomes of the government then? Revolution?

Here in the US there are nightly protests in over 170 cities because several grand juries have failed to indict police officers when there was certainly enough evidence. In the US system, an indictment simply means there may be attributable guilt. Putting aside the Ferguson fiasco, in NYC the coroner labeled the death of Eric Garner a homicide. And still the grand jury did not indict.

Black persons are 21x more likely to be shot than whites. This is not a coincidence. Minorities in the US have never enjoyed the freedoms of white persons. By not indicting police officers, the government increases the fear, hence the control. It makes people more distrustful of the justice system. Makes white persons dependent on the divide. Fear.

Except that fear is crumbling. These protests are not violent, but could turn that way very quickly. If it does what then?

Curiously the President, and even Congress, have been mostly mute. Its as though they realize that their hold on the reigns of fear are now tenuous. The protests grow. The government is taking the wait and see stance, because it is a proven tactic. Ignore the problem long enough and the media will too. That is the fear they use now to maintain control.

On the dangerous trail to dystopia

No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.

Adam Smith

 Just tonight, the major television networks refused, refused, to interrupt their broadcast for fifteen minutes so that the President could give a speech about illegal immigrants. They did not refuse for moral reasons but financial ones as November is a ratings sweep. Nielsen points would not be traded so that the President could explain that his next actions were to keep families together while Congress continues it's self-imposed gridlock. Neither side of Congress wants to deal with this issue, because if illegal immigrants are granted a path to citizenship, then the businesses that own the politicians would be forced to pay not only a living wage to these humans, but taxes as well.

And the headlines coming out of Ferguson, MO are being ignored. Worse, when they are not there is bitter division. When did peaceful protest become such a horrible thing? Yes, there has been violence, but the majority of it has come from those meant to protect. Humans have become expendable.

I find it interesting the people have read the Hunger Games and seen the movies, yet are clearly unable to see that that dystopian horror is not a dream, yet a reality that the United States is slipping into. The division between rich and poor grows at an alarming rate, yet few are bothered by it. Worse many view the ones most affected by the divide with increasing disdain, just as they view the protesters in Ferguson.

The cyclical nature of history has taught us nothing. This is the Roman Empire again. This is Nazi Germany again. This is the Soviet Union again. Google wants to build it's own cities. And still the people do not rise up against it. They are still "sheeple". They do not realize that these businesses are fearful of them finding a voice. One book had the power to make McDonald's start to faulter. Imagine what a hundred million voices could accomplish? But will it happen?

There must come a point where even the most fastidious of sheeple realizes that the politician one votes for really does not give a damn about them. That to affect political change one must have an affect on the profits of the corporations that control the politicians. That is the only way change can happen. Only way.

A Slave Unto Oneself

As long as the mind is enslaved, the body can never be free. Psychological freedom, a firm sense of self-esteem, is the most powerful weapon against the long night of physical slavery. MARTIN LUTHER KING, speech, Aug. 16, 1967 

The enslaving of the mind is akin to physical slavery and in fact, is a necessary step to enslave one. A body, a physicality, can not function outside the control of the mind. Hegel has argued that  if a man be a slave, then it is done through his own free will, and not that of the enslaver.

There are many forms of slavery, some literal and many less so. Are there any cases of slavery where one is not responsible for being the slave? Where one is enslaved entirely against one's will? Is Hegel wrong?

First off I need to address the question of non-possession, a principle of satyagraha. Basically it is the belief that one does not possess anything nor is possessed by anything. It is a circular argument much in the same way as arguing whether a person with a starving family who steals food to feed them is doing the moral/immoral thing. I will address non-possession in a future post. So I shall set it aside for now.

To narrow the scope of my argument, I will focus something Victor Hugo wrote in Les Miserables. Hugo claimed that slavery only applies to women and it is the case of prostitution.

There are obvious cases of women who choose to be prostitutes, and by extension adult film actresses. These women are not slaves as the are maintaining their commitment to their own absolute freedom. They choose to sell their bodies for sexual gratification in exchange for money or other arrangement. They are not slaves, but utilizing their free will.

Next are those that come to the profession through drugs/necessity. Both of these cases involve the women surrendering themselves to slavery with their full acknowledgment. They choose to take the drugs and lie that it is the addiction that makes them do so. Addiction is merely a state of being where one surrenders one's freedom to the affect of a drug. Combined with prostitution and it becomes a sort of double-slavery. Or they mount their bills to the point where all they see is the "quick money" of being a prostitute. They lie to themselves and say that they will only do it to pay off whatever they have to and then stop. If they were truly able to do that, they would not be slaves. But how few actually accomplish that?

Lastly are those that are stolen in the night and forced to become prostitutes through intimidation, violence, and addiction. In this last case is there an argument against them being slaves of their own will? For one to be abducted, one has to allow it to happen. A person who ultimately desires to maintain their absolute freedom would never allow oneself to be taken. All that follows the abduction are means to maintain control over one's desire for freedom. But it is the one who allows one's freedom to be usurped. Death, to paraphrase Hegel, is the ultimate expression of absolute freedom.

So aside from actively choosing prostitution, all other examples lead to slavery through one's own free choice. One surrenders their commitment to absolute freedom, exercises free will and  becomes a slave by choice.