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Surrendering Personal Sovereignty
John and I were talking last night. About the weird things we always talk and think about. Somehow or other we got on the topic of personal sovereignty, or the authority of the individual. He made a really interesting comment about why people give up such things and why other people take advantage of it. I tend to think of such things in really sinister terms, but I like John’s metaphor because there’s something about it that seems more natural.
Basically it goes like this: you go out to dinner with a couple friends. Everybody orders their meal and eats it. One person has some fries left over on their plate that they don’t want. Another person has an uneaten pickle because they hate pickles. They each in turn ask if anybody wants their leftovers. Down the line, everybody says no because they are too full. That is, until they reach that one friend. The one who’s a bottomless pit. He gladly take both the pickles and fries off their hands and everything’s cool. Everybody goes about their normal business.
Think of the pickles and fries as somehow analogous to personal authority. In my studies of the strange and the sinister, I sometimes get carried away, and feel like I can spot the outlines of some master scheme to suck people dry. In other words to steal not only their fries and their pickle, but most of their burger, their salad and their drink. In some cases I think that’s the case, but in others maybe it’s more like people have more than they can finish or more than they know what to do with, so they naturally just pass the rest onto somebody else.
The person who eats the fries, is he wrong? Obviously we’re talking about a lot more than fries here, but the question still seems to stick - at least to some degree. There’s also a difference between the situation described above and the one friend who never seems to actually ever pay for his own meal. He’s just some scavenger living off everyone else’s scraps. But then, even in ecosystems, scavengers serve a purpose.
Alchemical Braindamage had a quote about this same thing the other day which really got me thinking as well:
Now, in certain segments of guru yoga or master relationships, it is a method to transfer all one’s authority to the master, as an intermediary to surrender one’s ego to the infinite.
I’d never even conceived of such a possibility myself. But from one perspective it makes a certain type of sense (although from another there’s obviously a tremendous danger). Anyway, between the two of these ideas I feel like there’s some kind of interesting lesson to be learned, and a bunch more questions to be pondered.
- Simple Sovereignty
- The Right to Remain Scared
- Sovereign Individuals
- Money In Spirituality
- Sovereign Identity
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June 29th, 2005 at 12:09 am
Hmmm. Tim, I don’t really understand your analogy. In your model, the individuals surrendering their authority/goods/fries/whatever are doing so voluntarily, because they have too much. In the big bad sinister world, the fries (and often the whole plate of food) are demanded, often at gunpoint. It’s more like the waitress asking for the check and a big tip, without leaving much but a stale piece of bread and day-old coffee, and threatening to call the cops if you don’t pay up.
So maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see how your model relates.
June 29th, 2005 at 12:19 am
I do think that the issue of surrender to authority relates to tradeoffs between individual rights and the common good.
How about another analogy? A biological organism is a good metaphor for a civilization or similar social structure. (As a side note, I don’t think this is accidental, if you think about Qabalistic emanation or emergent properties).
In a complex organism, cells have to specialize and not every cell gets to be a neuron. Some end up being red blood cells and having very short lives. Some cells end up in the brain and get to participate in making decisions that affect the whole organism. But if a certain cell decides that it wants to do its own thing, and is allowed to follow its own program without being checked, then you end up with cancer.
The analogy breaks down here: in an organism, there is a presumption that the brain is making good (or at least reasonable) decisions with the goal of common survival for all the cells. There is no competition between cells for resources (nutrients). On second thought, maybe the analogy doesn’t break down, if you assume that our social body is ill. Our current situation is analogous to an autoimmune disorder or a brain tumor, where cells are fighting each other and the cells that should be making good decisions are busy with insane replication leading to dementia.
June 29th, 2005 at 12:25 am
Don’t you think people do this in real life? How often are you actually forced at gunpoint to do something? Not very often. Usually we hand it over gladly without even so much as an overt threat. I’m not saying it’s good, but it does seem to work like that sometimes. In any event, I’m simply exploring this viewpoint, rather than espousing it.
I see what you’re saying about the whole thing with the organism. Wasn’t that part of the mythology of the Hindu caste system also? Where the warriors act as the arms, the brahmins act as the eyes or something? I forget the details. I also like the Robert Heinlein quote in response to that:
June 29th, 2005 at 12:27 am
Ran Prieur sight had a link a while back about this from the Valorian Society. It was called “Human History viewed as Sovereign Individuals.” While I didn’t agree with all that the paper had to say it did make some good points. It major point about our current civilization trying to stamp out Sovereign Individuals through various methods was well written. For example,
Individual perception of total reality was crowded out by the pressure on each newborn child to learn the specifically human social behavior that was accepted by all around. Then, as the child grew, perception of total reality was further crowded out by pressure to become proficient in conformity to what was accepted specifically by “social” humans. Individual humans did not relate to total reality directly. They related to total reality only as it affected their human group as a whole. Also they did not relate to other individual humans directly. They related to other individual humans as seen through a “social” behavior pattern that had been made to appear more important than innate perception. Perception bred by sexual being, and the resultant overall increase in perception when viewing ones relation to total reality and to other individuals, was being bred out by pressure for social conformity.
June 29th, 2005 at 12:46 am
Well… Some (or even many) people do hand over their sovereignty willingly. But much of what one does “voluntarily” is often done in response to social pressures. Do I willingly write a check out to the IRS every April. Well, yes, I sign the check and mail it. But would I do so if the consequences of not writing that check were minimal? Don’t think so. Obviously human decision making is very complex, and you can build a whole career in microeconomics studying small aspects of this. But I would guess that there would be more personal sovereignty if there weren’t so many pressures to give it up. (On a related note, Steven Lagavulin talks about how the recent SCOTUS decision effectively removes yet one more sphere of life from individual authority.)
One thing, though. I don’t understand why so many people surrender the sovereign space inside their skulls? I don’t get people who spend a lot of time in front of the TV absorbing what our black-magician advertizers are selling them. This is definitely in the realm of personal choice.
June 29th, 2005 at 12:52 am
Well I guess “inside the skull” is more in line with what I mean. But I think like you said there are a lot of built up social pressures otherwise. And I wonder how many of them are real, and how many are not. I’ve heard stories of tax resisters getting away with that stuff for years, for example. I can’t verify their stories, but it makes me really wonder.
June 29th, 2005 at 12:59 am
Yes, a lot of pressure is imaginary. The last light on my way home from work forbids right turns on red, and I dutifully wait even though I have never seen a cop there and the topography does not faciltate being caught.
And I also wonder what kind of social pressure is there to conform to “accepted” forms of entertainment, thought and inquiry. You know: ball games, boring TV shows. If you don’t participate, then you’re out of the loop in water-cooler conversations at work, which can affect your professional life. Fortunately, I’m an academic, so those games are less important (or at least, are played with a different deck of cards).
June 29th, 2005 at 2:46 am
Terence McKenna pointed out to me the other day that the Mushroom has no “karma”!!
all the way down there at the bottom of the food chain, the fungi feed on the decomposing remains…. and so, eventually, through genetic engineering, wouldnt it be neat to become mushrooms! we could live in the imagination, our spores could travel through space, and no karma!! (and maybe thats exactly what the mushrooms have done)
but Mr McKenna’s ideas about culture & language would probably be more relevant…
How often are you actually forced at gunpoint to do something?
once was enough. essentially, Mao’s statement rings true, political power comes from the barrel of a gun. eventually somewhere down the line, the threat always lingers… do it, or we will shoot you. in my own experiences, the police have been so kind to remind me of this plenty of times, and finally with a 9mm in my face…
but it is really all a brain game.
this is where McKenna’s ideas about culture and language come into play….
culture is a agreed upon reality, and words are the construct.. our inability to convey intent is one of our species greatest ills…..
so basically, i think that if the dude is still hungry, and you offer up the fries, there is absolutely nothing wrong (shit, im a light eater & roll with some big dudes who eat 5x as much as me…. and clean up my leftovers everytime!)…..
but if eating your leftovers was the only reason they sat at the table, then we have issues..
intent is the key.
one
human?
June 29th, 2005 at 7:45 am
I think this issue revolves around knowledge. Is sovereignty given up based on an honest, non-threatening arrangement? If so then it’s OK. In fact it can be a mutally beneficial trade.
However, ethical problems arise when deception or physical coercion is used. I actually like to think of deception as a cognitive coercion - a much bigger problem in today’s world than physical coercion.
June 29th, 2005 at 10:47 am
I like your analogy, but want to add somthing.
The first time, you have too many fries, and you give them to the bottomless pit, everyone’s happy. The next time, you get your fries, and the bottomless pit says “Can I have some?” and you reluctantly give up a few, because he asked. The next time, you get your meal, and BP says “Gimmie some fries.” And you do, because it’s easier than fighting.
Next time, all you get is fries, and BP says “these are mine.” And you get nothing.
That is the analogy: Gift to entitlement to robbery. First the government asks, appealing to patriotism or something. Then they demand, appealing to your regard to precedent and law. Then they take, using bald force.
June 29th, 2005 at 12:07 pm
Free choice, or at least the potential for free choice is the charactersitic feature of human consciosness, as opposed to being vapor locked into a response/reaction loop like animals are.
from the spiritual standpoint, the greatest gift we can give to the divine is our devotion. it’s an intersting paradox that forms the basis of real growth.
I’ve got a treatment of this ( and more star wars pics) on my blog
June 29th, 2005 at 5:20 pm
scott, that sounds like the welfare system. gifts to entitlement to robbery. welcome to creeping socialism. the bottomless pit is what tax surpluses in the sixties appeared to be.
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