I’ve been thinking a lot about power, especially in terms of individuals and groups, and how and why individuals end up surrendering their power. In the past, I’ve always assumed this was all based on coercion. While some of it may well be, I’m trying to explore the finer points of other possibilities. If you’re interested in the topic, also check out this post.
Otherwise, last night I had the bright idea to use the metaphor of business and selling products to describe how governments and rights might work. Admittedly, it’s just a metaphor, and it’s one I’m exploring rather than adhering too. So don’t jump all over me, buttholes!
Okay, so governments are sort of like businesses. Both provide services to the consumer. In the case of government, the services might include things like national security, trade agreements, law enforcement, etc. Now, just like in any business, some of these products and services are going to sell better than others. Take Freedom™ for example. Originally, this was one of the more popular products that our government had to offer. It was a solid brand-name that performed well in the market. At some point though, it fell out of favor. Most people would say that government is intentionally trying to phase this product out. But maybe it’s partly because people stopped demanding it in the marketplace. When a product has no demand, either the business goes under, or the business model has to change.
If we apply this model to current events, then what we’re witnessing is a re-branding and a re-oganization of the underlying business model. Maybe they decided that people didnt’t like Freedom™ because it demanded too much of them. They had to actively maintain it and interact with it on many levels in order to actually acquire the product. So government started casting around for other products that would not only out-sell Freedom™, but would require less interaction and maintenance on the part of the consumer. Fear™ seems to be the answer to this branding crisis. Fear isn’t something that a consumer has to spend a lot of time figuring out or getting good at, or constantly building on. It’s a pretty instantaneous transaction that takes little or no thought and fits into the busy life-styles of the modern consumer. From this sort of reductionist business perspective, it actually sort of makes sense that they would pull this switcheroo on the consumers. If you can have better results with less work and less accountability, of course you’re going to go for it as a business. It may not be as evil as it is human. (Although, just to be clear, I still think it’s pretty dastardly - I’m just trying to stand in somebody else’s shoes for the sake of argument)
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“Those who are truly alive are kindly and unsuspecting in their human relationships and consequently endangered under present conditions. They assume that others think and act generously, kindly, and helpfully, in accordance with the laws of life. This natural attitude, fundamental to healthy children as well as to primitive man, inevitably represents a great danger in the struggle for a rational way of life as long as the emotional plague subsists, because the plague-ridden impute their own manner of thinking and acting to their fellow men. A kindly man believes that all men are kindly, while one infected with the plague believes that all men lie and cheat and are hungry for power. In such a situation the living are at an obvious disadvantage. When they give to the plague-ridden, they are sucked dry, then ridiculed or betrayed.
It is high time for the living to get tough, for toughness is indispensable in the struggle to safeguard and develop the life-force; this will not detract from their goodness, as long as they stand courageously by the truth. . . . Anyone who wants to safeguard the life-force from the emotional plague must learn to make at least as much use of the right of free speech that we enjoy in America for good ends as the emotional plague does for evil ones. Granted equal opportunity for expression, rationality is bound to win out in the end. That is our great hope.”
- Wilhelm Reich from the fantastic LISTEN LITTLE MAN
That’s awesome. I guess what I’m trying to do is to be able to speak and understand both languages. I feel like I’ve been getting sort of lop-sided about this stuff, and need to revitalize how I’m thinking…
i guess i`m in a bit of a difficult spot. i consider myself to be alive in a spiritual sense, which i believe you mean. i find the joy in people,events and things. i want to help whenever i can, and i will stress, locally. i also find it easy to see that most people, whether they are asleep or whatever, are hostile,agressive, selfish and as i find in my work, close to tears. in that state they misinterpret, misrepresent and generally overreact to situations.
whether government is getting out of the freedom business and into the fear business or not, the fact remains; fear is the ground state of human conciousness. that`s why i feel it`s important to be doing work on yourself, whether it`s buddhism or weightlifting or stamp collecting, we must immerse ourselves, in above our heads.
it is easy to see why any person or group who offers relief(salvation) via the hegelian dialectic will be busy.
Tim, the page is truncating itself for some reason..it keep[s cutting off at the middle of the second post.
Huh? seems to be working fine for me. What’s your browser/OS?
Language is power.
it`s doing funny things here too. each new posting of yours keeps reloading without the reply section. the other day i noticed that the typing wasn`t responding immediately. i use i.e.6 and windows 98.
It’s next to impossible for me to trouble-shoot since it’s fine on my end…
i would say dump IE for anything else… firefox, navigator….
and then cop a Mac..
IMO, of course…
im a macintoshist.
but it is interesting how different browsers will interpret the same code slightly different, probably exactly how it works with humans.
had i known before i bought an ibm and tried to run protools recording software. aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaagh. my friend does that smug get a mac thing too. nice. lots of help. i should have realised looking at bill gates that he hates musicians. nerdy little squirrel-faced twat. all the girls he jonesed after in school went after tall guys with long hair and a guitar. like me.sorry bill…..you got the billions though, but it`s not enough is it, you can have ALMOST everything you want. well, i`ll have to hire a less wealthy version of you to make the fucking computer do what the store promised it would……..really fast.
so bill`s still got the sound of that cheerleader`s laughter stuck in his head all these years later….”go out with you bill? no i can`t, i,ve got to stay home and wash my er hee heee……..um hair….every night for the rest of my life, heeee………..”
so we get shit boxes that will do spread sheets and e-mail and income tax but try to record a symphony in your basement it`s revenge of the nerds.
i`m just a little tense.
Using crazybrowser- ti sorted itself out right after I made that post, but before that, it wanted top cut out right in the middle of the post…weird.