Deep down we all know that it is immoral to use coercion against people who have done no harm. When we do so it is because we are afraid and it is easier to control others than it is to control our fears. But the key to both enduring personal happiness and ending barbarism in the world at large is developing the courage to do unto others as we would have done unto to us and to face and overcome our fears instead of seeking to control other people.
It is key to enduring personal happiness because when we act in disharmony with our conscience our conscience will punish us relentlessly. We can try to silence it by lying to ourselves in various ways but any relief achieved by this means is only temporary. The shame of having caused harm to others endures and forever prevents us from experiencing deep and enduring joy.
It is key to ending barbarism because the decision to use coercion against another is the spark that lights the flame of the cycle of barbarism by which low level conflicts escalate into large-scale violence.
The key to ending it all is for each of us to make a moral commitment to resist the temptation to impose our will on other people and to encourage others in our sphere of influence to do the same.
Showing posts with label coercion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label coercion. Show all posts
Monday, November 16, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
Private property is not evil
I believe that moral codes are immoral.
They are not only unnecessary but they exist for the purpose of deceiving ourselves into believing that an action we wish to take or have already taken is moral when we know that it is not.
True morality is innate and requires no written code.
We act morally when we act in harmony with our conscience.
We act in harmony with our conscience when our empathy is stronger than our fear because empathy enables us to feel what others feel as if we were them. We do unto others as we would have done unto us.
When our fear is stronger than our empathy we act immorally, because when we are consumed by fear we cannot feel what others feel and we are capable of harming them without remorse.
It is that simple.
Our conscience punishes us for doing so, and we feel the need to morally justify ourselves in a vain attempt to anesthetize our own conscience.
Such is the case with the belief that private property is evil.
We all know that there is nothing inherently evil about owning private property.
The act of owning it does not, by itself, cause harm to any person.
People might harm themselves by judging themselves harshly because they have less of it than others, but this hurt is an imaginary hurt that occurs solely in the mind of the individual.
Fear causes good people to do evil things.
What is really behind this belief that private property is evil is fear.
Fear that they are somehow inadequate because they have less of it than another.
Fear that it can and potentially will be used to cause harm to others.
Fear that those who have more of it somehow have more power than those who do not, leading the later to feel a self-inflicted sense of powerlessness.
Those who profess a belief that private property is evil hold that belief in their moral code because they intend to take what does not belong to them, or to support others who intend to do so or to morally justify the fact that they have already done so.
Were they to allow themselves to feel empathy for their victims they would realize that theft is immoral.
But their fear is stronger than their empathy, so they act immorally.
Moral codes are immoral.
They are invariably driven by fear but seek to camouflage themselves in fake empathy.
Wealth redistribution does not have anything to do with a genuine concern for the welfare of the poor.
This is a lie that the socialists tell themselves to morally justify what they know in their heart to be immoral.
They are not only unnecessary but they exist for the purpose of deceiving ourselves into believing that an action we wish to take or have already taken is moral when we know that it is not.
True morality is innate and requires no written code.
We act morally when we act in harmony with our conscience.
We act in harmony with our conscience when our empathy is stronger than our fear because empathy enables us to feel what others feel as if we were them. We do unto others as we would have done unto us.
When our fear is stronger than our empathy we act immorally, because when we are consumed by fear we cannot feel what others feel and we are capable of harming them without remorse.
It is that simple.
Our conscience punishes us for doing so, and we feel the need to morally justify ourselves in a vain attempt to anesthetize our own conscience.
Such is the case with the belief that private property is evil.
We all know that there is nothing inherently evil about owning private property.
The act of owning it does not, by itself, cause harm to any person.
People might harm themselves by judging themselves harshly because they have less of it than others, but this hurt is an imaginary hurt that occurs solely in the mind of the individual.
Fear causes good people to do evil things.
What is really behind this belief that private property is evil is fear.
Fear that they are somehow inadequate because they have less of it than another.
Fear that it can and potentially will be used to cause harm to others.
Fear that those who have more of it somehow have more power than those who do not, leading the later to feel a self-inflicted sense of powerlessness.
Those who profess a belief that private property is evil hold that belief in their moral code because they intend to take what does not belong to them, or to support others who intend to do so or to morally justify the fact that they have already done so.
Were they to allow themselves to feel empathy for their victims they would realize that theft is immoral.
But their fear is stronger than their empathy, so they act immorally.
Moral codes are immoral.
They are invariably driven by fear but seek to camouflage themselves in fake empathy.
Wealth redistribution does not have anything to do with a genuine concern for the welfare of the poor.
This is a lie that the socialists tell themselves to morally justify what they know in their heart to be immoral.
What is to be done?
In the beginning were the barbarians.
They had been endowed by natural selection with a highly evolved sense of fear. The fight-or-flight response to the impulse of fear enabled them to survive in the hostile and threatening “survival of the fittest” environment in which they evolved over millions of years.
In time the barbarians triumphed over all of their rivals to become the undisputed masters of the animal kingdom. That triumph represented a major evolutionary turning point for the species of homo sapiens.
In the absence of predators the heightened sense of fear which had served them so well ceased to be an asset and instead became a liability. Natural selection began to reverse itself.
In the mind of the barbarians fear turned to anger, hatred and aggression with such ease and rapidity that it led them to inflict all manner of immorality on each other from theft, to rape to murder to the wholesale slaughter of millions, and they lived their lives in a constant state of conflict of varying intensity.
Their fear of death led them to invent religions which promised an after-life.
Their fear of each other lead them to divide into tribes and to go to war with each other.
Unable to control their fears they sought instead to control each other via the establishment of “the rule of law” and armed groups of men to inflict their will on each other.
The resulting cancer of government grew to assume control over nearly all aspects of the lives of the barbarians in their nation state tribes leading to paralysis, stagnation, and economic depression. The state grew in proportion to the inability of individuals to control their fears, and the inability of individuals to control their fears grew in proportion to the state. This vicious self re-enforcing and recurring cycle ended with unstable tyrants ascending to the pinnacle of power and unleashing unrestrained barbarous bloodbaths.
The history of the triumphant species of homo sapiens has many stories that differ in their particulars but the underlying story is always the same – the inability to control their fear lead to unremitting conflict and suffering.
The species was victorious but it was still emotionally immature. They had evolved a rational mind and were able to fend off some attempts of the more ancient fear-based mind from seizing control but they were not yet able to assume total dominance over their own destructive emotions.
The war of consequence was not without but within. It was a war for control their own mind. It was a war between the primitive fear-based brain of the barbarian and the rational mind of the post-barbarian. At its core it was a battle between fear and love, for one could only gain at the expense of the other and love was the means by which the rational mind assumed and maintained control – for the simple reason that the fight-or-flight response to fear robs the brain of the oxygen it needs to function properly.
With each passing generation the rational mind assumed greater dominance. Unbeknownst to all, natural selection was still at work and the unremitting warfare between tribes was actually serving the evolutionary purpose of cleansing the species of those most unable to control their destructive emotions.
Over the eons of barbarous warfare emerged a new type of homo sapiens - the non-barbarian - one who was able to control his fear and thus felt no need to control his environment.
The non-barbarian was able to control his fear of death and thus had no need for religion.
The non-barbarian was able to control his fear of others and thus had no need for government, the rule of law, power or coercion of any sort.
The non-barbarian naturally embraced the philosophy of voluntaryism.
The ascent of the non-barbarian represented a large evolutionary step forward in the history of the species. The triumph of love over fear enabled the rational part of the mind of homo sapiens to achieve dominance over the destructive emotions of his barbarian ancestors.
As the others continued to war and kill each other off the “evolved ones” continued to grow in number and to congregate amongst themselves and to ask the question:
What is to be done?
How do we survive and thrive amongst the hordes of emotionally unstable barbarians?
Whereas we see a world of unbounded opportunity for joy, the fearful barbarians see only threats.
Our very existence is a threat to them.
They seek to control us with their laws, and their governments and their threats of punishment and brutality.
They enslave us by looting our income at gun-point with taxation.
They throw us into their dungeons if we refuse to comply with their cowardly laws.
To live amongst these barbarians is a challenge to our tolerance for tyranny and immorality.
What is to be done?
The answer to that question depends upon the answer to another:
Has a majority of the species evolved to the point where they are physiologically capable of assuming control over their destructive emotions and resisting the temptation to respond to the impulse of fear with coercion?
An answer of “yes” suggests one course of action, whereas one of “no” suggests another.
In the final analysis, there are but two options, and the choice to respond to the impulse of fear with coercion is the deciding factor. To the extent that people continue to make this choice our civilization will remain stuck within the age of barbarism.
Option 1: Empowerment
Those who are willing can be counseled to change their conditioned response to the impulse of fear.
Instead of allowing the fear to grow to the point where the fight-or-flight response is triggered and coercion is embraced, they can choose to face and overcome the fear itself.
They can choose to allow themselves to be consumed by the natural enemy of fear - empathy, compassion and love - and to consequently naturally act in accordance with the Golden Rule instead of resorting to coercion.
This choice leads inexorably to enduring happiness.
Why?
Because it enables us to live in peace and harmony with our conscience.
Because each time we overcome a fear we achieve an enduring sense of empowerment by expanding our comfort zone. When we do so the world becomes a less threatening and more beautiful place - not because it has changed but because we have.
Because the vacuum resulting from the absence of fear is naturally filled by empathy, compassion and love.
Option 2: Natural Selection
On the other hand there are those who are unable or unwilling to control their destructive emotions.
They continue to choose to allow themselves to be consumed by fear and subsequently choose to use ever more evil forms of coercion against others.
In time, they will be dealt with by those they have chosen to harm.
The converse of the Golden Rule is the Law of Reciprocity.
If one’s conscience is not strong enough to enforce the golden rule, the desire for retribution amongst the victims of the tyrants will get the job done.
We need merely sit back and allow nature to take its course. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. No action on our part is required.
Were we voluntaryists of many lands to give in to intemperance, however, we might perhaps seek to accelerate natural selection somewhat by encouraging the barbarians in our respective nation state tribes to war amongst themselves more voraciously so as to eliminate themselves from the gene pool more quickly.
Eventually, natural selection will ensure that the emotionally unstable barbarians will become a tiny minority and they can be dealt with by mental health professionals. As long as the inmates are running the asylum, however, a means of decreasing their numbers is required.
They had been endowed by natural selection with a highly evolved sense of fear. The fight-or-flight response to the impulse of fear enabled them to survive in the hostile and threatening “survival of the fittest” environment in which they evolved over millions of years.
In time the barbarians triumphed over all of their rivals to become the undisputed masters of the animal kingdom. That triumph represented a major evolutionary turning point for the species of homo sapiens.
In the absence of predators the heightened sense of fear which had served them so well ceased to be an asset and instead became a liability. Natural selection began to reverse itself.
In the mind of the barbarians fear turned to anger, hatred and aggression with such ease and rapidity that it led them to inflict all manner of immorality on each other from theft, to rape to murder to the wholesale slaughter of millions, and they lived their lives in a constant state of conflict of varying intensity.
Their fear of death led them to invent religions which promised an after-life.
Their fear of each other lead them to divide into tribes and to go to war with each other.
Unable to control their fears they sought instead to control each other via the establishment of “the rule of law” and armed groups of men to inflict their will on each other.
The resulting cancer of government grew to assume control over nearly all aspects of the lives of the barbarians in their nation state tribes leading to paralysis, stagnation, and economic depression. The state grew in proportion to the inability of individuals to control their fears, and the inability of individuals to control their fears grew in proportion to the state. This vicious self re-enforcing and recurring cycle ended with unstable tyrants ascending to the pinnacle of power and unleashing unrestrained barbarous bloodbaths.
The history of the triumphant species of homo sapiens has many stories that differ in their particulars but the underlying story is always the same – the inability to control their fear lead to unremitting conflict and suffering.
The species was victorious but it was still emotionally immature. They had evolved a rational mind and were able to fend off some attempts of the more ancient fear-based mind from seizing control but they were not yet able to assume total dominance over their own destructive emotions.
The war of consequence was not without but within. It was a war for control their own mind. It was a war between the primitive fear-based brain of the barbarian and the rational mind of the post-barbarian. At its core it was a battle between fear and love, for one could only gain at the expense of the other and love was the means by which the rational mind assumed and maintained control – for the simple reason that the fight-or-flight response to fear robs the brain of the oxygen it needs to function properly.
With each passing generation the rational mind assumed greater dominance. Unbeknownst to all, natural selection was still at work and the unremitting warfare between tribes was actually serving the evolutionary purpose of cleansing the species of those most unable to control their destructive emotions.
Over the eons of barbarous warfare emerged a new type of homo sapiens - the non-barbarian - one who was able to control his fear and thus felt no need to control his environment.
The non-barbarian was able to control his fear of death and thus had no need for religion.
The non-barbarian was able to control his fear of others and thus had no need for government, the rule of law, power or coercion of any sort.
The non-barbarian naturally embraced the philosophy of voluntaryism.
The ascent of the non-barbarian represented a large evolutionary step forward in the history of the species. The triumph of love over fear enabled the rational part of the mind of homo sapiens to achieve dominance over the destructive emotions of his barbarian ancestors.
As the others continued to war and kill each other off the “evolved ones” continued to grow in number and to congregate amongst themselves and to ask the question:
What is to be done?
How do we survive and thrive amongst the hordes of emotionally unstable barbarians?
Whereas we see a world of unbounded opportunity for joy, the fearful barbarians see only threats.
Our very existence is a threat to them.
They seek to control us with their laws, and their governments and their threats of punishment and brutality.
They enslave us by looting our income at gun-point with taxation.
They throw us into their dungeons if we refuse to comply with their cowardly laws.
To live amongst these barbarians is a challenge to our tolerance for tyranny and immorality.
What is to be done?
The answer to that question depends upon the answer to another:
Has a majority of the species evolved to the point where they are physiologically capable of assuming control over their destructive emotions and resisting the temptation to respond to the impulse of fear with coercion?
An answer of “yes” suggests one course of action, whereas one of “no” suggests another.
In the final analysis, there are but two options, and the choice to respond to the impulse of fear with coercion is the deciding factor. To the extent that people continue to make this choice our civilization will remain stuck within the age of barbarism.
Option 1: Empowerment
Those who are willing can be counseled to change their conditioned response to the impulse of fear.
Instead of allowing the fear to grow to the point where the fight-or-flight response is triggered and coercion is embraced, they can choose to face and overcome the fear itself.
They can choose to allow themselves to be consumed by the natural enemy of fear - empathy, compassion and love - and to consequently naturally act in accordance with the Golden Rule instead of resorting to coercion.
This choice leads inexorably to enduring happiness.
Why?
Because it enables us to live in peace and harmony with our conscience.
Because each time we overcome a fear we achieve an enduring sense of empowerment by expanding our comfort zone. When we do so the world becomes a less threatening and more beautiful place - not because it has changed but because we have.
Because the vacuum resulting from the absence of fear is naturally filled by empathy, compassion and love.
Option 2: Natural Selection
On the other hand there are those who are unable or unwilling to control their destructive emotions.
They continue to choose to allow themselves to be consumed by fear and subsequently choose to use ever more evil forms of coercion against others.
In time, they will be dealt with by those they have chosen to harm.
The converse of the Golden Rule is the Law of Reciprocity.
If one’s conscience is not strong enough to enforce the golden rule, the desire for retribution amongst the victims of the tyrants will get the job done.
We need merely sit back and allow nature to take its course. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword. No action on our part is required.
Were we voluntaryists of many lands to give in to intemperance, however, we might perhaps seek to accelerate natural selection somewhat by encouraging the barbarians in our respective nation state tribes to war amongst themselves more voraciously so as to eliminate themselves from the gene pool more quickly.
Eventually, natural selection will ensure that the emotionally unstable barbarians will become a tiny minority and they can be dealt with by mental health professionals. As long as the inmates are running the asylum, however, a means of decreasing their numbers is required.
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Beware the demagogue
No matter how independent we are, we all have people who we respect and look up to as leaders and role models.
How do you choose your leaders?
I have a couple rules of thumb that I use to filter out candidates.
Rule #1: If they seek power they are disqualified.
Rule #2: If they appeal to destructive emotions they are disqualified.
Power seekers
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”
~Jimi Hendrix
We all fall into the trap of choosing to use coercion against others from time to time. But when the fear subsides and our empathy for our victim returns, our shame reminds us that that such behavior is morally wrong. We may seek to deceive ourselves into believing otherwise but our conscience knows better.
Self-confident people do not desire power.
Only those who lack the emotional maturity to control their own fear seek to control their environment instead.
Power seekers seek power because they fear they will not be able to handle to consequences of not forcing others to behave as they wish.
They lack the courage to allow others to choose their own path.
They lack the requisite compassion to connect with others to understand the deeper reasons why they do what they do.
They lack self-confidence in their own ability to persuade others to voluntarily adopt their way of thinking.
They lack the patience to allow others to see the rightness of their position.
Perhaps worst of all, they lack the courage to question the correctness of their own beliefs.
Intuitively we all know that those who seek power are the last ones to whom it should be given.
Haters
“Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.”
~Benjamin Franklin
We all fall into the trap of allowing ourselves to be overtaken by destructive emotions from time to time. However, we know in our hearts that this sort of behavior is nothing to be proud of.
Those who seek to motivate others by appealing to fear and anger are not worthy of respect.
Those who use fear to move others do so because this is how they motivate themselves. They lack the emotional maturity to control their fear so they choose to harness it instead.
Those who use anger to move others do so for the same reason. Uncontrolled fear invariably turns to anger and hatred.
Fear turns off empathy – the source of our conscience and sense of morality – and is thus the root of all evil.
It kills the ability to connect with other human beings and makes civilized discussion impossible.
It causes us to focus on the very worst qualities in others and to see them as a “threat”.
It leads to the division of society into camps of “us” and “them”.
When fear turns to anger, “us” and “them” go to war with each other.
Those who allow themselves to be lead by such people are choosing the path of barbarism.
Demagogues
Those who both crave power and seek to appeal to the destructive emotions of others are demagogues or demagogue wannabes.
Regardless of the underlying issues, choosing to follow a demagogue is a very bad idea.
They are the leaders of the barbarian tribes and they should be shunned by civilized human beings.
P.S. The author is aware of and amused by the irony of advising others to beware of those who advise others to beware. ;)
How do you choose your leaders?
I have a couple rules of thumb that I use to filter out candidates.
Rule #1: If they seek power they are disqualified.
Rule #2: If they appeal to destructive emotions they are disqualified.
Power seekers
“When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace.”
~Jimi Hendrix
We all fall into the trap of choosing to use coercion against others from time to time. But when the fear subsides and our empathy for our victim returns, our shame reminds us that that such behavior is morally wrong. We may seek to deceive ourselves into believing otherwise but our conscience knows better.
Self-confident people do not desire power.
Only those who lack the emotional maturity to control their own fear seek to control their environment instead.
Power seekers seek power because they fear they will not be able to handle to consequences of not forcing others to behave as they wish.
They lack the courage to allow others to choose their own path.
They lack the requisite compassion to connect with others to understand the deeper reasons why they do what they do.
They lack self-confidence in their own ability to persuade others to voluntarily adopt their way of thinking.
They lack the patience to allow others to see the rightness of their position.
Perhaps worst of all, they lack the courage to question the correctness of their own beliefs.
Intuitively we all know that those who seek power are the last ones to whom it should be given.
Haters
“Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.”
~Benjamin Franklin
We all fall into the trap of allowing ourselves to be overtaken by destructive emotions from time to time. However, we know in our hearts that this sort of behavior is nothing to be proud of.
Those who seek to motivate others by appealing to fear and anger are not worthy of respect.
Those who use fear to move others do so because this is how they motivate themselves. They lack the emotional maturity to control their fear so they choose to harness it instead.
Those who use anger to move others do so for the same reason. Uncontrolled fear invariably turns to anger and hatred.
Fear turns off empathy – the source of our conscience and sense of morality – and is thus the root of all evil.
It kills the ability to connect with other human beings and makes civilized discussion impossible.
It causes us to focus on the very worst qualities in others and to see them as a “threat”.
It leads to the division of society into camps of “us” and “them”.
When fear turns to anger, “us” and “them” go to war with each other.
Those who allow themselves to be lead by such people are choosing the path of barbarism.
Demagogues
Those who both crave power and seek to appeal to the destructive emotions of others are demagogues or demagogue wannabes.
Regardless of the underlying issues, choosing to follow a demagogue is a very bad idea.
They are the leaders of the barbarian tribes and they should be shunned by civilized human beings.
P.S. The author is aware of and amused by the irony of advising others to beware of those who advise others to beware. ;)
Sunday, June 21, 2009
The violence of non-violence
I am a big believer in the philosophy of non-violence.
People like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. are heroes of mine.
What really gets me steamed though is all of the activists out there who claim the heritage of these men, and who claim to genuinely believe in non-violence, but who simultaneously strive to achieve their goals by using the power of the state to inflict violence on others.
I find this to be exasperating for two reasons.
First of all, by behaving in this fashion they smear all of us who believe in non-violence with the label of hypocrisy and dissuade others who might otherwise be attracted to this philosophy.
Secondly I believe that many of those who practice this hypocrisy are not actually aware on a conscience level that they are acting at odds with their own beliefs.
I believe this to be so because the very existence of the state blinds them to the reality of what they are doing.
I believe that the impulse to use coercion against our fellow human beings is fundamentally due to an inability to control our fears.
When we are unable to control our fears, we must choose between the fight or flight response. When we choose to fight we usually choose to exercise control over our environment in some fashion.
When we do this ourselves by directly imposing our will on other human beings there is at least the possibility of connecting with that other human being. There is the chance that we will become aware of the pain and suffering that we are causing to them.
There is a chance that we may choose to stop hurting them.
There is a chance that we may choose to feel remorse and to seek to make amends for causing harm to them.
Of course, if the inability to control a strong fear is significant, we may instead choose to turn off our empathy for them, become self absorbed, get and stay angry and to morally justify what we know in our heart to be immoral. This is, of course, the path chosen by all of the monsters of history.
So, when we choose to do the deed ourselves, there is at least a chance that we will not descend into evil.
However, when we choose to exercise coercion indirectly by asking someone else to do it for us, this possibility is much more remote.
When we choose to vote this is what we are doing and this is why voting in particular and democracy in general is so incredibly evil.
When we cast a ballot we are choosing to employ another human being to exercise coercion on our behalf.
Laws are passed for this purpose.
The violence of the state is then used to impose force on our victims.
But all of this is out-of-sight and out-of-mind for the voters.
We never have to see the pain and suffering that these human beings feel, thus we are never able to feel remorse for what we have done.
And nobody who works for the state is willing to accept responsibility for this evil.
They all pass the buck.
The police officers who serve the fines, and throw human beings into dehumanizing cages where they will be raped and brutalized always say the same thing … “I’m just following the law” … “I’m just doing my job”.
And when our victims seek empathy from organs of governments who administer these laws, they always say the same thing … “I’m just following the law” … “I’m just doing my job”.
Few people in our society realize what is really going.
Few people see the big picture.
Few people understand the true dynamics of the larger forces that are really at work here and where all this is ultimately leading us to.
Few people understand the role that they themselves are playing to bring this about and the role that they could play to prevent it from being so if they so chose.
A vicious self-reinforcing cycle is at work …
The state grows in proportion to the inability of individuals to control their fears and the inability of individuals to control their fears grows in proportion to the growth of the state.
The increase in the rate of taxation …
the increase in the ferocity of invasive laws which destroy individual liberty and seek to control every aspect of the life of the individual …
the increase in the dependency of the individual on the state and the feeling of dis-empowerment …
These symptoms of the growth of the state serve only to increase the stress of the individual who more often than not seeks to decrease that stress by paradoxically giving the state more power.
We choose to vote “our guy” into office to respond in kind to the individuals who are perceived to be inflicting the pain on us via the state.
This cycle of barbarism is absolutely identical to the cycle of barbarism that unfolds between individuals in conflict [http://tinyurl.com/9drnvy] except that it is practiced between organized gangs of individuals who band together to increase their strength.
And unless the cycle is broken it leads to the same destructive ends except on a much more massive scale.
Each time one group attains power they seek retribution on the other and use the force of the state to achieve that goal.
It is a vicious cycle that is destined to end in an explosion of barbarism and bloodshed.
We know this is true because it is not the first time this has happened.
It would seem to be a naturally occurring pattern.
The last time that the world was consumed by the total state philosophies of communism and fascism tens of millions were slaughtered, great cities were leveled and entire societies where devastated and traumatized.
These philosophies are identical in all respects but one – who they chose to focus their hatred on and who, consequently, those in control of the state chose to use the power of the state to focus their extermination efforts on.
As the state grows so grows evil.
This is the path which we are traveling.
Anyone who has ever read about the holocaust cannot help but be struck by the fact that the people who lead the jews to the gas chambers responded to pleading for empathy from those who were about to die with the usual cold response of the government employee: “I’m just following the law” … “I’m just doing my job”.
Those who consider themselves to believe in non-violence should remember this quote from Martin Luther King Jr.
“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’”.
The choice between violence and non-violence is the choice between coercion and voluntarism.
Support for the existence of the state is 100% at odds with support for a philosophy of non-violence because the state is an institution that exists solely for the purpose of inflicting coercive and violent force against individuals.
Gandhi’s philosophy of Satyagraha explicitly sought to combat the impulse to coercion not only because it does not work but because this path leads us to become just like those whose behavior we are seeking to change.
If the goal is to achieve enduring change, coercion will never work. Indeed it can have the deceptive effect of appearing to work in the short term but actually making things much worse in the long term.
The goal is not to use force against the evil doer.
The goal is to encourage the evil doer to transform themselves by connecting with them, forcing them to face their own conscience and to voluntarily choose to stop exercising coercion.
Deep down we all know the difference between right and wrong because morality is innate and is rooted in empathy. When we feel empathy for other human beings we cannot cause harm to them because we feel their pain as if it were our own.
Stayagraha seeks to turn on the empathy of the one who chooses to exercise coercion. In so doing it forces them to face their own conscience.
Destructive emotions have the opposite effect. When we choose to respond to force with force we are actually helping the evil doer to deceive themselves into thinking that their actions are moral because we are helping them to keep their empathy turned off.
This is what the destructive emotions of fear and anger do. They kill empathy and in so doing blind the conscience.
This path leads to the division of society into warring tribes who use ever increasing means of violence against each other. Sooner or later the violence of voting, taxation and law-making will escalate into even more brutal forms of violence, barbarism and war making.
This time around perhaps we will end up wiping out our entire species?
I believe that those who profess to believe in non-violence but who inadvertently end up choosing the path of coercion should choose to practice Satyagraha on themselves and to lead by example.
This is the path that has the best chance of not only avoiding a deep dive into barbarism but actually bringing about positive, peaceful and enduring change in the world.
People like Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. are heroes of mine.
What really gets me steamed though is all of the activists out there who claim the heritage of these men, and who claim to genuinely believe in non-violence, but who simultaneously strive to achieve their goals by using the power of the state to inflict violence on others.
I find this to be exasperating for two reasons.
First of all, by behaving in this fashion they smear all of us who believe in non-violence with the label of hypocrisy and dissuade others who might otherwise be attracted to this philosophy.
Secondly I believe that many of those who practice this hypocrisy are not actually aware on a conscience level that they are acting at odds with their own beliefs.
I believe this to be so because the very existence of the state blinds them to the reality of what they are doing.
I believe that the impulse to use coercion against our fellow human beings is fundamentally due to an inability to control our fears.
When we are unable to control our fears, we must choose between the fight or flight response. When we choose to fight we usually choose to exercise control over our environment in some fashion.
When we do this ourselves by directly imposing our will on other human beings there is at least the possibility of connecting with that other human being. There is the chance that we will become aware of the pain and suffering that we are causing to them.
There is a chance that we may choose to stop hurting them.
There is a chance that we may choose to feel remorse and to seek to make amends for causing harm to them.
Of course, if the inability to control a strong fear is significant, we may instead choose to turn off our empathy for them, become self absorbed, get and stay angry and to morally justify what we know in our heart to be immoral. This is, of course, the path chosen by all of the monsters of history.
So, when we choose to do the deed ourselves, there is at least a chance that we will not descend into evil.
However, when we choose to exercise coercion indirectly by asking someone else to do it for us, this possibility is much more remote.
When we choose to vote this is what we are doing and this is why voting in particular and democracy in general is so incredibly evil.
When we cast a ballot we are choosing to employ another human being to exercise coercion on our behalf.
Laws are passed for this purpose.
The violence of the state is then used to impose force on our victims.
But all of this is out-of-sight and out-of-mind for the voters.
We never have to see the pain and suffering that these human beings feel, thus we are never able to feel remorse for what we have done.
And nobody who works for the state is willing to accept responsibility for this evil.
They all pass the buck.
The police officers who serve the fines, and throw human beings into dehumanizing cages where they will be raped and brutalized always say the same thing … “I’m just following the law” … “I’m just doing my job”.
And when our victims seek empathy from organs of governments who administer these laws, they always say the same thing … “I’m just following the law” … “I’m just doing my job”.
Few people in our society realize what is really going.
Few people see the big picture.
Few people understand the true dynamics of the larger forces that are really at work here and where all this is ultimately leading us to.
Few people understand the role that they themselves are playing to bring this about and the role that they could play to prevent it from being so if they so chose.
A vicious self-reinforcing cycle is at work …
The state grows in proportion to the inability of individuals to control their fears and the inability of individuals to control their fears grows in proportion to the growth of the state.
The increase in the rate of taxation …
the increase in the ferocity of invasive laws which destroy individual liberty and seek to control every aspect of the life of the individual …
the increase in the dependency of the individual on the state and the feeling of dis-empowerment …
These symptoms of the growth of the state serve only to increase the stress of the individual who more often than not seeks to decrease that stress by paradoxically giving the state more power.
We choose to vote “our guy” into office to respond in kind to the individuals who are perceived to be inflicting the pain on us via the state.
This cycle of barbarism is absolutely identical to the cycle of barbarism that unfolds between individuals in conflict [http://tinyurl.com/9drnvy] except that it is practiced between organized gangs of individuals who band together to increase their strength.
And unless the cycle is broken it leads to the same destructive ends except on a much more massive scale.
Each time one group attains power they seek retribution on the other and use the force of the state to achieve that goal.
It is a vicious cycle that is destined to end in an explosion of barbarism and bloodshed.
We know this is true because it is not the first time this has happened.
It would seem to be a naturally occurring pattern.
The last time that the world was consumed by the total state philosophies of communism and fascism tens of millions were slaughtered, great cities were leveled and entire societies where devastated and traumatized.
These philosophies are identical in all respects but one – who they chose to focus their hatred on and who, consequently, those in control of the state chose to use the power of the state to focus their extermination efforts on.
As the state grows so grows evil.
This is the path which we are traveling.
Anyone who has ever read about the holocaust cannot help but be struck by the fact that the people who lead the jews to the gas chambers responded to pleading for empathy from those who were about to die with the usual cold response of the government employee: “I’m just following the law” … “I’m just doing my job”.
Those who consider themselves to believe in non-violence should remember this quote from Martin Luther King Jr.
“We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was ‘legal’”.
The choice between violence and non-violence is the choice between coercion and voluntarism.
Support for the existence of the state is 100% at odds with support for a philosophy of non-violence because the state is an institution that exists solely for the purpose of inflicting coercive and violent force against individuals.
Gandhi’s philosophy of Satyagraha explicitly sought to combat the impulse to coercion not only because it does not work but because this path leads us to become just like those whose behavior we are seeking to change.
If the goal is to achieve enduring change, coercion will never work. Indeed it can have the deceptive effect of appearing to work in the short term but actually making things much worse in the long term.
The goal is not to use force against the evil doer.
The goal is to encourage the evil doer to transform themselves by connecting with them, forcing them to face their own conscience and to voluntarily choose to stop exercising coercion.
Deep down we all know the difference between right and wrong because morality is innate and is rooted in empathy. When we feel empathy for other human beings we cannot cause harm to them because we feel their pain as if it were our own.
Stayagraha seeks to turn on the empathy of the one who chooses to exercise coercion. In so doing it forces them to face their own conscience.
Destructive emotions have the opposite effect. When we choose to respond to force with force we are actually helping the evil doer to deceive themselves into thinking that their actions are moral because we are helping them to keep their empathy turned off.
This is what the destructive emotions of fear and anger do. They kill empathy and in so doing blind the conscience.
This path leads to the division of society into warring tribes who use ever increasing means of violence against each other. Sooner or later the violence of voting, taxation and law-making will escalate into even more brutal forms of violence, barbarism and war making.
This time around perhaps we will end up wiping out our entire species?
I believe that those who profess to believe in non-violence but who inadvertently end up choosing the path of coercion should choose to practice Satyagraha on themselves and to lead by example.
This is the path that has the best chance of not only avoiding a deep dive into barbarism but actually bringing about positive, peaceful and enduring change in the world.
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