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. ;)
Showing posts with label power. Show all posts
Showing posts with label power. Show all posts
Sunday, July 12, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The State Is Not The Problem
Picture in your mind for a moment the image of a crazy man angrily shaking his fist at a non-existent foe.
Many libertarians are passionate defenders of the right to bear arms. They say things like …
“Guns don’t hurt people. People hurt people.”
I would argue, however, that libertarians who blame the state for violence have a lot in common with those who blame guns for violence.
The state is just another kind of weapon is it not?
It doesn’t hurt anyone on its own.
It’s just a tool.
“The state doesn’t hurt people. People hurt people.”
Ponder that disturbing truth for a moment.
The state is not the problem.
The state is just one type of weapon that people use to impose their will on each other.
The problem is not the weapon.
The problem is with those who seek to use the weapon to force their will on others.
More specifically, the problem is the pattern of thinking that gives rise to the desire to exercise control over our fellow human beings.
I submit that if people did not desire to impose their will on each other there would be no state.
The real enemy of freedom and the root cause of all conflict and violence in the world is that pattern of thinking in the mind of man that gives rise in him to a desire to impose his will on his fellow man.
So the critically important question to ask is “Why?”.
Why do people desire to impose their will on each other?
You need only search your heart to find the answer.
FEAR
The state is not the problem.
FEAR is the problem.
You can completely destroy the state but if man has not learned to condition his mind to overcome FEAR he will just find another weapon he can use to impose his will on his fellow man.
Somalia proved that did it not?
Admittedly, this is a humbling truth that is difficult to accept. Many libertarians have spent their entire lives railing against the evils of the state.
If you are one of these, please consider the disturbing possibility that the crazy man shaking his fist at a non-existent foe might be you.
Addendum
My apologies to any of my libertarian friends who might find this to be offensive. My goal was not to offend. Rather it was to challenge your thinking. I have found that sometimes patterns of thinking are so deeply ingrained that it sometimes requires a bit of a shock in order to get us to question them.
I believe very strongly that achieving the free society we all dream of requires us to radically change our entire way of thinking about the nature of the problem and, consequently, the range of solutions that might be effective in solving it.
One of the most fascinating things about the world in which we live is that problems which at first appear to be complex and intractable often turn out to have staggeringly simple root causes that can go undetected for decades or more. In such situations, solving the problem by dealing directly with its root cause can result in an almost magical melting away of the heretofore observed complexity.
I strongly believe that to be the case here and make the following bold prediction: The day that man learns to condition his mind to face and overcome his fears will be the day in which the state itself will cease to exist. More so, all forms of coercion, conflict and violence will simply disappear as humanity enters into a new age of emotional maturity and bids farewell to the age of barbarism.
The resultant ripple-effect of changes to human society of this one simple change will be of such staggering vastness that it may well be impossible to predict exactly what the world would look like. There is, however, one thing of which we can be sure. It is a world worth fighting for.
Many libertarians are passionate defenders of the right to bear arms. They say things like …
“Guns don’t hurt people. People hurt people.”
I would argue, however, that libertarians who blame the state for violence have a lot in common with those who blame guns for violence.
The state is just another kind of weapon is it not?
It doesn’t hurt anyone on its own.
It’s just a tool.
“The state doesn’t hurt people. People hurt people.”
Ponder that disturbing truth for a moment.
The state is not the problem.
The state is just one type of weapon that people use to impose their will on each other.
The problem is not the weapon.
The problem is with those who seek to use the weapon to force their will on others.
More specifically, the problem is the pattern of thinking that gives rise to the desire to exercise control over our fellow human beings.
I submit that if people did not desire to impose their will on each other there would be no state.
The real enemy of freedom and the root cause of all conflict and violence in the world is that pattern of thinking in the mind of man that gives rise in him to a desire to impose his will on his fellow man.
So the critically important question to ask is “Why?”.
Why do people desire to impose their will on each other?
You need only search your heart to find the answer.
FEAR
The state is not the problem.
FEAR is the problem.
You can completely destroy the state but if man has not learned to condition his mind to overcome FEAR he will just find another weapon he can use to impose his will on his fellow man.
Somalia proved that did it not?
Admittedly, this is a humbling truth that is difficult to accept. Many libertarians have spent their entire lives railing against the evils of the state.
If you are one of these, please consider the disturbing possibility that the crazy man shaking his fist at a non-existent foe might be you.
Addendum
My apologies to any of my libertarian friends who might find this to be offensive. My goal was not to offend. Rather it was to challenge your thinking. I have found that sometimes patterns of thinking are so deeply ingrained that it sometimes requires a bit of a shock in order to get us to question them.
I believe very strongly that achieving the free society we all dream of requires us to radically change our entire way of thinking about the nature of the problem and, consequently, the range of solutions that might be effective in solving it.
One of the most fascinating things about the world in which we live is that problems which at first appear to be complex and intractable often turn out to have staggeringly simple root causes that can go undetected for decades or more. In such situations, solving the problem by dealing directly with its root cause can result in an almost magical melting away of the heretofore observed complexity.
I strongly believe that to be the case here and make the following bold prediction: The day that man learns to condition his mind to face and overcome his fears will be the day in which the state itself will cease to exist. More so, all forms of coercion, conflict and violence will simply disappear as humanity enters into a new age of emotional maturity and bids farewell to the age of barbarism.
The resultant ripple-effect of changes to human society of this one simple change will be of such staggering vastness that it may well be impossible to predict exactly what the world would look like. There is, however, one thing of which we can be sure. It is a world worth fighting for.
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