“Us” vs. “Them”

The simple concerns of life are beneath the notice of the detached overlords of “the ruling class,” who look to stock market indicators to determine economic “health.”  In their marketing campaign for the “Rah Rah Money Talks” agenda, they aggressively promote money as the solution for all evils, including (presumably) rooster sinus infections.  There’s probably a patented pill for it.

Pardon my sarcasm, or is it the natural consequence of following this irrational chain of made-for-television reasoning to its obvious (but not logical) conclusions?

It’s popular lately to blame the “them”s like “oligarchs” and “white supremacists” for all society’s ills.  The “us,” meaning everybody except me—who exists in my own “them” dimension—still are willing to play by the oligarchs’ rules of government and the stock market, and look to the government to impose ever more rules to control everybody under the pretext of controlling the other “them”s like the “white supremacists.”

I wonder if the “white supremacists”–who are identified by their fondness for military assault weapons–are derived from the oligarchical, rule-bound, framework.  This human drama must contain counter-forces, to prop up the “us” vs. “them” mass mentality.

The above is a convoluted way of suggesting that the system itself makes the counter-system necessary.  It strikes me that historically, the world’s most despotic rulers had the backing of a loyal military.  The world’s richest people did not fight the wars themselves, but profited mightily from them.   Who benefits from US wars—or any war or military intervention—now?  Certainly the ravages of war are visited on those on whose turf the battles are waged, the civilians, their families and the fighters and families, too.  The spoilers may rest with their ill-gotten gains but live in fear of the “them”s who have not been eliminated or disempowered and are looking for revenge.

That’s why despots are deservedly paranoid and depend on the loyalty of a strong military and purchased friendship.  They need presumed adversaries like mass murderers and drug lords to justify their ever tighter grip on the society that will not be completely controlled by rules.

If I went into psychiatry to set people free, I have been disappointed, in the short term.  I have seen close up how frightened individuals are of the implications of freedom, which begins with freedom of thought.  To define “freedom” of thought possibly begins with saying what it is not.  It is not merely rebellion, reaction to the status quo, to conventional beliefs or rules.  It does start with conscious examination of those conventions and determining whether they serve the greater whole.

What’s the “greater whole”?  For me that includes the “us” and the “them,” as well as the hitherto unacknowledged non-human life forms on the planet.  To recognize we are all counterparts enmeshed in this drama we call life means having the mental flexibility to imagine oneself in the place of the “them”s and trying to understand what motivates their activity.  There’s obviously a place for the oligarchs and the mass shooters, or they wouldn’t exist.  If we don’t like it, we need to free our thought from conventional beliefs and search for new ways to reform.  Delegated power is fickle and must be recognized as such.  When you delegate power, you will always be disappointed.

Freedom of thought means claiming responsibility for it but also having tolerance for others’ thought, even encouraging it, because it provides a larger area of understanding and perspective.  The push for homogeneity, unity, conformity—what is considered “normal” and socially acceptable—is ultimately deadening, like the mechanization of robots, which act according to pre-set agendas.

Nature does not follow man’s dictates, as we are learning.  Rather than “conquer” nature, as Francis Bacon and subsequent mechanists desired, we have the ability—but so far not the inspiration—to submit to nature’s desire to teach us freedom within the context of our environment.