Technology can be broadly defined as an ability to use tools and knowledge as a mechanism to control and adapt parts of our environment.
Technology can be broadly defined as an ability to use tools and knowledge as a mechanism to control and adapt parts of our environment.
Throughout human history there has always been a necessity for social cohesion, as evolutionary pack animals we learned early on, it was safer and more productive to be part of a group. Hierarchical power structures seemed to have provided the greatest benefit when it came to managing the tribe, but as our tribes have become exponentially larger this approach may no longer fit the purpose for which it was intended. Tribal leaders have been replaced by global leaders able to dictate world policy that not only effects individuals, but also global environmental conditions.
The approach taken by the global leaders of today is to implement ideologies considered to be complete and perfect, using them to steer the masses towards a subjective vision of a future society. Ideologies are carefully crafted into a social, political and economic system, driven by procedures, legislation's, laws, cultural etiquette and even religious doctrine, all forged together to form a hulking machine by which to march society forward to the same beat.
The problem with this approach of courses is that these ideologies are not only subjective but are also guided by multiple self-interest groups within the realms of the hierarchy. As the mechanisms of the social machine turn they begin to grow, gaining mass and power. New laws are added, new systems patch onto the old, the population expands, new rules, new technology, soon the machine takes on a life of its own, a hulking great mass of red tape, committees, interest groups and politicians. It becomes impossible to meet the needs of all people equally, inevitably the so-called righteous path of the greater good is taken.
What really is the greater good? Many decisions have been made with this argument over the years, in fact politicians are still using it while ignoring overwhelming evidence clearly depicting the consequences. Murdering millions of innocent human beings is but a small price to pay, "for the greater good". The righteous can always justify their actions, be it for the illusion of a god, a so-called sacred book, the name of a prophet, even for freedom. They all play the same game. This ideology is made possible today exactly as it was generations ago. Through the skillful application of social propaganda and indoctrination the minds of the masses can be herded to the current direction required by the power structures.
At the same time, the belief held by public opinion is that government exists and expands to protect and serve the people (the greater good). It is of course the people, who in all cases become submissive servants to to the growing system of consolidated power.
When individual rights are sacrificed for institutionalized systems, a corruption of power will always occur, it is an inevitability. If we give away the very thing that makes us human, to a non-human conceptualized system, we will be forced to accept inhuman conditions enforced by abstract polices. Rules for the sake or rules, laws that subvert truth and honesty, the rapid decline of social morals, ethics and values. A decline of society to such a state, leaving only the tools of fear as mechanisms to maintain social order.
Sounds familiar?
There have been many implementation and attempts at providing a fair and equal society, yet each one has floundered and either been removed as a failed experiment, or corrupted until again the power has been aggregated into the hands of a few. Currently we live in the age of so called democracy, I say so-called as the model we use today is not representative of a true meaning of the word. The meaning of democracy has been corrupted so-much-so, as to include a whole spectrum of hierarchical bastardizations of totalitarian dictatorships.
Democracy - from the Greek word demokratia "rule of the people".
Today we live under a wartime dictatorships, an empire of plutocracy hidden under the guise of globalization. Today's state of human society is deadlier than any conflict that has ever come before. Many people will fail to see the evidence of this, the only wars visible to them being the one's on terrorism, crime, drugs and resources. I would suggest that these are not wars but merely skirmishes on the grand chessboard of the economic, social and psychological battlefield currently being played out, and as consumers we inadvertently act as financiers to one of the most destructive and brutal wars in human history.
Intellectuals along with the political and religious leaders they advise, gain their status in principle through the accumulation of knowledge within a particular area. Although this knowledge may be restricted to a niche scope it does not refrain them from adopting a tone of authority in excess of it.
As a society we seem to have taken if for granted that these people are knowledgeable in all areas within which they speak. Dangerously we promote them into the highest positions of power commanding authority over every part of our lives. History will remind us time and time again, as to the foolishness of this notion.
Those who act as intellectuals or authorities within defined scopes of study, are in most parts abstracted from the totalities of the real world, and its factual issues. Take for example any of the methods implemented for social-order, be it democracy, socialism, fascism, communism, whatever the flavor, the empirical validity of them all have proven to be non-beneficial to the human species as a whole. Why? Well this is easily answered when we understand that the underlying economic structure in each one has fundamentally remained same.
The reasons for this economic morphing while preserving the systemic problem can be understood if we acknowledge the psychological nature of ourselves. The label of an intellectual, be it leader, teacher etc, in itself promotes a figure of authority, in being an authority the individual gains social validation, all human beings have a need for validation.
There is then a paradoxical situation that exists within the human condition. We are prepared to make change, in so much as that change continues to preserves the beliefs and images we hold of ourselves, and our image within society. In the case of social cohesion, intellectuals have and will continue to promote ideas and reforms, only in-so-much as it continues to provide validation to their own being. The validation we use within todays modern societies is exactly the same as it has been for generations, "power". Predominately power is represented by wealth, however power is also represented by elevation of status within a society, ie, how others acknowledge to you.
There is then no incentive for intellectuals to radically change a system that could possibly negate their own social status. This is why we continue to see the preservation of an economic system that has proven over and over to be detrimental to our being, holding back our evolution with disastrous consequences to our environment.
If we truly wish to make functional positive change within our societies, we must first make that change within ourselves. For the same egotistical barriers that exists within our leaders also exist within ourselves. There is no messiah that can place us on a global path to peace and co-operation, we must first cultivate this peace and co-operation within ourselves, in our families and in our communities. By doing so we remove our dependency and outgrow the systems of old.
To achieve this we must become responsible and understand who we truly are. Only by letting go of the materialistic desires, the illusion and distractions can we begin to see our own individual truth. Through acceptance of this simplistic truth can our a actions be made manifest and something new may then emerge.
Peace, love and truth
Pace
