Sidney, as I tried to say in my original post, we have had relatively repressive periods in our history before; they were prompted by a sense of national emergency, not imposed by a single autocratic individual. I do not see the kind of fear and anxiety today that leads governments to curtail civil rights, etc.
Again, I think the main danger (if there is one) is more likely to come from technology -- rather, from the misuse of it. And it would not be because anyone particularly wanted to "control" society, but rather because when you have a new toy, you often want to play with it, particularly when it makes your job easier. In other words, you can stumble into "tyranny" without necessarily even having intended it.
Your comments about the danger of "an evolving government on a world level" put me in mind of a story one of my sons told me the other day.
He saw a program about traffic control, showing how traffic patterns are tracked by satellite. What was discovered is something we have all experienced: every so often, and not at the height of rush hour either, traffic suddenly "bunches up," for no apparent reason. There's no construction; there is no rubbernecking-provoking accident by the side of the road; there is no sudden rainstorm, nothing. Just, perhaps, three cars are travelling slowly, breast-to-breast, in the three available lanes, slowing down everyone behind them.
Well, apparently, from the satellite, this "traffic bunch" looks like and behaves like an animal, and the cars in it like cells in the animal; they obey the laws of the animal's motions, even though the drivers want nothing so much as to break free of it. They are caught, in other words, in the toils of a perverse Beast that controls them, without their own consent.
But there is no Beast! Rather, the Beast is a spontaneous phenomenon, an anarchic one, if you will.
Similarly, with international developments today. Yes, national boundaries are eroding. Yes, individual governments have less control over the destinies of their own countries. But not because there is more international government; I would suggest that the reverse may be true.
For example, international capital flows in and out of countries, at will. Many governments (Malaysia, for example?) would like to control it, because these sudden inflows and outflows can really destroy their economies. Now, if we wanted to impose controls over international capital flows, some international body or other would have to do it, but its purpose would be to return more power to national governments!
Information -- another case in point. Many governments would like to control the Internet, to arrest the flow of information within the country and most particularly from without. But who is the master of the Internet? The Internet is yet another spontaneous, anarchic phenomenon. Suppose you had an international group that could regulate the net (God forbid!): its purpose would ultimately be to give the national governments more power over The Internet Beast than they now have.
In other words, it may not be an Evolving One-World Government that makes individuals and governments feel they are losing control of their own destinies, but rather the fact that we are all increasingly caught up in a spontaneously evolving, totally anarchic Traffic Beast, whose movements we are forced to follow, without understanding its nature.
Just a few thoughts, off the top of my head. I reserve the right to retract them all, if I choose. <g>
Joan |
