Charles Hugh Smith might think like that. Not all of us do. <we subconsciously persuade ourselves of the rightness and inevitability of servitude and self-absorption.
And that is how we come to love our servitude; we persuade ourselves to believe it's acceptable and normal rather than deranged and destructive. >
Divide and rule is working just fine. Each person who votes for more government benefits to themselves and their little bailiwick increases the serfitude of others. They keep on voting for their patch to get a share of the action because as in the tragedy of the commons, if they don't, they will be the ones who miss out.
Sometimes, even in democracies, the majority can go against that flow when things are pressed enough. In the 1980s in New Zealand for example, after the change of government in 1984, the highly regulated and ring-fenced New Zealand economy was going broke and the suffocatocracy had reached its apogee. A 3 year period of major deregulation ensued along with a huge boom, unfortunately largely debt-funded with borrow and hope as collateral. After the 1987 collapse, there was an 8 year period of recovery. There are still many people with post-traumatic stress syndrome resulting from their financial implosion then.
The USA might suddenly flip the switch, vote for Ron Paul or equivalent, fill Congress with more of the same and get a new lease on life. Or their socialist British Disease might continue to make gains in the USA as it did from the early 20th century right through until now, with a slight slowing during the Maggie Thatcher years.
Plenty of people do like rules and Big Brother style government with collectivist notions, but they tend to like freedom for themselves, so the Big Brother style tends to become too oppressive after a while. After enough of them find themselves being punished rather than all the other people, there is resistance and eventual overthrow of the evil-doers.
Charles Hugh Smith really means "other people" rather than "we" but it's rude to talk about other people like that, so he pretends to include himself as one of the suckers.
Huxley's fundamental premise that infants can be conditioned to accept anything is false. That's the old Skinnerist "operant conditioning" theory but it conflicts with how living things, including humans, actually function. Yes, pressure can be put on infants and there will be some acceptance, but it's always like "The King Isn't Wearing Any Clothes" - people go along with it to avoid being punished, they don't really believe it. Some people who are seriously damaged can adopt extreme behaviour abnormalities as a result of the attempted conditioning, such as suicide bombers trying for a lot of virgins after martyrdom, but that's abnormal, fortunately, though there are enough to be a considerable problem.
The Communists in many countries thought they could change people to love Big Brother. But the outcome was always, "We pretend to work and they pretend to pay us." with nothing much achieved.
Mqurice |
