One question that should trouble most reading this is why is there such a disjunct or severe bifurcation between Kant’s unique and remarkable critiques and the miasma of his political philosophy. Perhaps, surprising as it seems, it is due to his primarily bourgeois sensibilities; certainly his political ideas are reactionary in the extreme. Yet, this is the same Immanuel Kant who produced the tremendous critiques which showcase that jewel in the crown of the trilogy -- the Critique of Practical Reason (CP).

The second critique, CP, is in essence the central work which both the first and third critiques are anchored on. If it was not for the issue of morality, it can be arguably said that Kant would not have produced the critiques as we know them for a crucial purpose of his project was to show that we can indeed have meaningful notions of the good and act that out, without being accused of metaphysical speculation or rendered impotent through scepticism. And importantly, we do not need the dogmatism of religious zealots to inform us of what is the right thing to do; our practical reason takes care of that and it is a driving force in defining us as humans.

This second part looks at how practical reason shapes Kant’s moral constructivism and is the basis of his political constructivism which runs counter to his political theory. In other words, Kant’s political reason is that which is morally driven.   

The moral basis of things

Just as Kant was adamant on providing certainty in knowledge in CR through his transcendental philosophy, he was determined to  provide reliable grounds for doing the right thing in the form of the categorical imperative, for instance. But it is not the categorical imperative as much as the moral force itself that helps create one’s reality which is at the heart of CP; it is also what underwrites the egalitarian and empowering principles of Kant's philosophical project. These ideas salvage Kant’s reputation from the harshness of his political thinking to provide, through extrapolation, what can be called his political reason.  

Early on in the CP Kant says,

In practical philosophy, which has to do only with the grounds of determination of the will, the principles which a man makes for himself are not laws by which he is inexorably bound, because reason, in practice, has to do with a subject and especially with his faculty of desire…The practical rule is always a product of reason, because it prescribes action as a means to an effect which is its purpose...It is a rule characterized by an “ought” which expresses the objective necessitation of the act and indicates that, if reason completely determined the will, the action would without exception take place according to the rule. (CP 20)    

What Kant is saying is that the will is influenced by practical reason and that is the same as free will reflective of human freedom. Man is not bound by a law by which he now must follow no matter what, but has the choice to do what is right from his own reason and if he does so it will be for the highest good of all as a duty. The moral choice comes from within and is not imposed from without: This is crucial in Kant.

Kant tries to clarify this a little later -- “But for reason to give law it is required that reason need presuppose only itself, because the rule is objectively and universally valid only when it holds without any contingent subjective conditions which differentiate one rational being from another.” (CP 21) Here Kant implies that there is no personal point of view or subjectivist perspective in producing a moral imperative for oneself. For a moral imperative is validated through practical reason which exists in each person, and that in turn is based on a moral grounding of each individual from which those imperatives and practical reason emanate; and in this way the imperatives can be regarded as universal: So we can expect that others can have similar moral imperatives and that they can understand where our own comes from. This is not an imposition of an external law or an internal one, but an imperative based on our free will which we make into a duty for ourselves without any desire for external rewards or recognition.  

We further learn from Kant,

It would be better to maintain that there are no practical laws, which must have an objective and not just subjective necessity and which must be known a priori by reason instead of by experience, no matter how empirically universal. Even the rules of uniform phenomena are denominated natural laws (for example, mechanical laws) only if we really can understand them a priori…Only in the case of subjective practical principles is it expressly made a condition that not objective but subjective conditions of choice must underlie them, and hence that they must be represented always as mere maxims and never as practical laws. (CP 27)        

Kant hearkens to the first critique on how laws are generated based on synthetic a priori conceptions and why this does not apply to moral imperatives. The ideas of the former are constitutive and regulative, whereas the latter are directive/directing in how to act. The moral imperative is not a law in that it has a way of getting agreement on its validity because it has empirical backing or can be accepted as a theoretical construct. Its force comes from its subjective-universal applicability which does not qualify it as some universal law, but rather as a maxim which one uses that can be accepted by others on a subjective-universal ground that applies to everyone. When that is used as the basis for a shared moral imperative then its force is guaranteed in a way by it not having a determinate end like the happiness of the individual or mankind. Rather the moral imperative is to ensure that we are worthy of happiness: This is what gives it objectivity from the subjective-universal ground of the will. This is central to a lot that follows and is one of Kant’s great insights.

We then reach one of the central ideas in Kant, on the links between freedom, the will and morality (Kant’s italics in all quotes):

The question now is whether our knowledge of the unconditionally practical takes its inception from freedom or from the practical law. It cannot start from freedom, for this we can neither know immediately, since our first concept of it is negative, nor infer from experience, since experience reveals only the law of appearances and consequently the mechanism of nature, the direct opposite of freedom. It is therefore the moral law, of which we become immediately conscious as soon as we construct maxims for the will, which first presents itself to us; and, since reason exhibits it as a ground of determination which is completely independent of and not to be outweighed by any sensuous condition, it is the moral law which leads directly to the concept of freedom. (CP 30).   

To Kant our knowledge of freedom comes from the practical law or moral law. We cannot understand this from the world of appearances but from the exercise of our will and freedom to choose against what the sensuous or natural world’s restrictions pose on us. For instance, the physical restrictions of the world and dangers it can bring, together with a sense of limitation that one has to struggle to survive, goes against the grain of the moral law which can make us choose -- as an act of will – freedom; or that which opposes self-interestedness (and sometimes, even survival).

Kant develops this idea further by saying that the (moral) will is pure will as there is no precedence for it in the realm of the phenomenal world as understood by natural law. It is one of a kind and can be understood as grounded on morality itself. The moral law seems to operate like a natural law but does not have the same result in that it is not a reflection of phenomena happening in the world and rationalizing causes for it. Yet, the moral law operates on the basis of generating a system of law like the natural one but is actually in the form of a maxim that a person can follow.

So Kant says,

Therefore, it is at least not impossible to conceive of a law that alone serves the purpose of the subjective form of principles and yet is a ground of determination by virtue of the objective form of a law in general. The consciousness of this fundamental law may be called a fact of reason, since one cannot ferret it out from antecedent data of reason, such as the consciousness of freedom…and since it forces itself upon us as a synthetic proposition a priori based on no pure or empirical intuition. It would be analytic if the freedom of the will were presupposed, but for this, as a positive concept, an intellectual intuition would be needed, and here we cannot assume it…

Pure reason alone is practical of itself, and it gives (to man) a universal law, which we call the moral law. (CP 31)

Kant is looking for a certain ground from which to launch the moral law and he finds it in pure reason. From this we can have certainty and communicate it to others and aim to create moral solutions to situations because we have not only the common practical grounds of reason itself, but we can project this in the form of a universal law in general (the awareness of which when generated in this manner is a fact of reason). But moral laws are not universal laws like natural ones; though they have universality due to their form which is similar to natural ones. Kant is interested in finding how we can provide certainty to moral ideas and have a basis for commonality in expressing them by showing the subjective-objective content-form they have; this also allows for universality and acceptability among peoples.

Furthermore, the idea of heteronomy (relying on something external to us) is opposed to autonomy (relying on something within us), and the latter is a distinctive feature in the expression of free will. This is an important idea that will provide the basis for further examining and recuperating from the damaging impact of Kant’s political ideas. Our man further says,

The autonomy of the will is the sole principle of all moral laws and of the duties conforming to them; heteronomy of choice…not only does not establish any obligation but is opposed to the principle of obligation and to the morality of the will.

The sole principle of morality consists in independence from all material of the law…and in the accompanying determination of choice by the mere form of giving universal law which a maxim must be capable of having. That independence…is freedom in the negative sense, while this intrinsic legislation of pure and thus practical reason is freedom in the positive sense. Therefore, the moral law expresses nothing else than the autonomy of pure practical reason, i.e., freedom. This autonomy of freedom is itself the formal condition of all maxims, under which alone they can all agree with the supreme practical law. (CP 33-34)       

Free will and the ability to choose is the idea behind moral laws and the duties it brings and it is centred within us; this makes us autonomous beings. Relying on something external to guide us and give us meaning and direction is to lose autonomy and provides a way out of moral responsibility and the obligation it brings.

The object of the moral law is the desire to do something, but we must not be a slave to that or be obsessed with an end goal to determine what is the right thing to do as it must be done as a universal principle as opposed to an end goal everyone is legislated to follow. The format of a law for our maxims shows us that it is universal and independent, but the positive aspect of our freedom comes from the obligation we give ourselves to do what is right irrespective of the impact on our comfort zones. This is what makes us free individuals, that is, the ability to break free from what constrains us. 

Then the lines that dive deeper into Kant’s idea on the connection between the supersensuous noumenon and the phenonmenal world:

The sensuous nature of rational beings in general is their existence under empirically conditioned laws, and therefore…heteronomy. The supersensuous nature of the same beings…is their existence according to laws which are independent of all empirical conditions and which therefore belong to the autonomy of pure reason. And since the laws…are practical laws, supersensuous nature…is nothing else than nature under the autonomy of the pure practical reason. The law of this autonomy is the moral law, and it, therefore, is the fundamental law of supersensuous nature and of a pure world of the understanding, whose counterpart must exist in the world of sense without interfering with the laws of the latter… (CP 43)    

Kant merges the idea of the laws of phenomena that come from reason which explain the conditional world we live in as experienced empirically with that of the seemingly unconditional world of the noumenon, as grasped and given intelligibility by practical reason. Only the latter can give an understanding of the noumenal world which natural laws cannot; and the natural world can be understood better via the underlying moral laws of practical reason which are an expression of our autonomy. The world of seeming dependence on empirical changes is underpinned by the unchanging world of freedom and morality which are direct aspects of the noumenon. Therefore, Kant’s vision of the world and the universe is a moral one.

This central idea in Kant’s thinking is further developed:

For, in fact, the moral law ideally transfers us into a nature in which reason would bring forth the highest good were it accompanied by sufficient physical capacities; and it determines our will to confer on the sensuous world the form of a system of rational beings. The least attention to ourself shows that this Idea really stands as a model for the determination of our will. (CP 43)   

It seems that Kant is saying that we can shape the world we live in, and therefore create our destiny, via expressing our freedom as moral beings for the highest good of all and this could be supported by the physical world under the right conditions. This reality which can be manifested as a moral expression of ourselves is a noumenal expression translating itself into phenomenal expression. This implies that with force of the moral law we can co-create the world we live in. It is not that we end up changing the so-called law of gravity as such, but that we change the world in a way that positively reflects our stewardship of life and the environment of the planet, through creating and sustaining the appropriate socio-economic structures.

Kant goes on to develop another of the central themes of his philosophy which forms the basis for his moral constructivism: It is not the idea of good and evil that is the datum for the moral law but the latter that provides the source for such notions. And he goes on to expand on this,

This remark, which refers only to the method of the deepest moral investigations, is important. It explains once and for all the reasons which occasion all the confusions of philosophers concerning the supreme principle of morals…Whether they placed this object of pleasure, which was to deliver the supreme concept of good, in happiness, or in perfection, in moral feeling, or in the will of God – their fundamental principle was always heteronomy, and they came inevitably to empirical conditions for a moral law. (CP 64)

Kant points out that to place the source of the highest good and the joy it may bring in a source external to oneself inevitably results in surrendering our freedom to an external law, condition or force. Heteronomy involves empirical evidence and natural law explanations to ascertain the good it generates for a person. This would be a subreption. The moral law is not only a priori and has no basis in the natural world nor metaphysical speculation, but it comes from within and thereby signals our autonomy and guarantees the certitude of the moral drive.

The idea of co-creation of reality is expanded by Kant when he says that morality as expressed via the practical law is geared towards the highest good of all, and so what we work towards in that construction of a society for everyone’s good is such that it does so for the welfare of all. This does not, however, preclude taking challenging decisions that could place us in jeopardy when, for instance, speaking truth to power. Whatever the consequence to ourselves, we will do what is right for the welfare/highest good of others; for the end goal is not the happiness of others so much as doing what makes us worthy of happiness and in that respect, we would add to the happiness of ourselves and others. (CP 69-70, 93)

The moral law is the ground from which the highest good commences. It may seem circular but there is hardly a way out for Kant on this score in that the drive and source of the highest good is itself, so it is directing in nature but not directed towards a specific goal as that would be the way the natural laws would work which are empirically/verification oriented and thereby heteronomous. (CP 109-110)

These central Kantian ideas take fuller form when expanded into how the practical will avoids the dual dilemma of empiricism and mysticism; this is also what Kant was avoiding when he wrote the CR. When the motivation and goal of our actions are our comfort and happiness instead of doing what is right, then we are guilty of seeking validation for our acts in the form of empiricism; this would fit utilitarian doctrines and is heteronomous. This would also entail seeking a reward in doing something to gain satisfaction rather than an inner motivation that would reflect one’s conscience.

Similarly, to do something based on ‘God’s will’ is not only to make metaphysical assumptions according to Kant, but to dive into mysticism/the transcendent and thus rely on divine edict’s outside of oneself; this too is to indulge in heteronomy. Our agency, free will and autonomy is denied unless we rely on our moral judgement and our capacity for this based on our will and practical reason: This is the building block for our empowerment. We are “indeed legislative members of a moral realm which is possible through freedom and which is presented to us as an object of respect by practical reason.” (CP 82) Our will towards the highest good helps us co-create a moral realm as the expression of our freedom as autonomous beings.

Yet, Kant makes the point that it is empiricism that is more worrying than the mystical. It is looking for results that can be measured to secure one’s justification for doing something that is a greater distraction for our moral disposition. He says “that empiricism is far more dangerous than all mystical enthusiasm” (CP 71) as its apparent immediacy is always a compelling factor. We are normally trapped within the exigencies of physical issues that tend to cloud the need to rely on moral judgement. This is why Kant’s political ideas contradict what his moral thought gives us (which is the ground of his critical philosophy) -- that expediency and its empirical seduction cannot triumph over the moral will of one’s conscience which is our supreme human trait.

A core aspect of Kant’s practical reason would resonate with some revolutionary activists:

It follows of itself that, in the order of ends, man (and every rational being) is an end in himself, i.e., he is never to be used merely as a means for someone (even for God) without at the same time being himself an end, and that humanity in our person must itself be holy to us, and it is only on account of this and in agreement with this that anything can be called holy. (CP 131-132)  

This is the kind of spiritual force that is usually found simmering at the heart of revolutionary thought where morality, purpose and action fuse into a whole without external incentive other than the drive for self realization for the highest good of all. True, sometimes this is mired in the goal of ridding a country of a dictatorship or oppressive regime, and that may seem heteronomous. But an unadulterated revolutionary motivation would see that no man is a commodity, and that each person is a free and autonomous being beyond measurement: For our essence is spiritual and thereby Immeasurable.

Bringing it together

A brief survey of the three critiques reveals that the first one looks at theoretical or speculative reason, what it is, and how we create knowledge. The CR looks at how we claim certainty in knowledge rather than explain what it is we exactly know. The CP looks at the free will, freedom, practical reason and their moral grounding. This in turn gives us autonomy and provides certainty in our moral claims and actions. The third critique (CJ), which is not looked at here, is about how we communicate in relation to nature, beauty, the sublime and art. It allows us to make claims about what is beautiful which though it may be subjective, still allows us to expect universal understanding from others on this. The CJ also examines issues related to the moral dimension which is the essence of Kant’s thinking.

The CR shows that we project what we know and that much of the world is understood by us a priori from the way human consciousness is ‘wired’ or ‘designed’. The CR sets the base for practical reason which goes on to show in CP, that we co-create moral realms through not only categorical imperatives but that the moral dimension is what makes the world intelligible to us: It fuses the noumenal basis of reason into understanding things in a holistic and coherent manner. So we project our moral creations and that shapes our world. This is Kant’s projection of empowerment and egalitarianism of each individual as they express themselves as free agents who can decide their destiny.

The fact of reason makes us aware of the intrinsic connection, or different side of the same coin aspect, of speculative reason and practical reason. And when we look at what is termed here Kant’s political reason we are looking at another dimension of Kant’s ideas that is, however, in contradistinction to his political thinking. Political reason expresses itself via synthetic a priori political theorizing that appropriately and effectively replaces and projects a viable set of political ideas for Kant.

Earlier it was mentioned that Kant’s subreption occurred when he made moral claims from his political ones, and the combined fetishized notions of them slipped into transcendentalism and transcendence: Because the moral drive has been hegemonised by the political one of expedience and Rightism/legalism. And republicanism, constitutionalism, and Rightism/legalism are treated as transcendent goals or Ideals to be realized and used to justify a reactionary status quo. We understand political reason to be underwritten by moral drives and practical reason (which also underpin pure reason and thereby theoretical/speculative reason).

Thus, political theories would be fused with moral drives as an expression of the moral ground. They are not hegemonised by morality but made intelligible solely by morality just as the workings and resultant products of reason itself are intelligible due to its practical essence.

Therefore, political reason gives proper and cogent expression to Kant’s political philosophy. It is also fused with practical reason -- which is what ultimately anchors his critiques and overall philosophical project. In other words, the accurate way to understand Kant’s political ideas is to apply them as moral constructs.

The material for Kant’s political theory would also be synthetic a priori in that there are notions of democracy, general will, social contract, equality, public good etc which are a priori constructs. These are then formulated into theories which would support ideas of republicanism (as various shades of democracy), authoritarianism, totalitarianism, socialism, anarchism, and all that would be termed radical political thinking. When we try to work this out empirically it is called politics and academically, political science. So another way to put it is that Kant’s political reason is the expression of a synthetic a priori projection of theoretical constructs aligned with the moral drive.

We could say that pure reason has the dimensions of practical reason (that underlies it), theoretical/speculative reason, and political reason. The latter can be expressed as theoretical constructs, and itself is an expression of practical reason and of the moral essence grounding it.

It can also be said that Kant’s republicanism, legalism, Right-ism and constitutionalism, as well as his fixation with a hierarchical system of government is a product of his theorizing which he attempts to verify with examples from his time and experience. These are manifestations of transcendental thinking which are used to explain and rationalize politics, traditional societal structures and forms of control. That Kant’s political ideas are reactionary in the extreme and even harsh in many aspects can only be speculatively said to be the result of his bourgeois attitudes and existence, and from biographical information that in his later years he conformed to authority; though this may have also been his way of showing that he was a good citizen of his land.

The problem starts when he takes his political theorizing to logical extremes, wherein the transcendental logic used to draw conclusions in a linear fashion finally produces puerile statements as seen where whatever good he attempts to rationalize through stability leads to despotism. Legal or constitutional despotism is still despotism; these are subtleties lost on the later Kant whose sharpness of mind is blunted by a form of worship of authority, and fetishized logicism.

It becomes problematic and painfully embarrassing when Kant facilely tries to combine his profound moral thinking with the effrontery of his politics. But we now can see the contradiction is severe for his entire moral philosophy is at odds with his political theory in that it is the former which is an expression of the spiritual in man, and the assertion of his freedom in contrast to being a driveling and sniveling slave to authority.

We need to extrapolate Kant’s ideas and see that the proper application of his practical reason to political reason can add to clarity in the form of the concept of practical political reason. Hence, we grasp the emphasis that the intelligibility granted to political reason comes from the moral dimension espoused as practical political reason (PPR). Through the term PPR it is easier to see that it is our moral grounding that determines our political thinking and thereby our political theories and actions. This means we have political theories that are projected from the morally grounded ideas of freedom, justice, egalitarianism, and wealth sharing and distribution for the highest good of all. So PPR would take us away from Kant’s reactionary bombast and towards uncharted territories in that it is an expression of our creative powers to meet challenges and forge the society we want.

Kant’s moral constructivism would include John Rawls’s notion of it, but it is developed here as people co-creating their own moral realm and society. As moral agents we create a moral realm, or world, made intelligible and free from the constraints that may be imposed by the phenomenal world; but also recognizing the pragmatic need to adapt to its physical constructs. Yet, the phenomenal world can also be influenced and shaped by the moral co-creation of human beings, as societal structures and phenomena can be changed to reflect moral consciousness.

Therefore, through each person via categorical imperatives and the exercise of their autonomy and free will grounded in morality we co-create a just and fair society that allows for the betterment of all and the highest realization of human potential. This is hardly utopia but what can be created when PPR is in force. It is just that we have not really given this a proper go yet.

Wishing one and all a good 2012.

Below is another draft fragment of an unfinished project from last year which is posted here as it may stimulate ideas for others.

“…everything is rich – in other words, everything that is commensurate with the universe. I insist on the fact that, to freedom of mind, the search for a solution is an exuberance, a superfluity; this gives it an incomparable force. To solve political problems becomes difficult for those who allow anxiety alone to pose them. It is necessary for anxiety to pose them. But their solution demands at a certain point the removal of this anxiety.”  -- The Accursed Share, Georges Bataille

There is something wrong with the world. We have apparently reached a point of great technological advancement where we can harness nuclear energy, and use it and all other scientific breakthroughs to innovate various ways to kill life through conflict and daily living; we can travel the air and outer space; we can land on the moon and send probes out into deep space; we can communicate with one another instantly and conduct economic transactions just as fast. We call ourselves modern and claim to be advanced.

   Yet:

• we rely almost entirely on fossil fuels that are limited and pollute the environment
• we cannot eradicate terminal and serious illnesses
• there is world wide poverty and hunger
• we cannot obviate the impact of natural disasters
• we believe what we see on TV and the mainstream media
• we allow ‘experts’, institutions and those in authority to sway our emotions and common sense easily
• we believe with certainty that science is truth and vice versa
• we buy into the claim that money is what life is about (for without it life is apparently impossible in the modern, sophisticated world guided by smart people)
• we admire celebrities and want to be like them (sic)
• we believe in a binary type of logic of either true or false and a restrictive idea of analysis which means you must agree to a form of linear thinking or you are plain unrealistic
• we somehow believe that there are higher truths, emotions and explanations beyond what we tend to believe but somehow prefer to be guided often by materialism
• we can see through the shenanigans of hoodwinkers if we just stay alert and watch our backs but continue in a thinking mode of global and societal indoctrination that continues to allows us to be bamboozled anyway
• we think big banks, big corporations and big government and ideology is somehow a good thing
• we think that living in fear and anxiety is normal (this last one is instrumental in resulting in most of what is listed above)
• we think those who do not live in fear and anxiety are abnormal, and we say things are the way they are and nothing can be done about them

   And the list does go on.

   But everything is energy. Science seems to think that too. Spirituality has been blasting that about for eons. We believe in the exuberance and irrepressible energy of the universe and can see its effects everywhere, but for some reason think that we have to live in limitation. Abundance is the natural state of affairs of everything, but we are stuck in a mindset of lack and grappling for resources.

   The universe is teeming with life. Just look at the earth (and all those microbes from outer space etc). You can have a plot of land untended for awhile and it sprouts weeds. You have some crack in the cement of buildings and you will have some life form crawling out of it. A thimbleful of soil has parallel cosmoses and worlds circulating in it.

   If harnessed properly, you can tap into magnetic energy for vehicle levitation and movement. You can tap into hydro, solar and wind energy. You can place turbines in the sea to use tidal energy. There is incredible energy all around us without which we wouldn’t be able to exist not to mention have a stable environment to sit and read a book without things flying all over or crumbling into dust every few minutes. Something is going on here bigger than we can imagine, but we take for granted and then accept limited ideas and theories in science and economics and views of media pundits as the limiting factors of ‘reality’.

   We confuse what is complicated with what is complex. We think complicated means Truth. But we find it difficult to accept that Truth can be simple yet complex. Complication is what leads to trouble. However, complexity cannot be avoided though actual realities can be quite simple.

Getting down to it

Most of what is here is based on the ideas from the two remarkable volumes by Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari (D&G) called Anti-Oedipus and A Thousand Plateaus: collectively given the subtitle Capitalism and Schizophrenia (quotations are from the University of Minnesota Press translated editions).

   A good way to give an idea of what is in store with D&G is to look at Foucault’s memorable preface to Anti-Oedipus. The man rightly points out that “Anti-Oedipus (may its authors forgive me) is a book of ethics…How does one keep from being fascist…How do we rid our speech and our acts, our hearts and our pleasures, of fascism? How do we ferret out the fascism that is ingrained in our behaviour?...one might say Anti-Oedipus is an Introduction to the Non-Fascist Life.”

   In fact, D&G have provided a moral work, and are trying, without much success, to veer it away from the spiritual to the humanist dimension as well.

   Foucault adds (bold and italics mine):

 This art of living counter to forms of fascism, whether already present or impending,carries with it a certain number of essential principles which I would summarize as follows if I were to make this great book into a manual or guide to everyday life:

• Free political action from all unitary and totalizing paranoia.
•  Develop action, thought, and desires by proliferation, juxtaposition, and disjunction, and not by subdivision and pyramidal hierarchization.
•  Withdraw allegiance from the old categories of the Negative (law, limit, castration, lack, lacuna), which Western thought has so long held sacred as a form of power and an access to reality. Prefer what is positive and multiple, difference over uniformity, flows over unities, mobile arrangements over systems. Believe that what is productive is not sedentary but nomadic.
• Do not think that one has to be sad in order to be militant, even though the thing one is fighting is abominable. It is the connection of desire to reality…that possess revolutionary force.
• Do not use thought to ground a political practice in Truth; nor political action to discredit, as mere speculation, a line of thought. Use political practice as an intensifier of thought, and analysis as a multiplier of the forms and domains for the intervention of political action.
• Do not demand of politics that it restore the ‘rights’ of the individual, as philosophy has defined them. The individual is the product of power. What is needed is to ‘de-individualize’ by means of multiplication and displacement, diverse combinations. The group must not be the organic bond uniting hierarchized individuals, but a constant generator of de-individualization.
• Do not become enamored of power.   

…The book often leads one to believe it is all fun and games, when something essential is taking place, something of extreme seriousness: the tracking down of all varieties of fascism, from the enormous ones that surround and crush us to the petty ones that constitute the tyrannical bitterness of our everyday lives.

Uncomplicating the Complex   

Everything is energy. It is remarkable that we believe in most things scientific but fail to grasp that everything, the seen and unseen, the material that we take for real is nothing but energy. We are energy. Our thoughts, words and actions are energy. Emotions are nothing but energy: it can be defined as e-motion or energy-in-motion. Everything we do is energy. The universe and the world operates through the transference, transmission and use of energy.

   What this means is that every aspect of our daily life, real or imagined, spiritual or secular, pleasant or otherwise is just energy. The life force running through all of us is, just that, force=energy. Our society, government and economy are manifestations of energy. The way we work and live is about the circulation of energy. Rather than incorrectly looking at ourselves and our world and way of life as something static, we must see it as flux, energy in action.

   What prevents us from seeing this clearly is the inability to control emotions and the blockage provided by the ego. So rather than see ourselves in the third dimensional linear form of people who grow from children to adults and then die, we have to see ourselves as beings of energy forever in flux, driven by wants and needs. In this sense, it would be suitable to describe life forms or life as we know it (or ourselves) as desiring machines: as D&G would express it.

   The ego is the filter that processes and also blocks the energy momentum. It can do so through misunderstanding itself, the energy flows and the way energy is transferred. Part of our misconstruction of the world as energy is due to the theories and indoctrination of the self that we have undergone. We believe that there is a fixed ego or ‘I’, that it is of primary importance above all else, that it is shaped by its environment, that it is a living entity and can be harmed, and that it is linked to mythical concepts like the Oedipal complex (and many others).

   We have come to see ourselves stuck and driven merely by libidinal drives that must mean a restricted number of things, but all of which seem to lead to energy formations beyond ego. There is no doubt that mishandled human or libidinal energy leads to grief, but does it also lead to good? Must every aspect of the libidinal drive be trapped in negativity, guilt and as some would like to call it, ‘sin’?

   D&G are ambiguous about a lot of things, as it is their manner of expression and also because in some way they imitate Nietzsche’s way of doing philosophy which can seem potentially inconsistent, contradictory and often deliberately set at an offensive angle to the way society is at any given time. This leads to difficulty at times in trying to make out what exactly is meant but as all three would point out, trying to specify meaning is part of the problem we and our world have gotten into.

   D&G would say: ‘Why do we always have to insist that everything must actually mean something which then begs the issue as to what interpretation itself means and which form of interpretation should seek precedence over another (why on earth should there be precedence on interpretation anyway?).’ This would imply some form of hierarchical control being put in place to make people think and accept things one way rather than look and, more importantly, live life in as humanly a manner as possible – these are the incipient fascisms we must veer away from which we have failed to do time after time.

   The triangular and pyramidal patriarchal structure of interpretation of the world as represented by the Oedipal complex, among many others, pushes us to an unnecessarily and silly restrictive way of living. It is more a convenient mode of trying to limit entropy (which humans think they can do being primarily ego driven that is the basis for all control mania), and it is perpetuated by society and its elements of control (basically society as we know it abetted diligently by the mass media).

   Being driven to get what we want and need relentlessly is what makes us desiring machines. This is not to preclude any free will but that we are part of the flow of desire which we have invested in and used to shape a libidinal world, society and economy. But the fact that we get mired in fascist tendencies, incessant work, economic exploitation and political manipulation is not merely because it is imposed on us, but that we actually desire what comes to us.

   This is important: we may be desiring machines but we are not automatons devoid of choice. We do ask for what usually comes our way; we get what we rightly deserve. This again does not mean that there are no other desiring forces at work making things difficult for us, but that we often combine our libidinal energy with those forces and so create the world we are trapped/live in.   

   The term libidinal economy (LE) is used in such a variety of ways that is not easy to determine what it means at any one time. But it could be used to refer to an organic desire that is underwritten by our drives, wants, needs and attachments that can be seen as a system applied to various aspects of our life such as the economy or society; and in this sense it is a desiring machine.

   A desiring machine (DM) as used by D&G is an abstract machine and is imprecise in usage. One suspects that precision is not always what the two aim at for it may imply binding yourself down to something that must be defended at all costs through the ages: the kind of ideologies and strictures that the two are fighting against.

   So a DM would refer to a person (as an inchoate form, rather than ‘individual’) or object or system that is an agglomeration of desires/wants/needs or place holder for libidinal drives. It gives some form to that which is an energy flux. When we individualize this flux we call it ‘I’, ‘he’ or ‘she’ thereby investing it with an ego and the separateness that this entails. This is the start of wanting to assert control over things and being made into a unit that is subject to control.

Moving beyond Ego

When we take the energy of desiring machines into form of a human being we coalesce the basis of the human personality, or body without organs (BwO). Upon this form of human energy we have the transcription of codes of other energy forms that shape and influence us. This social energy field of ourselves is the socius. The latter has encodings from other energy flows and influences which are described as deterritorialized codings which are now encoded on the socius that in turn impinge upon us as BwOs.

   We are thus driven by wants and needs that develop and shape us into different forms or fields of energy depending on how various codes are activated. The societal energy codings and social transcriptions that are activated in us are like genetic codes and make us what we are as people and a society. Take a look at how D&G discuss things and try to unravel its essence (p33, Anti-Oedipus):

Capitalism does not confront the situation from the outside, since it experiences it as the very fabric of its existence, as both its primary determinant and its fundamental raw material, its form and its function, and deliberately perpetuates it, in all its violence, with all the powers at its command. Its sovereign production and repression can be achieved in no other way. Capitalism is in fact born of the encounter of two sorts of flows: the decoded flows of production in the form of money-capital, and the decoded flows of labour in the form of the ‘free worker’. Hence, unlike previous social machines, the capitalist machine is incapable of providing a code that will apply to the whole of the social field. By substituting money for the very notion of a code, it has created an axiomatic of abstract quantities that keeps moving further and further in the direction of the deterritorialization of the socius. Capitalism tends toward a threshold of decoding that will destroy the socius in order to make it a body without organs and unleash the flows of desire on this body as a deterritorialized field. Is it correct to say that in this sense schizophrenia is the product of the capitalist machine, as manic-depression and paranoia are the product of the despotic machine, and hysteria the product of the territorial machine?

   There is a lot going on here. For starters, codings which release a certain energy push people in a certain direction. For instance, a society that activates its circuitry via money-capital is one that has its ethos shaped by money creation, its perceived value and its exchange function. That entire society and most of its people will think and live according to the dictates and issues surrounding the use of money. Everything will be shaped by it.

   Similarly, the idea of the ‘worker as a free agent’ or the basic component of labour will be seen as a decoded flow on society (or a code that has been activated) and will shape lives according to that pattern. These are essentially individual thought and societal thought patterns that make a society what it is. So a society will be living along the lines of a work cycle and schedule around which daily existence operates and is influenced deeply by. 

   So according to D&G this is how capitalism plays itself out within this context. Capitalism in itself has no codings but is a synthesis in a way of both the money-capital and labour/‘free worker’ codings which it in turn unleashes on the socius the money-capital energy with a vengeance as the idea of labour is intrinsically tied to that of money-capital (production). This process of unleashing the money code further leads to a decoding/deterritorial activity that denudes the socius into the basic form of the human energy template or BwO (body without organs). The socius that is acting as the BwO is not the actual BwO and the person gets confusing signals that the worn out/denuded or deterritorialized socius is who they are in essence.

   In this sense, capitalism produces a form of schizophrenia. The person is split between realizing themselves as capitalist being and social form and as a human energy or essence. This tension and strain between an authentic self (BwO) and what is projected and falsified as ourselves (our capitalist/money circuited social beings) is in a way the source of so much of our mental, emotional and spiritual anxiety and imbalance that also manifests itself as physical ailments and all that is unhealthy in our lives and our world.

   What does this mean in concrete terms? Take an ordinary guy, Joe, who is middle class and takes on a part-time job as well to help make ends meet. His wife also works part-time when she can managing their two kids at the same time. His whole life and how he relates to his family and work is relegated to operating within the capitalist codes prefigured by money circuitry.

   So other than romance, his motivations to marry (or not) and have a family would include:

a.       cost of marriage and having a family

b.      cost of owning a home and paying off mortgage

c.       basic cost of having child/children (food and clothing)

d.      medical for kids when required

e.       schooling costs for kids

f.       entertainment costs for family

g.      in-laws and extended family related costs

h.      income taxes and hidden taxes that weaken income earned (e.g. inflation)

i.        cost of hi-tech gizmos which kids yearn for these days/miscellaneous stuff    

This money circuitry determines how people relate to each other, as it is also factored in some cases for pre-nuptials and divorces and all the costs those entail. The social cycle of a human being is hardly that of a ‘free agent’ but a labour unit conditioned from birth to death by money circuitry. When you die there are still taxes and other costs that may have to be settled. You are not a free person as such, but a type of ‘flexed out digit’ within the money circuit.

   This in turn inscribes on the socius or social form of Joe his ‘reality’ as he lives it. This so completely overwhelms him and his life that he comes to believe that all there is to himself and his world is the socius or his socially money circuited form. When his entire work life, daily grind decisions and tattered conscience becomes the substitute for his human energy essence, he lives his life as if his socius is his BwO.

   It is the tension between his human essence as BwO and his socius that produces so much of the suffering and dysfunctional nature of his life. The capitalist circuitry creates his schizophrenia in this sense. He has to choose between buying a toy his child really wants, and his budget; a school his child should go to and his budget; the medical attention his family needs and his budget; an outing with his friends and his budget. Every thing the normal person does is influenced largely by his budgetary constraints.

   This in turn impinges on the essence of who he truly is which tends to resonate with spiritual aspects of himself. Here D&G are schizoid themselves for they reach for a solution beyond three dimensions yet are quick to keep them within materialist limitations: they want to have their cake, eat it and insist that they did not try to eat it.

The sign over some of the concentration camps during the Nazi reign of terror was the infamous “Work Will Set You Free” eponymously reflected in this post’s title. What does not seem clear at the moment is the connection and logical extension of the current work paradigm the world over from the events and psychology of the concentration camp.

In other words, whatever a person’s ideological bent the work world or labour today has the characteristics in many ways of what could be found in a concentration camp.

Exaggerated you say, as you quickly whip out your iPhone to set up the next appointment and worry about getting a three month annual bonus or worse, whether your mollycoddling of your superiors will allow you a larger cubicle and perhaps your own office space; never mind those who are not sure what Skype is and are waiting to load the next lorry with rocks from a quarry wondering how long they can do this past 40 years of age: and so many of us continue in this vein of wage slavery until death finally makes us part from it all. So we hope.

But there is more to all of the above than meets the eye.

[However, it needs be clear that this post is meant mainly for those who are familiar with the issues in it. It is also meant for those who may be familiar with most of the earlier posts on this site. For those who are, for want of better expression, reading stuff like this for the first time, it is understandable if you find much here that stretches your credulity. Even for those who have thought through some of the ideas here, there may be some resistance to what is discussed. But if readers are impelled from here to start doing their own research and finding out for themselves the truths about the world we live in, then writing this post has been worthwhile.]

Most of the references in this post are made to a ground breaking book entitled The Order of Terror: The Concentration Camp by Wolfgang Sofsky, (English translation, 1999). When I first read this original book over 10 years ago, what overwhelmed me was not so much its courage and tremendous insights but the almost nauseating content due to its subject matter. It is well written and not exploitative at all as it is basically an academic (but highly readable) work. Yet despite the restrained disgust expressed by Sofsky and his clinical description and analysis of what took place in the concentration camps (CCs), one needs an intellectually strong stomach to endure reading it from beginning to end.

Needless to say, you cannot breeze through such a book as if a bestselling novel. I read it bit by bit with some trepidation of what else I would have to learn about human history. A lot of what I read -- I resisted -- and so didn’t quite absorb the ideas first time around. The book needed a second read but I did not have the strength to do so then. Ten years later and quite recently, I forced myself to read it again. It was still tough to go through but I was better prepared; and suddenly something clicked about what it said and the world we live in.

Also, we live in a world well versed with Abu Ghraib and its nefarious activities. Things like that prepare you better for reading through the horrors of the Nazi regime. Which brings me to one of the key ideas in this post: in a post-September 11 we-are-all surrounded-by-terrorists world, the need to re-visit the past to let it shed light on the present is not just a necessity, it is a duty.

I repeat – a duty.

If you have any doubt as to what happened at Abu Ghraib and what it stood for, read Philip Zimbardo’s fairly recent The Lucifer Efffect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil which is not only well researched and documented but clearly, brilliantly, and honestly written yet just as hard to read as Sofsky’s work (due to the subject matter).

The use of doublespeak by those who choose to enslave us and spread darkness as much as possible is legion. But few can have the watermark of irony and terror revealed by the choice use of words in the Nazi concentration camps’ motto “Work shall set you free” and that of the CIA’s “the truth shall set you free”.

One thing is certain, if Conrad wrote his magnificent The Heart of Darkness today, the last words of Kurtz would not be “the horror, the horror’, but “the terror, the terror” and in that he would be much closer in vision to the grand and unsettling work of H.P. Lovecraft.

Yet, we can take it as self evident that what man turns into darkness he can return back to the light.

Skulls and Bones

The basic points that Sofsky raises in The Order of Terror, revolves around the organized, bureaucratized and, in a sense, industrialized nature of the CCs. That they were created and managed not just by those who were pathological but those who in most instances were intent on running as efficient a machinery of torture and death as possible.

It is no secret that prototype IBM computer systems, or business machines, were used in cataloguing and managing the data of the internees and victims of the camps. They would have been used to manage the data of the staff and officers of the camps as well. This point is not raised by Sofksy but it is mentioned to highlight the well thought through organized structure the CCs were operating under: and that is a point Sofsky is at pains to make.

We can only wonder at this stage what computer systems and machines were used for similar purposes at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo -- though it can be imagined Apple users pointing one way and others saying, ‘Don’t look at me’. But no one can ever say that their products in data management are not tinged with blood. And most of us thought that the work of Terror was often an ad hoc thing – it isn’t. I don’t mean the crazies who go about blowing up things for a lark or a supposed Cause, I mean a systematic and systemic use of planning and calculation to unleash Terror on all of us.

In other words – organized Terror.

With all that is organized, the time factor of things cannot be ignored. So unsurprisingly, one of the things that Sofsky looks at is the manipulation of time at the CCs. In a section that deals with the management of time in the camps and its effect on prisoners, he writes (italics and bold mine):

“Social time is an objective, imposed standard time of organization, but power can arbitrarily expand, slow down, or accelerate it. Camp time was more than the external compulsion characteristic of all social time. Camp power permeated inner time-consciousness, sundering all the internal band that laces together memory, expectation, and hope. Absolute power far surpasses the familiar forms of organized temporal control. It is not satisfied simply with synchronization and coordination of events. It destroys the continuity of inner time and severs the ties between past and future, locking people into an eternal present. Far from being satisfied with controlling human bodies, it seizes hold of biographical time and the motions of the mind.” (p73 Sofsky)

Who would believe that what applies to a Nazi CC is consonant with what takes place in the working world for so many people. The situation of time being controlled in a work place scenario and countless others involving organizations, reflects power play. There may be issues of respect and hierarchy involved which may be reasonable, but the focus here and elsewhere is to what is unreasonable and a matter of imposing oneself on another as part of a power play that involves denigrating someone or a group of people or entire societies and even countries. This is also known as the zero-sum game of those who overtly or insidiously subscribe to an absolute power paradigm.

Again, while statements will be made from hereon about how people are treated under the jackboots of corporations and other controllers, please bear in mind that it is with empathy towards those of us who are reasonable and responsible members of society rather than just malingerers.

So, take the example of a job interview in many cases. The prospective employee is made to wait sometimes for quite a bit of time, before being brought before the august interview panel to whom must be shown all due deference (and more). The interviewee has to consciously ensure, unless it’s one of those jobs that want someone with an attitude, that they kowtow towards those who may deign to employ them and help them have access to a bread basket.

From the start of how the time is controlled at an interview, what is made apparent is the relation of control being imposed. The relationship is unequal in which those who choose to see you make it quite clear that they are doing you the favour…and when they let you go for whatever reasons (profit margin, need to maintain fat bonuses for greedy top executives, etc) it should not be forgotten that after all, it was not what you contributed to the firm that matters, but your tacit recognition from the start that you are a being that was afforded employment assistance/opportunity; so who do you think you are when you are disposed of like a spent object from your firm? Get real.

Before more is said on this, look at a sample of what else is quote worthy from that section on time (italics and bold mine):

“Planning is one of the tools of social power…Schedules mark beginning points, end points, phases, transitions, linear sequences or cyclic returns…The fuller the schedule, the less time that remains for unplanned incidents, deviations, the wasting of time. The more dense the temporal grid, the more intensive the use of time. Planning determines the smallest moment; it knows only maximum rapidity, precision, effectiveness. Schedules guarantee effectiveness and provide a criterion for its monitoring. In its factorylike organizational form, the camp resembles other disciplinary institutions that gain stability by regimenting everyday temporal sequences.

But absolute power has only a limited interest in a rigid institutionalization of time. It regularly departs from the standardized time tracks it has instituted. As in any formal system, the regulation of time is an effective technology of power;…[but] Terror alternates between planning and disorder; between regulation and assault…By reserving for itself the choice of deviations and special times, power secures its rule over time. The temporal law of absolute power is not calculability, but the free variation of tempo, the shift between duration and abrupt suddenness, hectic rush and waiting, rest and shock.” (p73-4 Sofsky)

These words give a clearer context on the manipulation of time by those who control or are in a position of power over others whatever the situation it may apply to. Simply witness the way, in many instances, it is built into an employment contract that people can be made or ‘asked’ to work longer hours and do more than is required. It may be necessary in certain cases to do so and employees may understand that sacrifices must be made, but how often is it the case that employers exploit, bully and treat miserably those who are working for them (apparently this aspect of the contract is written in invisible ink between the lines)?

The reason for this is because the employment and economic structure of the world is quite often one that is pyramidal in shape with an emphasis on a master-slave relationship. With computers, world wide communications and so-called globalization we have employers squeezing all arteries and veins of a person at any time of the day 365 ¼ days a year to make them serve the god-like corporation or boss man; or, to assuage their petty egos aspiring for some display of absolute power.

Your time is not your own. Once you sign the Faustian pact with your boss man you’ve in effect sold your soul to them, and they make you pay for it over and above what they pay you. In fact, soon you will have to try and be like them to rise up the ranks of the boss men and women so that you can exercise similar master-slave paradigm roles/ functions over the other lower beings in the food chain.

How many people actually live in fear of what they say and do at the work place? Is it a work place or a CC? What is in place in microcosm is an Order of Terror. Countless times in various work scenarios, I have been told by people/colleagues how if they do this or that (usually that which is reasonable) and worse, do what is right or a matter of principle, they’re putting their ‘livelihood on the line’; other memorable phrases include ‘putting my head on the block’, ‘taking a real risk’ (as opposed to just a ‘risk’), ‘exposing my back’, ‘this could be It for me’, ‘they will hang me out to dry’ or ‘I’ll be out on the streets’ (many of which make nice titles for songs, the latter phrase in particular would make a good chorus these days).

Does this really sound like a workplace, never mind a healthy and pleasant work environment? It sounds like…exactly, ‘Sieg heil’ boss man.

Before proceeding further, we need to be clear about some terms. If the word ‘terrorist’ is used, it would refer to the usual villains who take people hostage, blow up things and have a pathological tenacity in causing harm to others. But the term ‘Terror’ (with the capital ‘T’) signifies a higher order of rapscallions who are using brutal and often subtle and sophisticated means of control, and fear instilling methods over people; in that context those who perpetuate such Terror are Terrorists. They consciously, or otherwise, engender the Order of Terror.

Yet when the terrorists operate purposively or subconsciously as part of Terror, then they too are part of the network of the higher order Terrorists.

The Order of Terror, unless it appears as part of a quoted text, will be represented throughout as OT.

Work as Violence

The groundbreaking work by the late Studs Terkel, especially his books Hard Times and Working, makes it quite clear that work/labour in most cases is a form of violence. It is a daily and unremitting violence inflicted on us just as we, unfortunately, inflict it on others. In many cases, we can see that the terms ‘work’ and ‘labour’ that refer to employment are usually references to the arduous nature and terrors of the workplace. Never mind the politicking and backstabbing, the exploitation and abuse that are never ending undercurrents of the workflow; just the work effort involved daily when it is continuous and relentless, irrespective of whether it is not so physical or literally back breaking, is enough to wear out the strongest amongst us.

The violence of labour is not just the act of producing something tangible or intangible. The violence also comes in the form of the physical, mental and emotional stress it can unleash on the individual engaged in almost any form of work including what they impose on others as they try to manage their loads and stay afloat – sadly in many cases at the expense of others. Violence in labour seems in-built in the way we do things: we are led to believe it is a systemic nature of the beast called humanity and that its nature is one that is indeed brutish, nasty and short lived in good will.

But back to our man Sofsky and the CCs (italics and bold mine):

“The camp invented numerous senseless tasks that had only one purpose: to drain and emaciate individuals, to grind them down. Absolute power strips labour of its purposive structure, expanding it endlessly. It has no interest in products or results. It is oriented to the process of working itself, to the duration of the suffering. It transforms hard effort and strain into a deadly pressure for annihilation. The social relation of power overlays the objective relation of labour, shaping it almost totally. Violence is not a means of labour; labour is means of violence. The prisoners did not belong to a slave class of outsiders. They were part of the class of the expendable and superfluous, the wretched and lost.” (p 172, Sofsky)

There is a dual meaning to what Sofsky says that applies to what is explored here. On one level it is the violence that is implicit in labour (which can lead to ‘productive’ goals), and the other which is an expression of (absolute) power over others. In some cases the two are conflated. But it is no surprise to most that a lot of the deployment of labour is a power game and while not always reaching that pinnacle of the pyramid, it is an attempt in some form of trying to embody absolute power.

While it would appear often times that showing up or speaking up against the boss man is a variation of cocking-a-snook against power, the offence to the boss man usually lies at a deeper level which is the perceived antagonistic stance of the sniveling subordinate towards the boss man’s sense of absolute power.

In concrete terms what does this mean. It would include:

1. Instilling the sense of who is boss man or woman. This is not so much to maintain a semblance of stability in an organization with some kind of meaningful hierarchy, but just the obverse of absolute power. In an unobvious manner this could include a formal way of addressing someone. Some boss men are informal, but many want to see some form of humility if not subservience shown to them

2. Knowing that you should not argue with someone not because they have conclusively shown why your idea was idiotic or not as effective as theirs, but because the boss man shouldn’t be contradicted (especially in front of others). This involves the secret and not-so-secret meetings among the lesser human staff after the main meetings with the boss men; this is to clarify what the hell exactly boss man or woman wanted (absolute power usually reflects shrewd manipulative thuggery as opposed to actual natural intelligence and common sense). Not a good idea to disagree with boss man, especially in front of others, because it can be seen as a railing against absolute power (in case your mother didn’t tell you…)

3. Whatever is produced may have value, as in a safety feature for a car, but the act of the labour itself in its mechanized and industrialized form is devoid of value as it is devoid of human sincerity in it: it is an act of sheer manufacturing and fabrication. Once someone in an assembly line has become robotic and is ‘producing’ in a meaningless manner, they have been subjugated by the work flow and the boss men supervisors into a situation, as Sofksy says, of one that “overlays the objective relation of labour, shaping it almost totally” (a line that would have made Marx and Engels proud). So there may be an object produced through labour, but labour itself is ultimately valueless as it is mindlessly performed by a labour automaton exemplifying a power relationship of control and fear between worker and boss man and the work flow itself

4. Each time a person leads an overtly ‘productive’ life, through what is described in preceding paragraphs, they are a showcase for labour as violence. Take the teaching profession, where countless tasks of apparent quality control, mind numbing meetings (for the sake of holding them as a work plan for a boss man/ individual staff member/department who have a matrix of objectives that must be ticked in a box using Adobe Acrobat to show that you’re actually working). The filling of class time with dingbat activities for the sake of giving a sense of conforming to the rules of the boss man or work matrix, even if the class proper/lesson of the day is over. The constant electronic and paper form filling as part of the pretence of achieving work objectives; falsifying and exaggerating management, professional or instructional goals so as to justify one’s teaching record; mollycoddling students to ingratiate them into getting good feedback scores which shows how popular an instructor you are; assiduously providing grade inflation to pass as many as possible or make sure that there is a failure or two to fit into some form of ‘bell curve’ – euphemistically known as ‘moderation’. All this is endemic, with the necessary adjustments, to most modern forms of work these days.

5. What doesn’t seem apparent is that violence is being done to us and we are doing similar violence to ourselves and others too. In this process we become “expendable and superfluous, the wretched and lost” wherein we now have to endure spiritual distress over and above everything else. Even for the agnostics and atheists amongst us, the moment we forgo a moral and ethical dimension to our working world and our daily lives, we have begun the downward plunge into spiritual degradation. How many do we know whose health has been ruined by their work and work environment. This applies to not just those whose labour is potentially dangerous like the construction industry, but just being a check out girl at the supermarket, a food stall holder, an office executive or a telephone operator. All this adds to the stress that comes from the use and abuse of power (with intimations of absolute power) including what is transferred back by, let’s say, customers (who reflect back to others their own daily labour and spiritual trauma). So in numerous cases of such daily violence and unpleasantness, people end up succumbing to debilitating illnesses

6. How many have even died from the stress and unhealthiness of the work environment and the type of work they do. I have known people and ex-colleagues who contracted cancer from the anguish, angst, pent up rage and frustration of their daily grind (compounded by other personal issues). But the greater part of our lives is our work world and the serious illness that we procure in this way is largely a sign of our spiritual dysfunction. We have become separated from all that is meaningful, valuable, holy, humane and decent in our daily lives that make up the essence of each human being. No economy that claims to be robust is healthy when its workforce is unhealthy and undergoing torments of the kind we normally associate with the nether regions of the spiritual world.

The wretched of the earth are not just the obvious ones who have been exploited and treated as chattel throughout the ages, these wretched ones are in many cases those of us who look ourselves in the mirror while fine tuning the make up or straightening that new fangled polka dotted tie.

The Living Dead

The working men and women of the world are in many instances reduced to the walking dead. Sofsky tells that many of the inmates of the camps were reduced to nothing more than living corpses known as Muselmanner (bold and italics mine):

“It was no accident that the Muselmanner [‘walking/waking dead’] were reminiscent of the “living dead”. They were only shadows of their former selves. Their actions had sunk below the animal minimum for survival. They hardly heard or saw anything, and reacted only when shouted at or prodded. When action is extinguished, life implodes, contracting to mere existence. In action, people mark a beginning to some sequence, show who they are, express themselves, communicate to and with others. Action is the medium of identity and sociality. A person robbed of action is a nonentity, a no one...Like the pile of corpses, the Muselmanner document the total triumph of power over the human being. Although still nominally alive, they are nameless hulks...The Muselmanner is the central figure in the tableau of mass dying – a death by hunger, murder of the soul, abandonment; dead while still living.” (p199-200, Sofsky)

These are telling lines about our daily struggle to survive. Ask anyone who is living at subsistence level and just managing their loans and children’s education among a host of other things and it will be described as the struggle to survive. During difficult economic times as we are living in now many are just barely scraping by, if at all, and one has to wonder whether this is what being a human being is about.

Ask ‘how’s it going’ to those in the US which is supposed to have a rising class of poverty where one in seven people are poor. A country that despite the better inclinations of many of its citizens is busy going into further national indebtedness and still trying to play ‘soldier-soldier’ in some parts of the world. It is almost as if a nation that promoted democracy and freedom has been hijacked by those intent on using it for their own purposes to control the world as much as possible, and run everything including the host body (America) this ghastly virus (the controllers) has inhabited into the ground leaving the world itself as a monument to the living dead.

So many of us just do not have the time to think through many things, nor sit down and have a decent, or intelligent, conversation with anyone about the issues of the day that in effect determine our lives. We have abrogated our abilities as human beings to fulfill our potential by surrendering such important things to others, be it the government (who has some responsibility to cover this gap for people) or ‘intellectuals’ (usually those with a string of academic degrees), neither of whom can be relied on solely without a check and engagement from the populace.

The people on planet Earth are not in charge of their lives in so many ways, certainly not their societies, and sure as heck not their countries. The economic system of wage slavery which is the epitome of the capitalist structure has put some of the most dishonest, disgraceful, egomaniacal, bloody minded and immoral people on any planet in positions of so-called authority and, of course, power (all the time edging towards absolute control). We have given up in being able to actively engage the most important people in our lives like our loved ones, never mind our social and national responsibilities (unless it is fulfilling some task as part of the mindless muddling through of daily life as the living dead).

The common, and understandable, excuse most of us give about barely speaking up and taking part in the life of our communities, society and country is that we don’t have the time; how can we have the time when apart from personal and family issues we have to earn our daily bread with our faces forced into the grind stone? Our heads are sometimes so close to the ground eking out a living that we can become hostile to suggestions to look up and see what is being done to us, or be completely dismissive of alternatives and deliberately place ourselves in ignorance mode, rather than face what is truly happening around us.

True, some of us may be just lazy and not want to take the extra effort to confront what’s wrong in our world, but usually we ‘don’t have the time’, and how can we when we have – or rather allowed – our faces to be forced squarely into the trough and made to sound grunts of complaints or surrender to this-is-how-it-is scenario, and be just grateful to continue to see what we can find in the trough.

And how convenient this situation has been, is and will continue to be, and how much it would facilitate their attempts at control, for those who seek to dominate people and keep them at the base of a pyramid as they continue to exploit everyone by staying on top of it all.

Then there is the constant apprehension of workplace reprisal for doing what is ‘wrong’. Sofsky tellingly writes (bold and italics mine):

“Terrorstraffe (terror punishment)…Punishment is the final link in a chain of situations strung together via the social mechanism of sanction. This chain begins with a threat that forces the actors to decide among alternative paths for action: if they do what is demanded they incur no penalty; if they violate the required norm, they trigger a sanction in response…Absolute power operates in a quite different manner. It creates a “jungle of punishable offenses,” a condition of constant punishability, in which even obedience is no guarantee for avoiding sanctions, and power can intervene at will...To compound matters, many prohibitions had been kept nebulous so that supervisors could arbitrarily define what was an infraction. This absolute power to define the situation used another method: it made demands that could not possibly be met, extending the perimeters of threat to the point that behaviour in accordance with the prescribed norms was sheer impossibility.” (p215, Sofsky)

Most us would resonate with the accuracy of the words here on the use of fear tactics to ensure dominance over others in the workplace. In many contracts there are clauses that stipulate how things can be adjusted in terms of hours required, scope of work, where you are transferred to and how much responsibility can be piled upon you in a manner that is almost always in favour of the employer; and if it is ever in favour of John or Jane Doe there will be some way to circumvent that and insist that you sell your humanity to the corporation/employer for whatever pittance they pay you (pittance because your soul is priceless but there would be those who disagree).

If the boss man decides to promote you, he will. If he doesn’t want to, he will find some reason to justify it. You are entirely at the mercy of the boss men and they intend that you see it that way despite the pretence otherwise. Someone I know who has been with an organization for some years has been criticized for not doing enough or broadening the scope of his responsibilities and range of his work despite the boundaries he pushed, and the quality of his work. On the other hand, when he does well within the demands of the boss men/women (and the boundaries they create) he is criticized for having done things like a ‘well-oiled machine’ and not having messed up enough in his performance which would have shown that he was taking ‘risks’ and going beyond the comfort zone of his basic work load: you’re damned whichever way you look at it.

The point of this Kafkaesque situation is that you are right and doing well when the boss men tell you so. Not only is this a corollary of deciding arbitrarily what is an infraction, but also that the range of what is acceptable for you can never be determined other than what the boss men decide on a whim. This is, sometimes unbeknownst to the perpetrators, an attempt to exercise absolute power.

In case it’s still unclear, absolute power is essentially to try and have the ability to control you body, mind and soul…and destroy you one way or another if controllers so desire.

In fact, the bizarre world of Kafka’s The Trial and The Castle is far from strange considering that it is a reflection of our everyday world. It is recorded that when Kafka read drafts, or parts of the works mentioned, to his friends/co-workers (if I recall rightly) they burst out laughing knowing full well that it was also a satirical take on the bureaucratic world they existed in (as can be applied to almost any workplace).

A ridiculous bureaucracy with silly, contradictory and outright outrageous ‘rules’ and ‘decrees’ in many workplaces is but part of a system meant to exercise control over people. It is an attempt to reduce entropy through the misguided notion of many dictators and wannabes that they are in charge of the universe. That they can stop change and evolution of a person or a group of people as that change would render them, the controllers, obsolete. Then what would happen? Meaning, what would happen to them. If they can't have livelihoods as controllers, they would then have to starve as most exploiters rely on someone else’s efforts and lifeblood to survive on. They suck up the energies of others.

They are the vampires of our world and a stake needs to be driven through their ideas of edging towards absolute power before they turn more of us into the zombified living dead that they want so as to enhance their control.

This type of blood-sucking bureaucratic system is a parallel to that which pervaded the CC as Sofsky clearly points out.

It becomes clearer what Sofsky is trying to say: that not only was the whole CC idea carefully planned and executed as best as possible with bureaucratic ‘efficiency’, but that in order to systematically control, put fear into and organize mass torture and extermination, you need some form of bureaucratic control. The OT demands that there is a systematic structure of control, surveillance, monitoring and fear mongering and anxiety spreading everywhere that can be instituted and codified such that not only can you boss people around as atrociously as possible, but you dehumanize them and destroy whatever authenticity, decency or resistance they can possibly offer. This is the kind of Terror that becomes even more difficult to spot because you are indoctrinated and socialized into it from birth (some people call it being ‘normal’ or ‘the-way-things-are’).

It also becomes even harder to shake off this indoctrinated worldview of fear and need to appease controllers when the other nutcake (higher order synthesis of nut cases and fruit cakes) terrorists are busy blowing us and themselves up as part of their dramatic-statement pyrotechnics: the hyping of which allows many mainstream journalists to make a ‘living’ (through our dying).

If all this is still called ‘normal’, granted that it can be called ‘the-way-things are’, then we need to know what is the difference between this and being the living dead. George Romero’s Living Dead, day or night, is a tame reference to the world we call ‘normal’. We have been socialized into being workplace zombies, social Muselmanner, and decidedly non-vegan type consumers of our fellow beings to ‘survive’ in the world. In fact, that is what the so-called vision of a capitalistic driven world strives for: consumerism of the worst order. We consume everything, including the planet, ourselves and one another apparently to create ‘growth’; but all the while we are enacting acts of violence through our ‘productive’ activities that ensure a tragedy without the catharsis.

More importantly, we have been programmed and propagandized by most social strictures and structures with the abetment from much of the world’s mainstream media that engenders the undiscerning conformist mentality of ‘be-like-us’ through manufactured consent: where no one can defy being a zombie or show signs of being contrary to the Living Dead lifestyle (cell phone, obsession with TV, excessive social networking site usage, following the corporate diktats of advertising/marketing, etc).

Path to Perdition

The world has been fixated for decades in using GDP (gross domestic product) as measurement of economic growth thereby replacing all humane and spiritual values as a means of providing balance to what not only genuine growth is, but whether in the process we are leading even vaguely meaningful lives. The tendency to focus exclusively on the misguided notion of ‘productivity’ at all costs has led to the kind of ‘growth’ that is not only destructive all round but ruinous to our health as human beings.

Sofsky goes on to write about the extermination process of the CCs (bold and italics mine):

“A death factory is a work organization whose purpose is the annihilation of large numbers of human beings…Mass annihilation was organized on the basis of a division of labour. The process was integrated into a kind of assembly line, its stations coordinated in temporal sequence. Killing was mechanized by the installation of stationary gas chambers, into which hundreds of persons were lured and then poisoned by carbon monoxide or hydrocyanic acid fumes. The death factory was an apparatus that functioned smoothly, virtually trouble-free, working at a high capacity and speed. A death train arrived at the ramp in the morning; by the afternoon, the bodies had been burned, and the clothing brought to the storerooms.” (p259, Sofsky)

No doubt, ‘productivity’ can be applied to the above. No doubt efficiency and high volume of results are showcased by the quote. But to even ask at what ‘price’ belies the horror of what Sofsky’s words describe. Yet we have bought into this system where whatever the human, environmental and spiritual cost, there is the need to mindlessly churn out stuff to keep GDP ‘growth’ going. Never mind the non-monetary cost, anything that doesn’t add to the mechanized numerical increase of monetary measurement is just an externality (economists love this term). The human being and the whole world is an externality: so you have the dangerously ridiculous situation of mindless ‘production’ and ‘growth’ while destroying the planet and its life forms that sustain that ‘growth’ apparently for the good of the human species.

Therefore, many economists would be aptly represented as dangerous bozos.

Normally people who think like the above are clinically diagnosed with various mental issues, but up to now, we give them titles, degrees, Nobel prizes and call them ‘experts’, ‘leaders’ and ‘captains’ of industry. And so the term GDP, in honour of such illustrious ones, will be used here as gDp which signifies gross Destructive product as a more accurate way to depict their fantasy of 'growth'. [For more details on new ways of measuring growth and the blatant harmful nature of GDP as it transforms into gDp, please see the earlier posts at this site.]

While some of us struggle to bring across the facts to help the rest of the world to come to an understanding as to why GDP = gDp, a likely scenario that will develop increasingly is one where GDP as a measurement will be clung onto while different ways of measuring progress like the GPI, or Genuine Progress Indicator, may be used in tandem with it to provide ballast. But either the GPI or something similar will finally have to replace the GDP/gDp as a growth measure.

In the end, the way we destroy the natural world, its ecosystems and our selves with gDp is parallel to the death factories where we are in effect using the misguided notions of neoclassical economics meshed with fear and anxiety promoted by the controllers of the world to forge a world of Terror: maintain a system of production that creates inequality throughout the globe through exploitation of human and natural resources resulting eventually in a culling of the global population as a way of limiting population growth and further competition for resources.

The 20^th century has seen the ultimate attempt by the OT to assert its control over all of us by excessive mechanization and dehumanization of the entire planet (bold and italics). As Sofsky says:

“Along with the state monopoly on violence, rational bureaucracy, and organized work, modernity has also given rise to sites of discipline, surveillance, and conditioning. Modernity has confined human beings for life and trained them to be obedient, docile subjects. The manufacturing plant, industrial factory, and administrative office are the centres of bookkeeping and bureaucratic filing, economic exploitation and political rule. However, the military barracks, prison, penal colony, hospital, workhouse, and insane asylum – these total institutions are the laboratories of power. Here, far from the scrutiny of public surveillance, a special agenda is pursued: the transformation of human beings by other human beings…But in the concentration camp, no one was supposed to be healed, educated, or trained to obedience. Absolute power makes use of the technology of the disciplines, liberates them from their aims, and transforms them into instruments of terror. Its systematic nature is based on this transfer of the disciplines of control, on the coerced unification of action, its Gleichschaltung [“forcible coordination” or reorganizing all social, political, and cultural organizations to be controlled and run according to Nazi ideology and policy]; on minute, total surveillance and control.” (p277, Sofsky)

Again look at how our daily schedules and our entire lives have had all sequence of time come under fitting into the murderous Procustean bed of the work flow. Virtually every aspect and time frame of our existence has been absorbed and forced into the “forcible coordination” of survival, attending to material needs, and fear and trembling not only about our future and that of our loved ones, but the saturation of violence and mistrust bred across the world (played up to a scatological degree by the mass media).

The ultimate sign of victory for the “forcible coordination” of our existence to the capitalist structure of monetary growth and value is the belief that ‘time is money’ and phrases like ‘buying time’. We have lost all control of our lives when we are plugged into a system of control, like in the CC, where our entire value system and the way we ‘spend our time’ is crunched and assimilated into the living dead concept of money being the centre of gravity of the world. Space-time and gravity are no longer natural phenomena and part of cosmic laws, they have undergone with us the “forcible coordination” into adjusting to acknowledging and worshipping money and those who control it as the blasphemous multi-headed hydra at the centre of darkness.

Before examining how the OT has tried to control all of us, we need to look closer at what the ideology of control they have been carefully and successfully pulling across the globe. This may sound difficult to accept at first, but careful thought and researching and the willingness to suspend preconditioned thought will help give a different perspective to the world we are living in.

The ideology that the promoters of Terror have used to spread the gospel of hate, prejudice, destruction and domination is known to us today as ‘democracy’, not Democracy as we have a theoretical or intuitive understanding of, but ‘democracy’ as spread by major proponents of this ideology. This is why it is hard to spot and come to grips with it because it is like the most insidious of viruses – it masks itself as that which is ‘helpful’ to the individual/society but is in effect the start of a destructive consumption of life.

First, try this exercise: spend some time thinking of what you think genuine freedom and Democracy is for an individual and for a society, a nation, and the rest of the world. Write it down irrespective of whether it sounds ‘utopian’. Be honest about it as it is a private exercise. Compare what you have written (take your time with this) to what you will read further on. [Stop reading this post here, and try this exercise. After thinking through what you’ve written, then continue reading on. But, yes, I already here the objection: ‘who has the time….?’]

Below are some aspects of what ‘democracy’ as an ideology, masquerading as Democracy as a political philosophy or idea, has tried to do so as to enslave us:

1. Follow the ‘American’ way unconditionally according to the diktats of, for instance, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld regime (you can look at this in the context of almost any US administration in living memory with arguably the exception of Kennedy’s). Bear in mind that both Bushes have openly declared that they have “hate” in their “hearts” towards their so-called ‘enemies’. This is a matter of public record, check it up. This was used at least in relation to North Korea and its nutty (no, not the lovely Thelonious Monk piece) leader. We would normally link those who call themselves ‘leaders’ and voice out hate openly for others as leaders of another sort, but certainly not of Democracy

2. This means: unimpeded access by the US and its so-called allies to (this is not in reference to the people of the countries but the network of controllers who secretly run the country, government, business, media, pharmaceuticals, etc) all countries and economies throughout the globe for what suits their own interests

3. Meaning: unimpeded access by the controlling cabal in the ‘US’ (what we term ‘America’ today is anything but America) to all natural resources of all kinds whether it is oil (which requires control of Middle East oil supplies) or any natural resource to promote ‘growth’ and GDP (gDp) at the expense of all life and human welfare

4. The ‘American’ way means a one superpower world and all those aligned to it who have as is possible complete corporate, financial, media control of the world. This is sometimes achieved through utilizing corruption and subversion of other governments elsewhere – especially those that resist the ‘American’ way openly – with the use of US fiat currency (which is worthless like any currency that is not backed by precious metals) as the dominant means of economic and political control, followed by black operations and military force. Interesting thing: if you listen to US military officers who speak their mind freely, they’ll mention that they get themselves and their men in ‘trouble spots’ largely due to the CIA’s shenanigans in various states, and their bamboozling politicians, economic bigwigs and defense department bureaucrats in US of A

5. The manipulation and control of world bodies like the UN, WTO (World Trade Organization) and World Bank which serves as a means to hold to ransom, debt, bondage and merciless exploitation people and resources of poorer states by the controllers who have ensconced themselves by hijacking a great nation like America with their viral ideology of ‘democracy’

6. Promotion of wars and the armament industry as a means of fuelling gDp and ensuring some form of global dominance. The best way is to keep the world divided through constant conflict as witnessed from wars throughout the third world and the criminal war in Vietnam which almost sent that state back into the stone age; never mind the wars with Iraq, Afghanistan and prodding of North Korea into a striptease nuclear brinksmanship

7. The need to curtail civil liberties in America which championed Democracy but has been usurped by the cabal as it spreads the ideology of ‘democracy’ via buying over politicians, corporate control of the media, suppression of anything in the media that nationally promotes spiritual learning, thinking and questioning the role of military might and imperialism or material obsession, and spread of capitalist ideology (and gDp)

8. Promote the idea that freedom means excessive and destructive individualism at the expense of everyone and everything else

9. Final solution to destroy the remnants of Democratic America’s civil liberties: creation of the Orwellian situation of permanent war, where spreading war is called spreading ‘peace’, the mind-numbing-soul-destroying promotion of double speak in spreading falsehood, false flag operations by the CIA that subverts many states and national interests by spreading ‘democracy’ and ‘freedom’ there as opposed to Democracy

10. To consolidate this in a one superpower world, you need to manufacture a massive attack on your soil: September 11^th, 2001. Create a tragic and horrific incident in which ‘two planes’ caused three high rise modern towers to collapse in a meltdown and in which, against all laws of probability, remnants of passport or identification papers were found among the wreckage belonging to the ‘hijackers’ (!)

11. Manipulation and aggravation of a permanent state of war between the Muslim states and others (all of whom also have the their fair share of fruitcase – one step above nutcake -- terrorists) as part of promoting the grander scheme of Terror

12. Further acts of terror within the US (remember those random sniper shootings of civilians post- 9-11?) to cause permanent state of siege that could possibly lead to a suspension of all civil liberties as well as the US Constitution; there is also the convenient establishment of CCs – yes, concentration camps – for US citizens (or any other ‘undesirables’) under the auspices of FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency): a search on the Net will provide visual evidence of these camps

First, reactions might be -- well this all very imaginative and not really new and things are not that bad. Really? Why is there a constant state of anxiety and terror being spread conveniently all over the world…where does all the funding come from. How convenient it is, that the state of ‘terror’ we have been put in has led to the rise of constant and heightened surveillance (understandable in some cases) of public spaces. It’s even worse for some private spaces. Paranoia is the order of the day. The Panopticon of observation keeps everyone on a macro and micro level under duress. The constant fear and anxiety spread at airports and modes of travel, and the work place fear of sabotage is very much like the war and fear mongering mentality spread through the time of WWII and most of the Cold War.

This is a most useful way of getting people mistrustful and fearful of one another and strangers. Not that there are no genuine security concerns etc. But the Terror being spread from 9-11 has been an attempt to drag humanity back to a state of wartime tension. Moreover, every surveillance camera is a reminder that things are not right and that people are not right and that the world is not right. The world and humanity may not be perfect as we well know, but there is a difference between that and being made to live under “forcible coordination” that it can never be otherwise. That is what the controllers want.

This state of tension if you like, then also encourages the other crazies to go about their business of terror. The media collaborates with them by highlighting their activities thereby ensuring that the best way to get a megaphone and ‘buy’ media time is to commit atrocities. Note: good and well being don’t often get much air time, but acts of violence and that which flirts with the prurient not only get air time, they get prime time advertising to boost it all.

Again, where does the money come from to keep supporting these groups of ‘terror’ and even terror. There are bigger players who want to keep terror groups up and running, their activities being media highlights right up to this moment and thrust upon people as part of “forcible coordination”. Terror, with its unchecked and unregulated international banking cartels and arrangements, and its abilities to print fiat currency money or debt currency as via the US Federal Reserve Bank, has ample resources to fund its pet projects.

Ask yourself, how is it that a state like North Korea which has been repeatedly stated to be bankrupt and has its population living in precarious conditions still manage to have access and maintenance of nuclear weapons coupled with haphazard saber rattling announcements. Who are the groups that are sustaining the North Koreans and keeping them from total collapse so that they can conveniently add to the potential destabilization of North East Asia and keep the world in nuclear angst ?

How is it that despite the global financial crisis, spiraling debt of the US, the never ending wars, and the rising unemployment world wide, the world financial system is still tottering but not collapsing yet: how is it being maintained, propped up and kept alive when it too seems to be turning into one of the living dead? If the global scene is not somehow manipulated and controlled by major players this system would have collapsed well before now, but it is still being controlled and puppeteered as it has always been.

Look past the curtain of current economic theory’s mumbo jumbo and see the controllers grappling over the levers behind the curtain of illusion drawn across the world from the land of Oz.

The New Slavery

On a macro scale the stage has been set to keep the world and all of us in debt through a debt based economy of fiat currencies, interest rates and squeezing every drop of labour from us till we drop dead. But on a micro scale, Terror must still be spread to dovetail with the global template of “forcible coordination” that major players are implementing through international institutions and power play.

As Sofsky unrelentingly continues (bold and italics mine):

“For its (modern terror) purposes, the small-time tormenter suffices: the conscientious bookkeeper, the mediocre official, the zealous doctor, the young, slightly anxious female factory worker. In order to spread fear and terror, all the personnel had to do was to apply the rules that had been set down. This orderly foundation of camp routine provided the soil conducive to the development of those behavioural patterns that spring from the tradition of quasi-military movements: esprit de corps, camaraderie, personal allegiance, the mentality of the emergency situation, corruption, and the lust for the kill.” (p278, Sofsky)

That last line sums up ‘American’ domestic and foreign policy for many a year and, unfortunately, much of the world has followed suit or allowed the virus from that kind of ‘democracy’ to spread to them.

What cannot be denied as well is the Kafkaesque bureaucratic nightmare of petty tyrants who impose meaningless rules and regulations to wield (absolute) power as best they can largely because the social and national atmosphere most people operate in permeates the same unto them. This system of bureaucratic control is spread on the macro level in turn by the controllers and serial invokers of ‘democracy’ who claim to be saving the world by using things like the UN, WTO, World Bank etc.

Total control by the cabal (controllers) and denizens of Terror require it to be practiced throughout all of society without exception as far as it is possible. It is part of the strategy of spreading “forcible coordination” globally. The best way is to instill a sense of fear and loathing in each layer of society, but primarily through the work place as it is the inevitable arena where we try to sustain ourselves.

To do this the cabalists of controllers need the Grand Poobahs and Great Panjandrums to exercise the diktats of control. And so Sofsky continues with (italics and bold mine):

“Without the supervisors, sentries, and administrative officials, the accomplices and accessories from the ranks of the inmates, camp terror would have been impossible. The face of modern systemic terror is not stamped by the all powerful and inviolable master, but by the unbridled actions of the sedulous servants of power. It is an inconspicuous face, quite mean and shabby, without the grimace of wild frenzy, the ecstasies of brutality, the passions of sovereignty...The triumph relished by the auxiliary was the laughter of the accomplices, the mortal anguish of the victims, the bottom line on the balance sheet of death.” (p278-9, Sofsky)

So absolute control is spread by the cabalists via set ups international and national, which is seen through by trickle down (and forced) indoctrination abetted by the mass media. The message transmitted daily and unremittingly is that people are not powerful and that the individual is not an empowered being.

The little Hitlers and Napoleans at the micro level of the work place go around determining control and spreading the gospel of the cabal through punitive sanctions and the constant threat of throwing one out of employment, or stymieing progress/promotion. We are born into the world and don’t know any better as we are imbibed with received deception (not wisdom) of control and subservience to the dark ideas of the cabal which we take as normal and the way of the world. [Under no circumstances is it being claimed that people do not choose wrong and evil themselves and that only the cabal/controllers are responsible for everything, but to qualify statements each time with this would be tedious and add to the meandering of an already lengthy post].

We learn further from Sofsky (bold and italics mine):

“Absolute power transforms deterrence into terror, terror into horror. It shapes space, time, work, and society into instrumentalities of itself, plunging its victims into the abyss of helpless anxiety. The destructive power of terror extends into the furthest corners of sociality, the deep structures of human subjectivity. It destroys not only by violence, but by starvation and misery, humiliation and murder of the soul. It is sheer destruction, pure and unadulterated…Terror concludes every struggle. It gets the job done. The reciprocity characteristic of all social power is shattered.” (p279, Sofsky)

Again on a micro level, just take a look at going from one place of employment to the next. The nihilistic philosophy of the cabalists to control, dehumanize, humiliate and disempower people pervades through almost everything. From every situation of authority (real or imagined) there is often an attempt to assert some aspect of absolute power; this is an ego based energy that seeks to use the pyramid structure of a disenfranchising hierarchy of control. Do as you are told, the boss man is always right, and we the cabal and its nether children of control can throw you out on the streets and let you starve unless you serve us as the slaves that you are.

The human power of reciprocity and responsibility towards one another through a web of connection with all life and compassion needed to give balance to the world, our societies and our lives is constantly crushed through the deleterious stamping of the OT imprimatur usually in the form of material and largely monetary (valueless fiat currencies) ‘rewards’ for selling and destroying your soul and those of others. These are the bargain basement prices of all the hells imaginable: save your skin, not your soul, by abetting the physical and spiritual destruction of others and life on the planet via the promotion of mindless monetary growth and as much as possible for sensual gratification. Reciprocity is made negative through the encouragement of an ‘eye for an eye’ way of the world, not one of mutual aid, support and nurturing to create cooperation and collaboration among people and countries.

We continue to chillingly learn (bold and italics mine):

“Terror separates labour from all production value and any moral rules. It intensifies compulsion and exploitation to the pitch of destruction; it transposes production into ravagement. The teleology of human labour is extinguished. The productive meaning of work, self-preservation of the species, is transformed into its opposite. Nowhere is human labour so directly linked with death as in the concentration camp. Here work does not secure life, it devastates it. This political economy of waste cannot be comprehended by following the principle of calculation and value enhancement. Absolute power overcomes the laws of production. It increases not wealth, but misery.” (p280, Sofsky)

Shocking as it may seem, the above is an apt description of our daily lives especially our so-called working lives. The entire economic and financial system that has been imposed on us by the cabal, and those sometimes quite unwittingly carrying out the worldview of the controllers, is one of mindless accumulation of wealth through making many things that are not needed and that have an in-built obsolescence in them; this in turn continues the destructive cycle of pure monetary ‘growth’ while destroying the planet, robbing it of life and natural resources and steadily allowing for the fear and anxiety based destruction of ourselves and our social relations. A political economy of waste.

We are usually alienated from what we do and the apparently productive processes we are involved in. So many times have employees deliberately gotten back or ‘sabotaged’ the system and the boss man by wasting time at work through idleness and Net surfing, and consuming office materiel and expenses for personal use and benefit. This is usually an act of rebellion and resentment for being pushed around and doing something we dislike and even hate but consider necessary to sustain our material needs. What is productive about this set up or the commodities that arise from it? A political economy of waste.

From the wasteful system of built in obsolescence and greed of the capitalist ideology to its mindless accumulation of money as a means of remuneration and definition of meaning to existence; and with the cat and mouse game between employer and employees who try every once in a while to monkey wrench the work place, we have a fine system of wastage and negativity. Yet another facet of a political economy of waste.

To maintain control over us, there is a need for a system of destructive sustenance that sees to it that (bold and italics mine):

“Society is permeated by the informers and accomplices of terror; the victims are driven to a life-and-death struggle for space, shoes, and bread. Although a good many examples of elementary solidarity have come to light, the extent of social indifference, mutual repulsion, and animosity in the camps was staggering. The dissociative strength of camp power shatters the basic rules of social intercourse, fundamental trust in the continued existence of the social world, the prospect of assistance, the certainties of social action, the continuity of time…The camp hurls human beings back into a primal state of nature: the struggle of all against all…The concentration camp is the modern facility of isolating and destroying the “dispensable”. The superfluous are searched out everywhere, seized, confined behind barbed wire, starved, murdered.” (p280-1, Sofsky)

What is supported throughout most societies and certainly in the economic framework of the cabal is the ‘state of nature’ scenario of ‘survival of the fittest’ and everyone struggling to stay alive through brandishing tooth and claw. We have fooled ourselves into buying into the so-called ‘free market’ myth (which is just a not-so-secret secret society code for greed, selfishness, monopoly, destructive ethos, etc as explored in an earlier blog entitled There is No Such Thing as a Free Market, which has laughably been seen as a sign of ‘freedom’.

Yet you cannot be free if you are a slave to unethical/immoral behaviour that often belies ‘market’ forces, a slave to pure monetary gain at the expense of everything else, and a slave to blind sensual drives while throwing any spiritual force within a human being off course.

And in case the message still hasn’t gotten through we are reminded that (bold and italics mine):

“Absolute power sunders the physical unity of the person, devastates spirit and soul, destroys the ability to act, drains all vitality. Prior to industrialized mass murder, it carries out a transmutation of human nature. The transformation of human beings into materiel and the fabrication of the Muselmanner, the waking dead, are its greatest triumphs. In sharp contrast with all earlier forms of power, absolute terror creates nothing. Its work is totally negative, a project of obliteration without a trace. It realizes its freedom in the complete and total annihilation of the human being.” (p281, Sofsky)

Through a system of control through the mass media, economic and financial institutions, the cabal has sought to keep us at each others’ throats through the perpetuation of fear and loathing, anxiety and obsession with destructive individual ‘rights’ which do not involve the reciprocation of duties to respect and honour the rights of others; it’s all about ‘I-me-mine’ as the advertising/marketing world keep reminding us (the destruction of reciprocity).

So some key points that can be raised from all this on the strategy of OT:

1. Use a feudal hierarchical pyramidal structure of top-down control

2. Institute capitalism as the primary economic model which leads to a system of senseless accumulation of wealth and material products maintained by the use of the media to promote consumerism and obedience to the fetishized ‘market forces’ established by the cabal’s global financial and political institutions

3. All ‘value’ is measured in terms of valueless fiat currency which is printed at whim to finance never ending wars and the creation of eternal debt

4. Keep the world and its peoples in a state of perpetual debt and wage slavery as they cannot rely on their spiritual values and ideas to build economic strength but must rely on ego and fear based energies of impending starvation from reprisals to their physical beings if they resist the cabalists structures (micro and macro)

5. Keep people busy with meaningless work, jobs and employment to just earn money to survive; keep them in debt-bondage and obsessed with sensual indulgence so that they are unable to turn away from the debilitating effects of the idiot-box-and-devices (TV and mobile phones); and turn them away from reading, thinking, and sharing intelligent ideas with one another. Counter serious examination of the state of the world and citizen participation in local, political, or any other sensible activity by a system of disenfranchisement

6. This system of disempowerment is boosted by ego driven cynicism of so-called social commentators as well as the worship of celebrities and mania over the frailties of their personal lives, and attempts to get the rest of us to be more concerned about who earns the most in business and Hollywood. In other words keep us distracted from improving and empowering ourselves through surrendering our attention to nut-cakey-fruity-case flakes and other such media-attention-grabbers

7. Obsession with material goods through the constant promotion of the latest fashion products and accelerate built-in used obsolescence in almost anything (example, computers) and mobile phones which require us to seek constant upgrading (and confuse that as ‘upgrading’ ourselves)

8. Derail us from thinking about why we are here and what is the purpose of life. Ensure that the mainstream media doesn’t focus on spiritual matters but things that engender hatred and negativity through the playing up of violence, war and dysfunctional behaviour. Constant prattling on the ‘weaknesses’ of human nature and never the strength of unity, reciprocity and challenging of absolute power and corporate controllers, that is, the media’s complicity with the agenda of the cabal to ensure that human beings are kept in a state of the living dead while thinking that the lives they are leading are supposedly ‘normal’

9. The constant disruption of time and sequencing of events in our lives due to the stress and anxiety created by the negative media reports and work place demands, coupled with personal/family ones, keeps us in a state of limbo and hectic behaviour that fits perfectly with the ‘forcible coordination’ of the controllers

But to ensure that control can be permanent and the market of global control has been cornered through a one superpower world, the cabal needs to institute a takeover by re-creating what the Nazi’s did in 1933 and 1938 (looked at in more detail below). The need to exercise absolute power by the cabal through the use of terror to establish once and for all OT. We are still living in the shadow of the near successful attempt of using the 9-11 attacks on New York to suspend all civil liberties, and eventually establish openly the FEMA CCs as a step to turning the US into a launching pad for more war, and a base for quickly consolidating and spreading world wide the ineluctable OT. For those who think what they are reading now is fanciful, be patient…it won’t be too long from your reading these words that even more stunning revelations will take place.

 

The Economics of Abundance

If duality seems to be a central problem of human nature, how are we exactly going to change that? It seems that we may have little choice but to deal with changing it or at least making a serious effort at it. The current problems of the economy, apparent shortage of fossil fuels and environmental issues coming to the fore will necessitate, it does seems, an entire re-look at how we intend to lead our lives.

Some assumptions need to be made here. That the inability to squeeze more oil out of where we choose to squeeze it out from is going to lead to more scientific research on alternative energy sources, which is happening right now. For instance, perhaps the means will be found to harness not just solar and wind power, but the power that comes from the tides that rise and fall all the time. Turbines under seas and means of converting, storing and transferring such power could provide a serious alternative to fossil fuels.

Also let me further clarify what I mean by Scarcity and Abundance. The term scarcity was used in an economic sense earlier, but the mention of duality was meant to focus on a more esoteric sense of the term. With duality and a sense of mistrust we build among ourselves, we convince ourselves of lack and scarcity which is only reflected in our economics. This is not to say that fossil fuel is limitless and we can go on using it forever. This certainly doesn't seem to be the case. But when we live in a state of competition with everyone around us thanks to the Triumvirate among other things, we live in scarcity of what we can gain from life around us.

Abundance here means a mindset change that will lead to a change in the way we do economics which should lead to an economics that focuses on abundance. And that is looking at what is not only immeasurable in the im0 sense of the term, but what is truly Immeasurable or Im0.

Let's ask ourselves, what exactly is the value of the earth, the water, the plant and animal kingdom, and the human life on it? Is there really a $ value to this? Whose currency are we using? Is this a fiat currency whose value is less stable than that provided by the game money of a Monopoly set? Does this value vary? Can it ever be fixed? Who gave us this planet anyway? Are we just here by accident and so we can do whatever we want, to whomever we want, however we want? Does the concept of stewardship and passing on the world from one generation to another in better condition, or just as good a one, from when we inherited it make any sense?

What is being suggested is to look at one possible scenario. As more of these ideas come to the surface it is easier to interface with them and to put it this way: a more community driven approach is what is needed, and that is probably what we will be forced into anyway.

Part of this involves looking at a new currency system as mentioned in posts recommended above. It would also mean a way of looking after people and societies belonging to low income groups in a sustainable manner, as opposed to just giving aid or charity, or hoping they will die off with as little inconvenience as possible. One direct link to this concept of social businesses can be found here:

Social Business

This will also call for greater use of local/new/complementary currencies. Another direct link:

Complementary Currencies

This would take place within a broad political framework as envisioned by the great political philosopher John Rawls. His vision is for a political conception of justice in democratic societies. A link to help see more of Rawls's ideas in detail:

Justice as Fairness

What these ideas allow for is to try to lessen the view of duality of ourselves and to see ourselves as One. This is a hard call, but no less difficult than problems we are heading into. My point is, for those who don't believe in altruism and the like, learn to accept the fact that we may not have a choice but to work with one another closely, which may be bad news for the cynics out there.

It is interesting to note that a film like The Dark Knight addressed some of these issues. For those who saw the film, you will remember the ending when different boats of people (one full of convicts) had the choice to blow the other up so as to save themselves from all being blown up by the Joker (played magnificently by Heath Ledger).

Sorry for the spoiler here, but duality and the mentality of scarcity almost led each boat to blow the other up, yet somehow neither did so. And Batman, of all people given his issues and complexes, says that people are capable of much more than just survival instincts that have been ingrained into them.

But going beyond the movie, there needs mention of the ideas from a fascinating thinker -- Georges Battaile. In his masterpiece The Accursed Share, Battaile talks about how economies are driven by exuberance and waste. A rich economy or the very wealthy exemplify this by being wasteful and extravagant to show that they can afford to destroy surplus. The ultimate capital accumulation devaluation as Battaile himself concludes is the destruction of humans via war (for example), and that is because that ‘surplus' human being can be ‘wasted'; hence, that particular human is becomes the accursed share.

This resonates with Marx's notion of how capital leads to the contradiction of devaluation and destruction of itself and all that it requires to keep itself going. This in turn rests on the fundamental view of duality between us and others that engenders the exploitation of the world and one another.

Battailes raises another important point. If there is scarcity around, how is it that we have population explosions or life coming into being. There is, if anything, a great deal of energy and exuberance around the planet and in life forms. There is plenty. There is abundance.

We simply choose to believe otherwise and to live in duality from others. With the belief of scarcity and competition (reinforced by 3BGs) we exploit, abuse and waste resources as a result of following a system of capital accumulation and devaluation

What we need is balance.

If, as this thought experiment goes, we do see ourselves as One. Then in a community form of living within the context of our larger society, country, regional grouping, the world, we will start trying to build collaboration and trust. Some of these ideas are eloquently explained in Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future by Bill McKibben.

In terms of the new kind of money we can use, there are complementary currencies used in the form of time banks. For instance, people do services and give things to others in exchange for other services based on the time they log in which is generated into a form of points/currency. So some people may car pool and someone does the groceries for a neighbor, in return for someone doing their laundry or cooking a meal.

In terms of straight forward barter, a couple I know in England exchange the local produce from their backyard for produce from their local grocer.

As things in themselves are im0 and in the greater scheme of things Im0, barter exchanges, time banks, and complementary currencies as means of value, use value, and exchange value make complete sense, and are non-exploitative. There is no surplus value being skimmed off, as what is being done is largely from goodwill and cooperation.

But many have questioned this idea of goodwill, and one person told me that goodwill is not the answer because in the ‘Real World' that's not how things work.

Well, we are all still awaiting for someone who actually is the expert on the ‘Real World' to help solve the world's problems. My counter query to the ‘Real World' exponent was if he fell down on the street and needed help to get up because he was injured, would he ask for help? Or did he think that in the ‘Real World' no one would bother?

The answer was since it had not happened to him, he could not know but he knew many instances when people wouldn't bother to help others (presumably because they were answering to the dictates of the Triumvirate)...and that's in essence the ‘argument of the Real World'.

Yet, everyday, we manage to get by with our difficulties because many times people just decide to try and be decent about things. Amazing, but true. A community that sees itself as One, and a society and world that see itself that way, can slowly but surely edge past the Triumvirate which is in its state of final decline and move onto a new paradigm.

Perhaps, to the ‘Real World' enthusiasts they may grudgingly accept that if for no other reason than to survive, we will have to make a move towards community living and use different ways to measure progress.

This will make us see that if we do not rush and want MORE all the time, that there is such a thing as enough, that there is such a thing as balance; and that people who have had enough of the way 3BGs have been doing things will take advantage of the coming economic difficulties to demand from their leaders that things have to be done differently, and a new way of thinking can be brought into place if only it is given a chance.

It will be rightly pointed out that perhaps I have not given enough details here about what this Abundance really is and I would humbly agree to that. Perhaps we are still some way off from things like genuine trust, neighborliness, mutual respect and consensual agreements in deciding things; where people and the environment are given a priority and go beyond mere $ measurement, because the human species and the planet it lives on is Im0 in value. Pehaps that's because we are in the process of creating it and we haven't gotten there yet.

But I would also point out this parallel. Many never could have imagined the depths of suffering and horror that people could live and survive through. Yet the species has gone through innumerable wars, concentration camps of all types and tortures of the vilest sorts.

Is it so hard to imagine a human resilience in a reverse situation that goes onto a different paradigm where the horrors are a thing of the past and, while there will still be some fighting and differences among people over various issues, we start to live with a sense of justice and fairness, of balance, of community; and in the good that comes from this a mindset of Abundance, and an economy that finally reflects it.

To all the nay sayers I have only this to add for now.

Has it ever striked you as strange that we live on a planet, in a solar system, in a galaxy in constant motion in a Universe that is Im0 (which may be just one of multiverses as science now reluctantly admits), while many still think that the purpose of the human race is to make more Coca Cola and bombs?

It takes a certain kind of Ego to think the Universe revolves around us.

The Copernican revolution was meant to show us how wrong we have been, and we still are.

It is time for us to try something different.

                                              THIS IS A SHARED PATH
                                         Cyclists, dog walkers and pedestrians
                                               please show consideration to
                                               those using the path with you

Rawls's ideas are for a well ordered state that is generally a developed society with democratic traditions. There are three main ideas that a society that subscribes to justice as fairness will incorporate:

The two principles of justice, overlapping consensus, and public reason.

Many of these ideas, it must be stated, have been revised by Rawls over the many years of his fruitful work.

One of the assumptions Rawls makes is that people are capable of a sense of right and wrong, as well as a sense of justice.

And in a well ordered society these two principles of justice will be generated:

a. Each person has an equal claim to an adequate scheme of basic liberties, and fair political value.

b. That there are fair and equal economic opportunites for all. And that social and economic inequalities are to be arranged to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged members of society, which leads to the difference principle:

c. that is, arrangements in society that look after the interest of the least advantaged in society.

(There is also the Just Savings principle in which each generation adds to the wealth of a society to pass on to the next generation, and so forth)

This provides the basis for a society to balance freedom, opportunity and duties. The principles are also to take a lexical priority in their enactment meaning that there must be a satisfaction of the principle of liberty first, before it can lead to a proper satisfaction of free and fair economic opportunites and access to public/official posts, and before proper attention can be given to those whose interests need attention as the most disdadvantaged in society.

It must be noted that in the case of the difference principle, Rawls is appealing to working citizens who are in the most disadvantaged positions. It is taken as a given that the interest of those who are handicapped and have special needs etc, will be taken care of by societies in their own manner in accordance with a sense of justice. Rawls in his political conception of justice is looking to basically establish a political framework for a just and fair society which will, naturally, have to be tweaked to suit the society in question.

Rawls makes it quite clear that his ideas are NOT an ideology, they are a set of guidelines and principles that will be adapted accordingly by different societies. That it why he introduces the idea of reflective equilibrium and political constructivism.

Reflective equilibrium essentially refers to an individual or society reaching a point of understanding and balance for all its differing views which can be translated into a social contract with the government of the day on how a country should be run. Based on one's/society's reaction on the ground to issues and different views of people, the set of one's principles are adjusted to accommodate these ground realities. In fact, new ways to interpret and enact one's ideas come into play because of such readjustments and fine tuning of ideas in practice.

Political constructivism would follow from this in the sense that the political institutions of a state and in particular the leaders concerned help construct the political framework of a society based on adjustments made with action and reaction from the body politic.

This makes it impossible for an ideological approach to anything to take hold for long.

The process in which this occurs is via Overlapping Consensus which applies in particular to multicultural democracies (which is increasingly the trend of most democracies). The consensus comes about through the reaction of different people bringing in political judgments based on their upbringing, values, cultural and religious influences which shape their perceptions. But in the political construct in which the consensus occurs the sense of justice and political actuality shapes the views that a society can accept in reality.

We need to bear in mind that this has nothing to do with expedience, but rather in doing what is right in a fair and just manner.

People can bring in arguments as to why a certain policy must be issued or interpreted in a certain way based on, for eg, religious grounds but with the Proviso that its justification when brought in is discussed in a manner that can satisfy all concerned in a multifaceted society.

This process of interaction to ascertain such ideas and policies and ways to enact them as described above is also known as the process of public reason.

An example: abortion in many societies is a controversial issue. In a multicultural democracy the way a just and fair political decision is made (and the ensuing laws put into motion) would be done in the context of public reason and the consensus that allowed for it.

So there will be many who are pro or anti abortion based on their cultural, religious and personal views of the matter (of course many may just be indifferent for various reasons as well) known as burdens of judgment. But the decision made on the matter, while reflecting all these views and been tested against the principles of justice, must be one that also allows for mutual respect and reciprocity.

Rawls is really big on being reasonable. That is the trait of civilised societies, at any rate.

Therefore, those who are against abortion do not have to undergo it, can call for proper measures to ensure that the practice is not taken lightly, and would want to exercise their claim to protest against it.

But just as they want to be able to do the above, they must realise on this shared path of democracy they are on, that those who want to have access to legalised methods of abortion for their own reasons are entitled to do so. And the pro abortionists would also make claims to being able to state their views, campaign etc.

Naturally, this is far too complex an issue to be dealt with summarily but it should, hopefully, make clearer some of the ideas expressed here.

At any time, when people insist on one point of view without proper regard for that of others and aim to stifle it because they believe they have a monopoly of the truth, then they are not only making it difficult for justice as fairness to operate, but will be making it difficult for general principles of democracy, as most of us understand them, to operate as well.

The bottom line for Rawls is really balance.

A true ecology in politics of avoiding extremes and trying to find that point of equilibrium which, naturally, is always shifting to reflect the dynamics of a society.

To some it is like the Aristotelian golden mean, to others it is like mentioning the old Edwardian family table-saying, "I have reached an elegant sufficiency and anything additional would be superfluous."

So often, people's ideas of justice mean what they say goes, and fairness means things going according to their interests. Unfairness, is when others have things go their own way instead.

But if we drop our obssession with our egos and learn to conquer inner foes and look towards balance, fairness and a sense of right and wrong, we will realise that first, after looking to our own faults which may be in dire need of cleansing, we should look to living in peace, balance and harmony with everyone else as far as that is humanly possible.

Needless to say, Rawls's ideas have not been popular among hate and fear mongers.

Arrogance has never gotten anyone or any society very far without generating equally severe enemies.

Unsurprisingly, Rawls himself was man of great humility.

Some starting points for discovering more about Rawls:

Guardian Obituary

London Review of Books

New York Review of Books

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Link: RFK on Vietnam War