Rousing The Rabble

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing." ~ Einstein

Let me be clear, since there seems to be some confusion as to the extremity of my position. I never said we shouldn't work. I recognize that certain forms of labor are necessary to maintain the body; they are positively indispensable, so long as we wish to continue living in the material realm. Whether or not material existence is worth this effort is a subject truly worthy of discussion. The philosopher, Albert Camus, called it the only truly serious philosophical problem of our time.

Likewise, there are labors which may be performed here whose larger purpose extends beyond the physical world.

Simply learning to appreciate what Nature offers us, -- that is, the work which God has performed and left done; and not to undo it so as to remake it in our own image -- such an endeavor may be termed spiritual and of the highest type.

The truest vocation of mankind leads away from manifestation. The one who does the work of God appears to do no work at all, and reaches his destination without taking a single step. It is the systematic dismantling of personal will, in order to exalt and receive what the will of God has provided.

If this means keeping our populations small, so that the uncultivated forests provide our needs, without recourse to tractors and beasts of burden, so be it; we may take a number of the indigenous, so-called primitive communities as our models and our guides. Many of these tightly-knit communities have survived peacefully for thousands of years in harmony with nature, with one another, and with Spirit. They are there to learn from, yet so many in our society ignore them, or mock them, or pity them, or worse -- assimilate them into the madness which we foolishly think of as progress. In reality, these are wise people, from whom we might learn how to identify and use the edible vegetation which grows freely, without strenuously bringing God's creation into submission for the sake of more rich and dainty preparations, which cannot so much as satisfy our senses, and serve only to corrupt our judgment and our will, -- and, ultimately, to inculcate in us the most deplorable physical and moral diseases. To learn from such people, with an eye to eventually living in harmony with them, would be a labor truly defensible, and even noble.

Granted, such a radical paradigmatic shift -- what Terence McKenna termed "The Archaic Revival" -- cannot happen overnight. In the meantime, we must somehow learn to live in a culture which dismisses our best qualities and positively demonizes our worst; while it simultaneously exalts many of the most despicable vices present in others (such as the ambition for material dominance, undoubtedly predicated on psychopathic ways and means).

In a society like ours, where work is defined in terms of human agency, or will, one is forced to take part in the business of manifestation, and one's labor is often celebrated according to the extent to which it disrupts the peace of God and Nature; flaying the skin and gutting the entrails of Mother Earth for so-called precious materials; commanding the labor of millions in order to "refine", reshape, and disseminate those materials, with the ultimate aim of making them "indispensable" to consumers the world over.

I have argued against work of a certain kind -- unfortunately, it tends to be practically, if not literally, the only form of work which our society condones and even considers work. For the most part, I have argued against OVERwork, and the philosophies entrenched within Western Civilization which have inspired a thoroughly materialistic economy; with poverty and wage-slavery on one end, and obscene wealth on the other.

So long as our "individual freedom' is predicated on the exploitation of third world populations, I will continue to tout the largely unsung virtues of idleness and frugality. If it is true that my position is extreme, and far from balanced in itself, it may yet, for that very reason, be considered a  significant corrective and counter-balance against the opposite extremes embraced by our culture and called moderate.

The modern world has indeed become so complex, and the consequences of our actions so obscure and far-reaching, that we can no longer confine ourselves to our personal spheres, or even to the world news (as it is fed to us by the very institutions and entities which hold us in subjection and seek to fortify their position through this endless stream of lies, half-truths, omissions, and propaganda). If we do confine ourselves to what comes down the fluoridated mainstream, we will erect walls against the very sources of information which are necessary to effect in us a legitimate consciousness of what goes on in the world, -- including the global effects of our seemingly private and personal occupations.

The force of this propaganda, so widespread, so thoroughly contrived, and so cleverly instilled, can hardly be underestimated. And, yet, each individual, however cloistered within that echo-chamber of untruth, must perceive, at certain auspicious moments, a tendency within him/herself to doubt the official story; to question the prevailing authority, and to seek out alternative, marginal, and dissenting points of view. This is the critical moment, when a glimmer of true independence and individualism breaks through. This is the instant where choice is possible -- where free will exists. Unfortunately, the vast majority of us succumb, at once, or almost at once, to the familiar, pacifying voice of denial, which only flatters our habitual modes of living, and reassures us that the "experts" have the matter well in hand.

The arguments which denial sets before us are many and masterful. "We are," it tells us, "just ordinary men and women, after all. The best we can hope is to have our little slice of cake, and enjoy our privileges while we have them. Leave us our peace." Yet, as the revolutionary provocateur (and manic-depressive) Abbie Hoffman declared, "There will be peace when the lion gobbles up the lamb -- that is not the peace I want." My friends, I do not want to be the lion, nor the lamb, but an honest-to-God human being.

Here is the awful truth, and each may judge for him/herself what it is worth:

The complicity of the common man, no less than the manipulations of the powerful, is what will ultimately bring about the ruin of our planet. It is not unjustly said that "Rome deserved her Nero". We can no longer hope to live in a bubble and demand a life undisturbed by those rabble-rousers who would dare to inform us of the absolute horrors we support. We can no longer claim ignorance, and our capacity for denial can only stretch so far.

Jesus, Spartacus, Robespierre:These were not "good men" in the ordinary sense; they were incendiaries; gadflies, who prodded and provoked, and obnoxiously refused to allow others their peace and their opinions -- if that peace and those opinions were the bulwarks of conquest, slavery, and general moral decay.

Such figures have always insisted that one man's opinion is not automatically equal to another's, and equally worthy of respect -- though the man, in his soul, must indeed be equal to all. They insisted that truth is not the cheapest and most common of things, but, rather, the costliest and the rarest. It is the possession of those who have sought for it without ceasing, ruthlessly forcing open their own eyes, when sleep beckons like a siren, and carefully extracting those beams and motes which mar the more perfect vision.