Separation and Other Bedtime Stories
(This was revealed to me in a half dreaming, half waking state).
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────
It is easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of materialism
It is undeniable that capitalist blight has pervaded every aspect of existence.
However, in the third millennium, the crop of ideological alternatives remains scant. Most are relegated to the realm of academia.
When these alternatives do surface in the political mainstream - usually under the broad umbrella of communism - they often manifest merely as appeals to emotion. If you don’t believe in this, you’re morally corrupt. And all their failings are attributed to misapplication.
Previously, I’ve argued that the fundamental failing of all political frameworks is the susceptibility to hierarchies which inevitably lead to concentration of power.
I have searched high and low - if it exists - for a solution to the Iron Law of Oligarchy - within any communist-adjacent ideologies.
Very few attempts emerge - small primitive communes, perpetual revolutions, or anarchism maintained by near-infinite delegates.
Would these models keep the cold and starvation at bay? Would they secure our baseline survival better than the present systems? Possibly.
The industrialized first world will fiercely resist the sacrifice of modern comforts required to maintain them. Only those already ravaged by endless war and destitution might embrace the trade.
I still think these only attempt to manage the symptoms, not the cause.
How do you solve the need for control and exploitation of fellow man?
By prohibition? No. But by dissolving the desire for it.
───── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ────
If a man believes he has no agency over his reality, he will birth dystopias again and again.
The political philosophy of the global unconscious rests on the bedrock of its metaphysical philosophy.
If we keep believing we are biological automatons at the whims and mercy of a cold, adversarial, and unforgiving reality, the abuse of hierarchies won’t cease.
In a universe of material scarcity, hoarding power is the only logical defense mechanism against annihilation.
If, however, our metaphysical worldview suggests 1) we’re not separate and 2) can influence our realities, there is a chance our desires won’t emerge from shallow, panicked ponds of superiority or security.
I won’t be as brazen as Marx and his ideological successors and prescribe a faulty paradigm just because I’ve diagnosed the ills of a current one.
I’ve made arguments for idealism before, both from rational and phenomenological perspectives.
Would you exploit another if you fundamentally believed they weren’t separate from you? Would you feel unsafe?
An extremely high-trust society would be the true antithesis to the Iron Law.
Is this a solution? No. Like I said, I won’t be prescriptive. One could argue religions have attempted this but from a dualist position.
It is, however, a dream. It may fall apart under scrutiny.
Like dreams do.