False Paths in Rights Life II
Pieter Breughel the Elder : The Triumph of Death
A Crisis of Mindset
Renewal - Or the Abyss ?
As human beings, we can know with certainty that we'll encounter illness, death and evil (in simplest terms, our persistent tendency to cause each other harm). There's no real end to these encroachments - they come, seemingly, when and where they will. The ability of our body to overcome these challenges peaks at a certain point, and recedes - at best by kind increments, but not always. Such are the facts and risks, the genuine drama of our life on earth ; and we must respond.
To meet these challenges, we have available to us our human capacities to think, to feel and to take action ; to reflect on our experiences, and choose how we will respond. At best, we learn these skills from others in childhood, and add to them in the course of life. At best we deal with the challenges of illness, death and evil well, and as a result of these encounters
- In our outer and external life, develop competence
- In our life with others, become truly social
- In what we learn from our experiences, become truly wise
These are of course no guarantees, and we can lose our way - even tragically. Yet our competence, social and personal wisdom can also continue to increase, even til the end of life, with no fixed upper limits.
The life of society overall is similar, with a spectrum from harmony and abundance on one hand, to abject misery, deviousness and brutality on the other. And whether we know it or not, the direction of this larger, shared and common life is in our hands too.
Sources of Health - Sources of Unhealth
Spiritual and Cultural Life
In this series so far, we've looked at a new understanding of society, based in observations of social phenomena, both current and historical. In this perspective spiritual and cultural ("spiritual cultural") life encompasses the gifts, talents and abilities of human beings, and their nurture and expression in society. Fields of work these include are education, science, medicine, religious and spiritual life - but they in fact extend to all gifts and abilities people bring to life, and that contribute to its betterment. Through this sphere of life comes all innovation, invention, creative, moral and ethical progress that make human life possible, improve it and help it thrive. Whatever failings human beings have, and even serious errors they make, it's here also that they may be corrected and redeemed.
The essential unit of spiritual cultural life is the individual human being ; and the essential need of this individual is freedom : freedom to cultivate his or her own insights, gifts and and abilities, and to express or share them with others. Hindrance or restriction of these freedoms, whether by government, economic interests or hostile factions within the spiritual cultural sphere, harm this crucial realm of life. The one limit to freedom is of course that it not cause harm to others.
This said, conflict need not be avoided in this realm of life - rather, here conflict should take it's healthiest and most robust form ; for example
- The competition of ideas for the sake of excellence ; and for their appropriateness and applicability to real world circumstances.
- Debate of the merits, benefits or dangers of particular practices, policies, or products, proposed or already existing ; or of the appropriateness of a given person for a position of skill, leadership or responsibility.
- Challenges to the accuracy or completeness of observations, conclusions or thought processes in any field of work.
Our skill at outer, physical warfare has by now reached a point where the harm it wreaks outweighs almost any benefits it might bring. We can destroy entire physical infrastructures - and devastate human and social ones - in a matter of days, even hours. Even the victors in such conflicts discover that they, too, have been wounded, economically, emotionally and morally. Spiritual warfare, on the other hand - the war of ideas described - need have no loser in this sense : the winner is humanity itself. This is the appropriate warfare of our times - and an actual source of hope.
Economic Life
Economic life encompasses all activities needed to meet our human physical needs of life. To these belong our needs for food, shelter and clothing ; for clean water, air and sanitation ; for transportation and related infrastructure ; for energy, manufacturing and communication technologies, and infrastructure to make them possible. All human beings have these needs in common. To meet them, economic life applies creative human effort to the substances of the earth to create needed products ; and further intelligent work and communication to distribute them where needed, and provide other needed and related services.
The goals of economic life are often seen as profits, wealth - or simply to have a job and make a living - with competition as a driving or motivating force. Seen through a threefold lens, however, the goal of this realm of life is simpler : exactly as noted, to meet our human physical needs of life. Given that every human being has these needs, competition can be seen as less motive and driver, as an easily made error and temptation of thinking. The core needs of economic life, per Rudolf Steiner's observation, are in reality cooperation, collaboration and communication, in a spirit of brother and sisterhood. Seen this way, it's actually not competition that makes economic life healthy, but awareness of and service to the needs of others.
The tools of modern economic life include skilled use of capital, land and natural resources, placed in the most competent available hands ; specialization ; and division of labor. This is a contrast to earlier times, when personal craftmanship and relationships gave work its meaning and purpose. Yet these new methods are marvels of efficiency, yielding maximum results and returns at a minimum of cost and time. In systems bound tightly to profits and competition, however, this truly benefits only the few, and gives rise in the many to feelings of alienation, entrapment and drudgery. Unchecked, they make commodities even of human labor - of human beings themselves - and harm the natural environment all depend on, even without noticing.
Human skill and ingenuity, rightly considered then, are not products or commodities ; nor are land or natural resources. They're needs, required ingredients of all economic life, and require different consideration. As resources, they need certain protections from harm, exploitation or waste.
Seen accurately, economic life is in need, on the one hand of spiritual cultural life for insights - for better and safer methods, and ways to give work more genuine meaning ; and on the other to rights life for limits and boundaries. A revised view of this sphere of life not as competition, or simply profit opportunity, but as cooperation for mutual/universal benefit, opens doors to new ways of working together, and to more hopeful morale and attitudes. Buyers clubs and co-ops, employee owned businesses, profit sharing, community supported agriculture, increased employee input in planning and decision making, are all signs of this ; and of the promise of this new mindset.
Rights Life
Rights life addresses the persistent capacity in human beings not just for creativity and insight, but to make mistakes and cause harm. Reasons for this may be ones of attention or understanding (a lack of these), a variety of emotions, and degrees of intention from the most accidental to the most malicious and purposeful. The common factor in all, however, is that action or neglect causes injury, harm or loss to others, or to the environment (natural, economic etc) on which all depend ; and that relief (abatement, protection, restitution) is needed from this harm. Rights life serves to protect the safety and dignity of citizens in society, and the freedoms they need to live the lives they choose.
As in both economic and spiritual life, the limits of choice and freedom are that they not cause harm. Rights life encompasses the processes by which people discuss concerns and grievances, reach agreement on what things are problems, and on solutions to relieve them. Rights questions may of course be worked out privately among people, but even at local levels, may need more formal treatment. Tools for this work include discussion and forums, referenda, legislation, courts, civil and criminal justice systems ; and where needed, protection by military force.
The essential need of rights life is equality : namely that all citizens have a voice in rules and laws that concern them ; and equal protection under rules/laws established. Rights life, in a threefold understanding, assumes people know themselves well enough to recognize when they're being truly threatened or harmed ; and have enough empathy to recognize when these things happen to others.
Wisdom, morality and other good qualities in people, as noted, emerge through contributions from spiritual cultural life, on the basis of insight. But they also emerge slowly. Rights life provides needed protections to safety, dignity and freedoms "in the meantime".
Looking Back, Looking Forward
In this series so far, we've looked at factors contributing to health in society - and also to counterforces that challenge and/or undermine it, including
These factors affect not just the functioning of society, but our relationships with each other, and even our attitudes toward ourselves. They give rise to what Rudolf Steiner decribed as the great obstacles and miseries of social life today : namely narrow mindedness - the inability to look beyond our own rigid viewpoint ; philistinism - an outlook of greed and thoughtless, aggressive self interest ; and incompetence, in matters both of thinking and practical life. We'll look now at three mindsets prevalent in modern life, as they undermine rights life ; and their destructve effects in society overall.
Mindset of SELF INTEREST
A first serious danger to rights life is an outlook that idealizes and/or demands rights and freedoms, but sees these things primarily in terms of personal benefit. This is a one-sided tendency in all human beings, that manifests across the political spectrum, differing only in choice of issues. Emphasis is on my (or our) rights/freedoms, my or our bodies, our right to run our business as we please, the possibilities these open to us, and our loss if they're restricted. Not addressed in this dynamic are effects and consequences on others, which may be ignored, denied and/or rejected as their responsibility.
Whether on left or right, this mindset may revere founders and documents, but not grasp the deeper principles, the ongoing work and process they entail. It does not take up the full tools available, or use them in the ways needed. Other essential rights, freedoms and people affected may be ignored, or left to the mercy of special or predatory interests. The failures of this mindset are ones of empathy (beyond my/our own needs and interests) ; and of participation.
This worldview may extend hallowed rights and freedoms not just to individual persons, but to economic entities - but overlook or ignore real harm they may cause. The greater resources such entities can bring to bear in a conflict with an individual - or even almost any group - can make relief or redress of harm almost impossible ; and render injustices virtually permanent.
Mindset of AUTHORITARIANISM
A second dangerous mindset arises from distortions of concepts and practices of leadership in rights life.
Each of the three sphere of life needs leadership to remain healthy. There are certain constants, common factors in all leadership : current exceptional ability in a particular field of work, personal integrity and the acknowledgement and consent of those who are led. But leadership in each sphere also has its own needs and nuance - namely :
Leadership based on these factors, both common and field-specific, has great potential for effectiveness. The counterforces named - boundary trespasses, political parties and materialism, however, tend to baffle and frustrate it. Thus entangled, society is hard pressed to free itself - or even quite know what ails it. Flying both blind and at great speed, it flounders in chaos, and a seemingly endless chain of disruptions.
Authoritarianism is one way we may try to escape stress and conflict - a drive to enforce, require or double down on favored, familiar beliefs or behaviors, and suppress or forbid others. Authoritarian, heirarchical and power based thinking and practices vie with more cooperative and collaborative ones in all three spheres of life today - on both left and right politically, in economic relationships, in religious and spiritual life, and sadly, even, in scientific camps and factions.
Authoritarianism drives rights life in directions antithetical to it - namely the bending or subduing of the will of one group or person to the will of another. How does this turnaround happen ?
Authoritarianism enters rights life from two sides - one from the side of emotions and psychology, the other from that of values. It appeals to our wish for clarity, simplicity, safety, stability ; for persons anxious or traumatized, to a wish for safety in a seemingly dangerous world, to hopes someone can be trusted, and will take charge. From the side of values, materialism also plays a part in ways subtle in concept, but forceful in actual practice.
Governments with this mindset may seem to endorse rights and freedoms, but in fact aim beyond these - past containment and redress of actual harm or injury, to guarantees of the wellbeing of citizens, construing "rights" subtly less in terms of freedom and safety, than in physical and material ones. They value health, wealth, comfort and convenience - and may treat as problems, even evils, any perceived threat to them. To the extent citizens hold these values, they may support - or at least accept - governments that promise them.
Governments thus oriented may wrongly take responsibility for citizens' physical needs of life - but rightly see economic life as the way such needs are met. They may partner willingly with economic entities towards this end, and for skilled work they themselves can't do. Understanding their role to be to support economic life, they may be predisposed to the needs and wishes of these partners ; and, dependent on them for their expertise, see little conflict in their formulating - even writing - government policies. Entwined thus with economic interests, such a government is an awkward position if called to confront them, in the event of any wrongdoing. It may lose its eyes and ears for even the largest problems, or the need to seek impartial outside advice. Problems and practices it should rightly curtail, may by now simply have moved inside government.
Governments like this tend inevitably to grow ; and with size, must manage systems ever more complex. With corporate partners so close at hand, corporate means and measures become temptingly attractive. Governments can have these tools readily from private contractors today - they need only name a purpose, a need they wish to fill.
Perhaps not noticed, however, is the difficulty to adequately supervise these partners ; to assure privacy and safety to citizens whose "data" these systems gain access to, or to hold in check the ambitions of contractors themselves - for instance, for larger markets or profits. If anything at all is true of our world today, it's that the roles, goals and practices of government and corporation have become ever more deeply enmeshed.
A case in point was the the health scare of 2020-2021, and the policies it gave rise to.
Governments and their corporate partners worked together closely during this time ; but for governments, the rights component in the matter was at first problematical. They lacked the legal authority to fully enact the restrictions and mandates they sought - but found a workaround in directives to businesses, which, although still not backed by law, accomplished very much the same things. The business, for their part, offered little resistance, enforcing restrictions/mandates on their customers and employees almost universally. Citizens - in massive numbers worldwide - lost their rights to move or travel freely, assemble or earn a living ; and were eventually forced to take unwanted medical treatments, not because government required it, but because a businesses or employer required it.
Government-corporate relationships grew yet closer when protest arose against these measures. Hesitant to directly and overtly suspend rights, governments again turned to businesses, chiefly technocratic ones : particularly internet search engine platforms, and social and traditional media outlets. Dissent by those adversely affected by the policies mentioned - and by doctors and scientists alarmed by them - was on the one hand systematically dismissed and ridiculed on these platforms ; and on the other surveilled, blocked and/or removed.
From "Emergency Measures" to Permanent Structures
The growth of controlling, more or less mechanized systems for "the greater good" of society, have unfortunately meant loss of rights and freedoms for the individual human being.This has come slowly enough in recent centuries, that by now we take it almost for granted.
As noted previously, this is especially advanced in the realm of work and profession ; extending into all aspects of licensing, practice, even professional education, in virtually every branch of professional life. While such measures might seem to protect against human error, they also quietly limit human expression and initiative, and eventually, even human knowledge, to what is "approved", or deemed acceptable even to think.
But who approves - who is in charge of this comprehensive, controlling system ?
Rights life, as by now often noted, requires equality among citizens, to work and be healthy. Governments of this kind, however, depend on systems of control and heirarchy, and on gatekeepers - persons invested with authority, and a more or less permanent option to use it. Unnoticed, persons of authoritarian mindset can find homes in such systems, and become ever more difficult to challenge, much less dislodge or evict. The odds of success for someone in conflict with such a system are near impossibly small !
Mindset of HATRED (Anti-Human Mindset)
A third damaging mindset in our times can only be described as a certain aggressive hostility and hatred towards the human being.
A Crisis of Mindset
Renewal - Or the Abyss ?
As human beings, we can know with certainty that we'll encounter illness, death and evil (in simplest terms, our persistent tendency to cause each other harm). There's no real end to these encroachments - they come, seemingly, when and where they will. The ability of our body to overcome these challenges peaks at a certain point, and recedes - at best by kind increments, but not always. Such are the facts and risks, the genuine drama of our life on earth ; and we must respond.
To meet these challenges, we have available to us our human capacities to think, to feel and to take action ; to reflect on our experiences, and choose how we will respond. At best, we learn these skills from others in childhood, and add to them in the course of life. At best we deal with the challenges of illness, death and evil well, and as a result of these encounters
- In our outer and external life, develop competence
- In our life with others, become truly social
- In what we learn from our experiences, become truly wise
These are of course no guarantees, and we can lose our way - even tragically. Yet our competence, social and personal wisdom can also continue to increase, even til the end of life, with no fixed upper limits.
The life of society overall is similar, with a spectrum from harmony and abundance on one hand, to abject misery, deviousness and brutality on the other. And whether we know it or not, the direction of this larger, shared and common life is in our hands too.
Sources of Health - Sources of Unhealth
Spiritual and Cultural Life
In this series so far, we've looked at a new understanding of society, based in observations of social phenomena, both current and historical. In this perspective spiritual and cultural ("spiritual cultural") life encompasses the gifts, talents and abilities of human beings, and their nurture and expression in society. Fields of work these include are education, science, medicine, religious and spiritual life - but they in fact extend to all gifts and abilities people bring to life, and that contribute to its betterment. Through this sphere of life comes all innovation, invention, creative, moral and ethical progress that make human life possible, improve it and help it thrive. Whatever failings human beings have, and even serious errors they make, it's here also that they may be corrected and redeemed.
The essential unit of spiritual cultural life is the individual human being ; and the essential need of this individual is freedom : freedom to cultivate his or her own insights, gifts and and abilities, and to express or share them with others. Hindrance or restriction of these freedoms, whether by government, economic interests or hostile factions within the spiritual cultural sphere, harm this crucial realm of life. The one limit to freedom is of course that it not cause harm to others.
This said, conflict need not be avoided in this realm of life - rather, here conflict should take it's healthiest and most robust form ; for example
- The competition of ideas for the sake of excellence ; and for their appropriateness and applicability to real world circumstances.
- Debate of the merits, benefits or dangers of particular practices, policies, or products, proposed or already existing ; or of the appropriateness of a given person for a position of skill, leadership or responsibility.
- Challenges to the accuracy or completeness of observations, conclusions or thought processes in any field of work.
Our skill at outer, physical warfare has by now reached a point where the harm it wreaks outweighs almost any benefits it might bring. We can destroy entire physical infrastructures - and devastate human and social ones - in a matter of days, even hours. Even the victors in such conflicts discover that they, too, have been wounded, economically, emotionally and morally. Spiritual warfare, on the other hand - the war of ideas described - need have no loser in this sense : the winner is humanity itself. This is the appropriate warfare of our times - and an actual source of hope.
Economic Life
Economic life encompasses all activities needed to meet our human physical needs of life. To these belong our needs for food, shelter and clothing ; for clean water, air and sanitation ; for transportation and related infrastructure ; for energy, manufacturing and communication technologies, and infrastructure to make them possible. All human beings have these needs in common. To meet them, economic life applies creative human effort to the substances of the earth to create needed products ; and further intelligent work and communication to distribute them where needed, and provide other needed and related services.
The goals of economic life are often seen as profits, wealth - or simply to have a job and make a living - with competition as a driving or motivating force. Seen through a threefold lens, however, the goal of this realm of life is simpler : exactly as noted, to meet our human physical needs of life. Given that every human being has these needs, competition can be seen as less motive and driver, as an easily made error and temptation of thinking. The core needs of economic life, per Rudolf Steiner's observation, are in reality cooperation, collaboration and communication, in a spirit of brother and sisterhood. Seen this way, it's actually not competition that makes economic life healthy, but awareness of and service to the needs of others.
The tools of modern economic life include skilled use of capital, land and natural resources, placed in the most competent available hands ; specialization ; and division of labor. This is a contrast to earlier times, when personal craftmanship and relationships gave work its meaning and purpose. Yet these new methods are marvels of efficiency, yielding maximum results and returns at a minimum of cost and time. In systems bound tightly to profits and competition, however, this truly benefits only the few, and gives rise in the many to feelings of alienation, entrapment and drudgery. Unchecked, they make commodities even of human labor - of human beings themselves - and harm the natural environment all depend on, even without noticing.
Human skill and ingenuity, rightly considered then, are not products or commodities ; nor are land or natural resources. They're needs, required ingredients of all economic life, and require different consideration. As resources, they need certain protections from harm, exploitation or waste.
Seen accurately, economic life is in need, on the one hand of spiritual cultural life for insights - for better and safer methods, and ways to give work more genuine meaning ; and on the other to rights life for limits and boundaries. A revised view of this sphere of life not as competition, or simply profit opportunity, but as cooperation for mutual/universal benefit, opens doors to new ways of working together, and to more hopeful morale and attitudes. Buyers clubs and co-ops, employee owned businesses, profit sharing, community supported agriculture, increased employee input in planning and decision making, are all signs of this ; and of the promise of this new mindset.
Rights Life
Rights life addresses the persistent capacity in human beings not just for creativity and insight, but to make mistakes and cause harm. Reasons for this may be ones of attention or understanding (a lack of these), a variety of emotions, and degrees of intention from the most accidental to the most malicious and purposeful. The common factor in all, however, is that action or neglect causes injury, harm or loss to others, or to the environment (natural, economic etc) on which all depend ; and that relief (abatement, protection, restitution) is needed from this harm. Rights life serves to protect the safety and dignity of citizens in society, and the freedoms they need to live the lives they choose.
As in both economic and spiritual life, the limits of choice and freedom are that they not cause harm. Rights life encompasses the processes by which people discuss concerns and grievances, reach agreement on what things are problems, and on solutions to relieve them. Rights questions may of course be worked out privately among people, but even at local levels, may need more formal treatment. Tools for this work include discussion and forums, referenda, legislation, courts, civil and criminal justice systems ; and where needed, protection by military force.
The essential need of rights life is equality : namely that all citizens have a voice in rules and laws that concern them ; and equal protection under rules/laws established. Rights life, in a threefold understanding, assumes people know themselves well enough to recognize when they're being truly threatened or harmed ; and have enough empathy to recognize when these things happen to others.
Wisdom, morality and other good qualities in people, as noted, emerge through contributions from spiritual cultural life, on the basis of insight. But they also emerge slowly. Rights life provides needed protections to safety, dignity and freedoms "in the meantime".
Looking Back, Looking Forward
In this series so far, we've looked at factors contributing to health in society - and also to counterforces that challenge and/or undermine it, including
- Incursions and boundary trespasses among the three core spheres of life - economic, legal-political and cultural - detrimental to their individual needs and functioning, and to the wellbeing of the whole.
- The serious yet mostly unnoticed destabilizing effects of political parties, exacerbating conflicts and tensions in society, and undermining, rather than healing the sphere of rights life.
- The overshoot of natural science, also unnoticed, into materialism (bottom of page), both philosophical and in all fields of practical life.
The Problem of MINDSET
These factors affect not just the functioning of society, but our relationships with each other, and even our attitudes toward ourselves. They give rise to what Rudolf Steiner decribed as the great obstacles and miseries of social life today : namely narrow mindedness - the inability to look beyond our own rigid viewpoint ; philistinism - an outlook of greed and thoughtless, aggressive self interest ; and incompetence, in matters both of thinking and practical life. We'll look now at three mindsets prevalent in modern life, as they undermine rights life ; and their destructve effects in society overall.
Mindset of SELF INTEREST
A first serious danger to rights life is an outlook that idealizes and/or demands rights and freedoms, but sees these things primarily in terms of personal benefit. This is a one-sided tendency in all human beings, that manifests across the political spectrum, differing only in choice of issues. Emphasis is on my (or our) rights/freedoms, my or our bodies, our right to run our business as we please, the possibilities these open to us, and our loss if they're restricted. Not addressed in this dynamic are effects and consequences on others, which may be ignored, denied and/or rejected as their responsibility.
Whether on left or right, this mindset may revere founders and documents, but not grasp the deeper principles, the ongoing work and process they entail. It does not take up the full tools available, or use them in the ways needed. Other essential rights, freedoms and people affected may be ignored, or left to the mercy of special or predatory interests. The failures of this mindset are ones of empathy (beyond my/our own needs and interests) ; and of participation.
This worldview may extend hallowed rights and freedoms not just to individual persons, but to economic entities - but overlook or ignore real harm they may cause. The greater resources such entities can bring to bear in a conflict with an individual - or even almost any group - can make relief or redress of harm almost impossible ; and render injustices virtually permanent.
Mindset of AUTHORITARIANISM
A second dangerous mindset arises from distortions of concepts and practices of leadership in rights life.
Each of the three sphere of life needs leadership to remain healthy. There are certain constants, common factors in all leadership : current exceptional ability in a particular field of work, personal integrity and the acknowledgement and consent of those who are led. But leadership in each sphere also has its own needs and nuance - namely :
- In spiritual cultural life, leadership on the basis of current and active mastery and expertise.
- In economic life, leadership on the basis of comprehensive and current experience.
- In rights life, leadership on the basis of capacities for empathy, communication and negotiation.
Leadership based on these factors, both common and field-specific, has great potential for effectiveness. The counterforces named - boundary trespasses, political parties and materialism, however, tend to baffle and frustrate it. Thus entangled, society is hard pressed to free itself - or even quite know what ails it. Flying both blind and at great speed, it flounders in chaos, and a seemingly endless chain of disruptions.
Authoritarianism is one way we may try to escape stress and conflict - a drive to enforce, require or double down on favored, familiar beliefs or behaviors, and suppress or forbid others. Authoritarian, heirarchical and power based thinking and practices vie with more cooperative and collaborative ones in all three spheres of life today - on both left and right politically, in economic relationships, in religious and spiritual life, and sadly, even, in scientific camps and factions.
Authoritarianism drives rights life in directions antithetical to it - namely the bending or subduing of the will of one group or person to the will of another. How does this turnaround happen ?
Authoritarianism enters rights life from two sides - one from the side of emotions and psychology, the other from that of values. It appeals to our wish for clarity, simplicity, safety, stability ; for persons anxious or traumatized, to a wish for safety in a seemingly dangerous world, to hopes someone can be trusted, and will take charge. From the side of values, materialism also plays a part in ways subtle in concept, but forceful in actual practice.
Governments with this mindset may seem to endorse rights and freedoms, but in fact aim beyond these - past containment and redress of actual harm or injury, to guarantees of the wellbeing of citizens, construing "rights" subtly less in terms of freedom and safety, than in physical and material ones. They value health, wealth, comfort and convenience - and may treat as problems, even evils, any perceived threat to them. To the extent citizens hold these values, they may support - or at least accept - governments that promise them.
Governments thus oriented may wrongly take responsibility for citizens' physical needs of life - but rightly see economic life as the way such needs are met. They may partner willingly with economic entities towards this end, and for skilled work they themselves can't do. Understanding their role to be to support economic life, they may be predisposed to the needs and wishes of these partners ; and, dependent on them for their expertise, see little conflict in their formulating - even writing - government policies. Entwined thus with economic interests, such a government is an awkward position if called to confront them, in the event of any wrongdoing. It may lose its eyes and ears for even the largest problems, or the need to seek impartial outside advice. Problems and practices it should rightly curtail, may by now simply have moved inside government.
Governments like this tend inevitably to grow ; and with size, must manage systems ever more complex. With corporate partners so close at hand, corporate means and measures become temptingly attractive. Governments can have these tools readily from private contractors today - they need only name a purpose, a need they wish to fill.
Perhaps not noticed, however, is the difficulty to adequately supervise these partners ; to assure privacy and safety to citizens whose "data" these systems gain access to, or to hold in check the ambitions of contractors themselves - for instance, for larger markets or profits. If anything at all is true of our world today, it's that the roles, goals and practices of government and corporation have become ever more deeply enmeshed.
A case in point was the the health scare of 2020-2021, and the policies it gave rise to.
Governments and their corporate partners worked together closely during this time ; but for governments, the rights component in the matter was at first problematical. They lacked the legal authority to fully enact the restrictions and mandates they sought - but found a workaround in directives to businesses, which, although still not backed by law, accomplished very much the same things. The business, for their part, offered little resistance, enforcing restrictions/mandates on their customers and employees almost universally. Citizens - in massive numbers worldwide - lost their rights to move or travel freely, assemble or earn a living ; and were eventually forced to take unwanted medical treatments, not because government required it, but because a businesses or employer required it.
Government-corporate relationships grew yet closer when protest arose against these measures. Hesitant to directly and overtly suspend rights, governments again turned to businesses, chiefly technocratic ones : particularly internet search engine platforms, and social and traditional media outlets. Dissent by those adversely affected by the policies mentioned - and by doctors and scientists alarmed by them - was on the one hand systematically dismissed and ridiculed on these platforms ; and on the other surveilled, blocked and/or removed.
From "Emergency Measures" to Permanent Structures
The growth of controlling, more or less mechanized systems for "the greater good" of society, have unfortunately meant loss of rights and freedoms for the individual human being.This has come slowly enough in recent centuries, that by now we take it almost for granted.
As noted previously, this is especially advanced in the realm of work and profession ; extending into all aspects of licensing, practice, even professional education, in virtually every branch of professional life. While such measures might seem to protect against human error, they also quietly limit human expression and initiative, and eventually, even human knowledge, to what is "approved", or deemed acceptable even to think.
But who approves - who is in charge of this comprehensive, controlling system ?
Rights life, as by now often noted, requires equality among citizens, to work and be healthy. Governments of this kind, however, depend on systems of control and heirarchy, and on gatekeepers - persons invested with authority, and a more or less permanent option to use it. Unnoticed, persons of authoritarian mindset can find homes in such systems, and become ever more difficult to challenge, much less dislodge or evict. The odds of success for someone in conflict with such a system are near impossibly small !
Mindset of HATRED (Anti-Human Mindset)
A third damaging mindset in our times can only be described as a certain aggressive hostility and hatred towards the human being.
Please Pardon Our CONSTRUCTION SITE !
We're in the homestretch of this "The Fullness of Human Life" article series, with just one section each of the last two articles remaining to complete. Please hold your thoughts on this one (or share them with me in the form below), and know that it won't be long now.
In the meantime, please continue to "Planting the Seeds of Threefolding : A Threefolder's Almanack" !
Thanks,
Jeff Smith RN
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