We are complicit with our own repression. Our own stubborn allegiance to modernity that outsources all the pain and suffering to other peoples and the planet is a kind of mental illness of pathological narcissism and delusions of grandeur. It is a kind of suicide/ecocide.
S. Brian Willson <http://www.brianwillson.com/> In 1553 or there abouts, a young French lawyer wrote an amazing essay, The Politics of Obedience: Discourse on Voluntary Servitude, in which his study of the history of tyranny revealed that no matter how power is derived kings, dictators or elections men create their own tyrants. Whether domestic or foreign, tyrants rule as the people give obedience to them, usually from hopes of personal gain. Once this obedience is withheld, tyranny quickly collpases. Power is dependent upon massive obedience. It depends upon "voluntary servitude." Nearly 250 years later, William Godwin (1756-1836), the first to offer a clear statement of anarchist principles, commented in An Enquiry Concerning Political Justice (1793), that if men are subject to tyranny it is because the great mass agree to be tyrannically ruled. More than 50 years later, Henry David Thoreau wrote Civil Disobedience in which he described mans attachment and obedience to the state, rather than to what is right, enables it to have its willing instruments for wars and repressive institutions like slavery. Refusing allegiance to and resisting the government when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable, form the basis of mans natural right to revolution. The mass of men serve the state, not as human beings, but as machines with their bodies. But a simple shift in beliefs that the state is not the final authority can quickly cause the state to collapse. It is quite simple, really. We are complicit with our own repression. Our own stubborn allegiance to modernity that outsources all the pain and suffering to other peoples and the planet is a kind of mental illness of pathological narcissism and delusions of grandeur. It is a kind of suicide/ecocide. We simply need to stop, and begin to look at one another and relocalize into food sufficient bioregions. This entry was written by brian, posted on at 5:41 pm, filed under Brian's Blog, Envisioning Nonviolent Revolutionary Alternatives. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. Full story... <http://evergreenedigest.org/liberation-requires-disobedience> ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:laamn-unsubscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:laamn-subscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:laamn-dig...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:laamn-ow...@egroups.com?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:la...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/laamn@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: laamn-dig...@yahoogroups.com laamn-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: laamn-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
