Beyond The State - Elite Weakness

There is a blight on our society. You can call it whatever you want, but it’s palpable and doesn’t need to be given a specific name. There are many different symptoms of this blight. Let’s look a little more closely at mental illness, for example. There’s a literal epidemic of mental illness running through our country, highlighted by depression and anxiety. Not good emotions. I’ve come to call this “Societal Fatigue Syndrome.” It’s because our social structure is exhausting, for everyone.

There’s another symptom of our blight that’s in the mental illness realm and that’s sociopathy or greed. This is not human’s natural state of harmony. People who are well, and part of a healthy society don’t behave in this way. People are naturally caring and nurturing creatures. The people running the show now are mentally ill.

These people have no empathy or compassion for their fellow man, and that kind of behavior is unacceptable in a civilized society. This is why I say that greed is a mental disease. The same as societal fatigue syndrome is a symptom of this blight on society, sociopathy is another symptom or result of this hyper-competitive capitalistic system whose checks and balances have failed to protect the ordinary people from the pursuits of those who aren’t of noble intention.

The people who are pushing the buttons for this country have shown time and time again that they do not care about us, or our lives. Just ask the families of the 700,000+ people who died from the opioid epidemic (that is still happening, just with fentanyl) and the company that was found guilty is still in business. It’s like genocide of poor people and presented in a way that makes it seem like it’s not.

They have become so powerful that they’re a detriment to our survival, as a species. I’m not saying to send out a lynch mob. Instead, I’m going to offer a different way to look at this. In the scope of our society and our day-to-day functioning, what purpose do these people serve? Absolutely none. In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if none of them even tied their own shoes. That might be a bit much, but you get my point.

What do these people do all day? Run around, worrying about how they look, plotting and scheming and ordering people to get what they need? Do you think any of them could do half of the things that we have to do to get by in life? No, they could not.

In “The Human Dilemma,” I talk about a great author’s work, Yuval Noah Harari. He’s a historian who’s written many influential books and has speaking engagements all over the world. In his work, he makes the point that what has helped humans advance is our ability to tell stories. Mr. Harari gets to the heart of the matter, pointing out that money is our greatest story. It truly holds no real value, except for the value we place on it. Now, a lot of you have come to understand this throughout life, but haven’t thought about what else that suggests.

So what do the oligarchs of the world have that keeps them in power? There are a lot of answers that I’m sure would be given to this question. Guns, drones, tanks, the food chain, but guess what? They don’t know how to use any of that stuff. They might be able to fire a gun, but they’re not flying drones or driving tanks. They’re not driving trucks full of food, or engineering new devices. They are, however getting paid for all of that, and much more than we’re getting paid for doing the work.

These people have no real value to society except in their manipulation tactics, and in our society that has come to be rewarded above hard work. They make no contribution, and conversely, suck up every cent they can get their hands on. They are, quite literally a leach on society with no skills.These people have no real value to society except in their manipulation tactics, and in our society that has come to be rewarded above hard work. They make no contribution, and conversely, suck up every cent they can get their hands on. They are, quite literally a leach on society with no skills.

Here’s another other thing, going back to Yuval Noah Harari, and how money gets its value from us. All those oligarchs have that gives them power is digital numbers on a screen. Sure, you can say they have houses and cars and all of that, but when it comes down to it, it’s all pieces of paper, backed by the US government, which is another story that we’ve brought into existence through our stories that we tell.

A lot of these ideas I’m able to work all the way through and see possibilities for how things might turn out, or a direction things could be pushed. This one, I’m not sure how it plays out, but I feel like this is going to become very important as things start to deteriorate even further. As the systems that hold our society continue to fall apart, perhaps there will come a time when we collectively determine that all their zeros on that computer screen are real and if we stop giving them validity then we’ll know freedom.