posted on Apr, 25 2010 @ 02:12 AM
Of course it is. People are getting more free as control cannot keep up with technological innovation, but 'moderity' itself is just an
ambiguous title.
We are not more humane because we still believe in the traditional paradigm of Lord and serf. We just mask it with faux participation (democracy) and
a feeling of self-ownership of our own enslavement. i.e. the phrase "I am an American". (America, as an example but replace American with any
other nation)
Let's look at what it means to be 'an American' and to own ones American-ness.
What is America? Some like to define it as the 'people'. Is it? I argue that America is an ambiguous Group defined by ones geographical place of
origin, or adopted place of origin. What creates this America boundary? The State. Without the state itself, all abstract views of America become
moot. America would not exist without the violence inherent in the state system. Remove the state, all you have is individuals. All ideals (what it
means to be an American in a positive sense) are just virtues that have been somehow hijacked as products of America itself. An example of this is the
term 'American Ingenuity'.
What is one actually saying when they state that they are American? In my view, based on empirical observations and historical record, to proclaim
ones American-ness is to take personal stock in violence. Violence being the very basis for what America is because the state itself is a system that
exerts control over people through force.
It is like a slave, praising his master because the terms of his enslavement are preferable to others, Stockholm Syndrome. America seems more
enlightened because the level of violence is less, or at least less obvious to passive observers.
But that is like saying Rodney is enlightened because he beats his wife much less often and less publicly, than Stew.
Just like a paradigm we moved away from in the 20th century of the wife being subservient to her husband, we need to move away from the paradigm of
'the people' being subservient to the state (a more private, entrenched group of people with authority to commit terrible acts for a well-meaning,
though misguided sense of greater good).