Power Corrupts — and So Do Acquiescence, Conformity, Submission and Dumbed-Down Disengagement

Recently I had a little chat about something I posted as a status update on Facebook:

A person who says “‪talk‬ is cheap‬” is saying more about their own poor‬‎ listening‬‎ skills‬ than anything else.

I followed this statement up with some commentary about engagement– basically, saying that “it takes two to talk” … that talking to no-one is nonsensical, all discussion and conversation should be considered as shared (“social”) acts / events.

Yet these days, it seems as though the only context in which the word “social” is permissible anymore is as a prefix to “media” (and in particular, to media which are owned by very proprietary “big media” corporations). In nearly all other cases, “social” reeks of “socialism”, and socialism is bad because it seems to be incompatible with privacy (and in particular with private property). Ergo: Everyone is entitled to their own opinion.

That said. when someone’s boss calls up on Monday morning, asking “where are you?“, responding “at home” and explaining that in your opinion it’s Sunday might not help very much towards keeping the job. Likewise, it appears that no one is handing out Nobel prizes to any members of any “flat Earth” society. If you want to play ball, your opinions should not interfere with following the rules… first and foremost: “Thou shalt not question the sanctity of privacy and/or private property“.

If this sounds hypocritical to you, then I think we agree: Saying “you can believe whatever you want — as long as it doesn’t conflict with my world view” may be a politically correct sound-bite, but it is also completely vacuous. This line of argument should only work if the person hearing it cannot comprehend its meaning.

George Orwell was spot on and way ahead of his time when he lamented such mind-numbing meaningless waffle. In many so-called “developed” countries on the globe, children have been fed such garbage day in and day out in grossly perverted extreme amounts — is it any wonder that these people can no longer listen very well? And if people protest being lied to, then they must expect to face police brutality, chemical weapons and more.

People forced into conformity, into submission, into becoming comfortably numb, mindless followers are a rather weak foundation upon which to build any kind of  society — let alone a democratic one.