Free (the) slaves

A) Slavery as a mental attitude

1. After slavery has been officially abolished, at least in the countries of the civilized world, most people might think that we have gotten ourselves rid of this horrible problem.

2. But is this true? Have we truly abolished slavery in all its expressions, or have we just instead transposed the problem into a modern context?

3. Have we really set ourselves free, personally and socially, in modern societies, or have we just surrendered ourselves to the convenience of spending our life without true purpose, in exchange for a mediocre salary or pension?

4. A common misconception is that the first European slavers enslaved African populations by using brute force. But this may be far from true in many occasions. Local tribes in Africa used to fight against each other. Those who won the war enslaved those who lost, and sold them to the Europeans in exchange for various products.

5. Is something analogous happening right now? Aren’t we forced to join the army, or brainwashed to vote for a political party? Aren’t we enslaved by the banks and the modern financial system, being obliged to work for making money, instead of being able to find any good we might need free as it used to be in nature (in the sense of having a society based on sustainability instead of sparsity)?

B) The dark side of freedom

“He who can be a slave, can also become the slaver.”

6. This saying is based on the fact that if most people in a society are slaves (in one form or another), these same people will try to make other people, who would not comply, like them, thus turning them into slaves. But those who make other people slaves are slavers working for their masters.

7. I have been wondering why the sheep have never revolted against their herder, or why they have never come together against the wolves which plunder them.

8. It seems that predators know by instinct that when they attack their pray will scatter, so that wolves will always find the opportunity to catch a sheep or another. It seems that the only thing sheep can do is to crowd in, while each individual sheep hopes it won’t be the one to be eaten.

9. The same behavior can be found among people in a society. We gather round, minding our own business, having the illusion that a car rushing in the street will never hit us, that the corporation we work for with will never fire us, that the next financial crisis will not touch us, or that a poor person living in the streets will never be us.

10. But the fact is that it is just a matter of chance who will be the next one to be hit, which will be the next ‘sheep to be eaten.’ We just let our fortunes and fates to the predators of our own society, naively thinking that by being submissive they will never exploit us, or perhaps that we can be one of them. But this is the precondition of slavery- being indifferent, and trying to live on a system which constantly alienates the notion of freedom.

C) Slavery in the modern world

11. Although one might think that slavery no longer exists, slavery has in fact taken new forms, which, invisible in many occasions, are difficult to be traced or be avoided.

12. One example is advertisement. We live in the land of plenty. However the abundance of goods and products is not like apples you can freely cut from a tree. Like apples, they are products no longer available in nature, neither found in abundance like in a free self- sustainable society, but they are owned by someone, and you finally have to buy the product, the apple, in order to survive. In addition to this, new needs are created by advertisement, so that even if a product is not a necessity it becomes one. Thus not only the product is not free (an aspect which might seem self- evident, but which in fact isn’t), but also, due to the continuous brainwashing, you might have never had the chance to exercise your free will enough in order to make the right choice.

13. Another example is conformity. Technology may have made our lives easier, but it has also created an artificial environment which is extremely vulnerable. To have an opportunity to live a luxurious life is not bad on its own, but to depend on luxury is excessively dangerous. When we regard things as self-evident, if they cannot be found any longer, and to the degree we are depended on them, our whole way of life collapses. If we become conformists, or ‘couch slaves,’ in the end we will have forgotten the benefits of a ‘free ride.’ After all, smartphones have made us neither smarter nor happier.

14. Is therefore our whole civilization as we know it another form of slavery, a large prison? Liberals say that we live in a free society, but what they say is for their own sake. (The same was true for socialism- the only ones who benefited were party members). Technology created the illusion of a glass palace which we live in, but where all things are transparent, or intangible- they cannot be truly touched. We all live in our little- supposedly luxurious- prison, having lost any true sense of freedom.

15. Ultimately, the existence of real prisons in modern societies shows that we still believe in the constitution of slavery. We imprison people not because they tried to steal our own freedom, but because they didn’t comply with our own sense of liberty. During their sentence they will not be taught how to be independent. They will be humiliated and subjugated, having lost their civil rights, only to be rehabilitated into an obedient society who takes robbery for granted- while the wolves are still out there!

D) The illusion of universal freedom

16. Modern science accepts that there is no center of the universe (at least no center has ever been found). This gives us the advantage to consider an ideal society, absolutely democratic (almost anarchistic), in the image of the universe (as we observe it to be).

17. However, what if a true center of the universe were to be discovered, for example, at the singularity of the most supermassive black hole, around which everything else would revolve? Would this then be used as an excuse for totalitarianism and absolute power, in the form of one globalized superpower or another?

18. The point is that, whatever our theory about the universe or a perfect society might be, any idea about freedom always goes together with, and is complementary to, some notion of imprisonment.

19. In other words, freedom is a condition which one cannot escape from. As soon as we try to find a definition of freedom, and some landmarks which describe it, we have already built a prison within which freedom can be confined.

20. Don’t you listen to the canaries? What a great zeal do they sing with! Each and every one of us searches for one’s little and precious cage, so that one can feel secure within its confines. Perhaps the only difference between us and canaries is that we are free to open the door and leave whenever we like.

E) Setting yourself free…

“I am free.”

21. Well are we? We might take a walk or drive our car whenever and wherever we want. We could simply lie down, relax, and pretend that everything is fine. But what are we going to do with that kind of freedom, which often becomes so dark and thick, so engaging and demanding, that our mind turns into a cell which confines our own thought? If we are like the canaries, supposing that one day we managed to open the door and flew away, where would we go? What could we really make out of that endless blue and clear sky, if we had nowhere to fly to?

22. And to make things worse, what if we didn’t even know what we were trying to escape from?

10/9/2018

Image: [https://bitterrealities.wordpress.com/2012/12/28/illusion-of-freedom/]