Is political activism dead?

[Hardkill]

Over the past few years, there have been countless protests for various issues pertaining to racism, xenophobia, Trumpism, abortion, election results, shootings, vaccine mandates, getting democratic Congressmen to pass key liberal legislation, etc. Yet, it seems like none of that has worked at all to address, fix, or improve any of those issues at all.

Even the current political activist groups like the sunrise movements haven't done anything at all to influence a lot more people, business leaders, and government officials throughout our whole country to take climate change seriously. 

Protesting and political activism used to work in the older days. So, why isn't working anymore?

 

[CultivateLove]

3 hours ago, Hardkill said:

Protesting and political activism used to work in the older days. So, why isn't working anymore?

It used to be more effective because protests were more violent in the past. People came after you with pitchforks, not signs and twitter posts. 

 

[Oeaohoo]

Hyperreality.

The progressive disconnection between the signifier and the signified, the cause and the effect.

Real protest: to call for change.

Hyperreal protest: to protest for media coverage, corporate sponsorship, virtue signalling, social media, just because everyone else is, and so on.

Even when the motivations are sincere, most protests today are hyperreal so they have no impact on reality. This is exacerbated by the hyperreality of postmodern society itself.

Also, what some will call “late capitalism” has gotten very good at consuming the various ideologies that exist today into itself, wearing them like a pretty dress and make-up to conceal its inner vacuity and ugliness.

What makes you think it used to work in the older days? Generally, a protest only works when the general situation is ready for change. The French Revolution only worked because the old regime was totally rotten to the core. There had been many peasant uprisings before but none of them had much of an impact because the ancient regime was still sufficiently stable.

For example, do you think Rosa Parks was the first black women ever to refuse to comply with the rules of racist America? Of course not, but the time at which she did it was ripe for change. Many people who did similar things to her in the earlier days of post-slavery America are probably totally forgotten.

Also, most of the successful protests of the past had a leader that everybody was more or less willing to follow. Today most people are too “entitled to their opinion” to follow anybody but themselves. Most protests are therefore bound to be a “conference of the hedgehogs”. Not like there are many great leaders around today, anyway. Maybe Leo’s upcoming conscious leadership video can change this! 

[BlueOak]

Yes. It's been dead for a few decades.

Laws have been passed to cripple protests, and take the teeth out of any popular movement. People see how ineffectual gatherings are and give up on them. Governments have become adept at disinformation and media suppression, so much so regular people hate the protestors more than they do what's being protested.

We are heading toward environmental collapse which means the gradual death of everyone and everything. Day by day. Year by Year. In a sane world that operated in a healthy way, there would be worldwide protests every day until this was corrected. 

People have always been self-interested. Things on a gradual decline are easily knocked aside for immediate gratification, even if that gratification is a feel-good media illusion. Human's ability to adapt to slow change is part of their downfall. The sense of being able to operate in a group for social change gets labeled as a cult, or attacked from all quarters as extremist quicker than you can blink. Such obvious programming that people should be able to see it on mass.

This applies to things like the environmental decline over decades or centuries. Also things like the gradual erosion of any home/work balance which in recent years has skewed so much toward work, that it's long facilitated a breakdown of families and so society as a whole. I wish I could adequately describe how much more of a robot I feel at work than I did twenty years ago.

It's one of the reasons I am doom and gloom about where life is headed because the force of popular change has been bound to the point it's almost completely ineffective. Worse, people are taught to be happy with that outcome. As I see it this is because of the rise of authoritarianism from the east, which people have been slowly acclimatizing to, at the expense of any force that could drive change for the better. Vilification of anything that is different or outside of the structure those in power decide.

Edited June 2, 2022 by BlueOak

[Hardkill]

On 6/2/2022 at 2:11 AM, Oeaohoo said:

Hyperreality.

The progressive disconnection between the signifier and the signified, the cause and the effect.

Real protest: to call for change.

Hyperreal protest: to protest for media coverage, corporate sponsorship, virtue signalling, social media, just because everyone else is, and so on.

Even when the motivations are sincere, most protests today are hyperreal so they have no impact on reality. This is exacerbated by the hyperreality of postmodern society itself.

Also, what some will call “late capitalism” has gotten very good at consuming the various ideologies that exist today into itself, wearing them like a pretty dress and make-up to conceal its inner vacuity and ugliness.

What makes you think it used to work in the older days? Generally, a protest only works when the general situation is ready for change. The French Revolution only worked because the old regime was totally rotten to the core. There had been many peasant uprisings before but none of them had much of an impact because the ancient regime was still sufficiently stable.

For example, do you think Rosa Parks was the first black women ever to refuse to comply with the rules of racist America? Of course not, but the time at which she did it was ripe for change. Many people who did similar things to her in the earlier days of post-slavery America are probably totally forgotten.

Also, most of the successful protests of the past had a leader that everybody was more or less willing to follow. Today most people are too “entitled to their opinion” to follow anybody but themselves. Most protests are therefore bound to be a “conference of the hedgehogs”. Not like there are many great leaders around today, anyway. Maybe Leo’s upcoming conscious leadership video can change this! 

So, when will the US be ready for a major change?

[Oeaohoo]

4 hours ago, Hardkill said:

So, when will the US be ready for a major change?

I don’t have a crystal ball I’m afraid. I must confess that to me the US (along with my country, the UK) seem irremediably doomed. The last American election was between the multi-year candidate for stupidest man on Earth and a senile old fart with signs of early-stage Alzheimer’s… Not that our country is any better.

If it will be ready for change it will be when the people who control it decide that it is, or when a new group of people take control, or when something external forces them to change their trajectory. You can protest all you like but if you don’t have top-down backing it is all just a lot of hot air, particularly nowadays. The current ruling class seem more or less happy to continue along the current trajectory whilst doing everything they can to prevent the onslaught of a populist uprising. After all, Aristotle saw very clearly that democracy is basically just a slow path to the establishment of a demagogic tyranny, which is essentially what such a populist uprising will produce. Here is a relevant passage:

Quote

The last kind of democracy, because all the population share in the government, it is not within the power of every state to endure, and it is not easy for it to persist if it is not well constituted in its laws and customs. With a view to setting up this kind of democracy and making the people powerful their leaders usually acquire as many supporters as possible and admit to citizenship not only the legitimate children of citizens but also the base-born and those of citizen-birth on one side, I mean those whose father or mother is a citizen; for all this element is specially congenial to a to democracy of this sort. Popular leaders therefore regularly introduce such institutions; they ought however only to go on adding citizens up to the point where the multitude outnumbers the notables and the middle class and not to go beyond that point; for if they exceed it they make the government more disorderly, and also provoke the notables further in the direction of being reluctant to endure the democracy, which actually took place and caused the revolution at Cyrene [this sounds like what we would call a populist revolution]; for a small base element is overlooked, but when it grows numerous it is more in evidence. A democracy of this kind will also find useful such institutions as these: different tribes and brotherhoods must be created outnumbering the old ones, and the celebrations of private religious rites must be grouped together into a small number of public celebrations, and every device must be employed to make all the people as much as possible intermingled with one another, and to break up the previously existing groups of associates. Moreover the characteristics of a tyranny also are all thought to be democratic, I mean for instance licence among slaves, which may really be advantageous for the popular party up to a point, and among women and children, and indulgence for everyone to live as they like; a constitution of this sort will have a large number of supporters, as disorderly living is pleasanter to the mass of mankind than sober living.

Isn’t that more or less the present predicament? The “last and worst form of democracy” desperately hanging on to control? Not that I think the alternative is any better. Like I said, it is doomed.

[Hardkill]

9 minutes ago, Oeaohoo said:

I don’t have a crystal ball I’m afraid. I must confess that to me the US (along with my country, the UK) seem irremediably doomed. The last American election was between the multi-year candidate for stupidest man on Earth and a senile old fart with signs of early-stage Alzheimer’s… Not that our country is any better.

If it will be ready for change it will be when the people who control it decide that it is, or when a new group of people take control, or when something external forces them to change their trajectory. You can protest all you like but if you don’t have top-down backing it is all just a lot of hot air, particularly nowadays. The current ruling class seem more or less happy to continue along the current trajectory whilst doing everything they can to prevent the onslaught of a populist uprising. After all, Aristotle saw very clearly that democracy is basically just a slow path to the establishment of a demagogic tyranny, which is essentially what such a populist uprising will produce. Here is a relevant passage:

Isn’t that more or less the present predicament? The “last and worst form of democracy” desperately hanging on to control? Not that I think the alternative is any better. Like I said, it is doomed.

So, thats it?

The working and middle class people have no choice but to just give up because they are all powerless victims? 

[Oeaohoo]

Society has always been a pyramid. The present system is a globalised pyramid with largely unaccountable multi-national corporations at the top of it. You can’t exactly rouse all the peasants to charge at that with pitchforks, can you? Even if you could, what would be the point?

They don’t have to give up but like you said yourself their protests will have little to no effect. They might even have a negative one. Like Aristotle showed above, the only way to preserve the present kind of situation is by dividing the population among themselves, and protest movements are actually very useful for this purpose. Besides, most protests today lack any higher animating principle.

It is pointless to fight hyperreality with more hyperreality: you have to fight it with reality. If you want to fight it at all, that is.

[Hardkill]

34 minutes ago, Oeaohoo said:

Society has always been a pyramid. The present system is a globalised pyramid with largely unaccountable multi-national corporations at the top of it. You can’t exactly rouse all the peasants to charge at that with pitchforks, can you? Even if you could, what would be the point?

They don’t have to give up but like you said yourself their protests will have little to no effect. They might even have a negative one. Like Aristotle showed above, the only way to preserve the present kind of situation is by dividing the population among themselves, and protest movements are actually very useful for this purpose. Besides, most protests today lack any higher animating principle.

It is pointless to fight hyperreality with more hyperreality: you have to fight it with reality. If you want to fight it at all, that is.

So, you believe that the only key to real progress is if the vast majority of the common folk in America unite together against the corruption that needs to be vanquished? And you say that the only way that could happen is if the core of the entire regime becomes totally rotten? 

 

 

[Danioover9000]

   Conscious leadership, or no good activism.

[Oeaohoo]

2 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

So, you believe that the only key to real progress is if the vast majority of the common folk in America unite together against the corruption that needs to be vanquished?

I don’t believe in progress. America is the Frankenstein’s monster (and a true “modern Prometheus” at that!) of decadent Europe. It will die and so will Europe - my crystal ball says so! But yes, if there was any hope it would be something like this, without the emphasis on the common folk. This whole myth of the common people rising up and sticking truth to power is just romantic make-believe. Serious organised action by serious people with a vision and a plan of action is the only thing that can have any lasting effect. Anything less is just chimps flinging shit at the wall.

Naturally, I’m not talking about anything like a Trump-style insurrection: that is just replacing one form of corruption with an even worse one.

4 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

And you say that the only way that could happen is if the core of the entire regime becomes totally rotten?

When I spoke of the regime being rotten I was talking about the French ancien regime. Like I said, the present situation is different, society was much smaller then. I was just pointing out that protests haven’t always been effective.

[BlueOak]

@Oeaohoo

There have been uncountable social changes and developments that happen through mass movements and revolutions. You are cherry-picking history.

[Oeaohoo]

9 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

   Conscious leadership, or no good activism.

Absolutely. This is only half of the problem though: what if the majority of people don’t want to be lead, but would rather serve themselves?

1 hour ago, BlueOak said:

There have been uncountable social changes and developments that happen through mass movements and revolutions. You are cherry-picking history.

Maybe history is just a cherry blossom!

This is not exactly the point. Let me be clearer:

11 hours ago, Oeaohoo said:

If it will be ready for change it will be when the people who control it decide that it is, or when a new group of people take control, or when something external forces them to change their trajectory.

Of course there have been revolutions but the idea that they are just mass movements is absurd. There is almost always guidance from a rival set of elites or a leader of some sort. In the extreme case in which there isn’t (like the Revolution in Haiti), a new elite will immediately be created to establish the order of the new regime.

The “common people” are able to change the trajectory of the regime but only because their demonstrations can influence the motives and actions of the powerful. In certain extreme cases, a leader (generally a corrupt and exploitative demagogue playing them for his own ends) will use the people to clear out the old regime so that they can take all the power for themselves.

Effective change is always top-down. To think otherwise is like thinking that the body could effectively change the soul or even the spirit.

[BlueOak]

1 hour ago, Oeaohoo said:

This is not exactly the point. Let me be clearer:

Of course there have been revolutions but the idea that they are just mass movements is absurd. There is almost always guidance from a rival set of elites or a leader of some sort. In the extreme case in which there isn’t (like the Revolution in Haiti), a new elite will immediately be created to establish the order of the new regime.

The “common people” are able to change the trajectory of the regime but only because their demonstrations can influence the motives and actions of the powerful. In certain extreme cases, a leader (generally a corrupt and exploitative demagogue playing them for his own ends) will use the people to clear out the old regime so that they can take all the power for themselves.

Effective change is always top-down. To think otherwise is like thinking that the body could effectively change the soul or even the spirit.

The body does change the soul and the spirit because they are the same thing. We are doing work that changes soul/spirit every day we are alive.

Let's get the context:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_revolutions_and_rebellions
So there were a thousand or so major ones and an uncountable amount of smaller movements that made smaller changes. Putting aside you are factually incorrect that every revolution has a leader, there are demonstrations in the middle east right now that are leaderless for example. Nowhere in my post did I mention leadership.

Leaders get nowhere without popular support, or money/title enough to artificially create it.

Power is where power is. If it's top-down that's where the power is. If it's in the hands of people that's where the power is. You can only imagine it one way because you've only known it one way. In modern-day, the state has more power than it ever has had. Right down to whatever information you are allowed to see at all day to day, what food you can eat, what entertainment is acceptable, language you can use etc. In era's gone by communities were ruled much more at the local level, so things were more organically governed, and power was decentralized significantly more. Kings for example feared their peasants, for good reason, they didn't laugh when a few of them got together and held up signs, they didn't have all the tools of state suppression governments now enjoy. When it comes to governance, no matter how benign someone's motives are, we live in a dystopian nightmare when it comes to social order.

[Oeaohoo]

1 hour ago, BlueOak said:

So there were a thousand or so major ones and an uncountable amount of smaller movements that made smaller changes. Putting aside you are factually incorrect that every revolution has a leader, there are demonstrations in the middle east right now that are leaderless for example. Nowhere in my post did I mention leadership.

I was talking about the ones that were or will be successful. I know you didn’t, that’s the point! I didn’t say every revolution had a leader, but for a revolution to be successful it must almost always have organised support from above. Like I said, in very rare cases the mass can organise itself (though it is more likely to be an “organised disorder” which is in itself only destructive), but for this to have any lasting effect a new elite will then have to be established.

1 hour ago, BlueOak said:

The body does change the soul and the spirit because they are the same thing. We are doing work that changes soul/spirit every day we are alive.

Yes, and you are doing that work with your soul and your spirit! The body is just a vehicle. I like the word for the body in the phrase “chit-jada-granthi” (the knot between consciousness and the body): jada, it means “one who is dull, inert”. In this analogy, the rulers are the consciousness and the people are the inert and inanimate mass who need to be given direction. They will generally only kick up a fuss for banal material reasons.

1 hour ago, BlueOak said:

Leaders get nowhere without popular support, or money/title enough to artificially create it.

This is generally true, though some regimes can survive for a time without popular support. It is besides the point though: it is difficult for the soul to violate the needs and wants of the body but the soul still commands it.

1 hour ago, BlueOak said:

Power is where power is.

“This just in”!

1 hour ago, BlueOak said:

Power is where power is. If it's top-down that's where the power is. If it's in the hands of people that's where the power is. You can only imagine it one way because you've only known it one way. In modern-day, the state has more power than it ever has had. Right down to whatever information you are allowed to see at all day to day, what food you can eat, what entertainment is acceptable, language you can use etc. In era's gone by communities were ruled much more at the local level, so things were more organically governed, and power was decentralized significantly more. Kings for example feared their peasants, for good reason, they didn't laugh when a few of them got together and held up signs, they didn't have all the tools of state suppression governments now enjoy.

I agree with you here and I have already said this. You cannot just rouse the rabble today to overturn the global world order. Like you have pointed out, feudal lords and barons had to keep on relatively good terms with their serfs because they could prove a real threat. But! What will happen if they manage to overthrow the old baron? A new baron will be nominated who will hopefully treat them better! The people are only useful for the destructive part of change; the constructive part is always top-down. However, even revolutions like the French Revolution had support from elite groups like the Philosophes. They were not just “grass-roots revolutions”.

1 hour ago, BlueOak said:

When it comes to governance, no matter how benign someone's motives are, we live in a dystopian nightmare when it comes to social order.

Yes, absolutely. The worst tyrants of ancient times couldn’t have dreamed of such manipulative power as is readily available today.

Edited June 4, 2022 by Oeaohoo

[Oeaohoo]

@BlueOak If you’re interested, here is an extremely illuminating passage in which Aristotle describes how a tyrannical regime can survive without popular support:

Quote

Tyrannies on the other hand are preserved in two extremely opposite ways. One of these is the traditional way and the one in which most tyrants administer their office. These are both the measures mentioned some time back to secure the safety of a tyranny, in so far as this is possible: the lopping off of outstanding men and the destruction of the proud, and also the prohibition of common meals and club-fellowship and education and all other things of this nature; the close watch upon all things that usually engender the two emotions of pride and confidence [ideologies of guilt and privilege], and the prevention of the formation of study-circles and other conferences for debate, and the employment of every means that will make people as much as possible unknown to one another [destruction of family and local community] (for familiarity increases mutual confidence); and for the people in the city to be always visible and to hang about the palace-gates (for thus there would be least concealment about what they are doing, and they would get into a habit of being humble from always acting in a servile way); and to try not to be uninformed about any chance utterances or actions of any of the subjects, but to have spies like the women called ‘provocatrices’ [!] and the ‘sharp-ears’ that used to be sent out by Hiero wherever there was any gathering or conference [cancel culture] (for when men are afraid of spies of this sort they keep a check on their tongues, and if they do speak freely are less likely not to be found out); and to set men at variance with one another and cause quarrels between friend and friend and between the people and the notables and among the rich [protest movements and polarised media]. And it is a device of tyranny to make the subjects poor [austerity and wealth inequality], so that a guard may not be kept [hatred of police and of arms], and also that the people being busy with their daily affairs may not have leisure to plot against their ruler [wage slavery]; and the levying of taxes [centralising policies and socialist ideology]. Also the tyrant is a stirrer-up of war [!], with the deliberate purpose of keeping the people busy and also of making them constantly in need of a leader [Cold War, Middle East, war against Covid, Ukraine]. Also whereas friends are a means of security to royalty, it is a mark of a tyrant to be extremely distrustful of his friends, on the ground that, while all have the wish, these chiefly have the power.

[I love this bit!] Also the things that occur in connection with the final form of democracy are all favorable to tyranny—dominance of women in the household, in order that they may carry abroad reports against the men, and lack of discipline among the slaves, for the same reason; for slaves and women do not plot against tyrants, and also, if they prosper under tyrannies, must feel well-disposed to them, and to democracies as well (for the common people also wishes to be sole ruler [!!!]). Hence also the flatterer is in honor with both—with democracies the demagogue [Trump and rise of populist leaders] (for the demagogue is a flatterer of the people), and with the tyrants those who associate with them humbly, which is the task of flattery. In fact owing to this tyranny is a friend of the base [!] for tyrants enjoy being flattered, but nobody would ever flatter them if he possessed a free spirit [worship of “common people”, proletarianisation]—men of character love their ruler, or at all events do not flatter him. And the base are useful for base business, for “nail is driven out by nail”, as the proverb goes. And it is a mark of a tyrant to dislike anyone that is proud or free-spirited [hatred of non-conformity]; for the tyrant claims for himself alone the right to bear that character, and the man who meets his pride with pride and shows a free spirit robs tyranny of its superiority and position of mastery; tyrants therefore hate the proud as undermining their authority. And it is a mark of a tyrant to have men of foreign extraction [!] rather than citizens as guests at table and companions, feeling that citizens are hostile but strangers make no claim against him.

These and similar habits are characteristic of tyrants and preservative of their office; there is no wickedness too great for them. And broadly speaking, they are all included under three heads; for tyranny aims at three things, one to keep its subjects humble (for a humble-spirited man would not plot against anybody), second to have them continually distrust one another (for a tyranny is not destroyed until some men come to trust each other, owing to which tyrants also make war on the respectable, as detrimental to their rule not only because of their refusal to submit to despotic rule, but also because they are faithful to one another and to the other citizens, and do not inform against one another nor against the others); and the third is lack of power for political action (since nobody attempts impossibilities, so that nobody tries to put down a tyranny if he has not power behind him). These then in fact are the three aims to which the wishes of tyrants are directed; for all the measures taken by tyrants one might class under these principles—some are designed to prevent mutual confidence among the subjects, others to curtail their power, and others to make them humble-spirited.

Written two-and-a-half thousand years ago, but there are many striking resemblances to our own time!

[Danioover9000]

@Oeaohoo

5 hours ago, Oeaohoo said:

Absolutely. This is only half of the problem though: what if the majority of people don’t want to be lead, but would rather serve themselves?

Maybe history is just a cherry blossom!

This is not exactly the point. Let me be clearer:

Of course there have been revolutions but the idea that they are just mass movements is absurd. There is almost always guidance from a rival set of elites or a leader of some sort. In the extreme case in which there isn’t (like the Revolution in Haiti), a new elite will immediately be created to establish the order of the new regime.

The “common people” are able to change the trajectory of the regime but only because their demonstrations can influence the motives and actions of the powerful. In certain extreme cases, a leader (generally a corrupt and exploitative demagogue playing them for his own ends) will use the people to clear out the old regime so that they can take all the power for themselves.

Effective change is always top-down. To think otherwise is like thinking that the body could effectively change the soul or even the spirit.

   Majority of the time, people want to be lead whether they like it or not, even from those who say they'd like to lead, no they like to follow too.

[BlueOak]

@Oeaohoo *For your benefit entirely, you are creating a duality between the soul/mind/body where none exists. I often fight with the soul, but then that fight is reflected in the environment quickly enough. Its more that I create resistance to myself or what exists, rather than a separate part of me is somewhere making life difficult. That would be far too easy to avoid responsibility for my own manifestations

You are confusing ability with awareness. You can be very able and very unwise. Which leads to tremendous self arrogance and usually a fall. You could be a man in a very simple job, who was incredibly wise, I've met many simple people who I learned wisdom from. So to think these people day to day are not leading to change in others and they all need guidance to do so is simply untrue. Society wasn't always a pyramid at all. At one time it was run by councils or a gathering of village elders, among other systems. I think you mean money is a pyramid, which it is, but that isn't the source of all or even where the majority of societal change originates.

New systems of governance form when there is no leader as well. The old model is far from guaranteed to return. Precisely because there is no leader guiding it toward a model at all. The most successful and indeed destructive revolutions often had no clear leader, destruction is often a requisite of change so something new is built in its place. Of course, eventually, someone leads and yes backing helps, but the change itself doesn't need to be initiated by any single individual, it's the people themselves that often initiate mass change by the weight of their will, fear of what they will do otherwise, or in times gone by physical act. The very fact they are so well manipulated now is why we have no significant change happening.

You can absolutely rouse the rabble to overturn the global world order, or you could until about 1980 perhaps, that's the point. Then eventually a leader might result from doing so. Historically there is no guarantee that the new system is better than the old one. Whether a leader exists or not. Let's talk about something less dramatic though, and while anything can fail, assume these efforts are successful below for the sake of the discussion.

Example:
1, 6 people get together to form a group dedicated to cleaning up their community. They have no leader, they go picking up trash, the place looks better and they succeed in showing others to look after their local area by example. 

2, 20 people start a workers cooperative at their local supermarket, it has no leader it has shareholders. Sure there is a manager and it has supervisors but there is no single voice greater than the rest. Let's assume they succeed, which a company literally called the COOP in the UK ran a business model not dissimilar to this, here is its first form: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_Society_of_Equitable_Pioneers

3, 12 Therapists work at a clinic. The manager only comes in on the weekends to make sure everything is running well. I sit there at a desk and diagnose which therapists might be best for the client. This was my old job and I was not the leader of the place, I was on the front desk. Yet I was every day helping people and changing their lives, which in turn changed that small town. At least more than one person told me so at the time.

4, People get together on a forum and talk about life, they help each other improve and from time to time amongst all the many messages, inspire small but meaningful changes in others. Like right here. Sure Leo runs this place, and he is responsible for getting people here. Makes lots of changes in others too, and I'm sure sometimes in Leo himself. So do a lot of other people here, in conversations he's not present in.

Finally, on your democracy breeds tyrants, it can, it or can give rise to a very humble intelligent politician. Identities or figureheads with too much power are always troublesome. Either way, I'd prefer a democratically elected council, with guess what, no single leader that's asked to carry the entire weight of every individual's whim on his/her shoulders. Teams elected and overseeing different areas of society, which are re-elected when they need to be, rather than throwing out others that are doing a good job because one man's time is up at an arbitrary number of years, or another unrelated council member was caught in a scandal.

Edited June 4, 2022 by BlueOak

[Oeaohoo]

2 hours ago, Danioover9000 said:

Majority of the time, people want to be lead whether they like it or not, even from those who say they'd like to lead, no they like to follow too.

Yes I agree. Just look at how willingly people follow whatever the latest political trend is: “I support the current thing“! This raises another question though: people are already being led. How do you (or any leader) make them want to follow you?

1 hour ago, BlueOak said:

*For your benefit entirely, you are creating a duality between the soul/mind/body where none exists. I often fight with the soul, but then that fight is reflected in the environment quickly enough. Its more that I create resistance to myself or what exists, rather than a separate part of me is somewhere making life difficult. That would be far too easy to avoid responsibility for my own manifestations

I think that non-duality is often mis- and over-applied. Of course you are right that internal conflicts can manifest themselves externally, but my experience is that there is a relative duality between the body and the soul, material and spiritual, physical and metaphysical. I am aware that all distinctions vanish in God, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t distinctions from our current human perspective.

1 hour ago, BlueOak said:

You are confusing ability with awareness. You can be very able and very unwise. Which leads to tremendous self arrogance and usually a fall. You could be a man in a very simple job, who was incredibly wise, I've met many simple people who I learned wisdom from. So to think these people day to day are not leading to change in others and they all need guidance to do so is simply untrue. Society wasn't always a pyramid at all. At one time it was run by councils or a gathering of village elders, among other systems. I think you mean money is a pyramid, which it is, but that isn't the source of all or even where the majority of societal change originates.

I’m not sure where this came from. I never said anything about ability or awareness. The people who rule aren’t necessarily those with either of those qualities, it will depend on the regime.

Yes, the village elders or the council were at the top of the pyramid! You would struggle to find a civilisation in history that has not had a hierarchical structure with few (nobility) at the top and many at the bottom. Of course, since the Renaissance and the collapse of the feudal world into mercantilism, this hierarchy is today largely determined by money. In the medieval world it was determined by heroism, courage and valour on the one hand (feudalism), and faithfulness, devotion and holiness on the other.

1 hour ago, BlueOak said:

New systems of governance form when there is no leader as well. The old model is far from guaranteed to return. Precisely because there is no leader guiding it toward a model at all. The most successful and indeed destructive revolutions often had no clear leader, destruction is often a requisite of change so something new is built in its place. Of course, eventually, someone leads and yes backing helps, but the change itself doesn't need to be initiated by any single individual, it's the people themselves that often initiate mass change by the weight of their will, fear of what they will do otherwise, or in times gone by physical act. The very fact they are so well manipulated now is why we have no significant change happening.

Yes, I accept there doesn’t always have to be a leader! I agree with all of this except that I don’t think the people often initiate change all by themselves, particularly as you approach the modern day. Almost all of the successful revolutions of recent times have had top-down backing, whether internal or external. Your last point is very true: do you think there’s anything that can be done about this?

1 hour ago, BlueOak said:

Let's talk about something less dramatic though, and while anything can fail, assume these efforts are successful below for the sake of the discussion.

Sorry, I only care about the big picture. Maybe that’s why I see everything as top-down!

1 hour ago, BlueOak said:

Finally, on your democracy breeds tyrants, it can, it or can give rise to a very humble intelligent politician. Identities or figureheads with too much power are always troublesome. Either way, I'd prefer a democratically elected council, with guess what, no single leader that's asked to carry the entire weight of every individual's whim on his/her shoulders. Teams elected and overseeing different areas of society, which are re-elected when they need to be, rather than throwing out others that are doing a good job because one man's time is up at an arbitrary number of years, or another unrelated council member was caught in a scandal.

Yes, nowadays this is probably the best we can manage. Even in Aristotle’s day the age of great monarchs was over. It certainly is today!

[BlueOak]

1 hour ago, Oeaohoo said:

I’m not sure where this came from. I never said anything about ability or awareness. The people who rule aren’t necessarily those with either of those qualities, it will depend on the regime.

Here:

6 hours ago, Oeaohoo said:

In this analogy, the rulers are the consciousness and the people are the inert and inanimate mass who need to be given direction. They will generally only kick up a fuss for banal material reasons.

Daily interactions can initiate social change, just two people speaking or interacting refines it. Many movements are entirely benign, they just tend to be slower and so harder to spot or see the contrast. Material reasons are not necessarily bad either, if people miss all the more subtle reasons, material reasons are then brought into focus.
 

1 hour ago, Oeaohoo said:

Yes, the village elders or the council were at the top of the pyramid! You would struggle to find a civilisation in history that has not had a hierarchical structure with few (nobility) at the top and many at the bottom. Of course, since the Renaissance and the collapse of the feudal world into mercantilism, this hierarchy is today largely determined by money. In the medieval world it was determined by heroism, courage and valour on the one hand (feudalism), and faithfulness, devotion and holiness on the other.

Pyramids imply status over others to me and maybe that's my bias. When governance is separated from financial wealth or benefits aside from just doing their best for the people they are governing, it's no different from any job. Whereas with kings you had wealth power, titles, land etc. Money was the same thing in a more accessible form. It was accessible until the wealth gap became pronounced to separate people from power so completely. On an ideal council, you would get a job to do, that should be entirely divorced from any excess material benefit for doing it. Regular pay like everyone gets, and that's it. 
 

1 hour ago, Oeaohoo said:

Yes, I accept there doesn’t always have to be a leader! I agree with all of this except that I don’t think the people often initiate change all by themselves, particularly as you approach the modern day. Almost all of the successful revolutions of recent times have had top-down backing, whether internal or external. Your last point is very true: do you think there’s anything that can be done about this?

In the modern-day they are suppressed far beyond what they ever were before. They are also very comfortable and comfort is enough for most people. The value systems of materialism are geared toward things, as long as people have things they have happiness.

What can be done?

The minimalist movement helps, things are no longer the basis for existence. So do people trying to build small housing or live simpler lifestyles. Conversely expanding us to be a multi-planetary species, because it would give us collectively something other than materialism to focus on. Raising consciousness awareness helps. Deprogramming words like cult or extremist to be something more meaningful rather than merely reactionary wards/words to stop change. We could deprogram forever but we'd be here forever.

People tried bitcoin to make wealth more universal or accessible for example, but it's still based on materialism and still prone to the same wealth gap as everything else was. If you have more you get more.

The only system of power that would be universally balanced is entirely nonmaterial in nature, which can't compound the rate at which you gain it by simply having more. If you work that out let me know, we'll save the world together :D, but more seriously it would form the basis of a better world. You might say consciousness and my instinct is to say we'd need a bridge from that to here and a way to avoid replacing figureheads with figureheads.

If you want something else radical that you won't like, stop people giving up their power to figureheads. Which forms the foundation of this discussion from my perspective.

1 hour ago, Oeaohoo said:

Sorry, I only care about the big picture. Maybe that’s why I see everything as top-down!

That's why you (and most others) don't give proper credit to the mass change that happens daily within society and consciousness. Why we have this debate, because I see the same value in all people and you have it weighted toward figureheads. Leo does too from what I can see, and so do most people, so you are not alone, and that's why we have this problem where no change is happening. People give up their power to other people who have no motivation to change anything because they already have what they want. My bias is obviously that I can't stand figureheads, and the more set someone becomes in a position of stagnant authority the more I tend to dislike them. 

For the soul/body/mind, any distinction you like to make can be created, or can be collapsed, its all the same.

@Oeaohoo

Edited June 4, 2022 by BlueOak