The Seditionist

Yep, that’s what I want. TOTAL transparency. For governments and private enterprise. Supposedly it’s the humble citizen who’s boss in today’s first-world democracies. Is it any surprise that she’s a terrible boss, given that she’s not let in on what’s actually going on in the country?

I’m an advocate for Direct Democracy. We got rid of kings and dictators in favor of the vote. Now that the technological means to make everyone heard are becoming available, why keep the middle man? But Direct Democracy will be a catastrophy if the common citizen is kept wilfully ignorant by his own government.

So, let’s get started and put it all online. Every report, every transcript, every last word any politician’s ever uttered over a late-night coffee.

I’m not one of those mamby-pampy social democrats we have running around back in Germany, pandering every-which way in hopes of getting elected to another stretch of directionless leadership. Which Schroeder (the ex-chancellor) famously topped off by going to work with his great friends, the Russian oligarchs, at Gazprom immediately after being kicked out.

I’m also not a conservative, not of the “passionate” U.S kind. With friends like a “passionate” conservative, who needs enemies? Certainly not the good liberated people of Iraq, or the thriving U.S public which is now in the superb position of paying for an economic extravaganza of which they’ve been profiting less and less since the 80’s when worker’s rights started to become passe.

No, I’m a Socialist. There, I’ve said it. A socialist. Like Lenin and Stalin and Pol-Pot and Ho-Chi-Mihn and Mao and Hitler (it was the national-socialist party after all). Cue scary Imperial music from Star Wars, perhaps shrouding my face in shadows as I laugh manically. How could any decent person be socialist in this day and age? Didn’t socialism kill millions, retard progress in half the world and then fail and collapse spectacularly?

Yes and no (emphasis on the no). It’s important, first of all, to lay out what kind of socialism one is talking about. That’s very difficult, since there are many people who reflexively act with ridicule or aggression at the very mention of the word. Yet the fact is that all socialism is not the same, and in fact socialism can be part of the best or the worst world, depending on the system in which it operates.

There are different definitions of socialism, and the common-use definition consists of both a state-ownership-based economic model and a dictatorial or oligarchical political model. Since the state also controls law and policing functions, the state is in control of liberties and the economy. Since it is controlled by a small ruling class, it does not represent the desires of its constituents. The result: an absolute dictatorship that controls livelihood and social norms, both food and thought. A nightmare of Orwellian proportions. Not surprising, since Orwell based his dystopias principally on the thriving Socialist dictatorship of Stalin.

Can Socialism entirely disown the criminal deeds of such men as Stalin? No. It is a fact that since the Soviet Union’s economy was entirely state-controlled it must be considered Socialist. Not Socialist in the way that was intended when the term was coined, but since Socialism is now a by-word for state control of economy it is reasonable to call the Soviet Union socialist. It is also easy to understand that state control of the economy made it easier for dictators like Stalin to dominate nations so completely, and to turn them into military machines turning out tanks instead of cars to suit their twisted need for power.

I do not deny that state control of the economy was an enabling factor for men like Stalin. However, I don’t think the idea of a state-run (or at least administered) economy was at fault. The state was at fault. It was, in each and every case a dictatorship or at best an oligarchy right from the beginning, and purges of dissenters ensured a lasting rule for bloodthirsty tyrants. But why lay blame at Socialism feet for the failure of a political system which was deeply rooted in the undemocratic principles of power, violence and aggressive expansion by indoctrination or extermination?

Socialism is only as good as the state that practices it. I would not advise the introduction of Socialism in nations where political power is already concentrated and democratic institutions are corrupt or non-existent. That’s asking for dictatorial plunderers or, in the case of Pol Pot, crazed ideologues. But why do we in the West have so little faith in our governments? Things are far from perfect, but even a hardened cynic such as myself trusts an elected official more than the shady characters that rule the economy these days. Indeed, it seems that much of the weakening of democracy is being caused by legal corruption in form of lobbying and campaign contributions (not to mention juicy post-politics industry jobs). Power breeds corruption, and unchecked power breeds unchecked corruption. Such is the power of private corporations.

Instead of allowing the present situation to deteriorate further until the capitalist system collapses from its own ineptitude in handling resources or it takes over government outright to keep us in an eternal, Stalin-esque twilight, how’s about we work on our democracy. Bring it to the people. Direct to Joe the Plumber or John the Architect. No more middle-men. Then we can wrest control of our environment, our jobs, our daily bread, of our lives from the heartless and unthinking monsters (once) well-meaning capitalism has created.

Oh my, an expletive in the title. And I’m a whiny bleeding-heart socialist small-l liberal. Why am I dissin’ freedom?

It’s because I have to balance out Freedom’s rep. There are enough hoarse voices screaming how great freedom is, how we need lots more freedom, blah blah blah. I think that’s a load of crock.

The truth is that freedom is a double-edged sword.

Of course we all like being free ourselves. I enjoy many of my freedoms. My freedom to live my life, my freedom to eat, my freedom to be educated, my freedom of speech, my freedom of (non)religion; these freedoms are all great.

Then there are the freedoms I don’t really care about. My freedom to potentially own a billion dollars. My freedom to potentially earn the equivalent to the GDP of a small country. My freedom to potentially own the world’s most expensive house. These freedoms I don’t care about because they’re constrained. Wealth is the measure of freedom here, and having the potential “freedom” to own lots of stuff is not the same as having the freedom to own lots of stuff, because that potential is only fulfilled if I’m: incredibly lucky, incredibly clever and/or incredibly wealth and famous to start off with. If I’m ugly, with an IQ of 75, have an unemployed drunk for a father and an HIV-positive prostitute mother, then I have zilch chance of that potential being fulfilled (well, with a lottery ticked it goes up to one in a gazillion).

And then there are the freedoms I really wouldn’t want anyone else to have. The freedom to enslave me. The freedom for someone else to own everything I need. The freedom for a hospital to throw me sick and dying on the pavement because I can’t pay. The freedom for rich people to not pay taxes. The freedom for other people to deprive me of my freedom of movement or to kill me.

When we’re putting together a society, we can go two ways (no more, no less):

First, Total Anarchy. The freedom to do whatever you want. The problem is that that’s a potential freedom, and bigger people can take it away from you to increase their freedom. They’re “freedom-rich” and you’re “freedom-poor”. Too bad.

The second is a social contract as proposed by Hobbes. We all give up those freedoms that impinge on someone else’s freedom to a more substantial degree than they add to our own. No, you’re not free to shoot me with that gun because that will take away my freedom to be alive. No, you’re not free to enslave me because that’ll take away my freedom of action and of expression. No, you’re not allowed to buy that extra mansion to stay in over summer with the money I need to buy food.

Today, we’re moving further and further away from a stable social contract to more and more anarchistic freedoms which empower the few but disadvantage the many. And freedoms don’t “trickle down”.

So what’s the answer? A paradigm shift. We have to stop talking about freedom societies, because achieving perfect freedom for everyone is by definition impossible (because we’d need the freedom to impinge someone else’s freedom) and there’s really no good reason for advocating excessive freedoms. What we need is a fairness society; a society in which freedoms are guaranteed in order to provide all of us with quality lives, and freedoms are restricted to prevent a minority from absconding with our rights and our toil. Fairness is at least theoretically realizable. Practically it will be a struggle, but at least it will be a struggle worth fighting for. Progress will mean progress for those least well off.

Freedom must mean many freedoms for all, not all freedoms for some and none for you because you’re the sucker.

I’m an Atheist. As far as I’m concerned, religion is bad. Religion, if it ever had a unique purpose, is robbed of it now. It is possible to replace religion completely. And since that will also deal with the violence and irrational craziness religion inevitably brings, letting religion die is the moral course of action.

However, there’s a belief among some Atheists that it’s religion which is responsible for all the world’s ills. Especially since 9/11, some Atheists have concluded that it is fundamentalism which has created the situation we see in the world today. The greatest evils as embodied by 9/11 are religion’s fault. I agree that 9/11 is religion’s problem. I agree religion makes a bad situation worse. But I disagree that what’s at the core of the world’s problems is religion. Sometimes religion creates problems, more often it acts as a catalyst to allow people to express violence in response to pre-existing problems. I think it’s folly to claim that the crazy disparities in wealth and welfare are not huge problems. I think it’s intellectually bankrupt to select 9/11 as a terrible holocaust while ignoring the violence that has killed millions since WW2, violence only rarely directly attributable to religion. Religion has made things worse, but it’s not religion’s fault that wealth is concentrated with a tiny elite while most humans are poor.

Religion feeds on injustice, because it pretends it has solutions in the afterlife and on judgement day. Religion will never go away until we resolve these injustices and create a good standard of living for everyone. And to use atheism to absolve ourselves from man-made injustice is no different than using religion to absolve ourselves from man-made injustice.

The difference between Science and Religion X is that Science will work for you, will help you, whether you believe in it or not. A car, microwave, computer or space shuttle does not scream “Unbeliever” and deactivate its electronic components in response to our skepticism.

Religion, on the other hand, requires a thing called “faith”. In most cases, you have to have “faith” for God to help you, to go to heaven. “Faith” means holding the “Religion X” hypothesis is true despite having no corrobberating evidence that holds up to scientific scrutiny.

Science works for all to see, and if one believes that it is God or a magic spell that keeps the television running, then one is quite free to substitute said power source for the power point. At this point the television set will turn off. Too bad. It all works in mysterious ways!

If Science required adherence to the scientific principle in order to work for us, then the struggle of Science versus Metaphysics would already be over. Unfortunately, Science is not as egotistical and vengeful as most Gods seem to be.

Perhaps when everyone knows that gods come down to Earth, we hallucinate gods; when all of us are familiar with demons, it’s incubi and succubi; when fairies are widely accepted, we see fairies; in an age of spiritualism, we encounter spirits; and when the old myths fade and we begin thinking that extraterrestrial beings are plausible, then that’s where our hypnogogic imagery tends.

(Sagan, The Demon-haunted world, p. 80)

We humans have done a lot of stupid shit which has haunted and tormented us. Here are ten prime candidates for royal fuckups we’ve spawned during the last century. They’re in no particular order.

1. Scientology
   Founded by a two-bit SciFi author with delusions of godhood (second coming of Buddha indeed!), Scientology is probably the most successful crazy cult ever. While they don’t ask their members to commit ritual suicide (that would hurt Scientology’s bottom line) their brainwashing techniques, abuse of the legal system and grave injury to many of their members and ex-members with their mumbo-jumbo qualifies the whole org as nasty small-e evil.
2. Microsoft
   What self-respecting geek doesn’t hate the poster-child for how greed and the constraint of knowledge can cripple productivity and affordability for decades?
3. The A-Bomb
   We invent something with only one use: to turn the clock back to the stone age. Bravo!
4. The Evangelical movement
   Science; who needs it when we can hate homosexuals?
5. “Smart” weapons
   People talk about the ethical implications of embryonic stem cell gathering; nobody talks about the ethical implications of smart weapons, of what it will mean if the next generation is smart enough to start killing without human control. Wars without consequence? For one side, at least. The side with enough money to build killer robots.
6. Celebrity culture
   I suppose the demise of nobility left an important gap in the social fabric. Enter a bunch of drug-addled grandiose and beautiful people with no other redeeming qualities.
7. Bush
   If anyone can bring on biblical apocalypse, he can.
8. Modern advertising
   Advertising may be thousands of years old (the ancient Greeks did it), but today’s subversive and manipulative ad war on common sense, waged on billboards, television channels, in movie theaters and even on our very bodies with the aid of brand logos is unequaled in history.
9. Two world wars
   What should be said about the greed and insanity that led to the killing of millions? At the very least that civilization is always at the precipice, and once set in motion unimaginable horrors may ravage those that cannot put a stop to the behemoth weight of bombs and bullets. A great reason to get along. Because victory is never certain, never swift,  never truly good, never forever.
10. Social Darwinism
    It seems that perverted forms of Darwinism (unintended by the great man himself) were not killed with Hitler’s Nazi Germany, but are alive and well in many forms in many minds today. Casual acceptance of a dog-eat-dog world, of innocent casualties, callused self-interest as purpose and reason for deeds of great vileness; and so we let the suffering continue, because God will help those who help themselves… it’ll be a great age when we can put behind us the economic, social and racial theories that are based in the belief that the weak must perish or be enslaved.

A lot is being made of Islamic fundamentalism. And of course, there’s a lot of truth to the allegations that in many poorly developed parts of the world ideas persist that are incompatible with human rights, science and in some cases common sense. Of course it’s easy to blame Islam instead of poverty and lack of education, since fighting poverty costs money. Ranting about a Clash of Cultures is free, and gets you elected if you’re a right-wing shill.

Much more worrying to me is the resurgence of Fundamentalism among Christian denominations in well-educated places. The Evangelical phenomenon is probably the best example of a head-long dive into mindless Fundamentalism, but Ratzinger has been doing his part for the Catholic church. One would think helping AIDS spread through condemnation of birth control and persecution of homosexuals would be enough for a man at the helm of a fading and increasingly irrelevant Christian sect. Not so. The pope has announced the Catholic church will be training more exorcists to fight the spread of Satanism.

And you thought the Catholic church had enough problems without making up new ones? Well, I suppose the advantage is that the imaginary Satanist problem will be a lot easier to deal with than emptying churches in the Catholic European heartland.

It’s official, Huckabee is victorious in the Iowa caucus. Huckabee, a man who doesn’t “believe in” evolution… I know Iowa is conservative, but it’s shameful that people in the country that’s self-declared leader of the world take seriously a man who doesn’t believe in science.

Bush has been a curse for the U.S and the rest of the world for the past seven years. Whatever happens in Election ‘08, I really hope there won’t be another dim-witted god-invoking self-righteous xenophobic prick in charge for the next four years. If that happens, many people will give up on the U.S.

I bitch a lot about how terrible everything is today, but the truth is I think things aren’t great compared to how great they could potentially be. So, in honor of the New Year here’s a list of ten reasons I’m glad I’m not a first-century jerk.

1. Mushrooms: I love eating mushrooms. Today, I can do that while knowing I won’t die in agonizing pain hours later. If there’s any death more terrible than that some poisonous mushrooms can inflict on you, let me know. Several of my ancestors died in mushroom-related incidents, so buying non-deadly mushrooms by the kilo is definitely on the list for me.
2. Flowing water: Having a good shower is so much better than bathing in the tepid pond behind the outhouse.
3. The Internet: How did I ever survive without Wikipedia?
4. Safety from Hordes: With all the horror about terrorist attacks, let’s not forget that a couple of thousand years ago there were hordes of Mongols, Vikings, Muslims, Christians and every other depraved racial and religious group out to skin us and eat our babies. Not having rampaging hordes is a good thing!
5. Modern Medicine: For those of us that live in a country with decent medical care, not dying from a slight chill that turns into double pneumonia is a good thing.
6. Planes: I know they’re bad for the environment. But when ya gotta go, sometimes ya just gotta go. And those month-long sea journeys would have been the end of me.
7. Science: The kind that’s not read from a holy book. I love science. Isn’t it great to look at something and understand a little of what makes it tick?
8. Lack of famines: Famines suck. I don’t like being hungry. I suspect I would like dying from hunger even less.
9. No Black Death: Ties in with modern medicine, but it deserves its own bullet point. After all, being trapped in a city of the dying burying the dead is far beyond modern comprehension to us who shiver at the thought of shop closings on public holidays.
10. Less chance of nuclear holocaust: What some people don’t want to admit. Our chances of being wiped out overnight by our own weapons has decreased to zero. That’s real good.

But of course this list only applies to the fortunate 5% of the world that live in the very rich and fortunate parts of the world. New Year’s resolution for the Industrialized World: make sure nobody anywhere dies of a slight chill double pneumonia or a scratch tetanus infection.

Happy New Year!