Modern democratic elections appeal to the mob through glamour and outrage. They monstrously personify the worst of humanity through an uneven selection processes.
From time immemorial leadership has been determined through appeal and trade, be it in goats or grain, salt or shekels. He with the most power and appeal has always ruled. HE has always lined his pockets through economic expansion aka growth.
Modern elections are no different. The further societies advance into the digital age, the more mass media focuses our minds on fame and fortune – the ancient twin rulers of humanity. Economic growth is the god of the masses in modern societies. Never has the saying, “All publicity is good publicity” been more true than in 2024. Sensationalism and outrage drive clicks which in turn drive advertising revenue which in turn pays for election winners.
But there is another way, a middle way. We need not go back to the stone age or live poor to tread that way. We simply need to care enough to take action related to our planet, other people, and other species – about future generations.
The middle way lacks glamour; it lacks mob-appeal. It is the way of moderation and evenness. Moderation, the refusal to be the aggressor or to defend one’s self, does not win elections. In fact, through its dispassionate approach, the middle way can provoke a mob’s rage – just ask Obama.
The mob calls on people to do “what a situation demands”, “follow the popular course of action”. That approach feeds the beast of brutality and aggression(1). That beast oppresses and holds back humanity from all its potential while leading it to believe that it can conquer all – manifest destiny. That beast is both religious and political in nature.
How can one remain dispassionate (moderate) while passionately calling for action against the four-fold crises of climate change, topsoil degradation, deforestation, and the global-scale pollution of our environment? Humanity’s real enemy has lurked in the shadows biding its time, playing the long game. It is, of course, humanity itself – us. We are the problem that has brought us to the brink of destruction.
We must flee the path upon which we find ourselves.
Humanity must stand up to itself, for itself. Humanity must flee from its current path of economic cannibalism and the morbid pursuit of the aesthetically pleasing.
Not everything that is unpopular is good, but that which is popular is rarely good over the long run. it is time to abandon the popular approach to human societies. They have never worked. They have in fact led us to this four-fold existential crises. It is our blind pursuit of growth and expansion that have created our crises.
One word has been coined to describe, categorize, and confine humanity since written history began – socioeconomic. To be sure, economics and society are broad global forces that have allowed humanity to organize, innovate, and grow as a species.
In its infancy economics – trade – was controllable, flowing through the watercourse of man’s making.
But for many years now, no single person or country has guided trade. It is a life force all its own, an oppressor and a prison combined. Economics is the air we breathe, the earth beneath our feet. Fools seek to alter economics. The wise among us catch breezes, riding the currents where they will. Backwaters and eddies may be of use to hide away until that beast dies, as it surely will.
Society – organized communities of humans working together toward the common good – from its inception has aligned with the greater evolutionary principles of survival, health, and strength.
Sociology, on the other hand, is merely an observation and a report of humanity’s situation at any given point in history, a perspective on perspectives. Sociology seeks to understand the ebb and flow of humanity in the context of the whole living system.
Sociology teaches us that their is a difference between expansion and evolution. The latter is inevitable – unguidable – while the former must be managed and controlled for our own protection.
As the age of trade sinks toward history’s horizon, humanity must anticipate its own evolution and disconnect the socio from the economic.
Just as governments aligned with religions as a means to amass power and to control the under-educated masses, they also commandeered trade to enrich themselves and enslave all people everywhere. Someone once said, “Ideally a slave does not know that he is a slave, that is, he believes he is free to do as he will.” This is the essence of the human circumstance in the closing scene of the economic era.
We must free ourselves from economic slavery before it is too late – before human extinction. I don’t pretend to know what that looks like(2). I only know that the crises we currently face cannot be addressed so long as humanity is constrained by economics.
Lets get together to smack down the oligarchs, politicians, and religious zealots that have driven headlong to the brink of extinction.
(1) I am atheist. Non-religious men tend to be nihilistic ( I reject that lifestyle ). In general, humans tend to be either nihilistic and eternalistic in nature. When I speak of eternalistic I mean the view ( religious, spiritual, mystical ) that there is an indestructible and eternal self, whether individual or universal.
(2) for positive steps you can take to join in the action read my article in Elephant Journal: https://www.elephantjournal.com/2019/12/matthew-mcconaughey-cant-do-it-alone-we-are-the-people-this-is-the-time/
(3) The recorded history of humanity is the record of trade between societies.