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"Principles of Social Reconstruction" ¿Individualism vs Freedom?

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An all of the sudden article inspired by and as a kind of thought provoking response to this post written by our good friend @tarazkp about The Meta.

The human being fears thought more than he fears anything else in the world. More than ruin, even more than death.

The few in power fear thought as they fear nothing else on earth. Because thought is subversive and revolutionary, destructive and terrible. Thought is ruthless with privileges, established institutions and comfortable customs. Thought is lawless and anarchic, indifferent to authority, careless of the wisdom of the past. Thought looks into the pit of hell and is not afraid. Thought is great and swift and free, the light of the world and the chief glory of men.

For the few, the many should be stupid. Their thoughts should not be free and so the few act in their churches, their schools and their universities, instilling prejudices. But, education should, instead, implant in the minds of the young an ineradicable horror of the slaughter which they are taught now to admire.

But if thought is to become the possession of many, not the privilege of the few, we must have done with fear. It is fear that holds men back. Fear lest their cherished beliefs should prove delusions. Fear lest the institutions by which they live should prove harmful. Fear lest they themselves should prove less worthy of respect than they had supposed themselves to be.

Will the worker think freely about the property? Then, what will become of us rich people? Will young boys and girls think freely about sex? So what will become of morality? Will soldiers think freely about war? So what will become of military discipline?

Outside the thought!

Then let's return to the ghosts of prejudice. Lest not be property, morality and war be in danger!

It is better for human beings to be stupid, amorphous and tyrannical, before their thoughts are free. Because if their thoughts were free, surely they would not think like us. And this disaster must be avoided at all costs.

Thus the enemies of thought argue in the unconscious depths of their souls. And so they act in churches, schools and universities.

In the daily lives of most people, fear plays a more important role than hope. They are preoccupied thinking more about what others can take away from them than about the joy they could create in their own lives and in the lives of those who are in contact with them.

This is not how you have to live. Those whose lives are profitable to themselves, to their friends, or to the world, are inspired by hope and sustained by joy. They see in their imagination the things as they could be and the way to realize them in the world.

In their particular relationships, they do not worry about finding the affection or respect that they are the object of. They are busy loving and respecting freely and the reward comes by itself, without they seeking it. In their work they are not obsessed with jealousy over their rivals, but are preoccupied with the actual thing they have to do. They do not spend time in politics or passion defending the unjust privileges of their class or nation. They are intended to make the world at large happier, less cruel, less full of conflicts between rival doctrines and more full of human beings who have grown free from oppression that belittles and frustrates.

Many men and women would like to serve humanity, but they are perplexed and their power seems infinitesimal. Despair seizes them. Those with the strongest passions suffer most from a sense of their powerlessness and are most prone to spiritual ruin from lack of hope.

  • As long as we believe only in the immediate future, there is not much we can do.

  • We cannot destroy the excessive power of the State or of private property.

  • We cannot, at this time and between us, bring a new life to education.

  • We must recognize that the world is governed with a wrong spirit and that a change of spirit cannot come overnight.

  • We must place our hopes in tomorrow, a time when what is thought today by a few is the common thought of many.

If we have courage and patience we can think the thoughts and feel the hopes because, sooner or later, men will be inspired, and weakness and discouragement will turn into energy and ardor.

For this reason, the first thing we must do is to be clear in our own minds as to what kind of life we ​​think is good and what kind of change we want in the world.

From the book by Bertrand Arthur William Russell. ¿Why Men Fight? A Method of Abolishing the International Duel. London 1916. A book written more than one hundred years ago.

Authority, thought, education.

All man's institutions have their historic basis in Authority (King, Church, father-husband) and all authorities are against freedom. And, most severely, against freedom of thought.

State, Church, property.

The chief end of all great States is power. The State itself is largely concerned in defending the privileges of the rich (the property owners). Many of the conflicts between States have their origin in the financial interests of a few plutocrats.

Internally, it protects the rich against the poor. Externally, it uses force for competition with other States. For B. Russell, a nation State which believes that its welfare can only be secured by suffering and inflicting hundreds of thousands of equally horrible sacrifices is a monstrous Moloch.

Churches have almost everywhere opposed political progress and progress in thought. Religion is more concerned to repress the life of the instinct and to combat the subversiveness of thought.

Man in general.

Men, like trees, require for their growth the right soil and sufficient freedom of oppression. The actual belief that all values may be measured in terms of money and that money is the ultimate test of success in life, is a real mutilation of man's own nature.

On the other hand, individuals can still do a lot, as has been shown by the movements for religious toleration and democracy and against the subjection of women.

The pride of thought versus prudence in the face of change. It is easy to clothe yourself with a thought that initially places itself at a higher level and basically disqualifies what does not coincide with it at a lower level. It is like suffering from a permanent or eternal adolescence.

¡Wake Up!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeS9RdiGc74

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