My appreciation for the powerful in our society is dwindling. The population no longer understands how they act and, what is more, how they govern us. After all, it seems like they react more than they act. And how they reign over us and control us.
What is the reason for the growing dissatisfaction with what our politicians, managers and representatives of associations do? Mind you, it happens regardless of all of us basically being good-natured and being quite prepared to overlook the weaknesses and incompetence of our compatriots.
Let me try to explain the phenomenon.
Here are a few characteristics of human nature.
Some people impress me. They are successful and still humble and humane. They create new things, radiate joy and courage, act and make a difference on a daily basis.
Here are a few ideas of mine – again, they are model-like and I know full well that there is no black-and-white. Some characteristics make humans happy and successful.
- Experience
Numerous things belong in that category: Experiences from living with a partner. The experience of having you own children. The willingness to exchange the enmity you harbour against yourself and others against joy. The readiness to also embrace extreme situations, as well as to personally take pains, even until you reach a border. The experience of good and poor cooperation in teams. Practicing authentic communication. Gaining and working towards principles in life, such as the ability to be happy and the readiness to accept love. Knowing that you always should first be prepared to give, rather than take. Inner contentment that you can only reach if a necessary amount of physical exercise is reached. Connecting with nature.
My playful comment on this concept, which I actually mean quite seriously, is that humans need to be “kept species-appropriate”. However, it seems that the heads of our society cannot manage to do this at all. - Education
Today, I define education mostly as the conscious tackling with questions of humanity and society, because everything else can directly or indirectly be found on the internet. If you want a “good education”, you need to be lucky enough to meet the right teachers. It can be individual persons or teams. You need to learn from masters who help you to ask the right questions and to unveil your own prejudices. You need to learn how to be a critical listener and how to quickly discover rhetorical tools. And then you need to practice, practice, practice. All through your life.
I sadly miss all these things in the heads of our society. - Autonomy
First and foremost, autonomy is the willingness and capability to take responsibility for your own life. Looking at the lives of (not only) our “powerful”, I discover that these often seemingly so successful persons, in particular, often live a “second hand” life. External manipulation creates their needs. What they want, what might be good or bad, is controlled from the outside. Artificial reactions beat sadness or joy about things that happen in real life. For instance, it is easier to cry when watching “Love Story” in the cinema than when you bury a friend. They no longer understand that consumption is not the path towards “happiness”. Empathy is replaced by an intellectual, ethic-rational definition that tells you when and how you might show your emotions. And they believe in endless growth. … - Freedom
They exchanged their freedom for being famous and having a career. They are no longer the masters and mistresses of their own lives. They can no longer do what they really would like to do and, even if asked to, cannot do what their individual needs demand.
Especially the powerful functionaries, politicians and business managers are subject to an enormous control from the outside. As a general rule, they have become slaves of their own system. Their lives are controlled by an excessive calendar and an accompanying team of humans who tell them what to do for months in advance.
This is how I perceive the powerful of our world when I meet them in our country or watch them in the media. They are always in a hurry, always stressed out, always artificial, with many beautiful words but without ever making a commitment. To me, they look like representatives of another world or, even worse, zombies of a system that by now has become perverted.
Where are they now, the authentic personalities in top positions who are authentic and focused and who actually find peace inside themselves? I mean those who have no need to constantly proof their value by, basically, just saying what everybody wants to hear and then permanently having to ingratiate themselves?
The Selection Criteria on your Way to Power
The answer is that the characteristics I demand in such a personality diametrically oppose the selection criteria on the way to power. Because if you wish to become rich and powerful, all the factors I described before do not count. In fact, they are quite a hindrance and will make sure you will be a failure in this world. Even at school, all you need to do is behave. When growing up, you have to submit to a huge indoctrination that dominates our socialization. Doubts and ideas of your own will be punished. If you have better knowledge, said knowledge will have to be sacrificed in favour of climbing the ladder of success. Those who are not prepared to subordinate their own beliefs in favour of the patterns generated by the belief in the big lies of late capitalism will drown in the poker game of power. And then the traffic lights of the Germany AG will show the RED light for them.
The only way to accumulate power and wealth (which, basically, is the same thing) is if you strictly accept the dogmata and drugs of the “America-European values” and act as strictly in the frame set for these activities. You have to learn and become fluent in knowing how to use the rather absurd rules of the “shareholder value” to your own advantage. And you have to subjugate yourself completely under the perverse metrics of business and politics.
If, on top of all this, you also know the right people in the Germany AG or if you were born into the party oligarchy, then your career and money affairs will soon blossom.
So how can we change this world?
As I see it, actively planning anything based on ratio will not help at all. Evolution is called upon and it will solve the problem. The main reason why it will work is that the old die out. And I notice especially with young people that they think differently. Luckily, more and more of them no longer believe the rubbish we tell them. Instead, they discover themselves.
This is how evolution will soon create great surprises. The “digital transportation” might well be a driver. It will definitely be “a part of the solution”. But that, too, is something evolution is not really interested in.
RMD
Folégandros, June, 3rd, 2016, My ideas while eating my breakfast.
After yesterday’s long hike through the Greek sun.
(Translated by EG)
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