Lead or be led; there is no other option.
Tyrannical figures always sneak in under the same premise. They convince people of their own helplessness and propose themselves as the only viable solution. In exchange for their care, autocrats demand obedience and conformity to a set of beliefs passed down in a dictatorial manner. Tyrants tend to use chaos as an opportunity to install themselves in powerful positions they never voluntarily vacate.
Real leaders have historically done the opposite. They reluctantly take charge when no one else will and guide people to their own liberation. All true leaders want their fellow humans to have agency, autonomy, and free will, but recognize the need for governance in a cooperative society. They don’t want to preside, but they do so as much to protect their own agency as their neighbor’s.
If the 21st century is teaching us anything, it’s that heads of state are not the only despots that can become tyrants. Systems that we allow to dictate acceptable thought are inherently tyrannical. Technology that we allow to shape perspectives is subversively tyrannical, and once we find ourselves indoctrinated, we often refuse to acknowledge that we have been the gullible audience of technocratic manipulation.
Identity ruled by unquestionable dogma becomes tyrannical. Your daily feed will undoubtedly become your identity. You will become the tyrant you study. The authoritarian you’re choosing may be one receiving your likes.
Deconstruction of principles through digital erosion is a virus we have yet to accept is a social pathogen. Your dopamine has become involved in chemical warfare while you were relaxing.
When we predispose ourselves to accept the “right” answers to questions originating only from those with whom we have already pledged affiliation, we have opted into a state of disease. We are confined to a smallness of identity fed to us in exchange for permission to remain in the presumed safety of the group. What if that group is infected with false ideology that feels good to agree with?
A society that allows feelings to supersede reason is in great danger of losing its agency. Reason must always override the feeling of fear that opens the door to tyranny. If our technology is shaping feelings that override reason, then our freedom is in question.
Freedom is not just a hollow word that is thrown around during a campaign season. All real freedom belongs to the individual and not the state. Freedom of thought is perhaps the essence of free will. It is the underlying agency that belongs to each sentient human being. Assigning our attention to nonsense in order to protect an insecure identity is exactly how demagogues, technological or otherwise, obtain positions of influence.
Media is manufacturing anger and division because it keeps our attention. Anger over helplessness is just fear in other clothes. Hatred about dissent is just the fear one might not be safe without their group’s alignment. Tyranny only exists within a rigid and dogmatic bubble; the only choices it allows are inside or outside. It dictates the convictions one must hold through fear of ejection from the bubble, not because positions can be backed with reason.
Freedom, as a contrast, follows a straight path because it navigates by the compass of self guidance based on objective truth. It cannot be bullied into curvature. When the road of agency is blocked, it charges forward into resistance.
Affiliation to freedom is self evident, endowed by our creator, and needs only a protector, not a tyrant. Our creator has nothing to fear of questions because the truth already exists outside of rhetorical influence. Conversely, the technocrats have everything to fear of your distrust because all technology must be accepted voluntarily in order to implemented. It cannot move itself into power.
There is one point that cannot be questioned: If you’re not leading, you’re being led.
You’re free to make a choice about how your mind works. Is it operating on a reinforced fear of helplessness or the freedom of self governance? One is a tyrant and the other is its resistance. The one to which you give your attention is the one who has your allegiance.
Choose wisely.
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