As free as free can be
Someone once uttered, ”Freedom ain’t free.”
Well… ”Ain’t that the truth!”
But which kind of currency do we use to pay for and maintain this most blessed of philosophical concepts? It seems the hard currency implied is more or less always human lives; sacrificed pro or contra freedom. Martyrdom is undoubtedly all the timeless rage these days.
Given that this unfortunate behavior of ostracizing the ”others” and then eventually diligently killing them off (and then with the others bouncing right back and ostracizing their aggressors and killing them in spasms and spurts of Stockholm Syndrome) seems to be on constant repeat, perhaps it’s just best to stay in the shadows and bide the time until this behavior crumbles. But – I’m sad to say to myself – this is a most unlikely scenario. It will never crumble. The people involved are too set in their ways, and they don’t want change; in the same way as we who appreciate our freedoms certainly don’t want to change that around. A clash of cultures, and of basic approaches to life!
That some cultures actually get it and at least try in the face of oppression to maintain dignity and keep the human spirit high in esteem is nothing short of a miracle. In my experience, these cultures/spirits exist beyond the monotheist simplifications – and are therefore hounded especially hard by monotheists and their ilk.
A good example of this would be China’s decades long aggression against Tibet and its spiritual and peaceful culture. ”Wait…” I hear you say, ”China isn’t a monotheist country…” I would argue the opposite. Just because Chinese communism isn’t of semitic origins, nor is looked at as a religion proper per se, it has all the trappings of the standard sado-masochistic set-up with loyal adherents (at trans-generational draconian gunpoint and surveillance jouissance) and priestly overlords – usually behaving exactly opposite to the commandments relayed to the serfs.
What is so threatening about peace- and successful cultures? Mainly that they are not interested in being in a dualistic relationship with an aggressor. This naturally aggravates any aggressor because the foundation of all aggression beyond the mere survival instinct is a deep-rooted lack of self-esteem. This is as true for Chinese communism as it is for the monotheist faiths and all their fabricated (and very angry) sky daddies. Unfortunately, violence and sacrifice is the price that we all have to pay for their inert and unnatural control systems.
I visited Tibet in 1999. It was depressing. Because in the midst of the still powerful remnants of all the greatness of Tibetan and Tibeto-Buddhist culture, there was the wet heavy blanket of Chinese Communist materialism suffocating everyone and everything. Freedom sure as hell ain’t free. And it’s an even worse deal to boot, because even when you have paid for it – like the Tibetans have for so long – you still don’t get any freedom.
I wonder if that’s not the case even in our own countries now, too: Swedes are suddenly being targeted for terrorism for what one Iraqi and one Danish guy have done on Swedish soil (repeatedly burning the Koran). And Muslim social media influencers are making up fairy tales about the Swedish government taking Muslim kids away from their parents and sending them off to other, non-Muslim parents!!
”You can’t make this shit up!” (Well, someone can, and does…)
So now we have to pay with actual Swedish lives, and very likely by having to eventually change our constitution, and diminishing our individual… that’s right: freedoms. It’s not only ”not free”; it’s actually very expensive, too.
So by being unable to be part of a world where people are encouraged to be free, these aggressive monotheists and totalitarian materialists have to desperately cling to their own pathetic slavery mind-sets, and also bring everyone else down with them; simply because the truth that we all, as human beings, inherently carry within us hurts so bad when you’re acting against it.
”The more taboos and inhibitions there are in the world / The poorer the people become / The sharper the weapons the people possess / The greater confusion reigns in the realm / The more clever and crafty the men / The oftener strange things happen / The more articulate the laws and ordinances / The more robbers and thieves arise” (Tao Te Ching 57)
