The first principle to be internalized is that no one is free and it is an illusion to think we are. As Janis Joplin sang in the song by Kristofferson [who incidentally has had some grave charges laid against him by some suspect and yet hitherto undebunked sources vis a vis deprivation of people's freedom]:
Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose.
Only those with nothing are free, as Alexander Solzhenitzyn noted, in the First Circle, 1968:
…when you've robbed a man of everything, he's no longer in your power - he's free again …
Lenin cynically stated, :
Liberty is precious - so precious that it must be rationed.
We are all in thrall, every last one of us but the western myth of personal freedom has gripped us from the beginning and as it is intergenerationally preached as being the case, to state the contrary is met with resistance.
The Christian is in thrall to the redemptive possibility of Jesus, the businessman to his partner or potential partner, the shopkeeper to his customer, the employee to his firm or educational institution, the scientist to his research grant, the child to the parent, the parent to the child.
If you doubt this, then openly go outside parameters acceptable to the patron for some time and observe the result. I myself am in thrall to two powers, one non-temporal and one temporal and both require certain unpaid sacrifices to be made, certain community service, if you like, in order to enjoy continued patronage.
The second principle is patronage itself and that's the true reality of life. In Russia, they have a word for it - krisha - and the quality of your krisha determines the quality of your daily life.
This principle of patronage is the root cause of the trouble besetting us because your patron has power over us in proportion to our perception of the need for that patronage. If that patronage appears to be for nefarious ends, as in the case of Common Purpose, then the only way to get people to go along with it is either through the promise of spoils in the new order or through fear and subjugation.
The third principle is that patronage increases its hold more firmly, the higher we rise, the greater the carrot and the further we can fall if we lose it. It becomes more critical to please our masters and is tied in with ambition which becomes more intense and yet ever more sublimated into vague notions of helping the common good. John Buchan, Chapter 1:
… they struck a bigger thing than money, a thing that couldn't be bought, the old elemental fighting instincts of man. If you're going to be killed you invent some kind of flag and country to fight for, and if you survive you get to love the thing …
It has always been so and nowhere in here are heard the words "selfless love", except as abstract ideas.
The fourth principle is the intrinsic fear of loss of patronage or even of punishment. From the babe in arms fearing his mother's withdrawal of a loving smile after the first experience of it or a man fearing his lover's disdain, should he fail to meet her expectations, to the rising young employee fearing to put a foot wrong and taking courses of action on his own initiative to score brownie points - fear of loss of patronage is a powerful motivator.
The fear of punishment is an adjunct to the loss of patronage and works perfectly under the post-Skinner model of trauma based subjugation techniques - no one would contemplate for one second falling so far.
The fifth principle is to come to love or worship an abstract idea, an imagined principle [cause] or a temporary material acquisition, e.g. the EU blueprint for society or our next car and to order our life so that it achieves our desired result - it's of a higher order in people's minds than selfless love, outside our immediate family. Credit debt is a powerful reinforcer of this principle.
It's infinitely more powerful if we've never had a counter-principle in our life, either from our parents or school lessons - moral values were once not so much taught as generally accepted as the best basis for society but are now referred to by Google first page articles as:
... their attempt to impose a particular set of values on all students ...
whilst referring to the dearth of a moral or spiritual basis in schools as "rational". The now-suppressed counter principle of love or service to our fellow man exists only as an abstract concept, devoid of practical form beyond the collection tin or benefit concerts.
We read of selfless people like Burmese monks but it's always too far removed from our experience. We sign petitions, an easy thing to do. We blog. Click pic to read the new abstract. "If we want to", "they have to" - a minor point but quite indicative language.
