THE PROBLEMS WITH SOCIETY

Today, what we commonly understand as Ego has developed into the pathological equivalent of the objectification of the subject by itself. We are no longer recognised as process, but have become pure structure, dealing with maintenance rather than creation. Like Narcissus, trapped in his own reflection, our senses reflect back on our mistaken image of otherness, which is in the end, the image of ourselves.

Descartes' famous line is perhaps the best-known expression of this objective view of the self:

COGITO ERGO SUM (I think, therefore I am)

This view of the self as an autonomous thinking being (The brain is what matters) separate from the physical world has become the central way of understanding the self in Western culture and has exacerbated many people’s feelings of separation and alienation.

What is missing from Descartes’ statement is a second statement which would complete the logic: ACTIO ERGO SUM (I act, therefore I am). In order for the first statement to make sense, the thinking process must ultimately have consequences beyond the boundaries of the individual body and into the material and social world.

Today many people work in jobs which they consider to be pointless and repetitive, and feel that their lives are uninspiring. Like Sisyphus trapped with his rock, they repeat their daily routine over and over. As a result we have learned to become helpless and docile and reliant on one institution or another to satisfy our needs and wants.

“They are the entertainment of minds unfurnished with ideas, and therefore easily susceptible of impressions; not fixed by principles, and therefore easily following the current of fancy; not informed by experience, and consequently open to every false suggestion and partial account.”- Samuel Johnson

The despair of modern man is that he has failed to recognize that he has sold his soul in a marketplace which is far from free. Systematically manipulated as he is by institutions; social, political, (euphemistically called the ‘Nanny State’) economic and religious. Many of these institutions are controlled and run by small groups of egocentric and avaricious industrialists, media moguls (Press-titutes), financiers (Banksters), clergy and politicians, hell bent on maintaining the rest of us in a state of child-like dependency (read slavery).