How the "Greater Good" is Used as a Tool of Social Control

How the "Greater Good" is Used as a Tool of Social Control

Sept. 22, 2020

Academy of Ideas

“The great citizens of a country are not those who bend the knee before authority but rather those who, against authority if need be, are adamant as to the honor and freedom of that country.”

~Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion, and Death

Instead of respect for reason, open dialogue, freedom of speech and individual and property rights, political systems across the world are becoming increasingly authoritarian. Deceptions and lies, manipulation and propaganda, fear-mongering and psychological operations are all being used to justify political actions and policies that destroy life. How do politicians continue to convince the public to do away with their freedoms in favour of heavy-handed government control? Why are so few people defending liberty when a world absent of it is a world of mass suffering? In this video we are going to examine these questions.

“...if freedom is regressing today throughout such a large part of the world, his is probably because the devices for enslavement have never been so cynically chosen or so effective, but also because her real defenders, through fatigue, through despair, or through a false idea of strategy and efficiency, have turned away from her.”

~Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion, and Death

It is often said that one cannot solve a problem if one is not even cognizant of it, and herein lies one of the reasons freedom is retreating so rapidly from our world. Many people still believe themselves to be free and as Goethe wrote: “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” Those who believe themselves to be free disregard the fact that to be governed in the modern world is to be.

“...watched, inspected, spied upon, directed, law-driven, numbered, regulated, enrolled, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, checked, estimated, valued, censured [and] commanded, by beings who have neither the right nor the wisdom nor the virtue to do so.”

~Pierre-Joseph Proudhon

Accepting our lack of freedom is a necessary step to counteract this undesirable condition. For so long as we remain in denial of the chains of servitude that are upon us, we will do nothing to cast them aside. But when we acknowledge our chains we can begin to push back against them and in the process contribute to the creation of a better world, or as Camus noted:

“The task of men... is not to desert historical struggles nor to serve the cruel and inhuman elements in those struggles. It is rather to remain what they are, to help man against what is oppressing him, to favor freedom against the fatalities that close in upon it. ...Man’s greatness…lies in his decision to be greater than his condition. And if his condition is unjust, he has only one way of overcoming it, which is to be just himself.”

Albert Camus, Resistance, Rebellion, and Death

But widespread ignorance as to the lack of freedom is not the only reason why freedom is retreating from the world. Rather, there is also an idea that has infected many minds and this idea, if not defeated, could prove to be the kiss of death for freedom in our generation. This idea is promoted by most politicians, indoctrinated into the youth at school and via popular culture, and championed by the vast majority of talking heads in the mainstream media. This idea is collectivism. To understand what collectivism is we must consider the question: “Does the individual exist for the sake of society? Or does society exist for the sake of individuals?” Those who adhere to collectivism believe that the individual exists for the sake of society and therefore that:

...the individual has to subordinate himself to, and conduct himself for, the benefit of society and to sacrifice his selfish private interests to the common good.”

~Ludwig von Mises, Epistemological Problems of Economics

Original: https://youtu.be/gvPKTVK10JE

Get the transcript:
https://academyofideas.com/2020/09/greater-good-tool-of-social-control/

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