Facts (Actuality) and Groupthink (Orthodoxy) ## Peasant Mentality (please make sure “java-scripting” is enabled in order for the tool-tips to function properly; mouse-hover on the yellow rectangular image to open; left-click on the image to hold). May 18 2015 Re: Moral cap and Authority RESPONDENT No. 00: Unscrewing the moral cap, which divides the complete set of emotions into the goods and bads, means instead of fighting the ‘bad’ or unwanted emotions i realise they are me, and therefore not scary, the whole spectrum of ‘me’ opens up, and I can look at them and there’s no barrier to understanding them then, also with out fighting myself it’s much easier (of course) to simply choose to feel good again. Also, sometimes there’s reluctance, which is just me feeling important, ie. more important than being happy and harmless. Also, there’s definitely an eerie feeling like i’m being watched when I choose to be happy, a sense of anxiety, like I’m doing something naughty by being happy, which is the belief in an authority, and the fear of punishment. JONATHAN: (...). You mention authority and the fear of punishment. This is only the flip side of feeling important. Who but an important person has the right to claim authority and to mete out punishment? Who but a person who feels quite justifiably important would even consider telling someone else what to do let alone mete out punishment? As I think this over, I think that autonomy plays a big part in dismantling these things. Richard, in particular, was so adept at getting me to begin thinking for myself. It started towards the end of the first trip when he sat down and poked a hole in my superiority complex. And it continued to the very last night of the final trip when he talked about a peasant mentality. (...). RESPONDENT No. 32: Hey Jon. really enjoyed your post. Can you elaborate a bit more on that ‘peasant mentality’ which Richard discussed with you ? CLAUDIU: Oh I found the concept of the peasant mentality really awesome actuality. I hadn’t heard anybody else put it that way before. Let me try to formulate it properly. The idea is that sometime before today, it wasn’t the case that everything was owned. Like when America was uncolonized, you could just get in a wagon, ride west for however long, then stake out a territory and start farming it. But nowadays, everything is already owned. Everything is walled-off and fenced-off. When you are born you own nothing, and everything else is already owned. Those owners want to make you work for it, like you have to earn your keep, earn your right to live. If you do, then they give you some of the stuff they already own. If you work really hard, you get more stuff. If you are really corrupt then you can become an owner too, but still only by playing their game. This is the ‘peasant mentality’ – that you have to work to earn the right to live. That because you work, you deserve something. But really in a state of nature nothing is owned, you can just go wherever and do whatever you want. So the fact that everything is owned is artificial. Maybe uncolonized America was a bad example, maybe a better example is before civilization. I think that’s what Richard meant by peasant mentality, and he said how a while back he recognized this and decided not to play into it anymore, not to play the game that the owners have set up before you were even born. I’m afraid this didn’t come off too eloquently, anyone else want to give it a shot? RICHARD: G’day Claudiu, Yes, the better example is indeed ‘before civilisation’ as to ‘stake out a territory and start farming it’ marks the shift from a ‘free-range’ life-style to the ‘property-rights’ way of life (and, thereby, to the arising of a ‘peasant-mentality’). To explain: for a hunter-gatherer, the free-range life-style was epitomised by, basically, just helping oneself to whatever was available. With the advent of the property-rights way of life, however, any such ‘helping oneself’ transmogrified into being theft, larceny, stealing, despoliation, direption, and etcetera. Millennia later, all of this results in feeling-beings atavistically harbouring a deep, primordial *feeling* of being somehow disfranchised – the instinctual passions, being primeval, are still ‘wired’ for hunter-gathering – from some ancient ‘golden age’, wherein life was in some ill-defined way ‘free’ (e.g., ‘The Garden of Eden’), such as to affectively underpin all the class-wars (between the ‘haves and have-nots’) down through the ages. Unless this rudimentary *feeling* of disfranchisement – of *feeling* somehow deprived of a fundamental franchise (franchise = the territory or limits within which immunity, privileges, rights, powers, etcetera may be exercised) – is primarily understood (to the point of being viscerally felt, even) any explanation of ‘peasant-mentality’ will be of superficial use only. A footnote appended to a 2005 online response of mine is as good a place to start as any. Viz.: February 07 2005 • [Co-Respondent]: Another issue, related to this one [the issue of filial/ tribal duty], is my choice of career. I was considering teaching physics at the HS level, because I understand there is a shortage of science teachers in California. Is this also a part of the instinctual duty to fulfil the needs of society? • [Richard]: Not necessarily, no ... one does need to put food/ water into the belly, and a roof over the head/ clothes on the back (if the weather be inclement), and in this day and age[1] the main way of obtaining the necessary wherewithal is through the covert slavery euphemistically known as ‘earning a living’. Footnote [1]in this day and age: As one emerges, at birth, into a world where more than a few of the peoples born earlier have staked-out claims/ inherited prior claims – gained and maintained at the point of a spear/ a gun – on most of the arable land/ fecund water it soon becomes obvious that as, by and large, the era of the hunter-gatherer is over one is going to have to give of one’s time and labour (to the claimants) so as to be given in return (by the claimants) a portion of what one has produced (for the claimants) ... the term ‘wage-slave’ is not a misnomer and the word ‘salary’ is but a fancy way of referring to the wage slaved for by the middle and upper-middle ... um ... socio-economic careerists. Or, as Mr. John Lennon (a person who got his snout into the trough big-time) put it, in the lyrics of ‘Working Class Hero’: When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years ... Then they expect you to pick a career ... When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear. (...) Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV ... And you think you are so clever and classless and free ... But you are still fucking peasants as far as I can see. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 83, 7 February 2005). The following day another respondent queried me on my above response; in my clarification I referred to the term ‘wage-slave’ as being, perhaps more correctly, ‘modern-day serfdom’. Viz.: February 08 2005 • [Respondent No. 83]: Another issue, related to this one [the issue of filial/ tribal duty], is my choice of career. I was considering teaching physics at the HS level, because I understand there is a shortage of science teachers in California. Is this also a part of the instinctual duty to fulfil the needs of society? • [Richard]: Not necessarily, no ... one does need to put food/ water into the belly, and a roof over the head/ clothes on the back (if the weather be inclement), and in this day and age the main way of obtaining the necessary wherewithal is through the covert slavery euphemistically known as ‘earning a living’. • [Co-Respondent]: Can it be that No. 83 wants to educate people to better enable them to contribute to humanity’s ease and quality of life? • [Richard]: I responded to an explicit question as asked – whether a career as a science teacher is part of an instinctual duty to fulfil societal needs – couched in a related framework of both filial and tribal duty (born out of the instinctual passion of nurture, the religio-spiritual feeling of compassion, and particular cultural mores) plus a stated interest in obliterating same and my context-specific response (no, a career as a science teacher is not necessarily part of an instinctual duty to fulfil societal needs) and my pragmatic explication of the very least one needs to ‘earn a living’ for (the basic necessities of life) and how those essential requirements are chiefly obtained these days (via modern-day serfdom) and, in a footnote, why they cannot be obtained directly (the era of the hunter-gatherer is virtually over because of enforced exclusive property-rights claims) is to that query and that query alone. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 78b, 8 February 2005). Although, for persons taking out a house-mortgage – typically, these days, over a 30-35 year period (whereafter they find they have paid for three-four houses, whilst only being allocated one, per favour usurious banking guilds having usurped, several centuries ago[†], the sovereign power of a nation-state to emit debt-free monies) – the term ‘indentured servitude’ may be even more appropriate. [†]Footnote: Mr. Alexander Del Mar, in his engaging 1899 book ‘Barbara Villiers or A History of Monetary Crimes’, details how the ‘exclusive prerogative of the State’ to emit money was usurped, during the reign of Charles II (and due, in no small part, to his infatuation with a notorious married woman), with the ‘surreptitious mint legislation of 1666-7’ whereby ‘the most powerful instrument by which a State can influence the happiness of its subjects, was surrendered or sold for a song to a class of usurers, in whose hands it has remained ever since’. A 1983 reprint can be read online here: https://archive.org/stream/AlexanderDelMar/AlexanderDelMar-AHistoryOfMonetaryCrimes1899-1983-Reprint/page/3/mode/1up If anything is a classic case of ‘read it and weep’ then this is it in spades. The role played by Ms. Barbara Villiers – a.k.a., Mrs. Barbara Palmers, Countess of Castlemaine, Duchess of Cleveland, Baroness Nonsuch – or, rather, the allure her feminine charms had for the profligate Charles II, starts properly on Page 26. Were her story better-known she may very well become celebrated as the patron-saint of banksters world-wide (if not already, albeit secretly, that is). Even more to the point: the fact that modern-day women demanded the legal right to enter into such ‘indentured servitude’ alongside the traditional male ‘bread-winner’ – most family-households these days are double-income households (hence necessitating publicly-subsidised childcare facilities) – and thus further enriching that already obscenely-rich ‘class of usurers’ amply demonstrates how the ‘peasant-mentality’ is not a male-only trait. * Also, something I wrote in 1998 will help set the scene for what else the term ‘peasant-mentality’ meant to the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body circa 1978-1988 (a ‘turning-point’ decade in which ‘he’ sussed-out much of what has been going down for millennia). Viz.: November 11 1998 • [Konrad]: Most people are completely ignorant about ethics, and questions pertaining to the distinction between good and evil. Not everybody is aware of the fact, that Ayn Rand has given an objective basis to ethics, and therefore for an objective distinction between good and evil. I connect an explanation of her ethics which basically shows clearly that the difference between good and evil is grounded in the objectively existing difference between life and death. Life and death also connect ‘Is’ and ‘Ought’. Read it, and you will receive an introduction to questions pertaining to human conditioning. • [Richard]: I have eliminated the need for conditioning. I have no need for ethics whatsoever. • [Konrad]: Ayn Rand was also a novelist. Her two best books are ‘The Fountainhead’, and ‘Atlas Shrugged’. Especially ‘Atlas Shrugged’ is a very fascinating, although rather thick novel. • [Richard]: Back in 1985 I read every book that I could lay my hands on that Ms. Ayn Rand had written. I started with ‘Atlas Shrugged’. Her hero, Mr. John Galt, was personified as the archetype industrialist/ capitalist and Ms. Ayn Rand’s personal dislike of welfare recipients (possibly from her experience in the USSR) was patently obvious. She exemplified what is nowadays called an ‘economic rationalist’ of the ‘user pays’ ilk. With personal prejudices like that it would be difficult for her to think clearly ... as is evidenced by her complete ignorance of the fact that Mr. John Galt’s money to fund his community comes from a pool of millions of consumers desiring his invention. That is, not all of the 5.8 billion people in the world can invent something so desirable that other peoples buy it to the extent that vast amounts of money pours into their coffers. Capitalism is based upon some people being rich at other people’s expense. Her bigotry is particularly evident towards the end of the book in the fanciful scenes of the parasitical nature of welfare recipients. The book was an emotional appeal to what is currently evident in the world as ‘white male supremacy’ ... but only of the favoured few. It is an elitist position. Hence I have little regard for her further philosophising as you present it below. • [Konrad]: [Ms. Ayn Rand]: ‘The first question is not: What particular code of values should man accept? The first question is: does man need values at all – and why?’ [endquote]. I see from your mail that this is exactly what you do and defend. You do not ask this question. Neither did I in the past, by the way. It is exactly this point that was so revolutionary about the understanding of the term ‘ethics’ as brought forward by Ayn Rand. I think that she was the first who had a clear understanding of the concept of ‘ethics’ in general. At least, she was the first who distinguished ‘ethics’ from ‘an ethics’. • [Richard]: This is because she needs ethics. Like you, she would presumably still get infuriated and have to have emotion-backed principles in order to manage to operate and function in a socially acceptable manner even when driven by the instinctual animal urges of fear and aggression that blind nature endows all sentient beings with. In other words: her writing shows that she is still a victim of the human condition ... like you she is encumbered by an affective ‘being’ that needs to be controlled. (...snip...). • [Konrad]: [Ms. Ayn Rand]: ‘If some men attempt to survive by means of brute force or fraud, by looting, robbing, cheating or enslaving the men who produce, it still remains true that their survival is made possible only by their victims, only by the men who choose to think and to produce the goods which they, the looters, are seizing. Such looters are parasites incapable of survival, who exist by destroying those who are capable, those who are pursuing a course of action proper to man’. [endquote]. In other words, if that what is looted is not produced first, there is nothing to loot. Therefore the possibility of looting depends on the possibility of producing, but not the other way around. Since production is the product of our mind in the form of knowledge and action, this is more important, more fundamental than any question about what to do with it. This is also why social structures as such are not enough to solve the problems of scarcity. • [Richard]: Of course this completely ignores the ‘hunter/ gatherer’ lifestyles of so many peoples in the past ... they produced nothing. Yet there were still territorial wars for the food supplies that grew in the wild. This is also seen in those detailed National Geographic documentaries on chimpanzees in Africa, for example. Her use of the word ‘parasites’ here reinforces what I observed in her book ‘Atlas Shrugged’. She is simply down on welfare recipients ... whilst conveniently ignoring the fact that those recipients would have been working for a living if it were not for technology in the form of machines, computers and robots taking over their jobs. When industrialists talk of ‘down-sizing’ and ‘rationalising’ their work-force, they mean that they are going to throw their workers onto the welfare list ... and then criticise them for being ‘parasites’. The industrialists continue to get rich, of course, due to technology. It is such an elitist position ... and speaks volumes for their lack of egalitarianism. In Australia, such dispossessed workers are called by the rich the epithet ‘dole-bludgers’. (Richard, Konrad Correspondence, Page Fifteen, 11 November 1998). The main point to get about the mechanisation/ robotisation/ computerisation of productive work (as in ‘machines, computers and robots taking over their jobs’ above) is the work which the now-made-redundant workers once carried out still gets done – indeed productivity increases many-fold due solely to such ingenious ‘labour-saving’ devices – yet the dispossessed workers are castigated just as the peasants of yore were (way back when peasants not working meant the work did not get done). The made-redundant person (or a person unable to gain paid employment in the first place) who buys into such epithets a ‘dole-bludger’ and the ilk – and dutifully self-castigates – is thus another example of a person with a ‘peasant-mentality’. The following is a paragraph from ‘Richard’s Journal’ (in Article 20) wherein I make the point that social welfare is not a moral (aka ethical) issue. Viz.: • [Richard]: A good example of this [of the community acting not for the good of an abstract ‘whole’ but, in actuality, for the benefit of each and every individual] is the social welfare system. Because of the Agrarian Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and the more recent Technological Revolution, people can no longer pursue a subsistence life-style as hunter-gatherers. The land is no longer free-range; it is all either publicly or privately owned. As this situation prevailed when one was born, it is incumbent upon the community at large to provide one with the means to obtain the necessities of life. The predominating system has been the provision of money – acquired by working – with which to buy food, clothing, shelter, etcetera. If the community cannot sustain full employment, it must provide an alternate means for one to purchase one’s goods. A social welfare system is not a luxury supplied by an affluent society; it is an essential requisite that the community must readily furnish. This is not a moral issue – as the ‘whole’ smugly feels it to be – for welfare is not charity. Because, regardless of the ‘whole’s self-endowed compassionate nature, the disenfranchised must be fed and housed. If the community did not do this, there would be a rebellion from the hungry and homeless millions. The preservation of the orderly fabric of society is the guiding principle at play here, not moral duty, obligation and responsibility on the part of the community. (from Article 20; The Survival Of The Community Depends Upon Its Absolute Selfishness). (I will append the bulk of ‘Article 20’ below my signature/ sign-off so as to make it available on-line, hereafter, for those without a copy of ‘Richard’s Journal’). * Another example lies in the area of public education – compulsory schooling that is – inasmuch parents are compelled to submit to the ‘peasant-mentality’ being inculcated into their children during their formative years. The identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body circa 1978-1988 (that ‘turning-point’ decade) first took ‘his’ two oldest children out of the standard Public School and enrolled them in an ‘alternate school’. Upon discovering that such schools similarly imparted said ‘peasant-mentality’, albeit in a different guise, ‘he’ embarked upon what is known as ‘home schooling’ when ‘his’ two youngest children came of school-age. Viz.: February 04 2003 • [Co-Respondent]: Another question: I have the charge of a good part of the education of my grand daughter, 11 years old, and now to be home schooled. I realize we won’t see these ideas taught in school for the foreseeable future, but what would you teach to a child if you could teach him/ her whatever you wanted? • [Richard]: Back when I was a parent I adopted the ‘home-schooling’ approach with my then children – until the state’s child welfare department intervened and enforced academic schooling at the point of a gun – and found it most rewarding for all concerned (...). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 41, 4 February 2003). ‘Twas all in vain, of course, and these days I advise enrolling one’s children in regular schools as they are going to be inculcated (a.k.a., ‘socialised’), anyway, by all the influences of society in general. Which neatly brings me to the point of detailing these above examples: understanding the ‘whys and wherefores’ of peasant-mentality is not about effecting social change but being free of it in oneself. In the seventh paragraph of ‘Article 20’ (appended further below) I have highlighted the relevant sentence. Viz.: • [Richard]: Astonishingly, I find that *social change is unnecessary*; I can live freely in the community as-it-is. [endquote]. In other words, one is then free to conform with the legal laws and observe the social protocols – to ‘go along with’, to ‘pay lip-service to’ – whilst no longer believing in them. ‘Tis a remarkable freedom in itself – with no need to rebel at all – as all rebellion stems, primarily, from that deeply-held primordial *feeling* of disfranchisement (and its associated feelings of resentment, envy, cynicism, and so on and so forth). Regards, Richard. (Richard, List D, Claudiu3, 18 May 2015). ••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••• P.S.: What follows is the bulk of ‘Article 20’ from ‘Richard’s Journal’. Incidentally, the ‘invisible social contract’ is mentioned in the opening paragraph refers to the gist of Part Six of the book ‘Of The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right’ (‘Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique’; 1762) by Mr. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Viz.: • [Mr. Jean-Jacques Rousseau]: ‘(...). The clauses of this contract are so determined by the nature of the act that the slightest modification would make them vain and ineffective; so that, although they have perhaps never been formally set forth, they are everywhere the same and everywhere tacitly admitted and recognised (...). These clauses, properly understood, may be reduced to one – the total alienation of each associate, together with all his rights, to the whole community; for, in the first place, as each gives himself absolutely, the conditions are the same for all (...). If then we discard from the social compact what is not of its essence, we shall find that it reduces itself to the following terms: ‘Each of us puts his person and all his power in common under the supreme direction of the general will, and, in our corporate capacity, we receive each member as an indivisible part of the whole’. At once, in place of the individual personality of each contracting party, this act of association creates a moral and collective body (...)’. (www.constitution.org/jjr/socon_01.htm#006). Article 20; The Survival Of The Community Depends Upon Its Absolute Selfishness. • [Richard]: (...). I am passing through a crowd of people thronging the area encompassed by boutiques and cafés and the like ... and I am wondering if they are fully aware of the psychological implications of having morally ‘signed’ that invisible social contract. • [Richard]: (...). I am passing through a crowd of people thronging the area encompassed by boutiques and cafés and the like ... and I am wondering if they are fully aware of the psychological implications of having morally ‘signed’ that invisible social contract. I think not. No one I have spoken to yet, or read about in the many articles available, has been able to profoundly understand what is implied when an individual is accused, by the community, of being selfish. The community itself is beyond reproach in regards to its own self-centredness. The survival of the community depends upon its absolute selfishness. Although professing to hold the interests of the individual to heart, when push comes to shove, the individual is unhesitatingly sacrificed without compunction ... even though there is an official wringing of hands, a lamenting of the necessity, a praising of the patriotic duty so willingly performed ... and so on. The basic premise lying behind the legality of the existence of ‘the community’ is its designated role of acting ‘for the good of the whole’. Instinctually believing one’s well-being to be assured, nobody calls the community to account. Has anyone fully realised that the community does not exist for the good of the individual? * The phrase ‘good of the whole’ seems to imply this, but closer examination reveals that ‘the whole’ exists only in bombast and blather ... it is a concept, an ideology. Only an individual person – a flesh-and-blood body – actually exists. Where people have no integrity – which is the case in order for the ‘whole’ to exist – they have no genuine individuality. They are invisible ... as if a non-person, a statistic, a number. They may complain about the ‘dehumanisation’ process, little realising that they are but a social identity ... a fictitious entity having only psychological existence. This social identity has taken up residence in the body and rules the roost in an autocratic manner. Nevertheless, it is itself subject to the commands of the community, for it is a loyal member, having been created by the community – the ‘whole’ – in the first place. This loyalty thrives on the moral investment that the social identity has made in the community; one’s very ‘well-being’ depends upon receiving a continuous supply of moral dividends. One’s psychological existence is so precarious that one needs constant endorsement, so as to feel that ‘I’ am alive, that ‘I’ still exist. When the ‘whole’ accuses one of being selfish – which it relentlessly does by extolling the virtues of duty, obligation and responsibility – one can then chastise oneself, thus maintaining one’s sense of being a social identity. With suitable remorse, one has then been coerced, cajoled and shamed into having one’s usefulness to the community restored ... and one feels needed again. Nonetheless, one is actually crazy to chastise oneself because ‘I’ am selfish by ‘my’ very created nature ... and ‘I’ will always be self-centred. Self-castigation only serves to crystallise ‘me’. It is essential to the community’s ‘well-being’ that ‘I’ remain selfish. Because the ‘whole’, having created ‘me’ so as to perpetuate its own existence – and being utterly selfish itself – desperately needs self-centred members. ‘I’ readily invest, morally, in the community for there one recognises one’s ilk ... ‘I’ am a lonely soul and it is essential that ‘I’ have a sense of belonging to the like-minded ‘whole’. It is an illusion of togetherness designed to assuage the feeling of aloneness that both oneself and the community experiences ... ‘I’ and ‘humanity’ feel lost and lonely in what is perceived to be the vast reaches of space and time that make up an empty universe. The search for extra-terrestrial life is but one outcome of this feeling of separation. This desolate coping-mechanism also has the unfortunate result of creating resentful citizens. The ‘whole’, being bigger and more selfish than ‘me’, has its own – perceived to be serious – communal needs that take precedence over ‘my’ – perceived to be insignificant – personal needs. Because of a continuous supply of citizens, the ‘whole’ does not need ‘me’ as much as ‘I’ need it. Thus the community always has the upper hand and can do with ‘me’, virtually, whatever it wants. There is a constant power-battle going on between ‘me’ and the ‘whole’ ... which one must invariably lose, in order to cultivate and nurture one’s invisible Spirit. The community dangerously wants one to have a Spirit, for it requires a consistent reserve of supplicating selves prepared to sacrifice themselves in the name of the ‘Good of the whole’. The community coopts the word ‘we’ and turns it back into the ‘whole’ to serve its own nefarious purposes. * Not surprisingly none of these shenanigans, deemed necessary by everyone, are essential when ‘I’ realise who ‘we’ actually are ... and then see what I am. I am this body only; bereft of any identity as Spirit ... of any entity at all. There is no-one inside of this body to be lost, lonely, frightened or cunning. There is an innate purity in being me as-I-am, for this universe is already always perfect. There is a magnanimity and a beneficence everywhere all at once and I find that I am benign in character. It therefore follows that all my thoughts and deeds are automatically benevolent and beneficial – I do not do it, it happens of itself – and communal service is no longer a duty, an obligation, a responsibility. I can readily enjoy a free association with other – flesh and blood – individuals to form a loose-knit affiliation that acts for the good of each individual ... for when ‘I’ expire, the ‘whole’ also ceases to exist. The ‘whole’, which created ‘me’, was being re-affirmed and perpetuated by one’s very ‘being’. All human beings are born into an already existing community which takes itself as being real, as being a ‘whole’. Each baby is born with a biological ‘instinct for survival’ which the ‘whole’ transforms into a psychological ‘will to survive’ ... to survive as a social identity. This newest recruit to ‘humanity’ at large submits, rather unwillingly, to the demands of the ‘whole’, for it is mesmerised into thinking and feeling that its own needs will be best met by subsuming itself into the ‘whole’. Since one is selfish by one’s created nature, ‘I’ will sustain the community – the ‘whole’ – which is more selfish than ‘me’, in conjunction with all the other similarly afflicted bodies. This process is inevitable so long as ‘I’ exist. Consequently, the conundrum which all citizens are faced with is dissolved with ‘my’ demise. Astonishingly, I find that *social change is unnecessary*; I can live freely in the community as-it-is. I do not subscribe to that ridiculous hyperbole that the community acts ‘for the good of the whole’ for I see directly and with clarity. I know that there is no ‘whole’ outside of passionate ‘human’ imagination. The community actually exists for the good of me – and for the good of all other individuals – without ever realising it. [emphasis added]. A good example of this is the social welfare system. Because of the Agrarian Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and the more recent Technological Revolution, people can no longer pursue a subsistence life-style as hunter-gatherers. The land is no longer free-range; it is all either publicly or privately owned. As this situation prevailed when one was born, it is incumbent upon the community at large to provide one with the means to obtain the necessities of life. The predominating system has been the provision of money – acquired by working – with which to buy food, clothing, shelter, etcetera. If the community cannot sustain full employment, it must provide an alternate means for one to purchase one’s goods. A social welfare system is not a luxury supplied by an affluent society; it is an essential requisite that the community must readily furnish. This is not a moral issue – as the ‘whole’ smugly feels it to be – for welfare is not charity. Because, regardless of the ‘whole’s self-endowed compassionate nature, the disenfranchised must be fed and housed. If the community did not do this, there would be a rebellion from the hungry and homeless millions. The preservation of the orderly fabric of society is the guiding principle at play here, not moral duty, obligation and responsibility on the part of the community. * Accordingly, in the actual world the community is never selfish. It acts for the good of the individual – which is why it exists – and in doing so it preserves itself in order to serve the individual. Only in the real world is it self-centred, acting ‘for the good of the whole’ and preserving itself – at the expense of the individual – for the sake of preserving itself. A person who sees all this clearly and completely, who understands all this deeply and comprehensively, who knows all this actually and absolutely, will never make the mistake of thinking and feeling that one must ‘die for one’s country’ as a moral duty, obligation and responsibility. The choice to risk one’s life – or not – to repel an invasion is a freely made decision; it is not the result of coercion, cajolery or shame. The same applies for conscription – that abominable forced induction into military service – for one will not succumb to a situation where one is compelled to kill or be killed. One realises that conscription is a ‘crime against humanity’ and that a country will decide whether to allow itself to be invaded or not by ‘voting with its feet’. If voluntary enlistment is not sufficient to counter the attack, then the country has democratically voted for surrender. The same pure rationale applies to having babies; one is not coerced, cajoled or shamed into ‘doing one’s bit for society’ by risking one’s life in child-birth in order to populate and perpetuate the country. One makes a freely considered decision whether to conceive or not; the country thus ‘votes with its feet’ on the issue of continuing the species or letting it die out. One will never commit the error of thinking and feeling that society owns one’s body; it is not one’s duty, obligation and responsibility to procreate. Contraception and abortion are not moral issues; they are the means to sustain one’s salubrity. One does not ‘owe a debt to society’, for society exists only for the good of the individual. And this has been the case all along. ‘I’ blamed society for ‘my’ woes ... with ‘me’ extirpated there are no woes. There is nothing and no-one to need any blame, for nothing is going wrong. It was all a play in emotive imaginative thought ... an errant and vainglorious brain-pattern. Nothing more needs to be done now, except to freely assist another person to actualise this vital break-through for themselves. When that person is also free they can similarly facilitate the freedom of another person ... and another ... and another ... and so on. By operating in this manner, on a one-to-one basis, freedom from being an identity could spread throughout the entire population of this planet. A truly evolutionary change will have taken place; a mutation of human consciousness. The much longed-for golden age will have finally been ushered in ... and by the peoples concerned. There was no need for a Supernatural Agency all along. The ‘Human Condition’ is such that it can readily respond to the do-it-yourself method; the ability is within the human character to fix things up for itself. The intervention of some Supernatural Outsider is never going to happen anyway, for there is no such creature. Human beings are on their own, free to manage their own affairs as they see fit. Whenever one thinks about it, would one have it any other way? If that fictitious Almighty Creature were to come sweeping in on a cloud, waving a magic wand and putting everything to rights, would not one feel cheated? Would not one question why human beings had to wait so long upon the capricious whim of some self-righteous God who could have acted long ago? It is all nonsense, upon sober reflection! * With freedom spread like a chain-letter, in the due course of time, global freedom would revolutionise the concept of ‘humanity’. It would be a free association of peoples world-wide; a utopian-like loose-knit affiliation of like-minded individuals. One would be a citizen of the world, not of a sovereign state. Countries, with their artificial borders would vanish along with the need for the military. As nationalism would expire, so too would patriotism with all its heroic evils. No police force would be needed anywhere on earth; no locks on the doors, no bars on the windows. Gaols, judges and juries would become a thing of the dreadful past. People would live together in peace and harmony, happiness and delight. Pollution and its cause – over-population – would be set to rights without effort, as competition would be replaced by cooperation. It would indeed be the stuff of pipe-dreams come true, here-on-earth ... if one wants it. But none of this matters much when one is already living in the actual world. In actual freedom, life is experienced as being perfect as-it-is. One knows that one is living in a beneficent universe ... and that is what actually counts. The self-imposed iniquities that ail the people who stubbornly wish to remain denizens of the real world, fail to impinge upon the blitheness and gaiety of one who lives the vast scheme of things. The universe does not force anyone to be happy and harmless, to live in peace and ease, to be free of sorrow and malice. It is a matter of personal choice as to which way one will travel. Humans, being as they are, will probably continue to tread the ‘Tried and True’ paths, little realising that they are the tried and failed ways. There is none so contumacious as a self-righteous soul who is convinced that they know the way to live ... as revealed in their ancient and revered moralistic scriptures or ethicalistic secular philosophies. So be it. This universe has arranged itself so that the one who dares to go all the way is instantly living in universal peace ... irrespective of what other peoples are believing and doing. One is free to act in a way beneficial to all. This is a measure of how perfect life is in the actual. I have not signed any social contract. (pp. 141-146, ‘Richard’s Journal’, 2nd Ed. ©The Actual Freedom Trust 2004). ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ ▪▪▪▪ Just for the record, here is the quote in full from Page 7 of that 1899 book ‘Barbara Villiers or A History of Monetary Crimes’ (with emphases added). Viz.: • [Mr. Alexander Del Mar]: From the remotest time to the seventeenth century of our aera, the right to coin money and to regulate its value (by giving it denominations) and by limiting or increasing the quantity of it in circulation, *was the exclusive prerogative of the State*. In 1604, in the celebrated case of the Mixed Moneys, this prerogative was affirmed under such extraordinary circumstances and with such an overwhelming array of judicial and forensic authority as to occasion alarm to the moneyed classes of England, who at once sought the means to overthrow it. These they found in the demands of the East India Company, the corruption of Parliament the profligacy of Charles II., and the influence of Barbara Villiers. The result was the surreptitious mint legislation of 1666-7: and thus a prerogative, which, next to the right of peace or war, is *the most powerful instrument by which a State can influence the happiness of its subjects*, was surrendered or sold for a song to a class of usurers, in whose hands it has remained ever since. In framing the American mint-laws of 1790-2, Mr. Hamilton, a young man (then 33 years of age), and wholly unaware of the character or bearings of this English legislation, innocently copied it and caused it to be incorporated in the laws of the United States, where it still remains, *an obstacle to the equitable distribution of wealth and a menace to public prosperity*. (...). (Richard, List D, Claudiu3, 18 May 2015). May 22 2015 Re: Moral cap and Authority RICHARD to Claudiu: (...). Also, something I wrote in 1998 will help set the scene for what else the term ‘peasant-mentality’ meant to the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body circa 1978-1988 (a ‘turning-point’ decade in which ‘he’ sussed-out much of what has been going down for millennia). Viz.: [...snip discussion about Ms. Ayn Rand’s use of the word ‘parasites’ (as in her ‘parasites incapable of survival’ phrasing) to depict any people who ‘attempt to survive’ by defrauding/ looting/ robbing/ cheating/ enslaving the ‘men who produce’ – specifically, those who ‘choose to think and to produce the goods’, that is – whom she otherwise characterises as those ‘who are capable’ and who pursue ‘a course of action proper to man’ in an essay on Objectivist Ethics...]. The main point to get about the mechanisation/ robotisation/ computerisation of productive work is the work which the now-made-redundant workers once carried out still gets done – indeed productivity increases many-fold due solely to such ingenious ‘labour-saving’ devices – yet the dispossessed workers are castigated just as the peasants of yore were (way back when peasants not working meant the work did not get done). The made-redundant person (or a person unable to gain paid employment in the first place) who buys into such epithets a ‘dole-bludger’ and the ilk – and dutifully self-castigates – is thus another example of a person with a ‘peasant-mentality’. (...). (Richard, List D, Claudiu3, 18 May 2015). ANDREW: Hi Richard, that’s a great read indeed! Thanks for taking the time to put it together. It helps to hear also of the work you did during the late 70s through to mid 80s looking into these issues. RICHARD: G’day Andrew, Yes, the resolution of the above issue (the implications and ramifications of the mechanisation/ robotisation/ computerisation of productive work) came to a head in the late 1970’s whilst listening to a Parliamentary Broadcast, on the National Radio, of the then-Prime Minister’s speech about the necessity of importing the latest electronics technology – despite it putting tens of thousands of current and future employees out of work – in order for the nation to remain competitive on the world market. In other words, it was a deliberate Government Policy to add even more hapless citizens to the rising double-digit pool of unemployed – the days of full employment, in developed countries, had ended during the early 1970’s world-wide economic crises – and yet, despite this remarkably frank public admission, disparaging epithets such as ‘dole-bludgers’ and similar continued unabated. Obviously, for him and his ilk such ingenious labour-saving devices were not designed to release peoples from having to ‘earn their (daily) bread by the sweat of the brow’ – even though productive work not only still got done but productivity increased many-fold as well – but were avariciously arrogated to serve as saving-labour costs instead and, thus, increase their profits many-fold. Howsoever, those words from that wealthy pastoralist – a man infamous for forcing the nation into a constitutional crisis, so he could gain such political power he was then liberally exercising, and notorious for saying that ‘life wasn’t meant to be easy’ (despite a privileged Grammar School education and an Oxford degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics) – were the final straw in regards the hallowed ‘Protestant Work-Ethic’ which had been thoroughly inculcated, from early childhood onward, into the identity then-inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body, such as to occasion ‘him’ to work 12-14 hours a day 6-7 days a week. Now, whilst ‘he’ did not have an Economics Degree (let alone from a prestigious university) ‘his’ egalitarian far-sightedness enabled ‘him’ to see that unless productive workers – including those displaced by the ingenious mechanisation, robotisation, and computerisation of productive work – receive monies sufficient enough to purchase those goods produced then any such increased productivity decreases accordingly, with the economy correspondingly going into slow-down, whereupon workers are laid-off, and the economy goes into melt-down. Evidentially, however, avaritia leads to short-sightedness. ANDREW: In retrospect, the work of breaking down the social identity preceded your recall of a pure consciousness experience ... RICHARD: As the remembrance of numerous pure consciousness experiences (PCE’s) occurred in the winter of 1980 then the major part of that circa 1978-1988 ‘turning-point’ decade – in which the identity then inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body sussed-out much of what has been going down for millennia – came afterwards. In fact, the bulk of the sussing-out took place whilst ‘he’ was egoless – and especially so during the years whilst single, celibate, itinerant and homeless (in what I have earlier reported as being ‘his’ puritan period) – as ‘his’ release from being ego-centric enabled considerable insight to take place. ANDREW: ... which helps put in perspective my own efforts. Something you wrote about struck me the other day and that was the process of realization to actualization. Actualizing insights into practical ways of behaving, in this case, working for a living, has seen me stuck many times. At the moment I liken my efforts to a pilot pulling out of a steep dive, there is only so much one can do, and only time will tell if is enough, financially speaking! I mentioned on this list a few weeks ago that it seemed to me that I was daring myself to go broke. Not by choice as such, more so in a rebellious, almost automatic way. I have read about ‘peasant resistance’ before, the universal ‘go slow’ that is the only resort of dispossessed. RICHARD: Ha ... that which you read about is a classic example of the ‘peasant-mentality’ in action (you obviously missed my final words – ‘no need to rebel at all’ – written just above my signature/ sign-off). ANDREW: Anyway, perfect timing to have a closer look at these concepts. RICHARD: Whilst you are having a closer look at those concepts – especially the ‘rebellious’ ones – it may very well be in your interest to also examine those other concepts you explicated in your next post, some thirteen hours or so later, entitled ‘Infinitude and meaning’. Viz.: • [Andrew]: ‘I have long been a fan of Spinoza. My avatar name, <identifier deleted>, isn’t a reference to a type of glass bead, or an obscure machine part code, but his initials and birth date. Going back around 8 years, I had a profound insight into his book ‘Ethics, the emendation of the intellect’. The core of it was that choice is an illusion born out of ignorance of causes, and that an infinite and eternal substance/ nature was the only thing going on. The reason I say this is lately, having been able to look at these realizations again with less affect and more intelllect, I can see that what is needed is a direct experience of the infinitude and ‘meaning of life laying open all around’ to actualize this idea’. (Message No. 194xx). Given that variations on such phrasings as ‘the meaning of life lays open all around’ feature on my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust website – when referring to life here in this actual world, as a flesh-and-blood body only (i.e., sans identity in toto/ the entire affective faculty), where the infinitude of this temporal, spatial, and phenomenal universe is directly experienceable – it is pertinent to point out that what Mr. Benedict de Spinoza refers to (conveyed accurately enough by your ‘infinite and eternal substance/ nature’ phrasing) is something other entirely. However, there is no need to just take my word for it as more than a few peoples have studied his writings extensively. For instance: • [Mr. Max Müller]: (...) the Brahman, as conceived in the Upanishads and defined by Śaṅkara, is clearly the same as Spinoza’s ‘Substantia’. Spinoza defines it as that which is in itself and is conceived by itself (in se est and per se concipitur). It is according to him infinite, indivisible, one, free and eternal, just as Śaṅkara’s Bráhman is called in the Upanishads ‘unborn, undecaying, undying, without parts, without action, tranquil, without fault or taint’. (p. 123, ‘Three Lectures On The Vedanta Philosophy’; delivered at The Royal Institution in March, 1894 by The Right Hon. F. Max Müller, K.M. First Edition, 8vo, May, 1894. Reprinted in the Collected Edition of Prof. Max Müller’s Works, April, 1901, and August, 1904. Longmans, Green, and Co., 39 Paternoster Row, London. New York and Bombay; 1904). Viz.: (https://archive.org/stream/threelecturesont00meuluoft#page/123/mode/1up). From the above text alone it can be comprehended that what Mr. Benedict de Spinoza refers to (conveyed accurately enough by your ‘infinite and eternal substance/ nature’ phrasing) is of a religio-spiritual/ mystico-metaphysical determination ... or, in a word, spiritual. There also is, of course, a much-quoted headline from the New York Times, dated April 25, 1929, to contemplate. Viz.: • Einstein Believes In ‘Spinoza’s God’; Scientist Defines His Faith in Reply, to Cablegram From Rabbi Here. Sees a Divine Order But Says Its Ruler Is Not Concerned ‘Wit Fates and Actions of Human Beings’. [Displaying Abstract] Professor Albert Einstein, the author of the theory of relativity, professed belief in ‘Spinoza’s God’ in a radiogram received here yesterday from Dusseldorf, Germany, by Rabbi Herbert S. Goldstein of the Institutional Synagogue, 37 West 116th Street. The message came in response to a cablegram to the scientist asking him in German: ‘Do you believe in God?’ (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9E01EFDD1530E33ABC4D51DFB2668382639EDE). * At this stage it could very well be helpful – as an aide-mémoire in any similar instances – to draw attention to the very first words on The Actual Freedom Trust homepage (immediately below the ‘Actual Freedom’ logo). Viz.: • A New and Non-Spiritual Down-to-Earth Freedom. (Actual Freedom Homepage). From that very succinct heading (which is not placed in such a key position merely for rhetorical effect) three fundamental aspects of the freedom referred to can be readily ascertained ... and without inference: 1. It is new. 2. It is non-spiritual. 3. It is down-to-earth. And not to forget, of course, from the logo itself: 4. It is actual. Now, this is what a dictionary has to say about the word ‘spiritual’: • ‘spiritual (adj.): relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things’. (Oxford Dictionary). The term ‘non-spiritual’, then, means *not* relating to or affecting the human spirit or soul as opposed to material or physical things; thus the freedom being referred to is *not* the freedom spiritualism has to offer. Here is what that dictionary has to say about the word ‘spirit’: • ‘spirit (n.): the non-physical part of a person which is the seat of emotions and character; the soul’. (Oxford Dictionary). Also, and given that ‘spirit’ and ‘soul’ are synonymous, this is what that dictionary has to say about the word ‘soul’: • ‘soul (n.): the seat of the emotions or sentiments; the emotional part of human nature’. (Oxford Dictionary). Thus, when it comes to ‘the seat of emotions’ the words ‘spirit’ and ‘soul’ are interchangeable and, as each refers to the innermost affective entity of both those of either a secular or spiritual persuasion (the essential difference being the materialists maintain this emotional/ passional/ intuitive spirit or soul – aka ‘self’ – dies with the body whereas the spiritualists maintain it does not), then my presentation of actualism as the third alternative to either materialism or spiritualism speaks to the self-same affective ‘being’, at root, with differentiation only a connotative matter dependent upon each particular ‘being’s (occasionally changeable) partiality, leaning or worldview in that regard. Therefore, if (note ‘if’) the new and non-spiritual down-to-earth actual freedom was none other than the same freedom which spiritualism has to offer, only differently-worded for modern-times, then it would not be: 1. New. 2. Non-Spiritual. 3. Down-To-Earth (a colloquialism for: temporal, spatial, phenomenal). 4. Actual (i.e., physical). Instead it would be: 1. Old. 2. Spiritual. 3. Away-With-The-Fairies (a colloquialism for: atemporal, aspatial, aphenomenal). 4. Non-Actual (i.e., metaphysical). * Also, the following words of mine are worth bearing in mind. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘(...) when providing a report/ description/ explanation I say what I mean and I mean what I say; my words are to be taken strictly at face value’. (Richard, List D, No. 7, 5 January 2010). And again for emphasis: • [Richard]: ‘(...) I am always up-front and out-in-the-open with my words and writing – I say what I mean and mean what I say – such that nobody has to read between the lines/ look for any hidden agenda and can thereby take my words, literally, at face value. (Richard, List D, No. 15, 24 June 2013). * Lastly, what Claudiu wrote the other day (in Message No. 19439) is well worth taking note of. Viz.: • [Claudiu]: ‘It’s going to take me some time to process your reply, as per usual. I think this may always be the case *when one comes in contact with original thinking*’. [emphasis added]. Regards, Richard. (Richard, List D, Andrew, 22 May 2015 May 28 2015 Re: Moral cap and Authority RICHARD: (...) the better example is indeed ‘before civilisation’ as to ‘stake out a territory and start farming it’ marks the shift from a ‘free-range’ life-style to the ‘property-rights’ way of life (and, thereby, to the arising of a ‘peasant-mentality’). To explain: for a hunter-gatherer, the free-range life-style was epitomised by, basically, just helping oneself to whatever was available. With the advent of the property-rights way of life, however, any such ‘helping oneself’ transmogrified into being theft, larceny, stealing, despoliation, direption, and etcetera. Millennia later, all of this results in feeling-beings atavistically harbouring a deep, primordial *feeling* of being somehow disfranchised – the instinctual passions, being primeval, are still ‘wired’ for hunter-gathering – from some ancient ‘golden age’, wherein life was in some ill-defined way ‘free’ (e.g., ‘The Garden of Eden’), such as to affectively underpin all the class-wars (between the ‘haves and have-nots’) down through the ages. CLAUDIU: Hi Richard, thanks for that in-depth reply and for setting the record straight! I definitely didn’t have the salient points down of what you meant by peasant mentality. RICHARD: G’day Claudiu, That would be because I did not fully flesh-out what it meant, on that last-night riverside foregathering earlier this year, as the conversation moved onto other matters. CLAUDIU: It’s going to take me some time to process your reply, as per usual. I think this may always be the case when one comes in contact with original thinking. RICHARD: My current aim is to continue with my explication of this topic here on this forum, responding in chronological order to the replies to my initial post, until it is fully comprehensible – it being such an integral part of life in the ‘real-world’ – so that a connected record of it exists on The Actual Freedom Trust website for both present and future reference. CLAUDIU: The main take-away for me for now is this: • [Richard]: ‘Unless this rudimentary *feeling* of disfranchisement – of *feeling* somehow deprived of a fundamental franchise (franchise = the territory or limits within which immunity, privileges, rights, powers, etcetera may be exercised) – is primarily understood (to the point of being viscerally felt, even) any explanation of ‘peasant-mentality’ will be of superficial use only’. [endquote]. (Richard, List D, Claudiu3, 18 May 2015). That is, the best way to benefit from the concept of peasant-mentality is to locate this feeling of disfranchisement in myself. I am unable to do so, currently. I wonder if it is in the direction of a feeling I’ve had in the past which can be expressed with phrases like ‘Wouldn’t it be so nice to not have to work’, or ‘Wouldn’t it be great to just make millions of dollars in a start-up and then be able to retire forever’ or ‘Wouldn’t it be great if I got a salary but didn’t have to actually go to work for it’. And then that could naturally lead to being jealous of people who already have those millions and don’t have to work, although I don’t think I have strongly felt that jealousy myself. I am not sure if that’s quite the feeling of disfranchisement you’re referring to, though. Again, it will take some time for this to filter through. RICHARD: Going by those ways of expressing it then that feeling you have had, in the past, may very well be in the direction of that deep and primordial feeling referred to, further above, of being somehow disfranchised from just helping yourself to whatever was available (per favour the ‘free-range’ life-style of a hunter-gatherer) and, thereby, being subject to the arising of a ‘peasant-mentality’ (via enforced-employment under the ‘property-rights’ way of life). The question which engaged the attention of the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago went something like this: ‘Where is it carved in stone that the very earth beneath our feet – the source and nourishment of life itself – is to be alienated, from the vast majority of the peoples it engenders and sustains, by a minority of those persons for the maximum enrichment of that commandeering minority’? (For that is the essence of the famed ‘rule of law’ which lies at the heart of many National Constitutions world-wide). It is nowhere ‘carved in stone’ (of course) as the famed ‘rule of law’ is nothing other than an invention of the various warlords desirous of establishing an ideological system with which to continuously enrich themselves, and their idle off-spring, at the expense of the disfranchised majority. Furthermore: ‘How come that vast majority of peoples supplicate themselves at the feet of this commandeering minority, for the sake of ‘a few crumbs from their table’ (laden with the suppliants’ produce), and defend those alienators unto death, even, when attacked in force by another alienator’s suppliants bent upon enlarging their commandeering minority’s alienated territory for the sake of those very-same crumbs’? (Please bear in mind that the identity within had directed this flesh-and-blood body to go to war as a gilded youth – thereby risking ‘life and limb’ for the perpetuation of privately-owned capitalistic economic enterprise, as exemplified in the near-defunct USA system, over publicly-owned capitalistic economic enterprise, as exemplified in the now-defunct USSR system – in order to comprehend the context in which such questions arose). Moreover: ‘Who suffers the most – as in, who faces the greater loss – when the commandeering minority’s dominion, over a land they alienated from the common weal, is threatened via an invasion from without ... the suppliants or the dominators’? It is the strangest of incongruities that peasant will fight peasant en masse – for the further enrichment of their respective dominators – when the end result no matter the outcome either way is but ‘a few crumbs’ from their dominator’s table (laden with the peasants’ produce) just as before. Hence the term ‘peasant-mentality’. To add insult to injury, as it were, the peasants are told that, by partaking of those ‘few crumbs’, they have thereby ‘signed’ an invisible ‘social contract’ wherein – to paraphrase the words of Mr. Jean-Jacques Rousseau – each person and all their power has been put in common under the supreme direction of the general will where, at once and in place of the individual personality of each contractor, this very act of association has created a moral and collective body. The end result of all this is the current situation where the vast majority – upwards of at least 98% or more – of the peoples alive today have to give of their physical or mental labour and time (to that commandeering minority) so as to be grudgingly granted in return (by that commandeering minority) a portion of the total ascribed value of what they produced (for that commandeering minority) so as to be able to purchase (from that commandeering minority) sufficient liquids, comestibles, shelter, raiment, medicaments, and any other such essential matériel, for everyday survival purposes. ‘Tis truly a rigged system ... rigged to ever-enrich an already obscenely rich elite. In effect it is a system of disguised slavery – a lugubrious legacy which everyone alive today has unwittingly inherited from long-dead peoples of long-ago eras – wherein the only way to escape subservient compliance (inasmuch all the ‘free-range’ was long-ago commandeered by ‘privateers’, so to speak, or otherwise alienated from the common weal) is to try to become one of the elite few and similarly exploit one’s fellow human beings. In this country where I currently reside a minor version of such a pursuit is called ‘The Great Australian Dream’. I have written about it, earlier, in another context. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘(...) by age 33 ‘he’ [the identity then-inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body] had arrived at the summum bonum of the materialist/ humanist aspirations ... to wit: ‘he’ had a wife (who was just as randy as ‘he’ was), ‘he’ was the father of four young children (who were a delight to ‘him’ and fun to be with), ‘he’ owned a farmhouse (on a couple of acres in a rather picturesque rural landscape), ‘he’ owned a car (and all the typical accoutrements of successful living such as bed-room, lounge-room and dining-room suites plus a quadraphonic sound system, refrigerator, freezer, washing machine and all the rest); ‘he’ ran his own business (the dream of many a worker) and, moreover, ran it from home; furthermore, the business ‘he’ ran was as a practicing artist (and totally supported ‘himself’, ‘his’ wife, ‘his’ four children and all the above from sales of ‘his’ art, both locally and via public exhibitions). And then, one fine afternoon relaxing at ease in a brick-paved patio ‘he’ had built outside the opening glass doors of ‘his’ kitchen, under the shade of luxuriant passionfruit vines on a trellis ‘he’ had also built, ‘he’ sat musing upon where ‘he’ had come from, where ‘he’ was at, and where ‘he’ was thus likely to be heading for. Basically, ‘he’ had arrived and all what remained was to finish renovating the farmhouse, buy a new car, and continue climbing the artistic ladder of success which ‘he’ was already firmly on the lower rungs of (...)’. (Richard, List D, Rick, 10 December 2009) Fortunately, for yours truly and any body whose resident identity is taking notice of these words, ‘he’ had absorbed the hard-won revelations of one of the peasants who, having sought fame and fortune to escape a working-class childhood, had achieved a considerable degree of success in that enterprise (becoming a member of the world’s pecuniary super-elite, those 200,000-odd persons known to be of $30 million net-worth and above, who constitute something like 0.003% of the population by some accounts). Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘As for your query about the identity who used to inhabit this flesh and blood body all those years ago: the ego-self (aka ‘the thinker’) had a brief flirtation with ‘illusions of grandeur’ whilst a practising artist in the late 70’s until ‘he’ read an interview with Mr. John Lennon who, to put it as briefly as possible, reported that there was nothing ‘at the top’ and that fame [and fortune] *had no intrinsic worth* (...)’. [emphasis added]. (Richard, The Actual Freedom List, No. 53c, 30 March 2004). The peculiar aspect of this ‘disguised slavery’ system is, then, the vacuity of the peasant-mentality which dumbly perpetuates it. In a nutshell: what the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body circa 1978-79 began calling a ‘peasant mentality’ was exemplified by that vast majority of peoples not only just dumbly accepting and perpetuating this undeniably-rigged socio-economic system (known to hipsters as ‘The Establishment’) as being ‘just the way it is’ but being fiercely loyal to it, into the bargain, and defensive of it amongst themselves (to the point of defending it unto death, even, in shooting wars against other peasants similarly defending their elite few). I kid you not; on many an occasion back then, when that identity would share ‘his’ insights with ‘his’ fellow-peasants, they would object most strenuously – especially the salaried peasants (those ‘white-collar workers’ who fondly imagined themselves to be a cut above peasant-hood) – and would vigorously defend the status-quo in a manner not all that dissimilar to what is known in psychological/ psychiatric terms as ‘capture-bonding’ (popularly known as ‘The Stockholm Syndrome’, when localised, and ‘The Oslo Syndrome’, when communalised). Interestingly enough, some symptoms of ‘capture-bonding’ have been identified, in regards to criminal hostage situations, prisoners of war/ concentration camp internees, controlling/ intimidating relationships (battered wives/ hen-pecked husbands/ abused children), cult members, incest victims, and the like, as follows: 1. Positive feelings toward the controller; 2. Negative feelings toward the rescuer; 3. Supportive behaviour utile to the controller; 4. Absence of interest/ engagement in being rescued. Viz: http://counsellingresource.com/lib/therapy/self-help/stockholm/ www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22447726 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm_syndrome The hallmark of ‘peasant-mentality’ is, in a word, loyalty. CLAUDIU: The secondary take-away for me now is this: • [Richard]: ‘Which neatly brings me to the point of detailing these above examples: understanding the ‘whys and wherefores’ of peasant-mentality is not about effecting social change but being free of it in oneself. [...]. In other words, one is then free to conform with the legal laws and observe the social protocols – to ‘go along with’, to ‘pay lip-service to’ – whilst no longer believing in them. ‘Tis a remarkable freedom in itself – with no need to rebel at all – as all rebellion stems, primarily, from that deeply-held primordial *feeling* of disfranchisement (and its associated feelings of resentment, envy, cynicism, and so on and so forth)’. (Richard, List D, Claudiu3, 18 May 2015). That is, freedom from peasant-mentality and from that feeling of disfranchisement requires no social change in order to be enjoyed, which is truly wonderful. RICHARD: Indeed so. All what is required is to see-through the whole sick-and-sorry system and, thus, cease believing in it. CLAUDIU: That certainly makes it much easier! I definitely find myself shedding my previously-held (and strongly at that) notions as to what capitalism is and how an ideal society would function. RICHARD: Good ... of course, any such ‘ideal society’ has no chance of functioning as idealised whilst the human condition prevails (the 7.0+ billion versions of ‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being – which is ‘being’ itself – presently in control of 7.0+ billion bodies would corrupt it tout de suite, were they ever to even concur in having it be established in the first place, that is). Needless is it to add that, once there is a global spread of individual peace-on-earth then that which can currently only ever be an ‘ideal society’ will function even better than idealised (given that any such idealisation is self-centric by its very nature)? CLAUDIU: I actually find it much easier to converse with my friends about things such as economics and politics now as I am much more able both to allow for the possibility that I am wrong, and also to take a different approach to the conversation where it’s more about sharing our ideas than one of us ‘winning’. Actually, that ability that you and Vineeto and Peter have to converse with people with contrary opinions without getting emotionally involved (obviously) or without you guys trying to ‘win’ or you trying to be ‘right’ and prove the others ‘wrong’ (as Peter in particular mentioned on a few occasions) was really something to witness, and really appealing to me as well. RICHARD: Hmm ... it would appear that what you are referring to is the complete absence of any engagement in either winning or losing an ego-battle (which is what most trying-to-be-right-and-prove-the-other-wrong exchanges devolve into) as participating in the elucidation of the factual rights and wrongs of contrary opinions, in and of themselves, is a major feature of my words and writings. (Of course, there is more to it than not being ego-centric – as in, not being soul-centric, either – but there is no term, corresponding to ‘ego-battle’, which conveys the inability to engage in those deeper-level type of ‘battles’ that various awakened/ enlightened ones are on record as engaging in). It is this total lack of any self-centricity at all – of whichever type, kind, or nature whatsoever – which makes it all so easy here. Regards, Richard. (Richard, List D, Claudiu3, 28 May 2015) May 31 2015 Re: Moral cap and Authority RICHARD: (...), the better example is indeed ‘before civilisation’ as to ‘stake out a territory and start farming it’ marks the shift from a ‘free-range’ life-style to the ‘property-rights’ way of life (and, thereby, to the arising of a ‘peasant-mentality’). To explain: for a hunter-gatherer, the free-range life-style was epitomised by, basically, just helping oneself to whatever was available. With the advent of the property-rights way of life, however, any such ‘helping oneself’ transmogrified into being theft, larceny, stealing, despoliation, direption, and etcetera. Millennia later, all of this results in feeling-beings atavistically harbouring a deep, primordial *feeling* of being somehow disfranchised – the instinctual passions, being primeval, are still ‘wired’ for hunter-gathering – from some ancient ‘golden age’, wherein life was in some ill-defined way ‘free’ (e.g., ‘The Garden of Eden’), such as to affectively underpin all the class-wars (between the ‘haves and have-nots’) down through the ages. Unless this rudimentary *feeling* of disfranchisement – of *feeling* somehow deprived of a fundamental franchise (franchise = the territory or limits within which immunity, privileges, rights, powers, etcetera may be exercised) – is primarily understood (to the point of being viscerally felt, even) any explanation of ‘peasant-mentality’ will be of superficial use only. A footnote appended to a 2005 online response of mine is as good a place to start as any. Viz.: [...snip query...]. • [Richard]: (...) one does need to put food/ water into the belly, and a roof over the head/ clothes on the back (if the weather be inclement), and in this day and age[1] the main way of obtaining the necessary wherewithal is through the covert slavery euphemistically known as ‘earning a living’. [1]Footnote: As one emerges, at birth, into a world where more than a few of the peoples born earlier have staked-out claims/ inherited prior claims – gained and maintained at the point of a spear/ a gun – on most of the arable land/ fecund water it soon becomes obvious that as, by and large, the era of the hunter-gatherer is over one is going to have to give of one’s time and labour (to the claimants) so as to be given in return (by the claimants) a portion of what one has produced (for the claimants) ... the term ‘wage-slave’ is not a misnomer and the word ‘salary’ is but a fancy way of referring to the wage slaved for by the middle and upper-middle ... um ... socio-economic careerists. Or, as Mr. John Lennon (a person who got his snout into the trough big-time) put it, in the lyrics of ‘Working Class Hero’: [quote] ‘When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years ... Then they expect you to pick a career ... When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear. (...). Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV ... And you think you are so clever and classless and free ... But you are still fucking peasants as far as I can see’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 83, 7 February 2005). The following day another respondent queried me on my above response; in my clarification I referred to the term ‘wage-slave’ as being, perhaps more correctly, ‘modern-day serfdom’. Viz.: [...snip text...]. Although, for persons taking out a house-mortgage – typically, these days, over a 30-35 year period (whereafter they find they have paid for three-four houses, whilst only being allocated one, per favour usurious banking guilds having usurped, several centuries ago[†], the sovereign power of a nation-state to emit debt-free monies) – the term ‘indentured servitude’ may be even more appropriate. [†]Footnote: [...snip footnote...]. Even more to the point: the fact that modern-day women demanded the legal right to enter into such ‘indentured servitude’ alongside the traditional male ‘bread-winner’ – most family-households these days are double-income households (hence necessitating publicly-subsidised childcare facilities) – and thus further enriching that already obscenely-rich ‘class of usurers’ amply demonstrates how the ‘peasant-mentality’ is not a male-only trait. [...snip remainder of post...]. (Richard, List D, Claudiu3, 18 May 2015) RESPONDENT: Hello, Richard, thanks for your post. It really helps me to understand the radical changes I’ve been through these years. What specifically comes to mind is the need for the peasant to derive from work not only food, clothing and shelter but also a secondary, but very powerful, layers of meaning, both as in individual and as a member of society. RICHARD: G’day No. 38, Yes, back in the 1970’s it took quite a while for ‘me’ as soul/ spirit – as in (according to the Oxford Dictionary), the non-physical part of a person which is the seat of the emotions, or sentiments, and character – to intuitively come to terms with what ‘I’ as ego had been thoughtfully contemplating for a number of years before finally intuiting, viscerally, that vocational/ occupational meaning or purpose (be it paid employment or voluntary work) had no such intrinsic value as ascribed, either personally or communally, and that any and all sentiments or judgements of that nature had been passed-on, affectively and psychically, from generation-to-generation over millennia. In other words, long-dead ‘beings’ (‘me’ at the core of ‘my’ being is ‘being’ itself) from long-ago eras were dictating, affectively and psychically, how peoples alive today were to derive meaning and/or purpose despite the fact that the mechanisation/ robotisation/ computerisation of productive work demonstrated conclusively that no such intrinsic value could possibly subsist therein. (The day when machines, robots and computers derive meaning and/or purpose – as in, dignity and redemption through a *feeling* of self-worth/ self-value/ self-esteem/ and etcetera/ ad nauseam – from their prodigious output of productive work is the day when the age of the porcine aviators must surely be upon us). RESPONDENT: I’ll try to explain my past and current experience: The reason why I decided to study a humanities career is because the ‘rebel’ in me wanted to understand reality and break free from all their implicit chains. Therefore, once I got more conscious about the whole historical process and caught by the Marxist and anarchist fashions in college, the ideas of work, authority and the like become frowned upon. Indeed, me and my colleagues look resentfully at the millionaire and business crowd, only to acquire the belief that social change was the way to work against inequality. With other, more traditional, friends and relatives, one takes said mentality aboard and put the meaning in ‘working hard to earn an honest life’. In other words, the meritocratic idea that the exit to the ‘peasant Matrix’ is dependent on oneself and one’s effort only, by reaching the higher levels of the hierarchy. These and other ideas mean the bout of perpetuation and resentment of the idea of work, with the secondary layers as support/ result: the deeply felt necessity of being creative, of giving something to the world, of being of use, of being a good citizen, of being a good Christian, etc., but also of feeling special for the contrary: of being a rebel, of fighting for the rights of the vulnerable classes, of rearranging the world to return to the supposedly virginal and peaceful state of the world, etc. The implicit error here is thinking that doing and changing something for society is actually doing something for its best interest, while it actually just means playing along within the same box, of pushing and pulling the strings of the same system. Speaking again from a solutions perspective, I think that the most insidious influence of marxism/ postmodernism/ feminism is that everything is relative and comes only from social constructs. This influence just gives the illusion of change by activism and armchair philosophizing, when, in reality, it’s the same ol’ fight of the opposites (male vs. female, proletariat vs. bourgeois, and so on) ... RICHARD: Speaking of ‘social constructs’ and their ‘illusion of change by activism’: what I have noticed, whilst pottering around the world-wide-web, is that those of a sinistral statist ideology (such as your ‘marxism/ postmodernism/ feminism’ wording is suggestive of) are apparently extracting meaning and/or purpose from busying themselves in the redressment of systemic cultural ‘wrongs’, via the heavy hand of state compulsion, through retaining tight control of ‘the public narrative’ – having long-ago seized the high moral ground of minority-group injustice (as per your ‘fighting for the rights of the vulnerable classes’ words) – on a yet-to-be-demonstrated premiss that an equitable society can be legislated into existence (i.e., imposed on all citizens at the point of state-owned/ state-controlled guns), in a ‘majority-rules’ society, on a ‘minorities-rule’ basis. RESPONDENT: ... and being oblivious of the real solution, which is the releasing of the affective weapons and shields in the first place, and thus solving the problem of the human condition. Returning to my personal point, nowadays it feels very different: I have a more individualistic approach to life; I have less attachment and, at the same time, less resentment towards the idea of work, I don’t think of it as special of meaningful or fulfilling; in fact, it shocks me when people tell me that they want to work practically forever, otherwise they would be bored. RICHARD: Ha ... having lived through the 1960’s era, when a significant number of that generation were questioning and/or eschewing the entire ‘work ethic’ mentality, it is a particularly remarkable oddity how all the public discourse back then, about the increasing need for meaningful leisure-time activities in the then-foreseeable future (due to the mechanisation/ robotisation/ computerisation of productive work), has not only come to naught but how double-income households have become the new norm instead. It is as if the succeeding generations lost the plot completely, in their rush to be ‘upwardly mobile’ – viz.: ‘advancing or likely to advance in economic and social standing’ ~ (American Heritage Dictionary); ‘moving or aspiring to move to a higher social class or to a position of increased status or power’ ~ (Collins Dictionary) – so as to accrue evermore flashier lifestyles of ostentatious wealth consumption, to the point of condemning their forebears for (purportedly) being a burden on the economy. By way of illustrating that latter point: in this country the worker-funded old-age pension – payments for which have been compulsorily deducted from worker’s pay-packets, at the rate of 7.5% of gross income, since the 1st of January 1946 – has all-of-a-sudden been arbitrarily declared ‘welfare payments’ and, under the catch-cry of ‘The Age of Entitlement is Over’, is no longer to be paid-out at age 65, as per that ... um ... that ‘social contract’ of 1946, and has been reset, by governmental fiat, to age 67 (on a graduated increase to age 70) along with a clearly-signalled intent to have it erode in monetary value, over time, via inflation. Meanwhile, in other news, the number of known billionaires this country’s economy is supporting – in the midst of a much-publicised ‘global financial crisis’ such as to (supposedly) necessitate governmental ‘belt-tightening’ measures as above – has increased to 25-26 and counting. Viz.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Australians_by_net_worth ‘Tis a laugh-a-minute observing all this sanity in action, world-wide, on my computer-screen. RESPONDENT: My current preference and aspiration is to simply use work to exit the rat race by becoming financially independent and living a modest life, sooner rather than later. I guess that if these ideas are so controversial and appalling (to both the worried capitalist resented at you for not indulging in materialism and not feeding the economy, and the worried liberal resented for your egotism, your conformity to the economical status quo and your lack of social activism and care) is a good sign of progress and salubrity, haha. RICHARD: This is an apt place to make it crystal-clear that I am apolitical – I have no position anywhere at all on the conservative-progressive political spectrum (such as your ‘worried capitalist’ and ‘worried liberal’ terms indicate) – as there are only a few brief references in this regard on my portion of The Actual Freedom Trust web site. For instance: March 29 2000 • [Richard]: About a quarter of a century ago, when I learned that the Australian National Parliament was being broadcast on AM Radio whilst it was sitting, I tuned in for the first time in my life (being somewhat apolitical as I was). I was amazed, shocked and alarmed, as the dawning realisation came over me whilst I listened, riveted, that these squabbling, bickering, arguing, point-scoring, duck-shoving, backstabbing and bootlicking human beings were authorised by the populace to run this country. They had the power (backed by the officially sanctioned guns) to make major life-or-death decisions regarding the subject citizens (bearing in mind I had just recently finished six years of voluntarily serving in the military) ... and this was staggering to contemplate. What a fool I had been to believe (...). (Richard, List B, No. 42, 29 March 2000) * March 28 1998 • [Co-Respondent]: Do you live a moral life? If so, why? • [Richard]: Being free from malice and sorrow, I am automatically happy and harmless. Thus I have no need for morals whatsoever. Morals are designed to control the wayward self. • [Co-Respondent]: Would you lie, cheat and steal? • [Richard]: If the situation calls for it, yes indeed. Whilst some semblance of social order prevails, such actions as stealing are not necessary. The government bureaucracy however, being adversarial by nature, occasionally calls for some creative massaging of the truth regarding my life-style. • [Co-Respondent]: Which morals are your own and which are seen to exist already? • [Richard]: Whilst not having any morals of my own, living in this particular country and benefiting from human ingenuity and inventiveness as I do, I am more than happy to comply with the legal laws and follow the established social protocols ... except for those that are too trifling to conform to and that I cannot be bothered observing anyway. For example: I do not vote ... even though voting is compulsory in this country. The unelected public servants actually run the country, so I could not care less which political party struts the stage. Mostly, their policies are knee-jerk reactions to public opinion polls anyway (...). (Richard, List B, No. 21, 28 March 1998) * March 21 2003 • [Richard]: I do not seek to advise anybody on what to do, or not do, and I have stated the reason why on many an occasion ... for example: • [Richard]: ‘I have oft-times said that I have no solutions for life in the real-world ... the only solution is dissolution. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27d, 18 November 2002) Which means I have no solutions for governments either ... as all human beings are driven by instinctual passions war is an essential facility for obtaining/ maintaining an imitation of peace – an uneasy truce called ‘law and order’ – at the point of a gun. Just as a police force is a necessary facility for obtaining/ maintaining an imitation of peace within a country so too is a military force necessary for obtaining/ maintaining an imitation of peace between countries ... and this will continue to be the situation for as long as peoples continue to nurse malice and sorrow to their bosom. It does not make war any less ghastly ... but it is a fact that whilst humans are as they are, then war is here to stay.. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 18b, 21 March 2003). The reason for clarifying how completely apolitical I am is because the very process of discussing this subject matter – the ‘peasant-mentality’ – entails a degree of ‘social comment’ on my part which, as past experience has shown, some peoples can take to be indicative of a particular political leaning (which has no existence outside their skulls) such as to occasion them to be dismissive of the facts and actuality being pointed out. RESPONDENT: Gotta put more thought and attention into the ‘peasant mentality’ aspects that remain unseen in ‘me’, which are many, I suspect. RICHARD: Sure ... something [No. 32] recently posted is worth bearing in mind whilst you do so. Viz.: • [Respondent No. 32 ]: ‘The cherry on the top came yesterday – whilst watching television and having these thoughts running at the back of my head, all of a sudden it struck me, that not only is this earth a ‘free-range’ place in actuality but the entire universe is like this – that there is in actuality no *ownership* of anyone/ anything over anyone/ anything else – everything in this universe is literally free – as in, has no ownership... all ownership exists in the head in the ‘real’ world’. (Message № 195xx). Although I will be commenting more fully when I respond to that email (Richard, List D, No. 32a, 19 June 2015), in its chronological order, suffice is it to say for now that when the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body circa 1978-79 entered into a mortgage agreement for the purchase of a property – an ex-farmhouse on a couple of acres of land in the rural south-east of Australia – the question of ownership of the very earth beneath ‘his’ feet engaged ‘his’ attention to such a degree as to dynamically effect resolution somewhat along the above lines. What ‘he’ had really purchased, ‘he’ realised, via that state-sanctioned organ called a ‘mortgage’, was the state-ordained right to exclusive use (within certain state-defined parameters) of that state-controlled land – specifically the legal right to call upon state-remunerated armed guards (state-trained personnel with state-issued guns on their hips) to enforce the state-determined ‘no trespassing’ law which applies to such state-issued ‘fee simple’ (a.k.a. ‘freehold’) titles – and that no land anywhere on earth was, or could ever be, owned by anyone at all. Least of all by a ‘state’ (a legal fiction masquerading as a ‘body’). Regards, Richard (Richard, List D, No. 38, 31 March 2015) Jun 01 2015 Re: Moral cap and Authority RESPONDENT No. 00: (...). Also, there’s definitely an eerie feeling like i’m being watched when I choose to be happy, a sense of anxiety, like I’m doing something naughty by being happy, which is the belief in an authority, and the fear of punishment. (Message № 194xx). JONATHAN: You mention authority and the fear of punishment (...). I think that autonomy plays a big part in dismantling these things. Richard, in particular, was so adept at getting me to begin thinking for myself. It started towards the end of the first trip when he sat down and poked a hole in my superiority complex. And it continued to the very last night of the final trip when he talked about a peasant mentality. (...). (Message № 19410). RESPONDENT No. 32: (...). Can you elaborate a bit more on that ‘peasant mentality’ which Richard discussed with you ? (Message № 194xx). CLAUDIU: Oh I found the concept of the peasant mentality really awesome actuality. I hadn’t heard anybody else put it that way before. Let me try to formulate it properly. [...snip 254-word formulation...]. RICHARD: Yes, the better example is indeed [...snip example...]. To explain: [...snip 2479-word explanation plus examples...]. (I will append the bulk of ‘Article 20’ below my signature/ sign-off so as to make it available on-line, hereafter, for those without a copy of ‘Richard’s Journal’). Another example [...snip 370-word example plus explanation...]. P.S.: What follows is the bulk of ‘Article 20’ from ‘Richard’s Journal’. Incidentally, the ‘invisible social contract’ is mentioned in the opening paragraph refers to the gist of Part Six of the book ‘Of The Social Contract, Or Principles of Political Right’ (‘Du contrat social ou Principes du droit politique’; 1762) by Mr. Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Viz.: [...snip gist of ‘The Social Contract’...]. Article 20; The Survival Of The Community Depends Upon Its Absolute Selfishness. (pp. 141-146, ‘Richard’s Journal’, 2nd Ed. ©The Actual Freedom Trust 2004). [...snip appended bulk of article...]. (Richard, List D, Claudiu3, 18 May 2015). JONATHAN: Thanks Richard, it was illuminating to have another read of article 20 again. RICHARD: G’day Jon, Whilst it is, of course, pleasing to know that having another read of a particular article from ‘Richard’s Journal’ was illuminating for you it has apparently escaped your notice, whilst doing so, that the topic under discussion is none other than the ‘peasant mentality’ you introduced to this forum (partly re-presented near the top of this page) such as to occasion another subscriber to enquire whether you could elaborate a bit more on that very subject (also partly re-presented near the top of this page). Evidently your co-respondent’s report (partly re-presented at the top of this page) – of eerily feeling watched, when feeling happy, along with feeling anxious as if being happy is doing something naughty, which anxiety stems from a belief in an authority and the fear of punishment – had jogged your memory of Richard talking about ‘a peasant mentality’, on the very last night of your final trip, such as to occasion you to respond with that particular term (and not some other term already in usage) as being particularly fitted to that particular sequence of feelings, beliefs and fears described. Of course, going by what you later wrote in Message № 19554 – which I will respond to in its chronological order – it might be that ‘a peasant mentality’ was not really a topic you thought worthy of elaborating on despite having introduced it. I raise this ‘might be’ hypothesis because the following is how you finished-off that paragraph of yours to your co-respondent (partly re-presented near the top of this page). Viz.: • [Jonathan]: (...). There are so many things that Richard said, which I wasn’t even able to respond to because, to me, they were so far out in left field. But after many months, I find that he was just thinking for himself. And I can do that same thing. (Message № 19410). Would it be impertinent of me to suggest that your ascription of that adverbial diminisher in your [quote] ‘he was *just* thinking for himself’ [emphasis added] explanatory note which, you add, you can do [quote] ‘that *same* thing’ [emphasis added] yourself, is an instance of your self-acknowledged ‘superiority complex’ in action? (More on this much further below). JONATHAN: I was able to relate to more of it [Article 20] this time around. I think the last time I read it, I was mainly just able to grasp that the community exists for the individual, which is an amazing insight because it’s 180 degrees from the accepted wisdom. As an example, one of our most famous presidents, JFK, said: ‘Don’t ask what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country.’ RICHARD: Hmm ... it does appear that yet another read of Article 20 in ‘Richard’s Journal’ would be in order because chiastic rhetoric (the inversion of the order of words in the second of two parallel phrases) about unselfish USA citizens, as Mr. John Kennedy made popular with his version in his 1961 hortatory address, is not ‘180 degrees’ from what is conveyed in Article 20 but, rather, the obverse of similar rhetoric about selfish USA citizens. By way of demonstration, here is the precise wording (of that example of the ‘accepted wisdom’ you provided): • ‘Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country’. And here is what ‘180 degrees’ from that example of the ‘accepted wisdom’ looks like: • ‘Ask not what you can do for your country – ask what your country can do for you’. Article 20 is not about either selfish or unselfish citizens of any nation (a.k.a. ‘country’). It is about what ensues where a flesh-and-blood body is actually selfless – where ‘selfless’ means sans any identity whatsoever (just as ‘penniless’ means sans any money whatsoever) – which is where the community no longer acts for ‘the good of the whole’ (inasmuch ‘the whole’ has vanished along with ‘the self’) and thus acts as it has been acting all along, in actuality, for the good of each and every flesh-and-blood body. (Please note well that last part: the reason why the community acts for the good of each and every flesh-and-blood body, here in this actual world, is because that very community *is* each and every flesh-and-blood body/ each and every flesh-and-blood body *is* that very community). Furthermore, by being actually selfless – which means a total absence of both selfishness and its antidotal unselfishness – an actual intimacy prevails (due to an utter absence of any separative identity whatsoever); with no separation whatsoever fellowship regard is automatically the default condition (whereby it is impossible to not like one’s fellow human being); with that involuntary fellowship regard of an actual intimacy operating, come-what-may, acting in a mutually beneficial way is the status-in-quo (the complete absence of any self-centricity whichsoever ensures equity and parity be paramount). Perhaps a down-to-earth example will illustrate: the current directors of The Actual Freedom Trust, being actually selfless, act for the good of the community (that is, each and every flesh-and-blood body, in toto) by making freely available online the millions of words and writings on The Actual Freedom Trust web site so that not only will all the wars and murders and rapes and tortures and domestic violence and child abuse and suicides, and so on and so forth, become bizarre artefacts of a dreadful past but also so that every man, woman and child (that is, the community, per singula) then selflessly living on this verdant and azure paradise called planet earth will be able to live a prosperous and fulfilling life. Also, this may be an opportune moment to point out that the term ‘180 degrees’ has one application – and one application only – on The Actual Freedom Trust web site ... to wit: to be seeking spiritual freedom is to be going 180 degrees in the wrong direction (i.e., away from the physical), or to be going 180 degrees in the other direction (i.e., from where an actual freedom lies), or to be differing 180 degrees in practice (i.e., withdrawing from one’s senses versus coming to one’s senses). For example: May 04 2000 • [Co-Respondent]: I was quite successful in my spiritual endeavours, but I found I didn’t want to distance myself from being here, being this body, being a physical being. • [Richard]: Yea verily, ‘distance oneself’ is the appropriate term: all religiosity, spirituality, mysticality and metaphysicality is 180 degrees in the wrong direction ... it is unequivocally a massive dissociation. (Richard, General Correspondence, Page 09, 4 May 2000). * July 19 2003 • [Co-Respondent]: I have trouble in understanding the difference between the words ‘sense’ and ‘direction’ when comparing the AF method with spiritual ones. • [Richard]: The oft-repeated ‘180 degrees in the other direction’ phrase simply means coming to one’s senses rather than going further away (withdrawing from the senses) from the world as-it-is than one already is ... everyone is already detached and to practise detachment is to be twice-removed from actuality. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25b, 19 July 2003). * January 05 2006 • [Jonathan]: Awareness is a factor in both [the actualism method and meditation practices], but what you do with that awareness is different in actualism, right? • [Richard]: Yes ... it is, in fact, 180 degrees different as the actualism method is all about coming to one’s senses (both literally and metaphorically) whereas meditation practices are all about going away from same (both literally and metaphorically). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, Jonathan, 5 January 2006). The main reason for pointing this out here is that, over the years, many more than just a few peoples have taken this context-specific ‘180 degrees’ term to have a general application – as in, ‘180 degrees opposite’, per se – whereas actualism/ actual freedom is the *third* alternative (to both materialism and spiritualism) and not merely the obverse of a normative. JONATHAN: Even before my last trip, I had already caught on to how civilization isn’t demanding at all. I remember once saying to a guy. ‘Civilization is the gift that keeps on giving.’ He didn’t know what I was talking about but I did and it is fantastic to have such a grounded pov. RICHARD: In view of the fact that, back then, you were ‘mainly just able to grasp’ something that is ‘an amazing insight’ and which is ‘180 degrees’ from what ‘one of our most famous presidents, JFK, said’ it is surely not all that surprising, upon a candid reappraisal, that he did not know what you were talking about, eh? Moreover, it is not civilisation itself which ‘keeps on giving’ but the inventive outcome of the human creatures’ tool-making ability bequeathed, as a common heritage, to each succeeding generation over millennia by myriads of peoples whose names for the most part are forgotten – arcing all the way back to the first man to utilise a knobbly-branch as a club for game and the first woman to utilise a pointy-stick to dig for tuberous roots – whereby productive output, per capita, exceeds energetic input, per capita, such as to generate an excess for the general benefit/ for the common weal. Golly, this is something I learned as a very young child at my then-father’s knee in the 1950’s – he had hired the owner of the very first bull-dozer to operate in the remote pioneer-farming district, which I was born and raised in, to excavate a large and deep pond for watering stock (known as a ‘farm dam’ locally) – when he informed me how one man on that machine could do in a day what a dozen men, with half-a-dozen teams of horses pulling hand-guided scoops, took a week or more to do. (The topic of how the other eleven men, dispossessed of productive work, would henceforth ‘earn a living’ never came up, of course, as this was in the immediate post-WWII economic boom era which lasted until the early 1970’s economic crises). JONATHAN: I also previously related slightly to the line about ‘self imposed iniquities that ail people who stubbornly resist [sic: wish] to remain denizens of the real world, fails to impinge on the blitheness and gaiety of one who lives the vast scheme of things.’ (pg 146) I related to it in that I saw how living in the vast scheme of things would be beneficial and saw that my stress was self-imposed. But you don’t write in the vast scheme of things; you write ‘lives the vast scheme of things.’ I find that interesting. This time around I caught onto other things. Self-castigation only serves to crystalize ‘me’. pg 142. This is big for me at this time as I’m getting out of blaming myself and getting into being my own best friend. It will be interesting to sort out how self-castigation crystalizes yet being my own best friend doesn’t. Both take the self as a matter of fact even though it isn’t. It would seem that they would both crystalize. So I’ll have to pay attention and see if an answer comes to me. It’s probably not important anyway. Being my own best friend is so much more pleasant than the alternative that a theory as to why it works and self-castigation doesn’t isn’t necessary. Going back to the 2nd paragraph and the line quoted from page 146, I find myself wanting to save people from their own ‘self-imposed iniquities’. I often imagine myself as a champion of common sense. And the feeling that such daydreams gives me is extremely pleasant. To be in a position where people are asking you questions or asking for your advice would feel great. And though I’d like that, I don’t want to do all that very demanding self promotion that community leaders have to do day in and day out. And even if I was in that position, I would be seen as a fraud unless I lived it myself. Moreover, if I was too bold I could easily put myself in physical danger. RICHARD: ‘Tis just as well I did not have you advising me back in 1997 when feeling-being ‘Peter’ suggested I go public with my discovery, on-line, for all the world to potentially access – else these words would not be available for you to peruse and neither would actualism/ actual freedom have a world-wide footprint – as my tendency is to be so bold as to render being ‘as bold as brass’ to be but the faintest of hues on the boldness scale. (Being arguably the most subversive man on the planet – for those who read with both eyes open – would surely make any feeling-being quail). JONATHAN: You write on page 143. ‘Astonishingly, I find that social change is unnecessary; I can live freely in the community as-it-is.’ This is how I want to be. So far, it’s coming down to choosing to recognize what is best for this body and letting myself do that. Caring for this body as a true friend would do is my strategy going forward. RICHARD: All the while you are engaging yourself in affectively-caring for that body you are parasitically inhabiting, as a true friend, despite its actuality being entirely invisible to you – via having had it coming down, so far, to choosing as your strategy going forward – you may be inclined to cast a glance over the context in which the above quote, which describes how you say you want to be, was advantageously couched (at the end of the now-snipped 370-word example, re-presented as such, towards the top of this page). Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘Which neatly brings me to the point of detailing these above examples: understanding the ‘whys and wherefores’ of peasant-mentality is not about effecting social change but being free of it in oneself. In the seventh paragraph of ‘Article 20’ (appended further below) I have highlighted the relevant sentence. Viz.: • [Richard]: Astonishingly, I find that *social change is unnecessary*; I can live freely in the community as-it-is. [emphasis added]. In other words, one is then free to conform with the legal laws and observe the social protocols – to ‘go along with’, to ‘pay lip-service to’ – whilst no longer believing in them. ‘Tis a remarkable freedom in itself – with no need to rebel at all – as all rebellion stems, primarily, from that deeply-held primordial feeling of disfranchisement (and its associated feelings of resentment, envy, cynicism, and so on and so forth)’. (Message № 19435, Richard, List D, Claudiu3, 18 May 2015). Even resorting to closely examining that 136-word block of text through an extra-large magnifying glass fails to reveal where affectively-caring for the body one is parasitically inhabiting, as a true friend, features as one’s strategy going forward on this issue. Indeed, what sits there instead, in plain view, is how understanding the ‘whys and wherefores’ of peasant-mentality, so as to be free of it in oneself, is a field-tested way to then being free to conform with the legal laws and observe the social protocols whilst no longer believing in them – with no need to rebel at all – as all rebellion stems, primarily, from that deeply-held primordial feeling of disfranchisement (a primeval feeling of being somehow disfranchised from just helping oneself to whatever was available, per favour the ‘free-range’ life-style of a hunter-gatherer, and, thereby, being subject to the arising of a peasant-mentality, via enforced-employment under the ‘property-rights’ way of life). * I have in mind to provide more personal-life details when I respond to your Message No. 19554, in its chronological order, as it is an area I have some degree of lived-experience in. Regards, Richard. (Richard, List D, Jonathan2, 1 June 2015) Jun 03 2015 Re: Moral cap and Authority RICHARD to Claudiu: Yes, the better example [of where nothing was owned and where one could help oneself to whatever was available] is indeed ‘before civilisation’ as to ‘stake out a territory and start farming it’ marks the shift from a ‘free-range’ life-style to the ‘property-rights’ way of life (and, thereby, to the arising of a ‘peasant-mentality’). To explain: [...snip 155-word explanation...]. A footnote appended to a 2005 online response of mine is as good a place to start [on a further explanation] as any. Viz.: • [Respondent No. 83]: Another issue, related to this one [the issue of filial/ tribal duty], is my choice of career. I was considering teaching physics at the HS level, because I understand there is a shortage of science teachers in California. Is this also a part of the instinctual duty to fulfil the needs of society? • [Richard]: Not necessarily, no ... one does need to put food/ water into the belly, and a roof over the head/ clothes on the back (if the weather be inclement), and in this day and age[1] the main way of obtaining the necessary wherewithal is through the covert slavery euphemistically known as ‘earning a living’. Footnote: [1]in this day and age: As one emerges, at birth, into a world where more than a few of the peoples born earlier have staked-out claims/ inherited prior claims – gained and maintained at the point of a spear/ a gun – on most of the arable land/ fecund water it soon becomes obvious that as, by and large, the era of the hunter-gatherer is over one is going to have to give of one’s time and labour (to the claimants) so as to be given in return (by the claimants) a portion of what one has produced (for the claimants) ... the term ‘wage-slave’ is not a misnomer and the word ‘salary’ is but a fancy way of referring to the wage slaved for by the middle and upper-middle ... um ... socio-economic careerists. Or, as Mr. John Lennon (a person who got his snout into the trough big-time) put it, in the lyrics of ‘Working Class Hero’: [quote]: ‘When they’ve tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years ... Then they expect you to pick a career ... When you can’t really function you’re so full of fear. (...). Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV ... And you think you are so clever and classless and free ... But you are still fucking peasants as far as I can see’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 83, 7 February 2005). The following day another respondent queried me on my above response; in my clarification I referred to the term ‘wage-slave’ as being, perhaps more correctly, ‘modern-day serfdom’. Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: Can it be that No. 83 wants to educate people to better enable them to contribute to humanity’s ease and quality of life? • [Richard]: I responded to an explicit question as asked – whether a career as a science teacher is part of an instinctual duty to fulfil societal needs – couched in a related framework of both filial and tribal duty (born out of the instinctual passion of nurture, the religio-spiritual feeling of compassion, and particular cultural mores) plus a stated interest in obliterating same and my context-specific response (no, a career as a science teacher is not necessarily part of an instinctual duty to fulfil societal needs) and my pragmatic explication of the very least one needs to ‘earn a living’ for (the basic necessities of life) and how those essential requirements are chiefly obtained these days (via modern-day serfdom) and, in a footnote, why they cannot be obtained directly (the era of the hunter-gatherer is virtually over because of enforced exclusive property-rights claims) is to that query and that query alone. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 78, 8 February 2005). Although, for persons taking out a house-mortgage – typically, these days, over a 30-35 year period (whereafter they find they have paid for three-four houses, whilst only being allocated one, per favour usurious banking guilds having usurped, several centuries ago[†], the sovereign power of a nation-state to emit debt-free monies) – the term ‘indentured servitude’ may be even more appropriate. [†]Footnote: Mr. Alexander Del Mar, in his engaging 1899 book ‘Barbara Villiers or A History of Monetary Crimes’, details how the ‘exclusive prerogative of the State’ to emit money was usurped, during the reign of Charles II (and due, in no small part, to his infatuation with a notorious married woman), with the ‘surreptitious mint legislation of 1666-7’ whereby ‘the most powerful instrument by which a State can influence the happiness of its subjects, was surrendered or sold for a song to a class of usurers, in whose hands it has remained ever since’. A 1983 reprint can be read online here: https://archive.org/stream/AlexanderDelMar/AlexanderDelMar-AHistoryOfMonetaryCrimes1899-1983-Reprint/page/3/mode/1up alternative: https://alor.org/Storage/Library/PDF/DelMar_A-A_History_Of_Monetary_Crimes.pdf If anything is a classic case of ‘read it and weep’ then this is it in spades. The role played by Ms. Barbara Villiers – a.k.a., Mrs. Barbara Palmers, Countess of Castlemaine, Duchess of Cleveland, Baroness Nonsuch – or, rather, the allure her feminine charms had for the profligate Charles II, starts properly on Page 26. Were her story better-known she may very well become celebrated as the patron-saint of banksters world-wide (if not already, albeit secretly, that is). Even more to the point: the fact that modern-day women demanded the legal right to enter into such ‘indentured servitude’ alongside the traditional male ‘bread-winner’ – most family-households these days are double-income households (hence necessitating publicly-subsidised childcare facilities) – and thus further enriching that already obscenely-rich ‘class of usurers’ amply demonstrates how the ‘peasant-mentality’ is not a male-only trait. [...snip remainder of post...] (Richard, List D, Claudiu3 18 May 2015). P.S.: Just for the record here is the quote in full from Page 7 of that 1899 book ‘Barbara Villiers or A History of Monetary Crimes’ (with emphases added). Viz.: • [Mr. Alexander Del Mar]: From the remotest time to the seventeenth century of our aera, the right to coin money and to regulate its value (by giving it denominations) and by limiting or increasing the quantity of it in circulation, *was the exclusive prerogative of the State*. In 1604, in the celebrated case of the Mixed Moneys, this prerogative was affirmed under such extraordinary circumstances and with such an overwhelming array of judicial and forensic authority as to occasion alarm to the moneyed classes of England, who at once sought the means to overthrow it. These they found in the demands of the East India Company, the corruption of Parliament the profligacy of Charles II., and the influence of Barbara Villiers. The result was the surreptitious mint legislation of 1666-7: and thus a prerogative, which, next to the right of peace or war, is *the most powerful instrument by which a State can influence the happiness of its subjects*, was surrendered or sold for a song to a class of usurers, in whose hands it has remained ever since. In framing the American mint-laws of 1790-2, Mr. Hamilton, a young man (then 33 years of age), and wholly unaware of the character or bearings of this English legislation, innocently copied it and caused it to be incorporated in the laws of the United States, where it still remains, *an obstacle to the equitable distribution of wealth and a menace to public prosperity*. (...). RICK: Hi Richard, firstly, thank you for posting, as it means a lot to read anything new from you. RICHARD: G’day Rick, Your appreciation is very welcome ... and especially so as you have previously demonstrated just how much all the words issuing forth from this keyboard mean to you. For just one instance: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/actualfreedom/conversations/messages/155xx RICK: Secondly, the semi-sidebar you included regarding Alexander Del Mar’s expose of how the contemporary global monetary system came to pass was well received. I was able to read that first half of Del Mar’s book via the link you provided and found it intriguing in its accounts of a philandering monarch, parliamentary payola and powerful monopolists surreptitiously changing the course of history. RICHARD: I am pleased you took the opportunity to peruse Mr. Alexander Del Mar’s well-researched account – and his other books are as equally well-researched – as it is essential to familiarise oneself with how the current situation came about in order to comprehend not only why the world-wide monetary system is failing so spectacularly but also why no-one is able to prevent it from doing so, no matter how many ‘fixes’ are put in place, due to that fatal flaw at the very heart of the system itself which predetermines, by the inexorable laws of mathematics, its ultimate failure. Mr. Alexander Del Mar was not only exceptionally knowledgeable but was very perspicacious as well – and this back in the days when gold (and silver) further complicated comprehension – inasmuch he is the earliest writer I have come across thus far, in all my reading on monetary matters, who understood what money actually is. RICK: Interestingly enough, it seems possible that in the not too distant future things may end up going back to how they were before Barbara. Just 60 days ago (Mar 20, 2015), Frosti Sigurjónsson submitted a report commissioned by the Prime Minister of Iceland, strongly advocating for the return to a monetary system wherein the State – not private banks – control the supply of money. RICHARD: Yes, I downloaded that report shortly after it became available online – it attracted some considerable attention at the time – and the presentation of its subject matter is refreshingly easy to read. If the country’s voters were to give the go-ahead – and were those globalised vested interests, whose monetary machinations begat this blowback, to accommodate its institution – it would certainly make for an informative case study (for as far as it goes). RICK: The 2008 Global Financial Crisis seems to have provided enough of a shake-up that economists and governments are taking a careful look at the system, and are earnestly playing around with the idea of a complete revamp. RICHARD: Yes ... although I am yet to see a modern-day monetary reform proposition which advocates a ‘complete revamp’ (then again, I have not researched the topic exhaustively, of course). RICK: This likely-to-be-influential report, which is the culmination of reformation advocacy from well-regarded macroeconomical thinkers such as Alexander Del Mar and, more recently, Jaromir Benes and Michael Kumhof of the IMF, can be found online here in PDF: www.forsaetisraduneyti.is/media/Skyrslur/monetary-reform.pdf An advantage claimed for re-establishing a sovereign monetary system, after a 350 year hiatus, would be the ability to effectively stem the outrageous and ever-increasing debts of persons and nations. RICHARD: Hmm ... the word ‘stem’, in this type of context, has two meanings. Viz.: • stem (v): 1. stop or restrict (the flow of something); [e.g.]: ‘a nurse did her best to stem the bleeding’; 2. stop the spread or development of (something undesirable); [e.g.]: ‘an attempt to stem the rising tide of unemployment’. [Middle English (in the sense ‘to stop, delay’) from Old Norse stemma, of Germanic origin]. ~ (Oxford Dictionary). • stem (v.tr.): to stop or hold back by or as if by damming; stanch. ~ (American Heritage Dictionary). • stem (vb.tr.): to restrain or stop (the flow of something) by or as if by damming up. ~ (Collins English Dictionary). • stem (v.t.): to stop, check, or restrain. ~ (Webster’s College Dictionary). A nation-state, with its sovereign power to emit debt-free money re-established, might stem those ever-increasing (i.e., usurious) debts to a certain extent – although that would be dependent, of course, upon how effective governmental agencies were at allocating a necessarily-limited amount of new (publicly-created) money – but usury itself has to cease forever, via a set-in-concrete constitutional amendment, along with a corresponding debt-repudiation (of all outstanding obligations incurred with privately-created money), for effective stemming to take place. As the topic under discussion is ‘peasant-mentality’ it is pertinent to note how modern-day propositions for monetary reform, such as this ‘Sovereign Monetary System’, would have all those trillions upon trillions of dollars in outstanding world-wide debt continue to be serviced, despite having been incurred with privately-created money (i.e., with what is, in effect, counterfeit money), and thus further enriching an already obscenely-rich elite few only this time around with publicly-created money. Could it be, then, that those ‘economists and governments’ you referred to, further above, who are ‘taking a careful look at the system’ are looking at it with a peasant mentality? RICK: It is summarily explained in the report, on page 70, that: ‘in the current system the bulk of new money is created when banks make loans. This means that in order to create new money for a growing economy, households and businesses must go deeper in debt. The money supply is currently issued only when households or businesses take on loans from the banks, placing an unnecessary burden of interest payment on society. In a Sovereign Money System, the CBI can create the money that is needed by the economy. No one has to take on more debt to create sovereign money. When the CBI creates sovereign money the government can spend or invest it into circulation. Furthermore, the transition to a Sovereign Money System implies a very significant one time lowering of public debt.’ RICHARD: Two things stand out (in regards the topic of ‘peasant-mentality’) in those last two sentences: (1) ... or ‘invest it into circulation’, and (2) ... a ‘one time lowering of public debt’. RICK: Less debt, more prosperity, greater economic stability, less disenfranchisement. RICHARD: Why not, instead, no debt, prosperity for all, complete economic stability, no disfranchisement? RICK: Of course, there are arguments made that point out disadvantages of a sovereign money system, or propose advantages of another system, or make argument for the status quo. RICHARD: More than a few of those arguments stem from a lack of understanding of what money actually is (especially obvious in those promoting a return to some form of gold-standard) and, thus, what it serves as. RESPONDENT: Ultimately, it does not matter the degree of privilege one attains from a society, under any given social system. Being alive is a privilege no society could ever grant. [Addendum: Ultimately speaking, of course]. RICHARD: Yes, and this is the nub of the matter (of course) because any societal privilege attained – being gained or granted at the expense of one’s fellow humans – has to be maintained. RICK: PS: The influential article, ‘The Chicago Plan Revisited’ authored by Benes and Kumhof (2013), may be worth a glance as well: http://web.stanford.edu/~kumhof/chicago.pdf. The article is an updated monetary reform proposal from the original ‘Chicago Plan’ proposed back during the Great Depression era (given its name from a professor at the University of Chicago who was its staunchest advocate), highly regarded at the time but lost traction until the idea of reformation started being countenanced again due to the 2008 GFC. RICHARD: The original plan was a memorandum of half-a-dozen pages, put together by several economists at that university, and circulated confidentially amongst maybe 40 or so people. Eventually, Prof. Irving Fisher (who received the first Ph.D. in economics granted by Yale University back in 1891) became the plan’s leading proponent, bringing it to the attention of then-President of the USA at least two occasions, but initially he kept his endorsement of it confidential. For such is the conformist state of affairs in academia-land. As the further above ‘Sovereign Monetary System’, which is based upon ‘The Chicago Plan’ (but incorporating several elements from other developments), is a much easier read then a summary, such as at Wikipedia, is probably sufficient for the purpose thereof. Viz.: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Chicago_Plan_Revisited As a matter of related interest: the writings of Mr. Clifford Douglas (1879-1952), who is known for the ‘Social Credit Movement’ his books and lectures spawned, are also an aid to understanding what money actually is and, thus, what it serves as. There is an explanatory article about ‘Social Credit’ here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_credit For further reading, if required, five of his published books (1920-24) can be read online here: https://openlibrary.org/authors/OL1711626A/C._H._Douglas And a copy of his 1924 ‘Social Credit’ book is here; https://archive.org/stream/SocialCredit/Social_Credit#page/n0/mode/1up Lastly, as the above books can be a trifle long-winded, a contemporary book (1920) by Mr. Charles Hattersley might be helpful: https://archive.org/stream/communityscredit00hattrich#page/n4/mode/1up (If nothing else these older books convey the way in which certain people experienced the prevailing world-view of those times in a manner history books cannot). ‘Tis great having these older, out of print books, available online (they have been especially useful in my studies of the Pāli Canon) and I have not needed to use the local Library/Inter-Library service for years. Regards, Richard. (Richard, List D, Rick, 3 June 2015) Jun 05 2015 Re: Moral cap and Authority RICHARD to Claudiu: Yes, the better example is indeed ‘before civilisation’ as to ‘stake out a territory and start farming it’ marks the shift from a ‘free-range’ life-style to the ‘property-rights’ way of life (and, thereby, to the arising of a ‘peasant-mentality’). To explain: for a hunter-gatherer, the free-range life-style was epitomised by, basically, just helping oneself to whatever was available. With the advent of the property-rights way of life, however, any such ‘helping oneself’ transmogrified into being theft, larceny, stealing, despoliation, direption, and etcetera. (...). (Message № 19435 Richard, List D, Claudiu3, 18 May 2015). JONATHAN: Hi Richard, thanks for your input. Is it fair to say that there has never been a time where an individual could just help himself to what he wanted? RICHARD: G’day Jon, No, it is not fair to say that because as a boy, a youth and as a young man, this particular individual writing these words would regularly ‘just help himself to what he wanted’ from the forests/ the woods and the pasturable-lands and the rivers/ the streams and oceanic-waters in and around the remote pioneer-farming district where this particular individual was born and raised, in the rural south-west of Australia. And the term ‘remote pioneer-farming district’ is used advisedly because, although there had been some timber-cutters in that particular area in the 1890’s, the district did not attract a lot of settlers until a soldier-settlement scheme was established in the 1920’s whereby the state-government encouraged de-mobilised military personnel from ‘The Great War’, as it was known then, to take-up land-holdings there. Although, even so, the following decade’s ‘Great Depression’ held back a lot of development, which might have otherwise happened, and the main employers of hired hands then were timber-mills. As I was born in the late 1940’s (some 20-25 years later) there were still large amounts of forested land – virgin territory where, perhaps, no human had trod before (the hunter-gatherers from surrounding districts had a legend referring to it as being a ‘taboo’ area for them) – such that the intervening area between the northernmost boundary of the property, where I spent the first 16-17 years of my life, and the nearest settlement, some 30-odd miles nor-northwest as the crow flies, was uninhabited forestland still yet to even have roadways established through it. A few details of my early life are already online. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘I was born and raised on a dairy farm in the south-west of this country (my progenitors were pioneer settlers carving a farm by hand out of virgin forest and sowing grasslands for animal husbandry). (...). As both a boy and as a youth I personally used hand-held axes and cross-cut saws to help cut down the trees to make pasture land; I was involved in the fencing and ploughing and sowing and harvesting; I hunted game in the forest and helped raise domesticated animals; I tended the gardens and orchards and crops; I assisted in building sheds (barns) and outhouses from forest timber and learned improvisation from the ingenuity required in ‘making do’ with minimal commercial supplies. There was no plumbing; no sewage, no telephone and no electricity – I went to bed with a candle and to the outdoor latrine with a kerosene lamp – thus no computer, no television, no videos, no record players, no freezer, no electric kitchen gadgets and etcetera. (...). The pioneering lifestyle gave me a vast experience with animals – domesticated creatures such as cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, geese, ducks and chickens plus the wild species which include kangaroos, emus, foxes, rabbits, eagles, crows, magpies, pigeons and quail – quite a few of which I slaughtered, skinned and dressed with my own hands. Stalking game for the table made me keenly aware of feral behaviour and raising livestock for a living necessitated an eye for the detail of the creature’s daily practice (...)’. (Richard’s Personal Webpage). I would either shoot or trap that ‘game for the table’ – although trapping was preferable wherever possible as the cost of each bullet, for the somewhat antiquated rifle I used, was the same as the price of a full loaf of bread baked in the nearest township 20 kilometres away to the south – and freshly-killed kangaroo meat, rabbit, wild duck and pigeon (for instance) were oft-times a feature at meal-times. An abundance of fresh-water lobsters frequented the waterways and (although the regular way of catching them was to dangle a piece of meat on a string into the water), upon having noticed one night how they came out from their underwater burrows to feed after dark, the easiest way to capture them was to go out into the forest to wherever there were shallow streams and, by shining a light into the water, simply reach in and pick them up by hand (just behind the head to avoid their claws). As a general rule, it would take about an hour or two to help myself to a four-gallon bucketful. Another foodstuff to just help myself to were berries when in season – blackberries in particular were plentiful – as were mushrooms, both of the field and forest variety, which could be collected by the bucketful. Emu eggs, although not plentiful all year round, were an occasional item to gather, as were wild bee honey-combs as well. An oddity item to help myself to by the armfuls, in season, was a rather special wild-flower which grew in swampy areas and known locally as ‘Boronia’; once a year a buyer for a city-based perfume supplier would travel throughout the area purchasing prodigious amounts, for distillation, from whomever would go out and pick them for free. The nearby southern ocean was a bountiful source for a range of seafood and my preferred way of helping myself was to go into the sea with a spear in hand (fashioned from a straight piece of sapling, about the length and thickness of a modern broom-handle, with a sharpened length of eight-gauge fencing wire attached for a spear-head, and an inch-wide section of circular rubber, cut from a discarded inner-tube, fastened at the other end for propellent force when held at full-stretch by the hand grasping the shaft) in order to be able to pick and choose particular fish. And, apart from all the fish, there were also crabs, crayfish (known as salt-water lobsters in the USA), octopus, and quite a variety of shellfish to help myself to. Come to think of it, even today (if I wanted to) I could just pop open my bedroom window and drop out a line with a baited hook attached and help myself to any peckish fish swimming by or, for that matter, I could slide open one of the glass doors of my sitting-room and pass out a small netted cage on a rope, suitably baited with some attractive meat near the inner end of a funnelled entrance, so as to help myself to any crabs hungry enough to find their way in. Furthermore, there are oysters growing on the nearby rock-walled river-bank, uncovered twice a day at low tide, which remind me of my younger days when paddling a canoe from island to island, in the coral waters off the north-eastern seaboard of this country, where I would wander along a tide-exposed reef with nothing but a stubby flat-head screwdriver and enjoy oyster after oyster au-naturel. Ahh, well ... I guess it is a case of being too fainéant, these days, to just help myself to foodstuffs like that. JONATHAN: Even in the hunter-gatherer days, individuals and groups had to work quite strenuously to feed their bellies and protects themselves from danger. RICHARD: The question of whether or not hunter-gatherers had to ‘work quite strenuously to feed their bellies’ is beside the point – the point being that they retained 100% of whatever such ‘work’ produced (in contrast to the archetypal 30% labour-cost component of the stereotypical business-model) – as is the question of whether or not they had to ‘quite strenuously ... protect themselves from danger’ also beside the point (the point being that, whatever else might be a ‘danger’, what they needed to ‘protect’ most, lest they be enslaved, was being able to retain that 100% return on their ‘work’). Howsoever, even with it being beside the point, it is handy to know that when 1,030 people from Albion, comprising of 732 convicts, a contingent of marines, and a handful of other officers, first established a penal settlement in Terra Australis, on the 26th of January 1788, a dozen or so of the more literary-minded personnel amongst them recorded in journals their observations of the way in which the nomadic hunter-gatherers lived their lives, in and around the surrounding districts, with some of those journals being published shortly thereafter in book form – most of which are available to read online – and no impression of them having to ‘work quite strenuously to feed their bellies’ is conveyed in the half-dozen I have read. Plus it is also worth mentioning – if only in order to diffuse the impression which modern-day labelling of that January 26th date as being ‘Invasion Day’ conveys – how those published journals record that the first confirmed instance of any of those 1,030 people being speared, and even then non-fatally, is some 20 months later on the 7th September 1790, with no retaliation being permitted, and the first confirmed fatal wounding was on the 13th December 1790 (whereupon retaliation was ordered on the 14th). In other words, no such impression of those hunter-gatherers having to ‘quite strenuously ... protect themselves from danger’ is conveyed by those first-hand accounts from the very people who were there at the time. Viz.: www.manly.nsw.gov.au/IgnitionSuite/uploads/docs/The%20Spearing%20of%20Governor%20Phillip%20at%20Collins%20Cove.pdf JONATHAN: And their gains were probably stolen by alpha males and more powerful groups as well as floods, drought and plague. RICHARD: Just as a matter of interest – as this allegedly scientific term ‘alpha male’ has made an appearance on this forum before – are you aware that it is a 1930’s ‘Mills and Boon’ invention (albeit therein depicted as ‘Alpha Man’) which was co-opted by zoologists in the 1960’s and, in the 1990’s, by evolutionary psychologists and sociobiologists? Viz.: • alpha (c.1300, from L. alpha, from Gk. alpha, from Heb. or Phoen. aleph (...). Alpha male was in use by c.1960 among scientists studying animals; applied to humans in society from c.1992. (www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=alpha). Now, Mr. Joseph McAleer, in his book, ‘Passion’s Fortune: The Story of Mills & Boon’ (OUP, 1999), explains that it was Mr. Charles Boon (1877-1943) who – after the death of Mr. Gerald Mills in 1928 (the co-founder of ‘Mills and Boon’ in 1908) – set down what he called ‘the Alphaman’ as one of the ‘ground rules’, for his authors, when he reshaped the company in 1930. Viz.: • [Mr. Joseph McAleer]: ‘Although the modern Mills & Boon romance, tied to a specific formula, did not yet exist in the 1930s, it is apparent that Charles Boon did set down a few ground rules for his authors. Some have survived, and were passed down through the years in the firm by two names: ‘Lubbock’s Law’ and ‘the Alphaman’. Both still have an impact today. (...). The ‘Alphaman’ was based on what [his son] Alan Boon referred to as a ‘law of nature’: that the female of any species will be most intensely attracted to the strongest male of the species, or the Alpha’. (pages 149-150). To sum up the story so far (because this is so funny it is hilarious): when Mr. Charles Boon reshaped the ‘Mills and Boon’ company – two years after the death of its co-founder (who had held the company to a more mainstream line since 1908) – he set down some ground rules for his authors to follow, one of which, ‘the Alphaman’, survived through the decades, even after his death in 1943, such as to still have an impact today. His son, who took over the ‘Mills and Boon’ company in 1944, spoke of his father’s ‘Alphaman’ as being based on what he referred to as a ‘law of nature’ in that ‘the female of any species will be most intensely attracted to the strongest male of the species, or the Alpha’. Note that none of this stems from or is based upon any scientific studies but, rather on what a 53-year old British male publisher set down, for his authors to follow, after his mainstream business partner died. The unmitigated success of ‘Mills and Boon’, amongst the mostly-female readers during the thirties, the forties, the fifties, the sixties (and on down to the present-day), attests to Mr. Charles Boon having picked a winner with his ‘Alphaman’ concept (the company had nearly gone broke in the latter years of the 1908-1928 period when Mr. Gerald Mills set the company policies). Now, according to the ‘Online Etymology Dictionary’ quote further above, the term ‘Alpha male’ was in use by circa 1960 ‘among scientists studying animals’ (i.e., zoologists) and was applied to humans in society from circa 1992 (i.e., by evolutionary psychologists, so-named in 1973 & popularised in 1992, and sociobiologists, so-named in 1975). However, starting back in the sixties and seventies, feminists (such as Ms. Germaine Greer) joined in the public discourse on the ‘Alphaman’/ ‘Alpha Male’ concept and public support of ‘Mills and Boon’ gradually became more and more muted. After 1992, more and more Romance authors began to move away from the ‘Alpha Hero’ model. Ms. Laura Vivanco picks up the narrative, at this point, in an online article she published in 2010 titled, ‘The Evolution of the Alpha Male’, in which she delves into the historical origins of the term. It is a long read, with many links to follow, but its essence is as follows. Viz.: • [Ms. Laura Vivanco]: ‘An earlier date for the adoption of the term ‘alpha’ (whether in the form ‘Alphaman’, ‘alpha male’ or ‘alpha hero’) to describe a particular type of romance hero would not invalidate [Heather] Schell’s facts about the spread of the term in the US around the time of the publication of ‘Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women’ [a 1992 volume of essays by romance writers which was edited by Ms. Jayne Ann Krentz], nor its definition in that context. The Boons’ version(s) of the Alphaman, based on their belief that the ‘laws of nature’ which apply to many species of animals also apply to humans, may have differed from the alpha males created by romance authors who, Schell suggests, were influenced by evolutionary psychology, as evidenced by their references to ‘cave days’ and ‘the ancestral hunter’ in descriptions of the alpha hero. On the other hand, even if they weren’t aware of [Charles] Boon’s term for him, it seems impossible that US authors could have remained unaware of the Mills & Boon ‘Alphaman’ as a character type, since Harlequin had been publishing romances edited in the UK by Mills & Boon for some considerable time before the publication of ‘Dangerous Men and Adventurous Women’. Schell’s focus on evolutionary psychology as the unmentioned source of the ‘alpha’ hero, and her assumption that he emerged in response to feminist criticism of the genre, leads her to conclude that: ‘once the battle with academic feminism was over, there simply was not as much need for the facts about sexual strategies. Even as the animal behaviour model gained ascendancy in American popular culture, the Alpha Hero’s star began to fade within the romance writing community’. (...)’. (http://teachmetonight.blogspot.com.au/2010/07/evolution-of-alpha-male.html). So, there you have it. The next time you are tempted to use the term ‘Alpha Male’ just lie back and think of ... um ... ‘Mills and Boon’. * In regards to the second part of that portion of your ‘probably’ speculation – that the hunter-gatherer’s ‘gains’ were probably stolen by ‘more powerful groups’ – it completely overlooks the fact that those ‘gains’ of hunter-gatherers are, by the very action of being either hunted or gathered on the spot, of a consume-now-or-go-to-waste nature (i.e., sufficient unto the day thereof). Besides which it is all beside the point, anyway (the point being, whether stolen or not, a particular day’s ‘gains’ were obtained by the hunter-gatherers via, basically, just helping themselves to whatever was available). As the remainder of your ‘probably’ speculation (viz.: ‘...as well as floods, drought and plague’) has strayed so far from your query it is helpful to re-present it here: • [Jonathan]: ‘Is it fair to say that there has never been a time where an individual could just help himself to what he wanted’? [endquote]. Given that the land-mass referred to as ‘Terra Australis Incognita’ before it was discovered, explored, and mapped by Caucasians, starting circa 1606, is notorious for being prone to periodic droughts and floods then the very fact that nomadic hunter-gatherers roamed over virtually the entire country, surviving for tens of thousands of years by, basically, just helping themselves to whatever was available, demonstrates that neither floods nor drought are evidence that it is ‘fair to say that there has never been a time where an individual could just help himself to what he wanted’. As for ‘plagues’: in April 1789, just over fifteen months after that penal settlement was established in Terra Australis, a smallpox plague began to affect the nomadic hunter-gatherers in and around the surrounding districts (despite none of the 1,030 Caucasians being infected with the disease since having left Albion) and by May 1789 an estimated 50-70% had perished. Many years later, as explorers mapped further inland, it became more and more evident (via smallpox scars observed on survivors in the 1830’s for example) that almost all of the nomadic hunter-gatherers on the continent had been affected by smallpox, between the late 1790’s and the late 1820’s, with various estimates of 10-50% having perished. Obviously then, the evidence that somewhere between 50-90% survived (and kept on living their hunter-gatherer lifestyle all the while) demonstrates that plagues are not a reason why it is ‘fair to say that there has never been a time where an individual could just help himself to what he wanted’, either. JONATHAN: With that in mind, it would seem that the atavistic harboring of a deep primordial feeling of being somehow disenfranchised developed right along with the evolution of the species from early primate to man. RICHARD: No, it would not seem that at all (else you are proposing that the ‘property-rights’ way of life – where just helping oneself to whatever is available is theft, larceny, stealing, despoliation, direption, and etcetera – began ‘right along with the evolution of the species from early primate to man’). JONATHAN: As opposed to having developed after warlords appropriated the land and produce. RICHARD: You do realise, do you not, that the period between when (1) ‘the evolution of the species from early primate to man’ occurred and when (2) ‘warlords appropriated the land and produce’ is measured in the millions of years? JONATHAN: Another question: Is it fair to say that the feeling of being disenfranchised (and its associated feelings of resentment, envy, cynicism, and so on and so forth) is baseless? RICHARD: No, it is not fair to say that because all of your propositions and speculations presented above, which have led you to this conclusion (albeit presented as a query), are either invalid or beside the point. JONATHAN: No one is disenfranchised (franchise = the territory or limits within which immunity, privileges, rights, powers, etcetera may be exercised) in part because no one has ever had it (the strong have always had power over the weak but were in turn subject to up-and-coming adversaries as well as injury and illness) ... RICHARD: Your ‘because no one has ever had it’ assertion is flatly contradicted by the published reports of how the nomadic hunter-gatherers of ‘Terra Australis Incognita’ – reports about how both those on the mainland and those on ‘Van Diemen’s Land’ (who were markedly different in height, physique, physiognomy, hair type, weapons and tools) – lived their lives inasmuch they survived for tens of thousands of years by, basically, just helping themselves to whatever was available. JONATHAN: ... but mostly because one can chose to not ignore what life and the universe actually is. RICHARD: Hmm ... when spelled out in full what you have ended up saying is that no-one is disfranchised from, basically, just helping oneself to whatever is available because, mostly, one can choose to not ignore what life and the universe actually is. Surely it must be obvious that this flesh-and-blood body – despite the identity in residence all those years ago having chosen to ‘not ignore what life and the universe actually is’ – cannot, basically, just help itself to whatever is available as that would be theft, larceny, stealing, despoliation, direption, and etcetera. Ha ... back to the drawing board, Jon. Regards, Richard. (Richard, List D, Jonathan2, 5 June 2015) Jun 09 2015 Re: Moral cap and Authority RICHARD to Claudiu: Yes, the better example [of where nothing was owned and where one could help oneself to whatever was available] is indeed ‘before civilisation’ as to ‘stake out a territory and start farming it’ marks the shift from a ‘free-range’ life-style to the ‘property-rights’ way of life (and, thereby, to the arising of a ‘peasant-mentality’). To explain: for a hunter-gatherer, the free-range life-style was epitomised by, basically, just helping oneself to whatever was available. With the advent of the property-rights way of life, however, any such ‘helping oneself’ transmogrified into being theft, larceny, stealing, despoliation, direption, and etcetera. Millennia later, all of this results in feeling-beings atavistically harbouring a deep, primordial *feeling* of being somehow disfranchised – the instinctual passions, being primeval, are still ‘wired’ for hunter-gathering – from some ancient ‘golden age’, wherein life was in some ill-defined way ‘free’ (e.g., ‘The Garden of Eden’), such as to affectively underpin all the class-wars (between the ‘haves and have-nots’) down through the ages. Unless this rudimentary *feeling* of disfranchisement – of *feeling* somehow deprived of a fundamental franchise (franchise = the territory or limits within which immunity, privileges, rights, powers, etcetera may be exercised) – is primarily understood (to the point of being viscerally felt, even) any explanation of ‘peasant-mentality’ will be of superficial use only. A footnote appended to a 2005 online response of mine is as good a place to start as any. Viz.: [...snip remainder of post...]. (Richard, List D, Claudiu3, 18 May 2015). JONATHAN: Is it fair to say that there has never been a time where an individual could just help himself to what he wanted? Even in the hunter-gather days, individuals and groups had to work quite strenuously to feed their bellies and protects themselves from danger. And their gains were probably stolen by alpha males and more powerful groups as well as floods, drought and plague. With that in mind, it would seem that the atavistic harboring of a deep primordial feeling of being somehow disenfranchised developed right along with the evolution of the species from early primate to man. As opposed to having developed after warlords appropriated the land and produce. Another question: Is it fair to say that the feeling of being disenfranchised (and its associated feelings of resentment, envy, cynicism, and so on and so forth) is baseless? No one is disenfranchised (franchise = the territory or limits within which immunity, privileges, rights, powers, etcetera may be exercised) in part because no one has ever had it (the strong have always had power over the weak but were in turn subject to up-and-coming adversaries as well as injury and illness) but mostly because one can chose to not ignore what life and the universe actually is. SRINATH: Richard I had similar doubts as Jon re: the ‘helping oneself’ as a hunter-gatherer bit. RICHARD: G’day Srinath, As you will probably be aware by now I responded in detail, with suitable quotes plus relevant references, so as to demonstrate how each and every proposition and speculation in that above post – about which you say you ‘had similar doubts as Jon’ regarding the way in which the free-range life-style, for a hunter-gatherer, was epitomised by, basically, just helping oneself to whatever was available – is either beside the point or invalid. Viz.: https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/actualfreedom/conversations/messages/19624 (Richard, List D, Jonathan, 5 June 2015). As Jon replied shortly afterwards (in Message № 19627), indicating that they were [quote] ‘burdened by prior assumptions’ [endquote], it may be helpful to particularly bear in mind the ‘beside the point’ aspect as you read what follows. The point being, of course, that the free-range life-style, for hunter-gatherers, was epitomised by, basically, just helping themselves to whatever was available (whereas, with the advent of the property-rights way of life, any such ‘helping themselves’ transmogrified into being theft, larceny, stealing, despoliation, direption, and etcetera). SRINATH: Hunter-gatherer tribes in the Amazon had to be quite careful about the territory they were permitted to forage in and were subject to brutal raids by other tribes. RICHARD: The fact that hunter-gatherers, being driven by the same instinctual passion of territoriality as modern day feeling-beings are, were thereby subject to territorial warfare is beside the point insofar as to ‘forage’ – as in, ‘to wander in search of food or provisions’ (American Heritage Dictionary), for instance – in that manner (i.e., within any such tribal territory as was thus forcefully demarcated) was not a matter of theft, larceny, stealing, despoliation, direption, and etcetera, but rather a case of, basically, just helping themselves to whatever was available therein. So there be no misunderstanding: nowhere have I suggested the hunter-gatherer lifestyle is one of peace and harmony (either personal peace or communal harmony) or that it be preferable over capitalistic enterprise (be it privately-owned or publicly-owned capitalistic enterprise). Indeed, the ability to generate capital – so essential for the elimination of poverty, for the maximisation of health and safety, for release from debilitating manual labour (from having to ‘earn the daily bread by the sweat of the brow’), for the proliferation of the arts and sciences, and so on – is of inestimable benefit. SRINATH: I too would ask a similar question re: the fundamental nature of the disenfranchisement. RICHARD: Okay ... the most ‘fundamental’ aspect of all, then, is illustrated by the distinction between my deliberate usage of the word ‘disfranchisement’ and the word ‘disenfranchisement’ (which both you and Jon used) as the word franchise – derived via the now obsolete usage of the word frank, from the Late Latin francus, meaning ‘free’ – refers to the ‘condition of being free’ (the noun suffix ‘-ise’, occurring in loanwords from the French language, indicates a quality, condition, or function). Viz.: • frank (adj.): an obsolete word for free, generous; C13: from Old French franc, from Medieval Latin francus, ‘free’; identical with Frank (in Frankish Gaul only members of this people enjoyed full freedom). ~ (Collins English Dictionary). Thus the word disfranchise refers to being deprived, lacking or having lost that original ‘condition of being free’ (‘original’ as in having been free in the first place) inasmuch the prefix ‘dis-’, being privative, indicates a negation or absence. Viz.: • dis- (pref.): a prefix occurring orig. in loanwords from Latin with the meanings ‘apart, asunder’ (disperse; dissociate; dissolve); now frequent in French loanwords and English coinages having a privative, negative, or reversing force relative to the base noun, verb, or adjective: disability; disarm; disconnect; dishearten; dishonest; dislike; disobey. ~ (Webster’s College Dictionary). Whereas the word disenfranchise refers to being deprived of an enabled or caused ‘condition of being free’ (as in, having a previously granted freedom withdrawn, for instance) as the prefix ‘en-’ forms verbs with the general sense of enabling or causing someone/ something to be in the condition, state or place referred to by the word it prefixes. Viz.: • en- (pref.): cause to be in a certain condition: enable; [e.g.]: encourage, enrich, enslave; a prefix forming verbs that have the general sense ‘to cause (a person or thing) to be in’ the place, condition, or state named by the stem. ~ (Webster’s College Dictionary). Now, while this distinction may initially appear to be pedantry on my part it serves, nevertheless, as a useful illustration of how relatively little time it has taken – despite the vast majority of the millions of years of human development, prior to the ‘free-range’ life-style being hijacked by the ‘property-rights’ way of life, over which our human/ hominid ancestors lived an original condition of being free to, basically, just help themselves to whatever was available (and I have seen plausible estimates of it being 99.8% of those millennia) – for modern-day thralls to atavistically feel and thus intuitively think of their ancestral disfranchisement as being a prehistoric disenfranchisement. In other words, the domination of the enthrallers has been of such an all-encompassing/ far-reaching magnitude as to be interiorised and personalised so completely it is ‘second-nature’ for the enthralled to automatically think of their ancestral ‘free-range’ franchise – that heritable condition of being free to, basically, just help themselves to whatever was available – as having been an antediluvian enfranchisement (i.e., an endowed ‘free-range’ right granted in primeval times) which, being a bestowment, is subject to rescindment. One of the reasons I provided ‘The Garden of Eden’ as an example of some ancient ‘golden age’ wherein life was in some ill-defined way ‘free’, in my initial post at the top of this page, is because of it being such an archetypal case of ‘that which can be given is that which can be taken away’ (and taken, what is more, with creatorship impunity). Howsoever, the edenic mythology has an extra twist to its knife insofar its disenfranchisement is the fault of the disenfranchised – not of the disenfranchiser as is the everyday reality – and, as such, redemption requires total obedience (a.k.a. complete surrender) to the enfranchiser. The many and devious ways and means whereby upwards of at least 98% or more of the peoples alive today are, in effect, in thrall to so few (yet obscenely rich) enthrallers are quite fascinating to contemplate as the continuance of such thralldom depends solely upon the ongoing complicity of the enthralled. Hence the term ‘peasant-mentality’. SRINATH: Still it must be said that the sheer magnitude of disparity in resource distribution we have today cannot really compare to that of a hunter-gatherer life, where the elders/ chieftains aren’t that much better off resource wise. RICHARD: Indeed so ... and, furthermore, due to the inexorable law of mathematics all usurious ‘resource distribution’ (a.k.a. wealth) eventually, and quite predictably, shifts into the hands of an elite few. SRINATH: Also the fact that this has led to this all encompassing economic system of servitude that runs our lives is very much the product of property rights. RICHARD: Yes, and the way in which that alienation of the very earth beneath our feet – the source and nourishment of life itself – from the vast majority of the peoples it engenders and sustains, by a minority of those persons for the maximum enrichment of that commandeering few, has thus far escaped world-wide criticism and condemnation as ‘a crime against humanity’ is a prime example of the ‘peasant-mentality’ in action. SRINATH: I don’t think the ‘buy in’ for hunter-gatherers was as insidious and comprehensive as the world we live in today. Perhaps the hunter-gatherer life, while not perfect, was a bit more relaxed and a better fit for our animal bodies and animal instincts than the current rush-rush-rush world? RICHARD: Oh, goodness me, no ... in no way at all is the hunter-gatherer lifestyle ‘a better fit’ for flesh-and-blood bodies with the instinctual passions/ the feeling-being formed thereof still in situ. For just one instance: via studies carried out around the world it can be reliably estimated that upwards of 25% of a tribe, over an average tribal-member’s life-span, perished in inter-tribal warfare (as compared with around 2-5% of a nation in 20th Century inter-national warfare). For example, the first-hand account recorded by Mr. William Buckley, on pages 42-44 of a 1852 book titled ‘The Life and Adventures of William Buckley, Thirty-Two Years a Wanderer Amongst the Aborigines of the then Unexplored Country round Port Phillip, now the Province of Victoria’, provides a unique insight into what the almost constant state of warfare of the hunter-gatherer lifestyle really entailed and, what is more, comparatively so as well as he fought in the Napoleonic wars in the short-lived Kingdom of Holland in the early 1800’s. (Mr. William Buckley, an escaped convict, having lived on his own amongst the hunter-gatherers of the south-eastern coast of Terra Australis in the years before any Caucasian settlement anywhere at all in that area provides a unique insight into the hunter-gatherer lifestyle there because of it being, at that time, a lifestyle totally-unaffected by any subsequent settlement many years later). Viz.: • [Mr. William Buckley]: ‘As I have said in the early part of this narrative, I had seen skirmishing and fighting in Holland; and knew something therefore, of what is done when men are knocking one another about with powder and shot, in real earnest, but the scene now before me was much more frightful – both parties looking like so many devils turned loose from Tartarus. Men and women were fighting furiously, and indiscriminately, covered with blood; two of the latter were killed in this affair, which lasted without intermission for two hours; the Waarengbadawas then retreated a short distance, apparently to recover themselves. After this, several messages were sent from one tribe to the other, and long conversations were held – I suppose on the matters in dispute. ‘Night approaching, we retired to our huts, the women making the most pitiable lamentations over the mangled remains of their deceased friends. Soon after dark the hostile tribe left the neighbourhood; and, on discovering this retreat from the battle ground, ours determined on following them immediately, leaving the women and myself where we were. On approaching the enemy’s quarters, they laid themselves down in ambush until all was quiet, and finding most of them asleep, laying about in groups, our party rushed upon them, killing three on the spot, and wounding several others. The enemy fled precipitately, leaving their war implements in the hands of their assailants and their wounded to be beaten to death by boomerangs, three loud shouts closing the victors triumph. ‘The bodies of the dead they mutilated in a shocking manner, cutting the arms and legs off, with flints, and shells, and tomahawks. ‘When the women saw them returning, they also raised great shouts, dancing about in savage extacy. The bodies were thrown upon the ground, and beaten about with sticks – in fact, they all seemed to be perfectly mad with excitement; the men cut the flesh off the bones, and stones were heated for baking it; after which, they greased their children with it, all over. The bones were broken to pieces with tomahawks, and given to the dogs, or put on the boughs of trees for the birds of prey hovering over the horrid scene. ‘Having apparently gratified their feelings of revenge, they fetched the bodies of their own two women who had been killed; these they buried with the customary ceremonies’. (www.archive.org/stream/lifeandadventur00morggoog#page/n63/mode/1up). And so it goes, page after page of a ‘raw-footage’ account which undeniably exposes the (highly-politicised) modern-day narrative – whereby the ills which notoriously plague indigenous communities are virtually all the fault of ‘whiteys’ having dispossessed erstwhile hunter-gatherers from an idyllic living-in-harmony-with-nature lifestyle – which seeks to maximise ‘colonial guilt’ for a fiduciary-style perpetual recompense. SRINATH: I do feel guilty mooching around at times. It does seem that the master-slave apparatus has been thoroughly internalised. Is this a question of the social identity type disenfranchisement piggy-backing on our primordial disenfranchisement? RICHARD: As a social identity – a mental-emotional construct (a.k.a. a ‘conscience’) inculcated verbally, affectively and psychically according to a particular society’s cultural mores (mores or moeurs = ‘folkways of central importance accepted without question and embodying the fundamental moral views of a social group’ ~ Webster’s College Dictionary) – is a mental-emotional embodiment of particularised societal/ cultural mores and, as any society’s mores have that primordial disfranchisement as a central cultural feature, then any ‘social identity type’ disfranchisement intuitively felt is that very primordial disfranchisement. Put simplistically: one and the same thing. SRINATH: I am somewhat socialist leaning so I do see the current liberal capitalist or state-capitalist global order as being fairly rotten. RICHARD: All political ideologies, being identity-based or rooted-in/ stemming-from many and various an identity in situ (i.e., born of feeling-beings’ core desires for feeling-beings’ self-centric advantage), are as rotten to the core as any of its constituent identities are. For example: September 23 1999 • [Co-Respondent]: Also, in my opinion, modern psychiatry and psychology are for the most part a failure because they (...) are often merely concerned with helping people to adjust, cope, and adapt to a sick, crumbling, and corrupt society. • [Richard]: (...) it is not because a society is ‘sick and corrupt’ (no society is ‘crumbling’ because all cultures throughout 5,000 years of recorded history and maybe 50,000 years of pre-history have always been ‘sick and corrupt’). A society – any culture, anywhere in the world, anywhen through the aeons – is ‘sick and corrupt’ because each and every person who makes up that society is ‘sick and corrupt’. This condition is called ‘The Human Condition’. ( Richard, List B, No. 37, 23 September 1999). * August 22 1999 • [Richard]: ‘(...) by ‘my’ very nature ‘I’ am defiled; by ‘my’ very nature ‘I’ am corrupt through and through; by ‘my’ very nature ‘I’ am perversity itself. No matter how sincerely and earnestly one tries to purify oneself, one can never succeed completely. The last little bit always eludes perfecting. By ‘my’ very nature ‘I’ am rotten at the innermost core’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 7, 22 August 1999). SRINATH: Not that I think communism or socialism is the answer. Because those can be perverted too. But I do think that the present system breeds a great deal of covetousness and comparison in everyone. RICHARD: Any political system ‘breeds a great deal of covetousness and comparison in everyone’ (just as any socio-economic system, any politico-philosophical system, and so on, does). Viz.: January 11 2006 • [Co-Respondent]: Richard, I remember you saying that what the West represents in terms of culture/ civilization (individualism, liberal democracy, market economy, etc.) is threatened/ undermined by Eastern spiritual concepts. • [Richard]: You are obviously referring to this: • [Richard]: ‘... western civilisation, which has struggled to get out of superstition and medieval ignorance, is in danger of slipping back into the supernatural as the eastern mystical wisdom, that is beginning to have its strangle-hold upon otherwise intelligent people, is becoming more and more widespread. The ancient wisdom has even infiltrated modern physics’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 41, 10 February, 2003). Or this (a variation on the theme): • [Richard]: ‘I do appreciate science and have the highest regard for facts – it is what enabled western civilisation to get out of superstition and medieval ignorance – hence the concern that it not be taken over by the metaphysicists who would have future generations slip back into the supernatural’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 27g, 24 January 2004). The only occasion I have discussed democracy with you was in regards to Christianity (and not eastern mystical wisdom). Viz.: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘Capitalism in my view is a more fortunate [than Communism] mixture between Christianity and instinctive drives. • [Richard]: ‘The primary distinction between capitalism and communism, as currently and previously practised, is the private ownership of property/ means of production (privatisation) versus the public ownership of property/ means of production (nationalisation); the secondary distinction is a representative democracy (regular competitive elections for governance) versus a non-representative autocracy (non-competitive elections or imposition of governance); the other distinctions lie in the areas of accountable jurisprudence versus unaccountable jurisprudence, freedom of speech (uncensored media) versus restricted speech (censored media), freedom of association/ assembly versus restricted association/ assembly, freedom of contract versus restriction of contract, and freedom of religion versus restriction of religion (all of which involve issues of public policing versus secret policing) ... apart from the freedom/ restriction of religion issue where is Christianity part of the mixture? The Christian god not only owns everything, but is totally autocratic, arbitrarily imposes judgement, despotically punishes dissention, condemns proscribed association/ assembly, has an authoritarian insistence on an exclusive contract ... and secretly spies on everyone (all of which makes the most notorious dictator but a rank amateur by comparison). However if you can somehow manage to love this god you will be loved in return ... but even that is a matter of caprice (grace)’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25b, 19 July 2003). • [Co-Respondent]: To me, it seems that the danger is broader and includes, above all, demographics. In a few generations, Europe will not be the place we now know ... and not for the better. I also think that the Western Civilization is helping its own extinction via fancy concepts like multiculturalism ... something akin to a suicidal gesture. There’s no better example than the country/ society you currently live ... and I’m speaking of trends. I can see no solutions though ... except maybe for a ‘white Australia policy’. Values are not actual, okay ... but some are better than others. What’s your practical take on this? • [Richard]: The following encapsulates my practical take on sociological issues/ societal values as well: • [Richard]: ‘I do not seek to advise anybody on what to do, or not do [in regards to political issues], and I have stated the reason why on many an occasion ... for example: [quote]: ‘I have oft-times said that I have no solutions for life in the real-world ... the only solution is dissolution’. [endquote]. Which means I have no solutions for governments either ...’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 18b, 21 March 2003). Just so there is no misunderstanding ... when I say I have no solutions for life in the real-world I am referring to systematised solutions like political change, social reform, economic reconstruction, cultural revisionism, and so forth. For instance: • [Co-Respondent]: ‘I have a first hand experience that this [communism] could only lead to hypocrisy, theft, corruption, greed; even brain-washing won’t work, these instincts have an innate ability to turn almost anything to their own advantage and fulfil their priorities. • [Richard]: ‘Any system brought about by political change, social reform, economic reconstruction, cultural revisionism, and so on, is bound to fail, no matter how well thought out, because blind nature’s genetically endowed survival passions, and the ‘being’ or ‘presence’ they automatically form themselves into, will stuff it up again and again. I have seen this repeatedly on the familial level, on the local community level, on the national level, and on the an international level ... plus, more pertinently, on the partnership (marriage/ relationship) level. Unless one can live with just one other person, in peace and harmony twenty four hours of the day, nothing is ever going to work on any other scale’. (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25b, 19 July 2003). (Richard, Actual Freedom List, No. 25b, 11 January 2006). SRINATH: I feel very much like a white-collar peasant. Engaged in the rat-race to get to the top and realise there is nothing there ala what John Lennon and your friend spoke about. RICHARD: What is there at the top is, of course, money/ assets, fame/ prestige and, especially, power – albeit a puny power, being over people (to have them do as bid), and not a potent power, as over the physical world (to directly effect beneficial material modification) – but there is ‘nothing there’ of intrinsic value (as in, nothing of significance, in the ‘meaning of life’ significance, that is). SRINATH: I can relate to the Stockholm Syndrome aspect quite well too. RICHARD: Good ... capture-bonding (i.e., loyalty to ‘the system’ in this context), when unexamined, enables the continuance of complicity (as already mentioned further above) with its especially insidious loyalty. SRINATH: Professional training is one of gladiatorial combat, where one vies with others to become a member of a small officially sanctioned professional cabal that has a strong financial incentive to maintain the current hierarchy (Training, safety etc. are the other reasons cited – which are quite sensible. Somehow though I think these are secondary). Naturally this inculcates the symptoms you talked about. However I’ve had deep suspicions about ‘the system’ for a while. In some sense this that has lead to my being less focussed on accumulating wealth, assets, prestige, being career focussed etc. than many of my peers. But I wonder if I go far enough. The question I have for you is: Can you elaborate some more on becoming aware of this peasant mentality – specifically as it relates to practising actualism? RICHARD: Essentially, seeing-through the whole sick-and-sorry system and, thus, ceasing to believe in it, is all what is required. The identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago found it incredibly liberating to no longer be able to believe in it/ be capable of loyalty to it ... especially so as ‘he’ had been quite the rebel up until then (the ‘black-sheep’ of the family and all). In a latter part of his response to your ‘Money as Debt’ post Andrew speaks of having tuned-in to this liberating aspect. Viz.: • [Srinath]: ‘(...). From Richard’s posts and the ensuing discussion/ clarifications, I’m also beginning to get a clearer sense now of how the primordial *feelings* of resentment, the peasant mentality and the current monetary system are related’. (Message № 196xx). • [Andrew]: ‘(...). I felt a liberating quality having this being discussed. Having it all tied together with actualism and being free of the human condition’. (Message № 196xx). SRINATH: For instance would you recommend pragmatically minimising ones involvement in this system as a necessary (or helpful) condition to becoming actually free? Thanks. RICHARD: Not necessarily, no ... actualism practice works best in the market-place. Both feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ and feeling-being ‘Peter’ minimised their respective income-streams, within a year or so, but that was more because they valued their time over money than any other reason. Plus the more one enjoys and appreciates being alive simply by being here, each moment again for as much as is humanly possible, the lower the cost-of-living becomes as less and less discretionary spending is used-up in purchased entertainment, in socialising expenditure (e.g., fashion-house attire, designer-driven accoutrements, status-displaying automobiles, and etcetera), in mood-enhancement payments, in novelty-seeking travel costs, and so on and so forth. Golly, come to think of it, actualism should accrue quite a few brownie points for being so ... um ... so environmentally-friendly! Regards, Richard. (Richard, List D, Srinath, 9 June 2015) Jun 19 2015 Re: Moral cap and Authority RICHARD (to Claudiu): Yes, the better example [of where nothing was owned and where one could help oneself to whatever was available] is indeed ‘before civilisation’ as to ‘stake out a territory and start farming it’ marks the shift from a ‘free-range’ life-style to the ‘property-rights’ way of life (and, thereby, to the arising of a ‘peasant-mentality’). To explain: for a hunter-gatherer, the free-range life-style was epitomised by, basically, just helping oneself to whatever was available. With the advent of the property-rights way of life, however, any such ‘helping oneself’ transmogrified into being theft, larceny, stealing, despoliation, direption, and etcetera. Millennia later, all of this results in feeling-beings atavistically harbouring a deep, primordial *feeling* of being somehow disfranchised – the instinctual passions, being primeval, are still ‘wired’ for hunter-gathering – from some ancient ‘golden age’, wherein life was in some ill-defined way ‘free’ (e.g., ‘The Garden of Eden’), such as to affectively underpin all the class-wars (between the ‘haves and have-nots’) down through the ages. Unless this rudimentary *feeling* of disfranchisement – of *feeling* somehow deprived of a fundamental franchise (franchise = the territory or limits within which immunity, privileges, rights, powers, etcetera may be exercised) – is primarily understood (to the point of being viscerally felt, even) any explanation of ‘peasant-mentality’ will be of superficial use only. A footnote appended to a 2005 online response of mine is as good a place to start as any. Viz.: [...snip explanations and examples...]. Which neatly brings me to the point of detailing these above examples: understanding the ‘whys and wherefores’ of peasant-mentality is not about effecting social change but being free of it in oneself. In the seventh paragraph of ‘Article 20’, appended further below [...now snipped...], I have highlighted the relevant sentence. Viz.: • [Richard]: Astonishingly, I find that *social change is unnecessary*; I can live freely in the community as-it-is. [endquote]. In other words, one is then free to conform with the legal laws and observe the social protocols – to ‘go along with’, to ‘pay lip-service to’ – whilst no longer believing in them. ‘Tis a remarkable freedom in itself – with no need to rebel at all – as all rebellion stems, primarily, from that deeply-held primordial feeling of disfranchisement [a primeval feeling of being somehow disfranchised from just helping oneself to whatever was available, per favour the ‘free-range’ life-style of a hunter-gatherer, and, thereby, being subject to the arising of a peasant-mentality, via enforced-employment under the ‘property-rights’ way of life] and its associated feelings of resentment, envy, cynicism, and so on and so forth. [...snip remainder of post...]. (Richard, List D, Claudiu, 18 May 2015) RESPONDENT: G’day Richard, thank you for your detailed explanation regarding ‘peasant mentality’ and many other points along with it. I had been reading your reply again and again, because it is something so novel that it would have been unwise of me to jump and reply in a fit of rush. RICHARD: G’day No. 32, Yes, it can take a while to fully appreciate ‘something so novel’ – an apt descriptor, by the way, of this ‘peasant-mentality’ explication – which has, nevertheless, been hidden in plain view all this while (albeit assigning a much-deeper meaning to that cliché, for deliberate effect, than is usually ascribed). And, although the term itself (‘peasant-mentality’) was not something new to the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body, all those years ago, the situation and circumstances whence that most peculiar mindset arose in the human psyche (and, thus atavistically, in ‘his’ psyche) was indeed ‘something so novel’ that ‘he’ found dianoetic comprehension to be insufficient insofar as an instinctual-intuitive rememoration – as signalled by my ‘viscerally felt’ recommendation further above – of its ancestral origination was essential in order for ‘him’ to penetrate its all-pervading perfidy. Put differently: its elucidation is indeed ‘so novel’ that, back in the late 1970’s, it was ‘me’ as soul/ spirit – as in (according to the Oxford Dictionary), the non-physical part of a person which is the seat of the emotions, or sentiments, and character – who revivified viscerally, with a markedly luminous vibrancy, an atavistic memorative facility whereby that which ‘I’ as ego could but speculatively countenance was intuitively presentiated and thus rendered fathomable. (I am resurrecting and introducing several obscure and/or obsolete words so as to facilitate communication as it is more explanatorily helpful to bring back to life antiquated terms (that Shakespearean-Era ‘rememoration’, for instance, was already ‘not in use’ in 1828, ‘obsolete’ by 1913 and ‘archaic’ come 2008 according to the various ‘Webster’s Dictionaries’ available) unto which restored word that special-usage meaning of an instinctually-intuitive type of memoration can be readily ascribed and hypostatised for actualism-lingo utilisation. As in referring to, then, an instinctually-intuitive type of memoration which is, essentially, an atavistic re-memoration of ancestral experiencing – as memorialised affectively/ psychically in the human psyche itself (in what is metaphysically referred to as an ‘etheric library’ or ‘akashic record’) – affectively-psychically accessible and revivified feelingly with luminous vibrancy in that Shakespearean-Era memorative facility). As briefly possible to set the scene: what ‘he’ had already understood, primarily from learned knowledge but also from some near-negligible first-hand observations[1], was that the ‘free-range’ lifestyle persisted not only throughout the (geologic) Pleistocene epoch – wherein the brain-matter of our Hominidae forebears increased dramatically in volume so as to become about three times as large as in Pongidae of the same bodily size – but even down through the ages unto a decade or so before ‘he’ was born, on the land-mass known before 1606 as ‘Terra Australis Incognita’, whereby considerable insight had been gleaned from information gathered via first-hand accounts over the preceding one-and-a-half centuries, such as to be indicative of the likely lifestyle of ‘his’ own stone-age ancestry (those ‘Ancient Britons’ of archaic lore and legend). In a nutshell: the difficulties those nomadic hunter-gatherers of ‘Terra Australis’ had in adjusting themselves to the irreversible reality of the ‘property-rights’ way of life taking precedence over the ‘free-range’ life-style – and which difficulties were not only well-recorded but still persist, albeit in attenuated forms (mainly as politico-constitutional strategies vis-à-vis perpetual recompense, fiduciary-style, as befitting ‘traditional’ custodial lessors), unto the present day – set the scene for that affective/ psychic illumination. In other words (and given that none of us alive today were parachuted in, so to speak, from somewhere beyond the Van Allen Belt) the well-recorded difficulties they had in making the necessary accommodations to private ownership of the lands and waters they and their stone-age ancestors had held communal ownership over – via familial lore (i.e., the various tribal territories demarcated and defended at spear-point by virtue of their instinctual survival passion of territoriality) – having been decreed ex cathedra by those industrial-age subjugators to have pre-eminence in common law (i.e., imposed and upheld at gun-point by virtue of their instinctual survival passion of territoriality), are a latter-day reflection of the difficulties every modern-day person’s own stone-age ancestors encountered. (More on this, much further below, in Footnote № 1). RESPONDENT: At first I tried to feel this *feeling* of disenfranchisement but I couldn’t feel it, but one of these days I finally felt a bit of it and quickly it expanded into a bit more intense feeling – my immediate reaction to this was a feeling of being ‘cheated’ and a feeling of rebellion ensued. RICHARD: Yea verily ... feeling ‘cheated’ is a quite predictable visceral effect of intuitively feeling-out that ancestral betrayal of what amounts to humankind’s archaic birthright – and seemingly sold out for a ‘mess of pottage’ at that – along with its reactionary counter-feeling of ‘rebellion’. Howsoever, the identity then in residence in this flesh-and-blood body rapidly realised there was something even more monumental than all of that to comprehend ... to wit: the outstanding real-life situation, then, was how ‘he’ had bought the entire package sight-unseen – as in, ‘he’ had swallowed it all, hook, line and sinker, without even knowing ‘he’ had done so – and in that revelatory instant (at this very moment of seeing that fact) this all-at-once and in-its-entirety flash of understanding was the ending of it, all of it, in one fell swoop. Then, and only then, could ‘he’ begin to fathom the full range and extent of this perfidious ancestral legacy. RESPONDENT: However, I quickly recalled your later remark of how you no longer believed all that. As soon as I also decided to do that, then the next part that you said became immediately clear i.e. 1). ‘social change is unnecessary’ and 2). ‘there is no need to rebel’. So the trick here, if I’m correct, *is to no longer believe in all of this* and yet continue to follow social and legal protocols. RICHARD: Given that virtually all the arable land/ fecund water has been long-ago commandeered by long-dead entrepreneurs, or otherwise alienated from the common weal in ages-past, there is no viable choice, physically, but to pragmatically ‘go along with it’ all – to ‘pay lip-service to’ them – until there be a global spread of the already always existing peace-on-earth as possessiveness itself, be it either of the personal or communal type of territoriality, does not subsist anywhere at all here in this actual world (i.e., this sensate world; the world of the senses; the world where flesh-and-blood bodies already reside) due to the complete absence of that instinctual survival passion to possess and protect. RESPONDENT: The cherry on the top came yesterday – whilst watching television and having these thoughts running at the back of my head, all of a sudden it struck me, that not only is this earth a ‘free-range’ place in actuality but the entire universe is like this – that there is in actuality no *ownership* of anyone/ anything over anyone/ anything else – everything in this universe is literally free – as in, has no ownership..all ownership exists in the head in the ‘real’ world. RICHARD: Indeed it does – territoriality exists only in the human psyche, in particular, and the animal psyche, in general, and nowhere else – and, as I have previously commented on your above report (in Message № 19572), I will re-present the bulk of it here for easy reference. Viz.: • [Richard]: ‘(...) when the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body circa 1978-79 entered into a mortgage agreement for the purchase of a property – an ex-farmhouse on a couple of acres of land in the rural south-east of Australia – the question of ownership of the very earth beneath ‘his’ feet engaged ‘his’ attention to such a degree as to dynamically effect resolution somewhat along the above lines. What ‘he’ had really purchased, ‘he’ realised, via that state-sanctioned organ called a ‘mortgage’, was the state-ordained right to exclusive use (within certain state-defined parameters) of that state-controlled land – specifically the legal right to call upon state-remunerated armed guards (state-trained personnel with state-issued guns on their hips) to enforce the state-determined ‘no trespassing’ law which applies to such state-issued ‘fee simple’ (a.k.a. ‘freehold’) titles – and that no land anywhere on earth was, or could ever be, owned by anyone at all. Least of all by a ‘state’ (a legal fiction masquerading as a ‘body’)’. (Richard, List D, No. 38 31 May 2015). What stands out quite starkly, upon re-reading that second paragraph, is how the word ‘state’ features so prominently. So much so, in fact, that the much-maligned statist word ‘fascism’ – as in: ‘Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato’ (‘Everything for the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state’) – is what immediately springs to mind. Whereas, of course, there is no such entity as a ‘state’ in actuality – flesh and blood ‘citizens of the world’, or actual cosmopolites/ cosmopolitans, live on this verdant and azure paradise known as planet earth – as nation-states, with their artificial borders (their territorial precincts) and their sovereign citizens (their nationalised tribespeople), with their ubiquitous nationalism (i.e., tribalism writ large) and their concomitant patriotism (their civilised territoriality), feature solely in the real-world; the world of the psyche; the world where flesh-and-blood bodies never reside. A little over five years ago this truly amazing absence of statism of any kind, type, or variety was geographically verified, as an experiential actuality, whilst visiting another continent. A brief message of mine, written about a week after arrival, speaks admirably to this effect. Viz.: • [03/Apr/2010]: ‘G’day Vineeto, I am sitting out on the flat roof-top of [names deleted]’s house in India, in the moonlight at 3:50 AM, and I might as well still be in Australia for all the difference it makes to my experience of being here. It is truly amazing ... it has been exactly the same as this ever since I arrived and I need to remind myself I am in another country (when it is not obvious visually that I am). What this means is that a person living in the actual world is totally at home, so to speak, wherever they may be on the planet. When I was in India last time [a quarter-of-a-century earlier] it was most definitely a foreign land, an exotic country, an alien culture, and all the rest, whereas this time around it is none of the above ... what an amazing place this magical wonderland is! Regards, Richard’. [endquote]. I made a point of deliberately checking it out at Kuala Lumpur – and it was exactly the same of course – during a five-hour stopover on my way back to this continent. Apart from the obvious ethnic distinctions, such as particular aromas, street signs in the local language, peoples of a differing physique and physiognomy, and so on, the direct experience of being here, on this planet as a flesh-and-blood body, was no different regardless of location. RESPONDENT: Meanwhile, I also wondered if you had discussed about peasant mentality with Peter and Vineeto, during their feeling being days, because there is no mention of this peasant mentality even in their journals. I just got curious because if they became actually free without hearing about this, then it will be a sort of surpirse. Once again, thank you for your reply. RICHARD: Yes, it was discussed – mostly touched upon from time-to-time, as appropriate to a particular situation and/or set of circumstances, rather than emphasised as a core issue in regards to actualism/ actual freedom – and the main aspect which feeling-being ‘Vineeto’ (for example) came to grips with in the early days was loyalty. A clue as to how soon that topic came up is contained in a snippet of a discussion about loyalty itself which happened to be tape-recorded, in 1997, and transcribed in ‘The Compassion Gained Through Forgiveness Binds’ at the following URL. Viz.: www.actualfreedom.com.au/richard/audiotapeddialogues/compassiongainedthroughforgivenessbinds.htm (Richard, Audiotaped Dialogues, Compassion Gained through Forgiveness Binds). A short way down the page the following exchange takes place. Viz.: • R: (...). This ‘Higher Love’ is never questioned? And compassion, gratitude, trust, loyalty ... • Q(2): Loyalty is because there is the loyalty to family to cut ... • R: What about loyalty itself? • Q(2): Mmm ... I don’t know if it ever came up. • R: I remember you and I having a conversation about loyalty the second or third time you came here. You were realising that you had loyalty to hold you back. (Richard, Audiotaped Dialogues, Compassion Gained through Forgiveness Binds). In that text I am reminding ‘her’ how there had been a conversation about loyalty on the second or third occasion ‘she’ had visited – and I can recall, even now, how on that initial occasion it had touched a responsive chord in ‘her’ as something vital to examine – as ‘she’ had shifted ‘her’ familially-inculcated/ societally-inculcated allegiance to ‘the system’ at large over onto the spiritual commune which ‘she’ had been a live-in member for the better part of nigh-on 17 years. It was still the ‘peasant-mentality’, of course, just in a different guise (and which the spiritually enlightened beings/ the mystically awakened ones, being feeling-beings themselves, affectively/ psychically tap into with full effect). Speaking of which: as no such effect operates here in ‘Terra Actualis’ – no loyalty to be bound with; no allegiance to be held by – there is no way any application whatsoever of ‘Das Führerprinzip’ (either of the secular – as in ‘Auctoritas Principis’ in Ancient Rome – or sacred variety) could ever succeed. Here *equity and parity* prevails. Regards, Richard. (Richard, List D, 32a, 19 June 2015) ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ Footnote: [1]also from some near-negligible first-hand observations: During my late youth/ early adulthood the identity then in residence became quite intrigued with the lifestyle of hunter-gatherers on this continent – to the point of having me at one stage take on a full-time salaried position as first-mate on a coastal ship (i.e., 2nd in command; answerable only to the ship’s captain) supplying the mission stations situated along the northern coastline of the then (1971) largely unmapped area of Australia known as the Arnhem Land Region – and ‘he’ closely examined whatever information ‘he’ had access to regarding how such a lifestyle really functioned in practice. Without going into it in too much detail one particular incident stands out whilst in charge of unloading cargo onto the mud-flat-and-mangrove-fringed estuarine shoreline in an area known as Maningrida (back then it was a small Native Welfare Department outstation, established in 1957, situated on the site where a rations depot, and trading-post for crocodile skins and buffalo hides, had been located since 1947). As soon as the ship was secured in place on the shoreline, with its bow-ramp lowered to provide easy egress onto the narrow sandy strip which fronted the forested landscape, I went ashore to liase with the governmental superintendent regarding the reception and storage of the supplies (constituting frozen foodstuffs, in the main, on this particular voyage). Time was of the essence as the tidal-range in that area was prodigious and unless the unloading was expedited the ship would soon become high-and-dry and, thus, subject to a delayed departure until the next incoming-tide. (As a salaried professional, with a bonus paid as a percentage of the profit for cargo delivered on time, the adage ‘time is money’ was truly of the essence). With the ruddy-faced superintendent assuring me he would send a ‘team of men’ to do all the leg-work lugging the cartons from the ship’s commercial-sized freezer to the outstation’s storeroom – comprised mainly of ice-cream and frozen meat-pies (the nomadic hunter-gatherer’s favourite tucker when not on ‘walkabout’) – the ship’s crew of four deck-hands began unloading the cargo onto the shore, under my supervision, in anticipation of the arrival of that ‘team of men’. When the superintendent hove into view twenty or so minutes later, along with maybe thirty-odd of the local tribesmen, the prospects of a quick turnaround became a distinct possibility. He organised the ‘team of men’ to shoulder a carton each and led them back along the pathway through the trees, to the storeroom, from whence they would return while he stayed behind to keep everything secure and fill out the necessary book-work. Yet when they eventually straggled back in twos and threes – the ship’s crew were all the while trans-shipping the stores to the shore – they sat themselves down in the scant shade of the trees lining the sandy strip (it was around the middle of the day with characteristically steamy-hot tropical atmospherics). Appealing to them, en masse, to recommence the simple task of carrying away the cartons was to no avail – apparently, and all-of-a-sudden, they could not understand the most simplest of words (what was then-known as ‘Pidgin-English’) – so I resorted to individually encouraging each man to his feet and, by conveying him to a carton, could manage to convince each one in turn, with suitable gesticulations, that the reason they were gathered here was to ferry the goods to the storeroom as before. To cut a long story short: when they eventually straggled back – although by then their ranks had thinned considerably – they of course headed for the shade of the trees again. After another round of one-on-one persuasion, as before, and another straggling return only to lie around once more under the trees, I finally gave it up as it was wasting more time than it gained and directed the ship’s crew to commence unloading all the way to the storeroom. The superintendent was most apologetic, of course, whilst explaining that ‘once they got it into their heads’ to not co-operate there was little he could do about it (a plaint I had heard of elsewhere numerous times before). By dint of much deadline-motivated exertion and sweat – and that well-known line ‘only mad dogs and Englishmen go out in the noon day sun’ (as per a 1772 physician’s article popularised by Mr. Noël Coward’s 1931 song) resonated prominently in the psyche of the identity-in-residence all the while – the final carton was secured in the outstation’s storeroom, before the tide had ebbed too much, and the ship was cleared to be under way once more to its next port-of-call. And the point of this tropical seashore tale (being but one among several of a similar nature which could be told)? As already mentioned, further above, the identity inhabiting this flesh-and-blood body all those years ago was by then vitally interested in the hunter-gatherer lifestyle, as ‘he’ was questioning the whole notion of ‘progress’ – as in just what the end-goal might be which all this ‘progress’ was presumably progressing towards – which drove peoples of a Caucasoid stock to dominate the globe with their ever-expanding developmental way of life, and it was incidents of this kind which intrigued ‘him’ no end. There seemed to be something quite telling about the way in which those by-then part-time hunter-gatherers (those of the ‘free-range’ lifestyle) thought nothing of lounging about in the shade of a tree while the productive wage-slaves (those of the ‘property-rights way of life’) dutifully laboured to unload the ship’s cargo under the blazing-hot tropical sun (a cargo comprising mainly of their frozen meat-pies and ice-cream, mind you, thereafter to be acquired by them via piecemeal return of fortnightly-dispensed tokens, known locally as ‘Gubmint Munny’, to the superintendent). Something quite telling indeed ... somehow these peoples, of veritable stone-age vintage, managed to remain unafflicted by a ‘peasant-mentality’ – and, by and large, even so through to this present day for more than a few – in spite of (or, perhaps, because of) the many material benefits, as exemplified by those frozen meat-pies and ice-cream, flowing their way per favour the ‘property-rights’ way of life. * Five years later, while studying ‘Aboriginal History’ as an elective during a three-year ‘Fine Arts’ course at the country college of a city university, that identity-in-residence recounted the above story in the lecture-theatre one fine day, so as to illustrate some hopefully profound point about the ills which notoriously plague indigenous communities, and the presiding history professor introduced ‘him’ to the term ‘ethno-centric view-point’. As she did so in a rather depreciatory manner, this brand-new concept she conscientiously deposited into ‘his’ lexicographical bank-account opened up a quite different avenue for exploring cultural/ societal beneficence – including a six-month investigatory visit to the Indian sub-continent in 1984 (quite advantageously as an egoless identity by then) – in the abstract realm of post-modern relativity, and the ilk, which turned out to be a creative mind-space where ‘narrative’ reigns supreme (i.e., where ‘truths’ trump facts) and where no particular culture or society is better than/ superior to any other culture or society. Now, I am no fan of any type of culture, period, including the one I was born and raised in – and any last lingering traces of identifying as either being ‘English’ or being ‘Australian’ (as overlaid upon the core ‘British’ cultural identifier at that time) had disappeared shortly after returning from that 1984 trip to India anyway – so there is no way of being biased, as in having an ‘ethnocentric viewpoint’ these days, in any of my assessments of societal beneficence stemming from one particular culture as compared/ contrasted to that of some other culture (or cultures, generally, as applicable). So, given that everybody alive today has a stone-age ancestry – there is simply no other way of arriving here on this planet as human beings other than as descendents of ‘hunter-gatherer’ lifestyle ancestors (be they of the far-past or near-past) – the transition to the prevailing ‘property-rights’ way of life is an ancestral legacy to be atavistically addressed as the beneficence accruing via the ability to generate capital (so essential for the elimination of poverty, for the maximisation of health and safety, for release from debilitating manual labour, for the proliferation of the arts and sciences, and so on) is inestimably superior to the beneficence accrued in any pre-pecuniary lifestyle. So endeth the tropical seashore tale. Jun 21 2015 Re: Moral cap and Authority [...]. RICHARD: Given that virtually all the arable land/ fecund water has been long-ago commandeered by long-dead entrepreneurs, or otherwise alienated from the common weal in ages-past, there is no viable choice, physically, but to pragmatically ‘go along with it’ all – to ‘pay lip-service to’ them ... RESPONDENT: Yeah true..a physically armed rebellion is just not sensible in today’s age and beside, once again, as you’ve correctly remarked that the benefits accrued by the property-way of life has inestimable benefits, so going for an armed rebellion in today’s age is actually going Ludite and thus not progressive RICHARD: G’day No. 32, Just shortish note, so as to correct a misunderstanding before it takes root and starts proliferating, as it is nowhere remarked by me that ‘the benefits accrued by the property-way of life has inestimable benefits’ but, rather, my observation is that the beneficence accruing via [quote] ‘the ability to generate capital’ [endquote] is inestimably superior (to the beneficence accrued in any pre-pecuniary lifestyle). Viz.: • [Richard to Respondent]: ‘(...) the beneficence accruing via the ability to generate capital (so essential for the elimination of poverty, for the maximisation of health and safety, for release from debilitating manual labour, for the proliferation of the arts and sciences, and so on) is inestimably superior to the beneficence accrued in any pre-pecuniary lifestyle’. (Message № 19775, Richard, List D, No. 32a, 19 June 2015). Also, and just so there be no misconstrual of what that implies, it is worth mentioning how I made a point of drawing attention to the inestimable benefit that ability to generate capital has in an earlier post (when referring to the preferability of capitalistic enterprise over the hunter-gatherer lifestyle). Viz.: • [Richard to Srinath]: ‘So there be no misunderstanding: nowhere have I suggested the hunter-gatherer lifestyle is one of peace and harmony (either personal peace or communal harmony) or that it be preferable over capitalistic enterprise (be it privately-owned or publicly-owned capitalistic enterprise). Indeed, the ability to generate capital – so essential for the elimination of poverty, for the maximisation of health and safety, for release from debilitating manual labour (from having to ‘earn the daily bread by the sweat of the brow’), for the proliferation of the arts and sciences, and so on – is of inestimable benefit’. (Message № 19669, Richard, List D, Srinath, 9 June 2015). Incidentally, by the term ‘the ability to generate capital’, I am simply referring to a pecuniary lifestyle per se (as compared/ contrasted to any ‘pre-pecuniary lifestyle’ as per the quote from Message № 19775 (Richard, List D, No. 32a, 19 June 2015) further above) and not, for instance, to the current global monetary system whereby banksters world-wide not only generate capital – having usurped, several centuries ago, the sovereign power of nation-states to emit debt-free monies – but also have the unmitigated gall to then impose usurious charges (albeit under the guise of having an ‘interest’, as if returning a dividend, in that newly-generated capital thus advanced) upon their privately-created money (i.e., upon what is, in effect, counterfeit money). So as to not pre-empt what is clearly a matter for a future email suffice is it to say, for the nonce, that I am not a fan of the ‘property-rights’ way of life – such as what is referred to, in the further above quote from Message № 19669 (Richard, List D, Srinath, 9 June 2015), as either ‘privately-owned or publicly-owned capitalistic enterprise’ – as already signalled in Message № 19547. (Richard, List D, Claudiu3, 28 May 2015). Viz.: • [Richard to Claudiu]: ‘Please bear in mind that the identity within had directed this flesh-and-blood body to go to war as a gilded youth – thereby risking ‘life and limb’ for the perpetuation of privately-owned capitalistic economic enterprise, as exemplified in the near-defunct USA system, over publicly-owned capitalistic economic enterprise, as exemplified in the now-defunct USSR system – in order to comprehend the context in which such questions arose’ (Message № 19547, Richard, List D, Claudiu3, 28 May 2015). (The word ‘owned’ should give a big clue as to why not). Regards, Richard. ▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪▪ P.S.: Also, briefly, in regards to your ‘armed rebellion’ observations: please be assured that not only will there be a ‘bloodless revolution’ (i.e., non-destructive) but it will be a non-disruptive transition as well – e.g., no food-shortages or fuel-shortages; trains, coaches, planes, ships, and so on, still operating, no loss of creature-comforts, &c., &c. – when the global spread of actual freedom/ actualism eventually takes place. (Richard, List D, 32a, 21 June 2015) RETURN TO FACTS AND GROUPTHINK INDEX RICHARD’S HOME PAGE ACTUAL FREEDOM HOMEPAGE The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one. Richard's Text ©The Actual Freedom Trust: 1997- . All Rights Reserved. Disclaimer and Use Restrictions and Guarantee of Authenticity