By Brandi Rogocky (Contributer) – Email
Throughout history, the rulers of vast empires have typically used religion to quell unrest and to keep public order on a day to day basis. Implementation of a state religion has proven very effective in the controlling of people’s behaviour during times when the state may find it difficult or even impossible to monitor them, especially if people generally adhere to a religion en masse and without the use of force. Beliefs invoking fear of immoral, costly, or simply unruly behaviour are stock models for control.
Here, in the new world and in this new age, the rulers of this empire are faced with a slightly different task. North America is a continent that is peopled by immigrants and pilgrims from various religious backgrounds, as well as a nearly decimated and angry population of indigenous people. The advancement of humanism and science has contributed to the growth of the sector of the population who are atheistic, agnostic, or otherwise just non-practising in the religion that they inherited from their parents or spouse.
We have seen the rise of neo-spiritualism, characterized by the peace-loving hippy who takes the best of all spiritualism, the more obscure the better, and yet adheres to none. It is unthinkable that here, in North America, a state religion could be imposed with the expectation of passive adherence. That does not mean that the rulers of this empire need go without the benefits that dogmatic control provides. Pervasive and popular thought have now become the stock models for exerting this kind of control over the masses.
Consider the Dalai Lama, for example. He is very attractive to those who are neo-spiritualists without having to be a traditional Buddhist. He is not Jesus, and venerating anyone but Jesus is as attractive to a neo-spiritualist as a big loud “Fuck you!” is to the church. This suffices, even if the message is the same. So, we are provided with shiny pictures of and visits from the Dalai Lama, and look, aren’t we kind and nice? A veritable idol is made out of just about the most passive human being alive on the planet today. What is accomplished in this but the direction given to a people who are over-worked, over-taxed, under-paid, and under-serviced to remain passive at all costs? This isn’t even Ghandi-like march-in-the-face-of-death passive, this is sit-there-and-coo-and-grin passive.
No, there is no fear of burning in hell if one were to not be this sort of passive, but there is what there has always been with this sort of dogmatic control and that is the scrutiny of one’s fellow man. The sheep herd the sheep while the shepherd sleeps the afternoon away, glutted with mutton.
Consider, also, the popular model of positive thinking. This model is very attractive to nearly everyone as it promises the accruing of happiness, health, romance, and riches, merely by staying positive. This translates to people as agreeable and happy. This also translates as the expectation of only success. Worry, failure, depression, anger, fear, and frustration, for example, are, by default, deemed negative. The scrutiny of one’s fellow man ensures that this negativity should never be expressed, shared, or displayed. The fear becomes that, if one were to even carry on a conversation with someone who may be displaying negativity, one now risks failing to accrue happiness, health, romance, and riches simply because like attracts like in this model. Negative energy then becomes a risk.
Those that are worried, failed, depressed, angry, scared, or frustrated are directed to disguise this under a big, round, yellow happy face or else be marginalized and alienated by their peers, friends, and even family. Emotional states become moralized, with happy being good and anything uncomfortable being bad.
And so, we achieve a population that is passive and fearful to discuss what might be bothering them about their day to day lives, simply by such means as prevailing popular opinion, without adherence to a particular religion or ideology. This is disempowering. What is empowering is free thought. That one can think or feel any way that they choose to without fear of horrible consequence, such as the inevitable miserable failure due to having unhappy thoughts, is empowering to the individual. Free expression is empowering. That one can then convey these free thoughts without fear, even beyond corporeal fear, is empowering for society.
It’s time we abandon the notion that we live in a Peter Pan-style Never Never Land, where thinking only happy thoughts causes one to become airborne, or that there is some inexplicable nobility to just sitting there and taking all life’s challenges or injustices with a trance-like smile on one’s face. Silence is not golden, no matter how big the grin that dams the voice of the active mind within.
