Most of what I have to say on monarchy I learned from Ernest Becker’s book, “Escape from Evil,” where he quotes Lewis Mumford and expands upon his point:
“Thus anxiety invited appeasement by magical sacrifice: human sacrifice led to man-hunting raids: one-sided raids turned into armed combat and mutual strife between rival powers. So ever larger numbers of people with more effective weapons were drawn into this dreadful ceremony, and what was at first an incidental prelude to a token sacrifice itself became the 'supreme sacrifice,' performed en masse. This ideological aberration was the final contribution to the perfection of the military megamachine, for the ability to wage war and to impose collective human sacrifice has remained the identifying mark of all sovereign power throughout history.” — Lewis Mumford, Technics and Human Development, emphasis mine.
Both monarchies and dictatorships are built upon anti-human fanaticism so powerful that it becomes, in essence, an immoral religion: the more people suffer and die for — or by — the king without him losing power, the more he will consider his supremacy “justified” and “divine.” The sensation of power that stems from oppressing or killing others is pleasurable to an undeveloped animal mind that is motivated solely by the avoidance of feeling its own fear of death. In humans, this massively inflates one’s unchecked ego, tricking those who are already predisposed to selfish and antisocial behavior into thinking that their pleasure and social elevation at the cost of the pain and suffering of others means they have “defied the odds,” and therefore avoided the misfortunes that will lead them to dying.
This line of thinking, which has been abandoned by today’s ethical and intelligent humans, can be traced back to the emergence of tribal instincts, when primitive humans who survived physical fights against others or animals were seen as stronger than others — and in the simplest of times, worthy of leadership — and therefore deified, due to their (temporary) defiance of death.
Because the purpose of one’s ego is to keep itself alive, either by counteracting real bodily threats or imaginary emotional threats, people do not dwell on their mortality. In fact, the vast majority of people function in their daily lives as if they are immortal, and yet fear even the slightest discomfort, which reminds them of their looming and inescapable fate of dying, which could take any number of unexpected horrifying shapes. A mortal’s fear of death, and the subconscious delusion that if you are not dying in the present moment, continuing to live within your comfortable patterns of behavior will forever prevent you from dying, are key to controlling the psyche of the populace and maintaining the social power structures that uphold the status quo.
And so, when those in power are so far removed from the struggles of the general populace, and have the freedom to do anything they desire, including deciding the ultimate fates of others without facing dire consequences, they no longer recognize themselves as but the evolved form of an intelligent ape who shares a beautiful planet with countless other creatures, connected by the tides of fate and consequence, and subject to the moral social contracts that have been established over thousands of years for the benefit and progression of humanity as a whole.
Instead, to rationalize the overwhelming and unnatural power that the rich and powerful have accumulated, they inevitably look to a source of this power outside of themselves. Because these people are reminded daily that they are still an animal that sleeps, shits, craves pleasure, and fears death, they will trick themselves into believing that they have been “chosen by God” to avoid pain and rule over others.
This delusion, when unchecked, easily progresses into the insanity of believing that you are a god, or God “himself,” the ultimate abomination of mortal ideation, which completely psychologically removes you from your responsibility to moral action. The will of the “king” is then brandished as the will of God to keep himself at the highest, untouchable tier of society, and therefore those in power will do anything to destroy all threats to their status as “living gods.”
Their entire lives and the lives of their command then revolve around fighting on the wrong side of the Holy War, today using capitalism to maintain and fund wars of oppression. Because of the insular nature of these power structures, this level of delusion cannot be “cured,” and is in fact exacerbated by sycophants who are equally enslaved by the craving for power, and thus entire hegemonies are created to reinforce and justify increasingly unethical decrees and rulings.
Paragraphs 11 through 18 of this essay is just going to be the mostly-unedited string of tweets that inspired the above writing. I posted these to a tiny private account on September 9, 2022, so please forgive the sudden shift to informal tone, increased vulgarity, and redundancies. It may sound strange in contrast with the above, but there are no rules here and no one can stop me from doing it! Bahahaha.
We — all of us, probably, if you’re reading this — are such well-mannered and good-hearted people that it’s hard to imagine what the people at the top tiers of society are really like, making the ultimate judgment calls for billions of people, and causing extreme wealth inequality and suffering. Let me tell you, with confidence: these monarchs, these capitalists, these bankers and fraudsters and kings and killers, they’re all completely fucking insane.
You cannot cure them. You cannot convince them to stop killing poor people. They will not someday, somehow, no longer feel like ruling over us. They are not concerned with doing what is right — because to them, they are doing what they think is their right as chosen by the divine.
This is why we have to push so hard against fascism, capitalism, the billionaire ruling class — this is why every single one of us laborers needs to realize that unless we are all willing to unite and die if needed to end the reign of fascism, we will never be able to free ourselves from oppression.
It is the fear of death that they have weaponized against us — we have so little, every breath is being squeezed out of us, and we are terrified to lose even more, because to lose even more when the stakes are this high feels like death would truly be around the corner.
And that is the mind prison. Individuals, fighting, squabbling over online bullshit, desperately trying to survive in this horrific, body-destroying system, cannot possibly be expected to realize the trap, open themselves to love, accept their mortality, and rise above it all.
I am going to be honest. I don’t know how we’re going to do it. My friends, we become more desperate every year, too many are consuming poor or poisoned intellectual nutrition. Even more than economic poverty is a spiritual poverty that drains the soul from the best of us.
What can I say? Reflect upon your mortality. Imagine your life ending, letting go. Feel uncomfortable. Listen to that feeling, understand that it controls your decisions. What you do with your time. What you do with your money. Who you keep in your life. How you express your love.
When faced with the ultimate end, don’t so many things feel so small, so insignificant? Accepting your unavoidable, inevitable death is so empowering, it makes you stronger than any king who calls for the sacrifices of others to validate their authority like a fucking coward.
In summary, the morally-bankrupt rich and powerful have no motivation to ever contribute to positive or meaningful change for the masses. The inflation of ego deludes them into thinking they are avoiding their own pain and deaths, which is the only thing that matters to animals. Without intense spiritual training, unshakable devotion to serving others, and the embracing of one’s mortality, you cannot develop a spiritually logical system of morality and selflessness that would cause you to act solely for the benefit of all living things, which is what every leader should do. The corruption of power is a direct result of being enslaved by the desires, cravings, and attachments of the material world, and can only be avoided by those who have fully dedicated themselves to cultivating the behaviors of real living-godhood in alignment with the objective moral truth of the universe.
I will add that it is true that there are some people with immense wealth and power who have become incredibly humbled by their good fortune in life. Power is polarizing, and turns people into either demons or saints, and because of this we do not yet live in a complete and inescapable hellscape. There are those who understand that if they indeed have inherited divine purpose, they must be willing to sacrifice anything for that purpose. To heed the call of the righteous sometimes means living a life of deception to fool the corrupted, and waiting until the time is right to strike at the enemies of God. They have their orders.