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Faces of Evil
I believe sound moral choices to also be practical and generally serve one's own life. One cannot prosper in the free market of life without peacefully meeting others needs. The conventional wisdom holds that somehow immoral choices can make you a rich greedy happy king, but that does not tend to pan out in the long run. So the question becomes what is it that walls people off from hearing us and incorporating libertarian ideas into their own thinking when this knowledge could be of great benefit to them?
I've observed that most of us are raised into a culture of domination where we are indoctrinated into the idea that our minds are deficient and defective. If you needed to be spanked, yelled at, forced into school, defined by grades, and looked upon as crude raw material that must be forced into shape, you may feel like your damaged inside your whole life. Many of us then spend the rest of our lives trying to prove to ourselves that we are fine in various ways (like running for office to be cheered by thousands). We also often strive to live our lives in hiding from these feelings and pretend they don't exist. They can be drunk away or simply stuffed down deep inside. They are the stock and trade of the art of controlling human beings. Without these feelings I believe state systems would disintegrate over night.
Along comes some libertarian philospher who challenges your fundamental understanding of reality and morality and the inner fear of the defective self begins to be felt. It must be stuffed down again at all cost because it's too painful to face so endless defenses are employed. I believe this is why grown adults often fight even the most basic and obvious enlightenments. I have had people refuse to even admit that taxes are not voluntary.
I worry about the practice of labeling these people as evil rather than simply looking objectively at the situation and proceeding in a way that can best get our needs met. 99 percent of the human race supports the violence of the state. At least 97 percent will still support it regardless of what material we can present to them to show them how immoral they are. I guess at least 97% of the race is evil? Let's tell them they are all evil and that will get them to see the error of their ways. This game gets us no place. I would like to look objectively at how to proceed to a better way. It's natural for the moral sense to be there in human beings. It's natural for reason to exist in the human mind, but it certainly can be obscured by the unnatural reactionary nature of the individual. I have not observed that calling someone immoral convinces them of anything. I find it usually only sets me up as an enemy image in their mind and guarantees they will fight you.
To work on trying to find ways to better connect with people we've started doing some video interviews. I started out resolving to minimize my challenges to the views of the people, but simply try to understand how they view the world and where that view is coming from. Some very cliche stuff in here, but also some surprises:
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"Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe."
Frank Zappa
Boy is this an excellent post. You say it very well. 99% of the time, when dealing with a non-politician, I try to follow the precept that people who support the state aren't necessarily intentionally evil. But that guy on the plane... oooooh, boy. Scary. I could see him rounding up "unwanted" people for the gas chambers.
Indeed how disturbing it can feel to look at another human being and envision what they might be capable of, or capable of supporting. I wonder if this person feels afraid of some horrible thing that might happen if the established order or laws are disobeyed? Or maybe they are terrified inside about what would happen if they could not have control other people in some way?
It would be interesting to ask this individual to place himself in the shoes of the runaway slave and see if he would obey the law and turn himself in?
The guy you encountered on the plane sounds like a total twat, but from my personal experiences I can't say I'm surprised.
I use to know a woman called Louise & Louise pretty much bought into whatever the establishment would spin to the masses. After a while of trying to persuade her to at least think for herself, it occurred to me that it was no good in trying to persuade Louise otherwise as Louise preferred some one else to her thinking for her.
I guess the first priority for anybody is to secure a roof over their head & put food in their belly & many probably would say people are too busy dealing with the essentials to keep alive then to think about the big picture.
Its kind of weird that if people are too busy to look at the bigger picture that people like Louise have plenty of time to read gossip magazines & keep up with the plotlines of soap operas.
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