I am no one’s subject, or at least that is not my natural proclivity. Nor is it anyone else’s.
Juval Harari spends some time in his book Sapiens… talking about the development of cultures, conquests and conquerors, making it sound like the aim of Cortes and Khan and the Roman emperors was to subjugate the masses and control them, to spread their influence as far and wide as possible and keep their “subjects” in line. Keeping them happy and content wasn’t necessarily their first order of business. Benevolence wasn’t necessarily a strong suit of history’s overlords, though some were better at it than others.
Maybe not surprisingly, nothing much has changed. The tools of control and group think have evolved, but the impulses are the same, sadly.
Case in point: while America drools over the Kardashians and cranks up the Country and Western drivel, Russia and China are plotting their strategy to ruin us, to tear us down and topple what they see as our hold on the world. Time for a new world order, in their eyes, and they can’t be bothered with the distractions and fluff and useless things that seem to distract if not enthrall many of us here in the states. Putin and Xi are thinking about control and conquest, while we go about “doing us” and arguing over whether or not two old men, one of whom is a convicted felon and an all-around asshole, should get to be POTUS.
Domination still plays, still rules, whether or not the people of Ukraine or Taiwan or anywhere else on earth agree. Of course we need leaders and a sense of security and direction, but we don’t need strongmen and fascists and self-interested idiots who seem to want to treat human beings as pliable, easily-manipulated fodder and playing pieces in their endless efforts to keep a stranglehold on power.
National interests aside, why has it always been so difficult for nations and leaders to live and let live, to give cooperation a try? Someone always seems to be in survival mode, convinced that it’s their way or the highway. Such insistence never, ultimately, ends well. Because people don’t like being subjects or pawns, or dismissed out of hand as sheepish and expendable.
3 Cents' 