Empire relies on a hierarchy of domination and submission.  This is a system based upon fear, uncertainty and doubt wielded to create a consistent atmosphere of terror through learned helplessness.  The dominant believes that all life is a zero-sum game, and if he is to maintain his position of privilege then he must resist at all costs any attempt to let others enjoy a life of a quality like his own.  This is how doubt creates uncertainty, which in turn mutates into fear; as any Star Wars fan can tell you, fear leads to anger, anger to hate and hate to suffering.  The dominant fears losing his power, but in using his power to prevent this from happen he always ends up making it happen; never has the irony of this principle ever stopped one of these fools from defying natural law anyway- it seems that the same condition of mind that warps people into such errant thinking also prevents them from thinking that it will happen to them.

Most of the world has this specific sort of affliction causing friction in society, and usually working its damage at more than one level.  You see this in the social-climbers; they see prestige and power as ends to themselves, and organize all of society according to least and most thereof.  They abase themselves before those higher than themselves, and they abuse those lesser than themselves; you've seen this deluded fool in every workplace you've ever had, and in all of the institutions of society and government deemed important or special.  In so doing, they not only ignore the humanity of those around them, but they also forget their own; the contortions that these people put themselves through to justify their wrong-headed paradigm often utterly boggles the minds of sensible people.  This is a tragic failure of self-awareness and empathy, but for most such afflicted folks they can be corrected and made whole again.

The thing to keep in mind is that this is not to say that we need no organization of peoples.  What it means is that we must cease our long-standing association of traits or powers that have nothing to do with those needed to do a specific task or pursue a specific profession.  We've done this because we've been fools trying to provide means of acknowledging individuals for their deeds, and instead using investments of power or wealth.  Fixing this problem is necessary, but fortunately we already have models--real and fictional--to use as starting points.  (For a fictional one, Public Security Section 9 from Ghost in the Shell: Stand-Alone Complex; the sole concession to dominance hierarchies is Chief Aramaki, and he is as much a liason to the rest of the government as he is a boss to the team, while the rest of the team follows Major Kusanagi for no reason other than free will- they acknowledge her as the best-suited for command and so they willingly let her do so.)  We're already doing work like this, as a society, through the work of various subaltern groups making the effort to change their relationship to the dominant faction.  We are already transitioning away from familial dominance; now we need to do that institutionally and in the workplace.

To achieve the goal of destroying Empire forever, we must flatten the pyramid of domination that Empire imposes upon all societies that it usurps.  We've got a decent start, but there's much left to be done before this fight is won.

A culture that tolerates mediocrity is not a healthy culture.  One that celebrates mediocrity isn't merely ill, it's thoroughly corrupt and under Empire's heel.  This is because such corruption denigrates excellence in all forms, first and foremost with the excellence of integrity that is essential to establishing and maintaining Civilization in a practical form.  Once mediocrity of integrity becomes accepted within a culture, the corruption of other forms of excellence is not long to follow; the decline of the United States in particular over the last generation correlates with the corruption of our culture.  Natural law demonstrates that only through a firm expectation of excellence in all things can Mankind refine itself into ever-superior forms capable of ever-greater deeds and discoveries.

Every culture in the world deals with this malady, but it is most pronounced in the globally-extended Western culture due to its promotion of individuality and the concurrent weakening of the group-oriented norm of tribalist cultures all over the world.  The demand of Empire to suck, to be lame, to be merely mediocre and not instead to strive in all things for the uttermost excellence possible--to not "rock the boat" or "don't make us look bad"--is one of the most common examples of the Banality of Evil that most people encounter in their daily lives. In order to make this work, we have to change our attitude towards failure; the present severe punishment we inflict upon those that fail is out of proportion and directly contributes to the culture of mediocrity that Empire wants of us- it's the Bad Cop to the Good Cop niceness of "It's okay to be average."

Here is the truth: we are not all average.  Some of us are, without a doubt, better than others; those that are best should be encouraged to excel and allowed to blaze the trail that others follow.  This means maintaining perspective with regard to what people attempt to do; as we shouldn't reward people for doing what's required of them, neither should be punish people for making earnest attempts to improve themselves and make the most of what talents they've got.  A culture afflicted by Empire inevitably seeks to hobble the excellent, gifted and talented; this is because such a healthy culture does something else most people across the world often consider radical- such a culture decouples social organization from any concept of a dominance hierarchy.  (In other words, the Peter Principle does not exist; one's place is not tied in any way to being promoted up any ladder or chart- you get it if, and only if, you're competent enough to do it right and the job needs to be done.)  Because Empire is all about dominance, it organizes its subjects into hierarchies of dominance and brainwashes its victims into thinking that life is all about climbing that ladder; this is a diseased and fraudulent paradigm that inevitably consumes itself.

The irony is that, by demanding excellence from ourselves and others, we flatten those hierarchies.  By actively seeking out self-perfection, we discover our own abilities--we learn, scientifically (that is, by experimentation), the truth about ourselves--and then can act cleanly and clearly for the best benefit of the entire people.  If that means that you're working on an assembly line, so be it; you're making the very best of your talents, and you're working to improve yourself as you go.  Your boss is just that, the guy that organizes and manages the team you're a part of, and not some incompetent or egotistical petty dictator seeking to lord it over you; you're part of a team, and you are valued for who and what you are- not an expendable slave-laborer or serf to be consumed and cast off by uncaring bullies and quislings.

In larger terms, what we have is a society that places human dignity and development at the center and all else as being subordinate to that.  Profits come second to proper health-care.  No special prestige comes from any form of employment, because only those best suited for a position ever get it; work that anyone can do is either work for convicts, or work for robots.  No one gets left behind because riches come second to real wealth, and if you're willing to strive for excellence than you shall have that wealth- and you will experience the satisfaction that comes with fulfilling work in creating it.  As a healthy republic socializes its infrastructure, it makes full use of the private sector to make strictly-regulated use of competitive markets to channel the need for excellence towards useful ends- and that is where respect and prestige shall issue from: the contribution towards Civilization by one's efforts.

Demand the best from others.  Produce the best from yourself.  Always seek improvement.  Civilization requires it, so bring it and be free.

In previous posts, I've taken to using a single word--as a proper noun--to encapsulate the idea, and ideal, of what is best in Mankind's social development and organization.  When we focus on making ourselves the best that we can be, and we use the powers that we develop for the benefit of human society--and, by extension, the universe--then we create and refine a state of being so sublime that we often mistake it for the corrupt barbarism masking itself as that sublime state.  The term I use is "Civilization", and I use it in much the same way that E.E. "Doc" Smith used the term in his seminal Lensman of space opera novels- because I follow his conception of what Civilization is, and why it is necessary.

Empire, to continue the analogy, is the perfect term to describe the Eddorians and their barbaric conception of what existence is about.  Empire is, put simply, a conception of existence predicated solely as a hierarchy of dominance- dominance based solely upon force, fraud and cunning.  All of the specific dogma and ideology justifying oppression are just excuses for establishing and maintaining dominance- in truth, Empire is (and those its infects are) little more than (a) bully(bullies) with delusions of grandeur, fearful of others because they believe the universe to be a zero-sum equation.  They seek to corrupt, co-opt, degrade and destroy everything that could threaten them.

Yes, I've said that for a few months now.  The problem is that there is no machine, no law, no regulation, nothing we can create that can permanently solve the problem of Empire- not if you're thinking in such mechanistic terms.  The only viable remedy is to resort to the development of human virtue, and to that I again turn to Smith's classic Lensman saga for inspiration- in part.  I also turn to the Classical Western Tradition, and its Eastern counterpart, for inspiration, and in practical terms I turn to the American System of Political Economy.

As individuals, and collectively as nations, we people of Mankind must devote ourselves once more to creating a culture that orients itself towards the future- specifically, to creating the future that we want to bequeath to those that come after us, to our children and grand-children.  In past, but recent, generations this meant such things as the U.S. and U.S.S.R. space programs.  Before that, the creation of the U.S. Interstate system, and then the great mobilization of the populations of the world to fight (and support the effort to fight) World War II.  Examples of earlier, similar conceptions exist; creating the Great Lakes system of locks, dams and canals is a good one.  Now, as much of the world's infrastructure decays before our eyes, and we stand threatened with the loss of significant parts of our global industrial systems, it is long past the time when we--the people of the world--stand by and let the parasite of Empire continue to use its pawns to suck Civilization dry yet again.

We--the individual men, women and children of the world--can no longer shirk our personal, direct responsibility to Civilization.  We're told that we are too weak, too stupid, too corrupt, too poor to force the issue in our favor; we're frightened with death, prison, shame, guilt and other sanctions meant to divide us and set us against each other- to make each man the other's jailor through making us seem small, isolated and insignificant.  Yet, we have living memory of what people can do when they find their courage, place their identity beyond themselves and take up that which Smith's characters come to call the "Lensman's Load".  You can't shirk this obligation; those that try become Empire's puppets one way or another- and there is no difference between slaves and cattle.

Yet we don't have a culture that celebrates and emphasizes such virtue.  More accurately, it's not give the central place in our culture that it ought to have- and would in a healthy, lawful culture.  This first must change, and that is what I'm working on when not writing for this 'blog.  We have the remnants of our past high point of culture, and from it we can rebuild- and then build wholly new constructions to reach for heights of cultural development never accomplished before.  If we seek to build a true culture of virtue as the cornerstone for a better tomorrow, then it is here that we must start; the other aspects, which I shall mention in depth in the near future, shall build alongside it as the other load-bearing elements of the culture.

With this cornerstone replaced, we can successfully attack the fraudulent schemes that hamstring our culture and deny excellence its place right behind absolute integrity as prized qualities in our culture.  The use of government to ensure that all of us find our talents, train them to their limit and use them for everyone's benefit is not only a good thing- it's what a lawful government is meant to do, must do, and we should be frothing mad with rage that it does not do this effectively or efficiently!  Once we have healthy, virtuous people back at the levers of government we'll fix this within a generation.  The future, though right now anxious, retains its eternal hope for a better tomorrow; so long as we not only keep our faith, but do our damned jobs as human beings, we shall certainly see it happen.  So, let's get to work!