Sunday Sermon [The Argument, pt. I]

¡Hola! Everybody...
A good friend and I have been having an ongoing discussion that has lasted for years. We call it “The Argument.” What follows here isn’t the gist of The Argument. Parts of The Argument would piss you off, make you very uncomfortable, or otherwise challenge your basic assumptions about the meaning of reality, freedom , or free will. I will try to present The Argument next Sunday. For now, I’ll leave you with insights glommed from The Argument. LOL

* * *

-=[ Setting the Table ]=-

When people stop and withdraw from the everyday busy-ness of making a living, they realize they’ve been caught up in something that they not only don’t believe in but deem reprehensible.

Today’s world is no longer controlled by emperors, dictators, or even democratically elected governments. We live in a world controlled by multinational corporations. Most of us work for them, we certainly eat and drink what they produce, are exposed to their scientifically crafted and persuasive marketing strategies, and we live on a planet that provides the raw materials for their products and is the toilet bowl for their endless refuse.

Corporations have become much more powerful than the governments we depend on to regulate them. In fact, they pay for the mechanisms by which a government can afford to be elected. Most troubling, at least here in United States of Amnesia, corporations are legal fictions -- a warped superhuman with the same rights as the rest of us.

These corporate demi-gods -- whether Big Media, Big Finance, Big Corporations, or Big Armies -- are sociopathic entities. Even totalitarian governments start out with some measure of intention to serve the well-being of a population, but corporations have an essentially anti-human worldview. Corporations are primarily responsible to their shareholders. The margin of profit possesses a higher value than environmental integrity or social empowerment. Creating and satisfying short-term desire eclipses long-term sustainability and sanity. And they are so pervasive they colonize most of our culture.

The fruits of the earth, plants, animals, water, and even the human genome are all being patented and made into commercial products, including even drugs to create new feelings. This trend has increased to the point that some municipal drinking water systems contain alarming traces of anti-depressants. Nevertheless, there is a limit to how much one can possess and we are running out of anything new to patent and own.

Oppressive political regimes that exploit their people can be and have been rejected by social movements and revolutions, or by the intervention outside forces. The power of commercial interests presents a more insidious problem -- it is something entirely different. Corporate rule is more like the relationship between a drug dealer and an addict. The power of the corporations run on the immediate addictions of a population, without necessarily serving their basic, essentially human, well-being. This collective conditioning, what I see as a psychological enslavement, and the global economy it creates, works in large part because it thrives on our sense that something is missing, that something is wrong with your life and with you: It’s quite simple, you need to buy our product. Drink this soda to quench your thirst, take this pill to give you an erection, or stop your leg from shaking, this house, this car, fly to this great place for a vacation and you’ll feel better. Look at this happy couple smiling. They feel better. See?

The global economy as it is being sold to us would not work with an inherently contented people. You would have a hard time selling the latest gadget to people who feel connected to themselves and to one another; who feel whole, generous, grateful, and compassionate, and who know they have enough. This collective conditioning or psychological enslavement recreates itself; it will never make you content. It is meant to keep you stuck in the Wheel of Suffering -- the insanity of committing the same acts and expecting different results.

Next Sunday... The Argument

Love,

Eddie