THE BULWARKS OF SOCIETY

How does society protect itself from threats of annoyance and injury,
Emanating from without or within?...............

• COMPULSION
• PURPOSE & CONTROL
• GUILT

That's it.
That's how we sell out and suck up --
Go along to get along.

I didn't say it was wrong,
And I don't say it's right either......


Symptoms of the Presence of Social Compulsion:

A false feeling Security
Shame and guilt, both as  concepts and as feelings.
Authority figures
A Duty consciousness
Words like "should", "must" and "ought" popping up in conversation.
An absence of natural joy and spontaneity,
A feeling of enslavement -- loss of natural freedom
Feeling unloved
Pretending and deceit.
A feeling of separation


Symptoms of Socially Sanctioned Purpose and Control:

A false feeling of Security .
A pervading Dread. There always seems to be someone or something that we're encouraged to be afraid of, along with something to buy, or someone to vote for, to fix it for us.
A longing for a Saviour (anyone from Julia Gillard to Jenny Craig)
A consciousness of Scarcity and Lack.
A belief that there's something to gain, and in "winning" and "earning" as the only legitimate ways to live a fulfilled life.
Anything that makes it socially acceptable to remain a victim for longer than 5 minutes.
A marked absence of natural spontaneity and joy
Ulterior motives.
Dependent relationships.
Power games of domination, manipulation and control.
Emotional, financial and social  enslavement.
All forms of bullying, especially legally sanctioned overlording (including everything from the treatment of asylum seekers, to the male mating ritual posturings of  parliamentary question time).
Pretence and deceit (glorified in political spin).
Emotional hooking.
Addiction (to anything)
Political correctness
Polite niceness (as distinct from open Kindness)
Soul-less propriety and correctness.
Over-regulation  and govern-ment.
Any niceties. regulations and "rights" that encourage people to avoid
self-responsibility for their choices, decisions and actions
Social supports based on acceptable criteria of "un-ableness".

Symptoms of Socially Sanctioned Guilt:

A false feeling of Security.
A fundamental assumption of intrinsic un-worthiness (original sin), and the necessity to a) avoid damnation; and b) earn salvation.
The adversarial court system (Innocence is NOT the opposite of guilt)
All religion (as distinct from spirituality). Some are worse than others. In the main, the more powerful the church hierarchy, the greater use of guilt to keep the common laity under control).
An absence of natural joy and spontaneity.
Shame.
Hypocrisy.
Public floggings (eg. so-called "current affairs" programmes)
Myths about "heaven", "hell", "purgatory", "Armageddon", and "the Judgment Day".
A pandemic famine of empathy and feeling-for.
An epidemic of depressive feelings of separation, fear, and ostracism.
Moral and ethical dictates.
Appeals to "conscience" -- an appalling misnomer in the context of Guilt. There's no such thing as a "guilty conscience"! There is a feeling of "guilty un-conscience".


As I said earlier -- these things are what they are: neither right nor wrong.
But they ought to be seen for what they are,
And that is up to me in my life,
And you in yours.
If you want freedom,
Think for yourself.
(Kings and bishops hate that!)