Oblivion or Utopia – Evolving Beyond the Divide and Conquer Mindset
Gary ‘Z’ McGee, Staff Writer
Waking Times
“Either war is obsolete or man is. To evolve beyond war, is to choose oblivion over utopia.”~ Buckminster Fuller
Let’s make something clear, here at the outset. Concepts like perfection, enlightenment, and utopia are unattainable. But, and here’s the rub, that fact is irrelevant regarding the human pursuit of progressive evolution. Sure, we may not ever be perfect, but we should always strive to do the best we can at any given task. We may not become a perfect chess player, but we can try to become a great chess player, or even the best. Similarly, we may not ever become enlightened but we can become the most enlightened version of ourselves.
It’s the old, wise cliché: the journey is the thing. Even if we fall short, the fact that we tried our best is what matters. This applies even to the pursuit of utopia. We may never attain a perfect utopia, but the pursuit of healthier more improved forms of human governance is the thing. Better to move forward, progressively adapting to and overcoming the vicissitudes of human life, than to stagnantly become fixed and entrenched in a particular way of living. As Robert Louis Stevenson put it, “It’s better to travel hopefully than to arrive.”
1. Oblivion – The Divide and Conquer Mindset
“A man without a government is like a fish without a bicycle.” ~Alvaro Koplovich
For thousands of years the majority of humans on this planet have lived under the outdated and delusional notion that divide and conquer is the best way to live. Whether it has come from the political brainwashing and propaganda of monarchies and oligarchies of old, or from the statist monarchies (The UK) and oligarchic plutocracies disguised as democratic republics (The USA) of the modern era, the mindset and the drive has always been divide and conquer.
This mindset is not just outdated, delusional, and parochial, it is also a pathway to oblivion. Divide and conquer has led to warring nation states under the delusion that country-borders, state-lines, and national power matter more than freedom, migration, and human lives. It has created fear-based lifestyles plagued with blind patriotism, petty nationalism, and paranoid xenophobia. It has created diabolical overreaching nation states with a monopoly on violence that’s forcing it’s so-called “free” citizens into obeying its authority. And they do obey-blindly, in fear that they will be thrown in jail, or even killed. In short: divide and conquer means perpetual war. Because there will always be those who do not wish to be divided or conquered. There will always be resistance. Though power may tend to corrupt, rebellion will always be there to even the playing field.
Divide and conquer is a failed experiment in human governance, lending itself only to the equally outdated notion that might makes right. Might has never made right, and it never will. Since power tends to corrupt. Only cooperation can make right. As Darwin himself concluded, competition must always be secondary to the primacy of cooperation in order for progressive and healthy evolution to be a possibility.
2. Utopia – Embracing Progressive and Healthy Evolution
“Progress is impossible without change, and those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” ~Bernard Shaw
Governing the precept that power tends to corrupt and resistance will always be that which checks and balances entrenched power, it stands to reason that self-rule and self-mastery is far superior to, and healthier than, having masters or rulers lording over us. The former leads to freedom, while the latter only leads to tyranny. Self-rule and self-mastery leads to self-governance, and the realization that we do not need masters or rulers. We do not need a chain of obedience or a hierarchical system of authority. We only need leaders: preferably self-leadership that leads by healthy example.
Imagine it: a citizenry full of proactive self-leaders leading by example and focusing on their self-mastery with the mindset that cooperation is primary and competition is secondary. A collective force of free individuals living with the mindset that cosmic laws based on health, wellness, and survival trump petty man-made laws based on outdated and invalid reasoning. A progressive tribe of self-empowered co-creators abiding the non-aggression principle and the golden rule. A legion of self-adapters and self-overcomers tearing down the outdated, parochial, and unsustainable infrastructure of the overreaching, oppressive, and tyrannical master-and-ruler state.
So what if it sounds like a utopia. So what if it sounds “too good to be true.” The alternative is oblivion. The alternative is ecocide. The alternative is to become slaves to entrenched power. Better to strive for utopia and fail than to settle for oblivion and fail anyway. Better too courageous shoot for utopia and fall short with something improved, than to cowardly give into the all-too-common statist diatribe, “It’s just the way things are. Who am I to change it?” and stagnate, uncouth and unsung.
So it comes down to this, either we are obsolete as a species or divide-and-conquer politics is obsolete. Those who are seeking to better themselves, to enlighten themselves, and to better govern themselves, are the ones proactively attempting to prove that our species is not obsolete and that state-driven, fear-based, divide-and-conquer politics most definitely is they are the ones striving for healthy progressive evolution, full of hope and courage despite despair and apathy. It won’t be easy. There will be failures. There will be much trial and tribulation. But we must not lose hope. As Martin Luther King said, regarding the journey being the thing, “we must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.”
Read more articles by Gary ‘Z’ McGee.
About the Author
Gary ‘Z’ McGee, a former Navy Intelligence Specialist turned philosopher, is the author of Birthday Suit of God and The Looking Glass Man. His works are inspired by the great philosophers of the ages and his wide awake view of the modern world.
This article (Oblivion or Utopia – Evolving Beyond the Divide and Conquer Mindset) was originally created and published by Waking Times and is printed here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Gary ‘Z’ McGee and WakingTimes.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this statement of copyright.