Kings and people(s)

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Of course persons are social, and they socialize even if it is only the kind that is transnational. They torture and imprison their own people while hobnobbing with foreign dignitaries. Here's an essay of mine.

...the historical change in world politics came when the human species shifted from a politics in which there existed a simultaneous separation and fraternization to a technological control possibility. There is at one time a period of politics characterised by the duality of fraternization of kings (e.g. marriages from one royal family of one country to another royal family in another country) occuring at the same moment with the practical and physical separation of king (an ultimate singularity) from people. The people/persons (I find the two terms ambiguous) are of course called the "subjects" of the government, which has control over them. A period of simultaneous fraternization and separation now shifts to a period of a technological control possibility.

We can now begin to understand what "progress" is. Progress involves the elimination of a physical separation that had at one time existed, as a matter of practicality and low technology, between the rulers and the people (peuple, if you like French). But now that we are so close to them, the rulers reason, what can we do? Shall we oppress them, or give them some kind of system in which they can have human dignity, human rights, freedoms, opportunities, possibilities, etc.?

In other words, advances in technology or science make it possible for rulers to have direct control. The observation is one that our history books confirm. These history books explain this. At a certain point security apparatuses are placed over the masses. Historians also say that the modern state comes into being as physical possibilities of communication and connection increase. The result is that we sometimes act as if roads and highways and rail lines are good, per se. Is this necessarily so? Why then do we always say it is good? It seems to me that this is ideological. The actions of intellectual hacks grow out of ideological decisions that get made. These fundamental decisions of what the ideology must be then help the intellectual hacks of this benighted world "voluntarily" say the right thing according to the ideological "turn" that has been accomplished --- for example that roads and connections are good things, necessarily. The writers know to repeat the basic formula. They know what ther are supposed to say. It is all ideology. This is why we are saying that (big) pipes, roads and (internet) highways are good. We articulate what the 'ideological superstructure' wants us to. Why should they necessarily be good? They could do various types of harm as well. The modern world has its city folk, and its country folk as well.

No one could stop the change. The emergent possibilities are that either the rulers could attain absolute control - almost certainly they'd then oppress the subjects - or the persons involved could acquire some control themselves. That is a kind of shorthand version of our situation. The modern option we generally endorse (because we are so "nice" and well-trained) is that they should be able to control their own lives.

Generally speaking our awareness is focused on the case of western Europe, where eventually it was the concept of democracy and not something like fascism or totalitarianism that seems to have emerged the victor. (Western Europe is also where they had some wars, killing many). Capitalism helped rather than hindered in the pro-democracy process (1). At this point, then, democracy is taken by the (nice) historians as that which triumphs. The powers of kings are limited. That part I think is indisputable: and, semblances (at any rate) of democracy took root.
Telling the truth is always dangerous. But I'll do it. I think I might make so bold as to say that today we are seeing a reversion away from this general trend towards democracy --- and it's not because of the people of Gabon or something. In other words it is not at all because of a lack of capacity on the part of people; they are still people after all, and the persons forming the human collective or human race are not the problem: my experience is that there's nothing wrong with the masses. In fact, we have got them pretty well educated as a result of all this progress and technology. (I also could say that I know them personally, I've met them, and I can guarantee that they are OK.) Rather it is because powers such as China and Russia and indeed the U.S. and indeed Britain, are unable to commit--they can't commit. They are unable to make a real decision in favor the well-being of this population whom they govern. They are now proving unable to commit themselves to this tradition they are themselves part of. They fail to understand the choice. They fail to definitively commit themselves to this basic choice we outlined above. There are two possibilities for the more technological sort of nation, but the choice to uphold our own hard-won democratic traditions is not made.
Democracy is in danger as the U. S. turns its back on, for example, the world poor. Why not help them? Why not talk about them? For God sake! It seems very ominous not to even talk about them. They are not sufficiently aided --- I guess. I do not feel we are getting any information. That's ominous. These large numbers of persons are not only not sufficiently aided but, ominously, not even discussed in the media (hence we need to "guess" as to their level of material well-being or else hide from one another what the facts are). Media, government and corporations all fail the cause. The cause is the option of democracy, and the intellectual elite in general are failing to protect the population of their countries --- and therefore of the world, since those two are connected. The ordinary people can carry out their human tasks. However, in order to do so, they need the minimal level of support from elites, a class which, after all, does indeed still exist. Those elites ought to do their job.

(1) here, the author has very specific ideas, found elsewhere