Richard’s Selected Writings on Peasant MentalityArticle 20; The Survival Of The Community Depends Upon Its Absolute Selfishness. • [Richard]: (...). I am passing through a crowd of people thronging the area encompassed by boutiques and cafés and the like ... and I am wondering if they are fully aware of the psychological implications of having morally ‘signed’ that invisible social contract. I think not. No one I have spoken to yet, or read about in the many articles available, has been able to profoundly understand what is implied when an individual is accused, by the community, of being selfish. The community itself is beyond reproach in regards to its own self-centredness. The survival of the community depends upon its absolute selfishness. Although professing to hold the interests of the individual to heart, when push comes to shove, the individual is unhesitatingly sacrificed without compunction ... even though there is an official wringing of hands, a lamenting of the necessity, a praising of the patriotic duty so willingly performed ... and so on. The basic premise lying behind the legality of the existence of ‘the community’ is its designated role of acting ‘for the good of the whole’. Instinctually believing one’s well-being to be assured, nobody calls the community to account. Has anyone fully realised that the community does not exist for the good of the individual? The phrase ‘good of the whole’ seems to imply this, but closer examination reveals that ‘the whole’ exists only in bombast and blather ... it is a concept, an ideology. Only an individual person – a flesh-and-blood body – actually exists. Where people have no integrity – which is the case in order for the ‘whole’ to exist – they have no genuine individuality. They are invisible ... as if a non-person, a statistic, a number. They may complain about the ‘dehumanisation’ process, little realising that they are but a social identity ... a fictitious entity having only psychological existence. This social identity has taken up residence in the body and rules the roost in an autocratic manner. Nevertheless, it is itself subject to the commands of the community, for it is a loyal member, having been created by the community – the ‘whole’ – in the first place. This loyalty thrives on the moral investment that the social identity has made in the community; one’s very ‘well-being’ depends upon receiving a continuous supply of moral dividends. One’s psychological existence is so precarious that one needs constant endorsement, so as to feel that ‘I’ am alive, that ‘I’ still exist. When the ‘whole’ accuses one of being selfish – which it relentlessly does by extolling the virtues of duty, obligation and responsibility – one can then chastise oneself, thus maintaining one’s sense of being a social identity. With suitable remorse, one has then been coerced, cajoled and shamed into having one’s usefulness to the community restored ... and one feels needed again. Nonetheless, one is actually crazy to chastise oneself because ‘I’ am selfish by ‘my’ very created nature ... and ‘I’ will always be self-centred. Self-castigation only serves to crystallise ‘me’. It is essential to the community’s ‘well-being’ that ‘I’ remain selfish. Because the ‘whole’, having created ‘me’ so as to perpetuate its own existence – and being utterly selfish itself – desperately needs self-centred members. ‘I’ readily invest, morally, in the community for there one recognises one’s ilk ... ‘I’ am a lonely soul and it is essential that ‘I’ have a sense of belonging to the like-minded ‘whole’. It is an illusion of togetherness designed to assuage the feeling of aloneness that both oneself and the community experiences ... ‘I’ and ‘humanity’ feel lost and lonely in what is perceived to be the vast reaches of space and time that make up an empty universe. The search for extra-terrestrial life is but one outcome of this feeling of separation. This desolate coping-mechanism also has the unfortunate result of creating resentful citizens. The ‘whole’, being bigger and more selfish than ‘me’, has its own – perceived to be serious – communal needs that take precedence over ‘my’ – perceived to be insignificant – personal needs. Because of a continuous supply of citizens, the ‘whole’ does not need ‘me’ as much as ‘I’ need it. Thus the community always has the upper hand and can do with ‘me’, virtually, whatever it wants. There is a constant power-battle going on between ‘me’ and the ‘whole’ ... which one must invariably lose, in order to cultivate and nurture one’s invisible Spirit. The community dangerously wants one to have a Spirit, for it requires a consistent reserve of supplicating selves prepared to sacrifice themselves in the name of the ‘Good of the whole’. The community coopts the word ‘we’ and turns it back into the ‘whole’ to serve its own nefarious purposes. Not surprisingly none of these shenanigans, deemed necessary by everyone, are essential when ‘I’ realise who ‘we’ actually are ... and then see what I am. I am this body only; bereft of any identity as Spirit ... of any entity at all. There is no-one inside of this body to be lost, lonely, frightened or cunning. There is an innate purity in being me as-I-am, for this universe is already always perfect. There is a magnanimity and a beneficence everywhere all at once and I find that I am benign in character. It therefore follows that all my thoughts and deeds are automatically benevolent and beneficial – I do not do it, it happens of itself – and communal service is no longer a duty, an obligation, a responsibility. I can readily enjoy a free association with other – flesh and blood – individuals to form a loose-knit affiliation that acts for the good of each individual ... for when ‘I’ expire, the ‘whole’ also ceases to exist. The ‘whole’, which created ‘me’, was being re-affirmed and perpetuated by one’s very ‘being’. All human beings are born into an already existing community which takes itself as being real, as being a ‘whole’. Each baby is born with a biological ‘instinct for survival’ which the ‘whole’ transforms into a psychological ‘will to survive’ ... to survive as a social identity. This newest recruit to ‘humanity’ at large submits, rather unwillingly, to the demands of the ‘whole’, for it is mesmerised into thinking and feeling that its own needs will be best met by subsuming itself into the ‘whole’. Since one is selfish by one’s created nature, ‘I’ will sustain the community – the ‘whole’ – which is more selfish than ‘me’, in conjunction with all the other similarly afflicted bodies. This process is inevitable so long as ‘I’ exist. Consequently, the conundrum which all citizens are faced with is dissolved with ‘my’ demise. Astonishingly, I find that *social change is unnecessary*; I can live freely in the community as-it-is. I do not subscribe to that ridiculous hyperbole that the community acts ‘for the good of the whole’ for I see directly and with clarity. I know that there is no ‘whole’ outside of passionate ‘human’ imagination. The community actually exists for the good of me – and for the good of all other individuals – without ever realising it. [emphasis added]. A good example of this is the social welfare system. Because of the Agrarian Revolution, the Industrial Revolution and the more recent Technological Revolution, people can no longer pursue a subsistence life-style as hunter-gatherers. The land is no longer free-range; it is all either publicly or privately owned. As this situation prevailed when one was born, it is incumbent upon the community at large to provide one with the means to obtain the necessities of life. The predominating system has been the provision of money – acquired by working – with which to buy food, clothing, shelter, etcetera. If the community cannot sustain full employment, it must provide an alternate means for one to purchase one’s goods. A social welfare system is not a luxury supplied by an affluent society; it is an essential requisite that the community must readily furnish. This is not a moral issue – as the ‘whole’ smugly feels it to be – for welfare is not charity. Because, regardless of the ‘whole’s self-endowed compassionate nature, the disenfranchised must be fed and housed. If the community did not do this, there would be a rebellion from the hungry and homeless millions. The preservation of the orderly fabric of society is the guiding principle at play here, not moral duty, obligation and responsibility on the part of the community. Accordingly, in the actual world the community is never selfish. It acts for the good of the individual – which is why it exists – and in doing so it preserves itself in order to serve the individual. Only in the real world is it self-centred, acting ‘for the good of the whole’ and preserving itself – at the expense of the individual – for the sake of preserving itself. A person who sees all this clearly and completely, who understands all this deeply and comprehensively, who knows all this actually and absolutely, will never make the mistake of thinking and feeling that one must ‘die for one’s country’ as a moral duty, obligation and responsibility. The choice to risk one’s life – or not – to repel an invasion is a freely made decision; it is not the result of coercion, cajolery or shame. The same applies for conscription – that abominable forced induction into military service – for one will not succumb to a situation where one is compelled to kill or be killed. One realises that conscription is a ‘crime against humanity’ and that a country will decide whether to allow itself to be invaded or not by ‘voting with its feet’. If voluntary enlistment is not sufficient to counter the attack, then the country has democratically voted for surrender. The same pure rationale applies to having babies; one is not coerced, cajoled or shamed into ‘doing one’s bit for society’ by risking one’s life in child-birth in order to populate and perpetuate the country. One makes a freely considered decision whether to conceive or not; the country thus ‘votes with its feet’ on the issue of continuing the species or letting it die out. One will never commit the error of thinking and feeling that society owns one’s body; it is not one’s duty, obligation and responsibility to procreate. Contraception and abortion are not moral issues; they are the means to sustain one’s salubrity. One does not ‘owe a debt to society’, for society exists only for the good of the individual. And this has been the case all along. ‘I’ blamed society for ‘my’ woes ... with ‘me’ extirpated there are no woes. There is nothing and no-one to need any blame, for nothing is going wrong. It was all a play in emotive imaginative thought ... an errant and vainglorious brain-pattern. Nothing more needs to be done now, except to freely assist another person to actualise this vital break-through for themselves. When that person is also free they can similarly facilitate the freedom of another person ... and another ... and another ... and so on. By operating in this manner, on a one-to-one basis, freedom from being an identity could spread throughout the entire population of this planet. A truly evolutionary change will have taken place; a mutation of human consciousness. The much longed-for golden age will have finally been ushered in ... and by the peoples concerned. There was no need for a Supernatural Agency all along. The ‘Human Condition’ is such that it can readily respond to the do-it-yourself method; the ability is within the human character to fix things up for itself. The intervention of some Supernatural Outsider is never going to happen anyway, for there is no such creature. Human beings are on their own, free to manage their own affairs as they see fit. Whenever one thinks about it, would one have it any other way? If that fictitious Almighty Creature were to come sweeping in on a cloud, waving a magic wand and putting everything to rights, would not one feel cheated? Would not one question why human beings had to wait so long upon the capricious whim of some self-righteous God who could have acted long ago? It is all nonsense, upon sober reflection! With freedom spread like a chain-letter, in the due course of time, global freedom would revolutionise the concept of ‘humanity’.
It would be a free association of peoples world-wide; a utopian-like loose-knit affiliation of like-minded individuals. One would be a citizen of
the world But none of this matters much when one is already living in the actual world. In actual freedom, life is experienced as being perfect as-it-is. One knows that one is living in a beneficent universe ... and that is what actually counts. The self-imposed iniquities that ail the people who stubbornly wish to remain denizens of the real world, fail to impinge upon the blitheness and gaiety of one who lives the vast scheme of things. The universe does not force anyone to be happy and harmless, to live in peace and ease, to be free of sorrow and malice. It is a matter of personal choice as to which way one will travel. Humans, being as they are, will probably continue to tread the ‘Tried and True’ paths, little realising that they are the tried and failed ways. There is none so contumacious as a self-righteous soul who is convinced that they know the way to live ... as revealed in their ancient and revered moralistic scriptures or ethicalistic secular philosophies. So be it. This universe has arranged itself so that the one who dares to go all the way is instantly living in universal peace ... irrespective of what other peoples are believing and doing. One is free to act in a way beneficial to all. This is a measure of how perfect life is in the actual. I have not signed any social contract. (pp. 141-146, ‘Richard’s Journal’, 2nd Ed. ©The Actual Freedom Trust 2004). RETURN TO RICHARD’S SELECTED WRITING INDEX The Third Alternative (Peace On Earth In This Life Time As This Flesh And Blood Body) Here is an actual freedom from the Human Condition, surpassing Spiritual Enlightenment and any other Altered State Of Consciousness, and challenging all philosophy, psychiatry, metaphysics (including quantum physics with its mystic cosmogony), anthropology, sociology ... and any religion along with its paranormal theology. Discarding all of the beliefs that have held humankind in thralldom for aeons, the way has now been discovered that cuts through the ‘Tried and True’ and enables anyone to be, for the first time, a fully free and autonomous individual living in utter peace and tranquillity, beholden to no-one. Richard’s Text ©The
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