Great blog! Thanks for sharing your thoughts. This subject is something I think about a lot.

Are you so sure you are not a slave?

I consider slavery a state of mind.

At the university, they told me an anecdote about a student from a previous year. The guy was the best video editor that faculty saw in many years. He got a job with a prestigious director on a big movie and he was fired after only a few days. He was an intelligent guy who wanted to learn, so when the director told him to cut the shot, he asked why. He wanted to understand directors thinking process, to better anticipate his taste. The director misinterpreted that for a challenge to his authority and fired the guy. If he answered the question he would have had a better editor on the team, but his position of power was more important to him than a skilled workforce.

'Don't ask questions and do what you're told'. We were advised.

We were also told that to get a job with Ardman Studios (main employer locally) we would have to sign a contract that gives them a copyright to everything we produce during the period we work for them. This would include a poem I might write on the way to work or a tune I would compose over the weekend. I would also be expected to socialise with other workers after my working hours. The Ardman Studios will pay well and give you a privilege of being part of 'the family'. Some students were drooling all over themselves to get that opportunity.

There are people who simply desire to control others and take pleasure from doing so. There is no need or reason for them to do it other than the selfish pleasure they get from having power over others. Ideology and efficiency are only an excuse or a cover story. Degrading others is the only way they can feel good about themselves, due to the huge stigma of guilt and shame they carry in themselves. In psychology, they are categorised under cluster b personality disorders. It's well worth researching this subject.

Due to lack of education and understanding, we glamorise these personality traits. We take the individuals possessing them to be great leaders and heroes, taken in by their charisma and fearlessness. We confuse lack of fear for courage and charisma for sincerity. They prove to be dishonest, unable to empathise and therefore cruel and ruthless. We are so caught up in their mind games we don't even recognise it

A lot of what feminism labels as 'toxic masculinity' is an accurate description of cluster B personalities. I wrote a dissertation about it. :)

The mystery traditions that talk about illumination, are actually teaching a basic psychotherapy and how to defend yourself against exploitative personalities. They are always first to be persecuted by authoritarian systems, upon failing they become integrated, alas in a modified form, that removes the individuating qualities. Use of trance, psychoactive, art and creativity is often presecuted, heavily regulated and devalued. These are some of the methods that can help to heal from cluster b abuse. The catch is that if you do go through psychotherapy and heal from it, you are unlikely to fall for the manipulation again. In other words, you are 'illuminated', you saw through the deception. If you can do so on a small scale, at home, or at work, you can also do so on a larger scale.

This is why raise of authoritarianism is always paired with powerful ideologies, be it in form of religion, state worship (patriotism) or corporate power. It is always accompanied by suppression of critical thinking, like in the anecdote about the student and the film director.

'Do what you're told and never question your orders'.