The State seems very much like mold. When you look at it from a distance it looks like one entity, but it’s actually a brainless collections of tiny parts moving and developing independently to take over all available space. Attack mold violently and its spores take to the wind and spread in a million directions. Spray bleach and disinfectants until you think you’ve won, and still it comes back. Killing part of it only creates an opportunity for the rest of it to move in and take over. It continues to grow until it consumes all available space and food, then it will go dormant awaiting the next opportunity to grow.
This is a grim outlook of a sad future. Fortunately, this metaphor is flawed in one aspect and this grim future is not our future. The State is not like mold because the State cannot go dormant. The State must reproduce its myths and lies in a continuous stream without missing a generation. Otherwise it has to start over with a single Jericho, and the State does not want to start over again.
So lets bring that microscope a little closer and learn about this stinky little parasite.
Always keep in mind; with enough support the State can be a powerful force no matter its diminutive size. And yes it is small, despite its appearance. The State is really only as large as a single person because it’s based on individual humans acting on its behalf.
The free market is more powerful than the state because it’s driven by the power that created man, not by man alone. The market is driven by the same power that drives a butterfly to leave the forests of Mexico and fly to the prairies of Canada. The market is what drove man out of caves and into huts, and out of huts into houses of stone. The market drives the sparrow to attack the crow that nears its nest. The market is the power that drives the stars to pull matter to themselves! The market is the very breath of the universe!
Oops, sorry. I got a bit ahead of the story there. Let’s get our feet back on the ground and our eyes back on the enemy.
So the question is about the end of the State. In this short article, I won’t attempt to cover the long hard fight that it will take to kill the State. That’s for another time and a lot more space than this writing will allow. But I would like to cover the possibility of the State returning after it has been long dead. I said above that the State requires a continuous stream of generations for its lies to maintain their hold on the human mind, but within one generation it can die completely and come back. After all it has died out completely in the past, only to rise from its ashes and begin anew.
Consider the ancient myth of the Phoenix. Here’s a story common to almost every culture because, I believe, it’s actually the story of the State. Often times the State has adopted the image of the Phoenix to intimidate and awe the people into submission. A sort of hedge against rebellion saying to the world, “Kill me and I will return greater than before!” In the early days of Christianity John the apostle wrote the final book of the Bible sometime perhaps around 90AD. In it he describes a Beast that rises to dominate the whole world and right at the peak of its power it’s struck down with a deathblow to the head. Then miraculously this hideous Beast rises from the dead stronger than before!
I love zombie stories. Sorry, I had to break the flow there before I waxed all rhapsodic again and started talking about the stars and the universe and what not.
I generally try to avoid basing anything on John’s book of his Revelation because of the confusion that surrounds it. But I would like to add one thought to the above statement. When I think of John’s story I like to imagine he’s talking about the State that existed during his lifetime, the Roman State. If I try I can convince myself that the deathblow to the State came with the fall of Rome and the resurrection of the State is the modern incarnation. I don’t think about that too much because it’s thin and very easy to punch full of holes.
So then, lets wrap this up by addressing the question directly. What will it take for humans to give up the idea that a small group of people can make laws and violate nature by dominating the rest of humanity. What will it take for mankind to reject the myth that prosperity, peace, and security can be obtained by using violence, lies, and theft?
I won’t answer directly. In this little article, I choose to cheat and give the answer Thoreau and Emerson gave; mankind must change. A leap must take place. If by leap do I mean spiritual or if by leap do I mean evolutional? I dare not assume. I do know that it will be a leap based on knowledge. Humans must individually and as a whole thoughtfully reject violence, lies, and theft. Once accomplished the State will be a memory, but nothing more. A tail told to keep children from misbehaving.
Consider the lesson of the Great Colossus of Rhodes. That huge idol that dominated the entrance of the city-state. Although it was made of stone, copper, and bronze, all valuable materials, once it fell the parts laid there as a lesson in humility for over eight hundred years before the Arabs invaded and broke it up. So massive was the scrapping of the statue that it’s said that one man from the Syrian city of Homs purchased “three thousand loads of Corinthian brass”. I can’t help but wonder where all that brass is today. How many trinkets have been sold to tourists over the centuries? How many oil lamps were made from the thumb of the great idol?
I wonder, when this Colossus of ours falls, what of it will lay in the dirt as a warning to future generations? Or will we melt it down and wipe it from our minds so that future generations can speculate if there ever was such a time when mankind committed such a barbaric practice upon itself? Will it fade into memory like tails of cannibalism that no civilized people would admit to having in their heritage?
Will there be nothing but a stain on the walls of history and a few petrified spores as evidence of the mold?
Ben Stone
2011
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