“Those of us who have been so fortunate to have been born in a free society, tend to take freedom for granted, to regard it as the natural state of mankind. It is not! It is a rare a precious thing”. Milton Freeman
The vast majority of human history has been the story of the few tyrannising the many.
The freedoms we enjoy are relatively modern phenomena. They’ve only arisen in the last 200-300 years in selected areas of the globe. Most people in the world are still not so fortunate.
Let’s hope we can hold on to it, for the totalitarian winds are blowing once more.
Totalitarian regimes use a constant barrage of fear to keep their populations in a state of ever-increasing confusion and terror. The ultimate result of this horrendous situation is that people cede their individual freedoms in exchange for feeling safe and ‘taken care of’ by the state.
Totalitarian systems require total conformity on every level. Everyone must be ‘on the same page’. There must not be a single a stray thought for free thinking is dangerous. Lies become the norm. History is re-written, and truth becomes a long-lost dream.
Sound familiar anyone? If you turn on the news you will see that we are being assaulted continuously with one issue after another, blown up and exaggerated for maxim generation of fear and uncertainty. The more fear in a populous, the more controllable they become.
“He could not fight against the Party any longer… It was merely a question of learning to think as they thought… He wrote first in large clumsy capitals: FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. Then almost without a pause he wrote beneath it: TWO AND TWO MAKE FIVE… the struggle was finished. He had won the victory over himself. He loved Big Brother.” Winston in George Orwell’s 1984
The good news is totalitarianism cannot prevail without our acquiescence. It requires us to surrender to fear and obey unconscionable commands.
Our fate is still within our hands. We can think for ourselves. We can refuse to partake in the lies. We can stand up, speak the truth and resist totalising control.
“The moral to be drawn from this nightmare situation is a simple one. Don’t let it happen. It depends on you”. George Orwell