The Folly of Evil
Dear God’s blessed, today we discuss more about power and its folly. A man outside his own power who is yet unaware of the fact, which is to say his control, is considered a fool. (I recommend re-reading the last sentence at least once) What would his control entail though? Is not the bigger fool the one that believes their own control to be sacred and sacrosanct, as above all other things in their own mind? Plainly if we were meant to be completely under our own power then why has God made us so powerless? So a fool is someone outside control, but can those created without actual power over their own bodily material or soul be in their own control in any sense worthy of consideration?
Yet the politician and businessman is placed at the helm of vast empires of capital and labour, where he is expected to govern others. How does he do it though? Does he do it for the best interests of those involved? Is he really governing them or is he steering them all in directions for his own best interests or the interests of those he works for in turn? That’s slavery, not governance, regardless how much people might deserve the situation in your mortal estimation. One might ask now, how much different are we now from Rome, with its tax farming and mass slavery industrial complex? How does such absurdities come to pass? The answer lies in a deeper truth. The existence of foolish people with power implies the presence of third parties which are turned most to evil, and under their own foolish delusions. Are these overlords smarter than all the other fools, or are they simply those fools most convinced by their own authority? Are these the biggest fools on the planet? Yes. Nobody is less free than billionaires, yet they are far and away the least aware.
Isn’t this just some philosopher’s musings? Am I not as ignorant as the rest of humanity? Assuredly. I discuss the nature of human folly, however, or the mechanisms which allow for it to promulgate, and I do not pretend to being outside of this ignorance, but awareness is necessary which is why I write here. Consider a fool: no more born ignorant than anyone else, yet tricked into a more wilful and defensive form of ignorance, lured by the seductive promises of material power. He believes himself to be the master of his fate, yet he is merely a pawn in a game played by forces far greater than himself. Shadowy third parties are fools as well, using greed, ambition, or insidious pride to target other fools no less lost than themselves. How valuable are these fools to our edification, though?
The irony is profound. The fools, who cannot govern themselves, are given power to govern others as leverage to in turn control each other. These are children handed swords to protect the kingdom. The result? Chaos, of course. The only thing that will be protected is the least thing worthy of protection: namely, power of fools over one another. This is a mirror on society. We live in an age where the most powerful are the least capable, and loudest voices drown out wisest counsels. The fool in power is not immune to the rot he creates but is rather a most important accessory to the disease of deeper rot: the corruption in concepts of truth, virtues, and definitions by forces of delusional greed. There is no wisdom in the wielding of power, but there is much in the recognition of its limits, most especially in light of our own as imperfect humans.