Chains of Our Times


Back then, our forefathers were enslaved by chains. Their being slaves, although that extremely affected their thinking, was more physical than mental.

Those days have sort of gone by. However, slavery has taken a more subtle, and, cruel form. Cruel in a sense that, then, a slave knew that he was a slave. But today, the majority of the so-called modern slaves don’t have even the slightest clue that they are slaves.

The best way to free a man, is to leave him a critical independent thinker. As that will afford him the necessary “gray matter” to question and/or challenge whatever that authority and/or the media feeds and/or forces on him.

I know not of anything that can better a man’s thinking better than a good book can.

And it’s not that there aren’t enough good books out there. There are just too many things that are fighting — with books — for potential readers’ money and attention.

In their relentless war against books and reading, slave masters of our times are relying on the two weapons below, to impede mental emancipation of the masses.

Entertainment

Entertainment is arguably the library’s biggest competitor. One that is, without a doubt, kicking the library’s butt.

Books are fighting a losing battle. Taking into account, the sad reality that most people have been accustomed to being entertained. No amusement, No attention.

Not only does entertainment distract the entertained from thinking. It subtly feeds the entertained with illusions of things like what a successful person looks like. And, as if that’s not enough, it escalates the entertained’s urge to consume more.

Though I mostly blame our education system for producing a society with only a few avid readers; entertainment too plays a huge role in keeping the number of avid book readers as low as they possibly can be. For, not only does entertainment demand the entertained’s money; it demands their attention (thus: “their time”) too.

Entertainment has trained people to demand, well, “entertainment”, out of almost everything that they invest their attention into. Like Neil Postman remarked in his prophetic book, Amusing Ourselves To Death, even something as “serious” as the news is expected to be entertaining.

In a nutshell, … No entertainment, No attention. No attention, No audience. No audience, No advertisers. No advertisers, No show. No show, No entertainer.

Most of you will not read this writing until its end. For I was foolish enough not to make it amusing. Or, at the least, include a few “amusing” photographs in it.

Entertainment’s “No entertainment, No attention” effect is evident in the advertising industry. When was the last time that you’ve seen or heard an advert that, regardless of the seriousness of the advertised, didn’t, or, at the least, attempt to, amuse you?

Granted, I might be talking utter nonsense, but this writing will get attention from fewer readers, merely because it makes people think. An activity that slave masters of our times have successfully trained the masses to hate and/or find boring.

The ironic thing being that, more than half of the very few of you who have made it this far, will be interrupted by entertainment, in one form or another.

Debt (Money you didn’t have)

In a word, selling on credit is an act of allowing someone to buy something with money that they do not have, yet.

Though only a few do, there are a few ways to exploit credit. For example, one might take a loan to start a business (to make money, not to spend it). And, should the business do well, the business owner (and, possibly, generations to follow) will continue reaping profits. Even decades after the owner has paid his last loan repayment.

Be that as it may, the sad reality is that people, arguably the majority, use credit to fund the consumer, not the producer, in them. That is where modern slavery starts.

Back then, slaves were not really recompensed. They “just” worked for the master.

Today, there is a widespread illusion of workers working for themselves. And, that is merely because it is the worker’s bank account in which a salary is paid into. But looking at how much workers earn, and, what they are left with after paying those that they owe, one can’t help but assert that workers work for people they owe.

Vicious Cycle

By now, most of you should have already noticed how the two above weapons, used to fortify modern slavery, work together to keep the masses enslaved.

Through being entertained, the entertained’s minds are dumb down to noticing the slavery that comes with using other people’s money to buy things that they want to need. That is to say, … to buy things that they do not really need.

To unknowingly perpetuate this cycle, the entertained use credit to buy things like TVs with huge screens. Just to ensure that they are forever entertained. In return …

(The entertained will, in their attempt to look like celebrities, get deeper into debt.)




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— October 5, 2011.