Chapter 24: Modern Feudalism and Religion

Religion, in one form or another, appears to be a fundamental expression of important aspects of our innate nature as humans.

Yet, religion has often been, and still is, often twisted and abused to bilk people and keep people compliant submissive. That is why Karl Marx famously wrote, that “religion is the opiate of the people.” Ensuing attempts to suppress and erase religion were unsuccessful. Religion resurfaced from underground as soon as the Soviet Union dissolved.

This was not surprising since religion seems to arise out of a basic part of our makeup, and because suppression through intimidation and punishment is ineffective, producing the overt appearance of compliance, coupled with fierce covert resistance. Our behaviors are much more responsive to reinforcement (not enforcement) or lack of reinforcement. Furthermore, any effort to suppress fundamental drives and motives at the root of who we are, are doomed. If one tries to suppress eating, sleeping, sex, humor – or religion, one will see people doing these activities but feeling conflicted and guilty about it. That is not beneficial to anybody, and does deep and lasting harm. The only result is to leave us at war with ourselves. So, on one hand, religion is often used to manipulate and control people, to their detriment. On the other hand, suppressing religion becomes its own dogma and only drives religion underground. How do we support authentic religious expression and prevent religion from mutating into harmful, toxic distortions? The United States Constitution does a good job, by simultaneously guaranteeing freedom of religion and separation of church and state. These two conditions are essential for any society and people to be free, empowered and thriving. The challenge comes when any religion becomes aggressive, domineering, and toxic. We see this in groups like Al Qaeda, Isis, Boko Haram, and “Gospel of Prosperity” televangelists, and various Christian denominations bent on suppressing everything and everyone who isn’t part of their sects. Even the concept of “religious liberty” is being distorted into legalistic arguments defining and enshrining it to mean exclusively the legal “right” for those who control a resource, such as employers, landlords, lenders, hospitals, service providers, banks, realtors and many others, to discriminate against, fire, refuse to hire, withhold healthcare from, deny approval and otherwise exclude you and me if they say we in some way offend their religious beliefs. In this modern feudalistic paradigm, as in Medieval feudalism, the power of the ultra-wealthy feudal elite inexorably grows, expands and consolidates over time, and their influence over lawmakers overpowers the influence of constituents. Our rights and protections are eroded steadily towards extinction. If you are a billionaire who owns vast companies, lands, and resources, you are granted dictatorial power over all who are contained therein. If you own nothing, you have no rights under this paradigm, regardless of Constitutional guarantees, and must not offend the feudal lords if you want to keep your livelihood, residence, or health. If you do offend them, they can blacklist you to prevent you from finding work or lodging elsewhere. This is in no way the face of a free, democratic, or healthy society. If the religion of the CEO of the company you work for is against birth control, then he or she is allowed to exclude it from your health plan and even fire or refuse to hire you if he or she learns that you use birth control. In such a country where all things medical are out-of-reach price-gouged, there is no corresponding legal protection for your right to access to birth control. That’s only one example among countless examples. Would a company run by a Jehovah’s Witness be allowed to exclude lifesaving blood transfusions from your health plan? If current trends continue, the answer will soon be yes. Could a Hindu-run corporation fire you for eating meat, or a Muslim or Jewish-run company not hire your because you eat pork? Under the current trend, the most likely answer is yes, or will be soon. It would appear that the concept of “religious liberty” applies mainly to the modern feudal lords at the top of the pyramid in the current legal and political climate in the United States and elsewhere. There is even one recent case, in which a man was fired from a construction company for refusing to attend a Bible study which was deemed mandatory by his boss. If this stands, then precedent is set that your employer, landlord or party you are doing business with, is allowed to impose their religious beliefs on you. By that reasoning, the only place where you and I have religious liberty is on our own property, if we are fortunate enough to own any. The vast majority of property is owned or otherwise controlled by the modern feudal lords. This is literally and functionally indistinguishable from Medieval feudalism. Once again, the socio-economic power structure subverts and overrules the freedoms guaranteed in the Constitution. The voice of the ultra-wealthy and their corporations are loud and clear in the ears of lawmakers and judges, while our voices are a faint, distant whisper. The use of the term “religious liberty” to apply to this legal enshrinement of the power of those who have power to impose their religious beliefs on their employees, renters, borrowers, and customers is quite deliberate, calculated and egregious. It’s hard to come out against “religious liberty” without sounding like you’re implying that you’re against religious freedom and being easily misperceived and spun as such. Such arguments are akin to arguing in the mid-1860’s United States that abolishing slavery was a violation of the “civil rights” of slave owners, and that the government was unjustly depriving them of their “property.” Such arguments were actually made at the time. This trend part and parcel the relentless and inevitable consolidation of ownership and control into the hands of the modern feudal elite, whether it be over land, food, water, electricity, transportation, or even many very personal aspects of the lives of us modern serfs and peasants. Regardless of the Constitution, if you displease your employer or landlord, for example, then they can deny you livelihood, lodging, and the ability to find new work and place to live. That is how this dominant socio-economic paradigm is set up. It can no more be turned from that course, than a shark can cease to be a carnivore. It is fundamentally antithetical to any form of democratic, free society governed of, by and for the people. Dictatorship is not just imposed by autocratic governments. It is also impose by undemocratic socio-economic power structures. As long as this paradigm operates, we peasants and serfs can, at great effort and cost, achieve modest gains by pressuring politicians loudly and long enough; but always, over time, the modern feudal lords and their corporations will erode away those gains and reassert their control and dominance. In the new paradigm after the Transition, religious liberty will be explicitly defined as a personal matter and right. It will be illegal to obstruct or impede access of another to any resource for any reason whatsoever, except for resources that one is personally using. There will be no modern feudalistic socio-economic pyramid, and so no power of any over another. Corporations will cease to exist, and resources currently controlled by them will transition to consensus-driven collaborative peer-based governing. There will be no scarcifed, compulsory form of currency to be weaponized and abused as an instrument of control by those who have lots of it over those who don’t. It will be impossible to own resources that one isn’t directly, personally using. In shared environments such as workplaces, the civil and religious liberty of each and every one will be guaranteed, and it will be a crime to harass or exclude another over religious, ethnic, racial or other personal traits. We will have guaranteed freedom to follow our chosen path, but be prevented from imposing it on others, with no exceptions. You can dress how you want, but you can’t tell me how to dress. I can eat how I believe, but I can’t make you eat the same. With no profit motive, goods and services will be produced to fill authentic needs. There will be no artificial scarcification. For the majority of us, our religion (regardless of which one) is a positive expression of something life-affirming in our nature that enriches our lives, enlivens our communities, and inspires us to be better people. Adherents of every religion have been inspired to acts of heroism and compassion. Yet we all know that there are some in every religion who distort, twist, spin, or otherwise use it to justify and further their delusions, greed, arrogance, power-lust, narcissism, neuroses, psychoses, and misanthropy. There are a few basic underlying motivations behind these people’s toxic expressions. Some misuse religion to manipulate people to give them money or property. When the current paradigm is mothballed, this form of abuse will become impossible and non sequitur. Some use religion as an extension and screen upon which to project their ego, delusions, power-lust, and other psychopathologies. While there is no guarantee that small social structures with domineering and submissive dynamics might not arise. However, under the current, intensely hierarchical paradigm, most people are conditioned to be either domineering or submissive, or both depending on context. In the new paradigm, there will be little to no hierarchical social structures. After a couple of generations or so, dominance/submission mindsets will decline rapidly, as there will be no psychological reinforcers for such behaviors. Thus such phenomena will become much less common than in this paradigm. People in general will be a lot less susceptible to be drawn to seek power over others, or to seek an authoritarian character to tell them what to do. In the new paradigm, the social environment simply won’t reinforce hierarchical and manipulative behaviors. It will, however, strongly reinforce synergy, symbiosis, co-creation and co-decision. Current generations are conditioned to respond to advertising, which makes them susceptible to other forms of manipulation if it’s presented authoritatively. It’s not that hard for a demagogue or self-styled prophet to gain followers. In contrast, in the new paradigm, a populace that’s empowered, educated, informed, and critically thinking will be quite resistant to manipulation. School curricula will be expanded to include self-awareness, how to recognize and neutralize manipulation and bullying, and critical thinking. In the current paradigm, many or even most people are stressed out, disempowered, worn down and distracted to a great degree. A charismatic personality promising to make things better if they just follow, exerts a strong pull. In contrast, a community of self-actualized, fulfilled, engaged, healthy, happy, empowered people will be highly resistant to such a person. Thus, after the Transition, this second kind of abuse of religion will most certainly diminish greatly. All but a very few people in the new paradigm will be largely impervious to cult dynamics. For those few who are vulnerable, the societies in the new paradigm will be like wet wood, resistant to burning. Such cults as arise, won’t get very big and won’t be able to gather power or wealth. Affected people will be recognized as having a mental illness that can be treated, just like any other medical condition. The third form of toxic distortion of religion more problematic: true believer fanaticism. Like Medieval inquisitors, Salafi Jihadis, and other fanatics, such religious fanatics truly believe that by beating, burning, killing, torturing, or compelling conversion at gunpoint, they are saving their victims from damnation in one form or another. They believe that finding a way to impose their beliefs on the people through the legal system is utterly justified. Such people aren’t consciously distorting religion for gain or power. They sincerely believe that it’s their mission and duty to convince or force others to their way. Such zealots have committed countless atrocities throughout the ages and continuing into our time, believing themselves to be doing God’s will. No religion appears to be immune. The dynamics are much more complex and nuanced than in the other forms of toxic religion. Sometimes such fanatics have been raised, entrenched in their beliefs for untold generations and have never questioned it. Sometimes fanaticism is further fed by memories of past atrocities committed against their group by other groups. Often religious identity gets wrapped up in and entangled with cultural, ethnic, and national identity. This is the source of crusades, holy wars, and a wide range of atrocities. Such groups will stop at nothing to force society into their mould. When two or more such groups meet, bloodshed is inevitable. This kind of toxic distortion of religion is especially hard to resolve. Attempting to suppress it only drives it underground, strengthens it, and makes it more extreme. It also strongly boosts recruitment as such groups believe and portray themselves as persecuted martyrs. Suppression is also fundamentally incompatible with the empowering, compassionate, synergistic society that is our goal. The new paradigm will need to walk a tightrope regarding such groups. We will not survive a decision to suppress extremist groups, nor will we survive if they take over. It may take time to develop strategies that neutralize the danger while preserving our humanity. We will need to do a lot of research into the human and social psyche. A few general guidelines are clear, however. We will absolutely need to strictly adhere to separation of church and state. Religion and government must be stopped from interfering with one another. With the elimination of modern feudalistic power structures and the need for currency, there will be no such thing as lobbyists, bribes, or other financial inducements. The only voices our elected officials will hear will be the voices of the people. This will reduce, though not eliminate, the channels for religious or other special interest groups to influence government. The new paradigm will shift away from judgmentalism, blame mentality and punitive modes of action. Many things, which now would be scandals, will no longer be. It will be harder to blackmail politicians. If any individual or group, including religious ones, commits violence, intimidation, or other abuse of or assault against non-consenting others, they will be guilty of a crime (regardless of motivation) and will be contained and restrained by law enforcement, subject to due process. Whenever possible, therapeutic approaches will be favored over imprisonment. People who are refractory to all humane forms of treatment, and who would pose a threat to people and the community if allowed to run free, will have to be kept away from the community, though the approach will be much more similar to that of the Norwegian prison system than the current U.S. prison system. Such individuals will be restrained, but they will be treated with firmness, compassion, dignity and humanity to the maximum degree possible, with the main goal of preventing them from harming others or themselves, not punishing them. If we see extreme religious groups who aren’t bothering or threatening anybody, there is no reason to interfere, unless they are abusing their own members in any way, in which case intervention will be necessary to the extent of ending the abuse. Since religion is ultimately a personal matter, and since none of us is God or Goddess, the new paradigm will embody and reinforce mutual respect among people of all religions, leaving each of us free to pursue our own course of discovery.