Me:
Buy yeah, (you keep saying things now prove them).
I guess it's only fair to offer my own proof. I often assume its self-evident for anyone involved or interested in geopolitics and history but... if you truly believe what you're saying (that equality is abhorrent) then apparently it's passed you by. Or I may just be wrong. So...
My proof is that
-
life expectancy,
-
wealth (both personal and society at large, now that there are less bread riots and revolutions to quell),
-
literacy and
-
amount of opportunities in life (to move, to better oneself, to escape abusive/disfunctional families, disengage from conformist/exploitative tribal alliances...think House Frey, to use one popular and I think apposite example... [1]
...have all, on average, increased for people blessed enough to live in post-Enlightenment Western nations.
-
Childhood death,
-
Enslavement,
-
Rape of sisters, mothers and daughters
(God knows what people sorry nowadays, I may have to defend the idea that rathore is abhorrent next!)
- Violence
...have declined in those Western, civilized countries.
In fact you might say that equality is the bedrock of civilization itself. I dunno. Never thought of that before.
Granted:
This came at the expense of a larger class of elites. Of dedicated thinkers [2](ex. Newton) relaxing atop a pyramid of brutally overworked, hereditarily condemned, underclass slaves. But we still have enough at the top that enjoy their parental and hereditary wealth to sit back... enjoying a free and nearly unlimited creative pallet of opportunities to stream, experiment, fearlessly fail time and tune again knowing they'll be whisked off back home to recover and try once more, like modern day trustafarian gutter punks, like "George Orwell " (Eric Blair) etc.
Basically that a worldwide pyramid of slavery allows the people at the very top free time to discover more improvements. And that group was larger, in Europe, back then.
But we still have quite a large group in America currently. So... no fear there, lad! Your (neo) feudalism is safe... "for the nonce." (I really enjoyed SoIaF as read by Roy Dotrice, does it show?)
[1] Game of Thrones, if nothing else, presented the most realistic (even if all but one main character was nobility / 'high borne', most other renderings were even more rose-tinted), mass consumed (worldwide audience with people in India, Russia, Mexico and yes even the US still downloading the entire series, presumably some of whomever are watching it for the first time.And all this years after it concluded!) view into what life was like pre-Enlightenment.
It was a very successful memetic and, not by accident, coincided with the popularization of Neoreaction, which up to that point existed wholly in the shadows, say 0.2% not 2. Of course, like those espousing a Fascist or Communist form of government, those idealizing Feudalism 'oft as not' imagine themselves taking part in some exciting quest or, less likely still, "runnin shit" as an inner circle tyrant and not the more likely scenario where they're simply born into the wrong family a d doomed to a life of abject misery. Grinding away their entire lives from the time they can walk to the time they drop dead at the plow, working some nullifying, deadening, monotonous job year after year, surrounded by people who've never left the hamlet and can't read or multiply abstract numbers. Nevermind paint, compose poetry, lay about thinking of odd, edgy political possibilities to support, etc.
[2] "Refusal of work"
'The Right to be Lazy' is an essay by Cuban-born French revolutionary Marxist, Paul Lafargue. It was written from his London exile in 1880.
"When, in our civilized Europe, we would find a trace of the native beauty of man, we must go seek it in the nations where economic prejudices have not yet uprooted the hatred of work ... The Greeks in their era of greatness had only contempt for work: their slaves alone were permitted to labor: the free man knew only exercises for the body and mind ... The philosophers of antiquity taught contempt for work, that degradation of the free man, the poets sang of idleness, that gift from the Gods." And so he says "Proletarians, brutalized by the dogma of work, listen to the voice of these philosophers, which has been concealed from you with jealous care: A citizen who gives his labor for money degrades himself to the rank of slaves." (The last sentence paraphrasing Cicero.)
Me:
Buy yeah, (you keep saying things now prove them).
I guess it's only fair to offer my own proof. I often assume its self-evident for anyone involved or interested in geopolitics and history but... if you truly believe what you're saying (that equality is abhorrent) then apparently it's passed you by. Or I may just be wrong. So...
My proof is that
-
life expectancy,
-
wealth (both personal and society at large, now that there are less bread riots and revolutions to quell),
-
literacy and
-
amount of opportunities in life (to move, to better oneself, to escape abusive/disfunctional families, disengage from conformist/exploitative tribal alliances...think House Frey, to use one popular and I think apposite example... [1]
...have all, on average, increased for people blessed enough to live in post-Enlightenment Western nations.
-
Childhood death,
-
Enslavement,
-
Rape of sisters, mothers and daughters
(God knows what people sorry nowadays, I may have to defend the idea that rathore is abhorrent next!)
- Violence
...have declined in those Western, civilized countries.
In fact you might say that equality is the bedrock of civilization itself. I dunno. Never thought of that before.
Granted:
This came at the expense of a larger class of elites. Of dedicated thinkers, (Newton, etc) relaxing atop a pyramid of brutally overworked underclass slaves but we still have enough at the top that enjoy their parental and hereditary wealth to sit back... enjoying a free and nearly unlimited creative pallet of opportunities to stream, experiment, fearlessly fail time and tune again knowing they'll be whisked off back home to recover and try once more, like modern day trustafarian gutter punks, like "George Orwell " (Eric Blair) etc.
Basically that a worldwide pyramid of slavery allows the people at the very top free time to discover more improvements. And that group was larger, in Europe, back then.
But we still have quite a large group in America currently. So... no fear there, lad! Your (neo) feudalism is safe... "for the nonce." (I really enjoyed SoIaF as read by Roy Dotrice, does it show?)
[1] Game of Thrones, if nothing else, presented the most realistic (even if all but one main character was nobility / 'high borne', most other renderings were even more rose-tinted), mass consumed (worldwide audience with people in India, Russia, Mexico and yes even the US still downloading the entire series, presumably some of whomever are watching it for the first time.And all this years after it concluded!) view into what life was like pre-Enlightenment.
It was a very successful memetic and, not by accident, coincided with the popularization of Neoreaction, which up to that point existed wholly in the shadows, say 0.2% not 2. Of course, like those espousing a Fascist or Communist form of government, those idealizing Feudalism 'oft as not' imagine themselves taking part in some exciting quest or, less likely still, "runnin shit" as an inner circle tyrant and not the more likely scenario where they're simply born into the wrong family a d doomed to a life of abject misery. Grinding away their entire lives from the time they can walk to the time they drop dead at the plow, working some nullifying, deadening, monotonous job year after year, surrounded by people who've never left the hamlet and can't read or multiply abstract numbers. Nevermind paint, compose poetry, lay about thinking of odd, edgy political possibilities to support, etc.
[2] "Refusal of work"
'The Right to be Lazy' is an essay by Cuban-born French revolutionary Marxist, Paul Lafargue. It was written from his London exile in 1880.
"When, in our civilized Europe, we would find a trace of the native beauty of man, we must go seek it in the nations where economic prejudices have not yet uprooted the hatred of work ... The Greeks in their era of greatness had only contempt for work: their slaves alone were permitted to labor: the free man knew only exercises for the body and mind ... The philosophers of antiquity taught contempt for work, that degradation of the free man, the poets sang of idleness, that gift from the Gods." And so he says "Proletarians, brutalized by the dogma of work, listen to the voice of these philosophers, which has been concealed from you with jealous care: A citizen who gives his labor for money degrades himself to the rank of slaves." (The last sentence paraphrasing Cicero.)