Neo-feudalism

Watching a youtube clip today, I came across a term that perfectly describes what I fear many seemingly well-educated Americans now embrace subconsciously: Neo-feudalism.

Of course, they don't see it as being that.  Different terms describe aggrandized sacrifice of privacy, freedom of choice and Constitutional rights as "Saving the Planet" or some similar platitude.

Certainly, we're all in favor of saving and improving the planet.  Personally, I love taking hikes through forests, snorkeling with colorful tropical fish around coral reefs and skiing down snowy mountainsides.  

Breathing fresh air and drinking uncontaminated water have always been popular in my book.  

Obviously, we should try to preserve and protect what we have, making improvements along the way.

But that doesn't mean we have to accept doublespeak from politicians and activists at face value...or should I say two-faced value.

We should all ask ourselves, "What do these leaders really want?  Is it actually the best for humanity, our country, our families and us as individuals, or do they have other motivations?"

In a Wondrium course entitled "The High Middle Ages" that I've been taking recently, Professor Philip Daileader, from the College of William & Mary, broke down to the simplest terms the social order of the Middle Ages in a way that I think is applicable to most of history, with the exception of the United States of America and a few countries that followed in our footsteps, even if most of those countries including our own now seem to be veering off the straight and narrow.

As Abraham Lincoln said at Gettysburg about 159 years ago, the United States has a "government of the people, by the people and for the people," or in other words, self-government.

Yes, as we know from books and movies about Robin Hood, among other places, there were nobles, serfs and clergy in the Middle Ages, but Daileader uses even more obvious descriptions.

Let's see if you can guess who is who.

Those who work would be ________________.

Those who pray would be ________________.

Those who fight would be ________________.

Did you guess which was which?

Of course you did.

There always will be those who work.  Through most of history, those who worked devoted most of their efforts to not freezing or starving, living lives of quiet desperation until they died young.  You may remember an off-color way of summarizing this kind of life.  In any case, whether they were called serfs, peasants or slaves, the labels all meant pretty much the same thing for the majority of populations before the Age of Enlightenment.

We still have those who work, but in our generation, Americans who've worked hard could earn enough money to enjoy some of the finer things in life, including the great entertainment of television, movies, radio and the internet, meals to the point where we now worry about getting too fat rather than starving to death, and even some travel around this vast, beautiful nation and the rest of the world.

Most of our ancestors could never have imagined such luxuries in even their wildest imaginings.  

Those who pray were the educated class of the Middle Ages, pretty much the only ones who could read and write, so in today's increasingly secular world, we might expand that from the priesthood to include educators and researchers.

Those who fight, as in the Middle Ages, are the leaders in power, the ones who run things and somehow have elevated social status based on that.  Some slick-talking politicians may glibly talk about the public good, but mostly they just fight, and you can assume that they feel this fight will enrich themselves personally more than other lines of work.

They attain their power based on the fact that they are willing to lead a fight on behalf of those who work and those who pray/study in order to maintain the peace.  That is at the basis of the original reason for becoming sovereign cities and then states with kings and governments: mutual protection through organization.

It is that type of association that gave birth to our country, albeit sacrificing some of our better angels to compromise for the greater good of the politically possible at the time with the possibility of becoming what the best and brightest of the Age of Enlightenment imagined an ideal nation could be.

Certainly, the purpose of our military is to defend our nation so as to protect the individual freedoms we hold dear.  The police protect us from those who would do us harm within our own borders.  I dare say most take this type of work want to protect their nation and fellow citizens in true public service.

Those who serve in military and police fit best into the category of "those who work."  Some may have a need to physically fight as part of their nature and this work allows them to be self-actualized in positive roles, but most truly want to make a difference by protecting their fellow law-abiding citizens. 

We see that often political leaders bring their countries into fights not for defensive purposes but for personal enrichment or glory, like Russia's Putin, with soldiers carrying out the actual struggle and sacrifice as their work

In the Middle Ages, it obviously was the case that knights plundered other kingdoms for financial gain as much as for king and country.

But fighting isn't always physical.  Our leaders spend most of their time battling each other without armed combat, and frequently that seems more about fundraising and power by creating wedge issues than actually resolving problems.

We all can think of someone we personally revere as a true problem-solver who entered public service only to be destroyed by career politicians and bureaucrats whose fight seems to focus on avoiding resolution of real problems rationally.  Of course, one man's patriot is another man's pirate.

Without getting too far afield, my point is that while Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell may be in their own ways as far from chivalric knights as we can imagine, they are at the heart those who fight.  And they may not fight for the good of the people so much as their personal enrichment.

A heated political debate is essentially a joust without lances.  To the winner goes the prize and glory.

Before you eagerly embrace some slogan that requires your sacrifice that might lead to their aggrandizement, ask yourself if what they are saying even makes sense.

A brand new example of doublespeak is "The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022."

Politicians say most people support it, even though most people including pretty much the entire Congress have not actually read the bill.

I can say from what I do know about that Act is that it is sort of like a case of añejo Tequila being served at breakfast as a hangover cure.

We may already live in the dawning of the Age of Neo Feudalism, but we as individuals can wake up to not be merely sheep led to slaughter to serve our "betters," who in truth are nothing of the sort.

In the meantime, we must make the most of our freedoms, or we might as well be serfs.