Destructivism

Use to be ashamed of existence, of these words thrown out here and there for anyone to read, and wondered for a while if it was necessary, essential, worth anything. Of course, it depends on what one writes about, and how much suffering and understanding have been added to the matter. There are blogs out there, novels, entertainment, and perhaps philosophy, what deals with the existence, the universe, the primary questions for which there will never be any answer. This is how philosophy can be recognised, if there is no answer to the question. This is what is being discussed here.

I hope you understand that this book has no answer to offer, but might just help you identify the real questions one needs to ask. Be wary of any ready made answers you might get to these essential questions in life, wherever or from whoever these answers might come from. I believe that in the end only you, on a personal level, can answer for yourself any of the questions posed in this book.

If you were to write a similar book one day, trying to answer what this life is all about, I’m sure you would come up with totally different answers. Like me, depending on how drunk I am at the time of writing, could certainly make a huge difference from one day to another.

I feel there might not be any ready made answers in this world for the main questions the human race might wish to ask. And yet, I feel it important to ask those questions and try to figure out the answers. I did it for myself here, you might want to consider doing it for yourself as well. It could help us all in the end.

Before I start, I need to remind myself about this most fundamental question: what I write here, what it is that I feel about these different topics, is it just what I think in the here and now, and tomorrow I could write something else? I cannot deny that if I were to live another 50 years, and decided to rewrite that same book with the same titles, I would definitely write a totally different book, just like it would have been if I had written it when I was 18.

However, I have to admit that I have been mostly consistent from the very first book I have written to the last, I have rarely changed my opinion on anything. I have written The Eclecticism almost 15 years ago, I do talk in there sensibly about the same subjects, and I still think the same. I was re-reading it recently and suddenly realised that perhaps writing the follow up that is Destructivism was superfluous. Not so, this time it is in English, it is 15 years later, it is to the point, concentrated, and I am also covering different angles, from several frames of reference. Let’s face it, on any of these titles I could write a full book, and yet I limit myself to a few pages.

Where I am going with this, is that I can only write this book if I feel that this is it, I’ll be dead before I finish it, and this will remain forever my thoughts on these subjects. And yet, I say so little, it might as well just be a sort of thinking process in action, without any purpose or sense of finality to it.

After writing 130 pages of this book, I suddenly got into panic mode. What if what I am writing here is completely useless? Only once I reached the topic of determinism, did I wonder, dear me, I better read on the subject before I start talking bullocks and that it becomes too obvious. So I read for the last two days the equivalent of a book on so many different topics related to determinism, you wouldn’t believe. As a result, yes, writing this book is useless. You just need to visit Wikipedia on the Internet and read it right there and follow all the hyperlinks. There is nothing I could add on determinism that has not already been said. Not only that, encyclopaedias only give you the general lines, and yet, it is already containing everything I was going to say. Imagine what the hundreds of books from hundreds of philosophers from Parmenides to Jean-Paul Sartre must be saying, then definitely everything has been said on the subject.

So what is the point for me to write this book? Especially when I cannot pretend that this is philosophy, when you compare this to proper philosophy books? I am, once again, an amateur, am I not? Am I just pretending to be an author, but unwilling to do the research, the reading, the necessary work and write a thesis on one particular topic?

Well, this book is not intended to be philosophical in the first place, and I am not writing it so it will get published and get some recognition. I know this won’t be published, it is for my website and that is it. It is purely a need for me to write it, the need to ask myself these questions and see if, for myself, I can reach some sort of answers which will help my existential crisis. I could be writing commercial stuff instead, but I cannot help it, I needed to write Destructivism.

Also, I want this book to be accessible, understandable, not boring and sending everyone to sleep by talking and talking about one specific subject for over 100 pages, after having read all the other authors and regurgitating here all that they have said, and then adding my little bit to it.

I wish now I had not read about determinism for the last two days. I had something to say about it before-hand, now, I’ll be lucky if any inspiration comes to me. And what I will be writing now might no longer be my own ideas, no longer be simple or to the point, it needs to take everything else into consideration. Spontaneity is good, a thinking process in action, no more than a few pages on any subject without any long term research, or else, I might just waste 25 years writing a book I can write in a month.

And I am not certain if after a long research and 25 years this book would be any better. It could be worse, because then I would be unreachable and you would need a degree in philosophy to understand me. As soon as I would start to mention the Compatibilists and the Libertarians in the context of Determinism, that would be it, you would be lost. I would need to write another book on top of my book just to explain all those concepts to you and what everyone else said on the topic. And now you know why it would take me 25 years and why philosophy bores you to death.

I hope you will enjoy this light philosophy, enough to get you thinking about some important questions that philosophy through the ages has been debating. Fortunately for you, I ignored the whole branch about logic and the veracity of arguments. Unfortunately for me, I will be such an easy target to anyone who will try to find some holes in my arguments, that perhaps I should keep this book for myself.

You will find many contradictions in this book, and I believe it is alright. Because human beings are full of contradictions, it is in our nature. Someone who never contradicts himself is a liar and most probably adjusted his ideas and truths to fit the whole of his logic, when in fact his logic might have been flawed from the start. So sometimes I will believe in God, and some other times, I will act like if I never met the guy, that in fact, I don’t believe he even existed. I met Santa Claus though, many times, and I believe in Santa Claus.

The Eclecticism was published in Paris in 2001 in French by iDLivre Publisher, it is now out of print and is available on my website as a free download. It might be translated into English one day, but not by me as it is easier for me to write another book than translate one. One day I may have enough money to pay for a translation, but for now, here is at least the second instalment in English. Actually, they may be considered separate entities, it is just that they are the only two books I have written in that style, sort of essays about existence and the universe, their meaning and purpose. I understand I am quite cynical and pessimistic, well, lucky you if your life is like a gentle opened flower, mine is not.

Destructivism

The Path to Self-Destruction

Politics

Democracy

If we have to work on an imperfect system, and can only change a few things here and there, here are at least a few solutions.

I have observed politics in three countries in my short life, United Canada, United Kingdom and United States, and I could now add the United States of Europe. There is also however politics at different levels like local and internal politics for example in city councils, in schools and other small organisations.

Sometimes it was democratic, sometimes it was not. Most often it never was democracy, because there was always an almighty leader following his own vision which no one could agree with. I say “his”, because it is less often a woman who would act so blindly against everyone else’s will. For that alone, I am willing to only vote for women in the future, but I have met many bitches in position of power within my lifetime, and so, we can never be sure or safe. It is really a question of transparency about who we do elect to power. Who are they truly deep down, do we even get to really know, considering all the lies we are being fed all the time?

I have never read Karl Marx or anything about communism or socialism, for some reason when they came to my universities to recruit new fresh minds, I never got on the boat. After my observations, I took several courses in the philosophy of politics in University, and I guess I must have read then about socialism, somehow it didn’t stick, I can’t remember anything about it. I remember The Social Contract of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Hobbes and Locke and most especially The Prince of Machiavelli.

Now that this is out of the way, that you know that I am no expert on the topic, like neither anyone in politics if I may add, let’s see what I think of it. From an early age I always thought politics didn’t work. For some reason, even though the process looked entirely democratic, we always ended up voting for parties instead of people, and hence, we always seemed to elect the wrong people. It has been my observation that it is quite rare that someone in power will actually do what people actually want. It always ends up in disaster, and sometimes, we even re-elect the same horrible people, and no one can understand why.

I’m not going to talk here about pettiness, like should we separate Canada in two or not, or should we go to war with the rest of the world for no apparent good justification. Or what about those terrorists, should we not destroy a few countries and kill a few million people, for those 20 guys who attacked us on a Monday morning years ago? I will also avoid talking about rigged vote, fake elections, though I feel it is a growing concern and I stop short of saying that I believe democracy is truly dead at the time I’m writing these lines.

I simply want to talk about politics at its most basic function and structure, because this is what I feel does not work and ultimately fails us all. This is what can give the power to anyone to suddenly create a world war or destroy an entire economy for the wrong reasons.

When I was a teenager, I always thought that one day I would write a book about the philosophy of politics, and my classes at university re-enforced my need to do so. However, up until now I didn’t feel I had all the answers yet, in fact, I’m not sure if I have any at all. It is certainly not the easiest topic to address. I have however come to a few conclusions.

The idea of political parties needs to go. It is the most outdated and impractical concept there ever was in politics. More so because in this day and age, the line is so blurred between party lines, there is not much difference if you vote for one or the other. The only difference is a few main big ideas like being against gays, against abortion, against women’s rights (should they remain at home and pop out babies into existence as their sole social role), should we give more money to big corporations or not, should we give more money to the poor, and finally, the big argument that cannot fail to win you an election: should we lower the taxes (as if this was a question to ask anyone already paying 60% of their salary in taxes and on anything they will spend their money on).

Now, these few main big ideas, which truly have nothing to do with any political party, as for most of the time that they will be in power, this will be completely at the back of their mind and they will most probably do nothing or very little about it, does not have to be the reasons why you vote for a political party. These can be debated anyway by all the elected representatives in the assembly, if you paid more attention to the personal beliefs and ideas of your local representatives instead of the political party you will vote for, you would know if the person you’re about to elect will be a little tyrant and alienate you completely or not.

That little group of local politicians is really all you need to study in order to vote, nothing else. By electing a political party, you most likely vote for the representative of that party without knowing anything about who that person truly is and what that person can truly do for you. Most of the time these people are so powerless anyway, their elections are more like a formality for a party to get into power, and the Prime Minister and his Cabinet, or the President and his few allies, take over the show. So in essence, you will be ruled by a very small group of people, and even your local representatives, you will know very little about, and they will be powerless anyway. You see the problem?

By getting rid of political parties and coming back to basics, we will also eliminate another growing concern in actual politics. Now parties are spending so much money on their elections, it goes into the millions if not billions. What does this tells you? That only rich bastards can now get into power. Where do they get the money? This invites bribery, corruption, conflict of interests, and now we’re destroying Iraq to take over their natural resources, because who paid for the American Elections? Petroleum companies.

No one can now compete freely in the political arena. If I were to present myself tomorrow as an independent, I will most certainly lose. If I were the representative somehow of a political party, I could win, but all for the wrong reasons. And even so, how would I go, myself, right now, to represent a political party in an election? I have no clue, I would probably not be accepted, they wouldn’t want me, they probably have already a clique of hungry and greedy little friends who have been in politics since forever, that will most likely be their representatives in my own county when they probably don’t even live in my county.

So first, eliminate political parties. Second, eliminate the right to publicise in any way thinkable political ideas and representatives. No one should ever be allowed to accept money from anyone or any corporation for a political campaign. No one should be able to win an election simply by injecting millions and billions into a PR and publicity machine. It is too unfair.

As soon as you hear one guy on the radio or the TV talking about this or that, no matter what he talks about, you are probably very likely going to vote for him, because you will recognise his name on the election ballot, when the others will seem not to even exist. What’s a name after all?

So now that we have gotten rid of the political parties which elect the wrong type of people, and that we have finally gotten rid of the big brainwashing publicity machine that will most assuredly influence everyone to vote for this or that, all for the wrong reasons, whilst preventing anyone without the money to be heard, and so speaking destroying democracy, what do we do? Simple. Who pays for the publicity campaign? The government, meaning, and we forget it all the time, the people pay for it. A few pages about each candidate distributed locally to everyone, so we can find out about these people we’re about to elect outside of party lines, and hopefully with the thought that they can think for themselves, that they can be heard and that they can make a difference. An hour here and there on local TV and radio, for each of them, space available in local newspapers, all paid by the people. Cheaply done, no more millions and billions spent on politics and publicity machines. It must remain at a local level, never national. As soon as a political election is national, it defies democracy, it elects the wrong people.

So now that the elections are over, and that people have won for the right reasons, without being a drain on the economy, without bribes and corruption, who’s gonna be the leader? It has always been the leader of the political party who took ultimate power, and the leader of the opposition being the leader of the second most popular party. This needs new thinking.

Well, you have elected the people you most trusted, let them decide between them who will be the temporary leader and who will speak for the opposition, even though, I feel, the opposition should be everyone else in the assembly. It would be a nice change for once if the people you elected locally were to decide who would become the Prime Minister or the President, based on their own personal judgement of who is the most apt person for the post.

I know you feel they already do when they decide who will be the leader of their party, however this is decided before an election, and ultimately too many people will win a seat based on that one man or woman alone. That is again winning for the wrong reasons.

In the end, there should never be a strong leader in charge of any country or any other government or council, or else, it eliminates the voice of everyone else, and so, your voice. It cancels the idea of an election and of democracy. Only after, should it be decided who is the leader, and that leadership should never be permanent for the whole mandate, it should change every so often.

This should not stop there. The ministers or whatever they are called in the US, should not be decided by the leader. They should also be voted by the whole of the assembly based on merits and who they feel should be in charge of certain departments. Or else it is too easy for the leader to get all his little friends there in power, and then it becomes dangerous, because the leader can do whatever he or she likes without fear of being stopped.

I suppose I have not thought about all this as much as would be required, really. But with my full time job I have no time to study politics and develop my own philosophy of it. It will have to wait until I retire, assuming I won’t die from cancer at an early age. However, my little suggestions might just give us a better representation of what people truly want. It will be more likely that the wrong people will not find themselves in power that easily. It could get rid of corruption, bring back democracy, and avoid costly elections. Overall, my few pages might just do the trick. If that doesn’t work, we’ll have to re-assess the situation then. In the meantime, it would certainly solve a few of the biggest problems I witnessed in politics today.

Anarchy

It is strange that I wrote this whole book before addressing the one subject people are most likely to accuse me of in time, the one of being an anarchist talking about anarchy. It did not cross my mind to write about anarchy, because I never thought I was an anarchist. I realise now that perhaps I am a bit of an anarchist in the closet.

People have accused me of being an anarchist because of the title of my website, The Crowned Anarchist, which ultimately was just the title of a book by Antonin Artaud, the celebrated French author who died in 1948. His book was about a Roman Emperor originally from Syria named Heliogabalus, also called the Crowned Anarchist, because of his subsequent reign in Rome.

Being an anarchist, in my case, is like being gay. You know deep down at heart that you are, that there is nothing you can do against your nature, and that if that nature gets to be known, you will be ostracised by everyone else, rejected, ridiculed and you are going to suffer the rest of your life.

I am nevertheless suffering anyway, from a lack of freedom, a lack of control in the decisions being made that concern me directly, from these hierarchies everywhere present to which I need to bow down to and be submissive.

To the point that I feel I am nothing less than a slave, going through this life making the minimum of decisions, and then will go on without any kind of freedom or control, and do exactly what all sorts of authorities will tell me to do, at every single minute of my existence.

Be it the authority of parents, loved ones, teachers, managers and directors, spiritual leaders, social workers, judges, probation officers, police, political leaders through a myriad of laws and regulations. Add to it CCTVs and cameras everywhere, and constant probing and recording of phone calls, emails and the websites we visit, to insure that we no longer have an impure thought that goes against their will. Anything can and will be used against us at some point in time, while everything we do is being recorded, and the time of reckoning seems to be getting closer every day.

At some point you do feel the need to explode and tell them all to stop, that enough is enough! That we feel the need to re-assert ourselves, to exist, to make a few decisions of our own, to do what we want to do with this life and that a little breathing space would not go amiss in our life. Do we even have the time to think anymore? Are we free collectively to decide what we want to do, are we able to stop our leaders in their grand scheme of conquering the planet at the expense of human kind, our very existence? The obvious answer is no.

Anarchists seem to believe that we can have a real democracy, that it seems that our actual government structures and corporate structures are all against the very idea of democracy and giving the citizens the chance to rule themselves and make their own decisions. If citizens truly had the power to govern themselves, the world would be a different place today.

This is what anarchists are fighting for, whether they are extremists or intellectuals who would never dream of picking up a cocktail Molotov or even walk outside in any demonstration. And this is perhaps why I never thought I was an anarchist, because neither of these definitions of anarchy befitted me. I am not extremist, I am a pacifist. I am not an intellectual who will go on to write clever articles about what this kind of anarchist system might look like. I would first certainly give it another name, because either way you take it, the word anarchist and anarchy are too heavy for anyone in their right mind. For them it would mean chaos and the end of the world as we know it, they would be afraid of the word itself, so I could never really write an anarchist book. On the other hand, I cannot deny that at heart I share many of their beliefs and, in my own way, I have been fighting for the same beliefs and freedoms in all of my books.

The fact that you are witnessing your leaders suddenly openly declaring a Third World War and lightning the seed of civil war as the only mean to stop it, is very significant. It shows that with the actual structure of our governments, these hierarchies, supposedly democratic, the leaders are still capable of working towards their own interests, destroy an economy and go on to achieve genocides.

The democracy we have right now does not work. A man is still able to control the elections, make all the decisions, change all the laws superseding even the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the Human Rights Charter, make torture legal, ignoring the United Nations, and go on to wreck havoc in the world and bring about a global war. So, everything has failed once again, and I wonder if we are not ready for a more radical change in our structures and the ways we govern and organise ourselves.

Where have we gone wrong? What else could we do to change this? Do anarchists, the intellectual ones, have the answer? They have provided many alternatives to the kinds of established government structures and even commercial company structures we have, where there is no more obvious leader anywhere capable of taking over the world and leash out his evil plan.

There could be groups or collectives being formed on a short, medium or long term basis discussing democratically all the decisions to be made, and collectively deciding on who will do what depending on the needs and skills. And if there is to be a leader, it will be a natural one who can be constantly questioned and replaced as soon as it seems that he or she is no longer acting in the interests of the whole group or collective, as anyone else and everyone else could take over just like that.

In an anarchist organisation, for example, there would not be a board of directors or an executive board. No leader, just a bunch of people on the same level voluntary meeting, discussing and making decisions as a whole for the organisation or the collective. When someone would ask who’s in charge, the answer would be everyone, free from any authority and coercive social relations, no corporate structure with an elite at the top making all the wrong decisions.

I do not intend here to tell you what anarchist ideas are all about, I admit that I am quite ignorant of such things and I have read little on the subject. I have read enough though to know that there are good ideas in there, and that it answers a lot of why I have been living an existential crisis from the day I was born. Under such a structure, I might have been happier, I just don’t know.

I am not sure how realistically all of this could be implemented in real life. There are many people incapable of functioning without clear leadership telling them exactly what to do. They are quite happy to go on living without ever making one decision. And this is fine, naturally, even in some anarchist system or structure, they will be able to find that, if necessary. There will still be natural temporary leaders.

But although it may seem unrealistic that such a structure could become the norm, a lot of these elements could be incorporated in the actual systems and structures in order to become smoother and more acceptable to all, and certainly prevent other leaders from taking over the place and serving their own interests above all the rest of us. Solutions will need to be found one way or another, and at this point I am willing to look for inspiration anywhere in order for us to gain more freedom and live happier lives.

So I feel what anarchists is certainly worth reading, considering and seeing what could possibly be incorporated, in default to be able to change the whole system overnight.

Until at least our leaders destroy it all and that, after another bloody war and a civil war, we are left with everything else to rebuilt, aware of the mistakes of the past structures and systems. All anarchists would be dead by then, and probably once again, all free thinkers, all outspoken people against the governments, all gay people and all immigrants. There are five good reasons for me to be eradicated. I will not survive, that is obvious, and to be honest, I don’t really care that much. So I might as well not be afraid to speak my mind and be ready to suffer the consequences.

It is likely that even under an anarchist structure or system, wars, corruption, and less desirable features plaguing our governments rights now, would happen no matter what, as it does not appear that any government structure can prevent them. Which is why that no matter which government structure we have, we need to provide for a lot of ways for a quick change of leadership, and that as soon as there is a bit of smoke, it is the time to act before it is too late.

One can only dream that one day we will live under a real democracy, and that we will finally govern ourselves for real, and that no dictator ever could take over the world so easily while we are all too busy to pay attention until it is right there under our nose and that we are all powerless to stop it.

Identity

As soon as you get your birth certificate, we have established your identity. We know your name, your date of birth and where you were born. After that, to get your first identity card or passport, what is required, is simply generally your birth certificate. Imagine a world without birth certificate, none of us would have an identity. Imagine if none of us had a name and didn’t know where we were born and on what day. Sounds weird, but it is a fact for most animals on this planet, except of course our cherish pets which we now microchip. Only humans have this obsession with identity, identifying, and eventually to track down anything about anyone anywhere on this planet. We are control freak, you will never witness that anywhere in the animal kingdom.

If it were to stop there, it would be easy enough and nothing to worry about. Unfortunately your birth certificate is simply a login and password to your true identity. That identity being every single thing you will ever do in your entire life, be it getting married, divorced, switching country, getting a loan or a mortgage. And if you do anything wrong at any time, this is when your identity becomes quite important to every single authority on this planet. Be it a great crime or something as simple as a little white lie in order to get something, that’s it, your identity might prevent you from achieving anything you ever dreamt of.

Identity is what drives every single government wild, in truth, they will not stop until they can have a quick and easy access scheme of everything you have ever done in your life from the moment you came into this world. Whatever you might want to do to protect your privacy, it is useless. Up until now we have been lucky, the technology was simply not there and we could still hope to get away with a little lie or two to get a job, a loan, some other benefits. Now you can forget it. Multiple central databases have been put together, I have already given my thumb print last year in order to pay with my own credit card, I had my eye scanned when I entered the United States a year ago. This is as good as my DNA, as with those, they can establish the login which is the door to my true identity. From now on, everything is tracked down, to the beers I bought in a Seven Eleven a few months ago where they had to scan my Californian driving licence. I was quite shocked actually, I shouted that I didn’t want the President of the United States to know that I was buying beers tonight, just in case one day, somehow, this could be used against me in a Court of Law. I can already see it, that man has been buying 24 bottle of beers every single week he spent in Los Angeles, how can we trust an alcoholic? That man has been buying violent video games in Hounslow for over a decade, how can he be stable enough to be a manager and bring order? That man has left the UK for more than 100 days, how can we give him a British citizenship now, it is obvious he does not deserve it, or does not live here or intend to live here forever (and what difference does it really make when I have now spent more time in London and England than anywhere else in the world?). That guy has travelled to this country, visited this city, the very same one where some terrorists attacks took place. He has been visiting this and that website and read for 20 minutes and 30 seconds all about these conspiracy theories concerning the so called governments cover up. What credibility has he got?

Today there are good reasons for you to wish to keep your anonymity, keep some privacy about your identity, because you never know how the government laws and policies will turn against you, and these changes come fast. In the last five years, since the destruction of the twin towers in New York, most Western countries have lost their rights and liberties. Another serious terrorist attack at this point will definitely bring about everything you most feared about the importance of your privacy when it comes to your identity. And since governments have always dreamt and worked toward being able to know everything about you since your birth, it is just a question of time before you lose your identity completely.

Because there must come a time when you no longer own your identity, when you are no longer free to build that identity, move about and do what you wish. This has not yet happened globally, but a large percentage of the population has already lost its identity, or the freedom to build one. For example, the unemployed, whether they are retired or simply incapable of finding a job, and people who simply ran out of money.

The government and the financial institutions don’t ask much from you, until that is that you run out of cash. If you need anything from the government or banks, they will want to know everything about you in return, up to where and what you spend your money on. At this point they control your identity, they control your destiny. You are no longer free to move to another place, change jobs, or play video games all day. You have to look for work, you have to repay somehow your debts, you need to report on everything you do to get yourself out of your situation, you have to report your expenses and justify them. Any change in your situation will need to be reported, and from all that data which form your identity, decisions will be made, things might or might not be granted, you could be penalised or punished.

Financial institutions tried to prevent me from moving to the United States, and they almost seized my meagre assets and declared me bankrupt when I did, that would have seriously handicapped me for many years, even though I am seriously already handicapped when it comes to money and where I can spend it on. Lucky me, I used my charms, and my salary was higher than previously, and of course I moved before they could say no.

It is not hard to imagine how these schemes, procedures and other protocols could become global in a few years, where everyone will be in the same boat. In a way, the tax man already check up on everything you do and spend your money on, how you acquire it and how much of it they will get. The tax man is not yet at the point where it can dictate what your life will be, like with people who have no money, but we’re getting there. They will only be satisfied when they will have your complete identity on record, and when they control your life to the minute. Which, by the way, sounds very much like the communist socialist countries, like for example in China, you cannot have a child or buy a house without first being on a long list, waiting a few years, give up your identity, and wait for the authority to tell you yes or no. So called democracies give the impression of being different, that you have more freedom, however I found it to not be the case, and we’re much closer to this state of affair than one would like to admit.

Where it starts to look like a real prison, is in the corporate world. Let’s leave the financial institutions for a moment, to concentrate on employers, even though this is again a question of money. An employer is ready to give you money as long as you provide your identity in full, who you are, where you come from, what you have done in your past up until that very moment. This information will be verified, they need reference letters, they need to have your whole life planned out in front of their eyes before they can make the decision.

You then have to come to work everyday, do what has been established as your job, and report anything that might change in your life. Do you need time off for some reason? Why, what happened, what has changed in your life? Are you sick, are you having a baby? Are you going through a divorce, has someone close to you died? We need to know everything. If you are to be late for 5 minutes tomorrow, we need an explanation, we need you to call in to let us know, we need to establish if being five minutes late was justified. If it turns out that it was not justified, or that you are late a bit too often, disciplinary actions will be taken against you and eventually could lead to your dismissal. If it was just dismissal, it would be all right, however all the mind games they use via their HR or Personnel department is most likely to make you physically and mentally sick before any action is actually taken against you.

Through these fears they control your mind completely. You are also chained to your desk, and cannot leave it for too long and will also need to justify anywhere you go and why you left your desk unattended for so long. You better have a good excuse, constipation and having to spend hours on the toilet bowl might work, but I wouldn’t bet my life on it.

We are all prisoners and slaves to our employers, the financial institutions and the government. They want to establish our identity, they want to control it, they want to tell us what we need to do. And so far, they have been highly successful. One more step and it will suddenly become clearer to everyone, and all that is left for us then, is to be depressed before our incapacity to lead the life we always wanted to lead, cry due to our lack of freedom. And it all starts with your birth certificate, the day you gain your very own identity.

In a perfect world, in utopia, we would not have an identity. We would not have a past, a timeline of all our actions recorded for posterity and for authority to probe and decide if we deserve this and that or not. What they would see at the interview, would be what they will get. And if somehow you’re not wearing a suit with a tie with shiny shoes, but decided to go there in jeans and T-Shirt, that would already be giving away too much about your identity, they would make an instant judgement, and you wouldn’t get what you should get by right. Your appearance is also a big give away as to your identity, who you really are, what you think, what you are all about.

You might not be racist at all, but if for one second of inattention in your lifetime you say a racist word, lucky you if you were in your own house and you can trust your family not to tell anyone of what you said. Say it in the work environment or anywhere on the street where there are witnesses, and watch your entire career go, your whole identity changing overnight, you are now a racist and do not deserve anything for as long as you live.

Your identity is everything. If you were born in Africa and you were black, trying to die somewhere else from where you were born might prove difficult if not impossible. Immigration will be closed to you unless you can become a refugee and there is danger for you in your own country, and as long as you can justify all this to the government of the country you wish to move to. Unfortunately for you, it is unlikely that there is a civil war every year in your country, it would have helped you immigrate.

If you have committed any crime, even just being arrested at some sort of manifestation or campaign against the government, you might not be able to immigrate that easily to another country either, you might find it impossible. Every single action you do every day defines your identity.

And now in the UK, there are thousands and thousands of cameras watching your every move at all time, and so you can no longer get away with anything. The only solution would be for you to remain at home, alone, shut all the doors, get rid of your computer, your phone, and any other gadgets that could be used for communication and monitoring. Then, you can only hope the government has not yet bugged your place in order to monitor everything you do and say. That is the next step, and most governments believe that it is no longer necessary, because with your phone and your internet connection, they know already everything they need to know.

A few years ago a man fell asleep at the wheel of his van, and somehow found himself on a train track. The ensuing accident killed a lot of people, and it was just that, an accident. The British government went out of its way to find anything to incriminate the man, they found out that he was chatting in a chat room with some lady at 2 am the day before. That was enough to inculpate him without doubts, this was no longer an accident, it was multiple murders. Had it not been that he was chatting on the internet at 2 am the night before, I wonder what else they could have come up with to justify his culpability.

Anything will do at this point, there is no denying that. If you were spotted walking the dog at 1 am, or just opening your front door to get a bit of fresh air at 4 in the morning, that could be used against you to justify any criminal activity, or why you lost that big contract for your company (of course you were too tired), or why you missed the train the next day, and therefore, you should lose your job and find it hard to find another, since being sacked is now your new identity, gross misconduct is your new identity, and any future employer will know about it.

Of course, none of you worry about all this, most of you are not even aware yet of all this, the true importance of your identity. Because most of you have not yet been in a bad situation where suddenly every single action you have done can be used against you to incriminate you, whatever the gravity of the crime or negligence. You are all, however, about to find out very soon, because sooner or later, with so many new laws being passed every day, you are bound to break a few laws without even noticing it. And suddenly they will all jump on you like a ton of bricks. And then you will be in awe, you will wonder, puzzled, how this came to be, how did and everyone else let this all happened without even a blink.

You can have a taste of it right now, take your car, go at 10 miles an hour over the speed limit, and meet on the same bit of road, all within less than a mile, three speed cameras. A minister recently in England experienced that for himself, and became an instant criminal, lost his driving licence, had to go to court to justify himself when there was not much to justify in the first place, and God knows what could then be used against you in that court of law. However, maybe this is not frightening enough, how likely would you be to be flashed three times within 10 minutes, even though most of us are now collecting points on our licences and collecting parking tickets for 30 seconds of being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Just throw a bit of paper on the sidewalk, perhaps even unintentionally, there are CCTV cameras everywhere, your identity can now be established quickly with just a shot of your face and the databases. You’re an instant criminal with a huge fine to pay. So many people have been fined hugely in England recently for chucking their cigarette butt on the sidewalk, and yet, no one blinked an eye to this state of affair. Because it has not happened to you yet, and when it does, you will feel powerless to stop it, you wouldn’t know what to do, and so, you will do nothing but accept that you’re a criminal and that you have to be punished.

Any government or other authority wishing to create a perfect orderly society, cannot pass over the fact that no one should have any privacy, rights or liberties. Every day, bit by bit, they blur the line between your rights and liberties and justify it in such a way that the chart of rights and liberties or the constitution, written or not, no longer apply. The key is to establish your true identity, and control it somehow, be it by fears of some horrible consequences if you do not comply. There is not much anyone can do about it. There are many organisations out there fighting against the Big Brother State, and yet, they have met their goals with little success. Thousands of people walked to Westminster or Trafalgar Square to denounce unpopular policies of the government, and yet, nothing has prevented them from passing these anti-terror laws and go to war.

A civil war at this point is the only solution left to reverse our lost of identity. This requires good justifications, convincing, but taken individually, all the little actions of the government never seemed that threatening, especially when it all seemed justified at the time. Civil wars are bloody things, many people would die, and in this day and age, almost sounds unthinkable, until at the very least the government goes global on all their policies and it affects everyone, and alienate everyone at once, something they would be careful not to do, to cross that unacceptable threshold. So for now, even a civil war seems impossible, and we will have lost everything before the idea seems right.

So what is there left to do? Nothing? Do we have to simply sit back and watch our identity being changed or eroded, witnessing losing all our rights and liberties, becoming drones to any authority out there? Maybe making everyone more aware here and there, bits and bobs in newspapers, chapters like this one in books, articles in magazines, will eventually slow down governments, who knows. You might enjoy a few more years of partial privacy and partial freedom before it all disappear completely before your eyes.

So I’ve done my bit, what are you going to do about it? And it all begins with safeguarding your identity. No one needs to know who you are, what you do, what you have done, where you were born and the very second you came into this world. Together let’s work at erasing our identity so nothing can be used against us at some future occurrence. Sounds like the beginning of an underground movement working in the shadows, well I guess authorities pushed it too far, and they will do much worse before this is all over.

And yet identity could be something entirely different, and it was for a while. We could be proud of our identity, this is who I am, this is where I was born, this is all I have achieved, I am proud of being who I am. Let it be kno