Posted 3 years ago on Feb. 10, 2013, 4:51 a.m. EST by alldone
This content is user submitted and not an official statement
The great thing about OWS is that it has focused the minds of thousands (if not tens of thousands) of people into trying come up with some sort of alternative system of organizing society.
The problem is that any solution encompasses so many variables that it quickly degenerates into a cacophony of noise, making it difficult to distinguish the wheat from the chaff.
This is where allegories come in – allegories make it easier to understand both the problem and the solution.
Can there be a more searing criticism of totalitarianism than George Orwell’s Animal Farm. And it is not difficult to see that modern society can be characterized as a form of totalitarianism behind the façade of democracy.
While Orwell had Stalinism in mind, his allegory can be broadened to include the inevitability of hierarchies emerging whenever humans (and animals) live in societies.
Hierarchies are not necessarily bad. Some people are smarter, some stronger others visionary and imaginative while a rare few have the ability to lead. The ability to organize into hierarchies obviously has an evolutionary advantage.
The animals, after having ousted the farmer, quickly organized into a hierarchy based on ability and skill. As a result power started to coalesce but we know that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely leading to the inevitable outcome.
Let’s say the animals having learned from their previous experience are given another chance. What would they do differently? In particular, how do they overcome the corrupting influence of power?
My definition of power - Power is one of the universal dimensions that arise when humans live in societies, alongside love, cooperation, aesthetics, education, intellectual curiosity, culture and religion.
Power is the ability to influence the actions of others or change the environment to achieve a particular end.