The Spirit of Control

What is the utmost form of control? Slavery. A slave cannot do anything based on his own will but must perform everything his master tells him to do. This violates the idea that all men are created equal and free. Therefore, slavery was abandoned in most countries’ centuries ago. Nevertheless, the idea of controlling people lives on. Here is an example: In the history of American political parties there was one party that did promote slavery. Slavery was eventually abandoned in America at the end of the civil war and the party that once promoted slavery doesn’t do this anymore – rightly so. But looking at their modern political program and means of discussion, it looks like they are still trying to control people: One tool to control people is providing a multitude of governmental subsidies which creates a dependency on the ones receiving these subsidies. Another tool is labeling political opponents in order to silence them. It all works the same: As soon as someone criticizes people of a minority group for a certain behavior or speaks up against any issues of political correctness, he will be labeled publicly as a racist, sexist, conspiracy theorist, etc. The goal in the public discussion is not to prove one’s point of view by means of logic anymore but to put the opponent outside the socially acceptable boundaries of society. Nobody wants to be ostracized, so people try to avoid being labeled like this at all costs, even if these accusations have no substances at all. This is exactly what people want to achieve when they use these terms to label others – to silence people with a different opinion and that means to control them. The same underlying spirit – the spirit of control - that promoted slavery is still living on in these kinds of politics and argumentation style. On a spiritual level it is not enough to abandon slavery; the ties that caused these unjust politics need to be cut as well. Any mindset, attitude or spirit that wants to control other people walks in the same footsteps of those who promoted slavery and, therefore, needs to be given up as well. It looks like there is a lot of work still to be done.