Obey

In order to obey, there has to be an order. This can be a straight order, given directly by some authority. On a grander scale though, this will be a social order, a hierarchy which is perceived as "natural" or "God-given."

We all obey. That is if we want to be part of any kind of social order, which is the opposite of social disorder. Even anarchists do not want to abolish or abandon all hierarchies; a good anarchist just wants to do away with unjust hierarchies. If nothing else, even a hermit who has no interactions with any other, will have to obey the laws of nature and the laws of physics. There is an order to the universe, the world and societies. This order is the method to the madness, and it demands our obedience.

Let that sink in and decide for yourself if you agree or not, and to what extent. I ask this because it can be hard sometimes to realize that that you've been born into a world, a society in which all the rules are already set in stone. You didn't ask for those rules, nobody asked if you agree with the hierarchies, the laws and customs you have to submit to. Most of the time we don't even think about it, because we've grown up being punished, ignored or outcast every time we didn't adhere to the rules or customs, written or unwritten, of the social order we've become part of; when we reach a certain age, this tacit obedience has become second nature, first nature even. Unwittingly we obey all the time and everywhere we go.

Many thinkers throughout history have proposed explanations for what a social order consists of exactly, and what it's based on. If you've read my blog for a while, you know that I subscribe rather fervently to Marx's explanation of historical materialism and the relations of production or economic structure as the main basis of any social order. Others have proposed shared social norms or sets of social institutions as the main drivers behind the social order, or a combination of all of the above. But when we speak about the hierarchies embedded within the social order, when we look at whose order we actually obey, Marx's explanation seems the most fundamental and the most obviously true in my opinion. No matter if we talk about the "divine right of kings" or the modern, post-enlightenment interpretation of a "social contract," it's the power invested in the material possessions that have always shaped the rank-order in our social ladders.

Today this means that we obey the rules and laws set by the insanely rich owner-class, the capitalists. Yes, we've put a thin coat of paint on it, called "democracy," but that doesn't take away from the fact that the rich have the power to influence political decision-making, and the poor don't. This is why in my book anarcho-capitalists aren't real anarchists, and why real capitalists are so glad that anarcho-capitalists exist. They would give total freedom to the capitalists and thereby condemn the rest of us to eternal and absolute obedience to those capitalists. It's a weird conception of freedom if it allows the ultimate unjust hierarchy, the one that ranks us according to how much we own, to flourish even more than it already does.

But I digress. Obedience comes natural. Not all hierarchies are problematic. We, as social animals, naturally appoint leaders. But not rulers. Rulers are the product of the overarching unjust hierarchy, comprised of a rank-order established by the amount of material possessions. Without obedience there's no social order, and social animals need this order to thrive. So the question is not if we want to have a hierarchy, there always will be, the question is merely what type of hierarchy conforms most to our sense of justice. Are we content simply replacing the divine right of kings with the economical might of shareholders? Or do we appoint our own leaders in a social order that doesn't just give equal political power to each individual, but also ensures distribution of equal or comparable amounts of economical power to all individuals? What social order deserves your obedience?

This is all just my personal opinion of course, just me, on my own, spitting some thoughts to the screen. Maybe this will help put in a different perspective some ideas about freedom and authoritarianism, terms that are used so frequently nowadays. Oh, and the linked video is just one of my favorite reggae songs with the appropriate title "Obey."

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