First published, 20th March 2020
Is there something rotten in the state of the state?
The Covid-19 ‘thing’ is possibly the biggest test of blind faith in the so-called social contract we, the present generations, have ever had to endure. It’s so significantly unsettling, to all but the most zealous doorstep applauding dupes, that a glance back at the social contract idea might be worthwhile, if only to remind ourselves why it always was a bit fake.
Ever since that fruity faceplant moment, when God gave up and told us all to go forth and multiply, we’ve been totally screwing ourselves over…
And no one ever told us what we were out here to do. We have always had to invent stuff like: during the so-called Age of Enlightenment (which must have come straight after the Dark Ages as a sort of contrast thing) some men took it upon themselves to explain exactly what being human was really all about. One of the many ideas they came up with was that individuals should hand in their freedom if they wanted to enjoy all the benefits of living in groups. They called this the ‘Social Contract’.
It’s what doesn’t change in history that tells us who or what we are, tells us what the permanent structures might be – the ones that matter. These permanences, hard-wired into our brains, are what determine the future. What point is there in looking back if it doesn’t tell us where we’re going?
History, in this respect, is just biology. And though Marx did at least spot the vast elephant of social hierarchy in the room (an elephant ignored by Rousseau, Hobbes and other less enlightened souls) the idea that some form of social justice might prevail, by turning things on their heads, simply demonstrated that Marx was just as foolish to think that history might be, in some perverse way, a moral journey.
History can show us what we are, not what we should be. Paupers, when kings, are just as despotic, and a dog is always obeyed in office, regardless.
Democracy, the delusion that social justice is best preserved when those in power allow citizens to hand them the power they already have, is nothing more than a comfort cloth. Not that teddy bears and the such like aren’t important in the lives of children. The psychological need to feel valued is as important to voters as it is to infants – even and especially when they’re not. Democracy, it also has to be said, is not a human invention that preserves or protects social justice; it emerges when a sense of social justice is already there. In this respect, democracy acts like a barometer affected by, rather than effecting, calm weather after a storm.
What is social justice if it isn’t simply fairness? Every child demonstrates a profound and acute sense of fairness that fades, or is blunted over the years leading into adulthood. In this respect, a sense of fairness as a measure of what is or is not desirable (as a definition of justice) is a mark of innocence, of ignorance, to be ‘corrected’ by adults through instruction and by example.
Justice, in the adult world, has little to do with equality, more revenge. And though ‘an eye for an eye’ on the face of it looks ‘fair’ enough, it’s actually a monstrous perversion of a lullaby.
The day when fairness becomes corrupted is a sad day. It’s a day repeated by each and every one of us as we grow up and the world is left behind.
When Roger Daltrey, as the character Tommy, runs across the screen of our planet power singing that he’s free (https://youtu.be/mPw792BGflc) it’s not trees, rocks or, indeed, volcanic larva he is free from but people; the sorts of people that say strange things like: ‘Freedom isn’t free’ or ‘We must hand over our freedom if we want to enjoy the benefits of social order’. The lyrics are ironic and telling: ‘I’m free! / And I’m waiting for you to follow me’ say it all, really.
No one who understands what freedom is will follow even Roger Daltrey. That’s the whole lie about the social contract and what ensnares all, save the Pied Piper.
In reality, the social contract isn’t between equal citizens but between masters and slaves. Employers and employed. Rulers and the ruled. Social elites and the have-nots.
The hellholes that are Saudi Arabia, Myanmar or North Korea are only different from democracies by a matter of degree not principle. We should not forget how one similar state can and does collapse into the other. To believe that the chimaera of our liberal democracy is a different political species is foolish beyond reckless. Look at how one state slips and slides into the other at the tip of a military hat or the locking up of its citizens in order to save stuff.
All ‘liberal democracies’ have shedloads of emergency powers ready at hand, should the duped masses get ‘uppity’: “If you don’t play the game, I’ll drive you out of town and seriously screw you over. So shut up, sit back and enjoy the ride.”