Divide and Rule

 Mankind has been abusing mankind since the dawn of time. Human beings have been subjugating, enslaving, disenfranchising, abusing, denigrating, objectifying and murdering other human beings simply because they could, and nowadays we have a society divided in such ways that many of us aren't even conscious of the divisions or our own prejudices.

The phenomenon of implicit racism, for example, is one that many people fail to recognize. Racism, sexism, bigotry, prejudice and injustice are so woven into the fabric of society that we don't even know we're doing it. We say we're civilized, but a fine veneer of civilization covers a seething mass of resentment and hatred, as we've seen rise to the surface in recent years.

In this blog I'll be looking at the history of the kinds of injustice that mankind has subjected upon his fellows, and I'll be looking at some of the people who've tried to bring us to the awareness of the folly of doing so.. I'll be studying the historical embrace of fascism, and the benefits some within society have gained from the failure to address that unfairness: the failings of society and the inability we have had to recognize the need for fair and balanced representation in a democratic society.

I'll be using academic texts to analyze the nature of the issues, the attempts academics have made to politicize issues of unfairness, and the role of governing bodies to establish ground rules for civilized society to agree on rules that make society function with some semblance of order.

Then I'll be attempting to offer solutions that, perhaps, a rapidly expanding and rapidly connected population will be able to embrace as we move further into the 21st century, and phenomena such as social media play their part in our destiny.

Divide and Rule has been the way of society. The "One Percent" have, so we're constantly told, controlled us all in one way or another for millennia. Is this true? And if so, what can we do about it, short of continued war, dissent, and discontent? Kings and Queens, Emperors, dictators, authoritarians and dynasties have historically found ways of constructing false realities, pitting tribes and groups against each other. Black and white, rich and poor, men and women, gays and straight, left and right are all tribes that we embrace or reject, seemingly without fully understanding how we all play into the hands of those who would have us do so.

So please follow my ideas, if you will, as I explore this phenomenon, as I hope to highlight the reality of what it is to be alive today in a world so very different to that of any of our ancestors.

But first, comedian George Carlin's take on the purpose of Divide and Rule, or "Divide and Conquer," as it's also known: 

Carlin asks us to consider that it's the rich that divide us, and pit us against each other so that we can be exploited. And that the function of the poor is to scare us into working and paying taxes. Could this be true? Modern day skeptics talk about "The 1%" as the ruling class nowadays, and that we're competing against each other for jobs, security, and a slice of the pie. Is it merely a conspiracy theory, or an actual conspiracy? This paper , HOUSEHOLD WEALTH TRENDS IN THE UNITED STATES, 1962 TO 2016:HAS MIDDLE CLASS WEALTH RECOVERED? looks at the historic and more recent disparity between the rich and the poor in America.
 

Here we listen to an argument between Ralph Nader and Noam Chomsky about the function of Divide and Rule:



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