Understanding Society
Skepticism
EDITORIAL INTRODUCTION
For most of human history, Doug writes, a self-proclaimed prophet could be shrugged off — or, if he became a nuisance, dispatched with an arrow in the backside. Rutger Bregman’s Humankind: A Hopeful History follows what changed when armies emerged. Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince supplies the cold rule: armed prophets triumph, unarmed prophets fall, and force sustains myths after belief disappears.
A Note on the Original Text
Doug’s writings are presented as originally written. Spelling, punctuation, and grammatical irregularities have been retained to preserve his words and the integrity of the original record.
ORIGINAL WRITING
The content in this post is based on the book Humankind: A Hopeful History by Rutger Bregman.
“For millennia, we could afford to be skeptical about the stories we were told. IF some loudmouth stood up announcing he had been singled out by the hand of God, you could shrug it off. If that person became a nuisance, sooner or later that person would get an arrow in the backside. Homo puppy was friendly, not naive.
It wasn’t until the emergence of armies and their commanders that all this changed. Just try standing up to a strongman who has all opposition skinned, burned alive, or drawn and quartered. Your criticism would not seem so urgent. ‘This is the reason,’ Machiavelli wrote, ‘why all armed prophets have triumphed and all unarmed prophets have fallen.’
From this point on, gods and kings were no longer so easily ousted. Not backing a myth could now prove fatal. If you believed in the wrong god, you kept it to yourself. If you believed the nation state was a foolish illusion, it could cost you your head. ‘It is useful,’ advised Machiavelli, ‘to arrange matters so that when they no longer believe, they can made to believe by force.’
You might think that violence isn’t part of the equation any more—at least not in tidy democracies with their boring bureaucracy. But make no mistake: the threat of violence is still very much present, and it’s pervasive. It’s the reasons families with children can be kicked out of their homes for defaulting on mortgage payments. It’s the reason why immigrants can’t simply cross the border in the fictions we call ‘Europe’ and ‘the United States.’ And it’s also the reason we continue to believe in money.
Just consider: why would people hole up in cages we know as ‘offices’ for forty hours of week in exchange for bits of metal and paper or a few digits added to their bank accounts? Is it because we’re been won over by the power of propaganda of the powers that be? And, if so, why are there virtually no dissenters? Why does no one walk up to the tax authorities and say, ‘Hey mister I just read an interesting book about the power of myths and realized that money is a fiction, so I’m skipping taxes this year.’
The reason is self-evident. If you ignore a bill or don’t pay taxes, you’ll be fined or locked up. If you don’t willingly comply, the authorities will come after you. Money may be a fiction, but it’s enforced by very real violence.