This isn't an ancient thing. It prevails today more intensely than it has ever done.
This is not an opinion. It is observed. I can see it happening all the time right in front of my face. It's one of the only important things I know, that I know.
This observation is simple for me to test: that is, can I question my master without fear of retribution? If I cannot, clearly I have a master and I am his slave. And I know I'm forbidden from questioning my master. It is another thing that I know, that I know. I know I will never properly do it.
This is not the only test. But it is a simple one I can induce immediately and be certain of. And the cause and effect might well be driven by collective psychic forces - by 'the mob' or a perceived one.
Whether it be a god, the state or an ideology, it's all the same. I want a master to rule me and to protect me. More than anything else I want this. More than I do to receive love, and to give it.
This is observed with great ease. I'm always insisting on having a master of some kind, to rule me. Today the state has overwhelmed a god. I have killed God, right? But even those who prefer a god as the all powerful master, still choose it freely. It's different in that God is a higher form of Master
The acts of wealth and power are never forced onto me. I choose it. It is mine. It belongs to me. So when I complain about the acts of wealth and power, that is my neurosis which also belongs to me. That is the world I created at a deeper secondary level of neurosis, a pathology which I don't seem to be aware of.
It is so obvious I am too afraid to cross the frontier into the forbidden zone where there's no protection, no promises, no credit, no guarantees. And where there is freedom, where my life depends entirely on me at last. And not a master. If I cross over the border and enter this undiscovered country I have absolute and unconditional freedom.
I want to be a slave more than anything else. It's no use me banging on about freedom, my rights and my civil liberties. When deep down my preference by far is to be a slave. That would be my neurosis.
It's a most curious thing, that some parts of the unconscious collective unit are trying to claim a monopoly over their past slavery. When they are still, like the rest of us, slaves already. Not to mention that to be so proud of ones slavery makes it that much more curious. They could at least be humble about that!
Slavery was never abolished, except nominally, as a kind of escape. An image, called freedom or emancipation, which thought created collectively and now worships. Just an image.
Thought creates an image of a world. Then thought worships the image it just created.
This approach of using thought to create images, is a tell take signal that I am a slave. I cannot look at anything for what it actually is if it's not cosy. I have to create an image of it which feels cosy, and then worship it - to escape into cosiness, away from what's in front of my face.
And while I continue with that attitude, I will always be a slave to the extent I worship my master, whoever I deliberately choose that to be. I doesn't matter who or what.
The inevitable outcome of this in the material world is known as systemic rent seeking, where I tend to rob, my neighbours brothers and even my enemies, under the protection of the law, to get something for nothing. And the images I've created and now worship have protected rights, under the law. The law helps me to be a slave.
My master is not forced on to me. I choose it deliberately. No one is manipulating me. I allow myself to be manipulated. No one is exploiting me. I allow myself to be exploited. No one is nudging me. I allow myself to be nudged. To choose slavery and then to shout loudly about how I'm being exploited is another level, a tertiary level, of the same neurosis I created when I allowed thought to make a cosy image to help me escape into a slave fantasy.
So what is at the root of this systemic pathology? I live in permanent fear that there's not enough to go around, which is obviously absurd in the modern world today, where the productive power of all economies is so big today that no one goes short. Yes, there is still a problem with the distribution, but this is a telltale signal of the very thing I'm talking about and reinforces the point that much more intensely - the slavery that I've chosen willingly, means that I desire an unjust distribution as a right of passage into my slavery.
Nonetheless, I still believe it at a very deep level, it's almost like it's in my genes as a hold over from ancient times. Where indeed there was a dangerous challenge to my survival because there was indeed not enough to go around. But this is not the case today yet I have not evolved and climbed above that pathologically, now I have plenty.
Whether it be a god, the state or an ideology, it's all the same. I want a master to rule me and to protect me. More than anything else I want this. More than I do to receive love, and to give it.
I desire a master. Therefore, I must be a slave more than I am anything else.
In the end, I'm in exile, to my slavery.