Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.”
– William Penn (1644-1788)
We are ruled by Tyrants and we do not mind very much. Our laughable public instruction incarnated as a school of, by and for barbarians. Education as transmission of civilization was twisted like a Bonsai tree by varied interests until it has become the train platform filled with ads and product placements showcasing nothing special. Dumbing citizens generation after generation down has consequences. Tyranny unimagined by Penn or the Founders is one. A tyranny imagined in the minds of the modern distantly seen in the fog is the actual.
The Italian philosopher Agamben has written -
"A country that decides to give up its own face, to cover the faces of its citizens with masks everywhere is, then, a country that has erased all political dimensions from itself. In this empty space, subjected at every moment to a control without limits, individuals now move in isolation from each other, having lost the immediate and sensitive foundation of their community and being able only to exchange messages directed to a faceless name; to a name without a face any longer.
In Genesis 1:26, 27; 5:1; and 9:6 two terms occur, “image” and “likeness,” that seem to indicate clearly the biblical understanding of essential human nature: humans are created in the image and likeness of God.
According Rabbi Akiba, the "image” of God seems to mean the unique human capacity for a spiritual relationship with him; this interpretation thus avoids any suggestion of a physical similarity between God and humans. Illich-We cannot know God directly, because God is not among the things that can be known directly, but we can recognize God analogically if we recognize an otherness in things that is always beyond our immediate reach – this is the gift of the other as other. Existential thought does not view a human being a passive contemplator of the world, but as an actor. We exist in a world of multiple narratives and clashing truth claims. Anxiety is crippling people and the way out is a thin thread.
“A heavy, dull and suffocating atmosphere has settled over the country, the men are depressed and discontented and, nevertheless, they are willing to suffer anything without protest and without being surprised.
This is the characteristic situation of times of tyranny. The general discontent, which superficial observers regard as an indication of the fragility of power, actually means exactly the opposite. A dull and widespread discontent is compatible with an almost unlimited submission for tens of years; when the feeling of disaster is joined, as is the case today, by the absence of hope, men obey until an external backlash restores hope to them ».
(Simone Weil, 1940)