Communism (with a dash of atheistic LHP).
People say that "power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely". But that's not actually true. Power reveals who we really are. It brings us face to face without our self-delusion and hypocrisy. It is easy to criticise Communists for what they did, but they weren't monsters. they were human like you and me. they were all children once. there isn't some big thick line where good ends and evil begins which we can safely stay on one side of. We may all pretend to be nice people, but if you had power and zero accountability, isn't there a part of you that would enjoy violating all the taboos, wanting money, sex, power and fame, giving up control to another out of a desire to feel safe, taking revenge on people, forcing others to love us or punishing the innocent and the weak to feel like we matter? Is that a reflection not of some fixed human nature that is incapable of achieving our ideals, its born in sin and inevitably corrupt, or of our own moral impoverishment by fear and vulnerability?
Take a step back and be honest with yourself. With self-knowledge of our own capacity for darkness, we have a choice as to what we do with it. we can run from ourselves but we can't hide. We are the same person all the time regardless as to whether people are watching. If we were cruel and brutal because we think we can get away with it, it means that we really don't value ourselves or our own ideas enough to admit we are living a lie. we measure what is good purely in terms of obedience and conformity rather than self-worth. we value appearances and good intentions over our consequences. our one chance to be alive and we are selling out because we are too afraid to be honest with ourselves. we are told that we cannot be loved for who we are, but only who we are supposed to be. Is that what you really want?
Death is inevitable. we may get some degree of choice over the details, but ultimately death itself is a question of when, not if. So much of our lives are dominated by little petty things that we won't even remember or care about in ten years time. We should really question what we value and why,. did we decide to be like this or were we made this way? how does our day to day lives measure up against our own ultimate fate?
Heroism is born out of the tragedy of knowing that we are equal before the grave; when we have conquered our fear of death there is nothing left to hold us back. when we are gone, what do we want to leave behind? that even though people will not remember us, that eventually we will be no more than a whisper on ageing pages of some dusty record kept in storage would we not want to know that the world is better for our being here? Shouldn't we have consequences for being here and want to know that they are the ones we really want to have? what would you risk to be the best person you could be? to matter for being here and alive?
each of us can achieve greatness, but only if we are honest about our short-comings and are willing to reach further than we have done before. we will fail. we will make mistakes. we will be humiliated and despised because we dared to live in defiance of those moral cripples who have surrendered themselves to their own vulnerability and fear. we do not have to live lives of quiet frustration believing that we are born corrupt and that our humanity is a prison from which we cannot escape. we can be noble, we can be right and we can do good, but only if we chose to. the future is ours; stop running away from it and make it one you actually want.
