The Empire Needs Degenerates

Self discipline and thoughtfulness are the biggest enemies of the Empire. Palpatine in Star Wars, for example, tries to lead Luke of the path of discipline and self control. In the Return of the Jedi, Luke says "no" and his demonstration of self control is what actually destroys the Emperor, and ends the Empire.

A couple of days ago I wrote about how The Matrix is misunderstood. Cultivation of consciousness and self mastery does bend reality, not in the magical and dramatized ways depicted in the movie, but in the sense that a slowly accumulating set of beneficial outcomes will improve the world.

That's why the Empire needs degenerates and attacks every institution that can help people form a consensus understanding of reality and replaces it with propaganda and divide and conquer schemes like ethnonationalism, feminism, the opposite of feminism, etc... In prior eras when people in the United States organized against corporate interests, they sometimes won pretty handily.

What's degeneracy? In this sense, it's really just living a life of distraction and not thinking about anything. Any person, regardless of race, creed, sexual preferences, age and experience can be disciplined and thoughtful. Likewise, any person can be sucked into a world of distraction and dissipation. I don't think that's a moral or congenital failing. It's just something that can happen when a man gets swept away by desires and loses mindfulness; It's part of being a human being.

The mass consumer and corporate culture in the United States really thrives on people who are perpetually in that state. While it does attack institutions that might organize people and lead them to a higher consciousness, it relies more on jamming the signal of alternatives with noise and gaudy displays.