HYPOTHETICAL APOCALYPSE

Last Thursday's Woolwich Observer carrys the following article by Steve Kannon titled "Even if it's nice after the apocalypse, it might be better to avoid it".Steve has one paragraph that absolutely grabbed my attention namely "Nomadic tribal societies grew in size and complexity, developing rituals, hierarchies and eventually systems of governance that invariably became overbearing and corrupt, from monarchs and church leaders to the dictators, in-name-only democrats and oligarchs crushing what remains of our souls and threatening the very planet trodden on by generations uncounted."

While Steve goes on to give a very good account of the two books written by local author Michael Purves-Smith, it is that previous paragraph that got to me. Essentially Steve seems to be saying that humanity similar to some of the animal kingdom are ingrained to want alpha males if you will, leading them. This is disturbing on many levels. Are we so conditioned to taking orders (even stupid ones) that we will blindly obey what has somehow been presented to us as legitimate leadership? Is this indeed part of the psychology that democratically elects leaders such as Adolf Hitler?

Steve refers to governance that invariably becomes overbearing and corrupt. In my words and others power corrupts. It may not corrupt 100% of the people but when 95% of the people who chase power for its' own sake are already corrupt it sure makes the likelihood of corrupt governance awfully likely. Currently here in Canada we routinely are given choices at the polls between bad and worse. The entire system is set up to avoid honest people or groups from getting elected. What are the chances of appointed judges and other authority figures being scrupulously honest and unbiased when thay are all appointed by these very same corrupt politicians?