Argh, I had typed a long response and then my browser puked out. *sigh
Wow, this is almost exactly what I’ve written in this thread. It would be nice if you gave your input.
I’m currently working on a book based on this idea… it’s primarily being written for my own edification but also for my children (and anyone else who’s interested). The title of the book will be: The World is Yours. Man in the primitive state was born with an innate sense of this fact. He didn’t have to be told the world was his. Like any animal, he simply acted on it.
It is the rapid evolution of mankind that has changed our environment faster than our brains have been able to adapt to it. The evolutionary psychologists have provided a revisionist interpretation of the Garden of Eden myth (which is present in many cultures) to the effect that it is a vestigial memory of “happier times” when people were more innocent in the sense that they did not need to reflect on morality but simply acted without hesitation. Man has “fallen” from his state of innocence and has been forever banished from Paradise, never to return.
This “displacement” from our “natural environment” leaves us vulnerable to manipulation by those who want to intimidate us. (It is much less work to simply intimidate the people you intend to plunder than manually hacking them all to death and then taking their stuff.) We live in a world filled with mental intimidation, exactly like your “invisible hammer” (what was the name/author of the novel, by the way, I’d like to use this phrase and cite it).
The fears that people are inculcated with today are not as strong in the realm of morality than compared to, say, medieval Christian Europe. Today, we are terrified of other things such as being factually incorrect. This is the foundation of expert-based collectivism. It’s the reason a doctor (you’re paying him) can scold you for smoking cigarettes or being obese… even if it’s the first time he’s ever met you. You do not have the authority to make decisions over your own body because you might make a mistake. You must consult an expert before acting.
Now that we have fallen from Paradise, most of us have to consciously internalize the fact that the world is our playground because we were, in a million ways, taught the very opposite our whole lives and we didn’t have the “mental circuitry” within ourselves to reconcile the manifold dangers of our the modern environment and our internal urge to act. Very few people today are taught the world is their playground or live according to it. The ruling elites, some entrepreneurs, some “Bohemians” and so on, live it. But 99.99% of us do not.
Anyway, you’ve sent me back to the drawing boards now. I have to read Stirner and Nietzsche before I can continue… *sigh
Clayton -