We are anxious not to fall into disorder, but the Machine encourages it and we feel justified in making and enforcing laws designed to quash disorder. These laws are not guides to our moral behaviour so much as preventatives of amoral practices getting out of hand and becoming immoral, bad behaviour, and the laws may be enforced by means of equally inhuman punishment.
Which of the characters in this picture defines Human Being? Each of the individuals pictured is essentially the same, but rendered different by external circumstances and conditioning. The man about to be beheaded and another at the head of a queue awaiting the same fate? They have rebelled against authority, in a cause which they thought just, but failed and were lawfully condemned to death. So is the true definition of human being that, faced with lawful injustice we obey the law and suffer in silence, or that we stand up for our believed rights and cruelly lose our heads?
Is human being defined by the soldiers escorting the rebels to their death? It is probable that they regard this beheading as pitiful, but deserved - as morally wrong but lawfully right. They are simply doing their bounden duty, obeying orders without asking questions, only glad that it is not they who are queueing for the sword. Is this the Definition of Human Being, that we must conform to the norm, keep safely to the right side of the law and obey instructions?
Lastly, the executioners. Did they choose this occupation, or was it the only job they could get? Have they something in their genes which enjoys cruelty and the sight of blood despite moral objections? Is it some trait which, in a kind community, might never surface but which is given full rein by this demand for public execution? Is it, then,the essence of human being that we do what we feel like doing, especially where the Machine supports us? Or that, with the help of a loving community, we do what is right, effectively suppressing those amoral genes?
The Boxer rebellion had a cause, a cause which justified rebellion in the eyes of the rebels. Without a cause, with a peaceful people in a just and peaceful society, there would be no need of rebellion. But where there is a threat of rebellion there is also need of a powerful authority to put it down, in this case by staging public executions. And it is this same authority, whose suppression gave cause for the rebellion, which maintains soldiers to crush it and take prisoners, officials to stage this spectacle, and executioners to do the beheading.
There is a parallel in the relief of Baghdad in 2003, where the fighting was followed by large scale looting on the part of Iraqi people. The outside world sees this looting as disgraceful, but it must appear differently in the looters' eyes. They must see it as justified in view of the vicious oppression and deprivation they have endured for years at the hands of a regime which certainly kept order, but cruelly.
The character of the Boxer rebels and the Baghdad looters is not described by their actions. In humantrue circumstances they could never have behaved in this way. But, continually maintained through the decades under the Machine, unjust rule has caused understandably angry protest, followed by punishment, bringing resentment, more suppression and more angry protest.
Whilst private human character is as good as individuals can make it under their circumstances, this and our collective public Machine behaviour does not define genuine human being.
We see that genuine human being is defined by supraconscious moral awareness on the part of the individual and the good influences of humantrue society. The behaviour of the human being cannot be separated from the nature and state of our world social structure.
Pt.VII REALISATION
DECIDING THE CONSTITUTION
Original Chapter
42 Definition of Human Being
Subchapters
42a St Peters Square
42b Keeping Order
42c Autoprogress
42d Hierarchical Pyramids
42e The Great Depression
42f Reform
42g Dictatorship
42h Inverting the Pyramid
42j Community
42k Moral Guide
Next Chapters
43 Code of Individual Behaviour
44 Framework of Life
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