Doctrine

The Echo’s Voice series describes a future world where a person can lose citizenship for expressing religious beliefs. This future world retains traditional names for holidays such as Christmas and Thanksgiving. As Bill Forrester explains in Winter Trails

LTK succeeded in removing that superstitious nonsense from the definition of Christmas centuries ago. The season of giving allows us to enjoy a feel-good closure to the colander year, like the happy ending to a story. We retain the name Christmas because we have no desire to rename the classics.

You know, I think Forrester’s definition is not so far removed from the way many celebrate Christmas today.

Even in a society that strongly discourages religion, like that in my series, they might hold on to the holidays, redefined. At another point in the series, I think it is Episode VI, we learn that Thanksgiving has become a day for workers to express thanks to their benevolent company or bureaucracy.

If I make any point at all it is simply this: the more power we hand over to centralized government/business, the more freedoms we surrender. What freedoms would we lose? Whatever benefits those in power to remove from the society they seek to control. Those in power, both in big business and in big government, always seek to remove unpredictable variables. “Monopolize, centralize, homogenize,” as Lyric explains it. People who seek control, either of a government or a market, are risk adverse. This is what kills innovation.

People who desire utopia must believe they know what shape the utopia will take, and probably believe it will mirror their own beliefs. Personally, I think this view flies in the face of everything we know about human nature and history. Power always seeks to limit risk and individual thought. People are too unpredictable when permitted to think for themselves.

This is where I’m coming from. One would be misunderstanding my point to read this as about big, bad corporations or big, bad government, both lead to slavery of the mind, even if not the body as well. In matters of faith, I want every individual to have the freedom to believe or not to believe according to conscience. We are all on a journey, and I wish for every person to have the freedom to explore their own path. It is all too obvious to me that as we move toward centralization in government, business and culture too many people are willing to accept homogenization of ideas and beliefs as the norm. Regurgitating the opinion of a political commentator, celebrity, professor or religious leader is what passes for individuality these days. I dread to think where this leads.

I hope for more than decentralization of business and government; I hunger for decentralization of thought.