Tag: freedom of expression

Slippery Slopes Ahead

A beautiful shot of a person with red jacket skiing down the snowy mountain with a blurred background

“There is no slippery slope towards the loss of liberty, only a long staircase where each step down must first be tolerated by the people and their leaders” Alan K Simpson.

We are all on some slipery slopes to some unpleasant place called tyranny. A lot of people say I don’t want tyranny, I want to be free. But what is freedom? People need to be able to define it. To believe in it. To defend it. To implement it. The problem these days is that society seems to have fallen into some kind of torpor led by unquestioning obedience towards the establishment and the mainstream narrative. We all know that “power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely”. History is littered with examples of the “savior” becoming the oppressor.

When Ernest Hemingway was asked how he became bankrupt he answered, Gradually, then suddenly. Similarly, governments become tyrannical gradually, and then suddenly. Living in a democratic society gives you a false sense of security because it makes you believe that all is rosy and the system is here to protect you and your right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Except that, for those who have eyes to see and ears to listen, we can see that some democratic governments are eating away people’s freedom inch by inch in a sneaky kind of way, all for your own good, of course. Beware of the wolf wearing sheep clothing.

The question, is are we all on a slippery slope towards a very unpleasant place? I think so, but the good news is that more and more people are waking up from a long period of torpor and are responding with admirable courage and fortitude to the continuous assault on their liberty.

Slippery slope ahead: man was born free but everywhere you look he is in chains

Slippery slopes ahead- Photo by Claudiodly via freepick.com

Man was born free, but everywhere you look he is in chains. If you live in a tyrannical society, would you know it?

“When you see that in order to produce you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing. When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favor. When you see that men get richer more easily by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them but protect them against you. When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming self-sacrifice. You may know that your society is doomed. Such is the nature of a sick society; lies are truth, violence is love, sociopathic behavior is leadership, and most important of all, slavery is freedom.” Ayn Rand

The ideas expressed below are coming straight from Chapter 7 of my book “This Is Your Quest”. According to Jean-Jacques Rousseau “Man was born free, and everywhere you look he is in chains”, but it doesn’t have to be this way. It is possible to find freedom in an unfree world. It is not a given to think that everyone wants to be free. Most people are willing to sacrifice freedom for security. In a free society, the primary role of the government is to protect individuals and their property from aggression by others.

Rulers have always needed some kind of excuse to justify their authority and the fact that they alone have the power to dictate to the masses how they should lead their lives. Originally Kings defended their right to rule by citing the Divine Rights of Kings. No one would dare to question the authority of the King because his power was given directly to him by God. But with kingdoms falling, a new justification for rulership was required. Thomas Hobbes came to the rescue and provided the justification that the elite needed.

Hobbes’ book Leviathan” established the foundation for modern political philosophy. Hobbes said that life without government would inevitably lead to conflict, to a war of all against all, life would be solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. To escape this sorry state of affairs, Hobbes argues that all individuals must yield their rights to a sovereign authority for the sake of their protection. And if the Sovereign was to act badly, men must accept it as the price for peace. Hobbes, however, was manifestly wrong.

On the other end of the spectrum, we find Etienne de la Boetie who was a French Judge, writer, and founder of the modern political philosophy that emerged in France during the Renaissance era. He is best known for his essay “Discours de la Servitude Volontaire” — “Discourse on Voluntary Servitude” attacking absolute monarchy and tyranny. The essay asserts that tyrants have power because people give it to them.

“Once liberty has been abandoned by society, it stays corrupted and prefers the slavery of the courtesan to the freedom of one who refuses to dominate as he refuses to obey.” Etienne de la Boetie

La Boetie linked obedience with domination; by advocating a solution of simply refusing to support the tyrant, he became one of the earliest advocates of civil disobedience and non-violent resistance. To him, the great mystery of politics is obedience to the rulers. Why in the world do people agree to be looted and otherwise oppressed by government overlords? It is not just fear, La Boetie explains, for our consent is required. And that consent can be non-violently withdrawn. If you give your power away, it will be recycled against you in the form of tranny; if you don’t give it away the tyrants have no power.

Slippery slope ahead: the ignorance of the power inherent to all of us by Natural Law

Slippery slopes ahead. Photo by Wirestock via freepik.com

Natural law is the idea that there are rational objective limits to the power of legislative rulers. Aristotle is often said to be the father of natural law. Aristotle defined human beings as rational animals. He believed that the highest human happiness or well-being is found in living a life that is consistently, excellently, and completely in accordance with reason. The natural law thesis holds that if a human law fails to be backed up by decisive reason, then it is not a proper law at all. The most important aspect of natural law is that a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life or take away the means of preserving the same.

We should remind ourselves that the government is working for us and not the other way round; the government derives its power from the consent of the governed. This implies that we the people have the power but we have consented to the surrender of some of our rights in order to elect a government whose role is to represent and protect their people. Government should not encroach upon our natural rights, which are sacred to us as human beings, and those rights cannot be taken away by legislation. The presumption of liberty declares that the rights that we did not surrender to the government we retain ourselves and they can never be taken away from us by the government, by legislation, by decree. In an ideal world, governments should only limit themselves to the protection of our natural rights. But this is not what is happening today.

Today, what we live in is a world where the thought police are out there waiting to cancel us, censor us, demonize us and lock us up just because we dare to think for ourselves and step away from the official narrative. What is right for you may not be right for me. What is right for me may not be right for you. But what is not right for either of us is being stripped of the freedom to choose what is right for ourselves. There is nothing extreme about wanting the freedom to make our own decision. Freedom of expression is the lifeblood and cornerstone of a free society, without the freedom of expression to think and express ourselves freely, there is no free society. So, we’d better start thinking for ourselves quickly before it becomes illegal.

“If we don’t believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it all .” Noam Chomsky

“Freedom ultimately means the right of other people to do things that you do not approve of.” Thomas Sowell.

We are currently living in a society where the government can restrict your freedom of movement to the limit of your own house, where hugging and kissing are forbidden, where adults are being infantilized and children are made to grow up with a victimhood mentality and a guilty conscience for who they are. Freedom should never be a reward for good behavior, that is how prison works!

Who would have thought a couple of years ago that we would be living in a society that denies your children the right to an education? A society where parents and normal hard-working citizens would be labeled domestic terrorists just because they dare to ask questions? Who would have thought that we would be living in a society where the government would prevent you from earning a living, deny you access to food supply chains and medical facilities; a society where the government would be able to confiscate and/or freeze all your assets including your bank accounts, all without due process for your own good, of course. All of those are big slippery slopes.

“If you have to be persuaded, reminded, pressured, lied to, incentivized, coerced, bullied, socially shamed, guilt-tripped, threatened, punished, and criminalized; if all of this is considered necessary to gain your compliance, you can be absolutely certain that what is being promoted is not in your best interest.” Ian Watson.

“All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed, they must rely exclusively on force.” George Orwell.

Courage is the most important of all the virtues

Slippery slopes ahead. Photo by Ski Anatolly via freepik.com

“Courage is the most important of all virtues because without courage you cannot practice any of the other virtues consistently” Maya Angelou

We are not born courageous, we learn to be. Courage is a skill that needs to be practiced. Courage is contagious.

At the end of the day, we should always remember that grapes must be crushed to make wine. Diamonds form under pressure. Olives are pressed to release oil. Seeds grow in darkness. So, whenever you feel crushed, under pressure, pressed or in darkness, you are in a powerful place of transformation. Good things are coming down the road, just keep walking but make sure to avoid all the slippery slopes along the way. May the road you choose be the right road.

And this my dear friend is your Quest.

This article is dedicated to the Canadian truckers who demonstrated to the whole world what heroes are made of. Heroes don’t always wear a cape, some of them drive trucks.

Personal Note

I have been working closely for the past months with Data-Driven Investor (DDI) Publication. DDI has recently launched a new marketplace/platform where people can book a paid one-to-one session with an expert of their choice. DDI asked me to join their panel of advisors/experts in the Leadership, Coaching, and Personal Growth category. Here is my profile. If you wish to book a one-to-one chat with me you can do so on this platform.

For more on this subject you can purchase my book This is Your Quest online at BookLocker, from Amazon or from Barnes & Noble. The Ebook version is available on Amazon (Kindle), Barnes & Noble (Nook), Apple (iBooks) & Kobo. Check out my Amazon Author Page here or my listing on Booksradar.com

Don’t Put a Label on Me!

Don't put a label on me - Photo by Yarruta via freepik.com

Don’t Put a Label on Me. Don’t put me into a box and stick a label on it before you even get the chance to know me. I am not the same person I was when I was 20, 30, 40 years old. I am the sum total of my genetics, my upbringing, but also the books I read, the countries I traveled to, the ups and downs that came on my path. I can be reliable and predictable and also spontaneous and unpredictable. I respect people and choose not to worship them. I am a giver but I need to give myself enough time and space to advance my interests too. I am nice and lovely, but I can be dangerous too. Today I can decide to be as exuberant and as colorful as I want and tomorrow, I can decide to be as dull as the grey sky if I feel like it. I don’t gossip, but I read and write. I am all of that and more and a constant work-in-progress. So please, don’t put a label on me.

Don’t put a label on me. The problem with stereotypes.

Don’t put a label on me – Photo by Yarruta via freepik.com

A stereotype is defined as a simplification of reality, a rigid categorizing – and often discriminatory – representation. A stereotype is a fixed, overgeneralized belief about a particular group or class of people. By stereotyping, we infer that a person has a whole range of characteristics and abilities that we assume all members of that group have.

Stereotypes are like air, invisible but always present.

Unknown Author

For example, saying that women have no sense of direction, that girls suck at math or that football is a man’s sport, are stereotypes. Stereotypes can be positive or negative. Negative stereotypes about women and minority groups are easy to spot, more pernicious are the positive ones, such as men are not in touch with their emotions, black people are good athletes. They don’t seem so pernicious because their content is complementary, but stereotypes are bad even when they are good.

“The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.”

Adichi Chimaamanda

Stereotypes can be linked to any type of cultural membership, such as nationality, religion, gender, race, or age, but it is important to note that there is a difference between cultural generalizations and stereotypes. Cultural generalizations allow us to understand the patterns of cultures to which one belongs (nation, age, gender, etc…) and it provides the basis on which one can understand other cultures. Cultural generalizations involve categorizing members of the same group as having similar characteristics. Generalizations are flexible and allow for the incorporation of new cultural information. They are a type of hypothesis or guess, of what we expect to encounter when we interact with a certain culture; and this is a good thing.

Generalization is a concept that is flexible and can subsequently lead to increased cultural awareness and thereby improve intercultural relationships. Generalizations become stereotypes when all members of a group are categorized as having the same characteristics. Stereotypes are typically inflexible and resistant to new information. They can, and often do lead to prejudice and intentional or unintentional discrimination. Cultural stereotypes do not allow for individual differences and interfere with efforts to understand an individual on a personal level.

Stereotypes make us lazy and encourage nonchalant judgment because we assume things about people based on stereotypes. It drives and nourishes racism, sexism, and all form of discrimination. I have a strong aversion to labels and being put into a box and I don’t allow people to do that to me. As soon as someone puts a label on you or throw you into a specific box, you lose your identity as a unique and free individual who may or may not fit into that stereotype, and who is free to be whoever they want to be.

Don’t put a label on me. The problem with being put into a box.

Don’t put a label on me – Photo by Yarruta via freepik.com

The problem with being put into a box with a label on it is that it considerably restricts your freedom to think and act the way you want. We are all unique and different from each other. What makes us different is not the color or our skin or our geography, it is the fact that there isn’t another person like us anywhere else. All around us, there are spheres of authority always dictating what we should do, how we should act, and what we ought not to do. Aside from the formal structure like laws, there are also informal powers dictating our actions lifestyles, speech, thought patterns, education, cultural upbringing, religion, politics, etc… This invisible current forces us to travel a certain path, act a certain way, and be a certain type of person. Much of our individualistic tendencies do not develop as freely as we think because we have to conform to societal expectations of ourselves and stay well within the groupthink model.

The next question you should ask yourself is who has an interest in putting people into a box and stick a label on it? People who seek power and control do thrive on sticking a label on you. Because it is easier to control people this way. Once you belong to a certain box you are expected to walk on a straight and narrow line. Venturing outside that path is frown upon. Dissenting views and actions are not allowed because dissent is being viewed as being disloyal to the group. Nowadays if your thoughts and ideas are not in line with the rest of the group you will have to face the new social media Thought Police, because the chance is you are going to get canceled and censored. From a difference of opinion, you can quickly move to fragments of intolerance to violent factions. And just like that you have a 1984-Dystopian-type of society where it is not very pleasant to live in and where Big Brother is watching you all the time with the Thought Police ready to storm in and take you away.

This phenomenon is very much into your face in the political arena, where everything is partisan, and where groupthink ideas are shoved down your throat. The ideas of the group are sacrosanct even if they go against your personal interest because the group knows what’s best for you. When you submit to the group you acquiesce to everything that the group asks you to do. You don’t have to use your ears, your mouth, or your brain anymore. The group tells you where to look and what to see. And if you dare to look the other way and start questioning things, they tell you what you are seeing is not what you are seeing and they proceed to interpret what is going on for you.

One way to free ourselves from the shackle of societal restrictions that impede the originality and flexibility of each person would be to develop our individualism and sense of freedom. Freedom of expression is the lifeblood and cornerstone of a free society, without the freedom to think and express ourselves freely, there is no free society. So, we’d better start thinking for ourselves quickly before it becomes illegal. Don’t get all romantic about your ideas or the ideas that the group promotes. You are not married to those ideas. Some ideas are good and others not so good. Stay free to adhere to the ideas that are congruent with your outlook in life and toss aside anything that makes you uncomfortable.

People should be able to stand for what they think is right. They should be able to fight for what is honorable and acceptable and they should have the freedom to reject what is slimy and unacceptable. The problem these days is that everyone believes that they hold the absolute truth of the matter; except that no one can legitimately claim to have such clarity of mind that they know the absolute truth. Truth is a very fluid concept, what’s true today may not be true tomorrow.

Things change all the time. It is perfectly fine to have strong convictions about this and that, but you should do this with humility. You should hold those convictions and make them contingent on whatever facts, data, arguments, life experience, etc… that come your way with the result that your original convictions can be shaken and made less potent.

You can stand your ground and be open-minded enough to seek common ground. And, don’t try to put a label on me, because I won’t let you.

Joanne Reed

And this my dear friend is your Quest.

Personal Note

DDI Chat – Personal Growth – One-to-one Chat with Joanne Reed

In addition to publishing my articles on my website, I have also been publishing on Medium. I have been working closely for the past months with Data-Driven Investor (DDI) Publication.  DDI has recently launched a new marketplace/platform where people can book a paid one-to-one session with an expert of their choice.  DDI asked me to join their panel of advisors/experts in the Leadership, Coaching, and Personal Growth category.  Here is my profile. If you wish to book a one-to-one chat with me you can do so on this platform.

For more on this subject you can purchase my book This is Your Quest online at BookLocker, from Amazon or from Barnes & Noble.  The Ebook version is available on Amazon (Kindle), Barnes & Noble (Nook), Apple (iBooks) & Kobo. Check out my Amazon Author Page here or my listing on Booksradar.com

Stop Asking for Permission When You Don’t Have To.

Stop asking for permission when you don't have to. Photo by Wayhome studio via freepik.com

To seek or not to seek permission? I say, stop asking for permission when you don’t have to.

From the day we are born, we spend our life asking permission for everything. It starts with our parents, our teachers, our boss, our spouse, or our leader, and it goes on and on. I say, stop asking for permission when you don’t have to. We grow up with a host of ingrained ideas about what we’re permitted to do or not do. As a child, we have to ask permission from our parents to ride our bikes to town. When in school, we have to raise our hands and ask the teacher permission to speak or to go to the toilet. At work, we have to ask our boss and HR department permission to go on sick leave when we are feeling unwell.

Being compliant, obedient, and asking for permission might serve us well in a civilized society as we learn how to control our wants and desires; but the irony and eventual quiet tragedy of that is that in some instances, our wants and desires might not have a possessor, a licensor or a permit giver. It may lie outside the realms of ownership. There may be broad indifference to whether we act in some way or not. There may be no law and no one to be upset by our move. The desired thing in question might just belong to whoever dares to step forward and take it. There’s no formal procedure, it’s just the courage to imagine it could be yours. The reason why certain ideas haven’t happened isn’t necessarily because they are silly, but because there is a strong and always surprising lack of originality in human conduct.

We are creatures of tradition, systems, rules, and regulations and we are conditioned to think that we need permission for everything and to act within the confines of what is permitted. For most of human history, it was customary to believe that permission to do anything had to be sought from the gods and superior forces that governed the cosmos. We may assume we don’t share this primitive characteristic, but our underlying attitude – in its essential form – suggests we do. We don’t quite know whom we are asking, and we can’t say precisely what approval looks like, but in an archaic part of our minds, we’re still waiting to be given endorsement for our most cherished plans. I say, stop asking permission when you don’t have to.

We want to know from some potent but undefined source that if we act this way, we’ll still be good people, that we won’t be punished that this is allowed, that we won’t bring retribution on ourselves or trouble from the Universe. Our culture is fascinated by inventors and artists who struck out on their own, went strongly against the tide of current opinion, and was eventually vindicated even if only after their deaths. We get excited by the stories of their lives because we unconsciously find in them something that’s missing in us: a bold indifference to permission, a reminder of our lack of courage and timidity.

Stop asking for permission when you don’t have to. You don’t need permission to think the way you think

Stop asking for permission when you don’t have to. Photo by Wayhome studio via freepik.com

In the Dystopian Novel 1984 written by George Orwell, the Thought Police (Thinkpol) are the secret police of the superstate of Oceania, who discover and punish Though Crime, personal and political thoughts unapproved by the regime. Thinkpol uses criminal psychology and omnipresent surveillance via informers, telescreens cameras, and microphones to monitor the citizens of Oceania and arrest all those who have committed Thought Crime in challenge to the status quo authority of the Party and the regime of Big Brother.

Democratic societies assert unequivocally that freedom of expression is part of our human rights. The First Amendment of the US Constitution largely protects Americans from the creepy authoritarian systems found in 1984 and so does the Human Rights Act; Article 10 of the Human Rights Act protects your right to hold your own opinions and express them freely without government interference. This includes the right to express your views aloud (for example through public protest and demonstrations) or through published articles, books or leaflets, television or radio broadcasting, works of arts, the internet, and social media.

Sadly, the scenario envisaged in Orwell’s book 1984 seems to be more reality than fiction. The new Thought Police are Big Tech and the rise of Cancel Culture. We will have to decide as a collective if seeking conformity of thought or language through public shaming is healthy or suffocating. Condoning the censorship road that is being taken by Big Tech is likely to be the road that takes us straight to that place called Tyranny.

“When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing. When you see, that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favor. When you see that men get richer more easily by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them but protect them against you. When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice – You may know that your society is doomed” Extract from Atlas shrugged Ayn Rand (1905 to 1982) – Novelist, philosopher, and screenwriter.

Ayn Rand

History is full of examples of crazy things you won’t believe used to be legal, slavery being one of them. We tend to think of the law as an obvious truth, the reality is that society pretty much makes things up as we go along. Thank goodness, we can rely on Natural Law which is a superior law to the Law of the State to save us from tyranny. Some big thinkers spent time thinking about this concept.

Aristotle is often said to be the father of Natural Law. The Natural Law thesis holds that if a human law fails to be backed up by decisive reason, then it is not a proper law at all. This is captured in the maxim “an unjust law is no law at all”. In his treatise Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes expressed a view of Natural Law as a general rule, by which a man is forbidden to do that which is destructive of his life or takes away the means of preserving the same. According to Emanuel Kant, in a free society, each individual must be able to pursue their goals however they see fit as long as their actions conform to principles governed by reason.

Thomas More’s refusal to acknowledge King Henry VIII as Supreme Head of the Church of England and the annulment of his marriage to Catherine of Aragon lead him to be imprisoned and put on trial for treason. During his last remarks to court – defending himself in his trial for treason and knowing in advance his fate of being found guilty for his refusal to assert in writing that the King was the Head of the Church, he made the following arguments to the jury :

“Some men say the Earth is flat and some men say the Earth is round. But if it is flat, could Parliament make it round? And if it is round, could the King’s command flatten it?”

Thomas More

What Thomas More so eloquently expressed during his trial was that the Laws of Nature will force the government to exercise a certain restraint. There is a limit to what a government and/or parliament can legitimately do. That limit is set by Natural Law. Extract from Chapters 7 & 10 of This Is Your Quest.

You don’t need permission to be enlightened or to act with reason

Stop asking for permission when you don’t have to. Photo by Wayhome studio via freepik.com

The 18th century was a period known as the Enlightenment, another term used in the Age of Reason. The concept of a social contract, limited government, consent of the governed, and the separation of power started making an impact on people. New beliefs started spreading such as “all men are created equal” and “a king has no divine rights.”

Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote The Social Contract or Principles of Political Right in 1762. His thinking was that humans are essentially free, but over time they become less and less free because of the mere fact that they live in a society. It is only natural in society to see a ruler emerge and to attract followers, who would happily give up their liberty to be under the ruler’s protection. The question that Jean-Jacques Rousseau asked himself was: “How can we be free and live together without being overpowered by the force and coercion of others? The answer he came up with was: “through a social contract.”

A social contract is a process whereby people will come together and agree to form a new single body called the Sovereign. The Sovereign’s mission is to act for the good of all the people and its critical element is the element of reciprocity. The Sovereign is committed to the good of the individuals who constitute it and each individual is likewise committed to the good of the whole. In the American colonies, more and more people were being influenced by this concept and started to believe that they weren’t receiving their end of the bargain and, gradually started to think that it was their duty to rebel against and disobey laws that were viewed unjustly. The American Revolution began in 1775; the root cause of the revolution can be found in the way Great Britain treated its colony, as some kind of faraway outpost, whose sole purpose was to provide for the needs of Great Britain, and for the American people to be subject to and subservient to the will and power of the Crown.

So, please stop asking for permission when you don’t have to. There is a whole raft of things that fall outside the realms of ownership. Not all our wants and desires need to have a possessor, a licensor, or a permit giver.

And this my dear friend, is Your Quest.

Personal Note

DDI Chat – Personal Growth – One-to-one Chat with Joanne Reed

In addition to publishing my articles on my website, I have also been publishing on Medium. I have been working closely for the past months with Data-Driven Investor (DDI) Publication.  DDI has recently launched a new marketplace/platform where people can book a paid one-to-one session with an expert of their choice.  DDI asked me to join their panel of advisors/experts in the Leadership, Coaching, and Personal Growth category.  Here is my profile. If you wish to book a one-to-one chat with me you can do so on this platform.

For more on this subject you can purchase my book This is Your Quest online at BookLocker, from Amazon or from Barnes & Noble.  The Ebook version is available on Amazon (Kindle), Barnes & Noble (Nook), Apple (iBooks) & Kobo. Check out my Amazon Author Page here or my listing on Booksradar.com

Hope, Spring Eternal. all Right Spring. Do Your Thing!

All Right Spring. Do your thing!

Spring is the season of new beginnings, rebirth, joy, and renewed hope. Fresh buds bloom, animals awaken, and the earth seems to come to life again. With Spring the beauty of the world is in full display in an onslaught of colors that is forcing the darkness of the long winter months into a hasty retreat. The world radiates with alacrity, the sky is painted in stunning streaks of red, pink, purple, and blue, and the birds sing their delight to the heavens. Some people say that God created Hope and Spring on the same day. So, let Hope, and Spring Eternal find their way to your home.

Hope, Spring Eternal

2021 carries with it a lot of hope bearing in mind what we all went through in 2020. We are living in an age of despair and fractured communities where we are being forced to alienate ourselves from our family, friends, colleagues, and clients. The unintended consequences of this forced isolation are that the less we interact with other people, the less tolerance we feel for other people, and the more we find comfort in our own ‘sanitized’ bubbles.

Hope triggers a sense of purpose and aspirations during desperate times. Hope provides a haven from pessimism and fear. It galvanizes our courage and mobilizes our energy and vitality. It enhances our mood and our creative thinking.


“Hope is the place you want to go when you find yourself sitting in a dark place. Hope is the name of the person you want to know where all the people around you are spreading fear and misery. Hope is the seed that is buried deep inside you that you want to sprinkle around like magic fairy dust. Hope is the feeling that carries you through, no matter what”

Joanne Reed
Spring is here. Mount Namsam. Seoul, South Korea

But let’s steer away for a moment from the lovely fluffiness and romanticism attached to this noble feeling of hope, joy, and peace for all; hoping for things to get better without doing something about it is not enough. We have to spring into action and be more intentional about our hopes and aspirations for the future.

If you think that all the problems of the world will be resolved as soon as we can all agree on how to move forward, then you are kidding yourself because instead of going to that place called Hope, you will swim in an ocean of Despair. Asking everyone to agree on one thing is an impossibility, and the earlier we realize this, the better it will be.

Being able to work together and live in a semi-harmonious manner with our neighbors and within our community is good enough. Don’t try to aim for a utopic world vision seen through pink-tinted glasses where everyone loves and helps each other. Stay real and grounded, it is not about friendship and interacting only with the people you like and the people who think the same way as you think. Life is about getting along with people who are different from you, with people you find boring, annoying, or even objectionable; because the challenges that face us as a group are more important than our personal likes and dislikes. It doesn’t matter what people believe, what matters is what they do. Agree on actions.

Humans are naturally cooperative and loving. We raise children and care for pets. Divide and conquer is a strategy that has been used since the beginning of time by a small group of people who are thriving to exert control over the populace. The more energy is expended by the public fighting among themselves the less anger is directed at the overlord class. It is a Machiavellian ploy. Do not fall into this trap.

But I digress, let’s get back to hope, spring eternal; during springtime, the buds that stayed buried in the ground during the whole winter months decided all together that now is the time to spring into action and burst into life with the common purpose of sharing their beauty with the world.

Hope, Spring eternal may the spirit of Spring give us the strength to act with a sense of purpose for the benefit of all.

Joanne Reed

Hope for a new kind of Renaissance

Renaissance is a French word meaning “rebirth.” It refers to a period (14th till 17th Century) in European civilization that was marked by a revival of classical learning and wisdom. From its origins in 14th-century Florence, the Renaissance spread across Europe and it changed the world in just about every way one could think and it came right after one of the darkest periods of human history where the black plague killed millions of people (1 in 3 people across the world perished from the plague).

The Renaissance pushed the boundaries of what we know and what could be achieved. New continents were discovered. Copernicus and Galileo shocked the world and most importantly the whole ecclesiastic establishment by establishing that the Earth was not the center of the Universe but was revolving around the Sun. Radical thinkers such as the humanist Erasmus expounded a new way of looking at the world that owed less to blind subservience to the Catholic Church and more to the possibilities inherent in the human mind.

Cherry blossom, Namsam Tower, Seoul, South Korea. Photo by Tawalchai07

Never before had there been such a coming together of art, science, and philosophy. And never before had there been such an opportunity for it to be so widely disseminated, thanks to the invention in 1440 by Gutenberg of the printing press. For the first time, books could be mass-produced. A single press could churn out 3,600 pages a day, resulting in an explosion of literature and ideas unprecedented in history.

Erasmus (the humanist) became a bestselling author. The new ideas of free-thinkers, mathematicians, and scientists all became accessible to the masses. Art and science became, for the first time in human history, truly democratic.

Humanism emphasized the dignity of man. In place of the medieval ideal of a life of penance as the highest and noblest form of human activity, the humanists encourage the rebirth of a lost human spirit and wisdom. The effect of humanism was to help men break free from the mental prison imposed by religious orthodoxy, to inspire free inquiry and criticism, and to inspire new confidence in the possibilities of human thought and creations.

The seeds of the modern world were sown and grown during the Renaissance. With Spring in full bloom, we should thrive for the return of a Modern-Day-Renaissance where creativity, freedom of thoughts, and expression are free to bloom for all the world to see allowing mankind to achieve new heights in this tumultuous period.

And my dear friend, This is Your Quest 

For more on this subject you can purchase my book This is Your Quest online at BookLocker, from Amazon or from Barnes & Noble.  The Ebook version is available on Amazon (Kindle), Barnes & Noble (Nook), Apple (iBooks) & Kobo. Check out my Amazon Author Page here or my listing on Booksradar.com.

The audio version of my book “This Is your Quest ” is available. Feel free to check it out and use this special Promotion code

Rules to Break. The Internet Makes You Anonymous

Break the Rules - Censorship

The book ‘The Rules to Break– A Personal Code for Living Your Life Your Way’ by Richard Templar, exposes all those ‘well-intended’ rules and gracious advice from teachers, parents, friends that somehow become ingrained in us. The trouble is many of those rules often aren’t true and yet they have a major influence on our lives. Instead of blindly accepting the rules set down for us by other people, we should learn to question them, think for ourselves, and be more fluid in our judgment. This article is the first of a series of articles I have decided to write offering you a selection of rules to break and the question of the day is whether the internet makes you anonymous, why freedom of expression is so fundamental, and how Cancel Culture is becoming a thing these days.

Rule to break: The internet makes you anonymous.

Rules to break: The internet makes you ananymous. Photo by @freepik Via freepik.com

The ‘accepted’ rule is that the internet makes you anonymous. Richard Templar disagrees. It’s so easy he said, sitting all on your own in your bedroom with your computer, to think that no one can see you. You use your computer like a mask, except that your computer doesn’t conceal your real identity. You may feel a level of detachment from your social networking pages or your emails, but the people who read them are very conscious that these words or pictures come straight from you. So, you have to take responsibility for what you say and do online. If you wouldn’t say a thing to someone’s face, don’t say it to Facebook either. Be considerate of what pictures you post or the tone of the emails you send. If you wouldn’t do it or say it offline, then don’t do it or say it online. And if in doubt don’t.

New Rule: The internet doesn’t make you anonymous, but it can make you a hero or a prat.

“Social media makes you all way too comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it”.

Mike Tyson

There are a lot of talks these days about Cancel Culture which is defined by Wikipedia as a modern form of ostracism in which someone is thrown out of social media or professional circles either online on social media or in the real world or both. Those who are subject to this ostracism are said to be canceled i.e., culturally blocked from having a prominent public platform or career.

On the one hand, we have people who are condoning, encouraging, and participating in cancel culture, those people have a tendency to see themselves as civil rights activists and romanticize their activities as some radical but necessary form of citizen justice. On the other hand, we have the canceled victims who because of a misplaced word, post, tweet, image, or statement (which by the way falls perfectly within the remit of the law) can see their whole life and livelihood destroyed.

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects the freedom of speech, religion, and the press. In the UK, article 10 of the Human Rights Act 1998 protects the Freedom of Expression: “Everyone has the right to freedom of expression; this right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by public authorities and regardless of frontiers, either orally, in writing or in print, in the form of art or through any other media of his choice.”

Superior Rule: Freedom of Expression is a fundamental and inalienable right of all individuals

Free Speech. Photo by @freepik via freepik.com

Freedom of expression in all its forms and manifestations is a fundamental and inalienable right of all individuals. Additionally, it is an indispensable requirement for the very existence of a democratic society. At the same time, it is also universally recognized that it is not an absolute right, and every democracy has developed some system of limitations on freedom of expression. Any restrictions on freedom of expression must firstly be provided by law and secondly, it must be for the protection of a legitimate and overriding interest. For example, common limitations or boundaries to freedom of speech relate to libel, slander, obscenity, pornography, classified information, copyright violations, trade secrets, etc.

Cancel culture is a direct affront to the freedom of thought, expression, and speech. The idea is to blame, shame, and destroy the target. There are no rules, no code of conduct. It is open season, and it operates beyond the remit of the law of the land. You can’t really describe it as a movement because it has neither leaders nor membership and those who take part in it do so erratically, but it is a practice that is often used in the political arena to ostracize people with a different political opinion. It is not clear whether the goals are to right a specific wrong and redress an injustice, or to speak out against and condemn an untrustworthy system and make a plea for a fairer one or whether it is just done for sport and for the thrill of humiliating and destroying the target.

Whether you condemn or condone cancel culture is up to you and can be the subject of some virulent debates, but for me, Cancel Culture is all about how we communicate and treat each other. Wanting to destroy someone’s life and livelihood just because of their view on a particular subject is taking it way too far; it demonstrates a lack of decency, way too much intolerance, and most of all an astonishing overreach of the power of media. It is not uncommon nowadays to be de-platformed, censored, banned from your social media just because; media companies have granted to themselves the ultimate power of censorship which goes way beyond what the law of the land allows. Think about this for a minute or two and let it sink in.

Rule of Karma

French Revolution. Eugene Delacroix

But beware, because the pendulum always swings in both directions; you could be a perpetrator of Cancel Culture today and become a target tomorrow. A vivid example of this could be found in the French Revolution which began in 1787 as a populist movement against the Monarchy. The uprising culminated in the beheading of Louis XVI and his wife Marie-Antoinette.

Maximilien Robespierre was a controversial figure of this period in French history. He started his life as a lawyer, became a politician and a revolutionary figure of the French Revolution who actively participated in the revolt against the French Monarchy; he had an active role in helping put in place a new Republique based on the principles of Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. But as we all know by now, power corrupts, and it corrupts absolutely.

Robespierre became so obsessed with the idea of ‘defending’ the revolutionary ideas at all costs that he became a ruthless and bloody dictator himself, imposing his will right, left, and center and being directly responsible for the massacres and public executions of almost 17,000 ‘dissidents’. Robespierre famously declared that “Without terror virtue is impotent”. This dark period of French history is known as the Reign of Terror.

Eventually, a group of brave souls decided that enough was enough, the fearmongering and killing had to stop; so, they decided to give Robespierre a taste of his own medicine. They took it upon themselves to arrest Robespierre and his companions in crimes and publicly executed/canceled them on the same guillotine used for Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. This final execution put an end to the Reign of Terror.

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For more on this subject you can purchase my book This is Your Quest online at BookLocker, from Amazon or from Barnes & Noble.  The Ebook version is available on Amazon (Kindle), Barnes & Noble (Nook), Apple (iBooks) & Kobo. Check out my Amazon Author Page here or my listing on Booksradar.com.

The audio version of my book “This Is your Quest ” is available. Feel free to check it out and use this special Promotion code