Humans create empires for the same reason they create egos. It’s all about the impulse to control.
We come into this world boundless and free with eyes full of wonder, but within a few years our minds create and solidify a sense of self around which our mental lives revolve.
We do this because we are helpless when we are born, and things happen which are uncomfortable or startling, so we naturally begin seeking out strategies to control what happens to us. Before you know it we’ve got vast spires of psychological architecture within us dedicated to using thought to promote the interests and security of an entirely symbolic me-character that we made up in our minds.
And from that point on we are cut off from the Eden of perception. Our attention rests no longer in the wonder of the senses but in the incessant babbling of the mind and its churning narratives about self and other, enemies and threats, attainment and lack, attachment and aversion, ambitions and deficiencies, unworthiness and shame. All because we were born helpless little creatures with nervous systems and a startle response in a world full of chaotic giants.
And then we have the capacity for psychological suffering. Whereas previously we were only able to experience discomfort from actual material forces like hunger or a diaper rash, or from being startled by a big dog or something, suddenly we have created the ability to suffer for reasons we created entirely inside our own heads. Stories like “I’m inadequate,” “I failed,” “I embarrassed myself,” “I made a mistake,” “I hate that person,” or “That person isn’t doing what I want” consume our attention throughout the day and make us miserable.
And it all arises from that initial impulse to control what happens in order to feel secure.
All social dysfunction has its roots in that impulse. Abusive relationships happen when one partner tries to exert extreme control over the other for their own sense of security. Economic injustice happens when one class exploits the other because they think they’d feel a bit more secure if they just had another billion in the bank. Tyrannical governments happen when leaders feel the need to control the thoughts, words and behavior of the populace to secure their ongoing rule. Empires happen when tyrannical governments feel the need to control what goes on not just in their own nation, but in surrounding nations as well.
That’s ultimately all that drives the US empire. People who have far too much interest in controlling other people, with far too much power to do so. It causes a horrifying amount of suffering, destruction, chaos and injustice, but at its root is that fundamental impulse to control what happens which emerges within all of us in early childhood. We’re basically ruled by emotional toddlers who never learned to rein in their egos. They’re trying to control the planet in the same way they tried to control their access to toys and candy when they were small.
It is possible for the human organism to liberate itself from its habituated creation of the ego through the process commonly referred to as spiritual enlightenment. It is also possible for humanity as a species to liberate itself from its large-scale control mechanisms in the same way.
That’s what a healthy humanity will look like. We will be free from all internal impulses to control, manipulate, exploit and dominate, and our systems for organizing society will no longer feature states which oppress their populations and try to rule the world.
We are still very, very far from achieving this potential as a species. Humanity is still deeply ensnared in its egoic delusions, on an individual level and at mass scale. But we’re waking up. Strangely, awkwardly, stumbling forward like a toddler, we are moving to become a conscious species.
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