marc
Veteran Member
I've been reading the manga Vinland Saga, a story set about 1,000 years ago in the time of Vikings. At the end of one of the books the author makes this observation:
Reading that I see echoes of the attitude in people today. Right-wingers who hate any kind of control or restrictions, like being asked to wear a damn mask in the middle of a pandemic is an infringement on their 'freedom'. How they equate their 'freedom' with owning weapons. That they are the type who want a 'strongman' type of leader, and insult politicians they don't like as being weak, a cuck, 'low energy', etc.. Prosperity gospel that preaches that wealth is god's blessing, so if you are poor it is because you deserve to be, usually by being lazy. The victimized and oppressed deserve what they got, weather victims of, rape, police brutality, or other injustice, justifying their lack of sympathy or outrage.
Of course, these same people will cry to the heavens about injustice when they face even a shadow of the abuses they feel others are deserving of, which probably makes the Vikings morally superior to them.
I also think this type of 'freedom' is an illusion. If it is only maintained by strength and not by structures of society, then your freedom will quickly be taken away by the person who has amassed a stronger force, so only a few will have any real freedom.
In any text I consult, it always says that the Vikings loved freedom and hated control and restrictions. To them, freedom was something won and maintained by strength. There was no means to rule a Viking other than crushing him with military or economic force. "King" was just the title of the one who wielded the most power. On the flip side, this meant that those who were ruled over and lost their freedom suffered because they were too weak.
In a society where power is everything, it is a matter of fact that the weakest will be slaves. It was a shared cultural understanding that those who were too weak to protect their own freedom were at fault for their plight. There was no guilt or doubt about the strong enslaving, subordinating, selling, or killing the weak. That was just the culture they lived in. So how did the kindhearted live in such a culture? There must have been some who hated the meritocracy and the punishment of the weak. It must have been very painful to have such a large gap between the customs of society and one's own sensibilities. Did they have to keep their ideas secret, and restrict themselves to silently lamenting the plight of mistreated slaves without taking action? Such a person adrift in the culture of the time must have been nameless and penniless. In fact, perhaps the only people who felt that way would've been slaves themselves. Only the strong leave their names in history; the stories of such ordinary minorities are not saved over the centuries. That's one of the many bothersome aspects of history. I just want to know.
Reading that I see echoes of the attitude in people today. Right-wingers who hate any kind of control or restrictions, like being asked to wear a damn mask in the middle of a pandemic is an infringement on their 'freedom'. How they equate their 'freedom' with owning weapons. That they are the type who want a 'strongman' type of leader, and insult politicians they don't like as being weak, a cuck, 'low energy', etc.. Prosperity gospel that preaches that wealth is god's blessing, so if you are poor it is because you deserve to be, usually by being lazy. The victimized and oppressed deserve what they got, weather victims of, rape, police brutality, or other injustice, justifying their lack of sympathy or outrage.
Of course, these same people will cry to the heavens about injustice when they face even a shadow of the abuses they feel others are deserving of, which probably makes the Vikings morally superior to them.
I also think this type of 'freedom' is an illusion. If it is only maintained by strength and not by structures of society, then your freedom will quickly be taken away by the person who has amassed a stronger force, so only a few will have any real freedom.