- Unfortunately, the constant poverty of many of the masses presents a fertile ground for the proliferation of such activity, as they are deliberately not educated and engineered to be steeped in even higher levels of superstition or bigotry just to achieve the aims of the ruling classes.
Kathleen Addy asked a question as to why prophets only occur abundantly in certain countries... I am breaking my birthday blues to respond:
Because there are no strong systems, nations that depend on prophets are those that tend to gamble with their nations destiny. They are the ones that do not condone, and actively fight against any form of knowledge growth or meritocracy.
Read also: DUMBING-DOWN THE POWER OF THE MIND AND THE CURIOSITY WITHIN US
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They are the ones that always go cup in hand, begging everyone because they have a false sense of entitlement that comes from burying themselves in the shackles of unfounded religious doctrine, an overly aggressive penchant to believe that supernatural beings only bless people due to patronage.
The only hard work in these areas is in bootlicking of social totem poles. This isn’t done with admiration, but with the expectation of some “blessings” or dregs from the tables of the powerful. In essence, it is a reincarnation of the slave, this time being, or choosing to be a slave not at the behest of a powerful slavemaster, but by the active solicitation of a benefactor to solve all their problems.
Such nations do not give credence to any national monuments or pride in their history or cultures. They assimilate fully the cultures of others to the extent that other cultures have to invest in preservation of their own cultures. Case in point, it takes China to help Senegal build a museum for themselves. It takes Danes to build an airfield at Mole Park, it takes loans and grants for Ghanaian heritage sites to be built. Even common areas gathering of people require loans from other nations. And yet, there are African governments building monuments to foreign religions and museums for foreign scriptures in the name of Christianity. The irony of it is that, such nations do not even maintain the very monuments that commemorate their nationhood or statehood, be they physical or cult heroes, and are ready to bastardize them at any time for the purposes of hero worship or self gratification, of some obsolete and defunct ideology.
There is almost a tacit approval of the exploitation of our self-regulating governance structures through an appropriation of democratic “principles” and activities that are becoming increasingly shambolic drama displays that make a mockery of the sanctity of such processes. Unfortunately, the constant poverty of many of the masses presents a fertile ground for the proliferation of such activity, as they are deliberately not educated and engineered to be steeped in even higher levels of superstition or bigotry just to achieve the aims of the ruling classes.
This is just a replication of the colonial mindset but this time with local players acting as Head Niggers in Charge. Sadly, the invisible remedies that desperate ones turn to are the other set of puppeteers that are now leveraging on technology to pull of some of the most egregious and expansive cons in human civilization. The epidemic of “faith” means that televangelists have taken over as institutions that are larger than life, with demi-gods manipulating every facet of daily life to the extent of putting whole communities on the brink of tearing each other up.
Between the poor structures of governance, the high levels of superstition and the desperation of people due to poverty and lack of basic amenities, we have a dangerous trifecta of problems that are the base material for a cocktail of a great percentage of our woes as a continent and as a people. This is evidenced in how people follow with alacrity the main totem poles of religion and the strife it creates. Politicians are running roughshod because there are enough minions that can be manipulated at the tune of the pied pipers.
Critical thinking and independent thought is the grand loser here, and the downplay of meritorious thought means that a fertile ground for speculation is preserved. In any society that relies heavily on speculation, there can never be permanent solutions to temporary problems, only temporary solutions to permanent problems, or a continuum of fixes and hacks without any strategic or future relevance.
No society has grown by not striving to achieve permanent solutions to problems that emerge. Inasmuch as policies are designed to be populist, we shall only be having a continuum of temporary fixes that will never have any effect on the progress of its people. Its vanguard will always be shallow, fancy dressed jesters masquerading as marabouts, prophets or political heroes who preach and sell dreams to people, but whose people never achieve these dreams.
The manipulated people will only revel in the dreams they see on TV, with rap videos showcasing fantastic dreams of money being sprayed on party revelers, for which money has no apparent source, for which spending has no apparent outcome, for which effect has no apparent effect apart from the satisfaction of a very mundane instance of instantly gratifying ejaculations of pleasure.
These are the grand ejaculations we see on TV when rapturous crowds welcome politicians, when fanatics swear by their religious leaders, when music fans swear by their heroes, where conmen have followers from every facet of life, and yet the voice of knowledgebearers is derided because they are the ones thought to be delusional.
It is funny, this spectacle, because it is the opposite of what you see in other societies that are progressing. They don’t need prophets. They act. They propose, they deploy, they create systems, they defend their systems, they abide by these systems, and they steal our best brains to help maintain those systems, and we get stuck with the prophets and the conmen.
