Radical Stability

radical (Latin: radix) The root, pertaining to the source or foundation of things; a political position which advocates removing everything and starting over. The word is typically used as an adjective suggesting dramatic and wholesale change in the current situation, replacing it with something presumably more fitting to the needs or purpose.
I’m a radical. While I fully understand the value of what has come before, I also understand the human tendency to depart from it without even bothering to notice, and invariably for bad reasons and certainly bad ends. The difference between a radical and reactionary is how far back they wish to go to find a better starting place. Both would willingly tear down and remove current systems as ill-considered and a threat to human existence and sanity. Radicals simply want to go farther back to the root of things, not simply some unrecoverable “golden age” which may or may have actually existed.
It’s not as if I actually expect any significant number of folks to agree with me. It would be a major accomplishment simply to be heard. The other edge of that sword blade is my utter certainty we shall reap the wrath of God. You are permitted to dismiss my claim to being a prophet as merely a manifestation of my inner frustration at not being taken seriously. Nothing I say will prove otherwise, and I won’t bother debating it. But if you find this at least entertaining, here are some radical statements indicating things I believe God will judge.
I want Christian religion to forget everything since the First Century, because I find no one who clings to any point of progress since that time can even pretend to think like the Apostles. What we have is not simply derived, but a corruption of what stood then. The whole of modern Western Christendom is a hodge podge of reactions to mere human events, not revelations from God. That’s why we have a jillion denominations; each of them reflects nothing more than some response to a perceived abuse by some religious authority during the 2000 years since Christ walked the earth. Each time some authority became abusive and ungodly, the reaction to it was yet another step away from Christ’s perspective on the world. Both were wrong, and we now have a crazy patchwork of religious institutions with mutually exclusive claims to the truth. All of them are wrong. These days “Christian” is a label applied to just about anything and everything except “following Christ”.
I want the all singing and dancing graphical social web to get off my Internet. Take it the cellphone network and leave us alone. The real Internet is a digital medium for communication between computers, and I would just as soon see the entire Internet nothing more than text with primitive formatting at the most. Transferring plain text documents or computer code is naturally permitted. If you have to do visual to communicate, put it on the smart phone network. The original purpose of HTML was nothing more than linking one document to another so you could access an entire library from one device without actually having to keep your personal copy in digital storage. Everyone could produce and maintain their own portion and we could all share freely. If I can’t get the gist of what you offer by viewing it in my plain text browser, it doesn’t belong on the Net. All that other crap is not communication, it is manipulation. That is the inherent effect of all non-text media. People who are adept at textual communication are exceptionally hard to manipulate. I suppose we can make exceptions for the likes of technical drawings, but even that is pushing it.
I don’t want anyone on this earth claiming an authority to govern any other person who isn’t blood kin or isn’t in covenant relations. If they ain’t family, stay out of their business. No one ever born on this earth was smart enough to rule except the few who refused to do it. Wanting to rule is a primary disqualification; thinking you are smart enough is proof you are dangerous. The best rulers in history were those actively seeking to do something else, and were drafted into ruling after struggling to save life and sanity for others. They remained good at it only so long as they didn’t get comfortable with the role. No one with good morals wants power.
I want all forms of education to be entirely voluntary. Barring medical problems, people will always be willing to learn what interests them. I can see the value of highly encouraging basic literacy and numeracy, but we have a very poor social concept of what people actually use on a daily basis, and a very poor society which skews what people need by seeking to make them dependent and ignorant in the first place. Education has become merely another experience of oppression. You are required by laws to attend school, dealing with people in an environment carefully structured to inhibit learning, and teaching by force particularly those things nobody uses. We are in no position to evaluate what minimal education looks like because we have such a completely broken society.
I want all businesses forbidden to make profits unless they are wholly owned by a single individual or household. People should do first what they must to survive, and when a society develops to take advantage of specialization and economies of scale, they should consider pursuing whatever actually interests them. If no one buys what they produce, let them starve or learn to do less of it. No one outside your family has a claim on your labor or person. Advertising should be wholly forbidden on pain of confiscation, with the singular exception of some simple sign announce what you offer. The notion of making a profit as the only worthwhile goal comes from Satan. We engage in economic activity to keep people alive and make life more pleasant, period. If that’s not motive enough for you, work for someone who is ruled by it. Everyone should be utterly free from all social pressure if they want to live in poverty, or prefer to make choices which put them there.
Humanity should not be permitted to unite for the purpose of bullying others. There should be no such concept as real estate and land ownership. That’s not to say you can’t control the turf on which you reside, but you can’t divide it up for personal ownership. Occupation is sufficient basis for excluding others from it. You can only own what you produce, and it’s yours to control within the social structure. Social structure should be confined to the extended family, whether by ties of blood or covenant. If you can’t handle your birth or covenant context, seek another elsewhere. If you can’t handle dealing with other people, there should be a place for those willing to risk solitude. But that solitude means no protection from anyone who doesn’t volunteer it. God help us if we don’t learn to value every human being as they are, created uniquely by His own hand, but we can’t always afford to extend protection to everyone. The household comes first, and no one or no group has any claim of superiority over any other.
Have I destroyed enough of your world with my crazy ideas? Good, because chances are, if what I suggest is too foreign, what you have now will pass soon enough.