28 January 2011

A substitute for autonomy

Atomization and alienation engender in the person an appetite for consistency because consistency offers the atomized person meaning he cannot otherwise achieve since the atomized person cannot cultivate relationships, and relationships are the ground of knowing desert, and meaning is what desert helps us to achieve. 
The atomized person cannot make sense of his world at the individual level because when he is isolated he doesn't know what is deserved and what is not, so his entire world feels mildly arbitrary, accidental and lacking in purpose. Along comes the totalitarian ruler and offers a consistency that seems to take away the arbitrary and accidental character of life and replaces it with what comes across as some glorious purpose. 
Avodah zarah is a substitute for the autonomy that would focus the lives of those who are well trained in desert.

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