The War Against Humanity by D. Conterno (2025)

Introduction

Humanity faces an unprecedented war that is not fought with guns and bombs but with tools far more insidious: food, education, technology, health, misinformation, disinformation, and fear. This war seeks to control, divide, and weaken populations, stripping individuals of their autonomy and critical thinking. The mechanisms at play span industries, governments, and institutions, forming a complex web of manipulation. We are all being victims of this war by more than just one of its aspects.  By understanding these aspects, we can begin to reclaim our sovereignty and resist the forces seeking to undermine our collective well-being.

This article will not dwell on who historically orchestrated and today maintained this war against humanity, behind the scenes or why. Instead, readers are expected to draw their own conclusions and undertake their own investigations.

This article will focus on the following categories of control over humankind:

 

Control of the Body

I. Food: The Weaponisation of Nutrition

Food is not merely sustenance; it is a powerful tool of control. Industrial agriculture has transformed traditional diets into highly processed, chemically laden commodities for mass consumption rather than health. As Vandana Shiva (2000) has argued, the shift from diverse, locally grown food systems to uniform, globalised agricultural models represents not just an economic transformation but a profound loss of cultural and ecological integrity. We will start by looking at the two top food sources that require our urgent attention then move onto other critical considerations.

Wheat and Dairy

The prioritisation of wheat began in earnest during the Green Revolution (1940s–1970s), spearheaded by agronomist Norman Borlaug (1968), whose development of high-yield, disease-resistant wheat varieties significantly boosted global production. Wheat was favoured due to its compatibility with mechanised farming, storage potential, and adaptability to fertiliser-intensive agriculture. However, the genetic modification and industrial refinement of wheat, particularly since the 1980s, have altered its nutritional profile dramatically, contributing to the rise in gluten sensitivities and inflammatory disorders (Davis, 2011; Fasano, 2012).

Multinational agribusinesses such as Monsanto (acquired by Bayer in 2018), Syngenta, and Archer Daniels Midland have played a central role in promoting genetically modified (GM) wheat and related monocultures, often at the expense of indigenous grains and local food systems (ETC Group, 2008). This has led to reduced agricultural biodiversity and increased dependency on patented seeds and synthetic inputs.

Cow's milk gained prominence in the early 20th century through industrial processes such as Gail Borden’s (1856) invention of condensed milk and Henri Nestlé’s (1867) development of powdered milk formula. With the rise of mass media in the mid-20th century, milk was marketed aggressively as essential for health, supported by campaigns from organisations like the National Dairy Council (est. 1915). However, recent studies have linked conventional cow’s milk to inflammation, lactose intolerance, acne, and digestive discomfort for a significant portion of the global population (Melnik, 2012; Willett & Ludwig, 2020). The aggressive promotion of dairy as indispensable nutrition has marginalised alternatives such as plant-based or fermented milks, despite their often superior digestibility and environmental impact.

The strategic elevation of wheat and cow's milk over more diverse, locally adapted food sources has reshaped global diets, fostering nutritional homogeneity and chronic health vulnerabilities.

Chemical Additives and Fertilisers

The industrial food system is laced with chemical interventions such as pesticides, preservatives, flavour enhancers, and synthetic fertilisers that infiltrate both food and ecosystems. Glyphosate, the active ingredient in Monsanto’s herbicide Roundup, has been widely criticised for its endocrine-disrupting effects and potential carcinogenicity (IARC, 2015). Artificial preservatives like BHA and BHT, and synthetic fertilisers high in nitrates, have been associated with cognitive decline, behavioural disorders, and metabolic disruption (Landrigan & Grandjean, 2014; Gaby, 2011).

Rachel Carson (1962) warned of this toxic trajectory in Silent Spring, highlighting how these chemicals accumulate in the body and environment, creating a feedback loop of toxicity that affects not only the consumer but the very soil and water on which life depends.

Meat and Vegetables

Similar trends of industrialisation and centralisation are evident in the production of meat and vegetables. Factory farming, intensified by giants such as Tyson Foods, JBS, and Smithfield Foods has prioritised speed and yield over welfare and health. These operations are breeding grounds for zoonotic diseases and antibiotic-resistant bacteria due to the routine use of prophylactic antibiotics and inhumane conditions (Broom, 2010).

Vegetable farming has also succumbed to monoculture practices. Corporations such as Dole and Chiquita have encouraged genetically uniform crops reliant on heavy pesticide application and fertilisers, resulting in soil degradation, biodiversity collapse, and pesticide-resistant pests (Altieri & Nicholls, 2004). The result is a decline in nutritional density and an increase in human exposure to residues that are often poorly regulated and poorly understood.

Fear and Dependence

Mainstream media and global institutions amplify the fear of food scarcity, especially during economic or environmental crises. This fear legitimises the centralisation of food production and the suppression of alternative systems. Local farmers' markets, indigenous seed networks, and community-supported agriculture are often priced out or excluded from subsidy structures (Patel, 2007; Nestle, 2013).

As Michael Pollan (2006) has shown, the industrial food system thrives on consumer ignorance and economic dependency. Processed food is marketed as affordable and convenient, while whole, organic, or local options are treated as elitist or impractical. This psychological and logistical framing ensures that people remain dependent on the very system that undermines their health.

Medical and Environmental Consequences

Mounting evidence from nutritional science, epidemiology, and environmental studies confirms the detrimental impact of industrialised food systems on both human and planetary health. Chronic conditions such as obesity, diabetes, autoimmune diseases, cardiovascular illness, and certain cancers are closely linked to poor diet quality, heavily reliant on ultra-processed foods and chemical exposure (Monteiro et al., 2019; Swinburn et al., 2019).

Environmentally, intensive agriculture contributes to over 25% of global greenhouse gas emissions (FAO, 2013), pollutes water sources with nitrates and phosphates, and depletes soil fertility at alarming rates (Lal, 2004). The loss of pollinators, deforestation, and the commodification of genetically modified crops all signal an ecosystem under siege.

Towards Food Sovereignty

Reclaiming control over our food means shifting away from extractive systems and towards regenerative, community-based models. Agroecology, permaculture, biodynamic farming, and indigenous food sovereignty movements offer viable paths forward (Rosset & Altieri, 2017; Shiva, 2016). The emphasis must be on diversity, seasonality, and a reconnection to food as a living, relational process and not as a commodified object.

Only through such reorientation can food return to its rightful place: as a source of nourishment, resilience, and freedom, not as an instrument of control.

 

II. Health: The Corporate Capture of Well-being

Health is no longer the art of cultivating wellness; it has become the science of managing disease. In much of the world, medicine has shifted from a holistic, preventative ethos to a fragmented, profit-driven model shaped by pharmaceutical influence and regulatory capture. This transformation has led not only to systemic corruption but to profound human suffering. Ivan Illich (1975), in Medical Nemesis, foresaw this distortion, arguing that the medical establishment often causes more harm than good, turning sickness into a managed commodity rather than a healing journey.

Today’s health systems are structured less around care than around consumption of drugs, diagnostics, and fear. In such a context, the patient becomes a customer, and wellness a subscription.

Chronic Disease over Prevention

The global rise in chronic diseases such as diabetes, cardiovascular illnesses, autoimmune conditions, and neurodegenerative disorders, has created a lucrative market for long-term pharmaceutical intervention. Rather than addressing root causes such as diet, lifestyle, and environmental toxins, modern medicine often emphasises symptomatic management through lifelong prescriptions (Moynihan & Cassels, 2005).

The pharmaceutical industry, valued at over $1.5 trillion globally (IQVIA, 2023), has little incentive to eradicate diseases when it profits more from their maintenance. As Marcia Angell (2004), former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, wrote in The Truth About the Drug Companies, "The industry influences every aspect of medicine, from research and education to prescribing habits and regulatory decisions." This includes the suppression of preventative or alternative approaches that may threaten profit margins.

IQ Decline and Environmental Toxins

Evidence is mounting that the modern environment itself is undermining human cognitive development. Exposure to neurotoxicants such as lead, mercury, flame retardants, pesticide residues, and endocrine-disrupting plastics has been linked to measurable declines in global IQ scores, particularly in children (Grandjean & Landrigan, 2014). A major meta-analysis by Bratsberg and Rogeberg (2018) confirmed that IQ levels are now declining in many developed nations, a reversal of the historic Flynn Effect.

Heavy metals in water, phthalates and bisphenols in plastics, and persistent organic pollutants in food chains are cumulative neurotoxins, undermining both individual cognition and societal potential. These substances are allowed by regulatory agencies that are often under-resourced, politically constrained, or subject to industry lobbying (Oreskes & Conway, 2010).

Health Fear Narratives

Public health crises, especially pandemics, have increasingly become opportunities for political consolidation and corporate expansion. The COVID-19 pandemic (2020–2023) exposed both the strengths and the shadows of global health governance. Emergency powers were invoked, unprecedented restrictions were imposed, and pharmaceutical giants such as Pfizer and Moderna accrued extraordinary profits through patent-protected vaccines (Lancet Commission, 2022).

While urgent responses are sometimes necessary, many critical voices raised concerns about the erosion of medical ethics, informed consent, and democratic processes (Bhattacharya, Kulldorff & Gupta, 2020; Horton, 2021). Health narratives were used not merely to protect life, but to regulate it, shaping behaviour, mandating compliance, and narrowing acceptable discourse. Michel Foucault’s (1976) concept of biopower is especially relevant here: power exercised not through violence, but through the regulation of bodies in the name of life itself.

 

III. Environment: The Invisible War

The climate crisis is real. Our biosphere is under unprecedented stress. Yet the dominant narratives surrounding climate change are often co-opted, not to inspire genuine ecological transformation, but to justify centralisation of power, financial speculation, and behavioural control. In this sense, the crisis is twofold: ecological and epistemological. As Naomi Klein (2014) warned in This Changes Everything, climate change has become not only a planetary emergency but a battleground over whose solutions and whose sacrifices will be implemented.

Under the banner of “net zero” and “green transition,” states and corporations increasingly employ fear-based messaging and technocratic solutions that fail to address the structural causes of ecological degradation. The climate discourse becomes a stage upon which the old systems rebrand themselves, still extractive, still unequal, now cloaked in green.

Pollution as a Silent Killer

Environmental degradation does not only disrupt ecosystems, it erodes the human body and psyche. Air pollution, for instance, kills over seven million people annually, according to the World Health Organization (WHO, 2021). Microscopic particulates (PM2.5), nitrogen dioxide, and ground-level ozone have been linked to respiratory illness, cardiovascular disease, cancer, and cognitive decline (Landrigan et al., 2018; Guxens et al., 2012).

Water contamination through heavy metals (such as lead and arsenic), industrial runoff, and microplastics weakens immune systems and damages neurological development, especially in children (Grandjean & Landrigan, 2014). Soil degradation caused by chemical-intensive farming, deforestation, and monocultures not only reduces food security but strips the earth of microbial life essential to planetary and human health (Montgomery, 2007).

Yet these quiet, cumulative assaults on health rarely make headlines. They are not sudden enough to shock, nor visible enough to scandalise. As Rachel Carson (1962) observed in Silent Spring, modern industrial society normalises slow violence, the kind that kills without spectacle.

Climate Fear and Policy Manipulation

Fear of ecological collapse has become a powerful narrative tool. Climate emergencies now justify sweeping policy changes, often without adequate democratic debate. Carbon taxes, digital identity-linked emissions quotas, and geoengineering proposals are promoted as necessary, even when their scientific basis or ethical implications are uncertain (Klein, 2014; Hornborg, 2019).

The Paris Agreement (2015), while symbolically important, has largely failed to constrain emissions in meaningful ways. Instead, it has enabled the rise of carbon markets, allowing major polluters to buy offsets while continuing business as usual (Lohmann, 2006). These market-based “solutions” transform climate into a new frontier of financial speculation rather than ecological healing.

Meanwhile, governments have proposed behavioural control schemes, from limiting personal air travel to restricting dietary choices, often targeting individuals rather than the systemic overproduction of fossil fuel giants and agribusiness conglomerates. This misdirection obscures responsibility and reinforces top-down technocratic governance (Latour, 2018). As Shoshana Zuboff (2019) would argue, climate data too becomes a form of behavioural surveillance when it is tied to predictive systems and compliance scoring.

Wars: Ecocide and Environmental Collateral

The environmental toll of war is vast yet often excluded from climate discourse. Militaries are among the largest institutional polluters on the planet. The U.S. Department of Defence, for instance, has consistently ranked as the world's single largest institutional consumer of petroleum and emitter of greenhouse gases (Crawford, 2019).

Wars degrade land, poison water supplies, destroy biodiversity, and generate immense quantities of waste. The use of depleted uranium, burn pits, chemical defoliants like Agent Orange, and scorched-earth tactics exemplifies the ecological violence inherent in military operations. The long-term environmental consequences, desertification, radiation zones, and disrupted migratory patterns, persist for generations (Westing, 1980; Haines & Everett, 2003).

Yet militarism remains largely exempt from emissions agreements and environmental treaties. Instead, the climate crisis is often militarised used to justify resource wars, border militarisation, and securitisation of migration (Hartmann, 2010). Climate becomes both a victim of and a rationale for militarised responses.

Beyond Green Capitalism: A Deeper Ecology

True ecological transformation cannot emerge from the same systems that created the crisis. A genuine response must transcend GDP metrics, carbon commodification, and behavioural control narratives. It must confront the extractivist worldview at the root of ecological collapse which is  what philosopher Enrique Dussel (1985) called “the myth of modernity”: the belief in perpetual expansion, technological salvation, and control over nature.

As Arne Næss (1973) proposed in his theory of deep ecology, environmentalism must be grounded in an expanded sense of self that includes all living beings. This implies a shift from dominance to partnership, from control to reverence, from centralisation to regeneration. In contrast to the shallow solutions of green capitalism, deep ecology requires spiritual and structural renewal.

Only by returning to this deeper relationship with the Earth, relationally not transactionally, can humanity move from eco-anxiety to eco-liberation.

 

Control of the Mind

I. Education: Manufacturing Compliance

Once heralded as the sacred gateway to human enlightenment, education has become a vessel for indoctrination. What was meant to be a catalyst for critical thinking, self-realisation, and societal transformation has, in many parts of the world, devolved into a rigid apparatus designed to produce obedient workers and passive citizens. At its core, the modern education system no longer serves the awakening of consciousness, as it serves the continuity of control (Illich, 1971; Gatto, 2003).

We have mistaken schooling for learning, and certification for wisdom. As Paulo Freire (1970) argued in Pedagogy of the Oppressed, the prevailing "banking model" of education turns students into passive recipients of information, stifling their ability to think critically and transform their world. In the name of progress, we have cultivated a system that rewards conformity over creativity, memorisation over understanding, and silence over dissent. The child enters the classroom with innate curiosity and leaves with learned compliance. This quiet transformation that is hardly questioned and rarely challenged, is one of the most subtle yet pervasive mechanisms by which societies condition the mind to accept hierarchy, censorship, and mechanistic ways of being (Robinson, 2006).

What emerges is not an educated populace, but a compliant one: individuals trained to function within systems of productivity, consumption, and surveillance, but often unable to question those very systems (Foucault, 1975). The spiritual and philosophical dimensions of human experience are marginalised, while economic imperatives dominate. In this section, we unravel the deeper mechanisms at play, how standardisation, censorship, fear, and digital surveillance have replaced the soul of education with a blueprint for docility.

This is not an indictment of teachers, many of whom work with devotion and courage, but of the larger machinery in which they are embedded (Giroux, 1983). To reimagine education as a path of liberation, we must first see clearly how it has been co-opted as a tool of control. Only then can we begin the work of reclaiming learning as an act of radical freedom.

Career Conditioning and Economic Servitude: From an early age, children are subtly trained not for life, but for labour. Ivan Illich (1971) warned in Deschooling Society that education had become a means to sort individuals into economic roles rather than empower them. The primary objective of most educational institutions is not the liberation of thought but the alignment of the individual with the economic machinery. Career paths are less about passion or purpose and more about stability and societal status. Students are encouraged to select subjects not out of love, but out of market value thus fostering a mindset where economic survival trumps creative expression or ethical inquiry (Bourdieu & Passeron, 1977). The system prepares compliant workers, not conscious citizens.

 Suppression of Inner Inquiry: The existential questions (Who am I? What am I? Wherefore am I here? What does it mean to live a good life?) are systematically excluded from curricula. Jiddu Krishnamurti (1953) fiercely critiqued education for neglecting self-inquiry and promoting mere technical proficiency. Spiritual and philosophical dimensions of human experience are treated as peripheral or even irrelevant. This deliberate omission creates adults who are materially literate but spiritually impoverished, well-versed in algorithms and logistics but alien to themselves. When inner questioning is discouraged, the capacity to live authentically and act from inner conviction is replaced by a compulsion to conform (Noddings, 1992).

Time Discipline and Mechanisation of the Mind: Michel Foucault (1975), in Discipline and Punish, described how schools mirror prisons and factories in their use of time, space, and surveillance to discipline the body and mind. Schools operate on a bell system that mimics factory life, where time is regimented into discrete units and learning is fragmented into isolated disciplines. This artificial compartmentalisation of knowledge fragments the student’s worldview, discouraging synthesis and holistic understanding. The clock, not curiosity, dictates the rhythm of education. Such regimentation breeds passive obedience and a mechanised mind, one that accepts authority as a given and resists ambiguity, spontaneity, and dissent.

Metrics over Meaning: The quantification of intelligence or more precisely, of cleverness through grades and scores reduces complex human capacities to numerical abstractions. Alfie Kohn (1999) has long argued that high-stakes testing and performance metrics destroy intrinsic motivation and the love of learning. A child’s potential becomes a function of performance metrics, not creativity, empathy, or insight. This dehumanisation of learning fosters a performance-based identity where self-worth is tied to external validation. Rather than being encouraged to learn for the sake of understanding or transformation, students are taught to perform for approval. In such an environment, the intrinsic joy of discovery is lost.

Institutional Gatekeeping and Class Perpetuation: Pierre Bourdieu (1984) exposed how educational systems reproduce social inequality by rewarding cultural capital that is already possessed by the elite. Elite institutions serve less as centres of enlightenment and more as gatekeepers of privilege. Access to top-tier education often depends on economic capital or social connections, perpetuating systemic inequality under the guise of meritocracy. While a veneer of opportunity exists, the deeper reality is that educational structures often reinforce existing class hierarchies. Those who conform most effectively to the system's demands are rewarded with access, not necessarily those with the deepest potential for conscious leadership or radical innovation.

Erosion of Community and Intergenerational Learning: Ivan Illich (1971) also lamented the decline of convivial, community-based learning. Traditional societies emphasised learning within the context of community and direct transmission from elders. In contrast, modern schooling isolates individuals in age-segregated silos, cutting them off from the wisdom of intergenerational dialogue. The result is a society that privileges novelty over wisdom, and information over understanding. Students are left without cultural or spiritual anchoring, vulnerable to the manipulation of mass media and institutional authority (Postman, 1985).

Normalisation of Surveillance and Control: Shoshana Zuboff (2019), in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, warns that educational technologies are being weaponised to monitor and predict behaviour. With the rise of digital tools in classrooms, education has become a testing ground for surveillance technologies. Students are now monitored not only physically but digitally, their browsing habits, keystrokes, and attention spans scrutinised under the guise of efficiency. This acclimatises young minds to a world where privacy is an illusion and constant observation is normalised. The school, once a sanctuary of learning, becomes an arm of the surveillance state.

The Crisis of Disenchantment: Max Weber (1919) coined the term "disenchantment of the world" to describe modernity’s stripping of meaning from life. In education, this manifests as a mechanistic worldview in which wonder is replaced by weariness. The sacredness of learning as a journey of self and world discovery is buried beneath bureaucracy and competition. As Sir Ken Robinson (2006) passionately illustrated, our schools are stifling creativity and numbing the spirit. Education no longer points toward liberation as it conditions us to forget that it was ever free.

 

II. Technology: The Digital Panopticon

Technology, once hailed as the great liberator of the human spirit, now serves as an invisible architecture of control. Though its potential for enlightenment and connection remains vast, its dominant trajectory has aligned increasingly with surveillance, censorship, and behavioural engineering. As Jacques Ellul warned in The Technological Society (1954), technological advancement is never neutral; it creates new social structures, hierarchies, and dependencies. When shaped by unchecked commercial and political interests, it ceases to be a servant of humanity and becomes its master.

While the myth of innovation celebrates freedom and efficiency, the reality often involves the manipulation of perception, the erosion of privacy, and the algorithmic shaping of behaviour. In this digital paradigm, the user is no longer simply a participant, but a product to be harvested and a subject to be governed.

Censorship and Information Manipulation

The emergence of algorithmic curation, especially on platforms such as Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, and X (formerly Twitter), has fundamentally transformed the public sphere. Rather than serving as a marketplace of ideas, the internet has become a battleground of narratives, where algorithms prioritise content not based on truth or value, but on its capacity to provoke engagement (Pariser, 2011; Tufekci, 2015). This engagement often arises from outrage, fear, and tribalism, resulting in what Eli Pariser (2011) termed the “filter bubble.”

These filter bubbles reinforce confirmation bias and suppress dissenting or nuanced perspectives, effectively trapping users within ideological echo chambers. Research from the Pew Research Center (Mitchell et al., 2020) confirms that algorithm-driven platforms increase polarisation by narrowing the range of viewpoints people are exposed to. Moreover, platforms often suppress or demonetise alternative voices under the guise of “harmful content,” “misinformation,” or “community standards,” often without transparency or recourse (Mozorov, 2011).

This subtle yet pervasive censorship is not merely about silencing dissent, it is about shaping consensus. As Shoshana Zuboff (2019) observed in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, data-driven platforms do not simply observe behaviour; they modify it. Through predictive algorithms and A/B testing, they nudge users towards specific beliefs, behaviours, and consumer patterns. The very architecture of online experience has become an instrument of control.

Surveillance and Social Credit Systems

The scale of digital surveillance in the 21st century is unprecedented in human history. What began as targeted intelligence operations has expanded into full-spectrum monitoring of daily life. Edward Snowden’s (2013) revelations regarding the NSA’s PRISM programme exposed how Western intelligence agencies collect data on millions of people without warrants or oversight. Yet far from retreating, surveillance infrastructure has only expanded, often with the active participation of private tech giants such as Google, Amazon, Apple, and Meta (Greenwald, 2014).

China’s social credit system, operational since 2014, represents one of the most visible and formalised expressions of techno-political control. This system aggregates data from banking, telecommunications, social media, and even public transport usage to assign individuals a social score. Those with higher scores receive privileges such as access to credit and travel, while those with lower scores face restrictions (Liang et al., 2018). This system is not simply about punishing wrongdoing, it is about engineering behaviour through constant visibility and the fear of reputational harm.

But Western societies are not immune. In the name of convenience and security, citizens in democratic nations are increasingly subjected to biometric scanning, geolocation tracking, facial recognition technologies, and AI-driven behavioural analytics. Surveillance is normalised through the language of safety and personalisation. As philosopher Byung-Chul Han (2017) contends in Psychopolitics, modern control is no longer based on repression but on seduction, on the voluntary surrender of freedom in exchange for convenience, connectivity, and comfort.

 The result is a digital panopticon: a world in which behaviour is continuously observed, scored, and shaped by invisible systems. Michel Foucault (1975) foresaw such a transformation, where discipline no longer required visible authority but operated through internalised norms enforced by decentralised systems. Today, that mechanism is algorithmic, ambient, and largely unaccountable.

Conclusion: From Participation to Programming

Technology has not simply extended human capabilities. it has reprogrammed them. As users, we are conditioned to accept a shrinking field of expression, a narrowing of acceptable belief, and a surveillance infrastructure that grows more intimate by the day. Behaviour is no longer shaped through dialogue or education but through nudges, restrictions, and algorithmic suggestion.

To reclaim autonomy in the digital age, we must develop new forms of technological literacy, not just of how to use devices, but of how devices are using us. We must question the political economy of platforms, the ethics of data extraction, and the psychological impacts of engineered addiction (Harris, 2019). And above all, we must rekindle humankind’s spirit and remembers that technology is not destiny, it is a choice.

 

III. The Information War: Misinformation and Disinformation

Control over information is control over reality. In an age where perception often outweighs fact, the battle for hearts and minds is no longer fought with bullets and barricades, but with narratives, headlines, and algorithms. As George Orwell (1949) warned in 1984, “Who controls the past controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” Today, this principle has been digitised. Control over information, basically what is seen, believed, and shared, is control over the very framework through which society interprets the world.

Information is not merely a tool of communication, it is an instrument of governance, a medium through which consensus is engineered, conflict sustained, and dissent marginalised. When citizens can no longer distinguish truth from distortion, or when truth itself becomes politically malleable, democratic life collapses into spectacle.

Three Levels of Manipulation

Contemporary information warfare operates on three primary levels, each more insidious than the last:

Misinformation refers to the spread of falsehoods without intent to deceive such as rumours, misinterpretations, or emotional reactions shared in good faith. These often flourish in conditions of cognitive overload and low media literacy (Lewandowsky et al., 2012).

Disinformation, by contrast, is the deliberate crafting and dissemination of false or misleading information to deceive and manipulate. It is strategic, coordinated, and increasingly algorithmically amplified. As documented in the EU’s East StratCom Task Force reports (2015–2023), state actors and political operatives use disinformation to disrupt electoral processes, sow mistrust, and destabilise democratic norms (Pomerantsev, 2019).

Propaganda goes even further, shaping not only opinions but emotional dispositions. Jacques Ellul (1965) described modern propaganda as omnipresent and “total” by infiltrating entertainment, education, journalism, and even personal values. Unlike older forms of propaganda that demanded belief, modern variants often do not care whether people believe, only that they react. Its power lies in defining the limits of what may be thought, felt, or said.

These three mechanisms do not exist in isolation. In today’s hybrid media landscape, misinformation spreads virally, disinformation distorts geopolitical understanding, and propaganda creates cultural climates where questioning the dominant narrative is treated as heresy.

Fear as a Tool for Division

Fear has become the currency of information. Whether in relation to pandemics, terrorism, war, migration, or economic collapse, media platforms are saturated with stories that provoke anxiety and division. Sensational headlines and emotionally charged content generate the highest engagement metrics, thus rewarding fear-based content in algorithmic environments (Zuboff, 2019; Tufekci, 2015).

Neuroscience offers a chilling explanation: repeated exposure to fear stimuli activates the amygdala (the brain's fear centre) while suppressing rational deliberation in the prefrontal cortex (LeDoux, 1996; Phelps, 2006). This renders individuals more reactive, less critical, and increasingly vulnerable to authoritarian messaging.

Byung-Chul Han (2017) has argued that we are living not in a disciplinary society, as Foucault (1975) once described, but in a psycho-political one, where control is exercised not through coercion, but through internalised anxiety, constant comparison, and a manipulated sense of threat. In this paradigm, the individual polices their own thoughts, internalises the dominant fears, and seeks safety through conformity.

As Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman argued in Manufacturing Consent (1988), the mass media does not need to falsify information outright, it simply needs to frame it in a way that aligns with elite interests. Omission, emphasis, and repetition are powerful tools. In this way, fear becomes not just an emotional response but a system of control, making people more compliant, more polarised, and less likely to engage in constructive dialogue or resistance.

Weaponised Narratives and the Collapse of Meaning

In the information war, the casualty is not simply truth, it is meaning itself. As hyper-polarised narratives dominate social discourse, and as truth becomes endlessly contested, a kind of cultural nihilism emerges. People stop trusting not only institutions, but their own ability to discern what is real. This epistemological erosion weakens civic trust and creates fertile ground for conspiracy theories, scapegoating, and extremism (Sunstein & Vermeule, 2009).

The ultimate goal of the information war is not to convince everyone of one version of truth, but to exhaust the collective capacity to care about truth at all. The result is what Hannah Arendt (1951) termed the “defactualised” public sphere, where facts lose their authority and the line between reality and illusion dissolves.

Toward an Ethic of Discernment

The antidote to informational warfare is not simply “more information.” It is wisdom. It is the cultivation of discernment, attention, and silence in a culture of noise. In an age where information is abundant, but meaning is scarce, reclaiming sovereignty over our attention becomes a radical act.

As Jiddu Krishnamurti (1969) observed, “It is no sign of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” To see clearly in a world designed to distract and deceive is not a passive gift, it is an active discipline.

This is the real terrain of resistance in the digital age: to awaken the faculties of perception, to speak with care and courage, and to build communities of dialogue that can hold complexity, nuance, and truth, without succumbing to fear.

 

Control of the Soul

I. Religion: A Historical Tool of Control

Religion, at its mystical core, holds the potential to awaken consciousness, dissolve egoic boundaries, and nurture communion with the sacred. But institutional religion, particularly in its alliance with political and economic power, has too often betrayed this potential. Across centuries and cultures, religious systems have been wielded not to liberate us, but to subjugate us. From imperial priesthoods to inquisitions, religious authorities have acted as gatekeepers of truth, conditioning individuals to defer to external dogma rather than cultivate inner knowing.

As Friedrich Nietzsche (1887) declared in On the Genealogy of Morals, organised religion often stems not from a love of truth but from a "will to power", a desire to moralise, judge, and dominate. When religion is institutionalised, it risks becoming less about spiritual liberation and more about psychological domestication.

Surrendering Self-Authority

One of the most insidious functions of institutional religion is the gradual erosion of self-authority. Many mainstream doctrines, particularly in Abrahamic traditions, prioritise obedience over autonomy, faith over inquiry, and submission over sovereignty. The structure is typically hierarchical: a supreme deity, anointed intermediaries (priests, imams, rabbis), and the laity below. This vertical model reinforces a top-down system of moral guidance, in which questioning is equated with heresy and personal spiritual insight is often dismissed as dangerous or delusional (Eliade, 1957; Fromm, 1950).

This pattern is not confined to the past. In contemporary contexts, charismatic religious leaders still shape political and social attitudes, discouraging dissent and promoting conformity under the banner of divine will. Erich Fromm, in Escape from Freedom (1941), analysed how religious authoritarianism provides psychological security at the cost of individual responsibility. People surrender their critical faculties for the comfort of belonging, preferring the stability of externally imposed morality to the uncertainty of authentic inner development.

Even within seemingly peaceful faiths, this doctrine of deference can suppress inner freedom. As Krishnamurti (1953) repeatedly warned, the search for truth must be unmediated. “Truth is a pathless land,” he said, meaning that no scripture, no priest, no institution can serve as a final authority over the human soul’s unfolding.

Religious Fear and Political Alliances

Fear has been the bedrock of religious control: fear of damnation, fear of divine punishment, fear of exclusion. The promise of salvation has often been inseparable from the threat of eternal suffering. This binary of reward and punishment, heaven and hell, has been instrumental in social engineering. As Michel Foucault (1977) would frame it, the internalisation of religious guilt prefigured the disciplinary mechanisms of the modern state.

Religion’s collusion with political power has a long and brutal history. The Crusades (1095–1291), sanctioned by the papacy, were not merely spiritual campaigns but geopolitical expeditions of conquest. The Spanish Inquisition (1478–1834) institutionalised torture in the name of orthodoxy. Colonialism itself was justified by missionary theology, where European empires framed domination as divine obligation (Said, 1978; Cavanaugh, 2009).

In the 20th and 21st centuries, religion has continued to serve as a tool for division and control. From the sectarian violence in Northern Ireland and the Hindu-Muslim tensions in India, to the theocratic governance of Iran and the politicisation of evangelical Christianity in the United States, religion remains deeply entangled with nationalism, identity politics, and social control (Juergensmeyer, 2000; Asad, 1993).

Even where violence is absent, religious institutions have played a critical role in reinforcing patriarchal structures, excluding LGBTQ+ persons, and policing moral behaviour in alignment with conservative norms. Rather than challenge injustice, they have often sanctified it.

Beyond Dogma: Reclaiming the Sacred

Yet to critique religion is not to deny the sacred. Mystics of all traditions, from Rumi and Meister Eckhart to Ramana Maharshi and Laozi, have pointed to a transcendent truth beyond form, hierarchy, or creed. The mystical impulse is universal and subversive: it does not ask for belief, but for direct experience; it does not demand obedience, but awakening.

The task, then, is not to reject the sacred, but to liberate it from the scaffolding of institutional control. As Carl Jung (1952) noted, “Religion, as the careful observation of the numinous, is a necessary attitude of the psyche.” But when religious forms are hollowed of spirit, they become instruments of fear rather than vessels of transformation.

In a time when political institutions are faltering and existential crises abound, many are turning again to spirituality. But this new spiritual awakening must not be one of passivity or superstition, it must be one of inner sovereignty. Not a return to the dogmas of the past, but a movement into direct communion with the sacred essence of being.

 

II. Government: The Shadow Power

Modern governance increasingly reveals itself as a pendulum, swinging rhythmically between the language of democracy and the tactics of authoritarianism. In times of calm, the language of liberty and human rights dominates; in times of crisis, the machinery of control tightens. These oscillations give the appearance of change while maintaining the same underlying structures of centralised authority.

As Walter Lippmann (1922) warned in Public Opinion, the public mind is shaped not to understand the world, but to remain manageable within it. The illusion of democratic agency is carefully curated through rituals of voting, media spectacles, and procedural politics, but the true levers of power, economic, military, and bureaucratic, remain largely insulated from public influence. This is not democracy in the Athenian sense of demos kratos, rule by the people, but in its hollowed, technocratic variant: rule over the people by those who interpret crises as mandates.

The Democracy–Fascism Pendulum

The modern state justifies its existence increasingly through crisis. Whether the crisis is financial, epidemiological, ecological, or digital, it becomes the pretext for exceptional measures that would otherwise be politically unpalatable. Carl Schmitt (1932), whose theory of sovereignty hinges on the "state of exception," noted that the sovereign is the one who decides when normal law is suspended. The sovereign, in other words, is defined by crisis management and the crisis never ends.

This cyclical state of exception permits the oscillation between soft democratic forms and hard authoritarian tactics. Electoral systems remain in place, but they serve to legitimise preselected choices. As Sheldon Wolin (2008) argued in Democracy Incorporated, we now inhabit a condition of inverted totalitarianism, where corporate-state interests dominate without abolishing formal democratic structures. Control is exerted not through jackboots, but through bureaucracy, surveillance, and media-managed consent.

Crucially, the crisis-democracy loop functions to stabilise elite power. After every shock, whether 9/11, the 2008 financial collapse, or the COVID-19 pandemic, governments expand their powers, promising to relinquish them later. Rarely, if ever, do those powers recede. The pendulum never swings back to its original point; instead, each swing inches the apparatus of control forward under the cover of protection.

Crisis as Opportunity for Control

Historian Naomi Oreskes and climate scientist Erik Conway (2010), in Merchants of Doubt, showed how crisis narratives have been manipulated by powerful actors to shape policy and suppress dissent. Crises create urgency, urgency justifies executive overreach, and overreach becomes the new normal. This is governance not by consent but by fear, where freedom is always subordinate to security.

In such a landscape, electoral outcomes change the personnel but not the paradigm. Left or right, liberal or conservative, governing coalitions are increasingly beholden to transnational capital, military-industrial lobbies, and technocratic agencies. As Chantal Mouffe (2005) argued, the space of real political contestation has been narrowed into a "post-political" consensus, leaving citizens disillusioned, polarised, and ripe for authoritarian demagogues who promise to "restore control."

The danger is not simply that democracy fails, it is that it becomes theatre.

Beyond Pendulum Politics

To resist this oscillation between democratic illusion and authoritarian control, a new political imagination is required. One that recognises that centralised control, whether clothed in technocratic management or populist nationalism, is incompatible with genuine freedom. Real democracy cannot be reduced to the act of voting every four years. It must be lived through decentralised participation, economic equity, community stewardship, and transparent governance.

As Hannah Arendt (1958) argued, the foundation of freedom is not law or order, but natality, the human capacity to initiate, to begin anew. What is required, then, is not merely resistance to authoritarian drift, but the rekindling of political life itself: lived, relational, and grounded in the dignity of the person.

To reclaim governance as a space of shared responsibility rather than elite management, we must dismantle the structures that feed on crisis and replace them with systems that nurture resilience, wisdom, and autonomy. The pendulum must not merely be slowed, it must be dismantled.

Deep State and Corporate Influence: Governance Without Consent

Beneath the visible machinery of parliaments, presidencies, and public debate lies a subterranean network of influence often referred to as the "deep state." This term, though frequently dismissed as conspiratorial, points to a real and observable phenomenon: the existence of unelected networks, comprising intelligence agencies, defence contractors, corporate lobbyists, financial institutions, and technocratic bureaucracies, that exert profound influence over public policy while remaining insulated from democratic oversight.

As Peter Dale Scott (2007) articulated in The Road to 9/11, the deep state is not a monolith but a confluence of interests and actors who operate behind the veil of national security, continuity of government, and economic stability. Their actions may not be coordinated in a conspiratorial sense, but they are structurally aligned: they protect systemic power, not public interest.

Intelligence Agencies and Shadow Governance

Agencies such as the CIA (United States), MI6 (United Kingdom), FSB (Russia), and Mossad (Israel) were established ostensibly to protect national interests. Yet their operations often blur the line between security and subversion, both abroad and at home. These agencies have overthrown democratically elected governments (e.g., Iran in 1953, Chile in 1973), engaged in domestic surveillance (e.g., COINTELPRO in the United States), and influenced media narratives through operations such as Mockingbird (McCoy, 2009; Blum, 2003).

Their budgetary opacity and legal immunity make them virtually untouchable by conventional democratic processes. In the words of former U.S. President Harry Truman (1963), reflecting on the CIA: “I never had any thought that when I set up the CIA that it would be injected into peacetime cloak and dagger operations.”

Edward Snowden’s revelations (2013) about the NSA’s mass surveillance programmes revealed just how deeply modern intelligence infrastructures are embedded in daily life, from email and social media to telecommunications and financial transactions. These agencies operate beyond elections, often beyond the law, guided by an internal logic of “security” that treats transparency as a threat.

Corporate Lobbying and the Capture of Democracy

Parallel to intelligence operations is the profound influence of corporate lobbies on legislation and regulation. In the United States alone, over $3.5 billion was spent on lobbying in 2022 (OpenSecrets, 2023), with industries such as pharmaceuticals, finance, energy, and technology leading the charge. This lobbying is not merely advocacy, it is a systemic investment in shaping policy in favour of private interests.

Pharmaceutical companies influence health policy, defence contractors shape foreign policy, and tech giants advise on digital regulation, all while revolving-door employment ensures that key figures move fluidly between government posts and corporate boardrooms (Baker, 2009). Regulatory capture, where the regulators serve the regulated, becomes the norm.

As Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman (1988) argued in Manufacturing Consent, the media itself is shaped by these interests, acting not as a watchdog but as a mouthpiece for elite consensus. Corporations fund campaigns, lobby policymakers, shape narratives, and ultimately determine which policies are even thinkable.

Financial Institutions and Global Leverage

Supranational financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) exert powerful influence over national economies through mechanisms such as structural adjustment programmes, debt servicing, and currency manipulation. These institutions are not elected, yet they impose austerity measures, labour reforms, and privatisation schemes that affect millions of lives, especially in the Global South (Stiglitz, 2002; Perkins, 2004).

Their allegiance is not to citizens, but to creditors and market stability. In effect, sovereignty is ceded not to foreign powers, but to algorithms, bond ratings, and transnational capital flows. The economic decisions of entire nations become subject to the approval of unelected technocrats operating behind closed doors.

Technocracy and the Myth of Neutral Governance

In recent decades, the rise of technocracy, governance by “experts”, has further diluted democratic accountability. Figures such as central bank governors, data scientists, public health officials, and global economic advisors now wield enormous authority, often without public scrutiny. While expertise is essential, the framing of complex political decisions as purely “technical” or “scientific” conceals the values, assumptions, and power dynamics embedded within them (Fischer, 1990).

 During the COVID-19 pandemic, this dynamic became particularly visible. Public health decisions, ranging from lockdowns to digital health passes, were often made without legislative debate or public input, guided instead by opaque “science-led” task forces. The framing of these decisions as unquestionable science served to delegitimise dissent, even when based on legitimate ethical or legal concerns (Agamben, 2021).

The Consolidation of Control

These various actors, intelligence networks, corporate lobbies, financial institutions, and technocratic elites, form a de facto governance architecture that sits alongside, and often above, official government. This shadow governance does not reject democracy outright, it neutralises it by rendering it performative. Elections become a change of management, not a redistribution of power.

As John Perkins (2004) described in Confessions of an Economic Hitman, the world is increasingly governed not by national interest or public will, but by economic warfare, psychological manipulation, and structural dependence. In such a system, resistance must be more than electoral, it must be epistemological. It must question the very definitions of governance, legitimacy, and sovereignty.

Toward Transparent, Decentralised Governance

To counter deep state influence and corporate capture, governance must be reclaimed as a participatory, transparent, and decentralised process. This means not only campaign finance reform or anti-corruption legislation, but a deeper shift in political consciousness. Citizens must become more than consumers of policy, they must become co-creators of systems that serve life, not capital.

As David Graeber (2013) argued, true democracy begins wherever people gather to make decisions about their shared lives, not only in parliaments, but in communities, cooperatives, and councils. Governance must become rooted in the local, the relational, and the accountable. Only then can the shadows be dispelled by the light of collective will.

 

III. Business and Economics: The Engine of Control

Contemporary global economies, while draped in the rhetoric of innovation, freedom, and meritocracy, are in fact structured to preserve inequality and consolidate control. From classical capitalism to its neoliberal successor, these systems have not evolved toward justice or abundance for all, but toward increasingly sophisticated methods of resource enclosure, labour exploitation, and behavioural engineering.

As economist Thomas Piketty (2014) demonstrated in Capital in the Twenty-First Century, wealth in capitalist systems tends not toward equitable distribution, but toward concentration. Those who own capital, land, data, assets, infrastructure, accumulate wealth at a pace that far outstrips the capacity of labour to catch up. Inequality is not a bug of capitalism; it is its natural outcome.

Neoliberalism, emerging in the late 20th century as the ideological successor to classical capitalism, intensifies this trend. Market deregulation, privatisation of public goods, and austerity politics are deployed globally under the premise of efficiency and competition, but the result is a world increasingly governed by profit motives, not public interest.

Neoliberalism and Stakeholder Capitalism

Neoliberalism is more than a set of policies, it is a worldview. Rooted in the work of thinkers like Friedrich Hayek and Milton Friedman, it asserts that the market is the most efficient organiser of human life, and that government intervention distorts freedom. From the Reagan–Thatcher era onward, this ideology has driven the dismantling of the welfare state, the commodification of nature, and the erosion of labour protections (Harvey, 2005).

In recent years, neoliberalism has been cosmetically rebranded through the language of stakeholder capitalism. Popularised by the World Economic Forum and its founder Klaus Schwab (2020), this model promises a more inclusive capitalism in which businesses serve not just shareholders, but all stakeholders: employees, communities, and the environment. Yet critics argue that stakeholder capitalism often masks the same structures of exploitation with a human face (Monbiot, 2020; Birch, 2021). Corporations use social responsibility as PR, while continuing to pollute, underpay, and monopolise.

Stakeholder rhetoric allows economic elites to appear progressive while resisting structural reform. It is not so much a transformation of capitalism as its moral camouflage, a form of "conscious capitalism" that asks consumers to buy ethical brands rather than confront systemic injustice.

Digital Serfdom: The New Economic Feudalism

In the digital age, neoliberal capitalism has birthed a new form of economic control: digital serfdom. As automation, surveillance, and platform monopolies proliferate, individuals find themselves trapped in precarious forms of labour and dependent on extractive systems.

The gig economy, heralded as a new model of freedom and entrepreneurship, in fact mirrors feudal labour relations. Workers on platforms like Uber, Deliveroo, or Amazon Mechanical Turk have no security, no benefits, and no collective bargaining power. Algorithms dictate their pay, hours, and ratings, creating a workforce that is constantly monitored, dehumanised, and disposable (Srnicek, 2016; Cant, 2019).

Mass automation, meanwhile, threatens entire sectors of employment, not for the sake of human wellbeing, but for maximising shareholder value. As Shoshana Zuboff (2019) warned in The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, data extraction now undergirds much of the digital economy, transforming user behaviour into predictive products sold to advertisers and governments. Human attention, emotion, and movement become raw materials in a new regime of control.

Financial monopolies, dominated by firms like BlackRock, Vanguard, and JPMorgan Chase, own significant shares across almost every industry. Their interlocking interests create a web of ownership that undermines market competition and democratic accountability (Fichtner, Heemskerk & Garcia-Bernardo, 2017). These entities operate with little transparency, influencing everything from housing markets to healthcare access, while remaining largely invisible to the public.

Together, these developments constitute a form of neo-feudalism, where freedom is technically abundant but practically constrained. People may "choose" their jobs, homes, or lifestyles, but within ever-narrowing parameters defined by algorithmic systems, debt obligations, and corporate policy. Economic sovereignty is replaced by dependence; property is replaced by subscription.

Illusions of Mobility, Realities of Containment

The dominant cultural narratives of self-made success, innovation, and limitless opportunity, are strategically preserved to conceal the rigidity of the actual system. Meritocracy, for instance, serves as a moral framework that blames the poor for their condition while exalting the wealthy as inherently deserving. This myth obscures the structural barriers faced by billions, racialised policing, education gaps, land dispossession, colonial debt, and systemic bias (Reeves, 2017; Dorling, 2010).

Debt itself has become a primary tool of control. Student loans, medical debt, and microcredit schemes promise upward mobility while trapping individuals and nations in cycles of repayment (Graeber, 2011). The freedom once associated with capitalism has been hollowed out, replaced by an economy of obligation and extraction.

Toward Economic Reimagination

If economic systems are to serve life rather than control it, a new vision is needed, one based not on scarcity and competition, but on sufficiency and mutual care. Models such as doughnut economics (Raworth, 2017), cooperative enterprise, land trusts, and local currencies offer glimpses of post-capitalist economies grounded in dignity and sustainability.

Reimagining economics must begin with rejecting the inevitability of the current system. As bell hooks (2000) wrote, “There can be no love without justice.” An economy rooted in life must prioritise human needs over capital growth, care over consumption, and reciprocity over extraction.

It is not enough to make capitalism and its mutations kinder; it must be transcended.

 

IV. Human Rights: The Slow Erosion

The post-COVID era marks a significant turning point in the global trajectory of human rights. What was once seen as inviolable, the right to free movement, assembly, expression, and bodily autonomy, has become negotiable under the expanding shadow of state control. Though often framed as temporary or necessary measures, restrictions introduced during times of crisis have a historical tendency to linger, ossifying into permanent structures of governance.

As Giorgio Agamben (2005) warned in State of Exception, the emergency has become the rule. The suspension of rights in the name of security, health, or stability no longer demands extraordinary justification. Instead, it is normalised as governance by necessity. In such a paradigm, democracy becomes performative and freedom conditional.

Legal Precedents for Control

The COVID-19 pandemic witnessed an unprecedented global invocation of emergency powers. From lockdowns and curfews to travel bans and vaccine mandates, states expanded their authority in ways not seen since wartime. While some interventions were arguably justified by public health concerns, many far exceeded their remit or lacked proportional oversight (Scheinin, 2021). The legal infrastructures built to manage the pandemic digital health passes, biometric surveillance, emergency procurement protocols, have not been fully dismantled.

Instead, these tools have been integrated into the standard apparatus of state governance. Countries like France, Australia, and Canada have already expanded legal frameworks allowing indefinite detention during health emergencies or the criminalisation of dissent framed as "public health risk" (UN Human Rights Office, 2022). The danger is not merely that these laws exist, but that they set precedents. As Naomi Wolf (2007) warned in The End of America, democracies rarely collapse through coups; they decline through gradual normalisation of authoritarian practices disguised as protection.

History is replete with such examples: the U.S. Patriot Act (2001), passed after 9/11, drastically expanded surveillance powers under the banner of anti-terrorism and remains in effect over two decades later. The same legal logic and crisis necessitates exceptional power that is now being applied not just to terrorism but to pandemics, climate, and even disinformation.

Failure of Global Institutions

Global institutions tasked with upholding human rights and international cooperation have faltered under pressure. The World Health Organization (WHO), once revered as an impartial body, has come under increasing scrutiny for its opaque relationship with private donors and pharmaceutical stakeholders. As of 2020, nearly 80% of its budget came from voluntary contributions, many earmarked by private foundations and corporate interests, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and GAVI (Rushton & Williams, 2012). This undermines its neutrality and raises questions about whose interests are truly being served.

The United Nations, for its part, has struggled to uphold its own Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), especially as member states violate core principles with impunity. Its Security Council is paralysed by geopolitical rivalries, while its humanitarian arms are often underfunded or politically constrained.

The World Economic Forum (WEF), though not a governing body, has grown influential in shaping global agendas through initiatives such as The Great Reset (Schwab & Malleret, 2020). While presented as a vision for inclusive capitalism and sustainability, critics argue that it reflects a technocratic and centralising ethos that prioritises elite consensus over democratic participation (Gessen, 2021; Birch, 2021). The merging of public-private interests under the guise of crisis management risks sidelining citizens in favour of corporate-statal governance.

The Normalisation of Exceptionalism

What is emerging is a world governed not by constitutional restraint, but by rolling emergencies. Climate crises, economic instability, migration surges, cyber threats, and pandemics are all real challenges, but they are increasingly used to justify restrictions on movement, speech, and bodily autonomy.

This shift reflects Carl Schmitt’s (1932) notion that sovereign is he who decides the exception. Under this logic, the sovereign state, or increasingly, the supranational network, determines when rights apply, and when they do not. This erodes the very foundation of human rights: their universality and inalienability.

Even the concept of "rights" is being reframed from inherent to conditional, from natural to programmable. Biometric IDs, social credit systems, and digital health passes redefine identity and access through compliance rather than personhood (Zuboff, 2019; Morozov, 2011). This transition from person to profile threatens to dissolve the human subject into a data point managed by algorithmic governance.

A Call to Conscious Citizenship

To defend human rights today requires more than legal activism, it demands a renewed vision of what it means to be human. Rights are not only legal entitlements; they are expressions of dignity, sovereignty, and interconnectedness. Their defence must be rooted not only in constitutions but in conscience.

As Arendt (1951) noted, the erosion of rights often begins not with dramatic tyranny, but with the slow abandonment of responsibility by ordinary people. In the face of technocratic overreach and institutional failure, the task is to rebuild from the ground up, a culture of human dignity, mutual care, and decentralised participation. The restoration of rights must begin with the recognition that freedom, once outsourced, does not return voluntarily. It must be reclaimed.

Conclusion: Breaking Free from the Cycle

Reclaiming autonomy in an age of systemic control

We are living through an era not defined by overt occupation, but by a more insidious kind of conflict, what may rightly be called a war against humanity. This is not a metaphor. It is a recognition that the fundamental attributes of being human, awareness, consciousness, freedom, dignity and interconnectedness, are under sustained assault from systems that present themselves as neutral or benevolent. The battleground is not merely geopolitical; it is psychological, cultural, spiritual, ecological, and technological.

This war is waged not with bombs and bullets alone, but through:

• ·         Education systems that condition obedience rather than cultivate insight, replacing wonder with performance, and critical thinking with compliance.
• ·         Food systems that degrade bodies and ecosystems alike, fostering dependency on toxic, centralised supply chains.
• ·         Technology that promises convenience but delivers surveillance, censorship, and behavioural engineering.
• ·         Health systems that monetise illness while marginalising preventative care and holistic healing.
• ·         Information warfare that replaces truth with manipulation and erodes the very possibility of shared reality.
• ·         Governance structures that oscillate between democratic façades and authoritarian reality, exploiting crises to centralise power.
• ·         Religious institutions that disempower individual agency under the guise of divine authority.
• ·         Climate politics that weaponise fear without addressing root causes, reinforcing technocratic dominance rather than ecological harmony.
• ·         Economic systems that commodify every aspect of life, fostering digital serfdom, inequality, and precarity.
• ·         Shadow governance by unelected institutions and corporate elites that steer societies without consent or accountability.

Each of these systems, on its own, may appear reformable. Together, however, they form a lattice of control that perpetuates fear, fragmentation, and dependency. What we are witnessing is not the incidental failure of individual sectors, but the systemic execution of a worldview that values efficiency over empathy, profit over people, and control over consciousness.

This is why it is a war against humanity because it systematically undermines what it means to be fully, freely, and consciously human.

 Awakening as Resistance

Understanding these mechanisms is the first step toward resisting them. Awareness is itself an act of defiance. To see clearly in a world designed to obscure, to think critically in a culture of noise, is to step outside the matrix of managed reality. As Krishnamurti (1969) reminded us, “It is no measure of health to be well-adjusted to a profoundly sick society.”

But clarity alone is not enough. This war is not won through awareness alone, but through reconnection, to one another, to the Earth, to our inner wisdom and to community.

The Architecture of Liberation

Breaking free from this cycle requires the cultivation of three foundational elements:

Psychological resilience

A n individual living in a state of attention, inner inquiry, and emotional self-regulation becomes difficult to manipulate. Psychological sovereignty involves the courage to sit with discomfort, to tolerate ambiguity, and to resist reactive programming. It is the foundation of all other freedoms.

Decentralised systems

Real autonomy requires decentralisation, of food, energy, education, media, health, and governance. Resilient communities must reclaim the commons, relocalise production, and reconstitute economies based not on debt or extraction, but on care and cooperation. These are not utopian dreams; they are ancestral realities awaiting renewal.

The courage to challenge the status quo

Dismantling deeply embedded systems demands moral courage. It requires truth-telling in the face of ridicule, refusal in the face of coercion, and creative action in the face of despair. The courage to speak, build, refuse, and imagine as this is the path forward.

Toward a Regenerative Future

This is not a call for violent revolution, but for radical transformation. It is a call to re-sacralise life. To see again the dignity in the human face, the mystery in the cosmos, and the intelligence in the Earth. It is to shift from domination to partnership, from fragmentation to wholeness.

The war against humanity can only be defeated by the rebirth of humanity:

Through community, where trust is stronger than fear.

Through wisdom, where knowing is rooted in being.

Through action, where love becomes political and justice becomes embodied.

The path is not easy, but it is already being walked, in quiet gardens, in resistant classrooms, in cooperative farms, in encrypted networks, and in the minds of those who dare to question the world as it is.

The choice is not between optimism and pessimism. It is between awakening and sleep. Between participation and passivity. Between captivity and courage.

Humanity has not yet fallen. But to rise, we must remember what we are and individually we must reclaim our lives.

 

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