Some introductory food for thought...

“What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or in the holy name of liberty or democracy?”
    - Mahatma Ghandi

“Totalitarianism is not only hell, but all the dream of paradise-- the age-old dream of a world where everybody would live in harmony, united by a single common will and faith, without secrets from one another."
   - Milan Kundera

"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."
  - George Orwell


Technocracy as scientific Totalitarianism?
Technocracy is the institutionalised control over all aspects of society by scientific and technological means through a centralised autocratic bureaucracy, whose totalitarian control is secured by the exploitation of its means. Universal utilitarianism over the psychologies, sociology, technology, pharmacology, etc. Whose state authority relies solely on the implementation of systematic indoctrination and propaganda, and the methodical interception of political dissidence or heresy against the established ideological order (in whatever form it takes). Human beings, as the most exhaustively studied species on Earth, have no shortage of data, nor any famine of instances littered among history that create the foundation of a deterministic human proclivity to be influenced by covert forces, often even when staring us in the face.


The institutionalisation of Peace as a political concept?
Peace, among the broader consensus, means to many and ideal not only of great significance, but too, a matter of urgency in a world of almost instantaneous advancement in the technological means of warfare, with the capability of mass destruction or even global fallout ever possible at the push of a button. Peace, however, as a political concept (like all concepts) is multilateral in the diversity of its manifestation, and is one of vague understanding to those who might purport its value, or perhaps not to those who might reap its more nefarious facets. Institutionalised ideology (possibly even Peace as a concept) has a tendency to shift to the extreme spectrum of its implementation in order to compensate for, by physical and ideological assets, the inevitable opposition that will rise in its wake or during its implementation. This is why, despite the seemingly sympathetic characteristics of Marxist ideology, it requires, when in its institutionalised from, a means of repressing antithetical views or activity, for instance, within the Soviet system. Because of this proclivity, it is thus safe to assert that even Peace, when in an institutionalised state could adopt a form of despotic hard and soft power in the enforcement of its ideological tenets.


Peace as an ideological control system?
It is necessary to understand the extent to which the concept of peace can be applied and that to which it's linguistic value could be altered or even neologistically reinvented. Peace, as generally perceived, means a vague ideal of harmony between people, generally applied to warfare and violence and the unnecessary suffering it causes. However, it is surely necessary to contemplate the id of its concept, which could still, by technicality, represent peace. Here is a legalese style list of how it could be applied, utilised as an ideological system of control:

• Opposing dialectic or political discourse between two or more groups or individuals as a breach of peace, for it produces a state of non-neutrality and thus a state of conflict (of ideas).
• Opposition to the state by activism or an expression of opinion as a breach of peace, for it may incite a state of conflict, or a spread of opposition.
• Multi-partisan politics as a concept that produces conflict (of ideas) and thus would be a breach of peace, and therefor is necessary to maintain a single-party system.

These are some ways in which I have tried to apply the political concept of peace as could be utilised for an ideological system of control through the rule of law or other means. Peace is generally perceived as a concept existing on the macro, however, here having been applied to the micro, it becomes scrutinous and can target by technicality, basic liberties. Theoretically, peace can mean absolutist ideological neutrality.


- a short essay by JDH

I am still trying my best.
Stretching my legs to the coastline,
lactic shackles of inertia
are cast off.

I remember the ease
of animating these young limbs-
concrete strut, woodland walk;

it is hard to think of you much these days,
even in the confines
of unread books and filter coffee.
I have forgotten you, your blue dress,
your punting on the Thames.

There are harder habits
than caffeine and rich women.
As Ol' Tom Waits says,
“you don't meet nice girls in coffee shops.”

The glass roof of the arcade
offers translucent sunlight,
a high-street retreat from the nature of the sea,
all mankind's institutionalisation,
all these walls and closing times,
bigger names over bigger signs.

I am still a rare sight of youth
amongst the patient, ringed eyes
of those book-shop loyalists;
a choir of silver on their heads,
acquired wisdom of faded routines,
old laughter etched like the Nazca Lines
in their faces, lips eroded and pale;
sexless in the fluorescent lighting.

Breathing spaces where life exists
are always held closest to the fear of death.
I am still finding a clean way of living,
a way to accept my place, my face
in the mirror of my self-hate, anxious words
and half-conscious recollections;
the remnants and scars from asphyxiation – old drownings:

the sorrow that separated myself from others,
the sorrow that separated you and I,
you and I.
Your pursuit of a well-ticked time-sheet,
my love for sentiments that rhyme.

I have learned the patterns of the waves,
the way money is exchanged.

Oh, my dearest depression,
my ache for acceptance.
My endless, endless ocean of blue
can be sad, so sad,
but it can be beautiful too.