Archaeology

Nopony is completely free,

else we’d have naught to strive for.

0 A.C.

I’ve done it... I’ve left Ponyville.

As I sit here writing, I am a few hours out of the city and heading west. Thankfully, I did not need to explain myself to anypony, yet it is sad that I could not give a good farewell to those honest ponies. I do not hold anything against my peers, I simply lament the lack of understanding between us. It is unquestionable that their intent is good, their hearts in the right place; the fact of the matter is, simply, that I cannot successfully communicate to them the things that are important to me and so I must find others who might understand.

Yet, I fear that I preach too much. My words (and that is all they are) do not reflect the truth of my being. I have merely started to question that which is around me, professed to be 'reality', the true working of things. I am seeking to find one (or many, if they exist!) who actually resemble these ideas in the flesh! If my assumptions about our society are correct, surely those that we think of as demons and savages must really have more to them than that.

But then, as I travel this road, I needs must ponder... what is rightness? Where do does such a thing come from? This question must be answered to some satisfaction if I am to truly take a stance on any issue. If preach a word that I believe yet do not supply even myself with the basis for that belief, surely it is a worthless one to hold.

The thing about ‘Right’ and ‘Wrong’ is that they literally do not exist. These aren’t empirically measurable things. They are concepts, that much is certain, I think.

Recently as I left town, I was passing by the Barn of Worship. A funeral service was leaving and I overheard somepony say, “You just turn to dust but the real you is gone. Up there there’s no fighting or pain or sorrow, it’s a better place”.

So I must wonder, how can such a thing be? If the afterlife is a place without such feelings as being possible, how can that be anything but a prison of indifference? Can one possibly reach the peak of self-fulfillment, understand the depths of joy, without an acute awareness of despair?

It is amidst the haze of uncertainty that visions seem to be reality- the realization that there are so many people in so many places who have conflicting worldviews and philosophies, that not all of them can be objectively applied, elevates the certainty that subjective reality must be the fact of the matter. But is this not a blanket, objective, statement?

I shall examine the theories that seem to be held by most as to where morality stems from. Often professed is the notion that a being of a higher order, the creator, established morality as an underpinning for this universe when it was created- this is the appeal that Celestia makes to us all, which she says the Elements of Harmony represent. Another notion is that the culture that one belongs to is what constructs morality for themselves exclusively, which stems from an observation of history: in the past, before ponity was joined together in harmony, different clans held different ways of living up as the highest ideal. Take for example many of the warlike Pegasi tribes- they were fiercely territorial and proclaimed that the highest level of honor could only be achieved by eating the heart of one’s vanquished opponent. It was exclusively those who had consumed the strength of many enemies that were to be revered as heroes. According to those traditions of old, peaceful conflict resolution was viewed as weakness.

Obviously, this is starkly contrasting with what we know today, namely that to eat the flesh of another is not only unnecessary but unhealthy as well. This moral that we hold could be seen to originate from those early earth-pony tribes, many of whom were overcome by conquerors before the unification of Equestria. But what makes what we hold today the real ‘Truth’ about rightness?

It is apparent that when individuals agree on standards of morality- right and wrong- they are able to impose some sort of cooperation within a given ‘society’ in order to function as a more efficient collective. As collectives expand and encounter others, it is necessary to revise one’s standards of morality that might conflict with opposing viewpoints. This is simply how our current culture arose...

I know for certain that there are those who are ignorant to the worst goings-on in the world and that they maintain perfectly fine levels of contentment, but I do not think that this is truly the way that someone who has some higher level of understanding would feel.

Imagine being some spirit with great knowledge of the happenings in this world: Of course I have no idea what existence might be like without being attached to this earthly body. To have none of the earthly things I sense: taste, touch, smell, sight, noise. Perhaps I wouldn’t care at all for such a thing as physical pain- torture ought to mean nothing to me. But maybe suffering would still be observable, perhaps vicariously I could feel the pain of living ponies if I was still aware of their existence on this level that we all experience.

But to wonder about this issue of ‘existence without my current sensory input’ for too long seems unreasonable, I must resign myself to worrying about those things that are visibly verifiable, not the maybes of an after-death. It was a wise pony who once said, “Death ought not concern us, for when death is, we are not and when we are, death is not.”

To get back to morality; there seem to be three major camps. There are those who claim objective moral truths that validly apply to all ponies, those who claim that each pony makes ‘truth’ for themselves, and those ponies who claim that morality is simply a social construct, bearing no resemblance to truth of any kind.

With regard to the subjectivists, who hold that morals are determined by each individual for themselves- it’s a nice thought but one I feel is untrue. In examining such a statement, I notice that it holds up the idea that two ponies with entirely different worldviews can look at the same occurrence and truthfully name it good and bad, at the same time, with both statements as morally valid. Let me demonstrate what I mean.

Suppose we have pony A who holds subjectivism to be true and also believes in persuasion and peaceful cooperation between ponies, abhorring violence against others without provocation. Now, suppose that, isolated from pony A, is the previously unknown pony B. Suppose that pony B believes in the rapid external expansion of their own worldview by any means necessary, and they interpret this by waging war on those who do not believe as they do. So we have pony B raging out towards pony A, bent on carrying hellfire and brimstone to that infidel.

What can pony A do to resist? According to her, pony B is ‘right’ in their aggressive expansion because individuals determine right and wrong for themselves. If pony A resists being overran, that pony is breaking their own code of subjectivism and if they don’t resist they aren’t fulfilling their own moral codes of valuing their own life. If they say, “Well, when it comes to slaughter of innocents or self defence, I am right to oppose pony B”, they are making an appeal to an objective standard of morality based on harm towards others, and rejecting their own philosophy of ‘individuals determine what is right/wrong for themselves”. So it seems that morals, if they do exist, cannot be so permeable as to be interpreted by any individual. They must be objective- beyond the standards of any one pony.

Unfortunately, this does not answer the question, are there true morals? The encampments have been culled- we now have only the idea that some form of objective morality exists OR that there is no such thing as right and wrong, only cultural codes which are of equivalent intrinsic value (namely: NONE).

What saddens me is that I am leaning towards the latter statement. If I cannot measure good and bad, if I cannot observe their weight in the world, how can I adhere to any notion that they exist? I can see things that I feel are good and bad, yet this is just my own psychology at work; I abhor what I was taught to abhor; If see an ‘injustice’ towards somepony, I fear that situation because I could be put in it. Empathy does not stem from morality, only self preservation.

So I come down finally to the notion that morality does not exist. There is no objective ‘Right’. At first this seems terrifying as I think to myself: Morality is illusory, a smokescreen. Then the notion comes to me, perhaps moral codes must be like any other construct?

Take money as an example. Bits have no real value, the way food does or water. It’s simply an agreement- if we all value this one thing in the same way then we can use it in our relations to have fair exchanges. Morality could be much the same- if everypony holds similar values then we can interact peacefully and cooperate on a much more efficient level.

And I feel relieved at this thought, absurd as it may be. Even if killing somepony is not inherently wrong, it still doesn’t make sense to do so- I can live in a perfectly fine way without it and would probably benefit from having a friendly neighbor around. This line of reasoning allows for sensible rules without making some grand statement about the order of the universe. Perhaps it even creates room for a more dynamic morality, one based on common sense stuff rather than strange, immutable laws that almost everypony needs must break at one time or another.

So it seems obvious to me that there is not a single life-form that does not have a will to flourish- to grow in the world of it’s own accord and to not be set to the whims of others. Essentially, there’s not a creature alive that does not adhere to the notion that they as an individual should have the ability to make voluntary choices about the path that they trod in this life.

And that’s why I believe what I do- for with Celestial government comes involuntary cooperation, something that all individuals abhor when it is presented to them openly. So I’d like to present it openly: the coercive nature of our rulers.

The scope of our nation is larger than one pony’s ability to govern, goddess though she may be, so let me describe the way that our system of governance currently works on the levels below the Celestial-dictates, which necessarily come into law. This is how it is told to our children, as they learn about the organization of society and how rules and institutions are set in place. I shall paraphrase obviously, for I am no schoolteacher.

“Each pony has in common innate desires to be self-governing, to not be subject to the whims of others- to have rule over how their own lives are run. We shall call this idea of self-purpose Autonomy. As a collective view of ponity is necessary for the larger prosperity of our kind, in order for each pony to have a say in the outcome of our collective, we shall establish a system of voting- where each pony’s opinion counts equally as ‘1’. From each body of population from the different districts of Equestria, a ‘representative’ shall come after the process of voting has taken place. They, the Lower Courts, shall reside in Canterlot, and work with each other and vote on plans in order represent their constituents’ best interests, thus all shall have an equal say in the running of society.”

So it is! We have a class of ponies that resides in Canterlot- all of them making a minimum of five to ten times what a successful family such as the Cakes make- all of their pay coming from tax money. The original outlines for this mode of governance are laid out in a document that we blandly name, ‘The Social Contract’.

So, let us look at the wording in this document, used by the mainstream thinkers to justify a system of governance wherein those who are born in Equestria are owned by the state, forced to pay tithes out of their own productiveness at the threat of being caged (and if they resist the theft too efficiently, they shall be murdered).

It is obvious that they who wrote the ‘Social Contract’ had no natural power or right to make it obligatory upon their children. It is not only plainly impossible, in the nature of things, that they could bind their posterity, but they did not even attempt to bind them.

Yet, let us look at the rhetoric with which today the powers-that-be justify themselves. Ponies purport that this ‘contract’, written hundreds of years ago when Equestria was just starting, is validly applicable to all of us today; that it holds weight and authority in all matters in which ponies interact.

Which is absurd.

This ‘Social Contract’ has inherently zero authority to those of us who did not have any part in its construction, those of us who did not voluntarily accede to the terms laid out within it, those of us who are, namely, sovereign individuals capable of making autonomous decisions.

They say that unless you vote within the system, you don’t deserve a voice. They say that voting in the system is the ONLY way to have a voice. They say ‘unless you vote, you don’t have a right to complain’.

Which is insane.

By the very nature of things, the act of voting could bind nopony but the actual voters. It cannot be said that, by voting, a pony pledges themselves to support the ‘Social Contract’, unless the act of voting is perfectly voluntary on their part. Yet, it seems obvious that the act of voting cannot be termed ‘voluntary’ for even many of those who do vote. Instead, it is a measure imposed upon them by others, rather than one of their own choice.

It must be considered that, without their consent, without being asked, everypony finds themselves claimed by a government that they cannot resist; a government that forces them to pay money, render service. A government that from it’s very premise removes the most basic part of his or her autonomy, under threat of imprisonment or death.

So a rational pony sees this, and also sees that other ponies practice this ‘tyranny by ballot’. Our rational pony then intuits that, if he does the same thing, he might be able to relieve himself from the tyranny of others; if he votes he may subject his own tyranny in the place of another’s. Our rational pony sees that, without his consent, he has been placed in a situation that, if he uses his vote, he may become a master; if he does not use it, surely he will be a slave.

And so in self-defense, he votes.

Not too long ago, I was talking with my friend, Lily, about the way that representatives are chosen from one of two bought-and-paid-for political parties. In my frustration, I made the claim that such a locked political structure was anything but beneficial towards the majority of ponies, and that their wants and needs were not being met. She knew this, but didn’t follow my conclusions to the source of the problem: statism. This is when, having ran out of excuses for the aristocracy, she said, “often, one must choose the lesser of two evils”.

At that moment, I nearly lost it. Having smashed her ingrained idea of a social structure to pieces, yet retaining respect for the virtues that she held as moral, she resorted to her last hope of retaining a semblance of her previous beliefs (that progressive change ought to happen via government force). Because of my fury, I had no retort ready in tongue. She walked away, and I lost that round.

I shall say now, this ‘lesser of two evils’ business is nothing but harmful to the good cause, for it is only the belief in that idea, and nothing else, that perpetuates it. It is a delusion that only works to the extent that it is believed. Thus, it ought to be greeted with contempt and derision, at the very least.

My hoof grows weary of writing, and the light is fading from the sky. I remain on this winding path, though I do grow nervous as I approach the boundaries of Equestria, known and unknown.