The book “The Wisdom of Insecurity” by British philosopher Alan Watts has been frequently referenced in the West as a powerful light capable of indicating the path for the human being who, with the advance of times, seems to become increasingly anxious, purposeless and depressed, a definitive remedy that would act not only on the aforementioned symptoms, but on the very root of the problem. A critical reading of it, however, reveals something totally different and removes all possibility of superlative descriptions such as above.
Leader Kim Jong Il pointed out:
“In capitalist countries, reactionary and superstitious ideas of all kinds are disseminated, which, like drugs, paralyze men's sound minds and make them ignorant, and, by fomenting the way of life in which the strong devour the weak, social evils such as immoralities, murders and thefts reign, causing fear and worry in people.”1
To begin with, the book starts from a myopic diagnosis. Whilst it manages to point out correctly that people nowadays are increasingly addicted to immediate pleasure, increasingly clinging to the past or the future and uprooted from the present, increasingly anxious and without direction in life, it fails completely to point out the “aetiology” of this disturbance: the very mode of production in which the such anxious and depressed man is constituted and lives. President Kim Il Sung taught that the ideological consciousness of people is determined by the material conditions of social life and that it is, ultimately, determined by the way they produce. In this manner, attempting to approach any question of the psychological domain of people whilst ignoring the social reality that it reflects becomes an error and a deceptive perspective that only serves to exonerate the capitalist system.
Leader Kim Jong Il taught:
“Consciousness is the supreme function of the brain, the most developed organ of the human body. The brain plays the central role in man's biological activities, and consciousness, which is its function, coordinates all of man's activities.”2
The author not only ignores the social character of man, but attempts to blame the human being himself for his suffering. Truth be told, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the entire book could be summarised in this: “your anxiety is the fault of your restless mind, fix it!”. He blames, moreover, nature for the brain it gave us, which would be the “producer” of this suffering by virtue of its consciousness, capable of recalling the past and foreseeing the future, and which would cause a “split” between "I" (rational) and “me” (irrational, visceral), which he points out as the source of all evil to be repaired. The same brain that makes us the distinct being that is capable of knowing the world and ourselves and transforming everything in a new way, creating and moulding reality to our will. It is, as one notes, a very absurd conception of the human being proposed by the author of the book, who ignores its social aspect and, still, demonises the superior function of its most developed organ, which is none other than the epitome of the very evolution of matter in our world.
By defending an absolutely distorted conception of man, ignoring his social nature and the capitalist mode of production where he is constituted and, worse still, locating the problem in the human being, I consider it to be a book—or, perhaps, it would be better called bourgeois education material—of the most cunning reactionary type. In other words, material that serves only to take the focus of man's struggle from the real target and place it on himself, leaving him totally blind and surrendered.
Leader Kim Jong Il taught:
“The fact that the world is not constituted by consciousness or idea, but by matter, and that it does not move and transform by some supernatural force, but according to its own laws, has already been elucidated by materialist dialectics. That the world is, in its essence, matter, that it is unified by matter and that it moves and develops according to its own laws—this is an undeniable fact.”3
If that alone were not enough, the author still defends a posture of total passivity and fatalism in relation to reality. He postulates that it is an error to distinguish man from the material world, and that, equally, attempting to understand it—which is the first step to transforming it—is not only an error, but something useless and fruitless, this based on the idealist posture of saying that everything we “think we know” is an “invention” of our head and never “things in themselves”. He says, therefore, that we must only accept reality as it is, fused with it, never attempting to understand it or react in any way, and that we are not even capable of doing so. In this manner, he advocates for the adoption of an absolutely falsified view of the world and of man himself which, needless to say, is harmful and reactionary in the extreme.
For man, who, by possessing the three socio-historically formed attributes of independence, creativity and consciousness, composes the force that, united collectively, transforms nature, creates and transforms society and the social regime and advances history, there is nothing more pernicious than numbing his consciousness with a deceptive view of himself and of the world, so that he believes that he cannot know its objective laws nor transform it and has no alternative but to accept being conducted like a drifting boat carried by waves and winds, or, in another analogy that better encapsulates the spirit of the book, like a beast of burden that, with blinkers on, sees nothing beyond the ground ahead, being led by its master. However, contrary to what is propagandised by the author, man can, in fact, know the world, discover its laws and, based on this knowledge, transform it to his will—which is a fact patently demonstrated by the Juche Idea, which shows its veracity irrefutably in Socialist Korea.
And as if to “close with a flourish”, the author, in the penultimate chapter, lays bare the final nature and purpose of his work by presenting the accountability of the social regime and the subsequent revolution necessary to overcome it as “moralism”, which would be a false way out of the problem, equivalent to the sermons that people receive in religions. In reality, revolution is not about a “moral sermon”, but a legal and inevitable requirement of social development driven by the popular masses who struggle to realise their demand for independence, a law clarified anew by the Juche Idea.
In sum, beneath all the garb of Taoist and Buddhist “Eastern wisdom” placed as a disguise to distract Western readers, all there is is pure bourgeois ideology. What the author of this book defends cannot help but bring to my mind a motto of the government of the infamous former neoliberal and coup-plotting president Michel Temer, which said: “don't think about crisis, work!”. Here, in few words, what is said is more or less the following: “don't think about anxiety, accept it! It is part of you. Indeed, it is you. Therefore, just accept it, forget the past and the future, anchor yourself in the present moment and live in harmony!”. What is aimed at, in the end, is to create an isolated man, who does not think, does not know history, discards the possibility of longing for the future and lives on automatic like an animal. It is more of the same ideological poison aimed at paralysing man's consciousness, perverting him and, thus, prolonging the existence of the decadent capitalist system.
Respected comrade Kim Jong Un pointed out:
“Humanity is today seeking its own path in the great Kimilsungism-Kimjongilism. The people-centred idea and the revolutionary doctrine of independence is fluttering as a banner of struggle and spirit of the people who seek true freedom and happiness in all corners of the earth.”4
There will be no cure for people's anxiety and depression as long as the very mode of production that, by undermining their independence and subjecting them to the most atrocious exploitation and oppression, produces both is not overcome. Only by satisfying the demand for independence—by transforming the old regime into the new, converting the masses into the masters of society—and bringing into play their creative role, guided by the elevated ideological consciousness awakened by the decisive role performed by the leader, who illuminates the path ahead for them to transform the world and themselves, united in the sociopolitical body of life with the leader as supreme brain, is it possible to think of dignified and salubrious life, which overflows with fulfilment and optimism.
And, contrary to what the author attempts to convince, none of this is impossible or contrary to reality: it is a palpitating reality right there on the very continent from which he says he took his “wisdom”, but further to the east, from where the sun rises with the dawn of emancipation: in Socialist Korea. So, why not exchange the vassal-like “Eastern wisdom” defended by the author for one that truly emancipates the human being and contributes, genuinely, to allowing him to live with dignity and in harmony with the surrounding world?
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