Medea and Stumbling on Stones: Part II

Why did University of Toronto turn into a cemetery?

Surprised by my own strength, I marvel how unlike Medea, I managed not to come undone in what I don’t feel is an exaggeration a prolonged shredding of my soul, a test unlike any I could have imagined. I am infinitely grateful for the new friends I have made from abroad and reconnected with locally, led to in meeting as if by divine intelligence. As we emerge from one form of tyranny and are submerged by another form of digital totalitarianism, I am struck by how our societal and economic fabric remains fractured beyond recognition. Just like the bravest of actuaries, scientists, medical anthropologists, economists, and Nobel Laureates correctly predicted the harms the draconian lockdown policies would impose on society early on, it is the harm of social and economic polarization that keeps us harmed. A reality I grapple in accepting, find difficult in resisting, embedded in a struggle of striving to cultivate meaning and purpose for my life in an overwhelming and uncertain world.

I vacillate between clinging to my old beautiful, bountiful, full of promise, prosperity, and freedom Canada of 2015, and the Canada I know is nothing but an illusion in 2025. A painful reality gripping us, a truth and pain so menacing, that I fear where our justified and collective rage may lead. I long for my old life, in a country I so deeply love, for a future that is meaningful, purposeful, structured, connected, embedded in a society free to flourish, prosper and self-determine that has sadly and steadily, slipped from our collective grasp. I have foolishly thought that what is enshrined in the American constitution – life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness is also by extension, in ours. I felt uneasy to learn that in section 91 of the Canadian Constitution Act of 1867, our founders have enshrined – peace, order and good government. Alas, we do define ourselves by not being American! Canada is defined by its docility and is built on its deference to authority. It is at last clear to me, why the signs are everywhere, their harms even more insidious, and denial of this truth outright dangerous. Is the pursuit of happiness that elusive that we must resort to being governed instead? But what exactly is happiness and why is freedom so synonymous with it, what our ancestors have valiantly fought and died for, and why is it all slipping from our collective grasp?

In his Happiness Hypothesis, Jonathan Haidt famously argued that happiness occurs in between, and that all we need, is to get the conditions right, as acquiring happiness directly is impossible. Some conditions lie within us, others require us to have the right relationships between us, the right work to fuel us, and all it needs is to be bound together by a connection to something larger beyond us. In the preamble to Canada’s Charter of Rights and Freedoms, it states: “Whereas Canada is founded upon principles that recognize the supremacy of God and the rule of law.” Our own Constitution then implicitly acknowledges the historical fact that societies informed by certain religious traditions have been sustained by liberty and freedom. But what political voices best fertilize freedom?

We surely need classical liberals in society, as they think about issues of victimization, equality, autonomy, and the rights of minorities. We also need conservatives, as they push us to think about loyalty, respect for authority, tradition, and an innate sense that respect for God is all important in society. But as Haidt warns, a society without conservatives would lose many of the social structures and constraints that need it to function, and a society without liberals, would be harsh and oppressive to many. We need both to preserve our social stability and to do so, we might even find wisdom in the minds of our opponents, to derive meaning for ourselves. But we are stuck in a society where we cannot even speak freely or vote for the betterment of our children. Why did freedom become such a dirty word? And what does freedom mean, exactly?

In Isaiah Berlin’s seminal 1958 Oxford essay Two Concepts of Liberty, negative liberty refers to an absence of obstacles that prevent us from acting as we choose. It means freedom from interference, coercion, or domination by others. Negative liberty is our ability to operate within a sphere with no external influence. It gives us the freedom to move, freedom to choose our profession, freedom to speak without interference, fear, or coercion. It provides a sphere of personal autonomy where we are free to make our own choices without being forced or manipulated. However, negative liberty also poses limits as we cannot attain our goals without adequate resources.

By contrast, positive liberty refers to the ability to control our lives with our self-determination. It means freedom to realize our goals and actualize our potential. Positive liberty empowers us to take control of our lives by pursuing our personal values and being masters of our destiny. Positive liberty gives us the ability to achieve our goals, regardless of who may be interfering or not. It entitles us to education, healthcare, employment, food, and the opportunity to participate in political life.

Berlin argued that there is a tension between the two liberties: promoting positive liberty through state intervention, could lead to a reduction in negative liberty by infringing on our individual freedoms. He warned us that unchecked positive liberty could be used as a justification for totalitarian regimes, with the state acting in the best interests of the collective, when in fact it infringes on its freedoms, like it did during the Covid era. In his famous essay, John Stuart Mill argued that liberty lay in the struggle between liberty and authority, in that we owe nothing to society as long as we don’t harm society. However, in order to implement positive liberty, we need to redistribute wealth and resources, by taking property from one person to provide for the needs of another. Modern libertarians such as Ron Paul, do not believe in the concept of positive liberty at all, because they think that two people cannot be free if one person has to take from another in order to be free. However, without any redistribution, the portion of the population without wealth, education or employment, is not free. We thus need a family unit to function as a society, because family is what society is built upon. In his foundational work The Social Contract Jean-Jacques Rousseau wrote “Man was born free and he is everywhere in chains”. Indeed, liberty is complicated.

So, what does freedom mean, to me? To me freedom resides in the mind. As long as I can think freely and reflect on my own observations, learnings and inputs without coercion, I feel free. But the minute I am told what to think, how to think, need an expert to think, or be presumed that I can’t think for myself altogether, I feel imprisoned. I will listen to the expert or even a faucet of experts, but I’ll decide for myself what I think or whether I believe them: thought to me is the freedom from which my individual sovereignty is built. I get self-protective, delving fervently into research to figure out for myself, what I think. The best place for me to do this, is inside a university or a beautiful library.

I always associated universities and libraries with freedom. Their liberating and inspiring campuses instilled a belief in me that I can discover anything. Sometimes, I simply long to sit in the quiet surrounded by the intellectual legacy around me, marveling at the scent of aged books. It fosters deep contemplation, where the disappearance of time is amplified by the collective focus of students around me, studying. I like the soft rustle of pages in reading rooms, the thinking minds around me, the clutter of laptops, the whispers of students, the stacks of books around students working through their last, agonizing papers, and yes, that cute guy across the room…reading. I like the collective focus that I feel inside a library and am immediately motivated by it to do my own work. Indeed, the sanctuary, solitude, and refuge that libraries bring me always make it conducive to do my best work, to make sense of the curious thoughts swirling in my confused mind. It always seemed that the more I studied, the less I knew, and ironically, the more I studied, the more I’d be filled with doubt, understanding even less, faced with endless tentacles to unravel. Oftentimes simply leaving the library would put them to rest.

One gorgeous autumn day, I decided to study at the Bora Laskin Law library, one of the few university spaces left allowing public access to wi-fi. Excited by the beautiful heritage Flavelle House with its ornate fireplace lounge I discovered upon entering, once inside the library, I was quickly disappointed by the poor lighting in the adjoining Jackman’s Building’s reading room and modernist architecture.

Next to me on an adjacent wall, I noticed poorly curated class diploma pictures of freshly minted and aspiring lawyers. Streams of beaming faces ready and excited to take on the world in their respective legal specialties, hung unevenly, clustered towards the edge of the wall, making it obvious that the curators ran out of room and a ruler. Irritated, I got up, and measured the spacings with my finger. A one inch difference is irrelevant, as it looks perfectly alright, but what was not alright, at least in my obsessive mind, was the mediocrity it was rooted in, rather than excellence - hanging pictures of soon-to-be prominent lawyers on a wall that celebrates them, was frankly, insulting. I found it quite ironic that this dull and unimpressive building was awarded the Canadian Architect Award in Excellence in 2013 for the added benefit that it replaced libraries with modern spaces so you could no longer hear a pin drop but be cued instead, to facilitate discussion and interaction. Another nudge embedded into our environment for how we are to behave, slowly erasing history. The reason I love libraries so much is precisely because I can hear a pin drop! There is a comradery in the feeling that you are not alone in the silence, and yet silence is what you crave. It didn’t change my wish that there be a reading room matching the prestige of Toronto’s Law School with the arduous selection process of being admitted, a sanctuary housing thousands of volumes of legal scholarship. A cathedral-like reading room bathed in natural light with large panoramic windows, high vaulted ceilings, stained-glass windows, intricate carved moldings, an atmosphere commanding respect and reverence for the law and a tradition of learning. University of Toronto is a beautiful campus nevertheless, a crown jewel in the city, with its neo-Gothic and Romanesque architecture, sprinkled with heritage buildings such as Hart House, and interspersed with Modernist architecture throughout. Massey College mimics Old Souls College at Oxford in its impressive Ondaatje Dining Hall hosting High Table dinners enshrined in medieval origins of formal traditions such as prayers said in Latin, and students dressed in sub fusc academic dress or black tie. It hosts the Oxford Cambridge society’s Kenneth McCarter Memorial Dinners resembling the formal candlelit affairs steeped in ritual, tradition and history from Oxford. Rich with intellectual and social stimulation, they are special to behold, a lot of fun, and bring back many fond memories from Oxford that continue to warm my heart.

In order to study and log onto the guest wi-fi network however, I was forced to enter a daily code on my mobile, for my laptop to magically know to let me in. Multi-factor authentication is a mechanism for data collection, of monitoring, and yes, of surveillance. How odd, that a university law library would insist on surveilling me around on my mobile when I go to the bathroom or on my route home? Disturbed by this, I questioned the library clerk, “Why can’t I simply use a guest password?” She gave me a look as if the answer was in plain sight, “It is to ensure you aren’t doing anything bad on the internet,” she quipped. “And whose purview defines ensure and bad?” I wondered. Annoyed by the insidious coercion, I immediately knew that if I wanted to experience the simple joy of sitting in a university library which inherently requires access to a laptop and wi-fi, I now needed to comply.

On my way, I meet a delightful blond girl, clearly a European, a tourist asking for directions, “Do you know which way is the subway?” she asked. Eager to help, I smiled and led the way as we headed in the same direction. Leading her down the beautiful Philosopher’s Walk to the library, we instantly connected, her warm smile engaging, her blond hair shining brightly in the afternoon sun. Her name was Agrita, she was visiting from Latvia, here to explore studies in architecture. We headed down Hart House Circle as I wanted to show her the beautiful places around campus. “I just wanted to check the place out, I thought it would be interesting, and I wanted to see the dome,” she said. “The dome? That one?” I replied, pointing to the convocation hall. “No, not that dome,” she assured me, “It’s a different dome.” We searched around looking for a dome, when she quickly spotted the Louis B. Stewart Observatory, the smaller and much less impressive dome. Embarrassed that I had missed the dome’s existence all these years, “Oh, that’s it?” we said, laughing. Quickly our chat delved into politics. “It’s very strange here, this place has become so weird, this city,” I said trying to detect her political leanings. “Ughh,” she gave me an acknowledging look. “Yeah, it’s pretty extreme, the ideology in society,” I responded, feeling a familiar connection to her already. “Can I show you something?” I asked. “Of course,” she said. We didn’t have lots of time as she wanted to see the CN Tower and I wanted to show her Massey College, and other architectural buildings such as the historic Hart House. “Come, follow me,” I said, feeling selfish for wanting her reaction to what I was about to show her. I led her down Hart House Circle to Knox College pointing to places around the university along the way. We arrived to find this:

“Ugh, it’s like a graveyard!” she exclaimed, visibly shocked. “I know,” I said, unsure how to respond. “What has become of our world?” I asked rhetorically. “You must know what stumbling stones are?” I inquired, referring to the dispersed Holocaust memorial of tiles cemented into the front of homes all over Europe of people abducted and sent to Auschwitz. “Of course,” she said solemnly. “Really, really weird,” she said. We stood in silence, upset and confused, unsure what to make of these stones. We looked for signs of an explanation, what is this and why is this here? “Oh, look she said, some are in memory of,” clearly, some are dead, others are celebrated, possibly even alive, but mingled in plaques on the ground, amongst the dead. It was nearly dusk and Agrita needed to catch a glimpse of the CN Tower. We stood for a moment longer in a silent pause, unsure how to process the scene: “If you want to study architecture, maybe try Chicago. Their skyline is beautiful and architecture is super impressive,” I said finally, wanting to protect her from unhappiness, but trying to safeguard her freedom of self-discovery. We stood in another silence a while longer. “Don’t come here,” I said at last. “This is not the place,” I stated protectively, yet decisively. “Thanks!” Agrita exclaimed, looking relieved, her smile beaming. I could tell my new friend was really looking forward to her next destination, the CN tower. We hugged goodbye, connected on social, and I headed back to the library.

On my way back through Hart House I stumbled upon the Grandchildren’s Garden. Upset, I discovered what looked like gravestones masked as pavers clearly of children on campus. Walking around I found more pavers: Ethan Peterson, Woods Peterson, Drake Peterson, Willow Peterson, Odin Peterson, Luke Dirksen, Henry Dirksen. Clearly two families, I thought. Why here? And how is this normal? Why are dead children symbolized in a university? I pondered, agitated, as it seemed that at first, they must be dead grandchildren. It took me effort to research the names to guess that they could in fact be living grandchildren, some ambitious PhD students, ostensibly studying at Harvard, all commemorated into stone pavers as one big happy family. “What will distinguish them once they are dead?” I wondered. “Are we really inscribing our children into pavers whilst they are still alive?” This was so deranged to me that it defied any social norm, convention, or humanity.

It turns out that since the Covid era, the most prestigious university in Canada had been busy transforming itself into a cemetery. A quick google search pointed me to the Landmark Project, one that: “…was created during a time of lockdowns and isolation, but now stands as a place of connection, interaction and beauty.” Its goal was to create a more sustainable and pedestrian-friendly campus thanks to donors from 35 countries inscribed into 3,478 pavers to pay tribute celebrating their connections to the university. Has anyone bothered to make the connection between these pavers and the Holocaust Memorial? Or were they thinking that the association would automatically be to Hollywood Stars? Were the students, parents and alumni consulted through a vote? The Grandchildren’s Garden, meant to make the area greener and more pedestrian-friendly, was ostensibly a revitalized space for reflection and commemoration. Pavers meant to make it more pedestrian-friendly? According to President Meric Gertler, it is “more than just a physical transformation — it’s a reimagining of what our campus can be…a shift from a car-dominated environment to a green oasis reflecting our commitment to sustainability and inclusivity… and fostering community connections.” How are granite pavers of children masquerading as utopian green spaces fostering inclusivity and community connections? How do students grapple with their chemistry labs or mathematics assignments, sitting on top of either dead or alive children, even if only in symbolism, as they nibble on grapes and a salami sandwich? It was immediately unclear whether these children, were being commemorated or in fact alive. The In Memoriam pavers, didn’t have death dates but In Memoriam means dead. The distinction between the dead and the living was inescapably creepy and chilling. Would happy pictures of talented students on a college wall simply not suffice in imbuing them into the proud history of the university? Did it have to get this weird?

There is nothing inclusive, inspiring, green or collaborative about this. Why would stones of the dead be without death dates, interspersed with others who are living? Why would anyone choose to conflate death with life? Mattias Desmet argues that we have become suicidal society, but I think we are far worse: we are now a death cult, so lost in our shared vision of inclusivity, that we rally around the dead confounding them with the living, desecrating both in the process of forgetting what and who we are rallying around. We have decided to normalize suicidal nudging to legitimize the symbol of death as an option for these precious students, our future of society, exactly where it is most effective: in a university. This is not out of place either. In fact, it is eerily aligned. With the expansion of Medical Assistance In Dying (MAID) to competent mature minors, we now tragically advocate for the capable participation of young people in the extension of MAID.

This to me this is the death of the university, signifying that the safest thing to do is to say nothing at all. So much for freeing the mind where all ideas in a university are valid. After all, isn’t the whole point of going to university to be as intellectually uncomfortable as possible? Isn’t the only way to grow, by challenging ideas, even unpopular ideas, realizing that ideas will evolve only if we cultivate a strict discipline to question, challenge, shape, defend and evolve them? Isn’t the whole point to nurture creativity through intellectual rigour, rather than stifling it with suppression and compliance through fear? Doesn’t death automatically fill us with fear?

No, this is not the productive fear that accompanies intellectual rigour. The fear of facing your professor during office hours, knowing that if unprepared, you will walk out with a stark realization that you are ten times more stupid than you thought walking in. The best professors were always the ones who believed in you, who pushed you to reach a higher standard, the ones you somewhat feared but who never demoralized you, the ones you felt energized by after each conversation knowing you were supported, no matter how bleary eyed or exhausted. The ones who taught you the beauty of questioning, of self-belief, of limitlessness, of creativity, of the art of asking good questions. The ones who made you realize that counter-factual thinking really matters. The ones who left you feeling inspired to randomly assign yourself a mountain of work when you thought you were all done. The ones who encouraged you to believe enough in yourself to make complex analysis proofs in Riemann integration actually possible, pushing you through the pain of understanding the Cauchy theorem, the abstract confusion of bounded and unbounded numbers, but only after you spent 20 agonizing hours staring at a barely filled page written in Greek. The ones I loved most where those I feared: in one of my favourite undergraduate classes, organic chemistry, the fear I felt in burning myself handling acetone or methanol, with the coolness of discovery of synthesizing organic compounds made in lab. I would then spend hours explaining my spectroscopy results figuring out what I actually did, but best of all, I could then imagine and see molecules moving so that I could then flip them and they would react all in my mind! The ones who pushed you through enough struggle, flipping through enough pages, re-writing and memorizing formulas (although that never worked unless you understood the formulas), knowing that the solution to your great academic effort would eventually appear in your mind, oftentimes at 4am. This is the satisfying struggle and glory of learning, of self-discovery, of growth, and the sudden joyful realization that all the long sleep deprived nights fueled by sugary hot chocolate, cereal and cold pizza, were worth it.

This environment, of suicidal nudging, is not that. This is the dull, painful, and exhausting fear that dissenting, uncomfortable questions, and contrarian viewpoints, have consequences. It is an art, perfected by the university, of silent control, through insidious, yet gentle, nudging, signaling to students that the stench of death masked into pavers in the spirit of inclusion conflating the living with the dead, is not only normal but inspiring, and implicitly, an option appearing on their course load menu. It is first and foremost isolating, because the inevitability of death serves a subconscious reminder of fear and loneliness. But in the words of Laura Aboli, “loneliness isn’t the absence of others, it is the presence of many who leave you feeling unseen.” You will most certainly feel unseen with suicidal nudges around you, and you will most certainly not be feeling connected. The whole point is to confuse, isolate and distort. These cognitive distortions have a way of making us lose trust in ourselves, with our judgement stripping us of our independence, so that we become dependent on the university for direction and validation. In the midst of questioning our sanity, we lose our self-esteem, thinking that we are inherently flawed if we don’t comply, doubting our feelings, perceptions, and observations, rather than simply evolving, questioning, and building on them. The longer we are surrounded by this environment, the more we internalize our distorted views, and the harder it becomes to break free.

Cemeteries bring solitude and somber remembrance, surely, and can be very healing – but it is not an environment where one would crack open their assignment in quantum mechanics. And neither are universities environments for burials, unless there is a special historical significance for them, such as a memorial of a statue of an intellectual or a transformative president. Ironically, statues of leading historical figures including Sir John A. MacDonald, Queen Elizabeth II, Winston Churchill, Egerton Ryerson, have been vandalized or torn down across this country in response to our leaders telling us, repeatedly, that we are genocidal and systemically racist, all the while failing to communicate the basics of a shared vision. How daft is it then, to embed and desecrate a campus with 3,478 donor pavers of dead and alive community members? The result that Cultural Marxism has brought across Canadian society are division, demoralization, and resentment. The contradictions are glaring. Death and burials are now mocked, whether they are memorial pavers in a university masked in celebration of inclusion and green spaces, or the demonic idea of putting your loved one’s ashes into an hourglass as an invitation of participating in family game night. What is next? Chocolate sprinkles or organic ashes of your grandson with your latte, ma’am?

Standing in the grandchildren’s garden, tears streamed down my face at the thought of the scorching and searing pain at the death of one’s child or sibling, when I thought I would vomit. Instead, I started coughing, overwhelmed by my own grief, carried since childhood, having now lost all of my immediate family members, tragedies and grief that defined the sensitive yet strong woman I’m becoming. I thought about my Polish ancestors who perished in the Holocaust. I looked up at all the wandering students around me, unassuming, unbothered and preoccupied over their paper, exam or night out. How utterly sad, I thought. My mind went to the horror of the democide we just lived through in the tyrannical Covid era, which by the mainstream at least, has been forgotten and replaced, or worse, gaslighted, in what Teal Swan aptly described as Society's Great Gaslight. Nothing is back to normal despite everyone pretending like it is. Even bringing it up in friendship circles, by mere desire for discussion, is met with derision, brushed aside as if nothing had happened. Popping into my mind were the creepy Stalinist dance videos that masked my inner chaos with carefully crafted musical sedation, leaving me wondering whether they had a Machiavellian effect on our collective psyche contributing to the mass formation that had befallen us, as described by Mattias Desmet.

The root cause of this societal decline stems from the Cultural Marxism that accuses their opponents of being oppressors and exploiting their common decency by making them feel ashamed, resulting in self-censoring. For anyone wishing to protect, defend and be proud of our history, traditions, and heritage, we must anticipate being called a racist, sexist, homophobic, a conspiracy theorist, a terrorist and other condescending and judgmental labels. Such fear paralyzes people and leads to social degeneration. In order to dissipate it, we must identify what we are for, through a common vision and values we can proudly identify with, rather than simply identifying what we are against. In the Marxist view, all human interaction is a struggle between people who are oppressors, who are irredeemably in the wrong, and those who are oppressed, and always in the right. But as Haidt asserts, we need both: life consists of voluntary co-operation for mutual benefit, by people with differing goals, each with their own agency and values, each carrying a moral sense of responsibility for the outcome. The cure that Marxists have proposed has turned out far worse than the disease, with Communism killing nearly 100 million people worldwide. It is simply untrue that human interaction amounts to exploitation and power struggles and that our economic reality stems from ethnic “privilege” to the exclusion of our choices, talents, will, perseverance, and tenacity. Racism does exist amongst all classes, but the only way to co-exist is to stop identifying with one: do we really need to talk about it? How about we stop talking about it, or at least try? People are just people. Why not show what we can do instead, focusing on cultivating our merit, showing our most authentic self, reaching to others from our heart rather than judging by their exterior? Most people don’t care about whether we are black, brown or white, they care about who we are, what we bring to the table, how we behave in a relationship, and how we make others feel.

Instead of uniting, the Trudeau government instilled in us not only a sense of shame of our past, but imprinted a collective guilt that we are systematically genocidal and racist and that we must atone for our sins by fundamentally changing our way of life. We are made to believe that the “oppressed” are now the victims, and since most of us are raised with prosocial values, we naturally feel obliged to show sympathy to victims of genuine oppression. Ensuring that cultural assimilation is successful, however, requires a careful assessment of the cultural milieu from which the potential immigrants arrive from. Karl Popper in The Open Society and Its Enemies warned us that unlimited tolerance will lead to the disappearance of tolerance, as if a society tolerates all viewpoints, including those that are intolerant, it risks enabling those intolerant viewpoints as suppressing tolerance itself. A truly tolerant society must therefore have the right to deny tolerance to those who promote intolerance, Popper said, as the pervasive expression of intolerant ideologies can erode tolerance through authoritarianism. In the words of legal scholar Bruce Pardy, “equity, diversity and inclusion are code words for reverse discrimination.” Questioning it is disallowed, dissent or constructive discussion silenced, where we are not even allowed to debate whether it is doing more harm to society than good. Furthermore, Pardy elucidates that white people cannot even claim discrimination because the Charter has an equity exception, requiring “not equal treatment between individuals but equal or comparable outcomes between identity groups.” The labels are indeed harmful and have irreversibly harmed many relationships, including family relations. George Orwell in his satirical fable Animal Farm forewarned that: “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” The same can be said today about feminists, women want to be equal and special with the same privileges as men, but with additional privileges available only to women, exclusive of all the tough jobs men do. With the historical majority becoming the minority and us claiming no specific Canadian culture other than not being American, are we really surprised that many are claiming Canada is broken? Have we paused to ask ourselves whether changing Canada in such a way might make everyone worse off, socially, politically, and economically, including our alleged victims? The reality is that the constitutional order of good governance, order and peace established in Canada at Confederation in 1867 has given rise to one of the most admired and prosperous democracies in the world, yet has dramatically dropped to being nearly dead last in economic growth amongst OECD countries. Yet, rather than fighting with fiery and determination to solve it, we sit in complacency thinking the government will solve it for us. Perhaps it is time then, to think about demanding that our government work for us to re-open and re-write the Canadian constitution? To take the best of the Constitutional Republic from the US and the best of the Westminster Parliamentary system from the UK, and fit it into today’s modern era?

I worry whether we have not crossed the threshold in Bruce Pardy’s brilliant depiction of state singularity, where state and society become indistinguishable. If we cannot decipher the difference between pavers masked as grave stones of the dead mingled in with the living, and we wrap such depressing messaging in a blanket of inclusivity at a prominent university, we have become a warped and degenerate society. At state singularity, Bruce Pardy asserts, the “state becomes society and society is a product of the state, where legal norms and social expectations become irrelevant. In this view, the state’s managerial mandate is to do as it judges best, because everything becomes an expression of its vision.” The rule of law is thus rejected. We are living in an era where the rule of law, applied blindly to all people is replaced with rule by law, applied selectively at whim by unelected bureaucrats. In contrast to fascist and communist regimes resulting from deliberate political revolt, at the singularity, Pardy argues, all solutions to all problems lie with the government. Like black holes, state singularities absorb and crush everything. Corporations serve state interests and participate in managing the economy with a large majority of employment opportunities being concentrated inside the state, not the private sector. Singularities thus destroy voluntary efforts by investors and entrepreneurs by impeding them with obstacles. With everyone on the political left and right seeking to leverage state power to craft society in their image, singularities crush our soul because they prevent us from meaningful and fruitful employment and a thriving existence. According to Bruce Pardy:

“In a singularity, one cannot propose to eliminate government, as doing so would be contrary to the ideology, rejected not only by the bureaucrats, but by the citizenry who, dissatisfied with the services they receive, demand even more from their government. State singularity therefore, is found not only in the structure of a ballooning government, but in the minds of the people.”

Our modern technocratic state has all the technological surveillance advances of monitoring spaces, collecting unnecessary private details, supervising activities, freezing bank accounts, all in the name of requiring our compliance and controlling every aspect and nuance of our private lives, in the name of protecting us. Is this a life we want? What will it take then, to liberate us from this digital concentration camp and defeat this insidious totalitarianism, that once in place, we can never truly escape from? To let us think for ourselves and defend our liberty? To protect our freedom, to fight for our sovereignty, to preserve our right to self-determination, and pursue our innate desire for happiness? To strive for human flourishing in how we desire and raise our precious children in how we choose?

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