We need more Freethinkers! Now!
Why Humanity Is in Big Trouble Without Them & How to Support Them.
Most ants never get lost. They just follow the pheromone trail of previous ants. But this can go deadly wrong with army ants. When these ants get confused they’ll just follow the trail of the ants before them. And when they get caught in a circle following each other, then we call this an an ants death spiral. They’ll follow each other’s pheromone trail round and round and round, until they die of exhaustion.
In general following a well marked trail is smart for ants. It’s often the route between the nest and food. You follow the trail that many seem to walk, and thus run straight to places where things can be found. Yet there is a way rarer ant, the scout ant, or as Arjan Postma calls them crazy ants. They go where there are no paths yet. It is the one that can create new paths. So when paths are broken and all obedient workers get stuck, wondering where to go, these crazy scouts create new trails to follow. And when they find food, they’ll even lay a bigger and fatter pheromone trail to excite all the rest.
The freethinkers are our crazy scouts. The explorers who question stuck convictions, who wonder what more is possible. Some social activists will protest what’s wrong with the traditional ways, and some will experiment with alternatives. These are not bad people, even though they may create a bit of chaos. They can help us prevent from getting into a death spiral or out of one. And anyone a little critical of the state of our societies may feel, we are currently trapped in one, or even more, death spirals.
“A little bit of craziness is necessary to stay healthy.” ~ Arjan Postma, Dutch Ranger.
The Dominant Roles of the Human Ant Nest …
… And how we’re different from ants.
The human ant nest, say nation state or tribe, has like ants different roles. These are way more complex and intricate than those of ants. And there’s a huge difference.
Some humans are advancers. We tend to call them leaders, they advance things, have a high status and can give orders or influence a lot of others. They often have a message or ideology to solve a certain problem and ask others to follow in order to solve it. But while they may officially be leaders, the question is always for whom and what interest are they advancing things? And when that isn’t an inclusive, helping goal for as many people as possible, then an advancers is not a real leader.
Some humans are early adapters or trendsetters. These can be true believers in the call of the advancers, they also can be opportunistic people who see a chance to get rich, mighty, upward in society. Compare Saint Francis, a true believer trying his best to live the essence of Christianity, with the Spanish Conquistadors, using the message of the Church to plunder South America. Consider modern American evangelicals and influencers limiting the rights of women and banning books ‘for the good of all’. Like bees, many trendsetters will dance a new ideology excitedly to each other to get as many others in as possible.
Most people are followers. Once they feel many around them say the same thing, they believe that’s the way to go. This for personal safety, to not stand out in their own community. This is to join what seems to be successful, or may get successful. We find many followers working in clear jobs, preferring a contract over taking risks themselves. They carry society, but can become a mob when agitated. Or as in Nazi Germany they stay silent too long. Many Germans had their suspicions about them, or were against, yet feared (and often rightfully so) acting against them… until it was too late for everyone. One lessons for followers: when any leadership demands you to do something inhumane to other humans, they’re the bad people. Often their ideology preys on your fear, or hunger for power.
And then there are the Freethinkers, the Wise Ones or Elders, the Social Activists and Outliers. Especially freethinkers will be seen as crazy. For followers they mean chaos, for settled advancers they may even be seen as dangerous outliers who threaten their position. And then even among them, there are pretend freethinkers selling ideologies, beliefs, products even, sometimes whispering “this is what ‘they’ don’t want you to know.” How to recognise the true freethinkers from the liars?
No true freethinker will ever claim, “We all have to believe this one thing together to make things right. Follow me and my ideas to set things straight.”
How We Differ From Ants
Ants don’t have liars, humans do. Ants sacrifice their life for the nest. Unlike ants, we do have humans who will lie, cheat, manipulate and advance their way forward out of self interest. Many good, or less critical, people will follow their lead. Such followers are often stoked by cronies, trendsetters who see opportunity to gain a lot from following such false advancers. We can see it with ultra right wing parties or hardcore communist parties. People, who feel little other opportunities to advance in life, will join such a party and seek leadership roles, through being extra fanatic about the ideology. They hope this will attract a lot of followers and they end up on top. Corporations have this problem too. Many eager managers will pollute the planet, ravage natural resources, be toxic for their (personal) environment all to earn more money and please the advancers or owners above him. And currently billionaires and their corporations lead millions in death spirals that only benefit them, however true and promising their stories sound.
Note: In a healthy democracy where everyone feels safe, and social upward possibilities are fair and possible, and distance between elite and poor aren’t too big, there is little change aggressive disrupting advancers stand a chance. The bigger the gaps, to more chance and reason for angry advancers to hype the mob. Here freethinkers are often persecuted too.
“This is the system we live in, and this is how things are done.” ~ Corporate Lobbyist
Why Is This so Important Right Now?
The Death Spirals We Are In and Those Pointing the Way Out.
Check the Doomsday Clock. Scientist put our global civilisation at 90 seconds before midnight. It seems our economy is in an ants death spiral. We talk about climate change, but no major announcement made by global corporations have been made, nor have governments dared any hard decisions. Lobbyists from big oil still dominate climate talks between countries, while the consequences like wild weather patterns get worse. Cheating with CO2 offsets has become a global scam.
Wars are becoming death spirals. Both Russia and Ukraine are trapped by a sunk cost fallacy. The USA blatantly turns a blind eye to what Israel in doing in Gaza, because of their own interests. The drums of war roll. Many countries seem to propagate arming up, as major power shifts in the world are happening. Will China become the global number 1? Will the BRIC countries destroy the dollar? Will the USA blow up what’s left of their democracy? It seems many played games making them feel tough, and bad things happen always to people far away. And then, one day, far away comes home.
And there are many more hidden, or rarely spoken about dangers. If there’s one in this list you aren’t aware of, then change your media channel: A new virus might spread fast. AI might destroy global banking. A global Carrington event can happen in 2025. Men become ever more infertile because of the pill. Soil depletion due to industrial agriculture will increase and endanger millions. Clean water and draughts will endanger millions, etc. We need people who point these things out and show routes.
The Positive That Should Be in the News
And what you may not even know, millions of freethinkers and activist trendsetters are exploring answers all over the world. There are even permaculture farmers in Pakistan and Uganda. Bicycle lanes are more widely introduced in many cities. Solarpunk companies are designing new tech to help cities and agriculture become greener. Better forms of self governance are explored by many communities. The internet is a mess, but also scandals can be exposed easier, when people are willing and daring to speak up. And freethinkers do just that. For all of us.
The Way Out
How to recognise and support the ‘crazy ants’ among us.
I used the word advancers above to differentiate them from leaders. Real leaders will be the voice of what’s in the best interest of the whole nest. They will be less interested in ideology and conviction, but in what has been shown truly works. They will not make false promises. And they’ll let you choose yourself what to follow. And if they target a part of the population as scapegoats, then they’re advancers stoking hate. And trust me, when you act on that hate, somebody else will get very rich.
This too goes for so-called freethinkers, or people proudly claiming to have a radical different view. They may be paid off to play their role, for big interests. They may be influencers selling you an ideology. They may be liars, or believers in lies. Real freethinkers will wonder, will try to explain big issues and their underlaying causes. If they speak true, best chance is that you fall still and feel awful about a certain aspect of your own society. When they trigger anger, hate, fear towards a certain people, certain cultural patterns then it’s probably not a freethinker, but an advancer pretending to be one. They love it, when a whole large mass runs in circles around their ideas, even into an ants death spiral.
Distinguish Real Freethinkers from False Prophets
Real leaders invest in truth, integrity and consideration. They listen first. They will seek to be inclusive. Nelson Mandela made sure that also the whites could have a role in the new South Africa, and it wouldn’t be a bloodbath of ‘us against them’. That is leadership. Compare this to Trump’s ‘America First’, and his MAGA followers radiating the full energy of early adapters seeking to profit personally from him winning. Because that’s what he keeps promising.
Hence real leaders, wise people, elders try to stand above the crowd or outside any party affiliation. They try to oversee the whole, or act humane on very personal levels.
It is very hard to spot the ‘crazies’ who try the new or speak truth to power. They often don’t have any status to share about them in the news. There are never enough of them to make politicians looking for votes notice them. They are threatening, let alone questioning the status quo. And worse may not even have good alternatives yet.
So how to spot them? When everybody goes right, they go left. Even if just for a healthy balance in society, some ideas of the other side have merits. Like, if you’re a socialist fearing American, please wonder why capitalist Europeans have very affordable and accessible healthcare, even when out of a job?
If you are convinced of an ideology or belief, watch a channel run by the enemy. I noticed this fact: about their own side most countries will feed you propaganda. About others they don’t like, they’ll show the best revealing criticisms they can find (and perhaps blown a bit up too). It’s hypocrisy all the way. It can also help to check your own country on the Press Freedom Index and be shocked how bad things are. (giveaway: USA barely holds 45th place).
So here are some freethinkers that very well may challenge your conventions:
Pluto Press, radical books, many addressing big issues from activist viewpoints
Noam Chomsky, public intellectual and professor in linguistics
Slavoj Žižek, passionate independent philosopher
Manish Jain, founder of ecoversity, a radical different approach to education
Adrewism, Solarpunk advocate and societal critic with clear videos.
Alice Chapelle, French Philosopher with interesting new perspectives.
Shiva Vandana, fighter for food rights against corporate agriculture.
Journalists, thinkers, whistleblowers who fled their own country or got wanted because of things they exposed. Two of the most famous ones sadly are wanted by ‘Land of the Free’: Edward Snowden and Julian Assange In many countries also refugees live who fled their own country because they spoke up. Speak to a few, and at the least discover how suppression works, if not why freedom is worth fighting for.
And if you google things like ‘most important freethinkers in the world today’, you’ll find names you never heard of before.
