Blind Faith: Patriarchal Authority, a gift or a curse?

By Leonie Saunders  

“Blind belief in authority is the greatest enemy of truth.” (Albert Einstein).

Before I venture into the realm of militant patriarchal authority, let me make my position clear: As an intelligent self-aware heretic, well-schooled in critical thinking and unafraid to question the narratives that pass for truth.

Throughout my life I have often been characterised as an outlier – set apart by my refusal to indulge in gossip, groupthink and collective fictions wrapped in moral justifications. The values that shaped me as a warrior fighting against systems designed to subjugate not liberate come from being raised by a mother cut from the same cloth of the Stoics who nurtured my curious mind by encouraging me to read widely. I learned early in life to differentiate fact from fiction. I learned to question preconceived beliefs and ideas, which likely explains why I never to take things at face value.

Through my mother I learned why some rules are necessary to shield each other from malicious actors. The same rules apply to the laws of nature that maintain the Earth’s finely tuned balance. These laws exist for good reason. With that said, my spirit lives in harmony with the world’s indigenous peoples. The natural world is sacred with all its gifts are sacrosanct. This is where the answers to life’s mysteries are revealed.

To be clear, I am not hostile to all men. Far from it. Nevertheless, I carry a deep hostility toward self-righteous vain men of privilege: The ones who walk among us now, and those marked in history’s page. Patriarchal godheads have made an art form of monopolising power by constructing narratives according to their worldview. They are in governments, business, media and in families.

While there are women in history that do not escape my judgement, it wasn’t women who claimed to be above the rules of nature. It was man who made God in his own image: Authoritarian, mercenary, jealous, lusting for power and control. This is the character of men who viewed the Pagan gods and goddesses of old rooted in the soil, the stars, the turning of the seasons as competition. Under the banner of holiness and bloodline, men have built empires to power over the land, over people, over thought itself.

Which brings me to the subject of man’s seemingly inexhaustible appetite for violence. How is it that when we are born, we are born innocent, free of prejudice, ideology, and belief? None of us come into this world believing in god. No infant worships power. No infant knows hate. Ipso facto everything that shapes the way we think, how we see ourselves, how we judge others, how we interpret the world is not a product of human nature, but of nurture. Conditioned. Instructed. Imposed. Contempt and its opposite compassion are not instinctive, they are taught.

And this, my friends, this is where the contradictions that plague the man-made world begin.

Wars are never about truth. Wars are always about power. Take the Christian crusades for example; their wars were never about truth. The Christian mission was conquest wrapped in promises of eternal life and heavenly reward. But only if you obeyed. Only if you believed without question. Blind faith became the currency of salvation.

Evidently, early humans were acutely aware that while Mother Nature is benevolent, she isn’t forgiving of transgressions against her rules. However, the mainstay of collective wisdom resonant in the souls and minds of the ancients were vanquished: Renounced on the altars of religious conquest. The words of God carved in stone. Articles of faith shared by Christians, Jews and Muslims alike, heightened man’s zealitory. Pre-political humans became estranged from the natural world and the laws that govern the existence of all Earth’s inhabitants.

Doubtless to say, as a consequence of blind faith in myths of God’s patriarchal authority, the man-made world is going to hell in a handbasket. Not because of some divine punishment; but because we abandoned the very thing that sustains us.

Let’s be honest; the nexus between religious sentiment and politics cannot be seperated. The personal is political and that in and of itself brings ramifications. Religious beliefs have always intruded in the political realm, too often geared toward social control. We can see it when political leaders use Christian language to signal virtue, while sidestepping the real moral imperatives of our time.

So here we stand on the precipice of mass extinction because the world’s leaders are too busy preaching from their world view. They fail to listen, not only to people they deem inferior, but to the Earth itself. And she is clearly not pleased

So the question is: how long will we allow private belief to shape public life?

I view it ironic that politics and religion are viscerally tribal, and yet they are institutions universally characterised as the pillars that offer society order, cohesion, and meaning. But in reality, more often what they actually provide is a false sense of security. They do not resolve the contradictions that breed conflict. They offer the illusion of equality while fuelling the very divisions they claim to transcend. Democracy is not served by ideologies immersed in moral absolutes that override democratic deliberation, stalling progressive reform and marginalising those who do not subscribe to dominant religious and poltical narratives.

What is taking place in Gaza today is not unique. Throughout human history, the forces of man’s greed, fear, arrogance and an inexaustable appetite for violence expressed in wars waged against one another. But even more so against women and children. And on the natural environment, their abuses are immeasurable.

Wars waged with conviction and moral posturing remain a grim testament to our collective failure to evolve. What passes for morality, civility, and even spirituality in our society are products of cultural repetition. Social norms that govern behaviour, like showing deference to authority, or showing reverence to religious beliefs, are absorbed without question. Rarely are these norms examined: They appear benign, even virtuous. But they mask deeper truths that our sense of belonging often depends on quiet compliance. Much of what we call ‘tradition’ exists to serve the interests of power. We are trained into conformity from birth, taught what to believe and how to behave long before we learn to question why. We are schooled to comply, not question. And politics? Too often, rewards power and punishes truth.

What is needed now is not blind faith, but fearless questioning. Beginning with the principles that underpin the establishment of Western liberal democracy emanating from the works of John Locke, commonly lauded as the father of modern liberalism. Locke was a religious man. He firmly believed that God created all men equal; endowed with natural rights held to be inalienable. In his Two Treatises of Government – written during the 17th Century – you can see his opposition to the divine right of Kings to absolute rule – long before the establishment of government administrations. Locke’s focus on natural rights to life, liberty and property, is often cited as a beacon aimed at equality. Yet, Locke’s interpretation of property extended far beyond land and resources: Women and slaves were also deemed as property. Looking forensically at his unwavering belief in patriarchal religious dogma in concert with his laissez-faire mindset, a more troubling picture emerges.

This is expressed in Locke’s ties to the British East India Company: Its obscene riches built on spice, blood, and bondage. Locke wasn’t just writing theory, he was investing in empire where lives were erased by colonial maps, where liberty was stolen, according to skin colour. Humans made slaves, transported in ships for sale to the highest bidders. Earth, pillaged and parceled into deeds.

Let’s not kid ourselves, Locke was no friend of the powerless. His liberalism wasn’t universal – it was conditional. Transactional. Rooted not in justice, but in ownership. Not in freedom, but in profit.

When Locke argued that the role of government is to safeguard these natural rights, especially the right to property, he was laying the intellectual groundwork for capitalist imperialism. For a system in which property rights reign supreme, and Earth’s gifts commodified. This is the liberal legacy we are told to defend: A framework forged in scripture and gold, that codified entitlement. And called it freedom. Today, we’re still living in Locke’s shadow. Where corporations are treated like people. And people are treated like collateral. Where natural rights are hitched to wealth. Liberal Democracy bows to capital.

The consequences of this thinking echo through to the present: A global legal order that privileges private wealth over collective wellbeing, ownership over stewardship, and individual entitlement over ecological balance. In truth, what we inherited was not a philosophy of freedom or equality, but a theology of profit dressed up in the language of rights. It is a doctrine that still governs the world today, in violation of the natural laws of Earth and justice alike.

The tragedy is not that these inherited structures exist, but that they are rarely challenged. We are discouraged from asking difficult questions, especially when those questions threaten the stories we’ve been taught to hold sacred. But without questioning, there is no progress. Without dissent, only repetition.

We follow rules, repeat rituals, and accept beliefs long before we understand what they truly mean; or who they serve. I’ve come to a hard truth: the systems we look to for stability, namely religious orthodoxies entangled in politics are not leading us forward. They are holding us back.

Maybe it’s time to question the architecture, to tear the veil from the myths we inherited, and ask: What kind of freedom is built on the backs of the silenced? What kind of equality starts with conquest and ends with infinite extraction? Because if this is liberty, then maybe it’s time to liberate ourselves from myths.

Because the future depends not on what we’ve been told to believe, but on what we choose to question. To live more honestly, more equitably and compassionately requires that we open our minds and see our preconceived beliefs for what they are: human constructs. We have reached a time in human history where we must confront the greatest threat to human survival is completely man made. We need to challenge these beliefs. Not with cynicism, but with clarity.

The stories written by man can be rewritten. But only if we start asking better questions that demand unvarnished answers, not excuses, obfuscations nor sophistry from those in power.

Otherwise, our time on this planet will be marked not for what we created but for what we destroyed.

 

Also by Leonie Saunders:

The Ethics of Realpolitik: Gaza, Genocide, and the Cost of Moral Evasion

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