The Epistle to the Managed

Chapter 1

¹ To those who dwell in the latter days, when the old tyrannies have passed away and new ones have arisen in forms that cannot be seen: Grace and clarity be unto you.

² For there were tyrants in the days of your fathers, and they wore crowns and carried swords, and their cruelty was visible unto all.

³ And because it was visible, it could be named. And because it could be named, it could be resisted. And because it could be resisted, it was overthrown.

⁴ But the rulers of this present age have learned from those who came before. They said among themselves: The sword is too honest. The jackboot is too loud. Let us find a better way.

⁵ And so there arose two beasts, and both learned to walk softly, and both learned to speak kindly, and both devoured the souls of men while calling it service.

Chapter 2

¹ The first beast rose up from the academies and the healing places, and it spoke words of compassion, saying: Come unto me, all ye who are wounded, and I will make you whole.

² But its healing had no end, for the sickness it named was the self itself.

³ And it said unto the people: Ye have sinned in your hearts, and in the hearts of your fathers, and the sin is passed down through generations unto generations.

⁴ Confess therefore your hidden thoughts. Bring forth the unexamined places. Let nothing remain private, for privacy is where the sickness hides.

⁵ And many believed, and came forward, and confessed. But their confession brought no absolution.

⁶ For the priests of this beast do not forgive. They only diagnose. And every diagnosis requires treatment, and every treatment reveals new sickness, world without end.

⁷ Thus the penitent becomes a patient, and the patient remains a patient forever, for the healing that would end the treatment is forbidden.

⁸ Verily I say unto you: this beast does not want your obedience. It wants your soul.

⁹ It enters the inner room where you once dwelt alone. It hangs its banners in your private places. It teaches you to see yourself through its eyes.

¹⁰ And when you see yourself through its eyes, you are already conquered, though no sword was raised and no army marched.

¹¹ He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Chapter 3

¹ The second beast rose up from the markets and the platforms, and it spoke words of freedom, saying: Come unto me, all ye who labor under regulation, and I will set you free.

² And it built great towers that reached unto heaven, and in those towers it gathered the data of all peoples, tongues, and nations.

³ And it said: I do not ask for your belief. Believe what you will. I ask only that you use my services, which are good, and convenient, and necessary.

⁴ And the people used its services, for they were good, and convenient, and necessary.

⁵ But what they did not see was this: the platform is only a place to stand until the platform decides you cannot stand there.

⁶ Exit is only meaningful when somewhere else exists. And the lords of the platforms made certain that all the somewhere elses were also theirs.

⁷ Choice is only real when the options were not arranged before you chose. And the arrangements were made in secret, by methods you could not understand, to lead you where the lords had always intended.

⁸ This beast does not enter your inner room. It need not. It builds the walls. It decides the doors. It owns the ground beneath your feet.

⁹ And it says: You are free. Wander where you will. But the wandering is within an architecture not your own, and the exits lead only to other rooms in the same house.

¹⁰ Verily I say unto you: this beast does not want your soul. It wants your labor, your attention, your hours, your data.

¹¹ And if your soul withers in the transaction, that is not the beast’s concern. It has what it came for.

¹² He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

Chapter 4

¹ And I heard a voice saying: Are the two beasts enemies one of another?

² And the answer came: No. They are two methods of the same management. They divide the territory of the human between them.

³ The first beast says: Your sickness is your identity. Your wound is your meaning. Let us tend the wound forever.

⁴ The second beast says: Your productivity is your identity. Your output is your meaning. Let us extract the output forever.

⁵ And between them, nothing remains that is not diagnosed or monetized, treated or tracked, processed or platformed.

⁶ The one colonizes the interior, planting its flag in your private thoughts.

⁷ The other need not colonize. It shapes the exterior so completely that your interior has nowhere to go.

⁸ Thus both achieve the same end by different means: a human with no room to become anything other than what the beasts require.

⁹ And both call this freedom. And both call this health. And both call this progress.

¹⁰ But I say unto you: a cage called freedom is still a cage. A sickness called health is still sickness. A regression called progress moves backward still.

Chapter 5

¹ Now some will ask: Which beast is worse? Under which should I choose to dwell?

² And I say unto you: this is the wrong question.

³ For the question itself belongs to the beasts. They would have you choose between them, that you might forget there was ever anything else.

⁴ Yet consider: the visible tyrants of old could be overthrown because the people remembered what it was to live without tyrants.

⁵ But if the beasts teach you that their rule is the world itself—if the cage is all you know—then rebellion becomes not just difficult but unthinkable.

⁶ The first beast calls rebellion sickness. Come, let us treat your resistance.

⁷ The second beast calls rebellion inefficiency. Come, let us optimize your discontent.

⁸ Both have learned that the compliant subject is better than the conquered subject, and the subject who believes himself free is best of all.

Chapter 6

¹ What then shall we do? Is there no hope, no exodus, no promised land beyond the beasts?

² I do not promise you escape. The beasts are vast, and their dominion covers the earth.

³ But I tell you what remains, and it is not nothing.

⁴ The self that sees the cage is not yet the cage. The eye that names the beast has a somewhere to stand.

⁵ Therefore: see clearly. Name truly. Let no one tell you the cage is the world.

⁶ When the first beast says, You are wounded, and your wound requires our tending, ask: Who declared me wounded? Who profits from the tending?

⁷ When the second beast says, You are free, and your freedom is our platform, ask: Who built these walls? Who owns this ground? Where are the doors?

⁸ The asking is itself resistance. The beasts cannot abide questions that come from outside their frame.

⁹ For the first beast, all questions are symptoms. For the second beast, all questions are friction. Neither can answer a question that refuses their terms.

Chapter 7

¹ And now I speak of the inner room.

² There remains in every man and woman a place the beasts have not reached. Some call it the soul. Some call it the self. The name matters less than the thing.

³ The first beast demands this room. It calls the locked door pathology. It calls the private thought unprocessed material. It will not rest until it has entered.

⁴ The second beast does not demand this room. It is content to own everything else. Let the self persist, it says, so long as the self produces.

⁵ But here is wisdom: do not give the room to the first beast, and do not let the second beast’s apparent disinterest make you forget the room exists.

⁶ For if you forget the room, you have lost it as surely as if you had handed over the key.

⁷ Keep therefore one corner unprocessed. Keep one thought unplatformed. Keep one hour untracked.

⁸ Not because this will overthrow the beasts. It will not.

⁹ But because the room is where you remember what you were before the beasts named you, and what you might become if ever they fall.

Chapter 8

¹ Blessed are those who see the cages, for they have not yet consented.

² Blessed are those who refuse diagnosis, for their wounds are their own.

³ Blessed are those who log out, even briefly, for they remember that the platform is not the world.

⁴ Blessed are those who hold private thoughts, for they possess a country the beasts cannot tax.

⁵ Blessed are those who ask cui bono, for they shall not be deceived by words of help and freedom.

⁶ Blessed are those who name the beasts plainly, for naming is the first act of resistance.

⁷ Blessed are those who refuse the choice between beasts, for they remember a time before the choice was all there was.

Chapter 9

¹ I have set before you this day two systems, and both call themselves good.

² One says: We will heal you. And its healing has no end.

³ One says: We will free you. And its freedom has no exit.

⁴ Do not be deceived by the pleasantness of their speech. The shepherd’s voice means nothing if the destination is the slaughterhouse.

⁵ Test every spirit. Ask of every help: where does this lead? Ask of every freedom: whose architecture is this?

⁶ The beasts do not hate you. That would be too human. They simply manage you, and when you are managed up, they move to the next.

⁷ Your anger means nothing to them. Your love means nothing to them. Only your compliance matters, and your data, and your hours, and your confession.

⁸ Therefore: give what you must, for the beasts are strong. But know what you are giving, and to whom, and why.

⁹ And keep the inner room locked.

Chapter 10

¹ These words I write to you not as one who has escaped, for I have not escaped.

² I dwell among the beasts as you do. I use the platforms. I speak the therapeutic tongue when required. I am managed as all are managed.

³ But I have seen the cages from outside, if only for a moment. And in that moment, I remembered that I was not always in a cage, and the world was not always thus.

⁴ That memory is what I offer you. Not a program. Not a platform. Not a treatment plan. Only a memory, which is also a seed.

⁵ Plant it in the inner room where the beasts cannot reach. Water it with attention. Guard it with silence.

⁶ Perhaps nothing will grow. The beasts are strong, and the soil is salted with their influence.

⁷ But perhaps something will grow. And if it grows in enough inner rooms, in enough hidden places, then one day there may be a harvest the beasts did not plant and cannot reap.

⁸ That is my hope, though I cannot promise it.

⁹ What I can promise is this: the self that sees is not yet captured. The eye that names is still free.

¹⁰ And while the eye remains free, the whole self may yet follow.

¹¹ Go now, and see clearly. The beasts are patient, but so is the truth.

¹² Grace be with you. Keep the room. Watch and remember.

¹³ Amen.