Michael Jackson: Limits of the permissive society

By Bola Bolawole

The death, penultimate week, of pop music icon, Michael Jackson, at the age of 50years in controversial circumstances, has once again brought to the fore arguments about the pros and cons of the permissive society. Although inquiries into the cause of death of the African-American music legend continue, one possible clue, according to a source, was that Jackson destroyed himself.

What came to mind immediately were world figures like British football stars George Best and Paul Gascoigne, whose own problems were the twin evil of booze and drugs, and Nigeria’s immediate past First Lady, Stella Obasanjo, who reportedly died after plastic surgery called tummy tuck.

Jackson ’s Achilles heel reportedly was a mixture of plastic surgery and drugs. Obsessed by a desire to look like sister La Toya, Jackson went through a series of plastic surgery to reshape his face, the nose especially; he had also been cited for incidents of drugs abuse. The separate autopsy and toxicology tests ordered by the authorities and the Jackson family will shed more light on the circumstances surrounding the exit of the hugely popular entertainer. At the time of his expiration, Jackson was preparing for an end-it-all musical concert slated for next month, which reportedly had exerted a lot of stress, anxiety and pressure on him.

Controversies, however, will continue to trail the paternity of Jackson’s three children, the state of his finances, his Will, the “This-Is-It” concert he was preparing for, his funeral, to mention but a few. Such discussions will also include the limitless freedoms that permissive societies allow, which enable people to self-destruct.

Democracy has been touted as the best form of government on offer in the present age; it is acclaimed to be representative, allowing ultimate sovereignty to reside in the people but exercised on their behalf on a daily basis for an agreed period of time (tenure of office) by their elected representatives (through direct election or indirectly through the Electoral College). Democracy also guarantees a litany of freedoms i.e. of speech, of association, of assembly as well as freedom to protest unfavourable actions of Government and to ultimately change the government at the polls, which are to be held periodically in a free and fair atmosphere.

Democracy also guarantees freedom to life, to religious beliefs, to marriage; the right to hold property as well as freedom from discrimination on grounds of race, colour, creed, social status etc. On offer in a democratic set-up is an open society as opposed to what operates in closed societies where the rights and privileges of citizens are abridged by oligarchs who act as “the conscience” of the people, to quote from the ruling PDP’s Constitution as amended during former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s tenure.

In closed or regimented societies, the presumed overall good of the society overrides and conditions individual rights; the goals and aspirations of the State not only drive the citizenry but also determine the limits of their actions as well as serve as the barometer of their successes and achievements. Individual and personal freedoms are seriously curtailed in closed societies. Unbridled Capitalism, which allows the strong to trample upon the weak, is, however, kept in check. Wealth is more judiciously distributed and egalitarianism and more equal access to State resources are better guaranteed. But, then, the closed society has serious shortcomings.

One such failing is the reining in of competition, which has been touted as the driving force of human development and achievement. Without the urge of personal ambition, the latent human talent to scale the sky is arrested and ingenuity held hostage. Society, thus, is unable to operate under optimal conditions and human civilization will not only stagnate but also recede. Perhaps, it is in the area of leadership renewal that the closed society suffers its greatest drawback, allowing the citizenry virtually no role in who their rulers are. While it is true, according to the study of political elites, that nature abhors leadership vacuum and that the history of all modern societies is that of elite rule, closed societies often carry this to the extreme. A recent example is North Korea where the leader single-handedly chose his successor, this time his youngest son, even as he himself had been single-handedly chosen by his own father.

Truth is, democracy itself is not a flawless system of government, both in its representative sense and in the allocation of resources. This truth is evident not only in our own country, Nigeria, where election results have seldom expressed the wishes of the electorate and state resources have been cornered by a few rich to the detriment of the vast majority of the people, it is also very evident in the advanced democracies touted as the bastion of democracy. Witness, for instance, how immediate past U.S. President George Bush (Jnr.) outsmarted Vice-President Al Gore to the presidency in a controversial election in 2001. Also, despite its status as the richest and most powerful country in the world, there are millions of desperately poor people in the United States of America .

For me, however, more harrowing than these shortcomings of democracy are the liberties it grants, which have become licenses for citizens to abase humanity as well as self-destruct. In the U.S. , freedom to carry arms is one such liberty. Now and again, we read reports of gunmen going Postal, as they euphemistically refer to it in the U.S. , opening fire and killing scores of innocent people, often school children, women and such other vulnerable groups.

The affluent society, which most Western countries are, allows the rich especially excessive freedom for permissive living, and they patronize and abuse drugs and turn morality on its head. Nowhere is this worse than among entertainers and Sports people.

But the most shocking and disturbing of the freedoms that democracy offers in the West has been that of same sex marriage i.e. men marrying men and woman marrying women and having and maintaining sexual relationships to public approval, acceptance and acclaim. Yet, the scripture is unequivocal in its condemnation of same sex marriage and the United States is, basically, a Christian society.

Gays and lesbians no longer carry on behind curtains; many have become ordained Ministers of God – which God, please? – and have even been elected to head churches in the West. It is amazing that countries which set high moral standards for aspiring leaders still could find the stomach for such debauchery.

The more I peruse Western societies, the more I become persuaded that Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were right in their seminal works and postulations that set the foundations of Socialist cum Communist thinking i.e. that Capitalism contains in itself the seeds of its own destruction and that it grinds inexorably to its waterloo. Witness the on-going global economic meltdown, which has been attributed pure and simple to the greed of Capitalist entrepreneurs and the connivance of their State partners cum collaborators.

It will appear, too, that the permissive society, with the unbridled liberties it offers, is headed in the same direction. Value after value is eroded in such societies. Regrettably, a country such as Nigeria , where democracy is still renascent, appears to be catching the flu fast. Recently, so-called gay rights groups bombarded the National Assembly to protest a bill banning same sex marriage. When values which serve as props and pillars are destroyed, society – the “Affluent Society”- is endangered. The narcotic issue, which has become a worldwide headache, is a direct fall out of the permissive nature of our world today. Unless care is taken to curtail the wild freedoms on offer while excessive wealth and boundless human energies are channeled in productive directions, more and more people are certain to self-destruct.

What is the way out? Unfortunately, even Socialism, which seriously curtails human freedoms, does not appear the way out as this system of government itself suffers from a variant of the flu it diagnosed as afflicting its rival, Capitalism. The answer may lie somewhere between both.

FEEDBACK

I am compelled to buy the Tribune every Sunday because of your column and “Gadfly”. Your article on Ogun crisis is the most balanced that I have ever read. All of them are guilty. -08036480983
Thank you for your piece on Ogun crisis. May God bless you. You said, among other things, that “if he needs to spoil them a little to achieve that, let him!” God bless you. I will like to say that in the spirit of reconciliation, the Governor should descend from his Olympian height and stop the propaganda against the law makers and face realities. All those hangers-on that call themselves advisers are not telling him the truth. Let the Governor take the bull by the horns so that all his achievements would not be rubbished. May God help him. Amen. J. B. Olatunji, Abeokuta .
The governor of Ogun state will be out of office in less than 2years and reports indicate that the government is heavily indebted to many institutions. I think the House of Assembly, by its motion, is trying to prevent the castration of the in-coming government and its being saddled with the burden of indebtedness brought about by the current government. I think in the absence of any ill motives, the House ought to be praised for its effort at reducing the debt profile of the state. -Jide, Kaduna .
Your candid piece on Ogun State crisis could not have come at any other time than now. I hope the players will take note. A word is enough for the wise.
-Ibrahim, A. Taye, Ibadan .
The problem with many Nigerians is that we want peace at all cost, but not justice. The case of Ogun State has political undertones, no doubt, but political solution is never the answer; pure accountability to the electorate is the answer. Why would the state refuse to tender its audited accounts in the last three years to the House of Assembly as requested? The gladiators for sure know what to do to let peace reign. -Dr. Kunle Adesokan.
You are stupid to have said M.K.O. Abiola was gathering concubines and spending recklessly. -08071512341
I read and re-read your article tagged “Of May 29th, June 4th, and June 12th”. Your buoyant and fact-filled writings make me love journalism, although I studied English. I think June 12th should be regarded as democracy day because of innocent Kudirat, brutally murdered by the military, and innocent Abiola, whose June 12’s mandate was annulled by the same military. -08055288809