For the last few hundred years and until recent history, most authoritarian regimes demanding obedience from their citizens could only do so through brute force. However, organizations such as the Inquisition, Hitler’s SS, East Germany’s Stasi, Russia’s OGPU, or DINA under Chile’s dictator Pinochet, were never able to maintain long-term control. The human desire for freedom, independence, and the exercise of free will is too strong.

Notwithstanding, could freedom, personal liberties, and self-determination be notions that are experienced differently at a cultural level? Could Western societies see these ideas as inalienable rights while Oriental cultures do not place such importance on them?

Imagine living in a country where personal freedoms have in effect been slowly eroding for thousands of years. Where individual choices and personal aspirations have been sacrificed to an obscure notion of cultural unity, harmony, and obedience to those in positions of authority. Where obedience is inextricably tied to a hierarchical system of social, familial and governmental edicts and normative demands forcing members into strict behavioral mandates.

A country where this notion of compliance and acquiescence is actually viewed as a source of cultural unity and even as a national strength. A place in which members of society enter into a social contract with those in power whereby loyalty and obedience is traded for benevolence from the ruling class.

Most would think that an authoritarian regime ruling over a society so willing to surrender its voting rights and individual freedoms and expressing such willing external locus of control would be satisfied with those they govern. How much more could such a government want from its people? Could they create mind control helmets similar to the one featured in the old Flash Gordon television series used by the evil Ming in the planet Mongo as shown in the picture above? Perhaps not yet. Technology is not quite that advanced, thankfully.