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The druid said: “The Perfect Slave Is
Free” The essay argues that the modern druid minim “The
perfect slave is free” is not a moral or political claim but a precise statement about
freedom within a fully constrained reality. In the framework of Procedure
Monism, every emergent being is
unavoidably subject to the Universal Procedure (UP), the rule-as-constraints set that generates (i.e. arranges) and governs all existence. There is no external standpoint from which
these constraints can be altered or escaped. An “imperfect slave” is one who resists or denies non-negotiable
constraints, wasting energy on rebellion against what cannot be changed and
requiring illusions to remain oriented. This misalignment produces suffering,
brittleness, uncertainty and confusion. A “perfect slave,” by contrast, is not obedient in a moral sense but
accurate and complete in a procedural sense. Such an emergent clearly
distinguishes between constraints that are fixed and those that are
negotiable, aligning fully with the former while skilfully (i.e. artificially) exploiting the latter. This alignment eliminates internal resistance
and maximizes effective action (i.e. survival). Freedom, in this view, is not the absence of constraint but maximal
manoeuvrability within unavoidable limits. Just as engineers work with
physical laws rather than against them, or skilled practitioners feel
liberated within strict rules, the aligned emergent experiences freedom as
fluency and competence rather than exemption. The
druid concludes that alignment with the UP is the only freedom available to
finite beings. Properly understood, the minim does not justify domination or
resignation, since the (ultimate) “master”
is impersonal Nature (NI) rather than any human authority (AI). It names a structural reality: freedom arises not from escaping
necessity, but from mastering life within it. “The Perfect
Slave Is Free” adv. “The Perfect Slave Is Free” variant The druid Finn also said: |