One Nation, Indivisible

One Nation, Indivisible Niles Heckman Download <figure class=" sqs-block-image-figure intrinsic " > At its core, a&nbsp;pledge&nbsp;is an act of binding the self through the spoken word. In lesser known esoteric traditions, speech is not treated as casual; it is creative and formative. To declare something aloud, especially in a repeated, formalized way, is to impress it upon both the individual psyche and the collective field. In the ancient world, this would be called an&nbsp;oath, and oaths were never trivial. This is why presidents have to take an oath. They were and are still understood as acts that linked the speaker to a principle or cosmic order. And if violated, well...It is a curious thing that language, mere sound shaped by the tongue, can become a ritual of such enormous psychological gravity. The Pledge of Allegiance of the United&nbsp;States, recited by children in classrooms before they have any real conception of the world, is not simply a benign civic exercise. It is, in many ways, an initiation into a narrative. One that quietly encodes assumptions about authority, identity, and the structure of the world.&nbsp;When one says “I pledge allegiance,” they are not merely expressing affection or appreciation. Allegiance is an ancient and heavy word with feudal overtones. It implies a bond of loyalty between subject and supposed sovereign. It is not the language of liberty or free association; it is the language of hierarchy. And so, from the very first phrase, the individual is placed into a relationship. Not with a community of living people, but with an abstraction: a flag, a symbol, an idea crystallized into iconography.———An Infinite Path podcast official URL http://www.aninfinitepath.comSpotify | iTunes | YouTube | Overcast FM | Stitcher | Player FM