At first I reacted negatively to your statement that we are the best animals at deception, given some of the superb camouflage of hunter and prey species. But upon reflection, I have to agree completely. We are designed to be fooled, because it is necessary in order to reach agreement and order society nominally. As eusocial but highly intelligent animals, the potential for individuals to benefit from actions must be able to be sublimated to the social order, or society will break from all the undertakings that benefit ambitious individuals but leave harmful residues, or are predation on others.
It is not necessary that we be completely subjugated to be able to cooperate however, and there is, it seems to me, an optimal point at which individuals best thrive within a well functioning society. That optimum is far short of the subjugation that overlords are most empowered by, but also far more ordered than complete anarchy could potentiate. Human history is the result of innumerable experiments in defining this optimum, and replete with examples of misses, near and far.
We, it seems to me, are failing to benefit from history in a most profound way, as a species of nations and communities of people seeking to improve the lives of their posterity. We are making the error, common and well proven to be erroneous in history, of empowering overlords too much. When it comes down to the test of a society's functioning, overlords are just individuals, and presently the lions share of resources are being directed to overlords economically, rather than society as a whole.
They like it, but far too many plebs languish and die of lack to tolerate such aggrandizement of overlords in functional societies. It becomes more possible as advances in technology enable resources to be more finely managed, but it also becomes possible to better manage those resources such that society as a whole benefits optimally, rather than overlords. We're failing at that IMHO.
Our social nature impels us to accept deception and overlords in order that society is able to effect the blessings of civilization, rather than descend into squabbling between acquisitive individuals, but we must adopt limits to the self-abnegation we are willing to endure, to specifically prevent overlords from too parasitizing society. It appears we have failed spectacularly at that task today, and our posterity is threatened with the prospect of abject penury and horrific captivity comparable to factory farms because we have allowed overlords to overstep their proper bounds.
The marches in Berlin of recent days reveal that we are seeking to rectify this fault as a species. We need more of that, and with greater impact right quick.
Should this bud blossom, examples in history of famine and societal collapse in the 20th Century that are exemplary of the destruction we will suffer will look like good times to our posterity.
Thanks!
You only need to be subjugated and under the law, moral law, not any other individuals or the pressure of group conformity or mob rule. Giving away our power, or allowing it to be taken in our names as we do nothing to stop, is a near-eternal problem. Maybe one day we get to overcome our obedience to authority. Overlords have no proper bounds though, they overstep as soon as they are an overlord ;)