(Image credit:
Giammarco Boscaro, Unsplash)
Recently, I discussed the ideas of two thinkers of the
past, who have greatly influenced me: John Locke and Franz Oppenheimer. Today,
I’ll introduce the ideas of another thinker, Jason Alexander, who gave me the
foundation for my view of history in the large.
Jason Alexander
Unlike Locke and Oppenheimer, Alexander is not well known.
(He is American, but is not the actor of that name!) I met him just once, in
San Francisco in 1990, and corresponded with him from time to time until about
2006. In his early years, he was a follower of Ayn Rand; but he was, in effect,
expelled from her movement in the 1960s. I am not sure whether or not he is
still alive; but if he is, he would now be in his 90s.
He calls his view of history “Ages and Stages.” The big
picture is of an ongoing battle between us human beings and those that want to
hold us back. This battle involves a series of forward-moving revolutions,
during which we make great progress. But these are punctuated by, often long,
periods of stagnation or backsliding, which result from counter-revolutions, or
reactions, launched by our enemies. Alternating ages of light and dark, if you
will.
I have adopted Alexander’s scheme of revolutions and
counter-revolutions as the basis of my large-scale view of human history.
However, there are considerable differences of detail between us. In
particular, my list of revolutions is not the same as his.
From this point on, therefore, I shall be discussing my
own views rather than his. For those of you who only know me as a Reform UK
person and campaign manager, let me introduce my alter ego – Neil the
political (and ethical) philosopher!
Human Nature
I shall now give my view of the nature, which is shared by
all human beings today. And of the natural imperatives, which dictate to us how
we should behave.
Control over our surroundings
At the most fundamental level, it is natural for us to
take control of our surroundings, to use them for our benefit, and to leave our
mark on them. It is a major, and vital, part of our nature.
This is why we build buildings, take part in economic
activity, and engineer solutions to make the world a better place for us to
live. It is what elevates us from mere animals into human beings. It is also
what leads us to seek to build civilizations, which can provide us with the
environment in which we are able to fulfil ourselves.
Reason
Beyond this, it is natural to us to seek to understand
what we see around us and what we experience. To do this, we need to use our
faculties of reason.
We need to examine the world as we see and experience it.
We need to seek the true facts from the evidence, from all the evidence, and
only from the evidence. And we need to think rationally, logically and honestly
in our efforts to understand more and better.
The natural law of humanity
At the level of the individual, it is natural for each of
us to behave in ways, that better our species and move it forward. Put another
way, for human beings, just as for all other sentient species, there is a
“natural law” or as John Locke called it “law of Nature,” which, if we choose
to study it, can tell us what are the right and wrong ways for each of us to
behave. John Locke paraphrased this law as follows: “being all equal and
independent, no one ought to harm another in his life, health, liberty or
possessions.”
I myself call this law the natural law of humanity. And
those who behave up to the natural law of humanity, I call human beings worth
the name.
Civilizations
Moreover, we are social. While every one of us is an
individual, each with our own body and mind, it is natural for us to associate
with others. And doing so brings us advantages as individuals, such as the
division of labour. Thus, the ethically right behaviours for each of us include
those which enable us to function effectively as members of a civilization.
Such as respecting the human rights of those who respect our own equal and
opposite rights.
Above the level of the individual, it is natural for us to
form ourselves into social groups, and to organize them in such a way as to
bring benefits to everyone in them. By doing this, we build civilizations,
providing the habitat in which we human beings can live our lives to the full.
When such civilizations succeed, the results can grow to a large scale. And
they can endure over time, sometimes for many generations, or even for
centuries.
Economic activity
We have always been by nature an economic species.
Economic activity – Franz Oppenheimer’s “economic means” – is how we interact
with each other when seeking to co-operate together to take control of our
surroundings. It is natural for us to be creative, to solve problems, and to
trade with each other for mutual benefit.
The habitat we need is one of peace and tranquillity,
dignity and respect for our humanity, individual justice, human rights and
freedoms, a free market, and free trade. In which we can all ply our trades and
businesses, develop and make use of our skills, and enjoy the rewards we earn. The
purpose of building civilizations is to provide such a habitat for all human
beings worth the name.
Five Revolutions
Since the Neanderthal extinction around 40,000 years ago,
I identify five periods of history, during which we human beings have been
rapidly moving forward. Each of these periods seems to have had a
characteristic flavour of revolutionary change for the better.
The Neolithic revolution
The first was the Neolithic revolution of about 12,000
years ago, just as the Earth came out of the last ice age. That was the point
at which we differentiated from, and became superior to, mere animals. And it
was a practical revolution.
Our ancestors began to settle down in communities, to
cultivate crops, and to domesticate animals. We began to put into action the
part of our nature, which leads us to take control of, use for our benefit, and
leave our mark on, our surroundings. The paradigm of our first revolution was
Humanity. We found the essence of what makes us human.
Ancient Greece and Rome
Our second revolution, a mental one, was seeded in ancient
Greece, beginning in the early 6th century BC with Thales of
Miletus. Its paradigm was Reason.
It led us to think rationally and abstractly; for example,
to do mathematics and philosophy. It enabled us to build new and better kinds
of civilization, such as Athenian democracy. And among the civilizations which
grew out of this revolution was Rome, which managed to incorporate, and to
build on, some of the best of the Greek culture.
The Renaissance
Our third revolution was the Renaissance, starting in the
mid-15th century. Its paradigm was Discovery. Of ideas both old and
new, of new places, of ourselves. It was, for want of a better word, a
spiritual revolution; a rise of the human spirit.
The Renaissance brought, not just a re-discovery of
ancient learning, but a movement towards what became known as “Renaissance
humanism,” with new moral perspectives and a feeling of cultural renewal. It
helped us to emerge from the tyranny of the Catholic church and the feudal
political system. It brought a sense of renewed confidence in our own
faculties. And it brought a new sense of freedom for us human beings, who had
for so long been suppressed by orthodoxy.
The Enlightenment
Our fourth revolution was the Enlightenment. Seeded by
John Locke in the 1680s, it grew towards fruition during the 18th century.
Like the second, it was a mental revolution. Its paradigm was Freedom. From it
have flowed all the (relative) freedoms we have enjoyed in the West over the
last three centuries. And it brought new ideas, more friendly to the individual
than before, that are commonly called “Enlightenment values.”
Enlightenment values included: The use and celebration of
human reason. Rational inquiry, and the pursuit of science. Greater tolerance
in religion. Individual liberty and independence. Freedom of thought and
action. The pursuit of happiness. Natural rights, natural law of humanity,
natural equality of all human beings, and human dignity. The idea that any
society exists for the individuals in it, not individuals for the society.
Constitutional government of the people, by the people, for the people; as so memorably
expressed by Abraham Lincoln. Government for the benefit of, and with the
consent of, the governed – all the governed, real criminals excepted.
The rule of law: that is, those with government power, such as lawmakers,
officials and judges, should have to obey the same rules as everyone else. An
ideal of justice which, as put forward by Immanuel Kant, allows that “the
freedom of the will of each can coexist together with the freedom of everyone
in accordance with a universal law.” A desire for human progress, and a
rational optimism for the future.
The Industrial Revolution
Our fifth revolution was, and still is, the Industrial
Revolution. Like the first, it was a practical revolution. Its paradigm was and
is Creativity, supported by the free market, free trade and honest business. It
has enabled people in those countries, which have fully embraced it, greatly to
increase their standard of living. And so, greatly to increase people’s quality
of life and chances of happiness.
It has also enabled us human beings to take greater and
greater control over our physical surroundings, and to use them more and more
for our own advantage.
Five counter-revolutions
But each of our forward-movement revolutions is eventually
followed by a regressive, anti-human counter-revolution from those that are
hostile to us human beings and to our progress.
The state
Our enemies’ first counter-revolution, starting perhaps
around 3,200 BC, was the rise of the political state. And the state itself – a
top-down system, that enables an élite forcibly to rule over a, potentially
large, group of people – was its counter-paradigm. What our enemies did back
then was pervert the part of our nature which seeks to control our
surroundings, into an insatiable desire for them to control us.
Institutional religion
The second counter-revolution began in the 4th century
AD, when Christianity became the official religion of the Roman empire. The
counter-paradigm was institutional religion, and the church that embodied it.
Against our natural urge to look at reality and think rationally about it, churchmen
promoted dubious dogmas and mumbo-jumbo.
The church, along with the dogmas and narratives it
peddled, enabled the unscrupulous to control people mentally, just as the state
enabled them to control people physically. This led to the Dark and Middle
Ages.
Orthodoxy, tyranny and dishonesty
The third counter-revolution, which followed the
Renaissance, had three main strands: orthodoxy, tyranny and dishonesty.
The pressures for orthodoxy were supplied mostly by the
church; though often, kings and princes helped them along, too. Meanwhile,
tyranny and dishonesty, already features of many states, became all but
enshrined in the idea of the state through the work of Niccolò Machiavelli. He
prompted rulers to be sly, deceitful, and unscrupulous; as well as cruel,
oppressive and heartless.
Collectivism
Our enemies’ fourth counter-revolution began in the 18th
century. It was based, at its root, on a collectivist reaction against the
Enlightenment and the values it had brought.
Over time, a slew of political ideologies emerged, all of
which were hostile to the human individual, and to his and her rights and
freedoms. Socialism, nationalism, communism, fascism, social or religious
conservatism, élitism,
or false “liberalism,” for example. And all these ideologies inexorably
increased the power of the state, and the scope of what it did. The result?
Continuing oppressions and wars world-wide.
Suppression
Our enemies’ fifth counter-revolution has been growing for
the last 80 years or so. It began during the second world war, with the events
that led to the formation of the current international order. Its
counter-paradigm is Suppression. Suppression of truth, suppression of rights
and freedoms, suppression of prosperity, suppression of our humanity and our
creativity. Suppression of us human beings.
The main thrust of our enemies’ fifth counter-revolution today
is a push to suppress our industrial civilization, to shut down the economic
free market, and to use taxation, regulation and extortion to squeeze us ordinary
human beings out of existence.
In the UK, the extremists among our enemies – including many
prominent individuals among all the mainstream political parties – want to halt
the use of fossil fuels (and so also of all products made using them), and to
destroy economic freedom entirely. If not stopped, the result will be the
destruction of prosperity and freedom for everyone, except (for a while) for a
clique of self-serving élites. And, looking further out, the extinction of the
human species.
The UN and Maurice Strong
The fifth counter-revolution is being hurried along by the
EU, successive UK governments (both Tory and Labour), and many other national
governments, notably in the “Anglosphere” and in Europe. But it is in origin a
product of, and is most of all being driven by, the United Nations. The recent
decision by the International Court of Justice, the UN’s highest court, that
says that those claiming to have been harmed by human-caused climate change are
entitled to “reparations,” is the latest proof of this: [[i]].
The Canadian former oil baron, Maurice Strong, was the
individual that, more than any other, perverted the UN into a bureaucracy
intent on destroying human civilization, and in particular Western industrial
civilization. Strong was, among much else, secretary-general of the UN’s Rio Earth
Summit in 1992.
Indeed, I rate Strong as the evillest man of the 20th
century. Ahead, indeed, of Stalin, Mao, Hitler and Pol Pot. Those four all set
out to commit genocides against particular groups of people. But Strong set out
to commit genocide against our entire civilization. He gave this away in a 1997
magazine interview, in which he said: “Frankly, we may get to the point where
the only way of saving the world will be for industrial civilization to
collapse.” Over several decades, Strong influenced those around him in the UN,
including those at the very top, to move towards provoking that collapse.
Where are we today?
It is these provocations, prompted by Strong and others
almost as evil – politicians, bureaucrats, globalists and internationalists,
wannabe dictators, corporate bosses and billionaires, dishonest academics, and
many more – that we human beings are suffering under today. Those that seek to
destroy human civilization claim to care about the environment. But they don’t
care about the most important environment of all – the environment for human
beings worth the name, the environment in which we can fulfil ourselves.
Ask yourself: Do we human beings, today, have the
environment of peace, dignity, freedom and justice, which we need in order to
flourish? Surely not. Our daily lives are watched as never before. Our basic
rights, such as privacy and freedom of speech, are in serious danger. Indeed,
our enemies want to label as “misinformation,” and suppress, any statement –
however factual – that contradicts their narratives. And senseless wars
continue in places like Ukraine and Gaza.
Moreover, the absolute basics of developed civilization,
such as affordable, reliable energy, transport that meets our needs, and a free
market economy, will soon be taken from us forever, if we let our enemies have
their way.
Further, throughout their history, states have
re-distributed wealth. Always in favour of the ruling class and their cronies,
and at the expense of everyone else. But today, predatory taxation,
impositions, and extortion – for example, fines for breaking of arbitrary rules
by people merely going about their daily lives, without harming or intending to
harm anyone – have increased to a level that is unbearable. And many people who
are poor financially as well as politically, such as small business people and
pensioners, are among the hardest hit.
So, life for ordinary people has become, more and more, an
Orwellian nightmare. Far from creating and maintaining the human environment of
peace, dignity, freedom and justice which we need, our enemies are doing
everything they can to destroy our environment.
Things must change. And, I think, they are starting to
change. The rise to popularity of Reform UK is only one symptom of this change.
There is a new feeling in the air, perhaps a resurgence of the human spirit; not
unlike the mental changes for the better, which accompanied the Renaissance.
As well as all this, more and more people are starting to
wake up to what is being done to them. And they don’t like it.
Where are we headed next? That’s a big question. One which I must, unfortunately, leave for another day.
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