Welcome to Project Civilization!
My plan for the blog, and its eventual website, is pretty wide ranging. The overarching goal is to analyze, defend, and expand Enlightenment Civilization. Yes, it's a big goal; it's always better to aim high than to aim low. Bear with me.
By Enlightenment Civilization, I don't mean Western cultural values. But I do mean the particular set of core values and an associated "blueprint" for civilization developed in Western countries during the 17th and 18th centuries in Europe.
That "blueprint" is what's key here, not the particular culture or country in which it's applied. I'm going to show that the core blueprint for Enlightenment civilization can be, and objectively should be, applied in many different cultures and in forms that aren't dependent on the Western culture in which the original blueprint evolved.
The core of that blueprint is this:
1) Government exists solely for the benefit of the people being governed
2) The only legitimate form of government is a democracy*
3) The only legitimate form of government is one that recognizes the principle of "rights" and protects the rights of all citizens equally
4) Government is based on laws that are not arbitrarily enforced
These first four principles obviously all have to do with government. They are linked to a set of values that are also a part of the blueprint:
5) A civilization or culture may be judged by its respect for freedom of expression, freedom of learning, freedom of privacy, and freedom to engage in private conducts.
6) A civilization or culture may be judged by the extent to which it preserves and fosters works of art, scholarship, and music.
7) A culture may be judged by the extent to which cultural norms do not restrict the search for truth and scientific knowledge; ie, the culture's pursuit of facts and understanding is geared toward non-religious, non-moral, unprejudiced objectivity. Human reason is the method of factual inquiry.
This model of civilization is under threat, both within the countries that have previously embraced it, and from cultures that have never embraced this model of civilization as a blueprint. To re-use an apt phrase, "The Barbarians are at the Gates." Moreover, there is a deep rot within the gates as well.
We are at a watershed moment in history, a moment in which Enlightenment civilization must either expand and develop beyond its Western roots or perish under the onslaught of a tide of barbarism.
A note about what I mean by "barbarism:" Yes, I include "Islamo-fascism" as a form of barbarism, but the trend is much larger than islamo-fascists in particular. "Barbarians" isn't a very good term, and I'm hoping to refine it - for the moment, I'm using the term to mean anyone who opposes, denies, or hasn't been exposed to the "blueprint" of Enlightenment civilization. That includes a lot of people who are, by any measure, "civilized." The best example is China. Anyone who says that China has no civilization is an idiot. Yet, in the way I'm using the term "barbarian," China generally falls into the definition. So I need a different word. I'll have to work on that, because there is an enormous distinction between the country of China and, say, Al'Qaida. I'm going to have to work on my terminology.
Anyway, to conclude this initial discussion with my actual plan:
I want to develop a program to help and encourage other supporters of the Enlightenment Blueprint - a program that directs people toward specific actions that will collectively enhance civilization and help direct our global society toward the path of civilization and away from the peril of a worldwide "barbarian" realignment. We are at a transitional moment in history, and the question is whether we will rise to the occasion or fail in decadence. The choice is ours.
*that is to say, a form of government in which the people have some kind of voice in determining their leaders and policies other than revolution.
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4 comments:
This model of civilization is the real threat. Democracy is antithetical to freedom and civilization; as Hans-Hermann Hoppe demonstrated in his book Democracy: the God that Failed, democracy leads inexorably to the tyranny of mob rule.
Hi, David!
Here's a good review/summary of Hoppe's book, for those (including myself) who haven't read it:
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/004776.html
As for me, although I'll look for the book in the library, none of it but the economic argument about monarchy's making certain decisions better than a democracy has any real credibility.
Anarcho-capitalism is effectively a right-wing version of Rousseau's noble savage. These philosophers have fallen into the realm of generalizing free market theory to the point where it's no longer descriptive or prescriptive. They believe that if nations were to disappear, the free market would substitute private insurance companies to protect individuals from the depredations of others. They forget that this has already happened, and not with good results. This system has variously been called "feudalism" in Europe, "warlordism" in Somalia, and "the Mafia."
The system falls down when one group's insurance company (say, the warriors of the Commanches) encounters a stronger insurance company (the US Army) in the course of a property dispute being managed without courts. Smallpox blanket, anyone?
Such theories miss the fact that states formed precisely from the sort of mechanism that's supposed to replace the state in this model.
Now, I'm making this criticism based on familiarity with the theory but not with the author's actual work ... so I'll look and see if there's some twist here that re-validates what I consider to be an utterly bankrupt form of utopianism. But I doubt it -- that twist, not his economic analysis of monarchy, would be what reviewers and commentators would be raving about.
I'm not an anarcho-capitalist and I do think that it is a kind of utopianism. I do not see how ACism can avoid devolving into feudalism and then into monarchy. (Of course, as a monarchist I don't have any problems with that, but I think it would be better to skip ACism altogether and just go back to feudal monarchy.) However, I don't think Hoppe's embrace of ACism renders his criticisms of democracy invalid.
For a monarchist, Hoppe's book (from what I see of it) is perfectly valid, and so are his criticisms of democracy. So I agree with you in terms of the quality of the book to a monarchist.
In terms of the criticisms of democracy, there's less detailed commentary in the reviews I read other than a description of the standard criticisms that are leveled by a libertarian who bases his theory on the idea that property rights are the sole operative natural law.
My standpoint is that life, liberty, and property are all operative natural laws, not just property. There's a dynamic when these three contradict each other in specific situations, but more importantly, forms of government are judged by how well they protect all three of these natural rights.
In this sense, I'm a libertarian; I start with the same premise that government is a tool of natural rights. Democracy is not good in and of itself; it's good because (or if) it protects life, liberty, and property better than other systems.
Next time I can get on the computer long enough to do a quick research blitz, I'll make a post specifically about monarchy.
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