The Super Summary of World History (98 page)

Existentialism
argues life is meaningless, and people can decide for themselves their own meaning and essence of life and that determination is valid. An existentialist will focus on finding meaning in life through existence alone. Existentialism rejects any definition of humans as rational. Existence comes before, and is primary to, any human definition of reality. This avoids the problems of how we know the world exists, assumes it does, and argues one must find a meaning in life. Unfortunately, Existentialism says life is actually meaningless, but an individual must find meaning just from one’s very existence. Worse, the individual must do this alone. When accomplished, the determination is valid for that individual.

Nietzsche
made the famous statement “God is dead,” meaning the secular, scientific world destroyed the concept of God. He thought the destruction of God must lead to the loss of an agreed upon universal perspective, and this would lead to the loss of the idea of truth as an objective concept (compare to post-modern). The result would be the death of morals and morality. All that remained to guide life was one’s own internal perspective (compare to existentialism). Nietzsche was predicting a future world without morals in the traditional sense, which would also mean all the philosophers’ arguments failed to produce anything except confusion and more arguments. Nietzsche’s arguments were simple. The strong will rule and morality will not survive.

All this is contradictory and confusing. The ancient history section points out that as one philosopher came up with an idea another philosopher trashed it. There is a kind of time line to this, because the older the philosophy the more it is attacked. This is an endless progression of nothingness as no progress is ever made; however, another philosopher,
Hegel
, tried to overcome this problem with his philosophy (see, it never ends . . . never).

Hegel, who is nearly impossible to understand, wrote that progress is constant in nearly all fields of human endeavor (including philosophy). He believed that when any idea became generally accepted a contradictory idea must soon challenge it. These two opposing ideas would then battle it out, and eventually a change must occur that takes the best of
both
concepts and incorporates them into a third concept. The third combined concept then becomes the generally accepted idea, and we are back where we started. Following all this, the new generally accepted idea is challenged by a contrary idea hence starting the formula all over again. This process is termed
the
dialectic
. Through this progression constant improvement results in all fields of human endeavor. Hegel seems to be an optimistic fellow. This is summed up, incorrectly according to experts in Hegel’s ideas, in this chain:
thesis,
antithesis,
synthesis.
Another way to put it might be old idea (thesis), contrary idea (antithesis), new idea that combines the old and the contrary ideas (synthesis, which transforms into the thesis) and then repeat the process again. The key here is the concept that the old and new ideas both contain truth that the synthesis will preserve. Hegel studied history and thought this is how history advanced.

I do not accept Hegel’s concept as valid. For example, Christianity and Islam have been competing ideas for over one thousand years; however, there has been no synthesis between the two competing concepts. Two other competing concepts are democracy and dictatorship, and no synthesis has occurred between these two extremes. Where does one find a half of an election? Individualism and collectivism are also two conflicting ideas that have not found a synthesis because either the group (state) is more important or the individual is more important. These two ideas do not meld. Philosophy, modern or ancient, has not advanced because it cannot advance. People do not agree on ideas at a foundational level and never will as long as they think for themselves. Nevertheless, we do not want to underrate the impact of philosophy. It is of vital importance. For example, when the ancient Israelites invaded Canaan, God told them to annihilate the cities and people they found there. Seems strange, as people are a valuable asset; however, if a person thinks about the invasion from Hegel’s philosophical point of view all of the people had to be killed because, if allowed to live, there would be a joining (synthesis) between the Israelite’s ideas and the ideas of the conquered. Maintaining the purity of Israelite ideas required the death of all the opposing ideas. As ideas resided in the people’s heads they had to be detached.

Philosophy deeply affects the actions of governments. For example, the Constitution of the United States embodies the concept of the individual being more important than the state as critical to governance. As a result, the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution set forth a series of individual rights, such as freedom of speech, that the government cannot violate (“Congress shall make no law . . .”). At one point, the US Supreme Court ruled nude dancing was freedom of speech (which I disagree with, but no one cares about my opinion), and as such, it took on the status of an individual right. Even though 99 percent of the nation might disagree with nude dancing, the individual can keep that right against the entire state because the individual is greater than the state. This is an expression of the ultimate power of the individual and is an open display of the power of the individual in the US Constitutional system. In other systems, the fact that 99 percent of the country would be against this “speech” would automatically end its existence. In a dictatorship, if the state (the dictator) decides nude dancing is wrong it remains wrong even if 99 percent of the people are for it, because the state is greater than the individual.

Be aware that these philosophic differences make a huge variation in the way people approach the world. If life has no meaning (
philosophical
naturalism)
then why protect life? Abortion assumes that
certain
lives have no meaning. The Nazis applied the same concept when deciding to murder the Jews. They simply determined certain lives were without meaning or were outright evil. Once we determine that we can take certain lives, for whatever reason, the concept can expand to other lives branded as worthless by the state. The Nazis quickly expanded the “no purpose” rule to include the mentally ill, Gypsies, Slavs, and many others. We have already expanded the abortion rule (some lives have no value) to include those who are terminally ill and requesting death (euthanasia). Concepts of
utilitarianism
, the greatest good for the greatest number, can easily justify abortion or euthanasia. A terminally ill person lingering on is a huge cost to our economy, society, and the family. The greatest good would be to kill the person and use the medical and economic resources elsewhere.
Existentialism
allows suicide or assisted suicide because the individual determines his own existence; thus, he can choose to end his existence. Compare this to the
Jewish
and
Christian
philosophies holding human life as sacred, and each life has specific purposes as determined by God. Christian and Jewish philosophy prohibits abortion, suicide, and euthanasia because God decides when a person’s life must end. Why not prohibit capital punishment? Because God told people that certain acts are punished by death. There is another philosophical problem . . . .

This very long discussion points out the importance of philosophy in history and its failure to advance the human condition. Three thousand years of arguments concerning what is real, is there a god (or gods), the nature of humanity, the nature of god, and the rest have failed to produce a genuine agreement as to “truth” or anything else at a foundational level, thereby leaving the human condition where it was before the arguments began. Nonetheless, our philosophical beliefs guide our decisions, and decisions make history.

Propaganda

Propaganda has played a large role in human society from the inception of social interaction. The myth of the ruler being a god on earth is one kind of propaganda found in the ancient world. During the American Revolution the pamphlet
Common
Sense
was a masterful piece of American propaganda, and probably saved the cause. The modern world, with the Internet, cell phones, television, radio, newspapers, and other information outlets is replete with propaganda; however, few recognize it as such. Modern Sophists, people interested in forwarding their agenda without regard for the truth, literally rule the media on political and social issues. During political campaigns their presence is especially noticeable, but most people are not used to discerning the difference between propaganda and the truth. As a result, “spin” (propaganda) is increasingly effective.

Another form of modern propaganda, originally honed by Adolf Hitler and his genius associate Dr. J. Gobbles, was the
big
lie
technique. In this method, a very great lie is presented so it is easy to recall. Then the big lie is repeated endlessly and in scores of different ways. The goal is
not
for the entire lie to be accepted, but it aims for the acceptance of at least part of the lie. For example, during the Iraqi War protestors raised the chant (and also signage) that, “Bush lied, men died.” Note the phrase was presented in an easy to recall fashion. President Bush did not lie about the war and men die every day for a variety of reasons; however, if the general public accepted that President Bush failed to say everything he could have, then the propaganda had achieved its purpose.

Modern propaganda turns to emotional responses to achieve its goals often without the recipient of the propaganda ever knowing what is happening to them. During the 1964 US Presidential election, President Johnson’s team ran an ad showing a young girl picking flowers suddenly engulfed in an atomic explosion. This was followed by “Vote for Johnson” silently placed on the screen. The real impact was not logical, it was visceral. It implied his opponent was a war monger. This kind of emotional appeal is still present, but it is done in ways that are far more subtle. Today, propaganda artists make earlier work look amateurish, and this is a crucial problem for modern democratic societies.

Propaganda in all its subtle forms including sophistry, visceral methods, psychological methods, big lies and the rest is coupled with mass marketing through television, radio, the print media, and the Internet and now poses a real problem for the Western Democracies. If public opinion can be manipulated using the modern media, then elections and law making will warp to the side of those with the best, and maybe the most expensive, sophist and propaganda artists. This will make democracy something less than the will of the people and more of the will of the manipulators. If history is any guide, the ability to manipulate the masses will grow exponentially.

Beyond the Cold War

After the Cold War, the United States was the only “superpower” on the planet. Today, China is one of the foremost nations in the world, and its technological, economic, and military rise has been swift. China is a superpower by any standard, and many Asian nations are falling under the broadening Chinese sphere of influence. China became communist in 1949, and until the death of Mao it was fraught with political and economic repression. Mao’s death on September 9, 1976 allowed Deng Xiaoping to take over. President Nixon’s visit to China in 1972 started the process of opening the nation up to economic reform, and Deng Xiaoping acted to expand the economy through doses of capitalism. It worked. China is growing to be the most economically powerful nation on earth. Nonetheless, the political repression remains. The rise of China also threatens the survival of Taiwan. As China is communist and seeking more power and influence in the world, this will result in yet another challenge to the democracies. In the East, Japan remains the only indigenous power that can match the Chinese economically; however, it cannot match the Chinese militarily. The testing of medium-range missiles by North Korea in 2007, another communist power, threatens Japan as well.

The fall of the USSR led to a bad economic time in Russia. Criminal elements literally stole the Russian economy and destroyed it for their own gain. After the fall of the communists dictators, Russia turned to democracy as their plan for the future; however, as time has moved forward the forces of democracy began to lose out to the forces of totalitarianism in Russia, and the elections put men into power who were not going to leave when their terms of office expired. As former strong men in the old USSR began to move to the top of Russian politics, they promised a return to past glories by confronting America and building up the Russian military to match the West. It seems old ways die hard, and Russia is turning back to its past of individual oppression and state supremacy. It appears that the dictators are returning as men such as Putin find ways to stay in office, newspaper reporters are murdered, the Russian legislature has less and less power, and foreigners who report on the activities of the Kremlin die mysterious deaths by radiation poisoning—or they just disappear into the snows of Moscow. As Russia melts into its past and transforms itself back to its old monstrous self, the impact on the world will be profound; however, it is too early to say where this will go. All the observer can do is compare where Russia seems to be going with where they were in the past and report that the ground looks familiar.

Europe is also growing into an economic powerhouse through its uniting in any economic, and now political, union. After the EEC showed its promise in the 1960s, other European nations began to join. They formed into a single market and a free trade zone named the European Union in 1995. Then they moved to a single currency about 2002, the Euro. Since 1995 the number of nations in the EU has swollen dramatically. As economic freedom and prosperity has advanced, so has democracy. Several former semi-dictatorial states in the EU have moved to a democratic way of government. Overall, the EU has been a dramatic success.