Is Western democracy a failure because it is just a façade to a corrupt oligarchy that primarily serves the interests of the very wealthy?
The Rise and Decline of Western Civilization
Contents
No.
Western civilization is struggling. This happened because of a collapse in humanity’s belief in the existence of absolute truth—and only that. Humanity, now often thinking irrationally, is, therefore, free to claim truths like what is racist and what is not in 21st century America, or that “Jews Are Lice: They Cause Typhus” in 20th century Germany. Without absolute truth, understanding has become subjective, and hope of shared societal meaning (objective truth) has been lost. This produces nihilism[1] in the people. A nihilistic people are without power[2] and incapable of pushing back against either corporate or governmental power. Absolute truth is essential for an individual’s will to power[3].
Nihilism has, in turn, led to a precipitous decline in reason. As the nihilists nevertheless grasp some meaning in life, they are attracted to destructive and irrational mass movements like wokism, Marxism, Critical Theory, Nazism, communism, etc., and totalitarianism in general. And those that do threaten a rational and productive civilization.
With regard to your specific question, human nihilism has further rendered the nihilists, the common or everyday man, or Nietzsche’s last man, defenseless against powerful societal forces like the wealthy or authoritarian governments. The common man must instead retain the will to power in order to survive. Yet, nihilism deprives him of that will. Nihilists thereby make possible abusive governments and societies. And this is where we are today.
A rational society is not a given. Western Civilization has had the ingredients to produce one only once, and only for a very brief time. America’s founding had the ingredients, too, at and shortly following its founding. Western civilization, however, has had many more interesting, illustrative social phases (See also this IMAGE). America, itself was bequeathed its rational era from a combination of Western Civilization thinking (the Constitution), the Christian religiosity of its people, and the rugged-pioneer-do-it-yourself world view of its settling population.
Western Civilization phases of rationality are:
- RELIGION-CENTERED IRRATIONAL ERA (1) –
Because of its claims of absolute truth, the Catholic Church held Europe’s development back for 1000 years (the middle ages). A lack of problem-solving is the poor wages of irrationality always—it does not matter what the origin of the irrationality is; - PRE-RATIONAL ERA (2) –
Martin Luther, the Reformation, and the 30 years war ended the Catholic Church’s claim to absolute truth. Though absolute truth (via God) was still well accepted at this time, this period marked the beginning of the potential end of the Church and a slow decline of a universal acceptance of a belief in absolute truth, and a Catholic Church defined God; - RATIONAL ERA (3) –
The Early (1685-1730) and High (1730–1780) Enlightenment periods. This period is peak rationality for Western Civilization. God and absolute truth exist, but church-defined absolute truths, whether Catholic or Protestant, are minimized. Thus reason flourished; - HUMAN-CENTERED IRRATIONAL ERA (4) (Elite/ruling pursuit of their subjective truth as absolute truth) –
The Late Enlightenment (1780–1815), Romantic era (1790–1850), Postmodernist (1700–1990), and an era of Imperialism and War (1700–1990) saw the loss of faith and the rise of other non-theistic subjective-truth religions like Marxism, Communism, and other anti-reason philosophies arising out of the Frankfort School and the Postmodernism Era generally. Perpetual conflict and oppression were the results of an era of Imperialism and War (1700–1990); - NIHILISTIC IRRATIONAL ERA (5) (Loss of absolute truth or God among the masses) –
The Nihilism Era (2000–2021), and the rise of totalitarianism via the people’s passive capitulation.
I make some further observations below:
To see a bigger version of the image below, follow this link: REASON in history.
Two things are needed for reason: a belief in absolute truth and an understanding that absolute truth cannot be claimed. That is, for rationality, you cannot say that you know what is absolutely right or true. This is how one remains in a state of reason.
In other words …
IF YOU ARE RELIGIOUS, yes, God is good, and thus you recognize and accept absolute truth, but also recognize that all Church truths are accepted by you irrationally—in faith. You should not make irrationality a habit, however. This is a bad habit.
IF YOU ARE SECULAR, it is good that you do not accept Church truths as absolute, but you must not accept other truths (Marxism, racism, Covid via Fauci, etc.) as absolutely true. Specifically, reject postmodernism: truth is not subjective; there is absolute truth. To believe otherwise will produce irrationality. And, I might add, another very bad habit.
[1] RELIGION-CENTERED IRRATIONAL ERA
The Early Middle Ages (the “Dark Ages”)
At this time, the Catholic Church was the truth,
… and St. Augustine of Hippo[4] was its early influential teacher. By writing De Doctrina Christiana (On Christian Doctrine), “Augustine set three tasks for Christian teachers and preachers: to discover the truth in the contents of the Scriptures, to teach the truth from the Scriptures, and to defend scriptural truth when it was attacked.”[5]
Therefore, St. Augustine, and by extension the Church, promoted societal irrationality. The faithful were persuaded to accept Church teachings as absolutely true in order to gain entrance to the Kingdom of God for a better life in the afterlife. The Church therewith expanded.
But irrational people cannot problem solve, and thus society struggled to improve for Middle Age era Europeans. The phrase “Dark Ages” has fallen into disfavor, but irrational minds are always closed. Meaning for an irrational person is thus neurologically fixed and finite. I believe, therefore, that the phrase reasonably represents the period and its (lack of reasoning) thinking.
Middle Ages – Scholasticism & St. Thomas Aquinas
“As a program, scholasticism began as an attempt at harmonization on the part of medieval Christian thinkers, to harmonize the various authorities of their own tradition, and to reconcile Christian theology with classical and late antiquity philosophy, especially that of Aristotle but also of Neoplatonism.”[6]
“Unlike many currents in the Catholic Church of the time, St. Thomas embraced several ideas put forward by Aristotle — whom he called “the Philosopher” — and attempted to synthesize Aristotelian philosophy with the principles of Christianity.”[7]
Consequently, St. Thomas attempted to make truth the domain of reason on subjects outside of faith. As a result, he is the Church’s greatest. But the Church nevertheless strove to maintain control of truth. The middle ages are characterized by this struggle:
In 1277 Étienne Tempier, the same bishop of Paris who had issued the condemnation of 1270, issued another more extensive condemnation. One aim of this condemnation was to clarify that God’s absolute power transcended any principles of logic that Aristotle or Averroes might place on it. More specifically, it contained a list of 219 propositions that the bishop had determined to violate the omnipotence of God, and included in this list were twenty Thomistic propositions. Their inclusion badly damaged Thomas’s reputation for many years.[8]
Late Middle Ages – Humanism
“The meaning of the term “humanism” has changed according to the successive intellectual movements that have identified with it. Generally, the term refers to a focus on human well-being and advocates for human freedom, autonomy, and progress. It views humanity as responsible for the promotion and development of individuals, espouses the equal and inherent dignity of all human beings, and emphasizes a concern for humans in relation to the world.”[9]
In the era of humanism, the people began to seek resolutions to their own problems and thus, ceased waiting until the hereafter. The door to the era of reason was being opened. Innovations for society began to appear.
[2] PRE-RATIONAL ERA
Life was very hard for people in the middle ages. Christianity promised the faithful a better existence after death, provided that they observed the behavior requirements of the faith. The Church either allowed or encouraged the faithful to accept their difficult living lot-in-life for salvation and a life without suffering in the hereafter. Inevitably, the Church found that the suffering left unresolved could also be a great motivator for Church contributions (indulgences, etc.).
Martin Luther saw the predictable abuse and, through his action and leadership, precipitated the Reformation. What’s important from my perspective, however, is that now a belief in absolute truth, once developed and protected by the Roman Catholic Church, has been mortally wounded. Yet, once faith diversified, hope for agreement on objective truth was lost. For this reason, I think Martin Luther, instead of precipitating a reformation of faith, inadvertently initiated the eventual decline of Christianity in Europe (and later elsewhere). The subsequent 30-year war, fighting over the Church’s political control over Europe, was its final blow. I hate to say it, but it had to happen. For there to be reason, it is not possible to claim absolute truth. The Church cannot have that power.
The Thirty Year War (fighting over who controls absolute truth)
By laying the foundations of the modern nation-state, Westphalia changed the relationship between subjects and their rulers. Previously, many had overlapping, sometimes conflicting, political and religious allegiances; they were now understood to be subject first and foremost to the laws and edicts of their respective state authority, not the claims of any other entity, religious or secular.[10]
NOTICE HOW IRRATIONALITY MAKES THE CONDITIONS FOR CONFLICT?
The Church (all of them) have now been subordinated to the state—and to Kings no less (new arbiters of absolute truth). However, and unfortunately, without a voice to protect absolute truth, its enemies, via irrationality, would seek to eliminate it (i.e. romanticism and postmodernism).
[3] RATIONAL ERA
Peak Reason.
“The Enlightenment included a range of ideas centered on the value of human happiness, the pursuit of knowledge obtained by means of reason and the evidence of the senses, and ideals such as liberty, progress, toleration, fraternity, constitutional government, and separation of church and state.”
…
The Enlightenment has its roots in a European intellectual and scholarly movement known as Renaissance humanism and was also preceded by the Scientific Revolution and the work of Francis Bacon, among others. Some date the beginning of the Enlightenment back to the publication of René Descartes‘ Discourse on the Method in 1637, featuring his famous dictum, Cogito, ergo sum (“I think, therefore I am”).”[11]
But the fuse has been nevertheless lit for human centered irrationality an nihilism. This happened, I believe, with Martin Luther and the subsequent 30 year war.
[4] HUMAN-CENTERED IRRATIONAL ERA
So begins the era of human irrationality as a philosophy: postmodernism and thus centuries of conflict.
Humans began to understand that the mind builds understandings of reality. Moreover, the mind uses these understandings to develop new interpretations of its perceptions. Thus, began an era whereby the “philosophers” sought to create reality. This developmental human vulnerability gets eventually exploited in Marxism, Communism, and …
Nazism:
“This movement—the defiant rejection of the Enlightenment spirit—is called romanticism.
Progressively abandoning their Aristotelian heritage, the philosophers of the Enlightenment had reached a state of formal bankruptcy in the skepticism of David Hume. Hume claimed that neither the senses nor reason can yield reliable knowledge. He concluded that man is a helpless creature caught in an unintelligible universe. Meanwhile a variety of lesser figures (such as Rousseau, the admirer of the “noble savage”) were foreshadowing the era to come. They were suggesting that reason had had its chance but had failed, and that something else, something opposite, holds the key to reality and the future.”
Peikoff, Leonard. The Cause of Hitler’s Germany (pp. 53-54). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
”I have followed [the Catholic Church],” Hitler told Rauschning,
in giving our party program the character of unalterable finality, like the Creed. The Church has never allowed the Creed to be interfered with. It is fifteen hundred years since it was formulated, but every suggestion for its amendment, every logical criticism or attack on it, has been rejected. The Church has realized that anything and everything can be built up on a document of that sort, no matter how contradictory or irreconcilable with it. The faithful will swallow it whole, so long as logical reasoning is never allowed to be brought to bear on it.
Dogma, whether Nazi or otherwise, requires an authority able to give it the stamp of an official imprimatur. The Nazi authority is obvious. “Just as the Roman Catholic considers the Pope infallible in all matters concerning religion and morals,” writes Goering.
Peikoff, Leonard. The Cause of Hitler’s Germany (p. 62). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.
NOTICE AGAIN, HOW IRRATIONALITY MAKES THE CONDITIONS FOR CONFLICT?
[5] NIHILISTIC IRRATIONAL ERA
The emergence of nihilism.
Signs of Decline & Hope Among Key Metrics of Faith – Barna Group
From the above chart, Christianity is in decline. Unfortunately, Christianity brought an acceptance in absolute truth. Without it, people loose their ability to find meaning.
Nihilism (/ˈnaɪ(h)ɪlɪzəm, ˈniː-/; from Latin nihil ‘nothing’) is a philosophy, or family of views within philosophy, that rejects general or fundamental aspects of human existence,[1][2] such as objective truth, knowledge, morality, values or meaning.[3][4] Different nihilist positions hold variously that human values are baseless, that life is meaningless, that knowledge is impossible, or that some set of entities do not exist or are meaningless or pointless.[5][6]
Nietzsche warned that the society of the last man could be too barren and decadent to support the growth of healthy human life or great individuals. The last man is only possible by mankind having bred an apathetic person or society who loses the ability to dream, to strive, and who become unwilling to take risks, instead simply earning their living and keeping warm. The society of the last man is antithetical to Nietzsche’s theoretical will to power, the main driving force and ambition behind human nature, according to Nietzsche, as well as all other life in the universe.[12]
Again, to answer your question: humanity, the actual rank and file individual, without absolute truth (not necessarily though the Church), no longer has the power to protect himself (by developing his mind) from a malevolent ruling elite.
Reason must be developed in humanity. I see absolute truth, which cannot be claimed, is an central element of Nietzsche’s higher values. Specifically, if absolute truth is embraced, problem solving becomes a source of reason. Reason produces understanding, and understanding IS power …
… the power to control our lives as self reliant self governing individuals.
Footnotes
[2] Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
[4] Augustine of Hippo – Wikipedia
[5] De doctrina Christiana – Wikipedia
[7] Thomas Aquinas – Wikipedia
[8] Thomas Aquinas – Wikipedia
[10] Thirty Years’ War – Wikipedia
