Understanding pride, power and authoritarianism
These days it is hard to talk about religion without being dismissed as a pseudo-intellectual. It goes without saying that religious fanatics don’t help, when they too dismiss science as the “work of the devil.”
For a long time, scholars have devoted themselves to understanding the causes of human suffering.
Conservatives and liberals alike claim to have all the answers. The deeper one goes down the ideological rabbit hole one finds the more radical of the bunch: fascists, white supremacists, communists. Today, tyrants try to disguise new versions of these ideas. They are veiled as “democratic socialism”, or “capitalism”, or “Putinism.”
But if there is one thing all of these ideologies have in common is that they are authoritarian in nature.
Pride is the root of man’s evils, and the result is megalomania. Radical ideologies are the symptoms.
Ideology itself is outdated.
It is time for political scientists to scrap the outdated paradigm of the left-right political spectrum. Ideologies create boundaries. Furthermore, they ignore contexts, such as inequality, racism and post-colonialism.
Political entities should be gauged through a less ambiguous spectrum: The “Authoritarianism to Freedom Model,” which is largely inspired by the horseshoe theory.
Modern ideologies are too vested in power and authority, from relentless environmentalists, to racist capitalists; from collectivists to religious fanatics.
Freedom sheds ideology, and reflects the contexts of human history, therefore laws should punish crime; not freedom.
Freedom means protecting the environment without limiting innovation. It means punishing companies that profit illicitly by corroborating with agencies to usher coup d’etats, interfering in elections, or exploiting natural resources in sovereign nations.
Wealth itself is not a crime. Blood money, however, is criminal.
Freedom means understanding the history of the world and the contexts of the world’s current institutional inequalities.
Why are black Americans and Latinos disproportionally incarcerated, impoverished and disenfranchised from American society, economy and politics? Why are minorities victimized by xenophobia? Why are immigrants fleeing foreign countries to seek freedom?
The answers to all these questions are interconnected.
The fault doesn’t lie exclusively in America. It lies in the minds of men who see themselves above the law, and above God. It lies equally in all world powers.
The world is in a transitional phase. Human beings are facing the daunting specter of authoritarianism. Prideful men have maintained their thirst for power since the dawn of time.
In various countries around the world, dissenters are rising up, sometimes hopelessly, against tyranny. In more developed states, the confrontation between authority and freedom also looms. Neither phenomenon is disconnected from the other.
Ultimately, this is an urgent call to the world — a warning — particularly to the United States, the beacon of democracy and the world’s greatest superpower. Authoritarianism must be confronted at home and abroad because it is the greatest threat to democracy, peace and the future of human coexistence.
While political uprisings across the globe have in some cases failed, this has largely been because countries like the U.S., as well as the entire European Union, have stood against their own principles by supporting authoritarian governments, thereby increasing backlash against “the West”, an animosity which continues to fuel religious fanaticism & terrorism. This is clearly evident when President Trump gets cozy with leaders like Kim Jong-un, shares admiration for Xi Jinping, and reveres Vladimir Putin.
When Democrats hold office, despite their own imperfections, America is more ready to confront than to appease authoritarianism at home and abroad. Contrarily when Republicans hold power, they embolden authoritarianism. Therefore, not only must popular struggles persist in nations struggling with authoritarianism, Americans and Europeans alike must rally behind morally upright political leaders at home, and undue the negative influences of foreign governments.
Whether America should intervene in foreign countries has been an ideological debate for some time, but this conversation should have little to do with ideology. This is a matter of moral idealism and realism.
What is best for international security and the procurement of global peace and freedom for future generations? Might it require military confrontation?
War is never a good answer, but protecting freedom holds a hefty price. Support for freedom fighters must persist, alongside diplomacy, but the U.S. should never fear confrontation with a super-villain in the case that it is the final recourse. That is not how superheroes operate. Contrarily, they sacrifice themselves for the welfare of all.