| Seeking Wisdom |
Combating nihilism, despair, and injustice. Charting the next steps in the human civilizational project.
Humanity is at a crossroads. The old secularist ideal of seeking divinization by means of scientific and
technological progress or by creating a collective political subject which makes humanity the master of its own
destiny is dead. Nothing has emerged to replace it. This civilizational crisis has emerged as a result of a prior
dual crisis of the two principal structures which have been built to realize the secular ideal: capitalism and
socialism. The first has shown itself unable to consistently centralize the resources necessary for investment in
civilizational progress at a level sufficient to realize the secular ideal; the second has shown itself incapable of
consistently mobilizing the creativity and energy of the people in the pursuit of that ideal. These failures are
apparent in the contradictions of market socialism, neoliberalism, state capitalism, and other regimes of
accumulation in place in various parts of the world, which have resulted in a new long wave of economic
stagnation and decline. Without a compelling civilizational ideal and without a effective structures for centraling
and allocating resources to promote human development and civilizational progress the old ruling classes have,
effectively, ceased to rule and become mere privileged elites, occasionally enlightened, more often venal and
rapacious. The time is ripe. The world needs new leadership. We must provide it.
technological progress or by creating a collective political subject which makes humanity the master of its own
destiny is dead. Nothing has emerged to replace it. This civilizational crisis has emerged as a result of a prior
dual crisis of the two principal structures which have been built to realize the secular ideal: capitalism and
socialism. The first has shown itself unable to consistently centralize the resources necessary for investment in
civilizational progress at a level sufficient to realize the secular ideal; the second has shown itself incapable of
consistently mobilizing the creativity and energy of the people in the pursuit of that ideal. These failures are
apparent in the contradictions of market socialism, neoliberalism, state capitalism, and other regimes of
accumulation in place in various parts of the world, which have resulted in a new long wave of economic
stagnation and decline. Without a compelling civilizational ideal and without a effective structures for centraling
and allocating resources to promote human development and civilizational progress the old ruling classes have,
effectively, ceased to rule and become mere privileged elites, occasionally enlightened, more often venal and
rapacious. The time is ripe. The world needs new leadership. We must provide it.
| The Present Period |
