What is politics?

The sheep spend their entire lives fearing the wolf, only to be eaten by the shepherd.

In this video, I'll explain how politics has been refined and sharpened in the last 2500 years of human history, turning it to a precision machine in the same way the flintstone of early humans has been refined into the modern surgery knife. By the end of this video, you will know the history, its fundamental ideas, schools, and approaches, as well as some of the most influential political thinkers from around the world.

So, what is politics? Politics can be summed up in two words: force and deception. Force is at the heart of politics. The more powerful you are, the more you can affect politics. The old adage, "might is right," is true in politics. Powerful individuals, groups, and nations can play the game much better than the weaker ones. Just like in boxing, nobody listens to you unless you demonstrate it with some nice punches.

So, how can you play the game of politics if you're weak? The second fuel that runs politics is deception. What do I mean by that? It is the ability to utilize language to influence people. This includes logic, reason, deception, rhetoric, charisma, and emotional manipulation. Great leaders use beautiful words to influence millions of people. So, while today's politics appears more complex, it still runs on two forms of energy: brute force and beautiful words. Words over time turn into constitutions, rule books, and legal frameworks, which are ultimately safeguarded by brute force. So, politics is basically force, and you can gain force by using words. But if you have enough force, you don't have to say a word.

At its core, politics is the monopoly of violence. The government acts on our behalf. Our collective forces hand it over to the police and to the army. Anytime we use violence to get what we want, we face a more powerful entity: the police. Anytime another country tries to get what they want, they face an army. So, politics is the monopoly of force.

In its cuddliest form, politics is a social contract, the rule of law, and democracy. But in its worst forms, it is like a porcupine dictatorship, tyranny, and despotism. In essence, politics is a tool for managing two contradictory human desires: freedom and security. We want the most freedom and the most security. But we can't have both. So, politics is a pendulum that moves between freedom and security. The strong prefer more freedom, while the weak prefer.

This video is divided into five sections, each focusing on a particular period and history of politics.

In section one, I discussed the ancient origin of politics as a biological necessity. The discovery of agriculture created large cities, resulting in increased violence. To combat this, ancient India created the caste system. In China, Confucianism, both hierarchical political systems. Ancient Greece and Rome, however, experimented with a more philosophical, rational political order.

In section two, we discussed the Middle Ages, when politics turned psychological. As empires grew bigger, physical force was not enough to mobilize millions of people with thousands of different gods. Monotheism was the psychological solution to bring justice to the world through a single god. Christians and Muslims united everyone around a single god, not only the most powerful entity in the universe but also a leader who never died.

In section 3, during the Renaissance, politics became philosophical, with rationality replacing faith and humans replacing God. Realist thinkers like Machiavelli and Hobbes favored an absolutist politics, while humanist thinkers like Rousseau and Voltaire wanted a softer politics, seeking equality and freedom.

In section four, we discussed the sociological purpose of politics. The Enlightenment humanism gave birth to two children: socialism and liberalism. Socialists believe the purpose of politics is to create material equality, while liberals emphasize freedom, creating a major divide between the left and the right.

In section five, we discuss the biological purpose of politics. According to utilitarianism, politics must increase happiness, while for nationalism, politics should promote community and belonging. This is the second major divide between the left and the right.

So, get yourself a strong cup of coffee, and let me take you on a 2500-year journey of politics. By the way, if you want to buy the script of this video in a book format, you can find the link down below. This also supports the channel. So, thank you very much.

One: Political Animal: How to Monopolize Violence.

The Greek philosopher Aristotle was the first to claim humans are political animals. According to evolutionary biology, our incredible linguistic ability is a proof of our innate desire for community. Why do we have such sophisticated languages? To navigate society as well as negotiate politics. In nature, many social species like ants, termites, and bees form huge colonies, some with almost a million members. But no species comes close to humans. Today, China and India have over a billion citizens.

The three most important human urges are seeking food, sex, and belonging. So, being social is sewn into our innate biological fabric. While our desires for food and sex tend to be endless, they are scarce resources. This puts us face to face with others: brothers against cousins, sons against fathers, and tribes against tribes. There are endless examples of this conflict in religious myths as well as in our written history. So, how do you reconcile these conflicting desires? Evolution has come out with two answers.

The first and most basic answer is physical violence. Large teeth, bigger horns, and muscles, etc., determine whoever wins a fight gets the lion's share of food as well as gets to mate. This dictates behaviors among other social animals like lions. Political violence is most common among carnivores, which tend to be extremely volatile and unpredictable. This is why carnivores have smaller communities, usually in the tens or hundreds. Bigger groups are just unsustainable due to the nature of violence and the unpredictable diet.

So, evolution has come out with another answer: programming. For example, the politics of ants and bees tend to be more stable and predictable. Everyone knows their place. Why? Again, it's the stability and predictability in their diet. These insects are mostly herbivores and pollinators who live their lives based on seasons. Vegetables and flowers are as predictable as ants and bees' roles within a colony or hive. This has allowed these insects, as well as some herd animals, to have large societies with members growing to thousands and even millions.

What about humans? Ours is basically a journey between lions and ants. We evolved from a small group of hunter-gatherers to creating the largest animal groups on earth thanks to the invention of agriculture and the creation of myths and stories. So, our stable diet and sophisticated languages allowed us to form bigger and bigger groups. We have evolved from opportunistic hunter-gatherers into pollinators of wheat and rice. No coincidence that India and China, two rice-pollinating civilizations, have the most number of people today. Also, no coincidence that sophisticated religions were formed when agriculture led to cities forming around rivers.

Farming also made our legs shorter, teeth smaller, and muscles weaker. Why? Because of our vegetarian diet, we no longer needed to wrestle, chase, or tackle animals for food. We changed from small packs of carnivores into large herds of herbivores. This is why we also store more fat than muscle. Today, about three billion people, or 43% of the world's population, are overweight, compared to half a billion, or 6% underweight.

But our politics also changed. While ingroup violence may have decreased, archaeological data showed that with the invention of agriculture, our outgroup violence increased. This led to more sophisticated religious myths, justifying the battle between good and evil. As robust software programs made empires more cohesive and stronger around common stories, making men sacrifice their lives fighting evil, so to speak. In other words, violence is like fire. If managed, it can cook your food at home and burn your enemies outside. So, politics became the tool of managing and directing violence through a centralized entity we call the state or the government.

The word "politics" comes from the Greek word "politika," which means "the affairs of the city," and was first introduced in Aristotle's famous book, Politics. So, human politics is basically the art of controlling, managing, and inflicting violence as a group, not individually. While lions rely on their physical strength, bees and ants or other smaller insects on their number, humans rely on our tools. And politics is perhaps one of the greatest tools we have created.

In the ancient world, there were two distinct political civilizations that left written records. In the East, China and India pioneered political systems that mimicked nature's hierarchy, based on the concept of birthright and fate. In the West, however, the Greeks and the Romans pioneered a more idealistic political system, based on philosophical and political negotiation.

First, let's talk about ancient China and India. Confucius looked at how nature organizes itself and realized that one of the biggest sources of violence in a human society is when there is confusion as to who stands where, who gets what, who owns what, who is responsible for what. Animals solve this problem through a system of dominance and submission, either through violence or nonviolence. When you know you have no chance, animals simply submit to the bigger, stronger, and more ferocious member. So, both can survive. Confucius called this social harmony through hierarchy, which allows everyone to know their place, eliminating confusion as to which share belongs to whom.

Quote: "Good government consists in the ruler being a ruler, the minister being a minister, the father being a father, and the son being a son." No more multitasking, no more chaos, and no more conflict. Not only does everyone know their own place, they also know everyone else's places. Instead of a police watching and patrolling the whole society, people watch each other and themselves. If someone is sitting in the wrong chair, other people can tell him that he is sitting in the wrong seat. So, if everyone knows their place, everyone can watch everyone. Therefore, nobody dares to disrupt social harmony.

According to Confucius, you cannot achieve harmony on a flat plane where everyone is equal. In a pyramid, however, each piece is tightly held together by other pieces. It's the weight of others that keeps everyone in their place. Confucius emphasizes duty, loyalty, and respect, not equality. Those at the top exercise benevolence, and those at the bottom exercise loyalty. Confucius realized everything starts in the family because it is the first line of defense against chaos. A strong family structure creates a solid foundation for a solid society. Inside the family, the order is thus: the husband, the wife, the son, and then the daughter. Confucius valued protection. Therefore, put men at the top. If you are the bodyguard of the family, you cannot do your job of protecting your family if they undermine or disobey you. The same goes for the government. Citizens cannot undermine the king because his responsibility is to protect his subjects from the enemies, and it gives him the authority to command you.

What if this leads to tyranny? Confucius had two important measures in place. First, Confucius emphasized duty. A king is responsible to keep people safe, and a man is responsible to protect and provide for his wife and children. In other words, nobody can escape their responsibility. An irresponsible king or a father doesn't deserve obedience, and a disloyal subject doesn't deserve protection. While this measure relies on the goodness of the human heart to take their role seriously, what if they are corrupt? Confucianism had another solution: meritocracy, to reduce corruption, nepotism, and stagnation. China's civil service exam allowed intelligent young people to rise up the ranks in society to promote excellence and innovation. Today, Singapore, a benevolent dictatorship, so to speak, is an example of modern Confucianism. China, too, is slowly returning to its Confucian heritage, despite 70 years of communism trying to eradicate it. In the 1980s, the CCP realized that socialism was not competitive enough. So, it allowed private enterprises and capitalism to flourish. And within 30 years, China rose to become the second largest economy in the world.

Confucius's political solution was primarily focused on domestic politics. Another Chinese thinker who lived around the same time, but he focused on winning wars through deception and camouflage. Sun Tzu understood that there was no fairness, honor, or justice in nature. The goal is to survive, thrive, and conquer through whatever means possible. In nature, brute force is perhaps the most lethal tool available. But what if you are not physically as strong as your enemy? Sun Tzu realized there was another, less visible tool in nature: manipulation.

In his famous book, The Art of War, Sun Tzu demonstrates that wars are not only won by sheer physical advantage but also through clever strategies and clever tactics. Nature has perfected these tactics through camouflage, deception, and stealth over millions of years. While Confucius tried to end political confusion, Sun Tzu, on the other hand, says, "You should do everything to confuse your enemy."

Quote: "All warfare is based on deception." Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable. When using your forces, we must appear inactive. When we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away. When far away, we must make them believe we are near. These are some basic survival tactics in the wild. For example, in the battle between the carnivores and herbivores, a gazelle jumps higher to show its health so the cheetahs don't bother chasing them. Some animals even play dead to escape getting eaten. Squids release a black ink to muddy the water to confuse others.

One of the most important elements of The Art of War is intelligence gathering and espionage. He argues that most wars are won before the actual battle. Quote: "If you know both yourself and your enemy, you can win 100 battles without jeopardy." So, in ancient China, nature provided the perfect template for a harmonious society but also a winning formula for winning wars. Confucius copied the hierarchical social system based on dominance and submission. And Sun Tzu borrowed his philosophy of deception from the animal kingdom, where there is no morality, only winners.

Ancient India had a similar political solution. The Rigveda is perhaps the first Indian text that explains the Indian caste system. According to the Indian origin story, the religious hymn Purusha Sukta, as well as later texts like the Laws of Manu, written about 2,000 years ago by a sage named Manu. Humans are created from the body of Purusha, or the first being, but we are created from four separate parts of Purusha's body. This resulted in four distinct social groups called varnas, each with a distinct societal role. This political hierarchy puts everyone in their place from the day they are born. This removes all confusion about social hierarchies.

What are these four groups? First, the Brahmins, created from the mouth of Purusha, are the priests, teachers, and scholars whose job is to safeguard your soul and social morality. Second, the Kshatriyas, created from the arms of the cosmic being, making them the warriors, soldiers, and political administrators in society, safeguarding the kingdom. Third, the Vaishyas, created from the thighs of Purusha, are the farmers and merchants in society, in charge of feeding the kingdom. Finally, the Shudras, created from the foot of the god, are the laborers and servants who have the physical burdens in the society. Later, the Chandals, or the untouchables, were created when women from the priest class slept with the servant class. Since marriage between different caste members was strictly forbidden, the children resulting from such unions lived outside the four main castes.

Just as Confucius focused on the domestic politics of ancient China, the Vedic texts, as well as later texts like the Laws of Manu, described the social hierarchy of Hindu society from a cosmic perspective. The caste system meant political stability, as it divided people into separate groups, therefore making it really hard for anyone to challenge the natural order of society. But what about those who came from outside?

Just like ancient China, India too had a solution. Chanakya, in his famous book titled Arthashastra, or simply "the art of material gains," focuses on not only how to maintain a robust rule over your territory but also how to expand into new territories. Just like Sun Tzu's The Art of War, or a more modern example, The Prince by Machiavelli, Chanakya has several fundamental pieces of political advice on how to maintain a kingdom and how to expand it.

First, he tells the king to lead by example. Get out of bed early in the morning, keep your discipline throughout the day, always hold a dignified persona, a robust figure. But above all, he has to be rational, calculating, and pragmatic, and not to be swayed by emotions or sympathy. Second, he tells the king to surround himself with intelligent, disciplined, but most importantly, trustworthy advisers. Two or more heads are always better than one. Third, the king must think about the economy. The material prosperity of the kingdom is the ultimate goal of politics. In a world where resources are scarce, everyone is eyeing to get what you have. Quote: "Every neighboring state is the enemy, and the enemy's enemy is a friend." Fourth, intelligence is the key to a kingdom. This includes espionage, deception, alliance, trickery, and even bribery. When your spies notice a neighbor weak, that's the time to attack and plunder. Great spies can also report on what's going on inside the kingdom to prevent any domestic issues like injustice, famine, etc. Finally, the book also tells the king to be generous and fair in order to make sure the welfare of its citizens is protected. It is also said that Chanakya's book was instrumental in the establishment of the Maurya Empire in 321 B.C.E. in northern India, which stopped Alexander the Great from invading India.

So, to conclude this segment, ancient Eastern politics was characterized by a hierarchical system that was written in stone, describing everyone's station in life. In Confucian hierarchy, everyone knew their place. The same was true in the Vedic caste system. As you were born into a station in life, Sun Tzu and Chanakya emphasized the use of intelligence to win wars.

In the next segment, I'll discuss ancient Greece, where instead of rigid natural hierarchies, political order was more negotiable through rationality.

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Two: Philosophical Order: How to Live a Good Life.

Previously, I discussed how ancient China and India, to create political harmony, copied nature, giving people strict, regimented roles which were not up for negotiation. In this segment, we discuss ancient Greece and Rome, where social harmony was not the only purpose of politics, but also cultivating a good life. While political stability can be measured objectively, the good life is subjective and up to negotiation.

The Greeks were the first to experiment with democracy, allowing some citizens to participate in governance. While unique, innovative, and revolutionary, it excluded women, slaves, foreigners, and young people. In 399 B.C., the Athenian democracy executed one of the greatest philosophers for spreading bad ideas among the youth. Socrates, considered the father of Western philosophy, opposed democracy because it was giving too much power to the uneducated idiots. Plato, in his book Republic, quotes Socrates saying, "Foolish leaders of democracy, which is a charming form of government, full of variety and disorder, and dispensing a sort of equality to equals and unequal alike." Socrates believed that only virtuous people should run politics. For Socrates, the first step in cultivating virtue is the ability to critically examine your life. Quote: "The unexamined life is not worth living."

How can you examine your life? Socrates came up with the Socratic method. To truly understand something, you have to ask a series of questions. Once you have exhausted all the possible answers, you arrive at the ultimate truth. Socrates vehemently rejected birthright voting in Athenian democracy because it allowed stupid people to have the same vote as someone well-informed. In other words, an imbecile was able to cancel the vote of someone like Socrates. As expected, the Athenian democracy saw him as a threat and charged him for corrupting the youth. He was tried and condemned to sip hemlock poison, which killed him in 399 B.C.E.

The Socratic method of questioning things created a huge psychological shift in how people saw the world and themselves. You didn't need to rely on gods, priests, or political authorities. You had the ability to rationally question things to get to the truth yourself. Socrates didn't leave any written records because he was busy challenging strangers on the streets. So, everything we know about his ideas comes from one of his students.

Plato, having witnessed his teacher executed by the democratic mobs, used this opportunity to use Socrates as a mouthpiece for his own political and philosophical ideas. In his dialogues, he made Socrates into a powerful character to say things he couldn't have said directly, especially in his criticism of democracy. Quote: "The heaviest penalty for declining rule is to be ruled by someone inferior to itself."

In his book, The Republic, Plato argued that in democracy, the state promotes wealth creation. Therefore, everyone's goal becomes to increase their own wealth. When everyone is busy increasing their own wealth, they become blind to the common good. They no longer see the bigger picture or care about the common good, as everyone is involved in the petty squabbles of profiteering. This is far from the politics that cultivates the good life or virtue.

So, what is Plato's solution? He proposes society should be ruled by those who are not interested in material gain, people who pursue knowledge and wisdom. Plato thinks philosophers are the best rulers of society because they are detached from the business of making money. They also have the necessary distance to understand virtue in others. If you're busy making money, you first see the dollar sign before you see virtue in others. Since nobody's born with virtue, it is a learned behavior. So, philosophers tend to be the most learned in society.

Plato argued that ideas are higher forms of existence. This means the model for a perfect political system shouldn't stem from the material world but from ideas. So, to understand the ideal form of politics, society needs philosophers, as they have knowledge as well as virtue. The word "philosopher" literally means "lover of wisdom," not "lover of money." Back then, people wouldn't call you a philosopher if you focused too much on making money. So, Plato understood that politics is a very complex business, and not everyone is qualified enough to see things beyond their own self-interest or belly buttons. Therefore, we need a philosopher who is wise enough to see the bigger picture. Democracy just breeds self-interest and competition, which naturally leads to corruption and chaos.

Plato was a little ahead of his time in ancient Greece, but his ideas influenced the Romans, especially among some emperors like Marcus Aurelius, who is considered closest to Plato's ideal philosopher-king. Plato was also popular in the Islamic world during the Middle Ages because his ideal form can be mapped onto the concept of God. His philosopher-king idea was also taken up by Nietzsche in his theory of the Übermensch as the ideal philosopher-king.

Aristotle, while a student of Plato, was a more practical thinker, focusing his attention on what he could observe. While Plato believed there was an ideal form for everything, Aristotle, however, looked at nature, arguing that humans have senses to observe, seek, and understand truth on the outside. He also concluded that humans are by nature political animals, as social animals. Humans have a natural tendency to live in groups. Individuals live inside a family, a family inside a village, a village inside a city-state, and so forth. In other words, for Aristotle, to be human is to live socially. If you didn't live in society, you were either gods or beasts.

Our ability to reason distinguishes us from other animals. Our rational faculty allows us to understand that living outside society is not the wisest decision for our survival and well-being. Aristotle also believed that everything has a telos, or purpose. What is the purpose of human life? To live a good life. We go back to Socrates and Plato. So, what is the purpose of politics? To flourish virtue and a good life.

Now, what kind of political system cultivates virtue and a good life? Just like a true natural scientist, Aristotle, in his book Politics, categorized government types into six species. The first two types are monarchy and tyranny, both ruled by one person. The second two types are aristocracy and oligarchy, both ruled by a few people. The third two types of governments are polity and democracy, both ruled by many people.

Aristotle rejects tyranny because one individual rules a society based on his own self-interest. He also rejects oligarchy because a few rulers plunder society for their own benefits. Aristotle also rejects democracy because it leads to corruption among the representatives to make themselves rich. Aristotle considers monarchy a better form because one person considers the well-being of all the citizens. In other words, the king rules on behalf of everyone. Aristotle also praises aristocracy because a few elected individuals are chosen on the basis of their merits as the wisest and noblest bunch to rule a society on behalf of everyone. And finally, he also considers polity as a better form of government than democracy because it's a rule by many that benefits many. Unlike Plato, Aristotle doesn't believe in a perfect form. So, these are imperfect ways to run politics. But there's always room for improvement. For him, perfection is always the goal, not in here and now. For him, polity is the best form of government because it encourages virtue among many, which in the long run cultivates a good life among all citizens.

Aristotle's most famous student, Alexander of Macedon, took his sword to create an empire. While the Greek philosophers were more idealistic in their approach, the Romans, however, were more pragmatic. Cicero not only was one of the greatest Roman thinkers, he was also an active politician. Unlike the Greek thinkers, the Roman thinkers had their hands dirty in the actual politics of Rome. This is why the Romans adopted Stoicism as a philosophy. Because when you finish butchering your enemies in battle, you want to come home to meditate and take a cold shower as you wash your bloody sword. Stoicism helps you to deal with the emotional impact of the horror of reality.

The Greeks wanted virtue to be the highest goal of politics, but the Romans were more concerned about the balance between running an effective state and promoting the good life. In other words, a government must be effective before it can cultivate virtue. Cicero says, quote: "The good life is impossible without a good state, and there is no greater blessing than a well-ordered state."

In his book, On the Republic, Cicero argues that the ideal government is to serve and benefit the people. He characterized the Roman Republic with its three branches of power: the Consuls representing the ruler, the Senate representing the aristocracy, and the Assembly representing the people. This is the best way to run a polity. Because the power sits on three legs, just like a tripod, it has checks and balances, therefore more stable compared to a monarchy where power is concentrated in the hands of one man who could easily become a tyrant. As far as leadership, Cicero champions qualities like wisdom, honesty, and honor. His book, On the Republic, has been highly influential in Western political thought and has had great influence on the American Constitution. Cicero's support for the Republic ultimately cost him his own life because he was killed at the order of Mark Antony, who wanted to use his power for his military rule.

Seneca the younger was a Stoic philosopher and writer who advised the emperor Nero. Just like Cicero, Seneca was knee-deep in the actual politics of running Rome. This gave him a deeper appreciation of actual politics while also trying to keep his philosophical ideals intact. Seneca argued that the sovereign's authority comes from God. In other words, the ruler is tasked with the responsibility of running a state from God. Now, this is pretty dangerous because if the emperor thinks he is the true representative of God on earth, he has absolute authority. But Seneca argues against absolute power, saying that the ruler has a duty, not a privilege. Therefore, must show his merit and capacity for a just rule. Quote: "No one can hold absolute power for long. Control power endures." A just rule is only achieved when the ruler prioritizes reason and compassion rather than his own desires. Seneca also at times grapples with the realities of politics. So, he is criticized for justifying the sole authority of the emperor when the emperor goes counter to his philosophical ideas. His political ideas show the tension between the ideal and the reality of politics because he had a stake in politics. He wasn't a distant observer. Quote: "Be wary of a man who urges an action in which he himself incurs no risk." His deep involvement in politics and the tension between philosophical idealism and political realism also led to his own death, as he was forced to kill himself by Emperor Nero.

Marcus Aurelius was a Roman emperor famous for his book Meditations, considered the bible of Stoic philosophy. He's also considered the best example of a philosopher-king envisaged in the politics of Plato, who acted based on reason and virtue, not self-interest or desire for power and wealth. Aurelius believed the primary duty of a sovereign is to serve the people and the common good, which is political stability and the welfare of the whole empire. Drawing from his Stoic philosophy, he believed that a leader has to live by example. Quote: "Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one." A good man prioritizes reason and virtue above his desire for wealth and power. To rule is to fulfill your duty to the public, not yourself. He also believed that the goal is to live a good life. Quote: "Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones."

So, to conclude this segment, Greek philosophers placed virtuous life as the important goal of a political system. Socrates placed virtue and knowledge and rational truth. Plato proposed a republic where the wisest and most virtuous philosophers became kings. Aristotle grounded his politics in nature, but it still argued the purpose of society is to nurture the good life. The Roman thinkers Cicero, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius echoed the Greek ideal of promoting the good life but also political stability of the state. So, the ancient Chinese and Indian political systems were rigid hierarchies, while the Greek and Roman politics allowed some room for negotiation. But there's a very fundamental problem with human politics: a perfect ruler cannot be found because not only are all humans flawed, but also the good rulers die, which creates a power vacuum. What if you had a ruler who was perfect but also immortal?

In the next segment, humans turn to God. Christianity and Islam had the advantage of having one God, so they were perfectly placed to experiment with the rule of God.

Three: Church Politics: How God Leads Humans.

In the previous two segments, I discussed how ancient China and India prioritized security through birthright hierarchy, while the West prioritized some autonomy through participation. In this segment, we move to the Middle Ages, where the question of how to govern was replaced by who to govern. Human rulers have two fundamental flaws. First, our selfish desires lead to corruption, nepotism, cronyism, and tyranny. Second, even when you find a genuine great leader, humans die. The succession can turn into a bloodbath. Brothers, cousins, and generals fight to take over. But what if you had a ruler who was perfect and immortal? Not just that, this ruler is also impartial, so everyone can trust him to be fair. But it's too good to be true. Such a ruler cannot be found in nature because animals are selfish and pretty irrational. It's time we look at the skies for some aliens.

The concept of God is as old as humans. But there was a big problem. Just like too many candidates for political leadership throughout history, people believed in multiple gods who specialized in fulfilling specific wishes, like the god of rain, thunder, safety, health, wealth, and love. Not only that, these gods often fought against one another, just like humans. So, you couldn't really rely on them to be genuine good leaders.

But the discovery of agriculture led to the accumulation of resources. These allowed certain chiefs, tribal leaders, and kings to grow bigger by usurping the powers of other chiefs, leaders, and kings. Welcome to the age of empires. The Persians created the concept of "king of kings," basically a giant king ruling over many smaller kingdoms. The same process happened in the heavens: as smaller gods were replaced by one giant god. Zoroastrianism is considered the first monotheistic religion, coincidentally also Persian. Now, we have a solution: no more competition among gods. There is only one true God.

The Roman Empire adopted Christianity. Now, since we have one God with no other divine rivals, it is possible to unite everyone around him. The same with humans: if there is one, there is no conflict. As soon as you introduce the second human into the room, there is conflict. This is why most human conflicts take place between couples. Just kidding. Couples never fight. No surprise that monotheism and global empires came about around the same time, and also no surprise that monotheism spread throughout the world like wildfire through empires. Well, sometimes they actually did burn others, replacing all the pagan and animistic religions. Today, Christianity and Islam are two of the most widespread religions in the world. Of course, there are exceptions: Hinduism is polytheistic, and Buddhism is atheistic.

So, Christianity allowed the Roman Empire and later the Vatican to say their political legitimacy or moral authority came from God, who was impartial, immortal, and all good. So, if God is the ultimate ruler, it means no human could compete with God. This was genius. If not a single human could compete with God, what did it mean to be human? It meant we're all equal. This led Christians to introduce one of the most revolutionary concepts in history. Up until then, social hierarchy was not only practical but also seen as perfectly natural. So, in principle, all humans were equal in front of God. Boom. Everyone united.

Now, God was in charge. So, humans could just relax because they didn't have to worry about creating their own laws and rules for governance. It is nice to be able to rely on someone else to pave the way or write your reports or just tell you what to do. You don't need to use your brainpower much. This resulted in what's called the Dark Middle Ages in Europe. Why? Humans became too lazy because God was doing most of the work. While Christian laws were written by humans, nobody could scrutinize them because these rules came from God. Jesus Christ had said, "All real authority to rise from God." So, God was king.

Then, there was shocking news. In 410 C.E., barely 30 years after adopting Christianity as their religion, the Western Roman Empire fell. How is it possible that the Roman Empire had survived for centuries, and when Christianity became its religion, it crumbled? How did God allow this to happen? Augustine of Hippo offered an answer. His answer was to divide the world into two cities.

In his famous book, Two Cities: The City of God and the City of Man, he outlined his politics through a Christian lens. He argues that the fall of the Roman Empire had nothing to do with Christianity. So, Christians shouldn't blame themselves. It fell because Rome was not a true city of God, but rather driven by human desires for power, lust, and wealth. Augustine's political solution was very simple: the state must listen to the church and seek their guidance to make sure it stays on course and doesn't stray from the path of God. Since humans are flawed and political rulers are humans, we must build God's embassy, or the church, right next door to the palace. So, the ruler is constantly reminded and guided by their church. It's like your wife keeps you on your toes because wives are never wrong. The same is true about the church.

For the citizens, Augustine told them that to live in the City of Man is like a holiday, a temporary stop while waiting for the heaven's door to open. Despite it being temporary, people should practice justice, fairness, all good stuff until they arrive at the City of God, which is eternal. The Christian Europe listened to Augustine of Hippo's political advice. So, the church and the king worked together for almost a thousand years. First, the Frankish kingdom, which ruled most of Western Europe, worked in tandem with the Catholic Church, while the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium worked with the Orthodox Christian Church. The Pope legitimized the rule of the king, and the king listened to the Pope. This continued during the Holy Roman Empire, which came after the Frankish kingdom. Europe was deep asleep because the Pope and the king became lovers, sleeping in the same room and sometimes in the same bed. Life was good. When you have the big sky daddy looking out for you, you can relax at home.

But wait a minute. The Muslims, who also claim they have the true God, conquered the Holy Land. For 200 years, the European Christians fought a series of battles called the Crusades with the Muslims. The Christians ultimately lost the battle because they couldn't stop the Muslims from taking over the Holy Land, which ultimately weakened the belief that God was a great protector. This encounter with the Islamic world through the Crusades, however, did something incredible. European scholars rediscovered the works of Greek giants Plato and Aristotle, and Russian philosophy, through Arabic translations of those works. So, the failure to secure the Holy Land weakened the belief in faith, and the rediscovery of Greek rational philosophy also shifted the view of God as the greatest power towards a more human-centered politics that utilized reason.

Thomas Aquinas looked at nature and realized that only humans have the capacity for reason. Why is that? Why don't other animals have the ability to think rationally? He concluded that reason is basically a gift from God to humans, which puts us apart from other animals. Aquinas argued that there are three types of laws. First, eternal law comes from God, which rules the whole universe, like gravity and life cycles. Second, natural law, which is similar to personal ethics, is determined by reason. Humans are gifted with reason, meaning we don't do bad things because we are rational beings. And finally, human laws are determined by humans that deal with crime and punishment. So, basically, eternal law comes directly from God. Natural law, our ethical behavior, comes from God, but indirectly through our God-given ability to think rationally. Finally, what makes humans different from other animals is the ability to form social communities, which in turn needs human laws to govern it. We can see the influence of Aristotle now translated into Latin, thanks to the Crusaders.

Now, how to govern human society? Aristotle argued that the purpose of humanity is to promote virtue and a good life. Aquinas, however, says the purpose of human society is to educate its citizens to think rationally, which in turn leads them to live in accordance with natural law, which means they live as Christians who follow God's rule. Unlike Augustine of Hippo, Thomas Aquinas shifted the focus of governance from purely divine rule to a more rational rule. So, basically, if you are rational, you will naturally find God, and it inevitably leads society towards a Christian form of governance. It's almost mathematical: 2 + 2 = 4. God gave us reason. Reason helps us live ethically. Living ethically means you're a Christian. Christians naturally create good political laws to govern society. So, in essence, it all goes back to God, the real G, the true king. Human kings are just God's local governors, assigned for a temporary post to rule over a particular kingdom.

But what if there is a dispute between the Pope, God's spiritual envoy, and the king, God's governor-general? Who is right? Giles of Rome, in his famous book titled On the Governance of Rulers, tackles this question. When husband and wife argue, the wife is always right. But when he's right, but who is right when the king and the Pope disagree? Mr. Giles of Rome says it's the wife, I mean the Pope, saying that ultimately the church has a higher authority than the king. In other words, politics is not above spirituality. The domain of politics is this temporary world, while the domain of religion is heaven, which is the permanent world. Politics is about managing a two-star hotel, while religion is managing a five-star heaven. As political animals, we need a king as a chaperone to help us tackle social issues like crime and punishment. While the king is ordained by God, he is still a flawed being. To make sure the king follows God's laws on earth, the church is basically God's embassy to make sure the monarchs don't go too far from the will of God. If they do, the church is there to twist their ears and tell them to calm down. If the king goes too far, the church can intervene, as they are the higher authority. But what happens when the church goes in the wrong direction? Well, the king is an inferior authority. So, who has a higher authority than the church? But we all know that God is mostly an absent father who is not always around here.

The politics of Christian Europe erupts with a new shockwave. There's a huge earthquake and the political landscape. Marsilius of Padua was writing at the time when there was a power struggle between the Pope in Rome and the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire. Who is right and who is wrong? He argued that the source of legitimacy for a king is not with the Pope but with the collective will of the people. He argued that Jesus was a teacher, not a ruler. So, the church should focus on teaching, not politics. If the Pope acts as an emperor, he loses his moral and spiritual authority. He has no business in politics because politics is messy and dirty. So, the king shouldn't listen to the Pope but should obey the collective will of the people through various councils of representatives. Politics deals with practical matters, so it requires a secular leader who represents the people. This is a clear call for the separation of church and state. Marsilius was actually a doctor, so he earned a living by treating patients. Always follow the money. The king taxes the public, so he should answer to them, not the church. Also, it's the subject who must die in the battles to save the kingdom. So, the kingdom is basically propped up by the people, not the Pope.

Now, we begin to see that God is not the real source of authority in politics, but the people. This is the beginning of secularism in Europe. The rule of God lasted over a thousand years. But now humans were waking up to claim the throne for themselves.

So, to conclude this segment, monotheism and empires evolved at the same time. One God in the sky and one emperor on earth made sense. Christian thinkers like Augustine of Hippo and Thomas Aquinas argued that humans needed God to mediate in its political affairs or at least guide humans in their politics. But the marriage of church and politics worked well until the Crusades showed its weaknesses. So, Europeans returned to embrace human rationality instead of God.

In the next segment, I'll discuss Islamic political thought, which has a lot in common with Christian thought, but also some major differences.

In the previous segment, I discussed the Christian political ideas: God being the ultimate authority. However, religion and politics were seen as separate entities. The church acted as God's embassy to convey God's message to the king. But the Pope didn't replace the king. In the Islamic world, however, the spiritual leader and the political leader was merged into one. The religious rulers were also the political rulers in most of the early Islamic history. In other words, a political rule was in essence a religious rule. Allah as the ultimate sovereign power in the universe also rules over everyone. A sovereign's authority only comes from Allah. Therefore, the political leader is only answerable to God, not the people.

Islam as a religion has a political beginning. Prophet Muhammad founded Islam in 610 C.E. through divine revelation. In 622 C.E., he and his followers fled to Medina, where they established the first Islamic rule. Islam has a lot in common with Christianity. For example, both religions trace their lineage to Abraham. Both are monotheistic and have many concepts in common. Both believe this world is temporary and afterlife is permanent. But there are some major differences too. One of the biggest differences is that Muhammad claimed he was the last prophet, therefore making Islam the last religion in the Abrahamic tradition. Another major difference is that Muhammad was not only a prophet and spiritual leader of his community; he was also the political leader. His first political establishment with a clear constitution was Medina, which means "the city of the Prophet." The constitution laid the rule of law, the duty to fight to defend the city, and keeping peace. The constitution stated that conflicts between individuals must be referred to Muhammad, who conveyed things from God. In other words, just in the Christian tradition, the authority of the state to resolve human conflict came from God, an impartial mediator.

As we saw, since ancient times, the goal of politics has always been to create harmony. The word "Islam" in fact means peace. Since humans are flawed, the best way to bring peace is to make Allah the ultimate authority. But wars are inevitable. Therefore, Islam introduced the concept of jihad. While open to interpretation, jihad has been used in both defensive wars as well as offensive wars, resulting in Islamic expansion and creating an empire larger than the Roman Empire. The Islamic Empire, centered in Baghdad, paved the way for the Islamic Golden Age, when Muslims married Greek philosophy and science with Indian mathematics. Great Islamic scholars also tackled the question of politics. Al-Farabi, born in Central Asia, spent his formative years in Baghdad, where he read Aristotle and Plato. In his book, The Virtuous City, Farabi argues two things. First, he agrees with Aristotle that humans are social, therefore a political system is necessary, and the goal of politics is to promote a good life. However, Farabi argues that a good life is only possible if it aligns with the message

of God. In other words, the ultimate virtue is to follow the divine, which is only attainable if you follow the Sharia or the Islamic law. According to Farabi, politics should also promote happiness among the citizens.

"Laws should aim at the happiness of all, not the power of a few."

Second, he also agrees with Plato that philosophers make the best rulers because they seek wisdom and virtue instead of material gains. Farabi, however, argues that wisdom and virtue are not enough. The philosopher king must also possess divine knowledge. Therefore, a philosopher prophet or imam makes the best ruler. Rationality is not enough. A ruler must also follow God's commands; this is always a better leader. So, Farabi's virtuous imam is like a mirror image of how God rules over the universe. The universe works perfectly because Allah is a perfect ruler. Farabi believed that the citizens of the city-states suffered from ignorance, mistaken beliefs, and human lust.

"Ignorance leads to fear. Fear leads to hatred, and hatred leads to violence."

This is only remedied when the rulers are the perfect models of virtue and faith. So, the state should provide the opportunity for its citizens to seek wisdom and knowledge, and this will make people happy. In other words, Farabi says happiness is achieved when you seek knowledge, not pleasures like food, sex, or alcohol.

Since Farabi lived in the capital city Baghdad, he had the luxury to be philosophical. Thinkers in the provinces were far more hands-on with reality. One of these thinkers is today considered the father of modern sociology. Ibn Khaldun, a North African, took a more sociological approach to politics. Unlike Farabi, Ibn Khaldun shifted from philosophical abstract to concrete observation of how society functions. Like a true scientist, he studied the Berber tribes of North Africa. He understood that a society or tribe is more than the sum of its members. In other words, a society or tribe has a spirit of its own.

Not only that, Khaldun came up with a definition for government. According to him, government prevents injustice. Other than such, it commits itself. In other words, a government basically defines who has the power to use violence and injustice. It strips everyone's ability to do injustice, but gives itself to do justice or even injustice. Khaldun believed that humans are inherently tribal. Therefore, a political establishment is not only necessary but also inevitable. It's almost a natural necessity because a tribe needs protection from other tribes. So, the purpose of a political establishment is to protect its citizens.

When a political entity gets corrupt or tyrannical, a new group emerges to rescue people from such corruption or tyranny. They unite everyone to topple the old system. It's energetic, vibrant, and full of optimism. They collect tax to run the new government and protect people. The goal is to create a less corrupt and tyrannical system. But once the new government gets comfortable, it starts to forget its initial goal of bringing justice or fairness. Instead, it collects tax to maintain the lavish lifestyles of the ruler. Now, the political establishment replaces the interest of its citizens with its own selfish interest and the preservation of the state itself. This leads to tyranny, which breeds discontent so much that another group emerges to topple the regime. They too promise the well-being of everyone. Once they take over, they repeat the same things. George Orwell's *Animal Farm* satirizes this process beautifully. This is why empires rise and fall. This led Khaldun to conclude that history is cyclical. As empires come and go, dynasties emerge, dominate, and then disappear. Just like life, you're born, grow up, and then fall.

So, what is Khaldun's solution? Unlike other philosophers and thinkers, he is pretty pessimistic. There is no perfect solution. He does, however, think a rule by a single person tends to be better than a rule by an elite class. Why? First, one person is easier to be good, less corrupt, and easily reformed than a whole class of corrupt rulers. Second, a one-person rule is also cheaper to maintain economically by the taxpayers, which makes sense. And third, this person can be a caliph who is a devout Muslim, therefore gets his moral and political cues from God. A gang of corrupt politicians is far worse than a one bad apple.

Having said that, Khaldun is realistic about politics, arguing that a government is a necessary evil. While it can fight injustice, it's more capable to cause injustice too. So he favored a small government with minimum power.

So to conclude, the introduction of God into the political mix allowed humans to shrug off responsibility and blame God for their political mismanagement. There is a joke that when Muslims say "inshallah," which literally means "God is willing," it is a sure sign that it is not happening. Basically, it's a way to shrug off responsibility.

We notice a lot of similarities between Christianity and Islam. Both argue that humans are flawed and need divine intervention to make sure politics is fair. Not only that, the divine power is the ultimate power. No human is able to defy the power of God. However, there are some basic differences between Islamic and Christian political ideas.

First, the separation of religion and politics. Christianity was adopted as a state religion in the Roman Empire in 380 CE. So it was not there from the beginning. In other words, the Roman Empire was this gigantic power established centuries earlier. So the church was an adopted child. As a result, the church remained close but separate. Islam, however, started as a political entity, and the Islamic empires came as a result of the religion itself. So religion and politics were more intertwined.

Another major difference is that Christianity emphasized rationality a little more than Islam. While Islamic scholars based their ideas on reason, mostly copied the Greeks, the religion as a whole emphasizes faith far more than reason. And finally, the biggest difference, I think, which led to Christian Europe to adopt modernity, was the Christian concession that the Christian king's or the ruler's source of legitimacy wasn't just God, but also the subject or the people. In other words, a ruler's authority does come from the collective will of the people they rule. In the Islamic world, the collective will of the people is not as important as the will of Allah. And this is why most Christian countries adopted a more representative politics. While some might say Western democracy is nothing but a token democracy, only a name, as in practice a small group of people rule the country, it's far more effective in terms of individual freedom, which resulted in more secularism in the West, which opened the door to science and technology to flourish freely.

In the ancient world, parenting was through rigid hierarchies in the East and philosophical discussion in the West. But in the Middle Ages, parents introduced the fear of an outsider entity, God, to scold their kids. But by the 15th century, European thinkers were mature enough to reject Santa, or ghosts, or even God. So we needed a new method to convince them. God provided a psychological boost to politics, but now it wasn't enough. So in the next segment, we return to the law of nature, where rulers are no longer bound by religious morality or the divine psychological anchor, but brute force and deception.

Five. Nature revolts against God. How to maintain absolute power. Previously, I discussed how throughout the Middle Ages, in both Christian Europe and the Islamic world, politics was run by an almighty, immortal, and impartial God. However, in the 15th and 16th centuries, the power of the church started to slowly diminish in Europe, partly due to Islamic power conquering the last of the Roman Empire in the 1450s, resulting in disillusionment about the power of God altogether. So Europeans realized that religious faith was not enough to compete against the Muslims. They returned to the pre-Christian Greek and Roman world to bring back rationality. Despite a millennium of God's rule, humans were still animals. Therefore, rulers needed to resort to brute force, but above all, political manipulation, which can only be achieved through reason. So the idealistic divine rule was replaced with biological realism, where the strongest wins. Something akin to ancient China and India. The basic idea of realism is that humans are chaotic and erratic animals that need to be tamed, controlled, and ruled not through honesty or fairness, but through deception and brute force. This shift was the beginning of a new type of politics, as well as European domination of the world.

Niccolò Machiavelli, the Italian Renaissance thinker, in his book *The Prince*, advises the ruler to use any methods available to maximize power and dominance because the end justifies the means. A king must be a savage lion where necessary and a cunning fox where necessary. For Machiavelli, freedom, justice, and morality are nice and dandy, but not the duty of a state. The first and most important duty of a state is to maintain its power because without power, a state is useless. Second, the job of a state is to maintain the security of its citizens. In other words, security is far more important than moral goals like justice, freedom, or happiness. If your security is at risk, morality cannot save you.

"It's better to be feared than loved if you cannot be both."

Despite living centuries before Darwin, Machiavelli understood the nature of human politics. Evolution favors winners. For Machiavelli, a political ruler must be like a chess player: tactical, ambitious, rational, and ruthless. It is the winning that matters, not how you play. He says,

"And the actions of all men, especially princes, where there is no recourse to justice, the end is all that counts. A prince should only be concerned with conquering or painting a state. The means will always be judged to be honorable or praiseworthy by each and every person because the masses always follow appearances and the outcome of affairs, and the world is nothing other than masses."

Earlier, we saw Khaldun describing the nature of politics with a pessimistic sadness that political dynasties come and go, civilizations rise and fall. But here, Machiavelli doesn't see it as a bad thing. Instead, he purposefully prescribes the moralities for the weak and power and deception for the strong. In the same way, evolution doesn't care if a species goes extinct; it only cares about the survivors. Machiavelli says, "He who wishes to be obeyed must know how to command." In order to prevent a rebellion, a ruler must show terror. Being a ruler means that everyone wants your job. So at any moment of weakness, someone can snatch the throne away from you. Therefore, this is paramount that you use any means available to make sure you keep your power and wealth. Machiavelli came at a time when Europeans were considering a divorce from the church. So they wanted a replacement. His ideas are basically the same as those of Sun Tzu and Chanakya: survival is more important than morality; greatness is more important than goodness. Today, Machiavelli's name refers to the idea of ruthlessness in business and politics. He's especially relevant in international politics, where realism is still the dominant idea, as a state is only relevant if it has power.

Jean Bodin lived during a tumultuous time of French civil wars when the Catholics were in conflict with the Protestants. Bodin, in his book *Six Books of the Commonwealth*, echoes Machiavelli's absolute power of the monarch, who can be above the law and morality in maintaining his power. If there are competing powers, this inevitably leads to conflict between them. But if there is one strong ruler, nobody dares to challenge him.

"The best expedient for preserving the state is never to grant a prerogative of sovereignty to any subject, much less a stranger, for it is a stepping stone to sovereignty."

While Machiavelli's goal of politics was to maintain and gain more power, for Bodin, absolute power is necessary for the sake of peace. It's a little like nuclear deterrence in modern day because it's so devastating that it actually creates more peace. The same for a sovereign who is so powerful that nobody in their right mind would even challenge him. This means real peace. Two equally powerful kings often fight each other because they think they have a chance. But nobody dares to challenge a giant king whose power is so enormous that everyone feels limp. So for the republic to prosper, the sovereign ruler must hold absolute power to make and break the law. In other words, nobody should question his authority. Bodin goes even further by saying that a sovereign ruler must have perpetual power. This means a ruler is not some temporary ruler.

"In a democracy, sovereignty is vested in a majority. In a majority is not only at best an ignorant, foolish, and emotional mob, but shifts continuously."

His ideas laid out in his book *Six Books of the Republic* were instrumental in the formation of a strong nation-state in Europe that cemented the absolute power of the sovereign ruler over those countries. Even to this day, his idea is important in the notion of state sovereignty in international politics, encroaching on another state's territories, an act of war. So a nation's sovereignty is almost sacred in international relations.

While both Machiavelli and Bodin saw things from a perspective of the ruler maintaining their power, how about the people? Do they benefit from being in a relationship with the ruler? Have they joined the Commonwealth voluntarily or by force? Thomas Hobbes, who was writing during the English Civil Wars of the 1640s, believed that humans were animals and if left to their own devices, they would turn into dog-eat-dog creatures. Why? Scarce resources push humans to fight one another. This means that humans actually prefer to join society to escape the brutality of nature. It is not a forced marriage to the sovereign, but rather they voluntarily join society because it's safer. People are not stupid.

In his book *The Leviathan*, he argues that humans are naturally selfish and they would do everything to fulfill their own self-interests. To tame humans, he argued a civilized state is essential to protect them from each other. So a state limits freedom; in exchange, it offers security. In the long run, it is security that matters, not freedom to be able to do whatever.

"Life in the state of nature is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short."

To escape this horrible state of nature, humans have made a contract with their governing rulers. In return for their obedience, the state protects them and their property. Unlike Bodin, Hobbes does not believe the ruler's authority stems from the ruler himself or God, but it is from a social contract in which the citizens submit to the state, and the state, in return, offers protection. It's like a herd of animals who follow their leader not because God told them to do so, but because they know if they follow their leader, they have a better chance of survival. This social contract includes obedience by the citizens and security by the state, which in turn can lead to peace, justice, and protection of them and their property. So the primary job of the government is to offer security.

Just like Machiavelli, Hobbes believed the government had unlimited power to use whatever forces it had to make sure it happens. It can impose strict rules and curtail people's freedom and even smack them in the head if they disobey their boss.

"Not believing in force is the same as not believing in gravitation."

Hobbes had a very pessimistic view of human nature as an animal whose essence of savagery and brutality has no bounds. So Machiavelli's goal was increasing power; Bodin's was to maintain perpetual peace; Hobbes' goal was keeping security for all. But all three treated people like children, as though they are selfish and immature who cannot be trusted. Not only that, human nature was static and unchangeable. Our next thinker, however, comes to uplift the citizens. Actually, if you give them autonomy, they can be good and rational.

Immanuel Kant, best known as a philosopher of rationalism, echoes Machiavelli and Hobbes' top-down approach that governments do not need to follow policies that make the citizens happy. He also argues that it is necessary to have a robust state, otherwise the state of nature is inherently anarchic. While a civilized state is formed on the basis of social contract, i.e., we give up some freedom for security. As a rationalist philosopher, he considered happiness to be subjective and temporary. So you cannot make laws for the happiness of the people. In this social contract, the citizens, according to Kant, do not have the right to disobey the state. In fact, Kant was firmly against the French Revolution because he considered rebellion of any form to be wrong. So Kant believes that even if citizens are not happy with their government, they have no right to topple it or refuse to obey its laws.

While citizens have a duty to obey the laws, the state is also bound by the law. It's a two-way street. The duty of a state is to protect its citizens and their freedom to conduct their lives as they want, as long as their freedom does not infringe on other people's freedom. The function of a true state is to impose the minimum restrictions and safeguard the maximum liberties of the people. So unlike the previous thinkers, Kant, in his essay *What Is Enlightenment?*, has a more optimistic view of humans as rationally mature beings. Therefore, he advocates for formal autonomy for the individual to make decisions. As a result, Kant is often considered one of the foremost intellectuals of the Enlightenment.

So, Machiavelli took his cues from the chaos of nature, where it's all about winning and losing. Bodin argued that to maintain peace, absolute power was necessary. Hobbes argued that a civilized state has every right to tame the unruly humans because citizens have yielded their freedom in exchange for security and protection. Kant takes a slightly softer approach. While citizens cannot revolt against the state, the state too should allow and protect citizens' autonomy as long as they don't harm others. So all these thinkers understood that a solid state was more important than the happiness of the people. In other words, security trumps happiness and freedom.

But things were rapidly changing in Europe thanks to colonialism, which brought riches which allowed comfort for many people. So thinkers began talking about the good stuff like freedom, equality, and happiness. They could afford to be generous because colonialism opened a whole new treasure chest for these elite Europeans. Now humans were truly in charge. There was no need for God. Life was good. Now, not only was God not necessary, humans were able to fight nature alone. Not just fight, but also control nature. In the next segment, we move away from nature into a cushy world of humanism, where being noise is more important than just security and protection.

Six. Humanism. In the previous segment, I discussed how Renaissance thinkers like Machiavelli, Hobbes, and to some extent Kant rebelled against the full sovereignty of God over humans. That colonialism gave Europeans even more confidence to tame nature. Therefore, consider loftier goals like freedom, equality, and happiness. Humanism has its roots in Christian belief that all humans are created equal in the image of God. Humanists argue that politics should protect, promote, and maintain human values like freedom according to liberalism, equality according to socialism, and happiness according to utilitarianism. Another element of humanism is that humans are not some savage animals but generally nice and ethical beings, and most importantly, humans are pretty rational. So in this segment, I'll discuss three major humanist political thinkers, each emphasizing a particular value. The English thinker John Locke focused on freedom. The Scottish thinker David Hume focused more on private property and utility, and the French thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau focused on equality. Together, they lay the foundation of political humanism.

John Locke argued that the purpose of government was to protect people's freedom and private property.

"The end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For in all the states of created beings capable of laws, where there is no law, there is no freedom."

In other words, the government's main role is to make laws that protect freedom and act as an independent and impartial mediator when people have conflicts. Locke argues that without laws, you cannot have freedom. One of the fundamental aspects of freedom for Locke is the ability to have private property. Without private property, freedom is meaningless. So the government's role is to protect it.

"Government has no other end than the preservation of property."

While we have moved away from the Machiavellian or Hobbesian terror of the state of nature, Locke still has the state of nature in the back of his mind, not as some terrifying, all-cold place, but a much nicer place where people mostly get along. So Locke is far more optimistic about humans, arguing that for the most part, most humans are morally good and conduct themselves well even in the state of nature. The only thing that is lacking in the state of nature is an impartial authority to mediate and resolve conflicts. So that's why we need a government to act as an impartial body to resolve our conflicts. But how do you make sure the government remains impartial? Locke proposed a separation of the legislative and executive branches of the government. In other words, those who make the law cannot be the same as those who execute those laws. Unlike thinkers like Machiavelli, Bodin, and Hobbes, who wanted a very strong government, Locke advocated for a minimum government because a powerful government becomes tyrannical and decreases freedom. Unlike Kant, Locke argued that citizens have the legitimate right to revolt against a tyrannical government who starts enslaving its citizens or ignoring laws. Since Locke had a more positive view of humans, he proposed a softer government who was acting as a mediator and lawmaker to resolve and reduce conflicts. There is no need for brute force or tyranny to get people in line. So Locke is often considered one of the most important founders of liberalism, emphasizing freedom as the most important value in politics.

But there's a problem. Freedom has no meaning when people are highly unequal. A poor peasant could have all the freedom to destroy the Amazon rainforest, but it's meaningless because he lacks the means. But if you give that freedom to a giant logging company, they can start tomorrow.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was also optimistic about human nature. He famously said, "Man is born free, yet he is everywhere in chains." Rousseau believed that humans are naturally good, but they are contaminated or tainted in society. In other words, the social conditions make humans act immorally or selfishly. He observed that those in the countryside were naturally nicer, friendlier, and fairer. But once people migrated to the big cities, instead of becoming more civilized, ironically, they became selfish animals. So for Rousseau, humans are innately good, but their social circumstances can influence their behavior. Rousseau rejected both Machiavelli and Hobbes' pessimistic views of humanity as something static and unchangeable. With the right social conditions, good education, humans would behave rationally and morally. This is why it's very important to have the right government to nurture humans to become good citizens. This cannot be achieved through brute force as Machiavelli and Hobbes had proposed. Humans are not sheep, so they don't need the terror of wolves to act right. Without the fear of consequences, most humans treat each other well, even in the direst of circumstances. Altruism, self-sacrifice, benevolence, and the protective instincts are all innately human, just as self-preservation. Rousseau blames the accumulation of private property as the source of selfishness that goes beyond self-preservation and turned society into a dog-eat-dog world. His famous book, *The Social Contract*, is said to have influenced the French Revolution in 1789, in which the anti-monarchy revolutionaries toppled the king, and France became a republic. Rousseau's egalitarian approach had major influence in political history, especially in the rise of socialism, communism, and feminism. His human-centered political idea shattered the old notion that everything was fixed and that humans needed a strong shepherd. So Rousseau argued that the accumulation of wealth in the hands of a few is the source of all evil; for society to flourish, an equal distribution of wealth is necessary.

But humans don't just crave freedom and equality, but also happiness. We are pleasure-seeking animals, after all. David Hume is a major figure in the Scottish Enlightenment, a movement that influenced philosophy, politics, and economics in the 18th century. David Hume had a 25-year friendship with Adam Smith, who is considered the father of modern capitalism. For earlier thinkers like Machiavelli and Hobbes, they feared human nature and destabilizing the government. But for David Hume, it was the government who was susceptible to corruption that worried him. So instead of power being concentrated in the hands of the ruler or a few rulers, Hume wanted a more distribution of power so not any single person could have too much power causing political problems. Hume also rejected the theory of social contract that citizens somehow make a contract with their government. Instead, Hume believed that political societies are formed not on the basis of individuals consenting, but rather on the basis of customs passed down from generation to generation.

"Custom then is the great guide of human life. It is that principle alone which renders our experience useful to us and makes us expect for the future a similar train of events with those which have appeared in the past."

These customs are not based on anything but the practicalities of human life of those who came before us. In his book, *An Inquiry Concerning Human Understanding*, he argues that customs are formed based on the needs of the people, not given by external forces like God. Hume, as an empiricist, understood that humans are shaped by experience, and these experiences over time solidify into customs and traditions, and they in turn influence us back. But there's a problem. Since we are shaped by experiences and customs, we are subject to change as our experiences change. This makes us less predictable and solid. Unlike John Locke and Rousseau, Hume believed that humans are flawed and imperfect. But instead of taking a Hobbesian or Machiavellian approach to punish human flaws, the government or the government institution should work with human imperfection and shouldn't try to suppress them. Hume believed that humans are more driven by passion than rationality, an idea which later Nietzsche emphasized in his philosophy. Hume says,

"Reason is, and ought only to be the slave of the passions."

Since emotions dictate a lot of what we do, happiness is an important aspect of human life. So government should not only limit it but try to create a balance in society. Unlike Rousseau, who saw private property as a problem, Hume argued that private property allows people utility, which in turn makes people happy. This is why Hume is loosely considered one of the pioneers of utilitarianism, which says that the role of the state is to maximize practical utility and happiness in society, which later became the basis of modern capitalism, consumerism, as well as nihilism. As an empiricist, Hume prioritized the practicalities of politics rather than grand ideal goals. His humanist political idea was to ground politics to focus on the experiences of people, customs, traditions, and the utilities they provided for the individuals.

To conclude this segment, European colonialism combined with technology and science allowed political thinkers to center politics on human ideals. Humanism rejected the sovereignty of God. John Locke focused on freedom, arguing that the purpose of the state is to maximize individual autonomy. Rousseau argued for an egalitarian politics and the reduction in private property. David Hume took a more practical, survivalist approach, saying that the role of government is to make it easier for individuals to have access to utilities. In the next segment, I'll discuss the sociological purpose of politics.

So, is the purpose of politics to protect freedom or create equality?

Seven. Equality. In the previous segment, I discussed how humans outgrew God after some technological innovations, scientific discoveries, and excess resources accumulated through trade and colonialism. So, the goal of politics became to serve the people. A humanist utopia replaced religious heaven. Liberalism promised freedom, socialism, material equality, utilitarianism happiness, and nationalism belonging. While freedom and equality are sociological, happiness and belonging are more biological. So the political right favors freedom and belonging, while the left favors equality and happiness. In this segment, I'll discuss the concept of equality inspired by the ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.

Whether to share your food or save it for later is as old as the human species. Scarce resources have always been at the heart of human politics and conflict. The French Revolution was instigated by the price of bread through riots in 1775. A rice riot toppled the Japanese government in 1918. The idea of all humans being equal might have existed in the human psyche for millennia. But in evolutionary biology, the harsh reality of survival favors competition, which is the basis of Darwinian natural selection. So equality only becomes a topic when society is well-off and peaceful. So no surprise that socialism became prominent in the 18th century in Europe when international trade and colonialism made Europeans filthy rich. But not everyone benefited. Charities were not enough to flatten this dark inequality. So thinkers like Rousseau saw private property as the root of all evil. Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, a French politician who in his 1840 book titled *What Is Property?* declared that private property is theft. But how? Proudhon argues that resources are always created through a collective endeavor. No building is built by one. No new company is built or maintained by one person. No society is built by a few. A society's wealth is the result of collective labor. But somehow a small bunch of people claim ownership, leaving everyone else to struggle. In other words, the people who have the worst physical burden in society somehow magically end up living in poverty, while those who don't get their hands dirty somehow legally own everything. But why? It's all politics. When power is concentrated in the hands of very few, it naturally allows a few to also control the wealth of a nation. Proudhon proposed a form of anarchy where workers could form cooperatives and collectives without a master.

"Whoever lays his hand on me to govern me is an usurper and tyrant, and I declare him my enemy."

As an example, according to stats, almost 85% of all crimes are property-related. Why? Those who have private property use politics as a vehicle of protection, making laws that make it illegal for others to have access to their wealth. Proudhon believed that all humans have a natural right to freedom, equality, and security. But private property grants freedom and security for the very few, while the majority cannot enjoy freedom and security. In other words, material inequality is anti-society because it includes some to enjoy the wealth of a nation while excluding the vast majority to live in poverty. Proudhon wanted reform in politics, so gradually gave more power to the people. But one of his disciples argued that equality is not given but taken.

Karl Marx learned a great deal from Georg Hegel, who said that everything is historical. Therefore, societies and political systems are shaped by history. Marx concluded that if our material inequality is the product of history, our history must be the product of previous generations. It means we can change it. Marx also agreed with Proudhon that private property was certainly stolen. But he believed that nobody would voluntarily return a stolen property unless we unite and take it from those who stolen it. Not only that, workers have a historical duty to remove capitalism, an economic system that breeds exploitation as a whole. Marx said that the history of our existence has been nothing but a continuous class struggle between the "haves" and "have-nots," the powerful and the powerless. He divided history into five stages: the primitive communism, when early humans had very little, and whatever they had, they shared. Then slavery came along, when some powerful people enslaved others. Then feudalism came along, when agriculture turned some into landlords and others into peasants. And finally, capitalism, which turned society into a minority of capitalists and a majority of the working class. Marx's final stage of history was communism, where people shared all the material resources. So a full circle, so to speak, starting with primitive communism. You can see traces of Christianity here: we were kicked out of the Garden of Eden when everything was perfect, and now the goal is to return to heaven where everything will be perfect.

Socialism was a prominent idea at the time, but Marx rejected them as utopian socialists. He called his own philosophy scientific materialism. He argued that humans are fundamentally motivated by material utilities, which are created through labor. In other words, labor is the true value in society. But capitalism turns this labor into a commodity bought and sold. This causes alienation through the "cog in the machine" process. Workers don't recognize or enjoy the fruits of their labor. Not only that, the system is exploitative because workers receive a small amount of their labor. The value of labor is transferred to the capitalists because they own the capital and the means of production.

"Within the capitalist system, all methods for the production of surplus value are at the same time methods of accumulation, and every extension of accumulation becomes again a means for the development of those methods."

In this unequal process, the rich get richer while the workers remain poor. So as long as there is capitalism, exploitation continues. What is the solution? Marx says the removal of private property. So to remove the illness, one must tackle the virus or parasite. When you remove private property, the capitalists have nothing but emperors without clothes on. Now the capitalists must also rely on their own labor. Marx predicted that communism was not only desirable but, based on his scientific materialism, it was also inevitable, given that the course of history was leading that way. His ideas influenced many revolutionaries, but most successfully outside Western Europe. For example, in the 1870s, Paris had a communist revolution, but it didn't last. Marxist experiments had a far more lasting impact in the rest of the world.

While Marx was the architect of communism, his disciples actually attempted to build the house, not in Germany, but in the cold of Russia. Vladimir Lenin was deeply inspired by Marx. However, Lenin noticed that Marx's communist design was made for Western Europe, mainly Germany and England, which were highly industrialized nations. Lenin had to improvise two fundamental changes to Marx's blueprint. First, Lenin noticed that Marx had a little too much faith in workers. Being on the ground, Lenin realized that workers were deeply disorganized, lazy, and often stupid. For instance, during the First World War, European workers didn't unite, but actually did the opposite. They fought each other along their national borders. Russian, French, and British workers were killing German workers. Just as capitalism has an organized, regimented army and police force, Lenin introduced the concept of a communist party to act as a robust vehicle to actually do the revolution. The party had to be highly centralized but also run from top-down, which is not in the spirit of equality, but it is a necessary bulldozer to get the job done. Second, mostly feudal society in Russia at the time was just getting started with capitalism. To create communism meant you had to jump a really long distance. Given the cold of Russia, that was a tall order. So, Lenin introduced a transitional period he called socialism. In other words, you cannot jump from feudalism to communism at one go. But this can be possible through a transitional period, which is basically a state-controlled capitalism. So Lenin took all the private property and means of production and gave them to the state bureaucracy. So Lenin's proposal was to have a robust centralized party and a robust centralized state-controlled capitalism. And now you can start dreaming about a future communist country.

In 1917, Lenin and his Bolshevik party took over Russia to establish the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), which lasted until 1990, more than 70 years. After the death of Lenin in 1924, Stalin took over and turned the USSR into a machine that helped topple Hitler, but also turned repressive at home, sending his enemies to the Gulags and Siberian labor camps. Stalin preferred the top-down revolution because even socialists needed strong leadership. We are sheep, and without a strong shepherd, we would become dinner for all the capitalist wolves surrounding the USSR. So Stalin took actually his cues from Machiavelli that the end justifies the means. So Lenin's attempt to create a truly equal society turned into a state-controlled capitalism. Now everyone was equally divided into two groups: the workers and the communist leadership. Then in 1990, it collapsed.

It was left to the Chinese to keep the flag of communism flying. Mao Zedong was also inspired by the German Marx, but he had the same problem as Lenin: that China was not a capitalist society. Not only that, China was extremely rural, and its Confucian hierarchical culture too was extremely different from the Christian culture of Germany and Russia. So how do you bring communism to China? Unlike Lenin, Mao had an advantage. He had an actual example of a communist revolution to observe. Mao studied the Russian revolution. So he incorporated Marx's and Lenin's ideas to create his own version of communism today known as Maoism. What is Maoism? It basically boils down to Russian-style state socialism combined with anti-Japanese nationalism, and you get Maoism. In other words, socialism plus nationalism. It'll be confusing if I call it national socialism, as it reminds us of Nazism in Germany. But Mao's China was basically a nationalist, anti-colonialist movement that also wanted to create a communist society in the future. While Lenin's dream of a communist revolution was realized at the end of the First World War, Mao's dream was realized after the Second World War. Mao had the moral and sometimes material support of Mr. Stalin, as well as other Allied forces fighting the Japanese. Being extremely pragmatic, he also studied ancient war strategies from Sun Tzu's *The Art of War*. Gathering all his knowledge, Mao realized he had to create his own army of peasants. But how can you recruit peasants when you live in a big city? Mao did his genius move. He started his Long March through the Chinese countryside that lasted more than a year, walking almost 10,000 kilometers. During these marches, he fought against the Japanese occupation while also managing to recruit a bigger and bigger army, like a centipede turning into a millipede. In 1949, he took over China, creating a communist state modeled after the USSR. Then in the 1950s and '60s, he began a series of cultural revolutions, forcing lazy city dwellers into the countryside to learn real life from peasants. Remember, Rousseau had said that the rural people are kinder, more generous, while city people are selfish. Mao wanted to teach these selfish urbanites how to become better humans. Of course, this led to the death of millions of people. After Mao, the Chinese Communist Party shifted gear by adopting capitalism, which led to China developing rapidly into one of the strongest economies in the world. While China is still ruled by its same communist party, it has changed its Maoist ideas and is now moving more and more towards a Confucian hierarchy where the best and the brightest rise at the top.

So to conclude this segment, seeking equality as a value led to many political revolutions throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. First inspired by Rousseau, Proudhon called private property theft. Then Marx critiqued capitalism and proposed communism as a solution. Lenin and Mao implemented those ideas in Russia and China, respectively. But then both countries, despite some minor successes in making them more equal societies, they ultimately turned their back towards equality and accepted that private property is better for the economic improvement of those countries. Private property creates competition, and competition is good for the economy. Evolution too favors competition, as it guarantees that the strongest survives and reproduces, so their offspring become stronger. But achieving equality is a deep-rooted human value that still shapes today's politics. Those on the political left still strive for some equality.

In the next segment, I'll discuss another sociological value, freedom, which is another important political purpose in modernity and often goes counter to the idea of equality.

Eight. Freedom, the politics of individualism. In the previous segment, I discussed equality as a political goal which inspired revolutions around the world, but none created true equality. Why? Because of our next human value. In this segment, we turn to freedom. When you're hungry, you want others to share their food with you, so you're looking for equality. But when you're not hungry, you want freedom more than anything else. Political freedom is an oxymoron because the very nature of politics is curtailing somebody's freedom under the law. But ironically, political thinkers realized that in order to have freedom, the rule of law was essential. In other words, laws don't curtail freedom, but rather protect freedom from the despots and the powerful.

Charles de Montesquieu was a French judge and philosopher who argued that to avoid absolute power of a despot ruler, it is paramount to have a clear constitution that limits the power of government. Montesquieu argued that there are three types of governments: despotism, more practiced in warmer climates; monarchy; and republic, which are more common in cold climates. He was firmly against despotism, so he favored a monarchy or a republic, but both with strong constitutions that fostered individual liberty. To make sure everybody's freedom is protected under the law. Montesquieu, in his 1748 book *The Spirit of the Laws*, proposed a revolutionary idea so much so that today it has become the gold standard in modern statehood. What was his genius idea? He realized that the modern state boils down to the laws it creates. Unlike absolute monarchy, a modern state pretends it follows the law. However, the problem is that the state is the same entity that creates the law, interprets the law, and executes the law. This leads to abuse and corruption.

"There is no greater tyranny than the one which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice."

A tree with one branch is vulnerable to diseases and collapse. To solve the problem, Montesquieu divided the state into three branches. These branches are the administrative branch that enforces the law, the legislative branch that creates or repeals the law, and the judicial branch that interprets the law. Even if one branch is diseased, the tree still functions with two healthy branches until it cures the diseased branch. This created checks and balances. So thanks to Montesquieu, no single government body could become powerful enough to turn into an all-powerful despot.

"When the legislative and the executive powers are united in the same person or in the same body of magistrates, there can be no liberty."

While his idea was rejected by the French, it was later adopted into the American Constitution. And today, this division of power is widely accepted and practiced around the world, at least in democracies. So, to conclude, Montesquieu argued that freedom is only possible under the law. But it wasn't only the state that curtailed freedom; other entities like the church and aristocracy also had immense power.

Voltaire, a French philosopher, was heavily influenced by his fellow compatriot Montesquieu. They both shared the same passion for individual liberty. Voltaire, however, focused on other enemies of freedom, mainly the church and the aristocracy. He argued that open skepticism and freedom of expression for all to criticize or even rebel against the dominant traditions and dogmas was necessary for a vibrant society to flourish. Voltaire saw two enemies standing against freedom. First, the Catholic Church at the time held immense power in policing speech. Secularists and other religious groups were heavily persecuted for their ideas and speech. As a freedom of speech and religious tolerance advocate, Voltaire was firmly against the church. There's a famous quote attributed to Voltaire:

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to death your right to say it."

While this quote does resonate with his idea on freedom of speech, it is unlikely that he phrased it that way. Second, he saw the aristocracy as a lazy and parasitic bunch in society. In other words, the aristocrats, with their unearned birthright privileges, stood against the freedom of everyone else. Despite his liberal ideas, Voltaire opposed democracy because it led to a stupidity of the masses controlling freedom of thought and speech. Democracy in practice could turn into a mob rule that would oppose any idea or speech they don't like. Instead, he favored a constitutional monarchy where an enlightened king would rule the nation through rationality. The constitution would be a safety mechanism that made sure the monarch acted in the interests of the people. The government was to allow economic activities to run freely. Voltaire's idea influenced the French Revolution of 1789, which took place only a year after his death. He's best known for his criticism of absolute power, arbitrary justice, and the church's dogma.

To sum up, Voltaire believed that liberty was necessary for a society to flourish because uncensored free speech allows good and bad ideas to be challenged openly. But now there was another enemy of freedom. It wasn't the state or the church, but the new grassroots ideology. Alexis de Tocqueville was writing when socialism was on the rise in Europe in the 1840s. So he saw it as a new enemy of freedom. The church no longer had the influence, and the state was under the threat of being overtaken by socialists. In order to create equality, they were threatening liberty. Tocqueville rejected socialism on three counts. First, he argued that socialism focused too much on materialism, ignoring other human qualities like virtue and generosity. In other words, for socialism, the enemy is not the bad people of society, but anyone who is rich. Second, socialism is against private property, and without private property, you cannot have liberty. And finally, socialism doesn't care about the individual because its aim is the collective. In other words, socialism is like a heavy machine turning individuals into cogs inside a giant bulldozer of revolution. And as it moves, it crushes the individual spirit because it's more focused on the class as a whole. Individuals have no freedom to voice their concerns unless it echoes the collective goal.

Tocqueville argued that democracy, on the other hand, promoted liberty, where individuals were free to pursue their own enterprises and take initiatives in innovating and changing society. He was immensely impressed by the American political system that promoted individual freedom, allowing Americans to pursue their American dreams. But was he too optimistic about American democracy? Henry David Thoreau disagrees with Tocqueville about American democracy being the leading cause of American progress. He argues that American progress was because of the genius individuals, not the government. He believed individual humans best flourished when the government had the least power and control. He famously said that government is

best, which governs the least. So the smaller the government, the better it was for the individual in society as a whole.

In his 1849 essay, "Civil Disobedience," he says individuals should have the right to disobey an immoral government. He was talking about slavery, which was still practiced in the US, simply by the virtue of allowing it to happen. The US government was not a legitimate sovereign. So he wanted citizens to resist their unjust government through nonviolent means, for instance, refusing to pay tax. He himself served jail time for the same offense.

As a radical individualist, Thoreau emphasized individual responsibility, individual ingenuity, and most crucially, conscientiously disobeying an unjust government. He was also against materialism. So instead, he took refuge in nature to get away from the noise of modernity. His idea inspired civil rights activists like Martin Luther King.

Frederick Nietzsche too was a radical individualist, well known more for his philosophical ideas. He was also an important political thinker. He can be best described as similar to Plato in his political ideas. Nietzsche rejected equality as a goal and criticized religion for promoting a slave morality where the weakest in society had the most moral virtue. Just like Thoreau, Nietzsche wanted individual excellence. His ideal ruler was the Übermensch, similar to Plato's philosopher king, who is either a great artist, musician, philosopher, or some other type of genius. To become an Übermensch, you have to excel in something. So he wanted a society where the best and the brightest would rise up the ranks and rule the society. For Nietzsche, democracy, socialism, and religious kindness are bad for the flourishing of the human race. Why? Because they prioritize moral values like equality and justice. Those values go against freedom. Nietzsche took his cues from nature, arguing that we are all driven by a will to power. We are here not to survive, as Schopenhauer's theory of will to life, or be kind to others, promoted by religions, but we are here to conquer and dominate.

It's important to understand Nietzsche's ideas as philosophical concepts rather than a practical blueprint. It is said that he inspired the Nazis in Germany, who applied his ideas to fit their fascistic ideology of racial superiority. Nietzsche was fiercely against religion, democracy, and socialism because they promoted mediocrity and morality of the weak. He famously said, "God is dead, and we killed him." The death of God was the freedom of the individual to rise up and replace social values through excellence. Socialism too hammered the nail that stuck out, therefore crushing the spirit of individualism in order to create a leveled society. Nature was also against democracy and utilitarianism, which appeased the masses and were nihilistic. Nietzsche believed in absolute freedom for the individual to excel and become a genius. Laws and moralities shouldn't stop certain geniuses from pursuing excellence. His idea of freedom is more philosophical and less material.

Frederick Hayek, the Austrian-British economist, believed free market capitalism was the best cauldron of ideas. In his 1960 book, "The Constitution of Liberty," in the shadow of the Cold War between free market capitalism in the West and state-controlled socialism in the USSR, Hayek proposed a limited government. Why? Because governments usually take a top-down approach, therefore despotic in nature. The free market, however, goes in the opposite direction. It's a bottom-up approach in which people act in their own best interest. When you buy a product, since you have worked really hard for your money, you only spend on things that are really important to you. In other words, in a free market, people vote with their biggest asset: money. In a government-controlled market, on the other hand, products are not chosen by the consumer but by the producer, i.e., the government itself. The consumer knows more about what he or she needs than the government bureaucrat. The same goes with the price of a commodity, based on supply and demand. So, just as in democracy, people are free to vote for whoever they want, in economic capitalism, consumers have the right to vote with their wallet. This requires that the government should stay away from the market as much as possible. Its main role is to maintain the rule of law. In other words, governments are there to serve the people, not push their ideas and products onto the citizens. The government is not our parents, but rather serves as, like a judge would in the court of law, an impartial body. In a free market, competition means only the strong survive, just like in evolution. So, Hayek argued that our true freedom only exists if you vote with your money, and this determines what products and commodities are offered on the market. If the market is not free, then ideas are not free either. Quote: "Economic control is not merely control of a sector of human life which can be separated from the rest. It is the control of the means for all our ends." In other words, consumers decide what is sold, not the government. One could say that for Hayek, consumerism is the best manifestation of freedom because what you spend your hard-earned cash on shows what you value. Could a government big enough to give you everything you want be strong enough to take everything you have? Hayek's economic ideas were very influential in the 1980s, especially during the reign of Margaret Thatcher in Britain, Ronald Macdonald—oops, I mean Ronald Reagan in the US, and Pinochet in Chile. They all cut taxes, reduced welfare, and relaxed market regulations. China said thank you, as it coincided with manufacturers moving to China for cheaper labor.

So, to conclude this section, Montesquieu argued that without laws, nobody can be free. Voltaire argued that without free speech, society stagnates, as good and bad ideas go unchallenged. Tocqueville saw socialism as one of the greatest dangers to freedom. Thoreau argued true freedom means individuals should be able to break the law to correct an injustice. Nietzsche argued that true freedom means you disregard not only the law but also morality. Hayek argued that the market is the best example of true freedom, where consumers vote with their cash.

So, these two segments, I discuss two sociological purposes of politics: equality and freedom, which are contradictory to each other. In other words, to create equality, you must limit freedom. And if you allow freedom, you must give up equality. In the next two segments, I'll discuss two biological values: happiness and belonging, or tribalism. We are pleasure-seeking animals, but at the same time, we crave belonging to a tribe. So, the next two segments are on utilitarianism and nationalism.

Nine. Happiness. In the previous segments, I discussed the sociological goals of politics, such as freedom and inequality. Liberal freedom helps innovation and moving the needle forward. Egalitarianism helps justice and makes sure everyone benefits from such innovation. In the next two segments, we focus on two biological goals of politics: happiness and belonging.

The philosophy of happiness goes back to the ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus, who created a kind of hippie colony where he gathered his friends to indulge in the pleasures of life. For him, a simple life was a happy life. This was echoed by the Dutch philosopher Desiderius Erasmus, who in his influential book "In Praise of Folly," argued that happiness is achieved through simplicity and folly. In other words, life is hard, and folly numbs the pain of existence. Therefore, most people seek pleasures in life.

As I discussed earlier, David Hume emphasized that politics is ultimately the result of human experience, not from God or some other lofty ideals. Over time, these experiences solidify themselves into customs and traditions. So, it all comes down to human experience, which is driven by our basic urge to see how something is useful or harmful. So, we are driven by judging everything based on their utility or usefulness. This became the basis of a political ideology called utilitarianism, which promotes the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. So, the goal of human politics should be to increase happiness and decrease unhappiness, or increase pleasure and reduce pain, which is a biological imperative. So, utilitarianism is pretty much biological-chemical-based, as it looks at what makes the organism we call human happy or content. We have basic instincts like the urge for food, sex, play, which are also the biggest causes of human conflict. So, these are utilities that we innately desire. So, politics should make it a top priority to provide us with utilities that make us happy and content. This also makes politics more stable. Happy people don't start revolutions. Only hungry, horny people start revolutions because they want something they really want. So, humans are less motivated by reason but rather by our innate biological urges.

Jeremy Bentham studied law. While he didn't practice it, he understood that the legal system is full of pain and misery. Both crime and punishment inflict pain and suffering. Instead of practicing law, Bentham sat down and asked a simple question: How can politics make people happy? He realized that crime is a major source of misery in society. A small minority of criminals make everyone's life miserable. Not only the victims, but also because of these few bad apples, the state introduces more and often stricter laws which affect everyone. A few people hijack a few planes that kill thousands, but now everyone must be searched every time they enter an airport. Bentham argued that giving harsh punishment to a few criminals not only keeps them away from the community, it also sends a message to other criminals to stop. So, it helps the community at large. It makes most people safe, therefore increases happiness. He says, quote: "It is the greatest good for the greatest number of people, which is the measure of right and wrong." In other words, since morality is based on pleasure and pain, politics should strive to increase pleasure and reduce pain.

But we have a problem because happiness is subjective. What makes you happy doesn't make other people happy. So, how can a government legislate happiness? Bentham takes a more free-market approach, promoted by his fellow British economist Adam Smith, saying that the government should stay as far away as possible from most things. It should only interfere in areas where its interference can lead to more happiness. In areas that it cannot help, it should stay away, like a good dentist or a plumber. In other words, the government should do a strict cost-benefit analysis before it cuts open a body to do a heart surgery. So, basically, the government is like an honest handyman who only repairs things that increase utility but doesn't damage other things. Just as you go to a car mechanic to fix your vehicle, hoping that they act honestly, you want the same thing from your government, who doesn't create more problems but rather pinpoints a problem and fixes it. This hands-off approach is called market capitalism and economics combined with a small government in politics.

Bentham was also in favor of democracy because it gave power to the majority of people. But in addition, democracy for him also made sure that the government listened to the majority. He was also optimistic that through democracy, over time, wealth will be more evenly distributed among all. So, Jeremy Bentham brought politics down to earth and placed it on our biological urge. Quote: "Nature has placed mankind under the governance of two sovereign masters, pain and pleasure. It is for them alone to point out what we ought to do, as well as to determine what we shall do." Evolution is happy to sacrifice a few so the species can live on. The same goes for humans. Throughout history, young men were sacrificed in war so the tribe, the community, or empire survived.

So, what if the greatest happiness for the greatest number leads to the tyranny of the majority, to sacrifice the minority? Not only that, what if the majority is just flat wrong or misguided? John Stuart Mill tried to fix some of the holes in Jeremy Bentham's ideas. Mill's solution to the tyranny of the majority is very simple: freedom. If you allow people to express their ideas freely, the market can decide what is good and what is bad. He argues that the role of government is to prevent harm, but it should not interfere in the life of an individual. In other words, when it comes to freedom, an individual is the ultimate sovereign in his or her own life. Mill defended utilitarianism through liberty that allows individuals and minorities to have a great impact on the happiness of the majority in the long run. So, unlike Jeremy Bentham, Mill goes back to the idea of liberty being the natural right of humans. Even if people have bad ideas, Mill says they should be able to express those bad ideas. A healthy society should promote a plurality of ideas, not the tyranny of the majority. Just as in the market, bad products should be displayed in politics too. Bad ideas should be heard. Only the market dictates if the product is good or not. The same is true in politics. Competing ideas make a society healthier. Just as free market capitalism helped the Europeans to dominate the world in the 19th century, a plurality of thoughts could create a more robust political system.

Also, Mill made a distinction between higher and lower pleasures. For example, an idiot might be happy while a great musician like Mozart might be miserable. Stupidity is a lower pleasure. Excellence is a higher form of pleasure. Freedom allows individual geniuses like Mozart or Newton to create utilities through art and science that benefit the majority of people for generations to come. So, to conclude, Mill valued utility above all else. But to achieve more utility, freedom was necessary. In other words, utility is a goal, and freedom is a tool to get more utility because only freedom allows smart individuals to create better tools that humanity benefits. So, to sum up, Bentham argued that the goal of politics is to increase happiness and pleasures. Stuart Mill added individual liberty to innovate as a good measure that society doesn't become stagnant in their pleasure-seeking hedonism. So, today, free market capitalism taps into our innate desire for pleasure and happiness. So, we work hard to earn money to spend on things we enjoy. Modern consumerism is a new permutation of old utilitarianism. If you move utilitarianism to its extreme, it leads to nihilism, where there is no higher meaning in anything except we are a pleasure-seeking monkey.

In the next segment, I'll discuss another biological urge which counters utilitarianism by arguing that belonging gives us a much better political purpose through nationalism.

10. Nationalism, the Politics of Belonging. Previously, I discussed utilitarianism, which taps into our animalistic urge for pleasure. In this segment, I'll discuss another biological urge: tribalism, through nationalism. While nationalism is not strictly biological, it has its roots in biology. While modern states are complex and often ideological, they are initially formed on the basis of tribalism. Most nation-states have some common roots centering around a dominant ethnic, linguistic, or religious group. To cement a strong national bond, myths are created to strengthen patriotism.

As social animals, we have an innate urge to belong to a tribe, community, country, or all of them. This is the basis of modern conservatism in politics. No surprise that conservatives tend to be more nationalistic. Even modern ideologies of left and right divide mimic our innate desire for tribalism. The idea of good and evil symbolizes this during wars. During the French Revolution of 1789, they had a slogan of "Liberté, égalité, fraternité." I have discussed liberty and equality in previous segments. The third slogan was fraternity, which is the sense of tribalism or brotherhood. While not a new idea, it's perhaps the strongest bond within a political establishment.

Montesquieu argued that different climates created different political systems because climate influences human behavior. He argued that those in hot or warm climates tended to focus on short-term, not long-term, while those in the colder climates tended to love freedom more. Perhaps back in the days, the antisocial types moved to the colder climate to get away from others. Hence, they love freedom. The difference manifested itself in the types of government these societies produced. So, northern Europeans preferred smaller governments with more individual autonomy, while those in warmer climates focused on the pleasure of life rather than freedom. So, each nation has different characteristics based on the climate it's located in. Today's wealth disparity seems to prove Montesquieu's theory. Most affluent countries are in the north, with some exceptions.

Unlike liberalism, socialism, and utilitarianism, nationalism believes that culture is responsible for the kind of political system people create. In other words, nations or cultures are not the same. Some cultures or nations are superior to others. Johann Gottfried Herder, a German thinker, argued against the Enlightenment idea that all humans were equally rational despite their cultural differences. According to Enlightenment philosophers like Kant, Voltaire, and Rousseau, humans are all equal in their rational faculty. Therefore, they believed in a kind of universality among all humans. But Herder wasn't buying that. His theory of cultural character describes the uniqueness of every culture. As a result, a nation's happiness relied on preserving and promoting their own culture and tradition. Members of a particular culture derive pleasure in seeing their own culture flourish. He placed importance in language, saying that each language produces something called "national spirit," which is unique to the speakers of that language. Language is like the water of a pond, and if you take a fish out of that pond into a different pond, it would feel out of place. Quote: "Each nationality contains its center of happiness within itself." Another example was national songs and myths, which moved the people to tears. But if you sing a song of a different country, it has less impact on them. Of course, today we live in a world that's very different from the 18th century. A lot of people speak a second or third language, which was very rare back then. But back then, there was a sudden rise in nationalism in Europe as people were claiming their own independence from big empires. And two centuries later, it spread to the rest of the world as more and more countries got their independence from their colonial powers. At the time of Herder, there were about 50 countries, and today almost 200. It is also claimed that the Nazis were partly inspired by Herder's idea of national socialism. So, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to claim that Herder was the first to propose nationalism as the bigger driver of human politics.

With modernity came individualism, which promoted selfishness, pleasure-seeking, hedonism, and the breakdown of community. Giuseppe Mazzini was an Italian critic of individualism for spreading greed. He believed that the essence of human existence is not the individual but community. When we lose a sense of community, we replace it with greed and hedonism. Mazzini believed that freedom was nothing but an illusion for most people who lived in utter poverty. So, to remedy this, all individuals had a duty to look after their brothers and sisters. But can we not do that for the whole of humanity? Mazzini says no. Why? It is simply impractical to do so, as we don't speak the same language or share the same understanding. It's only possible within a nation. In other words, a nation is the best vehicle to achieve common good. He believed a country was more than the sum of its people. It was a community of brothers who would sacrifice themselves for each other. Quote: "A country is not a mere territory. The particular territory is only its foundation. The country is the idea which rises upon that foundation. It is the sentiment of love, the essence of fellowship which binds together all the sons of that territory."

Mazzini's ideas influenced the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini. He also wanted European countries to have good relations in which they all cooperated, which was realized a century later through the European Union. Giovanni Gentile formulated his nationalism in line with the ideology of fascism. Gentile became part of Mussolini's fascist regime as a minister of education. Gentile was against individualism and believed that the state was the embodiment of all citizens as well as spiritual values. Therefore, it was the duty of the individuals to protect and make it stronger. In other words, the state is the spirit of the tribe. If the state dies, the tribe dies. The word fascism comes from the Italian word "fascio" for a bundle of sticks. It is easy to break one stick, but if it's a lot harder to break a bundle of sticks, so you're stronger when you're united. In the 1930s and 40s, fascism became an important ideology that took over Italy, Germany, and to some extent, Japan. Unlike other ideologies, fascism believes in the primacy of a strong state. Individuals are there to serve the state, not the state to serve the individual. Fascism was fiercely against socialism as well as liberalism. So, in the 1940s, it all came head-to-head in Europe. On the one side, Germany, Italy, and Japan, and on the other side, America, Britain, and France defending liberal ideas of freedom, and the Soviet Union defending the socialist idea of equality. The fascists of Italy, the national socialists of Germany, and Imperial Japan were all defeated in 1945.

The events of the 1940s in Europe didn't deter nationalism, but it spread it throughout the world. Nationalism became an anti-colonial force in the Indian subcontinent, in Africa, the Middle East, and Southeast Asia. Many nations got their independence from the European colonial powers. So, today, the world map doesn't show the map of equality or freedom or happiness. It is the map of nation-states. More military personnel are tasked to protect borders than freedom, happiness, or equality. So, today, the world is run by nation-states. Nation-states exercise control over a particular territory, and the people of those territories would fight tooth and nail to protect the borders. Are we misguided to believe that nation-states work for us, or are they simply using us to protect themselves?

Michel Foucault takes an archaeological approach to dig deeper to understand the nation-state and the concept of power. What is power? Where does it come from? Some say power resides with the people. Some say it resides with the state. Machiavelli and Hobbes said it's the state that has the power. Liberal thinkers, however, argued that the source of power is the people. Michel Foucault, however, looks at power more like Einstein looked at gravity. Foucault says power is not an independent entity like rocks or trees. Power is relational. Power does not exist in a vacuum. It only exists between individuals and between individuals and the state. If you carefully peel the layers back and remove all the institutions one by one, the state becomes nothing but an emperor with no clothes on. But power lies in the many layers between the state and the individual on the street. So, a powerful state is not a thing but a powerful practice. It is a story, a myth that we have bought into. A government is a technique, an art form, a series of controls and disciplines. For instance, the left-right divide exists in most democracies, which gives the illusion of old tribalism but is much more controlled. We believe we have a choice, but the system remains the same, and despite people in charge coming and going. So, nationalism is a myth and a story that each nation-state desperately needs and promotes. The powerful are powerful because of many intricate layers that exist between you and the powerful. So, a state consists of many institutions. Most citizens living in a country will never meet the most powerful person, i.e., the president, to experience his power. For a citizen, it's the police on the street who acts as the extended arm of the president who exerts his authority on you by asking for your photo ID at a traffic stop. Whenever individual citizens encounter a police officer or some other arm of the state, the first thing they ask you is your ID. Why? It's a mechanism of control to exert control. Your ID becomes a tool. It's also the endless number of CCTV cameras that you glance from time to time that discipline you. It's your boss at the workplace who controls your behavior, like being on time, dressing up, and being punctual. It's your landlord who gives you a bunch of rules.

So, the old notion of a powerful sovereign has changed. Michel Foucault was part of a movement in France called postmodernism. The old modernist ideal of equality was pretty much dead after two terrible world wars in the 20th century. Modernity as a project had promised to liberate humanity from God and nature. However, what it did was to replace the religious God with the human state. Now, humans are controlled by other humans. So, the difference between modernity and the old religious world was a change of guard. Instead of the church or God being in control, now bureaucrats and police were in charge.

Postmodernism has three problems with modernity. First, it didn't liberate the individual. It freed individuals from religion and tradition but built a new cage called the modern state. Second, modernity defined the world on the basis of individualism, which is a European cultural project. Other cultures don't value individualism in the same way. So, modernity was a bulldozer of exporting European values to the rest of the world while destroying local cultures. And finally, postmodernists criticize modernity because it believes in a single truth, which is problematic. If you believe there is only one truth, you are as dogmatic as religious fanatics who believe in a single God. Postmodernism's attack on modernity resulted in what is called cultural relativism, which was to counter colonialism and Eurocentrism. This further cemented the idea of culture being above universal values like freedom, equality, and justice. In other words, each culture can have their own values based on their shared language, traditions, and myths. This further strengthened nationalism and the nation-state. So, in this arena of cultural diversity, there is no single culture that claims they have the higher value. So, basically, modernity tried to remove religious relativism with universal values like freedom and equality, but now we have made a full circle and returned to cultural relativism. Each culture claims they have the best way of doing things.

History shows that most humans have cooperated within tribes, families, cities, empires, and civilizations in order to compete with other tribes and empires. Today, most citizens within a country pay tax, follow rules, vote, etc., to the same authority. So, the purpose of human civilization has always been cooperation inside the tribe for the sake of competing with external tribes. This has led some to suggest that we are heading towards a singularity. In some distant future, the entire human species turns into one huge beehive. But there's a problem. Human politics has always been characterized by us against them, good against evil. Nation-states exist because there are other nation-states they fear. Even in domestic politics, political parties paint themselves as the good guys. Remember the saying at the beginning: "The sheep fear a wolf, but it's the shepherd who eats them." In other words, if there was no fear of wolves, we wouldn't need a political establishment. The shepherd milks you, fleeces your wool, does your family planning by selective mating options, and protects you from wolves. We live our lives getting milked by the government through taxation and social control. Why? There are bad wolves out there. Of course, modern states are far more involved than that.

So, I'm saying all this to say this: a single human beehive seems a contradiction in terms because who would you fear if you lived in a single colony? Perhaps aliens, possibly. Or perhaps singularity can be achieved in a different way, through an incredibly sophisticated programming which can control two of our most basic desires: abundant food supplies and endless sex, and a drug that numbs it all. A brave new world, so to speak. Socialism was an attempt to unite the world, but failed. Fascism was another attempt, but it too failed. But there's another way the world can be turned into a single place. It is through technology and science, which runs on efficiency. AI is perhaps the innovation that can finally control everyone, to program us like ants and bees.

Conclusion. To sum up this course, as social animals, humans had to create political systems. As we discovered agriculture, we became sedentary. Not only that, now we had resources like land and commodities. Conflict became inevitable. Also, villages grew into cities, and this required a political system to control a larger and larger group of people within a small confined space called a city.

In Part One, I discussed the politics of the ancient world. In ancient China and India, rigid hierarchical systems based on dominance and obedience were created to prevent conflicts. Confucianism and the caste system provided everyone a clear position in society. Sun Tzu and Chanakya provided war strategies to defend the kingdom from outside intruders. While in ancient Greece, Plato and Aristotle wanted a philosophical order that promoted virtue. The Roman political thinkers tried to balance political rule with the Greek idea of virtue.

In Part Two, I discussed the Middle Ages, when politics became a bit more psychological and needed an external power. Christians and Muslims brought their solo God into the mix to mediate human conflicts. Why God? Because humans cannot be impartial, and good rulers die someday. While God is immortal, omniscient, and omnipotent. It was good while it lasted. Europeans, upon rediscovering ancient Greek philosophy, returned to rationality to develop humanism.

In Part Three, I discussed how rationality made humans lose faith in God and go back to nature. Machiavelli and Hobbes took their cues from ancient China and India for an absolutist state based on brute force. While humanists like John Locke, Rousseau, and Hume wanted a human-centered politics that served freedom, equality, and happiness of the people.

In Part Four, I tackled the question of the sociological purpose of politics. On the one hand, some political thinkers like Marx believed the purpose of politics was to create equality, while thinkers like Voltaire wanted freedom to be the sole purpose of the political establishment. These two ideologies, socialism and liberalism, dominated the last 200 years. Even in today's politics, the left wants equality, while the right wants freedom.

In Part Five, I returned back to our biological urges by discussing utilitarian thinkers like Bentham and Mill, who argued that the goal of politics is to increase happy chemicals in our monkey brains through utility. While other thinkers thought politics shouldn't focus on happiness because it's fleeting, but rather focus on building a strong community, which is another biological urge. Nationalism provides us with a sense of belonging. Just like the left focuses on equality while the right focuses on freedom, here too the left favors utility while the right favors community.

So, human politics have gone through five major battles: biological order in the ancient world, psychological order of the Middle Ages, philosophical order of the Renaissance, sociological order of the Enlightenment age, and finally, the biological order of today's politics. In essence, the history of politics can be summed up like this: Since humans are flawed, to prevent conflict, ancient China and India built hierarchies. The Greeks, however, offered rational wisdom as a solution. In the Middle Ages, the Muslims and Christians put God in charge to mitigate human flaws. Then, in the Renaissance, absolutism became the answer. Then, humanism blamed society for our flaws. Egalitarianism put the blame on income inequality. Liberalism blamed lack of freedom. Utilitarianism blamed lack of utilities. And nationalism blamed lack of community. Today, we are back in square one. We're still flawed, and our politics is also flawed.

As a species, humans have lived in many thousands of different tribes, which were slowly incorporated into a few empires. Some 10,000 years ago, farming turned humans into pollinators of wheat, rice, and other plants. Human population exploded, and today most people live in urban jungles. It took bees and ants at least 40 million years to create sophisticated hives and colonies. And it has taken humans just 7,000 years to create sophisticated political societies. Today, we have about 200 nation-states. So, in some distant future, we will turn into a single beehive. So, our starting point of human politics was our biological brute force that kept everyone in line. But as we became more sophisticated, we introduced psychological forces like God or human values like equality, freedom. But today, we are back to square one. We're still bound by our biological desires of seeking delicious nectar and belonging. We want utility and nationalism. We want a beehive with endless sugar and strong nationalism. It's only a matter of time, perhaps in a few centuries, when the entire humanity turns into one giant colony.

If you have made it to this point, kudos to you. So, my question to you is: Which political thinker resonated with you the most? Or a more interesting question is: Where do you see humans heading? As always, I really appreciate you accompanying me on this long journey. Thank you very much.