Summary

The old powers (the victors of WW2) and their heirs decided not to observe the very principles they legitimized in the UN Charter or the UDHR after they won World War Two (WW2). These were the ideals they promoted as being “the solution to the many problems involved in the promotion of international cooperation or the development of a full and complete structure of a world order under law.” The heirs of the old powers sought to preserve their strength and security by placing their hopes in a set of wholly different and rival standards. The heirs of the old powers entrusted the maintenance of their strength and security to critical thinkers and servants (including governments, international institutions, and security agencies) who consider themselves exempt from adhering to the appeals or policies suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR, as well as from the limitations of supercomputers that can simulate outcomes beyond the reach of human experimentation.

So far, the heirs of the old powers, along with their critical thinkers and servants (governments, international institutions, and security agencies), and the colossal supercomputers they rely on to enforce the laws legitimizing their dominant role, have disrupted our global political, economic, and cultural systems, including our understanding of public service. For example, the massive economic and social disruption caused by the heirs of the old powers, along with their critical thinkers and servants, has persuaded the citizens of New York City—the most populous city in the United States and the world’s premier financial center—to elect a democratic socialist as mayor in the 2025 election. This victory is at odds with the United States’ fundamental core political beliefs, convictions, and political values.

This paper examines whether the unusual political upset in the 2025 New York City mayoral election is merely a fleeting event in the history of the international postwar rule-based world order, which the old powers (the victors of WW2) established in the UN Charter and the UDHR and advised their successors to uphold in order to regain their influence, or if it signifies the beginning of a much larger and enduring upheaval. In this context, the paper examines the extent to which this odd political drawback in the 2025 New York City mayoral election may signal a turning point whereby people across the globe stop using the ideal of freedom and self-determination as a distinctive and exemplary principle in their ongoing mission to “redeem” the world from each other to allow competing ideological doctrines to take its place. This is because when freedom is locked up, creativity is reciprocally locked up along with it. When creativity is locked up, people stop gaining understanding of themselves; they start to rely on their personal power and conscience to increase their happiness, thus returning to their state of nature. When people stop gaining understanding of themselves, they return to their natural state (or Homo sapiens state). Accordingly, the paper tries to understand if this unexpected political event that occurred in the 2025 New York City mayoral election or in the city that houses the two largest stock exchanges by market capitalization in the world strengthens the power, wealth, and status of the heirs of the old powers (i.e., the families/dynasties that rejuvenate their power from the actual international postwar rule-based world order) or marks the start of their fall so new families/dynasties rise and start to play their role.

Problem

The cause of all the wars and conflicts that occurred between empires before WW2 erupted (including WW2) was over determining who arrived at stripping the political and economic control that an empire was exercising over an exclusive territory so the political and economic control of the displacing or repelling empire started to exercise such influence.

In 1945, the victors of WW2 dismantled their empires (i.e., ending their mandates, colonizations, etc.) and granted the societies that they vanquished during WW2 and the societies that they were dominating until this date freedom to carry out the obligations contained in the UN Charter or the UDHR in the hope of such initiative or recourse creating conditions of stability and well-being among the societies involved. In other words, the ideas contained in the UN Charter (such as freedom, human rights, liberal democracy, and equality) were the enticing tools that the victors of WW2 used to persuade societies that had previously hated and despised them to set aside their frustrations and cooperate with them in the aftermath of the war, even allowing these societies to gain more power than others.

Insofar as how the victors of WW2 agreed to establish who would hold greater power in the aftermath of WW2, they chose to ground this hierarchy not on maintaining a balance of power that would make aggression unprofitable for the fittest but on rewarding those who could divide and dominate both stable and weak societies—thereby channeling the results of such control into further expanding their own power. This strategy clearly prevents the victors of World War II from ensuring that governments respect the laws or the legal and institutional mechanisms intended to achieve outcomes or distribute rights equally when necessary.

The victors of World War II created a serious global problem when they stopped observing the very laws that legitimized their pursuit of self-interest and instead began seeking to secure their interests by the quickest means possible. We now have the victors of WW2 (the Western European monarchs and republics); their allies, such as the United States, Russia, China, etc.; and all the societies that they vanquished during WW2 and the societies that they were dominating until this date and freed to carry out the obligations contained in the UN Charter or the UDHR, including all the international institutions that they created to control relations, all relying on corruption, deceit, slander, disregard, etc. to determine who achieves his interests first.

Most importantly, since all the people who are not using the idea of evil (assassination, crime, fraud, corruption, etc.) to increase the happiness of the people who are staying with them and letting them have more powers than others are using the idea of good (freedom, human rights, liberal democracy, equality, afterlife, etc.) as a tool to achieve the same, we now have a situation in which all the benefits that people gain from the idea of good or evil are converting into becoming a commodity that people buy and sell in the same way people in markets buy and sell goods.

In other words, there is essentially no difference between the way Western European societies once bought and sold influence—good or bad—in the territories they colonized, competing among themselves to displace one another’s power, and the way this process unfolds today. The only real change is scale: before World War II, this exchange was carried out by a small number of actors, whereas now virtually every member of the human family participates in it. A good way to show this is to compare commerce before and after the internet: people used to buy and sell in physical markets, but now anyone can do it from home.

Throughout history, people have bought and sold each other, good or evil, and therefore, the insecurity that swept the world is not new. That is to say, what is at stake is not who wins or loses, but rather whether the “culture” that our predecessors spent all of human history shaping—its essential feature (character)—and then entrusted in 1945 to the heirs of the victors of WW2 to rejuvenate their power and use to guide the world forward will be spoiled or not. Much like a yogurt culture that, once spoiled, can no longer transform milk into yogurt, a corrupted global culture would lose its capacity to sustain and advance humanity. This culture is the American way.

The American way of life is an ethos that stresses the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness through a political system that prioritizes a capitalist free market economy blended in a representative democracy. That is to say, the political system in the United States is not a creed or a guiding belief that seeks to advance social democratic principles, communist principles, autocratic principles, monarchical principles, etc., to create ordered relations.

New York City is the most populous city in the United States. New York City is the world’s premier financial center and the most economically powerful city in the world. On November 4, 2025, an election was held to elect a mayor for the city of New York. The candidate that won the mayoral election ran on a democratic socialist platform. This victory is at odds with the United States’ fundamental core political beliefs, convictions, and political values.

This paper argues that the political upset in the 2025 New York City mayoral election—occurring in the world’s most economically powerful city and the home of its two largest stock exchanges—deserves serious reflection from the heirs of the old powers. This concern is because the event may be masking deep political contradictions with the fundamental economic principles on which those heirs have relied to renew their strength in the post-1945 international order.

Additionally, the paper will support the idea that unless the heirs of the victors of WW2 stop their critical thinkers and servants (governments, international institutions, and national security agencies) from regarding themselves as exempt from observing the work program suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR, the nature of global politics will continue to switch to becoming more about improving equality and social justice with limited preference for the values of individualism and competitiveness. The heirs of the old powers rejuvenate their power when the free market economy is strong and not when altruism, ethics, or rivaling ideologies to the American creed rise. When the heirs of the old powers begin relying on physical power to secure diplomatic influence, economic advantage, or military alliances—invoking the language of human rights, democracy, and equality to justify it—they inadvertently start dismantling their superiority, aided by the very thinkers and institutions tasked with renewing their power. This outcome is because, once the victors of WW2 dismantled their empires and liberated the peoples they once ruled, they effectively reached the end of the road. And when one reaches the end of the road, the options are limited: either return to where one started or remain at a point where further progress is no longer possible.

This paper will examine whether the heirs of the victors of WW2 can persuade people to remain aligned with them and allow them to retain greater power, even as more people around the world push to reshape the world order so that outcomes are distributed according to conditions that matter to the general population rather than to the heirs of the victors of WW2 or their successors.

Analysis

In August 1945, just one week before the official end of World War II (2 September 1945), John Birch—a U.S. Army Air Forces captain serving as a field intelligence officer in China—was killed during a confrontation with Chinese Communist soldiers.

In 1958, an American conservative political activist named Robert Welch co-founded a political advocacy society that bears the name of John Birch. Welch named the new organization after Birch because Birch was not only a dedicated anti-communist who lived and died in obscurity but also, according to the co-founder of this advocacy group, the first casualty of World War III. Werlch believed that the infiltration of communism in the US government and in governments that are allied with the United States would influence ideological and economic tensions that would ultimately lead to the outbreak of this global war.

Since 1945, the victors of World War II have opposed applying the lessons of the past to current practices. Since the date WW2 ended, the world has been divided into distinct geopolitical realities, and its actors use different ideologies to legitimize their core principles of ownership, role of government, and individual rights when solving social problems and promoting equality or order.

Since antiquity, only a few political and religious ideologies have managed to support social change that enabled the individuals involved to improve human rights and to shape ideas that future generations could consider useful. In the first millennium, Islam managed to organize (order) people of different ethnic groups, traditions, and values to form a community. But when Muslim leaders stopped applying past lessons to the present, they began to disagree. The unified political system and religious belief that the founding fathers of Islam built starting from the second half of the first millennium finally collapsed in the first quarter of the second millennium. Humanity had to wait for a few hundred years until a new ideology or idea started to share destiny and the future. In the middle of the second millennium, the political and economic system tested by the United States succeeded in creating more effective unifying political and religious relations than those established by Islam. The political representative democracy framework and religious liberty that the Americans employed helped them overcome their different ethnic backgrounds. The altruism that the Americans shared enabled the representatives who were granted political power to focus on civic virtue and to stress the common good to build a community while the means of production were being privately owned and operated for profit.

If in the aftermath of WW2 the political activists who co-founded the John Birch Society were concerned that communism infringed on the republicanism ideology that the United States tested with, and its political leaders managed to show by the end of WW2 that this dogma was capable of organizing people to create a community, then their preoccupation cannot be underestimated. If this unified belief that the Americans forged and managed to demonstrate is capable of building stability and peace between people of different ethnic backgrounds, traditions, and values, and it is dismissed, this loss would not be a backward step for the Americans only but for the entire human family.

It is important that readers keep in mind that the different ideologies that people use can be analogous to the different organs that permit the human body to function. People who want to become immortal need to find out how to avoid their organs aging. Of all the ideologies that people tested, the American political system demonstrated that it is capable of preventing people’s relationships from aging. Therefore, if the American political system (or American way of life) were abandoned, humanity would be discarding the medicine or drug that could enable our successors to establish peaceful relations. As I said before, in the last two thousand years, only the political and religious ideologies that people tested under Islam or the republicanism philosophy managed to organize people under a unified planned economy. All the other doctrines that people tested, such as democracy, communism, socialism, and monarchism, were ideologies that their proponents claimed would improve freedom, equality, social justice, and the common good based on their core principles; however, history later revealed that the individuals involved were actually organizing people within a segregated marketplace economy. That is to say, those aforementioned ideologies failed to produce ordered relations.

If, as I mentioned earlier, the founders of the John Birch Society were concerned in 1958 about the widespread clash of competing ideological philosophies in the United States and around the world, along with economic tensions that could ultimately lead to a third world war, then their unease was likely rooted in dissatisfaction with how the victors of World War II (the old powers) were reorganizing global affairs. The emerging “new world order,” embodied in documents such as the UN Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, appears to have unsettled them enough to motivate the creation of an advocacy group aimed at shaping public opinion against ideologies they believed threatened the principles of American republicanism.

I have no way of knowing what role the John Birch Society has played since 1958 in the United States and abroad to ensure that the republicanism ideology does not become devalued and rivaling political and economic systems such as democracy, communism, socialism, monarchism, etc. do not take over. What I do know is that the distinct political and economic systems legitimized within UN member states, which continue to compete with the idea of republicanism, suggest that the activists at the John Birch Society, along with other advocacy groups seeking to shape the international order so that republican ideals would permeate modern social structure, ultimately failed to cultivate the shared civic culture they had envisioned. The Americans’ failure to agree on even basic issues in the last few years shows that the American republican tradition is now in serious peril.

Throughout history, all the leaders of the kingdoms and empires that collapsed proclaimed before they suffered such a fate that if any person wagered on them or their institutions not arriving at solving or recovering from the distrust problem they were harboring towards them, they were wrong. If the doctrine of republicanism continues to decline much as other political and religious ideologies such as Islam waned in the early second millennium, then the consequences would extend beyond a mere reduction in America’s global influence. Such a decline could also threaten the wealth, status, and power of the families/dynasties that primarily control the international order or the money supply of the world (i.e., the heirs of the old powers) significantly. This is because the old powers (the victors of WW2) shaped the international order and the global financial systems on the continued strength of republican principles. It is not possible for the heirs of the old powers to preserve their historical role when people start calling for such long-standing financial or power centers to share outcomes on equal rights, especially after their fathers (the old powers) dismantled their empires and vested their power in globalization and the United Nations. Not to mention, the old powers reformed their global intelligence system.

Put differently, the intelligence that the old powers (the victors of WW2) had collected on their adversaries before WW2 erupted and acted upon was the weapon that permitted them to win this global war and not their military superiority or the rhetoric that they were making about how their moral authority and clarity were freeing people and redeeming the world. If the critical thinkers and servants (governments and international institutions) that the heirs of the old powers are employing and depending on their wisdom to collect intelligence about people do not live up to their obligation to provide for their defense, then it would not be possible for the heirs of the old powers to avoid their ultimate resizing if more people start to find common goals with ideologies that they consider increase their happiness better than the ideologies that the heirs of the old powers are depending on their core principles to rejuvenate their power. This is because not all the ideologies rejuvenate the power, wealth, and status of the heirs of the old powers to the same degree; some threaten the maintenance of their strength and stability, while others pose a greater challenge to it. For example, democracy, communism, socialism, etc. threaten the power, wealth, and status of the heirs of the old powers more than the republicanism or the monarchism ideologies. This is because the latter vests political power in a few people, whereas the former rests political power with the public.

I have no way of knowing how the heirs of the old powers are managing to balance the various ideologies that people observe and depend on to stay happy and, in this way, not mind if they have more powers than others, nor how they constantly gather and interpret intelligence to decide whom to promote and whom to humble. What I do know is that politics does not determine the type of intelligence that the fittest needs to employ to keep his dominant role, but it is intelligence that determines the type of political ideology the fittest needs to employ to curtail or contain the stress that overlapping or intersecting ideologies or beliefs can have on the maintenance of his strength and stability. And so, if the personhood (institution) that we call government was originally invented to prevent people from staying divided and fragmented into isolated culture groups within an exclusive society, thus making it very difficult for the fittest in the group to monitor and gather information on other individuals, how are the heirs of the old powers concluding that the intelligence that their critical thinkers and servants (governments and international institutions) gather is truly objective and useful to contribute to maintaining their strength and stability when the very individuals collecting information are also pursuing the full development of their personality at the same time?

If the officials (or the security institutions) responsible for collecting information on people in the final years of the Ottoman Empire or the Soviet Union had shared intelligence with the families/dynasties that were controlling those two realms, most probably they would have retained their power and their spheres would have remained intact. The Ottoman Empire and the Soviet Union collapsed in the 20th century because the officials and the security institutions whom the families/dynasties that were controlling those two realms were depending on for their wisdom to rejuvenate their power started to use their leverage and the fruit of the manipulation and blackmailing that they were carrying out to enrich themselves and not to defend the state or to deepen the power of their rulers only. And so, once again, if the officials (or the security institutions) that the heirs of the old powers are relying on today to collect intelligence on people are freezing social space and accumulating material things on a cumulative basis, how are the heirs concluding that the manipulation or blackmailing such work may entail would ultimately serve to rejuvenate their power and not to give those same officials ammunition to be self-sufficient and disloyal, much like the intelligence elites who contributed to the instability of past empires?

Throughout history, the kingdoms and empires that outlived longer than others preserved their continuity by conserving sacrifice, strength, and vigilance and not by having big governments or millions of people engaged in gathering information on one another but without observing the standards legitimized. And so if the global insecurity that has unfolded since 1958 stems partly from the heirs of the old powers having ignored the grievances that the political activists who co-founded the John Birch Society and others raised against the political and economic solutions that their leaders were saying were redrawing the international political order, but without producing the results that they were promising, then another question arises: how do the heirs of the old powers expect people to stand with them or embrace their unique role to secure the standards suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR when, paradoxically, the more their critical thinkers and servants (governments, international institutions, and security institutions) become engaged in international affairs, the more ordinary people seem to lose interests in staying with them or letting them have more powers than others? If the heirs of the old powers do not start to reduce the number of intelligence institutions that they are constantly creating to gather information on people or stop the individuals or the institutions that are already collecting information on people from regarding themselves as exempt from observing the appeal suggested in the UN Charter, it would not be possible for people to turn to the kings, presidents, and chiefs that the heirs of the old powers are appointing and not to their own self-help to reduce their fear and want. This is because the individuals or the institutions that collect information on people employ every means or tool at their disposal to achieve their goal, such as corruption, deceit, etc., as I said before. The aforementioned methods erode liberty, shrink freedom, democracy, equal rights, etc., rather than encouraging people to accept and observe the political order that the heirs of the old powers legitimize and depend on to keep their dominant role. When the number of people who start to rely on their personal power and conscience to increase their happiness instead of on the legitimized political order grows, the capacity of the heirs of the old powers to contain the infringement of people’s search for happiness on the maintenance of their strength and stability significantly shrinks. This is because when people rely on their personal power and conscience to increase their happiness more than the rule of law, their character changes reciprocally.

Containment in geopolitical studies denotes limiting or hindering a rivaling ideology from spreading in the social structure or in the minds of individuals or groups already under control by the fittest to stop it from changing their character (including beliefs or behavior). Before WW2 erupted, the character of people was not changing as rapidly as the case is now. Factors like improvement in communication and transportation, life experiences, etc., influence people’s personalities significantly. The heirs of the old powers rejuvenated their power by having politicians appease people and justify their poor actions, and security agents worked covertly, corrupting and dividing people using dirty tactics to obtain the information needed to expose potential threats and dissipate their danger.

For politicians to persuade people to accept the justifications they give to support why they fail to obtain the results they promise—and thereby encourage people to stay with them and to let them and their masters (the heirs of the old powers) hold greater authority—they must account for the fact that human knowledge evolves over time. If it were possible to craft rhetoric, lies, and excuses at the same pace that awareness grows, humanity might still be living under the rule of Pharaoh. And so, if after mankind converted the idea of government into becoming an economic operator and an institution where the fittest use its power to justify violence and subjugate others, how are the old powers concluding that their critical thinkers and servants (kings, presidents, politicians, judges, law enforcement agents, etc.) would be able to live up to their words of protecting them during serious crises when everyone minus their critical thinkers and servants knows why peace and security have not improved around the world since 1945?

Once again, I have no way of knowing how the heirs of the old powers are concluding that the complex political and economic solutions they are permitting their critical thinkers and servants (kings, presidents, politicians, judges, law enforcement agents, etc.) to legitimize with national security agencies in UN member states are prompting changes in the various social structures that would be making the individuals involved want to live up to their promises and not plot or rebel against them when the overwhelming majority deem that if they abandon them, they would gain more. What I do know is that when Pharaoh was oppressing the Israelites, he must have had politicians justify his action and security officials gathering information on citizens to detect and disrupt threats. Nevertheless when Moses began to spread to the Jews in Egypt new ideas about how Pharaoh was treating them shrewdly and how they would be far better off if they disobeyed him and went to live in a new land, he succeeded in getting the Israelites to stop working and to go along with him to repossess the new land that he had promised them despite all the political and security measures that Pharaoh counted on. Similarly, what I do know is that when Jesus began teaching the Jews that God had commissioned him to guide them to relate to one another according to his teaching—rather than following the standards legitimized and enforced by the Romans (or the Jewish leaders)—his followers, after his crucifixion, succeeded in getting their way despite the resistance and in avoiding suppression by the Roman security forces before the Roman Empire ultimately collapsed. The Islamic prophet Muhammed (and his companions) managed to contain Christianity and quell many other religious doctrines with his ideas, which he said were revealed to him by God as well. The Islamic prophet Muhammed and his companions were able to evade all the national security apparatuses that worked to defeat them. Finally, the European colonists, who later became Americans in North America, successfully rejected monarchy, aristocracy, and hereditary political power, instead embracing political values that prioritize liberty, civic virtue, and the vilification of political corruption.

If the truths that Moses and others used were able to unify people together and to defeat the world’s greatest powers of their time, yet as of 1945, the old powers (the victors of WW2) and later their heirs could not leverage the same truth to make people stay with them and to let them have more power than others—even after all members of the human family had ostensibly agreed to voluntarily surrender freedom to them to reduce fear and want and secure the aspirations suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR—then one of two scenarios could be motivating this inability or withdrawal. The first is if the heirs of the old powers and all the critical thinkers and servants (governments, international institutions, and security institutions) are not working to secure the work program suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR but rather to establish an autocratic world order. The second is that these heirs and their critical thinkers and servants believe their wealth, power, and status would put them out of people’s reach or from public accountability, even as distrust of their policies continues to grow.

The heirs of the old powers can continue to defy their fathers’ instruction (i.e., the old powers’) of ensuring that all their critical thinkers and servants (governments, international institutions, and security institutions) observe the work program suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR, but this is how Pharaoh, the families/dynasties that were controlling the Roman Empire, and others were doing before their collapse. Those aforementioned powerful rulers thought their strongholds and their critical thinkers and servants would protect them from any imminent threat, but they were mistaken. In other words, Pharaoh and others in antiquity thought like Bashar al-Assad did in 2024 when he deduced that if his critical thinkers and servants (governments, international institutions, and security institutions) divided people and put to death or spared whomever they wanted, he would avoid corrupting them or prompting them to gang up on him, and that they would be ready to lay down their lives for him and not disgrace him; but he was wrong.

Indeed, this recurring pattern or story—where an oppressor oppresses others only to later confront or face the same harsh treatment—appears to repeat itself time and again. Then again, the victors of WW2 (the old powers) knew in 1945 that they would not be able to observe the work program suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR or avoid oppressing those who would be rivaling them and, therefore, may not be able to avoid falling victim to this same cycle of zero-sum game that other rulers confronted when they refused to practice what they were preaching. And so, many questions beg answers. For one, why did the victors of WW2 free the vanquished and the societies that they dominated—and then invite everyone back to carry out the obligations contained in the UN Charter or the UDHR—when they must have known it would be impossible to fully observe the standards they were legitimizing or avoid oppressing those who would be rivaling them?

I do not know the answer to the aforementioned question. Two motives may have led the victors of WW2 (the old powers) to see themselves as far stronger than the ousted rulers. The first motive is that the victors of WW2 (the old powers) may have wanted to unite the entire human family under one world government (or ideology) because they believed that the barbarous acts they condemned had outraged their conscience, prompting a determination to reduce fear and want (see UDHR). The second motive is that the victors of WW2 (the old powers) may have believed that if people agreed to abandon their tribal values and embrace the values outlined in the UN Charter, it would become possible to unify the world’s security systems, thereby preventing any plots against their perceived superiority.

Once again, I do not know which of the two motives mentioned earlier could have persuaded the heirs of the old powers to dismantle their empire and invite back both the societies they had vanquished during WW2 and those they continued to dominate at that time in order to fulfill the obligations outlined in the UN Charter or the UDHR. What I do know is that either motive between the aforementioned two seeks to prevent wars through collective security and to settle international disputes through negotiation and arbitration, which is a prerequisite to gain the necessary understanding that permits a person to practice patience.

The Bible suggests that everything is accomplished through the word, and nothing happens without it. The victors of WW2 (the old powers) decided to reaffirm their faith in the power of words, leading people to surrender their most cherished possession—freedom—in order to establish the conditions outlined in the UN Charter or the UDHR. Similarly, it was the power of words that led people to accept the unification or monopolization of the world’s security apparatuses under their control to ensure collective security.

If all the political decisions that the victors of WW2 (the old powers) took to improve global cooperation and reduce fear and want after they vanquished their enemies were all based on stressing the power of the word as a tool to make people not stay divided in the aftermath of WW2 or to rely on wars and force to create ordered relations, what caused people to switch and to start to use force and the ideas of democracy, communism, liberalism, republicanism, etc., to stay divided and then to determine who could make the weakest consider the opinion of the fittest before taking action on their own?

Put differently, if the families/dynasties that were controlling Islam in antiquity were able, through the power of the word, to persuade many societies to trade their ethnic backgrounds, traditions, and values to embrace the core principles of this religion, and if the families/dynasties that were controlling the United States managed to achieve the same effect when they penned in the US Constitution that all people are created equal, but as of 1945, the victors of WWII (the old powers) are failing to achieve the same influence, then one of two scenarios could have motivated this contrast. The first is whether knowledge differs (divides) people. The second is if the heirs of the old powers are relying on the wrong critical thinkers and servants (kings, presidents, chiefs, judges, etc.) to secure the work program suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR.

I do not know which motive between the aforementioned two could be preventing the heirs of the old powers from making their critical thinkers and servants (governments, international institutions, and security institutions) practice tolerance to speak the same language afterward. What I do know is that if in 1958, twelve years after the end of WW2, a group of American citizens decided to be connected through an advocacy group to influence public opinion in the United States against the rise of communism in this country, and to this date the same group is still influencing public opinion against this ideology and other rivaling ones, then one of two scenarios could be provoking this constant failure by the heirs of the old powers to make their critical thinkers and servants (governments, international institutions, and security institutions) stop regarding themselves exempt from observing the appeal suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR. The first is if the heirs of the old powers remain, even to this day, incapable of rectifying the flaws in governance that would allow people in the United States and other UN member states to willingly surrender freedom to the political order suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR. The second is if the might that their critical thinkers and servants (governments, international institutions, and security institutions) are showing them scientific advances are capable of is confusing them and prompting them into perceiving that they could back away from the determination of mankind to reduce fear and want and still come out ahead (i.e., keep their power, wealth, and status intact).

I have no way of knowing which of the two scenarios mentioned earlier could be prompting the heirs of the old powers into believing that they are far mightier than their fathers and forefathers and, therefore, need not worry about how their actions today will affect them tomorrow. The heirs of the old powers can only regain their power tomorrow if they shape the present. In other words, shape the present in such a way that, as people age and evolve, they are willing to accept that their powers are transferred to their heirs.

The constant wars that have swept the world since 1958—when the co-founders of the John Birch Society raised concerns about the political and economic solutions being legitimized by the heirs of the old powers and their critical thinkers and servants (governments, international institutions, and security agencies), which often placed citizens in conflict with them—suggest that people have resisted surrendering their freedom to the political order suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR. They also indicate that many rival political and ideological beliefs continue to compete against the political system and international order that the victors of WWII codified in 1945. In other words, the heirs of the old powers and their critical thinkers and servants do not appear to be working to secure the UN’s goals but have instead transformed themselves into referee or security institutions focused primarily on identifying faults.

Throughout history, three common habits or tendencies have intertwined truth and falsehood with people’s self-interests in the same way spider silks entangle prey before biting, including leading their possessors to a disastrous end. Those three tendencies are pride, greed, and envy. The rapid formation of alliances among societies historically known as staunch enemies, and the consequent swift shifts in the balance of power these pacts are producing, are reshaping the global landscape in ways that appear far from reassuring—painting a rather grim picture. The ongoing political and economic turmoil stirred by the critical thinkers and servants of the heirs of the old powers—governments, international institutions, and security agencies—through acts of treachery and betrayal seems to stem from only two possible motives. The first is that the distinct security institutions relied upon by the heirs of the old powers, along with the promises and guidance of their appointed officers, may have spiraled out of control, undermining efforts to preserve and rejuvenate their authority. This scenario also means that the critical thinkers and servants (the kings, presidents, chiefs, judges, etc.) from whom the heirs of the old powers are buying their story on why they are not capable of upholding the standards suggested in the UN Charter and the UDHR, or why the goals they set stay unmet most of the time, are the wrong servants. The second is that as knowledge increases in the world, this development does not promote serenity in people’s hearts; instead, it persuades them to focus more on the shortcomings of the heirs of the old powers and their critical thinkers and servants (kings, presidents, chiefs, judges, etc.).

I have no way of knowing which of the two scenarios mentioned earlier might be preventing the heirs of the old powers and their critical thinkers and servants (kings, presidents, chiefs, judges, and the like) from absolving themselves of what people perceive as reasons for their inability to reduce fear and want. What I do know is that if governments around the world remain unpopular and their actions and policies continue to face public criticism, there is a strong likelihood that people will grow increasingly critical and dissatisfied with the political doctrines under which officials pursue their agendas despite opposition. When citizens worldwide become steadfast with their rulers and compassionate toward one another, rather than the reverse, the heirs of the old powers may discover themselves unable to control what the future—or the will of the people—holds, particularly if people’s hearts are filled with pride and they begin to lose faith in these leaders and their advisers.

For example, the broad economic and political policies that the United States started to legitimize across the globe since 1945 persuaded many people around the world to become weary of its one-sided market value or capital positions by the end of the 20th century.

It is not clear if the September 11, 2001, attacks against the Twin Towers at the World Trade Center in New York City in the United States were carried out to send a message to the United States to reverse its foreign policy toward the rivaling security operatives that they are cracking down on, or on Muslims, as a good number of governmental organizations attribute the motive to be due to.

In my opinion, the rise of Islamism (political Islam) cannot have persuaded the individuals involved to target the financial complex that personified (or symbolized) America’s “economic and military power” since the Twin Towers were built, because humans are incapable of flying away (moving through the air) in the same way a fly (insect) does when it annoys a lion and gets away with it without getting harmed later. The weakest does not gain anything by bringing the roof down on his head. In other words, the people who carry out attacks to achieve divine purposes, or even act based on personal vendetta, gain nothing from acting as Samson did. The primary reason why people form permanent settlements is to ensure successful reproduction against adversaries with great might. It would be naive to suppose that the Islamists or resistance movements accused by the United States and its allies of carrying out the Twin Towers attacks were reenacting Samson’s final act—albeit with one notable variation: seeking to bring down not only themselves but also their breeding habitats or broader strongholds. Natural species such as animals or humans are not known for destroying their habitats, but some are known for carrying their homes on their back, such as turtles and sea creatures. The Twin Towers attacks are a formidable form of violence that, most likely, was orchestrated by the heirs of the old powers to let the fear that their effect generates in the hearts and minds of people make all the governments around the world, whether foe or friend, accept to be united or be interconnected under a security portal that would make it a lot easier for the heirs of the old powers to tighten their grip on the international order or obtain reliable information about people’s data globally. For example, the attack that was carried out by the Palestinians on October 07, 2023, into the Gaza envelope of southern Israel is another new formidable form of violence that could have been implemented to expel the Palestinians from Gaza and kill the Palestinians’ aspirations to have a Palestinian state rise based on the 1967 borders.

Similarly, the election twenty-five years later during the 2025 New York City mayoral election race of a candidate who ran on a democratic socialist ticket and defeated major Republican, Democratic, and Independent party candidates in the city that has personified the cultural capital of capitalism or liberal interventionism in the world since the founding of the United States is evidence to support how people’s cultural and religious identities are still clashing in this country and how people are far away from observing the work program suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR. Most importantly, the inability of the families/dynasties that control the United States to prevent a socialist democrat from winning the New York City mayoral race points to one of two possible scenarios. The first is that the security institutions that are controlling the United States are divided, and the individuals involved are presiding over a corrupt and inept apparatus. The second is if the preoccupation of the co-founders of the John Birch Society in 1958—regarding the United States being infiltrated by insiders conspiring to weaken the United States to ultimately establish a one-world government that the international organization named the United Nations would rule over—is not merely an idea circulated by adversaries of the United States but a reality.

If the nature of global politics since 1945 is still far from settling on a particular political, economic, or social system, this means that the world is also far from developing a final form of human government. Furthermore, if for as long as the heirs of the old powers and their critical thinkers and servants (governments and international institutions) regard themselves exempt from observing the work program suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR, or permit the officials that are operating the different national security agencies to corrupt and divide people to determine who could pose a threat to the maintenance of their security, it would be impossible to balance between the moral and the physical; then the more the heirs of the old powers would be self-deceiving themselves and perceive that the construct that their own mind is making them believe to be true is really happening.

Put differently, for as long as the heirs of the old powers let their critical thinkers and servants (governments, international institutions, and security agencies) regard themselves exempt from observing the appeal suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR, the more the corruption, fraud, bribery, etc., that those servants would be exerting would be making it impossible to stop political institutions from being manipulated; then the more the critical thinkers and servants of the heirs of the old powers justify violence in the name of improving stability, the more the conviction of people around the world about the heirs of the old powers being feckless would be growing. The more the conviction of people around the world about the heirs of the old powers being feckless grows, the more people will be converting from goal seekers to referees. This is very serious and worrisome. This is because when the heirs of the old powers fail to account for reality as a unified whole, it would not be possible for them to know which ideological system is threatening their wealth, status, or power and which doctrine is rejuvenating the maintenance of their strength and stability.

The Roman Empire, Christianity, Islam, etc. collapsed because the families/dynasties that were controlling such social, political, or religious movements failed to facilitate, through their core principles, civil engagement and collective action. For example, if the political leaders in the US continue to use their capitalist economic system to grant themselves coercive powers, it would not be possible for their repressive measures to enhance civil engagement and collective action. On the contrary, the more the Americans rely on force to obtain their way despite the resistance of others or trade short-term benefits for long-term security challenges, the more they defer obligations to future generations—making it increasingly difficult to resolve disputes without undermining the hard-won achievements their fathers and forefathers labored for over centuries. At the core of these achievements is the idea of freedom.

The American conservative activists who came together in 1958 to establish the John Birch Society were not opposing communism or other ideological doctrines out of fear that their wealth, power, and status might be taken and transferred to new families or dynasties. Rather, they were aware that when the division of labor ceases to incentivize people, freedom no longer shapes world history, and the relationship between mind and body becomes one and inseparable in the mind-body problem.

The wars, conflicts, and crises that people became entangled in their web were planned to destabilize their consciousness or mental state. People’s mental state destabilization hinders their reasoning ability and suppresses their will.

If the heirs of the old powers succeed in maintaining their hierarchy across all domains on which people rely to assert dominance, then nothing should threaten their superiority—especially if individuals continue to compete among themselves for equal access to wealth, status, and power.

Ḥabīb ibn Aws (796/807–845), better known as Abū Tammām, was an Arab Muslim poet who compiled in the 9th century one of the first anthologies of Arab poetry. In one of his poems, Abū Tammām suggests that if wealth, power, and status were a function of science, knowledge, cleverness, intelligence, fortune, etc., then the animals would not have found a way to sustain themselves specifically for their lack of intelligence and resourcefulness.

I have no way of knowing how the heirs of the old powers conclude that the people they dominate lack intelligence and therefore remain unconcerned if their critical thinkers and servants (governments and international institutions) develop forms of idealism or postmodernism whose universal truths are widely rejected or whose grand narratives are frequently critiqued. What I do know is that if public skepticism toward established norms continues to deepen, people are increasingly likely to draw on the nature of knowledge and reality to socially construct their own master guiding ideas. Can the heirs of the old powers ensure that the master ideas that people would want to socially construct if their distrust of their determination to reduce fear and want around the world continues to grow and they begin to seriously withdraw their obligation to obey them?

Once again, I have no way of knowing what type of backup plans the heirs of the old powers are counting on tapping into to maintain their power in the future if the rule of law becomes wielded by the people and not through elected representatives. Most importantly, the individuals (kings, presidents, judges, bankers, etc.) that the heirs of the old powers are investing their political power in continue to legitimize laws that would infuriate people and lead them to conspire against them.

In conclusion, can the heirs of the old powers prevent their critical thinkers and servants (kings, presidents, judges, bankers, etc.) from debasing them if these servants continue to fail in helping them understand the world or be an accurate guide after they dismantled their empire and freed the societies they had vanquished during WW2 and those they dominated when it ended? Since no kingdom or empire has ever succeeded in preventing its downfall when its critical thinkers and servants (such as governments, international institutions, and security agencies) failed to serve their masters effectively, we must wait until technology begins to replicate human senses to determine whether it can, in collaboration with real humans, make a difference in answering the previous question.