Summary

Thieves wear gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints at crime scenes. Killers plan their crimes to avoid mistakes, detection, or capture. Even animals strategize their attacks to prevent other animals from ganging up on a specific species, which could lead to its extinction.

Since 1945, the victors of WW2 (the old powers) and their heirs have increasingly demonstrated that they lack both patience and morality—traits historians attribute to their fathers or forefathers before WW2—and, even worse, they lack something else. This is the ability to recognize that they are not the only ones who are clever, wicked, or evil and that everyone else is shaped in their image. The heirs of the old power believe that their deviant behavior, from the use of power without any political justification to brushing aside laws, would not destroy them. Most importantly, the heirs of the old powers refuse to believe that their deeds are trapping them and their critical thinkers and servants (governments and international institutions) in a counterproductive and endless cycle of anarchy that is producing only enemies.

When Constantine I chose to acknowledge Christianity in 312 AD, he did so as part of an effort to save the empire by finding a moral framework for it, rather than because he or his critical thinkers and servants (chiefs, judges, public officials, bankers, church leaders, etc.) believed in the Christian doctrine. Since 1945, the heirs of the old powers have been eroding the framework established by their fathers in the UN Charter and the UDHR, aiming to preserve their wealth, power, and status through illegal acts and false promises, much like how Constantine I and his critical thinkers and servants misused Christianity.

This paper tries to support that if the heirs of the old powers or their successors continue to let their global policeman, the United States, and their critical thinkers and servants (governments and international institutions of UN member states) regard themselves exempt from observing the work program suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR and suppose that they are searching for an alternative world as compared to a sustainable political system (world order), they would either disappear or be absorbed with their technological and cyber capabilities, including their F-35 and F-100 fighter jets, by another growing power.

The objective of the paper is to caution the heirs of the old powers about continuing to foolishly gamble with their strength and stability, including letting their global policeman, the United States, and their critical thinkers and servants (governments and international institutions of UN member states) arrogantly disobey the work program suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR to prevent them from destroying their power with their own hands in the same way Constantine I did and the rulers of Islam, the rulers of the Ottomans, and the rulers of the Soviet Union did by the end of the 20th century.

Analysis

The English word “faith” finds many clear definitions in the literature. On the internet, “faith” is defined as “strong belief, trust, or confidence in someone or something, often without complete proof.” In the Bible. In Hebrews 11:1, the word “faith” is defined as “the assurance of the things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

The idea that a God created the universe is the most persuasive of all the concepts people invented to persuade each other into believing in the truthfulness of someone or something. Since the date people started to keep written records, no idea has been recalibrated to suit individual self-interests as much as the concept of God.

God’s decision to remain invisible made it hard for people to believe in the unseen and to accept that things must stay the same. Believing in the existence of a creator of the universe requires that people have complete faith in the commands found in religious textbooks, such as the Bible or the Vedas; however, individuals have been recalibrating these commands to align with their self-interests, much like they have continuously adjusted their understanding of change since ancient times.

Because people stubbornly cling to their convictions and insist that belief is both abstract and requires courage to deny alternative possibilities, those in public service cannot lead with principles.

People’s stubbornness and their insistence that belief is abstract, coupled with a lack of courage to admit that another way is not possible, prevent those in public service from leading with principles. Most likely, our ancestors were acting toward one another in the same irresponsible way our rulers and kings have been doing since 1945.

In antiquity, kings and church leaders refused to obey the laws outlined in religious textbooks and constitutions and began to judge others. They made equity a promise, not a practice, and justice a slogan, not a structure. The insecurity that has swept the world since 1945 results from kings, presidents, chiefs, church leaders, and others allowing the standards by which our ancestors lived to dictate the future, rather than using the outcomes outlined in constitutions and international treaties, such as the UN Charter or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), as the measure.

For example, the heirs of old powers (the heirs of the victors of WW2) do not want to believe that the propaganda that they usually covertly organize and finance in UN member states to persuade citizens into believing that the cause of the insecurity and instability that they know is usually due to their rulers or government officials not observing the work program suggested in the UN Charter will ultimately result in people across the globe withdrawing their obligation to obey them and subjecting them to the same fate in the course of time and things.

The families/dynasties that ruled the Roman Empire, the Muslim Caliphates, the Ottoman Empire, and many other families/dynasties before them all divided societies to balance out shifts in power and economic realities, including supposing that activating internal opposition that leads to carrying out territorial adjustments between members of the same social fabric could reaffirm their passionate yearning for freedom and self-determination and preserve their superiority, but their efforts did not create the conditions that they were anticipating. Each time, the will of the people, not the wealth or military power of the ruling families, determined whether a political structure was absorbed by a growing society or survived.

The families/dynasties that control the international order and the global money supply (i.e., the heirs of the old powers) should understand that only faith can effectively manage and influence the relationships or commonalities that the human brain uses to achieve its goals, even in the face of resistance from others. Therefore, it is crucial to remain vigilant in keeping political distrust low and maintaining strong faith so that people do not lose confidence in the work program they have come to rely on for rejuvenating their power after dismantling their empire and shifting to democratic control for strength and stability. However, since 1945, instead of the heirs of the old powers relying on letting action change minds, they have been relying on creating the anticipated change by dismantling existing political orders.

When people switched from using horses to modern vehicles as their mode of transportation, this transformation did not stop rivalry between individuals; instead, it led to the disappearance of many wealthy families and dynasties while new ones emerged. The heirs of the old powers (Western European monarchs and republics) are spearheading transformations to enforce governability through technology, which has led people to expect more. If technology fails to meet expectations, the heirs of the old powers could find that others will also control change, as the families/dynasties that controlled the automotive industry discovered when they prioritized their ambition and imagination over the great possibility and opportunity such a tool offered them to reset people.

The concept of politics (governance) may have originated after our ancestors turned to this system for greatness, having grown weary of the gods’ silence regarding the injustices committed by those who were preoccupying themselves with what their neighbor was doing and the erosion of trust or faith by those who claimed to be the gods’ representatives on earth.

Additionally, religion and politics have likely persisted because religious and political apologists successfully defended the doctrines they relied on to achieve their goals, despite facing resistance from others. If technology does not encourage people to restore their faith in one another after the heirs of the old powers have spent the last seventy-five years demonstrating that the religious and political system they defended was flawed, then it is likely that these heirs will be left with a decayed social order, similar to what the Romans, Muslims, or Ottomans experienced when they prioritized the advancement of their beliefs and military superiority over the welfare of their religious and political apologists.

I have no way of knowing if the heirs of the old powers will find new religious and political apologists who can revive belief in their work program or leadership, similar to how Paul the Apostle and René Descartes demonstrated that religion is not contrary to reason, which helped them maintain the popularity of their faith. What I do know is that if the heirs of the old powers continue to let their critical thinkers and servants (governments and international institutions) corrupt the young and make them believe that most religious and political systems are broken, as Socrates was doing in antiquity, people will continue to withdraw their obligation to obey them. They will resort to acts of civil disobedience to demonstrate the negative impact that the work program suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR is having on their lives, even though it should be having the opposite effect. Most importantly, they will replicate the historical events that transpired prior to WW2 and after this global war has ended.

For example, when WW2 ended, there was an overwhelming joy among the people across the globe. Everyone thought that the world was heading towards a glorious future. If someone had told the optimistic and joyful about the promising future, that it would not meet their expectations and that many would end up reminiscing about the past, that person would have been rejected, insulted, and called a fool.

Sadly, only a few understood that those who were full of enthusiasm and joy were dreaming and that the future would be full of difficulties, woes, wars, bloodshed, poverty, and fragmentation, just as was the case before WW2 erupted.

This aforementioned human history has been repeating itself from one generation to the next with one exception. Each time, the dominating families/dynasties either reverted to a simpler form or had their power significantly diminished, as occurred in the aftermath of WW2 when the old powers were forced to dismantle their empires to ensure that societies willing to side with them could do so instead of aligning with their adversaries.

If absurdity continues to rise around the world, and people start to judge the heirs of the old powers, it would not be possible for them to stop people from listening to their convictioLikewise, the heirs of the old powers can only defend their superiority with force when they observe that people are not adhering to the standards they have legitimized.ing.

The transformations caused by calamities, hatred, divisiveness, and injustice—stemming from people’s refusal to apply reason in their relationships—are similar to the changes that occurred after each war that people fought. First people will reaffirm faith in existing dogmas or invent new religions or political dogmas. Second, the families/dynasties that believed they were victorious were either resized or defeated. And so if the heirs of the old powers continue to let their critical thinkers and servants regard themselves exempt from observing the standards suggested in religious and philosophical textbooks and focus on the flaws of others while ignoring their own significant shortcomings. How are the heirs of the old powers concluding that they could write a different history?

Presently, the world is moving away from service-based economies and manufacturing to knowledge/information economies, characterized by technology, innovation, and urban growth. The heirs of the old powers need the world to be in peace to enable them to grow their power layer by layer over the course of a few generations. Can the heirs of the old powers grow their influence in the shadow of critical thinkers and servants who have been playing politics since 1945? These helpers are focusing on spreading disinformation that claims their system—whether it be religion or constitution—is superior and uplifting, rather than on how to make people love them and encourage loyalty, while portraying all other systems and structures as inferior and limiting.

I have no way of knowing how the heirs of the old powers are concluding that owning the resources or industries essential for people’s survival will enable them to control people’s hearts. This is because if our predecessors had determined that it was possible to win people’s hearts without legitimizing laws, they would not have enforced standards.

If our predecessors determined that it was important to legitimize standards to improve morality and create ordered relations, why are the heirs of the old powers permitting their critical thinkers and servants to regard themselves exempt from observing the work program suggested in the UN Charter when there has not been any evidence to support that strongholds protect the mightiest from the wickedness of the heart? In fact, if a person is incapable of determining what impact a biological cell, such as a bacterium, can have on his strength and stability, how are the heirs of the old powers concluding that they can permit their critical thinkers and servants to violate the work program suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR without losing their global dominance?

When individuals utilize the ideals outlined in religions, constitutions, and treaties to determine who could make the weakest consider the opinion of the fittest before taking action on his own, rather than adhering to the ideals suggested to redeem the world from human evil or promote unity, all the doctrines they practice become incompatible with each other. However, most rulers and kings refuse to acknowledge this reality.

The founding fathers of the UN (the old powers) did not instruct their heirs to grant each UN member state a special political system, such as constitutional monarchy, Islamic democracy, socialist democracy, etc. The founding fathers of the UN (the old powers) instructed their heirs to have their critical thinkers observe the work program suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR only. They understood that falsehood and deceit can lead to self-destruction.

The heirs of the old powers seem to ignore the instability they create for the international order by allowing those who should uphold the law to violate it. If the families and dynasties that controlled the Roman Empire, Christianity, Islam, the Ottoman Empire, and others had been able to use religion, democracy, and tyranny to protect themselves during times of citizen discontent with the political, social, and economic systems they were legitimizing—while also switching between these methods to maintain their popularity—their empires would not have disappeared.

When corruption, tyranny, and disregard rise, discontent with the political, social, and economic order rises. When faith in the political, social, and economic order shrinks, profound societal shifts usually occur, such as the overthrow of the ruling families/dynasties and the appointment of new families/dynasties to play their role. Throughout history, whenever a revolution or an uprising against the political, social, and economic order was enforced, the rich were the first to be stripped of their wealth or power.

I do not know how the Western Europeans (the old powers) and their global policeman, the United States, plan to convince people around the world to reject their political ideologies and to embrace their own when they have been since 1945 working on converting their political ideology from being a project in which a person is going to be exercising his god-given right to freedom or free speech during his lifetime into a project in which a person would exercise or profit from such rights only after death due to how kings and rulers are keeping the world in a persistent state of war.

Most people have been tacitly frustrating and humiliating each other instead of supporting one another since 1945, which signifies that they are united over a negative cause, just as our predecessors were before WW2 erupted. This situation necessitates that the individuals who are constantly wanting others to consider their opinion before taking action on their own recalibrate the institutions, policies, and assumptions that they are depending on or operating under to keep their dominant role. In other words, individuals who seek to prevent others from exercising their right to self-determination in order to gain more power must continuously manipulate or weaponize change to benefit their interests rather than the common good. That is to say, people pass laws that factor in changes happening in nature in the form of environmental degradation to serve their self-interests instead of to protect the environment. Similarly, people pass laws that factor in changes affecting people’s awareness, birth rates, wealth, and agricultural development, including industrial, commercial, scientific, technological, communication, and military capabilities, to erode liberty and undermine progress instead of to improve freedom.

People ignore the fact that whenever someone injures or kills another person, they themselves are likely to be injured or killed in return. In a boxing competition, attacking is often considered the winning defense; however, this strategy is not effective when trying to gain an advantage, as people exploit the concept of law and order to do so. When seeking advantage, it is those who can hold back, avoid hastiness, and refrain from direct conflict who ensure their security and liberty better.

The quote, “When you are facing the light, be careful always and keep track of your enemy’s shadow so that you may fight with the advantage of a good position,” is a metaphor about maintaining awareness of threats, even when things seem favorable.

The individuals who rejuvenate their power from the idea of religion need to recalibrate religious standards so their followers side with them. This approach seems to be a strategy that counters most people who do not regard themselves as divinely ordained to act as a foundation for life’s meaning, purpose, and hope, so they stay followers and remain not in the lead, especially since there has never been any evidence to warrant belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion. Those who doubt religion and rely on their ingenuity to regain power have failed to adjust the institutions, policies, and beliefs necessary to earn the trust of others in their promises or character, which would encourage people to remain with them and consider their opinions before taking action.

If the stories of those who believe in God or those who don’t and rely on human ingenuity to convince others to trust their promises and hopes have failed to make people believe in their downfall so they could see them next as their savior, then there is a good chance that those individuals who use legitimizing and enforcing social standards as a tool to rejuvenate their power are all focused on the wrong things, and their efforts are producing the same stagnant and dysfunctional social order or pattern that their predecessors obtained when they were doing the same.

To put it differently, people do not legitimize the ideas suggested in constitutions or religious books to achieve meaningful social transformations; rather, they do so to obtain the wealth, power, and status that accompany such ventures. If people cannot maintain the wealth, power, and status they gain by exploiting politics or religion for personal enrichment compared to using these tools for the common good, then they might unite to repeat the mistakes of the past, thinking they can defy standards and achieve a different outcome instead of creating meaningful change.

In addition, hence, it is not possible for the individuals who use the idea of God as a tool to get their way despite the resistance of others, or for the individuals who are skeptical of the idea of God as a tool to connect with people and rely on their human ingenuity to convince others to trust the promises and hopes they preach, because whenever standards are converted into becoming a function of change instead of remaining disconnected, this dilemma carries ramifications that make it impossible to work around. First, those who do not practice what they preach lose the ability to command the will of most people and become loved by those who feel the ideas being legitimized speak directly to them. Second, when individuals who want others to consider their opinions before taking action fail to convince people to adhere to the standards they promote, they shift the focus of those they wish to influence from having faith in their proposals to engaging in a blame game.

When individuals seeking influence fail to retain followers and gain authority, they cannot inspire trust. If an individual who wants others to consider their opinion before acting independently cultivates influence and builds power, they can convince their followers that their ideas will foster unity and stability and that others are unprincipled. Moses, Jesus, the Islamic prophet Muhammad, Buddha, etc. convinced their followers that their religious and political systems were broken by showing them how democracy and freedom could overlap to move the world forward rather than appear incompatible. If the heirs of the old powers continue to use their critical thinkers and servants (governments and international institutions) to make people around the world believe that democracy and freedom are incompatible, they will be gloating over the tragedies of others and playing into the very thing that makes people feel envy. When truth stops defining people’s future or elevating their relations to the standards that are suggested in religious sacred texts or constitutions, trust between people would stay at the relational level that wild animals exhibit.

I have no way of knowing how the heirs of the old powers are concluding that the strategies their critical thinkers and servants (governments and international institutions) are legitimizing will rejuvenate their power, rather than weaken it and allow new families/dynasties to rise. What I do know is that the more the heirs of the old powers grant their critical thinkers and servants (governments and international institutions) unlimited power with no accountability to citizens, the more people will be aware that governments and international organizations do not invest in new systems that are for the broader benefit of humanity but to benefit the individuals involved. And so, one could perceive that the heirs of the old powers would be keen on improving political accountability to prevent the disasters that befell their predecessors due to their failure to regulate the freedom of their critical thinkers and servants in a timely manner. However, for reasons unknown, the heirs of the old powers seem to hold a different perspective. The heirs of the old powers are deepening the leverage that their critical thinkers and servants have enjoyed since 1945, rather than restricting or limiting it.

Throughout history, the truth found in sacred texts has proven to be a more effective tool for binding or connecting people than the ideas or promises that human ingenuity creates to persuade others to believe that the commitments or actions it expresses are truthful. Accordingly, common sense dictates that the individuals who want others to consider their opinion before taking action on their own invest in the power of religion to regulate people’s behavior rather than human ingenuity due to its power to make people have faith without evidence. Since 1945, the heirs of the old powers seem unconcerned with the poor relations and distrust created by the political and economic solutions that their critical thinkers and servants (governments and international institutions) are legitimizing. Could the apathetic behavior exhibited by the heirs of the old powers toward the unregulated freedom granted to their critical thinkers and servants (governments and international institutions) be due to their expectation that the technological surveillance system they are building with these servants will protect them from human wickedness?

I have no way of knowing how the heirs of the old powers concluded that the technological surveillance system, aided by their critical thinkers and servants, can connect the dots more effectively than human ingenuity did prior to 1945. In other words, I cannot understand how the heirs of the old powers conclude that people cannot outsmart their spying machines, just as they outsmarted the spies employed by kingdoms and empires. All the kingdoms that collapsed have experienced such a fate only when their rulers held a vision of the world based on a futuristic thought experiment, rather than prioritizing the thought experiments legitimized in religious texts or constitutions. Could the technological surveillance system, which the heirs of the old powers are having their critical thinkers and servants build, prevent people from circumventing it as they did when human ingenuity provided protection to kings who were focused on diminishing the privacy and dignity of citizens instead of enhancing freedom?

I do not know the answer to the aforementioned question. What I do know is that human ingenuity creates tools. Therefore, because these tools have mostly been used to dominate and exploit the weak, rather than contribute to the greater good, the tools that the heirs of the old powers increasingly depend on to rejuvenate their power are unlikely to be more effective than human ingenuity itself.

For example, the ideas included in most religions managed to build successful communities, and a good number, such as Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, Confucianism, etc., managed to even make many weak religions or philosophies disappear. In parallel, the only idea legitimized by human ingenuity that successfully built a community was the framework established by the US Constitution. The US Constitution built a strong community and outstanding unity among Americans since its introduction in 1776, successfully rivaling all the frameworks that religion depended on to create communities. In fact, the mechanisms included in the US Constitution did not just control the Americans but also shielded citizens and transformed them into a social fabric that was ready to pledge absolute loyalty to the head of state or to lay their lives down to protect him.

When we compare how religion and the ideas legitimized in the US Constitution managed to make people build a community and how the heirs of the old powers are increasingly depending on their power to maintain their strength and stability, we observe that the heirs of the old powers are manufacturing characters whose traits are entirely different from the moral fibers that religion or the US Constitution produced. For example, technology does not produce terrified, fearful, obedient, ignorant, confused, and stupid human beings like religion did, or individuals who are tolerant, subservient, obedient, submissive, and ready to work together to improve freedom and human rights like the US Constitution did. Technology seems to socially engineer new individuals who are daring, impatient, dishonest, irresponsible, cowardly, corrupt, and, most importantly, unprepared to accept that power should be distributed broadly rather than concentrated at the top.

If the progressive transformations or anarchy that the heirs of the old powers are permitting the international order to know does not result in political and economic power becoming concentrated in their hands and people across the globe showing absolute loyalty to them, their decision to dismantle the political order in UN member states so tools, such as computers, surveillance cameras, monitors, etc., become the new tenants of those institutions that became vacated of real people would have been a meaningless endeavor.

For example, since the introduction of tools like surveillance, social media, and automation into the social fabric, communications and cohesiveness in the United States have not improved; instead, these tools have increased divisiveness and weakened the once-promising power of the US Constitution. In fact, as of the date the Americans began to outsource their role to tools, they have been agreeing on maintaining the divisive status quo that exists between them and on continuing to let the American way no longer be the ethos that aids them in building the distinctive cultural identity they created until the date when WW2 was regarded to have ended. If the American way continues to dwindle and the understanding that Americans gained of themselves and of the idea of freedom continues to erode, they will become like other societies, unable to agree. Most importantly, they would begin to demonstrate the same animalistic tendencies that most societies around the world demonstrate. Can the heirs of the old powers compel people worldwide to align with them when the technology and political and economic solutions provided by their critical thinkers and servants in UN member states are not fostering loyalty to them or to the principles they proposed in the UN Charter, such as freedom, pride, dignity, and courage, but instead teaching subservience to their own state of mind?

The insecurity that swept the world in recent years suggests that the heirs of the old powers are failing to make people abandon their own state of mind and embrace their parameters; instead, the fear and bias they allow their critical thinkers and servants to create is making people around the world grow weary of them and lose faith in their determination to reduce fear and want.

It looks as if the reversal in security that swept the world recently is not due to the ideas suggested in religious books or constitutions losing their innate power to alter relations or to build unity, but to the heirs of the old powers failing to frame the complex relations or chaos that people are constantly creating to develop an ideological or political order from which they can rejuvenate their power. The heirs of the old powers believe that their military superiority and wealth can contain the chaos that people’s diverse interests, relationships, and affiliations create, just as the idea of freedom and the US Constitution managed to build a community in the United States.

I have no way of knowing if the Western European colonists who split from their government in 1776 to form a sovereign state, which they called the United States, were divided in the same way the Lebanese became divided after the old powers split them from Syria in 1945 to establish for them an exclusive political structure in this current designated territory. What I do know is that all the political parties the heirs of the old powers permitted the Lebanese to create since 1945 failed to yield a program whereby only a select group exercises power, as happened in the United States when the diverse interests, relationships, and affiliations of citizens filtered a two-party political system around which all citizens were united.

If whenever a society abolishes its existing order and destroys trust and destroys the bonds that exist between citizens, as the Lebanese did since they obtained their independence in 1945, it becomes impossible to enable the individuals involved to create a community or ordered relations, then the more the heirs of the old powers use their military superiority and wealth to dismantle existing social orders, the faster the ideological system that would be thriving in its place would not be identical to the one that happened in the United States but the one that exists in Lebanon.

Historians assert that the power of a more dominant individual or group has displaced all corrupt entities, including societies, republics, kingdoms, and empires. If the constant surveillance conducted by the rulers of kingdoms or empires failed to instill the fear necessary to prevent their collapse, then it is likely that the confusion and distrust that have swept the world in recent years are due to the transfer of power, wealth, and status of the heirs of the old powers to new families or dynasties. This phenomenon is due to people’s ignorance about the consequences of disregarding the law and relying solely on their personal power and conscience to achieve their goals, even in the face of opposition from others.

In ancient times, all the kings of the kingdoms that vanished or were absorbed by a stronger society believed their strongholds would protect them. They believed they could alter their behavior or regulate that of their citizens, thereby preventing their downfall. However, their fall came from somewhere they never expected. In other words, the rulers of those kingdoms destroyed themselves with their hands and those of their critical thinkers and servants. They paralyzed themselves and stopped becoming capable of knowing what to do or how to evaluate the behavior of others, just as the United States appears to be trapped confronting in recent years, whereby its leaders are incapable of increasing the happiness of citizens except through the use of force. Can the heirs of the old powers continue to let their critical thinkers and servants intimidate citizens and shred the international order without the fear that this strategy is simultaneously influencing people’s hearts, later haunting them, and making them pay the same price that the kings that focused on meaningless things paid when they pushed through whatever policy that was good for the maintenance of their wealth, power, and status, and not the common good or the homeland?

Once again, I wonder how the heirs of the old powers conclude that the information age would be a success, unlike the political institutions their fathers built and staffed with critical thinkers and servants (chiefs, judges, etc.) who regarded themselves exempt from observing the appeal that they were preaching rendered for them. In other words, the political institutions they built transformed into entities that monitor and punish rather than nurture.

From 1776 to 1945, the ruling families/dynasties of the United States successfully fostered a perception among citizens that the US government was governed by the public, rather than by individuals prioritizing their own self-interests over the common good; otherwise, the United States would have remained as anarchic as the rest of the world. This perception among Americans that their government was led by virtuous men, elected for their ability to govern and their commitment to trust and friendship, convinced many citizens to set aside selfish thoughts and to love not only their parents and children but also others. As of 1945, the families/dynasties that have been controlling the United States seem to have believed that the world has dramatically changed and, therefore, the values enshrined in the US Constitution are no longer valid to rejuvenate their power. The families/dynasties ruling the United States since 1945 seem to prioritize automating labor, financializing the world, and accruing military superiority to maintain their dominance, rather than helping the young grow, making good use of adults, and securing a safe living for the elderly. Can the heirs of the old powers convince people that the tools that they are increasingly depending on to transform the conditions and outcomes that matter to them are trustworthy in the same way the families/dynasties that ruled the United States from 1776 to 1945 managed to make citizens be passive when such tools replaced democracy with kingship?

Throughout history, whenever citizens detected that their public officials sought to use law and order to further their interests instead of exerting political order to improve the common good, they withdrew their obligations to obey and behaved similarly to when a dormant volcano became active. The decision by Americans to violate the values enshrined in the US Constitution and the principles outlined in the UN Charter, while acting as a global policeman or mediator concerned with human rights and conflict resolution, has had negative consequences for both the Americans and the families or dynasties that control this country. As a result, many people in the United States are either conforming to the requirement of the political order to avoid punishment or willfully refusing to surrender freedom to the principles penned in the US Constitution because they have stopped trusting the leaders and political class in this country. Most importantly, people across the globe are becoming increasingly unwilling to engage with the Americans in their attempts to promote peace and, most importantly, to trust the international order that the heirs of the old powers (the families/dynasties that control the international order and the money supply of the world) rely on to rejuvenate their power.

One could suppose that because the old powers (i.e., the Western European monarchs and republics) have been dominating world history since the fall of Islam in the 13th century, their heirs would be spending their time reading and studying past world history to learn from the past and avoid reconstructing past events, but the insecurity that has swept the world since 1945 does not support that they are doing it. If the heirs of the old powers continue to prioritize power and wealth over democracy, the rule of law, and values/principles, can they find productive ways to collaborate with governments and international organizations to avoid the fate of the Roman Empire or the Soviet Union?

All the kingdoms and empires that collapsed happened because their rulers failed to find the ideas that would enable them to gain the trust of their citizens or encourage their adversaries to collaborate with them. The fallen kings and emperors could not predict or answer what would happen next after taking the political order into their own hands and ignoring the values and policies they claimed to defend and uphold.

For example, the proposal of the president of the United States to make Canada, Mexico, autonomous territories such as Greenland, and other territories part of the United States in 2024 due to how such a takeover advances US interests and boosts national security rather than respecting the territorial integrity or sovereignty of those independent states, as the postwar world order called on all UN member states to do, and that was not to seek territorial gains. Such suggestions do not promote global freedom or maintain good order between nations; instead, they encourage a competition among nations to expand their territory or economic power, thereby reverting humanity to a state of conflict and empire-building reminiscent of European colonialism.

Similarly, the Vice President of the United States told the Western European monarchs and republics in the same year to stop heading off far-right organizations in Europe rather than talking about the importance of focusing on policies that bring citizens together to forge real and lasting peace. I have no way of knowing how the Vice President of the United States concluded that lecturing the kingdoms that freed his forefathers and the ones who permitted his fathers to have a military on how to rejuvenate their power when his government punishes people or groups in the US and across the globe based on their beliefs, ideology, or the conduct of their political leaders rather than illegal conduct is useful for his country to keep ties unimpeded and unaffected. What I do know is that far-right and far-left political ideologies fuel cynicism, fear, frustration, and a lack of confidence in the political system. Therefore, suggesting to the families and dynasties that control the Western European monarchs and republics (the heirs of the old powers) how to adjust the influence of extreme far-right or far-left political ideologies may not be a recommendation that Europeans take seriously, particularly from a society that has not shown it can manage its national interests or that its foreign policies have made its members safer, stronger, or more prosperous since 1945.

Put differently, the Americans can persuade others to stay with them only by demonstrating that they have a functioning democracy or are militarily and technologically dominant. However, since 1945, they have faltered in both areas. Consequently, if the United States continues to show that political and economic power is concentrated in the hands of a select few, many people will be unwilling to invest in it. When Americans don’t show that the people control their lives to make the citizens of those societies stay with them and invest in the United States, they lose their edge and become like any other society ruled by a monarchy or autocracy. Autocratic and monarchical regimes prioritize the interests of those in power over the needs of their citizens.

The collapse of monarchies and the crumbling of republics occurred because the interests of critical thinkers and servants (such as chiefs, judges, and public officials) who were recruited to legitimize and enforce laws conflicted with those of the rulers of those kingdoms or states. This conflict of interest led the families and dynasties that controlled the collapsed monarchies or republics to rely on force to maintain their strength and stability, even though the use of force should have been avoided. This is because force is not a unifying instrument but a disuniting or dissociating tool that deepens division and dynamism between people.

If whenever a king or a government uses force to get their way despite the resistance of others, this action makes people withdraw their obligation to obey and renders irrelevant any hard work an individual puts into building a relation or an alliance, then there is a good chance that if the heirs of the old powers continue to focus on what kind of weaponries and capabilities they need to make the societies that do not consider their opinion or the opinion of their global policeman, the United States, before taking action of their own instead of prioritizing political and economic policies that promote the values suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR, the corrupted political system that would form corrodes the security institutions and system that they depend on to maintain their strength and stability in each UN member state. In addition, if technology continues to displace jobs and social media makes people feel isolated, then the fear and division that people experience could be happening against a backdrop of declining public trust.

When people start to distrust the political system and start to dislike how their leaders and political class waste resources and do not do much to dismiss selfish thought or to stop those who seek to acquire more power and wealth over promoting the general welfare, they begin to form views and analyze and judge characters, actions, policies, etc. When people start to analyze and judge how their leaders and political class are harnessing their power and wealth on the back of the public interest, those public officials will inevitably stumble on two conclusions. The first is that the public institutions that the rulers and political class are depending on the wisdom of their officials to make citizens stay with them could never achieve this goal based on the way governments are designed and the way the officials involved are relying on their personal power and conscience to get their way despite the resistance of others. The second consequence is that people will realize they can perform the job more effectively. Can the heirs of the old powers maintain their strength and stability when most people around the world start to perceive that the international order is not securing what is good for them, for those powerful families/dynasties in question, and for the world, but rather corroding democracy and enriching the individuals who are dividing and then legitimizing and enforcing standards in the name of making the world a safer place for our children?

I do not know the answer to the aforementioned question. The heirs of the old powers do not seem to see the complexities of politics as their fathers (the old powers) did. The heirs of the old powers refuse to admit that conflicting and opposing forces cannot rejuvenate their power; whenever they raise distrust among people, they destabilize the world, making their security as precarious as a tightrope performer’s walk.

Tightrope performers use a balance pole or their free hands to maintain balance while walking on a tensioned wire and avoid falling. I have no way of knowing how the heirs of the old powers are concluding that they can maintain balance and prevent the contradictions that people are exploiting to deepen their wealth and power from knocking them down, as happened to kings who supposed that they were mightier than their predecessors and then paid dearly when they failed to control the anarchy they unleashed.

When rulers and kings refuse to observe or stick to the principles or standards, they legitimize only two plans that can keep them in their power. The first is if they manage to make citizens live while feeling nostalgic about the past. The second is if they can come up with new ideas that convince citizens to stay with them and give them more power than others. Can the heirs of the old powers avoid falling in all the pitfalls that their critical thinkers and servants (governments and international organizations) are digging for them by refusing to observe the work program suggested in the UN Charter or the UDHR?

Again, I have no way of knowing the specific skills of the heirs of the old powers to determine which of the two aforementioned plans they might rely on to rejuvenate their power. What I do know is that it is not possible for the heirs of the old powers to make people across the globe return to cooperate in accordance with the political system that existed in the past without erasing history. This is because the problems of today are a result of the flaws of yesterday. Hence, the political system of the past failed many; the heirs of the old powers have no way other than to reinvent new ideas that would inspire people across the globe to stay with them.

I have no way of knowing what new ideas the heirs of the old powers could invent to assure people of their good intentions and alleviate suspicions about their motive of having people stay with them and granting them more powers than others, other than perhaps relying on two tools. The first is faith. In other words, they must convince people that the critical thinkers (governments and international institutions) they rely on for wisdom to maintain their dominant role are setting a positive example. The second is to keep the world dynamic so people do not have time to plot or harbor evil thoughts against them.

Again, I do not know which of the two aforementioned plans the heirs of the old powers are relying on to rejuvenate their power. What I do know is that the first idea requires public support for any form of civic renewal, while the second idea aims to keep people divided, allowing the fittest to continue exploiting the weak.

Throughout history, no king or ruler has been able to maintain a state of fear among citizens without eventually facing doom over time. Hence, civic renewal becomes inevitable when fear and want increase; the longer the heirs of the old power take to persuade their critical thinkers and servants to demonstrate discipline and self-control, the more harm the international order would be doing by knowing it would be making people around the world become unprepared to give them the time needed to implement the changes they claim will enhance happiness, leading to a demand for an evidence-based approach to civic renewal.

When people begin to seek an evidence-based approach to civic renewal, they lose faith in the political and economic solutions proposed by their rulers and the political class, leading them to scrutinize (judge) these leaders’ actions and respond accordingly, as I mentioned earlier.

I do not know how the heirs of the old powers intend to restore people’s faith in the political and economic solutions proposed by their critical thinkers and servants, especially since the transformations or mappings they suggest encourage individuals to shape their destinies and seek self-help for happiness rather than rely on the established political order. I know that people are not objects or variables that can be mapped like mathematical relations (i.e., associated or used to build correspondence). For example, people cannot be treated as variables or correspondence in the same way that functions are mapped or non-functions are associated. People are temporal beings who are willing to sell their loyalty to the highest bidder; therefore, the decision of the heirs of the old powers to keep people divided and to establish correspondence with them from across many geographical boundaries does not rejuvenate their power but rather accelerates its decline. This phenomenon occurs because the heirs of the old powers maintain strength and stability by corresponding only with a few exclusive political structures, rather than when a large number of political structures interact with one another. The existence of numerous exclusive political structures that correspond with both the heirs of the old powers and each other indicates that political corruption has intensified globally, while the heirs’ ability to command and control the international order is diminishing.

I have no way of knowing why the heirs of the old powers think that imperialism or expansionism plans, which they seem to have depended on since 1945 and which rely on force or non-violent techniques, are better for maintaining their dominance than the methods of individuals who depend on religion to rejuvenate their power. In other words, I have no way of knowing how the heirs of the old powers have concluded that the religious structures that have endured for many years did not test with force or non-violent methods—such as regime change, support for preferred political factions, alliances, aid, trade, gunboat diplomacy, treaties, economic influence through private companies, cultural influence, etc.—before deeming their current plans the most effective to rejuvenate their power.

Again, I have no way of knowing how the heirs of the old powers are concluding that they could produce outcomes that would be any different than what the Romans, the Muslim rulers, the Ottomans, or the families/dynasties that were controlling the Soviet Union, etc., obtained when they relied on force and non-violent techniques to rejuvenate their power. What I do know is that the families/dynasties that rely on religion to rejuvenate their power are successfully instilling faith in their adherents regarding the discipline and self-control they encourage, which allows for a renewal that fosters peaceful coexistence among all involved. In other words, those who rely on religion to rejuvenate their power do not gather people and preach to them about how to tackle the biggest challenge facing the world, the church’s biggest issues, or who is acting arrogantly in the church, as the heirs of the old powers do when they want to inform people of the challenges facing the international order and how to solve them. Those who depend on religion to rejuvenate their power gather people and preach about living in harmony, not about how each individual could become the architect of his fate or could profit from transnational projects, wars, and war investments.

The understanding gained by the families and dynasties that rely on religion, derived from the crises caused by their predecessors and the contradictions they relied upon, has benefited them significantly. This understanding helped them recognize that they will inevitably fail when they try to outsmart people or suppose that they can work around the external changes happening in reality or the internal changes people will constantly confront. The decision of the families/dynasties that depend on religion to stick to a dogmatic framework and to follow it, as compared to trying to outwit or outmaneuver their followers as the heirs of the old powers have been doing since 1945, enabled them to make their adherents become servants to one another; to not harm or shame one another; to not pry into one another’s private lives; to not spy and eavesdrop on one another; to not bid against one another; to not envy one another; to not hate one another; to not turn away from one another, etc., when those families/dynasties in question are forming correspondences with their adherents that seek to produce the total opposite. Can the heirs of the old powers make people reaffirm faith in the political and economic solutions that their critical thinkers and servants are constantly legitimizing to keep people’s civic engagement renewed when their servants are securing their explicit and implicit goals and observing the repressive measures that the families/dynasties that depend on religion say they do not practice so their intentions could not be suspected?

Again, I do not know how the heirs of the old powers concluded that strengthening security institutions and weakening religion would make people consider their opinion before taking action on their own. What I do know is that in the Bible it is suggested that when the kings of the kingdom of Israel refused to follow God’s instruction of reading all the days of their lives, God’s laws and his decrees so they could reign for a long time (Deuteronomy 17:18-20), and they decided to rejuvenate their power by relying on closed ideology or military-security alliances, they were reverted to a simpler form in the course of time and things. Similarly, when the Romans stopped trusting their gods and began relying on voluntary will to rejuvenate their power and voluntary restraint to make one party surrender to the other in the sense of father over family, they were humiliated, and their power and wealth were given to new families/dynasties. Can the heirs of the old powers avoid having their power become incorporated into another expanding civilization or completely disappear, as happened to the kings who ruled the kingdom of Israel or the Roman Empire after they decided to deviate from having political and economic power stay concentrated in the hands of philosopher kings, as Plato suggested around 375 BC and their fathers even reconfirmed in 1945, and decide to concentrate such power in the hands of critical thinkers and servants (security-military complex) who are protecting them while they are freezing social space and accumulating material things on a cumulative basis?

I do not know how the heirs of the old powers are concluding that if they continue to concentrate political and economic power in the hands of their critical thinkers and servants (security-military complex), they could avoid their fall. What I do know is that in the preface to his book, the Muqaddimah (published in 1377), Ibn Khaldun, an Arab scholar who is regarded as one of the greatest social scientists of the Middle Ages, suggested that “the cultural difference of another age must govern the evaluation of relevant historical material to distinguish the principles according to which it might be possible to attempt the evaluation and lastly, to feel the need for experience, in addition to rational principles, to assess a culture of the past.”

The heirs of the old powers could keep silent and continue on letting their critical thinkers and servants corrode democracy (trust, faith, etc.) instead of giving religious institutions or philosopher kings greater agency or power to make people practice tolerance. But whatever the heirs of the old powers pick, this act will always require “another age to govern the evaluation of relevant historical material, to distinguish the principles according to which it might be possible to attempt the evaluation.” Many questions beg answers. For one, can the heirs of the old powers or their successors rejuvenate their power if they continue to allow values like faith, sacrifice, and tolerance to diminish, causing a return to a world devoid of such guiding principles for both current and future generations or one where such contrast is impossible to assess?

Again, I do not understand how the heirs of the old powers believe they can induce transformations or correspondences that strengthen their power, instead of accelerating their fall, by continuing to concentrate political and economic power in the hands of their critical thinkers and servants (security-military complex) without demanding that those servants deepen connections rather than deepen distrust. What I do know is that the political and economic solutions offered by the critical thinkers and servants of the heirs of the old powers, in their pursuit of redeeming the world of natural and man-made injustice, appear to be producing results similar to those achieved by our predecessors in medieval times when they were trying to create ordered relations without improving accountability and democratic legitimacy; these solutions generate animosities, barbarity, and hatred.

If we are experiencing today what our ancestors lived, and the animosity that people are harboring toward their rulers and political class for refusing to be transparent or lead by example continues to grow, this means that it is possible for the heirs of the old powers to experience the same fate that the kings who lived during medieval days endured when they were watching in silence the abuse of power that their critical thinkers and servants were carrying out.

During medieval times it was not the dissociation of citizens from the political order that kings legitimized and enforced that caused the collapse and fall of the kingdoms that completely disappeared or were absorbed by a stronger society, but rather it was the envy, enmity, and hatred that the guardians (i.e., their critical thinkers and servants) of those kings were harboring in their hearts toward their masters that caused their incorporation into another expanding civilization or fall.

For example, the fall of the kingdom of Israel, the Roman Empire, Islam, the Ottoman Empire, and the Soviet Union, culminating in the 2024 collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s presidency, occurred because the guardians of those rulers disavowed/betrayed them and did not stay loyal to them as they were saying they would be doing during the crisis. In other words, the guardians who disavowed/betrayed those aforementioned individuals did so to start practicing authoritarianism and political corruption themselves, not to end it. Therefore, if those rulers were defeated, not because they were weak or less violent, but because they were protected by wolves in sheep’s clothing, can the heirs of the old powers prevent their critical thinkers and servants from betraying them to seize wealth and power, under the guise of upholding the UN Charter and international resolutions, rather than acting out of self-interest?

Again, I do not know how the heirs of the old powers think their own critical thinkers and servants will remain loyal, given that they are protected not by freedom fighters but by guardians who form with them a nest of wasps (rejuvenating their power from tributes and ill-gotten gains). In the French language, there is a proverb that states, “Comparaison n’est pas raison,” meaning “comparison is not reason” or “comparison is not justification.” Perhaps it is not logically justifiable to compare or equate the focused and volatile way that wasps live with the methods used by the heirs of the old powers; however, the Bible suggests that God sent the hornet, a close cousin to wasps, ahead of the Israelites to drive their enemies out of their way. I do not know why God chose to send the hornets to drive the enemies of the Israelites away instead of sending bees, for example. What I do know is that hornets can sting repeatedly, unlike a bee, who can strike only once. Can the heirs of the old powers avoid losing their power to their critical thinkers and servants when the only way for them to prevent this outcome is to be open and accepting of others, yet this conduct is what makes their critical thinkers and servants become their staunch enemies? If this conundrum could never change, for as long as the heirs of the old powers refuse to improve faith (accountability, trust, and values), could they rewrite a different history than the ones hornets have been writing?