Alexander:

THE POWER OF IDEAS

The old nature of society was a sharp pyramid.

Think of Egypt and Giza, the Chinese Pyramids, Babylonian Ziggurats, the Obelisk in Washington D.C, Cleopatra's Needle in Britain, the Lateran Obelisk in Rome, the French Eiffel Tower  -every empire has had a pyramidal monument with a tiny top and larger bottom. Aztec, Nineveh, Ethiopia; a crown upheld by slaves.

If human beings must form political units to coordinate activities, violence must be regulated within an organized against outside groups. Ultimately one man or a small elite controls this disruptive force, ostensibly for the common good.

Or consider religion. As an expression of our collective consciousness, it cannot be left to the whims of individuals. A body of revelation, or acceptable doctrine, is soon built and access to the “inner mysteries” soon employed for adherence among the faithful. The priest-class becomes the top. Religion is not inherently evil, but its tendency towards subjugation is. 

Violence, Religion, and Debt all work together to subjugate a large number of people. It is true as an individual living in a capitalist or communist state. It is true as a country, regardless of political ideology. The Black Man is the bottom of humanity, although the miracle of India where 20,000 British officials and troops ruled over 300 million Indians is worthy of note.

Education is a great leveler. In an efficient sense, Knowledge is power.

In 1436, Gutenberg invented the printing press (although a cumbersome form of woodblock printing had been going on in China six centuries before). Before this, manuscripts were hand-copied. News moved slowly through letters to local nobility and then trickled to the peasantry. The bible was a mysterious book, and the clergy could claim to represent God on earth. Science was non-existent.

After Gutenberg, the first newspapers came into being, and locals would gather around a pub to hear a paid reader recite the news. The viscount was no longer the fountain of the news; the parish priest was no longer the voice of God or people. The first fact-checkers came into being.

The Italian Renaissance, which sought to rediscover the works created by Augustus and Seneca, Pericles and Cicero, had been in swing for a century. Still, the printing press now allowed these rare texts of Aristotle and Plato to be republished and distributed. By vastly accelerating the discovery and sharing of knowledge, the Printing Press gave the public truth on the innate dignity of Man and the tyranny of elites. It became a European thing.

It also led to the Reformation. Martin Luther, whose life ended the reign of the Catholic Church, said, “Printing is the ultimate gift of God and the greatest one.” He became the world's first best-selling author, and his influence brought Europe out of its dark ages, but he was not alone. New voices arrived on-scene, and it was impossible to kill ideas. So every time the Catholic church printed a list of banned books, the publishers knew just what to print next.

Francis Bacon, the father of the scientific method, wrote that the three greatest inventions of the world were “gunpowder, the nautical compass, and the printing press.” They enabled the commoner to conquer another, conquer the world, and conquer the mind.  Science, formerly a solitary affair divided by language and geography, gathered itself into modernity with shared data and findings. The printing press also improved accuracy, allowing a speedy advance at the frontiers of science.

Public Opinion began to mean something. In a genuine sense, democracy exists because of communication. Voltaire had his say, and monarchies trembled. The 1789 French Revolution came through the words of men like Baron de Montesquieu and Denis Diderot. Thomas Paine's publishing of “Common Sense” in 1775 contributed a great deal to the American Revolution in the same year. The Bolshevik revolutionaries were the first newspaper columnists. Benjamin Franklin became a statesman through printing.

But it is not the Printing Press that is so powerful. It is the communication of Ideas. The invention of the telegraph in 1792, the radio in 1896, the television in 1927, the global internet in 1989, and social media in 1997 all have one thing in common: a new social order as the old pyramid gets overturned through new ideas.

The civil rights movement in America depended on paper and radio. When Africans sought independence, Kwame Nkrumah set up the “Accra Evening News.” “The Yoruba newspaper, “Iwe Thorin” was published. The Nigeria Daily Times came in 1926. “Abantu Batho,” an ANC paper, fought Apartheid. Nnamdi Azikiwe set up the “West African Pilot.” The Kenyan mass media combated colonial narratives.

You might think the age of knowledge as power, or “The Pen is mightier than the Sword,” gone with Harold Macmillian's “Wind of Change,” but be careful there. Ideas end only in two ways: Revolution or Reform. All religions and political ideologies have begun this way until the protesters become the established class and seek to close the doors to Revolution or Reform.

Social media fueled the Arab Spring between 2010 and 2012. It ousted four leaders, forced major concessions from nine others, created the Egyptian crises, and led to four civil wars in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen. Fringe influencers on the internet like Steve Bannon upset mainstream media narratives and gave Americans the Donald. President Museveni shut down the internet ahead of elections to win a sixth term in office since 1986. Separatism grows in the South-East and South-West due, in great part, to Radio Biafra.

When you hear of Lai Mohammed calling the role of Twitter in Nigeria very suspect, he speaks as a man aware of the damage social media consensus can create and sustain.  The printing press took down Kings, google tackles academia, and social media pummels tyrants.

The point is that the world is increasingly less hierarchical. People make money from remote work and work without formal titles. People influence public opinion without being paid journalists. The manufacture of consensus in Noam Chomsky's day is more organic in ours. Sales, Election, Religion are now common affairs if you build a following. Violence is outsourced through the dark web. Bitcoin has found traction and replaces the bank manager with an unknown miner.

Ash-she's yours at an-nizam! The people want to bring down the regime.

I said “less hierarchical” because you want some level of an organization if collective targets are to be achieved. Of course, as long as humanity exists, there will be some measure of top-down control. One cannot wean this tendency away, not least because infants require it, and it is presently improbable that government would take your children.

But what is your place in this new world? Will you seek knowledge? Will you align yourself with the one truly irresistible power known to humanity: the power of Idea?

I give you free tools to defend yourself, think for yourself, and earn money. Remember, Violence, Organized Religion, and Debt are the three cornerstones of servitude. Free yourself through Confidence, truthful Ideas, and untethered Income.