Classical Antiquity in 2021: A ray of light from a distant star.

 

The chapters of history can offer some ancient wisdom like a ray of light from a distant star because it comes and shine on us showing the way in the darkness even though the source of that like, the star from it came long gone and doesn’t exist anymore.

 

In 70 BC, Rome was republic, home to nearly four million people, from wealthy politicians to lowly slaves. Instead of an emperor or king, Romans were governed by an elected senate. But ruling over them were two consuls, the chief executives of the republic, an officials who wields more power than any other man in Rome. One of the most versatile minds of ancient Rome, Marcus Tulius Cicero (lived in 106-43 BC), a Roman statesman, lawyer, political theorist, philosopher and Roman constitutionalist introduced the Romans to the chief schools of Greek philosophy. He was most famous “homo novus” or new man of Roman politics, hailing from a minor provincial landowning family rather than great clans of hereditary nobility. So he really had to make his way on his own merits and He rose to the ultimate office of consul and the senatorial membership by his wits and audacity as a lawyer and orator in public prosecutions. Cicero spoke against Julius Caesar when he declared himself dictator for 10 years. Cicero said Kings can be wise and just, but rule by one person can easily become tyranny and that’s what happened when Caesar assassinated by some of the Roman senators who believed they were saving the republic. But the opposite occurred and after years of violence and upheaval, the only way to restore the peace is through the leadership of one man. The nephew of Julius Caesar, Octavian became Rome’s first emperor and even though how good Caesars intentions for Rome, in the end he destroyed the 500 year old Roman Republic. Before Cicero was put to death by the forces of Mark Antony who was supporter of Caesar and Octavian, Cicero wrote frequently to his friend Atticus, Roman editor and patron of letters sharing the news and discussing affairs of business and state. Cornelius Nepos from Verona, the 1^st century BC biographer of Atticus remarked that Cicero’s letters to Atticus contained such a wealth of details “concerning the inclinations of leading men, the faults of the generals, and the revolutions in the government” providing the first-hand account of social and political life in Rome.

 

Cicero stands at one of the most famous political transitions in human history which is when the Roman Republic becomes the Roman Empire and at the center of that there were these vainly attempts by Cicero to uphold the ideals of the republican principles during this transition. His writings constitute one of the most famous bodies of historical and philosophical works in all of classical antiquity. In 1345 Florentine scholar, poet and humanist Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch) discovered Cicero’s letters to Atticus in the Capitular Library of Verona, one of the oldest libraries in the world still in operation today. Their discovery or rediscovery by Petrarch is often credited with “Initiating the 14^th century Renaissance” and the founding of Renaissance humanism. Petrarch published many volumes of his own letters, including a few written to his long dead friends from the history and authors of the ancient world such as Cicero and Virgil. The plan for his letters was suggested to him by knowledge of Cicero’s letters.

 

Petrarch was highly critical of the learning of his age. He criticized scholasticism, instead looked to the ancients for guidance and especially Cicero as he was prophet of a humanities based liberal arts education favored by the humanists and his writings provided an overview of all of Greek and Roman learning. So that was kind of out of the box thinking by Petrarch as if bunking the school lecture or college dropout learning on his own and least bothered by syllabus, provided that he has access to library or internet in today’s information age. For Petrarch the humanism which served basis for renaissance, Renaissance humanism was response to pedantry associated with medieval scholasticism which was an attempt to bind the classical antiquity philosophy with contemporary theological traditions. Petrarch is traditionally regarded as the “Father of Humanism” because he helped to popularize the study of the classical world and considered by many to be the “Father of the Renaissance”

 

Niccolo Machiavelli, the “Father of modern Political Science” who worked at the Chancery of the Republic of Florence from 1498 to 1512 contributing to resurrect most democratic government that had been seen since ancient Rome in Florence between Savonarola's theocracy and 16^th century Medici dictatorship. During the Italian Renaissance, he established the emphasis of modern political science on direct empirical observation of political institutions and actors. Machiavelli was destined for a life of civil service, but became a victim of the times he lived in. Not all generations of Medici family were great like the early 16th century Medici who in 1512 returned to power in Florence and although Machiavelli had hopes of retaining his employment, he was quickly dismissed, imprisoned, tortured and sent him into solitary exile at his country retreat. It was a punishment worse than death for a man who found high-level politics as necessary as breathing. Machiavelli hated exile. He drank in the company of peasants, fought in local villages and railed at his fate. To the heir of a Medici family that prided itself on its artistic patronage, he submitted the outraged complaint “This is the way poets are treated!” At night, he dressed in the old robes of office, sat at his desk, and wrote. He drew on his experiences in government and composed a manifesto for pragmatic leadership. He was experienced, he was (at forty-three) extremely vigorous, and during his many years of civil service he had shown himself a trustworthy man. “la mia poverta e la prova della mia onesta” i.e. My poverty is evidence of my fidelity and virtue, he confided to a friend. 

 

In one of the famous letter written in the Renaissance from Machiavelli to his friend, a man named Francesco Vettori, he describes his writing of famous political treatise “The Prince”. He writes "When evening comes, I return to my home and go to my study. At the door, I take off my everyday clothes which are covered with mud and dirt and I put on my regal and curial robes. And decently reclothed, I enter into the ancient courts of ancient men, where I am received by them kindly and there I taste the food that alone is mine and for which I was born. There I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reasons for their actions and they in their humanity, answers me. And for the space of four hours every night, I feel no boredom. I forget every pain. I do not fear poverty and death does not frighten me. I become completely part of them. And because Dante says that knowledge does not exist without the retention of it by memory, I have noted down what I have learned from their conversations and have composed a little work on principalities, where I delve as deeply as I can into reflections on this subject, discussing what a principality is, of what kinds they are, how they are acquired, how they are maintained, and why they are lost.”

 

This is of course the Renaissance fantasy begun by Petrarch in many ways with his humanist enterprise by writing letters to Cicero who had been dead for fourteen hundred years and Machiavelli is engaged in the same fantasy game of a conversation with the Ancients. Its reading is what he's doing but he's describes it as a conversation and with them answering back and he's describing this to Vettori. It is there that Machiavelli’s literary career takes off. Machiavelli drew from Cicero, a man who lived in troubled times in a troubled republic similar to his own, the inspiration for embarking on a project of education of a new ruling class. Similar to the Petrarch, Machiavelli’s writing was new and out of the box thinking compared to his contemporary counterparts, imbued with scholasticism of Christian and Humanist notions of virtue; however, the “principe nuovo” has an old soul, since the new notion of prudence elaborated by Machiavelli has its roots in classical images of ethical and political virtue, in Plato, Aristotle and Cicero. His less famous “Discourses on Livy” in 1517, reflected upon the rise and fall of the Roman Republic centuries earlier. Machiavelli, just like Cicero, felt that what he had not been able to do in deeds with his political action at the service of the Florentine republic; he could do through his writings by putting his knowledge of men and politics, his expertise gained through practical experience and constant reading of ancient authors in his political treatise. The “new path” in politics that he announced in The Prince was an effort to provide a guide for political action based on the lessons of history and his own experience as a foreign secretary in Florence. In his passionate republicanism he showed himself to be the heir of the great humanists of a century earlier who had expounded the ideals of free citizenship and explored the uses of Classicism for the public life.

 

Both authors were looking at the future because they could not detect any political personality who could work for the common good in their contemporary factional circumstances; both were thinking of prospective young readers who could be educated in order to rise up to the supreme task ahead. And yes they did inspire generations hundred’s and thousand years from their own. It is impossible to overestimate the importance of Cicero's writings or his historical significance as an example in politics and in rhetoric for Italian Humanist and Renaissance culture. In fact the first person to coin the term ‘Dark Ages’ was Petrarch as a time of intellectual darkness between the fall of Rome and Renaissance. And as we know discovery of Cicero’s letter to Petrarch initiated the 14^th century Renaissance as he fetched a light of classical antiquity into the Dark Age giving rebirth to an intellectual era, on the basis of the same Petrarch’s contributions made him worth for title of “Father of Renaissance” and later Machiavelli as “Father of Modern Political Science” as the lessons he drew on the survival of republics are no less relevant today for all struggling democracies around the world.

 

“To be ignorant of what occurred before you born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestor by the records of history? ” - Cicero

 

As Petrarch shared his excitement of discovering the Cicero’s letters in Verona, Cicero revealed by those letters. The theme of the humanistic discovery is far older than this. Cicero himself boasts of his discovery, as a young Roman quaestor in Sicily, of Archimedes’s then-forgotten grave in Syracuse, a man who coined the immortal exclamation “Eureka!” meaning ‘I found it’.

In book series ‘Tusculanae Disputationes’, Cicero attempted to popularize Greek philosophy in Ancient Rome. Comparing Greek thinkers like Archimedes to tyrants, Cicero declared that lives of the former were preferable to those of the latter as his fifth Disputation concludes that virtue is sufficient for living a happy life.

If anyone thinks that ancient knowledge is nothing but to fall back on? Yes but the perspective is new to look at it. So when we look back the history with new 21^st century perspective, the merge of two different philosophies at the same time where ancient thoughts meets the today’s scientific mindset inspiring new interpretation, ideas and thoughts by connecting the dots which can be the addition of something new to the contemporary world in the current moment and soon will be the history and reference to next generation and cycle continues.

 

Here I would like to highlight my blog “A day at the museum and surprises” regarding my one of wonderful day in Genoa, Italy. And why museums are important as every museum has spellbinding stories to tell with its sense of tranquility, the ancient art dematerializes in front of your eyes hacking your mind like time warping device changing the dimension around you transporting you into another world, another time. So let’s go back in history to fetch some light to see if we can find some relevant fundamental narrative which can inspire us to resolve our todays some of challenges and guide us towards sustainable developing future.

 

Also when Cicero, Petrarch and Machiavelli looked back to the ancient knowledge as reference they were not only unrestrained themselves by ideas of their contemporary time but also from local regional influence fetching them “Overview effect” of knowledge. I guess that is the one way of getting the perspective of overview effect in the ancient time which today many astronauts expressed who saw the mother Earth from space. In fact those astronauts who realized the beauty of ‘overview effect’ perspective, they were not philosophers but seeing Earth from space changed their lives. Similarly in the absence of such rocketry ancient philosophers could gain the wisdom which we have today.

Apollo 8 went to the moon they didn’t land but that they did circle the moon. Many watching on television and at a certain point one of the astronauts casually said we’re going to turn the camera around and show you the earth and when he did and that was the first time people on Earth had ever seen the planet hanging in space like that and it was profound. Quite unexpected but that gave us such a different perspective. Firstly focus had been we’re going to the stars we’re going to plant it and suddenly we look back in ourselves and it seems to imply a new kind of self-awareness. In fact, one of the astronauts said when we originally went to the moon our total focus was on the moon, we weren’t thinking about looking back at the earth but now that we’ve done it that may well have been the most important reason we win. The engineers in mission control admitted that though they are not poets and certainly not good at that, but it was profound effect on everybody that was in the Control Center.

After this photo was taken, something unexpected happened as we went to the moon to explore the moon and we discovered earth for the first time, no one had seen this before spaceship earth. Earth as nature intends you to view it, not with color-coded countries as in your school room but with just oceans and land and clouds. This was the beginning of the modern environmental movement what happens between 1968 and 1973. In 1970 Earth Day was established why didn’t we establish that in 1960 or 1950 and when Earth Day was established DDT was banned in 1973 leaded gasoline was banned in the United States many other countries followed suit thereafter. Comprehensive Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the organization ‘Doctors Without Borders’ was founded that was founded in Switzerland. They probably would have formed anyway but would they have called themselves Without Borders, may be not and so where they even get that State of Mind   unless they saw Earth from space. Apollo 8 was an unprecedented success. Finally America has major victory in space: the humans to orbit the moon and the first photo of Earth from the moon, which then became known as ‘Earthrise’. The astronauts of Apollo 8 mission expressed it as follows:

Jim Lovell: It makes you realize just what you have back there on Earth. The Earth from here is a grand oasis in the big vastness of space.

Frank Borman: The whole focus of mission turned to the Earth after we saw the Earth coming up over the lunar surface. And it seemed the Earth is the only thing in the universe that had any color. It was very lonely, and the universe is pitch-black. It gave us sense of “We better do our best to take care of this little blue marble that we have”.

Demogrossy: Poem

When Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon, he resurrected an office that had really fallen into disuse and appointed himself dictator of Rome for 10 years, giving him authority to pass any law he sees fit. This is one man for a limited amount of time, holds absolute sole authority. The dictator was started off life as an emergency office only to be held for six months. It was almost a primeval feature of the Roman republican constitution. Caesar held this office not for a military emergency, but for reconstituting the Roman state. To put it back together in such a way that he would have an unassailable position at the very top, and this was extremely un-Roman. It was a real slap in the face not just to the Senate, but to the entire idea of the Republic. And so by appointing himself dictator for ten years, Caesar ignores the rules of the constitution, allowing him more time to fix the Republic. For decades, he watched an inefficient Senate grow increasingly powerful. Caesar had a keen sense of what was working in the Republic, and what was not working. Economic inequality, the senate was filled with corruption. The calendar had completely fallen out of whack; their ability to keep time had even fallen into a deplorable state. Caesar could see all of it; he could see what needed to be done. So Caesar sought to reform this. He assuming dictatorial power allowed him to make reforms that had not been able to be carried forth. He wanted support of the Roman people and wanted to be seen as a legitimate ruler. He didn’t want to be seen as a simple military tyrant. He began a massive construction program building temples, libraries, and a new harbor, providing jobs for thousands of Romans. He introduced a new calendar as Roman government had become so corrupt, so inept, that they had literally lost track of the days, the months, the seasons. Caesar bases the new calendar on a solar year, putting the entire Republic on a universal timetable, one that is still used today. The month of July is named in his honor, just to tell you July is also my birth month J. Caesar was a paradox as a politician. On one hand his priority was always Caesar, but on the other hand he would try to extend more benefits to ordinary people instead of supporting side of wealth and power. He wanted to acquire all the power that he can, but he was also trying to create a bigger, more impressive system of Roman government that is fit for purpose when it comes to ruling what was by then a global empire stretching across the whole Mediterranean world. So he could push through his own legislative agenda, do whatever he wants, without having to worry about getting the Senate’s support stripping it’s of all authority. So for many of them it was hard to tolerate a situation where republic had been defeated by an individual man. Inside Rome, there was fear that was beginning to set in that Caesar going to do is making himself king of Rome. The idea that there would be a king of Rome was anathema to Roman political psychology. Incite the Senate, conspiracy begun to get rid of Caesar. On the 14^th March, 44 B.C., Julius Caesar was assassinated by a fraction of senators. By assassinating Caesar, the Roman senators believed they were saving the Republic. But opposite occurred, as after that in Rome years of violence and upheaval took place and the only way to restore peace was through the leadership of one man. His name is Octavian, the nephew of Julius Caesar. And on the 27^th January B.C., he became Rome’s first emperor, ruling for the next 40 years. Caesar did take steps to curb corruption, to eliminate debt, to make life a bit better for the poorer citizens and they loved him for it. But he, in the end destroyed the Republic. The example that he set, the wheels that he set in motion caused the transformation of the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire which faded away into the darkness of ‘dark ages’. As the madmen hungry for power as emperor enfeebled themselves by decades of easy privilege and city was stagnating under their influence plunging not only their own people but also rest of the empire into misery.

Petrarch initiated the 14^th century Renaissance as he fetched a light of classical antiquity into the Dark Age giving rebirth to an intellectual era and just like Petrarch, Renaissance painter and architect Giotto helped to spark the Renaissance with his art creating ‘three point perspective’, giving a sense of the depth to his paintings. It made a difference. From the 1340s the idea of “rebirth” was a commonplace in critical writing. Authors spoke of how, with Dante and Giotto, both poetry and painting had been “reborn,” and in the following two centuries the same notion was often applied to other areas such as architecture, sculpture, and philosophy. Decade later the man working on the best project in Florence was Filippo Brunelleschi and he continued to break boundaries of conventional understanding. He simply saw the world as no other man ever had; in 1434, Brunelleschi unveiled a new technique that radically changed Western art.

Brunelleschi developed linear perspective which allowed pictures to create the convincing illusion of a three-dimensional space where gothic art is primarily flat to represent objects as three-dimensional rounded solid forms imitating the appearance of the natural world. Perspective revolutionizes everything. It revolutionizes art but then of course it revolutionizes how we see completely. Something small may seem enormous, depending from where you view it and vice versa. Something Cosimo de Medici might have learned from Brunelleschi’s Perspective theory which might helped him to recognized a true artists even among maverick person such as Filippo Lippi. Cosimo discovered payment alone didn't guarantee results. he had particular problems with the wayward monk and artist Filippo Lippi. Lippi was put into the monastery because he was an orphan not because he asked to go into the monastery and he really wasn't suited for that kind of life. His life included many tales of lawsuits, complaints, broken promises, and scandal. Cosimo tolerated his temperamental artists because of their talent; he understood that you get better work out of people when people are happy. So rather than yelling at them and being imperious and demanding and holding them to the letter of every little contract, you might get better work and more reliable work if you treated them like human beings who have other needs and have another life. That perspective created a modern way of looking. It began in the 15th century and it very much begins under Cosimo with Brunelleschi. Just like famous engineering Mathematician Archimedes, Hero of Alexandria who developed many mathematical theories and done many contributions in the field of engineering. Brunelleschi is known founding father of Renaissance architecture. Using his linear perspective people used to get the pictorial depictions of space. This Mathematical Technique developed by him helped to raise modern science.

Oligarchy family like Albizzi always preferred war as it was means to create wealth for them and maintain their power. While Cosimo de’ Medici was the man of new generation who preferred to enrich the people of city by creating jobs and flourishing artists rather than wages of destructions. The people were grateful, not to Albizzi for waging war, but to the Medici for feeding their families. But while these lovely jobs drain Medici accounts, their taxes fund Albizzi war and Medici knew as long as that continues they are all doomed. Just like today’s world with techno sovereignty as digital entities which gained economic capacity, increased markets and more capacity of investment which made them almost state-like entities given the amount of population they can influence in the world at any moment to their digital citizens as many of those feel more aligned to these digital entities rather than their local sovereign government who just preys on their local citizens.

 

The Medici of Florence in the fourteenth century with their love for art, science and culture did much to influence the Renaissance and to enable the great artists, humanists, and writers, to produce their works that have been so influential down the centuries. The revival of learning, rationality and the arts patronized by the Medici made household names of the greatest artists and thinkers of their age Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Brunelleschi, Botticelli, and Galileo catalyzing the Renaissance that began in the early 14th century in Italy spread throughout Europe, sped along by the invention of the printing press, and forever transformed the Western world. Cicero was very proud of the fact of finding Archimedes tomb, isn’t a man becomes governor of Syracuse and this is a great thing Cicero brings to the world that he has found the same which proves what an educated man he was. For inspiration Brunelleschi also turned to the greatest civilization of the ancient world and in Brunelleschi's wake came Cosimo, the papal banker anxious to see        things for himself. In ancient Rome men had constructed architectural marvels buildings such as the Pantheon, the house of the gods the largest free standing dome in the world one of the most fascinating buildings in ancient Rome. What particularly struck the contemporaries was the size of the dome and the fact that it was one of the very few complete domes that had survived from ancient times. With the backing of the Medici Brunelleschi now set his eye on the problem of the dome the greatest challenge in Florence. Even some says or can say Brunelleschi was the second Archimedes. As we discussed earlier he too reached for ancient light and cycle continues… J

 

During Machiavelli’s youth, his father seems to have gained him entrée to the scholarly circles around the widely beloved Lorenzo de’ Medici, who had managed to rule Florence for decades without the Florentines’ feeling the brunt or shame of being ruled. Long before Darwin, Machiavelli showed us a credible world without Heaven or Hell, a world of “is” rather than “should be,” in which men were coolly viewed as related to beasts and earthly government was the only hope of bettering our natural plight. What Leonardo Da Vinci did for art, he wanted to do for politics. There is today an entire school of political philosophers who see Machiavelli as an intellectual freedom fighter, a transmitter of models of liberty from the ancient to the modern world.

 

The Medici family not just brought stability and peace to the city of Florence but bankrolled the cultural movement that dragged Europe out of the Dark Ages and into modernity. The Renaissance in art, science and literature that Cosimo de’ Medici and his grandson Lorenzo de’ Medici helped to bring about has never been equaled. But in 1492 after the death of Lorenzo de’ Medici, his son became ruler of the Florence, but was forced into exile when the French army invaded the Florence city two years later. The French invasion and defeat and the exile of the Medici gave particular prominence within the new republican regime of Florence to a friar, Girolamo Savonarola. Savonarola came into power, and for a while Machiavelli was a follower. In those years Savonarola preached conventional apocalyptic sermons warning of God’s punishments that awaited Florentine sinners, including, notably, those guilty of evil in government and went on to destroy thousands of books and works of art in a so-called ‘Bonfire of the vanities’. But the Florentine people eventually turned against him. Machiavelli felt that Savonarola could only keep power by arming himself, and eventually became disenchanted with the religious leader. In 1498 Savonarola was hanged and Machiavelli gained a position as the head of the second chancery with the new Republic of Florence from 1498 to 1512 contributing to resurrect most democratic government that had been seen since ancient Rome in Florence between Savonarola's theocracy and Medici dictatorship. During this period, Machiavelli dealt with many officials in foreign nations including Cesare Borgia and Pope Julius II. Niccolo Machiavelli, the “Father of modern Political Science” was responsible for writing important government documents, and it is through these contacts and writings that Machiavelli's later philosophies and literary skills can be said to have been developed.

 

And similar story again madmen hungry for power as then for over a century Medici family had run the city of Florence. They had carved their name into the heart of the Florentine Renaissance. The Medici but at the height of their success they had been toppled by a sudden revolution now two cousins raised as brothers struggled to resurrect the supremacy of the family and regain control of Florence, Giovanni and Giulio de’ Medici would aim for the ultimate power, the papacy. Giovanni, Lorenzo de’ Medici’s son was marked out for the church from the age of seven and his cousin Giulio is also marked out for the church. The boys by Lorenzo were brought up together but peace in the Medici home would be short-lived a bloody civil war exploded in the streets of Florence sparked by resentment of Medici wealth and power.

 

Giovanni named as Pope Leo X (reigned 1513–21), became the first Medici Pope. In Michelangelo's Battle of Cascina expressed panic on a very human scale, the artist had caught the mood of an apprehensive City. By 1512 thousands of heavily armed soldiers were inside the borders of Tuscany and closing in on Florence they were shadowed by the Medici cousins determined to reclaim their city. The people of Florence prepared for the onslaught to come, but they knew there were hopelessly outnumbered. The leaders of the city called on the chief advisor a political genius who had guided the Republic since the expulsion of the Medici who was Niccolo Machiavelli. Machiavelli was a single-minded patriot determined to defend the city from Medici dictatorship. Machiavelli set to work mobilizing thousands of men from towns and villages all across, assembled, equipped as a National Army. The papal soldiers were carving a bloody path through Italy and soon they reached a fortified town just outside. Despite his efforts, Machiavelli's troops were no match for the papal militia. In 1512 they decimated Prato, a fortified town just outside Florence. Florence witnesses recorded the devastation perpetrated in the name of the Medici as they broke through the wall and began to race through the town where there was no longer any resistance but only cries, violence, blood and killing as Machiavelli’s soldiers stood no chance to save the Florence city from Medici tyranny.

In 1512, the Medici returned to power, not all generations of Medici were great as 15^th century’s Cosimo and his grandson ‘Lorenzo the magnificent’ and so although Machiavelli had hopes of retaining his employment, he was quickly dismissed. Shortly after, a plot to overthrow the Medici was uncovered and Machiavelli's name was on a list of conspirators. Even though the plot was eventually discovered to have been very vague, Machiavelli was imprisoned, tortured. To the heir of a family that prided itself on its artistic patronage, he submitted the outraged complaint “This is the way poets are treated!”

Giovanni, Leo X turned out to be greedy pope. The scion of the powerful Medici family of Florence, his finer tastes and lavish habits almost bankrupt the papacy. In a sense, the Reformation was a protest against the secular values of the Renaissance. No Italian despots better represented the profligacy, the materialism, and the intellectual hedonism that accompanied these values than Renaissance Pope Leo X. To balance the sheets, he implemented several measures including the sales of indulgences (a granted full or partial remission from eternal damnation). This practices infuriated many, including Martin Luther, leading to the protestant reformation. Two years after Giovanni’s or Pope Leo X death, his cousin Giulio became the second Medici Pope named Clement VII (reigned 1523–34), the new pope inherited a continent in crisis. The fallout from Luther's Reformation now brought furious armies to the gates of Rome itself

No one would have ever imagined in Western Christianity that anyone would have dared to consider a pillaging and destroying Rome a sacred city. You don't sack a sacred city but to the men surrounding Rome, there was nothing that remains sacred. About the Catholic Church many were followers of Luther now fueled by deep religious hatred, most of the soldiers were of German origin and nationality therefore Lutheran's. So they considered Rome as the new Babylon. In fear of his life Pope Clement VII (Giulio de’ Medici) fled to the safety of the Castel Sant'Angelo and his fears were justified for the next day Rome was torn apart without mercy. On 6^th May 1527, they attacked and sacked the city. The repercussions of this chastisement of the corrupt church were heard throughout Europe, and some scholars still date the end of the Renaissance in Italy to this event.

 

In May 1527, Rome was laid siege by the Holy Roman Empire, during the War of the League of Cognac. The city was pillaged and destroyed. The Medici were once again deposed in Florence, by the anti-Medici faction, upon learning of the Papal States' defeat. A new wave of Puritanism swept over Florence. Jesus Christ was appointed "King of Florence". Many new restricting fundamentalist laws were passed. Clement VII signed the Treaty of Barcelona with Charles V. Charles would, in exchange for the Pope's blessing, invade Florence and restore the Medici. They were restored after a protracted siege. In 1533, Alessandro de' Medici was created Duke of Florence by his uncle Pope Clement VII. This single act brought an end to the Florentine republic. The populations were infuriated at this. There was some civil insurrection. The Medici’s were ennobled further in 1569, when Alessandro's successor was made Grand Duke of Tuscany. A majority consensus, however, still conceives of the Italian Renaissance as a period of cultural history having no very sharp chronological boundaries but stretching over the years from about 1340 to about 1550. The Medici ruled as grand dukes until their extinction in 1737 and this time Florence city stagnated under their influence.

 

So what we can learn from here now as we know two stories from two different eras. First I repeat which I mentioned earlier that, in book series ‘Tusculanae Disputationes’, Cicero attempted to popularize Greek philosophy in Ancient Rome. Comparing Greek thinkers like Archimedes to tyrants, Cicero declared that lives of the former were preferable to those of the latter as his fifth Disputation concludes that virtue is sufficient for living a happy life. Teaching us importance of thinkers, philosophers or poets to guide the world as they have the overview effect with their knowledge trying to reach god’s view but crawling up from ant view, the similar journey of an astronauts to reach certain height opening their mind with an ‘overview effect’ perspective giving them awareness of Carl Sagan’s poetic pale blue dot. We can see those thinkers who changed the world were actually consciously or subconsciously aware of this overview effect as they didn’t bound themselves with their contemporary local saturated believes or mindset imbued with traditional rigid thinking instead looked to the ancients for guidance as their writings provided an overview of all of Greek and Roman learning which offered them fresh new ideas and perspectives when they combined those ancient thoughts with their own interpretations of those ancient thoughts.

 

As I mentioned exactly one year before in my blog Revelation: Universe is conspiring that we are on that mind-numbing point arriving at a very perilous juncture in the history where we should consider both our past and future altogether to act wisely today, rethinking about where we are now and where we are going as with current pace of the world which needs historians and philosophers to engage with engineers, scientist, corporations as well as governments seeking answers to a lot of questions about what we ought to be doing right now for the better future of humanity. As I mentioned in my another blog Science-Philosophy Singularity:Magic of Absolutism, without human values we may think we all have answer we need but reality will be meaningless like our ancestors but with delusional super intelligence lacking subjective experience living in the fancy caves. Which is quite aligned with the Cicero highlighted here that lives of the thinkers or philosophers were preferable to those of the tyrants as there has to be touch of subjective thinking or philosophy as well, attaching it to our human values and morality because else history keeps on repeating with madmen just hungry of power waging destruction as we know “sadly it’s much easier to create desert than forest”.

This Year USA’s presidential transition was like no other in history after inciting the violent storming of congress. The sober ceremony for president-elect Joe Biden with security services on high alert amidst warnings that right-wing groups might repeat the angry protests at the capitol and so 20,000 national guards and other troops that are basically deployed to the US capitol. Congress has responded to the storming initiating a second impeachment against Trump who has been banned by social media but the outgoing president continues to claim he is the rightful winner of the election and his supporters believe him.

Donald Trump's ability to threaten American democracy is fading but his legacy will loom large over the country for years to come as trump might for now leave the political stage but his 74 million followers won't be going away. As some of them took up Trump's call to march on the capitol incited by Donald Trump's accusations of election fraud his supporters blaze a trail of destruction through the capital. The insurrection is hitting American democracy right in the heart. The oldest democracy of the world is in utter chaos just because of the right wing supporters of the losing candidate. Many rioters believe that they are well within their rights and are normal good law-abiding citizens and want their country back protesting for their freedom. This can happen to any nation, if the blind followers of a leader/ party start justifying every wrong act with baseless logics. It’s time to think and look within, so that we don’t become such a mindless mob. It is very important that political leaders impress on their followers the need to refrain from violence, as well as respect democratic processes and the rule of law. Though Facebook and Twitter suspended Donald Trump's accounts, so he can't continue to incite more violence but he and his supporters are here to stay. In fact Donald Trump has already announced that he will open his own media channel as if it’s not the end but just the beginning.

From the political science perspective the advancement in industrial democracies which benefited from promoting globalism have failed a lot of their own citizens in their borders and we see lot of structured inequality consequences of that citizens prefer to completely check out of the political system or vote to break things. Resulting that many countries are being seduced by the siren sound of devising nationalism with “X first” weakening the rule based international order challenging the multilateral system that arose from the chaos and rubble of two world wars. World leaders and governments expressed shock and outrage at the storming of the US Capitol in Washington by supporters of President Donald Trump. But they should learn from this particular event that it is also necessary that international rule based order has to be supplemented with proper domestic policies taking place within the borders of countries. Hence not to discount the concerns of people who voted into populism, wealthy educated people who have benefited from the globalization should think and act responsibly to continue the celebration of cultural diversity, free exchange of goods and ideas, retaining the beauty of true liberal democracy fixing the breakdown of trust and erosion of social capital among the people who are less well off or displaced in the wave of globalization. A shared commitment to pluralism, human rights, rule of law and collective pursuit of better, safe and prosperous world has to be celebrated.

Since the fall of berlin wall, there was a broad sense that liberal democracy fully associated with capitalism will be the solution for societies as Steven Pinker describes democratic government is designed to resolve conflicts among citizens by consensual rule of law and so democracies should externalize this ethic in dealing with other states and also every democracy knows the way every other democracy works, since they’re all constructed on the same rational foundations rather than growing out of a cult of personality, a messianic creed, or a chauvinistic mission. But since distribution didn’t take place fairly resulting inequality of which chain reaction is one of the reasons to today’s fractured world. On one side we have technological revolution as an opportunity to reduce the inequality gap and on other side its huge challenge of displaced people from fourth industrial revolution enhancing the inequality.

Fair Inequality: Poem

Inequality also impacts the environment as super rich contributing to climate change with extreme consumption and super poor cutting down the trees for their survival, the best example is Fast Fashion which not only exploiting workers with terrible working conditions in factories but also leading to more greenhouse gases with textile production destroying the planet and stealing the future of next generation. Hence the need to urgently end of the inequality’s Matthew Effect, in which them that’s got shall get and them that’s not shall lose. Increase in inequality makes growth precarious creating monopoly which uses wealth to undermine liberal democracy considering liberty as a privilege, fracturing societies and corrupting the system for their self-interest which is quite unsustainable and only results in collapse of moral basis of system as history already taught us through French revolution and fascism in Italy, speaking of which during my study in Genoa, I stayed in hostel Casa dello Studente di Genova, Gastaldi for around half a year which once upon a time during World War II used to be headquarters for Nazi Gestapo police, a place of torture for political prisoners and anti-fascists.

The underground rooms of the hostel are now used as a resistance museum which can be visited and specially opens for tours to school children on the occasion of the April 25th anniversary which is national Italian holiday commemorating the end of occupation of the country during World War II and the victory of the Resistance.

Since the challenges we are facing are global in nature climate change, growing inequality, and uncontrolled migration, global pandemic and upcoming unknown technological disruption which no country can solve on its own and needs cooperation greater than ever. So we are at point where we can break everything and all hell breaks loose or we can work together to cope with these known & unknown challenges, we should not be complacent with ourselves and waste time but speed up with more inclusive responsible pragmatic new way of thinking about these challenges exchanging our views, knowledge, policies and best practices not just to determine that whether we are predestined to salvation or damnation but to work hard to find and redefine the best way out of it to move forward. And problem is we are in serious trend toward de-globalization or balkanization at the present time and it has not exhausted itself when trump goes the pressures for that sort of de-globalization will  take a different form in the US, but they will be there because of Americans are looking at home and if you find in many European political settings elsewhere in the world the construction of the global internet is sort of pacemaker in this area and we are seeing more nationalization efforts globally which has to reverse its course before it takes us back to the dark ages.

In fact as I explained very well in my blog Allegory Unveiled: Medieval Florentine affairs and its Modern AgeGlobal Replications that we are in the second renaissance phase as in less than a single lifespan, we went from first manned flight to first man on the moon. And for the last 20 years lots of our efforts have been around the International Space Station that has been a marvel of international cooperation a hundred and three countries have been involved in that program which we have been living and working side-by-side in space for 18 years. It was recently described by the head of NASA as the most powerful example of international cooperation in the history of mankind that's something to be really proud.

To adopt an era of such fast changing world needs renaissance men and the perspective of renaissance era, an era in which art and culture, knowledge and technology developed at near lightning speed transitioning dark ages into modernity. The image of mankind changed during the Renaissance not only transforming pessimistic view of middle ages but rediscovering new perspective with quantum leap for technological advancement and modernization which has a great influence on our time as our voyage to the Stars began 500 years ago as without Copernicus there would be no spaceflight or satellite communication systems, we would have reached none of the other planets and our lives today would be very different. So we do have option that rather than fracturing the world for short term benefits or easy way out to bigger global issues, we can be like renaissance men to coordinate our ambitions and our activities not only just working on resolving the issue but look forward to move humanity next step into vast universe with space exploration as it does have potential to flourish the humanity sustainably and to bring renaissance like perspective with “Overview effect” experience described by astronauts in space. As we know with Apollo 11 moon landing how for a brief moment, a fractured world was brought together in awe.

When Kennedy announced to go to the moon, they didn't have a clue how the hell they were going to do it but they just said we got to get to the moon before the Russians. and look what happened not only are they the only country to land people on the moon and get them back and they did it in less than a decade. Many immigrants on green card contributed too, many with work Visa got sponsored for their talent. But all of the unexpected results from that every year NASA publishes a magazine called spin-off and it's loaded with dozens of innovations that have resulted just from the commitment to get to the moon. Dozens of products that have come out of it just because Americans said we're going to get to the moon first and even now 50 years later. When Nobel prizes in science are announced, more than half of them there are scientists working in America. So this is what a very profound lesson that the important thing to try to achieve anything is make the commitment that this is what we've got to do. Similarly Brunelleschi too wasn’t sure about his solution of flying buttress imbedded in the dome itself by building two domes, the inner dome to serve as support for the outer dome because no one had ever attempted to build a structure of that scale before him neither he was having any simulation tools to test his proposed solutions. So if Medici funds him that would be an act of faith and he did fund him as he made commitment to complete the dome for cathedral. Cosimo had broadened his circle of radical friends amongst his favorites was a notorious sculptor, Donatello. Donatello’s David was one of the most revolutionary works hard in the 15^th century because it was the first time since the ancient Romans that anyone had tried to make a free-standing bronze sculpture of a nude man. Cosimo gives a space to artists and writers to develop new ideas that are outside the orthodoxy of the Catholic Church, art is really where it's happening. Art, sculpture and architecture are pushing forward the boundaries of what it's possible to actually do; No one in Florence was taking more risks than Brunelleschi.

Back then in the history multilateralism culture was quite weak with an anarchic series of world domination, act by various individuals or regimes who tried to achieve hypothetical power which is repeated over the history since the ancient medieval period to the modern world’s wars among well-established nations. The crimes during the Second World War exceeded by far anything in conventional jurisprudence. The trials were pushed forward by responding to defense counsel that the interpretation of law is constantly evolving towards greater justice. The ideal goal at least on paper was to decide whether the accused should be released back into the world, or imprisoned or executed in order to pay for their crimes and thus dissuade anyone else from ever engaging in similar actions. Because given the history without international law, there will be madmen hungry for power will keep plunging not only their own people but also rest of the world into misery. And the best example is Napoleon who waged aggressive war, even though he was wiped out by fierce Russian military tactics and his enemies chose not to execute him but exiled him to Elba. This leniency allowed him to escape and return to power causing many more deaths in Waterloo, after which he exile again as there was no law against waging aggressive war. But that was the time where neither international governance was matured enough nor many individual states domestic governments.

The Tokyo tribunal after World War two, the tribunal was required to uncover the truth about the Pacific War, some believe the outcome was fixed from the start and called it ‘Victor's justice’ as all 25 defendants were found guilty politicians and military alike seven were punished with death by hanging. The judges were appointed by the United Nations but during two and a half years prior to passing judgments strong dissent and fierce maneuverings developed among the judges. The bench was divided on certain fronts especially on issue that weather to consider ‘crime against peace’ or crime of aggression as an international crime. Nuremberg Tribunal had adopted two new legal notions designating crimes against peace and crimes against humanity as war crimes. The British had dispatched Patrick to Tokyo to convict Nazi Germany's Ally Japan of the same war crimes. Justice Patrick asserted that to loyally abide by the tribunals Charter was the obligation of every judge on that bench. The judges don't make the law Parliament makes the law, the politicians, the legislature make the law and it's up to the judges to apply the law and to see that it is maintained, whether you like it or not that's the basis upon which these tribunals were set up and from the point of view of a judge who's been appointed in that tribunal with his job is simply to straightforward apply that law.

Conventional war crimes by the Japanese, categorized as Class B and Class C, were handled in local trials throughout Asia. Twenty-five top leaders were charged with Class A crimes of waging aggressive wars and committing crimes against peace and humanity, categories created by the Allies after the war, a person would have to at least be indicted for crimes against peace in order to be tried at the Tokyo trial, Otherwise they would be tried at lesser courts. Indian judge Justice Pal rejected the charges of the crime of aggression or crimes against peace and humanity as ex post facto laws. In colonizing parts of Asia, Japan had merely aped the Western powers, Pal said.

Netherlands judge Justice Roling grasped the Justice Pal’s reasoning; gradually he came to take a sympathetic view of Pal's position that there was no agreement in the Pact of Paris that individuals should be held responsible, war as a policy executed by a sovereign state and there was no ground to determine the level of guilt or punishment for each individual in that state. Also no legal basis for the charge of crime of aggression as it was an ex post facto law. Rolings position had shifted away from Patrick's group, as the crime of aggression was an ex post facto law, Roling urged to majority group to focus on interpreting the law correctly while making that new mark in the sand to establish a precedent for the future as nothing is important than the reasons for that interpretation. With his study he provided different reasons for recognizing crimes of aggression that one can reasonably construe this as comparable to a political crime in domestic law, political criminals are at times detained when their actions threaten national stability and they should argue based on this pre-established platform. Thus they can state that those responsible for starting a war ought to be subject to punishment on the ground that if they remain free, they might disturb the international order. Otherwise peace and progress may never be achieved. Patrick and majority group rejected Rolings proposition.

Pal was right what he argues in domestic law, people cannot be tried for actions that were not crimes at the time those actions were committed. But international law evolves under extreme circumstances. Roling sympathized with Pal breaking his vow to join the majority as he initially endorsed the charter on political and ethical grounds, and not as an objective jurist. He expressed that there is need for war when the rights and borders of independent nations are threatened, but the war criminals should be severely punished. Although strongly influenced by Pal's philosophy Roling discovered his own direction for applying international law to wars his purpose was to prevent war from ever happening again. He asserted the other judges to consider the legal gaps which go as far back as the Pact of Paris, right through to their own charter. Roling’s arguments closely echoed those of Pal had transpired to the other judges.

In a short partial dissent, presiding judge Webb agreed with the majority on their interpretation of the law but expressed reservations about the sentencing: "I do not suggest the Emperor should have been prosecuted. That is beyond my province. His immunity was, no doubt, decided upon in the best interests of all the Allied Powers. Justice requires me to take into consideration the Emperor's immunity when determining the punishment of the accused found guilty: that is all." Japanese people expressed their doubts about the trial as they believed that militarist should not be tolerated but few of the accused had been made into scapegoats. There was no positive or specific customary international humanitarian law with respect to aerial warfare before and during World War II. About the conduct of air attacks, Pal and Rolings found themselves in some kind of legal purgatory. Justice Pal argued that the exclusion of Western colonialism and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki from the list of crimes and the lack of judges from the vanquished nations on the bench signified the "failure of the Tribunal to provide anything other than the opportunity for the victors to retaliate". In this he was not alone among Indian jurists, with one prominent Calcutta barrister writing that the Tribunal was little more than "a sword in a [judge's] wig." Justice Roling stated, "of course, in Japan we were all aware of the bombings and the burnings of Tokyo and Yokohama and other big cities. It was horrible that we went there for the purpose of vindicating the laws of war, and yet saw every day how the Allies had violated them dreadfully."

In fact I tried to draw parallel resemblance between Medieval Florentine affairs with modern age international events in my recent blog “AllegoryUnveiled”. Florentine justice system was flawed as in 1433, spurred on by Rinaldo degli Albizzi who rallied some of oligarchs jealous of Cosimo de Medici’s popularity and fearful of his democratic tendencies. They had Cosimo arrested with the intention of putting him to death and fix the trial to found Cosimo guilty which later by Cosimo’s influence changed into his exile. With strong pre-existing institutions, Rinaldo couldn’t have tried to kill a man to order and instead he would have followed the law which sounds as a pure conjecture given the dangerous priggish belligerent character of Rinaldo degli Albizzi quite similar to Hitler. So we leave conjecture out of it and stick to facts that the lack of strong and just institutions will always tend to inspire chaos creating character.

The treason charges on Cosimo de Medici were trumped up and a fair trial could have acquitted him. But as the Florentine system of government was not perfect democracy. More than 75% of the population had no say over who governed their city. The Signoria was running on loyalties and patronage which could be bought. Powerful families instigated a series of constitutional changes with the help of favorable priors in the Signoria to secure their power through influence. Florence was constructed around large powerful families they run the city. Albizzi hired soldiers to guard the Piazza Cosimo's friends were physically barred to prevent them defending Cosimo and Albizzi could fix the trial. Albizzi accused Medici that they tried to rig the trial and hence forfeited their place in the Signoria. He forced authority to convene the Signoria without letting Cosimo’s supporters vote. Cosimo was found guilty, faced execution and yet he engineered a secret negotiation for his life. Probably the reason why his life was spared was because as Cosimo says in his own memoir of the event that he paid his jailers a hefty bribe but to let him out, “They were not very bold. They could have had ten thousand or more for my safety.” If system is corrupt then even the truth needs a little help to be told, so Money talked and Cosimo walked. Things could have been simple and better if it were true democratic republic.

League of Nations after World War one with the idea of an order to make World War one the war that ends all wars and was focused on the issue of peace and post-war order. But mostly was an effort by individual nation states to create the sort of international governance in an increasingly integrated system to fulfill their own interests. Two big historical obvious lessons come out of this one is that orders tend to emerge in the aftermath of a major war that is the time when the major powers are justified in making the kind of painful sacrifices of sovereignty compromises necessary to create an order but then the other lesson is they tend to decay over time and in the first two cases of international governing bodies i.e. Vienna System and League of Nations the decay of the existing order produced a new war. Vienna system was quite conservative where you have monarchies banding together for peace but also stifled the rising sense of democracy in Europe and beyond. The League of Nations was also weak as there was an effort to avoid future wars but it couldn’t really resolve problems of colonial ambitions, democratization and other kind of disputes.

American historian Robert Kagan used jungle and garden metaphor to describe world, he says the liberal world order and democracy are artificial creation like garden and it is not what nature would naturally produce in the international system, nature produces jungle as anarchy, chaos and conflict that was what we saw evolving before the end of World War two, there's was no natural equilibrium in the international system and certainly no natural desire for peace among nations in human history. But since World War two there is an explosion of democratic governments in many parts of the world before it mostly human beings lived in various forms of tyranny throughout history. As with time global culture started developing positively after painful lessons of two world wars with establishment of global governance framework, the Bretton woods system was the first example which later evolved into institutions like IMF, WTO and World Bank underpinned by United Nations tasked with maintaining international peace and security, developing friendly relations among nations, achieving international economic co-operation. And being a center for harmonizing the actions of nations and ideologies for humanitarian benefits making sure people have better lives with rule based global governance. Globalization in last two decades indeed helped countries to carry dispute free trading, increase in productivity and efficiency boosting technological development. As the current world order is backed by multilateral institutions like UN, WTO, IMF, World Bank, international aid system and hence it delivered worldwide huge gain in prosperity for humanity. But it also was quite unsustainable ecologically, socially and also zero-sum in nature creating winners and losers among countries and people within because of great pace of continuous change due to globalization which was not backed by right domestic policies. Resulting in large swathes of population left behind not only in developing countries but also in developed nations due to lack of skills to catch the pace of globalization and serious income inequality due to corruption or worst national domestic income distribution policies which failed to share the benefits of globalization and as these displaced people feel threatened they became tribal again resulting in rise of populism who for their political benefits tailoring the anger which is not caused by anti-globalist movement but by failure of local governance, preferring nationalism and protectionism as a solution with short term political agendas ignoring its long-term detrimental impacts on future generations enhancing the discontent further.

Developing countries have such political and social dynamics where populist demagogue sweeps to power tapping into deep social resentments is now becoming political picture of some developed countries too. The storming of the United States Capitol, riot and violent attack happened on 6^th January depicts the same. Since President Donald Trump took office in and started his campaign of a unilateralism and his tack with respect to trade policy is major departure from the way things have been done in the United States for about 85 years going back to 1934 as most of the last 13 USA presidents saw trade as a win-win proposition saw trade as a way to foster good relations among nations understood that having multilateral rules was the best way to encourage countries to behave within the international system.

The United Nations marked its 75th anniversary in September 2020 with the secretary-general urging leading powers of an increasingly polarized, go-it-alone world to work together. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appealed for a revival of multilateralism, “I welcome the General Assembly’s 75^th anniversary declaration and commitment to reinvigorate multilateralism. National sovereignty ­­and a pillar of the United Nations goes hand-in-hand with enhanced international cooperation based on common values and shared responsibilities in pursuit of progress for all.” The very foundation of the United Nations was echoed by leaders of countries large and small, rich and poor, amid serious threats to the founding principle. Yet, within an hour of Mr.Guterres saying solidarity is self-interest, U.S. President Donald Trump declared that all world leaders should follow his example and put their countries first. His "America First" foreign policy has seen the U.S. withdrawing from multilateral agreements. The U.S. has also unilaterally raised tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of foreign imports. Of course, China has been a major target of these measures, although other countries allied to the US were also not spared. The world is changing, and the question now is how the multilateral order can adapt.

Following the general assembly speeches by China and United States, the American perspective was given by President Trump and he tried to inject domestic political issues by dragging China into the discussion it’s an example of unilateralism run rampant, highlighting that globalization has problems which is true but that’s where future belongs and hence countries particularly top world powers like USA and China should do is to reconcile some of the differences between the two countries.

As Carl Sagan once poetically explained deeper meaning of “Pale Blue Dot” to grasp the unimportance of humanity in the great context of the vast universe and the importance of our role in it to address the big issues like climate change which are opposite to war needing global cooperation with multilateralism as a key and the sense of we all as part of this pale blue dot which many astronauts described through their overview effect experience. As I mentioned in one of my previous blog Mars Rover Quote since we are passionate to explore the Mars, all universe is conspiring in helping us to achieve it or an exploration is an attempt by universe to understand itself, the same way as physicist Michio Kaku’s quote “A physicist is an attempt by an atom to understand itself”, as physicists are made of atoms. And as space exploration is also one way to move towards sustainable future which not only unites us for single cause but also only possible with global cooperative efforts.

So if Carl Sagan’s poetic narration is not inspiring enough then at least prisoners dilemma should because we often forget the simple notion of we in the same boat deeply embedded in nature and utterly dependent on this “Pale Blue Dot”, the mother earth for our well-being. If we ask ourselves a very fundamental question what is the big message that our planet’s singular threats like climate change or global pandemic sending to humanity which is the past 7.7 billion people when they live in 193 separates boats now became 193 cabinets on the same boat and the problem with our global boat is that we have captains and crews taking care of each cabin and no captain approved taking care of the global boat as a whole so what worlds need now are stronger institutions of global governance like United Nations.

As global governing bodies are already existing, we don’t need to reinvent the vehicle but it’s time to replace the engine and use these global multilateral institutions for what they are developed for as we are seeing unprecedented level of governance challenge of building an rule based international order in a globalization era and the geopolitical components of that. History not only shows that decay of existing order produces conflict of interest and war like situations, but also tell us that confrontation whether in form of cold war, hot war or trade war will produce no winner and no one nation’s pre-eminence is eternal, globalization comes in waves and those waves repeat and they happen again as change is a constant in our world and nothing lasts forever. Hence we have the key question is to figure out how to navigate this new world and what to expect from the global order shift and coming architecture of new world order. World is becoming multi-polar, multi-conceptual with lot of new players that are asserting themselves to get accommodated in the current world order. We have many trends in one altogether as first rising power versus status quo power, new industrial revolution, global pandemic, climate change and shifting global order. We have one planet and we don’t have planet B to go to yet and so we have to find a way of steering our futures together using metaphor of the captain of a boat. Hence we must support the United Nations to evolve into a more agile, effective and accountable organization.

To focus on global peace and go beyond with the world order of peace and overall growth to flourish the humanity sustainably international governance structures should have more authority than was ever contemplated to prevent efforts by individual nation states to create the sort of unilateral international governance in an increasingly integrated system to fulfill their own interests by forced economic or military threat or not allowing multilateral bodies like WTO to deliver as they were designed undermining the rule based order or interested in cherry-picking the few part it. As Professor Steven Pinker says United Nations is unlikely to morph into a world government that anyone would want to be governed by as there will be no alternatives from which it could learn better governance, or to which its disgruntled citizens could emigrate, and hence it would have no natural checks against stagnation and arrogance. The Security Council is hamstrung by the veto power that the great powers insisted on before ceding it any authority, and the General Assembly is more of a soapbox for despots than a parliament of the world’s people.

We tend to blame the institutions for not delivering but it’s us and our political will which matters most, to use these institutions to move forward dealing with problems. New ethics and governance with blockchain methodology can act as error correcting code for the institutions to work stable, healthy and may bring some scope for further improvements to radically reshaping society and economy with rebuilding the layer of trust so that everyone can see them represented in these institutions. Rules should be formulated by the international community and should not be applied with double standard for selfish agenda’s. Hence we don’t need new United Nations, but need to start using it for what it has been created making it agile enough to adopt the pace of change in technology, shift in world order and global power relativity, as we entered into an era in which power is more defused among states as rising developing countries and also beyond states to techno-nations like top global corporations and issues like climate change.

Sustainable Development Goals: Poem

A problem of domestic economic policies and if a number of states start to get those a bit more right, then the rebellion calms down and no one will be talking about the collapse of the order anymore so that's a very real possibility. So many of the domestic policies that we may think through or have the ability to work through with the existing systems, norms and processes don't apply to new emerging technologies and looking ahead 2020 and beyond there's no shortage of exciting new developments that are no doubt upon the horizon, when these developments happen they will impact the way that we live in a myriad of ways. Hence we need a new fundamental narrative that they can tell to national leadership, elites and populations that real positive change involves sacrifice of sovereignty not only from the major powers necessary to create an order but also by loosening the grip of superrich doing business sustainably with Sustainable Development Goals (SDG’s) to create true humane economy.

Hang on Democracy

The principles that America articulated at its best, about rule of law, human rights, freedom of speech, democracy, are not exclusively American. Today, I really cannot imagine a more realistic scenario for the future shape of the world not inevitable but plausible that is more frightening than having an unreconstructed and increasingly neo-totalitarian, Orwellian Single Party state being the dominant and hegemonic superpower in the world. The alternative to that has got to be a comprehensive strategy lead by the world's democracies to project our own values of freedom, democracy, personal autonomy and innovation, freedom of ideas and information.

 

The confluence of the big technologies profoundly changing 21^st century and it is critical, the reflection of the fact that the technology is outstripping our ability to manage it effectively as the decision cycle has become so short for making it very challenging to take the important decisions as technology taking off with exponential rate with capacity for overall good if we harness it properly and for bad if not carefully watched, but the systems of liberal democracy are basically moves with linear pace while authoritarian regimes and illiberal democracies or oligarchies in developing nations or ‘banana republics’ are quite fast to adopt and get support of strong digital infrastructure like enormous surveillance as one of them. One of the most important stories in the world right now is the battle to own the future by investing in technology, in which non-democratic states are becoming more assertive, strategically effective and - unencumbered by voters' preferences - able to think in epochal rather than electoral cycles. Since the world has entered a new era of systemic competition between the West’s increasingly short-sighted laissez faire model and China’s state-centric capitalism making us to question that is the current setup of technology incompatible to democracy? Because in the US digitalization often means privatization, hence power seats with private sector but in china its digital authoritarianism as mass surveillance by government itself. Hence the emergence of the digital entities in the context of the private sector seem to create a tension with the tradition of liberal democracy while advantaging to other governing models around the world. Hence need to think differently which doesn’t mean to throw democratic principles or the values they stand for but have to embrace those values somehow with these new changing worlds, the digital world in the context of traditional system of liberal democracy. So even though authoritarian, oligarchies or illiberal democracies looks like getting ahead of liberal democracies but when liberal democracies makes effort and catches up they will be irresistible.

Many of the troops were being mustered in corridors of the capitol itself as they were in 1861 during the civil war. In 1861 neither extreme Southerners, intent upon secession, nor Republicans, intent upon reaping the rewards of their hard-won election victory, were really interested in compromise. On February 4, 1861—a month before Lincoln could be inaugurated in Washington—six Southern states (South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas) sent representatives to Montgomery, Alabama, to set up a new independent government.

If we borrow a concept of entropy from thermodynamics here, that in closed system without input energy things fall apart and disorder increases, likewise democracy needs the collaborative effort to keep things in order or in Robert Kagan word’s democracy is a garden and to preserve it we have to constantly weed, fight against the pests and wild animal of forest. The capital chaos showed that America is exercising democracy at its worst. Democracy lies in the fundamental values of equality, it believes in the political liberal and moral equality of everyone. But that value also belies a flaw; it exposes disconnect between voting rights and civil duties. The public pens their hopes on an electoral candidate but when the candidate fails their hopes fade. Washington D.C. was a city under siege; soldiers were camped inside the capitol building for the first time since the civil war. So dealing with these natural phenomena is a constant struggle to keep garden intact from turning it into jungle again, likewise it's certainly not an easy thing to do in the international system as natural forces are constantly working against democracy, peace, prosperity and all the co-operative elements that make prosperity possible.

Lincoln cited his plans for banning the expansion of slavery as the key source of conflict between North and South, stating "One section of our country believes slavery is right and ought to be extended, while the other believes it is wrong and ought not to be extended. This is the only substantial dispute." The president ended his first inaugural address, 4 March 1861, with an appeal to the people of the South: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies ... The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield, and patriot grave, to every living heart and hearthstone, all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.” The failure of the Peace Conference of 1861 signaled that legislative compromise was impossible. By March 1861, no leaders of the insurrection had proposed rejoining the Union on any terms. Meanwhile, Lincoln and the Republican leadership agreed that the dismantling of the Union could not be tolerated.

As president Lincoln used the phrase “better angels of our nature” in his inaugural address in 1861 with its deep poetic meaning as appeal to people to come together inclining towards peace and cooperation so they can go beyond what comes easily or naturally and evolve further more towards path of enlightenment and an absolute wisdom pushingback relative mess. In his second inaugural address, Lincoln looked back on the situation at the time and said: "Both parties deprecated war, but one of them would make war rather than let the Nation survive, and the other would accept war rather than let it perish, and the war came." In the decades before the American Civil War (1861–65), the civilization of the United States exerted an irresistible pull on visitors, hundreds of whom were assigned to report back to European audiences that were fascinated by the new society and insatiable for information on every facet of the “fabled republic.” What appeared to intrigue the travelers above all was the uniqueness of American society.

In contrast to the relatively static and well-ordered civilization of the Old World, America seemed turbulent, dynamic, and in constant flux, its people crude but vital, awesomely ambitious, optimistic, and independent. Many well-bred Europeans were evidently taken aback by the self-assurance of lightly educated American common folk. Ordinary Americans seemed unwilling to defer to anyone on the basis of rank or status. The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth amendments were passed in the aftermath of the Civil War. The Thirteenth (1865) abolished slavery, while the Fifteenth (1870) forbade denial of the right to vote to former male slaves. The Fourteenth Amendment, which granted citizenship rights to former slaves and guaranteed to every citizen due process and equal protection of the laws, was regarded for a while by the courts as limiting itself to the protection of freed slaves, but it has since been used to extend protections to all citizens.

World used to say other countries are places, United States is an idea. That’s what makes it strong, but it seems like Americans took that for granted. In the USA we saw democracy stress tested to the limit. But it passed the test and handover of power to new President who aims to restore US global leadership, reinvigorates American alliances, and unite the world’s democracies. The stage is set for the incoming USA president and his second in command. Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, this duo will steer the fate of the USA for the next four years. Listening to Biden’s inaugural address, President elect Biden spoke to the same American ideals, ‘better angels of our nature’ instead of tribal instincts.

Barack Obama made his final trip overseas as a President of United States where he gave speech that, “ I came here with gratitude for all that Greece… this small great world has given humanity through the ages. Twenty-five centuries ago… in the rocky hills of this city… democracy was born. After eight years of being President of the United States. Having traveled around the globe, I still believe the fundamental desire to have control of our lives… and our future… and our nations. These yearnings are universal. They burn in every human heart. That’s why the most important office in any country is not president or prime minister. The most important title is citizen.” President Obama’s words on visiting ancient places, “I always like visiting these ancient sites, whether it’s the pyramid or Petra or the Parthenon, because it gives you a perspective. In today’s world, we live so much day to day. We’re looking at stock numbers and poll numbers and… uh, the latest tweet, and it just fills us with distractions, with anxieties, fears. But when you visit place like the Parthenon, you get reminded that we’re just part of this long chain. And we do our best with the little link of that chain that is allotted to us.” Well, that’s makes two of us to believe the same and I guess his worlds are quite aligned with the narrative I am trying to set here.

We as sentient beings learn from the experience updating our perspective as we get to know more and more things as a journey from relative perception to the absolute wisdom, the same way as a child on its every new experience shifts its referential approach to the universe in a world. That’s what happened to the astronauts in Apollo 8 when they saw the Earthrise for the first time giving the whole world a new perspective of ‘Overview Effect’. As our voyage to the Stars began 500 years ago in renaissance era as without Copernicus there would be no spaceflight, we must appreciate the men who sparked the that intellectual era whose butterfly effect made the todays scientific progress. Petrarch, first person to coin the term ‘Dark Ages’, as a time of intellectual darkness between the fall of Rome and Renaissance. And as we know discovery of Cicero’s letter to Petrarch initiated the 14^th century Renaissance. Petrarch fetched a light of classical antiquity into the Dark Age giving rebirth to an intellectual era, on the basis of the same Petrarch’s contributions made him worth for title of “Father of Renaissance” and then many men in that generations sparked it further set the course that benefited humankind.

Certainly we don’t have exact historic precedent for the situations we are in, but there is lot to learn and seek the fundamental narrative we need from the history, if we refer to the right pages of it in right way.

Dresden was one of the Europe’s most beautiful city was called as ‘Florence on the Elbe’ turned into a pile of rubble during world war two. The chapters of history can offer some ancient wisdom like a ray of light from a distant star because it comes and shine on us showing the way in the darkness even though the source of that like, the star from it came long gone and doesn’t exist anymore. Which we need time to time so we don’t repeat the mistakes we don’t want to go back into the dark ages but continue the todays renaissance era. Space exploration makes us child again with childlike curiosity for autocatalytic positive goal, so more we explore more we will search to go into new world and universe is indeed that vast enough to keep us busy to unravel the unknown things than wasting our efforts and resources on relative mess among each other. So why not get busy with , as if we're out in the solar system, we can have a trillion humans in the solar system which means we'd have a thousand mozart's and a thousand Einsteins. This would be an incredible civilization and what could this future look like where would a trillion humans live. Well it's very interesting somebody named Jerry O'Neill, a physics professor looked at this question very carefully. He and his students set to work on answering that question and they came to a very surprising for them, what O'Neill and his students came up with was the idea of manufactured worlds rotated to create artificial gravity with centrifugal force, these are very large structures.

O'Neal colonies might choose to replicate earth cities they might pick historical cities and mimic them in some way there'd be whole new kinds of architecture, let’s say mimicking city of Florence itself.

The term "Banana Republic" was coined by American writer O. Henry. And we know the history with the fact that the UFCO (United Fruit Company) in earlier 20^th century relied so heavily on manipulating land use rights to maintain their market dominance had a number of long-term consequences for the region. For the company to maintain its unequal land holdings it often required government concessions. And this in turn meant that the company had to be politically involved in the region even though it was an American company. In fact, the heavy-handed involvement of the company in often-corrupt governments created the term "banana republic", which represents a servile dictatorship.

Now setting the stage with combination of a historical component, a global component and contemporary elements, I can say that every World leaders must have sense of ‘Overview Effect’ perspective and they are not the rulers of individual states but the humble servants of this fragile planet in the vastness of dark universe and their responsibility is to take care of the same. We certainly should not move forward with any agenda instead we have to consider nature of which every human being is part of, as a first priority and fit our agenda. We certainly don’t want world leaders who want to overthrow the republic and rule as a prince. Or the leading party with patsy leader encouraging the national government to squander natural resources without adequate regard for the future and granting of lavish benefits to certain classes within a general framework of capitalism. As some countries are listed as a fastest growing economy showing growth but in reality there are so many local issues not considered in these indicators and benefits of globalization is not being distributed by ruling kleptocrat government parties which is dominated by small minority group and using it to buy elections, media, impunity from justice and there is all this resentment. Today techno sovereignty as digital entities which gained economic capacity, increased markets and more capacity of investment which made them almost state-like entities given the amount of population they can influence in the world at any moment to their digital citizens as many of those feel more aligned to these digital entities rather than their local sovereign government who just preys on their local citizens. The global governing institutions as United Nations must be capable to intervene and guard against opportunistic or hostile state and non-state actors. Techno-nationalism seeks to attain competitive advantage for its stakeholders, both locally and globally, and leverage these advantages for geopolitical gain.

 

We must have strong multilateral institutions saying, “Dear world leaders, we are watching you”, and will not allow you to set the wheels in motion causing the transformation that could take us in dark ages, but will help you to inspire the generation that continues the intellectual era which can spark the human achievements once humanity saw during the Renaissance period and its butterfly effect to set the cycle of Positive Autocatalism.

Happy Republic Day India 2021