“The common enemy of humanity is man. In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine and the like would fit the bill. All these dangers are caused by human intervention, and it is only through changed attitudes and behaviour that they can be overcome. The real enemy then, is humanity itself.” - in ‘The First Global Revolution’, Alexander King
“Maybe what many people yearn for is meaning. In family, pride in country, community by choice, identity by passion and values, shared existence. So far, western civ[ilisation] has suppressed and stifled these needs for its collective control. It’s anti humanism. Actually, there isn’t really a paradigm shift; just the same desire to be left alone to seek happiness, instead of State oppression. People want their lives back, that’s all.” - 'Ardath Blauvelt'
If you're a new reader, welcome to this substack series describing an answer to the late-empire problems that confront our western democracies.
Panocracy is a system of government that is minimalist in its intent. It doesn't have politicians! Its agencies are as small as practicable and subject to continuous and intense public scrutiny. Government is achieved by referenda on proposals generated by - and argued over by - the citizenry themselves. Elite ideologies and vested interests will have no special influence.
In this substack series we look into how Panocracy addresses the problems of governance that have bedevilled humanity since the dawn of time.
I hate to labour the point (OK, I admit I quite enjoy it) that our system of government is in no way representative of our individual or collective views.
This time we're talking about the tension between the state and the individual.
This may seem strange as we all love our respective countries – our country is our ultimate alma mater.
We get our core values from our family, our friends and all their and our exposure to the complex social conventions, rules and structures that form the culture of our nation.
But the State is not your nation even though many seem to think it is.
The problem for the West is that its statist elites have abandoned the idea of culture in their lust for power. These technocrats believe themselves to be uniquely capable of setting the world to rights. They’re merely gentle shepherds who have the interests of their flock at heart.
They need power to guide us errant lambs back to the flock from which we stray. So our shepherds sometimes use their own crooks (pun intended) and sometimes dogs to round us up. We just need to remember that it's the shepherd, not the wolf, who will have the lamb for dinner.
It's this centralisation of power, now thought of as globalism, that leads to the erosion of life’s meaning for most of us.
The drift towards centralisation and globalism is in exactly the opposite direction from where we need to go and is leading us into serfdom.
The State versus The Individual
“In 2005 in the UK, the House of Commons’ health committee evaluated the influence of the drug industry on health policy, including the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA).3 The committee was concerned that industry funding could lead the agency to “lose sight of the need to protect and promote public health above all else as it seeks to win fee income from the companies.” But nearly two decades on, little has changed, and industry funding of drug regulators has become the international norm.” - British Medical Journal
Who should a public agency serve – the public, or the commercial, political and charitable interests that fund it?
In the question of the effects of the Covid 'vaccine' on pregnant women and their babies, an ongoing struggle to obtain basic data from the Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) is being frustrated.
A sceptic might infer that the MHRA thinks the data could embarrass or contradict some commercial, political or ‘charitable’ interests and its funding from such sources might be cut.
This example serves to illustrate the tensions currently affecting public bodies when their paymasters have strong interests in seeing positive pronouncements.
We should point out that should our panocracy have an agency like the MHRA (and it probably will), then it would be paid for solely by the citizenry. Its inner operations would be transparent so obstruction and obfuscation like the above would be out of the question.
Man and Superman
It's become clear that the credentialed classes in the MHRA and elsewhere consider themselves to be superior to the rest of us. Their enthusiastic championing of lockdowns, masks, vaccine mandates, climate catastrophism, net zero and woke ideology has demonstrated that these charlatans believe themselves to be supermen.
What we actually need are ubermenschen as Nietzsche coined the term.
Ubermenschen are ordinary people whose life experience, skills and common sense are routinely ignored and shackled by mis-, dis-, and mal-information fed to them by the credentialed classes.
What we need is the best in all of us and not the best of all of us.
Couple this with the propensity of humans to follow charismatic individuals who promise them the earth - and we can see why many turn to demagogues.
Some people seem to believe that political assassination is the answer. Like Henry II the credentialed classes pushed the message 'will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?' and we see what happens
Panocracy is the antidote to this lurch away from democracy.
It solves the centralisation problem by transferring decision making from a ruling class to its entire citizenry.
It capitalises on the skills and experience of ordinary people rather than dismissing them.
Those who wish to push their own messages must compete with their opponents to do so without the succour of official power and position.
We've been describing over the past couple of years how panocracy is now a practical proposition.
The alternatives are looking less and less attractive.