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Socrates and the New Age Nut Nut: I am thinking about investing in Gold. What do you think? Socrates: Because so many people are now investing in Gold, it has completely detached from its practical value to mankind. Did you know that Gold is now so expensive that they have had to find substitutes for Gold in electronics and chemistry? If it goes up much further they might have to stop using it in jewellery too! Gold is therefore in a bubble, and all bubbles eventually collapse. On one side of the world people dig up gold, and on the other side they bury it back in vaults. What a waste of effort and resources. Why don't you try to invest in something that will help to make the world a better place? Nut: Shall I buy a flat and rent it out? Socrates: That sounds much better, but I am worried about the property market. Have you considered the stock market? Nut: Frightening. Which stock market? Socrates: You could try Asian stock markets. Did you know China is growing very fast? Nut: Heaven help the planet when every Chinese citizen has a car and the entire continent is covered in smoke. Personally, I could not invest (my pennies!) in a country with no evidence of any basic human rights, and instead, constant political imprisonment (major story in last Sunday’s Observer, totally Orwellian), wealth built on the virtual slavery of people who still have next to nothing, appalling treatment of animals etc. Socrates: How about Germany? Nut: My brother lives in Germany. He likes it lot, he thinks the Germans are marvellous, but then again he would - he is an engineer you know. Frankly Germans give me creeps! It not just the emotional thing, I mean the lack of it, it's that ant thing. Germans are like Japanese, antish perfectionists. They have psychological problems, they need therapy big time, they don't know what it is to be alive. Socrates: I feel pretty alive listening to Wagner. Nut: Sure the Germans are educated and have done some things. But Germany is not the future, it's the past. Socrates: You know Germany is the most enviable economy in Europe. They virtually run the place now. Don't you think that whatever it is that makes a person good will allow them to do good things? For example, if the Italians are better than the Germans why is their economy such a mess? Nut: Italians spend too much time looking in the mirror. The Californians are the most advanced people in the world. They are light years ahead of the rest. Socrates: The Californian economy is even more of a mess than the Italian economy. It's a direct democracy, government in California reflects the will of the people probably better than anywhere else in the world, yet the government is bankrupt. Surely the most advanced people in the world should be capable of looking after themselves? Nut: But the thing you’ve left out is consciousness change, we are on the brink of a new era predicted by the Mayans. The established world has been denying it à haute voix, but it is coming soon. When it does, America will show itself, at least its Californian self. It will be so far advanced in thinking, and China will be so far behind – they don’t even believe in psychology, for heaven’s sake. At the end of the day, knowledge is power. Wait to see entirely new forms of technology. Socrates: Well at least we agree that knowledge, or shall we say wisdom, is power. But I am confused, do you think China is bad because it has no human rights or good because it has power? Nut: China has some power for now, but without human rights it is evil power. Socrates: Like Darth Vader or the Dark Lord Sauron in Lord of the Rings? Nut: Exactly. Good has power, but evil has power too. And at the end of the day the good guy always wins! Socrates: So how do we tell a good and a bad person apart? Nut: Well it's obvious to me - but since you are a philosopher I will have to spell it out. The good guy does things for other people, the bad guy does things for himself. Socrates: I get it - Darth Vader built the Death Star for himself and the Star Troopers. And the rest of the world they enslaved. Nut: Of course Socrates: So the Chinese government is building a new Death Star. Although the people are a lot richer than they used to be, it just serves Darth Vader's evil purpose? Nut: The Chinese people would pay themselves a lot more if they could vote. Socrates: Then again they might not have jobs. We would have our shoes made in Cambodia or someplace instead of China? Nut: Look the Chinese don't care abut human rights! Socrates: Which one? Nut: Try freedom! Socrates: Freedom to do what they want, rather than working on the Death Star? Nut: Exactly Socrates: But in this case they live on the Death Star, they are not slaves from other planets, they are Storm Troopers themselves. Nut: I don't want to be a Storm Trooper. I am not an ant, I am an individual. I want my freedom! Socrates: Free to do what you want, not serve others? Nut: That's right. Socrates: I don't understand, earlier you said: "I will have to spell it out. The good guy does things for other people, the bad guy does things for himself." Are you a bad guy? Nut: Look freedom means the freedom to do good when you agree. Socrates: Which also means the freedom to do bad when you are wrong? Nut: Sure. The point of freedom is to allow a person to decide what is good and bad himself. Socrates: Is it also the freedom to not do good even if you agree but don't feel selfless? Nut: Absolutely. Socrates: So we could say that freedom has two components: the freedom to decide what is right and wrong, and freedom to do right only when you feel like it. And China is evil, in your opinion, because they choose right and wrong for you, and make you do right even when you don't feel like doing it? Nut: You hit the nail on the head. I am an adult not a child! Socrates: So in the West motivation and wisdom comes out of the individual. In China motivation and wisdom comes out of the community. I guess that's why they say Westerners are individualists, and the Chinese are collectivists. That must be why people who do bad in the West feel guilt, and people who do bad in China feel shame. Nut: Interesting, but good can never come from the community, only the individual. Socrates: But the individualist system doesn't work because the individual is constantly wrong. We said wisdom gives power, but only carpenters can carve. Wisdom is greater than a single man. Nut: This is really the crux of it. In the new era predicted by the Mayans people will get in touch with their spiritual side and will have wisdom without needing rationality or specialist skills. Individual subjective judgement will transcend the necessity for external guidance. Socrates: You know I have heard your Mayan theory before... Socrates: Back in the 1850s a German called Max Stirner also predicted a whole new era based on personal truth. He said we need to trust our subjective choices and reject all forces outside the individual eg the state, morality, society. Only in this individualist anarchist dream would we be truly free. Freud's theories also helped shake up the prevailing moral system. Germany had been a pretty upright place until the late 19th Century, but by the 1930s Germany had become the liberal anarchists dream. Think 1920s America on steroids. The world's first gay magazine was published at this time, even pederasty came out of the closet. Drug taking went mainstream, so did conspiracy theories. Free from all external constraint and trusting in their intuitive judgement people started believing in the strangest things, and a lot of people became convinced Jews were evil. The economic impact of the First World War added to the chaos. All communal guidence broke down and Germany basically went insane. Socrates: In the end the people rebelled, they though the liberal anarchist dream had turned into a nightmare. They made Hitler a tyrant and he set about purging society. The liberal dream ended in blood, and Germany went back to collective morality. Berlin was the centre of depravity, the Los Angeles of Weimar Germany. I wonder if Sarah Palin will be as bold.
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