I ALONE shall have confounded twenty centuries
of political imbecility, and it is to me alone that present and future generations will be indebted for their boundless happiness.
— Charles Fourier

Introduction

In this essay, I attempt to put the writings of the classics in a broader context of social dynamics and outline the factors that contributed to the high esteem of the works from “the canon.” After that, I present a rough sketch of how such a coordinate grid can be used.

My assumption is that to end up on the short list of influential thinkers, it’s not enough and maybe sometimes not even necessary to produce a host of clear and original ideas. Moreover, it seems that some ambiguity and incompleteness are helpful in some cases.

To be more precise, there are a) “playing field” factors, b) structural factors of the intellectual contribution, and c) its instrumental factors. The first group covers the position a thinker finds themselves in relation to power, institutions, and justifications demanded by the power in question. Structural factors are the author's expertise, access to distribution mechanisms, and openness of the work for the next generations to contribute or at least exploit. The instrumental factors are the variables of “artifice” and “distance.” “Artifice” labels how well the author's thinking helps us construct a comfortable reality out of the stuff of nature. And “Distance” is the degree of abstraction the intellectual framework lends to those who intend to use it.

Each of these notions comes from the attempt to find the common tenets and patterns in the works of classical political thinkers.

After establishing this system of coordinates, I attempt to demonstrate how by pulling from these eternal themes, we can wove a new cloth of political reality so needed in the current uncertain conditions. The resulting output is a bit of caricature and a cadaver, but that is not the point.

The point is to look into a more instrumentalized approach to intellectual history and its more intentional use.

Reality check

This part is about the backdrop of social life and variables at play, it’s a description of the network the ideas and contributions have to enmesh with to be relevant.

The backdrop of competition

To our question on what it is that a political thinker contributes to, we better start broad. On the verge of laws of biology that span across species and human animal’s need to arrange its habitat in a distinctly human way, we meet Thomas Hobbes and his distaste of life outside civilization. And some of the same towards the life inside, for that matter.

Competition is unavoidable, whether it's a push and pull between powers of different states, a struggle for responsibility to implement one's designs for a better life within a society, or the war of all against all in the state of nature. There are truly only two exceptions to that: a) the monopoly of a utopian project that somehow became true everywhere and at once and b) that change in perspective when one buys into the omnipresent godlike harmony of the world and denies to count an antelope running from a lion as a struggling unit because she’s just doing what the nature intended, and so it’s all good. That latter angle will be of use to us later.

However, at the moment, let us discard those exceptions and accept the Hobbesian insight of a bleak backdrop to all of life, and let’s submit to the lead of competition as our master.

Given the condition, what helps us to lead our lives slightly more sociable, rich, pleasant, civilized, and long — is some centralized power that suppresses violent impulses inside the society and deters the advances of outsiders.

Agents of power

The reality of contesting civilizational arrangements puts us in a competition of architectures of power distribution systems. This artifice is a hallmark of our species; this is how we are. We interact with elements and find ways to reroute them from annihilating us towards helping us or stopping harming us. The power that drives natural competition is one such element. Beavers build dams; humans build voting booths. And dams.

That city of God on Earth will need some drain pipes to manage our blood, sweat, and fruits and waste of our efforts.

It’s at this moment that we arrive at the working station of our thinkers. Framed like this, we see the thinker as a sort of a plumber whose task is to ennoble the palace of civilization or at least to patch the nasty leaks that’ll pop up here and there due to previous faults, external attacks, or regular wear and tear.

“Truth-generating complex”

However, it is very much a team sport. Since it’s a system, it does consist of a few things that must be coordinated, or it’ll go out of whack. There is power, institutions, justification, and power again. That flywheel has to be taken care of.

Power brings the possibility of orchestrating intentional action. That allows for the stabilization of patterns of societal life in the form of customs and later institutions.

The institutions, owing their existence to power, act as agents constructing the justification for said power. That doesn’t even have to be a conscious effort; some institutions generate justification rather passively with the mere fact of their existence. The notion of a mother who can securely set aside her career to take care of her child doesn’t directly instruct me about the superiority of the order I participate in, but it sure does sustain a feeling of a secure ambiance around me. Though this passivity is a bit of an illusion, for this thing to work lots of coordinated effort is needed. And, of course, some institutions engaged in a very active creative process of justifying the seating power even more overtly (from soothing market forecasts to comic book movie franchises).

Justification is the process that serves to the continuation of power. There is a back-and-forth between the two. Well-built, watertight justifications are easier to uphold, and the undoubtedly dominant power is easier to justify. It will not be too tenuous of a connection to assume that Rousseau’s ideal of society was a system of institutions so well built it channels the General Will with no leaks or distortions. We'll also find hints of a similar outlook in the writings of Edmund Burke, whose advocacy for the freedoms already won is the stuff of his conservative strain of justification of the current power arrangement.

Taken together, these three are a “truth-production complex,” the sum of efforts to uphold a shared epistemological network across as many people as the current power arrangement allows to capture. The toolset may vary; Gulag, Social Credit System, or a mortgage on a four-bedroom townhouse in suburbia provide different kinds of end-consumer experience, but at this level of abstraction, they serve the same function.

The variables of the longevity of a thought

Such a landscape to the disappointment of some and rejoicing of others robs our thinkers of their achievements a little. In such a light, they become less of intellectual titans and more of cogs in the machine. I am not inclined to put a premium on the greatness of personal character, so there is nothing derogatory about it coming from me. It's not a nihilistic slight to the talents of the greats.

However, it is an attempt to add more variables to the equation of greatness. To someone raised in an individualistic culture with the trope of the virtue of meritocracy being the dominant one, the intuitive way to think about it would be that skill, quality, freshness, and clarity of thought are the definitive factors for something worthy of the name “classic.” Those may be necessary (not really) but are not sufficient (definitely).

The structural variables
However, without the ones listed below, there’s just no chance to leave a mark in the books of your progenies: 

• expertise endowed by the institutions; 
• access to mechanisms of distribution; 
• and openness of the ideas to their development by the future contributors.

Expertise of institutions

We’ve already established that our well-esteemed cogs in the machine are professionals of sorts. They have a domain of expertise and a notable command of that expertise. As we read the Lockean justifications of the right of labor and the license to store gold and silver, we are aware that he was a political operative solving some strictly practical tasks for groups with very particular concerns.

He was a part of an institution. The institution gave him the expertise, vetted it, and employed him for the sake of continuing the functioning of that very institution. This self-referential logic may have been obscure then, but it's rather apparent in the age of plural optics and structural critique. This access to hindsight is another nugget that we will employ later in a rather Hegelian sense.

Distribution of power

This privileged position, by default, provides some baseline level of access to power and distribution that power can provide. But it’s not hard to come by with more inconspicuous examples.

Aristotle was attached to Alexander, and the empire Alexander built was the domain of free travel for Aristotle’s ideas. Interestingly enough, according to Aristotle, those who are already well off have the power to decide how they and the rest will live. Convenient. Especially if it's backed up with “that is how nature intended it to be.”

Machiavelli, at least by one of the most mainstream interpretations, was specifically working to get the attention and backing of rulers, actual and potential. And Marx too, even though he was critical of the establishment, was clearly a member of the privileged class.

Another slightly out-of-left-field example is Charles Fourier's utopian designs to subvert civilization. I am unsure if he saw the irony of his search for backers who got rich and powerful in the civilization he despised so thoroughly, but that’s of secondary importance. The main point is that he sought power to impose his visions onto the world.

Longevity of controversy

The other important feature of classical writings is the degree to which they’re able to breed cross-generational dialog. This one is the most amusing regarding clarity and definiteness of the thought. It seems beneficial to be vague, imprecise, and controversial. Being like that is an invitation to collaborate. It’s a cross-generational instance of the phenomenon jokingly known as Cunningham’s law: “The best way to get the right answer on the internet is not to ask a question; it's to post the wrong answer” if I am allowed to reach for a slightly silly analogy.

Rousseau’s “General Will” being so elusive is tempting for successors to jump on and start explaining how exactly it must be captured. Hegel’s metaphysics, bordering on mysticism, has immense gravitational pull but needs to be brought back down to the realm of mortals. 

Best of all, if you are lucky enough to be an attractive figure to various political forces, each potential intellectual partner raises the chance for your contribution to have a long-lasting trail in history. The two branches of immediate successors to Marx are an elegant example of that. Ironically, his works’ lack of creative instructions resulted in a guarantee of longevity. This is possible only if your work is a fertile ground for a multitude of interpretations, and which is, again, only possible if you do not write in absolutely unambiguous statements.

As with the power-institution-justification complex, these components also feed into each other but on a micro-scale. Successors will pick up on the ambiguity and controversy you presented only if your contribution is endowed with some intellectual weight of some legitimate institution of your time. All of us will be forgotten anyway, but much sooner those who hadn't stirred the pot when they had a chance.

Instrumental variables
Those in the previous section are structural, enabling characteristics. They simply bring something potentially effective into existence. Without the instrumental characteristics listed next, the intellectual product will be canned and left on the shelf until and if someone finds a way to leverage it for their purposes. What are those?

Clever artifice

The skillfully arranged artifice of a thinking framework as a political tool is the hallmark of something that will have a chance to stick. As stated above, it is natural for us as humans to create comfortable artifice. We don’t live in natural caves; we build our caves from concrete and bricks. 

We are ready to abandon the wilderness only for a fantasy that we deem appealing enough for us and for all those around us. We can buy in only to a hallucination that we're sure will capture the others, not in small part because others are a danger and we are afraid of them not dreaming with us. They will have a chance to stab us while we’re asleep, but they are awake.

And only a well-crafted, deep, multi-layered story can provide that.

Tribal rituals, religions, and nation-states are all of the same bunch. It’s truly a dynamic of a psychedelic trip with friends that is guaranteed to go awry if some folks are on the wrong wavelength. I imagine.

Influence and distance

The other instrumental factor is the “professional distance” that the proposed framework allows the “craftsman” to assume in relation to the “material.” 

If I am a politician in charge of shaping the behavior of the masses, does your intellectual contribution allow me to assume the same position a carpenter has in relation to wood? 

The notion of a target consumer allows me to manipulate buyers' behavior if I’m selling a product; the notion of a citizen allows me to call for civic duty if I need someone to die fighting my battles. Dear thinker, do you provide me with such moral hammers, clamps, and levers? If yes, you will be plugged into the power grid.

The checklist

So, these are the components of the dynamics at play. The fruits of your intellectual labor need to find a place to fit if you hope them to last. Are they respectable? Are they in service to an actual power? Are they open for newcomers to engage? Do they help build the drainage necessary for a bunch of apes not to drown each other in blood?

Elegance might help, but it is not the first consideration to obsess about.

Leveraging the crisis and the sum of accumulated experience

It seems we’re now at the point where we can actually identify the shape and connections between the different zones of the modern truth-generating complex. The culture of the free individual, consumerism, market economy, and fundamental human rights that for centuries was being built on the shoulders of the titans of Western culture can be considered a relatively successful project by many indicators (even though most of them are self-referential, but that’s a feature, not a bug).

The Hegelian insight into the notions of the whole-capturing zeitgeist, the definition of freedom, and the retrospective clarity of seeing the epoch as a whole points to the fact that the current step of developing the idea of freedom starts to show in the rear-view mirror. 

But frankly, one needn't Hegel to note the cracks in the reality we used to inhabit.

The crises and the creative opportunity

Open borders are fewer and further from each other. The echo chambers of the past that were more or less aligned with the borders on the map are now increasingly being shaped via algorithms of social media providers and the media products they distribute. 

The pull from tactile reality into the virtual one is nascent but is already here. And finding personal value as a human being in labor becomes harder and harder. The robots will do the thing you do faster and better, and your employer will be able to skirt extra funds through an offshore instead of building a public transport service for you to commute in comfort.

Simply put, it is clearly an opening for a creative effort.

As the other classic we didn’t touch last semester had said: “Never let a good crisis go to waste.” The struggle will continue even if the areas of influence will not necessarily match the colored blots of the political map but would conform to the algorithmically created bubbles.

Painting by numbers

As with any creative medium, sticking to the fundamentals is helpful. In music, the instruments, sounds, arrangements, and transmitting technologies change; the set of notes, harmonies, and accords doesn’t really, at least in the Western canon and its mainstream.

Even if I didn't identify the mechanics and rules accurately (and chances are I didn't), the outline of relying on some eternal habits of our species while weaving new decorations is the only way things are created anyway.

Guided by the light of geniuses from the past, accepting competition as the only fundamental truth, and believing in the schematics of the intellectual plumbing outlined above, what are the tenets of creating a contribution that at least has a legit shot into being included in the new story of our tower of Babel (by sheer luck the word “story” works here in both meanings as a level of a building and as a synonym for tale).

One way is to get more cynical with the rules of engagement with the social masonry and execute this iteration in an arguably less humane but maybe more human way. Mind you, it’s just a very speculative, crude, and superficial sketch of an attempt to fit the components into the “fundamental” grid outlined above, not something I genuinely 100% believe in and live by. I’m just toying with marbles here.

Inequality is here to stay, cannot be eliminated, and must be accepted
Instead of fighting for equality, we may just accept natural inequality. It is here to stay, cannot be eliminated, and must be accepted. There are predators and prey; there are people who are fit to rule and who are not. If we zoom out enough, we can even say that at the end of the day, we are equal as crucial parts of the fundamental natural dynamics. We are even before “god,” but not before each other. That might do if presented as “fighting delusions.”

“Freedom” is a distraction
Following the legacy of Hegel again, we can attempt to reject the previous definition of freedom and come up with a new one. 

What if a “free individual” tale is just that: a tale, a tool to deflect responsibility? You see, in the past world, the natural hierarchy was as in place as it is now, but instead of being honest about it, those in power from the past sold the illusion of freedom to you. So you’d sort your household’s waste believing you are making a dent in the problem of climate change while oil-producing consortiums and celebrities with private jets keep doing what they were doing. 

And listen, it’s just science. As the growing body of scientific evidence shows, free will is nonsense. Instead, there are stimuli, behavior, environmental conditions, genetic predispositions, and constant self-talk of your anxious, insecure, timid ego. It doesn’t have to be that way. Simply be not afraid to look this Truth in the eyes.

It’s fine to live in the fantasy
But better yet, after that truth, the next will follow. You thought that there is Truth with capital T, “objective reality,” but actually, there are only collectively accepted delusions, some more effective, some less. And why wouldn’t you accept that? 

In the end, the quality of your experience is all you have. Nothing but this is the content of your life, and it’s entirely impenetrable for you. There is no “there there.” Want to call it “the Truth”? Have at it if it helps you with having a better time. 

But it seems your only option is with no actual capacity to choose, to choose the illusion that’ll pass for reality to you personally.

Manipulation is a constructive force
There is nothing wrong with manipulating the minds of subjects. If anything, that is the actual job of the politically oriented creator. Yes, there are playbooks that go as far as the XVI century, and they can lend us some of their authority accumulated for such a long time.

Portfolio of attempts

Thus, we can try to create a new level of skillful artifice that’ll be a piece of a piece of the new zeitgeist. Amusingly enough, this must not be an ugly, violent dystopia. The utilitarian net sum of experiences in that realm might be positive, and it has a chance to be a rather pleasant place to inhabit. Better yet, this can be a position where, as a thinker, you fall on either one or the other prong of the fork:

• If that works out, you are a successful contributor to the intellectual legacy of future generations.
• If it doesn’t, you are a constructive opponent against whom the better world was built. No one likes you after that, but some respect.

The mechanics of professionally constructing the collective myth in service of power and reaping the rewards as an agent of perpetuating it are as inherent to us as coordination between eyes, lungs, and heart. In Kantian fashion, no matter how this thing is constructed, we will still only be able to see it in a way our constitution (physical and mental) allows us to.

The superficial participation markers may change, but they are the only intervention area available to us.

It’s like this: The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, and John Wick are all the same story, only the costumes are different (not by much, though).

Conclusion

This work attempts to abstract the variables and dynamics at play when trying to engage with an existing intellectual product or attempt to create one. Even if, with this attempt, all the parts I identified are wrong, I still maintain that as a general direction of thinking, this is helpful. Breaking down things into parts and reassembling them in new ways is arguably all we have.