Dacia Iluministă

Scotsman J. M. Barrie is famous for being the author of Peter Pan, or the Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, but he ought to be much more famous for his play The Admirable Crichton, one of the most subversive works ever written and greatly admired by the Illuminati. Crichton is a butler to a British Lord. When the Lord and his rich family and friends go on a sailing expedition, their ship is wrecked and they are stranded on a deserted island far from any major trading routes. The chance of rescue seems remote. At first, the Lord is in charge of the group, but it soon becomes apparent that neither he nor any of the other toffs have any clue how to do anything. Only Crichton has any practical skills and he now becomes the undisputed leader and the rest refer to him as “the Guv” (the Governor, the Boss). Crichton is in his element and completely dominant. He has shown himself to be the natural leader and by far the most meritorious in this natural environment where privilege counts for nothing.

Crichton creates a thriving island community where everyone is happy. The Lord’s daughter falls in love with him, even though she is engaged to another Lord back in England. Just as they are about to be married, a rescue ship appears. “Civilisation” has returned. Instantly, Crichton is reduced to a butler once more and his wedding is off forever. Back home, one of the toffs is hailed as a hero on the basis of a false account he gave of events on the island in which he and the Lord share the honours for all that was accomplished, and Crichton is written out of the history. The presence of Crichton is now utterly embarrassing and everyone feels awkward in his presence. His role on the island is never discussed. The Lord’s daughter marries her fiancé; what happened between her and Crichton on the island is a taboo subject. The play ends with Crichton announcing that he will be leaving, to everyone else’s great relief.

This play shows how fake and damaging privilege is, and how it’s the absolute enemy of merit and capability. Privilege is a system of signs, symbols and coded relations that construct a false reality. The whole point of privilege is to ensure that the truth is never allowed to show its face. In The Admirable Crichton, only the disaster of the shipwreck allows the natural, truthful order to be established. As soon as “civilisation” intervenes, the fake order of privilege is resurrected. Crichton is immediately made a nobody again. An extremely capable man must go through life as the servant of fools. That’s the story of our world thanks to the great evil of privilege. Note that everyone has a first name other than Crichton. He’s a second-class citizen in a two-tier society. He might as well be given a number rather than a name. He is the symbol of all talented people who are victims of the pernicious system of privilege.

We will never have a just, fair and meritorious world until privilege is crushed. It cannot be stressed enough that the end of privilege is the prerequisite for a New World Order, and The Admirable Crichton provides a graphic depiction of why it’s so necessary. People must be judged on their real talents not on their status and connections. The Old World Order’s creed of “It’s who you know that counts” must be destroyed. In the system of privilege, your worth is judged by your postcode or zip code (i.e. whether you’re from somewhere nice and privileged or from some vile ghetto) and your “name” (i.e. whether you have the name of a good, well-connected, privileged family or you’re from the “great unwashed”, with no social standing).
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Direct Democracy:

Someone wrote to us to advocate “direct democracy”. We should emphasize that direct democracy has no connection at all with meritocracy. Our correspondent wrote, “My problem is with just a few taking decisions that affect the lives of everyone.” This is the typical attack by democrats on meritocracy. Meritocracy wants all decisions to be taken by a few – providing the few are manifestly the most talented and smartest people in the world. Whatever flavour of democracy anyone promotes, whether representative or direct, it will always lead to the “tyranny of the majority”, populism, and lowest common denominator thinking – and it will never raise the quality of humanity. We rise via our best minds, not by pandering to what shoppers, junk TV addicts and video gamers think is right. The direct democracy agenda is wholly opposed to ours.

Our correspondent wrote, “As by that idea, we should allow only God to take the decisions.” That’s exactly right – we should trust in those who are humanity’s closest approximation to God, and let them raise up the rest of us, just as the ideas of the greatest scientists raise up the living conditions of all human beings. Where would we be without our scientific geniuses – and in what way did “direct democracy” contribute to their work? NOT AT ALL. Science would be a joke if it were subjected to democratic principles. We would still believe that the earth is flat and the sun revolves around the earth.

We aim to apply the scientific model – the most successful undertaking in human history – to politics. Direct democrats, on the other hand, want to have politics handed over to the ill-educated, ill-informed and ignorant. Frankly, such people have no sympathy at all with our views, and seem a hair’s breadth away from being members of the Tea Party. Their comments show that they have absolute contempt for the concept of meritocracy and their “solution” to the world’s ills is simply to hand over voting to the people themselves rather than to the elected representatives of the people. Direct democracy is an example of what we call “Protestant” thinking i.e. the ideology which proclaims that each person knows best and fuck the experts. We, on the other hand, side with the authentic experts (such as the scientists) and reject any idea that badly educated people can improve the world. Go to Africa if you want to see how backward a badly educated Continent is. Direct democracy would turn the whole world into Africa. Direct democracy is designed to undermine expertise and make the ordinary person think they know better than the most highly qualified individuals.

It’s an extraordinary thing that direct democrats should find any commonality between our position and theirs. There’s none. They’re the opposites. We are meritocrats while they are those who want to find a “better implementation” of democracy via getting decision-making closer to the voter. Imagine a whole world of Muslims voting – that’s what their system would be like. A CATASTROPHE. Meritocracy proclaims that everyone is improved by having the smartest people running the world. It’s not improved at all by giving each person equal power. A world of seven billion Muslims exercising direct democracy would never progress. They would keep voting to enact Koranic laws; there would be no rational Enlightenment or possibility of such an Enlightenment. All progressive measures would be voted down because they would be judged anti-Koranic. Meritocracy, on the other hand, supports the freethinkers, the thinkers who are way ahead of everyone else. Meritocracy leads to dynamism, radicalism and rapid progress based on genuine expertise.

Direct democrats ought to read An Enemy of the People by Ibsen – “The minority is always right.”
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The Family – the Natural Enemy of the State:

THE INTRACTABLE PROBLEM of political philosophy, so deep-seated that many political philosophers have avoided any consideration of it, is the unbridgeable gap between the basic functional unit of the state (the family) and the State itself. The aim of the State, most people would agree, is to serve the interests of all of its citizens – to treat them as fairly and equally as possible, to show no favouritism, and to do what is best for the population as a whole. The family, on the other hand, seeks to always serve the interests of its own members, to show blatant favouritism towards those members, to try to secure the best possible treatment for itself (and screw everyone else).

So, the State’s functional unit (the family) and the State itself are mutually incompatible. The British Conservative Party (the “Tories”) seeks to minimise the State and maximise the self-interested behaviour of families (all well and good for the successful families from which the Tories garner most of their support). The “old” British Labour Party, the traditional opponents of the Tories, sought to redistribute wealth and generate a more equitable society. The State, under Old Labour, was quite willing to dictate to the family. “New” Labour, the modernised Labour Party, has abandoned the historical Labour project and is now just an alternative Tory Party (with practically identical policies and outlook on life).

No State can ever be successful until it resolves the tension between family and State. The Meritocratic State is the solution, providing the family buys into the concept of merit – that it’s ultimately in everyone’s best interests, including the family’s – for everyone to promote the interests of the most meritorious individuals in society, regardless of from which families and backgrounds they come.
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The Family – Dog Eat Dog:

When British Prime Minister David Cameron exhorts families to do their best for their children, what does he mean? What does he really mean? In a world of limited resources, anything that one person has is denied to another. There is cut-throat competition for the best jobs, houses, partners, schools, medical treatment and so on. Who sponsors this dog-eat-dog world? Why, families, of course. When you do the best for your family, you are ensuring that another family fails in this zero sum game. You win: they lose. It’s as simple as that. As Gore Vidal said, “It is not enough to succeed. Others must fail.” That is the motto of the average family. To do the best for your children is to do your worst for someone else’s. People should bear that in mind next time they hear one of Cameron’s family homilies. Do you really want to live in a society where other families are actively out to harm yours, to metaphorically slit your throat so that their children can prosper at the expense of yours?

Families should be doing what is best for the State, and that will also be precisely what is best for the family, assuming that the most meritorious individuals run the State: the best people the State has to offer. A simple question arises. What is the best conceivable State? Some might take the anarchists’ stance and claim that we shouldn’t have States at all, but anarchists run don’t run any country on earth. We all live in States, and therefore we have to return to the question. Can any State be better than the one run by its best people? Is it better for a State to be run by its richest citizens, or its poorest, or its most average? Quite simply, if the best people do not govern the State then it cannot be the best State. The rich would run the State to enhance their own wealth, and to hell with the poor. The poor wouldn’t have a clue how to run a State. As for the most average, what do they know about anything except how to infect the State with mediocrity? Their motto, that of cowards and sheep, is: “It is better to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.” (John Maynard Keynes).

We’re crying out for those who know how to succeed unconventionally: the leaders of men, the best of humanity.
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Community, an Alternative to the Nuclear Family:

When a family fails, society often pays the penalty. The children are likely to end up poorly educated, with mental health issues, low self-esteem and behavioural difficulties. They frequently become unemployable and prison fodder. Society pays out vast amounts on benefits to single parent families. Those children from disadvantaged homes who end up in State care usually have negative life outcomes.

The usual “solution” proposed by politicians (especially Tories), is to promote “family values”, and to try to provide incentives to prop up the family via special treatment, including tax breaks. This, of course, is a ludicrous attempt to defend a failing and outmoded institution. The age of the family is coming to an end. Family life is incompatible with the modern era. With so many choices available, with religious and social prohibitions regarding “alternative” lifestyles no longer taken seriously, with women increasingly financially independent, all the main pillars that supported the nuclear family are collapsing. Nothing can be done to rebuild them. The way forward is to find a replacement for the family. The obvious choice is the community: groups of fifty to a hundred like-minded people with mutual respect for each other, a great deal in common, a desire to help each other – to provide friendship, companionship, and a secure, loving, nurturing, supportive environment for every member of the community.

The Israeli Kibbutz provides a plausible starting point for the communal family model. Social isolation, millions living on their own, millions of struggling one-parent families, millions of conventional families doing their utmost to protect their own selfish interests, is the shape of the modern world. The community model would revolutionise every country and help solve many of our most glaring social ills.
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Marriage:

Marriage will be an endangered institution in a meritocratic society. The emphasis switches away from couples, families and groups to the individual: the new functional unit of the state (within a community setting). Marriage would then become simply a private arrangement between individuals. It wouldn’t be acknowledged by the State, and certainly wouldn’t attract any tax privileges or preferential treatment. The State must define itself as an entity populated by citizens, not by couples and families. The State should feel no compunction about removing children, or even adults, from unhealthy family environments. The individual’s interests are paramount. The State has a duty to the individual, and none to the institution of marriage. The State cannot stand by and let families raise children badly so that they become a liability to the State.

The underclass exists precisely because the State adopts a hands-off approach to the family and lets it churn out poorly educated, disruptive, unemployable individuals, sure to be a constant drain on the resources of the State. The State should apologise to those individuals for allowing their parents to ruin their lives, and should take all necessary measures to stop any more children being damaged in this way.
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Religion, the Worst Form of Child Abuse?:

Just as the family is fundamentally at odds with the State (since it seeks to put its own interests above those of the State), so is religion. Religion aims to promote its own inflexible agenda, which is not that of the State (unless the State happens to be a theocracy such as Iran).

There are religious communities in Britain in which children are compelled to wear a certain style of clothes, eat certain foods and avoid others, shun children who do not belong to their religion, go to their own segregated schools, be taught material that is entirely contrary to science, and so on. They end up dysfunctional relative to the State and their neighbours. They are frequently hostile to the State, and resent and oppose any State interference. They are isolationist, anti-social, intolerant. Children brought up in these communities are marked for life. They will never recover from their upbringing. What right do parents have to destroy their children’s lives in the name of their personal religious beliefs? This is child abuse of the very worst kind: denying a child any realistic hope of living according to the child’s own values and desires. To strip those from a child is to metaphorically strip the child of its very life. And children brought up in this way almost never make a positive contribution to the State. Why does the State tolerate it? The State cannot make any progress while its efforts are being sabotaged by these two most insidious fifth columns: family and religion. Often, the very people who lead the State are family-oriented and profess strong religious beliefs. Is it any wonder the State doesn’t work?

The State must assert its authority if it is ever to achieve the sort of society it wishes to build. It cannot succeed if it allows factions within the state to pursue separate and opposed agendas. In the immortal words of Rousseau, people should be “forced to be free”. This phrase often shocks people, but in fact it’s the only game in town. Religious parents who brainwash their children are forcing them “to be free” (in their conception of freedom). Families raising their children in non-State-sanctioned ways are also forcing them to be “free” (again, according to their peculiar values). Why should they be allowed to do it and the State denied the same right when it’s the State that will have to pick up the pieces when things go wrong?

Only the State can impose the uniform “playing field” that’s required to allow meritocracy to flourish. Only the State has the right to force anyone to be free. It has the right for the simple reason that it, and only it, seeks to promote the interests of all of its citizens. Families give their own interests paramount importance, regardless of the needs and merits of other families. Religions give their own beliefs paramount importance, even though they are usually entirely at odds with the beliefs of everyone else. To allow families and religions to dictate how children should be brought up amounts to a form of State suicide. People who are not supportive of the State cannot conceivably make a positive contribution to it, so ought to be excluded from it. It’s time for the State to draw up a formal social contract. You sign up or you don’t, as you see fit. If you don’t, you must leave the State because you have forfeited your right to be there. You are outwith the contractual agreement between the State and its citizens.
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The Benefits of the State over the Family:

Imagine I could offer you the choice between having your life irrevocably molded by two average office workers or by hundreds of elite individuals with breath-taking talents. In the first case, of course, I’m referring to a typical family upbringing; in the second, the sort of upbringing a Meritocratic State could offer. Parents, on the whole, aren’t greatly educated. They haven’t, for one thing, attended classes on optimal strategies for raising children. Disgruntled football fans like to chant, “You don’t know what you’re doing,” if they think their team’s manager isn’t up to the job. Shouldn’t the State chant the same thing at many parents? Parents, in a host of cases, are a catastrophe for their offspring. It actually amounts to State-sanctioned child abuse to allow such people to bring up children. And, in the end, it’s the State that’s forced to pick up the bill via crime, prisons, police, the welfare state, social workers, care homes, the judiciary, low productivity etc. Why bother with all of these costs of failure, when we could simply address the root cause and take children away from inept parents who don’t know or care what they’re doing?

The State can call on the skills of millions of remarkable individuals. It has at its disposal brilliant scientists, mathematicians, philosophers, engineers, economists, teachers, academics, psychologists, sociologists, surgeons, consultants, GPs, nurses, carers, artists, charismatic youth workers, child experts etc. It can use this vast pool of skill to bring children up in the best possible way – as creative, constructive, inspiring individuals who can make a full and dazzling contribution to the State. Why should children instead be condemned to the dreary boxed environment provided by the average family; to be raised by two untalented, bored and boring adults known as parents? It’s crazy. The Meritocratic State would prefer to send the vast majority of children to boarding schools, where they can escape the parental environment. Parents will have the burden of raising children removed from them, will have much more time to themselves (much more time to develop themselves?), and can be proud that they’re doing the best possible thing for their children by turning them over to the experts.

Parents, it has to be admitted, have one vital function that the State can never hope to perform. Parents love their children in a way no one else could. This element has to be protected as far as possible, so children will be encouraged to spend as much time as possible with their families outside term time. They will have the best of both worlds: quality time, quality love with their families during the vacations, and a quality meritocratic education at boarding school away from their families during term time. The perfect formula. If we could identify the “most average” family in any country (the median family) then half of the country’s families would be above this average, and half below. Now, if the “most average” family were affluent, cultured, highly intelligent, disciplined, hardworking, then even the below average families might be of high calibre. However, if the “most average” family is in fact poorly educated, ignorant of culture, obsessed with property prices and having multiple cars, dismissive of intellectuals, keen to binge drink at the weekend, keen watchers of soap operas and dumbed-down TV in general, greedy consumers of junk food, eager shoppers etc, then what on earth might the below average families be like, especially those near the bottom of the range – the underclass?

A simple question – in the present-day world, does the “most average” family resemble the former or the latter? Can anyone be in any doubt about the answer?
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Ants and the Elderly – Abolish Retirement:

In the ant world, it’s an observed phenomenon that ants take more risks the older they get. Why isn’t it the same in the human world? We should forget cosy retirement. There should be no pensions. The old should take more risks, not fewer. We have an increasingly ageing society. Great! All forms of discrimination against the elderly should be savagely penalised. People should work – and play – until failing health makes it impossible. It’s not as though office jobs justify a long retirement in any case. Maybe coal miners deserved and needed a long retirement, but certainly not office workers. And who wants to retire anyway? It’s one foot in the grave for most people.
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Devil’s Advocate Department:

A Government should at all times seek to challenge its own decisions. If it can address the objections of its sternest critics, its policies are more likely to be successful. The Government should actively seek out talented “awkward squad” individuals to question Government policies. The “Devil’s Advocate” Department will be composed of philosophers, scientists, psychologists and mathematicians, with the specific remit of identifying flaws and inconsistencies in Government policies, and likely unintended consequences. As with scientific theories, policies become more robust the more they are challenged and subsequently refined. Far from being “negative”, doubts, suspicions, challenges, and attempts to refute are all positive activities that should be encouraged.
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The House of Commons or the House of Extraverts?:

If you want to be a British MP, what are the requirements? Well, you almost certainly have to belong to an established political party. So, freethinking, independently minded individuals can forget it. No outsiders, thank you very much: the in-crowd only. You will have to be chosen by the selection committee of your constituency party. So, you require the talent of getting on well with tedious, local bureaucrats. No “don’t suffer fools gladly” types, I’m afraid – those who’d have nothing but contempt for petty politickers. To impress the selection committee you will have to be respectable, with a good job. You should have gone to a nice school and a good university. You’re likely to be married with a family. In other words, all interesting people, anyone who hasn’t played “the game”, anyone who resists convention, can put away their application form. Oh, and you probably have to be not too young and not too old, preferably quite presentable, probably not handicapped. You’ll be superficially charming. You won’t be outspoken or have any radical opinions. Mustn’t upset Mr and Mrs Average, must we? In fact, you should really be as similar to them as possible, but just a touch better.

If you clear all of these hurdles, what then? Well, you can start campaigning for election to the House of Commons. And to succeed at that you have to be a competent public speaker – but not too good because then you’d be unusual. You have to be happy to shake hands, kiss babies, visit hospitals, have your picture taken with the disabled, and have a nice cuppa with the elderly. You must be a “people person”. To sum it up: you have to be an extrovert. The entire process by which MPs end up in the House of Commons is a textbook case of how to strip out anyone different, anyone unconventional, and anyone too talented. Above all, it’s practically impossible for introverts to become MPs. What sort of political system is it that proclaims how fair and accessible it is, yet ruthlessly prevents many of its most meritorious citizens from having any reasonable chance of being elected?

Want to be an MP? Introverts need not apply. Geniuses need not apply. Heretics, hermits, visionaries, revolutionaries, misanthropes – don’t even think about it. Perhaps the House of Commons should be renamed the House of the Commonplace, the House of the Trivial, the House of the Bland and the Banal. Above all, the House of Extraverts. But one day, hopefully soon, it will be the House of Merit.

“Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” –Shelley

“An army without culture is a dull-witted army, and a dull-witted army cannot defeat the enemy.” –Mao Zedong
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Shopping:

Napoleon once said that Britain was a nation of shopkeepers. These days, he’d describe it as a nation of shoppers. Our purpose in life, it seems, is to shop. Our education system churns out fresh, eager shoppers, keenly receptive to the latest advertising. Our status is determined by how much we can spend when we go to the shops. Permanent window-shoppers are the lowest of the low. Parliament exists to frame the laws in which we can maximise our shopping. The City handles the finances of our shopping trips. Can’t afford it? – no worries – here’s loads of credit. You can’t afford that either, but who cares? Just keep spending, for God’s sake. The economy will collapse if you don’t. It’s your duty to shop. Shopping – the categorical imperative, the basis of our modern morality. Why not replace humans with androids? They could shop 24/7; perfect shopping machines that don’t have to take any breaks. Commercial Britain – a nation with a clockwork heart. The nation’s soul, such as it was, has expired. Can we resurrect Britain? Can Commercial Britain be replaced by Cultural Britain, dedicated to art, science, knowledge, architecture, ideas, creativity, experimentation, adventure, beauty, and aesthetics?

The Meritocracy Party seeks to bring together the entire cultural community of the UK: scientists, philosophers, mathematicians, psychologists, academics, designers, artists, architects, writers – and to promote the idea that a society without culture is a desert. Can the cultural community of the UK become a power block to influence Government policy? Would the Government have any credibility if the cultural community opposed it? Imagine a Government unsupported by a single intellectual. Is such a Government possible? Wouldn’t it be a laughing stock? There’s a bigger question – would a nation based on culture rather than commerce be more successful, more intelligent, more prosperous, freer, happier, healthier, more soulful? Would crime rates plummet? Could we practically scrap the Welfare State? Would our town and cities be architectural wonders, our schools the envy of the world? Culture beats commerce hands down. So what’s stopping us?
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The Death of Art:

Damien Hirst, one of the richest artists in the world, made a life-size platinum skull encrusted with 8,601 fine diamonds. The sculpture was entitled For The Love of God and it sold for £50m, making it one of the priciest contemporary artworks ever made. An art gallery sold several limited edition silkscreen prints of the work, one of which was sprinkled with diamond dust. What does it represent, this diamond skull that cost £14m to make (funded by a commercial consortium of businessmen) and made a £36m profit for the consortium? Death by bling, the extermination of culture by celebrity, the elevation of commercialism to the supreme aim of art. When businessmen become artists, there is no art.

Russian writer Evgenii Zamiatin said, “There can be a real literature only when it is produced by madmen, hermits, heretics, dreamers and sceptics and not by patient and well-meaning officials.” What would Zamiatin have thought of art being run by business consortia with the sole aim of generating a tidy profit? Art or capitalist consumerism? Is there any difference now? Where are the madmen, hermits and heretics?

Capitalist Consumerism is associated with Vulgarity, the Lowest Common Denominator, Dumbing Down, Celebrity Culture, 24/7 Shopping, Materialism, Tabloid Newspapers, Tittle Tattle, Malicious Gossip, Prurience, Reality TV, Soap Operas, Anti-Intellectualism, Illusion, Delusion, and Lies.

Meritocracy is associated with Intelligence, Talent, Quality, Refinement, the Elevation of the Human Spirit, the Higher-self, Good Taste, Nobility, Honour, Integrity, and Truth.

So, which side are you on?
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