Recalling Who We Are as Humans

by Moritz Nestor

Thirty-five years ago, following the end of the Cold War, the United States, as the “sole superpower” proclaimed that with the victory of the US democratic ideology over the “Evil Empire” – the USSR – “the end of history” had arrived. A new era was purportedly dawning, one in which US democracy and the Anglo-Saxon, neoliberal variant of the market economy would reign supreme and perpetuate globally.
  However, the harsh reality of the past 35 years tells a different story. The neoliberal version of the market economy has proven to be predatory capitalism. The “democratisation” of the world along with associated “nation building” has meant 35 years of war against other peoples and states bringing nothing but death, destruction, and human suffering: in Somalia, in Yugoslavia, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in North Africa and also in Ukraine.
  In March 2022, Volodymyr Zelensky promised: We will be neutral! A peace agreement with Russia was initialled. Europe could have had at peace then. But America sent the “postman” Johnson and halted the peace treaty and neutrality that had been driven within tangible reach. Hundreds of thousands have died pointlessly since then, millions are fleeing.
  Regrettably, not entirely “pointless”. While it may be deemed senseless for the people of Ukraine, as the Ukrainian populace reaps only death and insurmountable debt from the billions spent on weapon shipments to their nation, these billions in turn fill the coffers of American arms manufacturers.
  The postman later commented in a rather “correct” manner on his murderous act: “We” could not sign it, as it was about maintaining Western hegemony.
  This stance is devoid of compassion and empathy. This attitude knows no mercy or compassion. It ridicules humanity as touchy-feely and indulgent towards “evil”.
  Ethics, as a pre-political, overarching, and immutable principle enshrined in international law, is supplanted by stark expediency driven by power politics. Boris Johnson epitomises a particular Western nihilistic archetype: on guided by ruthless insensitivity, unbridled self-interest, and boundless greed, which continues to aspire to extend US dominance across all nations, regardless of the cost.
  This practice of absolute state control is a form of nihilism masquerading under the guise of “democracy”.
  This nihilism represents a greed for power and money: exploiting nations through global dollar dominance and reaping unearned and yet not self-earned wealth. To confuse and suppress the sovereign power of nations, to impose total denationalisation and the removal of sovereignty from the nation state through economic, military and cultural aggression. States lose their fundamental purpose of serving the people and become offices of international power and financial centres. Alongside this disempowerment of states comes a cultural struggle against traditional values and cultures. The nihilists cultivate and employ generations of intellectuals who proliferate countless theories and “studies” wherein humanity is dehumanised and rendered invisible, and they infuse these into cultures. Their aim is to debase us into “drives,” “instincts,” “brains,” “nerve impulses,” “hormone levels,” “genes,” “algorithms,” “machines,” “evil egoists,” – and the devil knows what. Since the 1970s, Western intellectual elites have produced more such materialist “theories” than have been produced in a thousand years.
  Yet it is merely 5–10 per cent of humankind engaging in such actions. The vast majority of billions cherish their children, guide them into life, care for their elderly parents, and toil honestly and diligently throughout their lives to ensure that the succeeding generation has a promising future. Such is the essence of humanity. The delusions of American power have sought to make us forget our true identity! Amidst the haze of Western nihilism, we too often lose sight of who we truly are and what the richly endowed humanistic tradition of Europe has accomplished over two and a half millennia.
  The engagement with the daily madness of wars also necessitates an inner counterbalance: A daily inner resistance – namely, mankind is different! We are different! Within us lies this free realm of empathy and reflection, from which an awakening and resistance can emerge.
  The number of humanists produced by the European cultural sphere since ancient Greece is so astonishingly vast, and their contributions to a humanistic conception of humanity are so profound, that one is deeply shaken when considering where we might stand today if this cultural substance of Europe had been able – or perhaps more aptly, had been allowed – to take political effect after the Second World War.
  The thread that unifies humanists across the centuries up to the present day is the fundamental attitude of human solidarity, which Annemarie Kaiser described in her 1977 dissertation: “That humanity should come to understand its own nature and begin to live in accordance with its requirements – that is the endeavour by which Adler takes his place among the humanists of all time.”1
  This tradition, represented here by Alfred Adler, the founder of Individual Psychology, is intended to serve as a guiding star for a series of contributions published in loose succession. These articles aim to reclaim the most valuable contributions of our European culture for the benefit of humanity form the clutches of ideological amnesia. This series continues from the two articles “Defense of Man” (Current Concerns No. 8 of 23 April 2024 and No. 12 of 18 June 2024). Today we publish “The School of Salamanca – The forgotten nascence of modern international law”, which was delivered at the 2024 Pedagogical Inservice Training Week of the Institut für Personale Humanwissenschaften und Gesellschaftsfragen (Institute for Person-Oriented Human Sciences and Societal Issues). •



1 Kaiser, Annemarie. Das Gemeinschaftsgefühl – Entstehung und Bedeutung für die menschliche Entwicklung. Eine Darstellung wichtiger Befunde aus der modernen Psychologie, (Community Feeling – Origins And Significance For Human Development. A Presentation of Important Findings from Modern Psychology), Verlag Psychologische Menschenkenntnis Zurich, 1981, page31f.

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