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"Geopolitics is a term used to describe the causal processes involved
in
the
interrelationships between the control of territory (land and sea),
politics,
economies, finances, law, etc of the world's various nations.
In the modern
context however, geopolitics has come to be synonymous with Globalization."
Geopolitics Part One - Geopolitics Part Two - Geopolitics Part Three
Geopolitics Part Four - - Geopolitics Part Five - - Geopolitics Part Six
Comments on Geopolitics - The Fruit Does Not Fall Far From The Tree
Kṛṣṇacandra Dāsa – Vṛndāvan: In Part One I discussed the history of the Geopolitical scene from the Roman period onwards and how the Demon Kali’s influence in the Kali yuga spread into the Western World. It ended with the Modern period where we see the development of Secularism and Humanistic thought. This second part will delve more specifically into the development of the psyche of the individual as it pertains to homogenization and control of the Geopolitical scene.
Since the beginning of the Christian era, two thousand years ago, we have seen the devolution of God centric thought and perception to the more impersonal monistic thought of Dialectical Reasoning. This began very early on in the development of the Christian faith with the inclusion of the Apostle Paul, being trained in Hellenistic (Greek) Judaism, who brought the early Church more in line with the Jewish thought of the time. The Judaic idea of theological reasoning is that God is unknowable, indefinable and formless. The Apostle Paul also supported the concept of the holy trinity which meant that God the father, God the son and God the holy-ghost are one. This is the same as the Jewish Shema Yisrael: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one.”
The Apostle Paul, though Jewish, was a Roman Citizen, and as such was afforded privilege and status in the Mediterranean basin so he was able to preach and establish Christian communities with greater ease than the other Apostles. The Apostle Paul directed his preaching to the non Jewish or gentile populations and established Christian communities that although based on the teachings of Jesus maintained the Judaic (Jewish) moral code without the ritualistic procedures of Mosaic Law.
Research has shown that the early Jewish or Rabbinic faith and the early or proto orthodox Christianity was still basically indistinguishable from each other up until as late as the end of the first century AD. The only difference being the acceptance of the early Christians that Jesus was the Messiaḥ which was rejected by the Pharisees and Rabbis of the time; and that the Christian faith allowed for conversions of gentiles. The Christian Church still to this day has remnants of their early roots in Rabbinical Jewish tradition.
This is the same for the Islamic faith. Even though it formed into a religion after the advent of the Prophet Muhammad in the 7th century, the Islamic faith shares the same biblical roots as both the Hebrew and Christian traditions. In fact the Hebrew and Islamic traditions are more similar to each other than the Christian tradition which is more influenced by Greek, Hellenic, philosophic thought. However, they all form what is commonly known as Abrahamic Religions and all three traditions hail from the exact same Semitic roots in the Mediterranean Basin and come in the line of the Prophet Abraham.
The Islamic faith asserts that it follows more closely the teachings of Abraham than both the Hebrew and Christian traditions. They do not view Muhammad as being the creator of Islam as they say their roots lie in the Monotheistic tradition of Abraham, Moses, and Jesus etc. Muhammad was simply the latest prophet to manifest in that line.
All the Abrahamic Religions are not that dissimilar to each other, sharing the same roots. If one was to consider that they are all Semites in origin who accepted Abraham as their prophet. The only difference is that the Christians accepted Jesus as the Messiaḥ and the Muslims accepted Muhammad as their prophet. Then there was the group of Semites that did not accept Jesus or Muhammad as either a Messiaḥ or Prophet and they are now known as Jews. Then if one was to consider that in real practical terms the main difference between the Abrahamic faiths is in their practical application as opposed to their philosophic. Practically speaking they each developed Scriptures that set the ground rules for the practice of their respective faiths; Jews with the Toraḥ / Talmud and Kabala; Catholics with their Catechism and Muslims with the Quran.
The Abrahmaic traditions, being closely related in not only philosophic orientation and geography, learnt from each other over the centuries and so even though historic reference infers separate origins of the educative process. The great Jewish scholar Maimonides of the 11th century was very influential in Islam as he wrote fluently in both Arabic and Hebrew.
The Jews organized the teaching of their religious traditions with the Yeshiva which was more or less male students who learnt from the local Rabbi. The Yeshiva was also a more formal and structured school for boys, and only recently included girls. Yeshiva is a generic name for any school that teaches Toraḥ, Mishnah, and Talmud, to any age group.
The Islamic tradition began more formal education later than the other Abrahamic traditions. It was around the 8thcentury that institutions, known as Madrasah’s were established. They provided both Scriptural and Science courses, however offering degrees and certificates up to University level only in the Scriptual component. These Universities were not the same Dialectical Medieval Universities of Europe as their education was based on Scripture and the giving of degrees or certificates were for Scriptural achievement and not for the natural science etc which they considered ancillary to Religious thought and practice.
The Christians organized the teaching of their Scriptures in Monastic institutions and instituted a clergy that renounced worldly life.
The move to organize education evolved from the Christian monistic schools prior to the eleventh century to the Scholastic schools of Medieval Europe Universities. Universities differed from the Monastic school as instead of teaching individuals via the use of Scriptural reference they taught individuals via a diacritical reasoning approach to education which was increasingly Pluralistic in context.
Christian and eventually Islamic cultures began adopting this new Scholastic approach to education and subsequently became increasingly involved in dialectical reasoning. Dialectical reasoning is primarily a process of argument where two opposing views can come to some compromise with regards to the particular subject matter being discussed. Thus schools or Universities were changing from the Monastic process where truth was achieved via the understanding of God given Scripture to a process of Dialectic reasoning where truth was a matter seeking compromise via dialogue in the teacher student relationship. Truth no longer was considered absolute and descending from God, it was now a process of rational logic based on the individual.
The simple process of dialectic reasoning based on immanent logic has now evolved into the Humanistic Secularist Schooling system of today where knowledge is not a process of dialectical reasoning via discussion in order to gain an understanding of the nature of truth; it is ‘taught’ via a didactic rote learning system based on memory recall. The student is given the ideology or subject matter which they must memorize and then enter into a pass/fail system of testing that gauges the student’s memory recall ability. The educators and professors are chiefly interested in how well the student remembers the subject matter at a later date as opposed to their ability to think.
From the 18th century on, philosophical outlook began to depart from the traditional Christian or religious understanding to what is now described as the Age of Enlightenment. The Age of Enlightenment inferred that no longer was man a slave to the theological narrative of the past and saw ‘reason’ as the prime source of authorative and legitimate philosophical thought.
The Age of Enlightenment meant a departure from the philosophical ideas of Descartes such as “I am subject to doubt; therefore I am imperfect; hence I am not the cause of my existence. I have the “idea” of “the perfect.” These ideas must come from a perfect Being (God). The analysis of the idea of “the perfect” includes the existence of the perfect being.”
The new philosophical outlook of the “Transcendentalist in the Age of Enlightenment” is that modern philosophy is the antithesis of ancient and medieval philosophy, and does this by virtue of the immanent principle. No longer God, but nature (or man), is considered the metaphysical absolute. Nature becomes divinized and is put in God’s place. As a result, the explanation of all reality is sought in the principles of nature itself.
Therefore man is now the source of reason, for perception and cognizance is in the mind of man. No longer is man a slave to a God who dictates the rules, value system, and philosophical perspective; now man is the ruler and knower of his existence.
The idea that God is no longer necessary to the evolution of man’s consciousness was developed further with Immanuel Kant and Idealism. Idealism purports that experience and perception exists in the mind. Whether there is one mind, monistic idealism, or more than one mind, Pluralistic monism etc perception and experience exist only in the mind and therefore the mind is the only reality of existence. Marxist thought further refined the dialectic of idealism as “the ideal is nothing else than the material world reflected by the human mind, and translated into forms of thought”.
Existentialism was another school of thought that was developed in the ‘Age of Reason’ period. The most influential Existentialists were Soren Kierkegaard (5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) Friedrich Nietzsche (October 15, 1844 – August 25, 1900), the more modern day Existentialists such as Martin Heidegger (September 26, 1889 – May 26, 1976), Jean-Paul Sartre (21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) all of whom were basically coming from Christian ethnicity.
The Existential school of thought was more or less apologetic to the notion that man was the seat of all knowing and posed that the main dilemma of human existence was the duality of reason. Such as the dilemma of – the existence or non existence of God which created an existential crisis of sorts within the mind of man. Their school of thought posed that man was in the precarious position of more or less being ‘on the fence’ so to speak as to the nature of the absolute truth.
On the one hand there was the Religious or God centric approach to existence and on the other hand there was the human centric approach that said that man was the centre of his existence. The Religious ideology was that there was a Designer who designed the material manifestation and existence who could only be understood via Scriptural revelation in order to discern the nature of the absolute truth. On the other hand the ‘Age of Reason’ proponents argued that God was basically a construct of the mind and that mans goal was to transcend the notion that a Designing God existed. The Existentialist presented a more ambivalent picture of the nature of the absolute truth where man was still the centre of ‘reason’ however he was a fence sitter with regard to the nature of God.
The two main schools of thought that have developed and dominate in this age of reason are Subjectivism and Relativism.
SUBJECTIVISM: is the school of thought that basically believes that reality is what we (the subject) perceive as being real and that there is no real existence outside of our subjective perception of everything that exists.
RELATIVISM: is the school of thought that believes that truth can only be perceived from a relative or subjective point of view and therefore there can only exist relative truth of the subjective mind and denies the existence of truth in its absolute form.
Relativism is found in the Indian religions such as Jainism and Sikhism. In Jainism (Anekantavada) the Pluralistic ideology that truth and reality are perceived differently from various points of view. No viewpoint has the complete truth or absolute truth. Sikhism asserts that many paths or truths lead to God. Or that truth is relative and not absolute and so long as one is righteous then they can attain God.
EMPIRICISM: is the school of thought that believes that knowledge or ‘to know’ something one uses evidence gained by not only sense perception but also experience. It also postulates that ‘ideas’ are not innate or formed by traditions but formed from evidence gained by sense perception.
Further schools of thought that fall into the ‘Age of Reason’ category are as follows;
DETERMINISM: The school of thought that human beings do not possess free will; all behaviour is determined. There is no “personal” responsibility for behaviour.
EPISTEMOLOGICAL EMPIRICISM: The school of thought which denies or questions the validity of all intellectual knowledge and admits only the certainty of born of sense perception.
EPISTEMOLOGICAL RATIONALISM: The school of thought which denies or questions the validity of sense-knowledge and admits only the certainty of intellectual knowledge.
EPISTEMOLOGICAL SUBJECTIVISM: The school of thought that says objective truth is impossible; truth is completely relative.
INNATISM: is a school of thought that holds that the mind is born with ideas/knowledge, and that therefore the mind is not a ‘tabula rasa’ or ‘blank slate’ at birth therefore not all knowledge is obtained from experience and sense perception.
METAPHYSICAL IDEALISM: The school of thought that nothing exists except ideas or minds; material reality is an illusion. The mind is the sole existing thing.
METAPHYSICAL MATERIALISM: The school of thought that nothing exists except matter in motion (material reality). The mind is just a material entity.
MORAL RELATIVISM: The school of thought that objective moral principles don’t exist; moral principles are always relative. There is nothing basically moral or immoral.
POLITICISM: The dogma that all human problems are political in nature and the solution must be a political one. Public polls determine truth and morality.
POSITIVISM: A school of thought that is a form of naturalism which denies the legitimacy of philosophical problems and methods and claims that science is the only knowledge which is exact and ultimate.
PRAGMATISM: The school of thought (or attitude) which places all knowledge and truth in a direct relation to life and action. Truth is that which satisfies human needs and interests in a social way.
SCIENTISM: The school of thought that nothing exists except that which can be measured by the instruments of science. Reality = the material universe.
SOCIAL COLLECTIVISM: The school of thought that human individuals live only for the benefit of the state or society, from which all rights are derived.
Whichever ideological premise, the ‘Age of Reason’ author’s goal was to move mankind away from a God centric existence to a man centric existence. Therefore the ‘Western’ mindset, which was primarily capitalistic and God centred, needed to be thoroughly broken down and this could be easily achieved by acculturating their ideas into the Western cultures via gaining control of the Scholastic institutions and inculcating the academics, children and youth.
Over the centuries as the Kali yuga proceeds we are experiencing the systematic breakdown of religious thought practice and governance globally. Kali’s degenerative influence spread exponentially with the breakdown of the Kingly class through Communistic ideological thought and practice which brought about cultural and societal reform by the Marxist Communistic lead rebellion of the working class, proletariat, in Russia and China against the ruling class or aristocracy.
The geopolitical scene from the nineteen hundreds onward saw the rapid growth and development of industrial nations. By the second decade of the century, Communistic thought and practice was being introduced into Russia and China while Capitalism flourished in the Western World. Communism was primarily the brainchild of Karl Marx (May 5, 1818 – March 14, 1883) who believed that Communism would be launched via the affluent countries of Europe. However it was in fact Vladimir Lenin believing that Communism would flourish first in Russia then China and subsequently India, who proved this forecast wrong
The Western countries were too much attached to Capitalism and the working class was not interested in the Communistic ideological manifesto. Under the heavy hand of Lenin, Russia was converted over to Communism and they began to breakdown the hold that culture and religion had on the common man by vilifying (slaughtering) the aristocracy and inciting revolution.
Communism proved a very powerful tool to breakdown the Kingly and Brahminical class of man and to separate the people from their religious and traditional roots. China soon adopted the Communist manifesto; however India resisted being more under the control of the British with only a few states succumbing to Communism. Mao Zedong of China added to Lenin’s idea that change would come from the proletariat by including the peasant class in the revolution against the existing ruling order to push ahead with the Communist Manifesto in China.
However the West, in the turn of last century, began to take the lead in economic and political power by the rapid post World War Two economic growth of the United States. This, coupled with their huge military might, enabled the US to gain the upper hand in the global market, overtaking the older and more established European market, thus Capitalism was able to have a stronger hold on Western countries under the protectionist agenda of the US.
With the failure of Marxist Communism in gaining the political and economic might in order to breakdown the hold that Capitalism had on the Western World the Communist strategists needed to change their strategies. They needed to infiltrate the West and as the US was the bastion of Capitalism and Democracy, they needed to breakdown the Western Cultural hold on the people of the US in order to destabilize it enough to effect the change they required.
Over the last two thousand years Christian and Islamic empires wrestled over control of land and resources, both cultures were based on the Old Testament of the Abrahamic religions who, similar to the Jewish faith, believed that they were the chosen people of God. This belief, supported by Scriptural injunctions, afforded them the idea that they will and should rule the earth. All of the Abrahamic religions have sought world domination over the centuries. The most overtly successful were the Christians who were able to spread their faith and control over the global scene via being embedded in the Roman Empire and accepted as the official religion of the Roman Empire in the 3rd century by the Emperor Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus 306-337AD.
The Jewish people were initially not so fortunate but via the process of Diaspora, they have secured the Global economic and financial sphere as well as acculturated their philosophic outlook into the Western societies with tremendous result with the inculcation of the Humanistic Sciences throughout the world via the Humanistic Secular Academic program which is taught in all schools and universities of the earth. Practically nowhere can God or Religion be taught in any secular school on earth today thanks to their ingenuity and far reaching thought.
The Jewish theology as expressed in the Talmud and the Toraḥ describes Godhead as impersonal or without form. The Judaic understanding of Godhead is also held by the other Abrahamic Religions who also believe that Godhead is not a person. The majority of philosophical theorists in the ‘Age of Reason’ period are followers of the Judaic impersonalistic thought and of Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish (Judaic) position was that their God exists in the mind of man and in social interpersonal relationships. The Judaic mindset is that the nature of God is – the individual and shared consciousness of the human mind and expressed through social systems and that the individual by the way of ‘reason’ rationalizes that absolute truth is ‘a priori’.
“The Raaya Meheimna describes a higher level of human consciousness which can be translated as Pluralistic relativism, where one is free of dogma, greed and divisiveness and operates purely on the levels of feelings and love and cherishes mother earth. G-d is envisioned here as the network of human relationships, therefore the need to see G-d as having a human body is relinquished as one has accepted the higher realization. G-d is now experienced as feeling and love–and has no demands. Whatever feels good is what G-d wants.
The consciousness here is decidedly anti-hierarchical–everything must be laterally linked. The self is permeable; the emphasis is on relationships and dialogue. Collective communities connected through freely chosen affiliations based on shared sentiments are seen as the only rational foundation for people being together. Decisions must be reached through reconciliation and consensus. This consciousness is strongly egalitarian, anti-hierarchical, Pluralistic, valuing diversity and multiculturalism, and emphasizing relativistic value systems. Rabbi Schorr - (The Judaic Vaiṣṇava)”
It was during the build up to the Second World War and the rise of Nazi Germany under the leadership of Adolf Hitler that many Jewish intellectuals and scientists migrated to the United States. Their influence on the military and Humanistic Science profoundly changed the US, however it was their influence on the field of Social Science which had the greatest impact on the psyche of the American people and greatly changed their world view.
The migration of the Cultural Marxists infiltrated American Academia and formed what can be appropriately termed a ‘Fifth Column’ of Social Engineers who successfully dismantled the world view of the American Academia and Youth and acculturated them with ideologies meant to sever the peoples links with their past making them more amenable to the Cultural Marxist agenda.
The term ‘fifth column’ refers to a group of people who clandestinely undermine a larger group such as a nation from within, to help an external enemy. In this case it is the agenda of the largely Jewish Cultural Marxist Communistic Social Engineers who worked within Western cultures in order to convert them over to their ideological agenda.
In the 1920s and 1930s, a group Marxists who did not agree fully with the Marxist School of thought founded the Institute for Social Research (The Frankfurt School) in Germany, among them were Max Horkheimer, Theodor Adorno, Erich Fromm, and Herbert Marcuse. Their school of thought was known as Critical Theory which was their take on Marxist philosophy and was heavily influenced by Hegel, Freud, Nietzsche, and Max Weber.
It was the opinion of these authors that the only way to breakdown the Western world’s hold on the people was not through the working class and/or the peasant class rebellion against the ruling class, it was through the naive and malleable youth via a blend of Marxism and Freudian Psychoanalysis that Western Culture can be destroyed. Marxist ideology that change can be brought about by a shift in the economic substructure of Society was superseded by new authors who believed that it was only through an ideological shift in the cultural superstructure of society that change could be effected.
America was identified as the main influencing country and bastion of Christian values, political power, as well as capitalistic thought and practice. The Frankfurt School authors identified that the youth of America needed to be educated in Secular Humanism and encouraged to revolt against the ruling power elite.
END OF PART TWO: Geopolitics – Globalization
Part Three will continue with the descriptions of the Frankfurt School and its influential role in the United States. It will also describe how the Frankfurt School authors were the main influence behind the ‘counter culture’ of the Hippie era and how they manipulated the youth of America to rebel against the establishment and opt out of the ‘rat race’.
Kṛṣṇacandra Dāsa
- go to part three -
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