When something withers, be it a plant, a human being or a nation, it is because the strength has vanished. It does not wish to step in the fight and fight. It simply lays down at the side of the road and start to perish.
So how do people react to this kind of situation?
Well there are several bits of wisdom and lore in our culture we can look upon and think about. First of all, there is the story of Sodom and Gomorra. These two city states in the fertile Crescent were in the final state of corruption, when Lot happened to try and save them. He said to G-d; if there is only one honest man back in the cities, save us. But the other citizens started attacking him!
In this story we see, that there is an ancient understanding of moral fallen cities as places of ultimate sin. So much sin, that even good people cannot survive there.
We see it in the persecution of minority intellectuals who try to enlighten the cities, searching for truth and redemption. If a city or nation is too morally corrupt, it will persecute these lightbringers, not using their understanding and ideas to rejuvenate and heal themselves.
Then there is Plato. In his view, a Republic goes through a phase of growth and deacy. In the end, where decay sets in, the philosophers are supposed to fight the decay and heal the citystate. That is why he wanted a council of philosophers to guard the Republic. This does not work, because who guards the guardians?
But in a situation where there are free philosophers, who are not institutionalized, I believe his idea might just come through. At least this has been my motivation; to try a steer the Republics away from decay and into health.
Plato has a true gem of wisdom in regards to the process of decay, that I have try to use in my work. He says, that what happens is this; In the final hours of the life of the Republic, the people gets so annoyed with the state of things, that they choose the strong man to clean up the mess. In this the tyrant gets to power, and he cleans up the mess, but in the process he gets rid of democracy. We have had a classic example of this in recent times with Hitler. The strong man.
So what do we do to tackle this obvious danger? First of all, it is about making a gliding process, where we clean up the system from within. I have tried to inspire the current leaders and religious heads of state and temple, to get rid of the corruption from within.
The best and most succesful example is the Vatican state, where his excellency pope Francis has been tremendously succesful in this regard. Cleaning up the mess.
If the theory is sound, and it often is with Plato, it will result in a healthy church with all the benefits of this.
In political life, it has been much more difficult. Political processes are often extremely dangerous, but to my luck there is still so much civil feeling and conduct that I have not been killed. Lucky me.
But, as I see it, the political system needs a revolution from within. The corruption, the lying, the dishonest behaviour should be fought from inside.
Some of the characteristics of the strong man should be borrowed by the politicians who are inside the system. Not to overthrow the system, but to clean it up from within.
In this way we keep our democratic system without sacrificing our moral.
It is an extremely difficult process of the politicians, but it truly works, as we have seen it with my work with first mr. Lars Løkke, the former PM of Denmark and also, most probably the coming, mr. Barack Obama, mr. Putin and if we are ok with that, the coming PM of Great Britain.
It is a balance, because at the same time we have all the rebels of the underground who wants to push the agenda in a less corrupt way. So the leading politicians often have to balance a middle leaning politics with a more radical agenda.
This balance is what the UK has to work on if and when mr. Cameron wins the next election.
It is therefor most important to keep the overall aim of the process in perspective. It is not about surrendering to negative warmongering voices, it is about cleaning up Westminster, getting rid of all the corruption and dishonesty. Do little by little, but do it in an honest way.
In this way elections are won.
As a final note in the equation, I would comment on the understanding of how we notherners behave. According to the ancients, idealism is the nourishment of the tree.
To live is to be an idealist, and those who are idealists, are what drives the entire society.
G-d bless our flagging but still living nations.
