"Patriotism is not enough. But neither is anything else. Science is not enough, art is not enough, religion is not enough, politics and economics are not enough, nor is love, nor is duty, nor is action however disinterested, nor, however sublime, is contemplation. Nothing short of everything will really do."
The quote is from Aldous Huxley's 1962 novel "Island," about a fictional Indonesian kingdom called Pala, where the natives and several Englishmen have built a Utopian society. They are spoken by Will Farnaby, an Englishman who purposely shipwreckes himself on Pala, where oil has recently been discovered, to spy for oil interests that want to "develop" the island. In the book, he searches for a supportive "ism" to make his life meaningful.
Though Farnaby starts as an environmentally unconscious oil scout, he does have a philosphical streak, and his thought above is a sobering one, that no single "ism" can give him what he needs, including capitalism.
In addition to the right ism, people search for the right cracy, or type of government, as in "democracy" (from Greek demos, "people," and kratia, "to rule"). The word is well established, but democracy itself is not. If you insist on the literal definition of "rule by the people," there has never been a democratic government. Classical Athens, which we learn in fifth grade is where democracy first appeared, did not give the vote to slaves (which most wealthy Athenians owned) or to women. In America, we gave the vote to our slaves, then to women, so it can be argued that America has more of a democracy than ancient Athens did, however "rule by the people" in our time should be amended to read,"attempted rule," because the information necessary to form large voting blocks able to address critical questions (such as, "Should we automate most traditional human jobs without consulting the humans?") are distorted and misdirected by a covert nexus between military, business and media interests, who are "people" only in terms of their being human beings, not in terms of the number of votes they cast.
A more exotic cracy is the 20th Century concept of "technocracy," "rule by technical expert" (Merriam-Webster). Historian and exceptionally clear thinker Jill Lepore gives us an idea of what life under a technocracy might be like in her review of the "Technocracy movement" of the 1930's (New Yorker Magazine, Data Driven, 4/3/23) founded by engineer Howard Scott, who proposed bringing America out of the Depression via the "abolition of all existing economic and politial arrangements- goverments and banks, for instance, and their replacement by engineers, who would rule by numbers." Money would be replaced by "a scientific unit of measurement." Under the "Technate," "humans would no longer need names; they would have numbers." One Technocrat named himself 1x1809x56 (perhaps inspiring George Lucas' 1971 film THX-1138, where the protagonist of that name lives in an underground factory, the earth's surface having been destroyed in an unnamed holocaust). Technocracy was drowned out by prevailing isms like liberalism, conservatism and facism, but its adherents linger on. Lepore relates that Elon Musk's grandfather was a leader of the Technocracy movement in Canada, and one of Elon's children is named X AE A-12.
Let's not foreget "pacifism" and "militarism," the beliefs, respectively, that humans should be either peaceful or warlike. Are we supposed to choose between these alternatives? Everyone would probably choose pacifism, provided that would actually result in peace. The people who chose militarism would likely either be suicidal or a member of the party that is winning the war.
What point is Huxley making when his character says that none of the isms is enough in itself? What would it be like if all the isms and cracy's were practiced at the same time? Is that what nirvana is, total gratification of all needs and proving of all theories, leading to dissolution of rivalry and ego, leading then perhaps to a universe that implodes or explodes with love? Then what happens? Does the whole thing start over?
I'm reminded of the current (overhyped) movie "Everything Everywhere All At Once," about people who have no permanent place in the "multiverse" and so jump around uncontrollaby between universes. In one universe characters might be evil, while in another they are good. No universe is presented as the "right" one. They are all sort of equal; you just have to try to stay in the one that treats you best. Will Farnaby's character has to be in every universe everywhere all at once. Is that what's happening to us?
With our political and social concepts in flux, it's not clear what we want as a final result of the current instability. In my case, of course I want food and shelter (survivalism), but beyond that, I think I want everything to slow down and solidify. I don't care what ism or cracy we end up with- as long as there's a harmonious vibe across the biosphere. Is that mysticism? Am I a leftover hippy from the '60's? That might be termed optimism.
