Ananias, Sapphira, and the Death of Utopia

According to Sigurd Grindheim, Greek and Roman philosophers sometimes imagined a utopia in which a community “lived together in perfect harmony and shared everything.” That being said, when the early church launched and looked very much like this description, some may have thought that utopia had finally been realized.

But as with all good things, Satan always finds a way to twist it. The first offenders of the new Christian utopia were a couple named Ananias and Sapphira. Having recently sold some property, the couple agreed to give the proceeds to the church, but they kept some back for themselves without mentioning it. Peter recognized this decision as the work of Satan in their hearts, and the two died supernaturally.

This story is enough to send shivers down our spines, as it is one of the most intense stories of judgment in the New Testament. But this is not a story about tithing or generosity, as some pastors might retell it. This is the story of a couple who wondered how they might use the church’s new utopian society to get ahead. They didn’t face judgment because they kept some of their own money to themselves—that was always their choice to make. They faced judgment because they wanted people to think they were far more generous than they were. As far as anyone else knew, they had given all of their money away. In this new utopia, such an action would make them look holy and righteous, gain the community’s respect, and likely move them up in leadership.

As I was listening to the radio this morning, a historian was discussing the ideals around the founding of America. These were the beliefs and actions that set us apart from the rest of the world. We were a republic, and we cared about the pursuit of happiness, liberty, and justice for all.

This description sat oddly with me on America’s 250th birthday. I’m all for putting power in the people’s hands, but I can’t think of any American who really feels like they have any real sway over the government. I can think of people who believe the whole world has equal access to happiness, liberty, and justice, but anyone who has done the research unequivocally knows that’s not true. While the ideals themselves are good, we are hardly a shining city on a hill of those ideas 250 years later. What happened?

Any of the utopian ideals America was founded upon have been corrupted over time by the same forces that pried at the church’s utopia in its earliest days. With a little bit of money and deceit, you can buy your way forward in any system and then turn it back to glorify yourself. Not even the church itself can create a system that’s so perfect that Sin won’t find a way to manipulate it, for Sin knows how to twist everything. There is no ideal or action so pure that it can’t be twisted in some way. Even our pursuit of Jesus himself can be turned into religious legalism and hatred if Satan grabs hold of our hearts and minds along the way.

Yes, there are better ways to do things, and those ways should always be chosen. But we should never be so naive as to think we have finally found the kind of governor or governance that is impervious to Sin. Checks and balances must always bring about prophetic correction—and that will only happen when your checks and balances aren’t also corrupted by Sin.

The world is a mess. May we keep our eyes on Jesus always. We may not always have the power to change the systems of this world, but we always have the space to let the Spirit change us as we live within those systems.
#Acts5 #America #AnaniasAndSapphira #BiblicalTheology #ChristianCommunity #church #corruption #discipleship #governance #justice #kingdomOfGod #liberty #politicalTheology #propheticWitness #republic #satan #sin #socialJustice #temptation #utopia

Professional Politics Is Intrinsically Corrupt, Go For Direct Democracy Instead

Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely, and this is exactly why there are professional politicians: so that they, and individuals gravitating around them, can get absolutely corrupt (I have seen the process at the closest distance; little difference with Nero’s court).

What we are submitted to is not true democracy, but OLIGARCHIC REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY (ORD): power (kratia) of the people (demos) from the rule (archeon) of the few (oligos).

In a real democracy -that is, in a direct democracy- there are no professional politicians (because when there are, they are more powerful than We The People). In a real democracy, politics belongs to We The People: We The People rule, not just a few individuals.

There are ways to ensure this, including by distributing offices by drawing lots (“SORTITION”). If anybody can suddenly become the most important decision maker, for, say, a year, and subject to prosecution after leaving office, it will be impossible for an elite of power to become encrusted into a volume of corrupt barnacles so thick that the ship of state completely disappears in it… It will also motivate even janitors and farmers to know what is going on.

It is known how to do without professional politicians, because several Greek states and the Roman Republic, long succeeded to do so when they were as democratic as possible.

It is a bit intricate, as many types of assemblies and offices have to institute various checks and balances…. Including some drawn by lots … so everybody had to get ready to become a top politician, at least for a while. Pericles, according to Thucydides, characterized the Athenians as politically literate:

We do not say that a man who takes no interest in politics is a man who minds his own business; we say that he has no business here at all

Many of Democracy’s contemporaries whose work is part of historiography were highly critical of Democracy, but that is likely coming from more than a millennium of dictatorial filtering. Plato and Aristotle were intimate, in love and in business, with actual kings, tyrants and autocratic generals (such as Antipater for Aristotle; Antipater went to war against Athenian democracy, defeated it, established it as a plutocracy and was the executor of Aristotle’s testament in more ways than one…) As Democracy was followed by two millennia of dictatorship, there was a self-selective effect: a monk from the European Middle Ages would reproduce a manuscript friendly to the idea of having a local prince instead of reproducing a book calling people such as the local prince “tyrants”…. Which they were. Making the local tyrant unhappy could often be only alleviated by long tortures of the miscreant…

One valid critique from Socrates is that Democracy sometimes put ignorant individuals in power where experts were needed. This can be corrected with guilds and orders, MERITOCRATIC DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS when one reaches positions of authority through merit and experience. The Middle Ages built such a system over more than a millennia, ending with orders for doctors, lawyers, engineers, masons, etc.

Politics is too important to be left to politicians who are adept at hiding their most important decisions, because that is where the real power lies.

Here is a crucial, even fatal, example of the present lack of true democracy:

NOBODY DEBATES INTELLIGENTLY THE WORLD’S MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE:

The official nuclear strategy of France for example is completely insane and nonsensical (and the unexpressed US nuclear strategy, or that of NATO, are similar, and just as inappropriate… Differently from the French, though, they have been smart enough to not talk of what they do not understand…). I will write a specific essay on it. I am not per se opposed to nukes (Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however atrocious, were better than any potential alternative, as it turned out). What I am opposed to is the specifics of the French nuclear doctrine, as both extremely ineffective and hyper dangerous (a bit like the Chernobyl reactor).

However, this, the fate of humanity, no less, is not debated anywhere except probably in the Kremlin. As it is, individuals without knowledge of even physics, sitting in their hidden recesses like cockroaches, agitating their homicidal antennas, have elaborated secret doctrine to end humanity. And they present their conclusion with gravitas, heavily applauded by the other cockroaches they paid and honored, and who pretend to know stuff as they jet around the world.

Instead the fate of the universe ought to be the object of a cogent, loud and fierce public debate (with the aim to reduce the insanity).

***

ISEGORIA And PARHEISIA, Pillars Of Democracy, Can Be Expanded To Billions Of People, Thanks To The Internet:

Direct democracy will prevent, as much as possible, the emergence of informal elites (e.g., charismatic orators, wealthy influencers) to manipulate public opinion better than any alternative. Isonomia and Parheisia, already perceived in antiquity as pillars of democracy enabling really free speech by all to all, should be enforced as much as possible. That super thinkers would have more influence is to be hoped for, and no sin, just the opposite.

AI assemblies, deliberating from various biases or viewpoints, to be used as advisers will help further.

If one of the woke AI we have today had been able to advise the Athenians, they would not have genocidized the city-island-state of Milo, and they would not have attacked and invaded Syracuse. Nor would they have left their entire fleet on a beach (that’s how they lost the last battle; Alcibiades had told them not to, and why, but he was no AI and they ignored him… once again and for the last time…

***

With the Internet, it should be easier to institute a MUCH MORE DEMOCRATIC system than in antiquity, though… By TWEAKING the existing democracies (the referendum system already exists on a large scale in California; Brexit was a referendum, true, and a disastrous one, but it was applied in a country not used to taking decisions by itself, without any remedy, and when PM Cameron decided it, he thought he would win… Thus it originated as an authoritative trick, not a genuine consultation.)

Consulting with We The People could be done lightly, as in Switzerland: any “votation” of We The People has to go through the conventional Oligarchic Democratic Process (ODP), with all its checks and balances, to become law… Working through ODP avoids the notorious hysteria of Athenian democracy… By the way, Rome had the opposite problem: so many checks and balances that reforms, even when voted, could not be effected, thanks to the Optimates in the Senate… Julius Caesar had understood this perfectly and rammed necessary reforms… But he should have remembered that this was an unforgivable crime…

***

Let’s go back to the question of Mob Rule, the old objection made against democracy as early as Plato. The Melian Dialogue shows its ruthlessness:”the strong do what they can, the weak do what they must”. It finished in complete idiocy. Athenian democracy executed generals not just after a failed battle. After a crucial and belated victory on the Persian financed) Spartan fleet, Athenian democracy executed the nine victorious admirals. The atrocious defeat of Athenian civilization with about half of the population killed promptly followed a s aresult… How to prevent hysteria or tyranny of the majority? Let me repeat: I propose an EVOLUTION, NOT A REVOLUTION: use a combination of Direct Democracy, debate, helped by AI assemblies (AI will be there, make it official and transparent…) Use them to IMPROVE the present Representative Oligarchic Democracy… By progressively forcing us to consult with intelligence.

***

Athens had three political bodies where citizens gathered in numbers running into the hundreds or thousands. These are the assembly (in some cases with a quorum of 6,000), the council of 500 (boule), and the courts (a minimum of 200 people, on some occasions up to 6,000).

A citizen could sit twice, non consecutively, in the Boule, for a year in his lifetime.

***

The traditional objection to augmenting Direct Democracy is to point out that Athens had at most 80,000 voters. Yes. But it was not easy: major laws required 6000 votes, and farmers had to travel more than a day to come and vote (hungry Athens was surrounded by the crucial arable land of Attica, full of voting Athenian farmers). After a while, it was found necessary to pay voters to travel, come and reach a quorum. With modern communications, people can just talk to their phone.

On top of this, the Roman Republic had several million voters, and could have survived, had the Optimates not been so stubborn and stupid, generation after generation, or had they not assassinated Caesar (long story). As it was, after the utterly chaotic civil war which followed Caesar’s assassination, a military dictatorship was established and Augustus made himself Tribune for life.

The Roman Republic was three centuries old when it started to fall to a plutocratic exponentiation (very long story). It could have been avoided with much more sagacity after the defeat of Carthage and its Hellenistic Allies in the Second Punic war (surviving in good intelligence and trade with a subordinated Carthage would have been part of it).

As it was, it was one war after another. Distant wars made the generals and the traders accommodating them, immensely wealthy; tax avoidance schemes, globalization, etc. followed… In the chaos, the ROMAN ABSOLUTE WEALTH LIMIT became less than a memory (I have computed it to be around 22 millions in 2022 $). When Tiberius Gracchus tried to reestablish it, the Optimates engaged in a process which broke the Republic in the 100 years which led to Caesar’s assassination.

***

Both Athenian and Roman Direct Democracies were mostly defeated and ruined by plutocrats (even in the Peloponnesian War, the main shock to Athens, the Persian plutocratic superpower played the crucial role, by paying for everything, using Sparta as a telerobotic terminator)

***

Rome’s Direct Democracy had similar limitations for its various institutions (Consul for one year, and could not be re-elected for a decade). However in emergencies, Rome could elect a dictator with the powers of an absolute king. Cincinatus was elected to the highest offices several times, including dictator twenty years apart, because Rome was being invaded by foreign armies… But still he was a farmer…. The first time, having defeated the enemy in a spectacular battle thanks to a massive mobilization and innovative methods which involved all of Rome making hundreds of thousands of stakes in a couple of days. Cincinatus returned to his plow within two weeks…

Democracy was not invented just because it is the natural state of human beings as created by millions of years of evolution. The interest civilization has in democracy is that democracy makes civilization more intelligent. This is why greater democracy tends to win wars.

Want democracy?

Want more intelligence in saving civilization from destruction?

Proscribe professional politicians!

Patrice Ayme

Note: The thoroughly corrupt present US political system seems very far from Direct Democracy. Systems in other oligarchic representative democracies are not as bad, but it is still the same general problem. Timid steps have been taken, such as term limits. The US went overboard with an amendment preventing more than two presidential terms. France forbids two consecutive terms, and that is wiser: the only reason California governor Newson, a Getty creature, has a chance to run for president is that Obama can’t be a candidate again… It is likely that Obama would become a much better president if he was reelected. California’s governor Brown was better in his second 8 year passage.

In any case the California mandatory referendums (1856 CE) and initiative system (1911 CE) has worked very well, and intensely, for more than a century, and is compatible with ORD … And the first start to do for other nation-states would be to imitate it if they want to augment the Democratic Index.

That little light is a giant harvester working the fields. Enough fields to feed the two million people who call the area home, surrounded by mountains centered around Western Europe’s largest lake. The Swiss and the French have been careful to maintain self-sufficiency in food production… Which would be necessary if world trade collapsed as it did when the Roman state disnitegrated. By the way, Caesar defended Geneva successfally against the Helvetiae…

#AncientGreece #Athens #Caesar #Corruption #democracy #DirectDemocracy #history #Intelligence #Optimates #Philosophy #plutocracy #Politicians #politics #Referendum #Republic #Rome

The #Empire of Caesars and Steel Cages: Donald’s 80th #Birthday and the Quiet Echo of #Rome

On Sunday in #Washington, a birthday will be celebrated. #Donald reaches 80. The city does not feel like a quiet #capital. It feels more like an #arena being prepared.

Parts of the White House have been rebuilt. Parts have been torn down. Some say one third lies in ruins, another third is turning into something like a modern #stadium. The building of power is treated like a construction site in an old empire. Stone replaced by steel. #Ceremony replaced by #spectacle.

It reminds some observers of ancient Rome. Not the Rome of #philosophy or #law. But the Rome of late empire. The Rome of loud #games, public shows, and political #theater.

In the Roman #Republic and later Empire, rulers understood a simple rule: people must be fed and entertained. “Bread and games” was not just a phrase. It was a #system. Food kept bodies alive. Spectacle kept attention away from decay. The Roman poet Juvenal described it as panem et circenses.

Today, Washington looks different. But the logic feels familiar to some critics.

A cage is mentioned. A modern arena. Mixed martial arts fights. No marble floors. No sand from the Colosseum. Instead, metal fences on green grass. The White House lawn becomes a stage. Violence becomes sport. Sport becomes politics. #Politics becomes #entertainment.

The Roman comparison is not new. The late empire under Decline of the Western Roman Empire was marked by internal fragmentation, economic pressure, and political #instability. The borders were large. But the system inside became harder to hold together. In the final centuries, emperors relied more on spectacle and loyalty games than on #reform.

One emperor often used as a symbol of this shift is #Commodus. He fought in staged #gladiator games. He performed as #Hercules. Ancient historians like Cassius Dio describe this as a sign of imperial decline, though modern historians debate how literal or exaggerated those accounts are.

The image is simple. Power turning into performance.

In the United States, the comparison is symbolic, not historical. The country remains economically and militarily strong. It is still a global #superpower. But critics sometimes point to rising political polarization, #media spectacle, and the personalization of politics.

The modern arena is not the #Colosseum. It is #television, #socialMedia, and live events. Attention is the new currency. The crowd is no longer in stone seats. It is online, scrolling, watching, reacting.

In this #story, Donald’s 80th birthday becomes more than a personal event. It becomes a stage. A symbolic moment. A performance of #power inside a republic that still calls itself a #democracy.

Some observers describe it in extreme metaphor. They see gladiators where there are athletes. They see emperors where there are presidents. They see decline where others see transformation.

History, however, is rarely so clean.

The Roman Empire did not fall in a single moment. It changed slowly. Institutions weakened in some places and adapted in others. The “fall” was a long transition, not a sudden #collapse.

The United States today shows no equivalent structural collapse. Its institutions, #economy, and global alliances remain strong. But like Rome in its later centuries, it faces internal tensions. Wealth concentration. Political division. Cultural fragmentation.

Empires do not always fall like buildings. Sometimes they drift like ships. They keep moving, even when the course becomes unclear.

The metaphor of Rome is powerful because it is simple. A great rise. A slow tension. A dramatic imagination of decline. But #history is less like a straight line and more like a spiral.

Still, on this Sunday in Washington, the #symbolism writes itself. A leader turns 80. The capital feels like a stage. The crowd expects a show.

And somewhere in the background, the old Roman warning echoes again: when politics becomes performance, the audience may forget who is acting—and who is ruling.

#usa #news #civilization #future #fail #ethics #problem #humanity #crisis #war #terror #justice #crime #whitehouse #government #game