Empire of Reason

“History is the process of human action and development; and as such, enslaves the objects of the exercise. Most certainly, an honest and sober study of history can free us of the inequities of the past; but only if we are willing to grasp the lessons. If we are willing to understand who we are in the context of history, then and only then will we be able to live in the present with the past…”
– Mark Albertson

Empire of Reason[1]

“But the origin of the AMERICAN REPUBLIC is distinguished by peculiar circumstances. Other nations have been driven together by fear and necessity—their governments have generally been the result of a single man’s observations; or the offspring of particular interests. In the formation of our constitution, the wisdom of the ages is collected—the legislators of antiquity are consulted, as well as the opinions and interests of the millions who are concerned. In short, it is an Empire of Reason.” [2]

The preamble is from the pen of Noah Webster, an educator in Philadelphia at the time of the Constitutional Convention, who rendered the above opinion as to what his generation was orchestrating in the wake of revolution. Such was his definition of the soon-to-be American Republic.

Connecticut-born writer, lexicographer, textbook designer, godfather of American education and scholarship, politician, publisher of English language dictionaries, and one of those who helped to establish the Nation’s copyright laws in 1831, he accurately depicted the foundation of the fledgling Republic with a marvelous use of language that was the hallmark of the Founding Generation; but, which regrettably, is no longer held in an esteem emblematic of the Republic itself. For, you see, the Republic no longer exists. For today’s America is a corporate state.

The menopause of change resulting in this style of rule commenced with the Nation’s founding, an evolution of a protracted variety based on competing doctrines: the Jeffersonian notion of the agrarian as the Salt of the Earth; and therefore, that savior of Republican representative government. For one of the hallmarks of the American Revolution was the ownership of land—private property. To which the agrarian was wedded, heart and soul, as opposed to the Hamiltonian dogma of industrialization and finance.

By the closing stages of the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution, the evolution of technology and capitalism, was transforming economy, government, and society. Feudalism was comatose, as people emigrated from the land to the cities. Ruralism was giving way to urbanization. Monarchy, nobility and the peasant were being overtaken by the bourgeoisie, working class, and urban poor.

Such changes of a decisive nature were accelerated by the American and French Revolutions, violent exercises of revision based upon the ideas of the Age of Reason or Enlightenment put into action: Liberalism, Democracy, Republicanism, Secularism, Socialism, Nationalism, and Parliamentarianism.

The tumultuous course of the 19th and 20th centuries was charted, featuring that struggle between the haves and the have-nots against the coming collapse of monarchy by 1919. Centuries of aristocratic control was giving way to such perversions of capitalism as fascism, corporate socialism, financial imperialism, and industrialized militarism or war capitalism. Indeed, as Georg Hegel observed in the Philosophy of Right:

“The state is absolutely rational inasmuch as it is the actuality of the substantial will which it possesses in the particular self-consciousness once that consciousness has been raised to consciousness of its universality. This substantial unity is an absolute unmoved end in itself in which freedom comes into its supreme right. On the other hand, this final end has supreme right against the individual, whose supreme duty is to be a member of the state.”[3]

Hegel’s notion would inspire practitioners of collective rule from the Left and the Right, such as Karl Marx and Benito Mussolini, Marxism and Fascism. Both being attempts to organize the State along the lines of centralized control. Indeed, centralized control had already appeared in America by 1865 in the form of the Union and the Confederacy, featuring elements of Boss Rule as wielded by Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis during the Republic’s initiation into Industrialized War, known to Americans as the Civil War.

Empire of Reason, then, will focus on America and its place in our turbulent world; a world this nation had no small role in molding towards an objective that would result, for a time, in an equality of one. For by the end of the 19th century, Chesapeake Bay had been linked with the Golden Gate. Manifest Destiny, then, ceased being an agenda for continental expansion, and as evidenced by the 1898 Spanish-American War (a little regarded turning point in the history of this nation), Manifest Destiny became a doctrine for Globalism. America was severing its umbilical cord to its colonial founding as an acknowledged foe of colonialism to become an imperialist power, a global power, and then in 1945, a superpower… in that all-consuming pursuit for Pax Americana; as outlined in the manifesto of such constitutional heretics as the Neocons in their manifesto for empire, the Plan for the New American Century. Page two of their “Why Another Defense Review?” illustrates the same quite vividly: During the Cold War, in a bipolar world, the objective of the American military was the containment of the Soviet Union. In the 21st century, in a unipolar world, the strategic objective is to “Preserve Pax Americana.”[4]

Empire of Reason is an effort to rekindle interest in, and regard for, the history of one of the most remarkable experiments in nation-building ever to emerge from the restless mind of Man…the constitutionally-ordained American Republic, with its uniquely fashioned system of checks and balances. In addition, America’s place in the world will be called into question, to the extent of delving into the history of other countries and events. This will be broached in the following fashion:

  1. This site will feature a Commentary Page with a fresh viewpoint every four to six weeks. Readers may respond via the points of contact provided.
  2. A Calendar of Events has been provided for those who wish to attend Mark’s presentations.
  3. A Presentation Page has been provided, listing Mark’s presentations by category. Fees for talks will be contingent on such aspects as duration of talk, travel time, etc.
  1. Media Page showcases recorded lectures.
  2. Book Page, where the interested can purchase Mark’s books through Amazon.
  3. Ebooks Page. This site will include e-books for sale and download.

Empire of Reason will be a work in progress, with a line of march that is unswerving, undeviating in its messaging. Indeed the underlying essence can be found in the “Dedication” of Mark’s third book, On History: A Treatise… To the American people; may they take the time to heed the lessons of history, and in so doing, reverse their lack of fealty and wisdom, to recognize, root out, and then thwart the forces of greed, arrogance, and opportunism that are pledged to the destruction of our Republic.

Endnotes

[1] “A Citizen of America,” Philadelphia, October 17, 1787, by Noah Webster. See page 129, “An Examination into the Leading Principles of the Federal Constitution,” Debate on the Constitution, Part I, The Library of America, Literary Classics of the United States, Inc., New York, NY., 1993.

[2] See page 129, Part I, Debate on the Constitution.

[3] See page 80, “Third Part: Ethical Life, Sub-Section III: The State,” Philosophy of Right, by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Great Books of the Western World, Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc., Oxford University Press, 1952.

[4] See page 2, Chapter 1, “Why Another Defense Review?” Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century, A Report for the New American Century, Project for the New American Century, September 2000.