Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time

Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time is a work of history written by Carroll Quigley. The book covers the period of roughly 1880 to 1963 and is multidisciplinary in nature though perhaps focusing on the economic problems brought about by the First World War and the impact these had on subsequent events. While global in scope, the book focusses on Western civilization, because Quigley has more familiarity with the West.

The book has attracted the attention of those interested in geopolitics due to Quigley’s assertion that a secret society initially led by Cecil Rhodes, Alfred Milner and others had considerable influence over British and American foreign policy in the first half of the twentieth century. From 1909 to 1913, Milner organized the outer ring of this society as the semi-secret Round Table groups.


www.carrollquigley.net/pdf/Tragedy_and_Hope.pdf

H.G. Wells – The new world order

Originally published in 1940 – republished in 2007 under ISBN 1-59986-727-3.

The opportunistic marketable/salable character

Excerpt from Prof. Erich Fromm, Psychoanalysis and Religion (1950).

(Op.cit. p.99):
“The attitude common to the teachings of the founders of all great Eastern and Western religions is one in which the supreme aim of living is a concern with man’s soul and the unfolding of his powers of love and reason. Psychoanalysis, far from being a threat to this aim, can on the contrary contribute a great deal to its realization.”
[…]


(Op.cit. pp.100-102):
“The marketing orientation has established its dominant role as a character pattern only in the modern era. In the personality market all professions, occupations, and statuses appear. Employer, employee, and free-lance—each must depend for material success on personal acceptance by those who would use his services. Here, as in the commodity market, use value is not sufficient to determine exchange value. The “personality factor” takes precedence over skills in the assessment of market value and most frequently plays the deciding role. While it is true that the most winning personality cannot make up for a total lack of skill indeed, our economic system could not function on such a basis—it is seldom that skill and integrity alone account for success.
Success formulae are expressed in such terms as “selling oneself,” “getting one’s personality across,” and “soundness,” “ambition,” “cheerfulness,” “aggressiveness,” and so forth, which are stamped on the prize-winning personality package. Such other intangibles as family background, clubs, connections, and influence are also important desiderata and will be advertised however subtly as basic ingredients of the commodity offered. To belong to a religion and to practice it is also widely regarded as one of the requirements for success. Every profession, every field has its successful personality type.
The salesman, the banker, the foreman, and the headwaiter have met the requirements, each in a different way and to a different degree, but their roles are identifiable, they have measured up to the
essential condition: to be in demand. Inevitably man’s attitude toward himself is conditioned by these standards for success. His feeling of self-esteem is not based primarily on the value of his powers and the use he makes of them in a given society. It depends on his salability on the market, or the opinion others have about his “attractiveness.” He experiences himself as a commodity designed to attract on the most favorable, the most expensive terms.
The higher the offered price the greater the affirmation of his value. Commodity man hopefully displays his label, tries to stand out from the assortment on the counter and to be worthy of the highest price tag, but if he is passed by while others are snapped up he is convicted of inferiority and worthlessness. However high he may be rated in terms of both human qualities and utility, he may have the ill-luck—and must bear the blame—of being out of fashion. From early childhood he has learned that to be in fashion is to be in demand and that he too must adapt to the personality mart. But the virtues he is taught ambition, sensitivity, and adaptibility to the demands of others—are qualities too general to provide the patterns for success.
He turns to popular fiction, the newspapers, and the movies for more specific pictures of the success story and finds the smartest, the newest models on the market to emulate. It is hardly surprising that under these circumstances man’s sense of his value must suffer severely.
The conditions for his self-esteem are beyond his control. He is dependent on others for approval and in constant need of it; helplessness and insecurity are the inevitable results. Man loses his own identity in the marketing orientation ; he becomes alienated from himself. If man’s highest value is success, if love, truth, justice, tenderness, mercy are of no use to him, he may profess these ideals but he does not strive for them. He may think that he worships the god of love but he actually worships an idol which is the idealization of his real goals, those rooted in the marketing orientation.”

Cf. The chapter on the marketing orientation in “Man for Himself” (Fromm, 1947).

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Coup d’état

A coup d’état also known simply as a coup, a putsch, golpe, or an overthrow, is an illegal and overt seizure of a state by the military or other elites within the state apparatus.[1]

A 2003 review of the academic literature found that the following factors were associated with coups:

  • officers’ personal grievances
  • military organizational grievances
  • military popularity
  • military attitudinal cohesiveness
  • economic decline
  • domestic political crisis
  • contagion from other regional coups
  • external threat
  • participation in war
  • foreign veto power and military’s national security doctrine
  • officers’ political culture
  • noninclusive institutions
  • colonial legacy
  • economic development
  • undiversified exports
  • officers’ class composition
  • military size
  • strength of civil society
  • regime legitimacy and past coups.[18]

Bertrand Russel – The scientific outlook

Publication date 1954
Publisher George Allen And Unwin Limited

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Julius Cæsar’s “Panem et circenses”

Bread and circuses” (or bread and games; from Latin: panem et circenses) is a figure of speech, specifically referring to a superficial means of appeasement. As a metonymic, the phrase is attributed to Juvenal, a Roman poet active in the late first and early second century AD — and is used commonly in cultural, particularly political, contexts.

In a political context, the phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace[1] — by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses).

Juvenal, who originated the phrase, used it to decry the selfishness of common people and their neglect of wider concerns.[2][3][4] The phrase implies a population’s erosion or ignorance of civic duty as a priority.[5]

This phrase originates from Rome in Satire X of the Roman satirical poet Juvenal (circa A.D. 100). In context, the Latin panem et circenses (bread and circuses) identifies the only remaining interest of a Roman populace which no longer cares for its historical birthright of political involvement. Here Juvenal displays his contempt for the declining heroism of contemporary Romans, using a range of different themes including lust for power and desire for old age to illustrate his argument.[6] Roman politicians passed laws in 140 B.C. to keep the votes of poorer citizens, by introducing a grain dole: giving out cheap food and entertainment, “bread and circuses”, became the most effective way to rise to power.

Juvenal here makes reference to the Roman practice of providing free wheat to Roman citizens as well as costly circus games and other forms of entertainment as a means of gaining political power. The Annona (grain dole) was begun under the instigation of the popularis politician Gaius Sempronius Gracchus in 123 B.C.; it remained an object of political contention until it was taken under the control of the autocratic Roman emperors.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bread_and_circuses

See also “qua exstant” 1678


Further References

Sanders, G.. (2012). Panem et circenses: Worship and the spectacle. Culture and Religion

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/14755610.2012.658419
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Bueno Bravo, I.. (2009). El sacrificio gladiatorio y su vinculación con la guerra en la sociedad mexicana. Gladius

Plain numerical DOI: 10.3989/gladius.2009.219
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Ripoll López, G.. (1990). Panem et circenses. El circo y las carreras de caballos. Espacio, Tiempo y Forma, Serie I, Prehistoria
Logothetis, G., Matsaridis, A., & Kaimakakis, V.. (2012). The panem et circenses policy of the Regime of the Colonels in Greek sport, 1967-1974. Studies in Physical Culture & Tourism

Peer-reviewed articles

Peters, T.. (2020). The Struggle for Cognitive Liberty: Retrofitting the Self in Activist Theology. Theology and Science

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/14746700.2020.1786219
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Sommaggio, P., Mazzocca, M., Gerola, A., & Ferro, F.. (2017). Cognitive Liberty. A first step towards a human neuro-rights declaration. BioLaw Journal

Plain numerical DOI: 10.15168/blj.v0i3.255
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Weissenbacher, A.. (2018). Defending cognitive liberty in an age of moral engineering. Theology and Science

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/14746700.2018.1488476
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Sommaggio, P., & Mazzocca, M.. (2020). Cognitive liberty and human rights. In Neuroscience and Law: Complicated Crossings and New Perspectives

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-38840-9_6
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Ienca, M.. (2017). The Right to Cognitive Liberty. Scientific American

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1038/scientificamerican0817-10
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Ienca, M., & Andorno, R.. (2017). Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and neurotechnology. Life Sciences, Society and Policy

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1186/s40504-017-0050-1
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Walsh, C.. (2010). Drugs and human rights: Private palliatives, sacramental freedoms and cognitive liberty. International Journal of Human Rights

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/13642980802704270
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Kraft, C. J., & Giordano, J.. (2017). Integrating brain science and law: Neuroscientific evidence and legal perspectives on protecting individual liberties. Frontiers in Neuroscience

Plain numerical DOI: 10.3389/fnins.2017.00621
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Rainey, S., Martin, S., Christen, A., Mégevand, P., & Fourneret, E.. (2020). Brain Recording, Mind-Reading, and Neurotechnology: Ethical Issues from Consumer Devices to Brain-Based Speech Decoding. Science and Engineering Ethics

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/s11948-020-00218-0
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Ienca, M., & Andorno, R.. (2021). Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and Neurotechnology. Analisis Filosofico

Plain numerical DOI: 10.36446/AF.2021.386
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Wolpe, P. R.. (2017). Neuroprivacy and cognitive liberty. In The Routledge Handbook of Neuroethics

Plain numerical DOI: 10.4324/9781315708652
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Walsh, C.. (2014). Beyond religious freedom: Psychedelics and cognitive liberty. In Prohibition, Religious Freedom, and Human Rights: Regulating Traditional Drug Use

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/978-3-642-40957-8_11
DOI URL
directSciHub download

White, A. E.. (2010). The lie of fMRI: An examination of the ethics of a market in lie detection using functional magnetic resonance imaging. HEC Forum

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/s10730-010-9141-6
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Xu, H., & Dinev, T.. (2012). The security-liberty balance: Individuals’ attitudes towards internet government surveillance. Electronic Government

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1504/EG.2012.044778
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Davies, W.. (2017). Elite Power under Advanced Neoliberalism. Theory, Culture & Society

, 34(5–6), 227–250.
Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/0263276417715072
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Foster, J. B., & Holleman, H.. (2010). The Financial Power Elite. Monthly Review

, 62(1), 1.
Plain numerical DOI: 10.14452/MR-062-01-2010-05_1
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Iyer, R., Koleva, S., Graham, J., Ditto, P., & Haidt, J.. (2012). Understanding libertarian morality: The psychological dispositions of self-identified libertarians. PLoS ONE

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0042366
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Boire, R.. (2000). On Cognitive Liberty. In Journal of Cognitive Liberties

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1080/00207144.2013.753820
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Ienca, M., & Andorno, R.. (2017). Towards new human rights in the age of neuroscience and neurotechnology. Life Sciences, Society and Policy

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1186/s40504-017-0050-1
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Shanker, S. G.. (2009). Three concepts of liberty. In After Cognitivism: A Reassessment of Cognitive Science and Philosophy

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4020-9992-2_13
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Rindermann, H.. (2012). Intellectual classes, technological progress and economic development: The rise of cognitive capitalism. Personality and Individual Differences

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2011.07.001
DOI URL
directSciHub download

SENTENTIA, W.. (2006). Neuroethical Considerations: Cognitive Liberty and Converging Technologies for Improving Human Cognition. Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1196/annals.1305.014
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Desai, A. C.. (2011). Libertarian Paternalism, Externalities, and the “Spirit of Liberty”: How Thaler and Sunstein Are Nudging Us toward an “Overlapping Consensus”. Law and Social Inquiry, 36(1), 263–295.

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/j.1747-4469.2010.01231.x
DOI URL
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Pustilnik, A. C.. (2012). Neurotechnologies at the intersection of criminal procedure and constitutional law. In The Constitution and the Future of Criminal Justice in America

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1017/CBO9781139108034.011
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Anthropocene epoch

QR code linking this URL

Anthropocene

The Anthropocene is a proposed epoch dating from the commencement of significant human impact on the Earth‘s geology and ecosystems, including, but not limited to, anthropogenic climate change.[1][2][3][4][5]

As of August 2016, neither the International Commission on Stratigraphy nor the International Union of Geological Sciences has yet officially approved the term as a recognized subdivision of geological time,[3][6][7] although the Anthropocene Working Group (AWG) of the Subcommission on Quaternary Stratigraphy (SQS) of the International Commission on Stratigraphy (ICS), voted to proceed towards a formal golden spike (GSSP) proposal to define the Anthropocene epoch in the Geologic Time Scale and presented the recommendation to the International Geological Congress on 29 August 2016.[8]

Various different start dates for the Anthropocene have been proposed, ranging from the beginning of the Agricultural Revolution 12,000–15,000 years ago, to as recent as the Trinity test in 1945. As of February 2018, the ratification process continues and thus a date remains to be decided definitively, but the latter date has been more favored than others.

The most recent period of the Anthropocene has been referred to by several authors as the Great Acceleration during which the socioeconomic and earth system trends are increasing dramatically, especially after the Second World War. For instance, the Geological Society termed the year 1945 as The Great Acceleration.[9]

 


Further References

Dirzo, R., Young, H. S., Galetti, M., Ceballos, G., Isaac, N. J. B., & Collen, B.. (2014). Defaunation in the Anthropocene. Science

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1126/science.1251817
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Steffen, W., Crutzen, P. J., & McNeill, J. R.. (2007). The Anthropocene: Are Humans Now Overwhelming the Great Forces of Nature. AMBIO: A Journal of the Human Environment

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1579/0044-7447(2007)36[614:TAAHNO]2.0.CO;2
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Lewis, S. L., & Maslin, M. A.. (2015). Defining the Anthropocene. Nature

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1038/nature14258
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Zalasiewicz, J., Waters, C., Summerhayes, C., & Williams, M.. (2018). The Anthropocene. Geology Today

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/gto.12244
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Crutzen, P. J.. (2006). The anthropocene. In Earth System Science in the Anthropocene

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1007/3-540-26590-2_3
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Douglas, I.. (2018). Ecosystems and Human Well-Being. In Encyclopedia of the Anthropocene

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/B978-0-12-809665-9.09206-5
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Hughes, T. P., Barnes, M. L., Bellwood, D. R., Cinner, J. E., Cumming, G. S., Jackson, J. B. C., … Scheffer, M.. (2017). Coral reefs in the Anthropocene. Nature

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1038/nature22901
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Steffen, W., Grinevald, J., Crutzen, P., & Mcneill, J.. (2011). The anthropocene: Conceptual and historical perspectives. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2010.0327
DOI URL
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Smith, B. D., & Zeder, M. A.. (2013). The onset of the Anthropocene. Anthropocene

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.ancene.2013.05.001
DOI URL
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Helmus, M. R., Mahler, D. L., & Losos, J. B.. (2014). Island biogeography of the Anthropocene. Nature

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1038/nature13739
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Malhi, Y., Gardner, T. A., Goldsmith, G. R., Silman, M. R., & Zelazowski, P.. (2014). Tropical Forests in the Anthropocene. SSRN

doi.org/10.1146/annurev-environ-030713-155141

Corlett, R. T.. (2015). The Anthropocene concept in ecology and conservation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2014.10.007
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Paul J. Crutzen, & Eugene F. Stoermer. (2000). The “Anthropocene”. Global Change Newsletter

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/j.1398-9995.2007.01564.x
DOI URL
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Van Loon, A. F., Gleeson, T., Clark, J., Van Dijk, A. I. J. M., Stahl, K., Hannaford, J., … Van Lanen, H. A. J.. (2016). Drought in the Anthropocene. Nature Geoscience

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1038/ngeo2646
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Lorimer, J.. (2012). Multinatural geographies for the Anthropocene. Progress in Human Geography

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1177/0309132511435352
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Biermann, F., Abbott, K., Andresen, S., Bäckstrand, K., Bernstein, S., Betsill, M. M., … Zondervan, R.. (2012). Navigating the anthropocene: Improving earth system governance. Science

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1126/science.1217255
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Zalasiewicz, J. A. N., Williams, M., Steffen, W., & Crutzen, P.. (2010). The new world of the anthropocene. Environmental Science and Technology

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1021/es903118j
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Waters, C. N., Zalasiewicz, J., Summerhayes, C., Barnosky, A. D., Poirier, C., Gałuszka, A., … Wolfe, A. P.. (2016). The Anthropocene is functionally and stratigraphically distinct from the Holocene. Science

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1126/science.aad2622
DOI URL
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Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Haywood, A., & Ellis, M.. (2011). The anthropocene: A new epoch of geological time?. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A: Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1098/rsta.2010.0339
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Zalasiewicz, J., Waters, C. N., Ivar do Sul, J. A., Corcoran, P. L., Barnosky, A. D., Cearreta, A., … Yonan, Y.. (2016). The geological cycle of plastics and their use as a stratigraphic indicator of the Anthropocene. Anthropocene

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.ancene.2016.01.002
DOI URL
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Zalasiewicz, J., Waters, C. N., Williams, M., Barnosky, A. D., Cearreta, A., Crutzen, P., … Oreskes, N.. (2015). When did the Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary level is stratigraphically optimal. Quaternary International

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.quaint.2014.11.045
DOI URL
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Lewis, S. L., & Maslin, M. A.. (2018). Welcome to the anthropocene. IPPR Progressive Review

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1111/newe.12101
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Zalasiewicz, J., Williams, M., Smith, A., Barry, T. L., Coe, A. L., Bown, P. R., … Stone, P.. (2008). Are we now living in the Anthropocene. GSA Today

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1130/GSAT01802A.1
DOI URL
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SANDERSON, E. W., JAITEH, M., LEVY, M. A., REDFORD, K. H., WANNEBO, A. V., & WOOLMER, G.. (2002). The Human Footprint and the Last of the Wild. BioScience

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1641/0006-3568(2002)052[0891:THFATL]2.0.CO;2
DOI URL
directSciHub download

Verburg, P. H., Crossman, N., Ellis, E. C., Heinimann, A., Hostert, P., Mertz, O., … Zhen, L.. (2015). Land system science and sustainable development of the earth system: A global land project perspective. Anthropocene

Plain numerical DOI: 10.1016/j.ancene.2015.09.004
DOI URL
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Plato’s Allegory of the Cave

Barack Obama – Freedom is not free