The Age of Empires

It is bewildering that a pre–World War world of power blocs and imperial instincts is returning in the twenty-first century, the very age in which human beings have taught machines to think and even write poetry. Many assume this is capitalism in full bloom. The truth is the opposite. What we are seeing is capitalism under subversion, hollowed out by forces that reject the modern idea that human beings, not empires or myths, are the centre of the world. 

Modernism was never just technology. It was the belief that human dignity, choice, and reason should govern society. That is why it expressed itself as liberalism in thought, democracy in politics, and capitalism in the economy. When that humanist core is weakened, these institutions remain, but they begin to serve domination rather than freedom.

Human existence does not offer infinite paths. Either we defend the worth of the human being and, with it, internationalism and democracy, or we will drift back into a world of empires at the top and feudalism below, and we will have no one to blame but ourselves.

Niraj Kumar Jha