Truth Over Tyranny: Biblical wisdom for defeating the Technocrats.
These are my insights for defeating the Transhumanist Technocracy movement, based on the teachings of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, on the weekly Bible portion.
Who are the leaders of tomorrow? What kind of people should they be? When the tyrannical transhumanist technocrats are finally defeated – driven off; tried for crimes against humanity; jailed; executed for treason, as the law may require – who will succeed them as the shapers of society? Into what kind of world will they lead us?
More specifically: is there one deficiency in the character of today’s “leaders” that must be corrected in the next generation of world leaders, so they don’t repeat the tragic errors of their predecessors?
Yes, there is. Let’s call it “unspirituality.”
Todays’ dictator-wannabes share a few beliefs in common:
They are like gods.
They are answerable to no one -certainly not to the people they are supposed to serve. And definitely not to some “higher power.”
They are above rules and laws.
They are better than everyone else.
They have all the answers.
They deserve absolute control – over everything.
They think that anyone who is not like them is inferior – and anyone who disagrees with them is wrong.
They don’t care what happens to other people, as long as they get their way.
For them, life is one big ego trip.
We are all too familiar with the damage caused by “leaders” on ego trips. These people take over our local businesses, professional practices, schools, religious congregations, community sports leagues, and municipal offices, and run them into the ground. When they make their way into Big Government, Big Corporations, and Big Cultural Institutions, the harm they do reaches national proportions. Today many are on the international stage, literally trying to remake the world in their own image.
If the results weren’t so disastrous, the vanity and delusion of these global ego-trippers would be laughable. And pitiable.
So the leaders of tomorrow need to be “spiritual.” The next generation of people who run our political, economic, cultural, scientific, and social organizations can’t be on ego trips. It simply can’t be all about them. They must know how to “make room for others” – especially those that are different from them.
This is the exact message Rabbi Jonathan Sacks delivers in his commentary on Parashat Tetzaveh called “Leadership Means Making Space.”
https://www.rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/tetzaveh/leadership-means-making-space/
He points out that the parsha is all about Moses creating a new style of leadership – one of decentralized power:
“Tetzaveh is, as is well known, the parsha in which for once Moses take second place, indeed is not mentioned by name at all, while the focus is on his brother Aaron and on the role he came to occupy and personify, that of High Priest, the Kohen Gadol…”
“There is though a deeper message, the principle of the separation of powers, which opposes the concentration of leadership into one person or institution. All human authority needs checks and balances if it is not to become corrupt. In particular, political and religious leadership, keter malchut and keter kehunah, should never be combined. Moses wore the crowns of political and prophetic leadership, Aaron that of priesthood. The division allowed each to be a check on the other…”
“… Moses is now being commanded to create a form of leadership he himself will never be able to exercise, that of the priesthood, and the person he must award it to is his elder brother…”
It takes great humility to share power:
“Moses must show the people – and Aaron himself – that he has the humility, the tzimtzum, the power of self-effacement, needed to make space for someone else to share in the leadership of the people, someone whose strengths are not yours, whose role is different from yours, someone who may be more popular, closer to the people, than you are – as in fact Aaron turned out to be.”
Rabbi Sacks points out that Abraham Lincoln had the same quality of humility:
“Lehavdil: in 2005 the historian Doris Kearns Goodwin published an influential book about Abraham Lincoln entitled Team of Rivals. In it she tells the story of how Lincoln appointed to his cabinet the three men who had opposed him as candidate for the Republican party leadership. William Henry Seward, who had been expected to win, eventually said of him:
“his magnanimity is almost superhuman . . . the President is the best of us.”
It takes a small ego to achieve such greatness:
“It takes a special kind of character to make space for those whom one is entitled to see as rivals. Early on, Aaron showed that character in relation to Moses, and now Moses is called on to show it to Aaron. True leadership involves humility and magnanimity. The smaller the ego, the greater the leader. That’s what Moses showed in the parsha that does not mention his name.”
I would add this: many people are concerned about what type of society will emerge once the technocrats are defeated in their war to take over humanity. How do we know we won’t simply recreate tyranny in another form? Will we have learned any lessons?
Based on the teachings of Rabbi Sacks, we have our answers: we should be in good shape as long as the people leading our fight for freedom don’t make it about them, and subordinate their own interests to the cause. Those men and women who take a more spiritual approach in their leadership, will lead us into a more spiritual world.