by Nathan Smith

Mike Hosking and I seem to agree that we are deep in an ideas recession.

A few of Hosking’s comments during this election have highlighted how similar Labour and National are on the big issues. For example, when asked if it was morally acceptable for billionaires to exist, both leaders of the main parties harrumphed and refused to answer directly. Maybe this wasn’t so weird coming from Labour, but as the leader of an historically business-friendly party, Christopher Luxon’s response was strange from a branding perspective, to say the least.

Strange, but not unexpected. As Hosking correctly pointed out, there really isn’t much daylight separating the parties anymore. It’s not just Labour and National that mimic each other. The smaller parties also spend quite a lot of energy barely tweaking extant policies or doing a suspicious amount to help maintain the status quo by playing around the margins rather than offering genuinely new ideas.

This is what some people have euphemistically called the mono-party. And in a way, the painfully obvious revelation that we are controlled by a single political structure is probably a good thing. After all, if it is true that the various political parties are a sham, then I would rather they drop the pretence altogether. Living in truth is better than living in a lie. Plus, now it means we have a target at which to aim: you are either pro-regime or anti-regime. This is all useful strategic stuff for figuring out the future.

Yet I suspect most people won’t be too happy about being controlled by a mono-party.

Because the reality is, it is completely out of ideas. It has no clue how to adapt to the changes in technology. It has lost sight of why we have government. It has no clear conception of what it means to be a citizen of New Zealand. Its civil servants are midwits. And even when it does apply halfway fresh ideas, we find out later that those ideas were imported from places like Harvard or Yale because New Zealand has been ruled by the US empire for about 80 years or so.

We are living through a recession, but it’s not a money recession. Those are pretty much impossible now. Recessions only happen when the money supply isn’t controlled, and we lack the data on how and how fast money moves through an economy. But today, money is a solved game. We will never run out of digital money, and we have all the data. Dips and slowdowns might still occur from time to time, but true recessions are likely a thing of the past.

The real recession is an ideas recession. Our entire system is running on the fumes of ideas that were dreamed up by autistic malcontents back in the 19^th century. The excitement and energy of those ideas have long since evaporated. Anyone who tries to get excited about communism, socialism, nationalism, environmentalism or libertarianism just ends up sounding like your grandad. It’s all played out. If you’re in your 40s, you haven’t heard a new idea your whole life.

Why? Why are there no more ideas? Why are we living in an ideas recession? I’d like to suggest two reasons: we aren’t allowed to have any heroes.

The concept of “no heroes” is not a conspiracy theory. It is both an emergent outcome of modern technology and an explicit goal of the post-WWII world order. After WWII, it was decided by the victors that there would “never again” be any living heroes, only historical or dead ones. An uncontrolled hero in the middle of a complex social system is incredibly dangerous to that system. Over time, however, they realised that even the memory of the dead heroes needed to be destroyed, hence the warping of history and the toppling of all statues.

The maths is childishly simple. We are in an ideas recession because there are no ideas. There are no ideas because there are no great men to come up with ideas. There are no great men because Hitler. The people who rule the world today won a war in 1945, and they bizarrely blame that war on one man’s magical powers of persuasion. Therefore, not only can there be no more great men who can persuade, but there can also be no nations over which such a persuasive man might rule. ‪ Nations and heroes are evil, so we can have neither. That’s the formula. Once you know this, everything about the modern world makes sense.

They understand that a civilisation creates a great man. He makes that civilisation greater. His successors, being his extended family and trusted heirs (nation), carefully protect these gains and build upon them. This creates a civilisation more capable of producing and harnessing great men. History is driven by great men. Post-WWII liberalism requires the end of history, which requires the end of great men, and therefore the end of greatness and men in general. If it appears that history has ended, as Francis Fukuyama infamously posited, then it is only because we have run out of great men to drive it forward.

Maybe you’d counter that all the low-hanging ideas have been plucked and what’s remaining are the tough problems. So, a slowdown of ideas is what we should expect. When people say this, I always mention dogs.

What I mean is that dogs have a fantastic sense of smell, far better than humans. Indeed, some dogs possess a sense of smell that is about 100,000 times more sensitive than humans. A trained dog can sniff out explosives and drugs based on minute traces measured in parts per trillion. Some can even smell if a person has cancer.

Ok, where is the technology that deals with smells? I can pick up binoculars to spy on my neighbours and use a microphone to hear them talking about me, but there’s no tool to help me smell their anxiety from even two metres away. The great man Galileo Galilei came up with the idea of telescopes, and the great man David Edward Hughes built the first microphone. Their ideas about optics and acoustics utterly changed how society operated. But in the realm of olfaction, we have nothing to speak of because no great man has come along and plucked the low-hanging idea for a technology of smells.

I’m not suggesting there is some wild conspiracy to suppress olfaction technology. I’m saying that the conditions in society necessary to create such a great man have been methodically torn down because our rulers are terrified that any hero, of any type, could lead to Hitler. I wish I was kidding about this.

The microchip was probably the last great idea in terms of technology. Yet even that insight was developed in 1958 by Jack Kilby, which means he was educated before WWII (Kilby graduated in 1947). He was a great man right on the edge of the window when great men were still allowed. The microchip has long since reached diminishing returns and stagnation. Every investor on the planet is desperate for an answer to the question: what comes after the microchip? Unfortunately, we are in an ideas recession.

The hegemonic strategy of “no heroes” isn’t necessarily directed by a Machiavellian at the top, rubbing his hands together (although hand-rubbing does occur – it’s called public policy). The microchip is a good example of how ideas can be twisted into forms of social control.

For example, local celebrities no longer exist because the microchip led to the development of smartphones and then Instagram. Where past generations might have looked up to or emulated a local sports hero, religious figure or business owner, these days the same algorithmically chosen celebrities are made available to everyone in all parts of the world simply by logging onto Instagram or TikTok.

Someone in your local community might have invented a fantastic new idea. They might be a gifted leader with the willpower to transform the community for the better. They could have high moral standing that might have possibly even become a religion. The local celebrity was normal up until about 2010. “No heroes” is the reason why there seems to be an alliance between technology and social policies of control. Ever wonder why Instagram is free to use? It’s not an accident.

Scottish philosopher Thomas Carlyle famously said that the history of the world is the biography of great men: “The most significant feature in the history of an epoch is the manner it has of welcoming a Great Man.” The “outward shape” of their activity depends on their “time.” Great men are example setters – blueprints on the basis of which other men design their lives. Carlyle wrote that the “leaders of men” are the “modellers, patterns, and in a wide sense creators, of whatsoever the general mass of men contrive to do or to attain.”

Carlyle would not be surprised by the New Zealand election. They are the sorts of leaders you would expect if great men need not apply. We were once led by strong men, and now we are led by weak men with shoulders too narrow and backs not strong enough to shoulder the burdens of their predecessors. These weak men are terrified of creating the environment that can conjure the great man – the hero.

But as I always say, the secret truth of the universe is everyone gets exactly what they want. If you don’t want great men, or you don’t believe in them, then you deserve exactly the kind of world that lacks those great men. And no amount of money printing can fill that abyss.

Originally published on The Good Oil.