4. Systems Man

The American liberal is, more than anything else, a deeply religious person. His faith may be of a strictly secular nature, but it is a faith nonetheless. Like many fundamental faiths, liberalism is accepted without rational analysis, offers the promise of an eventual paradise, and is resistant to any facts contrary to its basic tenets.

American liberalism, at its basic core, is a religious reverence of the state. Once the people have surrendered enough of their power to the state, all social ills will be cured and a utopia will be achieved under the benevolent rule of those enlightened enough to share the liberal vision.

The religion of the state is, for the liberal, a substitute for the fundamentalism that he so desperately needs to cope with life that intimidates him. He is essentially a “system person,” a man who needs to go through life knowing the ultimate answers to the challenges of daily living. A system, whether it is called communism, fascism, socialism, or just liberalism, provides the true believer with a certainty that cannot be found by rational analysis of an uncertain world.

The deification of systems began with the birth of modern philosophy when Rene Descartes pronounced that “I think, therefore I am.” The thinking mind became the creator of new worlds, future paradises, and final answers. Descartes became known as the “father of modern philosophy” and man found a god that could replace the dying one – man came to believe that his thinking mind could settle the wilderness of the uncertain universe with systems of ideas.

Prior to Descartes, man killed other men for the sake of gods that were spiritual in nature. His politics was even an extension of the will of these gods who selected the political leaders by divine appointment. Man was intellectually passive as the gods and their earthly agents decided when war was justified and when murder would become a duty. After Descartes, wars and persecution would become increasingly a service to be paid to the newfound deities – the systems that were the product of man’s thinking mind.

As kingdoms became states, royalty was replaced by systems people – people who had a divine right to rule others. While kings were selected by old gods, the systems man selected himself by his new god – his ego. See p. 189, Being and the End of History.

We think that we will be able to live happily, creatively, if we learn a method, a technique, a style, but creative happiness comes only when there is inward richness, it can never be attained through any system.
J. Krishnamurti