Читать книгу The Pleasure Principle - Catherine Wilson - Страница 24

One of the most important insights to take away from Lucretian prehistory and its reworking is that the purpose of political authority is to reduce interpersonal violence and to make life secure for all. A second insight is that our political and legal systems have been shaped by chance discoveries and new technologies. A third is that while life under civilisation offers a range of marvellous goods and experiences, uncontrolled and concentrated wealth and ambition make exploitation, warfare and corruption inevitable.

There is no cosmic plan in history, no destiny towards which we are inevitably travelling. No divinity is guiding us or watching out that we do not make mistakes that unleash nuclear war or that render most other species extinct and the earth uninhabitable. Chance discoveries are still possible, and human ingenuity is seemingly inexhaustible. But the search for power and gratification by the few at the expense of the many is an inevitable feature of civilisation that could be better controlled than it is, even if it can never be banished once and for all.

Another important insight emerges from the Epicurean history of humanity. Human beings invented government. We like to think of government as authority awarded to those most deserving of it, to people who have proved their commitment to the general welfare and their understanding of how the world works by presenting their beliefs and plans to the public, and by standing up to interrogation in competition with others. But we need to keep in mind that modern governments are the successors of originally kleptocratic, clan-based regimes that relied on secrecy, conspiracy, violence and intimidation to obtain and retain power and wealth and to practise violence against other groups. To a greater or lesser extent, they have either retained or shed the earlier characteristics of government. The best governments are those that have transcended their origins, rejected the seizure of power by force and fraud, and are now dedicated not to the enrichment of the clan, but to the welfare and best interests of the governed. The worst governments are those in which most of the original features of government are intact.