This article, by Colin Tudge, is the first of a series by what we hope will be a variety of authors on the ideas and courses of action needed to halt and reverse the present descent from the present state of catastrophe, on to total collapse. For if we just did conceptually simple things well then we — humanity and our fellow creatures — could still be looking forward to a long and glorious future.
George Orwell in 1984 envisaged a world split between three superpowers – and his dystopian future is rapidly becoming reality. For Orwell’s Oceania, Eurasia, and Eastasia, just read America, Russia, and China.
All three are led by autocrats: Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Zinping. “Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown”said Shakespeare’s Henry IV but all three are well protected and well dug in. The three-way split suits them perfectly. The three-way division of power is stable, like a tripod: each player is kept in check by the other two. Though each may aspire to rule the whole world, in practice they are better off – more secure — as part of a triarchy. They all pretend to be permanently at odds, forming temporary alliances but with war ever threatening – which keeps their own peoples in a permanent state of fear so that they cling more tightly to the skirts of their rulers, however unpleasant and destructive their rulers may be. The arrangement is so cosy that I sometimes wonder in the manner of a conspiracy theorist if it has been planned, as was the case in 1984: pure theatre, sewn up off-stage by the Big Three’s diplomats.
Whatever the truth of the matter, and again as Orwell forewarned, the world that has not yet been claimed by the Big Three is seen as “disputed territory”. For Putin the disputed territory includes Ukraine – and the rest of the erstwhile USSR. Xi has Taiwan in his sights – and in effect the whole of the South Seas. And although he has gone quiet on both, Trump still has designs on Greenland and Canada, and beyond that on Europe; not a mere President but Emperor of the Western Hemisphere.
Trump was the only one of the Big Three to attend this year’s annual thrash at the World Economic Forum in Davos (January 19-23 2026), but the thoughts and ambitions of them all were all too evident nonetheless. Davos is where the great and the good gather to solve the world’s problems – though without upsetting the world’s power structure, which after all is their domain; and without unduly disrupting the ultra-competitive and materialistic neoliberal economy which now is taken as the norm, the natural way of things, like a law of physics. Putin and Xi subscribe to the economic status quo as enthusiastically as Trump, and in some ways even more so, while pretending to be the successors of Marx and the enemies of capitalism. Although some excellent people turn up at Davos (including Yehudi Menuhin, a truly great human being, who I was privileged to meet when I spoke there about 20 years ago). Nevertheless, a sceptic might suggest that on the whole the WEF is a master- class in Orwellian double-think.
This year, however, was different. The US, or at least Trump, seemed and seems to want to break with Europe, which he tells us, is washed up; past its sell-by date. Mark Carney, President of Canada, advised what Trump evidently feels is the disputed territory of Europe to stand and fight for its independence and values, and Europe seems to be taking notice. There could indeed emerge a new world order in which the pending or actual three-way power split is challenged by a new “Coalition of the Willing”, including Britain, the EU (which should include Ukraine and indeed Britain), Canada, and, if they are up for it, New Zealand and Australia. All would above all stand at least in principle for the vital principle that the autocrats would like to see consigned to history, not to say dead and buried; that of Democracy.
That indeed would surely be a step in the right direction. Democracy is difficult to define: in particular it should not be confused with populism, which in practice means mob rule, and has propelled self-seeking Far Right mountebanks like Nigel Farage and indeed Trump into positions of power. It is even more difficult to put into practice. First-past-the-post versus proportional representation is only one issue among many. Yet for all the difficulties democracy is a vital concept and I for one would be pleased to see a Coalition of the Willing as now envisaged come to the fore, and to see Mark Carney emerge as its first leader.
Necessary but not sufficient
Welcome though this power-shift would be, however, it surely is not enough. All too obviously, the world is in a state of catastrophe on all fronts: political, economic, social, moral, personal, spiritual, and ecological. Indeed the mess could well prove terminal, possibly within a century or so – within the lifetimes of our own children and grandchildren. The world would be in a perilous condition even without the looming presence of the Big Three: the wrong policies, the wrong infrastructure, the wrong mindset, and – although there are still some excellent and even saintly people in positions of influence – the wrong people in charge.
We need a change of world order to be sure – and in the immediate term we need to prevent the Orwellian three-way carve-up from becoming the way of the world. But we need much more than that. Indeed as I have suggested many a time and oft, if we are to rescue the world from a final descent from catastrophe into meltdown we need:
To re-think everything we do and take for granted from first principles; to re-think everything in the light of everything else; and to re-structure where necessary – which is much but not all of the time.
The re-think that’s required, the shift in worldview, is what the old Greeks called metanoia. The re-structuring is metamorphosis: the butterfly emerging from the chrysalis. The shift required is truly radical: bearing in mind that “radical” should not be equated with “violent”, or with a gratuitous desire to shock. It simply means “getting down to the roots”. The whole ambition amounts to nothing less than a Renaissance, which literally means “Re-birth”. And as I have also said many a time and oft:
The Renaissance we need now must be more radical, and more far-reaching, than the European Renaissance of the 13th century onwards which eventually brought the Middle Ages to a close, more or less, at least in western Europe, for better and for worse.
Certainly, the change of heart and mind required must be far more radical than any that is liable to be envisaged at Davos even by the boldest of the powers-that-be. Indeed, since the powers-that-be are not on the case, and are never likely to be –
The Renaissance the world now needs must be driven and led by us, people at large, Ordinary Joes and Jos
— bearing in mind that an Ordinary Person is a good thing to be (as Orwell also observed).
What is and what could be
Yet there is still time – just; perhaps – to rescue ourselves and our fellow creatures from the apocalypse. For if only we did conceptually simple things well, we might still be heading for what Winston Churchill called “the sunlit uplands” while continuing to enjoy the company of at least the vast majority of the other species with whom we now share this Earth.
Furthermore, though it may seem that Armageddon is already upon us, I know of no good reason — at least no convincing biological reason – why the human species or at least the human lineage should not continue in a very agreeable condition for aeons to some. Indeed –
Our descendants could and should still be here in a million years’ time — and in a far more satisfactory state than most people are in now, and in harmony with a huge variety and abundance of our fellow creatures.
Of course we have to cope with life’s immediate exigencies and disasters but we should also be planning, at least in outline, for the next million years – for starters. The conventional timescale of our economic and political leaders is too trivial by several or many orders of magnitude. We are spiritual and intellectual beings no doubt but whatever our aspirations and dreams and fantasies we are animals too, specifically primates, the fruit of an evolutionary history that stretches back to the beginnings of life on Earth nearly four billion years ago. As physical beings we are part of the global ecosystem – part of Gaia — and, beyond that, part of the cosmos. To politicians and economists 30 years is the long term but if we are serious about our own condition and the condition and future of the planet then we need to think not simply on the time-scale of politics and economics but also in evolutionary and indeed in cosmic time. Some scientists and other visionaries do think in such terms, but for the most part these seers are ignored. Conventionally educated economists know only about economics – or indeed specifically about neoliberal economics – and politics more and more is dominated by career politicians, versed only in the ways and wiles of politicking. Their radar does not extend to metaphysical musing or evolutionary time.
So what’s to be done? I suggested in my blogs of September 11 and 26 that we, people at large, could help to bring about the necessary transformation by forming a new political party, the Renaissance Party – which may sound somewhat similar to the Reform Party but in all significant respects is the complete opposite. But although some very good people have expressed an interest in this scheme and although I would very much like it to happen, a new party could at best be only part of the solution we need. What’s really needed is a new Zeitgeist, requiring a new mindset; and the new mindset requires true breadth of vision. Since I am no activist (never have been, I regret to say, and am now too old) I am able at best to help develop and promulgate the ideas and attitudes that are needed to drive and lead and generally to underpin the Renaissance. For we need from the outset —
“To frame a worldview, a body of understanding, and a moral philosophy, that will serve the real needs of all humanity and of our fellow creatures for all time”
To this end I want this website to be an online forum where people who feel the Renaissance is necessary can share, develop, and spread the ideas and set up the alliances that could help to bring it about.
Naïve but necessary
All this may sound fantastical, utopian in the extreme, even more outlandish than the excesses of Trump or Putin or Elon Musk whose antics now take up so much of the world’s time and energies. Yet such a future is possible. I am inclined indeed to quote Julian of Norwich (1342-1416) who towards the end of the 14th century wrote in her Revelations of Divine Love:
“And thus our good Lord answered to all the questions and doubts that I might make, saying full comfortably: I may make all thing well, I can make all thing well, I will make all thing well, and I shall make all thing well; and thou shalt see thyself that all manner of thing shall be well.”
As things are, to be sure, this doesn’t seem very likely. But it is still possible – just. Perhaps. And the prize for success is very great indeed while the price of failure – actual or virtual meltdown – could hardly be worse. However small the hope, we must keep hope alive. However dire the prospects may seem we must never give up.
So, naïve, pretentious, Quixotic, forlorn, or generally absurd though it may seem, I want to devote my remaining years and brain cells to help make the Renaissance happen, via this website and whatever other means present themselves; and invite everyone who thinks this may be a worthwhile idea to join in.
The first task is to frame an agenda, to keep the whole enterprise on track. More on this next time.
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