Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Civilization #52 - Empire of Democracy

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Civilization #52 - Empire of Democracy

Okay, so good morning. We are discussing the American Revolution today. So to review what we've done so far, after the defeat of Napoleon in 1815, there are now four major civilizations that are competing against each other for world domination. Last class, we did the British. Today we'll do the Americans. Next week we'll do the Russians and the Germans. Okay, so the Americans. When you think of America, there's a very famous quote from Oscar Wilde, who is an English playwright, novelist, humorous.

And he said, America is the only country that went from barbarism to decadence, vandalization in between. So he meant this as a joke. So what did he mean by this? This is a question we will discuss today. And what I will show you is that America in many ways, it was designed as the anti-civilization.

The Founding Fathers of America recognized the failings and problems of civilization and designed a new form of government, based on enlightened principles in order to redeem humanity from the prejudices, the atrocities of civilization. So that's the argument we will look at today. All right, so the history of the Americas begins when the Europeans, led by the Spaniards, start to interact with a new world.

So the Spanish starting in 1492, they will come and conquer the Aztecs, the Mayans and the Incas. They will establish basically plantation economies where the Spanish are extracting resources, primarily gold, silver, from the Americas. They will also establish sugar plantations on the islands of the Caribbean,

and they will man it with slaves from Africa as well as other places. And this is extremely profitable for the Spanish So of course, the English, the French, and the Dutch Republic, they want to get in on the action. And at first they start to smuggle resources into the new world and they engage in piracy. In 1588, the English Navy defeats the Spanish Armada. And this opens up the new world now for the Europeans to come and colonize it. The problem though is that Spanish control the best parts of the new world.

And so everyone else is stuck with North America. And in North America, there's quite a few problems. First of all, the weather is very cold. So it's not hospitable to colonization. Second problem is that you have lots of Native Americans in North America who are extremely violent, they are used to freedom, and they will fight to the death. At this time in history, the tallest, strongest people in the world are actually the Native Americans in North America. Also you have lots of diseases that are problematic for the

Europeans. So the Europeans spent a lot of time, basically decades, in trying to figure out how to best colonize North. North America. So there are three major nations that are trying to colonize North America. You have the French and what they will do is they will establish the fur trade in Canada and in the Midwestern United States. They will basically trade with the natives to bring fur back to Europe. And this is a great deal for both the natives and the French.

The Dutch come in, they will establish colonies called New Amsterdam. This is today New York City. The Dutch tried to establish colonies as well. The people who are most successful, established colonies are the British. And a lot of it is because it is a very grassroots, very bottom-up movement. So the first major colony for the British is Jamestown, named after James I of Britain. And this is not a very successful colony at first, but they persist. The most successful colony is actually Boston.

What makes Boston unique at this stage in North American history is that it is established by a company, the Massachusetts Bay Company, that is a charter from the English Crown. Also they bring in families into this area. So before it was basically men who came over. Now it's families who come over. And then third of all, the people come over are Puritans. Puritans, as we discussed previously, they believe in the importance of literacy. Everyone has responsibility to read the Bible in order to interpret the command of God properly.

And so Boston, from the very beginning, it's a literate society. It has schools, it has newspapers, it is very political, and it grows very, very fast. Also if you look at Boston, it is perfectly situated between North America and England. And as England is industrializing, it requires raw resources, mainly agricultural products, from this area. So Boston grows rapidly because of all these factors. So in the year 1682, you can see that the eastern United States has been colonized by the British. The French are still in Canada, and they're going to move down to the Midwest United States.

The Spanish are in the southern United States. This is Florida. They found a colony called St. Augustine. They will also, in California, start to build colonies as well. But as you can see, most of the economic activity in North America is based on the eastern seaboard. Now, what's really important for us to remember is the diversity of these colonies. First of all, you have differences in the economy.

The northern part will focus mostly on mercantile trade. The sovereign part will focus mostly on agriculture. To support the agriculture, they will import slaves from Africa. order to provide the labor for Charlestown and other places. Also, the motivations of the individuals are different. So some come for economic reasons, but a lot come for religious purposes. So for example, there's a man named Wilm Penn, and he's a Quaker. He believes in creating a peaceful civilization.

So he has a charter from the king, and he founds a new colony called Pennsylvania. named after him that believes in religious and national tolerance. So a lot of Germans come over and settle down in Pennsylvania. The capital is Philadelphia. And they are Quakers, so they believe they must not fight against others. And this experiment persists for decades. It's a pretty successful experiment, but over time, they come into a conflict with the natives and with other civilizations,

with other colonies, and as such, they start to take up arms. There's another colony called Baltimore. It was found actually as a Catholic haven. So England at this point, it is mainly Protestant or Puritan or Anglican. And then Lord Baltimore decides to, in Maryland, found a new colony that preaches religion's tolerance, especially for Catholics. So what's really important for us to remember is that even at this early stage in American history, there's tremendous diversity. openness and religious tolerance in America, okay? Does that make sense?

All right, so by the year 1750, there are about a million British on the Eastern Seaboard. That's a lot of people, okay? In comparison, the French, who occupied actually most of the territory in North America, there's only 40,000. Eventually, these, these two groups, the British and the French,

will come into conflict, creating something called the French and Indian Wars. Okay, and as you can see, it's not really, it's really not a fair fight, okay? You've got a million British versus 40,000 French. The Indians will get involved as well, because what's happening is these colonies are practicing a rapid form of colonization and expansion.

What they do is they bring in immigrants, then as a population, these immigrants will be forced to move out west to settle territory in the western frontier of these colonies. But as you know, these areas are inhabited by Native Americans. And so this brings the Indians into conflict with the British as well. So the resolution to this is that King George III will proclaim that the American culture are not allowed to move westwards of the Appalachian Mountains. So we're restricting the growth of the American colonies in order to maintain friendship with the natives.

And obviously the Americans don't like that. So in 1774, there are three major issues that bring the American colonists into conflict with the English crown. The first is, as I just mentioned, the English Crown is limiting the expansion of the colonies, Westwards. And they don't like that, okay? Second is that it was very expensive for the British to protect the colonies against the French and the Indians.

In fact, at this stage in history, it is the British people, not the American people, people that are paying for the defense of these colonies. In fact, the British people pay 50 times more in taxes than the Americans. Now obviously, the British people don't actually say this is a fair deal. So the British Crown tries, in many instances, to impose a tax in order to get the Americans to pay for the defense of their territory. And the Americans don't like that.

For the longest time, because of the English Civil War and other factors, the English Crown could not actually interfere in North American affairs, and so they were used to a high level of autonomy. And the third major problem between the colonists and the British is in trade. So at this stage in history, all these nations, Spain, France, Britain, they're practicing an economic policy called mercantilism. capitalism is the idea that all trade should be directed by the state for the purpose of generating wealth for the state.

And so what this means is that there are different trade zones that are established in competition with each other. And so if you are a British subject, you're only allowed to trade with other British lands. So the Americans can trade with England and with India, but they're not allowed to trade with the French and the Dutch. and the Spanish and the Americans don't really like this either okay so these are the three main factors driving division between the American colonists and the British crowd and this will of course culminate in the American Revolution okay

the War of Independence of 1776 also what's really important for us to remember at this time is that per capita the Americans are far wealthier than the British. Okay? Now, this is strange. And you ask yourself, why is it that even though England is industrializing far more rapidly than the Americans, and there are more British citizens than Americans, and also Britain is an empire, whereas America is a colony, how is it that the Americans per capita are

able to become wealthier than the British? And the answer has to do with the American work ethic. American attitude towards life. And this is best expressed by a man named Benjamin Franklin, who is considered one of the founding fathers of America. He had an incredible life. He was born poor, but for hard work, for tenacity, full optimism.

He was able to become a merchant, a very wealthy merchant, an inventor, a philosopher, an ambassador, a politician. So he is basically the role model for Americans. Towards the end of his life, he wrote his autobiography. And so we're going to study his autobiography in order to get insight into the mentality of the average American at this stage in history. Now, Benjamin Franklin, by running his memoir, he starts a new fat in America like persists today. It's called the self-improvement or self-improvement.

improvement or self-help fad. And these are the books that sell the most in America. So you may have heard of how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. There's also Napoleon Hill, think and grow rich. And these books are just telling you how to, as they say, how to be more successful in life. This is called the self-help movement. And the Americans really pioneered this. Before in history, no one believed that for your hard work.

you can actually attain more in life and in fact you must go up and obtain more in life okay so the Americans really start this self-help fad all right so let's read certain passages from the autobiography of Benjamin Franklin to gain insight into the American psychology okay from the bosom of poverty and obscurity so he was born poor and was born a nobody in which I drew my first breath and spent my earliest years I've raised myself to a state of opulence and to some degree of celebrity in the world this is the American dream you can be born poor but for hard work you can become rich okay a constant good

fortune has attended me through every period of life to my present advanced age and my descendants may be desirous of learning what were the means of which I made use and which thanks to the assisting hand of Providence have proved so imminently successful they may also should they ever be placed in a similar situation to write some advantages from my narrative okay so not only is gonna tell you how you how to become rich but he will teach you how to become rich okay so if you just do what he does you'll become rich as well so this is the American optimism this is American dream all right so he continues he's talking to a

and his friend tells him your writing sucks and at this time he should be angry right but instead he recognizes that look there's merit in my friend's criticism so much so I will improve myself okay and the way he improves himself and he writes it I won't read it because it's long but what he does is this he takes a magazine a spectator which is very well written and then he summarizes the main points of the articles that he's read then he will take the summary and he will rewrite the article from memory himself and then he will compare and contrast his work with that of the original work and then he will

make adjustments and refinements to his own writing okay now if you if you actually know how to write and you actually met good writers writers don't write like this okay this is not how you learn how to read and write but But again, this shows us the optimism of the American character that through just peer hard work and tenacity and persistent. You can learn anything, even though historically we all know that writers are people of genius, they're sort of born great writers. You're not going to learn how to be a man of genius just through peer imitation, okay?

But what he's telling us is that, no, for imitation, you can improve yourself. That's a very American outlook. All right. Now he's going to tell us how he became rich. I began to pay by degrees the debt I had contracted. And in order to ensure my credit and character as a tradesman, I took care not only to be really industrious and frugal, but also to avoid every appearance of the contrary. I was plainly dressed and never seen any place of public amusement. So this is how he became rich.

was honest. When he did business, he made sure that he never tricked anyone. His reputation mattered above all. Also, he dressed in a very simple way. He didn't waste any money. He came across to everyone as someone who was a good Christian, a good Calvinist, someone who enjoyed making money and someone who saved all his money in pursuit of the praise of God. And this is how you become rich in America. Right? And you can imagine that There is merit to what he says, that if you do work hard, if you are honest, and if you save a lot of money, then it's possible for you to become rich. And this is the common mentality right now at this stage in America.

Okay, he continues. I ought to have related that during the autumn of the preceding year, I united the majority of well-informed persons of my acquaintance into a club, which we call by the name of the Junto, and an object of which was to improve our understandings. Okay, this is really important. What he's telling us that after we became rich, he met other rich people,

and they formed a philosophy club to debate and discuss the political issues of the day. It was like a book club. They read John Locke, they read Thomas Hobbes, and they discuss these ideas. So this is a quintessential American attitude, constant self-improvement. Okay?

You can become the wealthiest man in the world, but you still must read books. Also, this is important because these book clubs will become the foundation of the American Revolution, right? These founding fathers will meet in these clubs, and they will conspire to seek independence from Britain. A lot of it is they believe that Providence, God, has tasked them with founding a new nation

based on enlightenment principles. So the religion of these people is what we're called daism, okay? D-E-I-S-M. And the idea of daisim that's very different from previous religions is they believe there is a God, and God created the universe, but after that, God went away. And now it is the responsibility of humans to make the world perfect. That's the mission from God.

All right, this was the best school for politics, and philosophy that then existed in the province. For our questions which were read once a week previous to the discussion, induce us to peruse attentively such books as were written upon the subjects proposed that we might be able to speak upon them more permanently. So they know that Providence has tasked them with creating a great nation, called America, and to understand how to do so, they will read all the books of integrity.

They will study Rome, they will study Athens, Sparta, Carthage, They will study the Dutch Republic. They were studying the British Constitution. And by studying these classics, they will come to a consensus on how to build a new society in the image of God. Does that make sense? This is the foundation of the American Revolution. All right.

So not only did America become very wealthy, very fast through the hard work, simplicity, and optimism of the people, But as you can see from this map, they basically spread out really quickly. Now this time in history, the Spanish, the British, the French are all in North America. The Russians are here as well, but over time the Americans will push everyone out and this is what they call manifest destiny. Okay. All right, so 1776, America declares independence from Britain. And again, this is after years and years. of conflict over a myriad of issues.

Commerce Jefferson, one of the Founding Fathers, he writes something called the Declaration of Independence. Why is America declaring independence from Britain? And the answer is, we hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by the Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty,

and the pursuit of happiness. that to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, that whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it. Okay, guys, Thomas Jefferson, in writing the Declaration of Independence, which is the founding document of the United States, he is just copying, word for word, basically, John Locke spoke the second treaties of government. This is what John Locke said. We are born with three fundamental rights that God has given us, and therefore no one can take away from us. The right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of property.

Government is instituted, created in order to protect our rights. A government fails to protect these rights. Then we have a responsibility and our right to abolish this government and create a new one. Okay? All right. So there's a war of independence and the great hero. of this war, of course, is George Washington. Why Americans revere, sorry, can you open the door?

Why Americans revere George Washington is that it's not how great he was during the war, because ultimately the Americans didn't actually defeat the British. It was the French, the Spanish, who combined together to defeat the British. And eventually the British decided that, you know what? The Americans, colonists, they're too much problematic, we don't really care, okay? So let's just focus on Europe. So the Americans fought a guerrilla warfare, and they were very brave, but without the French, the Americans could not possibly have to defeat the British, okay?

But what made George Washington so esteemed in the hearts of the American people is, after this war, he retired, okay? He just went back to his farm and enjoyed his last years in the garden. And that's why Americans worship him, because he's a man who could have become king of America, but instead he chose to grant Americans their freedom and independence. The ATA comp of George Washington, the genius of American Revolution is actually Alexander Hamilton. He is really the founder of America. He's really the one who has the vision of where America could go, of what America could be.

His name is Alexander Hamilton. And he is in conflict with Jefferson. These two individuals represent two competing strands of America after the War of Independence. For Thomas Jefferson, what's important is to maintain. the inelible individual rights of the individuals. He wants a democracy. And because most people are farmers at this point, he believes economic policies should be focused on agriculture.

So this is a Thomas Jefferson ideals of the American Revolution. Hamilton saw the world differently. He believed in his heart, as in many people at this time, America is destined to be an empire, and therefore it needs a strong central government and in order to become an empire it must have industry okay so some certain points so the colonists are fighting the British for because the British are trying to tax them the British are trying to impose an army on them and because the British are trying to limit their trade okay so in order

to get everyone to fight they create something called the Articles of Confederations which limits the power of the government to impose taxes, which limits the ability of the government to raise troops. But this is problematic because you can't actually fight a war like this. Okay? So after the British leave and leave America alone, problems start to arise. Basically the main problem is you have lots and lots of soldiers who used to be farmers. They were promised pay when they joined the militia against the British,

but because the government has no money, they had no money. And there are also farmers, and because they had to leave their farms, they fell into debt. And so rich people came and took over their farms. And this led to something called the Shays Rebellion, where farmers are now trying to overthrow the government. And so the solution was to create something called the Constitution, which would grant... more power to central government, especially to collect revenue, to control trade, foreign trade,

and to have a army, basically. So that was a solution that proposed by Hamilton and his friends. Jefferson argued that this would, of course, limit the rights of individuals. So he insisted on adding something called the Bill of Rights to the Constitution. You may have heard something called the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the right to speak freely, the right to bear arms. This is from the Bill of Rights. It's actually not in the Constitution.

The Constitution is a framework for how to build a strong central government, okay? Second thing I want you guys to understand is agriculture and industry, it's a different framework. It's a different economic framework. With agriculture, you need a lot of slave labor because obviously you need people to Men the fields and grow the crops, okay? And that's why if you want to have alcohols you have to bring actually a lot of slave labor from Africa

But if it focuses in industry, you don't want slave labor. You want free labor. Okay, you want the market to decide who does what job and how much they get paid This is a much more efficient way to organize your economy if you are industrializing and the reason why is when you're industrializing you need specialized labor labor, okay? You need differentiation of skills and the market is the best mechanism for skills to be differentiated and to be rewarded. Okay, also think about this. If you got really sick, okay, you need heart surgery, would you rather go to a doctor who's a slave or a doctor who's gonna charge a million dollars, right? So free labor just allows for more academic activity and therefore more wealth generation in

So these are two competing visions of where America should be headed. And of course, this is a contradiction, okay? You can't have slave labor and free labor at the same time. The north goes, immense policy of free labor, the South maintains policy of slave labor because they are mainly an agricultural society. Obviously Jefferson is from the south, Hamilton is from New York.

This conflict will eventually get to the country. will eventually give rise to the American Civil War of 1861. So this conflict has always been there, but in 1789, when they introduced a Constitution, they choose to ignore this conflict until 1861 when this conflict finally led to violence. So this is the root of the American Civil War. Does it make sense, guys?

Okay. Now let's look at the Constitution. The Constitution is meant to be the most important, perfect form of government ever established. America is a clean slate. It's a tabella of Russia. The Americans do what can do what they want. So they study all the previous Republican, Democratic,

monarchical, aristocratic systems. And they decide to imitate monoscul. Monosquil is a French thinker who believed the idea of separation of powers. If you want to create a perfect government, you need to balance the different factions of society using separation of powers. of powers okay so the American system is you have three different branches of government you have the president who controls the military as for as well as

foreign policy then you have the Congress which controls the purse the financing of government and you have the Supreme Court which interprets the Constitution which interprets the highest law of the land and so if done improperly what will happen is these three branches of government will balance each other out they're meant to be counts and balances okay the it's meant to inhibit the overextension of the other is that is the American system of government that is basically stolen from monoscul all right the other check and balance is the division between federal Washington DC the state level individual states and the local

level okay so the responsibilities of each is defined very clearly and the idea is that they should also balance each other out okay this contrast of course with the Chinese system where you just have one person in charge and he has something called the Politburo underneath him the pilot barrel then appoints everyone into the government as well as the army as well as the provincial and local governments okay so it's a very top down system whereas the American system is meant to be a balanced system. Does that make sense? All right. So the problem now is now that you've decided that you need a

Constitution, you need a federal government, how do you convince the people to go along with this because for the Constitution to go in effect all 13 states have to agree to the Constitution by a two-thirds majority? Okay, so to convince people, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay read something called the Federalist Papers. The Federalist Papers are a series of pamphlets, series of newspaper articles that explain why the Constitution is necessary. Okay, so let's, so we're going to look at a few passages.

All of them are written by Alexander Hamilton, who is really, again, the genius of the Constitution, the one who is really driving the need for a strong, government in order to facilitate America's imperial ambitions. All right, as this government is composed of small republics and enjoys the internal happiness of each, in respect to its external situation, it is possessed by means of the association of all the advantage of large monarchies. So this idea of a mixed balanced government where you are trying to take the

advantage of all political systems. Within America, it will be a Republican system. And so you will enjoy within your area democracy. But at a national level, in relation to other states, it will be a monarchy where the president represents the nation in discussions and negotiations and conflicts with the other great European nations. Okay? All right.

Another thing that the Constitution does is if the president wants to appoint ministers, if the the president wants to appoint officials, they have to be vetted and approved by the Senate. Okay, and this is new. Usually a king can appoint whoever he or she wants, but in the Constitution, the Senate must vet everyone. And the idea of this is to create accountability and transparency within government. So Hamilton explains this. To what purpose then require the cooperation of the Senate? I answer to the necessity of their

concurrence would have a powerful though in general a silent operation. It would be an excellent check upon a spirit of ferretism in the president and would tend greatly to prevent the appointment of unfit characters from state prejudice, from family connection, from personal attachment, or from a view to popularity. Okay, let's just say the president wants to appoint his son to be the secretary of state. The son appears before the Senate and it is like a job interview and the son is an idiot. He doesn't know anything, okay? So in this instance, the son has embarrassed the president. And it's this fear of being embarrassed that inhibits the president from abusing his powers. That's a theory, okay? Does that make sense?

And actually over the course of American history, it's worked very, very well. The power public opinion, it's very, very strong. But what's important for us to remember is all this is based on the idea of convention, on norms, on values. As long as people buy into these conventions and norms, this is the more work. But if it's someone like Donald Trump, who does not buy into these norms and values? It may be a problem, okay? So we'll see what happens over the next few years. All right, these judicious reflections contain a lesson of moderation to all the sincere

lovers of the Union and ought to put them upon their guard against hazarding, anarchy, civil war, a perpetual alienation of the states from each other, and perhaps the military despotism of victorious demigal. Let me explain what this means. What this is saying is this. Adjana Hamilton, what he's saying is this? In creating the government, we're not trying to aspire to greatness. We're trying to prevent collapse.

This is risk management. We're trying to avoid the risk of government. What's the risk of government? Well, you could have anarchy, where people reject the government. You have civil war, the states go to war against each other. You're going to have a perpetual alienation of the states, each other division within the government and then military despotism where a tyrant arises okay so at the point of the Constitution it's risk management it's to

prevent America from failing all right all right so um at the Constitution America now embarks on some call manifest destiny the idea of destiny is it's the will of God for America to conquer and settle the entire Western Hemisphere North America, South America, it's all America because that is the will of God. So today Trump is saying how America should annex Canada and as well as Greenland. That's part of manifest destiny. It's not new. All right.

All right. Let's lead to 1823, something called the Monroe Doctrine. So President Monroe, before Congress, he announces that from now on, the Europeans are not allowed to interfere in the Western Hemisphere. The Western Hemisphere is entirely American. Okay? So he says, Europe are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers. The Western Hemisphere is henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers.

Hey guys, Russia, France, Germany, Britain, Spain. Forget the Western Hemisphere. It's our territory. You come over here and we'll be the crap out of you. Okay? All right. So now America, to achieve its manifest destiny, it needs to expand, okay? And it uses multiple strategies to expand.

In 1803, remember, the Midwest of the United States, it's controlled by France. It basically buys all this from Napoleon. So now it's extending outwards over to here. Of course, there are natives in these territories. What the Americans do, of course, is eradicate the natives. the war of genocide. All right, War 1812 is when America and Canada come into a conflict. Again, because of manifest destiny, America sees Canada as part of its territory, but the

British don't agree, and this leads to a war of 1812. It's a stalemate, okay? And after a stalemate, basically the British and the Americans agree that Canada will stay a British colony. But again, because it's manifest destiny, we're going to expect America. to eventually take over Canada as well as Greenland. 1846, the Mexican-American War. So America fights a war of Mexico and takes over Texas

as well as California. Basically the entire western part of the United States is now incorporated into the new nation. In 1861, we have the Civil War. And I've already explained the causes of the Civil War, right? There's conflict between Thomas Jefferson and Hamilton. The two visions for where America is going will eventually lead us to the American Civil War. You may have learned that the American Civil War was about slavery.

It was not about slavery. It was mainly about state rights. It was really about democracy versus empire. And the democracy, the states can do whatever they want. But in empire, the central government is able to dictate a lot of policy. So eventually this will lead to the Civil War. And, of course, the North wins a civil war because the North is far more industrial. far more wealthier and powerful than the South.

And so the Hamilton vision is now achieved, and it will be expanded throughout the Western Hemisphere. There's a problem though, and the problem is this. So at this time, of course, Abraham Lincoln is president of the United States and is considered the greatest president in American history for a reason. The reason is this. The Civil War was the deadliest war in the war

in American history, okay? Let's look at this. Over 600,000 people died in the American Civil War, which is about four years. Only 400,000 died in World War II. The problem is this, in 1861, the population of America at this time was 30 million people. World War II, the population was 130 million.

So this was by far the deadliest war in America. American history. Brothers were killing brothers. It was a tremendous, I mean, it was such a bloody conflict. And so after this war was ended, everyone was asking, why did we do this? What's the point of this? And so there was shock, there was anger, there was frustration.

So Abraham Lincoln now has to stand up and explain why this happened. Why did this war happen? He needs to form a new vision of America that binds people together, that creates a new union. So he presents this new vision in something called the Gettysburg Address, which is considered the greatest speech in American history. This is 1863. The Battle of Gildesburg was one of the bloodiest battles in the American Civil War. And then we're going to read all of it, okay?

It's because it's a very short speech and it's very powerful. Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. So the war of independence, it was not a war to seek independence from Britain, it was a revolution in human affairs.

It was about bringing liberty to the world. It was about creating a new civilization. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. So the American Revolution, it is an experiment in the possibilities of human liberation. In the Civil War, it is meant to destroy this experiment.

So we must persist in this experiment. We are met on a great battlefield of that war, Gettysburg. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that the nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hollow this ground. The sacrifice of the man is what has made this land sacred. The sacrifice of these men is what made our nation, is what makes our nation sacred. It's what saves our nation. The brave men

living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above or poor power to add or detract the world with little note nor long remember what we say here but it can never forget what they did here it is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced okay and this ends it as rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to the cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion the men are dead there's nothing we can do to resurrect them it is the responsibility of us the living

to honor of sacrifice and to continue the mission that they died for which to spread liberty throughout the world to bring liberty into human civilization that we here highly resolved that these dead shall not have died in vain that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish

from the earth. Okay? So, again, with Hamilton, it's about empire, for Jefferson, it's about democracy. There's a conflict, right? What Lincoln does, which is revolution, is say, no, this is not a conflict because we are an empire

of democracy. We are born in liberty. We fight for liberty, and we will spread liberty. So this is a new concept in American history. So now America is not confined to the ocean hemisphere. It has responsibility to honor the dead, honor sacrifice, by creating liberty throughout the world. To create a new chapter in human civilization. That's the purpose of this speech.

To heal America by reminding them of the divine mission to spread. democracy and truth throughout the world. All right. So other civil war, America is now industrializing rapidly. 1867, it buys Alaska from Russia. 1898, America fights the Spanish, and they take over the Spanish colony. So now America has become an imperial power. All right? America now controls the Philippines, as well as Cuba. Then World War I, America goes and defeats Germany. World War II is when America becomes the global hegemon of the world. And then after Soviet Union fell, we now live in something called the Pax Americana. America has the greatest power in the world. They have complete

Lincoln's vision of becoming an empire of democracy. We now live in the empire of democracy. All right. But the other question then is, what is an empire of democracy? What is that? And so we go back to Oscar Wilde's quote, America is not a civilization. And what does he mean by that? So understand this, we have to read another book called Democracy in America

by a Frenchman named Alexei de Tocqueville. This is the most famous book ever written about America. Not by American, but by a Frenchman who visited America for maybe eight months. In 1835, he publishes democracy in America. And he's trying to explain why is it that American democracy works? And why is it destined to eventually conquer the world? All right. Now, there's a lot of debate about this book.

Hopefully, you'll be able to read this book in college. It is a fantastic book. It's really one of the best books ever written. And it's a thousand pages. So it's possible for you to interpret the book in many different ways. But what I want to show you today is, I think they took Phil actually is skeptical about American democracy. He is actually afraid of what the spreading American liberty will mean for the world.

Okay, so the argument I will show you is America is really the first mass democratic middle class country. Okay. But because of that, the people that are selfish, conformance, and unimaginative. And he fears that as America calls the world, the world will become atomized, uniform, and mediocre. Adamize just means that we live in our little bubble. We don't really care about larger issues than ourselves.

Uniform means everyone thinks the same way, and mediocre means that, well, no one's striving for greatness anymore. If you think about it, okay, the world we live in today, in the year, 2025 this is the world we live in it's a atomized uniform and mediocre world so how does this happen how was it possible for the world to become like this and for for you understand this it's important to go back to the Dutch Republic we discussed that Dutch Republic last week and talk about what it means to the middle class now as I said last week the middle class is distinct because it creates

anxiety and certainty and competition within the lives of individuals okay anxiety comes on the fact that your situation is never stable you can be rich tomorrow but you can be poor the next day this is different from history where if you're born poor you stay poor if you're a noble person you could have no money but your status stays with you okay and it goes passes on to your children and your grandchildren okay so there's a certainty in that world but in this world If you're middle class, you could be a factory owner, you can be Jack Ma, and then the next day you get unlucky and you lose all your money, okay, you're back to being a poor person. This creates anxiety and uncertainty. Also, because Status is not given, but it must be earned, there's competition among middle class members to strive for status, okay? And this creates something we call OCD, obsessive compulsive disorder, and it leads to an obsessive control of yourself.

a focus on cleanliness and a desire to accumulate and achieve, okay? And if you think about it, we discuss the memoir of Benjamin Franklin, right? Well, why is he focused on such a simple living? Why is he focused on earning so much money? Why does he constantly want to achieve? It's because of the anxiety of being middle class. You're born poor, you get, you earn a lot of money, you become wealthy, but how do you know you won't become poor?

How do you know your children won't become poor? The only way to resolve this anxiety is by constantly accumulating more and more. All right. So let's look at democracy in America. Let's look at certain passages about, let's look at certain passages from democracy in America to understand the thinking of de Tocqueville. All right. Such a democratic society would be less buoyant than the aristocracy, but also less plagued by misery. Pleasures would be less extreme, prosperity more general, knowledge would be less exalted,

but ignorance more rare. Feelings would be less passionate and habits milder. There would be more vices and fewer crimes. Okay, it's actually a hard passage to understand. So what he's seeing is this. In aristocratic societies, in most societies, there's a huge gap between the rich and the poor, okay? And there's a huge gap between the great and the mediocre. and the mediocre.

What democratic societies do is they take this system and they turn it into this system, okay? So the middle class, they're not that great, but they're not that poor either, okay? They're not as talented, but they're not as mediocre, okay? So you've taken this system, right? And you turn it into this system. And that's a theory of democracy.

And in theory, this sounds better, okay? If you're just born randomly into a democratic society, you're much more likely to live a happy life than if you were born into an airstriac society, okay? So that's a theory. But, the Tokyo spent a lot of time looking to America and he decided that's not what happened, okay?

It's not that you went from this to this, it's like you went from this to like this, okay? All right, so he explains. But what have we done? In rejecting the social state of our ancestors and casting aside the institutions, ideas and moors, what have we put in their place? So what he's saying is the American Revolution

was about destroying tradition, about destroying civilization, but they failed to build new traditions and new civilization. The prestige of world power has evaporated, but the majesty of the law has failed to take its place. Okay, this is key. Before we worship a man, a king, and the king made us obedient to his law.

We got rid of the king and we said, well, let's keep a king. the law the problem is this the problem is people respect and revere those who are superior to them they do not respect and revere ideas and things and laws does that make sense okay so in theory America is a rule of law nation but people don't really understand these laws and people don't revere these laws as much as they would a superior man it strikes me that we have destroyed those individuals who once have the whiff revolve to battle tyranny on their own.

So in an a historic system, what will happen is you have these great individuals like Ropes PR emerge to challenge the system. And he feels, and he's supported by others because others see the injustice of the system. But in democracy, what happens is great individuals are oppressed by the conformity, the tyranny of majority okay does that make sense right if everyone's happy then you say if you come out and say listen this system is wrong people will shut you down right in a starknessy everyone knows what's unjust so if you come out and you speak speak what's unjust people will follow you but the democracy in middle

class society which is conformist you're not you're not not to question popular opinion and therefore no great man can around If you think about it, in American history, there aren't that many great individuals. It's a great country, it's very wealthy, but think about how many great individuals who have arising. What's also unique about America is the people they worship are not generals, not leaders, but business people, Henry Ford, Ellen Musk, Thomas Edison, right? These are all business people.

That's who they worship. The poor man, for the most part, clings to his forbearer's prejudices without their faith and to their ignorance without their virtues. So the Catholic Church was problematic. Medieval Europe was problematic, but at least people knew how to live a good life. Now if you're a poor person, you're a complete loss in the system. You're expected to have your own virtues. You're expected to discover your own purpose in life.

But if you don't, then you're alienated. Okay? And this creates a huge problem that we'll discuss later on. All right, continues. I see men who in the name of progress seek to reduce men to material being. This is the ultimate problem in America. Before in civilization, you were asked to die for your nation. Now you're asked to go make money and buy things.

Materialism. They look for what is useful, without concern for what is used. just they seek science removed from faith and prosperity apart from virtue having styled themselves champions of modern civilization they have erronely placed themselves at its head usurping a position abandoned by others which they are quite unworthy of occupying themselves okay so in this system the worst rise to power the best are trampled down by conformity all right he continues I'm I'm trying to imagine what new features,

despotism might have in today's world. I see in a new Burma, hosts of men all alike and equal, endlessly hastening after petty and vulgar pleasures with which they fill their souls. Over these men stand an immense tutorial power, which assumes sole responsibility for securing their pleasures and watching over their fate. Think about the society that we live in today,

the entire world. Before we were asked to sacrifice ourselves for civilization before we were asked to be great to work together now we're asked to just buy things buying things will make us happy and its responsibility of the government to ensure we can buy things okay that's the world we live in today it's impossible believe that a liberal energetic and wise government can ever emerge from a ballot a nation of servants if you're a consumer if all you're concerned is buying things you

You are just a slave. The possibility of a constitution being Republican in its head and also monarchical in all its other parts has always struck me as an enthrinal monster. We think we live in democracy. We think the government listens to us, but it's really an imperial bureaucracy that's in charge. And that's a monster. The vice of those who govern and the imbecility of the government would quickly bring about its ruin and the people tired of their representatives and of themselves would either

create free institutions or soon return to prostrating themselves at the feet of a single master. Okay, so this is a prophecy. The prophecy is this. America, the way it is structured, the way it is conceived, is not sustainable in the long term. Either it will break apart in a civil war or a tyrant will emerge. It will become a monarchy. That is the top of its dark prophecy for America. Okay, so America is again in competition with these other civilizations. All right, so what I will do now is just summarize what we've learned to give you a broad framework for understanding the nature of American society, okay? So I apologize, I know that today was very fast, but let me just summarize what we've learned and you have a much clear idea. of the idea as today. All right.

So before the focus on civilization, what is civilization? It's a history, culture, values. And before, everyone understood the purpose of your life was to maintain, protect, and defend your civilization. But there's certain problems with civilization

that emerges over time. The first, of course, is the idea of prejudice. You just believe. that you your civilization is superior to that of other civilizations okay everyone believes this my selection is better and I would and I my civilization is superior to yours so this leads this is prejudice it leads to war violence it leads to lack of innovation openness right it's a stubbornness in flexibility It also limits immigration.

Does that make sense. This is the nature of civilization throughout most of human history. Now, this is a problem for America. Why? Because as I mentioned, America was founded by immigrants. It's also pretty diverse. Diversity, openness.

And so these are the three characteristics of America. It's a very diverse place with different religions, different cultures. It's always trying to welcome immigrants in order to build up its nation and wealth, and it has to be open because it needs to steal ideas from Europe, basically. So now you're a problem, right? Civilization cannot solve these problems. So what do you do in order to create a society? What you do is rather than build a civilization, you create a game. Okay? In many ways, America is an anti-civilization.

It's trying to remedy the failings and weaknesses of civilizations in the past. It's decided, we're going to create a game, guys. That's the idea of the US Constitution. What's the game? The game is this. First of all, we need to have game masters. Game masters is the government. But the problem is, for the game to work, it has to be fair.

fear it has to be clean okay it has to be winnable for people does that make sense you only play games if you think the game is fear and it's winnable and it's rewarding right it's transparent therefore our government must be fear transparent and democratic you get as many people to play the game as possible all right once the government is in place now what we do is we create the for the game that are fair, just, and which is winnable, okay? So the purpose of this game is to make as much money as possible, okay? Material acquisition. If you win this money, it's yours, okay?

Private property. By law, whatever you earn, whatever you have earned is yours forever. It's yours, but it's also your children's, okay? You understand? This is a game that America has constructed. If you think about it, this is great because now you can bring in as many immigrants as you want. Because all they do is play this game.

Everyone wants to play this game. It allows you to be open because it allows for rapid innovation within society. It allows for diversity as well because everyone's striving to make as much money as possible. Okay? So that's what America is. sees itself as a new civilization but it's really an anti-sinalization because it's really a game and over time what will happen is because America is become more more wealthy it will be able to conquer the world and establish the

game throughout the world in China today we are playing this game right what what do we believe we believe that we come to school because we need to get education go to America get a degree so that we can become rich when we become rich we can buy things right you're playing this game we've all been brainwashed to play this game okay the problem with this game is eventually the few will win everything does that make sense you know massive inequality in the world and when this happens people are like this game sucks What do we do now? And then people will be like, you know what?

I miss civilization. I miss when it was clear what my identity was. When it was clear what I had to do in life. When I was asked to make sacrifices for the greater good. I miss that. I'm nostalgic for that. Okay? And of course, this is what gives us MAGA.

Ultimately, MAGA is about trying to, to restore the idea of civilization in America. Make America great again. Make America into a white Christian democratic nation again. Let us restore the vision of Thomas Jefferson. Okay, that's it. So this is just an introduction to America. We will continue this topic as we move further and further along the course.

So next week we will do the German and Russian civilizations. What you will see is that in many ways, these civilized scenes are far superior to the Anglo-American Empire. All right? So any questions?