Arts & Opinion.com
Arts Culture Analysis
Vol. 24, No.2, 2025
 
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Editor
Robert J. Lewis
Senior Editor
Jason McDonald
Contributing Editors
Louis René Beres
David Solway
Nick Catalano
Don Dewey
Chris Barry
Howard Richler
Gary Olson
Jordan Adler
Andrew Hlavacek
Daniel Charchuk
Music Editor
Serge Gamache
Arts Editor
Lydia Schrufer
Graphics
Mady Bourdage
Photographer Jerry Prindle
Chantal Levesque
Webmaster
Emanuel Pordes

Past Contributors
Noam Chomsky
Mark Kingwell
Charles Tayler
Naomi Klein
Arundhati Roy
Evelyn Lau
Stephen Lewis
Robert Fisk
Margaret Somerville
Mona Eltahawy
Michael Moore
Julius Grey
Irshad Manji
Richard Rodriguez
Navi Pillay
Ernesto Zedillo
Pico Iyer
Edward Said
Jean Baudrillard
Bill Moyers
Barbara Ehrenreich
Leon Wieseltier
Nayan Chanda
Charles Lewis
John Lavery
Tariq Ali
Michael Albert
Rochelle Gurstein
Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

the presumptions of
THE CONQUEROR


by
ROBERT J. LEWIS

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Robert J. Lewis has been editing  Arts & Opinion since 2002.  

History is the transformation of tumultuous conquerors
into silent footnotes.
Paul Eldridge

 

Until recently in human history, it was a common and quite unremarkable occurrence that a fitter or stronger tribe or nation would decide to conquer, and in certain instances decimate, a less fit tribe or nation. Robert Ardrey characterized this contest as "the territorial imperative."

He argued that the gene sequence that compels us to acquire and accumulate territory answers to our deepest longings and is inseparable from the will to survive. That it results in the takeover of a territory's means of production and natural resources is secondary to the raw expression of innate drive, which is inviolate and a law unto itself to which it is in permanent thrall.

Figures in the past such as Alexander the Great, Tupac Inka, Attila the Hun, Genghis Kahn, Tamerlane and Columbus were revered, envied and emulated for their exploits and conquests. The blood, grief and wreckage left in their wake counted for next to nothing next to their accomplishment. To become a conqueror, to conquer the world was the dream of every child. Until recently.

Today, these former heroes, the subject of novels, operas and works of art, are reviled for the same behaviour.

How do we account for this falling out of favour of the DNA-blessed drive to acquire territory, and how did it happen so quickly? What great transformation precipitated a behavioural change that convinced man to suddenly refuse what had been natural to him for 300,000 years? Closer to the present and just prior to the advent of this new radical way of thinking, how did the rationale that justified mercantilism and colonialism come to be regarded as immoral?

Beginning with the first wave of decolonization in the Americas in the 18th century, it became unacceptable that a militarily more capable nation had the right to impose its will on a less developed one. By the 1960s, almost every nation in the world signed on to the credo that national sovereignty is inviolate, that the right to self-determination must override all political and economic considerations. Belligerent nations that refused the new enlightenment were condemned as outlaw and, short of war, were subject to trade sanctions, political embargoes and were excluded from participating in the world's most important cultural and sporting events; such as what happened when Russia took over Crimea in 2014. Its invasion of Ukraine in 2022 precipitated a costly war.

From man's inauspicious origins in Africa to the present, his single most preoccupation has been to separate, to distance himself from his animal heritage. This brave and sometimes Quixotic undertaking, which remains an unfinished journey, tells of the means and devices he has painstakingly fashioned for the sole purpose of subduing his primordial self. And there have been successes. If we narrow our focus to the arts and humanities, we can justly conclude that man has indeed transcended his animal heritage.

Is it not the goal of every civilized society to domesticate human behaviour, to make it subject to ideas, laws and principles that originate in the mind, in reason and logic?

If the essential difference between cave culture and contemporary life is an accurate measure of man's advances in becoming civilized, and is proof that most of the world's people are willing to forgo certain freedoms for the sake of law and order and security, this success is more attributable to man's fear of the consequences of violating the law rather than being in accord with it. Is there a parent, who left to his own devices, doesn't want to destroy the virus, the pedophile who raped and killed his 7-year-old daughter but finds himself restrained by the law? His frustration, his unhappiness stems from being unable to act upon what he feels what he should do and is his natural right to do. This is the voice through which human nature speaks, and despite our best laid plans this voice has not been silenced.

Freud recognized this dichotomy, which became the basis of his classic Civilization and its Discontents. Prior to Freud, Rousseau proposed that "man is free but is everywhere in chains."

A cursory survey of the last 200 years argues that despite man's noble humanizing intentions, and the enshrining of human rights in most of the world's constitutions, human nature is still calling the shots, that the ideal self man has constructed out of the wraith-like materials of his mind collapse in the real world where his desire for absolute power is supreme; and that no human cost is too much in that preordained pursuit.

From history we rudely learn that man, a creature for whom instinct often prevails over reason, almost always manages to find the means to circumvent the elegant restraints he has impositioned on himself. The mighty and powerful, bent on maintaining their privilege, routinely tinker with, tweak and manipulate the laws in order to acquire and protect their wealth and power. The tax code in the United States is 6,871 pages thick, and we know the check-out girl didn't write them, nor did she invent the concept of the off-shore tax haven.

"The top Fortune 500 corporations are avoiding up to $767 billion in U.S. federal income taxes by holding more than $2.6 trillion of permanently reinvested profits offshore."

Food conglomerate Archer Daniels Midland enjoyed $438 million of U.S. pre-tax income last year and received a federal tax rebate of $164 million. General Electric earned nearly $7 billion in 2023, yet instead of paying any federal income tax on those profits they got a refund of $423 million. The delivery giant FedEx zeroed out its federal income tax on $1.2 billion of U.S. pre-tax income in 2020 and received a rebate of $230 million. The shoe manufacturer Nike didn’t pay a dime of federal income tax on almost $2.9 billion of U.S. pre-tax income last year, instead enjoying a $109 million tax rebate.

Nota bene: These conglomerates were simply abiding by laws that their teams of lawyers and lobbyists wrote up and legislated.

Every career politician must learn the art of paying lip services to rules and regulations intended for the voting public while assuring that the means to acquire territory and power are left intact. To this end, now that the outright takeover of a nation is verboten, the corporation is enlisted as a legitimate extension of power.

In "Neoliberalism and the Global Order" Noam Chomsky concludes the corporatism thrives on "centrally managed transactions within single firms, huge institutions linked to their competitors by strategic alliances, all of them tyrannical in internal structure, designed to undermine democratic decision making and to safeguard the masters from market discipline."

During the past 150 years the corporation has evolved so that it can now, with impunity, divide and conquer. It is the Trojan horse that slips past all moral and ethical barriers. When nations are restrained, the corporation gets a free pass.

In today's post-colonial environment, it is both countenanced and lawful for one corporation to decimate a competitor and take over its market share, otherwise known as territory. When a corporation files for Chapter 10 bankruptcy, it is announcing that it has been bludgeoned into non-existence with the complicity of the law. Corporatism is reconstituted mercantilism (colonialism). No shots need be fired, no invading army assembled.

The corporation provides extraordinary wealth for the individuals at the top; Elon Musk and Bill Gates have amassed more wealth than many countries. Musk, without any political experience, poured more than a quarter of a billion dollars into Trump's 2024 re-election campaign and now leads the Department of Government Efficiency and enjoys personal access to his new friend, the President of the United States. Money and power are two sides of the same crown.

The corporation has become so powerful that it dictates policy to government. Two billionaires, George Soros and Rupert Murdoch, finance the Democratic and Republican parties. No surprise that according to the Pew Research Center, 70% of Americans think the system is rigged in favour of the rich.

Where nations now fear to tread, the corporation, at the invitation of the host nation, is allowed to set up shop and partake of (code for exploit) its natural resources. It is invasion by invitation. Governments now depend on corporations to do what they can no longer do. National power and corporate power are vitally linked, with the latter more cost effective than any invading army. The corporation is human nature "red tooth and claw” dressed up in suit.

The ten largest corporations of the world control 80% of the world's wealth. BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard— hold $20 trillion in assets, close to one-fifth of all investable assets in the world.

Corporations that specialize in 24/7 entertainment were evolved to keep the masses permanently distracted and disorganized. Through their social media platforms (TikTok, X, Instagram, etc.) they spread fake news and manipulate the unsuspecting public into taking positions that go against its self-interest. Marketing is the strategy a company employs to protect its market share or territory. The monies that finance marketing come from the consumer, to the effect that the latter ends up paying to be persuaded into buying the company's products.

What does the future hold for the corporation? Like mercantilism and colonialism, will it one day fall out of favour? Given the invariables in man's basic constitution, the outlook is grim. And even if corporatism should one day fall by the wayside, who is to say something more insidious won't take its place.

The remarkable ascent of the corporation reminds us that Homo sapiens is still more animal than angel, a life form at the mercy of impulses and appetites of which he only dimly aware; and that the concepts of compassion and justice are nothing more than annoying flies that sometimes get in the way until they are swatted dead.

We may leave the last word to H. L. Mencken who writes: "The world, for all the pressure of order, is still full of savage and stupendous conflicts, of murders and debaucheries, of crimes indescribable and adventures almost unimaginable."

 

also by Robert J. Lewis:

ORIGINAL ALT-CLASSICAL MUSIC FOR GUITAR

Ranking the Religions
The Unacceptable Indulgence: PETHOOD

The Embedded

The Automobile as Extension of Home

The Outlaw

Exploring the Universe

How Free Are We?
Monadville
Meditation on Anger
To Birth a New Religion
Entertainment Addiction
Descent into Language Barbarism
Who Owns the Moon?
Why Do We Daydream
Argument & Disagreement
Smashing the God Particle
The Decline of Reading
In Praise of Useless Activities
When Sex Became Dirty
Blood Meridian: (McCarthy): An Appreciation
Trump & Authencity
Language, Aim & Fire
One Hand Clapping: The Zen Koan Hoax
Human Nature: King of the Hill
The Trouble with Darwin
The Life & Death of Anthony Bourdain
Denying Identity and Natural Law
The Cares versus the Care-nots
Elon Musk: Brilliant but Wrong
As the Corporation Feasts, the Earth Festers
Flirting & Consequences
Breaking Bonds
Oscar Wilde and the Birth of Cool
The Big
Deconstructing Skin Colour
To Party - Parting Ways with Consciousness
Comedy - Constant Craving
Choosing Gender
Becoming Our Opposites
Broken Feather's Last Stand
Abstract Art or Artifice II
Old People
Beware the Cherry-Picker
Once Were Animal
Islam is Smarter Than the West
Islam Divided by Two
Pedophiling Innocence
Grappling with Revenge
Hit Me With That Music
The Sinking of the Friendship
Om: The Great Escape
Actor on a Hot Tin Roof
Being & Self-Consciousness
Giacometti: A Line in the Wilderness
The Jazz Solo
Chat Rooms & Infidels
Music Fatigue
Understanding Rape
Have Idea Will Travel
Bikini Jihad
The Reader Feedback Manifesto
Caste the First Stone
Let's Get Cultured
Being & Baggage
Robert Mapplethorpe
1-800-Philosophy
The Eclectic Switch
Philosophical Time
What is Beauty?
In Defense of Heidegger
Hijackers, Hookers and Paradise Now
Death Wish 7 Billion
My Gypsy Wife Tonight
On the Origins of Love & Hate
Divine Right and the Unrevolted Masses
Cycle Hype or Genotype
The Genocide Gene

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Arts & Opinion, a bi-monthly, is archived in the Library and Archives Canada.
ISSN 1718-2034

 

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