This of course is the classic "philosopher overlooking the ruins of Palmyra" image found in most editions of Ruins of Empires. "Here once flourished an opulent city; here was the seat of a powerful empire," Volney writes in Chapter 2. "How has so much glory been eclipsed? How have so many labors been annihilated?" Is there not a General Principle that explains the rise and fall of empires throughout all human history? Volney's response--empires rise if government allows Enlightened Self-Interest to flourish--was written as a refutation of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Social Contract and explains long term historical trends such as the rise of the United States and the fall of the Soviet Union. Widely read by Freethinkers during the 19th century, Ruins of Empires attracts minds like Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln and Walt Whitman while simultaneously repelling emperors like Napoleon Bonaparte and misanthropes like Karl Marx, not to mention fundamentalist preachers of all religions. By that measure alone, I believe there is an unrecognized "value" here--a long-term universal value that transcends national borders and petty party politics--that transcends the centuries. Unfortunately we modern humans are stuck inside the left-right political debate, with the Left pointing to Rousseau’s General Interest as the source of morality and the Right pointing up at some Unseen Being in the sky. And so here we are—more than two centuries after the publication of Jefferson’s translation and no one has ever heard of Volney's Ruins of Empires, the very book which identifies Enlightened Self-Interest as the source of morality and was specifically written to address the most important issue of our time—upon what principles are founded peaceful, prosperous and enduring nations?
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Bilden laddades upp av ThomasCWilliams May 1, 2010.