# The Death of Zarathustra Author: [[Graeme Snooks]] ## Review The book provides a very personal look at Graeme Snooks' philosophy which is based on his theories of societal dynamics. so to understand it you have to be familiar with some of the author's other writing. His model and theories build on the core insight that the driving force of humanity is the desire for humans to survive and prosper. The brain is simply a tool we use to create strategies to achieve our desires. Others imitate those who have a successful strategy. Culture and belief systems form in response to the strategy, to facilitate its spread and implementation. For example, this can be observed in historic religious beliefs where the dominant god conforms to the strategy employed by the society. What makes his thinking different is that it is driven by the demand side (human desires lead) rather than the supply side (ideas and institutions coming first). He examines the different roles that people take on in society. These roles are divided into the people, the state, the intellectuals, the business people, and the clergy. Historically the clergy guarded the religious and cultural values of a society and use them to gain influence and wealth. Given the increasing irrelevance of the church, the role of clergy is partially taken on by certain intellectuals. The state is supposed to do what it can to facilitate the needs of the strategic desire of people (to survive and prosper). Knowing the truth is not always wanted or necessary because the primary goal is to implement strategies that help us survive and prosper. If covering the truth or propagating a lie helps to achieve that then that is what will happen. His discussion here centers on "the War on Terrorism" which was based around a lie, but in his estimation was at least partly required for energy security. The truth would not have been a convincing reason, so a lie was used to justify it. He examines the lies and truths used by the various groups of people to achieve their ends. There is a particular focus on those who are honestly pursuing the truth: their role in society, society's reaction to truths, and the impact it has on the truth-seeker. This section was particularly personal because the author obviously considers himself a truth seeker. As a result the section was the one where I most disagreed although it also had some of the most fascinating ideas. The most important ideas emerge from exploring why there are strong negative reactions to ideas that run counter to the prevailing belief system. Essentially humans have built in defense mechanisms to protect themselves from the truth, because it can negatively impact their wellbeing. Its why some people react angrily when people disagree with them. There is a real depressive impact on the mind from realizing you are wrong. Individual truth-seekers discover a lot of falsehoods and inevitably they start to question what they can and can't know. It has physical health impacts and can spiral into schizophrenia which is what happened to Nietsche according to the author's beliefs. The upside to the discomfort and anxiety is that these people make better decisions. The truth as a tool is crucially important at certain points in time. When strategies and paradigms are exhausted, new truthful ideas are explored in order to improve our wellbeing. Old ideas that were wrong but helped us succeed have been exhausted and are no longer defended. The truth flourishes and old thinkers are revived as was the case with Nietsche and Da Vinci (both of these led lives that none of us would want). I think there is a good chance that his writing and research will be looked back on in the future as part of the beginning of a new paradigm of thought in societal dynamics and philosophy. There is a lot of overlap here with new thinking on agent-based models and complexity in economics, autogenous/endogenous processes in history, and belief systems and formation in psychology. The ideas here are even consistent with old investing proverbs about the nature of humans and markets! ## Related - [[The Dynamic Society]] - [[Belief Formation]] - [[Paradigm Shifts]] - [[The Structure of Scientific Revolutions]] - [[Schizophrenia]] - [[What is Ideology|Ideology]]