In my regular work, I interact with opinion-makers, decision-makers, policy experts and politicians on a regular basis. I attend closed conferences and track-II meetings between world leaders, White House staff, military and civil society leaders. Crisis after crisis is addressed at these meetings. From the deterioration of Iraq a few years ago, to the Iranian nuclear challenge, to the war in Lebanon, to the carnage in Syria.
We are at a moment globally in which international institutions are withering away. International law is increasingly disregarded and we are decisively returning to the law of the jungle. The sense of direction that gives people hope and the strength to reach beyond the horizon is lacking. The ideas that we thought could manage conflict and create peace and co-existence are failing.
There are also crises at the individual and community levels. Wealth has been created, yet the poverty of unhappiness is prevailing. Technology has advanced, yet human interaction is becoming more primitive. Connectivity is at its height, yet humanity has never felt so lonely.
There are several aspects to these crises. Today, I will focus on the realm that I have some experience with; the interaction between states and the efforts to create a more peaceful world. This may not sound immediately relevant to Zoroastrianism, but Zoroastrianism and the values and insights it carries is actually very relevant to the future state of affairs between nations. Let me explain why.
Every aspiring political science student is given, on his first day of class, a copy of Niccolo Machiavelli’s The Prince. Machiavelli was an Italian historian, diplomat and philosopher, based in Florence during the Renaissance. A founder of modern political science, he was a civil servant of the Florentine Republic. His advice on how a ruler should rule is considered a masterpiece.
Everything that is taught in political science references back to Machiavelli and some of the other key Western thinkers within the school referred to as Realism. Within international relations theory, this school of thought holds a hegemonic position. It dominates and determines. Everything that occurs is primarily understood, interpreted, predicted and acted upon through the lens that the likes of Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes and Thucydides teach us.
Since Machiavelli is the most direct and uncensored of the Realists, let me start off with a few quotes from him to give you an idea of what young political scientists are taught when they take their first steps towards learning how to analyse and conduct the affairs of the state:
It is necessary for him who lays out a state and arranges laws for it to presuppose that all men are evil and that they are always going to act according to the wickedness of their spirit.
Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical and greedy of gain.
It is better to be feared than loved.
It is double pleasure to deceive the deceiver.
A prince never lacks legitimate reasons to break his promise.
Politics has no relation to morals.
War should be the only study of a prince. He should consider peace only as a breathing time.
Hobbes, another key thinker of the dominant Realist school, is known for several quotes, including: Peace between states is merely war by other means.
These are the thoughts and beliefs that constitute the guiding principles on how to conduct state interaction. We assume that man is evil. We assume this is his nature, it is innate and it is permanent. We assume peace is impossible, it is at best a breathing period between wars.
Of course, the Realists say that they are only describing reality. This is the way the world is. Our description of the world or our beliefs about it has no impact on it. The world doesn’t change because of our beliefs about it. There is an objective reality that is derived from our selfish, evil and unchanging nature. Realism belongs to the category of theories that claims it existed even before it was invented.
Realism does not have the ambition of creating a more peaceful world because it doesn’t believe peace is possible. Our nature is too selfish and evil for peace to be possible. At best, it seeks to manage conflict.
But rather than believing that this is an accurate description of our nature, there is an argument that it is these theories that actually shape our thinking and behavior, rather than our nature. We teach our young students that man is evil — and act accordingly. We teach them that breaking your word is necessary. That it is a pleasure to deceive. That politics is amoral and as a result, we don’t need to give it any second thoughts. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised that the world looks as it does.
At a moment when the world is facing a crisis of values, we should pause and try to re-imagine the world.
Imagine if students of political science, in their preparation for handling the affairs of state, studied not Machiavelli and Hobbes, but rather the thinking of Zartosht.
Imagine if they were introduced to the idea that man’s nature is not set. It is neither good nor evil, but rather, as Zartosht says in Yasna 30.2, each man and woman must make his and her own choice.
Imagine if the departure point for the analysis and conduct of statecraft was not the belief that evil is necessary to give meaning to the good, as the Abrahamic faiths imply, but rather the metaphor by Zartosht of the truth and the lie, reiterating that the lie, as a corruption of the truth, cannot exist on its own and nor can it ultimately prevail over truth.
Imagine if the altruism espoused in Zartosht’s Ashem Vohu (righteousness is the best of all that’s good…) was mandatory reading rather than Machiavelli’s justifications for deceit and greed.
Would the world not look different? Would we be stuck in this perpetual cycle of dominating and being dominated? Would peace be nothing more than brief windows of respite while preparing for the next inevitable war? What I would like to suggest is that the universal message of Zartosht and the ideas and values it carries have applicability well beyond theology and philosophy. In the crises of values that humanity faces, it can provide answers, but only if knowledge about it is spread and shared.
I would like to commend those like Dr Ali Jafarey who have dedicated their life to studying, interpreting and sharing the ideas of Zartosht with new audiences. As a community, we Zartoshtis have understandably focused much of our energy on the survival of the community itself. That is a task that in and of itself has grown more difficult over time.
But I hope we don’t forget that the wisdom of Zartosht goes well beyond us. That his thinking was not just aimed for us but to carry the treasure of his thinking and intellectual wealth into the marketplace of ideas. I am not suggesting efforts to convert others. Again, I approach Zartosht more as a philosophy than a religion.
I have yet to see widespread scholarly work contrasting Zoroastrian thinking with the leading Western philosophers in the area of statecraft. We need scientific papers on what new global institutions would look like if the pillars of the global order were inspired by Zoroastrian ideas, those departing from war and evil as the characterizing feature of humanity.
Machiavelli said, "It comes about that all armed Prophets have been victorious, and all unarmed Prophets have been destroyed.”
I hope that if there are any young aspiring political scientists or philosophy students in the community today, that they will take up the challenge — as a first step — of proving Machiavelli wrong and proving Zartosht right.
Dr Trita Parsi holds a PhD in International Relations from Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies. Founder of the National Iranian American Council, he is the author of the award winning Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Iran, Israel and the United States and his latest book A Single Roll of the Dice — Obama’s Diplomacy with Iran.