When I was younger, I was a big fan of world government. I remember reading about Einstein’s support for such a state of affairs and understood the appeal after the disasters of the two world wars. I was even willing to excuse the idiocy of the existing attempts at global governance - the League of Nations and the United Nations.
What kind of government can we expect from an institution in which two out of five permanent seats belong to seventh rate hasbeens such as England and France. Shouldn’t the entire western world - and I include the US and Russia in that list - have one seat in total? Otherwise the UN should be razed to the ground.
As you might guess, I have soured on the prospect of world government. Not only because the system is rigged in favour of the imperialists but because government is fundamentally about power, not freedom. Especially when it’s being formed - it’s always easier to talk about democracy and freedom after getting rid of all opponents. Governance’s obsession with power makes the system unstable.
Sure, but why this talk about world government in the context of the Jaya, especially when I want to end the year with a discussion of divinity?
Because the state killed God.
While organized religion also exerts power, it’s founded on submission to a higher power. The state bows to no one - it’s a sovereign and the power hunger of that sovereignty made it easier for the state to usurp power from the church. The church might have persecuted its heretics but its violence is nothing in comparison to what the Spanish state did in Latin America.
The Jaya is a warning to those who believe in overweening state power. The Pandavas and the Kauravas are fighting over the right to establish imperial authority. They don’t even listen to the gods in their quest for dominance. We know how that ends.