We can teach the world a better path driven by faith, of reason, unity, peace and progress. It just starts with the letter u.
“Man makes his own history, but he does not make it as he pleases; he does not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past.”
— Karl marx (The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, 1852)
I have been many things: a Stoic, a theist, a nihilist; an entrepreneur and a techno-optimist; a communist, an anarchist; a nationalist, and later a cosmopolitan;
a transhumanist, a creationist; a determinist, a materialist, and later a minimalist and at times, an existentialist.
Yet the question of absolute truths, of a final moral foundation, a true theory of everything, the glorification of destiny, and the deeper cosmic “why”, still eludes me, as it did many before me.
I do not claim certainty. What I have learned, however, is that balance matters more than dogma, especially when confronting questions that resist final answers.
As Lao Tzu observed:
“When extremes are avoided, harmony is achieved.”
Or as he wrote in the Tao Te Ching:
“Knowing when you have enough avoids disgrace.”
Despite uncertainty, I reject the idea that all values are relative. Some truths are intuitively and rationally recognizable across cultures and eras.
As Immanuel Kant wrote:
“The moral law within me”
exists alongside “the starry heavens above.”
This suggests that while the universe may be indifferent, human moral reasoning is not arbitrary. Certain values like dignity, fairness, restraint, truth i believe, persist because they are logically defensible and socially necessary.
From here, reasoning must begin at first principles.
As Aristotle argued:
“All knowledge must begin from first principles.”
And as René Descartes later insisted:
“To reach truth, it is necessary once in life to doubt everything.”
Truth is not inherited, it is constructed through disciplined reasoning, tested against reality, coherence, and consequence.
I believe societies function best when unity does not require uniformity.
Diversity is not a weakness to be eliminated but a complexity to be coordinated.
As John Stuart Mill observed:
“Unseasonable kindness, when it weakens individuality, is a form of tyranny.”
A healthy society protects difference while cultivating shared responsibility.
Before growth, ideology, or ambition, there must be a moral floor: people must not be harmed.
Peace should be a human right; security should be available to all.
As Hannah Arendt warned:
“The most radical revolutionary will become a conservative the day after the revolution.”
Without ethical limits, power, political or technological, inevitably turns against the people it claims to serve.
I believe progress is real, but not automatic.
As i quoted Karl Marx earlier:
“Men make their own history, but not under conditions of their own choosing.”
Technology reshapes society, but it does not absolve us of responsibility.
As Albert Einstein cautioned:
“It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity.”
Science and AI should reduce scarcity, expand capability, and free human potential, not replace judgment, dignity, or agency.
Economically, I reject absolutism.
From communal systems, we learn the necessity of shared responsibility and social protection.
From markets, we learn the power of incentives, innovation, and competition. The goal is not ideological purity, but functional, an economy that rewards creation while ensuring no one is structurally discarded.
As Amartya Sen wrote:
“Development is freedom.”
Economic systems should be judged not by ideology, but by how many people gain real capability and choice.
I oppose weapons and systems whose sole purpose is mass destruction.
As the popular J. Robert Oppenheimer:
“I have become death, the destroyer of worlds.”
Security without restraint leads only to extinction. Peace is not weakness ,it is foresight.
I also reject surveillance capitalism and unchecked artificial intelligence.
As Shoshana Zuboff warns:
“Surveillance capitalism unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material.”
Intelligence either human or artificial, must remain accountable, transparent, and aligned with human dignity.
Finally, It may be a shock to some but I believe faith and reason are not enemies.
As Blaise Pascal wrote:
“The heart has its reasons which reason does not know.”
Faith gives meaning; logic gives a method to navigate and understand the world. One without the other collapses into either superstition or arrogance.
I believe Africans can solve African problems not by imitation, but by reason, hard discipline, and innovation.
Lastly as Kwame Nkrumah once said:
“We face neither East nor West; we face forward.”
I belive wholeheartedly .
If complex systems can work here, they can work anywhere.
I do not claim final answers.
I believe if we reason causally, balance responsibly, with rigid discipline in mind and might, we can achieve our goal of Faith, unity, peace and responsible progress for all.
This is where I stand and guess what, I am still a Christian regardless.