A new age of reason?

Gwern Gwynfil

I was recently invited to speak at an international conference for European regional movements seeking greater autonomy, self determination, or independence.

Maybe it was the frenetic nature of the event as each speaker was given only six minutes to précis their movement’s history and development, but listening to the speakers, representing 14 different nations and regions across Europe, reinforced my conviction that there is something fundamental missing from our current political discourse at every level.

This missing ingredient is the absence of any evidence of a serious intellectual foundation to the various positions adopted.

Ideas

Where are the ideas? Where are the solutions? Where is the conviction? Where is the driving purpose that supports the belief that the position held, in this case some level of greater autonomy, will improve the lives of yourselves and others?

In short, what has happened to the intellectual foundations of our political world? Shouldn’t we expect more than a facile desire for power? We need more than a utopian vision of an ill-defined future loosely hooked onto a woolly definition of identity.

More broadly, why do we tolerate an established wider political world where ideas, principles and core beliefs have been dislodged by whimsy – policy driven by the winds of a media firestorm with little attention given to longer term planning or outcomes.

I do not say this lightly. It is quite a statement to accuse the wider political world of being bereft of ideas and conviction – I suspect this will not be a popular view.

Enlightenment

Times of profound change have historically seen the growth of fresh, new thinking to inform and underpin that progress across all aspects of life.

Whether this is causative or correlative is a debate for elsewhere but we can be certain that as society evolved out of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance led the charge and changed perceptions and beliefs; the Scientific Revolution followed and carried us into the Enlightenment, the original Age of Reason; this gave us the intellectual foundations of Liberalism and Socialism – ideologies that guided change across the globe. These were concrete theories, grounded in how they would benefit the people they would govern.

Other ideas followed across the 19th and 20th century, some whimsical, some toxic, some flawed, some abhorrent. Fascism, Anarchism, Communism, and many more, all looking to create models of political governance that their followers believed would be better for their nation and people, sometimes for the world.

Often, ‘better’ was sadly for a limited part of society. The worst of these was resoundingly defeated, intellectually and physically – at great cost to the world. It is both sad and concerning that hints and whispers of similar beliefs are beginning to surface again within the populist rhetoric of the far right in Europe and further afield. It is muted but unless it is robustly answered it may yet flourish.

Nature abhors a vacuum, ideas included. Since the entrenchment of a neoliberal consensus, particularly in the US and the UK, does no one have the bravery to offer tangible new ways of doing things?

Vapid Paradigms

In the 21st century, despite living in a new era of rapid and transformative change, our ideological foundations have not kept pace. Despite being driven hard by technological advancement and the rapid growth of a digital economy, all soon to be impacted by the growth of artificial generative intelligence, we have not developed new ways of governing that fit with our new world. We have settled on the vapidity of neoliberalism and a new paradigm which ties all of us to a restrictive interpretation of economic success (with scant regard to any notions of equality, equity, the innate collectivism of society or measures of well-being as indicators of success).

The Triumph of Postmodernism

Style and spectacle trumps everything, we measure our world in negative and relativistic terms, has postmodernism indeed triumphed? Have we truly seen the end of history? Let us hope not.

Whilst this is a great topic for discussion and debate, frankly I care little how history decides to write the record of the world of ideas, or lack thereof, in the latter half of the 20th century and the first quarter of the 21st.

The deeper concern must be for the present and the future, to which we must look with more concrete foundations. We must think hard about what we want and why we want it. As we build our new digital and technological society, we must do so with purpose and intent, designing and creating a model for our world and our politics which works for all of us, not just the ever-wealthier, self-perpetuating, and excessively powerful elites.

If we are to do this, we need ideas.

Ideas that underpin our actions whilst not tying us into dogmatic positions. Ideas that have room to let us bend like a reed in the wind but retain the strength of a mighty oak.

Waxing lyrical aside, this is important. Without ideas it is all too easy to become lost and to find that those with the evidence of some convictions, however flawed or toxic, find themselves successfully appealing to a proportion of the population who crave some direction and belief. In a vacuum bad ideas can prove appealing – better than no ideas at all, especially when espoused with vigour and conviction by charismatic leaders

Better alternatives must be offered, and they too must be communicated with clarity and conviction – surrender the field to toxic ideas and they will spread. Provide opposition to them, positive and hopeful alternatives, and people will think and judge and debate. This will lead to a vision of the future which is positive and hopeful rather than one of despair and negativity. When we have reached a point where a significant part of the population is believing that anything is better than the rotten status quo then we have an obligation to raise our game and give them more than the bottom of the barrel.

The Modern Thinkers

I have no doubt that there are plenty of individuals, think tanks and other organisations investing a great deal of time and energy in thought and the generation of ideas upon which to refound our new age. All revolutions need revolutionary thinking to give them substance and sustenance after all – the global digital revolution, the nascent AI revolution, the technological advancements of the past half century, are no different.

Just as Dr Richard Price and his peers wrote the contextual subtext for the French and US Revolutions at the end of the 18th century so today’s thinkers must step up and give us intellectual roots for the changes the world is and will be experiencing.

What is missing is any evidence whatsoever of this thought translating into a new ideology upon which to build this brave new world. Dr Price was so respected and influential that the Founding Fathers invited him to be a part of the first government of the United States (he did not go as his wife was ill). Global leaders were readers and thinkers, there was an understanding that nation building involved more than just short-term policy decisions, there was always a vision.

Leadership

I know that it is easy enough for me to decry the shallowness of our political leadership today – criticism is easy whilst action is hard. It is well said that in a democracy we get the leaders we deserve. What do ideas matter when life is a bit shit, and we all have other preoccupations?

No doubt Dr Price would treat me to a long discourse on civic responsibility and civic nationalism (I would expect no less!). No doubt, he would be entirely discombobulated by the state of politics in both the USA and the UK today.

Ultimately, it is for us to address the failings of our leaders. When we complain of a lack of talent in our representative bodies then we must accept that we are to blame for this state of affairs.

When we complain of an absence of political thought and intelligent, well founded long-term planning, when we complain that there is no deeper vision of a better future on offer, when we complain that our system is broken and dysfunctional, we must remember that we are complicit in these failures. This is the nature of democracy.

We have a personal responsibility to take part and to contribute, to engage, to discuss, to vote, to find new ways to address the failings and failures of our societies. I find it deeply worrying in a Welsh context that so few of us do so at the level of the Senedd.

With automatic voter registration in place, turnout in our 2026 elections may be lower than 40%, even if similar numbers turn out to vote compared to 2021. The politicians in Cardiff Bay, the Welsh Government and all the parties in Wales should be deeply worried about this and the impact it would have on democratic legitimacy. Politicians in Wales have a duty to offer a clearly demotivated electorate much more than business as usual – ‘that’s the way we’ve always done it’ simply won’t cut it.

Ideas and convictions, core values and beliefs, may be the trigger Wales needs to engage the disillusioned, those who have simply given up hope that politicians can make a difference to their lives.

Who will step up? Who will lead a political revival in Wales? Who will present new ideas for a better Wales?