On Forming the Jefferson Society

We seek neither sycophants nor opportunists. We seek sovereign individuals willing to gather in solidarity around mission, morality, mutualism, and meaning.

To attack the citadels built up on all sides against the human race by superstitions, despotisms, and prejudices, the Force must have a brain and a law. Then, its deeds of daring produce permanent results, and there is real progress.
–Albert Pike

Who are those men in strange adornments hanging out in lodges? Are they a cult? What is the compass? The All-Seeing Eye? Whatever the symbolism, the impact of Freemasonry on the American experiment, from revolution to Western expansion, cannot be understated. Masons embodied specific cultural values and institutions, which allowed them to till the soil over vast territories. Their human networks would allow more formal institutions to take hold later—republican institutions.

By the middle of the eighteenth century, American colonists had begun to demand more representation. Later, Republicanism spread throughout the Western world when the American experiment proved the rabble could self-govern. The overlap between the masonic spirit and the republican worldview had been vital because it reinforced the idea that culture and technology lie upstream from politics. At a time before the Internet, television, and Morse code, lodge networks allowed people with Enlightenment values to spread out, move away from the seats of authority, and experiment with a polycentric organization. This network generated enough virtuous men to outnumber the bandits and politicians—at least for a time. 

Freemasons and other fraternal societies provided a social safety net well before the government created a welfare monopoly. Ultimately, Freemasonry also provided a socio-cultural ‘technology’ that laid the groundwork for a more decentralized political infrastructure—relatively speaking. In other words, to unify a diverse people, you needed a quasi-religious framework, a social technology that transcended religion and included it. 

Freemasonry provided that social technology.

Yet the American Revolution helped to rend the ancient fraternity into two functionally distinct orders: Republican and Imperial. The Republican Freemasons essentially carried on the tradition of social organization built on culture and a constitution. The Imperial masons evolved to support the ambitions of the British Empire. In this way, America arguably became the quintessential form of masonic governance—a decentralized upgrade from what we might call the London Fork. By way of anachronism, the break between the colonies and Great Britain saw two different versions of the masonic ‘code’ evolve. In both cases, Freemasonry had been deployed in very similar ways but in the service of markedly different aims: centralization and decentralization. 

Admittedly, the story of the American Empire is not so different from the British Imperial story, but there is precedent to be found in masonic doctrine. And Freemasons were integral to America’s liberatory movements.

The Anderson Constitution

In 1734, forty-two years before his complicity in high treason against the Crown, Benjamin Franklin republished the Reverend Dr. John Anderson’s Freemasonry Constitution in Philadelphia. Some say this document, later muted by powerful authorities, helped plant the seeds of revolution in America and France. That is strange given the following passage, which, at first blush, seems unambiguous:

A mason is a peaceable subject to the Civil Powers, wherever he resides or works, and is never to be concerned in plots and conspiracies against the peace and welfare of the Nation.

One wonders, then, why so many famous Freemasons, from Simón Bolívar to Ben Franklin, turned out to be revolutionaries. Maybe it’s because Anderson left them a loophole:

[I]f a Brother should be a Rebel against the State, he is not to be countenanc'd in his Rebellion, however he may be pitied as an unhappy man; and, if convicted of no other Crime, though the loyal Brotherhood must and ought to disown his Rebellion, and give no Umbrage or Ground of political Jealousy to the Government for the time being; they cannot expel him from the Lodge and his Relation to it remains indefeasible.

If we squint a little, we can see two important aspects of these passages from Rev. Dr. Anderson.

First, revolutionaries rebel against the unjust authority, not the nation (where nation just means a people born here). From the rebel’s perspective, rebellion serves the nation. To the extent that the powerful undermine peace and welfare through acts of tyranny, the rebel’s job is to make a final stand against institutionalized injustice. Or, that is the story they tell themselves.

Second, Anderson’s rules require members to avoid complicity in revolutions on lodge time but maintain a fraternal relationship with the rebel if he’s otherwise a good man. Reading between the lines, we can interpret this as a declaration of neutrality designed to preserve solidarity among brothers who might otherwise align themselves with different races, countries, or constituencies.

Between Anderson’s original constitution and the American Revolution, the relevant parties would have had Locke’s Second Treatise (1689) on their minds, too:

As Usurpation is the exercise of Power, which another hath a Right to; so Tyranny is the exercise of Power beyond Right, which no Body can have a Right to. And this is making use of the Power any one has in his hands; not for the good of those, who are under it, but for his own private separate Advantage.

For the Masons of the time, civil authorities were supposed to guarantee a reasonable expression of fundamental rights and freedoms, not personal gratification. Anderson’s Masons would have been popping their heads up again rather meekly in the wake of the Glorious Revolution. Those roiling years exemplified the quarrels over religion and nation that most Masons hoped to avoid. But this history, along with the emerging philosophical Enlightenment, would have shaped the minds of most any Freemason that came after. 

That is, until 1815.

In that fateful year, the Grand Lodge of England updated its constitution, removing any clause protecting rebels from expulsion. The question is why. In general, the constitution typically outlines the rights, responsibilities, and obligations of its members, as well as the rules and procedures for conducting masonic activities. It is possible that the removal of the rebel clause may have been understood as necessary to ensure the stability and unity of the organization, particularly if there had been concerns about internal divisions. 

It is also possible that the change was made to bring the Grand Lodge's constitution in line with the values of the time, which placed heavy emphasis on Britons’ commitment to Queen and Country at a time of global expansion and efforts to civilize various peoples on multiple continents. After all, Freemasonry was a popular organization in many parts of the British Empire, including India, Africa, and the Caribbean. Such suggests the fraternity’s officials made a conscious decision to define the organization as an extension of the British Empire. Perhaps the Freemasons’ egalitarian brotherhood was a double-edged sword. As more elites and royals integrated into its corpus, imperial power co-opted the Masons to some degree (no pun intended).

Dwindling Light

Now, if you were to ask people on the street today, they’d have mixed ideas about the ancient fraternity. Some think the Freemasons provide infrastructure for a global conspiracy. Others think good people want moral teaching, community, and rituals without religion. Yet others believe the Freemasons possess secret knowledge, which they use to control various institutions worldwide. All such claims are correct in some measure, or at least they were.

When referring to Freemasonry at a time when the sun never set on the British empire or America was exporting democratic republicanism, they would certainly be right. While countries such as France were caught between the Vatican forces of central authority and the masonic influence of decentralized Republicanism, anglophone countries remained firmly in the latter camp. Even Britain straddled an Empire and a Republic, with a constitutional monarchy balanced against parliament, retaining vestiges of the common law. 

But somewhere along the way, the light began to dwindle on both sides of the Atlantic. That is, the Freemasons were no longer a force for either centralization or decentralization. Though they retained their ancient rites of personal and moral development, their influence faded.

In doing research for Underthrow, I interviewed Justin Arman, a 32nd-degree Scottish Rite Mason and member of Manly P. Hall Allied Masonic Degrees No. 373. Arman is keen to revive the ancient order as a moral and cultural force. He worries the Freemasons have been reduced functionally to a social club with dwindling membership and influence. Arman hopes to change that. But first, it takes understanding masonic history, he says.

“We’re taught that conquest is military victory,” said Arman, “but deeper lessons of time reveal that mere military conquest eventually ends up in rebellions.” 

To maintain control, conquerers had to implement successful public relations campaigns and cultural reprogramming.

“To prevent revolts,” Arman avers, “the powerful had to rule people’s minds.”

Arman thinks Freemasonry was not just a brotherhood for cultivating virtue and mutual aid. It was a near-perfect social technology for inculcating various peoples with Western values to prime them for British hegemony. Joining scholars of Freemasonry such as Jessica Harland-Jacobs, Arman thinks the order co-evolved with the British Empire. In other words, Freemasonry did for Britannia what the Vatican had done for Spanish colonialism.

“The relationship between Freemasonry’s meta-religious structure and the empire provided a powerful, effective feedback loop for those with imperial ambitions,” Arman adds.

That is until the British Empire went broke and imploded.

The Ingredients 

I asked Arman what the Freemasons did historically to empower their membership. By way of paraphrases, here are his replies. The Masons:

1. Provided initiatic experiences allowing men to see one another as brothers through a mythic bond transcending blood and race—creating preconditions for mutual aid; 

2. Created a supranational identity, a kind of universal citizenship around the values of brotherly love, pluralism, and cosmopolitanism;

3. Ritualized the liberal arts and sciences, creating a methodological justification for patterns and models of Western modernity; 

4. Exported enlightenment values and civility to tame wild lands and define masculinity according to Western norms;

5. Taught equality before a higher power, a meta-religious framework aligned with the Judeo-Christian conception of God—which, in turn, helped to engender values such as equality before the law, Natural Rights, and limited government.

That last point may seem odd or contradictory until you realize that most of the American Founders, despite their anti-authoritarian leanings, were still under the intellectual sway of Thomas Hobbes. Even though the Founders were not too keen to live under the Crown, they planted the seeds of another empire against the objections of Jefferson and the Antifederalists. Why? Because they imagined only a powerful, central authority could guarantee freedom.

Hobbes’s Ghost

Philosopher Thomas Hobbes thought that some powerful central authority had to be the primary source of peace and social cohesion. Under his rationale, an ultimate dominator should control outbreaks of violence in unchecked domination games. A Leviathan serves as a protector, checking the ambitions of men who would otherwise engage in advantage-taking or, worse, perpetual warfare. Sadly, Leviathan states always outgrow their role as protectors. Invariably, they become instruments of domination run by sociopaths, ideologues, or sociopathic ideologues. 

Lockean Republicanism only augmented the logic of Leviathan. It didn’t replace it.

The Hobbesian calculation is that each citizen gives up some of his or her absolute freedom to a sovereign authority in exchange for protection. This is referred to variously as a social contract. Under the Lockean construal, citizens might introduce checks and balances as an insurance policy against tyranny, but they still had to hope that the Leviathan would rule in their interests. Otherwise, good intentions would be the only difference between a benevolent sovereign and a mafia boss. The American Founders not only shared such views but produced the Declaration of Independence as a kind of legal writ detailing their grievances against the Crown’s behaviors, which had been both violative and numerous.

But time passed. The Freemasons continued to evolve. And so did Leviathan. 

It’s no wonder that most British thought of their empire as a benevolent force for expanding liberalism and virtue. Many still do. And this had not been a mere paradox. The British Empire was, in many ways, a force for good. It helped to eliminate slavery over great swathes of the world—in some places for the first time. The British also established healthy institutions in places like Hong Kong and other prosperous zones within the Commonwealth. Stories of excesses and oppression, such as the British Raj in India, are familiar. Still, the logic of Leviathan no doubt helped to justify the imperial project, for good or ill. But now we see that imperial social technologies are prone to corruption, insolvency, and cycles of decline.

From Want to Need

As the great welfare-warfare states ascended in the twentieth century, visions of a liberal, cosmopolitan world order started to evaporate. That is, until 1945 when the American hegemon rose in the detritus of the crumbled British Empire and two World Wars. By this stage, the Freemasons had become “a want rather than a need,” according to Arman. He would like to see his order reinvent itself as a need again.

But what need, specifically?

“Centralized institutions are failing,” he replied. “The public no longer trusts them. Partisanship creates incommensurable epistemic and moral lenses. A quiet civil war is brewing. And a series of crises plague the people. Because our fundamental worldviews diverge, we can’t agree on a common ethos.”

“So what is to be done?” I asked.

“We have to rebuild the Temple,” he replied. 

The masonic revival, and the revival of all fraternities, will depend on whether they can establish the preconditions of a new, more highly decentralized order. That depends on people embracing certain kinds of social technologies. Freemasons are very good at developing, using, and exporting social technologies.

As regards decentralization, Arman is speaking my language. Indeed, he’s speaking Jefferson’s language.

Internal reform will be challenging for the fraternity, though. The Freemasons include a general prohibition on discussing politics, which helps maintain unity among people of different political parties and walks of life. Arman’s decentralization thesis might be confused as such.

I never asked Arman whether his views risk making him some sort of apostate.

Colonizing Minds

The time has come to attack what the old American mason Albert Pike referred to as “superstitions, despotisms, and prejudices.” I’m not persuaded that today’s Freemasons, heavy with history and gaudy with tradition, can be the sole vector of underthrow. While I am endlessly fascinated with the organization and its mysteries, I am left hoping that men like Justin Arman can help the ancient society become relevant again. Otherwise, the world needs new experiments—even if those borrow (or steal) from proven masonic social technologies.

Therefore, it’s not enough to write a book.

If I mean the words I wrote on these pages, I have to commit to more. I must do more to help people of conscience become a countervailing force. One drop of water is a drop. A thousand drops of water is a shower. A billion drops of water is a deluge. I hope you agree. If you do, I invite you to join me. I can’t do it alone.

I realize this might seem a bit strange: like breaking the fourth literary wall. A call to action belongs in sales emails, not in books. But if we want to get anything done in these times, this is one of the rules we have to toss. Another will be for fraternal societies to tolerate revolutionaries again.

Ironically, there is little evidence to suggest that Thomas Jefferson was ever a Freemason or that he was even an honorary brother. Yet Justin Arman argues the order fully embraces the Declaration’s author as a “great ambassador of masonic governance.” If Jefferson could have lived to appreciate the extent to which the Freemasons provided humous soil for germinating fellow revolutionaries and enlightenment dandies, perhaps he wouldn’t snort at the idea of a Jefferson Society with masonic features. After all, today’s Masons view the Declaration of Independence as a masonic document, which just goes to show, again, that the Freemasons can adapt to human exigencies through time. 

Hopefully, you have read my case for embracing a network-state approach—the seeds for a New America in the cloud, a la

Balaji

Srinivasan. After all, underthrow isn’t just about washing old things away. It’s about offering something new. And in this case, it also happens to be about offering something timeless. 

Imagine a fraternal, sororal, or unisex society that:

1. Provides initiatic experiences.

2. Creates a supranational identity.

3. Ritualizes reason in the liberal arts and sciences. 

4. Exports (and imports) upgraded liberal morality, timeless values, and ancient wisdom. 

5. Teaches fundamental dignity and equality, with or without a higher power.

In what follows, I will sketch tentative protocols for forming the Jefferson Society. I hope to inspire a small group of peaceful revolutionaries to join me, if but to commiserate as we watch an empire buckle under its own weight. 

The Problems

Together, we are confronted with a set of interconnected crises, which I have detailed throughout this book:

1. Expansion of authoritarian control;

2. Partisan tribalism and civil conflict;

3. An unhealthy focus on national sensationalism instead of local efforts;

4. Crisis of community and civil society; and

5. Generalized disorientation and want of life meaning.

Many of these problems arise from the realities of modern life, such as our busy work schedules, screen addictions, and diminished involvement in churches and civic groups. 

But they are also the consequences of decisions made by others long ago that were imposed upon us. If you’re dubious, ask yourself: Why is it illegal for you to negotiate the price of a loan? Why must you use a certain scrip on a certain patch of soil? Why must you pay taxes to enrich corporations seeking monsters to destroy? And why are you being compelled to bankroll those who would censor you?

Human systems protocols can work for good or ill. Our struggle as human beings is and will always be striking a balance between preserving traditions or good rules while changing those that have outlived their usefulness. Finding the sweet spot requires deliberation and experimentation—preferably at the local level.

It’s no accident that people have begun to focus so zealously on politics as the primary mechanism of institutional change. Such a focus inclines people to tribalize and fight over the spoils of central authority. The energy that could go into a thousand local efforts pours into national spectacles. We have a lot of opinions about such spectacles but almost no control over them. And this is the way authorities want it. Indeed, as people have turned away from religious- and civil associations, they have lost community in the process. Without community, we become more dependent on distant authorities and unaccountable corporations colluding to exploit us.

We can change that.

The Protocols

Our organization must start as a minimum viable product (MVP) such that we demonstrate the profound human hunger for mission, morality, mutualism, and meaning. The elements of that MVP will be implemented as a discovery process where our founders will use what works and leave what doesn't work behind. 

Consider some of those elements.

Mission. To institutionalize the Consent of the Governed for the peoples of the world. Our mission to realize a global consent-based order reflects the unrealized wisdom of the American Founders as a universal code. The Jefferson Society helps people understand:

• Our current centralized, authoritarian order has created vice and debt, and its institutions are crumbling,

• We have a responsibility to establish the preconditions for a more stable, decentralized order for our progeny, and

• We shall create parallel, cosmopolitan institutions in which people can self-organize based on their shared conceptions of the good.

The Jefferson Society provides frameworks and preparations for constituting a consent-based order. Just as the Freemasons helped central authorities provide a moral-spiritual basis for their rule, e.g. with Britain’s imperial governance, the Jefferson Society will provide the moral basis for a decentralized, self-sufficient order. That order will be based on consent, not colonialism or compulsion.

Morality. The society’s founders seek to establish a moral order within a networked fraternity built around six primary “moral spheres.” The six moral spheres are nonviolence, integrity, compassion, stewardship, pluralism, and rationality. Regarding the spheres, we are committed to active, continuous practice. Moral practice will improve our members and everyone whose lives they touch.

Mutualism. Our organization shall apply principles of mutual aid to assist members in ascending as individuals, providers, community members, and professionals. We will apply some social technologies developed by fraternal orders to strengthen our mutualism. And we will integrate new social technologies through iterative, distributed processes, aka trial and error.

Meaning. Human beings have been chasing the question of what it all means since our species was capable of pondering its own existence. We’re still in pursuit of meaning, just as we’re still in pursuit of happiness. While meaning is fundamentally subjective, The Jefferson Society will offer social technologies that provide latticeworks of meaning-making, especially intersubjective meaning, which is meaning people share.

If I thought I could hand down anything more in terms of protocol design, like Moses with his tablets, I would. But this effort requires humility and collaboration. I repeat a mantra present elsewhere in this volume. 

We trust the institutions we build and use together.

The Pilot

Elements of any Jefferson Society ought to include fun and fellowship. Most secret societies were birthed in pubs, after all. I see no reason why any pilot couldn’t start with cigars, whiskey, and good conversation. For many, these simple vices symbolize coming together in conspiracy but also lubricate in-person interaction. 

In some ways, we have used technology to reduce ourselves to atomized avatars. The Jefferson Society can be a way out of the emptiness and ephemera of online interaction. Those familiar with my work know I am sanguine about innovation. But innovation should facilitate deeply human interactions, too, especially the kind that makes one willing to offer another the shirt off his back.

Therefore, any fraternal or sororal society should: 

• Build counter-institutions rooted in consent-based governance and mutual aid.

• Adopt better systems for decentralized communications.

• Redirect resources from wants to needs, that is, from pomp to preparedness.

• Work towards empowering members to provide for and protect each other if economic security or law and order breaks down.

• Become centers of development and deep learning for members.

Kindred souls will notice our society’s current spiritual starvation but also sense an inner yearning to draw near to others again. 

Still, we seek neither sycophants nor opportunists. We seek sovereign individuals willing to gather in solidarity around mission, morality, mutualism, and meaning. From there, we will develop our own rituals, our own strategies, and our own legacy of service. For that is the closest we may get to immortality.

This is excerpted from the book Underthrow. I would be keen to hear from anyone interested in establishing this fraternal order for the twenty-first century. And if you know others, please have them subscribe free to Underthrow, as I will use this to update.