The Economist claims it "is not a chronicle of economics." Rather, it aims "to take part in a severe contest between intelligence, which presses forward, and an unworthy, timid ignorance obstructing our progress." It takes an editorial stance which is supportive of free trade, globalisation, government health and education spending, as well as other, more limited forms of governmental intervention. It targets highly educated readers and claims an audience containing many influential executives and policy-makers.
We tell one another to accept reality, not to fight for something that doesn't exist or might never be. Gianni Vattimo pushes back against this false wisdom, which lends tacit support to the status quo. Instead, Vattimo urges us to never stop questioning, contrasting, or overcoming reality, which is not natural, inevitable, or objective. Reality is a construct, reflecting, among other things, our greed, biases, and tendencies toward violence.
Booth, a London publisher who has taught philosophy and theology at Oxford, is not shy about what he expects from readers—he asks that they enter into an imaginative exercise and embrace a world in which the basic facts of history can be interpreted in a way which is almost completely the opposite of the way we normally understand them. That radical re-interpretation is based on the tenets offered in the secret teachings of Rosicrucians, esoteric Freemasonry, Sufism and Kabbalism, among others, with additional references to Eastern religions and Greek and Roman mythology.
