Nayef Al-Rodhan Quotes

philosopher, neuroscientist, geostrategist, and author

Nayef R.F. Al-Rodhan (born 1959) is a Saudi philosopher, neuroscientist and geostrategist. He is an Honorary Fellow of St. Antony’s College at Oxford University and Centre Director, Centre for the Geopolitics of Globalization and Transnational Security and Senior Fellow, Emerging Security Challenges Programme, Geneva Centre for Security Policy.

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Alternative Names: Nayef R. F. Al-Rodhan

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The history of human civilisation is a history of mutual borrowings.

There is only one collective human civilisation comprised of geo-cultural domains and cultures.

All knowledge is acquired through the application of reason and has a physical basis.

What makes our existence meaningful is highly subjective and ultimately determined by sustainable neurochemical gratification.

Human beings are emotional amoral egoists, driven above all by emotional self-interest. All of our thoughts, beliefs and motivations are neurochemically mediated, some predetermined for survival, others alterable.

Humankind is an insignificant part of existence.

A good governance paradigm that limits excesses of human nature and ensures an atmosphere of happiness and productivity by promoting reason and dignity is required.

Many of the great achievements in history that are commonly attributed to one geo-cultural domain often owe a great debt to those of others. In this sense, some of the greatest achievements of human civilisation have been collective efforts and are part of the same human story.

I define sustainable history as a durable progressive trajectory in which the quality of life on this planet or other planets is premised on the guarantee of human dignity for all at all times and under all circumstances.

International cooperation is required to prevent anarchic situations developing and the unmasking of ever-present brutality and injustice that results from fear for survival in such situations.

All policies should be packaged with full awareness of the limitation of human nature (amorality, emotionality and egoism) in both the short- and the long-term.

Morality, if present, should not be relied on because it will be trumped by self interest in most circumstances.

Policies that assume that human nature is a tabula rasa (clean slate) should be reviewed and revised to reflect that man has an in-built genetic code for survival with no evidence for innate morality.

Policies should take account of the emotional dimensions of human behaviour rather than assuming rational action.

The power of emotions as drivers of behaviour, especially when survival is perceived as being at stake, needs to be recognised and taken into account at all levels of society and governance.