Serving the Enlightenment

“We work in the dark to serve the light. We are Assassins”

When I first encountered the above phrase in Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood, during the Assassin initiation ceremony, I took it at face value.  “We work in secret to do good.”  Then I noticed throughout the game the number of people who perceived the Assassins as the bad guys.  After all, you the player know that you are killing bad guys, but to the NPC townsfolk, these are the pillars of society.  At one point Ezio says to the jeering crowd something like, “you speak of things you know nothing about”.   This got me thinking that the Assassins may serve the light, but they are perceived as being dark.  Recently, I began to see this phrase in a new way.  I remembered that light can mean both goodness and enlightenment.  What if serving the light is the serve enlightenment?  What if it’s about serving The Enlightment?

WHAT IS ENLIGHTENMENT?

Five hundred years ago, Western Civilization was pretty rubbish.  Compared with the Chinese and Islam, Europeans were definitely in last place.  Then something changed.  Economic historian Professor Niall Ferguson set-out to discover how and why the West came to dominate the world in such a short span of time.  He concluded that a combination of six key factors tipped the scales for the West: competition, science, property rights, modern medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic.  All but one of these were born of the Scientific Revolution and The Enlightenment, the exception being competition which was endemic to a continent born of warring tribes.

The Scientific Revolution, from roughly 1543 to 1687, established in the common mind that the universe operated according to fixed principles rather than the whims of the gods.  Upon this foundation was built The Enlightenment which sought to apply reason and the scientific method to society and politics.  The result were concepts like human rights, the freedom to think, act, and believe as we choose, and the right to own property.  The ultimate expression of Enlightenment values is the United States Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution.

Today, we take these concepts for granted, however when we look at the big picture of the human experience across the globe for the past 50,000 years we find only an insignificant percentage of the human who have ever existed could even conceive of these notions.  Nonetheless, we want to see these values expressed in the historical fiction we produce.   The Assassin’s Creed series is no exception.  Here we have a secret society fighting to promote Enlightenment values millennia before the everyday person could accept them as being normal.  However, there is an ancient source for these particular values and it is possible to draw a straight line from it to the fictional Assassins.

MAN VS SOCIETY

Humans are small group animals.  This is an inescapable fact of nature and far too often ignored.  According to the Monkeysphere theory, our brains are only capable of recognising from 100-150 people as being unique people.  Everyone else is just “them”, NPCs, moving scenery who we de-humanise with labels and stereotypes.  If someone says that they are concerned about the poor, they are really saying that they are concerned about the poor as a general concept and may not really know any actual impoverished people as unique individuals.  This is not to criticise.  It’s just important to understand how things are.

This basic tribal mentality hardwired into our brains is further reinforced by 50,000 year of tribalism.  Even today, our caveman brains seek to fit in, be part of the crowd, identify with our idea of us as a people, race, or nation.  This is manifested in the current trend of identity politics, not to mention the multi-billion dollar industries built around the basic impulse to be fashionable among our peers in our tastes in entertainment and appearance.

The tribe can be a good place to be.  It provides security, safety, identity, purpose, and emotional support.  The ideal tribe is like the ideal family where the wise and caring father takes care of everyone.  For millennia, this ideal image has been translated from father, to chief, to king, to president.  We want a government of wise and caring leaders who will take care of us, the people.

Being part of a tribe requires each individual to put their selfish desires aside and to put the needs of the tribe first.  You need to join the group if you want the benefits.  As a result, tribal societies have no concept of individual identity to the same high degree that we in the modern West possess.  Considering this in the context of the 50,000-year history of human consciousness, our modern notions are a blip on the radar – a freakish abnormality.

The Templars in Assassin’s Creed recognise this fact.  They understand that humankind is hardwired to submit to the will of the tribe, to society, and that the ideal situation is for wise leaders to take control of society and shepherd it into a better world. The Templars see themselves as the wise leaders who will lead a populace yearning to be led. But it’s not that simple.  Humans are small group animals, but every person is possessed of a unique consciousness.  We are all individuals.  This is where the Assassins come into the story.

The Assassins ascribe the ideas of the Enlightenment.  That each person is an individual with his own mind with which to think and to make the life choices that he thinks will benefit himself.  With this choice comes the responsibility of consequence, be the results beneficial or negative.  “Nothing is true” reminds us to be critical thinkers and to challenge the accepted “truths” enforced by the tribal authorities of state, religion, and society.  “Everything is permitted” is both a liberation and a warning.  We are free to act, but our actions, and the actions of others, may or may not lead to a positive outcome – life has no safety rails.

Human are small groups animals with individual consciousness.  At one extreme, the individual receives all the benefits of being in the tribe, but at the cost of freedom.  At the other extreme, the individual is free, but alone and responsible.  The struggle is to maintain the balance of the two, but this is not possible when the degree of social participation ceases to be voluntary but is forced upon us.  The ideal society for the Assassins is one where the power of tribal authorities is held in check to allow people to have that balance.

FINDING THE SOURCE

In the real world, the Assassins were a Muslim sect operating in Iran and Syria during the Crusades.  The leap of faith from the games comes from stories where Hassan i Sabbah, the founder and leader of the order, would command followers to leap to their deaths to demonstrate their unquestioned obedience.  That sounds nothing like the anti-authoritarian Assassins from the game the series.  The fictional Assassins have a more fanciful origin story dating back to the dawn of time and the actual historical Assassins were re-interpreted to fit this fictional narrative.  It is true that the Assassin’s Creed is historically attributed to Hassan i Sabbah, but it does not seem consistent with the beliefs of a devout Muslim.  So what is the origin of the Creed, or at least the philosophy behind it?

In Assassin’s Creed Black Flag, the Assassin Mary Read asserts

Cultures and religions and languages keep folks divided, but there's something in the Assassins Creed that crosses all boundaries.  A fondness for life and liberty.                          

This reflects the Enlightenment idea that the values of the Enlightenment are based on rational principles and are therefore universal.  As Thomas Jefferson wrote: “We hold these truths to be self-evident…”.  Any rational being can discover these ideas if they choose.  Yet, in the course of human history they are rare finds with most folk falling back on the default tribal model.  However, there is a historic precedent dating back 3500 years which provides an interesting alternative theory for the origins of the Assassin’s enlightenment ideology.

This story begins with a man named Zarathustra.  No one really knows when Zarathustra lived, but the best guess in around 1000 BC, give or take a few centuries.  This is roughly the same period given for the Biblical kings, Saul, David, and Solomon.  No one really knows where he was from either.  Modern scholars tentatively place him in eastern Iran.  What is important is the influence he had on human history.

Zarathustra is more commonly known by the Greek version of his name Zoroaster and the religion he founded, Zoroastrianism.   To put the religion into context, it is basically the father of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam as the first monotheistic religion.  Concepts like the war between good and evil, the existence of angels, demons, and Satan himself, a day of judgement, and heaven and hell all come from Zoroastrianism.

Zarathustra taught that human consciousness was a unique gift from the one god, Ahura Mazda, the “wise lord”.  With this gift comes the individual responsibility to choose between good or evil.  This consciousness was bestowed upon all humans, regardless of race or gender.  In a time when women were property and marriage was a financial arrangement, Zoroastrians saw women as equals to men with equal responsibility to choose good. The Zoroastrian Creed is “Good thoughts, Good words, and Good deeds” implying that we must constantly be exercising our free will to choose good. 

Professor Kaikhosrov D. Irani, a retired Professor Emeritus of Philosophy from City College of New York, explains it like this:

"In the Zoroastrian doctrine, there are no specific prescriptions which state, "do this" or "don't do that." The individual is left to think it through.  The responsibility for what should be done rests with each individual.  The acceptance of this responsibility becomes a way of life.  The world is a moral reality and your way of life is good thoughts, good words, and good deeds."

This passage reminded me of Mary Read’s interpretation of the Creed in Black Flag, “it does not command us to act or submit - only to be wise.”

It is incredibly difficult for the modern mind to comprehend how revolutionary Zarathustra’s teachings were in 1000 BC.  It is like finding an iPhone buried under the pyramids.  Up until this point you were the tribe.  There was no I.  Now here comes a religion that places free will in the centre of its belief system.

Zoroastrianism would go on to become the dominate religion in Persia for the next 1700 years until the conquering armies of Islam gave their usual convert or die option.  Well, there was a third option.  Those refusing to convert could pay a special tax and be allowed to live without converting to Islam.  Over time the number of Zoroastrians dwindled and today only an estimated 200,000 remain.  Possibly the most famous modern Zoroastrian was Freddy Mercury, the lead singer of the band Queen.  For the Christians, the Persian word for a follower of Zarathustra was Magi.  The three wise men from the East who brought gifts to the baby Jesus were Zoroastrians, so thank Zarathustra for your Christmas presents.  And if you drive a Mazda, your car was named after Ahura Mazda.

Possibly the most important historical Zoroastrian was the Persian king Cyrus the Great (576 – 530 BC).  Cyrus has always been held in high regard throughout history.  In the Bible, he was the Persian king who allowed the captive Jews to return to Palestine and paid to have their temple rebuilt after the Babylonian captivity.  His cupbearer had been the Jewish scribe Ezra, who many scholars believe to have been the chief editor of what we have today as the Old Testament of the Bible.  The prophet Isaiah referred to Cyrus as “the anointed one”, or as the phrase is more commonly known, the messiah. 

The Greek historian Xenophon is most famous for his book, Cyropaedia, a mixture of fact and political theory centred around the life of Cyrus and a key resource for the American Founding Fathers, particularly Thomas Jefferson who owned many copies in several languages.

Today, Cyrus is most regarded for the Cyrus Cylinder.   After Cyrus conquered the Babylonian Empire he issued a decree to his newly conquered subjects in which he guarantees their right to worship as they please.  Among human right advocates, this is widely viewed as being the first great human rights documents.

Professor Irani refers to this period of Persian history as, “The First Enlightenment” with Zoroastrian philosophy as the centrepiece.  Both this First Enlightenment and The Enlightenment as we know it were based on the same principles.  As beings of individual consciousness we must be free to exercise and cultivate that consciousness regardless of social authorities.  This is the battle line between the Assassins and Templars, the individual and the tribe, Man and Society, and Classical Liberalism and Authoritarianism.

The role of Zoroastrianism in the ancient world is comparable to that of Christianity in 19th century Britain or 20th century United States as the primary religion of the greatest power of the day. With the coming of Islam, we see the enlightenment-oriented culture that the Zoroastrians had cultivated in Persia continue under the new religion to create the so-called Golden Age of Islam in science and learning. This would eventually spread through the Moors in Spain and Venetian traders returning from Istanbul to spark the Renaissance in Europe, followed by the Scientific Revolution, and then The Enlightenment.  These are the dots connecting the first and second Enlightenment.

However, there is a fundamental difference.  Although both Enlightenments reached the same destination, they did so from different routes.  For the Zoroastrians, the path was a religious one using reason, yes, but within the context of the supernatural.  This first form of enlightenment worked, but not as efficiently as version 2.0 which arrived through reason with any irrational justification. 

So there is an actual ancient precedent for the Enlightenment values expressed by the Assassins of the game.  Making the connection requires a bit of conjecture, as the game series never mentions Zarathustra, but there are some interesting parallels.  Whether by accident or design much of the symbolism of Assassin’s Creed reflects this First Enlightenment.  The following is not intended to be anything more than observations of interesting parallels between Zoroastrianism and the fictional Assassins found in the Ubisoft game series.

The Persian Connection

Zoroastrianism was founded in Persia where it was practiced as the primary religion for over a millennium until the Islamic conquest of Iran, but even then it took centuries for the full Islamification of Iran.  In 1056, four hundred years after the Muslim invasion, Hassan-i Sabbah was born in the scholarly Persian city of Qom.  He would go on to inhabit the mountain fortress of Alamut in Iran as the founder of the historic Assassins.

Meanwhile back in the 21^st Century, the games company Ubisoft was running their successful game series, The Prince of Persia.  They had intended to feature the Assassins in a sequel to Prince of Persia – The Sands of Time, however during development the Assassins took on a life of their own and it was decided to launch a new game completely separate from the Prince of Persia series.

The original Assassin’s Creed game was inspired by the book, Alamut by Vladimir Bartol.  He was a self-proclaimed Existentialist and may have been inspired by Friederich Nietzsche who made mention of the Assassin’s Creed in his book, On the Genealogy of Morals, and was himself a student of Persian history and culture.  Among Nietzsche’s most important works is Thus Spoke Zarathustra in which he creates a second Zarathustra who brings atheism where the real Zarathustra brought monotheism.

Within the Assassin’s Creed Universe, there once existed a highly advanced species called the Isu who genetically designed humans to serve as ignorant slaves.  Due to interbreeding with the Isu, some humans were born with individual consciousness.  These special humans led a revolt against their creators and were the first Assassins.  The centre of the conflict was the city of Eden, the source of our Garden of Eden myth.  In the garden, humanity achieves individual consciousness by rebelling against God by eating the forbidden fruit.  There are of course those who believe the Eden story was real, and one of the prime contenders for the location of Eden is an area outside the city of Tabriz in Iran. 

I find it interesting that ideologically through Zoroastrianism, historically through Hassan i Sabbah, and fictionally through the game development, it’s literary inspiration, and in the story itself, we can trace the Assassin’s origin to Persia.

Why White?

The original model designs for the Assassins depicted them wearing all white and concealing themselves with a hood.  Why white?  It’s not the best colour choice for sneaking about in dark or concealing blood spatter.  This white design remained with various characters in the series until Arno Dorian in AC Unity in 1789 and the Frye twins also abandoned the white garb in 1868.  This change may have more to do with decisions at Ubisoft since characters created earlier but inhabiting a later period in history, such as Nikolai Orelov in 1918, are still wearing white.

Many religions feature white clothes for special occasions or rituals, but not necessarily as standard dress.  Two religions stand-out.  The religious leaders of the Zoroastrians wear all white and in Islam men are encouraged to wear white regularly as their principle colour choice.  In both instances, white is symbolic of purity.

In the game series, the use of white may be intended to harken back to the historical Islamic inspiration for the game Assassins.  However, the first Assassins Creed game depicts the Assassins as being apart from the Islamic sects of the time which is contrary to the true history.  One might argue that the decision was to dress the Assassins so that they might disappear in a crowd of Muslims clothed in white, but why continue the convention into the 20^th century?  Perhaps the designers felt that they had established a theme in the first game and wanted to continue.  Who knows?  Personally, I like the Zoroastrian theory.  Here’s why.

The Fire of Enlightenment

Back in September 2013, I received a comment on one of my posts stating that the Assassin’s Creed symbol is derived from an earthen lamp called a diya.  I found it interesting and asked for evidence but received no reply.  I looked into it a bit deeper.  The diya is used in the festival of Diwali, the most important festival in the Hindu calendar.  I discovered that these earthen lamps are also used in the practice of Zoroastrianism, particularly among the Parsis of India.

Fire and light play a very important role in the practice of Zoroastrianism to such a degree that those ignorant of the religion assume them to be fire worshipers.  Without going into too much detail, suffice to say that the fire represents the force of creation, science, and wisdom.  In short, it means enlightenment.  Their places of worship are referred to as fire temples with prayers, hymns, and meditations being directed towards the flame.  The same is done in home worship through the use of oil lamps such as the diya.

The commenter directed me to a link illustrating the diya drawn from the front where a protruding lip is evident.  The oil fills the basin and a large wick rests on the lip.  Whether this theory is true or not, the resemblance is uncanny as illustrated below and seems to explain the separated lower portion of the symbol as the rim and lip of the lamp.

As I have written before, the word creed means both a belief and the symbolic representation of the belief.  So when asked, “what does that symbol you wear mean?” I can answer that it means “Nothing is true, everything is permitted.”  However, more and more I am content to say that it means enlightenment, particularly the Enlightenment values of wisdom and freedom demonstrated by the Assassins.

The Autodidact

It has been said that the only people who know the meaning of the word autodidact are autodidacts.  The word simply means self-taught and is used to describe people who became experts in a subject or field through their own pursuit of knowledge rather than through a formal education system.  As Mark Twain famously said “I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.”

This relates to the first half of the Creed as an invitation to critical thinking.  Nothing is true, so don’t believe everything you are told.  Think and discover for yourself.  This principle is behind calling the leaders of the Assassins “mentor”.  The role of the mentor is to aid in discovery and not to impose answers.  Ultimately, it is the responsibility of each individual to choose wisdom.  The Zoroastrians also employ the concept of “the mentor”.  Among the many titles given to Zarathustra, one is interpreted as “thought provoker” or mentor.  This has carried on into the modern day where the various degrees of religious leaders among the Zoroastrians act more as mentors rather than authoritarian priests or ministers.

Every person is a potential autodidact by virtue of having a mind.  Whether they choose to be one or merely accept the “truths” that they are given is also their choice.  The role of the mentor is to provoke thinking, to guide but not control the process, to inspire but not to impose.

The Paradox of Tolerance

The Assassins differ from the Zoroastrians in their chosen battlefield against the forces of evil.  Zarathustra taught that the two opposing forces of Asha (truth, order, justice) and Druj (falsehood, deceit) exist within each person and each person has a responsibility to choose truth over lies. In a larger sense, it is the choice between wisdom and enlightenment over ignorance and darkness.  For the Zoroastrians, there is no external evil to be fought but an internal conflict that all people must wage on a personal level.  This is very different from those religions that seek to fight and punish others whom they perceive as being evil. 

An Assassin would not deny this internal field of battle, but they go further by taking a proactive approach against those conditions that promote or encourage ignorance, such as slavery and bigotry. Their justification is expressed in a concept laid out by the philosopher Karl Popper called the Paradox of Tolerance.

"Unlimited tolerance must lead to the disappearance of tolerance. If we extend unlimited tolerance even to those who are intolerant, if we are not prepared to defend a tolerant society against the onslaught of the intolerant, then the tolerant will be destroyed, and tolerance with them." 

Many of the Templars are portrayed negatively in the game series, but there are a few good ones through whom we are shown the ideal Templar society.  Their ultimate goal is a collectivist system were wise paternal rulers control the thoughts and actions of the people so that each person can live peaceful and prosperous lives in blissful ignorance.  The Assassins see this as reducing people to the role of slaves or cattle.  Goodness must be chosen freely and not imposed on people with laws backed by force.

Like all do-gooders throughout history, the Templars have a plan for society and any opposition to that plan will not be tolerated.  For the Assassin’s, the only sin is a lack of tolerance for the rights of others to think and act as they choose.  So they will oppose any attempt to infringe on these rights regardless of the alleged morality of “the plan”.  They will not tolerate intolerance. 

In this context, intolerance is a denial of the rights of others to think and act as they please provided they cause no real and direct intentional harm.  The word tolerance means to endure something.  I am disgusted by the guy picking his nose in public, but I endure it because it’s a free country.  I am deeply offended by a comment on the internet, I may challenge him using reason, but I will fight for his right to be a dick.  That’s tolerance.

While both the Assassins and the Zoroastrians recognise the sanctity of individual consciousness and respect it, the Assassins take a proactive stance to actively protect and defend the conditions that allow for the expression of that consciousness against those who seek to manipulate and control it.

FAN FICTION

According to the game series, the Assassins have existed for millennia, since the time of the precursor city of Eden and the historical Assassins of Hassan i Sabbah were just one faction of the larger Assassin Order.  I would propose an addition which is basically just a bit of fan fiction.

I would suggest that the precursor city of Eden is in fact in Iran as some people claim, that Zarathustra was of a remnant from that city, and that the Assassins emerged as a break-away sect of Zoroastrians who sought to take a more proactive approach by protecting the Enlightenment values and using violent means if necessary.  Over time they dropped the religious aspects and became a wholly secular philosophical organisation, but retained some of the religious trappings.  It’s just a theory and a bit of fun.  I would love for Ubisoft to use this, but judging from the forthcoming Empire story, it looks as if they will take an Egyptian rather than a Persian route for an origin story.

In a sense, this entire article can be called a piece of fan non-fiction.  I was inspired to write it because it seems as though the Enlightenment values that we take for granted are gradually disappearing in a world where people give and take offense so easily with no respect for the minds of others; where people trust their feelings over reason and call anyone who disagrees with them stupid; where we seem to be allowing ourselves to be manipulated by elites burying us in propaganda that gets repeated by our friends as truth.  In the face of all this, I could think of only one response:

Where other men blindly follow the truth, remember,
Nothing is True.
Where other men are limited by morality or law, remember,
Everything is Permitted.
We work in the dark to serve the light.
We are Assassins. 

The Secrets of the Templars in Assassin’s Creed III

This article originally appeared on my Evil Thoughts of a Decadent Mind page on 3 April 2013.  You can view the original and the comments here.

When I saw the early trailers for Assassin’s Creed III there were chills, particularly the Rise trailer. For someone like myself who knows the historical, cultural, and philosophical backdrop for the series I expected this game to be a metaphoric call to arms challenging us – the players – the rise up to face the challenges of our own age. In this regard I was slightly disappointed when I played the game. The challenge was there, but it took a very different and more esoteric form than what I had expected.

What we have is not so much a call to arms but rather a revelation. This edition of the series might well have been called “The Rise of the Templars” for in no other storyline do we see the Templars so elevated and the Assassins so downplayed. So, for those who identify with the Assassins the narrative was more of an exposition into the lay of the land.

Within the Assassin’s Creed series there are hidden teachings. They are not hidden because of some diabolical plot. They are hidden simply because most discussion and judgement of games focus exclusively on matters related to general gameplay, such as the graphics or the combat system. The teachings are revealed the story, the characters, dialogue, and themes within the narrative and clearly visible to those familiar with the socio-political background, both historic and modern.

Perhaps teachings is too strong a word. I do not believe that the writers of the series, Corey May, Jefferey Yohalem, Joshua Rubin, and Danny Wallace, have consciously imbued their work with “teachings”, however in creating a series about two rival ideologies it is part of the nature of the beast that these ideologies are explored.

I must stress that when I use the terms “Templars” or “Assassins” I am not referring to any literal organisation, but rather ideologies as presented in the game in the form of these fictional secret societies. In real life, these ideologies are believed, expressed, and acted upon by many individuals who may or may not be part of some formal of organisation.

In Assassin’s Creed III we are given the clearest examples of the Templar ideology in any of the games. In fact, the representative for the Assassins, Connor Kenway, is constantly being derided by the Templars with no strong counter arguments like we saw from Ezio in previous games. Consider these three key quotes from the character Haytham Kenway, the Master Templar in Assassin’s Creed III.

The people never have the power, only the illusion of it. And here is the real secret: they don't want it. The responsibility is too great to bear. It's why they are so quick to fall in line as soon as someone else takes charge. They want to be told what to do. They yearn for it. Little wonder that, since all mankind was built to serve.

I see the world the way it is, not as I wish it would be.

 Even when your kind appears to triumph, still we rise again. And do you know why? It is because the Order is born of a realization. We require no creed. No indoctrination by desperate old men. All we need is that the world be as it is.

Compare these words with those of Shadia Drury, in Leo Strauss and the American Right (1999), she argues that Leo Strauss taught that the "perpetual deception of the citizens by those in power is critical because they need to be led, and they need strong rulers to tell them what's good for them."

Leo Strauss was a professor of political science at the University of Chicago from 1949-1969 and has since become a shadowy but pivotal figure in modern global politics as the “father of neo-conservatism”. Professor Harvey Mansfield, a Straussian philosopher at Harvard University, summed up Strauss’ message for the BBC documentary, The Power of Nightmares (2004).

“He did want to have a school of students to get others to see what he had seen, that Western liberalism led to nihilism. [It] had undergone a development that at the end of which it could no longer define itself or defend itself. A development which took everything praiseworthy and admirable out of human beings and made us think to the dwarf animals, lead us into herd animals, sick little dwarves satisfied with the dangerous life in which nothing is true and everything is permitted.”

The use of the word “liberalism” in the above quote seems to refer to classical liberalism, or what today we might call libertarianism, as opposed to the liberal socialism currently associated with the word liberal.

The story of Connor begins with him being duped. The ancient known as Juno appears to Connor as a “spirit” and sets him on his path with the purpose to prevent the Templars from gaining premature access to her temple, however the quest is presented in such a way that in Connor’s mind he is avenging his mother’s death and protecting his village. In the end he succeeds in protecting the temple, but discovers that the Templars were not responsible for his mother’s death and the Americans that he aided do eventually drive his people from their village, so he failed to achieve what he wanted even though he succeeded in his role as Juno’s pawn.

This is reminiscent of an idea of Leo Strauss. Basically, the he sees society divided into three groups. There are the wise that accept reality as it is in all of its cold brutality and yet do not flinch. The next group are the gentlemen, these are people of belief and honour who are willing to fight and die for their beliefs. The third are the vulgar masses driven by their animalistic desires for self-indulgence and consumerism. Society must be ruled by the covert manipulations of the wise upon the gentlemen to control the vulgar masses.

Juno, who is arguably representative of the Templar ideology, is the wise manipulating the naïve idealism of Connor, the noble gentleman. To put it into a modern context, Drury uses the example of the “wise” Paul Wolfowitz manipulating the “gentleman” George W. Bush into the Iraq War.

The examples above point to the American neoconservatives of the right-wing Republican Party to be analogous to the Templars. This can be supported by a thinly veiled reference to the modern anti-capitalist protestors. As Benjamin Church dies he tells Connor, “Are these the same men and women who fight with muskets forged from British steel? Who bind their wounds with bandages sewn by British hands? How convenient for them. We do the work. They reap the rewards”. This criticism is reminiscent of those levelled against the occupy protestors fighting against the very corporate institutions that provide the iPhones in their hands, their Levis, and the McDonalds they eat.

It is easy to see the Templars as corporatists or Republicans and the Assassins as their liberal opposition, but that is narrow thinking. If we imagine the Templars as presented in the game, then no doubt they would hedge their bets and play both sides. Church goes on to say,

“It's all a matter of perspective. There is no single path through life that's right and fair and does no harm. Do you truly think the Crown has no cause? No right to feel betrayed? You should know better than this, dedicated as you are to fighting Templars - who themselves see their work as just. Think on that the next time you insist your work alone befits the greater good. Your enemy would beg to differ - and would not be without cause.”

What Church is suggesting is the very simple adage that there are two sides to every story, but the implications are incredibly complex. He is describing a context in which no path is without a potential victim and every alleged villain sees himself as an angel fighting evil for the greater good. Connor answers with the weak retort, “Your words may have been sincere, but that does not make them true.”

The answer to Church is not whether someone is morally in the right, either in fact or according to their intensions. The questions are how far they are willing to go to force their will on others and what the natural consequences of their actions are. Connor should have known this, but he was ill-prepared.

When the time came for Connor to become full-fledged Assassin, Achilles decided to forego the ritual. Looking back, we are reminded of this vow taken by the initiate:

Assassin: "Where other men blindly follow the truth, remember..."

Initiate: "Nothing is true."

Assassin: "Where other men are limited by morality or law, remember..."

Initiate: "Everything is permitted."

Assassin: "We work in the dark to serve the light. We are Assassins."

Questions of right and wrong in the conventional sense are merely social constructs and therefore simply the products of many minds in unison. None of it is true. What is true are the consequences of actions. What we see in the traditional right vs. left paradigm are two moral sides operating on the same principles. There is not much in action and consequence to separate the likes of Leo Strauss from his liberal counterparts, like Saul Alinsky and Carroll Quigley. The essential philosophy is the same. People must be controlled, manipulated, and lied to for the greater good as interpreted by the “wise”.

Carroll Quigley was a history professor at Georgetown University and a mentor to President Bill Clinton. In his book, Tragedy and Hope, Quigley writes:

The argument of two parties should represent opposed ideas and policies, one perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to doctrinate and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can “throw the rascals out” at any election without leading to any profound or extensive shifts in policy. The policies that are vital and necessary for America are no longer subjects of significant disagreement, but are disputable only in details of procedure, priority, or method.” (1966)

No matter if you choose the path to the left or the right the final destination is the same. Think of it like “good cop/bad cop”. The “Right” is portrayed in a largely negative context in the media, whereas the “Left” in a positive light as those desirous to help people through social programs and welfare. One is the stick and the other the carrot, but the destination is still the corral.

Consider the post-911 world. Avoiding all the conspiracy theories surrounding that incident, the fact is that under the presidency of George W. Bush we saw a huge consolidation of power to the executive office and numerous civil rights losses, both foreign and domestic, particularly under the Patriot Act. The world was outraged; however these policies have been continued and expanded upon under Barack Obama, most notably with the passage of National Defence Authorization Act 2012 which allows for the indefinite detention of American citizens without due process of law and the murder of US citizens on American soil without trial. The only difference between the policies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama are how they are packaged. Where Bush outraged the world as the evil rich, white Republican, popular opinion readily swallowed the same medicine from the caring, black Democrat. But the outcome is the same.

Looking back at Haytham’s statement: “All we need is that the world be as it is. “ It is the natural flow of power to consolidate. The goal of the Templars is to be the ones to whom the power flows, whereas the goal of the Assassins is the dissemination of power from the few to the many.

On the surface, popular opinion is all for the Assassin’s way of things, but in practice this is not the case. As Ezio says in Revelation, “To say that everything is permitted is to understand that we are the architects of our actions and that we must live with our consequences, whether glorious or tragic.” What he is talking about here is the responsibility that comes with power. Power is the means by which people work their will in the world and with these actions come consequences; with freedom comes responsibility. When we take responsibility and consequence from people, they lose their freedom.

In Assassin’s Creed III, the Templars seek to purchase the tribal lands of Connor’s people in order to preserve it from encroachment and thereby protect the Mohawk there. On the surface this looks like a positive act. If Connor went along with it, he would have succeeded in saving his people. However, the Templars wanted to preserve the land not to protect the Indians, but rather to have free access to the temple site and they were more than happy to allow the natives to remain provided they did not interfere.

When William Johnson tried to convince the tribal elders of the Templars’ humanitarian goals, they rejected him citing the idea of personal responsibility. If you want to project us, then give us the means to protect ourselves. When someone seeks to do for you they have taken power from you. You become like a child. Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; give him a fish everyday and he becomes your slave.

So when Haytham Kenway reveals the secret that the people do not want power because “The responsibility is too great to bear” this is the principle that he is evoking. If leaders provide the people with bread and circuses (sustain their lives and entertain them), then the people will naturally obey because they do not want to lose their benefits or accept the responsibility that comes with freedom. The state will see to your child’s education, provide benefits when you are unemployed, look after you in your old age, and provide medical care for you. You don’t have to worry about a thing, so you can now focus on reproduction, entertainment, and consumption. All that they ask for in return is your obedience and your taxes.

I have read some reviews of Assassins Creed III in which people seem very disappointed in Connor as a character, whereas his father, the Templar Haytham Kenway is amazingly popular. We see the Assassins through the eyes of the Templars as naïve fools fighting for a world that can never be. As General Pitcairn on his deathbed says to Connor, “You wield your blade like a man, but your mouth like a child”. Likewise, Thomas Hickey mocks Connor for chasing butterflies, ideals that can never be realised. We are also given examples of Assassins who turned to the Templars: Haytham Kenway, Lucy Stillman, and Daniel Cross. At the end of the story our hero, Desmond Miles, chooses the way of Juno and the Templars rather than the path of the Assassins as represented by Minerva. Even Achilles seeks to dissuade Connor from becoming an Assassin. Assuming Connor to be a boy with full knowledge of what he is asking of him, Achilles says, “Oh you might dream of being a hero. Of riding to rescues, of saving the world, but stay this course and the only thing you're gonna be is dead. The world's moved on boy. Best you did too.”

Death, pain, hardship, loss, and public disdain are recurring themes throughout the series. Haytham Kenway recognises that it is the creed that sees the Assassins through the painful life they choose as outcasts and rebels destined to be alone. He rejects the creed as the indoctrination of old men and since many assassins are born into the order one might rightly call the creed an indoctrination of their children. This is a life rejected by Benjamin Tallmadge whose father was an Assassin, but he chose a different life so that he could have a family outside the order. The same can be said of Desmond who was born and raised in the order but ran from it. We are given more examples of people born into the Assassins than we are of those who chose it, whereas all the Templars join as adults.

It can be said that the modern world was born during the Renaissance, but it not come into full maturity until the beginning of the Romantic Era in 1776. The picture presented of the Assassins is one where the Templars embraced the Modern and evolved new strategies to exploit it, but the Assassins are still bound to medieval notions that simply no longer apply.

During the Middle Ages the Templars sought to control people through brute force and during the Renaissance through the force of religion. Both Altair and Ezio were capable of responding on these terms. However, during the modern era the Templars discovered the value of cultivating the illusion of freedom in order to create a plantation of free range humans managed by the Templars. This is something the Assassins are ill-equipped to confront, and we see this in the cynicism of Achilles and the naiveté of Connor.

One might easily see Assassin’s Creed III not as a call to arms but as a revelation of the world as it is. The message is that people by nature value security more than they value freedom. This means that they will willingly submit to any authority capable of providing it. The Templars recognise this fact, so rather than being simply cruel authoritarians according to the stereotype, they are looking to help people by providing security not only from physical threats but also natural ones, like the need for food, shelter, clothing, and medical attention. On the surface this may seem like benevolence, but consider that of the so-called 1% controlling the bulk of America’s wealth, roughly 43% of them live in the counties surrounding Washington DC. The Templars and their cronies are getting rich at the expense of everyone else, nonetheless as long as people feel secure, in every sense of the word, they will accept and even defend the current status.

An important often over-looked point concerning the American Revolution is best exemplified by the Boston Tea Party. Due to changes in the East India Company the price of tea in Boston had never been cheaper, even with the new tax. The people of New England paid far less for tea than the people of Old England. What people miss is that the tea party was not about the amount of tax. The issue was the tax itself as a matter of principle.

The same can be said of arguments against slavery. The average slave was well cared for with food, shelter, clothing, entertainment, and even spending money provided. The issue was not whether the slaves were cared for. It was the principle that no human being should be owned as property.

To put this is a modern context, when people engage in an activity that either national or local government does not approve they seek to ban it in the name of the public health. This was first tried with cigarettes in which a fine, a penalty for usage, was built into the cost of the product and wrongly called “a tax”. Many people supported this because they either did not smoke so the fine did not affect them or they were smokers who knew they should not be smoking anyway. But these health concerns were irrelevant. The principle being established was the power of government to regulate, ban, or fine any legal activity it chooses. Now we see governments placing similar fines on gasoline, trans fats, and even banning large sized sodas in New York City.

Why protest a tea tax when tea has never been cheaper? Why protest slavery when Southern slaves have a better standard of living than Northern factory workers? Why protest fines posing as taxes when I don’t smoke? Because there should be no taxation without representation, because owning another human being is wrong, and because government should not have the power to regulate our consumption. It’s a matter of principle.

Until society as a whole comes to rediscover the concept that principle is more important than immediate benefit, there seems to be no end to this Templar plantation. However, the writers of the game provide two courses of action for the Assassins in response to this subtle form of Templar control.

The first is the way of Minerva. “Let it burn”. This idea in a modern context is that as the system becomes more unstable it begins moving towards its inevitable collapse which is constantly being predicted either through environmental, economic, or social means. Minerva tells us to prepare for it and let it happen so that new life may emerge from the ashes.

The second course of action is somewhat similar and provided in a more subtle form through the example of the Homestead. For readers of Ayn Rand, this may be called “Going Galt”. For survivalists, it’s called “living off the grid”. It involves separating yourself from the Templar plantation, denying their “free stuff”, and living in a community where power is dispersed with each member contributing their time, energy, and skill to others to tend to their mutual needs for food, shelter, clothing, education, medical care, and protection from outsiders.

It seems very likely that this is the final word on the subject. How does the game series end? The Templars win and Assassins Creed III shows us how they won despite the initial victory of principle in the American Revolution. Fast forward two hundred years and the Templars are the mega-corporation called Abstergo and the Assassins are scurrying around like rats in a cave grossly outmanned and out-gunned both militarily and economically.

In a recent interview, Ashraf Ismail, the director of the forthcoming Assassin’s Creed IV, described Assassin’s Creed III as depicting an attempt at democracy that succeeded whereas Assassin’s Creed IV will depicts an attempt that failed.

In many ways it is true that the American Revolution heralded a new era in freedom and the path of the Romantic Era from 1776-1929 has people in a constant movement towards greater freedom, this includes economic freedom for the individual to freeing literal slaves both in America and worldwide. It can be easily said from a Nineteenth Century perspective that the Assassins achieved their goals. Hooray, now we can all go home.

However, from a Twenty-first Century perspective we have seen in the previous century an unprecedented consolidation of power from the individual to the central government, and now local governments can bravely ban anything that a select group decides the people should not have. It seems petty, but it is the principle of the thing.

The Templar secret is just as it is spelled out by Haytham Kenway. People want the freedom to act as they choose, but they do not want the responsibility that comes with the power to act, so they satisfy themselves with the illusions of power, and therefore the illusion of freedom, and look for someone to tell them what to do.

Does that sound crazy? I recently watched a marketing lecture in which a discovery was disclosed. When you ask people what kind of coffee they prefer, the most common answer is dark rich coffee, however when you provide them with various samples to taste and rank the truth is that most Americans prefer weak milky coffee, but who will admit to that?

To those of us conditioned to the ideals of democracy and freedom it may seem absurd to suggest that people do not really want freedom, just as it is absurd to suggest that people prefer weak and milky coffee over a dark roast. The proof of what people are like is expressed in what they choose to do or not do and not in what they say they would do. Historical incidences of people rising up to fight for their freedom are extremely rare in the big picture despite the levels of hardship they endured. Of the few uprisings that succeeded, most quickly fell into another form of authoritarianism. The American War of Independence is more of an exception than a rule and even then only a third of the population supported it.

The Templars accept the world as it is and require no creed.  The Assassins however realise that without a creed, a code of beliefs to discipline oneself to, that our natures would drag us down into complacency and we will accept the unacceptable as “just the way things are”.  As Wendell Phillips said in a speech addressing the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in 1853:

Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty—power is ever stealing from the many to the few…. The hand entrusted with power becomes … the necessary enemy of the people. Only by continual oversight can the democrat in office be prevented from hardening into a despot: only by unintermitted Agitation can a people be kept sufficiently awake to principle not to let liberty be smothered in material prosperity.

Assassins Creed resonates because we all know who the real-life Templars are. They may not be as obvious and extreme as presented in the game, but on some level we know that there are powerful people in government and commerce consolidating their power. When people lose the power to choose and to act on their choices, then they have lost their freedom. Who are the true Assassins? They are the outcasts who resist these powers.