Unitarianism

Andrea d'Arcole (left) and the Emperor Flavian (right) are considered the progenitors of unitarianism.

Unitarianism (from Anisoran unità and unitario, "unit" and "unitary") is a religio-political system or form of government that advocates the organisation of the state into a cohesive unit designed to fulfil an ultimate unitary purpose - normally national survival or in the Orkanan tradition the fulfilment of Vind's Master Plan. The ideology is characterised by dictatorial, authoritarian power, normally vested in a monarch, together with the strong regimentation of society and the economy, and overt adherence to the sectarian Orkanan doctrine of 'Total Fulfilment' - the completion of the Master Plan. Unitarians, also known as Arcolists, believe that society must be reorganised under a single ruler to form a cohesive 'unit' capable of defending and propagating the unitary purpose of effort - the ultimate raison d'être of society. Unitarians believe that all other considerations should be subordinated to the unitary purpose.

Unitarianism as a concept was developed by the Anisoran ideologue Andrea d'Arcole in the 7490s and came to fruition after the outbreak of the Pan-Anarian War under the patronage of the regime of the Anisoran Emperor Flavian between 7505-18. The form of unitariansim developed under the Flavian regime is known as 'classical unitarianism', also sometimes called 'Anisoran unitarianism'. It was influenced heavily by the militant tendencies of Peratolian Orkanan, of which unitarianism is arguably the purest and final form, and the fact that many in Anisora viewed the war against Izhaic Anat Tahan as an eternal, existential struggle for the survival of Orkanan civilisation against Izhaic domination.

The principal purpose of classical unitarian societies is the mobilisation of humanity towards the fulfilment of the Master Plan. As such, unitarianism is often considered the most extreme and complete form of Orkanism, although many Orkanan theologians consider unitarianism to be inherently misguided and argue that Orkanan morals are entirely abscent from the authoritarian system advocated by unitarianism. Supporters of the system, however, argue that unitarianism is in fact the ultimate embodiment of the Orkanan communal culture - with every person contributing towards the unitary purpose as one unit.

As the concept was developed and primarily practised during the fifty-year Pan-Anarian War, concepts of militarism, existential struggle, religious destiny, and sectarian strife remain central to the tenets of unitarianism today. Unitarianism is ultimately rooted in how and why a society mobilises to defend itself, and is thus often equated to certain forms of militarism or even described as a military strategy. Unitarians advocate the total mobilisation of society for the defence and propagation of society's interests, conventionally determined by the divinely guided leader or clergy.

Today, a number of nations either self-identify or are designated as unitarian by political scientists, including the modern nation states of Aedeland and Anisora.

History

75th century origins

The 75th century was a period of considerable intellectual and ideological experimentation and advancement in Anaria and across Gotha. The foundations of the Decemberist Revolution in Helreich and other Häverist movements across the continent, as well as the wider Revolutions of 7473, reflected mounting desire for political and economic change.

However,in Ansisora, the social and political grievances that led to political reform after the Decretist movement and other political movements during the 7470s precipitated growing disquiet amongst certain reactionary and conservative factions. The expansion of suffrage and other political concessions, including a dilution of the Emperor's powers and the empowerment of the Chamber of Deputies, led to some factions within the military, imperial bureaucracy and the Orkanan stifts decrying the growing secularisation of Anisoran society. Much of the 75th century had been dominated by the religio-imperialist conflicts fought between the Anisoran Empire and Anat Tahan in Anaria Minor.

Tenets

The unitary purpose

The unitary purpose (Anisoran: intento unitario) is the raison d'être of a unitarian society. For unitarians it is at once the reason why society must form a cohesive unit (i.e. adopt the unitarian organisation of society) and the reason for humanity's existence in the first place.

The Master Plan is not only the purpose of our national struggle; it is the reason for the existence of humanity.

Flavian, Emperor of the Anisorans, in a speech before the Battle of Danarak, 7511

In classical unitarianism the unitary purpose is the fulfilment of the Master Plan - the plan which, according to interventionist Orkanans, Vind has for the universe. In more fundamentalist Orkanan traditions, including Mellanhand and Peratolian Orkanan, the Master Plan can only be fulfilled if all on Gotha are contributing towards it. Unitarians thus take a radical approach to the Master Plan, arguing that society must be reorganised and its energies channelled towards the unitary purpose of the fulfilment of the Master Plan. According to unitarians, unless society's energies are marshalled fully, the unitary purpose can never be fulfilled. Expansionism and proselytising are furthermore features of unitarianism, seen as principal means of contributing towards the unitary purpose.

Unitarians, and Peratolian Orkanans more generally, believe that the enemies of Orkanan society, most notably the Izhaic Tahani and the Wolgos during the Pan-Anarian War, are agents trying to prevent the fulfilment of Vind's Master Plan, whether they know it or not. This leads to the second but often synonymous definition of the unitary purpose - national survival. For unitarians, the preservation of the nation is largely synonymous with the fulfilment of the Master Plan, for if Orkanan states cannot defend Orkanan civilisation, the Master Plan will fail to progress, or even regress. Unitarianism therefore has a nationalistic tendency that equates the survival of Orkanan civilisation with that of the state.

Political power and the 'unità'

Unitarianism promotes the establishment of a unitary society - known as a 'unità' (Hallish: unit') - centred around the fulfilment of the unitary purpose. The unit is a highly regimented system that vests supreme authority and political and religious power in the monarch - the divinely chosen leader of the nation by right of inheritance. In the Orkanan tradition, secular and religious power is heavily intertwined and as a result a monarch is conventionally considered to have natural abilities in interpreting and judging contributions to the Master Plan. The monarch in a unitarian system chooses the path a society takes and how resources are marshalled to achieve the unitary purpose - for they are the ultimate interpreter of the Master Plan.

Andrea d'Arcole, in his Principles of Unitarianism, justified this political structure by citing the precedent of the Greater Stoldavic Empire and the autocratic leadership of the Stoldavian Emperors - indeed, the Anisoran Emperor Flavian used the imagery of the Stoldavian Emperors, especially that of Prince Råger of Mellanhand, throughout his reign.

The unità (unit) is the ultimate vehicle of human activity and is the purest embodiment of Orkanan communalism, according to unitarians. The strength of the unitary system is that it enables all Orkanans to channel their individual contributions to the Master Plan into a single, united effort that can accomplish infinitely more than the sum of its parts. According to Andrea d'Arcole, the principle architect of unitarianism:

The unitarian state can be nothing but the totality of human political and religious experience.
Outside of the unit, beyond the reach of the divinely guided hand of the monarch, no terrestrial
or spiritual value can exist - for all efforts of physical and spiritual toil find sole meaning as part
of a communal application to the Master Plan. There can be no other vehicle for human activity
outside of that advocated by unitarianism - for there is no other purpose to humanity beyond
the fulfilment of the Master Plan.

Andrea d'Arcole, Principles of Unitarianism, p.10

Unitarianism opposes liberalism and democracy, rejecting multi-party systems as inherently destabilising that only encourage disunity. Many unitarians consider parliamentarianism and multi-party systems vehicles of the Anti-Plan, designed purely to stall the progress of the Master Plan and prevent the establishment of the unità.

Economy

Unitarian economics advocates state control over all sectors of the domestic economy. Centralised economic planning was viewed as a necessity to ensure all outputs of economic activity be marshalled effectively and unwaveringly towards the unitary purpose, allowing for indirect contributions to be made to ensure the robustness of the economy as a whole. Contrary to what some critics have described as Häverist-esque anti-capitalism, the classical unitarian economic model encourages private profit as a means of motivating private investment in the state's endeavours - although unitarians maintain that corporate and private taxation should remain high, especially during wartime.

Some economists have argued that the emphasis unitarianism places upon maximising a nation's economic output can be seen as an influence of Häverist economics. Andrea d'Arcole was influenced by emerging Häverist thought in his youth, a product perhaps of wider economic interest prevalent across Anaria during the late 75th century in nullifying waste and maximising the resources that were available to the state. While d'Arcole and unitarians reject Häverist economic principles as unworkable, arguing emphatically that monetary concepts of wealth creation were the best way of providing the state with the means to fulfil the unitary purpose, the influence of Häverism on unitarian economics has been acknowledged by numerous scholars.

Economic self-sufficiency, autarky, is a central goal of unitarian societies, for the state must be able to work towards the unitary purpose without relying upon external markets and factors which it cannot influence or control. Conquest and economic exploitation of occupied territories was seen as a short-term solution to a unitarian economy's needs, although sustainable autarky remains the ultimate goal. Colonial expansion was and is viewed by many unitarians as an effective means of extracting the resources, both human and natural, required to advance the unitary purpose and as a means of establishing imperial autarky.

Warfare

Such is the importance placed on war and warfare in classical unitarianism given the Pan-Anarian War context in which it was practised, unitarianism has been described by some theorists as merely a military strategy employed by the Anisoran state during the early War. While this somewhat overlooks the religious and political underpinnings of the ideology, it nevetheless emphasises the centrality of warfare to the movement. In its purest form, unitarianism advocated a totalistic approach to the prosecution of warfare, which demanded the total mobilisation of manpower and resources to fuel the war effort. However, many unitarian historians and critics argue that true mobilisation was not even attempted by the Anisoran regime of Flavian during the early-mid War period, given the constraints and the realities of the time.

A society must unite under the unitary purpose of survival, or else be destroyed.

Andrea d'Arcole, Principles of Unitarianism, p.59

The progenitor of unitarianism, Andrea d'Arcole, argued that in a world of mass transit, airships and totalising religious ideologies, societies must mobilise in their entirety if they have any hope of survival. During the fifty-year Pan-Anarian War, many would have agreed given the all-encompassing nature of the conflict. In contrast, other critics have argued that the total mobilisation of society advocated by unitarianism was and is, in fact, a self-fulfilling prophecy, given the reciprocal nature of violence and warfare - and thus pointlessly destructive and unnecessary.

Classical unitarianism demanded that the entire society contribute in some form to the ultimate unitary purpose - which during the Pan-Anarian War meant national and religious survival against the Izhaic enemies to the west.

The inscrutable will

'The inscrutable will' is an Orkanan religious concept that argues that the will of Vind, and the ultimate purpose and direction of the Master Plan, is ultimately inscrutable. In order to contribute to the Master Plan, therefore, one must decipher its meaning and purpose through the manifestations of Vind on Gotha. Traditional Orkanan doctrine maintains that this manifestation is primarily through nature, but other branches, such as Peratolian Orkanan, argue it manifests in all aspects of Orkanan and human society - including warfare.

Victory, obtained by any means noble or foul, is the will of Mighty Vind.

Andrea d'Arcole, Principles of Unitarianism, p.198

Unitarians believe that since the divine will is ultimately inscrutable and can only be deciphered and interpreted indirectly, the Master Plan is by definition anything that happens on Gotha that promotes Orkanan values. Every political, moral or practical policy or action that benefits Orkanan society in some form is inherently and unavoidably a contribution to the Master Plan. In unitarian conceptions of warfare, this ultimately means that 'might is right'. Crucially, this also means that military doctrine need not be restrained by any sense of moderation, whether for humanitarian, ethical or any other reason - for victory, attained by any means, is ultimately Vind's will and a means of contributing to the Master Plan.

This concept justified the use of numerous horrific methods of warfighting during the Pan-Anarian War, which contributed to the Tahani Front (also known as the Western Front) gaining a reputation as the bloodiest front of the war where Wolgos weren't fighting. Poison gas, the shelling and bombing of civilians, torture, and poisoning of food and water supplies were all employed by the Anisorans during the conflict under the 'inscrutable will' military doctrine. Many argue that the Anisoran willingness to use such tactics during the war was the cause of the proliferation of cruelty and wanton violence that characterised the Pan-Anarian War. Unitarians argue, rather, that is was Wolgos and Tahani savagery and the threat they posed to the survival of Orkanan civilisation that made it necessary to employ such methods.

Types of unitarianism

Classical unitarianism

Classical unitarianism, also known as Anisoran unitarianism, is the default form of unitarianism as formulated by Andrea d'Arcole under the patronage of the Flavian regime during the first two decades of the 76th century. The concept had its origins in the 7490s during d'Arcole's early writings and the influence they exerted on the young Prince Flavian when he was Grand Prince of Pastana. Classical unitarianism is characterised as the de facto Anisoran state ideology between 7505-18 after Flavian removed control of the war effort from civilian politicians and formulated his militarist government along unitarian principles.

Secular unitarianism

Numerous ideologues and theorists have sought to decouple unitarianism from its Orkanist routes, seeking to reformulate the ideology to fulfil a purely secular set of purposes. Secular unitarianism, as it is generally known, does not necessarily see the leader as needing to be a monarch (as the Orkanist tradition maintains) and sees the unitary purpose of society being the survival of the state - normally in the context of armed conflict, but also sometimes in the context of cultural, ethnic, or linguistic survival during peacetime.

See also

• Orkanism
• Peratolian Orkanan
• Andrea d'Arcole
• Flavian of Anisora
• Pan-Anarian War