Secondly: Political Authority — From Domination to Service

Political authority, throughout the history of the state, has never been a neutral or purely technical concept. It has always been a mirror reflecting how those in power perceive the human being. Where the human is viewed as a potential threat, authority is built upon domination, control, and surveillance. Where the human is regarded as a value and an end in itself, authority is re-formulated as a function in the service of society, not an instrument of control over it.

The transition from an authority of domination to an authority of service is not merely a change in governing style, but a radical shift in the very logic of power. Domination presupposes a structural mistrust of society, operates through the logic of command and obedience, and continuously requires the production of fear in order to sustain itself. Authority as service, by contrast, is founded on mutual trust and on the idea that political power is not exercised against the human being, but for their sake—within limits imposed by respect for dignity and rights.

In the model of domination, politics is reduced to the management of organized violence; institutions become mere instruments of execution; the ruler merges with the state; and accountability disappears under the pretexts of sovereignty, security, or exception. In the model of service, however, authority is understood as a conditional, temporary, and revocable mandate. Institutions become spaces of mutual regulation rather than arms of top-down domination.

The philosophy of Human First redefines authority from its very foundations. It does not regard political power as an inherent right of the ruler, but as a heavy responsibility that acquires legitimacy only to the extent that it is exercised in the service of human beings. Any authority that does not alleviate people’s suffering, protect their freedoms, or safeguard their dignity loses its ethical meaning, even if it retains all legal and security instruments of control.

Thus, the central question is no longer: How does authority rule?
But rather: Why does it rule? And for whom does it exercise its power?

Authority that is not measured by its capacity to serve the human being inevitably turns—regardless of the language it employs—into yet another form of domination. Authority that makes service to humanity the criterion of its existence is the only authority capable of transforming itself from a historical burden into an ethical necessity, and from an instrument of coercion into a horizon of meaning.

Accordingly, this axis does not seek to embellish or justify authority, but to subject it to a strict philosophical standard:
Authority is justified only insofar as it serves the human being, and it collapses ethically the moment it becomes an end in itself.

1. A Critique of the Traditional Concept of Authority

In the traditional political model, authority is understood as a privilege that is seized, inherited, or monopolized, rather than as an ethical relationship with society. It is defined as the right to control the public sphere, to possess final decision-making power, to monopolize the means of legitimate violence, and to impose obedience as a condition of stability. This conception, shaped over centuries of authoritarian rule, has not been neutral in its consequences. It has produced a specific type of state and, in parallel, a specific type of human being.

Within this model, the state treats society as material to be controlled rather than as a partner to be heard. Every demand for rights is read as a threat; every difference is interpreted as a security flaw; and every critique is classified as a danger to the “prestige of the state.” Thus emerges a state fearful of its society, because its legitimacy is founded not on consent but on control, and a society fearful of its state, because authority appears only in moments of coercion, not in moments of service.

When authority is reduced to control, it loses its ethical dimension and turns from a political function into a prize to be fought over. Governance is no longer exercised as a responsibility toward human beings, but as a capacity for coercion, for distributing privileges, and for reproducing loyalties. In this context, the guiding question is no longer: How do we serve society? but rather: How do we preserve power? How do we neutralize or domesticate society?

The philosophy of Human First dismantles this conception at its roots. It does not see authority as a natural right of the ruler, nor as the outcome of an absolute mandate, but as a conditional ethical assignment, acquired only insofar as it is exercised in the service of the human being. Authority, from this perspective, is not the property of those who wield it, but a temporary trust, withdrawn the moment it becomes an instrument of domination or humiliation.

Accordingly, authority is re-defined as responsibility rather than privilege, as obligation rather than spoils. It is responsibility before the human being before it is power over them, and responsibility before the law before it is the capacity to transcend it. Authority that is not accountable cannot be just. Authority that is not constrained can only slide toward despotism, regardless of how noble its declared intentions may be.

Within this framework, authority is not exercised in the name of itself or in the name of an “abstract state,” but in the name of the human being, who is both the source and the purpose of legitimacy. Political decisions are not justified by their executive force, but by the extent to which they serve human beings. Violence, even in cases of extreme necessity, is legitimized only as a last resort and under strict legal and ethical oversight, not as a routine instrument of governance.

Subjecting authority to the law does not mean merely respecting legal texts, but respecting the spirit of justice that makes law a means of protecting the human being rather than an instrument of subjugation. When law is tailored to fit authority, it turns from a safeguard into a constraint on society. When authority submits to the law, it acknowledges its limits and abandons claims of infallibility or moral monopoly over truth.

Thus, the philosophy of Human First does not aim to abolish authority or weaken the state, but to re-establish both on a different foundation: authority strong through service, not through violence; a state stable through legitimacy, not through the fear of its citizens. Power that is not restrained by responsibility becomes tyranny; power exercised within a clear ethical horizon is the only power capable of producing a viable and enduring state.

The critique of the traditional concept of authority is therefore not a theoretical exercise, but a primary condition for any political project that seeks to build a state that does not fear its people, and in which people do not fear their state.

2. The Caring State Instead of the Repressive State

When the human being is restored to the center of governance, the state no longer appears as an entity transcending society, nor as a coercive apparatus imposing itself by force. It becomes a caring framework that organizes shared life and protects its human conditions. In the philosophy of Human First, the state is not the opposite of freedom, but its organizational condition; not the enemy of rights, but their institutional guarantor.

In the model of the repressive state, authority is built on a hostile assumption toward society. Security is prioritized over rights, order over justice, obedience over participation. State institutions thus become instruments of control, politics is reduced to the management of fear, and stability is redefined as the absence of dissent rather than the presence of justice. The caring state, by contrast, proceeds from the opposite assumption: the human being is not a threat to be neutralized, but a value to be protected and a partner to be empowered.

A caring state does not mean a weak or lax state, but a state strong through its legitimacy rather than its violence. Strength here is not measured by the state’s capacity to repress, but by its ability to enforce rights without discrimination, administer justice without selectivity, and protect freedoms without diminution. A state that protects freedom of expression does not lose its authority; it establishes it. A state that guarantees judicial independence does not constrain itself; it protects itself from deviation.

In this context, the function of the state shifts from control to care, and from coercion to mediation. It is not an absolute master imposing its will from above, but a social mediator that regulates the balance between conflicting interests and prevents conflict from turning into violence. The caring state does not eliminate plurality, but manages it within fair legal frameworks; it does not confiscate difference, but transforms it into a source of political dynamism rather than a security threat.

Guaranteeing rights in a caring state is not an act of benevolence, but a constitutional and ethical obligation. Rights are not granted according to loyalty, nor withdrawn according to political mood; they are respected as limits that authority may not transgress. Justice is not administered as a political instrument, but as an existential condition for trust between state and society. Freedoms are not a danger to the state, but a measure of its maturity.

True legitimacy, therefore, is not produced by force, no matter how intense, but built through accumulated trust. Trust cannot be imposed; it is earned when the human being feels that the state works for them rather than against them, protects them rather than surveils them, listens to them rather than suspects them. Where trust is absent, coerced obedience prevails; where trust is present, compliance becomes a conscious act rather than a fearful response.

The caring state does not demand blind loyalty from its citizens, but conscious participation. It does not seek to subjugate society, but to organize its freedom. In this, the most difficult equation in the philosophy of governance is realized: a strong state without despotism, effective authority without repression, and stable order without sacrificing the human being.

Thus, the transition from the repressive state to the caring state is not a technical or administrative shift, but a transformation in meaning: from a state that views the human being as a burden to be controlled, to a state that recognizes the human being as its highest purpose and the primary condition of its legitimacy.

Third: Social Justice — The Backbone of the Human-Centered State

A philosophy of governance that places the human being at its center cannot be complete unless it is translated into tangible justice in living conditions, real balance in the distribution of opportunities, and safeguards that protect individuals from falling into marginalization. Social justice is not a secondary item in the project of the human-centered state, nor a cosmetic ethical addition; it is the backbone upon which the legitimacy and sustainability of the state rest.

A state that protects political rights yet ignores poverty, or guarantees formal freedoms while allowing degrading social inequality, produces a human being stripped of dignity—no matter how democratic its institutions may appear on the surface. Hunger, deprivation, and the absence of opportunity are not merely economic issues; they are structural forms of invisible violence that undermine the meaning of citizenship from within and transform freedom into a class privilege rather than a universal human right.

In the philosophy of Human First, social justice is understood as the material condition of political ethics. There can be no talk of human dignity amid extreme inequality, nor of genuine political participation in a society where wealth and opportunities are monopolized by a few. Justice here does not mean rigid, arithmetic equality, but the removal of structural barriers that prevent individuals from realizing themselves and the guarantee of a dignified minimum standard of living that precedes any discourse on duties or obedience.

Social justice is what gives the state its daily human substance. It makes the state present in people’s lives as a support rather than a burden, a protector rather than a bystander. Without it, the state becomes an empty legal entity, possessing nothing but the language of texts, while social trust erodes and frustration turns into fuel for anger, violence, and division.

Accordingly, this axis does not address social justice as a mere welfare policy, but as a philosophical foundation of human governance. Justice is not a later outcome of growth or stability; it is their primary condition. A state that does not place social justice at the core of its policies—regardless of its power or rhetoric—remains a fragile state, sustained by temporary balances rather than by a living social contract.

Thus, the question of social justice becomes the question of the state itself: Is the state managed to protect the accumulation of privileges, or to guarantee the dignity of all? Is the human being viewed as a number in market equations, or as a subject with an inherent right to a dignified life?

In this sense, social justice is not merely a public policy, but a decisive ethical criterion that determines whether the state is truly human-centered, or merely an authority that administers society without belonging to it.

1. Justice, Not Security: Reversing the Political Equation

In authoritarian states, the concept of “security” is invoked as the grand pretext that justifies all forms of violation. In its name, rights are suspended, freedoms restricted, differences silenced, and politics redefined as a danger to be neutralized rather than a public sphere to be organized. Security, in this model, is not understood as the protection of people’s lives, but as the protection of the existing order—even at the expense of the human being itself.

Such an understanding does not produce genuine security, but rather accumulates structural fragility. Security built on injustice is nothing more than temporary stability, founded on fear rather than reassurance, on silence rather than consent. It is a security prone to explosion at the first fracture, because it does not address the roots of tension but merely conceals them beneath layers of repression. When it collapses, it does not do so quietly, but with multiplied violence, as deferred grievances return all at once.

By contrast, a state that places the human being first proceeds from a radically inverted equation:
No security without justice.

Justice is not the opposite of security; it is its deep condition. A society whose members feel wronged cannot be secure, no matter how many checkpoints exist or how vast the coercive apparatus grows. True security does not arise from control, but from a general sense of fairness; not from silencing voices, but from people’s feeling that their voices are heard, their rights protected, and the law applied without selectivity.

Justice in this context is not reduced to formal equality before rigid legal texts, nor to suspended constitutional rhetoric, nor to vague political promises. Justice that does not touch social reality remains illusory, increasing frustration rather than alleviating it. True justice is that which translates into fair distribution of opportunities, real equality in access to resources, and institutional protection for vulnerable groups—who are always the first victims of “security first” policies.

When individuals are deprived of work, education, healthcare, or dignified housing, talk of security becomes a veiled threat. When citizens feel that the law protects them only insofar as they are close to power, national belonging becomes fragile, easily shattered by extremist or violent narratives. Social injustice thus becomes not merely an ethical problem, but a genuine security risk, because it erodes the trust upon which social peace depends.

A state that makes justice the foundation of its policies does not weaken its security; it fortifies it. A person who feels treated fairly does not need repression to comply, nor fear to obey. Justice produces a citizen who is a partner rather than an adversary, and a cohesive society rather than a frightened mass. In doing so, it transforms security from a coercive apparatus into a general social condition that emerges from within rather than being imposed from without.

Therefore, reversing the equation from “security first” to “justice first” is not an intellectual luxury, but an existential condition for the human-centered state. A state that prioritizes security over justice condemns itself to a permanent state of emergency; a state that grounds its security in justice is the only one capable of producing long-term stability based on trust rather than weapons.

2. The Human Being and the Economy: From Exploitation to Dignity

In the human-centered state, the economy is not understood as an end in itself, nor as the measure of state success or superiority, but as an instrument in the service of human life. An economy detached from the human being quickly turns into a system of depletion, regardless of how high growth figures rise or how prosperous macro-indicators appear. No economic prosperity has value if it is built on the erosion of dignity, the expansion of poverty, and the deepening of social inequality.

In authoritarian or predatory neoliberal economic models, the human being is reduced to a factor of production: a worker measured by productivity rather than by the right to a dignified life; a consumer whose desires are managed rather than whose needs are met; a number in market equations rather than a human subject with limits and rights. Work thus shifts from a means of self-realization to a form of economic coercion, and need becomes a soft weapon for subjugating human beings without overt violence.

The philosophy of Human First overturns this equation at its core. It does not ask: How do we serve the market? but rather: How does the economy serve the human being? Wealth is not seen as a political goal, but as a social responsibility. Accumulation that produces wider poverty is not success; growth that deepens class divides is not progress; and an economy that turns the human being into a commodity—selling their labor, exhausting their life, and consuming their health—is not an economy at all, but a disguised form of structural violence.

Economic dignity is not a luxury, but an ethical condition of social justice. A person without a minimum level of material security cannot be truly free, regardless of how many political rights exist on paper. When people are forced to choose between survival and silence, freedom becomes an empty slogan, and political participation a privilege of elites rather than a universal right.

In the human-centered state, work is redefined as a right rather than a favor, and as a means of dignity rather than an instrument of exploitation. Resources are redistributed to ensure equal opportunity, not to entrench privilege. The market is not left to rule unchecked, nor are its “laws” sanctified as if they were natural destiny; instead, it is subjected to standards of justice, oversight, and social responsibility. An economy left without human constraints does not produce freedom, but inequality; it does not generate efficiency, but exclusion.

A state that places the human being first does not oppose growth, but rejects blind growth. It does not reject investment, but refuses investment at the expense of human dignity. It recognizes that wealth not redistributed justly becomes a source of instability, and that poverty is not an individual failure, but the result of political and economic choices. Social policies—from labor protection to healthcare guarantees to public education—thus become integral to the philosophy of governance, not a burden on the economy.

An economy that serves life is one that recognizes human limits, the right to security, and the need for meaning in work beyond wages. A life exhausted in the service of the economy, by contrast, is a life emptied of dignity, no matter how productive it appears. For this reason, the philosophy of Human First does not propose a technical economic model as much as it proposes a strict ethical criterion:
Any economy that does not preserve human dignity is a failed economy, and any wealth that does not translate into justice is deferred violence.

Thus, the economic question is no longer merely a matter of figures and ratios, but a question of the state itself: Is the state administered to protect the accumulation of wealth, or to guarantee human dignity? Is the human being viewed as fuel for growth, or as the ultimate purpose of every economic policy?

Fourth: The Diverse Human Being and the Inclusive State

The human-centered state is not founded on the denial of diversity, nor on melting human beings into a single mold, but on a profound recognition of plurality as an existential fact rather than a political threat. The human being, before being a citizen, is a diverse entity in language, culture, religion, identity, and historical experience. Any state that ignores this reality, or seeks to suppress it in the name of unity, security, or a single identity, builds its unity on exclusion rather than integration.

In authoritarian state models, diversity is viewed as a danger that must be contained or dismantled. A central identity is imposed, the culture of the dominant group is sanctified, and other identities are marginalized under the pretexts of national harmony or political stability. In this way, the state shifts from being an inclusive framework to an instrument of cultural domination, and belonging becomes conditional upon self-denial rather than mutual recognition.

By contrast, the inclusive state, within the philosophy of Human First, proceeds from an opposing principle: diversity is not the negation of unity, but its deepest condition. Unity imposed by force is fragile, liable to fracture at the first crisis. Unity built on recognition, justice, and equality, however, is durable, because it does not require individuals to abandon themselves in order to belong.

The inclusive state does not settle for superficial tolerance; it establishes equal citizenship that recognizes difference without turning it into either privilege or stigma. It neither rewards one identity at the expense of another nor criminalizes sub-identities, but regulates their presence in the public sphere within a just legal framework. In doing so, the state transforms from an apparatus of forced assimilation into a space that guarantees free coexistence among the different.

Recognition of diversity is not merely a cultural matter, but a question of political justice. When a language is marginalized, a culture excluded, or a group’s belonging questioned because of its identity, the state does not merely fail ethically; it undermines the foundations of social stability. Exclusion generates alienation, alienation produces conflict, and conflict, when managed through force, turns into long-term violence.

In the inclusive state, national belonging is redefined as a civic contract rather than a bond of blood, religion, or a single language. The individual belongs because they are recognized, not because they have dissolved into a dominant identity. Citizenship thus shifts from an abstract slogan to a daily practice grounded in equality of rights and duties and in equal protection before the law.

Accordingly, this axis does not treat diversity as a “sensitive file,” but as a decisive test of the state’s humanity. A state that accommodates diversity and regulates it justly proves its political and moral maturity. A state that fears the differences of its citizens is one that doubts itself before doubting its society.

From this perspective, the inclusive state becomes the only framework capable of transforming diversity from a source of conflict into a source of richness, and from a political burden into a creative social energy. In doing so, it not only protects the diverse human being, but also safeguards the state itself from disintegration by building unity on recognition rather than coercion.

1. Recognition Instead of Denial

A state that places the human being first is founded on a fundamental principle: plurality is not a flaw in the political entity, but an anthropological condition of its existence. The human being is diverse in language, culture, religious and national affiliation, and collective history. Any state built on the denial of this fact does not produce unity, but establishes deferred violence, because denial is the first form of political violence—even before material repression.

Denial does not merely mean ignoring diversity; it means transforming it into something illegitimate, or into a threat that must be silenced. Thus, a single official identity is imposed, and other identities are excluded from the public sphere—not always through force, but through legislation, curricula, political discourse, and the redefinition of “nationalism” as forced conformity rather than free belonging. In such a context, the individual is not asked to belong, but to relinquish the self in order to be accepted.

By contrast, the human-centered state proceeds from an explicit recognition of diversity as a reality that precedes the state rather than being produced by it. Identity is not granted by decree, annulled by decision, or measured by proximity to the center of power. Recognition here is not mere moral tolerance, but a foundational political stance that redefines the relationship between state and society on the basis of equality rather than domination.

Recognition of diversity does not contradict state unity; it protects it. Unity built on denial is fragile because it demands silence instead of participation, obedience instead of conviction. Voluntary unity, on the other hand, is the fruit of mutual recognition, where every individual and group feels that their existence is acknowledged and that their belonging is not questioned because of language, belief, or origin.

For this reason, the human-centered state rejects the logic of oppressive majoritarianism—the logic that turns democracy into an instrument of numerical domination and justifies crushing minority rights in the name of the “will of the people.” In the human-centered state, the majority does not possess the right to erase the other, because fundamental rights are not subject to voting, and dignity is not measured by numbers.

Equality among citizens does not mean erasing difference; it means protecting difference within a just legal framework. When the law functions as an instrument of recognition, it regulates diversity rather than repressing it, transforming it from a source of conflict into an element of stability. When the law is used to deny diversity, it becomes an official mask for symbolic violence.

Accordingly, the human-centered state does not build its unity through coercion, assimilation, or intimidation, but through a voluntary civic contract based on mutual recognition, equal citizenship, and respect for diverse identities. Unity that cannot accommodate diversity is not unity, but imposed silence; and a state that fears the differences of its citizens doubts its own humanity before doubting its people.

2. Citizenship Instead of Forced Identity

In a state that places the human being first, the individual is not required to abandon the self in order to belong to the political entity; rather, the state is required to expand so as to accommodate its citizens as they are, not as power wishes them to be. Citizenship, in this model, is not an instrument of forced assimilation nor a test of cultural, religious, or national loyalty, but an inclusive civic framework that organizes shared life on the basis of equal rights and duties.

In models of forced identity, a single image of the “good citizen” is imposed, and belonging is measured by conformity to an official identity produced and enforced by power through education, media, and legislation. Belonging thus shifts from a voluntary relationship to submission, citizenship becomes compliance rather than participation, and the human being is reduced to a single definition that erases plurality and personal history.

In the philosophy of Human First, citizenship is understood as an ethical contractual relationship before being a legal status. It is a relationship of mutual recognition: the state recognizes the human being as a full citizen with equal rights, and the human being recognizes the state as a legitimate framework of belonging. Citizenship is thus built not on blind loyalty, but on trust; not on silent obedience, but on conscious participation.

Here, citizenship is neither submission to the will of authority nor forced fusion into a single identity, but a space in which differences meet on the basis of equality before the law, while each retains cultural, religious, and linguistic specificity. The state does not demand that its citizens become alike, but that they be equal in rights and responsible in duties.

Separating citizenship from forced identity is a fundamental condition for building an inclusive state. When rights are tied to a particular identity, the state becomes an instrument of exclusion, the law turns selective, and citizenship loses its unifying meaning. When citizenship is founded on a civic basis, however, the state protects diversity rather than fearing it, and transforms difference into a source of richness rather than suspicion.

Thus, a state that accommodates its citizens does not weaken itself, but fortifies itself. A citizen who feels that belonging is not conditional upon self-denial is more willing to defend the state, participate in its affairs, and bear its responsibilities. A state that imposes a single identity, by contrast, produces silent or alienated citizens, not active partners.

In this sense, citizenship in the human-centered state is not an instrument of forced integration, but a framework of recognition; not a means of control, but a relationship of trust. It is the foundation that allows the state to be genuinely inclusive, rather than merely an authority that administers diversity without recognizing it.

3. Diversity as Political Wealth, Not a Security Threat

In authoritarian states, diversity is redefined not as a social reality, but as a “security problem.” Ethnic, religious, or cultural difference is reduced to a potential threat to be monitored, controlled, and managed through coercive prevention. Within this framework, the different individual is not viewed as a full citizen, but as a potential risk or an “exceptional case” requiring constant suspicion.

This securitization of diversity is not innocent; it is one of the most effective forms of political domination. When diversity is securitized rather than recognized, politics is suspended in favor of security institutions, the public sphere is emptied of debate, and the state is reduced to an apparatus of surveillance. Security thus becomes a pretext for abolishing the political meaning of difference rather than protecting it.

By contrast, the human-centered state proceeds from a radically different assumption: diversity is not a threat to the state, but a political and moral resource when managed within a just legal framework. Diverse societies, when recognized and respected, possess greater capacities for adaptation, creativity, and the circulation of meaning, because they are not built on a single voice or a closed narrative.

In this view, diversity is not merely a plurality of identities, but a plurality of perspectives, historical experiences, and social sensibilities that enrich the public sphere and prevent its stagnation. A state that allows multiple narratives does not lose its unity; it liberates that unity from symbolic monopoly and prevents national identity from becoming an instrument of exclusion.

Treating diversity as political wealth requires transferring difference from the security domain to the political and legal domain—that is, managing it through dialogue and institutions rather than surveillance and intimidation, and containing it within the constitution and law rather than security files. True security is not achieved by silencing plurality, but by making it part of the social contract.

Viewing diversity as political wealth also redefines stability itself. Stability based on repression is a fragile stillness that collapses at the first crisis. Stability based on recognition, by contrast, is a dynamic stability capable of absorbing tensions without explosion, because it rests on a general sense of justice and belonging.

Accordingly, the human-centered state does not ask: How do we control diversity?
but rather: How do we protect and organize it without reducing or securitizing it?

In this sense, diversity ceases to be a burden on the state and becomes one of the sources of its moral legitimacy and a proof of its ability to transform from an authority that fears its society into a state that trusts its citizens and builds unity not against difference, but through it.

Fifth: The State as a Historical Moral Test

The state is not merely an administrative apparatus for managing populations, nor a legal system for regulating relations, nor a sovereign force that monopolizes violence in the name of legitimacy. In its deepest essence, the state is an open moral test across history: a test of the ability of power to remain humane, and of society’s capacity to produce a form of governance that does not ultimately turn against it.

Every state that is established poses—explicitly or implicitly—a decisive moral question:
Was it created to protect the human being, or to control them?
Has it become a framework for meaning, or a machine for administering fear?

History does not judge states by the number of their laws or the strength of their armies, but by what they leave behind in human lives:
Did they expand the horizon of dignity, or accumulate forms of humiliation?
Did they protect the vulnerable, or manufacture vulnerability?

A state that places the human being first does not automatically pass this test; it confronts it daily. Moral legitimacy is not a fixed condition, but a continuous practice—one that can be built and lost. Every small deviation from human centrality marks the beginning of a fracture in meaning, even if the system appears outwardly coherent and stable.

From this perspective, the state becomes a responsible historical act rather than a neutral entity. Power is transformed from a privilege into a moral burden. Governance, in its deepest definition, becomes a stance toward the human being before it is a political decision.

In this chapter, we do not discuss the state as “what it is,” but as “what it ought to be.” We read history not as an archive of victories, but as a long moral record, one that clearly reveals that states which failed this test—no matter how long they endured—collapsed not when they were overthrown, but when they lost their meaning.

1. The Failure of the State When It Forgets the Human Being

The state does not fail when its institutions collapse, nor when it is militarily defeated, nor even when it is shaken by economic crises. It fails—at its deepest level—when it forgets the human being as its primary purpose. At that moment, the state begins to transform from a framework for shared life into an apparatus of domination, from a political idea into a moral burden, and from a promise of protection into a source of threat.

Every state that sanctified the leader did so not because it was strong, but because it was empty of meaning. The cult of the individual is not evidence of cohesion, but a sign of fear: fear of society, fear of criticism, and fear of the free human being. When the leader is elevated to the status of a sacred symbol, politics as dialogue is abolished, reason as a right is annulled, the homeland is reduced to an image, and the people to a chant.

When the state subjugates society instead of serving it, it inverts its historical function. Society is not a danger to be controlled, but the very source of legitimacy. Yet authoritarian states perceive diversity as a threat, criticism as treason, and independent organization as conspiracy. Thus, instruments of governance turn into tools of surveillance, law becomes a pretext, and security shifts from protecting people to protecting the regime from the people.

When the individual is erased, the state loses its soul entirely. The individual is not a secondary detail in the political equation, but its fundamental moral unit. A state that dissolves individuals into rigid collectives, reduces them to imposed identities, or demands obedience instead of participation does not produce citizens, but subjects. Subjects do not carry a state; they merely endure it temporarily, until it fractures.

At the height of this deviation, politics is replaced by security. Rights are suspended in the name of stability, difference is suppressed in the name of unity, and violence is justified in the name of prevention. Yet security built on fear cannot endure, because it does not address causes; it merely conceals them. No matter how solid it appears, it remains fragile—prone to explosion at the first social, economic, or moral rupture.

History confirms this truth without exception:
States that turned their backs on the human being were not defeated suddenly; they eroded slowly.
Their failure began when power detached itself from meaning, when governance became a technique of control rather than a human relationship, and when the state turned into an end in itself.

Power, when it becomes the sole means of survival, consumes itself. Every system that can only endure through coercion requires ever more coercion. Every additional act of coercion generates resistance. Every resistance invites greater violence. Thus, the state enters a vicious cycle that ends only in collapse, civil war, or the reproduction of tragedy in new forms.

A state governed against the human being may live long, but it does not endure. It may rule by force, but it does not persuade. It may impose silence, but it does not create meaning. Therefore, the failure of the state is not merely a political event, but a moral collapse before it is a historical one. When the human being is forgotten, the state loses its reason for existence and becomes—regardless of its claims to grandeur—a soulless entity awaiting the moment of its exposure.

2. Human First as a Horizon, Not a Ready-Made Formula

The philosophy of Human First is not a ready-made administrative blueprint, nor a manual for governance, nor a technical model that can be replicated from one state to another. In its essence, it is an open moral horizon, a permanent direction, and a critical compass that continually reposes the fundamental question:
For whom is power exercised? Why? And within what limits?

In this sense, the philosophy does not offer final answers; it rejects the very idea of final answers. It is grounded in productive doubt rather than closed certainty, and in continuous revision rather than rigid doctrines. A state that places the human being first does not claim perfection; it acknowledges the possibility of error and makes this acknowledgment a condition of good governance.

Human First is a permanent critical standard, not a seasonal slogan. It is a principle that interrogates power before granting it legitimacy and places it under moral scrutiny even when it operates within the law. Law, in this horizon, is not sacred in itself, but is measured by the extent to which it serves human dignity. Any law that produces injustice—no matter how precise its formulation—loses its moral legitimacy.

This principle also reviews laws not only in terms of efficiency, but in terms of their impact on the living human being:
Do they protect the weak?
Do they restrain the excesses of the powerful?
Do they open space for participation?
Or do they accumulate privileges and legalize exclusion?

Moreover, this philosophy exposes authoritarianism even when it disguises itself in the language of the state, cloaks itself in electoral legitimacy, or adorns itself with the discourse of security and stability. Authoritarianism, from this perspective, is not measured solely by the number of detainees, but by the extent to which the public sphere is suffocated, by the depth of silent fear, and by the individual’s ability to say “no” without paying for their very existence.

Most importantly, the philosophy of Human First prevents the state from turning into an idol. The state, no matter how grand, is not an entity above human beings, nor a value transcending society, but a historical instrument for serving shared life. The more it is stripped of sanctity, the more humane it becomes; the more it is fortified by critique, the more legitimate it grows; and the more it is bound to meaning, the more it is liberated from violence.

This philosophy refuses to reduce politics to administration, governance to control, or success to mere survival. It holds that the true measure of progress is not the longevity of the regime, but the quality of life it enables; not the strength of the state, but the limits placed upon that strength.

Thus, Human First is not a destination, but a path. Not a final solution, but a permanent test for every authority, every law, and every state—a test that is not passed once and for all, but repeated every day, as long as the human being remains at the center of meaning rather than on its margins.

Conclusion

The state is not an inevitable destiny, nor a natural entity born outside human will. It is a historical and moral choice before it is a legal structure or an administrative apparatus. It is the outcome of a particular vision of the human being: either it is built as an extension of human dignity and freedom, or it turns into a machine for management, control, and subjugation. Accordingly, governance is not reduced to technical efficiency or mastery of domination; it is measured, first and foremost, by the stance it takes toward the human being itself.

This study has sought to return politics to its original question and to dismantle the assumptions that have transformed the state into an end in itself, authority into a supreme value, and security into an all-encompassing justification. When the human being is displaced from the center of meaning, the state becomes a cold structure, laws turn into instruments of coercion, and legitimacy degrades into mere discourse that justifies power. When the human being is restored to their natural place as both origin and purpose, the state recovers its meaning, authority regains its limits, and law its spirit.

The philosophy of Human First does not claim political purity, nor does it promise rapid salvation. Instead, it advances an inescapable standard: there is no legitimacy for a power that humiliates the human being, no stability for a state governed against its society, and no future for a rule that accumulates fear rather than trust. A state that fails to produce free citizens cannot generate sustainable security; a state that fears its diversity condemns its unity to fragility; and a state that prioritizes survival over justice merely postpones its own explosion.

The study has demonstrated that social justice is not a moral luxury, but a structural condition for stability, and that recognizing diversity is not a threat to sovereignty, but the foundation of a voluntary and durable unity. It has also shown that when authority is freed from the illusion of domination and redefined as service and responsibility, it shifts from a source of fear to a source of trust, and from an instrument of repression to a space for participation.

Above all, within this horizon, the state is not measured by the strength of its institutions or the longevity of its regimes, but by its capacity to pass the historical moral test:
Has it preserved human dignity?
Has it respected the existential limits of the human being?
Has it opened horizons of meaning rather than closing them?

History, ultimately, does not record the names of states that ruled the longest, but the fates of those that understood the human being—or profoundly misunderstood them. It does not spare states that forgot their original question, nor does it forgive authorities that believed governance to be an end in itself.

From this perspective, it can be said that a state that begins with the human being does not end with them alone, but is saved through them. It is a state that understands that its survival is contingent upon its meaning, and that this meaning can be derived only from the free, dignified, diverse human being—one who is capable of seeing the state as an extension of their will, rather than a sword suspended over their existence.

That is the true wager of governance:
Either a state built with the human being and for their sake,
or a state built over them—only to fall, no matter how long it endures.