This is a view voiced by Joxer Daly at the start of Sean O’Casey’s play, ‘Juno and the Paycock’. I’ve been asked why I wrote ‘The Prophet of the New Millennium’. In a nutshell, because I entirely agree with Joxer.

 We’re no longer living in a world of a Communist/ Capitalist divide, no longer (in any meaningful sense) in one of a left/ right divide. The biggest division, globally, is between the governors and the governed; and that is a rift which now seems to be so enormous that the one would appear to have absolutely nothing to do with the other.

I have friends to the right of Genghis Khan and others to the left of Mao. Both poles agree that we are facing the greatest crisis of man’s history. Both also agree that nothing is being done about it. Or, rather, what is being done is so entirely inadequate as to be derisory.

There is a plethora of factors behind that situation – none of them too honourable. But one of the main reasons, in my opinion, is that there are no principles governing our conduct – or that of our ‘governors’ – which would impel action to be taken.

Principles are today eschewed as being archaic and irrelevant. And, of course, many of the Church-based principles are exactly that. But the fact that certain of the apple-trees are no longer bearing fruit does not mean we need to raze the whole orchard. And it most certainly does not mean that the idea of an apple-tree is a bad one.

Joxer Daly’s right: we are in a terrible state of chassis. A terrible, terrible state of chassis – and a terrifying one. (‘Chassis’, for those who do not know O’Casey’s work, is Daly’s rendering of the word ‘chaos’.)

Why did I write ‘The Prophet of the New Millennium’? Because we need somehow to pull ourselves out of this “chassis”. Because the motor that will drive the winch to haul us out is that of principles. And because it is only we who can find those principles and that winch.

Maybe yesterday’s principles do belong to yesterday. And maybe one of the reasons for that is because so many of such principles were imposed. True principles, sound principles, weatherproof and enduring principles cannot be imposed: They do not come from without, but within. True principles stem from the question, not the answer; and from the search, not the discovery. And it will be true principles, not sham ones (and certainly not spun ones) that will provide the future today’s lack of principles seems so determined to destroy.

My book certainly does not seek to define those principles for you. And neither can I find your principles for you, nor would I seek to. Apart from a host of other reasons, because, as such, these would then also become imposed principles. Your principles, if they are worthy of the name, have to be just that: your principles.

‘The Prophet of the New Millennium’ is sub-titled ‘A Search for Principles in an Unprincipled Age’. It is intended to help the quest. It cannot replace it. It is intended to supply some of the questions and to prompt considerably more. The answers, if they come, are yours alone.

Why did I write it?
 Finally, because I love my daughter and want her protected.
 It is by us all finding our principles that she can be.
I want the daughters of my friends protected, and their sons, likewise the children of my neighbours.
 It is only by us all finding our principles that they can be.
 I want your sons and daughters protected – and theirs.
 It is, yes, by us all finding our principles that they will be.
 Why did I write ‘The Prophet of the New Millennium’?
So that Joxer Daly’s great, great grandson could start a play with the words: “The world was in a terrible state of chassis.”

‘The Prophet of the New Millennium’ is the first book of the ‘Millennium Trilogy’. The second, ‘‘The God of the New Millennium’’, was published in March 2008. This is sub-titled: A search for balance in an age of spin’. The third, ‘Man of the New Millennium’, will be published some time in 2009. (If I ever finish writing it!) It is sub-titled ‘A search for us in an age of me’. There are extracts from both these books elsewhere on these web-sites