tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-51948002024-03-13T08:51:34.256-04:00painting and thinkingby laodanlaodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.comBlogger454125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-44374918128847076952023-12-23T15:00:00.032-05:002023-12-23T21:42:58.479-05:00New edition of "Concepts and synthesis"<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFMUDjDJWAO9lZLLWHBkv4bPPdrlyfryHs_Ky4-RFma_w8hc_GIUfsuECYTEtvZrFpW7Pf45fdpBfMqNldZ-hAKT_6hHIuiPOgtWcmtZGyLzj7_CaBPHVgTKE38YqkrzcbckqDgp85Lsmo_x146G2OlfEWJuvG0F5KUwGl6qa-1r3kOoVxt2sh/s1200/204-B1-41.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; padding-right: 15px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFMUDjDJWAO9lZLLWHBkv4bPPdrlyfryHs_Ky4-RFma_w8hc_GIUfsuECYTEtvZrFpW7Pf45fdpBfMqNldZ-hAKT_6hHIuiPOgtWcmtZGyLzj7_CaBPHVgTKE38YqkrzcbckqDgp85Lsmo_x146G2OlfEWJuvG0F5KUwGl6qa-1r3kOoVxt2sh/s320/204-B1-41.jpg" width="320" /></a>
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I just uploaded the new edition of <i>"Concepts and synthesis"</i>, the Volume 0 of the series about <i><span style="font-family: inherit;">"The transition from Western-Modernity to After-Modernity"</span></i>. It is now available on my website.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/archcreaBooks.html">Click here to download</a></div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf524XjGXGhQLXJX-jxUefcCYOaX2tmnLltPp8GoYVFW2RJNVMVkuHlExifwO3RyxPltSo2EfY3WoAUZlEMcZNTHx9rUzR6d-XOxshtDhhQ03h4YcHiBtUwv-8x9TlEBpiCfXZsaqHV8oMCm8Mptmj6PkQtuMx5N3tY_w5M3Ht0mcBjoNCe5xm/s750/Synthesis.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="500" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf524XjGXGhQLXJX-jxUefcCYOaX2tmnLltPp8GoYVFW2RJNVMVkuHlExifwO3RyxPltSo2EfY3WoAUZlEMcZNTHx9rUzR6d-XOxshtDhhQ03h4YcHiBtUwv-8x9TlEBpiCfXZsaqHV8oMCm8Mptmj6PkQtuMx5N3tY_w5M3Ht0mcBjoNCe5xm/s320/Synthesis.jpg" width="213" /></a></div><br /><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />
<h2>Here follows the foreword<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJfW86eer2q85uAAcHMwOYGNWXcJVRgEhTlgmdIbwO6jIjpJBaG3n3OHXto1r7dQAeZ6O-j5PKdVWunAZAX-7kMg076AwYV42K7zduxENBM9mXlPRNicELPFIuIESajOvCgL9bHiRJpcYiR3J7cIWkKwq1nbEHxsgyJzoPBrsTxiRoQIQqAGG4/s1200/204-D1-42.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-left: 15px; margin-top: 10px;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJfW86eer2q85uAAcHMwOYGNWXcJVRgEhTlgmdIbwO6jIjpJBaG3n3OHXto1r7dQAeZ6O-j5PKdVWunAZAX-7kMg076AwYV42K7zduxENBM9mXlPRNicELPFIuIESajOvCgL9bHiRJpcYiR3J7cIWkKwq1nbEHxsgyJzoPBrsTxiRoQIQqAGG4/s320/204-D1-42.jpg" width="320" /></a><br /></h2>The series, titled “The transition from Western-Modernity to After-Modernity”, was first published in the form of blog posts over the span of 5 consecutive winters from 2012 to 2017. I formatted these posts into book form over the years 2017 and 2018. Once fully formatted I left the material simmer in my subconscious and immersed myself in digital variations, of my “grand project” series of paintings. Some of these variations illustrate this series. By December 2020 I was ready to terminate the editing of the first volume1.
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Writing was not customary to me. I only started writing, at the age of 50, to answer the questions that popped up in my mind while painting. Over the previous two decades, I had let my brush wander freely, but I was constantly confronted with questions like "what is the function of visual signs?", "what is art?".
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In a text from 2004, I concluded that superficial answers, about the form of visual signs, did not answer the essence of these questions. But being unable to find reference points in daily-culture, or in what remained of traditional historical worldviews, I concluded that the best would be to explore why and how art had emerged in the first place because this would unmistakably point to its existential function.
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In the process I discovered that archaeologists had unearthed massive quantities of remnants of material culture, in Africa, dating from 100,000 years ago and earlier. A material culture can only emerge from a systemic process of “societal knowledge formation”. Evidently all the necessary ingredients need to have been assembled before a catalyst can possibly animate such a process and when the process has been animated it materializes in objects, relating to daily life, that are shaped in the forms, lines, and colors of a societal daily-culture.
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The broader context, of a systemic process of “societal knowledge formation”, was the prior emergence of the brain’s potential power of abstraction, which Homo-Sapiens had inherited between 300 and 400,000 years ago from a biological process of evolution that had spanned over the preceding hundred thousand years. The potential of the brain to derive abstractions, from the data gleaned by the eyes, got eventually animated by a catalyst which was the conscious realization by Homo-Sapiens that individual suffering is alleviated by knowledge formation.
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This conscious realization must have surfaced slowly in the minds, over many tens of thousands of years, following the emergence of its biological potential in the brain. The simple fact of thinking about this potential has pulled me, in the blink of an eye, in a quest for knowledge about all matters pertaining to the cultural evolution of species. In this quest for knowledge I stumbled upon many discoveries that form the content of this series.
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During my inquiry I observed that climate heating events had caused the abrupt turning of long Glaciation-Periods into shorter Interglacials. The Eamian Inter-Glacial lasted roughly from 130,000 years ago to 115,000 years ago while the Holocene Inter-Glacial had started about 11,700 years ago. During both of these periods the existing model of society got destabilized which forced a process of transition to a new model of society having the ability to handle larger populations. The Eamian started with a “Small-Band model of society” but ended with a “Tribal model of society” while the Holocene started with a “Tribal model of society” that eventually transited to a “Power model of society”.
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The differentiation of these models of societies is so stark that they appear like Archetypal. This discovery implies that, in analogy to epigenetics, epicultural factors, like an abrupt climate heating, caused at least two great turnings of Homo-Sapiens’ Archetypal models of societies.
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I also observed that the cultural field, of the various societies participating in one given Archetypal model of society, was synchronizing the present with the past and the past with the present. This synchronization, of the cultural field of societies, sustains their cultural evolution which also happens to drive their societal evolution.
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The conclusion of this series is that, by causing “the great convergence of numerous self inflicted side-effects”, Western-Modernity has unleashed, among other, an abrupt climate heating that fosters an infernal spiral of societal destabilization. Out of the chaos will most probably emerge a new “knowledge paradigm” and a new “foundational worldview” that will eventually engage a new “Archetypal model of society”.
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I focus thus extensively on how Western-Modernity caused such a disastrous outcome for the whole of humanity but I refuse to entertain a gloom and doom frame of mind, for, I imagine a path forward that could finally do justice to the appellation “Homo-Sapiens” that Western European scientists invented to justify the exceptionalism of their species.
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But Homo-Sapiens are definitely not exceptional. We are one species among many and, as all species, we are driven by the Geo-physical order of the universe and by the bio-chemical properties of the sub-sub-sub-ensemble earth.
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</div>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-64646786167787870652023-10-25T05:32:00.009-04:002023-10-25T06:10:21.731-04:00The e-book "Daily reality and the news about it" is online.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis4dRbV0c_CRBrEXO5qpkhF28i0nXHAOfo9xlOQepMyBdF1dYDFAkLy5bHOKXc-djbYUhujPq3FGZcCwS3xRZktj5WvX8xRR-OTNNgKnZ9hLjs6kwVJGq6i8WJecdkz9SshZKZBtkyaisoiS6zcZMZQYt-DBWiRrQ0pbjksQU_Lm7FgL6gIA/s1200/204-B1-41.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis4dRbV0c_CRBrEXO5qpkhF28i0nXHAOfo9xlOQepMyBdF1dYDFAkLy5bHOKXc-djbYUhujPq3FGZcCwS3xRZktj5WvX8xRR-OTNNgKnZ9hLjs6kwVJGq6i8WJecdkz9SshZKZBtkyaisoiS6zcZMZQYt-DBWiRrQ0pbjksQU_Lm7FgL6gIA/s320/204-B1-41.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a>
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I just uploaded the "Daily reality and the news about it". It is now available on my website.
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This e-book is a compilation and edited version, of my series of 5 articles under the same title that delves on the societal evolution of Homo-Sapiens which I argue is the brew out of which emerges our present reality. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/archcreaBooks.html">Download the E-book</a></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: large;"> </span>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMiazjk0pYK-lwQQJ2YGY0nxGtuaUgj6hsi07rCXZ9PzHalDwK_FhPYEa9mL1G1XTFarKZUfup3Y4O34wmkuwnDJO11bZsp7xn86ABqjBnpb8N6J3kUhhEAVGq0j8-gO1-TZyLjymjhzlchZ5epeC9hs29_lcAqnug_Kw8tI0BEYMHjBpLhDOs/s1200/304-B3-31.jpg" style="clear: left; float: right; margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 10px; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMiazjk0pYK-lwQQJ2YGY0nxGtuaUgj6hsi07rCXZ9PzHalDwK_FhPYEa9mL1G1XTFarKZUfup3Y4O34wmkuwnDJO11bZsp7xn86ABqjBnpb8N6J3kUhhEAVGq0j8-gO1-TZyLjymjhzlchZ5epeC9hs29_lcAqnug_Kw8tI0BEYMHjBpLhDOs/s320/304-B3-31.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">Here follows the foreword of this book.</h2>
Emerging facts, that are separated from the context in which they
appear, make no sense for the good reason that it is their context that
procures them substance. In themselves facts are incomprehensible. Their
meaning is in the outcome of the process that formed them. In light of
this the imposition by the media of facts that are divorced from their
context is necessarily a highly suspect act that reeks of propaganda, as
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrcYQyudLzY">the Hamas story that fills our media</a> today plainly attests.
<br />
<br />
To be of any value, daily news should at the least teach us how daily
culture emerges from the unconscious synchronization, of the citizens'
perception about their contextual settings, with the cultural field of
their society. Their current thoughts, behaviors and actions, are indeed
the outcome of this synchronization.
<br /><br />
Those who are aware that such a synchronization shapes the nature of
current societal thinking, behavior and actions, know that they can
shape their emerging form. Propaganda thrives on this faculty. But,
since it is at the service of the men of power, it fakes the facts for
the sake of their interests. By reconciling the current thinking,
behavior and actions, with the patterns of what works in biological and
societal evolution, truth-seekers can fortunately establish the
truthfulness of facts. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEEVST1HwXiy-CSu6tZsMqjP1gxI2PqyO98b4WTSSr3KGH9g-DBwvLUZgEm-94GzTLDv2ln2F0P2ing0_DCD8tdyR_ofSqT2VbD-ZDb_C-LePWRpyYrsY-n8Ko0Bx-xjq7Sb_lkpYGvmbI-Pskt_MRn_kF_r0nqNe_v1pBOxOLjLlLcIBdt1QE/s1200/303-B1-32.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: center; padding-right: 15px; padding-top: 10px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEEVST1HwXiy-CSu6tZsMqjP1gxI2PqyO98b4WTSSr3KGH9g-DBwvLUZgEm-94GzTLDv2ln2F0P2ing0_DCD8tdyR_ofSqT2VbD-ZDb_C-LePWRpyYrsY-n8Ko0Bx-xjq7Sb_lkpYGvmbI-Pskt_MRn_kF_r0nqNe_v1pBOxOLjLlLcIBdt1QE/s320/303-B1-32.jpg" width="320" /></a>
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</div>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-8862243170642266802023-10-19T16:00:00.063-04:002023-10-19T19:36:17.060-04:00Daily reality and the news about it. Foreword & Afterword<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioZwJbvpJPu1YoRUN1Fnm3YsudXUihDmsnkWbF1vQ7gImLLVgSuhP7dUP1BzdJ4dGhXitTTS_ZieBDuUjBYS5Wf_rC2ekjwy2ISo5q7ZRy5Ww_WeGbCiFPd_yDilpo6kGh7OfI1Kb6MQyAn67JYsH7HjjGODB6cl71m6XQlUSVz_f0sTAMeA/s1200/07B4-13.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1px; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;" title=""><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioZwJbvpJPu1YoRUN1Fnm3YsudXUihDmsnkWbF1vQ7gImLLVgSuhP7dUP1BzdJ4dGhXitTTS_ZieBDuUjBYS5Wf_rC2ekjwy2ISo5q7ZRy5Ww_WeGbCiFPd_yDilpo6kGh7OfI1Kb6MQyAn67JYsH7HjjGODB6cl71m6XQlUSVz_f0sTAMeA/s320/07B4-13.jpg" style="user-select: text;" title="" width="320" /></a></div>
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<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">Foreword </h2>
Emerging facts, that are separated from the context in which they appear, make no sense for the good reason that it is their context that procures them substance. In themselves facts are incomprehensible. Their meaning is in the outcome of the process that formed them. In light of this the imposition by the media of facts that are divorced from their context is necessarily a highly suspect act that reeks of propaganda, as <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrcYQyudLzY">the Hamas story that fills our media</a> today plainly attests.
<br />
<span style="user-select: text;"><a name='more'></a></span>
<br />
To be of any value, daily news should at the least teach us how daily culture emerges from the unconscious synchronization, of the citizens' perception about their contextual settings, with the cultural field of their society. Their current thoughts, behaviors and actions, are indeed the outcome of this synchronization.
<br /><br />
Those who are aware that such a synchronization shapes the nature of current societal thinking, behavior and actions, know that they can shape their emerging form. Propaganda thrives on this faculty. But, since it is at the service of the men of power, it fakes the facts for the sake of their interests. By reconciling the current thinking, behavior and actions, with the patterns of what works in biological and societal evolution, truth-seekers can fortunately establish the truthfulness of facts.
<br /><br /><br /><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiQyIYRjdpzKs-uswwLq6vNEfPVMmCzAxLdjfhsMvIcbw6vbB77cNSVSohmbqsqLZCC6idWZyzsTO6QfEN1eWiAyL2qYwcJ2lDryrF734vGBOvGUlgyr0N9N4ZEtc6FXHtWGFisGoQfe9Q_U1S96AObNX_IQIJaGA273m93CssxV3Tm-vRRw/s1200/07D2-44.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-left: 15px; margin-top: 20px; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiQyIYRjdpzKs-uswwLq6vNEfPVMmCzAxLdjfhsMvIcbw6vbB77cNSVSohmbqsqLZCC6idWZyzsTO6QfEN1eWiAyL2qYwcJ2lDryrF734vGBOvGUlgyr0N9N4ZEtc6FXHtWGFisGoQfe9Q_U1S96AObNX_IQIJaGA273m93CssxV3Tm-vRRw/s320/07D2-44.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div>
<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;"> Afterword</h2>
Facts are the outcomes of processes that started to operate in the dawn of the systems that are animating the ensemble in which those facts emerged in the first place.
<br /><br />
In the present era of Late-Western-Modernity we, human animals, perceive these ensembles, their systems and processes, in light of the rationality that animates our present societal life. But while we are under pressure in the present moment to understand, how it comes that the predicament of extinction affects our societal life, it is imperative that we question the rationality that animates the societal life that brought us to that point !
<br /><br />
We have to recognize that we are easily accustomed to cognitive habits that leave us captive of choices which we initially thought were entirely justified. The fact is that our present predicament emerged after having practicing Western-Modernity for centuries. Our societies were entranced by the rationality of Western-Modernity. This rationality animates all our societal systems and our habits of thoughts have narrowed to the sole concern for the technical rationality that validates the process of capital accumulation.
<br /><br />
But in matter of fact, over the last centuries, Western-Modernity has annihilated the rationality that is at work in the process of biological and societal evolution of the process of life ! And our species has landed itself in a maelstrom of contradictions. Humanity’s current predicament demonstrates without a shred of a doubt that, under the rationality of Western-Modernity, our societies are misfiring with huge consequences for the future reproduction of Homo-Sapiens.
<br /><br />
Our doubt, about the future reproduction of our own species, should be proof enough that the rationality of Western-Modernity has reached the end of its validity. To survive as a species humanity has now to adopt a new knowledge paradigm that is better adapted to our present contextual settings. We need to revert to an ontology that is rooted in the primacy of the reproduction of life. In other words the imperative necessity is now to shift the priority of humanity from the rationality of Western-Modernity to the rationality that is at work in the biological and societal evolution of the process of life.
<br /><br />
Our failure to operate such a conscious shift, as a species, unavoidably implies the collapse of our societal systems and the reconciliation of their search for more complexity with the primary need of reproduction which would inevitably be followed by the cleansing of the ensemble earth from the non-functional inventions of Homo-Sapiens ! What I mean to say here is that Western-Modernity failed to adhere to “The First Principles of Life” that sustains my series about “the transition from Western-Modernity to After-Modernity”.
<br /><br />
This first rule stipulates that life substantiates into living species that are animated by the interactions between their polarities :
<br />
<ol>
<li><b><u>Reproduction of life </u></b> (persistence) <br />
The reproduction of life is realized through the biological reproduction of the individuals which is systematically pursued by the assembling of individuals in societal groups.
</li>
<br />
<li><b><u>Search for more complexity</u></b> (novelty generation)<br />
The search for more complexity is realized through societal selection of novelty by the most creative individuals.
</li>
</ol>
It so happens that a group of scientists just published <a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2310223120">an article</a> validating the first among “the First Principles of Life” that form the guard-rails of societal evolution which I described in “Societal knowledge formation. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/03Knowledge.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A12371%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C319.051%2C0%5D">‘6.2.3.4.2. The First Principles of Life force the path of societal evolution’</a> and in <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/03Knowledge.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A12425%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C495.901%2C0%5D">‘6.2.3.4.3. Dynamics of the First Principles of Life’</a> “.
In sum these scientists argue that evolution is a macroscopic law of nature :
<br />
<blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
"The universe is replete with complex evolving systems, but the existing macroscopic physical laws do not seem to adequately describe these systems. Recognizing that the identification of conceptual equivalencies among disparate phenomena were foundational to developing previous laws of nature, we approach a potential “missing law” by looking for equivalencies among evolving systems. We suggest that all evolving systems—including but not limited to life—are composed of diverse components that can combine into configurational states that are then selected for or against based on function. We then identify the fundamental sources of selection—static persistence, dynamic persistence, and novelty generation—and propose a time-asymmetric law that states that the functional information of a system will increase over time when subjected to selection for function(s).“
</span></i></blockquote>
In the words of this team of scientists evolution rests on 2 principles : — persistence — novelty generation.
<br /><br />
In my series about "the transition from Western-Modernity to After-Modernity" I propose that these two principles act as the polarities that animate life within all sub-ensembles of the universe :
<ol>
<li>
<b><u>Persistence</u></b> = reproduction <b> → </b>the primary principle
</li>
<br />
<li>
<u><b>Novelty generation</b></u> = the search for more complexity <b> → </b>a subsidiary principle.
</li>
</ol>
In my personal vision all entities in all ensembles are animated by their polarities which implies that the whole universe is alive as well as its sub-ensembles and their parts.<br /><br />
I described as follows the systemic nature, of the animation of all entities in the universe, in “Societal Knowledge Formation. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/03Knowledge.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A12200%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C142.551%2C0%5D">6.2.3.4. Necessity to clarify our conceptual framework</a>” :
<br />
<blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“We have seen earlier that all individual particles are interconnected and that their interconnectedness forms an ensemble that evolves its own rules of the game. The ensemble’s rules reflect to the parts its vision of the world. That view may be transmitted consciously, subconsciously, or may be engaged by a particular Geo-bio-chemical state or other.</span></i> <br /></blockquote><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
From the perspective of the particles their biological and societal evolution eventually sets them on the path of knowledge formation which gives them access to the “Working Principles” of the ensemble they belong to.
Human individuals eventually came to feel a vague sensation that better fitting in the whole could gain them some reprieve from suffering. And this reprieve of suffering was a powerful enticement to engage in societal knowledge formation.</span></i> <br /></blockquote><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
After discovering that the truth, about U or the whole universe is unattainable, they understood that certainties are merely ideological illusions and knowing that illusions generate suffering they started to focus on the pragmatic principles that allow to live in harmony with the order of the whole.</span></i> <br /></blockquote><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
I have tried, over the last 10 years, to summarize these pragmatic principles in what I call “the First-Principles of Life”.</span></i> <br /></blockquote><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">“In philosophy and science, a first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption.” </span></i><br /></blockquote><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
In light of this definition “The First-Principles of Life” are basic propositions, or assumptions about life, that can’t be deduced from any other assumptions.”
</span></i></blockquote>
Seen, that “facts are the outcomes of processes that started to operate in the dawn of the systems that are animating the ensemble in which these facts emerged in the first place”, the reconciliation of current thinking, behavior and actions, with the patterns of what works in biological and societal evolution, implies that truth-seekers are sitting quiet in contemplation of the whole universe, its sub-ensembles and their parts. I'm afraid that it would be presumptuous to invite news peddlers to sit quiet seeking comprehension in such a contemplation.
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</div>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-14508538980921551842023-10-12T16:00:00.101-04:002023-10-12T16:00:00.151-04:00Graphs from the series "Daily reality and the news about it".<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvLYiI_XWdvCyFam73wRq_0Hl77OBku9JDDYR1HrvqYiQZPIijTA5Lp4MWkT5Wlb0mrjoe35RF9PMTZH0zgUk6L65vXACO87vWqkcka1CxsujV0iPbFWG-E9c10ct6DG_vpKPqRu2x188_DvBKH3vCZOhT6nfVKEb6RnXnHh14A60jFT7SResi/s1200/07D4-32.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; padding-right: 15px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvLYiI_XWdvCyFam73wRq_0Hl77OBku9JDDYR1HrvqYiQZPIijTA5Lp4MWkT5Wlb0mrjoe35RF9PMTZH0zgUk6L65vXACO87vWqkcka1CxsujV0iPbFWG-E9c10ct6DG_vpKPqRu2x188_DvBKH3vCZOhT6nfVKEb6RnXnHh14A60jFT7SResi/s320/07D4-32.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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While formatting the content of the series of articles, about the "Daily reality and the news about it" in pdf book form, I thought that it would be useful to dedicate an article specifically to the graphs illustrating these articles.
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<span style="user-select: text;"><a name='more'></a></span>
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<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">1. The class war of Western big capital holders against the working people</h2>
From the onset of the silent revolution of the 1970's, the working people got penalized financially. Their incomes got suddenly detached from the national levels of productivity and the near totality of all productivity gains were sucked in the pockets of ... yes in the pockets of the 1%. This was the clearest sign that the West was sacrificing its societal cohesion to satisfy the greed of a tiny minority.
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<img class="img-responsive" src="http://laodan.byethost7.com/Images/000ProdWages.png" width="100%" />
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<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">2. The successive historical shifts of the center of gravity of the economy-world of Western-Modernity</h2>
This graph indicates that, between 1,150 approximately until today, the center of gravity, of the economy-world of Western-Modernity, moved 9 times from one regional area to another.
<br /><br />
This means that one regional area assured its primacy over the rest of the world in the following domains:
<ol>
<li>
Its capital formation was higher than in other areas
</li>
<br />
<li>
Its capital holders disposed of higher disposable incomes which ensured the domination of their region in the following fields :
<ul>
<li>
Fashion in luxury goods
</li>
<li>
Fine arts
</li>
<li>
Architecture
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<br />
<li>
The primacy over the rest of the world also manifests in the center's exercise of power over its periphery. We live indeed in the historical era of the archetypal model of power-societies.
<br />
As this graph n°2 suggests this can have consequences that are most directly manifested in how the dominant region is implementing its power. As is attested by the hegemony of Western nations over the last hundred years the consequence was the death of many civilizations and many societies while hundred of million human individuals got slaughtered and mother nature got raped over and over. <br>China's rise fortunately offers a different perspective. Its societal cultural field was centered along the entirety of its history on the alleviation of its peoples' suffering while procuring them the most favorable context for the production of their daily lives.
</li>
</ol>
Interestingly a region's historical domination in those fields also leaves a legacy in the present primarily in the form of its better known artists and their works and in the form of its architectural monuments. And note how this legacy is a major tourist attractor ! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<img class="img-responsive" src="http://laodan.byethost7.com/Images/000ModShifts.png" width="100%" />
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<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">3. The great convergence of the numerous side-effects of Late-Western-Modernity</h2>
This graphs indicates the interrelations, among the most important factors, at work in the infernal dynamic at work in humanity's present predicament. <br /><br />
<img class="img-responsive" src="http://laodan.byethost7.com/Images/000GreatConv.png" width="100%" />
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<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">4. China's technological drive to self-sufficiency and world supremacy</h2>
China and its 1.4 billion people are definitely showing that population is the predominant factor in ensuring the primacy of one region over the rest of the world. In light of these graphs the present attitude of the USA, in my eyes, appears to be in-comprehensively stupid.
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<img class="img-responsive" src="http://laodan.byethost7.com/Images/000CNTecDr.png" width="100%" />
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</div>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-77643432977574637912023-10-10T01:16:00.002-04:002023-10-10T01:16:25.432-04:00Daily reality and the news about it. Part 5.<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEEVST1HwXiy-CSu6tZsMqjP1gxI2PqyO98b4WTSSr3KGH9g-DBwvLUZgEm-94GzTLDv2ln2F0P2ing0_DCD8tdyR_ofSqT2VbD-ZDb_C-LePWRpyYrsY-n8Ko0Bx-xjq7Sb_lkpYGvmbI-Pskt_MRn_kF_r0nqNe_v1pBOxOLjLlLcIBdt1QE/s1200/303-B1-32.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; padding-right: 15px; padding-top: 10px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjEEVST1HwXiy-CSu6tZsMqjP1gxI2PqyO98b4WTSSr3KGH9g-DBwvLUZgEm-94GzTLDv2ln2F0P2ing0_DCD8tdyR_ofSqT2VbD-ZDb_C-LePWRpyYrsY-n8Ko0Bx-xjq7Sb_lkpYGvmbI-Pskt_MRn_kF_r0nqNe_v1pBOxOLjLlLcIBdt1QE/s320/303-B1-32.jpg" width="320" /></a>
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<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">
Part 5. “There Is Definitely An Alternative” to Western hegemony (TIDAA)</h2>
<br />
In this last part I’m using a few quotes from articles by Peter Lee to force myself to focus on how the worldwide rise of TIDAA takes place in a deeply troubled context. Peter is a writer whose views on China I generally find refreshing for pointing to facts that are rooted in the ground of daily reality.
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<span style="user-select: text;"><a name='more'></a></span>
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My personal approach focuses more on the long historical context from which the daily present emerges. The narrative of such an approach may appear more detached from the ground of daily reality and may even be viewed as mired in the field of theory. But the fact is that from where I’m standing, here just north of the Forbidden city on the central axis that forms the back of the dragon, I observe the same things as those described by Peter.
<br /><br />
The difference in our approaches is that he writes about his direct observation of the present moment while I write about the context that generates my direct observation of the emergent present moment.
<br /><br />
We individuals are the product of our life experiences. Our experience gives each of us our personal internal and external outlook on life. And deriving from the personal outlook that our life experience generated for us our productions are necessarily different but they are in no way better nor worse than the productions of other individuals.
<br /><br />
Having clarified this point I want to superpose my description of the historical context, that generates the emergent present, over Peter’s written description of his direct observation of the scene of the present moment. This should allow me to verify if there are discrepancies between our views. And if there are the fact, of checking what are their origins, might unveil some new angles of observation that remain most generally hidden.
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<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;"> 5.1. The China that XI Jinping inherited </h2>
<blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“I think Xi Jinping came to office in an atmosphere of crisis. Economy slowing; straightforward Keynsianism of throwing money into the banking system yielding decreasing returns, inflationary pressures, higher debt burden; unsustainable revenue model for local governments; SOE & local government indebtedness; growing disconnect between government economic objectives and priorities of the business sector; corruption; increasingly vocal and networked dissatisfaction; chafing at PRC pretensions at the margins (Xinjiang, Tibet, Taiwan, Hong Kong); demographic issues; corruption; clear need to wean economy and employment from the easy but no longer valid export/infrastructure growth model to something more complicated; a general desire by the US, Japan, and much of the world to circumscribe the PRC’s freedom of action and its international opportunities.
Plenty of opportunities for the wheels to come off.” (1)
</span></i></blockquote>
Peter’s observation of a “Straightforward Keynesianism”, and its consequences, is certainly plunging straight into the reality of China’s economy in 2013 and much of his quote describes the internal and external outcome of this Keynesianism. This quote dates from 2015 and it is strongly tainted by the ideological context of the place where Peter was sitting when writing this article.
<br /><br />
But let’s continue to read how his thinking further evolved over time.
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<blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“Western discussion of Xi Jinping’s rigid economic, social, and pandemic policies focus in his red, Marxist-Leninist, politics takes command leanings.
<br /><br />
What they ignore is that Xi Jinping is putting the PRC on a wartime footing, working to enhance China’s resilience and ability to withstand and deter aggression from the United States.
<br /><br />
Because the PRC and the United States are at war.
<br /><br />
...The United States blew up Huawei. It cratered China’s advanced semiconductor industry. It provided rhetorical and G*d knows what other kind of support to separatists in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. Joe Biden has committed America to the defense of Taiwan come what may, we’re loading the island up with weapons, and the Pentagon has gone so far as to slyly place Taiwan under America’s nuclear umbrella. Japan has committed itself to its biggest arms build up since World War II for forces that can only operate overseas when embedded in US military operations. Guam is being hardened as an intermediate range missile base. And let’s not forget the AUKUS clown show.
<br /><br />
… It would be a dereliction of duty for Xi Jinping not to assume things are going to get worse before they get better.
... for the CCP, the hot war can’t end in a stalemate, with the PRC bled dry and the United States driven back from the ruins of Taiwan and Okinawa but coordinating an open-ended economic and technological blockade of China with Japan and the rest of the G7.
<br /><br />
You know, like the Ukraine model against Russia?
<br /><br />
In my opinion, the CCP is preparing for war…but it won’t go to war until it believes it can break US global power decisively, and for all time.“ (2)
</span></i></blockquote>
<br />
The liberal rationality of Western-Modernity, that overwhelmed the first quote has vanished. In this new quote appears a strong statement of disapproval of the Western outlook about China that had been initiated by Trump’s foreign trade harassment which got strategically amplified under Biden. In this new context Peter states the following :
<br />
<blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“It would be a dereliction of duty for Xi Jinping not to assume things are going to get worse before they get better.
After all, the guesstimate is that China has to get f*cked up in the next ten years or else it’s too late for Uncle Sam, so expect the next decade to get pretty tense.
<br /><br />
So Xi’s putting China on a war footing so that the PRC military, its economy, and its society—and the CCP itself-- are hardened to withstand a menagerie of black swans and grey rhinos and “high winds, choppy waters, and even dangerous storms” without descending into an abyss of dysfunction, panic, and failure”.
</span></i></blockquote>
<br />
In this last quote Peter seems to approve the PRC’s response to the US policy. The next quote is from his report about his trip to China in August 2023. In this last article he finally realizes that the liberalism of Western-Modernity is on the way out in China. So in light of the liberal rationality of Western-Modernity, that overwhelmed his first article, we should expect some toning down of the positive approval of the PRC’s response to US policy that characterized his article from 2022. Here is a quote from his last article :
<br />
<blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“ ... the PRC is trying to war-harden the country without cratering the economy, and postpone indefinitely the day when America feels it has the advantage and opportunity to escalate the China confrontation to total economic warfare.
<br /><br />
… The PRC is also actively shaping public opinion to highlight China’s virtues and America’s vices and has a fair amount of good material to work with. Thank you gun violence, the Hawaii fire, and Joe Biden!
<br /><br />
… The disruption of US-China exchanges due to COVID and the relentless US anti-China campaigning is creating a generation of Chinese whose expectations and outlook are shaped by a new Sinocentric reality in which American values and priorities (and, I should say, tourists) are increasingly peripheral.
<br /><br />
People I spoke to were positive on China’s situation and did not blame Emperor Xi’s insane ambition for the deterioration of relations with the West. Instead they seemed bemused and disappointed that the US has surrendered to a policy of anti-China fear, hate, and aggression to try and stick it to a country 10,000 miles away. Well, maybe some selection bias here because that’s how I feel.
<br /><br />
But that’s not the whole story.
<br /><br />
There’s a whole generation of people—important people—who grew up and thrived in an environment of US-China engagement. For them, decoupling from the United States--and the damage it has inflicted on their interests and aspirations--is painful.
<br /><br />
The expectations of these elites aren’t on life support, in my opinion. They’re in hospice. Their attitudes are divided between rage and resignation as they anticipate their final exit.
<br /><br />
Meanwhile the CCP is recruiting and cultivating new elites centered on the BRICS international regime, a less glamorous, less rewarding, but possibly more resilient order seeking its future in Russia, South Asia, the Middle East, South America, and Africa. They’ll be talking to CGTN and RT instead of sharing their discontents with the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Bloomberg.
<br /><br />
The idea that elite and popular opinion in China could shift aspirations away from Disney, MacDonald’s, and McDonnell Douglas to telenovelas, couscous, and Sukhoi jets is perhaps inconceivable to Americans, but the CCP is trying to make it happen.
<br /><br />
As they say, in the old world there is a new world struggling to be born.
<br /><br />
Will the CCP succeed?
<br /><br />
The product it’s pitching to its citizens and to the world—that’s multilateralism via economic engagement—is fundamentally more attractive to a lot of countries than the deficit driven global War to Save Democracy that the US is peddling. Given money, perseverance, luck, and time the PRC might be able to thread the needle.
<br /><br />
But…there’s that “time” thing. There’s the rub.
<br /><br />
My opinion is, if the CCP is succeeding, in other words if it shows significant progress in establishing a robust parallel international order that can shield it from US economic aggression, the US will start a hot war to see if it can truly f*ck China up.” (3)
</span></i></blockquote>
<br />
The air of the times, that Peter was forced to breathe in China, made him realize that the 5th column of Chinese pushers, of a liberal view of Western-Modernity, is in “its final exit”. But the conditioning, of his American life, is overwhelming his mind and this makes him spill the beans : “People I spoke to were positive on China’s situation and did not blame Emperor Xi’s insane ambition for the deterioration of relations with the West”.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <br /><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"> _____________ </div>
<br />
I do not personally know Peter nor do I have any clue if he is a Caucasian or a Chinese born in the United-States. I just read his articles because, as stated earlier, the first dimension of his direct observation of the present moment. Having said this his insane contradiction, between “Emperor Xi’s insane ambition for the deterioration of relations with the West” and “...the relentless US anti-China campaigning is creating a generation of Chinese whose expectations and outlook are shaped by a new Sinocentric reality”, made me think that he must be an ABC (4), for, how otherwise can we possibly make sense of a single person conveying two radically different opinions ?
<br /><br />
Having said this Peter’s text from 2015 indicates without a shred of a doubt his preference for the liberal militant version of Western-Modernity that he has lived under during his entire life. By the time of his text from 2022 his mind had turned. I suppose he could no longer stand the moral hypocrisy that characterizes the exceptionalism of US governmental actions. But his most recent article suggests a constant tension between his preferred societal ideology and the moral hypocrisy of the governance of his society.
<br /><br />
The organic flow of “Chinese Traditional Culture” on people’s daily realities is so strategically empowering their lives that, as a Chinese, they just can not throw it away for the evasiveness of a Western nagging ideological vision.
<br /><br />
The efficacy of the “Chinese Traditional Culture”, in navigating the imperatives of individual daily life, is something that is very difficult to let go. Western societal ideologies rapidly appear fleeting at best. It is this kind of observation that forced me to focus on the concept of culture. I discovered indeed that most Western people unconsciously engage in a systematic epistemological confusion between the concepts of “daily culture”, “historically shared worldview”
(religions for example), “Foundational worldview” and “civilization” and if you ask them what they mean by these concepts they are unable to distinguish them in their substantive reality. This observation motivated me to write <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/01Continuum.pdf">“the continuum of the interactive cultural field of societies”</a>.
<br /><br />
By “the interactive cultural field of societies” I mean that the internal evolution, of an archetypal model of society, operates according to the interactions among the parameters of the cultural field of its societies. Marx had posited that “dialectical materialism” explained the whole of societal change.
<br />
<blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life and, next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or orders is dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged. From this point of view, the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men's brains, not in men's better insights into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange.” (5)
</span></i></blockquote>
<br />
Liberalism posited that the actions of the individual investors generate changes in the modes of production, and exchange, that result in the social reality of societies. Marx accepted that the social reality of societies is given by the modes of production and exchange but, on the ground of a Judaeo-Christian moral perspective, he rejected the private ownership of capital that monopolizes the returns on investment in the hands of a small minority of people.
<br /><br />
By focusing on the different concepts of culture you are forced to recognize that, they relate to a same substance applying in different time-frames. This discovery shows that culture is a field that traverses the entire history of a society. And from that perspective “the final causes, of all social changes and political revolutions”, necessarily reside in the synchronization of the individual’s perception of their contextual settings with the continuum of their cultural field.
<br /><br />
Changes in the modes of production, and exchange, are an important part of peoples’ daily contextual settings but they are not the whole of these settings. If you focus solely on the mode of production and exchange, as both Liberals and Marxist firmly believe, you are missing the fundamental role of the synchronization of the individuals’ perceptions of their contextual settings and you are then unable to explain why so many people are disenchanted by the feeling of leading meaningless lives. And if you are a political party, that views the social reality of societies as being given exclusively by the modes of production and exchange, then your disenchanted followers are necessary bound to wither away…
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;"> ____________</div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div>
<br /><br />
After this digression let us come back to Peter’s post of 2015. He states “an atmosphere of crisis” that could potentially cause “the wheels to come off” the communist governance vehicle.
<br /><br />
This statement was correct but not for the reasons that he noted. WEN Jiabao, the Prime Minister at the time, had duly noted during a meeting of the Central Committee in Late 2010 that the Communist Party was loosing its grip on the country’s movement forward and HU Jintao, as Secretary General, insisted that structural reforms were urgently needed to counter the rising difficulties encountered in the implementation of its decisions by the national government. HU called for nothing less than a re-centralization of the decision-making process as the best answer to counter the difficulties in the government’s implementation of the Party’s national decisions.
<br /><br />
The awareness, among the top leadership of the CPC, was incisive and it thought that an intensification of internal and external contradictions called for a reinforcement of the center at the detriment of the periphery.
<br /><br />
HU Jintao’s 10 years at the helm of the Chinese Communist party, will be remembered for turning China into an economic power-house. And the most representative moment of this turning came in 2008 when the government decided to inject a stimulus package, of some 4 trillion Renminbi Yuan (CNY) (USD 586.68 billion) (6), that came at the cost of centrifugal forces, local governments, private and public corporations, that rushed into over-indebtment. Christine Wong estimates that the stimulus over the following 3 years largely surpassed the government’s plans :
<br />
<blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“... a conservative estimate would place the stimulus at CNY 9.5 trillion, or 27% of GDP, over the 27 months. This was 2.4 times the size of the announced stimulus package. In 2009 alone, it was CNY 6.5 trillion, or 19.3% of the current year GDP.”
</span></i></blockquote>
<br />
By 2010 the authorities observed that, the internal potential destabilization by these overzealous centrifugal forces, was accompanied by an external policy trend by Western countries to counter China’s further development. In the eyes of the central leadership, of the CPC, this implied a need of re-centralization of the political decision-making process in order to gain a firmer grip on their nation’s further debt formation.
<br /><br />
As soon as elected secretary general of the CPC XI Jinping rushed to implement these guidelines of the Central Committee while China analysts at Western Think-Thanks, and Western media outlets, rushed to picture him as a dictator. Time passing the USA’s actions, and those of its lackeys, were so arrogantly extreme that their absurdity was visible for all eyes to see. It became thus soon apparent that Biden’s slogan “democracies against autocracies” was part of the permanent propaganda campaign of the West against China and the other countries that refuse to acquiesce to the Western diktats of hegemony.
<br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
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<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">
5.2. The cultural shock between liberal totalitarianism and the Chinese Traditional Culture </h2>
By the end of the 11th century <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity01.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A1274%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C434.151%2C0%5D">a long chain of causes and effects</a> had accumulated in the land of the Franks, in South-Western Europe, that eventually resulted in the emergence of the knowledge paradigm of Modernity sometime in the 12th century (7). That paradigm centered on the rationality, that was at work in what at the time was called the transformation of sterile money into merchant’s money, which de facto unleashed a process of capital accumulation.
<br /><br />
In the early-Renaissance Thomas Aquinas furthermore popularized the idea that human reason was complementary to the Christian god’s revealed truth. This idea rapidly spread and substantiated a Christian humanism that centered on the mastery of nature for the satisfaction of human needs. Aquinas de-facto instrumentalized Modernity making it complementary to religious belief and this ensured that its widespread development always stayed in harmony with the religious political order of Early-Modernity.
<br /><br />
Aquinas’ instrumentalization of the knowledge paradigm of Modernity ensured that it would eventually give rise to the societal paradigm of Western-Modernity in the form of the nation-state, a specific form of the archetypal model of power-societies, that had already been put in practice in China over the past two millennia.
<br /><br />
Finally at the peek of the Enlightenment, in the 18th century, Liberalism emerged as the ideology of the merchants capital holders and their university servants in France, the United Kingdom, Holland and Walloonia, who preached the virtues of philosophical rationalism and science against the darkness of religious and traditional belief systems.
<br /><br />
Over the following centuries liberal parties opposed Christian parties and by the end of the 19th century the progressive left-wing quit the liberal parties to found socialist or social-democratic parties that formed the creative core of the welfare states of the 20th century.
<br /><br />
By the 1960’s big capital holders observed a decreasing trend in the profits generated by their capital investments and they invested massively in the formation of Think-Thanks in the hope of finding theoretical answers to their conundrum. These Think-Thanks invariably advised the expansion of the reach of Western capital holders’ investments to the whole world.
<br /><br />
But the transformation of sterile money into a process of capital accumulation, in the sense of the original paradigm of Modernity, rapidly appeared insufficient to satisfy such an ambitious program. A solution had thus to be found to address the limitation of available capital. The solution was a new iteration of the paradigm that complemented the transformation of sterile money by the transformation of debt into a dynamic process of capital accumulation.
<br /><br />
This new iteration of the paradigm of Western-Modernity consecrated the primacy of bankers and lawyers over the engineers in the board of directors of corporations, and in state administrations, which signaled that a new era of financialization was imposing its rationality over any other consideration. This is also when quantitative methods were forced throughout the social sciences in order to satisfy the objectives of societal rationalization associated with the new iteration of the paradigm of Western-Modernity.
<br /><br />
Western capital holders, and their servants, knew that, to be successful, such a radical program needed — to acquire the consent of the governments around the world without unleashing a public discussion — unlimited quantities of capital to rapidly reach an incontestable worldwide threshold of normality. The plan had thus to be executed without the public's knowledge by tweaking the Zeitgeist to the necessity of trumping the national conversations through a massive binge of individual consumption. Cheap Chinese productions certainly eased the implementation of this strategy.
<br /><br />
The globalization of investments by major Western capital owners has de-facto been implemented without any public debate, while the public institutions have been subjected to the ideology of Neoliberalism, which has stripped them of any competence to protect, and while individuals were prevented from sharing their traditional worldviews, such as Christianity or Marxism, for example.
<br /><br />
The results, of such a massive social engineering, were rapidly coming in without much of a reaction nor from the intellectuals nor from the media :
<br /><br /><br />
<h3 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">
5.2.1. Western nations most important internal results from the globalization of the reach of their capital holders </h3>
<ol>
<li><b>
<u>Trade-union membership entered into free-fall</u>
</b></li>
<br />
<li>
<u><b>Blue collar incomes suddenly stagnated </b></u>
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</div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<span style="font-size: xx-small;">Growth of real hourly compensation <br />for production/non-supervisory workers <br />and productivity, 1948–2018 (8)
</span></div></li>
<b><br /></b>
<li><b>
<u>Participation in church rites went in free fall </u>
</b></li>
<br />
<li>
<b><u>Marxist ideology was suddenly on the way out
</u></b></li>
<b><br /></b>
<li><b>
<u>Postmodernism and the loss of shared meaning
</u> </b><br /><br />
Western modernism had been searching in vain for new foundational narratives to replace the worldviews of early modernity. But it failed, and came to believe in the absurd proposition that "everything can be art".
<br /><br />
The resulting zeitgeist of “whatever is art”, in the wake of World War II, was sized by the U.S. State Department, as an opportunity, to capture the art-scene which came thus under the control of merchants regrouping in New York for the occasion.
<br /><br />
Later, postmodernism, like science, focused on snippets of reality that prevented the sharing of foundational truths with the majority of individuals who had fallen into an anxiolytic void of meaning.
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b><u>The capture of loneliness by social media
</u></b><br /><br />
The loss of buying-power converged with a general loss of meaning, to share with others, which locked the large majority of individuals into a pervasive feeling of loneliness that web entrepreneurs seized as an opportunity to gain information about individuals by gluing them to their screens. Data accumulation became a goldmine that advertisers, marketing engineers and state institutions were eager to pay for in order to surveil the populations and to sell them entertainment.
</li>
<u><br /></u>
<li>
<u><b>Social media and the loss of empathy</b></u>
<br /><br />
Social media have rapidly boosted the ego of the individuals, fostering a generalized hyper-individualism that has crushed the traditional respect for the authority of the men of power, the authority of the men of knowings, the authority of traditional institutions such as family, school, state, etc.
<br /><br />
Startled by this sudden evolution, the men of power began to tweak the communication channels in order to limit the scope of the individuals' freedom of expression. Some got excluded from social media platforms, while the mainstream media systematically relayed the messages of men of power. But in the process the nature of information suddenly changed. The mainstream media became the propaganda arm of the institutions of power, while alternative media was positioned as an opposition force that attempts to give a truer picture of everyday reality.
<br /><br />
Unfortunately, the alternative media were soon flooded by propaganda organs, and it quickly became very difficult to distinguish between "fake news" and "true news". The invasion of the media sphere by organs of pure propaganda, often peddling articles or videos written by AI, generates a deafening background noise that obscures our perception about our daily reality.
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b><u>Societal atomization and the death of societies</u></b>
<br /><br />
In the process, trust between individuals and institutions vanished. Societies became atomized, and lost their traditional ability to successfully undertake large-scale national projects — such as responding to the needs of populations after a major natural disaster — such as responding to the societal need to protect populations against pandemics — such as re-industrializing Western wastelands - or such as winning a world war for that matter...
<br /><br />
In the final stage of the atomization of societies, when the last drop of inertial energy is consumed, societies fall dead, which may take the form of a financial collapse leading to the collapse of societal institutions, or a civil war, or the flight of the individuals into local forms of autonomy that spread and marginalize the societal life organized by men of power, and so on.
</li>
</ol>
<br /><br />
<h3 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">5.2.2. Most important external results from the globalization of the reach of Western big capital holders</h3>
<br />
<ol>
<li>
<b><u>Western Hegemony and Neo-colonialism
</u></b><br />
<blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“In theories of imperialism, the hegemonic order dictates the internal politics and the societal character of the subordinate states that constitute the hegemonic sphere of influence, either by an internal, sponsored government or by an external, installed government. The term hegemonism denoted the geopolitical and the cultural predominance of one country over other countries, e.g. the hegemony of the Great Powers established with European colonialism in Africa, Asia, and Latin America”. (9)
</span></i></blockquote>
<br />
Hegemony is a Western concept that was applied and continues to apply to Western international and national governance. It is interesting to observe how the West today is using its hegemonic media power to force this concept on China’s governance behavior towards the rest of the world. But even more interesting is the disbelief of the rest of the world toward such an egregious Western attitude. In other words the present Western-centric imposition of beliefs, on the rest of the world, is back-firing which portends a rejection of Western concepts and beliefs during the inevitable negotiations of a new world-order in the near future.
<br /><br />
Neocolonialism is the continuation or reimposition of imperialist rule by a state (usually, a former colonial power) over another nominally independent state (usually, a former colony). Neocolonialism takes the form of economic imperialism, globalization, cultural imperialism and conditional aid to influence or control a developing country instead of the previous colonial methods of direct military control or indirect political control (hegemony).
<br /><br />
Neocolonialism takes the form of economic imperialism, globalization, cultural imperialism and conditional aid to influence or control a developing country instead of the previous colonial methods of direct military control or indirect political control (hegemony).
<br /><br />
Neocolonialism differs from standard globalization and development aid in that it typically results in a relationship of dependence, subservience, or financial obligation towards the neocolonialist nation. This may result in an undue degree of political control or spiraling debt obligations, functionally imitating the relationship of traditional colonialism. Neocolonialism frequently affects all levels of society, creating neo-colonial systems that disadvantage local communities, such as neo-colonial science.
<br /><br />
Neo-colonialism is a concept used by non-Western-countries to qualify Western governance behaviors towards them. The concept is also used by developmentalist economists, like Jeffrey Sachs for example, who believe that non-Western-countries have an inherent right to economic development in the sphere of Western-Modernity which Western countries now try to counter under various pretexts like environmentalism, climate change, human rights, and so on.
<br /><br />
I personally believe that, during the coming negotiation of the forms of the new world-order, “the inherent right of economic development” will become one of the major points of contention highlighted by non-Western-countries and their contention will be accompanied, I believe, by a right of reparation for centuries of cultural and economic genocide. And in this context the moment is rapidly approaching when Western countries will be confronted to growing demands to dismantle their debt trap holding non-Western-countries hostage to their pretensions at recovering the principal and the interests on the debts they contracted to them… <br /></li>
<br />
<li>
<b><u>Loss of Sovereignty
</u></b><br /><br />
Western imperial hegemony today takes the form of neocolonialism or the indirect management of non-Western-countries governments by indoctrination and corruption of their elites :
<br /><br />
<ul>
<li> <u>Indoctrination of non-Western elites</u>
<br /><br />
The elites of non-Western-countries have been systematically indoctrinated to the tenets of Neo-liberalism that have been peddled over the last 50 years by the institutions of the United-Nations and a bunch of international organizations, like the Trilateral Commission, that are financed by Western big capital holders.
<br /><br />
China’s economic elites, for example, have been recruited primarily among USA trained economists from the 1980’s until sometime after 2010 when locally trained economists started to be selected in priority.
<br /><br />
The CPC was well aware of the contradiction of sending hundred thousands students to the US annually where they would be submitted to a strict indoctrination to an ideology of Neoliberalism that favors the implementation of the rationality of Modernity above all else. But it judged this was the price to pay to gain specialized knowledge in the social sciences.
<br /><br />
Under his 3rd term as President Xi Jingping is now cleaning up the CPC and China’s state administration from USA trained economists, and other social sciences specialists, who pushed the country in over indebtment and in the throat of Western corporate cultural massification while encouraging the experimentation of Postmodernism in the arts.
<br /><br />
The <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity01.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A557%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C625.051%2C0%5D"> paradox of Western-Modernity</a>, that I develop in the Volumes 2 and 3 of the series about “The transition from Western-Modernity to After-Modernity”, on the one hand unleashes the production of an abundance of cheap consumer goods that generate the envy of the individuals all around the world. On the other hand, Western modernity generates in the minds of non-Western elites the perception that they must acquire the rationality of Western modernity, which is at work in all the specialized fields of the social sciences.
<br /><br />
This invariably leads to the death of their societies' traditional approaches to knowledge formation, which invariably concludes with the genocide of their traditional cultures. Western modernity also generates a series of side-effects that are responsible for the rapid extinction of living species. But Western elites want at all costs to avoid discussions about the systematic externalities of Western modernity that are the cause of the current avalanche of its side-effects !
</li>
<br /><br />
<li>
<u>Corruption or blackmail of non-Western elites
</u><br /><br />
Where and when the indoctrination, of non-Western-elites, is not working satisfactorily Western countries customize special programs that are especially adapted to the realities of resisting non-Western-countries.
<br /><br />
Over the last century the US 3 letter agencies have accumulated a panoply of specialized knowings about the engineering of social consent through the spread of propaganda, the manipulation of the news, the propagation of Neoliberal and Postmodern so called universal truths by Non Government Organizations (NGO’s), the adoption of legislation that is tainted by Neoliberalism, the militarization of institutions of force, and so on and on.
<br /><br />
Ultimately the black budgets, of US 3 letter agencies, unblock any resistance to the panoply of their specialized knowings.
</li>
<br /><br />
<li>
<u>Cultural genocide
</u><br /><br />
It is undeniable that Western-Modernity’s ultra successful production of material goods, and the envy of the citizens of the whole world to participate in the splurge of consumerism, resulted in the mass-conversion of nearly all humans on this earth to its paradigm and its societal logic.
<br /><br />
In the process traditional systems of knowledge formation, and the cultural fields of societies, collapsed in a worldwide cultural genocide that forced everyone to follow the normality of the rationality of Western-Modernity which is the expression of its totalitarianism !
<br /><br />
The resulting cultural destabilization, of non-Western-societies, became the opportunity of Western countries to impose their governance diktats. This process sums up the societal reality of non-Western-countries over the last 2 centuries.
</li>
<br /><br />
<li>
<u>Continuous economic dependency
</u><br /><br />
The cultural destabilization, in the context of a Western Neo-colonial hegemony, inevitably leads to a systemic economic dependence. It is at this stage that the loss of sovereignty through the indoctrination of the elites, or their corruption, provides the most favorable context for the capture by Western economic actors of the resources of non-Western countries.
<br /><br />
Breaking out of their captive context has always been the dream of non-Western countries. But their systemic dependence has been proven by history to be extremely difficult to shed, for, they were like dwarfs fighting against titanic forces.
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<br /><br /><br />
<h3 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">
5.2. 3. The west rejects the evolution of Western-Modernity </h3>
As I have laid out exhaustively, in <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity01.pdf">book1</a> of the Volume 2 of the series about “The transition from Western-Modernity to After-Modernity”, Early-Western-Modernity emerged with the conversion of Frank long distance merchants sometime in the 12th century and the implementation of a voluntary program of assistance to their commerce by the Counts of Champagne.
<br /><br />
Over the following 5 centuries Western-Modernity has expanded its rationality to all there is under the sun. This culminated with the triumph of philosophic rationalism and science under the Enlightenment which facilitated the explosion of material productions under the industrial revolution.
<br /><br />
The silent revolution of the 1970’s finally expanded the realm of investment of Western big capital holders to the whole world. Unfortunately this silent revolution went against the interests of the citizens, of Western nations and their societies. This silent revolution resulted indeed in a long chain of causes and effects that led to the transfer of Western industrial activities to Southern countries.
<br /><br />
China was the sole Southern country that, over the last 3 millennia, had accumulated a political theory and a theory of governance under chaotic conditions that was rooted in its historical practice. The “Chinese Traditional Knowledge” formation, and the “Chinese Traditional Culture” accompanying it, procured the insight to Deng Xiao Ping and his comrades to gamble on the financialization of Western economies to acquire on the cheap their production know-how and their capital. And by positioning itself as having the most favorable contextual settings to maximize the profits of Western big capital holders China succeeded to capture the bulk of Western know-how and capital that were shifting to the South.
<br /><br />
This resulted in 30 glorious years of extreme profits for Western capital holders and extremely cheap mass commodities craved by Western populations. But the glory suddenly turned sour when the World Bank announced in 2014 that China’s economy was on the verge of surpassing the US economy in PPP terms. This announcement was followed by a short period of silence that was suddenly interrupted by Donald Trump’s win of the presidential title in 2016.
<br /><br />
The Trump Presidency originated a trade war and, under the authority of Robert Kadlec (10), it was most probably the source of repeated biological attacks against China in 2018 and 2019. The last such attacks was in Wuhan and caused the Covid pandemic. The Biden Presidency expanded Trump’s trade-war, against China, into a technological and financial war that has backfired and is badly hurting the Western world.
<br /><br />
Western Europe's embrace of the United States, which uses Ukrainians as cannon fodder against Russia, has led to a new episode of de-industrialization of its chemical, mechanical engineering and automotive industries, which will cause a fall in its GDP and widespread unemployment. The US technology sector, while still the most advanced in the world, has suffered a massive and direct loss of market share as a result of China's counter-sanctions. This loss of market share will inevitably translate into a reduction in research budgets in the field of technological development, as the Chinese state redirects the massive investment of its real estate sector towards basic science, research and technological development.
<br /><br />
Over the last ten years, the United States' strategy has been to impose diktats on the rest of the world. Europe was forced to sanction Russia, and in the process it lost most of its supplies of cheap, high-quality Russian resources, resulting in huge consumer price rises and the loss of a significant share of its export market. For years, Russia had been preparing its economy to counter what it saw as inevitable Western sanctions. So, when the West sanctioned it, for its "special military operation" in Ukraine, the country was ready to seize the opportunity to rally the whole country behind a program of import substitution and reorientation of its exports from Western Europe to East Asia. Sanctions against China focused on reducing its imports of advanced technologies, with the aim of reducing its production of advanced consumer products. But China had also been preparing for this American move for years, and launched package after package of programs to support technological innovation in its most strategic industrial sectors: semiconductors, artificial intelligence (AI), 5G and 6G communications standards and wireless internet, the internet of things (IOT), quantum computing, robotic process automation (RPA), genomics, space technologies, military applications, etc.
<br /><br />
Backfiring sanctions are puzzling Western decision-makers. The more ideologically oriented are shouting for retribution in the form of more sanctions and the threat of economic blockades that could easily turn into a kinetic conflict. The more pragmatic are questioning the sanity of digging an ever deeper hole for their nations and are asking for dialogue with China and Russia. But they are still a minority. China and Russia furthermore doubt of the Western capability to implement its agreements.
<br /><br />
The Western silent revolution of the 1970’s is now reaching its conclusion in the form of an explosion of the trade, finance, and technological war that could possibly turn into a kinetic war characterized by the launch of intercontinental hypersonic missiles. The launch of such missiles would stop after a few hours to let the survivors count their losses. What follows would assuredly depend on the registered losses by both sides. I’m afraid that if one side were to have inflicted far worse damages, than those it suffered, it would most probably be tempted to launch all it can to cause the extinction of the other side…
<br /><br /><br />
<h3 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">
5.2.4. There Is Definitely An Alternative to the West </h3>
<br />
<ol>
<li>
<b><u>The unexpected rise of China</u></b>
<br /><br />
China’s strategy of positioning itself as having the most favorable contextual settings to maximize the profits of Western big capital holders ensured that it captured the bulk of the Western know-how and capital involved in the expansion of their reach to the whole world.
<br /><br />
In the process the country built the most extensive — national infrastructure that the world has ever seen — national production apparatus that the world has ever seen. But while this feat had been planned all along by Chinese strategists its successful outcome was unexpected in the eyes of Western strategists who were literally taken by surprise.
<br /><br />
China’s national infrastructure and its national production apparatus, stimulated the concentration of large chunks of production chains within the confines of its territory. And the delocalization by Chinese enterprises, of their lowest technology production capabilities, to ASEAN countries exploded the GDP of these countries while unifying a tight knit Regional Economic Block (REB) that completes China’s production chains with the supply of low cost parts and the procurement of machinery and consumer goods.
<br /><br />
The rise of ASEAN as an appendix of China was progressive but rapid. Most importantly all the parties remained cool headed and never boosted about the reality of their future potential. When both sides, sometime in the beginning of the 2020’s, became their most important trade and investment partners the West awakened to the new reality on the ground and started to search for fissures in the new South-East-Asian REB that could be exploited to cause its future downfall. All in all it can be said that all ASEAN members are skillfully skirting Western poison-pills intended to derail their future potential growth.
<br /><br />
Once again, while this feat had been planned all along by Chinese strategists, its successful outcome was unexpected in the eyes of Western strategists who were literally taken by surprise. But this time around the whole world awakened to what had just happened… This was a confirmation that the Chinese approach is working and can be reproduced elsewhere.
</li>
<br /><br />
<li>
<b><u>China proves that <i>“There Is Definitely An Alternative”</i> to Western hegemony
</u></b><br /><br />
China’s economic rise, and the subsequent rise of ASEAN, is awakening the whole world about the fact that Margaret Thatcher and TINA had been wrong all along. Western hegemony is suddenly losing its luster. The low-tide of pessimism in the collective subconscious seems to be turning into a high-tide of optimism at the prospect of the fall of Western hegemony.
<br /><br />
TINA is shifting into TIDAA or “There Is Definitely An Alternative” to Western hegemony. But the hope is still merely related to the potential of a future new world order. Before this new world order materializes a lot of water will still have to flow in the oceans.
<br /><br />
TIDAA is about the hope of a better future than what Western-Modernity has given us. But this hope is accompanied by growing risks of :
<br /><br />
<ul>
<li>
<u>Kinetic conflicts</u>
<br /><br />
In the words of some US high level military commanders the USA will soon use force against China in order to restrain its further economic development. Whatever their words might be worth we are forced to observe the de-facto build-up of military forces by countries on both sides of the present Geopolitical divide. But only time will tell how factual history will unfold, so while remaining clear-minded, we'd better keep quiet.
</li>
<br /><br />
<li>
<u>Western societal atomization<b> →</b> institutional collapse</u>
<br /><br />
As I laid out in “Modernity 02. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf?i=1#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A5986%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C625.051%2C0%5D">4.10. the cultural continuum breaks down</a>” societal atomization will conclude with <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf?i=1#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A5986%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C625.051%2C0%5D"> “the death of Western societies”</a>.
</li>
<br /><br />
<li>
<u>Numerous side-effects of Western-Modernity
</u><br /><br />
I laid out this aspect of Late-Western-Modernity in “Modernity 02. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf?i=1#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A3148%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C78.05%2C305.251%2C0%5D"> Part 2. Great Convergence of late-Modernity</a>”. In substance the paradigm of Western-Modernity forces numerous externalizations of costs that are absorbed by the habitat of life and the individuals of the different species living in this habitat. But this comes with costly consequences for their future generations. During this Late-Western-Modernity these consequences are already inflicting us with a predicament of interruption of life as usual.
<br /><br />
But these growing risks, on our present horizon, are not only isolated. They are converging and an acceleration has occurred on the path to their individual thresholds which implies that the time-frame to their tipping-points has considerably narrowed.
<br /><br />
In the Volume 2 and 3 of the series about “The transition from Western-Modernity to After-Modernity” I call this convergence and the accompanying acceleration of its consequence <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf?i=1#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A3148%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C78.05%2C305.251%2C0%5D"> “the great Convergence of the numerous side-effects of Western-Modernity”</a>.
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ol>
<div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUD2JmqzTOf5wh8bOL2nSb0-i_D4A1-Q80Ilaj765v5FIpfEtcbeyZdMmsbhyphenhyphenHvB9KJyeykz8Kl3Y7_YKBsmjNRcedG1rPf6vgCQGn1IOwIS07O2DPtvQZPMaRloSA3xLpSsLhm8w_MRVfStxkqHpPe1x4rpaAJejSOhdXwCMDznT8BF4GY40l/s1200/303-B4-32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUD2JmqzTOf5wh8bOL2nSb0-i_D4A1-Q80Ilaj765v5FIpfEtcbeyZdMmsbhyphenhyphenHvB9KJyeykz8Kl3Y7_YKBsmjNRcedG1rPf6vgCQGn1IOwIS07O2DPtvQZPMaRloSA3xLpSsLhm8w_MRVfStxkqHpPe1x4rpaAJejSOhdXwCMDznT8BF4GY40l/s320/303-B4-32.jpg" width="320" /></a></div></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />
<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;"><u>
Notes
</u></h2>
<br />
1. <a href="http://chinamatters.blogspot.com/2015/03/twilight-of-ccpand-shambaughism.html"> “Twilight of the CCP…AND Shambaughism?” </a> , China Matters, by Peter Lee. 2015-03-13.
<br /><br />
2. <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/unlocked-xi-for-73654389">“Unlocked: Xi Jinping Prepares for War” </a>, Patreon, by Peter Lee. 2022-10-23.
<br /><br />
3. <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/travelers-tales-88480944"> "Traveler’s Tales: My August 2023 Trip to China" </a>, Patreon, by Peter Lee. 2023-08-30.
<br /><br />
4. ABC’s = American Born Chinese.
<br /><br />
5. <a href="https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/subject/hist-mat/">"Historical materialism'</a>, Wikipedia.
<br /><br />
6. <a href="https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/governance/the-fiscal-stimulus-programme-and-public-governance-issues-in-china_budget-11-5kg3nhljqrjl">"The Fiscal Stimulus Program and Public Governance Issues in China"</a>, OECD Journal on Budgeting, Vol. 11/3., by Christine Wong. 2011-10-19.
<br /><br />
7. "The Transition from Western-Modernity to After-Modernity. Volume 2. Modernity-01. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity01.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A1170%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C181.8%2C342.351%2C0%5D">Part 1. Pre-Modernity was the context of Modernity's emergence</a>" by laodan
<br /><br />
8. <a href="https://www.epi.org/publication/ib330-productivity-vs-compensation/">"The wedges between productivity and median compensation growth"</a>, Economic Policy Institute, by Lawrence Mishel. 2012-04-26.
<br /><br />
9. <a href="https://wiki2.org/en/Hegemony">“Hegemony”</a>, from Wikipedia
<br /><br />
10. <a href="https://wiki2.org/en/Neocolonialism">“Neo-colonialism”</a>, from Wikipedia
<br /><br />
11. <a href="http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/battle/bftoc.html">"Battlefield of the Future</a>. Chapter 10. <a href="https://www.hsdl.org/?view&did=437704">Biological Weapons for Waging Economic Warfare</a>", by Lt Col Robert P. Kadlec, USAF.
<br />
<blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
"If the target commodity was a principal cash crop or food source, using BW may inflict a grave blow to that nation’s economy or society and possibly result in some political impact. History has recorded the chaos and instability created by such natural catastrophes as famines and epidemics. Using BW in this fashion would have applications to waging low-intensity warfare with strategic outcomes.<br />
... The real and hypothetical examples cited highlight the opportunity offered by BW as a means to attack the agricultural infrastructure of an adversary. The existence of naturally occurring or endemic agricultural pests or diseases and outbreaks as described permit an adversary to use BW with plausible denial.<br />
... In the post-cold war era and as we enter the twenty-first century, the economy determines superpower status. The threat posed by biological weapons deserves prudent consideration."
</span></i></blockquote>
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</div>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-46314719204403844582023-09-28T16:00:00.001-04:002023-09-28T16:00:00.139-04:00Daily reality and the news about it. Part 4.<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB1WgF764XKj470ykC1DPjr7D5ayY64OyRcF6h9NWFBhIoZ17hAL0IYhRi3OJSRCjVakuk0ATAaRAJYsV5dLYykK4OU9x0FAJJOgs0OcEdnLJTm8LlIOd_pf1z57i6iSFt1i0HLNGuGm1KnR5Fn-ZNJBjcTCbPg-DuaRK59zacuNC-8UYFL7Qw/s1200/303-B1-11.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; padding-right: 15px; padding-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB1WgF764XKj470ykC1DPjr7D5ayY64OyRcF6h9NWFBhIoZ17hAL0IYhRi3OJSRCjVakuk0ATAaRAJYsV5dLYykK4OU9x0FAJJOgs0OcEdnLJTm8LlIOd_pf1z57i6iSFt1i0HLNGuGm1KnR5Fn-ZNJBjcTCbPg-DuaRK59zacuNC-8UYFL7Qw/s320/303-B1-11.jpg" width="320" /></a>
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<div style="text-align: justify;">
<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">
Part 4. Science → great convergence → mass extinction event </h2>
For memory the multiple side-effects of Western-Modernity, that are presently converging, are accelerating both : — the unleashing, by each one of them, of tipping points that are sooner than later going to flip the Geo-bio-chemical state of the earth into new states from where there is no return — the creation of new critical areas of instability like the atomization of the societies, that reach the Late mode of development of Western-Modernity — the destabilization of the existing world-order due to the US refusal to accept the implications of the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world, outside the realm of the Western civilization, which might eventually lead to a 3rd World War that would be fatal to our present societal arrangements and possibly for the survival of our species.
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<span style="user-select: text;"><a name='more'></a></span>
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The atomization of Western nations incapacitates their ability to undertake any large scale project successfully while the destabilization of the existing world-order negates workable answers to most of the side-effects of Western-Modernity which guarantees the worse possible outcome for the human species ! And the fact is that the worst outcome of the Great-Convergence has already been engaged in the form of a process of mass-extinction of life on earth (1) !
<br /><br />
The emergence, of the processes leading to such a dire outcome, results from the convergence and interactions between different forms of rationalities : — the economic rationality of Modernity — the rationality of science — the governance rationality of power-societies. There is no avoiding the conclusion that each one of these rationalities shares the responsibility for the dire outcome that I just mentioned. But their convergence and interactions are greatly multiplying their individual potential.
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<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">4.1. Conceptual Clarification</h2>
<br />
In “Part 3. 3.1.2. Atomism is the paradigm of a system of knowledge formation that assembles atoms into larger structures”, I give a sketch of the different links in the chain of causality that animates the process of societal evolution. The first 6 links read as follows :<br />
<ol>
<li>
A knowledge paradigm generates a system of knowledge formation.
</li>
<br />
<li>
Those in charge of a system of knowledge formation try to generate a foundational worldview to share with their fellow citizens
</li>
<br />
<li>
A foundational worldview generally results is a new societal paradigm.
</li>
<br />
<li>
A new societal paradigm generally results in an archetypal model of society.
</li>
<br />
<li>
An archetypal model of society always generates a system of societal logic
</li>
<br />
<li>
A system of societal logic eventually generates a civilization with its historical worldview like a religion or a philosophy.
</li>
</ol>
But as the millennia long transition from small bands to tribal societies, and later from tribal societies to power societies, illustrate this is an extremely long process that is fraught with numerous uncertainties.
<br /><br />
At this point we have to acknowledge the fact that Europe dominated the field of archaeology, for nearly 2 centuries which bestowed a perception of truth to its approach that was reflected on the world market for ideas over the last centuries. People were blindly following the conclusions of the history departments of European universities until sometime after the 2nd World War when Western big capital holders started to seed the idea of expanding their reach to the whole world.
<br /><br />
This means that the bulk of the research about power-societies and civilizations was done until quite recently by Western European researchers who focused their attention near exclusively to the area that, in European parlance, was called the Middle-East which is a term that should be averted for its Eurocentrism. The appellation Middle-East conveys the prejudices, that Western Europeans held throughout their history toward the peoples from the East, which Edward W. Said laid out so convincingly in his book “Orientalism”, that was published in 1978. To avoid the suggestion of a subconscious reference to this kinds of Western prejudices I call this region the “Tri-Continental-Area”.
<br /><br />
Having said this the fact is that the TCA and East-Asia followed a different kind of transition from tribal societies to power-societies that has profoundly affected their vision of the world and their treatment of “the other”. In the TCA the knowledge paradigm of animism that had sustained the emergence of the archetypal model of tribal societies was violently rejected while the new knowledge paradigm of religious belief sustained the emergence of the archetypal model of power-societies.
<br /><br />
But the power-societies, within the territory of present-day China deviated from this model. Their transition from the tribal model of society operated in continuity without rupture from the past worldview. As I laid out in the Volume 0 “Concepts and Synthesis. Part 2. Transition to power-societies”, the immensity of the Chinese alluvial plains allowed the continuous territorial expansion of tribal societies through the dynamic of tribal population growth. In other words the tribal model of society, and animism, were never interrupted and their transition operated thus as a slow evolution spanning thousands of years. As a result the changes in governance and in worldview were imperceptible and animism shifted thus automatically into the foundational worldview of China’s power-societies.
<br /><br />
But the fact is that this differentiation, between the transition to power-societies in the TCA and in China, appears nowhere in academic history books ! And the otherworldliness, of Chinese in Western eyes and of Westerners in Chinese eyes, remains thus largely a mystery that continuously feeds Western dualism and its rejection of “the other” without there ever being a conscious effort to correct the ugliness of this Western automatism !
<br /><br />
The conclusions of Western history, about the formation of empires and civilizations, are so deeply rooted in the history of the TCA that historians, including non-Western historians who were educated to the content of Western text books, are reading the formation of other civilizations through the lens of Western European studies of the civilizations of the “Middle-East”.
<br /><br />
This means that the concepts and the processes applying to the TCA are being projected, until this very day, on other civilizational sites around the world without taking into account the reality of their regional specificity which leads to the absurd projection of Western concepts like “religion” or “god” or “empire” on an animist field of culture, as in China for example, that was governed by “Power Confederations” for some 2,000-3,000 years which regrouped “Tribal Cultural Confederations” and a big city and some agricultural villages before a centralized empire absorbed these “Power Confederations” some 2,250 years ago.
<br /><br />
China’s transition, from “Tribal Cultural Confederations” to “Power Confederations”, shows that this process varied according to the specificity of different regional geographic contexts. And this differentiation in the transition process also indicates that the new archetypal model of power-societies could be sustained by different foundational worldviews.
<br /><br />
Western-Modernity emerged, nearly 4,000 years after the emergence of the earliest power-societies, as a complementary extension, of the religious paradigm of power-societies, into a new paradigm addressing the secular productions relating to daily life. Thomas Acquinas’ humanism was a projection of the complementarity, of the new paradigm of Modernity, to the paradigm of religious knowledge. His humanism eased the coexistence of Modernity with Christianity by reconciling the secular formation of knowledge, about daily life, with God’s revealed truth.
<br /><br />
Centuries later during the Enlightenment “the reason”, that is at work in the paradigm of Modernity, got illuminated in most Western minds thus expanding it into the new normality of philosophic rationalism and science that rapidly split into various silos separated by an ever more profound specialization.
<br /><br />
Today, 2 centuries after the Enlightenment, scientific specialization has driven the various sciences very deep into their abstractions and they now follow autonomous paths that are no longer interconnected, among themselves, and with the holistic “First Principles of Life”. This peculiar state of science is one of the determinant characteristics of the societies that have reached the stage of development of Late-Western-Modernity. The other parameters are — the atrophy of religious belief and the practice of its rites — the atrophy of belief in secular foundational narratives like Marxism for example — the atomization of societies and their incapability to undertake successfully any large scale national project like fighting an epidemic, or answering the emergencies following natural catastrophes, or winning a world war for that matter…
<br /><br />
Late-Western-modernity increasingly looks like a funeral car driving a dead body to the incinerator. While TIDAA instills hope, that “There Is Definitely An Alternative” to Western-Modernity and that non-Western-countries are on the right side of history when claiming the equality of all nations and their right to self-determination, Western countries behave like drunken sailors who have lost their compass. What strikes me most in the present moment is the contrast between the hope of the South and a Western dualism that destabilizes the mental state of its citizens by pitting a mad rush to Armageddon against a blind optimistic faith in mathematics as the ultimate Holy Grail of the rationality of Western modernity.
<br /><br />
The field of mathematics, ontologically, is abstract logic for its own sake just like “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation” is another abstract logic for its own sake that gradually displaced the religious paradigm of belief in a narrative imposed by power. Knowledge paradigms imply that an ontology is flowing throughout the continuum of the field of culture of societies. This ontological flow fixes the path of the societal knowledge formation and animates the internal evolution of societies. Such a process is at work throughout the territorial realm of all civilizations.
<br /><br />
But how did mathematics come to occupy such a preeminent role in Late-Western-Modernity ?
<br /><br />
It first was assigned the ontological determination of the financial rationality through taxation, of early power societies, in parallel with the invention of their written languages. And, over the last half a century, it determined the ontology of the digital transformation of all human activities that powered the implementation of the silent revolution of the 1970’s. And it finally is assigning the ontology ascertaining artificial intelligence as the latest technological iteration of a new economic cycle that is being marketed by its protagonists as an ultimate trans-humanist revolution that will first connect the human brain with artificial intelligence apps which will ultimately replace the human body by a machine that is bound to replace Homo-Sapiens.
<br /><br />
Starting with the return of Frank aristocrats and clergymen from the crusades, in the 12th century, Greek and Arabic mathematics books got translated into Latin. The absorption by Western Europe of the content of these books prepared the scientific explosion of the 17th and 18th centuries. It makes no doubt that the logic of mathematics was the determinant parameters in the illumination of the minds of Frank long distance merchants to the paradigm of Western-Modernity. It makes also no doubt that the popularization of the economic rationality of Modernity operated in sync with the development of mathematics into the foundational parameter of science.
<br /><br />
What I'm trying to show here is that the path, from a paradigm of knowledge to an archetypal model of society, is a very long process indeed that is not automatically destined to be completed successfully. Let sink in the mind, for a moment, the fact that mathematics has established itself as the paradigm of knowledge in the societies that have attained the level of development of Late-Western-Modernity.
<br /><br />
Starting some 5,000 years ago mathematics fostered the ontology of the systems of taxation that financed the institutional reproduction of early power-societies which the belief in a religious worldview had originated. And its mark got even more profound with the origination of the paradigm of Modernity which explains the foundational character that it exerts presently on the practice of science.
<br /><br />
The determinant impact of science and technology on the system of logic, of the societies that have attained the level of development of this Late-Western-Modernity, is suggesting that mathematics could possibly transform into a new fully fledged societal paradigm… But as I mentioned earlier the path to the triumph of transhumanism, against the realization of the belief in Armageddon, is along, strenuous and uncertain process indeed.
<br /><br />
The following chapter shows how bleak are the chances, of the knowledge paradigm of mathematics, to ever reach the maturity of a foundational worldview that gives rise to a new societal paradigm. The great convergence, of the side-effects of the rationality of Western-Modernity with the rationality of science and the rationality of power societies, is annihilating the habitat of life on earth, and without habitat to live in, Homo-Sapiens will not be left the time to realize their dream of transhumanism
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<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdcskkqhzmL1sEocdWHo1o4BWBJ6-8RDjO6GA7CEWph14d3YlTEmb-BuDap6dPUh9LyF1Zmsy1z868dIMJ6jxMEcrdowrLDQYlsW-hc_LtD2IQN-DJ72dZsy6JwLHaiWNbP5N1igMfKevfBwqayEhZxhfzzctn8aJa9qIbP-JChoGrWwsa_u1H/s1200/303-B2-31.jpg" style="clear: right; display: block; float: right; padding-left: 15px; padding-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdcskkqhzmL1sEocdWHo1o4BWBJ6-8RDjO6GA7CEWph14d3YlTEmb-BuDap6dPUh9LyF1Zmsy1z868dIMJ6jxMEcrdowrLDQYlsW-hc_LtD2IQN-DJ72dZsy6JwLHaiWNbP5N1igMfKevfBwqayEhZxhfzzctn8aJa9qIbP-JChoGrWwsa_u1H/s320/303-B2-31.jpg" width="320" /></a>4.2. Rationality of Western-Modernity + science → great convergence of side-effects </h2>
<br />
The rationality of Western-Modernity is economic in nature. It is the rationality that is being impulsed by “The reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money, + the transformation of speculative debt + “the transformation of the gamble on nature, into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”.
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The rationality of Western-Modernity has transformed everything that was on its way in its own image : — from the rush, by nearly 95% of the population, out of agriculture to occupy blue and white collar industrial jobs — to consumerism and hyper-individualism — from traditional knowledge formation and their shared worldviews that boosted the cohesion of societies to the rationalism of Western-Modernity that killed shared worldviews and left people on their own to solve their unanswered existential questions — from the slow life of small, cohesive communities, to the mad rush of large, atomized societies, awaiting collapse — and so on and on.
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Science is no stranger to this transformation. The owners of capital who have converted to the paradigm of modernity feel obliged to invest in the design, production and sale of new products. In doing so, they own companies and control public institutions that recruit scientists to provide them with the necessary know-how. And scientists invent the necessary knowledge, based on snippets of reality, that drive the technological development of new products and services. In the process, they specialize and sink ever deeper into their silos of abstractions, while their increasingly complex hardware and software are used to manufacture ever-new products. Finally, they devise strategies to sell as many of these products as possible to unsuspecting consumers.
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But the fact is that scientists don't care for a second about the damage their inventions will eventually inflict on the habitat of life and on life itself. They're not paid to care about this, and if they did, they'd be at the mercy of the capital-holders' manager-servants, who'd fire them.
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In the eyes of Western younger generations, who are observing the withering of their chances to thrive as adults, and in the eyes of non-Western nations that have been forced to live through the holocaust inflicted on them, over the last 9 centuries by Western-societies, the scientists and capital holders have to assume the full responsibility for :
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<h3 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;"> 4.2.1. The holocaust Western nations have inflicted to non-Western-societies over the last 9 centuries needs reparation </h3>
The success of China in climbing to the top echelon, of the economy-world under Western-Modernity, instilled the hope of TIDAA in the minds of the citizens of non-Western-countries that there is an alternative to Western hegemony and that there is a better future awaiting them. So their countries awakened to the possibility of rejecting any further Western hegemony. This fostered a profound desire to leave poverty behind for the production of an equitable economic development.
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This dream naturally implies a juster world order that protects their territorial integrity, their fundamental right to implement the mode of development and the form of governance of their own choosing, as well as win-win international rules of the game that allow them a chance to procure a better future to their populations.
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Assuring, that non-Western-countries have a better future, is the smallest compensation that Western countries should be held accountable for their past holocaust. It is their moral duty to let non-Western-countries develop economically while they revise their own model of development to levels of consumption that are sustainable.
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Only those countries that have reached the advanced stage of Western modernity should feel obliged to fight against the side-effects of this mode of development. Countries still in the early or intermediate stages of Western modernity's mode of development should feel encouraged to develop their economies as quickly as possible. And if the daily cultures of Western societies call for immediate action by all nations on the planet, their countries should be obligated to offer, free of charge to the South, the technologies suited to a cleaner development.
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What I mean to say here is that, for the whole world to willingly engage in a restructuring of its ways of life, the consumption of the South has first to increase, while the consumption of the North has to decrease. As long as there are privileged countries and poor countries a common restructuring of their ways of life will remain unfeasible.
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Humanity’s target is to avoid the extinction of the species. And the best strategy, to realize this objective, is to balance National consumption averages in a far narrower band than today while ensuring that these national consumption averages are sustainable for life in the habitat procured by the earth.
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<h3 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;"> 4.2.2. The refusal by the USA to accept the shift of the center of gravity of Western-Modernity to Beijing hampers a valid answer, by the international community, to the great convergence </h3>
Younger generations in the West and non-Western countries have a common interest in implementing remedies to make the homo-sapiens’ way of life sustainable with the resources generated by the Earth. This is not an ideological statement. It is the evidence imposed to our individual intelligence by a world that annually consumes more resources than those that the earth can generated ! <br /><br />
Humanity is consuming today the seeds that should supply tomorrow’s resources to its children. In other words each year humanity is eating a part of its natural capital which implies that the resources available tomorrow will be less than in the present ! Our species better awakens to its absurd behavior !
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In light of this the West's current temper-tantrum is unwelcome, to say the least. The U.S. imposed its model of world order after World-War2. It goes without saying that it was a flawed order. But the fact is that all the countries of the world became members of the United Nations. To short-circuit the natural evolution of Western modernity, with the shift of its center of gravity to Beijing, the US is now sabotage the order it created and leaving the world in turmoil.
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The fact is that China's economic development is an integral part of Western modernity. The rush by the U.S. to use all means at its disposal, including war, to prevent China's access to the top economic spot is simply morally unacceptable. And it is so much more unacceptable now that humanity has to urgently face the prospect of irreparable damages by the great convergence of the numerous side-effects of Western-Modernity !</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <br /><br /> <br />
<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8pJCQybJ3QxYwb44CjgHriD_NZjDnA5G2k7KICAMxPO2pJvJG5g8-571UabKl1NmFMQ2j90eCijy9tIdkiALTSF01dmkFyv2oAgJmt4d0v3YPwhdB_RywnL_Q9Zd-U_NJPaF6QVVT4Eo6TfVP8gPzGO4RH9XrNCauTVg-BV2-NPcOhotloDww/s1200/303-B1-32.jpg" style="clear: right; display: block; float: right; padding-left: 15px; padding-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh8pJCQybJ3QxYwb44CjgHriD_NZjDnA5G2k7KICAMxPO2pJvJG5g8-571UabKl1NmFMQ2j90eCijy9tIdkiALTSF01dmkFyv2oAgJmt4d0v3YPwhdB_RywnL_Q9Zd-U_NJPaF6QVVT4Eo6TfVP8gPzGO4RH9XrNCauTVg-BV2-NPcOhotloDww/s320/303-B1-32.jpg" width="320" /></a>4.3. rationality of power-societies + the great convergence → mass-extinction </h2>
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Taken individually science, the rationality of Western-Modernity and our present model of societal organization in the form of power-societies, have each the capability to damage individual life but they do not yet have the capability to eradicate life from the ensemble earth. <br /><br />
The convergence of the rationality of Western-Modernity, and the rationality of science, render both of them pathological. And left unchecked the great convergence will annihilate many species on earth. This pathology is already destabilizing fragile human complex systems and will terminate them if we don’t break its chain of causality.
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But when the convergence, of the rationality of Western-Modernity with science, converge with the pathology of power-societies, in the form of the US’s rejection of its own world order, we assist at an abrupt acceleration of the process of mass-extinction that veers into a potential mass-annihilation.
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Mass-extinction is the consequence of the convergence and interaction between — the economic rationality of Western-Modernity — and the rationality of science. But the convergence of mass-extinction with the pathology of power societies threatens an abrupt mass annihilation :
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<h3 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;"> 4.3.1. The rationality of Western-Modernity </h3>
The nature of the rationality of Western-Modernity resides in its societal paradigm that fixes the ontology of the system of logic of its societies.
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An ontology is a vision about the working of reality while a societal paradigm is the choice of one specific ontology among the multiple visions that are theoretically accessible. But in practice humanity does not really choose a paradigm. A societal paradigm is forced upon it at the end of a long process of changing contextual settings, that are no longer suitable for the old societal paradigm and its system of societal logic, impulse a transition to a new societal paradigm.
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When the archetypal model of tribal societies became in-operational in the TCA this model was rejected and a transitional period was initiated that after 5,000 to 6,000 years resulted in the archetypal model of Power-societies.
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The length of this transition was primarily due to infighting among men of power that challenged any successful institutional reproduction. The sharing of a religious foundational worldview boosted the trust of the individuals among each others and increased the cohesion of their societal groups. And at a certain threshold of societal cohesion their institutions started to reproduce over the long haul of many generations.
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The rationality of these early power societies continued to focus on the primacy of their reproduction to the detriment of greater complexity. One particularly striking example of this primacy of reproduction, to the detriment of greater complexity, was the custom of canceling debt when a new king was crowned. Contemporary economists have unfortunately captured this process of debt cancellation to justify their unrealistic proposals for solving the present systematic over-indebtment of the societal actors.
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By the end of the 11th century a chain of causes and effects had metastasized, in the territory of the Franks, that put the propitious context of pre-Modernity on fire. This context was the political ambition of Western Christianity which wanted Rome to have have full authority over Eastern Christianity while having primacy over Western-European secular power.
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This led to the East–West Schism of 1054, between Eastern-Christianity and Western-Christianity, and Pope Urban II’s call for a 1st crusade to liberate Jerusalem. Urban II was a descendant of a Frankish noble family and the participants to the 1st crusade were mostly Frank aristocrats, their knights, and serfs.
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The 1st crusade resulted in a profound cultural shock, in the minds of the Western European aristocracy, that fostered a demand to local Frank merchants for luxury goods from the Eastern Mediterranean. The satisfaction of this demand forced Frank local merchants to practice long distance trade and during this practice their minds were blown away by an illumination. They had suddenly discovered “the reason that is at work in the transformation of their sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”. And their religious like conversion to this “reason” procured them fortunes that popularized “the reason” with their fellow-citizens. As I mentioned earlier, by reconciling this secular reason with God’s revealed truth, Thomas Acquinas’ humanism initiated a half a millennium long peaceful coexistence between Western Christianity and the commercial capitalism of Early-Modernity that never got interrupted until the Enlightenment. By the time of the Enlightenment “the reason” had expanded to everything under the sun thus assuring the triumph of philosophic rationalism and science and their competition with religion for believing minds.
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But as we discovered, along the 20th century, “the reason” initiated a separation of knowledge into specialized knowings that got completely detached from each other and from the big picture of “the First Principles of Life”. In their detachment, from what really counts in life, Western nations’ industrialized by externalizing all kinds of costs which were absorbed by the habitat and the species living in it. We discovered recently that this absorption came at the cost of side-effects that have initiated a mass-extinction of life on earth !
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<h3 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;"> 4.3.2. The rationality of science </h3>
A case study, of the responsibility of science in the economic production of side-effects, is given by the pathologies resulting from the intrusion of nano-particles in the biology of life.
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Chemists discovered the process to produce plastic materials, at the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. This scientific discovery led to their massive production. It has been observed over the last 2 decades, that by the end of their life, these materials fragment into ever smaller particles.
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Environmentalists observed how nano-particles of these materials have been spreading to the farthest reaches of the world and that water anywhere on earth has been contaminated. This means that these particles are now inevitably being absorbed by all living species on earth including humans.
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This conclusion has been rushing biologists, over the last few years, to study what happens with these particles after their absorption in the human body. And the news is not good. These particles have been observed in each organ of the body. Even worse they have been observed sipping in the cells of newborns ! Biologists are still studying the impact this will have on human life in the future but one thing is already certain. Life will be negatively impacted !
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This plastics case-study shows us how science, and the economic rationality of Modernity, share the responsibility of what is already known to end up in an inevitable catastrophe for life on earth. But until now this responsibility does not lead to any coherent societal corrective path.
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<h3 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;"> 4.3.3. The rationality of power-societies </h3>
The rationality, of the archetypal model of power-societies, rests on the will of a small minority to impose, with all means at it disposal, their appropriation of privileges at the detriment of the large majority of citizens which results in a two tier societal order that procures richness and luxury to a small minority while procuring poverty to the large majority.
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The minority invariably protects its privileges and the means at the disposal consist in the mental manipulation of the large majority of citizens, by submitting them to an unrelenting onslaught of propaganda that normalizes the idea of the reproduction of its power institutions over the long haul of many generations. And in the rare cases, when the propaganda does not succeed to assuage the large majority of individuals, brute force is used to constrain them into submission.
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Force implies the physical force of professional units in charge of the implementation of law and order while mental manipulation implies propaganda peddling the ideology of the men of power that is codified by their servant men of knowledge.
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In early power-societies the ideology consisted in a religious narrative like in the TCA, or in an animistic narrative like in East-Asia, that was peddled by men of knowledge. In the TCA the men of knowledge were subservient to the men of power while in China, or Tibet for that matter, they were exercising power by themselves.
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In the present late-Modernity of Western societies traditional worldviews have atrophied and the individuals are left on their own to answer their existential questions. As a result their trust in each other, and in their society, has vanished which caused their separation from one another and from their societies. Isolated individuals soon succumbed to loneliness that they tried to escape by absorbing mind altering substances like alcohol or drugs.
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The epidemic of loneliness has furthermore been compounded, over the last decades, by social media platforms that riveted the individuals in front of their screens where their loneliness exploded in an unhinged hyper-individualism that viscerally rejects any orders by powers that be and any truth by knowledge authorities.
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The individuals’ rejection of the diktats of the traditional protagonists of power-societies, that are the men of power and the men of knowledge, atomized Western societies and, as a result, they have lost the ability to successfully undertake any large scale national project — like fighting an epidemic — like answering peoples’ social needs during natural catastrophes — or like winning a world war for that matter !
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Societal atomization implies that the rationality, of the archetypal model of Western power-societies, has been squandered which questions what is their path forward :
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<h4 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;"> 4.3.3.1. Or societal collapse and a new path from chaos to order </h4>
The present political dysfunction could continue unabated and an increasing social inequality could force an ever greater reduction of life expectancy which would further destabilize the working of societal institutions. The fact is that dysfunction and rot are sweeping inexorably throughout the societal body and one day something, that in normal circumstances would have been seen as banal, will act as the catalyst of a social explosion that opportunists will rapidly try to lead in order to satisfy their own ambitions or interests.
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Such explosions will most probably lead to the collapse of societies and their partition in smaller polities that will fight among themselves for resources. In this scenario a future of chaos inevitably awaits Western societies and their citizens.
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<h4 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">4.3.3.2. Or totalitarianism and order</h4>
Or the real authorities, that hide behind their professional servants at the steering wheel of public decision-making, decide that enough is enough and force the citizens to submit to a new form of totalitarianism embedded in the large scale deployment of the new digital technologies that today make the titles of the media.
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I’m afraid that such a Neo-totalitarianism would succeed to put to shame all its preceding forms. The combination of the following factors implies total surveillance of the individuals : — cameras registering the presence of individuals in all places — A.I. scrutinizing these videos for “out of normality” individuals whose information is stored in their databases — the transmission of the information, that is relevant to the protection of the exiting order, to policing servants.
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Total surveillance, in turn, implies complete conformity to the new normality ! But our behemoth technology corporations will not be the real power-holders in this Neo-totalitarianism. The real power-holders will be a small number of very big capital holders whose ownership confers them the control of the corporations and state institutions, that control the working of the societal connection nodes, that are strategic to impulse the movement of humanity in the direction that is most profitable to their interests.
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I honestly don’t see how Western societies, in their present state of atomization, could reform out of the hole they have been digging for themselves over the last half a century. So whatever is the outcome of the present dysfunction of Western societies the fact is that their citizens will soon be confronted with the complete control over all their movements, all their actions, and most probably all their thoughts by a pervasive Neo-totalitarianism that serves the interests of a few families.
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In the eyes of these few families, and their civil servants and private employees, the greatest enemy is not their anesthetized population, who will eventually be provided drugs and free games as a distraction, but Chinese state capital that threatens their hegemony over 85+% of the world population in non-Western countries.
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The struggle for hegemonic control of the minds of almost every citizen on earth is the great monopoly game of the 21st century. Unfortunately, there is no mechanism to constrain, in any way, the small minorities in charge of the levers of power on both sides of this great game.
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Could the fact, that they know to have no responsibility to any societal actor, unhinge their actions to the point of ordering their servants to push on the button to start the distribution of nuclear missiles on their adversaries ? Those who follow the daily news assiduously will certainly not be reassured. In their separation from human societal realities the power minorities could indeed push on the button at any moment.
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Note that this would terminate the cycle of societal evolution and open the path of a new cycle of biological evolution.
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Logically the responsibility of science in the generation of side-effects should engender calls for it to address the damages that the application of its research and production caused to the individuals and their habitat. But the rationality of Western-Modernity is so strongly ingrained in the minds, as the contemporary normality, that its questioning does not even arise to individual awareness.
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But what if peak resources terminates the industrial dream of continue to live as we have lived over the last decades ? And what about human sperm counts reaching zero a few decades down the road as some scientists believe will be the case ? Or what if societal atomization terminates with the atrophy of the societies attaining the last stage of Late-Western-Modernity as I myself suggest ? We could continue to enumerate a litany of other side-effects that science initiated in light of its loss of the traditional knowledge about the precautionary principle that wants the preservation of the habitat of future o generations.
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Knowing that one single such side-effects could possibly result in the degradation of the habitat of life, a few decades down the road, we would think that their convergence and interactions, which are de-multiplying the risks of degradation that could cause the collapse of societies, would lead us to take radical actions to preserve the life of future generations. But this is not what we observe.
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<h4 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">4.3.3.3. Humanity's predicament or the Great convergence </h4>
The rationality of science and the rationality of Western-Modernity are incontestably the root of humanity’s predicament in this Late-Western-Modernity. But before our species comes to its senses, and takes the necessary corrective measures, today’s normality of plenty could be gone and people’s minds could be dragged into another ‘cu-de-sac’ of a normality that leaves little available food.
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It could thus be argued that humanity no longer disposes of the necessary time-frame to reach a sufficient conscious awareness to find the right answers to counter the predicament that Western-Modernity has force on the whole of mankind.
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This just shows that shifting away, from an existing societal normality, is not a given. Systems of societal logic are logical derivations from societal paradigms. But these are buried so deeply in the historical past, or in our subconscious minds, that they do not normally surface in human awareness. The long haul history, of our species, indicates that the emergence and adherence to new knowledge and societal paradigms, that privilege the reproduction of the species over the future long haul, was always the consequence of a dramatic destabilization of the existing model of society.
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This was the case with the destabilization, of the small band model of societal organization, by the Eamian abrupt climate heating that occurred some 130,000 years ago. The normality of stable high temperatures, over the next 15,000 years, eventually resulted in the emergence of a model of society that could accommodate larger quantities of individuals while letting them self-organize around the principle of decision-making at the unanimity.
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A burst of knowledge formation must have been at the origin of the sudden abundance and richness observed in the archaeological remnants of African tribal societies dating from the millennia following the Eamian. This burst of knowledge formation played a determinant role in the chain of events that led to the emergence of the archetypal model of tribal-societies. But in matter of fact this role had gotten ‘subcontracted’ by late small-bands to specialized (wo)men who were supplied the goods necessary for their daily life in exchange for their knowledge services to the group.
<br /><br />Here after follows a sketch of what I think animates the coming rejection of the rationality of Western-Modernity and mathematics which acts as its most potent instrument.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /><br />
<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7fg_IYW50tst9XiuRQiR18dTTM7t5X3vGY-8tIcLrSxWslfFRxE1RPA2UpYA_n8xViUXWmOF_fNwnelXYVsOb3dChuyEEso9SPJ1HL-VRI3ycMuNCKVf7yHrRCQrvGP-TQX8HH0lboVecqmJbCd2XnL8DMM0AguEqWZ8S9smgPfa1oQamXKFA/s1200/303-B1-41.jpg" style="clear: right; display: block; float: right; padding-left: 15px; padding-top: 5px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7fg_IYW50tst9XiuRQiR18dTTM7t5X3vGY-8tIcLrSxWslfFRxE1RPA2UpYA_n8xViUXWmOF_fNwnelXYVsOb3dChuyEEso9SPJ1HL-VRI3ycMuNCKVf7yHrRCQrvGP-TQX8HH0lboVecqmJbCd2XnL8DMM0AguEqWZ8S9smgPfa1oQamXKFA/s320/303-B1-41.jpg" width="320" /></a> 4.4. The West is rejecting the natural evolution of Western modernity !
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The archetypal model of "power-societies" emerged some 5,000 to 6,000 years ago in the TCA. This model was adopted by the Roman empire and, starting in the 2nd part of the 5th century directly after the fall of the Roman empire the Franks inherited it with the help of the Western Christian church. The Franks’ origination, of the archetypal model of power-societies, imprinted a mental framework of exceptionalism in the minds of the inhabitants of Western-Europe who viewed “the difference of the other” as an unacceptable danger to themselves and their god.<br /><br />
Today the economic center of gravity of Late-Western-Modernity is shifting on an evolutionary path that is not acceptable in the eyes of the Anglo-Saxons who inherited the culture of the Franks. And they are refusing the natural evolution of Western-Modernity that is shifting the center of gravity of their economy-world to Beijing that sits at the core of an impregnable East-Asian Regional Economic Block.
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In light of this Western elites focused on upsetting a Ukraine red line that Russia would eventually feel necessary to answer. Ukraine is indeed merely one episode in the Western strategy of refusal that the center of gravity of Western-Modernity could be leaving the territorial realm of the Western civilization !
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The Russia-China alignment fostered a Western approach to the destabilization of China that focuses on all means available at the exception of kinetic blows which are restricted until presently solely to Russia. In their delusion of exceptionalism Western elites convinced themselves that Russia is no more than a gas station. Destabilizing this gas station appeared like a child's play and they would have destabilized Russia they thought that they would have access to its natural resources thus cutting China's land supply roads.
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After one year and a half Russia's military operation has annihilated the Western stock of conventional weapons as well as Ukraine's operational capabilities as a state. In other words Russia has projected, in the minds of the people on this earth, the idea that it has the most formidable and strongest military !
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In these conditions the next step, in the conflict on the Ukrainian territory, is :
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<h3 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">4.4.1. Or a recognition by the West of Russia's security needs</h3>
Russia is presently in an incontestable position of force and only after a last offensive West, giving it control over a larger portion of Ukraine’s territory, could a mediation by China eventually lead to a negotiated settlement that recognizes Russia’s 3 initial demands about — the security of all Ukrainian regions where Russian is spoken — the institutional obligation of Ukraine to denazify — the guarantee that Ukraine will not become a NATO member. <br /><br />
But the million dollar question is if the USA and the EU will ever consent to a Russian win. It will take all the patience and finesse of the Chinese to craft a proposal that is acceptable by all parties but that gives Russia satisfaction on its 3 original demands.
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But the most difficult will be to ascertain the flawless implementation of this agreement. Russia will indeed want strong guarantees that the implementation goes as is written on the paper. The recognition by both Merkel and Hollande that the Minsk agreement was merely a delaying tactic, to allow the weaponization of Ukraine by NATO, undoubtedly justifies Russia’s hesitancy about recognizing the validity of Western signatures. The implementation guarantee by neutral parties will thus be a must to convince Russia to trust the words printed on the paper.
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<h3 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;"> 4.4.2. Or the West pushes the conflict further in new territory </h3>
The West will in all probability want to delay as long as possible its recognition of a Russian win and it will thus try to extend the conflict to other regions. But the further the conflict expands the higher becomes the risk of a nuclear exchange.<br /><br />
Now that Poland refuses to continue arming Ukraine an extension of the conflict in Eastern Europe appears less feasible.
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But a new area of tensions is emerging in Armenia and Azerbaijan that the US and the EU are cajoling in a process of integration into NATO and the EU. Russia and Iran will inevitably oppose this Western stratagem and it certainly does not please China. But China’s red line in central Asia, against any affiliation with the Western block, has not been made public as of now. It is nevertheless evident that the country will not accept the presence of NATO or the EU on its Western border. So it is only a question of time before China will take sides.
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Another area of tension is the Taiwan strait and the South China Sea. The next election in Taiwan, in the spring of 2024, will supply a fresh outlook on Taiwan’s willingness to soldier on the front line of America’s conflict with China.
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A territorial expansion of the conflict will inevitably sketch the first lines of a worldwide positioning of forces that will fragilize the accommodation of a neutral stance by Southern observing countries. But the more time passes the more the health of Western societies will become an inevitable factor in any equation that tables a conflict between the West and the triangle Russia-Iran-China. The atomization of Western societies is never talked about but its resulting societal dysfunction is more and more apparent mostly in the USA and in France where poverty, hyper-individualism, loneliness and the rejection of all authorities is crippling the normal working of state institutions. The men of power are trying to contain this societal rot by justifying the curtailing of free speech and by hardening the totalitarian character of their institutions of power which becomes a further justification for their rejection by their citizens.
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All in all it becomes apparent that the strength of Western societies is weakening while the strength, of Russia and most importantly of China, is continuing to grow albeit at a slower pace than over the decades preceding the Covid epidemic. The health of the protagonists is thus becoming a determinant parameter in the outcome of their conflicts. The probability of a financial and economic collapse of the EU and of the USA is also increasing dramatically and this could radically change the balance of power. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQfVADVOzOLAbIHkl6zXKUI-aFnc20mSV37vIHEIhaGXKN5s9KOkyqMU5JgReWfDafEeOky0kC0tAJLJEhHcn-Bxxfyg_xRyHgXzZNe3ACqjMEinSZSF9E-4NMLFYNC04lo-eHPIIwH0Kljn6NfxB67Qb-XnyDUsrQOu0Q_m-Sch8MIIrtqCXm/s1200/303-B2-22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQfVADVOzOLAbIHkl6zXKUI-aFnc20mSV37vIHEIhaGXKN5s9KOkyqMU5JgReWfDafEeOky0kC0tAJLJEhHcn-Bxxfyg_xRyHgXzZNe3ACqjMEinSZSF9E-4NMLFYNC04lo-eHPIIwH0Kljn6NfxB67Qb-XnyDUsrQOu0Q_m-Sch8MIIrtqCXm/s320/303-B2-22.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-73995703469470873642023-09-21T16:00:00.003-04:002023-09-21T16:00:00.143-04:00Daily reality and the news about it. Part 3.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4yoj0gWYOQae_Fnip6ZOa6AeoDTCRC1t99GOH3IEvEca6X4eCIjGm4d0Y-OqUIYsbfVInLYeVgDzx0RyYLDJrZVAbfbe0jRuTuBUlGJbs3eMApJglrGklGl1vPeBquRGqg1rnw1pohDM0GGPTCPTtVWfAtp6dIab4iFUrSYR_yB5_0Tg5a304/s1200/303-D4-42.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1px; margin-right: 15px; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj4yoj0gWYOQae_Fnip6ZOa6AeoDTCRC1t99GOH3IEvEca6X4eCIjGm4d0Y-OqUIYsbfVInLYeVgDzx0RyYLDJrZVAbfbe0jRuTuBUlGJbs3eMApJglrGklGl1vPeBquRGqg1rnw1pohDM0GGPTCPTtVWfAtp6dIab4iFUrSYR_yB5_0Tg5a304/s320/303-D4-42.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a>
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Part 3. The Western Enlightenment, concealed the traditional model of knowledge formation
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Traditional animist knowledge formation emerged most probably sometime in the millennia preceding the Eamian Interglacial, that lasted from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago. And during the Eamian itself that form of knowledge formation was boosted by the necessity to adapt to an abrupt climate warming. This adaptation initiated the transition to the archetypal model of tribal societies, which launched <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/00Synthesis.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A233%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C141.8%2C286.101%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">the process of societal evolution</a> in parallel with the process of biological evolution.
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An abrupt climate heating, some 11,700 years ago, at <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/00Synthesis.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A326%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C182.15%2C278.351%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">the tail-end of the Younger-Dryas</a> destabilized the tribal model of society in the Tri-Continental-Area. This initiated a transition to a new archetypal model of society capable of handling larger populations.
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After re-discovering “the virtue of belonging” the men of power associated with men of knowledge having a large following. This enabled the reproduction, some 5,000 years ago, of the institutions of the new archetypal model of power-societies that, in the TCA (Tri-Continental-Area = Middle East), rested on a paradigm that reads as “the assembly of citizens by force and their sharing a common religious societal worldview to ease the reproduction of their societal institutions”.
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This <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/00Synthesis.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A553%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C45.35%2C462.501%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">path of societal evolution in the TCA</a> was later adopted by the Roman empire and by Western European nations. In the territory of present-day China extremely large alluvial plains allowed for a continuous territorial expansion of the “Tribal Cultural Confederations” which resulted in <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/00Synthesis.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A603%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C39.7%2C279.851%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">a different path</a> that did not cause a rupture with the paradigm of animism while imperceptibly shifting the societal paradigm of East-Asia to a power archetypal model. And so the Chinese societal paradigm reads as “the spontaneous assembly of citizens, around pragmatism in daily life, alleviates their anxiety and suffering while easing the reproduction of their societies”.
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The assembly of early-power-societies by force, in the TCA and later in Western Europe, resulted in <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity01.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A2842%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C548.251%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">the differentiation of the individuals</a> between “men of power” and the population which fostered the emergence of social inequality. And once their citizens got accustomed to share the religious narratives of their societies they differentiated among themselves and with the men of power / men of knowledge.
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After the fall of the Roman Empire, Western Christianity lost its base of followers in North Africa, Southeastern Europe and much of Italy, and so it quickly felt the strategic need to recompose a broad base of followers. After helping to bring down the Roman Empire, the Franks quickly unified Gaul, making them the most dynamic force in Western Europe. Expanding the audience of Western Christianity through the conversion of the Franks was therefore a resounding success that shaped the nature of Western Christianity for centuries to come.
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The crusades later initiated the yearning of the Frankish aristocracy for long distance commerce. The sudden long haul commercial endeavor by Frank local and regional merchants confronted them with unknown risks that illuminated their minds to the paradigm of Modernity. This paradigm co-existed, for centuries, with the religious paradigm of Western Christianity and the modalities of this coexistence have definitely been the determinant parameter in assuring the popular expansion of the societal rationality of Modernity.
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Later the enlightenment consecrated this societal rationality by uniting the 3 Western power estates in controlling the outcome of the political (r)evolution that gave access to the capital holders, representing the new social class of burghers (bourgeois in French), in the institutions of public decision-making. It was the sharing of the rationality of Modernity that unified the 3 Western power estates which fostered a most propitious level playing field for the emergence of the industrial revolution and for the emergence of market imperialism. The process of the industrial revolution necessitated huge investments, in technology and in factory equipment, that were covered for a great deal by forced sales in the South.
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British industrialization started with mass produced cotton goods like socks. The population of Britain in 1800 was merely 10,481,401 while the population of India was more than 250,000,000 (Maratha Confederacy ~208,250,000 + British East India Company ~ 30,765,640) (1). Would British capital holders have been able to generate sufficient profits, from their cotton sales in Britain, to sustain the investments that were necessary to invest in the whole production chain that was necessary to produce socks and other cotton goods ? The answer is evident.
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The sales of cheaper British industrially mass produced cotton goods destroyed the Indian cotton cottage spinning and weaving which forced the country to sell its raw cotton to Britain while buying its finished products. A good chunk of the profits that got invested in Britain’s industrial revolution came from the forced supply of raw cotton by India and from its forced buying of British finished cotton products. And another big chunk of these investments originated from the profits generated by the forced purchase of opium by the Chinese !
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Early-Western modernity, also known as commercial capitalism, had quickly turned into a debauched plundering of the rest of the world, that resulted in a global holocaust. Many civilizations were violently destroyed, many societies were shattered and individuals were killed by the hundreds of millions. The Enlightenment was one of the determinant factors in the generation of High-Western-Modernity, also known as industrial capitalism, the industrial revolution and its corollary mass market imperialism, that gave rise to nearly 300 years of unhinged resource extraction from Non-Western-nations in order to satisfy a Western consumerist debauchery.
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Non-Western nations are not ready to forget the barbarity of Western totalitarian behaviors that left them suffer for centuries. But China's rise to economic prominence is suddenly suggesting that "There Is Definitely An Alternative" (TIDAA) to this suffering after all. Unfortunately the promise of consumerism, which the end of Western market imperialism suggests in the minds of non-Western citizens, is obscured by <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A3148%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C78.05%2C305.251%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">"the great convergence of the many side-effects of Western modernity"</a>.
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The hope of non-Western-citizens, in the promise of consumerism, will most probably be shattered by Western moral imperatives of sobriety in the face of the natural cataclysm that “the Great Convergence” is unleashing on the earth. But this cataclysm is of the sole responsibility of the West which imposed the rationality of Western-Modernity to all human activities in the first place. And in light of this the imperative of sobriety, that the West is invoking, should primarily be sustained by the West itself until non-Western-citizens attain some decent level of economic development !
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But in light of the Western exceptionalism and its consequences, that I tried to describe in part 2 of this series, the complexity of the present moment will be used by an unscrupulous imperial West to shatter the hope of non-Western-citizens of finally having access to, what their windows on the world have been presenting for years to them as, the goodies of Western-Modernity. The easiest and well-known way for the West, to shatter the dreams of non-Western-peoples, has always been to conceal the reality of the present moment under a thick fog of media noise that pits them against one another.
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In light of the servile propagation, of the voice of the men of power by the mainstream media, it is the responsibility of the non-mainstream media commentariat to paint as realistic a picture as possible of the present moment. But instead it is participating in blurring the lines of the sketch ! I’m not a reporter but reading the exaggerations of the non-mainstream media commentariat draws me to share a more holistic picture of the present moment.
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My series about “the transition of Western-Modernity to After-Modernity” is focusing on a holistic picture. I understand that very few people will ever take the time to go through its thousands of pages. My intention with the present series of 5 articles is to sketch the contours of the context out of which emerges the present moment. And once the articles are terminated I’ll rework them in some hundred book pages that I’ll upload as a PDF.
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In the following 3 chapters I propose to illustrate how the concealment, by the Western Enlightenment, of the traditional animist knowledge formation, is constantly blurring the reality of the present moment under a thick fog of media noise.
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3.1. Knowledge paradigms : holism versus atomism </a></p>
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3.2. Societal paradigms : pragmatism versus religious belief</a></p>
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3.3. The success of the rationality of Modernity eclipsed the animist knowledge formation</a></p><p style="user-select: text;"> </p><br style="user-select: text;" />
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<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWOfIMDidl_5FfPa7rp69zRi5qgZKHNyCeyH0B5IrPfABdojWNTK-9-kFg3oSN67wP7N7MNEH68oDo4For-E3hlItpAZLHaEmbGYQEdx2nfIBMOSr5uHChdFUUbwhEHtoIcRvGhrLSdwMZ8_TZjwByM2eOCjeAdd_FnhGv7EbeZ8wChcxyMLA8/s1200/303-D3-42.jpg" style="clear: right; display: block; float: right; padding-left: 15px; padding-top: 6px; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWOfIMDidl_5FfPa7rp69zRi5qgZKHNyCeyH0B5IrPfABdojWNTK-9-kFg3oSN67wP7N7MNEH68oDo4For-E3hlItpAZLHaEmbGYQEdx2nfIBMOSr5uHChdFUUbwhEHtoIcRvGhrLSdwMZ8_TZjwByM2eOCjeAdd_FnhGv7EbeZ8wChcxyMLA8/s320/303-D3-42.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a> </div>3.1. Knowledge paradigms : <br style="user-select: text;" />holism versus atomism</h2>
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All systems of logic start with a paradigm that is derived from the peoples’ synchronization of their perceptions about their present contextual settings with their historical worldview.
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By “peoples’ synchronization of their perceptions about their present contextual settings” I mean their conscious and unconscious perception about all factors that affect their present habitat. And by, “historical worldview”, I mean the shared vision, of all citizens in a given society, about the world. What I mean thus by “the synchronization of peoples’ perceptions about their present contextual settings with their historical worldview” is that peoples’ vision of the world inevitably shape their perceptions about their present contextual settings.
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In other words the peoples don’t catch the reality of their present contextual settings but a transformation of it by the filters of their shared beliefs in what the world is all about. This implies that all societies are traversed by the cultural continuity of their historical worldview and by the axioms of their foundational worldview. This cultural continuity is what we habitually call civilization.
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<h3 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">3.1.1. Animism is a holistic system of knowledge formation</h3>
The traditional animist knowledge formation is <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/00Synthesis.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A233%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C141.8%2C286.101%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">estimated to have emerged in small bands</a> in the millennia preceding the Eamian interglacial that started some 130,000 years ago. In the TCA the application, of this traditional knowledge in daily life, was intact until about 10,000 years ago. Since then its application has suffered an intensifying systematic destruction which was a real “Culturecide” (2).
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We can safely say that the present remnants of this worldview, in most of the world, are merely grotesquely deformed shadows of the real thing. The situation is different in China where the animistic knowledge base still forms the substance of the Chinese historical worldview today but in a form that has necessarily adapted to the daily changes that have occurred since their “Tribal Cultural Confederations” imperceptibly transformed them into power societies.
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It is important to remember here, that tribal animism as well as well as its early philosophic schools of thought in early power-societies, have always considered that knowledge is a secret matter that must be passed down from one human generation to the next through a lengthy process of apprenticeship. The knowledge itself was thus never shared with the population at large !
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Tribal (wo)men of knowledge shared, a visual narrative summarizing their worldview, with their fellow citizens. They also shared the conclusions, derived from their knowledge base, that pertained to their various questions about their health, about the nature of reality, about how they fit in this reality, and so on. Their vision of the whole of reality was holistic. Adapted to a modern imagery we could say that they considered the universe as the largest ensemble containing a vast quantity of sub-ensembles among which is the Milky-way. And they viewed humans, as infinitely small particles, living like bacteria or viruses on the earth which is situated on the outskirts of the Milky-Way.
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Such a holistic vision taught them that the truth about the working of the universe is unattainable and as such they concluded that certainties were necessarily false (3). Focusing on false certainties was thus seen, not only as a mistaken endeavor but as a dangerous one. False certainties inevitably confront their believers to other false certainties which causes confrontations and conflicts that distract peoples’ attention from the only thing that we know is real : the here and now in the life of each individual. After accepting this evidence we rapidly discover that how the individuals fit in the context of their habitat is the grail of life. Not a holy grail but the grail of human knowledge formation.
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<h3 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;">3.1.2. Atomism is a system of knowledge about the assembly of atoms into larger structures</h3>
In contrast to the holism, of this traditional system of knowledge formation, the rationality derived from the reason, that is at work in the paradigm of Western-Modernity, is atomistic in nature which means that it views reality as an assemblage of atoms. <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
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<span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">“Atomism in the strict sense is characterized by three points: the atoms are absolutely indivisible, qualitatively identical apart from shape, size, and motion, and combinable with each other only by juxtaposition. Atomism is usually associated with realism and mechanism; it is mechanistic because it maintains that all observable changes can be reduced to changes in the configuration of the atoms that constitute matter.” (4)
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Holism and atomism are paradigmatic in the sense that they are foundational to opposite systems of knowledge formation :
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<h4 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;">3.1.2.1. Atomism is mechanistic</h4>
Atomism views the addition of atoms as assemblies that substantiate complex phenomena or realities. The comprehension of these realities is thus gained solely by analyzing the interrelations of their atom constituents.
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As mentioned by the editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica atomism is mechanistic :
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“… because it maintains that all observable changes can be reduced to changes in the configuration of the atoms that constitute matter. “
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And in this last sense atomism is also a purely materialist vision of reality.
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<h4 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 3.1.2.2. Holism is emergent</h4>
Holism views the whole as an emergent phenomenon that is far more complex than the addition or multiplication of atoms or of lower level assemblies.
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<h5 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 3.1.2.2.1. Each assembly of atoms is thought to generate a far more complex outcome than the addition of its atoms</h5>
Quantum mechanics rests on the observation that the assembly of elementary particles is hazardous and impossible to forecast at the present level of knowledge attained in the field of particles physics which necessarily implies that assemblies of atoms are far more complex than their juxtaposition. <br />
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<h6 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 3.1.2.2.1.1. A molecular assembly of atoms is necessarily impacted or forced by a still unknown energy or field</h6>
This suggests an emergent outcome at the atomic, or sub-atomic, level that is far more complex than a mere juxtaposition by addition or multiplication of atoms.
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<h6 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 3.1.2.2.1.2. Further assemblies, at a 2nd, 3rd, 4th or higher levels, imply that the complexity of their emergence is unattainable to a human observer</h6>
First assemblies get eventually congregated, with other 1st assemblies or with individual atoms, into 2nd assemblies that generate an emergent outcome that is larger, or more complex, than a mere addition or multiplication of atoms or of 1st assemblies.<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
Second, third, and fourth or more assemblies get eventually assembled among themselves, or with other assemblies or with individual atoms, until emerges the whole universe.
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This implies that the emergent complexity, at each level, is combined with the emergent complexity at all higher levels, which suggests levels of complexity that are intrinsically unknowable from the vantage point of the human observer !
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<h5 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 3.1.2.2.2. Assemblies necessarily generate an emergent outcome </h5>
The emergent character of assemblies suggests an input not only of their constitutive material parts but of energy, fields, or other forces originating in their higher assemblies or in the whole Universe. This energy, field, or force, enfolds or induces assembly behaviors that are far more complex than the juxtaposition of their material parts.<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
The human observer eventually catches the outcome but is left in the dark about its emergent complexity as well as its life complexity.
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<h5 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 3.1.2.2.3. In power-societies the unmapped nature of emergent phenomena inspires esoteric narratives to justify power </h5>
Science, or traditional animist knowledge for that matter, are still largely in the dark about the emergent complexity as well as the life complexity of all assemblies starting with the quantum paradox of the movement of elementary particles.<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
Traditional animist knowledge never cared about the atomic constitutive parts of material phenomena or realities. Its practitioners looked for patterns, in the movements of the sky that superposed on patterns in the habitat, to divine future human related outcomes. Their intervention in phenomena consisted thus largely in an adjustment, of behaviors in the habitat, to the long haul patterns observed in the movements of the celestial spheres that aligned with patterns observed in the habitat.
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The Yijing, or book of changes (5), is an ancient instruction manual to systematically divine future human related outcomes. Its instructions are codifications about the contextual adaptations that are necessary to maximize the future behaviors of an individual. These adaptations were induced from the animist very long haul observations, of how human behaviors are modulated by the patterns in the movements of the celestial spheres that superpose on the patterns observed in the habitat.
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Scientists for their part are on a quest for knowledge that is largely rooted in atomism and materialism and their quest is furthermore rooted in the dualist societal system of logic that is derived from their societal paradigm.
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Atomism (individualism), materialism (separation of the individual from her or his natural state of interrelatedness), and dualism (irreconcilable opposites animating a constant competition and warfare) form the trinity at work in the rationality of Western-Modernity.
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Unlike traditional knowledge formation or science, both of which actively seek to understand the workings of reality, religious belief is rooted in the blind acceptance of a revealed truth. Nevertheless, it should be noted that understanding how reality works and accepting a revealed truth both help to build trust between individuals, which ultimately strengthens the cohesion of their society.
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Different knowledge paradigms generate thus their corresponding systems of knowledge formation and each particular system of knowledge formation generates its own system of societal logic that, in turn, generates its own archetypal model of society.
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The knowledge paradigm of animism fostered a system of societal logic serving a pragmatic approach of daily life centering on alleviating individual suffering while maximizing societal continuity through the reproduction of their society over the long haul. It was this particular system of societal logic then guided the formation of the archetypal model of tribal societies through the abrupt climatic destabilization of the early-Eamian and of the early-Holocene.
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In the TCA, in contrast, the abrupt climate warming, that shifted the Younger-Dryas into the early-Holocene, initiated the rejection of the tribal model of society and its animist model of knowledge formation <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/01Continuum.pdf?i=1#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A5110%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C154.15%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">as the site of Göbekli Tepe attests</a> (6). It did not escape our attention that later the knowledge paradigm of religious belief, the acceptance of a revealed truth, fostered a system of societal logic serving the interest of the men of power who yearned to reproduce their institutions of power over the long haul. By gluing the minds of the citizens this particular system of societal logic then guided the reproduction of the institutions set up by the men of power. And the reproduction of the institutions of power finally initiated the archetypal model of power societies.
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As indicated earlier China did not follow this model. The imperceptible nature of the shift of its archetypal model of society, from “Tribal Cultural Confederations” to “Power Confederations”, did never destabilize the animist paradigm, nor its system of knowledge formation, nor its system of societal logic. So its new archetypal model of power-society automatically inherited animism as its foundational worldview. Herein resides the other-worldliness of the Chinese in the eyes of Westerners and the other-worldliness of Westerners in the eyes of Chinese. And the fact is that each side of this civilizational divide acted radically differently upon its perception of other-worldliness !
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To summarize the differentiation between atomism and holism we have to go back to “the continuum of the interactive cultural filed of societies” which has set in motion the process of societal evolution. Here after I sketch the links in the chain of causality that animates the process of societal evolution :
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A knowledge paradigm generates a system of knowledge formation.
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A system of knowledge formation generates a foundational worldview
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A foundational worldview generates a societal paradigm.
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A societal paradigm generates an archetypal model of society.
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An archetypal model of society generates a system of societal logic
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A system of societal logic eventually generates a civilization with its historical worldview like a religion or a philosophy.
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The historical worldview of a society evolves, or actualizes, by synchronizing with the daily culture thus absorbing its replicating cultural memes.
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The daily culture substantiates by synchronizing the individuals’ perception of their contextual settings with the historical worldview of their society. Daily culture is most generally called culture in Late-Western-Modernity.
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The differentiation between atomism and holism originates in the contrasting contextual settings found in the different regions of this earth and it materialized by bifurcating their chain of causality :
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From the knowledge paradigm of animism to the archetypal model of tribal societies
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The knowledge paradigm of animism reads as follows : “pragmatism in daily life, to alleviate the anxiety and suffering of the individuals while easing the long haul reproduction of their societies”. And the sharing of the animistic paradigm generated an animistic system of knowledge formation and its shared foundational worldview This foundational worldview then induced a societal paradigm, that eventually sustained the emergence of the archetypal model of tribal societies, which reads as “the sharing of the worldview of a given (wo)man of knowledge resulted in the assembly of the citizens of a tribe which ensured its long haul reproduction”.
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In the TCA the tribal model of society is abandoned for experimenting a new archetypal model of society
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In the TCA, about 10,000 years ago, a paradigm of religious belief emerged out of the vital necessity to experiment the formation of a new knowledge paradigm to answer <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/03Knowledge.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A7662%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C625.051%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">the failure of the tribal model of society</a> to absorb any further population growth. This new religious paradigm was reading as follows “The sharing of a common narrative about the transformation, of the traditional hierarchy of animist spirits, into a new religious hierarchy of gods that, over the millennia eventually evolved into a monotheistic hierarchy and its revealed truth about the working of reality”.
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Structured religious narratives emerged from this paradigm that the men of knowledge, with a large following, put at the service of the men of power, about 5,000 years ago, in order to ease the reproduction of their societal institutions. This service of religious knowledge, to the men of power, consecrated the emergence of the paradigm of power-societies that reads as “the assembly of citizens by force and the forced sharing of a common religious worldview to ease the reproduction of their societal institutions”.
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This forced sharing of a religious narrative among the citizens of an empire fostered the territorial realm of civilizations.
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In China tribal societies flourished uninterrupted while imperceptibly altering into power societies
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Large alluvial plains, 50 to 100 times the size of the Egyptian or Mesopotamian plains, allowed a <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/03Knowledge.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A6180%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C213.451%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">non-interrupted population growth</a> through territorial expansion.
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The call to undertake major flood mitigation works, addressed to the animistic sages symbolizing the unity of the "Tribal Cultural Confederations", transformed their symbolism into a more practical approach to manage such works. Over the course of one or two millennia, this more practical approach had evolved, during the 5th millennium BC, into a fully-fledged system of governance that decided, some 4,000 years ago, on a dynastic transmission of power. Thus was born the era of "Power Confederations", which lasted until Qin Shi Guang centralized the empire some 2,250 years ago.
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Continuity in China kept Holism as the root of knowledge formation while rupture in the TCA forced religious belief as the new paradigm of knowledge formation which later consecrated atomism
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The continuity of animism in China, from “Tribal Cultural Confederations” to “Power Confederations” kept intact the knowledge paradigm that sustained more than 100,000 years of animist knowledge formation.
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The occupation, of the entirety of the alluvial plains of Mesopotamia and other areas around Anatolia some 10,000 years ago, called for a violent rupture with animism and tribal societies in order to ease the experimentation of new models of societies able to manage larger population levels. The burying of Göbekli Tepe some 10,000 years ago is the most significant sign of this violent rupture.
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Unfortunately the academy is unable to comprehend something as stupendous as Göbekli Tepe’s burying. Quantitative measurements certainly allow us to generate a big picture from numerous remnants of a material culture. But when an archaeological site is the big picture by itself prehistory scientists act like blind scholarly idiots !</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /> <br style="user-select: text;" /> <br style="user-select: text;" /> <br style="user-select: text;" />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdiMEgMNkj_VfT_udj8pYpwklC2FD93MYRut0C19D7UYFN-Qq2beKlY063qsBnmva61ILqnv8waDcdy-WtNGabpou08oUtjFBqRBkR-pzAvjWGEJuEcSQx_wCbHfnZzj2On2ycxGFjbCwIl3zLIFB_SeVkCLUqcD_2lI6dwUidYZl8COxgUPwq/s1200/303-D3-32.jpg" style="clear: right; display: block; float: right; padding-left: 15px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhdiMEgMNkj_VfT_udj8pYpwklC2FD93MYRut0C19D7UYFN-Qq2beKlY063qsBnmva61ILqnv8waDcdy-WtNGabpou08oUtjFBqRBkR-pzAvjWGEJuEcSQx_wCbHfnZzj2On2ycxGFjbCwIl3zLIFB_SeVkCLUqcD_2lI6dwUidYZl8COxgUPwq/s320/303-D3-32.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>3.2. Societal paradigms : animist pragmatism versus religious belief </h2>
Observing that the reality of the universe, and its meaning and implications for its sub-systems and its parts, is largely unattainable the animist (wo)men of knowledge came to understand that all certainties are illusions trapping the mind in vain thinking, idiotic behaviors, and unwise actions.
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From this they concluded that certainties should be rejected out of hands. They thought that knowledge should focus on alleviating the individual’s daily suffering by implementing strategies that ease the reproduction of the individuals, their societies, and their species’ life over the long haul. Such strategies invariably imply that the application of knowledge must result in pragmatic outcomes for the individuals, their societies and their species. But what do I mean by pragmatic outcomes ?
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To understand what pragmatism is not, and to reach an understanding that is unencumbered by ideology, let me cite the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that is rooted in Late 19th century US philosophic pragmatism :
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“Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that – very broadly – understands knowing the world as inseparable from agency within it. This general idea has attracted a remarkably rich and at times contrary range of interpretations, including: that all philosophical concepts should be tested via scientific experimentation, that a claim is true if and only if it is useful (relatedly: if a philosophical theory does not contribute directly to social progress then it is not worth much), that experience consists in transacting with rather than representing nature, that articulate language rests on a deep bed of shared human practices that can never be fully ‘made explicit’.” (7)
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The paradigmatic and logical mental background, of the authors, is seeping out of their definition. This definition has certainly the advantage of being concise. My personal rewording of it goes something like this :
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“Knowledge, about the working of reality, must be productive to humanity which implies that human agency must be unimpeded in its application of the rationality of Modernity whose outcome, as is well know, fosters ‘social progress’ “.
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In this view the generation of societal complexity is the primary target and the individual well-being, or her/his continuous reproduction, appears to be of no concern. In other words the societal logic implied in this quote is that the rationality of Western-Modernity is not concerned by the well-being of the individuals nor by their reproduction over the long haul as well as that of their societies and species. This Stanford definition is best confronted to my last iteration of “the First Principles of Life” in “Societal Knowledge Formation. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/03Knowledge.pdf?i=1#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A12200%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C142.551%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">6.2.3.4. Necessity to clarify our conceptual framework”</a>.
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In light of a modern reading, of the contextual adaptation of the traditional animist understanding, pragmatism is the outcome of a knowledge formation that is at the service — of alleviating the suffering of the individuals and more generally of purveying to their well-being — of easing their long haul reproduction, that of their society, and that of their species.
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These 2 definitions of pragmatism could not be further apart :
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The US, late 19th century, philosophic conception of pragmatism is the logical outcome of the paradigm of Western-Modernity
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The societal paradigm of Western-Modernity, and its societal system of logic in the form of the rationality of Modernity, command that knowledge must be productive in generating higher levels of complexity. The first among “the First Principle of Life” states that the complementary objectives of any living species are : — primarily the maximization of their reproduction over the long haul — secondarily the maximization of their biological and societal complexity.
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This means that the maximization of their biological and societal complexity is relative and dependent on their reproduction over the long haul !
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The pragmatism of Western modernity has no concern for the well-being of the individuals nor for the long-term continuity of their species. Its sole concern is the generation of ever more complexity which is instrumental to a dynamic process of capital accumulation.
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But isn't this what has led humanity to its predicament of the Great Convergence and its maelstrom of tipping points, that plunge all living species on earth in a new Geo-bio-chemical state that is pathological to life ?
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The conception of pragmatism espoused, by the Chinese animism+, is the logical outcome of the paradigm of tribal animism
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Imperceptible changes in governance moved the “Tribal Cultural Confederations”, in the territorial realm of present-day China, into its archetypal model of power-societies with its early form as a “Power Confederation” assembling “City-states” and “Tribal Cultural Confederations“.
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This imperceptible transformation of its system of governance, and its institutional set-up, was realized in the continuity of its societal paradigm, its societal worldview, and its system of societal logic.
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But how is such a model of societal change, that is steeped in the continuity of its societal cultural field, going to fare in its inevitable confrontation with the Great Convergence unleashed by Western-Modernity ?
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We have already seen that by inspiring TIDAA Russia had the courage to assert its security against an expansionist Western market imperialism which most non-Western-nations refused to sanction.
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China’s latest technological breakthroughs procure us a sketch of what is to come in the not so distant future :
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2.1. Economic growth rates continue to be multiple times those of the West
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A recent article, by John Ross, summed up the situation as follows :
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“In the last four years, covering the period of the Covid pandemic, China’s economy has grown two-and-a-half times as fast as the US, 15 times as fast as France, 23 times as fast as Japan, 45 times as fast as Germany, and 480 times as fast as Britain.
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To add in smaller G7 countries, China has grown four times as fast as Canada, and 11 times as fast as Italy.
China’s out performance of advanced capitalist countries is even greater in per capita terms — a still better measure of productivity changes and potential for increasing living standards.
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China’s per capita GDP grew three times as fast as the US, five times as fast as Italy, 44 times as fast as Japan or France, and 260 times as fast as Britain — while per capita GDP fell in Germany and Canada.
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China’s out-performance of developing capitalist countries shows the same pattern — China’s per capita 4.4 per cent GDP annual average growth compares to 2.6 per cent in India, 1.3 per cent in Brazil, or 0.9 per cent in South Africa.
What is important about such economic growth, of course, is not abstract statistics but its meaning for the real lives of ordinary people.” (8)</span></i></blockquote>
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2.2. China’s technological drive
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2.2.1. <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/7913/the-countries-with-the-most-stem-graduates/" style="user-select: text;">Yearly STEM graduates</a> (9) :
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2.2.2. <a href="https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/China-is-Fast-Outpacing-U.S.-STEM-PhD-Growth.pdf" style="user-select: text;">Yearly STEM doctorates</a> (10):
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2.2.3. <a href="https://wordsrated.com/number-of-academic-papers-published-per-year/" style="user-select: text;">Yearly scientific articles </a> (11):
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As we have just seen the definition of pragmatism, in the late 19th century bu US philosophers, is imbued with the rationality of Western modernity, that today imposes on the world a rather steep price, for trying to counter the Great Convergence, and its pathological new Geo-bio-chemical equilibrium, that threatens to eliminate all life on earth.
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The rationality of the paradigm of Western-Modernity is to transform whatever is available into a process of capital accumulation. And by presenting itself as the guarantor of a green technological future the West wants to make believe that its exceptionalism will save humanity from the high price of the ignominious outcome of its own modernity ! Only context blind fools will miss the fact that this ruse implies the compensation of the West by non-Western nations for their forced use of Western exceptional green gadgets !
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This mischievous renegade act contrasts with TIDAA, and its promise of an international order bypassing the hegemony of Western Modernity, that consecrates the equality and freedom of all nations to exercise their sovereignty in the continuity of the cultural field of their societies.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /> <br style="user-select: text;" /> <br style="user-select: text;" /> <br style="user-select: text;" />
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3.3. The success of Western-Modernity eclipsed animist knowledge </h2>
The paradigm of Modernity is “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”, and its satisfaction implies the production of goods or services. The reason in this transformation is the primary mover. The reason contains the substance of what will evolve into the rationality of Modernity. Capital accumulation supplies the capital to erect the facilities and the machinery that are necessary for the production of goods and services.
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The actors, of this process of capital accumulation and its accessory the production of goods and services, are those who implement the reason by transforming their sterile money in a process of capital accumulation. They are the capital holders who are seconded by servant technical spcecialist. The spectators come in 2 categories : — the passive spectators are satisfied by consuming the goods, generated by this process of capital accumulation, they are the entire citizenry — the active spectators are motivated by their envy of the flashiness of the material possessions that are paid for by the financial fortune that accrues in the hands of the capital holders.
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3.3.1. The 3 actors in the daily culture of the rationality of Western-Modernity</h3>
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The social dynamic, between these 3 actors, rapidly expanded its daily culture to the society at large :
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The rationality of Western-Modernity in daily-culture
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The reason, that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation, is the paradigm of the system powering Western-Modernity’s societal logic of rationality :
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1.1. Capital invests in production facilities
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The production of goods and services is the property of the corporation invested by capital holders. With the silent revolution of the 1970’s this principle has been turned upside-down and Western productions got subcontracted. But a subcontract transfers the concept of the product, the science that is applied in its technology, the design, while the subcontractor is forced to find out the most productive manner to realize the production.
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Rare by-standers immediately observed that the subcontractor detained the key of further design and future technological developments. Applied research was indeed always a matter that occurred on the production floor ! Nearly fifty years later those early Cassandras have been proven right by China’s production shops.
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And since fundamental research has never been a matter of concern for private capital holders it was always in the hands of public institutions; mostly military institutions in the USA and mostly national Academies in China. So any clear minded observer knew decades ago that China’s public governance would eventually order its academies to focus on the basic, but fundamental, science in the fields that China’s factories would have mastered down the road.
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Chinese research and development, and state policies relating to Electric Vehicles, are patent examples of such a winning strategy to take over the world market as the world is presently witnessing !
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1.2. Capital finances services
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Services are specialized functions, that dig always deeper in their tunnel visions, like scientific tunnels that always dig deeper in their fields of specialization, like design, like marketing, like management, like accountancy, like the guidance and legal framing by publics institutions, etc.
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Quantitative approaches in US business schools have unfortunately castrated economic research and limited its field to modeling what is already being done instead of studying the working of societies, the place of economics in their working, and how to maximize the efficacy of societies by adapting their economic activities to their working. Economic quantification blinded Western capital holders, and their public decision-maker servants, to how production countries would strategize their role in this Western globalized world.
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The blindness of Western capital holders, and their public servants, was sized by China as an opportunity to enforce an effective production strategy that came to dominate the world. And its top economic ranking was recently given a memetic sticker in the form of TIDAA or “There Is Definitely An Alternative” to Western hegemony.
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1.3. Services implement the continuity of the rationality of Modernity through continuous renewal
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These services are instrumental to the continuous renewal of productions and this continuous renewal implements their rationality not only throughout the production process but also imposes it throughout the society at large where it shapes the lines, forms, colors, music, and rhythm of the present context, which after synchronization with the historical worldview of the society, form its daily culture.
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This is how the rationality of Modernity gradually transpired in the entire societal life where it came under the watching eye of the public institutions who were called in to enforce the normality of the rationality of Modernity in daily culture !
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And so the cycle, from “the reason” to daily-culture, was consummated creating a societal impulse of constant renewal of the daily-culture.
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The 3 social roles in the spectacle of daily-culture
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The societal impulse of constant renewal of Daily-Culture rapidly transformed into a daily spectacle served by actors, servants and passive spectators. Guy Debord had caught the spectacle but he failed to observe the 3 societal servant roles in the spectacle of daily-culture :
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2.1. The actors
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The actors are the capital holders. But the biggest capital holders play the decisive role of writing the script and in commanding the role played by their servants in the execution of the script.
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Capital holders detain a monopoly on the knowledge and the practice of “transforming, sterile money, speculative debt, and gambling with nature, into a process of capital accumulation” into a dynamic process of capital accumulation. And understandably they assiduously evade the public eye to remain anonymous. Anonymity is their ultimate trump card. It avoids the public’s gaze on their richness that would inevitably unveil the shocking social reality that, over the centuries has separates humanity in a tiny tiny minority of decision-makers reigning over a very large mass of passive spectators.
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2.2. The servants
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The servants of the biggest capital holders come in 3 categories:
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2.2.1. Those who manage the continuity of daily culture
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The traditional function of the men of knowledge was to share a common vision of the world among their fellow citizens in order to boost their trust in each other.
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Trust among the individuals was viewed as strengthening the cohesion of their societal group which was understood to ease its reproduction over the long haul while facilitating and extending the daily lives of the individuals.
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Societal reproduction over the long haul maximized the first imperative of the species which is its reproduction as far as the eye can see.
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With the elimination of traditional knowledge formation, during the Enlightenment, Western nations definitively lost the holistic understanding of their ancestors about the working of their societies. Gone from the memory are the role of trust between the individuals, the importance of societal cohesion in the working and the reproduction of societies, and the role of the continuum of the interactive field, in the culture of societies, that sustains societal evolution.
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The price, of this loss of traditional knowledge, is now coming due. Western societies have atomized and are now unable to undertake any large public project successfully like countering a pandemic, or addressing the damages of a natural catastrophe, or rebuilding an industrial base, or countering China’s rise to technological supremacy, or waging a 3rd World War for that matter…
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2.2.2. Those who manage the renewal of daily culture
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The role of scientists is to discover an ever finer comprehension, about bits and pieces of reality, that can be integrated in the production of goods and services, in order to ensure a continuous transformation of the daily-culture of their society while generating a growing flow of returns to the capital holders.
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The role of the artists is to intuit, or to free their instinctive discovery of, the first seeds of the future that are starting to sprout in the present. The sharing of such early signs about the future could facilitate a present adaptation of the individuals to the emergence of the future societal life. Viewed from this perspective the arts have an immensely important societal role to play in easing the individual and societal responses to historical change.
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Since the Enlightenment the role of scientists has ever been more preeminent while the role of artists has ever been waning in their illusion that “whatever bullshit” could in any way point to the emergent future.
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As a result the daily-culture of societies is transforming ever faster while the capital holders are benefiting from an ever faster growth in their returns on investment. But the elimination of the societal role of the artists has left our societies, and us individually, in the dark about how our daily-culture is impacting the future. More specifically the elimination of the societal role of the artists has left us blind to the great convergence of the numerous side-effects of Western-Modernity that has already engaged the start of a mass-extinction event.
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2.2.3. Those who enforce the normality of daily culture
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The Western-Enlightenment has consecrated the rationality of Western-Modernity as the normality of High and Late-Western-Modernity.
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This normality implies that all individuals and societies, that do not behave according to the canons of this normality, are considered abnormal and dangerous in the eyes of the enforcers of this rationality !
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The enforcers, of the rationality of Western-Modernity, have traditionally been the societal public institutions. But the enforcement, of Neoliberalism over the last decades, has encouraged capital holders to build a second line of defense against the abnormals. This was nevertheless insufficient to keep them at bay and the societal public institutions have thus been militarized to wage a war of attrition to free the normals from the presence of abnormals…
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The daily news is littered today with school mass-shootings, street killings of brown color citizens by white police officers, and white-collar crimes that are never sanctioned ! The mass-media is stitching a picture about life in Western countries that is like hell on earth. By chance China is ten thousand kilometers from that hell and life is good.
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2.3. The passive spectators
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The population at large, including the private and public specialists who serve the big capital holders, constitute the mass of passive spectators of the spectacle of a daily-culture that is mired in the rationality of Western-Modernity.
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3.3.2. The success of the Rationality of Modernity eliminated traditional knowledge</h3>
In order to disengage the intellectual inquiry from past holistic approaches of reality philosophic rationalism and science separated, — daily life — knowledge — art — worldviews — economics — nature — and so on, from one another.
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It was hoped that by engaging in the depth of the micro-world scientific knowings would be churned out ‘en masse’ that would generate growing returns on investments. This is what happened indeed. It unleashed the industrial revolution but it also squeezed science in a close dependency to capital.
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And, once capital was in charge of financing scientific development, science was effectively muzzled and stuck on a one way track. In other words scientific development was forced to focus primarily on work that could help to ensure the generation of returns for capital holders and this happened without even a mention of this very fact appearing in the public sphere. There were evidently good reasons for hiding the link between capital and science from the attention of the public.
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The traditional function of knowledge which had, been since its inception, to alleviate the suffering of the individuals suddenly was gone. The new priority was to ensure a constant flow of returns on investment. In other words the finality of knowledge was suddenly overturned without there ever being a discussion about it.
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But ensuring a constant flow of returns on investments has most unfortunately detached human thinking from “the First Principles of Life”. Going forward this detachment ensured a convenient absence of questioning about the side-effects of the externalization of costs from the books.
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Scientists and philosophers have indeed largely been confined to their silos of abstractions where they lost sight of daily life and its need for pragmatism. This is how philosophy forgot that its mission is to make sense about what really matters for the species which is life and its lifeblood which is given by the dance of its complementary polarities : — societies — individuals. Without a coherent body of knowledge that is adapted to the contextual settings of the day the artists got confused and soon they fell into nothingness.
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What I describe here is human life on earth as seen from the distance of heaven. There should be no doubt that some wise (wo)men of knowledge were conscious all along about what was happening. But their words were ignored. And today it has become extremely difficult to find such persons because they understand that the tsunami of Modernity has to come crashing down for something else to possibly take root.
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The enormity of such a conclusion is evidently problematic and difficult to share with society at large and so the few remaining wise (wo)men of knowledge have resigned themselves to live on the margins of their societies from where flabbergasted they silently observe the advancing stages of the cancer of Homo-Sapiens !
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3.3.2.1. Marxism and Western-Modernity </h4>
Marx is inseparable from the Enlightenment and of the further development of Western-Modernity. This is not something that was always well appreciated in the Marxist movance. The fact is that Marx and the other 19th century classical economists did not diverge fundamentally in their analyses. None of them deciphered the societal evolution of power-societies and its impact in unleashing the paradigm of Modernity. And nowhere is there anything mentioned about the system of societal logic that the paradigm of Western-Modernity unfurled on Western Europe.
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I do not reject out of hand the factors of production nor the outcome of the paradigm of Modernity in the form of private capital holding. But they do not help us to understand how the rationality of Western-Modernity has profoundly shaped all aspects of the interactive cultural field of societies which is what affects us all so deeply today.
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Let us see here how the interpretation of Marx has impacted the countries where his thought penetrated in the spheres of power.
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Marx considered that Modernity is the most revolutionary progressive force in human history. It was in that sense that he willingly participated in the separation of knowledge in a field of specialized knowings. His critique, of the social ravages exercised by the outcome of the accumulation of capital in private hands, was the sole aspect of his writing that his followers retained but in their bickering for power they forgot even what this limited aspect, of his thinking, was all about :
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In the case of the Soviet-Union
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While entering their society into Modernity in the 1920’s, the communists muzzled it under a thick layer of centralized mistrusting bureaucracy that finally suffocated their peoples’ daily lives.
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The industrialization was rapid but the individual thirst for novelty asphyxiated the production of complexity that could have rendered the daily culture of the Soviets attractive for themselves and also for the citizens of the earth who watched with high hopes for signs of vitality.
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What outsiders observers saw did not inspire them with much hope and the soviet project finally crumbled on itself after some 70 years of existence.
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In the case of Western 'social democracies'
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Socialist, or social democratic, parties collaborated openly with big capital holders and this ended with a so called 3rd way and a total surrender to Neo-liberalism that killed any remaining hope in left wing alternatives. This came as a shock, in the eighties and nineties, to a whole generation of leftist militants who emigrated to early green parties.
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But the loss or the absence, of a holistic model of knowledge about the working of societies, left these new green parties debating about the skin of societal bodies. I remember how intensely I got disgusted, in the beginning of the eighties, by this feeling of superficiality.
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I was thus not a bit surprised to see where the greens have landed presently in Germany. But their activism is nevertheless incomprehensible, or was it perhaps the product of an intense US corruption campaign that bought servants to apply the strategy of Western big capital holders in the name of a new skin deep fashion ? Whatever is the truth, about the policies that are being implemented today by the German green party, it will be judged very severely by the next generations in search of answers for Europe’s fall in Geopolitical nothingness.
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In the case of China
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The heritage of the axioms of its civilization, and of its pragmatic historical worldview, procured the promise of a reconciliation of a Modernized China with “the First Principles of life” that are so profoundly marking the “Chinese Traditional Culture”.
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China’s priorities, over the last forty years, correctly focused on the survival of its nation. Marxism has without a doubt been instrumental in the country’s grasp, of “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”, and this has been instrumental in generating its economic miracle.
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But the phenomenal quantity of Chinese students, whose minds got infected by the Neoliberal ideology that infests US colleges and universities, unfortunately introduced prematurely in China the new iteration of the paradigm of Western-Modernity, that had been conceived by Western capital holders during the silent revolution of the 1970’s. I mean “the reason that is at work in the transformation of speculative debt into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”.
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The adoption of the paradigm of Western-Modernity in its new iteration gave rise to a high number of national decisions that concluded with a debauchery of debt which today is biting the Communist Party’s leadership. It finds itself indeed confronted at once with 4 intractable problems :
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<u>3.1. The necessity to reduce debt levels
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The rhythm of debt increases was not short of stunning over the last 2 decades and debt levels, while still short of what they are in the USA, have reached risk levels that are simply too dangerous for the continuity of the interactive cultural field of the country. So further debt increases have to be contained to guarantee the country’s capacity to carry its debt charges.
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Having said this the fact is that China’s total debt is still lower than the US level in term of GDP percentage. The USA’s GDP growth is constrained within very low 1 figures while the Chinese GDP still has the potential of growing within middle to high 1 figures which means that the Chinese capacity to carry the charge of its present debt is far better than the USA.
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<u>3.2. The necessity to reconciliate a Modernized country with its “Chinese Traditional Culture”</u>
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The promise that the citizens’ return to their “Chinese Traditional Culture” (CTC) instilled the certainty that a Modernized China would reconcile with “the First Principles of life”. This was fitting with the axiom of continuity that is at the root of Chinese governance.
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But the sheer rapidity, of Western Modernity’s encroachment in the country daily culture over the 2 last decades, is generating such a large bunch of memes that the historical worldview or CTC is being threatened by a bastardization that could be fatal for the continuity of its interactive cultural field.
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This implies that a particular effort has to strengthen the institutional levers for a large diffusion of CTC throughout the country. From my own perspective this means that far less money should be invested in state organized cultural events and more money should be helping grass roots initiatives. This is, I think, the condition for a flourishing musical scene and a flourishing visual arts scene to boost the trust of the individuals in the healthy state of their nation.
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3.3. The great convergence is unleashing ever more deleterious effects on the country
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Extreme flooding seasons come immediately to mind. But it is an error to fixate solely on the climate. The side-effects of a development along the lines of Western-Modernity have severely curtailed the habitat of the country.
From soil, and water tables poisoned with heavy metals, to nano-particles of plastic that are infiltrating in the biological composition of cells, the side-effects are numerous that are presently converging and preparing the conditions for a shift of the Geo-bio-chemical state of the earth that will be far less hospitable to life than the preceding state.
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<u>3.4. The competition between China and the US for top spot
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Only after the country feels satisfied, that the future of its nation is no longer in danger of being erased or irrevocably damaged, will it possibly reconcile its economic development with “the First Principles of Life”. What I mean by this is that life primes over the quality of life. A high quality of life is only feasible after the nation has build up all the conditions that will help it to stay alive. Unfortunately there is no guarantee whatsoever that “the First Principles of Life” will not be forgotten along the way ! This implies that the country needs to encourage its schools to deliver a sane and viable vision of the country’s development over the next 2-3 decades.
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3.3.2.2. The holders of scientific 'knowings' superseded the holders of wisdom</h4>
The separation, of — daily life — knowledge — worldviews — art — economics — nature — and so on, into specialty domains has also been the root cause of the demise of the traditional societal function of art that leaves us now on a trail of financial speculation about the absurdity of “whatever is art”.
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That separation killed knowledge in its traditional sense — as the observation of the principle of life — and as the interpretation of this observation into the accepted worldview of the time. Let’s remember that a shared worldview had always been considered until then as a must have to maximize societal cohesion which is ‘de facto’ the ultimate condition for societies to possibly reproduce over the long haul.
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When specialization took over this grand view of things, this holistic vision, was abandoned as being non-rational and non-scientific. But specialization, while being a lot more efficient at gleaning knowings within a narrow field, forgot about the links and interactions among the multitude of fields that constitute the entirety of the domain of human life.
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More damaging even was the separation that this specialization imposed with all there is outside of the domain of human life. This is how knowledge, in the traditional sense of human wisdom, was replaced by 'scientific knowings' and that was the moment when the men of knowledge or the holders of wisdom were superseded by scientific holders of 'knowings' relating to narrow fields.
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George Mobus expressed a similar idea while using the words “partial knowledge” to describe the mass of knowings accumulated by science. And to unify the dispersal of a multitude of “partial knowledge” he promoted systemic complexity, as the study, of interacting systems, forming a new layer of knowledge sitting on top of the narrow scientific specialties of today. Unfortunately George retired and his website is closed so no link is available.
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I personally prefer the term “knowings” for the good reason that it demarcates more clearly the essential difference between limited sectorial scientific knowings and the more holistic and globally encompassing views, of the wisdom, emanating from the knowledge about 'the whole' and its 'sub- ensembles made of multiple systems'.
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3.3.2.3. The artists bore the brunt of the separation between knowledge, worldviews, art, daily life, economics and nature </h4>
The substitution of knowledge in this traditional sense, with rationality and science, left us all “knowledge-orphans” or “wisdom-dumb”. But I think that the artists were those who bore the brunt of that separation. By losing contact with their (wo)men of knowledge story tellers, who passed down to them the state of evolution of the societal worldview, they lost the automatic reference to what had been the content of their works since times immemorial.
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The rejection of everything that was rooted in the past suddenly put the artists in charge of the creation of their own content. For a short while they celebrated their newly gained freedom from their story tellers. But with an education solely focused on the use of a technique their minds got stuck in technical matters while remaining empty of the substance that is necessary to devise a content that is adapted to the day.
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A short 2-3 decades of effervescence, in trials and errors at the hands of the Modernist avant-garde, resulted in emptiness, the grotesque, and then “whatever is art”. This is when art shifted unmistakably outside of the societal instrumentality that characterized its function since its early emergence, at the origin of societal evolution from small bands to tribal societies, most probably during the Eemian Inter-glacial Period some 125,000 years ago.
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This was the moment when the artists got confronted with an emptiness of meaning that left them utterly confused. And this confusion opened the door to “whatever is art” and the subsequent financial coup over the art-world by US 3 letters propaganda agencies in cohort with art-merchants.
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The context of speculation that ensued expanded that confusion ever further driving it into one-way street pathways of communication stunts meant to attract the attention of the media so as to generate free public exposure which in this Late-Modernity is the ultimate criterion of value.
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But in the craze of this Late-Modernity I hear a shout-out, for knowledge and beauty, rising from the ambient noise on the web that calls for a re-connection with “the First Principles of life”. This is what keeps me alive !
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Starting with tribal societies and along the entire span of societal evolution the men of knowledge strove to understand — the working of the body and mind of the individuals — the interactions between all the elements within their society’s habitat — the interactions of their societies’ habitat with the wider ensembles in the Universe.
Once viewed through this particular angle we come to understand that knowledge relates to understanding the systemic interactions between the following :
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The interactions of our universe as a whole with the contextual settings in our local habitat
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The interactions between all the entities and elements inside our habitat
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The interactions between human societies and their individual members
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The interactions between the individuals
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The interactions between the body and mind of the individuals</li></ol>
The nature of science is fundamentally other. Science functions as a service supplied to capital holders, or their representative corporations and states, in order to allow them to increase their profits. Basic research can be said to be different in the sense that it does not address the production of goods. But basic research projects are being evaluated before the decision to finance them and the single most important criteria to unlock financing is the potential opened by the research to help generate new productions of goods and services that can procure a competitive advantage to the country.
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<u>Notes
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1. <a href="https://wiki2.org/en/List_of_countries_by_population_in_1800" style="user-select: text;">"Population in 1800"</a>, Wikipedia, last edited on 22 August 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
2. <a href="http://wired868.com/2019/12/29/culturecide-subversion-and-african-hair-dr-fergus-on-dada-hair-and-bantu-knots/" style="user-select: text;"> "Culturecide, subversion and African hair: Dr Fergus on ‘Dada’ hair and ‘Bantu’ knots"</a>, Wired868, by Claudius Fergus. 2019-12-29.
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"We could trace this particular evil over the past 1,600 years. Suffice it to say in this commentary, however, that over those centuries, Talmudic-Christian racist theologians, scientific racists from the eighteenth century onward, and European enslavers and colonisers, have striven relentlessly and systematically to imbue African natural hair with intellectual, spiritual and cultural negativity.
The original objective was simply to supplant the artistic representation of the iconic black Madonna-and-Child legacy of Ancient Egypt with a Caucasoid Mary-and-Jesus equivalent of Roman Christianity. European dependence on Africans for the success of their western-hemispheric economic enterprise, launched in the fifteenth century, created a greater imperative for them to induce in African peoples deep feelings of racial inferiority, to such an extent that they would acknowledge their natural hair as abhorrent and subversive of European-defined norms of beauty, decency, attractiveness and tidiness.
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The Culturecide of animism was evidently acting at the far more profound level of the suppression of, what was at the time, the worldview of the entire Homo-Sapient species.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
3. The drama of science is that it fostered a religious type of belief in its capacity to derive the truth about everything. But the reality invalidates this belief as the following article makes abundantly clear that 95% of all matter and energy in the Universe is currently unobservable ! <a href="https://www.cfa.harvard.edu/big-questions/what-universe-made" style="user-select: text;">"What is the universe made of?"</a> by The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.
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“Modern calculations say dark matter comprises about 27% of the Universe. We don’t yet know what it is, but we are searching for answers.
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We have known that the Universe is expanding since the early 20th century. But recent observations of distant supernovae and other observations show that the Universe is not only expanding, but the expansion is accelerating.
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This astonishing discovery came as a complete surprise because the expansion of the Universe should slow down with time because of the gravitational attraction between galaxies and clusters of galaxies. The unseen repellant force required to explain this observation has been labelled ‘dark energy,’ and current models say it makes up about 68% of the Universe."
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That leaves only 5% of the Universe that is visible to us.
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<a href="https://www.universetoday.com/163241/a-new-technique-confirms-the-universe-is-69-dark-energy-31-matter-mostly-dark/" style="user-select: text;"> "A New Technique Confirms the Universe is 69% Dark Energy, 31% Matter (Mostly Dark)"</a>, Universe Today - Space and astronomy news, by Carolyn Collins Petersen. 2023-09-17.
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In light of the certainty, of knowing less than 10 % of what constitutes the universe, the question arises about the validity of science’s pronouncements about the working of the universe, its sub-systems, and their parts. And, knowing this, the pronouncement of animism about the unattainability of the universe and its corollary of living in the here and now are starting to make a lot of sense indeed !</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
4. <a href="https://www.britannica.com/summary/atomism" style="user-select: text;">"Atomism summary"</a>, by the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2023.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
5. The Yijing is considered the oldest Chinese book. As a first introduction to this book I advise to surf the following 2 sites : <a href="https://www.yijing.nl/" style="user-select: text;"> “I Ching, Yijing or Zhou Yi ‘Oracle of the moon’ "</a> by LiSe or <a href="https://www.biroco.com/yijing/index.htm" style="user-select: text;">“The Yijing on the web”</a> by S. J. Marshall. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
6. See “Volume 1. The Continuum of the interactive cultural field of societies. Part 2. <a ref="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/01Continuum.pdf?i=1#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A5110%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C154.15%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">2.3.3.4. How does Göbekli Tepe fit in this transition”</a>. See more particularly page 215 : “3.3. Göbekli-Tepe was abandoned to erase the memory of tribal societal organization so as to facilitate the opening of agricultural villages”. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
7. <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/pragmatism/" style="user-select: text;">“Pragmatism”</a>, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, by Catherine Legg, Christopher Hookway. First published 2008-08-16; substantive revision 2021-04-06. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
8. <a href="https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/f/the-news-is-full-of-headlines-about-china-economic-collapse-ignore-them" style="user-select: text;">"The news is full of headlines about ‘China’s economic collapse’ — ignore them"</a>, Morning Star, by John Ross, 2023-09-15.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
9. <a href="https://www.statista.com/chart/7913/the-countries-with-the-most-stem-graduates/" style="user-select: text;">"The Countries With The Most STEM Graduates"</a>, Statista, by Niall McCarthy, 2017-02-03. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
10. <a href="https://cset.georgetown.edu/wp-content/uploads/China-is-Fast-Outpacing-U.S.-STEM-PhD-Growth.pdf" style="user-select: text;"> "China is Fast Outpacing U.S. STEM PhD Growth"</a>, Center for Security and Emerging Technology, by Remco Zwetsloot, Jack Corrigan, Emily Weinstein, Dahlia Peterson, Diana Gehlhaus, Ryan Fedasiuk. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
11. <a href="https://wordsrated.com/number-of-academic-papers-published-per-year/" style="user-select: text;"> "Number of Academic Papers Published Per Year"</a>, Words Rated, by Dimitrije Curcic. 2023-06-01.
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGiMT2lXCcozL5ZJV2jMSaWelT2e44XYSArHmvyfz42tDX7njTTiQCZfWLbaDcLKzuREBnSCQ1SthpShGThibE91zsLVJjZHcqFtBYCeSPUo-Tg4XUzn-9_E7bfgfL1W1euAm15QwSWRhTfKT1S5Q91dGtm4dH60DJM9NoU15JIYVEGWDLOx8R/s1200/303-D3-13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgGiMT2lXCcozL5ZJV2jMSaWelT2e44XYSArHmvyfz42tDX7njTTiQCZfWLbaDcLKzuREBnSCQ1SthpShGThibE91zsLVJjZHcqFtBYCeSPUo-Tg4XUzn-9_E7bfgfL1W1euAm15QwSWRhTfKT1S5Q91dGtm4dH60DJM9NoU15JIYVEGWDLOx8R/s320/303-D3-13.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-47123080534269405372023-09-14T16:00:00.538-04:002023-09-15T01:21:12.291-04:00Daily reality and the news about it. Part 2.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBg_H5faq7VE-PlAdCdKeueD_LnDG9-gwgMAkGA2eoyOvToiEkBtWA9QiX5YTpgw53pebRC5uQ9KMuFNIs1pXw_92gOWANJ1LgBHo4uvodt_LPFNjsCNAf2R437DDwEpZi_S0y0o2QIEQxX54cA6GY4vPkK1xFcV9gTrHrgnd4V431wuJ-GUlx/s1200/303-B1-32.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; padding-right: 15px; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBg_H5faq7VE-PlAdCdKeueD_LnDG9-gwgMAkGA2eoyOvToiEkBtWA9QiX5YTpgw53pebRC5uQ9KMuFNIs1pXw_92gOWANJ1LgBHo4uvodt_LPFNjsCNAf2R437DDwEpZi_S0y0o2QIEQxX54cA6GY4vPkK1xFcV9gTrHrgnd4V431wuJ-GUlx/s320/303-B1-32.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a>
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<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;">Part 2. The emergence of Western exceptionalism and its consequences</h2>
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Northern Western Europe has inherited Christianity after the fall of the Western Roman empire. During the Early Middle-ages, which spanned from the late 5th to mid 10th century, Christianity got confronted with the cultural values of the Franks and by the 10th century it had reconciled with these values by absorbing them. This fusion procured the specificity that distinguishes Western Christianity from the Orthodoxy of Eastern Christianity to this very day.
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In the 12th century Western Christianity started to be confronted with the Greek Classics, and the works of Muslim intellectuals, which eventually resulted in the emergence of a Christian humanism in the 13th century that created the conditions for the smooth ride of Modernity along the following 5 centuries while preparing the path to the secular humanism of the Enlightenment.
<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />This part 2 addresses the interweaving of the Frankish cultural values into Western Christianity and its chain of inevitable consequences that are still with us to this day :
<p style="user-select: text;"><a href="#01" style="user-select: text;"> 2.1. Interweaving Frankish cultural values into Western Christianity</a></p>
<p style="user-select: text;"><a href="#02" style="user-select: text;">2.2. Nature of the Frankish cultural values </a> </p>
<p style="user-select: text;"><a href="#03" style="user-select: text;">2.3. Consequences of the absorption of Frankish values in Western Christianity</a> </p>
<p style="user-select: text;"><a href="#04" style="user-select: text;">2.4. The spreading of the paradigm of Modernity</a> </p>
<p style="user-select: text;"><a href="#05" style="user-select: text;">2.5. The paradox of Western-Modernity </a> </p>
<p style="user-select: text;"><a href="#06" style="user-select: text;">2.6. The center of gravity of Western-Modernity follows the regions that are best endowed with capital formation</a></p><p style="user-select: text;"> </p>
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2.1. Interweaving Frankish cultural values into Western Christianity </h2> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">The Frankish animist values of forthrightness, and freedom diverged radically from the values of obedience that characterized Christianity.
But both the Papacy, and the Frankish men of power, had a profound political interest in the reconciliation of Christianity with Frankish cultural values :
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<h3 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 2.1.1 The papacy </h3> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">During the era of the Byzantine papacy, that spanned from 537 to 752, the papacy, which had lost most of its territorial realm with the fall of the Western Roman empire, was in need to broaden its base of followers in order to legitimize its religious representativity in its negotiations with the Byzantine emperor.
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“The Byzantine Papacy was the period of Byzantine rule over the Roman Papacy. ...During this period, popes required the approval of the Byzantine emperor for the consecration of bishops, and many popes were apocliciari (liaison from the pope to the emperor) or elected from the papacy. An inhabitant of Greece, Syria, or Sicily under Byzantine rule, Justinian I reconquered the Italian peninsula in the Gothic War (535-554) and appointed three popes: This practice was continued by his successors and was later entrusted to the Governorate of Ravenna.
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With the exception of Martin I, no pope of the period questioned the authority of a Byzantine monarch to approve the election of a bishop of Rome before the consecration took place. However, there were frequent theological conflicts between popes and emperors in areas such as monotheism and iconoclasm. During this period, Greek-speaking people from Greece, Syria, and Sicily replaced the Roman nobility as pope. Under the Greek papacy, Rome constituted a "melting pot" of Western and Eastern Christian traditions, reflected not only in liturgy but also in art and Byzantine traders came to dominate Roman economic life. People from all parts of the Byzantine Empire could follow traditional trade routes to Rome, making it a truly "international" city in its composition". (1)
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After the fall of the Roman empire the Popes also defended a “double sword Doctrine” that later procured them the same kind of authority over the confirmation of kings and emperors that emperors of the Eastern Roman empire had enjoyed during the Byzantine Papacy. By early 8th century, Rome replaced the traditional primacy of the emperor, that had been in application before the fall of the empire and later during the Byzantine Papacy, with a theocratic authority that had primacy over secular power !
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This stunning turn of events was realized in two phases :</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
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<h4 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;">2.1.1.1. Pope Gelasius’ letter to Emperor Anastasius</h4>
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This letter, written in 494, argued the superiority of spiritual power over temporal power and mentions the following :
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"There are two powers, august Emperor, by which this world is chiefly ruled, namely, the sacred authority of the priests and the royal power. Of these that of the priests is the more weighty, since they have to render an account for even the kings of men in the divine judgment. You are also aware, dear son, that while you are permitted honorably to rule over human kind, yet in things divine you bow your head humbly before the leaders of the clergy and await from their hands the means of your salvation. In the reception and proper disposition of the heavenly mysteries you recognize that you should be subordinate rather than superior to the religious order, and that in these matters you depend on their judgment rather than wish to force them to follow your will." (2)
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By mid 6th century Rome, Ravenna and Venice had been conquered by the emperor Justinian and these cities came under Byzantine rule while Justinian had also enforced the primacy of the emperor on the Papacy. The discussions, about the 2 swords doctrine and the primacy of the Papacy over secular rule, would thus only restart later with the decline of Byzantium.
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<h4 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 2.1.1.2. The Donation of Constantine</h4>
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“This is perhaps the most famous forgery in history. For centuries, until Lorenzo Valla proved it was forgery during the Renaissance, it provided the basis for papal territorial and jurisdictional claims in Italy. Probably at least a first draft of it was made shortly after the middle of the eighth century in order to assist Pope Stephen II in his negotiations with the Frankish Mayor of the Palace, Pepin the Short. The Pope crossed the Alps to anoint the latter as king in 754, thereby enabling, the Carolingian family, to which Pepin belonged, to supplant the old Merovingian royal line which had become decadent and powerless and to become in law as well as in fact rulers of the Franks.
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In return, Pepin seems to have promised to give to the Pope those lands in Italy which the Lombards had taken from Byzantium. The promise was fulfilled in 756. Constantine's alleged gift made it possible to interpret Pepin's grant not as a benefaction but as a restoration.” (3)
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The rise of Frankish Carolingian Francia and the decline of Byzantium fostered the conditions for the ascendancy of papal power.
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Byzantium suffered a series of military setbacks and lost control over most of its Italian possessions. The claim of primacy by the Papacy, over secular power, inflamed its relations with Byzantium and the Pope de-facto separated his Western territorial realm from the East while addressing the Byzantine emperor as the "Emperor of the Greeks" while claiming for itself the prerogatives of the emperors residing within the territorial realm of the papacy.
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Following the death of Pepin the Short, in 768, his eldest son succeeded him as king of the Franks under the name Charles. Nearly 50 years after having crowned Pepin the Short, as king of the Franks, the papacy, in 800, crowned his son Charles 1 as the Holy Roman Emperor Charlemagne.
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By crowning the first emperor in western Europe, since the collapse of the Western Roman Empire three centuries earlier, the Pope imposed himself not only as the supreme head of the Church but also as the supreme authority over Western European kings and emperors !
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<h3 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 2.1.2. The access to Francian power by the Franks</h3>
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The Franks were a Germanic “Tribal Cultural Confederation” living on the east of the lower Rhine River. In mid-4th century the Franks invaded the Roman territory and took the control of the area between the Meuse and the Scheldt rivers (now Belgian territory) and by 480 they controlled the former Roman province of Germania and two former provinces of Belgicae that expanded into present day North-Eastern France. The Gallo-Roman population assimilated among the Franks, and Latin ceased to be the daily language. The actual linguistic divide of Belgium originated from that time.
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In 481 Clovis became the ruler of the Franks of Tournai. He was the grandson of Merovech the founder of the Frankish Merovingian dynasty and he converted to Western Christianity to unite his Frankish population into one nation with the Gallo-Roman population. By 494 the disintegration of the Roman Empire had helped him to conquer the entirety of northern Gaul.
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Clovis successors extended their power east of the Rhine and ruled until by the Pope crowned Charlemagne as emperor in the year 800. This crowning symbolized the launch of the Carolingian dynasty which, in association with the Pope, restored the western Roman Empire while spreading Christianity to the north of the Alps.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
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2.2. The nature of Frankish cultural values
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The etymology of the word Frank irrevocably conveys the nature of its peoples' values as well as the exceptionalism that they attached to them.
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Here is what Merriam-Webster writes about <a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/frank">the etymology of the word "Frank”</a> :
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“The word frank comes from the name of the Franks, a West Germanic people who lived long ago. In the early Middle Ages the Franks were in power in France. (It was from them that the country got its name, in Latin Francia.) The Franks eventually merged with the earlier Gaulish and Roman inhabitants, and their name (Francus in Latin) lost its ethnic sense and referred to any inhabitant of Francia who was free, that is, not a slave or bondman. As an adjective, francus came to mean simply ‘free’. From the English adjective frank, which means ‘free’ or ‘forthright’ we get the verb frank, which means ‘to mark mail with an official sign so that it may be mailed free’. “
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And here is how Etymology Online <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/frank" target="_blank">completes the picture</a> :
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“c. 1300, ‘free, liberal, generous;’ 1540s, ‘outspoken,’ from Old French franc ‘free (not servile); without hindrance, exempt from; sincere, genuine, open, gracious, generous; worthy, noble, illustrious’ (12c.), from Medieval Latin francus ‘free, at liberty, exempt from service,’ as a noun, ‘a freeman, a Frank’.
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A generalization of the tribal name; the connection is that Franks, as the conquering class, alone had the status of freemen in a world that knew only free, captive, or slave.
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... It was noted by 1680s that, in the Levant, this (frank) was the name given to anyone of Western nationality.”
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The nature of the values of the “Franks” as a conquering class, that venerates freedom, liberty, nobility and greatness, projects an exceptionalist image of power and of nobility that contrasts with the condition of the population at large.
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This image is also corroborated by their history of military conquest that fostered the suzerainty system of the European Middle-age power relations.
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Knights were at the service of lords who in turn were in the service of a king. Historians generally agree that a knight typically worked 40 days per year for his lord. This practice was well established by the time of Charlemagne who granted lands to the best knights in his territory in exchange for fighting for him. In other words knights were offered the opportunity to ascend to the status of lords owning land.
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This principle of suzerainty forged the social relations of the European Middle-ages from the 8th to the 14th century and the minds, of the citizens of Western Europe, are unconsciously marked to this very day by this social relation template. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
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2.3. Consequences of the absorption of Frankish values in Western Christianity</h2>
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The reconciliation of Frankish cultural values, through absorption by Western Christianity, substantiated the foundational worldview of the Western civilization. This means that the historical worldview shared by the citizens of all the societies, that later integrated in the territorial realm of the Western civilization, is de-facto rooted in this reconciliation of Western Christianity with the cultural values of the Franks.
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This fact is unfortunately deeply concealed under the semantic confusion, that is befuddling the concepts, of — worldview — religion — nation — empire — civilization. And so the profound interrelatedness of these concepts, that was at work along the entire societal time-span of the human species, escapes the perception of nearly all of us (4) which leaves us unaware of our inheritance of the cultural values of the Franks.
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But the fact is that the interweaving of the cultural values of the Franks, into Western Christianity, had profound consequences, that shaped the future European Zeitgeist, most particularly during its existential highlights like the crusades which further reinforced these values by making them the foundations of a new Eurocentric normality. The exceptionalism of the Franks, and their deep awareness of self that was reinforced through their Christian conversion, got adroitly exploited by the papacy to launch crusades against the enemies of Christianity for political gain.
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"Urban II combined into a new synthesis two elements that were traditionally considered incompatible: the fascination with Jerusalem as a destination for pilgrimage — an aspect of Christian piety — and the warrior ethics of the feudal class inherited from their barbarian origin.
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...The first character of the crusades is their universality; all Europe concurred in them; they were the first European event. Before the crusades, Europe had never been moved by the same sentiment, or acted in a common cause; till then, in fact, Europe did not exist. The crusades made manifest the existence of Christian Europe.
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Through the Crusades, North-Western Europe made a place for itself in history. “Before their inception,” wrote Steven Runciman in his unsurpassed History of the Crusades, ‘the centre or our civilisation was placed in Byzantium and in the lands of the Arab caliphate. Before they faded out the hegemony in civilisation had passed to Western Europe’ “. (5)
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The crusades indirectly infused the High-Medieval-Period with a dynamism that generated a remarkable rate of economic growth, and legal, financial, and cultural advancement that culminated with the Northern Renaissance.
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In the 13th century Thomas Aquinas furthermore reconciled Christianity's cultural belief, in a truth revealed by God, with the capability of human thought to adapt the material world to human needs. This reconciliation consummated Christian spiritual truth by canceling man to concern himself with the satisfaction of his material needs, thus paving the way for a humanist justification by Christianity of the complementarity between the materialistic use of nature and the belief in the truth revealed by God.
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The reconciliation by Thomas Aquinas, of the revealed religious truth with the accommodation of the material world by human thought, opened a 600-year peaceful coexistence between Western Christianity and modernity that allowed the expansion of its rationality. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;">______________</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div>
It is easy to forget that without this accommodation the rationality of Modernity could not have spread throughout the societal body of Western societies with the consequence that the Enlightenment would not have emerged which presupposes that the present human condition would be radically other.
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By the end of Early-Modernity, in the 18th century, this coexistence got challenged by the militant wing of the Enlightenment. Liberalism was the ideology of long distance merchants who wanted to transform the sterile money accrued to them, through profits realized overseas, into national processes of capital accumulation by promoting the use, of philosophic rationalism, of science, and of investments in national productions. The intellectuals, the scientists and the artists, joined them claiming the primacy of the rationality of Modernity over religious belief.
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Thus started a competition, between Liberalism and Christianity for the minds and hearts of Western citizens. The high-point of this competition was attained in the first part of the 20th century with the advent of Modernism but its fall into “whatever is art” was sized as an opportunity by US state propagandists, and their affiliated art merchants, to grab the control of the art world as revealed in “Modernity 02. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A911%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C625.051%2C0%5D" target="_blank">1.1. the way of art </a>and <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A954%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C384.951%2C0%5D" target="_blank">1.2. propaganda & the financialization of the arts”</a>.
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The silent revolution of the 1970s, that was initiated by Western big capital holders, then promoted Postmodernism, with the help of their intellectual servants, to smooth the social acceptance of their gambit to expand their reach to the whole world. As a result the populations rapidly got estranged from the Christian revealed truth, and other grand narratives like Marxism. The resulting loss, of big picture narratives, opened the level playing field of culture to the competition of ideas that, at the image of what happens in science, were reduced to bits and pieces of reality.
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Without any opposition, from grand narratives, the rationality of Modernity, as the societal system of logic emanating from the paradigm of Modernity, could suddenly flourish unimpeded. But in contrast to holistic worldviews this rationality did not develop a grand narrative shareable by all for the good reason that the paradigm of Modernity is not concerned with the reproduction of the individuals, of their societies, and of the species which had been the “raison d’être” of foundational worldviews since the very start of societal evolution.
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But bits and pieces of reality never satisfied the thirst for the trust between the individuals that is procured by sharing a common societal worldview. The approach of reality, through bits and pieces, was merely satisfying the abstraction of transforming sterile money into a process of capital accumulation which originated outside of the first principles of life and, as a consequence, the trust among the individuals rapidly bottomed and the cohesion of Western societies finally tanked.
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The silent revolution of the 1970’s accelerated the breakdown of the Western societal contract. Market fundamentalism and social inequality fostered hyper-individualism and loneliness and this particular context appeared as the holy grail to social media technologists in search of an income from their games of power on the WWW. In the process the individuals got glued to their screens and within the span of a short few decades Western societies were atomized which means that they no longer are able to undertake successfully any large scale project like addressing an epidemic, or answering natural catastrophes, or supplying a prosperous economy that satisfies everyone, or even winning wars for that matter.
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The first Medieval Universities were built on the model of “the Muslim Houses of Wisdom”, that the first crusaders encountered in the Eastern Mediterranean while inheriting the corpus of ideas that were in vogue in the cathedral schools which, during the early Medieval Period, had integrated the cultural values of the Franks in Western Christianity.
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The interweaving of the Greek Classics, the works of Muslims scholars and the ideas circulating in the Christian cathedrals, rapidly maturated in the 13th century, most notably at the University of Paris, into a Late-Medieval philosophy of Christian humanism that triumphed during the Renaissance. This philosophy was focusing, all along, on 4 core values that portended its later secular evolution :
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1. Individualism</h4>
The expansion over centuries of Christianity’s conversion of the Franks by encouraging a direct communication of the individuals with the Christian God resulted in a deep awareness of the self that later morphed into “me me is all there is”, which Margaret Thatcher interpreted to mean that “society does not exist”.
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<h4 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 2. Materialism </h4>
The Christian mantra, that God created nature for the pleasure of men, separated them from their natural state of interrelatedness, with all the other elements in the ensemble earth and in the whole, that had so deeply marked the traditional animist belief system.
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<h4 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 3. Freedom </h4>
Frankish individual forthrightness foreshadowed the idea of individual free-will that got propagated during the Enlightenment by Liberalism which demanded individual freedom to vote, and popular representation in state decision-making, as a means of procuring an access, to the political decision-making process, for the new social class represented by the capital holders.
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<h4 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 4. Dualism </h4>
Dualism is a system of thinking that was rooted in Christian and Frankish irreconcilable opposites, like the Christian opposition of “good and evil or God and the devil”, like the Frankish opposition of “the individuals and their society”, like the Christian opposition of “nature and culture (the Christian culture)”, like the Frankish exceptionalism opposing “Frank conquering free men and ‘the other’ captive or enslaved individuals”, and so on and on.
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Such a vision of reality de-facto positioned Western Christians on the side of :
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<h4 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 1. Goodness</h4>
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And the difference of “the others” was thus automatically perceived as :
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<h4 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;">1. Their adherence to evil (followers of the devil) </h4>
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<h4 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;">2. Their adherence to the primacy of society (followers of a soulless leviathan) </h4>
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<h4 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;">3. Their adherence to nature (followers of savagery) </h4>
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<h4 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;">4. Their adherence to a captive state of mind (followers of the individual’s self-hindrance)</h4>
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Such a dualistic vision has unfortunately opposed Westerners to “the other” since Frankish cultural values and Christianity got interwoven which, in Frankish Christian eyes, created a perception that the ideas, behaviors and actions of “the other” are in-acceptable. The difference of the other was simply never accepted.
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And so the later Western estrangement from Christianity, that was encouraged by Postmodernism, did not erase, from the minds, the vision of reality that had emerged originally from the interweaving of Frankish values with Christianity. This vision of reality remains indeed deeply embedded in the unconscious of all Westerners to this very day which explains that the present rejection, of the natural evolution of Western Modernity principally by the USA, is an irrevocable testimony of its non-acceptance of the difference of “the other”.
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Western religious believers and rationalists, followers of right and left, members of the establishment and anti-establishment, all continue to believe to this very day that they are naturally on the side — of good — of the primacy of the individual — of the primacy of culture — of individual freedom — of the primacy of Western culture, all traits that, in their eyes, imply that they are highly civilized. Unfortunately this belief automatically implies, that “the other” is non-civilized.
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Is this not the most glaring demonstration of the totalitarian nature of Western culture ? The crudeness of these words does not erase the fact that they offer a hyper-realist picture of the present state of Geopolitical relations. But the fact is that this Western societal logic is merely shared today by less than 10% of the world population. The non-Western countries, that have acceded to industrialization and to service economies, are not really sharing these Western traits !
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China’s rise to the top economic spot is fortunately questioning the Western mantra of TINA or “There Is No Alternative” and it is affirming high and loud that “There is Definitely An Alternative” to Western Hegemony after all (TIDAA). And it is TIDAA that has encouraged Russia to master the courage to stand up to NATO and to claim the security of its Western borders. The out of hand refusal by the West to even talk about Russia’s treaty proposals of December 2021 resulted in the February 2022 launch of its Military Operation in Ukraine.
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The audacity and arrogance of the West, which then urged all countries to sanction Russia, has provoked such disgust that one country in the South after another resisted Western bullying. For the first time in the history of Geopolitics a Western diktat got rejected without any prior deliberation. This is proof enough that TIDAA is awakening non-Western nations to claim their right of sovereignty and self-determination which is confirmed by their rush for inclusion in the BRICS+.
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I hope that after its enlargement the BRICS+ grouping gets renamed as “the United Nations of the South”, or UNS in testimony of these nations’ high hope of attaining a true United Nations of really equal sovereign nations that are free to determine their own future and are free to engage in negotiating solutions for the betterment of the human condition in a shared future.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
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<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;"> 2.4. The spreading of the paradigm of Modernity</h2>
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The goods plundered in the Eastern Mediterranean, by the Frank aristocrats who were leading the first crusade, made a splash back home that unleashed a demand of more such goods by the local aristocracy and the high clergy. That demand was addressed to local Frank merchants participating in local and regional markets. <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
The novelty, and the extreme risks of traveling Medieval roads while carrying gold and silver, caused an illumination of the merchants' minds that was calling for the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation. And their mental conversion, to this new paradigm, generated a flourishing long distance commerce of luxury goods as well as the transfer of literature from the Muslim Houses of Wisdom that inspired the creation of the first European universities.
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The dualist vision of the world, in the minds of the first Frank long distance merchants, got confronted during the 12th century, to the existential uncertainties they encountered on the long distance roads to the Eastern Mediterranean and the intensity of this confrontation, in their minds, eventually resulted in trance like illuminations about the profound meaning of the new societal paradigm that was implied by their long distance commercial endeavors.
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The fact is that the particular contextual settings, that illuminated the profound significance of the new societal paradigm of modernity in the minds of long-distance Frankish merchants, never materialized in any other region and this is the reason why the paradigm of Modernity never spontaneously emerged anywhere else !
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In the absence of the particular contextual settings, that illuminated the profound significance of the new societal paradigm of modernity in the minds of long-distance Frankish merchants, the minds of Chinese merchants were never illuminated about the profound meaning of the new societal paradigm of Modernity.
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The absence of this particular context in China answers <a href="https://www.lse.ac.uk/Economic-History/Assets/Documents/Research/URKEW/Discussion-Paper/3-NeedhamQuestion.pdf">Needham's question</a> as to why Western countries have outperformed China economically in recent centuries. And the reason, for the non-emergence of this particular context resides most probably in the constant monopoly of the State on the modalities of the country’s long distance trade. China’s foreign trade, by land routes or by sea routes, got always settled with foreign merchants in state managed entrepots where the state controlled what entered and what left the country while collecting taxes to sustain the states’ treasury.
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Chinese merchants were never free to trade at will with foreigners. This protected them from the kind of uncertainties that exacerbated the risks incurred by Frankish merchants. It was these risks, confronting the cultural certainties in their minds, that provoked their trance like illumination about the deeper meaning of the emerging societal paradigm of modernity ! So by controlling, and protecting its merchants, the Chinese state constantly prevented the exacerbation of risks that might have confronted their cultural certainties and by extension might have enlightened their minds about the paradigm of modernity.
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The fact is that the paradigm of modernity emerged exclusively in the Frankish lands of the 12th century. And the interweaving of Frank cultural values in Christianity fostered the Western exceptionalism that forced the ramifications of their Modernity on non-Western-nations whose context was different. The centuries long difficulties of non-Western-nations to adopt this paradigm implies that Modernity was not adapted to non-Western contextual settings which ultimately means that Modernity is not a universal paradigm but is typically a Western-Modernity !
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"During their medieval heyday, the Champagne fairs took place six times a year and rotated among four towns – Bar-sur-Aube, Lagny, Provins and Troyes – none of which was a major merchant center in its own right. Each fair lasted for about six weeks, followed by a break for merchants to move on to the next fair, so the Champagne fair-cycle constituted an almost continuous market throughout the year, a notable advantage over many other medieval fairs.
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... Their early success and international importance have made the Champagne fairs a standard-bearer of the medieval Commercial Revolution, from which many scholars draw lessons about the institutional basis for impersonal exchange and long-distance trade. Economists in particular have drawn lessons from the medieval Champagne fairs for modern developing economies.
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... Between 1137 and 1164, merchants from Flanders, Arras, and many parts of the kingdom of France began to attend fairs in Champagne, and by 1174 they had been joined by Italians. By 1190 Italian merchants were visiting Champagne in significant numbers and the annual cycle of six fairs was well established. On this basis, the beginning of the Champagne fairs' European preeminence is usually taken to be about 1180." (6)
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I try here after to formulate a definition of the paradigm of Modernity as it emerged in the 12th century. This definition takes in consideration the concepts, that were in use in late 12th century and early 13th century, in the realm of Francia and of the Italian city-states which already participated extensively in the Champagne fairs. Fernand Braudel mentions for example, that in Late 12th century early 13th century, there was already a linguistic distinction between “sterile money” disappearing with a payment, and “merchant money” that fostered a process of capital accumulation (7). In light of all this my formulation of the early paradigm of Modernity reads as “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation” where the reason acts as the abstract rationality of Modernity.
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The Counts of Champagne promoted this rationality by institutionalizing the implementation of new legal and financial instruments whose acceptance they negotiated diplomatically with other European regions and cities. This institutional standardization by the Champagne counts has to be seen as the single most important factor that determined the unification of the European implementation of early commercial capitalism since the late 12th century. (8)
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Once the Champagne region came under the jurisdiction of the conservative kings of France, in 1285, they neglected to promote the rationality emanating from the reason and European merchants rapidly left the Champagne fairs for Flanders where the city of Bruges offered a permanent infrastructure to long distance merchants with living quarters that they could self administer. The Counts of Flanders also offered a legal, commercial, and financial framework that expanded the protection of the interest of long distance merchants from afar.
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Over the following centuries the spread of the rationality emanating from the reason greatly increased the material possessions of the long distance merchants and this bewitched the minds of Western European citizens whose envy attracted them to the rationality they observed at work in the practice of their long distance activities. This rationality was understood to foster their financial success And people were thus attracted to learn the secrets of this rationality through education.
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By the end of the 11th century a boom in city development had already fostered a burgeoning merchant class that created a demand for skills like reading and writing, for communication with suppliers and customers, and mathematics, for balancing books. That demand had been echoed by the Papal bull of Pope Gregory VII’s that ordered the transformation of cathedral schools into universities.
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Monks got most of the teaching positions in Medieval European universities, for the good reason that they were the only ones who could read and write Latin, and they acted as the determinant force advancing the materialist rationality, of the reason at work in the paradigm of Modernity. By the 13th century Thomas Aquinas had proposed that God’s revealed truth be complemented by the human thoughts about the nature of the material world. This initiated a Christian humanism that contained the seeds of the future secular humanism which 5 centuries gave rise to the philosophic rationalism, the science, and the secular humanism of the Enlightenment.
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In parallel to the advancement of materialist rationality in the universities the merchants had been forcing and cunning the entire world into submission. The “voyages of great discoveries” and the appropriation of the land of “the others”, under the guise of “the theory of discovery” that was promoted in such papal bulls as <a href="https://www.nlm.nih.gov/nativevoices/timeline/171.html">"Inter Caetera"</a>, procured the legal background and the moral justification for plundering the resources of “the others” and stealing their lands.
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Imperialism, and the colonization of foreign lands by Western European nations, got unmistakably its intellectual and moral justification, from Western Christianity, and it was enacted by private capital holders under the protection of the public institutions of their nations of origin. The 3 European estates, the clergy, the aristocracy, and the long distance merchants (capital holders), were indeed closely allied during the 6 centuries of Early-Modernity that came to be known as “the era of commercial capitalism” as well as during the transition to High-Modernity.
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Their united stance also played a determinant role during the industrial revolution and it continues to play a determinant, while invisible, role in shaping the mood and dualist outlook of Western populations at large during the present Geopolitical re-balancing.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
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<h2 style="color: #00b48a; user-select: text;"> 2.5. The paradox of Western-Modernity</h2>
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It's only with the benefit of hindsight that we can start to understand how the emergence, of a new societal paradigm in the minds of long-distance Frankish merchants in the 12th century, opened up a new historical era that later came to be known as modernity. An era that revolutionized people’s daily lives. Living in cities forced them into dependence of industrial and services jobs which forced them to purchase all the goods necessary to satisfy their needs and this originated the mass-market for consumer goods.<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />Today the rapid retreat from Western hegemony is forcing us to reassess the entirety of this historical era. The fact is that the barbaric brutality of the West over the last 800 years has put an end to many civilizations and societies, while killing hundreds of millions of people. This inevitably calls for a new recognition of the interests of all nations.<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
To satisfy people’s daily needs industrialization has also depleted the earth’s reserves of mineral, metals and energy resources, which increases their prices and threatens their future availability. Human production activities have also generated an accumulation of many side-effects that are converging today and accelerating the unleashing of tipping points by each one of them.
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The convergence, of the depletion of natural resources + the numerous side-effects of Western-Modernity + the cultural aberrations of Late-Western-Modernity, like — the elimination of traditional societal worldviews — the cultural rejection of our biological sexual roles — the ideological conversion to transhumanism while ignoring the primacy of our biology, all these factors are rapidly shifting the Geo-bio-chemical state of the earth outside of its traditional life sustaining state.
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Our drive toward mass-extinction is caused by the mental conversion of human societies to the paradigm of Modernity, that emerged in 12th century Frankish lands and impulsed a pathological rationalist system of societal logic. The fact that Modernity was so successful in churning out material goods while generating the annihilation of life on earth is nothing short of paradoxical :
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<h3 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 2.5.1. Western-Modernity has been hyper successful </h3>
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Western-Modernity has incontestably been extremely successful at producing mass quantities of goods and services that satisfied people’s needs which explains its popularity with the populations of all countries on this earth.
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<h3 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;">2.5.2. But this success came at a steep cost</h3>
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The side-effects of Western-Modernity are rampant while the governance-world is destabilized by a shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world. Over the last decade there was furthermore a convergence of the side-effects, among themselves and with the destabilization of the governance-world, which suddenly accelerated the appearance of thresholds that induce tipping points towards new states of equilibrium ...<br style="user-select: text;" /> <br />
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<h4 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 2.5.2.1. The hegemony of Western-Modernity is now confronted with TIDAA or “There Is Definitely An Alternative” :</h4>
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The barbarian brutality of Western-Modernity has caused centuries of incalculable damages and suffering to non-Western people. This forced suffering has evidently to stop and China’s rise to the top economic spot is proving that “There Is Definitely An Alternative” (TIDAA) to Western-Modernity that TINA, or the propaganda about “There is no Alternative, can no longer hide.
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<h4 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 2.5.2.2. Destabilization of the world order and transition to a new order :</h4>
Modernity has affected Western societies with various cohesion dissolving processes that resulted in their atomization which is an euphemism for saying that these societies are dying. The resulting shrinkage of the hegemony, of the West, has furthermore been confronted over the last decade by the rise of China which has rapidly been captured in acronyms, like TIDAA (There Is Definitely An Alternative) or REB’s (Regional Economic Blocks like ASEAN), that are energizing non-Western-countries to claim the respect of their sovereignty and their national right to chose their own cultural, economic, and political path forward.
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Western societal atomization + the rise of China have definitely weakened international organizations and procured an opening to the non-Western-countries to contest the Geopolitical status-quo of Western hegemony. Russia, for example, is using the security on its Eastern border, procured by China’s TIDAA, to claim its security on its Western border from NATO and the West. Observing, that its December 2021 treaty proposals were rejected out of hand by the USA, Russia initiated a Special Military Operation in Ukraine that by this end of 2023 appears to have nearly neutralized Ukrainian forces.
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With no resolution of its security claims on the horizon the sole path forward for Russia is to annihilate any resistance from the Ukrainian state which should be followed by the latter’s rendition without condition (9). The West, and its NATO military alliance, are confronted with a real possibility of defeat for all eyes, in the International community, to see and it has thus only 2 choices going forward :
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<h5 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;">2.5.2.2.1. Or a Western defeat that is hidden from Western eyes</h5>
Without a tacit acceptance by the West of its defeat in Ukraine Russia will remain stuck in its existential conundrum of insecurity that NATO's expansion East has provoked over the last decades. This is something that Russia will try to evade at all costs by sticking to its maximalist position in the resolution of the Ukrainian conflict. A Western acceptance of the bulk of Russia’s conditions will definitely motivate Russia to engage in security negotiations with the EU + the USA. But the de-facto defeat of the West would remain concealed under media noise in order for Western propaganda to transform a Western defeat into a victory in the minds of Western citizens.
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But this is evidently something that the West will forcefully resist until it falls under the weight of its internal contradictions.
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The determinant fact in the present Geopolitical moment is that both the West, and the non-Western-world, are focusing all their energies on destabilizing the economic, financial, technological and cultural stability of the other side. The West focuses primarily on propaganda and sanctions while Russia and China focus on : — the control of the price of raw materials and energy — on technological research (Huawei Mate60 anyone?) — on trying to destabilize the culture of the other, etc. And in this game Russia and China are seconded by most non-Western-countries !
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<li style="user-select: text;"><h5 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 2.5.2.2.2. Or a military confrontation between NATO and Russia</h5>
A direct military confrontation, of Russia by NATO, would most probably end up with the launch of nuclear ballistic, and/or super or hyper-sonic, missiles that could possibly leave the world under a thick layer of ashes. All logically thinking parties will normally try to avoid such a MAD rush to Armageddon (Mutually Administered Destruction).
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The fact that we even can think about such a MAD outcome shows us that the present moment is located temporarily at the intersection of the historical era of Western hegemony, that in reality was the era of Western-Modernity, and the historical era of After-Western-Modernity.
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Logical thinking would imply a retreat of the West and the acceptance of the rise of China and the other non-Western-countries. But the level playing field of the Western market for ideas has been utterly destroyed over the last 5 years by the cancellation of voices whose message goes counter to the message of an establishment that serves the interests of Western big capital holders and the existing world order has been broken down piece by piece to foster chaos so that the action of China, or of other state actors, would be impeded.
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The thinking of the West is constrained within the rationality of Western-Modernity that is not necessarily aligned with the logic of life or of the human species. This suggests that the present Western context is ripe internally, for a bout of totalitarianism, and externally to further destabilize the world order so as to impose a new order that is fully compliant to US interests ! This implies that going forward US actions, both internally and externally, will no longer align with the objectives of freedom, democracy, and the free market that marked the last 75 years of US hegemony !
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<h4 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;">2.5.2.3. Externalization of costs and the destabilization of the Geo-bio-chemical state of the earth :</h4> <br />
The application of the paradigm of Western modernity has led to the externalization, of numerous production costs over the centuries since the emergence of this paradigm. These externalities have poisoned the earth, water and air. And all species and all terrestrial environments have been forced to absorb these poisons. Today, we are witnessing the consequences of their accumulation in the biology of living species and in their terrestrial habitats. For example nano-particles of plastic, and of other inorganic materials, have been forced in the biology of the individuals of all species with consequences that will haunt them for millennia. The absorption of such particles has affected all earthly habitats and the Geo-bio-chemical state of the earth is furthermore rapidly shifting to new states that will render life far less sustainable than in the past.
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<h4 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> 2.5.2.4. The great convergence of the numerous side-effects of Western Modernity :</h4>
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All the factors at work, in — the depletion of natural resources — the numerous side-effects of Western-Modernity — the cultural aberrations of Late-Western-Modernity, are generating feedback loops among themselves that eventually will return tipping points which is when the systems that they sustain are shifting their balancing act into new states of equilibrium with outcomes that are unpredictable for humanity and for life on earth. In light of this complexity ‘one bullet theories’ have demonstrably lost their capacity to explicate the present societal and Geo-political moment. My personal take, on the present societal and Geo-political moment, is that we assist at a Great-Convergence between the side-effects of Modernity, the peak of earth resources, and the destabilization of the governance-world. This Great-Convergence has now started to plunge living species into a maelstrom of causes and effects over which humanity has lost all control.
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Here follows a table extracted from “Modernity 02. Part 2. Great Convergence of late-Western-Modernity“ that sketches a <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A3148%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C176.7%2C343.051%2C0%5D">summary of the great convergence</a>.
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2.6. The center of gravity of Western-Modernity shifts to the regions best endowed with capital formation
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By the early 15th century the voyages of great discoveries and the plunder by Spain and Portugal, of South-American gold, silver and precious stones, shifted “the center of gravity of the economy-world of Western-Modernity” from Flanders-Bruges to Spain which splurged the proceeds of its plundering on financing religious wars against Christian protestant sects in Flanders and in Italy.
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As a result of Spanish shortsightedness “the center of gravity of the economy-world of Western-Modernity” shifted back to Flanders. The port of Bruges had started to silt in the 15th century and merchants and bankers fled the city for Antwerp which was easily accessible from the sea. As it was on the crossroads of Europe’s trade routes, Antwerp became the center of the European economy and was also the richest city in the world.
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But in their fight to eliminate the protestants, in the 1590’s, the Spanish burned the city to ashes which forced long distance merchants, bankers, artists, and protestants to flee north to Amsterdam. The arrival of Flemish capital boosted long distance commerce and “the center of gravity of the economy-world of Western-Modernity” shifted there around 1600. Amsterdam became the European distribution center of spices but by mid 18th century its fortunes withered and “the center of gravity of the economy-world of Western-Modernity” shifted to London which by the 19th century was governing 25% of the earth land-mass.
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The population size of the USA nevertheless surpassed the British economy between the 2 world-wars and in the wake of the 2nd World-war the US GDP reached some 50% of the world GDP while its gold reserves totaled some 80% of the world reserves ! In light of this the US was ordained to dominate the world and this is what it did for the following 75 years.
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In 2014 the World Bank acted the fact that the fulgurant economic and technological rise of China was surpassing the US GDP (PPP method) by that same year. This awakened the West to the fact that “the center of gravity of the economy-world of Western-Modernity” was shifting outside of the territorial realm of the Western civilization.
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The following table indicates the different shifts of “the center of gravity of the economy-world of Western-Modernity” along the era of Western-Modernity.
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But the shift from Washington to Beijing indicates something new. The shift of the center of gravity is no longer solely a measure of being better endowed with capital formation. A newer iteration of the paradigm of “Western-Modernity” has shifted the Western economies far apart from the primacy of production of the Chinese economy and from the economies of the Global South.
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During the silent revolution of the 1970’s, the traditional paradigm of Western-Modernity, that reads as “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a process of capital formation”, has been shifted into the highly risky proposition of “the reason that is at work in the transformation of speculative debt, into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”.
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Nobody speaks about this.
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Some economists are vaguely sensing that something drastic has happened which changed the profound nature of Western economies. One such approach observes that service activities have gradually replaced production activities.
But we know, from common sense, that the bulk of service activities are serving production activities. Another approach, followed by Michael Hudson for example, observes that over the last 50 years financial activities, or abstract activities summarized in spreadsheets, have been displacing industrial activities, thus crappifying their productions, and leaving Western corporations and their investors under an increasing load of debts that, from a mathematical perspective, is destined to end in in-solvability.
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These approaches are not necessarily wrong. They correctly address the outcome of financialization. But they do not indicate what, when, and how financialization emerged in the first place and how this affects the working of societies. I personally address these what, when and how, in “Modernity 02. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A887%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C176.4%2C309.251%2C0%5D">Part 1. Late-Modernity</a>”.
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1. <a href="https://academic-accelerator.com/encyclopedia/byzantine-papacy" style="user-select: text;"> "Byzantine Papacy"</a>, in Academic Accelerator Encyclopedia.
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2. <a href="https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/gelasius1.asp" style="user-select: text;"> "Gelasius I on Spiritual and Temporal Power, 494"</a>, Internet History Sourcebooks Project / Fordham University, translated in J. H. Robinson, Readings in European History, (Boston: Ginn, 1905), pp. 72-73.
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3. <a href="https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/source/donatconst.asp" style="user-select: text;">"The Donation of Constantine"</a>, Medieval Sourcebook/University of Fordham, (c.750-800)
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4. The Volume 5 of the series “The transition from Western-Modernity to After-Modernity” starts with a clarification about the meaning of these concepts and about their interrelatedness in the theory of societal evolution that covers the transition from one archetypal model of society to another which starts with the transition from the archetypal model of small bands to the archetypal model of tribal societies. I'll upload this Volume to my website sometime by the end of 2025 but a first draft is available in my <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/archBlogger.html" style="user-select: text;">older series of blog posts from the 2010's</a> (See posts 209 to 219, titled "From Modernity to After-Modernity (12) to (19)".
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5. <a href="https://www.unz.com/article/the-crusade-is-over/#footnote_29" style="user-select: text;">“The Crusade is Over”, Unz, by Laurent Guyénot</a>.
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6. <a href="https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/people-files/faculty/sco2/full-texts/Edwards-Ogilvie-2012-Champagne%20Fairs.pdf" style="user-select: text;">"What lessons for economic development can we draw from the Champagne fairs?"</a>, Elsevier, Explorations in Economic History 49 (2012) 131–148, by Jeremy Edwards and Sheilagh Ogilvie.
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7. According to <a href="https://www.etymonline.com/word/capital" style="user-select: text;">“Etymology Online”</a> the word “capital” originates in :
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“...early 13c., ‘of or pertaining to the head,’ from Old French capitale, from Latin capitalis ‘of the head,’ hence ‘capital, chief, first ”.
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<a href="https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/capital" style="user-select: text;">Merriam-Webster</a> adds that :
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“Both the French and Italians adopted capitalis with this sense in the form capitale. Their word eventually came to refer to an essential stock of goods used to enter into business.”
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This stock of goods to enter in the business of long distance trade was gold...
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In <a href="https://archive.org/details/BraudelFernandCivilizationAndCapitalism" style="user-select: text;">“Civilization and Capitalism”</a>, volume 1 <a href="https://archive.org/download/BraudelFernandCivilizationAndCapitalism/Braudel%2C%20Fernand%20-%20Civilization%20and%20Capitalism%2C%20Vol.%201.pdf" style="user-select: text;">“The Structure of Everyday Life”</a>, Fernand Braudel, wrote that in the commercial city-states of Italy in the thirteenth century, capital meant the “money of a merchant” devoted to investment. It was called “Capitale”, a dynamic form of money capable of expansion through investment in commerce, that was different from “simple” money which was considered to be sterile and only existing for facilitating commercial exchange.
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8. "What lessons for economic development can we draw from the Champagne fairs?", Elsevier, Explorations in Economic History 49 (2012) 131–148, by Jeremy Edwards and Sheilagh Ogilvie.
https://www.econ.cam.ac.uk/people-files/faculty/sco2/full-texts/Edwards-Ogilvie-2012-Champagne%20Fairs.pdf
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9. See <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUHKa3JNkBQ" style="user-select: text;">“An Endgame for the Ukrainian War with John Mearsheimer, Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen”</a>, You Tube / The Duran, 2023-09-10.
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John Mearsheimer recognizes Russia’s existential need to go for Ukraine’s rendition without conditions. It can no longer trust a western signature on a peace treaty. In other words the facts on the ground have to force the West into acceptance of “a defeat that remains hidden from Western eyes”. Alexander Mercouris hesitates to follow Mearsheimer’s conclusion and thinks that Putin could be satisfied with a frozen conflict. But the hundred thousands deaths in this conflict would then have been in vain ! President Putin will definitely not accept such a miserable outcome. It would be like reneging the substance of the public speeches he gave over the last 15 years.
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<p style="user-select: text;"></p></div>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-87859581232082867152023-09-07T16:00:00.078-04:002023-09-13T21:39:58.588-04:00Daily reality and the news about it. Part 1.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrkRjAtP_IbglKGHS9ZFr2CdJp1PvmDMWF0gwGwgD85JgzqGrInFgucNmiPB4dN7_PUCZ5e3wqQf2pylg9jSrOxJjAsvPPRNAoRr4QhAtSi0u12Q11DWKQspjZEoHhZ28_vYAMWZiDltWBEe7oCpiEdF55uRiVH2brrWXWo_OMdNeI9Xs8qkOz/s1200/303-A2-42.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; padding-bottom: 2px; padding-right: 25px; padding-top: 1px; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrkRjAtP_IbglKGHS9ZFr2CdJp1PvmDMWF0gwGwgD85JgzqGrInFgucNmiPB4dN7_PUCZ5e3wqQf2pylg9jSrOxJjAsvPPRNAoRr4QhAtSi0u12Q11DWKQspjZEoHhZ28_vYAMWZiDltWBEe7oCpiEdF55uRiVH2brrWXWo_OMdNeI9Xs8qkOz/s320/303-A2-42.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a>
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<h2 style="color: #008264; user-select: text;"> The present is the outcome of long haul evolutionary processes + the development of their latest structures<br style="user-select: text;" /></h2>
With my recent upload of "Societal knowledge formation" I put a stop to more than one full year focusing on the presentation of the key role that knowledge formation has played in the emergence of societal evolution and its further determination in shaping this evolution. And since the upload, of this 3rd volume of the series about “the transition from Western-Modernity to After-Modernity”, I have been eagerly surfing the web for the media’s description, in the present moment, of the unfolding of the shape of our future. <br><br style="user-select: text;" />
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As I write in “Societal knowledge formation” the present contains the seeds of the future and the most precocious among them are starting to germinate under our noses. But the eyes of nearly all of us still fail to register their signals and without signals from the eyes the brain can’t start to process the implications of those early shoots on the formation of the future. Without brain processing the future implications of these shoots do not flare up in the subconscious and conscious mind which means that nearly all of us are future blind !
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The rare ancient sages, who possessed the faculty to see the seeds of the future, and the germination of the most precocious ones among them, informed their fellow (wo)men of knowledge about the implications of these early shoots and proposed an adequate adaptation of the societal worldview to these implications. This is how “traditional societal knowledge formation” adapted the presently shared societal worldview to the emergence of the future. Unfortunately for our species Western-Modernity buried these traditional systems under the massive flow of noise that got gradually produced by the rationality of Western-Modernity in its deep silos of specialization.
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Not only has Western-Modernity dispensed, of the “traditional societal knowledge formation”, its paradigm has also fostered a system of societal logic that forces forces societies in a frenzy of productions. In the field of societal communication this resulted in a towering noise that complicates the people’s faculty to separate the chaff from the grain. The powers that be instrumentalize the difficulty, of distinguishing truth from fiction, in order to fill the minds of their citizens with information that justifies their actions.
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Those of us who try to evade this power manipulation and are thirsty to discover the reality, of what is going on under the mountain of towering noise generated by a societal logic of frenzied productions, eventually discover media content creators that satisfy our thirst and we trust their reporting to help us navigate further through the troubled seas to the future. But our trust is conditional.
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The media content creators we reed have the responsibility of reporting, as accurate as possible, an image of the implications of the germinating seeds of the future. So I was gobsmacked by a multitude of individual opinions that surf on the vibrations of the skin of our present reality. Unfortunately most of these opinions failed to describe the deeper currents that shape its emergent substance.
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The present is the latest evolutionary iteration, of the biological nature of life and of the societal nature of its organization, develops into their latest structural forms. And the present germinating seeds, of the future, is what fosters the development of their future structural forms by gradually and constantly evolving the emerging present.
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In other words the horizontal contextualization of the interrelatedness of the parts, in their ensemble and in the whole, constitutes the substance of our present moment while the vertical contextualization of the chain of causes and effects that emerged along the path of the long haul history of our species, is de-facto enfolding, or causing the particular unfolding, of the horizontal contextualization of our present moment.
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An absence of contextualization inevitably leads us down the rabbit hole of an illusory path that is merely generating noise. And I warned in a blog post from 2022-03-25, titled "Ukraine : the local eruption of a shifting global order", that a constant focus on daily noise, about trouble spots as Ukraine, comes at a price and I advised how to stay clear of this price in the following terms :
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"...to keep one's sanity, and to avoid having one's mind captured by propaganda, it is wise to stay as far as possible from the daily news about the fighting in Ukraine.</span></i> <br style="user-select: text;" /></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
To keep one's sanity one better remember that daily news is instrumental, to the ploy of the men of power, to distract their fellow citizens from the big picture of their presently unfolding games of power that are meant to shape the future of humanity".
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Since the upload of “Societal knowledge formation” I have silently watched many of my favorite commentators losing touch with the big picture. One notorious example is the normally prescient Pepe Escobar who got lost momentarily in <a href="https://new.thecradle.co/articles/exclusive-russian-geoeconomics-tzar-sergei-glazyev-introduces-the-new-global-financial-system" style="user-select: text;">"the field of ideological certainty"</a> and only found back contact with <a href="https://new.thecradle.co/articles/sergey-glazyev-the-road-to-financial-multipolarity-will-be-long-and-rocky" style="user-select: text;"> the firm ground of daily reality</a> a few months before the conclusion of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg when statements by member countries indicated that his ideological certainties had pulled his readers astray.
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One of those readers was <a href="https://www.goldmoney.com/research" style="user-select: text;">the excellent monetary commentator Alasdair Macleod</a> who indulged for a few months in Pepe’s illusions. Here is what Alasdair wrote, a few days after the conclusion of the last BRICS summit in <a href="https://www.goldmoney.com/research/a-brief-history-of-the-gold-standard" style="user-select: text;"> "A brief history of the gold standard”</a>, to land back on the ground of daily reality :
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“Russian proposals for a new trade settlement currency between BRICS members acting as a gold substitute should be causing widespread interest. By being a trade settlement currency, it does not interfere with individual nations’ prerogatives to manage their own currencies, thereby making its introduction politically feasible. </span></i><br style="user-select: text;" /></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
For now, these proposals have been put on ice, in favour of using national currencies in place of the dollar. But since these national currencies have a history of losing value measured in goods and services, in some cases extremely rapidly, it is not a solution. It is likely that energy and commodity exporters in the group will turn to the historical and legal relationship between credit and gold, in accordance with Russian wishes. </span></i><br style="user-select: text;" /></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
… Putin is in military and economic conflict with American-led NATO, and it is in his interests to undermine US finances. A plan to stabilise the rouble and protect it from monetary and economic attack, while undermining the US dollar’s credibility makes enormous sense. These objectives could be quickly achieved by putting the rouble on a credible gold standard.</span></i> <br style="user-select: text;" /></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
Putin’s problem is his partnership with China, and their joint plans to wean emerging nations and others away from the western alliance. Precipitative action to undermine the dollar and the fiat euro goes against China’s trade interests at a time when she is managing her own crisis in residential property development, which threatens to widen into other areas. Furthermore, India in particular has come under considerable pressure from America to not continue its trade with Russian oil and is treading carefully. </span></i><br style="user-select: text;" /></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #b9a288; font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
But Saudi Arabia is perhaps more prepared to accept a new gold substitute for trade settlement. And in Iran, it has a new ally in this respect. The BRICS trade settlement currency scheme is far from dead. And anyway, there will come a point when the collapse of the dollar-based western currency system forces China to accept that it must protect its currency, its partnership with Russia, and its hegemonic ambitions by accepting gold as the basis of its own currency values."
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To avoid unnecessary stress and anxiety I personally focus all my attention on trying to comprehend the substance of what animates the big picture of our present reality. And so my series about "the transition from Western-Modernity to After-Modernity”, concentrates on the ingredients of this substance. <p style="user-select: text;"></p><p style="user-select: text;"></p></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">The following series of posts expands on the most important such ingredients :
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Post 2 :
The nature of Western Christianity has until recently shaped the united stance of the 3 Western power estates </li><li style="user-select: text;">Post 3 :
The consecration, of the rationality of Modernity, by the Western Enlightenment, ordained the eviction of the traditional model of knowledge formation</li><li style="user-select: text;">Post 4 :
Science has been instrumental in generating the great convergence, of the multiple side-effects of Western-Modernity, that initiated the contemporary mass extinction event.</li><li style="user-select: text;">Post 5 :
I'll finally conclude this series with a post about Peter Lee's interesting approach of China's entry into the era of Western-Modernity.
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I’ll upload these posts in the following days. Their sketches are rapid summaries of the content of the series "The transition from Western-Modernity to After-Modernity".
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</div>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-86231349965717012112023-08-26T16:00:00.055-04:002023-08-26T20:23:57.316-04:00The e-book "Societal Knowledge Formation" is online.
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I just uploaded the Volume 3, of the series about "The transition from Western-Modernity to After-Modernity", titled "Societal Knowledge Formation". <br/><br>
It is now available on my website. <br><br>
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Click "<a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/archcreaBooks.html#02" >Societal Knowledge Formation</a>" to download.<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
Here is how I introduced this volume in the foreword.
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"Knowledge does not procure access to the truth about what the reality of the universe is all about nor about our place in it. Truth is inaccessible to humanity for reasons that I’ll discuss in Part 1. What knowledge provides is access to the "first principles" that govern the continuity of life through reproduction and the compatibility, of novelty-inducing complexity, with that continuity. <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /> Philosophic rationalism, and the scientific method, have ignored this most fundamental truth which explains why Western-Modernity is terminating today with the predicament of extinction that humanity unfortunately appears unable to solve. <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /> In the present moment, of particular urgency for life on earth, the formation of knowledge, which is different from the formation of scientific knowings, is suddenly being rediscovered as the source of humanity’s hope to grasp the nature of these "First Principles". And their potential to solve the predicament caused by Western-Modernity, is awakening us to the societal nature of knowledge.<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /> As today’s rudderless Western decision-making attests there is no Alternative to the societal priority of knowledge formation ! I dedicate this Volume to those who like me dream about a better tomorrow".</i></span><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIfK3wzMREN8KAhNEX-qUtE_BhgR5ZCTxMYNUyxtzefHDIMppt4hSZH-HCJxdxBL6WInxeJLyWA5mZZeLprPaFFxc2zC-UsAmQ3vKkx3pvJxJqFWHA21OA8a3ttjm9fBS7eaMPQhJNQznz6wvEv1ozKmRHhO22uRp8yJEK-8XuKRbzEd0e6sB0/s1200/304-B3-13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIfK3wzMREN8KAhNEX-qUtE_BhgR5ZCTxMYNUyxtzefHDIMppt4hSZH-HCJxdxBL6WInxeJLyWA5mZZeLprPaFFxc2zC-UsAmQ3vKkx3pvJxJqFWHA21OA8a3ttjm9fBS7eaMPQhJNQznz6wvEv1ozKmRHhO22uRp8yJEK-8XuKRbzEd0e6sB0/s320/304-B3-13.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
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</div></div>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-67287552785452964232023-08-25T16:00:00.001-04:002023-08-25T16:00:00.146-04:00Future societal evolution<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXcSUZOsvM2b_f_nrTNLgITNLtpG9TO7EkCtFJB6GQcMWNxAZNapY670xddpFYYV-QkO7bAka_iDTcsOQ2FLmnAmuVr8m1LqNpeDlAsLJlmTaV6bR9qXloW67Mt4kE_Z8jN3fRWckmjhRXzQlEhMGGxHigopN76X-Js3vMF_L0EvwaJrIfEg3U/s1200/304-B1-22.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-right: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXcSUZOsvM2b_f_nrTNLgITNLtpG9TO7EkCtFJB6GQcMWNxAZNapY670xddpFYYV-QkO7bAka_iDTcsOQ2FLmnAmuVr8m1LqNpeDlAsLJlmTaV6bR9qXloW67Mt4kE_Z8jN3fRWckmjhRXzQlEhMGGxHigopN76X-Js3vMF_L0EvwaJrIfEg3U/s320/304-B1-22.jpg" width="320" /></a>
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The following quote was copy-pasted from the introduction of "Knowledge Formation. 8.2.2. Future societal evolution" starting on page 1,104 and following.
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This 1,150 page book will be available on my website this 27th of August.
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The essence, and function of life, foster an innate awareness, in the individuals, that their society is evolving in a certain direction. But this does not imply any precise knowledge about its direction nor if its outcome is determined inflexibly. In contrast the individuals have no clues about the destination of their societies for the good reason that the outcome, — of the Whole — of its sub-ensembles — and of its parts, is an open construction site that is propelled by the unfolding of the course of the whole universe which is eventually amended by the drive for more complexity of the individuals, not in an anthropological fashion, but in the sense of the real life of the individuals, of any living species, living anywhere in the Whole.
<br /><br />
As we have seen earlier the urge, for novelty, of an active minority, of individuals, generates conflicts that inevitably call for the negotiated settlement, of what is the level of increasing societal complexity, that is acceptable by the polarities of their societies. Such negotiated settlements, under the arbitrage of state institutions, are operated between : — the strong societal force of the innovators — the weak societal force of the silent majority.
<br /><br />
The role of societal institutions is defacto to act as neutral arbiters that have to keep the dance of the polarities of their species in alignment with the goals of their society and with the tolerance of these goals by the biological evolution of the individuals. As we have observed earlier the primary goal of society is the conservation, of the individuals and of their society, through reproduction and, if this objective is satisfied, the auxiliary goal of society is to satisfy the urge of life for more complexity.
<br /><br />
Unfortunately, for all of us, Western-Modernity completely ignored, and then forgot, about this societal function, of neutral arbitration, by the societal institutions. We Homo-Sapiens are now confronted with the predicament that this ignorance has unleashed on life on earth… </div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /><br /><br />
<h1>1. A new societal paradigm in After-Modernity → The First Principles of Life</h1><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAWdIBR-y5tjgKIulQlmRKcY5tDTgK7-VH05ws7RkJsTEqcr_WQgapncP2oQ93jTCJLrGhKcE_F6mvT9dn0N_FogONF3CXwSwfpcJt62flxE3LEYzPdrlXz2tDWoeKGWv_ZVSdZP62Gs4gqqDGsCFuncFo9GfIssWI60HT4mOz-OG8h5MBmiwn/s1200/304-B1-42.jpg" style="clear: right; display: block; float: right; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAWdIBR-y5tjgKIulQlmRKcY5tDTgK7-VH05ws7RkJsTEqcr_WQgapncP2oQ93jTCJLrGhKcE_F6mvT9dn0N_FogONF3CXwSwfpcJt62flxE3LEYzPdrlXz2tDWoeKGWv_ZVSdZP62Gs4gqqDGsCFuncFo9GfIssWI60HT4mOz-OG8h5MBmiwn/s320/304-B1-42.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
I exposed my vision about societal evolution and the societal paradigm of After-Modernity in “6.2.3.4". Necessity to clarify our conceptual framework” and I wrote the following about “the First Principles of Life” :
<br /><br /><blockquote><blockquote>
<i><span style="font-family: courier;">“We have seen earlier that all individual particles are interconnected and that their interconnectedness forms an ensemble that evolves its own rules of the game. The ensemble’s rules reflect to the parts their view of the world. That view may be transmitted consciously, subconsciously, or may be engaged by a particular Geo-bio-chemical state or other.
<br /><br />
From the perspective of the particles their biological and societal evolution eventually sets them on the path of knowledge formation which gives them access to the “Working Principles” of the ensemble they belong to.
Human individuals are vaguely sensing that better fitting in the whole could gain them some reprieve from suffering. And this reprieve of suffering is a strong enticement to engage in societal knowledge formation.
<br /><br />
After discovering that the truth about U, or the whole universe, is unattainable we start to understand that certainties are merely ideological illusions and knowing that illusions generate suffering we start to focus on the pragmatic principles of living in harmony with the order of the whole.
<br /><br />
I have tried, over the last 10 years, to summarize these pragmatic principles in what I call “the First-Principles of Life”.
</span></i><blockquote><blockquote><i><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;"><span style="user-select: text;">
“In philosophy and science, a first principle is a basic proposition or assumption that cannot be deduced from any other proposition or assumption.”
</span></span></i></blockquote></blockquote><i><span style="font-family: courier;">
In light of this definition “The First-Principles of Life” are basic propositions, or assumptions about life, that can’t be deduced from any other assumptions.
</span></i></blockquote></blockquote>
I laid out my vision of 8 “First Principles”, that harmonize human life with the “Working Principles of the whole universe”, in <i>“6.2.3.4.3. Dynamics of the First Principles of Life”.</i> By <i>“First Principles”</i> I refer to assumptions about life that can’t be deduced, nor induced, from any other assumptions.
<br /><br /><br />
<h2>1.1. Philosophic implications of the “First Principles of Life”</h2>
In what follows I focus on the most systemic parameters of <i>“the First Principles of Life”</i> whose philosophical implications are determinant for life :
<br />
<ol>
<li>
<h4>Universal Interrelatedness </h4>
All elements in an ensemble, and its sub-ensemble, are inextricably interrelated. The interrelatedness of ensembles, sub-ensembles and their parts is the essence of the reality of the Whole.
<br />
<blockquote><blockquote><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“We have seen earlier that all individual particles are interconnected and that their interconnectedness forms an ensemble that evolves its own rules of the game. The ensemble’s rules reflect to the parts their view of the world. That view may be transmitted consciously, subconsciously, or may be engaged by a particular Geo-bio-chemical state or other.” Source 6.2.3.4.3.
</span></i></blockquote></blockquote>
The interactions of living species, with the local elements in their habitat, procure them local directionality but life remains nevertheless at all times bound to the universal field in which flows the infinite range of possibilities originating in “the Implicate Order” which is implicit in the interrelatedness of the “Whole”, its subsystems, and their parts.
</li>
<li>
<h4> The universal principle of interrelatedness implies that the potential, of all things, figures in the essence of the whole</h4>
The interrelatedness of the “Whole”, its subsystems and their parts, necessarily implicates the potential of whatever can emerge anywhere within the Whole. In other words whatever can emerge in the Whole is a potential that is contained in its essence.
<br /><br />
But it is only after all the necessary conditions have been assembled locally, into a planetary habitat, that the universal potential of life, for example, can materialize in a biological process. The principle of interrelatedness implies indeed the inheritance by all sub-systems and their parts, of their character and their potential, from the whole. In other words what is not inherited as a potential can not possibly emerge even if all the necessary conditions have been assembled locally. These conditions would indeed remain inert or sterile.
<br /><br />
The emergence of life, for example, was inherited as a potential by all sub-ensembles of the Whole. This inheritance means that all the possibilities, that are acted in the essence of the Whole, are a potential of its sub-ensembles. But life, for example as one of these possibilities, emerges eventually, into one or different species, only after all the necessary conditions have been assembled locally that satisfy its inherited potential.
<br /><br />
And the interactions between the polarities of these species, individuals and their societies, will then power their evolution.
</li>
<li>
<h4>The necessity of continuity through reproduction</h4>
As strong and resilient, as the human body and mind seem to be, they appear unnervingly fragile in the context of the cosmos as a whole. This means that life is unfolding in a very narrow band of survivability indeed :
<br />
<blockquote><blockquote><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“Many of the boundaries in which a typical human can survive have been fully established; the well-known "rule of threes" dictates how long we can forgo air, water and food (roughly three minutes, three days and three weeks, respectively). Other limits are more speculative, because people have seldom, if ever, tested them.
<br /><br />
... According to a 1958 NASA report, people can live indefinitely in environments that range between roughly 40 degrees F and 95 degrees F (4 and 35 degrees C), if the latter temperature occurs at no more than 50 percent relative humidity.” (1)
</span></i></blockquote></blockquote>
The tolerance, of the biology of life, ceases when the individual steps outside, of its narrow band of sustainability, which implies that there are biological constraints to the search for novelty and the generation of more complexity by living species !
<br /><br />
This is the meaning of the 2nd among the “First Principles of Life”. The first priority of all species is to ensure their continuity. So the search for more complexity is an auxiliary priority. And the fact is that life stops with the death of the individual, the collapse of a society, the extinction of the species. It is thus evident that any dream, other than life in the present, is necessarily bound to play out as a second fiddle... It is for this reason that I concluded that the primacy of life is “continuity through reproduction”.
</li>
<li>
<h4>The settlement of conflicts between polarities → the growth of complexity</h4>
The interactions between the two polarities of a species, individuals → change / society → conservation, drive their negotiated settlements about the adoption of novelties by their society. This process participates in the growth of the species and of the whole Universe’s complexity.
<br /><br />
The 5th among "the First Principles of Life" addresses the conflicts between polarities from a gaming perspective in which the societal institutions act as arbitrators between two societal forces that have antagonistic goals :
<br /><br />
<ul>
<li>
The weak force, of the silent majority, is urged to conserve the status-quo.
</li>
<br />
<li>The strong force, of an active minority, is urged to produce novelty that will will increase the cultural complexity of society (culture in its largest sense).
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>
<h4> The urge for complexity fosters individual awareness </h4>
In 4 we saw that the urge for societal complexity necessitates the negotiated settlement of conflicts by the polarities of species.
<br /><br />
Repeated negotiated settlements eventually foster an individual awareness that later eventually develops into an increasing consciousness which may eventually contribute to the growing wisdom of the individuals and of their societies. I exposed the process leading to the emergence of individual awareness in “7.3. The brain and the mind”.
This process is at work every time societies are confronted with the necessity to find solutions to a predicament. In other words necessity fosters the process leading to the awareness of the individuals…
</li>
<li>
<h4> Outside of “the First Principles of Life” ugliness reigns supreme</h4>
The navigation outside of “the First Principles of Life” results in unworkable thinking, behaviors, and actions that result in irrevocable damages to the individuals, their societies, and their local habitat, and this plunges their perception into ugliness which most probably reduces their chances to reproduce over the long haul.
<br /><br />
In contrast the navigation, within the norms of "the First Principles of Life", guarantees workable thinking, behaviors and actions, that are beneficial for the life of the individuals, of their societies and of their habitat. This is what confers them an aesthetic aura that procures a feeling of pleasure which most probably augments their chances to reproduce over the long haul.
</li>
<li>
<h4> The expansion of the whole universe, and its parts, into ever higher levels of physical and mental complexity signifies that they are alive</h4>
Individual and societal wisdom generate thinking and behavioral habits that are being reflected outwards to the whole Universe. This participates in the expansion of its consciousness about its wholeness and about the evolution of its parts. This process is expanding the whole and its parts into ever higher levels of physical and mental complexity which implies that the universe is somehow alive and, as all life forms, it is thus destined to contract and to die.
</li>
<li>
<h4> Life is on a mission</h4>
What this long chain of causality implies is that the true nature of the particles’ life has nothing to do with randomness. Life is on a mission to ensure — the growth in complexity of the physical and mental polarities of all entities in the local habitat — the growth in complexity of the whole universe.
<br /><br />
But life has first to reproduce over the long haul, in order to satisfy its urge for novelty, which forces species to focus primarily on their local context and thus the strong attraction of living species to pragmatism. But this is unfortunately something that has largely ignored in Western thinking.
</li>
</ol>
<br />
<h2>1.2. The ultimate sense of the individual’s life</h2>
Sketching the systemic parameters, of “the First Principles of Life” deeper into their abstraction, we get the following :
<br />
<ol>
<li>
The law of general interrelatedness implies that whatever can emerge in reality exists, as a potential, in the essence of the Whole.
</li>
<br />
<li>
The narrow band of life’s sustainability limits the viability of complexity to what is compatible with the “continuity of life through reproduction”.
</li>
<br />
<li>
Societal institutions negotiate settlements, of the conflicts between the individuals and their society, that re-conciliate the conservation of the status-quo with the urge for novelty. This results in a higher complexity that is aesthetically pleasing for the good reason that it is fundamentally sustainable.
</li>
<br />
<li>
The search, for more complexity, fosters individual awareness which eventually leads to higher levels of consciousness that foster aesthetic pleasure.
</li>
<br />
<li>
The expansion of the whole and its parts, into ever higher levels of complexity, implies that the universe is somehow alive and that it is on a mission. From the perspective, of the infinitely small human particle, this is probably the most far reaching proposition, about the ultimate sense of the place of the individual in the Whole, and this is what imparts the highest aesthetic quality to this proposition.
</li>
</ol>
In its essence life calls for the recognition and the acceptance, of 2 determinant facts, by the individuals and by their societies :
<br />
<ol>
<li>
The whole is alive, and its universal potential is unfolding its ultimate life purpose, which will forever remain beyond human comprehension
</li>
<br />
<li>
The urge of the individuals, of whatever species anywhere in the universe, is limited by the following :
<br /><br />
<ul>
<li>
The narrow band of life’s sustainability limits the urge, for more complexity, to what is compatible with the “continuity of life through reproduction”.
</li>
<br />
<li>
Societal institutions negotiate settlements, of the conflicts between the polarities of species, that reconcile the continuity of life with change in higher complexity. This fosters individual awareness, and the prospect of higher levels of consciousness, which is an intrinsically pleasing aesthetic process.
</li></ul>
</li>
</ol>
The acceptance, of these 2 facts of life, leaves no other alternative than to adopt a pragmatic approach to living that focuses on the alleviation of suffering and on the easing of the production of daily life. Pragmatism also implies that the satisfaction, of such an approach to living, is accomplished by a model of societal organization that is compatible with the contextual settings of the moment.
<br /><br /><br />
<h2>1.3. Surfing on the flow of changing contextual settings</h2>
We saw, in the first 2 Volumes of this series, how different archetypal models of societies were forced on humanity by the evolution of the contextual settings of the habitat of life on earth. This basically proves that human free-will, at the individual and at the societal level, was completely absent in humanity’s adoption of its different archetypal models of societies ! The fact is that the context imposes the adaptation, of the forms of societal organization, to its hard reality and any resistance, caused by the human illusion of free-will, is bound to end in tears.
<br /><br />
The wiser approach, for living species, is to recognize their changing contextual settings and to surf on their flow. And, lo and behold, the vast majority of species are doing just that. They seem to find supreme contentment in surfing on the flow of their changing contextual settings. The only known systematic exception is the Homo-Sapiens species that seems unable to find contentment in this wise approach.
<br /><br />
But this statement is a generalization, of the human behavior in the present moment, that does not resist the reality of human behavior along its long haul history. Before the emergence of Homo-Sapiens, and perhaps also of its cousin species, the species of the hominin lineage had undoubtedly not gained any determinant advantage over the other animal species. Western-Modernity has always considered that the big brains of Homo-Sapiens conferred a radical biological advantage to our species that places it in the exceptional position of being the most advanced species.
But is it not more accurate to say that, the extermination of life by the Homo-Sapiens, is instead signaling their utter immaturity ?
<br /><br /><br />
<h2>1.4. The idea of exceptionalism has no merit</h2>
I would venture to say that the idea of human, or of white Suprematism, is merely a dangerous ideological illusion, that has blinded our species to the hard reality of the principle of life as is summarized in the 2 concluding propositions laid-out here above.
<br /><br />
The biological evolution of the primates, that originated Homo-Sapiens, was a process spanning tens of million years :
<br />
<blockquote><blockquote><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“The oldest known primate fossils are approximately 55 million years of age, with our earliest primate ancestors potentially diverging from other placental mammals during the Cretaceous period, over 80 million years ago. The brains of vertebrate mammals contain many specialized systems, each with its own dissociable, but partially interlinked, evolutionary history.
<br /><br />
As primates evolved, the hominin lineage has experienced multiple events that have increased brain size, culminating in a rapid volumetric expansion across the ˜25 million years that separate us from macaques and the ˜6 million years since our divergence from chimpanzees and bonobos, our closet living primate relatives.
<br /><br />
Among animals, absolute brain and body sizes characteristically share a predicable allometric relationship. In modern humans, however, the brain is about fivefold larger than would be expected in a typical vertebrate mammal.” (2)
</span></i></blockquote></blockquote>
By the end of the process, of brain evolution, the human coefficient, or its allometric relationship, of brain mass to total body mass had grown far larger than the coefficient that would be expected from any primate with the same body mass :
<br />
<blockquote><blockquote><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“Although elephants and whales have larger brains than humans, allometric scaling analyses have demonstrated that humans are the most encephalized of all mammals, with a brain that is more than three times larger than would be expected for a primate at the same body mass. This disproportionate growth of the brain in the human lineage is a relatively recent phenomenon, having increased dramatically in the past 2.5 million years. Although it is apparent that large brain size is a hallmark of human cognitive and cultural evolution, consensus is lacking on the selection pressures driving encephalization. Among the hypotheses put forward, it has been proposed that the complexity of social interaction, with a greater focus on cooperation and learning from others, as well as deception, might have played a role.” (3)
</span></i></blockquote></blockquote>
Being the most encephalized of all mammals got interpreted as a sign that humans had shifted evolutionary-wise, from an automatism of natural instincts a characteristic of the animal stage of development, to the rational control of thought and the expression of free will that was viewed as the characteristic of a “Western sapience stage of development”.
<br /><br />
This belief was merely the result of a blindfolding that originated in the anthropocentrism of Western-Modernity and its white prejudice against other skin colors ! But today there is a growing awareness all around our earth, that Western-Modernity is ending with a predicament and that the impact of this predicament will disproportionately fall first on the shoulders of the younger generations of the non-Western-world !
<br /><br />
This realization evidently shatters the ideological illusion that justified 500 years of oppression and exploitation by European countries and their Western geographic extensions. The time has definitely come to reset the Western ideological clock to the reality that the West represents less than 15% of the world population.
<br /><br />
And now that, China has proven that after all “there is an alternative to liberalism”, and that Russia has proven that the Western military power is no more than a paper tiger, the non-Western-85% have suddenly found the courage to say no to the pillage of their resources and to say no to the diktat of the fading Western hegemony. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /><br />
<h1>2. A new societal system of logic focusing on the primacy of life</h1><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ8jUs6C-4aLSWWGamCB3cRcjJvpHvhHzRlcSiSuRNany2UOdzfmCrxOos_u93avfV9ioNjamGIAG3CN77YukeYntJC4tE9mlnCXD9Pghz-b1olCi6lFcrKupE9dxgFpK28Kd8WG1s5IBE64iozMos6jR3cGAbGkx5cuHLO6n-6yOmWNTM8v2k/s1200/304-B2-24.jpg" style="clear: right; display: block; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgJ8jUs6C-4aLSWWGamCB3cRcjJvpHvhHzRlcSiSuRNany2UOdzfmCrxOos_u93avfV9ioNjamGIAG3CN77YukeYntJC4tE9mlnCXD9Pghz-b1olCi6lFcrKupE9dxgFpK28Kd8WG1s5IBE64iozMos6jR3cGAbGkx5cuHLO6n-6yOmWNTM8v2k/s320/304-B2-24.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Each human group has inherited “a system of societal logic” that is rooted in the 3 components of its cultural field : — the archetypal model of society — the societal paradigm — and the societal foundational worldview.
<br /><br />
Most of our present power-societies are furthermore participating in civilizational realms that had been initiated by empires. The Western civilization for example regroups all Western European countries and the geographic expansions that they gained through force during the colonial period. The Chinese civilization regroups the Peoples Republic of China, Taiwan, North and South Korea, Japan, Vietnam, and other border regions.
<br /><br />
But before digging further in the subject, of this chapter 8.2.2.2, I want to refresh our memory with the nature of “the system of societal logic” and how it fits in “the cultural field of societies”.
<br /><br /><br />
<h2>2.1. The context of the cultural field of societies</h2>
The following table sketches the diverse components, that interrelate, in the context of “the cultural field of societies”.
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1vgK-kD1YJ6YfFH1u_b2fW0wXSgFXxgh1L5qOBi6trDohBMgdQjHj6MOISnRlEPdjCTSgSMb7r-dZrGAkZ8CYGuduuaA-jkW-p3vjWT-mqmaFL1nS9thmO2lV7AnsIaZazLdKgqju6igXj5J9oS1z1zaH35Gd1blNdGRYEv4MXQsaZf6SoD0f/s960/Components.png" style="display: block; padding: 1em 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="337" data-original-width="960" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1vgK-kD1YJ6YfFH1u_b2fW0wXSgFXxgh1L5qOBi6trDohBMgdQjHj6MOISnRlEPdjCTSgSMb7r-dZrGAkZ8CYGuduuaA-jkW-p3vjWT-mqmaFL1nS9thmO2lV7AnsIaZazLdKgqju6igXj5J9oS1z1zaH35Gd1blNdGRYEv4MXQsaZf6SoD0f/s320/Components.png" width="320" /></a></div>
The 3 factors at play, in the societal system of logic, remain fixed during the entire time-span of societies while the interrelatedness, of both their historical-worldview and their daily-culture, is animating their constant evolution.
<br /><br />
The interrelatedness, of these components, is synthesized hereafter :
<br /><br />
<h3> 2.1.1. The societal system of logic</h3>
The system of logic of societies has 3 components that remain unchanged along their entire existence. These 3 components are : — the archetypal model of society — the societal paradigm — the societal foundational worldview.
<ol>
<li>
<h4> The archetypal model of society</h4>
Societies emerge amidst the context, of the archetypal model of society of their time, and they adopt its particular forms of organization which will have a decisive impact on the formation of their daily culture. This general rule is nevertheless being applied unequally. Some societies are early movers while other move later. The adoption of a new archetypal model of society is thus realized over an extended period of time.
<br /><br />
Because the Enlightenment of High-Modernity occurred in Western Europe its academic institutions had a near monopoly on science that lasted nearly 2 centuries. This is notably the case with historical studies. But this near monopoly came at the cost of spreading false beliefs. Indeed, the self-centeredness of Western Europe led its scientists to focus exclusively on their own history, and in the process, they captured the civilizations of Greece, Babylonia, Sumer, and other as the heritage of their own civilization.
<br /><br />
The European study of civilizations, from roughly 1700 to 2000, furthermore concentrated near exclusively on the Tri-Continental-Area (TCA). Other civilizational centers were simply ignored. Their equivalent importance, to TCA and Western civilizations, only struck the academic world and the media after the investments in research, by Southern countries, had started to accumulate factoids about their own past that contradicted the traditional European vision.
Western studies had described empires as assemblies, of the diverse societies of a same regional area, whose central governance forced the adoption of a common religious belief by the people living in their territory. In the absence of comparative studies Western researchers failed to detect : — the historical succession of 3 archetypal models of societies — the adoption by societies of a societal paradigm and of a foundational worldview. The Western historical approach failed thus to detect the system of logic of societies. This failure allowed them to force the universality of the Western model of societal development on the rest of the world.
<br /><br />
Such a truncated vision of history unfortunately reigned hegemonic over the last 3 to 4 centuries. As a result everybody shared the belief that empires had adopted new religious foundational stories while the adoption of an archetypal model of society, of a societal paradigm, and of a foundational worldview were simply ignored. Fortunately studies about ancient China are demonstrating that the rise, of the new archetypal model of power-societies, did not exclude the continuity of the animist paradigm, and of the animist foundational worldview, from the earlier archetypal model of tribal-societies.
<br /><br />
The impact of the recent research by Southern countries was then further boosted by the comprehension of the fact that the evolution of the physical contextual settings of the earth are often abrupt, life changing, and destabilizing for the existing archetypal model of society.
<br /><br />
The initiation of the last 2 Inter-Glacial-Periods (Eamian and Holocene) are good examples of changes of this nature :
<br /><br />
<ul>
<li>
The archetypal societal model of small-bands got destabilized sometime between 130,000 and 115,000 years ago which forced the experimentation, on the African continent, of larger societies that eventually concluded with the adoption of the archetypal model of tribal-societies all around the world.
</li>
<br />
<li>
The archetypal model of tribal-societies got, in turn, destabilized by an abrupt heating at the end of the Younger-Dryas which forced the experimentation, of larger societies, that eventually concluded with the adoption of the archetypal model of power-societies all around the world.
<br />
The adoption by societies, of the archetypal model of power-societies, of societal paradigms and of foundational worldviews, resulted in the launch of empires that formed civilizational realms. This means that the institutional reproduction of power-societies eventually concluded with the formation of empires governing over large territories with the help of foundational worldviews. In other words it was the reproduction of a power-society with the help of a foundational worldview that launched its civilizational realm.
<br />
This process of institutional reproduction materialized along the lines of an abstract model of power concentration that worked along the following lines :
</li>
<br />
</ul>
Villages, in the TCA, were eventually taken over, by chiefs who eventually assembled multiple villages under their authority through force and cunning, sometime between 11,000 and 10,000 years ago.
<br /><br />
In China the spread and assembly of villages was initiated some 4,000 to 5,000 years later than in the TCA and, as laid out earlier, the reasons for their spread and assembly were entirely different than in the TCA.
<br /><br />
Chiefdoms eventually assembled the territory, and the populations of multiple chiefdoms, which resulted in early-kingdoms
<br /><br />
Kingdoms eventually assembled the territory, and the populations of multiple kingdoms, into a vertical assembly of imperial institutions.
<br /><br />
Such a vertical assembly of institutions was headed : — or by a chief — or by a king — or by an emperor, but it had first to be accompanied by the spread of an horizontal cultural field to make its institutional reproduction possible.
<br /><br />
Civilizations shared the following with the citizens inhabiting their territory :
<br /><br />
<ul>
<li>
The archetypal model of power-societies consecrated the differentiation, of a minority of men of power and men of knowledge, from the people and this led to a systematic social inequality that stood in stark contrast with the systematic equality practice by the earlier archetypal model of tribal-societies
</li>
<br />
<li>
The axioms of the foundational worldview of the empire got gradually imprinted in the subconscious mind of the individuals. It is useful to remember here that the subconscious mind is nothing else than the nervous system’s biological memory.
</li>
<br />
<li>
The essence, of the historical societal worldview shared by the men of knowledge, was given by the axioms of the foundational worldview. And these axioms got imprinted in the subconscious while the daily formalism, of the historical societal worldview, was imprinted in the conscious minds of all with the help of images and other visual signs.
</li>
</ul>
<br />
The spread of civilizational realms, under the archetypal model of power-societies, is something that is largely unknown today even by academics who are specialized in history or in political theory !
This explains the extremely relaxed reference to the word civilization, that is so prevalent nowadays, in the assertion of ideological arguments justifying a differentiation with strategic opponents on the Geo-political and Geo-strategic playing field.
I’ll delve deeper in this subject in the Volume 5 that is titled “Societal Evolution and societal governance”.
</li>
<li>
<h4>The societal paradigm</h4>
Two new archetypal models of societal organization emerged, over the last 120,000 years, tribal and power societies.
As I wrote here above the Western scientific hegemony, of the last 3 to 4 centuries, was rooted in the rupture, observed in the empires of the TCA, with the beliefs and ideas of their “primitive” predecessors which forced the invention of new religious narratives. This principle was imposed as a societal truth that applies to the whole world. But in reality it was merely a local reality in the TCA that later expanded to Western Europe.
<br /><br />
Studies, about the transition in China from a tribal to a power-society, now demonstrate that the paradigm of the fading tribal model, which was “animist pragmatism”, was imperceptibly re-conducted in continuity by its power-confederation of kingdoms regrouping villages and tribes. This paradigm was re-conducted by the centralized empire instituted, by Qin Shi Huang, about 2,200 years ago. And the same continuity was observed to have occurred for the foundational animist worldview and its axioms.
<br /><br />
The Chinese continuity, in societal paradigm and foundational worldview, was perhaps a civilizational exception. But it could as well be the case, that the exception was the rupture with the paradigm and the foundational worldview of tribal-societies in the Tri-Continental-Area and in Western-Europe. Due to my lack of knowledge, about the empires in other regions of the world, I personally can’t make a valid comparison with the practices of these other regions.
<br /><br />
For the sake of clarity I have to add that a paradigm is not necessarily adopted consciously. It may very well have emerged imperceptibly, amidst the trial and error reproduction of the new institutions, as happened in China. What appears certain is that, as early as 10,500-10,000 years ago in the TCA, the (wo)men of knowledge had taken the conscious decision to rupture with the tribal model of society, and with its historical worldview, as is strongly suggested by the burying of the Tepe’s of Anatolia under a thick layer of dirt about 10,000 years ago.
</li>
<li>
<h4>The foundational worldview </h4>
The 5,000 to 6,000-year long transition, from tribal to power-societies in the TCA, was due to the violent rupture with the tribal model of society and its animist worldview. The association of the men of power, with men of knowledge commanding a large following, is what finally ensured the consolidation of the reproduction of the institutions of power in the city-states of Sumer and in the Empires that followed them in the TCA.
<br /><br />
The end of the transition was thus attained by adopting a new foundational worldview to ensure the reproduction of the institutions of power. And because Western Europe focused on the cultural inheritance, of their own Roman empire from the empires of the TCA, they concluded that the adoption, of a new religious foundational worldview, was a general rule that applied to the whole world. But, as mentioned in 2, recent studies and archaeological digs in the countries of the South, more particularly in China, are discovering that the historical rules forged by Western scientists are not universal after all.
<br /><br />
The fact is that the local and regional contextual settings are determinant in the adoption of an archetypal model of society, of a societal paradigm and of a foundational worldview. As mentioned earlier it was the differentiation, in the surface of alluvial plains in China and the TCA, that forced a differentiation in their societal paradigms and their foundational worldviews.
<br /><br />
The Volume 1 “The Continuum of the Cultural Field of Societies” focuses more particularly on this differentiation.
<br /><br /> <br />
</li>
</ol>
<h3>2.1.2. Two types of synchronizations are animating the unfolding of the field of culture </h3>
Two components of the cultural field are continuously synchronizing, — the historical worldview of societies — the daily culture of societies. Both the daily culture, and the historical worldview, are synchronizing with the other giving thus 2 types of synchronization that animate the evolution of the cultural field.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ol>
<li>
<h4>The historical worldview of societies</h4>
The empires, in the TCA and in Western Europe, forced a foundational worldview to all the people living within their territory. The Roman empire’s designation of Christianity, as its official worldview, is a good illustration of this general rule.
<br /><br />
China followed a different path. The population of the traditional geographic core, of the Chinese power-confederation, was considered being ethnic Han and the Han continuously shared the animism+ of the “Chinese Traditional Culture”. The unification of the power-confederation was basically a follow-up of the model of the “Tribal Cultural Unification” that had been initiated by the (wo)men of knowledge during their retreats in the underworld since times immemorial.
<br /><br />
But paradoxically, after the unification under a central system of governance of the participating regions in the power-confederation, the country’s territorial expansion got realized solely by foreign powers during their occupation of the Chinese territory !
<br /><br />
In other words foreign occupying powers abandoned the past model of Han cultural unification while expanding the country’s original territory, by some 150% to 200%, through absorption of their own territory into the Chinese empire that they governed ! But the animism+ of the “Chinese Traditional Culture” remains alive and well among the Han who represent about 92% of the country’s total population.
<br /><br />
This history is important because it shows that the further national unification, under a centralized Chinese governance, was a political unification by foreign forces who over the centuries added different societal cultural fields to the Chinese field. Tibet and Mongolia adhere to Tibetan Buddhism, which is a branch of Vajrayana, or Tantric Buddhism, that integrated elements of traditional Tibetan Bon animism, while the population of Xinjiang is largely Muslim.
<br /><br />
These non-Han regions still represent some 60% of the total territory of China and have been recognized the special status of “autonomous regions” that are “self governed” under the authority of China’s central government.
<br />
<blockquote><blockquote><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“By the end of 1998, five autonomous regions, 30 autonomous prefectures and 120 autonomous counties (banners) had been established, as well as 1,256 ethnic townships. Among the 55 ethnic minorities, 44 have their own autonomous areas, with a population of 75 percent of the total of the ethnic minorities and an area of 64 percent of the area of the whole country.” (4)
</span></i></blockquote></blockquote>
In the West the historical worldview of societies originated in the guardianship by the Western Christian Church, over the common trunk of their societal system of logic, that sustained the cultural field of a common civilization.
In contrast different historical worldviews are being shared in different regions of China. But the centralized governance system impulses the animism+ of the “Chinese Traditional Culture” over the whole territory which, to a certain degree, unifies these different worldviews. This is possible for the good reason that most of these worldviews are themselves expansions on the common trunk of animism.
<br /><br />
The Islam of Xinjiang is perhaps the sole exception where a TCA type “religion of the word” is being practiced. But, over the past decades, the centralized governance has been mitigating this reality by focusing on Xinjiang’s ultra rapid economic development that boosted consumerism and other secular practices and values. This is now proving to be very effective at containing the religious belief that Western countries count on to destabilize China !
<br /><br />
In whatever model of cultural field, the Western or the Chinese, the historical worldviews and the daily culture are evolving along the lines of the same 2 types of synchronizations represented by the red arrows in the graph here above :
<br /><br />
<ul>
<li>
The individual perceptions, of the present contextual settings, synchronize with the historical worldview and the outcome is the contemporary or the daily culture. As the synchronization is constant, from one present moment to the next, it unfolds the evolution of daily-culture.
</li>
<br />
<li>Many cultural memes are emerging in daily-culture but very few of them are sticking and replicating over the long haul of generations. The synchronization of the historical worldview integrates, in its narrative those memes that replicate over the generations, thus animating its evolution. I refer to generations, as the length of this cycle, but this is only for the convenience of the appellation. There is indeed a need for more in-depth study of this cycle.
</li>
<br />
<li>The evolution, of the historical worldview of societies, is the substance of societal evolution. But again I’m in the dark about the systematic length of this societal cycle. What is a certainty is that both the daily cultures and the historical worldviews, of countries originating in a common civilizational realm, have been differentiating over time. It is well known that the countries, in the realm of the Chinese civilization, shared the same components, of the Chinese societal system of logic, for more than 2,000 years and probably a lot longer, while the countries in the realm of the Western civilization shared the same components, of the European societal system of logic, since some 800 to1,000 years at the most. The result, of the span of their sharing, leaves no place for doubt.
</li>
<br />
<li>
The longer span of sharing, in the Chinese civilizational realm, occasioned a deeper differentiation than in the countries in the Western civilizational realm. As an illustration the contemporary differences between China and Japan appear to be vastly more profound than the differences between France and Germany.
<br />
</li></ul>
</li>
<br />
<li><h4>
The daily culture
</h4>
I refer to the daily culture of societies in its largest sense of the totality of the thinking, behaviors, and actions of all their citizens. In such a vision there is no separation between their economic, social, and cultural endeavors and when viewed from the perspective of multiple societies their differences, in economic or social endeavors, appear more like cultural differences than economic or social differences. The daily-culture is the component, of the cultural field of societies, that is most familiar to us because we are constantly immersed in it so that it became our daily normality. And, when leaving for another country, we instinctively feel that its daily-culture is conflicting with our daily normality. This is something all of us are well acquainted with. But few among us comprehend the dynamics that support our daily normality.
<br /><br />
The daily-culture of a society emerges as the outcome of the synchronization between the perception of its citizens, about the present contextual settings in which they live, and the historical worldview of their society. In other words the citizens’ perception, of their contextual settings, is adapting to, or rendered compatible with, their shared vision of the world. Such a synchronization is constant and occurs unconsciously meaning that it is managed by the brain and the nervous system.
<br /><br /></li></ol>
<br />
<h2>2.2. The changing context of Late-Western-Modernity destabilizes the system of logic of its power-societies</h2>
As we have seen earlier the societies, that converted to Western-Modernity, were governed along the lines of the archetypal model of power-societies and had furthermore inherited its cultural characteristics : — differentiation between a privileged power-knowledge-elite and the mass of citizens — the emergence of individualism, or the individual primacy of the men of power, over the mass of citizens and over society at large — the emergence of social inequality and poverty.
<br /><br />
Each of these power-societies had also converted to the societal paradigm of power. In the TCA and Western Europe this paradigm reads as “the assembly of citizens by force and the reproduction of the societal institutions through the sharing a common religious worldview by the citizens” while in China it reads as “pragmatism, through knowledge formation, alleviates individual suffering and eases the production of daily-life”.
<br /><br />
The foundational worldviews of these societies furthermore varied to the tunes of their local contexts. The societies of the TCA and the West ruptured with tribal animism while adopting new religious foundational worldviews.
In China continuity prevailed through reproduction of the “Tribal Animist Worldview” and its “Tribal Cultural Unification” model of territorial expansion. A few thousand year later these societies also converted to the societal paradigm of Western-Modernity, that reads as “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money, debt, or nature into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”. The question arising now is “what will be the outcome in China of the digestion of Western-Modernity ?“.
<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMnzJA8uTk4-3cF9xa_RLIt2HFse9-GXOyMyYmAgKT5tYXyEd-F2ykp_xo4MN8panfRW4juu9OgX19z7AWqGHjjCn60akPjZmLsDrYaARPANaSath2ZoT7Arg6a-jtVmNOPZs0mlU4QYzI8ajPIOKiTBPDZboGv1ytr-T_4KtuaVUCwP_q38nJ/s1200/304-B2-11.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMnzJA8uTk4-3cF9xa_RLIt2HFse9-GXOyMyYmAgKT5tYXyEd-F2ykp_xo4MN8panfRW4juu9OgX19z7AWqGHjjCn60akPjZmLsDrYaARPANaSath2ZoT7Arg6a-jtVmNOPZs0mlU4QYzI8ajPIOKiTBPDZboGv1ytr-T_4KtuaVUCwP_q38nJ/s320/304-B2-11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<h2><2><u>Notes</u></2></h2><h2><2></2></h2><br /> 1. <a href="https://www.livescience.com/34128-limits-human-survival.html">"What Are the Limits of Human Survival?"</a>, Live Science, by Natalie Wolchover. 2012-08-10. <style type="text/css">p.sdfootnote-western { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; font-family: "Ubuntu Condensed"; font-size: 10pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; background: transparent; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-cjk { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; background: transparent; font-family: "Source Han Sans CN Regular"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-ctl { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; background: transparent; font-family: "Lohit Devanagari"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; background: transparent; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 4.99mm; margin-bottom: 0mm; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.western { font-family: "Ubuntu"; font-size: 13pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.cjk { font-family: "Arial", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.ctl { font-family: "FreeSans", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }a:visited { color: #800000; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:visited { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:visited { so-language: zxx }a:link { color: #000080; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:link { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:link { so-language: zxx }</style><br /><2><br />
2. </2><a href="https://changlab.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/Chin_et_al_2022_PsycRev.pdf">"Beyond Cortex: The Evolution of the Human Brain"</a>, © 2022 American Psychological Association, by Rowena Chin, Steve W. C. Chang, and Avram J. Holmes. <style type="text/css">p.sdfootnote-western { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; font-family: "Ubuntu Condensed"; font-size: 10pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; background: transparent; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-cjk { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; background: transparent; font-family: "Source Han Sans CN Regular"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-ctl { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; background: transparent; font-family: "Lohit Devanagari"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; background: transparent; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 4.99mm; margin-bottom: 0mm; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.western { font-family: "Ubuntu"; font-size: 13pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.cjk { font-family: "Arial", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.ctl { font-family: "FreeSans", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }a:visited { color: #800000; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:visited { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:visited { so-language: zxx }a:link { color: #000080; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:link { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:link { so-language: zxx }</style><br /><2><br />
3. </2><a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/B9780444538604000118">"Human brain evolution writ large and small",</a> Progress in Brain Research. Volume 195, Chapter 11 - 2012, by Chet C. Sherwood, Amy L. Bauernfeind, Serena Bianchi, Mary Ann Raghanti, Patrick R. Hof. <style type="text/css">p.sdfootnote-western { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; font-family: "Ubuntu Condensed"; font-size: 10pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; background: transparent; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-cjk { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; background: transparent; font-family: "Source Han Sans CN Regular"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-ctl { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; background: transparent; font-family: "Lohit Devanagari"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; background: transparent; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 4.99mm; margin-bottom: 0mm; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.western { font-family: "Ubuntu"; font-size: 13pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.cjk { font-family: "Arial", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.ctl { font-family: "FreeSans", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }a:visited { color: #800000; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:visited { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:visited { so-language: zxx }a:link { color: #000080; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:link { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:link { so-language: zxx }</style><br /><2><br />
4. </2><a href="http://un.china-mission.gov.cn/eng/gyzg/xizang/199909/t19990901_8410838.htm">"White Paper 1999: Ethnic Minorities Policy in China"</a>, Permanent Mission of the People's Republic of China to the UN , by the Information Office of the State Council of the Peoples Republic of China. Beijing 1999-09. <style type="text/css">p.sdfootnote-western { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; font-family: "Ubuntu Condensed"; font-size: 10pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; background: transparent; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-cjk { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; background: transparent; font-family: "Source Han Sans CN Regular"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-ctl { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; background: transparent; font-family: "Lohit Devanagari"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; background: transparent; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 4.99mm; margin-bottom: 0mm; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.western { font-family: "Ubuntu"; font-size: 13pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.cjk { font-family: "Arial", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.ctl { font-family: "FreeSans", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }a:visited { color: #800000; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:visited { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:visited { so-language: zxx }a:link { color: #000080; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:link { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:link { so-language: zxx }</style><2></2></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><2><br /><br /></2></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHPZldBI5LrhvPy96LBHKcSga5j8EgMzDlkgoo96Ki6mXfdOrUGSHh_G7yo3CFgypVgAmT849ue2YifTHMrL2u2bc39bCShr3k1YR8NBt8FY-EU_TEWcyq10NOGnvCr8Ad8ouQrO5DCl4zYOailUbr_TjRfpvQZD2TxLCsuWsu2JTGCePrjQPx/s1200/304-B2-13.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgHPZldBI5LrhvPy96LBHKcSga5j8EgMzDlkgoo96Ki6mXfdOrUGSHh_G7yo3CFgypVgAmT849ue2YifTHMrL2u2bc39bCShr3k1YR8NBt8FY-EU_TEWcyq10NOGnvCr8Ad8ouQrO5DCl4zYOailUbr_TjRfpvQZD2TxLCsuWsu2JTGCePrjQPx/s320/304-B2-13.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><2><br /></2></div>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-16017683758576601022023-08-23T16:00:00.041-04:002023-08-23T16:00:00.148-04:00The mind : – awareness – consciousness – wisdom<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEkk6oN-YNFSx8DQ0FWJi0Iqsv2kkyQgDssfuCjOxZRppUzumpKeKHPxK1t9aMHG0FgRBIDsuHYlSp8QYrsFiZ5BXxX5e2y5D_xIqiBpbKK8PWtrlz1RqU5SeYpB9eZrrHLRaM5qyiZx06Jnq-1C28Wp64tOQzcOvEq6N33vgvOlsWefHDZ52R/s1200/304-B2-13.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-right: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEkk6oN-YNFSx8DQ0FWJi0Iqsv2kkyQgDssfuCjOxZRppUzumpKeKHPxK1t9aMHG0FgRBIDsuHYlSp8QYrsFiZ5BXxX5e2y5D_xIqiBpbKK8PWtrlz1RqU5SeYpB9eZrrHLRaM5qyiZx06Jnq-1C28Wp64tOQzcOvEq6N33vgvOlsWefHDZ52R/s320/304-B2-13.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
The following quote was copy-pasted, from "Knowledge Formation. 7. The mind : – awareness – consciousness – wisdom" starting, on page 570 and following.
<br /><br />
This 1,150 page book will be available on my website this 27th of August.
<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;">
___________
</div><span style="user-select: text;"><a name='more'></a></span>
<br /><br />
Since the down of time life conservation, through the reproduction of the individuals and their societies, has been considered the first among “the first principles of life” and if one species of life emerged it felt dutifully compelled to reproduce. It was compelled because it was instinctively feeling that without conservation and reproduction its emergence would have been in vain indeed.
<br /><br />
The nature of the universe is not incoherent nor random. There is an order at work throughout it that impulses a direction to its evolution. And space/time are indicators of the direction in which its evolution is unfolding.
<br /><br />
As a matter of fact the evolution of the universe is unfolding as the materialization of what is possible in the contextual settings of its parts and ensembles. This means that what is not contextually possible is being rejected by evolution and so it does not materialize on the arrow of space/time. As a painter I understand this selection or rejection by evolution through the prism of aesthetics which consecrates the notions of beauty and ugliness that are so prevalent in all societies historically and geographically.
<br /><br />
What is being selected by evolution is beautiful for no other reason than it is being represented on the arrow of space/time which represents the life of the universe, its sub-ensembles and their particles. What is not being selected by evolution automatically becomes ugly for no other reason than it is being rejected from the context of the universe. These principles form the essence of my personal understanding about aesthetics. I'll come back to this idea more systematically in the Volume 4 of this series that is titled “About the arts”.
<br /><br />
Having said all this there is no need to posit that the unfolding of the universe has a starting point or an end point. It simply unfolds, for no other reason than its constant transformation in further forms. This should satisfy us for it is the substance of evolution. Evolution is the unfolding of the universe into ever more complex forms while conservation-reproduction is a universal necessity for the good reason that, without conservation and reproduction, evolution would come to a standstill which is like saying that its clock would eventually stop.
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The principle of polarities indicates that the clock of the universe does not stop. Changes take place as a result of cycles : from young yin to old yin, to young yang to old yang, and back to young yin and so forth… Some of those cycles fall in the realm of human vision, or perception, while others are invisible in the realm of human vision or perception. They are invisible because their span is either too long, or too short, to be perceived in the realm of human vision or because they operate in wavelengths that are not perceived by human sensors.
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Since the advent of power-societies we have always tried to circumvent our limitations by building new technological sensors that act as de-multiplicators of the human realm of perception and when these sensors failed to bring us sensical answers we delved into mental abstractions to guide our search for ever new sensors. In other words we have been engaged in a schizophrenic scientism that externalizes the human realm of perception while separating us from our traditional internal realm.
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The arrow of space-time does not bear interruption because change is the rule of life and the scientifically non-proven theory of the big-bang can not even be invoked to deny the continuity of the arrow of time. If there has indeed been a big-bang, as astrophysics pretends, it should be understood as the end-phase of a cycle of contraction that ultimately explodes into a new cycle of expansion. But the separation from our traditional internal realm of perception is hiding this profound reality. Change is continuous and the idea that it would have emerged sometime in our deep past, and will peter out sometime in our deep future, is an ideological construction that has been fostered on us by the separation of our realms of perception.
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In other words old contraction gives way to young expansion that grows into old expansion that, in turn, grows into young contraction that grows in old contraction and so on… The forms of the contraction, or the expansion, might eventually change but there is always continuity in their dance along the arrow of space-time. But the continuity of this dance will, in all probability, always stay outside of the human realm of external perception.
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The fact is that the separation of our internal and external realm of perception is a cultural and societal phenomenon that is narrowing our realm of comprehension ! But the narrowing of the limits of human comprehension can’t hide from our observation the fact that the instinct of each species is to prioritize the conservation and the reproduction of life which are the most determinant set of life’s polarities. The second most determinant set being the search life’s urge for ever more complexity.
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This implies that, even if our internal and external realms of perception are separated in the cultural field of our societies, our realm of comprehension is still constantly remanded by our biological field. But how does this work ?
Since the down of life on earth each individual, of each species that ever emerged, was equipped with a predictive, or probabilistic computation function that was connected to bodily sensors feeding it through the nervous system, with inputs of information about what is going on in its habitat. This device eventually takes different forms from one specie to another but the outcome is always the same : biological computation of the gathered information and eventual commands of actions to the body in order to ensure its integrity.
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The strategy at work here is to maximize the chances that the individual will effectively prolong its life and eventually take its chance to further reproduce. In other words sensors inform the brain about potential dangers in the near environment. The brain computes the potential outcome of that information and orders the body to take eventual actions. And all this takes place in a fraction of a second well before the mind becomes aware of what happens. Once aware the mind often delusions itself into believing that it orders the action.
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This mechanism is still at work in human beings in the twenty-first century. But societal evolution, and more particularly societal knowledge formation, have unleashed a supplemental line of data processing that acts through the synchronization, of the daily-contextual settings with the societal cultural field, to produce the daily societal culture.
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The fact is that even in the societal cultural field our minds are no match for the speed at which the brain calculates and orders actions. The synchronization of the daily-contextual settings, with the societal cultural field, and the resulting societal evolution remain thus largely an unconscious line of data processing that mimics the probabilistic computation of bodily actions.
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What happens is that the brain gets its information from biological sensors that scan the environment. The major sensor of the human being is the eye that transmits live uninterrupted visual signs to the brain. Our other sensors complement the eye : — or they inform the eye where to watch — or they inform the brain about additional information not contained in the visuals supplied by the eye.
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The information gathered by the brain is then analyzed and thoroughly processed to predict the potential outcomes, for the individual, of what is going on in her or his environment. From these potential outcomes the brain computes the most likely, or most probable, scenario that will ensure the protection of the body from any damages. If the probability is high that damages are unavoidable the brain will order a path of action that will minimize the damages while ensuring the survival of the body.
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This process of life preservation is one of the first among “First Principles of Life”. It is also called “the strong principle of life”. And, as we just saw, “the strong principle of life” also manages the synchronization of the daily contextual settings with the societal cultural field to produce our daily-culture. As evolved or conscious, as our minds might be, the brain always takes precedence which confirms that biological evolution primes cultural and societal evolution.
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In situations of urgency the brain simply does not tolerate the loss of time for an intervention by our mind. The order to act has already been transmitted to the body before our minds realize the nature of the encountered situation. And the processing speed of the brain is what so often causes us to be surprised by our own actions.
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This whole 'sensor-brain-mind' process is primal for every living species. And the fact that visual information is the primary source of information, of the human brain, has instilled an habituation of the mind to visual signs as its primary source of meaning. This explains the recourse to visual signs, by the (wo)men of knowledge in the dawn of tribal societies, to share meaning to the minds of their fellow tribesmen. A practice that originated what in the Renaissance came to be called the arts.
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The process, of 'sensor-brain-mind, originated the communication of the societal worldview through visual signs and this explains how and why the arts took such a central place in human activities.
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But how exactly and when the animistic (wo)men of knowledge came to realize the importance of their communication through artistic practices will always remain an enigma. It makes no doubt that the observation, of the rhythms of nature in the habitat, was always their preferred method of knowledge formation and in light of the human attraction to the visual, and its relation to meaning, it should not come as a surprise that they eventually used artistic practices to share their view of the world with their fellow tribesmen.
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This was true one hundred thousand years ago and it remains true today. The only difference between then and now is that the animist (wo)men of knowledge used this observation to ensure the survival and continuity of their societies while today the image makers have fallen out of the loop of societal significance. Today the arts are indeed solely used to generate short term gains for the holders of stocks in the art-merchants’ companies.
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There is no longer any concern, whatsoever today, for the transmission of meaning to the minds in order to ensure the well-being of the viewers or for the sustainability of their societies. When the transmission of meaning is invoked it is solely to propagandize the vision of reality held by the men of power who in Western-Modernity are the big capital holders and their private and public institutional servants.
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The visual arts yesterday were at the service of life and by extension of humanity at large. Today visual arts serve “the mechanical reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money, or debt, into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”. And we need to remember that the scientific rationality of this reason has initiated a 6th mass-extinction that could possibly wipe humanity from the surface of the earth. In light of all this what is the smartest way ? Then or now ? You tell me…
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It takes only a small step to imagine how the potential, of the human attraction to the visual and its relation to meaning, has had on strengthening societal cohesion. The animist (wo)men of knowledge were in charge of all aspects relating to the knowledge formation of their tribe. And their learning was undertaken by consulting the spirits animating all entities in their habitat. The spirits were viewed as intermediaries, between the whole and all species on earth, whose task was to instill the consciousness of the universe in the minds of the animist (wo)men of knowledge.
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This kind of knowledge formation has spread over a very long line of generations which, to me, suggests that societal continuity was a constant preoccupation for all (wo)men of knowledge under non-power tribal societies and animism. And so visual signs became naturally their prime instruments to increase societal cohesion so as to ensure societal reproduction.
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I dwell at length, in the Volume 5 of this series, on the cycles of concentration and collapse of early kingdoms and their ending with their absorption in empires that reproduce their civilization over the generations.
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It was the collaboration of men of power, with the men of knowledge having a large following, that allowed empires to glue the minds of their citizens in a common foundational narrative or worldview. And it was the sharing of a worldview by the citizens of empires that permitted their reproduction over the generations.
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Visual arts played a leading role in these operations by instilling meaning in the minds through visual signs. But by the time of empire, in the West, the image makers were no longer the men of knowledge but low social status specialized craftsmen who were illustrating the creed of the religious or philosophic men of knowledge to propagandize the vision of reality of the men of power. In other words power in the West split knowledge, and the making of its visual signs, to propagate its vision of life.
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China experienced a radically different set of circumstances. The animist (wo)men of knowledge became the scholars of the early power-confederations. They practiced poetry, music, painting, archery and philosophy and after successfully passing exams they were de facto recruited to manage the institutions of power. So the approach of the arts was quite different between the West and China along the whole of the history of power societies. I'll come back in detail on this subject in book 4 “About the arts”.
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This state of affairs continued unquestioned until the eruption of Modernism, in Europe, that the avant-garde posited as being a radical rejection of past representations in favor of a search for deeper dimensions of reality. Unfortunately within the span of half a century the adventure of Modernism concluded in total confusion. In contrast the practice of knowledge formation and the arts in China continued unabated until the republican revolution of 1911 when the institutions of power got destabilized for a few decades.
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In summary biological evolution equipped Homo-Sapiens with a brain that is able to handle abstractions and to use visual signs to compute meaning in the brain. And once the brain terminates its analysis, of the data procured to it by the bodily sensors, it eventually orders decisions at the attention of the body so that it can take the necessary actions to ensure its preservation.
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Biological evolution expanded into cultural and societal evolution when the men of knowledge started to use this same visual strategy to form knowledge and to share it with all. They represented their narrative about the working of reality in visual signs that, when captured by the minds of their fellow-tribesmen, strengthened societal cohesion which in turn ensured the conservation and reproduction of their societies while alleviating individual suffering.
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The rhythm of cultural and societal evolution ran ever faster and gradually overwhelmed human life. But in the process Homo-Sapiens lost sight of “the First Principles of Life” which resulted in the separation, of their internal and external realms of perception, that eventually saturated the cultural field of their societies with confusion. In the confusion Western-Modernity lost contact with the big picture and externalized costs that generated multiple side-effects.
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During this ending of Late-Western-Modernity we observe that “the Great convergence of the multitude of side-effects of Western-Modernity” has engaged a 6th mass-extinction which now threatens to wipe humanity from the face of the earth ! But as far reaching as the ultimate damages of the separation, of the internal and external realms of perception, might be the fact is that our biology remands us constantly of “the First Principles of Life” which explains the growing call for a new societal paradigm.
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<h2>1. The brain and the mind.</h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioqgW_53x0i5osgMENRBDgJxjTfEKvwKwRyOhBqDcs-TVlgWj8SmJlqEeiur65QyFpW21-P7RyouOjpk2QoXb56tSLD9jrZj5Wj-9nyqR46INj56_R0oxcTLAPsukZ3-fv9gaKEJDyj4P0YUbivGntT11x_HQtP-80oRHVvwIKQAI7iv1gxql_/s1200/304-B2-14.jpg" style="clear: right; display: block; float: right; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEioqgW_53x0i5osgMENRBDgJxjTfEKvwKwRyOhBqDcs-TVlgWj8SmJlqEeiur65QyFpW21-P7RyouOjpk2QoXb56tSLD9jrZj5Wj-9nyqR46INj56_R0oxcTLAPsukZ3-fv9gaKEJDyj4P0YUbivGntT11x_HQtP-80oRHVvwIKQAI7iv1gxql_/s320/304-B2-14.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Along the arrow of time, in the individual's life, the brain has stored in the memory of the nervous system, all its computations and commands to the body, that resulted in positive outcomes. The resulting database of computation outcomes, and commands to the body, serves as reference material that future computations and decision-making can automatically re-use.
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Because the brain’s analysis and decision-making is such an extremely energy hungry process the nervous system, in an innate reflex, arranges for the brain’s automatic re-use of formulas that worked in the past.
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<blockquote><blockquote><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“Glucose is the obligatory energy substrate for the brain. … Although the brain represents only 2% of the body weight, it receives 15% of the cardiac output, 20% of total body oxygen consumption, and 25% of total body glucose utilization.” (1)
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To save some of the resources used by the brain the nervous system encourages a kind of instinctual computation that we call the action of the mind. We know for a fact that we are largely unconscious about the mass of computations that are carried out by our brain. But we seem to gain awareness, at least in an impressionistic fashion, about repeated orders by the brain that our mind associates with elements of its own perception.
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Rationalists view the mind as a property of the brain but it seems to me that it acts more like an emergent property of our nervous system, which sensing the tension of the body caused by the huge consumption of energy by the brain, feels compelled to find an alternative answer to the demand, for analysis and commands, addressed to the brain by the signals of the body’s sensors.
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Viewed from this angle the process of the mind’s emergence appears to be different from the process of life’s emergence after organic matter satisfied a set of chemical conditions while encountering a particular environmental energy setup. Life emerges indeed in the context, of a long chain of causes and effects, which gets animated by a favorable energy context that organizes organic matter in a particular molecular arrangement that has the property to replicate over the long haul.
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In contrast the mind emerges somehow like a virtual brain which juxtaposes present signals, by the body’s sensors, with past brain computations that were associated with similar signals. Such a juxtaposition allows the mind to reflexively command orders to the body thus reducing the tension rising at the prospect of the brain’s use of energy to analyze the data and command an order to the body.
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By reducing the brain’s demand for resources, the mind saves energy that becomes available for expanding the time of brain usage or other tasks for other body functions. In the process the nervous system captures the intentions of the brain and impulses the minds’ intervention along the lines of past brain decisions that answered similar signals by the body’s sensors.
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The mind acts thus like an instinctual virtual brain that is activated by the nervous system’s reading of the memory of the brain's imprinted set of past computations that were associated with the observation of similar signals. This idea is reverberated in popular expressions such as “a gut feeling” or “an intuition” that make us believe that we know the outcome of a sequence of coming events.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <br /><br /><br />
<h3>1.1. The primitive instinct</h3>
After a certain threshold of repetitive decisions by the brain, the nervous system activates an instinctual virtual brain, that activates the mind of the self. The mind is indeed no more than an innate reflex of the nervous system to save the consumption of energy by the body.
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In other words when the eyes see a phenomenon, that in the past led to decisions by the brain to activate actions by the body, the nervous system takes over and orders the mind to decide the same kind of actions. In this sense the innate reflex of the nervous system activates the mind to act along the lines of what the brain computed in the past thus saving the energy that would have been used by the brain to order the body to act.
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After a known signal is transmitted to the brain, by the body’s sensors, the nervous system activates a stack of memory that in an innate reflex activates the mind’s command of an order to the body.
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But how does the mind become aware of its activity ? In other words how do we get a feeling of self from this instinctual something that is called the mind ? This is the trillion dollar question that has still not found any valid scientific answer. The question could usefully be reformulated as what drives the individuals to discover their thinking, behaviors, and action, as if these reflected in a mirror ?
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We are aware of only a very small portion of what is going on in our brain and are unaware of the bulk of its activity. This implies that our brain's computation and its responses at best stay in the realm of the subconscious. We may eventually gain the knowing from science that the brain influences our behaviors and that what we are conscious about is stored in the instinctual memory of the nervous system. But this does not give us access to what is really going on in our brain.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <br /><br /><br /><h3>
1.2. Discovering ourselves in a mirror
</h3>
What awakens the awareness of the mind is attention and observation. So the question moves from 'how does the mind become aware of its activity' to how our attention and observation are being activated which brings us back to their reflection in the mirror of the mind.
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Plato's “tripartite structure of the soul” (2) has influenced almost every Western thinker interested in the human mind. Among the most influential :
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<ol>
<li>
<b>Kant wrote the following</b> :
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<blockquote><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“...all faculties of the soul, or capacities, are reducible to three, which do not admit of any further derivation from a common ground: the faculty of knowledge, the feeling of pleasure or displeasure, and the faculty of desire” (3)</span></i></blockquote></li>
<li>
<b>The trilogy of the mind remains a popular idea
</b><br /><br />
An example among many of this popularity is the book “The trilogy of mind: Cognition, affection, and conation”, by the American psychologist Ernest R. Hilgard, (4) continues to exerts a huge influence.
</li>
</ol>
Kant's abstract idea of “the faculty of knowledge” would gain in strength if it referred to the mind as the innate reflex of the nervous system. At least knowledge would find an origination in the mind that could be complemented by the idea of its possible development. What Kant names “the feeling of pleasure and displeasure” would also gain to be transformed into the notion of pleasure and suffering. The dance engaged between suffering and pleasure brings us indeed to envisage the possibility that the individuals favor the outcome of pleasure over suffering.
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To possibly reach such a conclusion the individuals would necessarily need a deeper recourse to knowledge formation. The desire for alleviating suffering, which incidentally might produce pleasure, is an elegant explanation of the thirst for knowledge formation that closes the loop from knowledge to the mirror where emerges the self.
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Once the process of knowledge formation is put in motion there is no stopping its movement forward. The desire to alleviate suffering marginalizes anything that stays in the way and its movement forward becomes thus an automatism that, in one way or another, encounters the mirror projecting the image of the inquiring self. This is when the reflections of one’s face on the surface of water comes to mind as a metaphor for the mirror. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /><br />
<h3>1.3. The emergence of awareness</h3>
We have a better chance to find a satisfying answer to the question, “how our attention and observation were activated initially”, by focusing on the intersection where biological evolution meets societal evolution as was also the case with the question “how tribal societies emerged initially” to which the best answer is “the social brain hypothesis” (5) that verifies the existence of a close relation between group population size and individual brain size.
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The expansion of the brain to the frontal cortex opened the path to the generation of abstractions from the observations of early Homo-Sapiens. Tens of thousands years later the first such abstractions emerged in the conscious minds of some individuals and it took tens of thousands years more for the conscious mind to that these abstractions had the potential to satisfy the most desired outcome : the alleviation of individual suffering. Thus appeared the notion of knowledge formation but satisfying the needs of small bands called for the non-stop foraging of these hands. The idea eventually emerged to delegate the band’s knowledge formation to the least physically able body which explains the origin of the association of the (wo)men of knowledge with physical infirmities.
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The (wo)men of knowledge were immediately confronted with how to maximize the sharing of their abstractions. The spoken language was still a poor instrument to share abstract ideas. Visual signs had always been the most potent instrument of communication which explains their use, by the (wo)men of knowledge to share meaning with the brains and minds of their companions. And music was soon used to amplify the meaning of visual signs by manipulating the feelings they suggested. Later it was eventually observed that dance amplifies the power of feelings through trances that illuminate the meaning of the visual signs.
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Because visual signs, music and dance allowed the members of bands to share a common vision of the world the trust among themselves was boosted. They had suddenly de-multiplied our grooming abilities to larger quantities of individuals which resulted in increasing small bands populations. And the increasing population of small bands eventually concluded, after a few thousand or a few tens of thousand years of trials and errors, with the natural selection of the tribal golden number of 150 that fixed the average population size of the tribal base-group.
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Both “the social brain hypothesis” and the Golden number, also called “Dunbar number”, are attributed to British anthropologist and evolutionary psychologist Robin Dunbar. The “social brain hypothesis” is an image template of the answer I have in mind about the question “how our attention and observation were activated initially”. This is also an emergent answer at the intersection between biological evolution and societal evolution.
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<h4>1.3.1. Observations about brain-mind</h4>
The brain and other data processing centers are part of the body which means that they emerged as specialized organs in the individual’s biology. The mind is not a biological quantity. It is a reflection, of the working of the body’s data processing centers, that eventually activates an awareness in the mirror, or in the self, that receives that reflection.
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The mirror, that receives the reflection of the reality of the world, is activated by the self as the conscious mind. But the conscious mind captures only a small fraction of the reality of the world. The bulk of that reality remains hidden in the data processing centers of the body. The conscious mind should thus be viewed as an emergent property of the body’s data processing centers. I described this emergent property in 7.3.1. The primitive instinct.
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After a certain threshold of repetitive decisions by the brain, the nervous system activates an instinctual virtual brain, that activates the mind of the self. The mind is indeed no more than an innate reflex of the nervous system to save the consumption of energy by the body.
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Starting from an innate reflex of the nervous system, to reduce the consumption of energy and resources by the body, the mind is activated by the self as the conscious mind. Under the impact of socialization the self eventually learns to capture more of what the mirror reflects from the reality of the world but the conscious mind is not equipped biologically to capture the entirety of the reality of the world.
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Capturing more, of what the mirror reflects from the reality of the world, engages the conscious mind in 3 levels of development, — awareness — consciousness — wisdom, along the following lines :
<br /><br />
<ol>
<li>
<b>The brain is a life preserving predictive and probabilistic computation machine
</b><br /><br />
All living species are equipped, in one way or another, with a computation mechanism in order to satisfy the first among “First Principles of Life” which is the preservation of life. And what is also noteworthy is that this first among “First Principles of Life” is also the prime focus of all living species.
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b>The innate reflex of the nervous system activates the primitive mind
</b><br /><br />
The primitive mind is an automatism that shifts into action, in order to reduce the energy consumption of the brain. While this principle is observed to be in application in all species its active forms vary according to the biological context of species.
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b>The biological nature of the brain evolves in complexity in order to adapt to changing contextual settings
</b><br /><br />
When confronted with contextual changes, that threaten the survival of life, the brain evolves an added layer of computational power to its existing state. And when a new layer is evolved, as an adaptive answer to a changing context, it uses computation principles to solve the newly emerging contextual stimuli.
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b>The computation principles, used to solve unanswered contextual stimuli, are woven in the biological framework of the species
</b><br /><br />
The biological framework of species contains the potential to address a certain range of contextual stimuli. This range corresponds to the species bandwidth of survivability which means that any shift outside of this bandwidth may potentially lead to the extinction of the species.
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Since biological evolution is an adaptation to a changing context each evolutionary step procures a range of behavioral adaptations. In the case of Homo-Sapiens the computation power, at the time of the emergence of the Neocortex, was exceeding the contextual demands which encouraged the use of that available power for further experiments. After growing a Neocortex, to answer changed contextual settings, the available computation capabilities were used to power a societal shift from the archetypal model of small-bands with populations in their low tens, to the archetypal model of tribal societies with populations of 150 members on average.
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The organization of larger societal groups was eventually attained by enriching the communication abilities of early Homo-Sapiens which allowed them to share abstract ideas through visual signs and language. This rapidly enlarged the circle of grooming to the larger populations of tribal societies.
</li>
<b><br /></b>
<li><b>
This adaptation of the brain, to the necessity of answering the changing contextual settings, boosted the brain’s consumption of energy and resources which unleashed a corresponding reflex of the nervous system to reduce this consumption by activating a primitive mind
</b><br /><br />
The fact that science does still not know, how the mind evolved awareness, does not contradict the chain of events that emerged at the intersection of biological and societal evolution. On the contrary it opens our field of vision and helps us pinpoint when and how awareness emerged. We are here in the territory of explicative hypotheses to help fill the void of meaning that characterize our approximations of the conscious mind’s reality.
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b>Feeling and thinking → desire to alleviate suffering → the source of the human reflex to acquire knowledge
</b><br /><br />
The reflex of the nervous system to reduce the consumption of resources by the brain, is reinforced by the trilogy, that I unbounded from Kant's “tripartite structure of the soul”, — the complementary polarities of feeling and thinking : suffering and pleasure — the desire to avoid suffering and to gain pleasure — the thirst to alleviate suffering and gain pleasure was the source of the human reflex to acquire knowledge.
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b>A warming climate during inter-glacial-periods boosted population levels destabilizing their form of organization and calling for the experimentation of new archetypal model of society
</b><br /><br />
The process of knowledge formation, that small-bands delegated to their less physically able individual, was so successful that their model of society got destabilized creating thus the conditions for a shift to the new archetypal model of tribal societies during the Eamian inter-glaciation-period that lasted from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago.
The process of development of the conscious mind converged with physical fluctuations in our neck of the woods in the Milky way that resulted in abrupt climate variations in the habitat of life on earth.
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The formation of knowledge that had started in small bands eventually boosted their populations and destabilized their model of society. By 130,000 years ago an abrupt climate heating melted the ice and boosted already larger small band populations. Their organizational model crumbled and gave eventually way to the archetypal model of tribal societies.
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About 17,000 years ago a new bout of climate heating boosted the population levels in the Tri-Continental-Area which destabilized its tribal model of organization and ushered a transition period that eventually concluded with the successful reproduction of power-societies around 5,000 years ago. Different contextual settings in East-Asia allowed for a continued development of “Tribal-Cultural-Confederations” that imperceptibly shifted into “power-Confederations” sometime around 5,000 years ago.
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These two consecutive physical fluctuations in the habitat forced 2 consecutive shifts in archetypal models of societies. The differentiation in regional contextual settings gave way to the same kind of archetypal model of power-society but their form was nevertheless otherworldly and remain so to this very day.
</li>
</ol>
<h4>1.3.2. Life-brain-mind: a summary</h4>
The trilogy “life-brain-mind” indicates an evolutionary process of life that emerged in the right set of contextual settings and then evolved biologically to the point when the biology of Homo-Sapiens led to a process of knowledge formation that eventually initiated a new archetypal model of society which added the derivative path, of societal evolution, to biological evolution.
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In the process of societal evolution the nervous system shifted part of the brain’s computation to a virtual brain that we call the mind. Here follows a summary of the evolutionary process of life that led to the emergence of the conscious mind :
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<ol>
<li>
<b>Emergence of life
</b><br /><br />
Life emerged at the intersection of a given set of organic matter and a given energetic context. That intersection drove a particular re-arrangement of organic matter in single-cell molecules that reproduced over the long haul and that later eventually assembled with other molecules in multi-cell-organisms thus evolving into more complex life forms.
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b>The objectives of life
</b><br /><br />
Once emerged life is driven by its two First Principles of preservation (conservation) and complexification (change) which are the polarities of the Principle of Life.
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b>The brain, or the probabilistic computation, that is instrumental in the preservation and reproduction of life
</b><br /><br />
The necessity of preservation unfolds a biological technique, or an instrument, that will take care of the execution of this principle. That instrument is the brain and the technique is predictive or probabilistic computation. Note that, in order to preserve their existence, all living species are equipped with a version of such an instrument, and its technique, that may vary in its biological evolution.
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b>The command of orders to the body, by the probabilistic computation of the body’s processing machine, is an energy guzzling process
</b><br /><br />
The processing of data by the body’s processing machine, in which the brain plays a leading role, is consuming a lot of energy and resources. This puts the body’s processing machine in competition with other bodily functions for the usage of energy and resources.
</li>
<b><br /></b>
<li><b>
At a certain threshold, of new contextual settings-stimuli, the brain evolves a new layer that uses computation principles to solve the unanswered contextual stimuli.
</b><br /><br />
The innate reflex of the nervous system is then instilling in the individual a mechanism of self awareness that takes over some of the tasks undertaken by it which saves a further quantity of energy.
<br /><br />
Self-awareness, in turn, leads to the formation of knowledge which uses the saved energy to power the unused computation power contained in the newly evolved brain-layer. In other words self-awareness saves energy and brain-power that so gets freed to increase societal complexity.
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b>Biological evolution enfolds societal evolution
</b><br /><br />
In 4 and 5 biological evolution enfolds societal evolution which generates its own stimuli demanding computational answers. Societal evolution will also use any unused computation power to experiment new paths such as evolving knowledge formation that leads to ever more societal complexity.
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b>Awareness evolves into consciousness
</b><br /><br />
At the intersection of biological evolution and societal evolution, when the brain reaches a certain threshold of computational power, awareness transforms into an arising consciousness. Science is still not able to explain how this operates but I feel confident that an answer will eventually be found and that it will fit this presentation.
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b>The evolution of consciousness into wisdom
<br /></b><br />
Consciousness then unleashes the search for more knowledge as a means to further alleviate suffering and eventually to gain pleasure. The thirst for knowledge formation, to alleviate the suffering of their fellow tribesmen, was the process that set the animist (wo)men of knowledge on a path toward ever increasing consciousness that eventually resulted in wisdom.
</li>
</ol>
As stated earlier I'm a thinker, by necessity, and as a thinker I feel personally satisfied by the explanatory power contained in the “life-brain-mind” trilogy that animates the 8 principles enunciated here above. This presentation satisfactorily answers all the questions I had about life and awareness.
<br /><br />
Points 1 to 5 have already been verified by science. Point 6 to 8 are still being debated by scientists but as I just wrote I feel confident that the answer procured here fits the following description :
<br />
<blockquote><blockquote><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“At the intersection of biological evolution and societal evolution when the brain reaches a certain threshold of computational power awareness arises and after reaching this threshold it transforms into an arising consciousness that engages the (wo)men of knowledge in a process of learning which procures them increasingly higher levels of comprehension and consciousness that some rare Sages among them will grow into wisdom.”
</span></i></blockquote></blockquote>
This description opens our field of vision to the true nature of consciousness which acts like a ladder :
<br />
<ol>
<li>
<b>Increased awareness that knowledge alleviates suffering
</b><br /><br />
The individuals become increasingly aware that knowledge alleviates suffering which boosts the thirst of some individuals for novelty. And the adoption of more novelty by societies increases their complexity which, in turn, fosters an increased awareness that knowledge is at the core of development.
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b>The primitive mind is an innate reflex of the nervous system
</b><br /><br />
The brain is using a high portion of all the energy available to the body. And in an innate reflex the nervous system intervenes to discharge the brain from repetitive answers to similar inputs by the body’s sensors.
<br /><br />
To discharge the brain from repetitive answers the nervous system connects its memory, of past computations and commands to the body, with repetitive inputs by the body’s sensors which results in reflexive commands of orders to the body.
<br /><br />
The individual unconscious transforms gradually into a conscious awareness of the repetitive answers of the nervous system to data collected from the bodily censors. And this newly gained conscious awareness gives rise to the conscious mind which discharges the nervous system and thus further reduces the energy consumption of the body’s processing machine.
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b>Sapience, or the interrelatedness of the individuals’ consciousness, integrates the parameters of the contextual settings in the habitat
</b><br /><br />
At a certain threshold of consciousness the individuals gain an awareness about their interrelatedness with the contextual settings in their habitat and the necessity to avoid deranging its balanced state which sustains their lives. This is called the path to sapience and sapience arises when the entire species gains the consciousness of its interrelatedness with the contextual settings in its habitat.
<br /><br />
Imbued as they are with the exceptionalism, of their cultural field, Westerners think that their species is on the top of the ladder of sapience. But “the Great Convergence of the multitude of side-effects of-Modernity in this late stage of Western Late-Modernity” is starting to awake them to their illusion.
<br /><br />
Day after day it becomes indeed more evident that Western-Modernity is irremediably destroying the habitat of life on earth. Homo-Sapiens have now reached a cross-point. Or they watch unperturbed the sacrifice of their habitat in which case their species will soon be extinct. Or they decide to act as a species to remedy the causes of the destruction of their habitat in which case they would finally do justice to the anthropologists who named their species.
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b>Universal consciousness</b>
<br /><br />
The highest ever possible level of consciousness is the universal consciousness that animism defined as “seeing through the eyes of the universal spirit” which Buddhism qualifies as being the absolute consciousness.
<br /><br />
The archetypal model of power-societies, and their paradigm of Modernity, have unfortunately broken this idea of absolute consciousness while they converted the individuals to the illusion of happiness though material possessions.
But what could this ultimate consciousness be all about ? Might it be that it comes with “seeing through the eyes of the universal spirit” as is implied in the animist tradition ? And if this proves to be true will it eventually reconcile humanity with the Whole and its own particulate nature ?
</li>
</ol>
<div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5SHSGM7d_56170nfXGdVlNPciqKCIQResMuPZXKcsMMzfg-4ck2twr-fPQWfUrjEz5LRvhxHivWGpdEcJe6z6dhgY4tUP9I3qVDk2zX_MuKiUcRj4vqUV61ZC-fY8AS4Hx8RO1EOoKvVvxTEZfbkkxPgkuWCxpP5066hRdOCsYO9cboFdRpXL/s1200/304-B2-21.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5SHSGM7d_56170nfXGdVlNPciqKCIQResMuPZXKcsMMzfg-4ck2twr-fPQWfUrjEz5LRvhxHivWGpdEcJe6z6dhgY4tUP9I3qVDk2zX_MuKiUcRj4vqUV61ZC-fY8AS4Hx8RO1EOoKvVvxTEZfbkkxPgkuWCxpP5066hRdOCsYO9cboFdRpXL/s320/304-B2-21.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />
<h2><2><u>Notes</u></2>
</h2><br />
1. <a href="http://www.acnp.org/g4/GN401000064/CH064.HTML">“</a><a href="http://www.acnp.org/g4/GN401000064/CH064.HTML">Brain Energy Metabolism. An Integrated Cellular Perspective”</a>, in American College of Neuropsychopharmacology “Psychopharmacology – The Fourth Generation of Progress”, by Pierre J. Magistretti, Luc Pellerin, and Jean-Luc Martin
<br />
<br />
2. <a 590da482458515978185945f="" and_the_question_of_human_finitude="" href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Bert-Olivier/publication/316700194_Plato_Freud_Nietzsche_the_" links="" plato-freud-nietzsche-the-soul-and-the-question-of-human-finitude.pdf="" soul="">"Plato, Freud, Nietzsche, the ‘soul’ and the question of human finitude”</a>, Phronimon: Journal of the South African Society for Greek Philosophy and the Humanities, Vol. 13 (1), 2012, pp. 77-9, by Bert Olivier. 2012-01.
<br /><br />
3. <a href="https://www.sacred-texts.com/phi/kant/critjudg.txt">"The Critique of Judgement"</a>, translated by James Creed Meredith, by Immanuel Kant. 1790.
<br /><br />
4. <a href="http://eli.johogo.com/Class/trilogy-1980.pdf">“</a><a href="http://eli.johogo.com/Class/trilogy-1980.pdf">The trilogy of mind: Cognition, affection, and conation”</a>, Journal of the History of the Behavioral 16 (1980): 107-117, by Ernest R. Hilgard
<br /><br />
5. Check <a href="https://www.psy.ox.ac.uk/people/robin-dunbar/@@files?tile=1ad19d10949847118111aa8adb48a88e">Robin Dunbar’s publications</a>. The following are available here : <a href="https://www.pdfdrive.com/grooming-gossip-and-the-evolution-of-language-d186896403.html">"</a><a href="https://www.pdfdrive.com/grooming-gossip-and-the-evolution-of-language-d186896403.html">Grooming, Gossip, and the Evolution of Language</a><a href="https://www.pdfdrive.com/grooming-gossip-and-the-evolution-of-language-d186896403.html">" </a>by Robin Dunbar. <a href="https://www.pdfdrive.com/how-many-friends-does-one-person-need-dunbars-number-and-other-evolutionary-quirks-d185554076.html">"</a><a href="https://www.pdfdrive.com/how-many-friends-does-one-person-need-dunbars-number-and-other-evolutionary-quirks-d185554076.html">How Many Friends Does One Person Need? Dunbar's Number and Other Evolutionary Quirks</a><a href="https://www.pdfdrive.com/how-many-friends-does-one-person-need-dunbars-number-and-other-evolutionary-quirks-d185554076.html">"</a> by Robin Dunbar </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /></div>
<div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpB9CuMv99zlCV98PzfsJws1rXOp6LBzSC7f05tGWQPdnsNZHAVHjzdP3NU6AWykLMGzrA_v5UfueVIv6rgEgpXWlfP8haW1yuad1xL6pbG00FwogOhbXmm2tUJdXJWgtyUnQPFat9NEHBKZwFSxuEyLao2plmF0Au8AJ_CNNhaWtldu93x4oG/s1200/304-B2-23.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpB9CuMv99zlCV98PzfsJws1rXOp6LBzSC7f05tGWQPdnsNZHAVHjzdP3NU6AWykLMGzrA_v5UfueVIv6rgEgpXWlfP8haW1yuad1xL6pbG00FwogOhbXmm2tUJdXJWgtyUnQPFat9NEHBKZwFSxuEyLao2plmF0Au8AJ_CNNhaWtldu93x4oG/s320/304-B2-23.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><2><br /></2></div>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-66431232539223190812023-08-21T16:00:00.001-04:002023-08-21T16:00:00.142-04:00Ideas emerge in the cultural field of societies<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOIxU7muiHRFu_RNhET2CIF4UxLwOo-ZNmH-6fWGkfxKs63Cr-K3PkTYcEkSbgnA9RPW42otYDbJI6Exg79SoPQQQEQrLJXpUcS40s5mkLoOc2yQAIFfx63jLqjHdBHQmaOh0svDZFVdpggKXvj6PYyQp8VTHa0LYNUQfwYC5Cy4mw4nmTd5ll/s1200/304-D3-23.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-right: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOIxU7muiHRFu_RNhET2CIF4UxLwOo-ZNmH-6fWGkfxKs63Cr-K3PkTYcEkSbgnA9RPW42otYDbJI6Exg79SoPQQQEQrLJXpUcS40s5mkLoOc2yQAIFfx63jLqjHdBHQmaOh0svDZFVdpggKXvj6PYyQp8VTHa0LYNUQfwYC5Cy4mw4nmTd5ll/s320/304-D3-23.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">
The following quote was copy-pasted from page 418 and following of "Knowledge Formation. 5.1. Ideation is rooted in the contextual substance of the societal cultural field".
<br /><br />
This 1,150 page book will be available on my website this coming 27th of August.
<br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div style="text-align: center;">
______________ </div><div style="text-align: center;"> </div><span style="user-select: text;"><a name='more'></a></span>
<br /><br />
The societal field of culture generates the contextual substance out of which emerge ideation processes. That substance is given by the interactions between the 5 different components of the societal field of culture which are (1) : </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><ol><li>The archetypal model of society</li><li>The societal paradigm</li><li>The societal worldview shared by the citizens</li><li>The foundational worldview</li><li>The societal daily culture</li></ol>
The interactions, between these 5 different components of the societal field of culture, are shaping our societal systems of logic that procure their ideations processes to the individuals.
<br /><br /> <br /><br />
<h2>1. The societal paradigm <br /></h2>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtWkYGsdRQIbrxyne_rpiLnVehyHtFkYKb2YCGtwBq50mhwaWuKqRqPFsnv4bPidLPUjlVE9ON8W3JIH3gaHZV8a35Aa--FId2i7PwyqwIrGNEkkUNySbpS8-mTS94NTqWRG3AzX6FgN9TY62nIxQBEqzeKDUIfpXBEtPTnLwOZ0cvd63f5qoc/s1200/304-D3-31.jpg" style="clear: right; display: block; float: right; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtWkYGsdRQIbrxyne_rpiLnVehyHtFkYKb2YCGtwBq50mhwaWuKqRqPFsnv4bPidLPUjlVE9ON8W3JIH3gaHZV8a35Aa--FId2i7PwyqwIrGNEkkUNySbpS8-mTS94NTqWRG3AzX6FgN9TY62nIxQBEqzeKDUIfpXBEtPTnLwOZ0cvd63f5qoc/s320/304-D3-31.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<blockquote><blockquote><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
"Societal paradigms fix the ontology of systems of knowledge formation. That’s how the field of mathematics, ontologically, is abstract rationality for its own sake just like “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation” is another abstract rationality for its own sake which gradually displaced the religious paradigm of belief in a narrative that got imposed by power.
<br /><br />
Societal, or cultural paradigms, occupy the entire field of the cultural continuum that animates the evolution of societies. They are the substance that fixes the ontology of the knowledge formation of any given society." (2)
</span></i></blockquote></blockquote>
In theory an ontology is a vision about the working of reality while a paradigm is the choice of one specific ontology among the multiple visions that are theoretically accessible. But in practice humanity does not really choose a paradigm. The paradigm is forced upon it by changing contextual settings that are no longer suitable for the old paradigm and the system of societal logic that it impulsed.
<br /><br />
We observe that the paradigm of humanity has shifted 3 times since small bands of hunter-gatherers were roaming the earth :
<br />
<ol>
<li>
<h4>Small bands shifted to the paradigm of pragmatism</h4>
From, whatever might have been their traditional paradigm, small bands of hunter-gatherers transitioned to the paradigm of pragmatism to alleviate the suffering of their individual members and this greatly eased the production of their daily life which had the effect of growing their population. And population growth had the nagging effect of destabilizing the organization of small-bands.
</li>
<li>
<h4> The shift from the tribal paradigm of pragmatism to the paradigm of religious belief shared by the power-societies in the Tri-Continental-Area</h4>
Tribes inherited the pragmatism of small bands and some 100,000 years later they were forced to accept a transition in favor of the belief in a religious narrative that fostered the acceptance by the citizens, of the privileges of a minority, that eased the reproduction of this minority’s institutions of power.
<br /><br />
As seen earlier China did not shift to a religious narrative. It did not rupture with the past and the paradigm of pragmatism was retained in continuity under the Chinese power-society.
</li>
<li>
<h4> The shift from religious paradigms to the paradigm of Modernity</h4>
The Western Christian religious paradigm eventually opened the space to the paradigm of Modernity that reads as “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”. This paradigm was so successful at enriching the capital holders who converted to it that ever more individuals were attracted to its rationality which became so successful at churning out material goods that society after society converted to it.
<br /><br />
China converted to the paradigm of Western Modernity in the second part of the 1970’s. But over the following decades the West adopted an ever more aggressive posture against that country that forced it to concentrate on its internal resilience in the fields of — the sharing of its worldview — the production of its science and technology — keeping the integrity of its production chains — the production of a successive defense against foreign aggression — the production of its food supplies — etc…
<br /><br />
But ensuring resilience, through internal self-sufficiency, implies that the country is forced to impulse its own version of certain aspects of Western-Modernity !
<br /><br />
A Chinese version of Modernity, that avoids the pitfalls of hegemony, automatically attracts the global South, which represents some 85% of the world population ! This is undoubtedly a game changer in the geopolitical arena which could possibly derail the plans of Western big capital holders, and their servants, to take ownership of the world’s natural resources.
</li>
<li>
<h4>The shift, from Western-Modernity, to what comes in After-Western-Modernity</h4>
But if it were to be successful a Chinese Modernity would rapidly be confronted with the reality of “the Great Convergence of Western Late-Modernity”. And the necessity, to convert to a new paradigm celebrating “the First Principles of Life”, would necessarily force the adoption of a new form of society focusing on the local resilience of life which is the thesis that undergirds the argument about “The transition from Western-Modernity to After-Modernity” that is the subject of this collection.
<br />
</li>
</ol>
Let’s observe here that each shift, to a new archetypal model of society was accompanied by its own paradigm that enfolded a given societal system of logic which concluded with — a new approach to knowledge formation (animism, religion, reason) — the adoption of a new model of societal organization (tribal-societies, power-societies, nation-states).
<br /><br />China did not follow that rule. It retained animism, all along, as its system of knowledge formation while its power-society, from the onset, was consecrating the cultural unity of its nation and its system of public governance.
Today “the Great Convergence of Western Late-Modernity” is informing us that the paradigm of Western Modernity is no longer adapted to the present contextual settings. The present context is one of destruction of the habitat of living species which inevitably results in a process of mass extinction. And if we want Homo-Sapiens to have a chance to survive this great convergence we will rapidly be forced to, for the 4th time, to a new societal paradigm that this time will necessarily focus on the primacy of “the First Principles of Life”. But more on that in Part 8 “A new paradigm focusing on the reason of life”. <br />
<h3> </h3><h3>1.1. Small band pragmatism originated tribal societies</h3>
The individuals, of small bands of Homo-Sapiens, were equipped biologically to generate abstractions from their observations since about 300,000 years ago. They later eventually decided to adhere to the paradigm of “pragmatism through knowledge formation”. This decision was taken after observing that knowledge helps to alleviate individual suffering in the here and now. We can only speculate about the path they took to set up a systematic process of knowledge formation. But the distance in time gives us an hindsight on the changes wrought on humanity, and on life in general, by that this process.
<br /><br />
The adoption of the paradigm of societal knowledge formation concluded with the following :
<br />
<ol>
<li>
<h4>The ontology of animism</h4><h4><span style="font-weight: normal;">The paradigm of societal knowledge formation fixed the ontology of a societal system of logic that evolved into a system of knowledge formation that we now call “animism”. From the get go the system, of societal knowledge formation, had focused on alleviating individual suffering and the easing of daily life. These targets were highly pragmatic and they projected their realism on the societal system of logic of late small bands and of the tribal societies that replaced them.
</span></h4></li>
<li>
<h4>The paradigm of knowledge formation unleashed the process of societal evolution</h4>
Animism eased the production of daily life and the population started to grow which destabilized the very small demographic sizes that bands were able to handle. And this societal destabilization forced the experimentation of new models of group organization that eventually concluded, after thousands or perhaps tens of thousands of years of trials and errors, with the tribal model of society that maximizes the efficiency of the group at an average of 150 individuals which was managed by a fission-fusion model of population control. <br /></li></ol><h3> </h3><h3>1.2. The sharing of a religious creed gave rise to power-societies</h3>
In the Volume 1 of this series we saw how chieftains were confronted to the impossibility of reproducing their institutions of power over any length of time. This is why the transition from tribal-societies to power-societies in the Tri-Continental-Area lasted a long stretch of 6,000 to 7,000 years.
<br /><br />
It was the decision of the men of power to adhere to the religious paradigm, of some men of knowledge with a large following, that finally ensured the reproduction of their power institutions over many generations. All citizens suddenly shared a common worldview which boosted their trust in each other. As a result societal groups gained in cohesion which in turn eased the reproduction of their institutions of power.
<br /><br />
The adherence to the paradigm of power-societies implied the following :
<br />
<ol>
<li>
<h4> The assembly of citizens in power-societies</h4>
The power-societies in the TCA were assembled by men of power through their use of force and cunning. This remains true to this very day. Most of the conflicts focus indeed on the defense or the acquisition of territory which includes its population. Ukraine is the last example of the Western-style application of the paradigm of power-societies.
<br /><br />
In East-Asia the passage from “Tribal Cultural Confederations” to “Power Confederations” spread over a few millennia and had thus imperceptibly transformed the symbolism of cultural unity of the Sage into a dynastic transfer of power to his son.
</li>
<li>
<h4>The sharing of a common religious narrative</h4>
The sharing of a common religious narrative, in the TCA , fostered a common vision about the working of reality that quietened the minds and instilled trust among the individuals. This boosted the cohesion of societies thus easing their institutional reproduction while securing the reproduction of the species. So religious worldviews successfully satisfied their stated mission which was the reproduction of the institutions of power. But only the animism worldview successfully reproduced the institutions of power over the long haul as is illustrated by China.
</li>
<li>
<h4> The ontology, of the knowledge formation of civilizations and the societies in their realm, is rooted in the societal paradigms of power-societies</h4>
The sharing of a common religious belief fixed the ontology of the system of knowledge formation of religious civilizations.
<br /><br />
As just indicated China was an exception. Its “Tribal Cultural Confederations” slipped imperceptibly into power-societies which ensured the continuity of animism and the execution of governance by the sage with the help of his (wo)men of knowledge. Animism fixed thus the ontology of the Chinese societal system of logic and of its system of knowledge formation.
</li>
</ol>
The paradigm of power-societies reads thus as “the assembly of citizens by force and the reproduction of the societal institutions by sharing a common societal worldview by the citizens”.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <br /><br />
<h3>1.3. Modernity emerged from the conversion to “the reason”</h3>
Sometime along the 12th century long distance Frank Merchants converted to the paradigm, of “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”. The rationality, of this paradigm gradually expanded into philosophic rationalism and science over the following 6 centuries.
<br /><br />
In other words the conversion to the paradigm of Modernity led to the following :
<br />
<ol>
<li>
<h4> The paradigm of Modernity fixed the ontology of philosophic rationalism, of science, and of classical economics</h4>
A societal paradigm imposes a societal system of logic that permeates all the endeavors of that society until it collapses. This implies that the thinking, behavior, and actions of its individuals are irremediably rooted in the system of logic that is at work in its cultural field.
<br /><br />
Having left Europe at the age of 36 I have personally experienced the resistance of the system of logic of my country of origin. Belgium has never been a nation. It was recognized as an independent state in 1831; a state that was meant to act as a buffer between France and Germany. The new state assembled regions that had traditionally been parts of France, Germany, and the Low Countries which are a historical transition territory between the ancient Germanic and Latin ethnic and cultural domains of western Europe. Born in a Flemish family I was socialized in the Zeitgeist of the Low Countries but my education in Walloonia further socialized me to the French context. This means that my cultural heritage is mostly French and accessorily Germanic.
<br /><br />
Arriving in China at age 36 my conditioning was firmly imprinted in my biology and in my mind. It took me 3 decades to absorb the essence of the “Chinese Traditional Culture”. Living with my partner Xiaohong has greatly eased my enculturation in the Chinese society but my study of the Chinese Classics has ingrained the habit in my mind to reconcile the Chinese cultural field with the Latin and Germanic cultural fields.
<br /><br />
My perception of Chinese life and culture is thus at once the result of living in the Chinese cultural field and of rationalizing it. Having lived in the Chinese cultural field for the last 36 years I feel at ease and appreciate the pragmatism that pervades its daily-culture. But my rationalization of the Chinese, of the Latin and the Germanic cultural fields, has transformed my mind into a hybrid. I feel very much at ease in any one of those cultural fields but my rationalization simultaneously distances me from them.
<br /><br />
My personal experience indicates that, once the mind has been socialized in a given cultural field, it never forgets it. The longer I have lived in the Chinese cultural field the more I have been feeling at ease in it. In other words living in another cultural field has certainly transformed me as a person but it did not transform me into “a Chinese other”.
<br /><br />
Living amidst the Chinese has forced me to grasp the system of logic, that is at work in the Chinese society which, in turn has stimulated my curiosity to deconstruct the system of logic of European societies. And this deconstruction has illuminated my mind about the cultural field of societies, its components and their continuous interactions, that form the evolutionary being of societies and the evolutionary being of their citizens.
<br />
</li>
<li>
<h4> The ideological conversion to philosophic rationalism forced the certainties of liberalism which derailed the “First Principles of Life”</h4>
The rationalist system of knowledge formation gradually destabilized the religious paradigm and later with the conversion of Western societies, during Late-Modernity to Neo-liberalism and Postmodernism, all grand narratives disintegrated.
<br /><br />
This loss of grand narratives terminated the assembly of believers in these narratives and this is when loneliness started to ravage Western social scenes. The loss of socializing was compensated by a boost of hyper-individualism that social media entrepreneurs plunged on to milk a hyper-individualist and disaffected youth.
<br /><br />
The convergence of — the disappearance of worldviews — the emergence of the societal sickness of loneliness — the fall in hyper-individualism and consumerism — and the rise of social-media exploded into a radical societal atomization3 that separated the individuals from one another, from their society, and ultimately from the traditional authorities of their power-societies. This separation of the individuals is atomizing their societies which implies that the latter are no longer capable of handling whatever grand project like the fight against Covid-19, like the re-shoring of production activities, or like a world-war for that matter ! The consequences of societal atomization are thus inevitably world-changing. But very few people seem to have noticed !
<br /><br />
Big capital holders certainly did not miss to be reminded of this by their servants and they sized societal atomization as an opportunity to push an agenda portending depopulation, through Artificial Intelligence and robotization, that brings them in a frontal collision with “the first Principles of Life”. This collision adds a whole new dimension to “the Great Convergence of Late-Modernity” (4).
</li></ol></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><h3> </h3><h3>1.4. What comes after Modernity will emerge from the necessity to convert to “the First Principles of Life”</h3>
“The Great Convergence, of the numerous side-effects of Western-Modernity,” is confronting us with a slew of thresholds that will inevitably result in tipping points. And each of these tipping points has the potential to unleash a new Geo-bio-chemical cycle. What is disturbing, to say the least, is that a new Geo-bio-chemical equilibrium is irreversible. This means that there will be no return to the present Geo-bio-chemical equilibrium which, for our species, implies high risks of societal destabilization that could eventually lead to high risks of extinction.
<br /><br />
This reality is well known by the scientists who are specialized in the earth sciences. The multitude of scientific publications, on the mechanisms leading to tipping-points, is attesting the risks that are involved. But the fact is that other parameters of “The Great Convergence of Late-Modernity”, like the Western societal atomization and the crumbling of the western built world-order, are paralyzing the world institutions. And so the risks, of nearing tipping points, is not being addressed with the necessary urgency that would be required to prepare the human species to the emergence of such world-changing events.
<br /><br />
The fact that human activities are already in the process of unleashing inevitable world-changing Geo-bio-chemical equilibria, while the Geopolitical context is impeaching our species to elaborate the necessary answers, this fact indicates that one or another of these new Geo-bio-chemical equilibria will most probably one day force ruptures, in our vital societal systems, that will force us to find an alternative societal paradigm.
<br /><br />
This implies that we could soon be forced to experiment, new models of societal organization and new models of knowledge formation, in order to survive. But the biggest risk that confronts our species is the speed at which these Geo-bio-chemical processes are unfolding. All living species adapt to changing contexts but when the changes emerge faster than the capacity of a species to adapt that species goes extinct !
<br /><br />
Seen that we are confronted with nothing short of a world-wide mass extinction event our next societal paradigm will necessarily try to reconcile our species with “the First Principles of Life”.
<br /><br /><br /><br />
<h2>2. The societal worldview shared by the citizens</h2>
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The traditional animist view was that no society can survive, for any serious length of time, without the sharing by its citizens of a common worldview or grand narrative about the working of reality and the place of the citizens in it. I share that view and I laid out the role of worldviews in the reproduction of the species in the Volume 1 of this series “The Continuum of the Cultural Field”.
<br /><br />
Species have two major objectives :
<br />
<ol>
<li><h4>They want to maximize the chances of their reproduction over the long haul</h4></li><li><h4>They want to maximize the complexity of their societies
</h4></li>
</ol>
The more complexity in the working of societies the higher are the chances they they will have a richer culture and this, in turn, implies that the richer will be the knowledge of such societies.
<br /><br />
But to remain operational complexity must adhere to the “First Principles of Life”. These first principles keep complexity within the boundaries of life which implies that the complexity has to fit within the program of the Whole or U. In other words complexity must at all time be compatible with reproduction ! But the fact is that our Late-Modern mad rush, to churn out ever newer technological iterations of all kinds of non-essential gadgets, is not any bit concerned about its compatibility with the reproduction of the species.
<br /><br />
The actors of Artificial Intelligence deny this compatibility principle by positing that AI and robotics are part of the natural evolution of Homo-Sapiens. The only problem with this affirmation is that all living species are composed of organic individual beings. This is not the case of mechanical robots that are controlled by an artificial intelligence.
<br /><br />
These are inorganic human creations that don’t fit in the biological field of reproduction over the long haul.
Human hubris might think that, over time, scientists will succeed to equip their creations with the necessary software to let them replicate. But natural evolution has been testing biological evolution and the production of novelty for some 3.5 billion years ! And the species in existence today represent less than 1% of all the species that have ever existed ! In contrast artificial intelligence and robotics are merely a few decades old and their approach is furthermore not compatible with biological evolution which started with the reproduction of unicellular organisms :
<br />
<blockquote><blockquote><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“Scientists are discovering ways in which single cells might have evolved traits that entrenched them into group behavior, paving the way for multicellular life. These discoveries could shed light on how complex extraterrestrial life might evolve on alien worlds.
Researchers detailed these findings in the October 24, 2016 issue of the journal Science.
The first known single-celled organisms appeared on Earth about 3.5 billion years ago, roughly a billion years after Earth formed. More complex forms of life took longer to evolve, with the first multicellular animals not appearing until about 600 million years ago.
The evolution of multicellular life from simpler, unicellular microbes was a pivotal moment in the history of biology on Earth and has drastically reshaped the planet’s ecology. However, one mystery about multicellular organisms is why cells did not return back to single-celled life.
‘Unicellularity is clearly successful — unicellular organisms are much more abundant than multicellular organisms, and have been around for at least an additional 2 billion years,’ said lead study author Eric Libby, a mathematical biologist at the Santa Fe Institute in New Mexico. “So what is the advantage to being multicellular and staying that way?”
The answer to this question is usually cooperation, as cells benefited more from working together than they would from living alone. However, in scenarios of cooperation, there are constantly tempting opportunities “for cells to shirk their duties — that is, cheat,” Libby said. “ (5)
</span></i></blockquote></blockquote>
The observation of the facts of life leads to the following conclusions :
<br />
<ol>
<li>
<h4> Scientific knowings, while numerous, are barely scratching the surface of the Whole’s reality </h4>
</li>
<li>
<h4> Any complexity that delves outside of the boundaries of “the First Principles of Life” is merely noise</h4>
As noise it will eventually get erased for being of no utility, or for being a nuisance, to the working of the species and of the whole.
<br /><br />
Einstein's idea that “god does not play dice” was rooted in this assumption which can be summed up as follows. Everything in U has a function which implies that what has no function is useless and is eventually disturbing the harmony. And in this sense what is useless gets booted out of the system.
</li>
<li>
<h4> What is abundantly clear is that the rationality of Western-Modernity resides outside of the “First Principles of Life”</h4>
</li></ol>
And because the rationality of Western-Modernity resides outside of the “First Principles of Life” it is most often in contradiction with these first principles which implies that the complexity generated by Modernity is nothing short of noise in the grand scheme of things.
<br /><br />
The role of shared worldviews is to maximize the two major objectives of life, or of its substantiation in living species, and in light of this the “Great Convergence of Late-Modernity” is a ‘no go’ that destroys life. Religions at least recognized that the societal ‘here and now’ has to fit with god’s plans or in other words with the working of U or the Whole.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">The only problem with religious narratives is that their ideological certainty, to detain the truth, has always put their adherents in the crosshair of the adherents of other narratives which often resulted in separation and wars.
The same can’t be said of traditional animism which was not fashioned in ideological terms but in the long haul observation of the correlations between the patterns detected in the habitat with the patterns detected in the movements of the cosmic spheres.
<br /><br /><br /><br />
<h2>3. The foundational worldview</h2>
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A foundational worldview is the narrative of a societal vision of the world that is grounding a new model of society into a specific system of logic. And this societal system of logic is destined to prevail over the entire span of that model of society. It is rooted in a given societal paradigm and the axioms derived from its foundational worldview.
<br /><br />
The paradigm, of the societies participating in the realm of the Western civilization, was inherited from the passing Roman empire which had forced :
<br />
<ol>
<li>
<h4>The unification of the creed of Christianity
</h4></li>
<li><h4>
The sharing of Christianity as the official religion of the empire
</h4></li>
<li><h4>
The violent eradication of all other worldviews
</h4></li>
<li><h4>
The loss of its territorial realm after the collapse of the empire compelled Western Christianity to focus on controlling the territory of the Franks
</h4></li>
</ol>
In the process Christianity had acquired the certainty of being the exclusive belief system to have access to the truth. This certainty did not suffer any competition.
<br /><br />
This certainly also distinguished Western Christianity from most other religions which accepted to coexist with other belief systems. Another unique characteristic of Western Christianity is that, when the Western Empire collapsed by the end of the 5th century, it lost the control over the North-African church as well as the Balkan church and part of the Italian church. This is the contextual setting in which it passed under the tutelage of the Eastern Empire. So the Roman papacy thought that it urgently needed a new base of followers to resist the pressure of the Eastern Orthodoxy and, in the context of Western Europe at the time, the territory of the Franks appeared to be Rome’s best bet.
<br /><br />
The paradigm of Western societies originated in this specific context of exclusivity that pitted the Christianity of the Franks against all other worldviews and this resulted in historical genocides all over the world.
<br /><br />
The political necessity for Rome, at the time of the fall of the empire, was to assemble a following of believers in the Frankish parts of Europe and this justified :
<br />
<ol>
<li>
<b>An all out elimination of the visual signs of the other worldviews that resisted being converted to Christianity </b>
</li>
<br />
<li>
<b>A constant proselytization by the Franks, and by the institutions of the church, of the Western Christian creed.
</b>
</li>
</ol>
All this imprinted a habit in the minds of Western European Christians to manhandle the people who shared other belief systems which culminated in the forced conversions of indigenous people during the voyages of great discoveries and the colonial period that followed.
<br /><br /><br /><br />
<h2>4. The daily culture of societies</h2> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ocs6z5W3nsxt1eRibQ5qeMEmrtZQ237tAG3cayL5NnBE5zCNDIghtLgPlB9TwvRgkKHFd0HDFJoE_ByN_C8DUdglNNBOksM44NT4V4IToDVCd89R1HA61uAHCoK2hbdAGB27NCiL0zHCMbv9siEyKyXb2p1B_kTTQe1lnhsFb2jfVaovImZi/s1200/304-D2-32.jpg" style="clear: right; display: block; float: right; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-ocs6z5W3nsxt1eRibQ5qeMEmrtZQ237tAG3cayL5NnBE5zCNDIghtLgPlB9TwvRgkKHFd0HDFJoE_ByN_C8DUdglNNBOksM44NT4V4IToDVCd89R1HA61uAHCoK2hbdAGB27NCiL0zHCMbv9siEyKyXb2p1B_kTTQe1lnhsFb2jfVaovImZi/s320/304-D2-32.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
By the daily-culture of societies I mean the entirety of the thinking, actions and behaviors, of all citizens at any given time. This definition of daily-culture, in the largest sense, includes the economic and social behaviors, the formation of knowledge, the arts, the habitual domain of culture, etc…
<br /><br />
Contrary to commonly held Western beliefs the societal daily-culture is not the outcome of the will of the people. It is merely the outcome of the synchronization of their present contextual settings with the continuum of the cultural field of their societies. Culture, in other words, acts more like the field of culture of the societies in which the individuals live.
<br /><br />
Culture is an emergent field that substantiates in the present as the daily-culture. The daily-culture is given by the societal truths contained in — the archetypal model of society — the paradigm of society — the foundation worldview and its axioms. Daily-culture also evolves as a result of its constant interactions and synchronization with the historical worldview.
<br /><br />
This uninterrupted synchronization cycle of the daily-culture unleashes a longer synchronization cycle of the historical worldview with the memes that replicate over the long haul in the daily-culture. Memes are replicating societal mutations that are synchronized in the historical worldview of societies which forms the substance of societal evolution. This synchronization is an analogy to genes that replicate biological mutations. Replicating genes are synchronized in the DNA-RNA code of the biology of living species and this action forms the substance of biological evolution. This process unleashes the evolution of societies that I earlier qualified as the internal evolution of the archetypal model of society.
<br /><br />
This constant filling of the citizens’ minds with the substance of their cultural field, — archetypal model of society— societal paradigm — foundational worldview and axioms of civilization — historical worldview — daily-culture, is modulating the individual’s perception about their present contextual settings.
<br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqi2xcGdfiIkzIBMV12JNK0h9fofvHvcJwijrLlqXoiD7EQFj94DLc-lVoQjCkhkJYtEEN6UOsI9VVatzoWAfb19vLM5GofWOcoWED1YthWxME47RIxctvovObCGrh-N6aLuVPTV5RYWntnN5ud40zvyVlKXggm88pcCSEFD0k8qGfFFBRjFnR/s1200/304-D2-24.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqi2xcGdfiIkzIBMV12JNK0h9fofvHvcJwijrLlqXoiD7EQFj94DLc-lVoQjCkhkJYtEEN6UOsI9VVatzoWAfb19vLM5GofWOcoWED1YthWxME47RIxctvovObCGrh-N6aLuVPTV5RYWntnN5ud40zvyVlKXggm88pcCSEFD0k8qGfFFBRjFnR/s320/304-D2-24.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<h2><2>Notes</2></h2><h2><2></2></h2><2><br />
1. </2>See “<a href="#2.4.2. An ontological approach">2.4.2. An ontological approach of knowledge formation</a>” See also the following <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicola_Guarino/publication/226279556_What_Is_an_Ontology/links/0912f5051ab2f9d39d000000/What-Is-an-Ontology.pdf">"What Is an Ontology ?"</a><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicola_Guarino/publication/226279556_What_Is_an_Ontology/links/0912f5051ab2f9d39d000000/What-Is-an-Ontology.pdf"> </a>by Nicola Guarino, Daniel Oberle, and Steffen Staab. <a href="https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2050/FOUST_paper_13.pdf">“</a><a href="https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2050/FOUST_paper_13.pdf">On the Definition of ‘Ontology’”</a><a href="https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-2050/FOUST_paper_13.pdf"> </a> by Fabian Neuhaus.
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2.</2> See “The great turning. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/022Turning.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A5365%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C42.5%2C490.951%2C0%5D">10.2.3. paradigms shape systems of knowledge </a><a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/022Turning.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A5365%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C42.5%2C490.951%2C0%5D">formation</a>”. <style type="text/css">p.sdfootnote-western { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; font-family: "Ubuntu Condensed"; font-size: 10pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; background: transparent; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-cjk { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; background: transparent; font-family: "Source Han Sans CN Regular"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-ctl { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; background: transparent; font-family: "Lohit Devanagari"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; background: transparent; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 4.99mm; margin-bottom: 0mm; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.western { font-family: "Ubuntu"; font-size: 13pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.cjk { font-family: "Arial", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.ctl { font-family: "FreeSans", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }a:visited { color: #800000; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:visited { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:visited { so-language: zxx }a:link { color: #000080; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:link { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:link { so-language: zxx }</style><br /><2><br />
3. </2>Societal atomization. See Volume 2 “Modernity 02. Part 4. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A5986%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C625.051%2C0%5D">4.10. </a><a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A5986%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C625.051%2C0%5D">T</a><a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A5986%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C625.051%2C0%5D">he cultural continuum breaks down</a>”
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4. </2>The Great Convergence of Late-Modernity. See Volume 2 “Modernity 02. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/01Continuum.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A4273%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C174.2%2C274.6%2C0%5D">Part 2. Great Convergence of late-Modernity</a>”</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">5. <a href="https://astrobiology.nasa.gov/news/how-did-multicellular-life-evolve/">"How Did Multicellular Life Evolve?"</a>, NASA Astrobiology, by Charles Q. Choi. 2017-02-13 <style type="text/css">p.sdfootnote-western { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; font-family: "Ubuntu Condensed"; font-size: 10pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; background: transparent; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-cjk { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; background: transparent; font-family: "Source Han Sans CN Regular"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-ctl { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; background: transparent; font-family: "Lohit Devanagari"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; background: transparent; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 4.99mm; margin-bottom: 0mm; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.western { font-family: "Ubuntu"; font-size: 13pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.cjk { font-family: "Arial", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.ctl { font-family: "FreeSans", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }a:visited { color: #800000; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:visited { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:visited { so-language: zxx }a:link { color: #000080; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:link { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:link { so-language: zxx }</style></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><2></2></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><2></2></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><2></2></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><2></2></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><2><br /><br /></2></div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihM3boKqT5Am3JNoLHq2IG5IG2hQnb4xboyfcEOpE8y2ay9r_YAQljuEuQ-s1ZS3bai9dUdZ1w8ApmXVEYvNXuLFgSIGMUSpSwEsrCoDT24iEWnzM7A6bJ4mFY-ZQ036wV4hdUcQZ3nlte3xRypa7uKZdw0uyvPK2OIfW1uEcESF8auWLn2Zih/s1200/304-D2-22.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihM3boKqT5Am3JNoLHq2IG5IG2hQnb4xboyfcEOpE8y2ay9r_YAQljuEuQ-s1ZS3bai9dUdZ1w8ApmXVEYvNXuLFgSIGMUSpSwEsrCoDT24iEWnzM7A6bJ4mFY-ZQ036wV4hdUcQZ3nlte3xRypa7uKZdw0uyvPK2OIfW1uEcESF8auWLn2Zih/s320/304-D2-22.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><2><br /></2></div>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-9440876268435483002023-08-19T16:00:00.011-04:002023-08-19T16:00:00.139-04:00Societal paradigms and societal knowledge formation
<div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAqT8DlUOFloIhJipo42fr7omgQoTiaCKzs8LfxU4VowGjIPNzEGpqO-bo8uy2JSZSSck0BdHFV68006BbaaTgzwmCjcC6L4JCfmuLDYcr5Y-2znSd1mFz-G4ODL7KKORVa7DBV2UyJ3Ida9fVL4MUYfXeptqkmIx3pJVnhkwe4h8_SRAw39X-/s1200/304-B4-33.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhAqT8DlUOFloIhJipo42fr7omgQoTiaCKzs8LfxU4VowGjIPNzEGpqO-bo8uy2JSZSSck0BdHFV68006BbaaTgzwmCjcC6L4JCfmuLDYcr5Y-2znSd1mFz-G4ODL7KKORVa7DBV2UyJ3Ida9fVL4MUYfXeptqkmIx3pJVnhkwe4h8_SRAw39X-/s320/304-B4-33.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> The following quote was copy-pasted from page 185 and following of "Knowledge Formation. 2.4. paradigms and societal knowledge formation".
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This 1,150 page book will be available on my website this 27th of August.
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</div><span style="user-select: text;"><a name='more'></a></span>
<br /><br /> </div><div style="text-align: justify;">In “The Continuum of the Cultural Field” I examined how societal paradigms are fixing the ontology of knowledge and culture :
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<blockquote><blockquote><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
<ol>
<li>
The paradigm of tribal societies, and animism, was pragmatism or the focus on the ability to minimize the suffering of the individuals. The well-being of the individual was thus at the core of the paradigm of tribal societies.
</li>
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<li>The paradigm of power-societies, and religions, is belief in a religious narrative which was instrumental to the reproduction of power institutions. The justification of power and its reproduction in the hands of the men of power is at the core of the paradigm of power-societies.
</li>
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<li>The paradigm of Modernity is “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”. This reason is the essence of capital which is at the core of rationalism and science.
</li>
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<li>The predicament of humanity that results from “the Great Convergence of Late-Modernity” is now forcing humanity to adopt a new narrative rooted in “the First Principles of Life”. (1)
</li>
</ol>
</span></i></blockquote></blockquote>
As established in part 1 the truth about the reality of the whole Universe, in which we are such tiny particles, is not directly accessible to Homo-Sapiens. This is constraining the large majority, of individuals of the species, to situate themselves in the perspective that is given by the cultural field of their society. In other words the near totality of humans are followers of the societal status quo.
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And this applies also, in this Late-Modernity, to the advocates of scientism who posit that science will solve any problem that the species may encounter. In their case they blindly follow the paradigm of Modernity without having the slightest idea that this paradigm exists at all which illustrates the point about “followers of the societal status quo”.
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The fact is that we all live in the continuum of the cultural field of the society we live in. Even the members, of the managing technocracy, who are at the service of the dwindling Western hegemony and who live much of their time hopping from one country to the next, think, behave, and act according to the credo of their employers which is part of the continuum of the cultural field of their society.
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<h2>1. A historical approach</h2> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Ju-WownOorGDNMpku7LAhN4J9o01GP7LnbpmWUcDnD8d5LVcL7prVsI7uPCAF9UdzQpkBOO5ENhOgIIO50IwjEVhVlMwwS0UVrATTahBSREqiJsody_s8GYDYIrRhddDYnzW3_PEOvABKCBtMuFEQqbUu1BTkgJnlSv4Xsp3fJ_o3E0f5aSb/s1200/304-B4-43.jpg" style="clear: right; display: block; float: right; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 10px; margin-top: -30px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-Ju-WownOorGDNMpku7LAhN4J9o01GP7LnbpmWUcDnD8d5LVcL7prVsI7uPCAF9UdzQpkBOO5ENhOgIIO50IwjEVhVlMwwS0UVrATTahBSREqiJsody_s8GYDYIrRhddDYnzW3_PEOvABKCBtMuFEQqbUu1BTkgJnlSv4Xsp3fJ_o3E0f5aSb/s320/304-B4-43.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
Our ancestors, who most of us Moderns view as primitives, survived the very harsh and unstable climate conditions of recurring cyclical cycles of glaciation that were interrupted approximately every 100,000 years by an abrupt climate warming that created the conditions for inter-glacial periods of some 10 to 15,000 years.
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They survived because they conscientiously adhered to the laws of nature and to the rules of biology that governed their bodies. Once biological evolution had completed, sometime 300,000 years ago, the addition of a new layer to their brains, in the form of a Neo-cortex, they gained the capability to induce abstractions from their observations. This eventually allowed them to start a process of knowledge formation sometime 130,000 years ago or perhaps even earlier.
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What is important to remember for us moderns is that, for our ancestors, knowledge had to have pragmatic uses. Knowledge that did not have such pragmatic uses was considered superfluous and discarded. The emergence of power societies in the Tri-Continental-Area, some 120,000 years later, ruptured with this pragmatism.
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In a first phase, that started some 5,000 years ago with cities, kingdoms and Early-Empires, knowledge was made to serve the men of power and the men of knowledge. And its nature eventually morphed into an instrument to consolidate and manage power institutions that took the form of religions and empires. This is when written language emerged and the first registrations methods acted the inbound and outbound taxes and food resources.
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In a second phase, starting some 900 years ago, knowledge was made to serve Western European long distance merchants and so emerged the paradigm of Modernity which is “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”.
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In both, of its power-society phases, knowledge got separated from its holistic nature and got instrumentalized to serve special interests.
<br /><br />
Because the consolidation of power institutions in East-Asia got realized, by the animist (wo)men of knowledge, the pragmatism of knowledge survived in what is called the “Chinese Traditional Culture” and its scholastic of the Dao that imposed a governance in the interests of the people which resulted in high levels of societal cohesion that eased the reproduction of the societal institutions of power. And when the corruption of pragmatism by special interests destabilized the people’s production of their daily lives they changed the dynasty…
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<h3>1.1. The following factors are at work in the continuum of the cultural field of the societies sharing Western Late-Modernity</h3>
<ol>
<li><h4>
The paradigm of belief, in a religious narrative, had posited that it is the repository of all truth.
</h4>
The justification of the privileges of power initiated social inequality. By this Late-Modernity the narrative has largely disappeared but its justification of the privileges of power and the resulting social inequality remain stuck in the minds…
</li>
<li><h4>
Atomization of Western societies.
</h4>
The master axiom of, the Western civilization, is dualism. The Christian worldview, or its remnants that have been absorbed by the morality and legal systems of Western power-societies, are shared by the population at large. In this Western-Late-Modernity the individuals lost their societal worldview and this separated them from all aspects of their societies and also from one another which resulted in the atomization of Western societies meaning that these societies are no longer unified entities that can undertake any large scale national projects successfully.
</li>
<li><h4>The paradigm of Modernity reads as “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”</h4></li>
<li><h4>The “reason” extended into philosophic rationalism, science, economism and the liberal ideology that propagandizes those.
</h4></li>
</ol>
In the rest of the world these factors got modulated societally by their original paradigm, the foundational worldview the civilization, and the particularities of these societies’ conversion to Western Modernity.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<h3>1.2. In the case of China this modulation entails the following factors</h3>
<ol>
<li>
<h4> The paradigm of pragmatism eases the reproduction of the species </h4>
This paradigm focuses on the alleviation of individual suffering which puts the satisfaction of the people at the center of the preoccupation of governance. Pragmatism satisfies the individuals while strengthening the cohesion of society thus easing its reproduction as well as that of the species.
</li>
<li>
<h4>The master axiom, of the foundational worldview of the Chinese civilization, was animism</h4>
The master axiom is given, by the complementary polarities of all entities and their derivatives. It is shared by the population at large and pervades the “Chinese Traditional Culture” in all fields of daily life.
</li>
<li>
<h4>The conversion to the paradigm of Modernity in 1978 was intended to save the Chinese nation from the coming onslaught of a Western globalization.</h4>
The Chinese leadership under Deng Xiao Ping had become aware that Western big capital holders were expanding the reach of the investments to the whole world and feared that the survival of the Chinese nation would be at stake. So, in order to save its existence from the globalization of the reach of Western capital, they decided to rapidly build up the power of their country by opening the country while reforming its internal approach of the economy.
</li>
<li>
<h4>By 2010 the country had reached the necessary power to defend itself and it embarked on two parallel tracks</h4>
— The elimination of all the fat that accompanied the conversion to the paradigm of Modernity.
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— The focus on a return to the roots of the “Chinese Traditional Culture”.
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Both these tasks were intended to shift the country from its adherence to Western-Modernity to a Chinese-Modernity that is intended to rejuvenate the Chinese nation. The contrast with Western Modernity, was furthermore thought, to inspire the liberation of the global South from the shackles of Western hegemony which is the condition for its true indigenous development.
</li>
</ol>
<br /><br />
This notion of a shift from Western-Modernity, to a Chinese-Modernity, needs a deep dive in the essence of the last iteration of the paradigm of Western Modernity which reads as “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money, debt or nature, into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”. I plan on doing this in “Part 8. The urgent necessity to adapt humanity’s ways to The reason that is at work in the first Principles of Life”.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <br /><br /><br /><br />
<h2>2. An ontological approach </h2> <div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAGrvmGDqiCbp3pV0CkUqvr18dZ4adj9qur_0SQxaWXZj6CdjjhTKehf_r4Qq3mjEvOY6gpZtevow8KlkuDpz_5hj0ToDnCnf0y9Xph4ikaPfK_PIK4_Olb0lRQmeV-Wka42d8KGVioxnRXU1JlZmPMNgqBPzGq5-Kz6FlJ4DRSOZvtAc53N-B/s1200/304-C1-11.jpg" style="argin-left: 10px; clear: right; display: block; float: right; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-left: 10px; margin-top: -35px; padding: 0px; text-align: center;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAGrvmGDqiCbp3pV0CkUqvr18dZ4adj9qur_0SQxaWXZj6CdjjhTKehf_r4Qq3mjEvOY6gpZtevow8KlkuDpz_5hj0ToDnCnf0y9Xph4ikaPfK_PIK4_Olb0lRQmeV-Wka42d8KGVioxnRXU1JlZmPMNgqBPzGq5-Kz6FlJ4DRSOZvtAc53N-B/s320/304-C1-11.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
The word “ontology” is used with different senses in different communities. The most radical difference is perhaps between the philosophical sense, which has of course a well-established tradition, and the computational sense…
Unlike the experimental sciences, which aim at discovering and modeling reality under a certain perspective, Ontology focuses on the nature and structure of things per se, independently of any further considerations, and even independently of their actual existence. (2)
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I use the word “societal ontology” in its traditional philosophical sense of the roots and the nature of reality for us humans, that was in application in the 4 successive phases of societal evolution : — small bands — tribal/animism, — power-religious or philosophy narrative, — power-Modernity. A “societal ontology” is rooted in a societal paradigm that over time develops into a body of knowledge having its own coherence and rationality.
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A societal paradigm is a big picture view that emerges, in conditions of chaos, as a better solution for the working of some societal activities, than the traditional paradigm, that gradually expands to other societal aspects. Thomas Kuhn writes the following about the emergence of a new scientific paradigm.
<br /><blockquote><blockquote>
<span style="font-family: courier;"><i>“Almost always the men who achieve these fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change. And perhaps that point need not have been made explicit, for obviously these are the men who, being little committed by prior practice to the traditional rules of normal science, are particularly likely to see that those rules no longer define a playable game and to conceive another set that can replace them.”</i> </span>(3)
</blockquote></blockquote>
This idea that the initiators of new scientific paradigms are those who are “being little committed by prior practice to the traditional rules” is certainly worth our attention and seems to find confirmation in the sheer lack of imagination of present Western decision-making circles. This means ultimately that, in the chaos of this Late-Modernity, a new societal paradigm will most probably emerge on the fringe of societies where individuals and groups experiment new approaches of daily life and of societal organization.
<br /><br />
But we should remain conscious about the fact that the new paradigm of After-Modernity will most probably emerge by necessity at the juncture of — a worldwide institutional break-down that forces an existential leap in the unknown — and the great convergence of the numerous side-effects of Western-Modernity that are unleashing a mass extinction of life on earth.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div style="text-align: center;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrr2PjVWF9rlKRbQOxdkxTE3zPHvkJwNZZ2QFHHVuHZ0nmqhyG0MM3hHnuPCeJoZZgpn1W0rvP8sYJprEHdIVrJKgz0ik-qHBrZNqSSn3RRNgD37Mf1pFMQzwLmaBlQblFo_6N_C0pEsoWpcnrZUw_Ij_hy7cLmcdNhaU83rXcAVTP2j0JjJY9/s1200/304-C1-33.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrr2PjVWF9rlKRbQOxdkxTE3zPHvkJwNZZ2QFHHVuHZ0nmqhyG0MM3hHnuPCeJoZZgpn1W0rvP8sYJprEHdIVrJKgz0ik-qHBrZNqSSn3RRNgD37Mf1pFMQzwLmaBlQblFo_6N_C0pEsoWpcnrZUw_Ij_hy7cLmcdNhaU83rXcAVTP2j0JjJY9/s320/304-C1-33.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br />
<h2><u>Notes</u></h2>
<br />
1. "The Great Turning. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/022Turning.pdf?i=1#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A4844%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C42.5%2C622.201%2C0%5D"></a><a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/022Turning.pdf?i=1#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A4844%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C42.5%2C622.201%2C0%5D">10.1. The reason for being</a>"
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2. <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226279556_What_Is_an_Ontology">"What Is an Ontology?"</a><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/226279556_What_Is_an_Ontology">,</a> article published by ResearchGate from the book “Handbook on Ontologies” (pp.1-17), by Nicola Guarino, Daniel Oberle, and Steffen Staab. May 2009 <style type="text/css">p.sdfootnote-western { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; font-family: "Ubuntu Condensed"; font-size: 10pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; background: transparent; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-cjk { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; background: transparent; font-family: "Source Han Sans CN Regular"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-ctl { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; background: transparent; font-family: "Lohit Devanagari"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; background: transparent; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 4.99mm; margin-bottom: 0mm; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.western { font-family: "Ubuntu"; font-size: 13pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.cjk { font-family: "Arial", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.ctl { font-family: "FreeSans", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }a:visited { color: #800000; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:visited { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:visited { so-language: zxx }a:link { color: #000080; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:link { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:link { so-language: zxx }</style><br /><br />
3. <a href="https://www.pdfdrive.com/the-structure-of-scientific-revolutions-e185571457.html">“</a><a href="https://www.pdfdrive.com/the-structure-of-scientific-revolutions-e185571457.html">The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”</a>, University of Chicago Press, by Thomas Kuhn.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> <style type="text/css">p.sdfootnote-western { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; font-family: "Ubuntu Condensed"; font-size: 10pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; background: transparent; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-cjk { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; background: transparent; font-family: "Source Han Sans CN Regular"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-ctl { font-variant: normal; color: #4e1c00; background: transparent; font-family: "Lohit Devanagari"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: italic; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; margin-bottom: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; background: transparent; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 4.99mm; margin-bottom: 0mm; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.western { font-family: "Ubuntu"; font-size: 13pt; so-language: en-US; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.cjk { font-family: "Arial", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.ctl { font-family: "FreeSans", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }a:visited { color: #800000; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:visited { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:visited { so-language: zxx }a:link { color: #000080; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:link { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:link { so-language: zxx }</style></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN8ULDFF6d38fG5SeVrAsn8TWnBYhRQiTIGI9pFfxhWDOhWBmnvHbLOcNTOolcV6En08PUFOHniHIQGqO5B5OrjlNk9YhtlFxN9K4-dFyl2iQNHV8WAQU3wS2dy9xwArQHKGXGPyaNehT5nZURGOU4bIlQvJMtzCqiXPRLzZvapqh8I7gBnSAf/s1200/304-C1-34.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiN8ULDFF6d38fG5SeVrAsn8TWnBYhRQiTIGI9pFfxhWDOhWBmnvHbLOcNTOolcV6En08PUFOHniHIQGqO5B5OrjlNk9YhtlFxN9K4-dFyl2iQNHV8WAQU3wS2dy9xwArQHKGXGPyaNehT5nZURGOU4bIlQvJMtzCqiXPRLzZvapqh8I7gBnSAf/s320/304-C1-34.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-29488082573271014242023-08-17T16:00:00.000-04:002023-08-17T16:00:00.137-04:00Knowledge and Pragmatism <div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXozHaCr_VfLGZMWhyMVj7d8LYCw-drO4LRb3qrK9S8hEDzjdElcLYNm1pKbiRJ8e80LoIg2MO-6VK1TVTYodZrFhYOplzXJh3FKVaKFCZyLswTUURGXPfRabgZg2z3u40p2xHFeU5vWyfBC5ei09I741-3B7xuPVItd0NheqW2ro48m9fWYzf/s1200/304-B2-22.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXozHaCr_VfLGZMWhyMVj7d8LYCw-drO4LRb3qrK9S8hEDzjdElcLYNm1pKbiRJ8e80LoIg2MO-6VK1TVTYodZrFhYOplzXJh3FKVaKFCZyLswTUURGXPfRabgZg2z3u40p2xHFeU5vWyfBC5ei09I741-3B7xuPVItd0NheqW2ro48m9fWYzf/s320/304-B2-22.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div>The following quote was copy-pasted from page 347 and following of "Knowledge Formation. 4.2.2. Knowledge and Pragmatism". </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">This 1,150 page book will be available on my website this 27th of August.</div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;">______________ <br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><span style="user-select: text;"><a name='more'></a></span>
<div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /> </div></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">The real value of knowledge resides in its capability to enhance the well-being of the individuals which facilitates the march of their societies towards more complexity. And a higher societal complexity eventually projects its refinement further to the whole species. That's why the production of knowledge has always appeared to be such an important driver of human societies.
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The corollary, of this pragmatism in knowledge formation, is that knowledge that does not improve or protect the lives of the individuals and their societies, is of no use to their species. Such knowledge is detached from “the First Principles of Life” and the fact is that, when life gets tough for the individuals and their societies, the knowledge that is of no use to a species always ends up being discarded.
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Evolution is indeed not only a process of mutation and change; it is also a cleaning process that discards what is non-essential to the life of a specie. The gluing of the citizens' minds, in order to enhance the cohesion of their society, is the perfect example of what pragmatism is all about and the Artificial Intelligence, that promises a post-humanist paradise, is the perfect example of a technology that will get discarded by “the First Principles of Life” after the great convergence of Late-Modernity shakes societal life into collapse.
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Speaking about pragmatism does not relate to how we apply a doctrine or an ideology into present daily life as was largely implied in past theories about pragmatism. The pragmatism I'm talking about here addresses what the human species considers to be the essence of life and how societies act to ease the being of the individuals by minimizing their suffering.
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The individuals and their societal groups constitute the complementary polarities of species. And the evolution of a species is given by the sum of all interactions between their polarities. These interactions result in the specie's existential answers to its contextual settings. So the pragmatism I have in mind here relates to how individuals and societal groupings act to maximize their well-being by reducing individual suffering. And all this is encoded in “the First Principles of Life” (1).
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But we should always remember the fact that well-being can eventually enter negative territory when an imbalance in the interactions between individuals and their group takes place or when societies separate from “the First Principles of Life”. So when I refer to pragmatic knowledge this relates to the perception by individual minds about what actions are working, and what actions are not working, in the context of their habitat.
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Here is a first attempt at a classification of the parameters of pragmatism for the human species and I suggest that it is also largely valid for any other living species albeit after being expressed in the specific terms of their different contexts.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4OgUmxSIgslciU3kSs4epUwt8oMO4-sXWQVSXW-MYbPJo-8jt1Wdw1BzXCct8hFvbuHChBC5AViquYsMtVeiOeTUVG75tOyJHIiLjtVol4wKWccFE439V9kBr0vCZJ83Wkx-jqIcjnlhoUhOX6hiQx75iW6ng8KHxaUA4fPUqhJ9M_PFcL_Lz/s1200/304-B3-31.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4OgUmxSIgslciU3kSs4epUwt8oMO4-sXWQVSXW-MYbPJo-8jt1Wdw1BzXCct8hFvbuHChBC5AViquYsMtVeiOeTUVG75tOyJHIiLjtVol4wKWccFE439V9kBr0vCZJ83Wkx-jqIcjnlhoUhOX6hiQx75iW6ng8KHxaUA4fPUqhJ9M_PFcL_Lz/s320/304-B3-31.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
<h2 style="user-select: text;">1. Pragmatism enhances the mental and material well-being of the individuals</h2>
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Pragmatism, focused the attention of traditional human societies on the alleviation of suffering which is also observed to be the primary concern of all species. Initially the satisfaction of this concern was primarily an answer to a biological need.
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Human small-bands alleviated the individuals’ suffering by delegating the function of knowledge formation to one of their least able individuals. Such a specialization had the advantage of maximizing the groups’ knowledge formation while preserving its physical capabilities to answer the biological needs of the individuals.
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Tribal societies preserved this tradition and the individuals gained a lot of free time that they used to enrich their cultural lives. This is how the satisfaction of the alleviation of individual suffering expanded to the satisfaction of cultural needs. The first example that comes to mind is the sharing of a common worldview, by the members of the groups, which answers their existential questions and ultimately eliminates their anxiety.
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By alleviating individual suffering the satisfaction, of biological and cultural needs, became a determinant parameter of biological and cultural evolution. And over time its appeared that cultural evolution became the driver of the 2 forms of societal evolution that I describe in “8.1.3. The two forms of Societal evolution”.
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But, in their eagerness to satisfy the privileges of a small minority, power-societies lost track of the tradition of pragmatism in knowledge formation. The target of knowledge formation suddenly morphed into the reproduction of the institutions of the men of power and the popular acquiescence to the privileges of the small minority of men of power which engaged a process of social inequality.
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The shift of the societal paradigm, from the pragmatism of knowledge formation that served the alleviation of the individuals’ suffering to the reproduction of the institutions of power, engaged humanity on a path of mind manipulation through propaganda that is culminating in this Late-Modernity with the sheer incapacity of most individuals to distinguish between facts and lies. </div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4VAoGQCZdOAoRR0QAboZnToHfteIYTl-7T8I1-H6VKi7P55ZC9fb4bxoBymFEH87wtgsFwmRnwaM8W4RzjNHfYaz0fM-oxkBkmUdGuzsSW6tlMEikoNrwmHWkJqDN4R6qBXXwNm7PK69A2sZGhLdBiIyUwGpRzZUM7vp-fn0zHkwf1ABT2P1b/s1200/304-C1-11.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4VAoGQCZdOAoRR0QAboZnToHfteIYTl-7T8I1-H6VKi7P55ZC9fb4bxoBymFEH87wtgsFwmRnwaM8W4RzjNHfYaz0fM-oxkBkmUdGuzsSW6tlMEikoNrwmHWkJqDN4R6qBXXwNm7PK69A2sZGhLdBiIyUwGpRzZUM7vp-fn0zHkwf1ABT2P1b/s320/304-C1-11.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
<h2 style="user-select: text;"> 2. Pragmatism enhances the sustainability of societies</h2>
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The sustainability of the habitat, of species, is most crucial to preserve their capabilities to answer the biological needs of their individuals. Societies set up systems to supply the individuals with the conditions to produce what they need to satisfy their biological needs (food, clothes, roof,…) and the same goes for their cultural needs.
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The fact is that the satisfaction, of individual needs, is not so much dependent, on the exercise of individual free will, it is more like the outcome of the societal context that societies can modulate if they so desire.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
<h3 style="user-select: text;"> 2.1 The role of societies is first and foremost to create the best conditions for the satisfaction of the individual biological and cultural needs. </h3>
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If the individuals can not satisfy their needs, because the public resources or the commons are being routed to satisfy the privileges of a small minority, the individuals will naturally feel unsatisfied and they will eventually react forcefully against such a societal set-up.
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In Late-Modernity Western societies are largely plagued by such ills. The incomes of the great majority have been plateauing or falling, over the entire span of the last 50 years, while the fruits of the national productivity have been routed, in their near totality, to the 1%. The resulting inequality has reached shocking historical extremes that are now threatening the further existence of these societies.
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To counter the risks, of societal instability and meltdown, politicians are being paid, by big capital holders, to set up totalitarian decision-making processes that are man-powered by technicians. And the technicians argue that, to keep societies from falling apart, it is imperative to silence the populations !
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The instruments the technicians use to achieve this objective are multiple : — propaganda as news to manipulate the minds — dilution of social and other rights that had been gained over the past century — systematic spying on the citizens — militarization of police services — etc… </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
<h3 style="user-select: text;"> 2.2 The role of societies is secondly to procure peace of mind to the individuals by sharing a common worldview that satisfies all existential questions </h3>
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If the minds of the individuals come under stress, due to the societal worldview's unsatisfying answers to their existential questions, the individuals will not only be unsatisfied they will also grow restless in their search of satisfying answers and this will directly lead to the fragmentation of their societies by a multiplication of group-think lines of thought.
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If individualism is furthermore exacerbated, as it has been all along Late-Western-Modernity, group-think itself will dilute into societal atomization which is when the individuals start to think that they know better about anything than anyone else. This is the tipping point when societies are ready to collapse under the impact of whatever circumstantial destabilizing force. </div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimC0M__k-jQ5Xo5fYFHIbAoHCzXUNk93rpUJS8tqEbelXPZMCSKO7dpNWZIEyFf0CgUlSJI3fM5hP6UdBp81mrtYw55002shAFhBn68tm6-yJ73RosfWiTABHhpQfo8AvXXApoK7pZoCtMsIr7yI0q3tSBBSk3Yyrj7QDambZjKkipvMIc08Zg/s1200/304-C2-24.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEimC0M__k-jQ5Xo5fYFHIbAoHCzXUNk93rpUJS8tqEbelXPZMCSKO7dpNWZIEyFf0CgUlSJI3fM5hP6UdBp81mrtYw55002shAFhBn68tm6-yJ73RosfWiTABHhpQfo8AvXXApoK7pZoCtMsIr7yI0q3tSBBSk3Yyrj7QDambZjKkipvMIc08Zg/s320/304-C2-24.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
<h2 style="user-select: text;"> 3. Enhancing the sustainability of the activities of species in their contextual environment </h2>
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The narrative, of the societally shared worldview, has to ensure that our present activities as a species leave a habitat, to the following generations, that is as good or better than the habitat servicing the present generation.
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This has to be understood as an absolute condition for the perpetuation of the species. The destruction of a species' habitat, by one of its generations of individuals, has to be understood as a condemnation of its descendants to their demise. At this gauge, I'm afraid there is no milder way to say this, Western-Modernity in its Late age is condemning the next generations to live the agonizing experience of the species’ extinction !
<br style="user-select: text;" /></div><br style="user-select: text;" /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcRa-il1smjvv027Iv00494tlHGcxS_cxFpcSpVn6FyWEkqKnJZ93sx0bv-gFgkn3NtFUtEZZCOGtpavEcROTm6mj2dP1_NAct57KumGCuSLUuZnT-Q4r5li75eiK0xAOnoeI2VX2v37tCmjHDI4iMoZO6kMMEztRuS3M286CdgWLyB-ARK5Ma/s1200/304-C2-33.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcRa-il1smjvv027Iv00494tlHGcxS_cxFpcSpVn6FyWEkqKnJZ93sx0bv-gFgkn3NtFUtEZZCOGtpavEcROTm6mj2dP1_NAct57KumGCuSLUuZnT-Q4r5li75eiK0xAOnoeI2VX2v37tCmjHDI4iMoZO6kMMEztRuS3M286CdgWLyB-ARK5Ma/s320/304-C2-33.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
<h2 style="user-select: text;"><u style="user-select: text;"> Notes </u></h2>
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1. “The First Principles of Life” see “Modernity 02. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A7392%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C450.201%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;"> 5.2.1. the First Principles of Life”</a>. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1ZozuXm9zMNWKsziVyL-CeS7b0vosGf5lN_Ut-Jm5kjtOeCLxF2VCjNWGjupHUCHdsj93amYharGVpNrH0ixNjXPcEw7da9m0P4Edzxe2MEAIR1S3oqpxl0s3eu3zK77Aa71bOsEzZ1fqgXcJkjmFjikICxG7QRd8Ps3eBSVMRcQ3Tns4zhbe/s1200/304-C2-41.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg1ZozuXm9zMNWKsziVyL-CeS7b0vosGf5lN_Ut-Jm5kjtOeCLxF2VCjNWGjupHUCHdsj93amYharGVpNrH0ixNjXPcEw7da9m0P4Edzxe2MEAIR1S3oqpxl0s3eu3zK77Aa71bOsEzZ1fqgXcJkjmFjikICxG7QRd8Ps3eBSVMRcQ3Tns4zhbe/s320/304-C2-41.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
</div>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-2858296709696309422023-08-14T16:00:00.013-04:002023-08-15T01:27:09.435-04:00The technical rationality of Modernity<div class="separator" style="clear: both; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7OjLn55Mp0tIAq4LhuzpeDadcqnbxTOmdZFKTqXcKOHuRa-xkQVncVyzojna2T-AoA-ajXjCF4bPKClpXoL9w3iSOKQqzU-EWfQsThLMdWzGFL8TJhIfsILlbtJXkLKq-oauw6I4jpXIHuAF6XNdW_AcqmsU0syXyaiEhgTzX_CYPgFxnHh-K/s1200/304-A4-11.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 3px; margin-right: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi7OjLn55Mp0tIAq4LhuzpeDadcqnbxTOmdZFKTqXcKOHuRa-xkQVncVyzojna2T-AoA-ajXjCF4bPKClpXoL9w3iSOKQqzU-EWfQsThLMdWzGFL8TJhIfsILlbtJXkLKq-oauw6I4jpXIHuAF6XNdW_AcqmsU0syXyaiEhgTzX_CYPgFxnHh-K/s320/304-A4-11.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div>
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The following quote was copy-pasted from page 583 and following of "Knowledge Formation. 6.2.1. The quasi-Worldview of Modernity".
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This 1,150 page book will be available on my website this 27th of August.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"> ______________
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Modernity is not a worldview in the real sense of the word. It is a quasi-worldview. A worldview relates to a holistic narrative about what reality is all about that all citizens share as their own understanding. In other words the ideas generated by Modernity, and the facts that these ideas sustain, are not weaving a holistic narrative about human existential reality.
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As a matter of fact nor Modernity, nor science which is its active method of inquiry, are offering a holistic narrative about what reality is all about... The ideas and facts of Modernity are generated to satisfy the sole concerns of capital holders and the men of power. In this sense we come to understand why Modernity can’t answer the existential questions that pop up in peoples’ minds and why peoples’ minds are thus filing with anxiety which isolates them in the disturbing feeling of not really belonging to their societies.
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The fact of the matter is that the sharing of the characteristics of Modernity can’t cure the existential anxiety that afflicts most people in advanced Modern societies. As we saw earlier these societies have reached the stage of Late-Modernity which is the stage of life preceding death. This in turn explains why, to find relief from the anxiety resulting from the feeling of not belonging to something bigger than themselves, people flock to older worldviews like religions or whatever sects are active in their local environment.
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By the characteristics of Modernity I mean that this quasi-worldview is rooted in the conversion, by Western European long distance merchants, to “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money, convenient debt, or unused nature into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”. And after applying this paradigm, for some 6 centuries, Western-Modernity gave rise to the following parameters that became societally determinant in the sense that they have literally driven Western societies to their present condition of atomization while attracting societies worldwide to follow suit :
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The archetypal model of power societies forced religious paradigms in the individuals' minds and the forced conversion to Western Christianity instilled individualism in the minds of all.
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<li style="user-select: text;"> People gradually converted to the instrumental paradigm of Western-Modernity that is “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money in a dynamic process of capital accumulation".
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<li style="user-select: text;">The rationality of the paradigm of Modernity evolved into philosophic rationalism, science, and a consumerist conformism.
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Scientific specialization separated all fields of life thus detaching them from their subservience to the reason of U or the Whole universe.
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<li style="user-select: text;">The ideology of the enlightenment, liberalism, directly competed with the political parties representing the interests of the religious institutions for exercising the power of the state :<br /><ul style="user-select: text;"><br />
<li style="user-select: text;">Representative governance, and human rights, blinded the individuals to their real interests
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<li style="user-select: text;">TINA, or "There Is No Alternative" or "society does not exist" and "the individual is all there is", blinded the individuals to the real alternatives to Western-Modernity and its imperialism.
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But this ideology of the Enlightenment drove Western societies into hyper-individualism which later combined with the views of postmodernism about the obsolescence of societal worldviews. The outcome of this process was societal atomization or the slow death of Western societies.
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Taken together these factors form the 5 core traits of Western-Modernity.
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In the absence of a shared holistic narrative Modernity can not be viewed as a pure worldview. Its 5 determinant traits substantiate the values that are shaping the contours of what I call the quasi-worldview of Modernity.
But this is not sufficient to keep the individuals from walking away from their societies.<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
This quasi-worldview has been made the creed of the liberal ideology of capital holders and their servants in power and in corporate institutions. This ideology is drilled in peoples’ minds through the daily propaganda peddled by the media and the target, of those who pay for this propaganda, is to force people to adopt the 5 core traits of the quasi-worldview of Modernity as the substance of their own ideas and behaviors.
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The power of propaganda is so strong that it convinces people that what it peddles is the only game in town. As Thatcher famously said “There Is No Alternative”. TINA was Thatcher's slogan and it has taken over the whole world in this Late-Modernity. By translating into an ensemble of societal behaviors and ideas TINA fixates these 5 core ideological traits in the minds of all citizens as being the ultimate truth about the working of reality in the context of Late-Modernity.
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Let’s note here that the French thinkers who gave us Postmodernism were among the first to fall in this TINA trap. Jean-Francois Lyotard’s diagnostic that the traditional societal narratives had vanished was a correct diagnostic but his subsequent leap into believing, that such narratives should henceforth be avoided altogether, was merely putting some intellectual meat on the skeletal ideology of liberalism. Bruno Latour was thinking along the same lines when he asked “Has knowledge-slash-power been co-opted of late by the National Security Agency?” (1).
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The 5 core traits, of the quasi-worldview of Modernity, form the substance of the paradigm of Modernity. But this paradigm has evaded the scrutiny of the thinkers and intellectuals who focused their attention on Modernity or capitalism.
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Marx focused, on the monopolization of capital accumulation in the hands of a small coterie of capital holders, which forced inequality on their societies. But his forceful rejection of capitalist inequality distracted his attention from the rationality, that is work in the transformation of sterile money into a process of capital accumulation, and he missed thus the nature and the origin of this rationality. This explains the inattention of Marxism to the rationality of Western-Modernity that has infused the minds with a paralyzing consumerist conformism.
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Western thinkers have been blinded by the rationality of Modernity. The near totality of them have fallen in its trap and their minds got lost in its forms, — economic — social — cultural — and so on, without ever attaining its substance and they are thus living in the ignorance of its essence.
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<h1 style="user-select: text;">1. The rationality of Modernity</h1>
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The 5 core traits of Modernity, — the archetypal model of power societies — the reason — the rationality of Modernity — the separation of all fields of life — and the ideology of liberalism, have fostered an exceptionalist “Modern rationalization” of human activities.<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
<h4 style="user-select: text;"> Modernity = the product of the system of values of Western European capital holders</h4>
Modernity emerged as a product of the reasoning and of the system of values of European capital holders and long distance merchants who very soon learned about the primacy of “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money, convenient debt, or unused nature into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”.
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<h4 style="user-select: text;"> The different forms of the consequences of Modernity </h4>
The concerns of capital holders and long distance merchants gradually imposed a set of consequences to their societies that took the following forms :<br style="user-select: text;" /><ol style="user-select: text;"><li style="user-select: text;">
The capture of the human mind by an abstract reason</li><li style="user-select: text;"> Expansion of the reason through the transformation of sterile money into a process of capital accumulation</li><li style="user-select: text;"> The finality of the reason has always been external to life</li><li style="user-select: text;"> Incompatibility of the reason, and the rationality of Modernity, with the “First Principles of Life”.</li><li style="user-select: text;"> The function of science is instrumental to the reason and it has no concern for life.</li><li style="user-select: text;"> The human ignorance of the precautionary principle comes at the price of the predicament of humanity in this Late-Modernity.</li></ol>
I delve in these forms in the following chapters.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
<h2 style="user-select: text;">1.1. The capture of the human mind</h2>
Starting with Early-Modernity, or the phase of merchant capitalism, “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation” captured the minds of long distance merchants and capital holders. And their success, over the centuries, slowly gained the adherence of ever larger segments of European societies to “the reason”.
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But “the reason” is a finality that is external to human life and as such it has no consideration for any matter pertaining to human life or to the principle of life in general. This means that, in the internal logic of “the reason”, “whatever generates profits” is now being considered as the summit of rationality. This includes :
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Any activities that poison the air, the land, or the water in the habitat </li><li style="user-select: text;">Any activities that poison humanity and/or other species which cause them suffering.
<br style="user-select: text;" /></li></ul>The finality, of the internal logic of “the reason”, is indeed limited to the preservation of the capital base and its eventual increase through the accumulation of surpluses. This finality has no concern for anything else than these 2 objectives. Being external to life it has no concern for life and this explains how it can act in such a pathogenic fashion.
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The capture of human minds by that finality takes place indirectly by positing that the signs of richness it procures are the ultimate truth in life. The luxury such richness permits to acquire is exposed as proof, of its existential and societal truth, to the eye of all citizens. And that truth appears irresistible to the minds that had been opened up earlier to individualism by Christianity.
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Let’s remember that the narrative of Christianity rendered each and every individual responsible for their own sins in the eyes of God. The conversation between the individual and the Christian god suddenly initiated the self that “the reason” boosted into the ego which necessarily resulted in the expansion of ego-ism to all.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
<h2 style="user-select: text;">1.2. Expansion of the reason that transforms sterile money</h2>
The capture during Early-Modernity of the long distance merchants’ minds, by the internal logic of “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money, into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”, forced their minds to convert to its rationality. Their conversion won them vast richness that they invested partly in mansions and palaces which for centuries stoked flames of envy in the minds of all Europeans. Over the centuries that envy eventually contaminated even the minds of the monks and intellectuals who thus conceived of a systematization of “the reason” to all aspects of life which eventually took the form of philosophic rationalism. <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
In human affairs nothing ever falls from the sky. There is always a chain of causality that leads to the emergence of new phenomena and new ideas. This is what happened with European intellectuals between the 12th and 18th centuries. The substantiation, of the successes of long distance merchants and capital holders into mansions and other luxuries, was indeed impossible to ignore in societies that had freed the genie of greed from its bottle.
The desire of all to gain access to the kind of richness exposed by the long distance merchants was certainly a determinant element but there was definitely more at play. The financial success of the long distance merchants and capital holders gained them gradually an increasing clout over the political decision-making process.
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The phase of merchant or commercial capitalism, between the 12th and 18th centuries, ensured the redistribution of the cards of political power from the aristocracy and the clergy to the bourgeoisie which laid the groundwork for the application of the principles of democracy in the 19th century. It goes without saying that the infighting taking place during this redistribution of the political power irreversibly consecrated the rationality contained in the reason at work within capital as the societal truth. And the intellectuals had no doubt as to which estate to side with.
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Viewed in this light the rise of rationalism from the context of “the reason” is an indisputable fact. But the societal truth that this fact succeeded to impose should not be understood as being an existential truth as capital holders were cheaply peddling their ideology of Neo-liberalism. It was indeed the concern of long distance merchants and capital holders to adapt their societies to their needs that imposed “the reason” as a societal truth that later expanded into philosophic rationalism.
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The question that arises here is the following. Is an observed fact synonymous with truth ?
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Rationalism posited that observable facts went counter to the veracity of religious texts. Society visibly agreed with the proposition and the debate was closed in favor of rationalism. But in Late-Modernity we are drawn back to that same question and the answer is not clear-cut any longer.
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Is the first dimension, of observable facts, all the truth there is ?
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Let’s come back to the matter that started our questioning. Is “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money, convenient debt, or unused nature, into a dynamic process of capital accumulation” a life compatible fact ?
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It is incontestable that the application of “the reason” resulted in the world’s most extraordinary economic boom ever and peoples’ living standards effectively increased to an all time high. But does this prove that “the reason” is a societal and existential truth ?
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Well not exactly. All it does prove is that when “the reason” is put in charge of commercial exchanges the total economic activity increases. So from the perspective of a national economy, and from the perspective of the individuals who gain consumers’ might, it is certainly a net positive that seems to prove that the reason is a societal and existential truth. But what about this other truth that there are numerous side-effects to the application of “the reason” ?
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It is true that “the reason” has been most successful at growing economies and satisfying customers. But it is also true that this came at the price of :
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An uncontrollable population explosion that soon will be followed by an uncontrollable implosion.
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<li style="user-select: text;">An uncontrolled rise in the use of finite natural resources that leads to their peaking and then to their economic exclusion for being too costly
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<li style="user-select: text;">An uncontrolled rejection of externalities in the habitat and in the biology of life that are causing a multitude of side-effects
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<li style="user-select: text;">These side-effects destabilized the existing balance in the habitat of life and their sudden conversion in Late-Western-Modernity are threatening to shift the Geo-bio-chemical state of the world in a new state</li>
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<li style="user-select: text;">The rise of hyper-individualism and the atomization of societies and so on and on.
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All these crises taken individually have the capacity to annihilate life on earth. And the truth is that all these individual crises are converging and the results of their convergence is unleashing an uncontrollable chaos all over the world that, scientists believe, could wipe out all life on earth…
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The initial question was “Is the reason a human truth ?”.
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From the perspective of short term economic considerations the answer is an incontrovertible yes but it is a definitive no from the perspective of the principle of life on earth and more particularly from the perspective of the perpetuation of the human species.
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So what we discover is that facts do not represent the whole truth. There is indeed another dimension than “observable facts” and it is that “many facts are not directly observable”… which brings us back to the traditional notion of knowledge that had a systemic take on reality by viewing facts in their global context.
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Systemic reality imperatively demands our recognition that the perpetuation of the species is of a superior order of importance than the considerations of capital holders and than the considerations of individual consumers.
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The reality of life has to be viewed as a universal principle that emerges and further thrives in complete interrelatedness with the Whole and with its planetary contextual settings.
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In other words the human species has a limited band of life sustainability that is very narrow indeed. Temperature-wise the band tolerates variations of average temperatures that are limited to a maximum of plus or minus 5 degree C at the most. Passed that limit human life vanishes. But temperature is only one parameter. There are many other parameters like the chemical composition of the atmosphere, the presence of water, etc… What this shows is that the context of life is something very fragile indeed that we have at all time to protect from inconsiderate actions.
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In light of this the truth appears something that is a lot more complicated than what capital holders might want to recognize. For the sake of opening our minds let’s imagine for a moment that, to avoid the pathogenic effect of “the reason”, societies decided to eliminate the considerations of merchants and capital holders and replaced these with the considerations of their populations at large.
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Would the picture not be vastly different ?
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Now let’s go a little further and let’s try to imagine what would be the case if traditional men of knowledge were still in charge of the formation of societal knowledge. Do you believe that they would be foolish enough to let a tiny minority of individuals desecrate the balance of life on earth ? No way. They would re-impose the respect of the existential truth or a truth that maximizes the perpetuation of the species. This means that traditional (wo)men of knowledge would concentrate on pragmatism and would avoid ideology. They would indeed submit to the systemic reality of the universe and more particularly they would focus on surfing on the waves of reality.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><h2 style="user-select: text;">
1.3. A finality that is external to life
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The finality of the rationality at work within “the reason”, and the finality of philosophic rationalism, are necessarily antagonistic with the systemic reality of the universe that sustains the principle of life. In other words the systemic reality of the universe sets limits to what is possible and what is not possible for the principle life, at the individual and societal levels, while the finality at work within “the reason” imposes total freedom for itself in the minds of its executioners.
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This I think is, in essence, the existential contradiction of Modernity that sets it on a path of life destruction concluding with the reassertion of the systemic reality of the universe that is going to cleanse the mess humanity created so industriously.
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The capture of the human mind by greed, desire and envy, erases the systemic reality of the universe from human consciousness. As a result a finality that is external to life easily hides its direct responsibility for damaging the principle of life which inflicts so much suffering to the self, to living species to mother earth, and to the universe.
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The fact of the matter is that, during the last centuries, Western unbridled activities have unleashed the devastation of the habitat of all living species and have set the earth on a path of extremely fast mass extinction.
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Human overpopulation is not only depleting the earth’s limited resources it is also poisoning the oceans and the land and decapitating the forests that act as the earth’s lungs. In danger of suffocation mother earth seem to have ordered its systems to eliminate the human pathological virus. We are presently 1 minute from midnight in the adventure of life on earth. Will humanity recover its sanity before midnight ? I’m definitely not so sure about this any longer.
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Under tribal societies the human species was conscious about the necessity to keep human activities within the bounds of systemic reality. Things changed following the agglomeration of people in villages, the agricultural revolution and the emergence of power societies, but it is the freeing by Modernity of the genie of greed, that surfaced after the pushing of its ideology of individualism, which forced “the reason” and philosophic rationalism as the societal normality of Modernity. And the finality, of the normality of Modernity, was nothing else than the reproduction of the invested capital base, owned by the capital holders, and its accumulation by investing its recurring profits.
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The only question that seems to make sense, at this juncture of my argument, is if humanity is going to let such a materialistic finality, that is external to life, destroy the principle of life on earth ?</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><h2 style="user-select: text;">
1.4. Incompatibility of the reason and rationalism with the principle of life
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Having been captured, by the finality of “the reason” and of rationalism, human minds have largely forgotten about all the elements that are foundational to life and by extension to the working of the universe. If humanity wants to survive as a species it has to come to terms with the fact that “the reason”, and the rationality of Western-Modernity, are fundamentally incompatible with the principle of life. And so humanity needs urgently to gain a sense of its responsibility towards the survival of its own species and towards the perpetuation of life on earth.
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Unfortunately this is not the field of scientists; this is the field of the (wo)men of knowledge who lost their societal role a few centuries ago… Will it now be necessary for the systems set up by Modernity to collapse in order to assist at a come-back of the (wo)men of knowledge in their role at knowledge formation ? </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><h2 style="user-select: text;">
1.5. Science abdicates its responsibilities toward life
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Human concerns, in Late-Modernity, have grown so far out of the bounds of the finality of life and of the working of the universe that scientists now come to accept the idea of a technological singularity. This implies that they willingly accept to lose the possibility of understanding and controlling what finality will soon be pursued by their productions in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and in Artificial Life (AL or robotics). Something like this is epochal and it seriously baffles me that scientists are let free to pursue on such a mad path without any serious resistance from their society.
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The fact is that, over the tens of thousands of years preceding civilization, humanity was conscious about its obligation and responsibility to leave a livable world for the generations to come. But over the last centuries Modernity willingly ignored this responsibility. And now some scientists are giving up, in total impunity, on this sacred human responsibility towards life and the working of the universe. Worse still these scientists are left free to create the demise of their own species and eventually a lot more than their own species.
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What is going on here ?
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The capture of the human mind, by the 5 core traits of Western-Modernity, imposes an ordering “by the rationality of Modernity” which concludes that human weaknesses better give way to “the űber rationality of intelligent machines” (2). The thing here from humanity’s perspective is that this űber-rationality could very well conclude that human life itself is a non-rational impediment to its own order… and so an űber-rationality could very well complete what human knowledge inferred was a task that the principle of life itself should have undertaken.
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In other words technological madness is perhaps the instrument of nature to cleanse an impetuous young and hubristic species from the realm of life. But perhaps such a thinking only indicates the relativity of human knowledge versus the absolute knowledge of the universe and its principle of life.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><h2 style="user-select: text;">
1.6. human ignorance of the precautionary principle
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The ignorance of what is foundational to the universe, and its principle of life, is the reason for humanity’s very casual attitude towards :
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The implications of the Whole for its sub-ensembles and their parts
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And so we start to understand that our ignorance, of the precautionary principle in accepting to live with non-tested innovation, suddenly appears to be the root cause for humanity's erring on the path toward its own extinction…
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The fact of the matter is that until very recently humanity lived in respect of this precautionary principle. And the fact is also that, according to our best observation, all other living species live in respect of it. Western-Modernity, and its rationalist hubris, have detached us from the reality of the universe and have rendered us ignorant about our responsibility in the destruction of life on earth. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO8SD1n9LBM_P0d14SHMOpSn_sk12mRlIghVLs6vH3wP3dGoFaOfYxSl4kB9JXSlYASSPjS5z3jPwLBcv_DKVDdoDPBbHqx_Mvm9Blu7BgwYuoT9l88ANxGtaFXnqEJIwhx-mFU35MUqrV9Vq7hr7LQ87MHOznsCXpuHDle_y3EDKslzkz2pYy/s1200/304-A4-14.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjO8SD1n9LBM_P0d14SHMOpSn_sk12mRlIghVLs6vH3wP3dGoFaOfYxSl4kB9JXSlYASSPjS5z3jPwLBcv_DKVDdoDPBbHqx_Mvm9Blu7BgwYuoT9l88ANxGtaFXnqEJIwhx-mFU35MUqrV9Vq7hr7LQ87MHOznsCXpuHDle_y3EDKslzkz2pYy/s320/304-A4-14.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
<h2 style="user-select: text;"><u style="user-select: text;">Notes</u></h2>
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1. “<a href="http://www.bruno-latour.fr/sites/default/files/89-CRITICAL-INQUIRY-GB.pdf" style="user-select: text;">Why Has Critique Run out of Steam? From Matters of Fact to Matters of Concern”</a> by Bruno Latour.<span style="font-family: Ubuntu Condensed; user-select: text;"><span lang="en-US" style="user-select: text;">
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2. Űber: depending on the context this German word means “over”, “above”, “across” or “super”, “hyper”. When using the composite “űber-rationality” I mean something as “hyper-rationality” or a rationality that eliminates everything else even if it might be participating in the explanation of what is being observed...</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXSfJ564Z0IYSLGZ2YuiTr4fXJfGWfGfVXYxJUqr1Ql_f5XHxBegtcFr5bY-hpXJq8j1nb-fQm-CdF2blI7nWfkO8x_m-MiAUj1AcAAdix-sXrZRBcxczazLXilOl5sCwgJiIShWZxsuRX2_oxHqYmZPZTUP0Sq-LbilQ2nEuaAYtB87dwHrxr/s1200/304-A4-23.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXSfJ564Z0IYSLGZ2YuiTr4fXJfGWfGfVXYxJUqr1Ql_f5XHxBegtcFr5bY-hpXJq8j1nb-fQm-CdF2blI7nWfkO8x_m-MiAUj1AcAAdix-sXrZRBcxczazLXilOl5sCwgJiIShWZxsuRX2_oxHqYmZPZTUP0Sq-LbilQ2nEuaAYtB87dwHrxr/s320/304-A4-23.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
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laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-65207206257808456112023-08-12T16:00:00.505-04:002023-08-12T21:10:20.008-04:00A given set of contextual settings forces a given future<div class="separator" style="clear: both; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm-tXyE4JUxpwsGew2ZaTcZ--bC0UADwYVkXxCqA1KIf6jkoNrKAGStvFaO-VNooH2pFSWaKRaxfNs-XExozwzxkEGAQxm_qz0pnlQG2OUwtW0rGhK8Ao5316CEnzAEcFuEsBUTyKEP14LZcVR3aQXdNc0uOAsWzik1tJtxTifdg4Qwoa6QjVd/s1200/304-D4-24.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 3px; margin-right: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjm-tXyE4JUxpwsGew2ZaTcZ--bC0UADwYVkXxCqA1KIf6jkoNrKAGStvFaO-VNooH2pFSWaKRaxfNs-XExozwzxkEGAQxm_qz0pnlQG2OUwtW0rGhK8Ao5316CEnzAEcFuEsBUTyKEP14LZcVR3aQXdNc0uOAsWzik1tJtxTifdg4Qwoa6QjVd/s320/304-D4-24.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div>
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The following quote was copy-pasted from the introduction of "Knowledge Formation. 6.2. A given context forces a given future" starting on page 570 and following.
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This 1,150 page book will be available on my website this 27th of August.
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Obviously the future does not fall from the sky. It is resulting from the arbitration between the multiple determinant factors that are competing in the present. In other words the competition, between the multiple determinant factors in the present, is what shapes the context out of which the future emerges.
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But where do these determinant factors competing in the present come from ?
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These determinant factors emerge necessarily out of the context that shaped up in the past. In other words the arrow of time is forming the long haul history that shapes the context out of which emerges the determinant factors that compete in the present.
<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />Notwithstanding what some might be saying, the fact is that it is possible to visualize “the context out of which something emerges”. Let’s take an example to illustrate this. The emergence of mushrooms gives the dirt in which they grow as the context that makes their emergence possible. Mushrooms do indeed not emerge anywhere as per a miracle. Their emergence results from the combination of a series of factors and no mushroom will ever emerge outside of such a specific combination of factors which forms their contextual setting. Each species of mushrooms obeys its own specific context that always entails the presence of — some organic matter at a given biochemical composition, — in given conditions of temperature, humidity, light — and spores that feed on that organic matter when its conditions are right.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy2qmC582FrTeihypVbSsBn51YM3wkiJIT-PE29v4kgdumMNHL29hIrK6ryPLwDtcLGL_BiFYan5PO-Ji2OmcGIQUZ7GGzBk7ioQvixSof1vZW1XwsaoT0XUudppnORTFG_6r08x7of-lrco8BkgB1bMOk7Fm_Jd2LKJH6mJ9FWxLHjOJwK60l/s1200/304-C3-34.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy2qmC582FrTeihypVbSsBn51YM3wkiJIT-PE29v4kgdumMNHL29hIrK6ryPLwDtcLGL_BiFYan5PO-Ji2OmcGIQUZ7GGzBk7ioQvixSof1vZW1XwsaoT0XUudppnORTFG_6r08x7of-lrco8BkgB1bMOk7Fm_Jd2LKJH6mJ9FWxLHjOJwK60l/s320/304-C3-34.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">
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<h3 style="user-select: text;">While its context may be more complex the same principle of emergence applies to the principle of life</h3>
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<span style="color: #ffa400; user-select: text;">Unicellular organisms
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Unicellular organisms emerge out of a given context that is composed of — a given chemical soup submitted to — the right amount of energetic forces. Some add a 3rd condition to these 2 which is that — the seeds of life emerge on earth in a process of panspermia (1) or of spontaneous emergence. The fact of the matter is that the specific context in which life emerged on earth is still not well understood.
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There is no reason to believe that this mechanism uniquely occurred on planet earth. The earth is one among trillions of planets out there. What would be the probability that life did not emerge on another planet ? I would venture to say that this probability is zero. The idea that our planet earth would be so special, as to be unique in its life carrying capacity, to me this idea simply does not fly. History should have accustomed us by now to the idea that such a kind of exceptionalism, or”centrism”, is an illusion that we eventually awake from one day or another.</li><br style="user-select: text;" />
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<span style="color: #ffa400; user-select: text;">Multicellular organisms
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Multicellular organisms emerged when multiple unicellular organisms joined together as a result of their facing the necessity to adapt to a threshold of chaos within their specific context.
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In other words, at a given time, a set of determinant factors, competing to substantiate the future, forced one cell to join another cell in order to survive and their joining or cooperation, after being replicated over the generations, resulted eventually in a more complex organism.
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The same kind of process was then repeated further an incalculable, near infinite, number of times which... eventually resulted in the appearance of the genus Homo from which later emerged Homo Sapiens in their present form.
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When looked at from the perspective, of the principle of life, one can’t but be overwhelmed by the thought that this whole process is like a gigantic chain growing ever newer links that generate higher and higher complexity. Life is indeed a principle that feeds increased complexity.
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This does not mean that the evolutionary steps of each species are always steps forward on the chain of complexity. It simply means that what results, from the interactions between the species themselves and between the species and their context, is bound to conclude in a higher complexity within the initial context that... later eventually materializes in mutations that jump the principle of life itself to whole new levels of complexity.
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What all this means is that the principle of life imposes prudence as the general rule of governance of each species. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
This brings us back to the present. Biological evolution has been paralleled by societal evolution. And the present phase of societal evolution is “Late-Modernity” which emerged out of the context of “High-Modernity” and “High-Modernity” emerged out of “Early-Modernity”.
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When we talk about Modernity it is the Modernity that emerged in Europe in the 12th century and that by the end of the 20th century had expanded to the whole world. Semantically this Modernity that has expanded to the whole world is a Western-Modernity.
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While Western-Modernity has many of the characteristics of a societal worldview it is in reality an evolving “quasi-worldview” (2) that acts like a living organism shaping the societal character of the historical era of Modernity which was juxtaposed to the earlier era of the religious worldview that characterized the first phase of power-societies in the Tri-Continental-Area and in the Roman empire.
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But, as a quasi-worldview, Modernity is not in any way substantiating a sustainable societal life. We have been indoctrinated to believe that the rationality, which is at work within the process of capital accumulation and expanded into philosophic rationalism and science, is procuring the truth about human existential reality. The fact is that this reason originated in the transformation of sterile money into a process of capital accumulation. The objectives of this reason are thus primarily materialistic and they were forced in the minds of Frank long distance merchants, by an improbable convergence of factors, sometime during the 1st part of the 12th century. These long distance merchants rapidly observed that the strict application of this reason brought them good fortune.
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The prospect of gaining a fortune often conflicted with "the First Principle of Life" that were at the core of the traditional formation of knowledge by societies. But the prospect of a fortune was so powerful that these conflicts were ignored while being kept hidden out of sight. That’s how the pathogenic character of the quasi-worldview of Western-Modernity created the conditions for a mass extinction of life on earth without nearly anyone noticing.
That is to say a few individuals noticed but their voices did never succeed to attract a significant attention.
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In other words, by omitting the systemic reality of "the First Principles of life" from the narrative of its quasi-worldview, the reason that is at work in the transformation... expanded into philosophic rationalism and science. And in consequence Modernity has encouraged, or at the least tolerated, the seeds of pathogens to grow and overwhelm the culture of its societies (3) with all the consequences that we start to observe today in Late-Modernity.
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I define the fields that substantiate human societal culture in the historical era of civilization in the Volume 1. “The Continuum of the societal Cultural Field. Part 1. Clearing conceptual confusion“. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh0lMxlzkNsMp9pRtxtp-ucHIM20oZXH0UCEnGlgWt1AdXmwbS7bvYjKg3XmNQFh7wggAzwgCKIcO1AYowVYlwfRKbHzlXxdYkk4YO_ZXu6BwsgFGBuV-krhDvyiMPWNXRJF5wQovepSrXwH5y5GTowfDHa68zpbv1nb4IezGc9NKVIgJQ-Ku5/s1200/304-D1-32.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh0lMxlzkNsMp9pRtxtp-ucHIM20oZXH0UCEnGlgWt1AdXmwbS7bvYjKg3XmNQFh7wggAzwgCKIcO1AYowVYlwfRKbHzlXxdYkk4YO_ZXu6BwsgFGBuV-krhDvyiMPWNXRJF5wQovepSrXwH5y5GTowfDHa68zpbv1nb4IezGc9NKVIgJQ-Ku5/s320/304-D1-32.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
<h3 style="user-select: text;">Here follows a sketch of the determinant parameters of “The Continuum of the societal Cultural Field".</h3>
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<span style="color: #ffa400; user-select: text;">The archetypal model of society</span>
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The evolution of societies is characterized by a cyclical model of societal development in 4 phases going from :
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An existing society grows its population level, and its culture, and this results in its complexification.
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At the time of the emergence of power-societies about 5,000 years ago the world population was in the range of 20 million. By the time of the industrial revolution in 1750 it had grown to about 800 million and, according to the United Nations, it has reached 8 billion in November 2022.
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A complex society is fragile and history shows that it usually destabilizes under the impact of an abrupt climate heating which history has shown to be conducive to a rapid population growth.
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The citizens of a destabilizing society experiment, through trial and error, a new model of organization that is better adapted to their contextual settings. History shows that this kind of experimentation has spanned over millennia.
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This was the case during the transition from small-bands to tribal societies some 130,000 to 120,000 years ago and it was again the case during the transition from tribal to power-societies some 11,000 to 5,000 years ago.
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This trial and error experimentation eventually results in the adoption of a new archetypal model of society. An archetype is a recurrent principle like a symbol, a motif, a mythology, or a model of society that reproduces horizontally over the whole world and vertically through the very long haul of time. By archetypal model of society I mean thus a model of society that is adopted worldwide and is applied over the very long time-span of many millennia.
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A new archetypal model of society is gradually being adopted all over the world. But this means that its gradualism allow for the coexistence of a new archetypal model with older models over extensive time-spans. This is how power-societies have coexisted with tribal societies since their emergence about 5,000 years ago.
A new archetypal model of society is being gradually adopted by ever more societies all around the world. And the societies, adopting a new archetypal model, have been observed to develop their own cultural field starting from the constrains imposed on them by the interactions of this archetypal model with the local contextual settings.
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<span style="color: #ffa400; user-select: text;">The societal paradigm
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As I indicated, in the Volume 1 “The Interactive Continuum of the Cultural Field of Societies”, the interactions of the archetypal model of society with the local contextual settings have been observed to force a given societal paradigm which varied as follows between East-Asia and the Tri-Continental-Area :
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The Chinese “Power Confederation” inherited its societal paradigm from the “Tribal Cultural Confederations” that it had united under its helm. This paradigm imperceptibly slipped into the paradigm of the "power Confederation".<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
The continuity of animism fixed thus the societal paradigm that imposed the ontology of the Chinese societal system of logic and of its system of knowledge formation. That paradigm reads as “Pragmatism in the alleviation of peoples’ suffering and in the easing of the production of their daily lives”.
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The societal paradigm in the Tri-Continental-Area and later in the West reads as “the assembly of citizens by force and the reproduction of the societal institutions by the citizens’ sharing of a common religious worldview”.
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<span style="color: #ffa400; user-select: text;">The foundational societal worldview and its spreading in a “Civilizational realm”</span>
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After a long transition away from tribal societies the power institutions of empire, kind of, miraculously stabilized and perpetuated over the generations. Imperial stabilization was reached after the men of power started to rely on the men of knowledge to devise the foundational narrative about what reality is all about. Axioms were then derived from these foundational narratives that, after numerous repetitions over the long haul, got stored in the body’s memory or the subconscious memory.
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The application of these axioms supplied the necessary lever to the men of power to ensure the institutional perpetuation of their societal control over the generations.
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Different contexts eventually resulted in the application of vastly different axioms.
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So in China the continuity of the master axiom, founding Animism, was complementary polarities that procured the power-confederations with an existing and rich knowledge base while in the Tri-Continental-Area the rupture with Animism fostered the necessity of inventing a new story to glue the minds… It so happened that the stories selected by their empires were religious stories.
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An empire, or the societies that survived its eventual collapse, then cultivate a historical worldview on top of their axiomatic principle of knowledge formation. A worldview is a narrative, describing the general contours of what reality is all about, that is shared by all citizens within the territory of a given society. Such a worldview is then actualized by synchronization with the society’s daily culture which comprises all ideas and behaviors within that given society.
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Civilizations emerged after a long and chaotic transition from tribal societies to empire that spanned over 7,000 years. Only when the men of power started to collaborate with the men of knowledge were axiomatic foundations devised that eventually stabilized power societies in their imperial forms while ensuring their reproduction over the generations.
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Civilizations are observed to spread their axiom, if necessary by force, to the four corners of their territory and their axioms and worldview were adopted widely by all their citizens. This is how axioms about knowledge formation came to form the foundations of civilizational houses upon which walls and roofs were later erected.
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“Once established those axioms of civilization are soon forgotten by the conscious memory and then reside nearly exclusively in the individual atoms' subconscious which is the reason why so few people are aware that they exist at all”.
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Civilizational axioms vary widely from one geographical context to the next due to the necessity for societies to adapt to the reality of the following two factors :
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The size of the Chinese alluvial plains procured them the potential to apply the tribal fission-fusion principle of population control in Continuity.
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As we saw this is what distinguished the transition from tribal to power-societies in China and in the TCA. The size of their alluvial plains later procured them their potential agricultural development which in turn defined the size of their populations and by extension defined their economic, cultural and military strength.
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The adjacent areas of a territory shape its character.
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If a territory is narrow and is situated at the intersection, between different inhabited areas like in the societies of the TCA, it necessarily was marred by regular traffic which implied conflicts and ruptures while if the territory is large and isolated from other inhabited areas its societies will live in relative peace which suggest continuity over the long haul.
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These two factors forced the historical differentiation in the societal evolution of China and the Tri-Continental-Area. Over the Millennia these factors have indeed crystallized different models of thinking about reality and also different models of society which explains our present persistent perception of their otherworldliness. In light of the future probabilistic outcome of societal evolution, it is my firmly held belief that we should approach the 2 factors, of — size of alluvial plains — position toward adjacent areas, from the comparative history of different civilizations.
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<span style="color: #ffa400; user-select: text;">The “Historical worldview” of societies
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“...from their given axioms the member societies of a civilization evolved further worldviews. Worldviews are like grand narratives built upon initially accepted axioms. They act like psychic glues that bind the minds of their citizens around a same set of general ideas about reality and are then affirming the necessary societal cohesion that ensures the reproduction of their societies”.</span></i></blockquote></blockquote>
Historical worldviews constitute something akin to the walls and roofs of the societies participating in a common civilizational house. These worldviews procure to these societies’ their perception of the substance of what reality is all about. And so worldviews necessarily flavor and color the daily ways of doing and thinking of their citizens which form their societal daily culture.
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Worldviews are being maintained, and eventually made to evolve, by the men of knowledge within their societies. These were the (wo)men of knowledge in tribes, the priests or the scholars in empires, the merchants/capital holders and their agents the scientists and the intellectuals in the Modernity of Western Nation-States.
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With High-Modernity the traditional European men of knowledge have been pushed aside to procure a level playing field to the scientists, and the rationalist philosophers, who unknowingly acted as the agents of the long distance merchants and capital holders.</li><br style="user-select: text;" />
<li style="user-select: text;"> <span style="color: #ffa400; user-select: text;">The “Daily Culture” of societies
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Daily culture is substantiated by the forms taken by the diverse ways of thinking and doing in the present of a given society and as such it acts like the decoration of the societal walls and roofs that form its worldview.
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“Culture in its broad definition relates to the ensemble of all present beliefs and doings of a society's citizens. This necessarily includes all economic, social and, cultural forms taken by their daily behavior. Culture is not static. It evolves and some elements of this evolution eventually solidify and are then integrated as add-ons or extensions to worldviews and at a certain threshold of installed cultural add-ons and extensions the worldview starts to change. Those cultural add-ons are not a threat to the worldview. On the contrary they are smoothing the worldview in the eyes of the citizens by adapting its substance to changing times”.</span></i></blockquote></blockquote>Foundational axioms glue the minds of all citizens within a given civilizational territory around a common principle of knowledge formation.
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Such a codified foundation within a civilizational territory allowed different societies to differentiate in term of culture according to their particular context. And so over centuries of cultural add-ons societies that initially had identical worldviews would eventually see their worldviews fork in different projects.
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The integration of cultural add-ons in the worldview was traditionally the role of the (wo)men of knowledge but with their exclusion during the emergence of High-Modernity we assist at the following :
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The worldview is no longer maintained and it is thus gradually eroding from the minds of the individuals as is the case in the Late-Modernity of Western societies.
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<li style="user-select: text;"> Cultural add-ons are no longer arbitrated.
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The culture of the day increasingly affirms waves of hyper-individualism that marketeers and propagandists are surfing on to commodify daily consumption by inserting the minds in the cultural molds that are serving the capital holders and the men of power…
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Worldviews have traditionally acted as the ideation that structures the life of societal organisms which taken together form a species. And the life of these societal organisms is being actualized into the present as their daily culture.
Worldviews are larger than daily-culture. They procure to societies their life meaning which form their shared narrative, and as such they are the part of the essence of culture. And so we come to better understand that culture does nothing more than to adapt the present ways of thinking and doing of the individuals, of a given society, to the new clothes or forms that emerge from the present context.</li></ul></li></ul><br style="user-select: text;" />
This societal model, that originated with the transition to a new archetypal model of society, got fatally weakened by philosophic rationalism and science, during High-Modernity, and it finally got canceled by the interactions between Postmodernism and Neo-liberalism. Hyper-individualism gave way to societal atomization and the erosion from the individuals’ minds of the traditional feeling of belonging to a society. I call this stage of societal evolution “the death of societies” and Late-Modernity is indeed the last phase of Modernity that ends with its passing away.
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Rationalism and science have no answer to this deadly societal sickness. By favoring the short term considerations, arising from the capture of the minds by “the reason”, in the form of materialism and individualism these societies ignored the systemic complexity of the universe that governs the principle of life, which traditionally was known as nature or the Tao. These societies are thus incapable of observing the descent of their Modernity into the abyss. It was the human hubris of conquering nature that put mankind on a path that is antithetical to the systemic reality of the universe and its principle of life.
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I indicate in Volume 5, “Governance and societal evolution”, that the evolution of living species is given by the interactions of their polarities — the individuals — their societies. When, for whatever reason, the interactions between individuals and societies favor one over the other these interactions ends up being in a state of imbalance and decay sets in that is a direct threat to the health of both polarities.
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More fundamentally an imbalance in the polarities of a species often leads to fatal health problems that conclude in its extinction. This materializes when all the societies of this species have collapsed... In Late-Modernity humanity faces what I call “the great convergence” of the multiple crises that have been unleashed, — by power, — by Modernity, upon the systemic reality of the principle of life. The Great Convergence puts our species at risk of extinction. But being probabilistic by nature the future remains nevertheless open…
<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDJNacUquv0ga7KiSunSZcsKFBP0l_U8QX6A0ptxF0dXXtcPSGu9L-xwPXRT_6MxirJq61PUigN0IxPPgHkXspUp_NFBaslMbm5v0axRCsXajUI7Ik--xsrnRUgIFjITP_EBS0_t6WGpjnxeReLSZ8KtEK-o0elezHkKi2bsZDuxt_9RFwZaYD/s1200/304-D1-41.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDJNacUquv0ga7KiSunSZcsKFBP0l_U8QX6A0ptxF0dXXtcPSGu9L-xwPXRT_6MxirJq61PUigN0IxPPgHkXspUp_NFBaslMbm5v0axRCsXajUI7Ik--xsrnRUgIFjITP_EBS0_t6WGpjnxeReLSZ8KtEK-o0elezHkKi2bsZDuxt_9RFwZaYD/s320/304-D1-41.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
<h2 style="user-select: text;"><u style="user-select: text;">Notes </u></h2>
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1. <u style="user-select: text;">Panspermia</u><br style="user-select: text;" />
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“How life originated on earth is a question that people have pondered for ages. Theories abound, from those based on religious doctrine, to the purely scientific, to others that border on science fiction. One possibility that hovers on this border is the panspermia theory, which suggests that life on Earth did not originate on our planet, but was transported here from somewhere else in the universe. While this idea may seem straight out of a science fiction novel, some evidence suggests that an extraterrestrial origin of life may not be such a far out idea”.
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Citation from <a href="https://helix.northwestern.edu/article/origin-life-panspermia-theory" style="user-select: text;">“Origin Of Life: The Panspermia Theory”</a> , in Helix Online, by Sonaali S. Joshi. 2008-12-02. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
2.
<u style="user-select: text;"> Modernity as a quasi-worldview.</u></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
Modernity is not a worldview in the traditional sense because a worldview relates to a holistic narrative about what reality is all about. Modernity does not give a narrative about what reality is all about but a more restrictive narrative about one principle of human action that is founded in “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation” that later extended to philosophic rationalism which is an extension of “the reason” to all aspects of life.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
In other words the facts generated by Modernity are not the ultimate truth about human existential reality. These facts have indeed been generated to satisfy the sole concerns of capital holders and the implication is that the facts of Modernity have been successfully imposed in a first stage to all citizens in Europe and later to all citizens on earth. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
But as a matter of fact nor Modernity, nor science which is its active method of inquiry, are offering a narrative about what reality is all about... and in this sense Modernity can’t answer all the existential questions that pop up in peoples’ minds. This is why Modernity is not a real worldview and has to be viewed as a quasi-worldview. Being a quasi-worldview means that the sharing of Modernity can’t cure the existential anxiety that afflicts most people in advanced Modern societies; societies that have reached the stage of Late-Modernity. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
This in turn explains why, when life conditions toughen people flock to older worldviews like religions, or whatever sects are active in their local environment, to find relief from their anxiety. This failure of Modernity to quieten peoples’ anxiety was the context by excellence, or the fertile ground, in which hyper-individualism would eventually flourish that caused societal atomization which, as explained earlier, signifies that such societies are on their way to collapse. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
3. See the Volume 5 of the series "The transition from Western-Modernity to After-Modernity" titled “About governance and societal evolution” that is scheduled to be published by the end of 2025. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl-fWcLAy3HAQ9v4y6eCuBMQ5N6M0fZvmEmcZANPo9r8FDlFxdCWpoeK7q2hYpwv8f_OOoMqQgu4qxdyMFb3DX79vbsHyHBclPkQjyuIN5JOZjxHhclQi5hZuwKXusdotWqaYSe_aJ29ML8N9sRGp2WIr4uJS0RgXPSf2Mkn6y-OjwyHplwUDQ/s1200/304-D1-32.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl-fWcLAy3HAQ9v4y6eCuBMQ5N6M0fZvmEmcZANPo9r8FDlFxdCWpoeK7q2hYpwv8f_OOoMqQgu4qxdyMFb3DX79vbsHyHBclPkQjyuIN5JOZjxHhclQi5hZuwKXusdotWqaYSe_aJ29ML8N9sRGp2WIr4uJS0RgXPSf2Mkn6y-OjwyHplwUDQ/s320/304-D1-32.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
</div>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-41618636124889496872023-08-11T02:17:00.010-04:002023-08-11T21:44:49.653-04:00Marx confused the substance of capitalism for its form and this resulted in a temporary victory of Western big capital holders 150 years later<div class="separator" style="clear: both; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWyaGbYolt0kgdc_j4aC97oNYTPZT3FSnPWunEeem-Imr8NBs60T5eqxwmXVFMs1-alJu0ax6waTH9pI4RH4vxvda84dreotIvoqkFokS34oemlU08n6XJQ4F1TMA1_FgOEf7Ey55rRzpl_rHOvvLMf8KZs-pxCSGe30Xf9aDxik_evAu93si7/s1200/304-D2-41.jpg" style="clear: left; display: block; float: left; margin-bottom: 2px; margin-right: 10px; padding: 0px; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><img alt="" border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWyaGbYolt0kgdc_j4aC97oNYTPZT3FSnPWunEeem-Imr8NBs60T5eqxwmXVFMs1-alJu0ax6waTH9pI4RH4vxvda84dreotIvoqkFokS34oemlU08n6XJQ4F1TMA1_FgOEf7Ey55rRzpl_rHOvvLMf8KZs-pxCSGe30Xf9aDxik_evAu93si7/s320/304-D2-41.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div>
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In my last post from 2003-03-06 I mentioned that I would try to give a monthly quote of parts of the book "Knowledge formation" that I was writing. I have not been able to keep this promise because my attention was fully absorbed by writing the book which visibly hindered my capability to conciliate the extreme focus, necessary to write it, with a weekly interruption to publish an extract of it.
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Writing the book is finally terminated and my focus is presently on the customization of its published form. Its 1,150 pages will be available for download this 27th of August on my website. Until then I'll publish some parts that I personally find of particular interest.
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Today's quote explains why the left, and the working class which represent over 90% of the population, have been defeated by Western big capital holders. Yes, as Warren Buffet recognized some years ago, his class has indeed won the class war. But, rest reassured, it was merely a temporary victory ! The failure of the Western left, and of the Soviet-Union, was due to Marx's confusion of the substance of capitalism for its form which Marxism has perpetuated to this day. China's millennial practice and theory, about societal governance, gave to the Communist Party of China the clout to see through this confusion and its success proved that "There Is An Alternative" (TIAA) to Western-hegemony after all. Herein resides Russia's daring to claim its territorial security from the West and the energized mood of the Global South that no longer hesitates to say no to the West !</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />The following quote was copy-pasted, from page 335 and following, of "Knowledge Formation. 4.2.1. Rupture versus continuity".
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The genius, of the paradigm of Western-Modernity, is that it addresses the reason, or the rationality, that is at work in the generation of the process of capital accumulation which reads as "the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation". European classical economists were distracted from the paradigmatic nature that capital originated in the transformation of, what early 13th century Latin literature described as, “sterile money” (1). The silent revolution of the 1970’s expanded this transformation of sterile money to debt and by the first decades of this 21st century the transformation was again expanded to the processes that are at work in nature itself (2).
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Marx had failed to detect that the societal system of logic, of the rationality of Western-Modernity, emerged from the profound nature of the paradigm of Western-Modernity. He merely contested the outcome, of capitalism, or the private ownership of “the process of capital accumulation”, on the ground of Judeo-Christian morality. And the remedy that he advocated was the union of proletarian forces against the big capital holders and their institutional and technical servants. He advocated a class-war in order to terminate Modernity’s fundamental social injustice and this is what the socialist and communist movements, in turn, focused on in the 20th century.
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But having confused the substance, that capitalism inherited from the paradigm of Modernity, for its form, Marx co-opted the reality of this substance without any questioning. He estimated indeed that it was the most revolutionary force ever without caring about the contradictions that this entailed for his political call to reject the injustice of the outcome of the paradigm of Modernity, as the exclusive private ownership of the means of production. But the fact is that the instrumental rationality, that is at work in the paradigm of Western-Modernity, has no preference for any particular form of ownership of the means of production. That preference was only expressed by liberalism which is the ideology of Western big capital holders and their servants. The focus of Marxism against private ownership was thus a distraction that left the instrumental rationality of Western-Modernity unchallenged.<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
The fact is that Marx's theories were baked in his initial failure to appreciate the nature of the reason, or the rationality, of Modernity. And this is what ultimately caused the collapse, at the end of the 20th century, of the movements that had claimed his inheritance.
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But to my knowledge the social form, of the paradigm’s outcome, has never affected the substance of the paradigm itself nor in the Soviet-Union, nor in socialist China, nor in the West for that matter ! It was the ignorance of the reason, or the rationality of the paradigm of Modernity, by the Soviet-Union that ultimately collapsed its system of governance. And it is the same ignorance by the West, which is so advanced already today, that will collapse its systems of governance tomorrow !
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Deng Xiao Ping, and his comrades, did not make the mistake to confuse the substance of the paradigm of Modernity for its form. They avoided the trap, of merely addressing the social form of the paradigm’s outcome, by advocating a tactical mental conversion, of their country, to the substance of the paradigm of Western-Modernity. This tactical conversion, by the end of the 1970's, allowed them to build up the economic strength of their nation, which they sensed was absolutely necessary, to save it from annihilation by Western capital holders who had suddenly decided to expand their reach to the whole world.
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I do not contest that fighting against the private outcome, of the paradigm of Modernity, is morally justified. This has certainly led to social progress during the 20th century. But the fact is that it was the adherence to the paradigm of Western-Modernity, by a tiny clique of Western big capital holders, that gave them the strength to engineer the social conformism of the working people, and their representatives in the public decision-making institutions, toward the rationality of Modernity. Socialist and communists movements were blinded, by their ideological opposition to the private outcome of the paradigm and so they never realized that the adherence to the paradigm by Western big capital holders, and their institutional servants, is what allowed them to engineer the
societal conformism that in the end caused the demise of socialism.
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The fact is that the rationality, at work in the paradigm of Modernity, is what procures its exceptional efficacy in churning out goods and services that irresistibly attract the eyes and guts of the world population.
So conformism was baked in the paradigm's capability to churn out goods and services with the utmost efficacy.<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
By beating the West at its own game China powerfully demonstrated that the private ownership, of the means of production, is not the determinant factor in the efficacy of Modernity. The determinant factor is the rationality that is at work in its paradigm which fixes the ontology of the system of logic of the societies that convert to it.
And conscious of the instrumental rationality of Western-Modernity China harvested that rationality to build up the strength of its nation.<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
In matter of fact it is the paradigm of Western-Modernity that drives the extreme efficacy, in churning out goods and services, in both the West and in China. But this paradigm is simultaneously the cause of the externalities that are generating the side-effects which are presently shifting the Geo-bio-chemical state of the earth into a new state that unfortunately is far less hospitable to life and this will inevitably accelerate the 6th mass extinction that already started some time ago.
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Contrary to the belief, of some members of the Communist Party of China, a Chinese-Modernity is definitely not a panacea to counter “the great convergence of the side-effects of Western-Modernity”. The answer to humanity’s predicament resides in a new paradigm that focuses on the reason of life and the elimination of toxic externalities !
<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><h2 style="user-select: text;"><u style="user-select: text;">Notes
</u></h2><br style="user-select: text;" />
1. "The Great Turning. <a class="western" href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/022Turning.pdf?i=1#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A1659%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C42.5%2C361.501%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">4.1. The implications of “the reason” are far reaching“</a>. See page 106 :
<blockquote style="user-select: text;"><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
"Fernand Braudel, ..., wrote that in the commercial city-states, of Italy in
the early thirteenth century, the meaning of capital had evolved into the
idea of the “money of a merchant” devoted to investment which was also
called “Capitale”, or a dynamic form of money capable of expansion through investment in
commerce, that was different from “simple money” which was considered to be sterile and only
existing for facilitating daily commercial exchanges.” </span></i>Quote from “<span style="font-family: Libris ADF Std; user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;">Civilization and Capitalism. <a class="western" href="https://www.pdfdrive.com/civilization-and-capitalism-15th-18th-century-volume-i-the-structure-of-everyday-life-the-limits-of-the-possible-e162528913.html" style="user-select: text;">Volume
1, The Structure of Everyday Life</a>”</i></span>, William Collins
Sons & Co Ltd. 1992, by Fernand Braudel. <br style="user-select: text;" /></blockquote></blockquote>
2. The Great Turning.<a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/022Turning.pdf?i=1#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A691%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C42.5%2C285.951%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">2.2. The morphing of the paradigm of Modernity</a>. See page 47 :
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"The paradigm of Modernity addresses the nature of the formation of capital. After taking into account the late Western trial to monetize the services of nature we observe that the paradigm took 3 forms along the entire 900 years of Western-Modernity :
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1. Emergence of the paradigm or the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation.
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2. The expansion during the silent revolution of the 1970's, of the reach of Western big capital holders to the whole world, called for "the gamble of capital formation through the transformation of debt into capital" that launched the historical era of "financialization".
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3. Trying to counter the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world towards East-Asia with a Western “totalitarian imposition of the transformation of nature into capital”.
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<br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxChiOhkFfgUp_w2QO-aj_4rE4SEJanlNIlrm6otiscHsWAEp-_Bv-Kigo8P1nakSXuJ30UFuXQ2_dt5pp77YxScCg6FuigdgS-oL3al-67R6ytHNtizW80jC3COQmCHtuPbgpcQqr7l9-K1kHuXQSmyPxQlCGDll8YXpXR6ed2YDXqtgw4ici/s1200/304-A1-43.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxChiOhkFfgUp_w2QO-aj_4rE4SEJanlNIlrm6otiscHsWAEp-_Bv-Kigo8P1nakSXuJ30UFuXQ2_dt5pp77YxScCg6FuigdgS-oL3al-67R6ytHNtizW80jC3COQmCHtuPbgpcQqr7l9-K1kHuXQSmyPxQlCGDll8YXpXR6ed2YDXqtgw4ici/s320/304-A1-43.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
</div><p style="user-select: text;"></p>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-24948677793502545962022-12-17T13:00:00.002-05:002023-03-06T20:34:07.171-05:00The e-book “The perspective of the grandmother of all nations" is online<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis4dRbV0c_CRBrEXO5qpkhF28i0nXHAOfo9xlOQepMyBdF1dYDFAkLy5bHOKXc-djbYUhujPq3FGZcCwS3xRZktj5WvX8xRR-OTNNgKnZ9hLjs6kwVJGq6i8WJecdkz9SshZKZBtkyaisoiS6zcZMZQYt-DBWiRrQ0pbjksQU_Lm7FgL6gIA/s1200/204-B1-41.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEis4dRbV0c_CRBrEXO5qpkhF28i0nXHAOfo9xlOQepMyBdF1dYDFAkLy5bHOKXc-djbYUhujPq3FGZcCwS3xRZktj5WvX8xRR-OTNNgKnZ9hLjs6kwVJGq6i8WJecdkz9SshZKZBtkyaisoiS6zcZMZQYt-DBWiRrQ0pbjksQU_Lm7FgL6gIA/s320/204-B1-41.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div>I just uploaded the eBook “The perspective of the 5,000 year old grandmother of all nations”. <p style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">It is a compilation, and edited version, of my series of 5 articles under the same title. </p><p style="user-select: text;">This book examines the contemporary through the lens of my recently published book “Modernity”.
<span style="user-select: text;"></span></p><a name='more'></a><br style="user-select: text;" /><p style="user-select: text;"></p><p style="user-select: text;">Download <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/archcreaBooks.html" style="user-select: text;">“The perspective of the 5,000 year old grandmother of all nations”</a>.</p><p style="user-select: text;"> </p><p style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp3rrVJ7DDQ8cTuv1SovwDvoqPuRujC3jEsJG64DjZ4Z-Vg3fLLZaVBHi2jvu4B6oInhTecajo7AQPwNRSX6vq6JKyB-R4KlJmg5xuZsXVnTVI3ODUQJsYIng60r8RgSBt5ZsDU8lBOxyszOhsulSDcAFdYjTytheyJZKdvdoiPzcjBy4-7A/s1200/204-D2-41.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjp3rrVJ7DDQ8cTuv1SovwDvoqPuRujC3jEsJG64DjZ4Z-Vg3fLLZaVBHi2jvu4B6oInhTecajo7AQPwNRSX6vq6JKyB-R4KlJmg5xuZsXVnTVI3ODUQJsYIng60r8RgSBt5ZsDU8lBOxyszOhsulSDcAFdYjTytheyJZKdvdoiPzcjBy4-7A/s320/204-D2-41.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /> <p style="user-select: text;"></p>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-85560902186004228142023-03-06T20:29:00.002-05:002023-03-06T20:32:51.288-05:00Foreword to "Societal Knowledge Formation".<div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT-EJ-IkkASq8_bXh9zwaQKxomN_QcDv48HCfTfo3yR-PU5jRgFbuxRHQ5dSrJ4szS6aEyEHM8tv9FIhfCpJaTh1qjl7rIsT7Sg8MMdFMmVFwjfHMPqf1B6Gse7MLfmuhkkJJnymcljQQpLwltugyhSMg2BuzVsC5xzKdIcoQ26MYQP8SRjw/s1200/304-A1-11.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT-EJ-IkkASq8_bXh9zwaQKxomN_QcDv48HCfTfo3yR-PU5jRgFbuxRHQ5dSrJ4szS6aEyEHM8tv9FIhfCpJaTh1qjl7rIsT7Sg8MMdFMmVFwjfHMPqf1B6Gse7MLfmuhkkJJnymcljQQpLwltugyhSMg2BuzVsC5xzKdIcoQ26MYQP8SRjw/s320/304-A1-11.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div>This is a first post related to the book "Societal Knowledge Formation" that I'm presently writing.
<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
I'll try to give a monthly extract of parts of the book that I personally find particularly interesting. The present post is the foreword to the book.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><span style="user-select: text;"><a name='more'></a></span>
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The idea of societal knowledge formation begs to be situated in the wider context of the evolution of Homo-Sapiens.
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By 300,000 years ago biological evolution (1) had created the conditions for the eventuality of a societal emergence of systemic knowledge formation in small bands of hunter gatherers. This eventuality materialized most probably during the Eamian Interglacial Period that lasted from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago. But the resulting population explosion destabilized the small band model of society which forced a transition toward a new model that would be compatible with growing population levels.
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Archaeologists have unearthed an abundance of artifacts, dating from around 100,000 years ago and earlier, that suggests such a historical turning point had occurred. These artifacts are remains of a thriving material culture which had systematized the process of knowledge formation that had originated in small bands. Over tens of thousands of years this tribal knowledge formation eventually accrued into a vast body of knowledge that came to be known under the appellation of animism.
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But, at the tail-end of the Younger-Dryas some 11,700 years ago, a new bout of abrupt climate warming, boosted the flora and fauna and the tribal population exploded destabilizing its model of society. This was followed by a 6,500 to 7000 years long transition from the model of tribal-societies to the model of power-societies. The new institutions of power-societies finally succeeded, some 5000 years ago, to reproduce over the long haul of many generations which originated the realm of different civilizations.
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In the Tri-Continental-Area this societal evolution matured after the men of power associated with men of knowledge who had a large following of believers. In contrast East-Asian tribal societies, and animism, had slipped imperceptibly into power societies. This is the subject of the Volume 1 of the series "From Modernity to After-Modernity".
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Wisdom implies the recognition of our incapacity to access the existential implication, of the working of the whole universe, for us small particles living in one of its sub-sub-sub-ensembles. The recognition of this incapacity eliminates the possibility of ideological certainties thus freeing the wise-man to focus on what really matters for the species :
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The reproduction of societies guarantees the species’ reproduction
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The alleviation, of the individuals’ suffering, eases their drive to novelty, and boosts the societal potential to reach higher levels of complexity which acts as the energy powering societal evolution and the evolution of the species.
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The fact is that knowledge and wisdom generate a completely different outcome than rationalism and science which emerged during Modernity.
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Knowledge and wisdom supply a body of pragmatic teachings that alleviate individual suffering while easing the reproduction of societies and of the species. In contrast rationalism and science procure knowings, about bits and pieces of reality, that increase the profits of the big capital holders, and their servants, who finance the operation of science.
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Western European power-societies inherited, from the Tri-Continental-Area, the societal paradigm of belief in a religious narrative that later shifted into “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a process of dynamic capital accumulation” which originated ‘rationalism–science’. ‘Knowledge–wisdom’ in contrast was initiated by the tribal paradigm of animism. This begs a conceptual clarification :
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<u style="user-select: text;">Societal paradigms </u><br style="user-select: text;" />
Societal paradigms are the ontological roots that fixed the systems of meaning sustaining the different models of societal knowledge formation which succeeded each other along the path of human societal evolution.
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<u style="user-select: text;">Societal systems of logic</u> <br style="user-select: text;" />
Different societal paradigms generate different societal systems of logic that are also called knowledge. Societal paradigms act in the same manner as the paradigm of mathematics which is pure abstract logic for its own sake. The foundation of the abstract logic of mathematics is given by non-proven axioms that open the path to the construction of its logical structures. Similarly non-proven axioms of civilizations were the foundation of societal systems of logic that sustained the evolution of the field of culture of the different models of societies which succeeded each other along the path of human societal evolution. I suggested, in the Volume 1 of this series, that this process was an integral part of “the Continuum of the societal Field of culture”.
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<u style="user-select: text;">Each system of logic has its own rationality</u> <br style="user-select: text;" />
The implication, of the existence of different societal systems of logic, is that each one of them has its own rationality and we observe that the rationality, of the different models of societies which succeeded each other, operated along the following lines :
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3.1. The paradigm, of tribal societies, was pragmatism and its societal system of logic was given by the sharing of a common animist worldview that focused on alleviating individual suffering while easing the reproduction of the societal group over as many generations as possible which guaranteed the reproduction of the species. <br style="user-select: text;" />
The rationality derived from such a system of societal logic has always privileged the continuity of society and the species. Continuity implied the sharing, by all members of tribal groups, of a coherent worldview rooted in a holistic system of knowledge formation which rested on a precautionary approach to the adoption of novelty. <br style="user-select: text;" />
Precaution was rooted in the outcome of the long haul observation, by the (wo)men of knowledge, of the following : <br style="user-select: text;" />
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3.1.1. The movements of the heavenly spheres and their cyclical patterns
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3.1.2. The long haul observation of the interactions between tribesmen, and all other entities, in the habitats
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3.1.3. The superposition of the interacting patterns in the habitat, on top of the heavenly cyclical patterns, generated new patterns that informed about coming climatic and weather variations, about the seasonal earthly cycles, and so on…
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3.2. The paradigm, of early Western power-societies, was the belief in a religious narrative and its societal system of logic was given by the justification of the privileges of the men of power and the necessity to reproduce their institutions. The rationality derived from such a system of societal logic has always privileged the continuity of authoritarianism, midst societal inequality, in order to ease the reproduction of state institutions. <br style="user-select: text;" />
In early Chinese power-societies the paradigm was animist pragmatism and the societal system of logic was given by the shared belief in animism that offered a common vision about how to ease the production of daily life and about how to maximize the efficiency of the societal organization. And the rationality derived from such a system of societal logic has always privileged the satisfaction of the citizens' various demands in order to balance social relations in a state of harmony that eases the reproduction of state institutions.
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3.3. By the 12th century, in Western Europe, the paradigm of Modernity was “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a process of dynamic capital accumulation” and the societal system of logic was given by the abstraction operating in "the reason". <br style="user-select: text;" />
The rationality derived from such a system, of societal logic, has privileged the accumulation of capital since the emergence of the paradigm of Modernity. <br style="user-select: text;" />
And the envy of the success of capital holders fostered the emulation of "the reason" whose rationality gradually expanded the realm of its application to everything. This is how "the reason" expanded, from 1150 to 1750, into philosophic rationalism, science, classical economics and the ideology of liberalism.
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All this forms the general context in which we have to situate the societal process of knowledge formation.
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This approach has the advantage to relativize the absolutism of the concept of rationality, that the European Enlightenment bestowed on it, by comparing it to its historical variants. And the fact is that this exercise in comparison is without appeal. The outcome of the application of the rationality of Western Modernity is “the Great Convergence of Late-Modernity” :
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<u style="user-select: text;"><b style="user-select: text;">Side-effects</b></u> : — societal atomization, — climate change, — the poisoning of land water and air, population explosion, acidification of the oceans, and so on…
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<u style="user-select: text;"><b style="user-select: text;">Destabilization of the governance-world</b></u> :
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<u style="user-select: text;">2.1. Internal destabilization of Western societies </u>: <br style="user-select: text;" />
Societal atomization has killed the unity of Western nations and as a consequence they are no longer able to successfully undertake any large scale enterprise like a world-war or a re-shoring of an industrial base or the management of emergencies like a Covid epidemic.
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<u style="user-select: text;">2.2. Western destruction of its hegemonic world order</u> : <br style="user-select: text;" />
In their adolescent psychological state Western nations are refusing to accept the natural evolution of Western Modernity for the only reason that the center of gravity of its economy-world is shifting outside of the realm of their civilization.<br style="user-select: text;" />
But societies do not have the free-will to oppose the nature of societal evolution. The shift of the center of gravity of Western Modernity, to East-Asia with China at the core, is the natural outcome of the silent Neo-liberal revolution that Western big capital holders, and their institutional servants, have initiated in the 1970’s. This silent revolution is now concluding with Western societal atomization and hyper social inequality !<br style="user-select: text;" />
The fact is that the Western adolescent temper tantrum is gradually destroying the world-order built in the wake of the 2nd World War which assured the Western hegemonic governance of the world ! The unfortunate consequence of this temper tantrum is that the world is on the verge of a World War that could turn nuclear…
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The Great Convergence of Late-Modernity</b></u> :
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<u style="user-select: text;">3.1. Convergence of the side-effects of Modernity</u> :<br style="user-select: text;" />
The convergence of those side-effects implies interactions among them that increase the speed of their unfolding which accelerates the occurrence of tipping points into new states of equilibrium from which there is no return.
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<u style="user-select: text;">3.2. A destabilized governance-world brings us closer to nuclear annihilation</u>…
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<u style="user-select: text;">3.3. Convergence of side-effects + destabilized governance-world → impossibility to address both in a logical way</u>… This is the predicament of humanity in this Late-Modernity !
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The Great Convergence implies the ending of Western Modernity with a mass extinction that could possibly take Homo-Sapiens out of the picture ! Does this qualify the rationality of Modernity as an exceptional form of rationality or does it disqualify it ? </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div></div>
<div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8c3Af-bZzCicWks04zIJwmWvrM7jdP3UpyEK_F6XTNeHEP0fH041GMG1do1jvZ1tk8aDqQIOMMZnb77-qOlMbHZMM9DcgdvM8owgtZrkVbZDugzNMa48JpMmXHrGBFcPbjsD3ZNTHMhWqrwm3--4_Ew3S4JcB1j9pQRlMPhWfzzY4I-qpHw/s1200/304-A4-43.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8c3Af-bZzCicWks04zIJwmWvrM7jdP3UpyEK_F6XTNeHEP0fH041GMG1do1jvZ1tk8aDqQIOMMZnb77-qOlMbHZMM9DcgdvM8owgtZrkVbZDugzNMa48JpMmXHrGBFcPbjsD3ZNTHMhWqrwm3--4_Ew3S4JcB1j9pQRlMPhWfzzY4I-qpHw/s320/304-A4-43.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a><br style="user-select: text;" />
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<h2 style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <u style="user-select: text;">Notes</u></h2>
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1. The first draft of this 3rd volume, of the series “From Modernity to After-Modernity”, was given in 12 articles published, during the 2013-2014 winter, on my blog “Painting & Thinking” that got canceled by Weebly in the early days of the cultural effervescence that slowly overwhelmed Western societies in their present propaganda rage. I formatted these articles in book form during the year 2018 and 2019. But since their writing my thinking had evolved greatly and I had thus to rework the material in its final form which I plan to terminate by the end of 2025. Once terminated this series will thus have taken me over 10 years.
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laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-21966497147230589882022-12-15T13:00:00.139-05:002022-12-15T13:00:01.373-05:00The perspective of the 5,000 year old grandmother of all nations. Part 5. the necessity of a new societal paradigm and an actualization of our societal worldviews <div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">
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In these twenties humanity is in the midst of a Geo-Political storm that is being activated by the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world from the West to East-Asia. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><span style="user-select: text;"><a name='more'></a></span> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">The West does not accept the inevitability of this natural shift and it acts to prove itself right. In this resides the greatest danger, during these 2020s, for human societies and for our species ! The outcome of this Western generated conflict will decide how humanity implements the necessary remedies to counter the imbalances that Western Modernity has unleashed on the Geo-Bio-Chemistry of the sub-ensemble earth. <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
The present actions of the USA indicate without any possible doubt that this country is ready to sacrifice most of the world population to ensure the continuation of its Western form of Modernity. In this gamble the development of science and technology take center stage and are slowly imposing a post-humanist and scientist vision of the future that renders working populations superfluous. (1)
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The only thing that counts, in that vision, are the non-visible interests of Western big capital holders that are managed by their servant technocrats and their armies of robot-workers.
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But this Western strategy defies the nature of societal evolution. It blurs people’s perceptions of what is going on by shedding chaos all around. This chaos sheds such a confusion that the individuals are loosing their sanity and this includes those individuals who participate in the conception and the implementation of that strategy in the first place.
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The resulting chaos casts such a madness over the contemporary moment that to keep its mental clarity the rest of the world feels forced to focus on the formation of its daily societal cultures. And it appears evident that the world community of nations is in dire need of :
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Synchronizing its different societal worldviews with “the First Principles of Life” so that the individuals can possibly adapt mentally to the painful answers that will be necessary in order to tame the societal destabilization that accompanies “the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world” and “the great convergence of Late-Modernity”.
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A new societal paradigm that addresses and harmonizes the activities of the world community of nations with the Geo-Bio-Chemistry of the sub-ensemble earth <br style="user-select: text;" /></li>
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</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><h2 style="user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP-a6ftSd_HPa9xI9Aav93qRQR6UIrEmd7mk83gKM7IKAsKF7l9wPccqrjFQVtyqbZcL6Se2RQsW6QxRawEM3I-EMYVv4QpG28-VbL1XrLoFw7xk9gTMYg_m0_Q9AzRwLbVPNfB7IiMKgqkIX5PaiRV5x-ZIJxSyM1Q-3gANXWqwYaLCuv0w/s1200/104-A3-31.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjP-a6ftSd_HPa9xI9Aav93qRQR6UIrEmd7mk83gKM7IKAsKF7l9wPccqrjFQVtyqbZcL6Se2RQsW6QxRawEM3I-EMYVv4QpG28-VbL1XrLoFw7xk9gTMYg_m0_Q9AzRwLbVPNfB7IiMKgqkIX5PaiRV5x-ZIJxSyM1Q-3gANXWqwYaLCuv0w/s320/104-A3-31.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a> 5.1. Synchronizing societal worldviews with the First principles of life (2)</h2></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">The individuals are vaguely sensing that better fitting in the whole could gain them some reprieve from suffering. And this reprieve is a strong enticement to engage in societal knowledge formation about pragmatic principles to help live in harmony with the order of the whole.
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The “first principles of life” point to a close interdependence between a species and its polarities the individuals and their societies. The polarities themselves have complementary roles in playing out the game of life. The same kind of close interdependence applies equally to the relations between the diverse species and between the individuals of these species.
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This constitutes the realm of life on earth. And this principle of interdependence is observed to expand ever further — from, the realm of life on earth that in mathematical abstraction we could call the ensemble earth, to the ensemble constituted by the solar system — from the ensemble given by the solar system to the ensemble constituted by our galaxy the Milky Way — and from the Milky way to U or the whole universe that contains all the galaxies.
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What we discover at this point of our reasoning is that everything in the universe is connected with everything else… We might not understand the working of the universe but that does not diminish the cosmic importance of our conviction about the interconnectedness of all things in it.
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Having thus set the global context of survival necessity, amidst “the great convergence of Late-Modernity”, it appears that the seeds, of “the reason that is at work in the First Principles of life”, have awakened in the subconscious of the most sensitive among us. And the first of those seeds are now starting to sprout in our minds that will slowly catch the attention of humanity to the urgent necessity of togetherness that is of prime necessity to possibly address “the great convergence of Late-Modernity”.
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While the emergence of the new paradigm, of “the reason that is at work in the First Principles of life”, is still operating largely unconsciously it is already alienating large swathes of people, from “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital”.
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But having said this it would be presumptuous to believe that we possibly could determine with any level of certainty what will be the outcome of “the great convergence of Late-Modernity”. It appears indeed evident that the governance side-effects of Modernity are not going to be left playing-out all on their own. Its physical side-effects are indeed starting to interact ever more ferociously with the Geo-political games that accompany the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world to East-Asia.
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What I mean to say by this is that the present Geo-political conflicts, between the USA who wants to command a unipolar world order and Russia India China and the rest of the Global South who want to guide the Global South on the path of a multipolar world order, are going to appear like trivialities once tipping points, in the interactions between different side-effects of Modernity, will drive humanity on the margins of its bandwidth of life.
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When the feeling will start to sink in the minds that humanity is falling outside of its bandwidth of life sustainability we all are going to be shaken into awareness about the triviality of Geo-politics. And a worldwide call will rise suggesting to the inhabitants of this earth that the time has come to shift their worldview along the lines of “the reason that is at work in the First Principles of life”.
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“The reason that is at work in the First Principles of life” conveys a simple narrative that is rooted in a vision of the future centering on — life — the place of life in the universe — the place of the individuals of all species in the grand scheme of life :
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<u style="user-select: text;">The embodiment of life</u>
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After the necessary conditions had assembled locally on earth, the implicate order of the whole eventually enfolded its universal potential for life to sprout. The emergence of the first prokaryotic organisms rapidly evolved into different species that eventually transitioned into eukaryotic cells that evolved into more complex species.
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From observation, since the dawn of human societal life, we know that all species are similarly driven by the reproduction of the individuals, their societies, and the species and their complexification over time. Species do this by resolving the tension, between societal reproduction and societal complexity.
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<li style="user-select: text;"> <u style="user-select: text;">The narrow bandwidth of life’s sustainability</u>
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The potential, of “the Implicate Order”3 of the ”whole”, is infinite but its seeds can only sprout after the right conditions have been assembled in a local sub-ensemble. This is how life emerged on earth and then it evolved within a very narrow bandwidth :
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“As strong and resilient as the human body seems in some situations, considered in the context of the cosmos as a whole, it's unnervingly fragile.
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Many of the boundaries within which a typical human can survive have been fully established; the well-known "rule of threes" dictates how long we can forgo air, water and food (roughly three minutes, three days and three weeks, respectively). Other limits are more speculative, because people have seldom, if ever, tested them.
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… According to a 1958 NASA report, people can live indefinitely in environments that range between roughly 40 degrees F and 95 degrees F (4 and 35 degrees C), if the latter temperature occurs at no more than 50 percent relative humidity. “ (4)
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This narrow bandwidth of life sustainability is the physical and biological field of tolerance of life which varies for species to species.
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The life of the individuals gets crushed when they step outside the bandwidth of their species’ survivability. This ultimately implies that there are physical, biological, and societal constraints to the search for novelty by living species !
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<u style="user-select: text;">Universal Interconnectedness
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The interactions of living species, with other species and the local elements in their habitat, procure them directionality which implies the inter-relatedness, and interconnectedness, of all living species and elements in a same sub-ensemble of the whole.
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But, on an even more fundamental plane, life is at all times deeply intertwined with — the flow of possibilities originating in “the Implicate Order” of the “whole Universe” — the imperatives originating in the inter-relatedness of all the elements in the local habitat — the physical or biological field of tolerance within the narrow band of life sustainability — the cohesion between the individuals that is necessary to reproduce their society.
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Our Earth is one sub-ensemble of “the Ultimate Whole” that is our Universe. This means that, humans are not only interconnected in their absolute need to compromise with each other in order to avoid their Mutually Assured Destruction, but more importantly at the image of good gardeners, humans are also interconnected in their absolute need to cultivate the narrow band of sustainability of life on earth in order to avoid the extinction of the species.<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
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<u style="user-select: text;">The societal settlement of differences between polarities → the growth of complexity</u>
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The negotiated settlements of conflicts, occurring in the interactions between the two polarities of a species (individuals → change / society → conservation), result in a higher societal complexity which, in turn, boosts the higher complexity of the species and of the whole Universe.
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The same is at work in the negotiated settlements of conflicts occurring in the interactions between nations or groups of nations which means that a negotiated settlement of the present Geo-political conflict, between the camp of unipolarity and the camp of multipolarity, would result in a higher societal and Geo-political complexity that would be beneficial for both sides !
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<u style="user-select: text;">Growth in societal complexity fosters individual awareness </u>
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The growth in societal complexity results from the negotiated settlement of conflicts by the polarities of species. It is one of the two imperious objectives of species : — reproduction of life — complexification of life.
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Complexity eventually fosters an individual awareness that later might develop into an enlarging consciousness that contributes to the growing wisdom of individuals and of their societies.
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This process of complexification, that leads to awareness, is at work every time societies are confronted with the necessity to find solutions to a problem. In other words, amidst a complexifying context, necessity eventually fosters awareness about life…
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The growth in societal complexity, results from the negotiated settlements of conflicts between the polarities of the species. The individuals and their societies are also at the core of the interactions between nations or groups of nations which implies that a negotiated settlement of Geo-political conflicts leads to the growth in global governance complexity.
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Societal and Geo-political complexity eventually foster an individual and national awareness that later may develop into an increasing consciousness of the individuals. The process of societal and Geo-political complexification, that leads to awareness, is at work every time societies are confronted with the necessity to find solutions to a problem.
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What I’m suggesting here is that, amidst the present complexifying Geo-political context, the necessity to ensure the survival of our species will eventually foster an individual awareness about the triviality of Geo-politics in the face of the higher necessity to keep our societies within the margins of the bandwidth of life.</li><br style="user-select: text;" />
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<u style="user-select: text;">Outside of “the First Principles of Life” resides Ugliness</u>
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The navigation outside of “the First Principles of Life” results in irrevocable damages to the individuals, their societies, and their local habitat. These damages reflect an ugliness that reduces their chances to reproduce over the long haul.
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What works and what does not work over a few billion years, first biologically and later societally, is stored in the DNA/RNA of an individual. These data reflect patterns that instill an intuitive awareness and feeling in the bodies and the minds of the individuals.
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When those feelings arise they foster physical and mental vibrations which awake an innate sensitivity, or an early awareness, that attracts the individual towards what works and dejects her or him from what does not work.
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Humans have gradually encoded this physical and mental sensitivity in their languages under appellations like “beauty” and “ugliness”. These words arouse individual feelings most difficult to describe but eliciting strong reactions that force choices.</li><br style="user-select: text;" />
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<u style="user-select: text;">Acquired consciousness in sub-ensembles reverberates to the whole and participates in the growth of its own consciousness</u>
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Individual and societal wisdom generate thinking and behavioral habits that are growing the complexity of species. This reverberates outwards to the whole Universe and participates in the expansion of its consciousness about the evolution of its parts which impacts its awareness about its own wholeness.
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This process is expanding the whole into ever higher levels of physical and mental complexity which implies that the universe is somehow alive and, as all life forms, it is thus destined to contract and to die.
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Do polarities apply solely to all entities within the whole universe ? Is our whole-universe itself one polarity of an entity in a larger ensemble ? The answers to these questions are unknown and as they are not destined to ease the individuals’ daily life they are basically without any merit.
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As in a fractal like thinking process this kind of questions always makes me wonder what bacteria in our guts might be thinking — about us who are the whole in which they are the tiny particles — and how they participate in the life of that whole. Does anyone really believe that our microbiome would be any better off by reasoning about our societies ?</li><br style="user-select: text;" />
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<u style="user-select: text;">Life is on a mission </u>
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The 7 preceding points imply that the true nature of our life, as minuscules particles of the sub-ensemble earth, has nothing to do with randomness. Life is on a mission to ensure — the growth in complexity of the physical and mental polarities of all entities in the local habitat — the growth and complexity of the species themselves — the growth in complexity of the whole universe.
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But the first mission of life is to reproduce over the long haul so that it can satisfy its urge for novelty. This forces species to focus primarily on their local context, on their own reproduction, and on the reproduction of their polarities which explains the strong attraction of the individuals of all species to pragmatism…
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</ol> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">The species and the individuals, who for whatever reason go against these 8 universal principles, are condemning themselves to a meaningless life, made of suffering, that puts them on the path of extinction and, in reverse, the species that accords with these 8 universal principles grow ever closer to the finality of the whole which means that they follow a harmonious evolutionary path.<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
In the present Geo-political context the 8 universal principles, originating in “The reason that is at work in the First Principles of life”, act like a vital compass that eases the navigation of species and societies in the ocean of life. The ideological militant frenzy of Western decision-makers, who don’t give a damn about the anxiety of their own populations, is naturally blind to these 8 universal principles.
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Ideological possession seems the most appropriate word to characterize their mental insensitivity. They run around the world shouting that democracy is a Western universal decision making process that best satisfies the interests of the citizens. But they are unable themselves to take in consideration the interests of their own people :
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“If I give the promise to people in Ukraine – ‘We stand with you, as long as you need us’ – then I want to deliver. No matter what my German voters think.”
German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock at the “26th Forum 2000 Conference” in Prague. August 31, 2022. <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=78-_Ou5sH3k&t=5092s" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">YouTube @1:24:52</a>.
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That says all we need to know about Western democracy !</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><h2 style="user-select: text;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFJ_AS-SjS_HrSMKxxupe_pNfVyaXl6Mo_B7gtvs9q2bq76-okB0QcggVAp_Rfv3jYld0if3139glqOB1b6LBl94WLPwxfztwxR5r-uIgX_juorv0QBBTurwsSwCJJ3cJAeMeY8DQU5pz1OTVdzLPqDwnWK5LM6fi1HilTOtkTohYK-cowaw/s1200/105-B4-24.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjFJ_AS-SjS_HrSMKxxupe_pNfVyaXl6Mo_B7gtvs9q2bq76-okB0QcggVAp_Rfv3jYld0if3139glqOB1b6LBl94WLPwxfztwxR5r-uIgX_juorv0QBBTurwsSwCJJ3cJAeMeY8DQU5pz1OTVdzLPqDwnWK5LM6fi1HilTOtkTohYK-cowaw/s320/105-B4-24.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div></h2><h2 style="user-select: text;">
5.2. A new societal paradigm to fit human life in the Geo-Bio-Chemistry of the sub-ensemble earth
</h2><br style="user-select: text;" /> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">Today the community of human nations faces a moment of truth. To survive the totalitarian dystopia of the hegemony of Western Modernity that is being controlled by Western big capital holders and their institutional servants, the human species needs alternative narratives to the paradigm of Western Modernity.
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We need a new paradigm that could expand into a vision of reality driving societies on a path of physical and cultural sustainability and the individuals on a path of contentment. And the fact is that something like this starts to be vaguely perceived as a necessity in the north as well as in the south.
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But what is a paradigm ?
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Thomas Kuhn writes in “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions” that revolutions in science result from a shift in the paradigm of an epoch. And he adds that a paradigm is the shared perceptual consensus in a given epoch about the matrix of reality :
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“A paradigm is a basic framework of assumptions, principals and methods from which the members of the community work. It is a set of norms which tell a scientists how to think and behave and although in science there are rival schools of thought there is still a single paradigm that all scientists accept uncritically.” (5)
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Kuhn furthermore considered that the theories, and the rationality at work in different periods, are not comparable because their paradigms are incommensurable which means that their worldview is rooted in incompatible approaches that share no common ground nor any standard of comparison :
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“What man sees depends both upon what he looks at and also upon what his previous visual-conception experience has taught him to see.”
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People in different epochs share indeed different approaches to reality (worldviews) that instill their own rationality and their own truth and in this sense :
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“The competition between paradigms is not the sort of battle that can be resolved by proofs.”
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Kuhn leaves no doubt that worldviews are shared narratives which are viewed as expressing the truth about reality and as such the competition among them can’t be resolved by proofs.
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To get to the crux of the notion of societal paradigm, that I have in mind, lets rapidly compare how knowledge fared under the paradigm of Modernity and under the paradigm of animism.
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5.2.1. The paradigm of animism
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The paradigm of the animist (wo)men of knowledge was pragmatism which is the ability to minimize the suffering of the individuals while maximizing the success of their endeavors. These (wo)men of knowledge specialized in a system of knowledge formation that focused on the observation of the celestial spheres over the long haul of tens of thousands of years. That’s how they discovered that the surface of reality is patterned. And they made it their task to decode these patterns and to superimpose their codes on the reality observed in the habitat of their tribes.
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Practiced over tens of thousands of years this kind of superposition, of the moves by the celestial spheres on top of the changes occurring in their local habitat, procured them robust pragmatic responses to all kinds of questions arising in the minds of their fellow tribesmen. And these celestial patterns, and their implications for life in the local habitat, got transmitted orally, and in secrecy, from generation to generation. This is how they grew in a vast body of pragmatic knowledge.
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In the wake of the destabilization of tribal societies in the Tri-Continental-Area, at the tail-end of the Younger-Dryas, a rupture occurred with that body of pragmatic knowledge which got definitely lost during the retreat of tribal groups fleeing the violence of men of power.
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The tribal (wo)men of Knowledge had been sharing for tens of thousand of years the pragmatic responses, induced by this body of knowledge, with their fellow tribesmen. And so formed gradually a worldview that, during the 19th century, got called animism by Western anthropologists. This vast body of pragmatic knowledge had remained at all times secret and helped the tribal (wo)men of Knowledge to satisfy their obligations towards their fellow tribesmen which consisted in the following :
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Guiding their tribes on the path of a “gift economy” which de facto fostered peaceful egalitarian relations among tribesmen and also with the neighboring tribes.
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In the normality of “the Reason”, and rationalism, this notion of a gift-economy appears something strange that conflicts with the mental vision of a normality that is rooted in individualism, in materialism, and in competition.
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In contrast to the normality of Western Modernity, a “gift economy” is rooted in the living community and in the perception of the animation, and the interactions, of all the individuals and elements in the habitat which implies their cooperative interaction.
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Guiding their fellow tribesmen into cultivating a profound trust in the community that resulted in levels of societal cohesion that are no longer fathomable to us Moderns.
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Guiding their fellow tribesmen to collect the resources necessary to ensure the health of their bodies and minds and thus treating their health holistically by harmonizing the activities of their bodies and their minds.
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Guiding their fellow tribesmen in managing the level of their population (Dunbar number) by splitting their tribe when their population grew over a high threshold or by fusing with another group when their population fell under a low threshold.
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Guide their fellow tribesmen in the management of the conflicts between individuals and between tribes.
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5.2.2. The paradigm of Modernity
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The paradigm of Modernity illuminated the minds of the early Frank merchants and it shifted their attention from the paradigm of Christianity which was rooted in a shared religious belief that the Roman empire had imposed, as the official religion, during the 4th century.
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Religious narratives helped to stabilize the institutions of power-societies and these power-societies evolved into a civilizational realm. The religious narrative of Christianity had been imposed by the Roman empire to its citizens. And after its fall the Western church spread its narrative among the Franks living in Northern and Western Gaul while participating in the reproduction of Western European institutions of power.
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A few hundred years later after their illumination the Frank long distance merchants started to venerate “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital”. And after some 5 to 6 centuries of financial successes Western European merchants had gained the mental assurance to port “the reason” to the altar of academic correctness for further spreading to all fields of human life in the form of rationalism, science, and ultimately in the form of the technological scientism that today bullies Western Late-Modern societies into post-humanism.
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The paradigm of Christianity ensured the mental bondage of the citizens of the Roman empire and later of the Medieval powers that were controlled by the church of Rome. In contrast the paradigm of Modernity fostered a rationality that served capital accumulation. And to generate returns on their investments big capital holders, and their servants, acted as the masters of science by financing its operational costs. Science was thus made captive of “the reason” since the get go which explains that this capture was never seriously contested.
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Scientists need cash to live and most of them do not mind where the financing of their activities originates. But cash in return procures the authority, to the supplier of the funding, to decide what kind of research should be undertaken. Since the start science was thus essentially a service to big capital holders to help them generate ever more profits.
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Such an instrumentalization necessarily leads to short term relative conclusions that compare poorly with the conclusions reached, over the very long haul observation, of animist wo(men) of knowledge. The very poor judgment of science is confirmed by the side-effects of Modernity that caused the human predicament of “the Great Convergence of Late-Modernity”.
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But the paradigm of Modernity got hidden under a thick layer of obfuscating abstractions that idolized individualism and materialism. Science and philosophy have been celebrating the individual creativity and the special cognitive capacity of artists and of scientists while economics celebrated the rational behavior of the economic actors. This is the subterfuge that justified Europe’s celebration, of individualism materialism and rationality, as the forces that unleashed the European Enlightenment, philosophic rationalism, the scientific method, and the industrial revolution.
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The materialism, of “knowings about bits and pieces of reality”, was after all the sole matter that interested capital holders and their servants. These “knowings” have been known since the industrial revolution to help them generate fabulous returns on their investments. But European minds got nevertheless swamped in these obfuscating abstractions and in the meanwhile the paradigm of Modernity remained a non-entity during the whole of Modernity !
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5.2.3. paradigms are at the root of societal knowledge formation
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“Almost always the men who achieve these fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change. And perhaps that point need not have been made explicit, for obviously these are the men who, being little committed by prior practice to the traditional rules of normal science, are particularly likely to see that those rules no longer define a playable game and to conceive another set that can replace them.” (6)
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The paradigm of power societies is the cultural and societal equivalent of mathematical theorems. It was derived from the prime societal worldviews that eventually eased the reproduction of the institutions of power over the long haul.
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In other words the paradigm of power societies put an end to the long transition from tribal societies to power societies after which it initiated the synchronization of the contextual settings of civilization-states with the continuum of its societal cultural field.
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And the fact is that contextual settings, conflicting with the societal cultural continuum, are first detected by those who are detached from a daily application of the existing paradigm. As Thomas Kuhn mentions in the quotation here above “...the men who, being little committed by prior practice to the traditional rules of normal science, are particularly likely to see that those rules no longer define a playable game…”.
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Societal paradigms expand into foundational systems that fix the ontology of the knowledge formation grows upon them. That’s how the field of mathematics, ontologically, is abstract rationality for its own sake just like “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital” is another abstract rationality for its own sake in the field of commerce and industry which gradually displaced the religious paradigm of belief in a narrative that got imposed by power.
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Societal, or cultural paradigms, occupy the entire field of the cultural continuum that animates the evolution of societies within a given civilizational realm. They are the substance that fixes the ontology of the knowledge formation of any given society.
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After rupturing with animism, some 10,000 years ago, the societies in the Tri-Continental-Area elaborated religious narratives. And those narratives that got retained by the men of power got eventually imposed to the citizens of their empires. While not following the same developmental path the Roman empire, sensing the growing risk of its collapse, by the end of the 4th century made Christianity its official religion in the hope that it would solidify the cohesion of its society. But the corruption that had set in earlier was so advanced that the empire definitively collapsed barely a century later.
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By the 12th century the paradigm of Western Christianity was faced with the new paradigm or Modernity, “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital”, that emerged in the minds of Frank long distance merchants. Over the following centuries that new paradigm slowly forced a new reading of reality to the urban populations. Paradoxically that new reading got encouraged and in many instances it was even initiated by progressive Christian clergymen like Thomas Aquinas who argued that human reason expanded the realm of divine law.
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But all this changed in the 18th century with the expansion of the paradigm of Modernity into philosophic rationalism, the scientific method, and the political militancy of liberalism which were the 3 legs of the European Enlightenment.
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But Western European intellectuals have unfortunately imposed their misreading of the origins of the Enlightenment to Western societies at large :
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The Renaissance changed the focus from the traditional reverence of the religious supernatural to man’s use of nature to satisfy his needs
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The reformation and the ensuing religious disorder, in some locales, viewed man’s use of nature as a god given privilege
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The “Thirty Years War” signaled the end of centuries of mistreatment at the hands of monarchies and the church
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The rise of rationalism opened the path to the industrial and the Scientific Revolution
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But European intellectuals failed to understand that all these factors originated in the ideological abstractions of individualism, materialism, and rationalism were the outcomes of the application, of the paradigm of Modernity, in the daily life of ever larger sections of Western European populations.
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To better situate how the paradigm of Modernity fashioned a system of knowledge formation that is rooted in “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital” there is no better way than to compare the formation of scientific knowings with the formation of animist knowledge.
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Animist induction from very long haul observation differentiates from short term scientific observation and deduction of knowings. This differentiation points to an irreconcilable difference of essence that separates the process of “Animist Knowledge Formation” from “the scientific method” : </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
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<u style="user-select: text;"><b style="user-select: text;">Animist knowledge versus scientific knowings
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Animism shaped a pragmatic knowledge base by observing over the very long haul, of tens of thousands of years, the unfolding of the movements of the celestial spheres and of the elements in the local habitat. And unsurprisingly this long haul observation necessarily fostered the same kind of answers all around the world. That’s why animism was a global belief system whose substance was uniform around the world but whose form varied with the variations in the local contextual settings of the human habitat.
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In contrast Modernity forms scientific knowings by momentarily observing the particular unfolding of interactions among some elements and their context. But because this particular unfolding of elements is not validated, over the very long haul, science recourses to a stratagem that, at least, superficially puts to rest the need of a validation over the long haul. The scientific stratagem is the scientific method or the repeatability of an experiment here and now.
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The essence of the difference between scientific repeatability and animist long haul observation resides in their time-frame : repeatability in the present versus the long time-span of thousands of years of observation !
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Both approaches start with observation. But the scientific stratagem gives only a certainty of repeatability in the short term. In other words the scientific validation does not give access to the observation of repeatability over the long haul nor does it give access to the long term consequences of what is being observed in the now :
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<u style="user-select: text;">1.1. Long haul observation</u>
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Long haul observation detects patterns of repeatability that inform the re-occurrence of particular natural phenomena in the local habitat. This explains why tribal populations, as well as wild animals, had the reflex of fleeing the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami7 while the tourists and the locals, who were steeped in Modernity, perished !</li><br style="user-select: text;" />
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<u style="user-select: text;">1.2. Science is blind to long haul observation</u>
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The time frame of scientific repeatability, through experimentation or observation, is restricted by its financiers to the short time-span of their interest that resides in generating surpluses from their investments. And while it is blind to the long haul observation, in which is rooted the application of the precautionary principle, science does not take any responsibility for the consequences of its blindness !
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The mRNA vaccines to counter Covid-19 have made this evident once more lately…
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The animist process of knowledge formation is undeniably of a more fundamental nature than the scientific approach. It is what motivated the Kogi people, in the nineteen-eighties, to come out of their hiding from the modern world in order to inform “their little brothers” that if they continue to destroy our habitat humanity is very soon going to go extinct (8).
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<u style="user-select: text;">1.3. Animism and science serve different ends</u> <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
The more fundamental nature of the animist method of knowledge formation related to the tribesmen entrusting their wo(man) of knowledge. Trust excluded anything else than pragmatism. This was the way of “tribal-societies” before the emergence of “power-societies” and agriculture.
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Since the emergence of agriculture and power-societies tribes have constantly been fleeing in more remote corners of the world where they lost ever more — of their inherited memory of their body of knowledge — of the bio-resources of the earth.
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Comparing today’s tribal remains, with the tribes before agriculture and power-societies, is therefore a dishonest proposition.
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In contrast, to the knowledge of the animist (wo)men of knowledge of yesteryear, the mission of the scientists is, for at least 95% of their productions, limited to the instrumentality of “knowing tricks” that momentarily allow its purveyors of funds to generate higher returns from their investments.
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Two radically different approaches
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Animism and science are rooted in two radically different paradigms. From the perspective of societal evolution one inspires trust. The other, over its short life-span, has succeeded to inspire suspicion ! Societal evolution is about the conciliation between : — how best to ensure the reproduction of society — how to harness the creativity of individual thinkers to inject more complexity in societies.
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In other words societal evolution is about keeping the two polarities of species (individuals and their society) in a state of balance. This inevitably requires a strong bond between the individuals and their society. Late-Modernity has made us first hand witnesses of the human predicament in which science had played a determinant role. Knowing the direct responsibility of science in our present predicament it is difficult not to come to the conclusion that it is not worth the trust, nor of the individuals nor of societies. No surprise thus that its implementation is fomenting distrust.
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But this does not imply that we should throw science in the garbage bin. We better force its re-orientation from servicing capital holders to servicing life…
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The differentiation between Animism and science leaves no place for doubt. Our ancestors were definitely on the right track while science is merely rooted in an abstraction that became a fad which merely lasted the blink of an eye, on the scale of societal evolution, before its inventions bequeathed “the predicament of late modernity” to humanity.
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Our ancestors, who most of us Moderns view as primitives, survived the very harsh and unstable climate conditions of recurring cyclical cycles of glaciation. They survived because they adhered conscientiously to the laws of nature and to the rules of biology that governed their bodies. Once biological evolution had completed the addition, to their brains sometime 300,000 years ago, of the Neo-cortex they gained the capability to induce abstractions from their observations. This eventually allowed them to initiate a process of knowledge formation sometime 130,000 years ago or perhaps even earlier.
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What is important to remember, for us moderns, is that knowledge for our primitive ancestors had to have pragmatic uses. Knowledge that did not have pragmatic uses was considered superfluous and was discarded.
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The emergence of power societies in the TCA ruptured with this pragmatism. In a first phase, starting some 5,000 years ago with Early-Empires, knowledge had morphed into a religious instrument to consolidate power institutions.
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In a second phase, starting some 900 years ago, Frank long distance merchants converted to “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital”. And so emerged the paradigm of Modernity that gradually developed into a rationalist system of knowledge formation.
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In both of its power-society phases, religious and modern, knowledge got separated from its holistic nature and got instrumentalized to serve special interests. Because the consolidation of power institutions in East-Asia got realized by the animist men of knowledge the pragmatism of animist knowledge formation survived in what is called the Chinese Traditional Culture and its scholastic of the Dao.
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We saw here above that ontologically the field of mathematics is abstract logic for its own sake while ontologically the field of culture, by synchronizing the present contextual settings of a society with its cultural continuum, is shaping societal evolution.
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In “The Continuum of the Cultural Field” I examined how societal paradigms are fixing the ontology of knowledge and culture :
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The paradigm of tribal societies, and animism, was pragmatism or the focus on the ability to minimize the suffering of the individuals while easing their daily lives. Pragmatism was thus the paradigm of tribal societies.
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The paradigm of power-societies, and religions, is “belief in a religious narrative” which was instrumental to the reproduction of power institutions. The paradigm of power-societies justified the privileges of the men of power
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The paradigm of Modernity is “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital”. This reason is in essence the rationality of capital that is at the core of rationalism and science.
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The predicament of humanity is “the Great Convergence of Late-Modernity” which is now forcing humanity to adapt its worldview to “the First Principles of Life”.
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<br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTsWEUoWodlVRbvnXd4JhU9QuegewfdvsojuZ1epQPju3rKrAzQLS8BUS8y63iYnUjEW_V0mL4k-BIg8bKwQicBosHbJQv7gw60eUsjpFU_WCblg9MwvQMaa7m0hYxntT8yRV9usq3jpN2o-97v_GDovYTvMIIp9rl_SkEEVSr9D5cmrO4HQ/s1200/202-C4-122.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTsWEUoWodlVRbvnXd4JhU9QuegewfdvsojuZ1epQPju3rKrAzQLS8BUS8y63iYnUjEW_V0mL4k-BIg8bKwQicBosHbJQv7gw60eUsjpFU_WCblg9MwvQMaa7m0hYxntT8yRV9usq3jpN2o-97v_GDovYTvMIIp9rl_SkEEVSr9D5cmrO4HQ/s320/202-C4-122.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><h2 style="user-select: text;">
<br style="user-select: text;" /></h2><h2 style="user-select: text;"><u style="user-select: text;">Notes
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1. “<a href="https://ideas.ted.com/the-rise-of-the-useless-class/" style="user-select: text;">The rise of the useless class</a>”, TED, by Yuval Noah Harari who is advisor to Klaus Schwab.
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2. The First Principles of Life are prime which means that societal worldviews, that contradict these First Principles, eventually go extinct while collapsing their societies and causing a lot of unnecessary suffering for the individuals. See “Modernity 02. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A7392%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C450.201%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">5.2.1. the First Principles of Life”</a>.
Most of the material of this chapter is taken from “Modernity 02. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A7564%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C388.001%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">5.2.3. The worldview of After-Modernity”</a> and I edited it for the present circumstance.
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3. The implicate order : see <a href="https://www.pdfdrive.com/wholeness-and-the-implicate-order-e157879429.html" style="user-select: text;">“Wholeness and the implicate order”</a> by David Bohm. The implicate order means that a field covering the whole universe is being nourished with potential by the ultimate ensemble. Life is such a potential. In other words the potential enfolds from the whole but it unfolds as an emerging phenomenon once all the ingredients, assembled in a sub-ensemble, interact…
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4. <a href="https://www.livescience.com/34128-limits-human-survival.html" style="user-select: text;">"What Are the Limits of Human Survival?"</a>, Live Science, by Natalie Wolchover. 2012-08-10.
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5. <a href="https://www.pdfdrive.com/the-structure-of-scientific-revolutions-e185571457.html" style="user-select: text;">"The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”</a>, University of Chicago Press, by Thomas Kuhn.
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6. <a href="https://www.pdfdrive.com/the-structure-of-scientific-revolutions-e185571457.html" style="user-select: text;">"The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”</a>, University of Chicago Press, by Thomas Kuhn.
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7. <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/article/news-animals-tsunami-sense-coming" style="user-select: text;">"Did Animals Sense Tsunami Was Coming?"</a>, National Geographic, by Maryann Mott. 2005-01-04. <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/ancient-tribe-survives-tsunami/" style="user-select: text;">"Ancient Tribe Survives Tsunami"</a>, CBS, by Neelesh Misra and Rupak Sanyal . 2005-01-04.
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8. The Kogi people have been retreating ever higher in the mountains, of the Sierra Nevada in Northern Columbian, since the Spanish invasion of the 16th century. They avoided all contacts with Modernity until the nineteen-eighties when they came to the conclusion that Modernity is destroying life on earth…
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfSnTUc52C8" style="user-select: text;">“From the heart of the world. The Elder brothers’ warning”</a>, 1990 TV documentary for the BBC, by Alan Ereira. <a href="https://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/kogi-urgent-call-guardians-heart-world" style="user-select: text;">"The Kogi: An Urgent Call from Guardians of the Heart of the World"</a>, Cultural Survival Magazine, by Atossa Soltani and Evelyn Arce. 2014-03.
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“We are now living outside of the laws of nature where nature is now turning against man and becoming the enemy. Climate change is the consequence of the fact that man is operating outside the laws of life and laws of nature, law of the balance of the world. And doing so will destroy the balance.” --Kogi
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laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-86007072409534509972022-11-24T12:00:00.003-05:002022-12-15T05:25:47.399-05:00 The perspective of the 5,000 year old grandmother of all nations. Part 3. While the West falls apart China ensures its technological self-sufficiency. <div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf0pDF_6PiFLGIS2KU6DANu4yznoQc8vHJeZUXzoy-Ee7rku7y_aUCW6h8EJ6qpFyK-h6BAVoVDJbyMuuPbG2uzU9GMSJLrv--3JPwfFrUkLXy9LZy8Jo8hN_57Nw-CUOZYV5uRKq_yGI0THWOay5QijZrm1N-S26ZnsWGXwXpHUW4ucDm-A/s1200/104-B1-11.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhf0pDF_6PiFLGIS2KU6DANu4yznoQc8vHJeZUXzoy-Ee7rku7y_aUCW6h8EJ6qpFyK-h6BAVoVDJbyMuuPbG2uzU9GMSJLrv--3JPwfFrUkLXy9LZy8Jo8hN_57Nw-CUOZYV5uRKq_yGI0THWOay5QijZrm1N-S26ZnsWGXwXpHUW4ucDm-A/s320/104-B1-11.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div>
The impetuosity of the US adolescent nation culminated during the Trump presidency. Aware that the Middle-Class' had fallen into poverty Donald Trump got elected because he focused on the hope of "Making America Great Again". But he knew that the dream of going back to the sixties was a non starter and so, as an inveterate racist, he scapegoated China. The peak of his trash-talking came when, unable to address Covid-19, his administration accused China of having unleashed the virus on the world and declaring that it was thus liable to pay trillions of dollars in damages.
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A few months of such daily trash-talk from spring to autumn 2020, about the culpability of China for having unleashed the epidemic, started to turn the Western public against that country. In the meantime the trade-war saga has been etched into Chinese, and Asian, peoples’ memory for its racist overtones and the numerous instances of rather undiplomatic language emanating from the US. The tone of the US language was determinant in provoking the steep fall in favorable view of its own population toward China as is illustrated in the following graph.<br style="user-select: text;" /><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiekFoVMo0RQt1kfasfMERzgFOIkabiDIm0saZqswfHGx_HqasOJwNPLuaaDPiycbMhXdtnDqE3asMATeHoZm9Nyf-MF-DR4I0MIktzbhNas9XrNrtg0ljc7EgOlAnHrxan3xeQjy4uPu1XvwGeAEmk6orSAuy_Ij8gjNsS10EKk6z13px8wA/s960/Image%201.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="509" data-original-width="960" height="170" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiekFoVMo0RQt1kfasfMERzgFOIkabiDIm0saZqswfHGx_HqasOJwNPLuaaDPiycbMhXdtnDqE3asMATeHoZm9Nyf-MF-DR4I0MIktzbhNas9XrNrtg0ljc7EgOlAnHrxan3xeQjy4uPu1XvwGeAEmk6orSAuy_Ij8gjNsS10EKk6z13px8wA/w320-h170/Image%201.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><span style="font-size: x-small; user-select: text;">"American Views of China Drop to Record Low", (1)</span><br style="user-select: text;" /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
The tone of the US language, and the subsequent fall in favorable US opinions about China, has since trapped the US political class in automatic bashing mode in order to please the unfavorable opinions of the public that had been fostered by that same political class in the first place.
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While laughing off the China threat, during the presidential election campaign, Biden was forced to accommodate US public opinion once in office. The more his favorability polling scores were sinking the harsher his rhetoric and policies became toward China. But the fact is that the policies and actions of his administration toward Taiwan are crossing China's red lines while its order impeaching US semiconductors firms to export their most advanced chip models is a technological blockade which not far from an act of war in International law. Thankfully China's diplomatic language kept being logical all along thus avoiding an escalation into the abyss.
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The attitude of Biden's administration clearly indicates that the US is now stuck in a vicious circle that poisons its relations with the first economic power on earth whose total wealth, according to a report by McKinsey Global Institute in Zurich, had jumped 30% higher than the total US wealth in the year 2020 ! The World Bank furthermore indicates that in 2021 China's real GDP was nearly 19 % higher than the US real GDP (PPP). (2)
<br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghOMiWrWzY8MpSeAR1_25DHcmTlb-28Z_EiI_jYUOKNO2WmbXaFgLAK9a1-W0se1kniRRYYKStr1I5ZitlsVemn1bOXbCaGl1RZgdjcyMsf4LF227ZWG3OZa9YZRCHgHHCBBfQ46EoNJ_Kkzlrw1EALG44aK0JBYWmJwlOdPbzyQB3qzeIVg/s1586/image%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1586" data-original-width="1566" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEghOMiWrWzY8MpSeAR1_25DHcmTlb-28Z_EiI_jYUOKNO2WmbXaFgLAK9a1-W0se1kniRRYYKStr1I5ZitlsVemn1bOXbCaGl1RZgdjcyMsf4LF227ZWG3OZa9YZRCHgHHCBBfQ46EoNJ_Kkzlrw1EALG44aK0JBYWmJwlOdPbzyQB3qzeIVg/s320/image%202.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="316" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><span style="font-size: x-small; user-select: text;">GDP, PPP (current international $) - China, United States (3)
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After the US mid-term elections in November 2022 both sides sent signals that they were eager to talk. But the US has erred so far outside the bounds of diplomatic normality over the last 5 years that some damages are irremediable by now. For one the Chinese public will not stand quiet if the US government pushes its slow rupture of the status quo about the one China two systems policy that applies to Taiwan. That’s why any further rupture of the status quo by the US is a red line for China. Secondly the US technological blockade is being answered by a Chinese policy of technological self-sufficiency that ambitions to build an <i style="user-select: text;">"industry-wide national supply chain"</i> in order to protect the satisfaction of its huge market.
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Having erred outside of diplomatic normality will prove to have been an extremely costly choice to the US. The biggest losers of that policy will be the US people. US enterprises will lose their biggest customer base. The US semiconductor industry, for example, is thought to loose not far from 50% of its total sales after the semiconductor blockade which will collapse its R&D budgets and force China to lead a whole country effort to lead in the field of semiconductors.
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Time will tell what will be the precise cost inflicted by the USA's national adolescence impetuosity on its economy. But what is sure already is that the cost will be tremendously high. By erring outside of diplomatic normality the US political decision-makers are de-facto inflicting on their capital holders the loss of a good deal of their potential future profits. Not being beholden to one nation capital holders, who are invested in the US industry, will be tempted to run their investment portfolio from another location in order to preserve the future potential growth of their profits !
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But how on earth did the US create such a trap for itself that will force it in isolation in its corner of the world thus severely limiting the future potential of its national economic actors ?
<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><h2 style="user-select: text;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdsf1UyLpdq59s_h8HSDgliz9xYovJCGu-sE_vFcpvFL70eNlzBvF9ct7rM8RHLlGCCMZG1c2bxrgblW5X6XlBlmPJKkM1opXyjD_6ipCZ7_yZPJYSBx-dT2yu7l-rBH2nQhDk3yi2o1grt2dURrJMkOpxwqC-wD40Fn7LAnWogkE5mXVDgg/s1200/104-A1-24.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdsf1UyLpdq59s_h8HSDgliz9xYovJCGu-sE_vFcpvFL70eNlzBvF9ct7rM8RHLlGCCMZG1c2bxrgblW5X6XlBlmPJKkM1opXyjD_6ipCZ7_yZPJYSBx-dT2yu7l-rBH2nQhDk3yi2o1grt2dURrJMkOpxwqC-wD40Fn7LAnWogkE5mXVDgg/s320/104-A1-24.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div> </h2><h2 style="user-select: text;"> </h2><h2 style="user-select: text;">3.1. Western woke stupidity ruptures a virtuous cycle of capitalist rationality
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As indicated, in <i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;"><a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity01.pdf" style="user-select: text;">"Modernity 01"</a></span></i>, the emergence of the paradigm of Modernity imposed a gradual shift from religious belief to <i style="user-select: text;">“the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital”</i>.
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The rationality at work in the transformation of money into capital lasted from the twelfth century until sometime in the nineteen seventies when the ideological prejudice of Western big capital holders, against the working population, twisted their minds into thinking about gaining absolute control over the whole world. What allowed them to extend the domain of their profit generation to the whole world was a transformation of the paradigm of Modernity into a new iteration along the lines of <i style="user-select: text;">“the gamble that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital”</i>.
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With the benefit of insight we observe that, in the short span of some 50 years, the rationality at work in this gamble (financial rationality) loaded a mountain of debts on the back of humanity. The West is carrying the biggest part of the burden of those debts and this explains the extreme fragility of its institutions that are simply no longer able to finance the costs to ensure the continuation of their hegemony.
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The total world GDP was $US 94 Trillion in 2021 while the total world debt was estimated to be between 300 and 350 Trillion not counting derivatives whose notional value is said to be somewhere between $1 and $2 quadrillion (1,000 to 2,000 Trillions) ! And what is determinant about those debts is that the bulk has been contracted by Western actors !
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These figures imply that debt has reached non repayable levels which means that a good deal of that debt is never going to be paid back ! But this is something that can not be recognized officially because the whole system would immediately come crashing down and reduce most people into abject poverty. The Western societal system is thus cornered to be a prisoner of the context that it has created for itself and it is forced day after day to extinguish fires that grow ever bigger :
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To ensure the survival of strategically important national economic players the central banks are printing ever more money to buy paper representing assets whose value is for the least doubtful. So the central banks have been accumulating ever higher levels of paper assets that in all probability will fetch lower values at resale !
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Central banks also play with interest rates to influence the economy. They push them down to encourage investment and reduce unemployment while pushing them up to reduce inflation but with the collateral risk of job losses. The latter is the path that Western central banks have taken lately !
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Social and environmental protection policies, necessary to avoid societal violence, are growing governments' annual deficits. But the higher the debts levels (accumulated annual deficits) the higher the annual debt charges that state annual budgets have to cover. For many years near zero interest rates have encouraged public institutions to increase their debts but now that interest rates are increasing they find themselves in an impossible situation. For every 1% increase in interest rates the annual debt charges of the US federal budget, for example, increase by some 360 billions and growing ! One day not far away Western countries will forced to face an impossible choice — or to terminate all state protection policies which will be resisted on the streets and at ballot boxes — or to repudiate their debt which will be resisted by the strike of capital holders and savers.
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While over the last centuries Western countries applied the sane rationality that is at work in the transformation of money into capital, their economic systems were generally running within the limits of feasibility. Crises occurred but they always remained within the limits of correction feasibility. But with the gamble, that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital, national economies transformed into casinos. And in the absence of an impartial regulator gambling excesses have transgressed the limits of the feasibility of the accumulated debts which means that many of these debts will not be paid back and national economies will inevitably collapse while people lose their assets forcing them in abject poverty.
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Few people comprehend this fundamental reality of Western countries and fewer still are aware that it condemns them to play second fiddle tomorrow in the economy-world orchestra.
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3.1.1. The expansion of the domain of activity of Western big capital holders to the whole world
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In the 1970’s Western big capital holders tricked Western populations into accepting the cancellation of a big chunk of their national industries. And while laughing all the way to the banks they migrating their factories to Southern countries where very low wages and very weak protection policies offered them the prospect of a multiplication of their returns. I give an exhaustive presentation of this silent revolution in <i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;"><a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf" style="user-select: text;">"Modernity 02"</a>.</span></i>
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I was actively involved in this silent revolution for a short few years, as a semiconscious participant in an office of political decision-making, arguing that this was an irresponsible liquidation of Western economies. The arguments against my thesis at the time were that science and technology, marketing and design, would remain the service prerogative of Western countries to which I replied that the nature of services industries is to serve production activities and if production activities were leaving service activities would necessarily follow in a short order leaving European countries crippled.
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Nobody seemed to grasp the enormity of what I was denouncing and by the mid 1980’s I decided to leave for the country where I thought the history of capitalism would shift. I have been living in China since then observing the gradual move of the center of gravity of the economy-world to East-Asia with Beijing at the core. It took 20 years for Western elites to awake to this reality. The catalyst of their awakening was the World Bank announcement in 2014 that China's real GDP (PPP) had surpassed the US real GDP. The West instantly jumped into a frenzy scrambling to try countering a reality that runs a lot faster than the poor imagination of its decision-makers.
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With hindsight there is no doubt that the West has only itself to blame for letting the center of gravity of the economy-world leave its shores. Blaming China is a blatant lie that is counterproductive because it hides the causes, inside the working of Western societies, that are responsible for this historical great turning. The sole valid remedy to the crippling of Western economies, by the decisions of the last generations of politicians, is to address the internal deficiencies of their countries.
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Having said this it is my understanding that most Western minds are geared ideologically into thinking that the West is exceptional and as such there is a general belief among most Westerners that the future necessarily belongs to them. Such a thinking evidently implies that the West will resist by all means available the rise of China which means that a 3rd World-War becomes a realist final outcome of the clash of civilizations. But the fact is that if the West, in its ideological folly, were to start such a 3rd World-War both itself and China, at best, would end up being crippled and the future of the whole world would also be terminally handicapped !
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Faced with such a prospect it is the moral responsibility of Western populations to save the human species from the madness of their elites ! But will Western populations ever awake from their engineered consent ? The fact is that the answer to this question contains the fate of humanity !
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This November 12th, 2022, Admiral Gary Roughead gave away the thinking of Western elites :
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"... the fundamentals of our time of multi-faceted change and challenge are well known - China as the pacing threat, Russia as a disruptor, and Iran and North Korea as unpredictable states". (4)
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The profound meaning of those fundamentals in the minds of Western elites is that "these others" are responsible for the fall of their countries into irrelevance. China is considered a threat by the West. The West is convinced that China is stealing its future hegemony. Western elites are indeed firmly convinced that Western exceptionalism confers them the right to world hegemony ! But the fact of the matter is that China is not striving to become hegemonic. This is not part of the Chinese thinking, nor of its cultural continuum (cultural DNA), as history abundantly attests. Westerners fail to observe that Chinese governance is geared entirely toward providing a decent life to the Chinese people so they can’t comprehend that China has no ambition of foreign domination.
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The idea of hegemony is a Western concept that emerged, in the context of Western European countries, out of the particular dynamic that was at work in its <i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;"><a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/01Continuum.pdf" style="user-select: text;">"continuum of the societal cultural field"</a></span></i>. Western exceptionalism emerged from the convergence, in the 11th and 12th centuries in the South-Western part of Western Europe, of a chain reaction of causes and effects inherited from the past and the particularities of the local context in the land of the Franks. (5)
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The only countries believing that they are exceptional, and that god has bestowed on them the right of hegemony over the rest, are to be found in Western Europe and its geographic extensions like the US, Canada, Australia and New Zeeland. For the sake of realism let's just remember that Western Europe and its geographic extensions merely represent some 11% of the world population which grows to a little under 15% when we add the populations of the other countries of the North ! In stark contrast the Global South represents 85% of the world population and growing !
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Having said all this it dawns on us that all countries on earth have an equal right to strive procuring a decent material life to their citizens. Let’s also observe that this is the imperative moral obligation of all societal systems of governance. But Western governants, for whatever reason, seem to have forgotten about their moral obligation toward their citizens. Now in light of this responsibility of societal governance systems it is evident that countries with larger populations will naturally tend to have larger economies. Being the most populous country China has not been stealing anything. It has simply been doing its own thing which is to reinvigorate its national spirit and the same can be said of India that population-wise tomorrow will pass China. Note that these countries are growing their economies without plundering the rest of the world as the West has been doing systematically over the last 600 years !
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3.1.2. US political servants, of Western big capital holders, lured Europeans into an energy trap
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Since its inception Western democracy procedures were conceived in such a way that electoral results could be manipulated from the sidelines. Nation-States emerged in Europe as an institutional adaptation to a changing context in which merchant capital holders, and craftsmen in the 'bourgs' (bourgeois), took a preponderant role in the economies of European cities. The fight for power that ensued between the 3 Western societal estates (clergy, nobility, and the bourgeoisie of merchant capital holders) eventually concluded in a common understanding about the need to shape a space for the investment of the merchants profits realized abroad. This necessitated protectionist policies to avoid the flight of repatriated gold and silver to pay for Indian cotton textiles, Chinese tea, and porcelain.
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This entente between the 3 Western societal estates got translated in the idea of democratic governance which meant that all males paying a minimum amount of taxes would participate in the designation of state decision-makers. This agreement between the 3 Western societal estates resulted in the industrialization of their societies. Democracy was thus conceived structurally to serve primarily the interests of the 3 estates and with the industrial revolution the capital holders would grow into the dominant force. In other words Western state institutions became the de-facto ownership of their biggest capital holders which contrasts so profoundly with China where the state is the ownership of the Communist Party and capital holders are to serve the national interest which is something that the Tai Chi practitioner jack Ma only discovered recently and at great cost.
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As I mentioned here above the Western capital formation during the nineteen seventies shifted, from <i style="user-select: text;">"the rationality that is at work in the transformation of money into capital"</i>, to <i style="user-select: text;">"the gamble that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital"</i>. This new iteration of capital formation rapidly inflated debt levels over their limits of feasibility.
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In the span of a little less than 50 years something like $2 Quadrillion (2,000 Trillion) of Debt has been issued that rests on the guarantee of dubious paper and the real value of some $2 Trillion in Gold plus a few other trillions in raw materials (6). In the particular context, of the debt repayment infeasibility, Western big capital holders, and their servants, have been thinking recently about a new iteration cycle of the paradigm of Modernity that would permit them to survive the coming cataclysm. This new iteration of the paradigm of Modernity concerns "the totalitarian imposition of the transformation of nature into capital"...
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In this rapidly moving context German thinking recently lost itself in ideology and completely forgot the fact that it’s economy is powering a national production of some $2 Trillion (7) with some ridiculously cheap $20 billion of Russian oil and gas. After spitting for months on the supplier of these 20 billion Germany suddenly found itself with no supply at all. Big capital holders owning energy intensive activities were the first to think about putting the key under the doormat while searching for a rational and welcoming nation where to transfer their equipment and activities.
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I mentioned earlier that after the World Bank’s publication in 2014 of its bombshell report, about the rise of China’s GDP to the world’s top (PPP), Western elites suddenly woke up from their torpor. This was followed by think tank reports that fed a debate about what to do. But in the meantime the election of Donald Trump shook the boat of globalization to a standstill.
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It became rapidly evident that a re-industrialization would be infeasible in the particular context of an atomized US society and it was thought that the West would inevitably fall into irrelevance. The radicality of the diagnostic called for a strategy rooted outside of received ideas. The media vaguely relayed the options that were popping out of the creative thinking of deep-state strategists and the idea started to spread that something exceptional would need to happen to derail China’s further development in order to give the West the necessary time to regain its economic composure.
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In light of this, I realize that some are speculating that Covid-19 was a gain-of-function, by US military labs, which was spread in Wuhan a few weeks before the start of the national Lunar New Year holiday in order to sow chaos and destabilize the country's economy. Many facts converge that give credence to this hypothesis, but until today there is no tangible proof available.
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The Chinese military authorities were convinced since the end of December 2019 that China had been the victim of a biological attack. But without any hard proof the Chinese leadership wisely avoided to accuse anyone while nevertheless reacting as if the country had been attacked. Locking down a city of 10 million people on the eve of the Chinese Lunar New Year is an exceptional decision indeed that could not have been taken if the authorities had not been convinced that the virus was a foreign lab creation.
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There were no medical studies available at the time that could have justified this kind of decision and the extension of China’s Zero-Covid policy so far as 3 years after the virus had been identified is further confirmation of the military suspicion that the country had been the victim of a foreign biological attack. And when, in this second week of November 2022, People’s Daily recounts the conclusion of a Chinese medical study, that puts the lethality of the virus for the country as a whole at 0.1%, we can only conclude that the military suspicion continues to justify the political decision of implementing a Zero-Covid policy to this day.
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Without a near certainty by the military, that the country had been the victim of a biological attack, there is no justification possible for a Zero-Covid policy so much more so when the official newspaper of record informs the population that the virus has had a low lethality of 0.1% for the country as a whole. A Zero-Covid policy implies thus that the authorities want to avoid a delayed high lethality by virus mutation. Or am I missing something else that would justify the Chinese leaders’ decision to continue to apply a Zero policy with such a low lethality as 0.1% ?
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In the meantime the ultimate Western decision-makers consciously stage managed the conflict between NATO and Russia with the goal of provoking a Russian attack on Ukraine that would give the opportunity to solidify the unity of the West while badly hurting the vitality of the Russian military and weakening the cohesion of Russian society. President Jo Biden was clear headed about the necessity of Western unity in all his speeches since his first day in office. But this unity is now being tested by what Western European populations are thinking about US actions : — US gas sells at 4 times the prices in Europe than the price it is being sold to US customers — the sabotage of Nord-Stream 1 and 2 — and last but not least the fact that Europe bears the brunt of the damages from the Ukrainian war.
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Partners who are united in a fight for their survival avoid such an outcome at all costs. This suggests that the unity that President Biden worked hard to attain was merely a tactical move to gain something even more important than the defeat of Russia. So it is most probable that the ultimate Western decision-makers consciously stage managed the conflict between NATO and Russia in order to crush the economic might of Europe and more particularly of Germany that would push Western European capital holders, and their professional servants, to flee the madness unleashed on them by the actions of their own political decision-makers.
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Western European leaders appeared united ideologically and they acted as if they did not give a damn about economic rationality any longer nor about the well-being of their citizens. The most vocal among European leaders, like the German green party leaders and other European leaders like Mark Rutte Prime Minister of Holland who seems willing to sacrifice Holland farmers and Emmanuel Macron President of France who does not give a damn about its working people and others, have all been indoctrinated, during their participation at the <i style="user-select: text;"> “Young Global Leaders”</i> program under the umbrella of the World Economic Forum, to implement the WEF designed Great Reset in the 4th industrial revolution.
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The ultimate Western decision-makers know for a fact that the USA is the dominant force in the Western economic sphere and that it disposes of a vast territory with vast resources. But they also know for a fact that the hyper-individualism, the societal atomization of the USA, its historical levels of inequality and the total corruption of the market mechanisms of price discovery, do not form an adequate context to re-industrialize. So they most probably came to the conclusion that the only way to shock the West into awakening would be to transfer the bulk of Western European capital and its professional servants to the USA.
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Seen the economic earthquake that jolted Western Europe many among Western Europe's capital holders, are now de-facto searching for more adequate national contexts where to restart their activities. The US is thought to be the most likely destination for most of them but some appear to view China as being even more attractive !
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All this begs the question were the politicians of Germany, France and other EU countries playing drunken ideological sailors in the wake of the Ukrainian episode of Russia's containment of NATO's advance towards its borders ? Or was their ideological drunkenness merely a screen to hide treason ? And if the latter was the case who, and how much, did the Americans possibly pay to engage in such treasonous acts ? Knowing that dollars cost the USA merely a few keyboard clicks the temptation must have been great indeed to type many zeros in order to attract a bonanza of capital and professional skills...
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Whatever the answer to these questions might be the fact is that the political play of Western European elites will now inevitably force the de-industrialization of Germany and of Europe at large ! The awakening promises to be dramatic ! Western European people are indeed aghast and extremely angry at the prospect of losing their economic well-being. No doubt that politicians will now be the fall-guys to appease popular anger. And I bet that the whole political episode of their fall will hide the flight of European big capital holders, and of their professional servants, to the USA and other horizons...
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From whatever perspective one looks at all this the fact is that the biggest winner in this whole adventure is the USA ! And as such, whatever might be the reality behind these facts, all Western Europeans and other spectators from around the world are viewing the USA as a forked tongue enemy of humanity that has to be ostracized and left to steam in its own corner of the earth...
<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><h2 style="user-select: text;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivKuRja7GruN4GJTTLVPzewoECg2PpKIp-SAZqpWrX0BMiFxskJK9hREUdEuz6i5YVAlAlXzmE5WOmmF_5QDPQVgM2VoHV-Jgtxkj0VW6RhmKge3vUk6XYdgeLYze7MO2buMEwXgMq9JwixVqwtzz2iva2TbhtetF2crRRpXow5ekbfNDqIA/s1200/104-A1-42.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivKuRja7GruN4GJTTLVPzewoECg2PpKIp-SAZqpWrX0BMiFxskJK9hREUdEuz6i5YVAlAlXzmE5WOmmF_5QDPQVgM2VoHV-Jgtxkj0VW6RhmKge3vUk6XYdgeLYze7MO2buMEwXgMq9JwixVqwtzz2iva2TbhtetF2crRRpXow5ekbfNDqIA/s320/104-A1-42.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div> </h2><h2 style="user-select: text;"> </h2><h2 style="user-select: text;"> </h2><h2 style="user-select: text;">3.2. Chinese openness and knowledge based<br style="user-select: text;" /> modernization
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China is the oldest nation on earth. Its debuts go back to the <i style="user-select: text;">“Tribal Cultural Unification"</i> that started some 6000 years ago and further. Some 4000 years ago its <i style="user-select: text;">“Dynastic State Confederation”</i> inherited animism as its worldview while the <i style="user-select: text;">“animist men of knowledge”</i> became the rulers of its governance system. Around 2,200 years ago Qin Shi Huang forced the unification, of the local confederate powers, under a central Nation-State. And over the next 2000 years conquering outside forces have been governing the Chinese Nation-State, for stretches of hundreds of years, while agglomerating their own territory to the original Han territory. This extraordinary feat resulted in the agglomeration of over 60% of the present-day Chinese territory by victorious outside forces !
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Having thus sketched the contextual beginning of China the country finally suffered the imperial aggression of Western powers during the 18th and 19th centuries. And its institutions, which were adapted to the long haul of slow life, got destabilized by Western Modernity while its worldview and its society vegetated until the revolution of 1949. Militant Communist idealism then mobilized the Chinese people in creating the preconditions for its future industrialization : alphabetization of the population, the irrigation of new agricultural land, the construction of water reservoirs, the pipe distribution of drinking water, the collection of waste water and so on. (8)
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Within the span of 30 years the Communist party had achieved the preconditions to succeed the rapid industrialization of the country that we all know about today. The reforms of 1978 gradually opened the country but most importantly the farming population was freed to earn money by tilling parcels of land that had been distributed to them. And by the end of the first year, after this distribution of land, farmers started to accumulate surpluses. A few years later, in association with their township governments, they started to invest in township enterprises and by the midden of the nineteen nineties the most profitable of these township enterprises got fused to create industrial champions. Lenovo is one example of such champions.
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But to be successful these champions needed an increasing demand to buy their products. So in the 2nd part of the 1990’s the government distributed the housing, owned by state and state enterprises, to their workers while increasing their wages. Demand for goods immediately shot to the roof and for a decade and a half the national GDP grew by 10 to 13% annually !
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By 2010 it had nevertheless become evident that a reorganization of society and governance was necessary and that this would require the centralization of power in the hands of one leader in order to avoid the paralysis of decision-making because of infighting in the collective leadership. In the wake of the US crisis of 2007-2008 President HU Jintao and his team started to set the tone about what was to come in the following decade : (9)
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To keep the people's trust, in the Communist Party of China, a cleanup was necessary to eliminate the most egregious acts of corruption
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<li style="user-select: text;">The management of state enterprises had gone wild and needed to be tamed in order to fit the activity of state enterprises in the national industrial strategy
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<li style="user-select: text;">Stock exchanges were running wild and needed pools of state accumulated capital to erase their wildest gyrations and also to invest in strategically important enterprises
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The hostility of Western countries against China was rising and it became evident that the state would have to boost its investments in basic research while private and state enterprises would have to be encouraged to invest in market applications. That is when China started to think about ways to ensure the local substitution of Western technologies.
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Seen the growing hostility toward China by Western countries it became also evident that the country needed to rush its military modernization in order to avoid falling victim once more of Western bullying
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<li style="user-select: text;"> Programs to eliminate poverty were furthermore needed to eliminate a social inequality that had jumped to unacceptable levels that were threatening social harmony
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By 2020 Western Modernity had greatly changed the country and its people. It had become evident that, for the Chinese nation to survive, Western Modernity would have to be coerced into adapting to the Chinese worldview and to the core axioms of the Chinese civilization and not the other way around. This was viewed as a matter of survival for the Chinese nation in the same way as Deng Xiao Ping was convinced in 1978 that china needed to adopt Western economic rationality in order to ensure the survival of the Chinese nation from the imposition of an aggressive Western globalization.
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As I regularly mention in my writing the Chinese worldview fosters a Chinese inquisitiveness about the other-worldliness of <i style="user-select: text;">"the other"</i> while the West feels threatened by it, Feeling threatened the West is convinced that it has to convert <i style="user-select: text;">"the other"</i> to its own ways. In contrast the Chinese are pragmatic and so they are curious about the differences of <i style="user-select: text;">"the other"</i> which they view as a potential opportunity to learn something that could be beneficial in their daily lives.
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So it is not as if the Chinese refuse novelty from abroad. But the fact is that Western Modernity is something else all together than novelty. As I argue in <i style="user-select: text;">“Modernity 01”</i>, <i style="user-select: text;">“Modernity 02”</i> and <i style="user-select: text;"> “The Great Turning”</i> Modernity is a totalitarian ideology that originates in the rationality of capital formation and over the centuries this ideology has infected Western thinking about everything there is under the sun. I have laid out in more than 1000 pages <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity01.pdf" style="user-select: text;">the origins and the emergence of the paradigm of Modernity that sustains the rationality of capital formation</a> and <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf" style="user-select: text;">its evolution during High and Late-Modernity</a>.
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Suffice to say here that the rationality of Western Modernity does not tolerate any other approach of reality and of daily life than its own rationality. Such a totalitarian approach is simply not acceptable in the realm of Chinese Traditional Culture (CTC). This is why Xi Jinping's program of Modernization is to gradually leave aside Western Modernity while forging a Modernity that is appropriate to the context of China.
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The Western trash-talking about China that had been initiated by Donald Trump, and has been pursued assiduously by the Biden administration, accelerated the awareness of the Chinese central leadership about the fact that Modernity is not only about the paradigm, or the rationality, of capital formation in its different iterations but that Modernity also imprints its culture to society at large and to individual life. And what they saw coming out of the West was simply appalling in their eyes. From there dates the idea that Western Modernity has to be tamed and molded to fit in the context of Chinese values which implies that the new team entering in service by the spring of 2023 will focus intensely on foreign relations and on the protection of the Chinese nation from the totalitarianism of Western Modernity.
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3.2.1. The Chinese center and its periphery
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China looms large geographically and historically. The cultural continuum of such an out-sized country is by now inextinguishable. This implies that its reinvigorating national spirit is bound to mark the future of humanity in profound ways. I personally view this as the greatest chance of humanity to answer <i style="user-select: text;">"the great convergence of Late-Modernity"</i> (8). Not only is the Chinese worldview (Chinese Traditional Culture) breathtakingly pragmatic but the country is also the only one to have accumulated thousands of years of practice and theory about the governance of a very large entity under conditions of chaos.
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Amidst the predicament of Western Late-Modernity the knowledge to surf on the waves of chaos is something that will be extremely useful in the years to come — first to traverse the chaos accompanying the reorganization of the Geopolitical order — secondly to traverse the even greater chaos of <i style="user-select: text;">"the great convergence of Late-Modernity"</i> that will force us to adapt to the constraints of our natural habitat and also to the constraints of<i style="user-select: text;"> "the first principles of life"</i>.
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The Chinese central leadership seems to be acutely conscious about both of these episodes that await humanity in the near future and, to reach maximum efficiency, they are giving a geographic structure to the implementation of their vision that distinguishes 4 concentric rings around China proper.
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<u style="user-select: text;">3.2.1.1. China as the center of its systemic vision of governance.
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As I indicated here above the brutally aggressive posture, of the West over these last few years, has forced the Chinese political leadership to revise their received ideas and to come up with a plan to ensure the local substitution of Western technologies so as to guarantee the future self-sufficiency of the country in the fields of science and technology. This implies setting up a "industry-wide national supply chain" in order to satisfy the future needs of the country's huge market.
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Having thus defined the objective, of self-sufficiency, its application focuses on — China as the territory where the people subscribe to the Chinese worldview — on the country’s periphery and how its relates with it. The architects of the Chinese strategy forward view China’s periphery as 4 concentric rings around China proper :
--- ASEAN
--- New Silk Roads
--- BRICS or the future UNGS + SCO
--- United Nations
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<u style="user-select: text;">3.2.1.2. ASEAN
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Most of East-Asia’s critical production chains run through China. They are driven by the enduring competitive advantage of China's infrastructure, as a manufacturing base. Despite rising costs and the recent Zero-Covid policy China's infrastructure remains an unbeatable comparative advantage that bind East-Asian production chains to the territory of China.
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The Chinese view ASEAN as a very valuable partner where to delocalize the production of parts, and assemblies, that can be realized at cheaper costs than in the country proper. For reason of its unbeatable infrastructure comparative advantage these parts and assemblies come back to China for final assembly, testing, packaging and shipment.
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In a sense China views ASEAN countries as a symbiotic extension which is greatly eased by the fact that their populations are composed of sizable Chinese minorities. The common history, of China and ASEAN countries, goes back thousands of years and this history was generally peaceful. The fact that, China's tribute system was not relying on the exercise of force but on the respect of its cultural centrality, was a fact that neighboring countries have accepted over the last thousands years and they are realistic enough to continue accepting and respecting China’s cultural centrality to this very day. This is pure common sense pragmatism. But Westerners seem unable to grasp that this pragmatism renders ASEAN countries impervious to ideological temptations.
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China and ASEAN will soon act as a Regional Economic Bloc (REB) that interacts with the Regional Economic Blocs on its periphery. This implies that ASEAN and China will be interconnected by the same kind of infrastructure that China has set up internally over the last decade.
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ASEAN, and its Southern provinces, form China’s Southern REB. The initial building blocs of a Northern REB have been in negotiation for 2 decades already but because of bad memories inherited from history this norther REB is still in a limbo. This Northern REB centers on South-Eastern Siberia (RUSSIA) + North-Korea + China's 3 Northern provinces + Inner and Outer Mongolia + Japan and South Korea as neighboring investors. There is no doubt in my mind that, faced with the success of the ASEAN-China REB, the countries that would participate in this Northern REB will eventually come to their senses...
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<u style="user-select: text;">3.2.1.3. The New Silk Roads + the Shanghai Cooperation Organization
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The New Silk Roads are : — the supply roads of resources to China — the demand roads of commodities from China. These roads combine freeways, high-speed rail lines, telecommunication lines and local development zones that will take advantage of local comparative advantages. Their destination is Western Europe and perhaps even more importantly Africa. The Chinese ambition for the New Silk Roads is to integrate Europe, Asia and Africa into one gigantic highly interconnected space.
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The New Silk Roads are not conceived solely as commercial corridors they will also concentrate industrial activities that will integrate the nations on their path into China's Modernity.
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The New Silk Roads are the infrastructure works that will bind the ASEAN-China REB, and eventually Its Northern REB, with neighboring REBs and further REBs into a space of shared common destiny. I elaborated the concept REB while writing <i style="user-select: text;"><a href="”http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/covid.pdf”" style="user-select: text;">“A First Blow to Late-Modernity”</a> </i>and expanded my thinking about it in <i style="user-select: text;"><a href="”http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf”" style="user-select: text;">“Modernity 02”</a></i> and in <i style="user-select: text;"><a href="”http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/022Turning.pdf”" style="user-select: text;">“The Great Turning”</a></i>.
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<u style="user-select: text;">3.2.1.4. The BRICS or the future “United Nations of the Global South” (UNGS)
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The BRICS were the foundation upon which were conceived the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and New Silk Roads.
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Russia, India, and China are representing just over 40% of the world population and their cumulated real GDP (PPP), in 2021, reached 42,316,566.27 Millions in current international $ which was 28.8% of the world’s total at 146,714,371.66 in 2021. (10)
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The foreign trade achievements of the BRICS + the continued expansion of the SCO + the newly found will of the Global South to counter Western hegemony → Southern countries are waiting in line to be admitted in the BRICS.
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Due to this success the present members need to define the rules of the game of admission of new members and they will also have to come up with a new acronym that easily visualizes the place of the BRICS within the global community of nations. I personally propose an acronym that maximizes the potential visualization of the place of the BRICS within the UN = the United Nations of the Global South (UNGS).
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This acronym leaves no space for doubt about the role of the BRICS or UNGS. It is the force that will drive the ultimate reform of the UN.
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3.2.1.5. The U.N.
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The United Nations has the merit to be an existing organization. It was fashioned to champion the hegemony of the USA. So to be viable in the future it would have to be re-organized in light of the present and future reality of the national forces in presence. The West, the G7, the EU and NATO will play a determinant role in the near future but so will the Global South, the UNGS, the SCO, the Silk Roads, and other REBs.
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So the conversation about the re-organization of the UN will inevitably confront the visions of the institutions regrouping 85% of the world population against the visions of the institutions regrouping 15% of the world population ! The institutions representing 15% of the world population were still hegemonic yesterday evening so they will not so readily admit an equitable redistribution of roles within the present UN.
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This implies that the Global South will have to continue creating new institutions that compete with existing UN institutions until the West comes to its senses. The first candidates are the 2 financial institutions in charge of managing the reserve currency which will soon be changed by the BRICS or the UNGS members.
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3.2.2. China's Modernity is about a shared ecological future by equal sovereign nations
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The words <i style="user-select: text;">“shared ecological future”</i> convey the profound truth of the absolute necessity of countering humanity's predicament that is a left over by Western Modernity for the whole world to answer. (11)
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But Geopolitical conditions being what they are China needs first to complete its own Modernity before it can focus more intensely on an ecological future shared by the world community of nations. What I mean to say is that the Chinese will have to be vigilant at all times not to be bullied into submission by the west. Falling into submission would mean the end of the dream of China's rejuvenation and the end of the Chinese dream would mean the end of the dream of the countries of the Global South about their own liberation from the Western yoke.
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The countries of the Global South have thus a vital interest in the successful implementation of China’s Modernity. The West, and more particularly, the USA will try everything they can think about to derail China’s further development for the good reason that China’s further development means an ever growing distance between the economic, technological, and military power of China and that of the West.
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But some countries of the Global South, more particularly India, will understandably have good reasons to fear China’s power. The only way to assuage their fear will be to stand behind China helping it to resist Western pressure. By limiting China’s perceived need of further investments to ensure its own successful defense other Southern countries will encourage China to share its experience while investing in their own economies. Such a win-win cooperation is what will determine the outcome of the future new world order. So it is essential that China, India, Russia, Iran, Saudi-Arabia, Brazil, and other countries find ways to grow their trust in each other. Trust is not blindness. It grows out of successful win-win cooperation.
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Going forward the Global South will always have to remember that trust is the sole unifying factor that will give its multiple poles the force to impose a new world order of equal sovereign nations sharing a common future.
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Without trust power and brute force will always re-impose their unilaterality…
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<u style="user-select: text;">Notes</u> </h2></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">1. <a href="https://thediplomat.com/2021/03/american-views-of-china-drop-to-record-low/" style="user-select: text;">"American Views of China Drop to Record Lows"</a>, The Diplomat, by Eleanor Albert. 2021-03-05.
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2. CIA, World bank, and IMF show that China passed the US, in GDP per PPP terms, sometime between 2014 and 2016. GDP is the measurement of the total annual production of goods and services by a country measured in dollars. Measured in PPP terms means that GDP is measured in terms of the purchasing power of that country’s inhabitants. According to the World Bank China's GDP, per PPP calculation, was nearly 20% higher than the US GDP in 2021 !
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Some people claim that a GDP measurement does not indicate the economic power of a nation. A comparison of economic might, they say, is more accurately attained by comparing the national wealth of countries.
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An article titled <a href="https://www.indiatoday.in/business/story/china-overtakes-us-as-richest-country-global-wealth-mckinsey-report-1877299-2021-11-16" style="user-select: text;">"China overtakes US as world’s richest nation as global wealth surges"</a>, in "India Today Web Desk" from 2021-11-16, informs us about a report by McKinsey Global Institute in Zurich concluding that by the particular measure of global national wealth China is now the wealthiest country on earth :
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"China’s wealth jumped to $120 trillion in 2020 from just $7 trillion in 2000. This marks a jump of $113 trillion in 20 years, helping the nation surpass the United States in terms of net worth. During the same period, the US saw its net worth
more than double to $90 trillion."
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In my eyes the debate is closed. China is already the world number one economic power.
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3. <a href="https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD?end=2021&locations=CN-US&start=1990" style="user-select: text;">GDP, PPP (current international $) - China, United States</a>. International Comparison Program, World Bank | World Development Indicators database, World Bank | Eurostat-OECD PPP Programme.
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4. <a href="https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2022/11/12/rethinking_the_national_defense_strategy_864508.html" style="user-select: text;">"Rethinking the National Defense Strategy"</a>, real clear defense, by Admiral Gary Roughead. 2022-11-12.
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5. <a href="”http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity01.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A1168%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C181.8%2C342.351%2C0%5D”" style="user-select: text;">The paradigm of Modernity emerges</a> at the intersection of inherited causes and effects and the context of the South Western part of Western Europe in the 11th and 12th centuries.
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6. About <a href="”http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/022Turning.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A393%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C42.5%2C456.451%2C0%5D”" style="user-select: text;">"the totalitarian imposition of the transformation of nature into capital" </a>
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7 <a href="”https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/2-quadrillion-debt-precariously-resting-2-trillion-gold”" style="user-select: text;">“$2 Quadrillion Debt Precariously Resting On $2 Trillion Gold”</a>, Zeroedge, by Egon von Greyerz via GoldSwitzerland.com. 2022-10-30.
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8. About <a href="”http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A2226%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C570.901%2C0%5D”" style="user-select: text;">”the preconditions of China's industrialization</a> in “Modernity 02. 1.5.2.2.1. A capital formation “reset” by financialization”.
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9. The Western ideological doctrine is "democracy versus authoritarianism" and Western propaganda caricatures Xi Jinping's core leadership as a nightmarish dystopia in order to create a psychological reflex of repulsion in the hope of destroying China's credibility in the eyes of the rest of the world. But in reality it was HU Jintao's team that observed that the tasks ahead would be so determinant for the further evolution of the country that it thought there would be a structural necessity for a stronger core in the leadership in order to avoid infighting and decision-making paralysis.
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10. <a href="”https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.PP.CD”" style="user-select: text;">“GDP, PPP (current international $)”</a>, International Comparison Program, World Bank | World Development Indicators database, World Bank | Eurostat-OECD PPP Programme.
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11. As indicated in <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf" style="user-select: text;">"Modernity 02"</a>, and in <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/022Turning.pdf" style="user-select: text;"> "The Great Turning"</a>, the paradigm of Modernity is floundering and opening societies to the necessity of a radical shift from the rationality of capital, in its successive iterations, to the vital necessity of life. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2FwtFQbSBnHCiL_uk5YOcQ8ly8NWqy-Gfmpdz1Np1m5amaPgJ36Z7NtasPVCuRE304tm5rqtcDPDzGV2W6-jWRshzIAXGRqVXvHKitGFrd_r6ewPgp9MGEFydk-GIa2hN1_m_8yfuTgULKXXzKmUacHEEDbUALhK_EMN2hsMDEeKKV-21Q/s1200/104-A3-33.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhA2FwtFQbSBnHCiL_uk5YOcQ8ly8NWqy-Gfmpdz1Np1m5amaPgJ36Z7NtasPVCuRE304tm5rqtcDPDzGV2W6-jWRshzIAXGRqVXvHKitGFrd_r6ewPgp9MGEFydk-GIa2hN1_m_8yfuTgULKXXzKmUacHEEDbUALhK_EMN2hsMDEeKKV-21Q/s320/104-A3-33.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
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laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-34120947786105851752022-12-08T22:05:00.004-05:002022-12-15T05:24:23.787-05:00The perspective of the 5,000 year old grandmother of all nations. Part 4. Western Modernity or Chinese Modernity ?<div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqYHXpq6vU3SDJ9Oz5ZlTXMsR84-BeBHpeRhpZMOvYmJyFUzKzNJm-3edoCbje6VufnTpbSlRja0Rdlp7TSS-tv4JaU8-81wRMjuNaCWFf-KFO2wVcuVXwX2ZR0DDYdw5oGkcTtcBlpZs9aCssTxTQhaI49iuOvmg6i4RWDpE98-cKIOjK2w/s1200/01-A1-24.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqYHXpq6vU3SDJ9Oz5ZlTXMsR84-BeBHpeRhpZMOvYmJyFUzKzNJm-3edoCbje6VufnTpbSlRja0Rdlp7TSS-tv4JaU8-81wRMjuNaCWFf-KFO2wVcuVXwX2ZR0DDYdw5oGkcTtcBlpZs9aCssTxTQhaI49iuOvmg6i4RWDpE98-cKIOjK2w/s320/01-A1-24.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div>
I started Part 1 with the following sentence :
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<div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
"The media noise nowadays relates in one way or another to the Western refusal to accept the natural shift of the economy-world to East-Asia."
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<span style="user-select: text;"><a name='more'></a></span> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">This refusal by the West to accept the natural evolution of the interrelations between human societies, that subscribe to the paradigm of Western Modernity, is at the root of all the great questions that affect the human species in this 3rd decade of the 21st century.
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Let us first note that, by this early 21st century, all human societies have converted to the paradigm of Western Modernity which is best described as “the rationality that is at work in the transformation of money into capital”. And China is incontestably winning at the economic game that is ruled by this paradigm !
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But the sore looser West can’t accept its loss, and is thus making life difficult for the community of nations.
China is winning at the economic game, that is ruled by the paradigm of Western Modernity, and because of that the center of gravity of the economy-world is shifting from the USA to East-Asia. The US refusal to accept this natural evolution has destabilized the Geopolitical order that it created in the wake of the 2nd World War. As a result countries are divided. The world is confronted with chaos and we are possibly on the verge of a 3rd World War. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">Resolving the present geopolitical instability passes necessarily through a readjustment of the national forces in presence. China and the US are building up their own economic strength in a hurry. Each is hoping to gain a decisive advantage over the other. China hopes that its continuously growing economic might will eventually dissipate the aggression of the USA and thus ensure a peaceful future to its nation. The USA on the other side hopes that its economic might will deter China to surpass it economically.
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National strength is not exclusively an economic matter. Societal cohesion is the foundation of national houses. And if the foundation is rotten the house is unstable, the walls are cracking, and the roof is leaking. The economy of such a national house will at best stagnate while its will to wage a war is doomed to end in failure because its individual atoms are no longer united in a common national cause. In contrast a country with a strong societal cohesion will be able to solve any kind of problem encountered on its way forward.
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The reality, in term of societal cohesion, is well known. The USA, and the other Western countries, have been confronted over the last 45 years with “the gamble that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital” (1). Combined with postmodernism this gamble has unleashed hyper-individualism, and hyper-inequality, which confined the individuals in the recesses of their own selves where they separated from the other individuals and from society at large. This separation resulted in the atomization of Western societies who can thus no longer act as unified entities.
In contrast to Western countries China is a highly cohesive society whose individuals have a high appreciation for their country’s state decision-making. The country is thus a strongly unified entity (2).
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These internal factors are indicators of the national strength of societies. But internal factors can also be disturbed by outside factors like mass extinction of species, a dwindling habitat, the rapid fall of sperm counts, or climate change for example. In Modernity <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity01.pdf" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">01</a> and <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">02</a>, and in “<a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/022Turning.pdf" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">The great turning</a>”, I posit that humanity is presently being confronted by “the great convergence of Late-Modernity” (3). This concept means that multiple crises are suddenly converging and starting to interact among themselves. This will most probably unleash tipping points, in the systems of the ensemble earth, that will produce irreversible new states of equilibrium. And some of these new equilibria could possibly shift outside of the narrow bandwidth of human survivability.
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All this implies that we have entered a new historical era that at best will be an era of transition toward a new societal equilibrium of human interconnectedness with all the elements that participate in the life of the sub-ensemble earth.
<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><h2 style="user-select: text;"> </h2><h2 style="user-select: text;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5LKcR9K3w7V4YxqHbr-lIJh1gxT-ML_6WZxgW54AvS7XgP4gk3pN-LnT5Ty10YZ6Z90xYgNW34iFWpTP4ryqg9S74zK86IcoTbMnT5VdxjPd8K1dZVsj0Iv9Q7NoR7ay3_cwGj8BTRN6kRC_mZcGKxe3YYvy6wJQv5gFAtsM80UlyKXDwZQ/s1200/102-A3-33.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg5LKcR9K3w7V4YxqHbr-lIJh1gxT-ML_6WZxgW54AvS7XgP4gk3pN-LnT5Ty10YZ6Z90xYgNW34iFWpTP4ryqg9S74zK86IcoTbMnT5VdxjPd8K1dZVsj0Iv9Q7NoR7ay3_cwGj8BTRN6kRC_mZcGKxe3YYvy6wJQv5gFAtsM80UlyKXDwZQ/s320/102-A3-33.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div>4.1. The present period is a period of transition
<br style="user-select: text;" /></h2></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">But what kind of a transition are we talking about ?
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The title of my theoretical series “From Modernity to After-Modernity” suggests that humanity will be forced by necessity to reconcile its activities with the Geo-Bio-Chemistry of the sub-ensemble earth which implies the rejection of the paradigm of Western Modernity for a new paradigm.
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But as I explained in the conclusion of “The Continuum of the Societal Cultural Field” human activities might very plausibly already have forced the hand of the sub-ensemble earth to engage a new Geo-Bio-Chemistry equilibrium. If this were the case this new Geo-Bio-Chemistry equilibrium could possibly force the collapse of human societies which would lead to the collapse of civilizations and of the governance model of power-societies. And last but not least our species could possibly be one among the many who are destined to go extinct.
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We can’t know for sure if a new Geo-Bio-Chemistry equilibrium has already been engaged or if we still have the time to adapt humanity’s behavior to the working of the sub-ensemble earth. But in full knowledge of the side-effects, that have been caused by the paradigm of Western Modernity, humanity would be wise to change its societal paradigm.
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<blockquote style="user-select: text;"><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
“Is it not when things are darkest, when all hope is lost, that one fights with abandon, shamelessly shoots for utopia? For then there is nothing left to lose. And I have heard that another word for nothing left to lose is freedom.” (4)
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Having stated the range of possible transitions that await us the only reasonable path forward for humanity is to submit to the systemic rules of the sub-ensemble earth. <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
All other options are existential risks for the species and as such they should be terminated. The rejection of options, that risk terminating human life, is a conscious choice to grasp the freedom to live with abandon… The alternative is a choice to be forced to live in fear of the extinction of your own species !
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This was the perspective of animism that considered life to be the ultimate consideration of the body mind polarities of the individual. And anything, that was deemed not fitting inside the domain of life, was viewed as being contrary to the pragmatism of the ‘body-mind’ polarities of the individual entities of living species.
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What is most interesting is that the ‘body-mind’ polarities, of the individual entities, are a first extension of the ’individual-society’ polarities of living species which are the first among “the first Principles of life”.
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4.1.1. About the center of gravity of the Economy-World
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In the short term humanity is confronted with a transition from a Western center of gravity, of the economy-world that imposes its hegemony on the rest of the world, to a Chinese center of gravity that we observe is benevolently recognizing the equality of all national actors and their sovereign freedom over their internal affairs.
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But before addressing this further let us first clarify the meaning of “center of gravity of the economy-world”. The concept of Economy-World was conceived sometime in the nineteen seventies by Fernand Braudel who argued that Western Modernity had imposed its economic rationality to the whole world in the Italian city-states sometime in the 12th to 13th centuries (5).
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Braudel furthermore observed that Western Modernity is characterized by periodical bursts of national creativity that eventually confer the economic might consecrating a new center of gravity. The rise of a new center establishes its centrality in the horizontal geography of the whole system of Modernity. This eventually concludes with the new center overtaking the latter’s might. The Braudelian model of economic history is thus rooted in the long history of Western Modernity that expanded horizontally to this very day.
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China's playing by the rules of the Western economic rationality, at work in the transformation of money into capital, means that it adopted the paradigm of Western modernity. The notions of democratic governance, and private ownership of capital, are merely the ideological premises upon which the philosophers of rationalism, and the early classical economists, founded the political philosophy of liberalism some 6 centuries after the emergence of the paradigm of Modernity.
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There is no doubt that Chinese Traditional Governance, and its socialist views, about the ownership of capital are the defining differences between the West and China. But these differences are in no way questioning “the rationality that is at work in the transformation of money into capital” nor “the shifting of the center of gravity of the Economy-World toward the economically mightiest nation”.
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The Chinese Traditional Governance theory and practice as well as the country’s socialist views about the ownership of capital have mightily helped China to lift itself to the world top economic spot. This proves incontestably the validity of the Chinese system in beating the West at a game it invented centuries earlier and all this while the paradigm of Modernity, that emerged in the 12th century, remains intact.
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Having said this lets come back to the introductory questions of this chapter.
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<blockquote style="user-select: text;"><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">
"Are we confronted with a transition from a Western center of gravity, of the economy-world that imposes its hegemony on the rest of the world, to a Chinese center of gravity that benevolently recognizes the equality of all national actors and their sovereign freedom over their internal affairs ? "
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The fright of the West is that “a Chinese center of gravity that benevolently recognizes the equality of all nations and their sovereign freedom over their internal affairs” will definitely terminate the Western extraction advantage procured by hegemony. No well informed person would contest that statement. But many would question that “a Chinese center of gravity” would “benevolently recognize the equality of all nations and their sovereign freedom”. <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
What we know, as a matter of fact, is that the Chinese traded with nations far away since the down of their power society on the base of a win win proposition. We also know that their millenary society rarely ventured into outside wars which stands in sharp contrast with Western practice.
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Zheng He’s voyages of discovery are an exhibit of China’s behavior with “the other” while Christopher Columbus’ voyages are an exhibit of the Western Western behavior with “the other”. These 2 behaviors are of a different nature.
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The Chinese behavior with “other” nations was one of curiosity and gift making with the hope to start a conversation while the Western behavior was one of brutal domination and cultural suppression that often ended in genocide.
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I have argued, from an abstract theoretical perspective in “<a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/01Continuum.pdf" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">The Continuum of the Societal Cultural Field</a>” and in “<a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">Modernity 02</a>”, that the Chinese civilizational axioms are fostering a radically different psychological attitude toward “the other-worldliness of the other” than Western dualism.
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In short, over the millennia, the Chinese thinking has accommodated to the idea of complementary polarities and so their first reaction toward “the other” is one of curiosity about his other-worldliness while most Westerners, being accustomed to dualistic opposition, are frightened by “the other-worldliness of the other”.
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In their inquisitiveness the Chinese engage a conversation hoping that it will result in some useful knowledge that they could apply in their daily lives. In contrast Westerners view “the other-worldliness of the other” as an evil danger that has to be eradicated though conversion to their own understanding of through death.
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This is, I think, the prime contradiction that threatens globalization in the 21st century. If Westerners could let go their fright of “the other-worldliness of the other”, and adopt the same kind of Chinese inquisitiveness, the world would be in a better place to solve the problems related to “the great convergence of Late-Modernity”. But humanity will have to deal with the cards that it has been handed down from history.
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The Chinese approach, to a world divided by the Western refusal of the evolution of Modernity, is highly unusual for outsiders of the Chinese worldview. For one its short and medium term objectives are approached in the perspective of the rationality that is at work in the transformation of money into capital while it long term objective of cultural unification is conceived outside of that rationality. But more on that later.
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4.1.2. Can the center of gravity of the Economy-World be anything else than hegemonic ?
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As indicate here above China’s attitude toward “the other” is radically different from the Western attitude. China’s model of society is nevertheless a “power-society” just as in the West.
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China’s power-society nevertheless originated at the end of a different process than the power-societies in the Tri-Continental-Area (TCA) or the Roman empire or later Western European societies. These processes fostered diverging power-societies in the TCA and in East-Asia. Unfortunately the Academy has still not detected these divergent paths and it misses thus, what I argue in “<a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/01Continuum.pdf" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">The Continuum of the Cultural Field</a>”, are the radical differences between Eastern and Western civilizations as well as their model of society.
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I elaborate extensively in Volume 4, of the collection “From Modernity to After-Modernity” titled “Societal evolution and Societal Governance” that will be published sometime at the end of 2025, on the transition from tribal to power-societies and the impact this transition had on the governance of power societies. In the meantime you can read in “The Continuum of the cultural field” how the contextual settings in East-Asia initiated a different kind of transition than in the TCA.
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The underpinnings of psychological attitudes, at work in the continuum of the societal cultural field, are determinant in shaping the attitudes and behaviors of the individuals. These underpinnings are somehow stored in the body and get unconsciously activated at the contact of the daily societal context. Prime among those underpinnings are the axioms that are rooted in the foundations of our civilizations. I give an extensive presentation about the axioms of civilizations in “The Continuum of the cultural field. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/01Continuum.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A7454%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C165.2%2C274.6%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">Part 3</a>”.
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In short the axioms of civilizations initiate the thought processes of all citizens in the societies that participate in their realm. These axioms guide the formation of daily culture by synchronizing the perception of the individuals about their daily contextual settings. This synchronization of the present, with the original knowledge of the civilization, is what fosters continuity in the societal field of culture but the individuals are, at all time, unconscious about it.
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Another way to understand this continuity, in the societal field of culture, is to observe how axioms generate a logical continuity in the field of mathematics. Axioms in mathematics are the epistemological foundation from which are derived theorems and theories. In other words all theories in mathematics remain at all times consistent with the principles enunciated in the axioms. And the same goes with societal worldviews and the daily cultural thinking and actions that keep at all time logically consistency with the axioms of the civilization.
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But in contrast to mathematics, which is a single system of logic relying on one set of axioms, the cultural field, of human societies, relies on the axioms of multiple civilizations. This implies a multiplicity of societal cultural fields evolving in parallel. Each having its own logical system founded in the axioms of its civilization. But because these systems are largely closed to the outside the individuals in each of them believe that their own system represents the truth about the reality of life.
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In other words a civilization leaves very little space for the comprehension of the cultural logic of other civilizational systems. And when the axioms, of one of these systems, are grounded in the dualism of its own ideological goodness, that battles “the other-worldliness of the other”, this invites a manifestation of separation from the other systems. And the citizens, of the societies in such a system, are unconsciously thinking they their views and actions represent what is good which implies that all other views and actions are necessarily considered being evil.
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To visualize the other-worldliness of thought between the societies participating in the realm of different civilizations let us compare the Chinese civilization and the Western civilization. The following graph compares the resulting psychological attitudes generated by the master axiom of each of these civilizations : — dualism in the Western civilization — polarism in the Chinese civilization.
<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Jy94yO0LcMJsUMM9XfoUR5ku5I4BNBGL0_LEvQ4Q4Dw1MF44HXQfRVcOtzE7yn-J6vOwltMxRLj_Jah6LjmGuywFdndS5QLoOcuXUudqzyxFqTI2ZCuW4QAWzo9ynjb2K1_QL29PiySbSMWx7b_tGLewJlb6_qY8orONdnd5UiUU-cdpxg/s2150/Image1.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1258" data-original-width="2150" height="187" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5Jy94yO0LcMJsUMM9XfoUR5ku5I4BNBGL0_LEvQ4Q4Dw1MF44HXQfRVcOtzE7yn-J6vOwltMxRLj_Jah6LjmGuywFdndS5QLoOcuXUudqzyxFqTI2ZCuW4QAWzo9ynjb2K1_QL29PiySbSMWx7b_tGLewJlb6_qY8orONdnd5UiUU-cdpxg/s320/Image1.png" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /> <br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">As a first observation it is important to keep in mind that the thought processes that emanate from the axioms of one’s civilization are not mastered consciously by the individuals in the different societies participating in its realm. These thought processes determine nevertheless, in all certainty, their behaviors and attitudes which are the outcome of the unconscious thought processes that emanate from the civilizational axioms imprinted in their body.
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As a European, who by now has been living nearly 35 years in China, I can attest that, while I‘ m clearly conscious of these processes, I’ m often surprised by the subconscious judgments, that percolate in my mind, which I immediately feel in need to erase…
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Let us now observe how the behaviors and attitudes of the citizens, in the societies participating in the realm of both the Western and the Chinese civilizations, continuously impact the working of their societies.
<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmTkN6pBhs5i5jzI8SonccBXRAisxHSylGFkGN586SAsSQvfZYZiT-9qt16Xxhd22SYLTxcPWewCVviG3fc2QaHCj48y9qTADQ8VeX9BW-4r_H5_CKmfhG9uSspv9IyfVun0OgHQIfLVHgBN87o_O2oqAqwGP7KYQ2H0bxZgJSYjfRaMXGBw/s1702/image2.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1702" data-original-width="1386" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmTkN6pBhs5i5jzI8SonccBXRAisxHSylGFkGN586SAsSQvfZYZiT-9qt16Xxhd22SYLTxcPWewCVviG3fc2QaHCj48y9qTADQ8VeX9BW-4r_H5_CKmfhG9uSspv9IyfVun0OgHQIfLVHgBN87o_O2oqAqwGP7KYQ2H0bxZgJSYjfRaMXGBw/s320/image2.png" style="user-select: text;" width="261" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /> <br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">One could not perceive such differences, in the working of societies, otherwise than being otherworldly. And both Westerners and Chinese view life on the other side as otherworldly indeed. But the fundamental difference between them is that the West is judgmental and rejects the difference of “the other” as being evil and wants thus to convert her or him if necessary by force. In contrast the Chinese are curious about the difference and are eager to apply any useful bits of it in their daily lives which has sometimes earned them the name of sponges…
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This behavioral difference is not without consequences for “the other” as the history of Western Modernity has been attesting all along. Having worked, for some 30 years, on the theory that I just sketched here I became convinced that the Animist Traditional Culture, that China preserved under its power society, constitutes the greatest asset of humanity in its necessity to address the great convergence of Late-Modernity. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><h2 style="user-select: text;"> </h2><h2 style="user-select: text;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjYd0bzHMYmvfQEvD2uaQxBoiaWa8LxiVMr8jSGTEnkVyw7GMsf-AU9mThCNyY2qFscsmVXP-KjieildsRg4agu0XmCGOpjZRUn4j0D2EVKeVd3xOAA0kllfq1uYqbaq1bniYltqk7k6K6mnaX1RLMD2dFdzc9bwYVjGvCXpU-lO80GNmWpQ/s1200/103A-A3-23.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjjYd0bzHMYmvfQEvD2uaQxBoiaWa8LxiVMr8jSGTEnkVyw7GMsf-AU9mThCNyY2qFscsmVXP-KjieildsRg4agu0XmCGOpjZRUn4j0D2EVKeVd3xOAA0kllfq1uYqbaq1bniYltqk7k6K6mnaX1RLMD2dFdzc9bwYVjGvCXpU-lO80GNmWpQ/s320/103A-A3-23.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div>4.2. the great convergence of side-effects from Western Modernity
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The rationality, that is at the heart of the paradigm of Western Modernity, is confronting us with a paradox that reads as the 3 contradictory societal realities of the 21st century. We thought for centuries that Modernity procures unique advantages to mankind but we have learned over the last half a century that it also imposes costs. Only recently have we learned that the price of these costs could possibly be the existence of our species…
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4.2.1. Modernity was the most progressive social force in human history
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Modernity has been the most productive force in human history as it has supplied cheap goods and services that have answered the objective needs of nearly all the citizens of industrialized countries. This is so true that all countries on earth have willingly submitted to the paradigm of Modernity in order to try to catch up with the Western abundance in material goods.
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Modernity, and the enlightenment to rationalism, came to be thought of as something like a societal truth. Some rationalists viewed it even as the absolute truth that terminates all past grand narratives. But now that it appears that Western Modernity has unleashed the 6th mass extinction the supposed absolute truth of rationalism is in tatters.
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The rationality at the core of the paradigm of Modernity, that converted the whole world, has blinded most people to newly emerging realities. The production of an abundance of material goods came at the costs of externalities that were justified in the name of economic rationality. But the accumulation of these externalities unleashed a raft of side-effects that started to impact life, the working of societies, and the health of the individuals.
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It downed on me a decade ago that these side-effects are numerous and that they are also impacting one another which accelerates the destabilization of existing states of local equilibria that each one of them has initially set in motion. This acceleration often times intersects multiple states of destabilized local equilibria and the destabilization then takes a motion of its own that only stops when a tipping point is reached and a new equilibrium emerges out of the chaos fostered in larger systems.
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The emergence of a new state of equilibrium in ensembles is not a problem in itself but it can be a death sentence for the species whose life bandwidth has been reset. Abrupt climate heating, for example, can increase the temperature and humidity outside of the narrow bandwidth of human life in given local settings and as a result people die in these local settings. If temperature and humidity continue to increase these settings expand geographically. And if these increases are not stopped in time the whole earth could potentially become unlivable for humanity.
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The process I just described concerns solely climate change which is one side-effect of human externalities. But multiple side-effects have already been put in motion and they have started to converge lately. The fact is that the convergence of the side-effects of Modernity could possibly result in the extinction of all life from the face of the earth. Mars someone ?
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4.2.2. Modernity was ultimately a destroyer of life
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Modernity has already produced vast quantities of externalities that have poisoned the land, the air and the water which are the most precious gifts of nature. This poisoning has forced mayhem on the Geo-Bio-Chemistry of the human habitat as well as the habitat of all other species.
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Even if we stopped the poisoning this evening the damages to the Geo-Bio-Chemistry of the human habitat would continue to increase for months if not for years or decades because the side-effects of poisoning are not instantaneous they are processes that take time to transform the totality of the existing externalities. And there is even worse news. Humanity continues to externalize gigantic quantities of greenhouse gasses and other chemicals with no end in sight…
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We now know that this Geo-Bio-Chemistry mayhem has unleashed numerous vicious cycles like climate change, worldwide declining human sperm counts, rising industrial agriculture induced sicknesses, declining bio-diversity, industrial agriculture induced soil erosion, acidification of the oceans, and so on and on…
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Each of these vicious cycles has the potential to cause the extinction of the human species. But their convergence is unleashing interactions among them that lead to tipping points when the present state of equilibrium transforms into a new equilibrium from where there is no coming back.
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These interactions have already put in motion a worldwide process of mass extinction that is often presented as the 6th mass extinction on earth. The difference with the 5 preceding extinctions resides in the fact that the present process of extinction has been engaged as a consequence of Western Modernity ! In other words it is the Global West that has engaged this 6th mass extinction !
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"The ongoing sixth mass extinction may be the most serious environmental threat to the persistence of civilization, because it is irreversible. Thousands of populations of critically endangered vertebrate animal species have been lost in a century, indicating that the sixth mass extinction is human caused and accelerating.
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The acceleration of the extinction crisis is certain because of the still fast growth in human numbers and consumption rates. In addition, species are links in ecosystems, and, as they fall out, the species they interact with are likely to go also. In the regions where disappearing species are concentrated, regional bio-diversity collapses are likely occurring.
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Our results reemphasize the extreme urgency of taking massive global actions to save humanity’s crucial life-support systems." (6)
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Yes the application, for a short few centuries, of the rationality, that is at the core of the Western paradigm of Modernity, has caused the great convergence that we observe in this Late-Modernity. And this great convergence is well on its way of terminate the existence of many more species that participate in the life-support systems of humanity !<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><h3 style="user-select: text;">
4.2.3. Modernity atomizes societies
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Modernity has also devastated the societal cohesion of all industrialized nations and this has engaged these nations on the road of societal collapse.
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Knowing that societies are one of the polarities that animate living species the animist sages, in their wisdom, had understood that societies ease the reproduction of the individuals and also of the species as a whole.
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After observing, that the larger societal groups became the higher was their fragility, they integrated societal reproduction as their 2nd knowledge formation mission. Their 1st mission, since specialized (wo)men of knowledge had been designated by small bands, had been to alleviate the suffering of the individuals.
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From what remains, of the body of animist knowledge, it appears that these sages viewed societal groups and their individual members as the polarities that animate the life of species. And so they focused on the interactions between the individuals and their societal group to devise a model of governance that harmonized the individual urge for more complexity with the societal drive for conservation. Central to their model of governance was the idea of societal cohesion (7) that rests on the trust between the individuals.
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To foster the highest possible trust between the individuals the animist (wo)men of knowledge shared their worldview with their fellow tribesmen through visual signs while using music and dance to let them attain trances that illuminated their minds with the meaning of these visual signs.
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For some 100,000 years the sharing of the animist worldview fostered a very high level of tribal cohesion that was never attained again after the collapse of the tribal model of society and the transition to the power model of society.
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Power societies initiated a gradual process of individualization, in 5 steps (8), that fostered the ideal context for the emergence of the paradigm of Modernity in the form of “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital” sometime during the 12th century in the land of the Franks in South-Western Europe (9).
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The reason expanded gradually the application of its rationality to all fields and by the time of the Enlightenment it had developed into philosophic rationalism which gave rise to the industrial revolution and classical economics. But it was the non-spoken revolution that was led by the biggest Western capital holders, at the turn of the nineteen-seventies, which had the most decisive impact on Western societies.
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This non-spoken revolution was the outcome of the spreading of Neo-liberalism and Postmodernism.
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Neoliberalism morphed the paradigm of Modernity into a new iteration of capital formation along the lines of “the gamble that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital” which ensured a boom of Western investments around the world that came to be known as globalization. Simultaneously lawyers and financiers replaced entrepreneurs and engineers on the board of directors of Western corporations while protection institutions got axed from state competencies which henceforth focused solely on the engineering of the citizens’ consent and the exercise of force.
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Postmodernism argued against grand-narratives while advocating for the individuals to focus on what science does best which is to delve into bits and pieces of reality. Within the span of 2 decades Marxism had dwindled away and Christianity, this bastion of the Western civilization, had lost most of its practitioners.
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While Neoliberalism had been forcing the rationality of finance and law to all human activities Postmodernism had destroyed the grand narratives shared by Western populations.
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You don’t need a degree in social sciences to understand that this drove the individuals straight in solitude and that the internet moguls sized upon the resulting loneliness to glue the individuals on their social media platforms where the most daring transformed into web gladiators.
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We now know the outcome of the last half a century of social engineering. It is called societal atomization which means that the individuals have gotten separated from one another and from their societies which literally transformed into zombielike entities. Their handling of Covid-19 is proof enough that they no longer have the necessary unity to undertake any large scale project.
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And there is no magic wand available that could be capable of engineering an exit from societal atomization. The individual atoms have their own rationality that is not compatible with financial rationality and they have also their own finality which is their individual autonomy. They now also understand that their individual autonomy can’t be attained before the complete collapse of the power-societies that want to drive them back to medieval darkness (10).
<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><h2 style="user-select: text;"> </h2><h2 style="user-select: text;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWQHfCvPE8oAR3pY0Ss4vXEAlgw5GQocGoXMnKVf64Dqf3X5eqUuZFtpbHAIfKy43leqJaL8smwTdoCCpf__wbUSbKbDiRE6ht7R_kMlJ2kIR1pN8z7wbCH3kb0_h13E_1jn0LdJvhP1B1WU7IL72KdR2tOXHiq4bDitzA1tkQ9NKlHQeTtQ/s1200/104-A4-34.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWQHfCvPE8oAR3pY0Ss4vXEAlgw5GQocGoXMnKVf64Dqf3X5eqUuZFtpbHAIfKy43leqJaL8smwTdoCCpf__wbUSbKbDiRE6ht7R_kMlJ2kIR1pN8z7wbCH3kb0_h13E_1jn0LdJvhP1B1WU7IL72KdR2tOXHiq4bDitzA1tkQ9NKlHQeTtQ/s320/104-A4-34.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div>4.3. the center of gravity of the economy-world shifts amidst the paradox of Modernity
<br style="user-select: text;" /></h2><br style="user-select: text;" /> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">The paradox of Modernity is the general context in which the shift of the center of gravity of the economy world, that I talked about in part 3, is taking place today. In short Modernity was the peak human progressive force but it generated externalities that atomized Western societies while forcing many side-effects on the earthly habitat of life.
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We know by now that Western societies are driven by the continuum of their cultural field which unconsciously forces them to resist, by all means available, the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-word to East-Asia.
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Western 3 letter agencies have been programming since many years already the setup of Russia to intervene militarily in Ukraine in order to protect Russian speaking people. Their strategy is to mortally wound that country before the “Global West” addresses China which is the sole competitor that could possibly terminate Western hegemony.
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The Russian setup is merely an episode in a wider strategy that is rooted in the “Wolfowitz Doctrine” (11). The strategic episode, relating to the Russian Military Operation in Ukraine, was conceptualized by the Rand Corporation (12), the think tank of the US military-industrial complex, in 2019.
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The Straussians who are behind the “Wolfowitz Doctrine” applied the Trotskyist tactical principle of “entrism” to take over the leading positions in the different departments, of the US permanent administration (deep state), that is in charge of all matters pertained to Foreign affairs. But their vision is a tunnel vision that focuses on the prevention of the emergence of any new rivals while failing to capture the systemic breadth of the Geo-political contextual settings.
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And so they awoke to the rise of China after the fact while being completely unaware of the internal factors that irrevocably weaken their own country.
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The failure to incorporate in their analysis the internal factors, responsible for the state of health of their nation, led the authors of the US strategy to miss the paradox of Modernity that is literally crippling the West in societal atomization. The West has still a the head and will of its power elites but the societal body no longer follows the orders of the power elite !
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What is even more paradoxical, than the paradox of Modernity itself, is that Western elites to this very day have not taken note of the state of societal atomization of their nations. Faced with this spectacle outside observers have this nagging feeling of assisting at an ideological spectacle that propagandizes the will of a power elite that has lost its society. Watching from outside one is indeed taken aback by the sheer madness of the Western Geopolitical show.
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But this show is in reality not a show. Whatever the surreality of Western pronouncements this is Geopolitics in action.
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And it could land us all in a 3rd world war with thousands of nuclear warheads launched at the click of a computer keyboard which is the ultimate paradox, of the paradoxicality, of the paradox of Modernity ! </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><h2 style="user-select: text;"> </h2><h2 style="user-select: text;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVWPfUcby2o8xJtv3RWgl7W35aR-LyLhvWF5nZsPSHCGhTBLKGDdjv7lNESXCiCvdLf5-xytjWMVNye_J0L4M0AgQWa0KcLm1S1gnL3h11SOi8uT-plVO9LnxYrg9sn7c_weVugmnQeJ_Nrl37Mek1PJ38IPpgL7NdtHPBIEWz-QQEzTToog/s1200/105-B4-24.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiVWPfUcby2o8xJtv3RWgl7W35aR-LyLhvWF5nZsPSHCGhTBLKGDdjv7lNESXCiCvdLf5-xytjWMVNye_J0L4M0AgQWa0KcLm1S1gnL3h11SOi8uT-plVO9LnxYrg9sn7c_weVugmnQeJ_Nrl37Mek1PJ38IPpgL7NdtHPBIEWz-QQEzTToog/s320/105-B4-24.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div>4.4. About the outcome of this great convergence
<br style="user-select: text;" /></h2><br style="user-select: text;" /> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">The 8th shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world takes place amidst Western Geopolitical spite. But the minds of the citizens can no longer take this non-sense and confusion reigns thus supreme.
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Those of us dispassionate enough to look from afar at this sad spectacle, while juggling with the pieces of the puzzle, are observing the following :
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4.4.1. The West is utterly numb to its societal reality
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As I have written earlier Western societies have literally been paralyzed by their societal atomization. Their power elites are shouting insanities, at each other from the top of their lungs, while their citizens are motionlessly waiting for something drastic to happen.
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These societies are rudderless but, while their ambient madness is destabilizing the social normality, they no longer have the necessary cohesion to act as united entities that could undertake any large project like a national re-industrialization or, for that matter, a world war.
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Going forward the only thing to expect, from Western countries, is more shouting and propaganda but no meaningful action. This implies a slow disintegration of their institutions and the abandonment of their citizens to themselves. And when chaos finally renders life unbearable within their borders big capital holders, and their servants, will rush to more accommodating horizons…
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4.4.2. China is implementing a course correction
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What happens inside China during the next 10 years will determine the kind of path that awaits humanity.
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One could think that due to the present Western numbness the path of the Global South is secure. But this would be shortsighted for the good reason that what happens inside China will determine if the Global South has the economic and military might to counter what remains of Western hegemony. If China failed the dream of the Global South would evaporate at once !
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What happens in China depends on its governance system. But the preceding 40 years of success are no guarantee that the system will be successful over the coming decades. The policies of the past have reached a dead-end and the power-elite concluded, around 2010, that it needs to engage in a necessary reshuffling of the system that entails the tweaking of the rationality of Western Modernity which had reigned over the last 40 years.
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The ruling elite is engaging presently in a cycle of tempering the rationality of modernity and, now that the cycle is engaged, it it will take a few years before the people can be sure if the path is worth it or if a correction is needed.
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For those who know something about the historical Chinese cultural context there is no doubt that the people will be the last instance decider. What we can say with certainty at this point is that the popular mood has suddenly turned critical of the ruling elite. People are starting to voice their impatience with the immobilization of the country by its Zero-Covid policies. So the first hurdle for the power elite will be to mollify the people’s perceptions by reconciling their Covid approach with the traditional normality of people’s daily lives.
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The new governing team will enter in service by the spring of 2023 and some clarity is expected about the orientation of its policies by mid of next year.
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<span style="font-size: medium; user-select: text;">4.4.2.1. From my personal perspective tempering with the rationality of Western Modernity is a necessity for multiple reasons :
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Inequality levels have skyrocketed over the last few years but, more importantly even, the recent Covid testing policy has been privatized and people have been appalled by the astronomical profits made by the testing companies and the high levels of corruption that accompanied their activities.
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This implies that a strengthening of the state’s income re-distribution policies is necessary to put a ceiling to the levels of social inequality and when this is attained to gradually reduce them. But I would venture to add that the late incidents, relating to the income of testing companies and the call of some of them to be listed on the stock exchange, will boost popular demands for the exclusion of private interests from the medical practice and from the production of pharmaceuticals.
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This could be the opportune time for the state to legislate what sectors of the economy have to remain the prerogative of the public sector while fixing the monopolistic limits of private enterprises as well as the modalities of the state’s handling of monopolies.
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The rapid growth of some private companies have, in every case, been made possible solely by the infusion of public money or capital. But management excesses have been so rampant dedicating capital to the narcissistic satisfaction of personal impulses that it seems more than appropriate to strengthen the supervision by both — the lending institutions — and the capital investors.
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The recent large number of bankruptcies and insolvencies have left many financial institutions and private investors with large holes in their accountancy. This should be an opportune time to legislate the necessity of a smart supervision by financial institutions and private investors of the use of capital and loans.
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The Zero-Covid policy also demonstrated that small and medium size businesses, like — restaurants — stores —and many other activities, also need to be better protected from the interference of local bureaucrats.
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Small and medium size businesses need first and foremost stability to generate a sufficient income to let their owners and workers survive. It should be public policy that small and medium size businesses are entitled a continued normality even in extraordinary times.
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It is a generally recognized fact that the mercantile and entrepreneurial drive of the Chinese people is imprinted in their bones and that, for this reason, they are willing to go the last mile including by trespassing moral, legal, and other limits.
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This is without any doubt one of the biggest assets of the country. Small to medium size enterprises should be made the economic priority of state institutions in order to liberate the people’s entrepreneurial energies which could unleash the creativity of engineers, artists, and all the working people.
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A successful program for small and medium size enterprises would necessarily entail an new iteration of the original paradigm of Western Modernity under “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital”. Successfully applied this new iteration of the old paradigm could then be expanded to the whole economy which would definitively free the country from the chains of financialization and the economic paralysis generated by parasite rentiers.
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4.4.2.2. A national network of industrial chains
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In the present context of Western protectionism, and its active blockading of the economic champions from “the other camp’”, China is entirely justified to engage in the building of a “whole national network of industrial chains” to satisfy its very large internal market.
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Such an undertaking is a colossal enterprise for sure and it will necessitate the continuous investment of high volumes of capital during at least the next two decades. But the rewards of such a “whole national network” will be the stability of China’s internal circulation whatever might be happening in the rest of the world.
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State enterprises are best placed to play the leading role in setting up a “whole national network of industrial chains” but their management is known to have no patience for out of the box creativity. This is where the activity of small and medium size enterprises could play a very useful complementary role as subcontractors of state enterprises to design and produce parts and limited assemblies.
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But to be successful the designation, by state enterprises of their subcontractors, can not be left in the hands of state managers. Subcontracting jobs needs to attract the competition by small and medium size enterprises for projects and the selection, of the best proposals, needs to be corruption free which means that the attribution must be operated as an open process.
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By focusing on the complementarity of state and small to medium enterprises the country would without any doubt gain a tremendous boost in dynamism and in creativity. Biological evolution and the complementarity of the polarities of species could bring some useful inspiration to state decision-makers in re-designing the entire offer side of the economy.
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What if, for example, state and small to medium size enterprises were viewed as the polarities of the country’s offer of goods and services ? State enterprises could be playing the part that society plays in the dance between the polarities of species, that is illustrated in “the first principles of life”12, while the role of the individuals could be played by small to medium size enterprises. We would then assist at the constant confrontation between the ‘yin conservatism’ of state enterprises and the ‘yang search for novelty’ (more complexity) by small to medium enterprises.
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In this vision tempering the rationality of Western Modernity means the integration of the paradigm of Modernity inside a wider framework which is rooted in “the First Principles of Life” as is already encoded in the Traditional Chinese Culture as the Yin-Yang principle that activates the Dao.
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4.4.3. The Global South has high hopes to follow a savior
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China’s economic rise and the concomitant economic fall of the West, have opened a window of opportunity to the Global South that has breathed a dream in the minds of 85% of the world population about a multilateral world order, sovereign freedom, and equality among nations.
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But as I indicate here above in the unlikely, but nevertheless always possible, failure by China to deliver a workable “Chinese Modernity” the dream of the Global South would evaporate at once.
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Over the span of its two last administrations the US has demonstrated for all to see its rash and brutal national character. But that country’s societal decay has spared the rest of the world the brunt of its rage.
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The failure by China to deliver a “Chinese Modernity”, that is adequate to satisfy the rest of the world, would be an opportunity that a crippled West will certainly not miss to re-instate the hegemony of its own Modernity.
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Those of us who are dispassionate observe two possible scenarios in the near future of humanity. By near future I mean before the Geo-Bio-Chemistry, of the sub-ensemble earth, imposes a new equilibrium…
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The most probable scenario is the one I just laid out here above. It is the successful stabilization of a “Chinese Modernity” sometimes during the 2030s that would be accompanied by the full sovereignty of all nations to act freely within their borders. And so for the first time since the “European voyages of great discovery” all nations would possibly re-discover their full sovereignty, freedom, and equality without risking to suffer the aggression of the West
But in the unlikely scenario of an unsuccessful stabilization, of a “Chinese Modernity”, humanity would be suffering the loss of its multilateralist dream that would most probably be accompanied by a vengeful re-instatement of Western hegemony !
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This vision of the near future (10-15 years) offers some hope that humanity will come back to its senses and that it will be able to take the right decisions to answer the uncertainties of the longer term re-balancing of the Geo-Bio-Chemistry of the sub-ensemble earth.
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In the meantime our best bet will be to focus on the formation of our daily societal cultures :
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Humanity needs a new societal paradigm that addresses the impact of its activities on the Geo-Bio-Chemistry of the sub-ensemble earth
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Humanity also needs to synchronize its societal worldviews with “the First Principles of Life” so that the individuals can possibly adapt mentally to the painful answers that will be necessary to tame the societal destabilization that is inevitably coming their way
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These are the subjects of Part 5. <br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><h2 style="user-select: text;"> </h2><h2 style="user-select: text;"> </h2><h2 style="user-select: text;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSGnvyVMv34r34ZmGPr0kGcgFEsbMHGNkP_KcFUS3Y9aH0-8sg2hiXLU6lucJ0NsuCfUhlIy5Ft61hsJ5GeS3BmfDrFBv54Y2jP3LyftpG6KXsRlh4srpaAK8ycppS3YIWEjQ0wZ42fyYE9Io937qJ3OwpPJhz55Aj0_TNOjGaISayjTx7bQ/s1200/201-A2-31.jpg" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSGnvyVMv34r34ZmGPr0kGcgFEsbMHGNkP_KcFUS3Y9aH0-8sg2hiXLU6lucJ0NsuCfUhlIy5Ft61hsJ5GeS3BmfDrFBv54Y2jP3LyftpG6KXsRlh4srpaAK8ycppS3YIWEjQ0wZ42fyYE9Io937qJ3OwpPJhz55Aj0_TNOjGaISayjTx7bQ/s320/201-A2-31.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><u style="user-select: text;">Notes</u>
<br style="user-select: text;" /></h2><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">1. See “Modernity 02. Part 1 Late-Modernity. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A1534%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C317.101%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">1.3. Financialization of everything</a>”
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2. The recent recriminations, about the Zero-covid policy, are linked to popular dismay for the corruption in the implementation of the testing that set in sometime in February 2022 after a new iteration of health-pass was decided that demanded a 48 hour negative test to enter all public spaces. The implementation of that policy gave the 1250 private companies administering the tests a guaranteed income stream that they abused and over abused in cohort with local officials who locked in whole cities after one positive case was detected. Many people accuse the testing companies to have falsely declared positive cases in order to generate cycles of high testing.
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Chinese social media is replete with stories about the exorbitant profits of private testing companies which, in many cases, have been created with foreign capital thus a growing suspicion of foreign meddling to instigate chaos…
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The present recriminations are thus not related to the termination of the Zero-covid policy as is related in Western media. Chinese citizens are extremely proud of their country’s successful political handling of the virus. Their recriminations point at the complete corruption of the system of testing and their demands are about a clean-up of the system with sanctions for the higher-ups who are responsible for this corruption. Many social media posts are also questioning if foreign capital is not the instigator of this generalized corruption and they have adopted the slogan : “the pandemic will not end before the corruption is stopped”.
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3. See “Modernity 02. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A3148%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C176.7%2C343.051%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">Part 2. Great Convergence of late-Modernity</a>”.
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4. “<a href="https://harpers.org/archive/2022/12/apocalypse-nowish/" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">Apocalypse Nowish. The sense of an ending</a>”, Harpers Magazine 2022-12, by Michael Robbins.
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5. Fernand Braudel. See “Modernity 01. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity01.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A4252%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C493.051%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">2.1.1.2. Early-Modernity predates the reformation</a>”. Check note 215 on page 243.
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6.
"<a href="https://www.pnas.org/doi/pdf/10.1073/pnas.1922686117" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">Vertebrates on the brink as indicators of biological annihilation and the sixth mass extinction</a>", PNAS vol. 117 | no. 24 | June 16, 2020, by Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R.<br style="user-select: text;" />Ehrlich and Peter H. Raven.<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
7.
I give a summary of the animist governance vision in "The Continuum of the Societal cultural Field. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/01Continuum.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A1834%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C148.05%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">1.1. The First Principles of Life</a>”. For a historical presentation about the emergence, the development, the fall of the tribal model of society and the transition to the model of Power-societies check “Synthesis. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/00Synthesis.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A326%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C182.15%2C278.351%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">Part 1</a>. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/00Synthesis.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A522%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C177%2C287.301%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">Part 2</a>”.<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
8. See <span style="color: #443205; user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: Libris ADF Std; user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;">“Modernity
01. <a class="western" href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity01.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A2839%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C56.7%2C548.251%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">1.3.1.
Western individualism got built up in 5 steps</a>”.</i></span></span>
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9. See <span style="color: #443205; user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: Libris ADF Std; user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;">”Modernity
01. </i></span></span><a class="western" href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity01.pdf#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A1168%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C181.8%2C342.351%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #443205; user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: Libris ADF Std; user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;">Part
</i></span></span><span style="color: #443205; user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: Libris ADF Std; user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;">1.
Pre-Modernity or the context of Modernity's emergence</i></span></span></a><span style="color: #443205; user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: Libris ADF Std; user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;">”</i></span></span>
<style type="text/css">p.sdfootnote-western { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; font-family: "Ubuntu Condensed"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-cjk { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; font-family: "Source Han Sans CN Regular"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-ctl { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; font-family: "Lohit Devanagari"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 4.99mm; margin-bottom: 0mm; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.western { font-family: "Ubuntu"; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.cjk { font-family: "Arial", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.ctl { font-family: "FreeSans", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }a:visited { color: #800000; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:visited { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:visited { so-language: zxx }a:link { color: #000080; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:link { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:link { so-language: zxx }</style><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
10. I develop the content of this paragraph in an entire chapter of
Volume 3 <span style="color: #443205; user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: Libris ADF Std; user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;">“Societal
knowledge formation”</i></span></span> that will be published
sometime at the end of 2023.
<style type="text/css">p.sdfootnote-western { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; font-family: "Ubuntu Condensed"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-cjk { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; font-family: "Source Han Sans CN Regular"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-ctl { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; font-family: "Lohit Devanagari"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 4.99mm; margin-bottom: 0mm; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.western { font-family: "Ubuntu"; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.cjk { font-family: "Arial", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.ctl { font-family: "FreeSans", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }a:visited { color: #800000; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:visited { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:visited { so-language: zxx }a:link { color: #000080; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:link { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:link { so-language: zxx }</style><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
11. At the end of the administration, of George H. Bush, Paul Wolfowitz
ranked 3<sup style="user-select: text;">rd</sup> in the Defense Department and he wrote, what
came to be known as, the <span style="color: #443205; user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: Libris ADF Std; user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;">“</i></span></span><a class="western" href="https://www.archives.gov/files/declassification/iscap/pdf/2008-003-docs1-12.pdf" style="user-select: text;"><span style="color: #4a41fd; user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: Libris ADF Std; user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;">Wolfowitzdoctrine</i></span></span></a><span style="color: #4a41fd; user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: Libris ADF Std; user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;">”</i></span></span><span style="color: #4a41fd; user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: Libris ADF Std; user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;">
</i></span></span>based on the idea that, after the fall of the USSR,
the United States had to prevent the emergence of any new rivals.
This document continues to be the template for the <b style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-weight: normal; user-select: text;">U.S Foreign Policy
</span></b><b style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-weight: normal; user-select: text;">to this
day</span></b><b style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-weight: normal; user-select: text;">. </span></b>
<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
12.<span style="color: #000aff; user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: Libris ADF Std; user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"> "</i></span></span><span style="color: #0009ef; user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: Libris ADF Std; user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><a class="western" href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB10014.html?" style="user-select: text;">Overextending
and Unbalancing Russia. Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing
Options</a>",</i></span></span> Rand Corporation - Research
Briefs 2019, by James Dobbins, Raphael S. Cohen, Nathan Chandler,
Bryan Frederick, Edward Geist, Paul DeLuca, Forrest E. Morgan, Howard
J. Shatz, Brent Williams. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><style type="text/css">p.sdfootnote-western { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; font-family: "Ubuntu Condensed"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-cjk { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; font-family: "Source Han Sans CN Regular"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.sdfootnote-ctl { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; font-family: "Lohit Devanagari"; font-size: 10pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; line-height: 100%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 1.01mm; direction: ltr; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p { font-variant: normal; color: #000000; line-height: 115%; text-align: justify; margin-top: 4.99mm; margin-bottom: 0mm; background: transparent; text-decoration: none; page-break-before: auto }p.western { font-family: "Ubuntu"; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.cjk { font-family: "Arial", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }p.ctl { font-family: "FreeSans", sans-serif; font-size: 13pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal }a:visited { color: #800000; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:visited { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:visited { so-language: zxx }a:link { color: #000080; text-decoration: underline }a.cjk:link { so-language: zxx }a.ctl:link { so-language: zxx }</style><br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXT5Q-GX2oWsNf7lRu-_0Qr35noUIwFBmwFWDTP7jGuQ4m8MHoHJLV74O7Fm0A0p_iv5uSI5zbJfzZ6EzvgP-K47Ar1XyWeqV_gQM25TCOtv4Pp-lMB1yad9ieKbiN0stOuIWDOmxgrezwqyNTNR17HJYeWCYg1__qzAsAesdUrpXRi4pv7w/s1200/202-A3-433.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="795" data-original-width="1200" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXT5Q-GX2oWsNf7lRu-_0Qr35noUIwFBmwFWDTP7jGuQ4m8MHoHJLV74O7Fm0A0p_iv5uSI5zbJfzZ6EzvgP-K47Ar1XyWeqV_gQM25TCOtv4Pp-lMB1yad9ieKbiN0stOuIWDOmxgrezwqyNTNR17HJYeWCYg1__qzAsAesdUrpXRi4pv7w/s320/202-A3-433.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
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laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-68968072422645224392022-09-30T02:53:00.008-04:002022-12-15T05:19:27.351-05:00The ebook "The Great Turning” is online.<div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3da7tA4p0QolHWPXuCU7fItez0mkwAZ3RHpdMvre4r_HwLbwdHd6BWREnWMegL2XhyB_8LR9z6q9ocLZZyz8r-2GZ2657MlWoPx-kfYuxHDqWwUdKwU1kMup5Df5UUbz1Xf8dUciIETZbMiAhC23LlBOdHPPOMAH5NwILSavt1WfGEvQ-FQ/s1200/302-B1-34.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3da7tA4p0QolHWPXuCU7fItez0mkwAZ3RHpdMvre4r_HwLbwdHd6BWREnWMegL2XhyB_8LR9z6q9ocLZZyz8r-2GZ2657MlWoPx-kfYuxHDqWwUdKwU1kMup5Df5UUbz1Xf8dUciIETZbMiAhC23LlBOdHPPOMAH5NwILSavt1WfGEvQ-FQ/s320/302-B1-34.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">I just uploaded the ebook “The Great Turning”. It is a compilation, and edited version, of my series of 10 articles under the same title. “The Great Turning” examines the contemporary through the lens of my recently published book “Modernity”.
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<span style="user-select: text;"><a name='more'></a></span>
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<a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/archcreaBooks.html" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">Download “The Great Turning”</a>
<br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ZjEXLBBeqmjVAWuarUY6WgnW6nvw4sSfBHt_eYnfKRCPlsMIP5kPbT7-iJ-5ze6Ql0oBCYtfQ13pDqiyUXH1ZWP_VVWrq0dWOf9WvFUFvkA8GrHkOyH94xAmEIjoSQMMXIWwYb1jJm4lHma834pngVgOgwyv-taVkhlVGVcLBV90TVoiPw/s500/Turning.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="334" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg2ZjEXLBBeqmjVAWuarUY6WgnW6nvw4sSfBHt_eYnfKRCPlsMIP5kPbT7-iJ-5ze6Ql0oBCYtfQ13pDqiyUXH1ZWP_VVWrq0dWOf9WvFUFvkA8GrHkOyH94xAmEIjoSQMMXIWwYb1jJm4lHma834pngVgOgwyv-taVkhlVGVcLBV90TVoiPw/w214-h320/Turning.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="214" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;">_______<br style="user-select: text;" />
</div>laodanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13292026702626113989noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5194800.post-67606741880089737682022-11-17T13:00:00.016-05:002022-11-17T20:47:45.775-05:00The perspective of the 5,000 year old grandmother of all nations. Part 2. An impetuous adolescent USA gets isolated in its corner of the world<p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZoscwglNY84jv_2BE5pBh1Vs7zFqtybtFXB_Me67MxajMokuObF2Nwa_pnTDHsXbafOtxuHnlBIvq0Ga_u0y5Aiwfu3J42tYFRCuOyPp6tCleWzL2NjPgjsWw90TEQq1n1XCHPRTSwYx43BxJjC9SEBDOU-w8JIpYiVxB7dv3wKc7Eg1Evw/s1200/104-A4-34.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZoscwglNY84jv_2BE5pBh1Vs7zFqtybtFXB_Me67MxajMokuObF2Nwa_pnTDHsXbafOtxuHnlBIvq0Ga_u0y5Aiwfu3J42tYFRCuOyPp6tCleWzL2NjPgjsWw90TEQq1n1XCHPRTSwYx43BxJjC9SEBDOU-w8JIpYiVxB7dv3wKc7Eg1Evw/s320/104-A4-34.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a> Western decision-makers seem to be stuck, in a highly chaotic bout of delusion, absolutely impervious to the facts on the ground of our planet earth. </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; user-select: text;"> </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-align: justify; text-indent: 0px; user-select: text;">This is how the Global times recently summarized this Western chaotic bout of delusion : </p><p style="-qt-block-indent: 0; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin: 0px; text-indent: 0px; user-select: text;"> </p><style type="text/css">p, li { white-space: pre-wrap; }</style>
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<blockquote style="user-select: text;"><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">"Being highly sensitive, capricious, neurotic and aggressive are all recent symptoms of American democracy. Since the US is a superpower with global influence, when its system is sick, the whole world is inflicted. ... US politics affects the interests of the whole world. People sincerely hope that the US will settle down as soon as possible, and give peace back to the world". </span></i>(1) </blockquote></blockquote>Internally the Western capital formation of these last 50 years has consecrated "the gamble that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital". That gamble on financial rationality replaced the entrepreneurs by financiers and lawyers on the boards of directors. As a result the finality of enterprises, and even of state institutions, morphed into 'financial returns maximizing machines'. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">Until the early seventies enterprises had been major stakeholders in their local communities by creating jobs and producing real goods that answered real needs. All that changed with the shift of the paradigm of Modernity from <i style="user-select: text;">"the reason that is at work in transformation of money into capital"</i> into <i style="user-select: text;">"the gamble that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital"</i> !<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />
The financial rationality of these <i style="user-select: text;">'financial returns maximizing machines'</i> eventually forced the delocalization of Western industrial production activities to Southern countries that offered very cheap labor costs and inexisting state protection policies. For two or three decades delocalization had two major advantages. It procured extremely high profits to the <i style="user-select: text;">'Western financial returns maximizing machines'</i> while offering ever cheaper consumer goods to the populations.
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The biggest part of the high profits of <i style="user-select: text;">'Western financial returns maximizing machines'</i> accrued in the pockets of Western big capital holders while the cheaper prices of consumer goods have been hiding the impact of stagnating wages. This explains that all sectors of Western societies accepted Globalization during its first two decades of application. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">But the exclusion, since 1973 of blue and white collar, working population from their righteous share of increasing national productivity levels was bound to interrupt this acceptance one day or another. The near totality of the annual increases in productivity levels went indeed straight in the pockets of the 1% while the wages of the working population remained flat from 1973 to 2015 ! What is most stunning is how well big capital holders and their servants succeeded to hide what was really going on. The following graphs visualize this incontrovertible reality. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXKOyPMdmiptKEi-pizmws_0jG5sKHYIVqrf9Al3-N3PmtS_jggRIxDOnIjqmjAPGg73VLFSFTC3pfmZ2m5H9IGMRMXiAd3SgFRMZIG4TkUB2--NxcXxF88F0c2QHIYbgewH0VHFTttkORnvDvQK_yHH4x83c21fWIfv2jNCGHIhstJ_BBig/s900/Productivity.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="492" data-original-width="900" height="175" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXKOyPMdmiptKEi-pizmws_0jG5sKHYIVqrf9Al3-N3PmtS_jggRIxDOnIjqmjAPGg73VLFSFTC3pfmZ2m5H9IGMRMXiAd3SgFRMZIG4TkUB2--NxcXxF88F0c2QHIYbgewH0VHFTttkORnvDvQK_yHH4x83c21fWIfv2jNCGHIhstJ_BBig/s320/Productivity.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /><span style="font-size: x-small; user-select: text;"> </span></a>
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><span style="font-size: x-small; user-select: text;">Graph 01</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><span style="font-size: x-small; user-select: text;">from "<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/02/why-the-gap-between-worker-pay-and-productivity-is-so-problematic/385931/" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">Why the Gap Between Worker Pay and Productivity Is So Problematic</a>", </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><span style="font-size: x-small; user-select: text;">The Atlantic. 2015-02-25, by Gillian B. White.</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><span style="font-size: x-small; user-select: text;"> </span></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9tzSPu_tQHb4yvMwyHhgqCej5aLuuTnwd_S-MeAxk8HBXhiu_5_7sqcn_dDeAjVNp2x8sZ46lCZIK53vD7fStP5H5nDlX7K3rz2_OMYmyPI_WqzgN5-dcuBIRuxpZ5FBhKA63g0sLqWNsDVy0Y2zsNiyYj9-O7JhGb_6Dz4HSOio00_BJcw/s900/1pct-vs-90-pct.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="589" data-original-width="900" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9tzSPu_tQHb4yvMwyHhgqCej5aLuuTnwd_S-MeAxk8HBXhiu_5_7sqcn_dDeAjVNp2x8sZ46lCZIK53vD7fStP5H5nDlX7K3rz2_OMYmyPI_WqzgN5-dcuBIRuxpZ5FBhKA63g0sLqWNsDVy0Y2zsNiyYj9-O7JhGb_6Dz4HSOio00_BJcw/s320/1pct-vs-90-pct.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><span style="font-size: x-small; user-select: text;">Graph 02 : </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><span style="font-size: x-small; user-select: text;">from "<a href="https://innovativewealth.com/wall-street-wisdom/a-visual-history-of-income-inequality-in-the-us/" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">A Visual History of Income Inequality in the US</a>", </span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><span style="font-size: x-small; user-select: text;">Wall Street Wisdom, by Kirk Chisholm</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><span style="font-size: x-small; user-select: text;"> </span><br style="user-select: text;" /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYjtfFdPdwvaBsG9mhDqiey5SRu9wSuPzXPIdD2o49K2ja7HL5rAa_253YsAJ92hEQEMKHvABE7gbz1VOrYUO-4B_cbD4CGNQq1Q1WaZZN8YB84vQ6XMNhlZfAGHaFkfql7adzq2t9QCd-95IrfOvxSYlUokJFmrp1TkgQHSt9bbfVqVFNcg/s900/Inequality.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="612" data-original-width="900" height="218" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYjtfFdPdwvaBsG9mhDqiey5SRu9wSuPzXPIdD2o49K2ja7HL5rAa_253YsAJ92hEQEMKHvABE7gbz1VOrYUO-4B_cbD4CGNQq1Q1WaZZN8YB84vQ6XMNhlZfAGHaFkfql7adzq2t9QCd-95IrfOvxSYlUokJFmrp1TkgQHSt9bbfVqVFNcg/s320/Inequality.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><span style="font-size: x-small; user-select: text;">Graph 03 </span></div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><span style="font-size: x-small; user-select: text;">from "<a href="https://wir2018.wid.world/files/download/wir2018-summary-english.pdf" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">World Inequality Report 2018</a>", Written and coordinated by: </span></div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><span style="font-size: x-small; user-select: text;">Facundo Alvaredo, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman<br style="user-select: text;" /></span></div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><span style="font-size: x-small; user-select: text;"> </span> <br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">So, while financial rationality was the prime cause of the de-industrialization of Western countries, by the years 2000 the shenanigans that it suggested in the minds of financiers gradually forced Western citizens to juggle trying to cover their constantly increasing expenses with their flat incomes. This last sentence summarizes the core reason for the Western disillusion with globalization that took root in the minds in the first decade of the twenty-first century. This disillusion was rapidly followed by Trump's presidency, Brexit, and more generally by the wildfire of spreading extreme-right populist nationalist movements which threaten the jobs of traditional politicians.
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The rejection of globalization, and the rise of extreme-right populist nationalist movements, was merely a popular rejection of the elites that were responsible for the decisions which had led to the skewed outcome of financialization and globalization. The pauperization of the working people (the middle-class) had led to the separation of haves and haves-not which resulted in historical records of inequality. And the levels of inequality had gotten so profound that most people started to get disillusioned by the Western capitalist model of society.
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The resulting Western malaise got furthermore aggravated by a societal atomization that collided frontally with internet social-media.
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The reign of financial rationality was accompanied by consumerism and hyper-individualism which interacted with postmodernism to unleash a societal earthquake. All grand narratives literally melted away. Christianity and Marxism were the most important of these narratives and their disappearance left people to dabble in new narratives about bits and pieces of reality that separated them from one another. The result was an epidemic of loneliness that glued the individuals to their screens. Hyper-individualism and the separation of the individuals was a nasty brew that resulted in the rejection of anything relating to society and to the state. This is when societal atomization literally annihilated the capacity of Western nations to act as united entities which explains their utter incoherence in handling Covid-19.
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This incapacity of Western nations, to act as united entities, has fatal consequences. The USA relies on its military to coerce other nations into obeying its diktats and, over the last decades, it bombed the non submitting ones back to the dark ages. This worked well as long as these were small countries but what happens if the USA were to try to bomb Russia or China ? The US military establishment has already inadvertently answered this question. They don't want to be involved in such aggressive actions and they have been resisting, a few times already, the orders of the civilian administration when they were feeling that its actions risked violent counteractions from the other side.
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The military elites know better than anyone else how far societal atomization has been disintegrating the unity of its military personal. And they know apparently very well that a fight against a large economic power like China would leave the US military machine in shambles. In light of this their propaganda and psy-ops services conceived a strategy that relies entirely on the generation of chaos. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">Chaos hides the implementation of their strategy while easing the manipulation of the minds. Since then Orwellian <i style="user-select: text;">"doublespeak"</i> and <i style="user-select: text;">"doublethink"</i> are the new rule of the media game and Western populations can no longer make the distinction between truth and fake news. Confusion reigns thus supreme and the same confusion has been spreading around the world leaving people and decision-makers to scratch their heads. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">Chaos and confusion are meant to hide the execution by the biggest Western capital holders of their worldwide strategy of extraction which is presently shifting the paradigm of Modernity to its third iteration : <i style="user-select: text;">"the Western totalitarian imposition of the transformation of nature into capital”</i>. (2)
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Those countries that fail to grasp, the profound significance of this last iteration of the paradigm of Modernity, will fail to fight back and they will inevitably be cornered into dependence. Fortunately Russia's military operation in Ukraine has awoken the Global South to the fact that fighting back against Western hegemony is a realist proposition after all. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">After suffering five centuries and counting of brutal Western extraction of their resources the countries of the South have always been eager to escape this Western scourge. And now that one of them, China has transformed itself in the first economic power on earth, the Russian challenge to NATO in Ukraine has invigorated their dream of beating back the Western hegemon. This explains <a href="https://laodan.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-sudden-rise-of-87-against-13.html" style="user-select: text;">"the sudden rise of the 87%"</a> :
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<i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">"I'm personally struck, and this since the end of February, by the historical rejection, by the whole non-Western world, of Modernity as the cultural field of the West. This indicates that we have reached a historical turning point simply because for the first time in its history Western Modernity is opposed by a front bringing together 87% of the world's population which refuses to obey the Western diktat ordering to sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine. Thus, by a boomerang effect, the ideological totalitarianism of Western dualism is suddenly turning against itself. </span></i> <br style="user-select: text;" /></div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">... What is most extraordinary in the Ukrainian episode, of the restructuring of the world order, has been the completely unpredictable emergence of this front of refusal. Without any prior consultation the governments, representing over 87% of the world's population, suddenly refused Western orders to sanction Russia. Everyone got taken by surprise discovering such an abrupt rise in the rejection of Western Modernity. </span></i> <br style="user-select: text;" /></div></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><blockquote style="user-select: text;"><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">... I therefore suggest that the time has come to start thinking seriously about the impact that the front of the 87%, which opposes the Modernity of the 13%, will inevitably have on the formation of thought in After-Modernity which will necessarily be universal because of the many side-effects of Modernity that humanity will have to face quickly there after."
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I address this question at length in book 2 of the 2nd volume of my series <i style="user-select: text;">“From modernity to After-modernity”</i>, which is titled <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/02Modernity02.pdf" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">“Modernity 02”</a> and in <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/022Turning.pdf" style="user-select: text;" target="_blank">"The great Turning"</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
The fact that, <i style="user-select: text;">"Without any prior consultation the governments, representing over 87% of the world's population, suddenly refused Western orders to sanction Russia"</i>, literally cornered the West. As <a href="https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2022/03/28/geo-politics-is-metamorphosing-at-every-moment/" style="user-select: text;">Alastair Croocke wrote</a> <i style="user-select: text;"><span style="font-family: courier; user-select: text;">"While Europe and the United States have never been more closely aligned, the 'West' paradoxically has never been so alone"</span></i>. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">But this alignment of the USA and the EU is coming under strain and the USA could soon find itself isolated, alone, into its corner of the earth....
<br style="user-select: text;" /><br style="user-select: text;" />In contrast to the West China has kept a reserved attitude all along. Its governance wisdom, that it inherited from over 200 generations past, has contrasted starkly with the adolescent impetuosity of the US administration. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"> <div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL7HL_iE02su0moNeDuckZqfH2O2Gl_INp_XLcXsvTsjWQz0-IbXWwDN8ZdT7K06mpfNUVeMmYyzy1c6rbKvoa7Y4_CVR722HxWSj2B4ZvrHpr6BMtPpDKdhjqWdB25pmCRYdDgceLulZ0W_7R8vJl9gGJCQq7IMILD6PdDgT05YgNf9rzLQ/s1200/104-A1-24.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL7HL_iE02su0moNeDuckZqfH2O2Gl_INp_XLcXsvTsjWQz0-IbXWwDN8ZdT7K06mpfNUVeMmYyzy1c6rbKvoa7Y4_CVR722HxWSj2B4ZvrHpr6BMtPpDKdhjqWdB25pmCRYdDgceLulZ0W_7R8vJl9gGJCQq7IMILD6PdDgT05YgNf9rzLQ/s320/104-A1-24.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"><h2 style="user-select: text;">Notes </h2></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">1. <a href="https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202211/1279158.shtml" style="user-select: text;">"US dysfunctional politics makes the world sweat"</a>, Global Times, 2022-11-10. </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;">2. The Great Turning. <a href="http://laodan.byethost7.com/pdf/022Turning.pdf?i=2#%5B%7B%22num%22%3A691%2C%22gen%22%3A0%7D%2C%7B%22name%22%3A%22XYZ%22%7D%2C42.5%2C285.951%2C0%5D" style="user-select: text;">2.2. The morphing of the paradigm of Modernity".</a></div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div style="text-align: justify; user-select: text;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center; user-select: text;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh64_VNc7_LBBcAsx-UXkYQh_xBLIyyFEawgxwUtwu46JmPLkeT5XBO9JOqpnSJgaefTgGpGjRr4-0QIvAxcgCGUdhlMpnxFEF_oFbyPxVar77BpiSp5Jj2UWmHU8dgR-2-ITe3q30-lI0CHeoErnZETGn6oZadzLkIroE25jJFkUIXYbL4KA/s1200/104-A4-22.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; user-select: text;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1200" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh64_VNc7_LBBcAsx-UXkYQh_xBLIyyFEawgxwUtwu46JmPLkeT5XBO9JOqpnSJgaefTgGpGjRr4-0QIvAxcgCGUdhlMpnxFEF_oFbyPxVar77BpiSp5Jj2UWmHU8dgR-2-ITe3q30-lI0CHeoErnZETGn6oZadzLkIroE25jJFkUIXYbL4KA/s320/104-A4-22.jpg" style="user-select: text;" width="320" /></a></div><br style="user-select: text;" /><div style="text-align: center; user-select: text;"><br style="user-select: text;" />
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