From a very long haul perspective the present
re-balancing of world affairs appears as the rebuilding of the
governance-world in the wake of a category 5 economic hurricane that
swept the whole world of its postmodern pipe-dream fantasies. In
contrast in the aftermath of the great convergence of all the
side-effects of Modernity there is a very high probability that
nothing will be left to rebuild. In the most innocuous of all
possible scenarios only a small number of humans will survive who
eventually will be forced to start a new cycle of “societal
evolution” in
order to survive.
I
concluded chapter 3 by writing that the re-balancing of the
governance-world will most probably be imposed by the reset of
national economies as they come out of a worldwide greater depression
that we can already perceive swirling on the horizon. Those countries
that will be pushed over by the hurricane will be crawling on the
ground unable to stand up while those that successfully resist the
hurricane, standing tall on their feet, will be the definitive
builders of the historical era that follows Modernity.
The winners will rebuild the
world. And against all odds the winners will be, a bunch of what are
nowadays commonly called, developing countries. The greater
depression will shake them. No doubt about that. But the lower level
of complexity of their societal systems renders them less fragile
than Western, or Northern nations and so their more sturdy
structures will resist this category 6 economic hurricane. Once the
furry has passed they will still be standing on their feet and they
will be ready to rebuild the human world at the image of their
traditional worldview. What is already a certainty at this point is
that this new world will be far different from Western Modernity and
the rampaging reason at work within capital that is the engine of its Modernity.
But the convergence of the
multiple side-effects of Modernity will complicate, to say the least,
this reset of the governance-world.
As
I see it each side-effect taken on its own, over time, has the
potential to destroy life on earth but their individual unfolding is
bound to span over long time-frames which gives humanity the
wherewithal to counter each one of them separately. Once all these
side-effects converge, within a common time-frame, they will operate
in concert and will inevitably interact upon one another. This will
unleash feedback loops that will increase exponentially the unfolding
speed of each of them and their damaging effects will render them
utterly unpredictable.
Sensitive and conscious
individuals are presently witnessing this extraordinary unfolding of
a convergence of the multitude of side-effects that are directly
resulting from the activities of our human species as it is lost in
the mental plane of Modernity.
Life
emerges as
a chemical
process based on
carbon molecules and that chemistry needs water and energy to
prosper. Life
materializes
in the form of a great multitude of species that emerge and
eventually go extinct. This
means that life can only thrive when a particular
set
of conditions are present on a given celestial body and
each species then furthermore thrives within its own particular set
of parameters that
are proper to the contextual setting of that particular celestial
body.
Species
live within a highly complex set of interacting parameters and this
means that these parameters have to be kept in
a state of balance within
a narrow band of variations.
Take
human life,
for example, it
thrives within a certain bandwidth of temperature and humidity. This
bandwidth is limited by top and bottom
livability
thresholds
that,
for
the top threshold, are
expressed as ‘wet-bulb temperature’
which
is the
limit
that
the human body
can
resist in term of
temperature
and humidity.
Biologists
estimate that around 99 percent of all
species that
ever existed on earth are now
extinct. The
extinction of a species can occur for a variety of reasons. There
is nevertheless
a
constant. When
the
balance
between the highly
complex set of interacting parameters, in
which a species lives, is
gravely disturbed the species goes rapidly extinct. Such an imbalance
may
originate from
diverse causes : comet crashing on earth (ending of Younger Dryas
some
12,000 Years ago1),
super-volcano (the
Toba
super-volcano
erupted
about 75,000 years ago at present-day Lake Toba in Sumatra2),
human induced changes (anthropocene3),
… But the important thing to remember is that the extinction of a
species is always caused
by a prolonged and profound imbalance of the
highly
complex set of interacting parameters in
which it
lives.
The fact
is that all the side-effects of Modernity have the potential to cause
such
a
prolonged and profound imbalance of the
highly
complex set of interacting parameters of
most species on earth; including
the human species. Knowing this is important because it allows a
species to act responsibly. The ancients knew. That’s why they
handled their affairs in respect of “the
precautionary principle”
or in Black Elk’s words4
anything new had to be tested and retested so that it would “not
inflict any harm on the following 7 generations”.
Modernity
forgot about “the
precautionary principle”.
The reason, that is at work within capital, has indeed no patience
for anything that disrupts
the generation of profits. The
reason is not concerned by life. It
is concerned exclusively
by
capital. Unfortunately humans started to venerate the reason and in
the process they forgot about
“the
precautionary principle”. Today
in Late-Modernity we discover the consequences.
I
don’t plan to give an exhaustive exposition of each of Modernity’s
side-effects. Multiple scientific studies are being published daily
on the subject and
some of them are relayed in the mass media.
Instead I plan
to give a rapid overview of those
effects
that
have the most damaging impact on the principle of life on earth.
4.1.1.
societal atomization
In
Part 3, “determinant
factors driving the ‘governance-world’ “, I
described
how the urge
of big
capital holders’ to generate always more profits forced
their servants, the intellectuals and the political decision makers,
to devise strategies to maximize the attraction of the population
toward
consumerism :
-
in an initial step farmers were asked to quit their land to go work in factories. Along the way they lost their self-sufficiency and were forced into consumerism
-
advertisement techniques were then devised to push in the minds notions of individualism which resulted in ever more consumption
-
postmodernism furthermore detached the individuals from grand narratives (religion, trade unions, political utopias,… ) and channeled individual energies and curiosity into a culture of ‘the permanent spectacle’
-
the web and social media integrated the individual as an actor in the spectacle. Virtuality rapidly replaced reality.
These
strategies were devised as a way to separate the individuals from
their churches, temples, trade-unions
and
also to separate them from one another. The
separation of
the individuals
was
attained by
weakening
their
bonds to the others. Separated
individuals
are
entirely
freed
from any distraction so
that
their
minds
(individualism, self, desires,...)
can
be
focused
entirely on
consumerism. In
the meantime they shut up and work to collect the money that is necessary to pay
for their consumption.
Virtuality
is, as a matter of fact, the pinnacle of consumerism. The individual
is
hooked to
virtual reality. He
pays
money
for
any
minute
he
lives
in it or he agrees that the platforms steal his personal information.
And
to satisfy his dependence he works, or does whatever, to
procure
him the necessary money. What
a contrast with the time he was self-sufficient and did not need any
money
at
all.
It
appears that the different economic stages, or revolutions within the
era of Modernity (1st:
merchant, 2nd:
industrial, 3rd:
informational,
4th:
Artificial intelligence), resulted in an ever deeper separation of
the individuals that plunged
them into an ever deeper dependence
on the
offers available on the market. From an economic perspective humans
started in self-sufficiency at the start of Modernity and are
reaching Late-Modernity being hooked to market offers.
Self-sufficiency
is economic freedom while being hooked is economic dependence. But
there was even
worse
on the way to dependence than
to lose one’s economic freedom.
This
whole process of separation in
order to force
the focus
on consumerism was accompanied by an ever deeper alienation that
pushed
the individuals to
withdraw
inside themselves. At
the end of their
withdrawal they
were trapped
into
loneliness and a
feeling of despair
set
in that fermented into anger against what is being perceived as an
inhumane society.
The
toxicity of this
brew is best observed on social media but
it slowly pervades the whole social realm of societies.
Loneliness
in the virtual reality of social media expresses
itself in utter narcissism and a ‘know it all’ attitude rejecting
anything else that
might
be suggested.
Most
often the contained anger
against the
inhumane society explodes into
verbal violence against anyone expressing a different opinion.
Respect,
for knowledge and for craft, is gone. The
separation is complete. Solidarity in collective action has vanished
and
the
common man has lost control over his destiny.
Back
in 2006, during a New York Times interview with Ben Stein, Warren
Buffett admitted
that :
“There’s
class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s
making war, and we’re winning”.5
But big capital holders know better. They know that anger is the last link in the chain of causality that fostered this societal atomization. Outside of the 1%, that is made up of big capital holders and their servants, each individual is possessed in varying degrees by that anger against the inhumane society. This anger is what nourishes the scare and anxiety of big capital holders and their servants.
Anger
does not lead to positivity. Anger leads to violence and destruction.
Anger is what motivated American workers
to vote for candidate Trump in 2016. They saw him as a cocktail
Molotov and
they wanted
him to
detonate
in the
midst of
the
establishment.
It
was not
a rational attitude but seeing
the
resulting
trouble
in
the
minds of
the masters procured
a profound
satisfaction. The
same can be said of Brexit, of the Yellow Vests, and other coming
uprisings.
Societal
atomization is uncontrollable. The grand narratives, that are
necessary to glue the individual particles in a cohesive whole, have
been destroyed by the
servants of big capital holders when
they
forced postmodernism
in
the face of their societies.
Societal
atomization acts
like
a cancer
that
relentlessly eats away the
substance of Western
societies and in the process they lose
their vital impulse. They
are now solely
rolling
further under the power of their inertia. Sometime next they’ll
stop moving and soon after that they’ll collapse freeing
the level playing field to a fundamental reset of social relations. Unfortunately this social reset will be costly in lives...
Societal
atomization is the most potent of all self inflicted scourges that
are maturing in the age of Late-Modernity.
Russia
was the first country to react by encouraging the revival of the
Christian Orthodoxy. In
the 2000th
Young
Chinese started to show
a strong willingness to go back
to
their
roots
and after
2010 the
state enthusiastically followed them
by promoting
Chinese Traditional Culture. To
counter the danger of societal atomization Russia and China are
focusing on the sharing by their citizens of their nation’s
traditional worldview. This
glues the minds of their citizens in a common understanding of the
working of reality which boost the cohesiveness of their society.
This
conscious
and calculated enhancement
of
the
cohesion of their societies, by
Russia and China in this early 21th century, is
the most promising of
all societal
actions
in our very
dark Late-Modern
age. This
stands in stark contrast to the societal reality of atomized
western
societies
that are solely powered
further down
the road by
the
force of their
inertia.
Even
if Western decision makers were suddenly enlightened, by the societal
necessity of a shared worldview, they would discover that their
traditions have been so utterly broken down that they are
no longer of
any use in
attracting
the minds of their citizens. Reconnecting
societally with a worldview works as long as the traditional
worldview has not lost its power of attraction. Postmodernism has
unquestionably driven large majorities of European and US citizens in
a mental state that
is hostile to Western
Christianity. This hostility leaves no space for a reconciliation
within the coming decisive decades of re-balancing of the
governance-world.
At
the present moment of Late-Modernity we
are indeed observing a
readjustment of
the governance-world and
what stands out is the following:
-
the unraveling of the uni-polar moment of the US empire is taking place in the context of Western atomized societies that are completely unglued socially and thus incapable of any significant national sacrifice in whatever direction one might want to look : – or industrial, technological, and AI competition – or military conflict
-
the competition of multiple poles in the design of a new multi-polar architecture of the governance-world in which its major sponsors, Russia + China, are in an advanced stage of rebuilding their societal cohesiveness. This procures their societies the significant advantage that their citizens are willing and ready to sacrifice in : – an industrial, technological, and AI competition – in a military conflict.
The
present context, of stark differentiation in societal cohesion
between the West and the East, appears to be the determinant
parameter in the re-balancing of the governance-world. The path seems
to be clearly drawn already and the outcome looks certain by now.
But
known unknowns are nevertheless tempering the certainty of this
conclusion. What I mean by this is that a
great convergence is taking place between the multiple
side-effects of Modernity.
4.1.2.
pollution of land, , air, , and water.
A
Google search for “fertilizers
and pesticides damage nature and life” returns some
13,000,000 results. A search for “paint
danger for life” returns 148,000,000 results. A search for
“pollution
of water and air” returns 244,000,000 results. These examples
indicate, not only the richness of available sources of information
about pollution. Reading through that list gives us also a long list
of all pollution factors.
The
fact is that all productions at the attention of consumerism are
polluting in one way or another. Pollution is the side-effect of
competition in production for profit. The profit motivation searches
to find short-cuts to reduce costs and these short-cuts involve
processes that generate externalities like chemically damaging the
health of the user or directly polluting the air, the water, and the
land around him.
These
damages are called externalities for the good reason that they are
not taken into account in calculating the cost of production. The
user, or society as a whole, are thus left with the damage and also the
bill to remedy the damage. This is how capitalism functions.
Nothing
forbids humans to change their system of society. If they want to
avoid pollution and the other side-effects of Modernity they just
have to change their sociopolitical and economic system. This is
easily said but not really my subject here. Let just observe in
conclusion of this point that pollution of air, water, and land
directly impacts us humans and also all other living creatures around us. It is
a threat to the principle of life and a direct cause of the
extinction of species.
Any
sane society would want to avoid this at all costs but our present
societies don’t seem eager to let go of the generation of profits
and their externalities. What better way to characterize such
societies than they are pure madness ?
4.1.3.
climate
Most
of us consider that climate change is the biggest scourge of our
times. But the climate is only one side-effects of Modernity among
many other.
During
the entire 2.5 million years of the Ice Age era (the Pleistocene)
carbon levels in the atmosphere were low and
oscillated
around 230 parts per million. Over the last two
centuries human action has raised
carbon levels
from 280 ppm in 1800
to
410 ppm in
2019. This
provoked an increase of the average temperatures
of the earth by
some
1.3
- 1.5°C.
This figure does not include the increase of temperature related to
the emissions of these last 15 years. There is indeed a lag of 10 -
20 years between emissions and increase in temperature. By all
accounts the emissions as of 2019 should correspond to an increase in
temperature of some 1.7 – 1.8°C
in
comparison with 1800.
The following graph shows that the normal
temperature of the planet during the last 2 million years of human
evolution was very unstable compared to the temperature of these last
10,000 years. On average the temperatures were some 4°C
lower
than
over
the last 10,000 years.
And
this differential in average temperature of the earth was all the
difference between age age and a
mild
climate.
The
stable averages, of the last 10,000 years, largely explain the rapid
rise in population and the ensuing speed of societal change that
brought us the agricultural and then the industrial revolutions.
From this graph we see
that some 5 - 6000 Years Ago a cooling set in that climatologists say
was the beginning of a new glacial cycle. This glacial cycle was
interrupted by the heating caused by the Anthropocene that takes the
earth in uncharted territories and at a very rapid pace.
The
effects of the Anthropocene are multiple and are rapidly intensifying
: lethal
heatwaves,
melting
glaciers and polar ice caps, rising
sea-levels, coastal
flooding, mega-droughts,
desertification,
food
supply disruptions, disease
outbreaks, loss
of biodiversity,
mass
migrations, extinction
of species.
Human
actions cause climate change and this provokes the extinction of
species. Human actions under Modernity have caused the extinction of
many different species. The conclusion that should be drawn is that
Modernity has been an impairment to the principle of life.
“
On the
order of a million species are now facing extinction, “many within
decades.” “What’s at stake here is a liveable world,” Robert
Watson, the chairman of the group, Intergovernmental Science-Policy
Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, told Science
“6.
What
is at stake is life on earth. We too easily forget that species live
in interconnection. One species’ extinction signifies the death of
many other. And when we are informed that one million species face
extinction on a total of a few million the question that immediately
comes to mind is “will the extinction of these species drag the
genie Homo with it? ”.
There
is no possible valid answer to that question. But the real
possibility that our species could be wiped out over the next decades
begs us to think this over. There is no avoiding the conclusion that
Modernity is really a very dangerous worldview. Life is our most
precious gift. That it could be squandered because of Modernity and
its governance-world questions the sanity of the working of the human
mind.
I
have questioned elsewhere how our entire species could possibly have
bowed in front of the reason that is at work within capital and how it then
later started to venerate the reason as if it was a golden calf. This is the question
that our species will have to answer if we have the good luck to
survive our present predicament.
4.1.4.
various other side-effects
The
side-effects of Modernity can be summarized in 4 categories.
- “Western great discoveries” resulted in the holocaust of untold tens of million human beings and the elimination of their traditional societies, their languages, and traditional knowledge. Untold hundreds of millions of human individuals were butchered, or eliminated by our germ warfare, over the span of a short few centuries. How would that not be sufficient to declare Modernity the worse of all ideologies and the societies that act upon its doctrine the worse of all totalitarian dictatorships ?
- The loss of the traditional men of knowledge, whose job was to share their knowledge with all citizens, was the starting point of the process leading to societal atomization. The sharing of knowledge offered a common narrative to the group which increased the trust among all citizens and this boosted then societal cohesion. This is the mechanism that since the dawn of human societies ensured their reproduction over many generations. All that knowledge has been squandered and then forgotten by Modernity.
- The loss of the precautionary principle in our production of commodities, and services such as health care for example, resulted in a multitude of side-effects that we discover only after having suffered their consequences for a very long time and that is if we discover them at all. Traditional societies refused the spread of innovations that were not rigorously tested for their impact on future generations. All industrial productions are susceptible to provoke unforeseen damages. It is in the nature of the reason at work within capital to cut corners in order to reduce costs. The reason at work within capital is indeed forcing capital holders to make profits and, in the wild market competition pitting one against all, profits often result from cost cutting even at the price of poisoning the consumers, the air, the water or the land.
- As we just saw the competition between capital holders results in unforeseen side-effects on the people and on natural systems. Capital holders are the citizens of nations and their societies are prone to enter into conflict over matters relating to the trade of productions or the technologies related to these productions. The present trade war that was started by the US against China is a good illustration of this point.
Trade
and other conflicts between nations sometimes end up in real wars.
One of the greatest dangers for mankind are conflicts and wars
that
end with the use of nuclear
missiles.
Fact
is that nations
today possess enough nuclear missiles to destroy multiple times all
life on earth. The Doomsday Clock of the
“Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” “is still
2 minutes to midnight”7
indicating that the world is in a high danger one.
The
danger, from any one of the multiple side-effects of our worldview
and its governance-world, is real enough. But worse still is the
present convergence of all these maturing side-effects.
4.2.
the great convergence
The great convergence relates to the acceleration of each and all of these side-effects that reverberate to the four corners of the world. While spreading in intensity and geographically these side-effects are starting to interact upon each other generating feedback loops among themselves that for the most part the mind can not predict.
Humanity
has the capacity to answer each of these side-effect taken separately
including climate change and nuclear war which are
the ones that appear
to offer the highest risk. But the fact is that our societies don’t
act. There is much talk coming from different spheres but societies
seem unable to walk the talk. We are confronted with 1–
the
conundrum of unequally distributed knowledge that paralyses big
capital holders and their servant decision makers, and 2–
the
reason at work within capital whose urge to generate profits knows no
boundaries.
This
conundrum is reinforced by the reason’s urge. The resulting ignorance of the facts
forces capital holders and their servants to resist reality. There seems
unfortunately to be no available remedy to this ignorance and even if
there was a remedy there is no certainty that this would change
anything to their present willful non action.
The
path of the great convergence is thus left free of resistance and in
consequence it snowballs faster and faster, bigger and bigger, down
the slope to the future.
Perhaps
one day humanity will feel forced to enter into action by an accident
of monumental proportion that ends up killing millions or that
threatens to overwhelm national borders with million upon million of
migrants who have nothing to lose and absolutely want to share in the
material well-being of the countries of the North and the West. When
the problem will reach overwhelming proportions nations will be
awakened into thinking about action but by that time it will be far
too late for their actions to have any impact.
The
great convergence is full of uncertainties and unknowns. Whatever its
outcome it is evident that it will impact the re-balancing of the
governance-world. But as its unknowns leave no space for human
understanding we can’t expect that our societies will ever be able
to form much of a workable knowledge about how the great convergence is going to impact the re-balancing of the governance-world.
4.3. Conclusions
In all probability the side-effects of Modernity will exacerbate the imbalances of the governance-world and hinder its rebuilding. Looking at the future the outcome spans a vast range of possibilities in-between the following two extremes :
-
if the convergence of these side-effects were to take effect, during the coming hurricane that will shake the governance-world, then most probably there would be nothing left of the governance-world. Nor would there be any trace left of Western Modernity. Life would then be restricted locally in small bands.
-
if the convergence of these side-effects were to take effect, after the reset of the governance-world, this would give humanity the time to awake to the fundamentals of the principle of life. And in all probability this would energize the community of nations to act in order to preserve the chances of survival of the principle of life on earth.
What
is largely unknown today is the timing and the form that these 2
resets will take. The reset of the governance-world is already at
work and in all probability it will be completed within the span of
the next three decades at most. But the timing of the reset, that will
follow the convergence of all the side-effects of Modernity, is
absolutely unpredictable.
The
scientific community is divided presently in its analysis about these
side-effects. Taking the example of climate change we observe that
there are scientists who reject the majoritarian view that human
activities are responsible for a warming climate. That majority
itself is furthermore divided on the timing, the intensity, and the
outcome of the Anthropocene. This scientific spectacle plunges the
public into a quagmire of uncertainty.
We are
still in times of plenty and all the talk, about the side-effects of
Modernity, appears like an abstraction that people can’t seem to
wrap their minds around. One side-effect is one thing. Multiple
side-effects complicate everything. And the convergence of multiple
side-effects is plunging the minds into the greatest confusion. But
the fact is that the single side-effect of climate change is already
dividing the scientific community and the public at large. This shows
us without any possible doubt that bringing the public to agree with
the reality of humanity’s predicament is an impossibility and as
such the predicament of humanity appears thus rather unsolvable.
But
is this really the case ?
I think
that we have to temper this conclusion by focusing on the societal
context in which the bulk of this debate takes place. What I mean to
say by this is that the thinking process leading to this conclusion
is grounded inside the contextual setting of Western societies. The
whole debate about the side-effects of Modernity originated in the
context of Western Europe and the US. This debate is thus inevitably
focusing on the lines of perception that have been engraved in
Western minds by :
-
their axioms of civilization,
-
their Christian worldview,
-
their culture of the day which is painted in the colors of postmodernism and neoliberalism.
I talked at length about these matters in Chapter 2, “The societal context forces human thinking and actions”.8
Side-effects
start to be visible at the end of a process and appear as if they
were direct consequences of this process. The same goes for the
process of Modernity. The West has entered the age of Late-Modernity,
or the old age of Modernity, and its most sensitive citizens are the
ones who, over the last decades, started debating about the
side-effects that they observed seeping from their worldview and its
economic system. The noise of their debates gradually increased and
touched more of their fellow citizens. But those who show their
concerns for the consequences of these side-effects are still
representing no more than a minority of the total population of
Western countries.
The
noise of the ecological debates in Western societies has also
attracted the attention of some citizens from developing countries.
But they represent a vastly smaller minority than the minority of
ecologically conscious people in the West. This observation has me
thinking. Nobody speaks about this but the fact is that I’m
certainly not the only one who came to such an observation. So why is
there no discussion about this ?
The
question that arises in my mind goes as follows. In this age of reset
of the governance-world the different geo-political blocs have
different interests and propaganda is a choice instrument they use
to manipulate the opinion of their own citizens and also the opinion
of the citizens of the rest of the world. Here follow some examples
of such manipulation in the recent history :
-
art was used successfully after the second World War to make believe that Western societies were free and to make believe that the societies of the other bloc were totalitarian. This was studied and documented extensively. See “Organic Art Manifesto. 4. Western Late-Modernity sows the seeds of After-Modernity” 9
-
education and media mold fashions that substantiate popular culture. One such fashion was postmodernism. Some french intellectuals, who were in disassociation mode from the left, proposed that worldviews or grand narratives were dead and of no use any longer. These intellectuals have been systematically recruited by US universities and their theories have been pushed in the face of the world.Time passed and the role played by postmodernism in fostering societal atomization is now indisputable. This hindsight flashes red lights in the mind. The whole thing looks indeed like having been a big manipulation to weaken mass movements that were opposed to capitalism and other aspects of Modernity which formed the core ideologies defended by big capital holders and their servants.For the establishment of Western societies the outcome was flawless. Their ideological enemies, left parties and trade-unions, ended up being mere shadows of their past self and offered thus no serious opposition to their imposition of a set of neoliberal policies that devastated the machinery of national states.Over the short span of 2-3 decades the left had completely lost its popular appeal. In this new context big capital succeeded to impose the inscription of its ideologies in state law. These laws were then implemented without any real opposition by the postmodern cultural establishment and the neoliberal public economic apparatus of all Western nations.Within two decades Western societies had transformed at the image sketched by the ideologies of big capital. As Buffet said the big capital holders have won the last battle in the class war and extreme inequality gave rise to dualist societies pitting the 99% against the 1%. The war is not over…
- sex
and its particular expressions are a part of nature that
historically has been repressed particularly in all societies with
a
large
Abrahamic following10.
Sexuality
was considered a matter reserved exclusively to the relation
between a woman and a man at
the attention of reproduction.
Homosexuality was a taboo. Abrahamic religions “…
have tended to represent patriarchal
norms, enforcing a straight heterosexuality at the expense of any
other sexual expressions. .... Most traditional religions have
happened to ritualize and dogmatize practices that tend to place
heterosexual males in charge of women, families, religious
communities, societies and governments. This form of dominance ends
up stigmatizing those who do fit into the scheme, notably, strong
females and non-heterosexuals such as homosexuals.” In recent years LGBT issues (lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender) have divided nations and their populations. In 2006 LGBT movements gained a first legal recognition at an international human rights meeting in Yogyakarta that spread the discourse on LGBT rights globally. Under president Obama the US started to push for the international recognition of the equality and human rights of the LGBT community. This resulted in the appropriation of the LGBT cause as an integral part of the liberal agenda and propaganda of Western nations. Sexuality suddenly transformed into a political issue, an instrument of propaganda, to smear more conservative countries in the eyes of their populations and in the eyes of the world.
The
side-effects of Modernity are without a doubt a curse on humanity.
But the present discourse emanating from the West, while
recognizing the damages it
causes,
is
nevertheless
suspicious
for the following reasons :
-
the thinking process that led to the present literature is grounded inside the contextual setting of Western societies. What about the conclusions that will necessarily arise out of societal contexts built on top of different axioms of civilizations and different worldviews ? Commenting on his vision of “a community of nations sharing a common destiny” XI Jinping gave us a first indication that the conclusions of China will be of a different nature than the conclusions arrived at in the West presently and I bet that the same will be true in India, Iran, and other.
-
the atomization of opinions in the Western scientific community is fueling confusion in the minds of the individuals and this is opportunistically sized upon by different groups of interest to push their own diverging agenda.
-
the US under Trump is washing its hands of any responsibility to fight climate change. It even denies that climate change exists at all and it freed its corporations and individuals from any environmental burden in their actions. This is fundamentally rigging free market competition and instituting a non level playing field to benefit its own economic actors at the detriment of foreign actors.
-
the political discourse about climate change coming out of the White House has already slightly modified the discourse of the other western nations that now start to talk about the need for all nations to share the burden to counter climate change. Is this the prelude for a coming rejection by the West of its sole responsibility for all emissions of CO2 that were released between 1750 to 2000 ? Is the West on a path of making the rest of the world pay for the damages it caused during the first 250 years of its industrialization ?
I
think that an equitable way forward would be to ask the nations
representative of all civilizations and all worldviews to express
their opinion on the present predicament of the human species and to
indicate how they view the path forward in
term of the existing problems and in term of humanity’s answer to
those problems.
In
my humble opinion the
Western societal context is not conducive to effective answers. Their
national decision making processes are :
-
too captive of the interests of big capital and its servants who manipulate the organs of state power in order to maximize their interests
-
too geared toward manipulation through the expression of everybody’s opinion and thus reducing the importance of the opinion of those in the know
-
too slow in decision making.
-
too inefficient in implementing decisions.
Since
our
predicament is
not Western nor Eastern in
its
nature
but relates
in reality
to
the survival of the
whole of our species we can’t count on Western style decision
making to address it. If we were forced to wait for 7 billion
citizens
to
express their opinion, or
to elect representatives to decide what to do, chance
is that our species would have gone extinct before we even
get
those
opinions or the
result of
the election.
Present
International institutions like the United Nations do not have the
power to implement their
decisions nor
do they have the might
to force defiant nations to
execute a plan.
Or
these institutions adopt the necessary changes to answer the
emergencies of our times or new institutions will have to be set up.
There
is urgency to act. If humanity does not find the courage to beat back
the reason at work within capital it will eventually go extinct in
the arms its venerated golden calf. This will be no
problem
for the principle of life but for humanity it would certainly be a
missed opportunity and a huge drama indeed.
_______________
Notes
5
“In
Class Warfare, Guess Which Class Is Winning ” by Ben Stein
in the NYT. 2006-11-26
6 “Climate
Change and the New Age of Extinction”
by
Elizabeth Kolbert in, The New
Yorker, May 13, 2019
7 See
the
Doomsday clock
9 See
more particularly “4.2.
the financial and ideological spectacle”
10 Judaism,
Christianity, and Islam
are the largest Abrahamic religions. They
claim the prophet Abraham
as their common forefather. Today
Abrahamic religions
account for over
half of the world's total population.
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