5. A gradual shift from a Western to an Eastern model of society
5.3. Covid-19 is a first fatal blow to Late-Modernity
Covid-19 did not collapse national economic systems as is portrayed in Western mainstream media. It was merely the catalyst that activated the clean-up of the many severe imbalances that had been accumulating since the nineteen-eighties which then exploded after the great recession of 2007-2008 :
• national debts (state corporate and personal) have paralyzed the national economic actors
• zero interest rate policies by central banks have helped to keep over-indebted actors in business (corporate zombies) but this has destroyed savings which in turn has destroyed the process of organic capital formation,
• processes of fiat money creation have gone rogue giving momentarily the illusion that the virtuality of paper constructs could overtake the reality of material productions
• debt zero interest rates and fiat money creation were instrumental in corrupting states institutions and the economic balancing mechanism of the market,
• corruption fostered social feelings of unfairness that wholly eroded societal cohesion, and so on.
Over the decades this accumulation of serious defects and imbalances, intellectual economic financial social and societal, has cemented a false reality in Western minds. All that was needed was a pin to deflate this balloon of fakery and all these mental constructions came crashing down. Covid-19 was that pin and it popped the gigantic balloon of accumulated fakery.
But the crash of their mental constructions left Western minds in a panic. Nations and individuals were in shock incapable to process what had just happened. A cacophony of so-called expert’ voices started to propose competing narratives about the truth that had just happened. The noise grew louder and louder driving Western societies mad.
The world is aghast at this spectacle and it can’t shift its eyes from the sheer madness that sized Western countries. The fact of the matter is that we abruptly entered a new world :
“ Bottom line: The US is pulling back from its role in the world. Countries will be more vulnerable internally and externally. Ethnic group uprisings will occur. Border disputes will arise. Key shipping lanes will be under attack by adversaries and pirates. Regional trading blocs will develop that shut others out. The world is set to become an inherently more unstable place.
Bottom Line: The Corona-virus exposed many vulnerabilities. Going forward, governments and businesses will rethink the means of production and global trade. The choice will be less about economic efficiencies and more about resilience. National and geopolitical imperatives will dominate economic imperatives. “ (1)
It has been observed historically that the spontaneous response, of state governance and corporations against instability, was to try enforcing institutional resilience. And this is also what is being observed now in the countries that succeeded to control the virus outbreak. In China, for example, the country's 2020 “Lianghui”, or Two Sessions, parliamentary gatherings concluded with the following decisions :
• a new security bill for the special administrative region of Hong Kong has been introduced to ‒ protect the territory from Foreign interference ‒ protect national emblems from desecration ‒ teach the Chinese nation’s history to the kids
• the deficiencies observed during the handling of the corona-virus will be addressed through further institutional reforms
• in the present difficult international context it is understood that strengthening the country will be realized primarily by growing the internal economy. It is the recognition that the initiative and creativity, of the 1,400 million Chinese citizens’, are the prime vehicles to build-up the country’s self-confidence
• self-confidence will shed any afterthoughts about fully opening the country to the rest of the world while its economic actors will no longer feel restrained, by Western nihilism, in helping the further development of emerging countries
Chinese consumers, in their great majority, favor an emotional response that runs in the same direction as the one the state governance points to :
“ Today, Chinese luxury consumers continue to snub international brands, and they’re becoming increasingly nationalistic. The ongoing trade war, accusations of intellectual property theft, and demands that the U.N. recognize China as the official origin of COVID-19 have made the US-China relationship highly dysfunctional. Consequently, it’s not surprising that Chinese consumers are choosing patriotic purchases.
Sinophobia has also increased in the US, and Chinese consumers feel like they’ve become America’s scapegoats, getting blamed for an inevitable health crisis that they didn’t provoke. But grassroots nationalism is changing the conversation, and young, politically-engaged consumers are embracing domestic brands in response to current global events.
Not long ago, Chinese luxury buyers turned to domestic brands because they wanted to support local success stories. Now, they’ve added a moral element to their purchasing power. Promoting “Made in China” has become a personal choice that communicates a pro-identity stance. “ (2)
Trump has awakened the love of 1.4 billion customers for Chinese goods.
Trumps’ trade war and his lashing out at China, to hide his own incompetence in dealing with Covid-19, are backfiring dramatically provoking a deep popular antipathy toward the West and more particularly toward the US. This blow-back could have a limited duration in time or it could change the consuming habits of Chinese consumers for good going forward. The latter seems to be the most probable case :
“ The support for home-grown brands is not a fleeting phenomenon, according to McKinsey, suggesting that Western companies will require more marketing dollars and charm to retain or expand their army of customers – or even to repair their reputation among the millennials.
“This will not be short-lived, and will only continue,” said Zipser, the McKinsey partner.
“People are buying Chinese brands because it is cool. Why is it cool? It’s not just because they are made in China, but because they are good.” (3)
5.3.1. Covid-19 is a first fatal blow to Late-Modernity
Each species has a natural habitat from which it collects its means of subsistence. Population growth has been increasing the demands on the human habitat exponentially since nearly 2 centuries. But the expansion of the human habitat has been realized at the expanse of the habitat of other species. Many have already gone extinct and many other are well advanced on that path.
By encroaching on the habitat of other species humans are coming in contact with those species. And so we intruded in the territory of bats, and other wild life, which guaranteed the recurring break-out of viruses, bacteria mosquitoes, and fungus. Covid-19, in case it was not a laboratory augmentation, resulted directly from human intrusion in bat territory…
But there is even worse.
Humanity has entered uncharted territory. The multiple side-effects of Modernity have indeed started to converge unleashing interactions among them that are beyond our comprehension. What we know for a fact is that these interactions will unleash many unknowns. But more generally these interactions will impact the habitat of viruses, bacteria, and fungus that in turn will come to haunt humanity. The latest news on this front comes to us from the Canadian and Russian arctic polar circle where the permafrost is melting and freeing bacteria and viruses that have been dormant in the ice for thousands of years.
So we have to view Covid-19, not as an exception, but as charting a trend of many future blows to Late-Modernity.
Other eruptions are on their way. But the blows to Late-Modernity will not be limited to viruses, bacteria, and fungi. Over the centuries Modernity has indeed unleashed a raft of side-effects. Some of those are well known like :
• physical manifestations : chemical poisoning of air-water-land, climate change, infiltration of living cells by plastic nano-particles, destruction of the habitat of species, awakens dormant bacteria viruses and fungi, mass extinction of life, etc …
• societal manifestations : Western neoliberalism resulted in extreme social inequality, societal atomization and the complete destruction of their societies’ cohesion which inevitably puts them on the path to collapse.
Some of these side-effects are still unknown and will mystify us until science finds the answer to thus far unexplained phenomena.
By encroaching on the habitat of other species humans are coming in contact with those species. And so we intruded in the territory of bats, and other wild life, which guaranteed the recurring break-out of viruses, bacteria mosquitoes, and fungus. Covid-19, in case it was not a laboratory augmentation, resulted directly from human intrusion in bat territory…
But there is even worse.
Humanity has entered uncharted territory. The multiple side-effects of Modernity have indeed started to converge unleashing interactions among them that are beyond our comprehension. What we know for a fact is that these interactions will unleash many unknowns. But more generally these interactions will impact the habitat of viruses, bacteria, and fungus that in turn will come to haunt humanity. The latest news on this front comes to us from the Canadian and Russian arctic polar circle where the permafrost is melting and freeing bacteria and viruses that have been dormant in the ice for thousands of years.
So we have to view Covid-19, not as an exception, but as charting a trend of many future blows to Late-Modernity.
Other eruptions are on their way. But the blows to Late-Modernity will not be limited to viruses, bacteria, and fungi. Over the centuries Modernity has indeed unleashed a raft of side-effects. Some of those are well known like :
• physical manifestations : chemical poisoning of air-water-land, climate change, infiltration of living cells by plastic nano-particles, destruction of the habitat of species, awakens dormant bacteria viruses and fungi, mass extinction of life, etc …
• societal manifestations : Western neoliberalism resulted in extreme social inequality, societal atomization and the complete destruction of their societies’ cohesion which inevitably puts them on the path to collapse.
Some of these side-effects are still unknown and will mystify us until science finds the answer to thus far unexplained phenomena.
5.3.2. ignorance of inter-dependencies causes suffering
Our understanding of life is evolving abruptly nowadays and many of our past notions have suddenly become irrelevant and must thus to be discarded. Our ancestors, that we Moderns call “the savages who lived in tribal societies”, were right after all. Their worldview, animism, informs us that life is a web of interrelations and that no individual, nor any species, lives by and for (him)herself.
Modern science gradually came to the same conclusions.
Modern science gradually came to the same conclusions.
5.3.2.1. inter-dependencies of animals and plants with microbes viruses and fungus
“ The notion of the "biological individual" is crucial to studies of genetics, immunology, evolution, development, anatomy, and physiology. Each of these biological sub-disciplines has a specific conception of individuality, which has historically provided conceptual contexts for integrating newly acquired data.
During the past decade, nucleic acid analysis, especially genomic sequencing and high-throughput RNA techniques, has challenged each of these disciplinary definitions by finding significant interactions of animals and plants with symbiotic microorganisms that disrupt the boundaries that heretofore had characterized the biological individual.
Animals cannot be considered individuals by anatomical or physiological criteria because a diversity of symbionts are both present and functional in completing metabolic pathways and serving other physiological functions. Similarly, these new studies have shown that animal development is incomplete without symbionts. Symbionts also constitute a second mode of genetic inheritance, providing selectable genetic variation for natural selection. The immune system also develops, in part, in dialogue with symbionts and thereby functions as a mechanism for integrating microbes into the animal-cell community.
Recognizing the "holobiont"--the multicellular eukaryote plus its colonies of persistent symbionts--as a critically important unit of anatomy, development, physiology, immunology, and evolution opens up new investigative avenues and conceptually challenges the ways in which the biological subdisciplines have heretofore characterized living entities. “ (4)
Modern science finally joins animism to declare that we are not individuals. We are environments shared by many species that strive to maintain a balance amongst themselves. And the interactions among these species shape the physical and mental health of the environment that we call self. Some of us have come to realize that we are largely unconscious about what we call our “self” while most of us live in a mental state of illusion about the free-will of their “self” and in its name they participate in building a collective nightmare for all of us.
What we call the “self” is a creation of the mind. And the mind is the singularity that results from the convergence between the following factors :
1. the interactions of the species populating our environmental individuality
2. the communication between the brain and the species populating our environmental individuality through the body’s nervous system
3. the computation by the brain of the following :
3.1. the information from the species populating our environmental individuality
3.2. the signals from the body’s sensors
3.3. the signals from the ensemble earth and from the cosmic conjunction
3.4. the knowledge formed by the mind
There is no free-will in there. There is only emergence of awareness out of the computation by the brain of these different kinds of signals. And this awareness has the potential to increase into consciousness about ‒ the working of its environmental individuality ‒ the conditions of its habitat ‒ the life conditions of the ensemble earth ‒ the cosmic conjunction, which is what is being called knowledge.
The early stages of consciousness can be compared to watching the world through a deep fog when the originator of the watching identifies the complexity of the brain computation to the self simply in order to stop the maddening circular thinking.
In this sense the self is an illusion. A useful illusion that puts to rest the unanswerable quest about the reflexivity of our environmental individuality. By putting to rest this unanswerable quest the self effaces itself leaving thus the decision-making concerning its environmental individuality to the complexity of the brain computation.
5.3.2.2. the inter-dependencies, of animals plants and fungi among themselves, give life to the ensemble earth
Species thrive in their habitat. This means that all the necessary elements to keep the individuals alive and to let their societies thrive over the long haul are found in the special conditions of their living environment. The living environment is what is called the habitat of a species.
All living species have their own specific habitat that can accommodate a given quantity of individuals. When a species’ population overshoots the resources allocated in its habitat it endangers the balance of life not only for itself but for all living species. This must be the reason why nearly all species have instituted, voluntary or non voluntary, mechanisms of population control to keep their populations in check within the supply limits of their habitat.
Today only one species has not affixed any limits to its roaming and it acts like a super predator. This species is the human species ! But this was not always the case. For tens of thousands of years the animist men of knowledge had their thumbs on the pulse of population growth. This changed with the advent of power societies and the agricultural revolution. Population growth was suddenly freed from any limits and with the industrial revolution this growth reached catastrophic levels.
Once organized in power societies the human species showed no regard any longer for the other species. It acted as if it was special and had all rights, not only over the earth but, over the whole universe. This is preposterous of course. But humanity is in its adolescence and has still to suffer the wrath of reality before it matures. The industrial revolution engaged its population in overshoot mode and people were forced to grab the habitat of other species in order to survive which set in motion an accelerating process of life extinction.
The earth is a finite system that can procure finite resources to the living species that eventually emerge and when resources are insufficient species are forced into competition. But the competition for survival always stays within narrow limits in which super-predators have no place. Such an arrangement has its roots in the principle of life which relies on the interdependence between species to ensure their reproduction over the long haul.
We humans have the weakness to view nature and the principle of life as snapshots of reified moments of reality. And we build our abstract models of reality on top of such snapshots. But the fact is that life does not stop at such reified moments. Its evolves following patterns of interdependence between species that are not easily detectable. But these patterns shape the worldwide geography of the habitats of species that infuses the singularity of life in the earth itself. Our ancestors understood this with great clarity. They called it the mother that gives life to all species.
Humanity, a long time ago, forgot about these prime principles of life. Science nowadays slowly rediscovers them one by one but nevertheless still fails to connect the dots between them all. And there is good reason to believe that if it could connect the dots science would still be incapable to share these truths to the species as a whole. Science is indeed not a worldview nor a grand narrative that can be shared societally. It is a method of inquiry.
The ignorance, by Modernity, of these prime principles of life has direct consequences for humanity and for life in general. Humans are poisoning their mother. Humans are encroaching on the habitat of their sibling species and provoking their demise. Humans are terminating the inter-species-dependencies that sustain their own life-cycle. But what then ?
Species thrive in their habitat. This means that all the necessary elements to keep the individuals alive and to let their societies thrive over the long haul are found in the special conditions of their living environment. The living environment is what is called the habitat of a species.
All living species have their own specific habitat that can accommodate a given quantity of individuals. When a species’ population overshoots the resources allocated in its habitat it endangers the balance of life not only for itself but for all living species. This must be the reason why nearly all species have instituted, voluntary or non voluntary, mechanisms of population control to keep their populations in check within the supply limits of their habitat.
Today only one species has not affixed any limits to its roaming and it acts like a super predator. This species is the human species ! But this was not always the case. For tens of thousands of years the animist men of knowledge had their thumbs on the pulse of population growth. This changed with the advent of power societies and the agricultural revolution. Population growth was suddenly freed from any limits and with the industrial revolution this growth reached catastrophic levels.
Once organized in power societies the human species showed no regard any longer for the other species. It acted as if it was special and had all rights, not only over the earth but, over the whole universe. This is preposterous of course. But humanity is in its adolescence and has still to suffer the wrath of reality before it matures. The industrial revolution engaged its population in overshoot mode and people were forced to grab the habitat of other species in order to survive which set in motion an accelerating process of life extinction.
The earth is a finite system that can procure finite resources to the living species that eventually emerge and when resources are insufficient species are forced into competition. But the competition for survival always stays within narrow limits in which super-predators have no place. Such an arrangement has its roots in the principle of life which relies on the interdependence between species to ensure their reproduction over the long haul.
We humans have the weakness to view nature and the principle of life as snapshots of reified moments of reality. And we build our abstract models of reality on top of such snapshots. But the fact is that life does not stop at such reified moments. Its evolves following patterns of interdependence between species that are not easily detectable. But these patterns shape the worldwide geography of the habitats of species that infuses the singularity of life in the earth itself. Our ancestors understood this with great clarity. They called it the mother that gives life to all species.
Humanity, a long time ago, forgot about these prime principles of life. Science nowadays slowly rediscovers them one by one but nevertheless still fails to connect the dots between them all. And there is good reason to believe that if it could connect the dots science would still be incapable to share these truths to the species as a whole. Science is indeed not a worldview nor a grand narrative that can be shared societally. It is a method of inquiry.
The ignorance, by Modernity, of these prime principles of life has direct consequences for humanity and for life in general. Humans are poisoning their mother. Humans are encroaching on the habitat of their sibling species and provoking their demise. Humans are terminating the inter-species-dependencies that sustain their own life-cycle. But what then ?
5.3.2.3. the ensemble earth participates in the cosmic conjunction of forces assembling the conditions necessary for life to emerge
Life emerges eventually only where all the conditions have been assembled that are necessary for life to emerge. And it seems that the cosmic spheres, where such assembling of conditions occur, are extremely rare indeed. Life emerges thus as an extreme act of chance. But how and why could humanity then play so lightly with such a rare chance ?
I can’t explain the very special conjunction of cosmic forces from which emerge the necessary conditions for life to emerge in the first place and I don’t feel that such an explanation is necessary at all.
I have a strong visual attraction for the harmony, of masses lines movement and colors, that occasionally metastasize in the sublime beauty of the initiation of, or of the emergence of, life.
I don’t believe that such sublime beauty is a subjective feeling. In my mind I have the certainty that such fleeting moments of sublime beauty are objective manifestations of the reality of life. Yes I associate beauty with life. Humans ignore this but beauty nevertheless results in their awe for life. Words are very poor tools to express such an abstract idea. Music and painting are far more powerful that is why I attach images of my paintings to my writing.
What I try to express, in this chapter 5.3, is how Late-Modernity is like a chained and tortured soul that is perishing under repeated blows of ideological subjection. But such a depiction is so dark in colors that I prefer to go at it from another angle. Once you know that your actions destroy the sublime beauty of life there is no reason any longer to concentrate on these acts of destruction. The depiction of the sublime beauty of the operation of life is, I feel, expressing a lot more powerfully the aberration of its destruction.
Having witnessed the manifestation of the beauty of life who, in his sane mind, would want to destroy it ?
I can’t explain the very special conjunction of cosmic forces from which emerge the necessary conditions for life to emerge in the first place and I don’t feel that such an explanation is necessary at all.
I have a strong visual attraction for the harmony, of masses lines movement and colors, that occasionally metastasize in the sublime beauty of the initiation of, or of the emergence of, life.
I don’t believe that such sublime beauty is a subjective feeling. In my mind I have the certainty that such fleeting moments of sublime beauty are objective manifestations of the reality of life. Yes I associate beauty with life. Humans ignore this but beauty nevertheless results in their awe for life. Words are very poor tools to express such an abstract idea. Music and painting are far more powerful that is why I attach images of my paintings to my writing.
What I try to express, in this chapter 5.3, is how Late-Modernity is like a chained and tortured soul that is perishing under repeated blows of ideological subjection. But such a depiction is so dark in colors that I prefer to go at it from another angle. Once you know that your actions destroy the sublime beauty of life there is no reason any longer to concentrate on these acts of destruction. The depiction of the sublime beauty of the operation of life is, I feel, expressing a lot more powerfully the aberration of its destruction.
Having witnessed the manifestation of the beauty of life who, in his sane mind, would want to destroy it ?
_________
Notes
1. "Our World Is Forever Changed : Bretton Woods Is Now On A Ventilator” in Zeroedge by Guy Haselmann. 2020-04-09.
2. "Could Post-COVID-19 National Pride Push US Brands Out?" In Jing Daily by Adina-Laura Achim. 2020-04-03.
3. “Chinese retail is getting a nationalistic boost” in Inkstone News by Pearl Liu. 2020-02-03.
4. “A Symbiotic View of Life: We Have Never Been Individuals” in The Quarterly Review of Biology, Volume 87, Number 4 (The University of Chicago Press Journals) by Scott F Gilbert, Jan Sapp, Alfred I. Tauber. 2012-12.
A collection of similar articles is available on Pubmed.
2. "Could Post-COVID-19 National Pride Push US Brands Out?" In Jing Daily by Adina-Laura Achim. 2020-04-03.
3. “Chinese retail is getting a nationalistic boost” in Inkstone News by Pearl Liu. 2020-02-03.
4. “A Symbiotic View of Life: We Have Never Been Individuals” in The Quarterly Review of Biology, Volume 87, Number 4 (The University of Chicago Press Journals) by Scott F Gilbert, Jan Sapp, Alfred I. Tauber. 2012-12.
A collection of similar articles is available on Pubmed.
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