First devastating societal blow in Late-Modernity (16)

Part 7.  A changing context forces a new worldview and a new form of society to emerge

7.2. Reflections on the lessons from history

Approaching the notions of individualism and free-will, by taking into account the context of their physical, biological, and governance characteristics, gives us a rather different picture than the one painted by our societal ideologies. First there is this inescapable reality that each species survives within the very narrow bandwidth given by the fluctuation of the ‘world average surface temperature’.

It has been observed that for the last three million years or the whole of humanity’s existence as a species this bandwidth has varied between 10 and 16°C (1). A very narrow range indeed. By the year 2000, increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere, had pushed this average from 13.42°C (56.16°F) in 1750 to 15.00°C (59.00°F) in 2016  (2). 

Billion Year Graph by C.R.Scotese        400,000 graph by San Carana

Around 1980 the heating had accelerated and it continued to speed up thereafter. And by the end of the year 2020  the  average world temperature is projected to reach 15.5°C. We’ll reach 17°C within the next decades and human life will be in an extreme danger zone.

“ Remember the Paris Agreement? In 2015, politicians pledged to hold the global temperature rise to well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pledged they would try and limit the temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels. Well, an analysis by Sam Carana shows that it was already more than 1.5°C above pre-industrial when the Paris Agreement was reached. (3)

7.2.1. Limit of human physiological tolerance to wet-bulb temperatures

Scientists have observed that species go extinct when their habitat passes some threshold of temperature-humidity. Humans for example experience health problems if they overstay (1-2 hours), the threshold of the so-called wet-bulb temperature (TW) of 35°C or (95 degrees Fahrenheit) :

“A normal internal human body temperature of 36.8° ± 0.5°C requires skin temperatures of around 35°C to maintain a gradient directing heat outward from the core (

The awareness of a physiological limit has prompted modeling studies to ask how soon it may be crossed. Results suggest that, under the business-as-usual RCP8.5 emissions scenario, TW could regularly exceed 35°C in parts of South Asia and the Middle East by the third quarter of the 21st century.”   (4)

Scientists have assembled a “heat index” that assesses the levels of heat-humidity and what kind of stress they exert on humans. The orange and red zones in the graph here under indicate when human life is in danger.

Source

Due to regional fluctuations in the ‘world average surface temperatures’ entire regions of our earth surface already attain this threshold of extreme danger each year for extended periods of time and life there is thus becoming unlivable. Over the coming years and decades the territory of such unlivable regions will inexorably grow in size. This implies that the hundreds of millions living there, billions perhaps, will be migrating towards greener pastures soon :

“Temperatures in January 2020 were above the 1981-2010 average over most of Europe. They were exceptionally high for the time of year in the north and east, in a band spreading eastward and south-eastward from Norway to Russia, with values more than 6ºC above average in many places.   

(…) Exceptional above-average temperatures were not confined to Europe, but extended over almost all of Russia. Temperatures were also much above average over most of the USA and eastern Canada, over Japan and parts of eastern China and Southeast Asia, over the state of New South Wales in Australia and over parts of Antarctica.” (5)

Temperatures and humidity are 2 variables that are dependent on the climate and seen that the climate is warming rapidly the world is going to witness an abrupt expansion of the non-habitable zones over the coming decades.

7.2.1.1. Human encroachment on the habitat of other species ‒> plagues

The corona-virus has awakened humanity to the dangers of epidemic diseases. Such diseases have always existed but they did not affect us as they do now in Late-Modernity :

1. Since Early-Modernity Western Europe has spread itself ever further to the 4 corners of the world and everywhere it has pushed the indigenous people out of their traditional ways of doing and of thinking which resulted in the extinction of their cultures, languages, economies, and so on. In its totalitarian fashion Modernity has further imposed itself on the entirety of the human race and now people’s activities are encroaching ever more on the habitat of other species that go extinct one after another. But by encroaching, on the habitat of the other species, the viruses bacteria and fungi that live in their habitat are conquering new territory and from some individuals they spread further to the other.


2. Scientists are warning that abrupt climate change is melting the permafrost that had been frozen for so long. Its thawing soil contains bacteria viruses and fungi that have been dormant for thousands, or tens of thousands of years, and once awoken they could prove deadly and spread around the world :   

   “Over the past few years, there has been increasing evidence that the permafrost is a gigantic reservoir of ancient microbes or viruses that may come back to life if environmental conditions change and set them free again.    (6

   Melting permafrost and its hidden plagues illustrate how the great convergence of the multiple side-effects of Modernity unleashes cascades of interactions that eventually will come bite us not so unexpectedly.


3. In earlier times people did not encroach systematically on the habitat of other species, and if they were accidentally contaminated by viruses bacteria or fungi originating from such habitats, the plague remained localized. But our Late-Modern ways of life, and transportation systems, abolished distances and plagues spread now around the world in a record of time as we have witnessed the corona-virus do just that.
   

In light of all this it becomes evident that Covid-19 was merely a first blow against Late-Modernity. Many other are in store that will surprise us out of our comfort zone. And some could even prove far more damaging than Covid-19 for our species.

7.2.1.2. The mood of humanity varies from West to East

Wet bulb temperatures, non-habitable zones, spreading viruses bacteria and fungi and a multitude of other side-effects of Modernity are erupting on the human scene and all this while the human mind is absorbed by the shift, of the center of gravity of the economy-world from the Christian West to the Confucian East, that the tantrums of the West could easily turn into a 3rd World War. And the atomic clock is dutifully registering the evolving risks for humanity… 


When I look at the social scene and the resulting societal behaviors in the west I see a rising confusion, chaos overwhelming the governance-world, and madness taking over individual minds. When I look at the East I see bewilderment at this Western madness but I see also resolve and trust in the future. The total absence of consciousness in the West, that such a shocking contrast exists at all, baffles me.


Having said that the fact of the matter is that humanity‘s actions have disrupted the long term fluctuations from inter-glacial to glacial eras. But, however important that is, the climate is but one of the side-effects of Modernity that are converging and starting to interact among themselves. Very few even noticed that such a convergence is taking place under our noses and nobody has the faintest idea about what will be the outcome of this great convergence. If someone says otherwise he definitely is a liar who does not have the listener’s interest at heart. The least we can say is that humanity has created a massive mess and nobody knows how this story ends.


But once we accept the idea of our responsibility, for having messed up with the conditions that made life possible on our earth, we shiver and struggle with the weight of our stupidity. ...but this is no longer a time for blame. This is a time for honest introspection. We intuitively sense that we, as a species, must have gone off rail sometime in the past. But off what rail ?  We sense that, as a species, we are utterly minuscule in the grand scheme of things. But what is this grand scheme of things ? 


In a fashion that is emblematic of Modernity we think that the answers to all these questions should be shared with the whole of humanity. But are we considering the effects that such knowledge has on the working of the individual minds of the citizenry ? No we don’t think about the well-being of the citizenry. We think about what the ideology of our society wants us to believe in and in this particular case what individualism wants us to share is the truth. Yes democracy wants no less than the truth being shared by all even at the cost of their mental breakdown.


What I’m trying to suggest here is something that is never spoken about. Historically knowledge has always been the domain of the men of knowledge and they never shared their knowledge with their fellow citizens. Modernity changed that. Capital needed that to change to be able to foment mass-consumerism on the population at large. Traditionally the men of knowledge transmitted their knowledge, in secrecy, to their apprentices in order to pass it further down the road of history. But they kept it hidden from to their fellow-citizens to whom they shared a worldview, a narrative, a simple story that once shared among all unified them in a common view of the world which had the effect of enhancing the cohesion of their societies and thus eased their reproduction over the long haul of many generations.


I will now more systematically develop these ideas along the following lines :

7.2.2. the historical Context

History is the only thing we humans have. No really ? Our roots plunged very deep in the long history continuously sucking for meaning about why our being here today. Cutting our roots would irremediably blind us to what is life and to the fact that humanity is but one expression of the principle of life. It is this blindness that pushed Western individuals to follow as sheep the powers that be on the path of individualism that would lead them in their complete separation from the others that comes with hyper-individualism. But what they got, in the end out of their blind following, is societal atomization or me me me who is separated from the other me me me's and also from his society.


The wish to erase our culture, to erase our history, is a me me me wish to commit suicide which is the recognition of a failure to live. I'm afraid that this is where Western societies have pulled their citizens.  Postmodernism successfully separated Western individuals from, their Christian worldview, the only thing that was gluing them together and keeping them half sane. The spectacle we watch today is the spectacle of their madness.


I'm afraid that in their awakening tomorrow they will be assaulted by the economic realities coming with their collapsing societies and then what ?

There will be no true men to save the day. There will be totalitarian power adventurism.

7.2.2.1.  A permanently changing environment


Over the last 2.5 million years or more, since the genie Homo emerged, the climate on earth has changed multiple times from one era of glaciation to the next with inter-glacials in between. It is as if the earth was breathing, inhaling cold, and exhaling warm. The last glaciation period ended some 14,000 years ago approximately. Since then the Earth has been in an inter-glacial period called the Holocene to be naturally followed by a new era of glaciation :

“According to the astronomical theory of climate, variations in the earth's orbit are the fundamental cause of the succession of Pleistocene ice ages.  

...this model predicts that the long-term cooling trend which began some 6000 years ago will continue for the next 23,000 years. “   (7)

The next glaciation was projected to start around 23,000 years in the future. This would have been the natural cycle were it not for the human species that interrupted the cycle. The following graphs gives the evolution of the world average surface temperatures :

Image Map :  Author Glen Fergus + sources   For details magnify the image.

Source :  Global temperature record. Modified by laodan

The next graph gives the evolution of CO2 levels in the atmosphere and world average temperature at the end of the Last Glaciation period.

Global CO₂ and temperature during the last glacial termination (After Shakun et al. 2012). (LGM – Last Glacial Maximum; OD – Older Dryas; B-A - Bølling–Allerød; YD Younger Dryas). 

Source :  “The fatal road to +4°Celsius” in Artic-News by Andrew Glikson. 2020-04-19.

This graph shows that for each era of climate warming there has been a corresponding increase in the CO2 PPM (8). CO2 levels were at 280 ppm in 1750 and reached 412 ppm in 2020 which is approximately double the levels they were 12,000 years ago (200 ppm) just before the warming abruptly erupted at the tail-end of the Younger Dryas !  This brings professor Andrew Glikson to conclude that :

“Given the abrupt shift in state of the atmosphere-ocean-cryosphere-land system, the current trend signifies an abrupt shift in state of the atmosphere, accelerating since the mid-20th century. Terms such as climate change and global warming no longer reflect the extreme nature of the climate events consequent on this shift, amounting to a climate catastrophe on a geological scale.”   (9)

Such a catastrophe is necessarily implied in the following projections of coming temperature rises.

Source : “Methane Levels Early 2015” in Artic-News by Sam Carana

There is no way to avoid seeing the nature of the future reality even from such highly varying projections. What is certain is that going forward the rate of temperature increase is accelerating dramatically according to whatever projection one looks at. The question that immediately arises then is can living species sustain such rapidly increasing temperatures ?

 

Here, we take a phylogenetic approach to this question. We use 17 time‐calibrated phylogenies representing the major tetrapod clades (amphibians, birds, crocodilians, mammals, squamates, turtles) and climatic data from distributions of > 500 extant species. We estimate rates of change based on differences in climatic variables between sister species and estimated times of their splitting. We compare these rates to predicted rates of climate change from 2000 to 2100. 

Our results are striking: matching projected changes for 2100 would require rates of niche evolution that are > 10,000 times faster than rates typically observed among species, for most variables and clades. Despite many caveats, our results suggest that adaptation to projected changes in the next 100 years would require rates that are largely unprecedented based on observed rates among vertebrate species.“(10)

So here we are.


The rate of temperature increases are going to run 10,000 times faster over the next decades than what the biology of species can sustain. This confirms professor Gliksons’ conclusion that we are on the path of “a climate catastrophe on a geological scale”.


This conclusion concerns climate change but the fact is that all kinds of side-effects of Modernity are presently converging and starting to interact among themselves. I nevertheless rest my case, for, there should be no doubt any longer that the actions of humanity during Modernity are confronting us with a predicament that year after year appears ever more difficult to address.

7.2.2.2. Societal evolution accelerates the evolution of the species

As conclusion of the introduction to “Part 6. The paradox of humanity’s predicament” I mentioned the following :

• Modernity without any possible doubt constitutes somehow the highest human achievement in term of producing material goods


• but lately we came to realize that, in parallel to that achievement, human activities unleashed a slew of side-effects that could possibly wipe our very own species from the face of the earth.   (...)
  

To help us get rid of this paradox we have to discover where we went wrong. And the only way forward is to rediscover the basics about what life is all about”.

I then gave a summary  (11)  about what these “basic principles of life” are all about. To refresh our memory here follows a bullet point list of those principles :

1. life emerges in the form of species


2. species fight to survive and to reproduce over the long haul


3. “the dance between the polarities of species” (individuals –   society) ensures :  A. their continuity  B. an increasing complexity


4. the dance between polarities is thus naturally fraught with conflicts


5. societies act as arbiters between two forces, or groups of individuals, that have antagonistic goals :
   • the weak force, of the majority of citizens, want the conservation of the status quo
   • the strong force of the minority of citizens want change


6. the conflicts, between polarities, that find resolution solidify cultural memes


7. cultural memes that replicates over the long haul of multiple generations get synchronized in the cultural continuum

These 7 factors set in motion the dynamic of societal evolution by accelerating the increase of societal complexity which participates in the evolution of the species. Societal evolution emerges from the synchronization of the cultural continuum that traverses the whole cultural field :

• axioms of civilizational


• worldviews


• daily culture in its largest sense

The integration of the ‘cultural memes’, that succeed to replicate over the long haul within the societal worldview, in turn synchronizes the cultural continuum with the evidence of societal evolution. This is how the “free will” of the individuals gets synchronized with the evolution of their society.

Biological evolution

In one of the magic moments of science Darwin creatively induced, from his observations of the animal world, a mental abstraction about the process of biological evolution. And so humanity suddenly gained an understanding of a localized phenomenon within the more general unfolding of the universe. Biological evolution explains how the context may act as a reagent that puts in motion bio-chemical reactions in an individual which may eventually result in biological mutations in his physical body. And if those mutations are then replicated over the long haul of multiples generations they will eventually get integrated in the biological set-up of his species.


This gained humanity an understanding about the slow transformations, of biological life over time, that gave rise to the diversity of species on earth. Questions then emerged about how earthly biological life originally emerged in time which in turn questioned the possibility of the emergence of life in space. But the answers to all these questions remain limited, till this very day, to the dynamic arrangements between fundamental particles.


I can’t imagine that the universe plays dice and that life is just the result of randomness with not any function. The question that stimulates my mind is “if life emerges because the principle of life participates in the unfolding of the universe then its emergence and its development have eventually a function to fulfill in the grand scheme of things”. What I mean to say by this is that the principle of life may have a function to fulfill in the unfolding of the universe. I’m not saying that each species and each individual have a function to fulfill. I think that all living species, unconsciously, follow a programmed path that pushes them to reproduce over the long haul and to search for more complexity in their unfolding. In this sense reproduction procures the time necessary to unfold the species’ necessary complexity to fulfill the function required by the principle of life.


In my mind these questions resonate with the notion that every quantum in the Universe is both particle-like and wave-like in nature which implies that there must be a deeper, underlying force or structure, that procures direction, materiality, and why not function that science has still not explained to this day. Some scientists suggest no less :

• In “Wholeness and the Implicate Order” David Bohm refers to elementary particles as amplifiers of information circulating in quantum waves that he calls “the implicate order” which connects everything with everything else while everything contains information about everything else in the universe


• Rupert Sheldrake suggests a similar theory :

  “In the hypothesis of formative causation, discussed in detail in my books  

  My interest in evolutionary habits arose when I was engaged in research in developmental biology, and was reinforced by reading Charles Darwin, for whom the habits of organisms were of central importance. As Francis Huxley has pointed out, Darwin's most famous book could more appropriately have been entitled The Origin of Habits. “   (12)

While still without scientifically accepted answers these questions about variety and function have nonetheless been societal preoccupations since the very dawn of societal evolution.

Societal evolution

Societal evolution is a process that unfolds societal complexity. But it is a fragile process in the sense that it depends on the successful realization of many parameters. Indeed a society must first reproduce before it can think about complexity. Reproduction is the first imperative of any society and also of any species. Only after its reproduction is guaranteed will a society eventually venture in projects that could unfold into more complexity.


It has been observed that all models of society along human history ensured their reproduction by fostering a strong cohesion. Brute coercive force has been tried but it could not ensure institutional reproduction over the long haul. When societal cohesion was strong it was always the fact of the societal (wo)men of knowledge who “glued the minds” of their citizens around a commonly shared narrative relating to what reality is all about :

1. in tribal societies : the (wo)men of knowledge used :
   • visual signs to share meaning in the minds of their fellow tribesmen
   • music to modulate their moods
   • dance to attain trance states that enlighten on the meaning in the visual signs
   
   
2. in early-power societies :  the men of knowledge were priests in the Middle-East and their geographic extensions while they were shaman (Wu) in China. The priests used the same techniques as their animist tribal predecessors :
   
   • visual signs were imposed on the citizens to share the meaning in the worldview of the priests
   • music to modulate the moods in various situations
   • dance to enlighten on the meaning
   The Wu used divination, and their animist worldview, to advise the Chinese men of power on governance and in consulting their ancestors for help while their specialized peers in knowledge supplied their services to help the people in matters of divination, health, matrimony, interrelations, consultation of ancestors, and so on.


3. in power-societies during Modernity :  the quasi-men of knowledge were the long distance merchants during Early-Modernity, the scientists during High-Modernity, and nobody in the atomized societies of Late-Modernity :
   
   • the long distance merchants during Early-Modernity spread the truth residing in the “reason at work within capital” through envy and desire for the material possessions that it procured them
   • the scientists were commissioned to search for knowings that could help their investors, the big capital holders, to generate more profits
   • in Late-Modernity Western societies are atomized and everyone thinks he knows better than anyone else on all matters. Western societies, under the assault of the Corina-virus, offer an open spectacle of what atomization is all about. The scientists are still commissioned by big capital holders and their servant public institutions… but they now have lost the trust of the public.

Being atomized Western societies have lost any remnants of their past cohesion. And in panic the servants of big capital holders are now rushing totalitarian experiments to try to keep the lid over the boiling kettle. Basically these societies have already passed the point of collapse. They now merely hold on by habit and fear of the unknown while brutal state force is fanning the flames of fear… This is not exactly the right context for fostering higher societal complexity.

7.2.3. the societal governance-world

Western countries have entered an era corresponding to the old age of their quasi-worldview of Modernity   (13). Its side-effects are numerous and are severely handicapping societies while their citizens are dejected. They are not satisfied with the governance of their country and think their children’s lives will be far worse than theirs. I call this era Late-Modernity. In the meantime China is booming economically. The great majority of its citizens are satisfied with the governance of the country and trust that their children will have a far better life than theirs.


What all this means is that the West is on the descending side of the economic curve. Its societal cohesion has been erased replaced by societal atomization. In contrast China is on the ascending side of its economic curve and societal cohesion is extremely strong powered by the trust of the citizens in their future.


This was the thesis that I developed a few years ago in “A growing Disconnect between East and West”. Very soon we will assist at a last ditch effort by the powers that be to regain control. They will resort to brute force as their prime tool to keep their societies from imploding into collapse and that's when staying at a distance from their dystopian folly will appear to be pure wisdom :

"The air of the times in China today corresponds to the air of the times that prevailed in the West in the Nineteen-Sixties when any thought of a future fall was simply inconceivable. In other words the present old age societal pessimism of the West contrasts radically with the societal optimism of an adolescent China that has barely set foot in Modernity.

• or a blind belief and faith in technology as a savior that is eerily reminiscent of religiosity

• or a blind belief in societal collapse and the eventual demise of the human species that is eerily reminiscent of millennial apocalypse   

In contrast Chinese societal optimism fostered by a recently growing material abundance pulls the individuals’ minds back towards their origins. Amidst the social and cultural chaos resulting from the jump of their country into Modernity an initial exuberance transforms in an emptiness of meaning. And people feel the need to re-integrate their national and civilizational roots to give sense to their lives.”   (14)

As you may imagine from these words the societal mood in China is polar opposite to the mood in the US and this fosters different paths for the individuals in their daily life and in the working of their society. China, for example, is far more secure than the US and this fosters a climate of trust that procures greater personal freedom to be and act as one wants. In contrast the violence in the US reduces the individual's trust in the other which then greatly reduces one’s personal freedom of being and acting as one wants. And the “cancel culture” mob exacerbates this feeling that personal freedom is being under attack.

7.2.3.1. the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world

The general context, of these differentiated societal moods, is impacting decisively the world-changing process that shifts the center of gravity of the economy-world from the USA to China. The USA and many of its citizens refuse to admit that this is what is happening in front of their noses and they develop a violent and racist reaction that is reminiscent of the 19th century fright of the “yellow peril”. The Chinese for their parts observe aghast what they feel is developing ever more as an unbridled verbal assault that has thrown diplomatic norms to the dustbin of history.

The West should definitely know better. The present verbal diarrhea of the Anglo-World is simply madness. The words that are being uttered today will indeed be remembered tomorrow. Geo-politics is a matter of trust between nations. When the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world stabilizes East-Asia will have internalized a picture of the West’s non-trustworthiness. This is when the verbal diarrhea boomerangs and comes haunting Western minds morally.

7.2.3.2. the collapse of the systems of governance of Modernity

Western countries have reached their moment of truth. Their extreme debt levels can’t continue to grow without generating their financial collapse. Those in charge of societal governance know this perfectly well but, in wake of the corona-virus, they are left without any workable solution. So they continue to entertain the illusion of normality by inflating further the balloon of debt. They don’t do this because they think it is workable. They know it is not. But what to do when you are left with no solution? You continue to dance till the music stops as that chap at Goldman Sachs was saying in 2008.


The Western elites knows perfectly well that the West is entering a new cycle of greater economic depression that will bring untold social suffering. Some like Buffet have sold out to pension funds. They have inflated their cash positions awaiting the financial fall to buy assets on the cheap. Others have stocked on gold and silver. While others are gambling that digital currencies are the gold of tomorrow. Nobody knows for sure what the future has in store but what is for sure is that hard assets will stay put.


And this 'awaiting to happen financial crash' is furthermore taking place in the context of societies that have atomized. No need to look further than the social upheaval presently shaking the USA to understand how fragile that society really is.


Societal atomization + financial crash = the collapse of Western societies.


Many countries of the South are client states of Western powers and are stuck in debt traps from which there is no easy path to freedom. Some rare Southern countries try to free themselves from Western dominance but most have been or are being destroyed and end up as failed states. Only a small number among them have kept their heads straight while suffering shortages of all kinds. These are the countries that will start to prosper soon after the collapse of the remaining Western imperial powers.


In this troubled context the most promising geographic area appears to be  ‒ the East-Asian REB  ‒ the Eurasian REB  ‒ the Tri-Continental-Area  ‒ the African Union. The New Silk Roads strategy promises to unify that whole area and to develop it into the center of the world. If it awakens, from its ideological nightmares, Europe could join “the center”. All the other nations will find themselves on “the periphery”.

7.2.3.3.  organic emergence of new systems

Reality is not static. It moves from the present moment to the next present moment in a non stop process of transformation.


The center of gravity of the Economy-World is presently transitioning from the West to East-Asia with China at the core. And to the consternation of the West China is rushing the build-up of the interconnections that will unify the national parts into “The Center” :

1. the New Silk Roads (the Belt and Roads Initiative) is the grand strategy to assemble “The Center” :  ‒ the East-Asian REB  ‒ the Eurasian REB  ‒ the Tri-Continental-Area  ‒ the African Union.


2. the tactical moves, to realize the strategy, are called building interconnections. The construction cycle of these interconnections has already been initiated and in the “beginning of Q3-2019 US$672.5 billion had already been disbursed” according to data from the American Enterprise Institute  (15) :  high-speed roads, high-speed railroads, wide network of high-tech ports powered by gigantic ocean wind farms, unified electricity grid powered by gigantic desert solar farms, large scale annual tree planting initiatives, unified tele-communication network, plus multiple projects in  ‒ farming   ‒  mining  ‒ energy  ‒ production of consumer goods ‒ education   ‒ health   ‒ and so on.
   
   
   
   New Silk Roads(Belt and roads) member countries. Source 
   

During this last decade the West has slowly taken the path that leads to its collapse.  For China this constitutes a rare window of opportunity and “The Center” will certainly not miss this opportunity to deepen the relations of its participating countries while further the development of their economies.


What I see coming is a rare historical era that presents great potential but will be unfolding amidst great danger :

• Western countries, and more particularly the USA, are in the throes of societal collapse and like rats that are cornered they are ready at any moment to plunge at the throat of their adversaries
  

• For various reasons, that I will not enter into here, many countries on this earth are losing their societal cohesion and, following the collapse of the West, they will drift along while their populations try to survive in misery

• China, at the core of East-Asia, will definitely not only be the economic center of gravity of the world. While it will not try to export, its own particular model of societal governance, it will impulse a new kind of society which integrates the community and the individuals in a field of interrelations that are productive to all. And the probability, that it will promote a new international order based on the existing reality of the REBs (Regional Economic Blocs) as exposed in Part 5,  is strengthening by the day. Russia is already openly advocating for it.  (16)  

• The necessity to cohere its Regional components will incentivize “The Center” to initiate a REB confederation that will be in charge of  ‒ programming the necessary policies to maintain the health of the Earth ‒ facilitating the interconnections between its participants ‒ facilitating and arbitraging the economic exchanges between its participants ‒ encouraging exchanges with the different REBs on “The Periphery”. From “The Center confederation of REBs” there would only be a small step to make to a “World Confederation of REBs”…

7.2.4. knowledge is a tool to alleviate suffering

Whatever the words used locally to designate knowledge. The fact is that it is an old concept that goes back tens of thousands of years in time. Rationality and science are rather recent in comparison.


Knowledge in the traditional holistic sense addresses the situation of the individual and her/his species inside the whole universe. It is a holistic approach in the sense that it addresses the big picture of reality but it is also pragmatic in the sense that it approaches the whole by situating the individual in it.

What counts in this approach is that the individual and the whole are viewed as the sum of their interconnections and not as the sum of their material assembling which is the approach taken by reason and science.


I coined the concept “knowing” to contrast the production of reason and science versus knowledge.  In “What is going on ?  Science versus knowledge” I gave, what in my mind are, the 3 parameters that differentiate them :

1. their finality :
   “Science is about helping to generate capital surpluses while knowledge is about generating human well-being”.


2. their nature :
   “The nature of knowledge is to uncover the impact on human well-being of environmental and universal factors as well as other that are at work in the minds and bodies of the individuals. The mastery of this knowledge by the mind is called wisdom and wisdom keeps the species on a path of resilience.
   Science functions as a service supplied to capital holders, or their servants in corporations or in states, to allow them to increase their profits.
   Some scientists might consider, for reason of personal attachment to moral or other principles, that their role is larger and more noble but their research is nevertheless always financed or by capital holders or by their servants who expect returns on their investments. And if scientists want to address larger or more noble finalities, than increasing the profits of their financiers, they are forced to do so outside of the institutions receiving the grants that pay for their monthly wages. But if they do so, fact is that, the nature of their work becomes estranged from the nature of science and their quest becomes more like a quest for knowledge.”


3. their obligations :
   Science takes no responsibility whatsoever for consequences or externalities that its discoveries might lead to.
   In contrast tribal societies  were responsible for the well-being of the future generations. Black-Elk referred to the principle of the next 7 generations which meant that what is undertaken in the present may in no way impinge on the well-being of future generations.
   Traditional holistic knowledge concentrated on countering the negative impacts on the groups that might originate – from the body-mind of the individuals – from interactions between the elements in their local habitat – from interactions with bigger ensembles. Understanding that everything is interrelated, that human well-being can be disrupted, and mastering the remedies against such disruptions is called wisdom.
   

Knowings and knowledge, both, emerged from the mind and more particularly from the mind observing itself in the mirror. The mirror projects back to the mind the idea of the self. And the self eventually becomes aware that suffering and pleasure can be modulated through the application of knowledge. In “5.3.2.1. interdependencies of animals and plants with microbes virusses and fungus” I described how I see the self emerging and how it gives humans the opportunity of knowledge formation :

“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 body or environmental individuality


2. the communication between the brain and the species populating our body through the body’s nervous system  


3. the computation by the brain of the following :
   • the information from the species populating our body
   • the signals from the body’s sensors
   • the signals from the ensemble earth and from the unfolding universe
   • the knowledge that is eventually formed by the mind
   
   

Viewed from this perspective knowings suddenly appear limited in space and time. Their function relates to the here and now in terms of returns on the investments of big capital holders and/or their servants. Scientists who address larger or more noble finalities do so mostly outside of the institutions receiving the grants that pay for their monthly wages and their quest becomes thus more like a quest for knowledge in the traditional sense. In Late-Modernity the scientist whose quest is knowledge is in the same ambiguous position toward the establishment of his society as the true artist who needs to shun the market in order to concentrate on meaning as the content of his work.


Traditional holistic knowledge formation is a process, of observation and of verification of observations, that was spreading over the long haul of centuries or millennia. The reason for that was the precautionary principle. Imbued with the obligation to act responsibly, toward the next generations and more generally toward the species, the (wo)men of knowledge were considered to be responsible for any decision that led to societal calamity.


The supreme sanction of the man of knowledge, who was considered responsible for a calamity that befell his tribal society, was his expulsion from the group which was like a death sentence. We Moderns should abstain from judgments. This responsibility has indeed to be understood in the particular context of those first societies :

• the (wo)men of knowledge were sustained economically by the group but were shunned socially by its members


• the absence of socialization inside the group was an incentive to socialize outside of the group with peers from other groups


• responsibility in knowledge formation was traditionally considered as a failure to achieve one’s duty toward the members of the group


• in such a context inter-generational knowledge transmission became a process kept out of the eyes of the group. This secrecy was transmitted, past the transition to power societies, to the early-religions and is still in application to this very day in all kinds of esoteric groups.

These bullet points bring me back to an argument that I made earlier about the wisdom to keep knowledge, out of reach of the members of the group, as the exclusive domain of the wo(men) of knowledge. This reasoning had been initiated, in writing going back some two thousand five hundred years, by Laoze in the DaoDeJing but it did not capture the minds of Modern readers I must add. The following translation by Lin Yu Tang  (17)  captures the grist of Laoze’s intuition:

• Chapter 3, Sentence 1 :  Exalt not the wise, so that the people shall not scheme and contend;


• Chapter 3, Sentence 4 : Therefore in the government of the Sage; he keeps empty their hearts makes full their bellies, discourages their ambitions, strengthens their frames;


• Chapter 3, Sentence 5 : So that the people may be innocent of knowledge and desires. And the cunning ones shall not presume to interfere.


• Chapter 19, Sentence 6 : In comprehending all knowledge, Can you renounce the mind?


• Chapter 18, Sentence 2 : When knowledge and cleverness appeared, Great hypocrisy followed in its wake.


• Chapter 19, Sentence 1 : Banish wisdom, discard knowledge, And the people shall profit a hundredfold;

Watching Western societies struggle, with the knowledge about the corona-virus, one can’t but bow in complete humility to the wisdom of the ancients.
Knowings are useful in the context of a mass market of consumer goods. They procure technical knowledge that keep prices low and they procure freedom of choice among the offers available. Freedom to chose the product of your wanting as well as the political representative of your wanting. But don’t expect the freedom to decide anything that relates to the commons. That’s a domain that big capital holders have monopolized.


Knowings are functional and don’t relate to what is external to that functionality. That’s why they don’t care about externalities like the side-effects of Modernity… In contrast traditional holistic knowledge was responsible for the well-being of humanity in the present and in the future and used the precautionary principle as a guide. 

___________

Notes

1.     “Climate History – Hot House – Ice House + Map” Plate tectonic maps and Continental drift animations by C. R. Scotese, PALEOMAP Project


2.     “ Temperature rise from 1750 to 2016 ” in Artic News. by Sam Carana.
“Mean Methane Levels reach 1800 ppb”  in Artic News, by Sam Carana. 2013-06-18. 
The estimates from different sources vary considerably. But from personal experience I find Artic-News to be one of the most reliable sources.


3.     “2°C crossed” in Artic-News by Sam Carana. 2020-03-13.


4.     “The emergence of heat and humidity too severe for human tolerance”, in Science Advances. 2020-05-08: Vol. 6, no. 19, eaaw1838, by Colin Raymond, Tom Matthews, and Radley M. Horton.


5.     “Surface air temperature for January 2020” Copernicus Climate Bulletin


6.     “Back to the future in a petri dish: Origin and impact of resurrected microbes in natural populations” in Wiley Evolutionary Applications. 2018 Jan; 11(1): 29–41. Published online 2017 Oct 17. doi: 10.1111/eva.12538 PMCID:  PMC5748525, by Shira Houwenhuyse, Emilie Macke, Lien Reyserhove, Lore Bulteel, and Ellen Decaestecker


7.     See “Modeling the Climatic Response to Orbital Variations” Science, Volume 207, Issue 4434, pp. 943-953. 1980-02, byJohn Imbrie.


8.     PPM = Parts Per Million


9.     “The fatal road to +4°Celsius” in Artic-News by Andrew Glikson. 2020-04-19.


10.     “Rates of projected climate change dramatically exceed past rates of climatic niche evolution among vertebrate species” in Wiley, Ecology Letters, by Ignacio Quintero, John J. Wiens. 2013-06-26.


11.     Summary page 286 and see note 159.


12.     Rupert Sheldrake “Morphic Resonance and Morphic Fields - an Introduction”


13.     Modernity, as all past worldviews, offers a narrative but at the difference of past worldviews the narrative of Modernity is not holistic which means that it does not answer the big existential questions relating to what is reality. The narrative of Modernity is limited to the reason that is at work within capital and this reason only helps to preserve and augment capital. In that sense Modernity is not truly a worldview. It is a quasi-worldview.


14.     “A growing Disconnect between East and West” by laodan


15.     “The Belt and Road Initiative—Six Years On”, Moody’s Analytics, by  ‒ Veasna Kong   ‒Steven G. Cochrane ‒ Brendan Meighan ‒ Matthew Walsh. 2019-06. (free pdf).
China’s Investments In Belt & Road Countries Average US$12.76 Billion A Month ...


16.     “Could There Be Multilateralism Across Regional Integration Blocs?”, in InfoBrics, by Yaroslav Lissovolik. 2020-07-14.

“ ...the level of regionalization of the world economy, the depth and the scale of regional integration has grown tremendously in the past several decades. Indeed, at this juncture nearly all continents are covered by a pan-continental regional integration arrangement or a network of regional alliances that account for the bulk of continental geographical space. There is hence a firmer foundation for building a global network of regional alliances, the question is what is the likely evolution of the “integration of integrations” in the coming years if this is indeed to become one of the key pathways to advancing economic liberalization in the coming years.”

17.  “Tao Te Ching Twenty-three Interactive Translations”, Mobilewords Limited Newfoundland, by Tor Fosnaes