7.3. the principle of life
The determinant force driving Modernity is capital, or more precisely, it is the insidious ideology proclaiming that “the reason at work within capital” is rationality reigning supreme. Emerging in Early-Modernity “the reason” gave rise to some 6 centuries of commercial capitalism. It forced nations to adapt their political economies to their local context and so its implementation naturally took different forms.
The results, of the adoption of “the reason that is at work within capital” and its adaptation by all nations on earth to their local contexts, are now in. During all these centuries humanity has been blinded, by the illusion of material possessions, while it was savagely trampling the principle of life and unleashing multiple side-effects that are now threatening to extinguish life on earth.
How could humanity be bamboozled to unleash such a devastation on the principle of life ?
The results, of the adoption of “the reason that is at work within capital” and its adaptation by all nations on earth to their local contexts, are now in. During all these centuries humanity has been blinded, by the illusion of material possessions, while it was savagely trampling the principle of life and unleashing multiple side-effects that are now threatening to extinguish life on earth.
How could humanity be bamboozled to unleash such a devastation on the principle of life ?
Content
7.3.1. About the idealization of ideology
7.3.2. When ideology crashes into reality
7.3.3. The mind is one little extension of life
7.3.4. life emerges biologically and develops societally
7.3.5. humanity needs a life-coherent worldview
7.3.6. humanity needs a life-coherent governance
7.3.1. About the idealization of ideology
The Italian city states were the first beneficiaries of the long distance trade between the Francs and the Middle-East. Private bankers reigned supreme over the economy and the politics of their cities. Same applied in Flanders. In the Early-Kingdom of France, starting in the dawn of the 16th century, the aristocracy detected a local deficit in entrepreneurial activities that put the nation in a bind toward outside economic powers. To reduce its dependence on the outside the French kings decided that their nation had to invest in state manufactures to produce luxuries at the attention of the European aristocracy and they attracted the best craftsmen from all over Europe to manage these productions.
These State investments were so successful that France gained the reputation of a luxury goods specialist and this reputation accompanies it to this very day. During the 20th century the state took further majority stakes in different sectors that it considered strategic like transportation, energy, consumer goods, advanced technologies and so on that gave the world recognized names such as Airbus, Ariane, Alsthom, etc…
In contrast to France the economy and the political economy, in Holland and Britain, were largely bankers and merchants driven. Germany, after the unification of its Länder in 1871, initiated a state impulsed industrialization to make up for the country’s backwardness. Under Bismark the country created, state social protection institutions, from scratch that would later be copied by all European governments.
Over the last 50 years belligerent Anglo-sphere Neoliberalism pushed for a reduction of the role played by the state in the economies of Continental Europe and more particularly in France and Germany. But continental Europe never really fell completely for the anti-state ideological extremism of the Anglo-Sphere. And recently the role of the state is once again brought forward :
These State investments were so successful that France gained the reputation of a luxury goods specialist and this reputation accompanies it to this very day. During the 20th century the state took further majority stakes in different sectors that it considered strategic like transportation, energy, consumer goods, advanced technologies and so on that gave the world recognized names such as Airbus, Ariane, Alsthom, etc…
In contrast to France the economy and the political economy, in Holland and Britain, were largely bankers and merchants driven. Germany, after the unification of its Länder in 1871, initiated a state impulsed industrialization to make up for the country’s backwardness. Under Bismark the country created, state social protection institutions, from scratch that would later be copied by all European governments.
Over the last 50 years belligerent Anglo-sphere Neoliberalism pushed for a reduction of the role played by the state in the economies of Continental Europe and more particularly in France and Germany. But continental Europe never really fell completely for the anti-state ideological extremism of the Anglo-Sphere. And recently the role of the state is once again brought forward :
“The European Union on Wednesday outlined an attempt to restore what officials called “technological sovereignty,” seeking tougher regulation of the world’s biggest tech platforms, new rules for artificial intelligence and more public spending for the European tech sector.
(...) In Europe, the tech effort is part of a broader debate about the role the government should play in giving European businesses an advantage over foreign competitors. While officials in some countries, including France, Germany Italy and Poland, have called for more state intervention in the economy, others, including Ms. Vestager, have been more wary.” (1)
France, Germany Italy Poland, and other inherited the continental tradition of state intervention while Protestant Holland, Denmark and the Northern countries, were more closely related to Britain. This variation in historical inheritance is shaping different national sensibilities within the EU till this very day that complicates the decision making process. Nevertheless, after lengthy debates, the EU continues to take decisions that advance the unification agenda. So the unification history of Continental Europe is still going forwards and not backwards which confirms that the territory of capitalism in Europe offers an image of flexibility and adaptability to the local contextual settings that contrasts sharply with the late-twentieth and early twenty first century American experiment.
Since the dawn of immigration on the American continent private initiative was the only way for immigrants to survive. State institutions appear late and are mostly institutions of force that are in charge ‒ of keeping order ‒ of supplying security to the citizens ‒ of waging military operations outside to acquire new territory or to submit other countries to American power. But amidst this particular context the founders of the American republic were decidedly not shy to appear intervening in the economy of their nation :
Since the dawn of immigration on the American continent private initiative was the only way for immigrants to survive. State institutions appear late and are mostly institutions of force that are in charge ‒ of keeping order ‒ of supplying security to the citizens ‒ of waging military operations outside to acquire new territory or to submit other countries to American power. But amidst this particular context the founders of the American republic were decidedly not shy to appear intervening in the economy of their nation :
“ Alexander Hamilton, one of the nation's Founding Fathers and its first secretary of the treasury, advocated an economic development strategy in which the federal government would nurture infant industries by providing overt subsidies and imposing protective tariffs on imports. He also urged the federal government to create a national bank and to assume the public debts that the colonies had incurred during the Revolutionary War. The new government dallied over some of Hamilton's proposals, but ultimately it did make tariffs an essential part of American foreign policy -- a position that lasted until almost the middle of the 20th century.” (2)
But things change. Or do they ? Now that China is overtaking the USA economically protectionism and tariffs are once again being invoked rather savagely, I must say, by the Trump Administration. And in parallel to protectionism the US and its friends in the Anglo-sphere recourse to the unique field in which they have an incontestable advantage over the rest of the world. I mean propaganda. A new propaganda narrative has recently emerged that pitches the capitalist purity of the USA (good – moral - beautiful) against a bastardized Chinese State capitalism (evil – immoral - ugly) :
“… the re-emergence and redefinition of discourses of state capitalism participates in the search for new discursive frames and geopolitical lines of reasoning by strategic analysts, political leaders, foreign policy professionals, corporate pundits and academics, in order to render intelligible these messy epochal transformations. Put differently, state capitalism is rapidly emerging as ‘a new global drama’, that is, a simple and straightforward grand geopolitical narrative which acts as a frame of reference for political discourse and practice.
(…)
Constructing the non-West as characterized by impurity and deviance (clientelism, corruption, dysfunctional political interference) is typical of racialized imperial discourses, and allows denying that those attributes are potential facets of Western capitalism too, which is simultaneously represented as a fundamentally democratic, rational, efficient, pure version of capitalism. Hence, this Western capitalism is constituted not only as morally superior, but also as the ideal norm.” (3)
In other words Western think-thanks have suddenly realized that the international context is shifting and that the West is on the verge of losing its “two centuries of centrality” in the discourse about geo-politics. Realizing that their side is losing the servants of big capital holders want to change the rules of the game by setting the stage for a new “open playing field” for ideas about the geo-political order.
What is at stake here is who wins the contest to engineer the public opinion over the whole earth. The end-game is the control of peoples’ thinking. But before the talking even begins Western propaganda wants to force into the collective subconscious the idea of a black-white dualism that pitches the good, and moral purity of Western free market capitalism, against an evil and immoral bastardized Chinese state capitalism.
Let’s remember that dualism is the core axiom of Western civilization (4) and that this axiom is stored in the collective subconscious guiding the thinking and behavior of all Western citizens. It operates by pitching ‘good versus evil’ in a fight that ends with the triumph of good over evil and this battle extends to all forms that dualism might eventually take. This means that, by pitching the good beautiful ‘moral purity of Western free market capitalism’ against the evil ugly ‘immoral bastardized Chinese state capitalism’, Western propagandists are manipulating the minds of the citizens of this earth into viewing the evil ugly ‘immoral bastardized Chinese state capitalism’ as the enemy to beat.
And the manipulation goes then one step further. By identifying the managers of this evil and ugly ‘immoral bastardized Chinese state capitalism’ as being the Communist Party of China (CPC) the USA hopes to convince the Chinese citizens to reject the Communist Party. Were this ploy successful, in liquidating the Communist Party of China, the country would no doubt immediately collapse into chaos and Western big capital holders would then get free reign, to steal the ownership of a broken-up China, as they did in the immediate years after the break-up of the Soviet-Union.
In the present context this strategy has zero chance to succeed and it could even backfire badly for Western big capital holders and their servants :
What is at stake here is who wins the contest to engineer the public opinion over the whole earth. The end-game is the control of peoples’ thinking. But before the talking even begins Western propaganda wants to force into the collective subconscious the idea of a black-white dualism that pitches the good, and moral purity of Western free market capitalism, against an evil and immoral bastardized Chinese state capitalism.
Let’s remember that dualism is the core axiom of Western civilization (4) and that this axiom is stored in the collective subconscious guiding the thinking and behavior of all Western citizens. It operates by pitching ‘good versus evil’ in a fight that ends with the triumph of good over evil and this battle extends to all forms that dualism might eventually take. This means that, by pitching the good beautiful ‘moral purity of Western free market capitalism’ against the evil ugly ‘immoral bastardized Chinese state capitalism’, Western propagandists are manipulating the minds of the citizens of this earth into viewing the evil ugly ‘immoral bastardized Chinese state capitalism’ as the enemy to beat.
And the manipulation goes then one step further. By identifying the managers of this evil and ugly ‘immoral bastardized Chinese state capitalism’ as being the Communist Party of China (CPC) the USA hopes to convince the Chinese citizens to reject the Communist Party. Were this ploy successful, in liquidating the Communist Party of China, the country would no doubt immediately collapse into chaos and Western big capital holders would then get free reign, to steal the ownership of a broken-up China, as they did in the immediate years after the break-up of the Soviet-Union.
In the present context this strategy has zero chance to succeed and it could even backfire badly for Western big capital holders and their servants :
- for one the Chinese citizens are extremely proud of the uncontested success of their country in its fight against the Corona-Virus and their views have been greatly reinforced by the daily televised spectacle of what can only be discribed as Western governance incompetence. Covid-19 has thus been a blessing in disguise for the CPC
- secondly a popularly reinforced CPC is visibly already attracting followers outside of China. What if the CPC were to start to finance groups of such followers in their fight against their own national governments ? This would certainly not be out of the norms set by Anglo-sphere nations ! Would the support by China of its foreign followers not be a rather painful boomerang of Western provocations ?
Whatever the US propaganda, as I stated here above, capitalism at its origin, during the 600 years of Early-Modernity, was a European affair that projects “an image of flexibility and adaptability to the local contextual settings” which is in stark contrast with the American experiment that American ideologists glorified as the purity of the open playing field of the market. Yves Smith characterizes the distance between this ideology and the reality on the ground in the following words:
“It’s revealing to see how much effort the press and pundits spend in demonizing state capitalism, when the US version of capitalism arguably combines the worst of that system and laissez faire capitalism, by having many key industries so dependent on state support (banking, the military-surveillance complex) that they cannot properly be considered private, and others getting so many subsidies (real estate, higher education, Big Pharma) that they should at least be very strictly regulated.” (5)
If there is one field in which the USA is world best it is without contest propaganda. Over the whole twentieth century the country devoted huge amounts of tax payers’ money to the budgets of psychology departments for research and development of techniques of mind manipulation (6). No other country comes even close to such US exploits as the near complete zombification of its own population.
The epic mishandling of the corona-virus by Western governments has put to the test their mastery in mind manipulation. For a full 6 months now the population of this earth has been forced to watch the daily spectacle of the utter incompetence of the politicians at the steering wheel of Western governance systems. Propaganda was then called to the rescue to deflect people’s attention from this fiasco of governance incompetence by focusing on a false narrative about China being the cause of the pandemic and of all the world’s misery. But reality is a bitch.
There is indeed no avoiding the fact that, while being very lousy at propaganda and with a population more than 4 times the size of the US’, China is virtually Covid-19 free since April and its economy is the only major economy that grew in the second quarter. This reality is so enormous that it is simply impossible to hide. And the bitch is now blowing back on US propaganda as Trump’s polling numbers attest.
This just shows that the future will grow out of the reality of local national contexts. Propaganda will at best only have a minor role on the margins of reality.
The epic mishandling of the corona-virus by Western governments has put to the test their mastery in mind manipulation. For a full 6 months now the population of this earth has been forced to watch the daily spectacle of the utter incompetence of the politicians at the steering wheel of Western governance systems. Propaganda was then called to the rescue to deflect people’s attention from this fiasco of governance incompetence by focusing on a false narrative about China being the cause of the pandemic and of all the world’s misery. But reality is a bitch.
There is indeed no avoiding the fact that, while being very lousy at propaganda and with a population more than 4 times the size of the US’, China is virtually Covid-19 free since April and its economy is the only major economy that grew in the second quarter. This reality is so enormous that it is simply impossible to hide. And the bitch is now blowing back on US propaganda as Trump’s polling numbers attest.
This just shows that the future will grow out of the reality of local national contexts. Propaganda will at best only have a minor role on the margins of reality.
7.3.2. When ideology crashes into reality
The ideological abstraction implicitly contained in “the reason that is at work within capital” was rather successful at delivering material productions that satisfied consumerism. But as the title of Chapter 6.1 states “Modernity, is the greatest achievement of humanity but it fosters life extinction”. This is a paradox indeed.
How could “the reason at work within capital” be at once so successful and also so destructive ? The fact is that “the reason at work within capital” is an ideological abstraction that explicitly satisfied the originators of long distance commerce. These long distance merchants had their own personal interests for sure but “the reason” emerged not to satisfy the merchants’ interests but to satisfy its own priorities. This abstraction was welcomed in the merchants minds because it satisfied their short term interests but by the same token they completely lost sight of the bigger picture about life and reality.
What was projected, in the minds of the long distance merchants, appeared to be at the time a not well understood ‘reasoned approach’ that nevertheless immediately satisfied their personal interests. The gold they carried appeared to be so ‘capital’ (7) in their eyes that they gradually submitted to :
How could “the reason at work within capital” be at once so successful and also so destructive ? The fact is that “the reason at work within capital” is an ideological abstraction that explicitly satisfied the originators of long distance commerce. These long distance merchants had their own personal interests for sure but “the reason” emerged not to satisfy the merchants’ interests but to satisfy its own priorities. This abstraction was welcomed in the merchants minds because it satisfied their short term interests but by the same token they completely lost sight of the bigger picture about life and reality.
What was projected, in the minds of the long distance merchants, appeared to be at the time a not well understood ‘reasoned approach’ that nevertheless immediately satisfied their personal interests. The gold they carried appeared to be so ‘capital’ (7) in their eyes that they gradually submitted to :
- the fear to lose the instrument of exchange that was meant to finance their investment : the process of transformation of such an instrument of exchange (gold, or money, or physical goods) into an “investment” was viewed as “capital” by the Franks in early 13th century. British economists only used the word for the first time in that sense in the 17th century which indicates a huge development differential between France and Britain during the 1st half of the second millenium (8).
- the urge to augment one’s capital base : the transformation of an instrument of exchange into an investment makes sense only if the value of these investments augments in time.
Fear and urge then gradually instilled the need for more reasoned approaches in more specialized fields which rather soon thereafter ended up as new University departments :
- marketing and design of goods and services
- the conception of new products
- engineering of production processes
- management of production
- accountancy and corporate management
- investment and finance
What was thought at the time, by the merchants as being a reasoned approach, appears today as having been merely a deception that did short-circuit human attention to reality. Ultimately “the reason” merely applied to a parcel of reality while occulting and sacrificing the big picture of the whole as well as the most fundamental of all factors at its core, the principle of life (9), which drives all living species.
By reproducing themselves species reproduce the principle of life. In other words what “the reason at work within capital” is hiding in plain sight is that the principle of life comes before, or primes, all individual or societal considerations. And any individual or society that transgresses this natural order of things is bound to pay the price eventually with its life.
Today it appears ever more evident that Modernity has been nothing else than a totalitarian ideology that has inflicted uncounted damages to the principle of life on earth. Its abundance of material productions was the projection of an illusion to circumvent a fundamental weakness of humanity that all religions and traditional philosophic systems knew about. These traditional worldviews taught humans that they have been driven by desire since the dawn of times and that as a result they are never-content with their lives. They always want more or something else. To counter these damaging effects these traditional worldviews proposed contentment with one’s life conditions and a focus of the mind on the spiritual by ignoring the material.
The fact is that the individual desire for more or something else appears like an extreme deformity of the tactics that the principle of life evolved biologically in order to satisfy its strategy of increasing the complexity of life. This desire is not by itself intrinsically an encumbrance to the principle of life. It appears more likely that it is its inconsiderate deployment is that unfolds a dangerous path forward as happened indeed with “the reason that is at work within capital”.
The inconsiderate deployment of “the reason”, and its derivative value systems, have erased from the minds the notion of the fundamental primacy of life which is the fertile ground that sustains anything the human species might be dreaming about. Life is indeed the living dirt from which are sprouting all species :
By reproducing themselves species reproduce the principle of life. In other words what “the reason at work within capital” is hiding in plain sight is that the principle of life comes before, or primes, all individual or societal considerations. And any individual or society that transgresses this natural order of things is bound to pay the price eventually with its life.
Today it appears ever more evident that Modernity has been nothing else than a totalitarian ideology that has inflicted uncounted damages to the principle of life on earth. Its abundance of material productions was the projection of an illusion to circumvent a fundamental weakness of humanity that all religions and traditional philosophic systems knew about. These traditional worldviews taught humans that they have been driven by desire since the dawn of times and that as a result they are never-content with their lives. They always want more or something else. To counter these damaging effects these traditional worldviews proposed contentment with one’s life conditions and a focus of the mind on the spiritual by ignoring the material.
The fact is that the individual desire for more or something else appears like an extreme deformity of the tactics that the principle of life evolved biologically in order to satisfy its strategy of increasing the complexity of life. This desire is not by itself intrinsically an encumbrance to the principle of life. It appears more likely that it is its inconsiderate deployment is that unfolds a dangerous path forward as happened indeed with “the reason that is at work within capital”.
The inconsiderate deployment of “the reason”, and its derivative value systems, have erased from the minds the notion of the fundamental primacy of life which is the fertile ground that sustains anything the human species might be dreaming about. Life is indeed the living dirt from which are sprouting all species :
“ …every breath we take depends on – life wealth that produces more life wealth without loss and cumulative gain through time. Not more money demand, but more life capacity producing more – for example, your own life capacities becoming more fit and able through time, or a society becoming more disease-free, literate and ecologically biodiverse than before. The money-capitalist society steers in the opposite direction. It is structured only to produce more profitably priced commodities whose cycles cumulatively degenerate all life systems.” (10)
Today in Late-Modernity we, a minority of conscious individuals, are forced to witness the substantiation of the ontological catastrophe that was initially set in motion by the human weakness for the desire of material possessions. And we start to understand that the interests, of the long distance merchants in the European Late-Feudalistic era, resulted from the interactions between a vast set of factors that had nothing to do with what was in the minds of these merchants. In other words “the reason that is at work within capital” is a functional abstraction about the transformation of means of exchange into capital. Later the richness of the merchants evoked envy in the minds of all Western Europeans which forced a societal recognition about “the reason at work within capital” as being the generator of richness.
The further conversion of the whole of humanity, during Late-Modernity, to “the reason that is at work within capital” is proof enough that the latter has been the most successful reasoned functional abstraction ever devised along the path of societal evolution. We nevertheless have suddenly been awoken lately by the damages that it inflicts to “the reason that is at work within life”.
What we discover now is that societal evolution is merely an extension of biological evolution and that, as such, it is constrained within the parameters of the natural world and of the principle of life.
The further conversion of the whole of humanity, during Late-Modernity, to “the reason that is at work within capital” is proof enough that the latter has been the most successful reasoned functional abstraction ever devised along the path of societal evolution. We nevertheless have suddenly been awoken lately by the damages that it inflicts to “the reason that is at work within life”.
What we discover now is that societal evolution is merely an extension of biological evolution and that, as such, it is constrained within the parameters of the natural world and of the principle of life.
7.3.3. The mind is an extension of the principle of life
There is a hierarchical order in the principle of life that is quite easy to understand. When societies die there is no longer any societal evolution possible which implies that to ensure their reproduction over the long haul societies have first to adapt their evolutionary path to the rules of the principle of life which is grounded in biological evolution. If a society contradicts the principle of life that society will eventually suffer the consequences. For example societies, that poison the air the land and the water, are preparing hell for their citizens and when their citizens fall sick and die that society falls sick too and eventually dies too.
The reason at work within capital has been breeding all kinds of such side-effects over the last centuries. These ‘externalities’ are like societal pathogenic processes that over time develop into sickness. We individuals observe societal illness after its symptoms emerge and this can be decades, and in some cases centuries, after the pathogenic processes were initiated. We observe the symptoms of anthropogenic climate change in increasing world average temperatures, in the melting of the ice at the poles and at glaciers, in increasing sea levels, in increasing weather instability, and so on. But what we observe today is the result of greenhouse gas emissions that occurred over the last decades and so, a fortiori, the symptoms of today’s emissions will only be visible some decades later.
The pathogenic processes, that caused the earth sickness called ‘anthropogenic climate change’, were initiated as far back as the agricultural revolution that started some 8-9 thousand years ago. And after that these pathogenic processes increased century after century until they literally exploded in ‘national industrial revolution volcanoes’ that gradually spread their symptoms to the territory of countries over the whole earth.
But the symptoms of the ‘anthropogenic climate change’ earth sickness only appeared, for all to see, over the last decades. Our anthropocentric ideologies are nevertheless so strongly ingrained in our minds that many still refuse to accept the evidence today.
The fact of the matter is that the evidence of climate change is only the tip of an iceberg size pack of symptoms that was fostered by the bankruptcy of our Western worldview which imposed power and Modernity on all ; a mix of Judeo-Christian ideology with the totalitarian ideology of Modernity that has inflicted uncounted damages to the principle of life on earth.
Midway in this first-half of the twenty-first century we come to realize the enormity of this bankruptcy and our thoughts and emotions are overwhelming our minds with a nagging question. How could we, as a species, have navigated so unconsciously toward such a devastating outcome ? I imagine, if humanity survives our present predicament, our descendants for a long time to come will continue wondering what it was that handicapped their ancestors minds.
Intrigued myself by the same question I searched for its possible answers in “Formation of the human knowledge” (11). Basically my thinking follows the following path :
The reason at work within capital has been breeding all kinds of such side-effects over the last centuries. These ‘externalities’ are like societal pathogenic processes that over time develop into sickness. We individuals observe societal illness after its symptoms emerge and this can be decades, and in some cases centuries, after the pathogenic processes were initiated. We observe the symptoms of anthropogenic climate change in increasing world average temperatures, in the melting of the ice at the poles and at glaciers, in increasing sea levels, in increasing weather instability, and so on. But what we observe today is the result of greenhouse gas emissions that occurred over the last decades and so, a fortiori, the symptoms of today’s emissions will only be visible some decades later.
The pathogenic processes, that caused the earth sickness called ‘anthropogenic climate change’, were initiated as far back as the agricultural revolution that started some 8-9 thousand years ago. And after that these pathogenic processes increased century after century until they literally exploded in ‘national industrial revolution volcanoes’ that gradually spread their symptoms to the territory of countries over the whole earth.
But the symptoms of the ‘anthropogenic climate change’ earth sickness only appeared, for all to see, over the last decades. Our anthropocentric ideologies are nevertheless so strongly ingrained in our minds that many still refuse to accept the evidence today.
The fact of the matter is that the evidence of climate change is only the tip of an iceberg size pack of symptoms that was fostered by the bankruptcy of our Western worldview which imposed power and Modernity on all ; a mix of Judeo-Christian ideology with the totalitarian ideology of Modernity that has inflicted uncounted damages to the principle of life on earth.
Midway in this first-half of the twenty-first century we come to realize the enormity of this bankruptcy and our thoughts and emotions are overwhelming our minds with a nagging question. How could we, as a species, have navigated so unconsciously toward such a devastating outcome ? I imagine, if humanity survives our present predicament, our descendants for a long time to come will continue wondering what it was that handicapped their ancestors minds.
Intrigued myself by the same question I searched for its possible answers in “Formation of the human knowledge” (11). Basically my thinking follows the following path :
-
humanity navigates blindly in the darkness of a reality that is unattainable :
“Some scientists may posit that science will one day come to the end of its quest and will procure us a complete understanding of the global reality of the universe in which we are such minuscule particles. But the fact remains that the only possible materialist and rationalist understanding that is available to particles of an ensemble is a vision from the inside of that ensemble and we already know that such an internal vision is limited to the abstractions that we conceive from our observation of the internal mechanisms at work within that ensemble.
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the inaccessibility of our reality means that unknowns endlessly nag the mind with unanswered existential questions like ‒ what is this thing we live in ‒ what is life ‒ are we alone in the universe ‒ and so on :
“Inaccessibility implies the unknown and humans don't like unknowns. They have no problems with “unknown unknowns" for the good reason that “unknown unknowns" simply don't pop up in their consciousness but they feel utterly ill at ease when faced with “known unknowns" such as those nagging questions resulting from the inaccessibility of the whole universe to the human mind. Such “known unknowns” become obsessions that drive people in the throat of anxiety from where they search to escape at all costs.”
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societies helped the individuals to escape this anxiety by sharing approximations of reality with all members of the societal group :
“Starting with tribes all societal groupings, along humanity’s history at the exception of Late-Modern societies, have been proposing approximations of reality based on the perceptions of the men of knowledge of the day about what the unknown is all about. The task of the men of knowledge was to share their knowledge with their citizens in order to sooth their anxiety (shaman, priests, sages). When shared by all citizens such approximations crystallize in a societal view of the world, or a worldview, that all consider as being the truth of the matter about what reality is all about. Such shared perceived truths reward societies with higher levels of cohesion which, in turn, facilitate their reproduction from generation to generation and so ensure the preservation of the specie.”
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but how do such approximations relate to the truth about our reality ?
“Such approximations are steeped in how we perceive the constraints imposed on us by nature and our cultural adaptations to those constraints as well as the entire gamut of ways of doing and thinking of a specie or a society. In other words societal approximations of reality are derived from the knowledge available at a given moment in a given society and are then shared over the long history by the citizens of that society. Being a societal affair approximations are bound to be uneven, varying from place to place, and evolving over time. Since approximations are not the real truth, but merely a scaffolding made of the existing perceptions and ideas in a given society at a given time, we might come to think that there could possibly be as many approximations as there are societies. But this would be ignoring the particularities of the path traced by societal evolution.”
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approximations of reality are based on the reality of the constraints imposed on life by nature and they help societies to evolve successfully ; a-contrario societies collapse. Successful societal evolution means that the society can reproduce over the long haul of many generations which, in turn, helps to ensure the long haul reproduction of the species. An evolution that leads to collapsing societies puts the reproduction of the species in danger. This means that successful approximations of reality are logical extensions of the species’ strategy which consists in the following :
- the reproduction of the species is the paramount strategy of the principle of life. The extinction of a species is its ultimate failure to participate in whatever the plan of the universe might be
- the role of individuals and of societies is to ensure an increase in their complexity and, in the grand scheme of U the universe, this enriches the complexity of the species
But where does the role of the mind fit in all of this ?
Passed a certain threshold of growth, the mind started to drive the urge, of a minority of individuals, for change and this, in turn, allowed for the emergence of societies and for their evolution. The mind is the motor that powers the possible increase in societal complexity which pushes societal evolution at higher levels of development. It is in this particular sense that I write that the mind is an extension of the principle of life.
The human mind was the determinant factor in the process of societal evolution which accelerated the speed of human development. If we could venture to observe this particular moment, in the unfolding of the evolution of the human species, from afar we would discover that the emergence of societal evolution followed the sudden explosion of activities of the mind and that its development followed an exponential growth curve.
Such a speedy growth has many advantages, that we might be thinking about in terms of fast development, but it is also generating a flurry of risks that can collapse at any moment the whole process of evolution. The advantages of a speedy evolution of local life on earth, or wherever else for that matter, could relate to the shortening of the path to a new stage of evolution of U or the whole universe that could possibly signal the connection between local and global consciousness and behaviors as was theorized by David Bohm. But I digress…
Late-Modernity offers a good illustration about the risks of a societal evolution that follows an exponential growth curve. In the case of the human species it is patently the case that “the reason at work within capital” blinded human minds from “the reason at work within the principle of life”. Indeed we just started to observe that this short-cut of the mind, initiated in Western Europe some 8 centuries ago, is responsible for the imbalances and the sicknesses of the earth systems that sustain life.
Now that we have attained the understanding, that this short-cut of the human mind is responsible for the destruction of the principle of life, what are we going to do about it ?
The human mind was the determinant factor in the process of societal evolution which accelerated the speed of human development. If we could venture to observe this particular moment, in the unfolding of the evolution of the human species, from afar we would discover that the emergence of societal evolution followed the sudden explosion of activities of the mind and that its development followed an exponential growth curve.
Such a speedy growth has many advantages, that we might be thinking about in terms of fast development, but it is also generating a flurry of risks that can collapse at any moment the whole process of evolution. The advantages of a speedy evolution of local life on earth, or wherever else for that matter, could relate to the shortening of the path to a new stage of evolution of U or the whole universe that could possibly signal the connection between local and global consciousness and behaviors as was theorized by David Bohm. But I digress…
Late-Modernity offers a good illustration about the risks of a societal evolution that follows an exponential growth curve. In the case of the human species it is patently the case that “the reason at work within capital” blinded human minds from “the reason at work within the principle of life”. Indeed we just started to observe that this short-cut of the mind, initiated in Western Europe some 8 centuries ago, is responsible for the imbalances and the sicknesses of the earth systems that sustain life.
Now that we have attained the understanding, that this short-cut of the human mind is responsible for the destruction of the principle of life, what are we going to do about it ?
7.3.4. life emerges and develops biologically then it develops societally
At first sight this title appears to me like a tautology. I mean, sure, life emerged in biological entities that developed into ever more complex species. But what I really mean to say is that, from a human perspective, biological evolution appears to progress at turtle speed while societal evolution progresses at rocket speed.
What I’m writing there seems to make sense again from a human perspective but perhaps not so much from the perspective of higher ensembles and surely not from the perspective of the universe. If the universe is alive, as I’m convinced it is, then it must view this human perspective as arrogant and sort-sighted. How could we indeed, after receiving the biological gift of a modern human brain that can make reasoned abstractions about repetitive phenomena, blow up the potential that this biological gift offered us in the first place ?
What I try to express here is that, to me personally, it is evident that evolution, in its biological form or its societal form, is acting out by stacking one layer over the other with each layer keeping at all times its particular functionality. And the higher the layer the higher will be its level of specialization and of complexity. Each layer has its function and all of them have to synchronize with the other in order to maximize their potential. The following is a good summary of the layers of the brain:
What I’m writing there seems to make sense again from a human perspective but perhaps not so much from the perspective of higher ensembles and surely not from the perspective of the universe. If the universe is alive, as I’m convinced it is, then it must view this human perspective as arrogant and sort-sighted. How could we indeed, after receiving the biological gift of a modern human brain that can make reasoned abstractions about repetitive phenomena, blow up the potential that this biological gift offered us in the first place ?
What I try to express here is that, to me personally, it is evident that evolution, in its biological form or its societal form, is acting out by stacking one layer over the other with each layer keeping at all times its particular functionality. And the higher the layer the higher will be its level of specialization and of complexity. Each layer has its function and all of them have to synchronize with the other in order to maximize their potential. The following is a good summary of the layers of the brain:
“The reptilian brain, the oldest of the three, controls the body's vital functions such as heart rate, breathing, body temperature and balance. ... The reptilian brain is reliable but tends to be somewhat rigid and compulsive. (12)
The same layering model is also found in the “cultural continuum” (13) :
- daily culture
- worldviews
- Axioms of civilization
Interestingly enough this same layering model is also the active principle in the Chinese model of knowledge formation. I first encounter this idea reading “The Importance of Understanding” by Lin Yutang and I later discovered the origin, of the different process of knowledge formation in China and in the west, while analyzing the transition from tribal societies to power societies. In short. In China the transition from tribes to empires operated as a continuum while in the Middle-East this transition concluded as a rupture with animism. In China the wisest among the tribal wo(men) of knowledge acted as the first emperors and so the worldview of the empire remained animism. In the Middle-East the break with animism led to a completely new narrative. China kept animism, as the worldview of its power society, and its animist knowledge base further evolved over time by adding stacks of ‘extensions’ on top of it. This model of knowledge formation ensures ideation continuity which procured multiple layers of refinement and complexity to the Chinese understanding of reality.
The same kind of layering is also observed in nature :
The same kind of layering is also observed in nature :
- the atom is the basic unit, of any element of matter, that retains the distinctive chemical properties of that element.
- a cell is the basic structural and functional unit of life. It is made up of a huge number of atoms that can combine into higher structures like polymers that can make big molecules like proteins, carbohydrates nucleic acids and so on, that form a small part of the cell.
- an individual of whatever species is made up of a specific assembling of cells
- a society is made up of an assembling of individuals
- a species is made up of an assembling of societies
- life materializes in different species
In all these various models each level of stacking has its particular structure and functionality and the higher level in a stack is dependent for its existence on the lower stacks. To me this always appeared as pure evidence. I was always baffled when so called specialists in social sciences rejected the role of biology in societal matters and it took me decades to dare to categorically reject the egregious theories that they have been peddling over the last half a century.
I always felt that Postmodernism was the most egregious of them all. I always felt that it was an ideological trap set by the servants of big capital to derail all systems of thought that could have out-competed Modernity or “the reason that is at work within capital”. But only these last few years was I able to argue my case. It is pure evidence that if you take away the stack represented by matter there can be no biology and no biological evolution. It is pure evidence that if you take away the stack represented by biology there can be no society and no societal evolution. It is pure evidence that if you take away the stack represented by societies and societal evolution there can be no culture and no evolution of the cultural continuum.
What was thought by these intellectuals as being a reasoned approach, appears today as having been merely a deception that did short-circuit human attention to reality. It was the same kind of deception that was used in the context of “the reason at work within capital” to short-circuit human attention from the principle of life with the consequences that we know today.
The intellectual deception of Postmodernism over the last half century conclude today with a pack of severe consequences for societal evolution. By deflecting popular attention from worldviews, or meta-narratives, Postmodernism trapped individual initiatives in micro-fields. And this opened the level-playing-field of the market for ideas to the exclusive power plays of Neoliberalism.
In this process all worldviews, and the groups representing worldviews, were eliminated from the societal scene. Remained solely the winners, the big capital holders and their intellectual managerial bureaucratic servants. In the meantime hyper-individualism has atomized societies. The individuals have been separated, isolated from from another, and live in loneliness waiting for Godot.
But atomized societies are culturally dead bodies that still stand for the only force of their inertia that they accumulated along their vibrant past. Atomized societies are awaiting the termination of their economic and financial systems while Western citizens are left on their own to face the future.
I always felt that Postmodernism was the most egregious of them all. I always felt that it was an ideological trap set by the servants of big capital to derail all systems of thought that could have out-competed Modernity or “the reason that is at work within capital”. But only these last few years was I able to argue my case. It is pure evidence that if you take away the stack represented by matter there can be no biology and no biological evolution. It is pure evidence that if you take away the stack represented by biology there can be no society and no societal evolution. It is pure evidence that if you take away the stack represented by societies and societal evolution there can be no culture and no evolution of the cultural continuum.
What was thought by these intellectuals as being a reasoned approach, appears today as having been merely a deception that did short-circuit human attention to reality. It was the same kind of deception that was used in the context of “the reason at work within capital” to short-circuit human attention from the principle of life with the consequences that we know today.
The intellectual deception of Postmodernism over the last half century conclude today with a pack of severe consequences for societal evolution. By deflecting popular attention from worldviews, or meta-narratives, Postmodernism trapped individual initiatives in micro-fields. And this opened the level-playing-field of the market for ideas to the exclusive power plays of Neoliberalism.
In this process all worldviews, and the groups representing worldviews, were eliminated from the societal scene. Remained solely the winners, the big capital holders and their intellectual managerial bureaucratic servants. In the meantime hyper-individualism has atomized societies. The individuals have been separated, isolated from from another, and live in loneliness waiting for Godot.
But atomized societies are culturally dead bodies that still stand for the only force of their inertia that they accumulated along their vibrant past. Atomized societies are awaiting the termination of their economic and financial systems while Western citizens are left on their own to face the future.
7.3.5. humanity needs a life-coherent worldview
Here are the most important lessons that I learned from history about the present situation of humanity:
- the short-cut, by “the reason at work within capital” of the normal operation of the human mind, is responsible for damaging the principle of life on earth and this has set in motion a mass extinction of life on earth
- the ideologies of Postmodernism and Neoliberalism have furthermore atomized societies. The separation of Western citizens from one another and from their societies is now near complete and they are left living in loneliness which the policies against the corona-virus further exacerbated recently Having realized the situation Western big capital holders and their servant are now taking any opportunity to suck the last savings from the pockets of their fellow citizens as if it were the end of times. Needless to say all news is fake now and corruption is rampant.
Any sensible mind would conclude from all this that we urgently need to change our ways of living.
This idea is sensible enough.
But It only makes sense if all societies on this earth, and all their citizens follow suit. The idea of such a global change, while enticing, is nevertheless not in the cards in the short or medium term. A change of this nature presupposes indeed the adoption of a new worldview which means that all citizens on earth would have to let go of their present worldview. However I try to rationalize such an idea it just seems preposterous to me and so I’m left thinking that nature shall eventually do the clean-up of the mess we have left over this earth…
This idea is sensible enough.
But It only makes sense if all societies on this earth, and all their citizens follow suit. The idea of such a global change, while enticing, is nevertheless not in the cards in the short or medium term. A change of this nature presupposes indeed the adoption of a new worldview which means that all citizens on earth would have to let go of their present worldview. However I try to rationalize such an idea it just seems preposterous to me and so I’m left thinking that nature shall eventually do the clean-up of the mess we have left over this earth…
7.3.5.1. a patchwork of worldviews
All nations on earth inherited a long history going back thousands of years. The most important elements in this inheritance are the axioms of civilizations that are now stored in our national collective subconscious and our societal worldview that is often in contradiction with the worldview of our neighbors which explains why there are so many local conflicts. The activity of the mind is indeed largely driven by these axioms of civilization and worldviews.
This is the human condition.
Our axioms of civilization and our worldviews are driving the thinking of our minds and so we can’t count on free will to question the status-quo and let go of the present worldview. This is why our societies have veered off the path of the 7 parameters of the principle of life and more particularly off the following (14) :
This is the human condition.
Our axioms of civilization and our worldviews are driving the thinking of our minds and so we can’t count on free will to question the status-quo and let go of the present worldview. This is why our societies have veered off the path of the 7 parameters of the principle of life and more particularly off the following (14) :
“ ” ”
5. societies act as arbiters between two forces, or groups of individuals, that have antagonistic goals :
◦ the weak force, or a majority of citizens, wants the conservation of the status quo
◦ the strong force, or a minority of citizens, wants change
6. the conflicts, between these forces, that lead to compromises solidify cultural memes
7. cultural memes that replicate over the long haul of multiple generations get synchronized in the continuum of the cultural field
“ ” ”
Adapting to the principle of life is necessarily a continuous and disciplined societal practice. And once a society has lost its way, as all societies in Modernity de facto have, the process to come back to the practice is arduous and lengthy. The fact is that the longer a society practiced Modernity the longer it will take to get back to a societal practice that is in sync with the principle of life. The decision to get back to such a societal practice is the result of a process of negotiation between the weak force of the majority and the strong force of the minority of citizens who want change. In other words when a society veers off road it can take a lot of time before finding it back.
In communitarian societies that have centralized governance systems the adoption of a societal practice that is in sync with the principle of life is realized through fiat decision by the governance system and in that sense the only ones who have to be convinced are the decision makers. Communitarian China’s decision makers, for example, have already indicated that they are ready to act and they have started to walk the talk with annual large scale tree plantation campaigns, the electrification of the national transportation system, investments in renewable sources of energy, and so on.
But as I mentioned here above the problem is global and solving it thus implies coordinated actions by all nations on earth. In the present state of the governance-world solving the problem means that :
In communitarian societies that have centralized governance systems the adoption of a societal practice that is in sync with the principle of life is realized through fiat decision by the governance system and in that sense the only ones who have to be convinced are the decision makers. Communitarian China’s decision makers, for example, have already indicated that they are ready to act and they have started to walk the talk with annual large scale tree plantation campaigns, the electrification of the national transportation system, investments in renewable sources of energy, and so on.
But as I mentioned here above the problem is global and solving it thus implies coordinated actions by all nations on earth. In the present state of the governance-world solving the problem means that :
- all nations must agree on the diagnostic that :
- “the reason at work within capital” is pathogenic and that the cure is the adoption of a new worldview that is in sync with the principle of life
- the ideologies of Postmodernism and Neoliberalism have atomized societies which concluded in the loneliness of Western individuals and the cure is the adoption of a new worldview that is in sync with the principle of life
- all nations must also agree on a common definition, of the cure or, of what is the minimal set of principles that this new worldview has to adopt
- all nations have to apply the cure to their societies and they have to agree being supervised by an international body representing the interests of all nations
7.3.5.2. a societal pathogen has infected life on earth
Under the guise of the ideological assumption of unlimited economic growth “the reason that is at work within capital” and Neoliberalism have turned all that exists on earth into an opportunity to generate profits and augment capital holdings.
If Liberal classical economics did not directly initiate, “the reason that is at work within capital”, they accompanied it theoretically and ideologically starting with the industrial revolution. Their views opposed the French approach, of state ownership of national manufactures, that originated in the Early 16th century. In the Liberal view capital is owned by private interests and the state acts exclusively as a protector of private initiative. Liberals defend this view to this day. Neoliberalism just proposes a more strict application of these same principles than the traditional liberal parties.
Starting in the 2nd part of the 19th century, in reaction to the misery of the working class, Marxist economics developed a critique of the Liberal ideological view that capital best be owned by private interests. Marxism was a social critique of the outrageous levels of social inequality that had been occasioned by privately owned capital. And this school of economics maintains this position to this very day. Nowadays Marxist economics have also added an ecological dimension to their social critique of the pathogenicity of “the reason that is at work within capital”.
So the world is now basically divided in two camps :
If Liberal classical economics did not directly initiate, “the reason that is at work within capital”, they accompanied it theoretically and ideologically starting with the industrial revolution. Their views opposed the French approach, of state ownership of national manufactures, that originated in the Early 16th century. In the Liberal view capital is owned by private interests and the state acts exclusively as a protector of private initiative. Liberals defend this view to this day. Neoliberalism just proposes a more strict application of these same principles than the traditional liberal parties.
Starting in the 2nd part of the 19th century, in reaction to the misery of the working class, Marxist economics developed a critique of the Liberal ideological view that capital best be owned by private interests. Marxism was a social critique of the outrageous levels of social inequality that had been occasioned by privately owned capital. And this school of economics maintains this position to this very day. Nowadays Marxist economics have also added an ecological dimension to their social critique of the pathogenicity of “the reason that is at work within capital”.
So the world is now basically divided in two camps :
- Liberals side with private big capital holders and argue for a world without borders; at least for the circulation of capital
- Marxists, ecologists, and all other groups and individuals who reject the pathogenicity of “the reason at work within capital”, are asking for state protections and more state intervention in the economy
Time passing it appears all the more evident that a negotiated settlement will eventually be concluded between these two camps. But the Liberal camp will do all it can to avoid a public recognition of the pathogenicity of “the reason at work within capital” :
There is no recognition of the pathogenicity of “the reason at work within capital” is this great reset proposed by the World Economic Forum. The political fight to recognize this pathogenicity will furthermore be complicated by the geo-political context of infighting between ‒ Western big capital holders and their servants ‒ China’s state capital and their allies.
In light of this political and ideological context, at the national and international level, I think that humanity will start to act responsibly only after the cost of not acting appears unbearable to all. This unfortunately will be a long time after the threshold is reached that sees organized human life vanishing.
The only hope that I see in the present complicated international context resides in the Regional Economic Blocks that I analyzed in “Part 5. Shift from a Western to an Eastern model of society”.
“There is good reason to worry: a sharp economic downturn has already begun, and we could be facing the worst depression since the 1930s. But, while this outcome is likely, it is not unavoidable. To achieve a better outcome, the world must act jointly and swiftly to revamp all aspects of our societies and economies, from education to social contracts and working conditions. Every country, from the United States to China, must participate, and every industry, from oil and gas to tech, must be transformed. In short, we need a “Great Reset” of capitalism.” (15)
There is no recognition of the pathogenicity of “the reason at work within capital” is this great reset proposed by the World Economic Forum. The political fight to recognize this pathogenicity will furthermore be complicated by the geo-political context of infighting between ‒ Western big capital holders and their servants ‒ China’s state capital and their allies.
In light of this political and ideological context, at the national and international level, I think that humanity will start to act responsibly only after the cost of not acting appears unbearable to all. This unfortunately will be a long time after the threshold is reached that sees organized human life vanishing.
The only hope that I see in the present complicated international context resides in the Regional Economic Blocks that I analyzed in “Part 5. Shift from a Western to an Eastern model of society”.
7.3.5.3. from the reason of capital to the reason of life
Life is the sole aspect evenly distributed across individual, societal and ecological systems. From the perspective of a living species like humanity the principle of life is without any possible doubt the maximum standard of worthiness on planet earth and also perhaps further in space.
Knowledge, in its traditional holistic sense of life wisdom, has been tested over tens of thousands of years of practice and it has proven to be the instrument per excellence to ensure the reproduction of societal life. That’s how knowledge became a societal imperative that must be reproduced over the long haul of many generations. What was at stake was the certainty of ensuring true societal resilience. In the words of John McMurtry the knowledge base of a society is the life capital (16) of the community :
Knowledge, in its traditional holistic sense of life wisdom, has been tested over tens of thousands of years of practice and it has proven to be the instrument per excellence to ensure the reproduction of societal life. That’s how knowledge became a societal imperative that must be reproduced over the long haul of many generations. What was at stake was the certainty of ensuring true societal resilience. In the words of John McMurtry the knowledge base of a society is the life capital (16) of the community :
“At the most general level, the public and scientific knowledge base of a society is collective life capital. So too are all of society’s natural resources and support systems, as well as every species and the biodiverse environment and the biosphere itself. Everything and every process that produces more of itself through time without loss and cumulative gain is life capital, and it is the only concept that can capture this meaning at the individual or collective level.”
Citation from “The cancer stage of capitalism”.
McMurtry distinguishes “economic capital”, that in our human societies is measured in monetary terms, from “life capital” which is the instrument that ensures the reproductibility of societies and living species. All living species use their “life capital” to reproduce over the long haul. It is the cement that binds what I call the 7 parameters of the principle of life. Only the human species seems err as if it had lost the knowledge that such a cement exists at all.
I have always been in awe of wild species’ ability to reproduce over spans of time that measure in the hundreds of millions of years which stands in such a stark contrast with the short lifespan of our civilized human kind. Wild species seem to spontaneously use their life capital to reproduce. It is like a function of their bodies that is programmed by their brain without any interference from the highest developed layer of the mind. Let’s remember this passage in the description, I cited here above, about the brain’s evolutionary process :
The fact is that the programming of the body by the reptilian brain is not interrupted or distracted by ‒ the emotions and feelings generated by the limbic brain ‒ the reasoning abstractions generated by the neo-cortex. As mentioned in the definition of “The evolutionary layers of the human brain” that I gave in “7.3.4. life emerges and develops biologically then it develops societally” :
The emotions and feelings generated in the limbic brain are of another nature, should I dare say more subjective, than the reptilian brain’s control of the bodily functions which is based on a more objective machine like treatment of collected data. They are value judgments originating in emotions and feelings.
Human culture, as we have seen at various places in this text, is driven by the continuum of the cultural field that is generated completely unconsciously by the axioms of civilizations and largely unconsciously by the societal worldview. This is why I think about free-will as being mostly an illusion. A good example of what I mean is the sheer “diplomatic madness” coming out of a country like the USA presently. Only the dualism of Western civilization amplified by the proselytism of the Christian worldview can possibly manipulate the mind to proffer such vulgar heresies. Will there be shame after the hang over ?
The implications of what I just mentioned are wide-ranging. Axioms of civilizations and societal worldviews are indeed, as I mentioned earlier, approximations about reality whose function is to ensure societal cohesion and reproduction. This means that :
I have always been in awe of wild species’ ability to reproduce over spans of time that measure in the hundreds of millions of years which stands in such a stark contrast with the short lifespan of our civilized human kind. Wild species seem to spontaneously use their life capital to reproduce. It is like a function of their bodies that is programmed by their brain without any interference from the highest developed layer of the mind. Let’s remember this passage in the description, I cited here above, about the brain’s evolutionary process :
“The reptilian brain, the oldest of the three, controls the body's vital functions such as heart rate, breathing, body temperature and balance."
The fact is that the programming of the body by the reptilian brain is not interrupted or distracted by ‒ the emotions and feelings generated by the limbic brain ‒ the reasoning abstractions generated by the neo-cortex. As mentioned in the definition of “The evolutionary layers of the human brain” that I gave in “7.3.4. life emerges and develops biologically then it develops societally” :
The emotions and feelings generated in the limbic brain are of another nature, should I dare say more subjective, than the reptilian brain’s control of the bodily functions which is based on a more objective machine like treatment of collected data. They are value judgments originating in emotions and feelings.
Human culture, as we have seen at various places in this text, is driven by the continuum of the cultural field that is generated completely unconsciously by the axioms of civilizations and largely unconsciously by the societal worldview. This is why I think about free-will as being mostly an illusion. A good example of what I mean is the sheer “diplomatic madness” coming out of a country like the USA presently. Only the dualism of Western civilization amplified by the proselytism of the Christian worldview can possibly manipulate the mind to proffer such vulgar heresies. Will there be shame after the hang over ?
The implications of what I just mentioned are wide-ranging. Axioms of civilizations and societal worldviews are indeed, as I mentioned earlier, approximations about reality whose function is to ensure societal cohesion and reproduction. This means that :
- they are based on knowledge that was developed in the particular context of a geographic and historic territory
- time passing the context, of the present geographic and historical territory, has changed. But, seen the vanishing of the traditional wo(men) of knowledge sometime during Modernity, the changes in our present context have not been synchronized in the continuum of our cultural field
- human culture is being “generated completely unconsciously by the axioms of civilizations and largely unconsciously by the societal worldview” so ...our disconnection with the reality in our present context will necessarily be incredibly wide indeed !
This disconnection, between the reality and the past approximation that is inscribed in the axioms and the worldview, is marching the daily culture of Late-Modern societies in an illusory territory that drives them straight into the ditch of history. In other words the societies in Late-Modernity have lost the memory about their life capital which explains their erratic moves toward collapse.
SHOUT-OUT to Late-Modern societies :
OUR AXIOMS OF CIVILIZATION AND SOCIETAL WORLDVIEWS HAVE TO BE ACTUALIZED WITH THE REALITY OF OUR PRESENT CONTEXTUAL SETTINGS.
SHOUT-OUT to Late-Modern societies :
OUR AXIOMS OF CIVILIZATION AND SOCIETAL WORLDVIEWS HAVE TO BE ACTUALIZED WITH THE REALITY OF OUR PRESENT CONTEXTUAL SETTINGS.
7.3.6. urgency of life-coherent governance
My shout-out to Late-Modern societies is a call for life-coherence in governance. McMurtry recommends the following :
Here after I develop my personal vision about the way forward.
“ Life coherent government seeks to protect and enable life capacity development at organic, social and ecological levels. If it effectively regulates for life security and against commodity carbon pollution and extinctions of species and habitats, it becomes life-coherent. It is not government as nowin service to more money demand and private commodities as society’s ‘growth’. Anti-growth activists understand this, but lack any life capital measure to replace GDP.
Citation from “The cancer stage of capitalism”.
Here after I develop my personal vision about the way forward.
7.3.6.1. our culture is driven by out of date concepts and narratives
I don’t want to shove a customized narrative in people’s faces. My only pretension is to share my thinking with those who are interested by the subjects that I write about. In the writing of this series a tentative sketch of a theoretical blueprint about societal evolution has emerged that sheds, I think, some coherence in our understanding of how societal evolution operates and how daily culture is being driven ...by concepts and narratives that are completely alien to our present context.
This sketch rests on the foundations laid by the following building blocks (given in earlier posts) :
This sketch rests on the foundations laid by the following building blocks (given in earlier posts) :
1. the mind is a singularity
2. the 7 parameters of the principle of life
3. ignorance of inter-dependencies causes suffering
4. The human mind converted to the ‘reason that is at work within capital’
5. modulation of the continuum in the cultural field
6. the great convergence
The mind is a singularity that resulted from the convergence of ‒ the brain unfolding a mirror in front of the eyes ‒ the mind’s gradual awareness that the image in the mirror is that of the thinking individual.
There is no free-will in there.
There is only emergence of awareness and its potential to increase into consciousness through what I call knowledge formation : ‒ how life is the cement that glues into the organizing principle of species societies and individuals ‒ how the individual, and his society, fit in the continuum of their cultural field ‒ how the individual’s body-environment interrelates with bacteria viruses and fungi that have made it their home ‒ how the individual interrelates with the other individuals in her/his society ‒ how the individual interrelates with all the elements in her/his habitat ‒ how the habitat interrelates with the ensemble earth ‒ how mother earth unfolds in the universal order ‒ and so on.
The early stages of consciousness can be compared to the mind observing the world through a deep fog and identifying the perceived complexity to its own ‘self’ simply in order to stop the maddening circular thinking. This is called the acceptance by the mind of the un-attainability of reality.
This first transaction by the mind with the habitat of the individual is a lesson in pragmatism. The next important lesson is to observe that suffering is reduced when applying tricks stored in the memory.
This adventure of the mind initiated a never ending process of knowledge formation that extended over hundreds of thousands of years. And each individual relives the same adventure as a baby in the present. Unfortunately most are cutting the trip short. Only some rare minds wander further pursuing their quest in the mazes of the subconscious.
In this traditional system of knowledge formation each bit of gained understanding was accumulated and was transmitted from generation to generation of (wo)men of knowledge whose task it was to take care about the wise use of the ‘life capital’ of their societies. This ensured a successful reproduction of the tribal model of society, and its animist worldview, over the span of tens of thousands of years in the very difficult context of the “Last Glacial Period” that started sometime 115,000 Years ago and ended sometime 11,700 years ago.
Two radical turning points, in terms of knowledge formation, followed in the wake of this long period of societal stability :
There is no free-will in there.
There is only emergence of awareness and its potential to increase into consciousness through what I call knowledge formation : ‒ how life is the cement that glues into the organizing principle of species societies and individuals ‒ how the individual, and his society, fit in the continuum of their cultural field ‒ how the individual’s body-environment interrelates with bacteria viruses and fungi that have made it their home ‒ how the individual interrelates with the other individuals in her/his society ‒ how the individual interrelates with all the elements in her/his habitat ‒ how the habitat interrelates with the ensemble earth ‒ how mother earth unfolds in the universal order ‒ and so on.
The early stages of consciousness can be compared to the mind observing the world through a deep fog and identifying the perceived complexity to its own ‘self’ simply in order to stop the maddening circular thinking. This is called the acceptance by the mind of the un-attainability of reality.
This first transaction by the mind with the habitat of the individual is a lesson in pragmatism. The next important lesson is to observe that suffering is reduced when applying tricks stored in the memory.
This adventure of the mind initiated a never ending process of knowledge formation that extended over hundreds of thousands of years. And each individual relives the same adventure as a baby in the present. Unfortunately most are cutting the trip short. Only some rare minds wander further pursuing their quest in the mazes of the subconscious.
In this traditional system of knowledge formation each bit of gained understanding was accumulated and was transmitted from generation to generation of (wo)men of knowledge whose task it was to take care about the wise use of the ‘life capital’ of their societies. This ensured a successful reproduction of the tribal model of society, and its animist worldview, over the span of tens of thousands of years in the very difficult context of the “Last Glacial Period” that started sometime 115,000 Years ago and ended sometime 11,700 years ago.
Two radical turning points, in terms of knowledge formation, followed in the wake of this long period of societal stability :
-
the institutional stabilization, sometime around 5000 Years ago, of power societies was ensured by sharing, or imposing, the worldview of the (wo)men of knowledge with all the citizens of empires and kingdoms. Power societies were the first societies to make social distinctions between the individuals. A differentiation occurred indeed, between ‒ the men of power and/or the men of knowledge ‒ the commons, that initiated a new trend toward individualism.
In terms of knowledge a differentiation occurred between the Middle-East and the far-East. The Middle-East broke with animism and adopted new ideological narratives while in the Far-East the Chinese ensured the continuity of the pragmatism of animism. - Modernity expanded individualism as a dominant societal value while over the centuries “the reason that is at work within capital” expanded ‘rationality for its own sake’. Universities then expanded it into philosophic rationalism a system that applies to everything.
After the 2nd World War, the USA pushed propaganda on a grand scale ‒ toward the exterior to control the other nations ‒ toward the interior to control their own citizens.
By the end of the sixties, their liberal narrative got badly hurt by youth and socialist movements in search of a better tomorrow. The USA countered that ideological opposition by promoting Postmodernism which advocated the liquidation of all meta-narratives from Late-Modern thought. Today the results are in : ‒ Worldviews, or meta-narratives, have vanished from the societal scene ‒ individualism has morphed into hyper-individualism ‒trade-unions lost their adherents ‒ societies fragmented and then literally atomized ‒ having been separated from society and from one another the individuals were relegated in front of their screens and ended up in loneliness and despair
The damages inflicted by Postmodernism shocked my mind into intellectual overdrive. It felt forced reading a new unknown territory. Only twenty years later did I discover that it was the territory of societal evolution and the continuum of the cultural field. I spent 2 decades reading any material I could put my hands on. And some 6 years ago I started to write in automatic mode.
A blueprint slowly emerged that connected the parameters of the principle of life to the mechanisms of societal evolution. I still write automatically without plan. But the blueprint is becoming firmer and I feel that it guides my writing.
In the traditional holistic approach that I pursue the (wo)men of knowledge are in charge of the knowledge formation for society. Their obligation to society is to elevate their consciousness into a societal wisdom that acted as the safeguard keeping the individuals and their societies from falling out of the domain of life’s systemic reality.
Here follow some visualizations of the progression of my thought :
By the end of the sixties, their liberal narrative got badly hurt by youth and socialist movements in search of a better tomorrow. The USA countered that ideological opposition by promoting Postmodernism which advocated the liquidation of all meta-narratives from Late-Modern thought. Today the results are in : ‒ Worldviews, or meta-narratives, have vanished from the societal scene ‒ individualism has morphed into hyper-individualism ‒trade-unions lost their adherents ‒ societies fragmented and then literally atomized ‒ having been separated from society and from one another the individuals were relegated in front of their screens and ended up in loneliness and despair
The damages inflicted by Postmodernism shocked my mind into intellectual overdrive. It felt forced reading a new unknown territory. Only twenty years later did I discover that it was the territory of societal evolution and the continuum of the cultural field. I spent 2 decades reading any material I could put my hands on. And some 6 years ago I started to write in automatic mode.
A blueprint slowly emerged that connected the parameters of the principle of life to the mechanisms of societal evolution. I still write automatically without plan. But the blueprint is becoming firmer and I feel that it guides my writing.
In the traditional holistic approach that I pursue the (wo)men of knowledge are in charge of the knowledge formation for society. Their obligation to society is to elevate their consciousness into a societal wisdom that acted as the safeguard keeping the individuals and their societies from falling out of the domain of life’s systemic reality.
Here follow some visualizations of the progression of my thought :
1. The species’ polarity play
Species are the materialization of the principle of life. They are regulated by the play between their polarities : societies and their citizens. This graphs visualizes their interactions.
2. the game of life
3. the context of the game of life
The game of the polarities of life (reproduction – increased complexity) is being played out by the polarities of the individuals (body – mind). Societies act as territories where the polarities of life and the polarities of the individuals are interacting and generating all kinds of feed-back loops. This game of life plays out in the multi-dimensional context of ever larger ensembles.
25 interactions and feedback loops between individuals and societies
This graph illustrates the interactions, between the parameters and feed-back loops, that substantiate the outcome of the relations between individuals and societies. I devoted over 100 book pages to the subject in “From Modernity to After-Modernity. Book 2, Volume 4. Governance and societal evolution”, See “Chapter 4. Interrelations between individuals and society. Page 75 to 181”.
The 4 graphs here above were realized by myself and were given as illustrations of articles 200 to 237 in the collection titled “From Modernity to After-Modernity.”
The 4 graphs here above were realized by myself and were given as illustrations of articles 200 to 237 in the collection titled “From Modernity to After-Modernity.”
7.3.6.2. about contemporary coherent life-governance
All Tri-Continental-Area (17), originated or influenced, civilizations broke, often violently, with the traditional holistic approach of animist knowledge formation and all lost thus touch with the domain of life’s systemic reality and complexity. Faced with the reality of “the great convergence” all these civilizations are stuck today in immobility. Their model of knowledge formation, science and rationality, have directly participated in creating the mess left over by Modernity and they are incapable now of offering a way out of humanity’s predicament.
China is a different case. Its civilization did not separate itself from animism. It adopted it, ensured its continuity, and adapted it to the new realities of the day by integrated new knowledge in the form of add-ons placed on top of the animist knowledge base. Taoism, Traditional Chinese Medicine, traditional Chinese Culture, Traditional societal governance, and so many other fields inherited the knowledge base collected over tens of thousands of years of animist knowledge formation.
China has kept thinking holistically to this very day. This explains how their governance system is able to integrate the side-effects of Modernity in its political calculus synchronizing it with the complexity of a governance-world that is in deep crisis due to the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world from the USA and the west towards East-Asia with China at the core.
The present Chinese motto is a perfect illustration of their capacity to synchronize workable answers to ‘the great convergence’ of a gamut of crises originating in various different fields :
China is a different case. Its civilization did not separate itself from animism. It adopted it, ensured its continuity, and adapted it to the new realities of the day by integrated new knowledge in the form of add-ons placed on top of the animist knowledge base. Taoism, Traditional Chinese Medicine, traditional Chinese Culture, Traditional societal governance, and so many other fields inherited the knowledge base collected over tens of thousands of years of animist knowledge formation.
China has kept thinking holistically to this very day. This explains how their governance system is able to integrate the side-effects of Modernity in its political calculus synchronizing it with the complexity of a governance-world that is in deep crisis due to the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world from the USA and the west towards East-Asia with China at the core.
The present Chinese motto is a perfect illustration of their capacity to synchronize workable answers to ‘the great convergence’ of a gamut of crises originating in various different fields :
"China wants to participate in a community of nations that shares the common destiny of building a sustainable ecological future for its children”.
China does not propose a model of society for others to emulate. This is not in the Chinese political DNA. But this reality is difficult to grasp for the West. From the USA, to European traditional powers, the thinking goes that China’s thoughts can’t be different than theirs and as they think in terms of subjugation they are afraid that China will end up subjugating them. In the meantime CO2 levels are continuing to rise and temperatures are beating records day after day.
While the world is stuck in immobility, and the USA is launching tantrums after tantrums, China is quietly rushing up the necessary strength to resist an eventual use of force by the West that visibly wants to break its economic ascension. It is also rushing its technological development so as to avoid having to depend in the future on the capriciousness of hurt Western souls. And while building up its strength it is also adapting the structure of its economy and of its society to the ecological imperatives of the day.
But I think that what distinguishes China from the rest of the world is mostly that, while it has built a strong economy, its society has kept highly cohesive. And this cohesion resides in the sharing by all Chinese, in China and also overseas, of a traditional holistic animistic worldview that is highly adapted to the context of Late-Modernity.
While not offering a model for others to emulate, amidst the many uncertainties of humanity’s predicament, China is open to cooperation and exchanges of ideas on how to go forward. I personally think that the rest of the world has much to gain cooperating with China on shaping workable answers to the great conversion. Not only can cooperation address the problems of the day but more importantly it would offer the rest of the world a peek in the Chinese Zeitgeist, in their worldview, which could ultimately open Western minds to the systemic complexity of the principle of life.
In these times of urgency no one nation can impose its political or economic model. A coherent model of life-governance has to emerge from the interactions of the rest of the world with China. Through bold cooperation nations will gradually start to see the same things in the same way and they will gradually start to adopt those methods that they observe to be working.
This, I think, is the only realistic way forward. At the end of the road each nation will have built a coherent life-governance system that is adapted to its particular context.
While the world is stuck in immobility, and the USA is launching tantrums after tantrums, China is quietly rushing up the necessary strength to resist an eventual use of force by the West that visibly wants to break its economic ascension. It is also rushing its technological development so as to avoid having to depend in the future on the capriciousness of hurt Western souls. And while building up its strength it is also adapting the structure of its economy and of its society to the ecological imperatives of the day.
But I think that what distinguishes China from the rest of the world is mostly that, while it has built a strong economy, its society has kept highly cohesive. And this cohesion resides in the sharing by all Chinese, in China and also overseas, of a traditional holistic animistic worldview that is highly adapted to the context of Late-Modernity.
While not offering a model for others to emulate, amidst the many uncertainties of humanity’s predicament, China is open to cooperation and exchanges of ideas on how to go forward. I personally think that the rest of the world has much to gain cooperating with China on shaping workable answers to the great conversion. Not only can cooperation address the problems of the day but more importantly it would offer the rest of the world a peek in the Chinese Zeitgeist, in their worldview, which could ultimately open Western minds to the systemic complexity of the principle of life.
In these times of urgency no one nation can impose its political or economic model. A coherent model of life-governance has to emerge from the interactions of the rest of the world with China. Through bold cooperation nations will gradually start to see the same things in the same way and they will gradually start to adopt those methods that they observe to be working.
This, I think, is the only realistic way forward. At the end of the road each nation will have built a coherent life-governance system that is adapted to its particular context.
7.3.6.3. in the absence of coherent life-governance citizens are on their own
Chris Martenson from “Peak Prosperity” said it best so I will let him make the talking:
"The Corona-virus has revealed just how corrupt, self-serving, and disinterested the elites are in the plight of the middle and lower classes. It has exposed the extent to which institutions and corporations are failing at their most basic of duties.
it reveals that, despite the fiction of fairness and freedom, America’s true values and priorities are aimed at funneling more and more of its wealth in the pockets of an elite few.
It has woken up a center mass of people and alerted them to the true reality of their situation. It has revealed just how corrupt, self-serving, and disinterested the elites are in the plight of the middle and lower classes. It has exposed the extent to which institutions and corporations are failing at their most basic of duties.
It has finally laid bare the truth: We are on our own.
When farmers can only survive by going deeper into debt while receiving only 7 cents of the final dollar spent by the consumer who buys their food at the store, it speaks to a profoundly misguided system that seems to have forgotten that without the producers you have nothing at all.” (18)
___________
Notes
1. “Europe, Overrun by Foreign Tech Giants, Wants to Grow Its Own”, in the NYT, by Adam Satariano and Monika Pronczuk. 2020-02-19.
2. “The U.S. Economy: A Brief History” in Chapter 3 from etexts by US embassy in Germany.
3. “The strange geographies of the ‘new’ state capitalism” in Political Geography Volume 82. Elsevier, October 2020, 102237, by Ilias Alami, Adam D.Dixon
4. See my presentation about the axioms of civilization in “From Modernity to After-Modernity. Book1-Volume 1. History shapes the present”
5. “Learning to Love State Capitalism” in Naked Capitalism by Yves Smith. 2020-07-17
6. “Subconscious Marketing - Propaganda to Public Relations - Bernays with Freud in US 1920's” on YouTube excellent documentary by the BBC
7. According to “Etymology Online”:
8. Fernand Braudel, in“Civilization and Capitalism” volume 1 “The Structure of Everyday Life” wrote that, in the commercial city-states of Italy in the thirteenth century, capital meant the “money of a merchant” devoted to investment. It was called “Capitale’, a dynamic form of money capable of expansion through investment in commerce, that was different from “simple” money which was considered to be a sterile and existing only for facilitating commercial exchange.
Nicholas Barbon was one of the first economists to write about capital. A 17th century medical doctor by education, and a financial speculator by trade, he gained a reputation as an economic theorist for his book “A Discourse of Trade ”(1690). He viewed capital as a ‘stock of capital goods’ and viewed interest as a rent for the ‘stock of capital goods’ and not for the money that financed the investment of these capital goods in the first place.
9. I gave the following summary of a sketch about the principle of life in “7.2.1.2. Societal evolution accelerates the evolution of the species”: … a bullet point list :
10. Money Capital vs Life Capital: the War of Values We Live or Die By”, in Counterpunch, by John McMurtry – Jeffery Klaehn. 2020-07-16
11. “From Modernity to After-Modernity. Book 2. Theoretical considerations. Volume 1. The formation of human knowledge”. This is the first of 5 volumes that have still not been published to this day. The first draft of this volume 1 was published on my blog during the winter of 2015-2016. See articles 200 to 206. The quotations used in the description of my thinking are from this “Volume 1. The formation of human knowledge”.
12. “The evolutionary layers of the human brain”, Canadian Institutes of Health Research: Institute of Neurosciences, by Bruno Dubuc
13. See “3.3.2. The cultural continuum”
14. About the principle of life see 7.2.2.2. Societal evolution accelerates the evolution of the species
15. “The great reset” is a campaign by the World Economic Forum to reform capitalism
16. “The Cancer Stage of Capitalism” an excellent book by John McMurtry, professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph. Money Capital vs Life Capital: the War of Values We Live or Die By”, an interview of John McMurtry by Jeffery Klaehn in Counterpunch, 2020-07-16.
17. The “Tri-Continental-Area” is a neutral concept that I prefer to use instead of the Euro-centrist one of “Middle-East” that evokes too many conscious and unconscious memories of imperialism and colonialism that taint our perceptions of “the other”.
18. “We Are On Our Own In The Post-COVID World”, in Peak Prosperity, by Chris Martenson. 2020-07-25
2. “The U.S. Economy: A Brief History” in Chapter 3 from etexts by US embassy in Germany.
3. “The strange geographies of the ‘new’ state capitalism” in Political Geography Volume 82. Elsevier, October 2020, 102237, by Ilias Alami, Adam D.Dixon
4. See my presentation about the axioms of civilization in “From Modernity to After-Modernity. Book1-Volume 1. History shapes the present”
5. “Learning to Love State Capitalism” in Naked Capitalism by Yves Smith. 2020-07-17
6. “Subconscious Marketing - Propaganda to Public Relations - Bernays with Freud in US 1920's” on YouTube excellent documentary by the BBC
7. According to “Etymology Online”:
Merriam-Webster adds that" the world “capital” originates in “early 13c., ‘of or pertaining to the head,’ from Old French capital, from Latin capitalis ‘of the head,’ hence ‘capital, chief, first,’ from caput (genitive capitis) ‘head’ ”.
This stock of goods to enter in the business of long distance trade was gold...“Both the French and Italians adopted capitalis with this sense in the form capitale. Their word eventually came to refer to an essential stock of goods used to enter into business.”
8. Fernand Braudel, in“Civilization and Capitalism” volume 1 “The Structure of Everyday Life” wrote that, in the commercial city-states of Italy in the thirteenth century, capital meant the “money of a merchant” devoted to investment. It was called “Capitale’, a dynamic form of money capable of expansion through investment in commerce, that was different from “simple” money which was considered to be a sterile and existing only for facilitating commercial exchange.
Nicholas Barbon was one of the first economists to write about capital. A 17th century medical doctor by education, and a financial speculator by trade, he gained a reputation as an economic theorist for his book “A Discourse of Trade ”(1690). He viewed capital as a ‘stock of capital goods’ and viewed interest as a rent for the ‘stock of capital goods’ and not for the money that financed the investment of these capital goods in the first place.
9. I gave the following summary of a sketch about the principle of life in “7.2.1.2. Societal evolution accelerates the evolution of the species”: … a bullet point list :
- life emerges in the form of species
- species fight to survive and to reproduce over the long haul
- “the dance between the polarities of species” (individuals – society) ensures : A. the continuity of the species B. the increasing complexity of the species
- the dance between polarities is thus naturally fraught with conflicts
- societies act as arbiters between two forces, or groups of individuals, that have antagonistic goals :
- the weak force, of the majority of citizens, wants the conservation of the status quo
- the strong force, of the minority of citizens, wants change
- the conflicts, between polarities, that lead to compromises solidify cultural memes
- 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 evolution of society synchronizes the “free will” of the individuals.
10. Money Capital vs Life Capital: the War of Values We Live or Die By”, in Counterpunch, by John McMurtry – Jeffery Klaehn. 2020-07-16
11. “From Modernity to After-Modernity. Book 2. Theoretical considerations. Volume 1. The formation of human knowledge”. This is the first of 5 volumes that have still not been published to this day. The first draft of this volume 1 was published on my blog during the winter of 2015-2016. See articles 200 to 206. The quotations used in the description of my thinking are from this “Volume 1. The formation of human knowledge”.
12. “The evolutionary layers of the human brain”, Canadian Institutes of Health Research: Institute of Neurosciences, by Bruno Dubuc
13. See “3.3.2. The cultural continuum”
14. About the principle of life see 7.2.2.2. Societal evolution accelerates the evolution of the species
15. “The great reset” is a campaign by the World Economic Forum to reform capitalism
16. “The Cancer Stage of Capitalism” an excellent book by John McMurtry, professor of philosophy at the University of Guelph. Money Capital vs Life Capital: the War of Values We Live or Die By”, an interview of John McMurtry by Jeffery Klaehn in Counterpunch, 2020-07-16.
17. The “Tri-Continental-Area” is a neutral concept that I prefer to use instead of the Euro-centrist one of “Middle-East” that evokes too many conscious and unconscious memories of imperialism and colonialism that taint our perceptions of “the other”.
18. “We Are On Our Own In The Post-COVID World”, in Peak Prosperity, by Chris Martenson. 2020-07-25
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