The sudden rise of the 87% !

I'm personally struck, and this since the end of February, by the historical rejection of Modernity as the cultural field of the West by the whole non-Western world. It is a historical reality simply because for the first time in its history Western Modernity is opposed by a front bringing together 87% of the world's population which refuses to obey the Western diktat ordering to sanction Russia for its invasion of Ukraine.  Thus, by a boomerang effect, the ideological totalitarianism of Western dualism suddenly turned against itself.

If it remains true that Western technologism remains the ultimate sign of power, the fact is that for the first time Western Modernity is confronted with the wall of refusal from the rest of the world that Alastair Crooke illustrated on 2022-03-28, in his article 'Geopolitics is changing every moment', with the following words :

"While Europe and the United States have never been more closely aligned, the 'West' paradoxically has never been so alone".

What is most extraordinary in the Ukrainian episode, of the restructuring of the world order, has been the completely unpredictable emergence of this front of refusal. Without any prior consultation the governments, representing over 87% of the world's population, suddenly refused Western orders to sanction Russia. It is certainly a defeat of the West and also a real surprise to discover such an abrupt rise in the rejection of Western Modernity.

There is no doubt that this is a historical event whose significance still largely eludes us.

Let us not forget that this event takes place in the particular context of the slow restructuring of the world order. And it seems to me that, in the current psychological climate, it would take very little to bring about the historical shift towards After-modernity which, paradoxically, still seems so distant in our current perception that the surprise effect promises to be without precedent.

I therefore suggest that the time has come to start thinking seriously about the impact that the front of the 87%, which opposes the Modernity of the 13%, will inevitably have on the formation of thought in After-Modernity which will necessarily be universal because of the many side-effects of Modernity that humanity will quickly have to face.

 

I address this question at length in the upcoming volume 2 of my series “From modernity to post-modernity”, which is entitled “Modernity”. The book will total some 950 pages and should be released sometime this next June, that is to say, if no extraordinary event distracts my attention by then.