The Western axis of evil is not taking well the inevitabilty of its collapse !

Day after day our minds get ever more confused by the not-ceasing media noise. 

 

I followed the advice, that I personally gave in one of my last articles related to the Ukrainian mess, to avoid the daily garbage bin of words... 

 

But you have nevertheless to be attentive because a rare pearl of deep thinking sometimes is mixed in the trash and you have to be ready to dig for it.

 

This was the case recently of papers by Alastair Crooke and an editorial of the Strategic Culture Foundation. Here are two quotes that particularly retained my attention :

In "The ‘Wrong’ Turning Brings on the ‘Fourth Turning’", the Strategic Culture Foundation, by Alastair Crooke, July 4, 2022.

"For the last four hundred years, west Europeans have lived one very particular ‘vision’; one that stands poles-apart from that which went earlier. 

The Renaissance manner of thinking and seeing essentially was conjunctive: the ‘eye’ and intellect, in this tradition, can be pointed towards a ‘something’ (the ‘eye’ and intellect emits its acies), and when it touches this other being, it was, as if one were to meet another person... 

Enlightenment (that is to say our contemporary mode) of seeing and knowing, however, essentially is disjunctive. The ‘eye’ or the intellect is separated and disengaged from the ‘objects’ under scrutiny. (The Wrong Turning that much of the world – the non-Western world – did not emulate)".

In "Biden is Right… Inflation Crisis Is Not Inevitable, So End the Reckless U.S.-Led Warmongering", editorial of the Strategic Culture Foundation , July 8, 2022

"The giant Western charade is no longer sustainable. From European colonialism to American imperialism, the charade has indeed had a long run. Now, though, it is in tatters from its own inherent corruption and lies. The ignominious downfall this week of Boris Johnson, Britain’s clown prime minister, is just a bit-part of the collapsing Western axis of evil. That collapse is inevitable".

 

 

The conclusions of the Strategic Culture Foundation, and of Alastair Crooke, are similar to my own conclusions as stated in the last volume of my series "From Modernity to After-Modernity" titled "Modernity".

In substance my reasoning goes as follows.

All the necessary ingredients were assembled in the context of South-Western Europe in the 12th century that would set in motion a chain reaction  of causes and effects that would result in the emergence of the historical era of Western Modernity which would drastically change the course of world history. See "Pre-Modernity was the context of Modernity's emergence".

The paradigm of Modernity emerged in the minds of Frank long distance merchants in the 12th century in the form of "the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital". But because 6 centuries had passed since its emergence the philosophers of the Enlightenment (18th century) missed its significance which explains their immersion in the continuity of the incremental changes that followed its emergence. In that continuity they thought that it was rational to separate life in distinct silos that were functional to the acquisition and the production of material richness. Rationalism emerged indeed from 6 centuries of an ever increasing craving from Western Europeans for the material richness projected in their eyes by the merchants who had converted to this new paradigm. See "Part 2. Early-Modernity".

But the separation of life in different silos, like — the economy — social relations — the formation of knowledge — culture — the arts — and so on, separated peoples' attention from the wholeness of life and in the process they lost track of "the First Principles of Life" that earlier had been the foundation of the field of their societal culture. Having lost track of "the First Principles of Life" their philosophic construct also resulted into, what Alastair Crooke calls, "a very particular ‘vision’ " that separated Western Modernity from the vision of the people in the rest of the world. The first volume of my series "From Modernity to After-Modernity" titled "The Continuum of the Cultural Field" is an exposition of how the vision of the West got disconnected from the vision of the rest of the world.

In other words by converting to the philosophic rationality contained in "the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital" people forgot all other considerations. Their conversion to that rationality was a de facto submission to an abstract principle that resides outside of life and the working of the mind. It is a submission to the abstract rationality regulating the transformation of money into capital. And the fact is that the transformation of money into capital is alien to the field of molecular bio-chemistry that regulates the biological evolution of the individuals but, since most societies on earth have by now submitted to that rationality, it is no longer alien to the field of cultural beliefs that regulates the societal evolution of societies. which is at the root of humanity's predicament in this Late-Modernity.

The submission to the rationality contained in "the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital" is a cultural choice that emerged in 12th century Frank Western Europe. Over the span of the 6 centuries of Early-Modernity (commercial capitalism) every one of Western Europe's societies had submitted. And, over the 3 centuries since the start of the industrial revolution, the societies in the rest of the world were in turn forced to submit in order to preserve their existence. Their choice was indeed limited to submission or death... 

But now that the whole world has submitted to the rationality contained in "the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital" it is resisting the Western orders to adopt Western governance systems and other cultural diktats. And the Ukrainian conflict is without any doubt rallying the 87% of the non-Western world in its refusal to integrate the Western cultural field.

 

 

 

 

If we summarize the story of Western Modernity we get the following :

1. A propitious context in the land of the Franks in the 12th century (ingredients) has set in motion a chain of causes and effects that led to the emergence of Western Modernity and capitalism


2. A reagent, in the form of long distance commerce between the land of the Franks and Palestine, has set in motion a process leading to the emergence of the paradigm of Modernity which is "the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital"


3. The financial success of long distance merchants attracted copy-cats and unleashed envy and desire of material possessions


4. Mass looting of the rest of the world during "the great discoveries" allowed some Western European societies to accumulate the capital that paid for their industrial revolution


5. The attraction of all to the paradigm of Modernity expanded its domain to everything under the sun which gave rise to philosophic rationalism and the scientific method. Both originated in "the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital" and both are now instrumental to the success of the enterprises that finance the operation of their research facilities


6. The philosophers of the Enlightenment separated life in distinct silos that detached the minds from the wholeness and centrality of life which motivated enterprises to externalize, as much of  their operating costs as they could, to the habitat and the health of their workers.


7. The Western rationalist worldview is rooted in individualism and materialism and this irrevocably separates the West from the rest of the world.


8. The paradigm of Western Modernity and the Western rationalist worldview gives us "the paradox of Modernity" :
   
   
   • An incomparable success at producing cheap commodities greatly facilitated the reproduction of individual life and unleashed an exponential population growth
   
   
   • A finite environment does unfortunately not have the capacity to supply the energetic and material resources to satisfy the demand of an exponentially growing population
   
   
   • Cheap productions have been made possible by a massive externalization of costs which resulted in the accumulation of side-effects while an ever growing demand of resources has led to the rarefaction of those resources... which, in turn, has led to conflicts between human societies for the control of what remains available and this explains one of the core sources of the present Geo-political conflicts


9. As of today humanity has accumulated a range of factors that has become non manageable :
   
   
   
   • The West and the non-Western world have incompatible societal cultural fields which results in incomprehension and conflicts. See "The Continuum of the Cultural Field".
   
   
   • Western Modernity has inflicted side-effects like resource rarity and damages to the earth's equilibrium that supports life  (resource rarity, the poisoning of air water and land, abrupt climate change, the spread of plagues, and so on and on... )
   
   
   • The governance-world got destabilized by the natural shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world to East-Asia with Beijing at the core and the Western refusal, that a country with 4 times the population of the US to surpass it economically, indicates a Western vision of self that is out of bound with a healthy vision of the world. But the fact is that cultural exceptionalism never trumps population levels nor physical realities...
     
   
   
   • All these factors are now impacting one another causing feed-back loops that conclude with tipping-points shifting the present equilibrium of our earth in unforeseeable directions...  I call this "the great convergence of Late-Modernity" which causes "the predicament of humanity"...
     

This is the general context in which 87% of the non-Western world is refusing to integrate the Western cultural field. The world was forced to submit to the hegemony of the USA, and its resulting unequal relations and economic exploitation, because of its sheer dominance in the economic and military fields in the wake of World War 2. But now, that China's economic ascendancy is force-shrinking the relative economic importance of the West, the rest of the world senses that the time has come to resist Western hegemony and so its refusal to integrate the Western cultural field.

 

It is in this particular context that the Russian military operation in Ukraine is suddenly taking a special significance for the 87% of the non-Western world :

• All nations on earth have indeed been silently witnessing the West's provocative military expansion (NATO)  to the borders of Russia over the last 2 decades


• In light of this aggressive Western expansion all non-Western nations understand that Russia is being forced or to submit to Western diktats or to fight back...
  


• The rest of the world also understands that this aggressive Western expansion is questioning the sovereign rights of those societies bordering Russia that are accepting to be instrumental in this military expansion. The sovereign right of those nations to infringing on Russia's natural right to self-defense. And this contradiction, in turn, explains the sympathy of the non-Western world for Russia's resistance to Western hegemony.
  

When all this is taken into account it becomes understandable that most Non-Western nations, which represent some 87% of the world population, refuse to condemn Russia, refuse to sanction Russia, and by the same token their positions constitute a very public affirmation of their refusal to submit to Western diktats... which is a public confirmation that the Western hegemon appears naked indeed.

The notion of "the International Community", that the West has been abusing for so long, is thus boomeranging back in the face of the West and this visibly is enraging it and exposing "the continuity of the cultural field" of its societies for what it really is. The axioms of the Western civilization, and the Western worldview, are indeed rooted in dualism which, along the entire history of Western relations with the rest of the world, has nurtured that vile Western racism against "the other" that has resulted in the destruction of "other" civilizations, the collapse of so many "other" societies, and the killing of untold hundreds of millions of "other" people...and the more recent bombing to the stone age of all those who dared resist Western hegemony.

Will the West be called to answer for its crimes against humanity in a "world court of justice" after completion of the multi-lateral restructuring of the world order that has just begun ?