"The media noise nowadays relates in one way or another to the Western refusal to accept the natural shift of the economy-world to East-Asia."
This refusal by the West to accept the natural evolution of the interrelations between human societies, that subscribe to the paradigm of Western Modernity, is at the root of all the great questions that affect the human species in this 3rd decade of the 21st century.
Let us first note that, by this early 21st century, all human societies have converted to the paradigm of Western Modernity which is best described as “the rationality that is at work in the transformation of money into capital”. And China is incontestably winning at the economic game that is ruled by this paradigm !
But the sore looser West can’t accept its loss, and is thus making life difficult for the community of nations. China is winning at the economic game, that is ruled by the paradigm of Western Modernity, and because of that the center of gravity of the economy-world is shifting from the USA to East-Asia. The US refusal to accept this natural evolution has destabilized the Geopolitical order that it created in the wake of the 2nd World War. As a result countries are divided. The world is confronted with chaos and we are possibly on the verge of a 3rd World War.
Let us first note that, by this early 21st century, all human societies have converted to the paradigm of Western Modernity which is best described as “the rationality that is at work in the transformation of money into capital”. And China is incontestably winning at the economic game that is ruled by this paradigm !
But the sore looser West can’t accept its loss, and is thus making life difficult for the community of nations. China is winning at the economic game, that is ruled by the paradigm of Western Modernity, and because of that the center of gravity of the economy-world is shifting from the USA to East-Asia. The US refusal to accept this natural evolution has destabilized the Geopolitical order that it created in the wake of the 2nd World War. As a result countries are divided. The world is confronted with chaos and we are possibly on the verge of a 3rd World War.
Resolving the present geopolitical instability passes necessarily through a readjustment of the national forces in presence. China and the US are building up their own economic strength in a hurry. Each is hoping to gain a decisive advantage over the other. China hopes that its continuously growing economic might will eventually dissipate the aggression of the USA and thus ensure a peaceful future to its nation. The USA on the other side hopes that its economic might will deter China to surpass it economically.
National strength is not exclusively an economic matter. Societal cohesion is the foundation of national houses. And if the foundation is rotten the house is unstable, the walls are cracking, and the roof is leaking. The economy of such a national house will at best stagnate while its will to wage a war is doomed to end in failure because its individual atoms are no longer united in a common national cause. In contrast a country with a strong societal cohesion will be able to solve any kind of problem encountered on its way forward.
The reality, in term of societal cohesion, is well known. The USA, and the other Western countries, have been confronted over the last 45 years with “the gamble that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital” (1). Combined with postmodernism this gamble has unleashed hyper-individualism, and hyper-inequality, which confined the individuals in the recesses of their own selves where they separated from the other individuals and from society at large. This separation resulted in the atomization of Western societies who can thus no longer act as unified entities. In contrast to Western countries China is a highly cohesive society whose individuals have a high appreciation for their country’s state decision-making. The country is thus a strongly unified entity (2).
These internal factors are indicators of the national strength of societies. But internal factors can also be disturbed by outside factors like mass extinction of species, a dwindling habitat, the rapid fall of sperm counts, or climate change for example. In Modernity 01 and 02, and in “The great turning”, I posit that humanity is presently being confronted by “the great convergence of Late-Modernity” (3). This concept means that multiple crises are suddenly converging and starting to interact among themselves. This will most probably unleash tipping points, in the systems of the ensemble earth, that will produce irreversible new states of equilibrium. And some of these new equilibria could possibly shift outside of the narrow bandwidth of human survivability.
All this implies that we have entered a new historical era that at best will be an era of transition toward a new societal equilibrium of human interconnectedness with all the elements that participate in the life of the sub-ensemble earth.
National strength is not exclusively an economic matter. Societal cohesion is the foundation of national houses. And if the foundation is rotten the house is unstable, the walls are cracking, and the roof is leaking. The economy of such a national house will at best stagnate while its will to wage a war is doomed to end in failure because its individual atoms are no longer united in a common national cause. In contrast a country with a strong societal cohesion will be able to solve any kind of problem encountered on its way forward.
The reality, in term of societal cohesion, is well known. The USA, and the other Western countries, have been confronted over the last 45 years with “the gamble that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital” (1). Combined with postmodernism this gamble has unleashed hyper-individualism, and hyper-inequality, which confined the individuals in the recesses of their own selves where they separated from the other individuals and from society at large. This separation resulted in the atomization of Western societies who can thus no longer act as unified entities. In contrast to Western countries China is a highly cohesive society whose individuals have a high appreciation for their country’s state decision-making. The country is thus a strongly unified entity (2).
These internal factors are indicators of the national strength of societies. But internal factors can also be disturbed by outside factors like mass extinction of species, a dwindling habitat, the rapid fall of sperm counts, or climate change for example. In Modernity 01 and 02, and in “The great turning”, I posit that humanity is presently being confronted by “the great convergence of Late-Modernity” (3). This concept means that multiple crises are suddenly converging and starting to interact among themselves. This will most probably unleash tipping points, in the systems of the ensemble earth, that will produce irreversible new states of equilibrium. And some of these new equilibria could possibly shift outside of the narrow bandwidth of human survivability.
All this implies that we have entered a new historical era that at best will be an era of transition toward a new societal equilibrium of human interconnectedness with all the elements that participate in the life of the sub-ensemble earth.
4.1. The present period is a period of transition
But what kind of a transition are we talking about ?
The title of my theoretical series “From Modernity to After-Modernity” suggests that humanity will be forced by necessity to reconcile its activities with the Geo-Bio-Chemistry of the sub-ensemble earth which implies the rejection of the paradigm of Western Modernity for a new paradigm.
But as I explained in the conclusion of “The Continuum of the Societal Cultural Field” human activities might very plausibly already have forced the hand of the sub-ensemble earth to engage a new Geo-Bio-Chemistry equilibrium. If this were the case this new Geo-Bio-Chemistry equilibrium could possibly force the collapse of human societies which would lead to the collapse of civilizations and of the governance model of power-societies. And last but not least our species could possibly be one among the many who are destined to go extinct.
We can’t know for sure if a new Geo-Bio-Chemistry equilibrium has already been engaged or if we still have the time to adapt humanity’s behavior to the working of the sub-ensemble earth. But in full knowledge of the side-effects, that have been caused by the paradigm of Western Modernity, humanity would be wise to change its societal paradigm.
All other options are existential risks for the species and as such they should be terminated. The rejection of options, that risk terminating human life, is a conscious choice to grasp the freedom to live with abandon… The alternative is a choice to be forced to live in fear of the extinction of your own species !
This was the perspective of animism that considered life to be the ultimate consideration of the body mind polarities of the individual. And anything, that was deemed not fitting inside the domain of life, was viewed as being contrary to the pragmatism of the ‘body-mind’ polarities of the individual entities of living species.
What is most interesting is that the ‘body-mind’ polarities, of the individual entities, are a first extension of the ’individual-society’ polarities of living species which are the first among “the first Principles of life”.
In the short term humanity is confronted with a transition from a Western center of gravity, of the economy-world that imposes its hegemony on the rest of the world, to a Chinese center of gravity that we observe is benevolently recognizing the equality of all national actors and their sovereign freedom over their internal affairs.
But before addressing this further let us first clarify the meaning of “center of gravity of the economy-world”. The concept of Economy-World was conceived sometime in the nineteen seventies by Fernand Braudel who argued that Western Modernity had imposed its economic rationality to the whole world in the Italian city-states sometime in the 12th to 13th centuries (5).
Braudel furthermore observed that Western Modernity is characterized by periodical bursts of national creativity that eventually confer the economic might consecrating a new center of gravity. The rise of a new center establishes its centrality in the horizontal geography of the whole system of Modernity. This eventually concludes with the new center overtaking the latter’s might. The Braudelian model of economic history is thus rooted in the long history of Western Modernity that expanded horizontally to this very day.
China's playing by the rules of the Western economic rationality, at work in the transformation of money into capital, means that it adopted the paradigm of Western modernity. The notions of democratic governance, and private ownership of capital, are merely the ideological premises upon which the philosophers of rationalism, and the early classical economists, founded the political philosophy of liberalism some 6 centuries after the emergence of the paradigm of Modernity.
There is no doubt that Chinese Traditional Governance, and its socialist views, about the ownership of capital are the defining differences between the West and China. But these differences are in no way questioning “the rationality that is at work in the transformation of money into capital” nor “the shifting of the center of gravity of the Economy-World toward the economically mightiest nation”.
The Chinese Traditional Governance theory and practice as well as the country’s socialist views about the ownership of capital have mightily helped China to lift itself to the world top economic spot. This proves incontestably the validity of the Chinese system in beating the West at a game it invented centuries earlier and all this while the paradigm of Modernity, that emerged in the 12th century, remains intact.
Having said this lets come back to the introductory questions of this chapter.
What we know, as a matter of fact, is that the Chinese traded with nations far away since the down of their power society on the base of a win win proposition. We also know that their millenary society rarely ventured into outside wars which stands in sharp contrast with Western practice.
Zheng He’s voyages of discovery are an exhibit of China’s behavior with “the other” while Christopher Columbus’ voyages are an exhibit of the Western Western behavior with “the other”. These 2 behaviors are of a different nature.
The Chinese behavior with “other” nations was one of curiosity and gift making with the hope to start a conversation while the Western behavior was one of brutal domination and cultural suppression that often ended in genocide.
I have argued, from an abstract theoretical perspective in “The Continuum of the Societal Cultural Field” and in “Modernity 02”, that the Chinese civilizational axioms are fostering a radically different psychological attitude toward “the other-worldliness of the other” than Western dualism.
In short, over the millennia, the Chinese thinking has accommodated to the idea of complementary polarities and so their first reaction toward “the other” is one of curiosity about his other-worldliness while most Westerners, being accustomed to dualistic opposition, are frightened by “the other-worldliness of the other”.
In their inquisitiveness the Chinese engage a conversation hoping that it will result in some useful knowledge that they could apply in their daily lives. In contrast Westerners view “the other-worldliness of the other” as an evil danger that has to be eradicated though conversion to their own understanding of through death.
This is, I think, the prime contradiction that threatens globalization in the 21st century. If Westerners could let go their fright of “the other-worldliness of the other”, and adopt the same kind of Chinese inquisitiveness, the world would be in a better place to solve the problems related to “the great convergence of Late-Modernity”. But humanity will have to deal with the cards that it has been handed down from history.
The Chinese approach, to a world divided by the Western refusal of the evolution of Modernity, is highly unusual for outsiders of the Chinese worldview. For one its short and medium term objectives are approached in the perspective of the rationality that is at work in the transformation of money into capital while it long term objective of cultural unification is conceived outside of that rationality. But more on that later.
As indicate here above China’s attitude toward “the other” is radically different from the Western attitude. China’s model of society is nevertheless a “power-society” just as in the West.
China’s power-society nevertheless originated at the end of a different process than the power-societies in the Tri-Continental-Area (TCA) or the Roman empire or later Western European societies. These processes fostered diverging power-societies in the TCA and in East-Asia. Unfortunately the Academy has still not detected these divergent paths and it misses thus, what I argue in “The Continuum of the Cultural Field”, are the radical differences between Eastern and Western civilizations as well as their model of society.
I elaborate extensively in Volume 4, of the collection “From Modernity to After-Modernity” titled “Societal evolution and Societal Governance” that will be published sometime at the end of 2025, on the transition from tribal to power-societies and the impact this transition had on the governance of power societies. In the meantime you can read in “The Continuum of the cultural field” how the contextual settings in East-Asia initiated a different kind of transition than in the TCA.
The underpinnings of psychological attitudes, at work in the continuum of the societal cultural field, are determinant in shaping the attitudes and behaviors of the individuals. These underpinnings are somehow stored in the body and get unconsciously activated at the contact of the daily societal context. Prime among those underpinnings are the axioms that are rooted in the foundations of our civilizations. I give an extensive presentation about the axioms of civilizations in “The Continuum of the cultural field. Part 3”.
In short the axioms of civilizations initiate the thought processes of all citizens in the societies that participate in their realm. These axioms guide the formation of daily culture by synchronizing the perception of the individuals about their daily contextual settings. This synchronization of the present, with the original knowledge of the civilization, is what fosters continuity in the societal field of culture but the individuals are, at all time, unconscious about it.
Another way to understand this continuity, in the societal field of culture, is to observe how axioms generate a logical continuity in the field of mathematics. Axioms in mathematics are the epistemological foundation from which are derived theorems and theories. In other words all theories in mathematics remain at all times consistent with the principles enunciated in the axioms. And the same goes with societal worldviews and the daily cultural thinking and actions that keep at all time logically consistency with the axioms of the civilization.
But in contrast to mathematics, which is a single system of logic relying on one set of axioms, the cultural field, of human societies, relies on the axioms of multiple civilizations. This implies a multiplicity of societal cultural fields evolving in parallel. Each having its own logical system founded in the axioms of its civilization. But because these systems are largely closed to the outside the individuals in each of them believe that their own system represents the truth about the reality of life.
In other words a civilization leaves very little space for the comprehension of the cultural logic of other civilizational systems. And when the axioms, of one of these systems, are grounded in the dualism of its own ideological goodness, that battles “the other-worldliness of the other”, this invites a manifestation of separation from the other systems. And the citizens, of the societies in such a system, are unconsciously thinking they their views and actions represent what is good which implies that all other views and actions are necessarily considered being evil.
To visualize the other-worldliness of thought between the societies participating in the realm of different civilizations let us compare the Chinese civilization and the Western civilization. The following graph compares the resulting psychological attitudes generated by the master axiom of each of these civilizations : — dualism in the Western civilization — polarism in the Chinese civilization.
The title of my theoretical series “From Modernity to After-Modernity” suggests that humanity will be forced by necessity to reconcile its activities with the Geo-Bio-Chemistry of the sub-ensemble earth which implies the rejection of the paradigm of Western Modernity for a new paradigm.
But as I explained in the conclusion of “The Continuum of the Societal Cultural Field” human activities might very plausibly already have forced the hand of the sub-ensemble earth to engage a new Geo-Bio-Chemistry equilibrium. If this were the case this new Geo-Bio-Chemistry equilibrium could possibly force the collapse of human societies which would lead to the collapse of civilizations and of the governance model of power-societies. And last but not least our species could possibly be one among the many who are destined to go extinct.
We can’t know for sure if a new Geo-Bio-Chemistry equilibrium has already been engaged or if we still have the time to adapt humanity’s behavior to the working of the sub-ensemble earth. But in full knowledge of the side-effects, that have been caused by the paradigm of Western Modernity, humanity would be wise to change its societal paradigm.
Having stated the range of possible transitions that await us the only reasonable path forward for humanity is to submit to the systemic rules of the sub-ensemble earth.“Is it not when things are darkest, when all hope is lost, that one fights with abandon, shamelessly shoots for utopia? For then there is nothing left to lose. And I have heard that another word for nothing left to lose is freedom.” (4)
All other options are existential risks for the species and as such they should be terminated. The rejection of options, that risk terminating human life, is a conscious choice to grasp the freedom to live with abandon… The alternative is a choice to be forced to live in fear of the extinction of your own species !
This was the perspective of animism that considered life to be the ultimate consideration of the body mind polarities of the individual. And anything, that was deemed not fitting inside the domain of life, was viewed as being contrary to the pragmatism of the ‘body-mind’ polarities of the individual entities of living species.
What is most interesting is that the ‘body-mind’ polarities, of the individual entities, are a first extension of the ’individual-society’ polarities of living species which are the first among “the first Principles of life”.
4.1.1. About the center of gravity of the Economy-World
In the short term humanity is confronted with a transition from a Western center of gravity, of the economy-world that imposes its hegemony on the rest of the world, to a Chinese center of gravity that we observe is benevolently recognizing the equality of all national actors and their sovereign freedom over their internal affairs.
But before addressing this further let us first clarify the meaning of “center of gravity of the economy-world”. The concept of Economy-World was conceived sometime in the nineteen seventies by Fernand Braudel who argued that Western Modernity had imposed its economic rationality to the whole world in the Italian city-states sometime in the 12th to 13th centuries (5).
Braudel furthermore observed that Western Modernity is characterized by periodical bursts of national creativity that eventually confer the economic might consecrating a new center of gravity. The rise of a new center establishes its centrality in the horizontal geography of the whole system of Modernity. This eventually concludes with the new center overtaking the latter’s might. The Braudelian model of economic history is thus rooted in the long history of Western Modernity that expanded horizontally to this very day.
China's playing by the rules of the Western economic rationality, at work in the transformation of money into capital, means that it adopted the paradigm of Western modernity. The notions of democratic governance, and private ownership of capital, are merely the ideological premises upon which the philosophers of rationalism, and the early classical economists, founded the political philosophy of liberalism some 6 centuries after the emergence of the paradigm of Modernity.
There is no doubt that Chinese Traditional Governance, and its socialist views, about the ownership of capital are the defining differences between the West and China. But these differences are in no way questioning “the rationality that is at work in the transformation of money into capital” nor “the shifting of the center of gravity of the Economy-World toward the economically mightiest nation”.
The Chinese Traditional Governance theory and practice as well as the country’s socialist views about the ownership of capital have mightily helped China to lift itself to the world top economic spot. This proves incontestably the validity of the Chinese system in beating the West at a game it invented centuries earlier and all this while the paradigm of Modernity, that emerged in the 12th century, remains intact.
Having said this lets come back to the introductory questions of this chapter.
The fright of the West is that “a Chinese center of gravity that benevolently recognizes the equality of all nations and their sovereign freedom over their internal affairs” will definitely terminate the Western extraction advantage procured by hegemony. No well informed person would contest that statement. But many would question that “a Chinese center of gravity” would “benevolently recognize the equality of all nations and their sovereign freedom”."Are we confronted with a transition from a Western center of gravity, of the economy-world that imposes its hegemony on the rest of the world, to a Chinese center of gravity that benevolently recognizes the equality of all national actors and their sovereign freedom over their internal affairs ? "
What we know, as a matter of fact, is that the Chinese traded with nations far away since the down of their power society on the base of a win win proposition. We also know that their millenary society rarely ventured into outside wars which stands in sharp contrast with Western practice.
Zheng He’s voyages of discovery are an exhibit of China’s behavior with “the other” while Christopher Columbus’ voyages are an exhibit of the Western Western behavior with “the other”. These 2 behaviors are of a different nature.
The Chinese behavior with “other” nations was one of curiosity and gift making with the hope to start a conversation while the Western behavior was one of brutal domination and cultural suppression that often ended in genocide.
I have argued, from an abstract theoretical perspective in “The Continuum of the Societal Cultural Field” and in “Modernity 02”, that the Chinese civilizational axioms are fostering a radically different psychological attitude toward “the other-worldliness of the other” than Western dualism.
In short, over the millennia, the Chinese thinking has accommodated to the idea of complementary polarities and so their first reaction toward “the other” is one of curiosity about his other-worldliness while most Westerners, being accustomed to dualistic opposition, are frightened by “the other-worldliness of the other”.
In their inquisitiveness the Chinese engage a conversation hoping that it will result in some useful knowledge that they could apply in their daily lives. In contrast Westerners view “the other-worldliness of the other” as an evil danger that has to be eradicated though conversion to their own understanding of through death.
This is, I think, the prime contradiction that threatens globalization in the 21st century. If Westerners could let go their fright of “the other-worldliness of the other”, and adopt the same kind of Chinese inquisitiveness, the world would be in a better place to solve the problems related to “the great convergence of Late-Modernity”. But humanity will have to deal with the cards that it has been handed down from history.
The Chinese approach, to a world divided by the Western refusal of the evolution of Modernity, is highly unusual for outsiders of the Chinese worldview. For one its short and medium term objectives are approached in the perspective of the rationality that is at work in the transformation of money into capital while it long term objective of cultural unification is conceived outside of that rationality. But more on that later.
4.1.2. Can the center of gravity of the Economy-World be anything else than hegemonic ?
As indicate here above China’s attitude toward “the other” is radically different from the Western attitude. China’s model of society is nevertheless a “power-society” just as in the West.
China’s power-society nevertheless originated at the end of a different process than the power-societies in the Tri-Continental-Area (TCA) or the Roman empire or later Western European societies. These processes fostered diverging power-societies in the TCA and in East-Asia. Unfortunately the Academy has still not detected these divergent paths and it misses thus, what I argue in “The Continuum of the Cultural Field”, are the radical differences between Eastern and Western civilizations as well as their model of society.
I elaborate extensively in Volume 4, of the collection “From Modernity to After-Modernity” titled “Societal evolution and Societal Governance” that will be published sometime at the end of 2025, on the transition from tribal to power-societies and the impact this transition had on the governance of power societies. In the meantime you can read in “The Continuum of the cultural field” how the contextual settings in East-Asia initiated a different kind of transition than in the TCA.
The underpinnings of psychological attitudes, at work in the continuum of the societal cultural field, are determinant in shaping the attitudes and behaviors of the individuals. These underpinnings are somehow stored in the body and get unconsciously activated at the contact of the daily societal context. Prime among those underpinnings are the axioms that are rooted in the foundations of our civilizations. I give an extensive presentation about the axioms of civilizations in “The Continuum of the cultural field. Part 3”.
In short the axioms of civilizations initiate the thought processes of all citizens in the societies that participate in their realm. These axioms guide the formation of daily culture by synchronizing the perception of the individuals about their daily contextual settings. This synchronization of the present, with the original knowledge of the civilization, is what fosters continuity in the societal field of culture but the individuals are, at all time, unconscious about it.
Another way to understand this continuity, in the societal field of culture, is to observe how axioms generate a logical continuity in the field of mathematics. Axioms in mathematics are the epistemological foundation from which are derived theorems and theories. In other words all theories in mathematics remain at all times consistent with the principles enunciated in the axioms. And the same goes with societal worldviews and the daily cultural thinking and actions that keep at all time logically consistency with the axioms of the civilization.
But in contrast to mathematics, which is a single system of logic relying on one set of axioms, the cultural field, of human societies, relies on the axioms of multiple civilizations. This implies a multiplicity of societal cultural fields evolving in parallel. Each having its own logical system founded in the axioms of its civilization. But because these systems are largely closed to the outside the individuals in each of them believe that their own system represents the truth about the reality of life.
In other words a civilization leaves very little space for the comprehension of the cultural logic of other civilizational systems. And when the axioms, of one of these systems, are grounded in the dualism of its own ideological goodness, that battles “the other-worldliness of the other”, this invites a manifestation of separation from the other systems. And the citizens, of the societies in such a system, are unconsciously thinking they their views and actions represent what is good which implies that all other views and actions are necessarily considered being evil.
To visualize the other-worldliness of thought between the societies participating in the realm of different civilizations let us compare the Chinese civilization and the Western civilization. The following graph compares the resulting psychological attitudes generated by the master axiom of each of these civilizations : — dualism in the Western civilization — polarism in the Chinese civilization.
As a first observation it is important to keep in mind that the thought processes that emanate from the axioms of one’s civilization are not mastered consciously by the individuals in the different societies participating in its realm. These thought processes determine nevertheless, in all certainty, their behaviors and attitudes which are the outcome of the unconscious thought processes that emanate from the civilizational axioms imprinted in their body.
As a European, who by now has been living nearly 35 years in China, I can attest that, while I‘ m clearly conscious of these processes, I’ m often surprised by the subconscious judgments, that percolate in my mind, which I immediately feel in need to erase…
Let us now observe how the behaviors and attitudes of the citizens, in the societies participating in the realm of both the Western and the Chinese civilizations, continuously impact the working of their societies.
As a European, who by now has been living nearly 35 years in China, I can attest that, while I‘ m clearly conscious of these processes, I’ m often surprised by the subconscious judgments, that percolate in my mind, which I immediately feel in need to erase…
Let us now observe how the behaviors and attitudes of the citizens, in the societies participating in the realm of both the Western and the Chinese civilizations, continuously impact the working of their societies.
One could not perceive such differences, in the working of societies, otherwise than being otherworldly. And both Westerners and Chinese view life on the other side as otherworldly indeed. But the fundamental difference between them is that the West is judgmental and rejects the difference of “the other” as being evil and wants thus to convert her or him if necessary by force. In contrast the Chinese are curious about the difference and are eager to apply any useful bits of it in their daily lives which has sometimes earned them the name of sponges…
This behavioral difference is not without consequences for “the other” as the history of Western Modernity has been attesting all along. Having worked, for some 30 years, on the theory that I just sketched here I became convinced that the Animist Traditional Culture, that China preserved under its power society, constitutes the greatest asset of humanity in its necessity to address the great convergence of Late-Modernity.
This behavioral difference is not without consequences for “the other” as the history of Western Modernity has been attesting all along. Having worked, for some 30 years, on the theory that I just sketched here I became convinced that the Animist Traditional Culture, that China preserved under its power society, constitutes the greatest asset of humanity in its necessity to address the great convergence of Late-Modernity.
4.2. the great convergence of side-effects from Western Modernity
The rationality, that is at the heart of the paradigm of Western Modernity, is confronting us with a paradox that reads as the 3 contradictory societal realities of the 21st century. We thought for centuries that Modernity procures unique advantages to mankind but we have learned over the last half a century that it also imposes costs. Only recently have we learned that the price of these costs could possibly be the existence of our species…
4.2.1. Modernity was the most progressive social force in human history
Modernity has been the most productive force in human history as it has supplied cheap goods and services that have answered the objective needs of nearly all the citizens of industrialized countries. This is so true that all countries on earth have willingly submitted to the paradigm of Modernity in order to try to catch up with the Western abundance in material goods.
Modernity, and the enlightenment to rationalism, came to be thought of as something like a societal truth. Some rationalists viewed it even as the absolute truth that terminates all past grand narratives. But now that it appears that Western Modernity has unleashed the 6th mass extinction the supposed absolute truth of rationalism is in tatters.
The rationality at the core of the paradigm of Modernity, that converted the whole world, has blinded most people to newly emerging realities. The production of an abundance of material goods came at the costs of externalities that were justified in the name of economic rationality. But the accumulation of these externalities unleashed a raft of side-effects that started to impact life, the working of societies, and the health of the individuals.
It downed on me a decade ago that these side-effects are numerous and that they are also impacting one another which accelerates the destabilization of existing states of local equilibria that each one of them has initially set in motion. This acceleration often times intersects multiple states of destabilized local equilibria and the destabilization then takes a motion of its own that only stops when a tipping point is reached and a new equilibrium emerges out of the chaos fostered in larger systems.
The emergence of a new state of equilibrium in ensembles is not a problem in itself but it can be a death sentence for the species whose life bandwidth has been reset. Abrupt climate heating, for example, can increase the temperature and humidity outside of the narrow bandwidth of human life in given local settings and as a result people die in these local settings. If temperature and humidity continue to increase these settings expand geographically. And if these increases are not stopped in time the whole earth could potentially become unlivable for humanity.
The process I just described concerns solely climate change which is one side-effect of human externalities. But multiple side-effects have already been put in motion and they have started to converge lately. The fact is that the convergence of the side-effects of Modernity could possibly result in the extinction of all life from the face of the earth. Mars someone ?
4.2.2. Modernity was ultimately a destroyer of life
Modernity has already produced vast quantities of externalities that have poisoned the land, the air and the water which are the most precious gifts of nature. This poisoning has forced mayhem on the Geo-Bio-Chemistry of the human habitat as well as the habitat of all other species.
Even if we stopped the poisoning this evening the damages to the Geo-Bio-Chemistry of the human habitat would continue to increase for months if not for years or decades because the side-effects of poisoning are not instantaneous they are processes that take time to transform the totality of the existing externalities. And there is even worse news. Humanity continues to externalize gigantic quantities of greenhouse gasses and other chemicals with no end in sight…
We now know that this Geo-Bio-Chemistry mayhem has unleashed numerous vicious cycles like climate change, worldwide declining human sperm counts, rising industrial agriculture induced sicknesses, declining bio-diversity, industrial agriculture induced soil erosion, acidification of the oceans, and so on and on…
Each of these vicious cycles has the potential to cause the extinction of the human species. But their convergence is unleashing interactions among them that lead to tipping points when the present state of equilibrium transforms into a new equilibrium from where there is no coming back.
These interactions have already put in motion a worldwide process of mass extinction that is often presented as the 6th mass extinction on earth. The difference with the 5 preceding extinctions resides in the fact that the present process of extinction has been engaged as a consequence of Western Modernity ! In other words it is the Global West that has engaged this 6th mass extinction !
Yes the application, for a short few centuries, of the rationality, that is at the core of the Western paradigm of Modernity, has caused the great convergence that we observe in this Late-Modernity. And this great convergence is well on its way of terminate the existence of many more species that participate in the life-support systems of humanity !"The ongoing sixth mass extinction may be the most serious environmental threat to the persistence of civilization, because it is irreversible. Thousands of populations of critically endangered vertebrate animal species have been lost in a century, indicating that the sixth mass extinction is human caused and accelerating.
The acceleration of the extinction crisis is certain because of the still fast growth in human numbers and consumption rates. In addition, species are links in ecosystems, and, as they fall out, the species they interact with are likely to go also. In the regions where disappearing species are concentrated, regional bio-diversity collapses are likely occurring.
Our results reemphasize the extreme urgency of taking massive global actions to save humanity’s crucial life-support systems." (6)
4.2.3. Modernity atomizes societies
Modernity has also devastated the societal cohesion of all industrialized nations and this has engaged these nations on the road of societal collapse.
Knowing that societies are one of the polarities that animate living species the animist sages, in their wisdom, had understood that societies ease the reproduction of the individuals and also of the species as a whole.
After observing, that the larger societal groups became the higher was their fragility, they integrated societal reproduction as their 2nd knowledge formation mission. Their 1st mission, since specialized (wo)men of knowledge had been designated by small bands, had been to alleviate the suffering of the individuals.
From what remains, of the body of animist knowledge, it appears that these sages viewed societal groups and their individual members as the polarities that animate the life of species. And so they focused on the interactions between the individuals and their societal group to devise a model of governance that harmonized the individual urge for more complexity with the societal drive for conservation. Central to their model of governance was the idea of societal cohesion (7) that rests on the trust between the individuals.
To foster the highest possible trust between the individuals the animist (wo)men of knowledge shared their worldview with their fellow tribesmen through visual signs while using music and dance to let them attain trances that illuminated their minds with the meaning of these visual signs.
For some 100,000 years the sharing of the animist worldview fostered a very high level of tribal cohesion that was never attained again after the collapse of the tribal model of society and the transition to the power model of society.
Power societies initiated a gradual process of individualization, in 5 steps (8), that fostered the ideal context for the emergence of the paradigm of Modernity in the form of “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital” sometime during the 12th century in the land of the Franks in South-Western Europe (9).
The reason expanded gradually the application of its rationality to all fields and by the time of the Enlightenment it had developed into philosophic rationalism which gave rise to the industrial revolution and classical economics. But it was the non-spoken revolution that was led by the biggest Western capital holders, at the turn of the nineteen-seventies, which had the most decisive impact on Western societies.
This non-spoken revolution was the outcome of the spreading of Neo-liberalism and Postmodernism.
- Neoliberalism morphed the paradigm of Modernity into a new iteration of capital formation along the lines of “the gamble that is at work in the transformation of debt into capital” which ensured a boom of Western investments around the world that came to be known as globalization. Simultaneously lawyers and financiers replaced entrepreneurs and engineers on the board of directors of Western corporations while protection institutions got axed from state competencies which henceforth focused solely on the engineering of the citizens’ consent and the exercise of force.
-
Postmodernism argued against grand-narratives while advocating for the individuals to focus on what science does best which is to delve into bits and pieces of reality. Within the span of 2 decades Marxism had dwindled away and Christianity, this bastion of the Western civilization, had lost most of its practitioners.
You don’t need a degree in social sciences to understand that this drove the individuals straight in solitude and that the internet moguls sized upon the resulting loneliness to glue the individuals on their social media platforms where the most daring transformed into web gladiators.
We now know the outcome of the last half a century of social engineering. It is called societal atomization which means that the individuals have gotten separated from one another and from their societies which literally transformed into zombielike entities. Their handling of Covid-19 is proof enough that they no longer have the necessary unity to undertake any large scale project.
And there is no magic wand available that could be capable of engineering an exit from societal atomization. The individual atoms have their own rationality that is not compatible with financial rationality and they have also their own finality which is their individual autonomy. They now also understand that their individual autonomy can’t be attained before the complete collapse of the power-societies that want to drive them back to medieval darkness (10).
4.3. the center of gravity of the economy-world shifts amidst the paradox of Modernity
The paradox of Modernity is the general context in which the shift of the center of gravity of the economy world, that I talked about in part 3, is taking place today. In short Modernity was the peak human progressive force but it generated externalities that atomized Western societies while forcing many side-effects on the earthly habitat of life.
We know by now that Western societies are driven by the continuum of their cultural field which unconsciously forces them to resist, by all means available, the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-word to East-Asia.
Western 3 letter agencies have been programming since many years already the setup of Russia to intervene militarily in Ukraine in order to protect Russian speaking people. Their strategy is to mortally wound that country before the “Global West” addresses China which is the sole competitor that could possibly terminate Western hegemony.
The Russian setup is merely an episode in a wider strategy that is rooted in the “Wolfowitz Doctrine” (11). The strategic episode, relating to the Russian Military Operation in Ukraine, was conceptualized by the Rand Corporation (12), the think tank of the US military-industrial complex, in 2019.
The Straussians who are behind the “Wolfowitz Doctrine” applied the Trotskyist tactical principle of “entrism” to take over the leading positions in the different departments, of the US permanent administration (deep state), that is in charge of all matters pertained to Foreign affairs. But their vision is a tunnel vision that focuses on the prevention of the emergence of any new rivals while failing to capture the systemic breadth of the Geo-political contextual settings.
And so they awoke to the rise of China after the fact while being completely unaware of the internal factors that irrevocably weaken their own country.
The failure to incorporate in their analysis the internal factors, responsible for the state of health of their nation, led the authors of the US strategy to miss the paradox of Modernity that is literally crippling the West in societal atomization. The West has still a the head and will of its power elites but the societal body no longer follows the orders of the power elite !
What is even more paradoxical, than the paradox of Modernity itself, is that Western elites to this very day have not taken note of the state of societal atomization of their nations. Faced with this spectacle outside observers have this nagging feeling of assisting at an ideological spectacle that propagandizes the will of a power elite that has lost its society. Watching from outside one is indeed taken aback by the sheer madness of the Western Geopolitical show.
But this show is in reality not a show. Whatever the surreality of Western pronouncements this is Geopolitics in action.
And it could land us all in a 3rd world war with thousands of nuclear warheads launched at the click of a computer keyboard which is the ultimate paradox, of the paradoxicality, of the paradox of Modernity !
We know by now that Western societies are driven by the continuum of their cultural field which unconsciously forces them to resist, by all means available, the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-word to East-Asia.
Western 3 letter agencies have been programming since many years already the setup of Russia to intervene militarily in Ukraine in order to protect Russian speaking people. Their strategy is to mortally wound that country before the “Global West” addresses China which is the sole competitor that could possibly terminate Western hegemony.
The Russian setup is merely an episode in a wider strategy that is rooted in the “Wolfowitz Doctrine” (11). The strategic episode, relating to the Russian Military Operation in Ukraine, was conceptualized by the Rand Corporation (12), the think tank of the US military-industrial complex, in 2019.
The Straussians who are behind the “Wolfowitz Doctrine” applied the Trotskyist tactical principle of “entrism” to take over the leading positions in the different departments, of the US permanent administration (deep state), that is in charge of all matters pertained to Foreign affairs. But their vision is a tunnel vision that focuses on the prevention of the emergence of any new rivals while failing to capture the systemic breadth of the Geo-political contextual settings.
And so they awoke to the rise of China after the fact while being completely unaware of the internal factors that irrevocably weaken their own country.
The failure to incorporate in their analysis the internal factors, responsible for the state of health of their nation, led the authors of the US strategy to miss the paradox of Modernity that is literally crippling the West in societal atomization. The West has still a the head and will of its power elites but the societal body no longer follows the orders of the power elite !
What is even more paradoxical, than the paradox of Modernity itself, is that Western elites to this very day have not taken note of the state of societal atomization of their nations. Faced with this spectacle outside observers have this nagging feeling of assisting at an ideological spectacle that propagandizes the will of a power elite that has lost its society. Watching from outside one is indeed taken aback by the sheer madness of the Western Geopolitical show.
But this show is in reality not a show. Whatever the surreality of Western pronouncements this is Geopolitics in action.
And it could land us all in a 3rd world war with thousands of nuclear warheads launched at the click of a computer keyboard which is the ultimate paradox, of the paradoxicality, of the paradox of Modernity !
4.4. About the outcome of this great convergence
The 8th shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world takes place amidst Western Geopolitical spite. But the minds of the citizens can no longer take this non-sense and confusion reigns thus supreme.
Those of us dispassionate enough to look from afar at this sad spectacle, while juggling with the pieces of the puzzle, are observing the following :
As I have written earlier Western societies have literally been paralyzed by their societal atomization. Their power elites are shouting insanities, at each other from the top of their lungs, while their citizens are motionlessly waiting for something drastic to happen.
These societies are rudderless but, while their ambient madness is destabilizing the social normality, they no longer have the necessary cohesion to act as united entities that could undertake any large project like a national re-industrialization or, for that matter, a world war.
Going forward the only thing to expect, from Western countries, is more shouting and propaganda but no meaningful action. This implies a slow disintegration of their institutions and the abandonment of their citizens to themselves. And when chaos finally renders life unbearable within their borders big capital holders, and their servants, will rush to more accommodating horizons…
What happens inside China during the next 10 years will determine the kind of path that awaits humanity.
One could think that due to the present Western numbness the path of the Global South is secure. But this would be shortsighted for the good reason that what happens inside China will determine if the Global South has the economic and military might to counter what remains of Western hegemony. If China failed the dream of the Global South would evaporate at once !
What happens in China depends on its governance system. But the preceding 40 years of success are no guarantee that the system will be successful over the coming decades. The policies of the past have reached a dead-end and the power-elite concluded, around 2010, that it needs to engage in a necessary reshuffling of the system that entails the tweaking of the rationality of Western Modernity which had reigned over the last 40 years.
The ruling elite is engaging presently in a cycle of tempering the rationality of modernity and, now that the cycle is engaged, it it will take a few years before the people can be sure if the path is worth it or if a correction is needed.
For those who know something about the historical Chinese cultural context there is no doubt that the people will be the last instance decider. What we can say with certainty at this point is that the popular mood has suddenly turned critical of the ruling elite. People are starting to voice their impatience with the immobilization of the country by its Zero-Covid policies. So the first hurdle for the power elite will be to mollify the people’s perceptions by reconciling their Covid approach with the traditional normality of people’s daily lives.
The new governing team will enter in service by the spring of 2023 and some clarity is expected about the orientation of its policies by mid of next year.
In the present context of Western protectionism, and its active blockading of the economic champions from “the other camp’”, China is entirely justified to engage in the building of a “whole national network of industrial chains” to satisfy its very large internal market.
Such an undertaking is a colossal enterprise for sure and it will necessitate the continuous investment of high volumes of capital during at least the next two decades. But the rewards of such a “whole national network” will be the stability of China’s internal circulation whatever might be happening in the rest of the world.
State enterprises are best placed to play the leading role in setting up a “whole national network of industrial chains” but their management is known to have no patience for out of the box creativity. This is where the activity of small and medium size enterprises could play a very useful complementary role as subcontractors of state enterprises to design and produce parts and limited assemblies.
But to be successful the designation, by state enterprises of their subcontractors, can not be left in the hands of state managers. Subcontracting jobs needs to attract the competition by small and medium size enterprises for projects and the selection, of the best proposals, needs to be corruption free which means that the attribution must be operated as an open process.
By focusing on the complementarity of state and small to medium enterprises the country would without any doubt gain a tremendous boost in dynamism and in creativity. Biological evolution and the complementarity of the polarities of species could bring some useful inspiration to state decision-makers in re-designing the entire offer side of the economy.
What if, for example, state and small to medium size enterprises were viewed as the polarities of the country’s offer of goods and services ? State enterprises could be playing the part that society plays in the dance between the polarities of species, that is illustrated in “the first principles of life”12, while the role of the individuals could be played by small to medium size enterprises. We would then assist at the constant confrontation between the ‘yin conservatism’ of state enterprises and the ‘yang search for novelty’ (more complexity) by small to medium enterprises.
In this vision tempering the rationality of Western Modernity means the integration of the paradigm of Modernity inside a wider framework which is rooted in “the First Principles of Life” as is already encoded in the Traditional Chinese Culture as the Yin-Yang principle that activates the Dao.
China’s economic rise and the concomitant economic fall of the West, have opened a window of opportunity to the Global South that has breathed a dream in the minds of 85% of the world population about a multilateral world order, sovereign freedom, and equality among nations.
But as I indicate here above in the unlikely, but nevertheless always possible, failure by China to deliver a workable “Chinese Modernity” the dream of the Global South would evaporate at once.
Over the span of its two last administrations the US has demonstrated for all to see its rash and brutal national character. But that country’s societal decay has spared the rest of the world the brunt of its rage.
The failure by China to deliver a “Chinese Modernity”, that is adequate to satisfy the rest of the world, would be an opportunity that a crippled West will certainly not miss to re-instate the hegemony of its own Modernity.
Those of us who are dispassionate observe two possible scenarios in the near future of humanity. By near future I mean before the Geo-Bio-Chemistry, of the sub-ensemble earth, imposes a new equilibrium…
The most probable scenario is the one I just laid out here above. It is the successful stabilization of a “Chinese Modernity” sometimes during the 2030s that would be accompanied by the full sovereignty of all nations to act freely within their borders. And so for the first time since the “European voyages of great discovery” all nations would possibly re-discover their full sovereignty, freedom, and equality without risking to suffer the aggression of the West But in the unlikely scenario of an unsuccessful stabilization, of a “Chinese Modernity”, humanity would be suffering the loss of its multilateralist dream that would most probably be accompanied by a vengeful re-instatement of Western hegemony !
This vision of the near future (10-15 years) offers some hope that humanity will come back to its senses and that it will be able to take the right decisions to answer the uncertainties of the longer term re-balancing of the Geo-Bio-Chemistry of the sub-ensemble earth.
In the meantime our best bet will be to focus on the formation of our daily societal cultures :
These are the subjects of Part 5.
Those of us dispassionate enough to look from afar at this sad spectacle, while juggling with the pieces of the puzzle, are observing the following :
4.4.1. The West is utterly numb to its societal reality
As I have written earlier Western societies have literally been paralyzed by their societal atomization. Their power elites are shouting insanities, at each other from the top of their lungs, while their citizens are motionlessly waiting for something drastic to happen.
These societies are rudderless but, while their ambient madness is destabilizing the social normality, they no longer have the necessary cohesion to act as united entities that could undertake any large project like a national re-industrialization or, for that matter, a world war.
Going forward the only thing to expect, from Western countries, is more shouting and propaganda but no meaningful action. This implies a slow disintegration of their institutions and the abandonment of their citizens to themselves. And when chaos finally renders life unbearable within their borders big capital holders, and their servants, will rush to more accommodating horizons…
4.4.2. China is implementing a course correction
What happens inside China during the next 10 years will determine the kind of path that awaits humanity.
One could think that due to the present Western numbness the path of the Global South is secure. But this would be shortsighted for the good reason that what happens inside China will determine if the Global South has the economic and military might to counter what remains of Western hegemony. If China failed the dream of the Global South would evaporate at once !
What happens in China depends on its governance system. But the preceding 40 years of success are no guarantee that the system will be successful over the coming decades. The policies of the past have reached a dead-end and the power-elite concluded, around 2010, that it needs to engage in a necessary reshuffling of the system that entails the tweaking of the rationality of Western Modernity which had reigned over the last 40 years.
The ruling elite is engaging presently in a cycle of tempering the rationality of modernity and, now that the cycle is engaged, it it will take a few years before the people can be sure if the path is worth it or if a correction is needed.
For those who know something about the historical Chinese cultural context there is no doubt that the people will be the last instance decider. What we can say with certainty at this point is that the popular mood has suddenly turned critical of the ruling elite. People are starting to voice their impatience with the immobilization of the country by its Zero-Covid policies. So the first hurdle for the power elite will be to mollify the people’s perceptions by reconciling their Covid approach with the traditional normality of people’s daily lives.
The new governing team will enter in service by the spring of 2023 and some clarity is expected about the orientation of its policies by mid of next year.
4.4.2.1. From my personal perspective tempering with the rationality of Western Modernity is a necessity for multiple reasons :
-
Inequality levels have skyrocketed over the last few years but, more importantly even, the recent Covid testing policy has been privatized and people have been appalled by the astronomical profits made by the testing companies and the high levels of corruption that accompanied their activities.
This implies that a strengthening of the state’s income re-distribution policies is necessary to put a ceiling to the levels of social inequality and when this is attained to gradually reduce them. But I would venture to add that the late incidents, relating to the income of testing companies and the call of some of them to be listed on the stock exchange, will boost popular demands for the exclusion of private interests from the medical practice and from the production of pharmaceuticals.
This could be the opportune time for the state to legislate what sectors of the economy have to remain the prerogative of the public sector while fixing the monopolistic limits of private enterprises as well as the modalities of the state’s handling of monopolies. -
The rapid growth of some private companies have, in every case, been made possible solely by the infusion of public money or capital. But management excesses have been so rampant dedicating capital to the narcissistic satisfaction of personal impulses that it seems more than appropriate to strengthen the supervision by both — the lending institutions — and the capital investors.
The recent large number of bankruptcies and insolvencies have left many financial institutions and private investors with large holes in their accountancy. This should be an opportune time to legislate the necessity of a smart supervision by financial institutions and private investors of the use of capital and loans. -
The Zero-Covid policy also demonstrated that small and medium size businesses, like — restaurants — stores —and many other activities, also need to be better protected from the interference of local bureaucrats.
Small and medium size businesses need first and foremost stability to generate a sufficient income to let their owners and workers survive. It should be public policy that small and medium size businesses are entitled a continued normality even in extraordinary times. -
It is a generally recognized fact that the mercantile and entrepreneurial drive of the Chinese people is imprinted in their bones and that, for this reason, they are willing to go the last mile including by trespassing moral, legal, and other limits.
This is without any doubt one of the biggest assets of the country. Small to medium size enterprises should be made the economic priority of state institutions in order to liberate the people’s entrepreneurial energies which could unleash the creativity of engineers, artists, and all the working people.
A successful program for small and medium size enterprises would necessarily entail an new iteration of the original paradigm of Western Modernity under “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital”. Successfully applied this new iteration of the old paradigm could then be expanded to the whole economy which would definitively free the country from the chains of financialization and the economic paralysis generated by parasite rentiers.
4.4.2.2. A national network of industrial chains
In the present context of Western protectionism, and its active blockading of the economic champions from “the other camp’”, China is entirely justified to engage in the building of a “whole national network of industrial chains” to satisfy its very large internal market.
Such an undertaking is a colossal enterprise for sure and it will necessitate the continuous investment of high volumes of capital during at least the next two decades. But the rewards of such a “whole national network” will be the stability of China’s internal circulation whatever might be happening in the rest of the world.
State enterprises are best placed to play the leading role in setting up a “whole national network of industrial chains” but their management is known to have no patience for out of the box creativity. This is where the activity of small and medium size enterprises could play a very useful complementary role as subcontractors of state enterprises to design and produce parts and limited assemblies.
But to be successful the designation, by state enterprises of their subcontractors, can not be left in the hands of state managers. Subcontracting jobs needs to attract the competition by small and medium size enterprises for projects and the selection, of the best proposals, needs to be corruption free which means that the attribution must be operated as an open process.
By focusing on the complementarity of state and small to medium enterprises the country would without any doubt gain a tremendous boost in dynamism and in creativity. Biological evolution and the complementarity of the polarities of species could bring some useful inspiration to state decision-makers in re-designing the entire offer side of the economy.
What if, for example, state and small to medium size enterprises were viewed as the polarities of the country’s offer of goods and services ? State enterprises could be playing the part that society plays in the dance between the polarities of species, that is illustrated in “the first principles of life”12, while the role of the individuals could be played by small to medium size enterprises. We would then assist at the constant confrontation between the ‘yin conservatism’ of state enterprises and the ‘yang search for novelty’ (more complexity) by small to medium enterprises.
In this vision tempering the rationality of Western Modernity means the integration of the paradigm of Modernity inside a wider framework which is rooted in “the First Principles of Life” as is already encoded in the Traditional Chinese Culture as the Yin-Yang principle that activates the Dao.
4.4.3. The Global South has high hopes to follow a savior
China’s economic rise and the concomitant economic fall of the West, have opened a window of opportunity to the Global South that has breathed a dream in the minds of 85% of the world population about a multilateral world order, sovereign freedom, and equality among nations.
But as I indicate here above in the unlikely, but nevertheless always possible, failure by China to deliver a workable “Chinese Modernity” the dream of the Global South would evaporate at once.
Over the span of its two last administrations the US has demonstrated for all to see its rash and brutal national character. But that country’s societal decay has spared the rest of the world the brunt of its rage.
The failure by China to deliver a “Chinese Modernity”, that is adequate to satisfy the rest of the world, would be an opportunity that a crippled West will certainly not miss to re-instate the hegemony of its own Modernity.
Those of us who are dispassionate observe two possible scenarios in the near future of humanity. By near future I mean before the Geo-Bio-Chemistry, of the sub-ensemble earth, imposes a new equilibrium…
The most probable scenario is the one I just laid out here above. It is the successful stabilization of a “Chinese Modernity” sometimes during the 2030s that would be accompanied by the full sovereignty of all nations to act freely within their borders. And so for the first time since the “European voyages of great discovery” all nations would possibly re-discover their full sovereignty, freedom, and equality without risking to suffer the aggression of the West But in the unlikely scenario of an unsuccessful stabilization, of a “Chinese Modernity”, humanity would be suffering the loss of its multilateralist dream that would most probably be accompanied by a vengeful re-instatement of Western hegemony !
This vision of the near future (10-15 years) offers some hope that humanity will come back to its senses and that it will be able to take the right decisions to answer the uncertainties of the longer term re-balancing of the Geo-Bio-Chemistry of the sub-ensemble earth.
In the meantime our best bet will be to focus on the formation of our daily societal cultures :
- Humanity needs a new societal paradigm that addresses the impact of its activities on the Geo-Bio-Chemistry of the sub-ensemble earth
- Humanity also needs to synchronize its societal worldviews with “the First Principles of Life” so that the individuals can possibly adapt mentally to the painful answers that will be necessary to tame the societal destabilization that is inevitably coming their way
These are the subjects of Part 5.
Notes
1. See “Modernity 02. Part 1 Late-Modernity. 1.3. Financialization of everything”
2. The recent recriminations, about the Zero-covid policy, are linked to popular dismay for the corruption in the implementation of the testing that set in sometime in February 2022 after a new iteration of health-pass was decided that demanded a 48 hour negative test to enter all public spaces. The implementation of that policy gave the 1250 private companies administering the tests a guaranteed income stream that they abused and over abused in cohort with local officials who locked in whole cities after one positive case was detected. Many people accuse the testing companies to have falsely declared positive cases in order to generate cycles of high testing.
Chinese social media is replete with stories about the exorbitant profits of private testing companies which, in many cases, have been created with foreign capital thus a growing suspicion of foreign meddling to instigate chaos…
The present recriminations are thus not related to the termination of the Zero-covid policy as is related in Western media. Chinese citizens are extremely proud of their country’s successful political handling of the virus. Their recriminations point at the complete corruption of the system of testing and their demands are about a clean-up of the system with sanctions for the higher-ups who are responsible for this corruption. Many social media posts are also questioning if foreign capital is not the instigator of this generalized corruption and they have adopted the slogan : “the pandemic will not end before the corruption is stopped”.
3. See “Modernity 02. Part 2. Great Convergence of late-Modernity”.
4. “Apocalypse Nowish. The sense of an ending”, Harpers Magazine 2022-12, by Michael Robbins.
5. Fernand Braudel. See “Modernity 01. 2.1.1.2. Early-Modernity predates the reformation”. Check note 215 on page 243.
6. "Vertebrates on the brink as indicators of biological annihilation and the sixth mass extinction", PNAS vol. 117 | no. 24 | June 16, 2020, by Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R.
Ehrlich and Peter H. Raven.
7. I give a summary of the animist governance vision in "The Continuum of the Societal cultural Field. 1.1. The First Principles of Life”. For a historical presentation about the emergence, the development, the fall of the tribal model of society and the transition to the model of Power-societies check “Synthesis. Part 1. Part 2”.
8. See “Modernity 01. 1.3.1. Western individualism got built up in 5 steps”.
9. See ”Modernity 01. Part 1. Pre-Modernity or the context of Modernity's emergence”
10. I develop the content of this paragraph in an entire chapter of Volume 3 “Societal knowledge formation” that will be published sometime at the end of 2023.
11. At the end of the administration, of George H. Bush, Paul Wolfowitz ranked 3rd in the Defense Department and he wrote, what came to be known as, the “Wolfowitzdoctrine” based on the idea that, after the fall of the USSR, the United States had to prevent the emergence of any new rivals. This document continues to be the template for the U.S Foreign Policy to this day.
12. "Overextending and Unbalancing Russia. Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options", Rand Corporation - Research Briefs 2019, by James Dobbins, Raphael S. Cohen, Nathan Chandler, Bryan Frederick, Edward Geist, Paul DeLuca, Forrest E. Morgan, Howard J. Shatz, Brent Williams.
2. The recent recriminations, about the Zero-covid policy, are linked to popular dismay for the corruption in the implementation of the testing that set in sometime in February 2022 after a new iteration of health-pass was decided that demanded a 48 hour negative test to enter all public spaces. The implementation of that policy gave the 1250 private companies administering the tests a guaranteed income stream that they abused and over abused in cohort with local officials who locked in whole cities after one positive case was detected. Many people accuse the testing companies to have falsely declared positive cases in order to generate cycles of high testing.
Chinese social media is replete with stories about the exorbitant profits of private testing companies which, in many cases, have been created with foreign capital thus a growing suspicion of foreign meddling to instigate chaos…
The present recriminations are thus not related to the termination of the Zero-covid policy as is related in Western media. Chinese citizens are extremely proud of their country’s successful political handling of the virus. Their recriminations point at the complete corruption of the system of testing and their demands are about a clean-up of the system with sanctions for the higher-ups who are responsible for this corruption. Many social media posts are also questioning if foreign capital is not the instigator of this generalized corruption and they have adopted the slogan : “the pandemic will not end before the corruption is stopped”.
3. See “Modernity 02. Part 2. Great Convergence of late-Modernity”.
4. “Apocalypse Nowish. The sense of an ending”, Harpers Magazine 2022-12, by Michael Robbins.
5. Fernand Braudel. See “Modernity 01. 2.1.1.2. Early-Modernity predates the reformation”. Check note 215 on page 243.
6. "Vertebrates on the brink as indicators of biological annihilation and the sixth mass extinction", PNAS vol. 117 | no. 24 | June 16, 2020, by Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R.
Ehrlich and Peter H. Raven.
7. I give a summary of the animist governance vision in "The Continuum of the Societal cultural Field. 1.1. The First Principles of Life”. For a historical presentation about the emergence, the development, the fall of the tribal model of society and the transition to the model of Power-societies check “Synthesis. Part 1. Part 2”.
8. See “Modernity 01. 1.3.1. Western individualism got built up in 5 steps”.
9. See ”Modernity 01. Part 1. Pre-Modernity or the context of Modernity's emergence”
10. I develop the content of this paragraph in an entire chapter of Volume 3 “Societal knowledge formation” that will be published sometime at the end of 2023.
11. At the end of the administration, of George H. Bush, Paul Wolfowitz ranked 3rd in the Defense Department and he wrote, what came to be known as, the “Wolfowitzdoctrine” based on the idea that, after the fall of the USSR, the United States had to prevent the emergence of any new rivals. This document continues to be the template for the U.S Foreign Policy to this day.
12. "Overextending and Unbalancing Russia. Assessing the Impact of Cost-Imposing Options", Rand Corporation - Research Briefs 2019, by James Dobbins, Raphael S. Cohen, Nathan Chandler, Bryan Frederick, Edward Geist, Paul DeLuca, Forrest E. Morgan, Howard J. Shatz, Brent Williams.
No comments:
Post a Comment