Societal paradigms and societal knowledge formation

 The following quote was copy-pasted from page 185 and following of "Knowledge Formation. 2.4. paradigms and societal knowledge formation".

This 1,150 page book will be available on my website this 27th of August.

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In “The Continuum of the Cultural Field” I examined how societal paradigms are fixing the ontology of knowledge and culture :

1. The paradigm of tribal societies, and animism, was pragmatism or the focus on the ability to minimize the suffering of the individuals. The well-being of the individual was thus at the core of the paradigm of tribal societies.


2. The paradigm of power-societies, and religions, is belief in a religious narrative which was instrumental to the reproduction of power institutions. The justification of power and its reproduction in the hands of the men of power is at the core of the paradigm of power-societies.


3. The paradigm of Modernity is “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”. This reason is the essence of capital which is at the core of rationalism and science.


4. The predicament of humanity that results from “the Great Convergence of Late-Modernity” is now forcing humanity to adopt a new narrative rooted in “the First Principles of Life”. (1)

As established in part 1 the truth about the reality of the whole Universe, in which we are such tiny particles, is not directly accessible to Homo-Sapiens. This is constraining the large majority, of individuals of the species, to situate themselves in the perspective that is given by the cultural field of their society. In other words the near totality of humans are followers of the societal status quo.

And this applies also, in this Late-Modernity, to the advocates of scientism who posit that science will solve any problem that the species may encounter. In their case they blindly follow the paradigm of Modernity without having the slightest idea that this paradigm exists at all which illustrates the point about “followers of the societal status quo”.

The fact is that we all live in the continuum of the cultural field of the society we live in. Even the members, of the managing technocracy, who are at the service of the dwindling Western hegemony and who live much of their time hopping from one country to the next, think, behave, and act according to the credo of their employers which is part of the continuum of the cultural field of their society.

1. A historical approach

Our ancestors, who most of us Moderns view as primitives, survived the very harsh and unstable climate conditions of recurring cyclical cycles of glaciation that were interrupted approximately every 100,000 years by an abrupt climate warming that created the conditions for inter-glacial periods of some 10 to 15,000 years.

They survived because they conscientiously adhered to the laws of nature and to the rules of biology that governed their bodies. Once biological evolution had completed, sometime 300,000 years ago, the addition of a new layer to their brains, in the form of a Neo-cortex, they gained the capability to induce abstractions from their observations. This eventually allowed them to start a process of knowledge formation sometime 130,000 years ago or perhaps even earlier.

What is important to remember for us moderns is that, for our ancestors, knowledge had to have pragmatic uses. Knowledge that did not have such pragmatic uses was considered superfluous and discarded. The emergence of power societies in the Tri-Continental-Area, some 120,000 years later, ruptured with this pragmatism.

In a first phase, that started some 5,000 years ago with cities, kingdoms and Early-Empires, knowledge was made to serve the men of power and the men of knowledge. And its nature eventually morphed into an instrument to consolidate and manage power institutions that took the form of religions and empires. This is when written language emerged and the first registrations methods acted the inbound and outbound taxes and food resources.

In a second phase, starting some 900 years ago, knowledge was made to serve Western European long distance merchants and so emerged the paradigm of Modernity which is “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”.

In both, of its power-society phases, knowledge got separated from its holistic nature and got instrumentalized to serve special interests.

Because the consolidation of power institutions in East-Asia got realized, by the animist (wo)men of knowledge, the pragmatism of knowledge survived in what is called the “Chinese Traditional Culture” and its scholastic of the Dao that imposed a governance in the interests of the people which resulted in high levels of societal cohesion that eased the reproduction of the societal institutions of power. And when the corruption of pragmatism by special interests destabilized the people’s production of their daily lives they changed the dynasty…

1.1. The following factors are at work in the continuum of the cultural field of the societies sharing Western Late-Modernity

1. The paradigm of belief, in a religious narrative, had posited that it is the repository of all truth.

   The justification of the privileges of power initiated social inequality. By this Late-Modernity the narrative has largely disappeared but its justification of the privileges of power and the resulting social inequality remain stuck in the minds…

2. Atomization of Western societies.

   The master axiom of, the Western civilization, is dualism. The Christian worldview, or its remnants that have been absorbed by the morality and legal systems of Western power-societies, are shared by the population at large. In this Western-Late-Modernity the individuals lost their societal worldview and this separated them from all aspects of their societies and also from one another which resulted in the atomization of Western societies meaning that these societies are no longer unified entities that can undertake any large scale national projects successfully.

3. The paradigm of Modernity reads as “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”

4. The “reason” extended into philosophic rationalism, science, economism and the liberal ideology that propagandizes those.

In the rest of the world these factors got modulated societally by their original paradigm, the foundational worldview the civilization, and the particularities of these societies’ conversion to Western Modernity.

 

1.2. In the case of China this modulation entails the following factors

1. The paradigm of pragmatism eases the reproduction of the species

   This paradigm focuses on the alleviation of individual suffering which puts the satisfaction of the people at the center of the preoccupation of governance. Pragmatism satisfies the individuals while strengthening the cohesion of society thus easing its reproduction as well as that of the species.

2. The master axiom, of the foundational worldview of the Chinese civilization, was animism

   The master axiom is given, by the complementary polarities of all entities and their derivatives. It is shared by the population at large and pervades the “Chinese Traditional Culture” in all fields of daily life.

3. The conversion to the paradigm of Modernity in 1978 was intended to save the Chinese nation from the coming onslaught of a Western globalization.

   The Chinese leadership under Deng Xiao Ping had become aware that Western big capital holders were expanding the reach of the investments to the whole world and feared that the survival of the Chinese nation would be at stake. So, in order to save its existence from the globalization of the reach of Western capital, they decided to rapidly build up the power of their country by opening the country while reforming its internal approach of the economy.

4. By 2010 the country had reached the necessary power to defend itself and it embarked on two parallel tracks

   — The elimination of all the fat that accompanied the conversion to the paradigm of Modernity.
   
   — The focus on a return to the roots of the “Chinese Traditional Culture”.
   
   Both these tasks were intended to shift the country from its adherence to Western-Modernity to a Chinese-Modernity that is intended to rejuvenate the Chinese nation. The contrast with Western Modernity, was furthermore thought, to inspire the liberation of the global South from the shackles of Western hegemony which is the condition for its true indigenous development.

This notion of a shift from Western-Modernity, to a Chinese-Modernity, needs a deep dive in the essence of the last iteration of the paradigm of Western Modernity which reads as “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money, debt or nature, into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”. I plan on doing this in “Part 8. The urgent necessity to adapt humanity’s ways to The reason that is at work in the first Principles of Life”.

 

2. An ontological approach

The word “ontology” is used with different senses in different communities. The most radical difference is perhaps between the philosophical sense, which has of course a well-established tradition, and the computational sense… Unlike the experimental sciences, which aim at discovering and modeling reality under a certain perspective, Ontology focuses on the nature and structure of things per se, independently of any further considerations, and even independently of their actual existence. (2)

I use the word “societal ontology” in its traditional philosophical sense of the roots and the nature of reality for us humans, that was in application in the 4 successive phases of societal evolution : — small bands — tribal/animism, — power-religious or philosophy narrative, — power-Modernity. A “societal ontology” is rooted in a societal paradigm that over time develops into a body of knowledge having its own coherence and rationality.

A societal paradigm is a big picture view that emerges, in conditions of chaos, as a better solution for the working of some societal activities, than the traditional paradigm, that gradually expands to other societal aspects. Thomas Kuhn writes the following about the emergence of a new scientific paradigm.

“Almost always the men who achieve these fundamental inventions of a new paradigm have been either very young or very new to the field whose paradigm they change. And perhaps that point need not have been made explicit, for obviously these are the men who, being little committed by prior practice to the traditional rules of normal science, are particularly likely to see that those rules no longer define a playable game and to conceive another set that can replace them.” (3)

This idea that the initiators of new scientific paradigms are those who are “being little committed by prior practice to the traditional rules” is certainly worth our attention and seems to find confirmation in the sheer lack of imagination of present Western decision-making circles. This means ultimately that, in the chaos of this Late-Modernity, a new societal paradigm will most probably emerge on the fringe of societies where individuals and groups experiment new approaches of daily life and of societal organization.

But we should remain conscious about the fact that the new paradigm of After-Modernity will most probably emerge by necessity at the juncture of — a worldwide institutional break-down that forces an existential leap in the unknown — and the great convergence of the numerous side-effects of Western-Modernity that are unleashing a mass extinction of life on earth.

 

Notes

1.   "The Great Turning. 10.1. The reason for being"

2.  "What Is an Ontology?", article published by ResearchGate from the book “Handbook on Ontologies” (pp.1-17), by Nicola Guarino, Daniel Oberle, and Steffen Staab. May 2009

3.  “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, University of Chicago Press, by Thomas Kuhn.