Daily reality and the news about it. Part 3.

Part 3. The Western Enlightenment, concealed the traditional model of knowledge formation

Traditional animist knowledge formation emerged most probably sometime in the millennia preceding the Eamian Interglacial, that lasted from 130,000 to 115,000 years ago. And during the Eamian itself that form of knowledge formation was boosted by the necessity to adapt to an abrupt climate warming. This adaptation initiated the transition to the archetypal model of tribal societies, which launched the process of societal evolution in parallel with the process of biological evolution.

An abrupt climate heating, some 11,700 years ago, at the tail-end of the Younger-Dryas destabilized the tribal model of society in the Tri-Continental-Area. This initiated a transition to a new archetypal model of society capable of handling larger populations.

After re-discovering “the virtue of belonging” the men of power associated with men of knowledge having a large following. This enabled the reproduction, some 5,000 years ago, of the institutions of the new archetypal model of power-societies that, in the TCA (Tri-Continental-Area = Middle East), rested on a paradigm that reads as “the assembly of citizens by force and their sharing a common religious societal worldview to ease the reproduction of their societal institutions”.

This path of societal evolution in the TCA was later adopted by the Roman empire and by Western European nations. In the territory of present-day China extremely large alluvial plains allowed for a continuous territorial expansion of the “Tribal Cultural Confederations” which resulted in a different path that did not cause a rupture with the paradigm of animism while imperceptibly shifting the societal paradigm of East-Asia to a power archetypal model. And so the Chinese societal paradigm reads as “the spontaneous assembly of citizens, around pragmatism in daily life, alleviates their anxiety and suffering while easing the reproduction of their societies”.

The assembly of early-power-societies by force, in the TCA and later in Western Europe, resulted in the differentiation of the individuals between “men of power” and the population which fostered the emergence of social inequality. And once their citizens got accustomed to share the religious narratives of their societies they differentiated among themselves and with the men of power / men of knowledge.

After the fall of the Roman Empire, Western Christianity lost its base of followers in North Africa, Southeastern Europe and much of Italy, and so it quickly felt the strategic need to recompose a broad base of followers. After helping to bring down the Roman Empire, the Franks quickly unified Gaul, making them the most dynamic force in Western Europe. Expanding the audience of Western Christianity through the conversion of the Franks was therefore a resounding success that shaped the nature of Western Christianity for centuries to come.

The crusades later initiated the yearning of the Frankish aristocracy for long distance commerce. The sudden long haul commercial endeavor by Frank local and regional merchants confronted them with unknown risks that illuminated their minds to the paradigm of Modernity. This paradigm co-existed, for centuries, with the religious paradigm of Western Christianity and the modalities of this coexistence have definitely been the determinant parameter in assuring the popular expansion of the societal rationality of Modernity.

Later the enlightenment consecrated this societal rationality by uniting the 3 Western power estates in controlling the outcome of the political (r)evolution that gave access to the capital holders, representing the new social class of burghers (bourgeois in French), in the institutions of public decision-making. It was the sharing of the rationality of Modernity that unified the 3 Western power estates which fostered a most propitious level playing field for the emergence of the industrial revolution and for the emergence of market imperialism. The process of the industrial revolution necessitated huge investments, in technology and in factory equipment, that were covered for a great deal by forced sales in the South.

British industrialization started with mass produced cotton goods like socks. The population of Britain in 1800 was merely 10,481,401 while the population of India was more than 250,000,000 (Maratha Confederacy ~208,250,000 + British East India Company ~ 30,765,640) (1). Would British capital holders have been able to generate sufficient profits, from their cotton sales in Britain, to sustain the investments that were necessary to invest in the whole production chain that was necessary to produce socks and other cotton goods ? The answer is evident.

The sales of cheaper British industrially mass produced cotton goods destroyed the Indian cotton cottage spinning and weaving which forced the country to sell its raw cotton to Britain while buying its finished products. A good chunk of the profits that got invested in Britain’s industrial revolution came from the forced supply of raw cotton by India and from its forced buying of British finished cotton products. And another big chunk of these investments originated from the profits generated by the forced purchase of opium by the Chinese !

Early-Western modernity, also known as commercial capitalism, had quickly turned into a debauched plundering of the rest of the world, that resulted in a global holocaust. Many civilizations were violently destroyed, many societies were shattered and individuals were killed by the hundreds of millions. The Enlightenment was one of the determinant factors in the generation of High-Western-Modernity, also known as industrial capitalism, the industrial revolution and its corollary mass market imperialism, that gave rise to nearly 300 years of unhinged resource extraction from Non-Western-nations in order to satisfy a Western consumerist debauchery.

Non-Western nations are not ready to forget the barbarity of Western totalitarian behaviors that left them suffer for centuries. But China's rise to economic prominence is suddenly suggesting that "There Is Definitely An Alternative" (TIDAA) to this suffering after all. Unfortunately the promise of consumerism, which the end of Western market imperialism suggests in the minds of non-Western citizens, is obscured by "the great convergence of the many side-effects of Western modernity".

The hope of non-Western-citizens, in the promise of consumerism, will most probably be shattered by Western moral imperatives of sobriety in the face of the natural cataclysm that “the Great Convergence” is unleashing on the earth. But this cataclysm is of the sole responsibility of the West which imposed the rationality of Western-Modernity to all human activities in the first place. And in light of this the imperative of sobriety, that the West is invoking, should primarily be sustained by the West itself until non-Western-citizens attain some decent level of economic development !

But in light of the Western exceptionalism and its consequences, that I tried to describe in part 2 of this series, the complexity of the present moment will be used by an unscrupulous imperial West to shatter the hope of non-Western-citizens of finally having access to, what their windows on the world have been presenting for years to them as, the goodies of Western-Modernity. The easiest and well-known way for the West, to shatter the dreams of non-Western-peoples, has always been to conceal the reality of the present moment under a thick fog of media noise that pits them against one another.

In light of the servile propagation, of the voice of the men of power by the mainstream media, it is the responsibility of the non-mainstream media commentariat to paint as realistic a picture as possible of the present moment. But instead it is participating in blurring the lines of the sketch ! I’m not a reporter but reading the exaggerations of the non-mainstream media commentariat draws me to share a more holistic picture of the present moment.

My series about “the transition of Western-Modernity to After-Modernity” is focusing on a holistic picture. I understand that very few people will ever take the time to go through its thousands of pages. My intention with the present series of 5 articles is to sketch the contours of the context out of which emerges the present moment. And once the articles are terminated I’ll rework them in some hundred book pages that I’ll upload as a PDF.

In the following 3 chapters I propose to illustrate how the concealment, by the Western Enlightenment, of the traditional animist knowledge formation, is constantly blurring the reality of the present moment under a thick fog of media noise.

3.1. Knowledge paradigms : holism versus atomism

3.2. Societal paradigms : pragmatism versus religious belief

3.3. The success of the rationality of Modernity eclipsed the animist knowledge formation

 

3.1. Knowledge paradigms :
holism versus atomism

All systems of logic start with a paradigm that is derived from the peoples’ synchronization of their perceptions about their present contextual settings with their historical worldview.

By “peoples’ synchronization of their perceptions about their present contextual settings” I mean their conscious and unconscious perception about all factors that affect their present habitat. And by, “historical worldview”, I mean the shared vision, of all citizens in a given society, about the world. What I mean thus by “the synchronization of peoples’ perceptions about their present contextual settings with their historical worldview” is that peoples’ vision of the world inevitably shape their perceptions about their present contextual settings.

In other words the peoples don’t catch the reality of their present contextual settings but a transformation of it by the filters of their shared beliefs in what the world is all about. This implies that all societies are traversed by the cultural continuity of their historical worldview and by the axioms of their foundational worldview. This cultural continuity is what we habitually call civilization.

3.1.1. Animism is a holistic system of knowledge formation

The traditional animist knowledge formation is estimated to have emerged in small bands in the millennia preceding the Eamian interglacial that started some 130,000 years ago. In the TCA the application, of this traditional knowledge in daily life, was intact until about 10,000 years ago. Since then its application has suffered an intensifying systematic destruction which was a real “Culturecide” (2).

We can safely say that the present remnants of this worldview, in most of the world, are merely grotesquely deformed shadows of the real thing. The situation is different in China where the animistic knowledge base still forms the substance of the Chinese historical worldview today but in a form that has necessarily adapted to the daily changes that have occurred since their “Tribal Cultural Confederations” imperceptibly transformed them into power societies.

It is important to remember here, that tribal animism as well as well as its early philosophic schools of thought in early power-societies, have always considered that knowledge is a secret matter that must be passed down from one human generation to the next through a lengthy process of apprenticeship. The knowledge itself was thus never shared with the population at large !

Tribal (wo)men of knowledge shared, a visual narrative summarizing their worldview, with their fellow citizens. They also shared the conclusions, derived from their knowledge base, that pertained to their various questions about their health, about the nature of reality, about how they fit in this reality, and so on. Their vision of the whole of reality was holistic. Adapted to a modern imagery we could say that they considered the universe as the largest ensemble containing a vast quantity of sub-ensembles among which is the Milky-way. And they viewed humans, as infinitely small particles, living like bacteria or viruses on the earth which is situated on the outskirts of the Milky-Way.

Such a holistic vision taught them that the truth about the working of the universe is unattainable and as such they concluded that certainties were necessarily false (3). Focusing on false certainties was thus seen, not only as a mistaken endeavor but as a dangerous one. False certainties inevitably confront their believers to other false certainties which causes confrontations and conflicts that distract peoples’ attention from the only thing that we know is real : the here and now in the life of each individual. After accepting this evidence we rapidly discover that how the individuals fit in the context of their habitat is the grail of life. Not a holy grail but the grail of human knowledge formation.

3.1.2. Atomism is a system of knowledge about the assembly of atoms into larger structures

In contrast to the holism, of this traditional system of knowledge formation, the rationality derived from the reason, that is at work in the paradigm of Western-Modernity, is atomistic in nature which means that it views reality as an assemblage of atoms.

“Atomism in the strict sense is characterized by three points: the atoms are absolutely indivisible, qualitatively identical apart from shape, size, and motion, and combinable with each other only by juxtaposition. Atomism is usually associated with realism and mechanism; it is mechanistic because it maintains that all observable changes can be reduced to changes in the configuration of the atoms that constitute matter.” (4)

Holism and atomism are paradigmatic in the sense that they are foundational to opposite systems of knowledge formation :

• 3.1.2.1. Atomism is mechanistic

  Atomism views the addition of atoms as assemblies that substantiate complex phenomena or realities. The comprehension of these realities is thus gained solely by analyzing the interrelations of their atom constituents.
  
  As mentioned by the editors of the Encyclopedia Britannica atomism is mechanistic :
  

  “… because it maintains that all observable changes can be reduced to changes in the configuration of the atoms that constitute matter. “

  And in this last sense atomism is also a purely materialist vision of reality.




• 3.1.2.2. Holism is emergent

  Holism views the whole as an emergent phenomenon that is far more complex than the addition or multiplication of atoms or of lower level assemblies.
  

  • 3.1.2.2.1. Each assembly of atoms is thought to generate a far more complex outcome than the addition of its atoms

    Quantum mechanics rests on the observation that the assembly of elementary particles is hazardous and impossible to forecast at the present level of knowledge attained in the field of particles physics which necessarily implies that assemblies of atoms are far more complex than their juxtaposition.
    

    • 3.1.2.2.1.1. A molecular assembly of atoms is necessarily impacted or forced by a still unknown energy or field

      This suggests an emergent outcome at the atomic, or sub-atomic, level that is far more complex than a mere juxtaposition by addition or multiplication of atoms.

    • 3.1.2.2.1.2. Further assemblies, at a 2nd, 3rd, 4th or higher levels, imply that the complexity of their emergence is unattainable to a human observer

      First assemblies get eventually congregated, with other 1st assemblies or with individual atoms, into 2nd assemblies that generate an emergent outcome that is larger, or more complex, than a mere addition or multiplication of atoms or of 1st assemblies.
      
      Second, third, and fourth or more assemblies get eventually assembled among themselves, or with other assemblies or with individual atoms, until emerges the whole universe.
      
      This implies that the emergent complexity, at each level, is combined with the emergent complexity at all higher levels, which suggests levels of complexity that are intrinsically unknowable from the vantage point of the human observer !
  
  

  • 3.1.2.2.2. Assemblies necessarily generate an emergent outcome

    The emergent character of assemblies suggests an input not only of their constitutive material parts but of energy, fields, or other forces originating in their higher assemblies or in the whole Universe. This energy, field, or force, enfolds or induces assembly behaviors that are far more complex than the juxtaposition of their material parts.
    
    The human observer eventually catches the outcome but is left in the dark about its emergent complexity as well as its life complexity.
  
  

  • 3.1.2.2.3. In power-societies the unmapped nature of emergent phenomena inspires esoteric narratives to justify power

    Science, or traditional animist knowledge for that matter, are still largely in the dark about the emergent complexity as well as the life complexity of all assemblies starting with the quantum paradox of the movement of elementary particles.
    
    Traditional animist knowledge never cared about the atomic constitutive parts of material phenomena or realities. Its practitioners looked for patterns, in the movements of the sky that superposed on patterns in the habitat, to divine future human related outcomes. Their intervention in phenomena consisted thus largely in an adjustment, of behaviors in the habitat, to the long haul patterns observed in the movements of the celestial spheres that aligned with patterns observed in the habitat.
    
    The Yijing, or book of changes (5), is an ancient instruction manual to systematically divine future human related outcomes. Its instructions are codifications about the contextual adaptations that are necessary to maximize the future behaviors of an individual. These adaptations were induced from the animist very long haul observations, of how human behaviors are modulated by the patterns in the movements of the celestial spheres that superpose on the patterns observed in the habitat.
    
    Scientists for their part are on a quest for knowledge that is largely rooted in atomism and materialism and their quest is furthermore rooted in the dualist societal system of logic that is derived from their societal paradigm.
    
    Atomism (individualism), materialism (separation of the individual from her or his natural state of interrelatedness), and dualism (irreconcilable opposites animating a constant competition and warfare) form the trinity at work in the rationality of Western-Modernity.
    
    Unlike traditional knowledge formation or science, both of which actively seek to understand the workings of reality, religious belief is rooted in the blind acceptance of a revealed truth. Nevertheless, it should be noted that understanding how reality works and accepting a revealed truth both help to build trust between individuals, which ultimately strengthens the cohesion of their society.

Different knowledge paradigms generate thus their corresponding systems of knowledge formation and each particular system of knowledge formation generates its own system of societal logic that, in turn, generates its own archetypal model of society.

The knowledge paradigm of animism fostered a system of societal logic serving a pragmatic approach of daily life centering on alleviating individual suffering while maximizing societal continuity through the reproduction of their society over the long haul. It was this particular system of societal logic then guided the formation of the archetypal model of tribal societies through the abrupt climatic destabilization of the early-Eamian and of the early-Holocene.

In the TCA, in contrast, the abrupt climate warming, that shifted the Younger-Dryas into the early-Holocene, initiated the rejection of the tribal model of society and its animist model of knowledge formation as the site of Göbekli Tepe attests (6). It did not escape our attention that later the knowledge paradigm of religious belief, the acceptance of a revealed truth, fostered a system of societal logic serving the interest of the men of power who yearned to reproduce their institutions of power over the long haul. By gluing the minds of the citizens this particular system of societal logic then guided the reproduction of the institutions set up by the men of power. And the reproduction of the institutions of power finally initiated the archetypal model of power societies.

As indicated earlier China did not follow this model. The imperceptible nature of the shift of its archetypal model of society, from “Tribal Cultural Confederations” to “Power Confederations”, did never destabilize the animist paradigm, nor its system of knowledge formation, nor its system of societal logic. So its new archetypal model of power-society automatically inherited animism as its foundational worldview. Herein resides the other-worldliness of the Chinese in the eyes of Westerners and the other-worldliness of Westerners in the eyes of Chinese. And the fact is that each side of this civilizational divide acted radically differently upon its perception of other-worldliness !

To summarize the differentiation between atomism and holism we have to go back to “the continuum of the interactive cultural filed of societies” which has set in motion the process of societal evolution. Here after I sketch the links in the chain of causality that animates the process of societal evolution :

1. A knowledge paradigm generates a system of knowledge formation.


2. A system of knowledge formation generates a foundational worldview


3. A foundational worldview generates a societal paradigm.


4. A societal paradigm generates an archetypal model of society.


5. An archetypal model of society generates a system of societal logic


6. A system of societal logic eventually generates a civilization with its historical worldview like a religion or a philosophy.


7. The historical worldview of a society evolves, or actualizes, by synchronizing with the daily culture thus absorbing its replicating cultural memes.


8. The daily culture substantiates by synchronizing the individuals’ perception of their contextual settings with the historical worldview of their society. Daily culture is most generally called culture in Late-Western-Modernity.

The differentiation between atomism and holism originates in the contrasting contextual settings found in the different regions of this earth and it materialized by bifurcating their chain of causality :

1. From the knowledge paradigm of animism to the archetypal model of tribal societies
   
   The knowledge paradigm of animism reads as follows : “pragmatism in daily life, to alleviate the anxiety and suffering of the individuals while easing the long haul reproduction of their societies”. And the sharing of the animistic paradigm generated an animistic system of knowledge formation and its shared foundational worldview This foundational worldview then induced a societal paradigm, that eventually sustained the emergence of the archetypal model of tribal societies, which reads as “the sharing of the worldview of a given (wo)man of knowledge resulted in the assembly of the citizens of a tribe which ensured its long haul reproduction”.



2. In the TCA the tribal model of society is abandoned for experimenting a new archetypal model of society
   
   In the TCA, about 10,000 years ago, a paradigm of religious belief emerged out of the vital necessity to experiment the formation of a new knowledge paradigm to answer the failure of the tribal model of society to absorb any further population growth. This new religious paradigm was reading as follows “The sharing of a common narrative about the transformation, of the traditional hierarchy of animist spirits, into a new religious hierarchy of gods that, over the millennia eventually evolved into a monotheistic hierarchy and its revealed truth about the working of reality”.
   
   Structured religious narratives emerged from this paradigm that the men of knowledge, with a large following, put at the service of the men of power, about 5,000 years ago, in order to ease the reproduction of their societal institutions. This service of religious knowledge, to the men of power, consecrated the emergence of the paradigm of power-societies that reads as “the assembly of citizens by force and the forced sharing of a common religious worldview to ease the reproduction of their societal institutions”.
   
   This forced sharing of a religious narrative among the citizens of an empire fostered the territorial realm of civilizations.



3. In China tribal societies flourished uninterrupted while imperceptibly altering into power societies
   
   Large alluvial plains, 50 to 100 times the size of the Egyptian or Mesopotamian plains, allowed a non-interrupted population growth through territorial expansion.
   
   The call to undertake major flood mitigation works, addressed to the animistic sages symbolizing the unity of the "Tribal Cultural Confederations", transformed their symbolism into a more practical approach to manage such works. Over the course of one or two millennia, this more practical approach had evolved, during the 5th millennium BC, into a fully-fledged system of governance that decided, some 4,000 years ago, on a dynastic transmission of power. Thus was born the era of "Power Confederations", which lasted until Qin Shi Guang centralized the empire some 2,250 years ago.



4. Continuity in China kept Holism as the root of knowledge formation while rupture in the TCA forced religious belief as the new paradigm of knowledge formation which later consecrated atomism

The continuity of animism in China, from “Tribal Cultural Confederations” to “Power Confederations” kept intact the knowledge paradigm that sustained more than 100,000 years of animist knowledge formation.

The occupation, of the entirety of the alluvial plains of Mesopotamia and other areas around Anatolia some 10,000 years ago, called for a violent rupture with animism and tribal societies in order to ease the experimentation of new models of societies able to manage larger population levels. The burying of Göbekli Tepe some 10,000 years ago is the most significant sign of this violent rupture.

Unfortunately the academy is unable to comprehend something as stupendous as Göbekli Tepe’s burying. Quantitative measurements certainly allow us to generate a big picture from numerous remnants of a material culture. But when an archaeological site is the big picture by itself prehistory scientists act like blind scholarly idiots !

 

 

 

 

3.2. Societal paradigms : animist pragmatism versus religious belief

Observing that the reality of the universe, and its meaning and implications for its sub-systems and its parts, is largely unattainable the animist (wo)men of knowledge came to understand that all certainties are illusions trapping the mind in vain thinking, idiotic behaviors, and unwise actions.

From this they concluded that certainties should be rejected out of hands. They thought that knowledge should focus on alleviating the individual’s daily suffering by implementing strategies that ease the reproduction of the individuals, their societies, and their species’ life over the long haul. Such strategies invariably imply that the application of knowledge must result in pragmatic outcomes for the individuals, their societies and their species. But what do I mean by pragmatic outcomes ?

To understand what pragmatism is not, and to reach an understanding that is unencumbered by ideology, let me cite the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy that is rooted in Late 19th century US philosophic pragmatism :

“Pragmatism is a philosophical tradition that – very broadly – understands knowing the world as inseparable from agency within it. This general idea has attracted a remarkably rich and at times contrary range of interpretations, including: that all philosophical concepts should be tested via scientific experimentation, that a claim is true if and only if it is useful (relatedly: if a philosophical theory does not contribute directly to social progress then it is not worth much), that experience consists in transacting with rather than representing nature, that articulate language rests on a deep bed of shared human practices that can never be fully ‘made explicit’.” (7)

The paradigmatic and logical mental background, of the authors, is seeping out of their definition. This definition has certainly the advantage of being concise. My personal rewording of it goes something like this :

“Knowledge, about the working of reality, must be productive to humanity which implies that human agency must be unimpeded in its application of the rationality of Modernity whose outcome, as is well know, fosters ‘social progress’ “.

In this view the generation of societal complexity is the primary target and the individual well-being, or her/his continuous reproduction, appears to be of no concern. In other words the societal logic implied in this quote is that the rationality of Western-Modernity is not concerned by the well-being of the individuals nor by their reproduction over the long haul as well as that of their societies and species. This Stanford definition is best confronted to my last iteration of “the First Principles of Life” in “Societal Knowledge Formation. 6.2.3.4. Necessity to clarify our conceptual framework”.

In light of a modern reading, of the contextual adaptation of the traditional animist understanding, pragmatism is the outcome of a knowledge formation that is at the service — of alleviating the suffering of the individuals and more generally of purveying to their well-being — of easing their long haul reproduction, that of their society, and that of their species.

These 2 definitions of pragmatism could not be further apart :

1. The US, late 19th century, philosophic conception of pragmatism is the logical outcome of the paradigm of Western-Modernity
   
   The societal paradigm of Western-Modernity, and its societal system of logic in the form of the rationality of Modernity, command that knowledge must be productive in generating higher levels of complexity. The first among “the First Principle of Life” states that the complementary objectives of any living species are : — primarily the maximization of their reproduction over the long haul — secondarily the maximization of their biological and societal complexity.
   
   This means that the maximization of their biological and societal complexity is relative and dependent on their reproduction over the long haul !
   
   The pragmatism of Western modernity has no concern for the well-being of the individuals nor for the long-term continuity of their species. Its sole concern is the generation of ever more complexity which is instrumental to a dynamic process of capital accumulation.
   
   But isn't this what has led humanity to its predicament of the Great Convergence and its maelstrom of tipping points, that plunge all living species on earth in a new Geo-bio-chemical state that is pathological to life ?


2. The conception of pragmatism espoused, by the Chinese animism+, is the logical outcome of the paradigm of tribal animism
   
   Imperceptible changes in governance moved the “Tribal Cultural Confederations”, in the territorial realm of present-day China, into its archetypal model of power-societies with its early form as a “Power Confederation” assembling “City-states” and “Tribal Cultural Confederations“.
   
   This imperceptible transformation of its system of governance, and its institutional set-up, was realized in the continuity of its societal paradigm, its societal worldview, and its system of societal logic.
   
   But how is such a model of societal change, that is steeped in the continuity of its societal cultural field, going to fare in its inevitable confrontation with the Great Convergence unleashed by Western-Modernity ?
   
   We have already seen that by inspiring TIDAA Russia had the courage to assert its security against an expansionist Western market imperialism which most non-Western-nations refused to sanction.
   
   China’s latest technological breakthroughs procure us a sketch of what is to come in the not so distant future :
   
   
   • 2.1. Economic growth rates continue to be multiple times those of the West
     
     A recent article, by John Ross, summed up the situation as follows :
     

     “In the last four years, covering the period of the Covid pandemic, China’s economy has grown two-and-a-half times as fast as the US, 15 times as fast as France, 23 times as fast as Japan, 45 times as fast as Germany, and 480 times as fast as Britain.
     
     To add in smaller G7 countries, China has grown four times as fast as Canada, and 11 times as fast as Italy. China’s out performance of advanced capitalist countries is even greater in per capita terms — a still better measure of productivity changes and potential for increasing living standards.
     
     China’s per capita GDP grew three times as fast as the US, five times as fast as Italy, 44 times as fast as Japan or France, and 260 times as fast as Britain — while per capita GDP fell in Germany and Canada.
     
     China’s out-performance of developing capitalist countries shows the same pattern — China’s per capita 4.4 per cent GDP annual average growth compares to 2.6 per cent in India, 1.3 per cent in Brazil, or 0.9 per cent in South Africa. What is important about such economic growth, of course, is not abstract statistics but its meaning for the real lives of ordinary people.” (8)

   • 2.2. China’s technological drive
     
     
     • 2.2.1. Yearly STEM graduates (9) :
       
       
       
       
       
     
     
     • 2.2.2. Yearly STEM doctorates (10):
       
       
       
     
     
     
     • 2.2.3. Yearly scientific articles (11):
       
       
       

As we have just seen the definition of pragmatism, in the late 19th century bu US philosophers, is imbued with the rationality of Western modernity, that today imposes on the world a rather steep price, for trying to counter the Great Convergence, and its pathological new Geo-bio-chemical equilibrium, that threatens to eliminate all life on earth.

The rationality of the paradigm of Western-Modernity is to transform whatever is available into a process of capital accumulation. And by presenting itself as the guarantor of a green technological future the West wants to make believe that its exceptionalism will save humanity from the high price of the ignominious outcome of its own modernity ! Only context blind fools will miss the fact that this ruse implies the compensation of the West by non-Western nations for their forced use of Western exceptional green gadgets !

This mischievous renegade act contrasts with TIDAA, and its promise of an international order bypassing the hegemony of Western Modernity, that consecrates the equality and freedom of all nations to exercise their sovereignty in the continuity of the cultural field of their societies.

 

 

 

 

3.3. The success of Western-Modernity eclipsed animist knowledge

The paradigm of Modernity is “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”, and its satisfaction implies the production of goods or services. The reason in this transformation is the primary mover. The reason contains the substance of what will evolve into the rationality of Modernity. Capital accumulation supplies the capital to erect the facilities and the machinery that are necessary for the production of goods and services.

The actors, of this process of capital accumulation and its accessory the production of goods and services, are those who implement the reason by transforming their sterile money in a process of capital accumulation. They are the capital holders who are seconded by servant technical spcecialist. The spectators come in 2 categories : — the passive spectators are satisfied by consuming the goods, generated by this process of capital accumulation, they are the entire citizenry — the active spectators are motivated by their envy of the flashiness of the material possessions that are paid for by the financial fortune that accrues in the hands of the capital holders.

3.3.1. The 3 actors in the daily culture of the rationality of Western-Modernity

The social dynamic, between these 3 actors, rapidly expanded its daily culture to the society at large :

1. The rationality of Western-Modernity in daily-culture
   
   The reason, that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation, is the paradigm of the system powering Western-Modernity’s societal logic of rationality :
   
   
   • 1.1. Capital invests in production facilities
     
     The production of goods and services is the property of the corporation invested by capital holders. With the silent revolution of the 1970’s this principle has been turned upside-down and Western productions got subcontracted. But a subcontract transfers the concept of the product, the science that is applied in its technology, the design, while the subcontractor is forced to find out the most productive manner to realize the production.
     
     Rare by-standers immediately observed that the subcontractor detained the key of further design and future technological developments. Applied research was indeed always a matter that occurred on the production floor ! Nearly fifty years later those early Cassandras have been proven right by China’s production shops.
     
     And since fundamental research has never been a matter of concern for private capital holders it was always in the hands of public institutions; mostly military institutions in the USA and mostly national Academies in China. So any clear minded observer knew decades ago that China’s public governance would eventually order its academies to focus on the basic, but fundamental, science in the fields that China’s factories would have mastered down the road.
     
     Chinese research and development, and state policies relating to Electric Vehicles, are patent examples of such a winning strategy to take over the world market as the world is presently witnessing !
   
   
   
   • 1.2. Capital finances services
     
     Services are specialized functions, that dig always deeper in their tunnel visions, like scientific tunnels that always dig deeper in their fields of specialization, like design, like marketing, like management, like accountancy, like the guidance and legal framing by publics institutions, etc.
     
     Quantitative approaches in US business schools have unfortunately castrated economic research and limited its field to modeling what is already being done instead of studying the working of societies, the place of economics in their working, and how to maximize the efficacy of societies by adapting their economic activities to their working. Economic quantification blinded Western capital holders, and their public decision-maker servants, to how production countries would strategize their role in this Western globalized world.
     
     The blindness of Western capital holders, and their public servants, was sized by China as an opportunity to enforce an effective production strategy that came to dominate the world. And its top economic ranking was recently given a memetic sticker in the form of TIDAA or “There Is Definitely An Alternative” to Western hegemony.
   
   
   
   • 1.3. Services implement the continuity of the rationality of Modernity through continuous renewal
     
     These services are instrumental to the continuous renewal of productions and this continuous renewal implements their rationality not only throughout the production process but also imposes it throughout the society at large where it shapes the lines, forms, colors, music, and rhythm of the present context, which after synchronization with the historical worldview of the society, form its daily culture.
     
     This is how the rationality of Modernity gradually transpired in the entire societal life where it came under the watching eye of the public institutions who were called in to enforce the normality of the rationality of Modernity in daily culture !
     
     And so the cycle, from “the reason” to daily-culture, was consummated creating a societal impulse of constant renewal of the daily-culture.



2. The 3 social roles in the spectacle of daily-culture
   
   The societal impulse of constant renewal of Daily-Culture rapidly transformed into a daily spectacle served by actors, servants and passive spectators. Guy Debord had caught the spectacle but he failed to observe the 3 societal servant roles in the spectacle of daily-culture :
   
   
   • 2.1. The actors
     
     The actors are the capital holders. But the biggest capital holders play the decisive role of writing the script and in commanding the role played by their servants in the execution of the script.
     
     Capital holders detain a monopoly on the knowledge and the practice of “transforming, sterile money, speculative debt, and gambling with nature, into a process of capital accumulation” into a dynamic process of capital accumulation. And understandably they assiduously evade the public eye to remain anonymous. Anonymity is their ultimate trump card. It avoids the public’s gaze on their richness that would inevitably unveil the shocking social reality that, over the centuries has separates humanity in a tiny tiny minority of decision-makers reigning over a very large mass of passive spectators.
   
   
   
   • 2.2. The servants
     
     The servants of the biggest capital holders come in 3 categories:
     
   
   
   • 2.2.1. Those who manage the continuity of daily culture
     
     The traditional function of the men of knowledge was to share a common vision of the world among their fellow citizens in order to boost their trust in each other.
     
     Trust among the individuals was viewed as strengthening the cohesion of their societal group which was understood to ease its reproduction over the long haul while facilitating and extending the daily lives of the individuals.
     
     Societal reproduction over the long haul maximized the first imperative of the species which is its reproduction as far as the eye can see.
     
     With the elimination of traditional knowledge formation, during the Enlightenment, Western nations definitively lost the holistic understanding of their ancestors about the working of their societies. Gone from the memory are the role of trust between the individuals, the importance of societal cohesion in the working and the reproduction of societies, and the role of the continuum of the interactive field, in the culture of societies, that sustains societal evolution.
     
     The price, of this loss of traditional knowledge, is now coming due. Western societies have atomized and are now unable to undertake any large public project successfully like countering a pandemic, or addressing the damages of a natural catastrophe, or rebuilding an industrial base, or countering China’s rise to technological supremacy, or waging a 3rd World War for that matter…
   
   
   • 2.2.2. Those who manage the renewal of daily culture
     
     The role of scientists is to discover an ever finer comprehension, about bits and pieces of reality, that can be integrated in the production of goods and services, in order to ensure a continuous transformation of the daily-culture of their society while generating a growing flow of returns to the capital holders.
     
     The role of the artists is to intuit, or to free their instinctive discovery of, the first seeds of the future that are starting to sprout in the present. The sharing of such early signs about the future could facilitate a present adaptation of the individuals to the emergence of the future societal life. Viewed from this perspective the arts have an immensely important societal role to play in easing the individual and societal responses to historical change.
     
     Since the Enlightenment the role of scientists has ever been more preeminent while the role of artists has ever been waning in their illusion that “whatever bullshit” could in any way point to the emergent future.
     
     As a result the daily-culture of societies is transforming ever faster while the capital holders are benefiting from an ever faster growth in their returns on investment. But the elimination of the societal role of the artists has left our societies, and us individually, in the dark about how our daily-culture is impacting the future. More specifically the elimination of the societal role of the artists has left us blind to the great convergence of the numerous side-effects of Western-Modernity that has already engaged the start of a mass-extinction event.
   
   
   • 2.2.3. Those who enforce the normality of daily culture
     
     The Western-Enlightenment has consecrated the rationality of Western-Modernity as the normality of High and Late-Western-Modernity.
     
     This normality implies that all individuals and societies, that do not behave according to the canons of this normality, are considered abnormal and dangerous in the eyes of the enforcers of this rationality !
     
     The enforcers, of the rationality of Western-Modernity, have traditionally been the societal public institutions. But the enforcement, of Neoliberalism over the last decades, has encouraged capital holders to build a second line of defense against the abnormals. This was nevertheless insufficient to keep them at bay and the societal public institutions have thus been militarized to wage a war of attrition to free the normals from the presence of abnormals…
     
     The daily news is littered today with school mass-shootings, street killings of brown color citizens by white police officers, and white-collar crimes that are never sanctioned ! The mass-media is stitching a picture about life in Western countries that is like hell on earth. By chance China is ten thousand kilometers from that hell and life is good.
   
   
   
   • 2.3. The passive spectators
     
     The population at large, including the private and public specialists who serve the big capital holders, constitute the mass of passive spectators of the spectacle of a daily-culture that is mired in the rationality of Western-Modernity.
    
   

3.3.2. The success of the Rationality of Modernity eliminated traditional knowledge

In order to disengage the intellectual inquiry from past holistic approaches of reality philosophic rationalism and science separated, — daily life — knowledge — art — worldviews — economics — nature — and so on, from one another.

It was hoped that by engaging in the depth of the micro-world scientific knowings would be churned out ‘en masse’ that would generate growing returns on investments. This is what happened indeed. It unleashed the industrial revolution but it also squeezed science in a close dependency to capital.

And, once capital was in charge of financing scientific development, science was effectively muzzled and stuck on a one way track. In other words scientific development was forced to focus primarily on work that could help to ensure the generation of returns for capital holders and this happened without even a mention of this very fact appearing in the public sphere. There were evidently good reasons for hiding the link between capital and science from the attention of the public.

The traditional function of knowledge which had, been since its inception, to alleviate the suffering of the individuals suddenly was gone. The new priority was to ensure a constant flow of returns on investment. In other words the finality of knowledge was suddenly overturned without there ever being a discussion about it.

But ensuring a constant flow of returns on investments has most unfortunately detached human thinking from “the First Principles of Life”. Going forward this detachment ensured a convenient absence of questioning about the side-effects of the externalization of costs from the books.

Scientists and philosophers have indeed largely been confined to their silos of abstractions where they lost sight of daily life and its need for pragmatism. This is how philosophy forgot that its mission is to make sense about what really matters for the species which is life and its lifeblood which is given by the dance of its complementary polarities : — societies — individuals. Without a coherent body of knowledge that is adapted to the contextual settings of the day the artists got confused and soon they fell into nothingness.

What I describe here is human life on earth as seen from the distance of heaven. There should be no doubt that some wise (wo)men of knowledge were conscious all along about what was happening. But their words were ignored. And today it has become extremely difficult to find such persons because they understand that the tsunami of Modernity has to come crashing down for something else to possibly take root.

The enormity of such a conclusion is evidently problematic and difficult to share with society at large and so the few remaining wise (wo)men of knowledge have resigned themselves to live on the margins of their societies from where flabbergasted they silently observe the advancing stages of the cancer of Homo-Sapiens !

3.3.2.1. Marxism and Western-Modernity

Marx is inseparable from the Enlightenment and of the further development of Western-Modernity. This is not something that was always well appreciated in the Marxist movance. The fact is that Marx and the other 19th century classical economists did not diverge fundamentally in their analyses. None of them deciphered the societal evolution of power-societies and its impact in unleashing the paradigm of Modernity. And nowhere is there anything mentioned about the system of societal logic that the paradigm of Western-Modernity unfurled on Western Europe.

I do not reject out of hand the factors of production nor the outcome of the paradigm of Modernity in the form of private capital holding. But they do not help us to understand how the rationality of Western-Modernity has profoundly shaped all aspects of the interactive cultural field of societies which is what affects us all so deeply today.

Let us see here how the interpretation of Marx has impacted the countries where his thought penetrated in the spheres of power.

Marx considered that Modernity is the most revolutionary progressive force in human history. It was in that sense that he willingly participated in the separation of knowledge in a field of specialized knowings. His critique, of the social ravages exercised by the outcome of the accumulation of capital in private hands, was the sole aspect of his writing that his followers retained but in their bickering for power they forgot even what this limited aspect, of his thinking, was all about :

1. In the case of the Soviet-Union
   
   While entering their society into Modernity in the 1920’s, the communists muzzled it under a thick layer of centralized mistrusting bureaucracy that finally suffocated their peoples’ daily lives.
   
   The industrialization was rapid but the individual thirst for novelty asphyxiated the production of complexity that could have rendered the daily culture of the Soviets attractive for themselves and also for the citizens of the earth who watched with high hopes for signs of vitality.
   
   What outsiders observers saw did not inspire them with much hope and the soviet project finally crumbled on itself after some 70 years of existence.



2. In the case of Western 'social democracies'
   
   Socialist, or social democratic, parties collaborated openly with big capital holders and this ended with a so called 3rd way and a total surrender to Neo-liberalism that killed any remaining hope in left wing alternatives. This came as a shock, in the eighties and nineties, to a whole generation of leftist militants who emigrated to early green parties.
   
   But the loss or the absence, of a holistic model of knowledge about the working of societies, left these new green parties debating about the skin of societal bodies. I remember how intensely I got disgusted, in the beginning of the eighties, by this feeling of superficiality.
   
   I was thus not a bit surprised to see where the greens have landed presently in Germany. But their activism is nevertheless incomprehensible, or was it perhaps the product of an intense US corruption campaign that bought servants to apply the strategy of Western big capital holders in the name of a new skin deep fashion ? Whatever is the truth, about the policies that are being implemented today by the German green party, it will be judged very severely by the next generations in search of answers for Europe’s fall in Geopolitical nothingness.



3. In the case of China
   
   The heritage of the axioms of its civilization, and of its pragmatic historical worldview, procured the promise of a reconciliation of a Modernized China with “the First Principles of life” that are so profoundly marking the “Chinese Traditional Culture”.
   
   China’s priorities, over the last forty years, correctly focused on the survival of its nation. Marxism has without a doubt been instrumental in the country’s grasp, of “the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”, and this has been instrumental in generating its economic miracle.
   
   But the phenomenal quantity of Chinese students, whose minds got infected by the Neoliberal ideology that infests US colleges and universities, unfortunately introduced prematurely in China the new iteration of the paradigm of Western-Modernity, that had been conceived by Western capital holders during the silent revolution of the 1970’s. I mean “the reason that is at work in the transformation of speculative debt into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”.
   
   The adoption of the paradigm of Western-Modernity in its new iteration gave rise to a high number of national decisions that concluded with a debauchery of debt which today is biting the Communist Party’s leadership. It finds itself indeed confronted at once with 4 intractable problems :
   
   
   • 3.1. The necessity to reduce debt levels
     
     The rhythm of debt increases was not short of stunning over the last 2 decades and debt levels, while still short of what they are in the USA, have reached risk levels that are simply too dangerous for the continuity of the interactive cultural field of the country. So further debt increases have to be contained to guarantee the country’s capacity to carry its debt charges.
     
     Having said this the fact is that China’s total debt is still lower than the US level in term of GDP percentage. The USA’s GDP growth is constrained within very low 1 figures while the Chinese GDP still has the potential of growing within middle to high 1 figures which means that the Chinese capacity to carry the charge of its present debt is far better than the USA.
   
   
   
   • 3.2. The necessity to reconciliate a Modernized country with its “Chinese Traditional Culture”
     
     The promise that the citizens’ return to their “Chinese Traditional Culture” (CTC) instilled the certainty that a Modernized China would reconcile with “the First Principles of life”. This was fitting with the axiom of continuity that is at the root of Chinese governance.
     
     But the sheer rapidity, of Western Modernity’s encroachment in the country daily culture over the 2 last decades, is generating such a large bunch of memes that the historical worldview or CTC is being threatened by a bastardization that could be fatal for the continuity of its interactive cultural field.
     
     This implies that a particular effort has to strengthen the institutional levers for a large diffusion of CTC throughout the country. From my own perspective this means that far less money should be invested in state organized cultural events and more money should be helping grass roots initiatives. This is, I think, the condition for a flourishing musical scene and a flourishing visual arts scene to boost the trust of the individuals in the healthy state of their nation.
   
   
   
   • 3.3. The great convergence is unleashing ever more deleterious effects on the country
     
     Extreme flooding seasons come immediately to mind. But it is an error to fixate solely on the climate. The side-effects of a development along the lines of Western-Modernity have severely curtailed the habitat of the country. From soil, and water tables poisoned with heavy metals, to nano-particles of plastic that are infiltrating in the biological composition of cells, the side-effects are numerous that are presently converging and preparing the conditions for a shift of the Geo-bio-chemical state of the earth that will be far less hospitable to life than the preceding state.
   
   
   
   • 3.4. The competition between China and the US for top spot
     
     Only after the country feels satisfied, that the future of its nation is no longer in danger of being erased or irrevocably damaged, will it possibly reconcile its economic development with “the First Principles of Life”. What I mean by this is that life primes over the quality of life. A high quality of life is only feasible after the nation has build up all the conditions that will help it to stay alive. Unfortunately there is no guarantee whatsoever that “the First Principles of Life” will not be forgotten along the way ! This implies that the country needs to encourage its schools to deliver a sane and viable vision of the country’s development over the next 2-3 decades.

3.3.2.2. The holders of scientific 'knowings' superseded the holders of wisdom

The separation, of — daily life — knowledge — worldviews — art — economics — nature — and so on, into specialty domains has also been the root cause of the demise of the traditional societal function of art that leaves us now on a trail of financial speculation about the absurdity of “whatever is art”.

That separation killed knowledge in its traditional sense — as the observation of the principle of life — and as the interpretation of this observation into the accepted worldview of the time. Let’s remember that a shared worldview had always been considered until then as a must have to maximize societal cohesion which is ‘de facto’ the ultimate condition for societies to possibly reproduce over the long haul.

When specialization took over this grand view of things, this holistic vision, was abandoned as being non-rational and non-scientific. But specialization, while being a lot more efficient at gleaning knowings within a narrow field, forgot about the links and interactions among the multitude of fields that constitute the entirety of the domain of human life.

More damaging even was the separation that this specialization imposed with all there is outside of the domain of human life. This is how knowledge, in the traditional sense of human wisdom, was replaced by 'scientific knowings' and that was the moment when the men of knowledge or the holders of wisdom were superseded by scientific holders of 'knowings' relating to narrow fields.

George Mobus expressed a similar idea while using the words “partial knowledge” to describe the mass of knowings accumulated by science. And to unify the dispersal of a multitude of “partial knowledge” he promoted systemic complexity, as the study, of interacting systems, forming a new layer of knowledge sitting on top of the narrow scientific specialties of today. Unfortunately George retired and his website is closed so no link is available.

I personally prefer the term “knowings” for the good reason that it demarcates more clearly the essential difference between limited sectorial scientific knowings and the more holistic and globally encompassing views, of the wisdom, emanating from the knowledge about 'the whole' and its 'sub- ensembles made of multiple systems'.

3.3.2.3. The artists bore the brunt of the separation between knowledge, worldviews, art, daily life, economics and nature

The substitution of knowledge in this traditional sense, with rationality and science, left us all “knowledge-orphans” or “wisdom-dumb”. But I think that the artists were those who bore the brunt of that separation. By losing contact with their (wo)men of knowledge story tellers, who passed down to them the state of evolution of the societal worldview, they lost the automatic reference to what had been the content of their works since times immemorial.

The rejection of everything that was rooted in the past suddenly put the artists in charge of the creation of their own content. For a short while they celebrated their newly gained freedom from their story tellers. But with an education solely focused on the use of a technique their minds got stuck in technical matters while remaining empty of the substance that is necessary to devise a content that is adapted to the day.

A short 2-3 decades of effervescence, in trials and errors at the hands of the Modernist avant-garde, resulted in emptiness, the grotesque, and then “whatever is art”. This is when art shifted unmistakably outside of the societal instrumentality that characterized its function since its early emergence, at the origin of societal evolution from small bands to tribal societies, most probably during the Eemian Inter-glacial Period some 125,000 years ago.

This was the moment when the artists got confronted with an emptiness of meaning that left them utterly confused. And this confusion opened the door to “whatever is art” and the subsequent financial coup over the art-world by US 3 letters propaganda agencies in cohort with art-merchants.

The context of speculation that ensued expanded that confusion ever further driving it into one-way street pathways of communication stunts meant to attract the attention of the media so as to generate free public exposure which in this Late-Modernity is the ultimate criterion of value.

But in the craze of this Late-Modernity I hear a shout-out, for knowledge and beauty, rising from the ambient noise on the web that calls for a re-connection with “the First Principles of life”. This is what keeps me alive !

Starting with tribal societies and along the entire span of societal evolution the men of knowledge strove to understand — the working of the body and mind of the individuals — the interactions between all the elements within their society’s habitat — the interactions of their societies’ habitat with the wider ensembles in the Universe. Once viewed through this particular angle we come to understand that knowledge relates to understanding the systemic interactions between the following :

1. The interactions of our universe as a whole with the contextual settings in our local habitat


2. The interactions between all the entities and elements inside our habitat


3. The interactions between human societies and their individual members


4. The interactions between the individuals


5. The interactions between the body and mind of the individuals

The nature of science is fundamentally other. Science functions as a service supplied to capital holders, or their representative corporations and states, in order to allow them to increase their profits. Basic research can be said to be different in the sense that it does not address the production of goods. But basic research projects are being evaluated before the decision to finance them and the single most important criteria to unlock financing is the potential opened by the research to help generate new productions of goods and services that can procure a competitive advantage to the country.

Notes

1. "Population in 1800", Wikipedia, last edited on 22 August 2023.

 

2. "Culturecide, subversion and African hair: Dr Fergus on ‘Dada’ hair and ‘Bantu’ knots", Wired868, by Claudius Fergus. 2019-12-29. 

"We could trace this particular evil over the past 1,600 years. Suffice it to say in this commentary, however, that over those centuries, Talmudic-Christian racist theologians, scientific racists from the eighteenth century onward, and European enslavers and colonisers, have striven relentlessly and systematically to imbue African natural hair with intellectual, spiritual and cultural negativity. The original objective was simply to supplant the artistic representation of the iconic black Madonna-and-Child legacy of Ancient Egypt with a Caucasoid Mary-and-Jesus equivalent of Roman Christianity. European dependence on Africans for the success of their western-hemispheric economic enterprise, launched in the fifteenth century, created a greater imperative for them to induce in African peoples deep feelings of racial inferiority, to such an extent that they would acknowledge their natural hair as abhorrent and subversive of European-defined norms of beauty, decency, attractiveness and tidiness.

The Culturecide of animism was evidently acting at the far more profound level of the suppression of, what was at the time, the worldview of the entire Homo-Sapient species.

 

3. The drama of science is that it fostered a religious type of belief in its capacity to derive the truth about everything. But the reality invalidates this belief as the following article makes abundantly clear that 95% of all matter and energy in the Universe is currently unobservable ! "What is the universe made of?" by The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.

“Modern calculations say dark matter comprises about 27% of the Universe. We don’t yet know what it is, but we are searching for answers.

We have known that the Universe is expanding since the early 20th century. But recent observations of distant supernovae and other observations show that the Universe is not only expanding, but the expansion is accelerating.

This astonishing discovery came as a complete surprise because the expansion of the Universe should slow down with time because of the gravitational attraction between galaxies and clusters of galaxies. The unseen repellant force required to explain this observation has been labelled ‘dark energy,’ and current models say it makes up about 68% of the Universe."

That leaves only 5% of the Universe that is visible to us.

"A New Technique Confirms the Universe is 69% Dark Energy, 31% Matter (Mostly Dark)", Universe Today - Space and astronomy news, by Carolyn Collins Petersen. 2023-09-17.

In light of the certainty, of knowing less than 10 % of what constitutes the universe, the question arises about the validity of science’s pronouncements about the working of the universe, its sub-systems, and their parts. And, knowing this, the pronouncement of animism about the unattainability of the universe and its corollary of living in the here and now are starting to make a lot of sense indeed !

 

4. "Atomism summary", by the Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 2023.

 

5. The Yijing is considered the oldest Chinese book. As a first introduction to this book I advise to surf the following 2 sites : “I Ching, Yijing or Zhou Yi ‘Oracle of the moon’ " by LiSe or “The Yijing on the web” by S. J. Marshall. 

6. See “Volume 1. The Continuum of the interactive cultural field of societies. Part 2. 2.3.3.4. How does Göbekli Tepe fit in this transition”. See more particularly page 215 : “3.3. Göbekli-Tepe was abandoned to erase the memory of tribal societal organization so as to facilitate the opening of agricultural villages”. 

 

7. “Pragmatism”, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, by Catherine Legg, Christopher Hookway. First published 2008-08-16; substantive revision 2021-04-06. 

8. "The news is full of headlines about ‘China’s economic collapse’ — ignore them", Morning Star, by John Ross, 2023-09-15.

 

9. "The Countries With The Most STEM Graduates", Statista, by Niall McCarthy, 2017-02-03. 

10. "China is Fast Outpacing U.S. STEM PhD Growth", Center for Security and Emerging Technology, by Remco Zwetsloot, Jack Corrigan, Emily Weinstein, Dahlia Peterson, Diana Gehlhaus, Ryan Fedasiuk. 

11. "Number of Academic Papers Published Per Year", Words Rated, by Dimitrije Curcic. 2023-06-01.