Inevitable civilizational clash in the 21st century (01)

Part 1. Summary of "The interactive continuum of the cultural field of societies".

Before terminating the revision of the Volume 1, of my series "The transition from Western-Modernity to After Modernity", that is titled "The interactive continuum of the cultural field of societies", I decided to share the first draft of the 3 chapters of its conclusion in Part 6 :

1. Summary of the revised Volume 1. (Today's post)

2. How the convergence, of the societal dis-function of Western societies with the multiple side-effects of Western-Modernity, is confronting humanity with a predicament ?

3. How to escape the predicament of Late-Western-Modernity ?

Being shadow-banned I have to ask, if you happen to find this content of interest, to please share it with your friends. 

Thanks.  laodan.

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I want to show in this Part 6 how the convergence, of the dysfunction of the governance-world in this Late-Western-Modernity with the multiple side-effects of Western-Modernity, is confronting humanity with a predicament of mass-extinction. The path out of this predicament is through comprehension of the interactive continuum of the cultural field of societies. My ultimate hope, in this Volume 1, is to share an intelligible map of this path.

The cultural field of societies is animated by a dual process of synchronization : — the perception of the individuals, about their present contextual settings, synchronizes with the historical worldview of their societies, thus generating their daily-culture — the historical worldview of society, that is shared by the individuals, synchronizes with the memes, that replicate in their daily-culture, thus generating the evolution of their societies.

This dual path of synchronization operates outside of the individuals’ consciousness.

 

By our present Late-Western-Modernity Western societies have lost their historical worldviews and their dual path of synchronization was thus abruptly interrupted which played a determinant role in their atomization, The gradual atomization of Western societies imperceptibly destroyed their national unity which resulted in their incapability to undertake successfully any large scale national project like fighting a virus for example, or helping their citizens to navigate the aftermath of a national catastrophe, or winning wars for that matter !

To maximize my chances at making the map, of this dual path of synchronization intelligible, I’ll start by summing up the content of the preceding 930 pages of this Volume 1.

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1. Summary of the Volume 1

"The fossil record, along with studies of human and ape DNA, indicates that humans shared a common ancestor with chimpanzees and bonobos until sometime about 6 million years ago)" (1).

Graph 1: The human evolutionary family tree by Herman Pontzer. 

The genus Homo originated in the fossil record about 2.3 million years ago under the appellation "Homo-Habilis". Its most widespread descendant Homo-erectus, was found "throughout Africa and Eurasia and persisted from 1.9 mya to 100 kya. ... Its global expansion suggests "Homo-Erectus" was ecologically flexible, with the cognitive capacity to adapt and thrive in vastly different environments. ... it is with "Homo-Erectus" that we begin to see a major increase in brain size, up to 1,250cc for later Asian specimens. "Homo heidelbergensis" emerged in Africa, around 700,000 years ago from "Homo-Erectus", and is often referred to as an "archaic Homo sapiens". The fossil record indicates that a species, with a big brain up to 1500 cubic centimeters (cc), emerged between 400,000 and 300,000 years ago in Africa from "Homo-Heidelbergensis". This species received the appellation of "Homo-Sapiens". For reasons, that are still debated by researchers, the brain size of present-day "Homo sapiens" has shrunk to about 1350cc, which is slightly smaller than the 1500cc of early "Homo sapiens" at the origin of our species ! (2)

With hindsight scientists discovered that the large brains, of early Homo-Sapiens, had the biological potential to derive abstractions from their observations. But this potential only materialized gradually over the following 5,000 to 8,000 generations. By 150,000 years ago the derivation of abstractions from observations produced knowledge that helped the species to survive a population bottleneck and most importantly by 130,000 years ago, during the emergence of the Eamian Inter-glacial, knowledge formation guided the species to experiment new models of societies capable, of handling larger population sizes, through trials and errors.

The emergence of the process of knowledge formation has thus played a determinant role in accelerating the rhythm of cultural evolution which eventually also unleashed societal evolution.

 

 

1.1. Changing contextual settings forced the turning, from the archetypal model of small-bands, to the archetypal model of Tribal-Societies" thus initiating societal evolution.

The last two "inter-glacial periods", the Eamian and the Holocene, destabilized the existing model of societal organization existing before their emergence. In both cases, a climate heating was the cause of the destabilization which forced a process of transition towards a new archetypal model of society capable of handling larger populations !

The archaeological evidence indicates that a boom in material culture had emerged, in the wake of the Eamian, which intensified until about 70,000 years ago when a population bottleneck drove Homo-Sapiens in survival mode. This boom in material culture suggests that the warming of the “Eamian Inter-Glacial”, which roughly lasted from 130,000 years ago to 115,000 years ago, was the determinant cause of the turning to a new archetypal model of society known as "tribal societies".

The appellation "tribe" was originated by Western European historians who referred to the existence, of distinctive tribal groups that resisted the northern expansion of the Roman empire, like the "Belgae", a large confederation in northern Gaul, that assembled the following tribes : — the Ambiani - Amiens — the Atrebates - Arras — the Bellovaci - Beauvais — the Caleti/Caletes - Harfleur — the Catalauni - Châlons-en-Champagne — the Catuslogi Eburones - Eastern Belgium — the Leuci - Toul — the Mediomatrici - Metz — the Meldi - Meaux — etc. British historians referred to the existence of similar groups in India like the Lichchivi, Mulla, Yaudheya and Khasa. (3)

The “Eamian Inter-Glacial” was followed by 100,000 years of climate cooling that produced the "Last Glaciation Period". Average earth surface temperatures dropping gradually by 8 to 10°C with steep fluctuations to extreme lows and highs. After its adoption of the archetypal model of tribal societies during the Eamian, which ensured the species to survive the population gridlock of small-bands, humanity adapted to these steep and abrupt fluctuations.

At the tail-end of the Younger-Dryas about 11,700 years ago, in the Tri-Continental-Area (TCA), a new bout of climate heating led to a violent rupture, with the tribal model of society and its animist worldview. This rupture forced the invention from scratch over the following millennia, of a new kind of societal worldview that we called religion. Having forgotten the role, that the animist worldview had played in the reproduction of tribal societies, transitional societies had to rediscover how the sharing of societal worldviews was determinant in fostering societal cohesion and how cohesion was instrumental in the institutional reproduction of societies.

Contrary to what happened in the TCA the vast alluvial plains of China allowed for the continuity of tribal territorial expansion under a shared animist worldview. This continuity was the haul-mark of East-Asia's transition from the archetypal model of tribal-societies to the archetypal model of power-societies.

Different regional contextual settings caused thus a forking of worldviews, in the wake of the abrupt climate heating, at the tail-end of the Younger-Dryas. This forking led to a dual path of societal transition toward the reproduction of the institutions of "the archetypal model of power-societies” about 5,000 years ago. But, while both paths led to the same archetypal model of power-societies, their knowledge paradigm, their axioms of civilization and their historical worldviews, differentiated wildly which fostered the development of radically otherworldly societal fields of culture.

The destabilization of the existing "archetypal models of society", during the emergence of the last 2 interglacials, was caused by the following determinant factors :

 

1.1.1. Higher levels of CO2 in the atmosphere accompanied a warming climate

 

The warming climate exasperated the emission of greenhouse gasses which amplified the warming process that had already been engaged earlier by other forces. 

 

As the graph here under suggests the co-fluctuations, of increasing levels of CO2 and other greenhouse gases with increasing levels of temperatures, also implies, that our contemporary levels of CO2 may already have engaged an increase of some 10 Cº above the average temperatures at the surface of the earth in 1750 !

 

  Graph by Leland McInne, in Wikimedia, modified by laodan.

 

In light of the turning, of the existing archetypal model of society during the emergence of the last 2 interglacials, the ability of our power-societies to adapt to the present abrupt heating is definitely in question !  

 

 1.1.2. Increasing earth surface temperatures + the CO2 fertilizing effect >>> growth of the flora

 

CO2 increases boost the cycle of climate heating and accelerate the rhythm of increasing surface temperatures. Under a certain temperature threshold, increasing temperatures are having a fertilizing effect that boosts the flora. But passing this threshold the temperature is destabilizing the Geo-bio-chemical state of the earth which comes at the cost of a mass-extinction of species which is precisely what is going on presently !

 

1.1.3. A fast growing flora unleashed a fast growing fauna.

 

An abundance, of plants to graze upon, necessary implies a demographic boom of the animals living from these plants which explains why Homo-Sapiens experienced a fast rising demography during the emergence of both the Eamian and the Holocene..

 

1.1.4. Fast growing populations rendered the existing model of society in-operational.

 

Population growth eventually reached a threshold after which the existing "archetypal model of society" got destabilized. The "small bands" model of society was destabilized during the emergence of the Eamian while the tribal model got destabilized during the emergence of the Holocene.

 

In both cases knowledge formation played a determinant role. The brain of the genie Homo had been growing over the last 2 million years causing the emergence, between 400,000 and 300,000 years ago, of Homo-Sapiens whose larger brains had gained them the mental potential to generate abstractions from their observations. This potential helped them to navigate the warming during the Eamian which ensured a first successful transition, ever by any species of the Genie Homo, to a new "archetypal model of society".

 

1.1.5. Knowledge formation guided the experimentation of new forms of societal organization

 

The process of “knowledge formation” has played a crucial role in the human adoption of new models of societies that were better adapted to changing contextual settings. Without knowledge formation, our ability to adapt to a changing context would have been limited to survive within the archetypal model of small-bands as had been the fate of our earlier ancestors.

The emergence in Homo-Sapiens’ minds, of a potential to consciously abstract logical conclusions from the image-data captured by their biological sensors, opened a whole new era of cognition that allowed them to switch during the Eamian, from the suddenly in-operational “archetypal model of Small-Bands”, to “the archetypal model of Tribal-Societies”.

It was at this particular juncture, that the cultural evolution of societies began to complement the biological evolution of the individuals, and this led to an ever faster acceleration in the internal evolution of the societies sharing the archetypal model of the day.

After the emergence, of the new “archetypal model of tribal-societies”, its local societies started to evolve by adapting their cultural fields to the changes in contextual settings. This evolution was indeed cultural in nature. Culture in the largest sense incorporates all thinking, behaviors and actions of the individuals at a given moment. In short the perception, by the individuals of their contextual settings, synchronized constantly with the animist historical worldview of their tribes, and this resulted in the formation of the daily-culture of their societies.

 

The same goes nowadays under our "power-societies. Our contemporary contextual settings are suggesting a mass of cultural memes to the individuals. But the synchronization, of their perceptions with the historical worldview of their society, cancels out most of these cultural memes which explains why so very few of them manage to replicate over time. After the formation of the daily-culture of societies through synchronization the historical worldview, in turn, synchronizes with the cultural memes that are replicating over the long haul in the daily-culture. This is how historical worldviews adapt to the daily-culture of societies.

These processes of synchronization operate unconsciously which implies that societal change operates nearly totally outside of human free-will !

The turning from one archetypal model of society to another, and the governance of societies, is the subject of the Volume 5 of this series. This Volume 1 focuses more particularly on the internal cultural evolution of power-societies.

Culture is one of those elastic concepts covering such vastly different substance matters that its use often leads to misunderstandings. The fact is that the substance of a society’s culture varies over time. In the here and now our societies are animated by their “daily-culture” while their history is driven by their citizens' sharing of "the societal worldview”. And historical worldviews ultimately emerged from the axioms of their civilization which contain the gist of the knowledge paradigm, and of the system of logic, of the original society that expanded the civilizational realm.

“Daily culture”, “historical worldviews”, “axioms of civilizations”, "societal systems of logic" and "knowledge paradigms" are equally significant aspects, of what I call "the interactive continuum of the cultural field of societies". These interactions form the substance of cultural and societal evolution.

 

 

1.2. The transition, from the archetypal model of Tribal-Societies to the archetypal model of Power-Societies, shaped an irreconcilable differentiation between the knowledge paradigms, the historical worldviews, and the civilizations of China and of the West ?

The tribal model of societal organization was destabilized by growing populations in the Tri-Ccontinental-Area. This destabilization got eventually answered by a violent rupture with the tribal model of societal organization and its animist worldview that was consecrated by the burying of the tribal site, of Gebekli Tepe about 10,000 years ago. Burying Gebekli Tepe was an ultimate call for the experimentation, through trial and error of a new societal order. Some 5,000 years later the new "archetypal model of Power-Societies" finally emerged that was able to reproduce its institutions of power over the long haul of multiple generations.

In contrast to the TCA the vastness of China's alluvial plains allowed for a uninterrupted territorial expansion of the tribal model of societal organization and of its animist worldview. The ancient process of "tribal cultural unification" expanded thus over ever larger territories. In the process the animist (wo)men of knowledge got eventually called upon to manage large anti-flooding works as well as the villages regrouping the volunteer tribesmen who executed these works. Power societies emerged thus imperceptibly. The dynastic transmission of power marked the definitive shift away from the negotiation process, of tribal decision-making at the unanimity, to the power model of decision-making.

Geographical and geological differences, between China and the TCA, fostered different paths of transition away from the tribal model of societal organization. The TCA ruptured violently with tribal societies and animism while China expanded animism in continuity and their choice got imprinted in the collective subconscious. In the TCA geographic and geologic factors imposed rupture with tribal animism as the sole possibility of survival in the wake of climate heating and population growth. In their aping of the TCA Western societies converted this circumstantial necessity into an axiomatic truth. Meanwhile in China "Tribal Cultural Confederations" had imperceptibly evolved into "Power Cultural Confederations" that shared animism as their societal worldview.

By the end, of their transition from tribal to power-societies, both China and the West had turned to a common archetypal model of power-societies because they both were confronted with the same urgency to manage societies with very large population sizes. But in the process they had inherited different sets of cultural parameters : — knowledge paradigms — societal systems of logic — civilizational axioms — historical worldviews — vastly different daily-cultures — different systems of governance — and so on.

China's cultural continuity ensured the persistence of animism as the foundational worldview of its power-societies which led to the inheritance, of a common set of civilizational axioms and a common system of societal logic, by the societies participating in its civilizational realm. In contrast by rupturing violently, with tribal societies and animism, the societies in the TCA were eventually forced to invent new religious worldviews from scratch or to adopt such new worldviews. This implies that the transition, in the TCA and Western societies, was marred by thousands of years of governance setbacks in the reproduction of the institutions of their power-societies !

An archetypal transition, along the lines of a commonly shared axiom of continuity, over the millennia has infused its normality in Chinese minds, while the sharing of a common axiom of rupture, over the millennia has infused its normality in Western minds. This means that the continuity, of animism as the shared foundational worldview of China's civilization, fostered a form of governance that celebrates cultural unity as the normality of life for the people living within the territory of the country, and the societies on its periphery. This contrasts with the West where rupture became the axiom of cultural and societal evolution.

 

1.2.1. Incomprehension of "the other"

 

The unending contemporary Geopolitical tensions indicate that the sole possible path, to a peaceful 21st century, will necessitate "the comprehension of how the societal cultural field of 'the other' is working". Continued incomprehension will inevitably lead to war and destruction !

Both China and the West will have to make a special effort to boost their understanding and appreciation of the historical process that shaped the differentiated cultural fields of their societies.

The failure, of the West to comprehend China presently, is leading it to reject the Chinese “other” by trying to exclude her from the Geopolitical field of Western-Modernity. 

 

But the technological competition, between the USA and China, is already making amply evident that China is winning this Western game ! And so the outcome of Western-Modernity will most probably be the isolation of the West by 85% of the world population who are no longer viewing the US and Europe as the indispensable beaken on top of the hill of Western-Modernity !

Due to multiple factors China is coming ahead in the competition and the West risks to be trapped in isolation from the rest of the world ! In the end, to escape its loneliness, the West will have to acknowledge the Chinese "otherness". The rapid rise of China, as the center of gravity of Western-Modernity, is indeed attracting the world population to the dream that "There Is Definitely An Alternative" to Western hegemony !

TIDAA is encouraging countries and individuals to cut their Western chains and to cooperate in the construction of a new world order based on their collaboration in a community sharing a common future that respects the equality of all nations, their national sovereignty, and their national choice of political and economic systems.

Without the recognition and the acceptance of such a shared future the USA will remain isolated from the new world order in the making.

 

1.2.2. The facts

On both sides, of the great divide between the Western and the Chinese civilizations, power has been procuring, to a minority of men since 5,000 years ago, the monopoly to draft rules and to implement these rules in their territory, while hoarding the resources of the working population to finance their privileges !

Supplying the needs of this minority had rapidly been made possible by serfdom and slavery. Later a further surplus of energy was made available through the domestication of cows and horses or other large animals. The cumulation of this organic energy powered an increasing agricultural production that resulted in further population growth and the emergence of cities, confederations of cities, and then early-kingdoms, empires, and their civilizational realms.

The cumulation of organic energy procured, by slavery and animal domestication, was the determinant factor in unleashing the whole cycle of the agricultural revolution, the settlement of humanity in villages and cities, and the expansion of power-societies in civilizational realms that, over the millennia marginalized all other forms of societal organization.

The same kind of process was at work during the industrial revolution which was powered by cheap fossil fuels. But the burning of these fossil fuels was so rapid that its increasing emissions of CO2 have been unleashing a mass extinction.

The fact, that power-societies emerged in radically different cultural fields, means that both sides approach the evolution of their societies from another angle.

The axiom of continuity in China means the sharing of a common worldview that the locals refer to as "Chinese Traditional Culture". CTC refers to a commonly shared traditional approach of all aspects of daily-life : — Chinese Traditional Medicine (CTM) — Chinese Traditional Cuisine (CTC) — Chinese Traditional Views about reality (Yin-Yang, Dao, middle-road, societal harmony, etc) — Chinese Traditional Governance (CTG) — and so on. The objective, of CTG, is rooted in the traditional objective, of the animist knowledge paradigm, which was to alleviate the suffering of the individuals so as to open their minds to happiness. The role of the animist (wo)men of knowledge was thus to serve their fellow-tribesmen. Since the advent of the early Chinese "Power Cultural Confederations" CTG has always been assigned to "the men of knowledge" and their role has always been to serve the people by supplying them a clean level playing field that maximizes their chance to produce a satisfactory daily-life for their families while ensuring them protection from destabilization by foreign forces.

The axiom of rupture forced the societies in the Tri-Continental-Area, and later in the West, to create a new worldview from scratch or to adopt such an existing worldview in order to fill the void of meaning that appeared after the violent rupture with animism and the tribal model of society. This period of creation by men of knowledge spanned millennia and was accompanied by the constant instability of the societal governance by men of power who were unable to reproduce their institutions over the generations. Things changed after some men of power offered to cooperate with men of knowledge who had a large following. This cooperation associated the sharing of a common worldview by large masses of followers with the reproduction of the institutions of power. The result was immediate. The men of power succeeded to reproduce their institutions over successive generations which is remembered today as the emergence of cities, kingdoms, and empires.

Continuity in China, and rupture in the TCA and later in the West, consecrated otherworldly knowledge paradigms, societal systems of logic, axioms of civilization, and historical worldviews. In other words the cultural field, of their societies, is incompatible. It is this incompatibility that needs comprehension today to give our species a chance to navigate the future in peace in order to ultimately adjust its way of life to the carrying capacity of its earthly habitat.

 

1.2.3. Rationality, technology, economic revolutions.

 

Economic revolutions are always being explained for their use of new technologies and their new sources of abundant energy. But this technical focus always omits to mention the vital contextual settings in which revolutions emerge. These contextual settings are ultimately "the order of the universe", "the First Principles of Life", and the Geo-bio-chemical state of the earth that forms the habitat of life. When changes occur, in these contextual settings, species are forced to adapt to them otherwise they risk to go extinct. Their answers have furthermore to be "workable" for "what is not workable" is eliminated by the reset of the Geo-bio-chemical state of the earth. The outcome of workable answers is what in the end is remembered as revolutions.

Societal revolutions are always driven by the need for answers to changes in the contextual settings that impact the societal organization of the individuals. And these answers are driven by the system of knowledge formation which emerges from the knowledge paradigm and the societal system of logic of the time that impose their rationality on the elaboration of workable answers to changes in the contextual settings.

The destabilization by population growth, of small-bands in the wake of the climate heating that initiated both the Eamian and the Holocene inter-glacial, gave rise to the experimentation of new forms of societal organization that had the ability to handle larger populations. The societal revolutions that these answers generated are rarely mentioned. Our focus is always on the technical aspects of the economic outcome of these societal revolutions but by doing so we forget about the process that generated this particular outcome.

Historically the processes that generated economic revolutions have always been driven by changes in the parameters of human cognition. The turning to the archetypal model of tribal-societies during the Eamian had been rendered possible by the maturation of the potential capability of abstracting conclusions from the data collected by the sensors of Homo-Sapiens. The adoption of agriculture had resulted from the decision-making of the animist system of knowledge formation in place at the time in both East-Asia and in the TCA. And the industrial revolution emerged from the maturation of the knowledge paradigm of Modernity, that had emerged in the minds of Frankish long distance merchants in the 12th century, into philosophic rationality and science as its functional instrument.

The knowledge paradigm of animism was "pragmatism in daily life to alleviate the anxiety and suffering of the individuals while easing the long haul reproduction of their societies" and its rationality, or societal paradigm, was that “the sharing of the worldview of a given (wo)man of knowledge resulted in the assembly of its followers in a tribe whose cohesion was boosted so as to foster its long haul reproduction”.

In contrast the knowledge paradigm of religions was invariably "a narrative about the transformation, of the traditional service procured by animist spirits to alleviate the suffering of the individuals, into a societal power-relation of gods who imposed their revealed truth about the working of reality to the individuals". And it follows that the rationality, or the societal paradigm, of religions was "the assembly of citizens by force and their sharing of a common religious societal worldview to ease the reproduction of their societal institutions”.

The early knowledge paradigm of Modernity, that emerged during the 12th century in the minds of Frankish long distance merchants, added an external parameter to the religious knowledge paradigm. This external parameter reads as “The belief in the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation”. This Western knowledge paradigm gradually imposed Western Modernity to the whole world.

Both the Chinese and the Western knowledge paradigms drive the rationality of their particular forms of societal governance. The adoption by China, of the Western knowledge paradigm in the 1970's and its integration and digestion in its own animist knowledge paradigm, is what presently allows China to win the game of Western-Modernity !

This implies that China's success, in the game of Western-Modernity, was reached from the cultural perspective of the absorption, of the knowledge paradigm of Western-Modernity, into the societal system of logic of the Chinese Traditional Culture. Understanding the Chinese idea of continuity, through absorption and digestion, is crucial to understand how the Chinese cultural perspective powered the economic and technological revolution of their society. The Western focus on the technical rationality, of its economic models, is unfortunately distracting the attention, of the observers of the Chinese societal scene, from the profound synchronization mechanisms that are at work in China's cultural field. The synchronization of the individual's perceptions, about their present contextual settings with their shared Chinese Traditional Culture, is what allows the Chinese population to absorb the determinant parameters of Western-Modernity in the continuity of their societal cultural field. As long as the West remains impervious, to this cultural reality, it will chase the shadows of China's societal moves !

 

1.2.4. The knowledge of agriculture preceded the agricultural revolution

 

The agricultural revolution emerged as the application of a principle known by tribal populations since times immemorial. Its application had always been rejected because it was not perceived to bring any betterment in tribal daily life. But the context suddenly changed :

• With climate heating tribal groups were generating excess populations


• Alluvial plains in the TCA got fully occupied by tribal groups


• The traditional fission-fusion, population control mechanism, encountered a dead-end that needed a solution


• Tribal excess populations were forced to experiment the application of the known principles of agriculture that hitherto had always been a taboo

The transition to agriculture requires an understanding of animist knowledge formation that the canon of science in the era of Western-Modernity has still not grasped. What I mean to say is that the traditional animist knowledge was the domain of the tribal (wo)men of knowledge whose activity was in line with their knowledge paradigm : "pragmatism in daily life to alleviate the anxiety and suffering of the individuals while easing the long haul reproduction of their societies". Their aim, to alleviate the anxiety and suffering of their fellow-tribesmen, had prompted them not to apply their knowledge, of agricultural principles, in their daily-culture ! And they only encouraged their fellow tribesmen to experiment their known agricultural principles after contextual changes forced them to do it.

Contrary to the widespread belief of liberalism the rationality of science is not generating any ultimate knowledge. Science is a derivative from the knowledge paradigm of Western-Modernity which implies that it is intimately bound to "the belief in the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation". There is no escaping the fact that the activities of scientists are financed by capital holders or their private and public servants. Scientists are thus not the ultimate deciders of what is being studied and of how their "technical knowings" are being implemented in societal life. Ultimately they are merely the technical operators of the scientific method while the ultimate deciders are the capital holders and their servants. In other words scientists are laborers at the service of capital holders like any other blue or white collar workers !

I focus more systematically on this differentiation between the "knowledge" of societal (wo)men of knowledge and the "knowings" of scientist laborers, in the volume 3, "Societal Knowledge Formation".

 

1.2.5. The knowledge paradigm of the archetypal model of power-societies

 

New knowledge paradigms are foundational to new archetypal models of societies. They emerge, outside of human consciousness, forced by changing contextual settings. A new knowledge paradigm eventually fosters a foundational worldview that, in turn, eventually fosters a new societal paradigm and its system of societal logic. And history teaches us how the natural inclination of empires eventually forced their system of societal logic into the vaster territorial realm of civilizations.

The (wo)men of knowledge had observed that the ideal size of tribal societies was an average of 150 individuals so they encouraged them to stay within the boundaries of approximately 120 to 180 individuals. Passed that boundary they guided their excess population to associate with the excess population of other tribes in order to form a new tribal entity by occupying a territory within the freely available territory in the alluvial plain. The men of knowledge were sharing their worldview with their fellow tribesmen in order to ensure that their tribe was highly cohesive. Keeping them within strict population limits was essential to ensure their cohesiveness.

The transition to power-societies was a uneven process that had to adapt to the local and regional contextual settings. The geography and geology, of the TCA and of East-Asia, is characterized by the vastly different sizes of their alluvial plains which, as demonstrated here under, fostered differentiated transition paths to the archetypal model of power-societies. 

1.2.5.1. In the alluvial plains of the Tri-Continental-Area

An abrupt climate heating 11,700 years ago caused a rapid population growth that by 11,000 years ago had destabilized the tribal model of societal organization.Tribal territories occupied the entirely of the alluvial plains of Mesopotamia and any supplemental population, above the threshold of 180 individuals, got parked in small parcels at the intersection of these tribal territories.

The experimentation of producing the resources necessary for the subsistence of populations, on a fraction of the territory used by tribes, must have appeared as an evident solution, in the eyes of the tribal (wo)men of knowledge, to save the existence of the tribal excess population. They had intuitively sensed that the experimentation, of their ancestral knowledge about fauna and flora, had the potential to feed large populations on a limited territory.

The experimentation was successful but further population growth, by 10,500 years ago, forced the early villages to expand in tribal territory. Violence ensued and the naturally peaceful tribes from the plains, extending to the 5 seas around Anatolia, fled to its higher grounds where they built monumental retreats in the underworld. But their tribal model of organization rapidly became utterly in-operational. In their search for solutions the animist (wo)men of knowledge finally decided, about 10,000 years ago, to bury these retreats under a thick layer of dirt. The archeological remnants, of these retreats, have recently been discovered in Gebekli Tepe and the other Tepes of Anatolia.

We moderns view our ancestors as primitives. But this understanding is a mental weakness. Life, at each stage of its development, has always needed to adapt to its changing contextual settings. And the same was true at each stage of the development of Homo-Sapiens. Western-Modernity did not change this. What changed is that the culture of Modernity forgot about the foundational truths of "the order of the universe" and of "the First Principles of Life" which leaves our younger generations with a predicament.

Scientists have been forced to recognize that tribal (wo)men of knowledge had a very advanced and sophisticated knowledge about astronomy and about the use of plants in the treatment of health conditions. Once this was understood, a few decades ago, pharmaceutical companies rushed to patent the plants, or the active ingredients in the plants, that tribal (wo)men of knowledge used to treat their fellow tribesmen.

This suggests that the animist (wo)men of knowledge knew a lot more than they have ever been credited for. They knew, for example, that it would be possible to produce the resources necessary, to feed large groups of people on a limited territory by voluntarily intervening in the natural growth of plants and animals. But we still miserably fail to appreciate how humanity initiated the cultural evolution of their societies, and how this cultural evolution started to run in parallel with the biological evolution of the individuals ! This explains why we are still unable to comprehend that the animist (wo)men of knowledge sacrificed their knowledge and their societal model of organization in order to entice their fellow-tribesmen to experiment a new archetypal model of society.

1.2.5.2. In the alluvial plains of China

The alluvial plains, within the territory of present-day China, were magnitudes larger than those of the TCA. This allowed for the un-interrupted continuity : — of tribal territorial expansion — and of the territorial expansion of "Tribal Cultural Confederations".

Some tribes within the "Tribal Cultural Confederations" eventually asked the wisest (wo)men of knowledge, who was the symbol of the cultural unity of their confederation, to do something about the annual recurrences of their territory's flooding. Archeological discoveries date the first large scale flood alleviation works to about 7,000 years ago. With hindsight it appears that these works engaged a radical turning in the evolution of tribal societies.

Tribesmen from all the tribes in the confederation were encouraged to participate in these alleviation works and large number of individuals and their families migrated to the sites of these works. This had various implications. These large numbers of individuals needed to be fed and their grouping needed to be organized while the volunteer workers needed to be managed. And feeding these individuals had to be realized autonomously and locally in order to avoid the objection of the tribes participating in the confederation. Early agricultural villages emerged thus to organize the habitat and to organize the tribal population participating in the works.

The sage who was considered the symbol, of the cultural unity of the tribes participating in the confederation, was in charge of the organization of the village and of the conception and the organization of the works. She or he was thus most probably seconded by the (wo)men of knowledge of the various tribes participating in the confederation. In the earliest stages of the works their organization was most probably in the form of a gentile guidance of the sage and her or his assistants. But after centuries and millennia their gentile guidance had most probably transformed into a form of authority. And the dynastic transmission of the charge, about 4,000 years ago, eventually transformed this benign authority into power relations.

This evolutive process consecrated the continuity : — of the guidance of the group by the (wo)men of knowledge — of the sharing of animism as the worldview of the group.

The rupture, that was operated in the TCA with animism and the tribal societal organization, contrasts starkly with the continuity that was at work all along the evolutive process of large scale flood alleviation works in China where the slow evolution of the role of the sage imperceptibly transformed the "Tribal Cultural Confederation" into a "Power Cultural Confederation".

 

 

1.3. Western power-societies complemented the religious knowledge paradigm with the knowledge paradigm of Modernity

 

As we have seen here above the Christian knowledge paradigm originated the foundational worldview and the system of logic of the societies in the realm of the Western civilization. In contrast the system of logic of China's polity and civilization had originated from its animist knowledge paradigm.

Western empires, and non-Western polities, generally expanded by conquest into the cultural realm of civilizations and the societies that were active in the realm of these civilizations, got modulated by the synchronization of the perception of their individuals about their present contextual settings with their shared historical worldviews.

The Enlightenment, of Western-Modernity to its technical and materialist rationality, consecrated the separation, of culture in its largest sense, into the tunnel-vision of scientific specialties which viewed, the development of the societies that were active in the realm of civilizations, as a matter of economic activity that fashioned their social and cultural outcomes. In such an economic tunnel-vision the ownership of the means of production was viewed as the determinant factor that procured might to the active societies in the realm of civilizations. These societies were thus largely viewed through the prism of the competition between their national capital holders while their external competition focused on controlling the world order.

In the early stage of Western-Modernity capital, labor, and resources were considered the determinant parameters that procured might. The silent revolution of the 1970's, that expanded the field of Western capital holders to the whole world, forced them to invest in communication technologies in order to manage the global spread of their assets. Their ideological prejudice against labor urged them to expand the field of technological research to production automation and to marketing and public relations. Consumerism focused the minds on the materiality of the products while the representativity of labor organizations dwindled.

By the turn to the 21st century capital, resources, and technology were the new trio of determinant parameters in procuring societal might. The replacement of labor by technology had imperceptibly materialized from the end of the 1970's until the great recession of 2008. The emergence, of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and of Artificial Generative Intelligence (AGI) during the 2nd decade of the 21st century, accelerated the perception that technology was going to replace labor and it is now common to read or hear that robots will soon take over all the jobs.

The fact is that technology has always played a determinant role in societies. It always was the cultural creation of the active minority of individuals who constantly yearn for change. And technological change was eventually adopted by societies to allow them to reach higher levels of complexity. Over the last 900 years the knowledge paradigm of Western-Modernity systematically privileged higher levels of societal complexity and this helped it to dominate the rest of the world.

But technology is not sufficient to make a revolution compatible with "the order of the universe" and "the First Principles of Life". Technology has indeed to be powered in order to be implemented societally. But by the time a technology is made available, the necessary input of energy gets justified at any cost, not only at the cost to the habitat of life but also at the cost of the eventual side-effects on the health of the individuals' and on the cohesion of their societies.

But new technologies, and new sources of energy, don’t fall from the sky. They can only emerge within the framework of a given knowledge paradigm and its historical societal worldview (Zeitgeist). The knowledge paradigm procures the conceptual framework for the evolution of the historical societal worldview. What I mean to say is that the technological path of societies is pre-ordained by the interactions between their knowledge paradigms, their systems of logic, their axioms of civilization and their historical worldviews.

The religious knowledge paradigm, of the early power-societies in the Tri-Continerntal-Area, emerged from the sharing of a common narrative about the transformation, of the traditional societal service rendered by animist spirits to the individuals and their societies, into the exercise of a power-relation over the individuals, by a hierarchy of gods, that eventually evolved into a monotheistic hierarchy and its revealed truth about the working of reality.

In other words the religious knowledge paradigm was formatting the minds to the idea that "The truth, about the working of reality, is non-negotiable. God reveals the truth to his followers, who in return for his revelation, have obey the creed and submit to the edicts of the church". The followers of such a societal worldview are bound by the edicts of the church and its rules about societal governance. Seen, that these edicts and these rules ensure the continuous privileges of the men of power and of the men of knowledge, the individuals are inevitably separated in 2 classes, or groups of classes, Any societal change is thus firmly controlled which implies a slow adoption of innovations that leads to a slow societal evolution.

The knowledge paradigm of Western-Modernity emerged in the 12th century in the land of the Franks in the South-West of Europe and it reads as "the belief in the reason that is at work in the transformation of sterile money into a dynamic process of capital accumulation". Over time everything got subordinated to the belief in this reason. The first turning point came with Thomas Aquinas who justified the existence of human reason by postulating that it was complementary to God's truth. He believed in a unity of knowledge whose ontology was determined by God's truth while human reason procured the logic of its epistemology.

The path was thus traced and its outcome for educated Western Europeans would be an Enlightenment indeed !

 

 

 

1.4. The interactive continuum, of the cultural field of Western societies, is trapping their individuals into an unconscious drive to the apocalypse ?

 

The transition, in the TCA, from tribal to power-societies took 7 millennia and the transition of early-power societies to the knowledge paradigm of Western-Modernity took 4 more millennia ! And once the knowledge paradigm of Western-Modernity had emerged it terminally accelerated the transformation of the human condition.

1.4.1. Long distance commerce, and looting, filled the pockets of Western European merchants during the centuries of merchant capitalism that preceded the industrial revolution.

 

Long distance merchants accumulated wealth on a grand scale. Money was thus readily available to be invested. But investable projects were rare indeed so their profits remained largely stored in sterile money!

1.4.2. The envy, of the merchants’ richness, popularized the new conceptual framework of “the knowledge paradigm” of “Western-Modernity”.

 

Over the centuries “the reason” expanded to everything under the sun and so emerged the era of the Enlightenment when philosophic rationalism and science were consecrated as the instruments of the technical rationality of a materialist Western-Modernity. This technical rationality was immediately instrumental to the industrial revolution.

1.4.3. Britain imported large quantities of cotton goods from India and tea, porcelain, from China but there was no demand in these countries for British productions.

 

British payments in silver and gold were thus emptying British reserves…

1.4.4. An entente between the aristocracy, the clergy, and the long distance merchants, devised strategies to suppress the export of gold and silver.

 

In short order India was forbidden to process raw cotton while China was forced by the British to accept the addiction of its population to opium. This is how Britain financed its industrialization and how its empire spread over the world…

1.4.5. Western industrialization consecrated the power of Western big capital holders

 

Tinkering with cotton spinning and weaving production processes eventually transformed Britain into the factory of the world and its cotton textile goods sold all over the world including in India whose own products had been displaced by Britain's cheaper manufactured goods.

Democracy, and human rights, were the tactical principle, invented by liberal rich long distance merchants, to force their way in the decision-making process of their Western countries. But their strategy was all along to impose their knowledge paradigm to the whole world in order to indefinitely grow their material richness.

Today they have nearly completed this process but an unknown unknown has emerged that blocks their quest for indefinite growth of their material richness at the detriment of the populations of all countries on earth ! That unknown unknown is the emergence of China as the new center of gravity of Western-Modernity !

 

1.4.6. The interactive continuum of the cultural field of Western societies is trapping the individuals into an unconscious drive to the apocalypse 

 

The collapse, of the cultural field of Western societies over the last 50 years, explains the chaos that has overtaken them and this chaos has transformed into an opportunity to shift the center of gravity of Western-Modernity to China.

But, imbued as it is by the exceptionalism of its civilization, the West can’t accept this shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world outside of its civilizational realm. In its spitefulness it has started to dismantle the world order of Western-Modernity that it created in the wake of the 2nd World War.

The resulting Geopolitical destabilization comes at the cost of the impossibility for humanity to answer the predicament of the great convergence of the multiple side-effects of Western-Modernity :

1.4.6.1. Hyper-inequality and societal atomization have dislocated the cultural field of Western societies.

As a result of societal atomization Western societies have become unable to act as one national whole which implies that these societies can no longer successfully undertake any large scale national projects like fighting an epidemic, or helping the citizens after a natural catastrophe, or winning a 3rd World War for that matter !

 

Societal atomization then converged, with the outcome of financialization in the form of hyper-inequality, that stoked the fire of popular anger.

1.4.6.2. The paradox of Western-Modernity

Western-Modernity has incontestably been phenomenally successful at churning out material goods. 

 

But it has also imperceptibly forced a multitude of side-effects, on life and its habitat, that are causing a mass-extinction ! 

 

This is called the paradox of Western-Modernity.

1.4.6.3. Today the West refuses to accept that the shift of the center of gravity of Western-Modernity moves to China !

To break China's access to the center of gravity, of Western-Modernity, the West is now deconstructing the world-order that it had built in the wake of the 3rd World-War ! And all present hot-spots in Geo-politics are related to this refusal by the West to accept China's recovery of its traditional place in the world. But all this comes at the risk of unleashing a 3rd World War !

 

__________

The convergence of these 3 factors implies that humanity has entered the unknown. A period of uncertainty hangs over our heads. Wars and international disorder appear more certain with each passing day. And even more frightening is the Geo-bio-chemical state of the earth that, under the impact of human activities, is turning to a new state that could be far less amenable to life.

China’s economic success is the sole re-assuring factor in this maelstrom. It is instilling hope that "There Is Definitely An Alternative" to Western hegemony and the fact is that one Southern country after the other is getting inspired to search for its own way toward industrialization.

In the present unknown, the sole question. that seems to make sense, is if Chinese benevolence righteousness courtesy wisdom and honesty, will find the fortitude to guide the assembly of a true United Nations of the South whose mission will be to pacify the world while it transitions to the era of "After Western-Modernity".

__________

 

Notes

1. "Overview of Hominin Evolution", © 2012 Nature Education Knowledge 3(10):8. by Herman Pontzer (2012). The quotations, in the introduction of the summary, are from Herman Pontzer's article.

2. "Larger brains", Australian Museum, byBeth Blaxland, Fran Dorey . 2018-11-02.
"Homo sapiens – modern humans", Australian Museum, by Fran Dorey. 2020-10-16.
"How have we changed since our species first appeared?", Australian Museum, byFran Dorey. 2021-02-08

3. In search of how societies work. Tribes. The First and Forever Form, the RAND Pardee Center, by David Ronfeldt. 2006-12.
"Tribes in India", Indira Gandhi National Tribal University. Regional Campus Manipur. Course Faculty, by Ajeet Kumar Pankaj