Late-Western-Modernity and exceptionalism

Long time without posting

I'm terminating a 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 have been plunged in this work for the last 6 months, 7 to 9 hours daily, 7/7. But this did not insulate me from what is going on in the world. I still read, and watch videos, 5 to 6 hours on average everyday. This informs my illustrations of the theories I write about with contemporary examples.

While reading the revision of the chapter titled "4.2.4.2. Late-Modernity and Western exceptionalism" I thought that it neatly sums up my views about the present Geopolitical situation so I decided to share it on my blog. 

 

The revision of Volume 1 will be available sometime within the next 2 weeks. 

Have a nice read and if you happen to agree with what I write please share this article with your friends.

laodan

Daily reality and the news about it. Part 5.

Part 5. “There Is Definitely An Alternative” to Western hegemony (TIDAA)

In this last part I’m using a few quotes from articles by Peter Lee to force myself to focus on how the worldwide rise of TIDAA takes place in a deeply troubled context. Peter is a writer whose views on China I generally find refreshing for pointing to facts that are rooted in the ground of daily reality.

Daily reality and the news about it. Part 2.

Part 2. The emergence of Western exceptionalism and its consequences

Northern Western Europe has inherited Christianity after the fall of the Western Roman empire. During the Early Middle-ages, which spanned from the late 5th to mid 10th century, Christianity got confronted with the cultural values of the Franks and by the 10th century it had reconciled with these values by absorbing them. This fusion procured the specificity that distinguishes Western Christianity from the Orthodoxy of Eastern Christianity to this very day.

The perspective of the 5,000 year old grandmother of all nations. Part 5. the necessity of a new societal paradigm and an actualization of our societal worldviews

In these twenties humanity is in the midst of a Geo-Political storm that is being activated by the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world from the West to East-Asia. 

The perspective of the 5,000 year old grandmother of all nations. Part 4. Western Modernity or Chinese Modernity ?

I started Part 1 with the following sentence :

"The media noise nowadays relates in one way or another to the Western refusal to accept the natural shift of the economy-world to East-Asia."

The perspective of the 5,000 year old grandmother of all nations. Part 3. While the West falls apart China ensures its technological self-sufficiency.

The impetuosity of the US adolescent nation culminated during the Trump presidency. Aware that the Middle-Class' had fallen into poverty Donald Trump got elected because he focused on the hope of "Making America Great Again". But he knew that the dream of going back to the sixties was a non starter and so, as an inveterate racist, he scapegoated China. The peak of his trash-talking came when, unable to address Covid-19, his administration accused China of having unleashed the virus on the world and declaring that it was thus liable to pay trillions of dollars in damages.

The perspective of the 5,000 year old grandmother of all nations. Part 2. An impetuous adolescent USA gets isolated in its corner of the world

Western decision-makers seem to be stuck, in a highly chaotic bout of delusion, absolutely impervious to the facts on the ground of our planet earth. 

 

This is how the Global times recently summarized this Western chaotic bout of delusion : 

 

The perspective of the 5,000 year old grandmother of all nations. Part 1. An adolescent is sowing Chaos all around !

Before I retreat, for something as a full year in hibernation, to edit the volume 3 of my series "From Modernity to After-Modernity" that is  titled "Societal Knowledge Formation", I would like to share my interpretation of China's perception, as the 5,000 year old grandmother of all nations on earth, about humanity's present state of affairs.

You can read the extensive version of this summary in "Modernity 02", or in "The Great Turning". 

_____________ 

The ebook "The Great Turning” is online.

 

I just uploaded the ebook “The Great Turning”. It is a compilation, and edited version, of my series of 10 articles under the same title. “The Great Turning” examines the contemporary through the lens of my recently published book “Modernity”.

The great turning (11)

10. A new worldview in After-Modernity

The historical combination of the societal disintegration of the West, with China’s economic rise to the top spot, have initiated the hope in the Global South of a potential liberation from Western hegemony. But, notwithstanding this potential, it is already a mathematical certainty that lifestyles comparable to the present ones in the West will never become available in the Global South !

The Great Turning (10)

9. The Fall of Modernity

At first sight one might think that what is at stake, in these two-thousand twenties, is the rejection of Western hegemony which, the large majority of citizens by now know is entirely geared toward privileging the biggest Western capital owners, their Multi-National corporations, and their armies of servants : — state bureaucracies and their units of force — the intellectuals and scientists — the managerial class — the professionals in charge of those technologies that sustain the systems of state and corporate institutions.

The Great Turning (08)

7. Western resistance to the shift of the center of gravity of the economy-world to East-Asia

Over the last decade the center of gravity of the economy-world has been shifting extremely rapidly to east-Asia. But, as the graph hereunder illustrates (1), that shift is in reality no more than a return to the historical normality of these last 2,000 years.

The Great Turning (07)

6. ‘separation – rationality – scientific knowings’ / ‘interconnectedness – pragmatism – knowledge’

Content of this article (8000 words)

6.1. Animism = ‘interconnectedness – logic of pragmatism – traditional knowledge’
6.1.1. The reduction of individual suffering
6.1.2. Institutional reproduction of the societal group
6.2. Modernity = ‘separation – rationality – scientific knowings’
6.3. knowledge versus science
6.3.1. About the finality of knowledge and science
6.3.2. About the nature of knowledge and science
6.3.3. science and rationalism versus knowledge
6.3.4. How knowledge got kicked out of the picture

The Great Turning (06)

5. The expansion of the paradigm of Modernity into philosophic rationalism and science

As I wrote in Part 3 “the pragmatic common sense of the long distance merchants ensured the thriving of 'the reason' but this came at the price of subduing its development as a worldview”. This implies that by leaving “the reason” unspoken, in its fundamentalist Christian context, it was given the chance to thrive.

The Great Turning (05)

4. how did Modernity arise ?

 

 

Modernity did arise with the emergence of the paradigm of  “the reason that is at work in the transformation of money into capital”.

 

The Great Turning (03)

2. A new lease on life for the unipolar world ?

The prospect of an ending of Western hegemony implies that the days of Western prosperity, by sucking the resources of “the others”, are coming to an end and this means the following : 

Peasant Pelosi goes to Taiwan

 

 

 

 

 

 

A tale at the end of Western modernity. 

 

 

The Great turning (02)

1. How the West created the conditions of its downfall ?

The end of Western hegemony was predicated by the class-war mindset of Western big capital holders, and their institutional servants, who could not fathom that the social-wellness of the nineteen-fifties and sixties was foundational to the Western economic boom of the time.

The Great Turning (01)

This is an introduction to a series of 10 articles in which I describe the contemporary moment through the lens of my just published book “Modernity”. Starting today I’ll publish a new article every Friday until attaining the end of the series.

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

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

 

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

 

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