Foreword to "Societal Knowledge Formation".

This is a first post related to the book "Societal Knowledge Formation" that I'm presently writing.

I'll try to give a monthly extract of parts of the book that I personally find particularly interesting. The present post is the foreword to the book.

 

Separating Europe from China in the hope of remaining forever the sole Tiger on the mountain

Over the whole of its time-span Modernity has witnessed 7 shifts of the center of gravity of its economy-world. An eight’s shift is presently in the works that moves the center of gravity of the economy-world from the USA to China. But this time around it is leaving the territorial domain of the Western civilization for what Western eyes view as an "otherworldly" civilization. And Western minds have difficulties to accept this unfolding reality.

Art versus propaganda

The difference between propaganda and art resides in the function of their signs.

The first is at the service of individualism while the latter serves the community (1) : 

 

First devastating societal blow in Late-Modernity (9)

5. The shift from a Western to an Eastern model of society

5.1. after covid-19 reality = affirmation of regional blocs

The economic reset, that is taking place in this first part of the 21th century, is a historical event fraught with danger. The West is losing its hegemony over an evolving Late-Modernity. The center of gravity of the economy-world is moving to a nation outside the Western civilizational realm.  But the West, or would it be better to say the USA, is not taking this reset agreeably and is multiplying the provocations against China.

First devastating societal blow in Late-Modernity (6)

Part 4.  The virus is the pin that deflated the bubble of everything

“  In less than three decades, a mere blink of the eye in historical terms, the United States has gone from the world’s sole superpower to a massive foundering wreck that is helpless before the coronavirus and intent on blaming the rest of the world for its own shortcomings.  … But how and why did this pitiable condition come about? Is it all Donald Trump’s fault as so many now assume? Or did the process begin earlier?

The answer for any serious student of imperial politics is the latter. ... two things are clear. One is that the process did not start under Trump, while the other is that it will undoubtedly continue regardless of who wins in November. Once collapse sets in, it’s impossible to stop.”  (1)

First devastating societal blow in Late-Modernity (5)

Part 3. an unquestionable qualitative difference

By way of introduction let me first observe that, for the first time since the emergence of High-Modernity, Western governments have answered a pandemic by privileging peoples’ lives over the profits of capital. What is it that motivated such a political turning point ?

First devastating societal blow in Late-Modernity (4)

Part 2.  Timeline of the Chinese answers to the outbreak of ‘Covid-19’

The fact that the COVID-19 epidemic broke out in Wuhan does not imply that the virus originated in Wuhan. In matter of fact the origin of COVID-19 is still unknown. Calling it “China virus” or “Wuhan virus” is thus dishonest to say the least. It reflects a will, by those who use such terms, to manipulate peoples’ minds and glue in the collective unconscious a narrative that satisfies their ideological interests.

First devastating societal blow in Late-Modernity (3)

Part 1.  Western propaganda distorts reality 

Late-Modernity, humanity’s present historical era, is being swept by two waves of worldwide changes that impact one another and announce a new historical era in the forming:

• the Late-Modern governance-world is undergoing a shift of its center of gravity from the West to the East (1)

• the side-effects of Modernity are increasingly becoming a threat to life on earth

The spectacle of a Western break-down

I had written a comment as a response on an article titled "It’s Time for Conscious Uncoupling With China" that was written by Dan Harris and published on "The China law blog" this April 11, 2020.

_________

I now share this response on my blog because "The China Law Blog" censured it while in no way does it peddle fake-news, nor does it attack individuals, nor does it use foul language. It conveys an analytical sketch of the present moment in history. In other words refusing to publish it was a blatant act of censuring free speech. A screenshot of freedom made in the USA...

_________

First devastating societal blow in Late-Modernity (1)

I have been busy these last 4 months making one thousand and twelve digital transformations of painting 2-02 of my 'grand project' series. 

The CoronaVirus outbreak that occurred in China in the beginning of January soon locked me down in Beijing and this eliminated the brouhaha of society that helped me to focus on the technicalities of digital imaging. 

But the extraordinary nature of the epidemic, and the even more extraordinary nature of the language that was accompanying it, kept me coming back to the web. What impressed me most is that while the epidemic transformed in a pandemic the language in use in the West morphed into virulent propaganda; a sign that the pandemic is somehow radically altering the geo-political balance of power. 

My intellectual curiosity was aroused and to get a better grip on the reality I decided that after finishing this series of digital transformations I would restart to write about the societal and geo-political transformations that are taking place under our very eyes. 

What follows is a new series of posts that will form, the first draft material of, a 3rd book about our contemporary circumstances.

Book 1 :  "A growing disconnect between East and West".  Published in October 2018

Book 2 :  "What is going on ? ".  Published on the 06th of December 2019.

Book 3 :  "A first devastating blow in Late-Modernity".

____________

Organic art = the patterns of life (2)

1. The nature and function of art over the last tens of thousands of years


In my last article I wrote “ Life is a rare gift in the universe but our power societies, and more particularly the quasi-worldview of Modernity, lost touch with this evidence. Now that we start to grasp the fact that this gift could be taken away we come to appreciate that it is the most precious thing we ever had. ”

Since the principle of life is the most important thing we ever had would it not be logical to derive all our ideas and actions about how to live from this principle ?

The first question that arises is then ‘what is life? ‘.

What’s going on here ? (6)

3. determinant factors driving the ‘governance-world’

Present post:

- Societal atomization
- Creeping totalitarianism
- Western illusions
- The West has no clue about China's strategy
- The West is setting itself up for a rude awakening
- The empire loses its clients

My next post

... I'm taking 2 months off ...
The next post in this series will appear on  Friday 2019-09-06:
4. the grand convergence of all the side-effects of Modernity
__________

E-book

An e-book of all posts in the series “A growing disconnect between China and the West”.

After editing the posts the e-book totals 150 pages.

Click on its cover page hereunder for download.

Center of gravity of the economy-world and worldviews

This article is a sketch of the general context of the present moment we find ourselves in the world. It comes as a conclusion of my short series “the disconnection in perceptions between East and West”. I'll follow this sketch with 2 more posts addressing – the realities on the ground in China and the West, – their future prospects in view of their present realities.

Is America still a nation?

This 4th of July Patrick Buchanan asked if America is still a nation (1).

This question touches a raw nerve and our minds ache.
What will we do without America?

Imaginings of the future. Rational abstractions reached by the thinking mind…

1.  Past trends that help to understand the present:

 

Our present mood shapes our reading of the future.

 Does it matter if Chinese and Western perceptions about societal reality are growing further apart?  Whatever people may be thinking the fact is that this disconnect is going to have a decisive impact on how humanity's future will unfold and so I believe that those whose minds are still open and curious about the fate of humanity better watch carefully.

From Modernity to After-Modernity (34)

Book 3. Divination

1. the future emerges in a given context

1.1. The quasi-Worldview of Modernity

1.1.2. Power ideologies mold the minds

In “Book 2. Volume 1. About the formation of human knowledge. 1.1. The context.  I defend the thesis  that the nature of reality is largely inaccessible to humanity (1). I further wrote that “We better recognize, early on, the fact that the whole universe is immensely vast; so vast that its true nature is inaccessible to human reason. … Inaccessibility implies the unknown and humans don't like unknowns. They have no problems with unknown "unknowns" for the good reason that unknown "unknowns" simply don't pop up in their consciousness but they feel utterly ill at ease when faced with known "unknowns" such as those nagging questions resulting from the inaccessibility of the whole universe to the human mind. Such known unknowns become obsessions that drive people in the throat of anxiety from where they search to escape at all costs. This is how societal groupings, along our entire history, have been seen coming in the picture by proposing approximations of reality, and of what the unknown is all about, to be shared by their citizens in order to sooth their anxiety. When shared by all citizens such approximations crystallize in a societal view of the world or a worldview that all consider as being the truth of the matter and this rewards those societies with higher levels of cohesion which, in turn, facilitate their reproduction from generation to generation.”