From Modernity to After-Modernity. (24)

Part 2. Theoretical considerations 
Chapter 5. About the arts

Dear readers I'm really sorry for this late publishing of the last articles in this series.  A software glitch left me stranded in Beijing and I could not find a way to access Blogger. There are 3 more posts to complete the publishing of what I wrote along the last winter. I'll post them weekly as I did in the past.
I wish you all a great summer. I'll be back publishing next November.
Best,
Laodan

5.3.4.3. Numerous contemporary ideas about the future.


People generally agree that modernity has yielded a series of bottlenecks but they widely disagree on their future outcomes for human societies. The range of future possible outcomes varies along the line between the following two extreme beliefs:

• the belief in technological singularity
• the belief in the collapse of modern civilization.

From Modernity to After-Modernity. (23)

Part 2. Theoretical considerations 
Chapter 5. About the arts

5.3.2.2.  China.

China and the countries in the TriContinentArea ("Middle-East: in Western European parlance) experienced a radically different transition from tribal societies to empire. In one word the countries in the TriContinentArea, as well as those that later adopted one of their worldview like Europe and its colonially forced geographic extensions for example, experienced a rupture with their tribal and animist past. China on the other hand experienced continuity. I exposed the reason for this radical divergence in “4.7.2. About the emergence and development of China's institutions of governance".

Rupture means that empires discard anything relating to tribes and develop a new governance structure and a new worldview from scratch. Continuity means that empires grew organically by adopting animism and by growing it further with add-ons.

This rupture versus continuity principle implies two radically different paths for the arts in Europe versus China.