Art. From tribal to power societies.

In the present stage of our understanding tribal art roughly emerged around 40,000  years ago while Chinese Xieyi painting, Chinese Buddhism and Christianity only started around 500 AD.

Calligraphy originates sometimes before 200 BC. It was revered as a fine art in line with poetry and music while painting was merely viewed as a craft applied in the field of decoration, remembrance of ancestors, or illustration of daily life. Xieyi appeared later as an extension of calligraphy and this is when painting finally acceded to the status of a fine art in China.

What is striking, in the juxtaposition of images here under, is how visually similar Chinese Xieyi painting is to tribal art. Chinese Buddhism still has some common traits with tribal art but with Christianity we enter into a whole new world.

Why is Xieyi so similar to tribal art?
Why is Christian art depicting such a totally different world than tribal and Xieyi art?

Humanity’s future and the role of the artist

This series of posts about “the disconnection between the West and China” centers around societal evolution, and more particularly, the present shifting of the center of gravity of the economy-world from the US to the territorial expanse of the Chinese civilization in North-East Asia. In the preceding posts we have seen how this shift is due to the interactions between the following factors:

Tentative Visual Encyclopedia of art

How to understand art?

Through reason with words?

Or through images of the thing itself?

The communist party ‘owns’ China

In the Peoples Republic of China the communist party literally owns the institutions of state and no interference in the decision making of these institutions is accepted by any group of interest. This is quite different from the West where lobbies write the laws relating to their interests. What this means is that the communist party has an absolute control over the way society functions. Now this does not mean, as most Westerners believe, that China is a dictatorship. Individuals and economic actors are participating in the decision making process by giving their ideas and opinions about what should be done. During this consultation phase civil society debates with the representatives of the party and the state about solutions and the media also relays these debates. Once the consultation phase concludes civil society retreats and lets the party and state institutions formalize the decisions and their implementation. And once the rules of the game have been formalized everybody is expected to participate in their implementation.

Big capital holders own Western ‘democracies’

In democracies a few families own controlling stakes of the capital that is invested in strategic sectors of the economy. This gives them, for example, the control over the media and ensures them the power to shape public opinion. And so the political decision making process is rendered captive of a public opinion that is being constantly framed around the interests of big capital holders.

How societies work & the role of worldviews and art

In my last post I tried to brush a rapid sketch of the profound mental disconnect between the West and China. In the present post I’ll brush an even more rapid sketch about how large societies function; it lays the foundations upon which, in my next 3 posts, I’ll build a more in-depth comparative analysis between the present and the future of Western and Chinese societies.

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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.

Restarting to blog

To my regular readers "welcome back" and to new readers "welcome".


Recapitulation

Since I stopped blogging over a year ago let me start with a recapitulation of my past blogging activity.

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?

America First? Hum... but China Is already starting to Dominate Global Technology!

As I wrote in the first post of this series (A growing disconnect between Chinese and Westerners) "Change is assaulting our certainties as never before. The fields it affects are multiplying while its speed is accelerating and in consequence our minds are being numbed into incomprehension".

But few would ever think that these changes already imply that the technological center of gravity of the world is leaving the US. So what follows will come as a surprise to most. The reality is that China is sprinting investing all over the place while the West is broke, its societies atomized and on the verge of violent confrontations, and the interconnections between its systems are clogged like the arteries of a patient with advanced arteriosclerosis. Treating this condition is not a given and many specialists (economists, anthropologists, sociologists, psychologists, etc...) believe that the patient is on its death bed. It should thus not come as a surprise that year after year, month after month, the scientific news is informing us that Western technological supremacy is sifting, one sector after the other, like sand falling through the fingers.

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.

A growing disconnect between Chinese and Westerners

What is going on? People's perceptions in China and in the West are so absolutely out of sync nowadays that I feel the urge to write about this disconnect. Generally speaking people in China are very optimistic about the future and they trust their political decision makers while in the West people are generally pessimistic and they totally distrust their political decision makers as well as the other elites of their societies which renders them weary about the future. Am I the only one to be shocked by the intensity of this growing disconnect?

Introductory note about "From Modernity to After-Modernity"

This series is becoming so long by now that new readers might easily get lost... So let me start with an introductory note about its context.


My thinking adventure started in the nineteen-sixties and seventies. As an aspiring painter I was bewildered by the confusion reigning supreme in the art world and so I felt compelled to engage in a process of thinking about the arts and the function of the arts in society that later expanded to societal evolution and how the function of the arts adapts to the realities of changing historical times. This series tells what I learnt along the way.


What I write about is the perspective of a thinking artist and my conclusions go something like this:

• the form of artistic productions must necessarily reflect the Zeitgeist of their times and must also be aesthetically pleasing in order to attract eyeballs

• the only artistically worthwhile productions are the ones that succeed to give a peek on the emergence of the future to the viewer. In that sense the content of the artwork is paramount. It opens the minds to the emergent future and encourages us to adapt our present ideas and behaviors in consequence. Those works that succeed to catch the spirit of the future are the ones that will be remembered in the future... the rest will be forgotten.

The articles in this series are a first draft about the transition from Modernity to After-Modernity which is the historical leap of humanity out of Late-Modernity or out of our present historical era... What comes our way compares to what humanity experienced during its past 3 major societal transitions:

1. from small bands to tribes sharing a worldview called animism
2. from tribes to empires and kingdoms that launched civilizations whose societies shared a worldview called religion or philosophy 
3. from empires and kingdoms to nation-states that share a quasi-worldview called Modernity.
   

The emerging transition from Modernity to After-Modernity promises to be as earth shattering for humanity as were the 2 first of these transitions and so it is my contention that the real artists today are those who are sensitive enough to capture the spirit, of what comes after Modernity, that is starting to emerge in the present. Being the active agents of the commodification of the arts, it goes without saying that, the operators of the art market are totally blind to such considerations... My hope is to touch those whose minds are still open to knowledge and beauty...


The articles in this series will be formatted in book form and edited for publication. Book 1 (2 volumes) written during the winter 2014-2015 is about history, Book 2 (5 volumes) written during the winter 2015-2016 is about theory, and this Book 3 (1 volume) written during the winter 2016-2017 is about what the future has in store for humanity ...and so its title "Divination". 

Since writing this some years have passed. Today I published the first volume of this series under the title "The Continuum of the Cultural Field"


This collection of articles is available here. (see articles 199 to 237) 

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.”

From Modernity to After-Modernity (33)

Book 3. Divination

1. the future emerges in a given context

1.1. The quasi-Worldview of Modernity

Modernity is not a worldview in the real meaning of the term. It is a quasi-worldview. A worldview relates to a holistic narrative that all citizens can share as their own understanding about what reality is all about. In other words the ideas generated by Modernity, and the facts those ideas derive, are not weaving a holistic narrative about human existential reality. As a matter of fact nor Modernity, nor science which is its active method of inquiry, are offering a narrative about what reality is all about... In this sense we come to understand why Modernity can’t answer the existential questions that pop up in peoples’ minds and why peoples’ minds are thus filing with anxiety that isolates them in the disturbing feeling of not really belonging to their societies. 

From Modernity to After-Modernity (32)

Book 3. Divination


1. the future emerges in a given context

Obviously the future does not fall from the sky.

The future is resulting from the arbitration between the multiple determinant factors that are competing in the present. In other words the competition, between the multiple determinant factors in the present, is what shapes the context out of which the future emerges.

From Modernity to After-Modernity (31)

Part 3. Divination
Introduction (continued. 4)

The future as a probabilistic outcome

The alternatives, that are shaping in the present as potential futures, are not readily visible and so the substance of the future remains invisible to the naked eye for the majority of citizens. But it is nevertheless accessible to inquiring minds. To detect these alternatives in their very early stage, I mean at the early stage of their formation as potentialities in the present, one has to entrust the subconscious by entering states of altered consciousness. It is indeed only after they have already emerged as selected future alternatives that conscious observation will possibly detect them. The fact of the matter is that the substance of these alternatives is being formatted inside the context that is shaping in the present which means that, while this context has still not been substantiated yet, future alternatives are already forming in the midst of the presently forming context. This whole process remains largely hidden to conscious observation and its visibility will only arise with its substantiation.

From modernity to After-Modernity (30)

Part 3. Divination
Introduction (continued. 3)

About divination

This “Book 3” is about getting a feel of what the future has in store for humanity and more broadly what the future has in store for life on earth. The future is perceived as being unknown so it is imperative for those who want to talk about it to clarify the methodology of their approach. This is what I propose to do here after.

From modernity to After-Modernity (29)

Part 3. Divination
Intoduction (continued. 2)


Confrontation, reconciliation, integration

The subconscious is accessible through altered states of consciousness and humanity, along the path of its societal evolution, has developed a certain number of techniques to reach such altered states in order to gain a deeper understanding of the working of reality and the place humans assume in it.

From Modernity to After Modernity 28

Part 3. Divination

Introduction. (1)


By confronting one’s conscious certainties with one’s subconscious visions one gets to reconcile them in a unified consciousness that is boosted at a higher level. This supplement of consciousness is then integrated within the scope of one’s conscious certainties. Mastering such a process fixes it in the mind and the resulting automatism engages an unstoppable quest for ever higher levels of consciousness. This is the path of the man of knowledge1 that opens one’s vision to what is emerging in the present as the substance of the future.

Writing season 2016-2017 = Book 3. Divination

Hi patient readers,

I have started writing, these last few weeks, the first draft of "Book 3: Divination" of my series "From Modernity to After-Modernity". My experience last winter with "Book 2: Theoretical Considerations" was really exhausting. Furthermore the length of my posts and the weekly publishing I had imposed on myself resulted in draft versions that I felt were sometimes not sufficiently thought out.  So I plan on a slower rhythm this winter with shorter posts (3-4000 words instead of 8-9000).

My first post, in this 2016-2017 winter series about the future, will appear on December 9th. Thinking about the future has been called divination since ancient times that's why I borrow that old word as title of the writing of this season 3 that later will become Book 3.

From Modernity to After-Modernity. (27)

Part 2. Theoretical considerations 

Summary sketch of part 2.

Life is one of the applications installed in the operating system of the universe and it emerges eventually in those of its sub-sets whose context contains all the ingredients for life to emerge.

Humanity is one of the youngest species to have evolved from such a process of emergence on earth. As all species humanity is subservient to the application of the principle of life. By that I mean that we can’t escape its rules; we are merely dancing to the tune of its music.

From Modernity to After-Modernity. (26)

Part 2. Theoretical considerations 

Chapter 5. About the arts

What follows is the table of content of the 25 posts I published during the past winter 2015-2016. These posts form part 2 of "From Modernity to After-Modernity" that addresses my personal theoretical views about societal evolution and the arts. This part 2 ended up totaling 204,122 words or some 750 book pages. I thought a table of content of this material could be useful to those of my readers who would want to read or re-read some specific parts of the content.  To find the post relating to the subject that interests you please go here.

Part 3 will address the paradigm shift that has already been set in motion during Late-Modernity. In other worlds part 3 shall address the formation of a new worldview, a new form of societal organization, and a new understanding of the arts that will replace the models of Modernity in the coming future... This will be the subject of my writing during the winter 2016-2017.

Until then I wish you all a very creative summer.

Laodan

From Modernity to After-Modernity. (25)

Part 2. Theoretical considerations 

Chapter 5. About the arts

Chapter 5. About the arts


5.4. the arts in what comes after Modernity
As I have laid out extensively already Modernity is in its late phase that I call Late-Modernity. This new context is made of multiple existential crisis that prepare the conditions for the seeds of what comes after Modernity to sprout. What is at stake here is the birth of a whole new societal paradigm that emerges as an answer to a falling model.
One of the most interesting aspects of the new paradigm relates to knowledge formation and acquisition.