Sequential Dependency
And The Evolution of Theory

World History 
And The Eonic Effect
Civilization, Darwinism, and Theories of Evolution
2nd. Edition
The Book
By  John Landon

Home

 3. Idea For A Universal History 
      3.1 A Short History of the World
             3.1.1 Stream and Sequence: A Frequency Hypothesis 
             3.1.2 Notes Toward an Eonic Model  
             3.1.3 A Certain Strangeness: Beyond Space and Time?
      3.2 Transition and Divide: A New Model of the Modern 
             3.2.1 The Discrete Freedom Sequence  
             3.2.2 The Old Testament as Eonic Data
             3.2.3 Religion, Transition and Oikoumene 
             3.2.4 The Economic Interpretation of History  
             3.2.5 Sequential Dependency and The Evolution of Theory   
      3.3 Kant’s Challenge  
            3.3.1 Kant’s Question  
            3.3.2 Intermezzo
Endnotes.  
      3.4 Critique of Historical Reason 
             3.4.1 Fisher’s Lament    
             3.4.2 A Science of History? The Third Antinomy             
             3.4.3 ‘Nature’s Secret Plan’ and Sociobiology 

 We have created a structure that, due to its affirmation of TP3, is open to many objections along the lines of Eurocentrism, and much else. But in fact we have neatly built in a series of concepts that allow us to flow seamlessly between two viewpoints, a consideration of modernity, as well as its critique. A postmodern or postcolonial viewpoint can find ample entry into the model to challenge wrong thinking generated by metahistorical narratives. Such counterpoint perspectives would be almost essential to keep our analysis honest. It is nonetheless true that imperialism fairly well spoils the developmental sequence, at each point. The canonical statement here, issues of communism apart, is that of Marx and Engels in their famous Manifesto, whose point for us is that intervention is required to modulate the gross deviations of free action during globalization. We have critiqued Marx so we can use him, questions of revolution apart. Marx never made the mistake of completely rejecting the modern transition because of its flawed realizations in the economic sphere. Consider some points here.

Our eonic mainline is in all observable cases benign but the result is expressed in terms of eonic determination and free action. This expression of directionality is distinct therefore from the ‘free action’ that executes in its wake. The result is often attempted development is utterly wretched and carried out by economic agents, usually no better than looters.

We have distinguished eonic sequence and econosequence, the one concentrated, the other dispersed. The mainline does not control that dispersion. The sudden discrepancy between the two can be dramatic. The classic instance is the simultaneous late emergence of abolition and early expanding slavery in TP3. Our mainline has a problem of reachability and the eonic emergents in each transition area are not items of trade or commerce, but complex cultural innovations that travel poorly.

Our system is operating on a minimum principle. The mainline acts only in its acorn areas, and then stops. The character of development changes drastically therefore in the switch between the two.

 These cautionary principles are essential to correct use of our model with its teleological innuendoes. Note that this kind of model grants no teleological justification to the ‘realization as free action’ of eonic determination. A good example is the case of the American system and the American Indian. The point of potential shows emergent democracy. Killing the American Indian is not democratic! Bungled realization is the only name for it. Our two level model grants only the expression of large-scale directionality. Its realizations are different. In the age of Darwin it is hard to recover a sense of this, and the imperialistic views of Darwin and Wallace in the age of Social Darwinism are a tremendous confusion, in no sense scientific.

In general, our mainline has generated ecumenical instruments, but these also suffer problems of realization. The early character of Christianity, for example, shows a considerable early cultural integration factor that spreads spontaneously among diverse peoples. Yet this is rapidly degraded over the course of the mideonic period. Islam and Christianity both become instruments of empire. By the time of Columbus the Catholic integrator is in league with the imperialist! The moral is that we cannot blame the generations of the mainline for actions of men who cannot use the results of emergent evolution.