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Transition and Modernity
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4. Transition And Modernity 4.2
The Eschaton of
Geopolitics, First and Last Whigs |
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Modernity: Transition and Divide In one way we are done. Our model is basically complete, and we need to start putting some data into it. The real core of the argument begins once we have set up our model and begin to use it. We will proceed backwards toward the source of our eonic sequence (Chapter Five), and then turn around and return toward the present (Chapter Six). One of the remarkable properties of our model is the way it generates a divide at the end of a transition. Since our eonic sequence puts the modern transition at about three centuries from 1500 to 1800, the divide should be at about the beginning of the nineteenth century. All at once we uncover something amazing: the data reflects this exactly. The period is one of the most densely packed periods of innovation in world history. Now we know why. Recall our switch-off property. The eonic sequence switches off after its last transition. Thus the system shuts down (temporarily?) and system action turns into free action. If we study the eighteenth and nineteenth century we see why the Enlightenment is so creative, and why the nineteenth century has a different character. A new era is underway, and the principles set down are being carried out in practice. We see why we are starting to look backward, puzzled at what we mean by 'modernity'. In our approach there are two things, the modern transition (early modern), and the modern realization, or modern 'age', i.e. the new era created by the transition. We have a remarkable new model of modernity, and can briefly go through the sections of Chapter Four, as rubrics for an index of essays in a work in progress. There is a tremendous amount of material here, but the basic concepts are enough to start. Looking backwards To repeat, because of the Oedipus Effect, deterministic theories always provoke the paradox of the embedded observer. Our model is beautifully set up to solve this problem, but at the price of a predictive theory. Our transition crosses a divide, and we are from the dynamic action. It is essential to adopt this viewpoint, so that we don't let theory interfere with the present. Our job is therefore not to be true believers in a theory, but to deal with the outcomes (eonic emergents) of the transition. Not the theory, but the content. That takes the form of dealing with modernism, economic issues, etc,... Thus the keynote is one of looking backwards to see historical dynamic, but with the need to 'realize freedom' in the open future of the system. We don't want to linger in the eonic sequence! We need to step outside the eonic sequence to master our own history. It is not surprising that a figure like Hegel speculated about the 'end of history' (in his sense). It seemed to him that something had come to an end. We will try to be wary of Hegel's sometimes confused formulation, and ask our own question, have we reached the end of the eonic sequence? We can only find out the hard way! We can't predict what will happen. But we should look at the outcome of the Axial Age, as everything reverted to a lower level, or went into decline. We must bring self-consciousness to bear on the tendency toward mechanization in the mideonic interval. First, an eschatological prelude... Our model has produced a remarkable new perspective on the rise of the modern (See endnotes). We see a rough three century transition from about 1500 to 1800. Any such transition will generate a divide period at its conclusion, and all at once we see the reason for the spectacular clustering of innovations in the generation around 1800. Note that our model automatically produces a question. Is this the end of the eonic sequence? We should take a detour through eschatological issues.
There is nothing inherently mysterious about eschatology. The idea appears in physics in Omega point work of certain thinkers. In our model a very simple question arises: Have we reached the end of the eonic sequence? Translated into our terms that's a question about the way history has emerged from evolution, the degree of freedom in man's emerging self-evolution. That's a very formal but simple way to translate the issues into some practical common sense. This idea can be confused with another issue: have we reached the end of the modern transition? The answer there is yes. Our eonic sequence of transitions (somewhat artificially) makes the interval 1500 to 1800 (plus or minus a generation) the transitional period. Such a strange way of doing periodization actually has a spectacular payoff, because we discover the elusive 'divide' period near the beginning of the nineteenth century. Why is everyone puzzled by the immense number of innovations appearing in the Enlightenment? Now we suspect the reason why. Any kind of 'eonic' or intermittent system will have that property.
We can proceed to look at the modern phenomenon in the light of what we have constructed. Out of Revolution The eonic model throws ironic light on the phenomenon of modern revolution, and in the process forces us to examine the relation of ideology and theory. Theories of revolution all suffer the problem of ideology and mechanics braided together. In fact, notice the way we started with Popper's critique of historicism, which was originally directed toward Marxism. The idea that a future state was inevitable from the logic of stages of economy was flawed feature of Marxism, which nonetheless had a strong insight into issues of economic history. Marx's theory of stages mimics our eonic model, but cannot properly evaluate the evolution freedom aspect we have found. It si another end of history argument in disguise, but we can see that we can't predict anything from our data, and this is reflected in our model. The idea of a future revolution is therefore prone to the Oedipus Effect, and this fact is clear from the Bolshevik fiasco where assumptions about future history were not confirmed at all.
An Age of Enlightenment Our periodization of world history has produced a surprising result: the period of the Enlightenment shows direct correlation with the eonic sequence, and more than that the divide. Debates over the Enlightenment have entered a postmodern reaction now, to be expected, but our model resolves the problem. The Enlightenment period is broader than a philosophy and is really a field of innovations.
Genesis of the Early Modern The real dynamo of modernity is visible in the more primitive period of the early modern. The birth of the Scientific Revolution is the best example, although we should not neglect the Protestant Reformation on the grounds of our secular viewpoint. The Protestant Reformation really contains the seeds of the Enlightenment. Thus, moving backwards to the source of modernity we arrive at the ambiguous point of the Reformation and gestating Scientific Revolution (and much else). We tend to see modernity as a form of secularism, but that is misleading. Our transitions show tendencies only. And the fact of the matter is that the onset of modernity produces the Protestant Reformation, which has continued very strong to this day. This is not argument for or against religion, but only a statement that Protestantism shows the disengagement of the modern system from antiquity. The best way to defend secularism is to adopt the framework of a figure such as Kant, who reconciles science and freedom, to produce a new rubric that can make of the secular age a genuine descendant of archaic religious antiquity, without subjecting the system to regressive philosophies of reductionism.
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