6. TRANSITION AND MODERNITY
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6. TRANSITION AND MODERNITY |
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| 6.5 System Shutdown: From Macro to Micro | ||||
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Inherent in the structure of a discrete-continuous model is the phenomenon of the divide, as we have seen, and the system shutdown in its wake. Stricly speaking we are done, our model closes, and says nothing about the mideonic outcome. System return, if any, will occur we suppose in twenty-four hundred years. Like a penitentiary the doors slam shut and the inmates may attempt to make their own rules. These properties of our model are quite artificial implications of its structure, and yet, remarkably, we can spot this shutdown point quite clearly in the early to mid-nineteenth century. Compare the foundational generation of the American republic and the immediate successor generation(s) of the period of Andrew Jackson onward, initialization to realization. This sudden shift, macro to micro, although strictly speaking a formal approximation in a model, throws immediate light on the sudden calamities, e.g. the first World War and the Holocaust, that overtake the post-transition. This post-transitional onset must nonetheless be declared a bit fuzzy (later events, e.g. the American Civil War, show obvious eonic determination, though outside our designated interval) and raises a host of questions near the limits of this kind of model, designed to show a non-random pattern in history, but stumbling on something much vaster, and rapidly finding itself in a thicket of ideological issues, wishing to resolve them, but not able to do so in a rigorous fashion. The only solution is to proceed comprehensively with a balanced inspection of the whole spectrum of possibilities. We can take a step in this direction with a portrait of the rapid shift between, say, Kantian classical liberalism and the emerging nineteenth century left, e.g. Marx. We note the plight of the eonic observer, who should be able to distance himself in terms of several millennia to really see what the outcome of the modern transition turns out to be. Instead he is immersed, scientist to sans-culotte, in the history he wishes to describe, no doubt trading his objectivity for a commitment to versions of that outcome. At least we can say that the sudden emergence of ideologies of freedom shows strong eonic determination! We should clear about our intentions and the status of the model, which is strictly advisory, and can’t be used to legitimate outcomes. Nothing dogmatic can be claimed about a three term sequence, clearly showing only half its data. Perhaps that’s a fortunate circumstance, preempting the formation of a crude mechanistic perspective. Since there will be immediate deviation from initial conditions that strategy of justification will soon prove problematic. That is especially the case in the modern instance where the agendas of economic action in the name of freedom generate exploitation. Our statements about turning points in history are strong claims in the realm of fact about evolution, but at the same time, especially in the case of the modern transition, likely to be affirmations of the significance and historical justification of modernity. (Eonic) evolution applies only to the macro-sequence, not to the field of micro-action. And the latter presumes, realistically or not, the highest standard of ethical action. This is hardly evident in the imaginary world of Machiavellian politicians and their real politik, which have no status in our model. The application of Darwinian thinking to this situation does not bode well for the future of modernity. Nor does the confused thinking of Nietzsche, soon the ideologue for a postmodern ‘new beginning’(?!),who is clearly a bit of an impostor in the sudden post-transition. In fact, with a little care there need be no problem in our
semi-ideological approach as we vigorously apply the insight into historical
dynamics to the situation we find ourselves inheriting from the eonic sequence.
The striking appearance of the discrete freedom sequence leaves us, for example,
with the chance to anticipate possible recurrent situations. Will democracy
last? Will the American democratic system turn into an empire? The ominous
resemblance to the case, Solon to Alexander, of Let us note at least that we have displaced arguments about historical inevitability from our analysis, and have designed our model to leave the future free from hard predictions. The appearance of a figure such as Spengler is significant, since we can see that his predictions are bogus, yet might just show themselves right in practice for the wrong reason. There is nothing inevitable about a decline of the West, but since our eonic system is not about the ‘West’ but the modern transition generating a global oikoumene, a shift in the center of gravity might well occur. Implicit in the whole discussion of the eonic effect is the portrait of the process of globalization via localization and this leaves the question of modernity and Eurocentrism stranded in stark contradiction. In principle our model has resolved this issue but in practice we see the immense tension that occurs in the sudden reversal from localization toward globalization. Let us note that the emergence of the American democratic experiment was a revolt against colonialism. |
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