Humanity has always consisted of humans with a variety of differing external traits while internally being virtually identical; thus, Humanity has always been a multitude of seemingly different types that in reality were/are barely skin deep.
Thanks Karl for this enlightening and thought-provoking article, and your promise to write more in this vein.
Not many have the ability to merge anthropology with political economy, and I seem to remember you have knowledge of geography as well as history.
I especially liked this point near the beginning,
"There are two profoundly basic abilities that all humans share—universal grammar and universal rhythm—that allow any infant born into any socio-cultural group to understand and thus learn that group’s language and the rhythmical nature of its music. If infants with zero prior knowledge a priori are capable of such feats, then it should be possible for humans from different socio-cultural groups to co-exist."
Unfortunately we need to keep hammering home the fact that we are the human race, and since history was recorded always have been a single species. Your references to pop culture are also apropos, I was thinking today about the Beatles' riposte to Brian Wilson's Beach Boys song about California Girls: "Back in the US, Back in the US, Back in the USSR!"
John Lennon's agile wit countering a sweet, tuneful but banal US-centric viewpoint with humour and melody. Those were the days my friend!
Thanks jonku! The cited info I learned when I took linguistics and cognitive psychology 25 odd years ago. Not many people many people take those collegiate courses so few know the reality of those concepts. Same goes for physical anthropology and geology. Lavrov's intro to his portion of the Primakov Talks helped back some of my assertions about Multipolarism not being anything new and why it's in high demand.
Yes, I just returned to the console to say geology, not geography ... lol.
To your point, not just understanding concepts about individual humans such as innate grammar and psychology, but being able to link those ideas with the larger social, historic and political notions -- this is what's needed to make sense of our world and its manifestations of culture and media.
All that and developing a forum to educate and discuss these ideas. I'll just repeat that it is a joy to read even a small synthesis, so I look forward to more articles exploring these topics.
I was already seeing the "world" in a holistic manner which was accentuated by Dr. Bensusan, my Humanities prof and distance learning guru at Northen Arizona University. Lots of excellent inputs from the profs at that institution.
I'm of the opinion that the changes you have described will happen slowly at first, just as we are seeing now, and then all at once... certainly before 2100!
Yes. My point was it's taken quite some time to reach our current point that's the result of earlier efforts, not all of which were listed. And as the comments reveal, many cynics remain. It's unfortunate it takes a lifetime of study to attain the education and wisdom that's crucial. And all too many ignore the lessons that life presents in front of their eyes, the most obvious currently being Julian Assange's Saga.
“basic human abilities”: add: perform productive activities - do things that benefit them. Child development is this. Collaboration is its social manifestation and engine of achievement.
“competition needs to be relegated to sport and games like chess. ”
In the real world competition, conflict, fighting engender harms.
Humans naturally create and use social games to avoid the harms of conflict, competition. Games are human social inventions for organising safe, fair and useful play and pretend about contention, combat. Social play is enacting pretence. It is a design feature of the human and possibly mammalian brain.
Fair game: No harms inside or outside the game.
Game
Pretend emergencies: win/lose outcomes have no real effects;
Rules of play define a separate social world safe from harms;
Harm to players stops the game;
Players have equal opportunities ensured by rules of relative handicap and support;
Participation is voluntary;
Arenas for play are essentially cooperative.
Purpose of play is seeking out and taking delight in performative and emotional experiences;
Play and pretend are in a development mode - learning new things to use later;
Team games promote learning practical co-operation as a basis for collaborative enterprise - working together to achieve inherent purposes;
Magical extraordinary experiences emerge from developmental plasticity.
Competitive Trap
Participation mandatory, forced;
Outside the game real beneficial and harmful consequential effects of win/lose outcomes are manifest;
Systematic unequal opportunities for players;
Coercive arena;
Emergency traumatic experience is not in the control of the participants;
Arbitrary rule changes by forces outside the game prevents wrong winning and ensures designated losing.
As we're seeing, there're different ways to design and operate a social system that aims to benefit all. There's a strong reason for the emphasis on people-to-people exchanges. I recall several tunes by The Beatles that aimed to promote such behavior and weltanschauung, "All Together Now" being the one that immediately surfaced. IMO, there's a specific developmental philosophy capable of creating the sort of world where harmony and balance are the norms. That will be the topic for the next essay on this subject.
What a wonderful and informative contrast to the b rhodes gobledigook piece reviewed the other day. Loved the illustrations/art work as well as the information regarding the history of the principals that underpin the UN Charter.
The differences that were created over time to divide Humanity so that it could be ruled over and controlled by a wicked few don't actually exist as all humans share the same basic abilities and what differs are superficial and merely on the surface and are merely skin deep. There are NO Others, only humans. Now, there are humans who've been indoctrinated into believing they are somehow exceptional and have and continue to cause grief along with mayhem in the world, and they're facilitated by the Outlaw US Empire and those upon whose shoulders it's climbed. The rise of the Multipolar world aims at controlling then eliminating the forces that seek to divide and rule along with its ideology of exceptionalism. There's far more beyond the overview I presented, and I intend to write more on the topic. Globally, there are ever more events occurring that celebrate the recognition and strength present in human diversity and also the sameness it also contains. Escobar's report about the event in Kazan is only one of many events that are becoming more commonplace, https://sputnikglobe.com/20240625/pepe-escobar-brics-cities-unite-in-kazan-ushering-in-new-era-of-cooperation-1119119664.html
Earlier this year, there was the World Youth Festival that was held at Sirius in Sochi that I reported on that's yet another example of what's evolving. The tragic events tend to occupy media headlines that shove multipolar events to the side, yet they still occur.
Thank you for your answer. I followed the World Youth Festival (partly), but there are so many "multicultural events", which are also interesting and the choice is sometimes difficult. Did you also report on the "International Movements of Russophiles" (I'm relatively new to Substack, the search-results are often "unexpected").
I reported on that at my VK space. The article search mechanism doesn't work very well as I've discovered when searching my own archive. At times, choosing what to report is very difficult because of the number of options. The number of views provides me with some measure of feedback as to what's more popular with readers. For example, yesterday Putin visited the Holy Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius but didn't deliver a speech, the main "attraction" being the photos of the place, which makes it difficult to build an article around. http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/74421/photos
The short interview with Lavrov and Vladimir Putin congratulating the head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov on his 80th birthday and the awarding of the title of Hero of Labor is also an important political note showing the respect he commands.
Multipolarity does not mean improved living conditions for its citizens. BRICS countries are still more oppressive than non-BRICS nations. The West had a pretty good system until it was deliberately altered by design like what we have now. We experienced the highest levels of freedom until the overseers thought "We can't have that." So they took down the US Constitution and created a woke-inspired divide-and-conquer model. They destroyed industry, the economy and the social fabric that binds us together. We are being led to believe that Multipolarity is better but for whom? Certainly not for the average citizen. We're all being played but only a few understand the game. Humans are easy to manipulate and it works every time. lol
Agreed. Multipolarity sounds great but it's an old idea, essentially a Round Table where all leaders (nations, or empires) sit together as Peers with none being above the other (why it is round, so there is no head position). But there is no guarantee that multipolarity per se will last, or last for long as a Good polity. Any system, like any individual, can be infiltrated and turned from Good to Evil. There is no such thing as Human Nature that is only Good, without faults or the ability to develop bad habits into outright Evil. This is the essential nature in human nature perhaps, that we can go towards Heaven or Hell but are always, by nature, in between. The struggle occurs every day in every individual and in every society. If you are good, then you encounter lower behaviours in yourself and others and in so doing can either be brought down by them or develop wisdom and compassion in relating with them which in turn helps reduce Evil's development. Similarly, Evil encountering Good strengthens the Good for without such challenge it would atrophy into complacency.
Anyway, although I love the idea of multipolarity and deflating the Hegemon etc., I don't think it's a matter of evolving to a higher state where war and stupidity are transcended. That is the equivalent of spiritual materialism in the religious space believing that certain liturgies or meditations will help you attain superior states of being wherein no suffering arises any more. It's utopian, conceptual and therefore ultimately deluded. Indeed, investing too much hope in such Big Ideas encourages 'true believeritis' which is ripe for the picking from skilled operators in the ever-present legions of Evil!
Well, I don't see any need for human nature to change; rather, what's required is a realization by Humanity that we are all the same people aside from the superficial differences at the surface of our beings, and that's what's happening. Ultimately, it's a secular evolution in and acceptance of that reality.
What an excellent article, Karl! Thank you.
So many people want this. I hope we're able to steer the planet and its population to a place of peace.
What a pleasure to read an actual Karlof piece! I shall digest for a while...
Thanks Karl for this enlightening and thought-provoking article, and your promise to write more in this vein.
Not many have the ability to merge anthropology with political economy, and I seem to remember you have knowledge of geography as well as history.
I especially liked this point near the beginning,
"There are two profoundly basic abilities that all humans share—universal grammar and universal rhythm—that allow any infant born into any socio-cultural group to understand and thus learn that group’s language and the rhythmical nature of its music. If infants with zero prior knowledge a priori are capable of such feats, then it should be possible for humans from different socio-cultural groups to co-exist."
Unfortunately we need to keep hammering home the fact that we are the human race, and since history was recorded always have been a single species. Your references to pop culture are also apropos, I was thinking today about the Beatles' riposte to Brian Wilson's Beach Boys song about California Girls: "Back in the US, Back in the US, Back in the USSR!"
John Lennon's agile wit countering a sweet, tuneful but banal US-centric viewpoint with humour and melody. Those were the days my friend!
Thanks jonku! The cited info I learned when I took linguistics and cognitive psychology 25 odd years ago. Not many people many people take those collegiate courses so few know the reality of those concepts. Same goes for physical anthropology and geology. Lavrov's intro to his portion of the Primakov Talks helped back some of my assertions about Multipolarism not being anything new and why it's in high demand.
Yes, I just returned to the console to say geology, not geography ... lol.
To your point, not just understanding concepts about individual humans such as innate grammar and psychology, but being able to link those ideas with the larger social, historic and political notions -- this is what's needed to make sense of our world and its manifestations of culture and media.
All that and developing a forum to educate and discuss these ideas. I'll just repeat that it is a joy to read even a small synthesis, so I look forward to more articles exploring these topics.
I was already seeing the "world" in a holistic manner which was accentuated by Dr. Bensusan, my Humanities prof and distance learning guru at Northen Arizona University. Lots of excellent inputs from the profs at that institution.
great overview karl.. thanks..
I'm of the opinion that the changes you have described will happen slowly at first, just as we are seeing now, and then all at once... certainly before 2100!
Yes. My point was it's taken quite some time to reach our current point that's the result of earlier efforts, not all of which were listed. And as the comments reveal, many cynics remain. It's unfortunate it takes a lifetime of study to attain the education and wisdom that's crucial. And all too many ignore the lessons that life presents in front of their eyes, the most obvious currently being Julian Assange's Saga.
“basic human abilities”: add: perform productive activities - do things that benefit them. Child development is this. Collaboration is its social manifestation and engine of achievement.
“competition needs to be relegated to sport and games like chess. ”
In the real world competition, conflict, fighting engender harms.
Humans naturally create and use social games to avoid the harms of conflict, competition. Games are human social inventions for organising safe, fair and useful play and pretend about contention, combat. Social play is enacting pretence. It is a design feature of the human and possibly mammalian brain.
Fair game: No harms inside or outside the game.
Game
Pretend emergencies: win/lose outcomes have no real effects;
Rules of play define a separate social world safe from harms;
Harm to players stops the game;
Players have equal opportunities ensured by rules of relative handicap and support;
Participation is voluntary;
Arenas for play are essentially cooperative.
Purpose of play is seeking out and taking delight in performative and emotional experiences;
Play and pretend are in a development mode - learning new things to use later;
Team games promote learning practical co-operation as a basis for collaborative enterprise - working together to achieve inherent purposes;
Magical extraordinary experiences emerge from developmental plasticity.
Competitive Trap
Participation mandatory, forced;
Outside the game real beneficial and harmful consequential effects of win/lose outcomes are manifest;
Systematic unequal opportunities for players;
Coercive arena;
Emergency traumatic experience is not in the control of the participants;
Arbitrary rule changes by forces outside the game prevents wrong winning and ensures designated losing.
As we're seeing, there're different ways to design and operate a social system that aims to benefit all. There's a strong reason for the emphasis on people-to-people exchanges. I recall several tunes by The Beatles that aimed to promote such behavior and weltanschauung, "All Together Now" being the one that immediately surfaced. IMO, there's a specific developmental philosophy capable of creating the sort of world where harmony and balance are the norms. That will be the topic for the next essay on this subject.
What a wonderful and informative contrast to the b rhodes gobledigook piece reviewed the other day. Loved the illustrations/art work as well as the information regarding the history of the principals that underpin the UN Charter.
Interesting thought - this is the first time that I see the evolution of humanoids linked to multipolarity.
What do you mean by "There are two profoundly basic abilities that all humans share—universal grammar and universal rhythm"?
That humans all share the love for music and dance as a common trait, which distinguishes them from animals?
The differences that were created over time to divide Humanity so that it could be ruled over and controlled by a wicked few don't actually exist as all humans share the same basic abilities and what differs are superficial and merely on the surface and are merely skin deep. There are NO Others, only humans. Now, there are humans who've been indoctrinated into believing they are somehow exceptional and have and continue to cause grief along with mayhem in the world, and they're facilitated by the Outlaw US Empire and those upon whose shoulders it's climbed. The rise of the Multipolar world aims at controlling then eliminating the forces that seek to divide and rule along with its ideology of exceptionalism. There's far more beyond the overview I presented, and I intend to write more on the topic. Globally, there are ever more events occurring that celebrate the recognition and strength present in human diversity and also the sameness it also contains. Escobar's report about the event in Kazan is only one of many events that are becoming more commonplace, https://sputnikglobe.com/20240625/pepe-escobar-brics-cities-unite-in-kazan-ushering-in-new-era-of-cooperation-1119119664.html
Earlier this year, there was the World Youth Festival that was held at Sirius in Sochi that I reported on that's yet another example of what's evolving. The tragic events tend to occupy media headlines that shove multipolar events to the side, yet they still occur.
Thank you for your answer. I followed the World Youth Festival (partly), but there are so many "multicultural events", which are also interesting and the choice is sometimes difficult. Did you also report on the "International Movements of Russophiles" (I'm relatively new to Substack, the search-results are often "unexpected").
I reported on that at my VK space. The article search mechanism doesn't work very well as I've discovered when searching my own archive. At times, choosing what to report is very difficult because of the number of options. The number of views provides me with some measure of feedback as to what's more popular with readers. For example, yesterday Putin visited the Holy Trinity Lavra of St. Sergius but didn't deliver a speech, the main "attraction" being the photos of the place, which makes it difficult to build an article around. http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/74421/photos
The short interview with Lavrov and Vladimir Putin congratulating the head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov on his 80th birthday and the awarding of the title of Hero of Labor is also an important political note showing the respect he commands.
And so it is with today--lots of choices.
Multipolarity does not mean improved living conditions for its citizens. BRICS countries are still more oppressive than non-BRICS nations. The West had a pretty good system until it was deliberately altered by design like what we have now. We experienced the highest levels of freedom until the overseers thought "We can't have that." So they took down the US Constitution and created a woke-inspired divide-and-conquer model. They destroyed industry, the economy and the social fabric that binds us together. We are being led to believe that Multipolarity is better but for whom? Certainly not for the average citizen. We're all being played but only a few understand the game. Humans are easy to manipulate and it works every time. lol
Agreed. Multipolarity sounds great but it's an old idea, essentially a Round Table where all leaders (nations, or empires) sit together as Peers with none being above the other (why it is round, so there is no head position). But there is no guarantee that multipolarity per se will last, or last for long as a Good polity. Any system, like any individual, can be infiltrated and turned from Good to Evil. There is no such thing as Human Nature that is only Good, without faults or the ability to develop bad habits into outright Evil. This is the essential nature in human nature perhaps, that we can go towards Heaven or Hell but are always, by nature, in between. The struggle occurs every day in every individual and in every society. If you are good, then you encounter lower behaviours in yourself and others and in so doing can either be brought down by them or develop wisdom and compassion in relating with them which in turn helps reduce Evil's development. Similarly, Evil encountering Good strengthens the Good for without such challenge it would atrophy into complacency.
Anyway, although I love the idea of multipolarity and deflating the Hegemon etc., I don't think it's a matter of evolving to a higher state where war and stupidity are transcended. That is the equivalent of spiritual materialism in the religious space believing that certain liturgies or meditations will help you attain superior states of being wherein no suffering arises any more. It's utopian, conceptual and therefore ultimately deluded. Indeed, investing too much hope in such Big Ideas encourages 'true believeritis' which is ripe for the picking from skilled operators in the ever-present legions of Evil!
Very well written.
No. They will hand it over to the Globalists in the end.
So, your position is to surrender.
No, my position is that it will take a change in human nature in order to be able to respond appropriately to this threat.
Something much more radical and fundamental than most people ever begin to consider:
https://substack.com/@stevenberger/note/c-59969926?r=1nm0v2
Well, I don't see any need for human nature to change; rather, what's required is a realization by Humanity that we are all the same people aside from the superficial differences at the surface of our beings, and that's what's happening. Ultimately, it's a secular evolution in and acceptance of that reality.
What you are suggesting is, of course very reasonable.
I just don't see it happening anytime soon.
'secular evolution' generally takes a long time.
Time that we may not have at the moment.
https://substack.com/@stevenberger/note/c-51319292?r=1nm0v2