Brocialists

Will "the patriarchy" ever go away? Perhaps that depends on your view of human - and masculine - nature. If men and women are "essentially the same", then there is no reason why it could not go away, given the right circumstances. In fact, some would argue that it already has gone away, more or less, in a great number or countries. And yet, it keeps reappearing all the time - fashionably put, "the power structure keeps reproducing itself", despite social reforms intent on eradicating differences in power and indeed behavior between the sexes. Just as socialism could not eradiacte class inequality (although for a time it seemed to be succeeding), feminism does not seem able to get rid of gender roles, aspiring patriarchs or anti-feminist women.

In this article, Apoorva Sripathi identifies the "Brocialist" as a specimen of man who, outwardly progressive, behaves as a jerk toward women in private. Harvey Weinstein is one example. In a Swedish context, Fredrik Virtanen is another: a self-proclaimed feminist journalist who stands accused of rape and sexual assaults. A third one (also Swedish) would be the comedian Soran Ismail, also accused of rape during the MeToo campaign, since aquitted, but still judged since "everyone knows" that he is guilty. Whatever the case, he has publicly made highly disrespectful ("sexist" in modern parlance) jokes towards women, which in itself is enough to include him in the category. Thus he once commented during a gala on a duo of young female artists (Rebecca & Fiona): "They are favorites of mine, partly because I love their music, and partly because I have a fantasy about a three-way with Rebecca and anyone." Seemingly, the reason why he can say this is because a) he is a feminist, which means that he automatically respects women, and b) since he basically does respect women, and because men and women are supposed to be truly equal now, why could he not make such a joke? After all, a woman could (in theory) make such a joke without being labelled a sexist, couldn't she? Therefore, in the worldview of the Brocialist, men and women are essentially the same, and a joke about a threeway directed at a vulnerable, young woman is merely friendly. We are all just friends now, right? Nevertheless, below this public worldview lies another one, where Ismail and his likes understand deeply that a) there are differences, and b) in this being-different-from-men, they do not respect women in the least. They can (sometimes) respect women as friends, but not as women.

Yet perhaps that is precisely what is needed, regardless of how "reactionary" it will be deemed by some. Men need to respect women as women, as mothers, sisters, daughters and in a sense as goddesses. Let every man who automatically classifies women into "available" and "unavailable" shift his focus from the earthly womanliness of a particular woman to the divine femininity of all.

Judaism: The Chosen Few

With my last post in mind, let me first of all clarify that I am by no means a supporter of Israeli occupation policies - it's just that I am no fervent anti-Zionist either. Israel is a curious phenomenon, with its special relationship to the US particularly in mind. Somehow or other it often appears as the face of the American world order: a place where so many of the world's fears and expectations converge and become visible; a place where the guardians of this order will continue to defend their brand of imperialism with any means necessary. It is easy to condemn a great many things about Israel, but it is perhaps more worthwhile to hold back judgment and observe the unfolding of things before one definitely takes a stand.

A more fruitful attempt to understand the history of the Jews and Judaism than Shahak's is - I believe - the book The Chosen Few by Botticini and Eckstein. For no matter how mysterious Judaism and Jewish success in the modern world appear to some, it can to a great degree be explained through the economic theory of rational choice.

The main argument of the book goes as follows: in ancient times, the Israelite religion had been based on two pillars: first, the temple, which was originally built around 1000 BC, later destroyed by the Babylonians but rebuilt; and second, the Torah, which was in place at least a few hundred years BC although its history is more obscure. In the first century CE, several things happened: Judaism had become splintered into various sects, of which Christianity was ultimately going to be the most successful. The other two most influential sects were the Sadducees, keepers of the temple cult, and the Pharisees, teachers of Torah who, unlike the old-school Sadducees, had started to believe in a life after death. Now, in 64 CE the Pharisee Yehoshua ben Gamla was appointed as high priest of the temple. During his short office, he instituted a rule requiring all Jewish parents to ensure that their boys learn to read the Torah. Shortly therafter, a Jewish uprising against Roman rule took place throughout Judea. The Romans massacred the inhabitants of Jerusalem and destroyed the second temple. With the fall of the temple, the Sadducees disappeared as a faction within Judaism. It remained to the Pharisees to define what a post-templar, post-independence Judaism was going to look like. This they did by - slowly over the centuries - beginning to establish the rule on public education for boys throughout the Jewish community.

This had several consequences. First, many Jews, being farmers and pastoralists, had little use for literacy, and as the cost for remaining inside the Jewish community increased, they increasingly opted out and converted to other faiths: Christianity in many cases, and later also Islam. Over time, this led to a sharp decrease in the number of Jews relative to non-Jews living in the Middle East and elsewhere. At the same time, those who remained within the Jewish fold increasingly began to adopt urban occupations, not least involving trade, but also other kinds of professions that required literacy, numeracy, the ability to communicate by mail, the power to keep and enforce contracts, among other things. Universal male literacy allowed Jews to establish themselves in lucrative, urban niche professions, while also maintaining a network with other Jews abroad. By the Middle Ages, and especially after the rise of urbanisation under Islam, Jews spread widely across the world and started to mark themselves out as educated, affluent and urban.

Thus Judaism had embarked on a great transformation from ancient times; the Pharisees, of course, became the rabbis of Rabbinical Judaism. As for the illiterate Jewish men, trying to stay as part of the Jewish community was usually not an option. They became increasingly marginalized and, since they could not take their bar mitzvah (during which they are supposed to read aloud from the Torah), they could not officially enter Jewish manhood, and so the rabbis advised others against marrying their daughters to such men. Much better then to enter into the fold of the dominant creed, where even the poor and illiterate were welcomed with open arms, and where - at least in Christianity - the ritual demands made on the devotee were much more relaxed than in Judaism.

In line with this pattern, Jews tended to concentrate in urbanized societies: Abbasid Mesopotamia, Iberia under Muslim rule and, later, the Christian polities in Italy and northern Europe. When urbanization took hold of Europe, Jews started to appear in its cities; and when the Mongols wrecked the infrastructure of the Middle East, the Jewish share of the population collapsed drastically, even though they were not targeted by the Mongols, as the Sunni Muslims were. "Can Judaism survive when trade and urban economies collapse?" the authors ask, and the answer is a decisive "No".

By the Early Modern period, a great share of European Jews specialized in money-lending. This was simply the most profitable activity available to them, and one in which they had the comparative advantage of education, so why should they have refused it? Later still, the Jewish tradition of education would pay dividends as new occupational fields opened up from the 19th century onwards.



Botticini and Eckstein overturn many conventional wisdoms regarding Jewish history, perhaps a topic for another time. For now I merely want to say that it is rather frustrating when standard histories of Judaism leave out the decision by Yehoshua ben Gamla about universal education for boys. There is no doubt that this ruling together with the destruction of the temple (only a few years later, oddly enough) constitute a decisive breaking point in the history of the Jewish religion.

Judaism: What I know and what I don't

Judaism is a very interesting religion. Having survived for over 2000 years (depending on how you count) and transformed itself in the process, it often seems to be - or "the Jews" seem to be - at the heart of historical developments. Not so much during the Middle Ages, granted, but increasingly so today. In fact, one could rather easily write an entire Judeocentric history of the world, and I suppose that may already have been done, at least so far as they teach children History in Israel.

As a student of History of Religions, I often lamented the fact that it was difficult to get a first-hand experience of Judaism, simply because one did not usually meet a lot of religious Jews. (There are supposed to exist some 20,000 Jews in Sweden, many of whom are not religious.) At the same time, I was never really attracted to Judaism in the same way that I was attracted to other faiths - it is simply not a religion you are attracted to from the outside when looking for spiritual nourishment. At the same time, I do wish I had a better understanding of it from the outside. At some point, I should read up on it a bit more thoroughly.

Just now, however, I read a piece titled American Pravda: Oddities of the Jewish Religion over at The Unz Review. Ron Unz is an interesting author and intellectual who often has an alternative perspective on things, running a rather fringe website while somehow managing to preserve his respectability public-wise (as far as I can tell from across the Atlantic). It is my impression that many of the articles appearing on his site are not of the finest quality, but his pieces usually stand out as being both thoughtful and well researched. This time I suspect that he has fallen over the cliff though. He cites the book Jewish History, Jewish Religion by Israel Shahak, and he takes it in a rather far-off direction. Having read the book myself, I should like to make a few comments on the article.

In the book, Shahak (himself a secular Jew), exposes the nature of Judaism as one of intolerance, hatred for non-Jews, magic, occultism and "lack of Monotheism" in case of the teachings of the Kabbalah. Many of the things Shahak describes - such as a Jewish man who refused to help a dying non-Jew on the Sabbath out of piety - are certainly alarming. There is also no doubt that many Orthodox Jews see themselves as set against the world, and among some Jews there are teachings saying that non-Jews do not have souls, highly disturbing of course (yet admittedly a rather fascinating form of piety). My main issues with Unz' article (and thus with Shahak) are the following:

• According to Kabbalistic teachings, God reveals himself through ten successive emanations, one for each level of creation. This is presented by Shahak (and Unz) as if there was a question of fundamentally different gods. Thus Shahak concludes that Judaism is not Monotheistic (unless the same can be said for Hinduism). My problem with this statement is both that it is presented in a sensationalist manner, but more importantly that Shahak does not give any sources for this claim, despite an endless number of sources stressing the inherent Monotheism of Judaism. I have not found any support for his position, either in academic literature or on relevant websites. 

• Orthodox Jews are supposedly taught to worship both God and Satan. But this claim does not make any sense as Jews generally do not believe in an omnimalevolent being. Satan in a Rabbinical Jewish context is God's servant; like the adversary in the Book of Job, he does not act on his own. His role is closer to that of the Quranic Iblis, being permitted by God to tempt mankind (though the latter is of course fallen), than to a Christian devil that tries to struggle against God for supremacy (even though he surely loses). So whatever "worship of Satan" could mean for some Jews (I personally have no clue), it is nothing like a Christian worshipping the devil.

• As for Jewish hostility towards non-Jews, this is of course troubling when it occurs, but let's be honest here: it is hardly a phenomenon unique to Judaism. I personally still have relatives who believe - doctrinally if not at heart - that all who are not Christian in just the right way will suffer eternal damnation in hell. That is a rather worse prospect than simply being killed off or remain as a servant to the Chosen People. Again, I dislike the sensationalist streak that I find with both Shahak and Unz, because it tends to undermine the will to understand something on its own terms in all its complexity in exchange for mere shock value.

Shahak, despite his Jewish background, and whatever his other merits, was not a scholar of Judaism. Neither am I - which is why I try to rely on those who are. Also, anyone knowledgeable about Judaism is very welcome to comment on this post, if you have something to contribute to the issues at hand.

There sometimes seems to be an unspoken choice that people have to make as right-wing intellectuals: either you have a problem with Islam, in which case Israel is an ally; or you are hostile to Judaism in which case you say nothing of Islam. I do not see the need for this. Both Judaism and Islam are highly complex traditions with plenty of diversity, featuring both some good and some truly horrid people, all drawing on their respective traditions for a great variety of ends.

The Ascent of Woman

I just watched the first part of the documentary The Ascent of Woman by Dr. Amanda Foreman (whoever "Morgan" in the description is is not clear, it does not seem to be wholly related). A most interesting documentary, and I would even say an eye-opener in some ways. One must concede that women have been erased from history to an extent - I personally thought I was aware of this already, but I did not know, for instance, that the first named author in world history was Enheduanna, high priestess of Assyria, daughter of Sargon of Akkad.

I was also not aware that Genghis Khan's empire was ruled to a significant degree by his daughters and step-daughters. Apparently the main source of Genghis Khan's life, The Secret History of the Mongols, was edited after the great Khan's death to hide the embarrassing fact that he had appointed many women to chief positions. This book seeks to redress the problem.

Having watched The Ascent of Woman, part 1, two things strike me the most. Firstly, gender hierarchies and social stratification in general seem to go hand in hand. This is perhaps not surprising, but not obvious either. Foreman takes the ancient archeological site of Çatalhöyük as an example of this: a city that existed well before civilization as such, thousands of years before the dawn of Sumer and Egypt, where social equity would supposedly have been the norm.

But what really made me curious was the way she described the ancient Greek culture. While women became, in time, relatively suppressed in many Middle Eastern countries, they were more autonomous among the steppe nomads in Central Asia and north of the Black Sea - but nowhere were they more restricted than in Greece, or at least in democratic Athens. The Greeks had many goddesses in their Pantheon, but no women in public life. They also had mythical enemies to fight off: the centaurs, similar to the horsemen they knew from the east and, significantly, the Amazons (supposedly from the ancient Persian word hamazan, warrior) denoting Scythian or Sarmatian warrior women. It would seem that the Greek men were scandalized by the existence of such women, and that this played a significant role in the shaping of Greek identity. The Greeks would have none of this confusion of social roles: they instituted a gender regime comparable to that of the Taliban (as noted in the documentary by the author of this book) and, with women out of the way, went on to lay the foundation for "civilization" in the grand sense of the word. So once again we see the recurring pattern where men are connected with culture and women with nature - a distinction that Foreman actually promotes, if tacitly so. For civilization has indeed been the story of the grand ambitions of men, and now that we are beginning to doubt its very sustainability, it is perhaps only natural that women should have their revenge. 

Can virtues change?

Do virtues differ across societies and time-periods, or are they universal? If you want to make yourself into a better person, a better man, how do you know what direction to move in? For instance, is piety a virtue? Is patience, elegance, humility? Magnanimity, gentlemanlyness, wisdom... obedience, filial piety, fear of God? Or are some of these virtues now hopelessly outdated, ill-suited to a world which moves at breakneck pace, too lofty and idealistic in a world that is all about the material? What can we truly learn, for instance, about living in the world when we read a classic work on ethics and manners like the Confucian Analects? How relevant are these ancient discourses today? Why should anyone read about the ideal of how a "noble man" (the superior gentleman, junzi) should behave, when such an ideal would be exceedingly difficult to implement in practice?

On a few occassions at least I have tried to break out of the slacker mentality that characterizes many of my peers - or should I say, characterizes all of us when we get together: a mildly cynical, disinterested group consciousness that scoffs at pretention and high-minded idealism. In these situations I have usually found that it is near-impossible too break out of such social patterns and try to establish something new. Most people do not seem at all interested, and if my attempt has at all been noticed it has on occassion been met with reactions ranging from sniggering to outright laughter. On such occassions I have quickly corrected myself; this is not an idealistic century, and when the reality of Heaven has been denied altogether, it begins to seem ludicrous when somebody tries to reach it.

There is one saying from the Analects that I particularly like:

See a person's means (of getting things). Observe his motives. Examine that in which he rests. How can a person conceal his character?

And the following one:

If a man has no humaneness what can his propriety be like? If a man has no humaneness what can his happiness be like?

 These sayings are so lofty in character - and needless to say, androcentric - that they are "culturally impossible" today, at least in countries like Sweden.

If the first saying seems obscure to you, it is (I believe) essentially the same as Jesus' saying in Matthew 7:20: By their fruits ye shall know them. Just as a bad tree does not bear good fruits, a person's character is known through his actions.

Mikael Kurkiala: Kvalitet och kvantitet

Det återstår att se om den här bloggen kommer att skrivas mestadels på engelska eller svenska. Jag vill skriva på engelska för att kunna nå en bred läsekrets, men samtidigt skriver jag en hel del om specifikt svenska författare och företeelser. Den här gången vill jag referera till en svensk bok och då faller det sig naturligt att också skriva på svenska.

(It remains to be seen how much of the blog will be written in English. This time around I want to discuss a book only available in Swedish.)

Datafiering och digitalisering är nära besläktat med vad den franska traditionalisten René Guenon kallat för The Reign of Quantity - kvantitetens herravälde. Tiden styckas upp i exakta enheter. Moderna, digitala bilder kan reduceras till pixlar i olika färger (färgkoder). Allting ska göras mätbart, standardiserat, objektifierat. Den moderna materialistiska vetenskapen bygger ju på premissen att det går en skarp skiljelinje mellan subjekt och objekt, och att subjektet kan studera objektet utan att påverka det. Empati och intuition får ge vika för en knivskarp, granskande blick som mäter och preciserar. Kommunikation mellan subjekt och objekt är omöjligt, eller åtminstone inte önskvärt. Att närma sig sitt studium som något levande (till exempel en religiös tradition) som kan berätta något för en är inte ett vetenskapligt förhållningssätt.

Bortsett från den materialistiska vetenskapen så är det också marknadens osynliga hand och statens krav på likriktning som kvantifierar, standardiserar och förytligar världen. Pengarna gör att alla ting blir sinsemellan utbytbara. Vi kan om vi vill (och vi gör det ständigt) "byta regnskog mot Coca-Cola", för att citera Alf Hornborg. Eller som Oscar Wilde skulle ha uttryckt det: "We know the price of everything, but the value of nothing."

Jag är ingen kännare av René Guenon, men det finns en svensk (svensk-finsk) tänkare som har skrivit just om skillnaden mellan kvalitet och kvantitet på ett mycket bra och lättillgängligt sätt. Jag talar om Mikael Kurkiala, författare till boken I varje trumslag jordens puls: Om vår tids rädsla för skillnader. Denna bok är idag svår att komma över annat än via bibliotek. Själv hade jag en gång i tiden äran att ha Kurkiala som lärare i kulturantropologi i Uppsala, men det var innan jag hade fått ordning på mitt eget tänkande, och jag läste hans bok först långt senare. Kurkiala har sedan dess slutat som forskare så vitt jag vet och tagit tjänst inom Svenska Kyrkan.

Kurkiala skriver så bra om kvalitet och kvantitet att det bästa jag kan göra är att citera honom rakt av:

Pengar och andra former av abstraktioner skapar "översättbarhet" mellan olika typer av värden och fenomen. De reducerar kvalitativa skillnader till kvantitativa. Kvalitativa skillnader är skillnader på djupet medan kvantitativa skillnader är skillnader på ytan. De förra skillnaderna handlar om art, de senare om omfång eller antal. Moderniteten som helhet förytligar världen genom att beröva den dess kvalitet. (s. 70)

Detta är bara ett litet utdrag, och det är svårt att på något mer djupgående sätt göra boken rättvisa utan att citera hela kapitel. Här ryms också mer specifika berättelser om hedersmordet på Fadime Sahindal och inte minst författarens egna upplevelser som antropolog hos lakotaindianer i Nordamerika. Jag låter boken tala för sig själv med några andra valda citat, ifall någon skulle få för sig att läsa den. Här finns också en gammal recension av boken.

Varför bejakar vi skillnader på ytan, på teckennivån, men inte på djupet, på den nivå som teckenvärlden skulle kunna peka mot? (s. 24)

 Jag efterlyser ett seende där vi tillåter oss att växla mellan analysens absoluta behov av att kategorisera och dra skiljelinjer mellan människor och ett moraliskt behov av att se likheter ytskillnaderna till trots. Denna dubbla hållning är inte ett tecken på schizofreni utan på en förmåga att växla mellan analys och empati, mellan ett jag-du-förhållande och ett jag-det-förhållande till världen. (s. 29)

 Den enda sociala enhet vars livslängd idag ökar är den enskilda individen. Evigheten har förpassats till vår tanketraditions arkiv, nationer framstår idag som alltmer konstruerade och instabila, företagen är kortlivade, och partierna och folkrörelserna förlorar sin attraktionskraft. Livets mening kan allt mindre knytas till något utanför individen själv. Det är här, under den korta tid som blivit mig utmätt, som all mening ska förverkligas. (s. 53)

 Liksom människan under hela den moderna eran funnit det oacceptabelt att sakna kontroll eller att överlåta kontrollen till en instans utanför den mänskliga sfären, till exempel Gud eller natur, så finner vi det idag i det närmaste oacceptabelt att vi själva inte skulle ha kontroll över vilka vi är och kan bli. I det offentliga samtalet är åberopandet av något prediskursivt eller förkulturellt – som kropp eller natur – som i åtminstone i viss bemärkelse formande vilka vi är, i det närmaste skandalöst. Denna motvilja mot att förankra människans identitet utanför det sociala och kulturella ses allmänt som emanciperande och progressivt. Detta tänkande är en logisk förlängning av den nu månghundraåriga ambitionen att förjaga eller härska över det som vi känner oss hotade av. Det må sedan vara ”vilden”, naturen, kroppen eller könet. I grunden är alltså detta tänkande besläktat med det koloniala. (s. 60-61)

 Pengar avspeglar alltså inte en varas värde. Varan föregår inte prissättningen, snarare är det tvärtom: prissättningen skapar tingen och fenomenen som just varor. (s. 63) 

 Den kvantitativa tiden skär sig kontinuerligt mot människors subjektiva erfarenhet av tiden. Vi ”vet” alla att vissa dagar är längre än andra och att tiden ibland bara rusar iväg. Men denna erfarenhet, liksom allt fler av våra erfarenheter, underordnas och underkuvas de mätinstrument och experter som vi överlåtit kontrollen åt. Att vara modern är inte bara att lita till expertsystem, det är också att upphöra att lita till sig själv, till sin egen erfarenhet. (s. 69)

Sommarprat: framtiden är ljus

För den reaktionäre pessimisten (såsom delvis jag själv) vill jag rekommendera följande sommarprat med Mouna Ezmaeilzadeh. Ta in vad hon säger och låt dig översköljas av hennes perspektiv. Om du noterar en instinkt att kritisera eller säga emot henne vid någon punkt, fråga dig varifrån du vill kritisera henne. Är det från en position av cynism, bitterhet, missunnsamhet eller moralism? Isåfall, kära läsare, har du redan förlorat. 

Apocalypse and Transhumanism

Yuval Noah Harari is a historian and philosopher who had his breakthrough with the book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. Grand and sweeping in scope and at the same time very easy to follow, this is a book that I will probably have the opportunity to revisit many times on this blog. But not too long ago Harari released a follow-up: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow. In this latest title (which translates to "Divine Man" in Greek) Harari suggests, in his easily accessible, pedagogical style, that humanity has largely overcome the three great problems of the past: war, famine and disease, thus having achieved, on the whole, peace, reliable access to food and good health. Whether or not these achievements will stand the test of time, Harari suggests that there are today three other ambitions that will shape human action in the 21th century: the achievement of happiness, non-mortality and divinity. The first one is hardly controversial; as for the second one, non-mortality simply means the possibility of living forever, rather than being unable to die (immortality). This would be achieved by "curing" aging, or at least significantly halting it. The third ambition, divinity, would consist in human enhancement through some combination of genetic engineering and cyborg technologies to transform (some) human beings into post-human demigods.

This brings me back to my last post, where Rushkoff (as in my quoting him) noted that the desire of the super-wealthy for escape havens concurs, at least in the example he gives, with a desire to transcend human limitations altogether. After all, if temperatures rise by 6 C or more, where's the fun going to be in remaining as a human being in this world, whether you are among the poor, starving masses trying to get into a lifeboat or a privileged individual beating anyone trying to enter your lifeboat in the head with a paddle? The world is starting to seem old, and the whole concept of "humankind" is starting to be seen as a burden to be handled, a problem to be reined in and rendered relatively harmless by some future technofix. I am not saying that transhumanism only, or even primarily, owes its existence due to such sentiments; yet such sentiments would seem to bring water to the transhumanist mill, particularly if the vision of a transhumanist future can be conceptualized as an individual rather than a collective matter. A couple of more quotes from Rushkoff's article can perhaps be sufficient for summary:

There’s nothing wrong with madly optimistic appraisals of how technology might benefit human society. But the current drive for a post-human utopia is something else. It’s less a vision for the wholesale migration of humanity to a new a state of being than a quest to transcend all that is human: the body, interdependence, compassion, vulnerability, and complexity. As technology philosophers have been pointing out for years, now, the transhumanist vision too easily reduces all of reality to data, concluding that “humans are nothing but information-processing objects.”

The idea that everything can be reduced to databits is also something raised by Harari in Homo Deus: he calls it a religion and terms it "dataism". Finally:

Ultimately, according to the technosolutionist orthodoxy, the human future climaxes by uploading our consciousness to a computer or, perhaps better, accepting that technology itself is our evolutionary successor. Like members of a gnostic cult, we long to enter the next transcendent phase of our development, shedding our bodies and leaving them behind, along with our sins and troubles.

Thus onwards, ever onwards, until we have achieved the complete and utter quantification of everything. Some utopia!

Apocalypse and Elite Consciousness

Silvio Berlusconi supposedly did not want his children to watch his dumbed-down television programs. Steve Jobs did not allow his children to use iPads. The consumption of mass media was meant for the masses, but not for their own children who they wished well. What this reminds us, except that businessmen can be cynical, is that the people who have real power frequently are those who position themselves above society in some sense - above the system. Steve Jobs understood the addictiveness of smartphone technology far earlier than others and Berlusconi seems to have thought regarding his children that they, like he, should be "above" the crude entertainment that he was offering the Italian people. (I am not up-to-date as to what has been going on lately with Berlusconi's media empire, so I content myself with writing in the past tense.) Another example would be Rupert Murdoch: the media mogul par excellence, whose empire of the mind scrutinizes everything while Murdoch himself can choose to remain in the shadows.

I am reminded of this because of a group of articles I recently stumbled upon. The theme was known to me before but it still struck a cord with me more gravely this time. It is the story of how the superrich are building bunkers or buying property in far away countries like New Zealand in order to be able to protect themselves after "the event" - essentially, the apocalypse.

The author of this article, Douglas Rushkoff, describes it all very well. He was invited to speak about "the future of technology" before a group of wealthy businessmen

Which region will be less impacted by the coming climate crisis: New Zealand or Alaska? Is Google really building Ray Kurzweil a home for his brain, and will his consciousness live through the transition, or will it die and be reborn as a whole new one? Finally, the CEO of a brokerage house explained that he had nearly completed building his own underground bunker system and asked, “How do I maintain authority over my security force after the event?” 

The Event. That was their euphemism for the environmental collapse, social unrest, nuclear explosion, unstoppable virus, or Mr. Robot hack that takes everything down.

This single question occupied us for the rest of the hour. They knew armed guards would be required to protect their compounds from the angry mobs. But how would they pay the guards once money was worthless? What would stop the guards from choosing their own leader? The billionaires considered using special combination locks on the food supply that only they knew. Or making guards wear disciplinary collars of some kind in return for their survival. Or maybe building robots to serve as guards and workers — if that technology could be developed in time. 

That’s when it hit me: At least as far as these gentlemen were concerned, this was a talk about the future of technology. Taking their cue from Elon Musk colonizing Mars, Peter Thiel reversing the aging process, or Sam Altman and Ray Kurzweil uploading their minds into supercomputers, they were preparing for a digital future that had a whole lot less to do with making the world a better place than it did with transcending the human condition altogether and insulating themselves from a very real and present danger of climate change, rising sea levels, mass migrations, global pandemics, nativist panic, and resource depletion. For them, the future of technology is really about just one thing: escape. 

The super-wealthy cannot afford to live in commercial or political propaganda bubbles. Instead, they form realistic worldviews that can help them to evaluate real-world trends and potential futures. And they know that we are in deep waters. Granted, rich people can be irrational, while some may not really expect an apocalypse but choose to prepare for it anyway, at relatively low cost to them.

See also the following article regarding doomsday prepping in Silicon Valley, among other places. Key quote:

Sometimes the topic emerges in unexpected ways. Reid Hoffman, the co-founder of LinkedIn and a prominent investor, recalls telling a friend that he was thinking of visiting New Zealand. “Oh, are you going to get apocalypse insurance?” the friend asked. “I’m, like, Huh?” Hoffman told me. New Zealand, he discovered, is a favored refuge in the event of a cataclysm. Hoffman said, “Saying you’re ‘buying a house in New Zealand’ is kind of a wink, wink, say no more. Once you’ve done the Masonic handshake, they’ll be, like, ‘Oh, you know, I have a broker who sells old ICBM silos, and they’re nuclear-hardened, and they kind of look like they would be interesting to live in.’ ”

To be continued.

On hierarchies

How ironic that I am focusing largely on Swedish intellectuals, some of whom are largely unknown, when I'm keeping the blog in English. Yet most Swedes know English and the potential extra audience that understands English is too large to be ignored.

It struck me when I revisited Hornborg that one of the problems I have with his thinking is the way he makes hierarchical relations seem inherently unjust and problematic. This may sound like a provocative standpoint for some, so let me explain.

Power is dangerous, power often corrupts, and hierarchies lead to accumulation of power. That much is true. Yet in no system of living beings that I am aware of - ecosystems, human civilizations - is there an absence of hierarchies and power relations. The core-periphery dichotomy that Hornborg and other critical theorists employ is found all over nature. The tree is a core absorbing water, nutrients and carbon dioxide from its periphery, and so exploiting its surroundings. The herbivore exploits plants for its sustenance; the carnivore in turn preys on the herbivore. Humans prey on most of the natural world. All these beings also compete and sometimes prey on each other, and all leave some kind of waste after them that does not in any way repay their environment for what they had previously absorbed. Thus plants, herbivores, carnivores and humans all engage in systems of "unequal exchange", as Hornborg would term it, and this is at heart entirely natural. Some things revolve around other things - that is simply the way of the world.

Now, being a humanist, I do not question Hornborg's indignation about humans exploiting other humans. In fact, I would also add the exploitation of large animals (at least) to that list. Injustice and unrighteousness should be fought wherever it is found. At the same time, though, we must be able to keep two thoughts going simultaneously. Hierarchies can be oppressive, but they can also be truly enabling. A people can choose its leader, and a periphery can be content - even proud - to serve a particular core. Surely it does not have to be destructive if many people are devoted to serving a particular core and doing so willingly? This can be in the form of a leader, an institution or some sort of great project such as the construction of the Pyramid of Giza (whose workers, by the way, were not slaves) or the International Space Station. Such projects require large-scale cooperation, but they also require a hierarchical division of labour. Without such hierarchies, humans would have been able to accomplish precious little over the course of history.

This topic may resurface later. 

Rosling again

One positive thing about keeping a blog is that it forces me to evaluate what I write and to make sure that my reasoning is sound and well-intentioned. Thus having written a short note on Hans Rosling I was forced to admit to myself that I have not looked at all closely at his book Factfulness, and that I should therefore be careful with making statements about him or even his audience. I have now read through it a bit more earnestly and I can hardly underline enough what a positive influence his thinking can have on me. As may already be obvious I tend towards pessimism, whereas Rosling calls himself a "possibilist"; he does not like the word optimism, which can lead to the complacency I mentioned before, but he simply asks: if we have achieved this much by today, why could we not achieve even more in the future? Why should we not, for instance, be able to exterminate extreme poverty within 20 years? I am still cautious about such prospects, but at the same time, why should we not want to eliminate poverty or at least sharply reduce it? Only the cynicism and the bitterness in me would be skeptical of such a goal. And these are two really great flaws of character that I do not wish to have.

On the other side of this debate, we find lone voices such as the human ecologist Alf Hornborg, who I have been paying attention to more in the past, because his rather more pessimistic outlook on the workings of the world align more closely with my natural inclinations. Essentially, Hornborg argues that machine technology is the embodiment of zero-sum game of unequal exchange, where time and space is saved in the capitalist core at the expense of the exploited periphery. For instance, a cotton factory can only work because enough people can be found who will grow raw cotton and sell it rather than refine it themselves. Most of the land and labor (and water) required in this process is concentrated in the first part of the production chain, producing the raw material, while the profits tend to accrue in the refinement of cotton into desirable textiles. Thus the industrialist wins and the cotton farmers lose out, relatively speaking. Supposedly then, the reason why much of the world has still seen an enormous growth in wealth lately is because of the free energy deriving from fossil fuels.

Rosling believes that new technology will help us combat environmental problems and still keep lifiting people out of poverty; Hornborg generally does not. Perhaps the truth lies somewhere in-between, as it often does. As for Hornborg, he has clearly made his calculations, and I believe his perspective his very valuable, but I am also wary - now more than previously - of what I see as a kind of "eco-Marxism" in his thinking. His analysis tends towards materialistic reductionism - I am not sure he would agree about that, but at least it is the impression and the spirit that I got out of his writings. Such a reductionism can be truly bad for your character, if nothing else, and can easily lead to a denial of spiritual realities altogether.

Thus have we come full circle from questions about the environment to the more essential question of self-cultivation. :)

Spengler and the Decline of the West

Oswald Spengler is in my opinion one of the most interesting philosophers to come out of Germany in the last century or so. His philosophy is primarily one of history, world history in general but also the history of the West in particular. His most famous work is of course the two-volume The Decline of the West (or in German: Der Untergang des Abendlandes) where he speculates that the modern Western civilization has reached its peak and is now inevitably going to decline. The first volume was published in 1918 and the second in 1923, giving us a prime opportunity to examine whether some of his predictions have been born out today, 100 years later.

Spengler's basic unit of historical analysis is the culture. Just as organic life-forms, a culture is born at a point in time, it grows and it flourishes, and it has its raison d'être (reason for being) already established from the beginning, a potential that it seeks to fulfil, a distinct vision of life and truth and beauty that it seeks to realize. After some time, a culture reaches its highest potential, a "summer" phase when it is finally able to express most purely that original vision, and after this point the culture becomes inward-looking, unable to create anything new that can surpass that which has already been established. The culture then enters an "autumn" phase, and finally "winter", and during these last two phases it transforms into what Spengler simply calls "civilization". Civilization, then, is not the high point of culture, but rather a conservative, shallow, bombastic reveling in past achievements, trying to invoke them again and again by duplicating old aesthetic styles, architectural forms, cultural formulas and so on. A few examples of such high points having been achieved would be - according to Spengler - the works of Plato and Aristotle in Classical civilization, the Qur'an in "Magian" civilization and the philosophy of Immanuel Kant in Western civilization, whereas in the music of Richard Wagner, for instance, Spengler already detects a sense of bombastic decadence, i.e. a beginning of that downward trajectory towards the "Civilization" phase of the West.

The central idea noticeable in Spengler's work which I have come to adopt is the exhaustion of possibilities. Something truly new can be realized only once, at least in the realm of art and religion. Such a realization constitutes a blooming to full fruition which can then only be followed by decline. For instance, it has been said that the entire history of Western philosophy is but a footnote to Plato - yet we do not have to go back to Plato to illustrate this idea, be it true or not. A much more recent example would be J. R. R. Tolkien's standing in the fantasy genre of literature: he essentially founded the genre, and his works have been considered the greatest by many fantasy lovers since. It would seem that his work simply cannot be surpassed, and this is not so strange a thing when you begin to ponder it. After all, if Tolkien has defined the genre itself, others who aspire to write in the same genre cannot but emulate him, follow in his footsteps, and yet they can never write exactly like him. The only way other authors could challenge Tolkien is if they bring in something entirely new, for instance twisting the genre away from high fantasy towards some variation of dark fantasy. Thus the master will always reign supreme in his domain, and no new greatness is engendered through simple imitation of already established norms.

There is certain to be more written on Spengler later on this blog. Suffice to say for now that it does seem to me that art forms are today being recycled at an unprecedented rate, that nostalgia for past epochs has taken center stage and that it does indeed seem very difficult to be creative today, for instance as an author (which I personally have aspired to). New books are being released in their thousands, yet few of them are likely to ever reach the status of classics, outliving the lives of their authors to be reprinted again and again for future generations. The same thing could be said for music and art as well, and perhaps even ethics. At the same time, the "real classics" are becoming to obscure for most and are rarely read.

Spengler also did suggest that the West would enter into some sort of "Caesarian phase" politically around the year 2000, concordant with the bombastic, degenerate quality signifying a late civilization. What with the steadily accruing power of American presidents since that time, with Trump attempting to reign as an emperor in all but name, this prediction seems to have been surprisingly close to the mark.

Is the world getting better and better?

Never before have as many people had access to education, food, clean water and modern comforts such as washing machines. Never before has starvation, war and disease been as absent from human affairs as they are now. The world is getting better and better, the future is bright - who has not in one way or another been exposed to this narrative during the last decade or so? And why would anyone want to question it? Indeed, what kind of cynicism would it be to deny the astounding success of the Late Liberal World Order in lifting millions and yet more millions out of degrading poverty and menial labour?

And yet, something does not seem right. While I should be careful to write off above-said statements as nothing more than a "narrative" - a cheap postmodernist (poststructuralist) trick sometimes employed to refrain from fact-checking - intuition and, indeed, facts do not completely harmonize with the above picture. What I question is not so much the first part of the claim - that the world has been improving significantly in material terms for many people around the world - as the latter part of it: that everything will indeed continue to improve, to the point that heaven-on-earth would eventually be realized on a global scale. Rather, looking back across the centuries, it seems indisputable that a great rise in living standards, despite an explosion of the human population in the world has indeed occurred - but that does not mean that it will continue forever. I would suggest something altogheter different: that a peak has at last been reached, and that we are now in for a downhill ride for the foreseeable future. If I were to somewhat arbitrarily set a year for when this downhill journey truly began, I would suggest that it be placed at the year 2014.

2014 was the year when the Late Liberal World Order truly began to unfold. It was the year that saw the overthrow of a democratically elected (if corrupt) government in Ukraine, leading to a new confrontation between Russia and "the West", lead by the USA. This was also the year when Russia and China truly found one another on the geopolitical stage, forming a formidable alliance (all but in name) to challenge the American hegemony.

(The formation of this alliance has not been given as much attention as it deserved in the Western press. To those who would like to read up on the subject I would recommend the article China-Russia Double Helix by Larchmonter445. Regardless of what you think of false flags operations and CIA involvement, the key to note here is what the author writes regarding the complementarity of China and Russia: "What one nation lacks, the other has").

The failure of the US to maintain itself at the top of the World Order has directly fuelled the rise of Trump and protectionism. Now we are in a new diplomatic environment globally, with bilateral deals taking precedent over multilateral agreements, strongmen coming to the fore in a great variety of countries while a few well-off liberals in the North and West are wondering what what everyone is complaining about, insisting that things are still getting "better and better".

Yet it is not only the uncertain future of Pax Americana that makes me question the recieved wisdom. 2014 was also the year that saw the explosion of ISIS/Daesh, part organization, part network, part global brand, which has now been rolled back in Syria and Iraq but not at all globally. Daesh is a symbol of "resistance" to the state of things, resistance in its most ugly and nihilistic form, but nonetheless. This movement, whatever its exact origins, also comes across as an expression of what might be termed the Arabic-Islamic crisis, which has come about for reasons both external and internal, and which now sees countries such as Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and Pakistan and Yemen as failed states to a greater or lesser degree. This raises questions as to when, if ever, the liberal dream will be universally realized. And needless to say, the US and its allies have often played a significant role in destabilizing said countries. One might be forgiven for thinking that the American peace (Pax Americana) has unravelled into an equally farreaching American War (Bellum Americana).

Finally, we come to the question of the environment and the Earth's climate. After centuries of more and more earnestly following the dictum 'Greed is good', humanity is finally beginning to sow what it has reaped. One extremely hot summer, like the one we are experiencing now in Sweden and in fact throughout much of the world, does not prove anything of course - but it makes us realize that what the climatologists have been warning about for decades is finally starting to become apparent for all to see. And still it is merely a taste of what the future is expected to hold. It might be useful to remind the world's liberals, then, that those last few decades that have seen an unprecedented rise in living standards across the world have also seen an equally unprecedented rise in atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.

https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/
https://www.co2.earth/

Many liberals seem surprisingly complacent about this. Two examples from my own country could serve as an illustration. The neoliberal thinker Johan Norberg recently released a book with the English title: Progress: Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future. According to other reviewers (I confess I have not read it myself) this book did not even mention the state of the climate, however. Such a mind-boggling omission serves to make the whole book rather uninteresting and, in a sense, off-topic.

The other example concerns the much lauded doctor and statistician Hans Rosling, whose latest book Factfulness is now being donated by Bill Gates to American college graduates. I have great respect for Rosling (who passed away little over a year ago, by the way), and my criticism does not concern him directly so much as the way he has been received. For those who are unfamiliar with his work, it was focused (in his later years) on enlightening people in well-off countries that the "third world" does not look the way it did fifty years ago - people are rarely starving in Africa and mothers in Bangladesh do not have more than 2-3 children on average. As praiseworthy as this is, my impression is that it was caught on a little too quickly by well-off, well-meaning people who wanted to ensure themselves that the world was still getting "better and better" and that it will continue in that manner, regardless of the limits of the environment and other potential troublespots.

Ultimately, if we are in need of reassurance, we are certain to find people who can give us that. But perhaps this need in itself signals something about our growing uneasiness with the state of things: all is not quiet on the western front.

A first taste

For many who grew up with the Civilization computer game series, the theme song to Civilization IV, called Baba Yetu (supposedly meaning Our Father in Swahili, as in the Christian prayer), was an astounding piece of music. I believe that the spirit of this song captures something of what I’m aiming at for this blog: humanity recap.

The official video for the song is rather awful in a sense – not just the graphics, but the exclusive focus on wars, politics and large monuments as a measure of greatness. It is also slightly too American to my taste personally. But the underlying attempt here to capture a sense of the achievements of humankind is not misplaced. The spirit of the song is indeed telling us: “This is the story of mankind.” And a great story it is, and has been. Despite the heavy focus on material achievements in the video, Baba Yetu is at heart a deeply spiritual tune which I today think of as a starting point for my philosophizing in this manner. So if you can listen to this beautiful piece with or without the video and get the sense of it, then you are half with me already for the journey ahead. Enough of the gloom and doom – make way for the greatness of spirit!

Regarding the author

While this blog is not intended to focus greatly on me and myself, I suppose it would be rude not to give my readers at least a brief personal introduction.

I am a man in my early thirties, resident in Konungariket Sverige (the Kingdom of Sweden, as it is formally known) in northern Europe. My life’s journey so far has contained a number of sharp twists and turns not least in the area of philosophy and spirituality – in my general outlook on life, to put it simply. Thus have I in one way or another been involved in all of the four great world religions (not including Judaism due to its small size) as well as various strands of New Age spirituality and occultism. Politically I have made a journey from the far left, somewhat to the right, though I would not go farther than to consider myself a simple Conservative, or – in some interpretations – a Classical Liberal. I have also travelled quite a bit in my life, not least in India, where I remained for over half a year – an experience that changed my worldview fundamentally. I am now looking forward to a more settled life in the future, geographically as well as mentally, until Fate decides otherwise.

For clarification, the four “great” world religions I refer to are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism. These religions also have their branches, and I am not equally well-versed in all their various traditions, but I believe I have at least a sense of all the larger branches as well. Education-wise I do not have more than a bachelor’s degree in History of Religions, so you might say that I am little more than an amateur. My claim, then, is simply that I have a sense of “spiritual empathy” that has given be a deeper understanding of some religious currents than quite a few professors. This is not intended as a brag. But it is a way of saying that I do believe I have something to contribute. Dear reader, hopefully you will be able to judge for yourself in due time whether this is so.

Introduction

recap

verb

riːˈkap,ˈriːkap/

1.

state again as a summary; recapitulate.

"a way of recapping the story so far"

noun

ˈriːkap/

1.

a summary of what has been said; a recapitulation.

"a quick recap of the idea and its main advantages"

Why humanity recap and what do I mean by it?

Dear as-of-yet non-existent blog followers,

It has occurred to me that we are in need of a recap. After all, we have lived on this planet now for at least tens of thousands of years – depending on how you define “we”, that is to say humanity – and as of late we have both created and destroyed a great deal of beautiful things. We have sure made our impact known, and if the gods are indeed watching us from above, they may well decide that it’s about time to put an end to this little experiment – not so obedient anymore, their pet project “humanity” has run amok and does not now know how to extricate itself from the delicate situation it has created for itself. This is not just about the warming climate, which is starting make itself known now even in the Scandinavian peninsula where I draw breath – it is at heart about a collective process of thought and sentiment and spirit and attainment that does at last seem to be close to wearying itself out. Does it not occur to you also, that most things that we could create already seem to have been created in the past, so that the we as a race seem more and more to belong to the past, with little less to attain or achieve for the future? The future, they say, belongs to the robots and the AI, and possibly to a future caste of upgraded superhumans. Whereas we, present humanity, find ourselves at the peak of a drawn-out human experience, cherishing our memories, yet unable to add very much to our collection of achievements without post-human aid. After all, the great majority of ethical, philosophical and religious thought, art, literature, lofty ideals and spiritual traditions have already been formed long ago; the low-hanging fruit as been picked, as it were, leaving us to admire the ancients, while only a few fruits remain to be harvested at the very top of the tree. As for modern technology, it is fast becoming inexplicable to most of us, and we wonder, indeed, whether we can at all steer the course for the future any longer; machines are evermore present, God is evermore distant, and the pace is quickening constantly, according to the dictates of said machines and the invisible market forces. Increasingly dependent on these machines, we lose our self-confidence as a species, and resign ourselves to watching the future unfold, not really convinced that we wish for anymore “progress” than that which has already occurred. So we drift, and we begin to look backwards instead. For has it not been one marvellous adventure? Whatever our common legacy will be, and regardless of how long we will remain here, it does seem like an opportune moment to take pause and reflect on how we got here. Therefore, this blog intends to focus on exactly that: on matters of history, with a bent towards the religious, cultural and spiritual, while not neglecting the simply political. Contemporary social, cultural, technological, economic and political and spiritual matters may also enter the fray, as well as musing on the future of civilization, culture and nature. Every now and then I may sidetrack a little by raising other issues I find interesting, ranging from astrology to lifestyle issues to contemporary ethical dilemmas. Generally speaking this is going to be a dense blog, and there is likely to be a shortage of videos of funny animals and pictures of myself doing marvellous things with marvellous friends – thus have you been warned.

This being said, I hereby declare the blog set up.