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Mankind at the Crossroads: Civilizational Shift or Self-destruction



ARTICLE | | BY Dimitar Tchurovsky

Author(s)

Dimitar Tchurovsky

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Abstract

Society has two parallel lines of development—the Course of History and the Spiral of Social Evolution. Development is determined bilaterally by objective and subjective factors. The subjective factor determines the content of society; the objective factor determines the structure of the society. The upcoming transition of mankind is evolutionary by nature, i.e. it represents a change in social consciousness, the structure of society and the ruling elite. This is a transition from a hierarchical to a network social structure. Evolutionary transitions have always been very painful for society. The upcoming change is a great danger because it is related to the survival of man as a species. In this situation, the economy and money lose their importance. The peaceful transition to a new form of social organization and a new type of society can be accomplished by the emergence and strengthening of social self-awareness. This is a civilizational change. The alternative is the self-destruction of society, which is not an option for discussion.

1. Problem Stated

Mankind has passed through three developmental eras: polytheism, monotheism, and secular society. From a philosophical and gnoseological point of view, these are three paradigms that explain the world as a whole. According to the first paradigm, the destiny of man is determined by many gods; according to the second, by an almighty God; as per the third paradigm, the driving force of society is the economy. From the development of society, we can draw four conclusions: 1. The paradigm shift is a change in the understanding of the driving force of development: many gods, one Almighty God, an economy. 2. The transition from one paradigm to another is determined by the growth of knowledge. 3. There are clearly two factors determining development: objective laws and human reason. 4. The growth of knowledge changes the structure of society—Ancient world, feudalism, capitalism. These conclusions are the starting points for analysing society.

Today, mankind faces a civilizational change that requires a fresh look at the world or a New Paradigm. The New Paradigm accepts society, metaphorically speaking, as a “living organism”, which has two parallel lines of development—a spiral of social evolution and a course of human history. The first line is determined by the objective factor, and the second line by the subjective factor. The driving force is knowledge where the economy is a particular example of the rise in knowledge. In other words, the development of knowledge determines social evolution, and economy, the course of history. These lines represent a double spiral whose dialectics define the process of social development as a whole. On the ontological basis, these two lines are indistinguishable, but from a gnoseological point of view they should be clearly distinguished. The course of history is the visible part of the iceberg, while social evolution is the “invisible hand” that determines the structure of society.

The world today is largely dominated by the view that the economy, and in particular money, move the world. The truth is that this applies only to the course of history and in particular, to capitalism. The other part is the boom in the development of knowledge defining the spiral of social evolution. The upcoming transition is evolutionary in nature, that is to say, it represents a change in paradigm, with respect to the structure of society. This is a transition from hierarchical to network structure. Change in paradigms has always been very painful, and the upcoming shift is accompanied by a huge risk because it is related to the survival of man as a species. In the face of such danger, the economy, money, military force and all other factors determining historical development lose their meaning. To understand dialectics in the development of society, we need to clarify the laws, the mechanism and the dynamics of social evolution, the role and the possibilities of the subjective factor, “the division of labour” between the two factors of development; analyze history and geopolitics today, and outline the foreseeable future from this new point of view.

2. Laws and Mechanism of the Development of Society

There is a mighty power as old as the very evolution that created life and ecosystems, which strikes with its expedience. The result of this creation seems so reasonable that for thousands of years people have associated this power with a superior intelligence personified as many gods or an omnipotent God, and today, as a product of intelligent design. In fact, it is a blind power for self-organization of matter without objective, introducing order in chaos. It is a creative force that can be defined as biological evolution and the basis on which information is understood as an attribute of matter. After millions of years of biological evolution, this deified but blind power created man as a rational being. In other words, biological evolution created a new evolutionary branch called social evolution. Since then, development has taken place in two relatively independent but closely bound lines—human history and social evolution. These two lines are ontologically indivisible, but from a gnoseological point of view they should be clearly distinguished in order to understand how society operates as a system and how the system itself evolves as a result of mankind’s developing consciousness and the generation of knowledge. In fact, the growth of knowledge is the driving force of society. This line of development, defined by social consciousness and growing knowledge, can be defined as a course of history. The objective factor or the laws of social evolution periodically make qualitative changes in this course by changing the structure of society and by bringing it in line with the achieved level of social development. These transitions define the major developmental epochs, which have a spiral character due to increasing knowledge. From the point of view of material development, the epochs can be classified as pre-history, Ancient society, feudalism and capitalism. From the point of view of spiritual development—animism, polytheism, monotheism and secular society. This line of development is determined by the objective factor and can be defined as a spiral of social evolution. In other words, the course of history is created from social consciousness or human reason, and the spiral of social evolution is a continuation of that blind force creating biological evolution and ecosystems. Biological evolution identified humans as a biological species for 70,000 years, which according to some anthropologists is much more, and the human mind for 10,000 years of historical development beginning with the Agrarian Revolution and domestication of animals. Artificial Intelligence and editing of genes, the latest advancements in the field, probe further into the study of the Universe. At the same time, chemical weapons of mass destruction, atomic & hydrogen bombs, and missiles, are now capable of destroying life on the planet 20 times down to the level of reptiles. On the other hand, greed, egotism, corruption and demagogy have grown over the last few decades threatening the survival of mankind. The difference between the two lines is obvious and striking. By creating ecosystems, biological evolution works with mutations and time, and the human mind works by resolving contradictions and generating knowledge. Consciousness accelerates development, but also creates preconditions for self-destruction. The course of history is a continuous accumulation of many minor changes, and social evolution provides periodic qualitative changes through relatively rapid transitions to a higher degree of development. This dialectic is determined by four basic principles of social evolution, which carry the power of objective laws.

The first principle defines the relationship between the growth of knowledge and the changes in society and can be stated as “Ideas move the world.”

The second principle explores the division of functions between objective and subjective factors in social evolution. It states: “Subjective factor (the human reason) creates history and the objective factor determines the structure of society, bringing it in line with the level of attained knowledge.”

The third principle reveals the dependence between changes in social consciousness, the economy, and the governance of society. “Culture materializes itself in civilization, and declining civilization triggers a new cultural revolution.”

There are also several factors that shape the structure of society—physical labour, land, natural resources and intelligence. These factors are fundamental to the Ancient world, feudalism, capitalism and the supposed future society. They can be defined as structure-forming factors.

 The fourth principle refers to the role of structure-forming factors and states: “Changes in structure-forming factors determine the spiral of social evolution.”

Society has three subsystems: spiritual (culture), material (economy), and form of governance. In their interaction, subsystems evolve as a whole but have their own specificity. Thus the transitions in each form three types of revolutions: spiritual (cultural), economic and political. Generally speaking, human reason generates knowledge by resolving contradictions and developing society by creating multiple subsystems, while objective laws periodically balance the three basic subsystems and the set of newly created subsystems like the development of a living organism. So, from the spiritual point of view, the transition is from animism to polytheism, from polytheism to monotheism, and from it to secular or civil society. From a material point of view, the transition is from hunting and gathering to an Agrarian Revolution as the basis of the Ancient World and a subsequent transition to feudalism and capitalism. Social governance evolved from autocracy to democracy accordingly. It creates the ruling elite that develop, fall and perish along with the systems they govern.

With the emergence of political power or the legitimate right to make decisions within a community, the subjective factor gets divided into two parts—the governed and governors. The first represents approximately 99% of the community. This part generates the knowledge that is the engine of development. The second part accounts for about 1% of the community and represents the governing elite, which also has its dynamics of development. The evolution of the ruling elite of all time passes through three phases of development: constructive, maintaining the status quo and self-destructive.

During the constructive phase, the emerging elite work for the development of society and bring about many changes imposed by the new structure, dynamics and culture in society.

During the second phase, the governing elite maintains the status quo but gradually begins to serve itself rather than work for the benefit of society as a whole. It is concerned about preserving and expanding its privileges. At this stage, the government becomes incompetent to manage society due to increasing complexity and lagging mentality. This is manifested by the emergence of arrogance, selfishness, excessive self-confidence. Decisions are made on the basis of a mixture of wishful thinking and obsolete ideological stereotypes.

In assessing the ruling elite at this stage of their development, there is a little underestimated or insufficiently studied psychological (or perhaps psychopathological) aspect of how power changes the human psyche. It is overwhelming power that leads to the development of the “hubris syndrome” (literally “arrogance syndrome”). This is a leadership personality disorder affecting some politicians; a peculiar kind of mental deviation that affects not only politicians but also military commanders and managers of large companies. Lord David Owen, psychiatrist, politician and British Foreign Secretary from 1977-79, and now a member of the House of Lords, described a number of patterns of behaviour that are characteristic of this particular disease in the exercise of power. As an expert combining medical knowledge and political experience, he has a unique insight into how political power affects human behaviour and how the symptoms of this syndrome are shaped. David Owen describes this mental state with scientific precision: Using power for self-glorification. An almost obsessive focus on personal image; Excessive self-confidence, accompanied by contempt for advice or criticism of others; Loss of contact with reality; Speaking as a messiah; Reckless and impulsive actions; and Hubristic incompetence where supreme overconfidence leads to inattention to details; The unshakable belief that in the court they will be rehabilitated; A tendency to accept a “broader vision” to justify incompetence in implementing the policy, which can be called arrogant incompetence; Addiction to power. This is when things do not start to go well, just because too much self-esteem has led the leader to ignore the practical nature of politics. 1,2,3

There are several studies on the psychological state of Adolf Hitler, his behaviour, beliefs, tastes, fears and intrusive characteristics bordering on schizophrenia, which explain how Hitler’s psychopathology changed Nazi Germany and world history.4,5,6 Stalin’s psychic profile is similar. However, not all politicians develop Hubris Syndrome or other anomalies, although it is interesting to note that these mental states are directly proportional to the power achieved. Today, political leaders at all levels are at this stage of development. Some leaders are legendary in their blunders, but most are simply incompetent to manage communities that have reached the level of complex systems. This incompetence is not a result of insufficient education or intelligence, but rather a result of misunderstanding of the mechanisms and laws of social development and decision-making led by ideological and wishful thinking. In general, the state of mind and the mentality of the ruling elite that possess excessive power are questionable.

The socio-engineering models accelerate the development of society but push it in the wrong direction due to the lack of knowledge of social laws and the impossibility of the subjective factor to capture and manage the growing complexity of the system.

In the self-destructive phase, rulers pass a threshold of incompetence to manage the system, and start blaming the inadequacy of reality. They make seemingly logical decisions in terms of their mentality, which, however, contradict the laws of social development and for that reason lead to self-destruction of the elite and the system itself. Such examples can be pointed out for the elite of all epochs from the Roman patricians to the present-day Power Elite, but we will limit ourselves to only two cases from modern history.

After the murder of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, Crown Prince of Austria-Hungary, on June 28, 1914, Franz Joseph I (1830-1916) took the seemingly logical decision to launch a “small Balkan war” with Serbia to establish the authority of the empire. Contrary to expectations, the “small Balkan war” spread rapidly to Europe and even globally. As a result of this decision began the First World War and the end of the dynasty itself; four empires and a dozen monarchies disappeared from the map of Europe. Such a suicidal decision was also taken by Hitler. This was the decision to start a “lightning war” with Soviet Russia, which was supposed to end in 3-4 months. In the concrete situation of military success with the implementation of this strategy and the mentality of the Nazi leaders, the decision looked reasonable, feasible and would have gathered support from the generals. However, the end result was the suicide of the Führer and the tragic end of his henchmen. The lesson from the First and Second World Wars is crystal clear—decisions based on military force, ideological and wishful thinking are self-destructive.

The question then is, to what extent have today’s governing elite developed? Have they reached the threshold of inadequacy in which suicidal solutions are taken? We will return to this problem after a brief examination of recent history and today’s geopolitics from the point of view of the interaction between the course of history and the spiral of social evolution.

3. Twentieth Century: A Time of Hopes, Illusions and Disappointments  

The 20th century was filled with dramatic events in an attempt to resolve global contradictions. The two world wars, the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet empire are only the visible part of the events. What is behind them was the emergence and collapse of several ideologies. They were the basis of attempts to implement three different models of reorganization of society. The first ideology is related to the attempt to build a communist society in Russia through nationalization of the means of production, which over time may have grown into a “World Revolution” and eliminated capitalism on a global scale. The second ideology was the attempt by the National Socialists in Germany to build a New Order called the “Millennium Reich”, based on the idea of national and racial superiority. These two ideologies were followed by political parties that seized power—in Russia through a bloody revolution and in Germany after legitimate elections. Both attempts proved to be unsuccessful and were paid for with a high price by humanity. The third ideology was followed by the financial elite and was an attempt to create a system of governance of society through control and manipulation of the financial system. For this purpose, the gold standard was abolished and the dollar was designated as an international currency. Since the financial system is a kind of “circulatory system” not only for the economy but also for society as a whole, this nameless, quiet and creeping revolution proved much more successful than the other two. In just a few decades, it made the world unrecognizable. In theory and practice, this ideology can be defined as financism. It is still prevalent and is at the heart of geopolitics today. In this case, the ultimate goal is to perpetuate the system by building a New World Order.

The irony of history is that capitalism was killed not by the proletariat, as Marx suggested, but by the bankers.

The common feature of all three systems—communism (Bolshevism), National Socialism (fascism) and financism—is that they have been created by human reason and can be defined as ideological systems or socio-engineering models for the organization of society. Therefore, they are distinct in principle from the political and economic formations created by the objective factor or social evolution ̶ the Ancient world (basically slavery), Feudalism and Capitalism. There are many differences between socio-engineering systems of social organization and political and economic formations created by social evolution. Briefly, I will point out only the principal difference. Ideological models of organization of society are created and governed by the subjective factor (political parties or financial elite), and evolutionary formations arise as a result of the action of objective laws and develop as self-organizing systems. This peculiarity is reflected in the fact that the socio-engineering models accelerate the development of society but push it in the wrong direction due to their lack of knowledge of social laws and the impossibility of the subjective factor to capture and manage the growing complexity of the system. This regularity has the power of law for man-made systems because it determines their appearance, functioning, development and collapse. For this reason, semi-feudal Russia made an incredible jump in its development from dealing with the wooden plow to the exploration of Cosmos, and Germany, which was torn by hyperinflation after World War I for two decades, has become a world power with the ambition to conquer and transform the world. For its part, financism has shaped the unipolar model represented by the United States which remains at the centre of the technological boom today. This accelerated development of society is due to the ability of the subjective factor to concentrate resources in a determined manner driven by the ideology of direction. Obviously, the purpose of the ruling elite is to define priorities in the development of technology: in the USSR, demonstration of opportunities and political superiority of communism; in the case of Nazis, military industry, while in financism technology is oriented to maximization of profits due to investment in mass production—from modern household equipment in the 1920s, through cars, radio, TVs—in the middle of the century to today’s mobile and digital devices that have changed the world within one generation. On the other hand, the usurpation of power and the elimination of negative feedback regulating the system lead to disproportions in the development of subsystems in society (economy, culture and form of government). The latter factor is a prerequisite for the decline in morality and the inevitable collapse of the system itself. For communism and fascism, this is already a historical fact, and in the case of financism, it is about to happen.

The determining cause and symptom of the rise and fall of socio-engineering projects is the contradiction between the development of science and technology and the decline in morality. Morality ensures the integrity of society. The illusion is that the supremacy of law can provide it. Laws can regulate public relations, but they do not guarantee the integrity of society because they are written by the ruling elite who basically protect their own interests. Symptoms of this contradiction are clearly visible in all three models. Today, under the conditions of financism, the exponential development of science and technology goes hand in hand with a decline in morality, such as the growth of selfishness, corruption and political hypocrisy, presented in a politically correct manner as a “double standard.”

Between financism and capitalism, there is a fundamental difference. Industrial capitalism, described by Adam Smith and Karl Marx, is the product of several successive industrial revolutions, and financism is a product of the subjective factor and is one of the many socio-engineering projects. As a structure and function, it possesses all peculiarities of communism and fascism and will inevitably share their destiny, because when it takes over the governance of society, the subjective factor cannot completely eliminate the role of the objective factor. In the case of industrial capitalism, the system is self-regulated through periodic production crises, and in the case of financism, through financial crises or crises in redistribution as a result of the manipulation of financial markets. In this case, the side effect of the imposition of financial markets is the emergence of global problems endangering the existence of the human race. Global problems are usually presented as “politically correct” as a product of “human nature”, but the truth is that they are the outcome of the system. These problems will become unsolvable if we do not change the model of organization and management of society. Marx’s analysis of industrial capitalism is not applicable to financism, which is built on the manipulation of fictitious money. What he has not predicted is that the evolutionary path for the end of capitalism will not happen through the class struggle that usually accompanies capitalism, but will degenerate into three socio-engineering projects: communism, fascism and financism. The first two hurt capitalism, but financism killed this politico-economic formation in the second half of the twentieth century. The irony of history is that capitalism was killed not by the proletariat, as Marx suggested, but by the bankers.

In the 21st century, society does not need an ideology, but a scientific theory to explain its structure, functions and development.

Mixing financism and capitalism leads to an understanding of today’s chaos in the light of ongoing processes. Thus, economists and politicians continue to talk about “left” and “right” policies. These are policies for the distribution of produced goods. They are applicable to industrial capitalism, but they are meaningless in financism because, despite the policy, the redistribution of the produced goods through the financial markets, the lion’s pie, in any case, goes to the financial elite. Furthermore, if society is governed by the manipulation of the financial system, it should not be called democracy but plutocracy. In fact, all visible signs of democracy, such as general elections, mandate, etc., are being reserved for manipulative purposes. Today, the system is something like “demo-plutocracy,” with democracy as the form and plutocracy as content, because a society based on money in principle eliminates all democratic components. Thus, voters elect governments but cannot change the system because all governments serve the financial elite. The side effect of this mechanism is the double standards or hypocrisy of the rulers, inherent to varying degrees in all socio-engineering projects. This inevitably leads to a decline in morality and a collapse of the system. 

The 20th century was marked by three big illusions. The first concerned the belief of the Russian Bolsheviks that they were building a communist society which would grow into a “World Revolution” and destroy capitalism. The second illusion was the belief of the Nazis in some mythical Aryan race and their attempt to impose power through building A New Order, called the “Millennium Reich”. The third illusion was the misguidance that financism is a form of capitalism. While the first two illusions were at the national and regional level, the third misconception was of a planetary nature. To date, it is shared by politicians, economists, financiers, military officials, journalists and the general public. In fact, these three illusions were three aspects of a fundamental delusion characterizing the 20th century: the belief that human reason can determine the structure of society. Let me recall that human reason can make history, but it cannot change the course of social evolution that is determined by the objective laws of social development.

What is logical within an ideology can look absurd in another paradigm.

When the Soviet nomenclature realized that its system had nothing to do with communism, as described by Marx and Engels in the Communist Manifesto as a product of the evolutionary development of capitalism, but was rather an ideological model for the reorganization of society, the system collapsed. When a critical mass of geopoliticians, political scientists, economists, military specialists, the intellectual elite, in general, realizes the difference between financism and capitalism, financism can collapse like the Soviet system, starting with “perestroika” of the financial system that generates global problems and threatens not only the Power Elite but also the life of the planet. Theoretically, for the collapse of financism, there are two possible scenarios. I will return to this point again after analyzing several contradictions in the development of society today, at the beginning of the 21st century, and the proposed geopolitical strategies for resolving them.

4. Geopolitics—Ideology or Scientific Theory?

Ideologies represent a system of views and ideas specific to a particular social group, class, or political party. The characteristic of ideologies is that some of these ideas are verified truths, and some are pure illusory. The problem is not in the mix of truths and delusions, but in the fact that no one can reasonably distinguish the illusions of truths in an ideology through logical reasoning. This happens in social practice at a certain price. Politicians build their worldview, knowingly or unconsciously, influenced by certain philosophical ideas. That is why the more influential of them form ideologies themselves. Three of these ideologies determined the fate of society in the 20th century. Lenin, for example, developed the ideology of Bolshevism on the philosophical and economic ideas of Marx. Hitler tried to politically interpret Friedrich Nietzsche’s philosophy. Modern politics is built on the foundations of positivism, and Soros misinterpreted the philosophical ideas of the Open Society of Henri Bergson and Karl Popper. The experience of the 20th century shows that the creation of ideologies through interpretations of philosophical teachings by politicians and financiers is not only wrong but also very dangerous. With the collapse of the socio-engineering models, the ideologies themselves also disappear. In the 21st century, society does not need an ideology, but a scientific theory to explain its structure, functions and development, with a focus on the survival of the human race as a species and a social entity.

Today, hundreds of books, thousands of articles and TV shows are devoted to geopolitics. They all make sense, and some offer in-depth analyses explaining what is happening in the world. Unlike geopolitics, the focus of social philosophy is not on current events such as the fate of the United States, Russia, Europe, China, India, the Middle East, etc., but the fate of mankind as a whole. Unfortunately, geopolitical strategies do not propose a clear vision of the future society. Instead of vision they offer speculative concepts such as a New World Order, World Caliphate, Polar Models, Regional Unions, Clash of Civilizations, End of History, etc., which remain within the framework of financism as an ideology. The laws of social development are not sought and explored, but if they are, they could build a scientific theory that defines geopolitics as well.

To understand society, it is necessary to study human history and the laws of social evolution.

Today, geopolitics is dominated by concepts proposed by strategists such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Joseph Nye, Gene Sharp, Francis Fukuyama, Steven Mann and others. One of the most popular metaphors in geopolitics is that the world is like “a grand chessboard” where different political players are measuring strengths in their quest to dominate and transform the world according to their ideology into a unipolar, bipolar or multipolar model. They believe that the struggle for supremacy between nations and states and the dominance of the stronger player is a proven factor and is, therefore, an indisputable fact and unquestionable law of the development of society. The most prominent representative of this approach based on military force is Brzezinski, who wrote the book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives.7 Indeed, from the perspective of geopolitics, the metaphor of “the grand chessboard” sounds logical and convincing. From the point of view of social philosophy, however, which accepts mankind as a self-organizing system or metaphorically speaking as a “living organism”, such a picture seems extremely simplified, not to say absurd. Imagine an organism in which two organs or systems are in a struggle for supremacy, or an organ of the organism that vigorously seeks to “privatize” the circulatory system and divert 90% of the oxygen to itself by holding all other cells, organs and systems in a state of oxygen starvation, just to be able to control the organism itself. That is what makes today’s financial elite, through its silent revolution, turn capitalism into financism and want to develop it to a New World Order, hypocritically depicted as a world without wars, violence, and misery. In other words, what is logical within an ideology can look absurd in another paradigm.

The greatest mistake of geopolitics today is the understanding that society could be governed only by the subjective factor or human reason without taking into account objective laws. Hence the metaphor of “the grand chessboard” and the ubiquitous right of the stronger, which, according to Brzezinski, have proved their validity throughout human history. This is true for history, but not for social evolution. For instance, Ancient Rome fell, although it was much more civilized than “barbarians”. More recently, several world empires collided during the First World War. In this clash, the stronger did not win, but the monarchies were thrown out of the scene of history as a needless form of governance. This is because society is developing under the laws of the “double helix”, composed of subjective and objective factors. The human reason creates history and objective laws periodically correct this development towards self-regulation of society as a system. The metaphor of “the grand chessboard” is valid for the periods of development by the accumulation of small changes, but in the conditions of transition from one system to another, the invisible hand of objective factor turns the political players from puppeteers into puppets. Apparently, the metaphor of the grand chessboard does not take this fact into account.

“Soft power” is a concept promoted by Joseph Nye Jr, professor at Harvard University, in the book Bound To Lead: The Changing Nature Of American Power, and further developed in Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics. According to this concept, political decisions should be based on cooperative impacts and a positive role model rather than the use of brute force, threats or money as a means for persuasion. According to Joseph Nye, soft power is achieved by influencing the culture, political values and foreign policy of other countries.* The problem with soft power is that it does not take into account the role of the objective factor and is not based on the historical development of society.

Gene Sharp is influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s doctrine of nonviolence and has developed a concept for the transition from dictatorship to democracy. His concept of nonviolence is based on the understanding that dictators are never as strong as they pretend to be and people are never as weak as you think they are. On the other hand, violence provokes more violence, when we give priority to dictators and justify their actions. Gene Sharp is reputed to be the father of colour and velvet revolutions. His strategy of nonviolence has influenced the resistance movements in the world, provoked about 30 revolutions and inspired the Occupy Wall Street movement in the USA. He also describes 198 methods of nonviolent actions, arranged in 6 groups and multiple subgroups.8 Gene Sharp, however, points out that soft power can also be used in an unfair manner. The theory of nonviolence is limited to the transition from dictatorship to democracy. It does not refer to the transition from one formation to another. For this reason, the consequences of colour revolutions and the Movement “Occupy all streets” remain controversial because humanity’s problem today is the transition not from dictatorship to democracy, but from an artificially created form of democracy to an evolutionary formation of democracy.

According to Francis Fukuyama, liberal democracy is the end point of mankind’s ideological evolution and the universalization of Western liberal democracy would be the end of history. This is like the cherry on the cake.9 Nothing could be further from the truth. Liberalism is an ideology and Western democracy, which is more of a façade, has its own restrictions.

Steven Mann is a career Foreign Service Officer. His theory of chaos and self-organizing criticality is supposed to be the base for strategic thought. Steven Mann rightly points out the limitation of the mechanistic paradigm based on Newtonian physics and mechanics as the theoretical basis for understanding the dynamics and changes in society in the 20th century as a whole. In his quest to introduce dynamism as a factor into the system, he recommends applying the theory of chaos to national security and foreign affairs. From a philosophical point of view, the mechanistic paradigm is an embodiment of formal logic that describes linear causal relationships. Thus, the chaos and dynamics of society should be explored not through the new science of chaos but with the laws of dialectics and dialectical logic analyzed and described by Hegel.

The Anglo-Saxon philosophy of the United States is dominated by the positivism of Auguste Comte, and the underestimation of dialectics is one of the main factors that differentiates it from the continental philosophy, following the traditions of Kant and Hegel. Steven Mann defines chaos in dialectics as the “unity and struggle of opposites”. He defines “self-organizing criticality” in dialectics as the “transformation of quantitative into qualitative changes”. The mention of World War I as an example of “self-organizing criticality” is also very indicative. This is precisely a transformation of quantitative into qualitative changes—the rejection of the monarchy, the emergence of civil society and the imposition of the republic as a dominant form of government. This is not just terminological; it is a methodological difference leading to fundamentally different conclusions and strategic thinking. Therefore, to understand society, it is necessary to study human history and the laws of social evolution.

According to Steven Mann, “In international affairs, all stability is transient… Stability is no more than a consequence, and should never be a goal.” Stability is attainable. In nature, stability is achieved in ecosystems. It is also achievable in society. For this purpose, mankind should understand how stability is achieved by nature and how social evolution differs from biological evolution. To find such a solution, it is necessary to develop a New Paradigm explaining the ongoing social processes and direct the transition from today’s financism to an evolutionary model or artificial model for the organization of society into a new phase of social evolution. I will return to this issue later.

Steven Mann’s understanding that the world is destined to be chaotic because the multiplicity of human policy actors in the dynamical system has such widely variant goals and values is also wrong. Mankind has a common purpose, and that is its survival as a species. If Steven Mann and other strategists do not realize it, this is a consequence of their approach and strategic thinking based on the theory of chaos.

Steven Mann understands conflict energy as that which “reflects the goals, perceptions, and values of the individual actor—in sum, the ideological software with which each of us is programmed. To change the conflict energy of peoples—to lessen it or direct it in ways favourable to our national security goals—we need to change the software. As hackers have shown, the most aggressive way to alter software is with a “virus,” and what is ideology but another name for a human software virus?” Consequently, in his view, strategic thinking should be directed to “ideological reprogramming of society” in the interest of America’s national security. This can be achieved by introducing the appropriate ideological “virus” into it. The main role in this policy lies with the US Information Agency, the National Foundation for Democracy, NGOs and the education system. According to Steven Mann, “The real battlefield in the field of national security, metaphorically, is viral in its very nature. On the level of individual choice, we are under attack by certain destructive strains, notably drug addiction. What is drug addiction but a destructive behavioural virus that spreads in epidemic fashion?”10

The virus metaphor would reflect the complete misunderstanding of the laws of social development and the catastrophic consequences for the United States and humanity as a whole, if the theory of chaos were adopted as a geopolitical strategy. The problem is not only that the struggle for the individual is led by propaganda and manipulation of public opinion, which are morally unacceptable. The point is that, in the 20th century ideologies died. The theory of chaos is probably the last attempt to manage society through speculative ideology, without taking into account the laws of social development. Let me remind that the emergence, rise and consequences of the other two ideologies—the idea of the Bolshevik “World Revolution” and the Nazis’ experience of building the “Millennial Reich”—ended disastrously and made humanity sacrifice and suffer. Undoubtedly, it will be the fate of the last ideology aimed at securing the national security of the United States and building an illusory New World Order.

The theory of chaos is an attempt to explain complex processes, events and phenomena that, from the position of the New Paradigm, find a much simpler explanation. The key thesis in the theory of chaos is the idea of “self-organized criticism”. Per Bak and Kan Chen give the following definition of self-organized criticality: “Large interactive systems perpetually organize themselves to a critical state in which a minor event starts a chain reaction that can lead to a catastrophe.”11 In fact, this statement is the systemic explanation of the dialectical law for the transition from quantity to quality.

An overview of geopolitical concepts shows that they offer everything that can be found in an ideology—a power approach, soft power, nonviolence, a theory of chaos. All these concepts are apologetic in nature, aimed at preserving the status quo and eventually perpetuating financism that is presented as neoliberalism. The problem is that mankind faces a civilizational change, and is oriented to its survival as a species and social structure. The chaos that reigns today in geopolitics manifests in colour revolutions, soft power, hybrid warfare, fierce propaganda through the use of fake news, economic sanctions, controlled chaos, political polarisation, etc. and is the result of strategic thinking in geopolitics based on ideological concepts. Steven Mann, however, is right in his insight that true revolution is taking place in the scientific sphere, and its influence can change both the character of modern warfare and the strategic thinking standards. This requires the development of a New Paradigm based on the historical development of society, understood as a living organism, and the use of dialectics as a methodology and dialectical logic as a tool of analysis.

The unsuitability of metaphors of the “grand chessboard”, “controlled chaos” and other geopolitical theories is determined by several factors:

Firstly, those who share these ideologies do not understand the difference between human history and social evolution. As I have already mentioned, the first is created by human reason, and the second is the outcome of the objective laws of social development. Today, in the context of globalization and the differentiation of society that makes it a living organism, such ideologies are hopelessly obsolete, unproductive and even dangerous. Humanity is in the process of reorganizing from a hierarchical structure into a network structure resembling the integrity of a living organism, and in this case, the experience of the 10,000-year history of a hierarchical organization is no longer relevant.

Secondly, the lessons learned from history are not determined by the observed historical events, which can be and are interpreted differently depending on the information available and the ideological orientation, subjectively, but by revealing the laws of historical development that determine the events. For this purpose, it is necessary to know not only historical facts, but also the laws of social evolution.

Thirdly, the changing world requires a change in thinking. Formal logic is designed to describe static processes and 10,000 years old thinking is not applicable to the analysis of dynamic processes. At a time of exponential development of knowledge and cardinal social changes, it is necessary to apply the dialectical logic, because it takes into account these changes. Therefore, people who try to explain society or to lead it should study in advance the laws of development (dialectics) and, in particular, dialectical logic. The dialectical logic is a complex tool for exploring and describing dynamic processes, processes that cannot be explored and described using the laws of formal logic. The search for spheres of influence, poles, political and economic sanctions and the like, and the result of economic determinism and formal logical analysis, are simply geopolitical absurdities. In a living organism, one system cannot dominate and subordinate others because they all work in sync. In case of violation, we are talking about disease of the organism. In this sense, communism, fascism and financism can be considered as social diseases. The “immune system” or the objective factor of society destroyed the first two, the only thing left is financism which determines geopolitics today and can be considered a kind of malignant cancer that has metastasized in all spheres of life. Therefore, wars, which destruct natural and human resources and are the means of mass destruction, are a crime against humanity and must be criminalized and resolutely rejected. They can disappear from the face of the planet only after the collapse of financism as a model for the organization and management of society.

Fourthly, the politicians, mesmerised by planetary chess, imagine that the game of chess is between the pole elite and that each of them has a chance to win. The truth, however, is that this is a collision between the subjective and objective factors of development. During periods of evolutionary transitions, the pole elites are rather pieces of the game itself, which the invisible hand of the objective factor moves to regulate the system. Obviously, the elite themselves do not realize that. The outcome of similar chess games is predestined because during all clashes in the past the objective factor has always won. For example, in one of the previous “chess games” the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph I imagined he was playing planetary chess with the other European monarchies. The truth is that monarchies themselves are a tool in the hands of the actual player—the objective factor. The cost of this chess game was the First World War with 15 million casualties, the collapse of four empires and a dozen monarchies. An analogous chess game is World War II, in which each of the players represented by the relevant socio-engineering models believed that they would win. In fact, the objective factor destroys the first game, and later the other.

Russia and China form their own geopolitical schools but do not offer a vision of the future of the world, beyond the multipolar concept and regional alliances. Perhaps their social philosophers cannot get rid of the influence of Historical materialism. The problem with this school is that it builds on the dominance of a subsystem, the economy, which is accepted as the basis. Culture is seen as a superstructure over the base, and the form of government is completely ignored because the established dictatorship of the proletariat and the one-party system cannot be discussed.

5. Polar Models, Regional Alliances, New World Order or the New Paradigm

Every ideology strives for world domination, a perpetuation of its model and power. In essence, this means striving to build a unipolar model of the structure of the world. Examples include the dominant ideologies of the 20th century—communism, Nazism and financism. History has shown that this is impossible with the tragic end of the Bolshevik Revolution and Nazis’ Millennium Reich, but nevertheless, financism seeks to impose its ideology—The New World Order. This doomed aspiration forms the polar models today. The geopolitics of polar models is a battle for the future of mankind. It began after the collapse of the world’s empires at the end of the First World War and was a confrontation of ideologies aimed at world domination—Communism, National Socialism and Financism. Today, the geopolitical battle remains purely ideological.

There is also another socio-psychological movement that is ignored by geopolitical strategists and political analysts. Countries that survived the nightmare of social engineering and the ruin of statehood, such as Germany and Russia, experience a catharsis that frees them from many social myths such as the Russian Revolution or Hitler’s Millennial Reich for Germany. This liberation paved the way for their rapid development. Germany is today the most stable developing country in Europe. Such an opportunity is also open to Russia. If Russia faces problems, it is not due to the collapse of communism as a social engineering project but due to criminal privatization. The problem is that the transition was realized by replacing the nomenclatural model with oligarchic management, which practically does not differ from the nomenclatural model, because in both cases management is limited to the concentration of resources and power in the hands of the privileged elite. The difference is only in the nature of power. For the nomenclature, it was the political power that controlled the economy, and for the oligarchy, power is in the money that controlled both the economy and the political power. Unlike Russia, which is surviving the ruin and catharsis of the collapse of communism, the United States is still in the captivity of its illusory ambitions for the New World Order, which is likely to be overcome only after the collapse of financism.

Political ideologies resemble modern religions. Politicians accept some principles as fundamental without any evidence of their veracity and build: anarchic, left, right, liberal, conservative, libertarian, etc. The dramatic story of the 20th century showed how high the price might be to check the veracity of the ideologies of communism and Nazism. The first half of the 21st century determines the scale of the chaos and the global problems posed by the ideology of financism and strives to build a unipolar, bipolar or multipolar model for social organization. This necessitates a change in strategy and attempts to build regional alliances. At the base of this strategy are the principles of the creeping revolution of the Federal Reserve’s creators, a series of minor changes leading to a liberal elite’s goal that remains hidden in society. For example, the European Union has been conceived as an ideological project for the reunification of states through a gradual reduction to a complete deprivation of national sovereignty and the transformation of the Union into a superstate. The process started as an economic unification through the creation of a common market. This strategy seems logical and promising due to the proven success of the underground financial revolution that has replaced industrial capitalism with today’s financism. The experience so far has shown that the case is different and the strategy is not working as well.

The European Union began as an economic community created by the 1957 Treaty of Rome, which grew into a common market and constituted a customs union between several countries with relatively free movement of capital and commodities. With the signing of the Maastricht Treaty in 1992, the Common Market became the European Union, which is a political project. Since then, difficult or unsolvable problems have arisen. Brexit is just the tip of the iceberg. This is understandable because the Common Market is a union with one sector; political unification implies the pooling of dozens of heterogeneous structures for the continuous growth of the Member States. Such a union is too complex to think, realize and manage. In such cases, thinking follows familiar stereotypes inherited from history. It is assumed that this alliance will constitute a supranational state with a similar structure and decision-making mechanism. The question is whether this will be a federation or confederation as an organization and form of government or will evolve from a confederation to a European superstate. The problems in the union so far show that this line leads to a dead end.

There is probably something deeply mistaken in the very foundations of the European Union, but politicians still do not know what that is. Of course, there are many analyses made from different points of view. There are speculations of an institutional crisis, the fear of a domino effect after Brexit, the need for reforms, even voices for a possible breakdown of the Union if it stays in current shape. There is no single opinion for now, and it is unlikely to be achieved. The reason is that all analyses are made from the position of the existing paradigm for the essence and development of society, and they are ideological in nature, manifested in various forms of economic and political partiality—left, right, centrist, liberal, conservative, libertarian and so on, which are like political sects, burdened with different ideological myths and illusions. On the other hand, the narrow specialization of politicians and analysts confines them to reflections from a certain point of view—economics, international law, security, without offering a vision for the Union not only as a ruled but also as a self-organizing system. In its present form, the European Union is an ideological construct ruled by the elite without a clear agenda.

The main contradiction in the European Union arises from the clash between subjective and objective factors in the development of society. In other words, the subjective factor in the face of the ruling elite sets goals and tasks that contradict the natural course of social evolution. Since the time of Alexander, the Great, there has been two types of unification of nations: a) on a political and economic basis, usually in a violent manner, for the purpose of exploiting human and natural resources, limiting or withdrawing the sovereignty of one or a group of states. In this way, empires were created. These organizations are formed by the subjective factor. They disintegrate quickly or last only for a few centuries; b) Spiritual formations around certain moral principles. Examples are the world religions formed around moral values that have lived for millennia. The Renaissance influenced the emergence of civil society and united Europe around moral values related to society as a whole. These are the ideas of freedom, equality and brotherhood that have not yet been realized. These types of associations are formed by the objective factor because the process reflects the natural course of social evolution as well as the level of social development. It is much slower because it is conditioned by the development of public consciousness. At the beginning of the 20th century development of civil society was “frozen” by the birth of two totalitarian ideologies—fascism and Bolshevism. With the imposition of financism as an ideology, the stated moral values of civil society were finally stifled and gradually replaced by dominant ones: selfishness, greed, corruption, demagogy and hidden hypocrisy. It is not difficult to see that freedoms referred as “Euro-Atlantic values” for the movement of goods, services, capital and people are not moral values but economic principles of serving the financial and corporate elite. As we know, empires were built on economic principles with a limitation of sovereignty. For this reason, with its enlargement, the EU became an empire resembling the Soviet empire. This is a hierarchical structure, and, as history shows, is extremely unsustainable, unpredictable and transient.

Perhaps the most significant difference between the two types of groupings is that the integration of an economic basis by the subjective factor is realized from top to bottom and the organisations shaped by the objective factor are realized from the bottom-up. For example, Christianity and The Renaissance have united national communities beginning with a change in public consciousness, moving from the bottom-up, which runs very slowly but has lasted thousands of years. The union of the subjective factor by limiting or removing sovereignty starts from the top. It takes place quickly but is transient.

Unfortunately, the European Union’s goal is not formulated unambiguously, clearly or explicitly. According to the official documents, its main goals are to “promote peace, its values and the well-being of its citizens; offer freedom, security and justice without internal borders; sustainable development based on balanced economic growth and price stability, a highly competitive market economy with full employment and social progress, and environmental protection; combat social exclusion and discrimination; promote scientific and technological progress; enhance economic, social and territorial cohesion and solidarity among EU countries; respect its rich cultural and linguistic diversity; establish an economic and monetary union whose currency is the euro.” Let us note, from a methodological point of view, that these are tasks for implementation, not objectives and should be reformulated accordingly. In this way, these basic objectives are attractive and desirable but it is unclear how they can be realized. The difference between “objectives” and “tasks” is that the goal is one and ideal, and tasks are the practical actions to achieve the goal set. In this case, the European Union’s objectives may be either the creation of a supranational European state or Union around certain moral values. These two objectives are very different because they require a different approach and structure for the organization of the communities involved in their realization. In one case, a vertical (hierarchical) structure of institutions is built, and in the second, a horizontal or network structure of self-governing communities.

If we proceed from the above-mentioned “key objectives,” it becomes clear that the European Union is an attempt to build a political-economic community or some form of supranational state, federation or confederation. As history shows, however, unions of political and economic foundations with limited sovereignty are perishable and transient. Indeed, this is not a case of forcible unification of sovereign nations in some modern empire, but of a gradual surrender of national sovereignty in the name of “a great idea”, “world peace, order and “security”, “prosperity”, “fight against terrorism and crime”, etc., that is always in the interest of people’s welfare. This is the New World Order aimed at building a world state, run by the same financial elite, where the European Union is only a pilot experiment on how this can be achieved in practice. It seems that the way of giving up sovereignty is irrelevant because it depends on the stage of historical development. It is clear, however, that with the limitation of sovereignty arises internal contradictions which, at a certain stage, inevitably lead to a collapse of the system.

The chosen goal also explains the gradual structuring of the European Union by building supranational institutions similar to the nation-state—the European Parliament, the Presidency, the European Court, the common currency, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in prospect building a common army, etc. The unsuccessful attempt to create a European constitution shows the difficulties in building such a supranational state. Following the rejection of the draft European Constitution through referendums in France and the Netherlands, the leadership of the EU tried to resolve the problem by signing the Lisbon Treaty in December 2007, which deepened the issue of governance in the EU. In this situation, Brexit is a symptom of a disease that for now remains an unclear diagnosis for politicians.

The problem with the creation of a supranational state is that from a systematic point of view such a hierarchical structure is impossible to build and manage due to its complex nature. The exponential development of science and technology is changing the world very quickly, forming hundreds of new subsystems that are relatively self-contained and are required to build their own self-regulatory feedback links. On the other hand, the hierarchical organization predisposes the bureaucratization of the system, which is already visible to the European Union with the naked eye. In the EU, there are currently about 50,000 officials or 1,785 bureaucrats per Member State. This is much more than the number of clerks in national governments; not to mention the negative selection of cadres based on loyalty, typical of ideological systems. Hence, in the EU there are a lot of problems. Brexit is only the first obvious symptom.

The disintegration of the European Union would be a terrifying tragedy for Europe, comparable to the years after the First World War. The subsequent devastating chaos will be difficult to overcome and accompanied by a wastage of huge resources, and create a big impact on public consciousness, which may for a long time be traumatized. The benefit of the EU crisis would be a piece of evidence that such alliances are impossible, and should show the governing elite that the pilot experiment for creation of the super-state has failed. Obviously, fundamental reforms are needed. It is also clear that building a European super-state is impossible because it is against the objective course of social development and such a complex system cannot be organized through a hierarchical structure. The EU needs radical reforms. The problem is that the ruling elite has reached the stage of incompetence and is unable to reform the Union. But this is out of our scope.

The New World Order is the last ideological illusion. Such a model of hierarchical social organization is impossible because it contradicts natural laws. The exponential growth of knowledge over recent decades has made society a complex system. In living nature, complex systems are organized as a network and are defined as ecosystems. The most complex system created by nature is the human brain, which is also organized as a network. Complex systems created by man such as air traffic and the Internet are originally formed and developed as network structures. Only politicians and strategists with ideological and wishful thinking can believe in such opportunities. This can be explained by the stage of development of the ruling elite, which is about the threshold of transition from incompetence to inadequacy regarding the level of the development of society.

The solution for the geopolitical problems we face today is the elaboration of a New Paradigm for the origin and development of society and changing its structure, which metaphorically speaking is a living organism. Today, geopolitical strategists are still not aware of the fact that economic growth is no longer a factor in the development of society. The factor that shifts and defines it in the 21st century is the survival of mankind. That is why the New Paradigm should be built on this principle.12

6. The End of Ideologies as an Inevitable Necessity

The explanation for the collapse of political ideologies is relatively simple. Exploitation of power and socio-engineering projects (communism, fascism, and financism) shift power from the subjective factor to the ruling elite. As noted above, the common feature of all social engineering models is that accelerated development goes in the wrong direction, resulting from speculative ideology and ignorance of the objective laws that lead to the failure of self-regulation of the system. For this reason, sending a person to space, which is an undisputed scientific and technological success for the USSR, was not able to prevent the collapse of the Soviet empire. In almost all areas of scientific research, the Nazis were far ahead of the allied forces—often by a factor of 10 years or more, but it did not save Germany from catastrophe. For the same reason, scientific and technological development over the next few decades cannot save financism. These are the contradictions between the objective course of development and the ideological bias of the ruling elite.

The technological boom in terms of socio-engineering models for the organization of society fuelled the illusion of the ruling elite and the mass consciousness that the system was working well. In fact, in all three cases, accelerated development is a symptom of the upcoming catastrophe, the consequences of which are being paid by mankind as a whole, and above all, by the nation-bearer of the ideology and its elite. The reason is that society’s integrity is determined by morality, not by science and technology, and when ideology, in the name of “security”, is directed against moral values, the crash is not only inevitable but also easily predictable. If we follow the logic of the historical development of socio-engineering projects, we will find that the concepts such as “the grand chessboard”, the theory of chaos and the idea of reprogramming the society do not guarantee the security of the US, but push the country into catastrophe. This catastrophe is commensurate with the collapse of the USSR and Nazi Germany.

Social evolution is the evolution of social consciousness.

Undoubtedly, geopolitics as an ideology will die like other political ideologies—communism and fascism. Of course, today’s ruling elite will oppose vigorously any changes that threaten their privileged position in society, but new ideas have always prevailed, however weak they may have been at first. From this point of view, the efforts of today’s Power Elite to build a New World Order are more than naïve, because they are a result of wishful and ideological thinking of geopolitical strategists and a complete misunderstanding of the laws of social development. In this “geopolitical chess”, the polar elite are fighting with the laws of social evolution and have no chance of victory. All elite of the past have been eliminated along with the systems they represented: Roman patricians, feudal aristocrats, communist nomenclature, and Nazi gauleiters. As a mentality, the Power Elite today is no different than its predecessors and is doomed together with the system it represents. While geopolitics is based on strategies such as a grand chessboard, controlled chaos, liberal democracy as the end of history, soft power, colour revolutions, unipolar and multipolar models, hybrid war, economic sanctions, and the like, it remains only an ideology and is dying, like all other ideologies. In order to turn an ideology into a scientific theory, politicians and social philosophers should reveal and study the objective laws of social development and clarify what percentage of them is determined by the objective and subjective factors.

To survive as a species, mankind needs not an ideological but a civilizational model for the organization of society. A civilizational model for the future organization of society can only be developed by social philosophy. At the current stage of the development of society and the knowledge of its essence, economists, sociologists and politicians are involved in constructing such a model, and it may lead to unilateralism and ideological speculation.

According to the New Paradigm, the fundamental contradiction of modern society is between the historically established hierarchical structure and the achieved level of social complexity that requires a network organization of society. The transition from a hierarchical to a horizontal structure is the greatest challenge for mankind in the 21st century. The main dilemma for social consciousness is between the exponential growth of science and technology and the decline in morality. Today, it is extremely clear that all scientific discoveries and technological achievements have a two-sided feature. They can be used for the benefit of mankind, but they could also become lethal weapons. If the goal is to spread evil, the second option is technologically simpler and easier to accomplish. The 20th century technologies based on the achievements of science (nuclear physics, chemistry, and biology) allow weapons of mass destruction to be produced. The resources for this are in the hands of technologically developed nations. Technologies of the 21st century (robotics, genetics and nanotechnology) offer possibilities only with the help of knowledge without significant material resources i.e. resources available to small groups or even individuals to produce weapons with the potential to destroy humanity.13 The question arises as to how terrorism would look like under these conditions, and how the survival of mankind could be ensured. The truth is that no external security system could save humanity. The integrity of society can be maintained only by the supremacy of morality. Today it is becoming increasingly clear that the clash between the obsolete mentality of the Power Elite and social evolution can lead to the greatest tragedy in history, self-destruction of the human race.

7. The Dilemma Today: A Civilizational Shift or Self-destruction?

Factors such as ideologies, class struggle, economic growth, money, GDP, military force, national security, and many others are of paramount importance for historical development, but they do not make sense for social evolution. This mighty but blind power works only with mutations and time. The factors of historical development are transient and a prerequisite for mistaken decisions if they are taken into account by the ruling elite during transitional periods. For example, the class struggle is accepted by Historical Materialism as the main engine of the historical process, which is true, but the dictatorship of the proletariat made a bad joke on Communist ideology. For this reason, social evolution works only with the final product of historical development—achieved level of social consciousness. In evolutionary terms, human reason is manifested as social consciousness. In fact, social evolution is the evolution of social consciousness. The job of social evolution is to periodically “test” human reason and to what extent it complies with objective laws.

Social consciousness is a very complex phenomenon, but two components are of vital importance to comprehend how social evolution works in transitional periods—social intelligence and morality. For this reason, the development of social consciousness flows along two lines. Social intelligence generates knowledge and develops society; morality ensures its integrity. This resembles the positive and negative mutations known from biological evolution. Human reason develops Homo sapiens as a species, and morality ensures its survival. In the 10,000 years of the development of society, human reason creates everything from the spear to the spacecraft and artificial intelligence. This is the first line determined by the subjective factor and is accomplished by solving contradictions. The second line of social evolution periodically provokes qualitative changes to this development “testing”: to what extent human reason complies with the objective laws of social evolution. This is done by measuring changes in moral values—from the Ten Commandments, through the Christian values of faith, hope, and love to freedom, equality, and brotherhood. It is not difficult to notice that morality evolves from values relating to the individual (Old Testament) through values relating to communities (Christianity) to those pertaining to society as a whole (secular society). This line of evolution goes in parallel with the well-known three stages of spiritual development—polytheism, monotheism and secular society. Theoretically, we can assume that the next level of moral values will relate to the survival of society as a whole.

Unfortunately, at the beginning of the 20th century, with the emergence of socio-engineering models for the organisation of society—communism and fascism, morality and financism began to decline, and this deterioration is visible with the naked eye. The moral values of civil society—freedom, equality and brotherhood—were replaced with greed, egoism, and hypocrisy. These and a number of other negative characteristics of the governing elite, such as love of power, selfishness, demagogy and narcissism, can be defined by the generic term “arrogance”. Arrogance is a deformation; power predetermines the mentality of the ruling elite and the price that politicians pay for the privilege to govern. Arrogance is a factor opposed to human reason. In this way the social intelligence represented by society and morality as a feature of the ruling elite during the 20th century collided due to lack of self-regulating feedback. In fact, in all artificially created models for a reorganization of society, the clash between social intelligence of society and the declining moral of governing elite is visible. As mentioned above, accelerated development of artificial models of social organization like communism, fascism and financism pushes society in the wrong direction, which leads to the decline in morality in the ruling elite. In this way the scientific and technological achievements of communism and Nazism go together with the notorious labour and concentration camps. The financism today generates global problems and leads to hybrid war, chaos, terrorism and poses a real threat of self-destruction. This peculiarity of social-engineering projects is one of the most important differences in comparison with formations created by social evolution.

It seems that scientific and technological achievements lead to delusion in the governing elite who accept their own decisions as political wisdom and as a result, they become more arrogant. Today the collision between social intelligence which generates knowledge in an unprecedented quantity changing the world beyond recognition, and the decline in morality in the governing elite—greed, corruption, selfishness, arrogance, and narcissism—is clearly visible. Moral decline is comparable to the metastasis of malignant cancer, which leads the body to complete destruction when the body dies together with the cancer. There is also a policy to deliberately destruct moral values of a society with the aim to manipulate public opinion easily. Such a policy is a crime against humanity because it destroys the very fabric of society that protects its integrity and survival. Paradoxically, the attempt of the ruling elite to destruct morality leads to an acceleration of the collapse of the elite itself and the governed system.

Today, modern society is very close to its destruction. According to the Doomsday Clock which represents the likelihood of a man-made global catastrophe, maintained by the Atomic Scientists, in 2017 the end was only 2 “minutes to midnight” or to the extinction of humanity.§ The global problems and the Doomsday Clock are evident of: a) how destructive financism is; b) how helpless the subjective factor is to govern such a complex system like modern society, and c) how close mankind is to its end. Because of this reason, at the beginning of the 21st century, mankind faces one terrible dilemma—a civilizational shift or self-destruction.

If human reason prevails in this clash, social consciousness will grow into social self-consciousness and become the basis for the future society. A general idea of social self-consciousness gives us a comparison with the emergence of self-awareness in individual development. For the individual, this is the transition from puberty to adulthood. The question is, will the human reason or social intelligence be able to make such a transition at the social level, that is to survive and continue its development as a qualitatively different society or will it perish?

If society reaches the level of its maturity by establishing social self-consciousness, the civilizational shift will create a completely different type of society. Certainly, it will affect all three basic subsystems of society. A part of these changes will be caused by the objective factor, others—by the subjective factor, represented by the collaborative intelligence. The more important changes imposed by the objective factor or the laws of social evolution are: emergence of social self-consciousness; transition to a new structure-forming factor or form of exploitation of natural resources to the exploitation of collaborative intelligence; transition from a hierarchy to network; transition from dominance of legal consciousness to domination of moral principles and norms.

The expected changes and prerogatives of subjective factors relating to the economy are: separation of the power of money from political power; the transition of the economy from an industrial to an ecological form, or from a money-based to the knowledge-based economy. Changes in the spiritual realm relate to the imposition of moral values to the values that led to the survival of humanity as a whole. Current governance will grow to self-governance, which means a change from the monopoly of the institutionalized elite into a decision-making mechanism by the collaborative intelligence. This mechanism will be based on moral values and can be achieved through creating collaborative networks resembling a virtual brain & global mind or the transition from democracy to collabocracy. Hence, this society can be defined as “collaborative”. As a result of such changes, significant demographic changes associated with the increasing role of intelligence and the limited role of money can be expected. In other words, financism, which is nowadays governed by the subjective factor, will be turned into a self-organizing system, in which human reason and objective laws will operate according to their natural functions.

The bottleneck of modern society is decision-making mechanisms presented by the ruling elite, regional unions, military alliances, which lead to political polarization. To be more precise—the outdated mentality, biased ideology and declined morality of the ruling elite. If this mentality prevails, society will be destroyed. In such a case, there are two scenarios related to the above-mentioned two lines of development. The scenarios are easily predictable because they are not a precedent.

The first scenario is presented by the objective laws or this mysterious and blind force called social evolution. Opposing polar models, which dominate geopolitics today, will exacerbate global problems and some of them will trigger ecological disaster and destroy mankind. In case this happens, it means that in its evolution human reason has created its negation in the face of the global governing elite, whose morality is expressed in greed, selfishness, hypocrisy, arrogance, demagogy, narcissism, etc. This morality turns out to be a more powerful evolutionary factor in comparison with human reason. Therefore, human reason is incompatible with the laws of evolution. Homo sapiens would have been extinct like thousands of other species.

The second scenario relates to the decisions made by the ruling elite. In such a case there are two options—the ruling elite may initiate “a small nuclear war” to demonstrate its own military power, which will spread quickly as continental and global. This scenario is being seen since the First World War. Alternatively, the governing elite can decide to start a “lightning war” with the same motifs known from the Second World War. Regardless of the chosen option, the result remains the same—the Doomsday Clock will hit midnight. Six months later, when the ruling elite emerge from their atomic hideout, they will be astonished to comprehend that the world has been turned into radioactive ash. Enjoying their Pyrrhic victory over the Human Reason, the Arrogance of the ruling elite will pass away slowly and painfully. This moment will be the end of history and the last man.

Notes

  1. David Owen, The Hubris Syndrome, Bush, Blair and the Intoxication of Power (London: Methuen, 2007).
  2. Robert Waite, The Psychopathic God: Adolph Hitler (New York: Da Capo Press, 1993)
  3. George Victor, Hitler: The Pathology of Evil (New York: Potomac Books Inc., 2007)
  4. Waite, The Psychopathic God
  5. Victor, Hitler
  6. Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives (New York: Basic Books, 1997) http://www.takeoverworld.info/Grand_Chessboard.pdf
  7. Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard
  8. Gene Sharp, Politics of Nonviolent Action, Part Two: The Methods of Nonviolent Action (Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1973).
  9. Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man (London: Free Press, 1992).
  10. Dimitar Tchurovsky, “Collabocracy—Collaborative Intelligence and Governance of Globalised Society,” Eruditio 2, no.1(2015): 64-67 http://eruditio.worldacademy.org/volume-2/issue-1/article/collabocracy-collaborative-intelligence-and-governance-globalised-society
  11. Per Bak and Kan Chen, “Self-Organized Criticality,” Scientific American 264, no. 1(1991):46-53
  12. D. Tchurovsky, The New Paradigm of Social Evolution: Modern Society between Hope and Tragedy Cadmus 2, no.4 (2015): 184-195 http://cadmusjournal.org/article/volume-2/issue-4-part-3/new-paradigm-social-evolution-modern-society-between-hope-and-tragedy
  13. Bill Joy, “Why the future doesn’t need us,” Wired April 2000 http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html

* Joseph Nye, “Bound To Lead: The Changing Nature Of American Power,” 1991. http://www.kropfpolisci.com/exceptionalism.nye.pdf or http://varemedia.com/server4.php?asin=B01B11SIUK; Also see, Joseph Nye, “Soft Power: The Means to Success in World Politics,” 2004.

https://www.belfercenter.org/sites/default/files/legacy/files/joe_nye_wielding_soft_power.pdf

Steven Mann, Chaos Theory and Strategic Thought https://archive.org/details/1992Mann

§ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/

About the Author(s)

Dimitar Tchurovsky

Consultant in Human Resource and Customer Relationship Management, London. 

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