Embodying Global Hegemony through a Sustaining Pattern of Discourse
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 16 Feb 2015
Anthony Judge – TRANSCEND Media Service
Cognitive Challenge of Dominion over All One Surveys
Introduction
This is an exploration of possible global organization of the pattern of value-based polarities by which discourse is significantly characterized: big-small, win-lose, nice-nasty, hot-cold, friend-enemy, clean-dirty, expensive-cheap, and the like.
The point of departure is the extensive study of value polarities undertaken within the Human Values Project as part of the Encyclopedia of World Problems and Human Potential. The project resulted in tabular presentations of a comprehensive set of value-charged words, most notably through clustering 230 value polarities into 45 types.
The issue here is how such polarities might be organized globally such as to respect the frequency with which a relatively limited number dominate discourse in the moment, with others framing that discourse at lower frequency over longer periods — whilst others may only rarely be recognized as of any significance, if at all. Thus, rather than the preoccupation in that earlier exercise with a pattern of categories statically understood, the concern here is whether their relevance is evident to a far greater degree in the dynamics of their use in discourse — and the cognitive priorities thereby implied.
The approach then frames the question for the individual as how cognitively to embody “global hegemony” and the manner whereby it might be sustained through a pattern of discourse. Understood as a subjective “covert operation”, the argument follows from a previous discussion (Eliciting Insight from Covert Operations by US: understanding global governance otherwise in response to THEM, 2015).
The provocative reference to “global hegemony” serves to emphasize the point that everyone is free to frame their own relationship to global reality (as they experience and understand it). Such a framing may be understood in terms of some process of “dominion”, “sovereignty”, “imperialism”, or otherwise — however it is fruitful creatively to imagine and engage in the cognitive governance of all one surveys.
Rather than submit to frameworks of external convention (with whatever token protest appears appropriate), it is then for the individual to reimagine how globality and globalization are to be experienced, as previously argued (Engendering 2052 through Re-imagining the Present, 2012). This took the form of a critical review of a report to the Club of Rome: 2052: a Global Forecast for the Next Forty Years (2012) prepared by Jørgen Randers as a follow-up to The Limits to Growth, (1972).
The review frames the challenge of transcending the simplistic understandings of global order which currently dominate conventional discourse and the many suspicions regarding the hidden agendas of vested interests. It follows earlier criticism of the principles on which The Limits to Growth report was based (World Dynamics and Psychodynamics: a step towards making abstract “world system” dynamic limitations meaningful to the individual, 1971)
Given the seemingly chaotic current situation, how indeed is “global integration” to be imagined and sustained by the individual (Eliciting a Universe of Meaning — within a global information society of fragmenting knowledge and relationships, 2013; (Imaginative Reconfiguration of a post-Apocalyptic Global Civilization: engaging cognitively with the illusion of the “End of the World”, 2012)?
Ironically, and perhaps appropriately, this challenge bears a strange resemblance to that for any “head of state”, “supreme leader”, or the like. Their internal dialogue as individuals would of course be echoed and reinforced by the dialogue within any supportive leadership “group of the wise”, as can be speculatively argued (Implication of the 12 Knights in any Strategic Round Table, 2014).
With the emphasis on the dynamics of such discourse, the question is then how that discourse is to be cognitively “embodied”, as might follow from the arguments of George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (Philosophy In The Flesh: the embodied mind and its challenge to Western thought, 1999). Given the meaning associated by many with sport and dance, of relevance is the subsequent work on the cognitive implications of movement (Mark Johnson, The Meaning of the Body: aesthetics of human understanding, 2007; Maxine Sheets-Johnson, The Primacy of Movement, 2011).
Especially intriguing is the relation between the sustaining discourse and the pattern of global organization as this might reflect a sense of “global union”, “empire”, or a “Caliphate”, namely a community of believers — if not a “global brain“. Each such potential modality highlights the role of belief and credibility — much as these are recognized to be fundamental to the viability of the global financial system.
The argument is of relevance to individual reappropriation of the agenda of different parties in quest of some form of strategic dominance. Of even of greater relevance is the possibility for an individual to explore a cognitive analogue to the military approach to full-spectrum dominance (Bruce Gagnon. The Pentagon’s Strategy for World Domination: full spectrum dominance, from Asia to Africa, Global Research, 2014). As in conventional military terms, this involves achievement of control over all dimensions of the “cognitive battlespace”. As a form of memetic warfare, this means ensuring effective “possession” of an overwhelming diversity of the cognitive resources associated with terrestrial, aerial, maritime, subterranean, extraterrestrial, psychological, and bio- or cyber-technological warfare. Any opposition with respect to engagement with air, land, maritime, and space domains and information environment is then wholly contained and encompassed.
For the purposes of this exercise, the control of the political, economic, or military predominance of one cognitive state over others is seen as an analogue to the questionable pattern of hegemony. The issue is the extent to which an individual can then embody that pattern globally as hegemon, as the Great Powers sought to establish European hegemony over Asia and Africa. The pattern is now evident in the manner in which the “1%” seek to manipulate the value system and mores of a society, so that its view becomes the world view (Weltanschauung), as in the understanding of cultural hegemony. Potentially it is through the individual quest for that global embodiment that future governance can be imagined otherwise — most notably through re-cognition of its limits as can be variously discussed (Limits to Human Potential, 1976; Gyorgy Doczi, The Power of Limits: proportional harmonies in nature, art, and architecture, 2005; Ervin Laszlo, Inner Limits of Mankind: heretical reflections on today’s values, culture and politics, 1989).
Please continue reading the paper in the original – laetusinpraesens.org
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