The New System of Global Governance E-Book

Georg von Goldbach

• Herausgeber: BoD - Books on Demand
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 106

Beschreibung

CONTENT OF THE BOOK This book shows how the emerging new system of Global Governance will change due to China's economic rise and increasing political importance. There will be a paradigm shift in the functioning and interaction of the countries and nations of the earth. A New System of Global Governance is emerging. The New System of Global Governance will have to function according is to new rules to meet with the approval of the majority of the countries and nations. The hegemonic system of global governance that we have witnessed for more than a century, with the principle of armed conflict as the main political tool, will no longer be able to function. The main reasons for this are of cultural origin. A characteristic feature of "capitalist civilization" is its origin in Europe. With the re-entry of China as a player in world history the situation changed dramatically. China belongs to a different cultural area. Therefore, the further development of global capitalism, and in particular of the New System of Global Governance, will not remain one-dimensionally European, and will not develop in a linear sequence. A paradigm shift will occur.

Leseprobe

Inhalt

PART ONE

THE END OF LINEAR SOLUTIONS IN GEOPOLITICS: THE OVERDUE PARADIGM SHIFT

THE SPIRITUAL FATHERS OF THIS BOOK

INTRODUCTION

CALL FOR A SOCIAL AND POLITICAL PARADIGM SHIFT

THE END OF LINEAR SOLUTIONS IN POLITICS

Crisis: the chance for new happiness

LINEAR THINKING IN POLITICS LEADS TO A DEAD END

SUCCESSFUL EXAMPLES OF PARADIGM SHIFTS IN INTERNATIONAL POLITICS

The policy of reconciliation and peace under Willy Brandt

Singapore: from Third to First World

Perestroika and German reunification

China's economic and social transformation

CHANGING THE PERSPECTIVE LEADS TO FINDING A NEW PATH

INITIATING THE PARADIGM SHIFT NOW

PART TWO - THE EMERGING NEW SYSTEM OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

INTRODUCTION

THE CULTURAL FOUNDATIONS OF CAPITALISM

TRANSFORMING THE SYSTEM OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

THE FUTURE SYSTEM OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE: THE CULTURAL BACKGROUND

PERSPECTIVES FOR THE COMING SYSTEM OF GLOBAL GOVERNANCE

Bibliography

PART ONE

THE END OF LINEAR SOLUTIONS IN GEOPOLITICS: THE OVERDUE PARADIGM SHIFT

"… how do I show the fly the way out of the fly-bottle?"

Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations, §309

THE SPIRITUAL FATHERS OF THIS BOOK

The intellectual authorship of this book is held by two American thinkers and visionaries. The two have never met in person, but what they have in common is that they derive their thinking from cybernetics as a scientific means to understand and explain this world1. This is obvious in the case of Gregory Bateson2, because he speaks of it frequently in his writings. In the case of R. Buckminster Fuller3, the reference to cybernetics is visible everywhere in his writings and also in his works, but he was more of a pragmatist and generalist nature. "Bucky" Fuller strove to live a life, in which he fought for the practical implementation of his ideas, mainly through the use and application of his design artefacts, while Gregory Bateson limited himself to theoretical and epistemological reflection and teaching.

What they both have in common is that they were very sharp observers of what was going on in the world and were always keen to understand how people acted. Both have always put people at the centre of their efforts and have always looked at people in a larger, more comprehensive context and from a system view. In Buckminster Fuller's case, it was "man in the universe." For Gregory Bateson, a trained anthropologist and biologist, it was the systemic relation between man and nature. What both have in common is that they saw the fundamental fallacy in human thought and action in the fact that man saw himself disconnected from these necessary systemic relations with nature and the universe. Both explained this as the result of the one-sided emphasis on the development of the natural sciences since the 17th century, which has led to a mechanistic world view. This paradigm of human isolation from nature and the universe, as both saw it, has slowly dissolved again since the early 20th century with quantum mechanics and new insights gained by biology in the self-regulating systems of life. These scientific discoveries generated progressively a new world view that related life and the role of humanity to the "uncertainty principle". A door into the unknown had opened. From now on, the meaning of life and human nature were perceived in a new light. It had become possible to reconnect with the nature of man and his importance in the cosmos.4 This sums up the experience shared by Gregory Bateson and Buckminster Fuller.

In order to understand these two great minds, we would like to emphasize the decisive basic idea that is characteristic of each of them. Buckminster Fuller developed his fundamental ideas after 1930, formulated them in 1969 in his Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth, and summarized them with the formulation of Synergetics as Explorations into the Geometry of Thinking5. Intuitively, he seized the need for the application of "general principles and laws" to the understanding of the functioning of Man in Universe. He convincingly shows that it is not a lack of energy that inhibits the development of humanity. Rather, the fundamental mistake lies in the fact that humanity has not found, not understood, the access to the infinite source of energy that is provided to us from the universe through the sun. This lack of access to understanding eternally regenerating energy has so far kept people caught in a self-made trap. According to Buckminster Fuller, this phenomenon can be traced back to the work of British economist Thomas Robert Malthus, who established at the beginning of the 19th century the principle that humans would reproduce with the necessary fatefulness, but at the same time had only limited natural resources at their disposal. Hence, the fight for limited resources was inevitable. For Darwin, this became the struggle for existence and led Darwinists to formulate the principle of the "survival of the fittest". If we take these thoughts just a few steps further, we end up directly at the rationale for the demand for "unlimited growth" of the economy, and at the political level, for the hegemonic striving and the seemingly inevitable wars as a means of gaining power, which are at the center of the critical analysis of our book.

Gregory Bateson is an anthropologist and a biologist by training. He has also worked successfully in psychology and psychiatry6. However, he has the most important significance as a researcher on epistemology, and in particular on the importance of cybernetics for the sciences and for the shaping of human living conditions on earth.

He says of himself that "the two most important historical events in my life were the Treaty of Versailles and the discovery of cybernetics".7 This certainly sounds astonishing, because it is not immediately clear what the relationship between these two "events" looks like. We come closer to understanding what Gregory Bateson means when he says that, in his view, the "important question for history is: has the default8 or attitude been changed?". He goes on to explain that "the most important points in history are... the historical moments... in which attitudes are changed", in which previous "values" change. He then shows that the Treaty of Versailles has not successfully changed the attitudes and values of the most important signatories of the treaty9, i.e. Germany, France, Great Britain and the USA.10 Therefore, according to his understanding, the inevitable consequence of the Treaty of Versailles was the Second World War, with the same nations as important protagonists. He calls the Treaty of Versailles one of the "greatest relapses in the history of our civilization" and says that "we will have to deal with the aftermath of this betrayal for a number of generations to come", before adding that "betrayal in an armistice or in peace negotiations is worse than a stratagem in battle." His conclusion: "It goes on and on. The tragedy of fluctuating, self-propagating mistrust, hatred and destruction through generations".

Gregory Bateson is aware that cybernetics, i.e. "the second historical event" of his time, will not in itself bring the solution to our geopolitical problems. But he sees that it can be a contribution to changing attitudes and behavior. But he also knows that "any understanding can be used destructively". He summarizes his insight as follows: "In cybernetics itself there is integrity11, which helps us not to be seduced by it into another madness, but we cannot trust that it will keep us from sin"12 and then he adds in a more hopeful tone: "But this much is certain, that in cybernetics there is also the means to achieve a new and perhaps human worldview, a means to change our philosophy of power and a means to see our own stupidities in a larger perspective".

1 Cybernetics is the science of controlling and regulating machines in analogy to the functioning of living organisms by means of feedback processes that receive impulses from the sense organs. In social organizations, feedback works through information, communication and participant observation. The science of cybernetics was born from the cooperation of scientists in the "Vienna Circle". It was formulated by Norbert Wiener after 1945, after his emigration to the USA, when he came to the realization that intelligent behavior can be described as the result of feedback mechanisms.

2 In the case of Gregory Bateson, we are essentially referring to the collection of essays published as "Ecology of the Mind" in 1985. The English edition of "Steps to an Ecology of Mind, Collected Essays" dates from 1972.

3 At Buckminster Fuller, our main source is his book "Critical Path", which was published in 1981. Probably his best-known book is "Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth", from 1969. It can be downloaded online from the Buckminster Fuller Institute website. The German edition of "Instruction Manual for the Spaceship Earth and Other Writings" dates from 2011.

4 Fritjof Capra gives a catchy account of this in his "Tao of Physics", of 1977.

5 This is the title of a book first published in 1975, in cooperation with E. J. Applewhite.

6 The term "double-bind", i.e. the relationship trap, was coined by him.

7 In this part, we essentially refer to Gregory Bateson, "Ecology of the Mind, Part VI, Crises in the Ecology of the Mind, from Versailles to Cybernetics", from his lecture in 1966.

8 The term "specification" here refers to cybernetics, as a system theory, and means "leadership variable" or "decisive reference value" to which the other parameters and elements of a system are oriented.

9 We should note here that since the October Revolution of 1917, a government had taken power in Russia with which the United States did not want to come to an understanding.

10 As we will show later, it was precisely this thought that guided Rudolf Steiner in his assessment of the events surrounding the First World War. He insisted that it was necessary to change the political "rules" in order not to prepare a new catastrophe. As we know, Max von Baden, the last Reich Chancellor of the German Empire, very soon ended Rudolf Steiner's advisory activities.

11 Because cybernetics allows us to see the connections between events.

12 We would like to note here that Buckminster Fuller also sees integrity as a very important criterion for good and successful action. That's how he called one of his books, "Ideas and Integrities", from 1963. He also emphasizes this point in his "Critical Path".

INTRODUCTION

The wider public has been talking about New Thinking for years. The media talk and write that we need "new minds". Even the "New Man" is called upon again and again. Others speak of the new "image of man.13 To us, these wishes and demands seem to be fundamentally right and good, because we need new skills in the rapidly changing world and have to adapt our behavior to rapidly changing circumstances. But we also know that the New Man or Woman, or "right" and "different" thinking, cannot be prescribed. The physical man is constantly renewing himself, but a new spiritual man is formed either through spiritual revolutions, as in the Renaissance, or through experiences in lengthy learning and transformation processes. For the individual, this usually requires lifelong learning processes, spiritual renewals and personal transformations.

So we have to ask ourselves how humans, we as humanity, can find our way to "new thinking" and to correspondingly new actions. - In today's specialist literature on this topic, it is often assumed that there is a difference, or contrast, between linear (convergent) and lateral (divergent) thinking14. Mostly, however, these remain philosophical or epistemological considerations pondered about at the academic level. The question of the conditions and prerequisites of how to get from a certain way of thinking, an intellectual or spiritual attitude, to a specific action is usually ignored. So the crucial question usually remains unmentioned, or is not dealt with in these discussions: how do I get from "right" thinking to "good" action? In the context of our topic, which is about geopolitics, this step, from theory to practice, is of course critical.

It is right here where the question of power comes into play. In politics, it is the question of power that must be put on the table, before changes and innovations may really be