Globalism and the Cosmos

1. Globalism and cosmopolitanism are in tension

Globalism is often positively-associated with cosmopolitanism, but the association is based on a corruption of the concepts.  The two are in tension and conflict, and if anything, globalism would seem to be destructive of cosmopolitanism, while nationalism and tribalism would seem to be its predicates.  Attacks on nationalism are attacks on the cosmopolitan world.

This at first may seem odd and counter-intuitive.  That is because a great deal of mainstream thinking inverts reality.  To explain this is almost superfluous, since all we need to is acknowledge common-sense and reality; and, the necessary linguistic re-framing requires merely an acknowledgement of the basic meaning of the relevant concepts. 

2. Re-examining the terminology

A habit of the digital age - that we all fall into occasionally - is that will quote long, impressive-sounding words like globalisation or integration, etc., without much thought, casually and breezily assuming that we know what they mean.  It's necessary now and then to 'return to the basics' and re-examine the meaning of these words.  In doing so, often we find the modern/post-modern usage owes more to propaganda than any real understanding.

In what follows, a great deal of what is accepted as 'thinking' in the mainstream is unceremoniously subverted:

The term 'global' means the whole world.  Global actions and initiatives cover the entirety of the geographic, organisational, social or metaphysical world around us, or some combination thereof.  Global need not mean worldwide in the geographic sense, it could merely refer to the entirely of an organisation.  For instance, a 'global e-mail' is an e-mail sent to an entire organisation, team or network of people. 

Globalism is a political belief in worldwide action, while globalisation is process of worldwide integration, which may be the outcome of political and economic action (globalism) and also be the result of technological developments.

Mundialisation is the process of bringing about worldwide government and a global civic identity.  Mundialism is a belief in such.  Globalism/globalisation and mundialism/mundialisation are closely-related terms and concepts, but not quite the same.

In scientific terms, the cosmos is the physical Universe.  In general terms, a cosmos is any metaphysical space within which our particular norms and values can be effected universally.  The opposite of cosmos is chaos: a system in which there is no order or system of values and none such is possible.

A cosmopolitan world is a natural outcome of nationalism and tribalism.

We should mention the word 'metropolitan'.  On one level, this merely describes the norms and values arising from a mundane situation: that of the metropole (the city).  In a more general sense, it describes an urban/urbanite outlook that is congruent with chaos.  This arises from the multiplicity of the city in contrast to the unity of the rural/provincial environment.  The city is chaos realised.

3. Globalism and the Cosmos, Disorder versus Order

Globalism and the cosmos are opposites and in tension.    The cosmos stands for order, it's opposite, globalism, is the practice and normalisation of disorder: it is, in short, normalisation as de-normalisation.  Perhaps it is no coincidence that globalism has encouraged the flourishing of city environments, and with it, the mundane values of the metropolitanism: particularly influential in England. 

The term 'disorder' is used here neutrally, not pejoratively.  Disorder may be a positive and pleasant state of affairs for some.  It involves multiplicity, urbanism and the mixing and re-mixing of different cultures.  It necessitates civic super-values and super-polities if order is to be maintained - a state of 'ordered disorder'.  Hence, globalism is the ideology of Chaos and globalisation is its process: an attempt, and the result of attempts and technologies, imposing ordered norms and institutions on disorder. 

Most people think the metaphysical spectrum is nationalism (or tribalism) at one end and cosmopolitanism at the other.  In fact, the spectrum is the Cosmos (Order) at one end and Chaos (Disorder) at the other, with tribalism and nationalism as subsidiaries of cosmopolitanism.

Tribes and nations depend on the existence of a cosmos: a region, island, archipalego or continent within which similar and mutually-assimilable cultures can spore, flourish and co-exist.  It's an ordered existence.

Thus, a Cosmos is about assimilation rather than integration per se.  Nationalism is the major ideology of the Cosmos and the underpinning requirement for actual cosmopolitanism.

Chaos, on the other hand, seeks integration of disparate, mutually non-assimilable cultures.  In some disordered areas, globalisation will induce a search for order, which will be underpinned by ethnogenesis, followed by a shift to tribalism and nationalism.  This, perhaps, is the strategy of the ruling elites, modelled perhaps on how the elites of England evolved into an Anglo-Norman-Jewish caste.  This indeed would make them a 'cosmopolitan elite', but in a sense opposite to that commonly-thought.

The Left and the Right: a brief summary of the differences

I reject the view that there is no difference between the political Left and the political Right or that the terms have no meaning.  In fact, they seem more important than ever.  It is true that in their application, the terms left-wing and right-wing have been evacuated of meaning to the point of practical uselessness, but it does not follow from this that the terms themselves are meaningless.  It is simply a matter of understanding.

We've all heard the common explanation that the left-wing and right-wing in politics originate from the French National Assembly during that country's revolutionary era, but as I hope the table below will illuminate, the meaning of these terms was presaged not in the mundane seating arrangements of a legislature, but in deeper values.  We could perhaps look at the war of ideas during that tumultuous time between the conservative Edmund Burke (Right) and the radical Thomas Paine (Left), but we could go further and say that the conflict between Left and Right is a manifestation of differences of primeval antecedence.

LEFT	RIGHT
Improvement of Man	Improvement of men
Rights	Liberties
Universalism	Particularism
Prometheanism	Organicism
Centralisation	Hierarchy
Multiplicity	Unity
Democracy	Aristocracy
Crowds	Mobs
Urban	Rural
Culture	Biology
Nurture	Nature
Ideology	Philosophy
Idealism	Romanticism
Materialism	Realism
Environmentalism	Ecologism
Post-Liberalism	Reactionary Liberalism
Technologism	Archaeo-futurism
Theism & Anti-theism	Paganism

Socialism, Totalitarianism and (De-)Systemisation

What is totalitarianism, really?

The first usage of the term was during the 1920s by the Italian dictator, Benito Mussolini.  At about the same time, the concept of a 'total state' (Totalstaat) was discussed by the German jurist and political thinker, Carl Schmitt.  Briefly, both these intellectuals regarded the state as an organic entity - a representation of and the result of a certain people's history and struggle - both viewed totalitarian politics favourably, and both conceived of totalitarianism in terms of a political state, which was perhaps only understandable as the state was then, and to a large extent even today still is, the major motive force in world affairs.  Crucially, both regarded the state as the ultimate embodiment of popular legitimacy, albeit they theorised and explained this in different ways that I will not go into here.

As a result of these efforts, the word 'totalitarianism' has a rather narrow (and pejorative) usage.  The definition of 'totalitarian' in the Oxford English Dictionary is typical:

Relating to a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state.

As distinct from, say, authoritarianism, where there is also a centralisation of power, but which need not be pervasive as it would be under totalitarianism.  And from dictatorship, for much the same reason.

This is not a full and complete definition, and in fact represents only one (strong) form of totalitarianism.  I would like to offer what I consider to be a fuller statement of what totalitarianism is, along with a possible Cartesian model for understanding and analysing power as an ideology in and of itself, with different 'totalitarianisms' and other systems and non-systems antithetical to totalitarianism plottable on its spectrum.

First, my definition:

-Totalitarianism is any social system based on a complete and total acceptance of specific norms and values that underpin the system.

This is a much wider definition than the 'Oxford' politico-historical version and opens up the possibility of an axial totalitarianism, with 'weak' and 'strong' versions depending on the civic and governmental arrangements in place in a particular society.  Totalitarianism is not necessarily an alarming state of affairs and can in fact be entirely benign.  That said, as I will explain, the weaker form of totalitarianism, is potentially much the more insidious and dangerous.  Not that I would want to live in an openly totalitarian state, but at least in North Korea most ordinary people will be aware that they are oppressed.  In a 'weak' totalitarian society, much of the population may not even have the most basic consciousness or self-awareness of their effective enslavement, and in fact the rulers themselves may also be for all effect enslaved.

A Cartesian model for Power Politics

The Cartesian model is a three-dimensional political spectrum with three axes:

The Y-axis is administration: one end if 'strong', the other is 'weak'.

The Z-axis is metapolitical: one end is 'deep', the other end is 'shallow'.

The X-axis is for systemisation: at one end is entropy, and the other end is syntropy.

Now we will apply the model and explain it further, but first a couple of points of clarification:

'Soft' versus 'weak' totalitarianism 

These are not the same.  Soft totalitarianism is a common journalistic phrase for a situation in which a society is heavily regulated, socially and perhaps economically, to the extent that the lived experience resembles a scaled-down version of totalitarianism.  It's a scare phrase used as a monitory in anticipation of, and in an effort to avoid, actual totalitarianism.

In contrast, weak totalitarianism is actual totalitarianism.

Totalitarianism is always metapolitical

Totalitarianism is, by definition, metapolitical because it implies the politicisation of everything.  However, it does not follow that all forms of metapolitics amount to totalitarianism.  For instance, it is possible to pursue metapolitical goals that are ultimately anti-political and foster freedom and responsibility.  It is also possible to be metapolitical and advocate for political solutions that do not demand a totality of norms.  Metapolitics =/= totalitarianism.  We will not achieve a lazy understanding by equating the two, so we have to make a further distinction.

Weak versus Strong (Y-axis): totalitarianism as ideology

One difficulty with an axial understanding of totalitarianism is that totalitarianism itself is a perfected political state, a type of utopia, thus all-but unachievable except perhaps in the most contingent circumstances.  Thus normally axes of 'totalitarianisms' are conceived of politically and ideologically in terms of the left and right.  Power is not often regarded as a ideology in and of itself, but as a sort of super-ideology.  A possible axis that adopts the opposite premise and that, among other things, recognises the inherent metapolitical nature of power and totalitarianism itself, would distinguish totalitarianisms along a politico-administrative axis, with the 'weak' totalitarianism at one end representing conditions of totality under a decentralised polity and a quite wide diffusion of power and influence, and at the other a 'strong' totalitarianism (the type we are more familiar with) under conditions of authoritarianism and perhaps dictatorship (i.e. a heavy centralisation of power).

The values 'weak' and 'strong' are of course fairly arbitrary and could potentially be more accurately labelled 'implicit' and 'explicit', though even that would be contentious.

Metapolitics as the vertical (Z-) axial value of 'power politics'

We can add to the weak/strong horizontal axis a further vertical axis based on the extent to which a particular manifestation of totalitarianism is 'metapolitical'.  Each type along the spectrum, weak and strong, will have its corresponding metapolitical versions, both 'deeper' and 'shallower' manifestations.  There is also a discernible relationship between the different values on the horizontal and vertical axes respectively.  A totalitarian government without cultural acceptance may be reliant entirely on strong central authority, whereas a civically and administratively weaker version of totalitarianism may have strong cultural roots and not have to rest on centralised power and control of the population.  The most perfect (most utopian) version of totalitarianism would seem to combine both a deep metapolitical dominance and a strongly centralised and authoritarian political system; conversely, the least utopian form of totalitarianism would seem to be that which combines both weak government (perhaps because it is administratively shambolic) and shallow metapolitics.

Total versus 'Meta-' versus Entropy: the systemisation (X-) axis

The Z-axis in our Cartesian model is for systemisation: that is to say, the extent to which a power system systemises behaviour.  An entropic society, in its utopian form, is the diametric opposite of totalitarianism: it would be what we may call pristine liberalism.  At the other side of the scale are syntropic societies, the exact nature of such a society depending on the position plotted on the Z- and Y-axes respectively.

The example of North Korea 

As an example, we might possibly say that North Korea is a society which would be plottable on the Cartesian model as follows:

- at the far end of the syntropic side of the X axis;
- perhaps at an upper mid-point at the 'deep' side of the Z axis;
- perhaps at a mid-point of the 'strong' side of the Y axis.

World Socialism: a case study

The world socialist case (as advocated by the SPGB and the World Socialist Movement) is for a worldwide socialist society, which will (inter alia) have the following features:

- no borders or states;
- no money;
- no property;
- the democratic control of all resources; and,
- production for use, not for profit.

World Socialists claim that their proposed form of socialism, if implemented, would free humanity - and this claim is not without some justification.  However, here I would like to address the question of whether world socialism is totalitarian in the proper sense.

World socialism is syntropic in that, much like capitalism but perhaps even more so, it requires a total and comprehensive acceptance of its norms: a total systemisation.  World socialists also insist that their system would have to be adopted worldwide, regardless of local conditions, and adoption would be on the basis of a democratic vote, potentially meaning that some nations and cultures would be outvoted and forced to accept socialism against their will.

World socialists say that socialism is only possible once a majority of people (preferably an overwhelming majority) understand the socialist case and reject capitalism entirely.  Given the specific aims of socialism - the end of money, borders and property - what this represents is a paradigm shift.  Socialism itself would have to be rooted metapolitically in society, to the extent that possibly the word 'socialism' would disappear from the debate, even from the language, as the system is adopted.

World socialists say that a socialist political economy would be democratic: in effect all the world's resources would be under common ownership.  Where large-scale production is needed, votes would be taken, or some other acceptably-democratic mechanism would be adopted, to decide what and how things are produced.  However, a lot of production would be fairly small-scale and self-directed, and would be the responsibility of individuals, families, local communities and so on.  Information technology will of course assist all this.

From the above, we can conclude that world socialism fits into the Cartesian power model as follows:

- at the far end of the syntropic side of the X axis;
- at the far end of the 'deep' side of the Z axis;
- likely to be at the mid point of the Y axis, neither 'strong' nor 'weak'.

In short, world socialism is totalitarianism.  Indeed, we can readily see that Classical Marxism, and other non-state socialisms that are close to it or attempt to apply it (such as the World Socialism of the SPGB), are inimitably totalitarian, albeit in an apparently benign sense.  Much like capitalism, they depend on the acceptance of a universal, worldwide propertyless, moneyless, stateless, etc., social order and the enforcement (using violence, if necessary) of ubiquitous values that underpin this practical dogma.  Probably if it is ever put into practice, world socialism will require one or more morally-privileged entities to operate: in effect, it is also soft statism.

Can we escape from socialism?

I will have more to say about world socialism in future posts, as it's a useful case study.  For now, I will turn to what I think is another interesting question in relation to the case for world socialism and the study of ideologies generally, which is whether there is an alternative system that could address human needs through meta-systemisation (what we might call metatarianism - my word) or even the abandonment of systems and 'politics' altogether.  The latter normally involves individual anarchism or some sort of contractual libertarianism based on private law societies in lieu of states.

The system I have in mind is metatarian, which is to say, it does not abandon 'systems' or 'politics' necessarily, but it offers parochial selection and choice. This is in contrast to world socialism, which is anti-metatarian and in fact totalitarian in that the case for it depends on there being no means of escape from the system, it must be embraced worldwide.

Purely for the sake of form, for now I am simply going to call this alternative system, 'alt socialism'. and purely for information purposes, in the table below I have used dichotomies to compare some of the important features of world socialism with the possible metatarian alternative:

	ALT SOCIALISM	WORLD SOCIALISM
State	Minimal state or soft state	Stateless or soft state
Authority	Personal	Rational
Human Type	Independent Mind, Masculine, 'a world of wolves'	Mass Mind, Feminine, 'a world of sisters'
Gender structure	Patriarchy, tradition	Equality, expediency
Framework	Racialism and Ethnoism	Economism
Political unit	Tribe, nation	Community
Geopolitics	Tribalism and nationalism	Localism and globalism
Moral policy	Particularism	Universalism
Human relations	Inequality	Equality
Culture	Meta-culture	Total culture
Systems	Meta-systemisation	Total systemisation
Nature/Nurture	Naturalistic & Social Darwinian	Deny or minimise Nature
Religion/Spirituality	Pagan	Strong atheist
Political economy	Socialistic	Socialist
Property	Pseudo-propertarian/distributistic	Propertyless
Money	Moneyless	Moneyless
Nations and culture	National/tribal boundaries respected	Borderless world

Is totalitarianism inevitable?

A further question that arises is whether a totalitarian political order is inevitable or it is possible to build multiple alternative social orders that can address parochial human needs, whether or not within a global framework of some sort.  That's one of the questions I will try and explore with this blog.