Trends, travesty and turmoil

September 17, 2019September 26, 2019 admin

To build an economy, to build a nation: that was the quest yesterday, that is the quest today, and that will still be the quest tomorrow.

The entire world, including South Africa, seeks to address this quest with an eye on the future. Yet it is doing so, carrying the baggage of the past. There is no escape from the past. We are where we are as a global society, as citizens of this country, and as the rate payers of our respective municipalities, as a result of the past. It therefore goes without saying that if we do not like the past, either historic or recent trends leading up to today, or if today’s quest is on higher moral grounds than that of yesterday, we should not make the same mistakes as in the past, recent or otherwise. It is accredited to Albert Einstein that problems cannot be solved within the same mind-set that created them. This profound wisdom has far-reaching consequences. It forces us to analyse the past with the objective to learn, seek the beauty hidden within, and then build on it. However, it also forces us to acknowledge the bad, the ugly and the downright evil, while challenging us to turn away from such.

The bad, the ugly and the downright evil in the recent past cannot be summarised in only a few lines. However, here follows five eclectic trends that seem to dominate the world and, hence, illustrate some of the recent developments.

Atomism: the making of a fragmented nation

Atomism can be defined as the ever breaking up, and the analysis, of the whole into smaller and smaller particles; byte-sized if you wish. For example, take a 20x30cm jigsaw puzzle, such as those we all built when we were toddlers, and divide it into four pieces. While there is only one correct permutation, the number of wrong permutations are also limited. These wrong permutations would constitute “areas of conflict”, with the conflict being the absence of harmony and the pieces being in their incorrect places. Take the same puzzle, however, with the same picture and disaggregate it into 156 pieces. The number of possible permutations, and with it the possible “areas of conflict”, increases dramatically. The more disaggregated the puzzle, the more “areas of conflict” are created, and exponentially so. Thus complexity abounds.

With all the advances and all the possible accolades that one can attribute to the information age, and the advent of the “fourth industrial revolution”, a negative side-effect thereof is that societal atomism has simply exploded. Social media – which is, among others, intended to connect people – has led to the rapid proliferation of the need for custom-made solutions for each user. This is not just in terms of items electronic and virtual, but across all facets of life. Whereas the economic revolution of the 1960s and beyond was built on consumerism, the new foundation is experientialism. There is a drive in every person to take that selfie at an exotic place or event, to have that unique “just for me” experience, and to have the opportunity to boast about it virtually and in real time – self-perpetuation into perpetuity from the one dopamine-induced thrill to the next.

The information age connects people. Furthermore, it not only accentuates, but also stimulates, individual preferences and differences. The higher the degree of fragmentation, however, the more the resilience of the system is breaking down to the point of collapsing.

Nation-building, fostering a culture with a collective identity within the context (not even merely a context any longer, but a deep-seated and very pervasive ideology of technology-infused and enhanced atomism), is simply impossible unless we either change the way we think about nation-building, or reverse the trend of atomism. The former, albeit difficult, seems more plausible than the latter.

Linearism: the path of unfettered self-destruction

Linearism is the product of Greek ideological thinking that is based on the premise of humans functioning within an “open” or “illuminated” world. This is a world where there are no constraints, no limits, and no absolutes; everything is relative. Within this world our dreams are the only constraining factor. One consequence of this ideology is an extremely linearised production cycle to satisfy consumer needs and wants, and hence satisfying the pursuit of experiential (custom-made) pleasure: hedonism rules. This linearised world is characterised by the promotion of reinforcing feedback loops – information that strengthens a particular behavioural trait, while strongly suppressing (to the point of degrading it to “fake news”) any balancing or corrective feedback loop. Balancing feedback loops are contra-cyclical reactions based on indispensable information warning the system of potential and threatening overshoot to protect and re-align a system. A balancing feedback loop is the one that tells you: “This plate is hot, remove your hand”. Such information is not to punish the hand, but to protect it from injury and even destruction. This information, however, is not enough to protect your hand from burning; wisdom combined with action is required. For example, millennials are bombarded with certificates for participation, irrespective the level of their performance – mediocre as it might be. Subsequently, they are brainwashed with avalanches of motivational speeches and videos about their greatness and capabilities. They are told: “Go team, dream big and make an IMPACT!” – stimulating pervasive mediocre trends and suppressing, to the point of deception, the demands of the real world in comparison with their true capabilities and/or work ethic. “The plate is hot, my child, you are failing and under-performing, pull up your socks and work.” Such a message is considered too negative, too demoralising, and too old-school for the generation who does not know the pre-internet world, the generation who does not have a pre-internet brain.

Further examples of the consequences of suppressing information are those pertaining to ongoing and rampant environmental degradation. A dream that wealth, happiness, and luxurious comfort and quality of life are around the corner for everyone is being sold to all. El Dorado beckons and the myth lives on – long lives the myth!

The linear, open world ideology, professed by most politicians, corporates, Hollywood and the media, is selling the dream of “limitlessness”, a global welfare state if you wish. In South Africa, this dream has a special character. For six decades the idea of a state-sponsored welfare state that was sold to all white South Africans had mostly been achieved – at the cost of disenfranchising many. Selling the same dream to all is selling a pipe-dream.

To continue with open-endedness is to race towards self-destruction.

Expressionism: the creation of neo-tribalism

Tightly linked, yet separate from both atomism and linearism, is the notion of “expressionism”. This relates to the fact that each person has the right, the freedom, to express him-/herself in whichever way he/she desires, be it in words, clothes, culture, the right of association and disassociation, sexual orientation, etc. This has resulted in a massive rise in the number of #civilmovements. Each person with a smartphone has the inherent capability to initiate a #civilmovement of some kind, with such a person deemed as having the right to do so, and that in record time. This has led and leads to further polarisation, to the point of fuelling extremism in various dimensions.

More importantly, the #civilmovement has replaced the nation-state as the most dominant form of collective expression.

Each person can decide and has the right and the capability to select his/her #tribe based on design features he/she chooses at will. #Tribes are defined as those individuals who voluntarily associate with others around a specific cause, concern, or grouping of any kind. #Tribes are borderless. They do not pay taxes, they have no nationalistic allegiance, and they have “no rules”. They self-organise; they are virtual, being here today and gone tomorrow, or having morphed into something completely different. Membership is also not exclusive, one can be member of several #tribes simultaneously – even conflicting ones – just because one can. It is arguably one of the best expressions of ideological anarchy.

This has given rise to neo-democracy: “I vote in real-time with thumb signs or emoji’s, and I enter and exit at will”. The speed of this neo-democratic movement outpaces and outsmarts the, now protracted, even defunct, social processes and dialogue that are so characteristic of what we used to understand as democracy. And this is the case on all levels and in all manners.

Nation-building has been redefined – forever. There is no reset or undo button – we have to deal with it and its consequences.

Tribalism gone rogue

The natural consequence of the above is the decoupling, even alienation, of people within the social constructs that we were used to. The ease with which #tribes can form, proliferate, self-organise, and then provide some identity, has resulted in an experiment of social reconstruction at a scale such as the world has not yet seen. Each #tribe has the capability to gang up against other #tribes at virtually no cost: the ultimate in neo-democracy. The challenge, however, is when #tribes resembling gangs engage in, not always so subtle, gang-fights; fights that have no solution but lead to open conflict – economically, politically and/or militarily – thus destabilising, even capturing, an entire society. One such example would be the open race war based on ethnic divisions which has increased globally. This being in Europe, the Americas and in Africa. Ironically, in South Africa, the economic and political ideologies of both black and white extremists are virtually the same, but applied to different race/ethnic groupings. This is perhaps the area where the aforementioned saying of Albert Einstein holds most true. In a country as diverse as South Africa, race does matter and seriously so. However, race-based problems cannot be addressed through race-based policies, policies founded on the very same ideology of race identification and separation that it seeks to combat and even eliminate. This will, and does, only create further race-based tension and division, achieving the very opposite of its intended objective. This worrying polarisation fosters further divisions, further atomism, and the need for further self-expressionism – and that with the expressed right and freedom to do so.

The gang has become more important than the state. One’s behavioural patterns are modelled after those of one’s “#tribe members’” and not after the rule of law: “What is right for my gang is right for me and damn the state”.

Endemic and institutional lawlessness

While statistics among analysts vary greatly, indications are that the prevalence of psychopathy and psychopathic behaviour among the general population lies between 1% and 3% of the total population – therefore, between 1 and 3 of every 100 members of the population are psychopaths or show psychopathic behaviour. This figure increases to between 5% and 15% for those in prison, but is as high as 30% and more among career politicians and the members of the executive management of corporations. The small pool of career politicians and CEOs, COOs, CFOs, directors and other successful business managers are, therefore, loaded with people who are psychopaths or who show strong signs of psychopathic behaviour. These people possess enormous wealth and power. These are people who might have become successful as a result of these behavioural characteristics, who are in offices of power and who are kept there by the systems they have created that serves their interests.

Psychopathy, or psychopath-like behaviour among individuals, is generally characterised or associated with various traits (mostly in various combinations), such as:

the lack of guilt and remorse;
a lack of empathy;
no deep attachment to others;
the ability to manipulate yet be very charming, although abusive and high-tempered when confronted;
hypersensitive and self-centred;
the ability to verbalise the right thing at the right time to appease the audience;
a strong imperialistic/greedy attitude (enough is never enough);
a proneness to fearless risk-taking;
the ability to tell lies and to deceive without a blush; and
the habit, and ability, of using other people as pawns/instruments to advance his/her own ideals and objectives.

When observing events unfolding both inside and outside South Africa, the horrifying truth is that one can clearly recognise many, if not all, of these behavioural patterns among many of the political and business leaders. What a sorry state of affairs. Increasingly the champions of industry are prone to such despicable, school ground bully-like conduct, and it rubs off onto the citizenry. If the leaders are moral vacuums, it creates a spacious gaping hole for lawlessness to abound among the entire population, even those who traditionally might have respected the rule-of-law. This is seen even more so within the context of the increasing atomistic, open society where consequences and negative feedbacks are often seemingly absent or heavily suppressed. It seems as if leaders, business and governmental, can get away with murder (quite literally, unfortunately). This has given rise to a general sentiment of: “If they can, what the heck, then I can break the law as well”. Lawlessness has seemingly become the national sport.

Psychopathy, psychopathic behaviour and ensuing lawlessness are colour-blind and race-neutral. The political and business leaders tend to form their own #tribes by association, through marriage and other forms of contractual relationship. The perceived problems with what is termed “white monopoly capital” are therefore, unfortunately, much more serious than skin-deep. The problems are neither race-based, finances nor capital(ism), but the moral fibre, the social conscience, of a nation of which its princes and kings have an inherent unction towards theft, manipulation, deception – and that with charm.

The development of an economy and a nation within a moral void is simply not possible. Such a void fosters more and more frustration, adding fuel to and further stimulating the notion of self-expressionism and the formation of more and more #civilmovements. This leads to further fragmentation where each person is seeking to object to a leadership gone rogue. These expressions are not necessarily legal either; they can and often do express themselves through the advance of illicit trade, such as poaching, drug and human trafficking syndicates, money laundering and racketeering. For an example, just Google “Panama papers”.

Where does this leave us with respect to some very basic, yet fundamental and age-old institutions such as democracy and the nation-state? These are as old as western civilisation itself. While on the surface they still seem to be in place, in reality their very existence and functionality are being challenged. Challenged deeply to the point of them actually becoming obsolete, if not already in some places, then soon in many places globally. The social, technological and institutional context surrounding democracy and the nation-state has radically changed, more so over the past two decades than perhaps ever before. The role of all other institutions, such as that of corporations and multi-national companies, has therefore shifted as well – shifted to serve the #tribe of corporate leaders under the pretext of adding value to consumers and that with an open, thus limitless, ideological mindset. Nothing is impossible, not even the establishment of vibrant communities of earthlings on Musk’s Mars, nor CERN-generated black holes, artificial intelligence and artificially produced food (just Google “cellular agriculture”).

Clearly, subtly and rapidly the internet and the aforementioned pervasive, yet deeply penetrating, trends have revolutionised the world we live in. There is no reset or undo button, thus we have to ask, what future do we seek to live in?

Can we, do we wish to, stop the unrelenting progress of atomism and increasing fragmentation of society? How do we hedge ourselves against the induced vulnerability and lack of societal resilience as a result?
How long will we continue to ignore the information from societal and ecological balancing, corrective feedbacks telling us, no, screaming at us as a global society, that the current trajectory of economic and social development is not sustainable? We are a society engaged in a forced death march.
How long before the highly polarised extremists and counter-revolutionaries will seek to extract as much rent from the prevailing conditions as possible to achieve their respective objectives at the expense of the rest?
How long will the nation-state and the democracy we know survive in any form or manner, or what role should it play in future within the wake of the #tribe-induced neo-democracy that is @work?
How long will the populace tolerate their psychopath-like leaders? How long before the neo-democrats will self-organise and take control over their own futures, and what will that be like? What will be left to live and fight for once those people have been able to re-take control?

Cleary the need for a debate with respect to a new social contract is required. South Africa might be one of the few countries that has seen such a process of debating and writing a social contract in real time when the current Constitution was being deliberated and formulated – a Constitution heralded as one of the best in the world. A similar process is now required, not necessarily pertaining the Constitution per se, although the outcome might have constitutional implications. This process should focus on the basic operating principles we would like to see and under which we would like to live in the future – taking heed of the mistakes of the past and the ongoing trends and the demands placed on the social, political and economic systems.

With the drastically changed world we live in, a country much transformed from the one 20 or 30 years ago, the very definition – the core – of what constitutes economic development and progress has to be redefined. Such debate should:

acknowledge, and embrace, some of the irreversible trends; while
recognising the need to accept resource scarcity, thus paying close attention to the information forthcoming from various balancing feedback loops; and
neutralise, de-arm to be more specific, race-based extremism and populism that seek to dismember our society for their specific ideological aspirations.

Problems cannot be solved within the same mindset that created them. Simple enough, and yet profound in its reach and implication. Hard to implement. In order to advance we have to be honest with ourselves, recognise the erroneous mindsets, and be brave enough to change.

February 2018

Based on a talk given on the topic: “Die Gewetenloosheid van Wetteloosheid.” (https://showme.co.za/pretoria/events-entertainment/filosofiekafee-die-gewetenloosheid-van-wetteloosheid/)