"What Direction is the World Developing Into, and What Direction Should it be Developing Into"

In front of this title we really find two questions: what direction is the world developing? And what direction the world should be developing into? I’ll respond to both of them separately, and after I’ll try do so by integrating both in only one main question or same problem.

By wondering about “what direction is the world developing”, in my opinion we have two implicit questions, that’s to say, first: does the world has a direction? And second: if the world has any direction, then to wish direction is it developing into? Let’s take a look to the first part of it. For being able to have “any direction”, whatever this intends to mean, in my opinion this requires to have a necessary condition, but not an enough condition. This necessary condition is indeed the capacity of “awareness”, in other words of being capable to understand that me, as a subject and self-being, is affected by circumstances that surround him. In other words, by something that has “the presence in here”, and a presence that simultaneously is present “in the precise moment of now”. Therefore me as an “ego”, it’s not only me, but me plus my surrounding circumstances. When referring to the term “subject as self-being”, we are interpreting it in a personalistic or anthropologic sense. If we think of the subject as an individual, then we will be approaching it in a particular way, but in the case we talk about communities, nations, continents or of the world as a whole; then we’ll be approaching our object from the general with a sociological look. In the context of this presentation I will be focusing the problem with a sociological prism. If we oberve the evolution of the past two decades, it’s possible to recognize what is understood by consensus as the “phenomenon of global globalization”. One of its principal consequence has been the progressive lost of identities. This is why nowadays, less and less it’s possible to speak in strict sense, of nations as such. In practice it is possible only to refer to them as countries, since almost all of their limits have been collapsed. Not only between countries, but also within continents, and between continents themselves. It is enough to observe for example, what is happening with the old continent of Europe. Nations have not only lost their identities but they have also lost their own materials and intangibles values. For that reason for example, people are looking impassively how in front of their eyes, historical heritages of centuries collapses remaining in ashes. But not only that, they face beside how the existence of family for example, as the most basic nucleus of society, and distinctions as “being and not being” also are collapsing. Concepts such as “sexuation” are in disuse, and instead changed with fashion concepts like gender. That’s why in everyday’s life you no longer know “who’s who.”. Many could attribute the cause of all of this losses, to the presence of the migratory phenomenon around all the world. This last is a fact, but actually is this the cause or rather the consequence, the effect of the underlying result or problem? Let’s try to analyze this by doing an inverse reasoning or by its opposites terms. Many countries used to overvalue what is known as the subsidiary or paternalistic role of the states; as well as the supremacy of the social over the individuality. By doing this, they have finally transformed the expression of Karl Marx: “ religion, is the opium of people”, into another one even worse: “humanism, is the opium of people”. Why do I hold this last statement? Because today’s society, has been pressured by society itself towards an absolute and vertiginous task, lacking in many cases of the mediation of a reflection as a sufficient reason. In consecuense, they have converted “human acts” in “acts of man” or acts that only belong to us as human beings. It seems that both, societies and differents states or countries, by implementating strategies or policies for the development of their resources, they have finally fallen in the compulsive goal of multicultural integration at the cost of whatever price. The aforementioned, allows to understand why the prevail of efficiency, and the obsessive search for commensurable and politically corrects results, it is not more than the “first motor or inmoved motor” of world’s random and trial error behavior. In a certain way it could be said, that if what mobilizes the world is something close to “the will to power” or rather “the pure and exclusive power of will”, then it is possible to infer from this, that what really has the world is mobility instead of direction towards something. It is also feasible to deduce that the world’s compulsion for “acting out” in all kind of things, may perfectly induce it to a “compulsive repetition”. Then what will appear unconsciously on the horizon is nothing less than the ghost of “the eternal return”... Nothing other, especially in the case of Europe, that the feel of persecution by the idea that once again they will commit the same mistakes and horrors of the past.

Now let’s try to analyze and answer what regards the second question: “what direction should the world be developing into?”. In case I achieve to answer this at least in a partial and relative way, I would wish that my theoretical assumptions, could constitute in the future refutable and contextualised conjectures, susceptibles to becoming at the same time in working hypothesis that can be contrasted and tested. What we see today, in many situations, is a world that carries the weight of its faults and mistakes, “just like a camel”. So far, in general what we see is a “red humanism that tends to pink”, that usually tries to save “messianically” the second and third world drowned in its miseries of hunger, diseases, wars and persecutions. In my opinion nothing far away from other historical periods of humanity. This is the megalomaniac feeling of believing themselves saviors and defenders of “lost causes”. However today the balance of power has been reversed, since instead of colonizing distant lands, now they are being “colonized” by their own past colonies. It’s paradoxical, don’t you think so? Formerly the “secondary gain” was to exploit far-away natural resources. Whereas in our days, despite that in the case of Europe for example, it is pretended not to recognize the true intentions behind their immigration policies; such as increasing the birth rate since the native population is aging and is doomed to disappear. Or trying to increase and introduce variance to the gene pool of the populations of some countries, because otherwise the morbidity of diseases associated with genetic mutations or hereditary diseases will significantly increase. Or pretending to utilize that “human mass” for party purposes of certain political groups. Or as cheap labor, because they obviously have an average of intellectual and educational level significantly lower, at least one standard deviation with respect to the norm. Then they have naively and mistakenly believed, that this “human mass” is easily manipulated according to their political whims. Unfortunately for them, this belief is quite far from reality, because those who are being “literally exploited” on their own Continent, but not exclusively, are themselves. The latter of course does not have a single reading, since probably I may be forgetting in this moment other secondary gains regarding the current large migratory movements. Then the question that could be asked, given the most recent events is when “this camel” overwhelmed and increasingly hunchbaked by the load, is going to leave his state of unnerving apathy ? When is he going to abandon his “moral self-resignation”, to rebel and become “a roaring lion” that fights against the established and what harms him as an individual person, nation or society ? Certainly already traces of this last are every day more manifest all over.

With enough certainty we may assure that continue talking futuristically about the current state of the world, believing that everything will continue the same, is something that doesn’t have at all any sense. Why do I believe it ? Because the world as it is now, is unsustainable, therefore in one way or another, the change is imminent. In my opinion they are three possible options regarding our future and the world’s future. The first of them, we could expressed it simply as this: “ecce homo !”, or “here is the men!”. This would be the greatest expression of power. It could be imagined as a small child that has in his hands a game, and what he simply does with it is to play in the floor all the time... The next one is the road that consists of conflict, it is the constant counter position of the opposites and what mobilizes it is the strength of dialectic. This last option could accommodate the pretension of integration as it is known today, that is basically what it is to try to extract the best from each part, for example from two different cultures. The problem that we can find in this kind of path is that normally it brings calmness and peace only for a while, since sooner or later what intends to be integration, will create the struggle between opposites. In some way, current social dynamics, in which integration is seen as “an end in itself”, peace and calmness are derived of the utopian projection of magical thought. The third one does not precisely consist “in virtue” or in the middle point between two equidistant extremes. Therefore is not either the average between the worst and the best. The third option leaving aside any kind of judgements value’s, is probably the most viable of all, not necessarily because of its truth or rectitude. In fact I estime that truth and knowledge development are not two perpendiculars that intersect at a certain point. They rather are two straight lines that run parallel forming an asymptote to infinity. If mean while we are able to look at society inductively, that is from the individual person towards society, instead of doing it following a deductively direction, from society towards individuals; probably the contingency of things will evolve in a more positive way. Insofar if we are able to give a certain degree of individualism and identity to society, we will be able to respect its essence, since in strict sense is identity what makes us all uniques and differents. The respect of uniqueness finally means to value “the difference” as the most fundamental and important, since it is what defines us as subjects and makes each of us special beings. This also means not to be seeking nor forcing social or cultural integration as it is commonly understood. We must understand for example that cultures are essentially different and for that reason the need their own, original, and geographical spaces without suffering any kind of foreign pollution. Pretending otherwise, it involves triggering all type of defense mechanisms, due to the natural fact that they will try to preserve the survival of individuals, communities and society, aiming through the conflict and fighting to not disappear. The struggle to survive has indeed a logic sequence: search of equality among each others, assimilation and integration The issue despite, is that assimilation almost always is threatening, and sooner or later leads us to disappear.

What I suggest, is to give a complete turn to the dynamich in which the world is inserted today. For me it’s something simple and does not require’s any other capacity than “common sense”. Unfortunately this is the least common of all the senses. Maybe by this route, or by others, the world may probably take some enthalpy direction towards “a dramatic ending” and not towards “a tragic ending”. The starting point of both is identically the same, however not the end, in one it’s positive and optimistic, while in the other it’s the end of everything.

Christian Sorensen
Philosopher