The Rise of the Spiritual Civilizations (Part 1)

"Liberal" ideology faces disruption

Executive summary

The West Sphere sensibility (starting with the Print Paradigm in the 16th-century) hinges on Enlightenment-era science, secularity and individualism.  Our 19th-century Electric Paradigm propensity to fantasize and imagine adds yet another layer, following decades of psychological conditioning under 20th-century broadcast mediums.  Emerging Digital structures obsolesce our idealistic beliefs by dragging us back towards memory.  Beyond the West sphere, and in some places within, digital life resurrects long-lost Medieval cultural and religious attributes.  China's leadership calls this emergence “Spiritual Civilization.”  The unfolding “clash of civilizations” may entail conflict between our paradigm and those arising Spiritual Civilizations, as well as between humans and Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

The Rise of the Spiritual Civilizations (Part 1)

You may have heard the collective-Western sigh of relief last November.  Republicans’ highly vaunted “red wave” failed to materialize in the midterms.  Brazil narrowly averted the re-election of “far-right” Jair Bolsonaro.  Russia, seemingly bogged down in its protracted “Special Operation,” had retreated from Kherson in yet “a new blow to Putin.”  Even Musk’s Twitter was purportedly facing its “Titanic moment,” sure to sink as virtue-signaling celebrities jumped ship.  Since then, the platform has gone on to reinstate some restrictions on “hate speech.”  Russia’s progress in the east of Ukraine appears stalled.  China is struggling to balance its engagement with Russia and the West.  And, most importantly, mainstream experts remain ensconced in their universities, think tanks, media outlets and bureaucracies, convinced as ever that the Western-liberal paradigm is the be-all and end-all of human existence.  Our elites are not “oligarchs,” but enlightened visionaries, and our intelligentsia are not Party-line apparatchiks, but the embodiment of “love,” “empathy” and “compassion.”  

And they remind us daily that time is running out for Russia and China—economically, demographically and perhaps even militarily.  Our experts detest the “regimes” that govern them, so naturally, nothing good can come of those systems.  Everything would have and should have been different, had only Putin and Xi never come into this world.  The planet would have been “safe for democracy” by now.  It’s not that we “didn’t get the memo”—we simply chose not to open it.  If we had, we may have read the following:  the seismic shifts away from Western values taking place in Russia, China and elsewhere go far deeper than any one leader.  Globalism is out; spheres and sub spheres are in.  Orthodox Russia, Hindu India and Daoist China—and many other countries, for that matter—are digging down to their pre-modern roots under digital conditions.  Both of these powers have definitively and strategically rejected our obsolete paradigm.  Steady efforts by Russia and China to chip away at the post-War, Western order are all but assured, regardless of what ensues in the Ukraine or Taiwan.  And we’ll respond with sanctions and sanctimonious posturing, for surely, time is on our side.  But what if it isn’t? 

Liberal Eschatology 101

Today’s Western intellectuals eschew “ideology,” often believing they merely espouse universal truths.  Our belief structures are taken as the natural culmination of civilization and progress, millennia in the making.  Who could possibly stand against “democracy” or “science"?  Who would deny someone their right to gender affirmation?  We may love to recite and repost our virtue memes, but Western-liberal precepts did not simply emerge out of the ether.  They are neither timeless, nor universal.  Liberal ideology commences from a long line of technological changes that accorded each era with distinguishing social-psychological attributes, with each subsequent technologically-centered period layering on to those of the previous like a blooming onion bulb.  A few larger bulbs grow into spheres; small bulbs, perhaps into subspheres.  Some grow closer to others in common soil, but they are all very different onion bulbs. 

And so, our alphabetic writing system gave us notions of discrete infinity, linearity and abstraction.  And then Christianity imbued us with sympathy for the poor and the meek.  And then the socio-spiritual continuity of Medieval Europe was severed in the Typographic Age.  And then Protestantism bestowed us with our fixation on the End of Times.  And then the Enlightenment jettisoned religion, while secularizing eschatology in the name of science.  And then industry gave us mechanicalism, and an undying belief in infinite growth and progress.  And then the Electric Implosion obsolesced the old mechanical sensibilities of Print, in favor of unification and universalism.  And then the fantasy-fueled Radio- and TV Ages taught us to imagine a better world, retrieving the various mythologies of prehistory.  Each new era moves on with baggage from the past, while leaping forward into the logic of the incoming medium.  Times changed, but our Enlightenment-era mission to standardize and perfect mankind endured; those layers go deep.

Then, as in the radio-modernist Soviet Union 30 years before, things began to break down in the TV-postmodern Western world.  Asymmetrical broadcast mediums were sidelined by emerging digital landscapes in the early 21st century, as hitherto passive viewers could interact and become broadcasters themselves.  The memes of the TV era began to appear dated, just as radio propaganda had not long before, while the contradictions and absurdities of the system came into sharper focus.  Digital division per binary code gravitated populations subliminally towards particulars, rather than to universals, and digital memory began to compel cultures to dig deeper into their own histories.  “Tribes” arose online, both left and right, insulated and pushed to extremes within algorithmic echo chambers.  Globalist elites began to lose their grip with the rise of Trumpism, and liberal democracy flipped into liberal compliance, accelerated by COVID management regimes.  Elites’ struggle to preserve “democracy” by way of creeping authoritarianism has rightfully become a focal point of anti-liberal critique, though without much theoretical depth.  Communism, too, was once seen as a pathway to human liberation.  

Having discarded the eschatological utopianism and “meta-narratives” of Leftism past, our “End of History” now appears to be a sort of Status Quo 2.0—a liberal-technocratic oligarchy perpetuated for the sake of itself and presided over by mega-rich elites who assure us that “science” will one day deliver us to the Promised Land.  Pervasive attempts to restrict free speech and free thought will be justified by a neverending crusade against “hate speech."  Activists will seek out and expose the secret racists and fascists, with Cultural Revolutionary zeal.  Creeping malaise and depressed consumption will be rationalized by “man-made” climate change.  Unemployment from automation will be justified by “progress.”  As life grinds on under the Tech Dystopia, and liberal-virtue memes ring hollower and hollower, we’ll be reminded of science and its great expectations.  Perhaps we’ll take inspiration from the Workers’ Party of Korea: “live not for today, but for tomorrow!”  

Meanwhile, a new world is unfolding.  In our next segment, we will explore inter-generational conflict and the declining state of today's Western-liberal system.