Life first ventured on its solar journey some 4,000 myrs ago, followed by human society ... During that time, the societies and logoi of numerous life forms have.
ARK OF THE SUN The improbable voyage of life
By
Graeme Donald Snooks IGDS Books 2015 ________________________________________________________ _
Epilogue
Solar Journey Challenged
Life first ventured on its solar journey some 4,000 myrs ago, followed by human society some 2 myrs ago. During that time, the societies and logoi of numerous life forms have emerged, flourished for a season, and then disappeared forever. Prior to the dominance of life by mankind, this ephemeral cycle passed through what might be thought of as a natural sequence of rise and fall, as individuals and their societies struggled for survival and prosperity but were ultimately overwhelmed once they exhausted their strategic capabilities. Since the emergence of civilization together with its sophisticated ideologies, a new actor has appeared in this story: the “antistrategist”. The antistrategist, who challenges the viability of the solar journey, was made possible by the relatively recent emergence of that supreme strategic instrument, the 1
conscious mind––referred to in my work as the “strategic brain”. This emergence created a strategic dualism (not to be confused with the mystical concept of Cartesian duality) in life forms, a dualism consisting of the body driven by strategic desire, and the mind influenced by ideologies. In most instances, the mind operates as a strategic instrument facilitating the strategic desires of the body––“desires drive, ideas facilitate”. This is why the brain emerged in life and developed in the manner that it has. But the mind, under the influence of various exotic ideologies, has the capacity to go its own way. In a disturbing number of cases, these ideologies undermine rather than support the prevailing dynamic strategy together with the logos that generated it. Whenever these antistrategists are highly determined, well organised and well-armed, they represent a very real danger to the prevailing logos and represent a challenge to the solar journey. As described in the Prologue, the ancient Egyptians were well aware that the forces of chaos (in the form of Apophis the chaos monster) were an everpresent danger. Who are these antistrategists? They comprise two broad groups: terrorists, and radical interventionists. The first group needs little discussion as they have become a major threat to some lesser developed societies in the Middle East and a source of irritation to more advanced societies. There is nothing new in this. The Roman general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus (known as Pompey), for example, was called upon by the Senate in 67 BC to clear the eastern Mediterranean of pirates, which had been seriously disrupting Rome’s commercial activities. More recently, Middle Eastern groups, such as Al-Qaeda and ISIS, have pursued antistrategic military activities against strategic societies in the region and isolated acts of violence throughout the Western world. These antistrategic activities are confronted by the Western powers whenever the costs of these attacks become significant in the eyes of their electorates. Otherwise, containment is the preferred option. It is unlikely that this form of antistrategic activity will ever be more than an annoying irritation to wealthy 2
strategic societies, but they are a serious challenge to the viability of lesser developed countries in the Middle East. Of more concern is the second group of antistrategists, the radical interventionists. These antistrategists come from within rather than from without. They comprise individuals and organisations that reject the strategic aims of their own society and logos, in order to pursue antistrategic ideologies. These antistrategic ideologies, which are designed to undermine the existing strategic logos, include political philosophies such as Enlightenment ideas about the “brotherhood of man”, Marxism, and radical ecological philosophies. These ideologies are based on a misunderstanding of reality and a failure to recognise the existence of the strategic logos. The “brotherhood of man”, for example, is a seductive fiction, because individuals relate primarily to the strategic logos rather than to each other. As discussed in chapters 4 and 7, trust in society is not the outcome of human love for others, but rather of the success of the strategic pursuit. Trust, like other human qualities, rises and falls with the expansion and contraction of society’s dominant dynamic strategy. Marx similarly based his theory of the fall of capitalism and the rise of communism on a set of false assumptions concerning human nature and the interaction between key variables in society (Snooks, 1998a: ch. 3). Not surprisingly, all attempts to usher in the idealist state of communism have, and will, fail. Finally, radical ecologists have also imposed a false vision on reality, in order to provide a comforting narrative about the need for human society to play a subservient role in the natural world––a false vision that, if imposed, will turn into a nightmare. Usually, these ideologies are cynically employed by extreme activists to attract the attention of, and to manipulate, more moderate idealists. Examples include the French revolution through which radicals assumed political control and exercised a short-lived but brutal tyranny (in the name of the people) over France; the Russian revolution hijacked by the Bolsheviks, who suppressed the strategists and subverted the logos by instituting an 3
oppressive command economy, in the name of Marxism; and the radical climate mitigationists who wish to cripple the strategic logos by substituting a command economy dedicated to creating stasis in order to “save” the natural world. As we have seen, the French and Russian revolutions ended badly. The antistrategists leading and participating in these power struggles destroyed the French and Russian economies of the time, and delayed the economic development of these societies for generations. If given the chance, the radical ecologists will do the same: they will disrupt the solar journey by derailing the Solar Revolution. Antistrategists have always been, and will always provide, a challenge to the strategic logoi of human society. But the logos, which emerged as an entropy-defying, shockdeflecting life system, is particularly robust. It has seen off many challenges in the past and hopefully will continue to do so in the future. But this is a very costly procedure. If policy makers recognised and understood the strategic logos––through a familiarity with the ideas and theory in this book––these massive costs could be dramatically reduced. That is the challenge for human society in the future. For the present, the “ark of the Sun” continues its uncertain voyage through time. On board are a variety of strategic and antistrategic actors, constantly changing places as they compete for prime positions in the solar barque. With the arrival of the Solar Revolution, the seating arrangements will change more dramatically, with the best positions going to those strategists who refuse to be diverted by the ideologically driven antistrategists, and who press on boldly in the face of paradigmatic exhaustion in an attempt to find radical new ways to harness the energy of the Sun. Those who are beguiled by fanciful antistrategic ideologies will be relegated to the back of the solar barque, and some may even disappear overboard to be devoured by the monster of chaos. If the “ark of the Sun” maintains a steady course, it
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will eventually travel through space as well as time, seeking out new suns as the old founding Sun eventually dies.
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