Conclusion

Primary Global Reserve Currency: the Con? (Part #13)

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Crazy enough? An appropriate conclusion to the above argument, in French, would be that it is complètement con. It might however be asked whether it is "con enough" -- as in the much-quoted statement by physicist Niels Bohr in response to Wolfgang Pauli:

"We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct. My own feeling is that it is not crazy enough." To that Freeman Dyson added: "When a great innovation appears, it will almost certainly be in a muddled, incomplete and confusing form. To the discoverer, himself, it will be only half understood; to everyone else, it will be a mystery. For any speculation which does not at first glance look crazy, there is no hope!" (Innovation in Physics, Scientific American, 199, 3, September 1958)

If the challenges of a world "gone crazy" are more complex than those faced by physicists, with what quality of ignorance is any hopeful integrative possibility to be explored, engaged in and embodied?

What is the "reserve currency" of a global civilization and how might it collapse? Arguably a global knowledge-based society is inherently unsustainable unless it can engage meaningfully with the ignorance and stupidity that it effectively engenders, as perceived by those claiming the privilege to know and be informed. The ignorant have always demonstrated a significant destabilizing potential from which new beginnings emerge.

Cognitive predetermination: It would not be surprising to discover that the conception of global strategies in a male-dominated world are indeed unconsciously trapped and conditioned by a prefix with female genital connotations -- conflated with conventional implications of ignorance and stupidity. Its immediate consequences are evident in group photographs of representatives at G20 Summits (Framing the Global Future by Ignoring Alternatives: unfreezing categories as a vital necessity, 2009). This is a strangely poetic legacy of the abandonment of French as the language of global diplomacy (Women and the Underside of Meetings: symptoms of denial in considering strategic options, 2009). Whilst English and French share the use of many prefixes, the language bias in the argument here is justified in that it will be English usage (of prefixes) which will frame (if not "pre-fix") the contractual formulation of the conclusions of negotiations regarding a global reserve currency.

Is it appropriate to see current proposals as trapped in some form of "con" -- vainly pursuing a chimera of consensus on sustainability when a subtler framework is required to navigate the adaptive cycle? This necessity has been highlighted by Thomas Homer-Dixon (The Upside of Down: catastrophe, creativity, and the renewal of civilization, 2006). Is the viability of a global reserve currency to be understood as necessarily complemented by circulation of a "moral currency" (Enabling Moral Currency Circulation: reframing a stimulus package to avert moral bankruptcy, 2010)? More fundamentally, or more generically, is this to be compared with a form of "cognitive currency", in which relative ignorance has a role (Circulation of the Light: essential metaphor of global sustainability?, 2010)?

Constrained communication: It can readily be argued that the case made here is merely a form of word play. However the concern is precisely with respect to the possibility that global discourse is trapped in a form of word play -- a subtle form of doublespeak -- with cognitive implications constraining the development of appropriate strategy. The approach taken here is partially inspired by the Oulipo movement of mathematicians, poets and semioticians in experimenting with how significance emerges within consciously constrained communication forms, as discussed separately (Lipoproblems: developing a strategy omitting a key problem, 2009).

Arguably it is the failure to take account of the constraining use of prefixes, especially "con", which is an unconscious determining factor of John Ralston Saul's Unconscious Civilization (1995). It might be asked what kinds of policies could be formulated if prefixes were to be avoided, as with the prescripting of the communiques of strategic summits by "Sherpas" -- as "pre-fixers" par excellence. Or, as a complementary alternative, how could the array of prefixes be consciously and creatively "played" as a means of engendering greater coherence (Enacting Transformative Integral Thinking through Playful Elegance, 2010; An Appropriate Syntax for the Future: beyond the conventional rules of thought, 2010)?

Engaging with ignorance: Rather than being deprecated, the sense of "con" as a confidence trick can be fruitfully seen as a means of engaging with ignorance -- of which all are increasingly characterized in an expanding global knowledge society. As with a child's first encounter with a mirror, the emergence of a higher order of consciousness comes through "seeing through the con". Hence the ic mirror test of self-awareness. The more general challenge is then how to encompass higher orders of the "con dynamic" -- involving conception, concern, conscience and confidence -- as a dynamic context for the emergence of consciousness and identity. The mirror test can be fruitfully reframed from a hypothetical perspective of extraterrestrials (Self-reflective Embodiment of Transdisciplinary Integration (SETI): the universal criteria of species maturity? 2008).

It is this capacity which is essential to any strategic response to the unexpected. How else to embody the requisite complexity capable of engaging with emerging strategic surprises (Engaging with the Inexplicable, the Incomprehensible and the Unexpected, 2010)?

Cyclicity: Any global reserve currency then merits reflection in terms of the confidelity with which it can then be sustainably engaged collectively. A key to this engagement would appear to be the cyclic "con dynamic" -- between what are otherwise framed as nouns and substantives. In that sense the identity of individuals is more fruitfully and fulfillingly "re-cognized" as emerging within that essentially non-linear "con dynamic", then to be understood as verbs rather than nouns (or even "pro-nouns"). The consciousness of identity is then continuously recreated within the interlocking cycles of that dynamic (Emergence of Cyclical Psycho-social Identity: sustainability as "psyclically" defined, 2007). It is through these cyclic processes that global engagement is enabled (Spherical configuration of interlocking roundtables: Internet enhancement of global self-organization through patterns of dialogue, 1998; Future Generation through Global Conversation: in quest of collective well-being through conversation in the present moment, 1997).

Engagement with globality: The challenge is to discover metaphors to enable engagement with "globality" such as to render any global currency sustainable, as previously explored (Metaphorical Geometry in Quest of Globality, 2009; In Quest of Mnemonic Catalysts -- for comprehension of complex psychosocial dynamics, 2007). With respect to the paradoxical "cognitive twist" essential to the integrity of the con-dynamic explored here, this is fruitfully understood as a key to the navigation of the adaptive cycle that is the emerging challenge of global governance -- well illustrated topologically by the cognitive implications of the Möbius strip and the Klein bottle (Sustaining a Community of Strange Loops, 2010; Intercourse with Globality through Enacting a Klein bottle, 2009). How else to "encompass the con" (Transformation of Global Governance through Bullfighting, 2009)?

Isomorphism: Of particular interest is the possibility that a degree of isomorphism is required between the "con dynamic" within psychosocial contexts and the pattern through which a global reserve currency system is comprehended and implemented. This is partly evident in the relationship between Buckminster Fuller's "geometry of thinking" and his suggestions for energy currencies within a global energy grid -- understood in polyhedral terms. This energy focus is consistent with that of the analysis of civilizational collapse of Thomas Homer-Dixon (2006) -- perhaps to be generalized to the global distribution of information (Emerging Memetic Singularity in the Global Knowledge Society, 2009).

Polyhedral configuration: To the extent that prefixes embody the set of memetic transformations necessary to sustainability and the cognitive navigation of the adaptive cycle, their association with interlocking cycles configured in polyhedral terms -- involving nesting and packing constraints -- is vital to the requisite isomorphism (Polyhedral Empowerment of Networks through Symmetry: psycho-social implications for organization and global governance, 2008). With respect to any failure in transmutation of hope into confidence and confidelity within that context, the disconnect is highlighted by the increasoingly widespread sense of despair (Implication of Personal Despair in Planetary Despair, 2010).

An interesting conclusion of the argument is that any effort to "make a point"with respect to global strategic initiatives, in isolation from such configuration, is essentially meta-stable in terms of attracting global consensus -- to be fruitfully compared to any effort to balance a tetrahedron on an apex. Such considerations offer a reframing of any sense of globality and its gnerative capacity (Future Generation through Global Conversation: in quest of collective well-being through conversation in the present moment, 1997).

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