Interface with unmeaning and insignificance: challenge of authenticity

America as Eve-ill Empire: Evocation of Authenticity Elsewhere (Part #12)

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Instead of lamenting the lost world of "international law", or pretending that it still exists, we now have to work out how to live together in the world as it actually is. Don't be surprised if, like it or not, that means accepting a "Pax Americana"

Egon Matzner (Conditional Co-operation: Coping With US Hegemony) explores 4 ways for dealing with American hegemony. There is a strong case for reviewing the experiences of those who successfully survived totalitarian and fascist regimes with integrity. The exercise could be usefully extended to cover experience in multi-class societies such as those of the British Empire, pre-civil rights USA, the Hindu caste system, and South African apartheid. As with ancient Athens or Rome, few will enjoy the privileges of the nomenklatura of the new empire.

But, for those beyond the pale of the AWOL attractor, there is the exciting challenge of authenticity and how it is to become manifest in the ruins associated with the AWOL separator. Make no mistake -- the AWOL separator will be used to appropriate or destroy any patterns of quality that might otherwise be used to reinforce a sense of authenticity.

The challenge for many levels of society will be the nature of the interface that it is possible to sustain with the AWOL dynamics. Many will be drawn inexorably into those dynamics. But the reality of the situation is that the resources are not available to sustain those dynamics for the majority of the world's population. This is the tremendous learning offered by the AWOL separator. It frees people from dependence on the material support associated with those dynamics.

From the dynamics of astrophysical black holes, it has been theorized by Stephen Hawking that the tidal forces are strong enough to tear apart pairs of antiparticles and virtual particles producing enough energy to make the virtual particle materialize in space. Due to spontaneous creation of these particle pairs at the Schwarzfeldt radius (the event horizon), one drops into the black hole, the other escapes -- black holes can thus radiate energy. This process is known as Hawking radiation and counterbalances a black hole's ability to absorb matter and grow. When the black hole creates this virtual particle some of its energy gets used, thus lowering its mass due to Einstein's famous equation E = Mc². This causes a cascade effect called evaporation since it will lead to all of the black hole's mass being changed into tremendous amounts of energy. It is possible, as intimated by Peter Russell, that social systems (namely those outside the AWOL dynamic) may benefit from this process. The AWOL may also collapse under its own weight, return to a high entropy system, and no longer be attractive to anyone (or only to those with a high "charge").

From a social perspective the current status of AWOL could be explored in terms of "collapsing civilizations" -- a theme much studied by Christians fascinated by "End Times" scenarios [more] and more generally by historians (for example Galtung and Inayatullah, 1997). For example under "nihilism" in the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

Since Nietzsche's compelling critique, nihilistic themes--epistemological failure, value destruction, and cosmic purposelessness--have preoccupied artists, social critics, and philosophers. Convinced that Nietzsche's analysis was accurate, for example, Oswald Spengler in The Decline of the West (1926) studied several cultures to confirm that patterns of nihilism were indeed a conspicuous feature of collapsing civilizations. In each of the failed cultures he examines, Spengler noticed that centuries-old religious, artistic, and political traditions were weakened and finally toppled by the insidious workings of several distinct nihilistic postures: the Faustian nihilist "shatters the ideals"; the Apollinian nihilist "watches them crumble before his eyes"; and the Indian nihilist "withdraws from their presence into himself." Withdrawal, for instance, often identified with the negation of reality and resignation advocated by Eastern religions, is in the West associated with various versions of epicureanism and stoicism. In his study, Spengler concludes that Western civilization is already in the advanced stages of decay with all three forms of nihilism working to undermine epistemological authority and ontological grounding. [more]

At this stage one can only speculate on the possible use of collapsing superpowers as a source of energy for the surrounding social system. As summarized by Ryan Weaver (Black Holes: The Power Source for Future Space Travel?), in the case of astrophysical black holes::

There are three ways physicists believe it is possible to harness energy from black holes: through accretion discs, by super radiance, and with Hawking radiation. Using Hawking radiation is the only process that requires a primordial black hole because as a black hole increases in mass the amount of Hawking radiation decreases exponentially. The other two processes can be carried out on a black hole of any size, but the large the better. Accretion discs around black holes generate large amounts of energy. All the matter swirling around these black holes heats up through friction with other matter. This hot, fast-moving gas emits lots of radiation, ranging from optical light to X-rays which could be collected much in the same way as solar panels collect power from our sun (Zabarenko, 1999). In the future it may be possible to build a sphere around a black hole and have the inside walls coated with this energy absorbing material which will convert it into electrical energy. This power can then be transferred to a collecting station where it can then be used or transferred for use elsewhere. Another advantage to this process is that the black hole can be used as a dumping site for our waste, which then will then actually be the matter that ends up producing energy. This process is known as the rotational vortex method of Roger Penrose (Controlling a Black Hole, 1999).

In general systems terms, although apparently distant, abstruse and speculative, the patterns implicit in the possible control of black holes may offer vital clues to the manner by which smaller social system "black holes" of community, or even of individual, proportion may be integrated as a source of energy. In this light it is useful to meditate on how the AWOL attractor functions in daily life and how its effects can be beneficially managed. This may reframe issues of alternative patterns of consumption as well as any personal understanding of the jungian human "shadow".

The prime characteristic of the interface will be the omnipresence of spin. This will use as its material every nuance of human value and sense of quality. It will be designed to associate quality of life uniquely with the AWOL -- seeking to demean life beyond it by every means. But, thanks to the AWOL separator, the insignificance and unmeaning of such dynamics will be apparent to a much higher degree than has been the case in past centuries. Its strenuous "positive" efforts to pretend the contrary may be increasingly seen as the value analogue to "false positives". Just as Saddam Hussein makes repugnant use of "human shields", the AWOL will continue to make use of the highest human values as "shields" and "Trojan horses" in order to protect its power-and-greed agenda.

It is in this context that the eloquent pleas of George Bush and Tony Blair to "just trust me" must now be assessed in the light of their significant failure to provide evidence of sufficient significance to justify their wreckage of the international community and civil rights -- and their barbaric destruction of the archaeological sites at the birthplace of civilization (caricatured in a BBC documentary as The Raiders of the Lost Art). As noted in an editorial of the Financial Times 45 days after the war's end (Deception on WMD has hurt the case for preventive war. 30 May 2003):

It is time for a reality check: we have been deceived. The US/UK occupation of Iraq has done nothing to prove the case for war. On the contrary, it has undermined, possibly fatally, their casus belli against the Iraqi regime - namely that it was stockpiling chemical and biological, if not nuclear, weapons.... So did the US and UK intelligence services get it wrong, or were their political masters lying? It seems a bit of both.... Paul Wolfowitz, has now tellingly admitted that WMD was chosen as the casus belli "for bureaucratic reasons, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on."

Were Bush and Blair being blackmailed? What are they hiding? In the black hole dynamics they have engendered, they are now unfortunately unable to communicate with any credibility, beyond the AWOL, the basis for their belief and sense of righteousness -- especially in the light of the many hard facts regarding the past complicity of their countries with the Iraqi regime, that they choose so willfully to ignore.

Grief comes to those who think to win this world
By doing something to it.
For the world is a sacred entity, not to be controlled.
Only nothing can be done to it.
Doing anything else is to damage it.
To grasp it is to lose it.
(Tao Te Ching, chapter 29)

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