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The MoA Week In Review – (Not Ukraine) OT 2023-203
Last week's post on Moon of Alabama:
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Other issues:
Trans Canada:
Syria:
Use as open (not Ukraine related) thread …
PS. My latest, forgot to put in the link in comment above:
https://tinyurl.com/22pgkyl5
Article 72 – New World: Values over Ideology
Ongoing Issues of Concern in the New Multipolar World Order
Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 28 2023 19:23 utc | 86
Scorpion, forgive me for being tardy — this is your second essay, which I’ve only just now read, so I’m not yet at the third one. Yesterday I could only semi-digest karlof1’s first of two Zhang Wei Wei explanations of Chinese political structure, (linked at | Aug 29 2023 0:10 utc | 96 on the first page). It was extremely interesting, with some of it being remembered from previous explanations, but more carefully and understandably expanded upon. I highly recommend it. I have not yet looked at his second post on the same subject.
At any rate I have just a couple of observations. It was helpful that you restated Xi’s list of ‘values’. (I’m not being pejorative, just it is an important concept.)
Your essay asks about a New World Order. I have to say, I still do not see a ‘New World Order’ being suggested in Xi’s listing – as you say, it is somewhat amorphous, but to my way of thinking that is deliberate on Xi’s part.
The reason for this, it seems to me can be found in the karlof1 link. After describing the Chinese system, Wang goes on to talk about Belt and Road, which is where multipolarity comes in. As he describes it, the link between those nations participating is economic only, not political. It reminded me a bit of the insistence by Prof. Hudson and others that a ‘new’ currency would only be devised to be used between participating nations, not in each nations local currency. In the same way, each nation has the freedom to devise its own political system. It can learn from what China has done, but it will not be required to do the same.
This may be what you are objecting to as being merely materialistic, so in your mind that has a dark side to it? But one of the values being freedom would seem to make that an essential, every country having its own history and physical make up, small or large. And I would say this is also what Russia did in forming its own Constitution — learning from both the US and from China, plenty of room for comparison, even improvement, but democracy with Russian characteristics for sure.
So, again, there is no unifying system of spiritual values being put forward in these speeches as far as I can see. Even the description of China’s forms of democracy seem totally China-oriented, as having all the practical ways of producing democratic, people-centered decision making very different from those (ideally) practised in the US,because China is a vastly differeent country. They are being described not so that they ought to be copied by others, but in order to show how a different nation from the US is successful in achieving that democracy which takes the people’s needs and characteristics into account.
It’s not one size fits all. And the best people to formulate their own pattern of values are the nations themselves – each must do it for themselves in their own way. And that’s, to me, an exciting premise. I can see, for instance, that my native country, New Zealand, could do with a revision of what has been its system since Waitangi days — the people might ask for it even, with other nations setting the example (and please, no “-” between Australia and New Zealand — they are separate countries with 1200 miles of ocean between them!)
I’m sure I’ll enjoy your third essay after my brain takes a bit of a rest — tomorrow! Thanks very much – and you know, what I loved most in your recent writings was how Mexican villages have each their own identity in cuisine – taco flavors, speech mannerisms, even habits. May it continue so!
Posted by: juliania | Aug 29 2023 22:54 utc | 113
Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | Aug 30 2023 4:46 utc | 126
Contrasting two different approaches:
Philosophy:
For the left hemisphere, value is something we invent; which is separate from and, as it were, painted onto the world; and whose function is utility. For the right hemisphere, on the other hand, value is something intrinsic to the cosmos; which is disclosed and responded to in a precognitive take on the Gestalt; and is not, other than incidentally, in service of anything else. This leads naturally to thoughts about the calculus of utility which operates in a certain kind of ethics. So let us turn, now, to what it means to be good.
[McGilchrest, The Matter with Things Chapter 26 Value]
What exactly is “the common good”, and why has it come to have such a critical place in current discussions of problems in our society? The common good is a notion that originated over two thousand years ago in the writings of Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero. More recently, the ethicist John Rawls defined the common good as “certain general conditions that are…equally to everyone’s advantage”. The Catholic religious tradition, which has a long history of struggling to define and promote the common good, defines it as “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment.”
The common good, then, consists primarily of having the social systems, institutions, and environments on which we all depend work in a manner that benefits all people. Examples of particular common goods or parts of the common good include an accessible and affordable public health care system, an effective system of public safety and security, peace among the nations of the world, a just legal and political system, an unpolluted natural environment, and a flourishing economic system. Because such systems, institutions, and environments have such a powerful impact on the well-being of members of a society, it is no surprise that virtually every social problem in one way or another is linked to how well these systems and institutions are functioning. https://www.scu.edu/ethics/ethics-resources/ethical-decision-making/the-common-good/
(The latter quote is via the Markkula Center housed in a Jesuit facility but presumably aligned with all your other links which were openly marxist/neomarxist via Tricontinental.)
Compare the McGilchrist statement about left brain emphasis on goodness prioritizing utility versus the Markkula article definitions of the common good, all of which are essentially utilitarian. Note also the difference between the more utilitarian ‘to everyone’s advantage’ and the Catholic’s ‘access to their own fulfillment’ – a different emphasis, as one would expect.
It’s not that the utilitarian approach is necessarily wrong or bad (especially when considering government functions), but the utilitarian mode (driven as it is by left brain dominant mindset) almost deliberately, because aping the mindset of the’objective’ Scientific Method, eliminates the softer, ‘felt’ aspects of goodness and morality. How we experience things (and people, society etc.) is a function of how we value them, a factor that exists before evaluation or subsequent manipulation. Or put more lyrically: we can only truly know that which we truly love. (Perhaps why most modern art, furniture, clothing etc. is so much less imaginative or beautiful than earlier periods? Otzi the Iceman was dressed better than most of us today in our Tshirts and blue jeans!)
Furthermore, this type of valuing is active, not passive, whereas the utilitarian approach objectifies, and thus externalizes. Which lends itself to totalitarianism as reality is regarded as something outside and separate for which one has no responsibility or agency. (Which is why I personally don’t favor ideologically crafted -isms, since they always end up in the same totalitarian dead end despite desiring the opposite.)
Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 30 2023 13:23 utc | 132
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