Tag: eonic model

The simple chronological dynamic of world history in one paragraph

Our eonic model can itself become somewhat elusive, but the basic idea is very simple and without theory: here is a world history model in a nutshell. Throw out Toynbee, Spengler, Marx, et al, and their idiotic theories and consider the simple chronology below. It is all you need and the result doesn’t require the ‘eonic model’ which can be considered later. You can speak thus (empirically) of the ‘evolution’ of civilization, as a category, but there is no simple theory for this. But who cares, you can with study ‘see’ what is going on, both micro and macro, sort of.

Our discussion of ‘decoding world history’ makes a distinction of ‘theory’ in the sense of physics and a ‘model’ which, for us, is not a theory, but an empirical construct like a chronological outline or descriptive set of chapters in a book. Marx struggled for years to produce a theory of history but he always failed and drove himself to distraction. A close look shows and incomplete project he could never finish, and the example of Capital makes clear. The problem was his theory of stages of production in a scheme of epochs, …feudalism, capitalism, communism…The wrong approach is a puzzle in itself, but then Marx had never heard of Sumer and lived just at the dawn of modern archaeological revolutions. Let’s cut to the chase and pull a rabbit from a hat with a genuine progression of historical epochs:
We see civilization emerging from the Paleolithic into the Neolithic and then a jump to what is called ‘higher civilization’, ’higher’ justified or not. A set of two and a half epochs of some kind thence take up the whole of world history into our time with:

higher civilization in Sumer, Egypt, ca. 3000 BCE
classical antiquity with parallel exemplars ca. 600 BCE
the modern era in a rapid emergence around 18oo

That’s it. We will start over and try to expand on this, but the point is we have a useful periodization of world history, of the Neolithic then two long eras, then the start of a third, and that is our own present. Note we suspect this kind of chronology should include the Neolithic, but so far our data is a bit weak.

The eonic model, the ‘divide’ and the spectacular correlations of Israelitism, Jainism, Buddhism – The Gurdjieff Con

Source: The eonic model, the ‘divide’ and the spectacular correlations of Israelitism, Jainism, Buddhism – The Gurdjieff Con

The near impossibility of communicating the eonic effect is a depressing state of affairs. But in an academic milieu that has failed after almost a century to see the elementary problem with Darwinism one can hardly expect any attention to the reality of the eonic data. Scholars and Marxists are totally blinded by Darwinism and cannot even begin to look at world history or any discussion of its real dynamic. What a pity. This material should have been a college course by now, but sadly I will be dead soon with not chance to develop a study discipline. But maybe something can be managed.

I have tried to extend the discussion of the eonic model and the left by dealing with the case of proximate antiquity in the spectacular correlation with the divide of Jainism, Buddhism and Israelitism (not the same as Judaism, and originally something different from degenerated monotheism).

The reason is to get some inkling before considering the modern case where we see the parallel clustering ca. 1800 of modern capitalism, the Industrial Revolution, the late enlightenment, the Romantic movement, abolition, feminism, etc,… and socialism, with Marx/Engels appearing just after the divide period. The modern transition shows effects in art, philosophy, religions, economics, music, literature to a degree that is almost beyond belief in its richness. To reduce all to economic categories was a sad mistake.
Marxists (and others) would do well to consider the non-random character of their history and its backdrop. Let me note the difference of early and later Marx and the appearance of ponderous theory that cannot do justice to the situation as it emerged in first the modern transition, and then the nineteenth century. Marx’s basic gesture however is highly significant and gives an amplification to the seminal socialist/communist birth of ideas from the early modern through the French Revolution. A prophet indeed, but one who fizzled after 1848 (what else could he do). But historical materialism was never really needed for this and has confused the issue of socialism completely. World history is far more structured and abstract in a dynamic of creative evolution of some kind and cannot be reduced to economic categories. Scientism can’t allow history the distinction of facts and values, a disastrous self-inflicted wound.
I fear however that Marxists are frozen forever in the format given by Marx and Engels. Best to start over and consider a quite different dynamic here.
Cf. Decoding World History, WHEE, and Last and First Men, prior to the Last Revolution. These are very simple models based on empirical data, not theory, although the descriptive evaluation of the visible dynamic seems like theory, but it is far from that.

From The Last Revolution Modernity, the Modern Transition, the Divide We might reiterate our opening statement about system collapse by putting it in the context of the ‘eonic effect’: Although we will leave the model of the eonic effect in the background, the basic periodization of that dynamic is easy and suggests a perspective to deal with system collapse: we should distinguish the ‘eonic sequence of transitions’, the modern transition, its divide, and the modern period as such that follows. The modern transition is densely packed with eonic innovations which are only barely realized and too often damped out by the high tide of capitalism. The system thus has immense reserve potential beyond the superficial realizations of the ‘modern period’. this gobbledegook terminology is obscure at first, but always ‘mere periodization’ followed by careful empirical study until we suddenly see what the larger system is doing and get a feel for the historical tides in action. The modern period suggests dozens of recovery vehicles, and this kind of issue emerged early in the wake of the first socialists who sensed immediately that a new modernity was possible. The later confusions and sophistries of postmodernism can nonetheless remind us that while ‘modernity’ has no ‘post’ as an interval of 2400 years, it can be critiqued as to its realizations in place and the system dynamic of the eonic effect allows revolutionary/reformist restarts. We have critiqued Marx, but his instincts were right: he sensed a ‘discrete/continuous’ dynamic, the reason for his system of discrete epochs in the continuous stream of history. But the process transcends the economic and blends facts and values in a dynamic of reason, ethics, and aesthetics. Note the spectacular moment of the modern divide ca. 1800 and the clustering of massive innovations.

Source: The eonic model, the ‘divide’ and the spectacular correlations of Israelitism, Jainism, Buddhism – The Gurdjieff Con

Falsifying historical materialism

One has to wonder, why did Marx base his work on this idea. It is abstruse, hard to reify and probably wrong. The specific implication that in fact productive forces drive history is demonstrably wrong. And ‘materialism’ is hardly defined in economic terms. There are many forms of materialism, even religious versions, such as the classic Samkhya. Materialism is a bit shaky now in the era of quantum sciences, viz. quantum field theory.
We have looked at the eonic effect: it hardly proves that ideas drive history but it does show that ideas are crucial in the development of history. The eonic model shows the way religions, art, politics are driven by maacro forces of an evolutionary nature, although it is very hard to fully develop the argument because the mechanisms of evolution are not visible to the naked eye. Marxists have devoted endless energy to trying to vindicate Marx, in vain. They would do better to simply start over and stop blocking socialist evolution with their obsessive errors. The eonic model falsifies historical materialism, and it is equally different on ‘evolution’ from Darwinism
The endless and dreary repetition over and over again of Marx’s confusions has crippled the left.

Marx’s theory is “materialist” in a very specific sense. Marx didn’t just reject the notion that the ideas in people’s heads are the primary driver of history. He didn’t even simply emphasize that humans are driven by material needs. He thought the capacity of any given society to meet those needs (its “forces of production”) and the way it organized itself to do so (its “relations of production”) were the primary factors that explained why and how different forms of society rose, fell, and replaced each other in different historical epochs.

from yesterday:

futile efforts to revive the dead horse of Marxism…//If You Want to Understand Marxism, Read G. A. Cohen
Bringing in Cohen is a clever strategy, in vain, I fear. I have repeatedly suggested a look at The Last Revolution to Jacobin, to no avail. I have been canceled and won’t get a hearing. Lots of other places to get such a hearing. Clearly however, as I suspect, the ranks of Marxism are becoming aware of my critique. But does Jacobin seriously think that Cohen, analytical Marxism and/or the Western Marxists, despite impressive and intelligent work can really salvage Marxism as a theory of history? We are running out of time, we need a minimal package to construct socialism and postcapitalism. Surprisingly Marx eliminated himself and his many followers from being able to do that. Continue reading “Falsifying historical materialism” →

 Marxism and the crisis of the left

The post on Zinn and the Socialist Revolution group has an update as below and/or in the post itself. Marxist theory is a tremendous obstacle to the path to socialism and it is highly probable that the public will never agree to any such Marxist project, revolutionary or reformist. A far simpler approach is needed available. Continue reading ” Marxism and the crisis of the left” →

Edward Said’s Orientalism and Its Afterlives

It is important to see the implications of Said’s perspective despite its flaws and it might be of interest to consider the issue in terms of the ‘eonic model’ and the way it points to the ‘mechanism’ of the evolution of civilizations: transition and oikoumene/diffusion. The sudden advance of given regions must generate a diffusion field to make real the globalization of advances. But this creates a problem if the distinction of ‘system action’ and ‘free agency’ is left to do all this in ‘best of luck’ fashion. Clearly, the directionality of the macro process will suddenly wane and leave the realization to free agents who are to a high probability at best imperial and at worst pirates. One after another we see the transition regions devolve in their wake to imperialism, colonialism and economic domination via capitalism. The eonic sequence tacitly projects a high ethical standard but provides no action to realize or enforce that. The result is that the evolution of civilization is mostly a botch as everything falls into the hands of psychopaths. After all we can see the problem already in the case of the (originally) underdog Israelites in relation to dominant era of Egypt, etc… And the expansion of Islam was no picnic in the outcome of jihad via plunder. In almost every case the advances in evolutionary civilization have devolved into dangerous forms of mayhem and domination. Athenian democracy disappears and the era of Alexander appears.
It is essential to consider Said’s perspective in order to at least hope to refine ‘modernism’ and its diffusion fields. The modern transition, orientalism or not, has in two centuries transformed the planet with a first: globally integrating cultures in the context of ‘modernity’, a term requiring a vast expansion. By and large, the result has been an enthusiastic embrace of the elements of the modern diffusion field globally even as the imperial aspect falls away sooner or later: note that each phase of the modern transition has had the same problem of imperialism: Germany, Holland, England, France and Spain: in each case the imperialist factions and their colonialism has fallen away. The case of the US is especially ambiguous: it was never part of the modern transition until the very end ca. 1800 when it suddenly became the zone for a democratic experiment which sadly emerged in a field of utter ruffians who have wrecked the whole thing with indigenous genocide and in the last generation the utter mayhem inflicted on the Middle East as apparently intentional state destruction and genocide of Islamic nations egged on by the zionist mafia. The issues of Orientalism seem if anything a quaint understatement of the dreadful reality. And now, finally, in this generation, we see the beginning of the waning of the US version of ‘colonialism’, never quite that, rather a capitalist/imperialist/fascist-genocidal menace. We will soon see the Chinese version of Occidentalism, no doubt, along with the retarded pre-modern Russian zone of …enough. Complete the sentence if you must. But for Americans it is a sad commentary that the very generation of Said’s work and influence has seen an horrific of militarism for profit, and capitalist extremes in the deliberate mayhem inflicted on the Middle East.

Edward Said’s Orientalism instilled an anti-imperial sensibility into an entire generation of Western scholars. But even while it castigated the imperial project, its actual analysis didn’t give us the intellectual resources to overturn it.

Source: Edward Said’s Orientalism and Its Afterlives

What Is History? The eonic model changes our views of history completely

Carr’s old chestnut classic can loan us its title for a quick redirection to the eonic effect, and its own question, what is history? In fact, we can examine the eonic effect and still not fully answer. But contemporary culture is so stuck on Darwinism that it is almost hopeless to break through the tenacity of social brainwashing. Even marxists are frozen and they are supposed to be experts in theory and ideology.
https://www.ukessays.com/essays/philosophy/edward-hallet-carrs-arguments-in-what-is-history-philosophy-essay.php
I would be happy for a citation and critique as above at the link, but my take on world history is stuck/censored by the current cancel culture of the professoriat, so-called, a gang of idiots non-pareil that has allowed Darwinism to dominate the universities for over a century of muddle. Warning then: professors are assembly line university idiots/zombies programmed to uphold social darwinism. Thanks, guys. (the attempt at postmodern critique is interesting enough, but postmodern periodization is an illusion, even if its critiques might be relevant enough.)

The eonic model suffers some of the criticism laid out for Carr. Continue reading “What Is History? The eonic model changes our views of history completely” →

 A warning to take the eonic effect into account…

Scholars simply won’t listen to an outsider, and if Darwinism is challenged they will take ‘not listening’ to a whole new level. But for me it is sad, and almost unnerving to see the life work of so many scholars base itself on false premises. The evolution of man as indicated in the eonic model forces the realization that ‘evolution’ in the emergence of man coordinates a huge spectrum, including art, and with the rise of civilization we see in a snapshot the way that ‘evolution’ in a new but related sense drives the emergence of civilization. To discuss the evolution of ‘virtue’ and morality unaware of the eonic models discussion of the emergence of religion in the Axial interval, viz. Israelitism, and Buddhism, is to get mostly everything wrong. But much of the research cited remains of great interest, and hopefully a new edition of DCDX can cite some of the new thinking.

The eonic model can clarify this debate but at the same one has to go through a large amount of new research on the issues of human evolution, even given the inability of established scholars to ge…

Source: ‘The Dawn of Everything’ gets human history wrong | Climate & Capitalism – 1848+: The End(s) of History