New World Order: An Undeniable Development Larger Than Conspiracy
In the previous part of the New World Order mini series, we closed off with the realization that the systems that power us are real in their own right, organized and incorporated into sentient, self-determining agencies that affect out lives as much as we affect them.
Our examination of the new world order has been brief but uncompromising. We have entertained ideas that can safely be regarded larger than life. Our peek into the macroscopic has covered pretty much the bulk of our next-level organizations, laying out a consciousness map for us to consider as we progress and evolve into an ever more sophisticated, elaborate mode of living.
It is now time to bring the series to a close. Let us round things up with a look at the way in which these organs, bodies and beasts become self-fulfilling in due course, taking over the proceedings, serving their own existence more loyally than they serve their own creators. In other words, let us understand how we have arrived at the possibility that man is rapidly becoming “the architect of his own demise” (as first stated in the movie The Animatrix).
Still shot from The Animatrix. Image by Ed Pichler on flickr.com
The Animatrix speaks of the creation of artificial intelligence (AI), a technological singularity that rises against humanity and takes over physically, in the form of a robotic, cybernetic paradigm. It is a sci-fi scenario which many may find ridiculous, others not so ridiculous. Whatever the case, humanity’s design of its own displacement is a premise that holds water across the board. Not limited to technology but inherent in all organized systems that transcend individual existence, it is happening as we speak.
The process is sequential and takes place gradually, step by step. First the systems in question attend to the interests of their power-brokers, helping them rise the ladder. Then they serve a few elite individuals, who perch high up, commanding their operation. Then they circumvent everyone, chiefs and despots included, overtaking human agency and breaking into other parameters, serving the existence of the organization as such, to which everyone is now subject.
It happens all over the earth, at all times, across time. The market tickers and indices are perpetually up and running, turning human life into a means to a market end. Religion does the same, not in the name of the economy but for the sake of order and salvation. Nationalism does the same in the name of whatever fascist ideal people come up with. Communism does the same in the name of equality and brotherhood. Republicanism does the same in the name of an efficient and just society. Democracy does the same in the name of freedom and fair representation. Crony capitalism does the same in the name of free enterprise. Tradition does the same in the name of old customs and cherished principles. All systems do it, especially those with indices and trackers, tickers and measuring tools: they assume power, consolidate their presence, assume a definite role and engage people in their workings, gradually and inexorably, self-fulfilling their way into existence, powered by key players in key positions doing their bidding for them. Just like cells once did, creating multi-cellular organisms operating on dimensions integrated, yet, at the same time, far-removed from the cellular level.
It is an unnerving twist in the plot that shows how far the evolutionary spiral reaches, reminding us that our time here, as humans, is limited. It has to be. We will at some point evolve beyond our current scope, even if that means being incorporated into a greater body of life. It is either that or a dead-end path that will guarantee us a place in the pantheon of evolutionary failures, right next to the neanderthals.
It also places two highly organized and contradictory belief systems on the same coin, albeit on different sides. Globalization and ecology, these ideologically great adversaries, suddenly appear to have more in common than we think, pointing in tandem to the presence of super-organisms: one to the earth and mother nature, the other to the socio-econo-techno-matrix.
Organisms proper and valid in themselves, the earth and our matrix are complex, interactive, and growing out of something smaller, integrated at the cellular level and becoming more established in both theory and practice. Through them individual units assemble and integrate to create a separate organization, consolidating life on a grander scale.
Old and new fused together. Photo by darquati on flickr.com
To get a feel of how this happens and what it means, how this could actually be and why it makes sense on more levels than one, scratch your hands. Go on, scratch them. Or pinch yourself. Or have your daily antioxidant with a glass of water.
There you go. You have just taken out a bunch of your body’s cells, killing and incapacitating them with your fingernails. And your pinch has made T-cells respond, rushing to the rescue, ready to battle the source of the pain and remove any damaged or dead tissue from your body. And your body is using the antioxidants you have ingested to destroy any rogue cells or substances inside you that may be trying to block or harm the overall function of your systems. You are in fact, as we speak, in your totality, acting just like a corporation does, looking after your own interests at the expense of the units that compile you. You are acting like a layered organization. You are operating like a body conscious of itself in its own right, both bound by and reaching beyond the scope of your constituent cells.
More on this issue in due course.
Epilogue:
The series ends here, but the discussion has only just begun. There are many threads to follow in coming articles. Call them sequels, prequels, and spinoffs that will occupy public and private discourse for a long time to come.
One popular theme, for example, is about how markets are tools for democracy, tending to the need of the consumer. Whatever people need, the markets provide. Demand guides supply.
We can also talk about how markets are deeply anti-democratic. Like business, they require not ideological premises that might work but management structures that do work. They respond to pragmatism, not theories, influencing what is sought after. Supply guides demand.
We can talk about the hijacking of democracy by special interests; about how nations have become the muscle and jaw of transnational organisms.
We can talk about the assimilation of democracy not by sinister special interests and the dubious characters behind them, but by the entire market system. Crooked interests aside, the point here is bigger than your average thug in a suit giving business a bad name. This is about the notion that we may be living in an age of greater Marketism, where individual life comes second, by default, care of the system’s setup; where politicians and citizens alike are asked, expected and enforced to serve the markets by none other than market forces and their self-fulfilling, pervading powers.
We can talk about how democracy may have reached the end of its cycle, at least in the West, apparently no longer able to promote freedom, representation, innovation or efficiency. Corroded, broken, or mismanaged, it may be in dire need of an overhaul, if not temporary suspension. Where this leads us is a matter for further debate, of course. We have plenty of historical accounts at our disposal to identify what happens when democracy is suspended in the name of order – just as we have plenty of accounts on what happens when a fledgling and bungling democracy is sustained against all wisdom. Both processes lead to painful transition periods that may result in either regeneration or complete collapse – and later regeneration, of course. (There is a silver lining in all this after all, and that is that even in the wake of total catastrophe, something inevitably grows out of it – something fresher, stronger, and fitter.)
We can talk about the economic guillotine that is razing person after person when they prove incapable of sustaining market-friendly environments.
We can talk about the ebbs and flows of revolution that hit left and right in their effort to dislodge the systems from the stalemates they are in, vying for shifts in paradigms.
Photo by jasmine<3 on flickr.com
We can talk about the birth of a technological singularity made up of robots and programs.
We can talk about the birth of a technological singularity made up of a vast silicon network that is wrapping itself tight around the earth, with the aid of human atoms, agonists and connectors.
We can talk about the battle between nature and technology.
We can talk about the integration of nature and technology.
We can talk about the earth as an organism resisting a cancer of metal, plastic and silicon growth.
We can talk about the earth as an organism developing organs that will enable it to make contact with other organisms in the universe.
We can talk about the birth of a whole new system of consciousness, an existence overarching human agency in the same way a human transcends cell agency. We can call this system the Cytologicon, a framework which defines the human condition in the wake of super-sophisticated and grand organization, helping us anticipate the future on the basis of knowledge, self-awareness and fact.
In other words, the implications are endless and the future uncertain. Which is exactly what a self-respecting, quantum-savvy, intelligent and conscious species expects from life: the inability to predict the future with certainty; the capacity to affect the future via its expectations, observations and deeds; and the opportunity to grow and get to know the world rather than sit tight in the womb and never come out. Non-birth is not an option and out of the question. It is time to break out of our comfy, cozy and safe spa-chamber and face the wondrous world that awaits us with delight. We may surprise ourselves and find meaning in the phrase ‘larger than life’ after all, proving to ourselves that there are truly no limits to our potential. It will not be an easy ride for sure, but it will certainly be fascinating, extraordinary, creative, and definitely on the right trail, far away from the neanderthal dais and its display of fossilized items. We may yet prove not the architects of our demise but the creators and stewards of a body that will take us places and expand our horizon. Just as DNA once did, when it came together and made up cells that made up organs that made up organisms that took DNA out of the sea and into a world of wonder.
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