Crossroads Crises in Perspective (Part 1) – The Bottleneck Ahead

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Crossroads Crises in Perspective (Part 1) – The Bottleneck Ahead

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The view from the Global South: Looking from the outside in. This series of essays is based on readings of reports, articles, and presentations that are in the public domain, with provided references. This collection follows on from the previous one written for individuals with a spiritual interest in Navigating the Greatest Shift in 26,000 Years. They contain futurology based on cycle science and the mystical sciences. Readers are encouraged to approach the text with critical, yet open minds.

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Introduction

Individuals generally tend to defer a deeper understanding of the world’s problems to policy- and decision-makers without seriously looking into the issues themselves. Thus, what might people find when they do their own research? Would it be surprising to say that intrepid researchers would be met with various facts that contradict common knowledge or mainstream thought?

Illusions represent the fictional stories we create about our perceptions of reality, especially when we fail to explore the facts first-hand. The previous chapters underscored the importance of truth-seeking as a navigational tool. This chapter further emphasises truth-seeking as the most effective approach for distinguishing facts from fiction and reality from illusion.

Based on the evidence presented in previous essays suggesting a shift towards a more decentralised structural reality post-2032, this series will continue to juxtapose centralised viewpoints with decentralised ones. The focus will predominantly be on the latter, as decentralised perspectives often receive less consideration and exposure in debates about the world’s crises.

Limits vs. No Limits

In a previous essay (Going Beyond Limits to Growth), it was explained that while the concept of growth having limits applies to material growth, spiritual growth, in contrast, has no limits. By the same token, truth-seeking resulting in enhanced inner illumination is only constrained by our own lack of motivation to practice it.

This series will argue that the concept of there being limits to material and economic growth depends on whether local or regional resources are considered in isolation, or whether they are analysed globally. In the process, some of the well-known crises of our time will be placed in proper perspective by comparing them with less visible crises that are equally or more important, spiritually speaking.

Taking an introspective approach towards negative human behaviour will once again be an important underlying theme because introspection is part and parcel of rites of passage, a process that humanity is undergoing during The Greatest Shift in 26,000 Years. It is only by becoming more cognisant of our own destructive tendencies that we can limit them through enhanced self-awareness.

Visible and Invisible Boundaries

Always thinking globally can lead to overlooking natural boundaries that exist between countries, nations, cultures, and communities. If the entire planet is viewed as one country and all people on it as one nation, then global resources could be viewed as being limited. However, countries, nations, regions, and localities are not equally endowed with natural resources, agricultural capacities, population densities, or consumption habits, nor do they all constitute one nation or one culture.

In isolation, each locality has some local abundances and some local shortages. That is why the peoples of different localities traditionally used to trade among each other for the goods and materials they were short of, in exchange for those that they had in abundance. Through such trade, they were able to negotiate favourable terms, conditions, and prices among each other.

Over time, national markets were superseded by external markets due to the expansion of globalisation. As a result, the capacity for nations to negotiate favourable terms with each other has been diminished, while global markets have largely become the main arbiters of global prices, global regulations, and global terms, irrespective of the geographic origins of goods, services, or materials.

Virtually all natural resources, everywhere, are now commonly thought of as being subservient to global markets – while, from centralised perspectives, the sovereign ownership of resources in remote locations is easily forgotten or ignored. Resources globally are, to an extent, perceived as ‘belonging’ to central markets due to the controls and demands they are able to assert over them.

Central Perspectives Projected

As noted in the previous chapter, centralised analyses are focused on serving the interests of the centres where those analyses are conducted. Faraway places are expected to serve centres, rather than the other way around. Consequently, central perspectives inherently adopt an imperial and colonial outlook. What a centre wants for itself is perceived by it to be what everyone, both near and far, should also want for it.

An example would be the type of wording that is typically used in centrally commissioned think-tank reports [1][2][3]. The vocabulary and terminology used are usually all-encompassing, employing terms like ‘society’, ‘mankind’ or ‘humankind’ (as a whole), ‘the world’, ‘the planet’ or ‘Earth’ (all of it), ‘us’ (the entire global population), and ‘we’ (without exception). Such wording gives the impression that everyone, everywhere, would benefit equally from centrally managed solutions, ensuring that ‘nobody would be left behind’ (a common and popular expression).

Global crises assessment reports tend to speak for the world but inadvertently ignore much of it. A variety of diverse and independent views from across the globe are, for example, rarely consulted or incorporated. When, on occasion, a few marginal voices do feature, they are usually from individuals who still hold globally-oriented views, even though they are based in peripheral locations.

Zones of Centralisation

There has been a persistent trend of countries grouping together to form blocs of nations, despite the failure of major experiments like the U.S.S.R about 30 years ago. Nevertheless, currently, at least three large Zones of Centralisation exist in the world, all situated in the Northern Hemisphere. Prominent and powerful unions of nations can be found in North America, Europe, and Eurasia.

These unions all have their satellites and affiliates abroad that constitute their outposts. For example, the Eurasian bloc (the Russia-China-India alliance) has its B.R.I.C.S. affiliates (Brazil and South Africa) in the Southern Hemisphere, with other countries thinking of joining. Additionally, the power blocs in Europe and North America have several outposts, including some of their former colonies and present-day allies. In certain cases, the outposts maintain affiliations with both sides of the East-West spectrum. South Africa is an example, as it shifted from being affiliated solely with the West before 1994 to being affiliated with both sides since then.

There are also smaller economic or political country groupings elsewhere in the world, but the most powerful unions of nations are, without a doubt, in the Northern Hemisphere – and they very much dominate the world. As a result, the Southern Hemisphere’s country groupings are largely out-of-sight-and-out-of-mind to citizens in the Global North, with the B.R.I.C.S. grouping being an exception.

The Metaphysical View

The trend towards the formation of Centralisation Zones could be viewed as a phenomenon that arrives towards the end of a very long cycle. End-of-cycle energies have centralising and collectivising influences on human consciousness that are stronger than decentralising ones. This is a result of the current 26,000-year Precessional Cycle declining towards its lowest endpoint between the years 2027 and 2032. Although centralisation is nothing new, there is something different about it this time.

Due to the extent that globalisation has expanded along with the phenomenal reach and coverage of present-day global interconnectivity, the world has become a much smaller place, to the extent that all the Zones of Centralisation could now potentially end up being incorporated into one all-encompassing Zone of Centralisation (which is a process seemingly already in progress). In theory, the end-of-cycle energies are sufficiently conducive for such an objective to be an appealing prospect in a number of quarters, but whether that would actually manifest (fully) in practice remains to be seen.

Axial Age Transitions

Jaspers described the axial age as an in-between period between two structured world-views and between two rounds of empire building; it was an age of creativity where ‘man asks radical questions’, and where the ‘unquestioned grasp on life is loosened’; it was an age of uncertainty and contingency: an age in which old certainties had lost their validity and where new ones were still not ready [4] – Bjørn Thomassen (Liminality and the Modern: Living Through the In-Between [2014]).

Mass centralisation could also be understood with regards to the transitional phases between ages within the context of a certain category of anthropology, which describes how structure gives way to non-structure and anti-structure [5] in the middle-phase of Great Transitions [6]. The effect is that structure (from a metaphysical standpoint, which affects human thinking) becomes more fluid due to the aforementioned cycle’s structural energy petering out as it declines towards its end, while new structure has not arrived yet, so boundaries and separation would appear much less obvious or desired.

After The Fall

In the previous chapter, the following was stated:

Centralization is a structural phenomenon, so no political system would be truly immune to it. Widespread centralization could (edit; or would, eventually) tend and trend toward centralized authoritarianism, and that might even happen in modern-day democracies.

Post-2032, after reaching the lowest point of the Precessional Cycle’s energy ‘reset’, the cycle’s energy would start turning upwards again. The desire within people for more structured, differentiated, and uniquely defined identities, cultures, and societies would grow anew, along with the rebounding energies. Those rebounding energies would actually be the new energies of the new cycle, which would hold entirely new aspirations, dreams, and visions for a just-born New World, and this would happen organically.

Marginal Representation

In the meantime, the formation of a number of country bloc unions has diminished the voice of peripheral nations on the international stage, compared to what they would have had otherwise. The most powerful country blocs naturally exert dominance over international institutions, affairs, and relations, leading to an imbalanced and less democratic global order (contrary to popular belief). Even member state nations situated on the edges of the most powerful country blocs find themselves with less influence than the core nations within those unions, as power is typically concentrated in the centres.

Centralised Wealth Preservation

The wealth of empires, both new and old, has historically been acquired from places distant from them through various forms of incorporation and conquest. Naturally, centres of wealth and power would want to retain their riches so obtained. If their economies were to face significant long-term declines, these centres of wealth accumulation might seek to reassert control over their remote resource extraction bases. This could potentially be achieved through innovative yet less conspicuous forms of colonialism, which would be more acceptable to their subjects, as outright colonialism has been out of fashion for quite some time.

Not allowing the accumulated wealth of a centre to flow back to its peripheries, adversities, or even its allies, while always planning for more expansion and extraction, would come naturally to imperial thinking. However, such thinking has caused significant destruction in the world over the ages and continues to do so. As the world is presently shifting into an end-of-cycle acceleration towards even deeper centralisation and collectivisation globally, these trends are gaining momentum as we progress through the final decade of the current Precessional Cycle.

A clearly observable structural feature of Zones of Centralisation is that they are socially collectivising, aiming to incorporate all and sundry into their objectives within their spheres of influence, which they constantly seek to expand. Inclusive solutions with standardised and uniform approaches are thereby offered to all. The standard messaging is that everyone’s needs would be equally served, but the practical outcomes often prioritise the centres providing the solutions that are on offer.

An Empire State of Mind (Revisited Once More)

As a general rule, the more powerful a country is, the broader its sphere of influence and the greater its global reach would be. With greater power, the country’s resource demands would also increase, providing it with more clout to achieve its objectives on the world stage. Naturally, similar mindsets could also be found in the capitals or economic hubs of smaller nations, but their reach would be more limited and focused on regional matters.

Needless to say, just like capital cities are the most well-off within a single country, the most powerful nations on the planet are often among the richest due to their significant resource and wealth extraction capacities. Structurally, rich capitals and nations that function according to imperial models tend to have a perpetual desire to extract more wealth from external zones. This analogy can also be applied to the aforementioned unions of nations that are currently competing for global geopolitical power.

As a result, the chances of the most powerful Centralisation Zones willingly or voluntarily dis-empowering themselves economically and geopolitically (through decentralisation) appears to be quite slim. It could be seen as a somewhat idealistic and naive expectation. That being the case, early decentralisation could, at least in theory, be an alternative route to follow.

The Maya people managed to do that when their civilisation started to fracture, but then they were very familiar with cycles and transitions, and they ordered their societies accordingly. Similarly, fracturing also happened during the decline of the Western Roman Empire, and ultimately, the Empire was never the same again (as discussed extensively in The Cyclic Reordering of Civilisations).

However, as things stand, the current state of realpolitik in the world is that the most powerful Zones of Centralisation are increasingly competing with each other over the remaining resources on the planet, which are primarily (but not only) situated in the Global South [7]. Those resources are perceived by the competing sides in the Global North to be necessary for creating new markets for new growth [8], often under the banner of sustainable development, which implies continued and sustained economic growth.

Faltering growth in the economies of the Global North could thereby be rebooted since long-term economic declines are a real prospect. These economies have been experiencing stagnation for years, with negative interest rates to show for it [9]. This low-growth trend has been more prominent on the Western side of the Northern Hemisphere than on the Eastern side. The relevance of the Roman Empire’s decline during its Crisis of the Third Century lies in its indication of a cyclic phenomenon, which parallels current trends in the global landscape.

Bearing all of the above in mind, it would therefore seem probable that any centrally managed energy transitions that are to take place in the world would likely result in more business as usual, rather than less [8], but perhaps framed in ethical terms under the auspices of popular social concerns. Since most people care for the environment, that route would appear to be the path of least resistance. As many readers would know, these trends and processes are already underway and have been for some time.

The reality of the matter is that it all seems to come down to a final scramble for the world’s natural resources among the world’s Great Powers. This is starting to resemble a winner-takes-all race to the bottom, which could wreak great havoc upon parts of the planet. Although this may sound somewhat hyperbolic, ancient prophecies and those of the Bible state that it is the darkness within humanity that would ultimately lead to the destruction of the world and much of humanity during the End Times (at the end of the Great Cycle).

A point was made in the previous chapter that empires do not change course because they are set on a course, and that course is empire-building. Said differently, an empire state of mind does not change its mind, either structurally or ideologically. Moreover, when two or more empires have had the same long-term aspirations, goals, and ambitions for the world, the stage might well be set for a major end-of-cycle clash of civilisations. The existence of duality and polarity in the world seems to more or less guarantee that.

However, this is also one of the greatest tests for people in power at the end of the cycle. Are they able to avoid destroying much of the world in the process of achieving their long-term ambitions and goals? Another aspect of duality is that its existence would likely make it very difficult to maintain any one singular, all-encompassing global Zone of Centralisation. In that sense, duality naturally has two sides to it. What some may see as negative about duality and polarity, others may see as positive, and vice versa. It all depends on what side of the dividing line one is standing at any particular phase of an age.

The Non-Thinking Public

At the beginning of this essay, it was stated that individuals worldwide generally tend to defer a deeper understanding of the world’s problems to policy- and decision-makers without seriously looking into the issues themselves. This reflects a general lack of public interest within many societies.

In light of that, the discussion now returns to the subject of think-tank reports and global crises analyses, setting the scene for the next chapter. While think-tank analyses often reflect centralised perspectives oriented towards global policy-making, some of them do address crucial concerns about issues that could potentially impact all of humanity.

In that respect, the reports should hold interest to the public because they put forward a range of global solutions for perceived global crises, allowing individuals to independently evaluate them and see if they arrive at the same conclusions. Some of the reports even acknowledge that they may not have all the answers due to limitations in the predictive modelling they use.

Although the public does not seem to have been given ample opportunities over the years to vigorously participate in public debates about The Limits to Growth and similar reports, the point made here is that citizens are not precluded from taking an interest in such matters themselves. Most of these reports are in the public domain while some of them even invite the public to take an interest.

Recently, there has been a growing tendency in certain alternative media circles to dismiss reports outright simply because they are perceived as being authored by individuals with a globalist agenda, catering exclusively to globalist interests. While that may be true, not weighing up their content adds to the fact that the public is not sufficiently informed about the viewpoints and arguments that are most likely (and have been for decades) shaping global policy-making.

A consequence is that a large number of citizens do not have the wherewithal to evaluate whether newly proposed global initiatives would do more harm than good, or vice versa, because they are unfamiliar with the subject matter. Additionally, they are not sufficiently exposed to critical and informative independent analyses to sort the wheat from the chaff in relation to conclusions.

The truth, though, is also that in today’s digitally saturated world, many people would rather be distracted than better informed because that simplifies their lives. Said differently, there are significant numbers of citizens worldwide who wholeheartedly support globalism. The trickle-down effects of globalisation have benefited them sufficiently, leaving them with little reason to question its merits.

Furthermore, the younger generations have very little conceptualisation of anything outside of the globalisation paradigm because it was before their time. It could be argued, though, that the general lack of interest within the public at large (for whatever reasons) has inevitably contributed to a growing democratic deficit in the implementation of global policies everywhere.

That’s not to detract from the fact that top-down global policy-making frameworks and institutions have increasingly excluded the public from active participation over time. This trend has become especially evident since 2020, with uniform global solutions being implemented across the planet, first with regards to new global health related policies, and subsequently extending to new global climate and environmental policies.

Global Solutions for Complex Systems

One of the biggest blind spots in the modelling that was used in the earlier Limits to Growth related reports [1] [2] and their offshoots was the frequent omission of well-defined, contextualised, country-specific facts and realities. From the onset, generalised assumptions were made and one-size-fits-all solutions were proposed for more or less the entire globe. It is only in a more recent follow-up report [3] that country-specific information features more strongly, but still only selectively so.

All similar reports and presentations that are based on The Limits to Growth models (over the years a whole niche ecosystem has developed around its subject matter) feature the idea, or belief, that major planetary crises are too complex to be solved independently by countries, nations, or communities on their own. It is believed that global crises could only be dealt with effectively by processes that would fit into centrally managed institutional frameworks (i.e., frameworks managed by supranational global institutions).

It is also believed that all global crises are interrelated and interconnected. According to that worldview (referred to as systems thinking), the world has evolved into a complex system – a system of systems that has become so complex that its components cannot be decoupled from each other anymore without severe negative consequences. The concern expressed is that a cascading effect of global collapse may ensue, which is why the complex system (which is a euphemism for globalisation, apparently) should rather be kept in place and strengthened.

Linear vs Cyclic Models

The most significant blind spot of the above-mentioned conclusions and beliefs is that they do not factor in or consider the existence of ancient and less ancient cycles that govern the world. Cycles largely determine the past, the present, and the future. There are astronomical cycles, energy cycles, climatic cycles, agricultural cycles, population cycles, social cycles, human cycles, political cycles, economic cycles, and business cycles, to name but a few. The Limits to Growth models take a linear approach coupled with global views on issues that are predominantly cyclic and local, rather than linear and global.

Global Growth Management

The idea of a complex system that should not be decoupled but rather remain centralised would be naturally appealing from globalised and centralised perspectives because the nature of globalisation is such that global market-policies tend to direct local growth toward global growth. The unspoken truth is that revitalised localised growth can only truly flourish when peripheral places and zones are sufficiently decoupled from overarching centralised systems that constrict and redirect such growth.

An example of classic growth redirection would be how resource-rich but underdeveloped countries in the Global South have historically been utilised as resource extraction bases by powerful countries in the Global North. The Global North might not necessarily desire nations in the Global South to achieve self-sufficiency or self-determination to the extent that they would have more control over their own development. Historical interventions from both sides of the Global North’s East-West spectrum into the affairs of countries in Africa, Latin America, and South-East Asia serve as evidence supporting that point.

The Realities of Power Imbalances

Global policy-making for the entire world is mainly directed by institutional frameworks that are led by the country bloc formations of the Global North. In comparison, nations in the Global South have limited influence in international decision-making when it comes to world affairs. Even their own affairs are strongly influenced from abroad through initiatives that are driven by the powerful northern blocs. Such is the reality of long-standing power imbalances with regards to North–South hemispheric relations.

In recent years, there has been much discussion about a new multi-polar world that would potentially grant nations in the Global South more voice and influence. However, considering the usual structural realities of core nations centrally dominating country blocs, it is unlikely that such a shift would fully materialise. Peripheral nations are usually brought into power blocs more for what they can offer and provide materially and strategically (for natural resources and geopolitical positioning), rather than for the additional influence they could assert on the world stage.

Environmental Destruction Zones

Some of the wealthiest nations in the Northern Hemisphere have accumulated substantial debt, even as their citizens’ quality of life remains significantly higher than those of many citizens in the nations of the Global South. The peoples of the Global South are therefore much more familiar with having lower living standards, making them by and large more resilient.

Servicing extreme debt while maintaining a superior quality of life, especially during a time when key resources in the world are dwindling, would have a significant impact on wealthy centres in the Global North. This is due to their higher material resource demands, which are largely sourced externally from peripheral extraction zones, as very little mining is done in Europe, for example.

Once again, one can see why there would be emphasis placed on preserving an integrated global system from the perspectives of Northern Hemisphere analyses. By maintaining a complex system, northern centres could thereby remain buoyant, notwithstanding a global resource downturn and massive debt bubbles that have become difficult to service.

When listening to some of the proposed solutions for this growing crisis, it would appear that some areas of the world, especially in the Global South, are set to become what would constitute environmental destruction zones (but stronger terminology is used, please see resources [7][10][11][12][13][14]).

What it seems to boil down to is that the major economies of the Global North would be bolstered and boosted through a new industrial economy that would require enormous amounts of mineral resources [7][8][15] that are primarily (but not only) found in the Global South [7]. Consequently, the anticipated impacts on the environment are expected to be severe, explaining why language that refers to environmental destruction zones is used.

The Bottleneck Ahead

The crux of the matter is that both sides of the East-West spectrum in the Global North are on board [16][17] with a proposed New Industrial Revolution [18] that will require new mining to take place in many places where mining wasn’t previously done [15]. A new scramble for resources among the major powers is underway, and it appears that the Global South will once again have to bear the brunt of it.

The bottleneck ahead is a transition from an old industrial system to a new one – a transition that may or may not be successful due to feasibility and viability issues related to the limitations inherent in the proposed technologies [19]. These issues constitute some of the biggest blind spots concerning the energy transition (more about that in the next chapter).

The largest blind spot of all, though, is that the proposed solution of moving into a new technology-based industrial revolution to rejuvenate global economic growth, while also attempting to preserve the environment at the same time, would in practice wreak much more havoc on the environment than the previous industrial revolutions ever did, once it is fully up and running.

The Cyclic View

The probable consequence of this path would be that history would once again exhibit similarities, if not repetitions. It is said that during the decline of the Roman Empire, its cities increasingly drew upon the energies (the labour), production (output), and produce (resources) of the countryside [20].

The Roman Empire was in a major declining phase, sinking deeper into debt. Consequently, Roman cities and armies became major burdens upon the rural areas as they propped themselves up by increasingly drawing on those external areas more than before. In the process, the rural areas became even more impoverished. It helped the cities stay afloat for a time longer while their bread and circuses increased, but reality finally came knocking on city doors as well. Many city dwellers had to eventually depart from the cities to make a living, leading to a reverse migration to impoverished areas.

This analogy with regards to today’s context should hopefully be clear enough. Although today’s global empire, driven by globalism and globalisation, is very different from the former Roman one, cycles do have a tendency to return. What happened on a smaller scale in the past could occur on a larger scale in the future as the macrocosm often reflects the microcosm [21] and vice versa.

By J.J. Montagnier

6 August 2023

J.J. Montagnier is an independent researcher and writer. He is presently based in the Global South, at a mid-point between West and East. The views and opinions are those of the writer. A creative license has been applied to make some concepts more accessible. This content is made available for free as a public service and is not intended for commercial use. References to and excerpts from this page may be used with direction (a link) back to the original content.

Copyright © All Rights Reserved. GypsyCafe.org

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