By Pepe Escobar – posted with permission and first posted at Asia Times
The Triumph of Death, fresco by an unknown artist, housed in a palazzo in Palermo. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
I have a new book out, Raging Twenties: Great Power Politics Meets Techno-Feudalism. For those who don’t use Amazon, here is a mini-guide on how to order and buy the book.
The journey of a book finding its readers is always an idiosyncratic, mysterious and fascinating process. To set the scene, permit me a short presentation drawn from the book’s introduction.
The Raging Twenties started with a murder: a missile strike on General Soleimani at Baghdad airport on January 3. Almost simultaneously, that geopolitical lethality was amplified when a virus trained its microscopic missiles on all of humankind.
Ever since, it’s been as if time had stood still – or imploded. We cannot even begin to imagine the consequences of the anthropological rupture caused by SARS-CoV-2.
Throughout the process, language has been metastasizing, yielding a whole new basket of concepts. Circuit breaker. Biosecurity. Negative feedback loops. State of exception. Necropolitics. New brutalism. Hybrid neofascism. New viral paradigm.
This new terminology collates to the lineaments of a new regime, actually a hybrid mode of production: turbo-capitalism re-engineered as rentier capitalism 2.0, where Silicon Valley behemoths take the place of estates, and also of the state. That is the “techno-feudal” option, as defined by economist Cedric Durand.
Squeezed and intoxicated by information performing the role of a dominatrix, we have been presented with a new map of Dystopia – packaged as a “new normal” featuring cognitive dissonance, a bio-security paradigm, the inevitability of virtual work, social distancing as a political program, info-surveillance and triumphant trans-humanism.
A sanitary shock was superimposed over the ongoing economic shock – where financialization always takes precedence over the real economy.
But then the glimpse of a rosy future was offered towards more “inclusive “capitalism, in the form of a Great Reset, designed by a tiny plutocratic oligarchy duly self-appointed as Saviors.
All of these themes evolve along the 25 small chapters of this book, interacting with the larger geopolitical chessboard.
SARS-CoV-2 accelerated what was already a swing of the power center of the world toward Asia.
Since World War II, a great deal of the planet has lived as cogs of a tributary system, with the hegemon constantly transferring wealth and influence to itself – via what analyst Ray McGovern describes as the SS (security state) enforcing the will of the MICIMATT (Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank) complex.
This world-system is irretrievably fading out – especially due to the interpolations of the Russia-China strategic partnership. And that’s the other overarching theme of this book.
As a proposal to escape our excess hyper-reality show, this book does not offer recipes, but trails: configurations where there’s no master plan, but multiple entryways and multiple possibilities.
These trails are networked to the narrative of a possible, emerging new configuration, in the anchoring essay titled Eurasia, The Hegemon and the Three Sovereigns.
In a running dialogue, you will have Michel Foucault talking to Lao Tzu, Marcus Aurelius talking to Vladimir Putin, philosophy talking to geoeconomics – all the while attempting to defuse the toxic interaction of the New Great Depression and variations of Cold War 2.0.
With the exception of the anchoring essay, this is a series of columns, arranged chronologically, originally published here by Asia Times and also by Consortium News/Washington D.C., and Strategic Culture/Moscow, widely republished and translated across the Global South.
They come from a global nomad. Since the mid 1990s I have lived and worked between (mostly) East and West. With the exception of the first two months of 2020, I spent the bulk of the Raging Twenties in Asia, in Buddhist land.
So you will feel that the scent of these words is inescapably Buddhist, but in many aspects even more Daoist and Confucianist. In Asia we learn that the Dao transcends everything as it provides serenity. There’s much we can learn from Daoist humanism, no metaphysics necessary.
The year 2021 may be even fiercer than 2020. Yet nothing condemns us to be lost in a wilderness of mirrors while, as Pound writes:
a tawdry cheapness / shall reign throughout our days.
The hidden “secret” of this book may be actually a yearning – that we’re able to muster our inner strength and choose a Daoist trail to ride the whale.
Pepe Escobar’s new book is Raging Twenties: Great Power Politics Meets Techno-Feudalism. Follow him on Telegram.
The innate potential and highest experience (“finding”) of all human beings is Vision – an area I think all cultures and peoples of our time are woefully lacking expecially compared to their past and histories. And while it is true there is a techo-digital world of immense influence on people, it is “tawdry and cheap and nothing” in comparison to the occurrence of vision, even if it were a trace. For the future, you should know that a nightmare is quite possibly coming to the new world and western Europe or it is already there. There will be no redemption from such but Russia, China and the rest of the Classical world may find a shared vision. Pepe, You should mention or at least nod to the Islamic Republic and Revolution – its concious, purposeful and salutary influence on the nations. – Dao de Vision.
Into every dream, a tangled nightmare is silently weaved.
And once the dream is dead, all that is left is the nightmare.
Everything important in our world is not solely due to Russia or China. Technology, the internet, has a say in GEO-Politics through its peculiar and global influence on people. That said, and based on insights on this influence, I predict a gigantic breakup in the trans-Atlantic alliance irrespective of what Russia, China or Iran do. I am curious to know what Europe would do then. Extend a hand to China? Africa? Russia….? What?
Someone did say that in the end Europe would just be a western extension of Asia.
Simply absorbed into a greater environment and actually, (my words), unable to extend a hand anywhere being not only the weaker competitor, but industrially older than its new counter parts of Russia, china and Iran.
It was said that the currency was weak but i’m not sure how to interpret that, like heads were going to roll or something?
The banking cabal that own the Federal Reserve and the European Central bank are one and the same, and it is not American nor European.
In their hearts the judeo-christian alliance detest Islam and the Muslims, There is not much they can do about, they have fought out all the wars and have gone bankrupt but in inwardly they are seething, the Chinese and Hindu Indian also hate Islam and Muslims, Russia on the other hand has along History with muslims and in the coming conflict will join up with the islamic block of Iran, Pakistan, Turkey, and the Stans, with china being in the alliance but the odd man out,
Somehow this alliance of the west and Hindus well know that in the end their undoing will come at the hands of the muslims, the war has already begun and well underway, its just that at such junctures in time unfold unsteadily and deliberately.
Pepe has our respect.
I immediately bought his latest, adding to my library.
The only thing preventing the Anglo-American bankers to conclude their globalist Agenda are Russia and China, who are backing a multipolar world. This, of course, is contrary to globalist plans, where the intent is to create a world empire ruled by private banks and corporations. This explains the vilification of both Russia and China. The Anglo-American bankers can be compared to a drunk who wants more of his favorite booze. They are basically using the same methods they started to use in 1812, when they financed Napoleons invasion of Russia. These methods will not work.
‘The journey of a book finding its readers is always an idiosyncratic, mysterious and fascinating process.’
Here is a purely visual satire of some events regarding the Joe Biden administration and from the previous ones that may form illustrations for some things mentioned above.
(ablindeye) https://youtu.be/1RnRpii5fi0
It is no accident that Pepe has chosen Asia to drop his spiritual anchor, having seen what the rest of the world has to offer as an alternative..
The daily impact of the Dao, Buddha or Confucius may not be so apparent, but its subtle influence has allowed China, and much of Asia, to overcome recent global hurdles; both natural and man-made..
For those of us living positive, happy and healthy lives in Asia, the toxic news from the dark side is like strange news from another planet..
It never occured to many that Mainland Chinese are an honest people.
Circuit breaker, Negative feedback loops, these are not new things.
Once more: The spelling “Lao Tzu” leaves the impression that this reputed sage was a man with the surname “Lao” and the given name “Tzu”. Actually, in ancient Chinese, the second syllable is a suffix showing respect, whilst the firs is a word meaning old (they respected elderly writers and teachers there some two and a half thousand years ago. So teh Spelling should be “Lao-tzu” if one wants the British imperialists’ transscription og Mandarin Chinese — or “Lǎozi” in the Modern Standard Chinese presently promulgted by both Táibei’ and Bĕijing.
Remember the opening line of Friedrich Nitsche’s “Thus Spoke Tsaharatustrah: “Also sprach der alte Greiss:”!
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Also_sprach_Zarathustra#/media/Datei:ASZ_Titelentwurf.JPG
Also sprach Zarathustra: Ein Buch fuer Alle und Keinen
Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for Everyone and No One
Katherine
I was fortunate to get an early copy of Pepe’s book and it is a feast. The anchor chapter, Eurasia, The Hegemon and the Three Sovereigns, had me sitting back thinking – How in Hell did we Get Here? Yet, I had just read exactly how we got here, philosophically and actually. But it then leaves the philosophical and thinking space to again contemplate the question of How in Hell do we Get out? into something that is not a base of ‘necropolitics’ designing the “extreme fragility of all. And of the All.”
What we are watching both becoming more intense, and becoming freer in other climes, is nothing less than the change of Rousseau’s social contract assertion “Man is born free, and is everywhere in chains”
And that is all besides the fact that Pepe’s writing is sharp, incisive, but with a flow that can charm the birds right out of the trees. I’m truly enjoying this.
It is becoming clear that those places or countries who nowadays steadily and firmly cling to the Empire of Chaos – especially those of ’emergent’ world
will face harsh options and diffciculties when just around the corner of next two decades… Beijing becomes the City shining on the hill.
And there’ s a current time analogy to that.
The same way that NOW the people of Scotland and Wales are increasingly fighting and leaning towards full independence from decadent UK – and subsequently diving into the UE – but confronted with old acquaintance dragging on…
Just substitute the words ‘Scotland and Wales by ”emerging countries dominated by the US – and ‘EU’ by China.
The very same process , goal will populate the dreams of the west dominated emergent countries with regard to the East most shining star… but on a much bigger scale of magnitude.
China rolls out Covid-19 pass for international travel as global debate over a common health passport heats up
https://www.rt.com/news/517573-china-covid-passport-certificate-travel/
Removed. Mod.
I think thus anti-Chinese rant is either pure hogwash or bovine dung — har to tell which.
The PCR-Chinese suggestion for a CoViD-19 “passport is on the other hand a sparkling jewel of pure brillianc. Ttis is so because it will only state whether You (or he ore she) received testing for infection by this group of viral infections at what point in time — and whether the tests showed up positive or negative — thereby bypassing the whole rigmarolic set of dobts and issues surrounding vaccinations.
Every single time in history that the ruling elites have tried to pull this stunt it has resulted in disaster, and their heads have ended up in baskets. I guess they think it’s different this time because they have ‘special gadgets’.
In the West initially its system created a good standard of living for most, but over time those at the top fueled by their greed took more and more, and are introducing a control system to ensure it stays that way. China has started the opposite way with a control system already in place and the lives of the poor are getting a little better. Wealth disparity though is also huge in China.
Both systems rely on the need to control the population to ensure those at the top alone enjoy the cream. A powerful military can defend borders but in Asia it is also used for internal control and like the West fueling nationalism. Due to the ugliness of the US many are looking to China as some kind of beacon of a better life, however China, like all empires, will only benefit its own to a degree but mainly the ruling class. Where I am at the moment the Chinese Ambassador insisted to the government that the Chinese vaccines arriving soon should be first given to those of Chinese descent, and then the bulk of the population. Seems some are more equal than others.
Seems to me that all systems of human control/government are for the benefit of those at the top, China may have had an enlightened ancient history of Daoism and Buddhism, but that is not reflected in their modern government who profess atheism.
More than half of mainland Chinese profess atheism, 17% Buddhist, Christian and Muslim combined less than 5%..
The Chinese middle-class is larger than the entire U.S. population, which would have happened sooner but for Mao’s 30 years of ignorance..
Funny all this talk about buddha, muslim, taoism,
Born in USA, spent 1/2 my life in China, that second 1/2 in Buddha land. Spent years in between traveling in Muslim land. I can say that all is same-same, that the rich of all these county’s belong to the same clubs. I can go back & forth between Malaysia&Singapore and meet the same Muslims, Buddha’s, and Han drinking at the same bar’s at Langkawi, duty-free, all walking the beaches followed by their concubines. Indians, Chinese, Arab sheiks, what difference does it make? They all follow booze&babes. The one true religion.
Like rich Muslims say “Born a Muslim, Die a Muslim”, but in between at Langkawi, they can live like a heathen. In Singapore the richest of China can have anything. Same for Macau.
Sort of like childhood disneyland jumping from tomorrowland, fairyland, back to frontier-land. But all is owned by one, and all is monitored 24/7 by one. Sure the subjects think they can flow between the different cultures, but all is one.
Of the school that Rockefeller brought Mao to power, just like Bush brought Hitler to power, just like Bush brought Saudi to power, just like Anglo-Empire brought Israel to power (balfour)
Same owners the world is just Disneyland, and women come & go, and men speak of michael-angelo to quote TS-Eliot.
“All is same-same” there is nothing new under the sun? Except that China rises as EU$A sinks. A small difference but to a couple of billion people.
“Things change but one thing does not change
The battle between good and evil does not change”. — TS Eliot
A dead poet society. The truth is harsh and brutal. But as long as everyone believes in poetry, it stays there untouched like soil beneath the snow.