Crisis? What crisis? A question of balance

“The human brain does not issue commands, it merely hosts conversations”

– Guy Claxton

In every Western culture there are firm distinctions between our endogenous and exogenous spheres, which focus on thinking and feeling, objectivity and subjectivity, facts and values. Recent research confirms these interpretations are littered with anomalies and are often volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. Death and taxes remain the only two certainties.

Our thoughts covering the external environment are heavily influenced by internal feelings, which are shaped by perceptions, personal experiences and acquired knowledge. This constant interaction between the inner and outer worlds creates our interpretation of reality and each domain shapes how we see and act in the other.

The Limits of Science

The scientific method teaches us nothing else beyond how facts are related to and conditioned by each other. However, one can attain the purest and most complete knowledge yet remain unable to reconcile this wisdom with the goal of human aspirations. Scientific theory is a contrived foothold in the chaos of living phenomena and science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.

Many neoliberal acolytes admitted their entire intellectual edifice had collapsed following the global financial crisis, which almost tanked the world economy but Barack Obama spurned a perfect opportunity to confront many of its powerful plutocrats. The corporate welfare solution of lucrative bailouts with quantitative easing was merely feeding strawberries to a donkey. Its diaphanous resilience was further exposed during the Covid-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, the protean elements of fascism transformed into a dystopian paradigm of gangster capitalism, which is reminiscent of narcoterrorism with its drug mules, homicides and rancorous gangland turf wars.

The aftershocks and tremors are still reverberating through the global economy and it is only a matter of time before the shadow banking sector implodes. Many regulators and seasoned economists are constantly searching for other curved balls or unpredictable abnormalities that may upset the precarious apple cart again and decimate the economy.

This could even include creative schemes for car financing and leasing of vehicles. It appears rather innocuous and is often but mistakenly categorised as “good debt” although it recently sent some major shockwaves through the United Kingdom economy. The top of the range Audi SUV purchased on credit in your next door neighbour’s drive could easily contribute to the next financial meltdown.

A Slippery Slope

Following the great financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic the only alternatives to neoliberalism were a saccharine based substitute or microwaved Keynesian economics. Our leaders have failed to develop a coherent and resonant replacement and we are on the slippery slope to barbarism. The role of elected representatives requires a comprehensive review with a restoration of market and state boundaries. It must establish how a civilised and democracy treats its citizens and other residents to ensure it reflects and aligns with fundamental human rights.

Statistics cannot feed the hungry and most people switch off when they are confronted with a mass of facts or figures. A new narrative with a transdisciplinary and ecoliterate approach is required and must provide a beneficial balance between the objective and inherently subjective nature of risk.

The transdisciplinary process regurgitates traditional polemics such as science versus religion and the arts or humanities and explores the fertile mandala between the objective and subjective elements of risk. Science is unable to explain everything but this does not mean it knows nothing. It recognises enough to describe Newtonian and nuclear physics although when we do finally understand every single secret of the universe, the eternal enigma of the human heart will remain.

We must reclaim much of the power that has been stripped from our communities and address politics of belonging through deliberative and participatory democracy, which unlike neoliberalism works far better in practice than it does in theory. Relationships are the foundation of accomplishment and people will support what they create and are transformed by the process in which they are engaged.

The intent is not unity but a collective coherence that confronts many formidable challenges such as volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity. None of this will happen automatically or without encountering stubborn resistance from many oligarchs or plutocrats. We should not beg for deliberative participatory democracy. It is an inalienable right and an essential tool for combating totalitarianism.

A Question of Balance

The perennial sciences and arts dichotomy attracted significant media attention following CP Snow’s influential 1959 Rede Lecture, which was subsequently published as The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution.

It contended that intellectual life throughout western societies was split into two distinct cultures of sciences and humanities, which was a major impediment to solving the world’s problems. The debate was rekindled by Baroness Onora O’Neill in a keynote address at the University of Cambridge back in 2010. It reflected on the evolution of the gulf between the two streams and the impact of technology. Indeed, the inchoate and sinister concept of transhumanism with artificial intelligence and quantum computing will ultimately destroy freedom of choice.

Several renowned academics, anthropologists and theologians have contributed to the discourse over many years and include Jacques Ellul (The Technological Society), Thomas Kuhn (The Structure of Scientific Revolutions), Paul Feyerabend (Against Method) and Mary Douglas (Purity and Danger).

The dilemma is also captured by The Moody Blues, a UK progressive rock band. The cover of their album A Question of Balance features a pensive Albert Einstein and the following lyrics from the opening track by Justin Hayward resonate:

“Why do we never get an answer when we’re knocking at the door

With a thousand million questions about hate and death and war?

‘Cause when we stop and look around us, there is nothing that we need

In a world of persecution that is burning in its greed

Between the silence of the mountains

And the crashing of the sea

There lies a land I once lived in

And she’s waiting there for me

But in the grey of the morning

My mind becomes confused

Between the dead and the sleeping

And the road that I must choose”

Footnote

The author acknowledges the recent book entitled The Invisible Doctrine – The Secret History of Neoliberalism by George Monbiot and Peter Hutchison, which is a fascinating polemic and provided plenty of much appreciated information covering the scourge of neoliberalism.