Tags
Futurism, Global Cultural Adjustment, global culture, Global Development, Global Furure, Global Future, Global Updating
Inspiration for this post: a conservative’s complaint over Yale’s decision to overhaul its “Art History Survey Course” — story told here:
From the (Still) Awesome Conversation
It hasn’t been a man’s world for a while.
It hasn’t been a white man’s world for a while either.
It hasn’t actually been a neatly demarcated world either (sorry, Putin, but Russia is immensely multicultural), and while some believe nature favors cultural and racial “purity”, both the history of war and the biological domain in natural history would argue the opposite: our cultural and natural biological worlds prefer immense experimentation — and woe to the crops that have no genetic alternatives in their own defense when a blight or pest co-develops with their own most ideal but perhaps restricted and unprepared features.
It has been a world representing about 4,300 religions and fewer than 7,000 living languages — and by way of modern communications, trade, and transportation, it is all irrevocably interconnected in one place: Earth.
The New England set, once “WASP”, much less western Europe, may no longer define history quite as it did through the ages of exploration and feudal — and colonial — wars and every sort of migration.
What we once called “history” (Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian AKA Northern Mediterranean and later “European” (western) but north of the equator, west of Asia, apart from India, not including the views of . . . . well, point made —
We are, for better or worse, all “In It” — boy, are we ever! — together.
Now here’s a problem with boundary adjustments in space and time: how do We — the global — preserve one the other’s unique cultural and ethnic attributes and heritage while trading — and possibly over-producing — like crazy?
That’s a “Q” for an “A”: respect thy neighbor; refrain from expansion; seek improvement in “Qualities of Living” in one’s inherited cultural, ethnic, and historic space, and, with some defenses for sovereignty, see what can be done with that.
Reject fascism, Hobbes, and nationalism.
Embrace Humanism but know where ye come from — and appreciate it.
I don’t think the answer for nations is to retreat to the 19th Century – or early mid-20th — and their parochialism and wars but rather to grow together into the 21st Century, and, as soon as the collective American and global “We” clear out the idiots with the bad habits of the past convincing themselves that they are the future — they’re not — then we’ll take a great step forward but not without some issues as we do.
I’ve come across two development projects from seemingly unlikely spaces that may have more to say about the future than any present popularized political condition or stance.
Taking place in the Palestinian Territories today: Rawabi, a $1.4 billion Planned City in the West Bank.
Today, most of the businesses operating in Rawabi are owned by or invested in by Masri. The main company is Asal Technologies, a software development company that outsources developers. It includes Microsoft, Intel, and Israeli tech giant Mellanox among its clients.
Jacobs, Harrison. “A Palestinian-American billionaire built a $1.4 billion luxury city from scratch to be a ‘Marshall Plan’ for Palestinian economy.” Business Insider, October 20, 2018.
There may be lip service involved as regards The Preoccupation With The Jews — I hope that’s all it will be for now — but you are welcome to suggest to BackChannels what the development of Rawabi will do to the so-called (once Soviet-propelled) “Middle East Conflict”. Intel, Mellanox, and Microsoft, as modern corporations and as Asal Technologies clients, have probably little patience for either the promoting or sustaining of anti-Semitic animus.
From Saudi Arabia with Ambition —
Neom: An Acellerator of Human Progress
NEOM is a bold and audacious dream. It is a vision of what a New Future might look like (in fact, NEOM means, “new future”). It’s an attempt to do something that’s never been done before and it comes at a time when the world needs fresh thinking and new solutions. NEOM is being built on the Red Sea in northwest Saudi Arabia as a living laboratory – a place where entrepreneurship and innovation will chart the course for this New Future. NEOM will be a destination, a home for people who dream big and want to be part of building a new model for sustainable living, working and prospering.
NEOM will include towns and cities, ports and enterprise zones, research centers, sports and entertainment venues, and tourist destinations. It will be the home and workplace for more than a million citizens from around the world.
https://www.neom.com/en-us/about/#vision-2030
Complexity in all endeavors — and practically by definition — requires greater cooperation, coordination, integration, and stability between all of the elements involved, and with these ginormous projects, whether Rawabi in a future Palestine or Neom in The Kingdom, investors will not want to lose their money or see their projects ruined by essentially emotional and narcissistic outbursts certain to lead to their destruction.
What we often call “news” and read for the flash and the fire belies this other reality quietly developing behind the rancor and smoke. Have a look at it because what we have been calling “reality” — the whole miserable stew of injuries, jealousies, and resentments — will fade as this other reality becomes more and more apparent.
From Dubai With Ambition
So it’s not a White Man’s World.
It’s a White (Aussie) Woman’s World!
🙂
No.
It has just been illustrated that way – and for some (with perhaps that Aussie-German-Nordic-UAE thing goin’ on — and that’s for those who might wish to think that way), that bit of pride may count for everything, but blood is 99 percent the same the world over (and intermarriage in a small pool invites illnesses).
Black billionaires are individuals of Black African ancestry with a net worth of at least US$1 billion. According to the 2019 Forbes 2019 ranking of the world’s billionaires, Nigerian business magnate Aliko Dangote had a net worth of $10.9 billion and was the world’s richest black person.[1] Other Blacks on the 2019 Forbes list included Nigeria’s Mike Adenuga with $9.1 billion, American investor Robert Smith with $5 billion, American businessman David Steward with $3 billion, American media mogul Oprah Winfrey with a net worth of $2.5 billion, Zimbabwean businessman Strive Masiyiwa with $2.4 billion, Angolan businesswoman Isabel dos Santos with $2.3 billion, South African gold magnate Patrice Motsepe with $2.3 billion, American sports executive Michael Jordan with $1.9 billion, Michael Lee-Chin of Canada with $1.9 billion, Nigeria’s Abdul Samad Rabiu with $1.6 billion, Nigeria’s Folorunsho Alakija with $1.1 billion, and Mo Ibrahim of the United Kingdom with $1.1 billion.[2]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_billionaires
The world’s wealthiest person of African descent (according to Wikipedia): Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, Chairman and CEO, Dangote Group. Have a look (Wikipedia also has a list of “Black Billionaires“). Now, for the sake of argument — i.e., supporting Yale’s overhaul of an art history survey course — let’s have a glance at the smallest nibble of Nigerian art history and contemporary art —
Yale’s Art Deparment would seem to have its work cut out for it, for there’s a whole world of art due for another look and appreciation.
Whose art should be left out of an art history survey?
The people of which color, culture, ethnic background, language community, or income level should be denied both access and presence in relation to all of the regions of information considered of public value?
In the development of new dreams, solutions to challenges confronting our species (and our planet), and technologies, which portions of the world should not be included in the fashioning of the good things to come in the Next World being born out of the present?
There are many evil answers to such questions, but there is only one good one to be applied to all of them: leave out no one.
The proverbial “boat” is Earth herself.
Best advice: stay.
WE are already living together, and if we pull together, we can and will do better.
Related Online
Thomas Berry (“The present is not a time for desperation but for hopeful activity”).
Wikipedia. “Alexandra Mary Hirschi”.
Ready, Earth’s Drivers?
Forward — and at cultural and political warp speed.
All included.
No one lost or left behind in man’s quest for improved Qualities of Living (QOLs).
–33–
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