Who are we? Are we cogs in a machine whose very movements and thoughts are to be programmed and controlled by a State? Can what benefits the larger business playing-field be taken as law in determining how the individual should conduct herself or himself in life? Is that the meaning of this fantastic world-journey that we are all on together?
Let us assume that on one hand there is something called a China-fractal. That is, a structure that is self-impelled to traverse the physical, vital, and mental phases of its journey. In its current state, the world is primarily viewed from a command-and-control perspective. Citizens are assets to be mobilized by a central state machinery for the benefit of the State, which both the central machinery and the citizens exist for, solely. Obviously, freedom of expression is curtailed. And obviously there is nothing wrong with invasion of privacy, so long as what the State believes to be true is not compromised. This is a deeply physical-view of things and in this view any dynamic that disturbs this equation is to be shunned. Hence it is perhaps fair to say that the China-fractal is at the physical-level. Now, there has of course been a lot of progress on the business-front, but we can make the case that this vital-type progress has served the essentially physical orientation.
This orientation is also out-of-synch with what we are proposing to be the fundamental urge of the integrated world-system. The urge is an implicit movement, embedded in the DNA of life, to successfully traverse the journey from the physical to the vital to the mental. This means that such views as has created the operative reality in China does need to , in one way or another, be transcended.
Enter the possibility that the Internet has bought forward, and now, the current interaction between Google and China. These events challenge the physical-phase world-view held by China, and if successful, would cause the China-fractal to progress to the vital-phase. Remember, that in the physical phase of this fractal, humans are assets to be mobilized by machinery – they are cogs in a wheel. In the vital phase, there is experimentation and freedom to express. This is a critical phase, for only in completing it can the truer identity resident in each human breast even begin to come to the surface.
Hence, from the larger perspective of closing the gap or aligning the implicit urge resident in the integrated world-system with the China-fractal, intervention and boldness by companies such as Google is perhaps warranted, and arguably gives them the moral right to lift internet-based censorship. For China to recognize this, would be a big step forward.
Introducing another aspect into this analyses, the question, then, is what side of the struggle should one land on? Is it surprising that companies such as Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, who have supposedly built themselves by and stood for human freedom should now refuse to comment on censorship and instead placate the issue by stressing the importance of China as a market? (Refer to Financial Time’s Jan 15, 2010 issue – Silicon Valley Questions Google Stance) In one way of looking at it, it should be surprising. In another, not at all – because both Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, and many, many other companies the world over are part of another fundamental, and also stagnated global fractal, the Business Fractal, which as we will continue to explore, is at the vital level, where its seeks for irrational growth, often regardless of true cost to humanity.
So now we have a play of the China Fractal, The Business Fractal, that are both stagnated, and the boldness of a company like Google, that is perhaps an instrument leveraged to help fulfill the implicit urge for progress in nature.
The questions are, can China win in a struggle that fundamentally is opposed to the urge implicit in the movement of a world-system? If it is to maintain its current view of things, then at what cost? How much human possibility will be suppressed. How much human blood will be shed? Will it have to collapse and splinter as a country, so that some of it has a chance to fulfill this fundamental urge of nature? On the other hand, can businesses, such as Microsoft, Hewlett-Packard, amongst many other businesses, continue to operate with such bottom-line business orientation only, in a world that is an integrated, intelligent, purposeful world that implicitly seeks for true, harmonious, sustainable growth as is evidenced by the uncovering of a sun-marked physical-vital-mental fractal? If they do so, then at what cost?
Both these stagnated fractals need to continue on their ultimately irresistible fractal journeys. The protagonists of these journeys can do so consciously and pay a lower price for doing that now, or they will be forced to do so unconsciously, in which case they will pay a much higher price than they ever imagined. This is inevitable in a world that seeks for its own progress.
In another way of looking at it, we are saying that there is an overriding world-fractal that will progress at any cost. When it is opposed in its movement, by fractals like the China-fractal or the Business-fractal, then instruments are leveraged, or other fractals are spawned to intersect with the stagnated fractals to cause their progress. Progress can be accelerated by such opposition, but ultimately, sustainable shift comes about by shifting the base-pattern at the root of the fractal.
The root is none other than the person – and the embodied attitudes, perceptions, behaviors that animate a person. This is what I will explore in greater depth, in the next episode of Connecting Inner Power with Global Change on the Voice America Business Channel. Tune in on Friday’s noon PST to explore this in greater depth.
