Home | Introduction | Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | Conclusion
Last modified 10/25/2008
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Continuing our discussion from the Introduction, we can see, through the
lens of our eonic model, something spectacular in the emergence of world
civilization, a non-random pattern we have called the 'eonic effect', and this
is expressed as a series of transitions in an eonic sequence. Inside this
sequence we see a subsequence, called the discrete freedom sequence, the double
birth of democracy across the mainline. We can see that it is not chance, then,
that the democratic revolutions appear in a cascade in the indicated frontier
zones in the indicated time-frame of the model, and just near the Great Divide.
That is as remarkable as it is mysterious. This shows us that democratic
emergence has a macro factor associated with the modern transition. In one way
this is a theoretical statement, but in another it is simply a restatement of
historical fact using a somewhat exotic, yet fully transparent, form of
periodization. This periodization tells us nothing further about the dynamics
indicated, and yet we can see that we are dealing with evolution, 'evolution of
some kind', an idea we have formalized as eonic evolution. And this evolutionary
process, in turn, is seen to be connected with a demonstrable 'evolution of
freedom'. This in turn, if we wish to dig deeper, shows a direct relationship to
the resolution of a famous Kantian antinomy, showing the relationship between
causality, and freedom, in the causality of freedom. We have most strangely
found a new independent rediscovery of the framework of transcendental idealism,
in a new and simplified form. That should be taken to mean, not the invocation
of the 'transcendental', nor any commitment to 'idealism', but a framework that
allows a careful conjunction of the idea of freedom in a causal context. The
eonic model makes no statements about whether the eonic sequence is
'transcendental, or transcendent', or a phenomenon of nature. Please note this.
Our job was done without bothering over theistic, transcendentalist, or
naturalistic preconceptions. It should be said that the Kantian differentiation
of the phenomenal and the noumenal precedes such discussions, and it is not
apparent that the 'noumenal' is not necessarily connected to anything spiritual.
The point here is that, as with the system of Kant, the 'historical freedom'
observed stands in phenomenal relation to a noumenal question mark, sometimes
called 'transcendental freedom', detected but not observed in the intersection
of the general historical stream with the eonic sequence. We should be wary then
of the Kantian aspect of our model, even as it clarifies immensely what we are
dealing with. The model has never heard of Kant, yet faithfully reproduces all
the basics, and unfortunately, all the paradoxes of his classic, and sound
discovery of transcendental idealism. These issues are rigorously quarantined in
our past, and there is no metaphysical mischief allowed with the 'action
sequence' of phenomenal freedom realization we called democracy in the wake of
the modern transition.
There is a great deal more that could be said here, but we should stop for a moment and consider the grandeur in this form of evolution, as it proceeds across millennia seeding, then reseeding, freedom realizations in its direct path, leading to the 'revolution against past times' in the explosion of modernism, and its democratic revolutions. We can stop here, leaving this passage as a gateway to a series of incremental, additional observations. But we have laid the basis for a 'postdarwinian liberalism', that is, an action sequence associated with liberal politics in the wake of the modern transition, one with a framework of evolutionary emergence better suited to the nature of world history, indeed, to the descent of man. The question of theory and practice is resolved by the eonic model, and the dilemma of Social Darwinist confusion is completely excised from the discourse over action. The result is harmonized with scientific thinking, yet shows the way to an extension of theoretical reasoning by making the idea of freedom central to the question of evolution. With the model in the background we can proceed to the specifics of historical research, here the histories and philosophies of liberalism, as this overflows into the practical issues of political action. We can continue with this discussion at the blog, at redfortyeight.com.
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