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03.04.2009

MULTIPLE-VECTOR GLOBALIZATION AND PERMANENT CHAOS

   

Gagik Harutyunyan

Though we tend to the order,
one should not blame the chaos groundlessly;
it symbolizes both threat and power at the same time
M.Douglas

The ongoing system changes should inevitably bring to the revaluation of definite ingrained perceptions. This regards, for example, to such a foundational notion as globalization, which started to be used extensively in the end of the last century and is supposed to be one of the main terms, which characterize the realities of world order.

In the context of political comments the term “chaos” is used incomparably rarely in the mass media (more often one can meet “controlled chaos” expression). However, in expert literature it is considered to be the axial, because just notion “chaos”, allows us, as far as possible, to understand and explain complex phenomena and processes.

The aspiration to give contemporary interpretation to the aforementioned notions, in our opinion, is feasible and actual, because it can promote to the adequate perception of present changes and to predict, as far as possible, the later developments.

Imperial globalization

As is generally known, globalization has no strict scientific definition, but this term, as a rule, is understood to be the growth of the interrelation between the countries due to the integration processes in economic and other spheres. It is supposed that, as a result of globalization and taking into consideration the possibilities provided by contemporary communicative and information technologies, the common informational field will be formed, and this, in its turn, will bring to the uniform world perception. There is also an opinion that the main aim of the globalization is to reduce the chaos and boost the growth of the level of the order.

Let us mention that the humanity have met local manifestations of globalization since the formation of the first empires. It is known that they are particularly the place where different ethnos, cultures and even civilizations are mixed. As a result of imperial policy at some extent integrated society, common, as far as possible, judicial and economic fields are formed. The USSR, recollections of which are still green in the mind, can be regarded as a classical example of such a reality. It is obvious that the primary political objective of “control centre” of any empire is to establish common game rules and social and economic uniformity, as it is the main precondition for the stability and viability of state system.

The community of the informational field in the empire depends on the level of the development of the means of communication in the given period and, of course, the civilizational potential of the society formed in the result of integration of the imperial nation or various nations. The so called temporal and informational permanency of the empire is conditioned by that factor. For example, the notions and the achievements in the cultural, political, judicial and other spheres in the period of Hellenism and the Roman Empire are still used and the same cannot be said about Hunnish or Ottoman Empires.

Globalization in unipolar world and imperial usage of “chaos”

The globalization in our age is, to a great degree, an expression of “imperial” way of ruling. In unipolar system (now former unipolar system) the main “regulator” and “supervisor” was the USA. Possessing vast resources that world power dominated in all spheres, and the globalization, in accordance with the views of the representatives of American elite, was a necessary mean to world regulation and security ensuring. At the same time, globalization in the American age differs from the functions of the empires of the past by its high efficiency, which is conditioned by the certain revolutionary changes in the informational sphere.

It is remarkable that, according to the conceptual elaborations of American “think tanks”, the countries, which are out of the globalizing field, are regarded as “unaccomplished” and on that territories “chaotic processes” dominate. Such a situation constitutes a threat to the national security of the United States that is why the involvement of the “unaccomplished” states into the international community is considered to be a primary objective.

At the same time, “chaotic” situations have a significant potential, which usage and directing can be profitable from the military and political and economic points of view for the global actor. That means that “chaotic” regions and societies have their special place and value in geopolitical processes.

It is characteristic that such approaches had also dominated in the past. For example, the Greeks, the Romans and the Chinese percept the peoples (tribes) who live out of the borders of the “globalized” empire as “barbarians” and considered them to be very dangerous for their state. At the same time, the empire often used those “barbarians” on the assumption of its interests. It is significant that sometimes, as a result of geopolitical developments, “barbarians” obtained the status of the inheritors and the successors of the imperial civilization as it happened after the fall of the Roman (Western) Empire. The developments in the Byzantine Empire went in the other way; the Seljuk-Turks who conquered the territory of the Empire from the civilizational point of view could not inherit rich Byzantine culture (today the main inheritors of the Byzantine Empire are considered to be the Greeks, the Armenians and Slavonic nations). In the context of all the aforementioned China can be regarded as an example of a stable and permanent empire. Its people, if we take into consideration the logic of historical developments, in general, possesses its territories and is a permanent bearer of its own culture.

Peculiarities of globalization in multi-polar world

The situation within the multi-polar system, which is formed today, changes, because the USA loses the monopoly of the “regulator-supervisor” of the globalization. At the same time, geopolitical actors, whose perceptions of the integrated global space are different, have appeared. It means that new material and non-material resource centres have been formed, whose globalizing expansion pursues different aims and thus, it has different direction.

It is characteristic that today not only major powers but also the international community, whose representatives very often join within the format of non-governmental organizations (NGO), can be the actors of the process of the globalization. Those organizations, using the informational technologies (IT), are able to implement big projects; thereby, they obtain the status of global actors. It is known that the considerable part of those NGOs is directed by the big geopolitical actors; but the impression is that in multi-polar system most of them will start to work independently.

Let us also mention that in multi-polar world the countries, which could not act independently in the “overorganized” unipolar world. It is clear that the developed IT sphere afford them such an opportunity. The influence of such countries on globalization processes will be directly dependant on the civilizational and intellectual resources they possess.

Multi-vector globalization and chaos

In the context of the aforementioned we should underline the fact that if, for example, in economic and technological spheres the direction of the actors of globalization may coincide, then the vectors of civilizational and ideological expansion must have been different. It means that the contemporary globalization may not to “regulate” global community but it can promote to the lack of any regulation and the emerging of chaotic developments. It is also known that the periodicity of the events in the informational age grows and the speed of the events also constantly rises. All these circumstances should also promote to chaotic developments, because the community and traditional governing bodies do not succeed to react adequately in time on that events. It means that the current globalization also contains the mechanisms of the emerging of “permanent chaos”. This factor, in our opinion, lies at the root of the current system crisis.

“Netocracy” – the world elite of intellectuals

According to some researchers (Alexander Bard, Ian Zonderkvist), the forming “new world” is so “complicated” and multi-component that it can be governed only by intellectuals with all-around knowledge, and who will be connected with the help of the Internet. Those intellectuals will form a new global elite, the so called netocracy (from net), which, due to its high intellectual skills, should govern the fast changing (chaotic) world of future. From this point of view, it would be appropriate to remember the earlier works of Sergey Grinyaev, where he speaks about the possibility of formation of net community “super intellect”.

Of course, all the theories, which touch on the future world, should be regarded with a definite degree of skepticism. But it is obvious that the next stage of the development of the informational society will make fundamental changes, first of all in the system of governing.


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