The Continuing Age of Social Networking and Information Revolution

Here again a walk down memory lane is useful to understand current trends :

1° The most ancient, persistent social network in Western civilization is the Jewish religion. Based purely on exclusive ethnic links and religious beliefs it has survived for over three thousand years. Today it is one of the most powerful socio-political networks, in spite of its elitist and tiny infrastructure, diaspora of ethnic affiliation, controlling the nerve centers of western civilization.

All to defend an illogical nation-state construct of new Templar kingdom, based on a debased ideology that contradicts history : Zionism. But a geo-political construct of extreme relevance to Pax Americana as it is Gendarme of western values in the Oil patch, as well as frontier outpost looking out to the Eurasian continent dominated by the new burgeoning Empires of tomorrow. Constantinople's old role, that Lebanon was destined to play after WW1 in post-Ottoman collapse but which is now a shelved project. Beirut is now replaced by Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem.

An example to meditate as it all started in an arid country surrounding by the greatest Empires of that age : Babylon, Egypt and the Medes. A lost and subjugated people who considered themselves the elect of Yahweh their patriarchal God. Based on this trend setting, male predominant, dogmatic, closed system culture, they survived two thousand years of ostracism and genocide, developing in the process mechanisms of self preservation of incredible resilience and ingenuity.

2° The Roman Empire through its power construct would emulate Alexander's dream on a grander scale. It would create the most powerful political and social network that Man has known, bequeathing to humanity its Lex Romana, its  latin language, its architecture and Coliseum culture, its aqueducts, its vine and olive Mediterranean traditions learned from the Greeks; its disciplined military legions and its historically minded philosophers. Most of all its Republican construct and its despotic contrary : Kaiseridée; they would both fascinate Western world to this day as means of governance.

From 325 AD onwards, the Roman Empire construct would benefit from the ideological transplantation of a heretical, jewish religion as unique transcendent culture uniting its fold. Thus codified and sanctified by its Latin church hierarchy and litany, it would disseminate the social links of Christianity wherever the Roman Empire held sway, notably in Mare Nostrum, and its surrounding crown jewel territories of Italy, gallic France, Byzantine Greece and North Africa.

The Christian faith was now the most powerful social network in the world. Its comparative advantage over the Jewish faith would be its universality. All men from all origins and walks of life could adhere to it. It had in the Latin church the first multinational corporate structure to disseminate it; as the Gregorian reforms would amply prove. Dictatus Papae however would dismember its unified preeminence tearing asunder the Holy Roman construct; as the Church and Emperor fought for political supremacy, all the while they conducted their joint venture of colonising the Holy Land during the Crusades. A venture in which they failed as they were resisted by a new social network as virulent as their own tradition; the Muslim faith, all fueled by nascent local patriotism.

3° The emergence of the Islamic faith in the arid midst of backward Arabia is another startling innovation of social networking. Mohamed, its prophet, would have retained the lessons from both the Jewish and Christian traditions before him. His religion, and its social values, would integrate in one whole, transcendent belief system whose timeline is borrowed from the earlier religions, by coupling it to social linkages based on newly pronounced divine word that were more binding. As they imposed both impassioned proselytism as offensive techniques of disseminating God's word to spread the new faith, as well coercive means of using brute force to impose it if met with resistance. Yield to God's light or perish under the sword was a novel approach for Empire building. It was universal in its call.

This social construct of transcendent religion had the imperial bend of Roman legions from day one.
It would prove very efficient. It would influence the rabid trend to militarist adventure of 'God wills it' amongst the Christian fold. A sterile and debasing fight amongst two social networks basically pushing the same ideology of patriarchal preeminence.

This trend to splinter social networks based on deviant transcendent constructs would exemplify the limits of social networking based on revelatory values. Heresies that contradicted God's given word promoted by the base culture, providing an alternative vision of divine presence, proved the poison pill of the revelatory tradition; in both Muslim and Christian faiths. As extirpating deviant heresy by violence destroyed the very foundations of the blind faith in God's universal word. When faith dies all hope dies as well, as there is no charity left once violence is the rule. Hope, faith and charity were the essence of revelatory value social construct.

4°  Secular Social Constructs

Universal values were now accepted as part of the prevalent social constructs of that age. Buddha in India and Asia, Plato and Aristotle's legacy in Greece and Romanised Mediterranean region, also promoted rival social networking constructs based on different  value systems. They were not based on revelatory dogma more on man's own reasoning and spiritual introspection. Logic and analysis became a powerful tool for social constructs. The secular tradition of the Greeks promoted ethical and exemplary conduct in man fueled by simple values all could relate to : Prudence, Courage, Temperance and Justice. Socrates, its founding spirit, placed truth and justice as the cardinal virtues of logical man.

The crisis of the Christian and Muslim social constructs would feed the fountain of logical philosophy and thinking during the scholastic period. The secular networks were born again during these dark ages and Man would never look back. As he had found a never ending source of intellectual growth to animate his civilization. You are what you do is now the mantra of the modern age. Not what you believe in but what you accomplish, irrespective of your beliefs.

5° The Nation-State social construct

It all came together when Rome died as cultural beacon of West and geographical and cultural identity expressed itself around a common language and territorial proximity. Divine rights now became secondary to people's will as the democratic age triumphed.  We can see that the progress of Man is always based on his past failures, and by a trial and error process, now fed on fact and reason to find practical solutions to collective problems.

We are there in this modern age, where technology is now time's arrow for man's temporal realm and its downfall as well. It is a two edged sword, a Pandora's box. The key to it all stays Man and his own mind set. Good and Bad still have relevance. Life will never be an expert system developed by artificial intelligence fed humanoids, it will always require human ethics to irrigate its actions, or it will die. Armageddon is now nuclear, biological and can destroy the biosphere.

6° Internet and Facebook

The newest expression of social networking in the modern age of cloud computing and virtual linkage of human species across the globe at the click of a computerised mouse. As man's intelligence allows him to develop his potential to become and affirm his own value systems, as independent reference point outside a collective construct of traditional social networking, religious or political, in the form of the nation-state construct, we will now see social families emerging with very powerful means of persuasion based on value systems that are not ethnically, religiously or geographically specific.

This new age of transnational culture, now gone truly global at the individual level,  expressed itself in the Corporate constructs of our times which control the means of production and commercialisation of the industrial and post-industrial ages. What the Corporations do today to maximise their own wealth, impoverishing concomitantly those of the common man in today's new feudal world, is the challenge that Man is now faced with.

One possible solution will be his affirmation of rival social networks, alternative power structures, that challenge the Oligarchy power structures in place today. As new, secular and social heresies, just as their spiritual forebears did with the Religious constructs of yester-year. We the people will have to nail our 95 theses of Reform to the walls of the Oligarchical palace.

We are in tipping point moments of the Capitalist Age. Our technology base, our logic systems  and our ethical values are the keys to our future progress; in a construct that respects both man and his environment under dire threat by this run-away perversion of the hyper-consumer age of Pax Americana. The Prince of Machiavelli is now a true corporate shill.

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