Our human brain and those of the other species, are products of the natural process we call evolution.
Everywhere
we look and every time we check it, we find that evolution continues to
transform the world by the natural process, with one exception. It is only when
the human brain transforms something, that we call such occurrence an
artificial act.
For
example, a beaver can construct a lodge by instinct better than a human who is without
tools, ever can. The first will be considered a natural act whereas the second,
an artificial act. Similarly, a bird can construct a nest by instinct better
than a human who is without tools, ever can. The first will be considered a
natural act whereas the second, an artificial act.
Why
is it that the human brain, who is in charge of making evaluations, considers
itself to be different from the instinct of the other species, thus puts itself
outside the realm of the natural, and into the realm of the artificial? There
is a simple and obvious answer to that. It is that only the human brain is able
to make such evaluations. The day when another species will have evolved enough
to evaluate itself, is the day when it will be considered an intelligent life
form capable of acting artificially.
We
know how capable we are of making mistakes that turn out to be costly at times.
But is nature capable of making mistakes? And while we try to correct our
mistakes, can the same be said of nature? The answer is that the evolutionary
process tries every possible construct as it moves on. Those that are fit
enough and/or adaptable enough, survive and reproduce. Those that are neither
fit nor adaptable, vanish and can be thought of as mistakes that were corrected
by nature.
Because
the natural process is durable though not eternal, whereas the artificial
process is prone to decay at a relatively rapid rate, we must consider the
natural process to be superior to the artificial. In fact, when we study the
artificial organizations that we create, we find them to simulate the
performance of one natural organism or another. When we make the comparison
between the two, we discover that the closer to the natural process is the
artificial, the more durable it proves to be. This is evident in the way that
the honeycomb design is used by science to construct durable structures, and
the way that the human hierarchies are made to resemble the natural organisms
to be successful and durable.
This
brings us to the article that came under the title: “Russian and Chinese
hegemony is the alternative to a world based on Anglo America values,” written
by Dan Hanan, and published on December 6, 2021 in The Washington Examiner.
It
is evident from the first sentence in that article to its last, that the writer
Dan Hanan stayed solely in the realm of the artificial while analyzing the
unfolding of world events. Nowhere in his long essay do you see an
acknowledgement that something in the realm of the humanities can take place
and develop by the natural process. This is why his use of the word alternative
involves a choice between two artificial possibilities, neglecting to point out
that the natural process may endure and prevail when the artificial will have
peaked and disappeared.
What
Dan Hanan finds disquieting is that a process has started for the world to be
taken over by an authoritarian hegemon who will impose its values on humanity,
thus replace the existing values of the Anglo-American hegemon. He says it can
be China alone moving to conquer the world or Russia alone or the two getting
together and moving the same day to make it hard for America alone or with the
rest of the world, to oppose the two autocrats and stop them.
Having
never developed the ability to see things as they are through more than one
dimension, Dan Hanan could not fathom that the Anglo-American hegemon, he says
is good for the world, came about by the natural process, and has endured to
this day for this reason. And he could not fathom that the Sino-Russian hegemon
may eventually form and be good for the world. Had the writer contemplated such
a possibility, he would have written a different article.
Instead,
what Dan Hanan gave his readers is what follows, presented here in condensed
form:
“A Chinese invasion of Taiwan and a Russian
invasion of Ukraine, what if the two happened on the same day? It is no longer unthinkable.
Relations between the two authoritarian regimes have deepened since 2001. In
2013, echoing the language of the Anglo-American alliance, Putin proclaimed a
‘special relationship’ with China. This year, troops from the two states
engaged in a joint military exercise. Let’s ask the question. What would happen
if, while Russian columns were pouring into central Ukraine, the Chinese Army
launched an assault against its little neighbor? Would we really risk all-out
world war? Would Western allies join in? I suspect that many would argue these
were distant lands, of importance to their neighbors than to us. We have plenty
of other problems right now. Is it really our business to police the world? The
alternative to the Anglo-American hegemony is not a world in which each country
charts its own course. Such a world has never existed. There is always a
hegemonic power; the only question is who gets to play that role. Are we
prepared to cede our place to the authoritarians after all? The entire world
will become a colder, darker, grimmer place”.
Dan Hanan may instinctively feel that the
natural process is going to assert itself eventually, but he does not want to
acknowledge it or accept it.
That’s a shame because in so doing, Dan Hanan has deprived himself of the opportunity to share his wisdom with, and influence whomever will be the hegemon of the future.