Core Civilisational Principles

Or, how to read world history - it can't explain anything or everything, but it is important.

West: Exploration, discovery, conquest
China: Stability, material accumulation
India: Liberation, Moksha
Islam: Adherence to Divine Law

Note 170

Current teleologists are both right and wrong. The world is pragmatically moving toward individual rationality, but to do so only in order to transcend it. The economic mode corresponding to this is post-scarcity. This is not collectivism or communism, but the ability to see the individual for what he/she is.

Identities, Interests and Institutions

Corporate identities play the role of translating expectations into institutional forms. It is evoked when interests demand solidification. Identities are institutionalized interests, as a process.

They are a process by which interests are defined, and by which institutions are defined in relation to these interests, and by which the identities are defined in relation to the institutions, which embody these interests. This paradox of self-definition by way of interests and institutions renders it, by necessity, a process.

Identity is therefore best seen as process through which expectations about interests and power structures mutually construct and reinforce each other over time.