You may remember Piketty’s analysts of the brahmin left vs the merchant right; but Bogdanov’s vision is also very pertinent in a Taubian context. So here is what I never say in public, as it draws catatonic blanks in western secular audiences: the next phase we are working on is a brahmin-worker synthesis, making real Bogdanov’s first failed attempts to merge work, self-governance and art through proletkult … now with the commons, the sociological conditions for this massive shift, have been realized. Thanks to Jan Krikke for this cogent and crystal clear presentation of Taub’s main message, he will be missed.

So if you want to know the ‘esoteric side’ of the P2P Foundation, it’s not just Neal Stephenson’s Diamond Age, it is also thoroughly Taubian.

Jan Krikke: In the 1970s, American futurist Larry (Lawrence) Taub gave a series of lectures in Tokyo and made what seemed at the time like outlandish forecasts. Mao Zedong had just died, the Shah of Iran was still ruling Iran, and Leonid Brezhnev was at the helm in the Soviet Union, but Taub predicted the fall of the Berlin Wall, that an Islamic country would experience a religious revolution, and that China and its Confucian cousins would form the most powerful economic region in the world by 2020.

Taub based his daring forecast on three unique models that he synthesized in his book The Spiritual Imperative: Sex, Age, and the Last Caste Move the Future. He published the first English edition in the 1980s and an updated version appeared in the 1990s. A Japanese edition was published in the early 2000s and became a No. 1 bestseller in Japan. Shortly thereafter a Korean and Spanish edition appeared. Interest in the English edition remained limited, primarily because most Western readers are challenged by vantage points not based on a Western-centric worldview.

The Spiritual Imperative predicts not only what happens, but also where it will happen. Conventional futurists who came before him spoke in broad generalities applied to the world as a whole without offering specifics about particular regions and cultures. Fellow futurist Alvin Toffler described post-industrial society, but his model could not predict that China would become a dominant economic power. Samuel  Huntington predicted that the end of the Cold War would give way to a “clash of civilizations,” but he could not predict the Iranian revolution in the so-called religous belt.  Francis Fukuyama saw the collapse of Soviet communism as the “end of history” and the final victory of Western liberalism. His overtly ideological and Western-centric view of the world ignored that China developed a synthesis of socialism and free enterprise to become an industrial powerhouse to rival and even outflank the US and the EU.

Restoring the yin-yang balance

In the world of conventional futurists, women play no role in either the past or the future. In Taub’s macrohistory, women are a key driving force behind the changes in the world today. As he reminds us in his remarkable book, early human society, from its ancient animist past, was characterized by relative gender equality with a predominantly “yin-like” worldview. Patriarchies and a “yang-like” worldview developed from  600 BCE, during the age of Confucius, Plato, Jesus, and Buddha. Taub places the beginning of the end of the patriarchy in the 1970s, with the first wave of feminism.

Feminism changed not only the mindset of women but also of men. A remarkable diagram in his book illustrates the dialectic of sex, and how it plays a role today and in the future (see the diagrams in the page linked below). In about two decades, women will briefly become the dominant sex and restore the yin-yang balance that was lost in the patriarchal era. The female/male ratio of university students in many countries is one of many indications. By the middle of this century, the battle of the sexes will dissolve in what Taub describes as an androgynous synthesis.

The Spiritual Imperative is testimony to the enormous scope of Taub‘s knowledge of the world and his understanding of the human spirit. His models not only give pride of place to women, but also to the world’s three “source cultures” – China, Europe, and India. He shows that each has advanced the human condition and how they are shaping our future.

Links and Resources

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Diagrams from The Spiritual Imperative

The following three diagrams show The Spiritual Imperative in a nutshell. They show the enormous scope of Larry’s knowledge, his radical departure from a Euro-centric worldview, and the comprehensiveness of his macrohistorical model.

The post Remembering Lawrence Taub, the first feminist futurist (1936-2018) appeared first on P2P Foundation.

He died on Tuesday, September 6, 2016, and his funeral was held in Ostend, Belgium, on Friday the 16th. Jean had been having health problems for about a year, but was unaware of a more serious condition until his last 10 days.

I’d like to offer some of my memories of our work together as well as reflections about continuing his legacy. I write this in both a personal capacity and as a co-member of the P2P Foundation network.

The Memories

I got to know Jean the second year of our studies at the Free University of Brussels (V.UB.), probably in 1978. Jean was first a student in the business school Solvay, while I was doing Political Sciences. We met in the student movement Aktief Linkse Studenten (Active Left Students), were members of the Flemish Socialist Party’s youth wing, and both believed in Trotsky’s analysis of the permanent revolution. I would leave just a few years after my time as a student, as I could not square living through the Thatcher/Reagan counter-revolution with the ever-optimistic predictions of the political tendency we belonged to. Jean would leave much later (in his mid-thirties I believe), after having been a full-time organizer and editor-in-chief of the radical magazine Vonk. What was striking about Jean was his generosity to his friends and his reliability as a co-worker and comrade. Jean also had some personal issues to deal with. He came out as gay, and for this he was not accepted by his parents. It would take decades before acceptance came, but he went on to become friends with his father and accompanied him in his final years.

When Jean quit the radical movement he belonged to and gave his life’s energy to for many years, he was also at a loss. Without savings due to very low wages, and with no prospect of a sufficient pension, he had to re-arrange his life. He was lucky to find a cheap apartment in Brussels which he bought and transformed into a jewel of wonderful, if eccentric, taste, and started working as a copywriter for corporate magazines. Given this context, the writing was always excellent and informative about societal trends. We briefly met again in the mid-nineties, after having lost touch for many years. This career worked well for Jean until 2008, when the crisis of capitalism led to a dwindling of his client base, due to cutbacks in corporations. This is when Jean decided to get a job in the city of Brussels, in the department that manages the housing stock. Although he liked the social mission and respected his colleagues, Jean thoroughly disliked the bureaucratic procedures, and it made him feel depressed for several years.

It was then that we met once again, and I could share my enthusiasm about my own work for the emerging peer-to-peer and commons movement. Like Jean, I had composed with the dominant society for many years, and struggled with the anti-social and anti-ecological nature of contemporary capitalism. After experiencing personal burnout and deep crises in 1996, I decided to reconnect with the engagement for social change of my youth. While investigating which approach was appropriate for our times, I decided that P2P dynamics would give social movements the leverage for self-organisation and change. It took Jean nearly 3 years to go through the literature and understand my analysis, but when he emerged from his own study, it gave him a new positive outlook on life. He combined his full-time job with enthusiastic participation in the P2P project in the evenings. He exhibited tremendous energy.

It is thanks to him, as co-author, that I could produce the Flemish book, De Wereld Redden, and its French translation and counterpart, Sauver Le Monde, both of which made a definite impact. Since about 2005, I would be a regular guest during my lecture tours, in his amazing apartment at the Stalingradlaan in Brussels. We talked and thought into the wee hours of the night, and Jean became a much-sought after lecturer in Flanders, while also writing various Dutch-language articles for the more thoughtful magazines such as De Wereld Morgen.

It is difficult to express what a good friend he was, how supportive, and how spoiled he made me feel. Jean was purchasing many of the books I wanted to read, was a master chef of wholesome food. My family also had the opportunity to stay on occasion in his home. My wife became a great admirer of Jean; she considered him like a saint. Jean in return came to visit us in Thailand and had plans to come back in February 2017.

Jean began having health issues about a year before his passing, first expressed as a knee problem, but later as digestive issues that prefigured the disease that would fell him. Despite this, he was still giving plenty of lectures and made many plans. One was to found P2P Foundation Belgium as a separate legal entity; another was to co-author an English conversation book with me (the rough version is finished, awaiting further work to complete it). He was wondering how he could once again make his activist life a primary focus, but had not yet found a satisfactory solution. He also had a warm and active family life with his parents, sisters, nieces, and especially his godson, Sam Kestens.

Jean is leaving a big hole in our hearts, as our fond memories can’t compensate for the warm support he gave us, but we are very committed to honouring his engagements and legacy. Frank Theys and I are finalizing a funding round for a documentary that will be dedicated to his memory. At the recent Prix Ars Electronica awards ceremony, Stacco Troncoso dedicated to Jean the Golden Nica award that we received as the P2P Foundation collective. We will finish the English-language book we started with him, and I am seriously considering naming a new commons-oriented policy institute after him.

Jean left us far too early and far too fast, but his legacy and his gifts will live on in our hearts and our own practice for many years to come.

Michel Bauwens, for the P2P Foundation

The post In Memoriam: Jean Lievens 1957-2016 appeared first on P2P Foundation.