On Top of the World: Why the West’s present dominance is both recent and temporary

An Economist article on a new book:
Why the West Rules—For Now: The Patterns of History and What They Reveal About the Future. By Ian Morris. Farrar, Straus and Giroux; 750 pages; $35. To be published in Britain by Profile in November; £25.


This isn't my attempt to convince or assert - but an essay of response from the way I have come to see human experience and history.

Human consciousness has many facets that are yet of one mind - acted out as is they are separate.
Where are they acted out? In the world.
Where are they one mind - in the non-local or universal consciousness.
How does this relate to the topic?
Because the mentality of dominance and control is itself a play of action and reaction in which force, and reaction make density in which identities are forged, that then play out as if they themselves are the real or true active principle; the agent of change; the free will.
This is so at a collective level as on an individual level.

The notion of dominance is supported by a set of values that must be shared by all players. It is so that core values such as equating true Identity exclusively with the physical - and its presentation - are almost completely unquestioned in the world - because the focus of attention and identification of human consciousness is almost totally engaged and active within 'the world'.

But the 'war' of man upon his brother is the same 'war' he wages on Reality. Upon his Greater Environment. These 'Horsemen of the Apocalypse' are the inevitable result of a misidentification and willfulness that seeks to triumph over, rather than dance or flow or cooperate with.

The Prodigal Son's Inheritance was wasted in a world that ground him down and left him homeless and destitute - but Its Source is an unseparated Consciousness.

The play of a seemingly independent will, in a reality seemingly different or other to it's mind - and largely threatening or hostile to it, sets up a patterns of self-protection and self-serving that can be observed as an identity - that then expresses as a culture. Observed not via the partiality of thinking that merely expresses such a presumption - but observed directly in oneself - for the nature of our awareness itself is a local experience of a Universal Mind - of which we in truth can not separate ourselves - but only forget - and experience as if separated.

So I seek to sketch here some ideas that posit the Greater Mind - if you will - as the primary or native Environment of all human experience and endeavor. History is a working out of idea and experience - but the level on which such a self-educative process actualizes itself is upstream of man's thinking - though when belief and experience change, new insight arises with it.

The idea of dominance - of triumph, is destructive in that it separates from and uses 'the other' as a testimony to the validity of one's own self-made identity or self-will. Written globally, this is out-picturing an insanity.

The opportunity of such times is an awakening to the true nature of our experience - as the effect of the values, thoughts, beliefs and intentions that are currently accepted true - in the greater mind that we all share, knowingly or unknowingly.

Whatever 'life' is - we are in it together. As I give to you - I set up the value that I will myself be done by. Having tried to dominate - I find myself subjected to. Eventually it becomes obvious; I hurt but myself and teach hurt to others who would learn it. What kind of culture arises from the realisation that this is not my will - and allowing a fresh appreciation to rise and become active instead?
Thanks for your attention.