Branches of Philosophy

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 Abstract:  Philosophers find it necessary to decompose the general subject of philosophy into its various branches, in order to focus their analysis of philosophical problems of all kinds.  Each branch has its own language framework and concepts unique to that little corner of the very large domain of philosophical literature and discourse.  As you would expect, philosophical claims are free to crossover and blur the lines between several branches. 

The following is my own taxonomy, broken down into four general categories and twelve sub-categories, which hopefully cover most of the waterfront.  Every serious student of philosophy should have their own version of such a schema, the better to organize their thoughts.

1.  Mind – Study of the nature of the mind, i.e., the consciousness of humans and other higher order animals.  IMO, all roads in philosophy start from the mind.  That’s why I put this branch first.  As Rene Descartes described the problem (my paraphrase), - What do we know with certainty about our personhood, our minds, consciousness and very existence, before considering any sensory input?  

         a.  Psychology and Neuroscience - What role do psychology, neuroscience, etc. have in describing and explaining the nature of the mind?  What is knowable from correlation between observed behavior such as raw feels, and observable neurological activity in the brain?

2.  Epistemology – Study of knowledge, i.e., how we know about the world outside our minds, the role of reason, the possibility of certainty, etc.

a.  Logic – Study of the nature of reason and general rules for its application to solving real problems.

b.  Science – Study of the special rules for application of the scientific method to solving real problems, including rules for description and explanation of phenomena.

c.   Language – Study and detailed analysis of human language and how it affects consciousness, perception and the creation and use of knowledge.

3.  Metaphysics – Study of the existence of the universe and its nature, often in support of the practice of physical sciences

a.  Ontology – Study of the nature of Being itself, including prime categories for analysis.

b.  Time & Scale – Study of the nature of time and how it is affected by the enormous scale of the universe.  A unique set of puzzles

c.   Cosmology – Study of the possible antecedents and causes for the universe to come into being, plus its evolution down to the present.  Many puzzles physics practitioners need help with.

4.  Social philosophy – A general category for those branches whose subject matter is peculiar to mankind

a.  Existentialism – Study of the nature of mankind’s fundamental situation, each of us having been “thrown” into the world without our consent, condemned to freedom and faced with difficult moral choices.

b.  History – Study of the dynamics of human history, how and why it has proceeded in the way it has, including predictions for how it is likely to unfold in the future.

c.  Religion – Study of the possible spiritual realm of existence and how it relates to human existence in the world.

d.  Aesthetics – Study of how and why humans assign beauty and ugliness to aspects of the world we live in.

e.   Ethics and Law – Study of the possibility of reasonably assigning value, good or bad, to the actions of human beings, regarding their relations with others.  Plus, useful methods for encouraging and enforcing ethical behavior by legal means.

Four Categories of Being

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Abstract:  Everything that exists in the universe at this instant, all matter, energy, fields, life forms, everything we perceive, remember, imagine or do, can be rationally assigned to one of four mutually exclusive, metaphysical classes of extant entities:  These four classes are: a) the physical universe, b) life forms, c) mental activity in the minds of higher order animals and d) beings and actions in an unseen spirit realm.  Each has its own characteristics, and each can only be described and explained with its own particular form of analysis and language framework, viz. physics, biology, psychology and metaphysics or religion, respectively.

 

Introduction:  All roads in philosophy lead back to the mind as their natural starting point.  Rene Descartes published his Meditations on First Philosophy in 1641, not long after Francis Bacon published his Great Instauration in 1620.  The latter precisely described the scientific method in English, while the former clearly and concisely describes in Latin the ultimate nature of one’s mind.  Descartes translates his own phrase, “I think therefore I am”, to a more useful “I am a thinking thing”.

As thinking things, living social animals, we try from birth to make sense of the world and its constant stream of perception.  Instinct guides us to dive right in with the task of fitting in with those who raised us, mimicking them as best we can, eventually learning one or more disciplines in order to make a living.  Reality is confined to the present.  The past no longer exists, except in our records and memories, and the future exists only in our imaginations, e.g., science fiction.

Many moderns living in industrial societies pursue knowledge and a profession in one or more major scientific disciplines.  Note that in the 400 years since Bacon and Descartes dropped their Enlightenment bombshells on the world, these disciplines have grown into multiple, distinct branches of science and inquiry, each with its own language framework used to describe and ultimately explain its chosen phenomena and ideas. 

No longer can a philosopher like Descartes claim to have an expert knowledge of all the intellectual pursuits of their peers.  These lines of modern specialization between the various intellectual pursuits, in particular, physics, biology, psychology and metaphysics or religion are a reflection of the four fundamental categories of being which I describe herein. 

Such an effort at categorization is accurately called an ontology, in this case a metaphysical scheme of four definite categories needed to sensibly separate and describe all possible entities extant under the general category of Being and Nothingness.  All entities in the universe at this instant, observable, remembered or imagined, can be strictly accounted for in this four-part ontology.  Thus, the metaphysical problem of universals is neatly resolved.

 

The first category is the immense universe of physical entities such as energy, matter, fields, quarks, et al plus their physical attributes such as motion and inertia.  As near as physical scientists can determine, the laws of nature within this category apply uniformly, regardless of time, location or inertial frame of reference.  Many of the blessings of modern life clearly stem from our ever-improving understanding of the physical universe. 

The common context for us “thinking things” in this physical aspect of the universe, is Euclidean space (up, down, sideways, etc.), the so-called 3 dimensions, containing entities which are constantly moving in predicable ways, as expressed by our concept of time.  Human understanding of this first category and its entities seems clearer and more definite, less mysterious than the other three.  The experts in this category are physicists, chemists, material scientists, engineers, etc.  They each have their own language framework to use when discussing matters within their respective disciplines.  If you sit in on a Zoom meeting with a conclave of particle physicists discussing the daily news from CERN, most of us could not keep up; we are unfamiliar with the language framework they routinely use.

 

The second category is the more limited universe of life forms.  Obviously, life forms consist of physical materials, carbon, water, etc.  It's called biomass and our planet is blessed with it.  Individual lifeforms have attributes such as heat, momentum, etc., just like other entities in the physical category.  But they are also fundamentally different and display characteristics unlike those found among inorganic entities.  They grow, reproduce and evolve in ways unknown to physicists.  Compare organic chemistry to its inorganic relative and note that Biology uses completely different methods of analysis when studying life forms, and a different linguistic framework.

Part of the mystery of life forms is their origin.  Because modern scientists are confirmed materialists, they cling to the belief that life is unique to planet Earth and somehow life began through an accidental combination of matter and energy.  They imagine a primordial soup of the right ingredients, struck by lightning and coaxed in action. **

However, a close examination of the most primitive single-cell life forms, bacteria powered by heat or light, we note they contain internal structures and processes so complex they defy complete description, let alone explanation.  They are encoded with precise information that suggests an intelligent design and thus an original designer.  This design includes a specialized facility for evolution.  Every generation exhibits diversity, by design.  It’s quite possible that long ago, a sentient being created life as we know it on Earth, perhaps after that same being created the entire universe, even existence itself.  It stands to reason, IMO.

**It’s possible the first life forms came to Earth from an external source (Panspermia), sometime after our planet cooled down and its hydrosphere condensed into standing water. 

 

The third category consist of those entities produced by and contained in the minds of high-order animals.  Mental activity is every bit as real as massive physical bodies moving through the interstellar medium.  The so-called problem of universals is a by-product of materialists refusing to accept Descartes’ dualist claim that there is such a thing, your mind, which has a different kind of “substance” than physical matter, separate from the body which hosts it. 

It seems obvious that computers are an analog of our minds.  Most neuroscientists believe that all mental activity can be directly traced to action by a neuron, which is no doubt true.  That claim implies we are not in control of our activity, no free will, just electro-mechanical responses to stimuli.  Cartesian dualist like myself, maintain there is more to mental activity than a mere collection of neural actions.

Homo sapiens’ recent invention of a worldwide network of connected computers has revealed cyberspace, which exists inside these computers.  Cyberspace is a perfect analog of the separate “substance” Descartes called his mind.  Such is the mystery of mental activity.

Like our minds, cyberspace behaves in ways its builders don’t understand, particularly in the sector called “learning machines”.  It is a perfect analogy to the mind, a model for cognitive science.  Unlike the machines we’ve created, the mind is alive, it is constantly moving, observing, thinking and deciding.  Our ability to make independent decisions is fundamental to free will and inherent in being a living higher-order animal.  Our free will, including our conscience, is the crux of mankind's collective assessment of the nature of our minds, in my opinion.

So where does that leave those of us who are curious about the real-world nature of individual minds?  First, we must recognize the inner workings of an individual's mind are hidden behind privileged access.  Other than our own introspection, first-person reports are all we have for observing the mind, this is what psychologists have to start with in their analysis, along with observed behavior. 

Physics, chemistry and biology are of little help.  Neuroscientists are trying their best to relate behaviors to neural activity and I predict they will succeed in a few years by being able to read an individual’s raw feels like anger, jealousy, deception, etc.  Very useful, but still far from understanding a subject’s stream of consciousness bouncing around, dwelling on memories, making decisions on what to do next.  Only the “thinking thing” knows its own thoughts at this level.  Only psychologists, using their primitive methods and linguistic framework, can help those who cannot help themselves maintain a semblance of mental health.  The rest of us well-adjusted members of society must do our best to maintain a steady course in life.  Sorry, but that’s all we have, it's part of the human condition.

 

The fourth category, the spirit world, is so controversial it can hardly be described without heckling from materialist disbelievers.  An examination of it rightfully starts with the so-called big bang, the beginning of all matter, energy and space itself, in real time 13.8 billion earth years ago.  Physicists believe before the big bang began, its singularity was surrounded by, and likely preceded by, Nothingness, the opposite of Being. 

Most major religions explain this inferred inception of the universe as caused and designed by a sentient being, an immortal Creator.  Religious adherents typically believe the Creator maintains order in the universe and occasionally intervenes in its history.  Even ancient religions, dating back to the Paleolithic era, recognized this spirit world, if not a single creator and caretaker.

Materialists, of course, categorically reject the reality of entities assigned to this fourth category.  According to their scientific, positivist principles, if you can’t experience and measure it directly, on demand, it does not exist, it is pure imagination, in their opinions, its non-existent.  According to Aristotle's logic, they are on fairly firm ground. 

Conversely, religious people, modern and ancient, actually perceive supernatural phenomena such as visions, healing miracles and possession by spirits.  Ancient Shamans preceded Hegel's "Phenomenology of the Sprit" by thousands of years.  These spirits, good and bad, seem to work strictly through human minds.  We can safely assume other higher-order animals are too focused in their minds on the 3Fs, feeding, fighting and fornicating, to take notice of supernatural phenomena.

So which is it?  Is religious belief mere superstition, or are believers on to something that is outside the interest of materialists and beyond the immediate reach of the scientific method.  We can’t know for sure, that’s the nature of the real or imagined entities in this category of being. 

One area of interest to investigators are the accounts of exorcists, people who actively confront demonic spirits which supposedly have invaded the minds of hapless victims.  They report all sorts of supernatural phenomena like cold rooms, levitating bodies, poltergeist-type flying objects, etc. 

One particular exorcist’s account I read supports the idea these demonic powers have limited ability to move the physical world, but they can trick the minds of observers into perceiving paranormal phenomena.  One demon referred to these phenomena as “parlor tricks”.  In one recent exorcist’s account, when the demon took over the possessed person’s consciousness and spoke in a peculiar voice, it distorted her face to look just like the head of a serpent.  Several witnesses reported this marked effect, but when they played back the video tapes taken for liability purposes, the effect was absent.  

In every case reported by Catholic church authorities, the demons were only able to overcome the victim’s natural defenses by being “invited” in.  One’s involvement in communing with the dead, playing with Ouija boards, etc. leave you open to possession.  Some people even seek out the Devil.  Scary.

I for one am a believer in the religious account.  There are just too many credible reports of miracles and interventions by angels and encounters with demons to ignore.  I have personally witnessed phenomena of the angelic type.  For me there is no other rational explanation.  Also, the accumulated knowledge of physics and biology clearly indicates there is far more to the universe than we little humans can understand.  For every new discovery in astrophysics and particle physics, a dozen new questions arise. 

If the religious account is unfounded superstition, it’s a harmless one in most respects.  In the meantime, this fourth category is a convenient place in my ontology of Being, to park such entities as are claimed to exist in the spiritual realm.

Geopolitical Spheres of Influence

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Extract: The world of the 21^st Century can be neatly divided into three terrestrial zones, each being the semi-exclusive sphere of influence for one or two of the four most powerful nation states on the planet. There are also disputed territories interspersed around and among the three main zones. Power is defined here as industrial, commercial and military capability.  The four so-called superpowers are China, Europe, America and Russia.


Introduction:  It’s a big world, but nation states still compete for space and resources.  As the trajectory of history continues in the new century, America, China and Europe are in a position to claim nearly equal superpower status, insofar as industrial and military might goes.  Russia must be included in this superpower club due to its geographical location, its small but capable industrial base, nuclear-armed military forces, and its history of conflict with Europe.  A second tier of nations, including Iran and India, compete with the top four for regional hegemony, trade benefits and cultural influence.

These powerful nations do not want trouble.  The lessons of the 20^th Century are still fresh in our minds.  Accordingly, the current superpowers tend to behave in ways that avoid major military conflict.  For the most part, their citizens and leaders just want to prosper and trade with each other.  The militaristic form of imperialism seen in past centuries is gone from international affairs.  All four major powers possess global nuclear strike capability, a strong disincentive against adventurism of the kind seen before World War II.

Out of these circumstances, these primary powers have naturally begun dividing the globe into spheres of influence, territories within which hegemony can be extended without risk of warfare with another major power.  This is not a new idea; the 19^th Century scramble by Western powers to colonize undeveloped territories was a clumsy attempt to establish such zones of influence.  In the 21^st Century, however, the dust has settled, the internet has arrived, international trade has dramatically expanded and the world can reasonably be divided up into 3 major zones, each being the province of one or more of these four major powers.  These are not just lines on a map, but boundaries shaped mostly by geography and history, especially international treaties and the outcome of various past wars. 

Accordingly, the nation states of the world tend to recognize, publicly or not, the following three natural and historical divisions of terra firma and islands of the oceans, plus the disputed territories first described by George Orwell.

1.  Asia, the largest continent, and its coastal islands, including Hainan, Taiwan and Sri Lanka, constitute one giant zone for influence by its resident nation states.  The Western borders of Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and Iran (Zagros mountains) form the western boundary of Asia proper.  This delineation also neatly aligns with narrowest part of the isthmus between Europe and Asia.  

2.  Europe:  Consisting of the European subcontinent, Scandanavia, the Baltic states, Anatolia, and the islands of the Atlantic Ocean.  

 3.  Western Hemisphere and the Pacific basin, including Australia, New Zealand and the many islands east of the Asian mainland (excluding Hainan and Taiwan)

• The Disputed territories include all of Africa, the Levant, Mesopotamia and parts of Central Asia.  This is where much of today's armed conflict occurs.  Curiously, George Orwell foresaw this three part division of the world, plus disputed territories, in his prescient novel 1984, with some differences (see a rendition of his map below).

Note:  The open oceans are not permanently inhabited and therefore not the exclusive responsibility of any world power in the 21^st Century.  Freedom of navigation by all nations, in waters more than 12 nautical miles distant from territorial coasts, is guaranteed by International Maritime Law.  Antarctica and islands in the Southern ocean are not of strategic interest by any nation for the foreseeable future.

These three zones are the de facto responsibility of the four principle military-industrial powers.  This territorial scheme is mostly based on observation of the behavior of nation states in recent decades, and with a healthy dose of wishful thinking.  Using it as a reference model, helps clarify the nature of the current main hot spots, described below, where armed conflict between nation states could occur. 

What does hegemony mean and how is it used in the new century?  Ideally, when something goes wrong in one of these three zones, the resident powerful nations are responsible for coming to the aid of the people affected.  That could range from disaster recovery to removing a tyrant who is applying severe and unwarranted oppression.  Hegemony no longer means legal domination of little countries by larger, more powerful neighbors.  Notwithstanding the numerous violations, self-determination and the Rights of Man are the norm.  


Superpowers from other zones can and should assist in such international relief efforts, but resident nations must take the lead.  Local control is much better than interference by a nation from the other side of the planet.  Each of these superpowers possess plenty of capability, more than enough to afford this kind of enlightened hegemony.  Putting a nation’s armed forces to work intervening in a neighbor’s civil war is a difficult decision, but is sometimes necessary to stop endless human suffering.

Nations are led by people and even small groups of people sometimes make terrible mistakes.  While most of us can easily recognize, if not accept, these practical spheres of influence and their boundaries, hotheaded government officials often voice hegemonic claims for their nation that clearly cross zone boundaries.  Current examples abound: Iran in Mesopotamia, Arabia and the Levant; Russia in Syria, Bosnia and Cuba; the US in Korea and Afghanistan; China in the offshore islands of South China Sea; and Europe in Georgia and Ukraine, to name a few.

The following is a closer examination of the four superpowers and the geographical zones they claim:


China and Russia, along with India and Iran share the Asian continent with many other states and compete for influence there.  Asia’s center is big and thinly populated enough to allow a few buffer states around China, viz. Mongolia and Kazakhstan, to reduce the risk of serious trouble with nuclear-armed Russia.  Meanwhile, there is much to be gained by both countries from commerce, via the Economic Belt part of China’s Belt and Road (BRI) project.  It is a commercial venture, financed in part multi-nationally, and designed to benefit Russia.  


For its part, China is not even close to being ready to intervene in other Asian states beyond their immediate neighbors, their buffer states.  Some of these nations are vassals, some not.  In any event, China lacks a history of imperial ambitions beyond this circumscribed region.  That’s what makes their “nine-dash” claims appear weak and ill founded.

Russia, meanwhile does have a history of empire building on the Asian continent.  Once the US leaves Afghanistan, Russia will again be the dominant power in that part of the world, applying its influence in Central Asian countries, including Afghanistan, where its hegemony butts up against Pakistan, an ally of China.  It is the Great Game of past centuries revisited, but with a different group of players, all Asian.  


Numerous other possibilities for conflict exist within Asia.  China and India are neighbors with a long-standing suspicion of each other.  Huge mountain ranges insulate them on land, and so long as they can keep out of each other’s hair in the Indian Ocean, reference the Maritime Road part of BRI, they should be able to avoid armed conflict.  India and Pakistan (allied with Russia and China respectively) have fought several wars over territory and history.  Since both are now nuclear armed, a form of MAD-peace has ensued.  MAD stands for mutually assured destruction, another 20^th Century invention.

As geopolitical outsiders, Europe and America have no business projecting military power in Asia - not in Ukraine, Georgia or Korea, and definitely not on Taiwan, given its geographical and cultural proximity to China.  Reference the MacArthur doctrine warning against placing US troops on the Asian mainland and witness America’s latest Asian military mistake - remaining in Afghanistan after the expulsion of Al Qaeda in 2002.  


The Asian boundary most at risk of triggering a major power conflict is that between Europe and Russia.  Sadly, both parties are contributing to the growing danger.  Russia is continuing its post-Cold War interference in Ukraine’s political affairs.  In recent years it has supported a large-scale pro-Russian rebellion in Eastern Ukraine.  This frightens the Europeans, where Cold War thinking persists and whose memories of Russian land grabs after WWII are fresh.  


Non-aligned buffer states like Ukraine, Belarus and Georgia, make for good neighbors between Russia and Europe, but Europe seems intent on extending its influence there, promising membership in the EU and NATO, thereby threatening Russia with encirclement.  History weighs against such foolish moves.  


Russia has a history of expansion into eastern Europe, but in the 21st Century is mainly concerned with having neutral buffer states along its western boundary, to defend against the threat of invasion.  Russia can and will fight back if need be.  One can make an historical case for the Baltic states being members of the EU and even NATO, but to even suggest incorporating Ukraine and Georgia, is irrational and dangerous, IMO.

A less dangerous situation are the low-intensity conflicts between Iran vs the Gulf states and Israel (both protected by their US ally).  There is no need for Europe, much less America, to intervene in Iran, if Iran would only recognize and respect its boundary with the European sphere of influence.  Their predations in Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen and several of the Gulf states are a blatant violation of the principles I’ve described here.  Unfortunately, Iran is blinded by its long history of conquest in Mesopotamia and the Levant.  Also, Russia encourages Iran in support of its own expansionist strategy in the Levant.  Endemic low-level conflict is result.  


The least dangerous hot spot is Asia’s eastern boundary with American influence in the Western Pacific, which encompasses Japan and the Phillipines.   I believe President Trump intended to eventually withdraw US military assistance to Korea (ROK) and help Taiwan reintegrate with mainland China.  In exchange, the US wanted China to relinquish its claim to non-coastal islands and reefs in the China Sea, far from the mainland (inside the Nine-Dash line) which encroaches on the coasts of US allies inside its own sphere of influence, primarily Japan, Philippines and Indonesia.  

These boundary-straightening moves are diplomatically possible, but are not likely after Beijing rejected the proposed US-China trade agreement in May 2019.  Decoupling of the two economies is underway in earnest.  Only when China rejects communism, I believe, can routine trade relations resume.

The European Union and its contiguous allies, including Turkey, the UK, Switzerland, et al, has a natural sphere of influence encompassing the European subcontinent, plus islands in the Atlantic Ocean such as Iceland, Bermuda, Canaries, Azores, Falklands, etc.  These affinities are solidly based on historical and cultural ties.  I’ve already described the risks Europe and Russia share along their zone boundary.  It seems a reckoning is coming to both nations about solving their differences.  Perhaps America can assist with diplomacy; President Trump was definitely game for it.  
Africa is largely under-developed.  The northern tier of countries, Morocco to Ethiopia, and South Africa at the opposite end, are relatively advanced compared to the countries in between. The European powers still have ties in Africa left over from colonial days.  Small war conflicts are constant, along with widespread corruption and local tyranny.  Europe and the US do what they can, which beyond military and humanitarian assistance is not much.  Meanwhile, China sees an opportunity for economic development and lucrative trade relationships, particularly in East Africa.  

The European powers also have a history of imperialism in the Levant, Arabia and Mesopotamia.  While that period of history is largely over, Europe, China and other nations depend of petroleum from this part of the disputed territories.  To the extent America is energy independent, it can afford to withdraw.  Low level conflict will continue in this area for the foreseeable future.


Since World War 2, Europe has been overly dependent  on American military protection via NATO, an anachronism leftover from the Cold War.  As a result, the EU and its neighbors have not collectively developed their own independent military forces sufficient to police their entire sphere of influence.  Accordingly, American security assistance is prominent throughout the zone, especially in the Levant, Mesopotamia and Arabia, along with a modest presence of European forces.  


Europe, China, India and many other nation states depend on petroleum and gas from the Persian Gulf region, which is on the boundary with Iran, a lesser Asian power.  Since Europe is delinquent in doing its full duty there, an unstable situation has developed as America becomes energy independent and increasingly wary of additional foreign entanglements.  Given Iran’s expansionist ambitions, the potential for armed conflict in the region is high.

President Trump points out that this situation, with the US expending “blood and treasure” on security matters that Europe is rightfully responsible for, has continued for far too long.  He is pushing Europe to take the lead in developing NATO so that it can project military power anywhere in Europe’s sphere of influence, with the US in a support role only.


America, along with its close allies Canada, Mexico, Brazil, Chile and Columbia, extends its influence and support throughout the Western Hemisphere, plus all the islands in the Pacific, including the continent of Australia.  This projection of power and influence began with the Monroe Doctrine and Manifest Destiny in the 19^th Century. Reference the famous 1832 Voyage of Discovery across the Pacific Ocean by a US naval fleet, plus the island-hopping military campaigns of World War II.  

The three nations of North America are closely integrated with each other, culturally and industrially, the only wild card being Mexico, which suffers from the corrupting influence of criminal cartels involved in drug smuggling and human trafficking.  There is a long history of major trouble in Mexico spilling over the border into the USA.  


Armed conflict in South America is always possible, but history has taught the people there a terrible lesson about such local wars, so all of these nations are on a peaceful trajectory with each other in the new Century, notwithstanding their frequent internal troubles and tyrannies.  


Excluding Australia, the various island nations surrounded by the Pacific Ocean have a long history of foreign occupation and brutal conflict.  With the end of Japanese and European imperialism, there is no longer much risk of large scale conflict between states there.  China hopefully recognizes US responsibilities for these Pacific nations, especially Japan, Philippines and Indonesia.  Because of its proximity to the Asian mainland, Singapore may or may not be drawn into China’s sphere of influence, stay tuned.  


Meanwhile, America and Europe should avoid stationing any military forces in Asia beyond Mesopotamia and Arabia.  That means eventual withdrawal of US forces in Afghanistan and Korea, and cessation of military support to Taiwan.  The American people are sick of war in Afghanistan, but deeply connected to South Korea (ROK).  


Removing US troops from the Korean peninsula after 70 years will be a shock for those who don’t yet grasp the emergent geopolitical spheres of influence and their boundaries.  Even more painful to many Americans will be watching the two Koreas become closer to China in all respects, true buffer states protecting the Middle Kingdom on the eastern frontier of its sphere of influence.  


Many Chinese and Korean people are still deeply suspicious of Japan and its long term intentions.  Mitigating these tendencies for trouble is a perfect example of the beneficial effect of America’s hegemony in the Western Pacific, viz. keeping the peace on its zone boundary with Asia by restraining Japan and reassuring China and Korea.  


If China’s “nine dash” line encompassing most of the South China Sea is an indication, China may not be ready to accept this situation.  A smart US president like Trump would sit down with her/his Chinese counterpart and negotiate these zonal boundaries.  That may have already begun. 

For example the two superpowers could agree on several complementary objectives: China assists in effective disarmament on the Korean Peninsula, US forces eventually withdraw from a peaceful Korea, US applies diplomatic assistance in helping Taiwan reintegrate with the mainland, China abandons its designs on offshore islands in the China Sea.

I am convinced President Trump understood all of this and began the US effort to negotiate with Beijing on status of Korea, Taiwan and islands in the China Sea.  An agreement on trade terms is a prerequisite to settle these boundary issues, but unfortunately truly open trade with the US is inconsistent with current ideological thinking of  the Communist Party of China.

In Summary, I have described a world neatly carved up into three terrestrial and oceanic zones of influence, very Orwellian, but nonetheless a valid formulation for understanding the risk of major-power conflicts in this century.  War is not a thing of the past, but given this new, nearly complete division of the planet’s territories, the risk of a general war pitting the world’s primary military powers against each other is greatly reduced.

On North Korea (DPRK)

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North Korea (DPRK) is in the news these days, big time.  For years they have been trying to develop nuclear weapons as the ultimate defense against attack by a hostile South Korea (ROK) and its American ally, hard feelings leftover from the brutal Korean War of 1950-53.  

In my opinion, the truth of the matter is, China has been assisting the DPRK’s nuclear program all along.  China and DPRK share the same objective, remove US Forces from the peninsula and pacify the relationship with the South.  China is the patron and DPRK is the vassal.  

Building an atom bomb is not particularly easy.  DPRK has been mining and enriching uranium and harvesting plutonium from its reactors for quite a while.  Turning the fissile material into a bomb requires very precise trigger mechanisms, supplied by China of course.  DPRK’s September 2017 nuclear test at the Punggye-ri test site near the border with China, was a 150-kiloton thermonuclear device, something even more difficult to build.

My point is, the DPRK does not have an independent nuclear program, everything is controlled by China.  The 150-kiloton thermonuclear device was undoubtedly supplied by China; it’s the common size weapon used in MIRVed ICBMs; a very effective way of intimidating ROK and the Americans.

It’s the same with the missiles, which are needed to reliably deliver nuclear weapons to a target.  DPRK has long since had Scud-type missiles, derivatives of the original German V2 rockets.  The missiles fired in 2017 over Japan and into the Pacific was merely a super-Scud, i.e., a Scud with a second or third stage attached; very inaccurate and incapable of delivering a primitive nuclear weapon.  The advanced, solid fuel, cold launched missiles widely publicized are strictly Chinese made and operated.

Here is my rationale for this unorthodox belief:

a)   China came to the rescue of DPRK in 1950 and, along with the Russians, has been a patron of the regime ever since.  The DPRK can rightfully be called a vassal of China, where Koreans govern their internal affairs and China coordinates most foreign policy initiatives and all defense programs involving advanced weapons, including ballistic missiles beyond the simple Scud types.

b)   China would never tolerate the development of an independent nuclear strike capability by any of the buffer states surrounding the “middle kingdom”.  Nor would uranium enrichment activity be allowed without their supervision.

c)    China’s strategic objective in this elaborate masquerade is to marginalize and eventually, through negotiation, eliminate US military influence on the Korean peninsula, thereby enabling closer ties between China and the ROK; also to present the two Koreas as a mainland counter to Japan and the US.  The US has been a military power in the Western Pacific since the 1830s and China sees that as a potential threat.

d)   As an added benefit to China, the test shots at Punggye-ri provided a convenient cover for clandestine testing of Chinese nuclear weapons.  All of the world’s nuclear powers would really like to test their latest warhead designs but are stymied by the near-universal Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. 

The dance of summit meetings and negotiations during the Trump years were headed towards an eventual deal, where the DPRK mothballs or otherwise disposes of its fake weapons, missiles and production facilities, in exchange for a greatly reduced US presence on the peninsula.  Unfortunately, China nixed the deal, for reasons which are not clear, perhaps thinking they could get something better from a Trump-successor.  It will take years of negotiation and involve a peace agreement ending the Korean War, plus mutual conventional arms reduction on both sides of the DMZ.  Unification of North and South is possible only after all this is over.  The sooner the better, in my opinion.

  

Leaving ROK to a close political relationship with China will be a bitter pill for American neocons to swallow, but it is for the best I believe.  I subscribe to the “MacArthur Doctrine”, which warns against putting US troops on the Asian mainland.  Trump apparently does too, but unfortunately the shenanigans of November 2020 removed that possibility, and I believe he's too old to run again in 2024

FWIW, I’ve heard from professional DPRK watchers that other people, both in and out of government, hold views similar to mine, although the official line is quite different.  Meanwhile, I am amazed that the world’s politicians, news analysts and pundits appear to be completely hoodwinked by this clever charade.  This sort of gullibility seems to be a pattern of behavior among the political class in industrialized countries.

On Communism

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A thousand years from now, students of history will still be talking about the rise and fall of Communism, as an idealized theory of history, way of life and political system - spanning 140 years from the 1840s to the 1980s.  Already, barely a generation after the collapse of the Soviet Union, serious inquiries have begun into the history of Communism.  It was a social phenomenon that profoundly impacted human events, on the level of Alexander the Great’s propagation of Greek culture across the Middle East, or the rise of European feudalism during the Dark Ages.  For our purposes here, I will address three main questions in this order:

1.    What impelled the first Communists to start a mass movement in Germany in the 1840s?  What philosophical assumptions did they make?

2.    What was Communism’s enduring appeal to its many adherents, why did Communist political

    revolutions continue into the last half of the 20^th Century?

3.    What does this 140-year long epoch of Communist ascendency portend for the future, especially for “democratic socialism”?

Section 1 - Examined correctly, Communism can be seen as an immediate manifestation of the Industrial Revolution.  The term itself was coined by Karl Marx and his fellow activists who made up a German workingman’s association in the 1840s.  They lived in an era of violent socialist reaction to the disruptive effects of the worldwide industrial revolution - a classic case of disruptive technology turning the social order upside down.  Karl Marx was brilliant student of philosophy and history, who at an early age perceived a pattern of historical changes in the way people produced goods and services, how that in turn caused another cycle of changes in the way people make their living.  Thus, Communism is based on a peculiar blend of idealism and materialism, expressed as a philosophy of history.

Marx correctly observed that human personalities, beliefs and habits are largely shaped by the type of work they do.  In his analysis and explanation, the important factor was the relationship of the person doing the work, to the ownership of the tools of production, be it a factory or a horse and plow.  He perceived most modern humans as either a) slaves and serfs who are allowed to survive in exchange for their continued toil on the land, or b) toilers who earn a wage and are free to quit and relinquish their access to food, housing, etc.  A few others, the one-percenters, own the factories, megafarms, corporations, etc. and live the life of ease on their fat profits.

In 1848, angry wage workers in France tried to grab power but were beaten back by the established authorities and their military power.  On behalf of a small group of revolutionary socialists, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels published their Communist Manifesto (in German) in January of that year.  Many of them were promptly rounded up by the police as subversives and imprisoned.  Up until that time, the socialist movements in Europe were definitely prepared to fight for better pay and working conditions, but their objectives were fairly modest:  collective bargaining, a living wage, democratically elected governments, etc.  However, Marx and his cohorts had a more radical agenda, spelled out in detail in their Manifesto.

“Manifesto of the Communist Party”, first published in German, laid out quite radical principles for how people should relate to each other in a just and productive industrial society, and the steps necessary to make that transition.  The Manifesto was both a proposed agenda for proletarians and a warning to capitalists and their lackeys. Its fixation on justice, fairness and equality mirrors the idealist inclination of Marx’s generation (Young Hegelians).  The following is a summary of their very utopian program:

·       Through revolutionary means, state power will be concentrated in a dictatorship, not of one person, but of the vanguard party representing the class of industrial wage slaves and their agricultural counterparts. In this manner the proletariat becomes the ruling class and gradually wipes away all institutional and cultural vestiges of the previous Bourgeois economic order.

·       Property owned or controlled by Bourgeois interests will be a thing of the past.  Existing Bourgeois land and capital will be expropriated by the state for public use as quickly as practical.  Personal possessions like a toiler’s clothes or an artisan’s tools are excepted. 

·       Farmers will collectively “own” the land they till and industrial workers will own the capital assets of the enterprises they work on.

·       Marriage contracts will be mutual agreements between competent parties concerning property and children, nothing more.  The Bourgeois family, with its pater familias, dutiful wife and obedient children, will vanish, to be replaced by something new and unforseen.  No longer will a woman be confined to domestic duties, while her husband is out and about, chasing other women.  Women will be free to form their own community and cohabit and consort with men as they please. 

·       Universal public education will be continued, but it will be rescued from the influence of the ruling class.  Child labor will be abolished, to be replaced in part by combining some education with industrial production, e.g., apprenticeships.  Parents rights will be subordinate to the state.

·       A heavily progressive income tax will levied, the rich must give back their ill-gotten gains. The right of inheritance will be abolished.

·       Agricultural and industrial production will be combined or coordinated by the state, followed by a gradual abolition of the distinction between town and country and a more “equitable” geographic distribution of the population.

·       Nation states and nationality will eventually be abolished.  Communism is global and all proletarians and peasants are comrades in the struggle to create the just and productive society that inevitably follows capitalism.

·       The objective is to abolish most class distinctions and all class antagonisms.  Once the proletariat sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, the conditions for existence of class antagonisms will likewise be swept away.  There will be no need for a ruling class.  In the meantime, though, don’t expect Bourgeois elements to give up without a fight.  They and their servants are class enemies, to be dealt with severely.

·       All able-bodied people will be obligated to work.  Industrial armies, especially for agriculture, will be established.  No work, no eat.

Section 2 – Why did this movement catch fire, albeit gradually at first?  The extreme social conditions and antagonisms Marx and Engels described were very real to a large proportion of industrial workers in the 19^th Century.  Near starvation wages in exchange for brutal working conditions was the norm.  In many places peasants were displaced from ancestral lands and driven into hellish factory towns to either work or die.  

As you would expect, factory owners often faced competition and in any event were not particularly inclined to treat their wage workers with kindness and respect.  There were exceptions, e.g., Henry Ford a little later, but for the most part it was a case of capitalism run amuck, squeezing every last ounce of profit out of the available land, labor and capital. 

The communists of the last half of the 19^th Century were part and parcel of a larger set of socialist parties organized by industrial workers and their sympathizers.  Marx and Engels took pains to distinguish themselves from the rest, but in fact there were other socialist revolutionaries afoot in Europe, Britain and America.  Strikes by workers against capitalist enterprises became more and more frequent.  The law at the time was not on the side of organized workers and violence against them was frequently applied or at least condoned by state powers.  The most extreme of these socialist parties, including the Communists, were outlawed and for most part operated underground.

Finally, in 1905, a socialist revolution was seriously attempted in Russia, of all places.  At the time, Russia was just beginning its industrialization.  Most working people there were peasants, living on and legally tied, to land they did not own.  Furthermore, the leading organizers of the revolution of 1905 had rather modest Socialist objectives and settled with the Russian monarchy for an elected parliament and some limited land reform.  Nevertheless, Russian Communists were emboldened and gained strength. These revolutionaries, including Lenin and Trotsky, proudly called themselves militant philosophers, determined to change the world for the better by whatever means necessary.

Twelve years later, in midst of a disastrous war against the Central Powers, Russia’s monarchy collapsed and the Communists, being the best organized and most determined of the various Socialist parties, seized power with relatively little blood spilt.  For the first time, Communism as a political and social system, was permanently instituted throughout an entire country.  It’s a testament to the power and attraction of Communism that the principles laid out in the Manifesto were faithfully adhered to, often in spite of the consequences.  Communist attempts at violent revolution were repeated in many other societies around the globe, and was notably successful in China, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Korea, Cuba, Nicaragua, Angola and Mozambique.  In every case, the revolutionaries did their best, given local conditions, to adhere to the Marxian program.  None of them were particularly successful at improving living conditions in their countries. None of these efforts spread to heavily industrialized societies, in spite mighty efforts throughout the 20^th Century. 

Section 3 – Even before the Soviet Union and its Warsaw Pact collapsed in 1991, Communism as a philosophy and social system was thoroughly discredited.  Any serious movement toward revolution for oppressed workers or peasants had long since run its course.  

What then to make of the current popularity of “democratic socialism”?  For one thing, our very definition of the modern political spectrum, as understood in most places, has left and right wings corresponding to a) socialist/communist values and long-term objectives, vs b) the established, and often reactionary, order of powerful asset owners and career politicians.  Read again the bullet points in section 1 above and you will find essential elements of current American “secular progressive” political ideology.  

That doesn’t make social democrats around the world bad people, intent on our destruction.  There are also obvious differences between the two parties, with Socialists more likely to be influenced by their humanist tradition rather than animus toward their class enemies.

Nonetheless, Communism is a thoroughly materialist system based a humanist ideology of fairness and caring for the most vulnerable classes of society.  Unfortunately, Communist and Socialist economic policies inevitably lead to social collapse, as in the Soviet Union, Greece, Venezuela and multiple other Latin American historical examples.  Even more dangerous is the inherent need for coercion in implementing either Communist or Socialist policies, albeit with a velvet glove in the latter case.  Even the Bernie Sanders variety of socialism, requires coercion at almost every level, from confiscatory taxes on successful entrepreneurs to forcing a wage earner to pay taxes to a corrupt union. 

In order to provide an adequate supply of medical services to an entire nation, the central government must, to a large extent, take command of the nation’s health care industry.  For the US, imagine Medicare coverage (parts A and B) for all citizens and legal residents.  The benefits to the poor are hard to morally argue against, so the public rightfully accepts the change, only to find out eventually that everyone, except those who can afford expensive supplemental insurance, get the same mediocre level of service.  No heroic treatment for old people.  Long wait times for non-emergency surgeries, etc.  Consider the single-payer systems in Canada and the UK.  All this is hard to argue against, which is why socialist initiatives will continue to prevail.   If Marx and Engels were alive today, they would have no trouble explaining how the dialectic of historical events and forces is being demonstrated before our very eyes. 

I can’t predict the future, but as the Roman historian Polybius pointed out, states ruled by the demos (as in democratic socialism) slowly rob the national treasury ($20T in US national debt), eventually resulting in collapse and a period of authoritarian one-party rule (oligarchy), followed by one-man rule (tyranny) and eventually triggering another democratic revolution to start the cycle all over again.  Fortunately for people in many parts of the globe, this process is slow, with plenty of time to adjust to creeping socialism.