Origins of the Next Great Civilization: The Rise of Holistic Civilization

An examination of where, and from what, a future Holistic Civilization will arise

The following is a continuation of my Holistic Civilization series. A discussion of the civilization likely to rise after Faustian Civilization concludes. In this series, I go into the structure of Holistic Civilization and make predictions about its nature in the article below, A Future Beyond Materialism: Holistic Civilization. This article doesn’t focus on the character of that future civilization; instead we’re looking at where that civilization will grow, what conditions lead to its birth, and what peoples will draw it into form.

While the recent election of Donald Trump buys us time in the United States it does so because a nationalist policy is necessary when the global economic system shifts from a mutual growth-focus to a zero-sum-game.

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Holistic civilization will develop on the far side of the cultural ravine we’re facing in the mid/late 21st century, though we’re already beginning to see shadows of it in modern culture. The book “The Ecotechnic Future” describes the end of global-industrialism and beginning of scarcity-industrialism and then salvage-industrialism as a series of successive structures for human civilization. Global-industrialism is reaching its conclusion now, according to the latest Limits To Growth study published in 2022. Even more catastrophic is the dramatic global demographic collapse. Useful videos on the subject: “Birth Rate Crisis” “One Decade Until Midnight.”

In an economic sense, the limits-to-growth and reactions to them are compounding to create what I have been calling the Cultural Ravine. A period where the failures of industry compound on the moral failures of the materialist religions: liberalism, communism, fascism. The cultural ravine will cause radical swings in social systems, morality, economics, and demographics. It will be experienced unevenly over time and across the world. What rises out of the other side is going to be a fundamentally different mode of being from what we express now.

An analysis of how that rise is likely to take place, where it’s going to occur and among which populations, will provide useful insight into next great human civilization. Where and how such a prospective civilization might emerge is critical to its future character.

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At some point, the Cultural Ravine will be it’s own article. For now, the Cultural Ravine remains poorly defined, existing in the abstract. I may summarize it as a period of extreme economic and political uncertainty: supply shocks, economic instability, a reformation and localization of political systems, and the shifting of the political order to a poorly defined legal framework. It’s a period likely to be noted only in retrospect by historians, not visible in real time by the people living it.

The real question presented here is not the Cultural Ravine itself, but what the world looks like after. The world from which a new civilization rises to forge a path that we can only glimpse from this early date.

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A Fiction of Future-History: What Still Remains

Climbing out of the Cultural Ravine was less traumatic than after the collapse of the Bronze Age or Rome. Many digital assets remain and continue to be produced in specialty industrial hubs. The period at the conclusion of Faustian Civilization consists of a global scarcity-industrialism that is significantly more culturally isolationist than the early 21st century. Many economies shrank during the demographic decline in radical departure from the preceding 500 years. The end of the Faustian era was marked by a rocking and reorganization of global financial systems, expectations regarding quality of life, a cultural refocus on smaller demographics and groups (clans).

Local/state government are primary legal enforcers, and regions and states have significantly strayed from one another in legal code. Nearly every region experiences some economic-disconnection from global trade lanes as shipping is a scarce resource [A freighter every day instead of every hour, and containing mostly high-value import goods]. There’s an economic preference for local production due to supply-chain uncertainty. Those places on the edge of global trade grow cultures with semi-independent economies and a strong sense of place.

International trade is often carried out via cryptocurrency, but local trade is the purview of a regional banks; similar to the mercantile way that trade was conducted in the 1700s. Cryptocurrency networks make finance easier and the traditional global banking system lost relevance after years of global economic instability.

There has been a conversion to hard-asset reserves over a few generations.
A cryptocurrency (bitcoin) reserve is held by individual banks that create their own floating local-currencies. “The Wells-Fargo Dollar” or “The St. Louis Credit Union Dollar”… Local currencies are notes on internal ledgers. When a transaction is made across banks, there’ll be a floating cross-currency valuation with the remainder/difference made up by a single cryptocurrency transaction at the end of each month. This new banking system grew quietly under the auspice of central monetary policy for a century until the central issuance of money was rendered irrelevant. This new system is favored in a semi-disconnected economic system that’s trade and resource limited between regions; allowing local banks to marginally inflate/deflate regional currencies.

The Holistic era begins with new local cultures that’ve pulled themselves up by the bootstraps into a world with energy-limited trade resources… but where international governments and communications still exist. Lip-service is still paid to the national central government, but little legal heed. The strongest cultures appear in regions already partially isolated from global trade system. Semi-disconnected regions built hardier cultures, more localized economies, and people that more oriented towards complex problem solving.

Holistic civilization first rises as an unofficial monarchy or triarchy appearing from within an oligarchic state. A powerful leader changes the culture and ensures political and economic stability. That stability has now lasted long enough for the redevelopment of mass industrial production and a proper reconnection to serious global trade…

This new civilization stems from a culture reactionary to the flaws of the Faustian and the Hegelian march of progress. A fundamental reassessment now sees the growth of a masculine honor-culture resembling the nobility of Italian city-states during the renaissance. These new leaders have a highly gendered culture with appropriate and expected roles for men and women. With families to care for, the men within are happy to get to work; reversing a century of stagnation.

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Note that this is a potential future history based on the models we have access to right now. Predicting the future is making a bet against the forces of Fate and hoping to come out the winner. It is likely that some of what’s said here is true, but an impossibility that it’s all accurate.

Also, I try to post these for free because I think these ideas are important, but a paid subscription costs as much as a cup of coffee per month. Please help support this work if you can afford it. Paid subscribers will gain access to spicier and exclusive content.

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Who

The people of the Holistic civilization will have formed for themselves a unified Ethnos centered around a spiritual and cultural identity. It’ll likely become a pseudo-nation formed by a number of regional cities and towns that consider themselves to be a culturally distinct unit. Less a “Rise of Greece” situation after the bronze age collapse, and more a “resurgence from the past” similar to emergence of Byzantium in the year 700.

These will be a people that will consider themselves a single ethnic group. While we now probably do not regard these peoples as a single ethnic group (likely some mix of various ethnicities in our eyes), they’ll be unified around a single paradigm and think of themselves as a single people. They’ll be thinking locally with cultural extensions that only partially intersect global trade-lanes. The core people of the next civilization will see themselves as being something new, separate and disconnected from the universal system of global-industrial trade that preceded them.

Importantly, the Holistic man will be spiritual and community-focused. It will be a culture with man as a piece of a larger body politic and as the legacy of his predecessors and father of the next generation. The spiritual focus will be based on an older religion (Christianity, Islam) but adapted to fit in with both a post-material and semi-scientific theology. This future man will view the phrases “The miracle of Earthly Creation” and “Planetary biological development” as synonyms for one truth as viewed through two prisms. Religion and the physical sciences will have shifted roles.

Religion will take on a role of community management. The sciences will be a purely investigative role. The psycho-social interpretation of both will be performed by a new class of Mystics who engage in shallow study across many disciplines to intuit the nature of emergent relationships. It’s likely large-data AI systems will be used by mystics to assist in developing solutions to complex emergent problems as stated in the referenced the prior Holistic Civilization article.

The result will be a new post-materialist cultural frame that will, oddly enough, be somewhat similar to the spiritual framing at the dawn of the Enlightenment.

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When and How

The Holistic Civilization will grow as the global Faustian Civilization winds down, beginning during a period of economic localization. It’s appearance will depend heavily on two marginally related events: economic shocks due to resource-limitations and the social stability of the worlds’ Great Power (the United States).

If the United States destabilizes, then the people of this new civilization will appear as a consequence of regional trade instabilities. That’ll probably mean limited bloodshed and the forging of an identity through violence. If that’s the case, the progenitor peoples could appear in any number of places around the world, specifically those with limited access to international trade but not total disconnection. In the event of destabilization, the first appearance of a new cultural demographic will occur about a generation after the fall of the American Empire.

If the United States remains stable, then global trade-lanes will remain marginally intact. In that case, it’s likely that Holistic civilization will actually appear as an entirely new cultural demographic inside the United States or adjacent to some other regional power (Russia springs to mind). The emergence then will take the form of a demographic push for pseudo-independence. A number of communities will successfully seek a legal distinction and grow in autonomy over time. Eventually the token unity of the American Empire will fail, and these new peoples will claim to be its true successors. If stable, then the new demographic will grow quietly over several centuries. It’s appearance will be gradual such that its “first” appearance won’t register, instead the forbearers of the Holistic civilization will achieve a major political/legal victory recognized only in retrospect.

In both cases the timeline roughly lines up to between 80 and 200 years from the present day (2024). The Roman equivalent is roughly 400 years. The Global-Industrial American timeline is more accelerated due to the serious risk of resource-shortages and economic global systems-collapse as described by The Limits to Growth.

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Where

This is one of the most interesting questions as regional demographics could easily define what kicks off the next great civilization. Which cities are going to still be well-populated and productive? Which regions of the world will be just connected enough to global trade to participate, but no so connected as to be reliant? There’s a few things a burgeoning ethnos is going to have.

Roads

Roads are probably going to be a core feature. Coastal cities will be so reliant on the international trade-system that supply shocks will be economically overwhelming. A people in a coastal metropolis are unlikely to be able to build localized industry because shipping will still be cheaper until something goes wrong. Simultaneously, a region with no easy transit will be too economically disconnected to build localized industry as spare parts, productive capital and people are going to be too few and far between. It seems likely that the heartland of the next civilization will be built around a trade network secondary to oceanic freighters: roads or rivers. An ethnos tied into the trade network, but retaining enough isolation that in bad times they very nearly disconnect completely and in good times they can interact closely with the global economy. Old roads and train lines are the case that make the most sense here.

Borderlands

New civilizations tend to pop up in places where there’s cultural mixing and friction between larger groups: Italia, Mongolia, Central Europe. It’s likely, then, that the Holistic civilization will emerge from a region that will, in several hundred years, be a front for several different cultures. Given the globalized nature of the world, it’s hard to imagine empires butting heads as they did 1000 years ago. Keep in mind that “urban neoliberalism” is it’s own distinct cultural group that exists only in a few dozen cities around the world and is fundamentally disconnected from the cultures of host-nations. It’s likely that the region where the next civilization develops will be an abutment of at least 3 other cultures and include at least one properly urbanized city. The city will be one of several cultures in intersection. It is in the border lands of multiple culturally and ethnically distinct regions that the seeds of the next great civilization will grow.

Water and Food

Due to trade-limitations, local production of food and a local water supply will be critical to development. This is another reason that a coastal metropolis is off the table. Most of those areas are highly reliant on modern transportation to access food markets, and more than a few use desalination for water. Famines will be minimal through the cultural ravine, but supply shocks due to rising food prices can become a serious source of instability. It’s difficult to focus on new cultural development when you’re hungry and can’t afford rent. A domestic supply must be available, meaning preserved healthy farmland that can be farmed even when spare parts for an expensive automated tractor are unavailable for six months. Virtually no region in china could serve as a cradle for the next civilization due to terminal ecological damage and groundwater contamination. Water and food requirements will also be restrictive in first-world-nations where genetically engineered food crops predominate. If engineered seeds are not available for a season, or too expensive, a lot of regional farms may fail. Fortunately a movement towards small organic farms with legacy genetic seed lines may cover the gap if there’s a crisis. Mass-farming can be unworkable during an ill-timed economic shock.

A Geographic Boundary

Historic empires grew in places that were relatively safe from barbarian raiders. A modern equivalent will take the form of a natural boundary more so than a fortress. It’s unlikely that things will break down to the point of barbarian raiders, but the formation of a natural boundary will be critical to defining an in-group/out-group dynamic. The young civilization will need to know who its own people are and develop a spiritual separation from others: “Born of this river system” or “along these tracks” or “South of these mountains.” Some type of geographic boundary will be present as mountains, rivers basins, lakes, or jungles.

Natural Resources

While a fertile region need not unlimited natural resources, it does require something besides food and water to trade on the (surviving) international markets. That’s why trainlines, roads or rivers are important. Big cities are likely to be mined for raw metals if the populations drop low enough (either through an official capacity or from an unofficial alliance of tweakers scavenging copper pipes). A large metropolis alone, however, will not be enough. Instead gold mines, copper mines, regional value-added industry or iron works are going to be primary drivers. A region with something to contribute, but not a region so rich in natural resources that it will be fully autonomous. Industry will necessitate the growth of a civilization commanding regional trade networks. Even if the Holistic civilization begins life within the borders of a modern nation-state, those borders will only be paid lip-service. Once the Holistic cultural demographic is large and industrious enough, any host nation will simply be brought to heel by regional industrial barons. Anticipate that the national capital will become one of the core cities of the Holistic civilization.

So Where will this Holistic Civilization Grow?

There’s several regions that can be identified as amenable to the growth of the next civilization. Which region takes up the mantle depends heavily on large tides of history that we’ve no way now to predict. Each one of the options below has an brilliant future history before it. Each of these regions may well navigate the winds of change. For those looking to make their bloodline a part of the core of the next great civilization on earth, these are the regions you should be looking to build families and contacts in.

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Kazakhstan

The region from the Caucus Mountains to Lake Balkhash is where Islamic, eastern, orthodox and western cultures meet. It has a natural barrier in the desert to the south, mountains to the east, and seas to the west. It has a growing population (for now) and access to water, farmland, and natural resources. It is also close enough to rail and roads to connect to global trade, but landlocked, it must localize much of its economy. This region of the world will continue developing over the next hundred years. A percentage of the Davos class wants to move a global trade-hub into Kazakhstan as it’ll be more stable than dying nations like the UK. The Kazakhs are a hardy herder people and may form a regional land-empire given sufficient time and stuttering in global economic markets.

The intersecting cultures here are:

• Caucasus Culture

• Islam

• Kazakh Culture

• Sino Culture (Mongolia, China)

• Orthodox Christian Culture

• Soviet Exceptionalism

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The Missouri River Basin

The region from St. Louis Missouri to Montana. Ozarkistan is a colloquial name for a place filled with wild rednecks in central Missouri. The larger Missouri river basin is separated by the geographic watershed, mountains, lakes, jungles and deserts across the Great Plains of the United States. This larger river basin is between the most productive economic networks in the world, but isn’t really part of them. The region is a stop-over for North-South and East-West trade across the United States. Landlocked, however, it isn’t going to be struck nearly as hard by global economic shocks. Large local resources in farmland, mines and industrial capital make this region of the US vastly under-rated as “flyover country.” In the north are pioneer ranchers and wealthy off-grid millionaires. In the south are redneck hill-folk. In the center is some of the most fertile farmland in the world. The Missouri River basin also contains few metropolitan areas, and thus avoids the negative effects high-density population centers. This is one of the most likely regions of the world where a Holistic civilization will emerge: a region that is effectively on the economic outskirts of the American Empire where various regional cultures collide. Cattle, Mines, Petroleum, Food, Water and value-added industry are all present here.

The intersecting cultures here are:

• American Blacks

• Cajuns

• Canadian Oil Drillers

• Dixie

• Great Plains Farmers

• Latino Texans

• Midwesterners

• Ranchers

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The Paraná River Basin

The region from Buenos Ares to Brasilia contains a large swath of territory in an economically depressed region of the world. With changes in both the Brazilian and Argentinian government over the next hundred years or so, this region could easily become a massive economic and cultural powerhouse in South America. Natural resources, a pioneering mentality combined with some of the less-detrimental diverse culture of Brazil make this nation-spanning region a particularly valuable hotbed for innovation. Like the Missouri River Basin, this region has few metropolitan areas, and a more limited connection to the global system of trade (excluding Buenos Ares). Of the regions mentioned here, this is the one I have the least personal experience with.

The intersecting cultures here are:

• Argentinian Libertarianism (a century from now if Milei is successful)

• Brazilian… culture

• Ranchers from Paraguay and Uruguay

• Hispanic Catholicism

• A mix of Portuguese and Spanish Iberian histories

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South East Asia

The region from Jakarta to Nagaland is perhaps the least likely region on this list to actually birth Holistic civilization, but bares mentioning. Nagaland in India is so culturally strong that the central Indian government has been ineffective at imposing its will there. Central south-east Asia is culturally strong enough at this time to already be waging civil wars. Cambodia is mostly land-locked and the West island of Indonesia is adjacent to global trade, but not bound to it the way Singapore is. This region of the world mixes Sino culture, Indian culture, Indonesian culture and even Western British culture via Australia, Macau, Singapore and Hong Kong. This region has always been tumultuous, but supply shocks will find this region quick to economically localize and reform a cultural and spiritual center.

The intersecting cultures here are:

• Chinese Culture

• Indonesian Culture

• Indian

• Thai and Vietnamese Culture

• Remnants of Imperial British Culture

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What About Mars?

It is my opinion that the Faustian spirit is exhausted. Faustian civilization was a break-out civilization that fundamentally changed the global paradigm in a way that hasn’t been seen since the Indo-Aryan invasions. There is not a corner of the earth that remains untouched. A combination of spiritual exhaustion and the very real exhaustion of natural resources means that soon we will be, as a species, pausing to take a breath. Already we’re seeing dramatic demographic decline in every advanced economy, and the rate of growth is quickly deteriorating in every other nation on earth. Resources are being put into use faster than they can be pulled from the ground, and the Energy-Return-On-Investment for petroleum and atomic production is declining. We need to take slow down and reassess.

We’re looking at a pause could easily last a thousand years… I fully expect the rising Holistic civilization to embrace a much more tempered attitude when it comes to exploration and technical development.

The reason that’s important is because, right now, Elon Musk and a few other billionaire-types are in a proverbial race-to-the-finish. The question is: can they produce a self-sustaining Mars colony before the global culture falls into senescence? If they can, the shallow gravity well and access to an entire world of raw resources could shape the dawn of an Aenean civilization as described in the Tree of Woe. Even then, there will a spiritual pause as humanity takes time to spiritually rest and rebuild. On earth, we are going to see a future that’s more tempered; the growth of a wiser civilization willing to approach community and the human condition in a more holistic fashion. A civilization more capable of working within the logistical limits of finite resources and a finite existence.

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On Mars, I don’t think any one could predict what we might see. Perhaps a militant Spartan civilization hell bent on survival as that’ll be needed to make hard sacrifices over generations.

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The next civilization won’t struggle in a mad dash for the stars as the Faustian did, but will achieve a different type of measured and beautiful adventure.

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