Insight from Pepe Escobar — on the West's side, nihilism — on the multipolar others', hope

© 2023 Peter Free

 

23 January 2023

 

 

Fine analysis from Pepe Escobar

 

In an essay dismembering the nihilistic uselessness of the Davos Elite, Escobar began with this paragraph:

 

 

The self-appointed Davos “elites” are afraid. Very afraid. At this week’s World Economic Forum meetings, mastermind Klaus Schwab – displaying his trademark Bond villain act – carped over and over again about a categorical imperative: we need “Cooperation in a Fragmented World”.

 

 

Escobar concluded his overview with the following observations:

 

 

Between light and darkness

 

Could it be that Russia – alongside the real Quad, as I defined them (with China, India and Iran) – are prevailing in the anthropological stakes?

 

The real Quad has all it takes to blossom into a new cross-cultural focus of hope in a “fragmented world”.

 

Mix Confucian China (non-dualistic, no transcendental deity, but with the Tao flowing through everything) with Russia (Orthodox Christian, reverencing the divine Sophia); polytheistic India (wheel of rebirth, law of karma); and Shi’ite Iran (Islam preceded by Zoroastrianism, the eternal cosmic battle between Light and Darkness).

 

This unity in diversity is certainly more appealing, and uplifting, than the Forever War axis.

 

Will the world learn from it?

 

Or, to quote Hegel – “what we learn from history is that nobody learns from history” – are we hopelessly doomed?

 

© 2023 Pepe Escobar, 'Fragmented World' Sleepwalks into World War III, Unz Review (18 January 2023)

 

 

The moral? — People familiar with the nuanced roots of the four spiritual traditions . . .

 

. . . (that Escobar mentions) will indeed see far more hope and positivity embraced in them, than in neocon and neoliberals' incessantly death-dealing language and actions.