Re: Dating the Age of the World System

Interesting remarks particularly on “Dating of the World System” but also on the threads about “tragedy” and the WS ... My more immediate interest and concern, however, regards the first topic.

"What is it for?  What is its purpose as a unit of analysis?"  Pretty big questions.  But when such questions of metaphysics & epistemology come up, they should immediately bring to mind that we’ve been catapulted beyond the level of using our analytical tools merely for a specific practical end (say, to make sense of current events).  When these questions are raised, as they are now regarding World Systems Theory, we must understand the issue is no longer about pragmatic or utilitarian models of social science; the issue is now about the fundamental undercurrents of human behavior in history and about macro-historical trends in human events.

Thus to use WST to understand the ascendancy of the Roman Empire’s political structure and to understand the military movements and victory of the Allies during WWII is one thing.  There is however, a deeper analytical focus to the field than just to understand the more practical aspects of political affairs and military issues.  We can see in World Historical Studies – most notably for our concerns here on this topic (via Landon’s “Eonic Model” and David Christian’s Big History) – a very good way of getting at both the larger scope as well as the deeper concerns of World(-)Systems Analysis.

Yet, this does redefine the field a bit and forces us to rethink the dating, geography, and substance of the “System.” There’s no doubt about it.  The framework of the [World] System/Process becomes an extension of either macro-evolutionary process (per Landon) or the systematic complex of “maps inside of maps” (per David Christian) where a number of interactive processes are at work in bringing humanity to its notable achievements at both 10,000 BCE and then again 5,000 y.a. respectively.  “Intersocietal relations” might be a good term to use here, although “World System/world-systems” is slightly better; the former carries connotations of there being just a hodge-podge or a loose bundle of relationships to human affairs in any given generation as opposed to a systematic integrative principle/phenomenon by which all these “intersocietal relations” are framed, i.e., world-systems or the World System. 

Societies themselves are relationally structured whether we wish to think of them as being “imagined communities” ala Benedict Anderson or more concretely in terms of specific human populations; this term if misunderstood in an essentialist way carries with it the implication of solid, distinct, separate entities floating as it were in a sea of human relationships.  But societies themselves and all these other social units are just as relational as the relationships that exist among societies.  I would say that the structure-process indeterminacy of wave-particles is just as true regarding social structures and the macro-historical processes of world-systems as it is for physical realities exhibiting such properties.  And, it is just as valid whether we speak of societies as (structures or operative-process-relationships) or (macro-social-economic, et al, dynamics, operating regionally/globally in human affairs & which exhibit both tendencies of being processes and structural units).  The same indeterminacy applies.

So, the questions that must be asked are: (1) does the “world-system” label work better to describe those dynamics I’ve talked about in previous posts or is “intersocietal relations” the better term to use  (2)  is “intersocietal relations” the better, more conceptually-unassailable term to use in this case, or if we keep this substitution & use it instead of WS, would it be better to speak of “inter-social relations?”

Actually, “world” would carry both connotations within the context I’m talking about it in.  Clearly there’s a spatial scope to the World System (world-systems as global/regional phenomena); but there’s also a “more cosmological aspect” as well (call it a universalized, meta-, or macro-historical element in World Systems Theory)(what is it exactly?  It’s more of a level from which a world systemic synergy is achieved between (macro-social & human/environmental ecological factors from the surrounding physical setting of the earth and its place in the greater universe) playing off and interacting with the intrinsically-oriented dimensions of human social psychology [be such effected through memetics or psychohistorical processes, like group fantasy relationships].

The “time extended” World [Super] System does carry with it radical implications for the normal means we use to discuss world-systemic frameworks and processes.  No longer can one afford to merely scratch the surface and look at politics/military connections as ends in themselves in our analyses; we must look for underlying explanatory variables that go beyond the “answers” of social affairs, political and military concerns.  In order to drive deeper at more ultimate explanations, we as theorists of the World System or w-systems must be willing to look at more underlying terms based in the human psyche and psychobiology (and yet at the same time be willing to consider macro-historical dynamics like world historic “eonic” evolution and the many factors – physical and masses-oriented human group behavior – that make up the many “maps” of “big history”) if we are to get as much out of our field’s models and we can and we should.  But this does require that we look deeper than politics, practical social issues, and military stratagems in human history; it forces us to ask, what’s behind factors of social movements, political maneuverings, and military intrigues?  What factors go deeper than these others and yet at the same time embody the animus of these dynamics?  What factors drive the socio-economic thrusts of World System history beyond talk of core/peripheries, hegemonies/rivalries, and long-cycled highs and lows [in the practical, financial sense of such phenomena as business cycles]?  What underlies “exchange forms” and “accumulation?”

This isn’t to say these conceptual structures we use in WST aren’t important.  They are important in delineating the communicative and economic linkages of the overall System and its parts; we need to start somewhere and these concepts/ideas/ analytical tools are the way we get such a start.  But what underlies these structures?  What are the deep structured dynamics behind the more mechanical operations of the World System?  What factors/dynamics constitute the heart & driving soul of core/periphery structure, hegemony/rivalry, et al, in World(-)Systems Analysis?

Those are my questions here.  A time-extended World System reaching at its roots 200,000 years ago forces us to look back and consider such issues seriously.  If we don’t, we risk losing the genius of a World Systems perspective in a flurry of policy analysis and social affairs commentary.  In lieu of World History, macro-evolutionary metahistorical models, psycho-historical research, and the many maps that go to form “Big History”, studies like WST can become defunct.  The metaphorical forest is lost for want of trees.

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