Deconstructing the Economic Monomyth
How Epistemicide has created our current conundrum
The current global civilizational narrative emanates from a very specific Eurocentric worldview that was imposed on the rest of the planet as an imperial-colonial project. This cosmology was very deliberately disseminated through various means—epistemicide, ecocide, and genocide. Epistemicide deserves special mention because the elimination of diverse cultures, rituals, practices, knowledge systems, works of art, artifacts, history, language and wisdom traditions was very deliberate, and methodically accomplished. And this has a direct bearing on the conundrum of polycrisis that we are on the brink of today.
The fear of alternative narratives has always been a driving force for the Eurocentric hegemonic and colonial power. This fear resulted in paranoid and almost manic elimination of alternative cultures and civilizations under the cover of self-declared Western supremacy, ‘bringing of civilization,’ ‘progress and development,' and a host of other associated spurious reasoning. A whole new set of binaries were created to uphold the supremacy of Eurocentric civilization—civilized vs. savages/barbarians, modern vs. traditional, developed vs. underdeveloped, and more. This narrative further fetishized 'reasoning and logicality' in opposition to 'intuition, imagination, and insight' thus delegitimizing a host of wisdom traditions and millennia of knowledge systems painstakingly handed down, nurtured, cultivated.
This Eurocentric monomyth is premised on Separation, Otherisation, Thingification, and a sense of entitled Supremacy of one culture and worldview that is wreaking havoc across the planet today.
The current economic structures and global cultures are founded on this deliberately designed and imposed hegemony. This singular monomyth suppressed and erased vast and myriad stores of generational knowledge systems--careful preserved orally, through art and artefacts, rituals and practices. These could have provided guard rails, balance, and alternative viewpoints. Instead of collaborating and learning, the hegemony went on a rampage of elimination and erasure for fear of diverse worldviews. An example of this brutal erasure:
“Between 1869 and the 1960s, hundreds of thousands of Native American children were removed from their homes and families and placed in boarding schools operated by the federal government and the churches. … The U.S. Native children that were voluntarily or forcibly removed from their homes, families, and communities during this time were taken to schools far away where they were punished for speaking their Native language, banned from acting in any way that might be seen to represent traditional or cultural practices, stripped of traditional clothing, hair and personal belongings and behaviors reflective of their native culture.” ~US Indian Boarding School History (highlights mine)
The quote from Walter D. Mignolo captures the essence of a knowledge system that was beyond the capacities of the Western worldview premised on separation and hierarchy.
Instead, what has been globalized through colonization, and then neoliberal globalization and neocolonization, is an economic system that is extractive and exploitative depending on exclusion and expropriation. Indigenous lands, tribal territories have always been up for grabs right from the time of the Doctrine of Discovery when land was considered ‘terra nullius’ that was not occupied according to the terms of ownership as understood by Europeans.
For the indigenous people, this was incomprehensible; to them, they belonged to the land, not the other way around. Their worldviews emanating from relationality ****and nonduality were completely alien to the white colonizers with their materialistic notions of profit, power, and control.
The Doctrine of Discovery was the principle used by European colonizers starting in the 1400s in order to stake claim to lands beyond the European continent. The doctrine gave them the right to claim land that was deemed vacant for their nation. Such vacant lands could be defined as “discovered” and as a result sovereignty, title and jurisdiction could be claimed. In doing so the Doctrine of Discovery invalidated the sovereignty of Indigenous nations and gave Christians the right to subjugate and confiscate the lands of Indigenous Peoples.
Now, as we stand on the brink of a polycrisis, we can see the havoc this notion of separation from nature along with privatization of the commons by a handful have created in the name of progress and development. Dams have displaced indigenous peoples the world over. Mines have devastated ecological balance. Millions have been displaced in the relentless march of progress under the aegis of development. Deep-sea trawling is turning our oceans into ghostscapes of bleached corals and dead ocean beds. Arctic ice is melting. Permafrost is thawing. At least six of the nine designated planetary boundaries have been crossed. There is no way this hegemonic power structure can steward us back into the safe space.
To protest is to be a luddite at best and anti-development at worst. I am happy to don both the mantles.
Refugees are arriving on the shores of safe havens in their pitifully tiny boats. In search of the elusive stability the ‘power-holders’ have stolen from them. Then, the same colonial powerbrokers are frantically building barricades and walls to keep the dispossessed away—refugees they have created by design. Or ship them to Rwanda. Dump toxic industries, waste, and the desperately poor on even poorer nations whose resources the Empire has pitilessly and cynically stolen. So, we are here. Polycrisis devolving into a metacrisis, and a crisis of meaning. And wonder why we feel disenchanted?
The Doctrine of Discovery still rules today as mega-corporations and the fossil fuel industry scour the globe to ‘discover’ ever more resource-filled areas for exploitation—to dredge that last drop of oil and excavate that final bit of coltan. The problem is this hegemonic narrative emanates from a worldview that doesn’t understand relationality with the land, with oceans and rivers, with the sky and the forests. And with others—human and more-than-human. The binaries of civilized/savages, modern/traditional, developed/underdeveloped are premised on Separation, Otherisation, Thingification, and a sense of entitled Supremacy that is wreaking havoc.
In Summary
a) The premise of the current hegemonic monomyth is violence—against Nature, Others, and Self. It is rooted in extraction, expropriation, and exploitation, supremacy and colonialism. These combined create a toxic brew that has been powering our civilizational narrative for more than five centuries. Over the years, this narrative has allowed certain kinds of people to rise to positions of power—those who unquestioningly support and owe allegiance to this monomyth. Emanating from the delusional aspirations of a handful of white men, this has been imposed on the planet at scale through force and violence. And it is still continuing. Those opposing and exposing the narrative have been silenced—incarcerated (e.g., Julian Assange and Edward Snowden), murdered (e.g., Patrice Lumumba and many others), rendered invisible, delegitimized.
b) A narrative that endorses separation from nature and limitless extraction is caught in its own fallacious hubris. We can see where limitless extraction is taking us; and since the accompanying hubris is high, the hegemonic power-holders are unable to change track. Moreover, they are in power precisely because they support the hegemony. Their sense of entitled supremacy as well as the baggage of retaining power at all costs get in the way of any possible transformation. The USA is on a rampage today as the world tilts towards multipolarity.
c) Because the Doctrine of Discovery arose from the notion of control and conquer, that still remains the underlying philosophy. Wars are being fought today for control over non-renewable resources to keep the economic juggernaut moving. It doesn’t matter that millions are being trampled in the process. See Congo, Sudan, Palestine—it is the same narrative of colonization, control, dominance, and power. Unless this overarching narrative is dismantled, its building blocks revealed piece-by-piece, the polycrisis will merely exacerbate.
In the next part, I write about antidotes to this hegemonic monomyth.