new middle ages

• Umberto Eco’s essays “Living in the New Middle Ages” and “Dreaming of the Middle Ages” … decline of Westphalian sovereignty … replaced by global political system similar to Middle Ages without defined country borders … sovereignty, loyalty, devotion deviate from the country to diverse structures self-governance, unions, employers, tech monopolies … (church, lords, factories in Middle Ages) …
• couldn’t find this unabridged translation 2024-12-30: https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789400604841/autumntide-of-the-middle-ages
• Technofeudalism Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism (2023), Yanis Varoufakis
• Gabriel Almond, David Easton call state - special entity and stage for global rivalry … new world order is dictated by international corporations, organizations, global information network
• New Middle Ages threatens return of the old problems, Westphalian system was made to solve such as religious (or values) wars … fear of war and chaos raises the demand for leadership that defends “sovereignty” as “the right to dominate”
• Marshall McLuhan’s vision of the “global village”. His famous phrase “the medium is the message” speaks to the same kind of semiotic concerns that preoccupied Eco.
• Michel Foucault’s work on epistemes and historical discontinuity provides a sophisticated framework for understanding the transition to “new middle ages”
• Giorgio Agamben’s concept of “profanation” - the restoration of things to common use - speaks directly to Huizinga’s ideas about play and the sacred.

linked mentions for "new middle ages":

1. the state as a voluntary association
   There is no such thing as governing mankind, as a wise man once said, there is such a thing as leaving mankind alone. All modes of government are