The “Conflict” Between Global and Local Optimization Is an Illusion Structuralism and the Limits of Global Order and Democracy
What Does “Local Optimization for the Sake of the Whole” Mean?
“Global optimization” and “local optimization” are often treated as opposing ideas.
From a structuralist perspective, however, this is a misconception.
A system’s overall harmony can only emerge through the self-regulating mechanisms of its parts.
In other words, global optimization exists only through a chain of local optimizations.
Local optimization for the sake of the whole = the autonomy of each nation as the foundation of global order.
This is not an abstract ideal but a systemic law of world order.
The problem is that today’s international society does not operate according to this law.
The Apparent Conflict Is a Product of Perception
The notion that the whole and the parts are in conflict arises from our linear, analytical way of thinking.
Our cognition tends to divide and rank phenomena—seeing the “whole” as superior and the “part” as subordinate.
This creates the illusion that “the whole sacrifices the parts” or “the parts destroy the whole.”
Structuralism shows that the whole and the parts are different layers of a single continuum—not opposites, but complementary scales of the same process.
The Structural Truth: Local Optimization Is the Mechanism of the Whole
As Lévi-Strauss and Luhmann demonstrated, society is not governed by a one-way hierarchy where the whole controls the parts or vice versa.
It is a self-referential, dynamically reproducing system in which each level co-generates the other.
Thus, when each subsystem—whether an individual, an organization, or a nation—functions autonomously and maintains its own internal balance, the result is the stability of the entire structure.
This is the essence of autopoiesis—the self-organizing logic of living systems.
Why the Structure Fails in Reality
In theory, local optimization should naturally lead to global balance.
In reality, it fails because of distortions within our political and ideological frameworks.
1. The Qualitative Problem of Democracy
Modern democracies, though founded on self-correcting ideals, have become reactive systems.
Elections, media, and public opinion drive policies in short-term cycles, preventing deeper reflection and long-term structural optimization.
Democracy thus loses its autopoietic capacity and turns into an unstable feedback loop, overreacting to external stimuli.
2. The Structural Defect of Authoritarianism
Authoritarian regimes, by contrast, seek order through top-down control.
But such control suppresses internal self-repair mechanisms.
What looks like stability is often internal decay—the system mimics global optimization while lacking true self-circulation.
The Key: A Nation’s Capacity for Self-Circulation
From a structuralist standpoint, each nation is a self-referential system.
Its health depends on whether it can detect contradictions within itself and reconstruct accordingly.
A nation that externalizes its internal contradictions—through scapegoats, enemies, or authority—loses its structural autonomy and cannot contribute to the world’s balance.
Hence, global order cannot emerge from shared control but only from shared self-sufficiency—each nation maintaining internal coherence through self-renewal.
Resonance Among Autonomous Systems
Autonomy is not isolation; it is the ability to sustain oneself in relation to others.
When nations refine their own cultural, ethical, and economic structures while engaging others through mutual respect, a true global order begins to emerge.
Such order is not born of domination or enforcement but of resonance of autonomy—a harmony that arises naturally when each system vibrates in balance with itself and others.
Toward a Self-Reflective Democracy
To truly unite global and local optimization, democracy must be redefined—not as a procedure, but as a structure of self-reflection and self-renewal.
A healthy nation does not swing with the winds of popular reaction or authoritarian command.
It possesses a structural consciousness that enables it to adapt, correct, and evolve from within.
That is the maturity of the part, and the foundation of the whole.
Order does not arise from control.
It emerges from the circulation of autonomy.
This is the structuralist truth behind the future of global order.
■ Chapter II: The Ethical Vacuum of Authority — A Society That Has Lost Its Circulation of Thought
When the complementary structure between global optimization and local optimization collapses, what emerges is not merely systemic failure—it is the suspension of thought and ethical circulation itself.
This state can be described as an ethical vacuum produced by the rigidity of authority.
● From Circulation to Stagnation: The Structural Consequence of Authority
The stronger the authority, the more society becomes unidirectional—from the top downward—while feedback from below is cut off.
Information, resources, and legitimacy accumulate rather than circulate.
In this structure, the system loses its capacity for self-correction; it no longer evolves, only persists.
Economic imbalance follows the same pattern.
When inequality becomes semi-permanent, wealth stops flowing.
The economy turns from creative exchange to authoritarian reabsorption, in which value circulates only to reinforce existing power.
● The Fall of Logical Thought: From Inquiry to Ornamentation
As authority solidifies, logic ceases to serve the search for truth and becomes a mechanism of legitimation.
It is no longer a question of whether an argument is valid, but whose argument it is.
Knowledge, theory, and expertise become instruments of justification, not exploration.
Thus, even an apparently intellectual society can be governed by selective rationality—a rationality that filters truth to maintain hierarchy.
Thought ceases to be free; it becomes domesticated.
● The Displacement of Ethics: From Collective Practice to Private Resistance
Under rigid authority, ethical judgment retreats from the public sphere into the individual conscience.
People mistake obedience to law for moral integrity, losing the capacity for dynamic self-evaluation.
What remains of ethics is confined to small, self-aware minorities who carry it as a silent resistance rather than a shared moral force.
Ethics, once the living medium of social correction, becomes a private and lonely act.
The collective body of society, meanwhile, drifts into a state of ethical suspension—an order that functions without conscience.
● Stagnant Authority Stops the Circulation of Thought
From a structural perspective, thought, ethics, and information are all parts of a single autopoietic circulation—a self-renewing loop through which society maintains awareness.
When authority becomes rigid, this loop collapses.
The system can no longer learn from its errors.
It is a state where individuals cease to think, societies cease to feel, and nations cease to learn.
This is not merely political stagnation—it is the structural death of intelligence.
● Without the Recovery of Autonomy, Order Cannot Be Restored
Order cannot be sustained through control; it can only be regenerated through circulatory autonomy.
To overcome rigid authority, what is required is not violent opposition but the reactivation of internal circulation—within individuals, organizations, and nations alike.
When thought flows freely again, when ethics arises from within action rather than from imposed norms, and when logic returns to truth-seeking instead of power-serving, society begins to self-heal.
■ Conclusion: The Recovery of Ethical Circulation as the Path to Global Reoptimization
As the previous chapter argued, the supposed “conflict” between local and global optimization is an illusion—the two exist in continuous, structural resonance.
The quality of that resonance depends on the health of logic and ethics.
When authority captures these circulations, society loses both thought and conscience—and eventually, the capacity to sustain itself.
But when individuals recover autonomy of mind, and ethics once again circulates as a collective force, local optimizations reconnect into a global harmony.
“Freedom of thought gives birth to ethics; the circulation of ethics regenerates order.”
That is the structural condition for transcending the rigid hierarchies of authority—and the foundation of a future society capable of self-renewal.
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