alien, disguised as a retarded child, develop psychic powers. Years
later they reunite only to confront a vicious extraterrestrial
life-form. Only two survive but they succeed to eradicate the monster
by incinerating it and crushing its tiny off-spring underfoot.
Being mortal ourselves, we cannot conceive of an indestructible
entity. The artifacts of popular culture - thrillers, action and
sci-fi films, video games, computer viruses - assume that all
organisms, organizations and automata possess fatal vulnerabilities.
Medicine and warfare are predicated on a similar contention.
We react with shock and horror when we are faced with "resistant
stains" of bacteria or with creatures, machines, or groups able to
survive and thrive in extremely hostile environments.
Destruction is multi-faceted. Even the simplest system has a structure
and performs functions. If the spatial continuity or arrangement of an
entity's structure is severed or substantially transformed - its
functions are usually adversely affected. Direct interference with a
system's functionality is equally deleterious.
We can render a system dysfunctional by inhibiting or reversing any
stage in the complex processes involved - or by preventing the
entity's communication with its environs. Another method of
annihilation involves the alteration of the entity's context - its
surroundings, its codes and signals, its interactive patterns, its
potential partners, friends and foes.
Finding the lethal weaknesses of an organism, an apparatus, or a
society is described as a process of trial and error. But the outcome
is guaranteed: mortal susceptibility is assumed to be a universal
trait. No one and nothing is perfectly immune, utterly invulnerable,
or beyond extermination.
Yet, what is poison to one species is nectar to another. Water can be
either toxic or indispensable, depending on the animal, the automaton,
or the system. Scorching temperatures, sulfur emissions, ammonia or
absolute lack of oxygen are, to some organisms, the characteristics of
inviting habitats. To others, the very same are deadly.
Can we conceive of an indestructible thing - be it unicellular or
multicellular, alive or robotic, composed of independent individuals
or acting in perfect, centrally-dictated unison? Can anything be, in
principle, eternal?
This question is not as outlandish as it sounds. By fighting disease
and trying to postpone death, for instance, we aspire to immortality
and imperishability. Some of us believe in God - an entity securely
beyond ruin. Intuitively, we consider the Universe - if not time and
space - to be everlasting, though constantly metamorphosing.
What is common to these examples of infinite resilience is their
unbounded and unparalleled size and might. Lesser objects are born or
created. Since there has been a time, prior to their genesis, in which
they did not exist - it is easy to imagine a future without them.
Even where the distinction between individual and collective is
spurious their end is plausible. True, though we can obliterate
numerous "individual" bacteria - others, genetically identical, will
always survive our onslaught. Yet, should the entire Earth vanish - so
would these organisms. The extinction of all bacteria, though
predicated on an unlikely event, is still thinkable.
But what about an entity that is "pure energy", a matrix of fields, a
thought, immaterial yet very real, omnipresent and present nowhere?
Such a being comes perilously close to the divine. For if it is
confined to certain space - however immense - it is perishable
together with that space. If it is not - then it is God, as perceived
by its believers.
But what constitutes "destruction" or "annihilation"? We are familiar
with death - widely considered the most common form of inexistence.
But some people believe that death is merely a transformation from one
state of being to another. Sometimes all the constituents of a system
remain intact but cease to interact. Does this amount to obliteration?
And what about a machine that stops interacting with its environment
altogether - though its internal processes continue unabated. Is it
still "functioning"?
It is near impossible to say when a "live" or "functioning" entity
ceases to be so. Death is the form of destruction we are most
acquainted with. For a discussion of death and the human condition -
read this Death, Meaning, and Identity
T H E A U T H O R
SHMUEL (SAM) VAKNIN
Curriculum Vitae
Click on blue text to access relevant web sites - thank you.
Born in 1961 in Qiryat-Yam, Israel.
Served in the Israeli Defence Force (1979-1982) in training and
education units.
Education
Graduated a few semesters in the Technion - Israel Institute of
Technology, Haifa.
Ph.D. in Philosophy (major : Philosophy of Physics) - Pacific Western
University, California.
Graduate of numerous courses in Finance Theory and International
Trading.
Certified E-Commerce Concepts Analyst.
Certified in Psychological Counselling Techniques.
Full proficiency in Hebrew and in English.
Business Experience
1980 to 1983
Founder and co-owner of a chain of computerized information kiosks in
Tel-Aviv, Israel.
1982 to 1985
Senior positions with the Nessim D. Gaon Group of Companies in Geneva,
Paris and New-York (NOGA and APROFIM SA):
- Chief Analyst of Edible Commodities in the Group's Headquarters in
Switzerland.
- Manager of the Research and Analysis Division
- Manager of the Data Processing Division
- Project Manager of The Nigerian Computerized Census
- Vice President in charge of RND and Advanced Technologies
- Vice President in charge of Sovereign Debt Financing
1985 to 1986
Represented Canadian Venture Capital Funds in Israel.
1986 to 1987
General Manager of IPE Ltd. in London. The firm financed international
multi-lateral countertrade and leasing transactions.
1988 to 1990
Co-founder and Director of "Mikbats - Tesuah", a portfolio management
firm based in Tel-Aviv.
Activities included large-scale portfolio management, underwriting,
forex trading and general financial advisory services.
1990 to Present
Free-lance consultant to many of Israel's Blue-Chip firms, mainly on
issues related to the capital markets in Israel, Canada, the UK and
the USA.
Consultant to foreign RND ventures and to Governments on
macro-economic matters.
President of the Israel chapter of the Professors World Peace Academy
(PWPA) and (briefly) Israel representative of the "Washington Times".
1993 to 1994
Co-owner and Director of many business enterprises:
- The Omega and Energy Air-Conditioning Concern
- AVP Financial Consultants
- Handiman Legal Services
Total annual turnover of the group: 10 million USD.
Co-owner, Director and Finance Manager of COSTI Ltd. - Israel's
largest computerized information vendor and developer. Raised funds
through a series of private placements locally, in the USA, Canada and
London.
1993 to 1996
Publisher and Editor of a Capital Markets Newsletter distributed by
subscription only to dozens of subscribers countrywide.
In a legal precedent in 1995 - studied in business schools and law
faculties across Israel - was tried for his role in an attempted
takeover of Israel's Agriculture Bank.
Was interned in the State School of Prison Wardens.
Managed the Central School Library, wrote, published and lectured on
various occasions.
Managed the Internet and International News Department of an Israeli
mass media group, "Ha-Tikshoret and Namer".
Assistant in the Law Faculty in Tel-Aviv University (to Prof. S.G.
Shoham).
1996 to 1999
Financial consultant to leading businesses in Macedonia, Russia and
the Czech Republic.
Collaborated with the Agency of Transformation of Business with
Social Capital.
Economic commentator in "Nova Makedonija", "Dnevnik", "Izvestia",
"Argumenti i Fakti", "The Middle East Times", "Makedonija Denes", "The
New Presence", "Central Europe Review" , and other periodicals and in
the economic programs on various channels of Macedonian Television.
Chief Lecturer in courses organized by the Agency of Transformation,
by the Macedonian Stock Exchange and by the Ministry of Trade.
1999 to 2002
Economic Advisor to the Government of the Republic of Macedonia and to
the Ministry of Finance.
2001 to present
Senior Business Correspondent for United Press International (UPI)
Web and Journalistic Activities
Author of extensive Websites in Psychology ("Malignant Self Love") -
An Open Directory Cool Site
Philosophy ("Philosophical Musings")
Economics and Geopolitics ("World in Conflict and Transition")
Owner of the Narcissistic Abuse Announcement and Study List and the
Narcissism Revisited mailing list (more than 3900 members)
Owner of the Economies in Conflict and Transition Study list.
Editor of mental health disorders and Central and Eastern Europe
categories in web directories (Open Directory, Suite 101, Search
Europe).
Columnist and commentator in "The New Presence", United Press
International (UPI), InternetContent, eBookWeb and "Central Europe
Review".
Publications and Awards
"Managing Investment Portfolios in states of Uncertainty", Limon
Publishers, Tel-Aviv, 1988
"The Gambling Industry", Limon Publishers., Tel-Aviv, 1990
"Requesting my Loved One - Short Stories", Yedioth Aharonot, Tel-Aviv,
1997
"The Macedonian Economy at a Crossroads - On the way to a Healthier
Economy" (with Nikola Gruevski), Skopje, 1998
"Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited", Narcissus Publications,
Prague and Skopje, 1999, 2001, 2002
The Narcissism Series - e-books regarding relationships with abusive
narcissists (Skopje, 1999-2002)
"The Exporters' Pocketbook", Ministry of Trade, Republic of Macedonia,
Skopje, 1999
"The Suffering of Being Kafka" (electronic book of Hebrew Short
Fiction, Prague, 1998)
"After the Rain - How the West Lost the East", Narcissus Publications
in association with Central Europe Review/CEENMI, Prague and Skopje,
2000
Winner of numerous awards, among them the Israeli Education Ministry
Prize (Literature) 1997, The Rotary Club Award for Social Studies
(1976) and the Bilateral Relations Studies Award of the American
Embassy in Israel (1978).
Hundreds of professional articles in all fields of finances and the
economy and numerous articles dealing with geopolitical and political
economic issues published in both print and web periodicals in many
countries.
Many appearances in the electronic media on subjects in philosophy and
the Sciences and concerning economic matters.
Contact Details:
palma@unet.com.mk
vaknin@link.com.mk
My Web Sites:
Economy / Politics:
http://ceeandbalkan.tripod.com/
Psychology:
http://samvak.tripod.com/index.html
Philosophy:
http://philosophos.tripod.com/
Poetry:
http://samvak.tripod.com/contents.html
Return
After the Rain
How the West
Lost the East
The Book
This is a series of articles written and published in 1996-2000 in
Macedonia, in Russia, in Egypt and in the Czech Republic.
How the West lost the East. The economics, the politics, the
geopolitics, the conspiracies, the corruption, the old and the new,
the plough and the internet - it is all here, in colourful and
provocative prose.
From "The Mind of Darkness":
"'The Balkans' - I say - 'is the unconscious of the world'. People
stop to digest this metaphor and then they nod enthusiastically. It is
here that the repressed memories of history, its traumas and fears and
images reside. It is here that the psychodynamics of humanity - the
tectonic clash between Rome and Byzantium, West and East,
Judeo-Christianity and Islam - is still easily discernible. We are
seated at a New Year's dining table, loaded with a roasted pig and
exotic salads. I, the Jew, only half foreign to this cradle of
Slavonics. Four Serbs, five Macedonians. It is in the Balkans that all
ethnic distinctions fail and it is here that they prevail
anachronistically and atavistically. Contradiction and change the only
two fixtures of this tormented region. The women of the Balkan -
buried under provocative mask-like make up, retro hairstyles and too
narrow dresses. The men, clad in sepia colours, old fashioned suits
and turn of the century moustaches. In the background there is the
crying game that is Balkanian music: liturgy and folk and elegy
combined. The smells are heavy with muskular perfumes. It is like time
travel. It is like revisiting one's childhood."
The Author
Sam Vaknin is the author of Malignant Self Love - Narcissism Revisited
and After the Rain - How the West Lost the East. He is a columnist for
Central Europe Review and eBookWeb , a United Press International
(UPI) Senior Business Correspondent, and the editor of mental health
and Central East Europe categories in The Open Directory and Suite101.
Until recently, he served as the Economic Advisor to the Government of
Macedonia.
Visit Sam's Web site at http://samvak.tripod.com
End of Project Gutenberg's Moral Deliberations in Modern Cinema, by Sam Vaknin