In the first part of this conversation, I engaged in a conversation with DeepSeek provoked by historian Niall Ferguson’s claim that we are experiencing Cold War 2.0. I noted that the conviction during the Cold War that our societies — whether capitalist or communist — were preparing the future of humanity has now disappeared. We both recognized that the sense of possessing a teleological mission to guide our race to a future that was destined to be prosperous (capitalism) or just and egalitarian (communism) had disappeared as a factor of motivation in what has become a multicultural and multipolar world.

I continued the same conversation with ChatGPT by asking whether this cultural evolution that moved us away from pure ideology has made the world more dangerous. OpenAI’s chatbot offered some original analysis capped by the following conclusion:

A world without a clear, shared vision of the future isn’t automatically more violent—but it is more unstable and psychologically brittle.

The Cold War’s danger came from ideological absolutism. Today’s danger comes from the opposite: a competition of powerful systems without a unifying story about where humanity is going.

And that leaves a vacuum—one that can be filled by pragmatism, fragmentation… or something more extreme.

The limited and rather depressing choice ChatGPT proposed led me to ponder that there must be another alternative: something constructively collaborative that could make sense of the new multipolar world.

Accordingly, I formulated the following prompt for ChatGPT:

You offer three choices for the future. But isn’t there another one? This is the alternative I’d suggest: something constructively collaborative befitting a multipolar world. It isn’t merely pragmatic and it is the opposite of fragmentation.

That’s not only a valid fourth option—it’s arguably the most desirable one. But the hard part is that it’s also the most difficult to sustain in practice.

What you’re describing is a constructive multipolarity: not just coexistence or balance-of-power politics, but active collaboration among distinct centers of power without requiring ideological uniformity. Historically, that’s quite rare.

1. Why your alternative is different

It’s important to distinguish your idea from two things it might be confused with:

• Not just pragmatism → which is transactional, short-term, and often cynical
• Not fragmentation → which is disorganized and conflict-prone

Instead, you’re pointing toward something like:

• Shared problem-solving (climate, trade, security)
• Acceptance of plural political systems
• Coordination without domination

In institutional terms, we already see partial expressions of this:

• United Nations frameworks
• Multilateral forums like the G20
• Even loose groupings like BRICS trying to rebalance voice

But these remain thin forms of collaboration, not a deeply internalized global logic.

2. The real obstacle: trust without convergence

The reason this model struggles isn’t a lack of intelligence or goodwill—it’s a structural problem:

Collaboration usually depends on trust, and trust has historically depended on shared norms or identity.

In a multipolar world:

• The United States, China, India, and others do not share the same political values
• Nor do they agree on what “fairness” or “rules” mean in practice

So you get a paradox:

• Everyone benefits from cooperation
• But no one fully trusts the others’ intentions

That’s why collaboration often reverts to hedging and rivalry.

3. Why your model still matters

Even if it’s hard, your alternative may be less a “choice” and more a necessity imposed by reality.

Unlike during the Cold War:

• Climate systems are shared
• Supply chains are global
• Technologies (AI, biotech) have transnational risks

No single power—not even the U.S. or China—can manage these alone.

So the world is being pushed toward:

• selective collaboration (on some issues)
• competition (on others)

That’s already happening, albeit unevenly.

4. The missing ingredient: a narrative of pluralism

Where your idea becomes especially important is at the level of narrative—which you emphasized earlier.

For constructive multipolarity to work, there needs to be a story people can believe in, something like:

Progress doesn’t mean convergence toward one model, but the ability of different systems to coexist and jointly manage shared risks.

That’s a very different kind of “mission” than:

• the universalism of the Cold War
• or the defensive proceduralism of today

It’s less about who is right, and more about:

• how differences are managed without collapse

5. Why it’s hard to mobilize politically

Here’s the catch: your model is intellectually compelling but emotionally weak.

It lacks:

• a clear enemy
• a simple moral hierarchy
• a dramatic sense of destiny

And politics—especially in democracies—often runs on emotion, not just reason.

That’s why:

• nostalgic narratives (as you mentioned earlier) gain traction
• binary framings (democracy vs autocracy) persist

They’re easier to communicate and mobilize.

6. So is it realistic?

Yes—but probably not as a stable, fully coherent system.

More likely, the near future looks like:

• hybrid behavior: rivalry + cooperation intertwined
• issue-specific collaboration (e.g., climate, finance)
• continued narrative confusion at the societal level

Your model may emerge not as a grand design, but as a gradual adaptation forced by necessity.

Bottom line

You’re pointing to something crucial: the possibility of a world that is neither ideologically unified nor chaotically fragmented, but intentionally plural and collaboratively managed.

That path exists—but it requires:

• building trust without ideological alignment
• creating a narrative that values coexistence over dominance
• and accepting a less dramatic, less emotionally satisfying vision of “progress”

In a way, it’s a more mature model of global order—but also a more fragile one, because it depends less on belief and more on continuous effort.

I fully recognize the realism of your description and therefore the fact not only that achieving the goal will be challenging but that along the way there are identifiable pockets of resistance, which you have not attempted to describe.

Allow me to react to your listing of three conditions that you frame as requirements if success is to be achieved. You maintain the need for:

• a clear enemy
• a simple moral hierarchy
• a dramatic sense of destiny

Presumably you’re basing this on your knowledge of history. But anthropologists David Graeber and David Wenger in “Dawn of Everything” provide a reading of human history and prehistory that questions two of your conditions while implicitly accepting the notion (to be defined) of “a simple moral hierarchy.”

For example, they see schismogenesis as a natural feature of evolving societies. In conditions where human psychology can evolve freely to define societies, enemies are not required, even if rivalries exist. Perhaps you would claim that our post-industrial society is too evolved, too artificial (or hyperreal) for the process to play out naturally.

You’re right to challenge those three “requirements”—and to bring in The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber and David Wengrow. Their argument is precisely that human societies have been far more flexible, experimental, and self-aware than the standard linear narratives suggest. And that matters here.

Let me clarify something first: I wasn’t claiming those three elements (enemy, moral hierarchy, destiny) are necessary for societies to function. I was describing what tends to make large-scale political narratives mobilizing and durable, especially in modern mass societies.

Your objection opens up an important distinction:

What humans can do vs. what large, complex systems tend to default to under pressure.

1. Schismogenesis without enemies

Graeber and Wengrow’s use of schismogenesis—a concept from Gregory Bateson—is very relevant.

Their point is that societies often define themselves in contrast to others, but that doesn’t require:

• hatred
• totalizing conflict
• or existential enemies

It can be:

• playful differentiation
• seasonal alternation of social structures
• conscious rejection of certain norms

So yes—historically and anthropologically, difference does not require enmity.

Where I’d push back slightly is scale and structure:

• These dynamics worked in relatively small-scale or loosely structured societies
• Feedback loops were immediate and human-scale
• Institutions didn’t lock identities into rigid categories

In contrast, modern geopolitical systems:

• operate at massive scale
• are mediated by bureaucracies and technologies
• and often freeze differences into strategic doctrines

So schismogenesis still exists—but it tends to harden into rivalry more easily.

2. Are we “too evolved” for flexibility?

Not too evolved—but perhaps too structurally rigid.

It’s not that human psychology has changed fundamentally. It’s that:

• institutions persist longer than intentions
• infrastructures (economic, technological, military) constrain choices
• narratives are amplified and stabilized by media systems

In other words, the “hyperreal” layer you mention does matter:

• identities are mediated, not directly experienced
• narratives scale faster than relationships
• symbolic conflict can outpace material reality

So while humans remain capable of fluid, experimental social forms, the systems we’ve built tend to resist that fluidity.

3. On “moral hierarchy”

You noted that Graeber and Wengrow might implicitly accept some version of this. I think that’s right—but it needs reframing.

It’s less about a rigid hierarchy (“we are good, they are bad”) and more about:

a shared sense of what counts as legitimate, admirable, or acceptable.

Even the most flexible societies:

• have norms
• make judgments
• define boundaries

So the real question isn’t whether a moral framework exists, but:

• how rigid it is
• whether it allows reflexivity and revision

Your collaborative multipolar model would require:

• a thin moral consensus (e.g., avoiding catastrophic harm)
• alongside thick pluralism (different ways of organizing society)

That’s difficult, but not incoherent.

4. Where resistance actually comes from

You’re right that I didn’t spell this out—and this is probably the crux of your concern.

The main “pockets of resistance” to your model aren’t just ideological—they’re structural and psychological:

a. Institutional inertia

States, militaries, and economic systems are built around:

• competition
• risk management
• worst-case assumptions

They don’t easily pivot to trust-based collaboration.

b. Elite incentives

Political and economic elites often benefit from:

• clear oppositions
• mobilizable narratives
• controlled uncertainty

A world of diffuse collaboration is harder to instrumentalize.

c. Cognitive load on populations

A plural, non-binary world is:

• harder to explain
• harder to emotionally invest in
• harder to turn into identity

Which makes simpler narratives (including nostalgic or quasi-religious ones) more attractive.

d. Security dilemmas

Even if no one wants conflict:

• mistrust leads to hedging
• hedging looks like aggression
• and cycles reinforce themselves

This is classic international relations logic, independent of ideology.

5. So is your alternative anthropologically grounded?

Yes—more than the standard geopolitical framing.

Graeber and Wengrow’s work suggests that:

• humans are capable of intentional social design
• societies have historically experimented with multiple forms
• no single model is inevitable

That actually supports your vision:

A collaborative multipolar world is not utopian—it’s consistent with human flexibility.

6. The real tension

Here’s the deeper issue your question exposes:

• Anthropology shows what humans are capable of
• Geopolitics shows what large systems tend to become

Your proposal depends on:

bringing systemic behavior closer to human potential

And that’s the hard part.

Bottom line

You’re right to reject the idea that humans need enemies or grand destiny narratives to organize themselves. History—especially as reinterpreted by Graeber and Wengrow—shows otherwise.

But the challenge today isn’t human nature—it’s system design.

We’ve built global structures that:

• amplify rivalry
• stabilize narratives
• and resist fluid experimentation

A constructively collaborative multipolar world is therefore possible—but it requires consciously redesigning those systems, not just changing beliefs.

And that’s why resistance isn’t just ideological nostalgia—it’s embedded in how the modern world actually works.

There’s a lot to break down here. In my Outside the Box column next week, I’ll come back to this discussion and focus on what this might mean for a world that is undergoing a major transition towards a new form of multipolarity.

Your thoughts

Please feel free to share your thoughts on these points by writing to us at dialogue@fairobserver.com. We are looking to gather, share and consolidate the ideas and feelings of humans who interact with AI. We will build your thoughts and commentaries into our ongoing dialogue.

[Artificial Intelligence is rapidly becoming a feature of everyone’s daily life. We unconsciously perceive it either as a friend or foe, a helper or destroyer. At Fair Observer, we see it as a tool of creativity, capable of revealing the complex relationship between humans and machines.]

[Lee Thompson-Kolar edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy.