In comparativity complex theory, I propose that as, human beings, we are primarily a culture-producing machinery. In essence, human beings as we have come to know ourselves, are not, in fact, able to help themselves from not being producers of culture. This instinctive characteristic of the hominoid is perhaps the source of all heritages. That is to say, as soon as humans first became human, through consciousness of existence, the first heritage was born. It is possible to postulate, using any existing anthropomorphic, anthropological, sociological, ethical, biological, evolutionary, and socio-scientific theories to justify and support this position. However, regardless of where such theories point, they must at the same time, be able to, in the minimum, acknowledge, or at the most, justify, the dynamics of power relations among humans, because, for comparativity complex theory to stand, the existence of power and privilege can only be accounted for through the assumption that heritage is deeply rooted and justifies most human engagements and performances of power.

Consequently, being incurable entities with regards to sociality and/or culturality, human beings have mastered the contexts of power play. Often obfuscated as being of themselves innocuous immateriality, heritage constitutes the deepest and most important fibers within the hemispheres of human complexities. At the political domain, heritage is inter-fused with religion and religiosity. In its postmodern, postpentecostal iterations, heritage dynamics connect relations of power and economics together, with a forceful fusion of the political intersections. Where existing hierarchs feign spirituality, the relationship grows even stronger in the instance of deniability of culpability; poignancy of malaise are veritable indicators of sites of the hegemon.

Enter discourse.

It is impossible for comparativity discourses to emerge in the absence of relations, for it is also out of human negotiations of power and entitlements and existence that relationships become complicated, and thus complex. Networks in human relationships–from the simple or primitive to the complex and complicated–make comparativity a possibility.

Discourse arises out of complexities. The complexities themselves stem from the attendant accidents of the collision between relationships. One such accident is called globalization. As an important aspect of postmodernism’s posthumanity, the comparativity complex theory helps analyze performances of human beings as actors around the dramatization of geopolitics, which is a complex and complicated power play about space, size, and regions of the world. The creation of worlds–First World, Second World, and Third World–and the countries and nations that fall into each or more of these categories illustrates the intent of geopolitics.

The historical enslavement of black bodies and the colonization of continents that followed presuppose that certain regions have more temerity than others; certain regions of the world have provided justifications, particularly, those arguments that are premised and predicated on the fact that they have a heritage of textuality, to dominate others who do not have similar heritages.

As sites of heritages, textuality also becomes a veritable location of power, where privileges emerge out of and/or from having any (close) relations with books\literacy\writing (the written). Guardians of divine truths as historical facts also emerged from affinity with various forms of textualities.

As I had argued elsewhere, I need to restate that the comparativity complex theory of heritage arises from any thinking about heritage–that emerges (via human production/creation, sustainable inheritance, and/or via both the former and latter combined). Heritage ingenuity can also lead to new(er) or transformations in heritages. This explains why heritage is not always static and can survive several generations.

Regional politicization heritages have aided geopolitical complexities in global and international politics as well as facilitated the formations in worlds and understandings of the self. Unfortunately, as a theory, the comparativity complex only hopes to explicate dynamics of power relations. Eventual transformation of society is an option of human choice.

David Olali, 2022