The first task or group concerns the semiotics of speech-alone talk. One of these would be about unveiling the hidden history of a word. This topic is addressed in chapters 2 and 12.
0162 The deplorables (and the about-to-be debt-ridden migrants) of the West will see, on their periphery, a political spring in Russia even as they enter an autumn in geoeconomics.
Consequently, only two Diesen Greimas squares can be formulated at this moment.
0163 One is the autumn of geopolitics for the West, which looks fine in you manage to get a certificate from a university for a profession with market restrictions. Otherwise, you live in the shadows of creditors. These creditors also (almost by coincidence) own the few remaining supply chains.
Here is a picture for the continuing decay of Western economic statescraft (A).
Figure 46
0164 The other is the spring of sovereignty in Eurasia, where supervising authorities work to preserve gemeinschaft (while keeping a watchful eye on gesellschaft). Remember the children of Absu and Tiamat? The supervising authorities do not want to encourage the growth of a gesellschaft that will destroy its gemeinschaft.
Here is a picture of the spring of neo-modern diversity in Eurasia (A).
Figure 47
0165 Although Diesen cannot predict the future, by the time that his book concludes, the author paints in all the elements of the title, The Decay of Western Civilisation and the Resurgence of Russia.
0166 Does Diesen’s Greimas square work allow the inquirer to imagine civilisational cycles preceding the most recent cycle?
What civilisations are around before the civilisational cycle of political pluralism?
Here is a picture of the current cycle.
Figure 48
Note how the time scale has changed from Anno Domini to Ubaid Zero Prime.
0 U0′ roughly corresponds to the consolidation of the Ubaid culture in southern Mesopotamia.
7823 years ago, the Ubaid is the only culture practicing speech-alone talk and all surrounding Neolithic cultures rely on hand-speech talk (the way of talking since the first anatomically modern humans).
According to Razie Mah’s masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall, the adoption of speech-alone talk potentiates unconstrained social complexity.
What does that imply?
Civilisational cycles commence with the first singularity.
0167 If the recent cycle in Western civilisation is any indication of timing, cycles tend to complete every 400 or 500 years.
Weirdly, such timing corresponds to the progressions of Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions through any three consecutive zodiac signs. Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions occur roughly every 20 years. Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions in any given sign occur every 60 years, with each conjunction advancing around 13 degrees. So, a conjunction at, say 0 degrees Aquarius, in 2020, will occur in Aquarius again in 2080, at 13 degrees, then in 2140, at around 26 degrees, then in Pisces around 10 degrees in 2200, then at 23 degrees Pisces in 2260, then in 6 degrees Aries in 2320, 19 degrees Aries in 2380 and around 1 degree Taurus in 2440.
Say what?
Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions start in Aquarius in 2020 and leave Aries, three signs later, around 2440. That is 420 years.
Well, the idea is weird for moderns, but for the ancients, the celestial sphere works like a clock. I may call that clock, “the celestial Earth”. I may also call it, “the celestial half of Tiamat”.
0168 With this in mind, consider Diesen’s recollection of a written origin story of the ancient Near East (located in chapter 2, see points 0041-0060).
As a thought experiment, let me propose that this story covers the second civilizational cycle of an archaeological period in Mesopotamia, occupying a time frame similar to Western civilisation’s seasons of sovereignty, but shifted back 7400 years.
0169 Here is a list of seasons for A, the civilisational manifestation.
Figure 49
0170 Why the second cycle?
0171 Absu (B), the father and order, is already separated, as gesellschaft, from Tiamat (D), the mother and chaos, who is the theme of the cycle. To me, this implies that the story tells of a second cycle, occurring in a hand-speech talking culture outside of the Ubaid, after it adopts speech-alone talk in imitation of the Ubaids.
0172 The Ubaid forms on the edges of the newly-filled Persian Gulf. The Ubaid practices a speech-alone talking creole. They speak (what we will later call) the Sumerian language, which is not related to any family of languages. Adjacent hand-speech talking cultures are influenced by the increasing wealth (labor specialization) and power (social specialization) of their speech-alone talking neighbor.
0173 In order to imitate the Ubaid culture, neighboring Neolithic folk drop the hand-talk component of their hand-speech talk. The timeless shamans resist. Yet, certain factions insist on not using their hands anymore while talking. These factions are able to identify, in speech, certain terms that cannot be performed in hand talk. They identify Absu, the father, who compares favorably with the increasingly underperforming shamans. Well, the shamans underperform only when compared to the Ubaid, who trade mats, woven from reeds, for permission to chop down the trees in the area.
By the end of the first cycle, the culture living in the shadow of the Ubaid differentiates Absu (B) as gesellschaft and Tiamat (D), not as gemeinschaft, but as the theme, chaos. What happened? Well, the timeless shamans, who try to warn the folk and impede the adoption of speech-alone talk, are gone. Everyone now practices speech-alone talk, in the family of (what we now call) the Semitic languages.
0174 In the spring of the second cycle, the manifestation of chaos (A) makes no impression. Absu (the gesellschaft that destroyed the shamans, B) and Tiamat (the chaos once represented by the shamans, D) produce offspring (specialized groups within the folk, gemeinschaft (C) arising from gesellschaft (B)). All this is made possible by the semiotics of speech-alone talk.
0175 In the summer of the second cycle, the offspring (various gemeinschafts (C) that increasingly fail to recognize Absu (B) as legitimate) murder Absu (B) and build a party-house on his grave (A). I call it a “party house” because every chamber of the house has its own special attractions, its own special way of gossiping about everyone else, and its own exclusivity. The chaos (D), attributed to the deceased shamans, slumbers as the different echo-chambers (C) talk about how they are going to do this or that (B). All the gemeinschafts (C) conspire to promote their own gesellschafts (B) above the one who can never return to life, the murdered Absu.
0176 In the autumn of the second cycle, the echo-chambers (B and C) are increasingly at odds with one another. The squabbling and politicking stirs Tiamat from her slumber (D). Politics with hand-speech talk was never as loud or as noisy as the jabbering and the posturing in speech-alone talk. The folk are disordered, disunited and dismayed.
From within the gemeinschaft (C), a movement is afoot, saying, “Let us return to the ways of the timeless shamans.” But, there is a problem. There is no way to return to the ways before speech-alone talk because all the timeless shamans are dead. They have been dead for many conjunctions of the slowest of the wandering stars. How can we, the gemeinschaft, call them back from the…
Oh! What about Kino? Kino can channel the chaos of Tiamat. Kino can create a new world powered by the newly awakened Tiamat!
Who will respond to that monster, Kino, the one that all the echo-chambers are worried about?
All the little gods of the already shaken party palace search for a hero, a gesellschaft, capable of re-establishing their prerogatives.
0177 In the winter of the second cycle, a hero for diverse gesellschaft steps forward and does battle with Kino. In the year of 823 U0′, no one knows who will win.
0178 Today, while reading a handful of cuneiform tablets recovered from the ruins of an ancient library, we know.
Marduk wins. Marduk establishes the pantheon, the gesellschaft (B) that conquers chaos (D).
Plus, Kino’s defeat is significant to us. From the blood of the ruined Kino (C), Marduk (B) makes humans. Marduk fashions us from the blood of a gemeinschaft trying to return to the original justice of the timeless shamans.
Plus, Tiamat’s final fate is significant to all creation. From the corpse of the conquered Tiamat (D), Marduk fashions the sky-bearing face of the celestial Earth and the earth-bearing face of the mundane Earth. The heavens and the earth, the celestial Earth and mundane Earth, look upon one another through the realm in which Marduk rules. Marduk rules between heaven and earth.
0179 Here are the four seasons of the imagined second cycle, for a semitic-language-speaking culture neighboring the Ubaid, which is absorbed into the Uruk, before the Sumerian Dynastic.
The story that Diesenrecounts remembers what cannot be remembered, that is, the tempestuous story of how we came to be.
0122 Chapter seven, titled “Building Today’s World”, starts with humans 10,000 years ago. The current interglacial starts. Sea-levels rise.
Beliefs and rituals2c are among the social tools1b, the traits2c that train body and mind2b.
Here is a picture.
Figure 38
0123 It seems as if these social tools1b emerge from (and situate) the functionality and plasticity of our enormous brains1a.
What are humans thinking?
Perhaps, with this topsy-turvy climate, we should be kind to strangers.
Or, maybe we should fight the ones who are not like us to the death.
These thoughts may be conveyed using hand-speech talk.
0124 Unfortunately, the authors’ interludes depict speech-alone talk in action. Explicit abstractions, such as “marriage” and “wealth” are possible in speech-alone talk. They are not so easy to articulate in hand-speech talk. The semiotics of hand talk are grounded in icons and indexes. What is there to picture or point to?
0126 What is it like when things that can be imaged and indicated ground hand-speech talk words?
It is like a referent demands to be signified by its own word-gesture. All that is required is the sensible construction of a natural sign-relation.
Plus, referents that obviously demand implicit abstraction may simultaneously demand social construction. For example, the hand-talk term, FIRE (INSIDE) BULL, makes no sense at all. A fire inside a bull? But, when that fire goes out and the bull is dead, then the implicit abstraction is clear.
Today, I can explicitly articulate the implicit abstraction.
BULL has mind [and] body2.
FIRE is like spirit3 and soul1.
INSIDE is a triadic relation.
0127 Here is a picture.
Figure 39
Such is the nature of implicit abstraction in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0184 Chapter ten is the only chapter on theory in the entire book. The rest of the book concerns the inadequacy of current theory in archaeology and anthropology. The authors intuitively zero in on a problem. Neither science imagines that people have minds of their own. For example, modern histories do not admit that the so-called “Western Enlightenment” is influenced by reports coming from the Americas, including an indigenous critique of late-medieval and early-modern European civilization.
However, Graeber and Wengrow cannot pass into their promised land, because they have no models for appreciating or diagramming what is going on in people’s minds.
0185 Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913 U0′) has a model for speech-alone talk. Spoken language contains of two arbitrarily related systems of differences, consisting of parole (speech acts) and langue (mental acts). A model of langueshould provide a picture of what is going on in people’s minds. So, how can we model langue?
One answer is provided in Razie Mah’s first masterwork, The Human Niche, plus its companion work, Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s Book (2016) Why Only Us?. These are available at smashwords and other e-book venues. Langue may be modeled by diagrams of triadic relations.
In the ongoing commentary, two triadic relations are presented: the category-based nested form and judgment. If talk (parole) is related to a triadic relation (langue) then Saussure’s definition of language is satisfied. Plus, our innate sensibility that words are associated to the things that they referto is satisfied.
0186 Our innate sensibility that words refer to things and states of things arises in the milieu of hand talk. Here, the relation between parole and langue is not arbitrary, because langue (mentally) reproduces the icons and indexes of parole(well-executed manual-brachial gestures). This is the nature of natural signs.
Curiously, the word, “semiotics”, does not appear at all in Graeber and Wengrow’s weighty volume. Yet, the term is crucial to their claim that people have minds of their own. People have minds of their own because they are adapted to sign-processing.
0187 Fast forward through human evolution to the first singularity, dramatically portrayed in Razie Mah’s second masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall. The first singularity consists in a cultural change. Hand-speech talking cultureslose the hand-component of their hand-speech talk, leaving them with speech-alone talk. The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the first culture to practice speech-alone talk. The Sumerian language is a speech-alone creole, originating from two hand-speech languages. Speech-alone talk spreads from the Ubaid to the far corners of the world.
0188 The first singularity is a complex transition. There is great uncertainty about how it happens.
But, we can set down two markers with great certainty.
Before the Ubaid, in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, all cultures practice hand-speech talk.
In the present, 2023 U0′, in our current Lebenswelt, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.
0189 Speech-alone talk does not picture or point to its referents. Instead, speech-alone talk projects meaning, presence and message into a purely symbolic label. This label belongs to parole. Parole consists of a system of differences. Langue is arbitrarily related to parole.
So, if we are to display… or imagine… or depict what people think, we may be begin with the proposition that those thoughts have the structure of triadic relations, such as the category-based nested form.
This is the proposition underlying Razie Mah’s third masterwork, How To Define the Word “Religion”. The propositionconcerns the nature of definition. The category-based diagram offers ways to picture the meaning, presence and message underlying the spoken word, “religion”.
0190 Here is a picture.
Figure 25
The normal context of definition3 brings the actuality of a spoken word2 into relation with the possibilities inherent in meaning, presence and message1.
0191 Such a diagram offers sites for explicit abstraction, without short-changing implicit abstraction. Standard dictionaries define spoken words with combinations of other spoken words, emphasizing the idea that words are placeholders in systems of differences (that is, “languages”). It does not evoke the idea that a spoken word (parole) is arbitrarily related to what people think (langue). In contrast, the category-based nested form for how to define a spoken word conveys what standard dictionaries cannot tell.
0192 Graeber and Wengrow begin their wide-ranging discussions concerning everything anthropological with a question on the origins of social inequality. In chapter ten, they implicate the state. But, they face a problem. Can the stateaccount for the origins of social inequality if there are no origins to the state?
0193 The spoken word, “state”, is the topic of chapter ten of Graeber and Wengrow’s book.
So is the spoken word, “domination”.
Here is a diagram of what these authors may be thinking.
Figure 26
The “state” is a placeholder in a system of differences for speech. Since the spoken word cannot picture or point to anything, as would be expected for hand talk, then we project meaning, presence and message into the langue that is arbitrarily related to this speech act. Graeber and Wengrow explicitly abstract the term, “domination”, as a label for (what I suspect is) the presence or the message underlying the term. The state2 emerges from (and situates) the potential of domination1.
0194 The masterwork, How To Define the Word “Religion”, offers another option.
The option arises while trying to elucidate the presence1 underlying the word, “religion”2. Religion includes institutions. These institutions are different from sovereign power. How so? Righteousness1a is the potential underlying institutions3a. Order1b is the potential underlying sovereign power3b. Order1b belongs to the situation-level of an interscope. Righteousness1a belongs to the content-level.
On the situation level, sovereign power3b is the normal context where sovereign acts and decrees2b emerge from (and situate) the possibilities inherent in order1b. Sovereign power3b virtually situates institutions3a.
What we call the “state”2b should correspond to the actuality2b of sovereign power3b contextualizing the potential for order1b.
Figure 27
0195 According to Graeber and Wengrow, the term, “state”, appears in the French lexicon in the late 1500s, about a century after Christopher Columbus’s voyage of 1492 U0′. In the late 1800s, a German philosopher defines the “state” as an institution, within a given territory, claiming a monopoly on the legitimate use of coercive force.
This implies that the term, “state”, labels something more than the actuality of sovereign acts and decrees2b.
0196 Why does the state2b require a monopoly on coercive force?
How else can it enforce order1b?
0197 Does the above figure offer a definition of state2b that is familiar to modern social scientists?
No and yes.
No, this diagram of the “state” as an actuality2 located within a normal context3 and situating a potential1 is innovative. It belongs to the first comprehensive picture in anthropology composed of triadic relations. The diagram relies on the differentiation of nested forms. The first differentiation yields a nested form composed of three terms: society3, organization2 and individual in community1. Second, each of these terms differentiates into a nested form. Third, each element in each nested form differentiates, resulting in a three-level interscope. The result is three tiers of interscopes, corresponding to societyC, organizationB and individual in communityA.
0198 The first two levels of the societyC tier correspond to content-level institutions3a and situation-level sovereign power3b.
Figure 28
Graeber and Wengrow do not know this diagram. Yet, they write as if they do. Social complexityC arises as diverse institutions3aC pursue their organizational objectives2aC, based on a righteousness1aC that interpellates individuals in communityA. In our current Lebenswelt, righteousness1aC calls individuals in communityA into organizationB.
The need for order1bC may arise when institutions compete with one another and come into conflict.
I suppose that may occur when institutions find something to fight over.
0008 Here is a more technical presentation of the previous blog.
How does the term, selfishness, come to be?
The term comes into fullness through four waystations.
0009 What does it mean to define a spoken word?
A particular category-based nested form is foundational to the masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”.
A definition3 brings a spoken word2 into relation with the potential of meaning, presence and message1.
0010 The emphatic, I-myself (A), is the initial actuality2.
Figure 01
This emphatic is consistent with iconic and indexal sign-qualities of hand talk. It expresses a psychological aspect of an ongoing situation. Under what conditions would one have to emphatically POINT TO MYSELF, or emphatically POINT TO ANOTHER SELF, in the environment of evolutionary adaptation? I suspect that social situations involving larger social circles, such as band (50), community (150), mega-band (500) and tribe (1500) might require emphatics. So, the emphatic may have first appeared as a formality.
0011 The term, “self” (B), is the second term. The step from “I-myself” to “self” involves an explicit abstraction. Emphatic expressions are consolidated into a noun, indicating a thing. Moral deliberation is not required. Social intelligence is.
Figure 02
This explicit abstraction is consistent with the purely symbolic qualities of speech-alone talk.
0012 However, this first step carries a suggestion of an implicit abstraction.
Why?
This first step feels very natural, even though few other animals succeed in self-recognition experiments. Animals act as if they are selves, but they don’t realize that they are selves. So, there is something implicit in the abstraction. The “self” involves a theory of mind.
0013 Then, “self” is turned from a noun into an adjective, with the addition of “-ish” (C).
This involves an explicit abstraction. “Selfish” is a quality where the “self” puts its own interests ahead of others. One gets the impression that the interests of others should be taken into account. This implies that morality enters the picture.
Figure 03
This explicit abstraction requires the purely symbolic character of speech-alone talk.
0014 Then, “selfish” is turned back into a noun, with the addition of “-ness” (D). The message1 underlying the term, “selfish”, becomes the presence1 underlying the term, “selfishness”. The quality of “selfish” becomes a psychological state. Moral overtones cannot be ignored. “Selfishness” entails moral deliberation.
Figure 04
“Selfishness” has another notable facet. The term is scientific. One can observe and measure behaviors where the interests of one party obviously override the interests of others. These situational measurements may be modeled as instances of “selfishness”.
0015 The sequence of development for the term, “selfishness”, is as follows.
(A) The first term appears as it would in hand-talk. Its definition is nascent. Moral deliberation is not required.
(B) The second term is an abstraction to noun. This abstraction may be implicit (more on that, later). Here, it is explicit, since I am discussing the steps in the development of another spoken term. Moral deliberation is not required.
(C) The third term is an explicit abstraction, requiring fully symbolic speech-alone talk. The noun is turned into an adjective, describing a particular behavioral quality. Moral deliberation is implied.
(D) The fourth term is another explicit abstraction, building on its immediate predecessor. The adjective is turned into a noun. A quality is turned into a general property. Moral deliberation is required.
0016 Domning intends to connect the doctrine oforiginal sin to the scientific facet of the term, “selfishness”, leading me to wonder, “Do our ancestors adapt to the niche of selfishness, in the same way that the ancestors of sea cows adapt to the niche of waterways?“
Or, is selfishness itself an adaptation to a niche?
0017 If “selfishness” is a noun with a scientific affiliation, then what about Domning’s titular adjective, “original”?
What is “original selfishness”?
0018 To Domning, “original” means “evolved”.
“Original selfishness” is an adaptation into (what I will call) the niche of natural selection and genetics. This niche is more complicated than my quick-and-dirty labeling. See Comments on Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight’s Book (2017) Adam and the Genome. (Search for Razie Mah and this title. It is available in smashwords and other e-book venues.)
This niche operates since the origin of multicellular eukaryotic life on Earth.
The adaptations promote self-preservation and reproductive success.
Here is a definition.
Figure 05
0019 Of course, “original selfishness” locates Adam as the earliest microscopic creature, perhaps the first eukaryote, appearing hundreds of millions of years ago.
On one hand, this association may seem to be a disadvantage to Domning’s association of original selfishness to original sin.
On the other hand, Domning’s association accounts for the universality of original sin, as well as its moral reality.
Yes, that is the claim.
0020 These deficits and benefits are wrestled with in chapter 10, in a paragraph starting with, “in regards to concupiscence”. Our disordered selfish desires act out our original selfishness. So, the moral character (the acting out of a disorder) is distinct from the universality of selfishness (as an evolved trait, an adaptation into the niche of natural selection and genetics). The former calls for grace and salvation. The latter is what Christ transcends.
In sum, Domning separates the source of original sin’s universality (which, traditionally is descent from Adam, but now, Adam is a microorganism at the base of the tree of life) and its moral character (which is tied to human free will, and, to me, is the noun that “selfish” applies to).
0021 Domning’s move is clever, except for a critical implication. There is a sequence of adaptations within the Homo lineage that follows and builds on the primal adaptation into the niche of natural selection and genetics. So, the universal aspect of Original Sin, dealing with descent from a progenitor, and the moral reality of Original Sin, concerning the disordered expression of original selfishness in humans, are not fully separate.
Domning offers a graphic.
Here is my re-enactment of figure 10.1.
Figure 06
0022 Original selfishness does not implicate moral deliberation. Human selfishness does.
0023 What is “X”?
Domning places the word, “evolution”, here.
I ask, “How can this be?”
How can natural selection eventually yield human free will… er… selfish human free will?
Is selfish human free will an adaptation?
How does the Homo lineage pass from instinctive behaviors to deliberate choices?
0024 I suppose that Domning covers this challenge in chapter nine, titled, “Evolution and human ethics”.
What does he say?
Evolutionary selfishness is one thing, corresponding to adaptation into a niche of natural selection and genetics. Psychological selfishness is a second thing, corresponding to “original selfishness”. Psychological selfishness that intentionally disregards the interests of others is a third thing, corresponding to “human selfishness”.
So, X describes the evolution of psychological states. Selfish human free will, the foundation of human selfishness, evolves from original selfishness.
0025 However, I already am inclined to think that there must be another step, the evolution of self, that enters into the picture. Why? If human free will is to be selfish, then there must already be a self.
Here is a picture.
Figure 07
0026 Isn’t that curious?
The four waystations in the historic development of the word, “selfishness”, recapitulates the evolutionary sequence from “original selfishness” to “human selfishness”.
Okay, I immediately wonder, is there another word that also parallels some sort of evolutionary progression, from noun to adjective then back to noun?
Yes, there is.
0027 The term is “concupiscence”.
Concupiscence is a technical term used in theological discussions of the doctrine of Original Sin. It may be derived from Latin roots in more than one fashion.
Here is a picture.
Figure 08
0028 Of course, my preferred derivation is the lower option. To me, “concupiscence” is the state of being with Cupid. Cupid is an implicit abstraction from two features of natural selection: cooperation (Venus) and competition (Mars).
What do I mean by the term, “implicit abstraction”?
In some way, Cupid may be stated in hand talk, in the same fashion that Cupid is portrayed in visual art. PANTOMINE DRAWING A BOW, PANTOMIME ARROW FLYING, POINT TO MY OWN HEART. This fully linguistic statement in hand talk does not make sense, at first. Later, it does.
Cupid is the self, in the presence of other selves.
Cupid shoots arrows of desire, in the presence of other selves.
0029 I ask, “How could hominin awareness of the counterintuitive nature of Cupid evolve?”
This question does not surface in Domning’s chapter on evolution and human ethics.
Ethics among animals is mediated through ritual and emotion. The rules of the game say that cooperation may be necessary for surviving to the next competition.
In contrast, human ethics transcends an animal’s sensible and amoral tendencies. Human ethics demands social construction. Social construction is addressed in the masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion”, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.
0037 In prior blogs, I associate a sequence of four waystations in the history of the word, “selfishness”, to four elements in Domning’s visualization of original sin.
0038 Traditional theological accounts of original sin fuse its universal and its moral realities.
The universal reality is direct descent from Adam and Eve, as proposed by Saint Augustine seventeen centuries ago. This universal reality has been debunked by modern genetics.
The moral reality is a corruption of human free will. People tend to be selfish, even with moral deliberation. This implies a fall from full rationality and self-control.
0039 Domning’s theological account separates original sin’s universal and moral realities. But, the separation is not complete, because original selfishness (A) evolves into the self (B).
Evolutionary selfishness (pre-A) culminates in psychological expressions of I-myself (original selfishness, A), which I associate to the initial terminus of the term, “human selfishness” (D). The passage involves the terms, “self” (B) and “selfish” (C). Moral deliberation enters the picture with the term, “selfish”.
The moral reality, the disordered practices of human selfishness, is nothing more than original selfishness, but now with moral deliberation.
0040 The association between four waystations in the history of the word, “selfishness”, with four elements in Domning’s visualization of Original Sin appears convincing.
So, I want try my luck with another composite term, “concupiscence”.
“Concupiscence” builds upon three technical expressions. These technical expressions associate to waystations (B, C and D) in this development of the word, “selfishness”.
Figure 11
Note that these technical definitions do not correspond to traditional definitions of these words. I will get to that difficulty later.
0041 Once again, where am I going with this?
0042 The development of the word, “selfishness”, parallels Domning’s argument about the nature of original sin, once its universal and moral realities are separated.
The key step is the transition from the emphatic, I myself (A), to self (B), a noun. Domning attributes this step to evolution. The next step is the adjective, “selfish” (C), describing a tendency towards placing one’s own self above others. Here, moral constraints may come into play. “Selfishness” (D) reifies the adjective.
0043 Now, I want to repeat the procedure with the word, “concupiscence”. Concupiscence is traditionally used to describe the moral reality of original sin. The universal reality is descent from Adam, which now has been debunked by science.
0044 The development of the word, “concupiscence” (D’), from the originating emphatic, I-myself (A), produces technical definitions of words, that are at odds with traditional definitions. Cupid (B’) starts by labeling the presence of self among other selves.
Figure 12
Cupid (B’) associates to self (B). If self (B) labels the intensional awareness of an internal consolidation of various, situational I-myselves, then cupid(B’) labels an extension of that awareness. This extension occurs, in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, as individuals cooperate in social circles, the family (5), intimates (5), teams (15), bands (50), communities (150) and so on. So, the consolidation that produces the self (B’) is motivated by a competition to perform as a self among other selves in various social circles.
That competition entails concupiditas (C’), the desire to perform as a self among other selves. Concupiditas (C’) corresponds to selfish (C). Concupiditas (C’) is an adaptation that satisfies the biological criteria of evolutionary selfishness and conforms to Domning’s criteria for original selfishness, manifested in the emphatic, I-myself (A).
0045 Here is a picture.
Figure 13
0046 Like cupid (B’), the technical term, concupiditas (C’), does not align with common parlance.
A contemporary example of a concupidic behavior (C’) takes place in bars and houses around college campuses. Drinking games meld competition and cooperation. Each participant is a cupid (B’), competing to shoot an arrow into a keg of beer, in order to endear oneself to others in the drinking group.
One must compete in order to cooperate?
How twisted is that?
0047 Concupiditas (C’) is situational. Concupiditas entails human choice. Concupiditas introduces rules to the game. Concupiditas is being with others, in particular situations, where performance is congruent with belonging.
The rule of the drinking game is simple. Drink as much beer as you can. This rule is given precedence over other rules, such as long-term cooperation necessitates that other selves are not injured. The drinking game entails risk. Concupiditas (C’) entails a human choice about which game to play. The games belong to concupiscence (D’). The choice belongs to the person and concupiditas (C’).
0048 Concupiscence (D’) corresponds to selfishness (D). One must compete to cooperate. One must perform in every social circle that one belongs to. That performance entails risk. Sometimes one is born into a social circle (the family, band and community). Sometimes one must choose (intimates, team). Concupiscence (D’) is the state of competing to cooperate. Each self desires to cooperate, because those who cooperate take the greater risks and enjoy the greater benefits. Each self desires to be among other selves. Each self has its own original selfishness. Every game and every social circle has rules, established by tradition.
Figure 14
We compete to belong to and to flourish within social circles. We compete to cooperate.
