0123 The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 AD, occurs, perhaps, one-third the way into the winter of Western civilisation.  In 2023 AD, Western civilisation is two-thirds into this cruel season.  People who work lose their abilities to make a living.  Financial mavens make hand over fist.

Perhaps, now that all the actors of the Second World War are dead, academics should honor their fate with a new nomenclature.  Here is my suggestion.

The ideological component is not neglected when calling the twentieth century wars, “Battles among Enlightenment Gods”.  New histories may be written, because we now can look, at a distance, at the consequences of widespread adoption of ideologies.

0124 Of course, one Enlightenment God remains, Big Government (il)Liberalism in the political sphere and unfettered financial capitalism in the economic sphere.  Perhaps, the spheres belong to the head and the heart, respectively.

Either way, at the moment, in 2023 AD, the American empire celebrates “diversity”, rather than “pluralism” and America’s nemesis, the core of the former Union of Soviet Republics, has not surrendered its sovereignty to the bigilibs. Neither has communist China, Shia Iran and non-aligned India.  Only the western Europeans drink the flavor-aid of Big Government (il)Liberalism, going so far as to construct a double to the American Union of States, labeled the “European Union”, by some, and the “Nightmare In Brussels”, by others.  And, the Japanese and Koreans?  Hmmm, they love ordinary Americans, but their bigilib elites, maybe not so much, anymore.

0125 So, the cold war among materialist ideologies plays a role in the both the winter of sovereignty and the summer of geoeconomics.  The war provides the excuse to shift from the economic statecraft of control (in order to accomplish the four imperatives listed in point 0113) to unfettered financial capitalism.  After 1989, unrestrained economic statecraft eventually concludes that transferring a significant fraction of the USA’s factories to China would be profitable (for the owners, not the workers).  Soon, China’s cheap labor market becomes the starting point for the least expensive supply chains that the world has ever seen.

0126 And, America runs trade and spending deficits, as if there is no tomorrow.

Plus, America gives birth to the internet.  Thank you, Al Gore.

0127 Meanwhile, the military-industrial complex in the USA (as well as Europe’s NATO) requires an enemy in order to justify enormous budgets.  American troops are stationed around the world in order to… what?… maintain geopolitical and geoeconomic stability?  Perhaps, the bigilibs seek to defend themselves against the ghosts of defeated ideologies, such as communism, fascism and various branches of supremicism, or against the ghosts of once frightening opponents, such as the Soviet Union, or against the ghosts of poorly understood civilizations, like those in the Middle East.

Oh, did I mention the USA’s agreement with Saudi Arabia to only sell oil for dollars?

The price?

America is to defend Saudi Arabia from all external enemies.

0128 What about enemies within?

In 2001, a handful of cunning Islamicists, irate about America’s military presence on sacred ground, hijack three airplanes.  America’s War Against Terrorism begins.  

0129 Is this the Fourth Battle Among The Enlightenment Gods?

0130 Oh, there is a more evocative name for the interventions in Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Ukraine and who knows where else.  These are the wars against the projections of Big Government (il)Liberalism.  America battles the ghosts in her mirror.

0131 Perhaps, this is a good place to plug Comments On Daniel Estulin’s Book (2021) “2045 Global Projects At War”,available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  Just as Diesen constructs a theoretical apparatus (which here, turns into a Greimas square), Estulin looks at current affairs through the prism of global projects (which, in the comments, turn into interscopes).  A comparison of Diesen’s and Estulin’s books (with this examination and the plugged commentary in mind) would serve as a great senior-level college project.

0132 I offer this plug as a distraction to what comes next.

There seems to be a paradox.

How can the season for political liberalism be winter and the season for economic liberalism be summer?

0133 Winter for the grand idea (in the former case, sovereignty, D) occurs when the manifestation (pluralism, A) no longer constrains the destruction unleashed by gesellschaft (bigilibism, B) upon gemeinschaft (traditionalists labeled as deplorable throwbacks to a bygone era, C).  Balance between gesellschaft (B) and gemeinschaft (C) is win-lose or lose-win or lose-lose.

0134 Summer for a grand idea (in the latter case, geoeconomics, D) occurs when the manifestation (unrestrained economic liberalism, A) productively yokes gesellschaft (unfettered financial capitalism, B) and gemeinschaft (people who work for a living, C).  Balance between gesellschaft (B) and gemeinschaft (C) is win-win.

0135 To me, it seems that these two figures are at odds.

Yet, Diesen’s concept of seasons provides a clue to a resolution.

The win-win of unfettered financial capitalism includes, at first, people who work for a living.  By the time that autumn approaches, a significant fraction of the West’s capital resides in the hands of a small number of elites.  At first, people who work earn enough to own an automobile and a house.  By the end of the season, people who work take out loans in order to “own” an automobile and a house.  People who work live in a debt trap.

The economic story of the West is complicated.  Here is one version of the story, in a nutshell.  

The continual enlargement of central governments (in Tokyo, Washington D.C. and Brussels) requires more spending than tax receipts, so these central authorities need to borrow money.  Central banks cooperate by keeping the interest rate artificially low, which allows governments to pay less interest for their borrowing.  It also puts more money into circulation.

On top of that, artificially low interest rates encourage financial players to borrow money at low cost to compete with worker’s savings.  Government-blessed money printing, plus ruthless competition by speculators, drives up the prices of necessities, so workers must borrow money, at high “market-based” interest rates, in order to achieve what savings once achieved.  

After fifty years of financial repression, bigilib elites privately own significant assets.  People with careers in corporations that borrow at artificially low interest rates have high salaries.  Corporate owners lobby for opening borders to desperately poor migrants in order to (1) not pay the salaries that deplorables need and (2) turn the migrants into debt slaves.

0136 So, at the end of the summer of geoeconomics, Diesen’s square looks like this.

0137 People with careers (that is, people working in protected markets such as law, medicine, state education and so forth) and migrants (who, presumably will join the deplorables in the debt trap after a generation or two) are the gemeinschaft that is cultivated by a gesellschaft of unfettered financial capitalists, along with their political, academic, and media shills.

I suppose that the plan is to use propaganda to turn the deplorables against the migrants in order to maintain both parties in the debt trap of financial capitalism.

0138 Unfortunately, I suspect that both the deplorables and the migrants will figure out the nefarious plan, as the autumn of geoeconomics begins.

The only people who remain clueless at the end of the summer of geoeconomics are the people with careers, requiring certification, who feel that their jobs are protected because of restrictions to market entry.

0139 Part four of Diesen’s book covers Russia, resurgent in the spring of neomodernism and the autumn of geoeconomics.

Russia, like any vigorous civilisation, is inclined to gemeinschaft.  However, encounters with the West motivates Russian leaders to prioritize gesellschaft, often to the extreme.  Diesen tells some history.

0140 Here is how I see his story.  It is sloppier than Diesen’s account.  But, it may do.

Russia establishes itself as a land-based power without land-based ships.  So, it’s mostly about horses until the Germans roll in with mechanical vehicles in the 1910s and 1940s.

St. Petersburg is constructed as Russia’s window to the West.

After Napoleon’s failed invasion, Russia is looking pretty good until something odd happens.  Russia tries to take Crimea from the decadent Ottoman Empire, only to find the British declaring war.

0141 Why do the British fight to protect to Ottoman Empire?

Well, it turns out that the Ottoman Empire owes the British banks the pound-equivalent of a decade’s worth of British industrial production.  The war is not about the integrity of the British Empire.  This war is about Russia inadvertently giving the Ottomans an excuse not to pay interest on their enormous debt.

Russia gets its military clock cleaned twice in the 1850s because of debt oppression in Turkey.

0142 (Incidentally, the so-called American “civil war” (1860-1864 AD) is another precocious example of unfettered financial capitalism.  The banks of the North (say, New York) loan Southern plantation owners so much money that repayment is not an option.  So, instead of surrendering their property, the Southern elites sign up their fellow citizens in a campaign to resolve the issue by breaking the Southern states away from the Northern states… er, I mean… the so-called “Union”.)

Historical parallels between America and Russia are unnerving in this regard.

In the mid to late 1800s, gesellschaft is in the air.  America frees the slaves of African descent.  Russia frees the serfs.  America sees the rise of corporate monopolies.  Russia sees the appearance of wealthy middle class farmers.  America sees the west as the new frontier.  Dostoyevski sees the east as Russia’s new frontier.

0143 In America, the Federal Reserve is created in 1913, right before America intervenes in the First Battle Among the Enlightenment Gods.  The Russian Revolution starts in 1918, as the Battle ends.

In the 1960s, during the Third Battle of the Enlightenment Gods, Western civilisation enters the winter of sovereignty and the summer of geoeconomics.

One third of the way into the winter of sovereignty, in 1989, the Soviet Union dissolves and America falls under the spell of Big Government (il)Liberalism.

In America, in 1988, George H. Bush, formerly head of the Central Intelligence Agency is elected president of the USA.  He reverses the Reagan revolution and sets a course for further growth of America’s federal government.

0144 What happens next?

Then, Bill Clinton is elected in 1992 (due to a third party candidate, Ross Perot, and the unpopularity of Bush) and um… here, the story gets foggy.  It is as if there is an information blockade on what happens to Russia during the Yeltsin years. What were Western financial capitalists up to?

Diesen is not really clear on this.  But, I bet the story is incredible, because a veritable nobody, Vladimir Putin, appears out of nowhere and foils… whatever the unfettered financial capitalists are doing.

0145 Well, if the British banks saddled the Ottoman Empire with enough debt that the gemeinschaft in Turkey could never repay, and if the New York banks saddled plantation owners with enough debt that the Southern gemeinschaft had to be called to war, then I imagine that the former Republics of the Soviet Union receive similar advice, from Western “money managers”, about how to manage their sovereign properties.  Surely, Russian leaders could borrow… um… enormous sums… to um… keep the economy going.

0146 When the gesellschaft lend money to the gemeinschaft, or when the gesellschaft take out loans in the name of the gemeinschaft, then the gemeinschaft become slaves to those debts.

What is loaning a person or a sovereign so much money that the loan can never be repaid by that person or the people?

The answer is “immoral”.

0147 Well, after the last two blogs, I have a better appreciation how the winter of sovereignty and the summer of geoeconomics coincide for the West.

Plus, I have taken a step closer to understanding Diesen’s concluding proposition.

The deplorables (and the about-to-be debt-ridden migrants) of the West will see a political spring in Russia even as the West experiences an economic autumn in geoeconomics.

0148 Diesen portrays the new spring for sovereignty as Eurasian neomodernism.

Here is how I associate Diesen’s argument with his Greimas square.

0149 Sovereignty (D) continues as a theme into the next civilizational cycle.

Its manifestation (A) is a new style of pluralism, which Diesen calls “Eurasian neomodernism”.

Perhaps, another alternate label is “neo-modern diversity”.

0150 Recall, for the winter of sovereignty in the West, “diversity” replaces pluralism, even as it negates it.  Pluralism is pragmatic.  People have different views, pluralism accepts this fact and strives to reach compromise.  Diversity inverts pluralism.  People appear different, but they all end up… um… the same.  They all end up compromised.

Compromised?

What if the only acceptable “compromise” coincides with big government providing the appearance of individual autonomy, while maintaining regulatory control?  Then, various proponents of organizational objectives work together in a hydra-headed alliance of gesellschaft factions.  Each institution within the alliance is effectively a religion, because its organizational objective emerges from (and situates) its own righteousness.  Big Government (il)Liberalism is a congregation of secular religions.

0151 Yet, none of these religions are “religious” (meaning, Christian factions).  So, by insisting on a narrow definition of the term, “religion”, the American federal government does not violate the Enlightenment mandate for the separation of church and state.

At the same time, BG(il)L, as a “not religious” religion (B), conspires to repress gemeinschaft (C), whose tradition includes the belief that God creates all things.

America’s current war between gesellschaft and gemeinschaft expresses itself as Judeo-Pagans (B) versus Judeo-Christians (C).

For the USA, one difficulty for the bigilibs (B) is that the Judeo-Christians (C) have guns.

0152 How does Russian neo-modern diversity differ from American bigilib diversity?

Diesen maintains that, given the fact that pluralism is dead and that some people’s “compromise” means “we always win”, an adult is required to supervise.  This adult must be pragmatic.  Plus, this adult must be ruthless in stopping fights before “compromise” is attained.

How can the task of neo-modern gesellschaft (B) be accomplished?

This adult must rely on a philosophical tradition that allows pragmatism.  For Russia, this philosophical tradition is Orthodox Christianity, tempered by the experiences of seven decades of communist rule.   For China, the philosophical tradition is Maoism, now tempered by the experiences of five decades of communist rule and increasingly open to Confucian philosophy.  For Iran, the philosophical tradition belongs to the Shia religion.  In India, the philosophical tradition is Hindu, tempered by decades of independence from British rule, yet celebrating the rule of law that British rule fleetingly imposed.

0153 So, what is the difference between neo-modern diversity (A) and bigilib diversity (A)?

The gesellschaft of bigilib (B) is fundamentally incoherent and inhumane, because the central state implements organizational objectives on the basis of a congregation of “not religious” religious righteousnesses.

The gesellschaft of neomodern diversity (B) is fundamentally custodial, pragmatic and supervising, like a parent that keeps an eye on the children.

0154 The gemeinschaft (C) intuitively sense the difference.

At the end of the summer of American geoeconomics (D), people with careers and migrants (C) are doing fine.  Citizens who work for a living (C) are increasingly slaves to their debts.  The economic system is rigged against them.

In the winter of American sovereignty (D), people who believe in God, Judeo-Christians (C) are under assault by a hydra-headed beast (B), demanding to indoctrinate their children in public schools and to take affirmative action against them according to the labels that the bigilib gesellschaft attach to them.  Bigilibs cannot compromise.  They only “compromise”.

Every word uttered by American Judeo-Pagans rewires vocabulary and cultivates alternate meanings, presences and messages to long-held traditional definitions.  Only the “educated” can keep up with the trends.

0155 Is the difference between bigilib and Diesen’s neomodernist “diversity” (A) subtle?

Regulatory control (B) for BG(il)L diversity (A) aims to eradicate gemeinschaft (C), in order to replace it with novel traditions, concocted by intellectuals.

In contrast, regulatory control (B) for Eurasian neomodernist diversity (A) aims to preserve gemeinschaft (C), not to eradicate the old and replace it with something concocted by intellectuals.  However, Russia, China, Iran and India (and, probably Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria and Egypt along with southeast Asia and Africa and South and Central America) face a problem.  During the autumn and winter of sovereignty for the West, ideological gesellschaft, in the forms of communism, fascism and ad-hoc brands of (il)liberalism, significantly impact the communities, traditions and sensibilities that premodern gemeinschaft hold dear.  Yet, the flame of tradition is not extinguished.

0156 The first two paragraphs of chapter nine of Diesen’s book sets forth a scenario where an internal proletariat(gemeinschaft) of one civilisation finds common cause with the external rulers (gesellschaft) of a peripheral civilization,because the foreign gesellschaft does not belittle or disempower the gemeinschaft of its own jurisdiction.

0157 Why don’t Americans know what happened in Russia between 1989 and 2000?

Is there a blockade on information?

0158 To an American deplorable in 2023, the fact that Putin has not allowed the hyenas of Western financial capitalism to buy up Russian assets at discount prices and repackage them for sale to institutional investors compares well to the fact that, during the presidencies of George H Bush and Bill Clinton, the jackals of Western financial capitalism bought up factories throughout America and repackaged them to ship the jobs to communist China.  In America, financial speculators left their fellow citizens destitute.  Now, the same deep-pocket speculators purchase time on corporate broadcast media to run ads about their charitable activities.  What hypocrites.

0159 What of the European?

The European yellow-vested deplorable can look to peripheral civilizations like America (the putrid source of BG(il)L and the inspiration of the bureau-sclerotic European Union), Islam (where science was not born, when it could have been) and to Russia (the butt-end of feverish corporate propaganda campaigns paid for by financial speculators who would benefit from acquiring the properties opened by a collapse of Russian sovereignty).

0160 Remember when the old Soviet regime built walls to keep their people (gemeinschaft, C) from escaping to the West?

Now, a reverse migration may take place.

The former Soviet citizen has the option to go back to church and mosque.  Even though Putin appears ruthless to his political enemies, he stopped the Western-colluding oligarchs from plundering Russia (oh, except for the Ukraine, which is another story entirely).  Russia has not suffered a Western oligarch-financed color revolution (oh, once again, except for the Ukraine).

Russia remains a sovereign nation.

Who knows about the Ukraine?

Rumor has it that the largest lifetime donor to the American BG(il)L Clinton Foundation is a Ukrainian oligarch.

0161 So, I wonder.Could Diesen’s proposal (see point 0147) apply to the ends of the winter of sovereignty and the summer of geoeconomics in the West?

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).

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).

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.

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.

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 Diesen recounts remembers what cannot be remembered, that is, the tempestuous story of how we came to be.

Here is a list for gemeinschaft (C).

0122 Chapter seven, titled “Building Today’s World”, starts with humans 10,000 years ago.  The current interglacial starts.  Sea-levels rise.

Beliefs and rituals_2c are among the social tools_1b, the traits_2c that train body and mind_2b.  

Here is a picture.

0123 It seems as if these social tools_1b emerge from (and situate) the functionality and plasticity of our enormous brains_1a.

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.

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 refer to 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.

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.

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? Righteousness_1a is the potential underlying institutions_3a.  Order_1b is the potential underlying sovereign power_3b.  Order_1b belongs to the situation-level of an interscope.  Righteousness_1a belongs to the content-level.

On the situation level, sovereign power_3b is the normal context where sovereign acts and decrees_2b emerge from (and situate) the possibilities inherent in order_1b.  Sovereign power_3b virtually situates institutions_3a.

What we call the “state”_2b should correspond to the actuality_2b of sovereign power_3b contextualizing the potential for order_1b.

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 decrees_2b.

0196 Why does the state_2b require a monopoly on coercive force?

How else can it enforce order_1b?

0197 Does the above figure offer a definition of state_2b 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 society_C, organization_B and individual in community_A.

0198 The first two levels of the society_C tier correspond to content-level institutions_3a and situation-level sovereign power_3b.

Graeber and Wengrow do not know this diagram.  Yet, they write as if they do.  Social complexity_C arises as diverse institutions_3aC pursue their organizational objectives_2aC, based on a righteousness_1aC that interpellates individuals in community_A.  In our current Lebenswelt, righteousness_1aC calls individuals in community_A into organization_B.

The need for order_1bC may arise when institutions compete with one another and come into conflict.

I suppose that may occur when institutions find something to fight over.