01/12/23

Looking at Alex Jones’s Book (2022) “The Great Reset” (Part 6 of 12)

0070 The Great Reset (C) is a mind-independent being that is regarded as mind-dependent.  So is a reaction (C) to a problem (B).

This implies that the Great Reset (C) is a reaction (C) to a problem (B) and the problem (B) turns out to be the apparent necessity to formulate a plan for shaping the future (B).

How confusing is that?

0071 (B) is not shaping the future, as much as the necessity of a plan for shaping the future.

So far, I identify C, the mind-independent being that is being portrayed as mind-dependent, as having two aspects.  The mind-independent aspect (A) is the fourth industrial revolution (complete with covid-19). The mind-dependent aspect is the necessity of a plan for shaping the future (B).  Consequently, C manifests as A implements B.

Maybe, that is not so confusing.

0072 Even more disturbing, Schwab’s construction of a Greimas square persuades.

Here is what I have discussed so far.

Figure 13

A is the fourth industrial revolution.  A is an ens reale.  A opens the act of persuasion.

B contrasts with A.  B is an ens rationis.  B defines a problem.

C contradicts (speaks against) B.  C is “A implements B”.  C is an ens reale that must be regarded as an ens rationis.  C defines a reaction to a problem.

0073 So, the Great Reset (C) reacts to the World Economic Forum’s formulation of a plan for shaping the figure (B) by implementing the plan.

It sounds right.

0074 But, if the Great Reset (C) occupies the same relational position as illusion (C), as well as reaction (C), then who knows what horrors will follow when the hands of the operation (C) perform in service to the brains who formulate the plans (B)?  After all, the hands of the operation (C) work the levers of technologies with demiurgic capacities (A).  These technologies can make deserts bloom.  They can make humans irrelevant.  What happens when the brains formulate plans to turn humans into livestock?

Of course, you have to read Jones’s own words to appreciate the authentic literary impact.

0075 On the one hand, Jones raises good questions that make Schwab’s act of persuasion less convincing.

On the other hand, Schwab has more rhetorical tricks up his sleeve.

Yes, Schwab portrays the Great Reset (C), not as a reaction, but as an alternative, to a far more dangerous illusion.

Indeed, the Greimas square for books K1 through K5 mirrors another Greimas square, where the imagined problem (B) is that there is no plan to shape the future.  Consequently, the reaction to the lack of a plan (C) leads to less than optimal solutions (D). 

0076 Here is a picture.

Figure 14

0077 When the necessity of a plan for shaping the future (B) looks in the mirror, it (B) sees no plans for the future (Bm).

When the Great Reset (C) looks in the mirror, it (C) sees chaos (Cm).

0078 Wow.  Schwab looks great in the mirror of his own imagined horror show.

Yes, Schwab’s Greimas square (K1-K5) is an alternative to the image that Klaus sees in the mirror of fate.

The conclusion is obvious.

Stakeholder capitalism (D) is preferable to less than optimum solutions (D).

The implications are less than obvious.

0079 I wonder, “When Alex Jones questions Schwab’s Greimas square (K1-K5), what happens in the Greimas square in Schwab’s mirror?”

01/11/23

Looking at Alex Jones’s Book (2022) “The Great Reset” (Part 7 of 12)

0080 In chapter three, Jones asks (more or less), “Who is responsible for this garbage… er… act of persuasion?

He recounts a history, full of conspiracies.

Ahem, let me say that our elites do not conspire.  Rather, they manage.

Consequently, I rebrand the term, “conspiracy theory”, with the moniker, “a suspected historical managerial collaboration”.

0081 I will not recount this history.  Jones must be appreciated in his own words.

I will say that chapters three and four convey lots of information, pay attention to behind-the-scenes actors, and portray “managers” in ways that confound the traditional use of the term.

0082 How so?

How do managers work?

Well, first, managers are in charge.  The claim to be in charge of what is going on.  They take credit for successes and deflect blame for failures onto underlings, some of whom are not psychologically prepared for the betrayal.  They cook books.  They implement plans.

0083 How do “managers” work in suspected historical managerial collaborations?

Well, first, they attain positions of power with indeterminate responsibilities.  They appoint loyal people to be in charge of what must be done.  They manipulate the appearances of success and failure.  They compromise others and are especially fond of those who are not psychologically prepared to be compromised.  They make plans.  They select obedient managers to implement those plans.

0084 Of course, these “managers” cannot take exception to Alex Jones’s history of their suspected managerial collaborations.  But, they can sue the crap out of him on the basis of implausible legal theories.

Plus, look how beautiful stakeholder capitalism (D) is, compared to the alternative, less than optimal solutions (D).

Figure 15

0085 In chapter five, Jones turns his attention to Yuval Noah Harari, a lecturer at the department of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.  Harari has a great intellect.  Harari is also Klaus Schwab’s sidekick.

Surely, Schwab outsources aspects of the act of persuasion to Harari.

0086 According to Jones, Harari faces two tasks.

First, convince the reader that “his” understanding of the past is flawed.  This may be easy, because the academy has prepared the soil.  Note how I put the pronoun, “him”, in brackets in order to designate both male and female humans.  That means that my psychological conditions are already grounded in their… um… accusation that my understanding is flawed.

Second, move the reader to a desired vision of the future, where the dystopian reactionary Great Reset (C) leads to the solution of a capitalism where progress, people and the planet are stakeholders (D).

Does “stakeholder” sound like “public-private partnership”?

Oh well.  It sounds like shop talk for our elites.

0087 Harari’s two tasks veil two elements in Schwab’s Greimas square (K1-K5).

Here is a picture.

Figure 16

0088 How does Harari add value to Schwab’s agenda?

Harari’s suggestion that my understanding of the past is wrong diminishes the viability of alternate plans for shaping the future.  The World Economic Forum (WEF) is not the only trans-national institution with a vision for the future.  Indeed, the plans of the WEF may be the public face of a coin.  The other face is… well… private.  Yes, only the members of the partnership can view the other side of the coin.

0089 Ah!  There is a partnership, a coin with two faces: one public and one private.

Theorists of historical managerial collaborations take note.

The dichotomy may be applied in more than one way.

0090 Harari’s efforts to move me to the desired vision of the future (C) speaks against his suggestion that my understanding of the past is wrong (B) and complements the public face of the fourth industrial revolution (including the covid-19 operation, A).  I suppose that the private face is stakeholder capitalism (D).

What?

I thought that covid-19 was a “pandemic”.

Also, I thought that the injection that I was forced to take in order to keep my job was a “vaccine”.

This is the public face of the events leading to the Great Reset (C).

The private face calls it a proprietary mRNA technology.

With the assistance of Alex Jones, I may now suspect that covid-19 was a public “Event 201-related operation” coordinated with private stakeholders.  See page 72 in the text.

0091 The coin of the new realm is “partnership”.  The two faces of the coin are public and private.

Figure 17

0092 Let me repeat the same trick that I applied to the titles of Schwab’s books, K1 through K5, in points 21 through 27.

Here are the titles of Harari’s books.

H1: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humanity (2011)

H2: Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow (2016)

H3: 21 Lessons for the 21st Century (2018)

0093 The associations are obvious.

Figure 18

0094 Behold, another version of Klaus Schwab’s act of persuasion.

01/10/23

Looking at Alex Jones’s Book (2022) “The Great Reset” (Part 8 of 12)

0095 Jones discusses the illusion-filled reactionary Great Reset (C) in chapters six, seven and eight.

These chapters cover how the coin of the new realm is forged and hammered out.

0096 In chapter nine, the apparently salutary solution of stakeholder capitalism (D) emerges, like order from chaos, like coagula from solve, and like a mandate from heaven.

Jones closes with a review of K5, the fifth book under consideration. Here is the delusion (D) that Klaus Schwab wants to alchemically precipitate from the implemented illusions (C) of the Great Reset.

0097 At this juncture, I turn back and regard the path that I have taken in looking at Jones’s provocative book.

Jones is on target.  He identifies the literary output of Schwab as an act of persuasion.

When I look at this act of persuasion, the Greimas square comes to mind.

0098 Here is the purely-relational structure of the Greimas square.

Figure 19

0099 What does an act of persuasion do?

Well, first of all, one must distinguish the topic from the act of persuasion.

The topic opens with a mind-independent being (A).

The first step (B) of the act of persuasion reminds me of medieval scholastic debates struggling to separate mind-independent being from mind-dependent being (perhaps, I can say, knowledge from opinion).

Needless to say, this scholastic debate does not appear to bear fruit. 

But today, I can see that the medieval debate touches on two elements that are drawn into reality through acts of persuasion (C and D).

0100 What are the two elements?

In an illusion (C), a mind-independent being (ens reale) is regarded as mind-dependent (ens rationis).

In a delusion (D), a mind-dependent being (ens rationis) is regarded as mind-independent (ens reale).

Consequently, the Greimas square updates a centuries-old scholastic debate.

Figure 20

0101 To me, the updated scholastic Greimas square introduces precisely what the medieval schoolmen were trying to avoid: illusion and delusion.

What does an act of persuasion do?

Schwab writes books on the topic of the fourth industrial revolution (A).

In the process, Schwab persuades us of the realness of stakeholder capitalism (D).

01/9/23

Looking at Alex Jones’s Book (2022) “The Great Reset” (Part 9 of 12)

0102 Here is where I left off in the last blog.

Figure 21

0103 Another author with the name of Jones, describes the act of persuasion as applying a category of the mind.

To start, there is the mind-independent reality of a situation (A).

For Schwab, this mind-independent reality includes thousands of people working independently, as well as collaboratively, in cutting edge technologies, including artificial intelligence, robotics, material science, genetic research, biochemistry, biology and so on.  All these technologies will contribute to shaping the future in ways that those who seek control cannot control.  Those who seek control envision chaos.

0104 So, B, a mind-dependent being, is formulated.  As per the rules of the Greimas square, B contrasts with A and sets the stage for a creative leap to an apparently mind-dependent being, C.

For Schwab, this mind-dependent being (B) is a plan for shaping the future, courtesy of the World Economic Forum, composed (according to Jones) by those who seek control (or their representatives and lackeys, who are compromised and therefore easily… um… directed.)

0105 The mind-dependent being (B) represents the mind, in the term, category of the mind.

How so?

Well, the mind (B) engages what itB thinks belongs to the outside world (A), that is, mind-independent being, as if itA (A) is a mind-dependent being (C).

For example, if I find a slab of marble (A), and I figure that I can carve a statue of ‘something’ (B), I begin chiseling (C) this mind-independent being (A) according to my vision (B).  This artisanal example is not only a creative act, but it exhibits the purely relational character of an act of persuasion.

0106 As the slab of marble is fashioned (C) it speaks against the ‘something’ that I figure I can carve (B).  Plus, itCcomplements the integrity of the originating thing (A).

For Schwab, the fashioning of the fourth industrial revolution (including the covid-19 business) (B) is precisely an artistic effort (C), similar to a sculptor working on stone.  However, as Jones rightly notes, the metaphorical slab of stone is composed of humans, who can be as dumb as bricks, but nevertheless bear the image of their Creator.

Who is the creator here, God or the sculptor of the Great Reset?

Illusions (C) can be confounding.  To the mind, a mind-independent being takes on the character of mind-dependence.

0107  Next comes a delusion (D), a mind-dependent being that is categorized as mind-independent.

Ah, is D the category-aspect of the term, “category of the mind”?

Yes, the other Jones is onto ‘something’.

If D goes with “category” and B associates to “of the mind”, then the other Jones’s term, “category of the mind”, labels how D complements B, contrasts with C, and speaks against A.

0108 A delusion (D), appearing to be mind-independent, applies a category of the mind onto the originally mind-independent topic (A).

For the first example of an act of persuasion discussed in these blogs, the apparently mind-independent being is the second amendment of the Constitution (D).  This category of the mind is superimposed, by corporate media, upon heinous crimes (A).

0109 The delusion (D) expresses a mind-independent being that speaks against the originating mind-independent being(A).

Thus, the delusion (D) imposes a category of the mind onto the originating focus (A).  It is as if the second amendment(an apparently mind-independent being) opens the door to heinous crimes (as mind-independent beings) and is therefore complicit.  If this statement makes sense, then pause and savor the delusion (D) as an act of persuasion, leading to the imposition of a category of the mind upon mind-independent being.

Figure 22

0110 Both D and B precipitate, or “co-create”, the category of the mind.

The delusion (D) complements the mind-dependent being (B) and, often enough, serves as a mental impression of the originating mind-independent being (A).  B is the mind in a category of the mind.  D is the category.

Who is the other Jones?

Think E. Michael.

0111 For Schwab, the delusion (D) comes with the label, “stakeholder capitalism”.  Stakeholder capitalism is like a statue, a mind-independent being, chiseled out of social upheaval during the fourth industrial revolution.  There are three stakeholders: progress, people and planet.  All three are reified into mind-independent beings that somehow put capital, the undead blood flowing through the living arteries and veins of the global economy, into perspective.

Once the work of the Great Reset (C) is complete, stakeholder capitalism (D) will have replaced the second amendment (D) as the mind-independent being (D) imposed on all sorts of encounters with reality (A).

Schwab’s act of persuasion will become fiat accompli.

0112 Here is a diagram of the Greimas square derived from the titles of Klaus Schwab’s five books.

Figure 23
01/6/23

Looking at Alex Jones’s Book (2022) “The Great Reset” (Part 10 of 12)

0113 From the very start, the intrepid Alex Jones intuitively anticipates the purely relational structure that defines Klaus Schwab’s act of persuasion.  After bringing these associations to consciousness, I want to futz.

Here is how I associate Jones’s summary of Schwab’s approach to the Greimas square.

Figure 24

0114 To me, Jones’s selection of terms reproduces what Schwab sees in his mirror.  Schwab’s mirror tells Klaus what is happening, just as it would tell any sorcerer.  As Jones dismantles Schwab’s argument, Klaus’s mirror remains unsullied.

Figure 25

0115 So, here is where I want to futz (that is, to suggest a small adjustment).

Typically, people futz because they think that they are smarter than they actually are.

Perhaps, my futz reflects the same underlying condition.

Here are alternate terms to “problem, reaction and solution”.  They express the same character, but with a different flavor.

Figure 26

0116 Surely, this Greimas square portrays the persuasive act in Schwab’s five books.

Figure 27

Plus, this Greimas square reflects in Schwab’s mirror.

Figure 28

0117 What does that imply?

A robust argument needs to be made that Schwab’s act of persuasion is not the only response to the vision in Klaus’s mirror.

Perhaps, God has a different plan.

01/5/23

Looking at Alex Jones’s Book (2022) “The Great Reset” (Part 11 of 12)

0118 This examination adds value to Jones’s eye-opening book, without replacing the work itself.  The book is a great read.  Plus, it rests on the surface of an alternative to what the sorcerer sees in the mirror.  Below that surface, a Great Awakening flows.

A Great Awakening (C)?

What (A) is happening?

God has a plan (B)?

Is revelation (C) the antidote to illusion (C)?

Does faith seeking understanding (D) challenge delusion (D)?

Figure 29

0119 Is the unfolding of our current theodrama an act of persuasion?

What an odd question.

Have we seen this theodrama before?

0120 Exactly how ancient is the Greimas square’s update of a medieval scholastic debate?

Is it as old as the stories of Adam and Eve?

0121 How could it be?

Here is another way to picture the updated scholastic Greimas square.

Figure 30

0122 Now, I associate elements in the Biblical story of the Fall to this relational structure.

A is the tree at the center of the garden.  This tree is a mind-independent being.

In the October 2022 blog, Looking at Loren Haarsma’s Book (2021) “When Did Sin Begin?”, this examiner suggests that the tree of life in the garden of Eden is already a mind-dependent being that is regarded as mind-independent.  If so, then the Greimas square already operates before Eve takes interest in the singular tree.  Remember, D can replace A.  Remember that John Milton’s masterpiece, Paradise Lost, begins with Lucifer’s rebellion.

B is the spoken name that God gives to the tree.  The tree of the knowledge of good and evil comes with a command, “Do not eat, lest you die.”

In C, Eve reacts to the name.  The serpent assists Eve in regarding the mind-independent being in the center of the garden(A) as a mind-dependent being (C).  The fruit appeals to the eyes, may be good to the taste, and is desired to make one wise.  The serpent pushes the envelope of an illusion (C).

D follows.  Eve is deluded into turning the illusion (C) into a mind-independent being (D).  When she eats the fruit, she violates the command accompanying the naming of the tree.  The mind-initiated violation is a mind-independent being.  All humanity is plunged into a primal state of delusion, where we habitually and blindly project categories of the mindonto mind-independent reality.  We frame.  We name.  We entertain illusion.  We create delusions.  Then, we regard our delusions (D) as mind-independent beings (A).

0123 Here is a picture of the fall of Eve.

Figure 31
01/4/23

Looking at Alex Jones’s Book (2022) “The Great Reset” (Part 12 of 12)

0124 Does the bombastic, entertaining, yet earnest Alex Jones speak fiction to fact?  Or fact to fiction?  Or both?  Or neither?

0125 This look at his most recent book suggests that the terms, “fact” and “fiction”, are inadequate.  Terms that are much older, yet still explicit abstractions, are preferable.

To me, the Latin terms, “ens reale” (mind-independent being) and “ens rationis” (mind dependent being), apply.

0126 I will not be the first to falsely accuse Alex Jones of being what he is not, when I say that Jones works in the vineyards of scholastic thought.  He intuitively senses and exposes illusion and delusion.  Plus, he strives to identify a nomenclature to describe how Klaus Schwab casts his sorcerer’s spell in an act of persuasion, just like that serpent in the third chapter of Genesis.

The scholastic world of the high middle ages (roughly 1100 to 1600 AD) rocks with controversies concerning how to distinguish (and perhaps, separate) ens reale and ens rationis.  The schoolmen struggle against manipulative influences that bring these two types together, alchemically mixing them, in order to precipitate novel (mind-dependent) mind-independent beings (D).  D can become the next A.  Such is the nature of original sin.

0127 The Greimas square is an act of persuasion that does not fit what anyone currently imagines is an act of persuasion.  Yet, Alex Jones smells it.  He sniffs out a rhetorical pattern that seems credible, yet defies practical reason.  This is his charism.

0128 A little philosophy goes a long way.

Indeed, this look at The Great Reset may seem to be a revelation.

Not unlike Jones’s book.

01/22/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 8 of 16)

0044 What happens when the Ubaid begins?

The following claims are stated plainly in The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace.  They are dramatized in An Archaeology of the Fall.  Both e-works are available at smashwords and other electronic-book venues.  Search Razie Mah along with the title.

The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia first appears on the edges of the newly filled Persian Gulf.  The Ubaid is similar to all the Developed Neolithic villages of the day, except for one difference.  The Ubaid practices speech-alone talk.  All other cultures practice hand-speech talk.

In hand-speech talk, the referent is imaged or indicated by the gesture-word.  In speech-alone talk, spoken words are pure symbols, labels that can be attached to the part, as well as to the whole.  The semiotic world of the Ubaid is correspondingly out of kilter. Speech-alone talk can fashion words for things that cannot be pictured or pointed to in hand talk.

Consider the word, “wheel”.  The wheel does not appear in nature.  How can hand-speech talk picture or point to a wheel?  Instead, the rotary motion that goes into making pottery gains a spoken name.  Then, an artifact is built that validates the name.  The Uruk period, following the Ubaid, invents the wheel.

Different producers develop specialized languages, increasing their innovation and productivity.  Different social circles find new ways to organize, increasing their capacities for regimentation and coordinated action.  The Ubaid becomes rich and powerful.  The subsequent Uruk period is more rich and more powerful.  The Sumerian Dynastic is labeled, “civilization”.

These sociological trends take place over thousands of years.  They are difficult to fathom.  No one really can figure out what is happening.  But, whatever it is, it does not stop.  Soon enough, the present erases the past.  Then, the present erases the past, over and over and over.  It is like a pustule that festers, then ruptures, festers, then ruptures, over and over.  Each iteration is different.  Each iteration is more uncanny.

0046 The Epic of Gilgamesh recounts the adventures of a king, who lives (according to many intelligent guesses) around 4500 years ago.  The Ubaid coalesces around 7800 years ago.  Let me imagine that a complete overturning of the established order occurs  each time the conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn move into a new element, around every 200 years.  In the 3300 years between the start of the Ubaid and King Gilgamesh, sixteen complete turnovers occur.  How can anyone comprehend the changes?

Yet, the fairy tales of Adam and Eve convey the nature of this social process.  There is a definite beginning, in a idyllic garden.  A threshold is crossed, the garden is lost.  Then, another threshold is crossed.  Cain kills Abel.  Then, another threshold is crossed.  Lamech, with two wives, murders a man with none.  Then, the genealogies begin.  One name follows another.  The lengths of the lives call to mind the slow grinding of the heavenly spheres.  One overturning follows another.

0047 Today, we are blessed with novel, otherwise invisible celestial timekeepers.  Uranus, 84 year orbit, associates to revolutions.  Neptune, 165 year orbit, links to dreamy oceanic spirits of the age.  Dwarf Pluto, 248 year orbit, goes with the trees of life and death.  The years of discovery oddly reinforce astrological associations.  They are 1781, 1846 and 1930, respectively.  Think French Revolution (1791), the Communist Manifesto (published 1848) and America’s big stock market crash (1929).

The stars and the planets are telling.  Recall, Satan, the one who is defeated in the first half of the grand sweep of Paradise Lost, is a stellar angel, at first.  Now, he sells faithlessness, to us, just as he did to Eve.

0048 The conditions that define the authors of Genesis 3 touch base with the reactions of mothers, in the tradition of Seth, within the Ubaid, to ever increasing social complexity.  Each story is like the completion of a spiraling development, like royalty (Jupiter) having to meet time (Saturn), like the cycle of peace and revolution (Uranus), like popular movements, rising like islands, then drowning in a sea of their own contradictions (Neptune) and like a long, treacherous trek between the tree of life and the tree of death (Pluto).  The cycles spiral because labor and social specializations are always innovating.

The fairy tales of Adam and Eve point to the start of our current Lebenswelt.

01/19/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 11 of 16)

0063 What does the woman want?

Trees are all over the garden.  But, there are two notable botanical specimens.  There is the tree of life, somewhere in the periphery.  There is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, placed right in the center.  So, I already know what the woman wants.  She wants to be center stage.

0064 The tree in the center of the garden has not attracted Adam’s curiosity, so far.  He is happy with a tasty garden, attentive domesticates, and the rib-helper.  Wow, she is the most.

0065 Yes, the woman has desire.  Sure, the trees are good for food and beautiful to behold.  In Genesis 2:9, the author uses the word, “nechmad”, meaning desirable.

0066 Then, the woman enters into conversation with the serpent, who also has desires.  Its desire is to manipulate her desire.  He wants to pitch a sale.  Immediately before Eve seals the deal, Eve notices that the fruit is “ta’awah” (desire) to the eyes and “nechmad” (desirable) to make one wise.  Then, the serpent closes the pitch with a promise that the purchase will open her eyes.  She will be like the gods, knowing good and evil.

0067 Then, Adam joins in and the eyes of both are opened.

They realize that they are exposed.

0068 This word, “teshuqah” (desire), shows up again in Eve’s chastisement, as well as in the Song of Songs.  In the Dead Sea Scrolls, the same word gains creepier overtones.  The clay, within the human person, desires to return to dust.  This is an insight2V.

0069 But, what about the conditions2H?

Is Genesis 3 about human sin?

Or, is it about giving one’s sons and daughters a little hint about the nature of desire?

There is a difference between desirable and desire.  Plus, the serpent can close on both.

01/18/22

Looking at Mark S. Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil” (Part 12 of 16)

0070 In chapter five, Mark Smith asks, “When does the story of human sin begin in Genesis?”

0071 At this point, conditions further clarify.

The first audiences for the early stories of Genesis are children.  The first authors are their mothers, the daughters of Seth.  Eve is their great-great-…-great grandmother.  The stories convey to each child this lineage, a direct descent to this mother, who is center stage.  Eve is more than a foolish woman who talks to serpents.  Eve is your mother as well.

0072 What does it mean to be a mother, a woman, cursed under Eve’s indictment?

A Primer on the Family presents the family as a prototype of the corporation, the content level of the organization tier.  Eve, the woman, is the producer.  Her man is the management.  Her children are the service, or, in today’s terms, the human resources.  Eve does not change the centrality of the mother.  She magnifies it.

She offers a warning.

0073 The story of Eve’s temptation offers many lessons, including ones on the nature of desire.  As Smith points out, Genesis 3 portrays a deeply disturbing psychological narrative.  Don’t all good fairy tales?

Plus, I add, Eve’s narrative, along with other Genesis stories, captures the weirdness of the constellation of unconstrained social complexity during the Ubaid.  Adam and Eve are made in paradise, eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and are expelled.  Neither Genesis 2 nor 3 use the word, “sin”.  The label, “evil”, is only mentioned in the name of the infamous tree.

Afterwards, Eve bears two children, Cain and Abel.  Eve is the producer.

0074 “Sin” is mentioned in Genesis 4, along with the word for desire, “teshuqah”.  Desire appears in the temptation of Eve and in her rebuke, where God says, “Your desire will be for your man.”  Yes, the woman will desire her man to be her manager.  There is no sin in that.

So, where does the word, “sin”, first appear?

When Cain, the gardener, complains about God preferring burnt offerings of meat, God offers a revealing repost, saying (more or less), “If you do what is right, you can bear it.  If you do not do right, sin crouches at your door.  Its desire (teshuqah) is for you, but you can rule over it.”

The word, “sin”, appears for the first time.  It does so in conjunction with a desire that crouches, like a predator, at Cain’s threshold.  Cain can rule it.  Or, it can rule Cain.

We all know what happens next.

0075 The daughters of Seth do not pull punches.  This conjunction of “sin” and “desire” is so provocative that I wonder, what child would not remember it, later, as an adult?

Even more intriguing is how this conjunction exposes a disquieting reality within the Ubaid’s spiral towards unconstrained social complexity.  The idea of one brother killing the other is not out of the question.  Why?  Such killingis an artifact that validates what the murderous brother has been telling himself.

0076 In hand-speech talk, gesture-words picture or point to their referents.  So, the words cannot lie about what they refer to.

In speech-alone talk, spoken words do not picture or point to their referents.  Instead, we construct artifacts that validate our projection of meaning, presence and message.  We speak, and the world comes into creation.  Not just any creation.  Our creation.  Our imagination constructs artifacts that validate our spoken words.

0077 Oh, those damned artifacts.

When fatty portions are added to a fire, the fire jumps to life.

When cabbage is added to a fire, the fire smolders.

0078 One son does not talk to himself.  Instead, he praises God.

The other mutters under his breath.  He complains about God’s rejection of his artifacts.

0079 The children hear a fairy tale, telling them of dangers in their upcoming lives.

The mothers hear the tragedy of two sons, where one rules over his desires and the other does not.

0080 This is one of the poisonous fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, the tree of speech-alone talk.  I can create my own world through my own symbolic actions that simultaneously do not honor God and open the door to the one whose desire is for my desire.

Sin crouches at Cain’s door.  It desires to speak to him.

Behold the fruits of the tree of death.