Category Archives: Intimations of Political Philosophy

09/30/24

Looking at Michelle Stiles’s Book (2022) “One Idea to Rule Them All” (Part 1 of 23)

0495 A note on blog protocol.

In the strange world of blogs, the most recent blog appears first, so the first blog in a sequence must be placed last in any given month, in order for the blogs to be read from top to bottom.

0496 A note on timing and points.

The blog for July 2024 examines a book by British sociologist, Steve Fuller.  This examination introduces the interscope for the post-truth condition, along with its embedded interventional sign-relation.

The blog for August 2024 tests the relevance of the post-truth interscope, by applying the purely relational structure to a reading of a book by American entrepreneur and um… politician (?)… Vivek Ramaswamy.  Battles among enlightenment gods shape modern history.

These constitute Part One of Original Sin and the Post-Truth Condition, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

Also, in August, the post-truth interscope is shown to be much older than one would suspect.  The sophists of ancient Greece run the same game as the modern post-truth condition.  That implies that the post-truth condition may trace to the beginning of our current Lebenswelt.  A review of an essay by Josef Pieper is the second examination in Part Two.

Now, in September 2024, the post-truth interscope is applied to a book by a physical therapist with an excellent sense of what is happening, Michelle Stiles.  Decode this book in order to find out the potential of ‘something’ happening.  This review is the first examination in Part Two.

Finally, in October 2024, an encore.  Looking at N. J. Enfield’s Book (2022) Language vs. Reality constitutes Part Three of Original Sin and the Post-Truth Condition.

0497 Here is a look at the examination of the post-truth condition and its relation to original sin.

0498 Let me sound my notes once again.

The end of Fuller’s book predicts what happens when a person in the thralls of an empirio-normative judgment2c is sacrificed to an enlightenment deity, such as the one of scientism3c.  The scrappy player3a discovers that the system’s definition of “success2c“ is not what he calls “success2a“. For the scientismist one3c, “success2c” is not the scrappy player’s “getting ahead2a“.  Rather, “success2c” is an exercise of an empirio-normative judgment2c.

0499 Here is a picture of the contemporary post-truth interscope.

0500 Vivek Ramaswamy’s book is a testimony to the character of expert-driven3b psychometric values2b as formalizations1b that distort what people are willing to say2a.

Oh… I did not mean to use the word, “distort”… I meant to use the word, “model”.

Psychometric studies2b demonstrate that what people are willing to say2a can be modeled according to postmodern formulations2b that encourage1c those who “trust the science”3c to render an empirio-normative judgment2c that stands for how what people think and what people say is hurtful and objectionable2b, according to criteria2b established by those3brepresenting the most vulnerable in society1b.

0501 What is a person who thinks that “success2a” means “to get ahead by hard work and an attitude of cooperation2a“supposed to do, when thwarted by the accusation2b that such speech is euro-centric and ethno-supremacist?  Keep working hard and acting agreeably?  A panel of experts3b will formalize1b whatever this scrappy player says2a and does2ainto an accusation2b that stands in the way of getting ahead.

The scrappy player is tempted to say, “Screw it.  The empirio-normative judgment wins.  I am outta here.”

0502 As soon as the scrappy player lays flat and looks up, the sky offers an opportunity, a screen to paint the One who Signifies, without Us Knowing Why.

This implicit abstraction is more primordial than anything that our current Lebenswelt can offer as a perspectivec-level reality2.  The originating source of the interventional sign-relation is a sign-vehicle (SVi) that cannot be seen, heard, touched, tasted or smelled.  How so?  The interventional sign-vehicle2c (SVi) stands for what can be seen, heard, touched, tasted or smelled2a, including the odors of frustration, failure and fear2a (SOi), according to an intellect that recognizes signs3a contextualizing a will that appreciates a gift in what is being encountered1a (SIi).

This is the type of mental behavior that we (humans) evolved to perform.  Humans recognize signs.  Humans appreciate gifts.  After all, both involve triadic relations.  The human niche is the potential of triadic relations.

0503 The trick (SIi) for the interventional sign-relation comes from the fact that we experience the sign-object (SOi) and then must figure out the sign-vehicle (SVi) .  Our experiences of things in the world2a (SOi) testifies to an actuality in the mind of a perspective-level being2c (SVi).

0504 Fuller, at the end of his practical guide, contemplates the SOi of himself [proposing] an account of how the post-truth condition comes to be2a.  Simultaneously, the One Who Signifies3c weaves the notion of original sin2c (SVi) into Fuller’s narrative.

Original sin2c (SVi) stands for Fuller telling an origin story for the post-truth condition2a (SOi) in regards to an interpretant that is within, yet transcending, Fuller’s intellect3a and will1a (SIi).

0505 Here is a picture of the interventional sign-relation residing within chapter fourteen of Fuller’s text, following Fuller’s definition of metalepsis.

0506 Does Fuller merely relate a historical account of how the post-truth condition comes to be?

Or, is he also is making a discovery?

Or, should I say… revealing an insight?

0507 On January 2, 2024, in his blog, Razie Mah proposes that the doctrine of original sin needs to be reformulated in light of a fact.  The science of genetics disproves Saint Augustine’s claim that Adam’s transgression passes from Adam to all humans through direct descent, without modification.  Genetics establishes, beyond doubt, that there is no bottleneck in human evolution that would correspond to an original human pair, unless that pair exists hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Consider Looking at William Lane Craig’s Book (2021) “In Quest of the Historical Adam” and Looking at Andrew Ter Ern Loke’s Book (2022) “The Origin of Humanity and Evolution”, appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in September, 2022, and November, 2023, respectively.  These examinations show the futility of regarding Adam and Eve as the originators of our species, Homo sapiens.

0508 Mah’s proposal launches a strange and serious enterprise.

At this moment in history, psychometric experts3b testify that their analysis2b of what people say2a shows no need for the doctrine of original sin, except for the problem that people do not understand how the system works2c.  “Religion”, once attributed to “Christian factions”, no longer has relevance compared to bureaucratic rationalizations2b that narrow formal knowledge1b into two tranches, one capitalist and one socialist, which combine into a mystery, an intersection, that is far more salient to modern society than so-called “religion”.  Value2b is a single actuality constituted by the actualities of financial transaction2H and organizational objective2V.  Or, shall I say, money and politics?

0509 Some of the more intellectually inclined scrappy players go so far as to call America’s government-occupying secular bureaucracy a “religion”.  And, it is.  But, it is not “religion” defined as “a Christian faction”.

Yes, it depends on how one defines the word, “religion”.

0510 Sophistication aside, the one of scientism3c, who rules this “system”, may well be a manifestation of… yes… original sin.  How does one account for scientism3c as a person writ large, possessing the minds of apparently regular people, as institutions writ small, turning them into advocates for the scientismist one3c?

0511 Augustine focuses on disordered desires.  Does a doctrine of disordered desires suffice to account for the disoriented minds that justify the deranged valuations2b of psychometric experts3b?  Or, are disordered desires and disoriented minds both symptoms of an evolution-twisting cultural trajectory that is portrayed in the Genesis stories of Adam and Eve, all the way to the Tower of Babel?  An affirmative answer to the second question opens the door to a second doctrine of original sin.

0512 If the early chapters of Genesis are fairy tales concerning the instigation of unconstrained social complexity during the Ubaid and the Uruk archaeological periods of southern Mesopotamia, and if the Ubaid culture of southern Mesopotamia is the first culture to practice speech-alone talk, at a time when all other cultures practice hand-speech talk,then theologians should weave the hypothesis of the first singularity into the fabric of a second doctrine of original sin.

0513 A second doctrine?

Yes, a second doctrine must account for Augustine’s first doctrine as a special application, in the same way that quantum mechanics accounts for Newtonian physics as a special application.

Inquiry into the post-truth condition may open the portal to a second doctrine of original sin.

So, I begin.

The book before me is by Michelle Stiles, the full title is One Idea to Rule Them All: Reverse Engineering American Propaganda.  The book is copyrighted in 2022 and published by the author.

0514 The cover photo depicts a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Yes, experts3b are human, just like scrappy players3a.

So, they could be the wolves in sheep’s clothing.

It is the scientismist one3c that I am not sure about.

09/4/24

Looking at Michelle Stiles’s Book (2022) “One Idea to Rule Them All” (Part 23 of 23)

0749 What about domination?

Chapters eleven and twelve conclude the book with suggestions for how to proceed, now that Stiles’s own manuscript testifies to the necessity for operation spider web to engage in as many operation sheepskins as possible.  The scrappy players are becoming aware that what they regard as reason3a,1a is actually an interventional sign-interpretant (SIi) declaring that an operation sheepskin2c executed by the scientismist one3c (SVi) stands for what people are thinking [and] what people are saying2a (SOi).  Experts3b cannot reduce this awareness to capitalist and socialist ideations2b and remain intelligible.

More research is required.

One of the operation sheepskins has got to dominate the scrappy players that deny the post-truth interscope.

0750 The scrappy player needs only to watch corporate broadcast media for the latest operation.

The money and power required to sustain operation spider web is enormous.

After the system3c burns through its cash, then it3c will ask the oligarchs and the federal government to appropriate more funds for their private-public partnerships.

The laboratory of expertise strives for an effective formulation.

Will they configure a final solution?

0751 Meanwhile, scrappy playersa are coming to terms with the nature of domination by the ones of scientism3c.

The scientismist one’s3c interventional sign-objects2a (SOi) trigger the scrappy player to imagine2a a perspective-level interventional sign-vehicle (SVi), a hidden agenda2c, that can only be recognized when the intellect3a contextualizes a potential greater than the will1a (SIi).

In order to do so, the scrappy player must recognize that what he has been thinking2a and what he has been expected to say2a are no longer intellectually3a satisfying.

Something greater than “our” intellect3a is required.  

Then, what the scrappy player discovers2a is that humans are adapted to recognize interventional sign-relations.  

The ones of scientism3c use that adaptation against the scrappy players2a.

The ones of scientism3c dominate by pretending to be the divine source of interventional sign-vehicles (SVi).  

They do so by limiting reason3a,1a to the intellect3a contextualizing the will1a, as if the will1a does not seek perfection (completion) in transcendentals, such a truth.

Yes, they are using a human adaptation against us.  But, they are triggering the adaptation as well.

0752 Hence, there is a practical conundrum facing the scrappy player.

To speak of a hidden agenda2a is counterproductive, because to posit that events2a are scripted by operation-sheepskin empirio-normative judgments2c is to talk in terms of formal and final causalities, which are the very statements-phenomena2a that cannot regarded as worthy of observation and measurement by psychometric experts3c.   Psychometric experts3b base their models2b on truncated material and efficient causalities (shorn of formal and final causation).

Speech about hidden agendas2a cannot be regarded as phenomena2a worth attending to.

Therefore, it must be ignored.

0753 The impasse is palpable, because (look at the third row).

0754 The crisis is about to begin.

0755 My thanks to Michelle Stiles for daring to publish a manuscript worthy of examination in regards to the post-truth condition.

08/9/24

Looking at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Book (2021) “Woke, Inc.” (Part 20 of 20)

0487 Here is a picture of the interscope for the post-truth condition.

0488 In the Fourth Battle of the Enlightenment Gods: Empirio-Normative Domination of Citizen Populations (1989-present), the scientismist one3c endeavors to first, bring a judgment2c into relation with the potential of an opportunity1c.

In this judgment, the disciplinary languages of the psychometric sciences (relation, thirdness) brings a normative narrative, expressing real intelligibility (what ought to be, secondness), into relation with something universal in what people say (what is, firstness).

Second, this judgment2c may serve as an interventional sign-vehicle (SVi) triggering people’s reason3a,1a (SIi) and creating a dyad where what I think coincides with the broadcast normative narrative [and is objectified as] what I am willing to say (SOi).

0489 Submission to the one of scientism takes the same character as when triumphalist science situates empirio-schematic research by placing a model over its noumenon, as discussed in Comments on Mariusz Tabaczek’s Arc of Inquiry (2019-2024) (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues) as well as Razie Mah’s blogs in April, May and June 2024.

Here is a comparison.

0490 The interscope for the post-truth condition allows the inquirer to step back from the conditions of submission, in order to explore the nature of the Woke World War.  The actuality of the scrappy player, who is yet to submit, but cannot ignore the broadcasts, perfectly mimics a thing that is the ‘what is’ of the Positivist’s judgment.  That is to say, the scrappy player is the subject of a scientific inquiry and is trapped, like a rat, in the laboratory of the psychometric sciences.

Here is a comparison of the scrappy player’s actuality versus what is of the Positivist’s judgment.

0491 Standing against these two comparisons is a proposition that has been proclaimed by Christianity for centuries and has been rejected over and over again, because it forces the person to stand before God.

This actuality implies a fatal weakness of the post-truth condition.

Reason3a,1a is more than the intellect3a operating on the will1a.

0492 Ramaswamy knows this.

He knows that the sociopaths who run woke corporations and non-governmental organizations know this.  Reason is more than the intellect operating on the will.  But, this is the post-truth condition that bigilibs have grown to love, for fun (virtue-signaling) and for profit (financial benefits accruing through sovereign-imposed organizational objectives).

Deception thrives in the post-truth condition.

0493 Woke, Inc. tells a story that runs deep.

The beginning writes the end.

0494 My thanks to Vivek Ramaswamy for his engaging text.

08/8/24

Looking at Josef Pieper’s Book (1974) “Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power” (Part 1 of 8)

0756 The essay is originally published in German by Kosef-Verlag, Munich.  In 1988, the essay is translated by Lothar Krauth, in an edition by Schuabenverlag AG, Osterfindern bei Stuttgart.  The essay before me is published in 1992 by Ignatius Press, San Francisco.

Why should I examine this essay?

Is the post-truth condition a manifestation of original sin?

0757 If the answer is “yes” to the latter question, then the answer to the former is partially unveiled.

Obviously, there is no direct path from the post-truth condition to a reincarnation of the doctrine of original sin, but both can enter the cognitive space carved out by Pieper’s title.  The stories of Adam and Eve portray an abuse of language similar to the type that we see today.  

0758 The post-truth interscope is formulated in Looking at Steve Fuller’s Book (2020) “The Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition” and applied in Looking at Vivek Ramaswamy’s Book (2021) “Woke, Inc.”.

The post-truth interscope has three levels.

Here is a picture.

0759 The content level is labeled “scrappy player”.  This is a level of under contention.  How so?  The actuality does not look like the scrappy player’s own self-impression.  Typically, people feel that what I think [accords with] what I say,rather than a dyad that has the characteristics of what is of the Positivist’s judgment.  So, the content-level actuality for the post-truth condition comes across as weirdly familiar, yet unnatural.  The same goes with the normal context3a and potential1a of reason3a,1a.  Reason3a,1a is the intellect3a contextualizing the will1a.  Plus, the interscope is not clear as to who engages reason3a,1a.  Is reason3a,1a the sign-interpretant (SIi) for the scientismist one3c‘s sign-vehicle (SVi)?  Or is reason3a,1a a feature of the scrappy player’s cognition?  Or both?

0760 The situation level is labeled “expert”.  Psychometric scientistsb situate what the scrappy player is willing to say2aas phenomena that may be formalized as observations and measurements1b.  Also, psychometric experts3b bring models of value2b into relation with the potential of ‘formalized knowledge’1b.

0761 The perspective level is labeled “relativist one”.  This is a level that is difficult to grasp.  The current relativist one3cis called, “the one of scientism3c“, because science has become the common style for expert3b expressions of value2b, where value2b is the intersection of capitalist and socialist nested forms.  So, the scientismist one3c may be regarded as “the system” or “the style” (or even, “the hive”) for the current interscope of the post-truth condition.

Fuller notes that there is an absolute character to the relativist one3c.  In order to truly operate as a relativist, one must be outside of all relativized jurisdictions.  That observation indicates that the relativist one3c should occupy the perspective-level normal context of the post-truth interscope.  Plus, that observation indicates that relativized jurisdictions should belong to the situation level.  So, all sciences and experts3b are relative from the point of view of the scientismist one3c.

0762 So, let me make a prediction as to how Josef Pieper’s argument will play out.

08/1/24

Looking at Josef Pieper’s Book (1974) “Abuse of Language, Abuse of Power” (Part 8 of 8)

0826 Needless to say, the trader with refined reason3c belongs to one of the finest families in Athens.

The ancients have a saying, “The best, corrupted, become the worst.”

Abuse of power goes hand in hand with abuse of language.

Abuse of language manifests in the realm of possibility1.

Abuse of power develops in the realm of normal contexts3.

0827 Here is a picture.

0828 The actualities2 of the sophist interscope are topics of gossip and conversation.

0829 Does the sophist really believe what he says?

Is the idea that Athens should economically sanction Syracuse not the same as “war”?

Well, it is and it isn’t.

What is the definition of the word, “war”?

And finally, what about the enforcement of the sanctions?

Of course, Athenian troops can stop ships from Syracuse from docking, but is that enough?

I hear rumors that ships are now simply bypassing Athens and going to Thebes.

0830 In the forum, the bought-off… er… well-paid sophist hears what people are saying.  He has a ready reply, “Thebes is causing a problem.  We should think about going to war with Thebes.  Not, this weak-kneed sanction business, but full-fledged conquest.”

0831 It’s like selling candy to a baby.

This is what Plato sees.

0832 What is there to stop the sophists3b and their behind-the-scenes sponsors3c?

If a reasonable person3a,1a adopts the sophist terminology, then the reasonable person3a,1a buys into the way that the sophist3b has framed the citizen’s reality and understanding.

Consequently, even the reasonable person’s thoughts are tainted, because what he says (using a word whose meaning, presence and message has been tweaked by the sophist) cannot correspond to what he thinks (because he thinks in terms of the traditional meaning, presence and message of the spoken word).

0833 A citizen may ask, “Would sending a delegation to Thebes asking what is going on be a way to avoid war?”

The sophist replies, “No, Athena forbid!  Sending a delegation would be an act of war.  Obviously, the traders in Thebesalready are trying to take advantage of our conflict with Syracuse.  We all know that ships from Syracuse are docking in Thebes.  Sending a delegation would only tip them off, so they would attack us, with the assistance of Syracuse, before we can attack them.”

0834 The sophist interscope supports ruinous political decisions. 

But, does the sweetness of refined reason3c turn to bitterness?

Or does the fish rot from the head, down?

0835 The one who pays to support refined reason3c no longer believes that refined reason3c is right reason.  Instead, it is a way to gain advantage1c by promoting political decisions2c that favor the elite, rather than all citizens.  Without a doubt, the most advantageous political decision2c is the one2c where public citizens bear the risks and costs and private elites gain the benefits. 

0836 Today, experts2b call these arrangements, “public-private partnerships”.  The arrangement sounds attractive, “the public” (that is, a government bureaucracy) works with “private” citizens (that is, very wealthy operators) in order to accomplish goals that neither can achieve alone, such as an active war with Thebes while engaging in sanctions with Syracuse.

Finally, the citizen becomes confused and starts saying what the sophist says as if it is his own thought.  Sanctions are war.  Diplomacy is war.  Thebes and Syracuse must be defeated.  No one quite knows why, because reason3a,1a itself has fallen into sophistry2b.

0837 Tyranny is near when reason3a,1a falls into sophistry2b, because a dictator and his allies may declare what one can say, as if that is the gateway to what one can think.  Citizens who have fallen into sophistry have no defense and end up blaming those who speak against sophistry.

0838 Weirdly, this is the topic is covered from a completely different approach, in the ninth and tenth primers of the series, How To Define the Word “Religion” and Related Primers, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  The titles are A Primer on Classical Political Philosophy and A Primer on Another Infrasovereign Religion.

0840 So, what was Plato’s problem?

We all know what happened to Socrates.

His admirers and compatriots, including Plato, were devastated.

Plato could only stop, and lay flat, and look into the empty sky.

And, an interventional sign-relation comes to be.

08/31/23

Looking at Glenn Diesen’s Book (2019) “The Decay … And Resurgence…”  (Part 1 of 21)

0001 The book before me is Dr. Glenn Diesen’s contribution to Routledge’s Series, Rethinking Asia and International Relations.  The text carries the full title of The Decay of Western Civilization and the Resurgence of Russia: Between Gemeinschaft and Gesellschaft.  The series editor is Emilian Kavalski, the Li Dak Sum Chair in China-Eurasia Relations and International Studies at the University of Nottingham in Ningho, China.  At the time of publication, Dr. Diesen is a Visiting Scholar at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow and Adjunct Research Fellow at Western Sydney University.  Diesen’s research interests are in international relations, political science, international political economy and Russian studies.  Say nothing of history.

0002 So… um… how does this book overlap with my interests?

I am interested in civilization.  The persistent question that arises in Razie Mah’s masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall,is, “What potentiates civilisation?”

0003 Consider the hypothesis of the first singularity.

The evolution of talk is not the same as the evolution of language.  Our capacities for language evolve in the milieu of hand talk.  The ancestor to our own species practices fully linguistic hand talk.  Very successfully, I might add.  The voice is recruited to assist in synchronizing large groups (plus, a little sexual selection gets thrown in).  Once the vocal tract is under voluntary neural control, speech is added to hand talk at the start of our own species, Homo sapiens.

Homo sapiens practices a dual-mode of talking, hand-speech talk, for over 200,000 years before the first singularity.  The first singularity starts with the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia.

As the ocean levels rise at the start of our current interglacial, two hand-speech talking cultures in the then dry Persian Gulf are forced into the same territory.  One is a Mesolithic fishing culture occupying the river ravines and coast.  The other is a Developed Neolithic culture (agriculture mixed in with stockbreeding).  These two cultures meld, forming a pidgin then a creole language.  That creole language turns out to be the first instance of speech-alone talk.

0004 The semiotic qualities of speech-alone talk are significantly different than hand-speech talk (and hand-talk).  I won’t get into the details, but the consequences are enormous.

Hand-speech talk facilitates constrained social complexity (which, to me, calls to mind Diesen’s term, “gemeinschaft”, literally translated into the “rod of generality”, coinciding with tradition, intuition and, what modern scientists deride as “irrational thought”).

Speech-alone talk permits unconstrained social complexity.  Spoken words can be used to label things that cannot be pictured at pointed to, such as the term, “gesellschaft” (another one of Diesen’s key terms, literally translated into the “rod of the journeyman”, coinciding with specialization, analysis and, what scientists misleadingly call “rational thought”).

0005 The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia starts, say, 7800 years ago, which I label 0 Ubaid Zero Prime (0 U0′ or “zero uh-oh prime”, with “uh-oh” expressed as if reacting to an accident or a mishap).

At 0 U0′, the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the only culture in the world practicing speech-alone talk.  All the other Neolithic, Epipaleolithic and Mesolithic cultures of the time practice hand-speech talk.

Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.  The only (now dying) cultures that remember their hand-speech traditions are the Australian Aborigines and the North American Plains Indians.  Both are losing the hand-component of their hand-speech talk, due to exposure to speech-alone talking cultures and civilizations.  The receding of original justice, when all social circles work in harmony towards human flourishing in a world of signification, is nearly complete.

0006 Weirdly, that recession lies beneath the surface of recently examined books in anthropology.

Consider the following reviews, appearing in the Razie Mah blog.

Looking at Ian Hodder’s Book (2018) “Where Are We Heading?” (June 2023)Looking at David Graeber and David Wengrow’s Chapter (2021) “Why The State Has No Origins” (March 2023)

08/3/23

Looking at Glenn Diesen’s Book (2019) “The Decay … And Resurgence…”  (Part 21 of 21)

0180 Postmodernists recoil from grand narratives.

Yet, they embrace parlor games.

Perhaps, for their amusement, they may consider contemporary figures as stand-ins for the theodrama of the second civilisational cycle just imagined.

Or, they may ridicule the concept of a Plutonic year or the relevance of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions as a clock on the Celestial Earth.

In their distraction, they ignore the grand narratives that Diesen’s time-honoring Greimas square potentiate.

Isn’t imagination what we need?

0181 In several points in this book, Diesen says that the Russian… well… even more broadly… the Eurasian resurgence needs an ideological vision that organizes gesellschaft.  The same statement-of-need is found other books on contemporary international politics.

In Comments on Daniel Estulin’s Book (2021) “2045 Global Projects At War” (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), the commentary concludes with a sequence of interscopes that prepare a vision for the Chinese Datun, the conclusion of and the start of an opening of the Celestial Heavens (occurring in the years 2044 and 2045, respectively).  This 2250 year cycle ties back to the passage of the first singularity through eastern Eurasia (now China), sometime after 1000 U0′.

The passage of the first singularity into northern Eurasia (now Russia) occurs around the same time, seeding the Kurgan culture, who tames horses and runs on wagons.  Later, these migrating chiefdoms flood into western Europe and northern India in an exercise in elite dominance.  The event is called “the Indo-European language expansion”.

The passage of the first singularity into western Eurasia winds through the Aegean, giving rise to late copper and bronze age civilizations.  Do monuments such as Stonehenge signify the last efflorescence of hand-speech talking cultures or the adoption of speech-alone talk?

The passage of the first singularity into the Indian subcontinent initiates the settlement of the Indus floodplain, giving rise to the Harappan civilization.

The passage of the first singularity through Persia, directly east of Mesopotamia, occurs much earlier, seeding the Susa culture, which rises and then is overwhelmed by the neighboring Uruk culture.  Doesn’t that sound like an original imprint for Iran, located at the crossroads of Eurasia?

0182 What am I saying?

I am interested in civilization.  The persistent question that arises in Razie Mah’s masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall,is, “What potentiates civilisation?”

0183 The answer is the hypothesis of the first singularity.

This hypothesis calls for creative, interdisciplinary and altogether fantastic anthropological and archaeological inquiry into the potentiation of civilization throughout Eurasia (as well as the Americas).

What a research project!

Eurasia is home to the first civilisations, as well as early language expansions, such as the Indo-European and the Austronesian.

Eurasia is currently home to many distinct civilisations which, like Russia, are about to enter a new spring of sovereignty, as the summer of geoeconomics ends with the demise of the world’s reserve currency, shorter (and perhaps more expensive, but definitely more reliable) supply chains and respect for borders.

0184 Glenn Diesen is on target, in calling for a novel ideology, supporting neopragmatist approaches.

A research project based on the hypothesis of the first singularity responds to that call.

Likewise, Alexander Dugin is on target by envisioning a fourth political theory that is not a theory at all, but a pragmatic and tradition-cultivating being there.  Dasein!

To me, nothing conveys Dasein, better than the realization that our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Both Diesen and Dugin, in their own ways, call for a new imagination, one that addresses the gesellschafts of all Eurasian civilizations with a series of questions, asking, “Where does the world come from?  Where do humans come from?  What went wrong?  What is the solution?”

0185 Today, the natural and social sciences of the West are accepted by all the Eurasian civilisations, not as absolute truths, but as methods of inquiry.  They set the stage for the mind-boggling hypothesis of the first singularity.  But, because of their materialist and instrumental inclinations, they never proposed the obvious.  The human niche is not a material or instrumental condition.

The first tool of the intellect for our species, Homo sapiens, is hand-speech talk.

The second tool of the intellect for our species is speech-alone talk.

Ten thousand years ago, all Paleolithic, Epipaleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures practice hand-speech talk.

Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.

The transition from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt is called the first singularity.

The first singularity begins with the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia and spreads on the wings of mimicry.

0185 Keep that research project in mind.

Razie Mah offers, in his blog on the date of Oct 1, 2022, “A Fantasia in G minor: A Speech Written for Gunnar Beck, MEP”.  The “G” stands for Germany.  The “minor” stands for its location in the grand expanse of Eurasia.  The speech is intended to be read in the European Parliament, currently an expression of BG(il)Lism and vassal of… chuckle… American Judeo-Pagans.  But, in this speech, the Parliament is the stage for the declaration of something more important than the identity of the hidden operators behind the destruction of gas pipelines running beneath the Baltic Sea.  Gunnar Beck needs only to stand up and give a 15 minute speech that calls for an act of imagination.

0186 My thanks to Glenn Diesen for his interesting and provocative book.  I pray for his continued work in these challenging fields of inquiry.

06/9/23

Looking at Betsy DeVos’s Book (2022) “Hostages No More” (Part 1 of 8)

0001 Betsy DeVos serves as the eleventh Secretary of Education of the US Federal Government.  She advocates for reform.  She speaks for herself.  Whether her message is heard by the people is another matter.  Her book’s full title is Hostages No More: The Fight for Education Freedom and the Future of the American Child.  The publisher is Center Street (Nashville, New York), a division of Hachette Book Group (New York).

0002 Hachette?

Isn’t that French for “tiny axe”?

0003 Well, I have my own little cognitive hatchet.  It is called the category-based nested form.  I used this tool in the May 2023 blog (www.raziemah.com), Looking at Heather Heying and Bret Weinsteins’s Book (2021) “A Hunter-Gather’s Guide to the 21st Century”.

Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein resigned from modern higher education in 2017 and are now offering guidance, in the form of the Darkhorse podcast.  These two were not about to be held hostage by the minions of big government (il)liberalism (BG(il)L: spoken “bigilib”).

Why did these two professors run from the BG(il)L education system?

Perhaps, it no longer teaches critical thinking, unless, of course, one alters the definition of the term, “critical”.

Does “critical” mean “be skeptical” or does it mean “situate by Marxist resentment”?  Most people would point to the former, but educators teaching so-called “critical theory” technically indicate the latter.

The April 2023 blog, Looking at Gad Saad’s Book (2020) “Parasitic Mind”, educes a three-level interscope where three normal contexts align.  Social justice3c virtually brings critical theory3b into relation with the potential of social constructivism3a.

0004 Saad’s reality makes Betsy DeVos’s book intriguing.  

Do the nested forms obtained in prior examinations apply to Betsy DeVos’s work?

What does that imply?

That is all I axe.

06/8/23

Looking at Betsy DeVos’s Book (2022) “Hostages No More” (Part 2 of 8)

0005 How to begin?

Here is how Looking at Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein’s Book (2021) The Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21stCentury ends.  A BG(il)L education system may be depicted as a two-level interscope.  The two level interscope is introduced in A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  A two-level interscope associates to sensible construction.

Figure 01

0006 On the content level, the normal contexts of individual and institutional development3a bring the actuality of certification2a into relation with the potential of ‘personal and government motivations’1a.  Note that the individual and the institution belong to the normal context3a and potential1a, implying that the individual adopts motivations promulgated by the state.  There is word for the condition where a person adopts the motivations of a governmental system in order to get ahead (in this case, certified2a).  Dare I say the colloquial version of that word?

0007 On the situation level, the normal context of individual and cultural selection3b brings the actuality of specialization2b into relation with the potential of ’employment’1b.  This implies that ‘a job’ conveys the potential of the entire content level nested form.  What might be an alternative?  How about ‘character development’?

With that idea in mind, take a look at the normal context3b once again.  Both individual and cultural selection2b endeavor to fill specialized2b jobs1b with individuals willing to (dare I say the word?) to government systems in order to get ahead.  Perhaps, I can call the process, “unnatural selection”.

0008 Who would volunteer to become hostages… er… collaborators to such a system?

Betsy DeVos’s political adversaries.

Indeed, they would volunteer every child to become a hostage in their BG(il)L system.  After all, being a hostage is good for them.  Being a hostage turns them into collaborators (rather than sovereign individuals).  Being a hostage2a is the pathway to getting a job1b.

0009 The BG(il)L system is not about character development, which requires guidance.  It is all about expertise, which requires instruction.  Experts are specialists2b.  Experts are certified2a to participate in particular occupations1b. Specializations2b virtually situate certification2a.

The two-level operation appears sensible.  DeVos talks about mastery of subject.  Is that the same as expertise?  These terms belong to a level that does not appear in the above figures.  The perspective level only becomes visible when the content and situation levels fail.  Is the above sensible construction failing?  Well, I already know that it fails anyone who does not want to conform their personal motivations1a to the desires of the state1a in order to get a job1b.

0010 Does this fit with DeVos’s storyline?

I think so.  DeVos writes as if she holds a perspective-level solution to mandatory BG(il)L education systems.  Subject mastery2c is not the same as expertise2c.

06/7/23

Looking at Betsy DeVos’s Book (2022) “Hostages No More” (Part 3 of 8)

0011 The prior blog provides a glimpse into the perspective-level actuality2c that contextualizes America’s established BG(il)L education system.  Here is how experties2c fits into the picture.

0012 The perspective-level normal context3c and potential1c are not obvious.  The perspective-level actuality2c is.

Expertise2c virtually brings specialization2b into relation with the potential of certification2a.  This is obvious.

The perspective-level normal context3c and potential1c are not so obvious, because the situation- and content-level normal contexts, as well as the potentials, confound the individual, the institution and the government.

0013 Here is a picture.

Figure 03

0014 The perspective-level virtually brings the situation-level into relation with the potential of the content-level.  In this instance, “virtual” could mean either “in simulation” (the modern option) or “in virtue” (the scholastic option).

0015 For actuality, expertise2c virtually brings specializations2b into relation with the potential of certification2a.

For the column of normal contexts, a BG(il)L perspective3c virtually brings individual and cultural selection3b into relation with the potentials of individual and institutional development3a.  The perspective-level normal context3c must embody the government1a that appears in the content-level potential1a.  The normal context3c also must set the stage for cultural selection3b, in regards to both individuals (who are selected for specialization2b) and institutions (who are selected for providing the education leading to certification2a).

Betsy DeVos says, over and over, that the Federal Department of Education is concerned about institutions (such as colleges, school districts, administrators and unionized teachers), rather than students.  They are interested in processes that provide instructions leading to certification (for students motivated to fit into an already established menu of specializations).  They could not care less about what students really need.  They presume that students need to conform to their programs, their goals and their definition of what students must know in order to acquire certification.

0016 What label applies to the perspective-level normal context3c?

Would the term, “big government”, suffice?

0017 The perspective-level potential1c virtually contextualizes jobs1b, while jobs1b virtually situate personal and governmental motivations1a.  What is the nature of this perspective-level potential1c?  First, it defines jobs1b through regulatory controls.  For example, a government may decree that only certain specializations2b (which much be certified2a) are allowed to perform certain tasks… er… jobs1b.  Second, governmental motivations1a are taken for granted by people motivated1a to become specialized2b in order to obtain well-defined jobs1b.

In other words, the government maintains regulatory control of the situation (jobs1b) while providing the appearance that the individual is free to choose his or her own destiny (personal motives1a).  In the process, government motivations1a are simply taken for granted and not contested.  After all, it would not be sensible to contest government motivations1a.  Most students and parents have no clue that their ambitions are pursued in conformity with government agendas.

0018 What label applies to the perspective-level potential1c?

Would the term, “(il)liberal”, do the trick?

Well, what does (il)liberal mean?

Liberalism elevates individual autonomy… say, sovereignty… above various authorities, including religious institutions, businesses, civic networks, military organizations, governments, and so forth.  So, the prefix, (il), is hidden because there is an unacknowledged exception.  The government is excepted.  So, (il)liberalism provides the appearance of individual autonomy while maintaining government regulatory control.

The virtual nested form in firstness says, “(Il)liberalism1c virtually brings jobs1b into relation with the potentials of personal and governmental motivations1a.”

0019 Here is the perspective-level nested form for BG(il)L education.

Figure 04