0020 There goes the normal contexts of integration₃ and the human niche₃.

Well, maybe, they don’t go away entirely.

0021 The normal context of community₃ allows the inquirer to acknowledge the dyadic nature of ethnography.  Ethnography is a discipline, an art, just like any style of writing.

0022 But first, a little trip down memory lane is advantageous.

If I translate the name, “ethnos”, I get “people”.

0023 Notably, in Comments on Alexander Dugin’s Book (2012) The Fourth Political Theory (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues), the word “ethnos” takes on a very specific connotation.  

The short story is told on the days of February 1 and 2, 2023, in Razie Mah’s blog.  Razie Mah looks at on particular chapter of Michael Millerman’s book (2022) Inside “Putin’s Brain”: The Political Philosophy of Alexander Dugin. Mah utilizes the Greimas square.

0024 The Greimas square is a semiotic tool that is most useful in ascertaining where a focal word stands within a system of differences.  Yes, spoken words (parole) constitutes one system of differences.  The other system of differences is… um… “langue” (which is “language” in French).  According to Saussure, spoken language consists of two arbitrarily related systems of differences, parole and langue.

So, the focal word will be “people”.

0025 The Greimas square operates on four rules, each corresponds to a corner of the square.

A is the focal word.

B contrasts with the focal word (A).

C stands against the contrast (B) and complements the focal word (A).

D contrasts with the first contradiction (C), stands against the focal word (A) and complements the contrast (B).

0026 For Dugan, a political theoretician in our current times, the focal word (A) is “people”.  There is the famous line in the American Declaration of Independence, starting “We, the People…”.   That is a good way to imagine the starting point.  What on earth is “people”?

Well, there’s lots of political theories that characterize the people.  For example, there is capitalism, socialism, communism… and all sorts of other “-isms”.  These contrast with (A).  They are intellectual constructions that, according to Dugin, have failed.

0027 What stands against political theories (“-isms”) defining “what people are” and “what they ought to be”? 

Dugin uses a Russian term, “narod”, meaning “traditional folk”.  Traditional folk are pre-political.  They intuitively know that they belong together, because they share common cognitive spaces.  Narod folk may be specialized, but they are not so specialized that one “specialty” gets so alienated (like modern political theorists) as to imagine that they can intellectually articulate the esse_ce and the essence of a narod.

0028 How is that for a sentence?

No narod (C) would ever talk like that.  Only an person with academic credentials (B) would dare to talk like that.

Somehow, the political theorist (B), using speech-alone, talks a pre-political narod (C) into differentiating into a politically defined people.

The narod practices speech-alone talk.  They think that speech is for sensible construction.  Even their social constructions are regarded as sensible.  At least, social constructions seem that way.

Political theorists enter the historical scene only when a narod’s sensible constructions, which are often built on social constructions, start to fail.  One expects this type of failure when technical innovation occurs, increasing the number of specializations, and questioning the old ways of doing things.

0029 So, if Dugin is on target, “ethnography” should be renamed “narodgraphy”, which is a very awkward term and easily ridiculed (“near-odd-graphy”).

0030 But, the question that Dugin raises cannot be so easily dismissed, because the term, “ethnos”, contrasts with “narod” in a most interesting way, as seen in the following figure.

0031 For Dugin, traditional societies (the people that an ethnographer studies) are narod.  Plus, each pre-political narod, somehow, perhaps by historical annealing, emerges from… what?… a pre-pre-political?… no, it is deeper than that… may I say?… an upwelling in social belonging, social circles swirling within social circles, that touches base with the evolved character of human nature.

Dugin emphasizes this.  The narod emerges from the ethnos.  The narod cannot return to its ethnos.

0032 In short, the narod belongs to our current Lebenswelt.

The ethnos belongs to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0033 Therefore, the integration between evolutionary science and anthropology that Fuentes aims for may not (technically) be possible, because the ethnographer (or narodgrapher) can only map the cognitive spaces of a “narod”, not an “ethnos”.  The narod cannot return to its ethnos.  At the same time, ethnography is possible because both the ethnographer and the narod (the subject of the research) belong to our current Lebenswelt.

0034 Of course, Dugin’s terminological twist both reveals and conceals.

The narod reveals what the ethnos becomes, once it enters our current Lebenswelt.

In this manner, the narod conceals the ethnos.

0035 Here is the crux.  Evolutionary theory is required grasp the esse_ce (esse, being substantiating) and the essence (substantiated form) of the ethnos.  Why?  How else does one intellectually transit from our current Lebenswelt to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?

So, the author’s objective remains viable. F urther reflection is warranted.

Here is the current anthropological practice as it now stands, using Dugin’s terminology.

0036 I now attend to the actuality₂.

Peirce’s category of secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  Aristotle’s hylomorphe is exemplar.  The two real elements are matter and form.  The contiguity, placed in brackets for clear notation, takes the label of “substance”.

Yes, this is one more technical definition to add to the label, “substance”.

“Substance” is the contiguity between matter and form (in the format of Peirce’s secondness).

Here is a picture.

0037 The two real elements of ethnography are the ethnographer (as matter) and maps of narodal cognitive spaces (as form).  They arise from the potential of narodal spaces₁.  

Here, the term, “narodal”, substitutes for “communal”.  Narodal is communal in our current Lebenswelt.

The normal context₃ is community₃.  According to Robin Dunbar, brain size corresponds to group size in mammals (with lots of caveats).  Current human brain size matches a community of 150 individuals.  Our very distant ancestors have brain sizes that go with bands of 50 individuals.

0038 The contiguity is [records].

Here is where the graphing plays out.

0039 The comparison is evocative.

The ethnographer serves as matter, a metaphorical tabula rasa, emptying himself (or herself) in order to encounter the applied relational structures that constitute the narodal cognitive space.  Surely, it is not easy to separate the person from the relational structure.  Kinship serves as an obvious example.  The kinship relational structure is accompanied by cognitive impressions that may be difficult to process, unless one has methodically eliminated the biases of one’s own civilization.

0040 The manner for such kenosis is highly idiosyncratic, perhaps accounting for why the author calls for a re-integration of diverse methodological and theoretical tool-kits used to train ethnographers.

The practical and ideological methods of various anthropological thought-leaders (denkfurhers) have one feature in common.  They are indifferent, if not hostile, to evolutionary approaches.  A glance at the previous two figures helps to explain why.  Impressions of communal spaces must be received by a blank-slate capable of receiving impressions that are integral to a map of narodal cognition.  The ethnographer offers that “blank slate”.

0041 The discipline of anthropology learns from its mistakes.

One of the most profound errors in ethnography is committed by one if its founders, Franz Boaz (1858-1942).  Boaz primes the narodgraphic expectations of students, by situating ethnography within a typology of primitive cultures.

0042 A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues) should assist in appreciating the following two-level interscope.

0043 On the content level, the normal context of community (narod)_3a brings the actuality of the dyad, {ethnographer [records] cognitive map}_2a into relation with the possibility of ‘narodal cognitive spaces’_1a.  

On the situation level, the normal context of typology_3b brings the actuality of a theory on classification of primitive societies_2b into relation with the potential of ‘situating ethnographic content’_1b.

0044 One of Boaz’s students, Margaret Mead (1901-1978), goes off to a narod in the eastern Pacific and records precisely what is expected from the type of society predicted by theory.  How convenient.

Surely, the above sensible construction yields an intriguing, rather than an integrating, anthropology.  Mead’s ethnographic account turns out to be a best seller.  What better way for the modern consumer to get a taste of the forbidden fruit of anthropological… um… “knowledge”.  Ethnography offers a map of… you know… sexual liberation in paradise.

0045 What does this imply?

The author is onto something crucial by suggesting that biological… er… evolutionary theories be used to either situateor put into perspective ethnographic data.

0062 In section two, the author launches into an apparently independent complaint, besides the complaint that ethnographers are trained to be professionals, rather than evolutionary scientists.  This second complaint concerns Neodarwinism.  As it is currently conceived, the doctrine that explains natural history is incapable of… um… putting ethnography_2b into perspective.

0063 How does this complaint play out in terms of the prior two-level interscope?

There is a perspective level that contextualizes the situation-level of ethnography_2b.

I suspect that the perspective level will be filled in by Neodarwinism.

However, the current formulation of the “darwinism” of Neodarwinism is inadequate for framing the perspective level in the above figure.

Is this where novel theories, such as “niche construction”, enter the picture?

0064 Prior to the year, 2000 A.D., most evolutionary theorists frame adaptations as individual traits that are capable of exploiting a niche.

The question arises, “What is a niche?“

0065 One answer appears in Comments on Dennis Venema and Scot McKnight’s Book (2017) Adam and the Genome,which is now serialized in Razie Mah’s blog for November 2025.

A “niche_1b” is the potential_1b of an actuality independent of the adapting species_2a.

An “adaptation_2b” emerges from (and situates) that potential_1b.

0066 Here is a picture of the resulting two-level interscope.

On the situation level, the normal context of natural selection_3b bring the actuality of an adaptation_2b into relation with a niche_1b, defined as the potential_1b of an actuality independent of the adapting species_2a.

0067 This formulation provides a theoretical framework for assessing fitness-based heuristics_1b to a given social, ecological or environmental opportunity or constraint_2a.  Note how the content-level normal context_3a and potential_1aare not required.

0068 For example, the so-called “Cambrian Explosion” in diversity (and size) of multicellular eukaryotic animal life occurs precisely after the Earth’s atmosphere has been enriched with oxygen, a waste product of prokaryotic photosynthetic activity.  The rising atmospheric levels of oxygen is the actuality independent of the many forms of life.  Prosperous forms have one thing in common.  They have mitochondria, cellular organelles adapted to an oxygen-rich environment.

0069 Okay, what about niche construction?

With many species, the presence of the species alters the actuality independent of the adapting species.  This is now labeled, “niche construction”.  “Niche construction” is the label that sustains the idea of a novel evolutionary synthesis.

0070 So, what is the foundation of so-called “niche construction”?

Given the above figure, the answer is obvious.  The adaptation of the species_2b alters the previously ignored (or assumed) content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a.

0071 Here is a picture.

0072 On the content level, a normal context_3a (that can be altered by the adapting species_2b) brings an actuality (apparently independent of the adapting species)_2a into relation with the possibility of ‘an alteration in the actuality’_1a.

0073 On the situation level, the normal context of natural selection_3b brings the actuality of an adaptation_2b into relation to the species’ niche_1b.

0074 What about genetics?

In section three, genetics enters the author’s picture of the Extended Evolutionary Synthesis.

It enters as a confounder.

0075 A confounder?

Consider the following two-level interscope.  It looks almost identical to the two-level interscope for natural history.

0076 The normal context of body development_3b brings the actuality of a phenotype_2b into relation with its genotype_1b, where the genotype expresses the potential_1b of an individual’s DNA_2a.

The question is, “Can the actuality independent of the adapting species_2a somehow influence the DNA_2a or the way that the DNA is read_1b?”

The answer is, “Yes, through natural selection_3b.”

The influence is not direct.  It is intersectional.

0077 For example, let me hypothesize that children are able to drink their mother’s milk because they produce an enzyme, called “lactase”, that is able to digest lactose, one of the sugars in mother’s milk.  As the child is weaned, the need to produce this enzyme diminishes and by adulthood, the adult cannot digest lactose, because milk is not part of the diet.

0078 So, with the above figure in mind, the phenotype changes from childhood to adulthood.  This makes perfect sense, because adults are quite different than children.

0079 Now, let me go back to the natural history version of the two-level interscopes and consider what happens when cows enter into the human household.  At first, humans protect cows and then later, humans feed cows.  That sounds like a good deal.  In effect, humans are treating cows like other humans.

0080 Cows adapt by losing their fear of humans_2b.  One would not think that this is an adaptation_2b, but it is.  Plus, other adaptations take place.  Female cows produce more milk_2b.  They do so with consistency.  The bulls, on the other hand, get culled.  So, the bull that does not ask to be culled is more likely to survive.

Here is a picture.

0081 From the humans’ point of view, humans adapt by retaining lactase production into adulthood_2b.

0082 Each adaptations entails an alteration of the phenotype, by way of intersection.

Consequently, genetics is a confounder in many discussions on niche construction.

For humans, the two-level interscope for body development_3b changes over generations to produce a phenotype of adult lactose tolerance_2b through slight changes in the way DNA_2a is read_1b.

However, changes in the genotype_1b account for the change in phenotype_2b, not the adaptation_2b.

DNA already codes for the enzyme lactase.  However, the expression of the code is regulated by proteins that lock onto the DNA.  The particular protein that locks onto the lactase site on the DNA has a range of behaviors, so selection can occur on the basis of the production of lactase into adulthood.  The adaptation_2b entails a change in phenotype_2b.  The phenoype_2b emerges from and situates the genotype_1b, that is the potential_1b of DNA_2a.  In this instance, the DNA_2a(which varies among individuals) does not need to significantly change, only the genotype_1b does.

0083 Unfortunately, biologists confound adaptation_2b and phenotype_2b even though each situation-level actuality_2b has its own normal context_3b and potential_1b.

At the same time, confusion is expected, since adaptation_2b and phenotype_2b constitute a single entity, the species.

0084 Descent with modification is the name of the evolutionary game, according to Darwin.

Darwin assumes some process of inheritance that yields variety in each generation.  This is accomplished by mixing chromosomes from the male and the female in sexual reproduction.  So, variation is assured with descent.  Every member of a species has a different phenotype (and sometimes, those differences cannot be easily observed).

Modification comes by way of natural selection.  Adaptations are modifications that increase reproductive success (what used to be called “fitness”).  Reproductive success is the likelihood of one’s descendants surviving to… um… reproduce.  

0085 The confusion?

A phenotype_2b is not the same as an adaptation_2b.  However, they both refer to same entity: a species.  A “species” is a Latin term that can mean an individual, a kind, or a type.  So, “species” can denote an individual, a species or a genus.

0086 Here is a picture of this double referral.  The structure is called an “intersection”.

Two category-based nested forms intersect.

0087 An adaptation_2H refers to a species₂ within the normal context of natural selection_3H operating on a niche_2H.  Note how the actuality independent of the adapting species gets shoved under the rug.

A phenotype_2V refers to a species₂ within the normal context of body development_3V operating on a genotype_1V.  Here, DNA gets pulled offstage.

0088 Here is the confusion.

If one proceeds with an explanation in natural history, such as the theory of niche construction, the horizontal axis is active.  Nevertheless, the horizontal axis intersects the vertical axis.   So, research into a genetic explanation is called for in each instance of adaptation into a constructed niche.

0089 For example, for the co-evolution of cows and humans.  Cows adapt to human sociality (by becoming domesticated).  Humans adapt to cow milk as food, even in adulthood (by becoming lactose-tolerant).  Adaptation_2Hintersects with phenotype_2V.  So an inquiry into body development_3V and genotype_1V is demanded for a full explanation of both cow and human adaptations.  However, body development_3V is not a cause for adaptations_2H, natural selection_3H is.

0090 To me, natural history and genetic explanations are often confused, so much so that the author claims that human activity affects genetic and other biological patterns.  Plus, natural selection can influence developmental outcomes, which in turn feed back into human activities.

0091 To me, the process of ‘niche construction’ is intelligible, not because the extended evolutionary synthesis permits natural history to intersect with genetics, but because niche construction extends the actuality independent of the adapting species_2a by introducing an adaptation-induced normal context_3a and potential_1a.

Yes, an induced normal context_3a and potential_1a can change the character of the actuality_2a that is theoretically independent of the adapting species.

0092 In the case of the cow_2a, the animal_2a becomes domesticated.

In the case of the human_2a, the human_2a becomes entangled.

In 2012, Ian Hodder writes a book titled Entangled: An Archaeology of the Relationships between Humans and Things(Wiley and Blackwell, Oxford).

0093 To me, the author avoids the entanglement aspect, even though it awaits the unsuspecting anthropologist.

Furthermore, the author of the article under examination suggests that the niche-construction approach, for humans, may illuminate cultural complexity.

0094 Section four is titled, “‘Cultural Complexity’ and the Human Niche Approach”.

To recall, the author begins with three complaints.

One concerns the fact that anthropologists who train ethnographers tend to ignore (or are hostile to) evolutionary theory.

Two concerns the fact that evolutionary theorists have not formulated a schema that an ethnologist would be interested in.

0095 In response to one, this examiner derives a two-level interscope where an ethnographer_2b virtually situates persons in community_2a.

0096 In response to two, this examiner develops a two-level interscope for how niche construction works. 

0097 The question arises, “How do these two two-level interscopes relate to one another?”

My initial view is that they are incommensurate.  Communty_3b compares to natural selection_3b?  That is nonsense.

But then, I look at the potentials.  The possibility of ‘cognitive spaces’_1b compares well to “constructed” niche_1b.

Also, {the person as matter [substantiating] the narod space as form}_2a could be an adequate description for an actuality independent of the adapting species_2a (at least, as far as academic anthropologists are concerned).

0098 Perhaps, one or the other two-level interscope may be tweaked, so the narod subject belongs to the content leveland anthropology belongs to the situation level.

0099 Does this resolve anything?

For niche construction, the adaptation within a species_2b introduces a normal context_3a and potential_1a to the actuality independent of the adapting species_2a.  This may substantially change the actuality_2a.  For beavers, a fast moving stream_2a becomes a glen_2a in the normal context of a dam_3a operating on the potential of blocking the flow of water_1a.

For the recording of communal… er… narodal cognitive spaces_2b, the work of the enthnographer_2b does not introduce a normal context_3a and potential_1a to the dyad, {persons as matter [substance] narod as form}_2a.  Unless of course, something goes horribly wrong.

0100 Instead, the subject community_3a and its potential of communal living_1a serve as the normal context_3a and the potential_1a for the narod_2a.  In other words, at first sight, the narod_2a is an actuality independent of the enthnographer_2ain the same fashion as the darwinian schema.  Also, the narod’s normal context_3a and potential_1a are taken for granted.

0101 So, is the subject narod_2a comparable to cows_2a who can be milked for their cognitive spaces_1b?

If so then the following implications apply.

In the case of the subject society_2a, the narod_2a becomes domesticated.

In the case of the ethnographer_2a, the discipline of anthropology_2a becomes entangled.

0102 The implications for both anthropology and human evolutionary theory are profound.  Here is a comparison, pertinent to our current Lebenswelt, that may be in operation in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0103 For our current Lebenswelt, we can look for parallels in history.  What historical figures are like ethnographers.  The Christian missionary comes to mind.  So does Louis Althusser’s concept of “interpellation”.  Oh, lest I forget, what about the ten oxherding pictures in Zen?

For the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, I recall Dugin’s Greimas square, now relabeled for one of the key distinctions between who we are and who we evolved to be.

0104 The narod, the traditional society in our current Lebenswelt, is the subject of ethnographic inquiry.  That traditional society may arise spontaneously within a people (as expected for civic society) or may come out of the mists of time.  Either way, civilized people do not have an incentive to rope them in, so they maintain their traditional pre-political ways.  The narod is the raw material that gets fashioned, through institutions and their theological and political theories, into a people.

0105 The ethnographer comes from the people.  Each people, including those belonging to the discipline of anthropology, contrasts with the various political theories that interpellate and organize them.

0106 It makes me wonder, “What motivates ethnographic research?”

The narod may have labor and social specializations, but that is nothing compared to a people.  Theological and political unity permit incredible specializations.  These are the sources of wealth (labor) and power (social), which is the subject of inquiry in Looking at Slavoj Zizek’s Book (2024) “Christian Atheism”, serialized in Razie Mah’s blog for August 2025.

0107 But, what about the Lebenswelt that we evolved in?

Isn’t that where the adaptation that supports domestication and entanglement evolves?

Oh yes, according to Alexander Dugin, the ethnos is what the narod can never return to.

0124 Section seven is titled, “Sexual Partnering and the Human Niche Framework”.

This section is accompanied by figures.

No, not those types of figures.

Rather, these figures illustrate the mutual influence of the “nodes” of individual, social group and community.

0125 That author starts with the individual.

Figure 1 is roughly re-illustrated here.

0126 The driver is an ecological or environmental danger or opportunity_2a.

I suppose the niche is the circle, representing that the danger or the opportunity_2a has the potential to produce adaptations (in development, morphology and behavior)_2b.

So, the adaptation_2a is portrayed as the threefold element within the circle (niche_1b) and corresponds to how individuals adapt over generations.

So, the big arrow must associate to the environment of evolutionary adapatation_2a, as well as natural selection_3b.

0127 Can I associate this figure to the two-level interscope for Darwinism?

Here are my guesses.

The normal context of natural selection_3b brings the actuality of individual adaptations (in development, morphology and behavior)_2b into relation with a niche_1b, where the niche is defined as the potential of ‘something ecological’_1b.

0128 The only caveat falls into the perspective-level potential_1c.  The adaptation_2b potentially applies to the individual_2a.

So, there are two double associations.

The big arrow associates to both natural selection_3b and the actuality independent of the adapting species_2a.

The big circle associates to both the individual (as the focus of inquiry)_1c and the niche_1b.

0129 Figure 2 (re-illustrated here) adds the social group (the second “node”) to the framework.

0130 So, let me start with the smallest social circle.  While the chimpanzee roves in bands, the social circle under the greatest social pressure is family and friends.  Family concerns maternal care, under conditions of individual foraging. Friends engage in grooming, literally picking bugs off one another.  Plus, friends are allies in fights.

Three phenotypic features turn out to be adaptive to the social circle of family and friends.  Personal bonding assists in questions of pecking order and who to look for at times of confusion.  Cognitive space includes the ability to read signs calling for assistance, as well as signs of danger.  Finally, both personal bonding and the ability to read the other hominin play roles in the organization of behavior of family and friends.

0131 The theory that male-female pair-bonding co-evolved with bipedalism applies here.  Even though all hominin societies have some degree of promiscuity, the coincidence of male provisioning and female fidelity offers an opportunity for reproductive success for both sexes.  Male provisioning makes food available for his female and her children.  Female fidelity assures that the children are his (therefore contributing to his reproductive success).

These are difficult adaptations, because they engage a style of semiotics that really pays attention to intentional cues, the raw material of language.  When a young male consistently offers food to a female, and expects fidelity in return, cultural feedback loops established within the band are crucial.  The semiotics of long-term male-female pair bondingare vastly different than the semiotics of maternal care.

0132 Bipedalism is an adaptation to mixed forest and savannah.  So, the hominids who can walk turn out to be best adapted to this new ecology, while hominids who retain the current chimpanzee style continue in tropical forests, where individual foraging does not conflict with walking long distances.

0133 This brings me to a crucial idea, implicit in figure 2, but not discussed in this article.  The social circle under the most significant selection pressure changes during hominin evolutionary history.

0134 Here is a picture.

0135 The list on the left contains four evolutionary epochs.  The first three define the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  The last labels our current dilemma.

Current dilemma?

You know, ours is a time when one civilization sends ethnographers into diverse narods, because there are no longer any ethnos to send them to.

0135 The reference is Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019), by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  Michael Tomasello’s productive research years significantly overlap with Augustin Fuentes, so it is not surprising that both evolution-minded anthropologists are discussing similar ideas.

Razie Mah’s semiotic-oriented masterworks appear in this timeframe.  An Archaeology of the Fall is first uploaded in 2012.  How To Define the Word “Religion” is uploaded in 2015.  The Human Niche is uploaded in 2018.  These three works offer a Peircean vision of human evolution.

0136 The question that I failed to address is this, “Does the author’s figure 2 comport with the two-level interscope for natural selection?”

0137 What if I replace “natural selection” with “cultural selection”?

Here is a picture.

0138 The normal context of cultural selection_3b brings the actuality of social adaptations (including social bonds, cognitive spaces and cooperative interactions)_2b into relation with a social niche_1b, defined as the potential_1b of individuals facing natural selection pressures in the environment of evolutionary adaptation (EEA)_2a.

0139 Of course, these social adaptations_2b potentiate the social group_1c, which, as noted earlier, includes the social circle that is under the most significant selective pressure.

At the same time, I may say that the potential of the social group_1c creates the situation where social beings_2b are adaptive.

0140 Next, imagine that the salient social circle is the team (15).  Over generations, the team_1c encourages social adaptations_2b that rewards individuals with phenotypes that are appropriate to that team_2a.  In other words, successful teams_2a, as the medium responding to evolutionary pressures associated with obligating collaborative foraging,produces a selection pressure_3b on the individual_2b.

One of the social adaptations_2b is protolinguistic hand-talk_2b.  The semiotics of protolinguistic hand-talk_2a become the actuality independent of adapting individuals (species)_2a.  Individual adaptations_2b encourage sensible constructionduring team activities.  Hand-talk facilitates sensible construction.

0141 Next, imagine that, during the domestication of fire, cooking changes everything.  Cooking with fire unlocks hitherto sequestered nutrients.  More teams can be successful.  More teams means larger brains and larger groups.  Bands (50) grow into communities (150).  Communities are teams of teams.

Enough versatility exists among teams that ecological pressures are mediated by organizational capacity.

In short, the salient social circle is now the community (150).

0142 The author’s next set of feedback loops is collective action, which roughly corresponds to the interactions within a community and its environment.

0143 This set of feedback loops demands that a perspective level comes into play.  The situation-level might be family (5), friends (5), team (50) and band (50), as well as mega-band (500) and tribe (1500).  A perspective-level adapts to the community (150).

After all, that is what Robin Dunbar’s correlation between human brain size and group size predicts.  Human brains are adaptive for groups with a size of 150.  But, a community contain smaller groups, so one of the jobs of the community is to bring harmony among the teams, friends and families.  One of the other jobs is to face outwards towards other communities (that is, mega-bands and tribes).

0144 Well, if I add a perspective level to the two-level interscope, then a whole new typology of social bonds, cognitive spaces and cooperative interactions_2c manifests.  If Dugin is correct, these actualities_2c fall under the label, “ethnos”, for the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

0145 Here is the three-level interscope.

On the perspective level, the normal context of hominin flourishing_3c brings the actuality of the ethnos_2c into relation with the potential of harmony among all social circles, including those smaller and larger than the community_1c.

On the situation level, the normal context of cultural selection_3b brings the actuality of social groups_2b into relation with the social niche_2a, consisting of the potential of individuals in community_2a.

On the content level, the presence of need_3a brings the individual in community_2a into relation with the potential of meeting a challenge_1a.

0146 One question is, “Who constructs this content-level normal context_3a and potential_1a?”

Plus, how are these normal contexts₃ and potentials₁ constellated in niche construction?

0147 Here is another question.

0148 What situation-level potential_1b’ are these individuals in community_2b’ manifesting?

What is the actuality independent of the individual in community_2a’ that defines the human niche_1b’ in the normal context of natural selection_3b’?

The answer is the thesis of Razie Mah’s masterwork, The Human Niche.

The answer is triadic relations.

0149 Section eight of this article seeks to establish that aspects of the author’s conceptual framework are already in practice.

0150 Indeed they are.  The author offers Figure 4, concerning human capacities to modify local ecologies.  The figure is re-illustrated here.  But, be warned.  Organizational capacities significant enough to change local ecologies (other than the selective use of fire and some other tricks, like laying stones that encourage animals to migrate into a trap) are not that relevant to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  They are relevant to our current Lebenswelt, because the organizational capacity of humans is no longer constrained after the first singularity.

0151 Remember the Genesis condemnations leveled by God to Adam after the Fall, while still in the Garden of Eden?

God’s curse is the law of diminishing returns.

Why does God level such a curse?

Adam is a mythical figure that is created in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, but transmogrifies into a creature that introduces all humanity to our current Lebenswelt.

The law of diminishing returns applies to the times when humans are so organized that they can transform the ecology and environment.

That is our times.

0152 “The first singularity” is the label that I apply to the transmogrification of the ethnos to the narod, at the dawn of history.

0153 See The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace (for a brief presentation) and An Archaeology of the Fall (for the dramatic exposition) for more information.  Both are by Razie Mah and available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

Or, the inquiring person may explore Razie Mah’s blogs.

The years since 2019 are particularly notable.

0753 So, we talk about one thing (geography) and search for another (identity).

Each spoken term is a placeholder in a system of differences.

At least, that is how Ferdinand de Saussure (1859-1913 AD) characterizes spoken language.  

Spoken language consists of two arbitrarily related systems of differences: parole (speech act) and langue (mental act).  The contiguity between langue as matter_2am and parole as form_2af is purely arbitrary, that is, based on habit and convention.

In contrast, for hand- and hand-speech talk, the contiguity is motivated, not arbitrary.  Each parole (gestural word) pictures or points to its langue (referent) (except, of course, for word-gestures that have purely grammatical functions, then the referent is purely relational).

0754 The implications?

Oh, that must be a topic for future semiotic inquiry.

0755 Instead, I ask, “If each parole is a placeholder in a system of differences, then is there a semiotic tool that illuminates adjacent parole in that system?”

0756 One answer is provided by the Greimas square.  The Greimas square consists of four elements, represented as four corners of a box.

The first corner, A, is the term under consideration.

The second corner, B, contrasts with A.

The third term, C, contradicts (or “speaks against”) B and complements A.

The fourth term, D, contrasts with C, speaks against A and complements B.

0757 Here is a picture.

0758 I now ask, “Does the postmodern ground for “geography” associate to Greimas square?”

Well, I suppose that my Russian identity_3a is the term under consideration (A).

In contrast (B), what I think_2am takes geography as matter. What I say_2af forms geographic indexes that are contextualized by my identity_3a operating on my will_1a (or maybe, the truth_1a of me).  The indexes_2af tell me where I am.

0759 My Russian will_1a (C) speaks against the dyad (B) of {geography as matter_2am [substantiates] indexes as form_2af}.  How so?  My will_1a can potentiate a diversity of dyads, all taking the structure of {what I think_2am[substantiates] what I say_2af}.  As such, my will_1a complements my identity_3a.

Finally, standing against my will_1a is the truth (that is, the truth_1a that should potentiate my identity_3a, but obviously does not).

How do I know this?

Since when does geography_2am determine identity_3a?

0760 Here is a picture that answers that question.

0761 In the abstract, the author contends that spatial parameters constitute one of the most important constants in Russian history.  Furthermore, this constant does not depend on ideology.  Instead, ideology evaluates this constant.  No one contests the dominance of spatiality.  Russian ideologies have articulated all theoretical options for contextualizing geography through identity.

0762 What does this imply?

Geography_2am goes with what I think_2am and serves as matter in B, the contrast to A.

But, what is geography_2am doing?

It is speaking to me.  Not in spoken language.  Rather, it speaks in the words of the divine_2af.

0763 Geography_2am gives substance to the ways that I orient myself in the world_2af.

Consider the following three “B”s.

0764 However, the question remains.

How can matter_2am determine normal context_3a?