Category Archives: Our current Lebenswelt is not the Lebenswelt that we evolved in

Human psychology evolved under in the social milieu of constrained complexity. Currently, humans live in unconstrained complexity. What has this done to our minds? These topics are addressed in various parts of An Archaeology of the Fall, particularly in chapters 8C and 11B.

05/11/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 BU

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[The first century after Christ was a period of re-ordination. The flock of words changed birds. The flock changed the way it gathered together. Words slipped from traditional moorings. ‘Flesh’ no longer contrasted with ‘blood & bones’. ‘Flesh’ no longer contrasted with ‘reason’. Both pairs were in contrast to ‘spirit’.

What does that imply?

Both ‘flesh and bones’ and ‘flesh and reason’ could be corrupted by thinkpro-object.]

05/10/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 BT

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[In 7816 U0′, I look at that moment in history and see a mythos, a change in the ordination of a symbolic order, and I try to figure out the logos.

I am familiar with this mythos because we are experiencing the same events in our present day. Just turn on the television and watch the propaganda. Televisionaries talk in a particular fashion, spinning the traditional meanings of words to the advantage of their (infra)sovereign religions.

What is revealed in the re-ordination of the flock of words that constitutes language?]

05/5/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 BQ

Summary of text [comment] page 82

[ The re-ordination of the symbolic order during the first century of Christianity applies to Greek as well.

The original Greek opposition between ‘flesh’ and ‘reason’ had the same drawbacks as the original Semitic opposition of ‘flesh’ and ‘God’s law (that is, what one felt in one’s bones)’.

The drawback, in an age of Empire, was that one’s reason and one’s blood & bones could betray the truth. They were not as reliable as once imagined. One could betray one’s own people, and one’s own God, through reason and blood & bones, just as easily as through flesh and … um … flesh.

Both metaphors were adopted by the ruling elites to fashion idols (of ‘who they were’).

In Greece, the rulers became ‘paragons of reason’.

In Israel, the rulers became ‘the blood and bones of Yahweh’s cult’.]

04/25/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 BI

Summary of text [comment] page 81

Schoonenberg noted that Paul wrote, “We know that the law is spiritual, but I am carnal, sold under sin.”

He contrasted the I that agrees with the law with the I that is sold to sin.

Even though both ‘I’s refer to the same person, Paul rejects the latter as not I but the sin that dwells in me (Romans 7:20).

[This logic underlies the portrayal, in An Archaeology of the Fall, of the Genesis serpent acting as the projection of Eve’s own unconscious thoughts.]

04/5/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 AX

Summary of text [comment] page 81

[As the second Temple moved deeper into the Axial Age, the entire language of Israel shifted in response to this re-application of the flesh and bones metaphor to Society (as well as other usurpations of character-building metaphors).

The Party of the Sovereign changed the meaning of the words.

The Party of the Sovereign destroyed the language.

Paul’s opposition between ‘flesh’ and ‘spirit’ is evidence of a shift in the symbolic order of language.]

04/3/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 AV

[What happens when the metaphorical ‘bones of a person’ are usurped by elites into an ideology where ‘the elites are the metaphorical bones of society’.

Here, I tip my hat … er … electronic tablet to Slavoj Zizek.

‘The bones (that are the elite)’ embody ‘a higher power’.

Even though the elites become the scaffolding for ‘the flesh of society’, they are persons. They are composed of flesh and bones.

So they have two sets of bones.

The first set justifies sovereign power.

‘The bones that are the elite’ scaffold ‘a flesh that are the subjects’. These bones operate as cruel and perverse instruments of a higher power. Manipulation and thuggery are the right things to do when ‘the bones are the sovereign elites’. What else can the elites do to achieve their organizational objectives?

The elite bones support – no, they command – the flesh of the unworthy and lazy subjects. The flesh must be anchored by the organized goals attributed to a higher power (available only to the elites).

The second set belongs to the person who is ‘an instrument of the higher power’. There is a person behind ‘the bones that hold up society’. The bones of that person are complaint. They bend with the political winds.]

03/2/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 AB-2

[Which social construction will contradict our (human) self-centered and selfish sensible attitudes.

In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the few contenders were family, band and tribal traditions.

In our current Lebenswelt, we are faced with a wide variety of contenders.

After the Incarnation, we are faced with the thinkgroups of our Zietgeist and the thinkdivine of the Way.

Deception is everywhere. Thinkgroups pretend to provide the Way.]

02/28/17

Man and Sin by Piet Schoonenberg (1964) 2.3 AA

[In our current Lebenswelt, all word reference is socially constructed.

This poses a hidden weakness for people who think they are rational, sensible, practical, pragmatic, and so on. These are the people who think that they are right because they make sense.

What is their weakness?

Their stance does not allow them to see below their feet.

They cannot see (or even admit) that they stand on a social construction.

These are the useful idiots of every revolution.]