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.
[If you sample American headlines for the year 2013, you might ask yourself:
What do Paula Dean and George Zimmerman have in common?
ThinkProgressive_TV incessantly recounts a stereotypical battle between the good victims and the bad exploiters, involving some great and powerful person (often gifted with incredible immaterial attributes) coming to the assistance of a victim (who must be good because, by definition, victims are never bad).]
Summary of text [comment] page 72
[The previous blog brings me to Rene Girard, an insightful theorist who focused on the importance of scapegoats in our current Lebenswelt.
According to the intersecting nested forms underlying the message of the word ‘religion’, scapegoats trigger a projection, a thinkanti-object.
Who accuses?
The golden calves cultivate thinkpro-object. They point their well-manicured fingers.
The golden calves are always prepared to project thinkanti-object onto someone when disorder threatens.
This helps to explain why the selection of scapegoats appears almost random.]
[The televisionaires speak their truth to you, little viewers with golden ornaments.
You cannot talk back, so the television will speak for you. Mainstream TV will portray a character, a victim, some poor trifle that stands for you, the true victim, who cannot talk back to the television. You will feel sympathy for this pathetic creature because you identify with the victim.
You are the victim of the televisionaries, but you do not know it. You only see what is in front of you. You only see images on a screen.
I will consider ‘the so-called truths that they broadcast’, which Christ called a lie, in the next blog.]
[In addition, one views the adoration of individuals who adhere to Progressive thinkpro-object. Media folk throw garlands before celebrity elites. Their elites express consciencepro-object.
I call these adored people: golden calves.
Like the famous Biblical golden calf, these celebrities thrive on small ornaments donated by little people. Their tokens are melted and poured into liberal causes by Progressive clerics. Celebrities, especially celebrity politicians, are mouthpieces of Progressive Cults.
‘The unreal agape of the golden calves’ accompanies ‘the unreal loathing of the scapegoats’. The scapegoats are projections of thinkProgressive_TV‘s fevered imaginations.
The televisionaries love their gods and hate their fellow humans.]
Summary of text [comment] page 72
[In the amusing (yet horrifying) parodies of Christianity that constitute today’s religions of Progressive television, the artistic depiction of unreal agape (as well as unreal eros) has reached spectacular heights.
When one watches any mainstream media newscast, one sees the vilification of innocent people. They are labeled thinkanti-object and conscienceanti-object. They are the scapegoats.]
[By the 2010s, the word ‘sin’ was replaced by ‘anti-object’ terms. These anti-object epithets are drained of traditional meaning. They are fully compliant with Progressive ideologies. They are not descriptions. They are political accusations. They are thinkanti-object.
Over the past 50 years, the old wineskins of familiar words have been emptied. The old wineskins have been filled with new definitions, powerful concoctions of ‘anti-knowledge’.
Orwell was right on this one.
Our language has been redefined.
The old wineskins are about to burst.]
[This twisted triangle discloses an unreal love.
This unreal love satisfies the viewer’s dispositions and bears false witness to the golden calf’s true intent.
The former’s conscience is not free, it accepts delusion.
The latter’s conscience is not free, it presents delusion.
Only a free conscience is open to real love.]
[Over the half century, language change has been significant.
Schoonenberg, who published his book in 1962, must have witnessed the postreligious manipulation of the Dutch language in his home in Europe. His book aimed to find a new appreciation of the term ‘sin’ (especially the term ‘original sin’).
Karl Menninger’s book (published in 1973 and reviewed in prior blogs) demonstrates that the word ‘sin’ was successfully marginalized by the end of the 1960s.
By the 1990s, the word ‘sin’ was so marginalized that Ted Peters’ book (published in 1994) focused on Satanic Cults within the New Age Movement.]
[Comments on Alexander Dugin’s (2012) The Fourth Political Theory notes the coincidence between the turn towards postmodern language games and the establishment of a postreligious sovereign religion.]
[How did this come to be?
In America, the symbolic order began turning in the 1950s. It attained temporary stability in the 1960s. The language (as system of differences) remained weirdly jelled until the 2000s.
Many circumstances contributed to this stasis.
A demographic condition played a role. The so-called boomers born in the late 1940s and all the 1950s dominated discourse for many years.
An institutional condition may have also played a role in the the temporary stability. State-subsidized university systems promoted conformity in language use.
The state universities then set the stage for the postmodern conversion of discourse into a language game during the decades since the 1960s.]
