0433 Here is another picture of the intersection for the band, during Era 1, lasting between 7 and 3.5Myr.

Am I joking?

Put “family, “friends” or “band” in for “interdependence_2b“.

0433 With this in mind, I examine the remainder of chapter two, starting with the subheading, “Great Ape Cooperation”.

The LCA, typical of great apes, is built for competition within a band.  Apes compete for food and nice places to nest.  Male apes compete for female apes.  Hierarchies get established and promote all sorts of Machiavellian cognitive traits.  Did I say Machiavelli?  Machiavelli titles one of his books, The Prince.  Does that title sound like establishment_3H or alliance_3V?  Hmmm, maybe it sounds like both.  Alliances are more than friendships and grooming partnerships, they contribute to conflicts in which the hierarchy may be challenged.  Alliances also diffuse the same conflicts.

0434 Machiavelli does not promote morality.  He does not counsel justice and fairness.  He promotes using the morality of others to advance one’s positional power.

0435 So, why would not everyone adopt Machiavellian principles?

One of the moments when Machiavellian individual intentionality does not apply occurs when one group (or band)threatens another.  Such a crisis may destroy established powers_2H and affiliations_2V.  An affirmation must be made.  Yes, there is justice in having a place in the heirarchy_1H.  There is fairness in having others on my side_1V.  So, in times of war, the artifices_2H,2V of Machiavellian propositions fall away, and the potentials_1H,1V that culture selects for_3b, supporting the actuality of our interdependence_2b, show their adaptive potential_1b.

0436 The group_2b adapts into the niche of cooperation_1b, the potential of joint attention_2a, by practicing ways of livingwhere each member has a place in the hierarchies_1H and has others on his and her side_1V.

0437 The group₂ is a mystery.

The natural history of morality entails the evolution of the purely relational structure that characterizes the presence underlying the word, “religion”.

0438 Once again, here is a picture of Tomasello’s vision.

0439 Okay, the following segment may seem to be a distraction.

Yes, from here to point 0443 constitutes a distraction.

Are there lessons here that apply to our current Lebenswelt?

Today, at the conclusion of the Age of Ideas, there are psychics, scientists and sociopaths who portray themselves as beings of greater awareness and enlightenment_2c.  These experts_2c want to select_3a for a new humanity_1a.

On what basis?

0440 First, they_2c consider all traditional civilized traditions_2b to be social constructions, rather than evolved products of group selection.

Because they_2c are devotees of postmodern science (which includes the natural and the social as well as the psychometric), they imagine that they can design_3b novel establishments_3H, based on their organizational objectives_1c.  These bureaucracies_3H will replace current unscientific and superstition-filled institutions_2b and denature countervailing reactionary groups_2b.

In short, the most certified among us_2c propose institutional selection_3b based on a type of cooperation_1b, defined as the potential_1b of everyone paying attention_2a to the society that they want to create_1a.

Another name for that potential_1b is “legitimacy_1b“.

Here is a picture.

0441 Second, their organizational objectives_1c critique all traditions_2b on the bases of power_2H and race_2V.  The term, “power”, entails an appointed position in any organization.  The term, “race”, is code for “tribe”, where “tribe” is defined by adherence to a particular organizational objective_1c. 

Awareness_1c of power_2H is supported by a specific version of justice_1H.  Individuals belonging to any of the designated “races” or “tribes” do not have a home in the any traditional hierarchy_1H, even though they may be appointed to long-established institutional positions.  Fixation_1c on power_2H breeds resentment.  Resentment creates what is called, “resilience”, the tenacity of knowing that the expert is righteous and others are not.  James Corney calls it_1H “a higher loyalty”.

Awareness_1c of affiliation_2V is supported by a particular version of fairness_1V.  Individuals belonging to opposing “races” or “tribes” (that is, people who do not ideate the revelations of the psychometric sciences) cannot be on the side_1V of the expert-designated “races” or “tribes”.  Fixation_1c on affiliation_2V breeds alienation_1V (the conviction that the opposing “races” or “tribes” can never be fair, that is, “on my side”).  Alienation is followed by coalescence_1V into a theoretically defined “tribe”.

Here is a picture.

“Interdependence_2b” transforms into “dependence on us, the experts_2b“.  But, both terms are too lengthy to fit into the above diagram.

So, the word, “group_2b” must do. 

0442 Third, awareness-driven fixation on organizational objectives_1c mandates the authority of the state to act on behalf of the enlightened beings_2c ,who embody the union of power_2H and tribalism_2V.

State-promulgated social justice_3c promotes programs of mandatory inclusion_1b of tribal members_2H into established positions of authority_2H (without an oath of loyalty) and demands the recognition of the legitimacy_1b of the academic postulates_3b that contextualize the theoretical construction of novel “races”_2V.  Indeed, to become an affiliate of any particular “tribe”_2V, one must first suffer alienation followed by illumination_1V.

0443 What am I talking about?

In order to see that Tomasello’s intersection of power_2H and affiliation_2V not only pertains to the era of individual intentionality, but also to the living world that academic elites currently strive to create, consider the blogs titled, Looking at Gad Saad’s Book (2020) “The Parasitic Mind”, by Razie Mah, appearing in the month of April, 2022.