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 objectionable2baccording 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 cooperation2asupposed 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 (SOiand 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.

09/28/24

Looking at Michelle Stiles’s Book (2022) “One Idea to Rule Them All” (Part 2 of 23)

0515 This book consists of an introduction, followed by twelve chapters.

The first chapter introduces key concepts in a narrative format.

0516 Here is my version of the story that the author tells.

In 1916, after campaigning against America’s entry into the Great European War, President Woodrow Wilson is re-elected.  Four months after inauguration, Wilson declares war on Germany.  Four days after that, Wilson forms a Committee on Public Information by executive order.  Three years later, in 1920, the former chair of that committee, George Creel, publishes a book titled How We Advertised America: The First Telling of the Amazing Story of the Committee on Public Information that carried the Gospel of Americanism to Every Corner of the Globe.

World War I, the First Battle of the Enlightenment Gods: The Tragic War Among Naive Mercantilists (1914-1918) produces a public relations bonanza for America.  America makes the world safe for democracy.  At least, that is one of the slogans that George Creel advances in grand style and on a taxpayer-subsidized budget.  Creel introduces western civilization to a new era of government-promulgated propaganda.

0517 What does George Creel offer?

Does he sell content, or a way to situate content, or a perspective on the situation?

This question dovetails into another question, asking, “How does social construction set the stage for subsequent sensible construction?”

The enlightenment gods are in charge of social construction.  The experts are expected to perform the subsequent sensible construction.  The scrappy players are supposed to be situated by the experts.

0518 Woodrow Wilson does not labor in service to the American Constitution.  He is in service to an enlightenment god.  To George Creel, that god is Americanism.  Americanism is the patriotic fervor that Creel sells.

A question arises, “What is Creel really doing?”

0519 The interscope for the society tier comes in handy here.  The interscope is developed in the chapter of presence in Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define The Word “Religion” (available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  

There are three tiers to our current Lebenswelt of unconstrained social complexity.

520 Here is the big picture.

This nested form is undifferentiated.  Each of these elements may expand into partially differentiated nested forms, producing a single three-level interscope, containing nine elements.  Then, each of these elements may expand into fully differentiated nested forms, yielding three tiers of three-level interscopes, altogether composed of twenty-seven elements.

On top of that, some of the fully differentiated nested forms may expand into more refined interscopes, some of which are presented in the ten primers accompanying the masterwork in the series titled A Course on How To Define the Word “Religion” (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

Here is a picture of how the undifferentiated societyC tier expands into a partially differentiated category-based nested form.

0521 Here is a diagram of the fully differentiated interscope for the societyC tier.

0522 The “Americanism” that Creel sells is an organizational objective2aC, geared towards securing citizen “buy in” for intervention into Europe’s Great War, even though America’s founding fathers warn against precisely this type of foreign entanglement.  Wilson forms the Committee on Public Information in order to substitute this objectorganization2cC for the Constitution2c, the objectrelation2c established with America’s historic founding.

0523 What gives President Wilson such daring?

Fifty years before Wilson’s election, the Constitution2c is severely challenged by the War of Southern Rebellion and the War of Northern Aggression, the winner of which turned out to be the federal government2bC.

The history is told as a fairy tale in point 0005 of An Archaeology of The Fall.

0524 In 1916, the person occupying the throne of the executive branch happens to be Woodrow Wilson, formerly President of Harvard University.

0525 Wilson empowers Creel to paper over the objectrelation2cC of the American Constitution (as well as his own campaign promise not to enter the European war2aC) with a poster of Americanism2aC.  Creel does just that.  He institutes an interventional sign-relation. A “vision” that America must enter the Great European War2c (SVi) stands for presentations of propaganda posters, films, speeches and more2a (SOi) in regards to the intellects3a and wills1a of people who are paid by Creel to propagandize (SIi).

Here is a picture.

0526 The professionals handling Creel’s efforts are the forerunners of experts who think that they speak for the people on the scrappy player level.

All that the weak-minded citizen needs to do is to take what the propaganda says as his or her own opinion.

09/27/24

Looking at Michelle Stiles’s Book (2022) “One Idea to Rule Them All” (Part 3 of 23)

0527 Creel and his associates support presentations of propaganda at locations where crowds gather and people are vulnerable.

The so-called “four-minute men” engage an audience in a film theater during the four-minutes that it takes to change a reel of film.  These four-minute men testify to our patriotic duty and to our need to enter the European war.  The presumption is that what the four-minute man is willing to say [objectifies] what the orator thinks.  But, that is not honestly the case, since the four-minute presenter knows that he is a mouthpiece [that cannot truly objectify] the slogan that America can, and will, end war, itself.

0528 The venue for such presentations is cleverly chosen.

Practically, there can be no debate, since the films must go on.  People come to see the films.  So, only the time between reels is available for a testimonial.

Theoretically, each theater has no perspective other than the venue itself.  Similarly, each battle among enlightenment gods has no perspective other than itself.  Likewise, the relativist one3c represents no perspective other than itself.

0529 This loss of perspective parallels the slogan, popularized in the modern era, of “art for art’s sake”.  Art has no perspective other than the venue itself.  Consequently, official displays of artistic works defines what “art” is, not on the basis of some sort of criteria or aesthetic, but on the basis of a gallery or a museum acting as an interventional sign-object(SOi).

This is the way of the interventional sign-relation, if there is a content-level sign-object (an art gallery or museum) that can be witnessed, then there must be a perspective-level sign-vehicle (corresponding to “art” as a transcendental value) that cannot be witnessed.  The interventional sign-vehicle must be inferred.

If SOi, then SVi.

This is not logic.  This is the nature of the interventional sign-relation.

0530 Here is a difficulty.

Since the audiences of the four-minute men are at the film theater in order to entertained by moving pictures (which are obviously illusions), why would they take seriously anything said by an orator speaking between reels?

0531 One answer may be that the purely relational structure of the interventional sign-relation is built into the hominin mind.  It may be an adaptation to hand-talk in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  After all, hand-talk itself is a key adaptation to teams (at first) and communities (after the domestication of fire).

Why not imagine that everything that we subjectively witness is the hand-talk of a supra-subjective presence?  Why not imagine that a supra-subjective presence2c (SVi) stands for whatever we think and talk about2a (SOi) in regards to a normal context3a and a potential1a that each hominin exhibits (when engaged in team and community collaborative activities) (SIi)?

Plus, since hand-talk does not facilitate explicit abstraction, why not imagine that the interventional sign-relation is built into what we evolved to be?

0532 Only after the first singularity, with the ability of purely symbolic speech-alone talk to label anything and everything,can we break down the interventional sign-interpretant (SIi) into a content-level normal context3a and potential1a. Plus, we can associate these two elements to intellect3a and will1arespectively.  Steve Fuller notes that “reason3a,1a” consists of both intellect and will.

0533 Even in our current Lebenswelt, we tune into the interventional sign-relation, even when we go to the film theater with our dates.  As already mentioned, the theory behind theater is that there is no hidden agenda behind the theater.  The theater denies any supra-subjective being2c that otherwise might be present.  I mean, it’s not like church, where a supra-subjective presence2c is palpable.

No hidden agenda2c (SVi) stands for my entertainment while attending theater2a (SOi) in regards to reason3a,1a, defined as my intellect3a contextualizing my will1a (SIi).

0534 So, what happens when one of Creel’s four-minute men takes the stage while the staff changes reels?

The interventional sign-relation changes subtly, from passively processing images that do not pertain to me to actively processing talk that recalls that I belong to teams and communities.

0535 Yes, the four-minute audience feels the actualization of an interventional sign-relation, where a suprasubjective judgment to go to war2c (SVi) stands for the four-minute orator’s words2a (SOi) in regards to “our” reason3a,1a (SIi).

A technical word for this actualization is coined by French Marxist theorist, Louis Althusser (1918-1990 AD).  The word is “interpellation”.  Interpellation plays a role in A Primer on How Institutions Think (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).

0536 The four-minute man offers a way to fill in the terms for the content-level for the scrappy player level.

Many take the bait.

As soon as a member of the audience takes the bait, there is a catharsis.  My agreement with the four-minute man [can be objectified by] what I say.  “We” agree with the will1a of the four-minute man.

0537 So, my conclusion may sound a little bit theological.

This is not about truth.  The orator’s announcement of the coming of the kingdom of Woodrow Wilson’s Committee on Public Information offers a way to fill in the empty elements on the scrappy player level with specific food for thought.  We can enter the Great War.  We can call it A War To End All Wars.  Aspiration becomes inspiration.  Inspiration leads to collective action.

09/26/24

Looking at Michelle Stiles’s Book (2022) “One Idea to Rule Them All” (Part 4 of 23)

0538 In chapter two, Stiles presents the French polymath, Gustave Le Bon (1841-1931), as a forerunner to Creel’s marketing campaign. 

0539 According to an online encyclopedia, Le Bon is a Parisian medical doctor who takes an interest in psychology after returning, in 1884, from an anthropological tour of India.  Not unsurprisingly, Le Bon returns to Paris with a treasure-chest of artifacts, to serve as gifts to his sponsors (so to speak).  Unfortunately, the politician Sadi Carnot, then Minister of Public Works, chooses an artifact that Gustave had hoped that someone else might choose.  Le Bon warns Carnot, the chosen statuette carries a curse.  The owner of the statuette will die upon reaching the highest political office.  Carnot is not impressed.  He has no need for such superstitions.  He takes the statuette.

Later, Carnot is elected fourth President of the French Republic.

Then, on June 24, 1894, Carnot is assassinated in Lyon by an Italian anarchist.

0540 To me, it seems that this event, ten years in the making, would cause any sensitive soul to step back and wonder, “What the hell was that about?”

Fuller calls the process, “metalepsis”.

Here is a picture of the interventional sign-relation.

0541 In 1896, Le Bon publishes his most famous book, titled The Crowd: A Study of The Popular Mind.

He proclaims (more or less), “We have entered the era of crowds.  Crowds pose a riddle for the elites who would rule over them.  How does a ruler convey the coming of one’s kingdom, without speaking directly of one’s kingdom?  Can science be used to trick and manipulate public opinion?  Can sheep participate in constructing the very corral that will hold them in, as the elites, the wolves in sheep’s clothing, feast?”

Listen, those with ears to hear.

An Italian anarchist steps out of a throng.

The kingdom of crowd management is at hand.

0542 Chapter two contains a litany of techniques.  The Christian reads the list in horror, because the techniques call to mind the ministry of Jesus, the Christ.  Christ never appeals to logic.  Christ entices crowds with images and parables.  Christ presents simple slogans that crystallize into penetrating truths.  Christ exposes illusions while presenting what seems to be madness. Jesus works miracles to demonstrate his authority.  Jesus asks folk to enter his kingdom. Jesus watches his reputation spread like a wildfire.  It is all there.  Every technique is later codified by the students of Le Bonand packaged as ways to gain power from crowds, in an Age of Crowds.

Thirty years later, George Creel’s Committee on Public Information proclaims, “The kingdom of Woodrow Wilson is at hand.”

0543 Is this the first lesson that must be proclaimed by the one who is capable of signifying, without the scrappy players knowing why (SVi)?

Oh… I mean to say… by someone in the employ of Woodrow Wilson, when he draws America, subtly, through public information, into the First Battle Among The Enlightenment Gods: The War to End All Wars (1914-1918)?

The kingdom of a new enlightenment god is at hand.

0545 Clues are everywhere.

Consider the progress achieved in the early twentieth century.  In 1913, a nationwide income tax is enacted as an amendment to the American Constitution.  In the same year, an amendment to the American Constitution removes the power of state legislatures to appoint their senators and gives the decision to the crowd… er… the voters of each state.  In the same year, the Governor of the state of New York, William Sulzer, approves the charter of the Rockefeller Foundation, and the Foundation receives a $100 million dollar donation by John. D., himself.

0546 For those who have eyes to see, behold the coming of the kingdom of John D. Rockefeller. Consider the masterpiece titled, Libido Dominandi (2000, Fidelity Press) by E. M. Jones.

Here isĀ the interventional sign-relation.

09/25/24

Looking at Michelle Stiles’s Book (2022) “One Idea to Rule Them All” (Part 5 of 23)

0547 In chapter three, Stiles recalls Noam Chomsky’s book (1988), Manufacturing Consent.  Chomsky tells the story of Walter Lippmann (1889-1974), adored as the most influential journalist of the 20th century and regarded as the father of modern journalism.  Lippmann wrote books disparaging the public at large, questioning their ability to function as intelligent members of society.  In short, people are too stupid for democracy.

0548 Still, people love the word, “democracy”.

Perhaps, the elites may script a self-serving fiction about “democracy”, where “democracy” empowers the elites in an Age of Crowds, because the elites represent the common folk.

We must protect “our democracy”, from everyone who does not buy into elite narratives.

0549 Democracy never appeals to logic.  Democracy entices crowds with images and parables. Democracy presents simple slogans that crystallize into manufactured “truths”.  Democracy exposes the ambitions of its opponents, while presenting what seems to be madness, wrapped in slogans promoting liberty, equality and fraternity.  Democracy works miracles, demonstrating its authority.  Those who promote democracy with donations of, say, $100,000,000, ask folk to enter the kingdom, then smile as the sheep build their own corral. 

0550 What is necessary to define the word, “democracy”?

The experts will tell.

0551 The first amendment enshrines freedom of the press.  But, what is freedom?  Is the press free to call upon experts funded by the private Rockefeller Foundation in the support of public legislation, which will be passed by senators, who are now directly elected by the citizens of each state?  Do those citizens buy into the concept of “our democracy”?  Are those citizens subject to the techniques of crowd management?

Is “freedom of the press” now “the liberty to spread values determined by highly educated… er… credentialed experts”?

0552 In 1919, Upton Sinclair writes The Brass Check: A Study in American Journalism: Evidence and Reason Behind The Media’s Corruption.

In 1922, Walter Lippmann publishes his masterwork, Public Opinion, arguing that experts are necessary to sift through complex data (observations and measurements of phenomena) in order to guide the masses to the optimum decisions.

Surely, a citizen of the original thirteen colonies would applaud Upton Sinclair for his honesty.

Surely, a citizen in the Age of Crowds would follow Lippmann’s argument because expert reviewers extol Lippmann’s appeal to reason3a,1a, where the intellect3a contextualizes the will1a and the will1a has no desire for truth.

0553 What does the will1a desire?

In the Age of Crowds, the will1a does not desire timeless transcendentals, such as truth, beauty, wisdom, salvation, friendship, and so on.  The will1a desires “the transcendentals” of crowds: liberty, equality and fraternity.

Almost twenty years before the Second Battle of the Enlightenment Gods, the Hot War Among Fraternal Ideologies(1938-1945), Sinclair celebrates a new age of fraternity, trying to be born.  Sinclair says that the press ought to assist the birth.  Instead, the press insists on killing the child in the womb.

0554 Little does Sinclair know that the demon-gods of the hot war among fraternal ideologies incubate in-vitro in the crib of what the press fails to say and who the press is beholden to.

0555 Lippmann’s vision is further refined during the Third Battle of the Enlightenment Gods: The Cold War Among Materialist Ideologies (1945-1989).  Ownership of broadcasting media (radio and television) consolidates.  The Central Agency for Intelligence initiates a systemic infiltration of corporate media.

There is resistance.  Stiles presents a list of whistleblowers spanning from 1908 to 2020.

0556 By the start of the Fourth Battle of the Enlightenment Gods: Empirio-normative Domination of Subject Populations in the Post-Truth Condition (1989 to present), corporate media and government collaborate.  Experts infiltrate every American institution.

According to Stiles, intentional biases and outright deception replace the quest for truth3a,1a.

Yes, such may be the case.  But, the suggestion can be made for a transformation of the hidden agenda (SVithat no one can see, but everyone knows is there.  What else would explain (SIiwhat we think and see (SOi)?

0557 Here is a picture.

09/24/24

Looking at Michelle Stiles’s Book (2022) “One Idea to Rule Them All” (Part 6 of 23)

0558 Chapter four discusses techniques of stagecraft.  A staged event2c captures the awareness3a,1a of the scrappy player level.  That awareness2a is situated by experts3b.  Then, expert valuations2b open an opportunity1c for the one of scientism3c to execute an empirio-normative judgment2c.

Once again, here is a picture of the interscope for the post-truth condition, derived from an Looking at Steve Fuller’s book (2020) “A Player’s Guide to the Post-Truth Condition”.

0559 An execution of an empirio-normative judgment2c is an occasion for stagecraft2c.  So, stagecraft keys into the operations of an interventional sign-vehicle (SVi).

An empirio-normative judgement2c (SVi) stands for what I think [which cannot be objectified as] what I say2a (SOi) in regards to my reason3a,1a (SIi).

0560 In previous figures, I depict the SVi activating the SIi then leading to a SOi.

But, this depiction misleads in so far as it suggests that this triadic sign-relation is a sequence of two dyadic relations.  It is not.  Three elements are simultaneously in play.  Two of the elements belong to the realm of actuality, SVi (green) and SOi (tangerine).  The third element belongs to the realms of normal context and potential, SIi (purple).

0561 Color-coding the interventional sign-relation allows me to visualize the triadic relation that stagecraft captures.

0562 Color-coding also suggests that the content-level of the post-truth condition is more complex than it first appears.

Already, I know that the content-level is a site of contention, because professional agents of media and expertise produce specific content-level nested forms designed to be accepted wholesale and incorporated into the general content-level nested form for the scrappy player.  Indeed, a technical word for players who have wholesale “bought into” a prepackaged specific content-level nested form is “woke”.  Others use the technical term, “zombie”.

0563 For the current battle of enlightenment gods, I use the term “bigilib”, for big government (il)liberals.

09/23/24

Looking at Michelle Stiles’s Book (2022) “One Idea to Rule Them All” (Part 7 of 23)

0564 An interventional sign-vehicle (SVi) activates what I think2a.

So, what is the nature of what I think2a?

0565 Can I compare the scrappy player level with the content level of the scholastic interscope for how people think(elaborated in A Primer on the Individual in Community, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues, as well as Looking at John Deely’s Book (2010) “Semiotic Animal” appearing in Razie Mah’s blog in October 2023)?

Here is a picture.

0566 Active body2a corresponds to the body in action.  The five senses are active.  So are proprioceptors that report the status of all sorts of body functions.

Sensate soul2a corresponds to feelings and sensations and qualia.  The smell of a rose triggers a memory… not a complete memory, but a reminiscence that cannot be put into words.  Yet, spoken words may be conjured, especially if someone is at hand to help with one’s vocabulary.  A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

What I sense [substantiates] what I feel2a in the normal context of what is happening3a operating on the potential of ‘something’ happening2a.

0567 So, maybe, stagecraft presents the scrappy player with what is happening3a,1a and what I think2a corresponds to the entire content level of the scholastic interscope for how people think.

0568 Why stop there?

Why not have what I think2a correspond to the entire scholastic interscope?

Here is a picture of the interscope for what I think2a.

0569 Surely, this fits better.  What I think2a cannot be limited to sensations and feelings2a.  Can it?  The subscripts are a little confusing here, because an element in the interscope for the post-truth condition2a now contains the entire interscope for how humans think, according to pre-modern scholastics.

0570 Let me dwell on the scholastic interscope for the moment.

0571 The three normal contexts constitute a perfectly (or completely) appropriate hierarchy.  Does this make sense3ccontextualizes what it means to me3b, while what it means to me3b situates what is happening3a.  Is there a name for a transcendental that brings all these normal contexts into alignment.  Perhaps, the labels, “prudence” or “temperance”, apply.

0572 The three potentials also constitute a perfectly appropriate hierarchy.  Contextualizing the situation1c should put situating content1b into perspective, just as situating content1b should tell me the meaning, presence and message of ‘something’ happening to me1a.

The key point is “me”.  If I want to figure out what is happening3a, then I must be true to myself.  I cannot deny sensation2a.  I cannot pick and choose my perceptions2b.  I cannot refuse the opportunity to find the context where sensation and perception both make sense2c.  Is there a name for a transcendental that brings all these potentials into alignment.  Perhaps, the labels, “truth” and “beauty”, apply.

0573 Finally, the three actualities constitute a completely integrated hierarchy.

0574 There is more.

On one hand, the actualities may be pictured as a virtual nested form.

I will use this nested form to portray what I think2a in the post-truth interscope.

0575 On the other hand, the perspectivec level actuality is itself a triadic relation that brings the situationb level into relation with the contenta level, not as a virtual category-based nested form, but as a judgment.

A judgment is a triadic relation composed of three elements: relation, what is, and what ought to be.  If each of these elements is imbued with one of Peirce’s three categories, then the judgment becomes actionable.

0576 Here is a picture for philosophical judgment, whose transcendental is wisdom.

Wisdom (relation, thirdness) brings the universality of sensation (what is, secondness) into relation with the intelligibility of perception (what ought to be, firstness).

0577 At this point, what I think2a seems to be an incredibly nuanced element in the post-truth condition.

If, what I think2a corresponds to the scholastic interscope for how humans think, then the transcendentals of prudence, temperance, truth, beauty and wisdom are built into how I think2a. It is like a gift from the One Who Gives, Without Us Knowing Why.  This gift is given in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  So, the embodied transcendentals are adaptations to a world that no longer exists.  Today, the followers of Thomas Aquinas might label that world, original justice,compared to our current Lebenswelt of original sin.

0578 Indeed, it seems that the interscope for the post-truth condition aims to put what I think2a into a box, so that my own mind becomes the corral for the sheep that I have become

09/21/24

Looking at Michelle Stiles’s Book (2022) “One Idea to Rule Them All” (Part 8 of 23)

0579 Now, let me go back to that philosophical judgment.

Does it associate to what I say2a?

Hmmm….

0580 Actionable judgments unfold according to Peirce’s categories.

Here is the nested form corresponding to the above philosophical judgment.

0581 The normal context of wisdom3 brings the universality of sensation2 into relation with the potential for intelligibility of perception1.

0582 This nested form is magnificent, but it has an Achilles heel.

The perspective-level philosophical judgment evolves in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, when hominins practice hand talk and implicit abstraction.  Hand talk and implicit abstraction are holistic, so there is no avenue to disarticulate the elements of actionable judgment and its corresponding nested form.  In hand talk, what I think is embodied as what I say.  So, the entire scholastic interscope is built into the human body and soul.  Meaning, presence and message are not differentiated.

In our current Lebenswelt, people use spoken words.  Spoken words are not holistic.  They are specific.  Indeed, what I think2a (for example, as formulated by the scholastic interscope for how humans think) is very difficult to put into spoken words2a.  However, my judgment is easy to speak, because spoken words are available (if not already suggested, by an ongoing interventional sign-vehicle (SVi) and interpretant (SIi).

0583 Yes, what I think2a and what I say2a both belong to the interventional sign-object (SOi).

However, what I think2a is holistic because it manifests as an interscope and what I say2a is not, because it manifests as an actionable judgment.

0584 Speech realizes that actionable judgment in the following manner.

After the actionable judgment unfolds into a category-based nested form, spoken conversation typically deals with actualities, then later, potentials, and lastly, normal contexts.

Here is another picture of the scrappy player level, with these developments in mind.

0585 Uh oh.  I am starting to see that what I think and what I say are not the same nested forms.

And the key is secondness.  After all, secondness is the realm of actuality.  So, if anything comes to the fore, it will be the realm of actuality.

0586 What I think is denoted by a virtual nested form in secondness where the normal context of my judgment2c brings the actuality of my perceptions2b into relation with the potential of my sensations2a.  My perception2b associates to actuality2 on the situationb level, which makes perception2b an actuality2 occurring on the levelb associated with actuality.

So, perception2b stands out as far as what I think is concerned.

0587 What I say is different.  The universality of sensation gives what is the character of secondness.  The intelligibility of perception imbues what ought to be with the character of firstness.  The relation, wisdom, if I can call it that, associates with thirdness. 

0588 In sum, secondness (or the character of actuality) goes with perception for what I think and with sensation for what I say.  So, what I say2a will initially speak about sensation and universality, within the normal context of the intellect3a and the potential of the will1a for the scrappy player.

0589 What does that imply?

What I say2a does not necessarily objectify what I think2a, because I (a scrappy player) will first talk about sensations (actuality2) as if my sensations are universal, then perceptions (potential1) as if my perceptions are intelligible, and finally, about whether any of this makes sense (normal context3), as if some sort of wisdom is involved.

0590 Ah, that last sentence sounds like what is of the Positivist’s judgment.  A noumenon [cannot be objectified] as its phenomena.

0591 Whoa!  Put on the brakes!

Let me pause and take a deep breath and first consider the Positivist’s judgment.

Here is a picture.

A positivist intellect (relation, thirdness) brings an empirio-schematic judgment (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with the dyad, a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena (what is, firstness).  The positivist intellect has a rule.  Metaphysics is not allowed.

Plus, for the empirio-schematic judgment, a disciplinary language (relation, thirdness) brings mathematical and mechanical models (what ought to be, secondness) into relation with observations and measurements of phenomena (what is, firstness).

0592 These two interlocking judgments are developed in Comments on Jacques Maritain’s Book (1935) Natural Philosophy.

0593 Now I may return to the interscope of the post-truth condition and consider how the Positivist judgment might unfold into the virtual nested form in the realm of actuality (that is, the second column).

What is (belonging to firstness) goes with the contenta-level actuality2.

What ought to be (belonging to secondness) consists in the empirio-schematic judgment, unfolding to occupy the entire the situationb-level.

That leaves only the relation of the Positivist’s judgment, labeled “the positivist intellect”.  The empirio-normative judgment2c represents the positivist intellect.  The positivist intellect has a rule.  Metaphysics is not allowed.  The empirio-normative judgment2c obeys the same rule.

0594 Here is a picture of the interscope of the post-truth condition with key words of the Positivist’s judgment displayed.  

0595 Okay, the interscope of the post-truth condition expresses the Positivist’s judgment in expansive style.  The Positivist’s judgment expands into all levels.  Also, the empirio-schematic judgment expands into a category-based nested form on the situation level.

On the scrappy player level, the noumenon, the thing itself, corresponds to what I think and associates to the prescientific scholastic interscope for how humans think.  What I say associates to the relational structure of human judgment and corresponds to phenomena, that will be situated as observations and measurements1b by experts3b in the post-truth interscope.

On the expert level, the empirio-schematic judgment unfolds.

On the relativist one level, the positivist intellect is represented by the empirio-normative judgment2c.

09/20/24

Looking at Michelle Stiles’s Book (2022) “One Idea to Rule Them All” (Part 9 of 23)

0596 Here is the Positivist’s judgment, embodied in the post-truth interscope, as if the judgment has unfolded into the virtual nested form for the category of secondness.

What represents the positivist intellect2c?

The empirio-normative judgment2c.

0597 Now I consider the Torches of Freedom campaign that Stiles describes in chapter four as an example of stagecraft.

On March 31, 1929, at the Easter parade in New York City, a young woman steps out of the crowd on 5th Avenue and lights a cigarette.  Press photographers capture the moment.  The incident is magnified by radio and newspaper reports.  The next day, a puff piece appears in the New York Times, applauding the courage of the ladies who lit up at the Easter parade.  Women should do what they want to do.

0597 The goal of stagecraft is to present a fiat accompli, an event2a and a commentary2a, aiming to overlay what I think [and] what I say2a.

0598 Once this is accomplished, then the interscope for the post-truth condition engages as an exercise of applied science.  What I think belongs to a noumenon and what I say corresponds to that noumenon’s phenomena.

0599 After the event, a Bernay-linked agency may ask my opinion, particularly how I feel (sensations) and what the event means to me (perceptions).  All phenomena not related to the promotion campaign will be dismissed.

Then, this data1b will be analyzed according to the disciplinary language3b and methodologies2b of advertising in order to arrive at a model of value2b, not for the scrappy player, but for the cool-headed person who pays for the campaign.  The determination of value2b may occasion the opportunity1c for another staged event2c, in which “courageous ladies”, once again, light up cigarettes as a demonstration of their freedom and independence.

0600 What does this mean?

On the content level, “my” intellect3a and “my” will1a are not exclusively my own, even though they occupy the normal context3a and potential1a of the scrappy player level.  Instead, “my” reason3a,1a is contested.  My reason3a,1a is precisely the target of the empirio-normative judgment2c.

09/19/24

Looking at Michelle Stiles’s Book (2022) “One Idea to Rule Them All” (Part 10 of 23)

0601 Needless to say, stagecraft is a rich man’s sport.

Plus, psychometrics is the science behind the sport.

0602 In chapter five, Stiles discusses why the word, “propaganda”, is damaged goods.

Creel’s success in the First World War and Edward Bernay’s success at marketing for American corporations leaves a bad taste in the mouths of the scrappy players.

0603 One sour note concerns exactly whose intellect3a and will1a constitute reason3a,1a on the scrappy player level.

Stagecraft, done well, presents the scrappy player with a “filled in” content-level nested form, ready made to swallow whole.  In the figure below, “my” intellect3a and the broadcast intellect3a are confounded.  So, are “my” and “the target’s” will1a.

When stagecraft succeeds, my reason3a,1a becomes what it3a,1a is targeted to be.

0604 The propaganda techniques used during the First World War left many Americans feeling betrayed.  They felt duped.  The psychometric sciences performed so well.  Too bad that the stagecraft was later shown to be exactly that.

Exactly what?

Shall I say “pure theater”?  Or, should I say “deception”?

0605 I suppose that the complainers sound like Eve, after the Fall, vexed at the cunning trick that led her into error.

The serpent’s spoken words tell her precisely what to think, and she turns its propaganda into her own actions.

How stupid is that?

0606 Another sour note concerns the categorical nature of what I think compared to what I say.  

A categorical shift occurs, precisely mimicking the Kantian slogan, a noumenon [cannot be objectified as] its phenomena.  Both a noumenon (the thing itself) and its phenomena (its observable and measurable facets) are real elements.  The contiguity between them contains a negation, so no matter how many observations and measurements one makes, one can never objectify the thing itself, which is the subject of natural experience.

0607 However, (and this point gets confusing) the noumenon and its phenomena belong to the same entity.  So, the apparently real elements in Kant’s slogan are distinctions which cannot ever be separated.  A noumenon does not exist without its phenomena.  Phenomena do not exist without their noumenon.  Yes, both labels apply to the same entity.

Got that?

0607 Kant’s slogan constitutes what is of the Positivist’s judgment.

The German philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724-1804 AD), introduces the noumenon in order to balance an imbalance.  Scientists are only interested in observations and measurements of what can be observed and measured, that is, phenomena.  A century after Kant’s slogan takes shape, scientific circles argue that they should be able to dispense with the noumenon, the thing itself, altogether.  Veil the noumenon with scientific models.

Can I apply this to what I think2a?

0608 Yes, the distinction between what I think and what I say compares to the distinction between a noumenon and its phenomena.

0609 What I think may be diagrammed using the scholastic interscope for how humans think.  Nine elements operate simultaneously to achieve a living thing, a human thought.  Imagine trying to perform that operation in a computer simulation!  What I think, like a noumenon, is holistic.  It is what we (humans) evolved to do.  It is a subject for philosophical discourse.  It is no accident that the transcendentals, including truth, come into play in the interscope for what I think.

The problem?

What I think cannot be directly observed and measured by the psychometric sciences.

0610 What I say can be observed and measured.

What I say is the unfolding of the perspective-level judgment.  

The actionable judgment goes like this.  Wisdom (or some other relation, thirdness) brings the universality of sensations embedded within what people say (what is, secondness) into relation with the intelligibility of perceptions (what ought to be, firstness).

The category-based nested form goes like this.  The normal context of wisdom, or some other transcendental3 brings the actuality of the universality of sensation2 into relation with the potential intelligibility of perception1.

0611 The hang-up comes when looking at the content-level actuality2a.

What I think2a does not match what I say2a.

0612 The category of secondness is the realm of actuality.  So, actuality should stand out in regards to what I think as well as what I say.  What stands out for what I think?  What stands out for what I say?  They aren’t the same.

Perception concerns my perceptive soul informing my reactive body, as in phantasms generating emotions.

Sensation is all about my active body substantiating my sensate soul, as in a scent generating a feeling.

0613 So, what is the first question that a postmodern journalist asks someone about a staged event?

Of course, the first question is “How do you feel about the incident?”

Stagecraft provokes the perception.  The survey question asks for the sensation.

There is a method to this madness.

For the psychometric sciences, what I think goes with the noumenon and what I say corresponds to its phenomena.  The expert3b builds a model of value2b based on observations and measurements1b of phenomena2a.  If the one of scientism3csees an opportunity1c for that value2b, an empirio-normative judgment2c will be executed.  Another incident will occur, and now the media is already prepared with a narrative and a model, designed to overlay onto my judgments2a, my perceptions2a and my sensations2a, in order to to guide me as to what is the universal and intelligible thing to do3a.

0614 Twenty years after the end of the First World War, and at the opening of the Second World War, concerned Americans establish an Institute of Propaganda Analysis.

They first try to sift good from bad propaganda.

That does not work.

America enters the Second Battle of the Enlightenment Gods: The Hot War Among Fraternal Ideologies (1938-1945).