In the early chapters of Genesis, the word, “adam”, is used in a variety of ways.
In some cases, “adam” refers to human beings as a specific kind (or “species”).
In other cases, “adam” refers to the male of our species.
In other cases, “adam” serves as a personal name.
0057 Eggheads sort these cases out, based on clues, such as the presence or absence of a definitive article or an attached proposition.
0058 Why focus on this one word?
In speech-alone talk, we project meaning, presence and message into purely symbolic spoken words. For “adam”, the projection is spectral. There is a spectrum of meanings. The effect is spooky. “Adam” is everyone. “Adam” is a representative. “Adam” is a person.
0059 What does this suggest?
Plain-speaking interpretations get scrambled when the story-teller speaks both esoterically and plainly.
0060 Meanwhile, scientific investigations of word-use breaks the term, “adam”, into six classes: generic, archetypal, representational, personal, anomalous and proposition-attached.
Can we model “adam” based on these classifications?
0061 How do we define the word, “adam”?
Well, I can follow the masterwork, How To Define the Word “Religion”. “Adam” is an actuality, a spoken word, that is supported by three potentials.
Here is a picture.
Figure 18
0062 One problem with plain-speaking interpretations of Genesis 1-11 becomes more clear when I suggest, as Walton does in proposition nine, that the full potentials of the words are revealed by Saint Paul, thousands of years after the stories of the Primeval History are first told.
The latency of potential of the word, “adam”, is remarkable.
0063 N.T. Wright brings up latency in his contribution in proposition nineteen. The early chapters of Genesis are not mentioned in the Old Testament. On top of that, when Adam is discussed in postbiblical Second Temple texts, the subject is a matter of debate and conjecture.
Why is this the case?
One guess can be found in Looking at Mark Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil”, appearing in January 2022, in the blog at www.raziemah.com.
The other option, of course, is that Genesis 2.4-4 describes the creation of humans in the image of God in Genesis 1.
This other option is not tenable if…
0065 …Genesis 1-11 runs like a movie.
The opening is cosmological, ending with the heavenly chorus3c celebrating God resting in His Creation2b on the seventh day3b, despite backroom drama of the angels who reject the creative project that God initiates.
Then, the camera winds its way down to a little island at the northern edge of the Persian Gulf. Eden starts as a mudflat. Then, lush vegetation grows upon the river-deposited soil. Then, God walks through his strange, spontaneously-formed garden and says, “This looks good.”
0066 Walton’s argument turns on the Hebrew word, “toledot”, meaning “account”. Genesis 2.4 offers a second account…
… and modern scientists cry, “Foul.”
0067 There are no breaks in human evolution. The biblical authors cannot have it both ways. Neither geneticists nor natural historians observe changes corresponding to a bottleneck consisting in a pair of two founders.
In response, intimidated Christians try to place Adam and Eve deep into the evolutionary record. Adam and Eve live sometime after the domestication of fire and sometime before the appearance of anatomically modern humans in the fossil record.
0068 But, look at the text. The biblical authors can have it both ways.
Genesis starts with a magnificent overture, expressing the esse_ce and essence of the “house” that we call “home”, which is also God’s abode, which is also “good”, in a way that defies the projections of idealists and elitists into the spoken word, “good”.
Then, Genesis continues with a scene where God creates Adam and Eve like a supernatural craftsman.
0069 The Primeval History is a sequel to the Creation Story.
God creates humans twice.
Here is a plain-speaking contradiction, showing that Genesis 1-11 is not scientifically or historically credible.
0070 Ahem, unless there is a twist in human evolution.
Of course, there are no breaks in human evolution in terms of genetics or human anatomy. But, in cultural terms, in 7800 years, humans have gone from being completely uncivilized and unwittingly happy to completely civilized and compulsively miserable. Science cannot deny that.
0071 Yes, there is a twist in human evolution.
Plainly speaking, it is a cultural turn.
The transition is portrayed as a hypothesis in the e-book, The First Singularity and Its Fairy Tale Trace, available at smashwords and other e-work venues.
The twist is dramatically rendered in the fiction, An Archaeology of the Fall, which is accompanied by an instructors guide, for those inclined to conduct a seminar on this topic.
0072 What does this mean?
The stories of Genesis are like zircons found in sediments in Archaean cratons. These zircons contain inclusions holding samples of the atmosphere of the early Earth. Similarly, the stories of Genesis (along with all the other origin stories of the ancient Near East) contain clues to the earliest developments within our current Lebenswelt, which starts with the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia, around 7800 years ago.
Yes, our current Lebenswelt starts with the Ubaid. Theoretically, the current year is 7822 Ubaid Zero Prime (or 7822 U0′). The Ubaid starts around 0 U0′. (That’s “uh-oh” prime.)
So, the stories of Adam and Eve offer clues, metaphorical zircons, revealing the composition of the atmosphere of the mundane earth (so to speak) as it differentiates from the celestial earth (oh, I meant to say, the house of God).
0073 In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the mundane and celestial earths are not differentiated. This is the world we would call home, if we could return to paradise.
Take a look at the virtual nested form in the realm of possibility for the interscope of the Creation Story. The Garden of Eden offers a sample of these possibilities.
Figure 19
0074 In our current Lebenswelt, the mundane and celestial earths are differentiated, just like the waters above and below the dome. We do not live in paradise. Instead, we live in constant fear that the waters above the dome will come crashing down and the waters below the ground will rupture and drown us. But, these waters are metaphors for the chaos outside of the world that we create out of our spoken words. Our spoken words create the societal idols that hold back the waters above the dome. Our spoken words create the organizational consensus that holds back the waters below the dome.
0075 No, Walton does not discuss these matters. He writes in 7815 U0′, without awareness of the hypothesis of the first singularity.
God’s craftsman-like creation of Adam andEve are not what they seem to be to the modern materialist.
Plainly speaking, Genesis makes archetypal, not material, claims.
0077 “Archetype” is a wonderful word. It is a composite of arche- (original) and -type (imprint).
0078 If “original” and “imprint” are two real elements, then there must be a contiguity.
Here is the hylomorphe.
Figure 20
0079 Ah, proposition six starts to make more sense. The scientific ambiguity of the Hebrew term, “adam”, resolves when Adam, the original, is contiguous with adam, the human species. But, adam is not really “the human species (generally)”. Adam is us (in particular). We are human2.
Now, God fashions Adam from the dust of the earth, producing the following hylomorphe.
Figure 21
0080 The esse_ce of Adam is dust. The essence of Adam is the preceding hylomorphe, which I call, “Adam”.
0081 This complex hylomorphe is the actuality2 in a category-based nested form.
What is the normal context3?
The key Hebrew word is ysr, which I write as “yeser“.
What is the potential1?
One lesson underpinning God’s yeser3 is found in Genesis 3:19. Adam is dust and to dust he will return. But, the potential is also described by God breathing into Adam’s nostrils, bringing Adam to life.
0082 Consequently, the corresponding nested form contains a wide, bifurcated potential, including both mortality and receiving God’s breath, which sounds, to me, like body and soul.
Figure 22
0083 God makes the woman from adam’s side or rib. Even is later called mother of all living.
Here is the hylomorphe.
Figure 23
0084 Needless to say, the woman is more complicated than the man.
0085 What does this imply?
Genesis 2.4-5 presents a view of woman that is far more mature, insight-filled and sophisticated than reductionist modern ideological treatments.
0086 Remember, modern feminism ignores human biology. Modern feminism denies human nature. Modern feminism rejects the inherent relationality of the woman as the nexus of the family. Modern feminism relies on spoken words to “name” the realities that they promote. They rely on sovereign power to implement these named realities. This behavior is discussed in How To Define the Word “Religion”.
Perhaps, a category-based treatment of the family is a good place to start the inquiry that will replace every wave of modern feminism. A Primer on the Family, as well as The First and The Second Primers on the Organization Tier offer starting points for further inquiry. The family is one of the few organizations that belong to both the Lebenswelt that we evolved in and our current Lebenswelt.
0087 Thus, I come full circle, back to Walton’s eighth proposition.
On one hand, the fashioning of Adam and Eve is noumenal, not phenomenal. Science does not apply, directly.
On the other hand, the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the setting for the Genesis 2.4-4. The hypothesis of the first singularity is the only proposal, to date, explaining how our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. The first singularity starts with the Ubaid. Science applies.
In this regard, Adam and Eve are historical figures.
Their stories give scientists an insiders view of the realization of unconstrained social complexity in southern Mesopotamia.
The formation of Adam and Eve at the start of the Primeval History as a lot in common with otherorigin stories of the ancient Near East.
In short, they all are archetypal.
0089 I have already noted that the archetype works as a hylomorphe. “Arche-” means “original”. “-Type” means “imprint”. The contiguity is both individual and all.
The wordplay in Genesis is instructive. There are two real elements, a person (“Adam”) and all humans (“adam”). But, once “Adam” is created, then “adam” is not simply all humans. “Adam” is us, humans in our current Lebenswelt.
Here is a picture.
Figure 24
0090 “Us” means “all of us” means “all humans in our current Lebenswelt”.
Once Adam and Eve leave the Garden of Eden, there is no going back.
Similarly, once a culture adopts speech-alone talk, then they travel a one-way street to our current Lebenswelt.
This includes the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia, the first culture to practice speech-alone talk.
0091 The stories of Adam and Eve begin with a second creation of humans. This second creation is recent. There is no indication (except in the prior Creation Story) of humans living prior to the second creation. Perhaps, in the Garden of Eden, there are clues to a deep past. But, the storyteller cannot see past the first singularity. The storyteller cannot envision the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
0092 Walton considers eleven literary works from the ancient Near East. They appear on cuneiform tablets, as noted earlier. These works come from Sumer, Akkad and Egypt. Each tells the origin of humans.
They all have one feature in common. They cannot see far back in time. The creation of humans is a recent affair, performed by fully differentiated gods, often using tools in an organizational framework. For example, some stories tell of humans springing like plants from the soil.
0093 Why do all the origin stories of the ancient Near East, including the Primeval History in Genesis, portray a recent creation of humans?
Such is the nature of the first singularity.
Once a hand-speech talking culture adopts speech-alone talk, or comes into contact with a culture practicing speech-alone talk, it tends to drop the hand-component of its hand-speech talk. The semiotic qualities of speech-alone talk are radically different than hand-talk, so cultural memories held in hand-speech talk traditions are soon forgotten. It only takes a few generations.
0094 The Ubaid loses its memory of the cultures that fused to create it. Similarly, the Akkadians and the Egyptians, early adopters of speech-alone talk, cannot remember their once-timeless hand-speech talk traditions. Those old traditions don’t make sense. They don’t translate into speech-alone talk. So, features are dreamily re-configured in order to depict what must have happened.
Why does the name of the Egyptian wise man, “Adapa”, sound like the name of the first human in Genesis, “Adam”? There are many weird coincidences between the eleven origin stories that Walton discusses and the stories in Genesis 1-11. These coincidences point to fluid conditions, where storytellers attempt to codify events and processes that are (1) evolutionarily recent, (2) unpredictably novel and (3) utterly confounding.
Speech-alone talk potentiates unconstrained social complexity. Labor and social specialization spontaneously manifest, for no apparent reason. Innovations cannot be rationalized, so they must be gifts from the gods. What human, in right mind, would invent the wheel or writing or irrigation or ziggurats? They are all spontaneously created as speech-alone words produce artifacts and the produced artifacts validate the meanings of the spoken words. How crazy is that? Er… I should ask… how stable is that?
0095 In contrast, the hand-speech talking cultures of the North American Plains Indians and the Australian Aborigineshave memories in deep time. The dance circles and the dreamtime are timeless hand-speech talk traditions.
But, like all previous hand-speech talking cultures who encounter civilization, these cultures are rapidly losing the hand-component of their hand-speech talk. These cultures are adopting speech-alone talk. They are now immersed in speech-alone talking civilizations, whose members imagine that, because they are wealthier (labor specialization) and more powerful (social specialization), they represent a superior way of life.
The New Testament addresses Adam and Eve as archetypes.
0097 Five passages in the New Testament explicitly mention Adam and Eve.
0098 In Luke 3, Adam is an individual, the founder of the line of Seth, that leads into the line of Noah, then the line of Abraham, then the line of David.
0099 In Paul’s letters to the Corinthians and the Romans, Adam is both an individual and all of us. The contiguity, however, is now entangled in fallenness. Fallen Adam is the original. Fallen us is the imprint.
Figure 25
0100 Even though this hylomorphe has the structure of an archetype, the qualifier of “fallen” specifies the archetype as a primordial image. The individuality of Adam becomes far more important. The all-ness of the fall becomes far more real. This raises the question of the historical Adam. This also raises the question of how the fall is transmitted from Adam to all of us.
Adam and Eve are both archetypal and real people who lived in the past.
This proposition follows from both the archetype as hylomorphe and the fall as a condition. If Adam is the original fallen one, and if we are the imprint of Adam’s fallenness, then we wonder, “How could this have happened?”
The contiguity, [individual, all], does not seem adequate.
So, how does the hylomorphe work?
0102 Paul does not completely escape this issue, since he raises the question of conditions between Adam and Moses in Romans 5. He seems to answer that the hylomorphe works because Adam broke God’s explicit commandment and this infraction establishes that God has explicit commandments, whether we are aware of them or not. Thinkers in the Second Temple Period wrestle with these questions, I suppose, because the Jewish establishment is heavily invested in elucidating and proclaiming commandments found in the Pentateuch and proposing (or offering) ways around them (if you get my drift). If there are 600 commandments to be found, then certainly their (often illiterate) clients do not know them.
0103 Three hundred years later, Saint Augustine comes up with a far better way to explain the contiguity between fallen Adam and fallen us. We are directly descended from Adam and Eve. Unlike Paul’s solution, Augustine’s explanation turns out to be fully scientific, because it is fully debunked by the discipline of genetics seventeen centuries later.
Walton says that genetics debunking Augustine’s proposal is irrelevant, since Adam and Eve are archetypes. However, as noted above, Adam may be archetypal without raising scientific questions, but when fallen Adam is archetypal, scientific questions cannot be avoided.
0104 Happily, another solution comes from (what I jokingly call) Augustine’s corrected proposal, which provides a parallel hylomorphe in the field of science.
Figure 26
0105 To me, Augustine’s corrected proposal is to be preferred to Walton’s waving the word, “archetype”, all over the place.
0106 In order to shore up his argument ,Walton presents an example of another biblical figure who is archetypal and a real person in history.
Paul discusses Mechizedek in Hebrew 5-7. He mixes information about Melchizedek in Genesis 14, rhetoric about Melchizedek as a theological-political prototype of Jerusalem-based rulership, and speculative Jewish theology. He presents Melchizedek as an archetype for Christ as priest and king.
Here is a picture.
Figure 27
0107 Yes, Walton’s argument about Melchizedek and archetype works.
Adam is created to be a priest in a sacred space. Eve is created to be Adam’s helper.
0109 Yes, Walton capitalizes on his success in applying the archetype to Melchizedek.
However, Walton is not aware of the hypothesis of the first singularity.
0110 Here is a comparison of two hylomorphes, one biblical and one scientific.
Figure 28
0111 This comparison turns Walton’s thesis on its head. The world of Adam and Eve is not lost. The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is.
Adam and Eve are memorialized as a fairy tale, placed in Scripture because it has been part of the Jewish tradition for as long as anyone can remember. Even longer!
0112 The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the site where speech-alone talk unconstrains social complexity. Two hand-speech talking Neolithic cultures coalesce, driven together by the rising waters of the Persian Gulf. The result is a speech-alone talk creole, with radically different semiotic properties than hand-speech talk. It is no accident that the Sumerian language is unrelated to any family of languages.
We know that purely symbolic speech-alone talk potentiates unconstrained social complexity. Plus, we know that complexity may build or self-destruct. There is no way for us to know what really happened. We only are certain that, today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.
0113 Walton’s treatment of the stories of Adam and Eve suddenly have relevance, in a way hitherto unimagined.
0114 Now, I get technical.
Speech-alone talk consists of two arbitrarily related systems of differences, parole (speech act) and langue (associated mental act). We think that we can define a spoken word. We cannot. We can only project meaning, presence and message into that word. So, we project langue into parole. When we hear someone utter that parole, our projections are confirmed.
01151 What does this imply?
Each spoken word is a placeholder in a system of differences.
Spoken words can be regarded in terms of diagrammatic systems of differences, such as the Greimas square, pictured here.
Figure 29
0116 Walton says that Adam and Eve are “priests” in a sacred space.
So, the focal word, A, is “priest”.
The contrast word, B, is “king”.
The opposition to B and complement to A, C, must have something do to with running the garden. Yes, a priest or king could name the animals and fall in love with Eve, but what about that commandment? A priest follows God’s commandments. A king is sovereign. A king makes the rules.
So C, the contradiction to B and complement to A, is “someone who follows the rules”.
And D, the contrast to C, the opposition to A and the complement of B, is “someone who makes the rules”.
Here is a picture.
Figure 30
0117 Besides showing that the Greimas square is a powerful tool, the challenge posed by God’s commandment not to eat the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil becomes more palpable. Adam can be priest, but not king.
Now, Walton does not know this. Walton does not know that the hypothesis of the first singularity changes the waters belowhis discussion.
0118 This brings me back to Melchizedek.
In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, hand-speech talk can not fully differentiate the roles of priest and king.
However, hand-speech can easily denote someone who is both priest and king. For example, in tribal gatherings, carrying the laurel branch may designate what we would call, both “priest” and “king”. One can picture and point to the laurel branch and the one carrying the laurel branch.
In hand-speech talk, the referent defines the gestural word (parole) and the result (langue) is an intuitive awareness of the referent’s matter and form. For the one carrying the laurel branch,whatwe call “priest” corresponds to esse_ce and what we call “king” corresponds to essence.
0119 In Genesis 14, Abram pays tribute to someone who transcends the differentiation of the roles of priest and king.
The account of the Fall is shaped by the broader cognitive environment of which Israel is part.
Israel’s account is full of profound differences and quizzical similarities to the origin stories of the ancient Near East.
0121 Walton considers the motif of trees in sacred spaces in Genesis 2.4-4 and in extrabiblical stories of the ancient Near East. He wrestles with the literary nature of the texts, the theological significance of the stories, as well as the civilizational background, which ties back to the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia.
Walton does not know of the hypothesis of the first singularity. Walton is not aware that the Ubaid is the first culture to practice speech-alone talk. He does not know that spoken words form systems of differences, so words may be regarded as placeholders in a symbolic order.
0122 As noted earlier, the Greimas square is one way to tease out the system of differences holding any particular word in place.
The Greimas square suggests that there should be four trees, as shown below.
Figure 32
0123 Two trees are missing, the tree of death (B) and the tree of innocence (C).
This is not a new idea, consider Looking at Mark Smith’s Book (2019) “The Genesis of Good and Evil”, appearing in January 2022 in the blog at www.raziemah.com.
0124 Walton calls the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “the tree of wisdom”.
If that is so, why not call the tree, “the tree of wisdom”, in the first place?
Clearly, the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is not wisdom.
From the point of view of the ancient Near East, the Genesis serpent would be a chaos creature.
0126 Here is a question raised by a dead pharaoh.
How should I handle a snake while on my migration back to the source?
The pyramid texts of Egypt offer an answer.
Tell it to lie down.
0127 On the one hand, the serpent in Genesis has no legs. As the saying goes, “It doesn’t have a leg to stand on.”
On the other hand, the serpent has no hands or arms. Consequently, it cannot communicate in hand talk. It must practice speech-alone talk.
0128 Isn’t that a coincidence?
The Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia is the first culture to practice speech-alone talk.
The Ubaid stands at the threshold of our current Lebenswelt.
0129 The serpent talks like a lawyer. The serpent is subtle, wily, cunning, shrewd and calculating. The serpent does not lie. The serpent fashions his spoken words so they lie for him. How many careers are built on that expertise?
0130 The serpent may be more than a chaos creature. The serpent may serve as a metaphor for any person who makes a living by speech-alone.
0131 This job is never open in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, since hand talk (and for humans, hand-speech talk) is grounded in the natural signs of icons and indexes. Hand-speech words are always regarded as obvious, since they picture and point to their referents. There is no opportunity to make a living by stating the obvious.
0132 In our current Lebenswelt, spoken words are not so obvious. So, many can make a living out of turning practical molehills into rhetorical mountains. Serpents are everywhere. Today, the easiest way to encounter them is to watch corporate television, especially the channel of the Syndicated Noble Alliance of Kind Experts (SNAKE). Some call this dragon, the Confusing Common People channel.
0133 Here is a hylomorphe, in case you are drawn into the… um… temptation to engage.
Figure 33
0134 At this point, Walton’s humble portrait takes on a different hue.
Do the early chapters of Genesis offer an insider’s view of the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia?
Is the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia one of the most fascinating historical periods?
0135 Science knows what happens. The villages of the Ubaid consolidate around 0 U0′. The town-chiefdoms of the Uruk are clearly present around 1800 U0′. Then, the Sumerian Dynastic starts around 2800 U0′. Each archeological period is more “advanced” than the preceding one.
Furthermore, the hypothesis of the first singularity proposes that the adoption of speech-alone talk by the Ubaidpotentiates unconstrained social complexity.
0136 But, that is all that science can say.
It cannot tell how the drama plays out from the inside.
Genesis 1-11 tells us.
From the inside, it is theodrama, from start to finish.
0137 Genesis 1-11 covers all three archaeological periods, not from the outside, but from the inside. Adam and Eve point to the Ubaid. Noah’s flood points to the Uruk, where there is a break in one of the famous king lists. The tower of Babel addresses the Sumerian Dynastic.
0138 The serpent is more than a chaos creature.
The serpent is a player in the theodrama of our current Lebenswelt.
Adam and Eve admit disorder into the cosmos, by choosing to make themselves the center of their… um… universe.
Proposition sixteen?
We currently dwell in a world of non-order, order and disorder.
0140 John Walton pursues a plain-speaking question.
What is the cultural, literary and theological context of the text of Genesis, the lost world of Adam and Eve?
0141 The world of Adam and Eve is lost in three ways.
0142 First, the world of Genesis 2.4-11 is buried, literally.
The Ubaid, Uruk and Sumerian Dynastic periods are revealed through archaeological excavations. Archaeologists systematically excavate tells (hills) in the Middle East. Often, they purchase ancient objects found during fly-by-night excavations. Either way, perhaps a million cuneiform tablets (written on clay, fired into brick) have been uncovered. A few of these tables contain stories that are very similar (yet, at the same time, very different) to the biblical stories.
0143 Second, the world of the stories of Adam and Eve is remembered, by rote, for thousands of years in a living tradition. Not a word of Scripture can be changed, because that would be a violation of the written text. Prior to that, not a word of the oral tradition holding the Genesis stories could be changed, because someone would notice.
However, what the words are really describing, passes into a blank screen. That is the nature of speech-alone words. We project meanings, presences, and messages into spoken words. What happens when we forget the original potentials? The writers of the Second Temple Period wrestle with such loss.
0144 Third, the world of Adam and Eve sinks into the chaos of the world outside of the Garden of Eden.
According to Walton, the Garden is a priestly realm of Edenic order. The serpent is an agent of chaos. The created pair, fashioned out of dust and rib, choose to make themselves into the masters of this divinely-appointed order.
0145 Walton calls the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, “the tree of wisdom”.
What does that imply?
Do Adam and Eve pluck the fruit of that tree because they see it as a source of wisdom?
Or is something else going on?
0146 Ironically, that fruit turns out to be a claim to ownership of a previously established order.
Indeed, Eve consults the serpent, who obviously makes its living through speech-alone talk, about the consequences of eating from “the tree of wisdom”. The serpent does not mention the downside. The serpent does not say that current accommodations will be lost.
The serpent suggests, “The wisdom from this tree is your opportunity to take control of this joint.”
Is that what Eve wants to hear?
The scenario is even worse.
The serpent suggests, “The fruit of this tree will make you as smart as the founder, the one who set up the rules in the first place, and you will be the one who defines good and evil.”
For Eve, the deal sounds even better.
0147 Unbeknownst to Walton, the hypothesis of the first singularity asks us to look at this scenario as an insight into the way that our current Lebenswelt works, straight from the beginning.
It asks us to see how lessons from these stories apply to our own Lebenswelt.
Social systems carry the wisdom of prior generations. These social systems are framed in spoken words. These words lose their meanings, presences and messages as the current generations game the system. Then, the social systems do not make sense, because they cannot deliver order, because they’ve been gamed, by people who make their living only through speech-alone talk. Future generations seek consultants, who offer fruits of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. People fall in love with empty promises. Then, the systems fail and order is truly lost.
