08/11/23

Looking at Glenn Diesen’s Book (2019) “The Decay … And Resurgence…”  (Part 15 of 21)

0131 Perhaps, this is a good place to plug Comments On Daniel Estulin’s Book (2021) “2045 Global Projects At War”,available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  Just as Diesen constructs a theoretical apparatus (which here, turns into a Greimas square), Estulin looks at current affairs through the prism of global projects (which, in the comments, turn into interscopes).  A comparison of Diesen’s and Estulin’s books (with this examination and the plugged commentary in mind) would serve as a great senior-level college project.

0132 I offer this plug as a distraction to what comes next.

There seems to be a paradox.

How can the season for political liberalism be winter and the season for economic liberalism be summer?

0133 Winter for the grand idea (in the former case, sovereignty, D) occurs when the manifestation (pluralism, A) no longer constrains the destruction unleashed by gesellschaft (bigilibism, B) upon gemeinschaft (traditionalists labeled as deplorable throwbacks to a bygone era, C).  Balance between gesellschaft (B) and gemeinschaft (C) is win-lose or lose-win or lose-lose.

Figure 42

0134 Summer for a grand idea (in the latter case, geoeconomics, D) occurs when the manifestation (unrestrained economic liberalism, A) productively yokes gesellschaft (unfettered financial capitalism, B) and gemeinschaft (people who work for a living, C).  Balance between gesellschaft (B) and gemeinschaft (C) is win-win.

Figure 43

0135 To me, it seems that these two figures are at odds.

Yet, Diesen’s concept of seasons provides a clue to a resolution.

The win-win of unfettered financial capitalism includes, at first, people who work for a living.  By the time that autumn approaches, a significant fraction of the West’s capital resides in the hands of a small number of elites.  At first, people who work earn enough to own an automobile and a house.  By the end of the season, people who work take out loans in order to “own” an automobile and a house.  People who work live in a debt trap.

The economic story of the West is complicated.  Here is one version of the story, in a nutshell.  

The continual enlargement of central governments (in Tokyo, Washington D.C. and Brussels) requires more spending than tax receipts, so these central authorities need to borrow money.  Central banks cooperate by keeping the interest rate artificially low, which allows governments to pay less interest for their borrowing.  It also puts more money into circulation.

On top of that, artificially low interest rates encourage financial players to borrow money at low cost to compete with worker’s savings.  Government-blessed money printing, plus ruthless competition by speculators, drives up the prices of necessities, so workers must borrow money, at high “market-based” interest rates, in order to achieve what savings once achieved.  

After fifty years of financial repression, bigilib elites privately own significant assets.  People with careers in corporations that borrow at artificially low interest rates have high salaries.  Corporate owners lobby for opening borders to desperately poor migrants in order to (1) not pay the salaries that deplorables need and (2) turn the migrants into debt slaves.

0136 So, at the end of the summer of geoeconomics, Diesen’s square looks like this.

Figure 44

0137 People with careers (that is, people working in protected markets such as law, medicine, state education and so forth) and migrants (who, presumably will join the deplorables in the debt trap after a generation or two) are the gemeinschaft that is cultivated by a gesellschaft of unfettered financial capitalists, along with their political, academic, and media shills.

I suppose that the plan is to use propaganda to turn the deplorables against the migrants in order to maintain both parties in the debt trap of financial capitalism.

0138 Unfortunately, I suspect that both the deplorables and the migrants will figure out the nefarious plan, as the autumn of geoeconomics begins.

The only people who remain clueless at the end of the summer of geoeconomics are the people with careers, requiring certification, who feel that their jobs are protected because of restrictions to market entry.

08/10/23

Looking at Glenn Diesen’s Book (2019) “The Decay … And Resurgence…”  (Part 16 of 21)

0139 Part four of Diesen’s book covers Russia, resurgent in the spring of neomodernism and the autumn of geoeconomics.

Russia, like any vigorous civilisation, is inclined to gemeinschaft.  However, encounters with the West motivates Russian leaders to prioritize gesellschaft, often to the extreme.  Diesen tells some history.

0140 Here is how I see his story.  It is sloppier than Diesen’s account.  But, it may do.

Russia establishes itself as a land-based power without land-based ships.  So, it’s mostly about horses until the Germans roll in with mechanical vehicles in the 1910s and 1940s.

St. Petersburg is constructed as Russia’s window to the West.

After Napoleon’s failed invasion, Russia is looking pretty good until something odd happens.  Russia tries to take Crimea from the decadent Ottoman Empire, only to find the British declaring war.

0141 Why do the British fight to protect to Ottoman Empire?

Well, it turns out that the Ottoman Empire owes the British banks the pound-equivalent of a decade’s worth of British industrial production.  The war is not about the integrity of the British Empire.  This war is about Russia inadvertently giving the Ottomans an excuse not to pay interest on their enormous debt.

Russia gets its military clock cleaned twice in the 1850s because of debt oppression in Turkey.

0142 (Incidentally, the so-called American “civil war” (1860-1864 AD) is another precocious example of unfettered financial capitalism.  The banks of the North (say, New York) loan Southern plantation owners so much money that repayment is not an option.  So, instead of surrendering their property, the Southern elites sign up their fellow citizens in a campaign to resolve the issue by breaking the Southern states away from the Northern states… er, I mean… the so-called “Union”.)

Historical parallels between America and Russia are unnerving in this regard.

In the mid to late 1800s, gesellschaft is in the air.  America frees the slaves of African descent.  Russia frees the serfs.  America sees the rise of corporate monopolies.  Russia sees the appearance of wealthy middle class farmers.  America sees the west as the new frontier.  Dostoyevski sees the east as Russia’s new frontier.

0143 In America, the Federal Reserve is created in 1913, right before America intervenes in the First Battle Among the Enlightenment Gods.  The Russian Revolution starts in 1918, as the Battle ends.

In the 1960s, during the Third Battle of the Enlightenment Gods, Western civilisation enters the winter of sovereignty and the summer of geoeconomics.

One third of the way into the winter of sovereignty, in 1989, the Soviet Union dissolves and America falls under the spell of Big Government (il)Liberalism.

In America, in 1988, George H. Bush, formerly head of the Central Intelligence Agency is elected president of the USA.  He reverses the Reagan revolution and sets a course for further growth of America’s federal government.

0144 What happens next?

Then, Bill Clinton is elected in 1992 (due to a third party candidate, Ross Perot, and the unpopularity of Bush) and um… here, the story gets foggy.  It is as if there is an information blockade on what happens to Russia during the Yeltsin years. What were Western financial capitalists up to?

Diesen is not really clear on this.  But, I bet the story is incredible, because a veritable nobody, Vladimir Putin, appears out of nowhere and foils… whatever the unfettered financial capitalists are doing.

0145 Well, if the British banks saddled the Ottoman Empire with enough debt that the gemeinschaft in Turkey could never repay, and if the New York banks saddled plantation owners with enough debt that the Southern gemeinschaft had to be called to war, then I imagine that the former Republics of the Soviet Union receive similar advice, from Western “money managers”, about how to manage their sovereign properties.  Surely, Russian leaders could borrow… um… enormous sums… to um… keep the economy going.

0146 When the gesellschaft lend money to the gemeinschaft, or when the gesellschaft take out loans in the name of the gemeinschaft, then the gemeinschaft become slaves to those debts.

What is loaning a person or a sovereign so much money that the loan can never be repaid by that person or the people?

The answer is “immoral”.

08/9/23

Looking at Glenn Diesen’s Book (2019) “The Decay … And Resurgence…”  (Part 17 of 21)

0147 Well, after the last two blogs, I have a better appreciation how the winter of sovereignty and the summer of geoeconomics coincide for the West.

Plus, I have taken a step closer to understanding Diesen’s concluding proposition.

The deplorables (and the about-to-be debt-ridden migrants) of the West will see a political spring in Russia even as the West experiences an economic autumn in geoeconomics.

0148 Diesen portrays the new spring for sovereignty as Eurasian neomodernism.

Here is how I associate Diesen’s argument with his Greimas square.

Figure 45

0149 Sovereignty (D) continues as a theme into the next civilizational cycle.

Its manifestation (A) is a new style of pluralism, which Diesen calls “Eurasian neomodernism”.

Perhaps, another alternate label is “neo-modern diversity”.

0150 Recall, for the winter of sovereignty in the West, “diversity” replaces pluralism, even as it negates it.  Pluralism is pragmatic.  People have different views, pluralism accepts this fact and strives to reach compromise.  Diversity inverts pluralism.  People appear different, but they all end up… um… the same.  They all end up compromised.

Compromised?

What if the only acceptable “compromise” coincides with big government providing the appearance of individual autonomy, while maintaining regulatory control?  Then, various proponents of organizational objectives work together in a hydra-headed alliance of gesellschaft factions.  Each institution within the alliance is effectively a religion, because its organizational objective emerges from (and situates) its own righteousness.  Big Government (il)Liberalism is a congregation of secular religions.

0151 Yet, none of these religions are “religious” (meaning, Christian factions).  So, by insisting on a narrow definition of the term, “religion”, the American federal government does not violate the Enlightenment mandate for the separation of church and state.

At the same time, BG(il)L, as a “not religious” religion (B), conspires to repress gemeinschaft (C), whose tradition includes the belief that God creates all things.

America’s current war between gesellschaft and gemeinschaft expresses itself as Judeo-Pagans (B) versus Judeo-Christians (C).

For the USA, one difficulty for the bigilibs (B) is that the Judeo-Christians (C) have guns.

0152 How does Russian neo-modern diversity differ from American bigilib diversity?

Diesen maintains that, given the fact that pluralism is dead and that some people’s “compromise” means “we always win”, an adult is required to supervise.  This adult must be pragmatic.  Plus, this adult must be ruthless in stopping fights before “compromise” is attained.

How can the task of neo-modern gesellschaft (B) be accomplished?

This adult must rely on a philosophical tradition that allows pragmatism.  For Russia, this philosophical tradition is Orthodox Christianity, tempered by the experiences of seven decades of communist rule.   For China, the philosophical tradition is Maoism, now tempered by the experiences of five decades of communist rule and increasingly open to Confucian philosophy.  For Iran, the philosophical tradition belongs to the Shia religion.  In India, the philosophical tradition is Hindu, tempered by decades of independence from British rule, yet celebrating the rule of law that British rule fleetingly imposed.

0153 So, what is the difference between neo-modern diversity (A) and bigilib diversity (A)?

The gesellschaft of bigilib (B) is fundamentally incoherent and inhumane, because the central state implements organizational objectives on the basis of a congregation of “not religious” religious righteousnesses.

The gesellschaft of neomodern diversity (B) is fundamentally custodial, pragmatic and supervising, like a parent that keeps an eye on the children.

0154 The gemeinschaft (C) intuitively sense the difference.

At the end of the summer of American geoeconomics (D), people with careers and migrants (C) are doing fine.  Citizens who work for a living (C) are increasingly slaves to their debts.  The economic system is rigged against them.

In the winter of American sovereignty (D), people who believe in God, Judeo-Christians (C) are under assault by a hydra-headed beast (B), demanding to indoctrinate their children in public schools and to take affirmative action against them according to the labels that the bigilib gesellschaft attach to them.  Bigilibs cannot compromise.  They only “compromise”.

Every word uttered by American Judeo-Pagans rewires vocabulary and cultivates alternate meanings, presences and messages to long-held traditional definitions.  Only the “educated” can keep up with the trends.

08/8/23

Looking at Glenn Diesen’s Book (2019) “The Decay … And Resurgence…”  (Part 18 of 21)

0155 Is the difference between bigilib and Diesen’s neomodernist “diversity” (A) subtle?

Regulatory control (B) for BG(il)L diversity (A) aims to eradicate gemeinschaft (C), in order to replace it with novel traditions, concocted by intellectuals.

In contrast, regulatory control (B) for Eurasian neomodernist diversity (A) aims to preserve gemeinschaft (C), not to eradicate the old and replace it with something concocted by intellectuals.  However, Russia, China, Iran and India (and, probably Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria and Egypt along with southeast Asia and Africa and South and Central America) face a problem.  During the autumn and winter of sovereignty for the West, ideological gesellschaft, in the forms of communism, fascism and ad-hoc brands of (il)liberalism, significantly impact the communities, traditions and sensibilities that premodern gemeinschaft hold dear.  Yet, the flame of tradition is not extinguished.

0156 The first two paragraphs of chapter nine of Diesen’s book sets forth a scenario where an internal proletariat(gemeinschaft) of one civilisation finds common cause with the external rulers (gesellschaft) of a peripheral civilization,because the foreign gesellschaft does not belittle or disempower the gemeinschaft of its own jurisdiction.

0157 Why don’t Americans know what happened in Russia between 1989 and 2000?

Is there a blockade on information?

0158 To an American deplorable in 2023, the fact that Putin has not allowed the hyenas of Western financial capitalism to buy up Russian assets at discount prices and repackage them for sale to institutional investors compares well to the fact that, during the presidencies of George H Bush and Bill Clinton, the jackals of Western financial capitalism bought up factories throughout America and repackaged them to ship the jobs to communist China.  In America, financial speculators left their fellow citizens destitute.  Now, the same deep-pocket speculators purchase time on corporate broadcast media to run ads about their charitable activities.  What hypocrites.

0159 What of the European?

The European yellow-vested deplorable can look to peripheral civilizations like America (the putrid source of BG(il)L and the inspiration of the bureau-sclerotic European Union), Islam (where science was not born, when it could have been) and to Russia (the butt-end of feverish corporate propaganda campaigns paid for by financial speculators who would benefit from acquiring the properties opened by a collapse of Russian sovereignty).

0160 Remember when the old Soviet regime built walls to keep their people (gemeinschaft, C) from escaping to the West?

Now, a reverse migration may take place.

The former Soviet citizen has the option to go back to church and mosque.  Even though Putin appears ruthless to his political enemies, he stopped the Western-colluding oligarchs from plundering Russia (oh, except for the Ukraine, which is another story entirely).  Russia has not suffered a Western oligarch-financed color revolution (oh, once again, except for the Ukraine).

Russia remains a sovereign nation.

Who knows about the Ukraine?

Rumor has it that the largest lifetime donor to the American BG(il)L Clinton Foundation is a Ukrainian oligarch.

0161 So, I wonder.Could Diesen’s proposal (see point 0147) apply to the ends of the winter of sovereignty and the summer of geoeconomics in the West?

08/7/23

Looking at Glenn Diesen’s Book (2019) “The Decay … And Resurgence…”  (Part 19 of 21)

0162 The deplorables (and the about-to-be debt-ridden migrants) of the West will see, on their periphery, a political spring in Russia even as they enter an autumn in geoeconomics.

Consequently, only two Diesen Greimas squares can be formulated at this moment.

0163 One is the autumn of geopolitics for the West, which looks fine in you manage to get a certificate from a university for a profession with market restrictions.  Otherwise, you live in the shadows of creditors.  These creditors also (almost by coincidence) own the few remaining supply chains.

Here is a picture for the continuing decay of Western economic statescraft (A).

Figure 46

0164 The other is the spring of sovereignty in Eurasia, where supervising authorities work to preserve gemeinschaft (while keeping a watchful eye on gesellschaft).  Remember the children of Absu and Tiamat?  The supervising authorities do not want to encourage the growth of a gesellschaft that will destroy its gemeinschaft.

Here is a picture of the spring of neo-modern diversity in Eurasia (A).

Figure 47

0165 Although Diesen cannot predict the future, by the time that his book concludes, the author paints in all the elements of the title, The Decay of Western Civilisation and the Resurgence of Russia.

08/4/23

Looking at Glenn Diesen’s Book (2019) “The Decay … And Resurgence…”  (Part 20 of 21)

0166 Does Diesen’s Greimas square work allow the inquirer to imagine civilisational cycles preceding the most recent cycle?

What civilisations are around before the civilisational cycle of political pluralism?

Here is a picture of the current cycle.

Figure 48

Note how the time scale has changed from Anno Domini to Ubaid Zero Prime.

0 U0′ roughly corresponds to the consolidation of the Ubaid culture in southern Mesopotamia.

7823 years ago, the Ubaid is the only culture practicing speech-alone talk and all surrounding Neolithic cultures rely on hand-speech talk (the way of talking since the first anatomically modern humans).

According to Razie Mah’s masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall, the adoption of speech-alone talk potentiates unconstrained social complexity.

What does that imply?

Civilisational cycles commence with the first singularity.

0167 If the recent cycle in Western civilisation is any indication of timing, cycles tend to complete every 400 or 500 years.

Weirdly, such timing corresponds to the progressions of Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions through any three consecutive zodiac signs.  Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions occur roughly every 20 years.  Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions in any given sign occur every 60 years, with each conjunction advancing around 13 degrees.  So, a conjunction at, say 0 degrees Aquarius, in 2020, will occur in Aquarius again in 2080, at 13 degrees, then in 2140, at around 26 degrees, then in Pisces around 10 degrees in 2200, then at 23 degrees Pisces in 2260, then in 6 degrees Aries in 2320, 19 degrees Aries in 2380 and around 1 degree Taurus in 2440.

Say what?

Saturn-Jupiter conjunctions start in Aquarius in 2020 and leave Aries, three signs later, around 2440.  That is 420 years.

Well, the idea is weird for moderns, but for the ancients, the celestial sphere works like a clock.  I may call that clock, “the celestial Earth”.  I may also call it, “the celestial half of Tiamat”.

0168 With this in mind, consider Diesen’s recollection of a written origin story of the ancient Near East (located in chapter 2, see points 0041-0060).

As a thought experiment, let me propose that this story covers the second civilizational cycle of an archaeological period in Mesopotamia, occupying a time frame similar to Western civilisation’s seasons of sovereignty, but shifted back 7400 years.

0169 Here is a list of seasons for A, the civilisational manifestation.

Figure 49

0170 Why the second cycle?

0171 Absu (B), the father and order, is already separated, as gesellschaft, from Tiamat (D), the mother and chaos, who is the theme of the cycle.  To me, this implies that the story tells of a second cycle, occurring in a hand-speech talking culture outside of the Ubaid, after it adopts speech-alone talk in imitation of the Ubaids.

0172 The Ubaid forms on the edges of the newly-filled Persian Gulf.  The Ubaid practices a speech-alone talking creole.  They speak (what we will later call) the Sumerian language, which is not related to any family of languages.  Adjacent hand-speech talking cultures are influenced by the increasing wealth (labor specialization) and power (social specialization) of their speech-alone talking neighbor.

0173 In order to imitate the Ubaid culture, neighboring Neolithic folk drop the hand-talk component of their hand-speech talk.  The timeless shamans resist.  Yet, certain factions insist on not using their hands anymore while talking.  These factions are able to identify, in speech, certain terms that cannot be performed in hand talk.  They identify Absu, the father, who compares favorably with the increasingly underperforming shamans.  Well, the shamans underperform only when compared to the Ubaid, who trade mats, woven from reeds, for permission to chop down the trees in the area.

By the end of the first cycle, the culture living in the shadow of the Ubaid differentiates Absu (B) as gesellschaft and Tiamat (D), not as gemeinschaft, but as the theme, chaos.  What happened?  Well, the timeless shamans, who try to warn the folk and impede the adoption of speech-alone talk, are gone.  Everyone now practices speech-alone talk, in the family of (what we now call) the Semitic languages.

0174 In the spring of the second cycle, the manifestation of chaos (A) makes no impression.  Absu (the gesellschaft that destroyed the shamans, B) and Tiamat (the chaos once represented by the shamans, D) produce offspring (specialized groups within the folk, gemeinschaft (C) arising from gesellschaft (B)).  All this is made possible by the semiotics of speech-alone talk.

0175 In the summer of the second cycle, the offspring (various gemeinschafts (C) that increasingly fail to recognize Absu (B) as legitimate) murder Absu (B) and build a party-house on his grave (A).  I call it a “party house” because every chamber of the house has its own special attractions, its own special way of gossiping about everyone else, and its own exclusivity.  The chaos (D), attributed to the deceased shamans, slumbers as the different echo-chambers (C) talk about how they are going to do this or that (B).  All the gemeinschafts (C) conspire to promote their own gesellschafts (B) above the one who can never return to life, the murdered Absu.

0176 In the autumn of the second cycle, the echo-chambers (B and C) are increasingly at odds with one another.  The squabbling and politicking stirs Tiamat from her slumber (D).  Politics with hand-speech talk was never as loud or as noisy as the jabbering and the posturing in speech-alone talk.  The folk are disordered, disunited and dismayed.

From within the gemeinschaft (C), a movement is afoot, saying, “Let us return to the ways of the timeless shamans.”  But, there is a problem.  There is no way to return to the ways before speech-alone talk because all the timeless shamans are dead.  They have been dead for many conjunctions of the slowest of the wandering stars.  How can we, the gemeinschaft, call them back from the…

Oh! What about Kino?  Kino can channel the chaos of Tiamat.  Kino can create a new world powered by the newly awakened Tiamat!

Who will respond to that monster, Kino, the one that all the echo-chambers are worried about?

All the little gods of the already shaken party palace search for a hero, a gesellschaft, capable of re-establishing their prerogatives. 

0177 In the winter of the second cycle, a hero for diverse gesellschaft steps forward and does battle with Kino.  In the year of 823 U0′, no one knows who will win.

0178 Today, while reading a handful of cuneiform tablets recovered from the ruins of an ancient library, we know.

Marduk wins.  Marduk establishes the pantheon, the gesellschaft (B) that conquers chaos (D).

Plus, Kino’s defeat is significant to us.  From the blood of the ruined Kino (C), Marduk (B) makes humans.  Marduk fashions us from the blood of a gemeinschaft trying to return to the original justice of the timeless shamans.

Plus, Tiamat’s final fate is significant to all creation.  From the corpse of the conquered Tiamat (D), Marduk fashions the sky-bearing face of the celestial Earth and the earth-bearing face of the mundane Earth.  The heavens and the earth, the celestial Earth and mundane Earth, look upon one another through the realm in which Marduk rules.  Marduk rules between heaven and earth.

0179 Here are the four seasons of the imagined second cycle, for a semitic-language-speaking culture neighboring the Ubaid, which is absorbed into the Uruk, before the Sumerian Dynastic.

The story that Diesen recounts remembers what cannot be remembered, that is, the tempestuous story of how we came to be.

Here is a list for gemeinschaft (C).

Figure 50
08/3/23

Looking at Glenn Diesen’s Book (2019) “The Decay … And Resurgence…”  (Part 21 of 21)

0180 Postmodernists recoil from grand narratives.

Yet, they embrace parlor games.

Perhaps, for their amusement, they may consider contemporary figures as stand-ins for the theodrama of the second civilisational cycle just imagined.

Or, they may ridicule the concept of a Plutonic year or the relevance of Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions as a clock on the Celestial Earth.

In their distraction, they ignore the grand narratives that Diesen’s time-honoring Greimas square potentiate.

Isn’t imagination what we need?

0181 In several points in this book, Diesen says that the Russian… well… even more broadly… the Eurasian resurgence needs an ideological vision that organizes gesellschaft.  The same statement-of-need is found other books on contemporary international politics.

In Comments on Daniel Estulin’s Book (2021) “2045 Global Projects At War” (available at smashwords and other e-book venues), the commentary concludes with a sequence of interscopes that prepare a vision for the Chinese Datun, the conclusion of and the start of an opening of the Celestial Heavens (occurring in the years 2044 and 2045, respectively).  This 2250 year cycle ties back to the passage of the first singularity through eastern Eurasia (now China), sometime after 1000 U0′.

The passage of the first singularity into northern Eurasia (now Russia) occurs around the same time, seeding the Kurgan culture, who tames horses and runs on wagons.  Later, these migrating chiefdoms flood into western Europe and northern India in an exercise in elite dominance.  The event is called “the Indo-European language expansion”.

The passage of the first singularity into western Eurasia winds through the Aegean, giving rise to late copper and bronze age civilizations.  Do monuments such as Stonehenge signify the last efflorescence of hand-speech talking cultures or the adoption of speech-alone talk?

The passage of the first singularity into the Indian subcontinent initiates the settlement of the Indus floodplain, giving rise to the Harappan civilization.

The passage of the first singularity through Persia, directly east of Mesopotamia, occurs much earlier, seeding the Susa culture, which rises and then is overwhelmed by the neighboring Uruk culture.  Doesn’t that sound like an original imprint for Iran, located at the crossroads of Eurasia?

0182 What am I saying?

I am interested in civilization.  The persistent question that arises in Razie Mah’s masterwork, An Archaeology of the Fall,is, “What potentiates civilisation?”

0183 The answer is the hypothesis of the first singularity.

This hypothesis calls for creative, interdisciplinary and altogether fantastic anthropological and archaeological inquiry into the potentiation of civilization throughout Eurasia (as well as the Americas).

What a research project!

Eurasia is home to the first civilisations, as well as early language expansions, such as the Indo-European and the Austronesian.

Eurasia is currently home to many distinct civilisations which, like Russia, are about to enter a new spring of sovereignty, as the summer of geoeconomics ends with the demise of the world’s reserve currency, shorter (and perhaps more expensive, but definitely more reliable) supply chains and respect for borders.

0184 Glenn Diesen is on target, in calling for a novel ideology, supporting neopragmatist approaches.

A research project based on the hypothesis of the first singularity responds to that call.

Likewise, Alexander Dugin is on target by envisioning a fourth political theory that is not a theory at all, but a pragmatic and tradition-cultivating being there.  Dasein!

To me, nothing conveys Dasein, better than the realization that our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.

Both Diesen and Dugin, in their own ways, call for a new imagination, one that addresses the gesellschafts of all Eurasian civilizations with a series of questions, asking, “Where does the world come from?  Where do humans come from?  What went wrong?  What is the solution?”

0185 Today, the natural and social sciences of the West are accepted by all the Eurasian civilisations, not as absolute truths, but as methods of inquiry.  They set the stage for the mind-boggling hypothesis of the first singularity.  But, because of their materialist and instrumental inclinations, they never proposed the obvious.  The human niche is not a material or instrumental condition.

The first tool of the intellect for our species, Homo sapiens, is hand-speech talk.

The second tool of the intellect for our species is speech-alone talk.

Ten thousand years ago, all Paleolithic, Epipaleolithic, Mesolithic and Neolithic cultures practice hand-speech talk.

Today, all civilizations practice speech-alone talk.

The transition from the Lebenswelt that we evolved in to our current Lebenswelt is called the first singularity.

The first singularity begins with the Ubaid of southern Mesopotamia and spreads on the wings of mimicry.

0185 Keep that research project in mind.

Razie Mah offers, in his blog on the date of Oct 1, 2022, “A Fantasia in G minor: A Speech Written for Gunnar Beck, MEP”.  The “G” stands for Germany.  The “minor” stands for its location in the grand expanse of Eurasia.  The speech is intended to be read in the European Parliament, currently an expression of BG(il)Lism and vassal of… chuckle… American Judeo-Pagans.  But, in this speech, the Parliament is the stage for the declaration of something more important than the identity of the hidden operators behind the destruction of gas pipelines running beneath the Baltic Sea.  Gunnar Beck needs only to stand up and give a 15 minute speech that calls for an act of imagination.

0186 My thanks to Glenn Diesen for his interesting and provocative book.  I pray for his continued work in these challenging fields of inquiry.

07/31/23

Looking at Lesley Newson and Peter Richerson’s Book (2021) “A Story of Us” (Part 1 of 16)

0001 Lesley Newson and Peter J. Richerson research human evolution at the University of California, Davis.  Richerson is an early proponent of culture-gene co-evolution, back in the 1980s.  Since 2000, Newson tries to apply evolutionary theory to current rapid historical changes.

Perhaps, the first five chapters should be read with Richerson’s voice and the last three with Newson’s.  Also, various interludes, colored with a gray background, should be read with Newson’s voice.  These interludes contain acts of imagination.

0002 Acts of imagination?

In a book on human evolution?

What a surprise.

0003 To me, stylistic innovation is welcome.  Imagination is called for.  Razie Mah opens the curtains on the hypothesis of the first singularity with a work of imagination, titled, An Archaeology of the Fall.

0004 What about substance, in addition to style?

The full title of Newson and Richerson’s book is The Story of Us: A New Look at Human Evolution (Oxford University Press, New York).  The new look is stylistic, not substantive.  Indeed, much of this examination will entail a comparison of this text to a work of substantive innovation: Razie Mah’s The Human Niche, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

The Human Niche builds on four commentaries, also available for purchase.

Here is a list.

Comments on Clive Gamble, John Gowlett and Robin Dunbar’s Book (2014) Thinking Big

Comments on Derek Bickerton’s Book (2014) More than Nature Needs

Comments on Robert Berwick and Noam Chomsky’s Book (2016) Why Only Us?

Comments on Steven Mithen’s Book (1996) The Prehistory of Mind

0005 These commentaries, along with the masterwork, The Human Niche, and A Primer on Natural Signs compose the series, A Course on The Human Niche.

0006 What does this imply?

At the time of their writing, these authors are not aware of the substantive hypothesis contained in The Human Niche.

In reference 2 of chapter one of Newson and Richerson’s book, the authors list a dozen books, none of which are listed above.  This implies that Newson and Richerson, like so many of us, live and study in a cognitive bubble.

Their book is not a substantive new look at human evolution.  Rather, it is a new look in terms of style, compared to the books on their list in reference 2 of chapter one. 

07/28/23

Looking at Lesley Newson and Peter Richerson’s Book (2021) “A Story of Us” (Part 2 of 16)

0007 Newson and Richerson start their inquiry by asking, “What is it to be human?”

Does a scientific understanding of how our species evolved shed light on the question?

Scientists hope so.  Recently, torrents of new information about human evolution has been coming from geneticists and natural historians, including researchers interested in understanding the adaptive natures of women and children.  What were they up to during the past two million years?

Well, among other things, they were harnessing males to help them survive.  Surely, the family is evolutionarily ancient.  Plus, it complements mother-infant bonding.

0008 The new information does not further the notion of a gene-defined or an environment-based human nature.  For example, neither genes nor environment do good jobs in predicting how children will turn out.  One child may be resilient.  One child may be delicate.  Nevertheless, there are some consistencies.  Children connect to mom and dad.  Children connect to (and compete with) their siblings.  In short, children belong in a family.

0009 What may seem strange to say, at this moment, is that the family (among other things) is a purely relational structure that can be diagrammed using the category-based nested form.  Examples are found in A Primer on The Familyand The First and Second Primers on the Organization Tier, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0010 Imagine that.

Our genus adapts to the opportunities and dangers offered by purely relational structures.

As soon as one imagines the possibility, one recalls a story.  Stories are tools for thinking about what might have happened in our evolutionary history.  Archaeological evidence does not tell a story.  Rather, evidence renders certain stories as plausible and others as implausible.  So, the anthropologist’s task is to fashion a plausible story.  In this book, the gray-colored interludes attempt to present plausible tales.

0011 How can one fashion a plausible story with archeological evidence at hand?

Evidence serves as real, tangible actualities2 that inquirers can place into the normal context of archaeology3 and over the potential of ‘something relevant’1

What is relevant?

Well, a plausible story about us fits the bill.

If I follow the method in Razie Mah’s A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, I arrive at the following.

Figure 01

0012 Well, what about genetics?

Aren’t torrents of information about human evolution coming from genetics as well as natural history?

Okay, allow me to expand the picture.

Figure 02
07/27/23

Looking at Lesley Newson and Peter Richerson’s Book (2021) “A Story of Us” (Part 3 of 16)

0013 The normal context of evolution3 brings the actuality of genetics [and] archaeological evidence2 into relation with the potential of ‘a story about us (humans)’1.

What is going on with the “and” in brackets?

Actuality is the realm.  Secondness is the category.  Secondness contains two contiguous real elements.  These two elements are subject to the logics of contradiction and non-contradiction.  This is the logic that we typically think about when we hear the word, “logic”.  If an actuality is logical, the two real elements should agree, or at least, not disagree, and if they do disagree, we should be able to figure out the precise manner in which the disagreement occurs.

Here, the two real elements are genetics and archaeological evidence.  I place the contiguity in brackets.  Here, the contiguity is [and].  [And] is not exactly an evocative contiguity.  But, in earlier days, Richerson frames another term for [and].  The term is “co-evolves”.  Genes and culture coevolve.

0014 The result is two similar hylomorphic structures.  

Figure 03

0015 Both belong to the realm of actuality2 in the normal context of evolution3.  Both arise from the potential of ‘stories about us (humans)’1.

Figure 04

0016 In order to drive home where the evolution3 of our genus has brought us, the authors relate the story of Jemmy Button, a native of Tierra de Fuego in South America, who was captured (as a child) and brought to England, then grew up in England before returning to his native land (as an adult).  What a tale!  Jemmy grew accustomed to both cultures, implying that each one of us has a tremendous potential for cultural plasticity.

0017 It makes me wonder about the contiguity, [co-evolve].

Clearly, human DNA codes for brains of great plasticity, in addition to function, and this allows culture to inform our brains.  Jemmy Button could function as an Englishman and a native of Tierra de Fuego.  But, he has only one brain.

0018 This implies that I can expand on the previous category-based nested form in the following manner.

Instead of the normal context of evolution3, I can think in terms of the phenotype of brains (on a content level) that is situated by the adaptability of the same brains (on a situation level).  I imagine two normal contexts.  Body development3ais the normal context3 of the contenta level.  Sociality2b is the normal context3 for the situationb level.  So, sociality3avirtually situates body development3a.

For actuality, originally culture [co-evolves with] genes.  Now, [co-evolves] corresponds to a relation between the situation and content levels.  On the content level, genes become the dyad: DNA [codes for] brains2a.  On the situation level, culture becomes a dyad: culture [informs] brains2b.  Notably, in chapter one, Newson and Richerson describe culture as “shared information”.

For potential, originally the potential is ‘something relevant’1, which becomes ‘stories about us’1.  Now, ‘stories about us’1becomes a content-level ‘function or plasticity’1a and a situation-level ‘situating content’1b.  

0019 Here is a two-level interscope.  Interscopes are introduced in A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

Figure 05

0020 Now I can ask, “What exactly goes into the slot for potential1 on the situationb level?  What is ‘situating content’1b?”

Towards the end of chapter one, the authors are clear.  Their book intends to tell how our ancestors managed to harness culture2b.

I wonder, “Aren’t they putting the cart (of culture2b) in front of the horse (of ‘situating content’1b)?”