The nested formula for Menninger’s analysis up though Chapter 5 is crime(sin()), indicating that an element is missing and that element belongs to the realm of possibility.  Chapter 6 fills in the blank.  The title of the chapter is “Sin into Symptom”.

What makes “sin” possible?  Menninger considered several perspectives on “free will”, including the legalist, the moralist and the behavioralist.

Then he posed a question: What if a “sin” is unwittingly committed?

All of us are under the illusion that we are in control of ourselves.  But, what if our “voluntary” behaviors are – somehow – produced by “involuntary” processes (74-80)?

What appears to be “sin” may be a symptom.

The question is: A symptom of what?  An illness?  A syndrome?

Or could a symptom actually be a sign of a constructive response of an over- or under- stressed system?

Consider the sin – er, symptom – of “swearing”.  Swearing is a tension-relieving device.  As such, it may a healthy response to surprise or frustration.  When swearing is habitual, then it may be a symptom of an “as healthy as one can get” response to some chronic surprise or frustration (89).

Habitual swearing may be a coping mechanism for a greater problem, just like a crutch is a coping mechanism for difficulties with walking.

So a symptom may not be simply a sign of an “illness”.  It may be a sign of “coping with an illness”.

Where did this the cornerstone, er, buttonhole analogy come from?

An Archaeology of the Fall relies on a psychoanalyst who wrote at the same time as Menninger.  He was a “sinner” as well.  His name: Jacques Lacan.

Unlike Menninger, Lacan went to high school in France. He learned all about scholasticism (which, like all psychiatrists-to-be, he totally rejected).

However, according to The Premodern Condition by Bruce Holsinger (University of Chicago Press: 2005), Lacan did not purge what he learned.  Scholasticism re-emerged years later – as if a specter in a dream – from Lacan’s (now, psychoanalytically trained) unconscious.

Did Jacques Lacan unconsciously construct his theories while consulting the ghost of Thomas Aquinas.

How strange is that?

Two parts of the Progressive symbolic order, one falling in the domain of normal context and one falling in the domain of actuality, are “crime” and “political incorrectness”.

This may be written as: crime(political incorrectness()).

At this point, we are missing the part that falls into the domain of possibility.

An Archaeology of the Fall presents theory that applies to the social sciences.

Progressivism is a broad “language” that contains many specialized “languages”.

In 2012, many colleges offer degrees in these specialized disciplines, including criminology (covered in Chapter 5) and other social sciences (covered in Chapter 6).

Like a whirling machine with gears within gears, the entire system is in the process of lifting off as a set of social constructions that depends on world-defining but technically indefinable drivers, such as those that fill the buttonhole of “political incorrectness”.

Menninger observed a “substitution” of the designation “sin” by the designation “crime”.

From the approach of this blog, this “substitution” is better described as an emergence, according to a nested formula: crime(sin()).

This emergence most likely appeared before the turn of the 20^th century, before the eclipse of the taboo against masturbation and the decline of use of the word “sin”.

As of 1973, no substitute for the word “sin” had entered the lexicon.  The gap was filled with technical terms such as “deviancy” as well as pejorative accusations such as “racism” and “sexism” and “homophobia”.

As of 1993, the word “political incorrectness” became an umbrella term labeling these technical terms and pejoratives.

The nested formula: crime(political incorrectness()) partially answers Menninger’s title question.

Menninger’s hypothesis was that a recovery of the concept of “sin” could be a more effective deterrent than state control of “crime”.

He proposed his guess at the time when the term “sin” fell into disfavor.

Menninger thought that the word “crime” replaced “sins” in many instances.

The criminalization of “sin”, however, may have been a consequence of a breakdown among families, churches, communities and guilds in the face of unrelenting changes in communication and production.  Accusations of “sin” no longer were effective deterrents.

Advances in both “technologies of the intellect” and “modes of production” set the stage for the emergence of new symbolic orders, often with horrifying consequences.

The Public Cult of Progressivism in the United States, like previous Modern Cults, aims to regulate all aspects of human life in regards to political correctness.

Unfortunately, these regulations will be internally inconsistent (because all sorts of “buttons” fit into the buttonhole of “political correctness”).

People will not know how to respond to many conflicting demands and accusations of immorality.  Some will haphazardly find themselves subject to criminal prosecution, caught in a web of multiple rules.  Uncertainty will prevail.  Economic activity will falter because contracts increasingly depend on the caprice of some regulator.

Gorgio Agamben wrote all about this:  He called this situation “the state of exception”.

Goldsmith and the Tao agree on the consequences.

Menninger, like all moderns, tried to express himself solely with words.  His claims about “crime” and “sin” depend precisely on his definitions.

What is the advantage of the nested form over Menninger’s defining perspective?

Allow me to illustrate by zooming from 1973 to 2012.

Consider the implications of substituting “political incorrectness” for “sin”.

Crime(political incorrectness()) is integral to the Public Cult of Progressivism.

Accusations of “political incorrectness” serve the same function as accusations of “sin” in the now-supplanted Christian culture.  They deter (political) resistance to Progressive structures of regulating virtue.

At some point, political disagreement will become criminalized as this Public Cult consolidates power.  The tipping point may have been 2008.

Like “sin”, “political incorrectness” labels actual acts, persons or situations.  “Sin” is a Christian theological term.  “Political incorrectness” stands for a wide variety of Progressive cryptotheological terms.

Menninger never considered that “crime” and “sin” could be related through nestedness.  To me, it seems that …

The “judgment of crime (with state punishment)” puts “particular acts of sin” into a “normal” context.

Also, “sin” is “the situation where the normal context of ‘crimes’ appears real”.

This may be written as “crime(sin())”, corresponding to the general categorical nested form of “normal context(actuality(possibility))”.

Menninger considered “crime” as “a state take-over of items formerly described as ‘sin’”.   He argued that traditional pre-modern social deterrents to sin should increase the effectiveness of the state regulation of “crimes”.

The classical social deterrents that come from being raised by disciplining parents, belonging to a church, living in community ,and training for a career, increase the effectiveness of state regulations of crimes.

Menninger described one set of social constructions that belongs to the Public Cult of Progressivism.  The state regulates virtue, hence, justice.

He concluded with a warning by Oliver Goldsmith.

Goldsmith’s warning may characterize Public Cults in general.

The Tao offers a similar warning: “The more prohibitions you have, the less virtuous people will be.  The more weapons you have, the less secure people will be.  The more subsidies you have, the less self-reliant people will be.” (Stephen Mitchell, Tao Te Ching: A New English Version. HarperPerenniel:NY. 1992 (orig. 1988))

Menninger argued that classic social deterrents to “sin” would be much more effective than the state regulation of “crimes”.