0065 Here is the first picture of cultural equilibrium after 2017.
Figure 25
In this cultural equilibrium, administrators2H, not faculty, adapt to the niche of an education system composed of instructors1H. Heying and Weinstein depart.
Here is a picture of how I configure the normal context3 and potential1 for the single actuality of higher education (after 2017)2.
Figure 26
0066 Where do Heying and Weinstein migrate to?
They enter another cultural equilibrium, discussed before, where professors adapt to the challenge of applying the lessons of biological evolution to life in the 21st century. The metaphorical genome of podcasting are individuals who sense that our current Lebenswelt is not the same as the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. We are adapted to the lifestyle of hunters and gatherers. But, that is not all, we are also adapted to the potential of triadic relations.
Here is a picture of a new single actuality2, guidance.
Figure 27
0067 Here is a picture of how I configure the normal context3 and potential1 for the single actuality of guidance (after 2017)2.
Figure 28
0068 Listening to a darkhorse podcast is more rewarding to a team of moderns (remember hunters and gatherers work in teams) than attending a formal lecture by an instructor who is grading on the curve. How so? The darkhorse podcast is a conversation geared to draw people into conversation. In the course of conversation, one learns information and how to be a member of a team. If one becomes a member of the podcast community, one joins the team.
The cost is small, compared to a college course.
0069 The exorbitant cost of higher education pays tribute to the long-held belief that certification opens the door to professionalism.
So, what happens when podcasts offer alternate certification?
Then, guidance2 will directly compete with higher education2.
0069 Chapter three (Ancient Bodies, Modern World) completes the author’s theoretical approach, which has been critiqued, using the philosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce. The authors are not aware of a novel vision that encompasses their view that biological evolution involves adaptation into proximate niches of material conditions. The ultimate human niche is the potential of triadic relations. Why are hominins capable of switching proximate niches? All proximate niches are perfused with signs.
Heying and Weinstein are not alone in this regard. Few modern biologists (before 2023) have considered Razie Mah’s three masterworks, The Human Niche, An Archeology of the Fall, and How To Define the Word “Religion”, that pertain to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, the first singularity, and our current Lebenswelt, respectively.
Yet, even without a well-articulated theoretical framework, Heying and Weinstein can draw lessons from biological evolution as it is currently configured, as if adaptations2H and phenotypes2V belong to the separate disciplines of natural history and genetics, and no one is quite sure how they belong to a single actuality.
Plus, disciplinary knowledge in biological evolution is superior to advocacy, in the same manner that a professor is superior to an instructor.
0070 Our bodies evolved in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
Our modern world in the 21st century is a hypernovel episode of our current Lebenswelt.
So, lessons from our biological evolution will show how our modern world is not so good for our ancient bodies.
0071 The remaining chapters contain applications.
Chapter four (medicine) applies guidance to the topic of medicine.
Figure 29
And, the cultural intersection looks like the following.
Figure 30
0072 At the end of chapter four, the authors offer a section called, “The Corrective Lens”, in which they encapsulate their guidance on medicine.
0073 For purposes of this examination, I will look closely at chapter five (Food).
Figure 31
0074 Guidance2, the intersection of professors2H and podcasting2V, enters into the nested form of postmodern internet education3 and situates the possibility of the authors’ disciplinary expertise along with their mission (which is to join your team at the same time that you join theirs)1.
0075 The chapter starts with two warnings. First, there is no fixed recipe as to what to eat. Second, food is not merely nutrition for survival. Eating food occasions social engagement. Yes, cooking is important. So, is eating with others. Know the culinary habits of your lineage.
Here is a picture of what the authors are offering.
Figure 32
0076 Here is how they proceed. Place food2 in the place for species2 as the single actuality2 that is composed of adaptation2H and phenotype2V. Then, consider the following intersection from more than one point of view.
Figure 33
0077 The first adaptation2H that comes to mind is cooking with fire2H. What does fire do to raw food? Elevated temperatures break down cellular and structural impediments to digestion. Cooked food provides more calories than raw.
The corresponding phenotype2V includes changes in the ways that we perceive flavors. Cooked food tastes good. But, that is not all. Cooking offers an occasion for everyone to eat together and talk. In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in,humans practice hand talk, which means that no one talks while eating raw food. But, with cooked food, one does not have to eat and eat and eat and chew and chew and chew to get nutrition. Plus, cooked food tastes better! Plus, afterwards, everyone can sit around the fire and enjoy conversation.
In this respect, after the domesticatin of fire, hunter and gatherers have it good.
Figure 34
0078 But, what about our current Lebenswelt? What about the 21st century?
0079 Our current Lebenswelt is one of specialization. After the mechanical revolution starting in the early 1800s, specialization increases beyond imagination. All sorts of new species of “food for humans” arise in the 21st century. And, one popular item is called, “fast food”.
On the horizontal axis, the normal context of product selection3H brings the actuality of processed food2H into relation with the potential of industrial food processing1H.
On the vertical axis, the normal context of business development3V brings the actuality of restaurants2V in line with commercialization1V. Commercialization1V appears to be like the genome1V. Think of brand recognition. Each brand has a slogan. Slogans are the DNA of advertising.
0080 Here is the resulting interscope.
Figure 35
0081 Well, that is my guess as to how the author’s discussion plays out.
Every inquirer will come up with a different scenario.
That is one beauty of this type of exercise.
0082 Once can replace restaurants with diet regimes. Once can replace processed food with vitamin supplements.
On top of that, different topics are available. Fire is just one. Fire is domesticated in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
What about other domestications?
Animal and plant domestication occurs much more recently. Sometimes it is hard to tell whether animal and plant domestication begins in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in as opposed to our current Lebenswelt. Dogs are domesticated in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in. What about pigeons?
0083 The topic of food shows me that there is a big difference between cooking2H and eating2V in the Lebenswelt that we evolved in and processed foods2H and restaurants2V in our current Lebenswelt. Guidance is required. Guidance2 is the single actuality that combines the professor2H and the podcaster2V.
0084 The same exercise of playing with intersections can be performed for the family, covering chapters seven (Sex and Gender), eight (Parenthood) and nine (Childhood).
Oh yeah, guidance is needed here. The authors provide valuable insights.
0085 As a complement to the authors’ guidance and insights on these topics, consider A Second Primer on the Organization Tier and A Primer on the Family, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-work venues.
0086 In chapters ten (School) and eleven (Becoming Adults), the authors wrestle with 21st century social constructions that do not adequately conform with human adaptations that belong to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.
On top of that, contemporary grammar schools, high schools and colleges in the modern West are… um… not what they were before 2017.
That ship has sailed.
On all levels, your instructors1H are now assigned2H to inform you, the student, of an actuality2a(1V) that guides the internal dynamics of the postmodern educational system2V: political advocacy.
More on that later.
0087 Former hunters and gatherers face questions, such as, “What are schools supposed to do? Why are the rituals of becoming an adult tied to modern schools?”
Yes, children are raised by parents. But, are schools more than an extension of parental authority? Yes, they are.
In terms of our evolutionary history, childhood and adolescence prepare the individual for a certain degree of specialization, characteristic of team activity.
0088 This allows me to propose, for the authors, an approach to include in their next book. After all, if anything, this examination shows that their guidance is the first step towards an entirely novel curriculum outside the bounds of higher education2.
0089 In the Lebenswelt that we evolved in, children and adolescents are “schooled” in the ways of team activities. Plus, each individual is given opportunities to compete to join a cooperative team. Each individual is expected to exercise his or her talents.
If there is guidance by adults who are not the parents of a child or an adolescent, then that guidance opens a door to joining a team activity. Teacher and student share risks within the team. Every success benefits the team, directly, and all social circles, indirectly. These risks and benefits accrue as the team encounters the world out there (the ecology and environment).
0090 Here is a picture.
Figure 36
0091 At this point, I can see that Heying and Weinstein’s book recapitulates an ancient paradigm, within the hypernovel world of the 21st century.
The student says, “Guide me.” The teacher says, “Join my team.”
Patronize the darkhorse podcast and join the team.
0091 What is team activity2?
Team activity2 is a genus-specific trait2 that regularly entails guidance by non-parental members of a band. Team-activities2 is a single actuality2 that contains adaptations2H and phenotypic traits2V. So, I can place the term, “team activities”, into the slot for “species” in the intersection for biological evolution.
Figure 37
0092 Now, I can make alterations to this intersection, based on literal and metaphorical interpretations of the elements.
0093 First, I alter the potentials, then the other elements of each intersecting nested form, as follows.
The genome1b((1V) decodes DNA2a. Similarly, one’s motivations1b decode one’s talents2a. Talent2a supports an internal motivation to join a particular team1V. The phenotypic expression2V is a desire to participate2V. To participate2V is to belong2 in the normal context of both individual and team development3V.
The niche1b(1H) is the potential of an actuality2a that is independent of the adapting species2a(2H).
What is the actuality that is independent of all team activities?
It is the world out there!
Adaptation2H occurs in the normal context of natural (the individual must perform the appropriate tasks) and cultural (the individual must work for the team and with other team members) selection3H. I call the adaptation competing to cooperate2H. I shorten the slogan to comp-to-coop2H. Comp-to-coop2H coheres to the definitions of direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity and altruism. Compete-to-cooperate2H explains their evolution. Comp-to-coop2H emerges from (and situates) diverse potentials of the proximate niche1H.
0094 Here is a picture of the adjusted intersection.
Figure 38
0095 Well, this does not look modern at all.
Where are the desks lined up in rows, facing the instructor? Where are the threats by administrators2H for instructors1H to tow the line of the latest trend in advocacy2a(1H)?
Take a look at the corrective sayings that Heying and Weinstein offers as guidance. Do not fear. Respect others. Follow fair rules. Protest unfair rules. Do not get comfortable. Do not get complacent. Take risks.
All these suggestions describe the intersection of team activities2, in the normal context of the Lebenswelt that we evolved in3, arising from the potential of our talents and the world out there1.
0096 How does the current state-supported education system twist our natural being into something that can be controlled in a top-down political regime?
It channels the competition to cooperate2H into state-defined (and regulated) specializations2H. In order to gain entrance into a specialization2H, one must attend school and become certified.
It channels the desire to participate2V into state-defined (and regulated) bodies of knowledge2V. One must go to school in order to achieve certification in regards to that body of knowledge2V. Mastery of the real separates professors2H (pre-2017) from instructors1H (post-2017). State-regulated bodies of knowledge may be real. Or, they may be fictions that high-level administrators want to be advocated. Who knows the difference?
0097 In the 21st century, expertise2 is the single actuality2 that encompasses specializations2H and certification2V.
Here is a picture.
Figure 39
0098 With this diagram in mind, take another look at what Heying and Weinstein have to say.
Plus, consider the trauma that they endured.
Higher education (post-2017) has become a gamed and rigged system.
0099 Surely, there is more to Heying and Weinstein’s guidance than meets the eye.
Higher education (post-2017) resolves the intersection, by removing all the mystery.
Perhaps, the mystery dissolves into ways that administrators and their political allies rig and game the system.
When an intersection breaks down (that is, when it loses its mystery), it resolves into a two-level interscope.
0100 The following two-level interscope resolves the contradictions of expertise2.
Figure 41
0101 The actuality of postmodern (and modern) specialization2b virtually emerges from and situates school certification2aas the gateway to participation in a state-regulated system. State-management1a channels personal motivations1a. So, jobs1b are never satisfying, because they satisfy regulatory requirements1a and simply assume that personal motivations1aapply.
0102 At this point, I look backwards to chapter three (Ancient Bodies, Modern World) and forwards into chapter twelve (Culture and Consciousness).
Consider the following figure.
Figure 42
Can I say that culture goes with adaptation2H and consciousness goes with phenotype2V?
Figure 43
If so, then the above figure re-articulates the mystery within chapter twelve. Chapter twelve juxtaposes culture2H and consciousness2V and plays the one off the other. But, in reality, these two actualities pertain to a single actuality2, the Homo genus.
0103 “Homo” is Latin for “man”. “Genus” is Latin for “general kind”.
Consider how modern wordplay has twisted the meaning, presence and message of these terms.
Then consider the value of this book, as well as Weinstein’s darkhorse podcast.
0104 Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein are professors, once adapted to the niche of higher education (pre-2017) and now adapting to the niche of podcasting (post-2017).
Currently, higher education eliminates the distinction between disciplinary mastery and educational mission. Higher education (post-2017) resolves the mystery of team activities into a rigged system of regulated specializations situating school systems that game certifications.
The niche of podcasting keys into the evolution of team activities. In order to join the team, one patronizes the podcast. The next step, a crucial endeavor, concerns certification. How does one certify what another person has mastered while listening to and supporting podcasts?
This is the question that I pose at the end of this examination of Heying and Weinstein’s book.
Surely, we need guidance in answering the challenge.
0001 This chapter appears in Michael Millerman’s Book (2020) Beginning with Heidegger: Strauss, Rorty, Derrida and Dugin and the Philosophical Constitution of the Political (Arktos Press). The composition of the book sends a message. A forty-nine page introduction is labeled as a preface, complete with Roman numerals. The first chapter covers Heidegger and stands in the center of the book. Then, chapters two through five covers the responses of four political philosophers to Heidegger’s academic labors (as well as his political affiliation).
Richard Rorty is discussed in the third chapter. This chapter serves as a transition from the weighty chapters on Heidegger and Strauss to the surprising chapters on Derrida and Dugin.
0002 Rorty offers a change of style. Rorty is an American philosopher. This pleases me, since I write like an American, too. I roll, roll, roll down the river of literary endeavors. My paddles are purely relational structures, such as the category-based nested form and the Greimas square.
Consequently, Millerman refers to movies, rather than books. And, if books must be mentioned, then novels come first.
0003 Oh, I should add, the first novel comes from the pen of Cervantes. Don Quixote marks the start of the Age of Ideas. In seventeenth-century Spain, two movements coincide. On one hand, Baroque scholastics finally articulate the causality inherent in sign-relations. On the other hand, Cervantes creates a new literary genre.
Perhaps, these two hands belong to a single entity. The novelist represents the scholastic behind the mask of modernity. Like the heroic character in V for Vendetta, there is no removing the mask. The Spanish innovator spins away from truth (the scholastics were all about mind-independent being) and leaps towards happiness (the novelists are all about mind-dependent beings).
Is it any surprise that, in the next century, France produces a revolution with a similar attitude? Then, two centuries later, today’s social democratic politics perform the same routine.
0003 Richard Rorty wrestles with a strange duality. Politics is contextualized by two distinct masters, truth and reality. Politics emerges from the potential of good (which goes with truth) and the potential of what can be done (which goes with reality).
Here is a picture of two nested forms.
Figure 01
0004 Of course, Rorty wants to step away from truth3 and find happiness in reality3. But, one cannot take the mask without the face or the face without the mask. One cannot say, “Look at the mask without thinking about the face.”
Here is where Rorty flounders. His social democratic politics tell him that viable options are the only things that matter. But, as a philosopher, he must face the question as to which options are good.
0005 In short, politics is a single actuality that is composed of two distinct nested forms. Neither nested form can situate the other. So, the actualities for both nested forms fuse, creating one single contradiction-filled actuality, as described in the chapter on message in Razie Mah’s masterwork, How To Define the Word “Religion”.
I call the following diagram, “an intersection”.
Figure 02
0006 Right away, I spy that the single actuality of politics2 veils two unspoken actualities that emerge from (and situate) the vertical and horizontal potentials. These two actualites are overshone by politics2, in the same way that Mercury and Venus appear to disappear within the Sun in astrological conjunctions. The technical term is “combustion”.
Here is a Greek parody of politics2.
Figure 03
0007 Yes, truth3V and reality3H exhibit different orbits around politics2.
According to Millerman, Rorty is a social democrat advocating for truthlessness and hopefulness.
0008 How does that statement mesh with the above intersection? Rorty distains Heidegger’s romance with language and says that there is no such thing as a thing itself that can be put into language. So forget esse_ces (beings substantiating) and essences (substantiated forms). Indeed, forget righteousness. The question is whether the thing is useful. Or not.
At first, it seems that Rorty is only interested in the horizontal axis.
0009 But then, Rorty writes that there are three conceptions of the aim of philosophizing in the modern era. These three are Husserl’s scientism, Heidegger’s poetics and Dewey’s pragmatism. The latter two respond to the former. Husserl idealizes scientists. Heidegger extols poets. Pragmatists, like Rorty, Dewey and James, prefer engineers.
Now, if I associate these embodiments into the above mystery, then I replace Mercury with the engineer and Venus with the poet, resulting the the following intersection.
Figure 04
0010 Once I diagram this, the contradictions become more apparent. The Heideggerian venusian poet2V and the pragmatist mercurial engineer2H orbit an all encompassing solar politics2. From the point of view of an astrologer, sometimes these inner planets run ahead of the solar presence, sometimes they lag behind the solar presence, and sometimes they are in conjunction with the solar presence. Combustion! The Sun’s transit through the constellations, plays this celestial drama over and over again, for those who watch the heavens. For those who watch politics, the Earth orbits the sun.
0021 Of course, Heidegger would (if he could) return the insult, by calling Rorty a liberal propagandist.
After all, Rorty is not concerned with questions of truth3V, preferring issues concerning social consequences3H.
0022 Plus, Heidegger (if he could) would have regarded the imprisonment of Rorty and other social democratic philosophers as a matter of “petty details”.
Petty details?
In Heidegger’s view, the West has exhausted its options1H. And, proof comes later in the title of Rorty’s book, Contingency, Irony and Solidarity. Are these options? Or, are they signs of exhaustion? Compare that title to Being and Time.
0023 The squishiness of the former title is made worse when Rorty’s dichotomy of choice, private versus public, appears to align with the potentials of good1V and options1H, respectively. Is truth3V private? Is reality3V public? If so, then I ask, “Are these affirmations the poisonous fruits of the Treaty of Westphalia?” The Treaty of Westphalia marks the start of the modern era, almost four hundred years ago.
Perhaps, Rorty inadvertently testifies to Heidegger’s proposition. The West has exhausted its options1H. Politics2 is the intersection of the actualities of reality3H and truth3V, arising from the potential of viable options1H and good1V. Without a good1V, there are no options1H. So, politics2 is dead. But, our love (philo-) of wisdom (-sophy) endures. So, it is only a matter of time before politics2 rises again.
Shout it from the rooftops!
Politics2 is dead. Long live politics2.
0024 My thanks to Michael Millerman for his excellent chapter into how Rorty views Heidegger, chapter three in Beginning with Heidegger: Strauss, Rorty, Derrida and Dugin and the Philosophical Constitution of the Political (2020, Arktos Press, London), pages 97-134.
0001 Mark S. Smith is a theologian in the Catholic tradition. He writes a book that is equally weighted between text and endnotes. The text ends at the center of the bound volume. The endnotes begin at the center of the bound volume. Smith sends a message. At the very center, there is a gap. The gap is between the text and the endnotes. Does the text write the endnotes? Or, do the endnotes write the text?
The full title of the book is The Genesis of Good and Evil: The Fall(out) and Original Sin in the Bible. It is published by Westminster John Knox Press, in Louisville, Kentucky.
0002 A scholarly introduction sets the tone. This work is not about the Bible. This book is about scripture. Nowhere in the Bible, does anyone say the word, “Bible”. Instead, people in the Bible say, “scripture”, all the time. So, their scope (or cultural impress at the time) includes Jewish scripture. Only a retrospective reading, by Christians, years after the gospels are added to the Jewish scripture, allows the use of the word, “Bible”, which comes from the Greek, “biblos”, denoting a collection of manuscripts. The Bible, at its heart, binds two books, which we now call the Old and New Testaments.
0004 Two key words pop out in the introduction, “scope” and “retrospect”. Both apply to reading and writing.
First, consider the author. The author has a gift, a charism. Insights are framed by “his” scope, the cultural impress of the time. But, the cultural impress does not determine the author’s words. The author does. The author has “his” own concerns, which somehow intersect with scope. The author’s insights arise from “his” own interpretations and experiences.
0005 I can write two formulaic descriptions of the author, following A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form(available at the smashwords website as well as other purveyors of e-works).
One, the normal context of producing text3 brings the actuality of the author’s personal conditions2 into relation with possibilities inherent in the cultural milieu of the author1, including “his” scope.
Two, the normal context of writing3 brings insights2 into relation with the potential of the author’s point of view1, containing “his” charism.
0006 Do these nested forms interscope?
Some say that an author emerges from the civilizational conditions. Others say that an author conveys insights. Clearly, one nested from does not fully situate the other.
They do not interscope.
0007 Instead, they intersect. The author is the single actuality that fuses the actualities of conditions2 and insight2.
0008 Ah, the author2 is a single actuality that is the intersection of two actualities, conditions2H and insight2V. One nested form defines the horizon. One nested form transects the horizon. Clearly, the intersection celebrates, rather than resolves, contradictions inherent to the author2.
