0449 Santner does not seem to be impressed.

He unhesitatingly moves from the usurpation of this model by the political theology of king’s dual body to the craziness of political economy.

0450 Let me slow down and imagine how this feedback loop translates into late medieval political theology.

0451 Going up, the body of the subject glorifies the mortal body of the king.

Going down, royal values grant livingness to the active soul of the subject.

0452 Theoretically, the glorious body of the king was directly answerable to God (rather than some corrupt pope).

0453 However, some Christian factions balked at the glory of the king business.

Instead, they claimed that the king answered to the People.

0454 Does this sound familiar?

These factions believed that industriousness was a way to glorify God.  The wealth that came from such business served as a sign of one’s destination.

Thus, the work of everyday life became a liturgical practice, producing glory as well as things that could be sold.

0455 Here is how that looks in terms of a feedback loop in the vertical column of actuality:

0456 Note how the passive, impressionable soul is replaced by the sane soul of one who does rational calculations.

A life of prayer?  That is for lazy superstitious monks.

0457 At this point in history, the body, that thing that worships God simply by being animated by an active soul, becomes driven by an organizational objective that derives from (mercantilist) values.

0458 The mercantile version of the Protestant Ethic says, “Wealth is a sign of salvation.”

Livingness is heavy, shiny and metallic.  Put it in your safe.  Gold is livingness.

The active soul has been subsumed by an organizational objective.

0459 Finally, I extrapolate the diagram to a fully modern political theology.

Or should I say, “political economy”?

0460 Industriousness is no longer for the glory of God.

Industriousness illustrates the glory of citizen^Marat.

Citizen^Marat looks into the blankness of the heavens and finds a perspective that will inform his (biopower) values.

These values, in turn, will virtually situate the object^org-active soul of the People.

0461 Remember, Jean-Paul Marat’s revolutionary rag was titled Friend of the People.

Maybe it should have been called The Biopower Values Virtually Situating the Organizational Objectives of the People’s Active Soul.

0462 This raises the question: How does the object^org possess the active soul?

Two terms stand out at the end of this section, flesh and the paired opposites of operative and inoperative.

Maybe they can provide an answer.

0463 Santner associates his category, flesh, to Agamben’s use of the term inoperative. 

To me, the term, flesh, labels the body in the realm of actuality.  So the term, inoperative, applies to the active soul.  The active soul becomes inoperative.

0464 What does this imply?

The industrious flesh of the People is animated, not by an operative active soul, but by a soul rendered inoperative by an organizational objective.

0465 In order to compensate for this negation of the active soul, I also negate its potential.

Thus, the potential of the passive soul becomes an impossibility underlying the inoperative active soul.

0466 So, where does the contrasting term, operative, go?

It goes with the normal context.

0467 A spirit of operative expectations_3a brings the actuality of object^org – inoperative active soul [animates] industrious flesh_2a into relation with an impossibility within the passive soul_1a.

0468 A spirit of operative expectations_3a reflects and supports the apparent situational busy-ness of citizen^Marat_2b.

In turn, the hidden situational actuality of the (biopower) values of citizen^Marat_2b declares that the passive soul cannot operate on its own accord.

0469 Who are you going to believe, your own eyes or citizen^Marat?

The human body no longer mindless refers back to the source of its presence, the Creator [Gestures] The Path Through Which Creation Becomes.

The active soul of citizen^regular must be rendered inoperative.

That is to say, “Something_2b is needed in order to activate the soul of the regular citizen_2a.”

If I don’t know what that ‘something_2b‘ is, then I had better watch more screens.

0470 What is this impossibility underlying the inoperative active soul?

That is a good question.

0471 All I know is that this potential comes from something other than what is in the person.

Activity flows towards to heavens.

Something paralyzing the passive soul comes to earth.

Is that why everyone seems so bored?

0472 The surplus value of labor is a slippery topic.

The term describes a circulation within the subject of commodities.

To me, that means the organization tier.

0473 At the same time, the term puts the machinations of the organization tier into perspective.

So, the theory of the surplus value of labor belongs to the institution level of the society tier.

It sustains righteousness_1aC.

0474 My question is: Does the theory of surplus value project a political theology from the society tier onto the organization tier?

This requires a derivation.

Let me start with the original presentation of the organization tier.

0475 According to Marx, as soon as the exchange of commodities is conducted with money, the specializations of laborbecome a matter of indifference.

Price_2bB situates the content-level of the organization tier_2aB, just as adoration_2bC situates the human body_2aC that initiates the upward cascade of glory. (See point 441.)

0476 Adoration_2bC looks upwards, towards what defines its existence_2cC.

Does price look upwards also?

So far, what do I know?

Price_2bB moves up and down according to fashion value_2bB.

However, the word “fashion” is too restrictive.  So, I will replace it with the term “supplementing”.

0477 Price is significant to the assessor level.  The costs that went into producing the product are also significant.  Labor is one of costs.  So are regulations, taxes and so forth.  Assessors weigh many items.

0478 Marx reduces all the assessed items to a single term: value-producing labor.

To Santner, the term value-producing labor ought to inform the price.

But, he is not sure how.

Value-producing labor is a generalized term for all that goes into corporate-level activities.  Some types of labor are very expensive.  Others are less so.  However, they all congeal into the life-blood of the organization.

0479 But, what is life-blood if there is no life?

What is life without purpose?

Institutional purpose brings the organization to life.

So, where does value-producing labor fit in the organization tier?

To me, value-producing labor enters into the question posed to the assessor: 

Do we continue this value-producing labor?

0480 Okay, then the assessment might go like this:

Value-producing labor will continue as long as the organization experiences surplus value.

This places value-producing labor into the realm of possibility.

What about the realm of actuality?

Could an organization’s institutional mission exist without surplus value?

If not, then I may assume that an institution’s mission (reflecting the society tier) is contiguous with surplus value?

The organization depends on surplus value.

Surplus value depends on the way that a supplementing value informs (and often enhances) the price of a commodity.

0481 A picture of the changes in the organization tier follows:

0482 These changes settle into a picture that looks more like the society tier.

0483 Now, Marx’s terms begin to meld with Freud’s.

Value-producing labor goes into constructing the shape that is called “commodity”.

So I will replace “commodity” with shape as situational potential.

In addition, what the buyer’s money is looking at concerns both the commodity and money itself.  Money does the talking.

So, I will replace “buyer” with money as situational potential.

Instead of price, I substitute what money regards.

Figuratively, what the money sees parallels the mortal body of the king, suggesting that the supplementing valuecoincides with royal values.  Like royal values, the supplementing value exhibits an abstract materiality.

The situation-level actuality_2bB becomes an abstract material [informs] what the money regards.

What else?

Market discipline parallels the glorious body of the king.

But, market discipline is not sublime.  It is subliminal.

Does that seem Freudian?

The situation-level contiguity, informs, equals the commodity fetish.

0484 Now, the organization tier looks even more like the society tier.

0485 On the assessment level, generalized labor value goes with the potential for continuing the organization.

This potential is actualized by surplus value.

Surplus value becomes the (apparent) Real that is contiguous with the (hidden) Real of the institution’s mission.

On the market-exchange level, the commodity fetish is the contiguity between a hidden abstract material and what the money sees, that is, the (apparent) price.

0486 Finally, in conducting a purchase, the buyer participates in the corporation level, not as a member of the organization, but as one who buys into a social relation with the corporation.

The buyer becomes contiguous with the actualities of management, production and service.

Remember, [is contiguous with] may be replaced by “surplus value”.

[Informs] may be replaced by “commodity fetish”.

0487 Thus, the pattern of the society tier is re-capitulated in the organization tier.

In Santner’s reading of Marx, the organization tier mirrors the society tier.

Shape-producing labor is surcharged with social mediation.  The buyer (often, unwittingly) enters into a relation with the corporation.  This corporation is imbued with the righteousness of value-producing labor.  An institutional mission situates that labor.

0488 The obvious example is brand-name recognition.

0489 The only remaining step is to add the dashed arrows, mimicking the upward flow of glory and the downward flow of livingness.

0490 Money flows upwards.  Money nurtures management, production and service.  Price turns labor value into money.  Money is what is Real for assessment.

Without it, the organization cannot live up to its institutional mission.

0491 An institutional mission flows downwards.  It virtually contextualizes the abstract material informing the price.  Then, it brings the buyer into contact with something that is not present, the actualities of management, production and service.

A purchase buys into a brand name.

0492 Typically, the corporation producing the shape is not in the same locale as the buyer.  Therefore, through transactions, the buyer establishes residence in a home that is not a place, but an institution.

The buyer indirectly joins an institutional mission that situates an organization’s value-producing labor.

0493 My derivation (starting at point 474) is complete.

The organization tier has become an icon of the society tier.

0494 In the last section of the second lecture, Santner grapples with the implications.

0495 Did Marx isolate the alchemy of mercantilism?

The political theory of mercantilism magically transforms into an impossible righteousness, capitalism.

To me, capitalism is Marx’s projection of the society tier onto the organization tier.

The industrial economy becomes an icon of the religion of mercantilism.

0496 Santner uses the mercantilist fixation, gold, as an example.

Money flows upwards.  Gold flows downwards.

0497 This example easily fits Marx’s projection of the society tier onto the organization tier.

0498 The general labor value of gold produces something that money can buy.  The transactions produce surplus value.  Surplus value actualizes the potential for continuing gold production.

0499 The institutional mission that ‘gold is wealth’ virtually contextualizes the abstract material that informs price of gold.

Anyone familiar with current gold markets finds this abstract material quite tangible.  It reifies the fear that fiat currencies are being printed without collateral.

Since gold is wealth, gold is collateral.

The buyer is purchasing what the fiat currency lacks.

0500 Collateral flows downwards from an institutional mission, through the abstract material emerging from the potentials of shape and money, into the peace of mind of the gold buyer.

0501 This is not an -ism.  This is not “capital”-ism.

No, these diagrams describe the machinations of the organization tier as an icon of the society tier.

-Isms belong to the society tier.

Mercantilism belongs to the society tier.

Mercantilism solved one problem in the organization tier.

Here is the issue:  The abstract material that informs price should not also weigh a changing value of money, in addition to the potential of shape and the buyer’s accounts.

So mercantilism fixed the value of money.

Money was defined as a certain weight of pure gold.

0502 However, the mercantilist religion produced a host of other problems within the society tier.

In particular, it degraded the Protestant Ethic, where the virtue of industriousness served to glorify God.

Mercantilism glorified… something other than the One True God.

0503 Marx’s specter of communism rose to contest the political theology of mercantilism.

0504 To me, Marx projected something transcendent onto the immanence of the organization tier.

0505 The term “capitalism” labels the projection of a mercantilist political theology onto the organization tier.

0506 To the extent that the projection is manifest, the organization tier is unrighteous compared to the righteousness of Marxist ideologies.

0507 The role of the Marxist in our contemporary world is to regulate perceived manifestations of mercantilist political theology in the organization tier.

Soviet communism was an experiment.  It failed.

But, could the schema still be correct?

Welcome to big government (il)liberalism, where the political economy is freighted with a subject matter weighing all flesh.

0508 Speaking of flesh, is global mercantilism a form of prostitution?

0509 Here is how prostitution looks as an icon of mercantilism.

How unrighteous is global mercantilism?

0510 In the organization tier, paper money flows up into surplus value.

A purpose-filled abstract material flows down into what the buyer lacks.

0511 What does the buyer lack?

0512 In the society tier, the flesh is the industrious body, contiguous with an inoperative active soul.

An object^org is supposed to fill in for the active soul.

The object^org-inoperative active soul situates the fact that the passive soul cannot work on its own accord.

0513 This is shown in the following diagram:

0514 What does this imply?

The buyer in the organization tier lacks a quality that allows the passive soul do what it is supposed to do.

0515 That quality is righteousness.

But, it can also be unrighteousness.

Righteousness and unrighteousness are the potentials underlying good and evil.

0516 Okay, the passive soul of the citizen lacks a certain quality.

Something will fill that lack.

If something conforms to mercantilism, then the citizen^regular gains the quality of rationality, then the person is sane and enters the organization tier.  The resulting behaviors are capitalist.

But, capitalism is evil.

Thus, the active soul of citizen^regular must be rendered inoperative.

If something conforms to institutional purposes aligned with the actuality of citizen^Marat, then the person is no longer burdened with sanity.  Instead, institutional purpose defines what is sensible.

The expectation of rationality adjusts to organization objectives that render the active soul inoperative.  The resulting behaviors exhibit the discipline of citizen^Marat.

Ah, if capitalism is evil, then communism must be good.

Thus, evil and good define something that provides the qualities that the passive soul lacks.

0517 Consequently, the organization tier takes on the mantle of the society tier as either the capitalism theorized by Marxist communism or a projection regulated by a coalition of Marxist infrasovereign religions.

0518 Consider the following diagram:

Money ascends.  Greed (unrighteous, capitalist) or identity (righteous, communist) descends.

Thus, the doxologies of everyday (regulated) social life recapitulate, in the organization tier, the doxologies of the Christian faith on the society tier.

Why the Christian faith?

The perspective level is revealed only with Christian faith.

0519 Here is how that happens.

0520 Does this explain why Santner and Agamben regard the Christian formulation of the Trinity as the foundation of both the political theology of the dual body king and the Marxist projection of a political theology onto the organization tier?

0521 Even if you say, “No.”, the suggestion that Marxism contextualizes the organization tier carries intellectual momentum.

0522 The following shows a number of Marxist terms contextualizing the organization tier.

0523 What is the inner movement of capital?

0524 My associations of Santner’s argument to the category-based nested form tell a story.

0525 Within the organization tier, capital (money) flows upwards, towards the assessors. Objects^org flows downwards, towards the lacking passive soul, underlying the flesh.

0526 Money on the organization tier corresponds to glory on the society tier.

Purpose (or greed) on the organization tier matches livingness on the society tier.

Objects^org in the society tier contextualize institutional missions in the organization tier.

Thus, doxological acclamations that once extolled the king’s sublime body now acclaim whatever money can buy.  Plus, the most sublime commodity (and the one with the highest price) comes with an institutional message.

This commodity-associated message, in turn, invigorates the passive soul (which, impossibly, cannot be trusted on its own).

The message gives the passive soul identity.

0527 How can the passive soul be declared impossible?

Isn’t the passive soul the organ that responds to motion?

0528 Thomas Hobbes formulated one answer in the Leviathan, published when early modern mercantilism was replacing the late medieval theology of the dual body of the king.

Hobbes claimed that the passive soul could only properly respond to physical motion.

Physical motion leads to sensible reckoning.  Immaterial motion, the very stuff that Santner isolates, produces phantasms that are not sensible.

The passive soul should respond to physical motion, but not immaterial motion.

This explains why the lacking in the passive soul replaces the inoperative active soul in the content-level actuality_2aB of the organization tier.

0529 Ironically, in evolutionary history, the human passive soul evolved to sense the immaterial (or relational) aspects of a situation.  Humans are attuned to relationships.  We intuitively feel changes in relationships.

Humans focus on the hidden causes accounting for observed events.  Humans sense more than what is apparent to a disinterested observer.

0530 Thus, the so-called impossible or lacking passive soul is really a selective soul, responsive only to physical motion and not to relational changes.

0531 No wonder modern theory focuses on political organizational objectives (on the society tier) and economic commodities (on the organization tier).

In the society tier, organizational objectives go into the potential for biopower.  Biopower values, in turn, fetishize busy-ness.

In the organization tier, commodities carry an organizational object.  This objective contextualizes the abstract material that informs price.  Supplemented value virtually situates the buyer, whose passive soul is incomplete, because it only senses physical motion, not relational motion.

An institutional message descends, like a golden egg from a fabled goose, with every purchase.  A purpose-filled abstract material enters the emptiness of the secular soul, providing it with purpose and identity.

The blind acquire eyes to see.

0532 What does this imply?

The immanence of the organization tier has become transcendent.

0533 Marx projected a theology from the society tier onto the organization tier.

0534 What did the projection subsequently produce?

It produced commodities tied to objects^org, the actualities of infrasovereign religions.

Here is the society tier of the modern and postmodern political economy:

Take a look at the descent of livingness.

It proceeds from sovereign-level biopower to a content-level object^org.  It does so in a path that incorporates the organization tier.

0535 Why?

The organization tier serves as a screen for a projection from the society tier. 

True believers testify to the validity this projection.

In doing so, they become citizens^Marat.

0536 Santner quotes a passage from Marx’s Capital.

0537 Here is how I would express this passage:

The money-commodity-money nature of the market transaction powers a valorization of money on the assessment and corporation levels of the organization tier.  The valorization of money fuels the transfer of biopower values to the incomplete (materialist) passive soul of the buyer.

0538 Money goes up.

Messages, material abstractions, the stuff of object^org, go down.

0539 This is how the commodity fetish and surplus value fill the coal box powering the locomotion of Marxist righteousness.

0540 Here is how the flow upwards and downwards looks in the model of the 3-tier system.

0541 Glory ascends in the society tier.  Money ascends in the organization tier.

Livingness (not living well, but barely living) flows down the society tier.  A message-laden object^org intrinsic to each commodity flows down in the organization tier.

0542 To Santner, the doxological acclamations devoted to the king’s sublime body were transubstantiated into advertisements, promoting social discipline (in the society tier) and subliminal market discipline (in the organization tier).

0543 The House of God has been emptied.  It has been painted out.  It is only a blank space within the circulation of power and money.

0544 Similarly, the passive soul of the person has been reduced to a potential that only senses obvious and physical motion.

The motion of the spirit, especially the Holy Spirit, is immaterial.

We cannot physically detect the wind moving over the waters.

0545 Can modern entertainment fill the void?

Can public opinion surveys substitute for acclamations of glory?

Can televised news present its apparent motions in such a way that the naive individual will witness the organizational objectives projected into its spectacles?

Or, will the individual need to be directly indoctrinated?

0546 These are the practical concerns of the busy elites who guard the blankness painted above the corpse of Marat and who covet the jouissance of citizen^regular.

0015 Now, let me re-examine Suarez’ three reasons for investigating ‘beings of reason’.

0016 (1) ‘Beings of reason’ are needed to know nonbeing.

If nonbeing is ‘not existent’, then why call it a “being”?  Being goes with existence.  How can being assist in knowing nonbeing?

0012 (2) The answer to that is by comparison.  A nonexistent can be known by comparison to being.  What does not existcan be compared to what actually exists.  

Today, this would be called “a thought experiment”.  The thought experiment builds on a comparison.  Being^in_reason is to thought (comparatively) as being^itself is to existence.  

The question is: How is this comparison accomplished?

The answer is: A nonbeing can be regarded in the manner of being.

0017 (3) The ‘being of reason’ explains why humans can think of self-contradictions.

Reason goes with thought.  Thought is ‘the world of reason’.  Being is ‘what exists’.  Existence is ‘the world of actuality’.  So let me substitute these terms into the above equation and come up with an alternate way to express it.

‘This nonbeing (called “being of reason”) belongs to the world of reason’ (comparatively) as ‘being (what exists) belongs to the world of actuality’.

0018 To me, this sounds like an example of how humans think in self-contradictions.  What I call “being” does not exist.  It is a nonbeing.  Yet, I can think of it as if it is actual, even though it does not exist.

What does this suggest?

One can explain why humans can think of self-contradictions by explaining the causes, natures and division of ‘beings of reason’.

0019 In discussing these three reasons for studying ‘beings of reason’, I present Suarez’s definition of a being^in_reason.  A ‘being of reason’ is a nonbeing thought in the manner of being.  It is a thought experiment.  It is held, in thought, as a contradiction.  This is the case for all thought experiments.

0029 From this association alone, I would expect that each way of talking would represent the world in its own unique way.  The way of hand talk represents the world through implicit abstraction.  The way of speech-alone talk represents the world through explicit abstraction.

0030 In the following steps, I use Suarez’s definition of ‘beings of reason’ to construct a model for implicit abstraction.

0031 Step 1: Start with an encounter

Being^itself₂ belongs to the realm of actuality.  Actuality belongs to Peirce’s category of secondness.  The category of secondness always contains two elements.  The paradigmatic example of secondness is cause and effect.  Both elements belong to actuality.  The two elements are contiguous.  One element accounts for the other.

When I encounter a being^itself, I encounter an effect, not a cause.  Animals, for example, respond to effects, rather than causes.  The effect is being^itself (what exists).  The animal wonders:  What do I do in response to this effect?  Do I approach, flee, or safely ignore it?

0032 Animals do not comprehend that what exists is one element in the dyad of actuality.

0033 So, I start with being^itself (what is encountered).  The figure is mostly empty.  One slot has an entry.  The slot belongs to actuality.

0034 Step 2: Project what accounts for what is encountered.

Humans, in contrast to animals, somehow understand that there is a cause. The human may wonder: How do I situate this effect in order to see what causes it?

Here, I use the word “cause” in the widest sense.  Cause accounts for the encountered being.  I encounter being^itself₂.  Being^encountered₂ is accounted for by another being_2. 

0035 So how does a being^{that-accounts}₂ enter into the picture?

It enters as the other element in the dyad of actuality.  Now, I have two elements in a single entry.  This entry corresponds to actuality.

0036 When a dog comes across something quizzical, it may look at its owner.

What is the dog up to?

The dog looks for a clue.  The human has something that the dog does not.  The encountered being₂ is mind-independent.  The accounting being₂ is mind-dependent.  The accounting being₂ is a nonbeing.  No one can demonstrate its existence.  It cannot be imaged or pointed to.

Yet, the human implicitly presumes its presence.  The human thinks of this nonbeing in the manner of being.  The dog watches for the human’s reaction to this nonbeing.  The human’s reaction sets the context for how the dog will respond.

0037 Step 3: A content-level nested form comes into view

Adding the second element to the dyad of actuality entails the construction of a category-based nested form.  The nested form is an abstraction because it draws itself out from the encountered being₂.  This occurs in the human intellect.

The nested form looks like this:

0038 The normal context of what is happening?₃ brings the dyadic actuality of {being in reason [accounts for] an encountered being}₂ in regards to the potential of ‘something happening’₁.

0039 I now return to Novotny’s text (Chapter 3; Section A).  Metaphysics is the study of being.  It entails the study of nonbeing.  The ‘being of reason’ is a type of nonbeing.  It is a nonbeing regarded in the manner of being.

So why is metaphysics interested in studying ‘beings of reason’?

Suarez lists four suggestions:

SM1: ‘Beings of reason’ are studied in order to facilitate the understanding of real beings.

SM2: This study is useful in various ways.

SM3: This study investigates their nature, causes, division and attributes.

SM4: Real beings are ontologically and epistemologically prior to ‘beings of reason’.

0040 These motivations point to various features of the nested form in the previous figure.

0041 At the same time, the suggestions illuminate the nested form.

Am I correct in asserting the following?

The only real being that appears in this picture is the encountered being_2a.

0042 Obviously not, the human intellect is also a real being.

So, what do I mean by the word “real”?

If by “real”, I mean to be regarded in the manner of being, then I may consider a being^in_reason to be real, even though it is a nonbeing.  So, a being^in_reason is a real nonbeing.  It is a nonbeing thought of in the manner of being.  In the same way, being regarded in the manner of being is real being.

0043 To me, this suggests that the world “real” requires a mind.  An intellect decides whether something is real (to be thought in the manner of being) or unreal (to not be thought in the manner of being).  Indeed, an intellect situates the entire content-level nested form.

0044 So, the human intellect_2b is a real being that situates the being^in_reason_2a.

So, let me reconsider Suarez’s four motivations with the other real being in mind.  Let me substitute the word “intellect” for “real beings” and rework the phrasing.

SM1: ‘Beings of reason’ are studied in order to facilitate understanding of the intellect (and encountered beings).

SM2: The study of beings^{in reason} is useful in various ways.

SM3: This study investigates their nature, causes, divisions and attributes.

SM4: The intellect and the encountered being are epistemologically and ontologically prior to ‘beings of reason’.

0045 This rewrite of Suarez’s suggestions enlarges my perspective.

There are two real beings in play: the encountered being_2a and the intellect that situates the being^in_reason_2a.  The study of beings^in_reason is useful to understand both the real beings that we encounter_2a and the human intellect_2a.  That understanding, which includes the nature, causes, divisions and attributes of beings^in_reason, puts both the situation-level intellect_2b and the content-level actualities_2a into perspective.

What does that imply?

There must be one more actuality.  It is located on the perspective level.