{"id":10857,"date":"2026-08-28T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-08-28T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=10857"},"modified":"2026-05-19T16:12:03","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T16:12:03","slug":"looking-at-e-michael-joness-book-2025-walking-with-a-bible-and-a-gun-part-3-of-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/?p=10857","title":{"rendered":"Looking at E. Michael Jones&#8217;s Book (2025) &#8220;Walking with a Bible and a Gun&#8221;\u00a0 (Part 3 of 27)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>0026 I review.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0027 The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics grows within the repression of the USSR then blossoms with the fall of the Soviet empire.&nbsp; Boris Uspenskij and Juri Lotman participate in that end-of-an-era flourishing.&nbsp; That is the end of the story.&nbsp; What about the start?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Uspenskij and Lotman begin their careers in Slavic studies by proposing atheist materialist explanations for the nature of Russian (and Slavic) literature.&nbsp; Uspenskij&#8217;s model of the candle-illuminated Russian icon is an example.&nbsp; However, the vocabulary of atheist materialism proves inadequate, so they supplant their explanations with semiology and structuralism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0028 This fits the pattern of a confounding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Slide06.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"540\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Slide06.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10869\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Slide06.png 540w, https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Slide06-300x200.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>0029 By the time the USSR ends (along with the incentives for atheist material explanations), their confounding is refined into <em>the following script for inquiry into aesthetics<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Slide07.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"540\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Slide07.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10870\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Slide07.png 540w, https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Slide07-300x200.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>0029 This is not the same as the original confounding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Instead, the above figure matches Uspenskij&#8217;s original insight arguing that Russian icons should be regarded in candlelight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>B: The form is a literary historical text (which is like the Russian icon).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A: The originating matter is the Slavic language and literary genres (which is like the material for the substance of the flame of a semiological and structuralist model).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>C: The entangled matter is a contemporary (and, yes, academically inclined) language of meaning, presence and message.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0030 Independently, E. Michael Jones learns to practice these steps in the USSA, using a model that is not associated with semiology or structuralism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Slide08.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"540\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Slide08.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10871\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Slide08.png 540w, https:\/\/www.raziemah.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Slide08-300x200.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 540px) 100vw, 540px\" \/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>0031 To me, the parallel is striking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics develops a practice that coheres to the categorical structure of a confounding.&nbsp; They do so in order to plumb the beauty and insights of Slavic arts and literature.&nbsp; Yet, no one in that school explicitly articulates that structure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Similarly, E. Michael Jones develops a practice that coheres to the categorical structure of a confounding.&nbsp; He does so in order to plumb the charisma of the American identity, as expressed historically in its arts and literature.&nbsp; Yet, he does not explicitly articulate the structure of the confounding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>0032 I wonder, &#8220;What is the esse_ce that calls forth the essence of the title of this book?&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>0026 I review. 0027 The Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics grows within the repression of the USSR then blossoms with the fall of the Soviet empire.&nbsp; Boris Uspenskij and Juri Lotman participate in that end-of-an-era flourishing.&nbsp; That is the end of the story.&nbsp; What about the start? Uspenskij and Lotman begin their careers in Slavic studies [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[627],"class_list":["post-10857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unveiling-words","tag-semiotics-and-history"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.3 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Looking at E. 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