ON DEMAND FOR THE SACRED: EUROPEAN MARKET OR SEMITIC MONOPOLY?
1 – Heidegger=german, which is the point of the discussion. Whether the Truth (knowledge, science, history, heroes, evolution) or Wisdom Literature (parables, fictions, myths) are the basis for civic contract (Monopoly). Or whether a hierarchy of graceful failure from the scientific to the religious is the basis of our civic contract (Market)
2 – The sacred can consist of us, ourselves, can be something else (creatures, anthropomorphic, or formless), can be of things (idols), can be of ideas (of books and words), or of anything that we owe a debt. Although, ideas, things, symbols-proxies for leaders, and ourselves is a very close to complete list of the possibilities.
3 – The sacred serves as a proxy between those who are not good enough to submit to one another.
4 – Religion consists of training (education) the intuition (emotions) so that people ‘feel like’ you do by taking advantage of our pre-cognitive biases.
6 – We can measure increase and decrease demand for ‘the sacred’ (proxies) and I am fairly sure the science of it (like that of status) is simply one that generates denialism. That is to to say that such therapeutic measures are unnecessary, but that they are not explicable.In other words, exposing the content and drive behind the ‘sacred’ makes the sacred impossible, thereby removing which is why it is denied. I
7 – So , to some people the scientific truth is sacred, to some of us (american constitutionalists) the constitution and by proxy ‘we, us, our-way’ is sacred. To some religious tradition is sacred. To some of us a monarchy or leader is sacred. To some of us family, tribe, and nation is sacred. To some of us mankind is sacred. To some of us the transcendence of mankind into the gods we imagine is sacred (that would include me). And to some of us we spread, combine, include, or exclude as suits our interests.
8 – Since debts of submission can be created along those and other axis, the behaviors we want to develop in a polity need only be expressible in all those paradigms – or at least, be sufficiently compatible that group persistence survives competition and shocks.
9 – So the question is, (a) what are those rules of group strategy obscured within and created by some sacred debt, (b) what paradigms within each grammar (system of thought) each system of thought which corresponds to a degree of agency and interests, given our age, class, and accumulated relationships and assets.
10 – it is not … challenging … to understand that the occult is an expression of vulnerability or powerlessness, that ritual an expression of mindfulness, that gatherings are an expression of inclusion, and that festival an expression of trust creation is rather simple. That the narrative content of a mythos allows us categories, relations, and values that can be taught to children (or idiots) which allows graceful (simple) calculation and coordination of cooperation is rather simple.
11 – I don’t do via positiva (religion, philosophy, and literature). I do via negativa law. While we differ in what is preferable and good, and we differ in demand for proportionality, and we differ in demand for liberty (opportunity), we do not differ in demand for reciprocity. Instead, we all seek to preserve our advantageous means of parasitism, predation, deception, and self deception.
12 – philosophy religion and literature (via positiva ) is for others (and frankly, for those who need them). I don’t do either.
13 – It is possible that the clash of civilizations between the german continental and the anglo scandinavian (naval) is simply that the british were smarter, better educated, and more evolved, and the germans, who were the “rednecks” of europe for all of her history, were, and remain a more sentimental people. I just don’t know if that’s an advantage or not. What it appears, is that it’s economically and militarily superior to follow the german model of TRUTH, DUTY, PIETY, AND RECIPROCITY.