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While the above tree is fun to muse over, it isn't really helpful for those who are tuned in to my usage of a top to bottom assortment of lineage arrangements. The idea is to arrange the development of religion in its development from the primitive stage to more advanced stages, but as is noted, the so-called "advanced" religions are expressed primivities themselves, just like the Marx/Engles brand of Communism, even though they and others have viewed their ideas as some sort of advanced conceptualization about human sociological development. With respect to the evolution of religion, here is a reference that may prove to be of some interest to one or another reader:
Abstract
Recent studies of the evolution of religion have revealed the cognitive underpinnings of belief in supernatural agents, the role of ritual in promoting cooperation, and the contribution of morally punishing high gods to the growth and stabilization of human society. The universality of religion across human society points to a deep evolutionary past. However, specific traits of nascent religiosity, and the sequence in which they emerged, have remained unknown. Here we reconstruct the evolution of religious beliefs and behaviors in early modern humans using a global sample of hunter-gatherers and seven traits describing hunter-gatherer religiosity:
- animism,
- belief in an afterlife,
- shamanism,
- ancestor worship,
- high gods,
- and worship of ancestors or high gods who are active in human affairs.
We reconstruct ancestral character states using a time-calibrated supertree based on published phylogenetic trees and linguistic classification and then test for correlated evolution between the characters and for the direction of cultural change. Results indicate that the oldest trait of religion, present in the most recent common ancestor of present-day hunter-gatherers, was animism, in agreement with long-standing beliefs about the fundamental role of this trait. Belief in an afterlife emerged, followed by shamanism and ancestor worship. Ancestor spirits or high gods who are active in human affairs were absent in early humans, suggesting a deep history for the egalitarian nature of hunter-gatherer societies. There is a significant positive relationship between most characters investigated, but the trait "high gods" stands apart, suggesting that belief in a single creator deity can emerge in a society regardless of other aspects of its religion.
Hunter-Gatherers and the Origins of Religion by Hervey C. Peoples, Pavel Duda, and Frank W. Marlowe
Let me also note that while there is an established correlational link between Personality disorders and spirituality, we have not actually done the same for other fields of interest. For example, while we generally note the ideas of "Mad Scientist", and "Method to one's Madness" as well as the proverbial "absent minded professor," it is uncommon for many to think of looking at other subject areas as being repositories of those sharing a similar type of mental illness, albeit politicians in Washington notwithstanding. In other words, we don't similarly come across psychology studies correlating one or another type of mental illness occurring amongst psychologist, mechanics, or butchers, bakers and candle stick makers... so to speak. No less, while psychological profiles are worked up for a given politician such as Trump with his narcissistic personality disorder, or that Corporations are psychotic, there is no real interest in doing the same for ideological theories. For some, without a person to direct such an account to, the issue of doing so towards their ideas seems to be a moot point, particularly if the ideas were developed decades ago, and let me add that when there is no further interest in developing an idea to pursue an improvement thereon. Whereas ideas may be pointed out as having one or another deficiency, the analysis quickly goes on to emphasize another's viewpoint without actually diving deep and wide into the former idea, such as Marx and Engles' ideology, from a perspective that has not been covered, instead of taking another turn at re-describing his economic orientation
While to some readers it may seem rather strange to combine religion to biology and then biology to sociology as a three-step formula for acquiring greater knowledge, let me assure the reader other minds besides my own have been making the same links in different fashions for many more years than I have been around, which is now parts of two different centuries... though my mind is often traversing many others. Here is a (tripartite) example of the idea concerning Adaptations, Exaptations, and Spandrels being applied to the topic of Psychology which can be applied to Evolutionary theory in Sociology with its own triadic variation of variation, selection, and transmission (other wise known as Darwin's three essential ingredients: variation, inheritance, and selection), and in fact is but the tip of the proverbial ice berg of how multi-disciplinary approaches are being used to construct new models of thought in an effort to advance human knowledge, understanding and an application thereof.
However, what is not being recognized is how those different approaches represent a freeze- fight or flight response channeled into some ideological configuration which resembles a timeline like that of the three germ layers (Endoderm-Mesoderm-Ectoderm). In other words, ideas (as well as singular words such as "Religion," "Evolution," "Science Fiction," etc.,), or symbols such as those meant to denigrate another, can take on the presence of a micro- social entity themselves. Like small insects or worms or microbes which have evolved and take on a life of their own with their own sociologies, psychologies, etc...
- ...In fact, cultural evolution seems to have driven certain aspects of human genetic evolution, favoring our big brains, linguistic skills and ultra-sociality, the three hallmarks of our species (Henrich and McElreath 2007). Page 15, Evolutionary Science and the Study of Religion by Edward Slingerland and Joseph Bulbulia
- Slingerland notes three evolutionary models of religion proposed by biologists of religion:
- Some researchers understand religions as "cultural by-products" and consider religious traits to be "by-products of functional designs." Dawkins’ memetic theory of religion falls into this group.
- Others view religion as somehow conferring individual adaptations for cooperation, in which religiosity and associated characteristics are thought to possess survival value for the individual organism.
- Lastly, the "cultural group adaptations" view asserts that" "religious cultures evolve to benefit religious groups." Wilson’s idea of multi-level selection would fall under this third category.
When an application of some religious ideology can not be effectively applied to human conditions everywhere, despite the claim by religions that their god is everywhere and makes themselves known to everyone in different ways but that those "ways" are often quite different than the conceptualizations being presented by those who may exist several thousand miles away and do not achieve the ubiquity of religious practice and ideology as certain religious concoct in their minds and get others to subscribe to; because they are in fact limited philosophies like the Marx/Engles brand of Communism... such ideologies often revert to the development of some rationalized discourse which frequently disparages those who do not believe exactly as they do, and instead turn inward and adopt a more entrenched, a more solidifying "written in stone" the attitude that they are a special people... that they alone understand some greater Universal message... that they are a Chosen people who are empowered by a core belief attributed to a centralization impressed upon them by way of a particularized repetition of vocal, physical, or attitudinal behavior... such as head bobbing amongst the Jewish, the bead counting amongst Catholics and others, ceremonialisms of kneeling, wearing a cross, saying Hail Mary several times, the hand described cross gesture like Christians, praying in a given direction and multiple times like the Islamists; and various other repetitions used by ideologies referred more often to as a life philosophy instead of as a religion or sociology.
Instead of being offhandedly dismissive of religion by referring to it as an opiate of the people/masses (sometimes attributed to Marx and at other times attributed to journalism), Marx would have been more instructive if he included it in his description of the historical development of society and economics, since both come into play whenever religion is nearby. However, if he had done an analysis of religion he might have come to a realization that what he and Engles were proposing was but a substitute narcotic that many came to be addicted to and place Marx... if not also Engles, Lenin and others on a pedestal of undeserved adoration. A acknowledgement yes... for their contributions, but not an enshrinement.
Because we find so many pseudo-religious philosophies and mainstream religious ideologies advancing the view that the labor of believers would be better served to provide them with a better life if all monies were pooled into a central vault to be redistributed as the reigning leadership thinks best and that there should be no private ownership to ward off the evils inherent with greed; other than the collectivized private ownership under the auspices of a given centralized leadership made up of a very few; what we see are variations of the Marx and Engles brand of Communism. Religious ideologies are part of the primitivization human cognition has been expressing for several thousand years. Human development in its thinking has developed slowly in some cases, has stopped in others, and has improved in others. Not only is this true in religion, but a survey of different subjects says the same thing. At various times the development of an idea is hit and miss, and often becomes perpetuated because it is encased by traditions which keep them alive, so to speak, but they do not develop, they are merely relics to be worshiped because those who are in charge of the encasements say they should based on one or another representations as part of a heritage, part of who we are as a species, or based on some other idealized importance that humanity is otherwise not permitted to grow beyond unless it includes the relics as a primary embodiment of some ideal or interpreted lineage placement and not as a short-live mutation that should have died out but perpetuated old ideas help to sustain them as "living" relics. One of these in the Marx/Engles brand of Communism.
If not an infant-like pacifier for some, it is an emotionalized intellectual intoxicant for others who are not being confronted by a reason or situation which would enable them to be weaned off the pacifier or become drug free, since so many often turn to some other drug-like repetition like Alcoholics in Alcoholics Anonymous exchanging the inebriation of alcohol for the inebriation of some informalized religion called a step-wise fashion which acts as a recruitment staging akin to a Novice/beginner- Journeyman- Master profile of mental skills development. Though many have come to recognize this, it is an acceptable alternative drug. I would agree. Yet, when we look at the widespread usage of religion and pseudo-religious philosophies as narcotics involving billions, we find that there is no presently recognized alternative substitute, even though some advice the usage of Atheism... though it too is often used as a substitute narcotic represented by their dogmatic insistence they have THE TRUTH, that their belief is the one, the only, and that they are thus chosen one to dispel the falsehoods of religion... acting as a Jesus, or Buddha, or Mohammed in their crusade against a great evil that plagues humanity.
If we call Democracy, Socialism, and Communism the tale of three brothers, a title no doubt someone at sometime will plagiarize from this account; it must be recognized that each share traits of the others:
- Democratic-Democracy (Such as that attempted by the small country known as Switzerland with its practice of a "direct democracy".)
- Democratic-Socialism (Such as we see in the many flavors of phony democracy such as the British brand of democracy, the American brand of Democracy, the Canadian brand of democracy, the German brand of democracy, etc...)
- Democratic-Communism (Such as that seen in militaries.)
- Socialist-democracy (An emphasis on socialism with democracy there to support it.)
- Socialist-Socialism (An attempted civility over its underlying crust of crudeness.)
- Socialist-Communism (a view where communism is seen as a primitive socialism.)
- Communist-Democracy (that which is thought to be provided by "Marx/Engles" communism is defined as liberty, fraternity, and equality.)
- Communist-Socialism (socialism is viewed as a crude, a primitive form of communism but a stage society must pass through.)
- Communist-Communism (What starts out as a Marxist/Engle's model of communism is later transformed into a greater refinement.)
The above can be thought of as a stew being brewed not only by the vagaries of "market or economic forces", but the flames of emotion upon which are tossed "a pinch of this," "a smidgeon of that," with a teaspoon, tablespoon, ounce and cup of Libertarianism and anarchy as intermittently applied seasonings that both please and displeasure the palates of different eras.
Like the so many recurrences of three-patterned ensembles found in Fairy tales, myths and other narratives, both written and orally transmitted through history, we find the three items of Democracy, Socialism, and Communism those which have come to take the place of the philosophical monad, dyad, and plurality. Though mixed and matched, inter-twined, knotted, unraveled, cut and pieced together with this, that and another within the world-view of a given era, a core of three remain, like a triplet code found in genetics. While some might argue for the dominant presence of a dichotomy underlying this, we humans have come to embellish many dichotomies by calling them dialectics which are organized with three elements, just as we find in sets-of-three arithmetic, mathematical triads, the triads of music, the syllogisms of philosophy, classes of society, and multiple other instances out of which might well be discerned pluralities by those who knowingly or unknowingly practice an inclination towards one-upmanship. For example, in making reference to five fingers; it is not that they go unrecognized, but that the usage of three fingers apparently by most people to write with, goes overlooked as a main channel by which thoughts and feelings are expressed... like the Subject-Object-Verb ensemble of most languages and the usage of the period, question mark and exclamation point being used as definitives, which colons, semi-colons commas and others marks, make up internalized gestures with singular personal usage as propositional endings.
The ideas of Marx and Engles should be viewed as expressions of primivity, though the reader might be more comfortable viewing such a notion with the word "adolescent" or "immaturity" being used, because such more easily affords them the opportunity to migrate the notion to some avenue of intellectual cosmetic wherein their own interest in their ideas does not taken on the appearance of being guilty by association, and instead admits to the view that their ideas can be improved on with greater knowledge, but that the "core" of their ideas nonetheless is an unreserved expression of intellectual maturity and genius, whereby adherents can thus view themselves as somehow being similarly rewarded with the same interpretation by an association thereto. In other words, they don't want to appear as having been stupidly misled by a childish level of vulnerability because of an ignorance wrought by an un-admitted to intellectual innocence.
Yet, not only an advocacy of Communism, but all alternative government designs that the people want to implement are bound to be confronted by institutions which may promote the rights of speech freedom, press freedom, assembly freedom, protest freedom, voting freedom, freedom from arbitrary arrest and detainment, etc.; which suggest they are practicing what is described as a Democracy; but actually display situations in which the people are not actually in charge of "their" government, and can therefore not make changes as they collectively see fit. Governments and other institutions routinely put into place a menagerie of requirements to enforce a status quo that advances democratic ideals but do not actually practice them and will in fact exhibit the opposite of any supposed right of the people, depending on the level the people insist upon making changes. The more depth and breadth the desired changes, the more niggardly will the presumed right of the people be retracted... or redacted from the commentary of journalists... often by journalistic sources themselves who are very much a part of the "system' which wants to keep a choke hold on the public.
A collective protest for improving an established government is typically confronted by governmental designs supported by both business and religious rationales that traditionally do not themselves believe in an actual democratic practice within their separate organizations. In other words, protestors do not routinely go up against presumed practices of an actual democracy, but gradations of governmental practices that will incrementally advance less democratic practices and more primitive ones, in a retrograde fashion, the more it feels its livelihood is threatened. It is an historical behavioral lineage in reverse. Marx's call for a Revolution was appreciably unreflective in this regard.
Measurable changes towards increased uses of primitive expressions of behavior in so-called democratic institutions give rise to a resemblance of history being practiced in reverse; that take place under survival conditions, just as it does when a civilized person is forced into a combative situation for which they 'must kill or be killed,' in order to, more often then not, secure some commercial or otherwise pecuniary advantage for one or more companies whose donations to political campaigns is a bought and paid for protection that one type or another armament carrying force will be called in to insure their interests are maintained, and in many instances, increased... Thus advancing the realization that old protest tactics must be accordingly altered to be more effective. The use of force is a very real game changer despite the stupid pacifist slogan that "violence is not the answer". If this were not the case there would be no need for the presence of militaries, police units or other security services with access to various "tools" of violence to be used according to the "mechanical requirements" of a given social occasion. Very often we see that the tools of the trade are increasingly exhibiting what can be described as an "over kill," meaning they bring more than is actually needed, to the point of even handcuffing children, because there is an increasing desire by various policing, security and military units to want there to be an escalation of violence whereby they can at sometime retreat to a grog drinking session and replay the "good fight" as if they were warriors of old gathered together to feast and drink themselves to an unconscious stupor as part of a congratulatory pat on the pact socially shared as if some god ordained accomplishment has transpired.
No less, all too often we see intellectual indictments against business, government and religion being defined as a "scholarship' and not a call to arms, as a means by which an academic culture can protect "one of its own" from being condemned, and there after followed by a call for their own views to be subjected to a book burning. Camaraderie shows up in different forms and different places at different times by different people, even sometimes by those one may have viewed either as an actual or assumed antagonist.
Democratic institutions think of themselves as a conscious "self" like U.S. businesses who were dumbfoundedly permitted by the U.S. Supreme Court which accepted the irrationality that a business is an individual... a person acting independently from its individual internal members; who thus can not be blamed for insult or injury caused by this fabricated fairy tale of a person; when they view themselves as somehow be unwitting and innocent bystanders who are not to be held responsible to the behavior of "that" person, though one might alternatively argue that individual body cells can collectively be cancerous and cause the body to do things it might not otherwise do, such as creating conditions of self-harm (such as suicide) or bring harm to others (for long-held desires of retribution) because the consequence of death or imprisonment has no real long-term meaning since they are deeply sick most of the time, in pain, and are going to die anyway. Clearly, when one speaks about a regression of history taking place, one must include retrograde activities occurring within individuals as well as individual institutions, that in the perspective of education is referred to as a "dumbing down".
Present formulas of Democracy are a ruse which conceal the practice of established hierarchical conventions amounting to one or another type of aristocracy, very often expressed by way of what appear to be incongruous lines of familial descent, but occur nonetheless via political, religious, and various economically related socialized isolations that the rest of the citizenry are neither wholly privy to nor enabled to be enfranchised with. These aristocracies martial social forces, functions, and multiple financially controlled resources to stop any attempt to change them to a different pattern than that which leaderships have carved out a personal niche.' by both learning the ins and outs of a given system and then once incorporated into it, legislatively enacting laws and policies so as to solidify the government to comply most amicably to their given aptitudes, which include their type of mental illness if it dominates their world view. In short, no matter how well an alternative social system is developed to improve the overall functionality and character of a social system, it will be confronted and forced to either violently defend itself, take flight and thus take refuge in accepted forms of concealment and diffusion, or submit through one form or another of interment; be it incarceration, dire impoverishment, death, or socially accepted forms of indentured servitude called a job, a career, or social services dependency.
Let us look a tad bit closer to the above three stated evils through simple redefinitions:
- Capitalism is just a tool. It is not the problem. The problem is with those who are dominating the usage of the tool. Capitalism can alternatively be used to provide many benefits in the hands of caring and conscientious financial crafts-person's with a genuine compassion for all citizens. Insensitivley removing the practice of Capitalism as if one is a surgeon who has no other tool and knowledge than a hunting knife set into a fire and a saw wiped away by day-old soiled bed linen; admits to the presence of a primitive level of ignorance that is a real disease because it indicates an infected mind that does not know how to eat with eating utensils, much less forge them.
- Democracies as "Peoples Governments," are inherently Big Governments involving the entire population. A government that does not actually permit a "Peoples Government" with a Congressionally mandated Peoples Legislative Branch is a pseudo-democracy whose constricted allowance of citizen participation is a Small Government Mindedness advancing the preferences of a "Few over the Many", giving evidence of a false democratic practice to suit the needs of those striving to create their own personalized aristocracies of governmental control.
- All societies exist with some measure of Socialist practice. Otherwise there would be no public schools, libraries, social security, social health care, social service, public highways, workplace protections, food protections, goods and services warranties, and numerous other socialized services. Those who off-handedly reject Socialism do so because of a profound ignorance of Socialism.
Indeed, if one looks closely at how Military organizations are practiced, though they may claim themselves to be bastions, bulwarks and insurable warranty protections for some purported democratic ideal that is never actually itemized nor fully practiced; we see them as little more than cosmetically concealed expressions of an aristocracy— sometimes autocracy or dictatorship— along with Communism and Socialism, with a minor exercise in democracy. For example, take a look (again) at the following list, keeping in mind the question of whether or not voting in one's leaders in a free election is a hallmark indication of democracy; and whether or not it is appropriate for a democracy to use methods other than a democracy to protect and promote itself; and thus free itself from perpetuating instances of anything but a democracy; like a religion which claims its god is all powerful and will provide as well as protect; but nonetheless purchases mercenaries dubbed as "crusaders" to do the dirty work of those who want some assurance that they can have an escape clause, immunity from prosecution clause, and scapegoat, should their crusade for peace, love, and justice (as well as other hypocrisies) go south:
![Where is the Great and Wonderful practice of a Democracy?](https://www.threesology.org/resources/ANC/"militarywelfare3.png" "Where is the Great and Wonderful practice of a Democracy?")
Despite all the many arguments which might arise in support for the current practices of Military organizations and against the above list which is a little too sobering for some who prefer the inebriation of their routine injections of patriotic themes which numb their consciousness into thinking other than that which their mentality has been instructed to echo, like some robotic doll or dog assembled in a conveyor belt (hamster treading) fashion though a process of protracted cultural indoctrination; the realization will take hold amongst the younger, more malleable minds as well as those older brains that have not become solidified with age.
Yet, let me continue with the current topic:
Although this page is part of the Newer "Sociological 3's" series, I thought it best to provide it with a separate title because while writing the 3rd page of the series— which has now been extended to a 4th page— and between the two I began to touch upon a particularized viewpoint of Karl Marx's brand of 3-phases Communism, I though it best to use a specific title because the information may be of more interest to those inclined towards studying Communism as a proposed sociological ideal to strive for as if it were some golden fleece that they and others must be convinced to pursue as if it were a sacred duty to join in such a quest; and would otherwise not even to think of searching specifically for it in the Sociological 3's series. While much of the same information can now be found in the 5th and 6th pages of the series (that is unless I continue to write and add more pages with calls for further adjustments), since as I add more information I have to shift the contents in an attempt to keep some semblance of continuity, I am thus revealing a repetition here, that I feel it is of need to do so with the intent having been outlined.
It is of necessity that the reader indulges the notion that the different variations of Communist practice and unpracticed ideological considerations be viewed as primivities... as attempted transformations to mature beyond the primitive role modeling orations of Marx's views which exhibit a barbarity, vulgarity and general ignorance for which heirs to his ideological traditions are akin to students challenging the edicts of an instructor whose classroom thought experiments have been tested in various real-world settings and found to be wanting.
Marx and Engels as well as their contemporaries had a very small, a very limited and short-sighted view of history, human behavior and the 'complexifications' workers can be confronted with when having to navigate the collusions of conservativism involving business, government and religion working hand in hand to maintain their institutional controls over the people in the different cultural venues. Venues that are commercially fabricated as stage settings which will best help them to survive— even though the people may have to embrace privations wardrobed with the cosmetics of differentiated language vernaculars and idioms such as austerity, patriotic sacrifice, collateral reparation, sacred humility, market forces, commercial readjustment, 'it takes time', patience is a virtue, and multiple other intentionally crafted scripts. Scripts which are routinely used as entertainments to set the mood for a protracted intermission suggested as a necessity to bring about a social ambience which will be more conducive to the next commercialized political ritual that expects not only deference but humbled obeisance to policies created to introduce instructive formulas of religiously-intoned like-minded ceremonialisms resulting in yet another generation of lost progress for achieving a greater ideal of civilization.
However, as I have already begun working on this page and provided an outline of the idea, I need to interject an overall purview that Marx's ideology is not sophisticated enough to make mention of a realization that human cognition indulges in rationalizations as a method by which some semblance of equilibrium is maintained in the present day observations of rather obvious deteriorating conditions of the Universe, Galaxy, solar system and Earth, including humanity's own many itemizable destructions of the environment. Nor is Marx and Engels' collectivity of thought sagacious enough to provide a tool by which to measure the rate and depth by which the deterioration is taking place over time, and that we of the present and those of the future must confront as a very large variable in the overall equation which A New Communism brings to the fore.
Though tools of measurement are at present rather crude and open to biased and opinionated deductions and used as an argument by very many an ignorant individual that wants to deny humanity's role in a very real change in climatic conditions that humanity is forced to contend with; the instrumentation will improve to provide a determinant proficiency to better calculate the changes, and hopefully impress upon humanity to realize that the hope for a global Communism, a Communalism, a Commonism of respectful individuality... so to speak, can be realized... but apparently not on Earth.
Date of Origination: Sunday, December 29th, 2020... 3:05 AMInitial Posting: Saturday, February 1st, 2020... 12:51 PM
Herb O. Buckland
herbobuckland@hotmail.com