High Culture? WTF? Part Ten

L

Culture is Directions for Performance and a Social Institution is a Performance in Response to Directions.

However, it could also be said that a direction is a performance and a performance is a direction. But, there is one mode of directions which destroys the symmetry of this relation. This mode consists of directions for issuing directions.

To give this mode a single term we'll call it Meta-Directions.

A dictionary is an obvious example. In the simplest way definitions tell us what a word means. But it also tells us how to use that word. In other words, it is a direction for a direction.

The making and using of Dictionaries belongs to High Culture.

Dictionaries emerge when a culture has become so complex and so self-conscious that it is fully aware of the threat of behavioral dissolution, that is, of communication failure or breakdown.

Metaphysics - Logic - Meta-Directions

Another example of meta-directions is Logic. Specifically, in the emergence of logic on the cultural scene of ancient Greece. Logic followed the dissemination of the metaphysical writings of the pre-Socratic philosophers. A metaphysic is an explanation of the world, but of such a nature that it both determines and limits meta-directions and directions. Further, metaphysics are covertly or overtly value-laden. Belief-Systems (or Metaphysics) are used to establish value priorities and hierarchies. This explains why the general twist of a Metaphysic (or Belief-System) is:

This is the way things are: and this is why they ought to be as they are (ie; this is why they should control your behavior, or why you should allow your behavior to be controlled by them).

A Metaphysic (Belief-System) is an Explanation, a Justification, and a Validation for our thoughts and actions.

Note: All of this is extremely useful for anyone interested in developing the quality of self-awareness. Simply because it is very difficult, if not impossible, to develop that quality without asking yourself what it is you believe in. In other words, what belief-system do you live by? And the best way to do this is to understand what a belief-system is and how it works, or to be more precise, how we work it. And to do that it helps to know the difference between Belief and Beliefs (ie; belief-systems).

Logic developed in ancient Greece* in response to the multiplication of metaphysical explanations (introduced by the pre-Socratics) that challenged Greek religious explanations.

*The Land of Whiteness. Seriously though, in terms of this discussion, in their response to a culture crisis - communication breakdown - the ancient Greeks developed Logic itself. Not bad. Something no other culture before them ever thought of doing. And to the extent it occured to them after the fact they were dependent on the Greeks. Yet another reason why they want to destroy Western Civilization and why their reasons and actions in that regard are so illogical, irrational, hateful and stupid. Nothing about Cancel Culture, Identity Politics or Critical Race Theory could ever be confused with Reason.

It was the first time in human history that Philosophy challenged Religion. It wouldn’t be the last. But it wasn’t until Nietzsche that philosophers realized that if Philosophy was to successfully challenge any other explanatory system used by a power-center to control our behavior then philosophers would have to explain Explanation itself. And, of course, that wasn’t fully articulated until the publication of Morse Peckham’s luminous

Explanation and Power: The Control of Human Behavior.

But, of course, Peckham wasn’t a philosopher. That he was able to do what no philosopher ever thought of doing is a fact that, though very interesting, very telling, and extremely important, will have to wait till a future entry for a fuller explanation.

However, until then, and before continuing here, we can say this: the reason no one working in the social role of philosopher has explained Explanation is because if they did they would transcend philosophy itself and no longer be philosophers.

The explanation for this is found in the fact that philosophers have never been interested in explaining what they actually do, which is telling us all how we ought to interpret explanations.

Note: In fact, and while we’re on the subject, from this perspective, both Romanticism and American Pragmatism, itself in the Romantic tradition, in short, the traditions within which Peckham was working, can be seen as an overall attempt to challenge the Political explanatory systems of the Right and Left that together replaced Religious explanations in the West. Both the Right and Left as we now understand them having emerged during the Renaissance centuries and culminating in the 18th century Enlightenment. This explains, by the way, why the United States still operates almost entirely out of Enlightenment values, whether of the Right or Left. In any event, this is why American universities deliberately abandoned the study of its own philosophy, American Pragmatism and replaced it with Critical Theory. The reason for this, obviously, is that those who did the replacing were not and are not Americans. They’re in the United States, but they're not of the United States.

In any event, the point is, as a culture becomes more complex, and as more of a population becomes aware of that complexity and is afflicted more self-consciously with the anxiety of behavioral dissolution, logic is introduced at progressively lower culture levels; that is, an attempt (never fully successful) is made to exert its control not only over meta-directions but also over immediate directions for nonverbal performance. So?

Well, so, the consequence of all of this analysis is that:

High Culture = Meta-Directions = Limitation of the Range of Behavior = Policing.

It may seem strange that drugs, alcohol, collecting, tourism, metaphysics, logic, and High Culture can be subsumed under the general term Policing, but the key word is seems. Because, in fact, it couldn’t be more obvious. But, once again, we don’t want you to take our word for it. Look and See, Test and Use.

LI

If you do test what was said about metaphysics you’ll have no problem seeing that the above point is made even more transparent when we consider that the central position of any belief-system, or metaphysic, anywhere in the world is either:

The construction of a theory of an ordered world.

The ordered construction of a theory of the world.

The ordered construction of a theory of an ordered world.

Whenever we find the word order we can be sure that what is at work is the construction of a defense against the constant threat of behavioral dissolution, the ultimate source of which is the primary attribute of the human brain - Randomness, which explains why any sign can elicit all possible meaning responses.

So, it’s not surprising that value is so identified with order that the two terms are nearly interchangeable. To assert that an order exists is virtually to assert that whatever is said to manifest order is valuable. And whenever we encounter the word order we can be sure that the primary interest at work is the primary interest of human beings - the limitation of the range of response.

And now we’re back to Policing. Because that is what Policing is all about - limiting the range of behavior.

Polcing = Limiting the Range of Behavior

With this we’re provided with an explanation of what kind of statement the identification of art and order is and an explanation as well of the social source of that identification that we mentioned in Part Eight section XLII.

LII

So long as the Arts & Sciences are justified in university teaching in the name of order (as they are when subsumed by a political ideology used by a power center) and as long as individual works are explained, justified and validated by discovering in them some principle of order related to a single explanatory system, whether theological or ideological (same thing) the Arts & Sciences cannot be used to develop a radical sensitivity to problem-solving and the creative imagination.

Nevertheless, the study and teaching and experience of the Arts & Sciences does hold a hope for the development of a radical sensitivity and for educational reconstruction. In what way?

By using the Arts & Sciences to penetrate the armor of Policing.

And it is penetrable, for the whole enormous and central human effort to police, to limit the range of behavior, to prevent behavioral dissolution, to stabilize directions and performance - is, in fact, self-defeating. Or rather, humanity is self-defeating.

Why?

Because the condition of humanity’s existence, stabilization by policing, is antithetical to that existence. What makes mankind (communication) possible destroys communication (mankind).

Why? To answer this question let's look at scientific laboratories.

Scientific experiment depends upon three things:

1. A severe limitation of theory, or meta-directions.

2. An extreme limitation of stimuli.

3. An extremely severe limitation of response (policing).

Or, more simply - Theory - Stimulus - Response.

Nevertheless, the bulk of scientific experimentation produces negative results. Let’s stop for a moment and consider this.

Science, specifically, the scientific method, is the most remarkable way mankind has yet created for overcoming the inherent deficiency in human behavior - dissolution. And yet, the majority of its discoveries are failures. How do we know that? Because the scientists tell us. That’s how! So? Well, so, that means it is an honest community. Or was until Cancel Culture.

In any event, this is why at PRC the Arts & Sciences are seen as the intelligent alternative to Politics and Religion. No one with a passion for knowledge, and a desire to experience life to the full by applying what knowledge they might have to the world we all live in, is ever going to be politically-minded. Correspondingly, it’s also why no one who is politically-minded is ever going to have a passion for knowledge. It’s just not going to happen.

Why? Because a passion for knowledge undermines the primary interest of the politically-minded, which is - political power.

Whereas the primary interest of those with a passion for knowledge is spiritual power, which subsumes politics.

It's not that those with a passion for knowledge aren't interested in politics. On the contrary. The irony is, since to serve their primary interest they must know as much as possible about Explanation and Behavior, they end up knowing far more about how politics actually works than do the politically-minded, whose emotional investment in belief over reality is simply too great for them to overcome long enough to acquire what a passion for knowledge has to offer (provided that that passion is satisfied).

This explains why the Right and Left have come to the end of themselves. Because, as I've said before, they both come from the same 18th century Enlightenment metaphysic, which can be reduced to one principle - perfect adaptation. The Right and Left have come to an end because perfect adaptation is impossible.

That's why we're living in The Age of Explanatory Collapse.

So, what is filling the void? A Global Dictatorship. Obviously!

At PRC the perception of the situation today is that, though this attempt by the hostile elite to enforce a global dictatorship will continue to do enormous damage before it fails, it will fail. As I've also said here before, the reason it will fail is this:

The effort of the hostile elite to impose a social order free of control but sustained by force only increases the uncontrolled exercise of naked power. And it's exactly that force - constantly applied - that is underming the institutions their power controls.

Just look around.

In any event, politics should serve the Arts & Sciences because the Arts & Sciences serve life by keeping us grounded in reality.

Politics is about itself. So it must be made to serve life and that means it must be subsumed by the Arts and Sciences. This is why, as stated in the entry on CRT, there was an effort, sadly unsuccessful, to subsume the Humanities under the Behavioral Sciences. Exactly because, in part, people could see that the Humanities were being politicized and that the politicization of the Humanities would be a disaster for all involved, ie; the University, the Culture, the Country, and the Civilization.

Who living today could possibly deny that they were right?

LIII

To repeat, scientific method is the most remarkable way man has yet created for overcoming the inherent deficiency in behavior - dissolution. Yet the failure of so much scientific experimentation makes it clear that these three limitations - theory, stimulus and response - are not directly responsible for scientific discovery, but only indirectly. Significant scientific discovery is in fact the consequence of a hunch, a guess, an intuition, a leap in the dark.

It is not scientific method that is responsible for significant discovery but the total scientific Directions-Performance Complex. Not the method but the Cultural-Social situation.

Why?

Because it is a situation that privatizes behavior. And in so doing it frees or separates the scientist from the immense, incomprehensible, fluid network of normal communications.

Scientific Method - Theory, Data, and Experiment - creates a miniature world or model of human behavior. A world that is small, stable, and comprehensible, which acts as a defense or barrier against the real thing. This is of the utmost importance.

Why?

Encased and protected in their tiny communication world, the scientist is free from the normal situation in which everything involves everything else, in which no individual part of that world has any limits. So, encased and free the scientist is capable of the acte gratuite, of the transcending hunch.

They are, in short, in a condition of estrangement or alienation.

And I mean real alienation. Not the fraudulent alienation found in Marxist theory, which from a scientific point of view isn’t even a theory, since it can’t be translated into operational statements that can then be tested in the real world where those involved would then be free to respond to the consequences. This should come as no surprise, since Marxism's use of science is in the pre-1840 sense. An embarrasing fact lost on Marxists. Which would explain why so much of their theory is intellectually ignorant, incompetent, and corrupt. That's why it’s not a theory applied in the real world, but a belief imposed on the world - by force.

It’s why Marxism in all of its forms politicizes everything, including and especially science. In other words, they police science itself because their objective is to police all of human behavior, and police it forever. Marxism - Communism - is the single greatet manifestation of Mankind's Rage for Order.

It's also by far the bloodiest, having slaughtered 100 million people in less than 80 years without a shred of human remorse.

It's a form of intellectual insanity and moral imbecility exactly because it eliminates High Culture and therefore thwarts the entire Directions-Performance Complex from the start. And that, of course, is why it is the verbal cancer of the human race. Which means that treason against Communism is loyalty to humanity.

Communism, or Cancel Culture, limits its scientific activity to developing existent principles of order into new concepts that may appear innovative, but aren’t. How? They distort the data.

But a real scientist does not develop existent principles of order into a new concept. They overthrow them. As does anyone who uses the scientific method in a socio-cultural situation. Which is what I do here. In fact, it's what PRC is all about. Obviously!

Anyone can use the scientific method and should. Because it produces the best results, intellectually, socially and morally.

But not just the scientific method. To that we must add the creative imagination. In short, The Arts & Sciences. They produce the best results because they expose their theories and creations to a process of continuous feedback and correction.

The more significant their discovery, creation, or innovation, the greater the confusion into which it throws the very principles from which they began. That’s why all great artists and scientists of the West (the land of whiteness) were never really lost in a world of theory, but knew in their bones and suffered in their hearts and minds the intellectual tension, psychological disorientation and emotional disturbance that goes with all high level problem-solving and significant innovation, High Culture.

But, it’s exactly because they are working in a socio-cultural situation that by getting to the bottom of things their discoveries are more often than not seen as deviations from the norm! One of the first great scientific discoveries, Galileo’s, was clearly labeled for what it was considered to be - a crime. This is why anyone who disagrees with the Left is treated like a criminal and why the Left let’s criminals go free, while the ever clueless Right continues to march backward in time by repeating over and over like the chattering of an idiot, only less interesting, 2021 is 1776!

Anyway, for the present problem, the clear lesson is that human behavior at any given moment is inadequate for its own needs.

To exist it must stabilize itself through policing, but stabilization prevents the correction of a necessarily inadequate Directions-Performance state. The importance of science is not just its discoveries - as rewarding and as damaging as they have been - but its constant proof of that inadequacy.

LIV

Another great example of the self-defeating character of human behavior can be seen in psychological laboratories. Here the interesting factor is not the scientist but the human subject.

What happens in such a laboratory is that subjects are exposed to a single stimulus in a behaviorally neutral environment.

The scientist records and makes a statistical analysis of the frequency of different categories of response. In spite of the enormous amounts of money that have gone into such laboratories, very little of significance has been revealed.

Why?

Because in normal behavior no single stimulus can ever be isolated. In other words, a response is not a response to a single stimulus but to a stimulus field. And a stimulus field is made of an indefinably large number of stimulus sources - each of which is a sign capable of eliciting an indefinably large number of responses and together so interacting in the brain that only policing can produce any commonality of behavior (stability).

This helps explain the significance of dreams, which after all can be interpreted only to confirm the interpreter’s interpretational mode. However, as the behavior of the scientist shows, behavioral dissolution is the source of corrections to the system.

But not all behavioral dissolutions. The scientist makes their discovery by hunches, but only the very rare hunch is fruitful.

Yet, if policing is the channeling of behavior and the suppression of innovation, it is clear that normal interactional behavior is responsible for the loss of an incalculable number of possibilities for correcting the inadequacies of any current Directions-Performance state, as well as, of course, for an equally incalculable number of possibilities for damaging it.

There’s no question that the success of science has already done an enormous and perhaps irreparable amount of damage. But, it’s only fair to admit that the reason for the damage has been that the correction of the state has not been thorough enough. And the most important reason why is the politicization of science itself.

This last point leads us finally to the real subject of this entry.

Can the study and teaching of the Arts & Sciences contribute to the creation of a kind of person capable of a more thorough-going correction of the system than has yet existed? This is arguably one of the most impotant questions in the world today.

So, to that question in Part Eleven we shall turn.

Until then!