The New Dark Age…
The Perspectivism of Modernity & Post-Modernity and the Disintermediation of Reality through Semiotic Signs
“For Hegel, freedom was not just a psychological phenomenon but the essence of what was distinctively human. In this sense, freedom and nature are diametrically opposed. Freedom does not mean the freedom to live in nature or according to nature; rather, freedom begins only where nature ends. Human freedom emerges only when man is able to transcend his natural, animal existence and to create a new self for himself. The emblematic starting point for this process of self-creation is the struggle to the death for pure prestige”…
― Francis Fukuyama, The End of History and the Last Man
Objectivism
əbˈdʒɛktɪˌvɪzəm
the philosophical doctrine that Reality is objective
the meta-ethical doctrine that certain moral truths are independent of the attitudes of any individuals
Perspectivism (also called perspectivalism)
pəˈspɛktɪˌvɪzəm
the philosophical theory, originated by Nietzsche, states that there are many different world views depending on an individual’s particular perspective
the epistemological principle that perception of and knowledge of something are always bound to the interpretive perspectives of those observing it
There is a commonly held view that the arrival of Modernism represented the liberation of Man.
A liberation from the Human Condition that was inherent within the Contingent Being of Man (refer to Artificial General Intelligence, Trans Humanism, Scientific Gnosticism (Scientism), Nietzschean Übermensch, Nietzschean Will to Power).
A liberation from the intolerable conditions and suffering of the Material Realm through attaining a Consciousness — a Gnosis (refer to Gnosticism including Modern Gnosticism, Trans Humanism, Geo-Bio-Genetic-Engineering, Cartesian Mechanical Machine World View, Heidegger’s Technology Enframing (Bestand — Standing Reserve), and Jacques Ellul’s Technology Society & System).
A liberation from an independent objective Reality (refer to the Theology of Marxism (i.e. a power-directed system of thought), Nietzsche’s Theory of Perspectivism, Saussurean Dyadic Semiotics, Jean Baudrillard’s Post-Modern Simulacra, Simulation and HyperReality ).
“Revolutions are the locomotives of history”…
— Karl Marx
The material manifestation of this idea is ever-present in various Revolutions that have occurred across the World post the arrival of Modernity including inter alia the French, Russian, and Chinese variants.
Idealism & Materialism — Dialectical Materialism, Praxis, Reflexivity, Historical Materialism and a perpetual OODA Loop of man-made change and transformation.
Modernity and Post-Modernity
Was modernism a movement that reflected an inward orientation of human consciousness and an outward confidence in these emergent enlightenment ideals to transform the World?
Ideals that included a growing confidence in Man’s capacity to reason to understand and gain objective knowledge about the World, the utility value and power of scientific inquiry, the application of scientific knowledge to technological innovation to enable Man’s transformation of the material realm and a growing confidence in Man’s ability through dialectical materialism to transform Reality — both beliefs (idealism) and experiences (materialism) — a progressivism.
This confidence in the Primacy of Man and Human Consciousness was also supported by an innate ability for self-reflection (Reflexivity).
A self-consciousness — a capacity of Man to reflect on Man’s own beliefs (second-order cybernetics).
For example, as the Industrial Revolution progressed various Modernist thinkers began questioning the optimism of pure rationality, objectivism and the notion of progress.
Philosophical, political and artistic manifestations of Human Consciousness’s capacity for self-reflection included inter alia the emergence of the Theology of Marxism, Logical Positivism, Existentialism, Socialism, Communism, Fascism, Dadaism, Cubism, and Surrealism.
Modernism was increasingly reflecting the interplay between Human Conscious Beliefs (Idealism) and the complexity of the World that Humans inhabited (Materialism) including the economic, social, technological and political dynamics.
A Primacy of Human Consciousness and a Primacy of Man’s experiences in the World in mediating our understanding of Reality.
Ideas that sowed the seeds of Modern Perspectivism.
“Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe. What we believe is based upon our perceptions. What we perceive depends on what we look for. What we look for depends on what we think. What we think depends on what we perceive. What we perceive determines what we believe. What we believe determines what we take to be true. What we take to be true is our reality”…
— David Bohm
Was post-modernism a movement that was grounded in the same Modern Perspectivism that would ultimately lead to the deconstruction of the certainty, rationality and objectivity of Modernism?
Noting Perspectivism is a philosophical theory, originated by Nietzsche****, that states that there are many different world views depending on an individual’s particular perspective.
If the genesis of early Modernism was an inward orientation of human consciousness towards rationality and pure reason as the source of understanding and objective knowledge, was late Modernism’s outward orientation a reflection of the embodied nature of human consciousness (Mind & Body) and our Umwelt as living organisms?
The subjective nature of our embodied lived experience, history, context and the multiple perspectives of the Primacy of Man mediate our understanding of Reality (a Perspectivism).
“Postmodernity is said to be a culture of fragmentary sensations, eclectic nostalgia, disposable simulacra, and promiscuous superficiality, in which the traditionally valued qualities of depth, coherence, meaning, originality, and authenticity are evacuated or dissolved amid the random swirl of empty signals” …
– Jean Baudrillard
A Dadaism, Surrealism and intellectual Theatre of the Absurd that was attempting to decouple Human Consciousness from an independent Reality.
“I was ashamed of myself when I realised life was a costume party and I attended with my real face” …
– Franz Kafka
[ **** Note — Nietzsche was critical of the early Modernist and subsequent Enlightenment thinkers’ ideas that grounded human progress in reason & abstraction. The notion that Man through this unmediated process ( i.e. without any conditioning from subjective human experiences, cultural contexts, or instincts) could progress towards achieving privileged access to truth, knowledge and objective reality. Instead, his Theory of Perspectivalism was an attempt to recognise that Man simply could not escape the subjectivity of his interpretations and embodiment in the World. According to Nietzsche, Reality and human reason are contingent and mediated through an individual’s body, passions, instincts (e.g. a will to power), historical contexts and perspectives. Ideas that highlighted the role that human will and agency play in shaping and constructing Conscious Man’s perspectives of Reality. But in challenging the notion of Objectivism and Realism which were central to Western Civilisation’s metaphysics (Christian Theology and Ancient Greek Philosophy), Nietzsche’s theory of perspectivalism viewed through a prism of materialism illustrates the subjectivity of Man’s lived experience. A perspective that would over-time lead Western Civilisation’s secular European educated class into the cul de sac of Post-Modern relativism, materialism, and nihilism [ despite Nietzsche foreseeing the risk and presenting a possible antidote (i.e. personal self-discovery, self-development, self-overcoming and new values — Übermensch)].
The Perspectivism of Modernity & Post-Modernity and the Disintermediation of Reality through Semiotic Signs
The ideas of Modernism and Post-Modernism represented a Theological, Philosophical and Metaphysical hard-fork in the history of Western Civilisation intellectual thought.
The Medieval Thomism Scholastic Triadic Structures of Reality that reflect the relationship between God, Human Consciousness and the Material Realm were in the late stages of being deconstructed.
Reality was now a Human Construct — a Social Construct — a Perspectivism.
A Sociologism whereby knowledge and morality become social phenomena.
A Secular Neo-Gnostic surrogate for Christianity anchored in a Theology of Marxism and grounded in Human Consciousness — Conscious Self- Ego was increasingly the orientation for understanding Reality.
The Modern and Post-Modern liberation of Man — an unshackling from the past — a New World Order.
The increasingly Globalist Secular Liberal Progressive Orthodoxy of the Educated Class.
Man has always used Semiotic Signs as the instrument of mediation between Human Consciousness and Abstraction and the Material Realm he inhabits.
Through the Universality of Reason and the adoption of Semiotic Signs, it provides a Sense of Coherence to Reality by bringing together Meaning, Comprehension and Manageability.
“We are coming to understand health not as the absence of disease, but rather as the process by which individuals maintain their sense of coherence (i.e. sense that life is comprehensible, manageable, and meaningful) and ability to function in the face of changes in themselves and their relationships with their environment”…
— Aaron Antonovsky
The Logos.
As the complexity and interconnectedness of our World have increased through the interplay between advancements in human knowledge and the application of technology in the Material Realm the sophistication and complexity of Semiotic Signs (Semantic Languages and Technologies that can communicate and manipulate Semiotic Signs) have also expanded in their meaning, diffusion (reach) but also in their bandwidth (fidelity) to navigate the complexity of Reality.
[ Note — These ideas closely align with Nietzsche who viewed Human Consciousness as an externally orientated pragmatic adaption of abstraction and interpretation shaped by social & linguistic necessity (simplifying subjectivity & complexity) ]
An example of this interplay between Knowledge, Semiotic Signs, Semiotic Sign Machines, and Technology was the emergence of the Gutenberg Printing Press which profoundly changed the world as information was increasingly democratised and flowed more & more freely.
Technological expansions in the Diffusion and Fidelity of Semiotic Signs.
However, as the Industrial and Digital Revolutions progressed, Knowledge (rather than Energy) became the primary determinant of Economic Complexity and Human Prosperity.
“Knowledge is the only meaningful resource today. The traditional ‘factors of production’ — land (i.e. natural resources), labour and capital — have not disappeared. But they have become secondary”…
— Peter Drucker
Knowledge was increasingly being mediated, communicated, managed and understood through a combination of Technology and Computation (ie. Semiotic Sign Machines ) to manage increasing complexity and uncertainty.
The emergence of the Knowledge Society.
“This society in which knowledge workers dominate is in danger of a new “class conflict” between the large minority of knowledge workers and the majority of workers who will make their livings through traditional ways, either by manual work… or by service work. The productivity of knowledge work — still abysmally low — will predictably become the economic challenge of the knowledge society. On it will depend the ability of the knowledge society to give decent incomes, and with them dignity and status, to non-knowledge people”…
— Peter Drucker
But in moving to a Knowledge Society the Knowledge Workers that were largely focused on the manipulation and interpretation of Semiotic Signs were increasingly becoming decoupled and disintermediated from the practical effects of interpreting and understanding these Semiotic Signs.
Furthermore, this phenomenon (i.e. separation of Knowledge Workers from Traditional Manual Workers) when combined with:
- the endemic embracement by Modernity & Post-Modernity of Marxist Ideology;
- Nietzschean Perspectivism (refer above);
- Saussurean Dyadic Semiotics**** (refer to The Obfuscation of Intelligence);
- a Nietzschean Will to Power;
- endemic Nominalism across Modern & Post-Modern Philosophy;
- the deconstruction of Thomism Triadic Structures of Reality;
- the development of a Semiotic Industrial Complex to Manage Truth;
- Post-Truth Education (Marxification of Education)
inevitably, Reality would increasingly be disintermediated through Semiotic Signs.
“Semiotics is in principle the discipline studying everything which can be used in order to lie. If something cannot be used to tell a lie, conversely it cannot be used to tell the truth: it cannot in fact be used “to tell” at all”…
— Umberto Eco
The Decoupling of Reality and Man entering the Theatre of the Absurd.
[ **** Note — Saussurean Dyadic Semiotics can be contrasted against the notion of a Peircian Semiotic Triadic governed via the normative principle of the pragmatic maxim. It would appear that Peirce’s ideas were either being malevolently or ignorantly dismissed by the Modern and Post-Modern intellectual orthodoxy despite Charles Sanders Peirce being regarded as America’s greatest thinker — a modern-day Aristotle. Instead, it was being replaced by the Theology of Marxism and a power-directed system of thought (i.e. Marxism)]
Refer — The American Aristotle — Charles Sanders Peirce was a brilliant philosopher, mathematician and scientist. His polymathic work should be better known [ LINK ]
The Awakening of the Ouroboros — The Snake was eating its Tail
The central ideas of Modernity and Post-Modernity (i.e. an attempt to revise our understanding of Reality through thePrimacy of Man (and his Conscious Self) as the Observer and shaper of Reality) had gradually metamorphosised into an Ouroboros ( literally a snake or serpent eating its tail) of Dialectical Materialism that combined Idealism and Materialism.
Man as God, Modern Gnosticism and a new Theology of Marxism.
A Theology that anchors reality in a Nietzschean Perspectivism — the subjective nature of human consciousness and the World created by Man — a Primacy of Man.
“Now subjectivism reduces all science to the knowledge of one individual, the Ego — which, as just shown, is no science at all. If its fundamental definition of knowledge means anything, or is faithfully adhered to, subjectivism teaches that the intelligent subject has no intelligence save for itself — has no warrant for believing in the existence of anything save itself — knows nothing but the inexplicable order of its own sensations and thoughts. It reduces all existence to an unrelated One, while of an unrelated One no science is possible. In a word, subjectivism if logical, annihilates science at a blow”…
– Francis Ellingwood Abbot
A Scientific Gnosticism and Scientific Socialism where Man transforms the physical world and imposes reality through force — a New Totalitarianism.
“The forms of thought that intend to deny the idea of permanent values … are not oriented towards truth but towards power“ …
– Augusto del Noce
Welcome to Modernism and Post-Modernism — The Dawn of a New Dark Age for Western Civilisation.
“Which side are you on? Will you stand by the gnarled oak of Englishness or will you bring on the bulldozers of soulless modernity? Can you appreciate beauty or are you an enraged devotee of contemporary art? Do you want wholesome food or tasteless, shrink wrapped crap? Do you care about western civilisation or would you be happy to see it demolished? Are you one of us or one of them?”…
— Sir Roger Scruton
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