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"Whether we call that “culture war” or we call it “waging war on culture war by using the modes of culture war” is in the end, I think, semantic."

Just creating another culture in the war between cultures.

Reminds me of XKCD #927: https://xkcd.com/927/

Also, being from the Libertarian bent myself and feeling like it is something of a "culture trying to supplant two dominant cultures," such a transcendent culture is also met with as much, if not more hostility from both existent cultures. Don't be surprised if the Game A players put aside their differences to nip Game B in the bud before resuming the already scheduled culture war.

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I am intrigued by your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Oh, hey! Look at that! How convenient. 🤪

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Jan 29·edited Jan 29

As much as I have tried to buck the system, the older I get the more I appreciate the traditional. I have tried listening to the Game Bers and the Religion-that-is-not-a-religion crowd. Neither of them make sense to me. Game Bers seem to be very smart but not understand human nature. The RTINAR crowd just bore the hell out me. We need something that captures our attention, enchants us and calls us to participate without being talked down to or coerced. Personally, I just think that the way Christianity was communicated during my lifetime (Gen Xer) didn't jive with the scientific rationalism, partly because they insisted that we take the bible literally. Recently, there has been much more of a symbolic mystical interpretation being encouraged. I think that this will be more successful with the psychedelic tingly feeling crowd mentioned. Either way, I anticipate that the folk American religion of the future will be a sychretic blend of Native, Eastern (Buddhist/Daoist/Vedic), and Christian traditions. Those who want to do sweat lodges and vision quests can do that. Those who want self cultivation/yoga/qigong practices can do that. Those who want to go on pilgrimage to temples and sacred places can do that. Those who want to sit around a table and share a meal while talking/singing about the sacred texts of the world can do that. All of these things will be part of the folk religion, where the Golden Rule; "don't lie, cheat or steal"; "don't murder"; and get into a committed relationship to produce children that benefit the most people possible will be tenants/morality goals of the average person. The fringe will always be the fringe, and will be tolerated/respected, but they will not be what most folks aspire to. And the military/police will be there to make sure that the passive and weak ones get protected from the others. I cannot speak for other cultures, but I don't see any reason why this could not become a truly universal religion. Either way, I always keep in mind that ~4% of the population is socio/psychopathic, meaning that they will always tend towards getting what they want at all costs, even if it means breaking all the tenants of the folk religion. This is why we will always need a military/police force/people with guns/weapons.

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re: HWFO-vs-Game~B for dummies?

I got about 2/3 through that (while overlapping my lunch coma/nap time) and it go too convoluted to follow, at least in one reading. I fizzled out trying to wrap my head around your basic difference. Maybe you can try to summarize that to help people get to the nuances?

My guess is that Hall's idea that a conflict-transcending Game~B (Kegan Stage 5), "planetary" culture seems too utopian-hippy-new-age-california-ish? (see the excerpts from Ronfeldt on his TIMN model, in a separate comment.)

From the part I did read a few minor data points:

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In Henrich's "WEIRD" model of the evolution of modern culture, the ban on cousin marriage by the early church (to break the power of clans - Game Dunbar) led to increased genetic variation and thus a bunch of complex feedback loops between co-emergent elements of what became liberal-capitalist-modernism that selected for higher IQ and "liberal personality traits". As time went by from about 500 AD to 1500 AD, the (agrarian-oral) feudal oath-bound loyalty system gave way to (urban-literate) modern-rationalist, high-social-trust institutions and "WEIRD" culture.

Jordan Hall mentioned Holland as being a crucial example of more pure WEIRD. This is one explanation of the genetics and history of super-WEIRD Holland:

(NON-PC WARNING)

https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/tag/medieval-netherlands/

Henrich on WEIRD: https://weirdpeople.fas.harvard.edu/

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In case you missed it, Jordan Hall had a discussion a while ago with John Vervaeke (cognitive scientist) about "The Religion Of No Religion" (on YouTube) which got down to the nuts and bolts of how to scale the Sam Harris type "solution".

iirc, Vervaeke published an article and/or interview on Stoa about that, having some kind of reference to Stoicism, a couple of years ago or more.

As far as I know, neither Hall or Vervaeke* has actually tried to create a new non-religion of that kind in a community setting, rather they are working out the theory required. Hall was talking about setting up an intentional community, school and research facility for a while, and then he RV'd around for a while looking, but nothing seems to have solidified.

As a side note: I would never compare JH (good) to Ken Wilber (bad in many ways), but KW tried to launch a more grand version of something like that in the late 90s, but it flopped and devolved into the current "Integral, Inc." project, which is mostly about generating enough cash flow from selling self-help stuff to keep funding more esoteric consciousness raising activities and theoretical projects.

* other than Vervaeke's extensive online course series on the "Sense Making Crisis"

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author

The main break between Jordan and I is he thinks we need a religion that isn't a religion, and I think (A) a religion that IS a religion outcompetes a religion that isn't one, and (B) concocting new religions is very dangerous territory that almost always leads to sex cults.

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Mar 16, 2022Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

Ok, thanks for the clarification.

The precise phrase that Hall/Vervaeke use is "Religion Of No Religion", which roughly means a "sense making system" that includes both subjective, spiritual awareness and scientific rationalism, without "religious" (or scientific) dogma.

There aren't any conventional, mythic religions that have been competitive with Enlightenment rationalism for something like 200 years. Mythic sense making is fragile to disruption by modern rationalism. Example: Adam and Eve vs Evolutionary theory.

Similarly, Enlightenment values and modern rationalism are fragile to disruption by postmodern relativism/deconstruction and totalitarian neomarxism.

I would have to go back and review the Hall-Vervaeke video* and maybe more of Vervaeke's work on the "meaning (sense making) crisis", but I would be surprised if Vervaeke is suggesting that a formal religious church-temple organization or "cult" movement is the goal.

What data do you have, if any, that shows that "new religions ... almost always lead to sex cults"? I've personally seen lots of shitty "Zen" and "new age" type cults (including Adi Da and Marc Gafni) that are abusive, but others that are not. My guess is that if you compared sexuality in non-cult new age countercultures/subcultures it would be almost as dysfunctional and susceptible to abuse, and "normie" secular-suburbanite culture would not be far behind (no pun intended).

Conventional religions are not free of sex abuse.

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author

You make good points.

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I think Religion Zero perhaps ought to be The Enlightenment as a religion. Or is that already too Atheist+? Or possibly too "trying to make everyone a programmer"?

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Sex behavior dysfunction is a pervasive feature of postmodern social conditions (the rejection of both mythic religious morals and scientific rationalism because they are "absolutist" and "oppressive" narratives).

If there is one guy that could be picked to be the "bad guy" in all that, it would presumably be Marcuse, who told hippies and college students in the 1960s that "free love" was "revolutionary". lol

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Mar 16, 2022Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

Here is the Hall/Vervaeke "Religion Of No Religion" video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nl48eFZGRq8

(I noticed that YouTube displays this in their list of related stuff on the right side of the screen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H6xfZZ5T0Lk )

Having seen several years of debate about the "future of religion" in Ken Wilber integral theory circles, the consensus is that EXISTING religions will develop "more integral" values.

Integral theory also holds that "oppressed" embodied religions, such as shamanism or tantra, should no longer be stigmatized by the "purity myth" type religions, so it should be expected that the supply of postmodern "spiritual" people will expand to some extent and increasingly challenge the basic metaphysics of purity myth religion.

random babble:

fwiw, my experience with conventional-mythic religion: grew up in a WASP family, went to sunday school (Methodist?) until my mother became disillusioned with church leadership over their lack of enthusiasm for anti-Vietnam war activism (she drifted off into "Science of Mind type stuff that I have no interest in). After that, my brother and I dabbled with Buddhism and "eastern religions", including in my case studying Shi'a esotericism (Islam/Sufism) for several decades. Islam arguably is the most sex-disciplined major religion because its core feature is mythic purity (heaven is pure and ordered, whereas "the world" is spiritually impure, evil, and full of sin and suffering). Purity myths rose to prominence after the Bronze Age collapse because they differentiated the culture of walled city states from nomadic marauders, among other things, and thus facilitated the development of the idea of a "transcendent one-god" (the messy Trinity stuff in Roman-Byzantine Christianty is clarified to Divine Unity in Islam). KW's "Three face of God" might be a useful insight.*

My late wife was a Catalan ethnic, Spanish national, from a devout Catholic family that includes everything from atheist communists/anarchists to quasi-secular nationalists to conservative Opus Dei members. So, my kids went to Catholic sunday school, and I got to listen to several Catholic priests berate the parents of the sunday school kids for not being devout enough (I got off the hook by claiming I was a Druid). I see religion mainly from the perspective of cultural evolution and cognitive science (Iain McGilchrist and Robert M Ellis' "middle way" for example).

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Mar 16, 2022Liked by Handwaving Freakoutery

I grew up in a USAF family, part of the time in Japan (late 1950s/ early 60s). My mother was an artist who liked to sketch Zen temples, so my first experience of religion was walking around those temples, watching the monks chant, rake gravel/sand, etc.

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re: David Ronfeldt's (partly integral-inspired) TIMN model of social change

disintegration -> regression to ideological tribalism -> reintegration at higher level

https://twotheories.blogspot.com/2009/02/overview-of-social-evolution-past.html

---excerpts---

... At first, when a new form arises, it has subversive effects on the old order, before it has additive effects that lead to a new order. Bad actors may prove initially more adept than good actors at using a new form — e.g., ancient warlords, medieval pirates and smugglers, and today’s information-age terrorists being examples that correspond to the +I, +M, and +N transitions, respectively. As each form takes hold, energizing a distinct set of values and norms for actors operating in that form, it generates a new realm of activity — for example, the state, the market. As a new realm gains legitimacy and expands the space it occupies within a social system, it puts new limits on the scope of existing realms. At the same time, through feedback and other interactions, the rise of a new form/realm also modifies the nature of the existing ones.

... Societies that can elevate the bright over the dark side of each form and achieve a new combination become more powerful and capable of complex tasks than societies that do not. Societies that first succeed at making a new combination gain advantages over competitors and attain a paramount influence over the nature of international conflict and cooperation. If a major power finds itself stymied by the effort to achieve a new combination, it risks being superseded.

... A people’s adaptability to the rise of a new form appears to depend largely on the local nature of the tribal form. It may have profound effects on what happens as the later forms get added. For example, the tribal form has unfolded differently in China and in America. Whereas the former has long revolved around extended family ties, clans, and dynasties, the latter has relied on the nuclear family, heavy immigration, and a fabric of fraternal organizations that provide quasi-kinship ties (e.g., from the open Rotary Club to the closed Ku Klux Klan). These differences at the tribal level have given unique shapes to each nation’s institutional and market forms, to their ideas about progress, and, now, to their adaptability to the rise of networked NGOs.

...

---end excerpts---

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Also see: Ronfeldt compares his model with a number of similar ones:

https://twotheories.blogspot.com/2009/02/overview-of-social-evolution-past.html

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