Essay 9:  Prosperity Group

In this essay, I address another broad group. Like the hobby group, the prosperity group catches a large variety of interests. But, instead of a leisurely hobby, the prosperity group is less than leisurely, being connected directly to sustenance and further success in life. Therefore, we readily understand the prosperity group is far older than the hobby concept or political party. It rivals religious grouping in age; and one might surmise that details of religion merge or complement prosperity activities that may be dangerous or low producing.

It may be obvious that the most basic prosperity group is a tribe within a greater society who is distinct enough from others to attract them into group consciousness. Group consciousness as such implies non-group consciousness for those outsider members of their distinction and a bifurcation in history. In a way, the invariant here, which is usually housed in thought, is housed instead within familial bonds, DNA and common oral history. These transcribed histories, such as the Sagas, Eddas, Old Testament, give genealogical lists and descendants, associated with their significant conquests. And this is the basic concern of the prosperity group: The bonded group, plus often violent activity that brings prosperity.

Bag

As we consider prosperity groups within society or tribe, the subject of prosperity group is thus naturally nested. As noted above, it self-partitions at a bifurcation in significant history. That is, the group seeking prosperity to be visible within the greater tribe is by definition distinct from it, and may appear as a ‘different’ but dependent tribe; it may even be in competition with the whole group. It seems contradictory to have a group within a tribe in competition with it, but this does take place where caste is embedded. Or, consider the securing of limited commodities for which there are buyers from the state and private entities. So, in fully considering the extant prosperity group, if it is not otherwise occupying a private tract or island, it is nested within a group of its own species, the nation or country, and may come into contention thereby.

In a similar manner to the nesting of intra-tribal groups and the societies broader interest, the inner group realizes extra energy by drawing members from the broad society, according to a more intimate proximity. And, just as commodities may have buyers from the sub-group and society, so, the surfeit of energy that defines what a tribe is, and why they exist, may house a group drawing away members to itself.

We can observe then, that a sub-group seeking prosperity within a tribe is registering some lack or conversely, some perceived opportunity of which the society takes no notice, or belatedly. Depending on the character of the tribe’s arrogance to the sub-group, the relationship may deteriorate into faction.

So, in this particular case, we must consider the prosperity group to be rather less independent or isolated than the other groups, but always arising within another similar group. To proceed with our relationships and parameters found in prosperity groups with this duple nested feature, would result in a mesh of redundancy. So, I will proceed on the understanding that most prosperity groups exist within another similar one, without treating of both separately, except at important points when their acquisitions compete.

Cause

The account of these groups can begin with locality as the most essential factor, followed by ubiquitous limitation on anything desirable. With the finding of locale, we can begin to consider what the tribe and/or sub-group seeks as valuable, thus adding to its prosperity. These groups fall under ancient and broad categories which we read about in anthropological and philosophical works. Each are in interest of prosperity though by differing means for different needs.

We know that many tribes in Europe have sub-groupings between mobile and static occupations, which complement each other due to necessity, but often are jealous of the other, and come to conflict. These are ‘mobile’ and ‘static’ habits of occupation.

Mobile

The older of the two is the mobile or transient habit of the hunter gatherer, the herdsman, or the warrior.

We understand today that all early humans were hunter-gatherers carrying on a transient lifestyle. The transience belies a process of discovery > extraction > exhaustion of a particular commodity. Once the group exhausts the commodity, it moves on. We carry this formula as a true meme to this day, such that when we have exhausted some reward of effort or become board, we say “Move on!”

People then came to domesticate the animals that began to follow them. They cared for them, keeping them nearby, feeding them, then using them for food and materials. Growing naturally to greater numbers due to forms of human care, a domestic herd is formed requiring a herdsman to fulfill the pasturing function. And lo, here begins an ancient occupation and tribal designation, that of pastoralists, who in their experience obtain the skill of herding animals and people.

As the herds grow in number and importance, the need for auxiliary herdsmen or guards exists. These will be asked to help protect the herd from predators and poachers, just as the herdsman does. The guard may be required to collect lost or stolen animals as well. This opens another ancient occupation, collector. The guards, however, may not possess the deeper knowledge of animals’ requirements; and they predate farming, have been available to protect the tribe generally. So, we see this specialization that is convenient to the situation.

This introduces another mobile group, warrior group, army, or cavalry, growing out of the need to protect the tribe and its wealth. From this position, we can divine the future of conflict as we now know it.

It was popular recently to aver that it was agrarian tribes that provide the need for armies, once it was discovered by scholars that Europe had been under production farming for a ‘global market’ by occupiers before the Romans. While it was the case that fields and transport of goods needed protection against raiding or fire, so did hunter-gatherers and their gleanings need protection from other groups in their habitual ranges.

Static

The static occupations come from the mobile ones once there is development in the several arts. From gathering experience and observation come skill in seeding and harvest. The specialization saved labor since it takes fewer to seed a field than search for produce, while the bounty at harvest is labor intensive. However after harvest, the advantage mitigates the focus of labor needed to process the harvest. So, as in the case of flocks where extras are needed occasionally to help the pastor protect the flock and retrieve animals, the farmer also needs extras to protect the field and market the harvests.

These helping hands, called ‘hands’ in the field, are drawn from men, women and children of the tribe, while at harvest, warriors may be enlisted to help in agrarian tasks. The farmer could similarly be required to fight. Still, in the length of centuries, the static occupations and the mobile are differentiated from fighters, perhaps due to innate characters of men, whereof we obtain the category of husbandman and warrior as two main occupations.

One thing the farmer and warrior may need which the pastor did not, are a large company of extras to reap plants or men. And since, at this time, the inhabitants of Europe regarded people as fungible, some tribes employed their warriors to obtain slaves for the purpose of harvest or battle. However, friendly tribes may help each other in the effort and share returns.

But in the case of ‘servers’, they who were captured unwillingly, were not massacred at the culmination of service; but released, not to be a further burden on their captors. This return to one’s home tribe, released from servitude, is call ‘re-tribu-tion.’ (Note the shift of meaning of ‘retribution’ from the original.) We have now before us the precursor of a new occupation, slaver.

These different occupations require the tools for carrying out the respective functions, bringing about a third category, called ‘skill group.’

In our ancient example, the tanner would be of service to both for equipment made of leather, growing a huge industry of leathern manufacture. People learned to gather clay and bake it on the fire, inventing bisque pottery the world over. Once the tribe acquires smelting and refining, another skill group arose around the forge and mining. These three main skill groups extend into the present, as nearly infinite forms of finding prosperity.

The husbandman’s range of tasks also differentiates due to expertise and human preference into the contrary arts of butchery and early veterinarian services. Also, tribes made themselves available for harvest for a cut. One can see immediately how these forms of employment are meaningful only in terms of future prosperity, no matter what level of human existence the consumer is occupying.

Town

Occupations are the paths to prosperity. They arise in the public sphere where there is a persistent population or public phenomenon. The reason for a town can be found in our present study, the surfeit of energy and services due to proximity. The salient advantage of the town is mutual aid and protection.

Often a town arises where periodic but temporary gatherings take place or at ports. These gatherings, called fairs in northern Europe, provided a place for divine rites, trading, entertainment; buying and selling a variety of commodities, manufactured and stolen pieces, and people. Since women and children were considered property by many tribes, it was possible to sell or lease one’s family members (rarely the wife) if caught in debt.

So, the fair becomes a town. But in northern Europe less so than in southern Europe, who being close to the Mediterranean markets, entertained more traders and travelers on a continuous basis. So, we find in ancient Hispalis(Seville) and Massalia(Monaco) a developed public sphere, with markets, manufacturing and education centers. But in the north, tribes of the Roman designation ‘German’ held back from organized towns or the ‘polis’ which they naturally found foreign. Yet this is where the ‘public’ occupations arise in interest of prosperity, taxes, munifications for permanent inhabitants.

The archon, mayor, or ‘leader’ was the first designated as public leader, separate from the society’s shaman or holy man attached to every tribe. But soon enough, the intimate tribal shaman cedes to a municipal priest on some new matters, and places amongst an inclusive bevy of acquired ‘city’ gods. Or, in authoritarian annexations, there may be only one.

As people got used to living together in greater numbers, from various places, seeing each other every day, the rules of engagement change from those on the pasture or range. Generally as people learn to trust each other, there is a move to preserve peace in the town by instituting more and different rules, laws, that handle dispute through a third party. These engender another stem of occupations, the professions, which handles various complications that rapidly arise for the town, upon a textual or oral basis, usually in a formal setting, minus hard labor.

Mutual Aid

As stated, the basis of village life is mutual aid in securing said prosperity. Let us understand that at this point, the idiom of subsistence as hunter-gatherer has shifted, even though advantages may not always be forthcoming for the villager.

Northern European tribes, whose lands are at first promising upon arrival but extremely variable in weather, find it at length to be rather sparse in commodity, but not impossible to subsist in a rough fashion. The exception to this were the available hardwoods, tin, some gold, the extremely popular barley grain that had long been exported to Canaan(Phoenicia, Knaa) and Egypt, together with more people placed on the block for sale to the whole Mediterranean market. This was traded for what Europe lacked and ‘the new thing,’ the exotica-trinket market. Indeed, the range of products given in trade to the tribes, were not always practical. But some items like metal objects and textiles were practical. One item from Anatolia via Egypt, Greece and then Rome, that assisted in medical and childbearing techniques was an anaesthetic, opium. The period of Keltic occupation of Europe, before Roman invasion, had themselves taken over this trade from earlier times with Canaan and Egypt.

Accounting, Assurance, Insurance, Collection

So, even as we hear complaints about global trade from tribes who’ve been raiding, oppressing former inhabitants and engaging in the same trade 2500 years at least, we have now to admit that this activity is old, so expected, so inculcated in many ways. And, we admit things are more complicated, making the agnostic posture easier. In fact, as the growing city strives to meet the expectations of its people, the expectations of the people and their differences together challenge the ability of the city to maintain its basic invariant, mutual aid.

To expedite, therefore, the efficiency of the city in its many complicated agreements we gain four more occupations seeking prosperity:

Accounting agent hired to keep track of profits and debts.

Assurance agent hired to make sure an agreement is carried out.

Insurance agent hired to underwrite a loss, should it happen, for a fee.

Collection agent hired to retrieve what is due.

These four frigid lines of work are indeed older than I present them here. But within an urban context, such agents grow significantly in number, and begin to show up in fable as easy targets for displeasure. The tax collector, certainly the most maligned of any yet known, is still in a position of knowledge that bears attention. See, for example, the writings of Flavius Iosephus of Alexandria, a general cum tax collector for the city, professionally hired from a decorated military family, gives a clear view of skewed taxation.

The inequity described in these writings, for the pleasure of a greater power, does not sufficiently include the disreputable indulgences that these occupations invite for the lone agent and people they attract. To these dark tasks we can add more negative ones, like rumor spreader, spy and hit man occupations; finishing with the hired mourner, taken by starving widows.

During the Dark Age Period the influx of Goths, Vikings, Huns through the Rhine Valley into southwestern Europe relieved the conquered Kelts, and Romans, of their occupation, and began to fill up Europe with more people. These, like previous arrivals perceived a green and rich land, to find out later, not so much. The invaders then start fighting each other, brother against brother. Eventually, while Rome’s new ethic groups begin to split her, the invader and military eventually join up under the mockery of Roman Law, Barbarorum Leges. The modified version ignores Rome’s hold on the Provinces or the foreign policy of humanitas.

The barbarians, under Aleric, eventually massacre Italians and invade a palatial home for retired gladiators, leaving most dead, but one.

The numerous Gothic tribes pooled in Europe, destroyed incipient representative government and installed weak royals from a couple families.

Following this, came another wave of immigrants from the same northern, trans-Rhine Valley area. The reason for these successive immigration from the same place, experts find is due to 1) exhaustion of resource, 2) exodus due to invasion, 3) necessity of tribal genetic survival that requires ex-castra mixing (doubtful), 4) easy geological access.

Whatever the reason for these movements, Europe became a stage for hordes of new people who needed to find a living somehow. The Christian ethos derived from Mosaic, Orphic, Dionysian, Pythagorean and Socratic ethics of compassion, was usurped to attract ravaged people to pacify them and help shift the imperial markets; and, also quell a disgusting religious rite of the Germans, Vikings and Kelts of sacrificing high-born youths and horses.

Eventually, the ethos began to deal with all the extra men. They did this by two means: 1) Removal of men from daily life by housing and feeding them in monasteries, where they undertake safe but tedious tasks like farming and contemplation. 2) Those of a different character joined up directly with the Pope or King and went on Crusade, divine war against market competitors. These were pardoned for their sins and given a place of honor in heaven. Thus, we find a translation of mobile and static occupational themes already established to a monastic bases.

But this was not the full story of the fairground quilt of religious fragments: This one, after many attempts at history, expressly cites that the enemy of God  walks among us, of the original religion, by cleverly turning the tables on others insights.

 Host/Guest

The Host/Guest relationship is inherent in the prosperity group context but in two ways: The host society holding the partitioned tribe as Guest; and the leaders as hosts and shepherds in each domain. Messaging will thus have two distinct sources, the greater social, the lesser tribal. Thus we have also the effect that the more intimate relationship is officially the weaker, but energetically stronger.

But returning to European history:    Mutual aid having been the invariant of the village, by the Medieval period to the Renaissance grew to become a network of religious, ostensibly celibate, foreign groups across the old Roman Empire. While early Christians were often sexually abstinent, due to the belief that souls were captured by Satan to live on Earth, they still imposed a reformulated Family-like trinity. It relentlessly informed what they did and said, extending the paternalistic host over a closely held, captive guest.

The Host/Guest relationship within this and many other prosperity groups is a given, and since they mirror the basic paternal pattern of family life in their function of providing the needs, the act and look like parents, but are not. So, any messaging occurring within the group is often of a parental quality.

Why it is that women did not have this function in New Europe beyond the domestic, is due to the traditions of these invaders, and not only those of Egyptians, Jews, Italians or Greeks. But eventually the Church did accept girls and women into convents for the same reason that they took in men… immanent destitution or removal. Of course, we have Jean d’Arc and other mystic poets as exceptions to the dogma of women’s inferiority as detailed in the now unpopular lines of the new religion.

In the post-renaissance or modern period, women began to emerge as leaders in though if not wholly in ‘active life.’ Still, like the tax collector, the important awareness gleaned from child rearing, mixing with techniques developed by invading men, have certain effect.

Zeal, Charging

Drawing together the four main groups of barbarians into a functional state, still trying to hold the old Roman markets, required --what else, public relations!

The practice of public relations is quite old, but new to new Europe as such. Yet the methods of cohesion for a patchwork population are already playing at the maligned Roman circus, and the fabulous new theatre just over there. Bread and circuses. Under these theatrical spaces of pure entertainment, the symbols and memes are displayed.

Long ago teams and sportive factions, under a legendary mascots and ideas, drew otherwise violent men together in a rudimentary urge for grouping; thereby protecting the rest of us from reactive, short-fused people behind the arena walls and box office.

Here, zeal can express itself alone. The proximity of members, audience and talent-gladiators, furnish the zeal from the human psyche, generating a surplus energy registered in VIP fame, trinkets and said box office.

Zeal is a function of grouping and charge is information that is carried.

Mirroring, impersonation

Messaging will apply mirroring and impersonation to bridle the horde. Mirroring assists proximity and impersonation assists the charge or plan. Obviously, this issue will flow directly into those of Effigy-Chimera once membership is established.

To clearly describe the program of a Christian or any other conversion, but especially Christian, an attempt to raise displeasure or point of grievance within the member is useful. In order to deliver the message in a more effective way, one mirrors the target superficially. Then, to deliver the charge, involving communication, character impersonation is employed which matches the target. The source of grievance active in probable members was directly due to their own traditions in their original homeland, and from their invasions in Europe.

The theological complexion of the invaders was varied across them. The Kelts and Vikings practiced a rite similar to the crucifixion. The Goths and Huns were less dramatic, but quickly recognized the levers operating in the other sacrificial tribes and their concept of divine recompense. The milieu, now diluted and ready for something new found agreement in the last Gospel. But unlike the relatively free societies of Greece, Rome or Persia, or Jesus’ teaching of love and compassion, the authoritarian tac overcame eleutheria—freedom-enlightenment—to secure an ignorant, a-philosophical horde.

Market Making: Exotica, theft, trade, fad markets

From a date earlier than the Christian or Roman Empires, the global markets existed for commodities of grain and metals produced or mined in Europe, as mentioned above. The goods coming from the Mediterranean included many things thought to be luxurious or useless, but nevertheless ‘exotic.’ As now, exotica are imbued with mystery of other places and knowledge. At that time, the refined metal and glass arts of mainly Rome or Egypt held the attention of northern Europeans, though Greece was the origin of interest in the kinds of products available. The artefacts of the south appeared then in lots for sale to northern tribes even farther north. These artefacts were often from lucre stolen in raids either from other tribes or Italians.

Important products from the south, in trade for mostly grain, were textiles and opium as a medical anesthetic. Europeans did not weave until circa 600CE with weaving guilds coming by 1000CE.

However, for Italy and Rome, fads were already a thing. They account for rapid changes in the kinds of souvenirs made for the Circus. Coiffure was quite daring in Rome and rich Provinces, often very ornate as later ‘macaroni’ styles rehearse. Make-up consisting of lead, sometimes vermilion, and khol followed a perilous fad path of porcelain whiteness. Imports of fine textiles from India to Rome, and then to the Provinces and beyond, lit a fire for fashion.  Playing more and more a political role, fashion induced belief in solidity of royals and mobile nobles, by masking their humanity.

 Empedoclean Cycle

Legal v Illegal

We can now consider prosperity groups as they’ve developed in Europe and elsewhere, to be paradigmatic. Further pluralization of the grouping occurs down the social ladder as it did within greater society. At some point we come to a more serious bifurcation and partition. We ask, Is it legal or illegal? That is, Does the tribal invariant contradict the invariant of the society host? In essence, is there dissolution underway?

Legality, of course, has nothing to do with the religious or other commonality between tribe and its society, only the transgression of laws as such. Exlex groups often claim to be the “true” variant of a religion, even though coming after its establishment. They, in lieu of temporal history, exhibit their misfortunes and weapons as evidence of their superiority or genuine grievance. These misfortunes then are ritualized and inculcated into children. The illegal group then feels it serves a higher purpose for real acquisition, but deferred peace. In this way the innocent becomes barbarian, as the definitions of the good, departs from the expectations of the family, instead of extending it.

So, there is transformation within the prosperity group, but the legal or illegal designation is not forever. A faultless group may pass into illegality from a number of circumstances. The nefarious group may also become legit compared to its beginnings. We think in these terms when we think of the early forms of ‘company’ during the Renaissance, which was a prosperity group. These were driven by a common interest, The Bread, pane. The character of these groups ranged from violent gang to businessmen in league against others. These were profane occupations of course, for those who didn’t want or could not obtain clerical or military employment. Yet, it’s not unheard of that a prosperity group arises within these public or theocentric groups.

The company is now a legal entity that rivals the human being in law, deriving numerous advantages obtainable only by those exposed to favored businesses.

Other forms of change affect the group such as dissipation of the invariant by loss of a particular commodity or diversion of benefits, which I cover in the last essay.

Appearance

Appearance of the prosperity group is subtle but marked by curious similarities that, upon study, issue from the invariant mode of prosperity. These qualities are salient only if some coordination of many members converge, like a raider gang, coupon or sample pusher. Generally, this kind of group is not identifiable without effigy, unless we can view their activities all at once.

Effigy/Chimera

What is lacking in the appearance of the group per se is, as in other cases, supplied by effigy or symbol. These early forms of advertising help the member connect with other members or extend some offering for a price to others.

Effigy, which we call graphics and logos today, give the illiterate a connection at a distance to potential services, and supply to the literate person a visual punch which is stronger.

We may have a sense of superiority about our functionality with words over illiterate souls, but on the matter of chimera there is no sense in which literacy qualifies the intensity of belief and its arguments. Literacy only informs or projects a kind of belief and argument.

Six Functional Parameters:

 Energy, Utility, Redistribution (External Channel)

 The energy and utility of the prosperity group is positively related, as in other groups: The more energy the greater utility. But difficulty does infamously arise for redistribution of benefit. There may be great disparity between the first two parameters and the last. The reasons for this may be structural, especially if the group is very large where large sums amount around the host or its office. But in smaller groups we expect a more even disbursal between host and members, and members at large. We exclude pyramid schemes, conspiracy and embezzlement as directly contrary to the concept of prosperity group.

Belief intensity, Consequential behavior, perceived Access (Internal Channel)

Belief intensity can be quite high for a prosperity group. In fact, the sanguine face expounding upon an offering is one of the few qualities that may serve as appearance without symbolic application. This is so, unless stealth of mission is preferable. With this range of approaches, and intentions, we imagine that the range of consequential behavior is likewise variegated: We have the legal question foremost where behavior exceeds convention.

Another potentially troublesome are then is members’ perceived access to leaders. The trend is that for a leader whose success in group attainment takes him or her farther away from the membership, become vulnerable to real or imagined inequity of the kind that eternally fill the courthouses.

Two Perceptual Complications

Perceptual integrity

So, in light of the qualities present in the in internal channel, described above, crossing the numbers of host, shepherds and members, perceptual integrity of the system can easily be compromised. Unless one is part of a small group, the time coordinates of multiple decisions become unintelligible. To combat this, stringent rules of protocol develop to give proper sequencing to messages and decisions.

Equally important are the general perceptions of the group which on any given subject can differ regarding prosperity. Will you answer in complete truth the stage of your prosperity. It seems foolish to give it out or implicate a future venture. So, on this point there is uncertainty and room for drama.

Solidity of being

As in the other examples, solidity of being resides partially in the observable products that are true to the invariant throughout the system; and partially in the relevance of circumstances to the invariant. We think of the Edsel or Tesla truck whose desirability vanished like the mayfly due to external events or taste. Think of the 1849 Gold Rush that lured thousands individually to their ruin, and very few to reward. But when the gold ran out, the invariant and group evaporated.

Or, I think also of a group that advertises a ‘good neighbor’ policy as invariant, only to exclude or wipe you after you needed them. This kind of thing erases solidity. But we are used to this treatment after all at some point, or chronically in some way. 

So, what is supplied instead of full expression of the original invariant?

Usual answer: Unannounced changes to the invariant, which the smart leader describes in fine print or nods, along with the contractual fine print allowing unannounced changes.

The sketch on prosperity groups has concluded.

Next time— Essay 10: VIP-Talent/Speakers Bureau, a shepherding group.

Essay 8: Political Party

Essay 8: Political Party

Next in the series of bag species is the Political Party. I consider it now because this one follows logically from the earlier two, being the Media-Viewer species and Belief System species that itself has similarity with Media-Viewer. From these two we find elements that extend through our present matter, framed within the political sphere. The grain of politics also seems to lie between enduring belief systems and ephemeral or general information products. So, following the common elements, from the domain of ‘beliefs’ come ‘issues’ found in the ‘political’ milieu; and from the domain of ‘media-viewer’ come the means for airing ‘issues’ and mounting ‘political’ campaigns.

There is a long history of political parties or ‘factions.’ From ancient Egypt, graffiti along with formal relief murals show the attitudes and possible activities of gilds who wielded some power against the vicar. Classical Athens had several that forwarded the particular interest of a community. Same in Rome, whose political system narrowed into imperialism, had but two stable parties that existed at the polar ends of a power society, ‘Optimantes’ and ‘Populares’.

But among these, democracies have the most and most vibrant parties, while tyrannies sport only one to serve as expediter of social threats and receptacle for the autocrat.

There is another political matter that has a harbinger within belief systems at a certain point of their outward development; likewise, there is a similar implication within august news organizations. For an organized system of belief that endures as a public institution, rules of engagement accrete around them, for reasons of limiting access of opinion but also physical protection.

These rules limit access to the Host from the Guest, or limit the kinds of communication that are considered appropriate. So, like the media organization, the primary benefit of organized religion is delivered impersonally in a one-way conduit save for few ‘special events’ to members.

Very much the same condition exists within the media sphere regarding access to Host or even a Shepard. The issue of access extends thereby into the architecture of political parties which are referred to conveniently, in infancy, as ‘cells.’ These limitations preserve core beliefs, and political figures who express them.

However, there is a difference in the stringency of the rules of access for the political party since it must appear, at least, to be the receptacle and expediter of issues coming from the Guest. Typically, as above, special events are held to entertain matters profane, to be handled by elected officials, not prelates.

But, rules of access also tend to impinge others outside a religious order or media organization. The august institution comes to expect the same deference from outsiders that their own members pay them. It feels like a force field surrounding the institutional members, or their environs, within a context where we pedestrians are familiar with certain traditions of respect. This acts to propel the strength of perceived authority of the group, once this is achieved.

So, the balance of benefit, access and authority in the public eye can have windfall of intangible and tangible benefit.

No less for the political party whose raison d’etre is the delivery of benefits balanced by Guest access and Host authority. If the party exists long enough and shows enough effectiveness to be recognized as solid or august, with candidates in Congress, then the preemptive boost of authority also propels the political party. The skill in achieving and maintaining such a balance demands a view to likelihood which is penetrated by either running demographic questionnaires or querying stripped data, mentioned under Media-Viewer groups. Such methods, pioneered by Edward Bernays, hopes to achieve access to the public chimera or astral landscape, so as to begin to traverse and shape it. This in operation has a chance of being a predictive method, and thus one refers to its product measurement as expectation.

Expectancy is the key to this balance, and it measures the sensitivity of the group to the membership and external events. It indicates an awareness of the field even if messaging is tacit about such interest. Expectation, with its negative aspect of avoidance, have long been the levers of political action, especially in the effective channeling of surfeit political energy; or, within the theories of Milton Friedman, of equity and futures values.

We also find nested within the political system the activity of ephemera beyond its immediate purview that create contention relative to need or convention. These same items become ammunition for competing parties, leaving each no moment of peace, but giving all some view to advantage. The fluidity of Nature and expectation require that messaging remain interpretable thru some unforeseen change, to let the invariant stay legible. This is the continuing effort of public relations.

Five Prime Relationships:

 Bag

Simply, the architecture of the political party is like that of the two prior examples: An active distinct nucleus with in a dispersed membership. Often the new body, a political cell, is confined by physical walls where people gather to air ideas and calculate agenda in the presence of leaders. This initial phase resembles the close-knit species of the first type, the hobby group.

But there are a couple of coming transformations inherent in the function of the party that stress it. The first one is the moment when a party chooses a candidate for office. How the choice is made is probably more important than who is chosen and spells the character of the party in general. Still, who the candidate is in terms of ability and honesty are the expected points of judgement. But there is a shift or spreading of the Host identity from founding leaders and major funders to or including a semi-theatrical figure, the candidate. The candidate is a figurehead that must, as on a masted vessel, literally face the oncoming waves of publica attention. It requires of this specialized member a set of behaviors different from either the leadership or base. It also requires for him or her a modified set of rules for access that transform the figurehead in to a shepherd, as well as expediter.

Thus, the center of attention and communication passes from originating Host to a Figurehead, enabling the Host to recede even farther behind the candidates and elected officials relative to the Guest.

A second transition occurs immediate to this which pluralizes the first one: Like the belief or media organizations, the political group will grow if all goes well. It will outgrow its HQ, and then its locale. When this process activates, leaders and candidates will tend to recede from the immediate sight of grass-roots attendees, leaving in their wake a class of shepherding members called surrogates, which mirror the candidate. These surrogates to a figurehead, technically surrogates to a surrogate of leadership, take up the burgeoning calendar that is required to keep the group in touch.

The growth of any organization beyond a quaint beginning will leave behind a group of disillusioned members. The loss of access to the highest leaders for the acquisition of surrogates will seem subversive to these people; and they may or may not be right. But clearly, the moment of transition from one phase to the next is fraught. Steps should be taken to enable and insure a direct and clear relationship between the leaders, surrogates, and voters.

 Host/Guest

The political party makes greater use therefore of the shepherding members, either figurehead or surrogate, to lend presence to the remote Host for the beloved Guest voters. They send significant messages to public and officials, and also legislate for the party. The bulk of activity of the party consists of messaging, therefore, by speeches, letters or advertising. The securing of goods for the party, in terms of its invariant, and distribution of benefits are also housed in documents. So, real benefit to the Guest is indirect, coming from the groups influence on external matters; membership in general does not look to the group directly for benefit; the exception to this is viewed darkly as subversive to equality.

The situation makes the quality of messaging very important in order to keep attribution of benefits clear, and truly upon the party. Losing track of this leg of messaging actually starves the party of recognition, by dissipating the surfeit of energy by association. We can say by recent observation that a public relations firm that does not emphasize its clients benefit to the public is remiss.

There are political parties who are exploitative of problems they cite in order to debilitate existing public order or convention. These methods are equally psychological and I discuss these in the last essay.

The usual content of messaging for acquisition and retaining members is present for political parties. This is where the invariant is presented, which should have resonance with the cares and needs of voters. Whereas media networks and religions rely heavily on reports and traditional findings, the political party is rather more dependent on live surrogates, orators, specialists and thinkers to impart significant information about emerging events, and persuade voters toward a course of action. The arguments for these speakers are toned relative to public expectation.

It is not always the case that Guest expectations emanating from the invariant is fulfilled by legislation. This would be due, in the best case, to lack of majority, for which the remedy is greater party numbers and influence. This should initiate a more strident message structure that has enough psychological draft to attract and keep more members. The only tool the party has with which to operate are words, and so words must carry with them a greater leverage that exploits expectation or avoidance issues in the public. This delicate rhetoric must not be maudlin or factious, but employ a method of emphasis upon real but unrecognized problems.

Often the invariant and messages around the invariant become trite, even though the core meaning is still valid. Rather than embellish on the positive meaning of the invariant, perhaps damaging it in the greater membership, it would be better to find issues of contention to the invariant and create messages around a negative stimulus. That is, we focalize an issue that directly violates the invariant, which we wish to consciously avoid. The way a party does this is to call the press, and have them report on a flagrant example. This establishes a record and one leg of triangulation, useful for further elucidation. It does little good for the party to be the sole witness in the public to events that offend it.

Another method exploits subconscious focal avoidance issues lodged in the public subconsciousness through similar negative antecedents, but does not require the presence of a reporter or story to report, logical relation to the invariant, or conscious recognition. Instead, the behavior modification happens subconsciously. When we examine the messaging that is meant to reach voters on this basis, we find often banal, unremarkable products that have the necessary minimum of useful information as a vehicle for suggested perceptions and outcomes. This is effectuated by inversely yoking desired behavior or votes to a cultural fear, like death represented by scenes of atomic destruction, a graveyard or autumn, which does not have literal elective significance.

 Empedoclean Cycle

The reality of living in motion means balance is constantly challenged. It is so prevalent and continuous that we forget most of our activity concerns maintaining or regaining balance by compensating in some way. It could be considered as inherent work. This is a major energy cost for people and their groups. For the political party the arena for sailing the sea of public awareness, for finding the balance or redress expressed in the invariant, for gaining a plateau or platform, exists in the public address sphere, i.e. on the physical platform for speech-giving or tele-media; and really expensive to enter.

It is precisely here that the greatest quantity of changes is presented to everyone. This stream is received as if everyone, more or less, had an equivalent share in every item, …since in media everyone is brought simultaneously together within a virtual concourse.

This gives everyone the license to apply their idiosyncrasy, perhaps, to any and all issues appearing in media. Since politics and the party are greatly dependent on broadcast media to exist in an effective way, it has to share the same vehicle of delivery as all the rest of the news and entertainment.

Therefore, parties spend a lot of time designing against changes, some of which are predictable, like the life-span of memes, certain fads, fashions, aging out, that follow simple growth cycle.

However, Empedocles expounds on the pure phases underlying growth and decay which alternate through a synthesis: Growth occurs only at the synthesis or mixture of elements, while decay occurs at separation into purity at the extrema of agreement.

Within political party we may translate the meaning as growth occurs where inevitable differences within the party interact in a synthetic way. Contrarily, where differing opinions freeze and members withdraw to their corners, without interaction, then the party gives way to schism, regardless of the invariant, and becomes weak.

 Appearance

The appearance of the party is related by a group of people, perhaps a large one. However, the wholeness of the body, as with media or belief systems, is a virtual reality, without the possibility of capturing it in one picture or question. We never see it; and this is a great impediment to campaign designers. Furthermore, natural appearance qua a group of humans do not give even a hint of the import of a political party.

 Effigy/Chimera

To give the appearance of the political party any impact at all beyond sheer quantity, is the use of effigy and suggestion of chimera. Effigy are the logos and reproduced images of candidates and leaders. The chimera associated with the invariant of the party are imaginary venues like the kitchen with a chicken in the pot, work site with sweaty laborers, patients receiving life saving care in the hospital, on and on. Effigy and chimera are meant to live together.

Six Functional Parameters:

 Energy, Utility, Redistribution (External Channel)

The energy emerging from the proximity of politically aware people, and then by a more abstract association, present functionally as monetary donation. This is the only means of substantial support since the party is a non-profit entity, and is expected to stay aloof of individual business interests, or act as one. But the party requires money to create and produce the mountains of documents, releases and ads to broadcast its existence. Secondly, it must mount public events that require extraordinary preparations and security. Thirdly, licensing and legal retainers place the cherry and nuts on the political sundae.

Of course, this parameter raises the issue of funding for influence; and it would be laughable to suggest that donating to a political party itself is not a political act. Rather the problem comes when a large donation comes with provisos for a single person or company. This does damage to the equity of membership implied in a political party.

The cost-benefit aspect of political utility is difficult to figure since the benefit of a political party is spread very widely, amongst a variety of people and other groups. The expectation from membership is the creation of good law or relief from injustice, as if each and every one had equivalent needs or perceptions. But the reality is that the benefits coming from a party come from other entities to masses of people regardless of their politics. These benefits resist comparison to party accounts except in the broadest measure of wins or losses.

Benefits are often faded therefore, and suffer through redistribution unless there is a careful application of legislation. Even so, the goods redistributed in the form of monies from taxes for certain issues can be intercepted by a myriad legitimate and illegitimate interests. Here again, comes a critical issue for the political party in retaining attribution of its good works. But this is qualified by application and distribution, over which it may not have granular control.

Essentially, the purest returns from a political party are in the form of legislated assurance against injustice and preservation of freedom within these laws.

 Belief intensity, Consequential behavior, perceived Access (Internal Channel)

Belief intensity of political groups is relatively high against other groups. It most resembles the belief system itself in intensity, and the three core sectors of belief: philosophy, science, religion. Politics falls within the philosophical sector naturally, such that when we look at an individual’s political outlook, we perceive immediately a philosophical posture or world outlook, aside from individual’s religion or scientific studies. This is most revealing in those who have no philosophical erudition and deny any exists, that we obtain a very clear picture.

So, if such and such live within a city, village or pages, I venture that they have a political flavor, even if none vote or follow politics.

Consequential behavior of political cells has a high index due to the comparatively high belief intensity. Political cells also typically market their appearance and symbology via the behaviors of members. This means that focalized, camera-ready, member behavior is highly regulated and scripted in presentations in order to gain headway to a goal. Careful phraseology and optics are required so as to not over- or under- achieve and miss the goal, not to lay a trap for oneself in careless wording, or trip over missed context changes.

Indeed, context change is a real problem because it is constant and atmospheric stimulus. Humans conveniently tend to regard change as something that happens only when they see it; this means the memory of change is filled with periods of continuity marked by sudden discontinuity called change. But, the periods of continuity also contain changes, which are motions that have been incorporated into the expected activity list. Clearly, it is the unexpected or historically avoided events that wear a neon sign of CHANGE.

The issue is so sensitive that a cell can be upended by sending operatives to one of its events, or plant a handsome candidate as a Trojan Horse who will begin to exhibit a posture antithetical to the party’s invariant. We see this happening with certain over-funded, coiffed and yachted politicians. But they hide themselves in the complexity of the party’s changing context, until they strike down their party’s own Bill. These double agents also mimic members who experience a conceptual lag within their party, which has undergone modifications with the changing public.

Perceived Access is another sensitive issue. This has two vectors: 1) Sensitivity of the party to an issue and thus to a number of its members is registered in the whole membership as the ability to have personal access to leadership, the Host. Or, further in development a candidate will attempt to provide this connection as Figurehead. Declining from this moment, comes a wave of Surrogates to parrot Figurehead faithfully enough to be able to answer probable questions on the platform or legislation. This effort is most vibrant during election periods and less so in between. That is, the character of access shifts from that of member acquisition and growth, to a less responsive maintenance position answering constituents problems without campaign prosody, and in camera legislation.

Two Perceptual Complications

Perceptual integrity within the party is inherently low, due to the secrecy needed to 1) avoid sabotage of a platform or Bill, and 2) avoid losing attribution to a mimic in another party. This means that there is a network of constant communique required to keep every one in the Host and Shepherd functions on the same page; also, weed out inimical actors. The architecture of the political party, being disparate, is also a hindrance to perception, and a good amount of trust in fellow members and faith in the party’s invariant are really all there is to bridge the isolation.

Plato addresses the problem with the isolation of powerful figures. In the Critias Dialog (trilogy: Republic, Timaeus, Critias)  we come face to face with the gradual corruption and fall of Atlantis, a literary key for Athens, due to the unobserved treachery of its leaders.

Solidity of Being as entertained by membership is precarious due to the hinderances of perception, the disparate architecture of the party, the lop-sided shape of cost-benefit flowing around it, and its vulnerability to the rhetorical milieu of its most critical infrastructure, the media. I leave the obvious to the last essay where I discuss deception and such.

We know, in terms of a party’s being, it enjoys a traditionally low estimation in the general public, from whom the party must acquire voters. Solidity, of course, has two meanings: Persistence at one end, and Ethic at the other, which means our heads, by grace of evolution, are on a swivel. Indeed, a party must have agility in securing its existence while serving the public, as it advertises the invariant message.

One event in the life of a party short of dissolution is a transformation. Transformations have many forms, but exhibit one similarity which is the maintenance of elements within the transformation relative to each other. As a political container begins to transform, which takes generations, its elements—the voters—are not directly aware of the transform. This keeps the party from loosing members. But a change has been made to the container and its aperture and probably to the interpretation of the invariant, if not verbal modifications. Awareness of the prior membership of these changes come as different sectors of demography are added to it.

 Such an event happened in a dramatic way in the USA, c.1962 when the Democratic Party de-emphasized its agrarian nature for a civil rights agendum, over Jim Crow and the Republicans’ progress in manufacturing agendum. Through time, the balancing of civil rights lifted the Democratic Party over the heads of Lincoln’s party of emancipation. Quite a feat! But it left racist Democrat members isolated in a conceptual lag or “lost-cause” backwater, as the two active political philosophies began to trade names.

Next time—Prosperity Groups.

Thos. Reedy ©2025

Essay 7: Belief System

Essay 7: Belief System

In this essay we will consider a collective that is a magnitude greater in complexity from that of a media company, chiefly in the direction of time and quantity. The physical architecture of a group based on belief is very similar to the media network: There is a host, a hard nucleus of producers and administrators around which orbits the guest, being the greater membership of subscribers or free viewers. But whereas the media company exists for decades or less, a belief system has the ability to last centuries or millennia. During this extended period, it will experience developments that require greater temporal scales to appear.

Another difference lies in the depth of meaning of the invariant to the typical group member. In a belief system, which seeks to guide the member through life’s landmarks and hardships, the invariant focus of belief has a deep emotional draft. It must have enough visceral pull, sufficient to work the body toward the goal expressed in the invariant. If these are proven or viewed to be successful activities, they serve for generations, and even last beyond their founding system. We call these orphaned behaviors ‘social convention’ or ‘superstition’. These fossilized activities can continue to offer the benefit once envisioned but without clarity of authorship or accompanying exegesis. Hastily removing them can leave a problematic void. Conversely, fossilized behavior can become dysfunctional itself, and grotesque.

Due to the similarity of human beings, different systems of significantly broad scope will unfailingly exhibit similarity, even with accompanying differences.    So, systems can resemble other remote systems without actual communication. But, due to underlying anthropomorphic similarity, belief systems can easily adopt elements of other neighboring collectives, too. The longevity of custom and the general mobility of people aid in establishing these properties of extended belief.

It is proper now to consider kinds of beliefs that coalesce into systems. As in other species of collectives noted in earlier essays, beliefs and their messages need not be logically connected or in evidence, but they can be. Therefore, I place these two instances at poles of a belief scale, where at one end, message structures and symbology have primarily lyrical or suggestive import, without logical integration; and, at the other we have a system of cogent & causal identities and relationships. Both have the ability to capture belief but on different footings, and perhaps, sides of the brain. Both means have the capacity of transmitting important information of the kind that induces action or qualifies action.

In all, the beliefs and their milieu call up a unique activity, before any other mode can proceed, an act of judgement. The belief itself is a commemoration of a prior judgement. So, our discussion now is really a discussion about assigning importance and values proceeding from belief. So, as we consider the poles of the scale and the species of belief that call us to act, we will have to find for the lyrical and also the logical as we approach our relationships and parameters.

Erudition now asks that we find a synthesis between the poles, between poetry and science, which by want of any other power, philosophy arises. I suggest by this grammar that philosophical activity is presupposed for scientific or religious import. Let me describe this:

It is within the broader philosophical space that recondite forces are entertained in the mind or graphically in the imagination without taking a further step of engagement. But for a magus, let us say, whose office is the maintenance of a herd of cattle, who by the light of the moon brings forward a brush of sweet grass to lead the victim away from the heard. This person is dealing directly with living intelligence for the benefit of his tribe, whose method of suasion is gestural and lyrical, is likewise morally balanced by calling to the Sacred Cow for apotheosis of the victim in heaven, via the Light of the Moon, … that represents Heaven. (The cow jumps over the Moon.) Such is one declination of titanic forces, apparently sufficient within the wand, to move the cow 180 degrees to its doom.

Others may have different perceptions of the same method: One perceives the victim cow’s human master, who up to now had tended to its needs, chooses nighttime to lead the cow from the sleepy herd. Full Moon period provides light for the nocturnal mission. The wand is not his usual staff, but the cow’s favorite food. And as the cow begins to eat, the trenchant blade is inserted. The scientist will not be calling the Sacred Cow to ease a guilty mind, instead the balance comes in accepting the original ‘cause’ of the activity—the requirement of nourishment.

We can now perceive the understanding of the philosopher, who perceives that both are facets of broader understanding or human evaluation. These are given greater definition when we observe the respective benefits.

Each of these three has its appropriate lokah or landscape that organizes the system in a semi-physical, i.e., astral setting. Typically, we call a lyrical system of sufficient size a ‘religion’ and we call the logically integrated one a science, and that underlying both a philosophy. Circumstantial evidence serves to propel the invariant for each. For the religion, the ‘circumstance’ is related by human interactions, birth and death, while in science by elemental ones, medicine and mixtures, while still in philosophy we have the ‘dilemma’, the ‘koan’, subjective and objective experiences. In each, the actual connective tissue between messages and observations remains recondite.

Five Prime Relationships:

 Container

The receptacle for a group of believers is a belief system. As stated, it has an architecture similar to a media company, and it is no accident that belief groups typically generate copious amounts of media. As in the media company, there is the production-administrative side that forms a centralized, firm, core which mounts performances, publishes works and manufactures artifacts. These various forms of theatre, texts, paintings, sculptures, models function mysteriously to house the group within an imaginary lokah that persists in memory from one presentation to the next. There is also a secondary physical tabernacle that fixes said lokah to the ground. These act as theatres, musea, shrines, temples, learning centers for the groups, that house their artefacts and serve as meeting places for members. The kinds of artefacts vary little, only the content and agenda differ in them.

The actual membership of a religious, philosophic or scientific institution is held by the attractive force of the invariant rather than any physical requirement or barrier. Since both are engaged in a series of judgements about people or the world, opportunity abounds for these instances, no matter where or when they observe. Again, the difference present in species of belief, develops the kind of aperture the group opens on the outer world.

The aperture sorts information and regulates entry, it is also an indexing apparatus against time, which for these groups can be an immense span, but also fix an historico-causal point of view for the group. The indexing product appears in said artefacts, and functions to condense centuries into an immediate experience, that pertains to the invariant and its message structures.

Thus, through symbols alone a world and method are born, housed within performance and artefacts. The virtual concourse extends as far abroad as the voice, the book and image, with proliferating behaviors yoked to the invariant.

 Host/Guest

This relationship is very similar to that of a media group, but less stringent, such that the host and shepherding members may have or imply a personal interaction. Such an interaction is not necessary however, since the group is informed and housed in the prolific works of the group. This means that Host would meet Guest at special occasions to dispense some benefit requiring physical presence.

We can also distinguish a third member designation, the shepherd, who acts as ambassadors between Host and Guest, and as usher. This function is prominent in belief groups that have become institutional, where the singular Host is distant. The role is also taken by those who want to pass on their beliefs, as parents to children. Today, we call these shepherds ‘fathers’, ‘pushers’ and ‘influencers’. Many act consciously and draw recompense for their role in the group, but most shepherding is done less consciously.

But accompanying this personal aspect of the belief group, there is also a more austere and inflexible structure whose history and architecture seems to dwarf anyone alive. This goes for philosophies that are recognizable as independent systems, through some length of time. This austerity acts as a breakwater for information entering with vast memberships, so as to preserve the invariant with clarity. And, this is more critical since members will have personal interaction with the institution, where benefits are realized. This barrier is the internal membrane and a part of the general structure, but unlike the media group, this membrane allows and fosters guests’ interaction. By allowing this possibility of communique the host and shepherd elements can divine issues and modulate messaging, either directly to the guest or within its publications.

So, messaging is the medium, the glue, that holds the group together. As always, there is attracting messaging meant to collect members, and others that have the effect of retaining members beyond initial novelty.

It is interesting, perhaps controversial, to suggest that the attracting and maintaining messages have psychological import regardless of where on the belief scale, lyrical to scientific, practice occurs. Each system must forward its invariant on at a register of importance through a judicial function of the psyche, over what to believe. Even for the scientist, with his data, trusty method and apparatus before the mind, he or she awaits notice from the judicial center in the chest, for the courage to proceed.

 Empedoclean Cycle

The cycles of change that interplay throughout time affect the belief system, though differently than for a mere publisher. For one thing, the austere foundations of the institutions can make it immovable. This feature is something which serves for a time, then becomes a liability. Depending on how the institution responds to change and modulate messaging, determines the fortunes of the invariant core.

For the media group, the agility of programming and knife edge creators help keep the group surfing the wave of change. But, for the belief institution, such an attitude insults the invariant whose promise is to ease life hardships that are unavoidable and present for every generation. Messaging requires unchanging, near eternal icons and arguments called axioms and dogmas. These precepts become liminal attachments that promise not to change but remain as functional anchorages for the belief body, and where benefit dispensed. So, the adage that things persist through change by changing, is not so easy for the belief system that balances its virtual existence with an eternal face.

Context change very often does spell doom for a belief system, due to its inability to change. It can come through external conditions that challenge the internal lokah of the membership via the very axioms and dogmas related to the invariant. Common indicators of radical change comes from erosion of precepts, dilution of energy, presence of cysts and enclaves, open apostacy. These indicate that antithetical message structures are circulating.

Appearance

The appearance of the belief body is, therefore, virtual. That is astral, wherein the stars or points of relevance join up into a coherent form. Like the media group, one cannot take a picture of the membership since it extends beyond the reach of light. It is virtual as for our space-time limited senses, but real. As before a substitute symbol is often given for the whole. Like the broadcast station that becomes an emblem for the whole, so a church or tabernacle serves to remind one of the virtual reality.  For the broadcast test pattern, forerunners exist as focusing apparatus like altars, mandalas, stages, benches, formulas, insignia that serve symbolically for what is invisible.

One is tempted, as in the channel sweepstakes, to present an individual member or subgroup to serve as a reference for the entire whole. Yet, this cannot do, and the wholeness of the group, the receptacle, the center of gravity remain invisible.

These that serve for the appearance of the virtual group thus slide easily and are properly…

 Effigy/Chimera

The beginning of graphic and aural arts emerges from heartfelt expressions, and subsequent variations. Additionally, for the belief system whose appearance is fixed in artefacts for the purpose of easing cares, effigy and chimera are the language with which to speak of recondite forces.

The kinds of symbol for our three species of belief will tend to differ. Yet since there is a limited number of forms that we have to convert to symbolic meaning, there will be overlap. But especially for the philosopher, symbolic overlap and analogy are the ores of discovery. But for the scientist the aniconic symbol was elevated to remove confusion between connotations of common symbols.

There was a move by philosophers away from the figurative mode of portraying recondite forces as well. These were the atomists or materialist philosophers who posited a modular universe, based on dust, that responds to the thoughts of God; or are utterly dead for other philosophers, combining haphazardly. Plato, expanded the notion by placing atoms at the vertices of regular shapes which imbue quality to matter –within the field of consciousness, or hypodoche. These shapes can transform into other shapes or hinge depending on bombarding interactions within space or Chaos. But Plato did not manage a dead cosmos, but concerned himself with the human zoa, riding within and penetrated by an eternal Entity.

Like language, the particular symbols and lokah of a belief system resist change so that they may function correctly. Yet, symbols face changes through our perceptions which might and often do cause hybridization of symbols, or additions to exegeses that are new. Since the icon is the core representation of the invariant, it really cannot change too much. So, to enable the icon to survive annexation, erosion or logical attack, additions or changes to exegesis occur instead.

An exegesis is the explanation of a symbol in plain language. It is often missing in public awareness. Nevertheless, we deal with an ocean of symbols daily where explanation is missing. Symbols are logos for long explanations, and it would be redundant to have explanations of symbols next to symbols all the time, so we do not have it. But this leaves a sector of people that do not know the explanations. Horrifically, they often make up their own explanations from what little is there, present in a fragment. This constant situation leaves the door open to discontinuity, erroneous attribution adhering to a group under a symbol. It opens the vulnerability of having one’s own figures weaponized against one.

Since the virtual cloud-body of the group is referenced by its symbology, such a body can be relegated by attacking its symbols. This effort would manage to obscure the existence of an essentially invisible whole regardless of size, by erasing symbols only. To this point, it is no secret that countries and nations are often defined by a belief system or systems that lie on the scale I posit, and these become levers and targets of persuasion, or often war. Where else would the art of rhetoric have traction? Else feign a cause for war upon symbols, leaving aside the real agenda of commodity or conquest.

How common it is that symbols standing for people in a strategic game, where access is managed by such symbols, come to be disparaged or otherwise weaponized!

Six Functional Parameters:

 Energy, Utility, Redistribution (External Channel)

Energy coalescing from a belief group come from two areas: 1). Practice of tasks associated with the invariant of the group. This addresses the local members and affiliates where the surfeit of energy from physical proximity is realized in presentations, synods, etc. 2). Reception of symbolic transmission addresses the greater body of membership that exists beyond the local and contemporary, in the passing on of information and messages through distance and time. Here the surfeit of energy realized by historical grouping is translated though the production, presentation of works, and sales of publications.

Utility of belief systems are traditionally a shaky prospect if not checquered in practice. Since the greater whole of belief is ‘housed’ by symbols, the efficiency of the group holds promise if its information is applicable and successful. All that is required is that the magus or shaman impart hirs best secrets of a cure, and it happens. The utility for belief in this scene is 100%. This means that the invariant, attracting and maintenance messages remain vivid and active, while at the same time can afford the implements for service.

But often, as the tribal chief becomes an institution and even placed at distance, the nature of utility of belief itself mutates; sometimes darkly, away from the invariant. Then, messaging must change to fulfill its various functions as the Host recedes farther and farther away, like the Pope or eMail U. Naturally, it puts the onus of replacing the Host function being removed, upon the Guest, which is erosive to the group. This is accompanied by missives, gates, ordinances, donations, bribes, that in the ends foreseen, connect the member with a benefit.

Redistribution through individual benefits, as previewed above, are easiest for the smaller group, where messaging closely matches received benefit because everyone is in proximity experiencing the same events; and where division and deception are more difficult. Conversely, when the institution grows its invisible boundaries, publishes works to connect the disparate group, builds schola, temples to serve as meeting places and synods, its expenses will grow and individual distributions will dwindle. It’s greatest distribution of goods will be via published information and charitable giving.

 Belief intensity, Consequential behavior, perceived Access (Internal Channel)

Belief intensity is a salient property of belief systems; hardly needs saying. Given that one practices a method or adheres to precepts of a practice, one has exhibited at least a modicum of belief. One would guess then, that it all depends on how much one is rewarded by the system be it religious, philosophical, or scientific. But, ha-ha, not so. There can be intense belief without much measurable reward, especially if the precepts defend against avoidance issues, or promise a future wonderland free of care.

This is really a fertile subject, since the intensity of belief is often tied to matters that threaten life. The precarious nature of life invites one to search for that ‘answer which will come if only I believe hard enough’. I think this is the new meaning of manifestation which is the old requirement of religious practice. The idea that belief is self-fulfilling is a conflation of those recondite forces mentioned earlier, where persons seek to account for outcomes by a single token identity, rather than a confluence of events.

Scientists also have a penchant for seeking simple answers, which are said to simplify our world-view. The whole reductionist current in science is a manifestation of the tendency. But in general, scientists and philosophers have a less rigid requirement of adhering to dogma, in maintaining their core beliefs. They curate the causal connections between symbols, and let these stand for their belief.

Loss of intensity of belief in any of these practices quickly spells demise of the systems. It is another avenue of attack where intensity is overcome by some other issue, or diluted by antithetical experiences and messages.

Behavior requirements are often the solid parts of a belief system. Through iteration of their respective activities, the system grows and reinforces the required behaviors. For the religious, repetition of liturgy verily works the mind into the desired shape. For the scientist, repetition of experiments refines the hypothesis into a suitable theory, and theory into application. For the philosopher, mental analysis and comparisons provide a vision or course for complex issues. Rigor in the respective behaviors, within the belief scale, is critical to realized benefits and persistence.

Perceived access within a belief system mirrors that of redistribution for the smaller groups. But with greater size, the nature of access also becomes clouded and complicated. Access is metered and regulated thru distant communique, that rewards the member with comparably less, other than honorifics, which can have value.

We find within these institutions a divergence of access and benefit, but not as stringent as with media companies. The case is due to structure of the group, and this follows the bifurcated shape of the institution following Host/Guest functions.

Two Perceptual Complications:

Perceptual integrity

Perceptual integrity of the belief group is obviously a fraught concept, still the situation exists for the comparison of beliefs, insights, formulations in arriving at a single judgement or truth. This complexity is not merely due to the number and spatio-temporal disposition of many members, it can arise between only two individuals who have differing beliefs. We therefore find within institutions, who deal with perhaps thousands or millions of adherents, that a great deal of time is spent keeping individual aspects and noumena away from the core invariant by erecting doctrine. Doctrine acts to channel away errant opinions and attacks through preemptive messages.

Solidity of Being

The ontological profile of a belief, or a system of beliefs, is at the virtual level of representation, as is the architecture of the system. As stated, the solidity of a practice lies in its repetition, clear understanding, received benefit, and not immediately in the wholeness of the institution, which is out of sight. So, the preceding list of practices and benefit supplies ways the individual may succeed or fail in the effort; and therefore, determine the solidity of being on her or his own.

Sometimes people will adhere to a system that is no longer extant in great numbers; or devise one on their own. There is no access to original host or shepherd on these occasions, for there is no group. All benefit comes from artefacts that find their way to publishers and library shelves, then to isolated querants; or they create them from imagination. These isolates must try to arrive the correct exegeses, which can result in terrible misunderstanding.

A jumbling often happens when philosophic or poetic works are ‘found’, or ‘revealed,’ and are given literal meanings that fall short of wisdom; or conversely, embellished with additions that channel the mystery to a new application. So, even as the solidity of the material content of the artefact is real, the voice that can bound space is not yet or no longer.

So much then for a sketch of the dynamics obtaining within various belief systems. I have not discussed at length the negative aspects and outcomes. These will be given in the last essay.

Next time, Essay 8:  Political Party.

Thos. Reedy ©2025

Essay 6: Media, Viewers

Essay 6: Media, Viewers

... I continue with a series of sketches on collective awareness.

In this essay, I leave behind the simplicity of a bird watchers’ group and begin to wade into deeper complexity of collective, within the interest of a medium of communication. Indeed, we shall fall off an underwater shelf to find quite a difference from the last example. This difference is captured in the distended architecture of the container having a central, solid Host region surrounded by a vast, cloud-like Guest region. We observe various unique limitations stemming from this which are indispensable for the function and purpose conserved in the ‘invariant’ of a media bag or company.

Five Prime Relationships:

 Bag

As stated, we are confronted with a unique structure in the series:  bifurcation. This is different from introduction of ‘diversion’ between messaging and distribution, let’s say, within the broadcast Bag. This bifurcation is a natural and inherent architecture of any public medium. In simple geometry, it is radial; but the bifurcation between producer and viewer renders the concept of group invariant in a very oblique light: That is, what single idea draws the two sides together in what is a functioning unit.

What are these two sides? 1) Media organization and production and broadcast companies, with 2) Viewers, who represent concentrations of attention and money which are prospected and mined. These two are properly distinct and physically separated, yet in full functionality of the whole system, the two are symbiotic.

It is obvious by observing media products, owners, producers, presenters, and comparing these to demographic realities of viewers, that there are two agenda at hand under one effort, whose invariant is obscure and within the folds of the bag. This means we do identify media organizations as ‘divergent’ as well as bifurcated, then, as also foundational to the general form. This acceptable divergence is belied by the very different kinds of benefit offered to host and shepherd members compared to guest viewers. This unavoidable, structural divergence does not necessitate a delusion but makes it very difficult to locate one should it arise.

Instead, one must allow for a more circumspect kind of invariant that, in the face of success, must be obtaining within such a group, such as a motto: “We work hard to inform you.”

Another difference from the previous example is the aperture of the collective on the world at large. For the bird watchers, the aperture is trained narrowly upon the probable locus of birds, and the perception of birds in the wild is enhanced by knowledge about them.

“Thirst for knowledge” could be adopted as the invariant phrase for a media group searching for content. There is an infinite amount of knowledge with which to fill broadcast time, but with significantly fewer people to appreciate every item of an encyclopedic stream. Though some who receive subsidy are able to be broad in scope and depth, in general being too broad in media is lethal. Media groups are better off and better in serving the guest membership if its aperture is narrowed—not clouded—to interests pertinent to demographic. This would describe the best examples of news media.

But there are examples of ‘clouded’ or ‘enhanced’ media that pass the world through human generated slants or algorithms, vexing distortions and non-sequitur that are known to generate the equivalent of circus. With the circus must come the box-office cash box, where coin stripped from viewers is collected. These companies are licensed as ‘entertainment’.

 Host/Guest

The invariant I pose then is not too broad, nor too narrow to inhibit message flexibility. Additionally, “we work hard to inform you,” brings forward the bifurcation and distinguishes “you” as not the part of the whole who have to work hard. Those members are distinct but imperceptible. They, who are distant from you, will give you the information. Such describes a functional and ostensibly edifying Host/Guest relationship within a basic news company collective.

But again, there is also the strong possibility of group demagogy within the act of informing, that would erect a propaganda scripture from some member within production, for the dissemination of prepared and filtered facts. Who such a member would be is obscured by the structural bifurcation.

Messaging

Messaging follows the lines established by the bifurcation, across an inner one-way membrane: Messaging travels from host to the guest membership only. This means that members have no meaningful ‘conversation’ or dialog with the group host. This membrane, as I call it, is a part of the container architecture and serves the function of the group invariant. The membrane is substantially the same as the container, and similar to an inner aperture, but specialized like a filter to deal with guests’ activity. In this case we see it in a heraldic function, managing one-way communication.

The media broadcast membrane is also complex such that it excludes communication between guests, as well as dialog with host. Feigning disinterest in such dialogs, media regards these properly outside its agreed function. But once again, due to the bifurcation cited, these extraneous dialogs can filter back to the organization, and affect the desired product, energy and redistribution of benefits. Usually, these feedbacks come from advertisers who try to leverage their position, as purchasers of space-time on media, to limit the basic service.

Unlike the broadcast platform, the social media platform attempts to open communication across these previously closed, real-time avenues, between author-producers and viewers.

Well… this makes for some new experiences: Theatre in the round at ground level would be the metaphor, where the stage extended far into the audience ad infinitum, turning journalistic space into a bulletin board.

Transgenerational meme, cinema code, ephemeral meme, such as I described earlier this year, play a heavy role in group messaging and structures. Memes and codes are memory dependent forms that act as shorthand for extended thought or experience. Whereas for the ornithological club, social memes are fairly narrow but straight-forward for the group. Conversely, for a successful media company, memes and codes are bread and butter, with design depth. The use of memes and brands captures attention, adding surfeit of energy and utility to the group. Therefore, messaging should bridge to or mirror the  expectations and responses of viewing members.

By utility, I reference the cost-benefit or the ability to afford to offer the surfeit obtained by grouping through redistribution. Since in media, the surfeit is realized through advertising sales, viewer attention is assured or maximized via meme and cinema codes that filter and focus attention, for the best returns on ad space. The redistribution of the surfeit of energy from viewership attention occurs indirectly across the aforementioned membrane, thru a jumble of information, product marketing, effigy and chimera, which I’ll address later.

Nevertheless, core messaging of the media whole concerns member acquisition and retention. These are dualized in terms of production members and viewing members in broadcast media. Clearly, messages and memos addressed to production side will not ordinarily pass across the membrane from the host member(s) over to viewing members; nor any pass from viewers directly to production in real time. The mechanics of the bifurcated, host/guest collective produces a temporal lag in connectivity. The situation refers to group complexity which hinders further integration, but allows for the generation of variable truths and qualifies solidity of being, depending on member aspect. (v. infra Perceptual Integrity)

Since the flow of objective messaging is from host to disparate guest members, the content of any message is carefully considered. These should try to consolidate against the missing elements of a close group as well as deliver the content of messages, which is either featured content, public service or advertisements. A broadcast medium attempts to make up for the disparate nature of viewers by seeding products with popular memes and brands, giving the viewers referential icons for suggested community, like a religion does, without the actual community interaction. Yet, in interest of utility, production time must devote space to messages that stimulate the acquisition and maintenance of viewers.

 Empedoclean Cycle

All systems exhibit a cyclic nature due to constant motion, as exhibited in public and private spheres of observation. It is a mistake to view the familiar forms found there to behave as the static examples memory often returns. All forms undergo and navigate a process of displacement and return, execution and exhaustion, action and reaction, oscillation and vibration which are the developments of generalized motion. In the media sandbox, where all things accrue to messages carried on wings of popular attention and/or significance, the cycle of appropriateness is ever-present.

Memes and codes themselves have a “vibe” that in the beginning is attractive and adhesive until the operant becomes acclimated to and disposes same. Elements lending to its attractive quality are also subject to change in significance relative to other factors. Those often fall in line of importance. The failure of any may cause the message to weaken, even if the invariant “We work hard to inform you” is fully respected.

Since the elements of messages have “borrowed significance” from connotative awareness, the changing landscape of significance can also destroy or distort an important connotation within the message, souring the entire sentiment.

To illustrate this bemusing point, I present a report saying, “President Smith rode a pony” when in fact he mounted a Shetland steed.

In a more visceral way, changing clothes and hair fashion over a few years cause cosmetologists to work as hard as the street reporter to deliver the report to members, that is to get the report past the value judgements placed on physical, camera-ready appearance.

The above demonstrate an internal vulnerability of journalistic skill, yet beyond these there may be external changes in the world, which we grapple with under the phrase ‘public awareness’. These multifarious incursions can affect the whole message structure; again, without actually attacking the invariant. This keeps the advertising and public relations departments busy like hair and makeup departments are. Often at odds with each other, even as they worry over the same utility of enterprise, they are tasked to keep the content of messages flowing.

O, but what is public awareness?

This we must know, else we have rye!

We know two things: 1. We’re discovering what the public is and should be aware of as we go along. 2. Don’t be too broad. The complement to this short list is a huge one, with which a given media company and associated AI are constructing themselves.

Can we talk tribal? Tribalism is one tactic in an expanding media landscape both in creating media market spaces and in accessing density that is sufficient for survival. This is really the tactic of program specialization, where viewership is increased by including material that draws the required narrow audience at the expense of the potential whole.

One can see that under our accepted invariant, the media organization devoted to information can go in many directions under the guidance of specialization. Namely the categories of subjects and events are limited within each but given greater depth, dwell time. Under more dire circumstances specialization can become nefarious, which I’ll describe in the last essay of the series. Short of that, there is inevitable editing of reports, either in kind or within the report itself, that may not truly inform. Then cherry-picking emphasize a narrow aspect of public awareness to obscure a more complicated reality.

Specialization is one response to media landscape, another tactic has less to do with content and more to do with flow. This is most interesting since the central benefit of the information organization is the content of its messages.

What else could people derive from media that is spare of content. Clearly the question is circular, since content IS the measure of significance in the mind of the beholder, where it is contained. Yes, you heard correctly…  But I’ll be more precise: The elements composing the content of messages preexist in the mind of the receiver.

For instance, the elements of picture and audio of media provide companionship without imparting content. This is cheap yet remote companionship, without the complications of living with real people. Often the medium is used just to provide ambience to a house that is short of even of companionship.

A sense of connected-ness to the public sphere echoing over wood floors, through halls, making the materials sing and vibrate. ASMR will lull you past even the noosphere and zeitgeist into a hypnotic and purely intimate state of suspense.

We must now broaden our concept of content, but with the two provisos mentioned above regarding public awareness: Be flexible with sufficient narrowness for focus.

 Appearance

The media groups appearance is a virtual thing. It is impossible to physically see the entirety of the bifurcated embodiment of a media whole. Even if we could get a group shot of the production side, on site and remote, it would be foolish to envision such a photo of viewership. The occasional appearance of viewers in specialized messages with portrait photos, promotions, or even as news items, has little to do with the integrity of the organization.

Yet the embodiment of the organization does exist, even if spread out and connected by microwaves, so this reality is most often reference symbolically, not literally. The emblematic reference to equipment in early TV presents the exterior of the studio building or transmission tower in black and white suggest that the unapparent viewership is captured by electric waves.

Today, the deconstructed, backstage-like, in-the-round studio space attempts the same thing with green screen, but during presentation of news. Once, a simple tool of the craft was used to refer to the whole of production with viewership, a functional ‘test pattern’ appearing at the beginning and end of the ‘broadcast day’ was once used to calibrate or adjust video machinery.

 Effigy/Chimera

All of the foregoing on media utility lands us here regardless of content. For here the seas are stirred by imagination vying with perceived facts that extend beyond and interfere with every aspect of the group. This is only true because of the very open field of media markets, and how benefits are realized. Unlike the quaint birders’ group, the effectiveness of message structure is so precarious that extraneous and accidental material take on exaggerated import which is met with sufficient guile or more exaggeration.

 Effigy

Effigy is the default identity of a media group since its appearance is a virtual concept. The art department and advertising staff is responsible for creating it. They have latitude in choice for constructing the functional identity of the media whole. This relationship of the actual to the superficial has import in the core messaging of the group through memes, brands and codes, which empower critical acquisition and retention of members. So, it’s no surprise that the significant applied signs of appropriateness for membership and access are the logos, green screen, dias, clothes-hair-makeup, within the product proper. In public appearances, the group presents the same items, often with changes appropriate to the event.

 Chimera

Chimera is the mental locus which the group either responds to and mirrors or seeks to build in members or others outside. For the media group, either of these agendas can be found. Formation of this locus or lokah is inevitable and functions as a part of redistributed community awareness. So, it is important to design and fashion a good one for members.

However, if a media outlet engenders a movement within the group that was not there previously or part of the invariant, it’s a red flag. Media is, after all, the perennial conduit for brainstorming leaders who seek to change society through their comparatively small group.

The better method for media success is to mine and embellish upon the inner thoughts, opinions, conventions already there in the public. Then, the persistence of art, imagery and imagination trim a greater flow of information.

Six Functional Parameters:

For an entity whose sole product is made of words and images, and whose body is bound together with EM waves, money, and viewer attention, it is crucial to have a handle on things through some kind of telemetry. The organization is bound to forms of telemetry since the aforementioned membrane of broadcast media disallows direct audience input or creation. So, circuitous methods are called for in divining the inner aspect of public consciousness. These recall the skill of great leaders who have perceived what human leverage entails, and do not hesitate to employ what is gleaned in life upon life out there. Otherwise, authors throughout literature address the suasions and their analyses applied to the human frame and shadow. No less an example is Edward Bernays whose terse observation lays bare the loci of leverage to be applied in a struggling and somewhat captive humanity.  And so, the possibilities that Bernays and Skinner opened to media and advertising demands the careful attention, albeit indirect, of members’ thought, feelings and opinions. Success in divining these externalities correctly can be measured by the following Six Parameters, which suggest immediately a focused questionnaire.

(External Channel)

 Energy

 Energy measures the surfeit gained in human density. In a media company this translates to quantity of regular viewership.

 Utility

…Measures the cost-benefit of the media whole… Does the company secure enough funds to maintain operation? Do the viewers receive their stream as advertised, messaged, or as qualified in statements of purpose for charters, grants, that stand firmly equivalent to the invariant.

 Redistribution

…Addresses the manner of distribution of products. The products of a media company are varied now, but in the past, a company would produce only one serial form that was available to all who had a quarter or an antenna. Since the fragmentation and specialization of media, redistribution of goods and services across a spectrum of entities is less homogeneous, less democratic within a single product. Rather, the state of current cable and streaming channels allow for an elite, more tribal range on offer, though from a single company.

(Internal Channel)

 Belief intensity

Intensity of belief measures the internal aspect of what we call ‘energy’ externally. However one wishes to qualify this measure, it is the gravity and glue of the whole. And, we remember our field of measure includes production and viewers assignation of purpose. This matter along with other items are figured for focus groups and polls for the estimation of necessary energy. All of this would be quite easy for a hobby group, where members are physically together with a leader, each making these judgements and adjustments in time. The belief of any group is ‘belief in’ the group which will carry members through the good and bad moments that are inevitable.

 Consequential behavior

The appropriate behavior for media members lies mostly with production side, and very much less with individual viewers. That is because that the direction of flow of information from a broadcast is embedded in the temporal flow.

However, when a viewer acts in response to stimulus on media, then the flow of information becomes a cause. The organization embodies in itself the antecedents and consequents of its activity throughout the whole of production and viewer response.

Perceived Access

…Measures access of members to the members, goods and precincts of the whole. Clearly in the bifurcated structure of broadcast media access amongst members is strictly channeled by sheer architecture. Viewership who views for free or buys access to products feel well served. However, production members must deal with their hosting, shepherding, and production activities as a career choice which is very different from the viewing half.

Perceptual integrity

The quality of perceptual integrity of a media group, including viewers, is set from the beginning by the bifurcated architecture discussed above. This partition also allows the co-temporal discrepancy of member queries over production and viewers, just like for the bird watchers in the field about a coming flood. The same complexity exists within both sides as well: Production departments are graded and scoped by career and artistic qualification, and viewers as a body have no immediate communique with which to compare their individual perceptions.

This bifurcation allows people to forget that viewers make up a necessary part of a media company, though they are not legally incorporated into it or automatically share in residuals. There is a perceptual wall inherent in the technology of media, as well as a dialectic barrier. But we accept this as a necessary limitation for the benefit of information which would remain unknown to us otherwise.

Solidity of Being

The reality of message structures and group experience, in light of the invariant, give a group integral independence, as if it were a conscious example or paradigm of its ideal member. But here the bifurcated nature erupts again to confuse the solidity of the disparate body, connected by paper or microwaves: Who is the paradigmatic member of a media whole then? An ideal viewer who unknowingly helps set ad space prices, that won a vacation sweepstakes? Or, is it the mogul producer with the entourage of techies. In such a case, we revert to the invariant…, if for no other reason than it is singular and invariant, i.e. eternal.

As explained earlier the reality of messaging is important; it remains an item of design for retaining members in general, on both sides. Should the enterprise become mendacious in view of membership in either its core products or internal communication, then it’s in trouble or should be minus overgenerous compensation.

But we must skewer Fox News to see what an overtly mendacious product does for them. The license under which the Murdochs operate is that for entertainment, not a news bureau. It provides a loophole for impersonating a news program down to dias, hair, makeup, breaking stories. But as their licensing acknowledges, their content is spurious along with their perceptions and interpretation of events. They are an example of ‘flow over content’ motored along on exploitation drama… grievance gossip that truly does sell. Fox inserts itself also into cable distribution fees like a lamprey, sucking the side of all beneficiaries of program redistribution.

That’s enough for media organizations and their strikingly bifurcated and disparate whole.

We’ll continue this progression in two weeks when I discuss religion.

Thos. Reedy ©2025