A Brand of One

 https://nygeek.wordpress.com/2008/11/01/jennifer-government/

"The term branding has long been relegated to companies, but today almost every individual has a personal brand" http://www.forbes.com/sites/shamahyder/2014/08/18/7-things-you-can-do-to-build-an-awesome-personal-brand/

What was that called when i was a kid? Personality? Cannot remember. An interesting aspect of the ongoing commodification  of people.

" the blurring of the two entities - or are they even separate? With this sort of language play, a person's "character" is renamed as their "brand". 
An interesting article on the subject:  http://www.iasc-culture.org/THR/archives/Commodification/5.2EDavis.pdf

 

http://americanfront.info/2012/06/18/paul-goodman-commodification-in-the-modern-world/

BTW: After reading the Joseph Davis paper (The Commodification of Self ) I think it may in the first 1/3 of the paper, have provided the best answer to the question; how did my counter-culture generation turn into the Generation of Swine?

Essentially, you take the 60's "rebellion" and leave its participants imbedded within the Economic Socially Obligate Boundary Condition...(that term is in my  "book", linked on the right...

"I am surprised and embarrassed to be part of the first American generation to leave the country in far worse shape than it was when we first came into it."

Hunter Thompson

  Well, at least i am not surprised anymore...

Thinking out loud about the use of the word “spirituality”

Courtesy of the folks at:

http://www.nerduprising.co/dotgrid/12

I am wrestling with my use of the term “spirituality”, as I use it in my personal writing, such as

In Air Water Ground (see link to document in the side bar), and in particular; and the post Human Socially Obligate Boundary Conditions and Related Cultural Universals http://airwaterground.blogspot.com/2015/07/human-socially-obligate-boundary.html  And  Regarding the Development and Fitness Value of Spirituality, http://airwaterground.blogspot.com/2015/03/regarding-thedevelopment-and-fitness.html

The definitions of spirituality are wide, varied and unsettled. They range from the the plethora of  “new age” views to the newer secular variants, such as in the writings of  Ursula Goodenough or Sam Harris .

The term religion is I think, much simpler to define. My take on that is that it:

Is a term denoting a group of individuals

That group self identifies around a spiritual schema

Exhibits expression of the Pseudospeciation Socially Obligate Boundary Condition (PSOBC)

Exhibits expression of the Vertical Dominance Hierarchy Socially Obligate Boundary Condition (VSOBC)

I am wondering if I should substitute for spirituality a term such as superstition or supernatural. This would thereby exclude / clarify that the secular spirituality concepts such as those expressed by Ursula Goodenough /Sam Harris are not included.

My reason for using spirituality as I do is simply, its etymological roots.  Which for my purposes, seems well, appropriate.

“The term spirit means "animating or vital principle in man and animals". It is derived from the Old French espirit which comes from the Latin word spiritus (soul, courage, vigor, breath) and is related to spirare (to breathe). In the Vulgate the Latin word spiritus is used to translate the Greek pneuma and Hebrew ruah.  …The term "spirituality" is derived from Middle French spiritualité, from Late Latin "spiritualitatem" (nominative spiritualitas), which is also derived from Latin spiritualis.”   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirituality , citations omitted.

Supernatural, given the very existence of the concept, may be a better term for my use? “The supernatural (Medieval Latin: supernātūrālis: supra "above" + naturalis "nature", first used: 1520–30 AD) is that which is not subject to the laws of physics or, more figuratively, that which is said to exist above and beyond nature.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernatural citation omitted

Or perhaps superstition? It is perhaps too narrow of a term for my application? “Superstition is the belief in supernatural causality—that one event causes another without any natural process linking the two events—such as astrology, religion, omens, witchcraft, prophecies, etc., that contradicts natural science.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superstition

Human Socially Obligate Boundary Conditions and Related Cultural Universals

"In this animation, the vertical direction indicates time and the horizontal direction indicates distance, the dashed line is the spacetime trajectory ("world line") of the observer. The lower half of the diagram shows the events that are "earlier" than the observer, and the upper half shows events that are "later" than the observer. The small dots are arbitrary events in spacetime."

 Will be included in Air Water Ground at a later date.

Draft

Human Socially Obligate Boundary Conditions and Related Cultural Universals

Jay Moynihan 07/05/2015                                                                             

The Cultural Universals are from:

The Evolution of Childhood  Relationships, Emotion, Mind, Melvin Konner, The Belknap Press of

Harvard University Press, (2010)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_universal

Human Universals... compiled by Donald E. Brown

..as published in The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, 2002, New York: Viking Press

Brown, D.E. 1991. Human universals. New York: McGraw-Hill

Note: Socially Obligate Boundary Condition is A set of social parameters or conditions that evolved in a specie, that limits its behavior at a given point in space time. May change in adaptation to changing conditions, including social conditions. Jsm, Air Water Ground .

Pseudospeciation Socially Obligate Boundary Condition (PSOBC)

Extra-genetic transmission of language

Kin Terms (language)

Binary conceptual discrimination (language)

Historic linguistic change

Childhood physical aggression (more so in males)

Recognition of individual faces

Sense of distinctive peoplehood

Relatives distinguished from non-relatives

Conflict at individual & group levels

Ethical dualism; different rules for in-group/out-group

Belief in supernatural entities

Territoriality

Historical & origin narratives

Dispersal of groups

Discrimination (pseudospeciation )

Fear of strangers

Negative identification of us/them

Cultural construction of perception (collective assimilation)

Sense of self as subject/object

Vertical Dominance Hierarchy Socially Obligate Boundary Condition (VSOBC)

Kin Terms (language)

Division of labor by sex and age

Females attracted to powerful males

Male abuse of power

Ascribed & achieved status role beyond age, sex, kinship

Perscription off behaviors

Belief in supernatural entities

Crime

Mimicry

Moral sentiment

Leaders

Defacto oligarchies

Collective decision making

Territoriality

Inheritance rules

Nepotism

Cultural construction of perception (collective assimilation)

Cultural coherence (overarching themes)

Status Socially Obligate Boundary Condition (SSOBC)

Childhood Physical aggression (males more so in males)

Play fighting

Division of labor by sex and age

Females attracted to powerful males

Male attraction to nubile females

Ascribed & achieved status role beyond age, sex, kinship

Cultural coherence (overarching themes)

Cultural construction of perception (collective assimilation)

Symbolism

Defacto oligarchy

Territoriality

Sense of self as subject/object

Economic Socially Obligate Boundary Condition (ESOBC)

Reciprocity, exchanges, cheating

Personal Property

Cultural construction of perception (collective assimilation)

Symbolism

Cultural Schematization

Abstract thought

Trade

Sense of self as subject/object

Systemic, varied tool making

Reciprocal exchange

Turn taking

I am toying with recognizing spirituality as a SOBC.?

IF Spirituality Socially Obligate Boundary Condition (SPSOBC)

Belief in supernatural entities

Symbolic thought

Sense of self as subject/object

Abstract thought

Cultural Schematization

Cultural construction of perception (collective assimilation)

Rituals

Fear of death

Death rituals/mourning

Dream interpretation

Beliefs about death

Narratives

Historical & origin narratives

Moral sentiment

Consciousness altering substances

Belief in life after death

World view

Anthropomorphization

Culture / nature distinction

Note:

Does religion = one of our species’s expressions of {  SPSOBC+ VSOBC + PSOBC + ESOBC } ?

The Republic's Swan Song?

Is he our Cicero? Hopefully his hands will not be nailed to the doors of the senate. Senator Bernie Sanders, speech on 07/01/2015.
https://berniesanders.com/news/live-madison-wisconsin/