The four contexts or forms of life are the barbarian, the theocentric, the ideocentric, and the democratic state. I think, definitionally, what is meant by each is relatively clear, but I should point out first of all that there are no clear types. While I would say, generally speaking, the four supersede each other historically, the theocentric form of life is an imposition from within and on the barbarian form of life, the ideocenric is an imposition from within and on the theocentric form of life, but it is a theocentrism that has not shaken free entirely of the barbarian, and so on.
The barbarian state is analytically, if not historically, prior to the others. It emerges from within and represents what might be meant by a more or less Hobbesian state of nature resulting in a sovereign. It is predicated on the absolute freedom which leads to the war of all on all postulated by Hobbes. The virtues most in demand are the barbarian virtues of strength and cleverness, or as Veblen put it, the virtues of Achilles and Ulysses. There is a rudimentary market, but it is essentially a barter economy, where the excess goods of one are distributed to others in exchange for their excess goods of another -- likewise the acquired skills of one are distributed to others in exchange for the acquired skills of another. The moral virtue most in demand is reciprocity, fairness, though it is a reciprocity always subject to invidious distortion by individual disparities of strength and cleverness. The state, such as it is, exists through the appropriation of tribute, in part because it has the acquired strength to appropriate tribute, in part as an exchange for protection from yet others who might appropriate tribute. An individual, the sovereign as it were, personifies the state, not abstractly as a trope, but concretely in his person. His rule and rules, his authority, so to speak, emanate from his character and his virtues, his strength and his cleverness, and it demands two moral virtues of those subject to his subjectivity -- respect and loyalty. The governing intentionality of the state, as such, is survival. For the sovereign, survival in the role as sovereign. For those subject to his subjectivity, survival within the appropriations of the sovereign under his protection from the violent appropriations of others.
The theocentric state emerges from within and is a superimposition on the barbarian state. I do not want to dispute the existence of divinity. It seems clear enough to me that divinity exists, if only in the mind of humankind, and if only as an evolutionary quirk, yet nevertheless tangibly enough to motivate the creation of the most superb temples and paintings and poetry. It also seems clear enough to me that humankind invents gods and goddesses, a mythos, to articulate these intimations of the divine. There is a very long history of religious apprehension, in both senses of the word apprehension, and I will take this history as sufficient proof that divinity exists, and that the institutional articulations of that divinity are the creation of men and women over time. Having said that, the theocentric state emerges from within the context of the barbarian state. The emergence of monotheistic religion posits a God that is, at once, a reflection of the sovereign, but one that transcends the sovereign. The transcendent god served first, principally, as a justification for and a means of rebellion against the caprice of the sovereign and the moral decay of the state. The (re)emergence of evangelical Christianity and Islam serve as a case in point, but in the nature of such rebellions, if successful, the rebels must rule, but they do so not simply on the usurpations of might, but a might that has been sanctified by God. The transcendent God served subsequently, principally, as a justification for the exercise of state power, but it is a state power that (ostensibly) freely limits its freedom to act in fealty to the moral imperatives of the transcendent sovereign God. The Machiavellian prince revealed sufficiently the inherent duplicity, insofar as the barbarian virtues of strength and cleverness are the virtues which most sustain power, and the state must continue to appropriate tribute, but the sovereign himself must in turn pay tribute to the transcendent God. His rule and his rules, his authority, so to speak, emanate not only from his character and his virtues, but from the transcendent God, and it demands again two moral virtues of those subject to his subjectivity -- respect and loyalty to him as the representative of the transcendent God.
Ideology emerges from within theology, and literacy plays a role not only in the institutionalization of religion around the sacred text and its explication. Religion, as it were, posits an intentionality once and for all and set out the instrumental means of attain to the satisfaction of that intentionality. This intentionality is at once individual and historical -- individual insofar as it predicates the end of suffering and the fulfillment of desire (e.g. the kingdom of heaven, the pure land) if and only if one demonstrates fealty to the religion by freely accepting limitations on one's freedom (e.g. thou shalt not kill) -- historical insofar as it predicates an end time (e.g. the kingdom of heaven on earth) which is the fulfillment of God's plan for mankind. The latter is often hastened by the former. Regardless, religion, in positing an intentionality once and for all, and by setting out the instrumental means of attaining to the satisfaction of that intentionality once and for all, superimposes another moral virtue -- purity and sanctity -- on in-group loyalty. Consider, for example, dietary restrictions. They have no instrumental value, per say, to basic biologically driven intentionality (the suffering of hunger or the desire for food). They are, largely, arbitrary impositions on a pure utility, and have, as it were, a role as signifier to a signified fealty to a particular religion, to a particular form of purity and sanctity. They are also signifiers of an in-group loyalty, being one of us, and consequently not simply religious disobedience, but also social disobedience and the pretext for the exercise of state power, an exercise sanctified by God and exercised through the sovereign against those who would impose a false god from without, and those who would subvert the true god from within. The exercise of power is still the exercise of coercive power, but it is the "principled" exercise of power.
Here again, I should perhaps emphasize that the locution "from within" is intended to suggest an interdependency, and another principle which perhaps might be called "substitution." Ideology emerges from within theology when one term is substituted for another. In the great twentieth century ideology of communism, both engaged in what might be called a substitution of terms. Communism predicated the end of suffering and the fulfillment of desire within the communist state proper. The underlying religious structure remained the same, with the substitution of terms. I am suggesting, of course, that the ideological state, is simply a recasting of the theocratic state under secular terms, and both the theocratic state.
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