Academic Export

I also see myself as somewhere in between an academic and a layman (for lack of a better term). Part of the Narrative Network will be to formalize the language into a recognized academic framework with which we export to schools and universities. I have a few neighbors already helping with this, but would love to assemble a team.

We need to retell the story of the entire Western philosophical tradition. These thinkers, although unaware at the time, are responsible for legitimizing the Framework. Social contracts do not allow for choice (but create the illusion of it); they are imposed on us by those already in power, dictating the terms of such a contract to us. There is no choice in the matter. You are born into the Framework and thus become part of it. Yet, in theory, the assumption of your agreement is foundational to most classical arguments, from Socrates to Freud (psychology is still deeply patriarchal). Even in theory, we are stripped of our Agency in favor of those who "know better" and can act in our self-interest for us. This story must be told. It explains so much over the centuries. I'm starting a Substack to start exploring how to tell this narrative.

For instance, Hobbes' Leviathan was never the Commonwealth (or State); it was the Patriarchy (Framework). Statesmen come and go, but the structure must remain legitimate. The State is a tool of such men and does not impose violence without the actions of such men. Even those opposed to the State at the time — civil war was rampant in 16th and 17th Century England — approached the issue of power exactly the same way. For all involved, power wasn't the issue; it was who was legitimate in wielding it. Before Hobbes, that legitimacy came from God; after, from the "people". Very little changed on the ground, other than new opportunities to inject a new "liberal" scrap into the Framework every couple hundred years and call it progress. Those in charge of crafting the social contract are rarely interested in the opinions of all who it will affect, instead using it to protect the power they already possess, all the while gaslighting common folk into believing it is the best — and/or only — legitimate path for everyone. They don't care where their legitimacy comes from, as long as those beneath them believe the legitimacy of their power as fully and completely as possible.

We must provide a new framework which addresses this and that will require a new narrative to be told of our past, choosing to move forward in a positivbe light. By building our Neighborhoods from the ground-up -- standing with all our Neighbors, learning how to emotionally regulate ourselves and teaching this to our children, by promoting critical thinking and all of the Arts, by expanding our Neighborhoods -- we will reconnect with our Neighbors and choose to trust each other again. Many potential frameworks already exist in the form of black feminism, early childhood development and the matriarchy, among others. Unfortunately, we are still fighting a Framework which heavily discounts "feminine" expression. As such, I believe our language should remain fully gender-neutral for maximum affect on white Neighbors. I see it replacing our "economic identity", not who you are.

Neighborism is intersectionality from a different angle. It is the point at which intersectionality should converge.

I bring this up to say that it must be our job, as Stewards of Knowledge, to reframe the entirety of our Western Philosophical Tradition to match what we see and experience. Bryan Magee wrote, in 1973, "The growth of science consists not in the endless process of adding new certainties to the body of existing ones, but in the elimination of error from existing theories and the replacement of existing theories by better ones." It is time we begin the "eliminate the errors" of Western theories using tools already available to us — Karl Popper's falsifiabilism comes to mind — that have manipulated and colonized all human populations for centuries (we may need to throw A LOT away). Deconstruction isn't a new idea; we just haven't specifically applied it to our sociopolitical framework yet with the hopes of uprooting those patriarchal elements whose purpose is self-legitimization. Our work, up until this point has been topical (misogyny, xenophobia, homophobia, etc.) and hasn't been applied to the Framework as a whole, or even to individual theorists like Hobbes, to challenge his body of work based on his erroneous assumptions. (Please correct me if I'm wrong. Quite honestly, I hope I am. I don't wanna do all this work lol)