In some traditions, the personifications of the ancestral models have been increasingly marginalised. Where once they were all around, they gradually became relocated to inaccessible regions, within or outside the universe. In some, also, the number of personifications has decreased. Where once they were many, some were first designated ‘false’ and later non-existent, leaving a single omnipotent personification. Concomitant with this has been a general depersonification of Nature: not only have the inanimate and the plant kingdom been depersonified, but also other animal species, denying them the status of social-semiotic beings. Where once all was ‘us’, now only human is ‘us’.
The valeur of a tradition changes as the semiotic-in-social system evolves, because what it contrasts with evolves. The ancestral lineages continue to function interpersonally — and for many, ideationally
[1] — even though many of their interpersonal functions have been replaced by the Arts and Humanities, and many of their ideational functions have been replaced by the Sciences. They provide comfort and solidarity in times of grief, as well as motivation, hope, optimism, confidence and certainty.
[2] But more importantly, the idealisation of human personhood as a universal creator raises the value of ‘human’ towards the divine: the semiotic creation is reversed such that the divine creates the human as an instantiation of itself that is embedded in a body and which is capable of surviving the death of the body that houses it to join with the eternal.
Footnotes:
[1] For fundamentalists, changes to the ideational truth of a tradition erodes the skeleton on which its values hang; and it is the values which unites/defines the community.
[2] Certainty received a boost when the traditions were recorded in writing. Writing down meaning made its expression a potentially permanent visible thing (“real”) in the world of things (“reality”), rather than a transient audible process. In this way, the durability of the expression mode reinforced the unchallengeability of meaning being expressed.
ChatGPT revised:
The Evolution and Persistence of Ancestral Traditions
In some traditions, the personifications that once populated ancestral models of the world have been gradually marginalised. Where once they were omnipresent — in rivers, forests, animals, and skies — they have been increasingly relocated to inaccessible regions, either within or beyond the physical universe. In some cases, their number has also diminished: many once-recognised personifications were first declared false and later deemed non-existent, leaving behind a single, omnipotent figure.
This has occurred alongside a broader depersonification of Nature. Not only have inanimate entities and the plant kingdom been stripped of personhood, but so too have other animal species — thereby denying them the status of social-semiotic beings. Where once all was construed as ‘us’, now only the human qualifies as such.
As the semiotic-in-social system evolves, so too does the valeur of a tradition — for what a tradition means is shaped by the contrastive system in which it functions. Despite the replacement of many interpersonal functions by the Arts and Humanities, and many ideational functions by the Sciences, ancestral lineages continue to function both interpersonally and — for many — ideationally.[1] They still provide comfort and solidarity in grief, and offer motivation, hope, optimism, confidence, and certainty.[2]
More profoundly, the idealisation of human personhood as a universal creator elevates the status of the human towards the divine. In this reversal of semiotic creation, the divine is construed as having created the human as an instantiation of itself — one that is embodied, but capable of surviving bodily death and joining the eternal.