As of late, I am halfway done with Part IV of “Third Place: ‘Total Educational Effort” (Pt. III of V).” This is the first half, the other half was handwritten on paper as a draft to get my thoughts sorted out on what I intended to do with the direction of this upcoming Blog post. Whatever becomes of Part V must be able to continue right where Part IV left off.
I have two Intents behind why this Update-related Blog post: To present an epiphany on another Blog and to present the first half of Part IV in case I do not finish it either today or tomorrow. There may be a point tomorrow where I may have to take care of some personal matters offline. Basically, I will be going on a shopping trip so I can run some Empirical testing with the Work-Standard.
The following is my epiphany, a recent comment on another Blog:
I did some further research in my spare time this week to figure the historical origins and significance of “Arbeit as Arbot” from other sources. The “Ar” in Arbot continues to bemuse me because, upon tracing back the primordial origins of Arbeit, I found a long lineage of similar variations of the same word in various different Germanic languages.
The Old German and Middle German had “Arabeit,” “Erbeit,” and “Erebeit.”
The Old English and Middle English equivalents of Arbeit are “Earfoþe” and “Arveð.”
The etymology of Arbeit across multiple Germanic languages has witnessed up to five different meanings over the past few millennia, some of which appeared to have been introduced to various non-Germanic cultures at various points in time. These five meanings are “Allegiance,” “Work,” “Ownership,” “Robot” and “Orphan.”
Where there is “Allegiance,” there is the Citizenship.
Where there is “Work,” there is the Worker.
Where there is “Ownership,” there is the Property.
Where there is “Robot,” there is the Technology.
And where there is “Orphan,” there is the Inheritance.
What surprised me the most is not at all the fact that the English word “Orphan” has its origins in Arbeit. Rather, it has more to do with why the English language had a different meaning behind “Orphan.” It did not always mean “a child without parents,” which is essentially what comes to mind as English speakers when we are asked by someone else to describe an Orphan. Instead, Old English speakers once used the term as “Ierfa,” which we now use today to denote an “Heir.”
The primordial point of origin for the German word “Arbeit” and the English words “Orphan” and “Heir” is Proto-Germanic verb “Arbijaną” or “Arbāną” (“to be orphaned”), which in turn is related to the Proto-Germanic noun “Arbaidiz” (“hardship”). Are you and the readers of our Blogs beginning to realize where I going with this wordplay, Bogumil? I ask because I am literally dumbfounded by its implications.
These European nation-states were once Germanic tribes that had fought the Roman Empire. Prior to their encounters with the Romans, these Germanic tribes were deeply concerned about the self-development and well-being of children and young adults. It is possible that there was once a social system where the youths of every Germanic tribe, upon reaching a certain age, became members of the tribe through a sort of rite of passage into adulthood. While this social behavior continued long after the downfall of the Roman Empire, it eventually faded into inexistence as the Germanic tribes became the European nation-states of our 21st century reality. Could a Socialist Europe someday be able to revisit this ancient social system? I am convinced that Europe will only be able to revisit it under Socialism because Neoliberalism will prevent all Europeans from reviving it.
Therefore, allow me to share with you and the readers of our Blogs the basic procedures: The path to true Citizenship in the Western world will always be defined by the trials and tribulations–the “hardship”–of being a young adult. Only in our teens and twenties can we finally begin to entertain any and all notions of becoming a “Worker,” owning “Property,” harnessing “Technology,” and receiving our “Inheritance.” This is also the same point in our personal lives where we could “Travel” in the sense that we could attend school abroad, work in another nation-state, or even emigrate to the US, Latin America, Russia, Japan and so on.
In fact, “Travel” literally means Arbeit among the European Romance languages! Think about it: the French “Travail,” the Spanish “Trabajo,” the Portuguese “Trabalho,” and the Italian “Travaglio.” As an American Catholic, I sincerely do not mind if Europeans and everyone else outside of the Western world are interested in emigrating to these United States as immigrants. All I ask is that they emigrate legally by emulating St. Johann Nepomuk Neumann, CSsR of Bohemia.
The “Ennoblement of Humanity” is, financially speaking, the “Final Settlement.”
For the sake of clarity, I should point out to my readers that the “Final Settlement” is my financial shorthand for the “Full and Final Settlement” as part of the “Ennoblement of Humanity“:
“Full and Final Settlement” is a term commonly used in settlement agreements to signify the resolution of all issues involved in a dispute and the parties shall have no other claims against each other. [In the context of Arbeit, Debtors are those accused by Creditors of “Dereliction of Duty” to evade the “Full and Final Settlement.” Either the Self owes Geld to the Totality or the Totality owes Geld to the Self. The State can be the Clearinghouse, in addition to overseeing all potential Litigations involving the Self and Totality].”
-Deconstruction of “Full and Final Settlement” with the Work-Standard
“Final Settlement” = Work-Standard
Socialist World Order = Work-Standard
Without further ado, let’s proceed with the Preview:
“Third Place: Total Educational Effort (Pt. IV of V)
“Neither Violence nor Power of the Purse fashion the Universe / Ethical Action, Spiritual Force may reshape the World’s Course”
-Hjalmar Schacht, Confessions of the Old Wizard, ca. 1956
Solidarity Preference: The Freedom-Security Dialectic
Class Struggle: Youth Cultural Wars
“It is good for a student to be [reinterpreting Life in a Federalist, Prussian, or Bolshevist way]. Getting and spending [in the OECD-Type Student Economy], the typical American college student lays waste [to their Will-to-Power]. [Arbeit] and [Kapital] don’t mix, and university days ought to be days of contemplation [for them in the Socialist Student Economy].”
–Russell Kirk, Confessions of a Bohemian Tory, ca. 1963
“The basic reason for this tremendous acceleration of world development is that new hundreds of millions of people have been drawn into it. The old bourgeois and imperialist Europe, which was accustomed to look upon itself as the center of the universe, rotted and burst like a putrid ulcer in the [First World War]. No matter how the [Socialists] and all the enlightened [Nationalists], who are capable of admiring (or even studying) Spengler, may lament [Western Civilization], [‘The Decline of the West’] is but an episode in the history of the downfall of the world bourgeoisie, over-satiated by imperialist rapine and the oppression of the majority of the world’s population.”
-Vladimir Lenin, “Tenth Anniversary of Pravda,” ca. May 2, 1922
“The image of [Cultural] War as [Financial] Combat merges into the more extended image of a gigantic work process. In addition to the armies that meet on the battlefields, originate the armies of commerce and transport, foodstuffs, the manufacture of armaments – the army of work in general. In the final phase, which was already hinted at toward the end of the last [Cultural Revolution], there is no longer any movement whatsoever – be it that of the homeworker at her sewing machine – without at least indirect use for the battlefield. In this unlimited marshalling of potential energies, which transforms the warring industrial countries into volcanic forges, we perhaps find the most striking sign of the dawn of the Age of [Arbeit].”
-Ernst Jünger, “Total Mobilization,” ca. 1930
Class Struggle: Youth Cultural Revolutions
“The centuries-old feeling of [Cultural] Solidarity in [England and Prussia had] brought forth a magnificent conformity of physical and mental attitudes, in the one case a race of successful businessmen, in the other a race of workers. One important symbol of this process, albeit an external one, is the English taste in men’s clothing. England has produced civilian dress in the purest sense: the uniform of the private individual. Their fashion holds unopposed sway in all of Western Europe. England has clothed the world in its uniform, the symbol of free trade, private fortune-making, and ‘cant’ [of the OECD-Type Student Economy].”
-Oswald Spengler, Prussianism and Socialism, ca. 1919
“The counterpart of this English style is the Prussian uniform. It is an emblem of public service, not of private existence. Rather than symbolizing the success gained by diligent activity it stands for that activity itself. ‘I am the First Servant of my State,’ said the Prussian King [Read: Friedrich der Große] whose father had made the wearing of uniforms a customary practice among the nobility. How many have fully understood the significance of the phrase ‘the king’s mantle?’”
-Oswald Spengler, Prussianism and Socialism, ca. 1919
Solidarity Preference: Homeland, Homeroom, Homework!
“Our Catholic youth can be saved only by Catholic schools.”
-Bishop St. Johann Nepomuk Neumann, CSsR of Bohemia
“Cheerfulness prepares a glorious mind for all the noblest acts.”
-Mother St. Elizabeth Ann seton, SC of New York
Let’s begin by imagining there is the Student Government of an SSE, somewhere in the Socialist world order, which happens to own a two-story house in the Suburbia of their Socialist nation. The Student Government had purchased the land and the house as part of a lucrative Four-Year Work-Plan from the Kontore, the Service Fee having been reimbursed by their Council State. There is a long, straight street in front of a well-trimmed lawn, an empty driveway and loads of other amenities to restart the Nixon-Khrushchev Kitchen Debates. Both the land and the house are waiting for its potential homeowners, a student couple interested in assuming command of its Four-Year Work-Plan. If the Work-Standard is great around the Socialist nation-state, it should also be great about around the Socialist household: the etymology of “Economics” means the “Art of Managing a Household.”
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