Asemics as the Value of Sacrifice and of Sentiment
1) The first principle of a rationalist theory of value currently in play follows Ayn Rand and Objectivist philosophy, and it is fundamental to creating asemics: Deny sacrifice, especially, self-sacrifice, as meaningful. Note that meaning here plays to a context of rationality. The self-sacrifice, this irrational act, becomes the asemic.
2) Enact a business model to interpret human behavior as rational or not. For example, enact a business model to manage the legal system. Everything thereby tends to become negotiable whether it is or not. The not becomes the asemic. Rule of law passes to the bid. Justice passes to the aggressor. On Judgment.
3) Develop a categorical imperative that divides the world into winners and losers. Losers are those people who have sacrificed themselves for a claim of a good of some sort. Servants are losers who work for the common good. Winners are those people who serve their own self-interest, i.e., their own ends. The losers are the asemic, and the winners have meaning, at least of the photo opportunity sort.
4) In contradistinction to Ayn Rand, who might oppose religion as a delusion or as a meaningless practice and who was against the religious virtue of self-sacrifice, keep the anti-self-sacrifice aspect of her atheism, but rather than advocate against religion, try to re-make religion, especially Christianity, as a means to a different end.
For example, when the end desired of religion is something other than self-sacrifice, re-make a religion such as Christianity as a Prosperity Gospel. Such a re-make, of course, serves to undo the sacrificial aspect of the religion and largely negate the meaning of the religion itself.
But there are other ways to undo the self-sacrificial aspects of a religion, and as self-sacrifice is related to compassion, here is, in part, what happens when politics claims to be based on religious virtue, but proceeds without religious sentiment: On a Special Guest Appearance of the Easter Bunny, On the War on Empathy, On the Open Definition of Christian and the Behavior of Some of Those Who Claim To Be Such, On Pope Francis, On Easter without Jesus, On the Marginalized, On Immoral Imprisonment, On Protestant Outcry, Sermon on the Sea, On the Vatican on Compassion, On the Vatican on Immigration Policy, On Weaponized Religiosity, On How to Have Compassion.
5) Consider loss and the like as something akin to an insurance claim where insurance has no value for sentiment, which thereby becomes asemic, and the pay-out for the claim is replacement value, asemic value excluded. But what potential does this asemic value then acquire? politically, socially, ... otherwise? On Capitalism (George Monbiot), On Pope Francis and Capitalism, On Pope Francis on People over Profit.
6) Preserve the asemic in emojis, but look to the icon of the negotiation table as that which remains of shared meaning among communities otherwise a-communal. On Meme War.
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