And, Or and And/Or

'AND', 'OR' and 'AND/OR'

The Logical Origins of "Anti/Semitism"

This essay is a psychosemiotic analysis of the brief, two-sentence paragraph below, to show (demonstrate), by text-token analysis of communication, how present psychohistorical process has come under the control of Unconscious Group-Fantasy solidarity with Israel, with American identity absorbing their contradiction.

The analysis is offered as self-evident, intuitively grasped. But at the same time, it is theoretically grounded in a formal-syntactical metaphysics of Sign-use, by a further interpretation of the psychosemiotic constants* (*terms occurring in all contexts of analysis of contents of consciousness under sign-use). These are used here, though elaborated further elsewhere.

As a general philosophical preface, it may be noted that, logically pursued, this leads to a causal explanation of the process. By generalizing the causes that produce individual S*- tokens. as content of individual sense-consciousness, intra-psychically translated into S* text, content of thought.

The principle of analysis is: The metaphysical context of communication is the interface (conjunction, bond of unity) of individual and group consciousness by S*, taken causally as token, logically, as text. It follows from this that individual intra-psychic processes involved in causally translating localized tokens into common, logically shared text are the actual determinants of content of group communication.


S*:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/13/opinion/13schweitzer.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=people%20of%20the%20button&st=cse&oref=slogin


People of the Button
by Peter H. Schweitzer

"In my experience, the most obvious way politicians try to woo Jews today is to demonstrate their support of Israel and to appeal to long-held social values. The less obvious way is through, well, political buttons. "

PSYCHOSEMIOTIC ANALYSIS

If the connective "and" is replaced by "or" in this context, to accommodate questions that immediately arise by conjoining these intrinsically opposed alternatives, an alter-universe of discourse unfolds as conscious content through S*.

"In my experience, the most obvious way politicians try to woo Jews today is to demonstrate their support of Israel OR to appeal to long-held social values. The less obvious way is through, well, political buttons. ..".

The use of "and" rather than "or" shows how the contradiction that defines an entire epoch of humanity, in the West, created by conjoining the Old and New Testaments of the Bible into one Book, can be texted over (buried, covered up) in a single S*. This is possibly the most condensed, extensive, comprehensive, twisted two-sentence S*-performance that has ever occurred.

To see this it is sufficient to note the radical opposition between politicians who "woo Jews" by demonstrating support for Israel, and those who "woo Jews" by appealing to "long-held social values". These two classes of politicians in the current situation are pro-war/conservative Republicans vs. anti-war/liberal Democrats opposites. War-favoring, conservative politicians, ex. McCain, woo them by predicating U.S. foreign policy on defense of Israel whose apologists insist acts strictly in its own interests. War-opposing liberal politicians, ex. Kucinish, woo them by advocating homosexual and abortion 'rights'.

This opposition within Jewish groups is between the leaders of their organizations and the members. The party of the leaders act out male role, defending Israel (cf. McCain's narrative arrived at in "Faith of My Fathers") as its humanity. The party of the people act out the passive female role of acceptance and nourishment, requiring defense. This party, as such, is neutral on the Israeli (Zionist). But there is an asymmetry: Republican "Faith of My Fathers" patrons uniformly oppose, with more or less tolerance of, liberal causes. Liberal Democrats will split over war issues more than conservative Republicans will split over rejecting liberal ('long-held social values') ones. This asymmetry tips the balance of the scale of the causal token process in favor of conservatism. Warrior father wed to the Moral mother produces a progeny the majority favors.

This is the Archetype the McCain/Palin ticket manifests. The logical/causal result of wooing the Jews.


CONCLUSION

It is is a tautology that the assertion of a conjunction of two propositions, "p and q" can be true and compatible with "p or q" only if "or" is taken in the inclusive, not exclusive sense. Translated into the symbolism of propositional logic:

The inclusive sense of "or" in standard symbolic form is
"p v q" (at least one is true). The exclusive sense is expressed by "(p v q) . ~(p . q)" (at least one but not both are true).

Therefore, the assertion (p . q) entails (p or q) only if "or" is the inclusive (p v q). If the "or" was exclusive, (p . q) . (p or q) would entail the explicit contradiction (p . q) . ~(p . q).

But for the electorate at large, the Republican-Democrat opposition is the mutually exclusive "or". One cannot be both Democrat and Republican.

Therefore the Jewish identity can preserve the inclusive sense (and be either pro-Israeli or pro-'social' values, or both) only by the electorate at large absorbing the contradiction in the voting process. When Peter Schweitzer uses "and" instead of "or", which would have been sufficiently strong to convey the political alternative, he adventiously conjoins opposites compatible at the level of Jews, incompatible at the level of national politics. America's war-proneness is expected to absorbs the difference.