"Schismogenesis" Topic
9 Posts
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robert piepenbrink  | 01 Dec 2025 6:35 a.m. PST |
My new word of the day--though it seems to date from about 1935, which I believe makes it a vintage word, really. Invented by an anthropologist and used by them and psychologists to describe the process of emphasizing the ways in which we are different from them (anthro) and how I am different from him (shrinks) even though complete outsiders may have a hard time noticing the said differences. By and large, both anthropologists and psychologists disapprove of the process, which I'm sure is in no way relevant to disputes between cultural and physical anthropologists or between Freudian and Jungian psychology. (Evolutionary biologists seem less judgmental about "speciation" which seems to be the same thing.) Anyway, my thanks to Dr Gregory Bateson for inventing a word which exactly describes my relationship with the cult of GW. I didn't know I needed a word until I was given one. |
 John the OFM | 01 Dec 2025 6:52 a.m. PST |
I am confused. But perhaps that was your intent? 🤷 Theoretically , I could be explaining painting Grenzers and Freikorps for a future battle, and someone exclaims, "Oh! Like Warhammer!"
And then I have to explain that these will be for a fictional historical battle, and it's nothing like Warhammer and they roll their eyes and wish they could make an emergency call for the men with the white jackets with the very long arms… Did I get it? |
| Alakamassa | 01 Dec 2025 7:25 a.m. PST |
This term is explained well in Graeber and Wengrow's The Dawn of Everything. Basically Schismogenesis is the process by which groups differentiate themselves from others not by having a clear understanding about their own morays and values, but simply concluding they are unlike their neighbors. I feel this is a useful concept to explain the contemporary schism between liberals and conservatives and the atrophy of education in critical thinking, history and civics. Where we once learned to identify ourselves by shared ideals of democracy, justice and the human condition, we only have a vague appreciation of what we stand for and are even less able to articulate those values. We simply look at others and say, "I know I'm not them." In such an environment people stop seeing the commonalities that bind us and make us a cooperative society. Instead we become increasingly polarized unable to express ourselves other than by our hatred of the "other." |
 Flashman14 | 01 Dec 2025 8:37 a.m. PST |
When I feel alienated at GenCon or NOVA Open (a GW competition convention), am I experiencing schismogenesis, or are they? |
| d88mm1940 | 01 Dec 2025 8:58 a.m. PST |
Alakamassa, well said, sir! |
| robert piepenbrink | 01 Dec 2025 10:00 a.m. PST |
What can I say? The OFM was what I was shooting for. Alakamassa isn't wrong--though I'm not convinced that not having a clear understanding of one's own mores and values is necessary by definition--but I was trying really hard not to bring contemporary politics into it. I keep trying, but I don't think I succeed as much as half the time. Flashman, no reason as I understand it you can't both be practicing schismogenesis. (Or both be experiencing it: but it does seem to me to be more something one does than something that happens to someone.) |
| John the OFM | 01 Dec 2025 10:17 a.m. PST |
It's like those foreign words that we never knew we needed until we first see it used, and then explained.
Like schadenfreude.
(Heck. Autocorrect filled it in right after I typed the first 4 words! Hail our AI masters!) |
| Oberlindes Sol LIC | 01 Dec 2025 12:17 p.m. PST |
I didn't know I needed a word until I was given one. Consumer capitalism is based on creating a need and filling it. It's difficult to monetize words per se, so this isn't a real example of consumer capitalism, but it's illustrative. I guess someday they'll figure out how to charge us -- maybe through our internet service providers -- every time we use a monetized word. It's something to look forward to. |
| robert piepenbrink | 01 Dec 2025 12:42 p.m. PST |
As opposed to the non-capitalists, who cause you to disappear for using a word not included in the latest edition of Newspeak, Oberlindes? Or who invent new words so they can use them for slurs? (Bonus points for redefining existing words to exclude themselves. See "discrimination" and "racism.") Actually, it's what you get for being trendy. Steal from Ambrose Bierce, Mark Twain, Ben Franklin or John Finley Dunne and you won't owe anyone a dime. I think a lot of C. Northcote Parkinson is in the public domain by now, which is very helpful when you consider that injelititis is endemic in North America and Western Europe. |
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