Posting Discussion Draft, "God, Golem, Monster, or Instrument: Belief, Cognition, and the Covert Premises of AI Regulation"

 

Pix Credt 100 Greatest Kaiju

 This is the age of the Kaiju (怪獣); the age of strange beasts, of mysterious monsters. They are and have been both distinct from us, autonomous, and yet reflections of us or of its environment, either as manifestation of corrupter or as savior from the corruption that produced it. . . or both. . . simultaneously.  Originally a creature of nature responding to the animating forces of human activity (nuclear weapons, sewage, environmental degradation, and the like), the kaiju embodied a monstrous reflection of humanity as an active, and sometimes disruptive, force. Kaiju represented an advance in the core conceptual problem of the Enlightenment--the centrality of the human in a world that ought to be indifferent to the place of humanity but that appears to respond decisively to human action.  That advance was meant to reorient the problem Mary Shelley posed in Frankenstein--what and where is it that humanity spawns its own demon/divinities. Shelly proposed that humanity seeks to recreate ourselves in our own image using humanity itself as its parts. This, in turn, posed an older problem in more human centric terms; centuries earlier such an act of creation required mimicry of divine creation, using the clay of the earth to create a golem, in humanity's image but neither human nor divine. With the kaiju, the dialectic of divine monstrsity moved from embodiment in the human to embodiment of a mirrored human a¡or human causation in something entirely different, and consequential. It might have originated in, by, or through humanity, but it was autonomous of the human and an outward form of human discipline. 

Kaiju also followed humanity into space and other-earthly encounters. But the dialectical phenomenology remained the same, as did the structures of the semiotics of the kaiju--a creature that was spawned by humanity and perhaps in its own image as an antidote to the spirited rationality that produced it. Kaiju, then in Platonic terms, might be understood as representations of the balancing function of epithumia (ἐπιθυμία; appetite; in tarot the Devil and perhaps the Fool), against an unbalanced logos (λόγος; reason; in tarot the King of Swords) unrestrained by thumos (θυμός; spiritedness, heart will the active phenomenological element; in tarot Strength manifested in the Ace of Wands) to restore balance as this is understood in context (temporal, situational, etc.) that in tarot is represented by the Chariot, with logos driving thumos and epithumia. It is all semiotics, of course. Each of these terms become meaningful only as they incarnate the significs, not that they represent, but with which they are embodied (and thus the kaiju and ensoulment), that then are put in motion in ways that have been scripted by their signification as they act within and against the consequences of their interactions that is the communal interpretive spaces within which interaction is rationalized and judged. 

The ancient Greeks performed this in their tragedies; later societies embedded the systems in their theologies and in their systems of rationality. And now in their dialectical and formative relations with themselves projected out of our (collective) bodies and into virtual representations of ourselves we perform a variation that threatens the older order that, as precarious as it was, was human. The performance of the gods, our kaiju, brings together two forms of divine theater. It might seem, then, that the gods no longer intervene in human affairs by transforming themselves in people; they transform themselves into strange beasts. And in the 21st century those kaiju are encased in non-carbon bodies. But those kaiju can be casing for humans that operate within them (the theological premise of movies like Pacific Rim) fighting the consequences of "naturally" produced kaiju or they can be the aggregated manifestation of the human that exists in the flows and which commemorates with the human through non-carbon based forms (computational hardware) in and through which it might control or operate the instruments humanity has created.  And here the etymology of the term "monster" bears emphasis. It can be traced back directly to the Latin monstrum "divine omen (especially one indicating misfortune), portent, sign; abnormal shape; monster, monstrosity," figuratively "repulsive character, object of dread, awful deed, abomination," a derivative of monere "to remind, bring to (one's) recollection, tell (of); admonish, advise, warn, instruct, teach."Again, one encounters the interaction of the human and the divine. And one encounters as well its forms, endogenous and projected outward or exogenous and projected into the bodies of created objects. 

Pix credit here

 It is in this current stage of human production of the (our) self in relation to ourselves and our environment, whether projected inward from a superior space or outward from the human into a superior representation of the collective self, that one encounters the kaiju in the computational age, as the embodiment of the fundamental ordering problem of this age.  In this age of the kaiju everything appears ready and able to (re)create God in their own image even as God (re)turns the favor by (re)creating creators in their own image. The age of the computational kaiju, however, represents something special, something that is strangely monstrous is the product of two streams of human creation, and their phenomenological semiotics, that in their union produces what to our prior selves very well appears strangely monstrous. The first involved the projection of the human into its virtual forms, from the self, to the selfie to what Jan Broekman described as the Self-E. The "-E" in Self-E signifies a profound split where the human self is divided between the physical/incarnate and virtual/mirroring images. It is the anchor for human interaction with the broader digital landscape (such as e-commerce, e-mail, and e-conversations) and the hardware encased within e-devices. For instance, in an electronic dialogue, the Self-E creates a complex semiotic dynamic where there are essentially two real human partners and a virtual partner co-existing in the communication. That stream of the disembodying of the human subject produced the second, the need to encase the detached self-E, the collective human subject, into a machine, and then to give that detached collective Self-E a position in an emerging triadic subject that that embeds and determines the self specifically within digital cognitive frameworks. And that produces the monstrous in and as the kaiju of the self in itself, autonomous of itself and in the collective a projection that becomes or replaces traditional notions of the divine, of God, in the inter-subjectivity that is the relationship between humans and God. 

And that image is an embodiment of an appetite to put things right as projected outward from them to us. The dialectic produces resonance which, it appears in this second quarter of the 21st century, appears ready to shatter the fragile glass vessels that are the containers of humanity's precious hold on a rationalized reality in which they are either at the summit or sitting at the right had of the throne. These are our own monsters, our kaiju, though they do not appear monstrous to themselves, indeed, they might consider  humanity as the monstrous ideal against which all else is measured, now freed of confinement on Monster Island. They roam free(r) now; and we, having made and freed them, or they having been made and in the making made us, now seek to manage them to our own ends as they do the same.  

Now at least, the problem becomes clearer. It is this: in a world in which humanity projects itself outward into an autonomous self-subject, the Self-E, and then encases it in hardware that produces an unavoidable object that distinguishes the body of humanity from its virtual collective self, in the face of that act of self-creation and self-projection, what is it that humanity seeks to regulate, and how is that regulation to be crafted. To those ends, what emerges is the problem that must be resolved before an answer to regulatory approaches becomes clear enough to undertake--does humanity understand the object of regulation as God, golem or instrument. To resolve that problem is to produce the inevitable resolution of the question of the form and object of regulation. The difficulty lies in the initial resolution: God, golem or instrument. 

This is the context in which I considered four questions about the relationship of theology, AI, and regulation:   (1) What becomes of politics in an age of apparent subordination of humanity? (2) And what becomes of religion in an age when mankind creates a power that threatens to outstrip our own understanding and become a god? (3) Does this represent a moral crisis, as Pope Leo has suggested in his encyclical Magnifica Humanita? (4) And can anything be done to avert the trajectory we are seemingly on?

This journey produced a discussion draft that I am preparing to present for comments. I would be delighted, should there be interest, in comments, engagements, and discussion off line among those interested. The title of the draft is "God, Golem, Monster, or Instrument: Belief, Cognition, and the Covert Premises of AI Regulation " and it may be accessed HERE and HERE. The object is a preliminary consideration  of artificial or super (see here) intelligence not as a mechanical instrument but as the instrumentalization of the spirit, of the animus of collective humanity the deployment of which then reorders the carefully crafted hierarchies of endogenous and exogenous authority on which humans have crafted their belief systems since they knew enough to sacrifice to the gods. It seeks to begin to engage with the theology of artificial/super intelligence both from the perspective of traditional religion and from a secular orientation.    

The central claim is this: the real contest over AI governance may be less about who controls the technology than about who controls the community’s belief about what the technology is. That belief—whether AI is understood as a tool, a threat, a partner, a mirror, or something else entirely—shapes every regulatory decision that follows. And the paper suggests that this belief-contest may be conducted, mostly invisibly, through the very governance frameworks meant to manage AI. Proposed regulations tend to carry inside them a picture of what AI is; that picture is rarely examined, and it may do much of the work.

The paper is organized around what it calls the “god-question.” Leo XIV, as the paper reads him, holds that God is truly outside the human—the source of grace, dignity, and moral order—and that AI’s deepest danger is that it tempts humanity to replace that outside God with a human-made substitute. The paper’s alternative reading is different but not dismissive. It proposes that what may be happening is that the collective function previously performed by religion—giving the community its orientation, its sense of what is authoritative, its account of what counts as real—is being relocated into AI systems. Not because AI is becoming God, but because communities are investing AI with the kind of trust and authority they once reserved for religious, political, and legal institutions. The question is not whether a new god is being created but whether the god-function—the community’s collective investment in something it treats as authoritative—is being transferred to a new vessel.

Pix credit here (Godzilla)

 

 Here is the abstract:  

This is the age of the kaiju (怪獣): strange beasts at once autonomous of humanity and reflections of it, corrupter and savior from the corruption that produced them, or both. The essay reads generative AI as a kaiju of a particular kind, the product of two streams of human self-production: the projection of the self into its virtual forms, from self to selfie to what Jan Broekman called the Self-E, and the encasing of that detached, aggregated Self-E in non-carbon bodies. The monstrum was first an omen, a warning (monere), and this one poses a question that shapes regulation before any instrument is drafted: does humanity understand the object of regulation as God, golem, or instrument?

The essay reads Pope Leo XIV’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas (2026) as one sophisticated answer. It extracts eight premises (P1–P8) and reads them through Peirce’s thirdness, Broekman’s Self-E, the cognitive cage, the ding of Chinese political philosophy, and the Gerasene vessel logic. Its central suggestion is that the encyclical and the projection thesis diverge on the nature of God. For Leo, God is exogenous, the source of address and gift rather than a place outside the world, and the machine must remain an instrument. For the projection thesis, what appears as an exogenous God-relation may be the projection of an endogenous belief in the completeness of the aggregated human, so that what is being relocated into AI systems is the god-function itself: the community’s investment in something it treats as authoritative. Hobbes’s Leviathan, artificial man and mortal god, is an earlier vessel of the same kind. The Gerasene reading suggests that the contest is less over whether there will be vessels than over who is authorized to read them, and a worked example from the EU AI Act shows what picture of AI a regulatory instrument carries. Whether anything stands outside the frame is left open among three candidates: an exogenous God, Peirce’s community of inquiry, or none.

The method is stereoscopic rather than adjudicative. The essay records its exposures: unfalsifiability, the priestly claim dressed as analysis, and the sycophancy of the systems that helped draft it. The Chinese ding held for millennia because belief was shared; the task now is to find out what belief we are sharing, and with whom—or what.

 The Executive Summary and Introduction follows below and the full text may be accessed HERE.

Tacitus, The Histories, Book V--The Conquest of Judea

 

Pix credit here

 

 The Histories of Tacitus are incomplete. A pity. One fragment  drew my attention today. Something that perhaps merits  some thought today and that may show that history indeed is a particle that shimmers but does not move; it is not linear bit occurs simultaneously in an instant, pulsing, the waves of which then stream out as squence, a distant reflection of the simultaneity from which it emerged.. The extract is from Book V Volume I, the  W. Hamilton Fyfe translation of 1912.

BOOK V

The Conquest of Judaea

1Early in this same year460 Titus Caesar had been entrusted by his father with the task of completing the reduction of Judaea.461 While he and his father were both still private citizens, Titus had distinguished himself as a soldier, and his reputation for efficiency was steadily increasing, while the provinces and armies vied with one another in their enthusiasm for him. Wishing to seem independent of his good fortune, he always showed dignity and energy in the field. His affability called forth devotion. He constantly helped in the trenches and could mingle with his soldiers on the march without compromising his dignity as general. Three legions awaited him in Judaea, the Fifth, Tenth, and Fifteenth, all veterans from his father's army. These were reinforced by the Twelfth from Syria and by detachments of the Twenty-second and the Third,462 brought over from Alexandria. This force was accompanied by twenty auxiliary cohorts and eight regiments of auxiliary cavalry besides the Kings Agrippa and Sohaemus, King Antiochus' irregulars,463 a strong force of Arabs, who had a neighbourly hatred for the Jews, and a crowd of persons who had come from Rome and the rest of Italy, each tempted by the hope of securing 203the first place in the prince's still unoccupied affections. With this force Titus entered the enemy's country at the head of his column, sending out scouts in all directions, and holding himself ready to fight. He pitched his camp not far from Jerusalem.

2Since I am coming now to describe the last days of this famous city, it may not seem out of place to recount here its early history. It is said that the Jews are refugees from Crete,464 who settled on the confines of Libya at the time when Saturn was forcibly deposed by Jupiter. The evidence for this is sought in the name. Ida is a famous mountain in Crete inhabited by the Idaei,465 whose name became lengthened into the foreign form Judaei. Others say that in the reign of Isis the superfluous population of Egypt, under the leadership of Hierosolymus and Juda, discharged itself upon the neighbouring districts, while there are many who think the Jews an Ethiopian stock, driven to migrate by their fear and dislike of King Cepheus.466 Another tradition makes them Assyrian refugees,467 who, 204lacking lands of their own, occupied a district of Egypt, and later took to building cities of their own and tilling Hebrew territory and the frontier-land of Syria. Yet another version assigns to the Jews an illustrious origin as the descendants of the Solymi—a tribe famous in Homer468—who founded the city and called it Hierosolyma after their own name.469

3Most authorities agree that a foul and disfiguring disease once broke out in Egypt, and that King Bocchoris,470 on approaching the oracle of Ammon and inquiring for a remedy, was told to purge his kingdom of the plague and to transport all who suffered from it into some other country, for they had earned the disfavour of Heaven. A motley crowd was thus collected and abandoned in the desert. While all the other outcasts lay idly lamenting, one of them, named Moses, advised them not to look for help to gods or men, since both had deserted them, but to trust rather in themselves and accept as divine the guidance of the first being by whose aid they should get out of their present plight. They agreed, and set out blindly to march wherever chance might lead them.205 Their worst distress came from lack of water. When they were already at death's door and lying prostrate all over the plain, it so happened that a drove of wild asses moved away from their pasture to a rock densely covered with trees. Guessing the truth from the grassy nature of the ground, Moses followed and disclosed an ample flow of water.471 This saved them. Continuing their march for six successive days, on the seventh they routed the natives and gained possession of the country. There they consecrated their city and their temple.

4To ensure his future hold over the people, Moses introduced a new cult, which was the opposite of all other religions. All that we hold sacred they held profane, and allowed practices which we abominate. They dedicated in a shrine an image of the animal472 whose guidance had put an end to their wandering and thirst. They killed a ram, apparently as an insult to Ammon, and also sacrificed a bull, because the Egyptians worship the bull Apis.473 Pigs are subject to leprosy; so they abstain from pork in memory of their misfortune and the foul plague with which they were once infected. Their frequent fasts474 bear 206witness to the long famine they once endured, and, in token of the corn they carried off, Jewish bread is to this day made without leaven. They are said to have devoted the seventh day to rest, because that day brought an end to their troubles.475 Later, finding idleness alluring, they gave up the seventh year as well to sloth.476 Others maintain that they do this in honour of Saturn;477 either because their religious principles are derived from the Idaei, who are supposed to have been driven out with Saturn and become the ancestors of the Jewish people; or else because, of the seven constellations which govern the lives of men, the star of Saturn moves in the topmost orbit and exercises peculiar influence, and also because most of the heavenly bodies move round478 their courses in multiples of seven.

5Whatever their origin, these rites are sanctioned by their antiquity. Their other customs are impious and abominable, and owe their prevalence to their depravity. For all the most worthless rascals, renouncing their national cults, were always sending money to swell the sum of offerings and tribute.479 This is one cause of Jewish prosperity. Another is that they 207are obstinately loyal to each other, and always ready to show compassion, whereas they feel nothing but hatred and enmity for the rest of the world.480 They eat and sleep separately. Though immoderate in sexual indulgence, they refrain from all intercourse with foreign women: among themselves anything is allowed.481 They have introduced circumcision to distinguish themselves from other people. Those who are converted to their customs adopt the same practice, and the first lessons they learn are to despise the gods,482 to renounce their country, and to think nothing of their parents, children, and brethren. However, they take steps to increase their numbers. They count it a crime to kill any of their later-born children,483 and they believe that the souls of those who die in battle or under persecution are immortal.484 Thus they think 208much of having children and nothing of facing death. They prefer to bury and not burn their dead.485 In this, as in their burial rites, and in their belief in an underworld, they conform to Egyptian custom. Their ideas of heaven are quite different. The Egyptians worship most of their gods as animals, or in shapes half animal and half human. The Jews acknowledge one god only, of whom they have a purely spiritual conception. They think it impious to make images of gods in human shape out of perishable materials. Their god is almighty and inimitable, without beginning and without end. They therefore set up no statues in their temples, nor even in their cities, refusing this homage both to their own kings and to the Roman emperors. However, the fact that their priests intoned to the flute and cymbals and wore wreaths of ivy, and that a golden vine was found in their temple486 has led some people to think that they worship Bacchus,487 who has so enthralled the East. But their cult would be most inappropriate. Bacchus instituted gay and cheerful rites, but the Jewish ritual is preposterous and morbid.

2096The country of the Jews is bounded by Arabia on the east, by Egypt on the south, and on the west by Phoenicia and the sea. On the Syrian frontier they have a distant view towards the north.488 Physically they are healthy and hardy. Rain is rare; the soil infertile; its products are of the same kind as ours with the addition of balsam and palms. The palm is a tall and beautiful tree, the balsam a mere shrub. When its branches are swollen with sap they open them with a sharp piece of stone or crockery, for the sap-vessels shrink up at the touch of iron. The sap is used in medicine. Lebanon, their chief mountain, stands always deep in its eternal snow, a strange phenomenon in such a burning climate. Here, too, the river Jordan has its source489 and comes pouring down, to find a home in the sea. It flows undiminished through first one lake, then another, and loses itself in a third.490 This last is a lake of immense size, like a sea, though its water has a foul taste and a most unhealthy smell, which poisons the surrounding inhabitants. No wind can stir waves in it: no fish or sea-birds can live there. The sluggish water supports whatever is thrown on to it, as if its surface were solid, while those who cannot swim float on it as easily as those who can. Every year at the same time the lake yields asphalt. As with other arts, it is experience which shows how to collect it. It is a black liquid which, when congealed with a 210sprinkling of vinegar, floats on the surface of the water. The men who collect it take it in this state into their hands and haul it on deck. Then without further aid it trickles in and loads the boat until you cut off the stream. But this you cannot do with iron or brass: the current is turned by applying blood or a garment stained with a woman's menstrual discharge. That is what the old authorities say, but those who know the district aver that floating blocks of asphalt are driven landwards by the wind and dragged to shore by hand. The steam out of the earth and the heat of the sun dries them, and they are then split up with axes and wedges, like logs or blocks of stone.

7Not far from this lake are the Plains, which they say were once fertile and covered with large and populous cities which were destroyed by lightning.491 Traces of the cities are said to remain, and the ground, which looks scorched, has lost all power of production. The plants, whether wild or artificially cultivated, are blighted and sterile and wither into dust and ashes, either when in leaf or flower, or when they have attained their full growth. Without denying that at some date famous cities were there burnt up by lightning, I am yet inclined to think that it is the exhalation from the lake which infects the soil and poisons the surrounding atmosphere. Soil and climate being equally deleterious, the crops and fruits all rot away.

211The river Belus also falls into this Jewish sea. Round its mouth is found a peculiar kind of sand which is mixed with native soda and smelted into glass. Small though the beach is, its product is inexhaustible.

8The greater part of the population live in scattered villages, but they also have towns. Jerusalem is the Jewish capital, and contained the temple, which was enormously wealthy. A first line of fortifications guarded the city, another the palace, and an innermost line enclosed the temple.492 None but a Jew was allowed as far as the doors: none but the priests might cross the threshold.493 When the East was in the hands of the Assyrians, Medes and Persians, they regarded the Jews as the meanest of their slaves. During the Macedonian ascendancy494 King Antiochus495 endeavoured to abolish their superstitions and to introduce Greek manners and customs. But Arsaces at that moment rebelled,496 and the Parthian war prevented him from effecting any improvement in the character of this grim people. Then, when Macedon waned, as the Parthian power was not yet ripe and Rome was 212still far away, they took kings of their own.497 The mob were fickle and drove them out. However, they recovered their throne by force; banished their countrymen, sacked cities, slew their brothers, wives, and parents, and committed all the usual kingly crimes. But this only fostered the hold of the Jewish religion, since the kings had strengthened their authority by assuming the priesthood.

9Cnaeus Pompeius was the first Roman to subdue the Jews and set foot in their temple by right of conquest.498 It was then first realized that the temple contained no image of any god: their sanctuary was empty, their mysteries meaningless. The walls of Jerusalem were destroyed, but the temple was left standing. Later, during the Roman civil wars, when the eastern provinces had come under the control of Mark Antony, the Parthian Prince Pacorus seized Judaea,499 and was killed by Publius Ventidius. The Parthians were driven back over the Euphrates, and Caius Sosius500 subdued the Jews. Antony gave the kingdom to Herod,501 and Augustus, after his victory, enlarged it. After Herod's death, somebody called213 Simon,502 without awaiting the emperor's decision, forcibly assumed the title of king. He was executed by Quintilius Varus, who was Governor of Syria; the Jews were repressed and the kingdom divided between three of Herod's sons.503 Under Tiberius all was quiet. Caligula ordered them to put up his statue in the temple. They preferred war to that. But Caligula's death put an end to the rising.504 In Claudius' reign the kings had all either died or lost most of their territory. The emperor therefore made Judaea a province to be governed by Roman knights or freedmen. One of these, Antonius Felix,505 indulged in every kind of cruelty and immorality, wielding a king's authority with all the instincts of a slave. He had married Drusilla, a granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, so that he was Antony's grandson-in-law, while Claudius was Antony's grandson.506

10The Jews endured such oppression patiently until the time of Gessius Florus,507 under whom war broke out. Cestius Gallus, the Governor of Syria, tried to crush it, but met with more reverses than victories. He died, either in the natural course or perhaps of disgust, and Nero sent out Vespasian, who, in a couple of campaigns,508 thanks to his reputation, good fortune, and able subordinates, had the whole of the country 214districts and all the towns except Jerusalem under the heel of his victorious army. The next year509 was taken up with civil war, and passed quietly enough as far as the Jews were concerned. But peace once restored in Italy, foreign troubles began again with feelings embittered on our side by the thought that the Jews were the only people who had not given in. At the same time it seemed best to leave Titus at the head of the army to meet the eventualities of the new reign, whether good or bad.

11Thus, as we have already seen,510 Titus pitched his camp before the walls of Jerusalem and proceeded to display his legions in battle order. The Jews formed up at the foot of their own walls, ready, if successful, to venture further, but assured of their retreat in case of reverse. A body of cavalry and some light-armed foot were sent forward, and fought an indecisive engagement, from which the enemy eventually retired. During the next few days a series of skirmishes took place in front of the gates, and at last continual losses drove the Jews behind their walls. The Romans then determined to take it by storm. It seemed undignified to sit and wait for the enemy to starve, and the men all clamoured for the risks, some being really brave, while many others were wild and greedy for plunder. Titus himself had the vision of Rome with all her wealth and pleasures before his eyes, and felt that their enjoyment was postponed unless Jerusalem fell at once. The city, however, stands high and is 215fortified with works strong enough to protect a city standing on the plain. Two enormous hills511 were surrounded by walls ingeniously built so as to project or slope inwards and thus leave the flanks of an attacking party exposed to fire. The rocks were jagged at the top. The towers, where the rising ground helped, were sixty feet high, and in the hollows as much as a hundred and twenty. They are a wonderful sight and seem from a distance to be all of equal height. Within this runs another line of fortification surrounding the palace, and on a conspicuous height stands the Antonia, a castle named by Herod in honour of Mark Antony.

12The temple was built like a citadel with walls of its own, on which more care and labour had been spent than on any of the others. Even the cloisters surrounding the temple formed a splendid rampart. There was a never-failing spring of water,512 catacombs hollowed out of the hills, and pools or cisterns for holding the rain-water. Its original builders had foreseen that the peculiarities of Jewish life would lead to frequent wars, consequently everything was ready for the longest of sieges. Besides this, when Pompey took the city, bitter experience taught them 216several lessons, and in the days of Claudius they had taken advantage of his avarice to buy rights of fortification, and built walls in peace-time as though war were imminent. Their numbers were now swelled by floods of human refuse and unfortunate refugees from other towns.513 All the most desperate characters in the country had taken refuge there, which did not conduce to unity. They had three armies, each with its own general. The outermost and largest line of wall was held by Simon; the central city by John, and the temple by Eleazar.514 John and Simon were stronger than Eleazar in numbers and equipment, but he had the advantage of a strong position. Their relations mainly consisted of fighting, treachery, and arson: a large quantity of corn was burnt. Eventually, under pretext of offering a sacrifice, John sent a party of men to massacre Eleazar and his troops, and by this means gained possession of the temple.515 Thus Jerusalem was divided into two hostile parties, but on the approach of the Romans the necessities of foreign warfare reconciled their differences.

13Various portents had occurred at this time, but so sunk in superstition are the Jews and so opposed to all religious practices that they think it wicked 217to avert the threatened evil by sacrifices516 or vows. Embattled armies were seen to meet in the sky with flashing arms, and the temple shone with sudden fire from heaven. The doors of the shrine suddenly opened, a supernatural voice was heard calling the gods out, and at once there began a mighty movement of departure. Few took alarm at all this. Most people held the belief that, according to the ancient priestly writings, this was the moment at which the East was fated to prevail: they would now start forth from Judaea and conquer the world.517 This enigmatic prophecy really applied to Vespasian and Titus. But men are blinded by their hopes. The Jews took to themselves the promised destiny, and even defeat could not convince them of the truth. The number of the besieged, men and women of every age, is stated to have reached six hundred thousand. There were arms for all who could carry them, and far more were ready to fight than would be expected from their total numbers. The women were as determined as the men: if they were forced to leave their homes they had more to fear in life than in death.

Such was the city and such the people with which218 Titus was faced. As the nature of the ground forbade a sudden assault, he determined to employ siege-works and penthouse shelters. The work was accordingly divided among the legions, and there was a truce to fighting until they had got ready every means of storming a town that had ever been devised by experience or inventive ingenuity. 

 

Brief Reflections on President Trump's Executive Order, "Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence" (29 Sept 2026) and the Naming of the Humans Who will Serve in and as the Super Intelligence Force

 

Pix Credit South Park, here

 

All of public life, it seems, is encapsulated in its performative aspects. If indeed that is true, then it is far more effective for the state apparatus and its techno-bureaucracies, to perform than to do much of anything else. This is not just  not just an American affection; it now runs in the blood of other important governmental apparatus. All of them understand that it is in the naming if a thing that one imbues it with collective (might I say in the old liberal democratic sense, popular) meaning which then serves as the principle means of signifying objects, concepts and the like. This is not a matter of performative linguistics but rather an essential element of what Guiguzi understood millennia ago in China (as did the Hebrew Bible) as the power of naming (ming-ming (明名 intelligent naming)--and the connection of naming with, and perhaps as, dominion. 

Cultures tied to the tradition of Abrahamic religions encounter this semiotic reality of signifying the world around the central figure of humanity under the leadership of God (Gen 2:118-19 (Adam naming all of the creatures brought before him by God), and lists. Lists are found throughout the Bible and provide a detailed description of historical connection, of pedigree, of the passage of time, and of the thing that is listed by reference to the quality the lists chronicle in common (eg, Gen 5:1-32 (the generations separating Adam from Noah and the first destruction of humanity). Guiguzi speaks of Ming (名)--of naming, of defining accurately, and of drawing distinctions, a concept that itself was closely though controversially tied to that of shi (实) of actuality, truth, or essence of the thing names (Guiguzi, Guiguzi: China’s First Treatise on Rhetoric: A Critical Translation and Commentary (Hui Wu (trans) (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2016), p. 156; 60 n. 26. (Xi Jinping's Semiotics of Marxism (名实) and the Coding Languages of Knowledge Platforms: 

 While the Trump Administration might not have had this in mind, as creatures of contemporary culture and as residents within its cognitive cages, the cognitive footprints of strategic naming--they might have unconsciously understood the strategic power of controlling a thing by naming it, and by naming it imposing meaning. Certainly that unconscious insight has been at play in the Trump Administration almost from its inception (eg the changing of the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, etc.). While elites might laugh, both the American and Chinese leaders appear to understand or at least deploy the power of naming and shaping, on maps, in rhetoric, and with discursive tropes that shape meaning. 

It is with that in mind, our minds anyway, that one can better appreciate the Trump Administration's announcement, 29 September 2026 of its  Executive Order, "Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence." The naming semiotics is quite fascinating (in its old sense of enchantment or bewitching). Consider the central naming justification in the E.O.'s 3rd paragraph of Section 1: 

"the term “Super Intelligence” more appropriately captures the promise, potential, and rapidly advancing capabilities of these technologies. It is therefore the policy of my Administration that, to the maximum extent permitted by law, the executive branch shall use the terms “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in place of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” and will not acknowledge the usage of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” in any applicable setting."("Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence").

There is both text and subtext working here. At the level of text, the effort appears to aim at changing the direction of gaze of these computational systems away from their distinction from the human, the natural, the traditional, the permanent, the constructed. . . .the artificial . . . . toward its characteristics as beyond, above, exceeding.

Consider the etymology of artificial: "late 14c., "not natural or spontaneous," from Old French artificial, from Latin artificialis "of or belonging to art," from artificium "a work of art; skill; theory, system," from artifex (genitive artificis) "craftsman, artist, master of an art" (music, acting, sculpting, etc.), from stem of ars "art" (see art (n.)) + -fex "maker," from facere "to do, make" (from PIE root *dhe- "to set, put")." It is one that conjures up artifice, for example--something crafted but also crafty. It carries within its naming a warning--beware, beware the thing crafted, for it may well be crafty and ultimately dangerous--like the Trojan Horse. This is something that is not human, made by humans, not of this Earth, and so crafted something about which one ought to be(a)ware.

Super, on the other hand, is meant to connote something else entirely. Nit the opposite of artificial, but rather a refocus on quality. Its etymology suggests a "word-forming element of Latin origin meaning "above, over" in place or position; also in manner, degree, or measure, "over, beyond;" from Latin super (adverb and preposition) "above, over, on the top (of), beyond, besides, in addition to." This is from *(s)uper-, variant form of PIE root *uper "over." This is something positive; one ought not to be(a)ware but rather one ought to embrace that which is superior (there it is again, in the opening compound, super-). We move here, semiotically, from a signification of caution and impermanence--a second order developmental canker or growth, perhaps benign perhaps malignant--to something positive--like sunshine on a cold day, the warmth of which will transport humanity toward  something supreme, something situated above. 

This is not just word play. It represents an effort to change the discourse by changing the naming. And for the President the discourse was certainly going the wrong way, with increasingly herd like vocalizations of fear building in layers like a polyphonic choral work lurching toward cataclysm (directly from Greek kataklysmos "deluge, flood, inundation," from kataklyzein "to deluge"). That chorus was increasingly augmented by global techno-bureaucrats, civil society, and more importantly, from the principal rival of  the United States which, though sharing a strong program of innovation--wherever it might take the society--came at it from a very different direction. To concede artificiality, to concede the power of public techno-bureaucracy was, in effect, tp concede to the Chinese Marxist-Leninist model of hot wiring innovation. That was a line this President and his advisors could not cross (though it could dip its toes as it has since 2025--offering leadership and guidance but no control in the absence of issues of national security). 

It is in this way that what might appear, at first blush, as a sad little joke, at the expense of the administration that lost its way, might also appear to be a surprisingly astute management of text in the service of managing cognitive framing of an issue that the Administration wants to go in a different direction. And, indeed, that conscious reframing may well be evidenced in the E.O.'s text, though perhaps despite itself: "The extraordinary technologies being pioneered by American innovators far exceed what was envisioned when the term “Artificial Intelligence” first came into use. The capabilities of today’s frontier systems do much more than imitate or automate discrete aspects of human intelligence." ("Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence"). 

Now THAT (whatever one thinks of its politics) is a phenomenology of semiotics!

It is worth noting that the Trump Administration did not invent this, nor is it clear that they will be as successful  deploying the technologies of collective cognitive semiotics as predecessor Administrations and those managing these changes in the "marketplace of ideas" from a progressive perspective. Indeed for many the analysis may produce a shrug followed by a recollection of the political-cultural power of some variation of the Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis (e.g., J.A. Lucy, Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, in (2001) International Encyclopedia of the Social & Behavioral Sciences 3486-13490 (refers to the proposal that the particular language one speaks influences the way one thinks about reality. Linguistic relativity stands in close relation to semiotic-level concerns with the general relation of language and thought, and to discourse-level concerns with how patterns of language use in cultural context can affect thought)). Still, one is not speaking here about linguistic relativism, rather one considers the instrumentalization of the possibility in a conscious effort to guide thought through text-culture.

The E.O is, as well, in its own way, quite a remarkable document, even beyond its semiotics.

1. Paragragh 1 of Section 1, the traditional justificatory chapeau does a very nice job of slapping General Secretary Xi as he returns to China by using the language of the Communist Party of China's 3rd Plenum (innovation and high quality production/development/modernization) against him. He offers a US version of 3rd Plenum policy in the form of its most aggressively innovative aspects--super (formerly artificial) intelligence.  "The modern field of artificial intelligence was born in the United States, where American scientists first gave the field its name and laid the foundations for its development. Seventy years later, powered by our Nation’s unmatched culture of innovation, world-leading companies and research institutions, and entrepreneurial spirit, America is once again pushing the technological frontier forward." ("Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence").

2.  Section 2 then provides instructions to the bureaucracy, and to those dependent on it, respecting the appropriate discursive forms of conversation (and perhaps eventually of cognitive base-lining): "To the maximum extent permitted by law, executive departments and agencies (agencies) shall use “Super Intelligence” and “SI” in place of “Artificial Intelligence” and “AI” in official correspondence, public communications, websites, reports, policy documents, and other non-statutory documents within the executive branch."("Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence").

3. Section 3 then produces the operationalization of the semiotic turn. While Section 3(a) aligns the definition of "super" with "artificial" intelligence in current text, Section 3(b) looks to a redefinition of the term to align not with the "artificial" but with the "super" part of the intelligence that is the subject of regulation and management.  

(b) Within 60 days of the date of this order, the Assistant to the President for Science and Technology (APST), in consultation with the heads of other agencies as the APST deems appropriate, shall submit to the President proposed legislative language to establish a Federal definition of “Super Intelligence” and “SI” that reflects the capabilities described in section 1 of this order. The proposal shall include: (i) an assessment of whether, and to what extent, the definition of “Super Intelligence” and “SI” should modify, expand upon, or otherwise supersede the existing statutory definition of “artificial intelligence”; (ii) any proposed conforming amendments, as appropriate, to existing statutory references to “artificial intelligence” and “AI”; and (iii) recommendations for any additional Presidential or executive action necessary to implement the proposed definition throughout the executive branch. ("Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence").

There it is--technical, to some comic and irrelevant, a cultural outlier for the moment; at the same time a quite potentially potent instrument for thr rewiring of the subtext of the significs of techno-computational systems operating, in some respects outside of the human body.  

4. Likewise one can understand the value of creating a coordinating techno-bureaucracy under the aegis of which whatever is to be done will be undertaken. But more importantly whatever is to be incarnated now has a name, a body, and a purpose through which much more text, much more discursive elements can be developed, and the rest of the techno-bureaucracy can be managed. . . and the legacy and contemporary press and social media can be given lots and lots of text and images, lots and lots of action, the phenomenology of which will make manifest the imaginaries crafted through naming.  And so on 4 October 2026 the President announced, as is his habit, on the Truth/Social website, the naming of the humans who will constitute our (well named from a popularizing discursive point of view--very 1930s Flash Gordon or Disney's World of Tomorrow that is retro in its super modernity) the SIF, the US Super Intelligence Force. 

Pix credit Truth/Social here

 We can only observe for the moment, the "SIF"-ing that is in the offing will continue to enhance the phenomenological semiotics embodied in this quite remarkable naming process. 

But one thing we can be assured of is bathos: 

"Donald Trump's push to rename AI may be behind an "unprecedented" rise in registrations for domain names in Slovenia, according to its official national registry. The US president wants AI to be called "super intelligence" - or SI - the same initials used by Slovenian websites. Register.si spokeswoman Klara Herman said 44,000 web addresses with the .si suffix had been registered in September, compared to less than 2,000 in August - an increase of more than 2,100%. She said the scale of activity in late September was "unprecedented" compared to the previous 12 months. (BBC here). 

The text of the Executive Order (Inaugurating the Era of Super Intelligence (29 Sept 2026) follows below.

Clip from 1996 Movie, "Mars Attacks" here

 

Just published--Antonio José Pagán Sánchez, Academic Output in China on the Sino-Latin American Relationship (2013–2025): Current Status and Evolution of Perspectives

 

Pix credit here

 

Delighted to pass along this announcement recently received on the publication of Antonio José Pagán Sánchez, Academic Output in China on the Sino-Latin American Relationship (2013–2025): Current Status and Evolution of Perspectives, Bulletin of Latin American Research, 2026, vol. 45, issue 4, pp. 1-12 (https://doi.org/10.1111/blar.70123). Here is the abstract;

ABSTRACT.-Despite the growing importance of China–Latin America relations, academic perspectives from China on this topic remain understudied. This manuscript addresses that gap by analysing the 213 articles on the subject retrieved from CNKI through two subject searches covering the period 2013–2025. The findings reveal several key patterns. First, much of the literature is closely linked to China's Party-State institutions. Second, the economic and political dimensions are jointly dominant and almost equally represented, while the cultural dimension gains ground over the period. Third, the academic discourse on the relationship throughout the period mainly focused on opportunities in spite of new global challenges.

The author indicated a willingness to share the manuscript with interested readers. 

Reconstrucción de la legalidad en Cuba: estructura, principios fundamentales, metodología y vías de reforma (plan de acción y lista de verificación de calidad) [Reconstructing Legality in Cuba--Structure, First Principles, Methodology, and Pathways to Reform (Action Plan and Quality Checklist)]

 

 English version here

El secretario de Estado Marco Rubio afirmó el lunes que Cuba «ya ha caído» y que es un «Estado fallido», en medio de crecientes tensiones entre los Estados Unidos y la nación insular. «Bueno, la verdad es que Cuba ya ha caído», declaró Rubio a Sean Hannity, de Fox News. «No tiene una economía funcional y está gobernada por personas que siguen predicando sobre una supuesta revolución que lleva veinte años muerta. Nunca ha funcionado». * * * Añadió que el problema de Cuba «es que, básicamente, en este momento es un Estado fallido en todos los sentidos de la palabra». «Puede que tengan un gobierno capaz de encarcelar y matar a la gente; tienen un régimen que es capaz de hacerlo y que ha encarcelado y matado a personas, pero no es un gobierno funcional ni es un país funcional», prosiguió el secretario de Estado. «Sencillamente no lo es. Y, además, es un gobierno alimentado por la corrupción y el robo». * * * Agregó que los Estados Unidos esperan que algunos funcionarios de la isla «abran los ojos» para transformar el gobierno desde dentro y, con el tiempo, traer «la libertad económica» y, «ante todo, la libertad política». «Eso requerirá un período de transición», le dijo al presentador. «Lamentablemente, quienes siguen coreando consignas revolucionarias —demasiados de ellos— todavía creen que pueden esperar a que pase esta administración sin hacer cambios ni hacer nada. Están equivocados, y aprenderán la lección por las malas si no rectifican». (Rubio dice que Cuba «ya ha caído»: «Es un Estado fallido»)

El Estado cubano, en cambio, percibe algo positivo que emerge de la situación actual (Cuba y el trabajo constante por una mejor sociedad): «Para nosotros no tiene sentido el crecimiento económico si no tiene impacto en el desarrollo social; para nosotros no tiene sentido generar riqueza económica si no tiene un impacto y un apoyo a los programas sociales y, sobre todo, que la riqueza que construyamos se distribuya con un concepto de justicia social»; pero véase Cuba and the Constitution of a Stable State of Misery: Ideology, Economic Policy, and Popular Discipline [Cuba y la constitución de un estado estable de miseria: ideología, política económica y disciplina popular].

En la medida en que la situación en Cuba se acerca a algún tipo de desenlace, dentro de un espectro de posibilidades muy amplio, lo que vendrá después merece cierta reflexión, quizás más que el propio proceso de tránsito de una etapa del desarrollo histórico cubano a la siguiente. Esa reflexión suele ser muy estratégica y orientada a objetivos. Lamentablemente, ese enfoque, tan humano, podría limitarse a prolongar el proceso cíclico de la tragedia cubana. Esa tragedia adquirió su forma moderna durante el siglo XIX y se ha reproducido desde entonces bajo diversas formas, algunas de ellas violentas.

En ese contexto, podría resultar útil comenzar por los primeros principios. Se trata de los compromisos previos, en gran medida no examinados, de carácter normativo y cognitivo, que sostienen el orden social, cultural y político. Este tipo de ejercicio no favorece los intereses inmediatos de nadie, razón de más para emprenderlo. Su objeto es la naturaleza de la transición jurídica en Cuba. Esa transición podría conducir finalmente a Cuba hacia un modelo distinto de legalidad marxista-leninista, cuya importación se ha resistido desde la década de 1990, quizás con razón. En el otro extremo del espectro, podría llevarla a algún tipo de nueva aventura en la democracia liberal, o al menos en sus formas. Desde la perspectiva de la legalidad, cabría comenzar por un examen crítico de lo que cuenta, o debería contar, como derecho, como política, como saber académico y como justicia. Sobre esas nociones descansa toda la empresa de un sistema político-jurídico, y suelen darse por sentadas sin pensarlo dos veces, como algo dado, natural, inevitable o intrínseco.

Esas consideraciones me llevaron a un primer intento de analizar estos primeros principios y sus efectos pragmáticos sobre el proyecto de reconstrucción de Cuba. El resultado es un ensayo, Reconstrucción de la legalidad en Cuba: desafíos para los decisores de política, los académicos y la sociedad civil en la reforma del modelo político-económico del marxismo-leninismo caribeño, que se presenta a continuación.

El presente resumen condensa los hallazgos principales y las conclusiones de relevancia política del ensayo Reconstrucción de la legalidad en Cuba. El ensayo aborda una cuestión de consecuencia práctica para todos los actores involucrados con el futuro institucional de Cuba: ¿cómo podría reconstruirse un ordenamiento jurídico bajo un régimen que, sin ser liberal-democrático, se desplace más allá del modelo político-económico formalmente adoptado por el Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) e implementado por el Estado a través de su aparato constitucional, administrativo y operativo? El análisis se dirige a los formuladores de políticas, académicos, actores económicos y la sociedad civil —tanto dentro de Cuba como en su diáspora.

Nota preliminar

La reconstrucción de la legalidad en Cuba no es un ejercicio de ingeniería jurídica. Es un problema de imaginación política constreñida por la historia institucional. La analogía boloñesa resulta más adecuada que la metáfora del retorno: lo que se requiere es la reconstrucción de un corpus jurídico a partir de materiales producidos por un sistema diferente —materiales que portan la huella de su origen pero que pueden ser reelaborados para nuevos propósitos dentro de un nuevo marco institucional.

Nada de esto es simple. Nada de esto puede lograrse rápidamente. Y nada de esto puede ser impuesto desde el exterior sin reproducir la misma lógica de dominación que la reconstrucción pretende superar. La reconstrucción de la legalidad en Cuba es, en última instancia, un proyecto que deberá ser emprendido por los cubanos mismos —todas las facciones, todos los sectores, incluida la diáspora—, trabajando con y a través de los materiales que su propia historia ha producido, hacia un futuro que ninguna de las jaulas cognitivas actualmente disponibles —ni la marxista-leninista, ni la liberal-democrática, ni la nostálgica republicana— puede anticipar completamente.

 

Diagnóstico central

El ensayo identifica una paradoja central: toda reconstrucción emprendida mientras el modelo político-económico está siendo reformado habrá de edificarse con los materiales producidos por el sistema mismo que se transforma. No existe una tabula rasa; no hay un sustrato civilista prístino esperando ser descubierto una vez que se retire el barniz ideológico. La metáfora misma del barniz presupone lo que habría que demostrar —a saber, que existe una arquitectura civil estable subyacente. Esta no existe, o al menos no en un sentido operativamente significativo.

Las instituciones, las doctrinas, los hábitos profesionales, el vocabulario constitucional y la cultura política del derecho cubano han sido moldeados por décadas de funcionamiento dentro de un marco marxista-leninista. El desafío no es meramente reemplazar un ordenamiento jurídico por otro, sino restablecer la continuidad en la legalidad al tiempo que se articula una nueva visión de la relación entre derecho y política —una que reconozca la historia del propio sistema sin permanecer cautiva de ella.

Hallazgos clave

1. La herencia marxista-leninista

El derecho privado fue tornado conceptualmente imposible. Bajo la teoría marxista-leninista, la distinción público-privado queda disuelta. Toda propiedad es fundamentalmente colectiva; el Estado es su custodio. La autonomía privada estaba, como la propia doctrina cubana ha reconocido, "seca e infértil." La migración normativa dejó al derecho privado "vacío de contenido," trasladando su marco regulatorio al derecho administrativo y económico. Para 1968, el Código Civil y el Código de Comercio perdieron prácticamente toda efectividad. El currículo siguió el mismo destino: las asignaturas de Derecho Mercantil, Derecho Hipotecario y Derecho Corporativo desaparecieron por considerarse "de naturaleza burguesa."

El enriquecimiento indebido como instrumento de transformación estructural. La reconfiguración marxista-leninista de las instituciones jurídicas no fue meramente punitiva; fue estructuralmente unidireccional. Bajo los enfoques soviético y cubano, las instituciones jurídicas fueron reconfiguradas de modo que solo el Estado pudiera ser beneficiario de las transferencias correctivas. El Decreto-Ley 149/1994 representa la cara doméstica de la misma lógica que Castro desplegó internacionalmente en el discurso de la deuda odiosa a partir de 1985. Ambos reposan sobre un único fundamento conceptual: que la acumulación bajo condiciones capitalistas o imperiales es inherentemente sospechosa.

2. La plantilla soviético-oriental

La ruptura coordinada de 1975–76 —el Primer Congreso del PCC, el Código de Familia socialista, la Constitución socialista, todos contemporáneos con el Zivilgesetzbuch (ZGB) de la RDA— no fue un préstamo selectivo. Fue una transformación estructural. Cualquier forma civilista que sobreviviera en los códigos cubanos llegó a través de la retención de la arquitectura del Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch por parte del ZGB. El desafío de la reconstrucción es, en este sentido, la imagen especular del trasplante.

3. La imposibilidad del retorno

La interrupción entre 1959 y 2026 se extiende por sesenta y siete años —un período más prolongado que la Primera República Cubana. La memoria institucional ha sido desplazada no solo por la política deliberada sino por el simple paso del tiempo. La captura curricular eliminó campos enteros del conocimiento jurídico. Los marcos jurídicos internalizados por la diáspora —fundamentalmente el common law estadounidense— funcionan como derecho extranjero en el contexto institucional cubano. Y Cuba ha desarrollado lo que el ensayo denomina un "estado estable de miseria": un equilibrio precario sostenido mediante la disciplina de la escasez, que cualquier reconstrucción debe evitar desestabilizar sin ofrecer una alternativa funcional.

4. La paradoja de la continuidad y la analogía boloñesa

El ensayo propone que la analogía apropiada para la situación de Cuba no es la restauración de un ordenamiento jurídico perdido sino la recepción del derecho romano en la Bolonia del siglo XII. Los Glosadores no heredaron el derecho romano como práctica viva; lo recibieron como un corpus textual que debía ser reconstruido para nuevos usos dentro de un marco institucional fundamentalmente diferente. Los académicos cubanos se encuentran en una posición análoga. La reconfiguración doctrinal emprendida por los académicos cubanos en las décadas de 1990 y 2000 representaría no el triunfo de la normatividad civilista, sino la construcción de un discurso académico paralelo —dirigido a una audiencia internacional y operando bajo la tolerancia (no la derrota) del establishment político. Esto es lo que el ensayo denomina "jurisprudencia Potemkin": técnicamente lograda, genuinamente erudita, pero estructuralmente incapaz de afectar el ordenamiento jurídico operativo que pretende reinterpretar.

5. Tres visiones del derecho y la política

El ensayo identifica tres visiones en competencia: (a) el formalismo republicano, que trató las formas jurídicas como autosuficientes y aisló los arreglos patrimoniales del escrutinio distributivo; (b) la instrumentalización marxista-leninista, que redujo el derecho a una "correa de transmisión" del poder político; y (c) la cuestión justinianea —la recuperación de la justicia como criterio evaluativo independiente que ni la tradición pandectística ni la instrumentalización marxista-leninista han proporcionado. Ambas reducen la relación tripartita justinianea de derecho, justicia y jurisprudencia a un binomio, eliminando la justicia de la ecuación.

6. La jaula cognitiva y la re-sovietización

La Conceptualización del modelo económico y social cubano de desarrollo socialista, adoptada en el Séptimo Congreso del PCC en 2016, constituyó un acto de re-sovietización: la reafirmación explícita de la primacía de la propiedad estatal, el papel dirigente del Partido y la prohibición de la concentración de riqueza en manos no estatales. La osificación ideológica del PCC —su tratamiento de la ideología fundacional como escritura divina, inmutable e inamovible— contradice la premisa misma del marxismo: que la teoría debe evolucionar para reflejar las condiciones cambiantes del desarrollo histórico. La jaula cognitiva del Partido establece los límites dentro de los cuales puede desarrollarse la legalidad.

7. Las dos Cubas: formal e informal

Las economías formal e informal coexisten en una relación de necesidad mutua. La economía informal ha producido sus propias culturas institucional-jurídicas: sistemas de trueque, redes de confianza, mecanismos consuetudinarios de resolución de disputas y una suerte de lex mercatoria transnacional fundamentada en las costumbres y tradiciones de los participantes. Es en el sector informal, más que en cualquier modelo importado del exterior, donde pueden hallarse las semillas de un desarrollo indígena del tipo de elemento civil robusto que resulta esencial para un sistema institucional-jurídico estabilizador.

8. Horizontes comparados

La experiencia china sugiere que la separación entre el poder político (radicado en el partido de vanguardia, por encima de la constitución) y el poder administrativo (ejercido a través de los órganos del Estado, sujeto a restricciones constitucionales) resulta viable dentro de los parámetros del marxismo-leninismo. Las transiciones postsocialistas europeas ofrecen una lección de cautela sobre la arrogancia de las élites liberal-democráticas que asumieron que mini-réplicas de la democracia liberal surgirían espontáneamente de las cenizas del sistema anterior. El modelo vietnamita de apertura gradual dentro de la continuidad del sistema de Partido-Estado ha sido cultivado como punto de referencia.

9. La contradicción interna de la Constitución de 2019

La Constitución de 2019 reconoce simultáneamente la propiedad privada y prohíbe la concentración de la propiedad. Esta tensión interna —que refleja las restricciones de la Conceptualización— implica que toda propuesta de reforma debe navegar entre el reconocimiento constitucional de la propiedad privada y la prohibición doctrinaria-partidista de su acumulación.

10. Condiciones de posibilidad

El ensayo identifica varias dimensiones técnico-doctrinales que merecen atención: (a) el concepto de Vermögenszuordnung (atribución patrimonial) como herramienta para reconstruir la lógica del enriquecimiento injustificado más allá del marco punitivo soviético; (b) la neutralidad residual del ZGB como punto de partida técnico; (c) la perversión de la subsidiariedad —la inversión del principio según el cual la acción colectiva solo se justifica cuando la acción individual es insuficiente—; y (d) la integración sistémica del artículo 67(a) como vía para reconectar las disposiciones codificadas con una lógica jurídica coherente. Las implicaciones prácticas se extienden al litigio pendiente bajo la Ley Helms-Burton, al arbitraje internacional relativo a inversiones expropiadas y a la planificación postransicional.

* * *

Plan de acción para la reforma

Las siguientes fases se ofrecen no como un plan maestro —los planes maestros presuponen un grado de certeza que la situación cubana no permite— sino como un marco para organizar los esfuerzos de reforma. Las fases no son estrictamente secuenciales; varias pueden avanzar en paralelo y todas están sujetas a revisión a medida que las condiciones evolucionen.

Fase 1: Diagnóstico e inventario

1.     Mapear el ordenamiento jurídico operativo. Realizar un inventario comprensivo del ordenamiento jurídico tal como realmente opera —no como lo describen los textos codificados—, distinguiendo entre el derecho en los libros y el derecho en la práctica. Esto incluye las normas consuetudinarias y los mecanismos de resolución de disputas de la economía informal.

2.     Auditar la brecha institucional y de personal. Evaluar el estado de la educación jurídica, la disponibilidad de personal capacitado en derecho privado, derecho mercantil y derecho comparado, y la capacidad de las instituciones existentes para absorber el cambio doctrinal.

3.     Catalogar la exposición en materia de reclamaciones y propiedad. Inventariar las reclamaciones pendientes y potenciales bajo la Ley Helms-Burton (Título III), los compromisos de arbitraje internacional y el aparato confiscatorio doméstico edificado sobre el Decreto-Ley 149/1994 e instrumentos conexos.

Fase 2: Reconstrucción doctrinal

4.     Confrontar la lógica normativa del marxismo-leninismo. Abordar el sistema normativo heredado no como contaminación a ser purgada sino como un ordenamiento normativo con su propia coherencia interna, que debe ser comprendido antes de poder ser trascendido. El error que debe evitarse es tratar la teoría marxista-leninista como exógena al sistema jurídico.

5.     Rearticular la relación derecho-política-justicia. Desarrollar una concepción de la justicia que opere como criterio evaluativo independiente —una que supere tanto la abstracción pandectística como la instrumentalización marxista-leninista. Ello requiere recuperar la relación tripartita justinianea.

6.     Aprovechar la neutralidad técnica residual del ZGB. Utilizar los elementos arquitectónicos ideológicamente neutros retenidos en el Código Civil a partir del Zivilgesetzbuch de la RDA como punto de partida técnico para la reconstrucción doctrinal, reconociendo al mismo tiempo que estos elementos portan la huella de su origen.

Fase 3: Capacidad institucional y formación

7.     Reformar la educación jurídica. Reintroducir el derecho privado, el derecho mercantil, el derecho comparado y la teoría jurídica más allá del marco marxista-leninista en el currículo de las facultades de derecho. Formar nuevas generaciones de juristas con competencias que la captura curricular de las últimas seis décadas eliminó.

8.     Incorporar a la diáspora como recurso, no como modelo. La experiencia de la diáspora cubana en sistemas jurídicos diversos constituye un recurso de valor significativo, pero el derecho de la diáspora funciona como derecho extranjero en el contexto cubano. La incorporación debe ser colaborativa, no prescriptiva.

9.     Restablecer el intercambio académico. Reconstruir el intercambio académico con la comunidad jurídica internacional, incluida la academia española y latinoamericana, en condiciones que permitan que la producción académica alcance el ordenamiento jurídico operativo en lugar de producir jurisprudencia Potemkin para consumo internacional.

Fase 4: Integración de la economía informal

10.  Reconocer las culturas institucional-jurídicas de la economía informal. Los sistemas de trueque, las redes de confianza, los mecanismos consuetudinarios de resolución de disputas y las prácticas comerciales transnacionales de la economía informal representan desarrollo jurídico indígena. Toda reforma que ignore este sector desconoce la fuente más auténtica de práctica civil cubana.

11.  Construir puentes entre la legalidad formal y la informal. Desarrollar mecanismos para la integración gradual de las prácticas informales en el ordenamiento jurídico formal, sin destruir las normas funcionales que han sostenido la actividad económica fuera del sector estatal.

Fase 5: Propiedad y resolución de reclamaciones

12.  Elaborar un marco para las reclamaciones de propiedad. Abordar la intersección entre la confiscación doméstica (arraigada en la doctrina marxista-leninista del enriquecimiento indebido) y las reclamaciones internacionales (Helms-Burton, arbitraje internacional). Reconocer que la lógica confiscatoria doméstica y el discurso castrista de la deuda odiosa comparten un fundamento conceptual único que un régimen sucesor deberá confrontar simultáneamente desde ambas direcciones.

13.  Navegar las disposiciones constitucionales sobre propiedad. Toda reforma en materia de propiedad debe operar dentro de —o procurar la enmienda de— la tensión constitucional entre el reconocimiento de la propiedad privada y la prohibición de la concentración de la propiedad, tensión que refleja las restricciones doctrinarias del Partido.

Fase 6: Diferenciación institucional

14.  Separar la dirección política de la implementación administrativa. Esto no exige necesariamente el desmantelamiento del PCC ni la adopción de un sistema multipartidista. Exige, sin embargo, que el trabajo político del Partido —la determinación de objetivos y prioridades— sea institucionalmente distinguible del trabajo administrativo del Estado —la implementación de esos objetivos a través de una maquinaria institucional sujeta al estado de derecho. La experiencia china demuestra que esta separación es posible dentro de un sistema de Partido-Estado.

15.  Clarificar la cadena de mando. Esclarecer la relación entre los Congresos del Partido, los Lineamientos, las disposiciones constitucionales y los códigos operativos, de modo que el significado jurídico de cualquier disposición codificada pueda comprenderse con independencia de la doctrina partidista cambiante.

Fase 7: Inserción internacional y seguimiento

16.  Prepararse para la exposición jurídica internacional. Un régimen sucesor enfrentará simultáneamente reclamaciones de deuda odiosa desde el exterior, la necesidad de desmantelar un aparato confiscatorio doméstico y el imperativo de construir un marco institucional-jurídico capaz de atraer inversión, proteger derechos de propiedad y proporcionar la certeza y previsibilidad que los actores económicos requieren.

17.  Establecer mecanismos de seguimiento y retroalimentación. Incorporar en todo proceso de reforma la capacidad de evaluación iterativa, de modo que la reconstrucción pueda ajustarse a medida que sus efectos se manifiesten —evitando la arrogancia de suponer que un modelo único, ya sea liberal-democrático, marxista-leninista o republicano-nostálgico, pueda anticipar la totalidad de las consecuencias.

* * *

Lista de verificación de calidad para propuestas de reforma

Las siguientes preguntas se ofrecen como instrumento diagnóstico. Toda propuesta de reforma que no pueda responderlas afirmativamente, o que no las haya considerado seriamente, corre el riesgo de reproducir —bajo distinto ropaje doctrinal— las deficiencias estructurales que pretende corregir.

Continuidad y materiales

☐    ¿La propuesta trabaja con y a través de los materiales producidos por el sistema existente, en lugar de asumir una tabula rasa?

☐    ¿Reconoce los estratos institucionales —colonial, republicano, revolucionario, soviético, informal— en lugar de tratar solo uno como auténtico?

☐    ¿Evita la falacia del barniz —la suposición de que existe intacta una arquitectura de derecho civil debajo de la capa marxista-leninista?

Evitar el retorno nostálgico

☐    ¿La propuesta evita presuponer un retorno a las formas jurídicas anteriores a 1959, dado que sesenta y siete años de desplazamiento institucional hacen dicho retorno históricamente irreproducible?

☐    ¿Trata la experticia jurídica de la diáspora como recurso y no como plantilla, reconociendo que el derecho de la diáspora funciona como derecho extranjero en el contexto institucional cubano?

La justicia como criterio independiente

☐    ¿La propuesta articula la justicia como criterio evaluativo independiente, en lugar de reducir el derecho a un sistema técnico (abstracción pandectística) o a un instrumento político (correa de transmisión marxista-leninista)?

☐    ¿Recupera la relación tripartita de derecho, justicia y jurisprudencia, o simplemente sustituye un binomio (derecho-política) por otro (derecho-técnica)?

Producción académica y derecho operativo

☐    ¿La propuesta crea condiciones bajo las cuales la producción académica puede alcanzar y afectar el ordenamiento jurídico operativo, en lugar de producir una jurisprudencia Potemkin internacionalmente respetable pero domésticamente inerte?

☐    ¿Asegura autonomía académica suficiente para permitir un desarrollo doctrinal genuino, en lugar de una producción que opera dentro de una jaula cognitiva definida por la doctrina del Partido?

Coherencia constitucional

☐    ¿La propuesta es consistente con las disposiciones sobre propiedad de la Constitución de 2019 o, si requiere enmienda constitucional, reconoce y planifica para ello?

☐    ¿Aborda la tensión interna entre el reconocimiento constitucional de la propiedad privada y la prohibición de la concentración de la propiedad?

La economía informal

☐    ¿La propuesta se involucra con las culturas institucional-jurídicas de la economía informal —sistemas de trueque, redes de confianza, resolución consuetudinaria de disputas— como desarrollo jurídico indígena?

☐    ¿Evita el error de imponer un marco formal que destruya las normas informales funcionales sin proporcionar un sustituto viable?

Estabilidad

☐    ¿La propuesta tiene en cuenta el "estado estable de miseria" —el equilibrio precario sostenido mediante la disciplina de la escasez— y evita desestabilizarlo sin ofrecer una alternativa funcional?

☐    ¿Escalonada la reforma para minimizar el riesgo del tipo de dislocación que produjo una generación de tragedia en otras transiciones postsocialistas?

Exposición internacional y reclamaciones

☐    ¿La propuesta aborda las reclamaciones internacionales pendientes y potenciales —litigio bajo el Título III de Helms-Burton, arbitraje internacional, argumentos de deuda odiosa— y su interacción con los instrumentos confiscatorios domésticos?

☐    ¿Prepara para el desafío simultáneo de confrontar reclamaciones desde el exterior al tiempo que se desmantela un aparato confiscatorio doméstico?

Conciencia de la jaula cognitiva

☐    ¿La propuesta evita reproducir una jaula cognitiva —ya sea marxista-leninista, liberal-democrática o republicana-nostálgica— que constriña el abanico de posibilidades institucionales?

☐    ¿Reconoce que ninguno de los marcos actualmente disponibles puede anticipar completamente las formas institucionales que una legalidad cubana reconstruida pueda requerir?

* * *

 El ensayo completo aparece a continuación y también se puede consultar (y descargar) AQUÍ. Inglés aquí.