[The Democratic Citizen’s Brain 5] Anamnesis Strategies for Producers — The Alchemy of Categorization and the Docent Business

As discussed in Part 4, anamnesis refers to identifying source codes already proven in past history and thought, and using them to debug the current, glitched matrix. Through structural homology, we interpret our present lives more richly. We experience “what is strong and lasting”—reality itself—through the predecessors who lived those lives before us. The narrative used to grant an aura unfolded on two levels.

First is Aristocratic Selection. Producers emphasized a narrative imagination that dynamically traces back to specific origins and brings them into present meaning. The sacredness bestowed upon objects is identical to the Apocryphon of John, where Christ gives a sacred object (a seal) to the spiritual (pneumatic) to break through the threat of the Archons, distinguishing them from the psychic (psychic) individuals. Consequently, adherents of Gnosticism realize that their mental suffering proves this world is false, and that they are not just called, but chosen. Through carefully prepared rituals, they experience a catharsis of liberation. For individuals with this aristocratic connoisseurship, this kind of narrative explains why their lives are special compared to others and the general world (Aristocratic Selection). Just as Valentinus and the Apostle Paul were highly respected by the intellectuals of Alexandria, producers extract a high premium from those with these needs.

Second is Plebeian Consolation. Producers in this field offer healing formulas like “Your mistake is not your fault” or “Your sins are forgiven.” In this context, the Indian philosophical concept of anamnesis shared strong ties with Hinayana Buddhism, requiring rigorous physical and mental asceticism from the individual. To trace one’s mental origins and realize why the world is difficult, why one is weak, and what true reality is, an individual must first possess a desperate desire to understand existential pain, its causes, and its solutions. To enter this state of existential suffering, high-intensity Proof of Work (PoW) such as laws, sacrifices, offerings, asceticism, and meditation is essential.

However, while the general public recognizes that “life is hard” or “something is wrong with the world,” they lack the courage to sacrifice a cherished lamb with their own hands for enlightenment. Therefore, institutions attempting to resolve human existential suffering (such as religion or the state) inevitably compromise, shifting their logic from Proof of Work to Proof of Stake (PoS). For instance, Christianity combines original sin, vicarious atonement, and faith to dilute individual responsibility, offering salvation simply through belief. The democratic welfare state declares that it will take care of your life merely because you were born. Marx and Freud also blended science and myth to issue indulgences stating, “It is not your fault.”

The previous article focused on dynamically tracing origins to develop narratives and grant an aura. While that was the first meaning of anamnesis, this article addresses granting an aura by taking a static snapshot: the alchemy of categorization (labeling) and the docent business (commentary).

2. The Second Meaning of Anamnesis: The Alchemy of Categorization

(1) What is the Alchemy of Categorization (Labeling)?

The alchemy of categorization (labeling) is a tactic that imports an abstract standard—such as a faction, dress code, or scientific name—and applies it to a product to create the illusion of an aura. Today, it is widely used in high-value-added knowledge industries and luxury markets. Commercially speaking, this alchemy of categorization is highly effective.

Labeling to categorize and tracing origins are two completely different ways of understanding an object. To use an analogy, categorization places the object in space—a current drawer. Tracing origins places the object in time—along a historical timeline.

Categorization is a static snapshot. It analyzes the current attributes or state of an object and assigns it to a category: “You belong to Group A.” Rather than showing the flow of change, it relies on presenting standards that are widely accepted as authoritative, or so abstract that their full reality cannot be entirely grasped. For example, listening to a song and labeling it “90s East Coast hip-hop style because it has a 90 BPM boom-bap beat.”
Tracing origins is a dynamic cinema. It tracks the process and causal relationships of how an object became what it is today. The current form is the result of numerous past choices, influences, and combinations. It traces the roots back to show how that boom-bap drum source sampled a riff from a 70s soul-funk band, how it was modified to achieve its current texture, and interprets what this has to do with the consumer’s life. Clearly, the dynamic cinema is more difficult. It requires imagination in addition to descriptive knowledge and analytical skills.

In reality, both categorization and tracing origins share the same purpose: increasing human agency over objects and the world. Categorization draws lines and builds walls to manage objects efficiently, creating a sense of control and comfort. However, becoming trapped in labels causes one to miss the complexities and exceptions of an object, leading to the pitfall of asking, “What does this have to do with my life?” For example, labeling a tiger as a Chordate, Mammalian, Carnivora, Felidae gives the illusion of understanding its characteristics, yet it remains irrelevant to the individual. This approach commands a premium for practical purposes like retrieving, organizing, and utilizing data.

Conversely, tracing origins is an intellectual task that dissolves boundaries between objects to find connections. It reveals how two seemingly different objects diverged from the same root, or how similar-looking objects were born from entirely different contexts, translating them into modern meaning. Drawing this genealogy naturally absorbs environmental factors, social backstories, and historical contingencies. As a result, consumers can generate diverse interpretations and impressions reflected in their own lives. Because people perceive the object representationally and participatorily every time they look at it, they feel it speaks for them, offering uniqueness and consolation.

In short, categorization confines an object to the conceptual framework of “What,” while tracing origins establishes an ontological trajectory of “How” and “Why.” (As discussed later, the docent business refers to the business of explaining these categorizations and origins.)

(2) Why Modern Producers Favor Categorization over Origins: The Slavoj Žižek vs. Jordan Peterson Debate

Until the 20th century, producers did not waste time categorizing their goods. Take books as an example. Consider the classics of Nietzsche, Eliade, Merleau-Ponty, Adam Smith, Mises, or Hayek. They did not rely on artificial scientific names or dictionaries of factions. They stated their own views on why the world was broken and criticized other scholars directly by name. At the time, academia and art retained an aristocratic nature, and the audience base was narrow. There was no need to parade labels like specific “isms” or schools of thought. In hip-hop terms, they engaged in a cypher without a beat.

Modern producers in democratic welfare states face a different reality. The public does not actively investigate objects if it requires enduring pain or risk. Living comfortably within the boundaries of a welfare state with a 1/N sense of sovereignty, they consume all objects merely as spectacle. From a producer’s perspective, tracing origins step-by-step for a public lacking connoisseurship costs too much time and money. Doing so often earns labels like “crude” or “abstruse,” pushing the work underground. Consequently, producers rely on categorization to inject the bureaucratic illusion that the public has mastered the origin and essence of an object. For example, To help an audience understand what a tiger is, they do not push them into the enclosure; instead, they keep them behind a glass window and present an administrative classification system—Chordate, Mammalian, Carnivora, Felidae—alongside a commentary comparing it to a lion. The public does not fear the tiger; they laugh, toss treats, and applaud. Watching the tiger react, dance, or pick up the food, the audience feels a sense of agency, believing they have conquered and played with the beast.

The same applies to hip-hop. The public inherently dislikes the stress of focusing on the raw energy of a cypher, unfinished music, lyrics, and rhymes. Therefore, producers focus heavily on highly polished beats and catchy jazz or soul hooks. Look at Namuwiki, which levies the absurd criticism against a legendary rapper like Nas for having a “chronic weakness in choosing beats.” This is merely an admission of a lack of discernment to understand lyrics and rapping skills. So, Rappers targeting popular music naturally become heavily dependent on producers. Why suffer to train your voice and write lyrics night and day when it generates less money than simply telling a crowd to put their hands up? It is far more lucrative to paint an aura using adjective-heavy labels via the alchemy of categorization, satisfy the public’s shallow vanity, and go all-in on live performances. This is why popular music criticism is saturated with adjectives.

Even modern intellectuals indulge in debates over categorization to appeal to the masses. For example, consider the recent debate between Slavoj Žižek and Jordan Peterson. Namuwiki and YouTube critics representing public opinion declared a complete defeat for Peterson, arguing he failed to understand Marxism properly. When Peterson stated, “Marx spoke of equality of outcome and utopia,” Žižek pushed back, saying, “Marx never used those words. He only spoke of the socialization of the means of production and the abolition of classes.” The debate was deemed decided when Žižek pressured Peterson to name the “postmodern neo-Marxists” he was condemning, and Peterson could not answer.

This is a classic battle of label categorization divorced from origin, narrative, or meaning. Must the exact word “utopia” be used for it to mean utopia? What else is a world where classes are entirely abolished, where people work according to ability and receive according to need, if not a utopia? The fact that Marxism is a downgraded version of Christian eschatology has been criticized by Eliade, Nietzsche, and Raymond Aron alike. Are all these thinkers mistaken? It remains a fact that the identity politics championed by postmodern neo-Marxism—men vs. women, whites vs. people of color, normal vs. queer—carries the scent of Marxist moral dualism and class conflict.

In reality, the pseudo-scientific element lies with the original Marx, not Peterson. As Mises sharply criticized, Marx wrote thousands of pages on class conflict yet failed to define what a “class” actually is. He could not explain why interests conflict within the same class, or why skilled workers strike and oppose immigration to push unskilled workers out of the market. Since Marx himself could not define what his own field addressed, how could Peterson answer? Because class is a fluid concept applied arbitrarily, the concept of a postmodern neo-Marxist is itself an illusion, making it natural that Peterson could not name specific scholars.

Fundamentally, Marxism highlights a deficit of class to exploit human envy, anger, and fear. It is a pseudo-religion that promises the public irresponsible liberation based on Hegelian necessity, prescribing the destruction of the opposing “evil” party to achieve it. Identity politics simply substitutes race, gender, or preference for class. Because the definition of class is ambiguous, the structure functions no matter what variable is inserted. (Though Peterson might disagree), inserting faith instead of class yields the exact same structure. For instance, substituting the Demiurge of Genesis—who proclaims “I am a jealous God,” slaughters thousands without explanation, and favors only the descendants of Abraham—produces a structure identical to Marxism. It is bound to be identical because the narrative is designed to appeal to a public that prefers safety, consumption, and plunder over risk-taking, saving, and investment. In this regard, Peterson, who emphasizes individual responsibility, accurately pierced the structure: modern Marxism, contemporary identity politics, and Žižek’s specific communism designed to protect humanity are all identical in how they cater to the masses to exercise power under the banner of “I alone am good.”

The critique of capitalism by Žižek and public critics is equally absurd. Capitalism has never sold the illusion of equality, nor has it sold the illusion of happiness. It merely presents the fact that freedom equals individual responsibility, and that a production system accepting inequality as a result of choices advances material civilization. Denying this is an admission that one either believes the regression of material civilization is desirable, faces no reduction in income if it occurs, or has never risked bankruptcy to run a bakery or a factory to generate reinvestable profit. The liberation of potential is a task an individual must achieve within the freest possible society; it is not the responsibility of society or a class. One should examine Peterson’s philosophy, experience, and the utility it brings to improving lives. Asking “Who do you know?” serves no purpose other than satisfying intellectual vanity.

Nonetheless, one must concede its efficacy. Critics who employ the alchemy of categorization—using terms like postmodern neo-Marxism, left-liberalism, or Hegelianism—appear sophisticated. Presenting standards that are abstract and whose full reality cannot be entirely grasped establishes an intellectual hierarchy, thereby generating an aura. Wise producer-priests frequently exploit this alchemy of categorization for that very reason.

(3) “The Alchemy of Categorization” via the Fashion Industry

Let us examine a more practical example of the alchemy of categorization. For instance, a mass-market denim brand never appeals to the original archetype of jeans—the functionality of heavy, durable cotton fabric built to withstand the harsh labor of miners. Instead, they create an aura through the alchemy of categorization. They describe it as “a regular straight style that inherits the heritage of 1950s American Western folk costume trends.” Or they fit it into a costume history classification system, calling it a “post-war trend of the 1947 Levi’s 501 cut” or a “modern reinterpretation of neoclassical workwear.” If you felt these phrases sounded impressive, you fell into my trap. Even I do not know what they mean. (Haha)

Similarly, suppose a designer puts an abstract, asymmetrically torn garment with stretched sleeves on the runway. To the untrained public, it initially looks like uncomfortable trash. If the designer tried to compete on utility or conventional aesthetics, the garment would command no premium.

However, applying the alchemy of categorization changes things. One applies the label: “A 21st-century avant-garde archive that reinterpret the bourgeois silhouette of Christian Dior’s 1947 New Look from a deconstructive perspective.” Instantly, the garment gains a new identity. The more matching labels one applies—such as “the genealogy of Rei Kawakubo’s 1980s anti-fashion movement” or “an intellectual rebellion against postmodern costume history”—the more it becomes accepted as truth, turning fashion into a sacred object.

This mirrors brain science. Showing photographs of brain activity to claim a specific region handles a specific function is a homuncular approach that merely applies labels; yet, it provides a sense of understanding and control. Fashion producers use these elaborate labels because they know the public senses an intellectual hierarchy in what they do not understand, and admires it. (These examples are entirely made up, so there is no need to check if the labels actually exist.)

3. Why the Alchemy of Categorization Works on the Public: A False Sense of Conquest in a Greenhouse

(1) Is the Alchemy of Categorization a Scam?

Some dismiss producers and brands that use the alchemy of categorization as intellectually incompetent, dishonest frauds. However, this is merely the dogma of consumer activists. The fact is, the public pays a premium for these labels, and producers simply supply the demand. If consumers demanded that producers discard superficial labels and prove raw performance, producers would deliver the physical reality immediately. Why, then, is the public obsessed with this absurd alchemy?

It is because the public consumes objects as spectacles. Modern democratic citizens do not read original texts, produce objects directly, or risk losing their own money. Instead, they read processed summaries and categorized labels, relying on external definitions or the eyes of others. In short, they refuse to endure direct pain, make independent choices, and take responsibility for the outcomes.

A contradiction emerges here. Because they are certain that the state or public opinion will protect them through laws and tribunals, they paradoxically feel a strong thrill from things that appear dangerous. This is the core of the alchemy of categorization. When producers show a public—who hides behind a shield, afraid to touch the world directly—that this is a new world they do not know, the public feels a deep sense of deficit. Consequently, they develop a desire to decode and possess that world through labels.

This tendency stands out in the minds of democratic citizens not because they are inherently lazy or corrupt, but because they are conditioned from childhood to believe that risk-taking is the responsibility of the welfare state. Securing the discernment to judge whether the world and its objects are real or fake requires existential pain and accumulated experience, typically earned by losing one’s own seed money and bleeding. This requires vast time and capital. However, if the state, platforms, and bureaucracy guarantee safety and kindly mediate the surface of the world with ratings and labels, the reason for individuals to bear that risk disappears. Life inside the theme park remains comfortable enough through the compromise of looking at a authoritative label and assuming, “There must be heritage here.”

It is a fact that this alchemy of categorization possesses a Gnostic character. It assumes a mystical enlightenment shared only by a few chosen priests, and because the public cannot realize the essence on their own, they must chant mantras and receive labels defining what they are. For example, if the 1990s New York hip-hop scene had lectured directly on the doctrines of the Five-Percent Nation, the public would not have listened. Instead, it sold because they labeled their narratives of gangster life and drug dealing with Five-Percent philosophy, terminology, and numerology, infusing them with a spiritual aura.

Regarding the enthusiasm critics and the public show for these labels, Mircea Eliade analyzed that it stems from a historical original sin and cultural inferiority complex over “failing to recognize Van Gogh’s genius and letting him starve to death.” Consequently, they are compulsively prepared to applaud any new avant-garde art. If a bizarre tin can or a tattered piece of clothing carries a plausible label, they cheer for it as if it were the messiah of postmodern society.

From our perspective as producers of physical goods, this analysis is somewhat abstract. Human history is filled with instances where the public missed and persecuted geniuses. People do not spend money on labels solely out of guilt toward Van Gogh. If they did, it would fail to explain why only specific brands absorb cash among the flood of postmodern artworks in the market.

The essence lies elsewhere. First, applying labels is not something just anyone can do with any object; there is a hierarchy to the quality of a label. The object must be organized in a way that makes it easy to label, and it must meet alchemists who categorize unexplainable phenomena into something understandable. Most products and postmodern artworks fail because their characteristics are too ambiguous to label, or they are unfortunate enough to miss the eyes of the alchemists. In Van Gogh’s case, it is more accurate to view his initial rejection as a failure of alchemists to label his expressions when they first encountered them—making his work appear meaningless—rather than a failure to trace his origin, life, and philosophy.

For producers targeting mass consumers, the role of alchemists who read intended attributes and apply labels is crucial. The public lacks the discernment to judge objects independently and relies on the validation of alchemists. Therefore, before asking “What does this object or world mean?”, the public checks who gave it a shout-out to declare it a “safe thrill,” and uses that guide to peel away the veil of risk. For an alchemist to label a garment as “21st-century avant-garde fashion that reinterprets Dior’s 1947 New Look,” the garment must actually possess the archetypal attributes of that label. Only after the alchemist verifies it does the public understand its identity and begin utilizing it within their lives.

This risk-averse mentality of modern democratic citizens differs significantly from that of ancient peoples. To archaic man, an unknown object was simply a tool to be deconstructed and utilized for survival by tracing its genealogy backward. When encountering an object for the first time, they sought to kill or consume it to forcibly absorb it into their bodies, much like the Hainuwele myth. In a wild context, “not knowing” or “being unable to utilize” meant immediate death. Thus, instead of typing keywords into a search bar, ancient people would wear the clothing and define it practically, perhaps noting that the fabric’s texture resembled the inner bark of a broken branch. They would then claim the object for their lives, choosing to wear it at an upcoming autumn festival to prove the primal power of their bodies.

(2) Why Not Anyone Can Practice the Alchemy of Categorization

Regrettably, the alchemy of categorization is not accessible to everyone. There are several reasons for this. To categorize an object, one must know its criteria and attributes perfectly. Otherwise, there is no way to defend it when a superior producer or label alchemist targets it. This mirrors the debate where Žižek claimed, “I am not a Marxist; I am a Hegelian, and my communism is unique,” and Peterson replied, “Isn’t it all the same structure?”—leading the public and critics to declare Peterson’s defeat. Several factors cause this disparity.

Differences in Inventory Density

Figures like Žižek or the chief designer of Chanel have mastered history and theory through vast reading. In Žižek’s mind, data on Hegel, Lacan, Marx, B-movies, and political events are aligned down to the millimeter. When he captures a daily phenomenon, he immediately reads its specific attributes and extracts labels like “Dior’s 1947 New Look silhouette” or “Lacanian lack in the Real” from his mental warehouse. Conversely, attempting to string a product together with a few trendy buzzwords like “avant-garde,” “dopamine,” or “resilience” breaks down logical coherence, allowing an intelligent audience to spot the fraud instantly.

Hierarchical and Logical Consistency of Labels

For the alchemy of categorization to be powerful, it must warp and weft tightly without gaps, maintaining consistency from any angle. One cannot simply generalize by saying, “This is avant-garde.” Instead, one must connect the causal relationships of years, figures, and movements—such as “deconstructing Dior’s 1947 bourgeois silhouette through the lineage of Rei Kawakubo’s 1980s anti-fashion”—matching the sub-categories precisely. This creates a fortress of classification that leaves no room for intrusion. Zoologists do not generalize a tiger simply as a cat; they apply a hierarchical label: Chordate, Mammalian, Carnivora, Felidae. To classify this way, one must hold the entire taxonomy of biology in mind. Only when the labels applied to an object are hierarchically and logically consistent, defining its identity clearly from any angle, can it win a critic’s shout-out and convince the public.

The Conviction of Skin in the Game

While Žižek, Peterson, famous designers, and music critics use complex alchemy of categorization, they are not fakes. They firmly believe the matrix of categorization they created is reality. Having survived friction with the world while building archives through years of study and debate, they possess absolute conviction that the meanings they assign to phenomena are valid. The grand conviction and provocative attitude shown by someone who has passed this test of skin in the game creates an aura that overwhelms the public. If one weakly patches words together using AI without going through this long process of wear and accumulation, the public instantly recognizes it as fake.

Should one then give up? No. If your skills are not yet sufficient to execute the alchemy of memory or categorization, the docent business—interpreting classifications and narratives built by others—serves as an excellent alternative for a producer.

4. What is the Docent Business?

A docent is a guide or interpreter who explains exhibits in museums or art galleries. The reason the docent business functions as a honeypot in the modern commercial market—especially in high-value-added industries like knowledge and content—is clear. The “origins of the past” and the “categorization” are already perfectly established; they are universally acknowledged as sacred and unquestionable. Therefore, producers can use them as leverage for their own business while avoiding public scrutiny or attacks from competitors.

As mentioned earlier, the alchemy of categorization presents a significant technical barrier to entry, as one must thoroughly understand the criteria to apply labels and interpret phenomena. Similarly, the alchemy of memory demands poetic inspiration and mythical imagination, requiring substantial humanistic capability from the founder. Consequently, the docent business—which uses allegories or derivatives to digest and present objects whose narratives are already completed by the alchemy of categorization or memory—becomes the mainstream of the modern commercial market.

Let us examine why the docent business is such a lucrative honeypot.

(1) The Spokesperson of Saints Evading the Matrix of Envy

Look at the books dominating bookstore shelves today. The vast majority are commentaries and biographies of “saints” whose historical achievements are proven and, most importantly, who are dead and can no longer fight back—figures like Jesus, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Confucius, or Steve Jobs. The same logic explains why superficial, business-oriented interpretations of the I Ching (Book of Changes) sell well in Japan or Singapore.

Rather than directly adding academic annotations to original texts (alchemy of categorization) or dynamically tracing logical origins to criticize and quote (alchemy of memory), securing the position of a commentator is much safer. By doing so, you position yourself as an ally of the public while fully enjoying the trickle-down effect of the saint’s authority. The safest aspect of this business is that, upon success, it avoids the sharp blade of the modern democratic citizen’s “envy.”

As repeatedly mentioned in the Brain of the Democratic Citizen series, democracy distributes sovereignty equally as 1/N. Thus, envy and jealousy toward the excellence of others are legally acknowledged. Because everyone’s sovereignty is equal, someone else living better or excelling becomes more conspicuous and emotionally intolerable. Envy is, in fact, a fundamental emotion of intelligent animals; being envious requires the intelligence to distinguish differences. The deficit of “only I do not have it” leads to a perceived threat to life and a survival instinct to take it, even if it means killing the other.

The Apostle Paul understood this, teaching his disciples to remain humble and not display their spiritual excellence to the general public. We see a similar dynamic in the Gospel of Thomas, where Peter, jealous of Mary’s spiritual excellence, tries to drive her away, only to be rebuked by Jesus:

Simon Peter said to them, “Make Mary leave us, for females don’t deserve life.” Jesus said, “Look, I will guide her to make her male, so that she too may become a living spirit resembling you males. For every female who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of Heaven.” (Gospel of Thomas 114)

From a Gnostic perspective, matter itself is an inferior and evil entity that provokes human envy. Understanding this explains why the Austrian School’s logic—“You can have this too if you work hard and invest, so why hate free capitalism? The civilization enjoyed by a homeless person today exceeds what medieval kings had, so let us freely continue producing”—fails to resonate with the public. The masses are less pleased by an increase in their own possessions than they are tormented by the relative deficit and anger of seeing others possess more. They are satisfied even if they become poorer, provided others become poorer as well. Thus, they think: “Why should I suffer more? We can just pass a law to seize those means of production.”

Therefore, producers targeting the public in a democratic society must always remain humble and beware of envy above all else. Consider the scandal involving Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter: paparazzi, media, and malicious commenters lay in wait, ready to beat him down the moment the story broke. Journalists knew exactly that stimulating public envy drives traffic.

The only time this prison of envy unlocks is when the hero becomes a corpse. Having lost their most precious asset—life—they become fundamentally deficient and no longer provoke public envy. From that point on, the public perceives them as inferior in that regard, allowing them to generously praise the hero’s business achievements.

Thus, docents who track the thoughts and private lives of dead saints, reprocess them through storytelling, and sell them as merchandise are executing a perfect, risk-free arbitrage. Under the pretext of “I am merely interpreting a noble figure,” they bypass the rigorous study required for the alchemy of memory or categorization while simultaneously evading public envy.

(2) The Luxury Consumption Psychology of 1/N Sovereigns

The second reason the docent business thrives is the desire for differentiation lurking within the public. While democratic citizens envy the sovereign excellence of others, they simultaneously want to appear different from the crowd. However, showing off materially is dangerous. Catching the eye of the tax agency, prosecutors, or public opinion—which uphold the will of the people—makes it difficult to sustain one’s social life.

Knowledge, however, is different. Because it is an intangible, embodied asset, showing it off does not trigger envy. Therefore, in a democratic society striving for material equality, knowledge becomes the most cost-effective label to differentiate oneself and create added value. For example, wearing multiple layers of expensive luxury underwear in a “sagging” style draws public scorn. Yet, sitting in a cafe with a top-tier MacBook, surrounded by thick books, and engrossed in alien-looking code draws no criticism at all. In a society where everyone is equal, the easiest way for the public to become aristocratic is through the illusion of being an “intellectual.”

From this perspective, Frédéric Bastiat’s outrage—“Why should the state guarantee with taxpayers’ money the right of a farmer’s child to learn literature and art in Paris?”—somewhat underestimated the psychology of democratic citizens. While he rightfully opposed the law being used as a tool for property theft, he failed to address why the masses desired to differentiate themselves through knowledge. Through our logic, we understand why the French public was so desperate for free education and university equalization. At the time, France had a thoroughly aristocratic education system with strict selection criteria; without showing early promise as a scholar or bureaucrat, one could not even enter institutions like the École Normale Supérieure. Nevertheless, intellectuals held a status that led the masses. Thus, rather than dragging intellectuals down out of envy, the public demanded the guaranteed right for their own children to become intellectuals in Paris.

However, even if educational opportunities are guaranteed by state funding, it does not mean anyone can freely write code or dive into the world of literature and art. High barriers to entry remain. Docents solve this problem. For instance, as a university student, I did not understand Nietzsche’s original texts. Yet, I wanted to exercise my sovereignty by pretending to know him faster than anyone else in classrooms and at drinking gatherings. So, instead of the original texts, I read Nietzsche biographies, cited them in reports, and plugged them into essay answers. It was a win-win-win made possible by docents: Nietzsche kept getting cited, I got to show off, and the docent made money. A perfect triangular relationship.

(3) The Matrix of Majority Rule

The third reason the docent business prospers in democratic societies relates to “majority rule,” the decision-making principle of the democratic welfare state. In pre-democratic societies, one had to compete directly in the market. The only way to beat others was to make a better product or write a better book. This tendency to compete solely through sheer product quality existed because, in early capitalist societies, economic activities were primarily regulated by common law. Common law is not a system of majority rule that sways according to the shifting whims of the masses. On the contrary, it dictates that the populace adhere to traditions and rules rooted in the survival of the fittest. Consequently, in early modern society, where the supreme virtue was to survive through competition and extend benevolence only after achieving victory, there was no alternative path but to prove oneself through one’s own logic and product quality.

However, spontaneous order is not omnipotent. Within spontaneous orders—such as common law, the market, language, and religion—system complexity and inequality increase hand in hand, leaving less capable actors or latecomers at a disadvantage. This is because, unless exogenous conditions shift drastically, the path dependency of capital and networks accumulated by the entrenched elite functions as leverage, continuously securing their dominance. Therefore, to shatter the advantage enjoyed by winners within a spontaneous order, free entry must be permitted to facilitate price competition.

Crucially, because winners desire that the market structures they painstakingly seized remain unaltered, they attempt to capture the state to minimize exogenous volatility and erect entry barriers via regulations and taxes. In other words, if free entry and infinite competition are not guaranteed within a spontaneous order, a once-efficient giant inevitably tends to monopolize the market permanently. A historical mirror to this dynamic is how early Christianity—which initially flourished through inter-sectarian competition—was standardized under the Petrine faction, and upon receiving Constantine’s imperial endorsement, aggressively purged “heretics” to secure a market monopoly. This manufactured a massive contradiction within the Christian biblical canon itself.

The emergence of hyper-monopolies like Rockefeller and Carnegie in early modern capitalism, an era with sparse state intervention, reflects the exact same phenomenon. To evade relentless competitive pressure, they too strove to capture the state and construct regulatory barriers. Yet, their excesses ultimately invited the retaliatory blade of anti-trust laws driven by populist momentum. To redress inequality and maximize aggregate social welfare, the proper role of the state is not “intervention,” but rather the enforcement of free entry and competition; however, whether the state can genuinely withstand these capture attempts is a separate matter entirely. This is because the fundamental trait of representative democracy is not to mandate self-reliant struggle, but rather to extort the strong—filling the state’s own coffers while distributing a fraction as welfare to grandstand in front of the masses. (There will be future opportunities to further analyze the limits of spontaneous order.)

At any rate, because the public cannot endure the compounding inequality and system complexity generated within a spontaneous order, they inevitably demand that the state step in and govern through legislative intervention. In other words, from a democratic standpoint, aggressive legislative action is mandated unto the state by the masses. If the state fails to comply, the populace will inevitably subvert the sovereign power, demanding a redistribution of wealth to redress the inequality. Thus, the state steps in to increase governing efficiency via statutory law.

However, statutory law is applied comprehensively, universally, and cross-sectionally from a specific point in time, anchoring its justification in the consent of the majority. Customary law, regardless of what the majority thinks, operates based on long-standing practices and accumulated precedents, effectively taming the public. Breaking customary law usually requires taking the issue all the way to the Supreme Court for a constitutional ruling. Statutory law, on the other hand, immediately becomes effective based on what the current majority believes is right, which is how the rule of law gains power. A law the public refuses to follow becomes a dead letter, as even the police hesitate to enforce it.

Therefore, in a democratic society, majority rule holds a status equivalent to law, even if not explicitly codified. In such an environment, the source of authority is not winning in the market or building a logical framework, but rather citing numbers: “Famous scholars A, B, and C also said this!” Since the hierarchy of truth has already been dismantled under the premise of “You are right, and I am right,” no argument is stronger than the peer pressure of “Everyone else says this too.”

As a result, democratic citizens have lost the need to directly explore original texts or objects. If 19th- or 20th-century scholars knew that reading original texts had become a “time-wasting, risk-seeking reading method,” they would laugh in disbelief. We are now in an era where reading only one book leaves you without leverage. Consequently, people memorize summaries handed out by docents, such as “The core logic of A, B, and C in one line is this,” or unboxing reviews and manuals for new products. Indeed, some of the most cited papers in social science graduate schools are not the original theories of the masters, but rather patched-together summaries of them.

In this context, proving a product’s superiority through mathematical formulas or statistics is practically useless compared to the logic of majority rule. Docents understand this, so they do not attempt to prove how statistically superior their product is. Instead, they slap a majority-rule label on it: “Celebrities and everyone else have tried this—have you not tried it yet?”

5. Practical Examples of the Docent Business: Sell the Gospel of “You Can Do It Too”

Look at producers who reign as gurus in the global business and self-improvement markets, such as Malcolm Gladwell, Seth Godin, and Simon Sinek. These authors actually possess very little practical experience or original logic of their own. Instead, their work is filled with easy storytelling and textbook cases like Apple, Southwest Airlines, and Harley-Davidson.

These books pour out like a tsunami every year and sell for $20 to $30, while original classics drift around for free as pirated PDFs. This reality proves that in a democratic society where the masses dominate the consumer market, commercial superiority belongs not to clarity of logic, but to intuitive frameworks, celebrity endorsements, and peer pressure applied through case studies and citations.

I am not criticizing them. On the contrary, I believe there is much to learn from them. The docent business sits at the absolute peak of intellectual retail, facilitating secondary IP expansion through lectures, consulting, licensing, and merchandise. From a business perspective, it is a magnificent subject of study.

Intellectuals who dismiss docents as shallow frauds or fake producers fail to understand the mind of the democratic citizen. As emphasized before, in a democratic welfare state, selling at a high price (marketing) matters far more than making things well (production). This is why docents earn more money than original authors.

These great docent-priests utilize three core techniques to open public wallets.

(1) Create and Monopolize New Coinages

First, they omit complex logic or system analysis, increasing intuitive understanding through intense stories and romantic metaphors that allow the public to empathize instantly. They then label the market with sophisticated coinages like The 10,000-Hour Rule, Outliers, The Tipping Point, Blink, or Agile Process to trigger viral growth. Because people associate the new coinage with the creator, this grants a powerful market monopoly.

These new terms feel intellectually differentiating and authoritative to democratic citizens because the masses accept new labels as attractive props that elevate their status. Even major corporations, when presented by management consultants with proposals packed with terms like sprint, pivot, or agile alongside case studies of leading companies, experience a sense of inferiority. They hallucinate a grand reality and believe their company must follow suit.

Because citizens trust the state—rather than themselves—to maintain order and remove inherent risks from objects, anything new becomes a source of entertainment and differentiation. Rather than spending a lifetime tracing origins to introduce concepts like Heidegger’s Dasein, Being-in-the-world, or Thrownness, a docent simply implants a new phrase like The Golden Circle directly into the public’s mind.

(2) Sell the Gospel of “You Can Do It Too”

Docents never reveal the truth that human choices demand responsibility and a price, or that all risk-seeking carries the possibility of failure. This is not because producers are immoral or out to cheat the public. It is a limitation of hindsight bias; the structure of the docent business relies on leveraging individuals and companies whose historical achievements are already proven, assuming those structures apply universally today. If they studied failed cases, they would realize that many people fail despite doing the exact same things—but no one in the market pays money to buy that realization.

By arranging top 1% unicorns retrospectively, financial struggles, human betrayals, and random luck vanish. The entire process is replaced by a single, sentimental quote: “Start with Why,” “Find your bliss,” “Catch the purple cow,” or “Fly with the wings of Icarus.” The authentic history—how a startup established its style to survive or how it allocated resources and took responsibility for its choices—is diluted by result-oriented reasoning. This clear gospel instills confidence in us: “If I follow this structure, I can succeed too.”

A prime example of this hindsight myth is Southwest Airlines, frequently cited by Seth Godin and Simon Sinek. They explain that Southwest succeeded because it was a “purple cow” that broke industry rules, holding onto a noble service spirit and value-driven management as its Why. Readers finish the book confident that if they innovate like a purple cow and shout their Why, they will succeed.

The reality is different. Southwest survived and remained profitable during the oil price spikes of the early to mid-2000s not because of corporate culture, but because they anticipated the Federal Reserve’s liquidity surge and Middle East risks. They aggressively signed fuel-hedging derivative contracts, locking in fuel at $50 a barrel to secure a monopoly on low costs. Later, unrelated to corporate culture, they abandoned hedging, suffered when oil prices spiked again, and lost over $10 billion.

(3) Humanize the Myth

A docent maintains the aura of the subject they interpret but downplays them through “humanization” at critical moments. Deep down, the 1/N sovereign citizens want to be comforted by the thought: “That great genius was fundamentally no different from me! I can achieve that too.”

In Mythologies, Roland Barthes demonstrated how docents demystify Albert Einstein, an icon of supreme intellectual aura. Originally, Einstein’s character and genius belonged to an inviolable realm. After his death, however, docents extracted and dissected his brain, reducing his genius to a mechanical substance that automatically prints thoughts under the pretext of studying what made him different.

His lifelong research was compressed into a single-line mantra—E=mc²—to satisfy a public craving new labels. Furthermore, the narrative of Einstein failing to complete the Unified Field Theory before his death was adapted to provide relief: “Even Einstein was human, with the same limitations as us.” This became a mega-hit product in the docent market.

I recall experiencing a shallow catharsis in my youth from a docent’s book that tracked John von Neumann’s private life and relationships to reveal the backstories of his theories. The book glossed over how that monster mentally solved complex differential equations in a second, designed modern computer architecture, and mapped out nuclear war game theory. Instead, it focused on his private life: “Neumann loved nightly parties and had alcoholic tendencies,” “He was a regular at the local police station for drunk driving,” and “He was messy during his first divorce.” At the time, I made an arrogant assumption:

“John von Neumann was just a human with drinking and relationship problems like me. He and I are fundamentally no different!”

Docents understand that democratic citizens crave shallow solidarity and comfort from the mistakes and human anecdotes of dead giants.

6. Practical Examples of the Docent Business 2: Homer and Hesiod

Homer, who recorded the Greek and Roman myths we praise as great classics, was the most successful intellectual retailer and docent in history. He processed the original, sacred deeds of the primordial gods into episodic dramas for public consumption.

The Greeks of his era no longer cared about the creation of the universe or the myths of origins. As civilization advanced, the creator who designed the world receded from human life, dismissed as a Deus otiosus (an idle god). Myths were downgraded to sensational gossip consumed out of boredom. The public craved stories where they could project their egos and find comfort.

Homer brought the gods down into human-centered literature to satisfy his primary consumers: soldiers and aristocrats. Mircea Eliade notes that Homer’s myths were actually novels. As evidence, he points out that Homer excluded elements that turned off the intelligent upper class of the era, such as Dionysus (the god of wine and madness), dark nocturnal realms, Chthonian (primitive underworld) deities, and somber funeral contexts. Soldiers and aristocrats demanded perfect physical beauty, honorable warfare, and engaging heroic tales.

Homer’s brilliance lies in the fact that this humanized blueprint dominated the classical Renaissance era centuries later. In hip-hop terms, he secured the position of the docent of docents—the figure your favorite docent admires most.

According to Eliade, the myths of Prometheus and Pandora recorded by Hesiod, another novelist, were also texts altered for the public. The Prometheus myth we know goes like this: during the division of the first sacrificial offering between gods and men, Prometheus wrapped animal bones in a rich layer of fat, while hiding the nutritious meat and entrails inside an unappealing stomach. He did this to ensure humans were well-fed. Deceived by outward abundance, Zeus chose the portion that looked grand but lacked substance, leaving the nutritious meat for humans.

Historically, however, this “offering of bones” was the ultimate mark of respect offered to celestial gods by ancient archaic hunting civilizations. Preserving and offering the bones—the source of life and the seed of future resurrection—was the original standard Proof of Work (PoW). In the human-centric civilization of Greece, this ritual was downgraded to a narrative explaining why humans, rather than gods, get to eat the meat.

Once the docent’s editing turned Prometheus into a hero acting for humanity and a cheat against the gods, historical causal relationships tangled like dominoes. Zeus hid fire from the earth because he was denied the meat, and Prometheus stole it back for humanity. Zeus then chained Prometheus to a rock in the Caucasus, sentencing him to the eternal punishment of having his liver torn out by an eagle every day.

By framing the gods as threats to human civilization, Pandora—the goddess of the earth—was similarly downgraded to an explanation for why disease, disaster, and sorrow exist. Authentic artifacts from the 5th century BC, such as terracotta figurines and Attic red-figure vases, depict Pandora as the goddess of abundance rising from the earth, dispensing blessings to humanity. Hesiod degraded Pandora to appeal to the patriarchal men of ancient Greece, who held the stereotype that human misery stems from a woman’s curiosity and deception.

The docent business of altering myths into novels to satisfy public needs continues to thrive today. Ancient myths simply manifest now as religion, science, history, or art. The primary shift is format adaptation to fit platforms like webtoons, movies, or YouTube shorts. The essence remains unchanged: cutting away the sacred context of unavailable origins so the masses can consume explanations safely inside a greenhouse.

7. Conclusion

We must recall the alchemy of memory covered in Part 4 of the Anamnesis Strategy. The alchemy of memory was the domain of the poet. It traced the hidden history and origins of objects to restore primordial sacredness into an eternal present without damage. It was an aesthetic of respect and expansion, guiding sovereign individuals to experience their present lives deeply through the aura of origins. This required poetic inspiration from producers, granting their products an unassailable heritage over time.

Conversely, the alchemy of categorization and the docent business explored in Part 5 do not trace back to primordial sacredness or complex truths. Their lens focuses on the contemporary public. Distorting and demystifying truth to make it digestible is standard practice for the docent business. Examples include Seth Godin and Simon Sinek omitting fuel-hedging as Southwest Airlines’ secret to success, or Hesiod elevating Prometheus as a human hero while degrading Zeus and Pandora.

Yet, the docent business carries its own risks. Setting storytelling ability aside, docents must constantly cater to the high time preference and whims of the masses, meaning their products usually end up as short-lived fads. Consequently, they remain trapped in a cycle of mass-producing secondary goods.

This analysis of the alchemy of categorization and docents contains no mockery; it conveys genuine respect. These clever editors are successful wizards who understand what the mass consumer wants and deliver products that satisfy those desires.

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