Dr Neville Buch[1]
Abstract
The clash between the rules of hermeneutics and the unthinking rules of politics represents a fundamental struggle between the restoration of meaning and the mechanics of technical reductionism. Hermeneutics, derived from the Greek hermeneuein (“to interpret”) and linked to the messenger god Hermes, is the branch of knowledge dealing with the theory, study, and method of interpreting meaning, particularly in philosophy, literature, and religious scriptures. While its common uses in biblical studies, law, and philosophy aim to uncover an author’s intended meaning, modern political behaviour is increasingly governed by the “Techné Mindset”. This technocratic pathology prioritizes instrumental calculation over lived experience, enforcing a state of “Historical Forgetfulness” and “systemic closing”. By applying hermeneutic rigour—such as Spiral Historiography and Communicative Action—society can move beyond the “meaningless scratches” of aggregated data to a “Senior” state of social accountability and human authorship.
The Essay: Hermeneutic Inquiry versus the Technocratic Political Machine
I. Interpreting Meaning vs. Calculating Behaviour
At its core, hermeneutics is the study of interpretation, specifically applied to finding the deeper, intended meaning within complex texts and social contexts. It demands an engagement with the “subjective quality of experience”—what it is like to be a cognitive agent—rather than reducing human life to a causal mechanism. Conversely, the common unthinking rules of politics follow the Mechanisms of the Technocratic Mindset, which treat existence as a series of information-processing operations. Under this mindset, political life is managed through “quantifiable and operational concepts,” reducing the proactive human author to a “puny human node” in a data set. Where hermeneutics seeks to “light up the darkness” of complex narratives, the technocratic political rule prioritizes instrumental calculation that empties symbols of their life.
II. Intended Context vs. Historical Forgetfulness
The rules of hermeneutics require that a text or action be understood within its specific, concrete situation of use. This aligns with the humanist view that meaning is the “universalization of local subjective value”. In contrast, unthinking political rules frequently operate under a pathology of Historical Forgetfulness, a systemic failure to learn from the past or learn the origins of one’s own biases. This results in the “Epimethean fault,” where foresight is absent and critical realization arrives “too late” to correct systemic errors. While hermeneutics utilizes Spiral Historiography to “uncoil” patterns of historical error, technocratic politics relies on populist simplifications that ignore the “fuzziness and ambiguity” of actual human life.
III. Communicative Action vs. Strategic Manipulation
A vital rule of hermeneutic interpretation is the pursuit of Verständigung (mutual understanding) through unconstrained discourse. This requires validating claims of truth, truthfulness, and rightness to achieve a “fusion of horizons”. However, the rules of politics often default to “Strategic Action”—manipulation aimed at the actor’s own success or maximizing “Political Profit”. This unthinking rule replaces genuine dialogue with “Integration Propaganda” and “militant exclusionary practices” to enforce uniform behaviour. Hermeneutics opposes this by insisting that knowledge is an interpersonal thing, requiring active engagement rather than institutional silence.
IV. Conclusion: Thinking as Caring (Panser)
Ultimately, the rules of hermeneutics demand that we “police our own thoughts” to filter out the “institutional bullshit” that characterizes unthinking political mandates. By reinventing “thinking” (penser) as “caring” (panser), the hermeneutic approach provides a procedural shield that protects the particularity of the human person from the “coldness of pure calculation”. While politics often commits to a “systemic closing” that reduces the human “who” to a technical “what,” hermeneutics reasserts human authorship as the starting point for all moral and philosophical inquiry.
Dynamic of Cognition (DoC) Analysis: Hermeneutics as the Ascent from Political Regression
| DoC Component | Unthinking Political Rules (The Regression) | Rules of Hermeneutics (The Ascent) |
| Prejudice (Centre) | Technological Determinism: Viewing policy as an unalterable path dictated by efficiency. | Reflective Self-Understanding: Questioning one’s social and historical bearings through truthfulness. |
| Attitudes (Thinking/Extrovert) | Strategic Action: Using communication to manipulate cohorts for political profit. | Communicative Action: Dialogue aimed at mutual agreement and the redemption of validity claims. |
| Typologies of Value (Feeling/Introvert) | Measurable Utility: Measuring success by private accumulation of objects and data points. | Interpretive Holism: Valuing the “thisness” and individuality of lived experience and moral character. |
| Exclusion (Sensation/Intuition) | Historical Forgetfulness: Systemically banishing origins and historical context from memory. | Spiral Historiography: Actively integrating past insights with modern inclusivity to “uncoil” errors. |
| Inclusion (Thinking/Feeling) | Systemic Closing: Enforcing behavioural control through cybernetic stimuli rather than norms. | Panser (Thinking as Caring): Reinventing thinking as care to protect human particularity from calculation. |
NEW THEORETICAL WORK ON THE CONCEPT AND PRACTICE OF HERMENEUTICS BY DR. BUCH
A complete Human Thought (no A.I. here)
In today’s Lifeworld terms (Habermas), there are three basic elements to the concept and practice of “Hermeneutics”: there is a judging of the Humanity species (various narratives available), it is collective meaning; there is the characteristics of a person and this is individual meaning – the collective term of personhood has to individually assigned to make sense; and the Lifeworld itself, the Knowledge worked both in internal and external hermeneutics, that is, what is both subject and object.
It is not difficult to understand if the average educated person gives it more than a moment thought.
Full Bibliography
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Buch, N. (2025). Chapter 7 Outline. Humanism in the Digital Age. Management Institute for Contributory Economy.
Buch, N. (2025). Humanism in Australia. Lost Thought and Awareness. Management Institute for Contributory Economy.
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Buch, N. (2025). Project Humanism and the Contributory Economy. Management Institute for Contributory Economy.
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Buch, N. (2026). MICE. Project Humanism and the Contributory Economy. Management Institute for Contributory Economy.
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[1] Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) has been fairly used in the production of this work. The tool used is Google NotebookLM (recently rebranded as Gemini Notebook). It is an AI-powered virtual research assistant and thinking partner designed to help a person interact deeply with their own documents. Unlike general chatbots, it is source-grounded, meaning it only generates answers based on the specific PDFs, documents, or links uploaded. The A.I. process in the production of this work has been limited to the attached (prompts) on each of the questions in turn. This ensures an accurate reading of each source. The author then rearranged and re-edited the answers the A.I. provided. The human author publishes this work. A.I. is never an author when used properly. This assistance is not qualitatively different from a human research assistant when that assistance is deemed to have no authorial status but is acknowledged.
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Neville Buch
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