Media and Power Epochs

Source: provisional table by Simon Licelles, applying the ideas of Bernard Stiegler (work in progress)

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For commentary see our entry on Hypomnesic Transindividuation Systems of Reference, which refers to 'dominant systems of meaning-making'.

Table

Evolution of Societal Functions Across Historical Epochs

Function / Institution	Clanic Epoch (CE)	Royal Empire Epoch (REE)	Feudal Epoch (FE)	Bourgeois Epoch (BE)	Popular Epoch (PE)
Education	? Learning for all ?	Initiation of priests, Training of Scribes	Training of priests, monks, and children of the nobility for the transmission of heritage and feudal power.	Training of the bourgeoisie, for the maintenance of the bourgeois domination system.	Training for everyone (practitioners of the SHTIR)
Manufacturing Production	Collective or family production?	Family-based artisanal production on one hand (tinkering) + Production linked to the royal will and the needs of the empire (?)	Family-based artisanal production on one hand (tinkering), under the financial dependence of the upper classes (?), warlike and commercial production for the most part (?)	Exploitation, by the owners of capital and means of production, of individuals from the lower classes and terrestrial resources, for productivist purposes and to increase and strengthen capital and its power.
Agricultural Production		Enslavement of a large part of the population for the exploitation of the king's lands?	Exploitation of the land by the majority of the population (90%?) serfs, who feed themselves from the production and give a "large?" part of it as taxes, for the noble and the defense of the territory.	Productivist exploitation of the land by a handful of few farmers dependent on heavy machinery investments and chemical inputs. Mechanized and low-yield agriculture per hectare (?) - Dependence of agriculture on investment - financialization?)
Information - Journalism	? Tales - oral storytelling - evening gatherings ?	Can we find journalism? - "Songs of deeds (?) Manuscript accounts relating the great deeds of illustrious people - nobles, priests, heroes (?) (Do popular publications exist? Theoretically no, because the people do not have access to the SHTIR)		Propaganda developed by press organs and audiovisual systems, dependent on private powers financially and therefore oriented by commercial performance and the interest of the bourgeois class. Watchdogs for the bourgeois class.
Religion
Stating what is (e.g., Truth)	The shaman, the druid, interpretation/reading of the signs of the world and the spirits.	The priest	The philosopher	The scientist (Einstein)	? The G.O. ? (Stating what will be?)
Army	?	The noble is equipped - knighthood - to defend his lands and the population there. Enlistment of henchmen?	Conflicts between neighbors for the seizure of wealth. Beginning of colonizations - crusades?	Enlistment of individuals from the lower classes for the defense of the territories and the production infrastructure of the bourgeoisie. (Maintenance of an economic production activity - stimulation of the national economy - arms export)	Colonization of overseas or neighboring territories for the control of resources and the profit of the bourgeoisie's production companies.
The Police
Health - Medicine
Government
Art	(Representation of superior principles) Tool ornamentation. Cave representations of beings related to the founding myth.	Art of the king? Representation of deities and the figure of the king in relation to these deities (same as pharaoh)	Representation of superior beings or principles - gods, saints, Nobles + Popular representations?	Representation of "individual" principles - landscapes, objects - the human individual becomes the subject of artistic research - the human individual as a "superior function".	Towards an art of living related to the new superior function - the cosmo-biological complex.
Women
Men
Life
Terrestrial Resources