For me there is a mental hierarchy that has been embedded in English.
The sequence of most concern to me is from: ideas to concepts to thoughts. I perceive concepts as being larger and more comprehensive than ideas.
I perceive ‘thoughts’ as being more comprehensive and inclusive than either concepts or ideas.
It is to the thought of ‘Pro Commerce’ on which I am particularly focusing my attention.
Furthermore, I think that some thoughts are ‘tentpole’ thoughts. I particularly select Pro Commerce as a tentpole thought.
To understand what I’m talking about we may need to find another thought that is a tentpole. One is ‘progress’. 'Progress‘ is a tentpole thought.
I want to thank a naval class I taught in India for this insight. At this Indian college, in Lucknow, they were trying to teach naval officers how to become entrepreneurs. The school’s thinkers had come to the conclusion that the first overriding thought that had to be absorbed and comprehended was the thought: ‘progress’.
In India most people see world history as a series of cycles. Humans don't really change from cycle to cycle. Cycles can be thousands of years long. We always end up where we start….. forever. So the thought ‘progress’ is fundamental to modernity and commerce. The god of progress is Ganesh, the elephant god. Ganesh, these days, is assigned to be the god of progress. Being involved in business, starting a company, requires a belief that what you do will have an additive and cumulative effect on society. The cumulative effect will be the equivalent of a step in some direction that does not get repeated in another cycle.
'Progress’ as a thought is one hell of a core thought. It is a tentpole thought of modernity.
Pro Commerce is similarly a significant thought. It embodies the entire world of personal morality, human development and many other intellectual conceptions.
In this blog, I have introduced two cognitive perceptions that are independent. One is the perception of ‘thought’ as a mental process or state that is at the top of a hierarchy of concepts and ideas.
The second perception is the use of a ‘tentpole’ in the mind. The entirety of human beings’ mental constructs are built around a few tentpoles. I don't know how many tentpoles there are but I do know that these thoughts, ‘progress’ and ‘pro commerce’ are uniquely important tentpoles of our modern society.