This week’s column steps back from the five-part Understanding MAGA series to examine the deeper themes running through it—identity, boundaries, and the quiet collapse of communication when we outsource judgment. I’m 61 now, and I’ve set a personal goal to complete my own TST Philosophy by the time I’m 70. That means the weekly column isn’t the destination; it’s the workshop. Series like this aren’t reactions to headlines—they’re part of a larger architecture I’m building slowly and deliberately. If you’ve been reading along, you’re not just following commentary. You’re watching a framework take shape.
WWB Research
Understanding MAGA
(25 Feb 2026: Analysis of the Understanding MAGA Series)
Audio Edition
~ 10 to 12 minutes of audio
I’m your host, Michael Alan Prestwood and this is the
Wednesday, February 25 2026 edition
of the Weekly Wisdom Builder. The core research that informs the week’s TST Weekly Column.
This is the expanded story mode edition.
With that, let’s frame the week’s key idea.
This week’s idea is Understanding MAGA.
Today’s column takes a closer look at Understanding MAGA—why it matters, and where it leads.
Series are not reactions — they are architecture. When ideas are layered intentionally over time, they form a framework rather than a headline.
Now for this week’s 6 Weekly Crossroads. The goal, to blend and forge intersections into wisdom.
TouchstoneTruth is a living body of work built around single ideas, each explored carefully and revised openly over time.
Supporting the effort are tidbits.
Tidbits make it possible to build slowly and honestly, without losing track of where an idea came from.
On the home page are the key ideas for each, the core takeaways are also available here, but this story mode is the only place to get the “rest of the story.”
1.
A Philosophy Story.
From History:
Subject: TST Ethics.
Born 1879.
Lived from 1879 to 1950, aged 70
Humans do not respond directly to reality. We respond to our representations of it.
Stepping back for a moment.
Clarity begins when we remember that our beliefs are models, not reality itself. When we hold our maps lightly — testing, refining, and revising them — we think more clearly and argue less blindly.
Now, the details…
Alfred Korzybski was a Polish-American thinker trained in engineering and mathematics. After serving in World War I, he emigrated to the United States and devoted his life to studying how language shapes human thought.
“The map is not the territory.”
Korzybski devoted his life to a deceptively simple insight: humans confuse their descriptions of reality with reality itself. Trained as an engineer and shaped by the devastation of World War I, he became obsessed with how language, symbols, and models quietly shape belief and behavior. His work in general semantics wasn’t anti-science or anti-reason—it was a warning about abstraction. Models are indispensable, but when we forget they are models, they harden into dogma. Korzybski saw this mistake everywhere: in politics, ideology, education, and even science itself.
In 1933, he published Science and Sanity, where he introduced General Semantics — a framework for understanding how humans confuse words with reality. He later founded the Institute of General Semantics to develop and teach these ideas.
Korzybski was not primarily a traditional philosopher. He was closer to a systems thinker — someone concerned with how humans build models, how those models influence behavior, and how misuse of language distorts reasoning.
That Philosophy Story,
was first published on TST 1 week ago.
By the way, the flashcard inspired by it is this.
Front: In Korzybski’s General Semantics, what is a linguistic or symbolic representation of reality?
Back: A Map
2.
A Philosophy Quote.
From History:
Subject: TST Ethics.
- Michael Alan Prestwood.
- 2002.
This triad balances structure, character, and consequence. Legal, moral, and fair align personal integrity with social stability and responsibility.
Put simply.
Respect the law to sustain order. Cultivate virtue to shape your character. Act fairly to weigh the real impact of your choices on others. When legality, morality, and fairness work together, flourishing becomes stable, not accidental.
Now, the details…
This triad captures the structure of TST Ethics in three words.
To live legal is to respect the rule of law and the institutional framework that allows society to function. Stability matters. Order matters. Without structure, flourishing collapses.
To live moral is personal. It is about character, intent, integrity, and virtue. Laws cannot enforce inner alignment. That work is yours.
To live fair is relational. It requires weighing the impact of your actions on others. It asks whether your gain produces unnecessary harm or structural imbalance.
Together, legal, moral, and fair balance system, self, and consequence.
That Philosophy Quote,
was first published on TST 1 week ago.
By the way, the flashcard inspired by it is this.
Front: What must destruction satisfy in TST Ethics?
Back: Justification (weighed tradeoffs)
3.
A Science FAQ.
Subject: Worldview.
Science says you are physically changing all the time and the story you tell about yourself is less a fixed thing and more a maintained pattern.
In short.
Biologically, you’re constantly changing: cells, synapses, even memories shift. Identity is less a fixed thing and more a maintained pattern. Neuroscience shows that identity isn’t a fixed object stored in the brain. Your are constantly changing. What feels like a stable “you” is a maintained pattern: held together by memory, habits, and the story you keep updating.
Now, the details…
Neuroscience tells us that you are not a static self frozen in time. Your cells renew, neural connections rewire, and memories subtly shift every time they’re recalled. Yet you still feel like you. In Buddhist terms, you feel like you have a “self.” But science tends to support Buddhism’s point—the idea of non-self.
That continuity doesn’t come from an unchanging core. It comes from patterns. Your brain maintains identity through memory, habits, emotional responses, and the narrative you tell about your life. Identity is less a thing you have and more a process your brain runs.
Seen this way, who you are today is a living pattern—a pattern shaped by repetition, reinforced by routine, and quietly revised by every choice you make.
Here’s an important truth: your memories evolve. When you recall a memory, you shape it, then rewrite it back. This matters. It’s how your worldview can change as you live your life. And this ability is physical—a transformation, not just a shift in thought. At its core, this is neuroplasticity: the brain’s constant restructuring of neural pathways and the fine-tuning of synaptic strength through experience.
Who you are—your personality, your memories, your biases—is physically encoded in which neurons connect with which others, and in the strength of those connections. When you learn something that shifts your perspective, you are literally pruning old versions of yourself and forging a new physical architecture. To change your mind is, quite literally, to change your brain.
That Science FAQ,
was first published on TST 1 month ago.
By the way, the flashcard inspired by it is this.
Front: The brain’s ability to change neural pathways and synaptic strength based on experience.
4.
A Philosophy FAQ.
Subject: TST Ethics.
We confuse explanations with reality because they reduce uncertainty and satisfy our need for coherence.
Seen another way.
Humility sharpens perception. When we remember that our models are lenses rather than the world itself, we become less defensive, more curious, and more capable of refinement.
Now, the details…
Because explanations soothe us.
A good explanation feels solid. It gives shape to chaos. It reduces uncertainty. In that relief, we begin to treat the explanation as if it were the thing itself. Ancient traditions called this maya — the veil of appearance. Modern psychology calls it cognitive bias. Either way, the mind prefers coherence over confusion. When a model works well enough, we stop seeing it as a model.
Our brains are prediction machines. We don’t experience raw reality — we experience interpretations shaped by language, memory, expectation, and culture. Confirmation bias rewards us for defending our existing map. The illusion of explanatory depth makes us believe we understand far more than we do. Over time, the framework becomes invisible. We no longer see it as a lens — we see it as the world.
That is why intellectual humility matters. Socrates famously claimed wisdom in knowing that he did not know. Not because knowledge is impossible, but because our explanations are always partial. The correction is not cynicism. It is disciplined modesty. Reality remains what it is. Our descriptions are attempts — sometimes brilliant, sometimes flawed — but always provisional.
That Philosophy FAQ,
was first published on TST 1 week ago.
By the way, the flashcard inspired by it is this.
Front: According to Socrates, what personal boundary marks the beginning of wisdom? A:
Back: Knowledge ignorance (Epistemic limits)
5.
Critical thinking almost always boils down to epistemology, and here, that means the Idea of Ideas.
Changing an idea in light of new evidence is a strength, not a failure.
A Critical Thinking FAQ.
Subject: Open Viewpoint Method.
Most convictions feel universal because they are familiar. Worldview humility begins when we recognize the role of time, place, and culture in shaping what feels obvious.
Briefly.
Humility is not weakness; it is cognitive strength. The ability to examine the origin of your own convictions is a Socratic discipline. The understand that you live during a particular time, at a particular location, and within specific worldviews.
Now, the details…
Worldview humility is the recognition that your moral, political, and social instincts were shaped by when and where you were born — and that they are not the only possible defaults.
We are born into language, culture, geography, and history. In my writing, I summarize this as your personal language, religion, and philosophy — the three lenses through which you interpret reality. What feels “obvious” often feels that way because it surrounded us early and constantly. Familiarity quietly hardens into certainty.
In OVM, all of this matters. The Open Viewpoint Method helps you manage worldviews and prevent viewpoint blindness — including your own. If you mistake your inherited model for reality itself, dialogue turns into battle. But if you recognize that you and others are operating from embedded models, discussion becomes exploration instead of combat.
Worldview humility does not mean abandoning conviction. It means understanding where conviction comes from — and holding it with awareness rather than reflex.
That awareness is the doorway to honest dialogue.
That Critical Thinking FAQ,
was first published on TST 3 hours ago.
By the way, the flashcard inspired by it is this.
Front: What is the recognition that your beliefs were shaped by time, place, and culture?
Back: Worldview humility (viewpoint prevention)
6.
A History FAQ.
Subject: Authority.
History shows that authoritarian rule emerges less from cruel leaders than from systems that normalize obedience and discourage independent judgment.
From another angle.
Authoritarianism is rarely imposed all at once. It grows gradually as people trade judgment for order, responsibility for procedure, and conscience for compliance. History warns us that the most dangerous systems are not those enforced by terror alone, but those maintained by ordinary people doing what feels normal, expected, and legitimate.
Now, the details…
History teaches us that authoritarian rule rarely begins with monsters. It begins with order. In times of fear, instability, or rapid change, people often welcome strong authority as a solution. Promises of safety, unity, or national renewal are emotionally compelling—especially when democratic processes feel slow, messy, or ineffective.
The twentieth century made this painfully clear. Modern authoritarian regimes emerged alongside bureaucracy and industrial organization. Power no longer relied solely on charismatic rulers, but on systems: rules, uniforms, procedures, and chains of command. Responsibility became fragmented. Individuals followed roles, not outcomes. Moral judgment was quietly replaced by compliance.
After World War II, historians and philosophers confronted a disturbing realization: unprecedented atrocities were not carried out only by fanatics, but by ordinary people embedded in obedient systems. This forced a rethinking of how authority operates. The problem was not simply ideology, but structure. When obedience is normalized and dissent punished, conscience becomes optional.
These insights reshaped multiple fields at once. Historians traced the rise of authoritarian states. Psychologists studied obedience and conformity. Political theorists examined how institutions concentrate power. Ethicists asked whether following the law absolves responsibility. Each discipline approached the problem from a different angle, but they were all circling the same truth:
authoritarianism thrives when systems discourage independent judgment.
History also reminds us that this is not a modern invention. From ancient empires to medieval monarchies, authority has always depended on ritual, legitimacy, and social pressure. What changed in the modern era was scale. Technology and bureaucracy allowed obedience to be automated, normalized, and detached from direct human consequence. The lesson is sobering but clear: authoritarian rule is less about cruel leaders and more about compliant structures.
The enduring warning from history is this: freedom erodes not only through force, but through habits.
That History FAQ,
was first published on TST 2 weeks ago.
By the way, the flashcard inspired by it is this.
Front: Which type of rule aims to control politics, culture, and education?
Back: Totalitarian
That’s it for this week!
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Rather than publishing for immediacy, the TouchstoneTruth project releases one edition per week of the TST Weekly Column while allowing ideas to mature long before and long after publication.
Thanks for listening.
The end.