Transcendental Endogroup

A transcendental endogroup is one made of other endogroups rather than of individuals, which is what distinguishes it and what makes its reach possible. Formation is by absorption, so a state is built from families and communities and a mono-empire from states, and at each level the smaller endo-ideals become reflectors of the larger centre. Marsh points out that endo-idealism extended seamlessly from the lowest up into the spiritual realm in both western and eastern views of statecraft, which is the same nesting described from inside a tradition. Two effects follow that she treats as important. The first is the reach of the guilt and predation apparatus, since transcendental wealth endo-idealism produces continual genocide of everyone poor or weak, and she names planetary extinction as the largest instance as the world moves towards a mono-empire. The second is what happens to the smaller endogroups absorbed. Family ownership of children has been discouraged by laws against families profiting from their labour or violating their privacy, which reads as protection and is also the state absorbing the family endogroup's claims. The weakening of lower endogroups under a transcendental one is ambiguous in her account rather than simply good, since both exoself and endoself attributes are becoming more common as it proceeds, depending on whether the dissolution opened conduits or only removed shelter. The law of the last circle describes what happens if one collapses without a larger group to absorb it.

State formation theory describes the absorption of smaller polities, with Charles Tilly's account of European state making the standard reference, and empire studies examines indirect rule through existing local structures. Nested identity is studied in social psychology, where regional and national identities coexist with varying salience. Federalism formalizes the arrangement legally. Marsh's version differs by treating the nesting as sublation rather than as coexistence, since on her account the smaller group's endo-ideal becomes a reflector rather than retaining authority at its own level, which predicts hollowing rather than layering.