Some days -- many days -- I can feel the lethargy and entropy dominating my body and stopping me from going to my computer. Health is obviously critical. It can be the difference between wanting to do something productive and idealistic -- vs. not. My dad has always said that idealism generally requires the full-blooded energy of youth. Obviously I cannot speak for everyone -- maybe I am mainly speaking about myself -- but by the time you hit 50, hopefully you are reasonably financially secure, or at least stable, idealism may have lost some or a lot of its edge, disappearing in life trauma, negative experiences, skepticism, cynicism, and/or just fitting into a comfortable groove, doing your thing, and hanging on. Energy for 'idealistic projects' comes and goes. As the cliche goes, wouldn't it be nice to combine the energy of youth with the wisdom of later life.
In my 20s, I hated and avoided politics. Looking back at that time now, I would say that I was an 'Epicurean' -- in that I avoided politics while otherwise pursuing what I thought would give me a happy life. Mistakes were made to be sure. First, you go too far this way; then too far that way -- struggling towards that 'ideal' balance in the middle. Indeed, I would say that I am still an Epicurean today, except that at different times I try to face up to politics and get my idealistic two cents in.
What is Epicurean philosophy? I like using Wikipedia as my first introduction to a philosopher and/or philosophy so let us see what Wikipedia has to say about Epicurus and Epicureanism. (I became more interested in it the other day when I was reading through some Thomas Jefferson quotes and found that he threw his full validation and support behind it.) That made it worth reading up again for me.
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Epicurus (Greek Ἐπίκουρος) (341 BC, Samos – 270 BC, Athens) was an ancient Greek philosopher, the founder of Epicureanism, one of the most popular schools of thought in Hellenistic Philosophy. He taught that pleasure and pain are the measures of what is good and bad, that death is the end of existence and not to be feared, that the gods do not reward or punish humans, and that events in the world are ultimately based on the motions and interactions of atoms moving in empty space.
This sounds at least partly like a very secular, humanistic philosophy to me. Unfortunately, over the years its has often been confused with, and/or distorted into extremist 'hedonism' which it is not. Epicureanism is not a philosophy that believes in the 'wallowing in pleasure' but rather is a philosophy that believes in pursuing the achievement of 'equilibrium' (or 'balance'). (reference: Richard Osborne, Philosophy for Beginners, 1992, Writers and Readers Publishing, Incorporated, New York, New York). Now achieving equilibrium or balance can be like walking a (Nietzschean) tightrope wire -- the minute you think you are in control of things you may be one minute or one second away from toppling over the edge of the 'abyss' (or 'gap'). Balance does not come easy and at best it is generally a very tenuous and fleeting state of being. Invariably, there will be some 'punch' thrown at us by life that will throw us into imbalance again -- as we precariously fight for balance on life's highwire act. But that is life -- and not to bravely step back on the tightrope wire again is not to live with passion and intensity. (We have here a little mixture of Epicureanism with Nietzscheism.)
So life is also partly -- or mainly -- about choices and priorities. 'To be or not to be.' (Now we introduce a little Shakespeare through Hamlet.)
Where am I today and where are my priorities? How important a project is finishing this philosophical work? Some days the energy is here; some days it's not. Everything is relative. I'm sure my dad would love to be 52 years old again. I look through the history of philosophy and see that Kierkegaard was dead before my age (42), and Nietzsche had gone insane, for the last 11 years of his life (that would be around 45 years old), dying at 56. These are two magnificent philosophers in the history of Western philosophy and evolution with all of their brilliant works behind them before the age of 50.
Life is about choice and priorities. Where is the drive, the motivation, the discipline (or non-discipline)? As Alfred Adler would say, where is the 'direction of movement'?
Some of the great philosophers philosophized in wealth and luxury, or comfortably through an inheritence, a university teaching position, and/or through wealthy benefactors. Hegel and Schopenhauer come to mind. I'm sure with a minimum of easy checking -- if you are a researcher you have to love the instant convenience and previously undreamed of wealth of information on the internet! -- I could list you off many more 'wealthy' philosophers, men who had lots of free time on their hands. Conversely, you had Karl Marx who wrote thousands of pages of astounding philosophy from a state of poverty. Where there is a will, there is a way!
I don't know of many philosophers who were happily married men! A few perhaps. Most seemed to be either 'anal retentive hermits' (Kant and Kierkegaard come to mind) or 'had multiple lovers' (Rousseau, Bertrand Russell, Carl Jung...) which is not to say that you can't be an anal retentive hermit and still be happy and healthy, or have multiple lovers and still be happy. But generally, I think, many philosophers were philosophizing from 'pain' -- they were perhaps attempting to compensate for a life of pain, torment, and/or internal 'demons'. (Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche come most prominantly to mind -- largely unsuccessful in love, promiscuous in the cases of Schopenhauer and perhaps Nietzsche, weighed down by heavy 'religious and/or internal father issues' in many cases, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche coming to mind here again, with Schopenhauer's and Nietzsche's dads both dying at an early age, Schopenhauer's from suicide.) These men were all carrying heavy issues and heavy pain inside their heads -- that they needed to 'self-therapeutically compensate' for. These are generalizations to be sure, and for every generalization there is always an exception -- Kant was perhaps the most anal-retentive of all philosophers, so predictable in the time of his walks, that people could know what time it was -- and yet Kant did not really seem 'demonized' by his seemingly totally 'Apollonian' existence, indeed, he seemed very ethical, organized, caring, deeply religious...you just have to wonder how much fun he had in his life...Did he every have sex with a woman? Did he every fall in love with a woman? Or was that blasphemy -- and/or out of reach -- in his life?
So here I sit, perhaps partly at a crossroads in my life at 52. For the most part, I have eked* out a reasonably comfortable middle class existence for myself although even a reasonably good income seems barely enough these days. (Again the internet is amazing. I looked up the word 'eked' to make sure it was a proper word and that I was using it correctly. Again, the internet did not fail me.
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*eke 1(k)
tr.v. eked, ek·ing, ekes
1. To supplement with great effort. Used with out: eked out an income by working two jobs.
2. To get with great effort or strain. Used with out: eke a bare existence from farming in an arid area.
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I have a pretty amazing girlfriend who I have been going out with for about 8 or 9 years now, although to be sure, we have had our moments of intense conflict, differences of opinion on issues of priority and choice of lifestyle...
My father and I have for the most part made our peace although, to be sure, there may still be things we disagree on. In some ways he reminds me of Kant -- some of his 'anal retentiveness' and orthodox ways -- but my dad at 78 has the most amazing woman to spend his time with each and every day and night, i.e, my mother, which unless I am sadly and totally wrong, Kant could never say...You look up 'Kant' on the internet and it is hard to find more than a few words on his personal life, presumably because, aside from the conversations he had with his friends, he essentially had no personal life, it was all about his scholarship...there were no soap operas, no huge drama, in this man's life...
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The critical turn
At the age of 46, Kant was an established scholar and an increasingly influential philosopher. Much was expected of him. In response to a letter from his student, Markus Herz, Kant came to recognize that in the Inaugural Dissertation, he had failed to account for the relation and connection between our sensible and intellectual faculties. He also credited David Hume with awakening him from "dogmatic slumber" (circa 1770). Kant would not publish another work in philosophy for the next eleven years.
Kant spent his silent decade working on a solution to the problems posed. Though fond of company and conversation with others, Kant isolated himself, despite friends' attempts to bring him out of his isolation. In 1778, in response to one of these offers by a former pupil, Kant wrote "Any change makes me apprehensive, even if it offers the greatest promise of improving my condition, and I am persuaded by this natural instinct of mine that I must take heed if I wish that the threads which the Fates spin so thin and weak in my case to be spun to any length. My great thanks, to my well-wishers and friends, who think so kindly of me as to undertake my welfare, but at the same time a most humble request to protect me in my current condition from any disturbance." [3]
When Kant emerged from his silence in 1781, the result was the Critique of Pure Reason. Although now uniformly recognized as one of the greatest works in the history of philosophy, this Critique was largely ignored upon its initial publication. The book was long, over 800 pages in the original German edition, and written in a dry, scholastic style. It received few reviews, and these failed to recognize the Critique's revolutionary nature. Its density made it, as Johann Gottfried Herder put it in a letter to Johann Georg Hamann, a "tough nut to crack", obscured by "...all this heavy gossamer."[4] This is in stark contrast, however, with the praise Kant received for earlier works such as the aforementioned "Prize Essay" and other shorter works that precede the first Critique. These well-received and readable tracts include one on the earthquake in Lisbon which was so popular that it was sold by the page.[5]
My most appreciative thanks to Wikipedia for this and many other internet outtakes and references...
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I will probably never read The Critique of Pure Reason although I have several times held it in my hand at Chapters, and one day I may buyd it for my personal library so that I at least have access to it. That being said, I find it tough enough to read through an 'Introduction to Kant', and all else being equal, I would sooner read Nietzsche or just about any other philosopher I come upon. I recognize Kant's greatness, admire his extreme dedication and self-discipline, would like much more of it oftentimes for myself, but in the end, I would sooner be working on my fantasy basketball or baseball team, or spending time with my girlfriend, or just doing what spontaneously seems most appealing to me than spending any significant length of time reading Kant...or for that matter doing anything out of 'self-discipline and obligation' rather than heart felt interest. Obviously, that may have something to do with where I am today and where I am not. A huge amount of self-discipline and sacrifice is probably a very good reason why Kant has his very esteemed place in philosophical history, and unless I come on with a strong late flourish and rush of brilliance -- not to mention again the dreaded word 'self-discipline' -- will retain my rank as an 'amateur philosopher'. But then again, I think I like my own lifestyle better than I like Kant's. The point here is: life is all about choices and priorities -- and degree of focus and self-discipline relative to seriously going after and achieving one's most important life desires and goals. And somehow I think this essay which came partly out of nowhere after about a month or two of non-writing, was and is about psyching myself up, i.e., motivating myself, towards writing a series of essays on epistemology which takes us at least partly into Kant's territory or what I will call 'Kant's Room'. Meet me there if you are interested in reading, writing, and debating, on the subject of epistemology. I will try my best to make a usually 'dry' subject area as interesting and entertaining as possible.
db, originally written April 7, 2007, modified and updated May 24th, 2007.
http://hegelshotel-dgbn-epistemology.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Friday, May 18, 2007
On The Issue of Conceptual Property, Conceptual Narcissism, Conceptual Respect, and Conceptual Integrating
I offer an updated version of this 2007 essay. I am looking at this essay now in January, 2011, almost 4 years later, and wish to go back and make some editiorial adjustments and clarifications...dgb, Jan. 29th, 2011.
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Good day! My name is David Bain. I am 52 years old (55 years old now -- ouch!). I have an Honours B.A. in Psychology with an academic and experiential background in both Gestalt Therapy and Adlerian Psychology, as well as being self-taught in Psychoanalysis and the history of Western Philosophy and Clinical Psychology. (added, Jan. 2011).
I am in the process of writing a network of 26 blogsites (that has extended to 50 blogsites now, added Jan. 2011) with a varying number of essays in each blogsite.
My goals are at least twofold:
1. To teach the history and evolution of Western Dialectic Philosophy-Psychology with my own editorial comments along the way.
2. To integrate ALL major schools of philosophy and psychology in such a way that they all have a role to play, and a 'room' and/or 'floor' to call their own -- in 'Hegel's Hotel'. (added Jan. 2011.)
The work as a whole is called: 'Hegel's Hotel: Where Philosophers and Psychologists Meet' (added Jan. 2011) and each blogsite is referred to as a 'floor' in Hegel's Hotel.
Within the confines of these 26 (50, Jan. 2011) different blogsites or floors of Hegel's Hotel, I will be writing on a wide assortment of different topics pertaining to philosophy, psychology, politics, religion, and more...
Obviously, I don't have enough time in my life to go hugely in depth into each and everyone of these areas. However, within each realm, I will bring my unique, post-Hegelian, integrative approach to what I want to say -- and, in the process, connect each essay, each blogsite, to my overall thesis which is that 'integrative dialectical evolution' is a process that can be taught and applied to all areas of human culture, living, and activity in a way that is often if not usually superior to an 'adversarial form of righteous-either/or philosophy and lifestyle'.
'Either/or' and 'right and wrong' belong to 'Aristolean Logic' which is what we are indoctrinated with in our schools, parliamentary debates, courts, newspapers, and places of business. (added Jan. 2011).
A is A, and B is B, and never the two should meet. They are mutually exclusive -- separated by their mutually exclusive, distinctive properties. (added Jan. 2011).
In contrast, 'Hegelian Dialectic Logic' tends to be more dialectically engaging, dynamic, process oriented, looking at how A and B interact with each other, and how A influences B while, at the same time, B influences A. They both mutually influence each other and affect each other's history and evolution. This is the logic that G.W. Hegel laid down in his revolutionary philosophical treatise, 'The Phenomemonology of Spirit', 1807, at least partly as a replacement for Aristotlean Logic (although Aristotlean Logic still has its place in certain contexts where there is no evidence of mutual dialectic influence and/or accountability). (added Jan. 2011)
I am looking to reach both introductory and advanced academic and/or professional audiences that are interested in the study of philosophy and/or psychology. (added Jan. 2011)
There is a sense in which I could very easily be called a 'Gestalt philosopher' in that what I am trying to do is to introduce a type of 'dialectic hot seat' to most of the essays I write here -- with an 'integration' or 'synthesis' between 2 or more competing perspectives, theories, concepts, paradigms, etc.
For a period of 12 years -- from 1979 to 1991 with 'gaps of non-involvement', I was, at different times during this overall period, very intensely and intimately tied up to what I was learning at the Gestalt Institute in Toronto.
I had good contacts with a lot of friends I met there, and had/have a lot of respect for the teachings of Gestalt therapists Jorge Rosner (deceased), Joanne Greenham (the present leader of The Gestalt Institute of Toronto), and other leaders and workshop participants.
Now here I am writing a 'philosophical treatise and forum'
that both draws upon the essence of Gestalt Theory, Therapy, and Philosophy as well as extending Gestalt Therapy's conceptual, theoretical, and therapeutic boundaries both back into history as well as into a 'more conceptually integrative future'. (added Jan, 2011)
This is my broader philosophical and psychological project which I am not sure that The Gestalt Institute shares with me. In a sense, there is a paradox or dichotomy between the 'structure of Gestalt Therapy' that maintains and holds onto dearly certain philosophical and theoretical boundaries, vs. the 'dialectic, dynamic process' of Gestalt Therapy that aims to 'break through many existing Aristotlean either/or boundaries' in order to reach a more 'harmonious, unified, homeostatically balanced integrative existential state'. In this sense, there is an inherent contradiction between the 'structure' and the 'process' of Gestalt Therapy. Because the dialectic dynamics of Gestalt Therapy -- if applied to Gestalt Therapy itself -- would inevitably 'change' the theoretical, therapeutic, and/or philosophical boundaries of Gestalt Therapy. And that, to my knowledge, hasn't happened in all the years that I was there -- and since I left in 1991. (added Jan. 2011)
So, yes there is indeed a heavy Gestalt influence in most of the essays that I have written in Hegel's Hotel.
However, there are many other influences as well: Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Adler, Korzybski, Hawakawa, Erich Fromm, Nathaniel Branden, Ayn Rand, Schopenhauer, Foucault, Derrida, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Jefferson, Diderot, Montasquieu, Kant, Fichte, Locke, Spinoza, the Han Philosophers, Heraclitus, Anaxamander...
So this is not all about Gestalt Therapy being applied to the broader domain of Hegel's Hotel philosophy-psychology.
And yet in a partial sense -- a good size partial sense -- it is. It is not entirely by accident that many of my philosophical influences are the same ones who influenced Perls and the evolution of Gestalt Therapy -- for example, Freud, Jung, Korzybski, Hegel, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Heraclitus...
It was through studying Gestalt Therapy that I first became seriously connected to Hegel's philosophical work -- and it was this connection, this bridge if you will, that led me backwards from the study of psychology into the study of philosophy. I largely left behind my study of psychology in 1991, and have been studying philosophy -- through books and the internet -- from 1991 to 2007, still continuing. (That is not exactly true in that I did become involved in the Freud-Masson Seduction Theory Controversy, and lately, (2010-11), I have started to write a whole host of new psychology essays that are designed to lay out the boundaries of what I am currently calling, 'Gap-DGB Quantum-Integrative Psychoanalysis'.
There is a sense in which almost everything I have developed in this network of blogsites, in each essay, I learned either from watching or experiencing the 'hotseat' in Gestalt Therapy.
But the hotseat was a therapeutic invention by Perls that combined the Hegelian dialectic (thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis) with Nietzschean existential urgency and Kierkgaardian immediacy.
The purpose of the hotseat and empty chair technique -- one chair with the therapeutic client sitting in it, the other seat facing him or her, empty -- was to help a person 'to gain better contact with a person who wasn't present, or to gain better contact with a part of the client's own personality (i.e., usually between a more dominant side of the personality -- what Jung called the 'personna') -- and an opposing, more suppressed and neglected side (what Jung called 'The Shadow'. (added Jan, 2011).
Through this process, a person, 'dialectically alienated' from a particular part of his or herself, could work hard in the hotseat with openess, honesty, and immediacy to become more 'dialectically integrated' through the therapeutic synthesis of opposing parts in his or her personality. This is the therapeutic purpose of The Gestalt Hotseat.
Hegel's Hotel (Gap-DGB) philosophy-psychology may not generally include the raw immediacy of hot seat work but it does contain the process of 'dialectical opposition', 'dialectical contact', 'dialectical negotiation', and 'dialectical integration'.
In Gap-DGB philosophy-psychology, I may at this point be stepping away from the most dramatic existential dynamics of the human psche in its rawest immediacy, as seen through hot seat and empty chair work.
However, I am expanding this process to each and every part of human culture and activity -- and then we will come back and connect what we have learned from this philosophical adventure into such areas as narcissism, epistemology, ethics, business and economics, politics, law, science and medicine, spirituality and religion -- to psychology again.
What goes around comes around. What is projected (viewed as if it is a 'movie' out there) into any and/or every aspect of our social lives, comes from within our own personality, our own psyche, as an 'internal movies' before it becomes an 'external movie'.
The world -- and particularly man's culture both collectively and privately -- is very much a reflection of a man's character, and in both a good and a bad sense, at the same time, his or her personal narcissism.
Personal and collective narcissism very much dominates the human psyche. Which is not to say that there isn't an important place and a need for the balance and equillibrium of the opposite of human narcissism which includes such things as: altruism, generosity, caring, love, social sensitivity, empathy, helping one's friends and neighbours, caring about the state of the environment, and the like.
There is an important place for a good balance of both narcissism and altruism in man's psyche, in the projections of his or her psyche into culture, and in the structure and process of any human philosophy, psychology, politics, and the rest.
I watch politicians fight with each other in parliament, treat each other disrespectfully, as each and everyone of them chases after a narcissistic, either/or, right or wrong, ideology -- as if theirs was the only 'right' ideology on the face of the earth.
Sometimes the 'game' they seem to be playing, the 'show' they seem to be putting on, reminds me of something I might see on television wrestling. But if it is not all 'game' and 'show' and politicians actually believe that they are being 'righteously real', then someone needs to show these politicians how to better work with each other, not against each other.
The dialectic can be used righteously, manipulatively and maliciously -- 'narcissisticly' is the word I will generally use (see my essays on narcissism) -- or it can be used judiciously and integratively, utilizing a combination of reason, compassion, common sense, empathy, humanism, ethics, a balance of personal assertiveness (and in this regard narcissism in a good sense to the extent that it is kept in line by giving room for the rights and wishes of others) with social altruism.
The same goes for corporations vs. unions or non-union employees, natural health medicine vs. standard, orthodox Western medicine, sports owners vs. athletes taking into account the fans, indeed, any type of human conflict where people have a choice between acting reasonably with each other vs. going off ballistically with each other because they can't see past their own personal narcissism.
As for the issue of my 'classification' as a philosopher, and whether I can or should be called a 'Gestalt philosopher' -- someone who has learned from Gestalt Therapy and extrapolated on these lessons into the realm of philosophy, politics, medicine, religion, art, and the like -- well that is a dialect in its own right between me and members of The Gestalt Institute who I haven't really talked to since 1991. The prodigal son may one day return back to some of his main roots and foundations. Or not.
In the meantime, a lot of this 'labelling' and 'conceptualization' and 'classification' and 'boundary' business depends on where you want to draw the line, and based on what reason. Property, money, narcissism, a personal belief in right and wrong -- or perhaps alternatively, an integrative, always expanding, vision of the enlightenment and evolution of mankind.
Gestalt Therapy has its own ideational space and boundaries which can be differentiated from Psychoanalysis or Jungian Psychology or Adlerian Therapy or Rational-Emotive Therapy or Behaviorism or any of a hundred different schools of psychology and psychotherapy.
Again, I make the distinction between 'either/or' evolution vs. 'integrative evolution'. When a man and woman create a baby, there is a mixture of 'either/or' evolution and 'integrative evolution' going on here.
The child may have the ears of the father, the nose of the mother. The child may look exactly like the mother or the father. This is 'either/or' evolution. Perhaps the father's genes dominate, or the mother's genes dominate and the child almost looks like a clone of the parent with the dominant genes.
Or the child can be seen to have a mixture of both parents genes and here we can see the process of 'integrative evolution'. The concept of 'biological diversity' is very much tied up to what I am calling here integrative evolution.
Now let us leave the world of biology and enter the world of philosophy, psychology, conceptuology, and/or ideology. The same two evolutionary processes exist with sometimes either/or evolution dominating, other times integrative evolution dominating.
Indeed, the whole ideational evolution process becomes more complicated -- and unfortunately often stagnated into non-evolution -- when you introduce such factors as: capitalism, money, property, corporations, patencies, people's livlihoods, etc...
With the additions of such factors, people not only get narcissistic about their money and their property and their choices of what they want to do -- they also get narcissistic about their ideas. Somewhere back in the 1980s or 90s, I called this phenomenon 'conceptual narcissism'.
Now here is the point: often conceptual evolution and conceptual narcissism collide and conflict with each other, do battle with each other, and become a dialectic in its own particular right, either good or bad, or both. Metaphorically speaking, one might ask the question: 'Which ideational gene is going to dominate? -- the 'narcissitic-either/or gene' or the 'integrative-evolution' gene?
Example. In the 1970s Jeffrey Masson was a fast-rising psychoanalyst and writer. He worked his way up the steep ranks of the many different Psychoanalytic Institutes in both North America and Europe. He got right up to the top -- to Anna Freud -- and was given free access to the Freud Archives. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Masson got into the Freud Archives and he didn't like what he was reading. The issue was Freud's abandonment of his 'traumacy and seduction theory' around 1896-1897. In its place, Freud developed his (in)famous inter-related theories of distorted childhood memories, childhood sexuality and the Oedipal Complex.
Masson basically came to the conclusion that these latter three theories were garbage -- and that worse than that -- they tended to perpetuate female childhood sexual assault and traumacy by 'non-legitimizing' them. That is, according to post-1900 Classical Psychoanalytic and Oedipal Theory, a woman's 'memory' of a childhood sexual assault and/or seduction would be taught to psychoanalysts to be generally and stereotpically 're-interpreted' as a 'childhood fantasy', not a real memory, due to the young girl's and/or later teenage girl's standard romantic and sexual infatuation with her father. Thus, very few female childhood sexual assaults were being interpreted as such. In Masson's words, they were basically being 'clinically suppressed'. No more childhood sexual assaults in Psychoanalysis because most, if not all, of them were being re-interpreted by psychoanalysts everywhere as 'distorted memories based on underlying female childhood sexuality fantasies'.
Masson broke this scandal open, first in the New York Times in the late 1970s, then in his hugely controversial book, 'The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory'. (1984, 1985, 1992 by Jeffrey Masson)
Not unexpectedly, Masson's book didn't go over very well at all with the many different Psychoanalytic Institutes. He was evicted from some and resigned from others. And now he is living in New Zealand and writing books about emotions in animals. No real resolution to the controversy. Psychoanalysts defended themselves saying that they had the freedom to interpret 'childhood assaults' if they believed one happened. Aside from that, the conflict seems to have bascially gone underground again -- I cannot say for sure because I have not followed the various evolutions and/or non-evolutions of various Psychoanalytic schools of thought. I think many of them have discarded classical Oedipal theory and moved on to different schools of Object Relations and Self Theory. Some -- I do not know what percentage -- have remained loyal to Freud's original Classical/Oedipal theory. If you are a woman who knows that you were sexually assaulted as a child or young teenager, then I would probalby be thinking twice about engaging in Classical Psychoanalysis. There is definitely, in my mind, some element of truth in Masson's book -- if not a lot of truth. The many Psychoanalytic Institutes should not have pushed Masson's book and thoughts aside so quickly and rudely. As embarrasing as it might have been, they should have probably ideally used it as a starting point for the beginning of their own 'private organizational Psychonalysis'. Maybe this has already partly happened. Or maybe Classical Psychoanalysis is going the way of the dinosaur as newer and more flexible brands of Object Relations and Self Theories of Psychoanalysis slowly phase it out. Once again I believe in the value of the dialectic and in smart theorists and therapists using the dialectic to full functional advantage. From my perspective -- and I am far from the first person to say this -- it seems that Classical Psychoanalysis if it wants to stay alive and to have any kind of credibility and trust with the general public, especially women, needs to 'feminize' itself and to discard all ideas and practices that discriminate against women in order to bring it into the 21st century. Classical Psychoanalysis cannot be teaching its student psychoanalysts that memories are to be viewed as 'distortions' and as 'symbolic fantasies', particularly relevent to women who come into clinical therapy with memories of childhood sexual assaults. Therapy cannot be dictated by theoretical biases because life can never be comparmentalized, and life will never always follow one set of theoretical biases. But all else being equal, a therapist has got to at least tentatively accept a client's memories as being real until there is strong and overuling evidence to suggest otherwise. A therapist may never know the 'objective truth' -- to be sure a client's thoughts, feelings, and memories are filled with their own subjective biases -- which is why it may be very dangerous on a client's memories alone to all of a sudden start accusing a particular parent, sibling, relative, or family friend, and dragging him into a court of law. There has got to be strong supporting evidence and for the most part I believe that that is outside the therapist's realm of responsibility. The therapist's responsibility is to help the client work through his or her personal issues and get better. Therapeutic epistemology is not necessarily legal truth. Indeed, the distortion of the client's private epistemology may be one of the main reasons why the client is in therapy (although, to be sure, the client is not likely to agree). This does not mean that you automatically assume that the client is wrong or that you automatically substitute a 'pre-canned theory' into the place of the client's verbalizations. I don't mean to come across as a seasoned therapist here but to me it means that you 'go with the flow', at least until you realize that your client's flow is going to take you over Niagara Falls. I think Freud might have had this experience once or twice, if not more often. There was a reason Freud mainly abandoned his traumacy-seduction theory and I think that his later perception of the 'truth-value' of some or all of his clients confessions probably had a lot to do with it. I do not necessarily buy into any or all of Masson's proposed 'cover-up' and 'Freud's lack of integrity' theories. However, you can never count out the influence of human narcissism -- not with Freud or anybody. Freud's scientific and medical stability and his ability to make an income for his family might have both been seriously negatively affected by his bringing the problem of 'childhood incest' into the open. If I see my boss fire a driver, two drivers, ten drivers, and I don't like the reasons that he is firing them, I have a choice -- and so do the other employees I work with who are seeing the same thing. I can tell him that I don't like what he did, or I can listen to him rant, nod my head, and keep my mouth shut. In other words, my dominant reaction was not to 'rock the boat' in order to not put my own job into jeopardy. Has my integrity been compromised? Probably. However, without trying to justify or rationalize this, I imagine that there are probably thousands of people who go to work each day, see what they don't like, see what they believe is ethically wrong -- and do or say nothing. The 'silent majority'. This is how 'corporate narcissism' grows, corrupts, and poisons people's outlook in the work field. To be sure, it is very possible that Freud was not immune to 'folding his cards' under this type of professional and economic pressure. After Freud folded his traumacy-seduction cards -- if that is what he did, or alternatively believed that he was scientifically and clinically right in doing so -- then it would, to my limited knowledge, be more than 60 years before the issue of 'childhood incest' would rise again to public awareness as feminism began to rise in the 1960s. From a woman's standpoint, it is too bad that Freud did not stick to his pre-1897 observations, generalizations, and conclusions. But sometimes human evolution takes a step -- or more -- backwards.
Another example. What would happen if a psychoanalyst ever decided to abandon his or her use of the 'therapeutic couch' and borrow instead the 'hotseat' from Gestalt Therapy? Would this psychoanalyst still be called a psychoanalyst? Probably not by his psychoanalytic peers and superiors. Would he or she more appropriately be called a 'Gestalt Psychoanalyst'? Perls went this direction -- trained originally I believe in Kleinian Psychoanalysis or Object Relations (I will have to check this.) -- until he decided at some point to 'dump' the couch and develop the hotseat. Soon he was called just a Gestalt Therapist.
Integrative evolutions have happed often enough in the psychotherapy business, as much as they are often discouraged, even blacklisted and scandalized. Some theorists and therapists have integrated Adlerian Psychology and Psychoanalysis. Some theorists and therapists have integrated various forms of Cognitive Therapy with Gestalt Therapy. Perls partly did this himself. He liked Korysbski and General Semantics.
Back in the 1980s, I was integrating Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Psychoanalysis -- which is how I got 'GAP Psychology. Cognitive Therapy, humanistic-existentialism, and Jungian psychology also eventually had an impact on my thinking.
Conceptualizations, classifications, and labels can be stretched or re-tightened according to our wishes and agenda. It could be argued that Freud was a Gestalt Therapist before he was a Psychoanalyst -- much of Freud's early work in the 1990s on traumacy theory could easily be viewed as the real foundation of Gestalt Therapy (before Freud decided to go a different theoretical direction).
Anaxamander and Heraclitus can be viewed as the first two 'dialectical theorists' in Western philosophy and the precursors of everyone from Kant to Fichte to Hegel to Marx to Nietzsche to Freud to Jung to Perls. Anaxamander can also be called the first 'evolutionist' -- some 2000 years plus before Hegel or Darwin.
What is the moral of everything that is being said in this essay. How about this? When you are all ready to get your shorts tied tightly in a knot and turn purple with rage over protecting an idea, a concept, a theory, a philosophy, a paradigm, an ideology, a religous belief, ask yourself this: Can integrative evolution take me to a better place that is better for me and better for the people around me? And if so, then why am I holding on so tightly, so emotionaly, to an idea that may be a better idea once it is blended with other different and maybe even opposing ideas. Every seen a parent and a child fighting over 'curfew'? I have seen or heard indirectly of some of the worst fights you could possibly imagine. 15 year old girls evicted from their homes. Come on, what's with this? Rage is probably the best personal indicator -- to be sure often but not always -- that it may be time to think 'negotiate, compromise, integrate'; not 'I am right, you are wrong'.
Cheers.
db, May 20th, 2007, partly upgrade Jan. 29th, 2011.
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Good day! My name is David Bain. I am 52 years old (55 years old now -- ouch!). I have an Honours B.A. in Psychology with an academic and experiential background in both Gestalt Therapy and Adlerian Psychology, as well as being self-taught in Psychoanalysis and the history of Western Philosophy and Clinical Psychology. (added, Jan. 2011).
I am in the process of writing a network of 26 blogsites (that has extended to 50 blogsites now, added Jan. 2011) with a varying number of essays in each blogsite.
My goals are at least twofold:
1. To teach the history and evolution of Western Dialectic Philosophy-Psychology with my own editorial comments along the way.
2. To integrate ALL major schools of philosophy and psychology in such a way that they all have a role to play, and a 'room' and/or 'floor' to call their own -- in 'Hegel's Hotel'. (added Jan. 2011.)
The work as a whole is called: 'Hegel's Hotel: Where Philosophers and Psychologists Meet' (added Jan. 2011) and each blogsite is referred to as a 'floor' in Hegel's Hotel.
Within the confines of these 26 (50, Jan. 2011) different blogsites or floors of Hegel's Hotel, I will be writing on a wide assortment of different topics pertaining to philosophy, psychology, politics, religion, and more...
Obviously, I don't have enough time in my life to go hugely in depth into each and everyone of these areas. However, within each realm, I will bring my unique, post-Hegelian, integrative approach to what I want to say -- and, in the process, connect each essay, each blogsite, to my overall thesis which is that 'integrative dialectical evolution' is a process that can be taught and applied to all areas of human culture, living, and activity in a way that is often if not usually superior to an 'adversarial form of righteous-either/or philosophy and lifestyle'.
'Either/or' and 'right and wrong' belong to 'Aristolean Logic' which is what we are indoctrinated with in our schools, parliamentary debates, courts, newspapers, and places of business. (added Jan. 2011).
A is A, and B is B, and never the two should meet. They are mutually exclusive -- separated by their mutually exclusive, distinctive properties. (added Jan. 2011).
In contrast, 'Hegelian Dialectic Logic' tends to be more dialectically engaging, dynamic, process oriented, looking at how A and B interact with each other, and how A influences B while, at the same time, B influences A. They both mutually influence each other and affect each other's history and evolution. This is the logic that G.W. Hegel laid down in his revolutionary philosophical treatise, 'The Phenomemonology of Spirit', 1807, at least partly as a replacement for Aristotlean Logic (although Aristotlean Logic still has its place in certain contexts where there is no evidence of mutual dialectic influence and/or accountability). (added Jan. 2011)
I am looking to reach both introductory and advanced academic and/or professional audiences that are interested in the study of philosophy and/or psychology. (added Jan. 2011)
There is a sense in which I could very easily be called a 'Gestalt philosopher' in that what I am trying to do is to introduce a type of 'dialectic hot seat' to most of the essays I write here -- with an 'integration' or 'synthesis' between 2 or more competing perspectives, theories, concepts, paradigms, etc.
For a period of 12 years -- from 1979 to 1991 with 'gaps of non-involvement', I was, at different times during this overall period, very intensely and intimately tied up to what I was learning at the Gestalt Institute in Toronto.
I had good contacts with a lot of friends I met there, and had/have a lot of respect for the teachings of Gestalt therapists Jorge Rosner (deceased), Joanne Greenham (the present leader of The Gestalt Institute of Toronto), and other leaders and workshop participants.
Now here I am writing a 'philosophical treatise and forum'
that both draws upon the essence of Gestalt Theory, Therapy, and Philosophy as well as extending Gestalt Therapy's conceptual, theoretical, and therapeutic boundaries both back into history as well as into a 'more conceptually integrative future'. (added Jan, 2011)
This is my broader philosophical and psychological project which I am not sure that The Gestalt Institute shares with me. In a sense, there is a paradox or dichotomy between the 'structure of Gestalt Therapy' that maintains and holds onto dearly certain philosophical and theoretical boundaries, vs. the 'dialectic, dynamic process' of Gestalt Therapy that aims to 'break through many existing Aristotlean either/or boundaries' in order to reach a more 'harmonious, unified, homeostatically balanced integrative existential state'. In this sense, there is an inherent contradiction between the 'structure' and the 'process' of Gestalt Therapy. Because the dialectic dynamics of Gestalt Therapy -- if applied to Gestalt Therapy itself -- would inevitably 'change' the theoretical, therapeutic, and/or philosophical boundaries of Gestalt Therapy. And that, to my knowledge, hasn't happened in all the years that I was there -- and since I left in 1991. (added Jan. 2011)
So, yes there is indeed a heavy Gestalt influence in most of the essays that I have written in Hegel's Hotel.
However, there are many other influences as well: Hegel, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Adler, Korzybski, Hawakawa, Erich Fromm, Nathaniel Branden, Ayn Rand, Schopenhauer, Foucault, Derrida, Sartre, Kierkegaard, Jefferson, Diderot, Montasquieu, Kant, Fichte, Locke, Spinoza, the Han Philosophers, Heraclitus, Anaxamander...
So this is not all about Gestalt Therapy being applied to the broader domain of Hegel's Hotel philosophy-psychology.
And yet in a partial sense -- a good size partial sense -- it is. It is not entirely by accident that many of my philosophical influences are the same ones who influenced Perls and the evolution of Gestalt Therapy -- for example, Freud, Jung, Korzybski, Hegel, Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Heraclitus...
It was through studying Gestalt Therapy that I first became seriously connected to Hegel's philosophical work -- and it was this connection, this bridge if you will, that led me backwards from the study of psychology into the study of philosophy. I largely left behind my study of psychology in 1991, and have been studying philosophy -- through books and the internet -- from 1991 to 2007, still continuing. (That is not exactly true in that I did become involved in the Freud-Masson Seduction Theory Controversy, and lately, (2010-11), I have started to write a whole host of new psychology essays that are designed to lay out the boundaries of what I am currently calling, 'Gap-DGB Quantum-Integrative Psychoanalysis'.
There is a sense in which almost everything I have developed in this network of blogsites, in each essay, I learned either from watching or experiencing the 'hotseat' in Gestalt Therapy.
But the hotseat was a therapeutic invention by Perls that combined the Hegelian dialectic (thesis, anti-thesis, and synthesis) with Nietzschean existential urgency and Kierkgaardian immediacy.
The purpose of the hotseat and empty chair technique -- one chair with the therapeutic client sitting in it, the other seat facing him or her, empty -- was to help a person 'to gain better contact with a person who wasn't present, or to gain better contact with a part of the client's own personality (i.e., usually between a more dominant side of the personality -- what Jung called the 'personna') -- and an opposing, more suppressed and neglected side (what Jung called 'The Shadow'. (added Jan, 2011).
Through this process, a person, 'dialectically alienated' from a particular part of his or herself, could work hard in the hotseat with openess, honesty, and immediacy to become more 'dialectically integrated' through the therapeutic synthesis of opposing parts in his or her personality. This is the therapeutic purpose of The Gestalt Hotseat.
Hegel's Hotel (Gap-DGB) philosophy-psychology may not generally include the raw immediacy of hot seat work but it does contain the process of 'dialectical opposition', 'dialectical contact', 'dialectical negotiation', and 'dialectical integration'.
In Gap-DGB philosophy-psychology, I may at this point be stepping away from the most dramatic existential dynamics of the human psche in its rawest immediacy, as seen through hot seat and empty chair work.
However, I am expanding this process to each and every part of human culture and activity -- and then we will come back and connect what we have learned from this philosophical adventure into such areas as narcissism, epistemology, ethics, business and economics, politics, law, science and medicine, spirituality and religion -- to psychology again.
What goes around comes around. What is projected (viewed as if it is a 'movie' out there) into any and/or every aspect of our social lives, comes from within our own personality, our own psyche, as an 'internal movies' before it becomes an 'external movie'.
The world -- and particularly man's culture both collectively and privately -- is very much a reflection of a man's character, and in both a good and a bad sense, at the same time, his or her personal narcissism.
Personal and collective narcissism very much dominates the human psyche. Which is not to say that there isn't an important place and a need for the balance and equillibrium of the opposite of human narcissism which includes such things as: altruism, generosity, caring, love, social sensitivity, empathy, helping one's friends and neighbours, caring about the state of the environment, and the like.
There is an important place for a good balance of both narcissism and altruism in man's psyche, in the projections of his or her psyche into culture, and in the structure and process of any human philosophy, psychology, politics, and the rest.
I watch politicians fight with each other in parliament, treat each other disrespectfully, as each and everyone of them chases after a narcissistic, either/or, right or wrong, ideology -- as if theirs was the only 'right' ideology on the face of the earth.
Sometimes the 'game' they seem to be playing, the 'show' they seem to be putting on, reminds me of something I might see on television wrestling. But if it is not all 'game' and 'show' and politicians actually believe that they are being 'righteously real', then someone needs to show these politicians how to better work with each other, not against each other.
The dialectic can be used righteously, manipulatively and maliciously -- 'narcissisticly' is the word I will generally use (see my essays on narcissism) -- or it can be used judiciously and integratively, utilizing a combination of reason, compassion, common sense, empathy, humanism, ethics, a balance of personal assertiveness (and in this regard narcissism in a good sense to the extent that it is kept in line by giving room for the rights and wishes of others) with social altruism.
The same goes for corporations vs. unions or non-union employees, natural health medicine vs. standard, orthodox Western medicine, sports owners vs. athletes taking into account the fans, indeed, any type of human conflict where people have a choice between acting reasonably with each other vs. going off ballistically with each other because they can't see past their own personal narcissism.
As for the issue of my 'classification' as a philosopher, and whether I can or should be called a 'Gestalt philosopher' -- someone who has learned from Gestalt Therapy and extrapolated on these lessons into the realm of philosophy, politics, medicine, religion, art, and the like -- well that is a dialect in its own right between me and members of The Gestalt Institute who I haven't really talked to since 1991. The prodigal son may one day return back to some of his main roots and foundations. Or not.
In the meantime, a lot of this 'labelling' and 'conceptualization' and 'classification' and 'boundary' business depends on where you want to draw the line, and based on what reason. Property, money, narcissism, a personal belief in right and wrong -- or perhaps alternatively, an integrative, always expanding, vision of the enlightenment and evolution of mankind.
Gestalt Therapy has its own ideational space and boundaries which can be differentiated from Psychoanalysis or Jungian Psychology or Adlerian Therapy or Rational-Emotive Therapy or Behaviorism or any of a hundred different schools of psychology and psychotherapy.
Again, I make the distinction between 'either/or' evolution vs. 'integrative evolution'. When a man and woman create a baby, there is a mixture of 'either/or' evolution and 'integrative evolution' going on here.
The child may have the ears of the father, the nose of the mother. The child may look exactly like the mother or the father. This is 'either/or' evolution. Perhaps the father's genes dominate, or the mother's genes dominate and the child almost looks like a clone of the parent with the dominant genes.
Or the child can be seen to have a mixture of both parents genes and here we can see the process of 'integrative evolution'. The concept of 'biological diversity' is very much tied up to what I am calling here integrative evolution.
Now let us leave the world of biology and enter the world of philosophy, psychology, conceptuology, and/or ideology. The same two evolutionary processes exist with sometimes either/or evolution dominating, other times integrative evolution dominating.
Indeed, the whole ideational evolution process becomes more complicated -- and unfortunately often stagnated into non-evolution -- when you introduce such factors as: capitalism, money, property, corporations, patencies, people's livlihoods, etc...
With the additions of such factors, people not only get narcissistic about their money and their property and their choices of what they want to do -- they also get narcissistic about their ideas. Somewhere back in the 1980s or 90s, I called this phenomenon 'conceptual narcissism'.
Now here is the point: often conceptual evolution and conceptual narcissism collide and conflict with each other, do battle with each other, and become a dialectic in its own particular right, either good or bad, or both. Metaphorically speaking, one might ask the question: 'Which ideational gene is going to dominate? -- the 'narcissitic-either/or gene' or the 'integrative-evolution' gene?
Example. In the 1970s Jeffrey Masson was a fast-rising psychoanalyst and writer. He worked his way up the steep ranks of the many different Psychoanalytic Institutes in both North America and Europe. He got right up to the top -- to Anna Freud -- and was given free access to the Freud Archives. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Masson got into the Freud Archives and he didn't like what he was reading. The issue was Freud's abandonment of his 'traumacy and seduction theory' around 1896-1897. In its place, Freud developed his (in)famous inter-related theories of distorted childhood memories, childhood sexuality and the Oedipal Complex.
Masson basically came to the conclusion that these latter three theories were garbage -- and that worse than that -- they tended to perpetuate female childhood sexual assault and traumacy by 'non-legitimizing' them. That is, according to post-1900 Classical Psychoanalytic and Oedipal Theory, a woman's 'memory' of a childhood sexual assault and/or seduction would be taught to psychoanalysts to be generally and stereotpically 're-interpreted' as a 'childhood fantasy', not a real memory, due to the young girl's and/or later teenage girl's standard romantic and sexual infatuation with her father. Thus, very few female childhood sexual assaults were being interpreted as such. In Masson's words, they were basically being 'clinically suppressed'. No more childhood sexual assaults in Psychoanalysis because most, if not all, of them were being re-interpreted by psychoanalysts everywhere as 'distorted memories based on underlying female childhood sexuality fantasies'.
Masson broke this scandal open, first in the New York Times in the late 1970s, then in his hugely controversial book, 'The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of the Seduction Theory'. (1984, 1985, 1992 by Jeffrey Masson)
Not unexpectedly, Masson's book didn't go over very well at all with the many different Psychoanalytic Institutes. He was evicted from some and resigned from others. And now he is living in New Zealand and writing books about emotions in animals. No real resolution to the controversy. Psychoanalysts defended themselves saying that they had the freedom to interpret 'childhood assaults' if they believed one happened. Aside from that, the conflict seems to have bascially gone underground again -- I cannot say for sure because I have not followed the various evolutions and/or non-evolutions of various Psychoanalytic schools of thought. I think many of them have discarded classical Oedipal theory and moved on to different schools of Object Relations and Self Theory. Some -- I do not know what percentage -- have remained loyal to Freud's original Classical/Oedipal theory. If you are a woman who knows that you were sexually assaulted as a child or young teenager, then I would probalby be thinking twice about engaging in Classical Psychoanalysis. There is definitely, in my mind, some element of truth in Masson's book -- if not a lot of truth. The many Psychoanalytic Institutes should not have pushed Masson's book and thoughts aside so quickly and rudely. As embarrasing as it might have been, they should have probably ideally used it as a starting point for the beginning of their own 'private organizational Psychonalysis'. Maybe this has already partly happened. Or maybe Classical Psychoanalysis is going the way of the dinosaur as newer and more flexible brands of Object Relations and Self Theories of Psychoanalysis slowly phase it out. Once again I believe in the value of the dialectic and in smart theorists and therapists using the dialectic to full functional advantage. From my perspective -- and I am far from the first person to say this -- it seems that Classical Psychoanalysis if it wants to stay alive and to have any kind of credibility and trust with the general public, especially women, needs to 'feminize' itself and to discard all ideas and practices that discriminate against women in order to bring it into the 21st century. Classical Psychoanalysis cannot be teaching its student psychoanalysts that memories are to be viewed as 'distortions' and as 'symbolic fantasies', particularly relevent to women who come into clinical therapy with memories of childhood sexual assaults. Therapy cannot be dictated by theoretical biases because life can never be comparmentalized, and life will never always follow one set of theoretical biases. But all else being equal, a therapist has got to at least tentatively accept a client's memories as being real until there is strong and overuling evidence to suggest otherwise. A therapist may never know the 'objective truth' -- to be sure a client's thoughts, feelings, and memories are filled with their own subjective biases -- which is why it may be very dangerous on a client's memories alone to all of a sudden start accusing a particular parent, sibling, relative, or family friend, and dragging him into a court of law. There has got to be strong supporting evidence and for the most part I believe that that is outside the therapist's realm of responsibility. The therapist's responsibility is to help the client work through his or her personal issues and get better. Therapeutic epistemology is not necessarily legal truth. Indeed, the distortion of the client's private epistemology may be one of the main reasons why the client is in therapy (although, to be sure, the client is not likely to agree). This does not mean that you automatically assume that the client is wrong or that you automatically substitute a 'pre-canned theory' into the place of the client's verbalizations. I don't mean to come across as a seasoned therapist here but to me it means that you 'go with the flow', at least until you realize that your client's flow is going to take you over Niagara Falls. I think Freud might have had this experience once or twice, if not more often. There was a reason Freud mainly abandoned his traumacy-seduction theory and I think that his later perception of the 'truth-value' of some or all of his clients confessions probably had a lot to do with it. I do not necessarily buy into any or all of Masson's proposed 'cover-up' and 'Freud's lack of integrity' theories. However, you can never count out the influence of human narcissism -- not with Freud or anybody. Freud's scientific and medical stability and his ability to make an income for his family might have both been seriously negatively affected by his bringing the problem of 'childhood incest' into the open. If I see my boss fire a driver, two drivers, ten drivers, and I don't like the reasons that he is firing them, I have a choice -- and so do the other employees I work with who are seeing the same thing. I can tell him that I don't like what he did, or I can listen to him rant, nod my head, and keep my mouth shut. In other words, my dominant reaction was not to 'rock the boat' in order to not put my own job into jeopardy. Has my integrity been compromised? Probably. However, without trying to justify or rationalize this, I imagine that there are probably thousands of people who go to work each day, see what they don't like, see what they believe is ethically wrong -- and do or say nothing. The 'silent majority'. This is how 'corporate narcissism' grows, corrupts, and poisons people's outlook in the work field. To be sure, it is very possible that Freud was not immune to 'folding his cards' under this type of professional and economic pressure. After Freud folded his traumacy-seduction cards -- if that is what he did, or alternatively believed that he was scientifically and clinically right in doing so -- then it would, to my limited knowledge, be more than 60 years before the issue of 'childhood incest' would rise again to public awareness as feminism began to rise in the 1960s. From a woman's standpoint, it is too bad that Freud did not stick to his pre-1897 observations, generalizations, and conclusions. But sometimes human evolution takes a step -- or more -- backwards.
Another example. What would happen if a psychoanalyst ever decided to abandon his or her use of the 'therapeutic couch' and borrow instead the 'hotseat' from Gestalt Therapy? Would this psychoanalyst still be called a psychoanalyst? Probably not by his psychoanalytic peers and superiors. Would he or she more appropriately be called a 'Gestalt Psychoanalyst'? Perls went this direction -- trained originally I believe in Kleinian Psychoanalysis or Object Relations (I will have to check this.) -- until he decided at some point to 'dump' the couch and develop the hotseat. Soon he was called just a Gestalt Therapist.
Integrative evolutions have happed often enough in the psychotherapy business, as much as they are often discouraged, even blacklisted and scandalized. Some theorists and therapists have integrated Adlerian Psychology and Psychoanalysis. Some theorists and therapists have integrated various forms of Cognitive Therapy with Gestalt Therapy. Perls partly did this himself. He liked Korysbski and General Semantics.
Back in the 1980s, I was integrating Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Psychoanalysis -- which is how I got 'GAP Psychology. Cognitive Therapy, humanistic-existentialism, and Jungian psychology also eventually had an impact on my thinking.
Conceptualizations, classifications, and labels can be stretched or re-tightened according to our wishes and agenda. It could be argued that Freud was a Gestalt Therapist before he was a Psychoanalyst -- much of Freud's early work in the 1990s on traumacy theory could easily be viewed as the real foundation of Gestalt Therapy (before Freud decided to go a different theoretical direction).
Anaxamander and Heraclitus can be viewed as the first two 'dialectical theorists' in Western philosophy and the precursors of everyone from Kant to Fichte to Hegel to Marx to Nietzsche to Freud to Jung to Perls. Anaxamander can also be called the first 'evolutionist' -- some 2000 years plus before Hegel or Darwin.
What is the moral of everything that is being said in this essay. How about this? When you are all ready to get your shorts tied tightly in a knot and turn purple with rage over protecting an idea, a concept, a theory, a philosophy, a paradigm, an ideology, a religous belief, ask yourself this: Can integrative evolution take me to a better place that is better for me and better for the people around me? And if so, then why am I holding on so tightly, so emotionaly, to an idea that may be a better idea once it is blended with other different and maybe even opposing ideas. Every seen a parent and a child fighting over 'curfew'? I have seen or heard indirectly of some of the worst fights you could possibly imagine. 15 year old girls evicted from their homes. Come on, what's with this? Rage is probably the best personal indicator -- to be sure often but not always -- that it may be time to think 'negotiate, compromise, integrate'; not 'I am right, you are wrong'.
Cheers.
db, May 20th, 2007, partly upgrade Jan. 29th, 2011.
On The Philosophical Connection Between Hegel and DGB Philosophy
People like the familiar and the secure. People like to try new things.
Here we have two antagonistic statements -- they are saying basically opposite things. What can we say about this? One is true and the other is false? Or -- alternatively, they both have their own respective realm of truth and reality?
The first is an 'either/or' perspective -- often the curse of mankind -- as people battle, often violently over their respective beliefs of 'right' and 'wrong'.
It might not always be so bad if people could always respect each other's differences in opinions and leave their debates on the democratic, debating floor but too often people's personal biases, personal blinders, personal narcissism, and personal righteousness takes them to a place that keeps escalating to the point of tempers flaring, fists flying, even weapons becoming involved. Thus, an 'either/or' perspective too often leads to over-righteousness, close-mindedness, personal narcissism and bad will between people with different opinions.
My name is David Bain. I have an honours degree in psychology, a background in Gestalt Therapy (founded mainly by Fritz Perls), and a decent understanding of Freud, Psychoanalysis, Jung and Jungian Psychology.
There are at least two or three important philosophers from the 19th century who had a strong impact on each of these three psychologists. Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. You could add Kierkegaard and Korzybski in there as far as also having an important influence on the development of Gestalt Therapy.
Most important arguably of all of them is G.W. Hegel (1770-1831). He was the starting point -- or at least the first philosopher to put together in a coherent, understandable form (not that Hegel couldn't be far from easily understandable oftentimes) -- a new form of logic, a new form of reasoning, a new form of 'evolution theory' before Darwin.
Up until Hegel, much of Western Philosophy was 'righteous, either/or' philosophy -- every philosopher with a different perspective that took off from the philosopher before him or her which he or she at least partly disagreed with. Protagonist and antagonist. Thesis and anti-thesis. Where was the truth?
What Hegel said in the clearest fashion up to his point in philosophical history -- and to be sure his ideas didn't come our of nowhere; credit must be given partly to Fichte and Kant before him, as well as much further back in the deepest roots of ancient Greek philosophy in the work of Anaxamander and Heraclitus, and later in China in work leading up to the synthesis of the Han Philosophers in the Han Dynasty and the beginning of the eastern concepts of 'yin' and 'yang'.
What came together in very coherent fashion for the first time in Hegel was the beginning of 'dialectical thinking', 'dialectical logic', 'dialectical reasoning', and the principle of 'dialectical evolution'.
Opposite ideas are not right or wrong but part of a 'greater dialectical whole' -- a 'greater, wholistic truth and unity that comes together when both opposing parts of the dialectic are creatively integrated together in a fashion that maximimizes their respective strengths and 'truth-value' while ideally minimimizing their respective weaknesses'.
Thus, 'truth', according to Hegel, is often not in a 'righteous, either/or' philosophical position but rather in the creative negotiation and integration of the opposite philosophical perspectives. This is the essence of dialectical logic, reasoning, wholism, unity, and evolution.
And it is the starting point of Hegel's Hotel: GAP-DGBN Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...
Now I know that most of my potential readers out there probably don't like fancy, technical acronyms that mean little or nothing to you. What the heck is 'GAP-DGBN' Philosophy?
Well, to begin with, you will see that I tend to use a lot of different hyphenated words -- and for a very good reason. It is the essence of 'dialectical logic and reasoning' -- integrating different things, processes, and concepts together in a way that was quite different than the way these different things, processes, and concepts were dialectically separated and alienated from each other before the 'dialectical contact, creative negotiation, and integration' came about.
Have I lost you, or are you still with me? If you have a background in Hegelian philosophy and logic, then you are probably still with me. If you are a beginning philosophy student, trying out philosophy for perhaps the first time, then maybe I am intimidating you by throwing out fancy, technical combinations like 'dialectical this' and 'dialectical that'... Don't be intimidated. Like anything in life, it is all about repetition, getting used to the language, the technical words that are a part of any serious philosophy, art, and/or science of investigation. Sometimes -- oftentimes -- new words can take you new places in your thinking and in your perspective on life -- think of this as a 'first dialectical philosophy date' -- unless of course I am writing to a more experienced 'dialectical reader'. I want you both.
Regarding the first acronym -- 'GAP'. Firstly, I philosophize in the 'gaps' between other philosophical perspectives and paradigms. Secondly, I have been heavily influenced by Gestalt Therapy, significantly influenced by Adlerian Psychology, and significantly influenced by Psychoanalysis -- which combine to form the letter 'G-A-P'. There you have two different reasons for the first acronym -- 'GAP' -- a name I have been using since at least 1991.
Now regarding the second acronym - 'DGBN'. My philosophy is not only about 'gaps' but it is about 'bridging gaps' -- it is about 'dialectically bridging gaps' -- it is about 'Dialectical-GAP-Bridging-Negotiations'. Practically every essay I write is about Dialectical-GAP-Bridging-Negotiations. My essays are about the 'creative void or gap' that demands a 'creative leap into the void or gap' hoping, trusting, expecting, that in the process of leaping into the creative void, my creative problem-solving and conflict-resolving abilities will help me to 'dialectically bridge the gap' between the 'two opposing cliffs and the abyss between them'. The 'two cliffs' could be anything or anyone -- Marx and Adam Smith (or Ayn Rand), socialism and capitalism, liberalism and conservatism, black and white, religious and atheist, scientific and artistic, Freud and Adler, Freud and Jung, Freud and Perls, Hegel and Nietzsche...
Let's talk quickly about Nietzsche before we finish up this essay. (We will talk about him much more later.) Nietzsche didn't want anything to do with Hegel and yet Nietzsche's first book -- 'The Birth of Tragedy' -- was a brilliant post-Hegelian work that in my opinion was the bridge between Hegel and Psychoanalysis (as well as such mofifications of Psychoanalysis as Jungian Psychology and Gestalt Therapy).
My favorite Nietzschean metaphor is the metaphor of the 'tightrope and the abyss'.
Call it the 'Nietzschean Tightrope of Life'. We all need courage to live, to live passionately and creatively, and to take risks -- to take 'leaps of faith and trust' into 'creative voids', into abysses, where only a faith in our own problem-solving abilities will help us to build the 'tightrope', the 'bridge' across the abyss. It is only on the Nietzschean tightrope of life -- often in the midst of great anxiety relative to the looming abyss below us -- the 'pit of life' if you will -- that we can find both ourselves and find others in creativity, intimacy, love, and vulnerability -- a little less scary perhaps than Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Pit and the Pendulum, but scary none-the-less -- Nietzsche's 'Tightrope and the Abyss'. In Gestalt Therapy this is called 'the hot seat'.
There is one, actually two, other meanings of the acronym -- 'DGBN'.
'Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism'. You will have to read my papers on narcissism and politics if you want a better understanding of this philosophical assertion.
And, oh yes. 'DGBN' just happens to also represent four of the letters in my name. Everyone is entitled to a little egotism and narcissism relative to the things that we create -- just as long as we don't turn into 'egotistical, narcissistic monsters'.
I will do my best not to go there.
db, May 14th, 2007.
Here we have two antagonistic statements -- they are saying basically opposite things. What can we say about this? One is true and the other is false? Or -- alternatively, they both have their own respective realm of truth and reality?
The first is an 'either/or' perspective -- often the curse of mankind -- as people battle, often violently over their respective beliefs of 'right' and 'wrong'.
It might not always be so bad if people could always respect each other's differences in opinions and leave their debates on the democratic, debating floor but too often people's personal biases, personal blinders, personal narcissism, and personal righteousness takes them to a place that keeps escalating to the point of tempers flaring, fists flying, even weapons becoming involved. Thus, an 'either/or' perspective too often leads to over-righteousness, close-mindedness, personal narcissism and bad will between people with different opinions.
My name is David Bain. I have an honours degree in psychology, a background in Gestalt Therapy (founded mainly by Fritz Perls), and a decent understanding of Freud, Psychoanalysis, Jung and Jungian Psychology.
There are at least two or three important philosophers from the 19th century who had a strong impact on each of these three psychologists. Hegel, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. You could add Kierkegaard and Korzybski in there as far as also having an important influence on the development of Gestalt Therapy.
Most important arguably of all of them is G.W. Hegel (1770-1831). He was the starting point -- or at least the first philosopher to put together in a coherent, understandable form (not that Hegel couldn't be far from easily understandable oftentimes) -- a new form of logic, a new form of reasoning, a new form of 'evolution theory' before Darwin.
Up until Hegel, much of Western Philosophy was 'righteous, either/or' philosophy -- every philosopher with a different perspective that took off from the philosopher before him or her which he or she at least partly disagreed with. Protagonist and antagonist. Thesis and anti-thesis. Where was the truth?
What Hegel said in the clearest fashion up to his point in philosophical history -- and to be sure his ideas didn't come our of nowhere; credit must be given partly to Fichte and Kant before him, as well as much further back in the deepest roots of ancient Greek philosophy in the work of Anaxamander and Heraclitus, and later in China in work leading up to the synthesis of the Han Philosophers in the Han Dynasty and the beginning of the eastern concepts of 'yin' and 'yang'.
What came together in very coherent fashion for the first time in Hegel was the beginning of 'dialectical thinking', 'dialectical logic', 'dialectical reasoning', and the principle of 'dialectical evolution'.
Opposite ideas are not right or wrong but part of a 'greater dialectical whole' -- a 'greater, wholistic truth and unity that comes together when both opposing parts of the dialectic are creatively integrated together in a fashion that maximimizes their respective strengths and 'truth-value' while ideally minimimizing their respective weaknesses'.
Thus, 'truth', according to Hegel, is often not in a 'righteous, either/or' philosophical position but rather in the creative negotiation and integration of the opposite philosophical perspectives. This is the essence of dialectical logic, reasoning, wholism, unity, and evolution.
And it is the starting point of Hegel's Hotel: GAP-DGBN Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...
Now I know that most of my potential readers out there probably don't like fancy, technical acronyms that mean little or nothing to you. What the heck is 'GAP-DGBN' Philosophy?
Well, to begin with, you will see that I tend to use a lot of different hyphenated words -- and for a very good reason. It is the essence of 'dialectical logic and reasoning' -- integrating different things, processes, and concepts together in a way that was quite different than the way these different things, processes, and concepts were dialectically separated and alienated from each other before the 'dialectical contact, creative negotiation, and integration' came about.
Have I lost you, or are you still with me? If you have a background in Hegelian philosophy and logic, then you are probably still with me. If you are a beginning philosophy student, trying out philosophy for perhaps the first time, then maybe I am intimidating you by throwing out fancy, technical combinations like 'dialectical this' and 'dialectical that'... Don't be intimidated. Like anything in life, it is all about repetition, getting used to the language, the technical words that are a part of any serious philosophy, art, and/or science of investigation. Sometimes -- oftentimes -- new words can take you new places in your thinking and in your perspective on life -- think of this as a 'first dialectical philosophy date' -- unless of course I am writing to a more experienced 'dialectical reader'. I want you both.
Regarding the first acronym -- 'GAP'. Firstly, I philosophize in the 'gaps' between other philosophical perspectives and paradigms. Secondly, I have been heavily influenced by Gestalt Therapy, significantly influenced by Adlerian Psychology, and significantly influenced by Psychoanalysis -- which combine to form the letter 'G-A-P'. There you have two different reasons for the first acronym -- 'GAP' -- a name I have been using since at least 1991.
Now regarding the second acronym - 'DGBN'. My philosophy is not only about 'gaps' but it is about 'bridging gaps' -- it is about 'dialectically bridging gaps' -- it is about 'Dialectical-GAP-Bridging-Negotiations'. Practically every essay I write is about Dialectical-GAP-Bridging-Negotiations. My essays are about the 'creative void or gap' that demands a 'creative leap into the void or gap' hoping, trusting, expecting, that in the process of leaping into the creative void, my creative problem-solving and conflict-resolving abilities will help me to 'dialectically bridge the gap' between the 'two opposing cliffs and the abyss between them'. The 'two cliffs' could be anything or anyone -- Marx and Adam Smith (or Ayn Rand), socialism and capitalism, liberalism and conservatism, black and white, religious and atheist, scientific and artistic, Freud and Adler, Freud and Jung, Freud and Perls, Hegel and Nietzsche...
Let's talk quickly about Nietzsche before we finish up this essay. (We will talk about him much more later.) Nietzsche didn't want anything to do with Hegel and yet Nietzsche's first book -- 'The Birth of Tragedy' -- was a brilliant post-Hegelian work that in my opinion was the bridge between Hegel and Psychoanalysis (as well as such mofifications of Psychoanalysis as Jungian Psychology and Gestalt Therapy).
My favorite Nietzschean metaphor is the metaphor of the 'tightrope and the abyss'.
Call it the 'Nietzschean Tightrope of Life'. We all need courage to live, to live passionately and creatively, and to take risks -- to take 'leaps of faith and trust' into 'creative voids', into abysses, where only a faith in our own problem-solving abilities will help us to build the 'tightrope', the 'bridge' across the abyss. It is only on the Nietzschean tightrope of life -- often in the midst of great anxiety relative to the looming abyss below us -- the 'pit of life' if you will -- that we can find both ourselves and find others in creativity, intimacy, love, and vulnerability -- a little less scary perhaps than Edgar Allan Poe's 'The Pit and the Pendulum, but scary none-the-less -- Nietzsche's 'Tightrope and the Abyss'. In Gestalt Therapy this is called 'the hot seat'.
There is one, actually two, other meanings of the acronym -- 'DGBN'.
'Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism'. You will have to read my papers on narcissism and politics if you want a better understanding of this philosophical assertion.
And, oh yes. 'DGBN' just happens to also represent four of the letters in my name. Everyone is entitled to a little egotism and narcissism relative to the things that we create -- just as long as we don't turn into 'egotistical, narcissistic monsters'.
I will do my best not to go there.
db, May 14th, 2007.
A Paper On the Chronological Development of Gap-DGBN Philosophy-Psychology-Politics
It is 6:00 am on this fine morning of May 7th, 2007, and the first time that I have gotten up this early to write in years. I woke up about 3:00am and watched a piece on 'The Greatest Canadian' -- which in this case was on Terry Fox. What can be more inspiring than watching a piece on Terry Fox? It is enough to make anybody want to get off the bed immediately and try to accomplish great things. Or even simply personally meaningful things, done with great conviction. NOW!
And so it is that I -- for the 100th or possibly the 1000th time -- will try to put together a meaningful introduction that will lay before you the type of philosophy that I am promoting to be in the best interests of man, both in particular and in general. How can any one philosophy -- and the philosopher behind it -- be so bold as to ascertain the possibility that any one philosophy can be good for all of mankind, both individually and collectively?
Well, the answer is this: the philosophy or model that I am presenting is big and flexible enough that it has room to incorporate the existence and partial meaningfulness of almost all other philosophies. I would say that there is no room in my particular philosophy for any extremist philosophy that advocates the onslaught of violence and death. But aside from that there is room for almost anything that may give added meaning to someone who wants to take this philosophy down a particular corridor to see where it takes them.
I have been doing that for quite some time. I started out by studying psychology between about 1972 and 1991. First, I was smitten by Psycho-Cybernetics (the psychology of perception and belief). Then I was smitten by General Semantics -- the language-meaning-philosophy of Alfred Korzybski, followed by the work of his student S.I. Hayakawa and others. I wrote my Honours Thesis in psychology on the potential connections between General Semantics and Cognitive Therapy. But the paper was a little more than this. Without really knowing it, it was my first attempt at writing a paper on 'epistemology' -- the study of knowledge -- under the influence not only of Korzybski and Hayakawa but also Nathaniel Branden and indirectly Ayn Rand -- the ultimate 'objectivist' epistemologist.
At the same time, I was also being influenced by the work of Erich Fromm -- a 'neo-Freudian', humanist, and Marxist-socialist. So I was getting a 'double polarity of influence' from Nathaniel Branden and Ayn Rand, both avid Capitalist idealists on the one hand, and Erich Fromm, the Marxist-Socialist idealist on the other hand. Here we were looking not at 'man the perceiver, the interpreter, and the epistemologist' but rather 'man the evaluator and valuist'. And here were two sets of eqally smart political-economic philosophers coming down on opposite sides of the political-economic fence. Where was truth -- or does the issue of 'truth' have any relevance to the study of 'values'? Does the study of truth pertain only to the study of epistemology and not to the study of values? Yes, I answered to myself -- the study of truth pertains only to the study of epistemology and thus and no relevance to the study of values. But then, how do we assess the inherent 'goodness' or 'badness' of a value? How do we establish an ethical basis or some other standard of evaluation for choosing say Capitalism over Socialism or Socialism over Capitalism or Liberalism over Conservatism or Conservatism over Liberalism? These are head-scratching questions and a lot of it -- as Nietzsche was quick to point out -- comes down to the 'subjective perception of personal benefit' which could be one way for you and another totally different way for me. If I am making money near the top end of society's payscale, then I am much more likely to be a Conservative and a Capitalist whereas if I am new to this country, and/or near the bottom of society's payscale, then I am much more like to be an NDP or a Liberal which tends to favor more socialist policies than the Conservative Party. This rule of thumb may not be totally carved in stone -- there are always exceptions -- but one can see how 'values' are tied to 'the perception of personal benefit'.
When I left university after graduating with an Honours degree in psychology, I started studying different 'schools' of psychology with more focus -- particularly Adlerian psychology as I became involved with the Adlerian Institute in Ontario, and Gestalt Therapy as I also became involved with The Gestalt Institute of Toronto. Again, I was struck by the 'polarity and the paradox of difference' between different schools of thought. One school -- The Gestalt Institute -- believed in the principle of polarity and conflict in the personality, and the essence of psychotherapy being the 'dialectical negotiation and integration of opposing polarities in the personality'. Wheras the other school -- the Adlerian Institute -- believed that conflict was essentially a 'side show or smoke and mirrors show' in the personality and once you looked past this conflict, you could usually see that the person's core personality or 'lifestyle' with its encompassing pattern of behavior was always aimed in one and only one particular direction.
Once again, I was faced with the 'philosophy of difference' and the question of how to resolve those philosophical differences. But this became my personal philosophical challenge, and in the process, like a snowball that started rolling down the hill and getting bigger, I was starting to develop a particular 'style and process for negotiating and integrating different philosophies and psychologies that was making the net result of my work a little different than the individual pieces that were influencing the evolution of my work from often opposite sides of the philosophical and psychological fence. In essence, I was 'philosophizing in the gaps' between others' philosophical work. This idea, combined with three of the main forces that were influenicing the content and the direction of my work at this time -- Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Psychoanalysis -- led to my first name for my work -- GAP Psychology. This was at at a time -- in the 1980s -- when my main focus of study was still psychology. But that all started to change as I worked my way backwards through Perls, Freud, and Jung -- to the main philosophical influencer behind all of them: G.W. Hegel (1770-1831).
Hegel was my window and my bridge between the study of psychology and the study of philosophy.
Here was a man who had influenced most of the great psychologists, most notably, Freud, Jung, Perls, as well as a host of other 'dialectical unity' psychologists. What Hegel put together as a general historical theory of evolution in philosophy and mankind, psychologists like Freud, Jung, and Perls internalized into the human psyche as a general working style and process of the human psyche. Thus, man's psyche, man's philosophy, man's politics, man's law, man's science, man's religion, man's culture in general -- all showed signs of the same general philosophical and psychological process which might be called 'dialectical evolution' -- which Hegel described as a cyclical process of 'thesis', 'anti-thesis', and 'synthesis', then start the process all over again at a different level of cultural evolution and development.
If psychologists and psychotherapists could harness and utilize the process of dialectical evolution in a way that helped their clients to 'negotiate and integrate their dialectical splits and conflicts' in a way that brought fresh 'dialectical unity and harmony' to their personalities and lifestyles, then why couldn't the same process be harnessed and utilized between businessmen, politicians, lawyers, philosophers, scientists, artists, and so on. This was the essence of my movement from GAP Psychology to GAP Philosophy -- a full-scale expansion and implementation of the principle of 'GAP-DGB Multi-Dialectical Wholism, Unity, Homeostasis, and Evolution.
I will close this work with two Hegelian quotations, one that I don't like and one that I do like. The one that I don't like I have modified and mutated in a direction that I do like.
Hegel wrote: 'The real is the rational and the rational is the real.' I don't buy this because often in my opinion, the real is not rational and the rational is not real. Human narcissism and hedonism often subvert the rational unless you want to talk about 'narcissistic and/or hedonistic rationality', in which case, a case could be made to support the claim that the real is the rational and the rational is the real -- i.e., someone's narcissistic and/or hedonistic rationality who has the power to implement his or her own 'brand of rationality'.
However, from this quote from Hegel, I developed one of my own: 'The truth is the whole and the whole is the truth, and any small part of the whole is a part of the truth -- not cut off and divorced from the whole but only in the full integrative context of the whole. It is in the full integrative context of the whole that we find truth.'
Here is the other quote by Hegel that I like. 'Every theory (my extension: every characteristic, every paradigm, every philosophy, every school of psychology, every brand of politics) carries within it, the seeds of its own self-destruction.'
This to me, is a good, viable warning against the dangers of self-righteousness and the one-sided focuses of thought or philosophy that are invariably leaving out the potential value of the opposing line of thought or philosophy. An integrative balance of both is generally where GAP-DGB Philosophy will attempt to go.
db, May 7th, 2007.
If you would like to read more on the philosophy of the dialectic, then please turn to this link: http://hegelshotel-dgbn-introductions.blogspot.com/
And so it is that I -- for the 100th or possibly the 1000th time -- will try to put together a meaningful introduction that will lay before you the type of philosophy that I am promoting to be in the best interests of man, both in particular and in general. How can any one philosophy -- and the philosopher behind it -- be so bold as to ascertain the possibility that any one philosophy can be good for all of mankind, both individually and collectively?
Well, the answer is this: the philosophy or model that I am presenting is big and flexible enough that it has room to incorporate the existence and partial meaningfulness of almost all other philosophies. I would say that there is no room in my particular philosophy for any extremist philosophy that advocates the onslaught of violence and death. But aside from that there is room for almost anything that may give added meaning to someone who wants to take this philosophy down a particular corridor to see where it takes them.
I have been doing that for quite some time. I started out by studying psychology between about 1972 and 1991. First, I was smitten by Psycho-Cybernetics (the psychology of perception and belief). Then I was smitten by General Semantics -- the language-meaning-philosophy of Alfred Korzybski, followed by the work of his student S.I. Hayakawa and others. I wrote my Honours Thesis in psychology on the potential connections between General Semantics and Cognitive Therapy. But the paper was a little more than this. Without really knowing it, it was my first attempt at writing a paper on 'epistemology' -- the study of knowledge -- under the influence not only of Korzybski and Hayakawa but also Nathaniel Branden and indirectly Ayn Rand -- the ultimate 'objectivist' epistemologist.
At the same time, I was also being influenced by the work of Erich Fromm -- a 'neo-Freudian', humanist, and Marxist-socialist. So I was getting a 'double polarity of influence' from Nathaniel Branden and Ayn Rand, both avid Capitalist idealists on the one hand, and Erich Fromm, the Marxist-Socialist idealist on the other hand. Here we were looking not at 'man the perceiver, the interpreter, and the epistemologist' but rather 'man the evaluator and valuist'. And here were two sets of eqally smart political-economic philosophers coming down on opposite sides of the political-economic fence. Where was truth -- or does the issue of 'truth' have any relevance to the study of 'values'? Does the study of truth pertain only to the study of epistemology and not to the study of values? Yes, I answered to myself -- the study of truth pertains only to the study of epistemology and thus and no relevance to the study of values. But then, how do we assess the inherent 'goodness' or 'badness' of a value? How do we establish an ethical basis or some other standard of evaluation for choosing say Capitalism over Socialism or Socialism over Capitalism or Liberalism over Conservatism or Conservatism over Liberalism? These are head-scratching questions and a lot of it -- as Nietzsche was quick to point out -- comes down to the 'subjective perception of personal benefit' which could be one way for you and another totally different way for me. If I am making money near the top end of society's payscale, then I am much more likely to be a Conservative and a Capitalist whereas if I am new to this country, and/or near the bottom of society's payscale, then I am much more like to be an NDP or a Liberal which tends to favor more socialist policies than the Conservative Party. This rule of thumb may not be totally carved in stone -- there are always exceptions -- but one can see how 'values' are tied to 'the perception of personal benefit'.
When I left university after graduating with an Honours degree in psychology, I started studying different 'schools' of psychology with more focus -- particularly Adlerian psychology as I became involved with the Adlerian Institute in Ontario, and Gestalt Therapy as I also became involved with The Gestalt Institute of Toronto. Again, I was struck by the 'polarity and the paradox of difference' between different schools of thought. One school -- The Gestalt Institute -- believed in the principle of polarity and conflict in the personality, and the essence of psychotherapy being the 'dialectical negotiation and integration of opposing polarities in the personality'. Wheras the other school -- the Adlerian Institute -- believed that conflict was essentially a 'side show or smoke and mirrors show' in the personality and once you looked past this conflict, you could usually see that the person's core personality or 'lifestyle' with its encompassing pattern of behavior was always aimed in one and only one particular direction.
Once again, I was faced with the 'philosophy of difference' and the question of how to resolve those philosophical differences. But this became my personal philosophical challenge, and in the process, like a snowball that started rolling down the hill and getting bigger, I was starting to develop a particular 'style and process for negotiating and integrating different philosophies and psychologies that was making the net result of my work a little different than the individual pieces that were influencing the evolution of my work from often opposite sides of the philosophical and psychological fence. In essence, I was 'philosophizing in the gaps' between others' philosophical work. This idea, combined with three of the main forces that were influenicing the content and the direction of my work at this time -- Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Psychoanalysis -- led to my first name for my work -- GAP Psychology. This was at at a time -- in the 1980s -- when my main focus of study was still psychology. But that all started to change as I worked my way backwards through Perls, Freud, and Jung -- to the main philosophical influencer behind all of them: G.W. Hegel (1770-1831).
Hegel was my window and my bridge between the study of psychology and the study of philosophy.
Here was a man who had influenced most of the great psychologists, most notably, Freud, Jung, Perls, as well as a host of other 'dialectical unity' psychologists. What Hegel put together as a general historical theory of evolution in philosophy and mankind, psychologists like Freud, Jung, and Perls internalized into the human psyche as a general working style and process of the human psyche. Thus, man's psyche, man's philosophy, man's politics, man's law, man's science, man's religion, man's culture in general -- all showed signs of the same general philosophical and psychological process which might be called 'dialectical evolution' -- which Hegel described as a cyclical process of 'thesis', 'anti-thesis', and 'synthesis', then start the process all over again at a different level of cultural evolution and development.
If psychologists and psychotherapists could harness and utilize the process of dialectical evolution in a way that helped their clients to 'negotiate and integrate their dialectical splits and conflicts' in a way that brought fresh 'dialectical unity and harmony' to their personalities and lifestyles, then why couldn't the same process be harnessed and utilized between businessmen, politicians, lawyers, philosophers, scientists, artists, and so on. This was the essence of my movement from GAP Psychology to GAP Philosophy -- a full-scale expansion and implementation of the principle of 'GAP-DGB Multi-Dialectical Wholism, Unity, Homeostasis, and Evolution.
I will close this work with two Hegelian quotations, one that I don't like and one that I do like. The one that I don't like I have modified and mutated in a direction that I do like.
Hegel wrote: 'The real is the rational and the rational is the real.' I don't buy this because often in my opinion, the real is not rational and the rational is not real. Human narcissism and hedonism often subvert the rational unless you want to talk about 'narcissistic and/or hedonistic rationality', in which case, a case could be made to support the claim that the real is the rational and the rational is the real -- i.e., someone's narcissistic and/or hedonistic rationality who has the power to implement his or her own 'brand of rationality'.
However, from this quote from Hegel, I developed one of my own: 'The truth is the whole and the whole is the truth, and any small part of the whole is a part of the truth -- not cut off and divorced from the whole but only in the full integrative context of the whole. It is in the full integrative context of the whole that we find truth.'
Here is the other quote by Hegel that I like. 'Every theory (my extension: every characteristic, every paradigm, every philosophy, every school of psychology, every brand of politics) carries within it, the seeds of its own self-destruction.'
This to me, is a good, viable warning against the dangers of self-righteousness and the one-sided focuses of thought or philosophy that are invariably leaving out the potential value of the opposing line of thought or philosophy. An integrative balance of both is generally where GAP-DGB Philosophy will attempt to go.
db, May 7th, 2007.
If you would like to read more on the philosophy of the dialectic, then please turn to this link: http://hegelshotel-dgbn-introductions.blogspot.com/
The Legacy of Hegel's Evolutionary Dialectic Philosophy on The Evolution of Western and Eastern Philosophy and Culture
G.W. Hegel (1770-1831) was either loved or hated for his revolutionary philosophical work in 'The Phenomemnology of Mind(Spirit)', published in 1807. Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche all were heavily influenced by Hegel -- even in largely rejecting his most prized work -- and each went on to write his own passionate 'anti-thesis' against Hegel's philosophy. (How many 'anti-theses' can one philosophical theory have? In Hegel's case, the answer seems to be 'many'! Ironically, as each of Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche were writing their own respective 'theoretical compensations and retaliations' to Hegel's work, one could/can easily argue that they were just adding more 'fuel to the fire of Hegel's theory' because they were each showing the creativity of the human dialectic at work just as Hegel had argued that it was in every aspect of human thinking and cultural activity. 'Thesis', 'anti-thesis', and 'synthesis' -- These three terms were not actually Hegel's, and from what I understand, he only used them once in his work -- but he made them famous and they have been associated with his work every since. See below.*
.....................................................................................
*Although he never used the terms himself, the triad thesis, antithesis, synthesis is often used to describe the thought of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. It is often thought to form part of an analysis of historical and philosophical progress called the Hegelian dialectic.
It is usually described in the following way:
The thesis is an intellectual proposition.
The antithesis is simply the negation of the thesis.
The synthesis solves the conflict between the thesis and antithesis by reconciling their common truths, and forming a new proposition.
Hegel used this classification only once, and he attributed the terminology to Immanuel Kant. The terminology was largely developed earlier by Fichte the neo-Kantian. The idea was subsequently extended and adopted by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
* Reference: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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Now a philosophical theory, treatise, system -- or 'Grand Narrative' as the 'anti-system' philosophers or 'deconstructionists' like to call the 'system-philosophies' -- is likely to have numerous 'smaller theses' in it, all part of the workings and construction of the 'whole philosophical system' if you will. Now this would seem to explain the fact that various philosophers can put together various 'negations' of the same philosophical system. For example, Kierkegaard rebelled agaist Hegel's abstractionism (as opposed to Kierkegaard emphasis on concrete existence), Schopenhauer against Hegel's reason and rationalism (as opposed to Schopenhauer's irrationalism and pessimism), and Nietzsche against Hegel's long-winded, systemic Grand Narrative (as opposed to Nietzsche's supposed anti-systemic philosophy althogh Nietzsche did seem to be promoting his Superman, tightrope, abyss, and Dionysian philosophy which would seem to be at least partly systemic as well, if not quite as long-winded as Hegel's more Apollonian Grand Narrative.
So the deconstructionists -- primarily Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche -- picked apart Hegel's philosophy to the point that it came crashing off the wall like Humpty Dumpty. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Humpty Dumpty did not die. In fact, Humpty Dumpty was put back together again by a legion of 'post-Hegelians'. Marx (turned Hegel upside down but kept the dialectic and the conflict between 'class thesis and anti-thesis' alive (the bourgeous vs. the proletariat). Nietzsche (in 'The Birth of Tragedy' before Nietzsche himself rejected his own work as being 'too Hegelian'). Freud (The Id (thesis), The Superego (anti-thesis), and the Ego (synthesis). Jung (the personna (thesis) and the shadow (anti-thesis). Perls (topdog (thesis), and underdog (anti-thesis).
Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Foucault, Derrida, Perls...all made important evolutionary additions to Hegel's dialectic theory. But through it all, Hegel's dialectic evolutionary theory has climbed back on the wall -- as Humpty Dumpty, back together again, all in one piece, and stronger than the classic rendition. Hegel has been 'existentialized' -- and it incorporates Nietzsche's precursor to, and Derrida's later, 'Deconstruction Theory' just as easily as it can be called a 'structural Grand Narrative'. Indeed, it is the paradoxical and multi-bi-polar evolutionary element in Hegel's dialectic theory -- especially after the Hegelian snowball incorporates elements of Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Perls, Derrida...and also appreciates the full legacy and ancient sophistication of the first Hegelian philosopher -- Anaxamander, 1350 years before Hegel -- that make's Hegel's dialectic theory, in this theorist's opinion, the greatest of all theories, the greatest of all Grand Narratives. Gap-DGBN Philosophy is one version, one post-Hegelian rendition, of Hegelian Classic Dialectic Theory, modernized, and very much alive and kicking as it rolls into the 21st century.
db, Feb. 12th, 2007.
.....................................................................................
*Although he never used the terms himself, the triad thesis, antithesis, synthesis is often used to describe the thought of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. It is often thought to form part of an analysis of historical and philosophical progress called the Hegelian dialectic.
It is usually described in the following way:
The thesis is an intellectual proposition.
The antithesis is simply the negation of the thesis.
The synthesis solves the conflict between the thesis and antithesis by reconciling their common truths, and forming a new proposition.
Hegel used this classification only once, and he attributed the terminology to Immanuel Kant. The terminology was largely developed earlier by Fichte the neo-Kantian. The idea was subsequently extended and adopted by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.
* Reference: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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Now a philosophical theory, treatise, system -- or 'Grand Narrative' as the 'anti-system' philosophers or 'deconstructionists' like to call the 'system-philosophies' -- is likely to have numerous 'smaller theses' in it, all part of the workings and construction of the 'whole philosophical system' if you will. Now this would seem to explain the fact that various philosophers can put together various 'negations' of the same philosophical system. For example, Kierkegaard rebelled agaist Hegel's abstractionism (as opposed to Kierkegaard emphasis on concrete existence), Schopenhauer against Hegel's reason and rationalism (as opposed to Schopenhauer's irrationalism and pessimism), and Nietzsche against Hegel's long-winded, systemic Grand Narrative (as opposed to Nietzsche's supposed anti-systemic philosophy althogh Nietzsche did seem to be promoting his Superman, tightrope, abyss, and Dionysian philosophy which would seem to be at least partly systemic as well, if not quite as long-winded as Hegel's more Apollonian Grand Narrative.
So the deconstructionists -- primarily Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche -- picked apart Hegel's philosophy to the point that it came crashing off the wall like Humpty Dumpty. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Humpty Dumpty did not die. In fact, Humpty Dumpty was put back together again by a legion of 'post-Hegelians'. Marx (turned Hegel upside down but kept the dialectic and the conflict between 'class thesis and anti-thesis' alive (the bourgeous vs. the proletariat). Nietzsche (in 'The Birth of Tragedy' before Nietzsche himself rejected his own work as being 'too Hegelian'). Freud (The Id (thesis), The Superego (anti-thesis), and the Ego (synthesis). Jung (the personna (thesis) and the shadow (anti-thesis). Perls (topdog (thesis), and underdog (anti-thesis).
Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Foucault, Derrida, Perls...all made important evolutionary additions to Hegel's dialectic theory. But through it all, Hegel's dialectic evolutionary theory has climbed back on the wall -- as Humpty Dumpty, back together again, all in one piece, and stronger than the classic rendition. Hegel has been 'existentialized' -- and it incorporates Nietzsche's precursor to, and Derrida's later, 'Deconstruction Theory' just as easily as it can be called a 'structural Grand Narrative'. Indeed, it is the paradoxical and multi-bi-polar evolutionary element in Hegel's dialectic theory -- especially after the Hegelian snowball incorporates elements of Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Perls, Derrida...and also appreciates the full legacy and ancient sophistication of the first Hegelian philosopher -- Anaxamander, 1350 years before Hegel -- that make's Hegel's dialectic theory, in this theorist's opinion, the greatest of all theories, the greatest of all Grand Narratives. Gap-DGBN Philosophy is one version, one post-Hegelian rendition, of Hegelian Classic Dialectic Theory, modernized, and very much alive and kicking as it rolls into the 21st century.
db, Feb. 12th, 2007.
A DGB Rendition of Nietzsche's 'Tightrope, Abyss, and Superman' Philosophy
We all need to climb onto the Nietzschean tightrope overlooking the abyss of our existence - not all the time, but on a decently regular basis - so that we can reflect on, feel on, and act on, the dialectical contrasts between our 'non-being' vs. our 'being and becoming' selves. Some people - let us call this first group of people the 'risk takers' - may need to visit their existential tightrope more often than others, while other people - let us call this latter group of people the 'security seekers' - may not want to visit their existential tightrope at all, or at least, as seldom as possible.
Having reflected on this situation for a while, I have come to the conclusion that it might be useful to differentiate between different types of 'existential tightropes'. Specifically, I have distinguished between ten different types of existential tightropes that offer ten different types of challenges to our existence.
Common to all these different Nietzschean tightropes is the Nietzschean idea of the 'Superman philosophy', the 'will to power', or better translated in most cases perhaps - 'the will to excel'.
In this regard, we can talk about 1. the 'Apollonian-Socratean-Platonic tightrope' of law, ethical idealism, and civil order; 2. the 'Dionysian tightrope' of pleasure, sensuality, sexuality, hedonism; 3. the 'Rousseauian tightrope' of love and romance; 4. the 'Marxian tightrope' of social and political activism, 'self-fulfilling' vs. 'self-alienating' work, issues pertaining to economic stability and status, and our propensity for 'acting on our goals' as opposed to just sitting around and 'thinking about them'; 5. the 'Hegelian tightrope' of negotiating conflicting differences of opinion and want; 6. the 'Spinozian-Scholastic spiritual tightrope' of wholism, unity, family, community, and altruism. 7. is the 'Heraclitean-Aristolean-Baconian-Lockean' tightrope of science, process-thinking, and empiricism; 8. is the 'Jamesian tightrope' of common sense, simplicity, and pragmatism; 9. is the 'Derridian rebellious-deconstructionist tightrope' of anti-status-quo, process and structure. In a more negative vein, unless we are talking about the area of 'sports and games', we might talk about man's obsession with 10. the 'Anaxamanderian-Foucauldian tightrope' of power, control, revenge, and war.
The essence of all these Nietzshean tightropes, metaphorically speaking, is that every time we step onto, or climb onto, one of these tightropes, we are going to feel an adrelanine rush - a mixture of anxiety and excitement - to the extent that we are actually going to tightrope walk to the other side, over the abyss opposite our 'home base-cliff' that we just left the sweet security of.
In each case, we might reflect, feel, and act on the actual essence of the tightrope walk of our life and existence. The adrenaline rush and the contrast to what we just left then is this: that we are actually walking on the tightrope, using our mental faculties, and our passion, our adrenaline rush, and our arms and legs to actually get us to the other side, and in so doing, stretching the limits of our capabilities and potentialities to their maximum -- as opposed to just 'hanging out there', hanging onto the rope for dear life, waiting for someone to come and rescue us from the rope overlooking the abyss - the danger and anxiety - of our existence...This is the difference between 'existential self-suffiency' and 'existential dependency'. We can also contrast the combined adrenaline rush of anxiety and excitement of being on one of our existential tightropes with the safety of the home-base cliff which can become our prison rather than our home if we are unwilling to leave its safety for the danger of the tightrope walk across the abyss.
This is my interpretation of Nietzsche's 'Superman philosophy', and it is the starting-point of my own personally modified post-Hegelian, post-Nietzschean, post-a-lot-of-philosphers-and-ideas...'Gap Multi-Dialectical, Humanistic-Existential Philosophy'...
The 'tightrope' formula is generally fairly simple: the more responsibilities we take on - up to a certain threshold of tolerance at least - the more we challenge our own capabilities and potentialities; in contrast, the more we seek to avoid responsibilities - at least of the kind that would legitimately challenge our abilities and potentialies - the more we are going to wrestle with the problem of 'existential insufficiency and alienation' - and extended further if it is happening more or less all the time - of a 'beingless existence' - or worded otherwise - an existence without the challenge and meaning of 'self-striving' and 'self-fulfillment'...We all have to 'go to trial' at various points in our lives -- the Franz Kafka/Joseph K. type of trial...(Franz Kafka, The Trial, 1925, "SOMEONE must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning..." ). The type of trial I am talking about is an 'existential trial' - a trial about the accountability and responsibility we all must take for leading and/or having led, either a meaningful, substantiated life with many 'tightrope climbings and extensions of our existence' - or the opposite - the type of life where we are always watching someone else take on the responsibilites and challenges while we watch from the sidelines, we watch from the home base cliff while someone else is climbing one of the existential tightropes. At the end of the day we are left feeling unfulfilled and unsubstantiated by our lack of courage and/or effort. In this case, we see and feel the abyss with the greatest of clarity, first with anxiety, by looking down rather than ahead to the other side of the cliff, to our goal, But even worse is when we feel the abyss in the pit of our stomach and in the core of our heart because we have led a life that has not sufficiently contacted ourselves and the limits of our capabilities, and/or not contacted anyone else in a sufficiently meaningful way. (See Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, 1948.) The good news is that we can change the direction - and the substance - in our life, at any moment in time, with any change in behavior, small and/or large. But to do this, we cannot avoid the Nietzschean existential tightrope(s).
dgbn,
david gordon bain,
dialectical-gap-bridging-negotiations
democracy goes beyond narcissism
Having reflected on this situation for a while, I have come to the conclusion that it might be useful to differentiate between different types of 'existential tightropes'. Specifically, I have distinguished between ten different types of existential tightropes that offer ten different types of challenges to our existence.
Common to all these different Nietzschean tightropes is the Nietzschean idea of the 'Superman philosophy', the 'will to power', or better translated in most cases perhaps - 'the will to excel'.
In this regard, we can talk about 1. the 'Apollonian-Socratean-Platonic tightrope' of law, ethical idealism, and civil order; 2. the 'Dionysian tightrope' of pleasure, sensuality, sexuality, hedonism; 3. the 'Rousseauian tightrope' of love and romance; 4. the 'Marxian tightrope' of social and political activism, 'self-fulfilling' vs. 'self-alienating' work, issues pertaining to economic stability and status, and our propensity for 'acting on our goals' as opposed to just sitting around and 'thinking about them'; 5. the 'Hegelian tightrope' of negotiating conflicting differences of opinion and want; 6. the 'Spinozian-Scholastic spiritual tightrope' of wholism, unity, family, community, and altruism. 7. is the 'Heraclitean-Aristolean-Baconian-Lockean' tightrope of science, process-thinking, and empiricism; 8. is the 'Jamesian tightrope' of common sense, simplicity, and pragmatism; 9. is the 'Derridian rebellious-deconstructionist tightrope' of anti-status-quo, process and structure. In a more negative vein, unless we are talking about the area of 'sports and games', we might talk about man's obsession with 10. the 'Anaxamanderian-Foucauldian tightrope' of power, control, revenge, and war.
The essence of all these Nietzshean tightropes, metaphorically speaking, is that every time we step onto, or climb onto, one of these tightropes, we are going to feel an adrelanine rush - a mixture of anxiety and excitement - to the extent that we are actually going to tightrope walk to the other side, over the abyss opposite our 'home base-cliff' that we just left the sweet security of.
In each case, we might reflect, feel, and act on the actual essence of the tightrope walk of our life and existence. The adrenaline rush and the contrast to what we just left then is this: that we are actually walking on the tightrope, using our mental faculties, and our passion, our adrenaline rush, and our arms and legs to actually get us to the other side, and in so doing, stretching the limits of our capabilities and potentialities to their maximum -- as opposed to just 'hanging out there', hanging onto the rope for dear life, waiting for someone to come and rescue us from the rope overlooking the abyss - the danger and anxiety - of our existence...This is the difference between 'existential self-suffiency' and 'existential dependency'. We can also contrast the combined adrenaline rush of anxiety and excitement of being on one of our existential tightropes with the safety of the home-base cliff which can become our prison rather than our home if we are unwilling to leave its safety for the danger of the tightrope walk across the abyss.
This is my interpretation of Nietzsche's 'Superman philosophy', and it is the starting-point of my own personally modified post-Hegelian, post-Nietzschean, post-a-lot-of-philosphers-and-ideas...'Gap Multi-Dialectical, Humanistic-Existential Philosophy'...
The 'tightrope' formula is generally fairly simple: the more responsibilities we take on - up to a certain threshold of tolerance at least - the more we challenge our own capabilities and potentialities; in contrast, the more we seek to avoid responsibilities - at least of the kind that would legitimately challenge our abilities and potentialies - the more we are going to wrestle with the problem of 'existential insufficiency and alienation' - and extended further if it is happening more or less all the time - of a 'beingless existence' - or worded otherwise - an existence without the challenge and meaning of 'self-striving' and 'self-fulfillment'...We all have to 'go to trial' at various points in our lives -- the Franz Kafka/Joseph K. type of trial...(Franz Kafka, The Trial, 1925, "SOMEONE must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning..." ). The type of trial I am talking about is an 'existential trial' - a trial about the accountability and responsibility we all must take for leading and/or having led, either a meaningful, substantiated life with many 'tightrope climbings and extensions of our existence' - or the opposite - the type of life where we are always watching someone else take on the responsibilites and challenges while we watch from the sidelines, we watch from the home base cliff while someone else is climbing one of the existential tightropes. At the end of the day we are left feeling unfulfilled and unsubstantiated by our lack of courage and/or effort. In this case, we see and feel the abyss with the greatest of clarity, first with anxiety, by looking down rather than ahead to the other side of the cliff, to our goal, But even worse is when we feel the abyss in the pit of our stomach and in the core of our heart because we have led a life that has not sufficiently contacted ourselves and the limits of our capabilities, and/or not contacted anyone else in a sufficiently meaningful way. (See Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, 1948.) The good news is that we can change the direction - and the substance - in our life, at any moment in time, with any change in behavior, small and/or large. But to do this, we cannot avoid the Nietzschean existential tightrope(s).
dgbn,
david gordon bain,
dialectical-gap-bridging-negotiations
democracy goes beyond narcissism
Sunday, May 13, 2007
On Bridging Some of The Gaps Between Hegel, Feuerbach, God, Religion, Marx, Capitalism and More...
The philosophical jump from Hegel to Marx was, and still is, colossal in its practical significance and impact. It is often stated that Marx stood 'Hegel's philosophy on its head' -- or from a Marxian perspective 'planted Hegelian philosophy properly on its feet after it was Hegel himself who had put his own philosophy improperly standing on its head'. Alas, everything is perspective.
Let us be clear on my perspective. I view myself as a capitalist idealist and Reformist with perhaps some socialist ideas thrown in there to the sum of about 25%. Thus, as a starting point let us say that I am about 75% capitalist idealist and reformist, 25% socialist idealist and reformist. I do not view myself as a Marxist except in parts of his early humanistic work-alienation theory, not in his later economic socialist and/or communist theory. You look at Canada today and you see that we have a network of 'social assistance' programs and 'unemployment' programs designed to help those who are perceived by government officals as being in the most legitimate and dire need. Whether you like it or not -- and I think most 'Liberal and NDP-minded people (even some Conservatives) appreciate the necessity and importance of some form of 'social saftey nets' to help avoid the possibility of people actually dying of poverty in their homes and/or on the street) -- Canada has been very much influenced by the development of socialist ideas.
You don't have to go all the way with Marx to still appreciate the fact that he was undoubtedly the most impressive critic of Capitalism in the history of Western philosophy. Any legitimate capitalist idealist and/or reformist needs to read Marx to get a strong understanding of some of the problems of capitalism, both in Marx's time, and as capitalism has evolved into what it is today. That does not mean that you have to follow Marx's thought process to either socialism and/or communism. It just means that a good capitalist idealist and reformist should and will take a hard look at Marx's criticisms of Capitalism -- and even some of Hegel's preceding ideas on 'alienation' and the 'master/slave' relationship.
The philosophical bridge between Hegel and Marx is an outstanding paper written by Ludwig Feuerbach called 'The Essence of Christianity' in 1841.
Through Feuerbach's monumental paper, Hegel's philosophy from 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (1807) underwent 'transformational criticism' of a provocative kind -- a 'Copernican switch' if you will. And this dealt with the issue of God and religion.
Writes Robert C. Tucker, editor of 'The Marx-Engels Reader' (1978, pg. xxii, Introduction):
'For Hegel man is spirit (God) in the process of self-alienation and self-realization, i.e., man presents himself in history as self-alienated God.'
Through the process of history, and more appropriately through 'historical-cultural-philosophical evolution', man gradually overcomes his self-alienation and moves closer and closer towards a position of 'Absolute Knowledge', 'The Spirit of God' and Perfection. Thus, through the evolution of man's history, according to Hegel, man is moving closer and closer to a full self-awareness and an awareness of God, the two being intimately connected. (my addition).
Back to Tucker (1978, pg, xxii, Introduction):
'The truth, says Feuerbach, is just the reverse. Instead of seeing man as self-alienated God, we must see God as self-alienated man. That is, when man, the human species, projects an idealized image of itself into heaven as 'God' and worships this imaginary heavenly being, it becomes estranged from itself; its own ungodly earthly reality becomes alien and hateful. To overcome this alienation man must repossess his alienated being, take 'God' back into himself, recognize in man -- and specifically in other human individuals -- the proper object of care, love, and worship. Such is the basic argument of Feuerbach's 'Essence of Christianity'.'
Now one of my favorite philosopher-politicians is Thomas Jefferson. As I try to sort out my own ideas on God and religion, I just read to quotes by Jefferson that I like and will repeat here:
'Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
-- Thomas Jefferson
The essence of what he is saying here that I like: 'Question with boldness even the existence of God.'
And the second quote:
Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.
-- Thomas Jefferson
I like this quote because of its 'functional' approach to God and religion. In other words, the value of God and religion cannot always appropriately be measured in terms of their very arguable 'epistemological realness'. Maybe God and religion should be more appropriately evaluated in terms of the significance, the meaning, and the functional value that they have on the way that we live our lives. Is anybody going to argue with the meaning, the significance, and the functional value that God and religion played in Mother Teresa's life? Certainly not me. What a courageous, wonderful, loving, giving person. Now you contrast the significance of how God and religion played such an integral part of Mother Teresa's life with the way that someone like Osama bin Laden has used and abused the name of God to play out his own power, hatred and revenge fantasies -- and you get the essence of the meaning of what Jefferson was saying when he said: 'Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.'
Character -- and the way that God and religion are used functionally and/or pathologically, sadistically, masochistically, and/or otherwise maliciously in a person's life -- these things make all the difference in the world when we are talking about the importance and/or the pathology of God and religion. It is all in how they are used in a person's life.
Now let us switch over to Marx. Marx was heavily influenced by Feuerbach's 'transformational criticism' and 'inversion' of Hegelian philosophy. Except Marx was more interested in the influence of economics on mankind than he was interested in the influence of God and religion. So Marx simply 'transformed' Feuerbach's 'transformation' -- from God and religion to economics, work production, the 'bourgeoisie' vs. the 'proletariat', and 'dialectical materialism'.
In my opinion -- and this is one place where I differ from Marx -- there is nothing black and white about capitalism. No all-encompassing generalizations can be made. Every private corporation and every public corporation is an individual entity in itself and needs to be judged as such. Indeed, if proper evaluations are going to be made about a corporation or institution -- especially the larger it is -- then sub-evaluations are going to be needed to be made concerning each individual department of the corporation or institution -- regardless of whether this is a private or public corporation or institution.
Everything depends on the style of leadership and the ethics and the level of 'humanistic-existentialism' (meaning the level of human compassion, fairness, worker freedom, creativity, and autonomy, etc.) that is allowed to exist within the confines of the individual company.
To be sure, every company has its bottom line, has certain functions that it has to perform well in order to keep contracts, continue to have customers, and stay in business. Some companies have more room for margin of error than other companeis do. Some companies may be functioning on a very thin line between success and failure, between profit and loss.
However within this parameter of the success or failure of a company -- indeed, oftentimes very much tied up with it -- are such factors as 'style of leadership', 'degree of ethics', 'freedom and autonomy of the worker', 'degree of creativity for the worker', 'amount remuneration (pay level), 'degree of feedback and creative negotiation between the employer (or manager or supervisor) and the worker...and so on. Again, no massive generalizations and conclusions can be made relative to how a hundred thousand totally different companies are run -- and even the different departments within each company -- and thus, for Marx to make any massive generalizations and conclusions about the 'nature of capitalism and employer/employee relations and employee/work relations' in every different work setting, in every different corporation -- is fundamentally faulty.
This may even be more so today than it was in Marx's time. In Marx's time the style of leadership may have been generally more 'Draconian' and 'anti-humanistic'. There may have been more 'sweat shops' and 'child labor' and inhumane work practices. Coal workers going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark, and perhaps dying prematurely because of the type of dust that they were breathing all day in their lungs. If you go back a few centuries earlier than Marx, Spinoza (1632-1677) died prematurely (at 45) from 'grinding lenses (glass)' for a living. His work may or may not have been 'creative' -- but if you die 20 or 30 or 40 years prematurely because of the nature of your work, then we can probably say that it was not a very good line of work. (However, people do what they believe they have to do in order to economically survive.) As a taxi driver, I used to drive a middle-age man (50-55) back and forth to the hospital who was dying of emphysema. He had worked in a printing shop much of his life and probably also was not breathing good things into his lungs. There are more laws that exist today that are designed to make the work place a safer place to work -- but these laws may not always be properly monitored and enforced in individual company situations. In some cases, there are existing health hazards that may be as dangerous today as 400 years ago without the laws. Safety laws are only as good as the people -- employers and employees -- who do or don't respect them, and short cuts are often made -- dangerous short cuts -- to save money.
It's all in the style of the leadership. You can have a Draconian capitalist boss. You can have a Draconian socialist boss. Lenin and Stalin will never go down in the books of history as 'humanitarians'.
The argument has been made that we strive idealistically for 'democracy' in our style of government. Why do we not strive for the same in our corporate-work environment. A very good question.
Well, one of the counter-arguments that is likely to be made is this: the employees haven't invested their life savings into the business; the employees don't own the business -- and if it goes 'under', then they just go out and get another job. The owner(s) of the business might be financially ruined for years to come, even perhaps for the rest of their life/lives. They aren't likely to walk away 'scott-free' -- they may be saddled with a level of debt-load that the average employee would not want to have any part of, or take any responsibility for. Thus, the final decisions should go to the person(s) who have the most shares and/or money and/or the courage and ingenuity to start up the company. Delegations of 'lesser authorities' can be passed on down the line according to the decisions of the principle owners/shareholders of the company. Yes, this is more of a 'military' style of management as opposed to a democracy but there is a reason why a military style of management is used in the military and not a democracy style of management. Sometimes -- oftentimes -- a democracy style of management is much slower and less efficient in its speed and efficiency of decision-making.
I am a dispatcher by trade -- part way between the manager and owners of the company on the one side, and the drivers who I dispatch to on the other side. I've been hired presumably because of the competence of my dispatching skills relative to overseeing the work and efficiency of the drivers. I am not paid to make regular mistakes and misjudgments -- sometimes they happen -- but if they happen too often, or management doesn't like my style of dispatching, or they think that a computer can do it better, then I am likely out of a job, or may have diminished responsibilities.
For the most part, I try to treat my drivers humanely, make decisions that are good for both the company and my drivers but sometimes what a driver thinks is best for him will conflict with what I think is best for the company. And sometimes in these cases, I have to 'draw rank' on the driver. I tell him he does the call or 'he's off the air'. No more calls for him. He works by himself or he packs up and goes home -- or he changes his mind and decides to do the call. This is not a democracy. I am being paid, firstly, to make sure that the business is properly covered. I try to the best of my ability to mix 'fairness' and 'humaneness' into my decision-making process but sometimes I have to tell a driver to 'suck it up' and do the call that he or she doesn't want to do.
Sometimes decisions are made above me regarding money and how the drivers are paid -- that I don't like, that I don't think are fair to the driver. I had a driver that came in the other day and quit on me, on the spot, because he looked at this paycheque and saw that the company had changed the way they paid the driver without notifying him. They changed from paying him by the hour to paying him by the kilometre. It probably cost him about $200-300 on his paycheque. I told him I basically agreed with him, I didn't think that it was fair for them to change pay systems without notifying him -- but there was a gray area here -- all the full-time day drivers were in the process of switching over, and had signed contracts to the new deal -- it's just he wasn't a full time day driver who had signed a new contract; he was a part-time night driver who was caught in the middle of a switch that he did not like, and as he said, he did not sign up or agree to. So out the door he went. I probably wouldn't have made the decision management made regarding the part-time night drivers who some nights might have trouble getting enough kilometers to make them want to come in and work at night. However, regarding the day drivers, one could easily detect a difference in their level of motivation. Now they were much more willing to stay out and do extra calls -- especially if they had good kilometers attached to them -- whereas before when they were being paid on an hourly rate, to the maximum of 12 hours a day, they would have been quick to ask me to cover them after their 12 hours was over. Trying to get a driver to stay out past his 12 hours when he was not getting paid for it was obviously like pulling teeth and I would cringe when directives would come from above me to keep a driver out 'against his will'. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
At the end of the day, each and every driver will undoubtedly evaluate the difference between what he or she 'used to get paid' and what he or she is getting paid now. And if there is a significant drop in the net paycheque, then I expect that there will be more drivers who quit on me, contract or no contract. The company may or may not expect this. If it happens, then they will undoubtedly simply hire new drivers who are not familiar with the 'old system of pay'. It obviously hurts the company every time we lose a good driver but the company will adjust, take a hit for a week or two while the new drivers are learning, and carry on. It pains me partly to say this but the bottom line is the profit line, much more so in some companies than in others -- some are looking for 'fair' profits, others are looking for 'gouging, narcissistic' profits; of much less importance in some companies more than others is the general health, happiness, and well-being of the employees that are working for them. Again, the level of 'humanness' and 'fairness' in style of management can differ greatly from one company to another. This raises the important distinction that I make between 'narcissistic capitalism' and 'ethical, humanistic-existential capitalism'.
We will leave it here for today.
db, May 13th, 2007.
Let us be clear on my perspective. I view myself as a capitalist idealist and Reformist with perhaps some socialist ideas thrown in there to the sum of about 25%. Thus, as a starting point let us say that I am about 75% capitalist idealist and reformist, 25% socialist idealist and reformist. I do not view myself as a Marxist except in parts of his early humanistic work-alienation theory, not in his later economic socialist and/or communist theory. You look at Canada today and you see that we have a network of 'social assistance' programs and 'unemployment' programs designed to help those who are perceived by government officals as being in the most legitimate and dire need. Whether you like it or not -- and I think most 'Liberal and NDP-minded people (even some Conservatives) appreciate the necessity and importance of some form of 'social saftey nets' to help avoid the possibility of people actually dying of poverty in their homes and/or on the street) -- Canada has been very much influenced by the development of socialist ideas.
You don't have to go all the way with Marx to still appreciate the fact that he was undoubtedly the most impressive critic of Capitalism in the history of Western philosophy. Any legitimate capitalist idealist and/or reformist needs to read Marx to get a strong understanding of some of the problems of capitalism, both in Marx's time, and as capitalism has evolved into what it is today. That does not mean that you have to follow Marx's thought process to either socialism and/or communism. It just means that a good capitalist idealist and reformist should and will take a hard look at Marx's criticisms of Capitalism -- and even some of Hegel's preceding ideas on 'alienation' and the 'master/slave' relationship.
The philosophical bridge between Hegel and Marx is an outstanding paper written by Ludwig Feuerbach called 'The Essence of Christianity' in 1841.
Through Feuerbach's monumental paper, Hegel's philosophy from 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (1807) underwent 'transformational criticism' of a provocative kind -- a 'Copernican switch' if you will. And this dealt with the issue of God and religion.
Writes Robert C. Tucker, editor of 'The Marx-Engels Reader' (1978, pg. xxii, Introduction):
'For Hegel man is spirit (God) in the process of self-alienation and self-realization, i.e., man presents himself in history as self-alienated God.'
Through the process of history, and more appropriately through 'historical-cultural-philosophical evolution', man gradually overcomes his self-alienation and moves closer and closer towards a position of 'Absolute Knowledge', 'The Spirit of God' and Perfection. Thus, through the evolution of man's history, according to Hegel, man is moving closer and closer to a full self-awareness and an awareness of God, the two being intimately connected. (my addition).
Back to Tucker (1978, pg, xxii, Introduction):
'The truth, says Feuerbach, is just the reverse. Instead of seeing man as self-alienated God, we must see God as self-alienated man. That is, when man, the human species, projects an idealized image of itself into heaven as 'God' and worships this imaginary heavenly being, it becomes estranged from itself; its own ungodly earthly reality becomes alien and hateful. To overcome this alienation man must repossess his alienated being, take 'God' back into himself, recognize in man -- and specifically in other human individuals -- the proper object of care, love, and worship. Such is the basic argument of Feuerbach's 'Essence of Christianity'.'
Now one of my favorite philosopher-politicians is Thomas Jefferson. As I try to sort out my own ideas on God and religion, I just read to quotes by Jefferson that I like and will repeat here:
'Shake off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
-- Thomas Jefferson
The essence of what he is saying here that I like: 'Question with boldness even the existence of God.'
And the second quote:
Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.
-- Thomas Jefferson
I like this quote because of its 'functional' approach to God and religion. In other words, the value of God and religion cannot always appropriately be measured in terms of their very arguable 'epistemological realness'. Maybe God and religion should be more appropriately evaluated in terms of the significance, the meaning, and the functional value that they have on the way that we live our lives. Is anybody going to argue with the meaning, the significance, and the functional value that God and religion played in Mother Teresa's life? Certainly not me. What a courageous, wonderful, loving, giving person. Now you contrast the significance of how God and religion played such an integral part of Mother Teresa's life with the way that someone like Osama bin Laden has used and abused the name of God to play out his own power, hatred and revenge fantasies -- and you get the essence of the meaning of what Jefferson was saying when he said: 'Say nothing of my religion. It is known to God and myself alone. Its evidence before the world is to be sought in my life: if it has been honest and dutiful to society the religion which has regulated it cannot be a bad one.'
Character -- and the way that God and religion are used functionally and/or pathologically, sadistically, masochistically, and/or otherwise maliciously in a person's life -- these things make all the difference in the world when we are talking about the importance and/or the pathology of God and religion. It is all in how they are used in a person's life.
Now let us switch over to Marx. Marx was heavily influenced by Feuerbach's 'transformational criticism' and 'inversion' of Hegelian philosophy. Except Marx was more interested in the influence of economics on mankind than he was interested in the influence of God and religion. So Marx simply 'transformed' Feuerbach's 'transformation' -- from God and religion to economics, work production, the 'bourgeoisie' vs. the 'proletariat', and 'dialectical materialism'.
In my opinion -- and this is one place where I differ from Marx -- there is nothing black and white about capitalism. No all-encompassing generalizations can be made. Every private corporation and every public corporation is an individual entity in itself and needs to be judged as such. Indeed, if proper evaluations are going to be made about a corporation or institution -- especially the larger it is -- then sub-evaluations are going to be needed to be made concerning each individual department of the corporation or institution -- regardless of whether this is a private or public corporation or institution.
Everything depends on the style of leadership and the ethics and the level of 'humanistic-existentialism' (meaning the level of human compassion, fairness, worker freedom, creativity, and autonomy, etc.) that is allowed to exist within the confines of the individual company.
To be sure, every company has its bottom line, has certain functions that it has to perform well in order to keep contracts, continue to have customers, and stay in business. Some companies have more room for margin of error than other companeis do. Some companies may be functioning on a very thin line between success and failure, between profit and loss.
However within this parameter of the success or failure of a company -- indeed, oftentimes very much tied up with it -- are such factors as 'style of leadership', 'degree of ethics', 'freedom and autonomy of the worker', 'degree of creativity for the worker', 'amount remuneration (pay level), 'degree of feedback and creative negotiation between the employer (or manager or supervisor) and the worker...and so on. Again, no massive generalizations and conclusions can be made relative to how a hundred thousand totally different companies are run -- and even the different departments within each company -- and thus, for Marx to make any massive generalizations and conclusions about the 'nature of capitalism and employer/employee relations and employee/work relations' in every different work setting, in every different corporation -- is fundamentally faulty.
This may even be more so today than it was in Marx's time. In Marx's time the style of leadership may have been generally more 'Draconian' and 'anti-humanistic'. There may have been more 'sweat shops' and 'child labor' and inhumane work practices. Coal workers going to work in the dark and coming home in the dark, and perhaps dying prematurely because of the type of dust that they were breathing all day in their lungs. If you go back a few centuries earlier than Marx, Spinoza (1632-1677) died prematurely (at 45) from 'grinding lenses (glass)' for a living. His work may or may not have been 'creative' -- but if you die 20 or 30 or 40 years prematurely because of the nature of your work, then we can probably say that it was not a very good line of work. (However, people do what they believe they have to do in order to economically survive.) As a taxi driver, I used to drive a middle-age man (50-55) back and forth to the hospital who was dying of emphysema. He had worked in a printing shop much of his life and probably also was not breathing good things into his lungs. There are more laws that exist today that are designed to make the work place a safer place to work -- but these laws may not always be properly monitored and enforced in individual company situations. In some cases, there are existing health hazards that may be as dangerous today as 400 years ago without the laws. Safety laws are only as good as the people -- employers and employees -- who do or don't respect them, and short cuts are often made -- dangerous short cuts -- to save money.
It's all in the style of the leadership. You can have a Draconian capitalist boss. You can have a Draconian socialist boss. Lenin and Stalin will never go down in the books of history as 'humanitarians'.
The argument has been made that we strive idealistically for 'democracy' in our style of government. Why do we not strive for the same in our corporate-work environment. A very good question.
Well, one of the counter-arguments that is likely to be made is this: the employees haven't invested their life savings into the business; the employees don't own the business -- and if it goes 'under', then they just go out and get another job. The owner(s) of the business might be financially ruined for years to come, even perhaps for the rest of their life/lives. They aren't likely to walk away 'scott-free' -- they may be saddled with a level of debt-load that the average employee would not want to have any part of, or take any responsibility for. Thus, the final decisions should go to the person(s) who have the most shares and/or money and/or the courage and ingenuity to start up the company. Delegations of 'lesser authorities' can be passed on down the line according to the decisions of the principle owners/shareholders of the company. Yes, this is more of a 'military' style of management as opposed to a democracy but there is a reason why a military style of management is used in the military and not a democracy style of management. Sometimes -- oftentimes -- a democracy style of management is much slower and less efficient in its speed and efficiency of decision-making.
I am a dispatcher by trade -- part way between the manager and owners of the company on the one side, and the drivers who I dispatch to on the other side. I've been hired presumably because of the competence of my dispatching skills relative to overseeing the work and efficiency of the drivers. I am not paid to make regular mistakes and misjudgments -- sometimes they happen -- but if they happen too often, or management doesn't like my style of dispatching, or they think that a computer can do it better, then I am likely out of a job, or may have diminished responsibilities.
For the most part, I try to treat my drivers humanely, make decisions that are good for both the company and my drivers but sometimes what a driver thinks is best for him will conflict with what I think is best for the company. And sometimes in these cases, I have to 'draw rank' on the driver. I tell him he does the call or 'he's off the air'. No more calls for him. He works by himself or he packs up and goes home -- or he changes his mind and decides to do the call. This is not a democracy. I am being paid, firstly, to make sure that the business is properly covered. I try to the best of my ability to mix 'fairness' and 'humaneness' into my decision-making process but sometimes I have to tell a driver to 'suck it up' and do the call that he or she doesn't want to do.
Sometimes decisions are made above me regarding money and how the drivers are paid -- that I don't like, that I don't think are fair to the driver. I had a driver that came in the other day and quit on me, on the spot, because he looked at this paycheque and saw that the company had changed the way they paid the driver without notifying him. They changed from paying him by the hour to paying him by the kilometre. It probably cost him about $200-300 on his paycheque. I told him I basically agreed with him, I didn't think that it was fair for them to change pay systems without notifying him -- but there was a gray area here -- all the full-time day drivers were in the process of switching over, and had signed contracts to the new deal -- it's just he wasn't a full time day driver who had signed a new contract; he was a part-time night driver who was caught in the middle of a switch that he did not like, and as he said, he did not sign up or agree to. So out the door he went. I probably wouldn't have made the decision management made regarding the part-time night drivers who some nights might have trouble getting enough kilometers to make them want to come in and work at night. However, regarding the day drivers, one could easily detect a difference in their level of motivation. Now they were much more willing to stay out and do extra calls -- especially if they had good kilometers attached to them -- whereas before when they were being paid on an hourly rate, to the maximum of 12 hours a day, they would have been quick to ask me to cover them after their 12 hours was over. Trying to get a driver to stay out past his 12 hours when he was not getting paid for it was obviously like pulling teeth and I would cringe when directives would come from above me to keep a driver out 'against his will'. I was stuck between a rock and a hard place.
At the end of the day, each and every driver will undoubtedly evaluate the difference between what he or she 'used to get paid' and what he or she is getting paid now. And if there is a significant drop in the net paycheque, then I expect that there will be more drivers who quit on me, contract or no contract. The company may or may not expect this. If it happens, then they will undoubtedly simply hire new drivers who are not familiar with the 'old system of pay'. It obviously hurts the company every time we lose a good driver but the company will adjust, take a hit for a week or two while the new drivers are learning, and carry on. It pains me partly to say this but the bottom line is the profit line, much more so in some companies than in others -- some are looking for 'fair' profits, others are looking for 'gouging, narcissistic' profits; of much less importance in some companies more than others is the general health, happiness, and well-being of the employees that are working for them. Again, the level of 'humanness' and 'fairness' in style of management can differ greatly from one company to another. This raises the important distinction that I make between 'narcissistic capitalism' and 'ethical, humanistic-existential capitalism'.
We will leave it here for today.
db, May 13th, 2007.
Wednesday, May 9, 2007
On the Meaning and Origin of the Term/Concept of 'Narcissism'
In this essay, I will explore some of the roots and history of the concept of narcissism -- and my own theory of narcissism as it applies to GAP-DGB Philosophy.
Narcissism is both a good and bad thing -- and we cannot escape it because narcissism is 'hard-wired' into human nature. By 'narcissism', I am referring to a combination of 'selfishness', 'hedonism', 'egotism', and 'self-centredness'. We will call these the four 'cornerstones' of narcissism.
Kids don't need to 'learn' to be selfish. They just are -- until they are taught to keep their narcissism (selfishness and self-centredness)in check. They need to be taught 'manners', 'ethics', 'morals', 'sharing', 'giving', 'fairness', 'loving' and the like...because if they aren't then they never will. Both 'pampering' and 'neglect' can promote narcissism. A 'healthy' child is a child that learns a good balance between 'soft' and 'tough' love....'soft love' comes from 'compassion' and 'encouragement', 'tough love' comes form 'accountability'. There's no such thing as a 'perfect parent' any more than there is a 'perfect child'. We all try to teach 'balance' -- as well as achieve it ourselves -- but the pendulum is always swinging back and forth without really coming to a rest in the middle (at least until we are dead).
Similarily, in history you can find a 'prevalence of narcissism' in every generation in one form or another -- and/or 'overcompensation' against narcissism which can be just as bad. When there is too much 'suppression', 'denial' and/or 'repression' of narcissism -- narcissism always finds a way to 'leak out' in the form of 'acting out' and 'symptoms'. On the other side of the coin, too much open, unbridled narcissism in a society can lead to a breakdown or self-destruction of a society (the fall of the Roman Empire).
Two of the philosophers who wrote the most on the prevalence and dangers of narcissism -- even though they didn't call it that -- were Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) who wrote that 'civil' life in a society would be 'savagery' (Lord of the Flies) without a strong government, strong police force, and strong army that is able to 'keep in check' and 'under control' all uncivil acts (of narcissism) -- Hobbes's account of human nature as self-interested (narcissistic) cooperation has proved to be an enduring theory in the field of philosophical anthropology; and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) -- the ultimate philosopher of pessimism who wrote essentially that life was essentially evil, futile, and full of suffering. (He also had the arrogance and gall to schedule his lectures at the same time as Hegel. Scopenhauer despised Hegel -- who presumably, he thought was 'too idealistic', 'too 'wishful thinking' and had to much of his 'head in the clouds' to see what was happening in the 'real world' (of suffering and savagery).
It is easy to try to equate 'narcissism' with Capitalism but that is not an equal equation because some of the most 'savage narcissists' have been 'socialists and/or communists' (Lenin, Stalin). Similarily, it is easy to say that the main fight of 'religion' is against 'human greed and narcissism' but that equation doesn't completely fit either because some of the 'greediest and most narcissistic acts' were committed by the Roman Catholic Church at the height of its power -- and of course other religions too that get caught up in their own 'power and greed'.
The origin of the term 'narcissism' came from Havelock Ellis...
Henry Havelock Ellis (February 2, 1859 - July 8, 1939), known as Havelock Ellis, was a British doctor, sexual psychologist and social reformer.
He described 'narcissism' as a type of 'sexual disorder' where a person is more or less 'in love with themselves' -- the name 'Narcissius' coming from ancient Greek mythology...
Found on the internet...
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Re: Echo and Narcissius
posted by WolfKing on 3/18/03 11:17 PM
Narcissius was a handsome young man that every woman fawned over. Narcissius was so handsome that he felt there was no comparison for his beauty and he often ignored his would be lovers or told them to leave him alone. Well Echo was a Nymph who fell in love with Narcissius, who had gotten into trouble with Hera a while back. On an expidition to find out which of the nymphs was Zeus' latest love, Hera found herself diverted by Echo's chatter until all the nymphs had fled. As a result, Hera was annoyed with Echo and herself and doomed Echo by decreeing that she [Echo] would not be able to say one word on her own. She would have to repeat the last few words of what another person had said.
Of course this wouldn't help Echo one bit in her pursuit of Narcissius. Now she could only repeat the words that he spoke to her, which were basically, "Go away" or "Leave me alone". Eventually Echo became saddened and embarassed by her situation that she hid herself in a mountain and to this day repeats the last words of travelers who speak into caves.
Narciuss, meanwhile, had found somebody that he could love. While peering into a pool of clear water he spotted his own reflection, and not realizing that it was only his reflection, reached down into the water to try to touch the beautiful face and he drowned. (In another version of the story Narcissius looked into a pool of clear water, and seeing his own reflection realized that the only person he could ever love was himself. And he died of a broken heart.)
I remember reading this from a book called "Greek Myths: Gods, Heroes and Monsters" by Ellen Switzer and Costas. I hope that helped you out.
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Second Paper On Narcissism
There is no corner of human thought, feeling, and behavior that the phenomenon and concept of 'narcissism' does not touch. For those of my less experienced philosophy and psychology readers, if you are having trouble getting your brain and your lips around the word 'narcissism', then let me associate it with a word that I am sure you are much more familiar with -- selfishness.
So that is your starting point -- your basepoint of recognition and meaning, relative to the term narcissism. However, that is only the starting point. For those of you who may be reasonably familiar with Psychoanalysis, you might know that Sigmund Freud came to use the term 'narcissism' as one of the centrepieces of his philosophical and psychological investigation. And so it is with me. I will acknowledge my debt to Freud and indirectly, to Havelock Ellis,, who influenced Freud who in turn influenced me -- a chain reaction from Ellis to Freud through various other psychoanalytic theorists but basically arriving to me through Freud.
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From Wikepedia, the free encyclopedia....
Narcissism describes the character trait of self love.
The word is derived from a Greek myth. Narcissus was a handsome Greek youth who rejected the desperate advances of the nymph Echo. As punishment, he was doomed to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Unable to consummate his love, Narcissus pined away and changed into the flower that bears his name, the narcissus.
Freud believed that some narcissism is an essential part of all of us from birth and was the first to use the term in the reference to psychology.[1].
Andrew Morrison claims that, in adults, a reasonable amount of healthy narcissism allows the individual's perception of his needs to be balanced in relation to others[2].
In psychology and psychiatry, excessive narcissism is recognized as a severe personality dysfunction or personality disorder, most characteristically Narcissistic Personality Disorder, also referred to as NPD.
The terms "narcissism", "narcissistic" and "narcissist" are often used as pejoratives, denoting vanity, conceit, egotism or simple selfishness. Applied to a social group, it is sometimes used to denote elitism or an indifference to the plight of others.
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There are many questions to be asked about narcissism. Some have been asked by theorists before me. To what extent is narcissism 'natural' and 'normal'? From my perspective, it seems to be a healhty component of natural and normal self-assertion. Before you can be assertive about what you want, you need to know what you want, and to the extent that what you want is based on your own self-perceived needs and/or wishes, this is healthy narcissism.
Narcissism starts to become pathological when it 'blocks out' the needs and/or wishes of others. When we are like a horse with blinders on, and can only see what is directly in front of us, projected there like a movie screen from our own self-perceived needs and/or wishes while we are trying to live or work in a relationship where an other person may have perceived needs and/or wishes that are quite different than our own, it is here that the narcissistic person gets 'stuck'. The narcissistic person becomes like a 'pitbull' trying to force his or her jaws into other people in order to get his or her way. Get his or her way and the narcissistic person is happy; stymied, and he or she gets angry and/or moody, and will usually stay that way til the other side gives in. Intimidation and/or manipulation are usually the marks of the narcissistic person. So too is a marked lack of social empathy, social sensitivity, and/or social respect for the rights and/or opinions of and/or feelings of others.
It is important to note both the family and the cultural base of narcissism. Pathological narcissim can be 'nurtured' in a family either by neglect (a narcissistic parent or parents that ignore the child in which case the child copies the ignoring behavior of the parent(s)); or by spoiling or pampering the child in which case the child grows up thinking he or she is king or queen but without a proper social empathy and/or respect for the rights, opinions, and/or feelings of others.
From an economic and cultural perspective narcissism can be tied to both socialism and capitalism. The socialist narcissist is the person who feels entitled to whatever 'handouts' the government is willing to give him or her. This is different from the person who actually legitimately needs help from the government system; rather it is the type of person who will spend much time and energy doing what is necessary to 'manipulate the system' in his or her favor, perhaps because this is the way he or she has been taught to survive.
The influence of capitalism on narcissism and narcissism on capitalism is massive -- hugely disturbing when you think out the full ramifications of this two-sided (or dialectical) influence. So much so that I have come to differentiate between narcisistic capitalism and ethical humanisitic-existential capitalism; between narcissistic politics and ethical humanistic-existential politics; between narcissistic medicine and ethical humanistic-existential medicine; between narcissistic law and ethical humanistic-existential law; between narcissistic business and ethical humanistic-existential business; between narcissistic sports and entertainment and ethical humanistic-existential sports and entertainment; between narcissistic masculinism and/or feminism and ethical humanistic-existential masculinism and/or feminism...
What is the relationship between narcissism and capitalism in this regard? Simply this. It creates conflict of interest between ethical capitalism and unethical capitalism. Unethical capitalism becomes a short cut to the fulfillment of human greed -- invariably at someone else's expense which is why narcissistic capitalism and unethical capitalism are essential one and the same thing. The game often becomes 'two in, one out' -- 'let's you and me get rich at someone else's (for example, the public's) expense'. This is what you call a 'kickback' or 'feeding' scheme. Two people or sets of people are feeding each other at the expense of a third party that is left outside in the dark not knowing what is happening -- unless or until the third party finds out. Then we may have a 'scandal' that blows up and hits the fan -- for example, the media if it is big enough -- and then the two people or two sets of people who have been playing 'two in, one out' may have egg on their respective faces and may either get fired or have a lot of explaining to do or even end up in a court of law with their freedom at stake. Too often government officials get off with slaps on the wrist where a private, corporate person might go down a lot heavier. (Witness the trial of Conrad Black.) The punishment for a government official should at least be that of what would be relevant for a private, corporate person; if someone in government is responsible for 'losing' or 'misappropriating' millions of dollars of public pension fund money, for example, then this is a huge violation of public trust money and not something that should roll off our backs like water off a duck's back. But unfortunately, we have become way too 'immunized' to the expectancy and continuity of 'government narcissism' --its taking what it wants and not having to account for what it is doing -- to the point that government officials keep doing it because they feel confident they are not going to get caught, and that even if they are, the consequences will not likely fit the crime, and in the mean time they may have set themselves up to be very rich for after they retire as politicians. The government -- and this does not seem to be tied to any one party -- narcissism (greed, power, egotism...) corrupts most if not all parties, Liberal and Conservative alike, from Trudeau to Mulroney to Cretien --all have all been guilty of anything from very bad budgets to at the very least having members of their party guilty of personal violations of public funds.
When politicians continue to dig deeper and deeper into our pockets for more and more tax money, as much of the middle class continues to drop in their collective standard of living because their paycheques are not keeping up with their expenses, not keeping up with inflation, not keeping up with higher rent and mortgages, and higher food bills, and higher energy bills, and higher utility bills, and the aforementioned higher tax bills, when our senior citizens are getting hit even harder because they are now operating on small pensions that are a pittance of what they used to earn and what they paid to the government in pension money -- all this while government officials can write off huge personal expenses on gold-plated expense accounts, probably have tax-free exemptions that the rest of us could only dream about (politicians should be paying the same taxes that the rest of us do -- how else could they even begin to feel our pain?), even while they are earning 100,000 dollar salaries and packing away pensions that would leave the rest of Canada nauseous if they fully knew the details of them; at the very least, these same politicians should be held accountable for proper ethical standards and they should be held accountable when they do not spend our tax and pension money in the way that they say they are going to spend it.
I remember a high end hockey agent -- Alan Eaglson, to be specific -- who I believe got jail time and heavy fines for his fraudulant behavior relative to the hockey players whose pension funds he controlled and violated. Something tells me that his crime would pale compared to what has happened to much of Canada's billions of dollars of pension money, parts of which has been steered in other directions.
Now this is important. When I was working for the TTC, I used to get a printout periodically of how much pension money I had in my account. The total of my account was a combination of my own contributions plus those of the TTC which I believe equalled mine. But the point is that there was transparency here. Everything was above board. Everything was visible. When I left the TTC after 12 years, I walked away with about $50-60,000 in pension money that I put into RRSPs. What I put into my pension money, I took out of it, in combination with what the TTC added to it. This is basically how an ethical pension plan should be run.
But what about the way the government runs our pensions plans? Do we see the same method of operation? No. The way that the government handles our pension money would be illegal if it was being handled that way by a private corporation or a pension agent. No visibility. No transparency. All is secret. Do I know how much money I have contributed to my pension plan in the government? No. Do they tell me? No. Do I get printouts each year showing me how my pension plan is growing each year? No. Does money in equal money out, or will it ever? No, of course not. This is why we have a government pension fund that is continuing to grow at an astronomical rate -- a hugely greater rate than what is being used from it. So the question becomes, what are they doing with all the billons of extra dollars in the pension fund? Where are parts of it -- significant parts of it -- going? Who is being held accountable for telling us what is happening to all of the people of Canada's pension money that is not going back to the people of Canada? No one. This is the mark of a narcissistic, unethical government -- if not a downright illegal one (except they make their own laws for themselves). This is not the mark of a democratic, ethical government. And Harper's government -- as much as he said that he would walk in and clean up the ethical side of government -- continues to run the Canadian Pension Plan as per usual. In the dark. Do I trust Harper's ethics? No. I trust Gomery's ethics. But how much of Gomery's report on the Liberal Ad Scandal was actually implemented by the Conservative Government? Precious little, probably. Most of it pushed away into some back library. The Conservative Government had its own 'ethics' agenda, and for the most part it didn't include Gomery. Gomery was a man, an honourable judge, who for about 2 years captured the respect and the awe of the people of Canada. Here was a man who took no garbage, took no bullshit. Like a farmer, he ploughed through the bullshit, cleared out everything in his way that was hampering him from getting to the truth -- making politicians everywhere around him in his path uneasy, if not shaking in their boots -- who had a right to feel exactly this way because Gomery was exposing them, showing the Canadian people, what these politicians were doing in the dark from where they were accustomed to freely working from. They weren't used to someone checking on their business, checking on their ethics. Really checking on their ethics. Who is accountable for telling us what is happening with all our pension money?
My parents could be living without worrying if they had access to all the pension money that they put into the Canadian system. As much as they love Prince Edward Island, they probably wouldn't have been forced to move out there if they had access to the full extent of the money that they put into the Canadian Pension Fund. Or at the very least, they might actually be able to take one worry-free vacation every year. But alas, what goes in does not always equal what comes back out when dark forces are at work. A 'siphoning' process seems to be happening in between 'in' and 'out' that the Canadian people know far too little about -- just enough to know that something is happening that is probably dirty but without the full insight, and what's worse, without the full committment to demanding that a man like Gomery be put in charge of a full-scale investigation aimed at fully finding out what has been happening to our pension money for the last 20 or so years. He is the only man who I would trust to properly do the job. Anyone else -- especially one with parisan ties -- and I would expect a 'whitewash', not the truth. Let's say go back to about 1990. Off the top of my head, I think we could possibly be looking at the biggest scandel, the biggest misappropriation of Canadian money, in the history of Canada. But maybe I'm just blowing hot wind without substance. I don't think so. What is the old saying? Where there is smoke, there is usually fire.
A democratic government should be a transparent government, and it is only narcissistic govemerments that need to hide their financial activities, it is only narcissistic goverments that have trouble with transparency. Because they do not want the public to see what they are up to with our money. They like to operate behind closed doors. They like to operate in the dark. This is the modus operandi of a narcissistic, unethical goverment -- or any private corporation, or person, as well.
That is a good start for what we mean relative to the concept of narcissism -- individual, corporate, political, cultural...
db, May 9th, 2007. Link: http://hegelshotel-dgb-ethics.blogspot.com/
Narcissism is both a good and bad thing -- and we cannot escape it because narcissism is 'hard-wired' into human nature. By 'narcissism', I am referring to a combination of 'selfishness', 'hedonism', 'egotism', and 'self-centredness'. We will call these the four 'cornerstones' of narcissism.
Kids don't need to 'learn' to be selfish. They just are -- until they are taught to keep their narcissism (selfishness and self-centredness)in check. They need to be taught 'manners', 'ethics', 'morals', 'sharing', 'giving', 'fairness', 'loving' and the like...because if they aren't then they never will. Both 'pampering' and 'neglect' can promote narcissism. A 'healthy' child is a child that learns a good balance between 'soft' and 'tough' love....'soft love' comes from 'compassion' and 'encouragement', 'tough love' comes form 'accountability'. There's no such thing as a 'perfect parent' any more than there is a 'perfect child'. We all try to teach 'balance' -- as well as achieve it ourselves -- but the pendulum is always swinging back and forth without really coming to a rest in the middle (at least until we are dead).
Similarily, in history you can find a 'prevalence of narcissism' in every generation in one form or another -- and/or 'overcompensation' against narcissism which can be just as bad. When there is too much 'suppression', 'denial' and/or 'repression' of narcissism -- narcissism always finds a way to 'leak out' in the form of 'acting out' and 'symptoms'. On the other side of the coin, too much open, unbridled narcissism in a society can lead to a breakdown or self-destruction of a society (the fall of the Roman Empire).
Two of the philosophers who wrote the most on the prevalence and dangers of narcissism -- even though they didn't call it that -- were Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) who wrote that 'civil' life in a society would be 'savagery' (Lord of the Flies) without a strong government, strong police force, and strong army that is able to 'keep in check' and 'under control' all uncivil acts (of narcissism) -- Hobbes's account of human nature as self-interested (narcissistic) cooperation has proved to be an enduring theory in the field of philosophical anthropology; and Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) -- the ultimate philosopher of pessimism who wrote essentially that life was essentially evil, futile, and full of suffering. (He also had the arrogance and gall to schedule his lectures at the same time as Hegel. Scopenhauer despised Hegel -- who presumably, he thought was 'too idealistic', 'too 'wishful thinking' and had to much of his 'head in the clouds' to see what was happening in the 'real world' (of suffering and savagery).
It is easy to try to equate 'narcissism' with Capitalism but that is not an equal equation because some of the most 'savage narcissists' have been 'socialists and/or communists' (Lenin, Stalin). Similarily, it is easy to say that the main fight of 'religion' is against 'human greed and narcissism' but that equation doesn't completely fit either because some of the 'greediest and most narcissistic acts' were committed by the Roman Catholic Church at the height of its power -- and of course other religions too that get caught up in their own 'power and greed'.
The origin of the term 'narcissism' came from Havelock Ellis...
Henry Havelock Ellis (February 2, 1859 - July 8, 1939), known as Havelock Ellis, was a British doctor, sexual psychologist and social reformer.
He described 'narcissism' as a type of 'sexual disorder' where a person is more or less 'in love with themselves' -- the name 'Narcissius' coming from ancient Greek mythology...
Found on the internet...
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Re: Echo and Narcissius
posted by WolfKing on 3/18/03 11:17 PM
Narcissius was a handsome young man that every woman fawned over. Narcissius was so handsome that he felt there was no comparison for his beauty and he often ignored his would be lovers or told them to leave him alone. Well Echo was a Nymph who fell in love with Narcissius, who had gotten into trouble with Hera a while back. On an expidition to find out which of the nymphs was Zeus' latest love, Hera found herself diverted by Echo's chatter until all the nymphs had fled. As a result, Hera was annoyed with Echo and herself and doomed Echo by decreeing that she [Echo] would not be able to say one word on her own. She would have to repeat the last few words of what another person had said.
Of course this wouldn't help Echo one bit in her pursuit of Narcissius. Now she could only repeat the words that he spoke to her, which were basically, "Go away" or "Leave me alone". Eventually Echo became saddened and embarassed by her situation that she hid herself in a mountain and to this day repeats the last words of travelers who speak into caves.
Narciuss, meanwhile, had found somebody that he could love. While peering into a pool of clear water he spotted his own reflection, and not realizing that it was only his reflection, reached down into the water to try to touch the beautiful face and he drowned. (In another version of the story Narcissius looked into a pool of clear water, and seeing his own reflection realized that the only person he could ever love was himself. And he died of a broken heart.)
I remember reading this from a book called "Greek Myths: Gods, Heroes and Monsters" by Ellen Switzer and Costas. I hope that helped you out.
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Second Paper On Narcissism
There is no corner of human thought, feeling, and behavior that the phenomenon and concept of 'narcissism' does not touch. For those of my less experienced philosophy and psychology readers, if you are having trouble getting your brain and your lips around the word 'narcissism', then let me associate it with a word that I am sure you are much more familiar with -- selfishness.
So that is your starting point -- your basepoint of recognition and meaning, relative to the term narcissism. However, that is only the starting point. For those of you who may be reasonably familiar with Psychoanalysis, you might know that Sigmund Freud came to use the term 'narcissism' as one of the centrepieces of his philosophical and psychological investigation. And so it is with me. I will acknowledge my debt to Freud and indirectly, to Havelock Ellis,, who influenced Freud who in turn influenced me -- a chain reaction from Ellis to Freud through various other psychoanalytic theorists but basically arriving to me through Freud.
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From Wikepedia, the free encyclopedia....
Narcissism describes the character trait of self love.
The word is derived from a Greek myth. Narcissus was a handsome Greek youth who rejected the desperate advances of the nymph Echo. As punishment, he was doomed to fall in love with his own reflection in a pool of water. Unable to consummate his love, Narcissus pined away and changed into the flower that bears his name, the narcissus.
Freud believed that some narcissism is an essential part of all of us from birth and was the first to use the term in the reference to psychology.[1].
Andrew Morrison claims that, in adults, a reasonable amount of healthy narcissism allows the individual's perception of his needs to be balanced in relation to others[2].
In psychology and psychiatry, excessive narcissism is recognized as a severe personality dysfunction or personality disorder, most characteristically Narcissistic Personality Disorder, also referred to as NPD.
The terms "narcissism", "narcissistic" and "narcissist" are often used as pejoratives, denoting vanity, conceit, egotism or simple selfishness. Applied to a social group, it is sometimes used to denote elitism or an indifference to the plight of others.
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There are many questions to be asked about narcissism. Some have been asked by theorists before me. To what extent is narcissism 'natural' and 'normal'? From my perspective, it seems to be a healhty component of natural and normal self-assertion. Before you can be assertive about what you want, you need to know what you want, and to the extent that what you want is based on your own self-perceived needs and/or wishes, this is healthy narcissism.
Narcissism starts to become pathological when it 'blocks out' the needs and/or wishes of others. When we are like a horse with blinders on, and can only see what is directly in front of us, projected there like a movie screen from our own self-perceived needs and/or wishes while we are trying to live or work in a relationship where an other person may have perceived needs and/or wishes that are quite different than our own, it is here that the narcissistic person gets 'stuck'. The narcissistic person becomes like a 'pitbull' trying to force his or her jaws into other people in order to get his or her way. Get his or her way and the narcissistic person is happy; stymied, and he or she gets angry and/or moody, and will usually stay that way til the other side gives in. Intimidation and/or manipulation are usually the marks of the narcissistic person. So too is a marked lack of social empathy, social sensitivity, and/or social respect for the rights and/or opinions of and/or feelings of others.
It is important to note both the family and the cultural base of narcissism. Pathological narcissim can be 'nurtured' in a family either by neglect (a narcissistic parent or parents that ignore the child in which case the child copies the ignoring behavior of the parent(s)); or by spoiling or pampering the child in which case the child grows up thinking he or she is king or queen but without a proper social empathy and/or respect for the rights, opinions, and/or feelings of others.
From an economic and cultural perspective narcissism can be tied to both socialism and capitalism. The socialist narcissist is the person who feels entitled to whatever 'handouts' the government is willing to give him or her. This is different from the person who actually legitimately needs help from the government system; rather it is the type of person who will spend much time and energy doing what is necessary to 'manipulate the system' in his or her favor, perhaps because this is the way he or she has been taught to survive.
The influence of capitalism on narcissism and narcissism on capitalism is massive -- hugely disturbing when you think out the full ramifications of this two-sided (or dialectical) influence. So much so that I have come to differentiate between narcisistic capitalism and ethical humanisitic-existential capitalism; between narcissistic politics and ethical humanistic-existential politics; between narcissistic medicine and ethical humanistic-existential medicine; between narcissistic law and ethical humanistic-existential law; between narcissistic business and ethical humanistic-existential business; between narcissistic sports and entertainment and ethical humanistic-existential sports and entertainment; between narcissistic masculinism and/or feminism and ethical humanistic-existential masculinism and/or feminism...
What is the relationship between narcissism and capitalism in this regard? Simply this. It creates conflict of interest between ethical capitalism and unethical capitalism. Unethical capitalism becomes a short cut to the fulfillment of human greed -- invariably at someone else's expense which is why narcissistic capitalism and unethical capitalism are essential one and the same thing. The game often becomes 'two in, one out' -- 'let's you and me get rich at someone else's (for example, the public's) expense'. This is what you call a 'kickback' or 'feeding' scheme. Two people or sets of people are feeding each other at the expense of a third party that is left outside in the dark not knowing what is happening -- unless or until the third party finds out. Then we may have a 'scandal' that blows up and hits the fan -- for example, the media if it is big enough -- and then the two people or two sets of people who have been playing 'two in, one out' may have egg on their respective faces and may either get fired or have a lot of explaining to do or even end up in a court of law with their freedom at stake. Too often government officials get off with slaps on the wrist where a private, corporate person might go down a lot heavier. (Witness the trial of Conrad Black.) The punishment for a government official should at least be that of what would be relevant for a private, corporate person; if someone in government is responsible for 'losing' or 'misappropriating' millions of dollars of public pension fund money, for example, then this is a huge violation of public trust money and not something that should roll off our backs like water off a duck's back. But unfortunately, we have become way too 'immunized' to the expectancy and continuity of 'government narcissism' --its taking what it wants and not having to account for what it is doing -- to the point that government officials keep doing it because they feel confident they are not going to get caught, and that even if they are, the consequences will not likely fit the crime, and in the mean time they may have set themselves up to be very rich for after they retire as politicians. The government -- and this does not seem to be tied to any one party -- narcissism (greed, power, egotism...) corrupts most if not all parties, Liberal and Conservative alike, from Trudeau to Mulroney to Cretien --all have all been guilty of anything from very bad budgets to at the very least having members of their party guilty of personal violations of public funds.
When politicians continue to dig deeper and deeper into our pockets for more and more tax money, as much of the middle class continues to drop in their collective standard of living because their paycheques are not keeping up with their expenses, not keeping up with inflation, not keeping up with higher rent and mortgages, and higher food bills, and higher energy bills, and higher utility bills, and the aforementioned higher tax bills, when our senior citizens are getting hit even harder because they are now operating on small pensions that are a pittance of what they used to earn and what they paid to the government in pension money -- all this while government officials can write off huge personal expenses on gold-plated expense accounts, probably have tax-free exemptions that the rest of us could only dream about (politicians should be paying the same taxes that the rest of us do -- how else could they even begin to feel our pain?), even while they are earning 100,000 dollar salaries and packing away pensions that would leave the rest of Canada nauseous if they fully knew the details of them; at the very least, these same politicians should be held accountable for proper ethical standards and they should be held accountable when they do not spend our tax and pension money in the way that they say they are going to spend it.
I remember a high end hockey agent -- Alan Eaglson, to be specific -- who I believe got jail time and heavy fines for his fraudulant behavior relative to the hockey players whose pension funds he controlled and violated. Something tells me that his crime would pale compared to what has happened to much of Canada's billions of dollars of pension money, parts of which has been steered in other directions.
Now this is important. When I was working for the TTC, I used to get a printout periodically of how much pension money I had in my account. The total of my account was a combination of my own contributions plus those of the TTC which I believe equalled mine. But the point is that there was transparency here. Everything was above board. Everything was visible. When I left the TTC after 12 years, I walked away with about $50-60,000 in pension money that I put into RRSPs. What I put into my pension money, I took out of it, in combination with what the TTC added to it. This is basically how an ethical pension plan should be run.
But what about the way the government runs our pensions plans? Do we see the same method of operation? No. The way that the government handles our pension money would be illegal if it was being handled that way by a private corporation or a pension agent. No visibility. No transparency. All is secret. Do I know how much money I have contributed to my pension plan in the government? No. Do they tell me? No. Do I get printouts each year showing me how my pension plan is growing each year? No. Does money in equal money out, or will it ever? No, of course not. This is why we have a government pension fund that is continuing to grow at an astronomical rate -- a hugely greater rate than what is being used from it. So the question becomes, what are they doing with all the billons of extra dollars in the pension fund? Where are parts of it -- significant parts of it -- going? Who is being held accountable for telling us what is happening to all of the people of Canada's pension money that is not going back to the people of Canada? No one. This is the mark of a narcissistic, unethical government -- if not a downright illegal one (except they make their own laws for themselves). This is not the mark of a democratic, ethical government. And Harper's government -- as much as he said that he would walk in and clean up the ethical side of government -- continues to run the Canadian Pension Plan as per usual. In the dark. Do I trust Harper's ethics? No. I trust Gomery's ethics. But how much of Gomery's report on the Liberal Ad Scandal was actually implemented by the Conservative Government? Precious little, probably. Most of it pushed away into some back library. The Conservative Government had its own 'ethics' agenda, and for the most part it didn't include Gomery. Gomery was a man, an honourable judge, who for about 2 years captured the respect and the awe of the people of Canada. Here was a man who took no garbage, took no bullshit. Like a farmer, he ploughed through the bullshit, cleared out everything in his way that was hampering him from getting to the truth -- making politicians everywhere around him in his path uneasy, if not shaking in their boots -- who had a right to feel exactly this way because Gomery was exposing them, showing the Canadian people, what these politicians were doing in the dark from where they were accustomed to freely working from. They weren't used to someone checking on their business, checking on their ethics. Really checking on their ethics. Who is accountable for telling us what is happening with all our pension money?
My parents could be living without worrying if they had access to all the pension money that they put into the Canadian system. As much as they love Prince Edward Island, they probably wouldn't have been forced to move out there if they had access to the full extent of the money that they put into the Canadian Pension Fund. Or at the very least, they might actually be able to take one worry-free vacation every year. But alas, what goes in does not always equal what comes back out when dark forces are at work. A 'siphoning' process seems to be happening in between 'in' and 'out' that the Canadian people know far too little about -- just enough to know that something is happening that is probably dirty but without the full insight, and what's worse, without the full committment to demanding that a man like Gomery be put in charge of a full-scale investigation aimed at fully finding out what has been happening to our pension money for the last 20 or so years. He is the only man who I would trust to properly do the job. Anyone else -- especially one with parisan ties -- and I would expect a 'whitewash', not the truth. Let's say go back to about 1990. Off the top of my head, I think we could possibly be looking at the biggest scandel, the biggest misappropriation of Canadian money, in the history of Canada. But maybe I'm just blowing hot wind without substance. I don't think so. What is the old saying? Where there is smoke, there is usually fire.
A democratic government should be a transparent government, and it is only narcissistic govemerments that need to hide their financial activities, it is only narcissistic goverments that have trouble with transparency. Because they do not want the public to see what they are up to with our money. They like to operate behind closed doors. They like to operate in the dark. This is the modus operandi of a narcissistic, unethical goverment -- or any private corporation, or person, as well.
That is a good start for what we mean relative to the concept of narcissism -- individual, corporate, political, cultural...
db, May 9th, 2007. Link: http://hegelshotel-dgb-ethics.blogspot.com/
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