1. Introduction
In this essay, we will explore the roots and the interconnections between the search for truth and accurate knowledge (epistemology), narcissism (human pleasure-seeking, power-seeking, money-seeking, egotism, etc.), and 'sophistry' (which we will define here as a deliberate act of epistemological, rhetorical, and/or ideological deception -- which in turn is usually connected to the deliberate hiding of one's own narcissistic agenda and more specific narcissistic activities.)
Obviously, it makes the study of epistemology -- the search for truth and accurate knowledge -- that much harder than it is already when one is facing significant opposition from those who may be purposely trying to hide the truth (including sometimes ourselves).
Let's now investigate some of the different roots and personal idiosyncrises that contribute to this 'all too human' core bi-polar conflict between our search for truth and accurate knowledge on the one hand vs. either our own wish and/or the wish of others to hide this same truth based usually on personal narcissistic interests on this matter (and therefore conflict of interest relative to the other bi-polarity of ethical integrity and congruence).
More often than not, based on my personal experience and observation-interpretation-evaluation of the world -- personal narcissism, and the illusion of truth, wins. (Yes, I can feel Schopenhauer turning over and smiling in his grave.)
However, as much as we live in a Schopenhauerian nightmare of a world in many, many respects, Schopenhaurian irrationalism and non-ethics is not all that the human race and human evolution -- both individually and collectively -- is about. As the school slogan says: Character matters.
Thus, the answer to the problem of human narcissism is not to give up on it -- and let it take over the human world; rather, human narcissism has to be recognized as an integral part of human nature and human behavior but a part that needs to constantly held in check under the principle of 'homeostatic balance'. Truth, integrity, and compassion for other people are not human ethical qualities that we can afford to give up on. The future of the world is at stake from matters of war vs. peace to matters of environmental pollution/warming vs. environmental restoration, to matters of family, community, civil, economic, and political stability vs. instability, chaos, and a 'survival of the fittest-Lord of The Flies' type existence.
Moving towards a philosophical position of homeostatic and dialectic-democratic balance is always the best policy vs. the alternative of either a narcisstic 'free-for-all' of chaos and civil disobedience, and/or the opposite righteous extreme of anti-narcissistic (religious) extremism. Indeed, any kind of existential extremism is dangerous which includes the later-in-his-career philosophy of one of my favorite philosophical mentors -- Friedrich Nietzsche.
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2. Roots of The Term 'Sophism' (From The Ancient Greek School of Philosophy) -- and Its Present-Day Meaning (Deception)
From Wikipedia on the internet...
Sophism can mean two very different things: In the modern definition, a sophism is a confusing or illogical argument used for deceiving someone. In Ancient Greece, the sophists were a group of teachers of philosophy and rhetoric.
The term sophism originated from Greek sophistes, meaning "wise-ist", one who "does" wisdom, one who makes a business out of wisdom (sophós means "wise man").
Sophists of Ancient Greece
The Greek words sophos or sophia had the meaning of "wise" or "wisdom" since the time of the poet Homer, and originally connoted anyone with expertise in a specific domain of knowledge or craft. Thus a charioteer, a sculptor, a warrior could be sophoi in their occupation. Gradually the word came to denote general wisdom and especially wisdom about human affairs (in, for example, politics, ethics, or household management). This was the term given to the Greek Seven Sages of 7th and 6th Century BCE (like Solon and Thales), and this was the meaning that appeared in the histories of Herodotus. At about the same time, the term sophistes was a synonym for "poet", and (by association with the traditional role of poets as the teachers of society) a synonym for one who teaches, in particular through the performance of prose works or speeches that impart practical knowledge. Richard Martin refers to the seven sages as "performers of political poetry."1
In the second half of the 5th century BCE, particularly at Athens, "sophist" came to denote a class of itinerant intellectuals who taught courses in "excellence" or "virtue," speculated about the nature of language and culture and employed rhetoric to achieve their purposes, generally to persuade or convince others. Sophists claimed that they could find the answers to all questions. Most of these sophists are known today primarily through the writings of their opponents (specifically Plato and Aristotle), which makes it difficult to assemble an unbiased view of their practices and beliefs.
Many of them taught their skills for a price. Due to the importance of such skills in the litigious social life of Athens, practitioners often commanded very high fees. The practice of taking fees, along with the sophists' practice of questioning the existence and roles of traditional deities (this was done to make "the weaker argument appear the stronger") and investigating into the nature of the heavens and the earth prompted a popular reaction against them. Their attacks against Socrates (in fictional prosecution speeches) prompted a vigorous condemnation from his followers, including Plato and Xenophon, as there was a popular view of Socrates as a sophist. Their attitude, coupled with the wealth garnered by many of the sophists, eventually led to popular resentment against sophist practitioners and the ideas and writings associated with sophism.
Protagoras is generally regarded as the first of the sophists. Others include Gorgias, Prodicus, Hippias, Thrasymachus, Lycophron, Callicles, Antiphon, and Cratylus.
In comparison, Socrates accepted no fee, instead adopting a self-effacing posture, which he exemplified by Socratic questioning (i.e. the Socratic method, although Diogenes Laertius wrote that Protagoras—a sophist—invented the “Socratic” method[1][2]). His attitude towards the Sophists was by no means oppositional; in one dialogue Socrates even stated that the Sophists were better educators than he was [3], which he validated by sending one of his students to study under a sophist.[4] W. K. C. Guthrie associated Socrates with the Sophists in his History of Greek Philosophy.[4]
Plato, the most illustrious student of Socrates, depicts Socrates as refuting the sophists in several Dialogues. These texts depict the sophists in an unflattering light, and it is unclear how accurate or fair Plato's representation of them may be; however, it is also suggested that such criticism was often ironic. Another contemporary, the comic playwright Aristophanes, criticizes the sophists as hairsplitting wordsmiths, yet suggests that Socrates was one of their number.
Plato is largely responsible for the modern view of the "sophist" as a greedy instructor who uses rhetorical sleight-of-hand and ambiguities of language in order to deceive, or to support fallacious reasoning. In this view, the sophist is not concerned with truth and justice, but instead seeks power. Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle all challenged the philosophical foundations of sophism...
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3. DGB Philosophy vs. Nietzsche
We have to remember that when we are studying another philosopher, whether we are reading one of the philosopher's actual works, and/or an interpretation of one or more of the philosopher's works by another author, we are still only receiving 'sound bites' -- or since what we are reading is generally on paper or on the internet, 'visual bites' -- and 'pieces' (accurate, distorted, or somewhere in between) of the philosopher's actual philosophy.
Furthermore, we have to allow for the fact that every philosopher is going through his or her own evolutionary process that could be early in his or her writing career, mid-way through it, or late in his or her career. Nietzsche, the philosopher who wrote 'The Birth of Tragedy' (his first work, 1872) was not in the same philosophical place or spirit as when he wrote 'Thus Spake Zarathrusta' (1883-1885) which Nietzsche himself (as well as probably most scholars today) view(ed) as his crowning philosophical masterpiece.
DGB Philosophy has more in common with 'The Birth of Tragedy' (the principle of homestatic balance, balancing opposite perspectives, ideas, feelings, impulses, lifestyles, philosophies etc., differential unity, the potential harmony of integrating/synthesizing opposites... a la Hegel) than it does with 'Thus Spake Zarathrusta' (existential extremism, the ethics of an immoralist, the philosophy of an unbridled, unmodified narcissist).
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4. DGB Philosophy vs. Wittgenstein
To qualify my statements here, I am in the early phase of reading Wittgenstein, do not have anywhere close to a full knowledge of his philosophy, and in effect, I am 'deconstructing some of his visual bites' here that are not ringing a harmonious chord with DGB Philosophy.
Firstly, let's start with this Wittgenstein proposition that comes from 'Introducing Wittgenstein', by John Heaton, 2005.
Wittgenstein Proposition 1: 'The business of philosophy is critique.'
DGB Critique: This is a one-sided definition and/or description of philosophy. The business of philosophy is -- partly -- to critique, which is what I am doing here. I am deconstructing Wittgenstein -- or at least, in this case, one of his reported propositions. This assumes that Heaton's report of this Wittgenstein proposition is accurate which I would/will probably have to go out and buy Wittgenstein's most famous work, 'Tracatus Logico-Philosophicus' (which from now on we will just call 'Tractatus') if I want to make 100 percent certainty of the accuracy of this reported Wittgenstein proposition. But for now, I will trust Heaton and the fact that Heaton is reporting Wittgestein propositions accurately in his much more simpler book to read: 'Introducing Wittgenstein'.
Deconstruction(ism) is the philosophy of critique.
The other half of philosophy is 'Constructionism'. Thus, we can distinguish between 'Constructionist Philosophy' and 'Deconstructionist Philosophy', and simlarily too, we can distinguish between 'Wittgenstein Constructionism' and 'Wittgenstein Deconstructionism' just as we can also distinguish between 'DGB Constructionism' and 'DGB Deconstructionism'. And the same is true for Nietzsche who arguably I would consider to be the greatest Deconstructionist in the history of Western Philosophy (David Hume might give him a run for his money.) But even Nietzsche developed his own Constructionist Philosophy -- 'The Philosophy of the Superman'.
The best philosophers in the eyes of DGB Philosophy weave a homeostatic balance between Constructionist and Deconstructionist Philosophy.
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5. Nietzsche as an Example of The Evolving Internal Conflict Between Homeostatic Balance and Existential Extremism
We can see this in Nietzsche's 'The Birth of Tragedy, 1872' (Nietzsche attempting to optimally balance a lifestyle philosophy of Appollonian vs. Dionysian virtues).
However, we cannot see this in 'Thus Spake Zarathrusta, 1883'. (This was the philosophy of the Superman -- i.e., Nietzsche -- ignoring all human morality in the pursuit of his own unbridled narccissistic values/vices (and projecting them on Zarathrusta).
Is it a coincidence that Nietzsche was getting closer to his loss of sanity and his institutionalization relative to this loss of his sanity, or was his impending insanity being driven by viral and/or other possible bio-chemical factors such as the often proposed theory of 'syphilus' (again, perhaps partly due to the phlosophy of an unbridled Dionysian narcissist)?
Now, I do not wish to falsely stereotype Nietzsche for any lifestyle that he did or didn't live, or suggest any false reason for the insanity that would take over his mind in 1889 -- after all, he is still probably my favorite philospher; indeed, I would probably sooner read Nietzsche than any other philosopher including Hegel. Perhaps Friedrich (Fritz) Perls was the closest I would consider to a modern-day Nietzsche -- both in lifestyle and in writing -- and indeed, Perls might be the one writer who's writing I would consider to rival or even surpass Nietzsche's. What was the common element in their writing: they could both keep their writing immediate, down to earth -- and dramatically existential.
You cannot read either Nietzsche or Perls without at least partly being mesmerized by their passion for life -- and their 'existential extremism'.
Who amongst us doesn't at least partly subscribe to the idea of living life to the fullest of our potential, our fullest passion,.
We only live once. But if we are talking about living life in the fast lane -- in the Dionysian lane, a life of 'unbridled narcissism and hedonism' -- then, that lane usually ends up having negative consequences, negative side-effects: perhap crashing in self-destruction which, coincidentally or non-coincidentally, just happens to be the way that Nietzsche ended up living the last 10 or 11 years of his life, institutionalized and mentally, more or less, incoherent and incapacitated. You tell me how this happened, and whether it wasn't in some way connected to his ultimately self-destructive philosophy. Was his mental insanity in the last 11 years of his life 'genetic'? Viral?
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From the internet (Google... Nietzsche, insanity)
6. What caused Nietzsche's insanity and death?:
A paper just published in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica reconsiders the insanity and death of philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who is commonly thought to have died of neurosyphilis.
In contrast, the authors of the new study suggest that Nietzsche died of frontotemporal dementia - a type of dementia that specifically affects the frontal and temporal lobes.
While many people have 'diagnosed' historical figures in retrospect, this study is different, in that the authors reviewed Nietzsche's actual medical notes in light of what is known about the progression of syphilis and dementia today.
More than 100 years after his death, Friedrich Nietzsche remains one of the most contentious figures in the history of philosophy. His writings contain some of the most profound philosophical statements of the 19th century, and have been exceptionally influential. However, they also express ambiguities and contradictions, which leave scholars perplexed and still arguing about their meaning and intent. Such ambiguities are reflected not only in Nietzsche's life, but also in his terminal illness and death.
Following a psychotic breakdown in 1889, at the age of 44 years, he was admitted to the Basel mental asylum and on 18 January 1889 was transferred to the Jena mental asylum. He remained in demented darkness until his death on 25 August 1900. In Basel, a diagnosis of general paralysis of the insane (GPI; tertiary cerebral syphilis) was made. This diagnosis was confirmed in Jena and is still widely accepted. However, even some of Nietzsche's contemporaries doubted this. The lack of certainty about his primary luetic infection, the long duration of the disease and some clinical features lead us to question the diagnosis of GPI.
In this study, we re-construct the anamnesis [clinical history] of Nietzsche's illness and review the clinical presentation. We then note the natural history of GPI as it was at the turn of the 19th century, and suggest an alternative diagnosis, namely that of frontotemporal dementia (FTD) which has been characterized in detail only in the last two decades.
Link to abstract of paper.
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7. Back to Wittgenstein.
It seems as if Wittgenstein didn't take Nietzsche seriously on his deconstruction (critique) of science.
Wittgenstein: Proposition 2: Science on the other hand consists of all true propositions. (Introducing Wittgenstein, pg. 41.)
Response, DGB Philosophy: What a load of hogwash this Wittgenstein proposition is. Science is just as loaded with human narcissistic bias as every other cultural and non-cultural activity in human affairs is including: philosophy, psychology, politics, religion, sports and entertainment, law, business and economics -- and science and medicine. You cannot talk about any human endeavor without including a discussion of the influence of human narcissism on whatever human endeavor you are talking about.
Wittgenstein (1889-1951), in the proposition above, acts as if he had never even heard of Nietzsche (1844-1900), let alone read any of his philosophy.
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From...The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Ludwig Wittgenstein is one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, and regarded by some as the most important since Immanuel Kant. His early work was influenced by that of Arthur Schopenhauer and, especially, by his teacher Bertrand Russell and by Gottlob Frege, who became something of a friend. This work culminated in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, the only philosophy book that Wittgenstein published during his lifetime. It claimed to solve all the major problems of philosophy and was held in especially high esteem by the anti-metaphysical logical positivists. The Tractatus is based on the idea that philosophical problems arise from misunderstandings of the logic of language, and it tries to show what this logic is. Wittgenstein's later work, principally his Philosophical Investigations, shares this concern with logic and language, but takes a different, less technical, approach to philosophical problems. This book helped to inspire so-called ordinary language philosophy. This style of doing philosophy has fallen somewhat out of favor, but Wittgenstein's work on rule-following and private language is still considered important, and his later philosophy is influential in a growing number of fields outside philosophy.
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8. Nietzsche's Deconstruction of Science
Nietzsche brought science down to its knees through his philosophical deconstructionism of science relative to his arguments concerning the influence of human bias and narcissism but Wittgenstein pops off a proposition here about the 'epistemological perfection of science' (Science consists of all true propositions. Only in your dreams, Mr. Wittgenstein, only in your dreams! My DGB editorial comment.)
I am not trying to be overly skepitical, pessimistic and/or cynical but skepticism, pessimism, and cynicism are probably closer to the general truth than Wittgenstein's blatant scientfic idealism.
Relative to the study of, and inter-connection between, epistemology and science, one has to delve into the inluence of narcissism and particularly narcissitic capitalism (or for that matter narcissistic political ideology, whether capitalist or socialist) on the outcomse of 'supposed scientific research'. 'Who is paying the scientist?', is perhaps the most relevant question in this regard. When reading a scientfic research outcome, it is prudent for the smart, epistemologcally-minded philosopher -- or person in general -- to examine all possible areas of 'conflict of interest' (between a scientist who comes up with a particular research finding and the company and/or government agency that may be paying the scientist to come up with exactly this same finding). Otherwise, as a reader, and as a person separated from the context of the supposedly 'scientific information' you are getting, you may not know -- in fact, you probably won't -- whether you are getting truth or hogwash. More times than not, it quite possibly might be narcissistic hogwash that you are getting.
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9. Wittgenstein: Proposition 2: It (philosophy) clarifies the limits of meaningful language. (Introducing Wittgenstein, pg. 41.)
DGB Philosophy Response: I may or may not have basically already addressed this philosophical proposition in 'Wittgenstein vs. DGB Philosophy: Part 1', but in case I didn't, and/or for those who have not read or cannot remember the first paper, I will re-address the same basic proposition here.
Specifically, Wittgenstein -- like the rest of us, including Nietzsche, including Kant, including Schopenhauer, including me -- have/had 'psychological issues' that were/are 'impinging on his/our philosophical process'. They may not tell you this in philosophy class but philosophy -- particularly for the 'obsessed philosopher' -- is generally a 'compensatory process consciously or subconsciously aimed at addressing and satisfying unfinished psychological business'.
10. Arthur Schopenhauer
You look at Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860). Schopenhauer, by all accounts, was a nasty, brutish man. Philosophically, he described the world as a 'nasty, brutish place to live in' -- one might say, a perfect projection of his own nasty, brutish personality. What was Schopenhauer's solution to the 'narcissistic, brutish -- 'Lord of The Flies' -- problem of man's existence. Schopenhauer had two propososed solutons: 1. go to the theatre, engage in the arts, and look for a cathartic release from the stress of normal, nasty day-to-day living; and/or 2. learn a 'Buddhist style of living' of basically 'negating all human (narcissisic) desires and impulses' (which from what I understand Schopenhauer was never able to do himself).
Thus, in this example, you can see the inter-connecting self-dialectic being played out between Schopenhauer and himself, between depth psychology and compensatory philosophy acting as a form of self-psychotherapy for his own unbridled narcissistic peronality, and/or as a 'form of salvation' for his own 'unbridled, day-to-day, narcissistic sins. You could say that Schopenhauer, like the rest of us in our own unique way, had a 'dialectic bi-polarity going on his personality' that he was playing out through the creation of his own particular philosophy, aimed at alleviating, compesating for, and therapizing, the otherwise one-sided, nasty side of his existence.
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Arthur Schopenhauer (February 22, 1788 – September 21, 1860) was a German philosopher best known for his gloomy and questioning manner. At age 25, he published his doctoral dissertation, The Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which examined the fundamental question of whether reason alone can unlock answers about the world. Schopenhauer's most influential work, The World as Will and Representation, emphasized the role of man's basic instinct, which Schopenhauer described as the will to exist, or "will". Schopenhauer is perhaps best known for his analysis of human motivation and the human condition, arguing that emotional, physical, and sexual desires can never be truly fulfilled. Consequently, Schopenhauer favored a lifestyle of negating human desires, similar to the teachings of Buddhism.
Schopenhauer's metaphysical discovery of "will", his views on human motivation and desire, and his aphoristic writing style influenced many well-known philosophers, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Wagner, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Sigmund Freud and others, forming a cornerstone in what is now known as "German Idealism."[1]
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11. Back to Wittgenstein:
And so it was with Wittgenstein as well. I do not profess to be nearly as good a guesser at what was going on in Wittgenstein's psyche as I just speculated with Schopenhauer, but still, from being involved with Gestalt Therapy for ten or eleven off and on years, plus from studying Freud and Jung and Hegel, I can often pick up quickly symptoms of what might be called 'bi-polarity disorder' in any of a thousand and one different possible ways that this both healthy and pathological psychological process can play itself out in human behavior.
With Wittgenstein, we read about his philosophical wish for epistemological and language(semantic) clarity on the one hand (let's call this Wittgenstein's 'rebellious underdog' using a mixture of DGB and Gestalt terminology.
Now, on the other hand, I read on the back cover of 'Introducing Wittgenstein' that:
'Ludwig Wittgenstein, has captured the popular imagination as the modern day Socrates, the fascinating master of enigmatic reasoning who, with his icy logic, convinced Bertrand Russell that there was a hippo in the room.'
And I say, whoa, just a minute now. What is going on here? It looks like we have another personality dynamic - another 'ego-state' -- at work here. Wittgenstein claims that he seeks epistemoligical and language clarity on the one hand -- this is supposedly the business of philosophy -- and then Wittgenstein somehow bedazzles, befuddles, mystifies, and mesmerizes Bertrand Russell into going stir-crazy looking for a hippo in his room.
How seriously do we take this? And on what level? One of the most intelligent, brilliant philosophers in Western history -- Bertrand Russell that is, with good rational-empirical groundings -- being led up the garden path, or take on a 'magic carpet ride' as I have written previously, by a seemingly even more intelligent man who was using his intelligence in the name of sophistry, illusion, smoke and mirrors, mysticism...Was this a one-time, just for gags, deed? Or something more deeply inherent in Wittgenstein's personality: the bi-polarity of the clarifyer vs. the mystifier?
12. The Philosophy of Illusion (Sophistry)
There are differet reasons for the philosphy of illusion from the magician who wants to pull one over on you, to a personal gag on someone, to the most serious and pathological of narcissistic economic, political, violent and/or sexual intentions.
Being an older brother, I am familiar with the 'gag' motivation. I practised it growing up at the expense of my younger sister and brother. You shoot someone a fabricated and/or embellished story with the purpose of raising his or her anxiety/fear level. You want to see the anxiety-level rise on his or her face until he or she finally catches on that he/she is being had. Trickery and skull-duggery! The philosophy of illusion.
13. Fear, Identification With The Aggressor, and Transference
Let me be more specific here because there is a learning phenomenon here that takes place in every child growing up, modified in one way or another -- called 'identification with the aggressor'. Almost every psycholgist and/or psychotherapist knows about this process in some fashion or another -- it comes from the learnings of Freudian Psychoanalysis and is also connected to the Freudian/Psychoanalytic concept of -- transference.
In all my years of studying human psychology, I have never been more mesmerized by the study of any concept-phenomenon than I have been with the Freudian concept of transference and its interconnection such other related Freudian/Psychoanlytic concepts as: 'introjection', 'identification', 'identification with the aggressor', 'projection', and the Adlerian concepts of 'compensation' and 'lifestyle'. DGB Psychology -- which I called 'Gap Psychology' in the 1980s before I turned my attention to philosophy -- puts its own particular 'integrative stamp' on the concept/phenomenon of transference that borrows from Adlerian Psychology, Gestalt Therapy, Jungian Psychology, and more in an effort to more fully understand this most mesmerizing of human behavioral phenomena which is connected to thousands of different brands of 'bi-polarity fixation and disorder', 'obsession-compulsion', 'addiction', and 'serial behavior patterns' from the most innocuous to the most pathological of 'serial crimes' (rape, murder, fraud, sophistry, narcissism in its worst elements of human behavior...).
Let me give you a couple of examples of how it works. Many movies have made high-voltage drama out of this psychological phenomena including 'Psycho' by Alfred Hitchcock, 'Straight-Jacket', which scared the crap out of me when I was a small kid, and the latest 'Batman' ('The Dark Knight') movie where Bruce Wayne had a terrifying episode with 'bats' in a cave as a child, and he then turned 'this fear upside down' as his 'alter-ego' -- 'Batman' -- when he grew up. This is an example of the phenomenon of 'identification with the aggressor'.
In the movie, 'Straight-Jacket', a woman comes home from wherever she was to look through her bedroom window and see her husband in bed with another woman. She goes into the shed, comes out with an axe, and then goes crashing through her bedroom window to make mince meat out of her husband and his girlfriend. The woman's young daughter is standing, looking through the bedroom door as this is happening. I was petrified watching this movie scene just as the little girl in the movie was. (The little girl in the movie grew up to become a 'carbon-copy serial killer' of her mom just at the same time that her mom was finally released from a mental institution for having committed the initial crime. Of course, everyone was blaming the mom for the new set of crimes while the grown up little girl 'operated in the shadows using her mom's alter-ego' as the means of 're-enacting her childhood traumatic, transference scene'. I, on the other hand, on a more modified, toned down -- but still frightening level to my younger brother and sister -- started playing 'Straight-Jacket Babysitting Games' where I started chasing my brother and sister around the house pretending I was 'Straight-Jacket'. I even had a song that I invented with a line that went: 'Straight-Jacket, if she catches you, you're dead'. Needless, to say I don't think my sister or brother found as much humor in this game as I did. I had turned my fear 'upside down' and become the 'perpetrator or victimizer' of my fear rather than the 'victim'. I had moved from a position of being 'out of control of my fear' to a position of 'being in control of it' and 'harnessing' it against others. Vicariously, I could 'tell good horror-psycho stories'; probably still can. I probably still have some undeveloped 'Edgar Allan Poe' creative-destructive impulses in me'.
There is a level where this phenomenon of transference and identification of the aggressor is not funny; it has played a part in the character-formation of some of the worst serial killers, psychopaths, and sociopaths in the history of mankind -- from The Boston Strangler to Jack The Ripper to Ted Bundy to I could go on and on and on... But this mesmerizing human phenomena of transference and identification with the aggressor can and does have just as many 'creative' repercussions on individuals and culture as it does 'destructive-violent' ramifications and 'narcissistic-sophistry' ramifications. Transference -- both in its positive and negative ramifications on the human psyche and on human society and culture in general -- is an amazingly spectacular phenomenon. I think at one point, towards the middle-end of Freud's career (1920, Beyond The Pleasure Principle), Freud started connecting the phenomenon of transference to both 'the repetition compulsion' in man -- and the 'death instinct'. He was undoubtedly focusing on the negative-destructive and self-destructive capabilities and realities of transference.
But one of the creative potentials-realities of transference can be found in one of Freud's earliest conscious memories -- and its 'transference-effect' on his life. Classic Psychoanalysts view this as a 'screen memory' -- perhaps hiding another more traumatic scene and/or fantasy in Freud's personality that is more enlightening to the makeup of his personality. But to me this Classic Psychoanalytic 'screen memory' theory is balderdash -- horsecrap if you pardon the expression. I follow Adler's theorizing in this area of human psychology -- his interpretation of 'conscious early memories' and their connection to what Adler called a person 'repetitive ('obsessive-compulsive, serial' -- my editorial additional words in the brackets here ) lifestyle.
Personally, I combine Freudian and Adlerian theory here to give my own 'DGB Transference Theory' that connects 'conscious early memories' to 'transference repetition compulsions'. I call these conscious early memories 'transference memories' or 'transference scenes' -- something that Freud also did in his pre-1896 Traumacy-Seduction Theory (only with unconscious memories where he used both 'hypnosis' and then later 'free association' to 'track down in the unconscious') -- whereas, I counter-argue on Adler's behalf: keep it 'simple stupid' -- stay with conscous memories; you can find everything you want and need here as a psychotherapist without resorting to the chase for real or unreal 'unconscious memories'.
14. Freud's Earliest Transference-Traumacy Memory-Scene
Freud's earliest transerence scene -- or at least one of them, and undoubtedly in my opinion his main one -- was a situation where he walked into his mom and dad's bedroom while they were having sex together -- one of the most classic, childhood transference scenes. In that instant, Freud took on a 'bi-polar split' between himself as the young child in the memory -- the curious, the investigator, the scientist, the person looking for 'epistemological clarity and truth' in what exactly was happening in this scene that he could not fathom while his dad was crouched over his mom, presumably in all his glory; vs. his dad in the memory which would become Freud's 'introjected dad in his personality' -- the narcissist, the sophist, the illusionist, the mesmerizer, trying to hide from his son 'the epistemological truth' of what exactly was going on here...
Twenty or thirty years later we start to see the beginning of 'Freud's repetition compulsion' -- or what I would call his 'transference re-creation compulsion' -- just like in Psycho, just like in Straight-Jacket, just like in 'The Dark Knight', just like what Freud would start to see in the behavior of his clients, starting with Breuer and 'The Anna O' case -- the first case history of Psychoanalysis. Repetition compulsions that started to follow the 'structural and psycho-dynamic format' of the client's -- in this case, Freud's -- earliest memory.
The Psychoanalytic Room starts to take its famous formation. The 'psychoanalytic couch' replaces 'the bed' in Freud's transference scene. The client replaces 'one bi-polar split' in Freud's 'introjected dad' in the form of 'resistance' and 'the defense mechanisms' -- the client doing everything in his or her power to 'hide the narcissistic truth' from 'Freud-the-grown-up-child's scientific-psychoanalytic investigation: The power of 'resistance, defense, narcissism, sophistry and illusion' over the 'power of epistemological truth'.
Here is one of the strongest -- if not the strongest -- bi-polar splits in the human psyche. Freud found it in his parent's bedroom. And now he was going to bring it to the attention of the whole world in what would eventually become 'the id' vs. 'the ego' and/or 'superego'. Sexual and/or narcissistic impulse -- hidden by 'human sophistry' vs. the 'ethical restraint' and/or 'the pursuit of epistemological truth'.
What kind of human drama would we have? What kind of human soap opera would we have, without this core bi-polar split in the human psyche? Well, we could talk about the 'Liberal/Conservative' bi-polar split; or the 'Capitalist/Socialist' bi-polar split; or the 'Republican/Democrat' bi-polar split. But these discussions we will save for another day.
For now, this is where we will leave our hopefully provocative discussion on 'Truth, Narcissism, and Sophistry' on this fine, Friday morning, 10:11am.
-- dgb, September 5th, 2008.
