In this essay, I will advance my thinking from Part 1 this two part essay.
Indeed, this 'dialectic split' line of thinking exists throughout 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy' from top to bottom and from bottom to top. It is perhaps only here more than elsewhere that I am trying to bring extra clarity to the use of my terminology and concepts.
My thesis is essentially this -- and I will call it a 'post-Hegelian' thesis:
The history of Western philosophy is a history of 'dialectical splits' -- philosophically, psychologically, mythologically, religiously, scientifically, economically, politically, legally, artistically, racially, sexually, biologically, culturally, medically...Have I missed anything?
These dialectic splits tend to cause either attraction and/or repulsion, love and/or hate, chemical bonding and/or conflict-strife, co-operation and/or competition, engagement and/or alienation, progression and/or regression, or Mexican standoffs-impasses...
One can even talk about the dilectical split, the dialectical playoff, between life and death, or living and dying. Here, DGB Philosophy existentializes Freud.
In Freudian mechanistic-scientific language, you won't hear me/DGB Philosophy talking about 'life' and 'death' instincts; but in common existential language, you will hear me/DGB Philosophy talking about 'life vs. death impulses', or 'life vs. death playoffs' or 'life vs. death choices' or 'life vs. death existential splits'.
Unfortunately, our pleasure mechanism does not always side with what is nutritionally good for us. Too much coffee, alcohol, cigarettes, drugs, food...are obvious examples. These can all take us down a faster than normal death path.
Dieting intelligently and exercising are generally not considered 'pleasurable choices' but these moment to moment choices in the long run -- or even the short run -- are likely to take us down a much healthier path of living; indeed, the older we get, the more crucial role they may play in the difference between a sustained healthier and older life vs. a significantly shorter one. The more we play the 'death cards' -- smoking, drinking, drugs, alcohol, overeating, underexercising -- the more we are likely to speed up our demise.
Having said this, life isn't all about living a 'long, boring life', and thus, we often find ourselves going against what might be generally considered more healthy for us from a 'longevity' point of view. Given a choice, I think most of us would generally prefer to go to a restaurant or a bar and/or a movie on a Friday or Saturday night, and/or be with our favorite person -- as opposed to going to a health store or a gym. Most of us would likely prefer to do the 'health store' or 'gym' visit on a Saturday or Sunday morning (assuming we get there at all). But of course, everyone is different.
Negotiating the dialectic split between a 'longer and more boring life' vs. a 'shorter but more exciting one' is just another of many, many dialectical splits that confront us with 'either/or' choices and/or some sort of compromise between the two extreme polarities.
Some of these dialectic splits we might be 'excruciatingly aware of', whereas others may operate below our level of general consciousness. Indeed, the 'life and death split' we may not be aware of until we are on death's door. Life is often like that. It takes the approach of death, the contact with death, and/or a 'near death experience' -- to 'existentially wake us up'.
'Peace' and 'war' are two polarity extremes that make up another dialectic split. Obviously, peace tends to support and enhance life whereas war tends to 'speed up death'. And yet, over and over again, man keeps coming back to war whenever and wherever other important dialectic splits can't be negotiated democratically and/or peacefully.
This brings us back to recognizing the difference between 'power-dialectics' (the aim here being to overpower, intimidate, conquer our opponent/competitor) vs. 'democratic dialectics' (where the importance of 'homeostatic balance' and recognizing the importance of reciprocity, equal rights and responsibilities and win-win solutions is crucial to the dialectic negotiating process).
'Manipulation' and 'covert/hidden narcissistic goals/agendas' often play a sneaky role in 'splitting the difference' between a blatant power-dialectic and a truly egalitarian-democratic one. Man has all sorts of ways to play out his/her 'power and control fetishes' -- some blatant, some very sneaky. We all have a 'will to power' in some way or another, and/or conversely, we all succumb too easily to the 'will to power of others, leaving democracy, reciprocity, and equal rights very much an 'uphill climb'. Regardless, these latter factors are just as important to our overall psychological, social, and political health, as regular exercising is to our physical health.
What may seem to be 'a deal that is too good to be true' -- probably is.
A mortgage company might put out the 'bait' of a 'sub-prime mortgage rate' -- a mortgage rate that is too good to be true' -- and hide 'the trojan horse/virus' in the contract that is going to 'financially destroy you a few years later'.
Sound familiar anyone?
Capitalism is self-destructing in America in its own toxic waste.
Now there are three final arguments that I would like to get out here before I finish this little essay on dialectic splits.
Firstly, if the American government decided that it wanted to 'get involved' in the American housing market and prodded the mortgage and banking companies to offer an extra 'stimulant' for 'lower income earners' to buy houses -- i.e. 'sub-prime' rates -- then they are partly accountable for this Wall Street fiasco. They are even doubly accountable if they knew that the mortgage/banking companies were going to throw 'hidden trojan viruses' into the mortgage contracts -- meaning radical increases in interest rates a few years into the contract.
The primary engineer(s) behind the 'mortgage trojan virus contracts' are the men and/or women who should be held most accountable for the Wall Street Titanic Disaster. They obviously shouldn't be walking away with millions and millions of dollars made up of money that they have basically 'stolen' from American homeowners (or ex-homeowners) and/or 'bailout money' they have received from the American government to artifically prop up their collapsing empires. Furthermore, probably they should be in jail.
Trojan virus contracts should be illegal.
So too, should 'rollover contracts' (contracts that allow a company like a 'fitness company' to get into your bank account and never get out. Actually, these too are trojan virus contracts).
As democracy should be largely transparent, so too should 'legal contracts'. Legal contracts should not be about 'hiding things' but rather about making an aggreement transparently and unequivically clear.
A fitness company should not be allowed to coerce, intimidate, and/or seduce a customer into signing a contract that the customer basically needs to take to a lawyer before he or she should sign it. I will never sign another fitness contract. It is always totally in the interest of the fitness company -- not the consumer/customer. It is a license for the fitness companies to gouge and steal while we are most vulnerable -- when we most want to look and feel healthy like the people in the gym who are waving the contract in front of our faces with the big narcissistic smiles on their faces.
Same with cell-phone contracts. These contracts shouldn't be allowed to be more than a year long. Ideally, the best contracts are no contracts. You pay as you go -- either cash up front or on a monthly credit basis, and when you stop paying, you stop your service, or your service is cut off. Obviously, phone companies need to be compensated for the value of their phones, but long contracts should not be a license for these phone companies to hold their ex-customers up for ransom when the customer doesn't want, or can't afford, the service any longer.
Contracts that an employer gives a non-unionized employee or contractor should be legally approved by a 'labor board' before they are allowed to be used. Otherwise, they are quite likely to be 'narcissistically exploitive' in favor of the usually much richer and more powerful employer.
Free trade has definitely not been good for America as a whole. It is a license for American manufacturing employers to betray American workers by closing up their manufacturing plants in America and re-establishing them in 'dirt cheap labor' countries that allow the owners of these companies to rake in much larger profits at the expense of the betrayed American workforce.
Who has Bush protected during the eight years he has been in power -- and who is he still trying to protect even as he leaves power? The American manufacturing owner? Or the American worker? I think the answer is rather obvious. Tariffs existed for good reason: they protected the American workforce from 'cheaper workforces' and 'cheaper goods' coming in from 'cheaper countries'.
It might be counter-argued that 'cheaper goods' is better for the American consumer. But not if the American consumer is unemployed. And not if the 'safety' of the foreign product is so compromised that it could be a significant danger to you, or your family, or your pet. It is much easier to control the 'safety standards' of American goods, for the most part, although dangerous narcissistic safety compromises can be made in America too. But the safety problems most recently seem to be coming from China and Mexico, less so from America -- unless we are talking pharmaceutical drugs.
Even 'illegal immigrants' coming from Mexico into America -- we can easily see how this too fits into the whole 'free trade' syndrome. American farmers and manufacturers take advantage of these illegal immigrants to get a cheaper workforce that Bush and The Republican Party have basically turned a 'blind eye' too. Why? Because, once again, it is good for the American manufacturing owner. And who is the American manufacturing owner most likely to financially support and sponsor -- why, The American Republican Party, of course. You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours. The only group left out of this whole 'back-scratching exercise' -- this 'two out of three ain't bad' collusion -- is the American manufacturing workforce.
'Protectionism' for Bush and The Republican Party has meant protecting the American manufacturing owners, corporations, and conglomerates.
It has not meant 'protecting' the American manufacturing worker.
Bush and The Republican Party have basically supported and given their blessing to the 'exodus' of American manufacturing plants to 'cheap labor' countries.
And Bush and The Republican Party talk about 'patriotism'.
I certainly hope that Obama is moving in a different, better direction.
However, I shake my head in amazement at this massive government spending,
And worse,
Billions of dollars going out to the business owners who caused this whole problem to start with.
I've said enough for tonight.
DGBN, Nov. 25th, 2008, edited and updated Dec. 3rd, 2008.
David Gordon Bain,
Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism,
Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
Are still in process...
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