"The greater the contrast," says Jung, 'the greater the potential. Great energy only comes from correspondingly great tensions between opposites." In every case, the possbilities are contained within the opposites. What is required is their interaction, so that the dialectic may be permitted to operate.
-- Joel Latner, The Gestalt Therapy Book, 1973.
..................................................................
Sometimes I shake my head at the role of fluke, accident, coindcidence -- and/or fate -- in the role of both our indivdual and collective human history.
For the most part, I am not a 'fatalist' and/or a 'determinist'. Sometimes, I will bow down to the role of 'soft or even medium determinism' in man's life -- but never fully or completely relinquishing, eliminating or even minimizing the role of human thought, feeling, impulse, restraint, ethics, integrity, choice, behavior, and accountability in human existence -- all summed up in my philosophical usage of the term 'existentialism' or 'humanistic-existentialism..
However, as stated above, there are these flukes, coincidences, accidents -- good and bad -- that can become critical turning-points in one's life and/or one's philosophy of life. So critical that one can easily go back to them and ask the question: Was that an accident -- or was it a part of my 'fate' to bump into this particular accident at this particular point in my life, and no other.
I think of particular books that I have picked up at particular points in my life -- 'Pscho-Cybernetics' (Maxwell Maltz) and 'Language in Thought and Action (S.I. Hayakawa) when I was in high school; 'Man For Himself' (Erich Fromm) and 'The Psychology of Self-Esteem (Nataniel Branden) at The University of Waterloo between 1974 and 1979), 'Ego, Hunger, and Aggression' (Fritz Perls), 'The Gestalt Therapy Book' (Joel Latner) which most strongly influenced me towards Jungian and Hegelian thinking, and 'The Assault on Truth: Freud's Suppression of The Seduction Theory' (Jeffrey Masson) which helped me to better critique -- and moderate -- classical Freudian assumptions, in the 1980s and early 1990s; and this is not to mention certain people who I have met as if by 'accident' such as my girlfriend, Sharida, on a blind date 9 and a half years ago...
On Facebook, a while back in 2008, I kept seeing this advertisement that was selling a Dylan t-shirt with the words, 'Kill Your Idols' on it. I went to the website that was selling the t-shirt and I met with some Dylan bloggers who were all editorially commenting on the words, 'Kill Your Idols'. Most seemed to think that the words were stronger than Dylan would use, and were overly aggressive with a suggested 'Will to Violence' that was just not socially desirable or acceptable, particularly in light of the John Lennon assassination.
However, it brought to light various associations and counter-suggestions. I mentioned Nietzsche's 'Twilight of The Idols' and someone else mentioned Sir Francis Bacon's 4 'False Idols'.
And that last association triggered some quick research on my part -- back to the philosophy of Bacon -- prompting my 'DGBN Sun-Planet Theory and Sixteen Mythological Idols of Personality Functioning and (Extremist) Dysfunctioning'...
Similar thoughts were being developed before or after my 'Sun-Planet Theory' essay in my 'Rationality and Irrationality in Man' essay, and in a string of my 'Gods, Idols, Myths, Philosophers, and Psychologists...' essays...
And now those essays have developed into a very crucial part of DGBN Personality Theory. The Jungian influence is heavy - much heavier than I would have ever guessed because Jung was one of the last personality theorists who I started to more seriously study. I always shyed away from Jung's mythological thinking -- I have never thought of myself as much of a mythological thinker -- and yet here was this mythological -- and even Platonic -- component of my thinking that is rushing to the forefront of my thinking in stark contrast to what I would every have imagined.
I have written some harsh epistemological essays against Plato and his 'anti-empiricism', and especially against his 'Theory of Forms' and their Parmenidedes influence. I've written two epistemological essays called: 'Parmenides Poision'...
And yet here was/is Jung's theory of archetypes and Plato's Theory of Forms (modified to be sure) surfacing in my writing on Personality Theory.
Is it a 'collision' or a 'dialectical integration' of Platonic-Jungian (spiritual, mythological, symbolic) and Aristolean (rational-empirical) thinking? Or both?
I think it is both. It certainly wasn't planned. It just 'happened'.
I have three main 'History of Western Philosophy' books that I have referred to, and/or still am referring to, regularly. I strongly reccommend all of them to any beginning and/or advanced philosophy student, new or old, young or old.
1. Philosophy For Beginners by Richard Osborne, 1992.
2. The Story of Philosophy by Bryan Magee, 1998.
3. The Passion of The Western Mind by Richard Tarnas, 1991.
It was the last one -- Richard Tarnas' book -- that I was perusing through the other day which is what I generally tend to do, I don't usually read 'whole books' at one sitting...
Anyways, another one of those supposed 'coincidences' happened as I was sifting through it, when I came upon his section very early in the book, called 'Ideas and Gods'. This chapter brought into focus the 'Platonic-Jungian Archetype Connection' that I was starting to see and develp more and more in my writing. Which all developed from that 'Kill Your Idols' t-shirt advertisement.
And we will very much see where this line of thinking takes us in 2009. I imagine right now that it could be my biggest focus of attention of 2009.
We shall see.
-- dgbn, Jan. 2nd, 2209.
-- David Gordon Bain
