On Ego-States, Ego-Splitting, Transference Splits, Transference Complexes, Transference Neuroses -- and A DGB Model of The Personality

Under construction...May 22nd,24th 2009.


Overview

In this essay, I will briefly summarize the interaction between childhood memories, 'ego-splitting', 'transference dynamics', and 'personality structure'. I will use the example of Freud's earliest conscious memory to demonstrate the different points I make in this essay.

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Part 1:

'Childhood ego-splitting' -- through one-time memory experiences and/or through more prolonged relationship contact -- is intimately connected to the childhood experience of 'rejection' which we all have to go through in some fashion or another, which in turn is connected to such intra-psychic and inter-personal phenomena as: transference splits, transference complexes, and transference neuroses.

This is the one place where DGB Philosophy-Psychology differs significantly from Adlerian Psychology and takes a more Psychoanalytic-Jungian-Transactional Analysis-Gestalt perspective into personality theory.

Which is not to say that Adlerian Psychology is left out of the equation with DGB Philosophy-Psychology. Quite the reverse. I learned a lot from Adlerian psychology -- concepts like 'lifeststyle', 'inferiority feelings', 'superiority striving', and 'the interpretation of conscious early recollections'.

However, there is a significant difference between The Adlerian Paradigm and the paradigm of the rest of these more 'dialectic-conflict' models of the personality (Freud, Jung, Berne, Perls...) mentioned above.

There is a difference between what respectively labelled as: 1. 'unilateral wholism'; 2. 'dialectical wholism'; 3. 'multi-dialectical wholism'; and 4. 'integrative pluralism' (as opposed to non-integrative, alienated, 'dialectical split pluralism').

My problem with the Adlerian model -- which in this crucial way resembles the Spinozian model of the world (and there are a lot of things that I like about both Adler and Spinoza but not this aspect of their respective philosophies) -- is that it is 'too idealistically non-divisive'.

My experience with the human personality is that for the most part it is 'conflict-ridden' because there is essentially a conflict in the personality between 'authoritarianism and unilateralism' on the one hand, and 'democracy' on the other hand. This is no different than within any business organization. Within any human social, economic, political, and/or religious organization -- period.

There is no such thing as 'human interaction without conflict' -- without 'differences' between indviduals striving to come together integratively in a relationship -- or not.

You get differenct 'personality styles'. Some people strive to 'will to power' their ideas to dominance. Well, actually, we all do -- except some people do it better than others in either healthy and/or pathological ways, some people are -- to put it simply -- more 'forceful' than others. In contrast, some people -- a lot of people -- strive to avoid conflict, to pretend that conflict doesn't exist, to hide conflict, to distance themselves from conflict, to give up a significant part of their identities to basically 'fake' agreement -- Gestalt Therapy calls this 'confluence' based on 'retroflection' where a person basically 'swallows his or her self-assertion' in the goal of 'avoiding conflict', 'pleasing the other', and/or 'following authoritarian orders'.

These types of 'inter-personal' and/or 'inter-social' between people -- and the way that these conflicts are either expressed or not expressed -- are essentially no different than what happens inside the personality as well -- these are what we might call 'inter-psychic' conflicts and/or 'conflicts between different ego-states that essentially have different philosophical goals, different psychological goals, different agendas...within the realm of their own 'part-function' compartment, department, or 'psychic-organ' of the personality.

Thus, we can have 'dialectic wholism' or 'multi-dialectic wholism' or 'pluralistic wholism' within the personality -- just as within a social organization, political organization, financial organization, and/or religious organization -- that is basically 'functioning on all cylinders' with all of the different 'ego-states' in the personality coming together in a show of 'multi-dialectic unity and wholism'...and this can be a very powerful, healthy state of affairs in the personality providing that the personality is being propelled in a 'wholistic-healthy' direction. If it is being propelled in one direction towards an ending of self-destruction, well, that is a whole different matter.

However, the more common state of affairs, is that we are all in a state -- even when we show differently -- of dialectic and multi-dialectic conflict division. This state of 'divided affairs' in the personality can also be referred to as 'ego splits'.

Ego splits -- at least the long-term, chronic, serial, obsessive-compulsive and addictive ones that are connected to 'transference conflicts, transference complexes, and transference neuroses' -- are generally formed in early childhood, let us say usually between the age of about 3 and 8 years old. I take an Adlerian point of view here and do not go looking for transference conflicts 'in the womb' for example like some psychoanalysts and non-psychoanlysts have, or between a baby and the mother's breast (Melanie Klein) although, to be sure, it is probably quite likely that a baby can 'intuitively pick up very quickly' on the overall 'accepting, loving' and/or 'rejecting-denying' attitude of the mother which became the foundational underpinning of Melanie Klein's 'Object Relations-Transference' model of the personality. Actually, Melanie Klein's incorporation of Freud's 'death instinct' concept made this 'internal division', this 'internal ego-splits' inevitable in the personality regardless of the nature of mother-infant relations, which is further than I feel comfortable going with this idea.

I would prefer to say that there is a 'rejection function' within all of us that is designed to 'protect our self-boundaries'.

Having said this, some people have much stronger 'rejecting functions' than others -- and it is the geneology of this rejecting process, this rejecting state of affairs, that tends to become intimately intertwined with the whole 'transference phenomenon' (transference memories, transference splits, tansference fixations, transference complexes, transference neuroses...).

People with stronger, more assertive, rejecting processes in psychoanalytic terminology tend to often be described as having more 'anal-retentive' and/or more 'anal-schizoid' personality types vs. the opposite -- the more 'flexible, accepting, loving, nurturing, encouraging -- 'oral-giving' or 'oral-receptive' -- personality type.

In DGB Philosophy-Psychology, these two 'personality types' are actually in all of us in different degrees of dominance and suppression ('personna' and 'shadow'), and in different degrees of self-assertion, self-confidence, self-power...

Integrating the work of Eric Berne (Tranactional Analysis) and Fritz Perls (Gestalt Therapy), DGB Philosophy-Psychology has put together these four initial, basic ego-states in all of us:

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A DGB Working Model of The Personality


1. The Nurturing Topdog ('maternal', 'oral-receptive', 'oral-giving', mythological Greek Gods: Hera, Gaia));

2. The Righteous-Rejecting Topdog ('paternal', 'patriarchal', 'anal-rejecting', 'anal-schizoid'...Greek Mythological Gods: Zeus, Apollo);

3. The Approval-Seeking Underdog ('stereotyped, traditional feminine-passive', 'pleasing', 'accepting', 'submissive to authority', 'masochistic', 'oral-receptive', 'oral-giving', 'co-operative', 'trusting', 'naive', 'good child'...);

4. The Rebellious Underdog ('anal-rejecting', 'anal-schizoid', 'anarchistic', 'destructive', 'deconstructive', 'spontaneous', 'creative','wild', 'out of control', 'bad child', 'rule breaker'...often connected with sensuality and sexuality, hedonism..., Greek God: Dionysus, Religious Anti-God: Satan)

To these four ego-states above, DGB Philosophy-Psychology has also added these below:

5. The Narcissistic Ego (which is actually intertwined with all the other ego-states);

6. The Altruistic Ego (which also can be intertwined with all the other ego-states in either a 'dominant' and/or a 'suppressed, marginalized' -- 'personna' vs. 'shadow' -- state;

7. The Dionysian Ego (often intertwined with both 'The Rebellious Ego' and 'The Narcissistic Ego' with an emphasis on power, egotism, sensuality, and/or sexuality...);

8. The Romantic Ego (Greek Gods: Eros, Aprodite; emphasized in its process by the Romantic Philosophers such as Spinoza, Rousseau, Goethe, Schelling...);

9. The Economic Ego (dealing with all things financial, monetary; main philosophers of dominance: Adam Smith, Karl Marx, Erich Fromm, Ayn Rand);

10. The Physical Health/Nutritional Ego (dealing with all matters pertaining to physical health, exercise, nutrition, medicine...)


11. The Darwinian-Survival Ego (Dealing with the greatest 'survival urgencies' within the confines of the personality);

12. The Epistemological-Ethical/Humanistic-Existential Ego (Integrating Epistemology with Ethics; Enlightenment Philosophy with Romantic Philosophy; also dealing with the issue of meaning and/or meaningless in the process of living);

13. The Spiritual-Religious Ego;

14. The Central Mediating, Executive (Hegelian) Ego (All final decisions in the personality run through The Central Ego...);

15. The Dynamic, (Symbolic, Fantasy, Creative-Destructive) Subconcious Ego (Freud, Jung, Perls...);

16. The Personal, Experiential Template and Network of Transference-Lifestyle Memories (Freud, Adler, Jung, Klein, Fairbairn, Guntrip, Kohut, Berne, Perls...);

17. The Genetic Subconscious Mythological and Archetype Template (Jung);

18. The Genetic, Subconscious Potential Self (Jung);


This model combines:

A/ DGB Integrative Transference Theory...with

B/ DGB Integrative Personality Theory...with

C/ DGB Integrative Philosophy...

D/ The first four ego-states are definitely 'Object Relations', 'Transactional Analysis', and 'Gestalt' influenced;

E/ The fifth ego state (The Narcissistic Ego) is definitely Freudian influenced;

F/ The sixth ego state is closest to the Adlerian concept of 'social interest';

G/ The seventh ego state is from Nietzsche's 'The Birth of Tragedy';

H/ The eighth ego state -- 'The Romantic Ego' -- is from the period of Romantic Philosophy;

I/ The ninth ego state -- 'The Economic Ego' -- is from the economic Adam Smith/Karl Marx dialectic duet;

J/ The tenth ego state -- 'The Physical Health Ego' -- is from the philosophy of science and medicine -- we all need to learn and properly know how to look after our body or deal with the consequences of either not knowing and/or not caring sufficiently;

K/ The eleventh ego state -- 'The Darwinian Survival Ego' -- refers to both our specific ability and confidence in dealing with ego and life crises in dire emergencies, as well as the general, overall 'evolutionary intelligence' of each individual in terms of 'surviving with a flourish' -- and helping others to do the same;

L/ The twelfth ego state -- 'The Epistemological-Ethical Ego' and/or 'The Humanistic-Existential Ego' -- overlaps and/or is a redundancy relative to key functions of 'The Central, Executive Ego' but we will draw specific attention to these primary functions of The Ego in this ego state here as well;

M) The thirteenth ego state -- The Religious-Spiritual Ego -- refers in my particular case, and in the case of DGB Philosophy-Psychology to my Spinozian-Pantheistic influence although for others this may range anywhere from 'deep religion -- healthy and/or unhealthy' to 'Agnosticism' (not knowing whether God exists or not) to 'Atheism' (not believing in God);

N/ The fourteenth ego state -- is a combination of Hegelian, Freudian, and Transactional Analysis influence

O/ The fifteenth 'ego state' -- if you want to call it that -- is perhaps nothing more than The Central Executive Ego when it is asleep/we are asleep but still conscious enough to think in terms of dream language, mythology, and creative-destructive symbolism;

P/ The sixteenth ego-state -- or 'Transference-Lifestyle-Memory Template' -- is full of unrealized transference complexes 'busting to get out of the subconscious' and expressing themselves in terms of symbolic-creative-destructive serial behavior patterns. Influences include Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, Karl Jung, Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, Fairbairn, Guntrip, Kohut, Berne, Perls...;

Q/ The seventeenth ego state and/or mythological template leans upon the influence of primarily Jung, but also partly Erich Fromm (The Forgotten Language);

R/ The eighteenth and final ego state and/or genetic talent-potential template -- 'The Self' in Jung's psychological terminology -- leans again on the psychology of Jung in terms of its influence on DGB Philosophy-Psychology.



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Part 2: The Influence of Object Relations on DGB Philosophy-Psychology

It seemed that Freud was starting to take his work in a new direction just before he died as exemplified by his last two or three papers that seemed to be pointing Psychoanalysis in a more 'Object Relations' as opposed to 'The Instincts and Their Vicissitudes' direction. What does this mean?

It means a lot. It was perhaps the beginning of what would become a decisive turning point in the direction of Psychoanalysis, or alternatively, the birth of the sub-school, 'Object Relations', within the larger school of Psychoanalyis. Melanie Klein and Ronald Fairbairn would lead the way but just before them was Freud's final essays which seemed almost to harken back of the earliest work of Pierre Janet which was a little different than Freud's earliest work with Charcot, the unconscious, and repressed memories.

From a DGB perspective, the concepts of 'the unconscious' and 'the repressed' are very troublesome, ambiguous, if not bogus concepts. The concepts of 'subconscious' and 'dissociation' sail much better with DGB Philosophy-Psychology.

Let me briefly explain.

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Pierre Janet
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


Pierre Marie Félix Janet (May 30, 1859 - February 24, 1947) was a pioneering French psychiatrist and philosopher in the field of dissociation and traumatic memory.

He was one of the first people to draw a connection between events in the subject's past life and his or her present day trauma, and coined the words ‘dissociation’ and ‘subconscious’. He studied under Jean-Martin Charcot at the Psychological Laboratory in Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital, in Paris. In several ways, he preceded Sigmund Freud. Many consider Janet, rather than Freud, the true 'founder' of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy.

He first published the results of his research in his philosophy thesis in 1889 and in his medical thesis, L'état mental des hystériques, in 1892.

In 1898, Janet was appointed lecturer in psychology at the Sorbonne, and in 1902 he attained the chair of experimental and comparative psychology at the Collège de France, a position he held until 1936. He was a member of the Institut de France from 1913.

In 1923, he wrote a definitive text, La médecine psychologique, on suggestion and in 1928-32, he published several definitive papers on memory.

Whilst he did not publish much in English, the fifteen lectures he gave to the Harvard Medical School between 15 October and the end of November 1906 were published in 1907 as The Major Symptoms of Hysteria and he received an honorary doctorate from Harvard in 1936.

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Off the internet...see PEP Web....(Psychoanalytic Electronic Publishing)


Freud, S. (1938). Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence.
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Freud, S. (1938). Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence. The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volume XXIII (1937-1939): Moses and Monotheism, An Outline of Psycho-Analysis and Other Works, 271-278

Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence

Sigmund Freud

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Off the internet...see Freud and Splitting.....


FREUD AND SPLITTING



J. A. Brook



Summary



Freud is the bread and butter of this paper and clinical vignettes provide some filling in the middle. First we examine Freud's discussions of splitting, using clinical vignettes. It turns out he discussed all three of the major kinds of splitting: dissociated or split-off psychic groupings, splitting of objects and affects, and splitting of the ego, though not always in contemporary terminology. I then focus on the kind of splitting which most interested Freud late in his life, splitting of the ego, and explore a clinical example. Finally, we examine the history of the development of the idea of the splitting of the ego in Freud's work. Though he only laid down the term 'splitting of the ego' in 1937, he discussed the phenomenon itself repeatedly throughout his life, beginning as early as 1909. By the end of his life he may have been edging toward viewing it as the foundation of all defense.



Splitting is often linked particularly to borderline and severe narcissistic conditions. Freud shows us that kinds of splitting not distinctively associated with such serious pathology are also important.

The various things called splitting in psychoanalysis can be sorted into three major types, though any such typology will draw clearer lines than we find in the actual clinical material, where mixed types are common. Historically, the first type of splitting to appear was the splitting off of what Freud called separate psyche groupings or ego nuclei (cf. 1894, 46, fn.1 for references). This form of splitting is commonly linked to dissociative states and was exemplified for Freud by the way highly integrated but completely unconscious psychical material operates in post-hypnotic suggestion. It was this form of splitting that led Freud to the phenomenon of repression.



A second type of splitting and the next to appear historically is the splitting of objects and affects into good objects (or part objects) of affection and bad objects of hostility. When psychoanalysts talk of splitting, this is the type of splitting they most frequently have in mind. The same sort of splitting is involved when the sense of self splits, too, though in other respects object splitting and splits in the sense of self are quite different from one another. Since what actually splits in these cases are representations, I will follow Lichtenberg and Slap (1973), Blum (1985) and others and call this type of splitting the splitting of representations. Note that at least three different kinds of representation can split, representations of objects, representations of affects, and representations of self.



A third type of splitting and historically the last to appear is the splitting of the ego. This is the type of splitting which most interested Freud late in his life. Freud used the term 'splitting of the ego' as a general term for a number of specific forms of splitting, both neurotic and psychotic. As applied to neurotic splitting, he used the term to describe both the splitting of the psyche or ego into a self-observing component and an acting component and the splitting which consists of adopting two or more opposed or conflicting attitudes to a single event or object. The latter, the splitting of attitudes, is the form of splitting which most interested Freud late in his life. From now on,

-----------------------

Presented to the Ottawa Psychoanalytic Society, September, 1989. Levin Prize Essay, Canadian Psychoanalytic Society, 1991. I am grateful to those who have heard the paper and to anonymous referees for this journal for helpful criticisms and suggestions.

when I speak of splitting of the ego, this splitting of attitudes is what I will

have in mind.



Freud made comments about splitting throughout the whole of his forty-five years of writing about psychology and psychoanalysis. At one time or another, Freud discussed all three types of splitting I have just identified, though he discussed the splitting of representations only three times and the specific form of it which we call the splitting of the sense of self only once. Moreover, he discussed each of the three types separately, which is some indication that he thought they are different from one another. His remarks on splitting can be grouped into three periods, each of them centred on a different type of splitting. The first is 1893-5. In this period, his main interest was the splitting off of 'psychic groupings' from the rest of the psyche (which remains integrated), a subject which continued to interest him for the rest of his life (at least one reference to it occurs as late as 1934-1938, 77-78(1)). The second period is 1915 to 1925. In this period Freud discussed splits in representations three times (1915a, 1923, 1925), the only times he ever referred to this type of splitting in any work. The third period is 1927 to 1938. It was in this period that Freud identified splitting of the ego as a distinct phenomenon (1938a, 1938b). Though he had been describing occurrences of this form of splitting at least since the Rat Man (1909), he did not give it a separate name until 1937. However, he used a closely comparable term in 1924 (p. 153). In this period, virtually all Freud's remarks on splitting concern splitting of the ego, the splitting which consists of taking up opposed and contradictory attitudes to a single object or event. In the end, Freud seems to have thought that this type of splitting is more important than either of the other two. As we will see, there are some good reasons for taking this position.


In the first part of the paper, I will explore what Freud had to say about each of the three major types of splitting, with clinical illustrations. Then, focussing on the splitting of the ego, I will give a vignette from an analysis of a man I will call Mr. B., in which this form of splitting played a significant role. Finally, in a purely historical discussion, I will explore how the idea of the splitting of the ego developed in Freud's work and briefly point to some implications this discussion may have for Freud's final conception of the basic mechanism used by the defenses in general.

See the website...Freud and Splitting by J.A. Brook for the rest of this paper...

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From the internet...Freud and The Splitting of The Ego...

Splitting of the Ego


Psychoanalysis: Splitting of the Ego
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The term "splitting of the ego" refers to a division of the ego into two coexisting parts, one of which satisfies instinctual demands while the other heeds the objection, in the shape of a symptom, which reality raises to that satisfaction. This process, which Freud described as a "ruse," constitutes a temporary response to the conflict, but the price paid is an inner rent in the ego that can only get worse with time.

For Freud the most striking instance of the splitting of the ego was to be observed in the perversion of fetishism, but it was also at work in the psychoses, and to a lesser degree in neurosis. It represents a position with respect to reality more complex than denial (or disavowal [Verleugnung]), for it implies the coexistence of two contradictory attitudes. The notion of the splitting of the ego was probably already present in embryo in Freud's mind well before his paper on "Splitting of the Ego in the Process of Defence" (1940e [1938]). Thus the idea of a "plurality of psychical persons," identifications, and in a more general sense the institution of the ideal mental agencies (superego, ego ideal) are so many forms of splitting of the ego—although it should be noted that in the last case the outcome is the formation of a new agency rather than the maintenance of a split within the ego itself.

It was above all in the context of the psychoses that Freud developed this idea, and especially with regard to paranoia and delusions of reference. Viktor Tausk also worked in this context in his discussion of the genesis of the "influencing machine" in schizophrenia (1919/1949). Similarly, Sándor Ferenczi (1933) pointed out that traumas experienced by the child might give rise to a dissociation of a kind that would enable the adult, later, to present an appearance of perfect adaptation concealing an ego in ruins. In Freud's view, psychosis implied a break with reality caused by an irreconcilable idea: thanks to the mechanism of delusional projection, what had been abolished within the mind reappeared in the outside world in the shape of a hallucination.

The full dynamic complexity of the splitting of the ego emerged, however, only in the context of fetishism. Unlike a hallucination, a fetish was created not by a denial of reality but rather by a subtle avoidance of it, thanks to the symbolic transfer of the absent penis onto some other part of the body. This was the dividing-line between perversion and psychosis. But the splitting of the ego also signaled the ego's failure to build constructively on reality-testing by interpolating, between the instinctual demand and its gratification, the consequences of the envisaged course of action, whether the repression of the demand or the postponement of its satisfaction.

Bibliography

Ferenczi, Sándor. (1949). Confusion of tongues between adults and the child: The language of tenderness and of passion. International Journal of Psycho-Analysis, 30, 225-230. (Original work published 1932)

Freud, Sigmund. (1927e). Fetishism. SE, 21: 147-157.

——. (1940a [1938]). An outline of psycho-analysis. SE, 23: 139-207.

——. (1940e [1938]). Splitting of the ego in the process of defence. SE, 23: 271-278.

——. (1950a [1887-1902]). The origins of psycho-analysis. Extracts from the Fliess papers. SE, 1: 173-280.

Tausk, Viktor. (1948). On the origin of the "influencing machine" in schizophrenia. In Robert Fliess (Ed.), The psycho-analytic reader. New York: International Universities Press. (Original work published 1919)

Further Reading

Blum, Harold P. (1983). Splitting of the ego and its relation to parent loss. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 31(S), 301-324.

Lichtenberg, Joseph D., and Slap, Joseph W. (1973). Concept of splitting: Defense mechanisms; representations. Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 21, 772-787.

Pruyser, P.W. (1975). What splits in "splitting"?: Scrutiny of concept. Bulletin of the Menninger Clinic, 39, 1-46.

—SOPHIEDE MIJOLLA-MELLOR

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A DGB Editorial on 'Transference Complexes and The Splitting of The Ego'....

To be continued...


I will go back to a 'DGB Transference Memory Interpretation' of one of Freud's earliest conscious memories to demonstrate how a DGB approach to 'Transference Complexes and The Splitting of The Ego'...based on my combined integrative Freudian-Adlerian-Jungian-Fairbairnian-Transactional-Analysis-Gestalt influence...

This morning, I am leaving on a two week vacation to visit my parents in Prince Edward Island and my daughter in Nova Scotia. I shall be back by June 5th/09. Hopefully, I will get some writing done on my trip, as I am just getting 'heated up' on this most fascinating of psychological topics...

Til I can find a computer on my trip...

-- dgb, May 25th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

Edmonton cabbie sues passengers over false assault allegations

Edmonton cabbie sues passengers over false assault allegations
Last Updated: Friday, May 15, 2009 | 12:26 PM MT Comments26Recommend39
CBC News

Edmonton cab driver Soner Yasa has filed a civil lawsuit against four young women who were passengers in his taxi in 2006. (CBC)

A veteran Edmonton taxi driver is speaking publicly about a civil lawsuit he filed last year against four young women who falsely accused him of sexual assault after travelling in his car three years ago.

"I just want to give those girls [a] lesson," Soner Yasa told CBC News. "We're so vulnerable as a cab driver."

The lawsuit, filed by Yasa in Edmonton's Court of Queen's Bench in April 2008, seeks nearly $250,000 in damages to cover emotional and mental distress. His allegations have not been proven in court. One of the four young women filed a statement of defence last month in which she admits to getting into Yasa's taxi but denies the rest of his allegations.

In April 2006, Yasa picked up the young women, all 19, along Whyte Avenue, a well-known strip of bars and restaurants in Edmonton. The girls were intoxicated, and trouble began when one of them tried to light up a cigarette, Yasa said. It is illegal to smoke in an Edmonton taxi cab, and Yasa told her to put out the cigarette or risk a $500 fine.

Just then, the girls demanded Yasa stop the cab, and they got out, refusing to pay the $13 fare. Then they accused Yasa of sexually molesting them, Yasa said. They called their friends, and Yasa soon was surrounded by what he calls a "mob." Both Yasa and friends of the four girls called police.

However, what happened in the taxi was caught on a video camera Yasa had installed inside his car after a passenger tried to assault him a couple of years before. Based on the video evidence of what happened in his cab, Yasa was not charged.

But he worries about what might have happened to his job and his marriage without that evidence.

"What would she do?" Yasa said of his wife. "She would have probably told me, 'There's the door, and get out.'"

According to a police report filed on the incident, one of the young women contacted police the next morning to say they were very sorry for the trouble she and her friends caused and that they would not be pursuing any charges.

The constable collected the $13 fare from the girls to pass on to Yasa. He took the money but gave it back the next day, because he wanted police to pursue charges against the girls. That didn't happen, so he filed the lawsuit.

While Yasa filed the lawsuit last year, he said he is going public with his story now to make people aware of how vulnerable taxi drivers are while they are on the job.

None of the young women named in the lawsuit responded to attempts by CBC News to contact them on Thursday. On Friday, one of the lawyers for the women said his client would not be speaking to the media about the lawsuit.

Mulroney in hot seat over selective answers

From the internet...yahoo news...


38 minutes ago, May 14th, 2009


OTTAWA - Brian Mulroney is in the hot seat over why, if secret payments he received from Karlheinz Schreiber were legitimate, he didn't disclose them during questioning 13 years ago.


The former prime minister's selective answers in a deposition for his 1996 Airbus libel suit prompted questions Thursday at the public inquiry looking into his dealings with the German-Canadian businessman.


At the time, Mulroney had accepted at least $225,000 in cash-stuffed envelopes from Schreiber, but kept the money secret. He didn't tell his accountant about it and didn't declare it to the tax man for six years - after news of the payments threatened to leak out.


Mulroney volunteered some information about Schreiber in the 1996 deposition, saying he had met the German-Canadian businessman "once or twice for coffee."


But he never mentioned that he had taken cash from Schreiber. He told the inquiry that was because the lawyers who questioned him under oath didn't ask the right questions.


That left inquiry lawyer Richard Wolson scratching his head.


"As a former prime minister of the country, knowing that you had a legitimate business relationship, you didn't think you should say . . . I had a business relationship?" Wolson asked.


Mulroney said he was following the instructions of his lawyers: "Answer the questions truthfully. Do not volunteer information."


He said he would have answered fully had he been asked if he had a business deal with Schreiber. He said the nine government lawyers questioning him hadn't done their homework.


But Wolson noted that no lawyer could have asked the question because only four people knew of the deal: Mulroney, Schreiber, lobbyist Fred Doucet and an unidentified official at the German company Thyssen.


"How in the world would nine lawyers or 900 lawyers know about a commercial business relationship? You were the only one in the room who knew."


Wolson said he could see why Mulroney might be reluctant to admit taking the money, "because it would have been like putting gasoline on a fire."


"But I don't understand why you can't admit that you simply didn't tell him for that reason, because it would have just spread like wildfire."


"The answer is that he never asked me the question," Mulroney replied.


He said he was in a terrible situation at the time of the Airbus accusations.


"The nine lawyers sitting there . . . out to crush me and my family . . . this was not conducive to a friendly exchange of information or compromise.


"I was fighting for my life and the honour of my family."

Mulroney said he was prepared to answer all questions and that he was truthful in all his answers.

The 1996 hearing was part of a successful libel action Mulroney launched against the RCMP for accusing him of taking kickbacks while he was still in power.

Justice Jeffrey Oliphant, who leads the inquiry, also seized on the issue of Mulroney's selective answers. He wondered about Mulroney's recollection during the 1996 deposition of meeting Schreiber for a coffee in Montreal after leaving office.

Mulroney volunteered at the time that Schreiber had retained former Liberal cabinet minister Marc Lalonde to help promote the building of an arms plant in east Montreal. But he didn't mention his own business relationship with Schreiber, who gave him at least $75,000 in cash during that meeting.

"Here you volunteer without having been asked that Mr. Schreiber had retained Mr. Lalonde ... you didn't say anything about your retainer," Oliphant said.

Mulroney's mood seemed to shift with the tide of Wolson's cross-examination, at times smiling - the affable elder statesman - and at others tight-lipped and serious.

The inquiry is examining the so-called Bear Head project, in which Mulroney received the $225,000 - or more - from Schreiber to promote a plan by the German firm Thyssen AG to build armoured military vehicles in Canada.

On Wednesday, Mulroney testified that he abided by federal tax law. He said he treated the $225,000 - received in cash-filled envelopes in three instalments between August 1993 and December 1994 - as a retainer for future services.

That meant he didn't have to report it immediately and could defer the taxes until later.

Schreiber maintains his payments to Mulroney in 1993-94 totalled $300,000. He also says Mulroney was supposed to lobby Canadian officials on Bear Head, something that could have put him in breach of the federal ethics code.

Mulroney says his promotional efforts were confined to foreign leaders, in the hope of lining up support for use of Thyssen vehicles in UN peacekeeping operations.

More Comments On The Similarities and Differences Between: 1. Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy; 2. Communitarianism; and 3. Anti-Communitarianism

Introduction


This essay is directed both to my readers in terms of clarifying what 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...is and isn't... and to Ms. Niki Raapana, otherwise known as The Tent Lady from Alaska, author of the blogsite 'Living Outside The Dialectic' who I actually wish to have more favorable 'debating relations' with relative to the contents and evolution of our respective blogsites and philosophical passions. This having been said, the last part of my letter becomes a more general address to my reading audience relative to defining, describing, and distinguishing some of the similarities and differences between Hegel's Hotel, Communitarianism, and Anti-Communitarianism.

Let me add that I do not expect more favorable relations but I am hoping for them. I am putting up at least a partial if not total 'truce flag' here -- not a 'white flag' but a 'truce flag'. I sincerely believe that there are some things that both I -- and my readers -- can learn from her 'Living Outside the Dialectic' site, and I encourage my readers to at least check out parts of her work.

This having been said, there are still some important differences between our respective philosophical perspectives that I intend to re-emphasize here.

Without further ado I will write this essay as an open letter directed to Ms. Niki Raapano,

................................................................................

Hi Niki,

This may seem like a strange request but I want you to be a guest writer on Hegel's Hotel.

I admit to not knowing anything about Communitarianism or Anti-Communitarianism when I first visited your website/blogsite. However, I think it is fair to say that you also didn't know anything about the substance of my DGB Philosophy when you visited my site.

I think you were coming into my network of blogsites with a broad, negative 'Hegelian Dialectic Stereotype'. You chose one particular essay that I wrote -- not a bad choice I might add, it is a good essay -- and added it to your own 'Living Outside The Dialectic' blogsite as a link and an example of what Communiarianism is about -- before proceeding with your own 'anti-thesis' against Communiatrianism and against the idea of one 'collosal' Hegelian Dialectic Synthesis that you seem to rightly or wrongly connect Communitarianism with.

My chief complaint against what you did is your broad stereotype of Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy as a form of Communitarianism.

It is not.

There are probably thousands of different ideas kicking around both the academic world and the internet as to just exactly what 'Communitarianism' is, and what it is not. As I wrote in one of my last essays, 'words are promiscuous' -- and the word 'Communitarian' is a 'semantic -- pardon the crude metaphor -- slut'. (You can use the word 'male slut' or 'womanizer' or 'philanderer' or 'Village Ram' if you think I am being sexist.)

The word 'Communitarian' -- if you check the internet -- seems to have been 'sleeping around' with thousands of different philosophers, academics, politicians, and blogwriters.

Obviously the word and concept of 'communitarian' is attractive to a lot of different people out there, stimulating jealousies because each writer wants to be the 'sole possesor of what the word correctly means'. There are no correct meanings: just these thousands of different writers, philosophers, politicians using the word in the way they thing represents their own personal 'Utopia'. Or in your case, as a rebellor and antagonist against this very abstract word and its meaning(s) -- you seem to associate 'Communitarianism' with 'anti-Utopia'.

Likewise with this collosal vision of a 'Hegelian Dialectic Synthesis' that you seem to believe is the essence of 'Communitarianism'.

I think you have written about both the ex-President Bush and the present President Obama as having dreams of 'Communitarian Utopian Visions' running through their respective brains.

The fact that this is possible points to one very good example of how the meaning of Communitarianism can mean very, very different things to different people, different philosophers, different Presidents...

I have said in a recent essay that words have both a 'range of meaning' and a 'narcissisitic focus of meaning' -- both socially and in the minds of different individuals borrowing the usage of the word. (I got this distinction, incidently, and slightly extrapolated on it from an old George Kelly book written in the early 1960s about 'cognitive constructs'. (I will find the exact reference shortly.)

There are literally millions of potential 'Hegelian Dialectic Syntheses' being processed somewhere in the world as I sit here writing this essay at this moment. So to write about the possibility of 'One Gigantic World Vision Using One Gigantic Hegelian Dialectic Synthesis' to get there -- is a bit of a reach don't you think, Ms. Niki, when half the world is at war right now.

We can't even get The Democrats and The Republicans to come to any 'bi-lateral agreement' in the Senate that both Parties are happy with. Never mind that -- The Republicans are still trying to sort themselves out and define who they are after they kind of 'lost their way in the last election'. So we can't even get any bi-lateral or multi-lateral agreements in the Republican Party itself.

So this idea -- or rebellion against the idea -- of some grand, grand scheme to put together some 'Collosal New World Order' is probably 'light years away' -- if a husband and wife can't even agree on what they want to do together, how can we expect to get the whole world and all its radically different leaders all on the same page. It certainly is not going to happen by 'consensus'.

It might happen if the world gets another 'Super-Napoleon', 'Alexander The Great'...but that involves killing people...which is obviously not a good thing, and if the visionary 'Super-Unilateral-Leader' (read: conqueror, dictator...) believes in killing people to establish the 'Utopia' that he (or she) wants, then we are obviously talking about at least a partly 'pathological' leader. Napoleon and Alexander The Great both did some good thing but bottom line is that they killed a lot of people. Same with other pathological 'Idealist-Utopian-Leaders' such as Mao tse Tung, Lenin, Bin Laden, and these other 'gunslingers, rocket launchers, and testosterone muscle flexers' in Iran, North Korea, Somalia, and Russia...

The Somalian Pirates -- many of them are barely older than kids and being told what to do by the big pirates and robbers behind them; you can at least partly see where they are coming from -- foreign fishing vessels have raped and robbed them of their fishing livlihood. Same as off the coast of Nova Scotia but we don't have any pirates there. Just a lot of people out of work and living on some type of government cheque because their fish -- and their canneries -- are gone.

I don't blame Russia being upset about the NATO war exercises going on right beside them: America didn't like it very much when Russia moved their rockets into Cuba during the 1960s Cold War. How can we expect the Russians to like what NATO is doing right beside them -- and all the talk about missiles being put into Eastern Europe. If the shoe was on the other foot, American wouldn't like it either -- and they/we would probably be 'flexing our war muscles as well'.

Let us get back to Communitarianism and look at 3 or 4 possible ideas that either could be, or have been, associated with the idea of Communitarianism.

1. An addition of 'Community (Regional, Federal, International
) Rights'; and a subtraction of 'Individual Rights';

2. An increase and improvement in Community Values;

3. A 'healthy balance between community values and rights on the one side, and individual values and rights on the other side;

4. Proponents of Communitarianism tend to want to cite the American Constitution, The American Bill of Rights, and the like; antagonists to Communitarianism tend to believe that these important Constitutional Documents will end up going the way of the dinosaur...

..............................................................................


Ms. Niki, permit me to interpret from your work that I have read (which admittedly is not a lot but more than before) that we seem to be on the same philosophical page on at least two counts:

1. We would both like to see an improvement in communtiy values and community life -- you so perhaps even more than me as evidenced by your participation in the 'Kenny Lake Community Project and Blogsite' (I encourage readers to check this site out...wonderful Alaskan scenery...);

2. Neither of us want to see any significant decrease in 'individual rights'; both of us seem to be concerned by the idea of 'Big Brother Watching You' -- especially pertaining to such things as 'toxic new laws coming into existence under the cover of night -- or 'no coverage'; I'm also concerned with the problem of 'home invasions via internet spying techniques' and the conflict between 'toxic internet usage' on the one hand vs. 'freedom of internet usage and freedom of speech' on the other hand.


There is a government demand that 'ignorance of the law is no excuse' which is aimed at each and everyone of the adult citizens in both America and Canada.

However, there should be an imporant corollary to this first Government demand and mandate -- an 'anti-thesis' to the first:

Simply stated, 'No new government law should be passed and brought into existence without full media -- and philosophical -- coverage as to both the content and potential positive and negative consequences of this new law.

This goes hand in hand with the idea of both more 'government accountability and transparency' in terms of the nature, content, history, and potential consequences of these new laws. If these new laws are 'good laws' -- or even if they are provocative, controversial laws -- they should not, indeed must not, suddenly appear from 'out of the cover of darkness' as if someone -- or the government as a whole -- is trying to 'slide' the law through with as minimum a public resistance as possible. This is essentially no different than the idea of 'hidden taxes' which should be illegal as well.

Of particular concern and importance here, is the idea of what 'special interest group' -- what 'socialist' or 'capitalist' or 'religious' or 'feminist' lobbyist group has had a particularly strong effect on 'putting undue pressure on' a politician, a political party, or the government as a whole to 'push' or 'slide' a particular law through the system that may be totally toxic to, and unwanted by, the general public as a whole -- which is why it 'magically appears out of the cover of darkness' -- meaning the covert and often if not usually the 'monetary' collusion between certain politicians, and/or political parties with particular private interest groups.

Cases in point: The Liberal Ad Scam and the resulting Gomery Report; At least two Brian Mulroney Business 'Soap Operas' ('Airbus' and the 'Schreiber Affair'...Only select people in the government know how many more 'shady lobbyist dealings and suspect new or old laws there are that have come into existence through government lobbyist impropriety.' We need to 'open the drapes' and change the laws regarding the current practises of 'lobbyist-politician relationships'.

These relationships need to become much more transparent -- throw the lobbyists into Parliament if need be, pit them up against some hard-nosed 'anti-lobbyists' -- and make all these lobbyists, counter-lobbyists and politicians go at each other in front of the eyes and ears of the Canadian and/or American people. Take the collosal stink out of all forms of Lobbyism as it is currently practised. Make all forms of private lobbyism transparent to the General Public. Then probably, about 90% of the lobbyists would disappear back into the woodwork, disappear into the cover the darkness because they know what they are doing is ethically and morally reprehensible if not downright illegal.

As respective countries -- both Canada and America -- need to move away from 'Narcissistic, Collusive, Covert, Ethically-Legally Reprehensible Lobbyism' to...'Multi-Dialectic-Democratic-Transparent-Ethically-Legally Responsible Lobbyism'.

I found a section from your most recent blog in 'Living Outside The Dialectic', Ms Niki, that was particularly of interest to me...With your permission, I will repeat it here...showing that I do indeed, agree with some of your opinions:

..........................................................................

From the blogsite, 'Living Outside The Dialectic' by Niki Raapano...Just google 'Living Outside the Dialectic'...


From Peter Myers:


(1) Bill would turn Internet bloggers into felons

From: [ The_Draconia_Chronicles ] Date: 12.05.2009 11:32 PM

By John Cox , Network World , 05/08/2009

http://www.networkworld.com/nldailynewspm195375

Internet Flamers into Felons

A little-noticed bill re-introduced in Congress last month would make the use of popular electronic communications a felony if "the intent is to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person

A little-noticed bill re-introduced in Congress last month would make the use of popular electronic communications a felony if “the intent is to coerce, intimidate, harass, or cause substantial emotional distress to a person.”

Given the free-wheeling exchanges that characterize everything from SMS text messages and instant messaging, to blogs and Web site comments, the broadly written bill potentially could turn a lot of flamers and bloggers into felons. If convicted, they would face fines (no amounts given) and prison sentences up to two years. Webcast: PCI Wireless Compliance Demystified : View now

The bill is H.R. 1966, filed April 2 by Rep. Linda Sanchez, a liberal Democrat for California’s 39th district, a horseshoe-shaped patch around Los Angeles, from Whittier through Ceritos to Lynnwood. She was joined by 14 other congressmen. It's been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary.

The bill has recently begun to receive attention, much of it critical, in the online community. Greg Pollowitz, at National Review Online’s Media Blog, labeled it the “Censorship Act of 2009.”

In fact, some of the comments could even be construed as intended to cause emotional distress under the bill's loosely defined language.

Sanchez earlier this week sought to explain and defend the proposal online at HuffingtonPost.com, a political blog that is generally considered liberal.

One response to her post was by “radmul,” who wrote,

“No offense congresswoman

but you can't handle prosecuting war criminals for torture

so you have no right to bring your lack of ethics to the Web.”

Another comment, from “dubster,” attacked still another poster who blamed the Megan Meier tragedy on “bad parenting”: “I detest jerks like you, that can't comprehend the gravity and severity of certain things.”

HR 1966 is Sanchez' second attempt (she first filed in May 2008) to enact the “Megan Meier Cyberbullying Prevention Act,” a reference to a Missouri 13-year-old who in 2007 killed herself, apparently in despair over a bullying campaign organized against her on MySpace. A federal grand jury brought indictments against one of the teens involved, but the trial jury reduced three of the four felony counts to misdeameanors, and deadlocked on the fourth. Incidents like these have spawned local school policies and state laws against cyberbullying. At least 13 states have passed laws, including California earlier this year. But many of these require only administrative actions, such as suspending or expelling students. And all of them raise the issue of where to draw the line between protecting kids from electronic harassment and protecting the right to free speech.

(2) Hate Crimes Bill: Unintended Consequences, By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

From: Kristoffer Larsson Date: 12.05.2009 10:46 PM

http://counterpunch.org/roberts05122009.html

May 12, 2009 Beware the Hate Crimes Bill! Unintended Consequences

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

A statute’s words do not tell how the law will be interpreted and applied.

All laws are expansively interpreted. For example:

The Racketeer Influenced Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) was directed at drug lords. Nothing in the law says anything about divorce; yet it soon was applied in divorce cases.

The 1964 Civil Rights Act explicitly bans racial quotas and defines racial discrimination as an intentional act. Yet, quotas were imposed by the civil rights bureaucracy on the basis of the 1964 Act, and intent was replaced by statistical disparity.

The Clean Water Act makes no reference to wetlands and conveys no powers to the executive branch to create wetlands regulations. Yet, for example, Ocie and Carey Mills, who had a valid Florida state permit to build a house, were imprisoned by federal bureaucrats, who claimed jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. The bureaucrats ruled that the clean dirt used to level the building lot constituted discharge of pollutants into the navigable waters of the U.S. No navigable waters were involved, and according to the state of Florida, no wetlands.

The Exxon Valdez accident was criminalized. An unintentional oil spill became the intentional discharge of pollutants without a license, and the bird kill became killing migratory birds without a license. An accident was prosecuted as crimes of intent.

Well informed attorneys can provide many examples. Others are documented in The Tyranny of Good Intentions. Awareness of what can be pulled out of even clearly written laws is essential to the preservation of civil liberty.

With this in mind, consider the Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

Opponents criticize the bill for adding a second punishment to existing punishments for acts of violence. Assault, murder, rape are crimes regardless of motivation. The penalties are sufficient, or can be made so, without applying a new crime of motivation that creates specially protected classes, such as homosexuals and minorities. To commit a violent act against a member of a specially protected class will carry a heavier punishment.

How will a court know whether a violent act was committed because of hatred or because of sexual lust or the need for money? As case law is made, the likely direction will be to eliminate intent. The issue will be resolved by whether the attacked person is a member of a protected class. The mugger who beats as well as robs a victim who turns out to be homosexual or Jewish will have committed a hate crime.

It will prove difficult to separate speaking against members of protected classes, or criticizing their practices, from hate. The two things are easily conflated. Once enacted, hate crimes will become independent of specific violent acts. An eventual likely outcome will be that speaking against members of specially protected classes will itself become a violent act of inciting violence.

Since the passage of the Global Anti-Semitism Review Act in 2004, the US Department of State is required to monitor anti-semitism world wide. The State Department is not required to monitor anti-Americanism or sentiments against Christians, Muslims or Arabs. Thus, the act created a specially protected class worthy of careful monitoring by the US Department of State of negative sentiments expressed against Jews.

In order to monitor anti-semitism, the term must be defined. The definition is subjective and will be widely, rather than narrowly, interpreted. The State Department has come up with its attempt. The State Department’s approach could include any truthful statements about Israel and its behavior toward the Palestinians that the Israeli government or AIPAC or the Anti-Defamation League would deny or contest.

Anti-semitic speech can be interpreted as inciting hatred. Inciting hatred can be interpreted to be a violent act. “Excessive” criticism of Israel is a subjective, undefinable concept that can be used to determine anti-semitic speech. It is easy to conflate “excessive” with “strong.” Thus, demands that Israel be held accountable for war crimes committed in Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, or elsewhere become acts of the hate crime of anti-semitism.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com

...............................................................................

dgb...continued...


Two more quick points, Ms. Niki,


1. It is impossible for you to 'live outside the dialectic':

a) Because you are, by nature, personality, character, and/or behavior, confrontational;

b) We all have to live inside a government -- which sets up a dialectic even if we don't like what is happening inside our government...

Fighting, running, distancing, hiding, rebelling, submitting, debating...these are all different dialectic strategies.

We all have to pick a particular 'style of living' by which we deal with ourselves, other people, and our goverment.

'Living outside the dialectic' is still a dialectic response -- an 'anti-thesis strategy' to get away from what you believe to be the coming 'Communitarian, anti-Individual State'...this you view as 'The Coming Plague'...

I don't disagree with you on some of your assessments and judgments -- just your more 'global, all-encompassing ones' about Hegel -- and my site, Hegel's Hotel.

Have a good day.

-- dgb, May 14th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

Central Ego Functioning, Part 5: Evaluation and Health: Stories of Mice, Women, and Men...

New and Updated Version...May 13th, 2009...extrapolated from the old, 1979 version...and well, taken much, much further...


Introduction


This is one of those essays that starts in a certain direction with a certain intention in mind, very controlled, very Apollonian, as I attempt to lay the groundwork that takes us from Behavioral Psychology to Cognitive-Humanistic-Existential Psychology. And then something switched. It must have been the mood I was in, something perculating inside me that was coming more from the Dionysian part of my personality. Or call it my 'Righteous-Rebellious Underdog Ego' breaking loose into my essay. Once this happened/happens, gone is my 'Apollonian Objectivity'. Enter a more 'passionate, righteous-rebellious-narcissistic masculine bias'.

I remember going down to The University of Toronto once. To the philosophy section. This wasn't that long ago -- two or three years ago maybe -- most of the students there were about 30 years younger than me. I remember talking to the receptionist there and asking what it would take to get into the Masters Degree Program in Philosophy. I was armed with an Honours Degree in Psychology that was a little old -- about 26 or 27 years old. I would have to go back to The University of Waterloo to dig out my archaic transcript -- which I eventually did that summer.

Still, I remember asking the receptionist what I would have to do in order to have a chance of getting into Masters Philosophy Program there. She said it was unorthodox and problematic for a student to be applying to enter the program without the full contingent of undergraduate philosophy courses, particularly relative to not having a course on 'Logic', etc. She said that I would probably have to go back and take some if not all of the essential courses that the Department of Philosophy would be looking for.

I was thinking of all the time and money that was likely going to be involved here with no guarantee that even the essential undergraduate courses in philosophy would get me into the program. I remember looking at a paper on the wall that was titled...'Writing a Philosophical Essay' by Ronald de Sousa that I took a photo copy of that was very succinct and orderly in its presentation of how to write a philosophy essay...

1. Introduction
2. Exposition
3. Discusssion
4. Conclusion

And I look below and see that I have probably broken all the rules...

My philosophy essays are more like a Gestalt Hot Seat or a Psychoanalytic Session in Free Association...

I start out by mulling around on a certain point or thesis that I intend to write about...

And then something happens...I hit a 'sore point', a point of 'extra-sensitivity', a 'core nuclear conflict' if you will, a 'transference conflict'...and then things start happening very fast...Dionysus meets Apollo in my Central Ego and my more Dionysian emotions start flying...my brain feeds my fingers in a fleury of energy and my fingers type...fast...unedited, unbridled, uncensored...Apollo has lost control of My Central Ego...It is not the way a philosophy essay is supposed to be written...

If anything it is 'experimenting in a different form, style, or way of presenting philosophy'...call it 'DGB Hot Seat Philosophy', or 'DGB Free Association Philosophy', or even 'DGB Soap Opera Philosophy'...It is not the way you are supposed to write a philosophy essay...

This style demands a certain amount of trust on the part of my reading audience. I know that my readers would generally like to know where I am going when I start an essay so that they/you have a decent idea where the essay is going before I get there...

This doesn't always happen. I remember driving around with my dad when I was a kid or a teenager and him not telling me where we were going...sometimes we might just drive...sometimes it might be business...sometimes we might visit someone...sometimes we might end up at the racetrack...every time was a 'surprise'...

Well that is similar to how I write many of my essays, this one here being a perfect example...It might not be 'politically correct', it might not even be 'ethically correct'...but once it gets going, once Dionysus -- my alter ego -- enters the picture and starts wrestling with Apollo or even pushing Apollo out of the limelight, it is likely going to be a more 'interesting' essay.

There is going to be more 'human drama' in the essay...the drama of Enlightenment Philosophy meeting Romantic-Humanistic-Existential-Deconstructive-Post-Modern Philsophy'...the drama of Bacon and Kant and Hegel and Locke and Diderot and Tom Paine and Thomas Jefferson and Bertrand Russell and Alfred Korzybski and S.I. Hayakawa and Nathaniel Branden and Erich Fromm facing off against the likes of Nietzsche and Voltaire and Rousseau and Kierkegaard and Doestevsky and Kafka and Camus and Freuda and Jung and Sartre and Foucault and Perls...

Call it a Jungian trip into 'The Shadows of my Existence' if you wish...

After it is all over, the essay is written in a fleury of keystrokes, and my adrenaline is still pumping...I go to work if it is written in the morning, or I go to bed if it written at night -- my papers tend to be more 'Dionysian' when they are written at night -- it only remains for me to go back and look at how much damage I've done in the essay the next day, the next week, the next month, or even years later...

Apollo is back in the picture running my personality again. How much do I go back and re-write? How much damage did I do to my reputation? How far over the line of 'political correctness' or even 'ethical correctness' did I go? How much of a 'raging firestorm' did I let off in my personality?

Do I leave the essay as it was originally written?

Or do I go back and edit it, taking out the more radical sentences, toning it down into something more 'objective, Apollonian' -- and 'palatable'?

This is my dilemma this morning as I vascillate over going back and reading what I wrote a few days ago. I have already edited it once. Does it need another edit?

I have a remarkable friend who prefers for the time being to stay in the shadows, my longest and most loyal reader who gives me great feedback by email, oftentimes changing or stimulating the direction of the next essay. Occasionally, I've published her feedback. One day, when I have finished writing in Hegel's Hotel, I would like her to take over and build Hegel's Hotel even higher. Her own creative contributions.

Just to let all of my readers know, I have just opened up a new blogsite dedicated to anyone who wants to make a philosophical contribution to, write a philosophical essay for, Hegel's Hotel. Email me your essay. We might discuss editing vs. publishing the essay untouched by my hand. Once I am satisfied that the essay meets reasonable academic, philosophical standards and/or is just clearly and well written, regardless of its style of format, regardless of your point of view, I will post it up on the new blogsite. It's called: Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy: Essays by Supporters, Debaters, Anti-Hegelians...

There are not enough good women-philosophers out there who are publishing their own work, their own essays. Some of the ones that I have read tend to be the most radical ones, writing from a strong 'Marxist-Feminist' background, writing from a perspective of 'marginalization' and 'victimization' and 'Anti-Patriarchal-Narcissistic Bias'.

I will accept this point of view up to a certain threshold, and then I will say 'Balderdash' or 'Horsecrap'!: women are no longer marginalized, suppressed, discriminated against, victimized in the courtrooms of North America; indeed, it is quite the reverse -- they are dominating the Domestic, Family Courts, and they are dominating in cases of 'assault'...both the sexual assault cases and the cases of domestic violence.

So much so that I have stated elsewhere and here that we have already largely switched from a 'Narcissitic Male Dominated Society' to a 'Narcissistic Female Dominated Society' -- not in the Corporate Boardrooms yet nor in all areas of politics and law but certainly in some areas of politics and law -- most specifically in the politics and laws that govern the conduct and conflicts between men and women.

The turning point in this essay below came when I arrived at a brief discussion of the work of Foucault and Derrida -- and the word 'marginalization'.

That touched upon my own emotional sorepoints both relative to my old childhood and teenage 'marginalization' issues with my dad -- both the primary creative visionary idealist mentor of my life and my 'transference unilateral, authoritarian topdog or superego antagonist' (two dominant themes in Hegel's Hotel) -- and with the 'domestic-family courts' in Canada as well as the politics that got these courts to where they are today.

Here are a couple of feedback comments from my friend regarding the present essay...

..........................................................................

Hi...

I've been thinking more about your essay and about your comment.. the new 21st century version of equal rights...the new "matriarchal society" vs. the old "patriarchal society."
As a woman, I can't help but feel disappointed and discouraged that my gender would have to resort to distorted truths, manipulation, and false accusations in an effort to win - in an effort to feel empowered. It is a disgrace to our gender and to what the word 'strength' as a woman should represent. If this type of behaviour has contributed to an imbalance in the judicial system, society should be speaking out, equal rights are equal rights. We need to feel confident in a system that will protect the safety of the victim(male or female) and ensure the accountability of the offender. We need to feel confident in the process! Possibly with the awareness of a more balanced system, maybe more of these issues could be dealt with outside of a courtroom. Do you feel that any steps have been taken to shift into a more balanced state of equality?

You have written a good essay, you have covered an important topic, still maybe a bit sharp but - I get it!

...........................................................................


I will probably do one more editing job on what I have written here...

But for the moment, I will leave it the way it stands...

-- dgb, May 15th, 2009.

.........................................................................


Let's start with the Behavioral model of 'Stimulus-Response'.

This model reflects an 'external locus of control' -- 'control' from an external observer-researcher-analyst-stimulus-variable-manipulator's point of view.

This can be viewed as the 'carrot and stick' game involving 'positive' (pleasure) and 'negative' (pain) reinforcers.

Even a mouse has a brain. It may be primitive and simple compared to a human's more advanced, sophisticated brain, but still, none-the-less, the mouse survives or doesn't survive using its primitive, simple brain. Its brain has a function and that function is to 'evaluate' what is 'good' for it and what is 'bad' for it in terms of its ongoing survival -- and the Darwinian survival of the species.

If I 'shock' the mouse, the mouse is, with about 100 percent certainty, going to pay attention to this stimulus -- and try to make response-choices aimed at getting away from this very noxious stimulus.

Conversely, if I try to 'train' the mouse to do a 'trick' -- like 'running on a 'mouse treadmill' -- by giving it 'food' after it does its 'exercise routine', the mouse is not 'brainless' -- after a certain number of 'repetitions' of this 'exercise routine', and then getting 'fed', it will finally likely start to make an 'association'. Indeed, you might even measure the 'IQ' of the mouse by how fast it 'catches on' to the experimenter's 'exercise on the treadmill in order to get fed' game. Because that's what it is -- it's an 'experimental game'. The mouse has to learn the experimenter's game in order to get fed -- if it wants to continue to eat and survive. The key principle here is the idea of 'associationism' -- the mouse has to learn to associate 'exercising on the treadmill' with getting 'fed'. Once it has learned this game, then the game is effectively over; the experimenter is likely to record the mouse's results -- and then move on to a different game (experiment).

Any university psychology student who has hung around one of these experimental labs for long enough has probably seen the cartoon where the mouse is deemed to be thinking to itself and saying something to the effect of: 'Hah! I have this experimenter trained. I have 'conditioned' him (or her) to give me food every time I go for a little spin on the treadmill. Aren't I smart?'

What I'm trying to get at here is the difference between the external (Behavioral) -- sometimes referred to as the 'objective' but it is not 'objective' because it is based on the 'subjective, cognitive-emotional, phenomenological' -- perspective of the experimenter/researcher vs. the 'subjective, cognitive-emotional, phenomenological' perspective of the mouse (with me taking up this subjective perspective on the part of the mouse).

You say that mice don't think like people. That is true. I am 'humanizing' the 'mental activities' of the mouse in this scenario. But still -- mice do have brains, they do have 'mind-brain dialectic activities', and there is a 'dialectic power game' going on between the mouse and the experimenter. To think that there is not is to be guilty of 'scientific reductionism' -- i.e. to assume that only the 'scientifically controlled manipulations' of the experimenter count in this type of experiment such as whether you use 'food' ('positive reinforcer') or shock the mouse ('negative reinforcer) and probably nothing more than the 'average' time or number of trials it takes to get a mouse to 'run on the exercise treadmill' or 'run through a maze' and 'get it right'. Individual differences -- I apologize if I am wrong but I don't think I am -- are not likely to be highly regarded and appreciated in most Behavioral experiments of this type. Behavioral experimenters are not generally looking to measure the individual 'Association-IQ' of each individual mouse and how long it takes each mouse to figure out the connection between 'treadmill exercise' or 'running a maze' -- and 'getting food'.

But it is there! Without the brain activities of the mouse -- without the 'covert mind-brain dialectic activities of the mouse -- in effect, the mouse 'talking to itself in a primitive way' -- there would be no 'associative connection' -- between 'positive and/or negative reinforcer' and 'conditioned response'.

There would be no 'dialectic power game between man and mouse'. And if one mouse's brain was an exact carbon copy of the last and the next -- then there would be no individual differences in terms of 'time trials'. There would be no 'high' and 'low' IQ mice; there would be no 'super-mice' and 'mentally challenged' mice.

I had a beta-fish for about a year and a half that just died a couple of weeks ago. I called him 'Nietzsche'. He was my 'super-beta-fish'. I bought him with about 4 or 5 other beta-fish which all died within about the first month or so of my having bought them. But Nietzsche just kept on living...and living...and living. I've read that beta-fish can actually live 3 or 4 years...so obvious Nietzsche wasn't the grand 'Superman' of all beta-fish. And obviously, my skills as a 'custodian-researcher-experimenter' of raising beta-fish to see how long I can keep them alive has not been 'perfected yet'. Dr. Meichenbaum says that it takes about 7 years to become an 'expert' at anything -- and I take this as a viable assumption. Every now and then -- maybe once or twice in a lifetime -- there might be the odd Lebron James James or Dwayne Wade or Wayne Gretzky or Sidney Crosby that gets there sooner than 7 years... I don't think I will be a 'beta-expert' -- even in seven years. Maybe a 'Hegel's Hotel expert'...

We graduate from the 'dialectic experimental power games between mice and men' to those between 'men and men'...From shocking mice, we graduate to 'waterboarding'...The same 'behavioral concepts' and my own 'cognitive-emotional-phenomenological' concepts are at work...

We have just added maybe another variable -- the variable of 'ethics'. The variable of 'ethics' was always there -- even in the experimental lab with 'shocking mice' -- but its just that not as many people cared/care about the ethical issue here. The tendency is for it -- meaning the issue of 'ethics' to reach a larger medium and 'consciousness of the people' when we are talking about 'experimental dialectic power games' between men and men. Or between men and women of different skin colour. Or between men and women, husbands and wives, fathers and mothers, Christians and Muslims, Republicans and Democrats...'Either/Or'....This can be the scurge of mankind...the scurge of 'Interpretive Reductionism', 'Evaluative Reductionism' and 'Ethical Reductionism'...

Let me be clear on this next point. Behavioral Psychology -- as much as I don't like it -- does have some benefits for individuals and society. It can help us to 'eliminate self-destructive behaviors' and/or 'reinforce more productive, self-enhancing behaviors'. And/or 'reinforce behaviors that are more in line with the values and laws of society'. Or conversely, 'discourage and hopefully eliminate, minimize, and/or downplay behaviors that are not in line with the values and/or laws of society.

But once again some key ethical issues rise to the top. Who is 'The Grand Conroller'. Is it 'Big Nurse' in 'One Flew Over The Cukoo's Nest'? Is it Bush and The Republican Party ('Waterboarding' is in.)? Or is it Obama and The Democrat Party? ('Waterboarding' is out.)

And perhaps it all starts with the ethical issues between 'man and mouse'...

The Dialectic Experimental Game Between Man and Mouse is essentially no different than 'The Dialectic Experimental Game Between Man and Man -- Between Republican Interrogator and Allegedly and/or Potentially Dangerous Prisoner/Extremist'.

You see what trouble 'associations' can cause. If I connect the two words 'Republican Interrogator'...and add the further 'associative connection' who believes in 'the value and ethical okayness of waterboarding', 'the ethical okay of torturing prisoners' (see, I just made another 'associative connection' between 'waterboarding' and 'torture'...)....Now we are left with a couple of more 'stereotypes' such as: 'All Republicans believe in The Value and Ethical Okayness of Waterboarding'...and 'All Republicans believe in The Value and Ethical Okayness of Torture'...Whereas 'All Democrats don't.'

'Associationism' is the root of much human philosophical pathology, psychopathology, and sociopathology...But we are getting ahead of ourselves.

'Reductionistic Either/Or Dialectical Elitist Power Games' are also the root of much human injustice, inequality, and philo-psycho-socio-political-legal-economic pathology.

Who is being marginalized? What is being marginalized? Those are the two most important questions that the highly provocative and controversial philosopher Jacques Derrida asked the philosophical world. On the basis of those two questions alone -- and how he addressed this highly important and ethical matter through his philosophy of 'Deconstruction(ism)' -- in an effort to 're-balance' or 'more centrally balance' the subject and/or issue that he was 'deconstructing' -- should have been more than enough sufficient reason to grant Derrida any Honourary University Degree.

Derrida -- like Michel Foucault (who philosophized around the same time as Derrida)-- in their own separate ways both dealt with the huge, elitist, societal problem of 'marginalization' and its opposite -- 'political-socio-economic-legal-philosophical-psychological pampering and preferentialism'.

It is not a coincidence that both Derrida and Foucualt felt the very intense personal experience of 'marginalization' -- Foucault because of his homosexuality, and Derrida because of his 'Jewishness' and 'Anti-Semitic' laws that were in place where he lived in Algeria...

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From the intenet...Wikipedia...Derrida...


On the first day of the school year in 1942, Derrida was expelled from his lycée by French administrators implementing anti-Semitic quotas set by the Vichy government. He secretly skipped school for a year rather than attend the Jewish lycée formed by displaced teachers and students. At this time, as well as taking part in numerous football competitions (he dreamed of becoming a professional player), Derrida read works of philosophers and writers such as Rousseau, Camus, Nietzsche, and Gide. He began to think seriously about philosophy around 1948 and 1949. He became a boarding student at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, which he did not enjoy. Derrida failed his entrance examination twice before finally being admitted to the École Normale Supérieure at the end of the 1951–52 school year.

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It is here that my integrative 'Gestalt-Adlerian-Psychoanalytic (GAP)' view on 'lifestyle-transference compensations/overcompensations' comes into play.

It is not uncommon -- in fact it is very, very common -- for people to spend a lifetime tying their best to 'metaphorically, symbolically, and/or creatively undo, reverse, and/or master' their worst childhood narcissistic ego-traumacies.

And so Derrida and Foucault -- two of the most provocative, controversial Post-Hegelian, Post-Nietzschean philosophers of the 20th century became friends as philosophers sharing the common bond (at least partly, I surmise) of intense narcissistic-righteous rage (perhaps I am projecting, yes, I know I am protecting but that doesn't mean that I am wrong in what I am interpreting here) against the very personal, individual experience of social-legal-political marginalization and discrimination.

And so their respective philosophies rightously raged -- or at least there was an underlying 'allusion to transference immediacy and narcissistic-righteous rage' in their respective philosophies -- against all 'elitist forms of dialectic-power games complete with reductionistic and discriminative forms of marginalization'.

Just like in the laboratory with mice and men.

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From the internet...Wikipedia...Derrida...


On his first day at the École Normale Supérieure Derrida met Louis Althusser, with whom he became friends. He also became friends with Michel Foucault, whose lectures he attended. After visiting the Husserl Archive in Leuven, Belgium, he completed his philosophy agrégation on Edmund Husserl. Derrida received a grant for studies at Harvard University, and in June 1957 married the psychoanalyst Marguerite Aucouturier in Boston. During the Algerian War of Independence, Derrida asked to teach soldiers' children in lieu of military service, teaching French and English from 1957 to 1959.

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Who hasn't felt the stinging negligence of intense marginalization and reductionism -- of being in a room and you might as well not be there?


As a child?

As an employee?

As a woman?

As a person of colour?

As a Muslim?

As a man realizing that you are being charged for an 'assault' that a woman would not be charged for?

As a separated father who is sending thousands of dollars to your 'ex-family', you living in 'the room' of a 'shared townhouse' or a 'basement apartment' barely being able to come up with the $500 per month it takes to pay for this room -- while half your paycheque is going to support your ex-family in what used to be your shared four-bedroom house; you watch your ex-wife and kids go on an all-paid trip (by you) to the Carribbean while you bicycle to work each day because you can't afford a vehicle or a taxi; and the government who you would like to think is at least partly looking after your interests won't even let you declare any portion of your thousands of dollars -- half your income -- that is going to your ex-family as an income tax deduction -- no, you might as well simply declare yourself as 'single'?

As a man looking up at a judge -- a female judge (with everyone else in the courtroom besides you and your lawyer also being female) -- and hearing that you 'need to plead guilty and take an anger management course to prevent you from getting a criminal record? And you look over at your ex-girlfriend in the court room, playing the role of 'female domestic victim to a T' and you shake your head, realizing the absurdity and the hypocrisy of the whole matter; you think back to how she came charging into your bedroom that night, Father's Day -- yes, that's right your bedroom because you had been sleeping in separate bedrooms for going on a year by then, the relationship was essentially over, it just needed the final nail in the coffin -- and this was it; how you told her you were leaving her but you made the mistake of staying in the apartment after you said this -- big mistake! -- and then there was the 'hang-up' at the apartment just moments after you had come home early from work that day sick as a dog with the flu, fluids dripping out of your nose like a faucet...And you retreated to your bedroom, she came charging in after you like a bull in a china shop, red as a firecracker, and going off like one too, going ballistic, going postal -- and who had/has the anger problem?; and she finally says that one thing too much, that one thing designed to push your last button -- and it works...you finally lose your temper, you push her out of your bedroom with the intent of locking the door behind her so you can have some peace and quiet and privacy -- and she pushes her way back in -- you push her back out, a little further this time, she falls into a chair, with your momentum obviously, bruises her shoulder, she says 'Get out before I call the police, and like an idiot you respond, 'Go ahead, call the police.' And she does...And the rest is standard 'domestic violence protocol'; the police come, you pushed her first so you are guilty, you are led away in handcuffs, the one and only time it has happened to you in your life, your spend Father's Day in the local police station jail, learn what it's like to try to sleep on an aluminum bed with a light shining over your head, the concrete floor beneath the bed was better but just as you are falling asleep the police woman (she didn't sound like a woman; she looked and sounded the part of 'Big Nurse' from 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest') screams at you to get out from under the aluminum bed where she could see you (that was very similar to 'electric shock therapy', by this time you/I could fully identify with Jack Nicholson -- and the 'mouse'...); and you learn what is like to go from a jail to a domestic-criminal court in a 'police paddywagon' (more aluminum and/or concrete...your/my memory is starting to fail me a little here...); and after waitng a half day in a courtroom jail with a group of men of similar and/or different charges...some 'experienced'...some like me 'rookies'...you finally get into the bailroom court hearing (another female judge) and you hear that same 'masculine-female voice again' lecturing you about whatever she was lecturing about -- how you couldn't go back to what used to be 'your house', how you couldn't be within so many yards of her, how you couldn't phone her -- not that you/I wanted to, or had any intentions whatsoever of ever seeing this woman again in your/my life...and then finally a year or so later...thousands of dollars later...you finally get to the negotiated aggreement...?

And sure you learned something -- like not to physically push a woman, that's obvious -- but you think back to the time when your were running out the apartment door to get away from her and she came running down the stairs to grab you hard by the ear (Wasn't that an assault? Would anyone have taken me seriously if I had called this 'assault' in? Or would some police officer have laughed at me? Not that it would have ever gone that far...Men don't report the women who assault them -- unless she's maybe got a butcher knife waving in front of your face...I've experienced that one...(Shouldn't have confessed a 'one night stand...) Looking back at it now, I should have reported the night the ex involved in my courtcase told me 'she would cut me up in bed if I told her I was leaving her' -- I guess I have to thank her for just calling the police on me...One thing else I certainly did learn from this adventure... I was through with emotionally volitile, potentially violent women...I have myself a nice 'cool, calm, and collected girlfriend' of 9 plus years between us...and nary a 'domestic problem between us' -- well, at least one acted out physically...I learned...Thou shalt not touch...in anger no time...in sensuality and/or sexuality...well, know fully who you are touching...and/or be safe...ask before you touch... or safer still...don't touch at all...at work the 'no touch policy' is strictly in effect...don't touch or risk a call to the 'touch police'...
And the prospect of your life, career, and family being torn into shambles...a man looking for a job with no one wanting to hire you...just pin a label on your forehead...I am a sinner...I touched...Treat me like Spinoza...Ex-communicate me...Socially isolate me...Economically destroy me...Destroy my family...I deserve it...I touched...And if you are a taxi driver...don't do it, guys, don't touch...even if she touches you first...take a phone number...take her home...especially if she is drunk or disabled...don't go there...even if she picks up your hand, takes one of your fingers, and slides it into her mouth....take her home or take a phone number...or live to regret it the next day when the 'historical revisionism' sets in...and your life on fast-forward to self-destruction...

Sorry, I got carried away...

But I feel better now...

Another one of those essays that goes spiralling out of control...

Lost in a memory of a Dionysian moment...

When it was supposed to be such a nice, Apollonian paper...

How'd we get onto the subject of 'marginalization'?

Oh yes, the 'mouse being marginalized by the experimenter'...

Mouse are people too, you know...

Or at least they deserve to be treated like people...

Or the next thing you know...

You are talking about 'waterboarding'...

And the lost men's civil rights in the courts of North America...

Enough for today.

May 13th, 2009. (as we approach Father's Day)...


Post-Script


Oh, yes, fathers...

Fathers -- particularly separated fathers -- too need and deserve our compassion and respect...

Take a moment for the marginalized separated fathers in North America...

Too often they get stereotyped as 'Dead Beat Dads'...

How about paying a little more attention...

To these 'Dead Beat Anti-Separated Father Laws'...coming from the 'bombardment' of literally hundreds of highly biased and often overly narcissistic and righteous feminist groups...with no 'men's family rights groups to properly counterbalance them'...This is the danger and pathology of both 'Special Interest Lobbyist Groups' -- no counterbalancing groups to prevent them from doing what they do to get to the politicians, the taxpayers coffers, and the law books...

I say this again...Lobbyism as it is currently practised in both America and Canada is a socio-pathological process. All political forms of lobbyism need to be thoroughly investigated and reconstructed under new, more democratic-dialectically equal laws...


Again, as we approach Father's Day,

Let us take a moment to appreciate those hard-working separated fathers,

Who are making their support payments...

And who are seeing and/or talking to their children...

And who deserve our fullest compassion and encouraging support...

Not more and more philosophical, political, legal, social, and economic...

Marginalization.


Second Post-Script


And while you are at it...

Take a few moments...

For those philosphers, writers, journalists, politicians...

Who dare to be 'politically incorrect'.

At the same time remember also,

Just because I trumpet or champion a particular point of view,

A particular perspective,

A particular paradigm,

Perhaps an overlooked or marginalized,

Point of view, perspective, paradigm,

This does not mean...

As Alfred Adler used to always say,

That things can't also be different...

And/or that the laws sometimes,

Aren't doing exactly what they are supposed to do,

Protecting women's civil and family rights,

Like they are not now properly protecting men's civil and family rights...

The pendulum of justice swings too far one way...

Then over time, and much 'special interest protesting'...(hundreds of feminist groups pounding Ottawa and Washington...)

The pendulum swings back only to swing too far the other way,

Towards the overprotection of women...

And the underprotection of men...

Men, speak up...or don't cry or whine...

When your turn may come,

A false move,

In a Dionysian moment --

With or without encouragement and/or provocation,

And your life is in shambles...

As you try desperately to get someone to hear you,

Defend you, defend your own civil rights...

And no one is listening...

Like the sound of one hand clappin'

It just is not happenin'...

And in the end we all have to partly...

Share the blame...

For not speaking up...

For not speaking up against...

Civil rights that we are losing...

Innocent until proven guilty?

Or guilty until proven innocent?

Ask any man who has been through the present process...

And ask what they think...

Then judge for yourself.

'The squeeky wheel gets the oil.'

No squeek, no speak, no oil...

And women have to decide too...

Do they want men with testosterone flowing through their arteries?

Or do they want effeminized men, legally castrated 'Stepford Men', Apollonian men who function from the neck up, who have no erotic-romantic passion flowing from their hearts, who have no sexuality dripping from their pores, because they left it all behind...they left it on the courtroom floor...or rather their passion and their sexuality and/or their sense of being a family man, an important contributer to the welfare of your children, was bled out onto the floor...by female -- or male --judges (just doing their job as written into the 'new lawbooks') but particularly female judges in the mold of 'Big Nurse' from 'One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest'...

You leave this courtroom scenario...

And you either go cuckoo,

You give up, fold your cards,

Attempt to run and hide...

Become a 'Dead Beat Dad'...

Do something really, really stupid...

Like drive onto a set of railway tracks...(That's coming from a story that actually happened...)

Or become a 'Stepford Man', and/or a 'Stepford Dad'...

And lose your passion for what it means to be a man.

Welcome to the 21st century and the 'new and improved version' of -- 'equal rights'.

Welcome to the new and improved -- 'Matriarchal Society'.

Is it any better than the old 'Patriarchal' one?

Say goodbye to the old fashioned, risk-taking 'alpha male' (Clint Eastwood, Bruce Willis, Richard Gere, Marlon Brando, Sylvestor Stalone, James Dean, Jack Nicholson...)

Could you ever see Jack Nicholson in a movie saying something like...

'Excuse me, is it okay if I touch you?'...Or

'Is it okay if I kiss you?'

Welcome to our new and improved Matriarchal Society...

Sexuality without bold, risky masculine moves...

Gone with the dinosaur is the male tiger, the male lion...the alpha male...

Instead now, we have men trying to learn the new and politically correct way to make a 'pass' at a woman...

'Do you mind if I touch you?'

'Do you mind if I kiss you?'

How about Zeus and Hera finding a better negotiated settlement here?

Courtrooms should be the place for clear and obvious transgressions,

Or at least allegedly serious ones...

With strong supporting empirical, witness, and/or circumstantial evidence...

And both sides being treated equally...

Both sexes need to fully know that they are going to get a fair shake,

When a pair of police officers walk through that door...

Provocation, intimidation, threats, invasions of personal space, distortion, embellishment, and falsification of victimization claims should all be violations of the law complete with fines and/or possible jail sentences...

We need to get out of the 'either/or' system of justice...

Either you are guilty or she is guilty...

And into a more dialectic system of justice...

Where both could be equally or differentially guilty of similar or different crimes...

For example, one person may be guilty of provocation, threats, and invasion of personal space, the other might be guilty of the first physical transgression...the first push or hit in anger...

There are far too many men being charged with assaults where women are at least partly or equally guilty...

But men are being 'sexually profiled'...because women have hundreds of feminist rights groups bombarding Ottawa and Washington...left, right, and centre...

While men sit around watching hockey games until their turn comes to see that the laws between men and women are radically changing and not in the protection of men...

Still not a peep comes out of the mouths of men...until after they have been charged for the first time and they find out the hard way that no one in the justice system is listening to them except the man or woman he is paying to listen to him...his defense lawyer who says he doesn't think its fair...but he's seeing these types of cases all the time...the laws have changed he says...as he rings up another $5,000 to negotiate an 'anger management program settlement' (another $1,000)...

Gee, I wonder why these courses are full of men? Women don't get angry? Women don't lose their temper? Women don't do stupid things in the heat of the moment -- sexual things or angry, violent things? They just wear their halo to court and play the 'innocent victim'. That is what they are 'coached' to do. And the judge and the government continue to eat up all this narcissistic feminist bullcrap -- not all of it to be sure but significant portions of it that are not being democratically and dialectically challenged by significant groups and members of the male sex that are being victimized...

Do men commit assaults? Of course they do.

Are men being charged and penalized? Most definitely. Now more than ever.

Do women commit assaults? Do they have sexual impulses? Do they make sexual advances? Of course they do. Are they being charged for 'making false advances' when they do? Or for 'historical revisionism' when they can't properly remember -- or don't properly want to remember -- what they did the night before when they were hammered? No.

Thus, men are being sexually profiled by the legal system; women are not.

You don't see the women's jails filling up with more and more perpetrators of domestic violence...

But the men's jails, yes, most definitely...The percentage is huge.

There is only two logical conclusions to be drawn from this.

Either men are the only sex capable of domestic violence and sexual assault (by the new definitions of 'women phoning the police' and 'men not making a pass properly'; or men are being sexually profiled...and unequally targeted..

So let 'The Dialectic Power Legal Games' begin...

Games of 'Marginalization' and 'Elitist, Narcissistic, Authoritarian Domination'...

In reversed roles...

Let the dominatrixes rule!

Games of Marginalization and 'Grab The Money and/or The House While You Can'...

'I'll take the house...and you pay for me living in the house...and the two kids going to university...Hope there is enough money left over for your new girlfriend...Did you say you got another promotion or raise? Great! Look at me as your 'Money Shadow'...I will see you back in court to get my half of your raise or overtime pay...You say you can't live on half your income...I can...but of course I have other revenues coming in too...

Who needs a job or a career when your money ship has come in?

I don't blame women for trying to get proper protection from the law, the police, and the government from narcissistic men who are trying to run roughshod over top of them. But at the same time, I can distinguish the difference between a 'narcissistic feminist' and an 'egalitarian feminist'.

The first one will eat you alive -- especially if she feels betrayed and/or rejected.

The second one will actually care about your rights and dignities and ability to survive in a tough economic, political, and legal world that may not really be interested in properly protecting male civil rights relative to women. But if she is angry enough because she feels betrayed and/or rejected, well, she may eat you alive as well.

The argument behind closed doors is that women need to be protected from narcissitic men; but men don't need to be protected from narcissistic women who will jump all over every advantage that the law will give them...

It is actually somewhat humerous (not to them I imagine) to watch the 'male gold diggers' prey on rich female celebrities...Get those 'pre-nuptual papers signed and legally solid, ladies'...I wouldn't want to see happen to you what has been happening to men for a couple of decades now...Some young stud marrying you for a few months or year...and then walking away with half your money and property...

What goes around comes around...

Gee, maybe we should think about people just logically and legally and ethically being able to keep the money and property that they came into a new relationship with. Wouldn't that make some kind of more logical sense in a world where both men and women are making good money and buying property on their own accord? Why should anyone have to worry about losing the property they may have spent a lifetime accumulating and the money they may have spent a lifetime saving all because the law says that the second you tie that magic knot, your property becomes his, and his property becomes yours.

Who wants to get married under laws like this -- especially if you are the one with the most money and property? Those laws may be appropriate for my parents generation when both started with essentially nothing, my dad worked, and my mom took care of the house and family. But not for my generation where everything is mainly different with both men and women freely working, or capable of freely working, they both likely have careers, of similar and/or different socio-economic status and monetary value, may or may not have property when they are thinking about getting married, and in these days of 'serial marriages' no one should have to worry about losing money and property that they come into a marriage with, having fully earned this property and money by themselves with no help from the 'new spouse'...Common sense combined with ethical Capitalism...

Archaic marriage laws that need to be changed so we don't have 'goldiggers' -- male or female.

Games of 'Submission' and 'Domination'...

Like 'quivering politically correct politicians without any backbone' and 'powerful feminist lobbyist groups' that are walking over top of them.

Like mice and men...

I think I am through.

Maybe I will water this essay down and/or sugar-coat it tomorrow.

I think i might have gotten just a little bit carried away...

Do I feel better? I don't know. Ask me tomorrow. Maybe I will feel like an deranged idiot going off like a loose cannon, a bull in the proverbial china shop...

I don't usually get angry.

But maybe i need a shot of that 'anger management course'.

On a good day, I could teach the course.

It is very simple. If you don't think righteously, then you won't get angry.

But some times you need to think, speak, write, and/or act righteously in order to bring about change -- assuming you can convince people that you are right relative to your righteous claims.

There is a significant difference between being righteous and being right. Hitler was righteous -- and demented. Jefferson was righteous -- and a hero among men. Same with Lincoln. Most of the rest of us stand somewhere in between.

I am through thinking righteously -- for tonight.

Time to give it a rest.

I will let you decide how to judge this paper, where I stand, and what I stand for, good and/or bad -- tomorrow -- or whenever.

I believe in the dialectic-democratic interconnection between egalitarian male and female rights. Period. End of essay.

-- dgb, May 13th, 2009.


-- David Gordon Bain

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