Preface and Overview
DGB Intelligent Teleological Design Theory
This multi-part essay aims to be the most definitive work so far on 'Central Ego Functiong: Language, Epistemology, Evaluation and Action. The essay is an updated and expanded rendition of my 1979 Honours Thesis essay: 'Evaluation and Health'.
Let's see where we've been (1979)and where we have come to 30 years later (2009).
I have no idea at this moment how close I plan to stay to the original edition vs. changing directions and/or expanding on my original thoughts where I was not as familiar with Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, Transactional Analysis, Freudian Traumacy-Seduction Theory, Classic Freudian Psychoanalysis (including Childhood Sexuality, Oediapal Theory, Stages of Psycho-Sexual Development and Sexual Fixations, Transference Theory, Narcissism, Life and Death Instinct Theory, Ego, Id, and Superego Theory, Ego-Splitting...), Object Relations, Self Psychology, Jeffrey Masson, Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, Schopenhauer...and most of the rest of the great philosophers who preceded the great psychologists...
The original essay was dominated by General Semantics -- Alfred Korzybski and S.I. Hayakawa mainly, Cognitive Therapy, Rational-Emotive Therapy, Nathaniel Branden and Self-Esteem Psychology, the essence of Ayn Rand's 'Objectivism', Erich Fromm's Humanistic-Existentialism, and a general 'Rational-Empirical-Enlightenment' perspective (images of John Locke, Diderot, Adam Smith, and the rest of the Enlightenment Philosophers...)
The primary weakness of the 1979 essay was two-fold: 1. it was 'too rational-empirical' meaning 'nod, nod, sleep, sleep'...We think of 'humanism' as primarily emphasizing the 'rational-compassionate' part of human nature and human behavior, but it could be easily argued that 'irrationality, romanticism, greed, sexuality, egotism, narcissism, sensuality, money, property, oil, are just as much -- or more -- a part of human nature and human behavior than the so-called 'rational-compassionate' type of human nature and human behavior...; which leads us to the second major weakness of the original essay -- specifically, it and I had not yet met Hegel and Hegelian dialectical thinking yet. The idea of 'dualism' and 'multi-dualisms', even 'pluralities' -- and their 'multi-dialectic, pluralistic exchange and influence -- this idea was just partly being 'born' through the ideas of Korzybski's 'intensional' vs. 'extensional' world, and the ideas of Erich Fromm relative to 'being' and 'not being', 'becoming' and 'not becoming', 'creating' and 'not creating' -- and my first indirect exposure to Hegel backwards through Fromm and Marx -- and the concept of 'aliention' which could be further broken down into 'work-alienation', 'social alienation', and 'self-alienation'.
Modern Society -- Fromm argued even as far back as the 1940s and 50s ('Escape From Freedom', 'Man For Himself', and 'The Sane Society') -- was becoming a 'Narcissistic-Capitalist-Consumer-Driven' Society. The more that modern man was 'being conditioned to think a particular way by the political-socio-economics of a commodity and consumer driven society' that was teaching us to strive to 'have' rather than to 'create' and to 'be' and to 'become', the more that modern man was sinking into a particular 'pathological mindset' - a 'pathology of normalcy' as Fromm called it in 'The Sane Society' -- the pathology of modern day work, social, and self-alienation.
Modern man chases 'the illusion of freedom' but everywhere you look -- on 'Main Street America and much of Wall Street too' -- modern man is simply striving to economically survive and hang on; he or she has often long ago lost any illusion of chasing any 'idealized American and/or Canadian Dream'...Rather, one is just trying to 'keep up with the bills and keep one's house and family together'.
To be sure, this is a generalization and all generalizations are simply that --- generalizations. Some people are doing well, but even people who seem to be doing very well often are formidably to impossibly tied down by ball-and-chain bills. All you need is a large mortgage, large utility bills, a couple of kids -- especially if they are in university or college -- and even a $100,000 salary may not seem enough to keep up with all of this.
It comes back to the famous Jacques Rousseau quote: 'Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains.'
Now Rousseau's famous quote was written in 1762 in probably his signature work, 'The Social Contract'. Thus, the question might be legitimately asked: Is man ever free? Is man any more or less free than he was back in 1762? Or 1062?
We can talk about different types of 'chains' -- physical chains, mental chains, emotional chains, political chains, social chains, economic chains, religious chains, military chains, family chains, chains of authority, chains of responsibility, chains of duty, chains of morality, chains of ethics, chains of discimination, chains of suppression, chains of marginalization...
It seems that there is always something, some law, some rule, some necessity, and/or someone who is 'pulling on our freedom from one direction or another'.
And if there isn't -- often we create 'illusions of unfreedom' to fill in the gap -- the void -- of 'too much dizzying freedom'. This is the central thesis of Fromm's first book, 'Escape From Freedom' (1941). A distinction can be made between 'freedom from' and 'freedom to'. In effect, we may be free from every conceivable 'unfreedom' except our own anxiety -- even panic -- regarding not being able to deal with our own freedom.
There are two points to be made here: one in regard to Nietzsche; and the other in regard to Sartre vs. Fromm.
1. It is here -- in our 'dizzying freedom' (an expression that I believe can be traced back to Kierkegaard) that we run into 'The Nietzschean Abyss' -- the abyss separating 'being' from 'becoming'. As Rudolph Dreikeurs has stated -- and indeed, this is the title of his very captivating biography -- it takes 'Courage To Be'. It takes courage to build a bridge and 'skywalk' across the abyss that separates 'being' from 'becoming' and also the abyss that separates 'being' ('self-fulfillment', 'self-actualization', or 'individuation') from 'not being' (self-alienation).
2. It is here that Fromm's 'humanistic-existentialism' is superior in concept and pragmatics to Sartre's 'existence before essence existentialism'. Why? Because the twin ideas of 'being' and 'becoming' imply the inter-connected ideas of 'congruence', 'good existential faith', and 'self-fulfillment', 'self-actualization', or 'individuation' to go with them. All of these ideas imply a 'self-essence' that precedes 'self-existence' which would seem to go against Sartre's most famous maxim: 'Existence precedes essence.'
There is room for significant semantic confusion here. The word 'essence' is troublesome. It is very easy to go off the 'abstractive deep end' here but I will do my best to keep things 'semantically under control'. I can think of at least 5 different senses in which the word 'essence' can be used, of which we will focus on one -- 'Plato's Theory of Ideal Forms:
a) Plato's 'Essence'
Plato's Theory of 'Ideal Forms' is enough to send most send most sane-minded people/philosophers? to the brink of insanity...Maybe I am being too hard on Plato or conversely, maybe I don't have the proper 'capability of convolutions in my brain-mind to do proper justice to this theory...(Google Plato, Ideal Forms and/or Theory of The Caves...and experience for yourself what I am talking about -- if you have not already ambitiously tackled it.) Where is Plato's 'Ideal Forms'? It's nothing that can be 'seen' or 'felt' or 'heard' according to Plato. It does not belong to this empirical world. So where does it belong? In Plato's mind? In God's Mind? In Heaven? In Idea-Space?
That is rather hard to determine for those of us who like to stay as 'empirically-minded' as possible and who don't like to go to any 'metaphysical worlds' that we don't have to unless there is strong 'circumstantial evidence' to take us there. I like Anaxamander's theory of 'The Apeiron' much better than Plato's Theory of 'The Caves' and 'The Ideal Forms'. Perhaps we can integrate Plato's theory of The Ideal Forms with Anaxamander's Theory of The Apeiron. Anaxamander's Theory of The Apeiron is like a primitive 'Chaos Theory'. Everything in the world starts from undifferentiated Chaos (The Apeiron).
Plato's Theory of Ideal Forms on the other hand is perhaps like a primitive (or not so primative) Intelligent Teleological Design Theory.
So let's integrate the two theories together.
Plato's 'Rational-and-Spiritual-Idealism' (including his Theory of Ideal Forms) became integrated into most religious philosophies today.
In a Platonic -- or modified DGB-Platonic -- sense, 'essence' can mean 'The Perfect Idea' or 'The Perfect Architectural Plan' or 'The Perfect Intelligent, Teleological Design' -- kind of like 'The Perfect Storm' although 'not empirically observable except in its empirically observable manifestations and consequences'. 'The Perfect Storm' actually existed -- the story line for a movie not too long ago -- whereas most 'Intelligent Design Theories' look at the 'creative, intelligent plan' that took place in somebody's mind or 'Somebody's Mind' before the creation or 'Creation' of this 'event' and/or 'process' and/or 'animal' and/or 'vegetable' and/or 'bacteria' and/or 'virus' and/or 'fungus'... and/or 'thing' actually took place in the empirical, observational world.
Do you follow me? It's almost like Plato was trying to put together an 'Intelligent Design Theory' which could be later be incorporated religiously into 'God's Intelligent Design Theory' in which all 'Ideal Forms' are perfect in God's -- or our Creator's -- Mind and/or World until everything becomes far less perfect in our normal empirical and existential day-to-day world as we know it...
Now, this could be DGB Platonic Revisionism -- Platonic Epistemological, Metaphysical and Ontological Idealism as it only makes sense to this intellect right here. It is very easy to take a quick look at Plato's theory of Ideal Forms and say this is 'balderdash' -- epistemological, metaphysical, and ontological bullcrap. What kind of drugs was Plato smoking when he dreamed that theory up? (Kind of like some of Freud's wildest psychological interpretations.) This was my perspective in several essays that I have written about Plato -- most notably the essay 'Parmenides' Poison'.
However, we can't discredit the theory of 'Intelligent Teleological Design'. There are literally billions of pieces of 'circumstantial evidence' lying all around us in our existential-empirical (subjective-objective) pluralistic, multi-dialectic world that point over and over again to the same logical conclusion -- supported by no less a credible source than Albert Einstein himself. And that is the theory of 'Intelligent, Teleological Design' -- everything in this world and on this world points to the logical conclusion that it was/is intelligently and teleologically designed, meaning designed with intelligent purpose.
It is here that: 1. Modern Post-Darwinian Evolution Theory; 2. Intelligent Design Theory; and 3. and Modern Metaphysics, Spirituality (Pantheism, Deism...), and 4. Non-Pathological Religious Theory can meet...
It is here that they do meet in DGB Post-Darwinian, Post-Hegelian, Pluralistic, Multi-Dialectic, Humanistic-Existential (or 'Biophilia' -- 'lover of life', a word I just learned from Erich Fromm) Pantheism or Deism Theory. My main philosophical and spiritual mentors include: Heraclitus ('You can't step into the same river twice...'), Lao Tse ('yin/yang'), Spinoza, Schelling, Hegel, Darwin, Diderot, Nietzsche ('The Birth of Tragedy'...balancing Apollo and Dionysus within us...), Freud, Jung, Einstein, Korzybski, S.I.Hayakawa, Derrida, Perls, David Suzuki...
My most definitive essay so far on DGB Multi-Dialectic Deism/Pantheism is called: 'Classification Systems, Mythological Entities, Post-Hegelian Ideas - and 'The Multi-Dialectic Force of God'
My most definitive 'poem' in this regard is called: 'God is The Bridge'
In DGB Philosophy, I now officially 'associate' Plato's Theory of Ideal Forms with Anaxamander's Theory of 'The Apeiron'. A DGB rendition of 'Chaos Theory'. Life is born in The Shadows. Life is born from Undifferentiated Chaos. A 'house' is created from chaos. A 'sculpture' is created from chaos. An 'child' is created from chaos...
However, somewhere in the middle of all this chaos is one, two, or more 'intelligent designers'... An intelligent designer takes chaos and turns chaos into something that is creatively and boldly alive, differentiated -- and 'teleologically organized'. Differentiated and organized -- with a purpose.
So balderdash to all those existentialists -- including Sartre himself -- who say or said that 'life is absurd and without meaning, without purpose! Horsecrap!
We come into the world alive and kicking -- and full of purpose, full of intelligent design!
What remains for us to find out, during the course of 'the art of living' (see Erich Fromm, ) is what our 'intelligent designer' had/has in store for us while we are alive. Call this an essential part of our individual process of both 'Self-Awareness' and 'Self-Integrity'.
Nobody can tell us who or what we 'should' be. This is 'Introjected Shouldism' and it leads inevitably to 'Self-Alienation' (See Perls and Gestalt Therapy). This is 'The Master/Slave Relationship' (See Hegel, The Phenomenology of Spirit, 1804). This is 'Self-Marginalization'. (See Hegel, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Foucault, Derrida, Perls...)...This is 'The Stranger' (See Camus), 'The Metamorphosis' (See Kafka).
In contrast, 'individuation', 'self-actualization', 'self-fulfillment'... requires that we 'get in touch -- become aware of and make contact -- with our inherent intelligent self-design'.
This does not come from people who are trying to impose their own 'perceived self-design' onto you -- regardless of whether their intentions are good or bad.
No, it is something that we have to find out ourself.
In essence, we have to get in touch with our own Individual Self-Design -- and if you want to take it a step further -- Self-Designer(s). We can include our biological parents in this category. Genetics. Geneology. Maybe our grandparents -- and grandparents' grandparents. Maybe our Ultimate Creator. Maybe God. But not a Tyrannizing God. Not a Terrifying God. Not an Authoritarian God. Not an Imperialist God. Not a Unilateral God. Not a Suppressing and Repressing God. Not a Militant, Violent God. Not a Sadistic God that demands Masochistic Submission. Not a God that demands Self-Alienation, Self-Marginalization...
Not a God that demands Submissive, Masochistic Idoltry. Not a God that cast Man out of The Garden of Eden. Not a God that led Abraham up the Mountain with his son Isaac, and demanded that Abraham sacrifice his own son...and then, in a twisted sadistic reprieve, let Abraham slaughter a lamb, or a goat, or a sheep -- or anything -- in his son's place.
No, this isn't the work of God. This is the work of men and women wanting to control -- and sadistically control -- other men and women. This is a license to 'violently slaughter' in the perversion of God's image and name.
This is 'anti-biophilia'.
The opposite of Humanistic-Existentialism.
Indeed, it is very interesting to point out the nature and the dilaectic dynamics between 'God' and 'Jesus Christ'.
'God' is paternalistic, powerful -- and oftentimes powerfully terrifying.
We shake in our boots at the potential 'paternalistic wrath of God'.
God is the theological offspring of Zeus and Jupiter.
In contrast, 'Jesus Christ' represents a much kinder, more maternalistic, more compassionate, more altruistic rendition of 'God' -- or 'God's Power'.
Indeed, 'Jesus Christ' shares some of the more potentially pathological common elements of 'feminine psychology' -- submission, masochism, self-sacrifice...
'God' is undoubtedly a stereotyped 'Masculine God'. The 'God of Testosterone'. 'The God of Righteous and Narcissistic Power'. God is a 'Spartan God'.
In contrast, 'Jesus Christ' is a steretyped version of a 'feminine, maternalistic God' -- in a man's body. Jesus Christ is essentially 'The God of Estrogen', 'The
God of Altruism', 'The God of Self-Sacrifice for The Good of Others'...Jesus Christ is closer to an 'Athenian God of Compassion, Liberalism, and Democracy...'
In summary, in the power and/or democratic dialectics between 'God' and 'Jesus Christ', we have a continuation of the dialectic differences between Anaxamander ('power-dialectics', 'God') and Heraclitus ('democratic-dialectics', 'Jesus Christ') as well as the 'power-dialectics attitude' of Spartan Greece vs. the 'democratic-dialectics attitude' of Athenian Greece.
Summarized even further, in the 'dialectic dynamics' between 'God' and 'Jesus Christ' we have a 'projective-identification' by man of one 'core-nuclear conflict' within man himself -- of 'Man Both For and Against Himself'. (an allusion to the first book I read by Erich Fromm, 'Man For Himself'.)
Call this Core Nuclear Conflict #1 in man -- the masculine/feminine conflict between 'God' and 'Jesus Christ'. Within man's psychology, this in DGB Philosophy-Psychology, is reflected in the 'ego-conflict' between 'The Nurturing-Encouraging-Supportive (Maternal) Topdog/Superego' and 'The Righteous-Critical-Rejecting (Paternal)Topdog/Superego.
Core Nuclear Conflict #2 is the conflict between 'Apollo' (The Greek Superego) and 'Dyonisus' (The Greek Id).
We have come a long way since I first started writing my series of essays on...'Gods, Myths, Philosophers, and Psychologists'...
Gods, Myths, Philosophers, and Psychologists -- they are all interconnected.
Dialectically entwined.
From Gods and Myths, we can learn about man's philosophy and psychology...
And visa versa.
What was the line I used back in one of those essays?
Gods, Myths, Philosophers, and Psychologists -- they all meet on the shores of DGB Personality Theory.
I am continually amazed how 'coincidence' meets 'fate' in the lives of men and women.
Something I read on Facebook was an absolutely essential turning-point in the building of Hegel's Hotel.
It was an advertisement for a Bob Dylan t-shirt that read:
'Kill Your Idols'.
Now I do not advocate any kind of violence of man against man.
However, I do advocate metaphorically 'killing' or 'exorcising' or 'deconstructing' our 'pathological self-idols'.
This is an essential step in 'Becoming Human'...in the evolution of our 'Self-Health'...
Reading that 'Kill Your Idols' advertisement took me onto the blogsite where it came from, and into an exchange between fellow Dylan fans -- and the geneology, the origin, of that comment -- Kill Your Idols' -- and its 'good' and/or 'bad', past and future, ramifications.
The blogsite exchange took me back to Nietzsche's 'Twilight of The Idols' and before that, thanks to someone's comment on the blogsite, to Sir Francis Bacon's 'False Idols'...
And that has led us to where we now stand...
That is where I, the 'creative designer' of Hegel's Hotel -- looking up at the ongoing construction of Hegel's Hotel now -- how many stories have I built? I'm not sure -- that is where I stand now as I contemplate the future design, architechture and construction of Hegel's Hotel, as well as its links to my past, and my past 'creative constructions'.
This is where I now stand, in the here and now of my townhouse in Newmarket, Ontario as I postulate the dialectic-integrative connection between my past and future.
A plan is just formulating for next summer. I want to visit Hegel's place of birth in Germany, as well as my own subjective empirical rendition of 'Hegel's Hotel' -- The Marriott Hotel in Heidelberg, Germany.
But right now, before either of these things happen, I would like to look back into my past, back 30 years ago to 1979 and the contruction of my 'first version of Hegel's Hotel', or perhaps better referred to as 'Korzybski's and Fromm's Hotel' -- my Honours Thesis in Psychology at The University of Waterloo, called 'Evaluation and Health'.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you in its entirety, edited and/or non-edited -- I shall let you know as we move along --'Evaluation and Health' (short title, old edition, 1979) or, 'On Central Ego-Functioning: Language, Epistemology, Evaluation, and Action.' (long title, new edition, 2009)
-- dgb, May 1st-4th, 2009.
