Friday, February 26, 2010

Be Careful of All Labels, Concepts, and Theories...

'I know that you believe you understand what you think I said, but, I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant...' (Quotation found in 'Secrets of Power Presentations' by Peter Bender, 1991, 1997, 1999)


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


dgb...




Be Careful of All Labels, Concepts, and Theories...

Make sure that they actually 'fit' the 'territory' they are supposedly meant to describe, define, and/or explain...

Concepts are abstractions of real, live events --  a combination of partly changing, partly unchanging structures and processes...

We lose sensory-observational information when we interpret, conceptualize, generalize, associate, abstract...

We lose even more sensory-observational information when we label our interpretations, concepts, generalizations, associations, abstractions...

Don't be fooled by the label...

If need be, come back down the 'abstraction ladder',

Back down to our own sensory observations...

To support or refute the sensory observations of those before us,

And their reports...

And concepts,

Theories,

And labels...

Make sure that the abstractions and the labels that we read or hear,

Fit the territory they are supposed to represents...

Do not be fooled by advertisements, marketing, people with conflicts of interest...

Do not be fooled by stereotypes...

Do not be fooled by the media and the masses...

Do not be fooled by people who say they want to 'help' you...

While they aim to manipulate, extort, exploit you...

Do not be fooled by 'status quo truths' that may not be 'truths' at all...

Do not let a 'label' take on a life of its own...

And let some 'word-victimized' person's life be ruined in the process...

The reality is in the person; not the label.

Don't get tricked or stuck inside the label...

And miss the real life and character of the person who is standing in front of you...

Think and judge for yourself...

And judge what is real...

Trust your own senses,

Don't get lost in someone else's words and abstractions...

That may have no bearing on what they are supposedly describing...

Think for yourself...and accept differences that don't hurt anybody...



-- dgb, Feb. 26th, 2010

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...


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


Science and Sanity - Alfred Korzybski
The fantastic science fiction adventures described in "The World of Null-A" and "The Pawns of Null-A" made me wonder if there really was any such thing as "General semantics". Was this "science" just a product of A. E. van Vogt's vivid imagination. Some of the chapters started with anonymous quotes from purported authorities, such as "B. R""A. K.""C. J. K.". Had they all been made up? Could "B. R."be Bertrand Russell? And what about the "Semantic Institute" at "Korzybski Square"?
Alfred Korzybski.
Alfred Korzybski (1879-1950)
In the mid-1950s it was not as easy to dig out obscure information as it is today, with the omnipresent Web and its search engines. I went to the central public library in Stockholm, but as far as I can recall, there was nothing to be found under the heading of "General semantics". But there was an index card system where authors were listed alphabetically. I looked up "Korzybski", and - lo and behold! - there was an author of that name. He had written a book called "Science and Sanity". I could not find it on the shelves, however, so I asked a librarian to make a reservation for me when it was returned. It turned out that nobody had borrowed the book. Instead it was kept along with other obscure books in a storage compartment behind the area that was accessible to the public. The librarian took me there and dug out the book, a hefty tome of some 800 pages. I felt pretty foolish as the librarian gave me a quizzical look. What could an adolescent schoolboy possibly want from this dusty volume?
By the way, a few years earlier during a visit to the local public library, I was indignant to find a Swedish science fiction book written by Vladimir Semitjov: "430 million km in outer space"("43,000,000 mil i världsrymden") on a shelf behind the librarian's desk under the heading of "Crazies" ("Galningar"). As the space age dawned and interplanetary probes became a reality, I often recalled that incident. - Many years later, an aunt of mine, who was a librarian, laughed heartily when I told her the story. She told me that the term "Galningar" was used for books that had been misplaced on the shelves. It had nothing to do with their content.
The book turned out to be a heavy read, due to its high level of abstraction and unusual terminology, in addition to my own limitations with regard to the English language. But at the same time I found it quite fascinating, with its abundance of ideas. (Unexpectedly - at least to me - the complete book is now available on the web.)
The central themes of the book are the enormous influence that language itself has on our thinking, the dangers that are inherent in the process of abstraction that underlies language, and the need to be fully aware of them: "The map is not the territory." The book makes a distinction between the "Non-Aristotelian" discipline of "General Semantics" and the two-valued logic of Aristotle with its insistence that statements are either true or false. In particular, it warns us from using the little word "is" of identification without realising how it can constrain our view of the world. Many times when we say "is", we should really think "has" (the property of, or the attribute, at this point in time), or "exhibits some of the characteristics of", and add "etc." in order to remind ourselves that the statement is not exhaustive, and may not even be valid tomorrow.
The term "General Semantics" is used to widen the scope of semantics so that it does not just deal with the lexical meaning of words and symbols, but also with our reactions to them. - A man unexpectedly brings flowers to his wife, as a symbol of his love. But she may be wondering if instead it is a sign of his bad conscience. Not only her interpretation, but also the emotions it evokes, are seen as legitimate subjects for study under the heading of "General Semantics".
"Science and Sanity" has been acclaimed by many intelligent readers, but it has also been denounced as a mish-mash of unoriginal observations presented as science. To my mind, it does not matter very much whether Korzybski's work is based on original research or is just a compilation of previous contributions. I believe that his world view, despite some exaggerations and a tendency to self-aggrandizement, is basically sound, has turned out to be influential, and is largely compatible with modern scientific thought.
By all accounts Korzybski had a strong and colorful personality. He was a Polish count, born in 1879. He received an engineering education in Warsaw, fought with the Russian army in WW I, was injured and sent to North America in late 1915 to co-ordinate the shipment of war supplies to Russia. After the war he decided to stay in the United States. He wrote several books. "Science and Sanity" was published in 1933. He founded the Institute of General Semantics in 1938 and directed it until his death in 1950. - See also this biography.
Anatol Rapoport.
Anatol Rapoport
At the Institute he gathered a group of disciples, some of whom turned out to be very talented. Shortly after I read "Science and Sanity", I enjoyed two rather more accessible books. One was by Samuel Hayakawa: "Language in Thought and Action". The other was by Anatol Rapoport: "Science and the Goals of Man". Both men had distinguished careers.Hayakawa became a U. S. Senator for California, and Rapoport a pioneering professor of mathematics, applying it to biology and to the theory of social conflicts. Their books in turn encouraged me to take an interest in the philosophical foundations of science: some of the works of Bertrand Russell, A. N. Whitehead, and Ludwig Wittgenstein; and in logical positivism and empiricism in general.
Samuel Hayakawa.
Samuel Hayakawa
Hayakawa's recollections in interview form ("oral history") of his time with Korzybski are illuminating and amusing. Apparently, Korzybski and Hayakawa had a good relationship, but Hayakawa characterised himself as a "disobedient son", adding that Korzybski wanted "faithful, nonargumentative, pious disciples, spreading the word of Korzybski".
Today the teachings of "Science and Sanity" seem as relevant as when they were written, especially in the light of our present tendency to attach labels to persons, and groups of persons, whom we like or dislike, and to see the world in terms of black and white: "Terrorist", "Unbeliever", etc. The map is not the territory!
Further reading
  1. Reader reviews of "Science and Sanity" at Amazon. (Scroll down to "Spotlight Reviews").
  2. The home page of the Institute of General Semantics.
  3. "Dare to Inquire: Demarginalizing General Semantics" by Bruce Kodish. An article written in 2003. It examines Martin Gardner's attacks on "General Semantics" and finds them unjustified.
"Books" start page

In DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis, There Are No Theoretical Boundaries...Except as Dictated by Subject Matter, Ethics, and Integrity

In DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis, there are not theoretical boundaries because theoretical boundaries set up an arbitrary self-contradiction from which we cannot escape as long as we cling to the boundary....

Every perspective, every theory, has its own particular strength...

And every perspective, every theory, has its own particular liability...

Why should we limit ourselves to the inevitable weakness of every one-sided theory?

Like a good husband and wife team working in harmony with each other,

Opposing theories can be used harmoniously and integratively to supplement each other's weakness...

To provide a more balanced, wholistic perspective...

When it comes to theories,

The only boundaries that should dictate,

Are those governed by subject-matter, ethics, and integrity...

And even here there is going to be ambiguity and plenty of room for debate,

For example, the subject matter is going to be influenced by 'outside factors',

That can change the nature of the discussion,

Or the boundaries of the subject matter,

Thus, we get 'bio-chemistry', and 'bio-physics',

And an essay like Freud's 'The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence' (1894).

Some boundaries are inherent to the subject-matter under investigation,

But many are simply 'made-made' conceptual and label boundaries,

That are meant to make thinking and understanding easier,

And oftentimes, these can come back to haunt us,

And cause us endless grief,

Until we finally figure out that we have created a man-made conceptual-semantic trap.

Boundaries are meant to be broken...(especially when we make them in the first place).

Giving proper respect to ethical and legal boundaries that are there for good reason.

This aside, we need to keep thinking 'inside and outside the box'.

Ascertaining how inside and outside factors influence each other,

Co-determine each other,

This is what Hegel called 'dialectic thinking'. 


I sometimes call it 'dialectic-democratic thinking'.

Or the 'dialectic-integrative evolution of theories'...

Which constantly looks for 'win-win solutions and conflict resolutions'...

To seemingly unsolvable and unresolvable paradoxes, dichotomies, impasses, and riddles...

When a theory becomes too self-limiting by the constriction of its own self-boundaries...

Think outside the boundary...

And then come back to integrate...

What is inside and outside the boundary...


You might be amazed at where it takes you, and what it gets you!

-- dgb, Feb. 26th, 2010; updated March 19th, 2010.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still In Process...

More on The Development of DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis...and The Dialectic Essence of The Transference Neurosis...

Just finished...Feb. 26th, 2010...


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


I was in a used book store the other day and I saw a book on the shelf that drew my attention (actually a couple but I will focus on this one here and now).




Now the question might be asked -- as I will now: Why, out of thousands of books in this one bookstore, with rows upon rows of books on many different bookshelves, was my attention drawn to this particular book? Was it coincidence? Or was my 'sensory-stimulus system' picking up something in my environment that would not necessarily interest anyone else in the bookstore at that time?



I opt for the latter explanation because it has happened to me over and over again in my life. The book that I tend to buy at any one moment is generally based on 'impulse' which in turn is based on 'interest', or to use a term that Freud used at different times in his writing, 'cathexis', which basically means 'interest charged with energy' (that may be redundant -- isn't all 'interest', 'interest charged with greater or lesser quanties and/or qualities of energy' which Freud perhaps inappropriately reduced to 'libido or sexual energy'?)







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



Cathexis



From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (with full appreciation...)







In psychodynamics, cathexis is defined as the process of investment of mental or emotional energy in a person, object, or idea.[1] The Greek term 'cathexis' was chosen by James Strachey to render the German term 'Besetzung' in his translations of Sigmund Freud's complete works. In psychoanalysis, cathexis is the libido's charge of energy. Freud often described the functioning of psychosexual energies in mechanical terms, influenced perhaps by the dominance of the steam engine at the end of the 19th century. In this manner, he also tended to think of the libido as a producer of energies.



Freud often represented frustration in libidinal desires as a blockage of energies that have, or would eventually build up and require release in alternative ways. This release could occur, for example, by way of regression and the "re-cathecting" of former positions, that is, fixation at the oral phase or anal phase and the enjoyment of former sexual objects ("object-cathexes"), including autoeroticism.



When the ego blocks such efforts to discharge one's cathexis by way of regression, that is, when the ego wishes to repress such desires, Freud uses the term "anti-cathexis" or counter-charge.[2] Like a steam engine, the libido's cathexis then builds up until it finds alternative outlets, which can lead to sublimation or to the formation of sometimes disabling symptoms.



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



In my own particular case example with the book, if I had grabbed the book, looked at it, decided it didn't look very exciting afterall, or that I couldn't afford it at this time, then we could say that a 'counter' or 'anti'-cathexis was now at work in my mind, dialectically playing off against the initial cathexis ('impulse energy') of my interest in the book.



We can see the 'Hegelian underpinnings' of at least part of Freud's thinking and work here: 'thesis' equals 'initial cathexis'; 'anti' or 'counter' thesis equals 'anti' or 'counter' cathexis which in turn equals 'restraint', 'defense', 'repression', 'suppression', 'denial', 'holding in' or 'holding down' particular impulses...



And often a cathexis (i.e., an interest-energy-impulse-drive) and a counter-cathexis (restraint, defense...) come together in a synthesized or integrative fashion in the form of a 'compromise', a 'compromise-formation' (a Freudian term) or a 'conflict-resolution'...



To go back to my book example, if I wanted the book but told myself that I couldn't afford it at this time, then this would be an example of a 'backward moving' counter-cathexis, in effect, 'dominating' or 'taking control over' a 'forward-moving' cathexis (i.e., an interest-energy-impulse-drive).



When we say, in effect...'I want to...but...'... the cathexis is attached to the 'want' as opposed to the counter-cathexis which is attached to the 'but'...and everything after it...



The cathexis is attached to the 'I wish to approach' part of a desire whereas the counter-cathexis is attached to the 'avoidance' part of a significant fear...



Thus, an 'approach-avoidance conflict' can also be viewed as a 'dialectical battle between a cathexis and a counter-cathexis'.



Unfortunately, Freud did not always think in a dialectical manner -- nor did Nietzsche before him. In fact, they both got into some trouble when they wandered away from dialectic thinking and dialectic logic: Nietzsche when he left 'The Birth of Tragedy' behind him and complained years later that it was 'too Hegelian'; Freud, in contrast got into trouble when he got caught in an 'either/or' battle between his 'traumacy-seduction' theory and his later 'fantasy-childhood sexuality-Oedipal' theory.



Hegel wrote -- and I entirely agree with him -- that 'every theory carries the seeds of its own self-destruction'. Every theory is inherently self-contradictory, or at least partly so. No theory can claim to be 100 percent right all the time because if it was, it would not be a theory; rather, it would be a 'fact', or it would be 'the truth'.



Theories are based on generalizations and generalizations can never be 100 per cent true (except this one, of course). Generalizations are called generalizations because they are 'generally true'. Not always true. But generally true. Thus, every generalization and every theory can easily become a 'fighting ground', a 'battle field' between the 'yes sayers' and the 'no sayers'. Between the 'supporters' and the 'detractors'. Between the 'constructionists' and the 'deconstructionists'. Between the 'optimists' and the 'pessimists'. Between the 'liberals' and the 'conservatives'. Between 'The 'Democrats' and 'The Republicans'.



Heads or tails? The Republicans pick 'heads'; the Democrats pick tails.



Modern day politics is based on a combination of 'unilateral-either/or thinking' and 'dialectic-integrative thinking'. The Republicans speak their ideology. (And even each and every Republican will be partly different in the 'Republican Ideology' that he or she believes in. Thus, we can differentiate between 'Personal Republican Ideology' and 'Party Republican Ideology'. The Party generally wants to be perceived to be 'united' by the time it gets to election time.



And same with The Democrat Party. But individual ideological differences -- even within the same party -- are the norm, not the exception. And over time, both personal and party ideology can -- and does change --as well. It might be come more 'centralized' or 'more extremist right or left' depending on the party and the context of the time and the situation. Also, it not uncommon for citizens to 'gravitate to the left' or 'gravitate to the right' depending on who is in power -- for example Bush or Obama -- and what 'extremist political mistakes' the particular party -- Republican or Democrat -- might be making when they are in power. The following election is most likely to be 'dialectically compensatory' against the perceived political mistakes of the Party in power.



With the Obama election there was a huge 'anti-war' push by the electorate; next election there will likely be a huge compensatory movement back towards 'the right' and The Republican Party in an effort to 'reduce the perceived mistake of Obama's astronomical spending spree'. Indeed, we can already see this 'compensatory electorate push to the right' in effect. It is the nature of politics and 'dialectic political evolution'. )



We wandered away from Psychoanalysis and the 'paradox-riddle' that Freud didn't properly work his way through: the seemingly unresolvable differences between his traumacy-seduction theory (1895,96) and his later fantasy-childhood sexuality-dream-and Oedipal Theory (1897-1905, and beyond).



And sitting in the middle of both theories -- indeed, the bridge between the two seemingly paradoxical theories -- were two other theories that were not fully developed until years later but, between the two of them, held the answer to the riddle of this 115 year old problem. These were his 'Transference Theory' and his 'Narcissistic Theory'...and then in the 1950s and 1960s, Kohut bridging the gap between these two latter theories with his concept of 'Narcissistic Transferences' (two concepts that Freud thought were mutually exclusive, in that he thought that a narcissistic person couldn't develop a 'transference relationship with anyone -- he or she was too absorbed in him or herself. In contrast, Kohut argued, and I agree with Kohut, as do most, if not all, Psychoanalysts these days, will build on his argument: specifically, that narcissism is learned in childhood just like love or anything else is, and a 'pampered' child, a 'neglected' child, a 'rejected' child, and/or an 'abandoned' child can all learn narcissism, meaning self-centredness and/or self-absorption, as a form of self-defense and/or as a mode of dealing with the world and with people, or by pulling away from people, either through introjection, identification, and/or compensation -- in the latter case, such as from a broken heart.)



Narcissistic people are often self-made from the relationship remnants of their own broken hearts. A band of 'character armor' goes up around their heart...and relationships continue with a lot more narcissistic self-protection dominating their personal interactions...



And/or narcissistic parents pass on their narcissism to their kids by way of 'introjection' and/or 'identification' -- see below -- i.e., through what their kids see or hear in their parents actions and/or words.



Child sees, child does. If his or her parents are 'into themselves' for extended periods of time, with an absence of relationship contact, so too will be the child or children who choose/s to copy the narcissistic parent...



Now overcompensating for this perceived danger can be just as bad...



As in everything, balance is the name of the game here...



Let us all be reminded that 'healthy self and social behavior' demands an integrative balance of 'healthy self-assertiveness' (modified narcissism) with 'healthy social sensitivity' (empathy, listening, caring, altruism, love...)







Which brings us to the essence, the multiple bi-polarity, and the paradox of DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis.



The name 'quantum' was taken from the example of the physics and energy model of the same name which integrated two preceding models before it in 'classic Hegelian (thesis/anti-thesis/synthesis) style': i.e., specifically the 'particle' model of matter/energy, followed by the 'wave' model of matter/energy. Neither model work as well by itself as both of them did when they were integrated together.



The book I pulled out of the library was called: 'Ageless Body, Timeless Mind: The Quantum Alternative to Growing Old' by Deepak Chopra, M.D.



I may read the book, I may not. But obviously, I was/am not the only theorist outside of physics who became attracted to the 'quantum' model as it might be used on a broader field than it was originally intended -- such as the field of psychology, philosophy, medicine, politics, spirituality...and life in general...







Back to Psychoanalysis.



How are the ideas of 'narcissism' and 'transference' the connecting bridge between Freud's (1895-1896) Traumacy-Seduction Theory and Freud's later (1897-1905, and beyond...) Fantasy-Childhood Sexuality-Oedipal-Dream Theory?



The connection goes something like this:



Childhood memories of traumatic events and resulting 'narcissistic (self-esteem) injuries' stimulate 'deep emotional learning processes' -- which in its broadest sense can be called 'transferences'. (See Brian Bird's famous article on transference called: Notes on Transference: Universal Phenomenon and Hardest Part of Analysis, 1972, as well as Freud's classic two papers: The Dynamics of Transference, 1912, and Observations on Transference-Love, 1915, all of which can be found in the book, Essential Papers on Transference, 1990, edited by Aaron Esman, New York University Press.)



Now in DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis there are many different types of transferences, some of which go well beyond what is usually called transference in Classic Psychoanalysis, or Object Relations, or even Self Psychology.



Some of these transferences, I will list below:



1. 'Phobic' Transferences (a fear of anything associated with a particularly bad -- usually childhood but not always -- memory, or some particular 'bad object' within the memory. For example, in a sexual assault memory that could mean 'closed spaces' or 'open spaces' or anything else that might be associated with the memory -- and the assault).



2. 'Paranoid' Transferences (a fear of particular or more generalized type of person associated with a particularly bad -- usually childhood but not always -- memory).



3. 'Counter-Phobic' Transferences (a fear/attraction and a 'positive' as well as 'negative' cathexis to a particular type of person, event, or object associated with a particularly bad -- usually but not always -- childhood memory. A 'rejecting' childhood transference figure becomes generalized and metaphorically or symbolically 'transferred' onto another similar type of person in adult and we are both scared of, and excited by, this 'adult rendition' of our 'childhood transference figure'. This can result in strong 'erotic' and/or 'romantic' transferences).



4. 'Distancing' Transferences (We stay away from our feared adult rendition of our feared childhood transference figure).



5. 'Anal Schizoid' Transferences (Similar to distancing transferences, perhaps more exaggerated and pronounced, referring more to the 'strongly self-controlled, reserved, withdrawn, uncontactful type of person who shuts him or herself off from the world).



6. 'Oral Nurturing' Transferences (identifications with a 'strong, nurturing adult role model in childhood -- maternal and/or paternal -- which is then 'transferred over into the child's own adult behavior).



7. 'Rebellious' Transferences (identifications with a strong rebellious role model in childhood that is then 'transferred over into the child's own adult behavior'; and/or a 'compensatory transference reaction' to a strong, childhood controlling authority figure which is then 'transferred into the child's own adult behavior.



8. 'Approval-Seeking' Transferences (a 'submissive' response learned in childhood usually in the presence of a strong, controlling authority figure that is then 'transferred onto adult authority figures in the child's own adult life).



9. 'Identification' Transferences (Copying the external behavior of some role-model in childhood that is then 'transferred over into the child's own adult behavior').



10. 'Introjective' Transferences (Internalizing the inner 'character-traits', ideas, beliefs, values, feelings, impulses, and/or counter-impulses of childhood role models that are then 'transferred into the child's later adult life).



11. 'Projective' Transferences (Projecting onto others what we ourselves are, want to be, are afraid to be, despise to be, as well as projecting onto others the characteristics of our childhood role models and transference figures -- 'positive', 'negative' and 'ambivalent', the latter meaning both).



12. 'Compensatory' Transferences (Making 'adjustments' in our own ideas, beliefs, values, feelings, impulses, and counter-impulses in order to 'accommodate' and/or 'retaliate' against the behavior of our childhood role models and transference figures which are then 'transferred years later onto 'adult renditions' of these earlier childhood transference figures).



13. 'Transference Reversals' ('Identification with The Aggressor, Rejector, Abandoner...') When we traumatize others as adults the way we were traumatized as children...



Our childhood traumacy scenes and memories never disappear; we keep 're-projecting' them into our adult lives over and over and over again, usually til we die. This is what Freud referred to as the 'repetition compulsion'. The repetition compulsion becomes interlinked with the 'mastery compulsion' when we 're-create' our childhood transference scenes over and over and over again in order to 'master' our childhood traumacies, fears, weaknesses, inferiorities, and 'rejecting transference figures'.



Sometimes this works; sometimes it doesn't. When this 'neurotic and often erotic' strategy works we are often 'ecstatic' -- in the throes of having mastered one of our worst childhood nightmares and fears. When it doesn't work, we generally feel 'emotionally crushed' -- in the throes of our childhood nightmare scene played out all over again according to our own usually 'subconscious cathexes' with the same negative emotions that we experienced in childhood destroying our self-esteem all over again...


This is what we call here a 'transference complex, neurosis -- and game'.


When we 'win' the game, we are emotionally ecstatic.

When we 'lose' the game, we are emotionally destroyed.


In this regard, we all suffer to some greater extent or another the syndrome of 'bi-polarity disorder'.


All transference complexes contain 'multiple bi-polar possiblities for thinking, feeling, wanting, doing...',



We are all -- to differing degrees -- manic-depressive...


When we are in the throes of our 'positive' and 'negative' transferences,


And we feel like a ball in a pinball machine...


Transference is -- with constant modifications and evolutons along the way -- a lifelong 'game',


Still, it is a worthwhile enterprise to develop a full and complete awareness and understanding of...


The most personal details of our own 'neurotic/erotic transference complexes',


This awareness may or may not be enough...


To step away from the strongest impulses of our 'transference complexes gone wild'...


We can choose -- or not choose -- to...


Get off our lifelong emotional roller coaster ride...


The question is, and always will be,


'Is the neurotic and erotic element of our own personal transference roller coaster ride,


Too overwhelming to battle against,


Even knowing fully well the potential for an emotional crash and sense of self-destruction ,


When we are lying in a heap,


At the bottom of our own personalized roller coaster crash.


Emotionally and/or physically battered and bruised...


In short, like an addict on any drug,


Are the 'highs' worth the 'lows'?


Or the 'lows' worth the 'highs'...


That is the nature of a full-blooded approach-avoidance, love-hate, romantic-erotic transference complex.


If we are going to risk the emotionally dangerous ride that we set ourselves up for,


Then we need to learn how to accept and/or at least tolerate the 'lows' of the ride (mainly by limiting the extent of our 'negative self-talk'...and stop connecting our present with our past...our past and present always have significant differences attached to them...if only the difference between being a naive child and a more 'street-wise' adult...),


If we can't accept or tolerate the lows of our 'transference crashes'...


Then obviously it would be prudent to get off a ride that we don't know how to play safely...


But telling a 'transference addict' to get off his or her 'transference ride' is like trying to persuade a drug addict that he or she doesn't need his or her drug of choice...


The talk is much easier than the action...unless the action is supported by the transference obsessive-compulsion...in which case our danger awareness flags need to go up...


This is how 'childhood traumacy' meets 'adult seduction' in the same person.

Specifically, we aim to 'seduce' an adult rendition of our childhood 'transference rejector' in order to 'undo' and/or to 'reverse' and 'master' the 'self-esteem damage' within us done in childhood by our infamous -- but still 'exciting' -- childhood rejecting object (or transference figure). The childhood rejecting object/transference figure may or may not be in our lives anymore but we have found a new 'exciting/rejecting object/transference figure' to take our childhood antagonist's place...


Call this our own version of a Greek or Shakespearian romantic-dramatic...tragedy...


Or in the words of Nietzsche,


Our own particular,


'Birth of Tragedy'.


Great potential creativity and self-destruction,


All tied up together in one package,


Lying side by side,


In our Transference Memory and Complex Template,


Self-contradiction in the centre of our personality,


In classic Hegelian Dialectic Fashion....


Our 'thesis' lying right beside our 'anti-thesis'...


Our 'ego' working right next door to our 'alter-ego'...


Providing a constantly evolving template of ongoing cognitive, emotional, and behavioral paradox,


In a Freudian sense, a 'life and death impulse' playing off against each other,


Our whole life....


The unfolding of our own personal dialectic,


This is the paradox of the transference neurosis and complex,


The essence of the paradox of the human personality unfolding...


Good luck, my friend...


May your own particular transference complex...


Take you to more good places than bad...


The 'seemingly accidental' and 'subconsciously purposeful' collision of relationships -- in both a positive and negative sense -- is as inevitable as the crash of the ocean waves on the rocks of a beach cliff...


The collision of positive and negative transference factors, combined with the here-and-now immediacy of everyday interactions and encounters, is as inevitable as the change from day to night,

As inevitable as the cyclical attraction and repulsion of different types of molecules...


Protons and electrons,


Protons and protons,


Electrons and electrons,


With neutrons providing the foundational base...


From which protons and electrons play out their dialectical (diabolical?) game...


We meet, and if the 'chemistry' is there -- we develop our areas of similarities and differences, until they collide...in the transference...


We either work through them, or we don't,

Passion, intimacy, and/or resentment provides the remnants of the collision of relationship transferences...


From both a personal and a relationship standpoint,


The lifelong questions -- at least for people interested in Quantum Psychoanalysis -- become:


Are we in control of our transferences?


Or are they in control of us?


Will we play out our transferences subconsciously?


Or will we seek to develop a greater transference awareness?


Such that we can steer our transferences where we want to go...


Rather than our transferences steering us...


Where we don't want to go...


Which, in our worst case scenario, is that self-destructive heap at the bottom of our own personalized roller coaster crash...


Our metaphorical return to the scene of our worst childhood nightmare-traumacy...


We do have personal choice in this matter, although far too often it may not seem like it...


Every encounter can be played out differently...


That is the freedom of being human...


-- dgb, Feb. 24th-26th, 2010.


-- David Gordon Bain


-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...


-- Are Still in Process...

Central Ego Functioning (and Dysfunctioning): Narcissism, Epistemology, Evaluation, Action, and Health

Friday, February 19, 2010

My Natural Health Personal Choice of Therapy Program for Countering High Cholesterol and Clogged Artery Problems...

Life is Not Very Good, O K Partner....My Arteries Are Clogged Big Time...What Should I Maybe Do? (Memory Jogger)

My Natural Health Therapy Regimen...

Lecithin, Niacin (Be careful with niacin -- start very slowly with a small amount like 20mg., in order to avoid the infamous 'niacin flush' or get the 'flush-free' type where you can go as high as 500 mgs. although this might still subject you to 'anal burning' like if you were taking cayenne, hot peppers, or 'hot sauce'...a 'good side effect' is that all of these 'thermogenics' and 'nitric oxide enhancers' are good for both your circulation and your sex life...), Vinegar, Garlic, Oat Bran, Kelp, Psyllium...Vitamin C, Vitamin A, Apples, Vitamin C (citrus fruits), Bioflavonoids (lemons, limes, dark chocolate in moderation), Tomatoes...Whole Wheat, Selenium, Increase exercise slowly (start with walking), Magnesium (bananas), Vitamin D...

Try a Colourful Fruit and Vegetable, Fibre laden Diet So You Can Start To Feel Good Again...

Tumeric, Calcium, Fruits, Vegetables, Fibres, Do some exercise again, Soya Products, Yogurt, Cruciferous vegetables, Spices (ginger, garlic as an immune stimulant and blood thinner -- don't take without a doctor's permission and overseeing your behavior if you are already on a medical blood thinner such as aspirin or warfarin, the strongest of all blood thinners -- otherwise, you could be looking at  a serious bleeding problem , tumeric as an anti-inflammatory, cinamon for high blood sugar problems -- again don't take therapeutically without a doctor's permission and overseeing your activity if you are on anti-diabetic medication such as glyburide..., cayenne for better circulation, fennel for stomach problems...)
Clean out your arteries, more bloodflow, more nutrients and oxygen getting to your cells...ToFu (if you can handle it), Greens (barley, alfalfa, spirilina, chlorella, chlorophyl...), Anti-Oxidants (that I haven't already mentioned...)

Do all of this...and you will have...


Less chance of a stroke...

More energy...

More life....

More fun...

Disclaimer...

This small piece is meant to be educational and general; not specific therapeutic advice without a doctor's knowledge and approval...I am no doctor; I just read a lot and try to mix my research and reading knowledge with my personal experience and common sense to help to obtain clear and understandable solutions to complex health matters...

Everyone is responsible for his or her own health choices...

Whether these choices be good....bad....ugly....or indifferent...

Choose life; not death.

P.S.  You might want to look into supplementing with Co-Q10 if you are on 'anti-statin medications'. Your heart needs Co Q10 and research suggests (look it up for yourself on the internet) that 'anti-statin' medications can cause a deficiency in Co-Q10 in the heart. That's not a good thing.

P.S.S.  Choleseterol deficiency can be just as dangerous as too much bad cholesterol clogging your arteries (again, the principle of 'homeostasis' and 'pathology' lying at the extremes of human behavior, psyhology, philosophy, religion, economics, philosophy...and nutrition...).

Again if you are on 'anti-cholesterol' (anti-statin) medications, beware of possible hormonal imbalances, muscular degeneration, thinking and memory problems...(look up all these possible side effects on the internet and know about them in case you experience them as potentially dangerous problems that require you to  'back up' from what you are doing... keep your doctor informed as to what is happening inside your body and possible drug/side effect interactions...)

Again, this is based on the research that I have bumped into along the way in books and on the internet that seems serious enough to pay attention to before things get out of hand in a way you (or your doctor) might not expect).

Don't take my word for it; investigate these potential side-effects for yourself.

Be smart, be informed, be educated, use common sense...

Be accountable and responsible for your own medical choices...
Choose life; not death.

-- dgb, Feb. 19th, 21st, 2010

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still in Process...

Monday, February 15, 2010

'Quantum' Psychoanalysis and A DGB Definitive Guide To Dialectically Working Your Way Through The Infamous Seduction Theory Controversy





"The test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold
two opposed ideas in mind at the same time and still retain
the ability to function. One should, for example, be able to
see that things are hopeless and yet be determined to make
them otherwise."


-- F. Scott Fitzgerald
...............................................................................................................................................


[Larval Subjects March 12, 2007
Scattered Thoughts on Dialectical Reason
Posted by larvalsubjects




In Negative Dialectics, Adorno writes, “the most enduring result of Hegelian logic is that the individual is not flatly for himself. In himself, he is his otherness and linked with others” (161).


For me, Hegel’s Science of Logic has always been the great white whale, Ulysses, or Finnegans Wake of philosophy. What interests me in Hegel is not what he has to say about Spirit or reconciliation or the formation of a total system where nothing escapes– as absolute knowledge is sometimes thought to be...

No, what interests me about Hegelian dialectics– especially as formulated in the Logic –is its capacity to think otherness, relation, and an immanent tension within a system pushing it to the point of auto-critique.




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




Warning: Object(s)ions in the Mirror May Be Closer Than They Appear

Posted by larvalsubjects under BloggingBoring Stuff About Me



One of the central theses of psychoanalysis is that the manner in which we interpret others says more about the structure of our own desire than the desire of the other person we’re interpreting. I am not sure one even has to be an advocate of psychoanalytic theory to endorse this thesis. Given that we don’t have access to the minds of other people our attributions of motives to others must proceed by analogy to ourselves, such that we attribute motives to others based on what motivates us. 


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

dgb's article....

The mind and personality -- just like the body -- is full of compensatory measures and homeostatic (dialectically balancing) functions.

That is how the principle of homeostasis (see Cannon, The Wisdom of The Body) works -- through continually engaging in compensatory measures in the mind-brain-personality-body aimed at searching for the always 'short and fleeting center-point of Mind-Brain-Personality-Body (MBPB) homeostatic (dialectic-democratic) balance'. The minute we get there -- Friedlander and then Perls called this place in our mind the 'point of creative indifference' -- and I will also refer to it as the point of 'Homeostatic-Dialectic-Democratic Utopia' -- until something either external or internal to us changes things to upset this most delicate, fragile, and fleeting, transitory balance.  To use a partly Reichian analogy, it is like the second or two after orgasm before we start to withdraw from contact. But what we are talking about here is not only related to sexual homeostasis.

We are also talking about: intellectual homeostasis, mental homeostasis, personality homeostasis, psychological homeostasis, emotional homeostasis, physical homeostasis, biochemical homeostasis, economic homeostasis, social homeostasis, political homeostasis, philosophical homeostasis, creative-artistic homeostasis, spiritual-(religious) homeostasis, and more...


Blood pressure can't be either too high or too low...


Blood sugar levels can't be either too high or too low...


Both bodily and psychopathology can be defined as gravitating too far towards the bi-polar extremes of human (dys)functional behavior...


In essence then, every aspect and every type of psychopathology can be equated in some way or another to the idea of 'bi-polar extremism'.


Thus, every form of medical condition and every form of psychopathology -- neurosis and/or psychosis -- can be viewed as some form of 'bi-polar disorder'.


'Manic-Depression' -- the 'old' name for 'bi-polar disorder' -- is just one example of how the body can compensate radically and dramatically from one 'existential extreme' to the 'opposite existential extreme' in an effort to compensate for the preceding (and opposing) state of psychological extremism.


Depression, in my research and experience, usually reflects some combination of a 'hanging on bite', a 'bad (punitive, discouraging) internalized object (person), and/or a 'lost internalized object (person) -- a parent, a sibling, a lover, a friend...


For example, depression can involve some aspect of the 'self-torture game' where our Righteous- Critical (Rejecting, Abandoning...)Topdog/Superego runs roughshod over the rest of our personality to the point where both our Approval-Seeking and Rebellious Underdog/Underego  basically 'give up' and collapse in discouragement and futility relative to the onslaught of our Anal-Sadistic-Torturing Righteous Topdog/Superego.


Or depression can involve 'hanging on' to a 'lost love object' that we just won't let go....a parent, a child, a sibling, an ex-lover, an ex-friend...Depression here to can involve an element of both anger/rage and grief -- grief at 'losing the loved object'; and/or anger/rage at the person who left you...But both strong feelings of grief and anger are denied and buried -- and we are left with a more 'abstractified, vague and seemingly objectless and directionless depression'.


If you are 'depressed',  then maybe you need to sob or rage at something and/or someone who is the source of the depth and intensity of your feeling beneath your 'watered-down or sugar-coated depression'. Depression can hang around for long periods of time with seemingly no way out of it...


Engaging in more 'full-blooded contact' with a friend, a lover, a therapist (a safe person) in order to 'dig beneath your depression to the source of the stronger but denied underlying feelings whatever they may be -- grief, guilt, anger, resentment, rage, hatred...-- may be the necessary 'therapeutic work' needed under the depression. And the more threatening and scary the work may seem to be, probably the greater the need for a good, safe psychotherapist.


To the extent that depression can be equated with a 'listlessness of feeling' -- living the life of an emotionally 'dead person' -- the Mind-Brain-Personality-Body (MBPB) is also prone to take strong compensatory measures to alleviated these feelings -- or their lack thereof.  Eating, drugs, sex, alcohol, gambling...can all by 'compensatory symptoms' of an underlying depression -- and under that a 'bad or lost internalized love object'. The symptom of feeling a 'void' in our heart and/or in the 'pit of our stomach' is often symptomatic of an ongoing depression...The 'compensatory measure' -- often of an extreme and neurotic and/or psychotic, self-destructive type -- is often aimed at trying 'to get rid of this sense of a void within us'...


The behavior of 'self-punishment' is often linked with underlying 'guilt'. The self-punishment can be viewed as a compensatory measure taken to alleviate or get rid of the guilt. We feel guilt and opt for self-punishment in order to 'close' the guilt. But the guilt could be of a 'circular, serial type' caused by an internalied Bad Object (or torturing Topdog/Superego) -- the legacy of one of our parents growing up perhaps and/or some other childhood 'role model'. Thus, in this case, the circle never stops. Topdog Blame. Underdog Guilt.  Compensatory Conflict Resolution: Self-punishment.
And start the whole process over again...This is what can be called a 'Transference Neurosis' and/or a 'Repetition Compulsion'. The Self-Torture Game never stops...We just keep playing it....over...and over...and over again....


'Counter-phobia' and 'The Mastery Compulsion (Superiority-Striving)' can and often do enter the picture in our particular brand of 'Transference Neurosis/Script/Game' as well.


This is also where Freud's Traumacy-Seduction Theory and his later Fantasy-Oedipal Theory merge together into what I am calling 'Quantum Psychoanalysis'.


Traumcy paradoxically in many, many transference neuroses/scripts/games can stimulate (love/hate/erotic-destructive) fantasies out of our original childhood traumacy (memory/encounter/relationship/event).


Our original 'bad childhood transference object' may no longer be in the picture. But that does not stop us. Because internally, our 'bad, childhood transference love/hate object' is still very much alive -- enough to stimulate the strongest of our erotic and/or destructive/vengeful fantasies.


Just like in the statement of a 'murderer always returning to the scene of his or her crime', in transference, this the rule, not the exception. Indeed, either or both the original 'victimizer and/or victim are 'bound by the psychic laws of transference and the repetition and mastery compulsion to return to the scene of the original transference transgression/oppression/rejection/abandonment/betrayal/crime.. (either in reality and/or metaphorically and symbolically) over and over and over again for the rest of their lives unless they undergo and work through some form of profound psychotherapy...And even here the prospects are bleak....


Most, if not all, people are bound to their unique and personal transference complexes/neuroses for their entire lives...Modifications and compensations...and mutations, and and 'bi-polar oscillations' and/or 'switcheroos'....and all sorts of different wild and extreme or watered-down, sugar-coated renditions of our transference complexes are likely to occur throughout the evolution and various regressions in our lives...


But in the end, we can't usually get rid of our transference-complexes...We can only try to use them more functionally, more creatively as opposed to destructively, and stay away from the worst potential extensions of our transference given a level of sufficient self-awareness and self-contact.


The fact that we are bound to our 'own internal Mr or Ms Hyde' (a part of our Shadow) -- the 'bad, rejecting object' in all of our personalities (because each and everyone of us has to at some point in our childhood run into a 'bad, rejecting person', or our perception of such --  by our own obsessive-compulsive transference complexes, and the fact that furthermore, our deepest, and/or darkest erotic fantasies are also intertwined into this picture  -- is it any wonder why our love lives get so entwined with erotic desire combined with vengeful fantasy -- indeed the 'exciting, romantic-sexual transference object/person in our adult lives'  is also likely to at the same time exemplify the characteristics of our 'bad, rejecting internal childhood object/person' as well....


Thus, the paradoxical and intertwined nature of love and hate, desire and rejection, traumacy and fantasy....


Sigmund Freud, 'You had it right -- both before and after your abandonment of The Traumacy-Seduction Theory -- but only partly right in both cases.'


Your problem was not -- primarily in my interpretation -- a case of 'failure of moral courage' (Masson's accusation).


Rather, your problem was a problem shared by millions and millions of people in the world today.


Specifically, Dr. Freud, you problem was one of 'getting stuck inside the box -- the clothes dryer -- of Aristotelean either/or logic'.


Once you, my dear reader, and Freud, and Masson, and myself move out of the restricting confines of Aristotelean Logic and into the 'larger I and Thou, Here and Now Room of Dialectic-Interconnected and Integrative Logic' -- then the old 'Seduction Theory Paradox and Controversy' folds like a house of cards.


Traumacy exists. Childhood traumacy exists. Sexual assault exists. Childhood sexual assault exists. Incest exists. Childhood sexual abuse exists.


For The International Psychoanalytic Institution and Establishment -- to continue to either deny and/or avoid or disavow or suppress or repress the existence of some cases of 'father-daughter incest' and other forms of childhood sexual abuse, even after we have separated ourselves some 114 years from Victorian Society and Freud's initial Abandonment of The Seduction Theory with a supposedly strong-working egalitarian feminist network at work in North America and most parts of Europe today -- even with all of this -- The Psychoanalytic Society, and Particularly Classical Psychoanalytic Theory, holds onto the most restrictive, and anal-retentive interpretation of The Oedipal Complex like a toddler holds onto a dirty shirt.


Or worse -- like a Neo-Nazi holds onto the belief that The Holocaust 'never happened'.


This is probably the worst example of a supposedly credible School and Institution of Contemporary Psychology continuing to endure the social, philosophical, psychological, and academic ridicule of a 'hanging on bite' in the form of an outdated, anachronistic 'pathological assumption/belief' that I can possibly think of -- other than perhaps those who take the polar opposite assumptive position (that practically every woman who walks into a therapeutic situation has been sexually assaulted as a child).  Both polar extremists are equally guilty of practicing 'Aristotelean, either/or, head in a clothes dryer logic'.


 The movement needs to be towards a more 'mutually inclusive, traumacy-fantasy, Dialectically Integrative-Bi-Polar Homeostatic Psychotherapy'. 


Here I am calling this 'DGB Quantum Psychoanalysis'.


Where traumacy and fantasy theorists and therapists start to move from their positions of bi-polar philosophical extremism and meet towards the middle with each respectfully acknowledging the presence of the other's legitimate existence.


This is probably my most definitive essay on my particular conflict resolution to the highly emotionally volatile and infamous Seduction Theory Controversy.


Think dialectically and democratically; not unilaterally with your head in a clothes dryer with the door closed. 


-- dgb, Feb. 15th, 2010. 


-- David Gordon Bain, 


-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...


-- Are Still in Process...








Some Quick Thoughts on Dialectic Thinking, Dialectic Logic...




















tusar n. mohapatra

My Photo
Tusar N. Mohapatra
Ghaziabad, U.P., India
President, Savitri Era Party. [Savitri Era of those who adore, Om Sri Aurobindo & The Mother.] Director, Savitri Era Learning Forum. [SELF posits a model of counselling and communicative action as an instrument in order to stimulate the public sphere. The model aims at supplementing the individual’s struggle for a successful social adjustment with more aspirational inputs so as to help one take an informed and balanced attitude towards life as well as society.] SRA-102-C, Shipra Riviera, Indirapuram, Ghaziabad, U.P. - 201014, India. Ph: 0120-2605636 tusarnmohapatra@gmail.com
View my complete profile




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






Good day Sir (Tusar N. Mohapatra),

Just thought I would write you a quick note to say I like the work you are doing. I see a similarity in your own work and mine at ‘Hegel’s Hotel’….the centre piece and similarity in our work being a humanistic-existential, balanced interpretation and rendition of Hegel.

Some of your work is perhaps a little too metaphysical for me….a little too much ‘mental work’when i haven't read all the philosophers you are writing about... (Husserl and Heidegger are tough to read and not on my priority list right now...)

However, I like your ‘I am the conflict’ piece….I am the fire and the water – that kind of stuff…very ‘yin’/’yang’…and Heraclitus..

'I am the conflict, their being bound together. I am both the combatants, and am the strife itself.' I like that one. (Very Gestalt Therapy oriented as well as Hegelian... this comment added Feb. 15th, 2010.)

Keep up the good work.

I will check in on your site periodically,

Cheers!

David Bain,
Author of Hegel’s Hotel



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

Tusar N Mohapatra said...



















[Larval Subjects March 12, 2007
Scattered Thoughts on Dialectical Reason
Posted by larvalsubjects

In Negative Dialectics, Adorno writes, “the most enduring result of Hegelian logic is that the individual is not flatly for himself. In himself, he is his otherness and linked with others” (161).

For me, Hegel’s Science of Logic has always been the great white whale, Ulysses, or Finnegans Wake of philosophy. What interests me in Hegel is not what he has to say about Spirit or reconciliation or the formation of a total system where nothing escapes– as absolute knowledge is sometimes thought to be...

No, what interests me about Hegelian dialectics– especially as formulated in the Logic –is its capacity to think otherness, relation, and an immanent tension within a system pushing it to the point of auto-critique. Anyone who musters the will to read the Science of Logic with open eyes, free of the invectives that have been levelled against Hegel by figures such as Lacan, Deleuze, and Derrida, will be deeply rewarded with the conceptual clarity he brings to the table and the various conflicts that he unfolds and which repeat again and again in a variety of different structures of thought. Despite its Joycean prose, it is a work worth studying carefully and returning to again and again as an endless source of ideas. One can literally say, “oh there’s Deleuze, there’s Quine, look there’s Badiou”, and so on...

This, I think, is the real hope and lesson of Hegel’s dialectical reason, for Hegel does not begin from the stance of this sort of immanence– immanence to consciousness –but rather begins from the split nature of that which posits itself as self-identical.]

http://larvalsubjects.wordpress.com/2007/03/12/scattered-thoughts-on-dialectical-reason/






Tusar N Mohapatra said...







Reading Hegel: The Introductions by G.W.F. Hegel (edited and introduced by Aakash Singh and Rimina Mohapatra) ►re.press 2008

Download book as PDF (Open Access)
http://www.re-press.org/content/view/60/38/
Description

Bringing together for the first time all of G.W.F. Hegel’s major Introductions in one place, this book ambitiously attempts to present readers with Hegel’s systematic thought through his Introductions alone. The Editors articulate to what extent, precisely, Hegel’s Introductions truly reflect his philosophic thought as a whole. Certainly each of Hegel’s Introductions can stand alone, capturing a facet of his overarching idea of truth. But compiled all together, they serve to lay out the intricate tapestry of Hegel’s thought, woven with a dialectic that progresses from one book to another, one philosophical moment to another.

Hegel’s reflections on philosophy, religion, aesthetics, history, and law—all included here—have profoundly influenced many subsequent thinkers, from post-Hegelian idealists or materialists like Karl Marx, to the existentialism of Kierkegaard and Jean-Paul Sartre; from the phenomenological tradition of Edmund Husserl to Martin Heidegger, Jacques Derrida and other post-moderns, to thinkers farther afield, like Japan’s famous Kyoto School or India’s Aurobindo. This book provides the opportunity to discern how the ideas of these later thinkers may have originally germinated in Hegel’s writings, as well as to penetrate Hegel’s worldview in his own words, his grand architecture of the journey of the Spirit.















































































































































Sunday, February 14, 2010

Be My Valentine

Sharida,

There is nothing money can say or do,
That can fully describe my love for you,
Through thick and thin, arguments and fights,
There is nothing I long for more than spending my nights...
With you.

Be my Valentine,
Today,
Tonight,
Tomorrow,
Forever...

Love Dave

Friday, February 12, 2010

A Work Stoppage At Hegel's Hotel?

Sorry, Hegel's Hotel is experiencing some construction problems due to management/union discord.

At the heart of this discord is the issue of money -- what else?

Management and employees cannot get it together as to how to 'fairly' divide the 'money pie'.

With this being the case, Hegel's Hotel -- like the Dubai Tower -- is closed (albeit for different reasons) in Hegel's Hotel's case, while management and employees continue to try to get their act together on how to properly pool their resources to maximize profits -- and then get it together on how to split these profits.

Goverments, government political parties, private corporations, corporate or charity organizations, institutions of all kinds, families, marriages -- can all have deep 'splits in their internal and/or external socio-economic-political-philosophical-psychological personalities'. Just like an individual can. When the impasse is too cold or the conflict is too hot, all proper functioning can grind to a halt. And stay that way until the problem or problems are solved; and the conflicts more harmoniously resolved.

Otherwise, you just have one big wrench in the assembly-line of proper individual, partnership, and/or group functioning.

And so it is with Hegel's Hotel.

Ironically -- and paradoxically -- Hegel's Hotel is more or less immobilized by some of the same type(s) of human problems it seeks to fix, and some of the same type(s) of human conflict(s) it seeks to resolve.

Even Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, Reich, Jung, Melanie Klein, Sartre, Foucault, Derrida, Ayn Rand, Nataniel Branden, Fritz Perls, Jeffrey Masson...have all had their individual, relationship, and group problems...There is no such thing as being 'problem and/or conflict free'.


The essence of our existence comes down to how well and/or how poorly we handle our day-to-day problems and/or conflicts.

I read a quote the other day that said something to the effect that: The more we learn about a person the less likely we are to either idolize or hate them...

Presumably because we learn more and more abou the 'whole person' and not just the person's 'idealized persona' and/or his or her 'darker Shadow' or 'narcissistic ego'...

I may be fairly well educated.

I may have a strong creative-integrative side of my personality.

Still there is some significant relevance to 'Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs'...

And some of the baser needs -- when they are insufficiently met -- at the bottom of this hierarchy.

This latest recession-depression is showing many of us, and specifically me, just how much the world of people, corporations, and politics all revolve around money.

On that note, and at this point in time, I definitely have to go back to Business and Economics 101.

I seemed to have missed some important lessons along the way.

Because, financially, both Hegel's Hotel and its builder -- that's me -- have taken a huge financial hit.

And everything grinds to a halt until the money is sorted out.

Even if Hegel's Hotel is only a metaphor,

The person behind it is not.

Hopefully, this stoppage in construction will not last too long.

And hopefully too, my readers will bear with me.

-- dgb, Feb. 12th-13th, 2010

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Part 1, Introduction: Central Ego Functioning (and/or Dysfunctioning): Epistemology, Narcissism, Ethics, Problem Solving, and Action (or Inaction)

Introduction


I'm going to step out of Psychoanalysis for a while -- at least, the deepest, darkest area of Psychoanalysis -- and focus on the inter-relationship, the pluralistic entanglement, between sensory perception, perceptual interpretation, inferences, language and meaning -- all that can be summarized as 'epistemology' (the study of knowledge), and then value judgments, narcissism, ethics, problems and problem-solving, conflicts and conflict-resolving, value choices, and action.

All of this we will summarize as 'Central Ego Functioning (and Dysfunctioning): Epistemology, Narcissism, Ethics, Value Choices, and Action' which is basically a re-working of my Honors Thesis in Psychology in 1979, 30 years ago.

Back in 1979, the essay was called 'Evaluation and Health'. By the time I finished the essay, I knew that there was a considerable amount of work that I hadn't done yet in the area of 'learning', 'memory' and the effect that these two factors -- and others -- can and do have on the functioning and dysfunctioning of 'The Central Ego'. 

Back then, I hadn't even named what I was writing about as 'The Central Ego' yet -- this was a concept that I would start to develop later in the 1980s and 90s after reading numerous Freudian and post-Freudian papers on 'transference', 'narcissism', 'ego-functioning', 'the defense mechanisms', 'Object Relations' and more...

The more I probed into these different areas of Psychoanalytic theorizing, the more I realized that there were 'darker, deeper areas of the psyche that couldn't really be properly described and explained by simply talking about 'The Central Ego'. Rather, there was a need to talk about the subject of 'ego-splitting', 'ego-compartments' or 'ego-departments' and the 'harmonization' or 'disharmonization' of 'The Ego or Self or Psyche-As-A-Whole'.

This is where I got 'stuck in my theorizing' a little later in my self-study project in the 80s and 90s as I was trying to integrate Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Psychoanalysis all into one.

Yet there was a probem here because Adlerian Psychology was always talking about 'unity in the personality' -- as in 'no conflict in the personality' -- whereas both Gestalt Therapy and Psychoanalysis were always talking about either 'conflict' and/or 'resolving conflict' and in the case of Gestalt Therapy -- 'closing the unfinished gestalt, the unfinished situation'.

How was I to reconcile these differences between Gestalt Therapy and Psychonanalysis on the one hand, and Adlerian Psychology on the other hand?

I finally reconciled this theoretical impasse when I came to the conclusion -- not too long ago -- that all three schools of psychology were partly right: that there is both 'conflict' and 'unity' in the personality at the same time to the extent that it makes senses to talk about either 'unified conflict' and/or 'conflicted unity' in the personality.

In effect, this is no different than saying that The Democrat Party is both unified and divided by conflict, or The Republican Party is both unified and divided by conflict, and similarly up here in Canada where we can also talk about it being the nature of all political parties that they are both united and divided at the same time -- on either the same issues and/or different ones.

A political party -- and perhaps even more so, the government-as-a-whole of a democratic country, as with any social, religious, business, and/or political organization -- is only an outer projection, an outer extension, of the inner workings of the human psyche, dominated at different times by this 'compartment of the personality (or government)' or that 'compartment of the personality (or government', by 'this will to power' or 'that will to power' with other subsidiary 'will to powers' being either included or excluded in the democratic process, either harmonized or alienated, either accepted and respected or suppressed and marginalized.

'Ego-splitting' and 'ego harmonizing' is like playing 'Humpty Dumpty' with the psyche.

Whether you believe that all these different 'ego-compartments' -- whether you want to 'create' 2 of them or 20 of them -- are perhaps 'useful conceptual fictions' for educational and teaching purposes, or whether you believe that they are only 'non-useful fictions' that do more to distort and fabricate reality than 'enlighten us' on it, or whether you believe that these different 'ego-compartments' actually exist in the psyche, our main guiding lights should be a combination of 'functionality' and 'practicality' or 'pragmatics' -- as soon as the model we are using -- whether it is a huge one or a small one -- stops being useful and practical, then we should stop using it.

Again, I see partial 'truths' and 'distortions' in all of these different perspectives -- I believe that 'as if fictional concepts' can sometimes be pragmatically useful, even if they don't empirically (objectively) exist.

I am certainly no 'radical empiricist' like Berkeley or Hume, nor am I a 'materialist reductionist' (or a 'reductionist materialist).

Rather, I follow the thinking of my main mentors in 'rational-empricism': philosophers like Sir Francis Bacon, John Locke, most of the Enlightenment Philosophers, Korzybski, Wittgenstein, Hayakawa, Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Erich Fromm, and the like...


If a model doesn't work, you make a better one. If two models or theories oppose each other and they both seem to contain a combination of 'partial truths' and 'partial distortions' -- then you integrate the two theories to make a better dialectically integrative theory. This is essentially what physicists did when they evolved from 'particle theory' to 'wave theory' to 'particle-wave' or what would later be called 'quantum physics'.

I do not support Wittgenstein's idea that the best theory is no theory.

Indeed, man's most significant evolutionary advantage over the rest of the animal kingdom is his ability to 'reason' and to 'make theories' and to 'test these theories' and to the extent that they do not work, to sit down, think things through, test different things, and ultimately to make 'better theories' -- and then pass them down using 'language' and 'symbols' to other men and women who follow in later generaations. Korzybski called this latter decided advantage that man has over the rest of the animal kingdom as 'time-binding' or perhaps alternative stated as 'culture'. Man -- through the use of language and symbols -- has the ability to pass down through the generations much more 'different learnings' than the rest of the animal kingdom is able to do. Another way of saying this is that besides the ability to 'reason', man's other greatest evolutionary advantage over the animal kingdom is 'language'.

This being said -- these two qualities and capabilities: man's ability to reason and his ability to utilize language -- are also potentially man's two most deadly nightmares because man can use both 'reason' and 'language' to distort reality, falsify it, mystify it, fabricate it, contort it, and in the process either lead his fellow man down the 'garden path to a pathological, toxic, never-never land' and/or himself/herself as well.

Summarized, man's two greatest evolutiony strengths -- his ability to think/reason, and his ability to utilize language for the purpose of enhancing both his thinking process and his communication process with other men and women -- are also his two greatest evolutionary weaknesses, the type of weaknesses that can lead us to war, genocide, suicide, mental institutions, neurosis, bi-polar disorders, religious extremism, political extremism, sadism, masochism, cruelty, greed, unbridled narcissism, power, revenge, righteous extremism, extremist cults, nuclear bombs, blowing each other up, abusing our children and spouses...and all of the other 'nasty human surprises' that life -- and death -- can bring us...

So if we are playing 'Humpty Dumpty' with the human psyche, then we have to remember that when we are through conceptually dividing Humpty Dumpty into as many different 'reductonist pieces' as we want to, or feel that we need to, then we have to put Humpty Dumpty back together again so that we can now understand Humpty Dumpty both 'reductionistically' (in all his different 'part-functions') and 'wholistically' (the way that Humpty Dumpty when put back together again functions as a partly conflicted, partly divided, but still -- 'united whole'.

Dialectically speaking, this is what I call 'reductionistic-wholism'. It is what biologists and biochemists and anatomists, and physicists and other scientists of the human body do each and every day when they study the human body and dialectically move back and forth between the study of 'reductionistic part-functions' of the body and the study of 'the united, integrated wholism of the way all these different part-functions come together to engineer the overall performance and functioning of the 'body-as-an-organism'.


This is the same way that I deal with the 'essence' vs. 'existence' paradoxical quandry.

I do not believe in the idea of 'essentialism' by itself or the idea of 'existentialism' by itself but rather in the 'dialectical interplay' between 'essentialism and existentialism' which makes me a dialectically integrative 'essential existentialist' and/or 'existential essentialist'.

In this regard, I do not support Sartre's famous existential formula of 'Existence precedes essence.'

Rather, I view the 'existence vs. essence' paradox as being like 'the chicken and egg' argument -- neither preceding the other but both dialectically engaged with each other -- or not -- such that we can say either that: 1. I have an 'internal Self Essence' which I need to play out in my existence'; or alternatively, 'Through the process of my existence, I can either choose ot make contact with my Self-Essence and/or I can choose to become alienated and dissociated from my Self-Essence'.

Indeed, the preceding statement might be viewed as the 'essence' of Shakespeare' (Hamlet's) most famous statement: 'To be or not to be, that is the question.'

For me, 'Hegel's Hotel' is an external projection of my own internal dialectic interaction and engagement between my Self-Essence and my Self-Wall, or stated differently, between my different 'ego-states' and my willingness vs. reluctance to fully investigate them and either expose them, allude to them, and/or flat out hide them.

As I have written in another paper, no one can deliver their 'pure essence' -- not even Freud or Jung. Rather, we all deliver a combination of 'Essence' and 'Wall'. 'The Wall' is Freud's 'Psychology of Defense'. 'The Essence' is Jung's concept of 'Self'.

But this habit of 'dialectial thinking' and the idea of 'dialectical engagement' is an idea that I only feel fully comfortable with now after 30 years of 'post-undergraduate self-studies in dialectical psychology and philosophy.

It certainly was not where I was in my head 30 years ago when I first wrote 'Evaluation and Health'.

So to make a long story short, let us call this much newer rendition of 'Evaluation and Health' -- 'Dialectic Thinking' Meets 'Evaluation and Health'. Or alternatively, the title that I used to label this essay at the top of the essay:

Central Ego Functioning (and Dysfunctioning): Epistemology, Narcissism, Ethics, Problem-Solving, and Action (or Inaction)

Let us see if we can follow this project all the way through to the end this time as I have started it a number of times in the past -- and got stuck -- leaving this essay to tackle other theoretical problems, ethical problems, and essays.

Hopefully, this time will be different.


-- dgb, Sept. 12th, 2009. modified and updated Feb. 4th, 2010.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still In Process...