The dialectic is nice when people are on the same page, have good will, respect, empathy, and/or chemistry together...Lennon/McCartney at their best.......Dylan/Mike Bloomfield/Al Kooper on Highway 67 Revisted...
However, times change and the dialectic does not always work smoothly.
The dialectic does not usually work as smoothly when people lose their good will, respect, empathy, and/or chemistry towards each other -- and struggle coming to terms with whatever the dialectic problem or conflict is...
Overt and/or covert strife often results, including small or large wars, hot and/or cold tempers, impasses, alienation, aggression, coercion, manipulation, force, intimidation, provocation, retaliation, and so on...
The dialectic process has changed from a smooth, creative one, to a hostile destructive one.
The same husband and wife can work beautifully together when everything is going well together...especially in the earlier stages of their relationship... But can they sustain their good will for each other, their mutual respect and empathy after they have come to know each other's flaws, 'dialectic extremes' and 'dialectic avoidances'...
That is the 50 million dollar dialectic and existential question -- and the mark of whether a long term relationship stays together and can sustain itself in healthy fashion or not...
Same with business partners, co-workers, or employers and employees at work who may or may not be on the same page with each other depending on the context and the history of the situation.
Introduce people's ambitions, greed, selfishness, anal retentiveness, and the opposite...no ethics, no boundaries, no respect -- and the smooth-sailing dialectic starts to falls apart, and with it, the ability to problem solve, conflict-resolve, and worst of all, even the wish and the will to be together to try to sovle and/or resolve things.
Which brings us back to a fundamental question:
Which God(s)/Idol(s)/Archetype(s)/values....does each person most prioritize and/or worship...
Which 'ego-state' is running -- or at least dominating -- each person's individual ship?
Are the different Gods/Values/Priorities compatible?
Or are there different types of 'core nuclear conflicts' within all of their relationships...
That are just buried under the surface, percolating, waiting to boil to the top --
And then boil over,
To become a huge, dramatic soap opera?
Greek soap operas from ancient days gone by...
Spilling over in the sky and onto the ground...
As described in Greek myths like The Iliad and The Odyssey...
Are all too human...too human...
Pointing to arguably three different possible conclusions,
God made man in His/Her own image,
Or, man made God in his/her own image,
Or, Gods are human and humans are Gods...
And they both meet on the shores of Personality Theory...
I like the latter, myself.
-- dgb, Dec. 28th-29th, 2008, updated Jan. 15th, 2011.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
