Congratulations to my dad who just turned 80 years old today!
He has much to feel proud about. Son of a farmer, but with different ambitions to make it as a businessman in the city, my dad started out completely from scratch, and created a million dollar Canadian business which was at least partly a precursor to the internet.
My dad cut a niche in the Canadian -- and the worldwide -- market for 'teaching and advertising machines' that combined two parts of the business: the hardware; and the software. Sound familiar? To be sure, the technology was rather archaic compared to what we enjoy today, but still, the concept was there, and some of the more 'earthbound' parts of the technology were there before the technology exploded upwards and outwards into 'cyberspace'.
If you are old enough, you might remember the days when a teacher might turn out the lights in a classroom, turn on a Carousel slide projector and show slides that would project onto a screen that was pulled down over the wall.
Well, my dad's business went one step further than the Carousel slide projector and converted the slides into what looked like a VCR cartride before I believe there were VCRs. (I will have to check to see when VCR were invented and how long they were in business.) The cartridge was then inserted into one of my dad's teaching/advertising machines with both parts being sold to my dad's retail customers (much like a VCR and a VCR machine)and that was the essence of my dad's business. Sometimes the customer would have their own slides that could be converted; other times, my dad's business would either delve right into, and/or contract out part of the work, to complete the actual 'film-making' part of the business.
The two products -- the teaching/advertising machine (the hardware) and the slide cartridge (software) were 'married' together and sold to the retailer who wanted to either show 'advertising' to his or her customers (they used to be in hardware stores and the like) -- the predecessor of what you can now see in more sophisticated HD technicolour at gas station pumps as you are filling up your gas, or in washrooms as men and women are taking care of their personal business.
In the mid-1970s, while I was working at my dad's business during the summer between my different years at The University of Waterloo (1974-1979), it was not unusual to hear my dad talking about 'building an information highway'....to 'create a software library' of different 'generic' educational films such as 'learning French' or 'learning the metric system' or any of a thousand other educational and/or advertising possibilities (try 'millions' of exploding possibilities as we watch the internet unfold today and expand at an exponential rate faster than any of us -- or a thousand of us -- can come close to keeping up with).
At the height of his business, my dad was going on trade missions all over the world, building his business in England, doing his 'thing' in the boardroom of McMillan Publishers, England, if my memory serves me right, he was selected to go on a Canadian trade mission to Japan, he was on a trade mission to Brazil...he was constantly doing business with his main U.S. supplier... and I am sure there are many trade missions elsewhere I am forgetting.
On the community level, my dad as President of The Don Mills Baseball Association, in conjunction with Kiwanas, around the late 60s, early 70s, with the help of important people who were working with him, built the baseball side of Bond Park from the bottom up...putting in new diamonds, a food concession booth, baseball stands, baseball lights, and baseball fences...
Some of my fellow baseball team mates there went on to establish strong careers in sports or elsewhere...Mike Palmateer, goaltender for the Toronto Maple Leafs; Dan Hill, folksinger; Rob Bowman, one of my best friends at the time, now a professor in music history at York University. Rob introduced me to Bob Dylan and 'Highway 61, Revisted' -- 'Like A Rolling Stone', 'Ballad of A Thin Man', 'Desolation Row'... in my townhouse basement, as we played 'ping pong' together. And he introduced me to the 'roots of the blues' in our late teens as he was interviewing the blues masters for the rock magazine...'Beetle Magazine'...and together, on the second floor, overlooking the rail, we watched the fabulous shows of...Muddy Waters, 'Howlin' Wolf', John Lee Hooker, John Hammond, Buddy Guy...and more...
There were some great individual and team performances that came out of this time period. My brother threw a very rare 'no hitter' at The CNE 'Tyke' or 'Atom' Baseball Tournament one year. When I was in my late teens, I coached a 'tyke' or 'atom' allstar baseball team (kids that were a year younger than my brother) with my dad. With all due respect to everyone else who went through Bond Park, this was probably the most talented group of very young athletes that I have ever seen pass through Bond Park (and their were some very talented teams at older age levels with Mike Palmateer playing shortstop, pitching, and catching.) Most of tykes my dad and I coached that year (9, 10 and/or 11 year olds) were playing all star hockey during the winter for one of the most talented hockey teams in Toronto at that time -- The Don Valley Hockey Club. (With connections, they practised at Maple Leaf Gardens early Sunday mornings.)
Anyway, one of our baseball tournaments that year was in Brantford, Ontario. We ended up in the finals against the Brantford team. In the best pitching duel that I have seen at that age group, we lost a nail-biter in the finals, 1-0. Wayne Gretzky was pitching for Brantford.
In politics, my dad, during these years, was a political and community activist, involved with politicians and their campaigns at the municipal level of Don Mills, and Toronto, the provincial level, and the federal level. At different times, he has supported both Liberal and Conservative Politicians. My dad has always liked Stephen Harper. (I have usually had mixed feelings about him.) Perhaps my father's biggest disappointment was not seeing Preston Manning voted Prime Minister of Canada. His basic opinion was that the Liberal Party and the Canadian media stereotyped and 'trashed and destroyed' The Reform Party as a 'right wing extremist, and religiously based Political Party. (Almost sounds like the Bush-led Republicans although I don't think Preston Manning was that far right wing. I am not sure. I still want to read his biography.) It might have been interesting to see where Preston Manning and The Reform Party might have taken Canada. Would it have been a better or worse place than we are today?
My father is now retired (and healthier than I am). He is also a very good Canadian, Romantic Poet. You can find his work on the 21st Century Romanticism blogsite of Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy.
I dedicate Hegel's Hotel to my dad -- when he said he liked the name 'Hegel's Hotel', I kept it -- Hegel's Hotel is dedicated to my dad's visionary idealism and to his community activism, to his many achievements in the business world, the community and political world, and to the romantic idealism in his Canadian poetry.
I will include below us here, a collection of twelve of my favorite poems of his...
Thank you, Dad, for all you have given me in terms of a tremendously intelligent, passionate, and caring role model to follow:
-- dgb, April 2nd-3rd, 2009.
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'The Big Bang'
This is the anniversary
Of my world,
The big bang
When everything began.
The stars looked new
And wonderful,
My universe spun around you.
What began so simply,
Grew,
And so did I,
Like life itself.
How weak I was,
And you so strong to see,
Deep within my soul
And in your wisdom,
Set me free.
Of this our day,
We pause our climb,
And look around;
So high,
Yet still your feet
Stand anchored
There upon the ground.
I think my thoughts,
And go my way,
And dream of what might be.
You smile and soothe
My worried brow.
I look around, and see you,
Everywhere
In flowers that bloom,
And birds that sing,
In air I breathe,
In everything.
When I look back,
I see you there;
When I look forward,
You're also there.
My pal,
My friend,
My love,
My wife.
-- Gordon William Bain
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For A Bag of Coal
The winds had blown snow over roads and the fence,
The days had passed slowly, the cold was intense.
A family sat huddled to preserve any heat,
The mother sat rubbing her children's small feet,
The father was working a job far away,
No help could he bring to the family that day.
The frost made cathedrals seem real on the panes,
Nothing was moving, not even the trains.
From the edge of the huddle, a boy slipped away,
Outside in the snowbanks he looked for his sleigh.
Scarcely nine the young boy heard a voice to him say,
"Go out and get coal. I will show you the way."
Across the deep banks he pulled his small sleigh,
Through wind driven snow, the boy found his way,
He rapped on the window of the one grocery store,
The owner came rushing and opened the door.
"Hello Mr. Barkley," said a voice in the coat,
"Its coal that I need sir, We're in a bit of a boat."
The kindly old man brought the boy in the store,
Put him close to the stove, his clothes on the floor.
"A fifty pound bag sir; can you make it a loan?
I'm in a hurry you see, I need to get home."
With a rope from the store the coal tied to the sleigh,
A wave and a thank you, and the boy was away.
"Well," said the man, his hair tinged with gray,
"I somehow got back with the coal on that day.
I knew from that moment, I could be my own man,
So long as my Lord kept hold of my hand."
I've come back from away where riches I've found,
In far away forests, and from rocks in the ground.
This was the house; it's here that I see,
The faces I long for to look back at me.
He smiled from his seat in the room he was born,
Looked at the stove that had once kept them warm.
"I've been my own person, strong in heart and in soul,
By remembering the day I went looking for coal."
-- Gordon Bain, October, 2008.
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The Orchestra Played A Love Song
When I was young, I dreamed my dream,
As I turned a handle that made the cream,
While feeding cows, and cackling hens,
Grunting pigs in smelly pens.
I dreamed of you, imagined your face,
The way you would walk with queenly grace.
While in the fields, wheat sheaves to stack.
Long flowing gowns, men dressed in black,
Of concert halls, with kings and queens,
Were all a part of my childhood dreams.
I grew. One unsuspecting day, I saw you,
Walking tall, elegant, and in my heart, I knew.
On my arm, you danced; softly, as a feather falls.
To my mind came visions of concert halls.
Cymbals crashed, the drum roll grew,
The percussionist stood, and it was you.
The maestro turned, baton in hand,
As though the score had all been planned,
The spotlight paused, then moved along,
The orchestra played a love song.
We walk now, where once we ran,
A pause to celebrate where it all began,
A pride in our children; their children too,
Lives we have shared while each of us grew.
The places we've been, the people we've known,
Our love for each other, and what it has grown.
We celebrate the past, but reach out to the new.
Listen my darling, can you hear it too?
The orchestra is playing
a love song for you.
-- gordon william bain, Thursday September 4th, 2008.
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A Stake Of Gold
I crouched in the door of The Last Drop Cafe,
When out of the freezing cold,
Came a man of strength, who took my arm,
And spoke of finding gold.
'Come', he said, 'Stand tall my friend.
Look north with eyes that see.
If it is only the past you live,
Then the future can never be.
You can die as quick on a southern beach,
As under a frozen tree.
It isn't the beach that warms the soul,
It's God's love for you and me.'
I looked in his face as he spoke my name,
I felt warmth instead of cold.
By looking at things in a different way,
I found my stake of gold.
GWB, Gordon William Bain,
February, 2002.
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Growing Up With Dad
Father image of stories told,
Arms that would not give.
I was young, and he was old,
I wanted free to live.
No matter the place, nor what I did,
His shadow followed me.
To him, I would always be a kid.
He could not set me free.
Sadly then, I rang the bell
And we began to fight.
I slipped away from his magic spell
And into my silent night.
I didn't know that when we fought
It would all turn out so bad.
I know now that what I sought
Was to be just like dad.
GWB, Gordon William Bain
October, 2003.
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The Dog That Climbed The Tree
There is a story told
By young and old,
Of a dog that climbed a tree.
The old and wise,
With failing eyes,
Say that could never be.
But children smile,
And all the while,
Retell it as thought the truth,
It happened they say,
On a sunny day,
In a tree of ripening fruit.
Buddy barked long
At the birds of song,
And all that would steal the fruit.
Until a flash of red
From the forest bed
Shrilled like a piper's flute.
With the gauntlet down,
They crowded around,
Forest people wanted to see,
How Buddy would fare,
From up in the air,
If a dog can't climb a tree.
'Oh no,' said the badger,
And shook his head,
'Dogs can't climb,
Buddy will soon be dead!'
'Ah,' said the rabbit,
'If I were him,
I would run away,
At the slightest whim!'
'No,' said the fox,
'He must use his mind,
If ever an answer,
He's going to find.'
The squirrel leaped high,
In a move to fly
Past Buddy the mighty pup.
The threat was huge,
As the predator moved,
But the dog would not give up.
The wind had blown,
When the tree had grown,
In time it had learned to lean.
Buddy just glared,
His teeth were bared,
He ran with a mighty scream.
Buddy ran the slant,
Althought dogs just can't,
He was suddenly up the tree.
And there was his foe,
With nowhere to go,
Just as surprised as he could be.
People say,
That on that day,
The enemies made a deal.
For a total reprieve,
The squirrel could leave,
If he never again would steal.
The story here
Is one of mirth,
But the moral is there to see.
Face up to trouble,
And don't give up,
Because dogs can climb a tree.
GWB, Gordon William Bain,
2002 or 2003? Precise date unknown
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An Ode to a Cook Stove
Pause gentle stranger, and stay a spell.
Imagine the story I have to tell.
You see my door, and note its name.
And wonder if it is one of fame.
The richness here is what I've baked,
And the happy people who sat and ate.
For I was a part of a hundred lives.
Ten thousand times,
I worked for them, and heard their sighs.
A life begins, another dies.
They are the people you now call old.
For them I strived to break the cold.
I cooked their meals
And warmed their night.
When all else failed,
I brought them light.
Pause gentle stranger and shed a tear,
For the forgotten memories buried here.
GWB, Gordon William Bain,
February 2002.
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Trains, Trails, and Creosote Stains
Long swaths cut through a forest green.
Railroad engines powered by steam.
But no rails now in wait for trains,
Charging through with wood and grains.
Occasional trestle, overgrown ties,
Creosote stains where memory dies.
For some who walk and remember when
Steam engines pounded the wood and glen.
Nostalgia comes, old eyes form tears
Happy memories of former years.
Beautiful island of reddened shale,
Now boasts long miles of nature trail.
GWB, Gordon William Bain,
October 2003.
A Blade of Grass
I sat on a bench as the world rushed past.
Aware of the dew, and a blade of grass.
The warming sun had begun its climb.
The grass, the dew and a need for time.
From out of the morning, a sudden breeze.
Played hide and seek among the trees.
The grass blade trembled, the wind went slack.
Dewdrops were moving along its back.
Then down they went along the stem.
Where thirsty roots were awaiting them.
High in the sky the sun looked down.
Dewdrops now safely underground.
It stood there proudly in its cloak of green.
I was in awe of what I had seen.
How infinitely wonderous is nature's task.
The sun, the dewdrops, and a blade of grass.
GWB, Gordon Bain
October, 2002.
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Permission to Dream
White clouds in my window, a backdrop of blue.
The scent of red clover, the shimmer of dew.
I breathe deeply, and watch; purple finch are at play.
I'm in love with the picture. It's a beautiful day.
A far distant rumble, I turn with a start.
Blackness is tearing my picture apart.
Flashes of yellow cut through a dark sky.
Two forces move closer, so like you and I.
Rain begins falling, the threatening storm.
Now a canvas on which a new picture is born.
Beautiful rainbow of gold, red and green.
Symbol of hope, permission to dream.
Framed by my window, now etched in my mind.
Mother Nature the painter -- one of a kind.
GWB, Gordon William Bain,
September, 2003.
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Lure of The Spider
I walked in the morning, my feet wet with dew,
The gardens in splendour with things that they grew.
Respite from big business, its smiles made of paste,
No tolerance in nature for chameleon waste.
I smiled with thought, then stopped at a bed.
At my feet was a spider, she was building a web.
Three silken lines were first put into place,
Circular strands made a hammock in space.
Around and around went the weave and the wrap,
She crossed in the middle and finished the trap.
The sun glinted down, the wait then began,
To lure the unwary at the heart of her plan.
Breathtaking beauty, gentle wind and the sky,
From out of the bushes along came a fly.
It casually landed, then tried to move,
Advantage the spider, its victim would lose.
How close seem the life games of nature and man,
Was my thought as I turned, my briefcase in hand.
GWB, Gordon William Bain,
November, 2003.
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The Happy Waitress
"My life is quite ordinary, not exciting at all,"
Said the young waitress as we spoke in the hall.
"But surely," I asked, "that cannot be true,
The room comes alive when you do what you do.
Many times we have watched you without being seen,
At home with the rich, or with those in between.
An old man seems friendless, he comes in all alone,
Moves to "his" table, you welcome him home.
Two people sit down, one is ill and in pain,
Your smile is contagious, you call them by name.
We watch as you move, the room comes to life,
Love of job, like white linen under food, fork and knife.
But it is your love of people that sets you apart,
And makes you so special, I speak from the heart.
Each day touching lives, in what you say and you do,
Using gifts and a talent that comes to but few."
-- Gordon Bain, October, 03, 2008.
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My Valentine
There was this close encounter with death,
On the road through a trillion trees.
A frigid cold like none on earth,
The two of us in a place where all things freeze.
One moment was all it took to feel,
The crush of eighteen tires.
God's hand reached down and found us,
Among the metal, glass, and wires.
In New Brunswick, the wind and snow still blows.
From the mountains come frozen air.
Brave travellers pass the snow filled ditch,
No sign that we were there.
On this day when lovers proclaim in verse,
Their love to sweetheart or wife.
I raise a brandy and toast our love,
My darling, you saved my life.
You smile and love is there,
And here, inside my heart.
You are my soul, and so it is
From day to day, throughout my space and time,
You are my valentine.
GWB, Gordon William Bain,
February, 2005.
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Thursday, April 2, 2009
Wednesday, April 1, 2009
DGB Philosophy Traces the Roots of Western and Eastern Dialectic Philosophy To Their Tiangulation in German Idealism (Kant, Schelling, Hegel, Marx)
In previous essays I have criticized Nietzsche for separating from Hegel's 'Dualistic-Dialectic Philosophy' after Nietzsche's creatively brilliant first book -- 'The Birth of Tragedy (BT)' -- took 'Hegelian Dialectic Thinking' to a higher evolutionary plateau, combining Hegel's dialectic philosophy with the human drama, passion, and the beginning of 'dialectic-humanistic-existentialism' which Nietzsche traced back to the pre-Socratic writings of Homer, Greek theatre, and other ancient renditions of Greek Tragedy -- brought up to date and 'dialectically analyzed' by Nietzsche.
The ripeness of Nietzsche's combined 'old and new philosophical fruit' -- the product of a cross fertilization of early Greek dualistic-dialectic philosophy (Apollo vs. Dionysus) and later Hegelian dualistic-dialectic thinking (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis) was so 'nutritional' that the 'intellectual and humanistic-existential value' of this cross-fertilized fruit is still exploding off the BT fruit tree some 200 years later, first through the work of Freud and Jung in the early 1900s, then in the therapeutic work of Perls and Gestalt Therapy, and Berne and Transactional Analysis in the 1960s and onward, and finally, right up into the 21st century through the work of DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-Religion-Science-Medicine...which is still evolving in 2009.
Indeed, it is partly too bad that Nietzsche ventured away from BT or he could have almost 'created' Psychoanalysis himself. Indeed, in this one little book -- BT -- Nietzsche almost did create Psychoanalysis. The details just needed to be filled out a bit more through Freud and Jung in their clinical and theoretical work to soon come...BT, in my opinion, remains a much overlooked piece of work in terms of its mega-influence on Freud, Jung, and eventually Perls and Gestalt Therapy. BT was the 'integrative bridge' between Greek Tragedy, Hegel, Schopenhauer and Freud.
But what happened is what happened -- a matter of Nietzsche's own personal and philosophical evolutionary development -- and Nietzsche had other 'fruits he wanted to grow off of other philosophical trees...'.
Nietsche's later 'Will to Power' Theory, his 'Cliff, Abyss, and Tightrope' Theory relative to 'Being and Becoming', and his 'Superman' Theory would do much to lay the groundwork for Heidegger, Sartre, and 20th Century Humanistic-Existentialism.
In this regard, Hegel once again led the way in the evolution of 19th and 20th century Humanistic-Existentialism with his theories of 'The Master-Slave Relationship' and 'Alienation' (to be jumped on by Marx) and then Kierkegaard in his rebellion against 'Hegel's 'Absolute' Abstactionism and Universalism' with his own counter-philosophy of 'Existential Concretism' (albeit Kierkegaard could and did write very abstractly as well).
Schopenhauer, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche all had a hugely important impact on the growth of 19th, 20th, and even 21st century philosophy -- and all of their ideas sprang from arguably the most important philosophical work in Western history -- Hegel's 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (1807). Even Darwin's later 19th century work in biology and evolutionary theory can be seen -- directly or indirectly -- to have a Hegelian foundation.
And if we really want to fully understand that Hegel's dualistic-dialectic philosophy did not just 'spring out of nowhere', then we must give proper credit to the previous German Idealistic philosophical work of all three of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling -- and furthermore, we need to go right back to the very philosophical roots that Nietzsche did -- back to the roots of Greek -- and all -- mythology, back to the mythological 'dualism' of 'Apollo' vs. 'Dionysus', back to the second oldest philosopher in Western history -- Anaxamander -- and his patriarchal 'power and conquest dialectic theory'; and also back to Anaxamander's indirect student -- Heraclitus -- and the latter's more 'matriarchal philosophy' -- a philosophy of 'opposite things, opposite processes, opposite ideas all coming together 'for the good of the whole dialectic-democratic harmony'.
However, perhaps the most important 'dialectic connection' to be made in the history of dialectic philosophy is the one I am just about to make now. I have been searching on the internet for an answer to a question that needed to take me into the deepest depths of Chinese philosophy -- or at least as deep as anyone else on the internet could take me.
The question that I started asking myself about 2006-2007 in one of my first introductory essays in Hegel's Hotel ran something like this:
Where did the Chinese philosophical concepts and symbols of 'yin' and 'yang' originate from?
I had the symbols traced back to 'The Han Philosophers' -- a group of very important Chinese philosophers who were trying to 'integrate China' back in The Han Dynasty' by 'integrating a number of different important philosophies and philosophers' who had greatly influenced the evolution of China -- before and until 'The Ch'in Dynasty, a totalitarian Chinese government that existed from 221-207BC -- did much to start tearing the philosophical foundations, and the spirit, of the Chinese people apart through their totalitarian, anti-humanistic, anti-democratic measures.
Even this following piece from the internet on 'The Han Synthesis' I am reading this morning for the first time. Sometimes -- like now -- I shake my head to realize that not only is my own philosophical work constantly evolving, but so too is the work of other philosophers and writers on the internet, and information that was just not available to me two or three years ago is clearly available now. These following two pieces greatly help the evolution of my own work in Hegel's Hotel here:
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From the internet....
Ancient China: The Han Synthesis
After the disastrous period of totalitarian government during the Ch'in dynasty (221-207 B. C.), the early Han dynasty (207 B.C.-9 A.D.) returned to older forms of imperial government. However, they adopted from the Ch'in the idea of an absolutely central government and spent most of their period in power trying to regain the same level of centrality that the Ch'in and the Legalists had so ruthlessly accomplished. This ideology of central government, along with the Legalists' attempts to standardize Chinese culture and Chinese philosophy, led thinkers of the Han to attempt to unify all the rival schools of Chinese thought and philosophy that had developed over the previous three hundred years. This unification of Chinese into a single coherent system is the most lasting legacy of the Han dynasty. Earlier, the Legalists attempted to standardize Chinese thought by burning the books of rival schools and by making it a capital crime to speak of Confucius, Lao Tzu, or Mo Tzu. The Han thinkers, who thoroughly despised the Legalists and their methods while adopting many of their goals, took a different approach. Rather than reject alternate ways of thinking, they took a syncretic approach and attempted to fuse all the rival schools of thought into a single system. This syncretic project of the early Han is known as the Han synthesis. In many ways it was similar to the larger project of unifying Chinese government.
Chinese Philosophy
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Confucius
Legalism
Mo Tzu
Taoism
The Han philosophers concentrated specifically on the Five Classics, attempting to derive from them, particularly the I ching , or Book of Changes, the principle of the workings of the universe, or Tao. This new theory of the universe they appended to the I ching ; this appendix explains the metaphysical workings of the entire universe. Once the overall workings of the unverse were understood, then every form of thought could be directly related to each other by appealing to the basic principles of the universe.
Chinese Philosophy
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Pre-Confucian China and the Five Classics
The essentials of the Han synthesis are as follows: the universe is run by a single principle, the Tao, or Great Ultimate. This principle is divided into two opposite principles, or two principles which oppose one another in their actions, yin and yang. All the opposites one perceives in the universe can be reduced to one of the opposite forces. In general, these forces are distinguished by their role in producing creation and producing degeneration: yang is the force of creation and yin the force of completion and degeneration. The yin and yang are further differentiated into five material agents, or wu hsing , which both produce one another and overcome one another. All change in the universe can be explained by the workings of yin and yang and the progress of the five material agents as they either produce one another or overcome one another. This is a universal explanatory principle. All phenomena can be understood using yin-yang and the five agents: the movements of the stars, the workings of the body, the nature of foods, the qualities of music, the ethical qualities of humans, the progress of time, the operations of government, and even the nature of historical change. All things follow this order so that all things can be related to one another in some way: one can use the stars to determine what kind of policy to pursue in government, for instance.
Chinese Philosophy
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Wu-hsing
Yin/Yang
Since the Han thinkers had come up with a tool to explain historical and political events, the writing of history took off exponentially during the early Han and later. History became more than a repository of good and bad examples of government, as it had for the ancient Chinese, it became the working out of the yin-yang or five agents system as it applied to human affairs. This meant that the writing of history demanded accuracy, that the facts be laid out with great precision and indifference so that the workings of yin-yang could be followed precisely. The Han, then, developed a rigorously factual approach to history at a very early time in Chinese history. In government, the Han thinkers essentially adopted the Legalist attitude that human beings fundamentally behave badly, but they changed the doctrine significantly. The Han thinkers believed that people behaved in a depraved way because they had no choice; economic and social conditions forced them to behave badly. For at heart, all human beings desire only material well-being; in order to make people behave virtuously, the government should make it possible that the ends of virtue (the well-being of others) and the pursuit of individual well-being should be coterminous, that is, material benefits should accrue to virtuous acts (that's one-half of the Legalist formula). The emperor would bring this about through two means. First, the emperor and the government is responsible for setting up conditions in which people can derive material benefit from productive labor; the stress on productivity, of course, is derived from the Legalists and Mo Tzu. Second, the emperor can provide an example. It is the job of the emperor to care for the welfare of his people (Confucianism), yet at the same time, the Emperor should withdraw from active rule (Taoism). How did the Emperor rule then? By providing a living example of benevolence. This model of Chinese government would remain dominant well into the twentieth century.
Chinese Philosophy
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Mo Tzu
China Glossary
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DGB Philosophy...cont'd...
So the final name that I have been looking for in the past two or three years turns out to be not who I thought it was afterall -- Confucious -- but rather a man of equally or even greater real or perhaps mythological importance: Lao Tse, one of the chief philosophical architects of Taoism or Daoism.
Let's read a bit about Lao Tse -- again, information that was not available to me on the internet about 2 or 3 years ago (or at least I couldn't find the complete 'answer to the puzzle' I was looking for back then. It's not that the information wasn't out there -- somewhere. After all, there are millions and millions of 'Taoists' out there who were practicing this philosophy thousands of years ago, with ancestors who are still studying and practicing it now.
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From the internet...yin and yang...Taoism (Daoism)...Lao Tse....
Taoism (a.k.a. Daoism)
Western traditions
The Taoist Ying Yang symbol:
Quotations:
"Be still like a mountain and flow like a great river." Lao Tse.
"Without going out of your door, You can know the ways of the world. Without peeping through your window, you can see the Way of Heaven. The farther you go, The less you know. Thus, the Sage knows without traveling, Sees without looking, And achieves without struggle." Lao Tse.
"Different Chinese philosophers, writing probably in 5-4 centuries B.C., presented some major ideas and a way of life that are nowadays known under the name of Taoism, the way of correspondence between man and the tendency or the course of natural world." Alan Watts, from his book: "Tao: The Watercourse Way."
"We believe in the formless and eternal Tao, and we recognize all personified deities as being mere human constructs. We reject hatred, intolerance, and unnecessary violence, and embrace harmony, love and learning, as we are taught by Nature. We place our trust and our lives in the Tao, that we may live in peace and balance with the Universe, both in this mortal life and beyond." Creed of the Reform Taoist Congregation 1
"For more than two thousand years, Daoism has evolved in close interaction with the other major traditions of China--Confucianism, Buddhism, ethnic creeds, and popular religion--and adapted many of their features. To the present day, Daoism consists of a multiplicity of beliefs and practices, and continues to develop, as it has for the past millennia, through the interaction between differentiation and integration--the move to change in accordance with political, cultural, and economic developments versus the urge to create stability through belief systems, lineage lines, rituals, and myths." From the Amazon.com review of the book "Daoist Identity: History, lineage and ritual.
History of Taoism:
Tao (pronounced "Dow") can be roughly translated into English as path, or the way. It is basically indefinable. It has to be experienced. It "refers to a power which envelops, surrounds and flows through all things, living and non-living. The Tao regulates natural processes and nourishes balance in the Universe. It embodies the harmony of opposites (i.e. there would be no love without hate, no light without dark, no male without female.)" 2
The founder of Taoism is believed by many to be Lao-Tse (604-531 BCE), a contemporary of Confucius. (Alternative spellings: Lao Tze, Lao Tsu, Lao Tzu, Laozi, Laotze, etc.). He was searching for a way that would avoid the constant feudal warfare and other conflicts that disrupted society during his lifetime. The result was his book: Tao-te-Ching (a.k.a. Daodejing). Others believe that he is a mythical character.
Taoism started as a combination of psychology and philosophy but evolved into a religious faith in 440 CE when it was adopted as a state religion. At that time Lao-Tse became popularly venerated as a deity. Taoism, along with Buddhism and Confucianism, became one of the three great religions of China. With the end of the Ch'ing Dynasty in 1911, state support for Taoism ended. Much of the Taoist heritage was destroyed during the next period of warlordism. After the Communist victory in 1949, religious freedom was severely restricted. "The new government put monks to manual labor, confiscated temples, and plundered treasures. Several million monks were reduced to fewer than 50,000" by 1960. 3 During the cultural revolution in China from 1966 to 1976, much of the remaining Taoist heritage was destroyed. Some religious tolerance has been restored under Deng Xiao-ping from 1982 to the present time.
Taoism currently has about 20 million followers, and is primarily centered in Taiwan. About 30,000 Taoists live in North America; 1,720 in Canada (1991 census). Taoism has had a significant impact on North American culture in areas of "acupuncture, herbalism, holistic medicine, meditation and martial arts..." 3
Taoist concepts, beliefs and practices:
Tao is the first-cause of the universe. It is a force that flows through all life.
"The Tao surrounds everyone and therefore everyone must listen to find enlightenment." 4
Each believer's goal is to harmonize themselves with the Tao.
Taoism has provided an alternative to the Confucian tradition in China. The two traditions have coexisted in the country, region, and generally within the same individual.
The priesthood views the many gods as manifestations of the one Dao, "which could not be represented as an image or a particular thing." The concept of a personified deity is foreign to them, as is the concept of the creation of the universe. Thus, they do not pray as Christians do; there is no God to hear the prayers or to act upon them. They seek answers to life's problems through inner meditation and outer observation.
In contrast with the beliefs and practices of the priesthood, most of the laity have "believed that spirits pervaded nature...The gods in heaven acted like and were treated like the officials in the world of men; worshipping the gods was a kind of rehearsal of attitudes toward secular authorities. On the other hand, the demons and ghosts of hell acted like and were treated like the bullies, outlaws, and threatening strangers in the real world; they were bribed by the people and were ritually arrested by the martial forces of the spirit officials." 3
Time is cyclical, not linear as in Western thinking.
Taoists strongly promote health and vitality.
Five main organs and orifices of the body correspond to the five parts of the sky: water, fire, wood, metal and earth.
Each person must nurture the Ch'i (air, breath) that has been given to them.
Development of virtue is one's chief task. The Three Jewels to be sought are compassion, moderation and humility.
Taoists follow the art of "wu wei," which is to let nature take its course. For example, one should allow a river to flow towards the sea unimpeded; do not erect a dam which would interfere with its natural flow.
One should plan in advance and consider carefully each action before making it.
A Taoists is kind to other individuals, in part because such an action tends to be reciprocated.
Taoists believe that "people are compassionate by nature...left to their own devices [they] will show this compassion without expecting a reward." 5
The Yin Yang symbol:
This is a well known Taoist symbol. "It represents the balance of opposites in the universe. When they are equally present, all is calm. When one is outweighed by the other, there is confusion and disarray." 4 One source explains that it was derived from astronomical observations which recorded the shadow of the sun throughout a full year. 5 The two swirling shapes inside the symbol give the impression of change -- the only constant factor in the universe. One tradition states that Yin (or Ying; the dark side) represents the breath that formed the earth. Yang (the light side) symbolizes the breath that formed the heavens.
One source states: "The most traditional view is that 'yin' represents aspects of the feminine: being soft, cool, calm, introspective, and healing... and "yang" the masculine: being hard, hot, energetic, moving, and sometimes aggressive. Another view has the 'yin' representing night and 'yang' day. 5
Another source offers a different definition: A common misconception in the west is that "...yin is soft and passive and yang is hard and energetic. Really it is yang that is soft and yin that is hard, this is because yang is energetic and yin is passive. Yin is like a rock and yang is like water or air, rock is heavy and hard and air is soft and energetic." 8
Allan Watts, describes the yin and yang as negative and positive energy poles: "The ideograms indicate the sunny and shady sides of a hill....They are associated with the masculine and the feminine, the firm and the yielding, the strong and the weak, the light and the dark, the rising and the falling, heaven and earth, and they are even recognized in such everyday matters as cooking as the spicy and the bland." 9,10
However, since nothing in nature is purely black or purely white, the symbol includes a small black spot in the white swirl, and a corresponding white spot in the black swirl.
Ultimately, the 'yin' and 'yang' can symbolize any two polarized forces in nature. Taosts believe that humans often intervene in nature and upset the balance of Yin and Yang.
About the name: Taoism or Daoism:
There are two commonly used systems for translating the Mandarin Chinese language into Roman letters:
Wade-Giles: This system is commonly used in Taiwan and the U.S. The Chinese character for "Way" becomes "Tao," which leads to the English word "Taoism."
Hanyu pinyin or Pinyin: This system was developed by the Chinese people and is now finding increased use worldwide. The "Way" becomes "Dao," which leads to the English word "Daoism." The "Dao" is pronounced like the "Dow" in "Dow-Jones Index."
We have chosen to emphasize the "Taoism" spelling. A Google search for "Taoism" returned 245,000 hits, whereas a search for "Daoism" returned only 35,000.
Tai Chi:
There is a long history of involvement by Taoists in various exercise and movement techniques. 6 Tai chi in particular works on all parts of the body. It "stimulates the central nervous system, lowers blood pressure, relieves stress and gently tones muscles without strain. It also enhances digestion, elimination of wastes and the circulation of blood. Moreover, tai chi's rhythmic movements massage the internal organs and improve their functionality." Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that illness is caused by blockages or lack of balance in the body's "chi" (intrinsic energy). Tai Chi is believed to balance this energy flow.
Taoist Texts:
These include:
Tao-te-Ching ("The Way of Power," or "The Book of the Way") is believed to have been written by Lao-Tse. It describes the nature of life, the way to peace and how a ruler should lead his life.
Chuang-tzu (named after its author) contains additional teachings.
Taoist web sites:
Taoist course, books and objects: Lao Tzu and Taoism Revealed: A 40-day course delivered by email. You may learn more about the life and philosophy of Lao Tzu, including the study of Tao Te Ching, and concepts like tao, wu-wei, wu, and more. Register here. More information
The LaoZi Academy in Sydney, Australia, teaches "... the fundamentals and secrets of ancient Daoist life. The Academy delivers clear and concise principles and practice methods used by ancient Daoist masters in the pursuit of health, happiness and longevity many thousands of years ago." See: http://www.laoziacademy.com/
MoreLight.net publishes a number of books from the Taoist canon, including The Primordial Breath, Volumes 1 & 2, and Oneirocritica (The Interpretation of Dreams). See: http://morelight.net/
Mr. Sage's Philosophical Taoist Homepage's intent is to give a more scientific, astro-physics, philosophical, as well as traditional esoteric view on Taoism. See: http://members.aol.com/
Sacred Mountain Press publishes Taoist works. Their "... goal is to make interesting, beautiful, and reliable Taoist information as accessible to the general public as that of any other major religious or spiritual tradition." See: http://www.smpress.com
"Tao Resource" is a web site that imports authentic Taoist products to help people improve their "personal or sacred space, to build a small Taoist shrine or even to construct a large Taoist temple." This site is well worth perusing. It has sections showing altar tables, bells & chimes, jewelry, statuary, personal altars, etc. See http://www.taoresource.com/
Tai Chi: "Is Tai Chi the Ultimate Exercise?," an essay on Tai Chi at:
http://www.utah.edu/
"The International Taoist Tai Chi Society" � is the largest non-profit Tai Chi group in the world. See: http://www.taoist.org
Taoist message board, discussion forum, etc: The "real Tao" message board is a "brand new Taoist Forum" at: http://pub18.ezboard.com/
A Taoist discussion forum named in the spirit of Jack Keroac and the Dharma Bums, is at http://www.TheTaoBums.com It is a "Friendly, active, nonsectarian discussion forum for Taoism, qigong, tai chi, yoga, meditation and much more!"
Taoist web sites: The Center TaoTaoist Thought and Fellowship in Santa Cruz, CA provides monthly meetings and an extensive forum. See: http://www.centertao.org/
Daoist Arts contains essays on Daoist History, Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan), Qigong and other Taoist matters. They have a free newsletter. See: http://www.daoistarts.org/
Bill Mason's Taoism Page is at: http://www.taoism.net This web site emphasizes the practical application of the Tao to everyday life.
Maury Merkin, "Daoism in brief," is at: http://www.his.com/ This website offers a brief introduction to Taoism and a glossary of terms.
This website is dedicated to Purist Taoism in the tradition and wisdom of Lao-Tzu.
Jeff Rasmussen's Tao Te Ching web site features an illustrated Tao Te Ching, an introduction to Taoism, and links. See: http://www.symynet.com/
Reform Taoism has an excellent web site which publishes their creed and beliefs on dozens of important topics. See: http://www.reformtaoism.org
" The Taoist Canon: A guide to studies and reference works" at: http://weber.ucsd.edu/
The "Taoism Depot" contains a Taoism discussion forum, live chat and a wide range of resources. See: http://www.edepot.com/
The "Taoism Information Page" is at: http://www.religiousworlds.com/
The "Taoism Depot" contains a Taoism discussion forum, live chat and a wide range of resources. See: http://www.edepot.com/
The Taoism Initiation Page has a great deal of information about Taoism and a Taoism course that leads to initiation. is at: http://www.taopage.org
The Taoist Restoration Society (TRS) is "a U.S. nonprofit corporation dedicated to the rehabilitation and rebirth of China's Taoist tradition." See: http://www.taorestore.org/ Offline as of 2007-AUG-29
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Now -- to use a Freudian metaphor -- 'We have reached the source of The Nile.' (And it is not 'The Oedipal Complex'.)
As of this moment -- Hegel's Hotel -- in its most basic and firmly entrenched structure is in place, solidly grounded with its foundations solidly based in pre-Socratic Greek Philosophy (Anaxamander and Heraclitus) and, at the same time, ancient Chinese Daoist Philosophy (Lao Tse, 'yin' and 'yang' Eastern Dialectic Philosophy).
So the question remains how best to represent the rest of the structure of Hegel's Hotel.
Let us say that the combination of Plato and Aristotle (Plato's 'rational idealism' vs. Aristotle's 'empirical realism') holds up the next segment of Hegel's Hotel.
Now at this point in time, we have not discussed in any significant detail any or many aspects of Roman (Skepticism, Stoicism, Cynicism, Epicureanism...) or Scholastic Philosophy (Aquinas, St. Augustine, Ockham's Razor...) or Early Scientific (Galileo, Copernicus, Sir Francis Bacon) so I will simply say that we need to do significant work at a later point in time in these time periods of Western Philosophy.
We haven't discussed Descartes 'subjective rationalism' to any significant degree. Later to come.
Spinoza holds a special spot in the evolution and structure of Hegel's Hotel. Although Spinoza was a 'mono-theorist' meaning that he believed in the principle of 'wholism' and 'unity' which partly contradicts Hegelian dualistic and dialectic philosophy, still Schelling probably represents the best 'synthesis' between Spinoza and Hegel with Schelling's romantic idea of 'dialectic unity and wholism'. In this regard, both Spinoza and Schelling remain important philosophers in Hegel's Hotel, and in DGB Philosophy's version of 'Multi-Dialectic-Democratic (Multi-Cultural) Evolution, Wholism, Unity and Spiritual Pantheism'.
Then there are the 'Rational-Empiricists' and the 'Enlightenment Political-Economic Philosophers: Epictetus, Bacon, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Adam Smith, Diderot, Voltaire, Montesque, Tom Paine, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, let's even include Lincoln...and right up to Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, Korzybski, S.I. Hawakawa, Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, Ayn Rand...
Then there are the Romantic Philosophers and the German Idealists who probably represent the central focus of Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy. These include: Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, and Marx (although Marx requires his Scottish 'polar-brother' -- Adam Smith -- to work through the Capitalist-Socialist Democratic-Dialectic to its best evolutionary potential).
Then there is Darwin who needs to be integrated with Hegel, Schelling, Spinoza, Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Einstein...in DGB fashion...to make up a 21st century rendition of post-Hegelian, post-Darwinian Evolution Theory.
Then there are the 'Competitive Narcissistic-Power Philosophers' who more or less follow the path started by Anaxamander who need to be properly respected and taken into account for their work: Hobbes, Machiavelli, Schopenhauer...
Then there are the post-Hegelian 'Humanistic-Existentialists': Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Kafka, Camus, Sartre, Erich Fromm...who hold up another important part of Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy.
Then there are the 'dialectic' clinical psychologists: Freud, Adler, Jung, Reich, Ferenczi, Fairbairn, Kohut, Berne, Perls
And finally, there are 'The Post-Modernists and Power-Deconstructionists' which I will go back through all of Western History to include in this group: Socrates, Hume, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida...
No, let us mention one more contemporary 'natural philosopher' in the Spinozian-Schelling-Einstein' mold: David Suzuki.
I've missed out on a number of different layers of Western Philosophical History including: Utilitarianism, Pragmatism, Structuralism...
These we may or may not attend to in the distant future...
Without as much overlap, let us count up the different 'levels' of Hegel's Hotel that we are working on here:
1. Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Lao Tse (Daoism, yin/yang);
2. Plato and Aristotle
3. Roman Philosophy (Skepticism, Stoicism, Cynicism, Epirureanism...)
4. Scholastic Philosophy (Aquinas, St. Augustine, Okham's Razor...)
5. Early Scientific Philosophy (Galileo, Copernicus, Bacon...)
6. Rational Idealism (Descartes, Spinoza)
7. Empirical Philosophy (Locke, Berkeley, Hume)
8. Narcissistic Power Philosophy (Hobbes, Machiavelli, Schopenhauer)
9. Darwinian Evolution Theory and its Post-Hegelian, Post-Darwinian Integration
10. Enlightenment Philosophy (Smith, Diderot, Voltaire, Monteque, Tom Paine, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin...)
11. Utilitarianism (John Stuart Mill...)
12. Romantic Philosophy and German Idealism (Rousseau, Goethe, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, Marx...)
13. Humanistic-Existentialism (Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Kafka, Camus, Sartre, Fromm...)
14. American Pragmatism (William James, John Dewey...)
15. Linguistic-Semantic-Epistemological Philosophy (Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, Beck, Ellis, Kelly, Ayn Rand...)
16. Post-Modernism, Power Philosophy and Marginalization, and Deconstruction(ism) (Foucault, Derrida...)
17. The Dialectic Psychologists (Freud, Jung, Klein, Fairbairn, Berne, Kohut, Perls...)
18. 21st Century Environmental Romanticism (David Suzuki...)
19. Communitarianism
20. DGB Dialectic-Democratic, Humanistic-Existential Philosophy
We leave Hegel's Hotel for today.
Have a good 'dialectic-democratic-humanistic-existential' day!
Live the life of a 'Apollonian-Dionysian Superman(woman)'!
Balance your 'yin' and 'yang'!
Cheers!
-- dgb, April 1st, 2009, modified June 23rd, 2009.
The ripeness of Nietzsche's combined 'old and new philosophical fruit' -- the product of a cross fertilization of early Greek dualistic-dialectic philosophy (Apollo vs. Dionysus) and later Hegelian dualistic-dialectic thinking (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis) was so 'nutritional' that the 'intellectual and humanistic-existential value' of this cross-fertilized fruit is still exploding off the BT fruit tree some 200 years later, first through the work of Freud and Jung in the early 1900s, then in the therapeutic work of Perls and Gestalt Therapy, and Berne and Transactional Analysis in the 1960s and onward, and finally, right up into the 21st century through the work of DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-Religion-Science-Medicine...which is still evolving in 2009.
Indeed, it is partly too bad that Nietzsche ventured away from BT or he could have almost 'created' Psychoanalysis himself. Indeed, in this one little book -- BT -- Nietzsche almost did create Psychoanalysis. The details just needed to be filled out a bit more through Freud and Jung in their clinical and theoretical work to soon come...BT, in my opinion, remains a much overlooked piece of work in terms of its mega-influence on Freud, Jung, and eventually Perls and Gestalt Therapy. BT was the 'integrative bridge' between Greek Tragedy, Hegel, Schopenhauer and Freud.
But what happened is what happened -- a matter of Nietzsche's own personal and philosophical evolutionary development -- and Nietzsche had other 'fruits he wanted to grow off of other philosophical trees...'.
Nietsche's later 'Will to Power' Theory, his 'Cliff, Abyss, and Tightrope' Theory relative to 'Being and Becoming', and his 'Superman' Theory would do much to lay the groundwork for Heidegger, Sartre, and 20th Century Humanistic-Existentialism.
In this regard, Hegel once again led the way in the evolution of 19th and 20th century Humanistic-Existentialism with his theories of 'The Master-Slave Relationship' and 'Alienation' (to be jumped on by Marx) and then Kierkegaard in his rebellion against 'Hegel's 'Absolute' Abstactionism and Universalism' with his own counter-philosophy of 'Existential Concretism' (albeit Kierkegaard could and did write very abstractly as well).
Schopenhauer, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche all had a hugely important impact on the growth of 19th, 20th, and even 21st century philosophy -- and all of their ideas sprang from arguably the most important philosophical work in Western history -- Hegel's 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (1807). Even Darwin's later 19th century work in biology and evolutionary theory can be seen -- directly or indirectly -- to have a Hegelian foundation.
And if we really want to fully understand that Hegel's dualistic-dialectic philosophy did not just 'spring out of nowhere', then we must give proper credit to the previous German Idealistic philosophical work of all three of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling -- and furthermore, we need to go right back to the very philosophical roots that Nietzsche did -- back to the roots of Greek -- and all -- mythology, back to the mythological 'dualism' of 'Apollo' vs. 'Dionysus', back to the second oldest philosopher in Western history -- Anaxamander -- and his patriarchal 'power and conquest dialectic theory'; and also back to Anaxamander's indirect student -- Heraclitus -- and the latter's more 'matriarchal philosophy' -- a philosophy of 'opposite things, opposite processes, opposite ideas all coming together 'for the good of the whole dialectic-democratic harmony'.
However, perhaps the most important 'dialectic connection' to be made in the history of dialectic philosophy is the one I am just about to make now. I have been searching on the internet for an answer to a question that needed to take me into the deepest depths of Chinese philosophy -- or at least as deep as anyone else on the internet could take me.
The question that I started asking myself about 2006-2007 in one of my first introductory essays in Hegel's Hotel ran something like this:
Where did the Chinese philosophical concepts and symbols of 'yin' and 'yang' originate from?
I had the symbols traced back to 'The Han Philosophers' -- a group of very important Chinese philosophers who were trying to 'integrate China' back in The Han Dynasty' by 'integrating a number of different important philosophies and philosophers' who had greatly influenced the evolution of China -- before and until 'The Ch'in Dynasty, a totalitarian Chinese government that existed from 221-207BC -- did much to start tearing the philosophical foundations, and the spirit, of the Chinese people apart through their totalitarian, anti-humanistic, anti-democratic measures.
Even this following piece from the internet on 'The Han Synthesis' I am reading this morning for the first time. Sometimes -- like now -- I shake my head to realize that not only is my own philosophical work constantly evolving, but so too is the work of other philosophers and writers on the internet, and information that was just not available to me two or three years ago is clearly available now. These following two pieces greatly help the evolution of my own work in Hegel's Hotel here:
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From the internet....
Ancient China: The Han Synthesis
After the disastrous period of totalitarian government during the Ch'in dynasty (221-207 B. C.), the early Han dynasty (207 B.C.-9 A.D.) returned to older forms of imperial government. However, they adopted from the Ch'in the idea of an absolutely central government and spent most of their period in power trying to regain the same level of centrality that the Ch'in and the Legalists had so ruthlessly accomplished. This ideology of central government, along with the Legalists' attempts to standardize Chinese culture and Chinese philosophy, led thinkers of the Han to attempt to unify all the rival schools of Chinese thought and philosophy that had developed over the previous three hundred years. This unification of Chinese into a single coherent system is the most lasting legacy of the Han dynasty. Earlier, the Legalists attempted to standardize Chinese thought by burning the books of rival schools and by making it a capital crime to speak of Confucius, Lao Tzu, or Mo Tzu. The Han thinkers, who thoroughly despised the Legalists and their methods while adopting many of their goals, took a different approach. Rather than reject alternate ways of thinking, they took a syncretic approach and attempted to fuse all the rival schools of thought into a single system. This syncretic project of the early Han is known as the Han synthesis. In many ways it was similar to the larger project of unifying Chinese government.
Chinese Philosophy
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Confucius
Legalism
Mo Tzu
Taoism
The Han philosophers concentrated specifically on the Five Classics, attempting to derive from them, particularly the I ching , or Book of Changes, the principle of the workings of the universe, or Tao. This new theory of the universe they appended to the I ching ; this appendix explains the metaphysical workings of the entire universe. Once the overall workings of the unverse were understood, then every form of thought could be directly related to each other by appealing to the basic principles of the universe.
Chinese Philosophy
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Pre-Confucian China and the Five Classics
The essentials of the Han synthesis are as follows: the universe is run by a single principle, the Tao, or Great Ultimate. This principle is divided into two opposite principles, or two principles which oppose one another in their actions, yin and yang. All the opposites one perceives in the universe can be reduced to one of the opposite forces. In general, these forces are distinguished by their role in producing creation and producing degeneration: yang is the force of creation and yin the force of completion and degeneration. The yin and yang are further differentiated into five material agents, or wu hsing , which both produce one another and overcome one another. All change in the universe can be explained by the workings of yin and yang and the progress of the five material agents as they either produce one another or overcome one another. This is a universal explanatory principle. All phenomena can be understood using yin-yang and the five agents: the movements of the stars, the workings of the body, the nature of foods, the qualities of music, the ethical qualities of humans, the progress of time, the operations of government, and even the nature of historical change. All things follow this order so that all things can be related to one another in some way: one can use the stars to determine what kind of policy to pursue in government, for instance.
Chinese Philosophy
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Wu-hsing
Yin/Yang
Since the Han thinkers had come up with a tool to explain historical and political events, the writing of history took off exponentially during the early Han and later. History became more than a repository of good and bad examples of government, as it had for the ancient Chinese, it became the working out of the yin-yang or five agents system as it applied to human affairs. This meant that the writing of history demanded accuracy, that the facts be laid out with great precision and indifference so that the workings of yin-yang could be followed precisely. The Han, then, developed a rigorously factual approach to history at a very early time in Chinese history. In government, the Han thinkers essentially adopted the Legalist attitude that human beings fundamentally behave badly, but they changed the doctrine significantly. The Han thinkers believed that people behaved in a depraved way because they had no choice; economic and social conditions forced them to behave badly. For at heart, all human beings desire only material well-being; in order to make people behave virtuously, the government should make it possible that the ends of virtue (the well-being of others) and the pursuit of individual well-being should be coterminous, that is, material benefits should accrue to virtuous acts (that's one-half of the Legalist formula). The emperor would bring this about through two means. First, the emperor and the government is responsible for setting up conditions in which people can derive material benefit from productive labor; the stress on productivity, of course, is derived from the Legalists and Mo Tzu. Second, the emperor can provide an example. It is the job of the emperor to care for the welfare of his people (Confucianism), yet at the same time, the Emperor should withdraw from active rule (Taoism). How did the Emperor rule then? By providing a living example of benevolence. This model of Chinese government would remain dominant well into the twentieth century.
Chinese Philosophy
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Mo Tzu
China Glossary
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DGB Philosophy...cont'd...
So the final name that I have been looking for in the past two or three years turns out to be not who I thought it was afterall -- Confucious -- but rather a man of equally or even greater real or perhaps mythological importance: Lao Tse, one of the chief philosophical architects of Taoism or Daoism.
Let's read a bit about Lao Tse -- again, information that was not available to me on the internet about 2 or 3 years ago (or at least I couldn't find the complete 'answer to the puzzle' I was looking for back then. It's not that the information wasn't out there -- somewhere. After all, there are millions and millions of 'Taoists' out there who were practicing this philosophy thousands of years ago, with ancestors who are still studying and practicing it now.
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From the internet...yin and yang...Taoism (Daoism)...Lao Tse....
Taoism (a.k.a. Daoism)
Western traditions
The Taoist Ying Yang symbol:
Quotations:
"Be still like a mountain and flow like a great river." Lao Tse.
"Without going out of your door, You can know the ways of the world. Without peeping through your window, you can see the Way of Heaven. The farther you go, The less you know. Thus, the Sage knows without traveling, Sees without looking, And achieves without struggle." Lao Tse.
"Different Chinese philosophers, writing probably in 5-4 centuries B.C., presented some major ideas and a way of life that are nowadays known under the name of Taoism, the way of correspondence between man and the tendency or the course of natural world." Alan Watts, from his book: "Tao: The Watercourse Way."
"We believe in the formless and eternal Tao, and we recognize all personified deities as being mere human constructs. We reject hatred, intolerance, and unnecessary violence, and embrace harmony, love and learning, as we are taught by Nature. We place our trust and our lives in the Tao, that we may live in peace and balance with the Universe, both in this mortal life and beyond." Creed of the Reform Taoist Congregation 1
"For more than two thousand years, Daoism has evolved in close interaction with the other major traditions of China--Confucianism, Buddhism, ethnic creeds, and popular religion--and adapted many of their features. To the present day, Daoism consists of a multiplicity of beliefs and practices, and continues to develop, as it has for the past millennia, through the interaction between differentiation and integration--the move to change in accordance with political, cultural, and economic developments versus the urge to create stability through belief systems, lineage lines, rituals, and myths." From the Amazon.com review of the book "Daoist Identity: History, lineage and ritual.
History of Taoism:
Tao (pronounced "Dow") can be roughly translated into English as path, or the way. It is basically indefinable. It has to be experienced. It "refers to a power which envelops, surrounds and flows through all things, living and non-living. The Tao regulates natural processes and nourishes balance in the Universe. It embodies the harmony of opposites (i.e. there would be no love without hate, no light without dark, no male without female.)" 2
The founder of Taoism is believed by many to be Lao-Tse (604-531 BCE), a contemporary of Confucius. (Alternative spellings: Lao Tze, Lao Tsu, Lao Tzu, Laozi, Laotze, etc.). He was searching for a way that would avoid the constant feudal warfare and other conflicts that disrupted society during his lifetime. The result was his book: Tao-te-Ching (a.k.a. Daodejing). Others believe that he is a mythical character.
Taoism started as a combination of psychology and philosophy but evolved into a religious faith in 440 CE when it was adopted as a state religion. At that time Lao-Tse became popularly venerated as a deity. Taoism, along with Buddhism and Confucianism, became one of the three great religions of China. With the end of the Ch'ing Dynasty in 1911, state support for Taoism ended. Much of the Taoist heritage was destroyed during the next period of warlordism. After the Communist victory in 1949, religious freedom was severely restricted. "The new government put monks to manual labor, confiscated temples, and plundered treasures. Several million monks were reduced to fewer than 50,000" by 1960. 3 During the cultural revolution in China from 1966 to 1976, much of the remaining Taoist heritage was destroyed. Some religious tolerance has been restored under Deng Xiao-ping from 1982 to the present time.
Taoism currently has about 20 million followers, and is primarily centered in Taiwan. About 30,000 Taoists live in North America; 1,720 in Canada (1991 census). Taoism has had a significant impact on North American culture in areas of "acupuncture, herbalism, holistic medicine, meditation and martial arts..." 3
Taoist concepts, beliefs and practices:
Tao is the first-cause of the universe. It is a force that flows through all life.
"The Tao surrounds everyone and therefore everyone must listen to find enlightenment." 4
Each believer's goal is to harmonize themselves with the Tao.
Taoism has provided an alternative to the Confucian tradition in China. The two traditions have coexisted in the country, region, and generally within the same individual.
The priesthood views the many gods as manifestations of the one Dao, "which could not be represented as an image or a particular thing." The concept of a personified deity is foreign to them, as is the concept of the creation of the universe. Thus, they do not pray as Christians do; there is no God to hear the prayers or to act upon them. They seek answers to life's problems through inner meditation and outer observation.
In contrast with the beliefs and practices of the priesthood, most of the laity have "believed that spirits pervaded nature...The gods in heaven acted like and were treated like the officials in the world of men; worshipping the gods was a kind of rehearsal of attitudes toward secular authorities. On the other hand, the demons and ghosts of hell acted like and were treated like the bullies, outlaws, and threatening strangers in the real world; they were bribed by the people and were ritually arrested by the martial forces of the spirit officials." 3
Time is cyclical, not linear as in Western thinking.
Taoists strongly promote health and vitality.
Five main organs and orifices of the body correspond to the five parts of the sky: water, fire, wood, metal and earth.
Each person must nurture the Ch'i (air, breath) that has been given to them.
Development of virtue is one's chief task. The Three Jewels to be sought are compassion, moderation and humility.
Taoists follow the art of "wu wei," which is to let nature take its course. For example, one should allow a river to flow towards the sea unimpeded; do not erect a dam which would interfere with its natural flow.
One should plan in advance and consider carefully each action before making it.
A Taoists is kind to other individuals, in part because such an action tends to be reciprocated.
Taoists believe that "people are compassionate by nature...left to their own devices [they] will show this compassion without expecting a reward." 5
The Yin Yang symbol:
This is a well known Taoist symbol. "It represents the balance of opposites in the universe. When they are equally present, all is calm. When one is outweighed by the other, there is confusion and disarray." 4 One source explains that it was derived from astronomical observations which recorded the shadow of the sun throughout a full year. 5 The two swirling shapes inside the symbol give the impression of change -- the only constant factor in the universe. One tradition states that Yin (or Ying; the dark side) represents the breath that formed the earth. Yang (the light side) symbolizes the breath that formed the heavens.
One source states: "The most traditional view is that 'yin' represents aspects of the feminine: being soft, cool, calm, introspective, and healing... and "yang" the masculine: being hard, hot, energetic, moving, and sometimes aggressive. Another view has the 'yin' representing night and 'yang' day. 5
Another source offers a different definition: A common misconception in the west is that "...yin is soft and passive and yang is hard and energetic. Really it is yang that is soft and yin that is hard, this is because yang is energetic and yin is passive. Yin is like a rock and yang is like water or air, rock is heavy and hard and air is soft and energetic." 8
Allan Watts, describes the yin and yang as negative and positive energy poles: "The ideograms indicate the sunny and shady sides of a hill....They are associated with the masculine and the feminine, the firm and the yielding, the strong and the weak, the light and the dark, the rising and the falling, heaven and earth, and they are even recognized in such everyday matters as cooking as the spicy and the bland." 9,10
However, since nothing in nature is purely black or purely white, the symbol includes a small black spot in the white swirl, and a corresponding white spot in the black swirl.
Ultimately, the 'yin' and 'yang' can symbolize any two polarized forces in nature. Taosts believe that humans often intervene in nature and upset the balance of Yin and Yang.
About the name: Taoism or Daoism:
There are two commonly used systems for translating the Mandarin Chinese language into Roman letters:
Wade-Giles: This system is commonly used in Taiwan and the U.S. The Chinese character for "Way" becomes "Tao," which leads to the English word "Taoism."
Hanyu pinyin or Pinyin: This system was developed by the Chinese people and is now finding increased use worldwide. The "Way" becomes "Dao," which leads to the English word "Daoism." The "Dao" is pronounced like the "Dow" in "Dow-Jones Index."
We have chosen to emphasize the "Taoism" spelling. A Google search for "Taoism" returned 245,000 hits, whereas a search for "Daoism" returned only 35,000.
Tai Chi:
There is a long history of involvement by Taoists in various exercise and movement techniques. 6 Tai chi in particular works on all parts of the body. It "stimulates the central nervous system, lowers blood pressure, relieves stress and gently tones muscles without strain. It also enhances digestion, elimination of wastes and the circulation of blood. Moreover, tai chi's rhythmic movements massage the internal organs and improve their functionality." Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that illness is caused by blockages or lack of balance in the body's "chi" (intrinsic energy). Tai Chi is believed to balance this energy flow.
Taoist Texts:
These include:
Tao-te-Ching ("The Way of Power," or "The Book of the Way") is believed to have been written by Lao-Tse. It describes the nature of life, the way to peace and how a ruler should lead his life.
Chuang-tzu (named after its author) contains additional teachings.
Taoist web sites:
Taoist course, books and objects: Lao Tzu and Taoism Revealed: A 40-day course delivered by email. You may learn more about the life and philosophy of Lao Tzu, including the study of Tao Te Ching, and concepts like tao, wu-wei, wu, and more. Register here. More information
The LaoZi Academy in Sydney, Australia, teaches "... the fundamentals and secrets of ancient Daoist life. The Academy delivers clear and concise principles and practice methods used by ancient Daoist masters in the pursuit of health, happiness and longevity many thousands of years ago." See: http://www.laoziacademy.com/
MoreLight.net publishes a number of books from the Taoist canon, including The Primordial Breath, Volumes 1 & 2, and Oneirocritica (The Interpretation of Dreams). See: http://morelight.net/
Mr. Sage's Philosophical Taoist Homepage's intent is to give a more scientific, astro-physics, philosophical, as well as traditional esoteric view on Taoism. See: http://members.aol.com/
Sacred Mountain Press publishes Taoist works. Their "... goal is to make interesting, beautiful, and reliable Taoist information as accessible to the general public as that of any other major religious or spiritual tradition." See: http://www.smpress.com
"Tao Resource" is a web site that imports authentic Taoist products to help people improve their "personal or sacred space, to build a small Taoist shrine or even to construct a large Taoist temple." This site is well worth perusing. It has sections showing altar tables, bells & chimes, jewelry, statuary, personal altars, etc. See http://www.taoresource.com/
Tai Chi: "Is Tai Chi the Ultimate Exercise?," an essay on Tai Chi at:
http://www.utah.edu/
"The International Taoist Tai Chi Society" � is the largest non-profit Tai Chi group in the world. See: http://www.taoist.org
Taoist message board, discussion forum, etc: The "real Tao" message board is a "brand new Taoist Forum" at: http://pub18.ezboard.com/
A Taoist discussion forum named in the spirit of Jack Keroac and the Dharma Bums, is at http://www.TheTaoBums.com It is a "Friendly, active, nonsectarian discussion forum for Taoism, qigong, tai chi, yoga, meditation and much more!"
Taoist web sites: The Center TaoTaoist Thought and Fellowship in Santa Cruz, CA provides monthly meetings and an extensive forum. See: http://www.centertao.org/
Daoist Arts contains essays on Daoist History, Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan), Qigong and other Taoist matters. They have a free newsletter. See: http://www.daoistarts.org/
Bill Mason's Taoism Page is at: http://www.taoism.net This web site emphasizes the practical application of the Tao to everyday life.
Maury Merkin, "Daoism in brief," is at: http://www.his.com/ This website offers a brief introduction to Taoism and a glossary of terms.
This website is dedicated to Purist Taoism in the tradition and wisdom of Lao-Tzu.
Jeff Rasmussen's Tao Te Ching web site features an illustrated Tao Te Ching, an introduction to Taoism, and links. See: http://www.symynet.com/
Reform Taoism has an excellent web site which publishes their creed and beliefs on dozens of important topics. See: http://www.reformtaoism.org
" The Taoist Canon: A guide to studies and reference works" at: http://weber.ucsd.edu/
The "Taoism Depot" contains a Taoism discussion forum, live chat and a wide range of resources. See: http://www.edepot.com/
The "Taoism Information Page" is at: http://www.religiousworlds.com/
The "Taoism Depot" contains a Taoism discussion forum, live chat and a wide range of resources. See: http://www.edepot.com/
The Taoism Initiation Page has a great deal of information about Taoism and a Taoism course that leads to initiation. is at: http://www.taopage.org
The Taoist Restoration Society (TRS) is "a U.S. nonprofit corporation dedicated to the rehabilitation and rebirth of China's Taoist tradition." See: http://www.taorestore.org/ Offline as of 2007-AUG-29
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Now -- to use a Freudian metaphor -- 'We have reached the source of The Nile.' (And it is not 'The Oedipal Complex'.)
As of this moment -- Hegel's Hotel -- in its most basic and firmly entrenched structure is in place, solidly grounded with its foundations solidly based in pre-Socratic Greek Philosophy (Anaxamander and Heraclitus) and, at the same time, ancient Chinese Daoist Philosophy (Lao Tse, 'yin' and 'yang' Eastern Dialectic Philosophy).
So the question remains how best to represent the rest of the structure of Hegel's Hotel.
Let us say that the combination of Plato and Aristotle (Plato's 'rational idealism' vs. Aristotle's 'empirical realism') holds up the next segment of Hegel's Hotel.
Now at this point in time, we have not discussed in any significant detail any or many aspects of Roman (Skepticism, Stoicism, Cynicism, Epicureanism...) or Scholastic Philosophy (Aquinas, St. Augustine, Ockham's Razor...) or Early Scientific (Galileo, Copernicus, Sir Francis Bacon) so I will simply say that we need to do significant work at a later point in time in these time periods of Western Philosophy.
We haven't discussed Descartes 'subjective rationalism' to any significant degree. Later to come.
Spinoza holds a special spot in the evolution and structure of Hegel's Hotel. Although Spinoza was a 'mono-theorist' meaning that he believed in the principle of 'wholism' and 'unity' which partly contradicts Hegelian dualistic and dialectic philosophy, still Schelling probably represents the best 'synthesis' between Spinoza and Hegel with Schelling's romantic idea of 'dialectic unity and wholism'. In this regard, both Spinoza and Schelling remain important philosophers in Hegel's Hotel, and in DGB Philosophy's version of 'Multi-Dialectic-Democratic (Multi-Cultural) Evolution, Wholism, Unity and Spiritual Pantheism'.
Then there are the 'Rational-Empiricists' and the 'Enlightenment Political-Economic Philosophers: Epictetus, Bacon, Locke, Berkeley, Hume, Adam Smith, Diderot, Voltaire, Montesque, Tom Paine, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, let's even include Lincoln...and right up to Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, Korzybski, S.I. Hawakawa, Aaron Beck, Albert Ellis, Ayn Rand...
Then there are the Romantic Philosophers and the German Idealists who probably represent the central focus of Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy. These include: Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, and Marx (although Marx requires his Scottish 'polar-brother' -- Adam Smith -- to work through the Capitalist-Socialist Democratic-Dialectic to its best evolutionary potential).
Then there is Darwin who needs to be integrated with Hegel, Schelling, Spinoza, Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Einstein...in DGB fashion...to make up a 21st century rendition of post-Hegelian, post-Darwinian Evolution Theory.
Then there are the 'Competitive Narcissistic-Power Philosophers' who more or less follow the path started by Anaxamander who need to be properly respected and taken into account for their work: Hobbes, Machiavelli, Schopenhauer...
Then there are the post-Hegelian 'Humanistic-Existentialists': Marx, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Kafka, Camus, Sartre, Erich Fromm...who hold up another important part of Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy.
Then there are the 'dialectic' clinical psychologists: Freud, Adler, Jung, Reich, Ferenczi, Fairbairn, Kohut, Berne, Perls
And finally, there are 'The Post-Modernists and Power-Deconstructionists' which I will go back through all of Western History to include in this group: Socrates, Hume, Voltaire, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida...
No, let us mention one more contemporary 'natural philosopher' in the Spinozian-Schelling-Einstein' mold: David Suzuki.
I've missed out on a number of different layers of Western Philosophical History including: Utilitarianism, Pragmatism, Structuralism...
These we may or may not attend to in the distant future...
Without as much overlap, let us count up the different 'levels' of Hegel's Hotel that we are working on here:
1. Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Lao Tse (Daoism, yin/yang);
2. Plato and Aristotle
3. Roman Philosophy (Skepticism, Stoicism, Cynicism, Epirureanism...)
4. Scholastic Philosophy (Aquinas, St. Augustine, Okham's Razor...)
5. Early Scientific Philosophy (Galileo, Copernicus, Bacon...)
6. Rational Idealism (Descartes, Spinoza)
7. Empirical Philosophy (Locke, Berkeley, Hume)
8. Narcissistic Power Philosophy (Hobbes, Machiavelli, Schopenhauer)
9. Darwinian Evolution Theory and its Post-Hegelian, Post-Darwinian Integration
10. Enlightenment Philosophy (Smith, Diderot, Voltaire, Monteque, Tom Paine, Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin...)
11. Utilitarianism (John Stuart Mill...)
12. Romantic Philosophy and German Idealism (Rousseau, Goethe, Kant, Fichte, Hegel, Schelling, Marx...)
13. Humanistic-Existentialism (Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Kafka, Camus, Sartre, Fromm...)
14. American Pragmatism (William James, John Dewey...)
15. Linguistic-Semantic-Epistemological Philosophy (Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, Beck, Ellis, Kelly, Ayn Rand...)
16. Post-Modernism, Power Philosophy and Marginalization, and Deconstruction(ism) (Foucault, Derrida...)
17. The Dialectic Psychologists (Freud, Jung, Klein, Fairbairn, Berne, Kohut, Perls...)
18. 21st Century Environmental Romanticism (David Suzuki...)
19. Communitarianism
20. DGB Dialectic-Democratic, Humanistic-Existential Philosophy
We leave Hegel's Hotel for today.
Have a good 'dialectic-democratic-humanistic-existential' day!
Live the life of a 'Apollonian-Dionysian Superman(woman)'!
Balance your 'yin' and 'yang'!
Cheers!
-- dgb, April 1st, 2009, modified June 23rd, 2009.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
My Horoscope for Early April....Good News, Bad News...Or Both?
Pisces (February 19 - March 20)
Your April Horoscope by Susan Miller
DGB Editorial:
I don't usually pay too close attention to my horoscope but every once in a while I will get one that i particularly like -- and/or in this case -- one that partly unnerves me. This does both. I like the 'creativity' part; but the 'health and surgery' part scares the life out of me. I've had enough of hospitals for the next long while. A year and a half ago was too short a time ago. No more hospitals please...No bad news from doctors please...I'm in a good 'creativity zone' right now -- and I don't want any setbacks. Let tomorrow -- April 1st/09 bring me good luck, not bad. Hold on, and be good to me my liver, please -- and I will be good to you.
-- dgb, March 31st, 2009.
Pisces Horoscope for April 2009
By Susan Miller
What a pivotal time of the year this month is for you! You still have Mars in Pisces giving you a lovely advantage! Mars first entered your sign on March 15 and will continue to stand by you until April 21. During the first three weeks of April, you must push all your dearest plans and goals forward with all your might, while you have the force of the universe behind you. You won't have any problem getting the attention of key people, so proceed confidently. Having Mars in Pisces will be a huge plus - and this is a once-in-two-year edge that you have for only three more weeks.
It's time to think about yourself, which is a change for you. As a Pisces you are very oriented toward helping others, but now taking extra "me" time will work to your benefit. Everyone should have their own needs met sometimes, so this month, take care of the parts of you that you've neglected, dear Pisces. Also, you will be in a highly creative mode, and you will be turning out impressive work - even surprising yourself with how original you can be.
On the full moon, April 9 (operative April 8 to 13), you are likely to see a financial culmination to a deal, or get the answer to a question about a commission, advance, royalty, or licensing fee. You may need to write a check too, but there's a strong chance that money would be coming in to you, too. This point in the month should be upbeat. The reason for your optimistic outlook is that this particular full moon, April 9, will reach out to Jupiter, planet of good fortune, and Neptune, your ruler and planet of imagination. You may get news of a wonderful career development, and as a result, be told you'll be getting a generous sum of money. To be clear, the focus of this full moon will be on your finances, but your career may be the channel that delivers it to you.
The house so strongly lit is not a house ruling salary but rather one-time cash payments. If you do see cash coming in, it will be money that comes in one large chunk, not cash that is distributed over long-term periods, as would be the case in a paycheck. You may hear good news about a business loan or scholarship, venture capital investment, mortgage, refinancing plan, inheritance, or severance package. If you are starting a job, you may go over your new benefits package that will come with the job. If you feel you are due a refund for taxes, this full moon may bring better-than-expected news.
In terms of health, this same full moon may bring surgery or an important dental procedure to your attention, and actually, it may be scheduled for sometime between April 8 and 13. If so, you have fine aspects to Jupiter, which rules, among other things, healing and vitality. As you see, you'll have an excellent chance of success with this procedure. Jupiter is currently visiting your twelfth house, the area of the chart ruling hospitals, physical therapy, rehab, and other areas that we go to from time to time to get well.
Now let's turn to a wild card part of the month, due on April 15. To understand what's happening, we need to look back to your recent past for a moment. You seem to be frustrated by the slow, overly cautious attitude or response from a partner. This person might be your marriage partner, or someone you collaborate with at work in a close, committed way. In this sense, it could be your business partner, agent, investor, publicist, or other person you depend upon and who is committed to the outcome of the projects that you do together. Yet your frustration appears to be building with this person, for he or she seems not to be "getting" what you need or are trying to do, and as a result you feel held back.
On April 15, you may boil over, when Mars, planet of aggressive action and courage, will align with Uranus, planet of surprise and rebellion. Both planets will meet at 24 degrees of Pisces. As you see, this is as hot an aspect as you can get, and it may make you impulsive, angry, or ready to very rapidly go solo. Count to ten and keep your head. You may feel shocked about something you learn at this time. If you were born on March 14 or within five days of this date, you will feel this aspect more closely than most.
Even though classic astrology books will tell you to calm down on this day, there is a part of me that feels there is something refreshing about an honest response. If you want to proclaim, "Enough is enough!" be my guest. Whatever it is, you seem to be a bit unnerved by what you hear, doubly so if you were born on March 14, plus or minus five days. Keep your schedule light so you can more easily deal with what comes up, because it will be hard to concentrate on anything else near April 15.
Your April Horoscope by Susan Miller
DGB Editorial:
I don't usually pay too close attention to my horoscope but every once in a while I will get one that i particularly like -- and/or in this case -- one that partly unnerves me. This does both. I like the 'creativity' part; but the 'health and surgery' part scares the life out of me. I've had enough of hospitals for the next long while. A year and a half ago was too short a time ago. No more hospitals please...No bad news from doctors please...I'm in a good 'creativity zone' right now -- and I don't want any setbacks. Let tomorrow -- April 1st/09 bring me good luck, not bad. Hold on, and be good to me my liver, please -- and I will be good to you.
-- dgb, March 31st, 2009.
Pisces Horoscope for April 2009
By Susan Miller
What a pivotal time of the year this month is for you! You still have Mars in Pisces giving you a lovely advantage! Mars first entered your sign on March 15 and will continue to stand by you until April 21. During the first three weeks of April, you must push all your dearest plans and goals forward with all your might, while you have the force of the universe behind you. You won't have any problem getting the attention of key people, so proceed confidently. Having Mars in Pisces will be a huge plus - and this is a once-in-two-year edge that you have for only three more weeks.
It's time to think about yourself, which is a change for you. As a Pisces you are very oriented toward helping others, but now taking extra "me" time will work to your benefit. Everyone should have their own needs met sometimes, so this month, take care of the parts of you that you've neglected, dear Pisces. Also, you will be in a highly creative mode, and you will be turning out impressive work - even surprising yourself with how original you can be.
On the full moon, April 9 (operative April 8 to 13), you are likely to see a financial culmination to a deal, or get the answer to a question about a commission, advance, royalty, or licensing fee. You may need to write a check too, but there's a strong chance that money would be coming in to you, too. This point in the month should be upbeat. The reason for your optimistic outlook is that this particular full moon, April 9, will reach out to Jupiter, planet of good fortune, and Neptune, your ruler and planet of imagination. You may get news of a wonderful career development, and as a result, be told you'll be getting a generous sum of money. To be clear, the focus of this full moon will be on your finances, but your career may be the channel that delivers it to you.
The house so strongly lit is not a house ruling salary but rather one-time cash payments. If you do see cash coming in, it will be money that comes in one large chunk, not cash that is distributed over long-term periods, as would be the case in a paycheck. You may hear good news about a business loan or scholarship, venture capital investment, mortgage, refinancing plan, inheritance, or severance package. If you are starting a job, you may go over your new benefits package that will come with the job. If you feel you are due a refund for taxes, this full moon may bring better-than-expected news.
In terms of health, this same full moon may bring surgery or an important dental procedure to your attention, and actually, it may be scheduled for sometime between April 8 and 13. If so, you have fine aspects to Jupiter, which rules, among other things, healing and vitality. As you see, you'll have an excellent chance of success with this procedure. Jupiter is currently visiting your twelfth house, the area of the chart ruling hospitals, physical therapy, rehab, and other areas that we go to from time to time to get well.
Now let's turn to a wild card part of the month, due on April 15. To understand what's happening, we need to look back to your recent past for a moment. You seem to be frustrated by the slow, overly cautious attitude or response from a partner. This person might be your marriage partner, or someone you collaborate with at work in a close, committed way. In this sense, it could be your business partner, agent, investor, publicist, or other person you depend upon and who is committed to the outcome of the projects that you do together. Yet your frustration appears to be building with this person, for he or she seems not to be "getting" what you need or are trying to do, and as a result you feel held back.
On April 15, you may boil over, when Mars, planet of aggressive action and courage, will align with Uranus, planet of surprise and rebellion. Both planets will meet at 24 degrees of Pisces. As you see, this is as hot an aspect as you can get, and it may make you impulsive, angry, or ready to very rapidly go solo. Count to ten and keep your head. You may feel shocked about something you learn at this time. If you were born on March 14 or within five days of this date, you will feel this aspect more closely than most.
Even though classic astrology books will tell you to calm down on this day, there is a part of me that feels there is something refreshing about an honest response. If you want to proclaim, "Enough is enough!" be my guest. Whatever it is, you seem to be a bit unnerved by what you hear, doubly so if you were born on March 14, plus or minus five days. Keep your schedule light so you can more easily deal with what comes up, because it will be hard to concentrate on anything else near April 15.
Timelines on Freud's Changing Theories About The Human Personality
A 'Loose' Chronological Organization of Freud's Different Psychoanalytic Theories
Freud never created a theory in which he was not provocatively controversial in some way or another, and in this regard his later 1915-1920 Life vs. Death Instinct and 'Superego vs. Id with the Ego Mediating' Theory would be no different than any one of his earlier theories in earlier parts of his career.
Let's loosely organize Freud's different theories as follows with me looking up the more precise dates by tomorrow morning:
1. The Beginning of Freud's Theory of The Unconscious and 'The Return of the Repressed' under the influence of 'the talking cure -- chimney sweeping -- and auto-hypnosis' (Anna O, Breuer's patient from 1881, and the 'first' psychoanalytic patient), 1885 Freud studied with Charcot in Paris and learned more about hypnosis and both the common if not always 'traumatic' and 'sexual' etiologies of hysteria combined with the 'unconscious repression' etiology and the idea of 'emotional abreaction' and 'catharsis' in conjunction with the recall of the unconscious, repressed memory under hypnotic suggestion, 'the pressure technique', and/or 'free association' to stimulate the 'removal of the hysterical symptom' associated with the unconscious, repressed memory -- these clinical events and theoretical developments would trigger Freud and Breuer to write a book together describing all these events, and The Birth of 'Psycho-analysis', 1895, Studies in Hysteria.
2. Freud's Seduction Theory (1896, The Aetiology of Hysteria, theorizing for the
first time about the impact of 'adults seducing and sexually abusing children);
3. Freud's Abandonment or Partial Abandonment of The Traumacy-Seduction Theory1896-1899 and towards a more 'sexual wish fulfillment fantasy' view of childhood memories and the human psyche anticipating the various theories that would follow this development.
4. Freud's Screen Memory Theory (1899, 'Screen Memories', Freud speculated that 'conscious' memories can and/or do allude to deeper, darker, 'repressed, unconcious memories interwoven with symbolic wishful fantasies'. This theory paved the way for his classic 'Interpretation of Dreams');
5. Freud's Dream Interpretation Theory (1900, 'The Interpretation of Dreams');
6. Freud's Theories of 'Childhood Sexuality' and 'The Oedipal Complex' (1905, 'Three Essays on Sexuality');
7. Freud's Changing Ideas about Transference, first introduced in 1895, in the book, 'Studies in Hysteria, now years later, after the 'failure' of the 'Dora' case, which he wrote about in his 1905 essay, 'Fragments of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria', Freud much more clearly articulated and elaborated on the clinical phenomenon and Freudian concept of 'transference' in his 1912 essay, 'The Dynamics of The Transference');
8. Freud's First Fully Articulated Theory of Narcissism (1914, On Narcissism);
9. Freud's 'Life and Death Instinct' Theory (1920, Beyond The Pleasure Principle)
10. Freud's famous 'Hegelian Triumvarate': 'The Id' (Thesis), 'The Superego'(Moral Anti-thesis), and 'The Ego' (Mediating and Synthesizing Agent in The Personality)' -- Strachey's translations -- first discussed in 1920, Beyond The Pleasure Principle, later more specifically discussed, 1923, in 'The Ego and The Id').
11. One of Freud's last essays, 1940, 'Splitting of The Ego in The Process of Defence', written in 1938, published in 1940 after his death, anticipates and foreshadows the birth and evolution of 'Object Relations' -- a different 'revolution' in Psychoanalysis, jumped on by Melanie Klein, and further developed by Freudian and post-Freudian theorists such as: Ronald Fairbairn, D.W. Winnicott, Harry Guntrip, and others, leading to the 'Self Psychology' of Heinz Kohut and others...
.................................................................................
DGB Philosophy-Psychology -- in addition to integrating elements of Freudian and Jungian Psychological Theory and others mentioned elsewhere -- also aims to build a philosphical and psychological dialectical bridge over the abyss of Freud's early Traumacy-Seduction Theory and his later theories including the issues of Screen Memories, Dream Interpretation, Infantile and Childhood Sexuality, The Oedipal Complex, Narcissism, Transference Theory, The Repetition Compulsion, The Life and Death Instincts, The Superego, Ego, and Id, and The Splitting of The Ego.
More to come soon...on the DGB development and evolution of this important subject matter.
-- dgb, March 25th, modified and updated, March 31st, 2009.
...................................................................................
Freud never created a theory in which he was not provocatively controversial in some way or another, and in this regard his later 1915-1920 Life vs. Death Instinct and 'Superego vs. Id with the Ego Mediating' Theory would be no different than any one of his earlier theories in earlier parts of his career.
Let's loosely organize Freud's different theories as follows with me looking up the more precise dates by tomorrow morning:
1. The Beginning of Freud's Theory of The Unconscious and 'The Return of the Repressed' under the influence of 'the talking cure -- chimney sweeping -- and auto-hypnosis' (Anna O, Breuer's patient from 1881, and the 'first' psychoanalytic patient), 1885 Freud studied with Charcot in Paris and learned more about hypnosis and both the common if not always 'traumatic' and 'sexual' etiologies of hysteria combined with the 'unconscious repression' etiology and the idea of 'emotional abreaction' and 'catharsis' in conjunction with the recall of the unconscious, repressed memory under hypnotic suggestion, 'the pressure technique', and/or 'free association' to stimulate the 'removal of the hysterical symptom' associated with the unconscious, repressed memory -- these clinical events and theoretical developments would trigger Freud and Breuer to write a book together describing all these events, and The Birth of 'Psycho-analysis', 1895, Studies in Hysteria.
2. Freud's Seduction Theory (1896, The Aetiology of Hysteria, theorizing for the
first time about the impact of 'adults seducing and sexually abusing children);
3. Freud's Abandonment or Partial Abandonment of The Traumacy-Seduction Theory1896-1899 and towards a more 'sexual wish fulfillment fantasy' view of childhood memories and the human psyche anticipating the various theories that would follow this development.
4. Freud's Screen Memory Theory (1899, 'Screen Memories', Freud speculated that 'conscious' memories can and/or do allude to deeper, darker, 'repressed, unconcious memories interwoven with symbolic wishful fantasies'. This theory paved the way for his classic 'Interpretation of Dreams');
5. Freud's Dream Interpretation Theory (1900, 'The Interpretation of Dreams');
6. Freud's Theories of 'Childhood Sexuality' and 'The Oedipal Complex' (1905, 'Three Essays on Sexuality');
7. Freud's Changing Ideas about Transference, first introduced in 1895, in the book, 'Studies in Hysteria, now years later, after the 'failure' of the 'Dora' case, which he wrote about in his 1905 essay, 'Fragments of an Analysis of a Case of Hysteria', Freud much more clearly articulated and elaborated on the clinical phenomenon and Freudian concept of 'transference' in his 1912 essay, 'The Dynamics of The Transference');
8. Freud's First Fully Articulated Theory of Narcissism (1914, On Narcissism);
9. Freud's 'Life and Death Instinct' Theory (1920, Beyond The Pleasure Principle)
10. Freud's famous 'Hegelian Triumvarate': 'The Id' (Thesis), 'The Superego'(Moral Anti-thesis), and 'The Ego' (Mediating and Synthesizing Agent in The Personality)' -- Strachey's translations -- first discussed in 1920, Beyond The Pleasure Principle, later more specifically discussed, 1923, in 'The Ego and The Id').
11. One of Freud's last essays, 1940, 'Splitting of The Ego in The Process of Defence', written in 1938, published in 1940 after his death, anticipates and foreshadows the birth and evolution of 'Object Relations' -- a different 'revolution' in Psychoanalysis, jumped on by Melanie Klein, and further developed by Freudian and post-Freudian theorists such as: Ronald Fairbairn, D.W. Winnicott, Harry Guntrip, and others, leading to the 'Self Psychology' of Heinz Kohut and others...
.................................................................................
DGB Philosophy-Psychology -- in addition to integrating elements of Freudian and Jungian Psychological Theory and others mentioned elsewhere -- also aims to build a philosphical and psychological dialectical bridge over the abyss of Freud's early Traumacy-Seduction Theory and his later theories including the issues of Screen Memories, Dream Interpretation, Infantile and Childhood Sexuality, The Oedipal Complex, Narcissism, Transference Theory, The Repetition Compulsion, The Life and Death Instincts, The Superego, Ego, and Id, and The Splitting of The Ego.
More to come soon...on the DGB development and evolution of this important subject matter.
-- dgb, March 25th, modified and updated, March 31st, 2009.
...................................................................................
DGB Reflections On the 100th Anniversary of Freud and Jung Meeting For The First Time on Mar. 3rd, 1907: Updated and Modified, March 31st, 2009
Introduction
This essay has undergone numerous revisions. Today I will focus on the elements of both Freudian Psychoanalysis and Jungian Psychology that have influenced the development and evolution of DGB Psychology -- and particularly my latest integrative model of the personality that borrows significantly from both Freud and Jung.
-- dgb, March 31st, 2009.
Part 1: Sunday, March 3rd, 1907, Freud and Jung Meet For The First Time -- And Talk For 13 Hours Straight!
Freud and Jung -- theirs was an all too short and tumultous seven year relationship (1907-1914), passionate and explosive, reverent from each side at the beginning, much more rebellious from Jung's side as things progressed, often compared to a common father/son type relationship with Freud maintaining his authoritative paternal boundaries and Jung challenging these same boundaries -- eventually to the point of separation, and the building of two separate schools of psychology with partly siimilar, partly different philosophies and conceptualizations concerning human psychology.
Freud and Jung both shared a partly Hegelian, partly Nietzschean philosophy. Freud was more a product of the Enlightenment, Jung a product of Romantic Philosophy. Jung seemed a little more willing to integrate the 'darker side' of human nature in a productive manner with the rest of man's personality, whereas Freud seemed more about 'rationally analyzing' this same dark side with the goal 'of bringing it under more rational, conscious, enlightened control -- but control none the less. Jung was willing to give up more of this control with a trust things would eventually integrate in a more healthy direction.
This was one of the main dialectical splits or differences in opinion between Enlightenment and Romantic Philosophy -- just how much reason was man willing to give up and trust that man would still land back on firm ground again -- after some kind of a 'romantic flight' to who knows where.
Jung was more the mythologist, mystic, astrology, occult and para-normal psychologist. Freud didn't seem too comfortable following Jung into these areas. It just happens to be my birthday today -- Jung might be more apt to make a psychological interpretation in this regard, as I try to mediate between Freud and Jung, although I am just speculating here. Besides, if he wouldn't I will.
March 3rd. My birthday. I am a pisces -- often equated with 'two fish swimming towards each other and away from each other at the same time'(or not knowing which way to swim while wanting to swim both ways at the same time). Towards intimacy and committment. And/or away from intimacy and committment and towards more 'individual freedom and self-expression'.
How appropriate that Freud and Jung should meet together for the first time on this 'dualistic-dialectic, thesis-anti-thesis' day. Two very strong-willed and creative men each doing their absolutely very best to 'will to power' their own separate vision and creation while admiring, respecting and learning from each other at the same time.
Or at least in the beginning. Until their respective creative visions came into conflict with each other -- and this conflict became stronger and stronger, reaching more and more of an impasse that just would not go away. And then the anger and resentment started to seriously set in and put a fast ending to what had started out as such a strong and passionate relationship with Freud wanting to pass the leadership of his 'Psychoanalytic Torch' onto to Jung, his heir-in-waiting.
But it was not to be. Psychoanalysis -- at least as Freud defined and described it --was just too tight a 'theoretical box' for Jung to accept and live with. Jung needed a significantly different theoretical box that he could create himself, accept because it was his own Romantic-Mystical-Mythological Vision; not Freud's 'Pseudo-Scientific-More-Rational-Enlightenment Vision' -- that just did not work for Jung.
One of the dividing issues between Freud and Jung was Freud's often stated 'pre-occupation with sexuality' or 'pansexuality'.
Jung wanted to define 'libido' as 'life energy'; not just 'sexual energy'. Freud would have nothing to do with this. For Freud, 'life energy' at this point in his career was to be equated with 'sexual energy'; nothing more, nothing less. His message to Jung was basically this: If you don't want to follow the instructions of the Creator of Psychoanalysis here, then leave. Jung did indeed leave -- like Adler before him and like quite a few psychoanalysts after him who just could not find enough 'theoretical and/or clinical harmony' with Freud.
The irony here is that after Jung left -- probably mainly because of the 'libido' controversy -- Freud would create a 'life instinct' years later that included but did not only include man's 'sexual instinct'. Maybe Freud was listening to Jung after all, or more likely, Freud had to deal with two new clinical issues that weren't being properly explained by his old model. Specifically, there was the phenomenon of World War 1 soldiers coming back from the war and 'repeating their war traumacies' in the psychotherapy room. This 'repeating of horrible experiences' didn't seem to adhere to either Freud's ideas of 'the pleasure principle' or to Freud's principle of 'wish-fulfillment'. This clinical phenomenon needed a better theoretical explanation. So too did the clinical phenomenon of 'masochism' -- specifically, the type of masochism that Freud labelled as 'Primary Masochism'. Again this clinical phenomenon, didn't seem to follow the rules of either the Pleasure Principle or The Wish-Fulfillment Principle. Again, a new explanation was needed.
In this regard, Freud thought long and hard about introducing the concept of 'the mastery compulsion' but ultimately rejected it -- perhaps because it was too close to Adler's idea of 'superiority striving'. It is too bad that Freud ultimately rejected this concept of the mastery compulsion because it would have fit in nicely with his ideas (and/or maybe I am projecting my more Adlerian based ideas onto Freud here) about the nature and dynamics of transference.
However, Freud chose to go another theoretical direction by introducing the 'life' vs. 'death instinct' ('instinct' also often being translated as 'drive' or 'impulse' -- depending on the particular translation and/or interpretation).
But by the time Freud got to a 'life drive' that seems to more closely reflect Jung's definition of 'libido' than Freud's earlier 'sexual' definition, Freud and Jung were many too mornings and many too many theoretical miles apart from a place they could ever return.
But not for DGB Philosophy-Psychology which prides itself (myself) for my ability to integrate practically any two theorists. I am sure there are other psychologists and psycho-theorists who have tried and/or successfully integrated Freud and Jung in some sort of integrative fashion.
Call my latest work in personality theory another attempt at doing this -- integrating Freudian and Jungian Theory (as well as also integrating elements of Adler, Klein, Fairbairn, Fromm, Kohut, Berne, Perls, Masson and others as well).
Too many attempted integrations here? Maybe. Maybe not. We shall see.
Let's see where it takes us.
One of the ideas that Jung incorporated into his own system that wasn't in Freud's was the idea of 'The Collective Unconscious'. Here Jung showed his interest in, and influence from, mythology. Freud had an interest in mythology as well -- witness his incorporation of 'The Oedipal Complex' which is taken from a Sophocles mythological trilogy. But Freud wasn't as keenly interested in myths -- or probably as sophisticated in them -- as Jung would become. Nor did Freud have any ambition to explore the world of the occult and par-psychology and astrology -- like Jung did.
Mythology would become a centre-piece of Jung's fast evolving Personality Theory.
The idea of 'Archetypes' arose from this area. Archetypes are basically Gods and Heroes and Villains from mythology that have been 'introjected' or 'internalized' into man's Collective Unconscious. They can be 'acted out' through 'the Personna' (the dominant conscious part and style of the personality by which a person interacts with other people) or they can be acted out in 'the Shadow' -- a more 'Id-like' part of the personality that is disowned, suppressed, repressed, kept 'secret', and kept in a 'darker corner' of the personality.
The Shadow can be projected out into the world in the form of a 'lover', a 'hated person', a 'hero' or 'idol', a 'villain'...and so on...
In Gestalt language, the Personna is the 'figurall' part of the personality; the Shadow is the 'background' part of the personality that 'pops up seemingly out of nowhere -- 'seemingly nowhere' being the 'home of The Shadow' -- much to our often personal embarrassment and/or chagrin -- or to that of someone in our social environment who witnesses it.
One of the goals of Jungian Psychotherapy is to help the client achieve a better integration/synthesis between the Personna (the dominant, active social side of the personality and The Shadow (the part of the personality buried deep in the Unconscious that strives to actively 'compensate' for the limitations and weaknesses of The Personna.
This has some similarities, some differences, with Freud's desire in Psychoanalysis to help a client's 'Superego' and 'Id' get along more harmoniously through the mediating, 'compromise-formation' negotiating and integrating skills of the 'Ego' other than in a completely 'neurotic' and/or 'psychotic' 'conflict-resolution that socially is just not working.
In past essays, I have compared Freud's conception of The Superego vs. The Id as being very similar to Nietzsche's earlier conception of Apollo vs. Dionysus. What Jung's model allows for that Freuds' model really doesn't is the possibility than in any one particular case a person's 'Dionysus Archetype-Figure' could dominate his or her particular Personna whereas it could be Apollo that is buried in the person's Unconscious Shadow.
Nietzsche himself was seemingly like this -- or believed that he was.
After 'disowning' himself from the 'Hegelian Dialectic' and from his first book, 'The Birth of Tragedy' -- Nietzsche basically 'abandoned' and/or 'suppressed' and/or denied his 'own Apollo' -- religating it to the Shadow of his Mythological and/or Personal Unconscious -- while 'Dionysus' went 'hogwild' in his conscious personality, taking over his Personna, and possibly having something to do with Nietzsche's ultimate self-destruciton (or not). Nietzsche's 'insanity' between 1890 and 1900 is still a subject of academic debate. I think if I remember properly, Nietzsche's father was also cursed with some form of mental disorder and/or psychosis (schizophrenia) so we may be talking about some sort of genetic disorder on Nietzsche's father's side that may have had nothing to do with Nietzsche's evolving 'Dionysian philosophy and lifestyle'. So Nietzshe's eventual self-destruction over the last 10 years of his life may have been genetic, not learned. Or it may have been both. Subject for further debate.
Anyways, to conclude this essay today, I will simply say that my 'bottom 3 floors (unconscious or subconscious levels) of the personality are influenced by both Freud and Jung as well as Adler and Perls.
A DGB Integrative Model of Unconscious (Subconscious) Elements in The Personality
1. The Top 'Personal Memory' Basement(Unconscious)Floor of The Personality: The Freudian-Adlerian-Gestalt realm of personal memories, transference templates, transference complexes, transference dynamics, including introjections and internalized projections, potential associations, displacements, sublimations, compensations, and more...
2. The Middle 'Mythological' Basement (Unconscious) Floor of The Personality: Full of myths, symbolism, archetypes or archetype-figures -- Gods, Idols, Heroes, Villains, Anti-Gods, etc...
3. The Genetic, Biological and Psychological Potential Self (The 'Soul' of The Personality): Full of talents, capabilities, potentials, biological and psychological impulses towards self-assertion and self-empowerment which can take either a 'healthy' and/or 'pathological' direction depending on the other influences going on within the personality, good and/or bad.
That is enough for today concerning Freud and Jung.
-- dgb, March 31st, 2009.
.............................................................................
This essay has undergone numerous revisions. Today I will focus on the elements of both Freudian Psychoanalysis and Jungian Psychology that have influenced the development and evolution of DGB Psychology -- and particularly my latest integrative model of the personality that borrows significantly from both Freud and Jung.
-- dgb, March 31st, 2009.
Part 1: Sunday, March 3rd, 1907, Freud and Jung Meet For The First Time -- And Talk For 13 Hours Straight!
Freud and Jung -- theirs was an all too short and tumultous seven year relationship (1907-1914), passionate and explosive, reverent from each side at the beginning, much more rebellious from Jung's side as things progressed, often compared to a common father/son type relationship with Freud maintaining his authoritative paternal boundaries and Jung challenging these same boundaries -- eventually to the point of separation, and the building of two separate schools of psychology with partly siimilar, partly different philosophies and conceptualizations concerning human psychology.
Freud and Jung both shared a partly Hegelian, partly Nietzschean philosophy. Freud was more a product of the Enlightenment, Jung a product of Romantic Philosophy. Jung seemed a little more willing to integrate the 'darker side' of human nature in a productive manner with the rest of man's personality, whereas Freud seemed more about 'rationally analyzing' this same dark side with the goal 'of bringing it under more rational, conscious, enlightened control -- but control none the less. Jung was willing to give up more of this control with a trust things would eventually integrate in a more healthy direction.
This was one of the main dialectical splits or differences in opinion between Enlightenment and Romantic Philosophy -- just how much reason was man willing to give up and trust that man would still land back on firm ground again -- after some kind of a 'romantic flight' to who knows where.
Jung was more the mythologist, mystic, astrology, occult and para-normal psychologist. Freud didn't seem too comfortable following Jung into these areas. It just happens to be my birthday today -- Jung might be more apt to make a psychological interpretation in this regard, as I try to mediate between Freud and Jung, although I am just speculating here. Besides, if he wouldn't I will.
March 3rd. My birthday. I am a pisces -- often equated with 'two fish swimming towards each other and away from each other at the same time'(or not knowing which way to swim while wanting to swim both ways at the same time). Towards intimacy and committment. And/or away from intimacy and committment and towards more 'individual freedom and self-expression'.
How appropriate that Freud and Jung should meet together for the first time on this 'dualistic-dialectic, thesis-anti-thesis' day. Two very strong-willed and creative men each doing their absolutely very best to 'will to power' their own separate vision and creation while admiring, respecting and learning from each other at the same time.
Or at least in the beginning. Until their respective creative visions came into conflict with each other -- and this conflict became stronger and stronger, reaching more and more of an impasse that just would not go away. And then the anger and resentment started to seriously set in and put a fast ending to what had started out as such a strong and passionate relationship with Freud wanting to pass the leadership of his 'Psychoanalytic Torch' onto to Jung, his heir-in-waiting.
But it was not to be. Psychoanalysis -- at least as Freud defined and described it --was just too tight a 'theoretical box' for Jung to accept and live with. Jung needed a significantly different theoretical box that he could create himself, accept because it was his own Romantic-Mystical-Mythological Vision; not Freud's 'Pseudo-Scientific-More-Rational-Enlightenment Vision' -- that just did not work for Jung.
One of the dividing issues between Freud and Jung was Freud's often stated 'pre-occupation with sexuality' or 'pansexuality'.
Jung wanted to define 'libido' as 'life energy'; not just 'sexual energy'. Freud would have nothing to do with this. For Freud, 'life energy' at this point in his career was to be equated with 'sexual energy'; nothing more, nothing less. His message to Jung was basically this: If you don't want to follow the instructions of the Creator of Psychoanalysis here, then leave. Jung did indeed leave -- like Adler before him and like quite a few psychoanalysts after him who just could not find enough 'theoretical and/or clinical harmony' with Freud.
The irony here is that after Jung left -- probably mainly because of the 'libido' controversy -- Freud would create a 'life instinct' years later that included but did not only include man's 'sexual instinct'. Maybe Freud was listening to Jung after all, or more likely, Freud had to deal with two new clinical issues that weren't being properly explained by his old model. Specifically, there was the phenomenon of World War 1 soldiers coming back from the war and 'repeating their war traumacies' in the psychotherapy room. This 'repeating of horrible experiences' didn't seem to adhere to either Freud's ideas of 'the pleasure principle' or to Freud's principle of 'wish-fulfillment'. This clinical phenomenon needed a better theoretical explanation. So too did the clinical phenomenon of 'masochism' -- specifically, the type of masochism that Freud labelled as 'Primary Masochism'. Again this clinical phenomenon, didn't seem to follow the rules of either the Pleasure Principle or The Wish-Fulfillment Principle. Again, a new explanation was needed.
In this regard, Freud thought long and hard about introducing the concept of 'the mastery compulsion' but ultimately rejected it -- perhaps because it was too close to Adler's idea of 'superiority striving'. It is too bad that Freud ultimately rejected this concept of the mastery compulsion because it would have fit in nicely with his ideas (and/or maybe I am projecting my more Adlerian based ideas onto Freud here) about the nature and dynamics of transference.
However, Freud chose to go another theoretical direction by introducing the 'life' vs. 'death instinct' ('instinct' also often being translated as 'drive' or 'impulse' -- depending on the particular translation and/or interpretation).
But by the time Freud got to a 'life drive' that seems to more closely reflect Jung's definition of 'libido' than Freud's earlier 'sexual' definition, Freud and Jung were many too mornings and many too many theoretical miles apart from a place they could ever return.
But not for DGB Philosophy-Psychology which prides itself (myself) for my ability to integrate practically any two theorists. I am sure there are other psychologists and psycho-theorists who have tried and/or successfully integrated Freud and Jung in some sort of integrative fashion.
Call my latest work in personality theory another attempt at doing this -- integrating Freudian and Jungian Theory (as well as also integrating elements of Adler, Klein, Fairbairn, Fromm, Kohut, Berne, Perls, Masson and others as well).
Too many attempted integrations here? Maybe. Maybe not. We shall see.
Let's see where it takes us.
One of the ideas that Jung incorporated into his own system that wasn't in Freud's was the idea of 'The Collective Unconscious'. Here Jung showed his interest in, and influence from, mythology. Freud had an interest in mythology as well -- witness his incorporation of 'The Oedipal Complex' which is taken from a Sophocles mythological trilogy. But Freud wasn't as keenly interested in myths -- or probably as sophisticated in them -- as Jung would become. Nor did Freud have any ambition to explore the world of the occult and par-psychology and astrology -- like Jung did.
Mythology would become a centre-piece of Jung's fast evolving Personality Theory.
The idea of 'Archetypes' arose from this area. Archetypes are basically Gods and Heroes and Villains from mythology that have been 'introjected' or 'internalized' into man's Collective Unconscious. They can be 'acted out' through 'the Personna' (the dominant conscious part and style of the personality by which a person interacts with other people) or they can be acted out in 'the Shadow' -- a more 'Id-like' part of the personality that is disowned, suppressed, repressed, kept 'secret', and kept in a 'darker corner' of the personality.
The Shadow can be projected out into the world in the form of a 'lover', a 'hated person', a 'hero' or 'idol', a 'villain'...and so on...
In Gestalt language, the Personna is the 'figurall' part of the personality; the Shadow is the 'background' part of the personality that 'pops up seemingly out of nowhere -- 'seemingly nowhere' being the 'home of The Shadow' -- much to our often personal embarrassment and/or chagrin -- or to that of someone in our social environment who witnesses it.
One of the goals of Jungian Psychotherapy is to help the client achieve a better integration/synthesis between the Personna (the dominant, active social side of the personality and The Shadow (the part of the personality buried deep in the Unconscious that strives to actively 'compensate' for the limitations and weaknesses of The Personna.
This has some similarities, some differences, with Freud's desire in Psychoanalysis to help a client's 'Superego' and 'Id' get along more harmoniously through the mediating, 'compromise-formation' negotiating and integrating skills of the 'Ego' other than in a completely 'neurotic' and/or 'psychotic' 'conflict-resolution that socially is just not working.
In past essays, I have compared Freud's conception of The Superego vs. The Id as being very similar to Nietzsche's earlier conception of Apollo vs. Dionysus. What Jung's model allows for that Freuds' model really doesn't is the possibility than in any one particular case a person's 'Dionysus Archetype-Figure' could dominate his or her particular Personna whereas it could be Apollo that is buried in the person's Unconscious Shadow.
Nietzsche himself was seemingly like this -- or believed that he was.
After 'disowning' himself from the 'Hegelian Dialectic' and from his first book, 'The Birth of Tragedy' -- Nietzsche basically 'abandoned' and/or 'suppressed' and/or denied his 'own Apollo' -- religating it to the Shadow of his Mythological and/or Personal Unconscious -- while 'Dionysus' went 'hogwild' in his conscious personality, taking over his Personna, and possibly having something to do with Nietzsche's ultimate self-destruciton (or not). Nietzsche's 'insanity' between 1890 and 1900 is still a subject of academic debate. I think if I remember properly, Nietzsche's father was also cursed with some form of mental disorder and/or psychosis (schizophrenia) so we may be talking about some sort of genetic disorder on Nietzsche's father's side that may have had nothing to do with Nietzsche's evolving 'Dionysian philosophy and lifestyle'. So Nietzshe's eventual self-destruction over the last 10 years of his life may have been genetic, not learned. Or it may have been both. Subject for further debate.
Anyways, to conclude this essay today, I will simply say that my 'bottom 3 floors (unconscious or subconscious levels) of the personality are influenced by both Freud and Jung as well as Adler and Perls.
A DGB Integrative Model of Unconscious (Subconscious) Elements in The Personality
1. The Top 'Personal Memory' Basement(Unconscious)Floor of The Personality: The Freudian-Adlerian-Gestalt realm of personal memories, transference templates, transference complexes, transference dynamics, including introjections and internalized projections, potential associations, displacements, sublimations, compensations, and more...
2. The Middle 'Mythological' Basement (Unconscious) Floor of The Personality: Full of myths, symbolism, archetypes or archetype-figures -- Gods, Idols, Heroes, Villains, Anti-Gods, etc...
3. The Genetic, Biological and Psychological Potential Self (The 'Soul' of The Personality): Full of talents, capabilities, potentials, biological and psychological impulses towards self-assertion and self-empowerment which can take either a 'healthy' and/or 'pathological' direction depending on the other influences going on within the personality, good and/or bad.
That is enough for today concerning Freud and Jung.
-- dgb, March 31st, 2009.
.............................................................................
Monday, March 30, 2009
DGB Philosophy vs. Nietzsche's Philosophical Evolution...Re-Modified and Updated...May 11/09...
Part 1: A Brief Introduction To Nietzsche's Philosophical Evolution
A philosopher-writer who takes it upon himself -- or herself -- to interpret a famous philosopher like Nietzsche is at least partly stuck between a rock and a hard place, especially if the intended reading audience is meant to be broader than a strictly professional academic audience. The question becomes how to simplify Nietzsche in as orderly a fashion as possible without oversimplifying him.
This task is made all the more difficult due to the fact that Nietzsche didn't want his philosophy to be pigeon-holed, stereotyped and/or classified -- and yet, of course, that is the first thing that every interpreter of Nietzsche wants to do with his philosophy: specifically, pigeon-hole it, stereotype it, classify it...
Essentially, I am no different. I can only try to interpret Nietzsche better -- and/or in my own DGB way. At this point in time, I do not profess to be a Nietzschean 'expert' -- maybe in 5 or 10 years assuming I get the time and energy to engage in all of his different books. (An interview of Dr. Donald Meichenbaum from 2002 that I just read and included in the essay below this one says that it takes about 7 years to become an 'expert' at, or in, anything -- generally including 'practical-experiential-hands-on learning and knowledge' as well as 'book-learned knowledge').
Until I reach that point which may be never, assume that you will continue to get these ongoing 'Nietzchean interpretive updates' from time to time as DGB Philosophy continues to evolve and with it new, modified interpretations of Nietzsche become significantly relevant enough to write about them.
Here are 7 elements of Nietzschean Philosophy that I have ascertained so far:
A/ The Seven Faces of Nietzsche
1. Nietzsche The (Birth of Tragedy) Apollonian-Dionysian Centralist (Focusing On the Hegelian Triadic Principle of Dialectic-Homeostatic Balance (Thesis/Apollonianism, Anti-Thesis/Dionysianism, Synthesis/Apollonian-Dionysianism);
2. Nietzsche The Deconstructionist, Post-Modernist, and Anti Grand Narrativist (Anti-Hegelian, Anti-Christian, Anti-Science, Anti-Herd Mentality...Anti-Everything almost...;
3. Nietzsche The Champion of Dionysian Philosophy;
4. Nietzsche The Champion of The Superman and The Will To Power Philosophy;
5. Nietzsche The Radical Myth-Maker: Meaning 'The Myth of Eternal Recurrence'
6. 6. Nietzsche The Abyss Philosopher: Don't Stare Too Long At The Abyss Lest The Abyss Stare Back At You -- And Scare The Life Out Of You, Extinguishing Your Life Flame, Pushing You From Panic Mode To Frozen Immobility and Death Through The Process Of Anxiety Neurosis, Angst, Existential Neurosis, Leaving You Unable To Think Properly, To Make a Necessary Decision, A Necessary Choice, An Essential Action, And/Or To Bring Together Enough Self Courage To Leap -- Or Build A Bridge Across -- The Abyss Of Life and Death, Of Being, Non-Being, and Becoming; When We Don't Take The Risk Of Living To Become Who We Are Capable Of Becoming, We Wither Away into The Non-Existence, The Non-Being, The Self-Depression Of A Life That Is No Longer Being Lived Passionately But Instead Has Turned Us Into A Walking Corpse, A Stepford Man Or Woman, A Stepford Husband Or Wife, A Stepford Parent or Child, A Stepford Employer Or Employee, A Stepford Teacher or Student -- A Plastic Man or Woman With A Pasted, Phoney Smile, Glued On But Not Real, Not Passionate, Not Alive...A Good, Submissive Christian or Muslim or Employee or Student or Child or Model or Actor or Celebrity...That Is Dying Inside Because We Have No Insides That Are Real As Opposed To Estranged, And That We Can Call Our Own As Opposed To Someone Else's Whom We Have Internalized And Called Our Own But Not Assimilated To Be A Part Of Who We Were and Are Meant To Be...
7. Nietzsche The Arrogant, Individualist and Elitist But Don't Call Him A Nazi Because He Hated any Association With A 'Group-Think/Herd-Mentality'.
I will spend the rest of this essay focusing on Nietzsche's 'BT, Post-Hegelian, Apollonian-Dionysian, Dialectic-Homeostatic-Balance' Philosophy. Appreciate it while you read it because it didn't last long -- only through his first book, The Birth of Tragedy.
I view Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology as an integrative synthesis of:
1. Nietszsche's BT Philosophy;
2. Nietzsche's combined Superman, Will-To-Power, and Abyss-Humanistic-Existential Philosophy; and
3. Nietzsche's criticial Deconstructionism and Post-Modernism -- Towards A More Dialectic-Homeostatic Balanced Philosophy-Psychology Such as Between Apollo and Dionysus, Individual and State, Liberalism and Conservatism, Capitalism and Socialism, Narcissism and Altruism...
The three parts of Nietszche and his philosophy that I -- meaning DGB Philosophy -- leave behind are:
1. Nietzsche's radical extremism and arrogant elitism;
2. Nietzsche's myth of 'eternal recurrence';
3. Nietzsche's disdain for 'Grand Narratives' and 'Constructive Philosophy' of any and all types (including his own) that have an actual 'substance' and 'structure' to it...
Let's take a closer look at Nietzsche's 'BT Philosophy'...
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Part 2: Nietzsche's First Philosophy: 'The Birth of Tragedy' Philosophy
Four of Nietzsche's earliest important influences were:
1. Greek Tragedy;
2. Hegel;
3. Schopenhauer; and
4. Richard Wagner.
Together these influences came together in his first book, 'The Birth of Tragedy'.
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The Birth of Tragedy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music
Cover of the 1993 Penguin edition
Author Friedrich Nietzsche
Original title 'Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik'
Translator Shaun Whiteside
Country Germany
Language German
Subject(s) Greek tragedy, the Apollonian/Dionysian opposition
Genre(s) philology
Publication date 1872
Media type Paperback, hardcover
Pages 160 (1993 Penguin ed.)
ISBN ISBN 978-0140433395 (1993 Penguin ed.)
Followed by The Untimely Meditations
(1876)
The Birth of Tragedy (Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik, 1872) is a 19th Century work of philosophy by Friedrich Nietzsche. The full title translates as The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music. It was reissued in 1886 as The Birth of Tragedy, Or: Hellenism and Pessimism (Die Geburt der Tragödie, Oder: Griechentum und Pessimismus). The later edition contained a prefatory essay, An Attempt at Self-Criticism, wherein Nietzsche commented on this very early work.
Contents
1 The book
2 The Apollonian and the Dionysian
3 Influences
4 Reception
5 Quotations
6 Notes
7 References
8 See also
9 External links
The book
Nietzsche found in Greek tragedy an art form that transcended the pessimism and Nihilism one might find in a fundamentally meaningless world. The Greek spectators, by looking into the abyss of human suffering and affirming it, passionately and joyously, affirmed the meaning in their own existence. They knew themselves to be infinitely more than the petty individuals of the apparent world, finding self-affirmation, not in another life, not in a world to come, but in the terror and ecstasy alike celebrated in the performance of tragedies.
Originally educated as a philologist, Nietzsche discusses the history of the Greek tragedy, and introduces an intellectual dichotomy between the Dionysian and the Apollonian (very loosely: reality undifferentiated by forms and like distinctions versus reality as differentiated by forms, or the forms themselves). Nietzsche claims life always involves a struggle between these two elements, each battling for control over the existence of humanity. In Nietzsche's words, "Wherever the Dionysian prevailed, the Apollonian was checked and destroyed.... wherever the first Dionysian onslaught was successfully withstood, the authority and majesty of the Delphic god Apollo exhibited itself as more rigid and menacing than ever." Yet neither side ever prevails due to each containing the other in an eternal, natural check, or balance.
Nietzsche argues that the tragedy of Ancient Greece was the highest form of art due to its mixture of both Apollonian and Dionysian elements into one seamless whole, allowing the spectator to experience the full spectrum of the human condition. The Dionysiac element was to be found in the music of the chorus, while the Apollonian element was found in the dialogue which gave a concrete symbolism that balanced the Dionysiac revelry. Basically, the Apollonian spirit was able to give form to the abstract Dionysian.
Before the tragedy, there was an era of static, idealized plastic art in the form of sculpture that represented the Apollonian view of the world. The Dionysian element was to be found in the wild revelry of festivals and drunkenness, but, most importantly, in music. The combination of these elements in one art form gave birth to tragedy. He theorizes that the chorus was originally always satyrs, goat-men. (This is speculative, although the word “tragedy” τραγωδία is contracted from trag(o)-aoidiā = "goat song" from tragos = "goat" and aeidein = "to sing".) Thus, he argues, “the illusion of culture was wiped away by the primordial image of man” for the audience; they participated with and as the chorus empathetically, “so that they imagined themselves as restored natural geniuses, as satyrs.” But in this state, they have an Apollonian dream vision of themselves, of the energy they're embodying. It’s a vision of the god, of Dionysus, who appears before the chorus on the stage. And the actors and the plot are the development of that dream vision, the essence of which is the ecstatic dismembering of the god and of the Bacchantes' rituals, of the inseparable ecstasy and suffering of human existence…
After the time of Aeschylus and Sophocles, there was an age where tragedy died. Nietzsche ties this to the influence of writers like Euripides and the coming of rationality, represented by Socrates. Euripides reduced the use of the chorus and was more naturalistic in his representation of human drama, making it more reflective of the realities of daily life. Socrates emphasized reason to such a degree that he diffused the value of myth and suffering to human knowledge. For Nietzsche, these two intellectuals helped drain the ability of the individual to participate in forms of art, because they saw things too soberly and rationally. The participation mystique aspect of art and myth was lost, and along with it, much of man's ability to live creatively in optimistic harmony with the sufferings of life. Nietzsche concludes that it may be possible to reattain the balance of Dionysian and Apollonian in modern art through the operas of Richard Wagner, in a rebirth of tragedy.
The Apollonian and the Dionysian
In contrast to the typical Enlightenment view of ancient Greek culture as noble, simple, elegant and grandiose,[1], Nietzsche believed the Greeks were grappling with pessimism. The universe in which we live is the product of great interacting forces; but we neither observe nor know these as such. What we put together as our conceptions of the world, Nietzsche thought, never actually addresses the underlying realities. It is human destiny to be controlled by the darkest universal realities and, at the same time, to live life in a human-dreamt world of illusions.
It was precisely this human-dreamt world that the Greeks had developed into perfection from the Homeric legends onward. The Olympian complex of deities, combined with all the details of their heroic lives and their numerous interactions with men and women of earth, formed a world picture in which individual people can live. This picture literally rendered humans as individuals, capable of greatness, always of significance. There is, in this world, objective clarity. The beings are almost sculpted. Hence, Athenians mature within the illusions of a world and life that is under control and that has clear models of personal significance and greatness. It is a beautiful creation. But it is, as Nietzsche observes, an Apollonian aesthetics, Apollo being the god who most typifies the Olympian complex in this regard. (BT, 1, p. 36) Apollo is the god of plastic arts and of illusion.
The problem—and it is a problem for all times and all human life—is that the dark side of existence makes itself apparent and forces us to confront whatever we have tried to shut out of our nice, tidy livable world. Thus, for Nietzsche, while the Greeks, and the Athenians in particular, had developed a rich world view based on Apollo and the other Olympian gods, they had rendered themselves largely ignorant of reality's dark side, as represented in the god Dionysus. Only in the distant past, and largely outside of Athens, had Dionysian festivals paved the way to direct (and destructive) experience of life's darkest sides—intoxication, sexual license, absorption by the primal horde, in short, dissolution of the individual (occasionally, actual dismemberment) and re-immersion into a common organic whole. (BT, 2, pp. 39-40)
The Apollonian in culture he sees as Arthur Schopenhauer's concept of the principium individuationis (principle of individuation) with its refinement, sobriety and emphasis on superficial appearance, whereby man separates himself from the undifferentiated immediacy of nature. Nietzsche claims sculpture as the art-form that captures this impulse most fully: sculpture has clear and definite boundaries and seeks to represent reality, in its perfectly stable form. The Dionysian impulse, by contrast, features immersion in the wholeness of nature, intoxication, non-rationality, and inhumanity; rather than the detached, rational representation of the Apollonian that invites similarly detached observation, the Dionysian impulse involves a frenzied participation in life itself. Nietzsche sees the Dionysian impulse as best realized in music, which tends not to have clear boundaries, is unstable and non-representational, and, in Nietzsche's view, invites participation among its listeners through dance. Nietzsche argues that the Apollonian has dominated Western thought since Socrates, but he sees German Romanticism (especially Richard Wagner) as a possible re-introduction of the Dionysian, which might offer the salvation of European culture. The book shows the influence of Schopenhauer.[2]
The issue, then, or so Nietzsche thought, is how to experience and understand the Dionysian side of life without destroying the obvious values of the Apollonian side. It is not healthy for an individual, or for a whole society, to become entirely absorbed in the rule of one or the other. The soundest (healthiest) foothold is in both. Nietzsche's theory of Athenian tragic drama suggests exactly how, before Euripides and Socrates, the Dionysian and Apollonian elements of life were artistically woven together. The Greek spectator became healthy through direct experience of the Dionysian within the protective spirit-of-tragedy on the Apollonian stage.
Influences
The Birth of Tragedy is a young man's work, and shows the influence of many of the philosophers Nietzsche had been studying. His interest in classical Greece as in some respects a rational society can be attributed in some measure to the influence of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, although Nietzsche departed from Winckelmann in many ways. In addition, Nietzsche uses the term "naive" in exactly the sense used by Friedrich Schiller. More important influences include Hegel, whose concept of the dialectic underlies the tripartite division of art into the Apollonian, its Dionysian antithesis, and their synthesis in Greek tragedy. Also of great importance are the works of Arthur Schopenhauer, especially The World as Will and Representation. The Apollonian experience bears great similarity to the experience of the world as "representation" in Schopenhauer's sense, and the experience of the Dionysian bears similarities to the identification with the world as "will." Nietzsche opposed Schopenhauer's Buddhistic negation of the will. He argued that life can be worth living despite the enormous amount of cruelty and suffering that exists.[3]
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DGB Editorial Comments (Optimistic vs. Pessimistic Epistemology)
You can never completely track down a philosopher's entire historical line of influence. Every time you think you have captured all of the most important lines or sources of influence of a philosopher, all of a sudden, a couple of more influences pop into vision. And so it is with Nietzsche. New interpretations of Nietzsche bring to light new lines and sources of influence.
Until I read the interpretation of Nietzsche's BT from above (Wikipedia) -- and this might have been the second or third time that I read it -- I had never as completely viewed Nietzsche's BT as a 'spinoff' and 'modified extrapolation' of Schopenhauer's 'The World as Will and Representation' as I have at this moment.
Specifically, I can see now how Schopenhauer's 'World of Representation' became Nietzsche's 'Apollonian World' just as clearly as Nietzsche's 'Apollonian World' would later become Freud's 'Realm of The Superego' (Society's Ethical and Legal Restraints) in Classical Psychoanalysis. Similarily, Schopenhauer's 'World of Will' would become Nietzsche's 'Dionysian World' which in turn would later be translated by Freud into 'The Realm of The Id' (The World of Biological, Instinctual Dionysian Forces).
Furthermore, behind Schopenhauer's 'World of Representation' you can find the lingering influence of Kant's 'Phenomenal World' -- or 'World of Appearances' -- and behind that -- even Plato's and Parmenides' influence.
Now Kant's Phenomenal World -- or World of 'Appearances' as opposed to 'Actual Realities' -- has caused many philosophers including Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and even partly Freud, a world of problems and grief ever since Kant most clearly established this most mind-bending and mind-numbing 'subjective-objective paradox or dichotomy'. .
Indeed, I don't think even Kant would have liked the way that his philosophy -- and particularly his 'World of Appearances' -- was interpreted after he died. Is the 'epistmelogical world of man half full or half empty'. Accepting different proportions here for different epistemological interpretations on different life 'things' and 'processes', we can focus either on the part 'we got/get right' or the 'part we got/get wrong'. This can be the sole difference between an 'optimistic' vs. a 'pessimistic' or even 'cynical' attitude.
You see, at this point, DGB Philosophy turns completely away from the epistemological legacy of Parmenides, Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche -- arguably Kant was the least guilty of all the others -- and turns to a completely different line of epistemologists -- for lack of a better word call this next line of epistemologists 'Objectivist Epistemologists': Aristotle, Sir Francis Bacon, John Locke, The Enlightenment Philosophers (Diderot, Voltaire, Tom Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson...), Bertrand Russell, General Semantics (led by Alfred Korzybski and his main student, S.I.Hayakawa), Erich Fromm, Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden...
These are my main DGB epistemological influences -- although I am also very much aware and attuned to the more 'subjectivist' and/or 'narcissitic influences of Schopenhauer, Nietsche, Foucault, Derrida, and the rest of the 'deconstructionists' and 'post-modernists' as well.
The crucial epistemological issue at stake is this: How much does our 'World of Epistemological Representation' represent a world of 'truth and objectivity and structural similarity' i.e. have 'truth value' vs. alternatively, how does our epistemological representations represent a world of 'subjectivity, relativism, narcissistic bias, appearance, illusion, deception, dog and pony shows, sophistry...etc.?
And the answer is that our epistemological world of representation represents -- both. Both truth and structural similarity on the one hand, vs. sophistry, illusion, and deception on the other hand depending on the particular context and circumstances of each epistemological event that we are talking about.
Alternatively, it's all a matter of which side of the philosophical and epistemological equation each philosopher/epistemologist wants to emphasize -- the part we get 'right' and/or the part we get 'wrong'.
Do we want to emphasize the mistakes, illusions, deceptions, and narcissistic biases in human epistemology? Or do we want to emphasize the accuracies, the structural similarities, the facts, the truth... between 'the real' and 'the represented'?
Is the glass half full? Or half empty?
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Apollo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Apollo
2nd century AD Roman statue of Apollo depicting the god's attributes - the lyre and the snake Python
God of music, poetry and oracles
Parents Zeus and Leto
Siblings Artemis
Children Asclepius, Troilus, Aristaeus
Ancient Greek Religion
Main doctrines
Polytheism · Mythology · Hubris
Orthopraxy · Reciprocity · Virtue
Practices
Amphidromia · Iatromantis
Pharmakos · Temples
Votive Offerings · Animal sacrifice
Deities
Twelve Olympians:
Ares · Artemis · Aphrodite · Apollo
Athena · Demeter · Dionysus · Hera ·
Hermes · Hephaestus · Poseidon · Zeus
---
Primordial deities:
Aether · Chaos · Chronos · Erebus
Gaia · Hemera · Nyx · Tartarus · Oranos
---
Lesser gods:
Eros · Hebe · Hecate · Helios
Herakles · Hestia · Iris · Selene · Pan · Nike
Texts
Iliad · Odyssey
Theogony · Works and Days
See also:
Decline of Hellenistic polytheism
Hellenic Polytheistic Reconstructionism
Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes
Ancient Roman Religion
Main doctrines
Polytheism & Numen
Mythology
Imperial Cult · Festivals
Practices
Temples · Funerals
Votive Offerings · Animal sacrifice
Ceres · Diana · Juno
Jupiter · Mars · Mercury · Minerva
Neptune · Venus · Vulcan
Divus Augustus · Divus Caesar
Fortuna · Pluto · Quirinus
Sol Invictus · Vesta
The Lares
---
In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo (in Greek, Ἀπόλλων—Apóllōn or Ἀπέλλων—Apellōn), is one of the most important and many-sided of the Olympian deities. The ideal of the kouros (a beardless youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. Apollo was worshipped in both ancient Greek and Roman religion, as well as in the modern Hellenic neopaganism.
As the patron of Delphi (Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an oracular god — the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing were associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius. Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague as well as one who had the ability to cure. Amongst the god's custodial charges, Apollo became associated with dominion over colonists, and as the patron defender of herds and flocks. As the leader of the Muses (Apollon Musagetes) and director of their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god of music and poetry. Hermes created the lyre for him, and the instrument became a common attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were called paeans.
In Hellenistic times, especially during the third century BCE, as Apollo Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios, god of the sun, and his sister Artemis similarly equated with Selene, goddess of the moon.[1] In Latin texts, however, Joseph Fontenrose declared himself unable to find any conflation of Apollo with Sol among the Augustan poets of the first century, not even in the conjurations of Aeneas and Latinus in Aeneid XII (161-215).[2] Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the third century CE.
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More DGB Editorial Comments on Nietzsche's 'Birth of Tragedy' Philosophy
So here's the situation: Nietzsche enters into BT a 'Hegelian philosopher', partly mesmerized, defined, and subsumed by Schopehnauer as well - but partly able to shake Schopenhauer off his tail.
You see, by all accounts, Schopenhauer was a nasty, nasty man, and he wrote a nasty, nasty philosophical treatise. I don't know how many of you have read the book, or seen the movie, 'Lord of The Flies' -- but that was Schopenhauer's narcissistic philosophical treatise in a nutshell -- softened a little bit by a couple of strategies that Schopenhauer advocated to try to 'escape the ugliness, irrationality, viciousness, violence, and coldness of life' such as: 1. take up Buddhism and learn how 'not to want' (Gee, that's easy.); and 2. go the theatre, enjoy good art, and use the whole medium of art, theatre, and music to escape the ugliness, irrationality, and tragedy of your 'Lord of The Flies' existence.
I can identify with this last strategy partly. I write at least partly to compensate for, and/or escape, my 'Lord of The Flies' existence. And an 'economic recession' -- that seems about to turn into an an 'economic depression' --
tightens the screws on everybody. So does bad business decisions and a bad business environment. For that matter, so does a bad love relationship, a bad family situation, and internal negativity. I'm not identifying with all these different situations -- but at least some of them.
Now you can do what Schopenhauer would have us do -- and run from all of these different 'bad' situations -- for example, leave your bad situation at work and go to the theatre. And find your 'emotional cathartic release' in a good Greek Tragedy (or a Shakespearian tragedy, or presumably any form of 'good theatre').
Or you can do what Nietzsche decided to do -- and that was to 'embrace life to the fullest passion and intensity in all of its highest highs and lowest lows. Whether good or bad, you don't run from life -- you passionately embrace it.
Two very different forms of 'philosophical psychotherapy'. Nietzsche partly embraced both Hegel and Schopenhauer -- before fully turning away from Hegel's 'dialectic' approach to philosophy and life; and partly turning away from Schopenhauer's 'extreme pessism' and his 'suppress-your-desires-in-Budhism' as well.
Still the philosophical remnants of Schopenhauer remained in Nietzsche (as they would both strongly seep into Freud and Psychoanalysis later).
And nowhere did Schopenhauer's remnants remain alive more than they did in Nietzsche's perception and judgment of 'Apollo' which rather than an 'Enlightenment' interpretation of Apollo as The God of 'Truth, Ethics, Law, and Order' would come to mean something entirely different to Nietzsche in the order of 'Social and Political Illusion, Sophistry and Ideology' ('ideology' in the terminology of Marx later)..
This is a sad statement of Apollo's Greek legacy in my opinion.
I prefer Nietzsche's BT philosophy of 'homeostatic-dialectic-democratic balance' (in DGB terminology) between the 'Apollonian' part of man and the 'Dionysian' part of man as laid out in his classic first book, 'The Birth Of Tragedy'.
But like Freud would abandon his 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory', so too would Nietzsche basically abandon the 'Apollonian part of man' in BT -- to the detriment of his later more 'extremist-Humanstic-Existential Superman or Will to Power Philosophy'.
We will attend to Nietzsche's later humanistic-existential philosophical developments in later essays...
dgb, Feb. 10th, 2009, updated and modified Mar. 30th, May 11th, 2009.
A philosopher-writer who takes it upon himself -- or herself -- to interpret a famous philosopher like Nietzsche is at least partly stuck between a rock and a hard place, especially if the intended reading audience is meant to be broader than a strictly professional academic audience. The question becomes how to simplify Nietzsche in as orderly a fashion as possible without oversimplifying him.
This task is made all the more difficult due to the fact that Nietzsche didn't want his philosophy to be pigeon-holed, stereotyped and/or classified -- and yet, of course, that is the first thing that every interpreter of Nietzsche wants to do with his philosophy: specifically, pigeon-hole it, stereotype it, classify it...
Essentially, I am no different. I can only try to interpret Nietzsche better -- and/or in my own DGB way. At this point in time, I do not profess to be a Nietzschean 'expert' -- maybe in 5 or 10 years assuming I get the time and energy to engage in all of his different books. (An interview of Dr. Donald Meichenbaum from 2002 that I just read and included in the essay below this one says that it takes about 7 years to become an 'expert' at, or in, anything -- generally including 'practical-experiential-hands-on learning and knowledge' as well as 'book-learned knowledge').
Until I reach that point which may be never, assume that you will continue to get these ongoing 'Nietzchean interpretive updates' from time to time as DGB Philosophy continues to evolve and with it new, modified interpretations of Nietzsche become significantly relevant enough to write about them.
Here are 7 elements of Nietzschean Philosophy that I have ascertained so far:
A/ The Seven Faces of Nietzsche
1. Nietzsche The (Birth of Tragedy) Apollonian-Dionysian Centralist (Focusing On the Hegelian Triadic Principle of Dialectic-Homeostatic Balance (Thesis/Apollonianism, Anti-Thesis/Dionysianism, Synthesis/Apollonian-Dionysianism);
2. Nietzsche The Deconstructionist, Post-Modernist, and Anti Grand Narrativist (Anti-Hegelian, Anti-Christian, Anti-Science, Anti-Herd Mentality...Anti-Everything almost...;
3. Nietzsche The Champion of Dionysian Philosophy;
4. Nietzsche The Champion of The Superman and The Will To Power Philosophy;
5. Nietzsche The Radical Myth-Maker: Meaning 'The Myth of Eternal Recurrence'
6. 6. Nietzsche The Abyss Philosopher: Don't Stare Too Long At The Abyss Lest The Abyss Stare Back At You -- And Scare The Life Out Of You, Extinguishing Your Life Flame, Pushing You From Panic Mode To Frozen Immobility and Death Through The Process Of Anxiety Neurosis, Angst, Existential Neurosis, Leaving You Unable To Think Properly, To Make a Necessary Decision, A Necessary Choice, An Essential Action, And/Or To Bring Together Enough Self Courage To Leap -- Or Build A Bridge Across -- The Abyss Of Life and Death, Of Being, Non-Being, and Becoming; When We Don't Take The Risk Of Living To Become Who We Are Capable Of Becoming, We Wither Away into The Non-Existence, The Non-Being, The Self-Depression Of A Life That Is No Longer Being Lived Passionately But Instead Has Turned Us Into A Walking Corpse, A Stepford Man Or Woman, A Stepford Husband Or Wife, A Stepford Parent or Child, A Stepford Employer Or Employee, A Stepford Teacher or Student -- A Plastic Man or Woman With A Pasted, Phoney Smile, Glued On But Not Real, Not Passionate, Not Alive...A Good, Submissive Christian or Muslim or Employee or Student or Child or Model or Actor or Celebrity...That Is Dying Inside Because We Have No Insides That Are Real As Opposed To Estranged, And That We Can Call Our Own As Opposed To Someone Else's Whom We Have Internalized And Called Our Own But Not Assimilated To Be A Part Of Who We Were and Are Meant To Be...
7. Nietzsche The Arrogant, Individualist and Elitist But Don't Call Him A Nazi Because He Hated any Association With A 'Group-Think/Herd-Mentality'.
I will spend the rest of this essay focusing on Nietzsche's 'BT, Post-Hegelian, Apollonian-Dionysian, Dialectic-Homeostatic-Balance' Philosophy. Appreciate it while you read it because it didn't last long -- only through his first book, The Birth of Tragedy.
I view Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology as an integrative synthesis of:
1. Nietszsche's BT Philosophy;
2. Nietzsche's combined Superman, Will-To-Power, and Abyss-Humanistic-Existential Philosophy; and
3. Nietzsche's criticial Deconstructionism and Post-Modernism -- Towards A More Dialectic-Homeostatic Balanced Philosophy-Psychology Such as Between Apollo and Dionysus, Individual and State, Liberalism and Conservatism, Capitalism and Socialism, Narcissism and Altruism...
The three parts of Nietszche and his philosophy that I -- meaning DGB Philosophy -- leave behind are:
1. Nietzsche's radical extremism and arrogant elitism;
2. Nietzsche's myth of 'eternal recurrence';
3. Nietzsche's disdain for 'Grand Narratives' and 'Constructive Philosophy' of any and all types (including his own) that have an actual 'substance' and 'structure' to it...
Let's take a closer look at Nietzsche's 'BT Philosophy'...
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Part 2: Nietzsche's First Philosophy: 'The Birth of Tragedy' Philosophy
Four of Nietzsche's earliest important influences were:
1. Greek Tragedy;
2. Hegel;
3. Schopenhauer; and
4. Richard Wagner.
Together these influences came together in his first book, 'The Birth of Tragedy'.
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The Birth of Tragedy
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Birth of Tragedy: Out of the Spirit of Music
Cover of the 1993 Penguin edition
Author Friedrich Nietzsche
Original title 'Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik'
Translator Shaun Whiteside
Country Germany
Language German
Subject(s) Greek tragedy, the Apollonian/Dionysian opposition
Genre(s) philology
Publication date 1872
Media type Paperback, hardcover
Pages 160 (1993 Penguin ed.)
ISBN ISBN 978-0140433395 (1993 Penguin ed.)
Followed by The Untimely Meditations
(1876)
The Birth of Tragedy (Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik, 1872) is a 19th Century work of philosophy by Friedrich Nietzsche. The full title translates as The Birth of Tragedy from the Spirit of Music. It was reissued in 1886 as The Birth of Tragedy, Or: Hellenism and Pessimism (Die Geburt der Tragödie, Oder: Griechentum und Pessimismus). The later edition contained a prefatory essay, An Attempt at Self-Criticism, wherein Nietzsche commented on this very early work.
Contents
1 The book
2 The Apollonian and the Dionysian
3 Influences
4 Reception
5 Quotations
6 Notes
7 References
8 See also
9 External links
The book
Nietzsche found in Greek tragedy an art form that transcended the pessimism and Nihilism one might find in a fundamentally meaningless world. The Greek spectators, by looking into the abyss of human suffering and affirming it, passionately and joyously, affirmed the meaning in their own existence. They knew themselves to be infinitely more than the petty individuals of the apparent world, finding self-affirmation, not in another life, not in a world to come, but in the terror and ecstasy alike celebrated in the performance of tragedies.
Originally educated as a philologist, Nietzsche discusses the history of the Greek tragedy, and introduces an intellectual dichotomy between the Dionysian and the Apollonian (very loosely: reality undifferentiated by forms and like distinctions versus reality as differentiated by forms, or the forms themselves). Nietzsche claims life always involves a struggle between these two elements, each battling for control over the existence of humanity. In Nietzsche's words, "Wherever the Dionysian prevailed, the Apollonian was checked and destroyed.... wherever the first Dionysian onslaught was successfully withstood, the authority and majesty of the Delphic god Apollo exhibited itself as more rigid and menacing than ever." Yet neither side ever prevails due to each containing the other in an eternal, natural check, or balance.
Nietzsche argues that the tragedy of Ancient Greece was the highest form of art due to its mixture of both Apollonian and Dionysian elements into one seamless whole, allowing the spectator to experience the full spectrum of the human condition. The Dionysiac element was to be found in the music of the chorus, while the Apollonian element was found in the dialogue which gave a concrete symbolism that balanced the Dionysiac revelry. Basically, the Apollonian spirit was able to give form to the abstract Dionysian.
Before the tragedy, there was an era of static, idealized plastic art in the form of sculpture that represented the Apollonian view of the world. The Dionysian element was to be found in the wild revelry of festivals and drunkenness, but, most importantly, in music. The combination of these elements in one art form gave birth to tragedy. He theorizes that the chorus was originally always satyrs, goat-men. (This is speculative, although the word “tragedy” τραγωδία is contracted from trag(o)-aoidiā = "goat song" from tragos = "goat" and aeidein = "to sing".) Thus, he argues, “the illusion of culture was wiped away by the primordial image of man” for the audience; they participated with and as the chorus empathetically, “so that they imagined themselves as restored natural geniuses, as satyrs.” But in this state, they have an Apollonian dream vision of themselves, of the energy they're embodying. It’s a vision of the god, of Dionysus, who appears before the chorus on the stage. And the actors and the plot are the development of that dream vision, the essence of which is the ecstatic dismembering of the god and of the Bacchantes' rituals, of the inseparable ecstasy and suffering of human existence…
After the time of Aeschylus and Sophocles, there was an age where tragedy died. Nietzsche ties this to the influence of writers like Euripides and the coming of rationality, represented by Socrates. Euripides reduced the use of the chorus and was more naturalistic in his representation of human drama, making it more reflective of the realities of daily life. Socrates emphasized reason to such a degree that he diffused the value of myth and suffering to human knowledge. For Nietzsche, these two intellectuals helped drain the ability of the individual to participate in forms of art, because they saw things too soberly and rationally. The participation mystique aspect of art and myth was lost, and along with it, much of man's ability to live creatively in optimistic harmony with the sufferings of life. Nietzsche concludes that it may be possible to reattain the balance of Dionysian and Apollonian in modern art through the operas of Richard Wagner, in a rebirth of tragedy.
The Apollonian and the Dionysian
In contrast to the typical Enlightenment view of ancient Greek culture as noble, simple, elegant and grandiose,[1], Nietzsche believed the Greeks were grappling with pessimism. The universe in which we live is the product of great interacting forces; but we neither observe nor know these as such. What we put together as our conceptions of the world, Nietzsche thought, never actually addresses the underlying realities. It is human destiny to be controlled by the darkest universal realities and, at the same time, to live life in a human-dreamt world of illusions.
It was precisely this human-dreamt world that the Greeks had developed into perfection from the Homeric legends onward. The Olympian complex of deities, combined with all the details of their heroic lives and their numerous interactions with men and women of earth, formed a world picture in which individual people can live. This picture literally rendered humans as individuals, capable of greatness, always of significance. There is, in this world, objective clarity. The beings are almost sculpted. Hence, Athenians mature within the illusions of a world and life that is under control and that has clear models of personal significance and greatness. It is a beautiful creation. But it is, as Nietzsche observes, an Apollonian aesthetics, Apollo being the god who most typifies the Olympian complex in this regard. (BT, 1, p. 36) Apollo is the god of plastic arts and of illusion.
The problem—and it is a problem for all times and all human life—is that the dark side of existence makes itself apparent and forces us to confront whatever we have tried to shut out of our nice, tidy livable world. Thus, for Nietzsche, while the Greeks, and the Athenians in particular, had developed a rich world view based on Apollo and the other Olympian gods, they had rendered themselves largely ignorant of reality's dark side, as represented in the god Dionysus. Only in the distant past, and largely outside of Athens, had Dionysian festivals paved the way to direct (and destructive) experience of life's darkest sides—intoxication, sexual license, absorption by the primal horde, in short, dissolution of the individual (occasionally, actual dismemberment) and re-immersion into a common organic whole. (BT, 2, pp. 39-40)
The Apollonian in culture he sees as Arthur Schopenhauer's concept of the principium individuationis (principle of individuation) with its refinement, sobriety and emphasis on superficial appearance, whereby man separates himself from the undifferentiated immediacy of nature. Nietzsche claims sculpture as the art-form that captures this impulse most fully: sculpture has clear and definite boundaries and seeks to represent reality, in its perfectly stable form. The Dionysian impulse, by contrast, features immersion in the wholeness of nature, intoxication, non-rationality, and inhumanity; rather than the detached, rational representation of the Apollonian that invites similarly detached observation, the Dionysian impulse involves a frenzied participation in life itself. Nietzsche sees the Dionysian impulse as best realized in music, which tends not to have clear boundaries, is unstable and non-representational, and, in Nietzsche's view, invites participation among its listeners through dance. Nietzsche argues that the Apollonian has dominated Western thought since Socrates, but he sees German Romanticism (especially Richard Wagner) as a possible re-introduction of the Dionysian, which might offer the salvation of European culture. The book shows the influence of Schopenhauer.[2]
The issue, then, or so Nietzsche thought, is how to experience and understand the Dionysian side of life without destroying the obvious values of the Apollonian side. It is not healthy for an individual, or for a whole society, to become entirely absorbed in the rule of one or the other. The soundest (healthiest) foothold is in both. Nietzsche's theory of Athenian tragic drama suggests exactly how, before Euripides and Socrates, the Dionysian and Apollonian elements of life were artistically woven together. The Greek spectator became healthy through direct experience of the Dionysian within the protective spirit-of-tragedy on the Apollonian stage.
Influences
The Birth of Tragedy is a young man's work, and shows the influence of many of the philosophers Nietzsche had been studying. His interest in classical Greece as in some respects a rational society can be attributed in some measure to the influence of Johann Joachim Winckelmann, although Nietzsche departed from Winckelmann in many ways. In addition, Nietzsche uses the term "naive" in exactly the sense used by Friedrich Schiller. More important influences include Hegel, whose concept of the dialectic underlies the tripartite division of art into the Apollonian, its Dionysian antithesis, and their synthesis in Greek tragedy. Also of great importance are the works of Arthur Schopenhauer, especially The World as Will and Representation. The Apollonian experience bears great similarity to the experience of the world as "representation" in Schopenhauer's sense, and the experience of the Dionysian bears similarities to the identification with the world as "will." Nietzsche opposed Schopenhauer's Buddhistic negation of the will. He argued that life can be worth living despite the enormous amount of cruelty and suffering that exists.[3]
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DGB Editorial Comments (Optimistic vs. Pessimistic Epistemology)
You can never completely track down a philosopher's entire historical line of influence. Every time you think you have captured all of the most important lines or sources of influence of a philosopher, all of a sudden, a couple of more influences pop into vision. And so it is with Nietzsche. New interpretations of Nietzsche bring to light new lines and sources of influence.
Until I read the interpretation of Nietzsche's BT from above (Wikipedia) -- and this might have been the second or third time that I read it -- I had never as completely viewed Nietzsche's BT as a 'spinoff' and 'modified extrapolation' of Schopenhauer's 'The World as Will and Representation' as I have at this moment.
Specifically, I can see now how Schopenhauer's 'World of Representation' became Nietzsche's 'Apollonian World' just as clearly as Nietzsche's 'Apollonian World' would later become Freud's 'Realm of The Superego' (Society's Ethical and Legal Restraints) in Classical Psychoanalysis. Similarily, Schopenhauer's 'World of Will' would become Nietzsche's 'Dionysian World' which in turn would later be translated by Freud into 'The Realm of The Id' (The World of Biological, Instinctual Dionysian Forces).
Furthermore, behind Schopenhauer's 'World of Representation' you can find the lingering influence of Kant's 'Phenomenal World' -- or 'World of Appearances' -- and behind that -- even Plato's and Parmenides' influence.
Now Kant's Phenomenal World -- or World of 'Appearances' as opposed to 'Actual Realities' -- has caused many philosophers including Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and even partly Freud, a world of problems and grief ever since Kant most clearly established this most mind-bending and mind-numbing 'subjective-objective paradox or dichotomy'. .
Indeed, I don't think even Kant would have liked the way that his philosophy -- and particularly his 'World of Appearances' -- was interpreted after he died. Is the 'epistmelogical world of man half full or half empty'. Accepting different proportions here for different epistemological interpretations on different life 'things' and 'processes', we can focus either on the part 'we got/get right' or the 'part we got/get wrong'. This can be the sole difference between an 'optimistic' vs. a 'pessimistic' or even 'cynical' attitude.
You see, at this point, DGB Philosophy turns completely away from the epistemological legacy of Parmenides, Plato, Kant, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche -- arguably Kant was the least guilty of all the others -- and turns to a completely different line of epistemologists -- for lack of a better word call this next line of epistemologists 'Objectivist Epistemologists': Aristotle, Sir Francis Bacon, John Locke, The Enlightenment Philosophers (Diderot, Voltaire, Tom Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson...), Bertrand Russell, General Semantics (led by Alfred Korzybski and his main student, S.I.Hayakawa), Erich Fromm, Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden...
These are my main DGB epistemological influences -- although I am also very much aware and attuned to the more 'subjectivist' and/or 'narcissitic influences of Schopenhauer, Nietsche, Foucault, Derrida, and the rest of the 'deconstructionists' and 'post-modernists' as well.
The crucial epistemological issue at stake is this: How much does our 'World of Epistemological Representation' represent a world of 'truth and objectivity and structural similarity' i.e. have 'truth value' vs. alternatively, how does our epistemological representations represent a world of 'subjectivity, relativism, narcissistic bias, appearance, illusion, deception, dog and pony shows, sophistry...etc.?
And the answer is that our epistemological world of representation represents -- both. Both truth and structural similarity on the one hand, vs. sophistry, illusion, and deception on the other hand depending on the particular context and circumstances of each epistemological event that we are talking about.
Alternatively, it's all a matter of which side of the philosophical and epistemological equation each philosopher/epistemologist wants to emphasize -- the part we get 'right' and/or the part we get 'wrong'.
Do we want to emphasize the mistakes, illusions, deceptions, and narcissistic biases in human epistemology? Or do we want to emphasize the accuracies, the structural similarities, the facts, the truth... between 'the real' and 'the represented'?
Is the glass half full? Or half empty?
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Apollo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Apollo
2nd century AD Roman statue of Apollo depicting the god's attributes - the lyre and the snake Python
God of music, poetry and oracles
Parents Zeus and Leto
Siblings Artemis
Children Asclepius, Troilus, Aristaeus
Ancient Greek Religion
Main doctrines
Polytheism · Mythology · Hubris
Orthopraxy · Reciprocity · Virtue
Practices
Amphidromia · Iatromantis
Pharmakos · Temples
Votive Offerings · Animal sacrifice
Deities
Twelve Olympians:
Ares · Artemis · Aphrodite · Apollo
Athena · Demeter · Dionysus · Hera ·
Hermes · Hephaestus · Poseidon · Zeus
---
Primordial deities:
Aether · Chaos · Chronos · Erebus
Gaia · Hemera · Nyx · Tartarus · Oranos
---
Lesser gods:
Eros · Hebe · Hecate · Helios
Herakles · Hestia · Iris · Selene · Pan · Nike
Texts
Iliad · Odyssey
Theogony · Works and Days
See also:
Decline of Hellenistic polytheism
Hellenic Polytheistic Reconstructionism
Supreme Council of Ethnikoi Hellenes
Ancient Roman Religion
Main doctrines
Polytheism & Numen
Mythology
Imperial Cult · Festivals
Practices
Temples · Funerals
Votive Offerings · Animal sacrifice
Ceres · Diana · Juno
Jupiter · Mars · Mercury · Minerva
Neptune · Venus · Vulcan
Divus Augustus · Divus Caesar
Fortuna · Pluto · Quirinus
Sol Invictus · Vesta
The Lares
---
In Greek and Roman mythology, Apollo (in Greek, Ἀπόλλων—Apóllōn or Ἀπέλλων—Apellōn), is one of the most important and many-sided of the Olympian deities. The ideal of the kouros (a beardless youth), Apollo has been variously recognized as a god of light and the sun; truth and prophecy; archery; medicine and healing; music, poetry, and the arts; and more. Apollo is the son of Zeus and Leto, and has a twin sister, the chaste huntress Artemis. Apollo is known in Greek-influenced Etruscan mythology as Apulu. Apollo was worshipped in both ancient Greek and Roman religion, as well as in the modern Hellenic neopaganism.
As the patron of Delphi (Pythian Apollo), Apollo was an oracular god — the prophetic deity of the Delphic Oracle. Medicine and healing were associated with Apollo, whether through the god himself or mediated through his son Asclepius. Apollo was also seen as a god who could bring ill-health and deadly plague as well as one who had the ability to cure. Amongst the god's custodial charges, Apollo became associated with dominion over colonists, and as the patron defender of herds and flocks. As the leader of the Muses (Apollon Musagetes) and director of their choir, Apollo functioned as the patron god of music and poetry. Hermes created the lyre for him, and the instrument became a common attribute of Apollo. Hymns sung to Apollo were called paeans.
In Hellenistic times, especially during the third century BCE, as Apollo Helios he became identified among Greeks with Helios, god of the sun, and his sister Artemis similarly equated with Selene, goddess of the moon.[1] In Latin texts, however, Joseph Fontenrose declared himself unable to find any conflation of Apollo with Sol among the Augustan poets of the first century, not even in the conjurations of Aeneas and Latinus in Aeneid XII (161-215).[2] Apollo and Helios/Sol remained separate beings in literary and mythological texts until the third century CE.
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More DGB Editorial Comments on Nietzsche's 'Birth of Tragedy' Philosophy
So here's the situation: Nietzsche enters into BT a 'Hegelian philosopher', partly mesmerized, defined, and subsumed by Schopehnauer as well - but partly able to shake Schopenhauer off his tail.
You see, by all accounts, Schopenhauer was a nasty, nasty man, and he wrote a nasty, nasty philosophical treatise. I don't know how many of you have read the book, or seen the movie, 'Lord of The Flies' -- but that was Schopenhauer's narcissistic philosophical treatise in a nutshell -- softened a little bit by a couple of strategies that Schopenhauer advocated to try to 'escape the ugliness, irrationality, viciousness, violence, and coldness of life' such as: 1. take up Buddhism and learn how 'not to want' (Gee, that's easy.); and 2. go the theatre, enjoy good art, and use the whole medium of art, theatre, and music to escape the ugliness, irrationality, and tragedy of your 'Lord of The Flies' existence.
I can identify with this last strategy partly. I write at least partly to compensate for, and/or escape, my 'Lord of The Flies' existence. And an 'economic recession' -- that seems about to turn into an an 'economic depression' --
tightens the screws on everybody. So does bad business decisions and a bad business environment. For that matter, so does a bad love relationship, a bad family situation, and internal negativity. I'm not identifying with all these different situations -- but at least some of them.
Now you can do what Schopenhauer would have us do -- and run from all of these different 'bad' situations -- for example, leave your bad situation at work and go to the theatre. And find your 'emotional cathartic release' in a good Greek Tragedy (or a Shakespearian tragedy, or presumably any form of 'good theatre').
Or you can do what Nietzsche decided to do -- and that was to 'embrace life to the fullest passion and intensity in all of its highest highs and lowest lows. Whether good or bad, you don't run from life -- you passionately embrace it.
Two very different forms of 'philosophical psychotherapy'. Nietzsche partly embraced both Hegel and Schopenhauer -- before fully turning away from Hegel's 'dialectic' approach to philosophy and life; and partly turning away from Schopenhauer's 'extreme pessism' and his 'suppress-your-desires-in-Budhism' as well.
Still the philosophical remnants of Schopenhauer remained in Nietzsche (as they would both strongly seep into Freud and Psychoanalysis later).
And nowhere did Schopenhauer's remnants remain alive more than they did in Nietzsche's perception and judgment of 'Apollo' which rather than an 'Enlightenment' interpretation of Apollo as The God of 'Truth, Ethics, Law, and Order' would come to mean something entirely different to Nietzsche in the order of 'Social and Political Illusion, Sophistry and Ideology' ('ideology' in the terminology of Marx later)..
This is a sad statement of Apollo's Greek legacy in my opinion.
I prefer Nietzsche's BT philosophy of 'homeostatic-dialectic-democratic balance' (in DGB terminology) between the 'Apollonian' part of man and the 'Dionysian' part of man as laid out in his classic first book, 'The Birth Of Tragedy'.
But like Freud would abandon his 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory', so too would Nietzsche basically abandon the 'Apollonian part of man' in BT -- to the detriment of his later more 'extremist-Humanstic-Existential Superman or Will to Power Philosophy'.
We will attend to Nietzsche's later humanistic-existential philosophical developments in later essays...
dgb, Feb. 10th, 2009, updated and modified Mar. 30th, May 11th, 2009.
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