Do not tread harshly on the hearts of the people who love and care about you. We live in enough of an uncaring world -- we have an ethical responsibility to ourselves and to the people around us, especially to the people who are closest to us, not to make it worse.
The difference between a narcissistic person and a more well-balanced ethical person centres around the issue of empathy, caring, listening, and altruism: does the person listen intently, and care about other people -- or not.
The difference between a Narcississistic Capitalist and an Ethical-Moral Dialectic-Democratic Capitalist centres around the issue of character and integrity -- basically caring about other people, the people you work with, the people above and below you, the people you sell to -- or not. If you are in business and you treat the people you work with well, treat them with respect and dignity and caring, treat them fairly, then you are helping to lead Capitalism in the right direction, in the direction it needs to go. However, if you are like probably the majority of business men and women out there -- and seemingly growing every day -- then you need to get back to integrity and ethics basics, back to yourself, and back to your heart. When you leave for work each morning, don't check your heart at home. As the school slogan trumpets, but so few of our adult business and government role models lead the way in this domain: Character matters.
Caring matters. Integrity matters. Ethics matters. You can be the richest and/or most powerful business man or woman out there but at the end of the day you need to ask yourself: How many hearts have you trampled on to get to where you are now? Was it worth it? Can you sleep at night? Can you live with yourself? How many people have you helped? How many people have you poisoned, exploited, manipulated, walked over, to get where you are now. There are some good businesses and some good business people out there. I know. I've either seen them and/or heard about them, heard about what they do right. They treat people well and people flock to their business.
The cut-throaters, the manipulators, the exploiters...you can usually find out easily enough where they are and how they operate...They are the business owners with the constant turnover....the employees who keep walking in and out of their doors...they are the people whose customers eventually flock to the 'good businesses'...the businesses that keep their people, and whose employees respect and care for the owners who they work for.
I fully believe in the slogan: What goes around comes around?
If you are in business, whether its in managing and/or selling,
Pick the type of business person who you want to be...
And the type of legacy you want to leave behind you...
How do you want to be rememebered?
Choose -- and if you have chosen wrong --
Then, think and feel carefully.
And choose again.
-- dgb, May 13th, 2010.
-- David Gordon Bain
Thursday, May 13, 2010
On Labeling, Stereotyping, Witch-hunting vs. The Right to Privacy and a Fair Trial
Sometimes the label, the stereotype, the charge, is as bad as the conviction -- legal or otherwise. Either way, a life can be destroyed....A report in a newspaper, an arrest -- and the label -- can send an innocent man or woman to Hell on Earth...
We must not forget some of our most basic constitutional and civic rights: 1. the right to individual privacy; 2. the right to a fair trial and not to be judged guilty before the conclusion of a fair trial; the right not to be scapegoated and/or witch-hunted; the right not to be 'profiled' and 'prosecuted' differently than a person of a different class or subset of people, whether that be based on religion, sex, race, culture, ethnic group, skin colour... The worst part about 'prosecution missions' is that they can turn into profiling, labeling, stereotyping, discriminating -- yes, Government sanctioned forms of discrimination and/or reverse discrimination -- and witch hunts' like what actually happened with St. Joan of Arc, and in The Salem Witchhunt, as well in the 'McCarthyism' era with the 'witchhunting' of 'communists'...
The worst part of the internet is that people of bad intentions are preying on, and exploiting, people's loss of privacy. From internet scams, to stolen identy, to adware and malware, to viruses, to people peering into your private life that you don't want anything to do with, it is getting worse and worse...The internet has become a way for people of any type of motivation and intention -- good, bad, or ugly -- to get basically inside your front door and into your private life without needing your permission or any legal permission to do so.
We need to seriously think about what is happening here to our loss of privacy and civil rights...
-- dgb, May 13th, 2010.
-- David Gordon Bain
...........................................................................................................................................................
Joan of Arc
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Joan of Arc (disambiguation).
Saint Joan of Arc
Painting, c.1485. Artist's interpretation; the only portrait for which she is known to have sat has not survived. (Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, Paris, AE II 2490)
Saint
Born ca. 1412
Domrémy, France
Died 30 May 1431 (aged 19)
Rouen, France (Then England)
Venerated in Roman Catholic Church
Anglican Communion
Beatified 18 April 1909, Notre Dame de Paris by Pope Pius X
Canonized 16 May 1920, St. Peter's Basilica, Rome by Pope Benedict XV
Feast 30 May
Patronage France ; martyrs; captives; militants; people ridiculed for their piety; prisoners; soldiers; Women Appointed for Voluntary Emergency Service (U.S. WAVES); U.S. Women's Army Corps
Saint Joan of Arc or The Maid of Orléans (French: Jeanne d'Arc,[1] IPA: [ʒan daʁk]; ca. 1412[2] – 30 May 1431) is a national heroine of France and a Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, claiming divine guidance, and was indirectly responsible for the coronation of Charles VII. She was captured by the Burgundians, sold to the English, tried by an ecclesiastical court, and burned at the stake when she was nineteen years old.[3] Twenty-four years later, on the initiative of Charles VII, Pope Callixtus III reviewed the decision of the ecclesiastical court, found her innocent, and declared her a martyr.[3] She was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920.[2] She is, along with St. Denis, St. Martin of Tours, St. Louis IX, and St. Theresa of Lisieux, one of the patron saints of France.
Joan asserted that she had visions from God that told her to recover her homeland from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the siege at Orléans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and lifted the siege in only nine days. Several more swift victories led to Charles VII's coronation at Reims and settled the disputed succession to the throne.
Joan of Arc has remained an important figure in Western culture. From Napoleon to the present, French politicians of all leanings have invoked her memory. Major writers and composers who have created works about her include Shakespeare (Henry VI, Part 1), Voltaire (La Pucelle d'Orléans), Schiller (Die Jungfrau von Orléans ), Verdi (Giovanna d'Arco), Tchaikovsky (Орлеанская дева), Mark Twain (Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc), Jean Anouilh (L'Alouette), Bertolt Brecht (Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe), George Bernard Shaw (Saint Joan), and Maxwell Anderson (Joan of Lorraine). Depictions of her continue in film, television, video games, song, and dance.
............................................................................................................................
Salem witch trials
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“Salem Witches” redirects here. For the minor league baseball team, see Salem Witches (NEL).
1876 illustration of the courtroom; the central figure is usually identified as Mary Walcott
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings before local magistrates followed by county court of trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex counties of colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693. The episode has been used in political rhetoric and popular literature as a vivid cautionary tale about the dangers of religious extremism, false accusations, lapses in due process, and governmental intrusion on individual liberties.[1]
Despite being generally known as the Salem witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in a variety of towns across the province: Salem Village, Ipswich, Andover and Salem Town. The best-known trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town. Over 150 people were arrested and imprisoned, with even more accused but not formally pursued by the authorities. At least five more of the accused died in prison. All twenty-six who went to trial before this court were convicted. The four sessions of the Superior Court of Judicature in 1693, held in Salem Village, but also in Ipswich, Boston and Charlestown, produced only three convictions in the thirty-one witchcraft trials it conducted. The two courts convicted twenty-nine people of the capital felony of witchcraft. Nineteen of the accused, fourteen women and five men, were hanged. One man (Giles Corey) who refused to enter a plea was crushed to death under heavy stones in an attempt to force him to do so.
......................................................................................................................
McCarthyism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A 1947 propaganda comic book published by the Catechetical Guild Educational Society warning of the dangers of a Communist takeover.
McCarthyism is the political action of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term specifically describes activities associated with the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by heightened fears of communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents. Originally coined to criticize the anti-communist pursuits of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, "McCarthyism" soon took on a broader meaning, describing the excesses of similar efforts. The term is also now used more generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries.
During the post–World War II era of McCarthyism, many thousands of Americans were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. The primary targets of such suspicions were government employees, those in the entertainment industry, educators and union activists. Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence, and the level of threat posed by a person's real or supposed leftist associations or beliefs was often greatly exaggerated. Many people suffered loss of employment, destruction of their careers, and even imprisonment. Most of these punishments came about through trial verdicts later overturned,[1] laws that would be declared unconstitutional,[2] dismissals for reasons later declared illegal[3] or actionable,[4] or extra-legal procedures that would come into general disrepute.
The most famous examples of McCarthyism include the speeches, investigations, and hearings of Senator McCarthy himself; the Hollywood blacklist, associated with hearings conducted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities; and the various anti-communist activities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under Director J. Edgar Hoover. McCarthyism was a widespread social and cultural phenomenon that affected all levels of society and was the source of a great deal of debate and conflict in the United States.
We must not forget some of our most basic constitutional and civic rights: 1. the right to individual privacy; 2. the right to a fair trial and not to be judged guilty before the conclusion of a fair trial; the right not to be scapegoated and/or witch-hunted; the right not to be 'profiled' and 'prosecuted' differently than a person of a different class or subset of people, whether that be based on religion, sex, race, culture, ethnic group, skin colour... The worst part about 'prosecution missions' is that they can turn into profiling, labeling, stereotyping, discriminating -- yes, Government sanctioned forms of discrimination and/or reverse discrimination -- and witch hunts' like what actually happened with St. Joan of Arc, and in The Salem Witchhunt, as well in the 'McCarthyism' era with the 'witchhunting' of 'communists'...
The worst part of the internet is that people of bad intentions are preying on, and exploiting, people's loss of privacy. From internet scams, to stolen identy, to adware and malware, to viruses, to people peering into your private life that you don't want anything to do with, it is getting worse and worse...The internet has become a way for people of any type of motivation and intention -- good, bad, or ugly -- to get basically inside your front door and into your private life without needing your permission or any legal permission to do so.
We need to seriously think about what is happening here to our loss of privacy and civil rights...
-- dgb, May 13th, 2010.
-- David Gordon Bain
...........................................................................................................................................................
Joan of Arc
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For other uses, see Joan of Arc (disambiguation).
Saint Joan of Arc
Painting, c.1485. Artist's interpretation; the only portrait for which she is known to have sat has not survived. (Centre Historique des Archives Nationales, Paris, AE II 2490)
Saint
Born ca. 1412
Domrémy, France
Died 30 May 1431 (aged 19)
Rouen, France (Then England)
Venerated in Roman Catholic Church
Anglican Communion
Beatified 18 April 1909, Notre Dame de Paris by Pope Pius X
Canonized 16 May 1920, St. Peter's Basilica, Rome by Pope Benedict XV
Feast 30 May
Patronage France ; martyrs; captives; militants; people ridiculed for their piety; prisoners; soldiers; Women Appointed for Voluntary Emergency Service (U.S. WAVES); U.S. Women's Army Corps
Saint Joan of Arc or The Maid of Orléans (French: Jeanne d'Arc,[1] IPA: [ʒan daʁk]; ca. 1412[2] – 30 May 1431) is a national heroine of France and a Catholic saint. A peasant girl born in eastern France, she led the French army to several important victories during the Hundred Years' War, claiming divine guidance, and was indirectly responsible for the coronation of Charles VII. She was captured by the Burgundians, sold to the English, tried by an ecclesiastical court, and burned at the stake when she was nineteen years old.[3] Twenty-four years later, on the initiative of Charles VII, Pope Callixtus III reviewed the decision of the ecclesiastical court, found her innocent, and declared her a martyr.[3] She was beatified in 1909 and canonized in 1920.[2] She is, along with St. Denis, St. Martin of Tours, St. Louis IX, and St. Theresa of Lisieux, one of the patron saints of France.
Joan asserted that she had visions from God that told her to recover her homeland from English domination late in the Hundred Years' War. The uncrowned King Charles VII sent her to the siege at Orléans as part of a relief mission. She gained prominence when she overcame the dismissive attitude of veteran commanders and lifted the siege in only nine days. Several more swift victories led to Charles VII's coronation at Reims and settled the disputed succession to the throne.
Joan of Arc has remained an important figure in Western culture. From Napoleon to the present, French politicians of all leanings have invoked her memory. Major writers and composers who have created works about her include Shakespeare (Henry VI, Part 1), Voltaire (La Pucelle d'Orléans), Schiller (Die Jungfrau von Orléans ), Verdi (Giovanna d'Arco), Tchaikovsky (Орлеанская дева), Mark Twain (Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc), Jean Anouilh (L'Alouette), Bertolt Brecht (Die heilige Johanna der Schlachthöfe), George Bernard Shaw (Saint Joan), and Maxwell Anderson (Joan of Lorraine). Depictions of her continue in film, television, video games, song, and dance.
............................................................................................................................
Salem witch trials
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
“Salem Witches” redirects here. For the minor league baseball team, see Salem Witches (NEL).
1876 illustration of the courtroom; the central figure is usually identified as Mary Walcott
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings before local magistrates followed by county court of trials to prosecute people accused of witchcraft in Essex, Suffolk, and Middlesex counties of colonial Massachusetts, between February 1692 and May 1693. The episode has been used in political rhetoric and popular literature as a vivid cautionary tale about the dangers of religious extremism, false accusations, lapses in due process, and governmental intrusion on individual liberties.[1]
Despite being generally known as the Salem witch trials, the preliminary hearings in 1692 were conducted in a variety of towns across the province: Salem Village, Ipswich, Andover and Salem Town. The best-known trials were conducted by the Court of Oyer and Terminer in 1692 in Salem Town. Over 150 people were arrested and imprisoned, with even more accused but not formally pursued by the authorities. At least five more of the accused died in prison. All twenty-six who went to trial before this court were convicted. The four sessions of the Superior Court of Judicature in 1693, held in Salem Village, but also in Ipswich, Boston and Charlestown, produced only three convictions in the thirty-one witchcraft trials it conducted. The two courts convicted twenty-nine people of the capital felony of witchcraft. Nineteen of the accused, fourteen women and five men, were hanged. One man (Giles Corey) who refused to enter a plea was crushed to death under heavy stones in an attempt to force him to do so.
......................................................................................................................
McCarthyism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
A 1947 propaganda comic book published by the Catechetical Guild Educational Society warning of the dangers of a Communist takeover.
McCarthyism is the political action of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term specifically describes activities associated with the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by heightened fears of communist influence on American institutions and espionage by Soviet agents. Originally coined to criticize the anti-communist pursuits of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, "McCarthyism" soon took on a broader meaning, describing the excesses of similar efforts. The term is also now used more generally to describe reckless, unsubstantiated accusations, as well as demagogic attacks on the character or patriotism of political adversaries.
During the post–World War II era of McCarthyism, many thousands of Americans were accused of being Communists or communist sympathizers and became the subject of aggressive investigations and questioning before government or private-industry panels, committees and agencies. The primary targets of such suspicions were government employees, those in the entertainment industry, educators and union activists. Suspicions were often given credence despite inconclusive or questionable evidence, and the level of threat posed by a person's real or supposed leftist associations or beliefs was often greatly exaggerated. Many people suffered loss of employment, destruction of their careers, and even imprisonment. Most of these punishments came about through trial verdicts later overturned,[1] laws that would be declared unconstitutional,[2] dismissals for reasons later declared illegal[3] or actionable,[4] or extra-legal procedures that would come into general disrepute.
The most famous examples of McCarthyism include the speeches, investigations, and hearings of Senator McCarthy himself; the Hollywood blacklist, associated with hearings conducted by the House Committee on Un-American Activities; and the various anti-communist activities of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) under Director J. Edgar Hoover. McCarthyism was a widespread social and cultural phenomenon that affected all levels of society and was the source of a great deal of debate and conflict in the United States.
On Depression
You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.
- Chinese Proverb
..................................................................................................................................
With depression, you can either think your way to new feelings and actions -- change your 'self-talk',
Or you can act your way to new thinking and new feelings...
It is much harder to be depressed when you are active....
Depression brings everything inside you to a grinding halt...
All circulation more or less stops...
All life stops....you feel like your life is over...
Lost loved ones...lost self-identity....
Your mind is going around and around on the same toxic track...
If only this, if only that...I should have done this, I should have done that...
Everything is stuck in past tense...
Maybe I can do this or maybe I can do that...
And my loved one will come walking back through my door....
If only I could hear his or her voice...
Grief, for the most part, is a healing, cleansing emotion....
Bringing emotional closure -- or at least partial emotional closure -- to a lost loved one...
There will always be a place for that person in your heart...
But depression is unfelt grief.....hanging on to a person who does not want to let go...
Depression is a 'pit bull, hanging on, bite'....where we won't unclench our jaws...
We're biting ourselves over and over again...
Depression is at least partly internalized rage....
Externalizing that rage -- in the right therapeutic environment -- is a key step to moving on...
Activate yourself...
Go for a walk...
Meet new people...
Stop toxifying yourself...poisoning yourself, strangulating yourself...
With the words that you say to yourself, your endless, fruitless, depressive, merry-go-round...
Your 'ifs' and 'buts'...will drive you 'nuts'...
When someone smiles at you and offers you a lifeboat...
Don't go down with the Titanic...
-- dgb, May 13th, 2010
-- David Gordon Bain....
- Chinese Proverb
..................................................................................................................................
With depression, you can either think your way to new feelings and actions -- change your 'self-talk',
Or you can act your way to new thinking and new feelings...
It is much harder to be depressed when you are active....
Depression brings everything inside you to a grinding halt...
All circulation more or less stops...
All life stops....you feel like your life is over...
Lost loved ones...lost self-identity....
Your mind is going around and around on the same toxic track...
If only this, if only that...I should have done this, I should have done that...
Everything is stuck in past tense...
Maybe I can do this or maybe I can do that...
And my loved one will come walking back through my door....
If only I could hear his or her voice...
Grief, for the most part, is a healing, cleansing emotion....
Bringing emotional closure -- or at least partial emotional closure -- to a lost loved one...
There will always be a place for that person in your heart...
But depression is unfelt grief.....hanging on to a person who does not want to let go...
Depression is a 'pit bull, hanging on, bite'....where we won't unclench our jaws...
We're biting ourselves over and over again...
Depression is at least partly internalized rage....
Externalizing that rage -- in the right therapeutic environment -- is a key step to moving on...
Activate yourself...
Go for a walk...
Meet new people...
Stop toxifying yourself...poisoning yourself, strangulating yourself...
With the words that you say to yourself, your endless, fruitless, depressive, merry-go-round...
Your 'ifs' and 'buts'...will drive you 'nuts'...
When someone smiles at you and offers you a lifeboat...
Don't go down with the Titanic...
-- dgb, May 13th, 2010
-- David Gordon Bain....
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
The Philosophical Difference Between Sublation (Synthesis) and Conflation (Mis-Association)
'Sublation' is a technical Hegelian term. I will quote the meaning of sublation from Lloyd Spencer's book, 'Introducing Hegel' (1996).
............................................................................................................................
Aristotle's logic is concerned with separate, discrete (self-) identities in a deductive pattern. Hegel dissolves this classical static view of logic in a dynamic movement towards the whole. The whole is an overcoming which preserves what it overcomes.
Nothing is lost or destroyed but raised up and preserved as in a spiral. Think of the opening of a fern or a shell.
This is an organic rather than mechanical logic. Hegel's special term for this 'contradiction' of overcoming and at the same time preserving is Aufhebung, sometimes translated as 'sublation'. (1996, Lloyd Spencer, illustrations by Andrzej Krauze, Introducing Hegel, p. 80-81)
.....................................................................................................................................................
We discussed this distinction between Aristotelean (Either/Or, Non-Identity) Logic and Hegelian (Dialectic, Organic, Evolving) Logic in the last essay, as well as a number of earlier ones.
Firstly, it is probably simpler to use the concept of 'synthesis' or 'integration' rather than 'sublation'. The technical name of sublation seems to have never really caught on whereas the less technical names of 'synthesis' and/or 'integration', we use every day in our day-to-day language.
Secondly, Hegel was wrong in believing that 'nothing is lost' in the process of sublation or synthesis.
For example, if I have a carton of orange juice on my kitchen counter and an empty glass, and then I pour orange juice into the glass until it is full with orange juice. Then, I take a second glass of the exact same dimensions and I pour it half full of orange juice. Then I take a carton of pineapple juice out of my fridge and fill the last half of the glass with pineapple juice, we can't say that nothing is lost relative to what we put into the first glass. For there is only half as much orange juice in the second glass as there is in the first glass.
And so it is with 'integrated' or 'synthesized' theories. If I integrate Freudian Theory (both before and after 1897 meaning Traumacy-Seduction Theory with Fantasy-Oedipal Theory), including also much later Death Instinct Theory, and Object Relations Theory, and then I mix it also with parts of Jungian Theory, and Adlerian Theory, and Gestalt Theory, and Transactional Analysis, and Cognitive Theory -- we certainly cannot say that 'nothing is lost along the way' because there will likely be 'many ideas lost along the way', screened out of this editorial synthesizing process, just as other ideas are 'screened in'. That is part of the evolving 'abstraction process' of modifying ideas and theories...as well as genetic mutations and cross-fertilizations between the same and different species of animal, and different races and families of men and women...Indeed, no genetic mutation -- or theoretical mutation -- is ever going to be exactly the same.
So sometimes we may need to go back and check this abstraction process, this screening in and out process, to make sure that what we have lost is not more important than what we have gained by any particular brand of 'theoretical and/or technical and/or practical, applied mutation'. A mutated and integrated or multi-integrated theory is only a 'good thing' if it is better than any and/or all of the theories that it evolved from.
In this regard, there is every right -- depending on how we want to define 'evolution' -- to either say that evolution is not always a good thing, or conversely to say that evolution also has its polar concept of 'dis-evolution', de-evolution' or 'regression' or 'devilution' (sorry, had to add that last one...).
I am not quite as highly idealistic and optimistic as Hegel when he says (to paraphrase) that 'dialectic evolution' (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis, and start all over again at a 'higher' place of evolution that will eventually take us to 'God's Absolute Knowledge') is always a good thing and will always -- even through temporary steps backward -- eventually take us to a better place. For example, 'God's Knowledge' is never static because 'God's World' is never static and 'God's Knowledge' is a perfect reflection of 'God's Always Evolving World'.
In this respect, I am inclined to say that 'man's knowledge' will always be an imperfect reflection of 'God's Knowledge' no matter how hard we try, and how long we stay on this Earth...Yes, we can always get 'closer' but we can also get 'further apart' and who are we going to set up as the 'Ultimate Judge of Human Perfection or Imperfection'? God? (He or She or It is not talking...at least to me...and if there are others out there who believe strongly enough that they are blessed and gifted in this regard, I am likely to remain skeptical and pessimistic and cynical....I call this 'SPC Syndrome' -- I have a lot of it...that is, 'Skeptical-Pessimistic-Cynical Syndrome'...
Gee, how'd we get there?
In contrast to sublation or synthesis, 'conflation' is a pathological concept and phenomenon based on the principle of 'cognitive distortion' or 'false association' -- i.e., combining two things together (or trying to) that are not the same.
Conflation falsely associates two or more concepts or phenomenon....
There are a whole range of different Freudian terms that can be viewed as different types of 'conflation' such as:
1. distorted transference;
2. distorted projection;
3. displacement.
Some form of 'dialectic and/or cognitive psychotherapy' may be required to help a person through his or her 'false and/or pathological cognitive-emotional-behavior patterns. Of course, there are Kantian and Nietzschean epistemological problems here such as 'Who's to be the ultimate human judge -- the psychotherapist and/or psychiatrist? -- on what should and shouldn't be cognitively connected?' ('paranoia' can turn out to be 'truth' or at least 'partial truth'; and we must not forget that every person has there own 'private frame of reference and subjective self-interest'...
Hegel anticipated the eventual phenomenon of 'dialectic psychotherapy' about 80 or 85 years before Charcot, Bernheim, Janet, Breuer and Freud began their respective and/or collective activities in this area. Some of the mediating figures between Hegel and Freud included Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, (The Birth of Tragedy). The evolution of 'hypnotism' seems to have stimulated such ideas as 'dual consciousness' and 'competing egos (ego and alter-ego)', and 'dissociation' and 'subconscious' and 'unconscious'....all of which became a part of the idea of 'dialectic psychotherapy' -- i.e., 'reuniting and harmonizing dissociated parts of the personality or different ego-states'.
To be alive is to be 'dialectically alive' (or dead, or anywhere in between).
We are always going to be confronted with 'competing internal ego-states' and 'opposing self-talk' in different degrees of internal 'harmony' and/or 'disharmony'. And our 'external dialectic engagement' is likely to be even greater as we all pursue our own unique form of 'will to power' and/or 'will to self-empowerment'.
Even to be 'disengaged' is to usually be making some sort of 'dialectic statement'...such as... 'I have other priorities'...or 'I do not have the time or energy or motivation to dialectically engage with you...'...or 'I feel dialectically dead right now'...
In contradistinction to one of my philosophical adversaries (hi Niki),
I say that it is impossible to 'live outside the dialectic'...
Unless we are dead.
The genius of Hegel was not in his brand of 'State Philosophy' or in his conception of 'Absolute Knowledge' but rather in his conception of 'organic, dynamic, dialectic evolution and logic'.
In this latter regard, Hegel has arguably had the greatest impact on the evolution of Western -- and Eastern -- Philosophy, Politics, and Culture of any of the greatest of all Western and/or Eastern philosophers. For good, bad, or worse, Kierkegaard, Marx, Mao tse Tung, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Foucault, Derrida, Perls...were all directly or indirectly influenced by his work. Unfortunately his 'State Philosophy' and his influence from Fichte in this regard (relative to the submission of the individual to the State regardless of where the State goes politically) did much more harm to the evolution (dis-evolution, devilution...) of Germany than good. But that wasn't mainly Hegel's fault as Hegel always fought for 'freedom' although his political philosophy at a quick glance seems to be an odd contradiction in this regard.
Something to be explored on another date...
-- dgb, May 12th, 2010,
-- David Gordon Bain
............................................................................................................................
Aristotle's logic is concerned with separate, discrete (self-) identities in a deductive pattern. Hegel dissolves this classical static view of logic in a dynamic movement towards the whole. The whole is an overcoming which preserves what it overcomes.
Nothing is lost or destroyed but raised up and preserved as in a spiral. Think of the opening of a fern or a shell.
This is an organic rather than mechanical logic. Hegel's special term for this 'contradiction' of overcoming and at the same time preserving is Aufhebung, sometimes translated as 'sublation'. (1996, Lloyd Spencer, illustrations by Andrzej Krauze, Introducing Hegel, p. 80-81)
.....................................................................................................................................................
We discussed this distinction between Aristotelean (Either/Or, Non-Identity) Logic and Hegelian (Dialectic, Organic, Evolving) Logic in the last essay, as well as a number of earlier ones.
Firstly, it is probably simpler to use the concept of 'synthesis' or 'integration' rather than 'sublation'. The technical name of sublation seems to have never really caught on whereas the less technical names of 'synthesis' and/or 'integration', we use every day in our day-to-day language.
Secondly, Hegel was wrong in believing that 'nothing is lost' in the process of sublation or synthesis.
For example, if I have a carton of orange juice on my kitchen counter and an empty glass, and then I pour orange juice into the glass until it is full with orange juice. Then, I take a second glass of the exact same dimensions and I pour it half full of orange juice. Then I take a carton of pineapple juice out of my fridge and fill the last half of the glass with pineapple juice, we can't say that nothing is lost relative to what we put into the first glass. For there is only half as much orange juice in the second glass as there is in the first glass.
And so it is with 'integrated' or 'synthesized' theories. If I integrate Freudian Theory (both before and after 1897 meaning Traumacy-Seduction Theory with Fantasy-Oedipal Theory), including also much later Death Instinct Theory, and Object Relations Theory, and then I mix it also with parts of Jungian Theory, and Adlerian Theory, and Gestalt Theory, and Transactional Analysis, and Cognitive Theory -- we certainly cannot say that 'nothing is lost along the way' because there will likely be 'many ideas lost along the way', screened out of this editorial synthesizing process, just as other ideas are 'screened in'. That is part of the evolving 'abstraction process' of modifying ideas and theories...as well as genetic mutations and cross-fertilizations between the same and different species of animal, and different races and families of men and women...Indeed, no genetic mutation -- or theoretical mutation -- is ever going to be exactly the same.
So sometimes we may need to go back and check this abstraction process, this screening in and out process, to make sure that what we have lost is not more important than what we have gained by any particular brand of 'theoretical and/or technical and/or practical, applied mutation'. A mutated and integrated or multi-integrated theory is only a 'good thing' if it is better than any and/or all of the theories that it evolved from.
In this regard, there is every right -- depending on how we want to define 'evolution' -- to either say that evolution is not always a good thing, or conversely to say that evolution also has its polar concept of 'dis-evolution', de-evolution' or 'regression' or 'devilution' (sorry, had to add that last one...).
I am not quite as highly idealistic and optimistic as Hegel when he says (to paraphrase) that 'dialectic evolution' (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis, and start all over again at a 'higher' place of evolution that will eventually take us to 'God's Absolute Knowledge') is always a good thing and will always -- even through temporary steps backward -- eventually take us to a better place. For example, 'God's Knowledge' is never static because 'God's World' is never static and 'God's Knowledge' is a perfect reflection of 'God's Always Evolving World'.
In this respect, I am inclined to say that 'man's knowledge' will always be an imperfect reflection of 'God's Knowledge' no matter how hard we try, and how long we stay on this Earth...Yes, we can always get 'closer' but we can also get 'further apart' and who are we going to set up as the 'Ultimate Judge of Human Perfection or Imperfection'? God? (He or She or It is not talking...at least to me...and if there are others out there who believe strongly enough that they are blessed and gifted in this regard, I am likely to remain skeptical and pessimistic and cynical....I call this 'SPC Syndrome' -- I have a lot of it...that is, 'Skeptical-Pessimistic-Cynical Syndrome'...
Gee, how'd we get there?
In contrast to sublation or synthesis, 'conflation' is a pathological concept and phenomenon based on the principle of 'cognitive distortion' or 'false association' -- i.e., combining two things together (or trying to) that are not the same.
Conflation falsely associates two or more concepts or phenomenon....
There are a whole range of different Freudian terms that can be viewed as different types of 'conflation' such as:
1. distorted transference;
2. distorted projection;
3. displacement.
Some form of 'dialectic and/or cognitive psychotherapy' may be required to help a person through his or her 'false and/or pathological cognitive-emotional-behavior patterns. Of course, there are Kantian and Nietzschean epistemological problems here such as 'Who's to be the ultimate human judge -- the psychotherapist and/or psychiatrist? -- on what should and shouldn't be cognitively connected?' ('paranoia' can turn out to be 'truth' or at least 'partial truth'; and we must not forget that every person has there own 'private frame of reference and subjective self-interest'...
Hegel anticipated the eventual phenomenon of 'dialectic psychotherapy' about 80 or 85 years before Charcot, Bernheim, Janet, Breuer and Freud began their respective and/or collective activities in this area. Some of the mediating figures between Hegel and Freud included Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, (The Birth of Tragedy). The evolution of 'hypnotism' seems to have stimulated such ideas as 'dual consciousness' and 'competing egos (ego and alter-ego)', and 'dissociation' and 'subconscious' and 'unconscious'....all of which became a part of the idea of 'dialectic psychotherapy' -- i.e., 'reuniting and harmonizing dissociated parts of the personality or different ego-states'.
To be alive is to be 'dialectically alive' (or dead, or anywhere in between).
We are always going to be confronted with 'competing internal ego-states' and 'opposing self-talk' in different degrees of internal 'harmony' and/or 'disharmony'. And our 'external dialectic engagement' is likely to be even greater as we all pursue our own unique form of 'will to power' and/or 'will to self-empowerment'.
Even to be 'disengaged' is to usually be making some sort of 'dialectic statement'...such as... 'I have other priorities'...or 'I do not have the time or energy or motivation to dialectically engage with you...'...or 'I feel dialectically dead right now'...
In contradistinction to one of my philosophical adversaries (hi Niki),
I say that it is impossible to 'live outside the dialectic'...
Unless we are dead.
The genius of Hegel was not in his brand of 'State Philosophy' or in his conception of 'Absolute Knowledge' but rather in his conception of 'organic, dynamic, dialectic evolution and logic'.
In this latter regard, Hegel has arguably had the greatest impact on the evolution of Western -- and Eastern -- Philosophy, Politics, and Culture of any of the greatest of all Western and/or Eastern philosophers. For good, bad, or worse, Kierkegaard, Marx, Mao tse Tung, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Foucault, Derrida, Perls...were all directly or indirectly influenced by his work. Unfortunately his 'State Philosophy' and his influence from Fichte in this regard (relative to the submission of the individual to the State regardless of where the State goes politically) did much more harm to the evolution (dis-evolution, devilution...) of Germany than good. But that wasn't mainly Hegel's fault as Hegel always fought for 'freedom' although his political philosophy at a quick glance seems to be an odd contradiction in this regard.
Something to be explored on another date...
-- dgb, May 12th, 2010,
-- David Gordon Bain
Monday, May 10, 2010
Aristotelean (Either/Or) Logic, Hegelian (Dialectic) Logic, DGB Multi-Dialectic Logic -- and The Always Controversial Issue of 'Equal Rights'...
Modified May 11th, 2010.
I would like to point out -- or re-emphasize -- some important distinctions here, already discussed in previous essays but this time applied to the always controversial and provocative subject of -- 'equal rights'.
Going back to Aristotelean Logic, we have his famous Law of Non-Identity: A is A and B is B and A cannot be B because A has boundaries and characteristics and distinctions that keep it separate from B. A coyote is not a wolf and a wolf is not a coyote. A polar bear is not a grizzly bear and a grizzly bear is not a polar bear. Such is/was the logic and the law of non-identity. This was the basis of Aristotelean Logic.
The problem with Aristotelean Logic is that it is 'static' whereas 'life is dynamic'. Life moves, changes, mutates, fertilizes, adapts, compensates, modifies...' Aristotelean Logic does not account for evolving hybrids that share the characteristics of two or more sets of different species or sub-species.
Look at all the different breeds of dogs we have today. A dog today might be a genetic combination of Boxer, Doberman, German Shepard, and Rottweiler. I have mentioned in previous essays that we have new species of animals today that didn't even exist in Aristotle's time period such as a 'Colf' (a combination of coyote and wolf) and a species of animal that hasn't even been named yet -- part polar bear and part grizzly bear (a 'prizzly bear' or a 'grolar bear'?).
Similarly, the number and types of 'interracial hybrids of people' that we have today far exceeds anything that Aristotle saw in his day. Aristotelean Logic does not account for the Hegelian and Darwinian factor of 'cross-fertilization' -- races, religions, politics, economics, law, philosophy, science, psychology, art... all inter-mixing and resulting in both bio and cultural-educational diversity'.
This was the superiority of Hegel's brand of 'dialectic -- dynamic, interactive -- logic' as opposed to Aristotle's 'stationary, static, non-moving, non-changing logic'.
In short, Aristotle's 'Law of Non-Identity' did not account for evolution in either the realm of ideas (Hegel) and in the realm of physics, physiology, biology, chemistry, biochemistry...(Darwin)...
Hegel offered a superior form of 'organic, dialectic logic'...which should actually be updated again to 'multi-dialectic logic' or 'poly-lectic logic' ...the idea being that many different factors can come together to influence the outcome and the organic nature of the 'evolving whole'...
The problem is that, even today, with all our technological advancements and gadgets, we still get caught up in Aristotelean Logic -- and use it -- when and where we shouldn't be using it.
Even in our institutions that should most know the dangers of Aristotelean -- 'static, either/or' -- Logic is misused and overused. Our parliaments. Our court rooms. Our newspapers, televisions, and radios. Our industries, businesses, and corporations. Our educational institutions. Our churches. Everyone has an editorial opinion that at least partly ignores 'dialectic (two-sided) -- or multi-dialectic/poly-lectic (many sided) -- logic'.
Editorially, we are always looking for 'scapegoats' and people to 'hold accountable' -- and 'blame' -- for things that go wrong.
Guilty or innocent? What about 'mutual (dialectic) accountability and guilt'?
The truck driver rolled his truck because he was going too fast. However, he was under corporate instructions to get to his destination by a certain deadline -- or else -- which he couldn't do without speeding.
The driver turned left onto a street but misjudged the speed of an oncoming car and the slippery road conditions that hampered the traction on the tires of both cars. Both cars were totaled, one in the front, the other on the driver's side door, and the driver of the turning car -- who was lucky to be alive -- was given a ticket for an inappropriate turn. But other (poly-lectic) factors could have been mentioned and addressed. The oncoming car was going 20 kms. over the speed limit. And there should have been -- still should be -- lights at this particular intersection because of the high speed limit (70kms/hr) of the one road without the stop sign.
There are times when we do think dialectically and poly-lectically but not when we are most looking for someone to blame -- and to 'simply' fault.
The problem is that the 'blaming orientation' and the 'simplification orientation' can easily lead to 'over-blaming' and 'oversimplification'.
We trumpet, promote, campaign for, and financially support organizations aimed at 'stopping the violence of men against women'...which is fine as far as it goes....but we are using a brand of 'one-sided' Aristotelean Logic here....What are we saying and/or not saying covertly, and discriminatively? -- that the phenomenon of 'women committing violence against men is basically okay -- and/or that it is not important enough to warrant our awareness, attention, and action'?
We all heard or read about horrific cases of men committing violence against women -- physical assaults, sexual assaults, domestic assaults, stranger assaults...it goes on and on...and has so for thousands of years...
For argument sake, let's say a man just gets out of prison, is on probation, goes back to his ex-girlfriend and commits terrible violence against her.
People -- and women in particular -- have a right to feel outraged by such an event. But we also need to be fully aware of the dangers of 'falsely associating' thousands and thousands of 'non-violent' men with this one violent man. In particular, we need to be fully aware of the dangers of 'legal overcompensation' -- and 'sexual' as well as 'racial' profiling. And we need to be fully aware of the dangers of 'reverse discrimination' as well as 'discrimination'.
We must be fully aware that 'stereotyping' and 'discriminating' and 'stigmatizing' is not simply something that 'whites do against browns or blacks'...and/or that 'men do against women'....and/or that 'majorities do against minorities'...but that stereotyping-discriminating-stigmatizing -- is a hugely prolific species-wide human tendency that everyone can do, and often does do, to every single person they come into contact with -- and especially when there is something 'different' about the person they are meeting whether it be religion, nationality, sex, culture, skin color, physical appearance, or whatever.
If Albert Einstein were to walk into an interview, unshaven, and looking like he had slept on a park bench the night before, would he be likely to make it through the first interview without being rejected? Even if he started reciting and explaining his famous formula of E=MC squared, if we didn't know what Albert Einstein looked like, how many of us would have the patience and tolerance to take him seriously?
This is where Derrida's 'Deconstruction' philosophy -- which is an extension of Hegelian Logic -- becomes vitally important. There is always some 'cause' that is going to be focused on by the media, by politicians, by the law, by police officers, by prosecutors, by lobbyist groups....
These 'Aristotelean -- One-Sided -- Causes' become 'over-focused' on, 'overcompensated for', and subject to 'one-sided, government supported and enforced, politically correct' actions that may include new laws, charges, convictions, fundings -- and 'discriminatory' or 'reverse-discriminatory' profiling.
If there are 500 women's lobbyist and social activist groups 'camped' around Ottawa or Washington, and pounding on Parliament and Politicians Doors when some violent act has been committed against another woman -- which, to repeat, anyone in their ethical right mind wants to stop -- but at the same time, there is not a single 'men's rights group' sticking up for the rights of men in Ottawa and Washington, who are the laws about 'assault' and 'divorce' and 'child support' eventually going to favor? One-sided lobbyism is eventually going to lead to one-sided laws.
People -- not whites, browns, or blacks, not men or women, not adults or children -- are stupid when it comes to acts of racial or religious or sexual discrimination. And that goes for people on both sides of the discriminatory fence -- not just minority groups (which are fast growing in numbers and power as North America becomes more ethnically and racially diversified...) And not women, many of whom have more money and power than men, while the domestic laws around separation and support payments still often tend to treat women as though they are 'financial dependents'.
The domestic laws need to continue to evolve -- and eliminate 'reverse discriminations' as well as 'discriminations', and eliminate 'sexual profiling' where a man is in effect 'profiled as a victimizer against women' before the police even knock on the domestic door, and/or before a word is even uttered out of his mouth'.
This may come as a shock to many people -- or not -- but women can actually be violent against men as well as the way that domestic violence is stereotypically portrayed and profiled.
Domestic violence -- except in obvious cases of 'serial offenders' -- is often a dialectic, two sex problem where both sexes are partial victimizers and both sexes are partial victims. But one sex is stereotypically portrayed as the 'sexual and/or physical victimizer' and the other sex is stereotypically portrayed as the 'sexual and/or physical victim' -- and thus, we have 'sexual profiling' just as prolifically and systemically as we have 'racial and/or reverse-racial profiling'.
What is the percentage of men who are going to court and jail on charges of domestic violence? What is the percentage of women who are going to court and jail on charges of domestic violence? Need I say anymore or am I the proverbial little boy saying that 'the king is naked' while everyone around me is being 'politically correct' and saying that the king is not naked, the king is wearing clothes, and so too are our domestic laws 'equal' for both sexes.
There are many different 'nuances' to domestic violence -- 'provocation', 'intimidation', 'coercion', 'threats', 'retaliation', 'power', 'revenge'...One 'inappropriate' touch -- whether in anger, in lust, and/or in affection -- and a man has to be worried about the possibility of being charged and going to jail these days. Do women have the same fear to worry about, or are they well aware of how the domestic laws are there to 'protect' -- even to 'overprotect' -- them? How many women are going to face charges for 'inappropriately touching' a man? How many men are going to 'blow the whistle' on a woman who inappropriately touches him? How many women haven't learned how to 'trump up' their 'victim profile'? How many women like the prospect of giving up their hard earned money and property to a man who they have lived with for perhaps barely over a year, and who has far less money and property to divide?
My room mate -- for right or wrong -- has gone through this 'money and property division' four times in his life to four different women, only one of whom he was legally married to, and in the process given up about half a million dollars to each woman. He gave up his last 3 or 4 hundred thousand to his twin sister to keep her alive in an expensive medical operation. And now he is on disability, renting a room, and getting $580 a month from the government. You think he doesn't have some serious resentments -- even anger running into rage -- running through his head. Rightly or wrongly, he says that he is tired of 'giving out money' -- indeed, he has no more money to give out -- and that the next woman he meets and gets involved with will have to have more money and property than he does (which isn't saying anything anymore because it is hard not to have more than 'nothing'). I know that he just partly saying this because of his economic position in life now compared to where he more than very comfortably was, even five or ten years back. And I know that he is internally generous to the people he cares about...But still there are some underlying inequalities here that, only now, with many women establishing more money and power in their financial portfolio, they are beginning to understand what it means when they are having to 'give up' their own money and property as opposed to 'being on the receiving end of their ex-spouses' money and property. In domestic court -- and with warring spouses -- personal narcissism reigns supreme.
One law I would change for sure. There should be no need for 'prenuptial agreements' -- or they should be mandatory, depending on how you want to look at it. In other words, a man and a woman should both be equally entitled to keep the money and property they enter a relationship with. That should be a given -- no ifs, and, or buts about it.
I feel sorry for these mobility drivers who I used to dispatch to. On the one hand, they are compelled to 'help the customer', to take their hand or shoulder if they need assistance, to go to the door to help walk or wheel the customer to the mobility van or sedan, to help the customer with his or her seat belt...but again, 'one false touch' -- even non-intentional -- and if there is a customer complaint, all administrative and legal processes swing into motion. A driver leans over to help a female customer put on her seat belt...he should have taken the time to go around to the other side to get the seat belt from the passenger side, he inadvertently brushes one of the woman's rather large breasts (or was it on purpose?) while he is trying to put on her seatbelt, the older, middle-aged woman lodges a complaint, and the driver is history...his job, his career, and quite possibly his marriage are all destroyed by the legal process that may take a year or two to finish...The 'alleged assault' is quite likely to be written up in the newspapers, we don't know if the 'touch' was an accident, or on purpose, whether the customer had any hidden agenda like getting some money from a possible payoff, we may here in passing a couple of years later that the driver got off the charge...but does it matter? His life is in ruins and how many people care about this, assuming that the touch was accidental? Does anyone care that this man's life, career, and family life have all been left in emotional and economic shatters? The woman goes off like nothing happened -- maybe she did get a 'payoff' even if the man was innocent, or maybe the judge determined that the touch was accidental....But two years later, who cares, except the man and the family who's lives were destroyed...
If I have gone off on somewhat of a rhetorical tirade here, let me make this abundantly clear: I am not 'anti-women's rights' ....I trumpet the equal rights of men and women, as well as each and every race, religion, and culture...
It is just that I do not believe that the principle of establishing and enforcing 'alleged equal rights' should ever involve the overt and/or covert process of 'stepping on' and/or 'putting a higher priority on establishing and enforcing one sex's rights over the other'...I do not believe in reverse discrimination anymore than I believe in discrimination. And I do not believe in 'sexual profiling' any more than I believe in 'racial profiling'. And I do not believe in 'preferential rights' to any sub-category of people regardless of sex, race, religion, culture...or money and power...(read 'special interest lobbyist groups' that don't transparently state their business...and giving 'opposing groups' the right to democratically react to them...)
Distinctions need to be made between 'equal rights' and 'preferential rights' as well as between 'egalitarian feminism (or masculinism)' and 'narcissistic feminism (or masculinism).
The egalitarian feminist or masculinist truly is looking for that 'place of equal rights and responsibilities' as well as for that ideal but elusive place of 'homeostatic-dialectic-democratic balance'; whereas the narcissistic feminist or masculinist is looking for 'all he or she can get'. The ethics of 'equality' becomes secondary or is rationalized and/or justified as 'preferential rights'.
The position of 'preferential rights' is sometimes justified on the grounds of 'trying to make up for lost ground'. But it is like the referee who makes 'a bad call against one team' and then purposely sets out to make 'an opposite bad call against the other team' in order to 'offset and equal out the first mistake'. That's a dangerous type of reasoning, often escalating one mistake after another. I was always taught that 'two wrongs don't make a right'.
This was kind of a 'hit and run' essay...I am leaving this subject matter, didn't even expect this essay to evolve the way it did when I first started to write it...I know the subject matter of 'equal rights' is very, very emotionally charged...with sometimes horrific traumacies on either or both sides...This is not the type of essay I like to write -- have spent more time avoiding then confronting this issue and wish I didn't feel the need to 'have to write it'...But Hegel's Hotel looks for any and all types of discrimination -- which includes any and all types of reverse discrimination. Where others are afraid to politically walk, sometimes I must go...It is my duty as a free-thinking, critical philosopher. We will come back to this issue one day...But I am not in a hurry...
I want to move back to psychology now, and write one essay on 'Hegel and His Anticipation of Dialectic Psychotherapy'; then I would like to move into a whole network of essays on 'Central Ego Functioning and Dysfunctioning' (which I also have been avoiding for a long time).
Enough for today.
-- dgb, May 10th, 11th, 2010
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism...
I would like to point out -- or re-emphasize -- some important distinctions here, already discussed in previous essays but this time applied to the always controversial and provocative subject of -- 'equal rights'.
Going back to Aristotelean Logic, we have his famous Law of Non-Identity: A is A and B is B and A cannot be B because A has boundaries and characteristics and distinctions that keep it separate from B. A coyote is not a wolf and a wolf is not a coyote. A polar bear is not a grizzly bear and a grizzly bear is not a polar bear. Such is/was the logic and the law of non-identity. This was the basis of Aristotelean Logic.
The problem with Aristotelean Logic is that it is 'static' whereas 'life is dynamic'. Life moves, changes, mutates, fertilizes, adapts, compensates, modifies...' Aristotelean Logic does not account for evolving hybrids that share the characteristics of two or more sets of different species or sub-species.
Look at all the different breeds of dogs we have today. A dog today might be a genetic combination of Boxer, Doberman, German Shepard, and Rottweiler. I have mentioned in previous essays that we have new species of animals today that didn't even exist in Aristotle's time period such as a 'Colf' (a combination of coyote and wolf) and a species of animal that hasn't even been named yet -- part polar bear and part grizzly bear (a 'prizzly bear' or a 'grolar bear'?).
Similarly, the number and types of 'interracial hybrids of people' that we have today far exceeds anything that Aristotle saw in his day. Aristotelean Logic does not account for the Hegelian and Darwinian factor of 'cross-fertilization' -- races, religions, politics, economics, law, philosophy, science, psychology, art... all inter-mixing and resulting in both bio and cultural-educational diversity'.
This was the superiority of Hegel's brand of 'dialectic -- dynamic, interactive -- logic' as opposed to Aristotle's 'stationary, static, non-moving, non-changing logic'.
In short, Aristotle's 'Law of Non-Identity' did not account for evolution in either the realm of ideas (Hegel) and in the realm of physics, physiology, biology, chemistry, biochemistry...(Darwin)...
Hegel offered a superior form of 'organic, dialectic logic'...which should actually be updated again to 'multi-dialectic logic' or 'poly-lectic logic' ...the idea being that many different factors can come together to influence the outcome and the organic nature of the 'evolving whole'...
The problem is that, even today, with all our technological advancements and gadgets, we still get caught up in Aristotelean Logic -- and use it -- when and where we shouldn't be using it.
Even in our institutions that should most know the dangers of Aristotelean -- 'static, either/or' -- Logic is misused and overused. Our parliaments. Our court rooms. Our newspapers, televisions, and radios. Our industries, businesses, and corporations. Our educational institutions. Our churches. Everyone has an editorial opinion that at least partly ignores 'dialectic (two-sided) -- or multi-dialectic/poly-lectic (many sided) -- logic'.
Editorially, we are always looking for 'scapegoats' and people to 'hold accountable' -- and 'blame' -- for things that go wrong.
Guilty or innocent? What about 'mutual (dialectic) accountability and guilt'?
The truck driver rolled his truck because he was going too fast. However, he was under corporate instructions to get to his destination by a certain deadline -- or else -- which he couldn't do without speeding.
The driver turned left onto a street but misjudged the speed of an oncoming car and the slippery road conditions that hampered the traction on the tires of both cars. Both cars were totaled, one in the front, the other on the driver's side door, and the driver of the turning car -- who was lucky to be alive -- was given a ticket for an inappropriate turn. But other (poly-lectic) factors could have been mentioned and addressed. The oncoming car was going 20 kms. over the speed limit. And there should have been -- still should be -- lights at this particular intersection because of the high speed limit (70kms/hr) of the one road without the stop sign.
There are times when we do think dialectically and poly-lectically but not when we are most looking for someone to blame -- and to 'simply' fault.
The problem is that the 'blaming orientation' and the 'simplification orientation' can easily lead to 'over-blaming' and 'oversimplification'.
We trumpet, promote, campaign for, and financially support organizations aimed at 'stopping the violence of men against women'...which is fine as far as it goes....but we are using a brand of 'one-sided' Aristotelean Logic here....What are we saying and/or not saying covertly, and discriminatively? -- that the phenomenon of 'women committing violence against men is basically okay -- and/or that it is not important enough to warrant our awareness, attention, and action'?
We all heard or read about horrific cases of men committing violence against women -- physical assaults, sexual assaults, domestic assaults, stranger assaults...it goes on and on...and has so for thousands of years...
For argument sake, let's say a man just gets out of prison, is on probation, goes back to his ex-girlfriend and commits terrible violence against her.
People -- and women in particular -- have a right to feel outraged by such an event. But we also need to be fully aware of the dangers of 'falsely associating' thousands and thousands of 'non-violent' men with this one violent man. In particular, we need to be fully aware of the dangers of 'legal overcompensation' -- and 'sexual' as well as 'racial' profiling. And we need to be fully aware of the dangers of 'reverse discrimination' as well as 'discrimination'.
We must be fully aware that 'stereotyping' and 'discriminating' and 'stigmatizing' is not simply something that 'whites do against browns or blacks'...and/or that 'men do against women'....and/or that 'majorities do against minorities'...but that stereotyping-discriminating-stigmatizing -- is a hugely prolific species-wide human tendency that everyone can do, and often does do, to every single person they come into contact with -- and especially when there is something 'different' about the person they are meeting whether it be religion, nationality, sex, culture, skin color, physical appearance, or whatever.
If Albert Einstein were to walk into an interview, unshaven, and looking like he had slept on a park bench the night before, would he be likely to make it through the first interview without being rejected? Even if he started reciting and explaining his famous formula of E=MC squared, if we didn't know what Albert Einstein looked like, how many of us would have the patience and tolerance to take him seriously?
This is where Derrida's 'Deconstruction' philosophy -- which is an extension of Hegelian Logic -- becomes vitally important. There is always some 'cause' that is going to be focused on by the media, by politicians, by the law, by police officers, by prosecutors, by lobbyist groups....
These 'Aristotelean -- One-Sided -- Causes' become 'over-focused' on, 'overcompensated for', and subject to 'one-sided, government supported and enforced, politically correct' actions that may include new laws, charges, convictions, fundings -- and 'discriminatory' or 'reverse-discriminatory' profiling.
If there are 500 women's lobbyist and social activist groups 'camped' around Ottawa or Washington, and pounding on Parliament and Politicians Doors when some violent act has been committed against another woman -- which, to repeat, anyone in their ethical right mind wants to stop -- but at the same time, there is not a single 'men's rights group' sticking up for the rights of men in Ottawa and Washington, who are the laws about 'assault' and 'divorce' and 'child support' eventually going to favor? One-sided lobbyism is eventually going to lead to one-sided laws.
People -- not whites, browns, or blacks, not men or women, not adults or children -- are stupid when it comes to acts of racial or religious or sexual discrimination. And that goes for people on both sides of the discriminatory fence -- not just minority groups (which are fast growing in numbers and power as North America becomes more ethnically and racially diversified...) And not women, many of whom have more money and power than men, while the domestic laws around separation and support payments still often tend to treat women as though they are 'financial dependents'.
The domestic laws need to continue to evolve -- and eliminate 'reverse discriminations' as well as 'discriminations', and eliminate 'sexual profiling' where a man is in effect 'profiled as a victimizer against women' before the police even knock on the domestic door, and/or before a word is even uttered out of his mouth'.
This may come as a shock to many people -- or not -- but women can actually be violent against men as well as the way that domestic violence is stereotypically portrayed and profiled.
Domestic violence -- except in obvious cases of 'serial offenders' -- is often a dialectic, two sex problem where both sexes are partial victimizers and both sexes are partial victims. But one sex is stereotypically portrayed as the 'sexual and/or physical victimizer' and the other sex is stereotypically portrayed as the 'sexual and/or physical victim' -- and thus, we have 'sexual profiling' just as prolifically and systemically as we have 'racial and/or reverse-racial profiling'.
What is the percentage of men who are going to court and jail on charges of domestic violence? What is the percentage of women who are going to court and jail on charges of domestic violence? Need I say anymore or am I the proverbial little boy saying that 'the king is naked' while everyone around me is being 'politically correct' and saying that the king is not naked, the king is wearing clothes, and so too are our domestic laws 'equal' for both sexes.
There are many different 'nuances' to domestic violence -- 'provocation', 'intimidation', 'coercion', 'threats', 'retaliation', 'power', 'revenge'...One 'inappropriate' touch -- whether in anger, in lust, and/or in affection -- and a man has to be worried about the possibility of being charged and going to jail these days. Do women have the same fear to worry about, or are they well aware of how the domestic laws are there to 'protect' -- even to 'overprotect' -- them? How many women are going to face charges for 'inappropriately touching' a man? How many men are going to 'blow the whistle' on a woman who inappropriately touches him? How many women haven't learned how to 'trump up' their 'victim profile'? How many women like the prospect of giving up their hard earned money and property to a man who they have lived with for perhaps barely over a year, and who has far less money and property to divide?
My room mate -- for right or wrong -- has gone through this 'money and property division' four times in his life to four different women, only one of whom he was legally married to, and in the process given up about half a million dollars to each woman. He gave up his last 3 or 4 hundred thousand to his twin sister to keep her alive in an expensive medical operation. And now he is on disability, renting a room, and getting $580 a month from the government. You think he doesn't have some serious resentments -- even anger running into rage -- running through his head. Rightly or wrongly, he says that he is tired of 'giving out money' -- indeed, he has no more money to give out -- and that the next woman he meets and gets involved with will have to have more money and property than he does (which isn't saying anything anymore because it is hard not to have more than 'nothing'). I know that he just partly saying this because of his economic position in life now compared to where he more than very comfortably was, even five or ten years back. And I know that he is internally generous to the people he cares about...But still there are some underlying inequalities here that, only now, with many women establishing more money and power in their financial portfolio, they are beginning to understand what it means when they are having to 'give up' their own money and property as opposed to 'being on the receiving end of their ex-spouses' money and property. In domestic court -- and with warring spouses -- personal narcissism reigns supreme.
One law I would change for sure. There should be no need for 'prenuptial agreements' -- or they should be mandatory, depending on how you want to look at it. In other words, a man and a woman should both be equally entitled to keep the money and property they enter a relationship with. That should be a given -- no ifs, and, or buts about it.
I feel sorry for these mobility drivers who I used to dispatch to. On the one hand, they are compelled to 'help the customer', to take their hand or shoulder if they need assistance, to go to the door to help walk or wheel the customer to the mobility van or sedan, to help the customer with his or her seat belt...but again, 'one false touch' -- even non-intentional -- and if there is a customer complaint, all administrative and legal processes swing into motion. A driver leans over to help a female customer put on her seat belt...he should have taken the time to go around to the other side to get the seat belt from the passenger side, he inadvertently brushes one of the woman's rather large breasts (or was it on purpose?) while he is trying to put on her seatbelt, the older, middle-aged woman lodges a complaint, and the driver is history...his job, his career, and quite possibly his marriage are all destroyed by the legal process that may take a year or two to finish...The 'alleged assault' is quite likely to be written up in the newspapers, we don't know if the 'touch' was an accident, or on purpose, whether the customer had any hidden agenda like getting some money from a possible payoff, we may here in passing a couple of years later that the driver got off the charge...but does it matter? His life is in ruins and how many people care about this, assuming that the touch was accidental? Does anyone care that this man's life, career, and family life have all been left in emotional and economic shatters? The woman goes off like nothing happened -- maybe she did get a 'payoff' even if the man was innocent, or maybe the judge determined that the touch was accidental....But two years later, who cares, except the man and the family who's lives were destroyed...
If I have gone off on somewhat of a rhetorical tirade here, let me make this abundantly clear: I am not 'anti-women's rights' ....I trumpet the equal rights of men and women, as well as each and every race, religion, and culture...
It is just that I do not believe that the principle of establishing and enforcing 'alleged equal rights' should ever involve the overt and/or covert process of 'stepping on' and/or 'putting a higher priority on establishing and enforcing one sex's rights over the other'...I do not believe in reverse discrimination anymore than I believe in discrimination. And I do not believe in 'sexual profiling' any more than I believe in 'racial profiling'. And I do not believe in 'preferential rights' to any sub-category of people regardless of sex, race, religion, culture...or money and power...(read 'special interest lobbyist groups' that don't transparently state their business...and giving 'opposing groups' the right to democratically react to them...)
Distinctions need to be made between 'equal rights' and 'preferential rights' as well as between 'egalitarian feminism (or masculinism)' and 'narcissistic feminism (or masculinism).
The egalitarian feminist or masculinist truly is looking for that 'place of equal rights and responsibilities' as well as for that ideal but elusive place of 'homeostatic-dialectic-democratic balance'; whereas the narcissistic feminist or masculinist is looking for 'all he or she can get'. The ethics of 'equality' becomes secondary or is rationalized and/or justified as 'preferential rights'.
The position of 'preferential rights' is sometimes justified on the grounds of 'trying to make up for lost ground'. But it is like the referee who makes 'a bad call against one team' and then purposely sets out to make 'an opposite bad call against the other team' in order to 'offset and equal out the first mistake'. That's a dangerous type of reasoning, often escalating one mistake after another. I was always taught that 'two wrongs don't make a right'.
This was kind of a 'hit and run' essay...I am leaving this subject matter, didn't even expect this essay to evolve the way it did when I first started to write it...I know the subject matter of 'equal rights' is very, very emotionally charged...with sometimes horrific traumacies on either or both sides...This is not the type of essay I like to write -- have spent more time avoiding then confronting this issue and wish I didn't feel the need to 'have to write it'...But Hegel's Hotel looks for any and all types of discrimination -- which includes any and all types of reverse discrimination. Where others are afraid to politically walk, sometimes I must go...It is my duty as a free-thinking, critical philosopher. We will come back to this issue one day...But I am not in a hurry...
I want to move back to psychology now, and write one essay on 'Hegel and His Anticipation of Dialectic Psychotherapy'; then I would like to move into a whole network of essays on 'Central Ego Functioning and Dysfunctioning' (which I also have been avoiding for a long time).
Enough for today.
-- dgb, May 10th, 11th, 2010
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism...
Wednesday, May 5, 2010
Good and Bad Bargains: Modern Day Narcissistic Capitalism, The Free Trade Agreement, Globalization, and Schisms Both in The Individual Personality and In The Socio-Economic-Political National and International Order
Freshly modified...and just finished...May 9th, 2010...
'The difference between a 'good Capitalist' and a 'bad Capitalist' is the difference between a person who cares about people and one who doesn't. The same goes for the difference between a 'good' and 'bad' Socialist. In this regard, the good Capitalist and the good Socialist have more in common than the good and bad Capitalist or the good and bad Socialist. I will trumpet the work, efforts, and ideals of good Capitalists AND good Socialists, while I will rhetorically seek to destroy the work and efforts of both 'narcissistic Capitalists' and 'narcissistic Socialists' alike. The worst narcissistic Capitalists in the world have more in common with Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Tse Tung -- and visa versa, than they do with anything Adam Smith or Ayn Rand wrote...' -- dgb, May 8th, 2010.
Introduction
This essay is probably my most definitive work so far on what I mean by 'good' and 'bad' Capitalism or between 'ethical' ('good will') Capitalism and 'narcissistic' ('bad will') Capitalism.
I look at this essay as hopefully being the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is coming down the chute in this realm of politics, business and economics. My passion -- largely from recent personal business traumacies -- reigns supreme here.
I both live and die for both the 'good owner' and the 'good employee'....I hate 'bad deals' between sellers and buyers and/or between employers and employees, producers and consumers...
I am always looking for that magic, highly elusive point of 'win-win, narcissistic-altruistic, homeostatic balance'...
To the extent that I can promote 'good harmonious relations' between governments at all levels and corporations, employers and employees, sellers and buyers -- without anyone getting 'ripped off', exploiting and/or being exploited, and/or 'colluding' in the process -- that is the extent to which I may one day be able to rest in greater peace that my mission here in Hegel's Hotel is largely coming to an end... Until then, and at this point in time, I am both crying and raging about what I see inside the mainly 'pathological' corporations I come into contact with in my working day...It is a pleasure when I hear about owners who run good, fair corporations and who treat their employees like humans, even like family, as opposed to 'things' that are there to be 'exploited'....
In Hegel's Hotel, Adam Smith and Karl Marx shake hands...as do Erich Fromm and Ayn Rand...
With yours truly continuing to play the Central Mediator...
Marx was the first protector of human rights in the work place, especially in his early work -- Marx was the first 'union steward'; whereas Adam Smith always had concerns about keeping the 'ethics' in businessmen and business transactions...
Have a seat...mediation is now in process...
Until we can find that ideal -- and always changing -- point of 'dialectic-democratic, humanistic-existential, narcissistic-altruistic, homeostatic balance...'
We haven't gotten there yet...indeed we have a very long road still to travel...a lot of floors still to build...
But the economy is starting to get better...
And the workers are back and building Hegel's Hotel again...
Pounding their hammers and nails again...
Ah, the sweetest of sounds...
Coming out of a bad economy, there is no sweeter sound and sight,
Than the sound and sight of workers building...
Hegel's Hotel carries the spirit of Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead'...
Just as much as it carries Hegel's 'Phenomenology of Spirit'...
And Fromm's spirit of 'Man For Himself' and 'The Sane Society'...
They all come together in the lobby and the negotiating rooms and the cocktail lounges of Hegel's Hotel...
-- dgb, May 8th, 2010.
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As I have discussed in previous essays, the personality can be viewed from a host of different perspectives -- both wholistically and/or reductionistically using a variety of different theories and/or models of the personality.
Personally, I like to view the personality as being run like a partly authoritarian, partly democratic, government or corporation, with a distinction that can be made between the main Central Ego in the personality, which can be viewed as being like the CEO or President of a company or a country, surrounded by a host of partly competing, partly co-operating, auxiliary, 'lobbyist' and/or 'partisan' ego-states, that are like the partisan political parties and/or members of a government working in parliament, and/or like the 'special interest lobbyist groups' that solicit the government out in the hallways, in the front rooms, the back rooms, over the phone, in back alleys, with brief cases, in whatever style or manner seems to work most effectively in terms of getting what they want...legitimately or illegitimately...
Personally, in government, I think we should pull all the different lobbyists into Parliament -- call it a 'lobbyist session' -- and let each and everyone of them have their say with mikes and cameras on, give each of them 20 or 30 minutes in front of a mike to make their presentation and argue their case -- and wow, what do we have -- 'democratic transparency' -- the quality that every campaigning politician talks about on the campaign trail -- along with ethics, integrity, and accountability -- that is, until they get into office and grow increasingly quiet on these matters...when push comes to shove, deciding that they would prefer to have their 'expense accounts' and 'agenda books' remain 'private' -- and holding hands in one big circle with their fellow politicians in establishing a 'secret, unwritten collusion' on this matter. Very much like Freud's inner circle in this type of matter.
The unwritten code seems to run something like this:
'We shalt not give away our secret, narcissistic expense benefits that come with minding the country's cash register and bank account. The public doesn't need to know where I had lunch the other day and how much I spent. As long as it makes its way through the government expense account department -- which of course is made up of people who are enjoying the same expense benefits that I enjoy. We, in the government, call this a 'win-win situation' The public doesn't need to know everything'.
I am partly getting side-tracked here but partly not because the similarities between how we run our internal personality and how we run our external government are similar, and indeed, connected -- our external relationships projecting and reflecting our internal relationships between our different ego-states and our general personality dynamics.
In this regard, The Central Ego can also be viewed as being like a Supreme Court Judge and/or Mediator in the personality, ideally in charge of the rest of the courtroom/personality, but in less than ideal circumstances, being over run by politicians from above and/or by 'special interest lobbyist groups' running amok in the courtroom/personality and 'having their way' with a 'weak' Central Ego. When the Central Ego is not fully in control of the personality, and running a 'balanced courtroom', then either 'over-restraint' and/or 'over-impulse' (bi-polar disorder, manic-depression...) is likely to create pathology and disorder in the personality.
In an ideal political-socio-economic and legal world as well as in an ideal intra-psychic personality, each lobbyist and politician, like each auxillary ego-state would simply assert democratically and rhetorically what it wants... and leave the final decision in the workings and executive action of the Central Ego, The President, and/or The CEO..(as well as there being full public disclosure, transparency, integrity, and accountability in the case of politicians holding a public office.
But alas, as most of us are well aware, we live in a far from 'ideal' world.
In our 'real world', one-sided righteousness, narcissism and greed as well as conflict of interest situations evolving between public office holders' public responsibilities and private, personal interests become almost inevitable over time...and the temptation of the devil...indeed, with all of us, not just politicians...The corporate world is overflowing with 'conflict of interest' situations that impair socio-economic as well as ethical, legal, and political judgment...
Let's face it...Everyone wants what they want...and in all aspects of our world righteousness and narcissism intermingle...Oftentimes, righteousness is the cloak that hides inner narcissism and/or the pseudo-justification for inner narcissism....
Power and narcissism has the potential to corrupt all levels of inner and outer government...
We see this -- or at least I do -- over and over and over again in our entire interconnected socio-economic-political-legal-corporate-personal world...
Schopenhauer stirs in his grave...with an arrogant 'I told you so'...
The type of Capitalism I see all around me is not the same type of Capitalism that I remember reading about in Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead'.
Without being a 'Marxist', a 'Socialist' and/or a 'Communist', I can still tell you that Hegel's classic analysis of 'labour' in connection with his discussion of the 'the master/slave relationship', jumped on by Marx in his searing indictment of narcissistic Capitalism, comes much closer in awareness and insight as far as getting to the heart of what is the matter with modern day Capitalism.
Modern day Capitalism lacks integrity, ethics, character, transparency, accountability, and a sense of good will towards the person one is bargaining with...all of the things politicians keep saying they are going to fix...and rarely ever do...
Adam Smith would most certainly frown on modern day Capitalism if he could see the full extent of the type of corporate-political greed and narcissism that I see around me each and every day. He would say something like 'This is not the type of Capitalism I envisioned when I wrote 'The Wealth of Nations'...
................................................................................................................
From the internet...'Brainy Quote'...University of Liverpool...
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
Adam Smith
No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
Adam Smith
Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
Adam Smith
Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.
Adam Smith
..................................................................................................................
I find Adam's most intriguing quote to be the last one cited above...
It is at this point -- the point of 'bargaining' -- that Adam Smith's philosophy starts to dialectically collide with the philosophy of Hegel and Marx...
Hegel was no Marxist but it was from Hegel's work on 'labour' and the 'master/slave relationship' that Marx was inspired to write his thousands of pages critiquing the pathological evolution of Capitalism...
You see, it makes all the difference in the world as to what type of Capitalist Leaders we have in order to determine whether we have a 'good or bad Capitalist System' or not.
Just as the character of a hockey or basketball or baseball team tends to take on much of the character of its coach, so it is with 'Capitalism' as Capitalism is played out in each and every corporation and in each and every corporate transaction, both internally and externally.
It makes all the difference in the world as to the ultimate evolution of Capitalism as to whether a person -- particularly the owner of a business -- is negotiating 'narcissistically' and only narcissistically, or whether he or she is negotiating narcissistically and altruistically at the same time.
Put another way, is the bargainer looking for an 'I win; you lose' bargain, or is he or she looking for an 'I win; you win' bargain.
The last type of 'win-win bargaining encounter' tends to be much more endearing and enduring to a long term negotiating relationship whereas the first type of 'win-lose encounter' tends to tarnish if not outright annihilate all future negotiating transactions...
However, here is where Marx steps in and starts to launch his anti-Capitalist tirade...
If the power of the owner (in Marx's language, the 'bourgeoisie') is far greater than the power of the individual employee (the 'proletariat' in Marx's language), and you have a narcissistic, unscrupulous, greedy owner, then 'bad employee bargains' can become the name of the game, the rule of thumb, unless and/or until the individual employees either leave or take a 'collective confrontational stance' against the 'bargains' of the unscrupulous owner. At this point in the evolution of Capitalism, we have the beginning of 'strikes' and 'unions'...and changes in the 'corporate power balance' -- both good and bad.
Short of this, the only other power that an individual employee has is to 'leave' if he is being essentially 'forced to either take or leave a bad bargain'. In a good economy, and even in a bad one, one of the 'surest signs of a bad corporation with bad, unscrupulous leaders' is 'constant employee turnover'.
Now if you have a bad economy with high unemployment levels and/or high immigration levels intermixing with a bad economy, then what is going to happen? Advantage: unscrupulous owner...who is going to take advantage of a 'desperate work force' in order to lower wages and/or instigate other 'bad employee bargains'... If one prospective and/or current employee doesn't take the 'bad bargain' that an 'unscrupulous owner' has laid on the table, the next one coming in for the next interview -- will. Unless as an employee, you have a 'special skill', you have essentially no negotiating power in such a circumstance.
One would hazard a pretty safe guess that most unscrupulous business owners would 'welcome with open arms' a larger unemployed workforce, higher immigration levels, importing 'cheaper labor', and 'exporting jobs to countries with cheaper labor' -- all in the name of the almighty Unscrupulous, Narcissistic Capitalist Ideal -- specifically 'Profit Margin'. There is an imperative distinction that needs to be made relative to the practice of 'Good' or 'Bad' Capitalism relative to a 'fair but healthy profit margin' vs. an 'unscrupulous, gouging profit margin'....
Which is why the Government -- any Democratic Government with Integrity, Character, Ethics, and Accountability in mind -- needs to step in and regulate 'profit margins'. To prevent or at least discourage 'consumer price gouging' as well as 'employee intimidation, coercing, manipulating, extorting...etc.'
Back in the late 1980s (1988 to be exact), not too many people -- at least private citizens, including me -- knew whether 'free trade' was going to be a 'good thing' or a 'bad thing'. All many of us knew is that it 'sounded good' -- probably because it had the word 'free' in it...
Now looking back at things, 22 years later, perhaps we can come to some more definitive, experientially based conclusions: specifically, 'free trade' is not going to be a 'good thing' for countries with 'higher labor wages' -- at least in terms of the workers who are used to getting these higher labor wages.
Again, from an 'unscrupulous employer's point of view -- and even from the point of view of business owners with 'good integrity and intentions towards their workers' but who may be getting slammed by 'merciless unions' -- say goodbye to 'manufacturing plants' and 'service industries' in Canada and America as corporations move their operations to 'third world countries' in order to take advantage of 'lower (to practically non-existent) employee wages'.
In short, the 'free trade agreement' put together by Brian Mulroney in 1988 (in conjunction with Bush from the American side), would increase the economic and corporate speed of 'globalization', and the overall improvement of 'third world economic countries' at the expense of North American jobs in the manufacturing and 'goods and service' industry. Mulroney and Bush obviously did not either foresee and/or want to advertise the 'negative side effects' of the free trade agreement...
..............................................................................................................................................
From the internet...see free trade, George Bush...
Examples of using economic diplomacy for the common good have been overshadowed in recent years by the priorities set under the influence of the Bush pre-emptive war doctrine. Entering the war in Iraq based on erroneous information, has forced us to go shopping around the world for friends, armed with carrots and with sticks. In order to pull together what was called a willing coalition, they went to the poorest developing countries and said, 'If you can't send a soldier, send a policeman." And, "If yo don't have the money, can we give you some?"
Source: A Bad Day Since, by Charles Rangel, p. 168 Aug 5, 2008
Keeping America competitive requires us to open more markets for all that Americans make and grow. One out of every five factory jobs in America is related to global trade, and we want people everywhere to buy American. With open markets and a level playing field, no one can outproduce or outcompete the American worker.
Source: 2006 State of the Union Address Jan 31, 2006
FACTCHECK on Trade: In speaking of benefits of international trade, the President failed to mention his own steps to protect the politically important US steel industry.
Source: FactCheck.org on the 2004 State of the Union address Jan 20, 2004
On March 5, 2002, the President announced he would impose tariffs of up to 30% on imported steel in an effort to shore up the long-declining industry. Steel executives praised the President and said that the tariffs might save jobs. Free trade advocates wondered how other countries would respond and what the effect would be on the cost of a wide array of goods.
Source: The Price of Loyalty, by Ron Suskind, p.238 Jan 13, 2004
The Bush administration has decided to repeal most of its 20-month-old tariffs on imported steel to head off a trade war. European countries and Japan had vowed to respond to the tariffs, which were ruled illegal by the WTO, by imposing sanctions on up to $2.2 billion in exports from the US, beginning as soon as Dec. 15.
Source: Mike Allen, Washington Post, p. A1 Dec 1, 2003
Source: The Economist, “Issues 2000” Sep 30, 2000
Q: What will you do as president to help farmers get sufficient pay for their work?
A: I would be a free trading president, a president that will work tirelessly to open up markets for agricultural products all over the world. I believe our American farmers. can compete so long as the playing field is level. That’s why I am such a strong advocate of free trade and that’s why I reject protectionism and isolation because I think it hurts our American farmers.
Source: Republican debate in West Columbia, South Carolina Jan 7, 2000
[After visiting China], I’ll never forget the contrast between what I learned about the free market at Harvard and what I saw in the closed isolation of China. Every bicycle looked the same. People’s clothes were all the same. a free market frees individuals to make distinct choices and independent decisions. The market gives individuals the opportunity to demand and decide, and entrepreneurs the opportunity to provide.
Source: “A Charge to Keep”, p. 61. Dec 9, 1999
In 1999, when a glut of foreign oil drove prices below $12 a barrel, many of my friends in the oil business wanted the government to rescue them through price supports. . . I understand the frustration of people. but I do not support import fees. . . I believe it makes sense to use the tax code to encourage activities that benefit America. But I do not want to put up fees or tariffs or roadblocks to trade.
Source: “A Charge to Keep”, p. 65-66. Dec 9, 1999
I’ll work to end tariffs and break down barriers everywhere, entirely, so the whole world trades in freedom. The fearful build walls. The confident demolish them. I am confident in American workers and farmers and producers. And I am confident that America’s best is the best in the world.
Source: Candidacy Announcement speech, Cedar Rapids, Iowa Jun 12, 1999
In contrast to 'unscrupulous, narcissistic business owners' who tend to follow the 'God of The Highest Profit Margin' and will exploit workers and customers to get there, 'ethical, win-win business owners' tend to look for that magic point of 'dialectic-homeostatic balance, fairness, unity, and harmony'...that stabilizes their business...
'Good Social Will' business owners may not get the highest profit margins in the short run but, over the long haul, Good Social Will' business owners tend to create the best businesses -- as long as they protect a 'healthy profit margin' -- because they are not constantly self-destructing on the basis of employee resentment, rebellion, anarchy, and the 'bad reputation' that the 'self-indulgent business owner's corporation will quickly or slowly establish in the work community both amongst prospective workers and prospective customers. The last thing an employer -- good or bad -- wants to hear is, 'Well, who's working for your company this week?' That is generally not a 'healthy sign' for the corporation.
Health in the personality, in the body, and in the corporation are all built upon the same principle: the principle of 'good self and social will' which in turn is based on the principle of 'dialectic-homeostatic balance'.
In the body, in the personality, and in our socio-economic world, we should all be looking for 'win-win solutions' with no serious 'negative side effects'.
Narcissistic people tend to foster 'a negative social willpower against them' -- they continue to chase 'short term profit gain' without caring one iota about the extent of the 'social pain they leave behind them' in their dust...
If their employees or their customers will eat 'dog food' disguised as 'health food'....the narcissistic owner doesn't think twice....because he or she serves 'The God of Profit Margins'....
Personally, I love to see such corporations run by unscrupulous business owners eventually crumble in the dust...or fold like a house of cards...
When such a business folds like a house of cards...
It reflects the personality, character, and integrity of the person who ran the company into the ground...
Adam Smith would say that this is the 'Free Market' work of 'The Invisible Hand'...
That is, until our North American Governments -- both in America and in Canada -- let these corporate parasites...
Escape their corporate ruins...
With Golden Bailouts and Parachutes...
Then even Adam Smith is crying...
-- dgb, May 8th, 2010.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic-Democratic, Ethical-Good Will-Capitalism, Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism...
'The difference between a 'good Capitalist' and a 'bad Capitalist' is the difference between a person who cares about people and one who doesn't. The same goes for the difference between a 'good' and 'bad' Socialist. In this regard, the good Capitalist and the good Socialist have more in common than the good and bad Capitalist or the good and bad Socialist. I will trumpet the work, efforts, and ideals of good Capitalists AND good Socialists, while I will rhetorically seek to destroy the work and efforts of both 'narcissistic Capitalists' and 'narcissistic Socialists' alike. The worst narcissistic Capitalists in the world have more in common with Lenin, Stalin, and Mao Tse Tung -- and visa versa, than they do with anything Adam Smith or Ayn Rand wrote...' -- dgb, May 8th, 2010.
Introduction
This essay is probably my most definitive work so far on what I mean by 'good' and 'bad' Capitalism or between 'ethical' ('good will') Capitalism and 'narcissistic' ('bad will') Capitalism.
I look at this essay as hopefully being the tip of the iceberg in terms of what is coming down the chute in this realm of politics, business and economics. My passion -- largely from recent personal business traumacies -- reigns supreme here.
I both live and die for both the 'good owner' and the 'good employee'....I hate 'bad deals' between sellers and buyers and/or between employers and employees, producers and consumers...
I am always looking for that magic, highly elusive point of 'win-win, narcissistic-altruistic, homeostatic balance'...
To the extent that I can promote 'good harmonious relations' between governments at all levels and corporations, employers and employees, sellers and buyers -- without anyone getting 'ripped off', exploiting and/or being exploited, and/or 'colluding' in the process -- that is the extent to which I may one day be able to rest in greater peace that my mission here in Hegel's Hotel is largely coming to an end... Until then, and at this point in time, I am both crying and raging about what I see inside the mainly 'pathological' corporations I come into contact with in my working day...It is a pleasure when I hear about owners who run good, fair corporations and who treat their employees like humans, even like family, as opposed to 'things' that are there to be 'exploited'....
In Hegel's Hotel, Adam Smith and Karl Marx shake hands...as do Erich Fromm and Ayn Rand...
With yours truly continuing to play the Central Mediator...
Marx was the first protector of human rights in the work place, especially in his early work -- Marx was the first 'union steward'; whereas Adam Smith always had concerns about keeping the 'ethics' in businessmen and business transactions...
Have a seat...mediation is now in process...
Until we can find that ideal -- and always changing -- point of 'dialectic-democratic, humanistic-existential, narcissistic-altruistic, homeostatic balance...'
We haven't gotten there yet...indeed we have a very long road still to travel...a lot of floors still to build...
But the economy is starting to get better...
And the workers are back and building Hegel's Hotel again...
Pounding their hammers and nails again...
Ah, the sweetest of sounds...
Coming out of a bad economy, there is no sweeter sound and sight,
Than the sound and sight of workers building...
Hegel's Hotel carries the spirit of Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead'...
Just as much as it carries Hegel's 'Phenomenology of Spirit'...
And Fromm's spirit of 'Man For Himself' and 'The Sane Society'...
They all come together in the lobby and the negotiating rooms and the cocktail lounges of Hegel's Hotel...
-- dgb, May 8th, 2010.
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As I have discussed in previous essays, the personality can be viewed from a host of different perspectives -- both wholistically and/or reductionistically using a variety of different theories and/or models of the personality.
Personally, I like to view the personality as being run like a partly authoritarian, partly democratic, government or corporation, with a distinction that can be made between the main Central Ego in the personality, which can be viewed as being like the CEO or President of a company or a country, surrounded by a host of partly competing, partly co-operating, auxiliary, 'lobbyist' and/or 'partisan' ego-states, that are like the partisan political parties and/or members of a government working in parliament, and/or like the 'special interest lobbyist groups' that solicit the government out in the hallways, in the front rooms, the back rooms, over the phone, in back alleys, with brief cases, in whatever style or manner seems to work most effectively in terms of getting what they want...legitimately or illegitimately...
Personally, in government, I think we should pull all the different lobbyists into Parliament -- call it a 'lobbyist session' -- and let each and everyone of them have their say with mikes and cameras on, give each of them 20 or 30 minutes in front of a mike to make their presentation and argue their case -- and wow, what do we have -- 'democratic transparency' -- the quality that every campaigning politician talks about on the campaign trail -- along with ethics, integrity, and accountability -- that is, until they get into office and grow increasingly quiet on these matters...when push comes to shove, deciding that they would prefer to have their 'expense accounts' and 'agenda books' remain 'private' -- and holding hands in one big circle with their fellow politicians in establishing a 'secret, unwritten collusion' on this matter. Very much like Freud's inner circle in this type of matter.
The unwritten code seems to run something like this:
'We shalt not give away our secret, narcissistic expense benefits that come with minding the country's cash register and bank account. The public doesn't need to know where I had lunch the other day and how much I spent. As long as it makes its way through the government expense account department -- which of course is made up of people who are enjoying the same expense benefits that I enjoy. We, in the government, call this a 'win-win situation' The public doesn't need to know everything'.
I am partly getting side-tracked here but partly not because the similarities between how we run our internal personality and how we run our external government are similar, and indeed, connected -- our external relationships projecting and reflecting our internal relationships between our different ego-states and our general personality dynamics.
In this regard, The Central Ego can also be viewed as being like a Supreme Court Judge and/or Mediator in the personality, ideally in charge of the rest of the courtroom/personality, but in less than ideal circumstances, being over run by politicians from above and/or by 'special interest lobbyist groups' running amok in the courtroom/personality and 'having their way' with a 'weak' Central Ego. When the Central Ego is not fully in control of the personality, and running a 'balanced courtroom', then either 'over-restraint' and/or 'over-impulse' (bi-polar disorder, manic-depression...) is likely to create pathology and disorder in the personality.
In an ideal political-socio-economic and legal world as well as in an ideal intra-psychic personality, each lobbyist and politician, like each auxillary ego-state would simply assert democratically and rhetorically what it wants... and leave the final decision in the workings and executive action of the Central Ego, The President, and/or The CEO..(as well as there being full public disclosure, transparency, integrity, and accountability in the case of politicians holding a public office.
But alas, as most of us are well aware, we live in a far from 'ideal' world.
In our 'real world', one-sided righteousness, narcissism and greed as well as conflict of interest situations evolving between public office holders' public responsibilities and private, personal interests become almost inevitable over time...and the temptation of the devil...indeed, with all of us, not just politicians...The corporate world is overflowing with 'conflict of interest' situations that impair socio-economic as well as ethical, legal, and political judgment...
Let's face it...Everyone wants what they want...and in all aspects of our world righteousness and narcissism intermingle...Oftentimes, righteousness is the cloak that hides inner narcissism and/or the pseudo-justification for inner narcissism....
Power and narcissism has the potential to corrupt all levels of inner and outer government...
We see this -- or at least I do -- over and over and over again in our entire interconnected socio-economic-political-legal-corporate-personal world...
Schopenhauer stirs in his grave...with an arrogant 'I told you so'...
The type of Capitalism I see all around me is not the same type of Capitalism that I remember reading about in Ayn Rand's 'The Fountainhead'.
Without being a 'Marxist', a 'Socialist' and/or a 'Communist', I can still tell you that Hegel's classic analysis of 'labour' in connection with his discussion of the 'the master/slave relationship', jumped on by Marx in his searing indictment of narcissistic Capitalism, comes much closer in awareness and insight as far as getting to the heart of what is the matter with modern day Capitalism.
Modern day Capitalism lacks integrity, ethics, character, transparency, accountability, and a sense of good will towards the person one is bargaining with...all of the things politicians keep saying they are going to fix...and rarely ever do...
Adam Smith would most certainly frown on modern day Capitalism if he could see the full extent of the type of corporate-political greed and narcissism that I see around me each and every day. He would say something like 'This is not the type of Capitalism I envisioned when I wrote 'The Wealth of Nations'...
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From the internet...'Brainy Quote'...University of Liverpool...
No society can surely be flourishing and happy, of which the far greater part of the members are poor and miserable.
Adam Smith
No complaint... is more common than that of a scarcity of money.
Adam Smith
Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice: all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things.
Adam Smith
Man is an animal that makes bargains: no other animal does this - no dog exchanges bones with another.
Adam Smith
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I find Adam's most intriguing quote to be the last one cited above...
It is at this point -- the point of 'bargaining' -- that Adam Smith's philosophy starts to dialectically collide with the philosophy of Hegel and Marx...
Hegel was no Marxist but it was from Hegel's work on 'labour' and the 'master/slave relationship' that Marx was inspired to write his thousands of pages critiquing the pathological evolution of Capitalism...
You see, it makes all the difference in the world as to what type of Capitalist Leaders we have in order to determine whether we have a 'good or bad Capitalist System' or not.
Just as the character of a hockey or basketball or baseball team tends to take on much of the character of its coach, so it is with 'Capitalism' as Capitalism is played out in each and every corporation and in each and every corporate transaction, both internally and externally.
It makes all the difference in the world as to the ultimate evolution of Capitalism as to whether a person -- particularly the owner of a business -- is negotiating 'narcissistically' and only narcissistically, or whether he or she is negotiating narcissistically and altruistically at the same time.
Put another way, is the bargainer looking for an 'I win; you lose' bargain, or is he or she looking for an 'I win; you win' bargain.
The last type of 'win-win bargaining encounter' tends to be much more endearing and enduring to a long term negotiating relationship whereas the first type of 'win-lose encounter' tends to tarnish if not outright annihilate all future negotiating transactions...
However, here is where Marx steps in and starts to launch his anti-Capitalist tirade...
If the power of the owner (in Marx's language, the 'bourgeoisie') is far greater than the power of the individual employee (the 'proletariat' in Marx's language), and you have a narcissistic, unscrupulous, greedy owner, then 'bad employee bargains' can become the name of the game, the rule of thumb, unless and/or until the individual employees either leave or take a 'collective confrontational stance' against the 'bargains' of the unscrupulous owner. At this point in the evolution of Capitalism, we have the beginning of 'strikes' and 'unions'...and changes in the 'corporate power balance' -- both good and bad.
Short of this, the only other power that an individual employee has is to 'leave' if he is being essentially 'forced to either take or leave a bad bargain'. In a good economy, and even in a bad one, one of the 'surest signs of a bad corporation with bad, unscrupulous leaders' is 'constant employee turnover'.
Now if you have a bad economy with high unemployment levels and/or high immigration levels intermixing with a bad economy, then what is going to happen? Advantage: unscrupulous owner...who is going to take advantage of a 'desperate work force' in order to lower wages and/or instigate other 'bad employee bargains'... If one prospective and/or current employee doesn't take the 'bad bargain' that an 'unscrupulous owner' has laid on the table, the next one coming in for the next interview -- will. Unless as an employee, you have a 'special skill', you have essentially no negotiating power in such a circumstance.
One would hazard a pretty safe guess that most unscrupulous business owners would 'welcome with open arms' a larger unemployed workforce, higher immigration levels, importing 'cheaper labor', and 'exporting jobs to countries with cheaper labor' -- all in the name of the almighty Unscrupulous, Narcissistic Capitalist Ideal -- specifically 'Profit Margin'. There is an imperative distinction that needs to be made relative to the practice of 'Good' or 'Bad' Capitalism relative to a 'fair but healthy profit margin' vs. an 'unscrupulous, gouging profit margin'....
Which is why the Government -- any Democratic Government with Integrity, Character, Ethics, and Accountability in mind -- needs to step in and regulate 'profit margins'. To prevent or at least discourage 'consumer price gouging' as well as 'employee intimidation, coercing, manipulating, extorting...etc.'
Back in the late 1980s (1988 to be exact), not too many people -- at least private citizens, including me -- knew whether 'free trade' was going to be a 'good thing' or a 'bad thing'. All many of us knew is that it 'sounded good' -- probably because it had the word 'free' in it...
Now looking back at things, 22 years later, perhaps we can come to some more definitive, experientially based conclusions: specifically, 'free trade' is not going to be a 'good thing' for countries with 'higher labor wages' -- at least in terms of the workers who are used to getting these higher labor wages.
Again, from an 'unscrupulous employer's point of view -- and even from the point of view of business owners with 'good integrity and intentions towards their workers' but who may be getting slammed by 'merciless unions' -- say goodbye to 'manufacturing plants' and 'service industries' in Canada and America as corporations move their operations to 'third world countries' in order to take advantage of 'lower (to practically non-existent) employee wages'.
In short, the 'free trade agreement' put together by Brian Mulroney in 1988 (in conjunction with Bush from the American side), would increase the economic and corporate speed of 'globalization', and the overall improvement of 'third world economic countries' at the expense of North American jobs in the manufacturing and 'goods and service' industry. Mulroney and Bush obviously did not either foresee and/or want to advertise the 'negative side effects' of the free trade agreement...
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From the internet...see free trade, George Bush...
 | George W. Bush on Free TradePresident of the United States, Former Republican Governor (TX) |
- Sub-sections under Free Trade:
- NAFTA + WTO
- Other issues under Free Trade
Linked trade agreements to participation in Iraq War
Examples of using economic diplomacy for the common good have been overshadowed in recent years by the priorities set under the influence of the Bush pre-emptive war doctrine. Entering the war in Iraq based on erroneous information, has forced us to go shopping around the world for friends, armed with carrots and with sticks. In order to pull together what was called a willing coalition, they went to the poorest developing countries and said, 'If you can't send a soldier, send a policeman." And, "If yo don't have the money, can we give you some?"Deals were made. Once in a small country I joined the US ambassador for a meeting. The US ambassador made it clear to this president that if he withdrew the handful of soldiers he had sent to Iraq, it would be very difficult for him to get a trade agreement with the US. I was shocked and clarified that I was opposed to the war and as far as I was concerned the deal for the trade agreement had nothing to do with his willingness to send troops.
Open more markets to keep America competitive
Keeping America competitive requires us to open more markets for all that Americans make and grow. One out of every five factory jobs in America is related to global trade, and we want people everywhere to buy American. With open markets and a level playing field, no one can outproduce or outcompete the American worker.Fact Check: Free trade tempered by steel protectionism
FACTCHECK on Trade: In speaking of benefits of international trade, the President failed to mention his own steps to protect the politically important US steel industry.BUSH: My Administration is promoting free and fair trade, to open up new markets for America ‘s entrepreneurs, and manufacturers, and farmers, and to create jobs for America ‘s workers.
FACTCHECK: Not mentioned: Bush’s imposition of tariffs on imported steel, which pleased US labor unions and steel executives but which were found to violate World Trade Organization rules. Bush lifted the steel tariffs Dec. 4 after trading partners threatened retaliation against US exports.
Tariffs over free trade, for steel industry
On March 5, 2002, the President announced he would impose tariffs of up to 30% on imported steel in an effort to shore up the long-declining industry. Steel executives praised the President and said that the tariffs might save jobs. Free trade advocates wondered how other countries would respond and what the effect would be on the cost of a wide array of goods.Repeals steel tariffs he imposed in 2002
The Bush administration has decided to repeal most of its 20-month-old tariffs on imported steel to head off a trade war. European countries and Japan had vowed to respond to the tariffs, which were ruled illegal by the WTO, by imposing sanctions on up to $2.2 billion in exports from the US, beginning as soon as Dec. 15.Bush advisers said they were aware the reversal could produce a backlash against him in several steel-producing states of the Rust Belt-including PA, WV, & OH. That arc of states has been hit severely by losses in manufacturing jobs and will be among the most closely contested in his reelection race.
Bush decided in March 2002 to impose tariffs of 8% to 30% on most steel imports from abroad for three years. The decision was heavily influenced by the desire to help the Rust Belt states, but the departure from Bush’s free-trade principles drew fierce criticism from his conservative supporters. After a blast of international opposition, the administration began approving exemptions.
Don’t link trade to environment and labor
- Free trade is a subject on which both candidates appear to start from the same position, commitment to free trade. From that point, their positions swiftly diverge. Bush would:
- supports restoration of “fast-track” negotiating authority for the president
- opposes linking trade agreements to labor and environmental issues
- supports the expansion of NAFTA throughout the Americas
- supports the admission of China and Taiwan to the WTO
- wants strict enforcement of anti-dumping and other laws against “unfair” trade
- intends to revise export controls to tighten control over military technology and ease restrictions on commercial technology
- wants to make international financial institutions more accountable and transparent
- strongly supports free trade, saying that the case for it is “not just monetary but moral” and pledging to make the expansion of trade a consistent priority“
Sow free trade and farmers will reap
Q: What will you do as president to help farmers get sufficient pay for their work?A: I would be a free trading president, a president that will work tirelessly to open up markets for agricultural products all over the world. I believe our American farmers. can compete so long as the playing field is level. That’s why I am such a strong advocate of free trade and that’s why I reject protectionism and isolation because I think it hurts our American farmers.
A free market promotes dreams and individuality
[After visiting China], I’ll never forget the contrast between what I learned about the free market at Harvard and what I saw in the closed isolation of China. Every bicycle looked the same. People’s clothes were all the same. a free market frees individuals to make distinct choices and independent decisions. The market gives individuals the opportunity to demand and decide, and entrepreneurs the opportunity to provide.Import fees are not the answer to foreign competition
In 1999, when a glut of foreign oil drove prices below $12 a barrel, many of my friends in the oil business wanted the government to rescue them through price supports. . . I understand the frustration of people. but I do not support import fees. . . I believe it makes sense to use the tax code to encourage activities that benefit America. But I do not want to put up fees or tariffs or roadblocks to trade.The fearful build walls; the confident demolish them.
I’ll work to end tariffs and break down barriers everywhere, entirely, so the whole world trades in freedom. The fearful build walls. The confident demolish them. I am confident in American workers and farmers and producers. And I am confident that America’s best is the best in the world.
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| .................................................................... dgb...continued... | |
In contrast to 'unscrupulous, narcissistic business owners' who tend to follow the 'God of The Highest Profit Margin' and will exploit workers and customers to get there, 'ethical, win-win business owners' tend to look for that magic point of 'dialectic-homeostatic balance, fairness, unity, and harmony'...that stabilizes their business...
'Good Social Will' business owners may not get the highest profit margins in the short run but, over the long haul, Good Social Will' business owners tend to create the best businesses -- as long as they protect a 'healthy profit margin' -- because they are not constantly self-destructing on the basis of employee resentment, rebellion, anarchy, and the 'bad reputation' that the 'self-indulgent business owner's corporation will quickly or slowly establish in the work community both amongst prospective workers and prospective customers. The last thing an employer -- good or bad -- wants to hear is, 'Well, who's working for your company this week?' That is generally not a 'healthy sign' for the corporation.
Health in the personality, in the body, and in the corporation are all built upon the same principle: the principle of 'good self and social will' which in turn is based on the principle of 'dialectic-homeostatic balance'.
In the body, in the personality, and in our socio-economic world, we should all be looking for 'win-win solutions' with no serious 'negative side effects'.
Narcissistic people tend to foster 'a negative social willpower against them' -- they continue to chase 'short term profit gain' without caring one iota about the extent of the 'social pain they leave behind them' in their dust...
If their employees or their customers will eat 'dog food' disguised as 'health food'....the narcissistic owner doesn't think twice....because he or she serves 'The God of Profit Margins'....
Personally, I love to see such corporations run by unscrupulous business owners eventually crumble in the dust...or fold like a house of cards...
When such a business folds like a house of cards...
It reflects the personality, character, and integrity of the person who ran the company into the ground...
Adam Smith would say that this is the 'Free Market' work of 'The Invisible Hand'...
That is, until our North American Governments -- both in America and in Canada -- let these corporate parasites...
Escape their corporate ruins...
With Golden Bailouts and Parachutes...
Then even Adam Smith is crying...
-- dgb, May 8th, 2010.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic-Democratic, Ethical-Good Will-Capitalism, Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism...
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