Introduction
This essay has undergone numerous revisions. Today I will focus on the elements of both Freudian Psychoanalysis and Jungian Psychology that have influenced the development and evolution of DGB Psychology -- and particularly my latest integrative model of the personality that borrows significantly from both Freud and Jung.
-- dgb, March 31st, 2009.
Part 1: Sunday, March 3rd, 1907, Freud and Jung Meet For The First Time -- And Talk For 13 Hours Straight!
Freud and Jung -- theirs was an all too short and tumultous seven year relationship (1907-1914), passionate and explosive, reverent from each side at the beginning, much more rebellious from Jung's side as things progressed, often compared to a common father/son type relationship with Freud maintaining his authoritative paternal boundaries and Jung challenging these same boundaries -- eventually to the point of separation, and the building of two separate schools of psychology with partly siimilar, partly different philosophies and conceptualizations concerning human psychology.
Freud and Jung both shared a partly Hegelian, partly Nietzschean philosophy. Freud was more a product of the Enlightenment, Jung a product of Romantic Philosophy. Jung seemed a little more willing to integrate the 'darker side' of human nature in a productive manner with the rest of man's personality, whereas Freud seemed more about 'rationally analyzing' this same dark side with the goal 'of bringing it under more rational, conscious, enlightened control -- but control none the less. Jung was willing to give up more of this control with a trust things would eventually integrate in a more healthy direction.
This was one of the main dialectical splits or differences in opinion between Enlightenment and Romantic Philosophy -- just how much reason was man willing to give up and trust that man would still land back on firm ground again -- after some kind of a 'romantic flight' to who knows where.
Jung was more the mythologist, mystic, astrology, occult and para-normal psychologist. Freud didn't seem too comfortable following Jung into these areas. It just happens to be my birthday today -- Jung might be more apt to make a psychological interpretation in this regard, as I try to mediate between Freud and Jung, although I am just speculating here. Besides, if he wouldn't I will.
March 3rd. My birthday. I am a pisces -- often equated with 'two fish swimming towards each other and away from each other at the same time'(or not knowing which way to swim while wanting to swim both ways at the same time). Towards intimacy and committment. And/or away from intimacy and committment and towards more 'individual freedom and self-expression'.
How appropriate that Freud and Jung should meet together for the first time on this 'dualistic-dialectic, thesis-anti-thesis' day. Two very strong-willed and creative men each doing their absolutely very best to 'will to power' their own separate vision and creation while admiring, respecting and learning from each other at the same time.
Or at least in the beginning. Until their respective creative visions came into conflict with each other -- and this conflict became stronger and stronger, reaching more and more of an impasse that just would not go away. And then the anger and resentment started to seriously set in and put a fast ending to what had started out as such a strong and passionate relationship with Freud wanting to pass the leadership of his 'Psychoanalytic Torch' onto to Jung, his heir-in-waiting.
But it was not to be. Psychoanalysis -- at least as Freud defined and described it --was just too tight a 'theoretical box' for Jung to accept and live with. Jung needed a significantly different theoretical box that he could create himself, accept because it was his own Romantic-Mystical-Mythological Vision; not Freud's 'Pseudo-Scientific-More-Rational-Enlightenment Vision' -- that just did not work for Jung.
One of the dividing issues between Freud and Jung was Freud's often stated 'pre-occupation with sexuality' or 'pansexuality'.
Jung wanted to define 'libido' as 'life energy'; not just 'sexual energy'. Freud would have nothing to do with this. For Freud, 'life energy' at this point in his career was to be equated with 'sexual energy'; nothing more, nothing less. His message to Jung was basically this: If you don't want to follow the instructions of the Creator of Psychoanalysis here, then leave. Jung did indeed leave -- like Adler before him and like quite a few psychoanalysts after him who just could not find enough 'theoretical and/or clinical harmony' with Freud.
The irony here is that after Jung left -- probably partly because of the 'libido' controversy, partly because of Freud's strong authoritarianism -- Freud would create a 'life instinct' years later that included but did not only include man's 'sexual instinct'.
Maybe Freud was listening to Jung after all, and/or Freud was in a different time and place with new clinical information to absorb and explain that wasn't adequately explained by his old model. (Both Adler's and Jung's key reason for leaving.)
Specifically, there was the phenomenon of World War 1 soldiers coming back from the war and 'repeating their war traumacies' in the psychotherapy room. This 'repeating of horrible experiences' didn't seem to adhere to either Freud's ideas of 'the pleasure principle' or to Freud's principle of 'wish-fulfillment'.
The clinical phenomenon of 'repetition compulsion' needed a better theoretical explanation. So too did the clinical phenomenon of 'masochism' -- specifically, the type of masochism that Freud labelled as 'Primary Masochism'. Again this clinical phenomenon, didn't seem to follow the rules of either the Pleasure Principle or The Wish-Fulfillment Principle. Again, a new explanation was needed.
In this regard, Freud thought long and hard about introducing the concept of 'the mastery compulsion' but ultimately rejected it -- perhaps because it was too close to Adler's idea of 'superiority striving'. It is too bad that Freud ultimately rejected this concept of the mastery compulsion because it would have fit in nicely with his ideas about the nature and dynamics of transference. Specifically, we 'repeat' in order to 'master'.
However, Freud chose to go another theoretical direction by introducing the 'life' vs. 'death instinct' ('instinct' also often being translated as 'drive' or 'impulse' -- depending on the particular translation and/or interpretation).
But by the time Freud got to a 'life drive' that seems to more closely reflect Jung's definition of 'libido' than Freud's earlier 'sexual' definition, Freud and Jung were way too mornings and way too many theoretical miles apart from a place they could ever return.
Freud: Thesis (More 'anal-retentive' in his approach to Psychoanalysis); Jung Anti-Thesis (More willing to 'let go of the Psychoanalytic anal-retentive, tight controls', and 'widen the boundaries of psychological investigation' into areas of mythology, archetype figures, parapsychology, astrology, the occult, mysticism, alchemy, romanticism...
I like both theorists and borrow from both in DGB Philosophy-Psychology. I 'theorize in the gaps' -- look for creative and interesting ways in which Freudian and Jungian Theory can be integrated along with elements of Nietzsche, Adler, Perls, Fairbairn, Kohut, Berne, Korzysbki, Hayakawa, Ellis, Beck, Branden, Rand, Masson and more as well...
Call my latest work in personality theory another attempt at doing this -- adding different bits and pieces as we move along. Too many attempted integrations here? Maybe. Maybe not. We shall see.
Let's see where it takes us.
One of the ideas that Jung incorporated into his own system that wasn't in Freud's was the idea of 'The Collective Unconscious'. Here Jung showed his interest in, and influence from, mythology. Freud had an interest in mythology as well -- witness his incorporation of 'The Oedipal Complex' which is taken from a Sophocles mythological trilogy. But Freud wasn't as keenly interested in myths -- or probably as sophisticated in them -- as Jung would become. Nor did Freud have any ambition to explore the world of the occult and par-psychology and astrology -- like Jung did.
Mythology would become a centre-piece of Jung's fast evolving Personality Theory.
The idea of 'Archetypes' arose from this area. Archetypes are basically Gods and Heroes and Villains from mythology that have been 'introjected' or 'internalized' into man's Collective Unconscious. They can be 'acted out' through 'the Personna' (the dominant conscious part and style of the personality by which a person interacts with other people) or they can be acted out in 'the Shadow' -- a more 'Id-like' part of the personality that is disowned, suppressed, repressed, kept 'secret', and kept in a 'darker corner' of the personality.
The Shadow can be projected out into the world in the form of a 'lover', a 'hated person', a 'hero' or 'idol', a 'villain'...and so on...
In Gestalt language, the Personna is the 'figurall' part of the personality; the Shadow is the 'background' part of the personality that 'pops up seemingly out of nowhere -- 'seemingly nowhere' being the 'home of The Shadow' -- much to our often personal embarrassment and/or chagrin -- or to that of someone in our social environment who witnesses it.
One of the goals of Jungian Psychotherapy is to help the client achieve a better integration/synthesis between the Personna (the dominant, active social side of the personality and The Shadow (the part of the personality buried deep in the Unconscious that strives to actively 'compensate' for the limitations and weaknesses of The Personna.
This has some similarities, some differences, with Freud's desire in Psychoanalysis to help a client's 'Superego' and 'Id' get along more harmoniously through the mediating, 'compromise-formation' negotiating and integrating skills of the 'Ego' other than in a completely 'neurotic' and/or 'psychotic' 'conflict-resolution that socially is just not working.
In past essays, I have compared Freud's conception of The Superego vs. The Id as being very similar to Nietzsche's earlier conception of Apollo vs. Dionysus. What Jung's model allows for that Freuds' model really doesn't is the possibility than in any one particular case a person's 'Dionysus Archetype-Figure' could dominate his or her particular Personna whereas it could be Apollo that is buried in the person's Unconscious Shadow.
Nietzsche himself was seemingly like this -- or believed that he was.
After 'disowning' himself from the 'Hegelian Dialectic' and from his first book, 'The Birth of Tragedy' -- Nietzsche basically 'abandoned' and/or 'suppressed' and/or denied his 'own Apollo' -- religating it to the Shadow of his Mythological and/or Personal Unconscious -- while 'Dionysus' went 'hogwild' in his conscious personality, taking over his Personna, and possibly having something to do with Nietzsche's ultimate self-destruciton (or not). Nietzsche's 'insanity' between 1890 and 1900 is still a subject of academic debate. I think if I remember properly, Nietzsche's father was also cursed with some form of mental disorder and/or psychosis (schizophrenia) so we may be talking about some sort of genetic disorder on Nietzsche's father's side that may have had nothing to do with Nietzsche's evolving 'Dionysian philosophy and lifestyle'. So Nietzshe's eventual self-destruction over the last 10 years of his life may have been genetic, not learned. Or it may have been both. Subject for further debate.
Anyways, to conclude this essay today, I will simply say that my 'bottom 3 floors (unconscious or subconscious levels) of the personality are influenced by both Freud and Jung as well as Adler and Perls.
A DGB Integrative Model of Unconscious (Subconscious) Elements in The Personality
1. The Top 'Personal Memory' Basement(Unconscious)Floor of The Personality: The Freudian-Adlerian-Gestalt realm of personal memories, transference templates, transference complexes, transference dynamics, including introjections and internalized projections, potential associations, displacements, sublimations, compensations, and more...
2. The Middle 'Mythological' Basement (Unconscious) Floor of The Personality: Full of myths, symbolism, archetypes or archetype-figures -- Gods, Idols, Heroes, Villains, Anti-Gods, etc...
3. The Genetic, Biological and Psychological Potential Self (The 'Soul' of The Personality): Full of talents, capabilities, potentials, biological and psychological impulses towards self-assertion and self-empowerment which can take either a 'healthy' and/or 'pathological' direction depending on the other influences going on within the personality, good and/or bad.
That is enough for today concerning Freud and Jung.
-- dgb, March 31st, 2009.
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Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Hegel's Hotel: The Newest, Updated (March 24th-25th, 2009) Rendition of The DGB Model of The Personality (Part 1): Jung's Two Floors 'In The Basement'
I have been wrestling with different 'models of the personality' since back in my university days about 30 years ago (1979). Indeed, looking back at my Honours Thesis in Psychology written in 1979, a Freudian theorist would probably say that the essay is a model of 'The Central Ego' -- and 'Central Ego Functioning', both good and bad. That first model that I built could easily be construed now as the 'starting point of Hegel's Hotel' -- and be thrust right into the centre of the present model.
One problem that I am continuing to ponder on even now, is whether I should use 'The Hegel's Hotel' metaphor -- use it as my model of the personality -- and talk about 'different philosophy, psychology, and/or mythology rooms in Hegel's Hotel' -- all of which can be viewed creatively as an external vision, an external projection, like for example, 'The Marriott Heidelberg Hotel' in Germany with all its differnt 'meeting rooms' each labelled by a different philosopher's name -- most importantly, Hegel.
Or 'The Library Hotel' in New York where you can go to a 'philosophy section' of the hotel -- I haven't been there but I assume, either in a particular public meeting or lounge room in the hotel, and/or in your own private room or suite. I love it! (Although if you are going to one of these hotels with your lover, I caution you not to spend more time and energy engaged with 'your philosopher friends' -- whether they be in 'book format' and/or in 'meeting room' format than you are engaged with your lover. That might end up ruining your night -- and/or, if you are there long enough, even your mini or full vacation! Don't do it!)
Alternatively, 'Hegel's Hotel' can be viewed as either a 'realistic' and/or 'idealistic' internal vision of a 'personality model' and 'personality theory'.
In this regard, we need to distinguish between two different ways that Hegel's Hotel can be 'built': 1. as a chronological or historical evolution, negotiation, and integration of 2600 years of Western Philosophy including 120 years of more recently evolving Western Clinical Psychology/Personality Theory/Psychotherapy.
Or 2. as a 'functional model' of how the human personality works -- and/or ideally can work.
In the model below, we will simplify some of the results of the first task -- the historical, evolutionary model involving the integration of Western Philosophy -- in favour of a more simplified, parsimonious model of how the human personality realistically works, and/or idealistically can work.
................................................................................
A. Hegel's Hotel: A Simplified, Functional Model of The Personality
We will 'build' the floors from bottom to top, starting with 'two basement floors' of the Hotel which we will call, 'Jung's Unconscious Floors: 1 and 2'.
Floor 1: Jung's Floor; The Innate Potential Self or Soul (Bottom Basement-Unconscious in The Personality)
Jung's deepest, darkest floor which we will call Jung's Bottom or First Floor (1) is 'The Innate, Potential Self' which religiously speaking without taking on all the associated connotations of religion, we might also call 'The Soul'. (My DGB rendition, definition, and description of The Innate Potential Self or The Soul will be a little different than both Jung's version of this concept, and any religious version of this concept.
We can differentiate between a 'Healthy, Happy Soul', a 'Miserable, Depressed Soul', and even an 'Evil, Poisonous or Toxic Soul' depending on what type of 'life or death energy' (Libido/Eros, or Thanatos) is radiating (cathected) upwards and outwards into higher levels of the (conscious) personality. Also, the relationship between a person's 'Central, Conscious Ego' and his or her 'Innate Soul' is a dualistic-dialectic (Hegelian) relationship. For example, a 'poisoned, Innate Soul' can toxify an otherwise healthy, happy Central Ego, and alternatively, a poisoned, unhealthy Central Ego can toxify an otherwise Happy, Healthy Soul.
Floor 2: Jung's Floor: The Genetic Unconscious: The Mythology, Archetype/God/Idol-Hero/Villain Floor: Dramatic Greek Soap Operas Projected Into The Sky From One of The Deepest Layers of The Personality
It is here in this layer of the personality that we can meet all the 'active' and/or 'inactive' Mythological Figures, Archetypes, Idols, and/or Gods in our personality. Here is one of the areas where, in Perls' words, we play 'The Fitting Game'.
For example, I have a friend named Denis. He is Greek. In Greek, 'Denis' means 'Dionysus'. Denis lives and breathes -- and will probably die -- playing out the 'role model' (in effect, almost a living 'reincarnation') of 'Dionysus to the Max'. In contrast, I am almost a living breathing stereotypical 'Pisces' in the sense of a 'person deeply divided within myself that is seeking for a re-unified Multi-Dialectic Whole' -- the prototype of 'two fish swimming towards each other and away from each other at the same time'; one of my 'core nuclear conflicts' is between 'contact engagement' and 'personal withdrawal from contact' -- and becoming 'confluent' between the two (a Freudian 'compromise-formation') neither fully engaged and contactful nor willing to fully disengage from contact and withdraw -- leaving me often in a state of 'wishy washy, non-engaged contact'.
One of Adler's key concepts was/is that of 'lifestyle'. Combining Adlerian, Jungian, and Gestalt terminology, we can talk about 'lifestyle complexes' -- 'dominant personna-complexes' vs. 'shadow-complexes'; or 'topdog complexes' vs. 'underdog complexes' or 'approval-seeking underdog complexes' vs. 'rebellious underdog complexes', or 'Apollonian Complexes' vs. 'Dionysian Complexes', or 'Platonic, Idealistic Complexes' vs. 'Aristolean, Scientific-Empirical Complexes'...and so on...
Greek dramatic soap operas projected into the sky and onto earth by the ancient Greeks -- and still being lived out today by contemporary man, and contemporary individuals -- both men and women -- starting from the deepest, darkest, mythological and symbolic, archetype levels of the unconscious personality.
Dionysus is a central, pivotal mythological-archetype figure in human nature and human behavior. Dionysus was central to Nietzsche's philosophy but unfortunately, Nietzsche basically abandoned the mythological archetype figure of 'Apollo' after his brilliantly creative first book: The Birth of Tragedy (BT). Mythologically speaking, Apollo is basically Dionysus' 'soul brother'. The two need to be on 'good terms' with each other -- respecting each other, democratically negotiating and integrating with each other. This creates a 'balanced, healthy human personality' -- a balance between Apollonian ethics and morality -- and Dionysian sensuality and sexuality. When there is a good, working balance between these two polar spiritual and sensual forces in the personality, the collective and/or individual human person(s) experiencing this type of 'homeostatic-dialectic-democratic balance' is likely to be in generally, pretty good working order. Of course, 'context' is also important and relevant here and sometimes Dionysus and/or Eros and/or Aphrodite can get 'completely out of hand in the personality', 'start running completely amok in the personality' and the individual engaged in such a sometimes distressing conflict dilemma can be plagued between trying to 'pull the Apollonian reins in' on a burning, torturing 'Dionysus' or 'Eros' or 'Aphrodite' run completely amok and dominating all other facets of the personality -- vs. 'taking the reins off of the raging mythological archetype figure' -- and 'letting him/her go'.
As well as aligning with Apollo (reason), or Eros (love), or Aphrodite (beauty and/or love), Dionysus (sensuality and sexuality) can also align with 'Satan' (not a Greek mythological archetype figure but rather a later religious-archetype figure). This can trigger of 'evil', 'hate', 'violence', 'sadism', 'destruction' and/or 'self-destruction' in the personality -- one very common, well-travelled road to a poisioned, dying soul.
For example, let Dionysus completely control your personality -- kick Apollo to the wayside; kick Eros and Aphrodite to the wayside -- play games with Satan, engage in 'ecstasy' or 'cocaine' or 'crack, cocaine' or any of a great number of 'chemical combinations' -- or engage in force, coercion, threat, intimidation, violence -- fail to differentiate the line between a 'date' and 'date rape', or between a 'domestic argument' and 'domestic violence', fail to properly respect the situation when someone seriously says 'no' to you, or when you get jealous or possessive, and/or rejected by someone who is important to you -- and you could be walking into Satan's Door, into a room or world you later wish you had never entered. We all must be accountable -- accountable to Apollo and our fellow man when we feel Dionysus and/or Satan about to take us where we should not go -- men and women need to equally share the burden/enlightenment/civility of the balancing force of Apollo's presence of reason, respect and compassion in their day-to-day dealings with each other. Go off the deep end -- and it might be a long, painful road back; indeed, go far enough and deep enough into the world of Satan, and you might not come back.
I'm tempted to say that Satan's Door is the only door in Hegel's Hotel that should be permanently padlocked. Or maybe there is some paradoxical shock value in taking a brief look inside.
Take a horrific look inside and you may see the eyes of tortured prisoners, beaten souls, poisoned souls, dead or dying souls, whipped slaves...
Take a look inside and you may see Nazi, Germany, World Wars 1 and 11, Lenin's Russia, Stalin's Russia, Mao tse Tung's China, The Spanish Inquisition, The French Reign of Terror, Christians being thrown to the lions, The Salem Witchunts, Genocide in Darfur, Pearl Harbour, Hiroshima, 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, soldier dying in Iraq, women and children dead or dying in Iraq, Israel at war with Lebanon, Israel at war with The Palestines, Vietnam, The Roman Catholics vs. The Protestants in Northern Ireland...you may see the Mexican Drug Cartel...you may see drugs and violence and gangs in every large city, and even some small American and Canadian cities...Take a look inside and you may find domestic assault in the home, beaten children in the home, spouses saying horrible things to each other, alienatated, angry, hateful husbands and wives entering a divorce court...families being evicted from their houses because of greedy bankers and mortgage lenders 'squeezing them out'...
Take a look if you must...
Hobbes has said it,
Schopenhauer has said it,
There would be no 'Hell on Earth',
Without 'Hell in Man',
The metaphor of 'Hell in the deepest, darkest,
Caldrons below the the Earth,
Is only a metaphor,
For 'Hell in the deepest, darkest caldrons,
Of the personality,
Right here on Earth,
Man engages in a roller coaster dialectic,
Between Heaven and Hell,
God (or Zeus) in Heaven,
Satan in Hell,
Dionysus playing both extremes towards the middle,
And back towards both extremes,
Apollo, the son of Zeus,
Trying to keep law and order,
Ethical and moral,
Restraint,
Evolution hasn't changed anything,
When it comes to man's,
Multi-dualistic-dialectic,
Makeup.
And in this regard,
Man has always entered,
Satan's Door,
Man keeps entering
Satan's Door,
In the name of righteousness,
In the name of God and religion,
In the name of race,
In the name of culture,
In the name of country,
In the name of freedom,
In the name of greed and narcissism,
In the name of sex and love,
Man keeps entering,
Satan's Door,
In Hegel's Hotel,
We will come back here from time to time,
For reality-based, and/or teaching purposes,
But for the most part,
I would like to keep the padlock locked,
On Satan's Door.
I have seen and experienced little pieces,
Myself,
And would prefer not to re-visit,
Satan's Door.
Having said this,
Like Jung I believe has said before me,
The unconscious is full of 'positive things',
As well as 'negative things',
Heaven as well as Hell,
Thousands of different archetype figures,
Good and bad,
Saintly and evil,
Altruistic and narcissistic,
Heroes and villains,
All play a part in the 'dialectic whole',
That is man,
Some in society -- the soldier, the policeman/woman, the prosecutor, the judge,
Have the duty of getting the people playing 'bad archetype figures' off the street,
Others -- like therapists -- have the duty of helping to heal the psychic wounds,
Of men and women,
In their points of pain, grief, panic, and/or rage,
Before these points balloon to all parts of the personality,
Poisoning downwards in the personality,
To the Self and Soul,
Or poisoning upwards in the personality,
To The Central Ego,
And out into Society,
To those we both love and/or hate.
Alternatively, a therapist can also help,
Free the Self,
And the Celebrate the Soul,
That's what Hegel's Hotel -- DGB Philosophy
Is much if not all about --
To free the Self,
And Celebrate the Soul.
To engage the Individual both in democratic harmony,
And democratic conflict,
Ideally, negotiated to integrative,
Democratic-dialectic unity,
With Society,
With Government,
With Work,
With Family,
With Friends,
With that Special Other...
But how often do things run totally smooth?
Maybe for short burts of time,
Til conflict quickly arises again,
And a new working resolution needs to be found.
Call this 'Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations',
Always in progress, always in evolution,
Find your place of dialectic integration,
Respect your differences,
And/or split if you can't or won't,
Work out your differences.
In reaching my ideally dialectic-democratic,
And integrative style,
I have sought the aid of many, many philosophers,
And psychologists,
Before me.
Conflicts on paper,
Are easier to solve,
Than conflicts in person.
Everyone has their own righteous-narcissistic bias,
Myself included.
But still I strive,
To work through my individual biases,
When they do not add something meaningful,
And important to what I am writing.
I look for some form of dialectic-democratic,
Subjective-Objectivity.
A cross between Nietzsche and Ayn Rand.
DGB Philosophy strives to be a hybrid,
Between Nietzschean Subjectivity and Randian Objectivity
With Hegel -- or my DGB rendition of Hegel --
Refereeing in the middle,
And splitting the difference.
And when I can't find it,
This 'subjective-objective hybrid',
Or won't look for it,
When I am too caught up,
In the heat of the moment,
And I just have to,
Let my passions and rhetoric,
Fly,
Leaving the chips to fall,
Wherever they may,
Sometimes it may be weeks or months,
Or years,
Before I have the courage,
To go back to an essay,
To see what I wrote,
And ask,
'Oh my God, did I write that?'
Maybe by then,
I have the perspective,
To attempt to rescue or stabilize or moderate the essay,
To salvage it,
If I have flown too much off the handle,
And/or gone too far over the deep end,
Tomorrow I will be checking,
The essay above this one,
To see how far I went off the deep end.
In my emotional outburst,
I don't want to kill what is real for me,
Subjectively but importantly real for me,
I may just need to,
Put some Apollonian restraints,
On an outburst of Dionysian-Narcisstic Anger,
Or even righteous, one-sided rage,
Reduce the amount of 'personal subjective bias'.
This is my work,
This is the work of,
DGB Philosophy
And
Hegel's Hotel.
-- dgb, March 24th-25th, 2009.
One problem that I am continuing to ponder on even now, is whether I should use 'The Hegel's Hotel' metaphor -- use it as my model of the personality -- and talk about 'different philosophy, psychology, and/or mythology rooms in Hegel's Hotel' -- all of which can be viewed creatively as an external vision, an external projection, like for example, 'The Marriott Heidelberg Hotel' in Germany with all its differnt 'meeting rooms' each labelled by a different philosopher's name -- most importantly, Hegel.
Or 'The Library Hotel' in New York where you can go to a 'philosophy section' of the hotel -- I haven't been there but I assume, either in a particular public meeting or lounge room in the hotel, and/or in your own private room or suite. I love it! (Although if you are going to one of these hotels with your lover, I caution you not to spend more time and energy engaged with 'your philosopher friends' -- whether they be in 'book format' and/or in 'meeting room' format than you are engaged with your lover. That might end up ruining your night -- and/or, if you are there long enough, even your mini or full vacation! Don't do it!)
Alternatively, 'Hegel's Hotel' can be viewed as either a 'realistic' and/or 'idealistic' internal vision of a 'personality model' and 'personality theory'.
In this regard, we need to distinguish between two different ways that Hegel's Hotel can be 'built': 1. as a chronological or historical evolution, negotiation, and integration of 2600 years of Western Philosophy including 120 years of more recently evolving Western Clinical Psychology/Personality Theory/Psychotherapy.
Or 2. as a 'functional model' of how the human personality works -- and/or ideally can work.
In the model below, we will simplify some of the results of the first task -- the historical, evolutionary model involving the integration of Western Philosophy -- in favour of a more simplified, parsimonious model of how the human personality realistically works, and/or idealistically can work.
................................................................................
A. Hegel's Hotel: A Simplified, Functional Model of The Personality
We will 'build' the floors from bottom to top, starting with 'two basement floors' of the Hotel which we will call, 'Jung's Unconscious Floors: 1 and 2'.
Floor 1: Jung's Floor; The Innate Potential Self or Soul (Bottom Basement-Unconscious in The Personality)
Jung's deepest, darkest floor which we will call Jung's Bottom or First Floor (1) is 'The Innate, Potential Self' which religiously speaking without taking on all the associated connotations of religion, we might also call 'The Soul'. (My DGB rendition, definition, and description of The Innate Potential Self or The Soul will be a little different than both Jung's version of this concept, and any religious version of this concept.
We can differentiate between a 'Healthy, Happy Soul', a 'Miserable, Depressed Soul', and even an 'Evil, Poisonous or Toxic Soul' depending on what type of 'life or death energy' (Libido/Eros, or Thanatos) is radiating (cathected) upwards and outwards into higher levels of the (conscious) personality. Also, the relationship between a person's 'Central, Conscious Ego' and his or her 'Innate Soul' is a dualistic-dialectic (Hegelian) relationship. For example, a 'poisoned, Innate Soul' can toxify an otherwise healthy, happy Central Ego, and alternatively, a poisoned, unhealthy Central Ego can toxify an otherwise Happy, Healthy Soul.
Floor 2: Jung's Floor: The Genetic Unconscious: The Mythology, Archetype/God/Idol-Hero/Villain Floor: Dramatic Greek Soap Operas Projected Into The Sky From One of The Deepest Layers of The Personality
It is here in this layer of the personality that we can meet all the 'active' and/or 'inactive' Mythological Figures, Archetypes, Idols, and/or Gods in our personality. Here is one of the areas where, in Perls' words, we play 'The Fitting Game'.
For example, I have a friend named Denis. He is Greek. In Greek, 'Denis' means 'Dionysus'. Denis lives and breathes -- and will probably die -- playing out the 'role model' (in effect, almost a living 'reincarnation') of 'Dionysus to the Max'. In contrast, I am almost a living breathing stereotypical 'Pisces' in the sense of a 'person deeply divided within myself that is seeking for a re-unified Multi-Dialectic Whole' -- the prototype of 'two fish swimming towards each other and away from each other at the same time'; one of my 'core nuclear conflicts' is between 'contact engagement' and 'personal withdrawal from contact' -- and becoming 'confluent' between the two (a Freudian 'compromise-formation') neither fully engaged and contactful nor willing to fully disengage from contact and withdraw -- leaving me often in a state of 'wishy washy, non-engaged contact'.
One of Adler's key concepts was/is that of 'lifestyle'. Combining Adlerian, Jungian, and Gestalt terminology, we can talk about 'lifestyle complexes' -- 'dominant personna-complexes' vs. 'shadow-complexes'; or 'topdog complexes' vs. 'underdog complexes' or 'approval-seeking underdog complexes' vs. 'rebellious underdog complexes', or 'Apollonian Complexes' vs. 'Dionysian Complexes', or 'Platonic, Idealistic Complexes' vs. 'Aristolean, Scientific-Empirical Complexes'...and so on...
Greek dramatic soap operas projected into the sky and onto earth by the ancient Greeks -- and still being lived out today by contemporary man, and contemporary individuals -- both men and women -- starting from the deepest, darkest, mythological and symbolic, archetype levels of the unconscious personality.
Dionysus is a central, pivotal mythological-archetype figure in human nature and human behavior. Dionysus was central to Nietzsche's philosophy but unfortunately, Nietzsche basically abandoned the mythological archetype figure of 'Apollo' after his brilliantly creative first book: The Birth of Tragedy (BT). Mythologically speaking, Apollo is basically Dionysus' 'soul brother'. The two need to be on 'good terms' with each other -- respecting each other, democratically negotiating and integrating with each other. This creates a 'balanced, healthy human personality' -- a balance between Apollonian ethics and morality -- and Dionysian sensuality and sexuality. When there is a good, working balance between these two polar spiritual and sensual forces in the personality, the collective and/or individual human person(s) experiencing this type of 'homeostatic-dialectic-democratic balance' is likely to be in generally, pretty good working order. Of course, 'context' is also important and relevant here and sometimes Dionysus and/or Eros and/or Aphrodite can get 'completely out of hand in the personality', 'start running completely amok in the personality' and the individual engaged in such a sometimes distressing conflict dilemma can be plagued between trying to 'pull the Apollonian reins in' on a burning, torturing 'Dionysus' or 'Eros' or 'Aphrodite' run completely amok and dominating all other facets of the personality -- vs. 'taking the reins off of the raging mythological archetype figure' -- and 'letting him/her go'.
As well as aligning with Apollo (reason), or Eros (love), or Aphrodite (beauty and/or love), Dionysus (sensuality and sexuality) can also align with 'Satan' (not a Greek mythological archetype figure but rather a later religious-archetype figure). This can trigger of 'evil', 'hate', 'violence', 'sadism', 'destruction' and/or 'self-destruction' in the personality -- one very common, well-travelled road to a poisioned, dying soul.
For example, let Dionysus completely control your personality -- kick Apollo to the wayside; kick Eros and Aphrodite to the wayside -- play games with Satan, engage in 'ecstasy' or 'cocaine' or 'crack, cocaine' or any of a great number of 'chemical combinations' -- or engage in force, coercion, threat, intimidation, violence -- fail to differentiate the line between a 'date' and 'date rape', or between a 'domestic argument' and 'domestic violence', fail to properly respect the situation when someone seriously says 'no' to you, or when you get jealous or possessive, and/or rejected by someone who is important to you -- and you could be walking into Satan's Door, into a room or world you later wish you had never entered. We all must be accountable -- accountable to Apollo and our fellow man when we feel Dionysus and/or Satan about to take us where we should not go -- men and women need to equally share the burden/enlightenment/civility of the balancing force of Apollo's presence of reason, respect and compassion in their day-to-day dealings with each other. Go off the deep end -- and it might be a long, painful road back; indeed, go far enough and deep enough into the world of Satan, and you might not come back.
I'm tempted to say that Satan's Door is the only door in Hegel's Hotel that should be permanently padlocked. Or maybe there is some paradoxical shock value in taking a brief look inside.
Take a horrific look inside and you may see the eyes of tortured prisoners, beaten souls, poisoned souls, dead or dying souls, whipped slaves...
Take a look inside and you may see Nazi, Germany, World Wars 1 and 11, Lenin's Russia, Stalin's Russia, Mao tse Tung's China, The Spanish Inquisition, The French Reign of Terror, Christians being thrown to the lions, The Salem Witchunts, Genocide in Darfur, Pearl Harbour, Hiroshima, 9/11, the invasion of Iraq, soldier dying in Iraq, women and children dead or dying in Iraq, Israel at war with Lebanon, Israel at war with The Palestines, Vietnam, The Roman Catholics vs. The Protestants in Northern Ireland...you may see the Mexican Drug Cartel...you may see drugs and violence and gangs in every large city, and even some small American and Canadian cities...Take a look inside and you may find domestic assault in the home, beaten children in the home, spouses saying horrible things to each other, alienatated, angry, hateful husbands and wives entering a divorce court...families being evicted from their houses because of greedy bankers and mortgage lenders 'squeezing them out'...
Take a look if you must...
Hobbes has said it,
Schopenhauer has said it,
There would be no 'Hell on Earth',
Without 'Hell in Man',
The metaphor of 'Hell in the deepest, darkest,
Caldrons below the the Earth,
Is only a metaphor,
For 'Hell in the deepest, darkest caldrons,
Of the personality,
Right here on Earth,
Man engages in a roller coaster dialectic,
Between Heaven and Hell,
God (or Zeus) in Heaven,
Satan in Hell,
Dionysus playing both extremes towards the middle,
And back towards both extremes,
Apollo, the son of Zeus,
Trying to keep law and order,
Ethical and moral,
Restraint,
Evolution hasn't changed anything,
When it comes to man's,
Multi-dualistic-dialectic,
Makeup.
And in this regard,
Man has always entered,
Satan's Door,
Man keeps entering
Satan's Door,
In the name of righteousness,
In the name of God and religion,
In the name of race,
In the name of culture,
In the name of country,
In the name of freedom,
In the name of greed and narcissism,
In the name of sex and love,
Man keeps entering,
Satan's Door,
In Hegel's Hotel,
We will come back here from time to time,
For reality-based, and/or teaching purposes,
But for the most part,
I would like to keep the padlock locked,
On Satan's Door.
I have seen and experienced little pieces,
Myself,
And would prefer not to re-visit,
Satan's Door.
Having said this,
Like Jung I believe has said before me,
The unconscious is full of 'positive things',
As well as 'negative things',
Heaven as well as Hell,
Thousands of different archetype figures,
Good and bad,
Saintly and evil,
Altruistic and narcissistic,
Heroes and villains,
All play a part in the 'dialectic whole',
That is man,
Some in society -- the soldier, the policeman/woman, the prosecutor, the judge,
Have the duty of getting the people playing 'bad archetype figures' off the street,
Others -- like therapists -- have the duty of helping to heal the psychic wounds,
Of men and women,
In their points of pain, grief, panic, and/or rage,
Before these points balloon to all parts of the personality,
Poisoning downwards in the personality,
To the Self and Soul,
Or poisoning upwards in the personality,
To The Central Ego,
And out into Society,
To those we both love and/or hate.
Alternatively, a therapist can also help,
Free the Self,
And the Celebrate the Soul,
That's what Hegel's Hotel -- DGB Philosophy
Is much if not all about --
To free the Self,
And Celebrate the Soul.
To engage the Individual both in democratic harmony,
And democratic conflict,
Ideally, negotiated to integrative,
Democratic-dialectic unity,
With Society,
With Government,
With Work,
With Family,
With Friends,
With that Special Other...
But how often do things run totally smooth?
Maybe for short burts of time,
Til conflict quickly arises again,
And a new working resolution needs to be found.
Call this 'Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations',
Always in progress, always in evolution,
Find your place of dialectic integration,
Respect your differences,
And/or split if you can't or won't,
Work out your differences.
In reaching my ideally dialectic-democratic,
And integrative style,
I have sought the aid of many, many philosophers,
And psychologists,
Before me.
Conflicts on paper,
Are easier to solve,
Than conflicts in person.
Everyone has their own righteous-narcissistic bias,
Myself included.
But still I strive,
To work through my individual biases,
When they do not add something meaningful,
And important to what I am writing.
I look for some form of dialectic-democratic,
Subjective-Objectivity.
A cross between Nietzsche and Ayn Rand.
DGB Philosophy strives to be a hybrid,
Between Nietzschean Subjectivity and Randian Objectivity
With Hegel -- or my DGB rendition of Hegel --
Refereeing in the middle,
And splitting the difference.
And when I can't find it,
This 'subjective-objective hybrid',
Or won't look for it,
When I am too caught up,
In the heat of the moment,
And I just have to,
Let my passions and rhetoric,
Fly,
Leaving the chips to fall,
Wherever they may,
Sometimes it may be weeks or months,
Or years,
Before I have the courage,
To go back to an essay,
To see what I wrote,
And ask,
'Oh my God, did I write that?'
Maybe by then,
I have the perspective,
To attempt to rescue or stabilize or moderate the essay,
To salvage it,
If I have flown too much off the handle,
And/or gone too far over the deep end,
Tomorrow I will be checking,
The essay above this one,
To see how far I went off the deep end.
In my emotional outburst,
I don't want to kill what is real for me,
Subjectively but importantly real for me,
I may just need to,
Put some Apollonian restraints,
On an outburst of Dionysian-Narcisstic Anger,
Or even righteous, one-sided rage,
Reduce the amount of 'personal subjective bias'.
This is my work,
This is the work of,
DGB Philosophy
And
Hegel's Hotel.
-- dgb, March 24th-25th, 2009.
Sunday, March 22, 2009
DGB Philosophy Integrates Western and Eastern (Chinese) Dialectic Philosophy -- The Source of The Dialectic 'Nile'
In previous essays I have criticised Nietzsche for separating from Hegel's 'Dualistic-Dialectic Philsophy' after Nietzsche's creatively brilliant first book -- 'The Birth of Tragedy (BT)' -- took 'Hegelian Dialectic Thinking' to a higher evolutionary plateau, combining Hegel's dialectic philosophy with the human drama, passion, and the beginning of 'dialectic-humanistic-existentialism' as Nietzsche traced back to the pre-Socratic writings of Homer, Greek theatre, and other ancient renditions of Greek Tragedy -- brought up to date 'dialectically analyzed' by Nietzsche.
The 'ripeness' of Nietzsche's 'new and old philosophical fruit' -- the product of a cross fertilization of early Greek dualistic-dialectic philosophy (Apollo vs. Dionysus) and later Hegelian dualistic-dialectic thinking (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis) was so 'nutritional' that the 'intellectual and humanistic-existential value' of this cross-fertilized fruit is still exploding off the BT fruit tree some 200 years later, first through the work of Freud and Jung in the early 1900s, right up into the 21st century through the work of others and through the work of DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-Religion-Science-Medicine...still evolving in 2009.
Indeed, it is partly too bad that Nietzshe ventured away from BT or he could have almost 'created' Psychoanalysis himself. Indeed, in this one little book -- BT -- Nietzsche almost did create Psychoanalysis. The details just needed to be filled out a bit more through Freud and Jung in their clinical and theoretical work to soon come...BT, in my opinion, remains a much overlooked piece of work in terms of its mega-influence on Freud, Jung, and eventually Perls and Gestalt Therapy. BT was the 'integrative bridge' between Greek Tragedy, Hegel, Schopenhauer and Freud.
But what happened is what happened -- a matter of Nietzsche's only personal and philosophical evolutionary development -- and Nietzsche had other 'fruit to grow off different trees'. Nietsche's later 'Will to Power' Theory, his 'Cliff, Abyss, and Tightrope' Theory relative to 'Being and Becoming', and his 'Superman' Theory would do much to lay the groundwork for Heidegger, Sartre, and 20th Century Humanistic-Existentialism. In this regard, Hegel once again led the way in the evolution of 19th and 20th century Humanistic-Existentialism with his theories of 'The Master-Slave Relationship' and 'Alienation' (to be jumped on by Marx) and then Kierkegaard in his rebellion against 'Hegel's 'Absolute' Abstactionism and Universalism' with his own counter-philosophy of 'Existential Concretism' (albeit Kierkegaard could and did write very abstractly as well). Schopenhauer, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche all had a hugely important impact on the growth of 19th, 20th, and even 21st century philosophy -- and all of their ideas sprang from arguably the most important philosophical work in Western history -- Hegel's 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (1807). Even Darwin's later 19th century work in biology and evolutionary theory can be seen -- directly or indirectly -- to have a Hegelian foundation.
And if we really want to fully understand that Hegel's dualistic-dialectic philosophy did not just 'spring out of nowhere', then we must give proper credit to the previous German Idealistic philosophical work of all three of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling -- and furthermore, we need to go right back to the very philosophical roots that Nietzsche did -- back to the roots of Greek -- and all -- mythology, back to the mythological 'dualism' of 'Apollo' vs. 'Dionysus', back to the second oldest philosopher in Western history -- Anaxamander -- and his patriarchal 'power and conquest dialectic theory'; and also back to Anaxamander's indirect student -- Heraclitus -- and the latter's more 'matriarchal philosophy' -- a philosophy of 'opposite things, opposite processes, opposite ideas all coming together 'for the good of the whole dialectic-democratic harmony'.
However, perhaps the most important 'dialectic connection' to be made in the history of dialectic philosophy is the one I am just about to make now. I have been searching on the internet for an answer to a question that needed to take me into the deepest depths of Chinese philosophy -- or at least as deep as anyone else on the internet could take me.
My question that I started asking myself about 2006-2007 (I will have to check my Gap-DGB archives on the internet here to see what date I first publicly asked, and tried to answer, this question in one of my first introductory essays in 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy'.
The question I asked myself directly or indirectly was basically this one: Where did the Chinese philosophical concepts and symbols of 'yin' and 'yang' originate from?
I had the symbols traced back to 'The Han Philosophers' -- a group of very important Chinese philosophers who were trying to 'integrate China' back in The Han Dynasty' by 'integrating a number of different important philosophies and philosophers' who had greatly influenced the evolution of China -- before and until 'The Ch'in Dynasty, a totalitarian Chinese government that existed from 221-207BC -- did much to start tearing the philosophical foundations, and the spirit, of the Chinese people apart through their totalitarian, anti-humanistic, anti-democratic measures.
Even this following piece from the internet on 'The Han Synthesis' I am reading this morning for the first time. Sometimes -- like now -- I shake my head to realize that not only is my own philosophical work constantly evolving, but so too is the work of other philosophers and writers on the internet, and information that was just not available to me two or three years ago is clearly available now. These following two pieces greatly help the evolution of my own work in Hegel's Hotel here:
...............................................................................
From the internet....
Ancient China: The Han Synthesis
After the disastrous period of totalitarian government during the Ch'in dynasty (221-207 B. C.), the early Han dynasty (207 B.C.-9 A.D.) returned to older forms of imperial government. However, they adopted from the Ch'in the idea of an absolutely central government and spent most of their period in power trying to regain the same level of centrality that the Ch'in and the Legalists had so ruthlessly accomplished. This ideology of central government, along with the Legalists' attempts to standardize Chinese culture and Chinese philosophy, led thinkers of the Han to attempt to unify all the rival schools of Chinese thought and philosophy that had developed over the previous three hundred years. This unification of Chinese into a single coherent system is the most lasting legacy of the Han dynasty. Earlier, the Legalists attempted to standardize Chinese thought by burning the books of rival schools and by making it a capital crime to speak of Confucius, Lao Tzu, or Mo Tzu. The Han thinkers, who thoroughly despised the Legalists and their methods while adopting many of their goals, took a different approach. Rather than reject alternate ways of thinking, they took a syncretic approach and attempted to fuse all the rival schools of thought into a single system. This syncretic project of the early Han is known as the Han synthesis. In many ways it was similar to the larger project of unifying Chinese government.
Chinese Philosophy
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Confucius
Legalism
Mo Tzu
Taoism
The Han philosophers concentrated specifically on the Five Classics, attempting to derive from them, particularly the I ching , or Book of Changes, the principle of the workings of the universe, or Tao. This new theory of the universe they appended to the I ching ; this appendix explains the metaphysical workings of the entire universe. Once the overall workings of the unverse were understood, then every form of thought could be directly related to each other by appealing to the basic principles of the universe.
Chinese Philosophy
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Pre-Confucian China and the Five Classics
The essentials of the Han synthesis are as follows: the universe is run by a single principle, the Tao, or Great Ultimate. This principle is divided into two opposite principles, or two principles which oppose one another in their actions, yin and yang. All the opposites one perceives in the universe can be reduced to one of the opposite forces. In general, these forces are distinguished by their role in producing creation and producing degeneration: yang is the force of creation and yin the force of completion and degeneration. The yin and yang are further differentiated into five material agents, or wu hsing , which both produce one another and overcome one another. All change in the universe can be explained by the workings of yin and yang and the progress of the five material agents as they either produce one another or overcome one another. This is a universal explanatory principle. All phenomena can be understood using yin-yang and the five agents: the movements of the stars, the workings of the body, the nature of foods, the qualities of music, the ethical qualities of humans, the progress of time, the operations of government, and even the nature of historical change. All things follow this order so that all things can be related to one another in some way: one can use the stars to determine what kind of policy to pursue in government, for instance.
Chinese Philosophy
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Wu-hsing
Yin/Yang
Since the Han thinkers had come up with a tool to explain historical and political events, the writing of history took off exponentially during the early Han and later. History became more than a repository of good and bad examples of government, as it had for the ancient Chinese, it became the working out of the yin-yang or five agents system as it applied to human affairs. This meant that the writing of history demanded accuracy, that the facts be laid out with great precision and indifference so that the workings of yin-yang could be followed precisely. The Han, then, developed a rigorously factual approach to history at a very early time in Chinese history. In government, the Han thinkers essentially adopted the Legalist attitude that human beings fundamentally behave badly, but they changed the doctrine significantly. The Han thinkers believed that people behaved in a depraved way because they had no choice; economic and social conditions forced them to behave badly. For at heart, all human beings desire only material well-being; in order to make people behave virtuously, the government should make it possible that the ends of virtue (the well-being of others) and the pursuit of individual well-being should be coterminous, that is, material benefits should accrue to virtuous acts (that's one-half of the Legalist formula). The emperor would bring this about through two means. First, the emperor and the government is responsible for setting up conditions in which people can derive material benefit from productive labor; the stress on productivity, of course, is derived from the Legalists and Mo Tzu. Second, the emperor can provide an example. It is the job of the emperor to care for the welfare of his people (Confucianism), yet at the same time, the Emperor should withdraw from active rule (Taoism). How did the Emperor rule then? By providing a living example of benevolence. This model of Chinese government would remain dominant well into the twentieth century.
Chinese Philosophy
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Mo Tzu
China Glossary
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DGB Philosophy...cont'd...
So the final name that I have been looking for in the past two or three years turns out to be not who I thought it was afterall -- Confucious -- but rather a man of equally or even greater real or perhaps mythological importance: Lao Tse, one of the chief philosophical architects of Taoism or Daoism.
Let's read a bit about Lao Tse -- again, information that was not available to me on the internet about 2 or 3 years ago (or at least I couldn't find the complete 'answer to the puzzle' I was looking for back then. It's not that the information wasn't out there -- somewhere. After all, there are millions and millions of 'Taoists' out there who were practising this philosophy thousands of years ago, with ancestors who are still studying and pracising it now.
..............................................................................
From the internet...yin and yang...Taoism (Daoism)...Lao Tse....
Taoism (a.k.a. Daoism)
Western traditions
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The Taoist Ying Yang symbol:
Quotations:
"Be still like a mountain and flow like a great river." Lao Tse.
"Without going out of your door, You can know the ways of the world. Without peeping through your window, you can see the Way of Heaven. The farther you go, The less you know. Thus, the Sage knows without traveling, Sees without looking, And achieves without struggle." Lao Tse.
"Different Chinese philosophers, writing probably in 5-4 centuries B.C., presented some major ideas and a way of life that are nowadays known under the name of Taoism, the way of correspondence between man and the tendency or the course of natural world." Alan Watts, from his book: "Tao: The Watercourse Way."
"We believe in the formless and eternal Tao, and we recognize all personified deities as being mere human constructs. We reject hatred, intolerance, and unnecessary violence, and embrace harmony, love and learning, as we are taught by Nature. We place our trust and our lives in the Tao, that we may live in peace and balance with the Universe, both in this mortal life and beyond." Creed of the Reform Taoist Congregation 1
"For more than two thousand years, Daoism has evolved in close interaction with the other major traditions of China--Confucianism, Buddhism, ethnic creeds, and popular religion--and adapted many of their features. To the present day, Daoism consists of a multiplicity of beliefs and practices, and continues to develop, as it has for the past millennia, through the interaction between differentiation and integration--the move to change in accordance with political, cultural, and economic developments versus the urge to create stability through belief systems, lineage lines, rituals, and myths." From the Amazon.com review of the book "Daoist Identity: History, lineage and ritual.
History of Taoism:
Tao (pronounced "Dow") can be roughly translated into English as path, or the way. It is basically indefinable. It has to be experienced. It "refers to a power which envelops, surrounds and flows through all things, living and non-living. The Tao regulates natural processes and nourishes balance in the Universe. It embodies the harmony of opposites (i.e. there would be no love without hate, no light without dark, no male without female.)" 2
The founder of Taoism is believed by many to be Lao-Tse (604-531 BCE), a contemporary of Confucius. (Alternative spellings: Lao Tze, Lao Tsu, Lao Tzu, Laozi, Laotze, etc.). He was searching for a way that would avoid the constant feudal warfare and other conflicts that disrupted society during his lifetime. The result was his book: Tao-te-Ching (a.k.a. Daodejing). Others believe that he is a mythical character.
Taoism started as a combination of psychology and philosophy but evolved into a religious faith in 440 CE when it was adopted as a state religion. At that time Lao-Tse became popularly venerated as a deity. Taoism, along with Buddhism and Confucianism, became one of the three great religions of China. With the end of the Ch'ing Dynasty in 1911, state support for Taoism ended. Much of the Taoist heritage was destroyed during the next period of warlordism. After the Communist victory in 1949, religious freedom was severely restricted. "The new government put monks to manual labor, confiscated temples, and plundered treasures. Several million monks were reduced to fewer than 50,000" by 1960. 3 During the cultural revolution in China from 1966 to 1976, much of the remaining Taoist heritage was destroyed. Some religious tolerance has been restored under Deng Xiao-ping from 1982 to the present time.
Taoism currently has about 20 million followers, and is primarily centered in Taiwan. About 30,000 Taoists live in North America; 1,720 in Canada (1991 census). Taoism has had a significant impact on North American culture in areas of "acupuncture, herbalism, holistic medicine, meditation and martial arts..." 3
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Taoist concepts, beliefs and practices:
Tao is the first-cause of the universe. It is a force that flows through all life.
"The Tao surrounds everyone and therefore everyone must listen to find enlightenment." 4
Each believer's goal is to harmonize themselves with the Tao.
Taoism has provided an alternative to the Confucian tradition in China. The two traditions have coexisted in the country, region, and generally within the same individual.
The priesthood views the many gods as manifestations of the one Dao, "which could not be represented as an image or a particular thing." The concept of a personified deity is foreign to them, as is the concept of the creation of the universe. Thus, they do not pray as Christians do; there is no God to hear the prayers or to act upon them. They seek answers to life's problems through inner meditation and outer observation.
In contrast with the beliefs and practices of the priesthood, most of the laity have "believed that spirits pervaded nature...The gods in heaven acted like and were treated like the officials in the world of men; worshipping the gods was a kind of rehearsal of attitudes toward secular authorities. On the other hand, the demons and ghosts of hell acted like and were treated like the bullies, outlaws, and threatening strangers in the real world; they were bribed by the people and were ritually arrested by the martial forces of the spirit officials." 3
Time is cyclical, not linear as in Western thinking.
Taoists strongly promote health and vitality.
Five main organs and orifices of the body correspond to the five parts of the sky: water, fire, wood, metal and earth.
Each person must nurture the Ch'i (air, breath) that has been given to them.
Development of virtue is one's chief task. The Three Jewels to be sought are compassion, moderation and humility.
Taoists follow the art of "wu wei," which is to let nature take its course. For example, one should allow a river to flow towards the sea unimpeded; do not erect a dam which would interfere with its natural flow.
One should plan in advance and consider carefully each action before making it.
A Taoists is kind to other individuals, in part because such an action tends to be reciprocated.
Taoists believe that "people are compassionate by nature...left to their own devices [they] will show this compassion without expecting a reward." 5
The Yin Yang symbol:
This is a well known Taoist symbol. "It represents the balance of opposites in the universe. When they are equally present, all is calm. When one is outweighed by the other, there is confusion and disarray." 4 One source explains that it was derived from astronomical observations which recorded the shadow of the sun throughout a full year. 5 The two swirling shapes inside the symbol give the impression of change -- the only constant factor in the universe. One tradition states that Yin (or Ying; the dark side) represents the breath that formed the earth. Yang (the light side) symbolizes the breath that formed the heavens.
One source states: "The most traditional view is that 'yin' represents aspects of the feminine: being soft, cool, calm, introspective, and healing... and "yang" the masculine: being hard, hot, energetic, moving, and sometimes aggressive. Another view has the 'yin' representing night and 'yang' day. 5
Another source offers a different definition: A common misconception in the west is that "...yin is soft and passive and yang is hard and energetic. Really it is yang that is soft and yin that is hard, this is because yang is energetic and yin is passive. Yin is like a rock and yang is like water or air, rock is heavy and hard and air is soft and energetic." 8
Allan Watts, describes the yin and yang as negative and positive energy poles: "The ideograms indicate the sunny and shady sides of a hill....They are associated with the masculine and the feminine, the firm and the yielding, the strong and the weak, the light and the dark, the rising and the falling, heaven and earth, and they are even recognized in such everyday matters as cooking as the spicy and the bland." 9,10
However, since nothing in nature is purely black or purely white, the symbol includes a small black spot in the white swirl, and a corresponding white spot in the black swirl.
Ultimately, the 'yin' and 'yang' can symbolize any two polarized forces in nature. Taosts believe that humans often intervene in nature and upset the balance of Yin and Yang.
About the name: Taoism or Daoism:
There are two commonly used systems for translating the Mandarin Chinese language into Roman letters:
Wade-Giles: This system is commonly used in Taiwan and the U.S. The Chinese character for "Way" becomes "Tao," which leads to the English word "Taoism."
Hanyu pinyin or Pinyin: This system was developed by the Chinese people and is now finding increased use worldwide. The "Way" becomes "Dao," which leads to the English word "Daoism." The "Dao" is pronounced like the "Dow" in "Dow-Jones Index."
We have chosen to emphasize the "Taoism" spelling. A Google search for "Taoism" returned 245,000 hits, whereas a search for "Daoism" returned only 35,000.
Tai Chi:
There is a long history of involvement by Taoists in various exercise and movement techniques. 6 Tai chi in particular works on all parts of the body. It "stimulates the central nervous system, lowers blood pressure, relieves stress and gently tones muscles without strain. It also enhances digestion, elimination of wastes and the circulation of blood. Moreover, tai chi's rhythmic movements massage the internal organs and improve their functionality." Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that illness is caused by blockages or lack of balance in the body's "chi" (intrinsic energy). Tai Chi is believed to balance this energy flow.
Taoist Texts:
These include:
Tao-te-Ching ("The Way of Power," or "The Book of the Way") is believed to have been written by Lao-Tse. It describes the nature of life, the way to peace and how a ruler should lead his life.
Chuang-tzu (named after its author) contains additional teachings.
Taoist web sites:
Taoist course, books and objects: Lao Tzu and Taoism Revealed: A 40-day course delivered by email. You may learn more about the life and philosophy of Lao Tzu, including the study of Tao Te Ching, and concepts like tao, wu-wei, wu, and more. Register here. More information
The LaoZi Academy in Sydney, Australia, teaches "... the fundamentals and secrets of ancient Daoist life. The Academy delivers clear and concise principles and practice methods used by ancient Daoist masters in the pursuit of health, happiness and longevity many thousands of years ago." See: http://www.laoziacademy.com/
MoreLight.net publishes a number of books from the Taoist canon, including The Primordial Breath, Volumes 1 & 2, and Oneirocritica (The Interpretation of Dreams). See: http://morelight.net/
Mr. Sage's Philosophical Taoist Homepage's intent is to give a more scientific, astro-physics, philosophical, as well as traditional esoteric view on Taoism. See: http://members.aol.com/
Sacred Mountain Press publishes Taoist works. Their "... goal is to make interesting, beautiful, and reliable Taoist information as accessible to the general public as that of any other major religious or spiritual tradition." See: http://www.smpress.com
"Tao Resource" is a web site that imports authentic Taoist products to help people improve their "personal or sacred space, to build a small Taoist shrine or even to construct a large Taoist temple." This site is well worth perusing. It has sections showing altar tables, bells & chimes, jewelry, statuary, personal altars, etc. See http://www.taoresource.com/
Tai Chi: "Is Tai Chi the Ultimate Exercise?," an essay on Tai Chi at:
http://www.utah.edu/
"The International Taoist Tai Chi Society" � is the largest non-profit Tai Chi group in the world. See: http://www.taoist.org
Taoist message board, discussion forum, etc: The "real Tao" message board is a "brand new Taoist Forum" at: http://pub18.ezboard.com/
A Taoist discussion forum named in the spirit of Jack Keroac and the Dharma Bums, is at http://www.TheTaoBums.com It is a "Friendly, active, nonsectarian discussion forum for Taoism, qigong, tai chi, yoga, meditation and much more!"
Taoist web sites: The Center TaoTaoist Thought and Fellowship in Santa Cruz, CA provides monthly meetings and an extensive forum. See: http://www.centertao.org/
Daoist Arts contains essays on Daoist History, Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan), Qigong and other Taoist matters. They have a free newsletter. See: http://www.daoistarts.org/
Bill Mason's Taoism Page is at: http://www.taoism.net This web site emphasizes the practical application of the Tao to everyday life.
Maury Merkin, "Daoism in brief," is at: http://www.his.com/ This website offers a brief introduction to Taoism and a glossary of terms.
This website is dedicated to Purist Taoism in the tradition and wisdom of Lao-Tzu.
Jeff Rasmussen's Tao Te Ching web site features an illustrated Tao Te Ching, an introduction to Taoism, and links. See: http://www.symynet.com/
Reform Taoism has an excellent web site which publishes their creed and beliefs on dozens of important topics. See: http://www.reformtaoism.org
" The Taoist Canon: A guide to studies and reference works" at: http://weber.ucsd.edu/
The "Taoism Depot" contains a Taoism discussion forum, live chat and a wide range of resources. See: http://www.edepot.com/
The "Taoism Information Page" is at: http://www.religiousworlds.com/
The "Taoism Depot" contains a Taoism discussion forum, live chat and a wide range of resources. See: http://www.edepot.com/
The Taoism Initiation Page has a great deal of information about Taoism and a Taoism course that leads to initiation. is at: http://www.taopage.org
The Taoist Restoration Society (TRS) is "a U.S. nonprofit corporation dedicated to the rehabilitation and rebirth of China's Taoist tradition." See: http://www.taorestore.org/ Offline as of 2007-AUG-29
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Now -- to use a Freudian metaphor -- 'We have reached the source of The Nile.' (And it is not 'The Oedipal Complex'.)
What I am about to say now should, in my humble or not so humble opinion, be recognized as the greatest integration in the history of Western-Eastern Philosophy.
'Fait-Compli.' If I die tomorrow, I can rest easier in my grave knowing that the three most important foundations, the three most important architectural-philosophical structures or columns of Hegel's Hotel -- are firmly in place today.
As of this moment -- Hegel's Hotel -- in its most basic and firmly entrenched 'triangular structure' is in place, solidly grounded in this 'post-Hegelian' interpretation of Western and Eastern (or at least Chinese) history.
And 'no' -- I'm not talking about the classic 'Hegelian Dialectic Triangle' of 'thesis-antithesis-synthesis'. Hegel deserves full credit for that one. I firmly believe that Hegel's 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' should be viewed as the greatest philosophical work in Western history.
No, the 'philosophical triangle' I am thinking of right now extends even beyond the work of Hegel.
Imagine 'three huge -- indeed, collossal -- architectural columns holding up 'Hegel's Hotel'.
One column goes right up the middle of Ancient Greece. And it starts with, and is held together by, the profoundly important work of: Homer, Anaxamander, and Heraclitus.
The second column of Hegel's Hotel goes right up the middle of China. It starts with, and is held together, by the profoundly important work of; Lao Tzu, Taoism (Daoism), and The Han Synthesis brought together by the Han Philosophers in perhaps the greatest Chinese Dynasty -- the Han Dynasty.
And the third column in Hegel's Hotel goes right up the middle of 18th and 19th century Idealistic Germany. (Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling...)
Who knows? Maybe one day someone might actually think that 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy' deserves to make up the final fourth 'cornerstone' in the evolution of Western and Eastern Dialectic Philosophy. If not, I can think of another very worthy recipient of the 'fourth cornerstone'. Darwin.
Now what totally astounds me is how remarkably similar Ancient Greek Dialectic Philosophy (Homer, Anaxamander, Heraclitus...) is to Ancient Chinese Dialectic Philosophy (Lao Tse, Taoism, The Han Philosophers, The Han Synthesis...)
It raises the obvious question: Did these philosophers -- and/or their ancestors -- meet? Along some trading route with not only goods -- but also philosophical ideas being exchanged? Was there a Persian and/or Egyptian connection?
There is one further collosal dialectic influence to be discussed. Both a positive and a negative influence on the philosophy and the history of both Western and Eastern Philosophy.
Marx.
Hegel's 'Left Wing Student Extremist'.
Marx: A combination of 'humanist' and 'ruthless pitbull'.
Marx: A human paradox in motion. How could a man who wanted to save humanity from so much (Capitalist-Alientation)pain end up indirectly causing or influencing the evolution of so much (Communist) pain, destruciton, agony, death and dying? Read: 'The Eastern Sociopathological Threesome: Lenin, Stalin, and Mao tse Tung'.
The history of the Western and Eastern Dialectic has never -- at least to my knowledge except maybe over very limited time periods -- been without: war, famine, conquest, power, revenge, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, armed rebellion, armed squashing of rebellion, torture, death and dying...
I am not speaking -- idealistically.
I am speaking -- historically -- and realistically perhaps pointing to the deepest darkest elements of man's 'righteous-narcissism-greed-egotism-territorialism' Call these characteristics the most pathological elements of a 'patriarchal-authoritarian-philosophical-political-economic' system of government.
This is the 'realistic philosophy of Anaxamander -- Western and Eastern 'power-dialectics'. 'Dialectical Imperialism'. The dialectics of power, authoritarianism, narcissism, greed, revenge, and conquest. This is the worst of a patriarchal system of leadership, govermnent, and law.
In contrast, Heraclitus presented a more 'matriarchal system of philosophy and natural law'. So too did Lao Tse and The Han Philosophers. Although these ancient Eastern philosophers were keenly aware of 'power-dialectics' as well.
What Lao Tse and The Han Philosophers essentially did with the philosophical centralization of the concepts of 'yin' and 'yang' was they successfully integrated masculine (patriarchal) and feminine (matriarchal) philosophy into a dialectic-democratic unified whole system of philosophy.
Patriarcal philosophy, politics and law, business and economics, science and religion, is basically the philosophy of 'power, conquest, imperialism, authoritarianism, unilateralism...the philosophy of the George Bush-led Republicans who to all extents and purposes failed miserably in what they were trying to achieve. In the Bush-led Repubican regime, American Unilateralism led basically to Unilateral Anti-American resentment and hate. 'Unilateralism' always has the 'side effect' of stimulating the resentment, the anger, the rage, the hate -- of 'the dominated and suppressed'. Unilateralism has its roots in imperialism, conquest, and slavery.
But the historical dialectic has once again raised its collective human head and shown it's 'historical-existential quasi-determinism'
Once again, the philosophical, historical, and political dialectic has culminated in the movement from 'thesis' to 'anti-thesis'. From Bush to Obama.
President Obama -- who I fully support in his intent if not in his results -- represents the opposite type of philosophical and political system and one advocated and trumpted right here in Hegel's Hotel for the last three years: 'multi-bi-lateralism'.
Or in DGB Philosophy's most technical jargon -- 'multi-bi-polar-dialectic-democratic-humanistic-existential integration'. That's a very full mouthful. Did you get it? Can you repeat it?
Say after me -- and I will even throw in a bunch of more dialectic words to try to make sure you can't follow me this time: Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy offers you a: 'Multi-Bi-Polar-Pluralistic-Associative-Differential-Abstract-Concrete-Liberal-Conservative-Capitalist-Socialist-Dialectic-Democratic-Humanistic-Existential Integrative Philosophy'. Some of my more dedicated readers may follow what I just said.
Obama's philosophy is -- or is at least trying to be -- a more 'matriarchal' system of philosophy -- meaning he seeks dialectic-democratic negotiation, integration, union, unity, and harmonious balance.
Many have tried before him. Many have failed. Strong narcissitic-righteous-patriarchal forces do not die easy. They die in war.
I have seen Trudeau try this. And basically fail. The Canadian people loved Pierre Trudeau's Romantic-Humanistic-Existential Idealism. So did -- and do I. I see the Nietzschean influence on Trudeau's Romantic-Humanistic-Existential Idealistic Philosophy. He was trying to do good -- to make Canada a more 'multi-cultual, pluralistic country which he at least partly did. Perhaps he didn't see that different cultures from other parts of the world -- brought into Canada -- would 'congregate together in their own pockets of sub-culural communities, mainly cut off and alienated from the other cultures in Canada. But not entirely. A more complete pluralistic cultural integration may still take many more generations to come. People, for the most part, like to stay with what they are 'most familiar and comfortable with'. And mainly, that is their own home-raised culture. Attempts in the past to 'tear Native Indian children out of their homes' and teach them 'Canadian-Europeon Culture' through segregated schools was complete and utter disaster. A dismal cultural failure that still lies on the shoulders of the Canadian Government.
What the Canadian people for the most part hated about Trudeau -- was his economics.
Putting the country into massive debt to 'try to make a better life for the poor in Canadian society'. His intentions were noble. His results were dismal -- economically. His 'socialist' policies put Canada into massive debt. President Obama, are you listening? Go back into the 1970s and determine for yourself what Trudeau did right and wrong. His economics -- 'stunk'.
Brian Mulroney became at least partly the 'anti-thesis' to Trudeau -- the self-styled, Reagan-Republican Canadian version of Adam Smith and Ayn Rand Capitalism. But Mulroney still learned some things from watching Trudeau -- how to put the country into massive debt, even worse so than Trudeau before him. With Mulroney, it was not about 'helping the poor' although he tried his best to 'appease' Liberal and NDP factions in Canadian Society. 'Let's everybody in Canada have their cake and eat it too! Mulroney's idea was to satisfy both the red-blooded Capitalists and the bleeding-heart Liberal-NDP-Socialists in Canada -- and in so doing -- stay in power, and live in The Ivory Tower. He was still looking for the Ivory Tower -- even as he was finally booted out of office for being what the Canadian people eventually knew him to be: a two-faced politician, a manipulator, completely narcissitic, the worst of the worst in terms of 'Sophist Politicians' (meaning you were going to get basically a load of 'philosophical garbage' coming out of his mouth -- idealistic Capitalist-Conservative Ideology masking, just under the surface, narcissistic greed to the hilt and money and perks coming out of his ears (long before the saga of Conrad Black and later AIG hit the eyes and ears of the Canadian and American people alhthough it was probably around the same time period as Conrad Black in his 'hay-day'), and finally, a border-line to full-blooded criminal picking up hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash money in a suit-case from a foreign arms dealer (Schreiber) -- like a street drug dealer; not like the Prime Minister or ex-Prime Minister of your country. Mulroney says 'he regrets' doing that. The case is still not resolved. The latest news is that Harper and the rest of the present Convservatives don't want Mulroney to belong as an 'alumni' to The Conservative Party anymore. I wonder why?
Back to Marx.
Marx's 'dialectic-materialistic philosophy' that only faintly resembled Hegel's 'rational-German-Idealism' I give Marx full-blooded his humanistic-existential credit for his philosophical work on 'alienation' -- just not what came afterwards.
I don't support -- and DGB Philosophy does not support -- Marx's idea of 'armed, violent conflict and rebellion' of the 'proletariat over the bourgeous' (the rich, the corporate owners, the Establishment, the aristocrats...)
This idea basically led to three of the worst totalitarian regimes -- masked as 'Communism' in the combined history of China and Russia. Well, maybe not China because China has had many 'totalitarian-imperialist' regimes. But regardless, the three I am talking about here are unmistakably: Lenin, Stalin, and Mao tse Tung. Very smart men -- all three of them. But ruthless, partly like Marx before them. Only much, much worse. Marx was not a 'psychopath'. Or a 'sociopath'. Lenin, Stalin, and Mao tse Tung -- all were. They used Marxian Ideology to cover their 'ruthless, unilateral-totalitarian-imperialistic intentions'.
We have come full circle.
I have a very scary doctor's appointment. I am already running late (like usual).
We leave Hegel's Hotel for today.
My Dad's birthday tomorrow -- and my girlfriend of almost ten years. It is her birthday too.
Have a good 'dialectic-democratic-humanistic-existential' day!
Live the life of a 'Superman'!
An 'Apollonian-Dionysian Superman'.
Balance your 'yin' and 'yang'!
Cheers!
-- dgb, April 1st, 2009.
The 'ripeness' of Nietzsche's 'new and old philosophical fruit' -- the product of a cross fertilization of early Greek dualistic-dialectic philosophy (Apollo vs. Dionysus) and later Hegelian dualistic-dialectic thinking (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis) was so 'nutritional' that the 'intellectual and humanistic-existential value' of this cross-fertilized fruit is still exploding off the BT fruit tree some 200 years later, first through the work of Freud and Jung in the early 1900s, right up into the 21st century through the work of others and through the work of DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-Religion-Science-Medicine...still evolving in 2009.
Indeed, it is partly too bad that Nietzshe ventured away from BT or he could have almost 'created' Psychoanalysis himself. Indeed, in this one little book -- BT -- Nietzsche almost did create Psychoanalysis. The details just needed to be filled out a bit more through Freud and Jung in their clinical and theoretical work to soon come...BT, in my opinion, remains a much overlooked piece of work in terms of its mega-influence on Freud, Jung, and eventually Perls and Gestalt Therapy. BT was the 'integrative bridge' between Greek Tragedy, Hegel, Schopenhauer and Freud.
But what happened is what happened -- a matter of Nietzsche's only personal and philosophical evolutionary development -- and Nietzsche had other 'fruit to grow off different trees'. Nietsche's later 'Will to Power' Theory, his 'Cliff, Abyss, and Tightrope' Theory relative to 'Being and Becoming', and his 'Superman' Theory would do much to lay the groundwork for Heidegger, Sartre, and 20th Century Humanistic-Existentialism. In this regard, Hegel once again led the way in the evolution of 19th and 20th century Humanistic-Existentialism with his theories of 'The Master-Slave Relationship' and 'Alienation' (to be jumped on by Marx) and then Kierkegaard in his rebellion against 'Hegel's 'Absolute' Abstactionism and Universalism' with his own counter-philosophy of 'Existential Concretism' (albeit Kierkegaard could and did write very abstractly as well). Schopenhauer, Marx, Kierkegaard, and Nietzsche all had a hugely important impact on the growth of 19th, 20th, and even 21st century philosophy -- and all of their ideas sprang from arguably the most important philosophical work in Western history -- Hegel's 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (1807). Even Darwin's later 19th century work in biology and evolutionary theory can be seen -- directly or indirectly -- to have a Hegelian foundation.
And if we really want to fully understand that Hegel's dualistic-dialectic philosophy did not just 'spring out of nowhere', then we must give proper credit to the previous German Idealistic philosophical work of all three of Kant, Fichte, and Schelling -- and furthermore, we need to go right back to the very philosophical roots that Nietzsche did -- back to the roots of Greek -- and all -- mythology, back to the mythological 'dualism' of 'Apollo' vs. 'Dionysus', back to the second oldest philosopher in Western history -- Anaxamander -- and his patriarchal 'power and conquest dialectic theory'; and also back to Anaxamander's indirect student -- Heraclitus -- and the latter's more 'matriarchal philosophy' -- a philosophy of 'opposite things, opposite processes, opposite ideas all coming together 'for the good of the whole dialectic-democratic harmony'.
However, perhaps the most important 'dialectic connection' to be made in the history of dialectic philosophy is the one I am just about to make now. I have been searching on the internet for an answer to a question that needed to take me into the deepest depths of Chinese philosophy -- or at least as deep as anyone else on the internet could take me.
My question that I started asking myself about 2006-2007 (I will have to check my Gap-DGB archives on the internet here to see what date I first publicly asked, and tried to answer, this question in one of my first introductory essays in 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy'.
The question I asked myself directly or indirectly was basically this one: Where did the Chinese philosophical concepts and symbols of 'yin' and 'yang' originate from?
I had the symbols traced back to 'The Han Philosophers' -- a group of very important Chinese philosophers who were trying to 'integrate China' back in The Han Dynasty' by 'integrating a number of different important philosophies and philosophers' who had greatly influenced the evolution of China -- before and until 'The Ch'in Dynasty, a totalitarian Chinese government that existed from 221-207BC -- did much to start tearing the philosophical foundations, and the spirit, of the Chinese people apart through their totalitarian, anti-humanistic, anti-democratic measures.
Even this following piece from the internet on 'The Han Synthesis' I am reading this morning for the first time. Sometimes -- like now -- I shake my head to realize that not only is my own philosophical work constantly evolving, but so too is the work of other philosophers and writers on the internet, and information that was just not available to me two or three years ago is clearly available now. These following two pieces greatly help the evolution of my own work in Hegel's Hotel here:
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From the internet....
Ancient China: The Han Synthesis
After the disastrous period of totalitarian government during the Ch'in dynasty (221-207 B. C.), the early Han dynasty (207 B.C.-9 A.D.) returned to older forms of imperial government. However, they adopted from the Ch'in the idea of an absolutely central government and spent most of their period in power trying to regain the same level of centrality that the Ch'in and the Legalists had so ruthlessly accomplished. This ideology of central government, along with the Legalists' attempts to standardize Chinese culture and Chinese philosophy, led thinkers of the Han to attempt to unify all the rival schools of Chinese thought and philosophy that had developed over the previous three hundred years. This unification of Chinese into a single coherent system is the most lasting legacy of the Han dynasty. Earlier, the Legalists attempted to standardize Chinese thought by burning the books of rival schools and by making it a capital crime to speak of Confucius, Lao Tzu, or Mo Tzu. The Han thinkers, who thoroughly despised the Legalists and their methods while adopting many of their goals, took a different approach. Rather than reject alternate ways of thinking, they took a syncretic approach and attempted to fuse all the rival schools of thought into a single system. This syncretic project of the early Han is known as the Han synthesis. In many ways it was similar to the larger project of unifying Chinese government.
Chinese Philosophy
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Confucius
Legalism
Mo Tzu
Taoism
The Han philosophers concentrated specifically on the Five Classics, attempting to derive from them, particularly the I ching , or Book of Changes, the principle of the workings of the universe, or Tao. This new theory of the universe they appended to the I ching ; this appendix explains the metaphysical workings of the entire universe. Once the overall workings of the unverse were understood, then every form of thought could be directly related to each other by appealing to the basic principles of the universe.
Chinese Philosophy
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Pre-Confucian China and the Five Classics
The essentials of the Han synthesis are as follows: the universe is run by a single principle, the Tao, or Great Ultimate. This principle is divided into two opposite principles, or two principles which oppose one another in their actions, yin and yang. All the opposites one perceives in the universe can be reduced to one of the opposite forces. In general, these forces are distinguished by their role in producing creation and producing degeneration: yang is the force of creation and yin the force of completion and degeneration. The yin and yang are further differentiated into five material agents, or wu hsing , which both produce one another and overcome one another. All change in the universe can be explained by the workings of yin and yang and the progress of the five material agents as they either produce one another or overcome one another. This is a universal explanatory principle. All phenomena can be understood using yin-yang and the five agents: the movements of the stars, the workings of the body, the nature of foods, the qualities of music, the ethical qualities of humans, the progress of time, the operations of government, and even the nature of historical change. All things follow this order so that all things can be related to one another in some way: one can use the stars to determine what kind of policy to pursue in government, for instance.
Chinese Philosophy
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Wu-hsing
Yin/Yang
Since the Han thinkers had come up with a tool to explain historical and political events, the writing of history took off exponentially during the early Han and later. History became more than a repository of good and bad examples of government, as it had for the ancient Chinese, it became the working out of the yin-yang or five agents system as it applied to human affairs. This meant that the writing of history demanded accuracy, that the facts be laid out with great precision and indifference so that the workings of yin-yang could be followed precisely. The Han, then, developed a rigorously factual approach to history at a very early time in Chinese history. In government, the Han thinkers essentially adopted the Legalist attitude that human beings fundamentally behave badly, but they changed the doctrine significantly. The Han thinkers believed that people behaved in a depraved way because they had no choice; economic and social conditions forced them to behave badly. For at heart, all human beings desire only material well-being; in order to make people behave virtuously, the government should make it possible that the ends of virtue (the well-being of others) and the pursuit of individual well-being should be coterminous, that is, material benefits should accrue to virtuous acts (that's one-half of the Legalist formula). The emperor would bring this about through two means. First, the emperor and the government is responsible for setting up conditions in which people can derive material benefit from productive labor; the stress on productivity, of course, is derived from the Legalists and Mo Tzu. Second, the emperor can provide an example. It is the job of the emperor to care for the welfare of his people (Confucianism), yet at the same time, the Emperor should withdraw from active rule (Taoism). How did the Emperor rule then? By providing a living example of benevolence. This model of Chinese government would remain dominant well into the twentieth century.
Chinese Philosophy
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Mo Tzu
China Glossary
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DGB Philosophy...cont'd...
So the final name that I have been looking for in the past two or three years turns out to be not who I thought it was afterall -- Confucious -- but rather a man of equally or even greater real or perhaps mythological importance: Lao Tse, one of the chief philosophical architects of Taoism or Daoism.
Let's read a bit about Lao Tse -- again, information that was not available to me on the internet about 2 or 3 years ago (or at least I couldn't find the complete 'answer to the puzzle' I was looking for back then. It's not that the information wasn't out there -- somewhere. After all, there are millions and millions of 'Taoists' out there who were practising this philosophy thousands of years ago, with ancestors who are still studying and pracising it now.
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From the internet...yin and yang...Taoism (Daoism)...Lao Tse....
Taoism (a.k.a. Daoism)
Western traditions
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The Taoist Ying Yang symbol:
Quotations:
"Be still like a mountain and flow like a great river." Lao Tse.
"Without going out of your door, You can know the ways of the world. Without peeping through your window, you can see the Way of Heaven. The farther you go, The less you know. Thus, the Sage knows without traveling, Sees without looking, And achieves without struggle." Lao Tse.
"Different Chinese philosophers, writing probably in 5-4 centuries B.C., presented some major ideas and a way of life that are nowadays known under the name of Taoism, the way of correspondence between man and the tendency or the course of natural world." Alan Watts, from his book: "Tao: The Watercourse Way."
"We believe in the formless and eternal Tao, and we recognize all personified deities as being mere human constructs. We reject hatred, intolerance, and unnecessary violence, and embrace harmony, love and learning, as we are taught by Nature. We place our trust and our lives in the Tao, that we may live in peace and balance with the Universe, both in this mortal life and beyond." Creed of the Reform Taoist Congregation 1
"For more than two thousand years, Daoism has evolved in close interaction with the other major traditions of China--Confucianism, Buddhism, ethnic creeds, and popular religion--and adapted many of their features. To the present day, Daoism consists of a multiplicity of beliefs and practices, and continues to develop, as it has for the past millennia, through the interaction between differentiation and integration--the move to change in accordance with political, cultural, and economic developments versus the urge to create stability through belief systems, lineage lines, rituals, and myths." From the Amazon.com review of the book "Daoist Identity: History, lineage and ritual.
History of Taoism:
Tao (pronounced "Dow") can be roughly translated into English as path, or the way. It is basically indefinable. It has to be experienced. It "refers to a power which envelops, surrounds and flows through all things, living and non-living. The Tao regulates natural processes and nourishes balance in the Universe. It embodies the harmony of opposites (i.e. there would be no love without hate, no light without dark, no male without female.)" 2
The founder of Taoism is believed by many to be Lao-Tse (604-531 BCE), a contemporary of Confucius. (Alternative spellings: Lao Tze, Lao Tsu, Lao Tzu, Laozi, Laotze, etc.). He was searching for a way that would avoid the constant feudal warfare and other conflicts that disrupted society during his lifetime. The result was his book: Tao-te-Ching (a.k.a. Daodejing). Others believe that he is a mythical character.
Taoism started as a combination of psychology and philosophy but evolved into a religious faith in 440 CE when it was adopted as a state religion. At that time Lao-Tse became popularly venerated as a deity. Taoism, along with Buddhism and Confucianism, became one of the three great religions of China. With the end of the Ch'ing Dynasty in 1911, state support for Taoism ended. Much of the Taoist heritage was destroyed during the next period of warlordism. After the Communist victory in 1949, religious freedom was severely restricted. "The new government put monks to manual labor, confiscated temples, and plundered treasures. Several million monks were reduced to fewer than 50,000" by 1960. 3 During the cultural revolution in China from 1966 to 1976, much of the remaining Taoist heritage was destroyed. Some religious tolerance has been restored under Deng Xiao-ping from 1982 to the present time.
Taoism currently has about 20 million followers, and is primarily centered in Taiwan. About 30,000 Taoists live in North America; 1,720 in Canada (1991 census). Taoism has had a significant impact on North American culture in areas of "acupuncture, herbalism, holistic medicine, meditation and martial arts..." 3
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Taoist concepts, beliefs and practices:
Tao is the first-cause of the universe. It is a force that flows through all life.
"The Tao surrounds everyone and therefore everyone must listen to find enlightenment." 4
Each believer's goal is to harmonize themselves with the Tao.
Taoism has provided an alternative to the Confucian tradition in China. The two traditions have coexisted in the country, region, and generally within the same individual.
The priesthood views the many gods as manifestations of the one Dao, "which could not be represented as an image or a particular thing." The concept of a personified deity is foreign to them, as is the concept of the creation of the universe. Thus, they do not pray as Christians do; there is no God to hear the prayers or to act upon them. They seek answers to life's problems through inner meditation and outer observation.
In contrast with the beliefs and practices of the priesthood, most of the laity have "believed that spirits pervaded nature...The gods in heaven acted like and were treated like the officials in the world of men; worshipping the gods was a kind of rehearsal of attitudes toward secular authorities. On the other hand, the demons and ghosts of hell acted like and were treated like the bullies, outlaws, and threatening strangers in the real world; they were bribed by the people and were ritually arrested by the martial forces of the spirit officials." 3
Time is cyclical, not linear as in Western thinking.
Taoists strongly promote health and vitality.
Five main organs and orifices of the body correspond to the five parts of the sky: water, fire, wood, metal and earth.
Each person must nurture the Ch'i (air, breath) that has been given to them.
Development of virtue is one's chief task. The Three Jewels to be sought are compassion, moderation and humility.
Taoists follow the art of "wu wei," which is to let nature take its course. For example, one should allow a river to flow towards the sea unimpeded; do not erect a dam which would interfere with its natural flow.
One should plan in advance and consider carefully each action before making it.
A Taoists is kind to other individuals, in part because such an action tends to be reciprocated.
Taoists believe that "people are compassionate by nature...left to their own devices [they] will show this compassion without expecting a reward." 5
The Yin Yang symbol:
This is a well known Taoist symbol. "It represents the balance of opposites in the universe. When they are equally present, all is calm. When one is outweighed by the other, there is confusion and disarray." 4 One source explains that it was derived from astronomical observations which recorded the shadow of the sun throughout a full year. 5 The two swirling shapes inside the symbol give the impression of change -- the only constant factor in the universe. One tradition states that Yin (or Ying; the dark side) represents the breath that formed the earth. Yang (the light side) symbolizes the breath that formed the heavens.
One source states: "The most traditional view is that 'yin' represents aspects of the feminine: being soft, cool, calm, introspective, and healing... and "yang" the masculine: being hard, hot, energetic, moving, and sometimes aggressive. Another view has the 'yin' representing night and 'yang' day. 5
Another source offers a different definition: A common misconception in the west is that "...yin is soft and passive and yang is hard and energetic. Really it is yang that is soft and yin that is hard, this is because yang is energetic and yin is passive. Yin is like a rock and yang is like water or air, rock is heavy and hard and air is soft and energetic." 8
Allan Watts, describes the yin and yang as negative and positive energy poles: "The ideograms indicate the sunny and shady sides of a hill....They are associated with the masculine and the feminine, the firm and the yielding, the strong and the weak, the light and the dark, the rising and the falling, heaven and earth, and they are even recognized in such everyday matters as cooking as the spicy and the bland." 9,10
However, since nothing in nature is purely black or purely white, the symbol includes a small black spot in the white swirl, and a corresponding white spot in the black swirl.
Ultimately, the 'yin' and 'yang' can symbolize any two polarized forces in nature. Taosts believe that humans often intervene in nature and upset the balance of Yin and Yang.
About the name: Taoism or Daoism:
There are two commonly used systems for translating the Mandarin Chinese language into Roman letters:
Wade-Giles: This system is commonly used in Taiwan and the U.S. The Chinese character for "Way" becomes "Tao," which leads to the English word "Taoism."
Hanyu pinyin or Pinyin: This system was developed by the Chinese people and is now finding increased use worldwide. The "Way" becomes "Dao," which leads to the English word "Daoism." The "Dao" is pronounced like the "Dow" in "Dow-Jones Index."
We have chosen to emphasize the "Taoism" spelling. A Google search for "Taoism" returned 245,000 hits, whereas a search for "Daoism" returned only 35,000.
Tai Chi:
There is a long history of involvement by Taoists in various exercise and movement techniques. 6 Tai chi in particular works on all parts of the body. It "stimulates the central nervous system, lowers blood pressure, relieves stress and gently tones muscles without strain. It also enhances digestion, elimination of wastes and the circulation of blood. Moreover, tai chi's rhythmic movements massage the internal organs and improve their functionality." Traditional Chinese medicine teaches that illness is caused by blockages or lack of balance in the body's "chi" (intrinsic energy). Tai Chi is believed to balance this energy flow.
Taoist Texts:
These include:
Tao-te-Ching ("The Way of Power," or "The Book of the Way") is believed to have been written by Lao-Tse. It describes the nature of life, the way to peace and how a ruler should lead his life.
Chuang-tzu (named after its author) contains additional teachings.
Taoist web sites:
Taoist course, books and objects: Lao Tzu and Taoism Revealed: A 40-day course delivered by email. You may learn more about the life and philosophy of Lao Tzu, including the study of Tao Te Ching, and concepts like tao, wu-wei, wu, and more. Register here. More information
The LaoZi Academy in Sydney, Australia, teaches "... the fundamentals and secrets of ancient Daoist life. The Academy delivers clear and concise principles and practice methods used by ancient Daoist masters in the pursuit of health, happiness and longevity many thousands of years ago." See: http://www.laoziacademy.com/
MoreLight.net publishes a number of books from the Taoist canon, including The Primordial Breath, Volumes 1 & 2, and Oneirocritica (The Interpretation of Dreams). See: http://morelight.net/
Mr. Sage's Philosophical Taoist Homepage's intent is to give a more scientific, astro-physics, philosophical, as well as traditional esoteric view on Taoism. See: http://members.aol.com/
Sacred Mountain Press publishes Taoist works. Their "... goal is to make interesting, beautiful, and reliable Taoist information as accessible to the general public as that of any other major religious or spiritual tradition." See: http://www.smpress.com
"Tao Resource" is a web site that imports authentic Taoist products to help people improve their "personal or sacred space, to build a small Taoist shrine or even to construct a large Taoist temple." This site is well worth perusing. It has sections showing altar tables, bells & chimes, jewelry, statuary, personal altars, etc. See http://www.taoresource.com/
Tai Chi: "Is Tai Chi the Ultimate Exercise?," an essay on Tai Chi at:
http://www.utah.edu/
"The International Taoist Tai Chi Society" � is the largest non-profit Tai Chi group in the world. See: http://www.taoist.org
Taoist message board, discussion forum, etc: The "real Tao" message board is a "brand new Taoist Forum" at: http://pub18.ezboard.com/
A Taoist discussion forum named in the spirit of Jack Keroac and the Dharma Bums, is at http://www.TheTaoBums.com It is a "Friendly, active, nonsectarian discussion forum for Taoism, qigong, tai chi, yoga, meditation and much more!"
Taoist web sites: The Center TaoTaoist Thought and Fellowship in Santa Cruz, CA provides monthly meetings and an extensive forum. See: http://www.centertao.org/
Daoist Arts contains essays on Daoist History, Taijiquan (Tai Chi Chuan), Qigong and other Taoist matters. They have a free newsletter. See: http://www.daoistarts.org/
Bill Mason's Taoism Page is at: http://www.taoism.net This web site emphasizes the practical application of the Tao to everyday life.
Maury Merkin, "Daoism in brief," is at: http://www.his.com/ This website offers a brief introduction to Taoism and a glossary of terms.
This website is dedicated to Purist Taoism in the tradition and wisdom of Lao-Tzu.
Jeff Rasmussen's Tao Te Ching web site features an illustrated Tao Te Ching, an introduction to Taoism, and links. See: http://www.symynet.com/
Reform Taoism has an excellent web site which publishes their creed and beliefs on dozens of important topics. See: http://www.reformtaoism.org
" The Taoist Canon: A guide to studies and reference works" at: http://weber.ucsd.edu/
The "Taoism Depot" contains a Taoism discussion forum, live chat and a wide range of resources. See: http://www.edepot.com/
The "Taoism Information Page" is at: http://www.religiousworlds.com/
The "Taoism Depot" contains a Taoism discussion forum, live chat and a wide range of resources. See: http://www.edepot.com/
The Taoism Initiation Page has a great deal of information about Taoism and a Taoism course that leads to initiation. is at: http://www.taopage.org
The Taoist Restoration Society (TRS) is "a U.S. nonprofit corporation dedicated to the rehabilitation and rebirth of China's Taoist tradition." See: http://www.taorestore.org/ Offline as of 2007-AUG-29
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Now -- to use a Freudian metaphor -- 'We have reached the source of The Nile.' (And it is not 'The Oedipal Complex'.)
What I am about to say now should, in my humble or not so humble opinion, be recognized as the greatest integration in the history of Western-Eastern Philosophy.
'Fait-Compli.' If I die tomorrow, I can rest easier in my grave knowing that the three most important foundations, the three most important architectural-philosophical structures or columns of Hegel's Hotel -- are firmly in place today.
As of this moment -- Hegel's Hotel -- in its most basic and firmly entrenched 'triangular structure' is in place, solidly grounded in this 'post-Hegelian' interpretation of Western and Eastern (or at least Chinese) history.
And 'no' -- I'm not talking about the classic 'Hegelian Dialectic Triangle' of 'thesis-antithesis-synthesis'. Hegel deserves full credit for that one. I firmly believe that Hegel's 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' should be viewed as the greatest philosophical work in Western history.
No, the 'philosophical triangle' I am thinking of right now extends even beyond the work of Hegel.
Imagine 'three huge -- indeed, collossal -- architectural columns holding up 'Hegel's Hotel'.
One column goes right up the middle of Ancient Greece. And it starts with, and is held together by, the profoundly important work of: Homer, Anaxamander, and Heraclitus.
The second column of Hegel's Hotel goes right up the middle of China. It starts with, and is held together, by the profoundly important work of; Lao Tzu, Taoism (Daoism), and The Han Synthesis brought together by the Han Philosophers in perhaps the greatest Chinese Dynasty -- the Han Dynasty.
And the third column in Hegel's Hotel goes right up the middle of 18th and 19th century Idealistic Germany. (Kant, Hegel, Fichte, Schelling...)
Who knows? Maybe one day someone might actually think that 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy' deserves to make up the final fourth 'cornerstone' in the evolution of Western and Eastern Dialectic Philosophy. If not, I can think of another very worthy recipient of the 'fourth cornerstone'. Darwin.
Now what totally astounds me is how remarkably similar Ancient Greek Dialectic Philosophy (Homer, Anaxamander, Heraclitus...) is to Ancient Chinese Dialectic Philosophy (Lao Tse, Taoism, The Han Philosophers, The Han Synthesis...)
It raises the obvious question: Did these philosophers -- and/or their ancestors -- meet? Along some trading route with not only goods -- but also philosophical ideas being exchanged? Was there a Persian and/or Egyptian connection?
There is one further collosal dialectic influence to be discussed. Both a positive and a negative influence on the philosophy and the history of both Western and Eastern Philosophy.
Marx.
Hegel's 'Left Wing Student Extremist'.
Marx: A combination of 'humanist' and 'ruthless pitbull'.
Marx: A human paradox in motion. How could a man who wanted to save humanity from so much (Capitalist-Alientation)pain end up indirectly causing or influencing the evolution of so much (Communist) pain, destruciton, agony, death and dying? Read: 'The Eastern Sociopathological Threesome: Lenin, Stalin, and Mao tse Tung'.
The history of the Western and Eastern Dialectic has never -- at least to my knowledge except maybe over very limited time periods -- been without: war, famine, conquest, power, revenge, authoritarianism, totalitarianism, armed rebellion, armed squashing of rebellion, torture, death and dying...
I am not speaking -- idealistically.
I am speaking -- historically -- and realistically perhaps pointing to the deepest darkest elements of man's 'righteous-narcissism-greed-egotism-territorialism' Call these characteristics the most pathological elements of a 'patriarchal-authoritarian-philosophical-political-economic' system of government.
This is the 'realistic philosophy of Anaxamander -- Western and Eastern 'power-dialectics'. 'Dialectical Imperialism'. The dialectics of power, authoritarianism, narcissism, greed, revenge, and conquest. This is the worst of a patriarchal system of leadership, govermnent, and law.
In contrast, Heraclitus presented a more 'matriarchal system of philosophy and natural law'. So too did Lao Tse and The Han Philosophers. Although these ancient Eastern philosophers were keenly aware of 'power-dialectics' as well.
What Lao Tse and The Han Philosophers essentially did with the philosophical centralization of the concepts of 'yin' and 'yang' was they successfully integrated masculine (patriarchal) and feminine (matriarchal) philosophy into a dialectic-democratic unified whole system of philosophy.
Patriarcal philosophy, politics and law, business and economics, science and religion, is basically the philosophy of 'power, conquest, imperialism, authoritarianism, unilateralism...the philosophy of the George Bush-led Republicans who to all extents and purposes failed miserably in what they were trying to achieve. In the Bush-led Repubican regime, American Unilateralism led basically to Unilateral Anti-American resentment and hate. 'Unilateralism' always has the 'side effect' of stimulating the resentment, the anger, the rage, the hate -- of 'the dominated and suppressed'. Unilateralism has its roots in imperialism, conquest, and slavery.
But the historical dialectic has once again raised its collective human head and shown it's 'historical-existential quasi-determinism'
Once again, the philosophical, historical, and political dialectic has culminated in the movement from 'thesis' to 'anti-thesis'. From Bush to Obama.
President Obama -- who I fully support in his intent if not in his results -- represents the opposite type of philosophical and political system and one advocated and trumpted right here in Hegel's Hotel for the last three years: 'multi-bi-lateralism'.
Or in DGB Philosophy's most technical jargon -- 'multi-bi-polar-dialectic-democratic-humanistic-existential integration'. That's a very full mouthful. Did you get it? Can you repeat it?
Say after me -- and I will even throw in a bunch of more dialectic words to try to make sure you can't follow me this time: Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy offers you a: 'Multi-Bi-Polar-Pluralistic-Associative-Differential-Abstract-Concrete-Liberal-Conservative-Capitalist-Socialist-Dialectic-Democratic-Humanistic-Existential Integrative Philosophy'. Some of my more dedicated readers may follow what I just said.
Obama's philosophy is -- or is at least trying to be -- a more 'matriarchal' system of philosophy -- meaning he seeks dialectic-democratic negotiation, integration, union, unity, and harmonious balance.
Many have tried before him. Many have failed. Strong narcissitic-righteous-patriarchal forces do not die easy. They die in war.
I have seen Trudeau try this. And basically fail. The Canadian people loved Pierre Trudeau's Romantic-Humanistic-Existential Idealism. So did -- and do I. I see the Nietzschean influence on Trudeau's Romantic-Humanistic-Existential Idealistic Philosophy. He was trying to do good -- to make Canada a more 'multi-cultual, pluralistic country which he at least partly did. Perhaps he didn't see that different cultures from other parts of the world -- brought into Canada -- would 'congregate together in their own pockets of sub-culural communities, mainly cut off and alienated from the other cultures in Canada. But not entirely. A more complete pluralistic cultural integration may still take many more generations to come. People, for the most part, like to stay with what they are 'most familiar and comfortable with'. And mainly, that is their own home-raised culture. Attempts in the past to 'tear Native Indian children out of their homes' and teach them 'Canadian-Europeon Culture' through segregated schools was complete and utter disaster. A dismal cultural failure that still lies on the shoulders of the Canadian Government.
What the Canadian people for the most part hated about Trudeau -- was his economics.
Putting the country into massive debt to 'try to make a better life for the poor in Canadian society'. His intentions were noble. His results were dismal -- economically. His 'socialist' policies put Canada into massive debt. President Obama, are you listening? Go back into the 1970s and determine for yourself what Trudeau did right and wrong. His economics -- 'stunk'.
Brian Mulroney became at least partly the 'anti-thesis' to Trudeau -- the self-styled, Reagan-Republican Canadian version of Adam Smith and Ayn Rand Capitalism. But Mulroney still learned some things from watching Trudeau -- how to put the country into massive debt, even worse so than Trudeau before him. With Mulroney, it was not about 'helping the poor' although he tried his best to 'appease' Liberal and NDP factions in Canadian Society. 'Let's everybody in Canada have their cake and eat it too! Mulroney's idea was to satisfy both the red-blooded Capitalists and the bleeding-heart Liberal-NDP-Socialists in Canada -- and in so doing -- stay in power, and live in The Ivory Tower. He was still looking for the Ivory Tower -- even as he was finally booted out of office for being what the Canadian people eventually knew him to be: a two-faced politician, a manipulator, completely narcissitic, the worst of the worst in terms of 'Sophist Politicians' (meaning you were going to get basically a load of 'philosophical garbage' coming out of his mouth -- idealistic Capitalist-Conservative Ideology masking, just under the surface, narcissistic greed to the hilt and money and perks coming out of his ears (long before the saga of Conrad Black and later AIG hit the eyes and ears of the Canadian and American people alhthough it was probably around the same time period as Conrad Black in his 'hay-day'), and finally, a border-line to full-blooded criminal picking up hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash money in a suit-case from a foreign arms dealer (Schreiber) -- like a street drug dealer; not like the Prime Minister or ex-Prime Minister of your country. Mulroney says 'he regrets' doing that. The case is still not resolved. The latest news is that Harper and the rest of the present Convservatives don't want Mulroney to belong as an 'alumni' to The Conservative Party anymore. I wonder why?
Back to Marx.
Marx's 'dialectic-materialistic philosophy' that only faintly resembled Hegel's 'rational-German-Idealism' I give Marx full-blooded his humanistic-existential credit for his philosophical work on 'alienation' -- just not what came afterwards.
I don't support -- and DGB Philosophy does not support -- Marx's idea of 'armed, violent conflict and rebellion' of the 'proletariat over the bourgeous' (the rich, the corporate owners, the Establishment, the aristocrats...)
This idea basically led to three of the worst totalitarian regimes -- masked as 'Communism' in the combined history of China and Russia. Well, maybe not China because China has had many 'totalitarian-imperialist' regimes. But regardless, the three I am talking about here are unmistakably: Lenin, Stalin, and Mao tse Tung. Very smart men -- all three of them. But ruthless, partly like Marx before them. Only much, much worse. Marx was not a 'psychopath'. Or a 'sociopath'. Lenin, Stalin, and Mao tse Tung -- all were. They used Marxian Ideology to cover their 'ruthless, unilateral-totalitarian-imperialistic intentions'.
We have come full circle.
I have a very scary doctor's appointment. I am already running late (like usual).
We leave Hegel's Hotel for today.
My Dad's birthday tomorrow -- and my girlfriend of almost ten years. It is her birthday too.
Have a good 'dialectic-democratic-humanistic-existential' day!
Live the life of a 'Superman'!
An 'Apollonian-Dionysian Superman'.
Balance your 'yin' and 'yang'!
Cheers!
-- dgb, April 1st, 2009.
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Yes and No
This 'pseudo-poem' basically builds from Fritz Perls and 'The Gestalt Prayer'...I wrote it somewhere back around 1999. -- dgb
Yes and No
I am I.
And you are you.
I am not you,
And you are not me,
This should seem obvious,
But it's not.
A bird wasn't meant to be a fish.
And a fish wasn't meant to be a bird.
This too should seem obvious,
But it's not.
It all starts with authentic choice-making,
With the choice between 'yes' and 'no'.
'Yes' to state my interest, my attraction,
My likes, my wishes, my passion...
And 'no' to state my dislikes, my boundaries...
To respect another person means to respect their interests,
Their attractions, their likes, their wishes, their passions,
And it means respecting their dislikes, their boundaries,
Not to respect a person's wishes and boundaries,
Their freedom to make an authentic choice,
Even though we may not like this personal choice,
Is not to respect the person,
The person's individual differences.
Let's all respect each other,
Respect each other's individual right,
And our own individual right,
To make our own authentic choices,
And to be accountable for wherever they take us...
From moment to moment,
Transaction to transaction,
Encounter to encounter,
To say 'yes' or 'no',
And to mean it.
-- dgb, Undated (Written approximately in 1999, slightly modified and updated on March 21st, 2009.)
Yes and No
I am I.
And you are you.
I am not you,
And you are not me,
This should seem obvious,
But it's not.
A bird wasn't meant to be a fish.
And a fish wasn't meant to be a bird.
This too should seem obvious,
But it's not.
It all starts with authentic choice-making,
With the choice between 'yes' and 'no'.
'Yes' to state my interest, my attraction,
My likes, my wishes, my passion...
And 'no' to state my dislikes, my boundaries...
To respect another person means to respect their interests,
Their attractions, their likes, their wishes, their passions,
And it means respecting their dislikes, their boundaries,
Not to respect a person's wishes and boundaries,
Their freedom to make an authentic choice,
Even though we may not like this personal choice,
Is not to respect the person,
The person's individual differences.
Let's all respect each other,
Respect each other's individual right,
And our own individual right,
To make our own authentic choices,
And to be accountable for wherever they take us...
From moment to moment,
Transaction to transaction,
Encounter to encounter,
To say 'yes' or 'no',
And to mean it.
-- dgb, Undated (Written approximately in 1999, slightly modified and updated on March 21st, 2009.)
Thursday, March 19, 2009
A DGB Perspective on The AIG Saga: The Congress Hearing on March 18/09 With Edward Liddy
I thank CNN for carrying the Congress hearing today centering around the Subcommittee Senators drilling Edward Liddy (the current CEO of AIG) regarding the 165 million dollars in 'retention bonuses' just paid out last Saturday (March 14th) to some of the biggest players in AIG (or at least the 'Financial Products' Division -- that part was not totally clear).
1. Two of The Issues
How many AIG employees received bonuses? 30? 40? 50? (I just learned from the article below that the number is 73 including 11 that have left the company.)
It would seem that many of these employees are 'high level financial traders' and not neccessarily a part of the AIG management team that brought both AIG -- and the American economy, indeed much of the world economy -- down to its collective knees.
There is an issue here that I want to tackle regarding these 'retention bonuses' but first I will ask a related question regarding a sub-issue.
What is the difference between a 'retention' bonus and a 'performance' bonus? From what I was hearing today, it seems like they are basically one and the same thing -- perhaps a 'performance' bonus hiding under a different name as a 'retention' bonus. If anyone has any greater clarity on this distinction in terms -- and whether there is really any difference in 'actual meaning' relative to these two terms -- then please fill me in. In the meantime, I will see if I can find anything on the internet in this matter.
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I love the internet for the immediacy in which I can generally find the answers to the questions I am looking for...
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AIG furor puts spotlight on retention bonuses
The payouts, used for years to keep coveted employees from leaving during periods of corporate upheaval, are frequently abused, critics say.
By Walter Hamilton
10:58 PM PDT, March 17, 2009
Reporting from New York -- The furor over American International Group Inc.'s million-dollar payouts to employees who nearly toppled the insurance giant is turning a spotlight on what critics say is frequently an abuse in the way corporate executives are paid.
AIG is shelling out $450 million in so-called retention bonuses. Such payouts have been used for years to keep coveted employees from jumping ship during periods of corporate upheaval, typically caused by a merger or bankruptcy. Compensation experts say the bonuses can serve a legitimate purpose, especially if the workers getting them are likely to lose their jobs within months.
Cuomo: 73 AIG staffers got bonuses of $1 million or more
AIG bonus flap may cost recipients
But as overall executive-pay levels have surged in recent years, executives increasingly have used retention payments to ladle out more money to themselves while walking out the door, critics say.
Executives "have been using these as a vehicle to scoop extra compensation for themselves for years," said David DeBoskey, an executive-pay expert at San Diego State University. "Retention bonuses have been used for nefarious purposes to enrich executives of organizations where their futures are uncertain. When your future becomes uncertain, you look for a quick hit and it comes in the form of a retention bonus."
Retention bonuses have been overshadowed in recent years by other forms of executive pay -- such as salaries, regular annual bonuses and stock options -- that generated far louder howls of protest.
But retention pay was thrust into the executive-compensation debate with the disclosure by AIG that it paid $165 million to employees of its financial products division.
The unit made disastrous bets on securities known as credit-default swaps that ultimately led to billions in losses and necessitated a government bailout costing $170 billion to keep a failure of the company from bringing down the global financial system.
The securities were essentially insurance contracts in which AIG guaranteed investment banks and hedge funds that it would cover losses on mortgage-related bonds, whose values plunged as the housing downturn set in.
Outrage over the bonuses intensified Tuesday as New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo revealed that 73 AIG workers got bonuses of $1 million or more, including 11 who have since left the company.
The biggest payout was $6.4 million, and the top 10 people took home $42 million, Cuomo wrote in a letter to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
Critics say it's incongruous for AIG to dish out millions to employees of a unit that lost more than $40 billion last year, especially because the unit is being gradually dissolved.
But AIG says it promised the payments to about 400 employees in early 2008 -- before the depth of the financial crisis became known.
At the time, the financial products unit "was expected to have a valuable, ongoing role at AIG," the company said in a five-page memo prepared last week for the Treasury Department about the payments.
The memo said $55 million was paid in December and $165 million went out Friday. An additional $230 million was scheduled to be paid this year.
In the memo, the company contends that it is legally obligated to honor the contracts that call for the bonuses.
But some legal experts say the government might have some options to block or reverse the bonuses.
One possibility mentioned by members of Congress would be to create a tax that would confiscate potentially all of the payouts. Such a tax would probably face scrutiny on constitutional grounds, but Beverly Hills lawyer Anthony Glassman said it could be designed to withstand such a challenge.
Glassman said the government would have difficulty persuading a court to nullify the bonus agreements. "The only way to solve this is legislatively," he said.
But AIG may have misinterpreted a state law in Connecticut, where its financial products unit is based, when it said it couldn't halt the bonus payments, Richard Blumenthal, the state's attorney general, said Tuesday.
Some lawyers say trying to reclaim the bonuses would cause more harm than good. "All commerce throughout the world is dependent on the sanctity of contracts," said James Donovan, a Los Angeles attorney. A challenge could make it hard for financial firms to recruit employees because they might fear their employment contracts would be broken, he said.
Some compensation experts say the bonus agreements were reasonable last spring when Wall Street thought it could rebound intact from the subprime debacle. At the time, the financial engineers who concocted the exotic securities were highly sought after. And arguably traders who create abstruse securities may be the best people to unwind them.
"Just like you need Bernie Madoff to help you find where all the money went, even though you'd rather throw him in jail and never talk to him again, you need the people who were involved to help undo" the securities, said Adam Zoia, founder of executive search firm Glocap in New York.
Still, critics argue, the AIG payouts underscore the excesses that have marked retention bonuses in recent years.
Even some Wall Street headhunters who negotiate the bonuses believe they became excessive.
"We're coming out of a very greedy time," said Jeanne Branthover, head of the financial-services practice at Boyden Global Executive Search in New York. "Everything got exorbitant, whether you're talking retention bonuses or [annual] bonuses or anything."
walter.hamilton@latimes.com
Times staff writers E. Scott Reckard and Ken Bensinger contributed to this report.
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2. Edward Liddy and His Band of 'High Stake Financial Traders'
I hope that CNN carries more of these types of Congress hearings or meetings -- it gives the American people (and a Canadian outsider like me) the opportunity to at least partly or vicariously participate in how their goverment is being run, how Congress is run, and some names and faces that start to become 'individuated' as opposed to simply negatively stereotyped as a Republican or a Democrat Senator.
And in this respect, it is just as important not to negatively stereotype all the individual members of AIG -- like Edward Liddy who apparently came out of retirement as a past CEO of Allstate Insurance on the government's request working for $1 in 2009 if I heard that right which I think I did (assuming no 'backroom retention or performance bonuses' which he probably deserves under either name if he pulls off some kind of financial miracle here and gets the AIG ship sailing again in deep, hurricane-driven, precarious waters...).
I heard today that AIG stock value went up some 40 cents a share which is nothing to sneeze at if it sticks.
And I heard today -- assuming Liddy's numbers are accurate (I think these numbers should be given and verified/cross-checked/cross validated to the best estimate possible on paper to the Congress Committee and through news outlets to the American people -- that some serious gains have been made in reducing AIG's overall debt load.
It is very easy to negatively stereotype people -- we see it all the time in every realm of every culture, with probably most people if not all people -- I have probably been guilty of this 'faux pas in reasoning' myself in different essays I have written (overgeneralizing, over-associating, painting everybody in a group of people with the same brush) -- and in this regard we must be careful not to paint every employee of AIG with the same brush, nor to use another old cliche, 'lose the baby with the bathwater'. I think that both Congress and the American people -- as outraged as they may be (and I am partly still too although less so since I watched and listened to this hearing today) -- want to keep the best 'AIG' employees, the best AIG performers (and even failing or failed companies still have good employees), and not lose them in a 'Congress witchunt' and/or a 'massive retaliatory (overcompensating) purging' of AIG employees with 'bonuses' attached to their forehead like 'bullseyes'.
Don't get me wrong. I want to get to 'main culprits of this AIG financial meltdown' just as badly as everone else does. The previous CEO who was the leader of AIG through this collapse of AIG has already been fired, released or whatever (probably with a multi-million dollar farewell package although I don't know that). Let's not pin the mistakes -- and/or narcissistic greed of this previous CEO -- with the current one, Edward Liddy, who walked out of his stress-free retirement and into this AIG quicksand. For nothing. (Correction: for $1.)
From what I can see and hear so far -- admittedly as a layperson trying to 'continue to evolve myself, learn some portion of highly complex American economics and politics', figure out what is and has been going on here -- I say, at this time, let's not lose Edward Liddy. It is possible that he may be on his way towards doing a good job. Let's check the numbers he gave Congress today and see if they can be cross-checked for their accuracy.
As long as Liddy wasn't giving Congress a barrel full of 'AIG bullcrap' -- which I don't think he has any motivation for doing so, since he didn't cause the mess that got the AIG and the American people here aside from maybe this last bonus payout on the weekend -- anyway, if he says he needs a particular 'band of high stakes, high expertise, high performing financial traders' who each are intimately knowledgeable and connected with 20-25 highly volatile and huge money contracts, and that these contracts are being 'wound down' improving the overall value of AIG by multi-millions, or even billions, of dollars in a relatively short period of time (even if the company as a whole still owes billions or even a couple of trillion dollars, and that may only be the 'Financial Product' division if what I heard today was right) --then let him keep the employees that he thinks he needs, and be accountable for their performance in 2009.
In this respect, Liddy -- in dialogue (or dialectic exchange) with The Federal Reserve, and with Congress (any more than this, and that could pose a problem also: i.e, 'too many cooks can spoil the broth' and make the proper decision-making by Liddy virtually impossible) -- needs to recognize and distinguish between which employees (and particularly which 'high end financial traders') are 'significantly lessening the AIG debt now as Liddy says is happening vs. those employees, traders, and/or managers who helped to create the AIG 'toxic waste' of billions or trillions of dollars that brought AIG in front of the Congress today. And who were these 'retention bonuses' going out to last Saturday: 'good' or 'bad' performers. (Which obviously blurs the line between a 'retention' bonus and a 'performance' bonus' but Liddy obviously needs to properly know which employees he most needs to keep -- even if it cost millions of dollars as long as these 'traders' trade much more than their own value -- 'in upping the company's value'; not 'further reducing it'.)
If you are a Congress Senator in Washington, a basketball fan, and you care about the future performance of The Washington Wizards, you are not going to want to see Antawn Jamison or Caron Butler, or Gilbert Arenas (even though he's been hurt all year which probably has a lot to do with why your team has been so bad this year) walk out the door -- and get no value in return -- because you fail to honour his contract, whether it is a regular salary contract, an agreed upon performance bonus, and/or a 'retention' bonus to keep him from walking away (if he is a free agent) from a 'currently failing team'.
This assumes that your salary and/or bonus payment numbers are in the same ballpark as what other teams pay their star players, taking into account salary cap, budget, the financial status of the Washington Wizards, and so on. If the Washington Wizards were being 'financially propped up' by the city, the State, and/or the Federal Government -- you would have to expect that the basketball team would still be expected to pay their star players what they need to pay them in order to keep them.
The rest are perhaps more easily replaceable and can walk if they want although you would probably want to protect your good, young, and still developing players as well. To use two other cliches, you don't want to 'cut off your nose to spite your face' or 'shoot yourself in the foot'. You don't want to demand 165 million back if it means jeopardizing your chance at getting 80 billion back -- or worse, have the financial catastrophe that everone was/is fearing the most, including Liddy, actually happen -- i.e., AIG goes into receivership, multi-billions or even a few trillions of dollars are lost, and all the banks that were leaning on AIG to hedge their bets on their sub-prime mortgage contracts that should have never been put out there in the first place (now the persons who initiated these 'sub-prime contracts' resulting in 'credit-default contracts and swapping' -- these are the persons who should really be called up onto the Washington carpet (or maybe even certain politicians in Washinton during the Bush Administration had something to do with the initiation of these sub-prime mortgages and brutal interest rates later in the contract).
The 'BIG Players' here are the 'real bad guys' -- not the traders who 'traded' these contracts later. They were probably only doing what they were told to do in already disasterous situation. Who are you going to blame -- the President or Dictator of a country who tells a general to tell a seargent to tell a pilot to drop a Nuclear bomb -- or anyone under the President's or Dictator's authority who is under the threat of treason, court martial, or gross insubordination if they fail to do what they are ordered to do? The person giving the orders? Or the person taking them? Most of us saw 'A Few Good Men' I think.
I wouldn't have argued this way before the Congress Hearing today. But Liddy at least partly, if not totally, sold me on why he did what he did -- meaning pay out all that bonus money in order to keep some players who if they leave might cause the collapse of what is left of the AIG empire.
AIG -- Arrogance, Incompetence, Greed -- I liked that one.
I also liked Republican Senator Ackerman's comments. We will get to his comments near the end.
In general, I liked Lilly and his answers. A man put into a spot -- accepting a more or less 'thank less' job by the American government that he wasn't even getting paid to do with physical threats to both himself and to his employees -- almost as bad as the one Obama himself walked into. A man being asked to oversee and get rid of a debt load that seems to be in the trillions of dollars -- didn't I hear Liddy say that the 'Financial Products' division itself had a debtload of 2 point something trillion dollars which had been brought down to 1 point something trillion dollars?
In my books, he sounded and must have felt something like what I imagine General Dwight Eisenhower felt like before the Battle of Normandy -- knowing that he was going to probably lose a lot of soldiers in the battle but knowing that winning or losing this battle could quite possibly determine the final outcome of World War 11, which it did.
In Lilly's case, he knew that he was gambling with 165 million dollars of the American taxpayers' money, and that there would probably be a huge outcry of rage at more corporate bonuses going out to high stake AIG players but knowing also that if he refused to honor these bonus contracts (which were created before AIG went seriously in the tank, and before Lilly came on board at AIG), he risked these same high stake players (traders) walking out the door on him in the most volatile and precarious of his Operational Divisions -- The Financial Products Division -- the one that owed 2 point something trillion dollars, had been brought down to 1 point something trillion dollars, and which could still topple the AIG empire, and with it many American banks dependent on AIG staying alive, meaning crashing the American economy far worse than Americans have seen so for to this date, perhaps it has not already reached this point further exasperating or creating the greatest financial collapse and disaster in American history.
So Lilly gave the bonuses out on Saturday March 14th, probably trying to minimize the presence and negative impact of the American media, which didn't work -- everyone found out on Monday -- and the rest has been a huge outcry of American rage leading up to Lilly's 'defense' in front of the American Congress Financial Committee and the American people. A man perhaps in a 'no-win' position. Caught between a 'rock and a hard place'. American rage or American Financial Disaster.
He picked to 'eat' American rage.
I see at least two lessons here about:
A. 'Distinction'; and B. 'Context'.
Let's look at these two inter-related principles separately:
A. Distinction:
Dont blame high stake financial traders for the mistakes of the people above them -- the managers and owners who 'set the rules' and 'created the parameters' under which the traders agreeably or disagreeably had to/have to work.
They deserve to get paid what they are worth. If they have already 'unwound' multi-millions or even billions of dollars of AIG and American debt, then they deserve to be paid 'a fraction of this amount', even if this runs into the millions of dollars under whatever name you want to call the bonus -- 'performance bonus' and/or 'retention bonus'.
The importance here is to connect these bonuses to 'current individual performance' (2008); not to blame individuals who had no responsibility or accountability for the creation of the 'toxic contracts' in the first place, and based independently not on AIG overall collapse -- unless they were partly responsible for it -- but rather on how well each individual involved here did in 2008 to 'undo in his own realm of control -- meaning the 20 to 25 highly volatile contracts that each of these traders controls' -- irrespective of the overall collapse of AIG that may or may not have had anything to do with each trader's individual performance.
To go back to a basketball example: How do we know that there is not a 'Lebron James' or a 'Kobie Bryant' or a 'Dwayne Wade' amongst these high-stake traders? You can't rightfully blame a basketball player for the mistakes of his coach or GM or owner -- unless you are trying to 'scapegoat' any and/or every player on the team who may have had an excellent season -- or not -- in the context of a 'bad team' situation.
I saw some 'good individual performances' amongst the Senators yesterday -- even in the larger context of an American Government -- even under the Obama administration -- that has 'screwed up'. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times -- I am a part of the problem, and I need to give my 'head a shake'. Shame on the Obama Administration. They've had at least two chances now to legislate greater 'transparency' and 'accountability' amongst companies who are receiving 'American bailout money'. They have failed twice now. They need to get it right this time. And that doesn't mean overcompensating in the wrong direction.
B. Context
In almost every situation, every encounter, every process, every relationship, indeed, even every word, context matters -- hugely.
We are so quick to rush to judgment -- before we have all the facts together in their proper place. We see an 'individual part' -- we don't see the context of 'the whole'. We assume that the 'individual part' is equivalent to the 'context of the whole'. It is not. Good -- even excellent -- individual performances can happen in the context of a 'very bad team situation with bad leadership'. We must not paint everyone on a 'bad team' with the same paintbrush. If the American government on the backs of the American people are paying bailout money to AIG, then the 'good to excellent players' on this 'bad team' need to be paid properly -- even if it is with part of the money that is being given to them to keep the company afloat. Otherwise, they are likely going to lose their 'best individual performers' -- and the ship is likely to go nowhere except further down into the deepest depths of the ocean. Am I beating a dead horse here?
That is why we have courts of law with hopefully good judges and/or juries -- to determine the extent of individual responsiblity, accountability, and blame -- in the context of 'the facts of the greater whole'.
'Sound bites' and 'visual bites' can be extremely dangerous. Causing us to jump to fast -- and bad conclusions. Bad judgments.
If Lilly is good to great at what he does -- which I think he quite possibly is -- then let us all give him enough room to 'function properly' and 'fix the AIG ship'.
Change the 'name', the 'structure', and/or the 'nature' of these 'retention contract bonuses.' But let's not let the existence and functioning of possibly excellent individual performers walk away from a 'before Lilly-dysfunctional ship'. Let's better know who the good and bad performers were/are in 'the AIG ship gone bad'. And if the AIG ship is 'correcting itself and starting to float again in 2009' -- let's not 'hammer more holes in the ship' and watch it go plunging back, or deeper, into the darkest depths of the ocean.
Let Lilly perform. He's being 'not paid' to make the kinds of decisions that none of us (or very few of us, and I certainly do not include myself here) would have the wish nor the ability to make. Worse people are still walking around 'free and rich' here than some of the AIG people here who are possibly being scapegoated. And I know one person for sure who is still sitting in jail for a crime much less than these (I'm thinking of Conrad Black): 1. sub-prime mortgage contracts with huge escalating interest rates; and 2. insurance for 'hedge bets' or 'credit default contracts' that that the insurance company doesn't have the money to insure if they are 'called on these bets'. That's like buying stocks from a stock broker who keeps your money -- and doesn't buy your stocks. Can you think of anyone who before the American courts for doing this?
Republican Senator Ackerman did a great job of spelling out this basic type of fraud in simple layperson's language. CNN helped too with their demonstration of how 'hedge contracts' or 'credit-default contract insurance' works.
I have a name for it -- and I see this kind of 'phenomeon' all the time in the business world I walk around in.
Call it -- 'No Value For Value Capitalism'.
I learned about 'No Value Capitalism' and 'Credit Defaulf Swapping' when I was back in high school. Informally. With no name attached to it. Away from school.
Some of my friends at the time started engaging in some regular 'penny poker games'. (Some of the guys took their stakes higher but my tightest group of friends wanted to keep the stakes low to keep the games friendly. Probably a good idea but we still had some problems. Of 4 or 5 of us, one of the group members started to lose more often than not -- and worse -- he stopped paying what he owed.
Instead, our losing poker player started to put his debts on 'credit'. Well, it didn't take long for 'Perry Credit' to start to build up as a 'pseudo-asset' for each and every one of the other poker players. So we started engaging in 'The Credet-Default Swapping Program'. (Again, we didn't have a name for it back then other than 'Perry Credit'.)
So all of us started 'swapping our Perry Credit'. Of course, it didn't take us very long to realize that this 'Perry Credit' was basically 'worthless'. As in 'No Value'. Thus, in effect we were learning the essence of 'No Value' Capitalism. Or 'No Value For Value' Capitalism.
As Republican Senator Ackerman would state -- indeed, did state -- at the Congress Hearing on March 18/09 -- we (my poker friends) and they (AIG) were basically exchanging 'snake oil' -- without even the snake oil inside the bottle. We (they) were exchanging 'worthless' or 'toxic' credit..
Who would want to buy it? Unless the person on the other end of the 'credit swap' didn't know what he or she was getting, who would want credit that was 'worthless' or 'toxic'?
Now I don't know how this part worked at AIG -- I know how it worked at our poker games. We had to finally get rid of 'Perry' and start our games from scratch again. One lost friend.
So again, I don't know how this next part at AIG worked. I can surmise at least partly what happened from what Senator Ackerman was saying. And we all know that it was not entirely the individual house owners who started to 'default' on their 'mortgage contracts' who were not entirely the source of the problem here.
There was an American economy that was getting worse -- even before these toxic-default-mortgage-contracts started to come back in the bankers' faces. Blame this mainly on the war in Iraq -- which the Bush Admininistration was putting on 'credit'. 'Charge the cost of the Iraq War to the American People when I'm gone' was basically the philosophy that the Bush Administration was practising. And that probably includes all the Senators who were at the Liddy hearing on Wed. March 18th/09. In effect, one could almost say that the pre-Obama American Government was selling 'snake oil' to the American people. 'A war that costs nothing!' Or so that was the illusion. That was the 'snake oil'. The snake oil was 'cobra venom' and it was building up in the bottle...and starting to 'overflow out the top of the bottle'. The cobra venom was starting to 'poison' the American people.
Plus there was another problem going on here. Some person somewhere -- either a politician in Washington in government, or a banker or mortgage seller on Wall Street got this 'brilliant' idea. Catch my sarcasism here, please. The idea may go down as the worst idea in American history.
Let's say it was a politician in Washington. The idea went something like this: 'Hey, let's get more people -- more middle class, or even lower middle class, people into their own homes!' Maybe this started out as an 'altruistic idea' -- somebody in Washington trying to help more people 'achieve the American Dream'.
However -- excuse my cynicism here but somehow I entirely doubt this. We are talking 'Capitalism' here -- 'Narcissistic Capitalism'. I don't want to overgeneralize here. I know there are some politicians in Washington -- probably more Democrats than Republicans by the nature of their 'polar' respective 'ideologies' but I think the Republicans are starting to get the message from the results of the last election -- who may have the good of 'Main St. America' at heart but I think the 'birth of sub-prime mortgage contracts' was based on human greed, not human altruism.
Everyone in Washington, everyone in The Republican Party (maybe not Sarah Palin...leave her alone, David, the election is over...), everybody on Wall Street knows probably Adam Smith's most famous line:
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. -- Adam Smith
The birth of the idea probably went something like this: 'Hey, I know a way we can make more money. We artifically create a 'low interest rate' for motivate more middle class, or even lower middle class, American citizens to buy houses. Then we start jacking up the interest rate on these contracts once the new home owners are a year or two into their contract -- and this is how we will more than make up for 'the cheap start up fee in the form of these sub-prime interest rates'.
In effect, this 'banker's logic' is no different than enticing a person to get a credit card by advertising a 'low start up interest fee' -- and then 'jacking up the interest rate' once the new credit card owner has had his credit card for a given period of time -- let's say a year. The 'seductive bonus' for consumers is at the beginning of the contract; the 'poisonous snake oil' for consumers which -- if it works -- is much more beneficial for bankers later in the contract. The snake oil if it is the 'right toxicity' level must be strong enough to partly paralyze, partly hypnotize, the consumer but still not so strong as to completely paralyze the consumer and make him or her incapable or unwilling to pay the 'UnGodly, Satanic Interest Rates' that have been 'jacked upwards' to 'squeeze more money out of him and/or her'.
Well, the first and 'weakest' homeowners of these 'Satanic Mortgage Deals' started to 'lose consciousness because of an overtoxic cobra poison'. Other homeowners in these same types of deals -- thousands of others -- soon started succumbing to the overtoxic poision as well. Houses started going into 'foreclosure' everywhere.
Thousands and thousand of homeowners involved in these Satanic Deals had to give up their new houses -- and hit the street. Combine this with the war in Iraq -- that was being financed on credit -- and the American economy started to spiral downward like a ship or airplane in The Bermuda Triangle. The 'triangle was 1. Washington; 2. Wall Street; and 3. Main Street.
And AIG was right in the middle of The Bermuda (America) Triangle -- indeed, it was probably one of the main creators of The Bermuda (America) Triangle. Or to use another example, it started out as one of the main 'spiders' but then became a 'spider caught in its own spider web' -- its own self-created Bermuda-American Triangle. 'What goes around comes around' -- some very astute person said and/or wrote that...I can't find the origin of this maxim (because it is dominated on the internet by a Justin Timberlake song of this name)...However, the concept of 'cosmic justice' is poetically established in the oldest piece of written philosophy in Western (and Greek) history...
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The second oldest philosopher -- Anaxamander, 610-546 BC -- in the history of Western philosophy was also the first philosopher to basically assert the maxim 'What goes around, comes around.' but not in these words. Axamander was a very wise and 'street smart' philosopher who knew an awful lot about 'the interaction between life, human behavior, opposites -- and the evolution and destruction of power'. I refer to Axaxamander as the first 'dialectic philosopher' because he talked and wrote about the 'interaction and the struggle for power between opposite factions in life'...
'Anaxamander's Fragment' -- probably the oldest piece of written philosophy in Western history -- has something obscure, but still very interpretively meaningful, indeed fascinating, to say about the idea of 'Cosmic Justice'.
I found this relatively new piece below on the internet by an unidentified writer/philosophy student working on (or maybe now finished) a PHD thesis relative to the philosophy of Derrida in relation to the earlier work of Heidegger -- and the aforementioned Anaxamander. The piece was written on April 1, 2008, is called 'Contaminations' and can be found by googling...The Anaxamander Fragment, Contaminations...
(As a probably superfolous side-note, when I first started writing about 'Anaxamander's Fragment' on Nov. 8th, 2007, there was very little information on the internet about it -- just a few tidbits. Now, you can google...Anaxamander's Fragment, find my various essays on it...and also hundreds, literally hundreds of other philosophical commentaries on it...Either I was blind back in 2007 -- in fairness some pieces were written before mine, most probably afterwards, except for those commentaries that were written by the main philosophers...Nietzsche, Russell, Heidegger, Derrida..., and some pieces are simply undated. (I hate that. If you are working on the internet, date your pieces, people, date your pieces. Or work on a website, blogsite, and/or twitter that dates your pieces for you.). Regardless -- what this says mainly, I think, is that there continues to be a literal evolutionary explosion of information/knowledge on the internet of uncalcuable proportions because students and grass roots citizens everywhere, can and do, put their thoughts on the internet now instead of in private journals and papers.
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The Anaximander Fragment
The Anaximander Fragment is perhaps the oldest fragment of philosophical thought that has passed down, through the ages, to us. It’s a short sentence, preserved by Theophrastus and Aristotle. It speaks about the beginning and end of things, of payment, justice, the order of time. Frankly, as with the other fragments of the preSocratics, it’s pretty obscure.
Heidegger translates it thus:
“But that from which things arise also gives rise to their passing away, according to what is necessary; for things render justice and pay penalty to one another for their injustice, according to the ordinance of time.”
Early Greek Thinking, p.20
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Here is the original Anaxamander Fragment as it is usually translated...and as I have previously translated in several of my essays.
Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
As is the order of things;
For they execute the sentence upon one another
- The condemnation for the crime -
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.
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What goes around, comes around. The same 'toxic poison' that has been sweeping the nation, spreading through America and poisoning individual workers, families, house owners, senior citizens...has come back to poision its original source -- Wall Street Banks, Traders, -- and AIG.
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what goes around, comes around
The status eventually returns to its original value after completing some sort of cycle.
A person's actions, whether good or bad, will often have consequences for that person.
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To use another well-used maxim, one might say that AIG 'reaped what they sewed'...
Or to risk antagonism myself, and quote another rightly and/or wrongly villanized 'American anti-thesis antagonist' in recent American history, one might say that,
'AIG's chickens have come home to roost!'
But perhaps what enrages the American people most is that the people who originally started the spread of this toxic poison leading to 'worthless and/or toxic credit default mortgage contracts' have not only not been 'caught' and/or 'punished' but indeed, may still be getting rich from their toxic ideas and actions...
Or are they?
This is what the American public absolutely needs to know. I would not want to say I work at AIG right now. (There are 'lynch mobs' metaphorically and/or literally waiting outside their doors.)
This is why -- before and/or at the same time as -- any lists are released to the American public of 'bonus collectors at AIG', cooler heads need to prevail. Imperative distinctions need to be made between:
1. (Arrogance, Greed, and Evil): Executive owners and/or decision makers who created the original 'toxic mortgage contract poison' -- and who may or may not still be collecting bonuses at AIG. If they are, then tax these executives out of their bonuses;
2. (Incompetence): High end managment exeutives and/or 'financial traders' who have simply done a terrible job in 2008 -- and are not worthy of these 'retention bonuses' -- especially when they are being propped up and financed by the American people;
3. (Competence, Excellence...): New executive managers who may be of 'superior stock' to the 'old, hopefully evicted team', and/or high-end financial traders who may actually have saved AIG millions of dollars in previous debt by 'getting rid of bad, toxic contracts (don't ask me who would buy them or whether it's even ethical to sell them -- are these 'traders' trading 'toxic poison' to other companies and/or other parts of the world or to The American people?). But let us just assume for a minute here, that there may be some AIG bonus collectors out there that may have actually 'earned' their bonues;
4. There is some legitimacy to the logic that 'the sacredness of all legal contracts should be honoured and adhered to' or else all contracts may lose their sacredness, no longer be honoured, and become essentially 'Perry Credit' (in my high school terminology) or a part of this toxic wasteland of bad, default contracts that are bringing down the nation...
Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy, for the most part (not entirely because I can get very angry too -- and can and do write angry essays), is put together in all its individual essays to cool angry, overcompensating heads -- fast and inappropriate judgments based on not enough familiarity with the 'full context of the situation related to the whole'.
Thesis. Anti-thesis. Synthesis.
Hegel's 'dialectic logic' modified, updated, renewed, reinvigorated, and 'humanistically-existentialized' for the 21st century.
That may sound academic and shallow in the context of plunging fortunes and devastated families.
But let us not forget how 9/11 and the chase for Bin Laden in Afghanastan --'evolved' -- into the invasion of Iraq -- which also has a lot to deal with the devastated American economy.
That too -- was overcompensation based on, and/or leading to, 'bad associating', 'bad generalizing', and 'bad causal interpretations'.
By Congress -- Republican and Democrat Senators -- alike.
And by the past President of The United States of America -- and his team of executive advisors.
The Invasion on Iraq was based on a collosal, unilateral, unsanctioned United Nations, American mistake.
Which is why America has no ruling Repubican Party right now.
And which is why America has the immensely charismatic, 'Apollonian God of all speech givers' -- President Obama.
But charisma and amazing speeches will only get a man or woman so far.
The rest requires 'effective action'.
Now President Obama is on 'the hotseat'.
Now it's President Obama's turn to turn words into action and -- 'get it right'.
Even if the 'pragmatically important and effective is not the perfect'.
Most importantly -- for the sake of the credibility and the integrity of the present American government and the present Congress -- it is imperative to make sure that 'government actions' are congruent with 'government words'.
Words like 'accountability' and 'transparency' are a 'dime a dozen' amongst American and Canadian politicians.
It doesn't take much effort to 'talk the talk' -- although that obviously should be the starting point for effective government action.
Still, especially after the Bush Administration, The American Government -- both Congress and Obama's Executive Team -- need to gain, regain, and/or keep the working trust of the American people.
Somebody pulls a fast one on you...and...
'Once shame on you. Twice shame on me. Three times -- and I'm a significant part of the problem.'
Either legislate these 'retention bonus contracts' out of existence,
Tax them to death,
Or call them what they perhaps should be called in order to avoid semantic confusion and the potential for the greed and abuse of a high end employee and/or executive 'getting two differently named bonus cheques that should probably be labelled as one and the same thing: 'Individual Performance-Retention Bonus Contracts'.
Then there can be no confusion with Congress, the White House, and the American people.
These bonus contracts -- especially to employees in 'bailed out companies' -- should be transparent and subject to 'Reason and Justification Relative to Ethical, Value for Value Capitalism'. They should be related to keeping high performing top end employees that a successful multi-billion dollar business needs to keep in order to either keep performing well and/or to 'upright a shipwreck, and make the ship sail again'.
Make these contracts 'value for value'. Not 'value for nothing' or 'value for incompetent performance'. And not 'value for looting, shipwrecking, and abandoning a previously seaworthy ship'. No 'conflict of interest' bonus contracts where the same people making the contracts receive the contracts -- 'greater and greater unbridled goodies'.
In contrast, if there are still 'high end financial traders' who aboard the AIG ship who reduce AIG's debtload by 'millions and millions of dollars'...
These 'super-performers' who may be helping to pull a multi-billion dollar indebted company out of the brink of bankruptcy may still deserve 'super financial compensation'. A particular percentage of the money -- and 'value' -- they have
added to AIG's improved performance in their particular area of work. (Assuming they weren't a part of the management team that created the problem in the first place.)
I like the one Senator's suggestion -- 'double or nothing for the bonus collectors'.
Even Liddy had to smile at that one.
And if Liddy succeeds...at getting AIG out of this 'hell-hole'.
Then he deserves the 'biggest individual performance-retention bonus' of them all.
I shake my head. The guy came out of retirement for $1 -- for this.
Let us move on.
-- dgb, March 18th-20th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
Are still in process...
1. Two of The Issues
How many AIG employees received bonuses? 30? 40? 50? (I just learned from the article below that the number is 73 including 11 that have left the company.)
It would seem that many of these employees are 'high level financial traders' and not neccessarily a part of the AIG management team that brought both AIG -- and the American economy, indeed much of the world economy -- down to its collective knees.
There is an issue here that I want to tackle regarding these 'retention bonuses' but first I will ask a related question regarding a sub-issue.
What is the difference between a 'retention' bonus and a 'performance' bonus? From what I was hearing today, it seems like they are basically one and the same thing -- perhaps a 'performance' bonus hiding under a different name as a 'retention' bonus. If anyone has any greater clarity on this distinction in terms -- and whether there is really any difference in 'actual meaning' relative to these two terms -- then please fill me in. In the meantime, I will see if I can find anything on the internet in this matter.
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I love the internet for the immediacy in which I can generally find the answers to the questions I am looking for...
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AIG furor puts spotlight on retention bonuses
The payouts, used for years to keep coveted employees from leaving during periods of corporate upheaval, are frequently abused, critics say.
By Walter Hamilton
10:58 PM PDT, March 17, 2009
Reporting from New York -- The furor over American International Group Inc.'s million-dollar payouts to employees who nearly toppled the insurance giant is turning a spotlight on what critics say is frequently an abuse in the way corporate executives are paid.
AIG is shelling out $450 million in so-called retention bonuses. Such payouts have been used for years to keep coveted employees from jumping ship during periods of corporate upheaval, typically caused by a merger or bankruptcy. Compensation experts say the bonuses can serve a legitimate purpose, especially if the workers getting them are likely to lose their jobs within months.
Cuomo: 73 AIG staffers got bonuses of $1 million or more
AIG bonus flap may cost recipients
But as overall executive-pay levels have surged in recent years, executives increasingly have used retention payments to ladle out more money to themselves while walking out the door, critics say.
Executives "have been using these as a vehicle to scoop extra compensation for themselves for years," said David DeBoskey, an executive-pay expert at San Diego State University. "Retention bonuses have been used for nefarious purposes to enrich executives of organizations where their futures are uncertain. When your future becomes uncertain, you look for a quick hit and it comes in the form of a retention bonus."
Retention bonuses have been overshadowed in recent years by other forms of executive pay -- such as salaries, regular annual bonuses and stock options -- that generated far louder howls of protest.
But retention pay was thrust into the executive-compensation debate with the disclosure by AIG that it paid $165 million to employees of its financial products division.
The unit made disastrous bets on securities known as credit-default swaps that ultimately led to billions in losses and necessitated a government bailout costing $170 billion to keep a failure of the company from bringing down the global financial system.
The securities were essentially insurance contracts in which AIG guaranteed investment banks and hedge funds that it would cover losses on mortgage-related bonds, whose values plunged as the housing downturn set in.
Outrage over the bonuses intensified Tuesday as New York Atty. Gen. Andrew Cuomo revealed that 73 AIG workers got bonuses of $1 million or more, including 11 who have since left the company.
The biggest payout was $6.4 million, and the top 10 people took home $42 million, Cuomo wrote in a letter to Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Financial Services Committee.
Critics say it's incongruous for AIG to dish out millions to employees of a unit that lost more than $40 billion last year, especially because the unit is being gradually dissolved.
But AIG says it promised the payments to about 400 employees in early 2008 -- before the depth of the financial crisis became known.
At the time, the financial products unit "was expected to have a valuable, ongoing role at AIG," the company said in a five-page memo prepared last week for the Treasury Department about the payments.
The memo said $55 million was paid in December and $165 million went out Friday. An additional $230 million was scheduled to be paid this year.
In the memo, the company contends that it is legally obligated to honor the contracts that call for the bonuses.
But some legal experts say the government might have some options to block or reverse the bonuses.
One possibility mentioned by members of Congress would be to create a tax that would confiscate potentially all of the payouts. Such a tax would probably face scrutiny on constitutional grounds, but Beverly Hills lawyer Anthony Glassman said it could be designed to withstand such a challenge.
Glassman said the government would have difficulty persuading a court to nullify the bonus agreements. "The only way to solve this is legislatively," he said.
But AIG may have misinterpreted a state law in Connecticut, where its financial products unit is based, when it said it couldn't halt the bonus payments, Richard Blumenthal, the state's attorney general, said Tuesday.
Some lawyers say trying to reclaim the bonuses would cause more harm than good. "All commerce throughout the world is dependent on the sanctity of contracts," said James Donovan, a Los Angeles attorney. A challenge could make it hard for financial firms to recruit employees because they might fear their employment contracts would be broken, he said.
Some compensation experts say the bonus agreements were reasonable last spring when Wall Street thought it could rebound intact from the subprime debacle. At the time, the financial engineers who concocted the exotic securities were highly sought after. And arguably traders who create abstruse securities may be the best people to unwind them.
"Just like you need Bernie Madoff to help you find where all the money went, even though you'd rather throw him in jail and never talk to him again, you need the people who were involved to help undo" the securities, said Adam Zoia, founder of executive search firm Glocap in New York.
Still, critics argue, the AIG payouts underscore the excesses that have marked retention bonuses in recent years.
Even some Wall Street headhunters who negotiate the bonuses believe they became excessive.
"We're coming out of a very greedy time," said Jeanne Branthover, head of the financial-services practice at Boyden Global Executive Search in New York. "Everything got exorbitant, whether you're talking retention bonuses or [annual] bonuses or anything."
walter.hamilton@latimes.com
Times staff writers E. Scott Reckard and Ken Bensinger contributed to this report.
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2. Edward Liddy and His Band of 'High Stake Financial Traders'
I hope that CNN carries more of these types of Congress hearings or meetings -- it gives the American people (and a Canadian outsider like me) the opportunity to at least partly or vicariously participate in how their goverment is being run, how Congress is run, and some names and faces that start to become 'individuated' as opposed to simply negatively stereotyped as a Republican or a Democrat Senator.
And in this respect, it is just as important not to negatively stereotype all the individual members of AIG -- like Edward Liddy who apparently came out of retirement as a past CEO of Allstate Insurance on the government's request working for $1 in 2009 if I heard that right which I think I did (assuming no 'backroom retention or performance bonuses' which he probably deserves under either name if he pulls off some kind of financial miracle here and gets the AIG ship sailing again in deep, hurricane-driven, precarious waters...).
I heard today that AIG stock value went up some 40 cents a share which is nothing to sneeze at if it sticks.
And I heard today -- assuming Liddy's numbers are accurate (I think these numbers should be given and verified/cross-checked/cross validated to the best estimate possible on paper to the Congress Committee and through news outlets to the American people -- that some serious gains have been made in reducing AIG's overall debt load.
It is very easy to negatively stereotype people -- we see it all the time in every realm of every culture, with probably most people if not all people -- I have probably been guilty of this 'faux pas in reasoning' myself in different essays I have written (overgeneralizing, over-associating, painting everybody in a group of people with the same brush) -- and in this regard we must be careful not to paint every employee of AIG with the same brush, nor to use another old cliche, 'lose the baby with the bathwater'. I think that both Congress and the American people -- as outraged as they may be (and I am partly still too although less so since I watched and listened to this hearing today) -- want to keep the best 'AIG' employees, the best AIG performers (and even failing or failed companies still have good employees), and not lose them in a 'Congress witchunt' and/or a 'massive retaliatory (overcompensating) purging' of AIG employees with 'bonuses' attached to their forehead like 'bullseyes'.
Don't get me wrong. I want to get to 'main culprits of this AIG financial meltdown' just as badly as everone else does. The previous CEO who was the leader of AIG through this collapse of AIG has already been fired, released or whatever (probably with a multi-million dollar farewell package although I don't know that). Let's not pin the mistakes -- and/or narcissistic greed of this previous CEO -- with the current one, Edward Liddy, who walked out of his stress-free retirement and into this AIG quicksand. For nothing. (Correction: for $1.)
From what I can see and hear so far -- admittedly as a layperson trying to 'continue to evolve myself, learn some portion of highly complex American economics and politics', figure out what is and has been going on here -- I say, at this time, let's not lose Edward Liddy. It is possible that he may be on his way towards doing a good job. Let's check the numbers he gave Congress today and see if they can be cross-checked for their accuracy.
As long as Liddy wasn't giving Congress a barrel full of 'AIG bullcrap' -- which I don't think he has any motivation for doing so, since he didn't cause the mess that got the AIG and the American people here aside from maybe this last bonus payout on the weekend -- anyway, if he says he needs a particular 'band of high stakes, high expertise, high performing financial traders' who each are intimately knowledgeable and connected with 20-25 highly volatile and huge money contracts, and that these contracts are being 'wound down' improving the overall value of AIG by multi-millions, or even billions, of dollars in a relatively short period of time (even if the company as a whole still owes billions or even a couple of trillion dollars, and that may only be the 'Financial Product' division if what I heard today was right) --then let him keep the employees that he thinks he needs, and be accountable for their performance in 2009.
In this respect, Liddy -- in dialogue (or dialectic exchange) with The Federal Reserve, and with Congress (any more than this, and that could pose a problem also: i.e, 'too many cooks can spoil the broth' and make the proper decision-making by Liddy virtually impossible) -- needs to recognize and distinguish between which employees (and particularly which 'high end financial traders') are 'significantly lessening the AIG debt now as Liddy says is happening vs. those employees, traders, and/or managers who helped to create the AIG 'toxic waste' of billions or trillions of dollars that brought AIG in front of the Congress today. And who were these 'retention bonuses' going out to last Saturday: 'good' or 'bad' performers. (Which obviously blurs the line between a 'retention' bonus and a 'performance' bonus' but Liddy obviously needs to properly know which employees he most needs to keep -- even if it cost millions of dollars as long as these 'traders' trade much more than their own value -- 'in upping the company's value'; not 'further reducing it'.)
If you are a Congress Senator in Washington, a basketball fan, and you care about the future performance of The Washington Wizards, you are not going to want to see Antawn Jamison or Caron Butler, or Gilbert Arenas (even though he's been hurt all year which probably has a lot to do with why your team has been so bad this year) walk out the door -- and get no value in return -- because you fail to honour his contract, whether it is a regular salary contract, an agreed upon performance bonus, and/or a 'retention' bonus to keep him from walking away (if he is a free agent) from a 'currently failing team'.
This assumes that your salary and/or bonus payment numbers are in the same ballpark as what other teams pay their star players, taking into account salary cap, budget, the financial status of the Washington Wizards, and so on. If the Washington Wizards were being 'financially propped up' by the city, the State, and/or the Federal Government -- you would have to expect that the basketball team would still be expected to pay their star players what they need to pay them in order to keep them.
The rest are perhaps more easily replaceable and can walk if they want although you would probably want to protect your good, young, and still developing players as well. To use two other cliches, you don't want to 'cut off your nose to spite your face' or 'shoot yourself in the foot'. You don't want to demand 165 million back if it means jeopardizing your chance at getting 80 billion back -- or worse, have the financial catastrophe that everone was/is fearing the most, including Liddy, actually happen -- i.e., AIG goes into receivership, multi-billions or even a few trillions of dollars are lost, and all the banks that were leaning on AIG to hedge their bets on their sub-prime mortgage contracts that should have never been put out there in the first place (now the persons who initiated these 'sub-prime contracts' resulting in 'credit-default contracts and swapping' -- these are the persons who should really be called up onto the Washington carpet (or maybe even certain politicians in Washinton during the Bush Administration had something to do with the initiation of these sub-prime mortgages and brutal interest rates later in the contract).
The 'BIG Players' here are the 'real bad guys' -- not the traders who 'traded' these contracts later. They were probably only doing what they were told to do in already disasterous situation. Who are you going to blame -- the President or Dictator of a country who tells a general to tell a seargent to tell a pilot to drop a Nuclear bomb -- or anyone under the President's or Dictator's authority who is under the threat of treason, court martial, or gross insubordination if they fail to do what they are ordered to do? The person giving the orders? Or the person taking them? Most of us saw 'A Few Good Men' I think.
I wouldn't have argued this way before the Congress Hearing today. But Liddy at least partly, if not totally, sold me on why he did what he did -- meaning pay out all that bonus money in order to keep some players who if they leave might cause the collapse of what is left of the AIG empire.
AIG -- Arrogance, Incompetence, Greed -- I liked that one.
I also liked Republican Senator Ackerman's comments. We will get to his comments near the end.
In general, I liked Lilly and his answers. A man put into a spot -- accepting a more or less 'thank less' job by the American government that he wasn't even getting paid to do with physical threats to both himself and to his employees -- almost as bad as the one Obama himself walked into. A man being asked to oversee and get rid of a debt load that seems to be in the trillions of dollars -- didn't I hear Liddy say that the 'Financial Products' division itself had a debtload of 2 point something trillion dollars which had been brought down to 1 point something trillion dollars?
In my books, he sounded and must have felt something like what I imagine General Dwight Eisenhower felt like before the Battle of Normandy -- knowing that he was going to probably lose a lot of soldiers in the battle but knowing that winning or losing this battle could quite possibly determine the final outcome of World War 11, which it did.
In Lilly's case, he knew that he was gambling with 165 million dollars of the American taxpayers' money, and that there would probably be a huge outcry of rage at more corporate bonuses going out to high stake AIG players but knowing also that if he refused to honor these bonus contracts (which were created before AIG went seriously in the tank, and before Lilly came on board at AIG), he risked these same high stake players (traders) walking out the door on him in the most volatile and precarious of his Operational Divisions -- The Financial Products Division -- the one that owed 2 point something trillion dollars, had been brought down to 1 point something trillion dollars, and which could still topple the AIG empire, and with it many American banks dependent on AIG staying alive, meaning crashing the American economy far worse than Americans have seen so for to this date, perhaps it has not already reached this point further exasperating or creating the greatest financial collapse and disaster in American history.
So Lilly gave the bonuses out on Saturday March 14th, probably trying to minimize the presence and negative impact of the American media, which didn't work -- everyone found out on Monday -- and the rest has been a huge outcry of American rage leading up to Lilly's 'defense' in front of the American Congress Financial Committee and the American people. A man perhaps in a 'no-win' position. Caught between a 'rock and a hard place'. American rage or American Financial Disaster.
He picked to 'eat' American rage.
I see at least two lessons here about:
A. 'Distinction'; and B. 'Context'.
Let's look at these two inter-related principles separately:
A. Distinction:
Dont blame high stake financial traders for the mistakes of the people above them -- the managers and owners who 'set the rules' and 'created the parameters' under which the traders agreeably or disagreeably had to/have to work.
They deserve to get paid what they are worth. If they have already 'unwound' multi-millions or even billions of dollars of AIG and American debt, then they deserve to be paid 'a fraction of this amount', even if this runs into the millions of dollars under whatever name you want to call the bonus -- 'performance bonus' and/or 'retention bonus'.
The importance here is to connect these bonuses to 'current individual performance' (2008); not to blame individuals who had no responsibility or accountability for the creation of the 'toxic contracts' in the first place, and based independently not on AIG overall collapse -- unless they were partly responsible for it -- but rather on how well each individual involved here did in 2008 to 'undo in his own realm of control -- meaning the 20 to 25 highly volatile contracts that each of these traders controls' -- irrespective of the overall collapse of AIG that may or may not have had anything to do with each trader's individual performance.
To go back to a basketball example: How do we know that there is not a 'Lebron James' or a 'Kobie Bryant' or a 'Dwayne Wade' amongst these high-stake traders? You can't rightfully blame a basketball player for the mistakes of his coach or GM or owner -- unless you are trying to 'scapegoat' any and/or every player on the team who may have had an excellent season -- or not -- in the context of a 'bad team' situation.
I saw some 'good individual performances' amongst the Senators yesterday -- even in the larger context of an American Government -- even under the Obama administration -- that has 'screwed up'. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me three times -- I am a part of the problem, and I need to give my 'head a shake'. Shame on the Obama Administration. They've had at least two chances now to legislate greater 'transparency' and 'accountability' amongst companies who are receiving 'American bailout money'. They have failed twice now. They need to get it right this time. And that doesn't mean overcompensating in the wrong direction.
B. Context
In almost every situation, every encounter, every process, every relationship, indeed, even every word, context matters -- hugely.
We are so quick to rush to judgment -- before we have all the facts together in their proper place. We see an 'individual part' -- we don't see the context of 'the whole'. We assume that the 'individual part' is equivalent to the 'context of the whole'. It is not. Good -- even excellent -- individual performances can happen in the context of a 'very bad team situation with bad leadership'. We must not paint everyone on a 'bad team' with the same paintbrush. If the American government on the backs of the American people are paying bailout money to AIG, then the 'good to excellent players' on this 'bad team' need to be paid properly -- even if it is with part of the money that is being given to them to keep the company afloat. Otherwise, they are likely going to lose their 'best individual performers' -- and the ship is likely to go nowhere except further down into the deepest depths of the ocean. Am I beating a dead horse here?
That is why we have courts of law with hopefully good judges and/or juries -- to determine the extent of individual responsiblity, accountability, and blame -- in the context of 'the facts of the greater whole'.
'Sound bites' and 'visual bites' can be extremely dangerous. Causing us to jump to fast -- and bad conclusions. Bad judgments.
If Lilly is good to great at what he does -- which I think he quite possibly is -- then let us all give him enough room to 'function properly' and 'fix the AIG ship'.
Change the 'name', the 'structure', and/or the 'nature' of these 'retention contract bonuses.' But let's not let the existence and functioning of possibly excellent individual performers walk away from a 'before Lilly-dysfunctional ship'. Let's better know who the good and bad performers were/are in 'the AIG ship gone bad'. And if the AIG ship is 'correcting itself and starting to float again in 2009' -- let's not 'hammer more holes in the ship' and watch it go plunging back, or deeper, into the darkest depths of the ocean.
Let Lilly perform. He's being 'not paid' to make the kinds of decisions that none of us (or very few of us, and I certainly do not include myself here) would have the wish nor the ability to make. Worse people are still walking around 'free and rich' here than some of the AIG people here who are possibly being scapegoated. And I know one person for sure who is still sitting in jail for a crime much less than these (I'm thinking of Conrad Black): 1. sub-prime mortgage contracts with huge escalating interest rates; and 2. insurance for 'hedge bets' or 'credit default contracts' that that the insurance company doesn't have the money to insure if they are 'called on these bets'. That's like buying stocks from a stock broker who keeps your money -- and doesn't buy your stocks. Can you think of anyone who before the American courts for doing this?
Republican Senator Ackerman did a great job of spelling out this basic type of fraud in simple layperson's language. CNN helped too with their demonstration of how 'hedge contracts' or 'credit-default contract insurance' works.
I have a name for it -- and I see this kind of 'phenomeon' all the time in the business world I walk around in.
Call it -- 'No Value For Value Capitalism'.
I learned about 'No Value Capitalism' and 'Credit Defaulf Swapping' when I was back in high school. Informally. With no name attached to it. Away from school.
Some of my friends at the time started engaging in some regular 'penny poker games'. (Some of the guys took their stakes higher but my tightest group of friends wanted to keep the stakes low to keep the games friendly. Probably a good idea but we still had some problems. Of 4 or 5 of us, one of the group members started to lose more often than not -- and worse -- he stopped paying what he owed.
Instead, our losing poker player started to put his debts on 'credit'. Well, it didn't take long for 'Perry Credit' to start to build up as a 'pseudo-asset' for each and every one of the other poker players. So we started engaging in 'The Credet-Default Swapping Program'. (Again, we didn't have a name for it back then other than 'Perry Credit'.)
So all of us started 'swapping our Perry Credit'. Of course, it didn't take us very long to realize that this 'Perry Credit' was basically 'worthless'. As in 'No Value'. Thus, in effect we were learning the essence of 'No Value' Capitalism. Or 'No Value For Value' Capitalism.
As Republican Senator Ackerman would state -- indeed, did state -- at the Congress Hearing on March 18/09 -- we (my poker friends) and they (AIG) were basically exchanging 'snake oil' -- without even the snake oil inside the bottle. We (they) were exchanging 'worthless' or 'toxic' credit..
Who would want to buy it? Unless the person on the other end of the 'credit swap' didn't know what he or she was getting, who would want credit that was 'worthless' or 'toxic'?
Now I don't know how this part worked at AIG -- I know how it worked at our poker games. We had to finally get rid of 'Perry' and start our games from scratch again. One lost friend.
So again, I don't know how this next part at AIG worked. I can surmise at least partly what happened from what Senator Ackerman was saying. And we all know that it was not entirely the individual house owners who started to 'default' on their 'mortgage contracts' who were not entirely the source of the problem here.
There was an American economy that was getting worse -- even before these toxic-default-mortgage-contracts started to come back in the bankers' faces. Blame this mainly on the war in Iraq -- which the Bush Admininistration was putting on 'credit'. 'Charge the cost of the Iraq War to the American People when I'm gone' was basically the philosophy that the Bush Administration was practising. And that probably includes all the Senators who were at the Liddy hearing on Wed. March 18th/09. In effect, one could almost say that the pre-Obama American Government was selling 'snake oil' to the American people. 'A war that costs nothing!' Or so that was the illusion. That was the 'snake oil'. The snake oil was 'cobra venom' and it was building up in the bottle...and starting to 'overflow out the top of the bottle'. The cobra venom was starting to 'poison' the American people.
Plus there was another problem going on here. Some person somewhere -- either a politician in Washington in government, or a banker or mortgage seller on Wall Street got this 'brilliant' idea. Catch my sarcasism here, please. The idea may go down as the worst idea in American history.
Let's say it was a politician in Washington. The idea went something like this: 'Hey, let's get more people -- more middle class, or even lower middle class, people into their own homes!' Maybe this started out as an 'altruistic idea' -- somebody in Washington trying to help more people 'achieve the American Dream'.
However -- excuse my cynicism here but somehow I entirely doubt this. We are talking 'Capitalism' here -- 'Narcissistic Capitalism'. I don't want to overgeneralize here. I know there are some politicians in Washington -- probably more Democrats than Republicans by the nature of their 'polar' respective 'ideologies' but I think the Republicans are starting to get the message from the results of the last election -- who may have the good of 'Main St. America' at heart but I think the 'birth of sub-prime mortgage contracts' was based on human greed, not human altruism.
Everyone in Washington, everyone in The Republican Party (maybe not Sarah Palin...leave her alone, David, the election is over...), everybody on Wall Street knows probably Adam Smith's most famous line:
It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest. -- Adam Smith
The birth of the idea probably went something like this: 'Hey, I know a way we can make more money. We artifically create a 'low interest rate' for motivate more middle class, or even lower middle class, American citizens to buy houses. Then we start jacking up the interest rate on these contracts once the new home owners are a year or two into their contract -- and this is how we will more than make up for 'the cheap start up fee in the form of these sub-prime interest rates'.
In effect, this 'banker's logic' is no different than enticing a person to get a credit card by advertising a 'low start up interest fee' -- and then 'jacking up the interest rate' once the new credit card owner has had his credit card for a given period of time -- let's say a year. The 'seductive bonus' for consumers is at the beginning of the contract; the 'poisonous snake oil' for consumers which -- if it works -- is much more beneficial for bankers later in the contract. The snake oil if it is the 'right toxicity' level must be strong enough to partly paralyze, partly hypnotize, the consumer but still not so strong as to completely paralyze the consumer and make him or her incapable or unwilling to pay the 'UnGodly, Satanic Interest Rates' that have been 'jacked upwards' to 'squeeze more money out of him and/or her'.
Well, the first and 'weakest' homeowners of these 'Satanic Mortgage Deals' started to 'lose consciousness because of an overtoxic cobra poison'. Other homeowners in these same types of deals -- thousands of others -- soon started succumbing to the overtoxic poision as well. Houses started going into 'foreclosure' everywhere.
Thousands and thousand of homeowners involved in these Satanic Deals had to give up their new houses -- and hit the street. Combine this with the war in Iraq -- that was being financed on credit -- and the American economy started to spiral downward like a ship or airplane in The Bermuda Triangle. The 'triangle was 1. Washington; 2. Wall Street; and 3. Main Street.
And AIG was right in the middle of The Bermuda (America) Triangle -- indeed, it was probably one of the main creators of The Bermuda (America) Triangle. Or to use another example, it started out as one of the main 'spiders' but then became a 'spider caught in its own spider web' -- its own self-created Bermuda-American Triangle. 'What goes around comes around' -- some very astute person said and/or wrote that...I can't find the origin of this maxim (because it is dominated on the internet by a Justin Timberlake song of this name)...However, the concept of 'cosmic justice' is poetically established in the oldest piece of written philosophy in Western (and Greek) history...
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The second oldest philosopher -- Anaxamander, 610-546 BC -- in the history of Western philosophy was also the first philosopher to basically assert the maxim 'What goes around, comes around.' but not in these words. Axamander was a very wise and 'street smart' philosopher who knew an awful lot about 'the interaction between life, human behavior, opposites -- and the evolution and destruction of power'. I refer to Axaxamander as the first 'dialectic philosopher' because he talked and wrote about the 'interaction and the struggle for power between opposite factions in life'...
'Anaxamander's Fragment' -- probably the oldest piece of written philosophy in Western history -- has something obscure, but still very interpretively meaningful, indeed fascinating, to say about the idea of 'Cosmic Justice'.
I found this relatively new piece below on the internet by an unidentified writer/philosophy student working on (or maybe now finished) a PHD thesis relative to the philosophy of Derrida in relation to the earlier work of Heidegger -- and the aforementioned Anaxamander. The piece was written on April 1, 2008, is called 'Contaminations' and can be found by googling...The Anaxamander Fragment, Contaminations...
(As a probably superfolous side-note, when I first started writing about 'Anaxamander's Fragment' on Nov. 8th, 2007, there was very little information on the internet about it -- just a few tidbits. Now, you can google...Anaxamander's Fragment, find my various essays on it...and also hundreds, literally hundreds of other philosophical commentaries on it...Either I was blind back in 2007 -- in fairness some pieces were written before mine, most probably afterwards, except for those commentaries that were written by the main philosophers...Nietzsche, Russell, Heidegger, Derrida..., and some pieces are simply undated. (I hate that. If you are working on the internet, date your pieces, people, date your pieces. Or work on a website, blogsite, and/or twitter that dates your pieces for you.). Regardless -- what this says mainly, I think, is that there continues to be a literal evolutionary explosion of information/knowledge on the internet of uncalcuable proportions because students and grass roots citizens everywhere, can and do, put their thoughts on the internet now instead of in private journals and papers.
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The Anaximander Fragment
The Anaximander Fragment is perhaps the oldest fragment of philosophical thought that has passed down, through the ages, to us. It’s a short sentence, preserved by Theophrastus and Aristotle. It speaks about the beginning and end of things, of payment, justice, the order of time. Frankly, as with the other fragments of the preSocratics, it’s pretty obscure.
Heidegger translates it thus:
“But that from which things arise also gives rise to their passing away, according to what is necessary; for things render justice and pay penalty to one another for their injustice, according to the ordinance of time.”
Early Greek Thinking, p.20
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Here is the original Anaxamander Fragment as it is usually translated...and as I have previously translated in several of my essays.
Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
As is the order of things;
For they execute the sentence upon one another
- The condemnation for the crime -
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.
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What goes around, comes around. The same 'toxic poison' that has been sweeping the nation, spreading through America and poisoning individual workers, families, house owners, senior citizens...has come back to poision its original source -- Wall Street Banks, Traders, -- and AIG.
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what goes around, comes around
The status eventually returns to its original value after completing some sort of cycle.
A person's actions, whether good or bad, will often have consequences for that person.
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To use another well-used maxim, one might say that AIG 'reaped what they sewed'...
Or to risk antagonism myself, and quote another rightly and/or wrongly villanized 'American anti-thesis antagonist' in recent American history, one might say that,
'AIG's chickens have come home to roost!'
But perhaps what enrages the American people most is that the people who originally started the spread of this toxic poison leading to 'worthless and/or toxic credit default mortgage contracts' have not only not been 'caught' and/or 'punished' but indeed, may still be getting rich from their toxic ideas and actions...
Or are they?
This is what the American public absolutely needs to know. I would not want to say I work at AIG right now. (There are 'lynch mobs' metaphorically and/or literally waiting outside their doors.)
This is why -- before and/or at the same time as -- any lists are released to the American public of 'bonus collectors at AIG', cooler heads need to prevail. Imperative distinctions need to be made between:
1. (Arrogance, Greed, and Evil): Executive owners and/or decision makers who created the original 'toxic mortgage contract poison' -- and who may or may not still be collecting bonuses at AIG. If they are, then tax these executives out of their bonuses;
2. (Incompetence): High end managment exeutives and/or 'financial traders' who have simply done a terrible job in 2008 -- and are not worthy of these 'retention bonuses' -- especially when they are being propped up and financed by the American people;
3. (Competence, Excellence...): New executive managers who may be of 'superior stock' to the 'old, hopefully evicted team', and/or high-end financial traders who may actually have saved AIG millions of dollars in previous debt by 'getting rid of bad, toxic contracts (don't ask me who would buy them or whether it's even ethical to sell them -- are these 'traders' trading 'toxic poison' to other companies and/or other parts of the world or to The American people?). But let us just assume for a minute here, that there may be some AIG bonus collectors out there that may have actually 'earned' their bonues;
4. There is some legitimacy to the logic that 'the sacredness of all legal contracts should be honoured and adhered to' or else all contracts may lose their sacredness, no longer be honoured, and become essentially 'Perry Credit' (in my high school terminology) or a part of this toxic wasteland of bad, default contracts that are bringing down the nation...
Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy, for the most part (not entirely because I can get very angry too -- and can and do write angry essays), is put together in all its individual essays to cool angry, overcompensating heads -- fast and inappropriate judgments based on not enough familiarity with the 'full context of the situation related to the whole'.
Thesis. Anti-thesis. Synthesis.
Hegel's 'dialectic logic' modified, updated, renewed, reinvigorated, and 'humanistically-existentialized' for the 21st century.
That may sound academic and shallow in the context of plunging fortunes and devastated families.
But let us not forget how 9/11 and the chase for Bin Laden in Afghanastan --'evolved' -- into the invasion of Iraq -- which also has a lot to deal with the devastated American economy.
That too -- was overcompensation based on, and/or leading to, 'bad associating', 'bad generalizing', and 'bad causal interpretations'.
By Congress -- Republican and Democrat Senators -- alike.
And by the past President of The United States of America -- and his team of executive advisors.
The Invasion on Iraq was based on a collosal, unilateral, unsanctioned United Nations, American mistake.
Which is why America has no ruling Repubican Party right now.
And which is why America has the immensely charismatic, 'Apollonian God of all speech givers' -- President Obama.
But charisma and amazing speeches will only get a man or woman so far.
The rest requires 'effective action'.
Now President Obama is on 'the hotseat'.
Now it's President Obama's turn to turn words into action and -- 'get it right'.
Even if the 'pragmatically important and effective is not the perfect'.
Most importantly -- for the sake of the credibility and the integrity of the present American government and the present Congress -- it is imperative to make sure that 'government actions' are congruent with 'government words'.
Words like 'accountability' and 'transparency' are a 'dime a dozen' amongst American and Canadian politicians.
It doesn't take much effort to 'talk the talk' -- although that obviously should be the starting point for effective government action.
Still, especially after the Bush Administration, The American Government -- both Congress and Obama's Executive Team -- need to gain, regain, and/or keep the working trust of the American people.
Somebody pulls a fast one on you...and...
'Once shame on you. Twice shame on me. Three times -- and I'm a significant part of the problem.'
Either legislate these 'retention bonus contracts' out of existence,
Tax them to death,
Or call them what they perhaps should be called in order to avoid semantic confusion and the potential for the greed and abuse of a high end employee and/or executive 'getting two differently named bonus cheques that should probably be labelled as one and the same thing: 'Individual Performance-Retention Bonus Contracts'.
Then there can be no confusion with Congress, the White House, and the American people.
These bonus contracts -- especially to employees in 'bailed out companies' -- should be transparent and subject to 'Reason and Justification Relative to Ethical, Value for Value Capitalism'. They should be related to keeping high performing top end employees that a successful multi-billion dollar business needs to keep in order to either keep performing well and/or to 'upright a shipwreck, and make the ship sail again'.
Make these contracts 'value for value'. Not 'value for nothing' or 'value for incompetent performance'. And not 'value for looting, shipwrecking, and abandoning a previously seaworthy ship'. No 'conflict of interest' bonus contracts where the same people making the contracts receive the contracts -- 'greater and greater unbridled goodies'.
In contrast, if there are still 'high end financial traders' who aboard the AIG ship who reduce AIG's debtload by 'millions and millions of dollars'...
These 'super-performers' who may be helping to pull a multi-billion dollar indebted company out of the brink of bankruptcy may still deserve 'super financial compensation'. A particular percentage of the money -- and 'value' -- they have
added to AIG's improved performance in their particular area of work. (Assuming they weren't a part of the management team that created the problem in the first place.)
I like the one Senator's suggestion -- 'double or nothing for the bonus collectors'.
Even Liddy had to smile at that one.
And if Liddy succeeds...at getting AIG out of this 'hell-hole'.
Then he deserves the 'biggest individual performance-retention bonus' of them all.
I shake my head. The guy came out of retirement for $1 -- for this.
Let us move on.
-- dgb, March 18th-20th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
Are still in process...
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