A Revised, Reduced DGB Multi-Dialectic, 11 Part Model Of The Personality

Newly Updated Nov. 7th, 2009.



A/ Introduction


Man's mind, brain, and body -- taken together, and/or taken apart for teaching and learning purposes -- consists of a myriad of different types of opposite desires and restraints that can be differentiated, classified, grouped into what can be called 'multiple bi-polarities' where choices need to be made -- choices of extremism or choices of greater or lesser moderate balance.

Pathology for the most part tends to be associated with extremism. Extreme righteousness. Extreme narcissism. Extreme self-denial and/or self-control.


In this regard, pathology on the psychological level shouldn't be viewed too much different than pathology on the biochemical level where pathology tends to be associated with such things as: high blood-sugar levels (diabetes), low blood-sugar levels (hypoglycemia), too acidic, too alkaline, hyperthyroidism, hypothyroidism, too much fat, not enough fat, too much protein, not enough protein, too many carbohydrates, not enough carbohydrates, too much potassium, not enough potassium, too much iron, not enough iron...and on and on we could go...


For the most part, health tends to follow the moderate, middle path, 'The Golden Mean' (Aristotle).


Not always. There is a 'Nietzschean existential factor' that we need to take fully into account. Call this 'the will to self-empowerment' or the 'will to excellence'.

If I want to be a great writer or a great philosopher or a great psychologist, there is a certain 'obsessional' factor here that requires my studying and practicing what I preach and teach for literally countless thousands and thousands of hours. This includes studying great writers and philosophers and psychologists. This goes for any field I or you choose to enter in which we wish to 'strive to be the best we possibly can be' in our particular field(s) of choice.


Thus, a certain element of 'healthy extremism' is involved in 'the will to excel'. However, even here one needs to watch that one's wish and will to excel does not so consume our life that we end up losing our spouse, our family, our friends in the process. Again, even in the will to excel, at some point we need to reconsider the issue of 'balance' and ask ourselves, for example, what is the cost I am paying for my 'workaholism' which may be connected to my 'will to excel'.


Thus, we 'swim' -- and sometimes we 'drown' -- in this swimming pool full of dichotomies, paradoxes, bipolarities and oftentimes, underlying hypocrisies or 'dissociated, disconnected, alienated ego-states' in the personality that may not be properly integrated into the rest of the personality, into the 'whole of the personality', if you will.

The goal of most dialectic bi-polar psychotherapies -- Psychoanalysis, Jungian Psychology, Gestalt Therapy, Transactional Analysis -- including this DGB approach here, is to help bring about more 'wholistic multi-dialectic, multi-bi-polar, integration' both inside and outside of the personality.


Evolution -- as asserted and theorized here -- is 'multiple-bi-polar-dialectic-evolution'. Everything comes about either from 'power over' or from 'integrative union'. Where destruction or anhiliation is not the goal, the second type of evolution among men -- integrative union -- usually works much better with far less human tragedy, traumacy, 'insurgency', and casualties. Not all of the time but most of the time.


Physical and psycho-pathology are differentiated -- but similar -- in that they both need to be located on a continuum of a multitude of swinging pendulums of health, balance ('The Golden Mean', 'The Middle Path' -- Aristotle) vs. extremism, extreme swings of the pendulum -- and the resulting physical and/or psycho-pathology that comes with extremism over the edge and, at its worst, into the darkest abyss of humanity, non-humanity, and/or ultimately self-destruction and death.



B/ Other Psychological Models of The Personality and Their Influence


Let us try this again for the upteenth time -- as I once again battle the dichotomoy of simplicity vs. complexity -- and aim to get the DGB model of the personality down to something of reasonable size, clarity, and understandability. Okham's Razor. (All else being equal, the simplest theory is usually the best one.) KISS: KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID.


Having said this, I am trying to integrate a lot of different psychological models here that all have significant value -- to integrate 'the best of the best' if you will.

Synonyms for 'Personality' or 'Personality Structure' in this Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology domain will be: 'Ego', 'Psyche', 'Self', and 'Character Structure'.

View the personality as being like a 'government' or a 'corporation' (preferably egalitarian, democratic, multi-dialectic, and balanced) with numerous different 'departments' (or 'compartments') that have separate functions that are all designed to come together to fulfill the overall function of the government/corporation/personality. In this respect, the personality -- with its different 'ego-states' that I will name and describe, can also be metaphorically compared to the different 'organs' of the body, each having its own separate functions, but each 'working towards the combined good and health of the whole personality/body'.

Some of the other personality models that are out there and which I will simply skim over quickly without giving full justice to, are:


1. The Gestalt Model (Fritz Perls, Laura Perls, Hefferline, and Goodman) uses the terms 'topog' and 'underdog', a 'two-compartment' model;


2. The Adlerian Model (Alfred Adler) emphasizes the ideas of 'inferiority feeling' and 'superiority striving', with a person's movement in behavior being from a perceived 'minus' situation to a perceived 'plus' situation and a person's 'lifestyle' -- or I would say 'lifestyle-transference-complex' -- providing the person's 'signature movement' through life towards his or her ultimate lifestyle (transference) goal. The idea of transference comes from Freud, not Adler, but I see a 'lifestyle-transference' connection in that both are aimed at that 'fictional final goal' (Adler).


3. The Classic Freudian Model (Sigmund Freud): a '3 compartment model': 'The Id' (containing all our biological drives), 'The Superego' (containing our ethical/moral and legal conscience 'The Ego' (the mediating agent between our id and superego);


4. The Jungian Model (Carl Jung): arguably a '6 compartment model': includes a) 'The Persona' ('The Social Ego' -- 'The Face We Show Society'), b) 'The Shadow' ('The Dark Side of the Personality, , 'Darth Vader' 'The Alter-Ego', 'Mr. or Ms. Hyde), c) 'The Personal Unconscious', d)'The Collective Unconscious', e) 'The (Potential) Self...and a more or less 'assumed' f) 'Central, Integrative Ego' (when everything is working right);


5. The Object Relations Model(s) (Freud, Klein, Fairbairn, Winnicott, Guntrip...)

Melanie Klein really got the ball rolling in Object Relations adding such concepts to Psychoanalysis as: 'External Objects', 'Internal Objects', 'The Depressive Position', 'The Paranoid-Schizoid Position...

Ronald Fairbairn also had a model that was quite interesting which included: a) 'the exciting object'; b) 'the rejecting object'; c) 'the morally idealized and anti-libidinal parent'; d) 'the infantile, libidinal ego'; e) 'the infantile, anti-libidinal ego'; and f) 'the central ego' identifying with the morally idealized parents. Fairbairn's model is a '6 department or compartment model' of the personality. (Harry Guntrip, Psychoanalytic Theory, Therapy, and The Self, 1971,73, p. 98)


6. The Transactional Analysis Model (Eric Berne): Built mainly from an 'Object Relations' perspective of the personality -- and simplified for the 'lay public' -- Berne created a model that looks something like this: a) 'The Nurturing (Encouraging-positive, spoiling-negative) Parent(-Ego); b) 'The Critical, Controlling (Structuring-positive, oppressive-negative) Parent(-Ego)'; c) 'The Adult-(Ego); d) 'The Adapted (Co-operative, Compliant) Child; e) 'The Free (Spontaneous-positive, Immature-negative) Child. That would make this a '5 department or compartment model'.


From these 6 'classic personality theories and models', I have derived and created the following reduced DGB '7 Ego-States model' (with 4 'Subconscious or Unconscious Pre-Ego-States').

This can also be viewed as a psychological -- and abbreviated -- version of Hegel's Hotel -- internalized.


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



C/ A DGB Multiple-Bi-Polar Model of The Personality (Psyche)


01. The Nurturing Topdog
02. The Narcissistic-Dionysian (Pleasure-Seeking) Topdog
03. The Righteous (Orthodox-Establishment)-Apollonian Topdog
04. The Central (Mediating, Executive) Ego
05. The Approval-Seeking (Co-operative, Submissive) Underdog
06. The Narcissistic-Dionysian (Pleasure-Seeking) Underdog
07. The Righteous-Rebellious (Deconstructionist, Anti-Thesis) Underdog
08. The Dynamic, Creative (Dream-Making) Unconscious
09. The Structural, Learned Unconscious and Transference-Memory Template
10. The Structural, Genetic Unconscious and Mythological Archetype Template
11. The Unconsious Blueprint-Template of The Self (Our Potential Essence, Spirit or Soul)


That was simple.


Now all I have to do is extrapolate on the model and dig into the different nuances and 'intra-psychic dynamics' of the model in more detail.


We will discuss some of these more concrete details and the different applications of this model as we continue to move along.

That is not too far away. I will probably start with a full rendition of 'The Functioning and Dysfunctioning of The Central Ego'. My goal is to start that rather large paper -- that I will divide into many parts for easier blog-reading -- sometime around the middle of Nov. 2009, and hopefully finish by year end. That essay will be a long overdue version of my 1979 Honours Thesis in Psychology, 'Evaluation and Health' which will now include all of my 'post-1979 dialectic and non-dialectic influences' from Hegel to Schopenhauer to Nietzsche to Freud to Jung to Perls...and many, many others.

This new rendition of my 1979 essay will be called: 'Language, Epistemology, Evaluation and Action: The Functioning and Dysfunctioning of The Central Ego'.


-- dgb, Aug. 5th, 2009, updated Sept. 27th, 29th, Nov. 7th, 2009.



-- David Gordon Bain


-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism


-- Dialectic, Gap-Bridging Negotiations...


-- Are Still In Process...


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

President Obama: A DGB Evaluation of Obama's Strengths, Difficulties, and Challenges in His First Year of Office

Just finished...Sept. 16th-17th, 2009.



President Obama kind of reminds me of Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Trudeau was very charismatic, very idealistic, had 'socialist leanings' -- probably more so than Obama -- and Trudeau, at least at the beginning, inspired so much hope and optimism that his following actually reached 'fanatical' proportions to the point where it became labelled as 'Trudeaumania'. Similarly, to what we saw in Obama's pre-election campaign which could have easily -- if it wasn't already -- been labelled as 'Obamamania'.

The issue with Trudeau -- as it is currently with Obama -- is the money. The people of the United States of America are worried about the money. They are rightly asking the question: Where is all the money going to come from to pay for all these 'noble deeds'?

And so far we have seen where it is coming from. It is coming from a huge escalation on the already stupendous or horrendous American national debt which, in effect, means somewhere down the line -- on the collective backs of the American taxpayers.

Like a person in debt, and with an unbalanced budget, who keeps piling more and more debt onto his or her personal credit cards, with more and more accumulative interest -- one day that personal (and public) debt has to be addressed and answered for. Or someone else is going to put the 'hammer' down and call you on all that debt.

Acting as if the debt doesn't exist, seemingly pretending it doesn't exist, and trying to make it look like you are 'running a healthy budget in the black' -- when you are most certainly not, indeed, blatantly the opposite -- can be viewed as a form of 'economic denial'. An 'ostrich with its head in the sand' approach to skyrocketing public, national debt.

It seems obviously apparent to me that the American people -- perhaps exasperated by the anti-Democrat-rhetoric of The Republican Party -- are becoming increasing anxious and indeed angry about this skyrocketing national debt. Rightly so -- it is a big problem, that will keep getting bigger until it is finally concretely addressed, which doesn't mean piling more and more money on the National Credit Card. This may make someone rich but it won't be the individual tax-paying American people. Coupled with this, there has to be a growing concern for 'foreign loan sponsors' -- like China -- who it would seem is loaning the American Government more and more money.

Now I don't profess to have any kind of specialized knowledge in economics but here is what I remember by father teaching me about American Economics 101. There used to be a time when all American money was backed by American gold (held in Fort Knox).

However, there came a time, somewhere in American History (someone knowledgeable in the details of this aspect of American history might be able to fill me in more here) where some American President and Government decided to start printing American money without the 'solid backing of corresponding gold bars from Fort Knox'. The result here would seemingly be the 'deflation' of the value of the American dollar as there would be nothing of 'physical gold value' to back the printing of this money. It would be like giving a credit card to a person who didn't have the income capability of paying for, and balancing, the credit limit of the credit card.

Perhaps things work differently today. Perhaps American money that is printed and distributed -- and added to the National Debt -- is borrowed from countries like China. Obviously, there would seem to be an inherent danger here as well -- the danger of potentially more and more foreign ownership of America -- and American companies -- in lieu of money owed a country like China. There are different ways of 'taking over a country' -- and taking over a country's economy, dollar by dollar, would certainly seem to be one very good -- or bad, depending on your perspective -- way of doing it. Canada used to be petrified about America taking over Canada's economy, dollar by dollar. Well perhaps, today America has good reason to fear for the possibility of a country like China taking over its economy, dollar by dollar, loan by loan.

No President of recent history -- meaning at least President Bush Jr. and President Obama -- seem to want to tackle the problem of the skyrocketing American National Debt. With understandable -- if not sufficient -- political reason. When the American Government pulls the plug on government spending and/or raises government taxes, neither of these solutions to the rising national debt problem is likely going to go over too well with the American public, many of whom, in the middle of a bad recession, are already fighting tooth and nail for their very economic survival.

Everyone would love to own a credit card that keeps giving you more and more money to spend -- and no 'due date' by which you ever have to pay this money back.

No recent President of America (meaning again, Bush and Obama) seems to want to give any 'due date' at which point all this rising American debt load is finally going to be addressed and expenses are going to be cut, and/or taxes raised.

Perhaps if this recession ever ends, and unemployed American workers actually do start going back to work, then the resulting 'expanding workforce tax base' will have sufficiently increased such that 'no extra load' will have to be added to the American people as a whole. Or more likely, this is probably at least partly 'wishful thinking' and somewhere, sometime, down the line here, there is going to be the need for an 'American National Crunchdown' where either government expenses are either going to have to be radically reduced and/or taxes significantly raised.

In the 1980s, after both Trudeau and Mulroney had both lavishly spent government-taxpayers' money (Mulroney learned very well from Trudeau on how a 'Liberal-Socialist-Minded Politician' can spend government money lavishly, and/or idealistically, to appease and please the lower classes, and also to help them out, while at the same time appeasing and pleasing Capitalist Corporations with lavish spending in their direction as well including Mulroney's own personal lavish spending and ensuring his own post-political-economic 'pension plan'...), then to 'compensate' for all this lavish Government spending, Mulroney introduced the infamous 'Goods and Services Tax (GST)' which dramatically increased government coffers much to the chagrin of the people bearing the brunt of this new tax system -- the Canadian people.

Soon to be Prime Minister Jean Chretien ran a Liberal election campaign -- and won -- promising the Canadian people that he would get rid of the much hated 'GST' but by the time he got into office for a short period of time he began to fully realize what a government 'cash-cow' the GST was -- and he never, in his 10 years in office, got rid of it. Neither has any Prime Minister after Chretien (meaning Martin and Harper). It would seem that no Canadian Prime Minister wants to get rid of the GST tax-cash cow that the Canadian people have come to passively and fatalistically accept on the heels of the combined over-spending of both Trudeau and, even worse, Mulroney.

At least Trudeau's overspending was based on idealistic-altruistic political ideology. Mulroney's ideology was -- in this author's editorial opinion -- almost completely narcissistically motivated. He learned from Trudeau that 'liberal generosity' had its 'narcissistic benefit' in terms of keeping the support of 'Liberal, Socialist-Minded voters' while at the same time his lavish Corporate spending also maintained the support of more 'Conservative-Capitalist' power-people and like-minded voters.

In a couple of different ways, Obama -- in the way he has acted as President, as opposed to the 'over-idealized' politician on the pre-election campaign trail -- reminds me of both Trudeau and Mulroney. Trudeau mainly -- particularly, in terms of character and political ideology.

But in some ways -- and he would hate to hear this, I am sure -- Obama has reminded me of both Mulroney and Bush in his political actions as well. There does seem to have been an element of 'Narcissistic Capitalist-Corporate Collusion' as well. And this is probably the last thing the American people -- especially his hardcore 'Democrat voters' -- wanted to see from Obama. A 'Bush-re-run'.

So let me see if I can focus in on my criticisms of President Obama's political actions to date:

1. There has been too much of 'a rush for political action' particularly when the actions executed (and/or in the process of being executed) involve(d) a colossal increase in the American debt load;

2. There have been -- to my knowledge -- two questionable 'stimulus packages' that have been very 'Bush-like'. Almost 'clone-repetitions' of what Bush did -- and with similar consequences.

a) Putting literally billions of dollars back in the hands of the people, the CEOs, who created the banking-mortgage scandal and financial collapse in the first place. In effect, this was like putting even more money back in the hands of the robbers who robbed the bank in the first place. How smart was that? You put billions of dollars back in the hands of unethical people and you naively actually expect them to this time 'behave ethically' and/or on the basis of 'guilt and moderation'. Not likely going to happen. And it didn't happen. The bankers-and-mortgage-loan people did exactly the same thing again as they did the first time -- went on 'lavish spa trips' and took lavish, multi-million dollar bonuses. The American people had to collectively shake their heads on this one.

Where were the legislative counter-control measures? No spas. No bonuses. Either behavior would spawn either a criminal prosecution of a 'new law to this same effect' and/or spawn a 'demand for the recall of all the money given to the company'.

Indeed, I think many people are asking the question: why was the money even given back to these people in the first place? Reward the banks and the bank owners who didn't participate in this type of corporate behavior the first and second time around; not the banks and bankers who not once but twice, maybe even three times, invaded and essentially robbed public coffers.

Obama -- essentially falling into this same trap again, either by accident, or on purpose -- struck a very 'Bush-like Corporate-Schmoozing-Chord' in the already very sensitive and traumatically damaged collective American psyche. And multi-billions of dollars of taxpayers' money seemingly went flying out of the public coffers and into the private hands of a collective few 'power-people' who had no interest in the general welfare of the American people -- whatsoever. Why?

b) Add to the economic, business, and unemployment woes and anxieties of the American people, the current controversy around President Obamas wish to implement his universal health care plan -- and potentially more billions of dollars leaving public coffers and further increasing the American National debt load -- and you have the potential for significant national emotional volatility -- perhaps even a Boston Tea Party-like national emotional volatility. It is hardly the type of underlying national emotional feeling that you want to try to pass your American Universal Health Care Plan-Dream over top of. National chaos and, in effect, rhetorically at least, civil war could be released from its underlying emotional volcano of intense anxious, even panic-stricken -- and compensatory angry -- feeling.

I would not want to pass such a bill under such an underlying feeling of national unrest and division.

Slow down President Obama. Dont try to force a bill through the Senate that maybe the bulk of the American people collectively do not want right now.

Timing is everything in politics and history -- and maybe trying to pass what could amount to a very expensive health bill in the midst of a very deep recession is not a good time to try to pass such a bill.

Maybe the American people want you to address their economic problems first; their health problems second or third. (There is still the more than little matter of two rather pricey and traumatic wars still going on in Iraq and Afghanistan-Pakistan right now too.)

c) Regarding the two wars in the Middle East: Has there really been any significant change in war policy since President Obama took office. Yes, there has been a transfer of troops from Iraq to Afghanistan (and seemingly more violence in Iraq since many of the troops left). But what is the progress in Afghanistan? Or has there been any? Will there ever be any? Can Americans expect to be locked up in the Afghanistan-Pakistan-Taliban War for 3, 5, or 10 more years?

And can the Americans really expect their economy to significantly improve while they continue to be locked up in either or both of these two wars?

Does the famous Dwight Eisenhower speech about the military-industrial complex still have any relevance today?

Is the American Government in any way tied up to the idea of wars being narcissistically manufactured just to appease the American Military-Industrial Complex while at the same time offering up righteous explanations and justifications for wars that may be created or manufactured for narcissistic political-economic and or corporate-economic reasons -- not legitimate reasons of self-defense?

Finally, is there any credibility behind the so-called facts in this fantasy interview that is circulating on the internet between Charlie Sheen and The President? Or is just a page-full of conspiracy-hogwash? What theory do you believe? The standard, orthodox Government(s) explanation? Or the theory of a government conspiracy and cover-up?

These are the questions that I will leave you with today as I move on with my day to do other things -- like find a job that will support me again after i just lost my last cushy, middle class $50-60,000 job. It is hard to fully and emotionally understand the full depth of what a recession really means until you are on the outside looking in rather than on the inside looking out. Jobs and money that used to be easy to come by 10 years ago is not so easy to come by today. Or at least that has been my experience so far. Obviously, I need to both focus and broaden my search.

Right now I am on the outside of what used to be economic stability.

And that is a very anxiety-provoking -- indeed, panicky -- place to be.

It necessitates door-to-door action; not writing essays that dont pay my bills.

So on that note, I will leave you for the day, put on my suit, and see if i can muster up a new job.

Essays can wait; bills can't.

Economics precedes and supersedes self-actualization.

Perhaps that is a corollary of Sartres famous statement: Existence precedes essence.

It certainly has a Marxian ring to it.

Paraphrasing Marx: Narcissistic political and economic ideology precedes -- and, operating from the Shadows of Human Selfishness and Greed, both underlies and, probably more often than not, supersedes and blocks out of the sunlight completely -- ethical idealism.

Say it aint so, Dave!

I wish I could but I cant.

Because I think it generally is so.

Robbing the ethical idealism out of both,

Capitalism and Socialism alternatively and together,

Likewise with Liberalism and Conservatism,

Religion and Atheism,

Wherever men and women travel,

And accumulate power,

The greater the power,

The greater the group -- and individual -- narcissism.

Follow the trail of the money,

Huge money,

And traveling not far behind,

Is human greed and narcissism.

I dont think this is totally what Adam Smith or Ayn Rand had in mind by Capitalism although even Adam Smith, I believe said, that he didnt trust businessmen. I will have to dig for the exact quote. Thomas Jefferson -- rightly so -- said that he didnt trust bankers.

Can it be any different?

The only way I can see it being any different is if there was complete monetary transparency around the intake and outgoing of all government and or corporate monetary funds. Corrupt, greedy, narcissistic business people like to work in the dark, move their money around in the dark, so no one can see what they are doing. Throw the light on the situation -- throw the corrupt politician or businessman into a lighted room, a transparent room -- and he cant function the way he wants to function. Which is basically to steal under the cover of darkness.

Light up the dark rooms that they operate in. Throw the floodlights on them. And then we will know who is transferring money where.

Visions of Mulroney receiving a suitcase of cash money, doing business -- after he had left office -- with an international lobbyist who was still looking for a lucrative Canadian government contract, and still looking at Mulroney as a government influence-peddler.

Mulroney didnt like it too much when the Canadian floodlights froze on this particular economic transaction between him and the European businessman.

Quite frankly, I enjoyed watching him squirm.

Similarly, with Conrad Black who didn't look too good being caught leaving one of his offices in the middle of the night with a box of papers/files in his arms.

That might have been the deciding piece of evidence in his case. If he wasn't guilty, then why was he doing that? I like Black more than I like Mulroney but corporate narcissism needs to show some boundaries, some restraint -- some ethics and integrity. Nobody is above the law -- or at least, nobody should be above the law.

Not even ex-prime-ministers, Senators, Governors, Corporate Power-Leaders, bankers, lobbyists...

There are a few businessmen on Wall Street -- and perhaps even in the American Government -- who I would have wished for the same -- or more than -- what Black got.

Some power-people -- maybe many power-people both inside and outside of the government may have gotten off of the Sub-Prime Mortgage Scandal, The Hedge Fund Phenomenon, and the Wall Street Financial collapse -- far too easily, some even with gold-plated goodbye packages.

Too bad.

I still believe in the humanistic spirit and good intentions of President Obama.

But there are some areas of operation that he has slipped up in -- and perhaps lost some of the trust and respect of the American people -- that he may need to go back and re-analyze what went wrong as well as perhaps modify and/or slow down the speed of his forward master game plan.

1. The ideal of 'universal health care' is a good, humanistic social ideal. People without medical insurance, or who can't afford medical insurance, and with serious health problems, should not be faced with the choice between personal and/or family bankruptcy and not getting proper or sufficient medical treatment. It is unrealistic to expect a person -- or even a husband and wife team -- who is/are making $10 to $20 an hour to pay for a 'necessary service' for very long that may cost $200 per hour and/or a serious medical operation that may cost upwards of 3 or 400,000 dollars. Either the operation is not going to happen or many lower to middle class families are going to financially collapse under this type of economic weight load.

Up here in Canada, my son was born premature by about 2 and a half months. He weighed less than 2 pounds. But Woman's College Hospital in Toronto took care of him in an incubator with his mother and I checking in on him every day for the one or two months that he stayed in the hospital. With all due respect, if Canada didn't have universal health care, I hate to think what would have happened to my life and his. The consequences could have been medically and/or economically horrific. Today, my son is a happy, healthy, smart young man -- almost 25 years old and strong as a horse, in a dangerous profession, a graduated and working Arborist, scaling to the tops of the tallest Elm and Maple trees that would make me quake in my boots just looking at the height of them. He has a healthy 6 year old daughter, and a fine future ahead of him.

Still, Obama has to watch the money. I don't think Americans in general think that President Obama is paying sufficient attention to the public til and the skyrocketing public debt load. I heard on CNN last night that 7 preceding Presidents have all tried to put through Universal Health Care -- and failed. Not to mention Senator Ted Kennedy and Hillary Clinton.

America is locked up in two very expensive wars, has gone through a financial collapse on Wall Street, a collapsing car industry, and the worst recession that they have experienced probably since The Great Depression.

All of this makes it horrible timing for President Obama to try to push through this very costly Universal Health Bill -- regardless of the way it looks in its various potential renditions.

If there had been no war in Iraq, then it probably could have been paid for by now. But things today are the way they are, and nothing can be changed about that.

On top of that, President Obama is trying to push this health bill through on the heels of two multi-billion dollar 'economic stimuli packages' (which came on the heels of one multi-billion dollar stimulus-package by Bush -- with Obama partly involved in that too.)

All of this is to say what I have already said: that the timing on trying to push through this universal health bill -- or some modification of it -- is really, really bad.

I think the people of America want President Obama to address the economy first and foremost -- and that doesn't mean adding billions and billions of dollars of more debt load onto the American taxpayer. Somebody is going to have to pay for it eventually -- and if not this generation of Americans -- it is a terrible legacy to leave the next series of generations of American kids and grandkids.

How many billions and billions of dollars can you keep adding to the public debt and still keep trying to hide the fact that America isn't already essentially bankrupt?

President Obama is a very smart man -- too smart to act as a politician with unlimited public funds at his disposal (Trudeau, Mulroney and many, many other politicians have tried it before him: 'We will just put it on the tab!')

Perhaps the first three steps in this whole medical problem is to:

1. Analyze and address the problem of 'pharmaceutical gouging'.

2. Make sure that hospitals and doctors are not gouging patients either.

3. Analyze and address the possible -- or more likely very real -- problem of 'insurance colluding and gouging'. (I have seen it in the taxi industry with commercial car insurance monopolies and/or collusion which is also affected by mechanics and/or body shops that can -- and do -- also gouge both drivers and insurance companies.)

In politics, timing is everything. And speed of action is not always a good 'political' thing as it can make citizens who are already reeling in economic stress very emotionally volatile as they flip between 'almost panic-stricken fear' and 'compensating anger to rage'.

'President Obama, one more time, I think you have picked a very, very bad time to try to push through your health bill as fast as you are trying to push it through. This is not -- as some have made it out to be about racism (except on the extremist Republican fringes).'

More aptly and more simply,

It is about economics.


-- dgb, Sept. 16th-17th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

-- Dialectical Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still In Process...

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

United States Bullion Depository
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Coordinates: 37.882983°N 85.965099°W


The United States Bullion Depository.
The United States Bullion Depository, commonly called Fort Knox, is a fortified vault building located near Fort Knox, Kentucky, which is used to store a large portion of United States official gold reserves and, occasionally, other precious items belonging or entrusted to the federal government.
The United States Bullion Depository holds about 4,603 tons (4 176 metric tonnes) of gold bullion (147.4 million troy ounces[1]). It is second in the United States only to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York's underground vault in Manhattan, which holds about 5,000 metric tonnes of gold in trust for many foreign nations, central banks and official international organizations.
Contents [hide]
1 History
2 Construction and security
3 Gold and coin holdings
4 In popular culture
4.1 Cinema
5 See also
6 References
7 External links
[edit]History

Before the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt, in 1932, gold coins had circulated freely in the United States as legal money, and gold bullion was owned by banks and other private entities. In early 1933, as part of the New Deal, the U.S. Congress enacted a package of laws which removed gold from circulation as money, and which made private ownership of gold in the U.S. (except for coins in collections or jewelry such as wedding rings) illegal. All gold in circulation was seized by the government in exchange for dollars at the fixed rate of $20.67 per ounce. Owners of gold bullion in the U.S. were also required to trade it for other forms of money. All of this left the government of the United States with a large amount of gold metal, and no place to store it.


Seal of the U.S. Mint
In 1936, the U.S. Treasury Department began construction of the United States Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky, on land transferred from the military. The Gold Vault was completed in December 1936 at a cost of $560,000, or about $7.5 million in 2007 dollars. The site is located on what is now Bullion Boulevard at the intersection of Gold Vault Road.
The first gold shipments were made from January to July 1937. The majority of the United States' gold reserves were gradually shipped to the site, including old bullion and more newly made bars made from melted gold coins. Some intact coins were stored, as well. The transfer needed 500 rail cars and was sent by registered mail, protected by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service.
During World War II, the repository held the original U.S. Declaration of Independence and U.S. Constitution. It also held the reserves of several European countries and several key documents from Western history; for example, it held the Crown of St. Stephen, part of the Hungarian crown jewels, given to American soldiers to prevent them from falling into Soviet hands. The repository also held one of four known copies (exemplifications) of Magna Carta, which had been sent for display at the 1939 New York World Fair, and when war broke out, was kept in America for the duration.
[edit]Construction and security

Below the fortress-like structure lies the gold vault, which is lined with granite walls and is protected by a blast-proof door that weighs 22 tons. No single person is entrusted with the entire combination to the vault. Various members of the Depository staff must dial separate combinations known only to them. Beyond the main vault door, smaller internal cells provide further protection.[2]
The facility is ringed with several fences and is under armed guard by officers of the United States Mint Police. The Depository premises are within the site of Fort Knox, a United States Army post, allowing the Army to provide additional protection. The Depository is protected by numerous layers of physical security, alarms, video cameras, armed guards, and the Army units based at Fort Knox, including Apache helicopter gunships of 4/229 Aviation based at Godman Army Airfield, the 16th Cavalry Regiment, training battalions of the United States Army Armor School, and the 3rd Brigade Combat Team of the 1st Infantry Division, totaling over 30,000 soldiers, with associated tanks, armored personnel carriers, attack helicopters, and artillery.
[edit]Gold and coin holdings

Gold holdings peaked during World War II at 649.6 million troy ounces (20,205 metric tons). Current holdings are around 147.3 million ounces[1] (4,570 t) in around 368,000 standard 400 troy ounce (12.4 kg or 27.4 lb avoirdupois) gold bars. At April 2008 rates of $913 an ounce it is worth roughly $134 billion, while the World War II total of 649.6 million troy ounces would be worth approximately $593 billion.[3]
The depository also holds monetary gold coins. It also holds several specimens of Sacagawea Dollar coins made out of 22kt (91.6% pure) gold from blanks that are used to strike the $25 half-ounce American Gold Eagle bullion pieces made for an unknown project. The 1933 Double Eagle was also a temporary resident after transfer from 7 World Trade Center in July 2001, until its sale in July 2002 for $7.59 million. Sometime in 2004, 10 additional allegedly stolen 1933 Double Eagles were transported to Fort Knox for safekeeping.
Not all the gold bars held in the depository are of exactly the same composition. The mint gold bars are nearly pure gold. Bars made from melted gold coins, however, called "coin bars," are the same composition as the original coins. Unlike many .999 fine gold bullion coins minted in modern times for holding-purposes today, the coin alloy for pre-1932 U.S. coins, which were intended for circulation, was a much tougher and wear-resistant .900 fine alloy (balance copper) derived historically from 22-carat crown gold (a similar alloy consisting of .917 gold and the balance copper, used to mint gold sovereigns).
All of the gold in the depository, if pure, could form a cube 19.7 feet (6 m) on a side—a volume of 216 m³. In comparison, all the gold ever mined in the world would form a cube 64.3 feet (19.6 m) on a side, with a volume of approximately 7500 m³.[4]
The United States holds more gold bullion than any other country, with about 2.37 times that of the next leading country, Germany.
[edit]In popular culture

The bullion depository has become a symbol of an impregnable vault, leading to phrases such as "locked up tighter than Fort Knox" or "safer than Fort Knox".
[edit]Cinema
The 1937 RKO Lee Tracy film Behind the Headlines climaxes in a plan to steal gold bars en route from Washington D.C. to Fort Knox.
The 1951 Bud Abbott & Lou Costello film Comin' Round the Mountain has the two using a treasure map to find a stash of gold. When they finally reach the gold at the end of the film, they find themselves in the middle of Fort Knox and are immediately arrested.
The 1951 Warner Bros. short 14 Carrot Rabbit featuring Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam follows a similar routine, with Sam being led away by guards at the end. Bugs is also under suspicion, but slips away on a large boat.
The popular 1959 Ian Fleming-written James Bond novel Goldfinger, and the 1964 movie of the same name, are about a criminal plot called "Operation Grand Slam" to break in to the U.S. Bullion Depository. In the book, Auric Goldfinger's plan is to steal the gold. In the movie, it is to render the gold contained in the Depository radioactive and useless with a nuclear device, crippling the economy and driving up the price of the gold Goldfinger already has. The movie was set before the U.S. dollar ceased to be backed by gold in 1971.[5]
[edit]See also

Federal Reserve System
Federal Reserve Bank of New York
List of attractions and events in Louisville, Kentucky
Official gold reserves
Nixon Shock - U.S. President Richard Nixon took the United States off the Gold Standard, stopping the direct convertibility of United States dollars to gold.
[edit]References

^ a b "About the Mint". Retrieved 2008-10-06.
^ U.S. Treasury - Fact Sheet on the Fort Knox Bullion Depository
^ Schoen, John W. (April 30, 2007). "How come the dollar keeps falling?". MSNBC. Retrieved 2008-10-06.
^ World Gold Council -FAQs
^ Goldfinger (1964)
[edit]External links

Factsheet from United States Mint

Central Ego Functioning: Balancing 'Skeptical Doubt' with 'Confident, Rational-Empirical Self-Conviction

Everything starts with sensory perception. But in order for their to be sensory perception, there also needs to be 'narcissistic self-interest'.

Out of the myriad of stimuli that bombard our senses each and every day, each and every moment, which one or ones are we going to pay attention to? Which sensory stimuli are we going to focus in on? Which sensory stimuli are we going to follow up on? The answer to all of these questions is supplied by the three words already mentioned above: narcissistic self-interest.

What we are talking about here, is basically the beginning of the 'problem-solving process'. And if there are two or more 'competing sensory stimuli' -- stimuli competing for our attention, then we are also talking about the beginning of the 'conflict-resolving process'.

It is rare that any two competing stimuli can exactly capture our equal attention at the same time -- if something close to this happens, then we have a situation that the Gestaltists label as a 'split gestalt' -- two stimuli capturing at least a part of our attention at the same time like the dangerous new 'driving phenomenon' of trying to drive and text message at the same time.

Obviously, driving requires our full vision and attention on the road even when we think that everything is safe and we can take our eyes off the road, a dangerous habit indeed, that can result in car crashes, train crashes, dead drivers, dead passengers, all because too much of a person's attention is aimed in an unsafe direction, like text messaging, loading a CD player, changing a radio station, looking at a computer, and/or trying to 'drive a car with your knees and your head down to your Blackberry'. Not all new technology comes with a dire warning sign: DON'T DRIVE AND TEXT AT THE SAME TIME -- YOUR FAMILY AND FRIENDS WANT YOU HOME ALIVE, NOT DEAD!

Gathering and collecting and recording sensory stimuli is usually the beginning stage of what we call both 'knowledge' and 'epistemology' (the study of knowledge).

There is a 'metaphysical assumption' here which brings us in touch with the dreaded 'Kantian Subjective-Objective, Epistemology-Reality Split' -- a metaphysical and epistemological problem that has plagued man since he started to worry about this matter. Awareness of the subjective-objective split problem goes back at least as far as Plato, indeed, even a little further back to Parmenides who (badly) influenced Plato on this matter to the point where, a few years back, I wrote an essay called: 'Parmenides' Poison: The Philosophical Undermining of Rational-Empiricism'.

Unfortunately, Plato bought into what Parmenides was 'selling' -- to the huge detriment and undermining of the brand new field of epistemology.

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Parmenides of Elea (Greek: Παρμενίδης ὁ Ἐλεάτης, early 5th century BCE) was an ancient Greek philosopher born in Elea, a Greek city on the southern coast of Italy. He was the founder of the Eleatic school of philosophy. Parmenides was also a priest of Apollo and iatromantis. The single known work of Parmenides is a poem which has survived only in fragmentary form. In this poem, Parmenides describes two views of reality. In The Way of Truth (a part of the poem), he explains how reality is one, change is impossible, and existence is timeless, uniform, and unchanging. In The Way of Opinion, he explains the world of appearances, which is false and deceitful. These thoughts strongly influenced Plato, and through him, the whole of western philosophy.

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Parmenides was born around the same time as Heraclitus (535 BC to 475 BC) and it would make sense to believe that the two actually were familiar with each other's philosophical work -- indeed, were philosophical rivals presenting the first 'thesis' and 'anti-thesis' of epistemology -- because their respective philosophical -- and more specifically, epistemological -- works were about as different as night and day, as different as the respective works of Plato and Aristotle, as different as the respective works of Hegel and Schopenhauer.

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Heraclitus of Ephesus (Ancient Greek: Ἡράκλειτος ὁ Ἐφέσιος — Hērákleitos ho Ephésios; c. 535–c. 475 BCE) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom. From the lonely life he led, and still more from the riddling nature of his philosophy and his contempt for humankind in general, he was called the "The Obscure," and the "Weeping Philosopher."
Heraclitus is famous for his doctrine of change being central to the universe, summarized in his famous quote, "You can not step twice into the same river." He believed in the unity of opposites, stating that "the path up and down is one and the same," existing things being characterized by pairs of contrary properties. His cryptic utterance that "all things come to be in accordance with this Logos," (literally, "word," "reason," or "account") has been the subject of numerous interpretations.

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Heraclitus lay a solid foundational grounding for the beginning of 'rational-empiricism': he looked, he saw, he described. Heraclitus saw that life all around him moved -- and changed. Heraclitus -- in addition to being the first Greek and Western 'dialectical unity philosopher' (Lao tse was arguably the first Chinese and Eastern dialectic unity philosopher) -- was also arguably the first Greek and Western 'process philosopher' -- meaning the idea that life is an action always in process, always moving, always changing, always evolving...

In contrast, Parmenides threw out the concept of 'empiricism' in 'rational-empiricism' and tried to go the philosophical route of straight 'rationalist' or 'rational idealist'. Unfortunately, Plato followed right behind him in undermining the 'empirical and sensory-perceptual foundational base' of rational-empiricism -- and epistemology. Plato's ideas might have been great for the birth of Western religion and spirituality but they were a terrible setback for the Western beginnings of science and evolution. It took Aristotle to re-establish the study of science, evolution, and epistemology back in the right direction -- with a sound rational-empirical and sensory-perceptual base.

Unfortunately, many philosophers after Plato and Aristotle turned more towards Plato's epistemological ideas of 'reality' rather than Aristotle -- philosophers like Descartes and Spinoza (both 'rationalists' without the 'sensory-perceptual empiricism' to back up and give grounded support to their particular brands of rationalism which both focused more on mathematical and geometrical formulas rather than 'common sense observation'. I love elements of Spinoza's thinking but more his 'romantic-wholistic-pantheism' rather than his 'strict brand of rationalism'.

The German Idealists -- Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel -- were also partly mesmerized by Plato's rational idealism. The only one that wasn't was the 'dialectical materialist', Karl Marx, whose cold-hearted but very 'narcissistic-reality-based' economic theory was about as similar to the philosophical work of Plato, Spinoza, Kant, and Schelling as the city of New York and the financial institutions of Wall Street have with the forests of Alaska and the mountains of the Swiss Alps.

Schelling provides a fascinating 'romantic' integration of Spinoza, Rousseau, Fichte, and Hegel (some of his ideas actually pre-dating Hegel's) but that is food for another essay. Back to epistemology.

Even Hegel was partly mesmerized by Plato's 'rational idealistic' epistemological influence -- to the detriment of Hegel's own 'dialectic epistemology' and his concept of 'The Absolute'.

I can tell you one thing. We can study epistemology -- even dialectically study epistemology in Hegel's paradigm of 'dialectic logic' -- for a million more years and still not come close to Hegel's idea of 'The Absolute'. As in 'Perfect Epistemology'. Being in touch with 'God's Truth and Creative Essence'.

Fat chance! That is about as realistically probable as ever getting to 'Perfectly Ethical Capitalism'. Or 'Perfectly Ethical Socialism' for that matter. 'Like the sound of one hand clappin', it just ain't going to happen.' (Bob Dylan). But we can keep trying. Idealism -- on any front -- stops when we stop trying.

Back to the Kantian Subjective-Objective, Epistemology-Reality Split.

Kant said that we can never 'know' our 'noumenal' (objective-outside-the-senses-reality'). And philosophers and academics started to metaphorically 'jump out of tall buildings'. Philosophically and epistemologically speaking, this was about as bad, coming out of his mouth, as The Lehman Brothers going bankrupt, AIG going bankrupt, and Wall Street collapsing. Nobody knew what to do or what to say. What the heck was the purpose of science if not to collect and provide people with an 'objective body of truthful knowledge'.

But if Kant didn't do enough to undermine 'Science as The Idol of All Idols', well then, years later, Nietzsche would.

For one thing, personal and/or group narcissism can destroy science just as fast as it can destroy each and every other element of human society and culture. As Marx and Nietzsche both knew only too well: Money, greed, and personal/group narcissistic bias destroys ethics.

Science -- like statistics -- can be 'engineered', 'manipulated', 'interpreted', and 'evaluated' to say anything narcissistically biased persons and/or groups of people want it to say. Where there is a 'narcissistic will' -- there is a 'way'.

So much for 'scientific optimism and idealism'. Science -- like any and every other institution of society and culture, if it is 'corporately connected' and/or 'connected to human narcissistic greed and manipulation' -- is just going to tell us what someone with 'special interests' is going to want us to hear.

'Truth' starts with attitude -- either we want it or we don't. Most people pay homage and 'lip service' to truth but when it comes right down to it -- especially in 'narcissistically and righteously tight, stressful situations -- can we deliver the goods? Both to ourselves and to those around us.

How many of us -- when it comes right down to the nitty, gritty of what is either extremely pleasurable and/or extremely painful -- have the intestinal fortitude to either deliver the truth, or accept it.

As I have alluded to with dialectical concepts such as 'The Essence' and 'The Wall', all of us at different times will block out, mask, disguise, distort, abstract, mystify, generalize, falsify that which we don't want others to know about us.

And similarly, all of us at different times have trouble accepting things that we don't want to hear, 'painful objective realities' and the like.

Probably all of us at different times spend just as much time and energy 'hiding ourselves' as we do 'revealing ourselves'.

This is includes all of our most narcissistic and/or righteous traumacies, fantasies, pleasures, secrets...That is why we have 'courts of law', 'journalists', 'reporters', and 'philosophers' to chase down 'epistemological and behavioral truth' where private and public political, corporate, and/or individual transgressions and scandals may lie -- in the weeds waiting for someone to bring in a 'weed wacker'.

To shine light on The Shadows of Darkness -- and unbridled, unrepenting, human narcissism.

Am I starting to sound like a preacher yet?

Into this context, we bring the study of 'epistemology'. That can be like bringing the 'Truth Police' into a 'Show on Magic'.

And even our 'subjective perception of truth' can be wrong.

Even the best intended people can become confused, uncertain, mystified, mesmerized, mistaken, righteously wrong, betrayed by what they falsely believe is the truth -- and wind up in 'Epistemological Never, Never Land'.

Where did they go wrong? Where did we go wrong?

As much as some of us might want to think so, The Truth doesn't come to us from God on a Golden Platter with our name on it.

We have to find The Truth -- or at least 'The Baby Truths' -- through our own rational-empirical, sensory-perceptual, perceptual-interpretive, causal-interpretive, abstracting, generalizing, distinguishing, epistemological evaluation process.

This can be hard work. No definitive answers to the individual and/or general problem of 'Truth' will ever be entirely foolproof and beyond philosophical critique and speculation. The scary and insecure philosophical words of 'assumption', 'theory', 'metaphysics,', 'skepticism' and 'epistemological uncertainty' lie beneath all our more 'righteously arrogant' ideas of 'truth' and 'fact', 'right' and 'wrong'.

Oftentimes, 'right' and 'wrong' apply more aptly to 'mathematics' and 'spelling' than they do to matters of human epistemology, ethics, and behavior. This is not to say that we all need to succumb -- like many philosophers and academics have -- to the tempting philosophical doctrine of 'epistemological and/or ethical subjective relativism'.

No, there is still an important need in epistemology for such words as 'objectivity', 'truth', and 'fact'. It is just that sometimes, oftentimes, 'objectivity', 'the truth', and 'facts' are not quite as clear-cut and totally reliable as we may think they are -- and/or want to think that they are.

If I sit here, and say, 'There is a bottle of vitamins sitting in front of me on my desk', and I have someone (who is not 'narcissistically colluding' with me) to come over and verify, that, 'yes indeed, there is a bottle of vitamin's on David's computer desk, sitting almost in front of his face' -- then we can probably collectively feel justified and secure in our knowledge that this statement, this report, observationally verified by two different (non-colluding) people can indeed be viewed as 'the truth' and/or as an 'observational fact'.

However, if I sit here and say that 'I am talking to God -- or Apollo -- or Dionysus' -- then all of you probably have reason to have grave doubts about 'the truth-value of this statement' and more so, about the credibility and reliability of the person -- me -- who is making this statement, this assertion, this report.

Why? Because there is no 'sensory observation' involved in this report unless I try to tell you that 'God or Apollo or Dionysus is visible to my eyes' in which case this opens up a brand new epistemological can of worms.

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Group Topdog: 'David, if one or more of us comes into your room there, will we be able to see God or Apollo or Dionysus -- or whoever you say you are seeing -- there too? Or will your 'vision' be gone by the time we get to your room? Will everybody who comes to your room get to 'see God' -- or is it just your 'special status with God' that allows you to see Him, where we can't?

Personal Underdog: 'Well, um, I think it is my special status with God. I don't think you will be able to see Him. Or hear Him. But i will tell you what He says.

Group Topdog: Are you sure it is a 'Him'? What does He look like? What is He saying to you? Are you sure this is not your own 'projective process' at work in your own mind and you are not aware of it? All of us here are extremely doubtful that you are indeed epistemologically and existentially 'seeing and talking to God'.

Personal Underdog: Yeah, I am. I know it.

Group Topdog: Well, with all due respect, Dave, you may know it, but we don't know it, and more than this, we don't even trust that you 'rightly know' what you 'think you rightly know'. We think that your epistemological abilities and faculties are failing you. What's more, we feel scared and worried for you. We think you should see a psychiatrist and talk to him or her about your belief that you have been seeing and talking to God.

Personal Underdog: God just told me that I don't need to see a psychiatrist. He told me to trust Him and only Him. He says my 'epistemology' is just fine.

Group Topdog: We seem to be coming to an 'epistmelogical impasse' here. We are worried about you but we will leave things for now...

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My favorite epistemologists go back to Heraclitus, Aristotle, Ohkam ('Okham's Razor': All else being equal, simpler reasons and explanations are better than more complicated, convoluted ones...', Sir Francis Bacon, John Locke, The Enlightenment Philosophers: Diderot, Voltaire, Paine..., and onwards through the end of the 19th century and into the 20th century: Nietzsche, Bertrand Russell, Wittgenstein, Korzybski, Hayakawa, Ayn Rand, Nathaniel Branden, Foucualt, Derrida, Perls...

The next batch of epistemological essays that I write -- and/or some ones that I have already written -- will bring you more in touch with the different and similar ideas of most of these epistemologists and some of the lessons that I have learned from them.

The study of epistemology -- meaning the study of what we hope to be 'truthful knowledge' is not an easy, straight-forward subject matter. It has many different twists and turns, particularly in the areas of 'underlying metaphysical assumptions' and 'narcissistic, subjective bias'.

We will tackle these issues and more as I lay out the 'territory' of 'DGBN Dialectical, Rational-Empirical, Subjective-Objective, Observational-Interpretive Epistemology'.

There will be no pretense of 'Absolute Knowledge' here.

Just hopeful, optimistic, skeptical, idealistic-realistic, rational-empirical, observational-interpretive, pragmatically assumptive, historically based work in this direction.

If that does not smack entirely of 'confident and/or arrogant self-certainty', well, I suggest that that is not always, or even often, the goal of either epistemology or philosophy in general.

Epistemology's and philosophy's goal is oftentimes to unearth the uncertainties that are masked and hidden by the careless and/or unethical use of language, persuasion, assumptions, 'supposedly common sense', 'scientific facts', and/or righteous-narcissistic bias.

Again, the pursuit of truth starts with attitude, and some degree of skeptical uncertainty that works its way through both 'natural and human epistemological clutter, mud, chaos', works towards firmer ground, and then aims to build upwards and/or inwards taking to wherever we plan to go.

This to me is what 'dialectical-rational-empirical epistemology is all about -- a dialectic, homeostatic balance between 'skeptical doubt' and 'confidently grounded, rational-empirical self-conviction'. Too much of either one can cause epistemological problems before we even get started.

Other than that, the sky is the limit, maybe even outer space. (Just don't get lost up there!).

-- dgb, Sept. 14th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

An Updated Mission Statement of Hegel's Hotel: DGBN Philosopohy-Psychology-Politics...

More and more the inherent, multi-dialectic and/or pluralistic goal and mission statement of 'Hegel's Hotel: DGBN Philosophy' is becoming apparent.

DGBN Philosophy believes that the ultimate conflictual and multi-dialectic challenge of life for man is this: the conflict and challenge between 1. a personal and/or group 'will-to-power-control-and-dominance' (in the extreme -- 'pathological righteous-personal and/or group narcissism and/or sadism'); vs. 2. a personal and/or group 'will to self-submission and self-negation' (in the extreme, 'pathological self-and/or-group submission, negation, altruism, and/or masochism'); vs. 3. a personal and/or group 'will to creative-integrative-egalitarian-democratic-dialectic solutions' that aims to turn 'win-lose conflicts and conflict-resolutions' into 'win-win conflicts and conflict resolutions'. This latter goal is the goal of DGBN Philosophy -- of DGBN Dialectic-Democratic, Humanistic-Existential Centralism.


This three-fold dialectical-evolutionary recipe and formula for health in human conduct, human encounters, and human relationships basically follows the three stage classic Hegelian dialectic-evolutionary formula of: 1. thesis; 2. anti-thesis; and 3. synthesis. This formula assumes a general absence of underlying malice, manipulation, collusion, and 'puppet-string pulling'...(This last comment is largely intended for the web and blog site: 'Living Outside The Dialectic' who I have had a few heated dialectic-democratic debates with.)

A 'Centralist Post-Hegelian Humanistic-Existentialist like myself believes that usually the best answers, the best solutions and resolutions, in human dialectic conflicts and challenges lie not in the 'right wing' or 'left wing', 'Capitalist' or 'Socialist', 'Conservative' or 'Liberal', 'Democrat' or 'Republican', 'Apollonian' or 'Dionsyian', 'Superego' or 'Id', 'Persona' or 'Shadow' one-sided perspectives on life, philosophy, psychology, politics, business and economics, religion, medicine of different people and groups of people -- but rather in the creative, democratically negotiated and integrated, egalitarian win-win solutions and resolutions that can come out of the 'polar extreme philosophical perspectives and positions in life' that through free speech and dialectic engagement can result in 'working both polar extremes and ends towards the dialectic-democratic middle...'

This, ultimately, is the mission statement of Hegel's Hotel: DGBN Philosophy -- to show how in case after case example, in any subject matter of human endeavor and culture, the principle of free speech and democratic-dialectic engagement can help us 'find each other', find individual and group peace and harmony if only for a given amount of time, through the task of locating 'some place in space and time' where we can intra-psychically and/or inter-socially 'meet in the middle' and both enjoy a maximum integration of 'individual self-assertion and self-interest (individuation)' in conjunction with a maximum of 'union'.

Unless we plan to live on a different planet, in the middle of the far outreaches of nowhere, or in the middle of a large urban environment but still totally by ourselves as a social recluse and hermit, this would seem to me to be the best self and social agenda for reaching self and social 'balance and compromise'.

Now, there will always be some of us all of the time, and/or all of us some of the time, who will continue to 'reach and strive for the narcissistic, altruistic, and/or righteous extremes in life...'

But generally speaking, if and when this happens, the extremists amongst us usually have to, at some point in time, heal their, or our, wounds, realize that they/we are heading in the wrong direction of one form of pathological self-destruction or another -- and sooner or later, pull back on the reins of their/our behavior and look back towards the more homeostatically and dialectically balanced middle where health awaits them/us.

For some of us, the cost of waiting too long to turn our direction around -- from the more pathological extremes to the more balanced, healthy middle -- can be brutally painful. For others, their 'turn-around' -- if it ever happens -- might be too late.

Hegel's Hotel: DGBN Philosophy -- 'although at least partly exalting the extremes of excellence' and the work and perserverance it takes to get there -- in general, in essay after essay looks for that 'creative integrative balance between two or more philosophical perspectives'.

This is what I call: 'DGBN Democratic-Dialectic, Humanistic-Existentialism'.

'DGBN' once more is a 'triple acronym' standing for:

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still In Process...

Sept 13th, 2009.


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On "Lemons' and 'Sweet Lemonade'

I think that from a more 'positive' perspective, it is not the number or the strength of the 'lemons' that life throws at us, that is the determinining factor in our character, relationship, and life development, but rather the strength of our 'creative and positive integrative energy' to use our 'life lemons' -- and you know what is coming here to complete the probervial saying -- to make 'sweet lemonade'.

With enough creative and positive energy -- even under dire circumstances -- together we can flourish, apart -- and negatively dissociated from life -- we perish, if not physically, then psychologically, emotionally, existentially...

-- dgb, Sept. 13th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

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

Introduction


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hopefully, this time will be different.


-- dgb, Sept. 12th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are Still In Process...

On Self-Advancement Thwarted by Self-Negation

Self-advancement is sabotaged by self-negation. Plain and simple. For every one step forward we take in our mind, we second guess ourselves, and backtrack to where we started. Advancement -- nowhere. Zilch.

I found this following quote in a Business Depot outlet -- and it gets at the same point and the same problem in a different manner.

'The block of granite which was an obstacle in the path of the weak, becomes a stepping stone in the path of the strong.' (Unknown author)

Here's to 'stepping stones' and to not turning back once we have determined the direction of our desired 'self-advancement' -- regardless of the 'obstacles' in front of us.

-- dgb, Sept. 9th, 2009.

-- David Gordon Bain,

-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...

-- Are still in process...


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

Broader, DGB Integrative Foundations, Broader Directions in Psychoanalysis: Traumacy-Seduction Theory Meets Narcissistic Sexual Fantasy Theory Which In Turn Meets Narcissistic, Serial, Sexual Profiling

I created the title for this essay here back on Sept 8th, 2009 that I never wrote. So let me see if I can quickly write it now....on Jan. 17th, 2010.

The crux of The 'Pre-1897 vs. post 1897 Psychoanalytic Seduction Theory Controversy' lies in the human, all too human, tendency to 'polarize theories' and then to 'hang onto one-sided, polarized theoretical perspectives with a narcissistic, hanging on, Pit Bull bite'.  And not to be able to any longer see the opposing point of view....


Cognitive blindness and deafness is caused by polarized, one-sided perspectives in human thinking...


The whole is the real, and the real is the whole, and any one-sided, polarized view of life and/or human behavior is at best incomplete and out of context, and at worst, pathological... (That is my own considerably different modification of the infamous 'The real is the rational and the rational is the real' quote by Hegel...)


The ultimate strength of Hegelian Dialectic Philosophy is that allows us -- indeed, demands us -- to look at both sides of the theoretical and/or existential fence: force and counter-force, impulse and counter-impulse or restraint, theory and counter-theory...and ideally, to 'integrate multi-bi-polar forces, ideas, and theories...all into one comprehensive, over-riding and/or under-riding theoretical and/or practical system of philosophy in conjunction with its real life extensions... 


This is 'Hegelian Idealism' and/or 'DGB Post-Hegelian, Humanistic-Existential, Multi-Bi-Polar and Wholistic Idealism'...


In the case of the infamous and controversial 'Psychoanalytic Seduction Theory Controversy' -- and the conflict between 'real life childhood sexual traumacy experience' vs. 'hypothesized childhood and/or adult sexual fantasy', there is again an all too familiar bi-polarization of both human experience and human thinking with 'one school of thought' (The old and new style 'Seduction Theorists') righteously defending the one type of human experience (childhood sexual traumacy/abuse) vs. the 'opposite school of thought' (The Classic Psychoanalysts) defending Freud's Oedipal Theory and the idea of both male and female children 'essentially falling in love with, and sexually fantasizing about, the parent of the opposite sex' (under 'normal' growing up experiences), and 'masking' these childhood, teenage, and/or adult sexual fantasies in the form of 'allegedly real' but 'really false memories of childhood seduction and/or rape'...


As we twist in the wind of Aristotelean 'Either/Or' Logic, we ignore the reality of 'Hegelian Dialectic Logic' that does not ignore or neglect the 'excluded middle possibility' ignored and neglected by Aristotelean Either/Or Logic. 


In this case, that 'excluded middle possibility' includes the possibility of 'sexual and/or self-esteem traumacy existing side by side with self-esteem and/or sexual fantasy -- under the workings and the psychological manipulations of The Subconscious, Transference-Lifestyle, Complex and Game System of The Mastery Compulsion Seeking To Finish in a More Ego-Satisfying Manner That Which Was Left Incomplete and Egotistically Traumatic and Unsatisfying in Our Earliest Childhood Memories and Experiences...'




This is the primary DGB Dialectically Integrative Answer to the infamous Psychoanalytic Seduction Theory Controversy...It neither excludes the very real possibility of childhood sexual traumacy, seduction, manipulation, exploitation, abuse, and/or assault, including a father relative to his daughter, nor does it exclude the equally real possibility and actuality of childhood and/or adulthood sexual fantasy as it proceeds through a myriad of potential evolutionary and/or regressive developments....Nor does it exclude the very real 'middle' possibility of both of the above 'actual experience' and 'internal fantasy' developments existing and evolving side by side in the same person...deeply, intimately and complexly interconnected to each other....


Life -- and human living -- is about endless possibilities...


It is not about 'theoretically pigeon-holed and anal-retentive, righteously and narcissistically defended, one-sided possibilities'. 




-- dgb, Jan. 17th, 2010


-- David Gordon Bain


-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...


-- Are Still in Process...