"When we all relate to each other as we would like to receive
if our roles are reversed, we move closer to utopia. Every one
of us can bring this closer, starting now. This includes how
we relate to our own family, our neighbors and how we use our
wealth and opportunities to help entire nations that lack our
advantages."
-- Bill Blackman
Imagination was given to us to compensate for what we are not; a sense of humor was given to us to console us for what we are.
- Mark McGinnis
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Can Classical Psychoanalysis and Object Relations be brought under the same theoretical roof and the same theoretical jurisdiction?
Yes they can.
Can Freud's Traumacy, Seduction, Fantasy, Oedipal, Transference, and Narcissistic Theories all be brought under the same theoretical roof and jurisdiction?
Yes, they can.
Can Freud and Masson seemingly 'bi-polar and opposing ideas' be brought together under one theoretical roof and one jurisdiction?
Yes, they can.
Can Freud, Adler, Jung, Ferenczi, Rank, Reich (Wilhelm and Theodor), Klein, Fairbairn, Kohut, Berne, Perls, and Masson all be brought under the same theoretical roof and jurisdiction?
Yes, they can.
What is required?
Research -- lots of research, imagination, and supreme multi-dialectic integrative powers, my friends...
Plus perhaps as much or more than anything, an open mind, a democratic-dialectic approach, and a willingness and stubborness not to get stuck in the mud of other people's and other schools of philosophy-psychology's 'conceptual narcissism' and 'arbitrary conceptual boundaries'.
In the world of people's minds, people make arbitrary conceptual and theoretical boundaries -- not nature, not evolution, and not God whatever your conception of God is, to the extent that 'God' conceptually and/or phenomenologically represents the driving, creative-destructive force behind all of nature and all of evolution.
If you can stay away from the mental pitfalls I have listed above, and if you can exemplify the mental qualities that I have listed above, then perhaps you too could do -- for better or for worse -- what I am about to do below.
Which is essentially to re-build the house that Freud built. Psychoanalysis.
And to re-involve practically everybody who was theoretically and therapeutically involved with Freud at the time he was building Psychoanalysis. To re-involve everyone who I have read who has left a theoretical and therapeuctic impact on me. And basically, to re-integrate almost everything, every idea, and everyone who both influenced Freud and was influenced by him. And then driven apart by 'masculine narcissism and egotism' and in at least one case 'feminine narcissism and egotism' (Anna Freud vs. Melanie Klein).
Or maybe I am -- in my abilities, my motivation, and what I want to do, for better or for worse, and in strength and in weakness -- simply one of a kind.
Because you won't find my ideas anywhere else on the internet except maybe in isolated, unintegrated pieces.
And you won't find a 'Grander Narrative' in the history of Western Philosophy and Clinical Psychology than you will right here, as it is still evolving...being written in front of your eyes...
Hegel's Hotel is basically intended to be a modernized, existentialized, humanized, 21st century version of Hegel's classic work: 'The Phenomenology of Spirit'.
And there is a paradox here -- probably a couple of them coming into my immediate awareness-- just like there are paradoxes (and contradictions, and incongruities, and hypocrisies, and impasses...) written all across man's psyche.
On the one hand, there is no one else in the world who could write Hegel's Hotel in the way that it is being written -- in its massive integrative scope -- other than me. And yet I could take the combined work of writers, philosophers, psychologists, theorists, all across the world, both today and throughout world history, and make Hegel's Hotel a much, much bigger, and more integrative-comprehensive, place to be, than anything I will ever be able to accomplish by myself.
There are two other men, and two other massive pieces of work, that come to my mind as I write this.
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1. Denis Diderot (October 5, 1713 – July 31, 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic and writer. He was a prominent figure during the Enlightenment and is best known for serving as chief editor of and contributor to the creation of the Encyclopédie.
'The Encyclopedie' was a massive intellectual project of the French Enlightenment period and Denis Diderot was the main driving force and integrative power behind this project. His aim was basically to capture all of available intellectual knowledge available at his time.
In 1745 Diderot became the editor of the Encyclopédie with mathematician Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, who resigned later because he believed that mathematics was a more fundamental science than biology. Diderot himself was fascinated by discoveries in the biological sciences. Originally the work was planned to be a translation of Ephraim Chambers's, a Scottish globemaker, two-volume Cyclopaedia. Diderot enlarged its scope and made it an organ for radical and revolutionary opinions, which he managed to slip into seemingly minor articles. The Encyclopédie was published between 1751 and 1772 in 17 volumes of text and 11 volumes of engravings. Many of the contributors were priests, but Diderot's companions in the enterprise were also Voltaire, Chevalier de Jaucourt, a tireless reseacher, and Marmontel. The Encyclopédie arose much controversy and the publisher was jailed, then released, and his licence canceled. However, the censor, M. de Malesherbes, was a believer in freedom of the press, and warned beforehand Diderot when his agents were sent to seize manuscripts.
Denis Diderot was the most prominent of the French Encyclopedists. He was educated by the Jesuits, and, refusing to enter one of the learned professions, was turned adrift by his father and came to Paris, where he lived from hand to mouth for a time. Gradually, however, he became recognized as one of the most powerful writers of the day. His first independent work was the Essai sur le merite et la vertu (1745). As one of the editors of the Dictionnaire de medecine (6 vols., Paris, 1746), he gained valuable experience in encyclopedic system. His Pensees philosophiques (The Hague, 1746), in which he attacked both atheism and the received Christianity, was burned by order of the Parliament of Paris.
In the circle of the leaders of the Enlightenment, Diderot's name became known especially by his Lettre sur les aveugles (London, 1749), which supported Locke's theory of knowledge. He attacked the conventional morality of the day, with the result (to which possibly an allusion to the mistress of a minister contributed) that he was imprisoned at Vincennes for three months. He was released by the influence of Voltaire's friend Mme. du Chatelet, and thenceforth was in close relation with the leaders of revolutionary thought. He had made very little pecuniary profit out of the Encyclopedie, and Grimm appealed on his behalf to Catherine of Russia, who in 1765 bought his library, allowing him the use of the books as long as he lived, and assigning him a yearly salary which a little later she paid him for fifty years in advance.
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The second man -- and project -- on my list here is a man until very recently, I didn't even know existed. However, he can be viewed as being a modern-day 'Denis Diderot'. This is Jimmy Wales, founder of Wikipedia, and, although I don't normally do this kind of thing, below he is appealing for donations to keep Wikipedia up and running...I would like to acknowledge him for the many times his his massive work project -- Wikipedia -- has helped me, and, seeing as Wikipedia seems to have run into some financial problems, I will let him appeal his case below. See Wikipedia...
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2. Jimmy Wales, Founder of Wikipedia
Jimmy Wales
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Born Jimmy Donal Wales
August 7, 1966 (age 43)
Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.
Residence St. Petersburg, Florida
Nationality American
Other names Jimbo (online nickname)[1]
Alma mater Auburn University
University of Alabama
Indiana University Bloomington
Occupation Internet entrepreneur
Known for Co-founding Wikipedia
Title President of Wikia, Inc. (2004–present)
Chairman of the Wikimedia Foundation
Term June 2003 – October 2006
Successor Florence Devouard
Board member of Wikimedia Foundation, Creative Commons, Socialtext, MIT Center for Collective Intelligence (advisory board)
Awards EFF Pioneer Award (2006), The Economist's Business Process Award (2008), The Global Brand Icon of the Year Award (2008)
Website
Personal weblog
English Wikipedia userpage
Jimmy Donal "Jimbo" Wales (pronounced /ˈdoʊnəl weɪlz/; born August 7, 1966)[2] is an American Internet entrepreneur and a co-founder and promoter of Wikipedia.[3][4][5]
Wales was born in Huntsville, Alabama. He attended a small private school, a university preparatory school, and then earned bachelor's and master's degrees in finance. While in graduate school, he taught at two universities.[1][6] Wales later took a job in finance, and worked as the research director of a Chicago futures and options firm for several years.[1] In 1996, he and two partners founded Bomis, a web portal that targeted males, and which hosted, and provided the initial funding for, the peer-reviewed encyclopedia Nupedia (2000–2003) and for its successor, Wikipedia.[4][6]
In 2001, together with Larry Sanger and others, Wales helped launch Wikipedia, a free, open-content encyclopedia which enjoyed rapid growth and popularity.[7][8] As Wikipedia's public profile grew, Wales became the project's promoter and spokesman.[9] Wales is historically cited as the co-founder of Wikipedia, though he has disputed the "co-" designation in declaring himself the sole founder.[10][11] He serves on the Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit charitable organization which operates Wikipedia. He holds its board-appointed "community founder" seat.[12] In 2004, he co-founded Wikia, a privately-owned, free Web-hosting service, with fellow Wikimedia trustee Angela Beesley.[13]
Wales has been married twice and has a daughter with Christine, his second wife, from whom he is separated. He describes himself as an Objectivist and, with reservations, a libertarian.[1] His role in creating Wikipedia, which has become the world's largest encyclopedia, prompted Time magazine to name him in its 2006 list of the world's most influential people.[14] Wales is the de facto leader of Wikipedia;[4][15] his exact position on the project is a matter of public and press debate.[16]
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"Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet has free access to the sum of all human knowledge." — Jimmy Wales
An appeal from Wikipedia founder, Jimmy Wales
Today, I am asking you to make a donation to support Wikipedia.
I started Wikipedia in 2001, and over the past eight years, I've been amazed and humbled to see hundreds of thousands of volunteers join with me to build the largest encyclopedia in human history.
Wikipedia isn't a commercial website. It's a community creation, entirely written and funded by people like you. More than 340 million people use Wikipedia every month - almost a third of the Internet-connected world. You are part of our community.
I believe in us. I believe that Wikipedia keeps getting better. That's the whole idea. One person writes something, somebody improves it a little, and it keeps getting better, over time. If you find it useful today, imagine how much we can achieve together in 5, 10, 20 years.
Wikipedia is about the power of people like us to do extraordinary things. People like us write Wikipedia, one word at a time. People like us fund it. It's proof of our collective potential to change the world.
We need to protect the space where this important work happens. We need to protect Wikipedia. We want to keep it free of charge and free of advertising. We want to keep it open – you can use the information in Wikipedia any way you want. We want to keep it growing – spreading knowledge everywhere, and inviting participation from everyone.
The Wikimedia Foundation is the non-profit organization I created in 2003 to operate, grow, nurture, and protect Wikipedia. For ten million US dollars a year and with a staff of fewer than 35 people, it runs the fifth most-read website in the entire world. I'm asking for your help so we can continue our work.
Imagine a world in which every single person on the planet has free access to the sum of all human knowledge. That’s where we’re headed. And with your help, we will get there.
Jimmy Wales
Founder, Wikipedia
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-- dgb, cont'd...
Back to Hegel's Hotel.
One last note before we move back into 'Ego Traumacies and Fantasies'.
I have given both Plato and Hegel a hard, critical ride for their respective but similar ideas about 'Absolute Knowledge' -- Plato for being 'overly idealistic' and 'non-empirical'...and Hegel for being 'overly deterministic', believing that the dialectic can and will solve anything and everything, regardless of how many tragedies and traumacies mankind has to endure, both personally and collectively, to 'get back to God again' and to find that ultimate 'Godly place of Absolute Knowledge'...
I have tried to be more pragmatic, less 'absolutely idealistic', less historically deterministic, more rational-empirical, more Enlightenment oriented, more humanistic and existential, more 'egalitarian and democratic'...than Hegel...
But in the end, I have my 'Forms' just like Plato. The Forms are in my head and they are the internal vision I have of Hegel's Hotel. What you see on paper here is the 'externalized, projected, evolving, changing'... version of the Hegel's Hotel Form or Visualized Template that I carry around in my head..and that is constantly evolving and changing as well...
But in the end, I guess you could say that my evolving 'Grand Narrative' here is also about an unrelenting search for 'Absolute Integrative Knowledge (AIK)' even if I be so bold and egotistical as to make myself the main 'architect' behind this search for the Hegelian Holy Grail...this search for 'AIK'...
Perhaps the main difference between Hegel and I in this regard is that I do not profess to make any lofty, idealistic predictions that either I or even the 'whole of mankind' is ever going to 'get back to God's epistemological, ethical, phenomenological, ontological, and/or humanistic-existential perfection'...indeed, I would say that this is much more likely to have been Hegel's lofty ambition and goal than God's....If I was God, like Freud and Schopenhauer and Scrooge before me, I would have bailed on any 'happy prognosis' for the future of mankind...In fact, if I was God at this point in time, I would not even want to take 'accountability' for having created mankind...
I think God has abandoned man, and man has abandoned God.
In the extrapolated words of Nietzsche,
God is dead in Iraq.
God is dead in Afghanastan.
God dies partly with every fallen soldier,
Regardless of his or her particular race, nationality, religion, sex, or colour.
God dies in the silent rage and despair of every individual person who carries it,
And in the end, there is only man unto himself.
Left to pick up all the death-strewn, morbid, pieces of another blown-apart corpse...
And his own 'existential corpse'...
This is not God's work....
This is man's work,
Man at his worst,
Man, in his darkest hour...
And in the end, it is only man...
Who can dig himself back out of his self-created hell-hole...
With or without social or family or friendship or political or economic or religious support...
Or not.
This is what I call 'existential free-will'.
And on one very basic level,
It simply comes down to the existential free-will,
To either keep stabbing, shooting, blowing up, and killing each other,
Or not.
Forgive me for not being optimistic. But right now I just don't see much cause for optimism. Like Freud coming out of World War 1 and 2. Like Shopenhauer trying to absorb and digest his father's suicide.
Let us move back into the realm of childhood 'ego traumacies and ego fantasies'...
And maybe we can get a better handle on where and when 'much of this dark side of man' all starts...which is not to say that things cannot get completely exasperated, embellished, and out of control based on where we are right now both individually and collectively in the present...Darkness outside fuels darkness inside...and visa versa...Alternatively, hope, encouragement, and compassion outside fuel hope, encouragement, and compassion inside...Whatever comes around, goes around, and visa versa...We can play down to the 'meaner parts' of the human spirit...or we can rise above this strategy...looking towards healing the pain that smolders and burns both inside and outside of us, the pain that lies below these same 'mean spirits' both inside and outside of us...Which strategy do we want to be our legacy? Which direction do we want to move our inner spirit in? And the world's outer spirit? Towards belittling others? Hurting others? Or offering them our warmest smile of encouragement, compassion, and hope?
We all have to choose.
Choose wisely.
Choose compassionately.
-- dgb, Dec. 27th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Progress...
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'Death don't have no mercy in this land.' -- Hot Tuna
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Hot Tuna
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hot Tuna at MerleFest, 2006. Left to right, Jack Casady, Jorma Kaukonen and Barry Mitterhof.
Background information
Origin San Francisco, USA
Genres Rock, blues
Years active 1969 – 1977
1983
1986 – present
Labels RCA
Relix Records
Eagle Records
Associated acts Jefferson Airplane
Website hottuna.com
Members
Jack Casady
Jorma Kaukonen
Barry Mitterhoff
Skoota Warner
Former members
Paul Kantner
Marty Balin
Joey Covington
Will Scarlett
Papa John Creach
Paul Ziegler
Sammy Piazza
Bob Steeler
Greg Douglass
Nick Buck
Shigemi Komiyama
Michael Falzarano
Joey Balin
Joey Stefko
Peter Kaukonen
Harvey Sorgen
Galen Underwood
Pete Sears
Erik Diaz
Hot Tuna is an American blues-rock band, formed by bassist Jack Casady and guitarist Jorma Kaukonen as a spin-off of Jefferson Airplane. They play acoustic and electric versions of original and traditional blues songs.[1][2]
Jefferson Airplane Side Project
Hot Tuna began during a hiatus in Jefferson Airplane's touring schedule in early 1969 while Grace Slick was undergoing recovery from throat node surgery that had left her unable to perform. Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, Paul Kantner, and new drummer Joey Covington played several shows around San Francisco including the Airplane's original club, The Matrix before Jefferson Airplane returned to performing in April to support the album Volunteers. Although Covington had been hired as Jefferson Airplane's drummer, Spencer Dryden continued to perform with the Airplane and Covington was only called when needed.[3] Their early repertoire was derived mainly from Airplane material that Jorma played and covers of American country blues artists such as Rev. Gary Davis, Jelly Roll Morton, Bo Carter and Arthur Blake (Blind Blake). In addition to these shows, Jack & Jorma would play as a duo with Jorma on acoustic guitar. In September, 1969, the week of concerts performed at New Orleans House in Berkeley was recorded and released as a live album in 1970, Hot Tuna. This album is affectionately known by Tunaphiles as the "breaking glass album", because of the sound of breaking beer glasses during the recording of "Uncle Sam Blues".[4] Jorma's brother Peter Kaukonen soon replaced Paul on rhythm guitar and Marty Balin joined on vocals for the electric songs. Starting in October 1969, Hot Tuna would perform as opening act to Jefferson Airplane with a combination of both electric and acoustic sets, giving Kaukonen and Casady an opportunity to explore their love of traditional blues music, and also giving Balin and Covington a chance to explore soul-rock compositions. In 1970, RCA paid for the band to go to Jamaica to record their next album, now with Paul Ziegler taking over Peter's spot, but the album was never finished.[3] Papa John Creach was brought in to the band in late 1970 (Creach also joined Jefferson Airplane at the same time) and Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna finished their co-tour in November 1970 with shows at the Fillmore East.
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Death Don't Have No Mercy
by rev. Gary Davis
recording of 19
from Splashdown Two (Relix 2080), copyright notice
Well now death don't have no mercy in this land
Well now death don't have no mercy in this land
He'll come to your house and he won't stay long
Look 'round the room one of your family will be gone
Death don't have no mercy in this land
Death will leave you standin' and cryin' in this land
Death will leave you standin' and cryin' in this land
He'll come to your house and he won't stay long
Look 'round the room one of your family will be gone
Death don't have no mercy in this land
Well death don't give you time to get ready in this land
Well death don't give you time to get ready in this land
He'll come to your house and he won't stay long
Look 'round the room one of your mama will be gone
Death don't have no mercy in this land
Well now death don't have no mercy in this land
Well now death don't have no mercy in this land
He'll come to your house and he won't stay long
Look 'round the room one of your family will be gone
Death don't have no mercy in this land
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"More than three decades after his death, the influence of Reverend Gary Davis can still be felt.
As each new generation is introduced to blues, folk, and other forms of traditional American music,
Davis' signature guitar stylings and heartfelt vocals continue to move, entertain, and educate." - Paul Andersen
"He was the most fantastic guitarist I'd ever seen." -Dave Van Ronk
"Rev. Davis taught me, by example, to completely throw out my preconceptions of what can or can't be done on the guitar."
-Bob Weir (of the Grateful Dead)
"Gary Davis took you out of playing baby guitar and made you play it like a grown man." -Taj Mahal
"In Davis we encounter a complete musician, a composer aware of all musical details, exploring new possibilities. Davis has not been acclaimed as Robert Johnson, yet he alone brought many traditions to culmination through an artistry which surpassed nearly all others during his lifetime." -Allan Evans
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