I created a slightly different title for this essay back on Sept 8th, 2009 -- and then never ended up writing the essay. 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...
Life is not about 'theoretically pigeon-holed, righteously and narcissistically defended, one-sided possibilities'.
Or at least it shouldn't be. Unfortunately, too often life is poorly understood and compromised when people try to force their preconceived theories and/or ideologies into, or onto, a life situation that does not operate by the standards of pre-ordained, stereotypical human thinking.
That is why you often hear the constant refrain from non-orthodox thinkers: 'Think outside the box!'
Or at least it shouldn't be. Unfortunately, too often life is poorly understood and compromised when people try to force their preconceived theories and/or ideologies into, or onto, a life situation that does not operate by the standards of pre-ordained, stereotypical human thinking.
That is why you often hear the constant refrain from non-orthodox thinkers: 'Think outside the box!'
Because life does not always operate inside our 'preconceived boxes'.
With dialectic thinking or logic, you have more than two choices -- more than two boxes -- to choose from. You also have the 'dialectic, bi-polar interaction' between the two boxes, the two categories, the two theories, the two choices...And you are also alert to the possibility of any and/or all other 'potential multiple bi-polar or even pluralistic processes' that may be impinging on -- and influencing the nature of -- the particular phenomenon you are studying.
This is where Hegelian logic, post-Hegelian logic, and pluralistic Korzybskian logic all surpass and supersede the old style of Aristotelean logic that continually only looks at two different 'box choices' -- A or B -- and, built into this outdated style of thinking is the idea that 'never the two should meet'. 'A is A, and B is B, and never do A and B become AB.
Evolution and mutation tells us that Aristotle completely oversimplified life in this type of 'pigeon-holed, A is not B, style of thinking'.
Dialectic, multi-dialectic, and pluralistic thinking are much more 'structurally compatible' with evolution -- and evolutionary thinking.
But over and over again we go back to Aristotelean thinking looking for oversimplified, black or white answers, on how life does or doesn't work, and how life (and man) should and shouldn't be.
Freud followed this over-simplistic pattern of thinking both before and after his abandonment of the seduction theory. His traumacy theory, and even more so, his seduction theory was an over-simplistic theory and could not properly handle the full range of human behavior, and in particular, the phenomenon of human impulse, desire, and fantasy...So Freud did a 180 degree pendulum swing and focused completely on human impulse, desire, and fantasy...mainly from the child's evolving perspective... leaving out -- or at least minimizing or marginalizing -- the element of childhood (sexual) traumacy/assault/abuse, in particular the realm of 'father-daughter incest as manipulated and exploited by the father'.
With dialectic thinking or logic, you have more than two choices -- more than two boxes -- to choose from. You also have the 'dialectic, bi-polar interaction' between the two boxes, the two categories, the two theories, the two choices...And you are also alert to the possibility of any and/or all other 'potential multiple bi-polar or even pluralistic processes' that may be impinging on -- and influencing the nature of -- the particular phenomenon you are studying.
This is where Hegelian logic, post-Hegelian logic, and pluralistic Korzybskian logic all surpass and supersede the old style of Aristotelean logic that continually only looks at two different 'box choices' -- A or B -- and, built into this outdated style of thinking is the idea that 'never the two should meet'. 'A is A, and B is B, and never do A and B become AB.
Evolution and mutation tells us that Aristotle completely oversimplified life in this type of 'pigeon-holed, A is not B, style of thinking'.
Dialectic, multi-dialectic, and pluralistic thinking are much more 'structurally compatible' with evolution -- and evolutionary thinking.
But over and over again we go back to Aristotelean thinking looking for oversimplified, black or white answers, on how life does or doesn't work, and how life (and man) should and shouldn't be.
Freud followed this over-simplistic pattern of thinking both before and after his abandonment of the seduction theory. His traumacy theory, and even more so, his seduction theory was an over-simplistic theory and could not properly handle the full range of human behavior, and in particular, the phenomenon of human impulse, desire, and fantasy...So Freud did a 180 degree pendulum swing and focused completely on human impulse, desire, and fantasy...mainly from the child's evolving perspective... leaving out -- or at least minimizing or marginalizing -- the element of childhood (sexual) traumacy/assault/abuse, in particular the realm of 'father-daughter incest as manipulated and exploited by the father'.
Freud was guilty here, as elsewhere in his evolving theory, of oversimplified Aristotelean thinking.
Dialectic, multi-dialectic, and pluralistic thinking overcomes this difficulty.
It puts the therapist back in 'center court' open, not closed, to the endless possibilities of human behavior on both bi-polar sides of the fence of 'human equilibrium'.
Dialectic, multi-dialectic, and pluralistic thinking overcomes this difficulty.
It puts the therapist back in 'center court' open, not closed, to the endless possibilities of human behavior on both bi-polar sides of the fence of 'human equilibrium'.
-- dgb, Jan. 17th, 2010
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
