Beware your righteous, theoretical boundaries because theoretical boundaries set up an arbitrary self-contradiction from which we cannot escape as long as we cling to that boundary with no flexibility for movement...
Every perspective, every theory, has its own particular strength...
And every perspective, every theory, has its own particular liability...
Why should we limit ourselves to the inevitable weakness of every one-sided theory?
Like a good husband and wife team working in harmony with each other,
Opposing theories can be used harmoniously and integratively to supplement each other's weakness...
To provide a more balanced, wholistic perspective...
When it comes to theories,
The only boundaries that should dictate,
Are those governed by subject-matter, ethics, and integrity...
And even here there is going to be ambiguity and plenty of room for debate,
For example, the subject matter is going to be influenced by 'outside factors',
That can change the nature of the discussion,
Or the boundaries of the subject matter,
Thus, we get 'bio-chemistry', and 'bio-physics',
And an essay like Freud's 'The Neuro-Psychoses of Defence' (1894).
Some boundaries are inherent to the subject-matter under investigation,
But many are simply man-made, conceptual-classification-label boundaries,
That are meant to make thinking and understanding easier,
And oftentimes, these can come back to haunt us,
And cause us endless grief,
Until we finally figure out that we have created a man-made conceptual-semantic trap.
Boundaries are meant to be broken...(especially when we make them in places that we shouldn't have made them in the first place).
Giving proper respect to ethical and legal boundaries that are there for good reason.
And organizational boundaries that give us some semblence of an idea of where to start our study and where to end it...
Usually when we start to draw near the end of our subject matter, we start to feel the encroachment of other subject matters surrounding it, each with their own sphere of respective influence...
It was in this manner, and through a famous quote by Jung, that I bumped into the philosophy of Hegel, and in passing from Jung to Hegel, I had jumped over the boundary from psychology to philosophy...
And then I had a whole new discipline to study...
A whole new world of information and knowledge to learn,
Years and years of further study...
To add more depth and historical context, as well as subject matter context, to that which I had already learned in psychology...
And the same could apply to the spheres of business and economics,
And politics and spirituality and religion,
And art and literature...
Inside the 'box' of psychology, we have different 'sub-categories' of study such as 'clinical psychology' and 'research psychology' and 'industrial psychology'...
Inside the 'box' of psychology, we also have different 'schools' of psychology, each with their different perspective, their different slant on things, like 'psychoanalysis' and 'gestalt therapy' and 'adlerian psychology' and 'jungian psycholgy', 'cognitive therapy' and 'client-centered therapy' and 'transactional analysis'...
To go with all the boxes or spheres that we mentioned outside the box of psychology...
In both cases, we need to keep thinking 'inside and outside the box'.
Ascertaining how inside and outside factors influence each other,
Co-determine each other,
Add contextual depth to each other,
Attract and repel each other...
This is what Hegel called 'dialectic thinking'.
I sometimes call it 'dialectic-democratic thinking'.
Or the 'dialectic-integrative evolution of theories'...
Which constantly looks for 'win-win solutions and conflict resolutions'...
To seemingly unsolvable and unresolvable paradoxes, dichotomies, impasses, and riddles...
When a theory becomes too self-limiting by the constriction of its own self-boundaries...
Think outside the boundary...
And then come back to integrate...
What is inside and outside the boundary...
You might be amazed at where it takes you, and what it brings back to you!
New life, new depth, new integrations!!
To that which had become hopelessly self-entangled,
By its own limitations and self-restrictions...
With theorists screaming at each other from each side of their own limited vantage point and self-perspective...
Broaden your horizons everyone...
And reap the benefits from doing this...
The world is a big, big place...
And you are only seeing part of the picture...
Two opposite halves generally make a whole...
-- dgb, Feb. 26th, 2010; updated March 19th, 2010.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
