Let us understand one thing that will bring a cognitive-(conceptual-theoretical)-emotional-behavioral flexibility, openness, and balance to our style of thinking, feeling, and behaving that is important to our ongoing creative-constructive evolution through life...
Theories are always wrong! You want your theories to be as 'right' as possible...but still, no theory can capture 'all of the rightness of reality'....and all theories will go down trying and dying while they are still trying!
It cannot be any different. In the words of Hegel, 'Every theory carries the seeds of its own self-destruction.'
Because if a theory was always right -- meaning in every context, every situation, with every case example -- we would not call it a 'theory'; rather, we would call it a 'fact' or we would call it 'the truth' or as some theorists-philosophers-psychologists or religious and/or political zealots are prone to do, we would call it 'The Truth'....or 'The Absolute'...
Actually, if any one philosopher has or had the right to call his or her philosophy a 'philosophy of The Absolute' -- or at least 'an idealistic philosophical pursuit of The Absolute' (which is a much better way to phrase it) -- it was Hegel. Because Hegel fully grasped the 'multi-dialectic-(or multi-bi-polar) paradoxical essence of life.
Hegel was certainly not the first 'dualistic-dialectic philosopher' who looked at the idea of 'opposites either competing with each other and seeking to conquer each other' on the one hand vs. 'needing each other and being attracted to each other' for the purpose of 'uniting each other' in 'dialectical balance, wholism, peace, and harmony as opposed to continutal dialectic conflict and war...
The honour of the first dualistic-dialectic philosopher would have to go back to the ancient Greek philosopher, Anaximander, or conversely, the ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tse....or some very, very ancient Chinese philosopher before Lao Tse, and/or perhaps a very, very old Middle Eastern philosopher, and/or an equally very, very old East Indian philsopher, and/or a very, very old Native North American Indian philosopher....back before 600 BC, and back before 'written history and philosophy' gave us something to historically look back on.
However, Hegel, in clearer words than any philosopher before him, announced such things as 'Every philosophy or theory is inherently self-contradictory', and will eventually 'implode or explode and self-destruct' in this inherent self-contradiction....leading to the phrase, 'Every theory carries the seeds of its own self-destruction'...
Expanded a little further, we might even propose the dialectic paradoxical theory that 'Every life entity and life characteristic carries within it the seeds of its own self-destruction'. A person's greatest strength is usually his or her greatest weakness. Sometimes it is his or her 'tragic nemesis'.
'Too much' of one thing generally spells 'not enough' of another. The main characteristic that attracts us to a person -- whether he or she be a 'love object', a 'guru', a 'transference figure' -- is quite likely to be the same characteristic that we reject in that person, that repels us away from that person, later on, the more we get to know the 'counter-weakness' that is attached to the person's earlier 'idealized' greatest strength. Either we come to 'accept' the person's greatest weakness that goes along with his or her greatest strength -- or we end up leaving the person and the relationship once our 'idealized God on earth' turns imperfectly human, all to imperfectly human...
Our 'oasis' turned into a 'mirage' or created a 'new' problem that was as bad or worse than one we came looking for a 'solution' to. Our overly idealized hero, we later find out, has a 'Pandora's Box' attached to his or her supposedly 'Magic Potion' quality -- the quality that was/is supposed to 'heal' or 'fix' our 'Missing Ingredient' -- the one that was/is supposed to make us 'Whole' again.
Instead, we find that our so-called 'Guru', our 'Hero', has 'holes' in his or her personality too -- indeed, there are no 'Whole' people in the world, just a whole world of people like you and me who are looking to become more 'Whole' by working on 'patching' the different 'holes' in their/our respective personalities....
In this regard, maybe Dialectic Philosophy -- or Multi-Dialectic Philosophy (also referred to here as 'Quantum-Dialectic Philosophy') is the closest theory we can find that defies the inherent limitations that we just put on any and all theory/ies -- specifically, perhaps this is a theory that is 'always closer to being right' in its inherent ability to forsee that all 'one-sided, unilateral' theories and philosophies will always eventually push their limits to the point of 'becoming wrong' -- and once reaching this point -- self-destruct!
Maybe we have a theory here that is worthy and capable of pursuing 'The Absolute Truth' -- in its 'Multi-Bi-Polarity' capability -- even if we never 'reach' The Absolute Truth, which to be sure, we won't -- but we can keep getting closer and closer (or think that we are) even as God/Nature/Creation continually stays a couple of million-trillion moves ahead of us...That's significantly higher than the American debt! We have a lot of work to still do in order to reach the ultimate Godly Platform of 'Perfection' or 'The Absolute'. Let's say we are maybe a couple of million-trillion light years away -- assuming we don't backtrack (which we most certainly will, because we are human, all too imperfectly human both in our worst narcissistic, and our worst righteous, capabilities.
Certainly, this Post-Hegelian, dialecitc, 'multi-bi-polar' theory could have provided Freud in 1920 with his strongest argument for 'The Death Instinct', even as Freud was partly figuring it out, and even as the 'Life vs. Death Instinctive Playoff' in man has its own theoretical limitations. What good does it do us to say that 'The man was more aggressive than most people because he had a greater death instinct in him than most people.' What does that explain? Almost any explanation, any theory of aggression -- 'He had little empathy for people', or 'He was very narcissistic', or he learned how to be aggressive from his father.', or, 'He was very stressed out and frustrated.' -- would be better than Freud's 1920 'Death Instinct' explanation. Some theories are just inherently 'wrong' or 'inadequate' or take us nowhere that is important...However, Freud's 'Life vs. Death Instinct' did have this amount of 'paradoxical rightness' in it....
We breathe in 'oxygen'. Oxygen is one of the driving forces of life for any 'breathing animal'. However, oxygen is also one of the driving forces of 'death'. Something 'oxidizes', 'ages' (rusts, gets wrinkles, loses its 'functional efficiency'...) -- and eventually it/we dies/die from the force of 'oxidizing oxgen' as it paradoxically 'combusts' in the body to give us 'the driving force of life'. That is about as far as Freud's 'death instinct' takes us...After that, it takes us nowhere...at least in explaining 'aggression', 'destructiveness', 'violence'...
All life is paradoxical -- a paradox built on the foundation of man's (and life's) essential 'bi-polar nature and essence' , indeed, his/its 'multi-bi-polar' nature and essence.
Any time we say to ourselves, 'Turn left'...there is something that will likely begin to 'formulate' somewhere either higher or lower in our brain -- depending on whether we are talking about either 'ethics, righteousness, and guilt' (coming metaphorically from our 'Righteous, Critical Superego') or we are talking about something more 'impulse-driven', i.e., to do with some combination of narcissism and/or hedonism' (which we will call a 'Shadow-Id-Dissociation-and/or-Drive'/or 'SIDD' Formation) that could be percolating in either our conscious and/or subconscious personality -- telling us, 'Turn right next time, turn right -- not left'.
Freud once wrote -- (I believe in his little essay 'Negation'...I will look up the reference) -- that 'The unconscious never says no.' ...A very interesting comment...I will have to think about it...We all have 'self-boundaries' -- but Freud is partly right, those boundaries are always changing to some greater or lesser degree -- or thinking of changing -- based on the principle of 'wanting to explore the other polarity' (i.e., 'the grass on the other side of the fence is always greener' principle...)
So, even as there is a driving life force, a driving theory, a driving philosophy, a driving impulse...that is 'exploding' -- or at least 'wants' to explode -- into 'behavioral action', at the same time, there is always a 'second-guessing counter-force', conscious or subconscious, that is wanting either to 'restrain the first force' and/or 'explode in a different direction'....This is an essential derrivative of 'the multi-bi-polar nature and essence of man'...the drive always eventually towards 'homeostatic --dialectic, bi-polar -- balance, unity, and harmony -- even as we spend as much time (or more) of our time and energy 'destroying our present balance, unity, and harmony'... We are stuck in a paradox and competition between wanting 'entropy' (staying the same) and wanting to 'break entropy' (wanting something different than what we have).
This 'striving for homeostatic balance' runs counter to -- and is always in conflict with -- another equally strong force, or sometimes stronger force in man and life, that is the 'drive towards one-sided, bi-polar extremism' (which is what results in the diagnostic classification category and system that psychiatriatists and psychologists currently used today called a 'bi-polar disorder'....which unfortunately, remains very vague if this is all the information that we get...because it can refer to practically every medical and psychological 'disorder' or 'disease' or 'neurosis' known to man...
There is no disorder that I can think of that doesn't either consist of some type of 'deficiency' and/or 'avoidance' in man, or conversely, an 'excessive, toxic surplus' of something...'Too much'...or 'too little'...these are the essential 'diseases' and/or 'disorders' of life...
Life is about making 'Either/Or' (E/O) choices...
And, at the same time, or at different times, life is about making 'Multi-Integrative Dialectical' or 'Quantum-Dialectical' (QD) choices....which is a fancy way of saying that life is about make 'Compromise-Choices' -- or in Freud's words, 'Compromise Formations'...that appeal enough to both sides in a 'Dialectic-Control-Battle' that a 'negotiated settlement or deal' is created, agreed upon...and acted out in some capacity...in essence, a compromise between two 'conflict-ridden' polar extremes...that 'strike a balance' in the middle...Any good therapist -- and/or intuitive person -- can usually see in a particular 'compromise-formation' the two sides of a 'conflict in motion'...As Freud has so aptly shown us, the compromise-formation make take the form of a 'neurotic-symptom', a 'healthy behavior', a 'joke', a 'sublimated (transference) activity' -- some combination of an 'impulse', and a 'defense' against this same impulse, if the impulse in its 'unbridled, unrestrained, form' is deemed too strong and/or anxiety-provoking, and/or dangerous to self or others...to 'let loose' in its entirety...
'QDI' reminds me of the way that Spinoza used to finish his essays and/or geometric calculations with 'QED' which in Latin means 'What Was to Be Demonstrated'...
My Spinozian formula runs like this: What is to be demonstrated is 'Quantum-Dialectic-Integrationism'....
So after ever essay, from now on, in addition, or as a substitute to writing 'Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations Are Still in Process....
Perhaps also, or instead of, I will write...
QEDI-QDI....What was to be Demonstrated Incompletely was....was Quantum-Dialectic-Integrationism....Sounds wise and profound!
So remember that one...because I like it...QEDI-QDI...(What Was To Be Demonstrated Incompletely....Was Quantum-Dialectic Integrationism...)
You see, Freud was a DIE-HARD. Here we go again with my acronyms...I can't help it....They just keep coming....A 'DIE-HARD' is a 'Dialectically-Incomplete-Extremist-Hot-And-Righteously-Driven'...
So was Masson in the 1980s...confronting what both Masson and myself respectively have come to view as Freud's 'failure in ethical courage' -- under the stress and duress of political-professional intimidation in the form of ex-communication from his medical peers and superiors...
I pinpoint the day Freud lost a significant portion of his 'impulse-and-truth-driven courage' on May 4th, 1896... That was the day his Traumacy-Seduction Theory Died in Submission To A Greater, More Coercive, Manipulative, Diabolical Complex of Powers....Money, Politics, Corporate Institutionalism...Cocaine, 'Nasal-Sexual Surgery'....and Medical Guilt....
However, even Freud's Traumacy-Seduction Theory was 'wrong'....meaning 'righteously and reductionistically one-sided'... Therefore, so too was Masson's defense of Freud's pre-1897 Traumacy-Seduction Theory 'wrong' in its 'polar one-sidedness'.
If a theorist, a philosopher, a psychologist, a politican, an economist...emphasizes an 'extremist-one-sided-polar theory' in the full bi-polar spectrum of birth, life, creativity, evolution, de-evolution, polar tragedy, destruction/self-destruction, victim and victimizer, entropy, and death, then the theorist is necessarily going to be wrong because he or she is 'stuck in his or her theoretical box' of his or her own making, can't see out of it, is trapped in it, and will be essentially 'strangled' or 'suffocated' by the theory, because he or she cannot 'break out of the straight-jacket that the theory holds the theorist tightly captive inside'...
This does not make anything and everything Freud wrote after 1896 totally 'invalid' or 'wrong'. Just 'out of balance' and no longer sitting solidly on its proper pre-1897 epistemological (traumacy) foundations.
The post-1895 Freudian concept of 'longing' that was to signify the beginning of what we now call 'Classical' Psychoanalysis -- as in a school of Psychoanalysis based primarily on the 'wishful fantasy-driven-impulses-and/or-instincts' that 'under-ride' our thinking, feeling, and behavior....is not a concept or a theory without important value...it just needs to be put in its proper place at the other 'bi-polar end' of Freud's earlier 'Traumacy-Seduction Theory'...
Anna Freud once said -- and I am paraphasing here without a proper reference at the moment (I believe it was in a private letter to Masson that can be found in the introduction to either 'Assault on Truth' or 'Final Analysis', I think the latter --- to be confirmed) -- she said essentially, Without Freud having abandoned the Traumacy-Seduction Theory, there would have been no 'Instinct' Theory which is now the foundation of Classical Psychoanalysis.
Anna Freud was wrong in this respect. The Traumacy-Seduction Theory was/is a one-side bi-polar theory of human nature, psychology, and psychopathology, that emphasizes 'the roots of our neuroses in our childhood traumacies'...The theory becomes even more 'reductionistic and one-sided' if you believe, like Freud did, that the 'traumacies' had to be 'unconciously repressed' (meaning unobtainable to our normal memory processes except through professional hypnosis, suggestion, 'forehead pressing', and/or free association -- in short, the evolving 'therapeutic' component of 'Psychoanalysis'.
Integrated together, The Traumacy-Seduction Theory is still a one-sided, reductionistic theory that is like the 'one-sided foundation' in the basement of a house...the house is quite likely at some point going to 'lean over' like 'The Leaning Tower of Pisa' -- and/or with any serious 'wind factor' -- perhaps topple over...
That was -- and still is -- The Traumacy-Seduction Theory.
The same story goes for Freud's post-1896 'Instinct' Theory...
Every theory is inherently one-sided and capable of toppling over if, and by, itself...unless or until it is 'counter-balanced' by its 'polar-opposite theory'....This is the essence of Derrida's 'Deconstruction' Philosophy which is a 20th century extension of 19th century Hegelian and Post-Hegelian Dialectic Theory....'Quantum Physics' is an example of 'Quantum-Dialectic Post-Hegelian Philosophy...it came about by 'integrating two opposing theories of energy, motion, and physics -- together into one dualistic-dialectic quantum theory'....
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From Wikipedia...
Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics or quantum theory, is a branch of physics providing a mathematical description of the dual particle-like and wave-like behaviour and interaction of matter and energy.
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Obviously, if you think about Psychoanalytic theory in this 'Quantum-Dialectic Light', then the answer to the 'Tramacy-Seduction Theory' vs. 'Instinct-Fantasy' Theory of Psychoanalysis -- becomes integrating the two theories together.
That would lead us to 'Traumacy-Impulse-Transference' Theory...and I will leave the anacronym alone this time around...no I won't ....because, as I have said elsewhere, it either literarily and/or metaphorically partly fits...
All of us, in our 'most neurotic moments', are at least partly looking for some sort of 'Missing Tit' -- or more formally, a 'Missing Breast' -- of Nurturing, Encouraging, Support...in our times of greatest stress....
Whether we want to focus in on the more 'narcissistic, hedonistic (sensual-sexual)' part of 'infantile-childhood-adult' -- 'longing' and/or the more 'maternal-paternal-nurturing-encouraging' part of 'infantile-childhood-adult 'longing' -- there is an important place for both of these elements of later Psychoanalytic Theory...just don't leave out the 'traumacy-seduction' theoretical base as well...
Mix all of these different components of 'pre' and 'post' 1896 Psychoanalytic Theory and you are going to get a much better brand of 'Dialectically-Wholistic' as opposed to 'One-Sided, Reductionistic' Psychoanalytic Theory...
And this is what I am calling...'Quantum-Dialectic' or 'Multi-Integrative-Dialectic' Psychoanalytic Theory....
Enough for today...
-- dgb, April 9th, modified May 16th, 2011,
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
