Multi-Integrative-Dialectical Philosophy
There is a time for 'Righteous-Either/Or (REO)' Philosophy (like when important human values need to be protected) -- and there is a time for shelving this same type of philosophy in exchange for something more moderate, more tolerant of opposing perspectives, more mid-range, more integrative or even multi-integrative. Call this second type of philosophy 'Integrative Dialectic Philosophy' or, as the case may be, when the integrations start happening more quickly and more often --'Multi-Integrative Dialectic Philosophy'. This is the type of philosophy that I am mainly -- albeit not totally -- espousing here.
Epistemologically -- there is a time for fighting for what we believe is the truth (as long as we don't have blinders on, particularily, 'narcissisitc' blinders; and ethically -- there is a time for protecting the boundaries of the values that are important to us, that give meaning to our lives, and particularly the boundaries of the values that might threaten to turn 'civil, social, peaceful' life into 'uncivil, unsocial, war-mongering' life. You can't always preach peace to someone who wants to practice war -- as tragic as the inevitable outcome is likely to be for two the sides who decide to go head to head with each other -- and all the innocent bystanders who happen to unfortunately get in the way.
But for those who have decided that they have had enough of war -- whether its with a love-partner or ex-love-partner, a family member, a friend or ex-friend, a business partner or ex-business partner, a customer or supplier, a competitor in business or politics, someone who doesn't share your values or beliefs, someone who doesn't see eye to eye with you on a personal or professional level, a municipal, provincial, national, or international level -- for those of you who can see that your persisent in adhering to REO Philosophy is causing you nothing but pain, anger and grief -- because whoever you righteous rival is, they just continue to see things differently, the way they want to see things, and no amount of righteousness, raging, or even intimidation, manipulation, aggression, and/or violence is going to make your rival bow down to you -- at this point, it may be worth your while to have a different set of philosophical tools in your tool kit. Call this either your 'Post-Hegelian Gap-DGB Multi-Integrative Dialectical Philosophy Tool Kit, or more simply, your Gap-DGB Philsoophy Tool Kit.
Let's take a simple example. I went to the store the other day and I bought a bottle of grape juice as well as a bottle of grapefruit juice. (It was hot outside -- very hot.)
I could have -- most people would havc -- gone home and at some point poured either a glass of grape juice or a glass of grapefruit juice. Call this a simple example of E/O Philosophy which each and everyone of us practices hundreds of times a day. I get up or I don't. I get dressed or I don't. I eat breakfast or I don't. I have a coffee or I don't. Maybe I have a tea or I don't . I go to work or I don't... Our choices are endless during the course of the day and many of these choices come down to E/O choices. Eitehr I do something or I don't. We practice E/O Philosophy over and over again throughout the door. (Didn't Kierkegaard write a book called 'Either/Or'? I haven't read it yet -- but hopeuflly will.) As Fritz Perls (and Adler) warned us: Beware the 'promisery note'! An intent to act is not at all the same as an actual act -- we might profess ten or a hundred intentions to act for every one action that we actually complete -- with the more succesful people amongst us likely to be the ones with the better act/intent to act ratio. Often 'intentions to act' are meant more to placate either ourself or someone else while we go about the business of what we really want to do. This might be called either a real or a theatrical 'dialectical split' depending on the extent to which we are really torn between two opposing directions of action vs. the extent to which we are only trying to put on a theatrical show to appease others who might want us to behave in a certain direction that is not personally attractive to us.
This is the point at which Hegel meets Nietzsche in Nietzsche's first classic (and in my opinion often underappreciated) book. Let us combine Nietzschean terminology with Fichtean and Freudian terminology -- from what I can see it may have been Fichte who coined the German term 'ego' which was later to be picked up by Freud -- and call one polarity in our personality our 'Apollonian Ego', and the other polartiy in our personality our 'Dionyisan Ego'. This terminology is extrapolated from Nietzsche's 'The Birth of Tragedy' and provides the final bridge between Hegel and Freudian, Jungian, and Gestalt Therapy (as well as other related and different schools of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy).
There is however, a different type of choice, a different type of philosophy, that we practice as well. Most of the time we are not even aware of when we practice it but this second style of conducting business, and making choices, is all about making Multi-Integrative-Dialectical Choices. Taken collectively, these choices may be reductionistically viewed as a part of our Mutli-Dialective-Integrative Philosophy Tool Kit. Now some of us use this tool kit more often than others do (call us the 'mediators', 'concilliators', 'co-oridintors', 'democrats', and 'diplomats' in life) with good and/or bad results -- indeed, 'healthy living' might be defined as a stye of living whereby we make the most 'functional, pragmatic' choices between using our 'Either/Or' Philosophy Tool Kit -- and using it well -- vs. using our Gap-DGB Philosophy Kit and using it well. This is abstract, I know, and beset with philosophical problems in its own right, but let us use this as our starting point for what I am trying to extrapolate on here.
So -- anyways -- I walk to the refrigeratory and I pull out the bottle of grape juice. Then I pull out the bottle of grapefruit juice. And I start to mix the two sets of individual juices -- grape and grapefruit juice -- to taste.
I have been doing this type of behavior since my son was about 5 years old. (He generally tries to stay away from the net results which is to say that this type of philosophy is not for everyone, and certainly not for every event and activity and choice. (My son is now almost 22 years old.)
The fruit juice companies have been practising Multi-Integrative-Dialectic Philosophy for a while now -- you can buy Orange-Tangerine Juice and Orange-Grapefruit Juice and I think Orange-Kiwi Juice...and there are an assortment of other MID choices available at the most popular grocery stores.
These MID choices can all be viewed as extensions of Hegelian style Integrative Dialectical Choices or conversely can be associated with what happens randomly, accidently, and/or on purpose in life -- specificallly biodiversity. Conceptual and cultural diversity are both natural and healthy extensions of the principle of biodiversity -- integrating genes, integrating ideas, integrating philosophies, integrating politics, integrating religions, integrating cultures...The type of philosophy that I am trumpeting here for the most part embraces differences (as long as they protect humanistic-existential values), welcomes differences, exchanges differences, enjoys differences, integrates differences, or at the very least, accepts differences. It apprecieates differences in their own individual right, and looks for ways in which these differences might be synthesized into the ongoing dialectical evolutionary whole. It does not try to annihilate differences -- which is the calling card of war. .
And that, my friends, is what Gap-DGB Philosophy is all about -- integrating dialectical differences into the ongoing dialectical evolutionary whole -- biologically, conceptually, philosophically, politcally, religiously, scientifically, medically, artistically, culturally...Watch -- and join in -- on the process which I obviously believe is a healthy 'time-energy-and -human-binding process'.
*DGBN, August 3rd, 2006. dgbainsky@yahoo.com
*David Gordon Bain
*Dialectical Gap-Bridging Negotiations
*Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
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