Floor 3: More Essays on The Post-Hegelian, Quantum-Dialectic Paradigm: Hegel's Hotel

2008-03-25T04:10:00.000-07:00

On The Relevance of Hegelian Dialectic Theory to Present-day Canadian Politics and Culture...

I found this article on the internet this
morning, freshly written in The National Post by Robert Fulford, from the University of Toronto, March 24th, 2008..

What divides us makes us Hegel
Robert Fulford, National Post
Published: Monday, March 24, 2008

Iris Murdoch, a sharp-eyed philosopher before she
began writing her outrageous novels about convoluted
relationships, once suggested a way to learn the real
purpose of a philosopher. You should ask, "What is he
afraid of?"

We know what scared G.F.W. Hegel (1770-1831), the
titan of German idealism. He was terrified at the
prospect of Europe being devastated by irreconcilable
forces. And in the 1950s, when Europe finally made
peace with itself through a common market, one of the
main planners was a great Hegelian theorist, Alexandre
Kojève.

Robert C. Sibley of the Ottawa Citizen has used
Murdoch's question and Hegel's philosophy as a way to
think about modern Canada. For more than a century,
leading Canadian scholars, including our most eminent
philosophers, have applied Hegel's theories. Sibley
draws a clear line from Hegel to Canada and asks the
Canadian version of Murdoch's question: What are
Canadian philosophers afraid of?

Northern Spirits: John Watson, George Grant, and
Charles Taylor - Appropriations of Hegelian Political
Thought (McGill-Queen's University Press), published
last month, began life as Sibley's doctoral thesis in
political science at Carleton University. He's shaped
it as a stimulating analysis of the thinking that
drives Canadian public life.

We know one thing that frightens Sibley himself: He's
afraid of writing badly. His firm, clear prose shows a
devotion to careful craftsmanship and an affection for
third drafts. In itself that's un-Hegelian. Hegel
never for a moment worried about being understood, so
he wasn't concerned when people called his prose the
most impenetrable verbiage ever imposed on helpless
students.

Sibley's three Canadian subjects are well chosen for
their historic reach and their influence on the way
Canadians think about their society.

John Watson (1847-1939), a Queen's University
professor, developed an international reputation in
the 19th century for his Hegelian analysis of the
troubled relations between governments and
individuals. He worked on new approaches to Christian
institutions, preparing the intellectual ground for
the creation of the United Church of Canada in 1925.

George Grant (1918-1988), a distinctly unloved thinker
within Canadian philosophy departments, nevertheless
became for a few years the most prominent Canadian
philosopher. His Lament for a Nation, perhaps the
least understood of all famous Canadian books, helped
jump-start the radical nationalist movement of the
1960s and 1970s.

See FULFORD on Page AL4

And Charles Taylor (1931-), well regarded among
Hegelians everywhere on the planet, has become best
known in Canada for articulating the virtues of
multiculturalism.

Sibley takes us on a guided tour of political culture
in English-speaking Canada, stopping along the way to
exchange words with public figures ranging from
Stephen Leacock to Pierre Trudeau, from Lawren Harris
to Michael Bliss, from Richard Gwyn to Larry Zolf. He
suggests that even Canadians who don't actually read
Hegel are intuitively Hegelian.

His three chosen philosophers have something
remarkable in common: At certain points all of them
have been on top of the news, a surprise to anyone who
imagines that philosophers live private lives behind
university walls.

Watson, aside from helping reorganize Canadian
Protestantism, became a serious proponent of world
government after the First World War. Grant developed
links connecting anti-Americanism, anti-modernism and
Canadian nationalism - links that remain powerful
today. And Taylor deployed Hegel's dialectic, a
philosophy of contradictions and their resolutions, to
argue for Quebec's unique place within the country and
the necessity of a new multiculturalism.

As Sibley maintains, "To read Watson, Grant and Taylor
is to see Hegelian thought alive and acting in the
present, not as some dead philosophical artefact of
the past."

Canada, eternally contested territory, exists by
playing variations on themes by Hegel, the prince of
painful but necessary reconciliation. Careful
political crafting, with Hegelian tools, makes the
country work.

The solutions of Watson, Grant and Taylor indicate
their fears. Iris Murdoch would have no trouble
recognizing that all of these philosophers have been
appalled by the possibility that Canada could dissolve
into fragments and become several nations or be
absorbed by the U.S. One of them decided it happened
long ago: Grant, the eternal pessimist, said, "Canada
has ceased to be a nation," with only legal
formalities awaiting settlement. It's hard to imagine
exactly what he had hoped for, since he never quite
explained when Canada was a nation, but certainly he
was disappointed. Lament for a Nation mourned Canada's
slow disappearance into, as he often put it (in a
phrase borrowed from Kojève), "the universal and
homogeneous state."

All of Sibley's philosophers, at different times, have
responded as Hegelians to the constantly unfolding
crisis of Canadian nationhood as Hegelians. Hegel
provides a framework in which people can recognize
their diversity, permit particular cultures to retain
their distinctive features, but remain within a single
state. As Sibley says, Canadians seem to have grasped
that our regional and ethnic tensions help make us the
country we are, for good or ill.

He quotes Michael Ignatieff's "distinctly Hegelian"
recognition of the arguments at the core of our
political psychology. As Ignatieff puts it, "Canada
just happens to be one of those countries that is
committed, as a condition of its survival, to engage
in a constant act of self-justification and
self-invention." He adds that those who weary of this
endless dialogue are weary of being Canadian.

Is it by collective intuition, I've often wondered,
that Ontario for six decades has almost always
arranged to be governed by a provincial party
different from the one holding power in Ottawa? It
looks like a Hegelian strategy. Brian Mulroney's Meech
Lake scheme promised, in effect, to "settle" the
central French-English conflict in Canada. That was
unrealistic - and unHegelian.

On the cover of Sibley's book, a classic Lawren Harris
painting, North Shore, Lake Superior, neatly
symbolizes the contents. The split trunk of a tree,
partly light and partly dark, suggests the discord
embodied in Canadian life. Sibley quotes Roald
Nasgaard, a former curator at the Art Gallery of
Ontario, who sees Harris's picture as a symbolic
exploration of Canadian identity and a metaphor
responding to the condition of life in the geographic
vastness of Canada.

Northern Spirits, a revealing title for this
remarkably ambitious book, refers to the spirit that
breathes life into an organism and also to spirit as
Hegel expresses it: a dynamic force and the highest
principle of life. Readers who believe they understand
Canada may well finish this book thinking unexpected
thoughts.

National Post

robert.fulford@utoronto.ca

2007-11-08T20:48:00.000-08:00

On Defining A Concept and Bridging The Gap Between Two Real and/or Apparently Contradictory-Paradoxical Concepts (Theories, Philosophies, Lifestyles...)

There are two ways of defining a concept:

1. by similarity and association (synonym): eg. synonyms or part-synonyms to 'dialectic' might include: dialogue, debate, discussion, argument, difference of opinions...etc.

2. by differentation and/or opposition (antonym): eg. antonyms to 'dialectic' might include: solidarity, uniformity, wholism, unity, monism, unilateralism...etc.

An example of a 'monist' might be someone like the oldest known Greek philosopher -- Thales (624-546BC) who believed that everything in the world originated with 'water'. Thales had many other important ideas besides this one but in this particular regard he might be viewed as the 'water' theorist. In this regard, he might also be viewed as a 'monist' or a 'mono-causalist' (my word) since he believed that everything on earth originated in the one particular entity he specified -- water.

Another example of a monist is Anaximenes (585-525BC) who believed that everything in the world originated in 'air'.

The second oldest Greek philosopher -- Anaximander (610-546Bc) -- is a little more complicated in his thinking. He can be viewed as both a monist and as the first Greek 'dialectic philosopher'. He is at least partly paradoxical in this regard. As a monist, he believed that everything in the world originated in 'The Boundless' -- an idea that had much more abstractness and indefiniteness than Thales' idea of 'water' or Anaximenes' idea of 'air' or Heraclitus' later idea of 'fire'. This is how Wikipedia describes the philosophical differences between these early Pre-Socratic Greek philosophers:

...................................................................................

While each pre-Socratic philosopher gave a different answer as to the identity of this element (water for Thales, air for Anaximenes, fire for Heraclitus), Anaximander understood the beginning or first principle to be an endless, unlimited primordial mass (apeiron), subject to neither old age nor decay, that perpetually yielded fresh materials from which everything we perceive is derived.[7] He proposed the theory of the apeiron in direct response to the earlier theory of his teacher, Thales, who had claimed that the primary substance was water. (Wikipedia, Anaximander).
.....................................................................................

Despite their philosophical differences, because Anaxamander's idea specified one source of origin which was 'The Boundless' (kind of like how we might say 'The Universe' today), in this regard Anaxamander can still be viewed as a monist just like the other Pre-Socratic philosophers mentioned above, even though the other three Pre-Socratic philosophers were more concretely specific in their respective 'sources of origin' of life on earth.

However, there is a second sense in which Anaxamander can be viewed as the first Greek 'dialectic' philosopher. In this latter sense, Anaxamander was the first Greek philosopher to start theorizing about 'the philosophy of opposites'. In this same sense, Heracitus can be viewed as the second oldest dialectic philosopher but with an important difference. Anaximander theorized about the 'domination and suppression of opposites' -- each one taking turns 'dominating' and suppressing' each other, and in this regard, eventually 'exacting justice and pentance on each other'. This idea was poetically expressed in what became known over time as 'The Fragment':

Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
As is the order of things;
For they execute the sentence upon one another
- The condemnation for the crime -
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.

In contrast, Heraclitus wrote about 'the balance and unity of opposites' which was a whole different outlook on the interaction of opposites than what Anaximander was writing about (the latter of whom might have been reacting to such things as the alternating tendencies of the Spartans and Athenians dominating and suppressing each other through victories and defeats in different wars with each other).

In this regard, a distinction can be made between 'dialectical unity, balance, and wholism' on the one hand (Heraclitus) vs. 'dialectical dominance and suppression' on the other hand (Anaxamander). The first can be associated with a 'will to integrate' whereas the second can be associated with a 'will to dominate' -- both significant and often alternating features of human nature, behavior, history and culture. The first can generally be associated with 'health', 'peace', and 'evolution' whereas the second can more often be associated with 'war', 'pathology', and 'destruction'.

There is also a sense in which the dialectic can be traced and categorized 'between' philosophers rather than 'within' individual philosophers. For example, a dialectic can be formulated between Thales' idea of causal origin (water) vs. Anaxamenes' idea of causal origin (air). Add Heraclitus' causal theory of origin (fire) to this equation and now you are talking about what might be called a 'trialectic' or a 'multi-dialectic' or a 'poly-lectic' (which may or may not be existing words in the English language. If not, they just became new words in Hegel's Hotel.)

Similarily, a dialectic can be traced and categorized between Plato's 'rational idealism' (his theory of 'Forms') vs. Aristotle's philosophical perspective of 'observational empiricism'.

We come now to one last characteristic that I would like to add here about the dialectic and dialectic philosophy.

Every 'monistic theory' will always stimulate and provoke the birth of a new and contrary 'anti-monistic theory' ('thesis' vs. 'anti-thesis' in the Hegelian theory of what might be called 'the dialectic cycle' or 'dialectic evolution').

However, dialectic philosophy has one advantage over monistic philosophy in this regard: specifically, it anticipates opposition, contradiction and paradox in human thinking, behaving, culture, history, and life in general. Without having the exact quote in front of me, it is a general Hegelian idea that 'Every idea, every theory, every characteristic, carries within it the seeds of its own self-destruction.' It is out of the weakness and achilles heal of one theory that the birth of a second opposing, contradictory theory is born. The second opposing theory takes advantage of the first theory's acute and inherent weakness in order to gallop its own white (or black) horse to self and/or social prominance.

In this regard, dialectical philosophy if it so desires can 'play both ends of a theoretical spectrum or opposite polarities in a theoretical showdown -- integratively -- towards the middle'. This is the philosophical perspective of Heraclitus -- the idea of 'dialectical negotiation, integration, evolution, unity, balance, and wholism'. Most democratic political and legal systems operate at least partly according to this principle. (They also operate partly by the 'righteous, either/or, domination vs. submission' principle as laid down by Anaxamander which is not always healthy to a dialectical system because it can result in 'exclusionism' and 'marginalization' rather than 'integration', 'compromise', and 'balance' which is generally what you like to see in a 'multi-dialectical democracy' .)

These ideas will all be explored and applied in more detail in the construction and extrapolation of Hegel's Hotel.

dgbn, Nov. 8-9th, 2007.

2007-09-14T13:26:00.000-07:00

3.1. Defining, Describing, and Distinguishing Different Types of Dialectics

'The dialectic' is like any other concept in philosophy, psychology, science, or any other field of study: it can, and invariably does, mean different things to different people -- philosophers and theorists, students, readers, etc. Usually there is a 'range of similar' meaning(s) among philosophers who have studied basically the same philosophers before them. Call this range of similar meaning the 'social meaning' of the concept. But within this range of social meaning, different philosophers will always have different 'nuances' or 'focuses' of meaning for each of their particular concepts which are aimed to help drive their own particular theory in the particular direction that they want and thus, are driven by the philosopher's own 'narcissistic' wants, motives, needs. This is what I will call the 'narcissistic'(self-based) meaning of the philosopher's concept.

Having made this particular distinction (and most leading edge philosophy is about philosophers making new distinctions that previous philosophers have not thought about), and allowing for the fact that we will spend considerable time delving into the historical, social and philosophical roots of the term 'dialectic, I turn now to a further distinction that has not really been made relative to the dialectic: the difference between a 'narcissistic' dialectic and a 'humanistic-existential' dialectic. The first tends to generally be more detrimental and self-destructive relative to the advancement and evolution of human society (as well as to the specific person and/or persons involved in this type of dialectic), whereas the second type of dialectic seems to generally have more favorable results toward both the social and personal advancement and evolution of the particular people involved.

So we come back to the question, 'What is the dialectic?'; and then what is the difference between a 'narcissistic dialectic' and a 'humanistic-existential dialectic'?

A dialectic, for our purposes here, is any personal and/or social disagreement that involves that involves a 'split of social and/or personal interests'. This we might call a 'dialectical split'. Liberalism vs. Conservatism. Capitalism vs. Socialism. Impulse vs. Restraint. Environment vs. Economics. Right vs. Wrong. Good vs. Bad. Saint vs. Sinner. Narcissism vs. Altruism. Narcissism vs. Humanistic-Existential Values and Ethics. Black vs. White. Men vs. Women. God vs. The Devil. Heaven vs. Hell. East vs. West. North vs. South. Rationalism vs. Empiricism. Idealism vs. Realism. Idealism vs. (Fake) Ideology. (Fake) Ideology vs. (Underlying)Real Narcissistic Motives and Goals. These are all various different types of dialectic possibilities and/or realities.

By 'narcissistic dialectic', we will mean any debate and/or conflict situation whereby there is the desire by one or more persons to 'win an argument' or to 'get their own way', to 'control' or 'overpower' the other person in the conflict, and/or to 'manipulate the other person(s) towards the desired narcissistic outcome'. In the worst case scenarios, a narcissitic dialectic may result in court, crime, violence, and/or outright war. Within the realm of narcissistic dialectics, we can further distinguish between: 'power dialectics', 'manipulative dialectics', 'economic dialectics', and 'violent dialectics' but these we will save for another discussion.

In contrast, a 'humanistic-existential or integrative dialectic' is a dialectic where both parties in the disagreement are aiming towards a 'win-win solution or resolution' to the disagreement. The particular 'process dynamics' in this latter type of dialectic involve such things as: creative imagination, problem-solving skills, conflict-negotiation or mediation skills, a style of negotiation that involves both self-assertiveness and social empathy, compromise, and integration. The idea in this latter case scenario is that it is best for both sides to leave the negotiation table as happy as possible, as opposed to one party 'trampling over top of the other party' using a combination of force, coercion, leverage, manipulation, deceit, etc.

The study of 'dialectics' in general then becomes the study of bot of these types of debate and/or conflict situations -- and the differences between them. It can and will also mean the study of 'opposing polarities' and the attempt to resolve the distance and differences between these opposing polarities, either through a 'righteous either/or solution' (a 'will to power' and/or a 'will to rhetorical supremacy' -- the classic 'Socratean dialectic') or by means of a more 'compromising, integrative solution or resolution' (the classic Hegelian dialectic -- 'thesis', 'anti-thesis', 'synthesis').

Within the framework of Gap-DGB Philosophy, this is what we will mean by the study of 'dialectics' and/or 'multi-dialectics' (the latter meaning more than one type of dialectic going on at the same and/or different times).

dgb, Jan. 30th, 2007, Updated Sept. 16th, 2007.

2007-02-11T23:20:00.001-08:00

3.2. From Hegel to Gap-DGB Philosophy
Canada Day, July 1st, 2006.

This forum is designed to build philosophical bridges between separate philosophical ideas, opinions, perspectives, lifestyles, organizations, structures, and processes. For example, the forum aims to build a bridge between academic/historical philosophy and contemporary, pragmatic ‘street’ (home/family/work) philosophy. It aims to bridge the gap between the abstract and the concrete. Between philosophy and psychology. Between Hegel and Nietzsche. Between Anaximander and Hegel. Between religion and science. Between Enlightenment Philosophy and Romantic Philosophy. Between humanism and existentialism. Between conservatism and liberalism. Between capitalism and socialism. Between Freud and the feminists. Between Freud and Adler. Between Freud and Jung. Between Freud and Perls. Everywhere we go there is going to be a ‘dialectical face-off’ between philosophy A and philosophy B, and there is going to be an underlying assumption that there is a mixture of truth and distortion, value and disvalue, in both philosophy A and Philosophy B, and there is often -- if not always -- creative value in aiming to reach an integrative, ‘homeostatic balance’ between the two competing philosophies/philosophers/perspectives/ideologies/lifestyles...

Thus, you can call this a post-Hegelian school and forum of philosophy. It is built on the Hegelian dialectical evolutionary theory of ‘thesis’, ‘anti-thesis’, and ‘synthesis’ -- and start over again at a different, hopefully better, level. Thus, also, we are trying for the most part to discourage most forms of righteous, narcissistic, , extremist, destructive ‘either/or’ philosophies, religions, organizations, etc. These types of philosophies usually generate ‘wars’ of any and every kind -- intra-psychic, inter-personal, civil, political, international…

However, this is not only a post-Hegelian forum of philosophy but also a post-Anaxamanderian, post-Spinozian, post-Darwinian, post-Nietzschean, post-Kierkegaardian, post-Derridian, post-Freudian, post-Adlerian, post-Jungian, and post-Gestalt forum as well. Call it a ‘Leap-Frog and Link’ forum of philosophy, or Gap Philosophy, or Gap-Bridging Philosophy, or Dialectical-Gap-Bridging (DGB) Philosophy, or Gap Multi-Integrative-Dialectical Philosophy...these names all aim to describe the same basic idea -- linking opposing philosophies and lifestyles together into a more harmonious multi-integrative-dialectical homeostatic balance.

We are looking for creative, integrative conflict resolutions that bring people together in a spirit of ‘dialectical-democratic unity’, appreciating our unique individual differences and multiple different perspectives -- and in fact embracing these differences as a vital part of our human essence, heritage, and future. As the great psychologist, Carl Jung, has written: “ ‘The greater the contrast, the greater is the potential. Great energy only comes from great tensions between opposites.’ In every case, the possibilities are contained within the opposites. What is required is their (creative, assertive, compassionate, democratic) interaction, so that the dialectic may be permitted to operate” (towards a successful ‘gap-bridging’ creative-integrative solution/resolution to the particular conflict). Joel Latner, The Gestalt Therapy Book, The Julian Press, 1973. (bracketed extensions mine). In a world that seems to be rushing back towards the brink of nuclear war again, and in a world where friends, family, and foes alike all tend to take righteous, narcissistic, extremist, ‘either/or’ stances against each other, it would seem that this type of philosophy of ‘tolerance and creative evolutionary harmony of differences’ cannot be expounded, promoted, and applied any time too soon.

-- David Bain, July 1st, 2006. dgbainsky@yahoo.com

2007-02-11T11:27:00.000-08:00

3.3. A DGB Rendition of Nietzsche's 'Tightrope, Abyss, and Superman' Philosophy

We all need to climb onto the Nietzschean tightrope overlooking the abyss of our existence - not all the time, but on a decently regular basis - so that we can reflect on, feel on, and act on, the dialectical contrasts between our 'non-being' vs. our 'being and becoming' selves. Some people - let us call this first group of people the 'risk takers' - may need to visit their existential tightrope more often than others, while other people - let us call this latter group of people the 'security seekers' - may not want to visit their existential tightrope at all, or at least, as seldom as possible.

Having reflected on this situation for a while, I have come to the conclusion that it might be useful to differentiate between different types of 'existential tightropes'. Specifically, I have distinguished between ten different types of existential tightropes that offer ten different types of challenges to our existence.

Common to all these different Nietzschean tightropes is the Nietzschean idea of the 'Superman philosophy', the 'will to power', or better translated in most cases perhaps - 'the will to excel'.

The essence of the Nietzshean tightrope, metaphorically speaking, is that every time we climb onto this tightropes, we are going to feel an adrelanine rush - a mixture of anxiety and excitement - to the extent that we are actually going to tightrope walk -- or climb -- to the other side, over the deep abyss opposite our 'home base-cliff' that we just left the sweet security of.

The adrenaline rush and the contrast to what we just left then is this: that we are actually climbing on the tightrope, using both our mental and physical faculties, and our passion, our adrenaline rush, our arms and legs to actually get us to the other side, and in so doing, stretching the limits of our capabilities and potentialities to their maximum -- as opposed to just 'hanging out there', hanging onto the rope for dear life, waiting for someone to come and rescue us from the rope overlooking the abyss - the danger and anxiety - of our existence...This is the difference between 'existential self-suffiency' and 'existential dependency'. We can also contrast the combined adrenaline rush of anxiety and excitement of being on one of our existential tightropes with the safety of the home-base cliff which can become our prison rather than our home if we are unwilling to leave its safety for the danger of the tightrope walk across the abyss. For many -- and I include myself in this generalization -- this safety is much preferred to the anxiety-excitement of the potential danger and/or fear of failure related to not living up to the full capapbilities and potentialities of our God-given freedom and talents. Erich Fromm, in his first book, written in the midst of traumacy and atrocities of Nazi Germany, described an assortment of different 'tactics' that we humans use in order to 'Escape From Freedom'. (This was the title of Fromm's book, 1941.)

This is my interpretation of Nietzsche's 'Superman philosophy', and it is the starting-point of my own personally modified post-Hegelian, post-Nietzschean, post-a-lot-of-philosphers-and-ideas...'DGB (Multi-Dialectical, Humanistic-Existential) Philosophy'...

The 'tightrope' formula is generally fairly simple: the more responsibilities we take on - up to a certain threshold of tolerance at least - the more we challenge our own capabilities and potentialities; in contrast, the more we seek to avoid responsibilities - at least of the kind that would legitimately challenge our abilities and potentialies - the more we are going to wrestle with the problem of 'existential insufficiency and alienation' - and extended further if it is happening more or less all the time - of a 'beingless existence' - or worded otherwise - an existence without the challenge and meaning of 'self-striving' and 'self-fulfillment'...We all have to 'go to trial' at various points in our lives -- the Franz Kafka/Joseph K. type of trial...(Franz Kafka, The Trial, 1925, "SOMEONE must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning..." ). The type of trial I am talking about is an 'existential trial' - a trial about the accountability and responsibility we all must take for leading and/or having led, either a meaningful, substantiated life with many 'tightrope climbings and extensions of our existence' - or the opposite - the type of life where we are always watching someone else take on the responsibilites and challenges while we watch from the sidelines, we watch from the home base cliff while someone else is climbing one of the existential tightropes.

At the end of the day we are left feeling unfulfilled and unsubstantiated by our lack of courage and/or effort. In this case, we see and feel the abyss with the greatest of clarity, first with anxiety, by looking down rather than ahead to the other side of the cliff, to our goal, But even worse is when we feel the abyss in the pit of our stomach and in the core of our heart because we have led a life that has not sufficiently contacted ourselves and the limits of our capabilities, and/or not contacted anyone else in a sufficiently meaningful way. (See Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, 1948.) The good news is that we can change the direction - and the substance - in our life, at any moment in time, with any change in behavior, small and/or large. But to do this, we cannot avoid the Nietzschean existential tightrope(s).

dgbn,
david gordon bain,
dialectical-gap-bridging-negotiations
democracy goes beyond narcissism

2007-02-07T09:16:00.002-08:00

<em>3.4. The Legacy of Hegel's Evolutionary Dialectic Philosophy on The Evolution of Western and Eastern Philosophy and Culture

G.W. Hegel (1770-1831) was either loved or hated for his revolutionary philosophical work in 'The Phenomemnology of Mind(Spirit)', published in 1807. Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche all were heavily influenced by Hegel -- even in largely rejecting his most prized work -- and each went on to write his own passionate 'anti-thesis' against Hegel's philosophy. (How many 'anti-theses' can one philosophical theory have? In Hegel's case, the answer seems to be 'many'! Ironically, as each of Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche were writing their own respective 'theoretical compensations and retaliations' to Hegel's work, one could/can easily argue that they were just adding more 'fuel to the fire of Hegel's theory' because they were each showing the creativity of the human dialectic at work just as Hegel had argued that it was in every aspect of human thinking and cultural activity. 'Thesis', 'anti-thesis', and 'synthesis' -- These three terms were not actually Hegel's, and from what I understand, he only used them once in his work -- but he made them famous and they have been associated with his work every since. See below.*

.....................................................................................

*Although he never used the terms himself, the triad thesis, antithesis, synthesis is often used to describe the thought of German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. It is often thought to form part of an analysis of historical and philosophical progress called the Hegelian dialectic.

It is usually described in the following way:

The thesis is an intellectual proposition.
The antithesis is simply the negation of the thesis.
The synthesis solves the conflict between the thesis and antithesis by reconciling their common truths, and forming a new proposition.

Hegel used this classification only once, and he attributed the terminology to Immanuel Kant. The terminology was largely developed earlier by Fichte the neo-Kantian. The idea was subsequently extended and adopted by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels.

* Reference: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
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Now a philosophical theory, treatise, system -- or 'Grand Narrative' as the 'anti-system' philosophers or 'deconstructionists' like to call the 'system-philosophies' -- is likely to have numerous 'smaller theses' in it, all part of the workings and construction of the 'whole philosophical system' if you will. Now this would seem to explain the fact that various philosophers can put together various 'negations' of the same philosophical system. For example, Kierkegaard rebelled agaist Hegel's abstractionism (as opposed to Kierkegaard emphasis on concrete existence), Schopenhauer against Hegel's reason and rationalism (as opposed to Schopenhauer's irrationalism and pessimism), and Nietzsche against Hegel's long-winded, systemic Grand Narrative (as opposed to Nietzsche's supposed anti-systemic philosophy althogh Nietzsche did seem to be promoting his Superman, tightrope, abyss, and Dionysian philosophy which would seem to be at least partly systemic as well, if not quite as long-winded as Hegel's more Apollonian Grand Narrative.

So the deconstructionists -- primarily Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche -- picked apart Hegel's philosophy to the point that it came crashing off the wall like Humpty Dumpty. But a funny thing happened on the way to the forum. Humpty Dumpty did not die. In fact, Humpty Dumpty was put back together again by a legion of 'post-Hegelians'. Marx (turned Hegel upside down but kept the dialectic and the conflict between 'class thesis and anti-thesis' alive (the bourgeous vs. the proletariat). Nietzsche (in 'The Birth of Tragedy' before Nietzsche himself rejected his own work as being 'too Hegelian'). Freud (The Id (thesis), The Superego (anti-thesis), and the Ego (synthesis). Jung (the personna (thesis) and the shadow (anti-thesis). Perls (topdog (thesis), and underdog (anti-thesis).

Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Foucault, Derrida, Perls...all made important evolutionary additions to Hegel's dialectic theory. But through it all, Hegel's dialectic evolutionary theory has climbed back on the wall -- as Humpty Dumpty, back together again, all in one piece, and stronger than the classic rendition. Hegel has been 'existentialized' -- and it incorporates Nietzsche's precursor to, and Derrida's later, 'Deconstruction Theory' just as easily as it can be called a 'structural Grand Narrative'. Indeed, it is the paradoxical and multi-bi-polar evolutionary element in Hegel's dialectic theory -- especially after the Hegelian snowball incorporates elements of Kierkegaarde, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Perls, Derrida...and also appreciates the full legacy and ancient sophistication of the first Hegelian philosopher -- Anaxamander, 1350 years before Hegel -- that make's Hegel's dialectic theory, in this theorist's opinion, the greatest of all theories, the greatest of all Grand Narratives. Gap-DGBN Philosophy is one version, one post-Hegelian rendition, of Hegelian Classic Dialectic Theory, modernized, and very much alive and kicking as it rolls into the 21st century.

db, Feb. 12th, 2007.

2007-02-03T10:21:00.000-08:00

3.5. A DGB Rendition of Nietzsche's 'Tightrope, Abyss, and Superman' Philosophy: Second Version -- The Legacy of Anaxamander

We all need to climb onto the Nietzschean tightrope overlooking the abyss of our existence - not all the time, but on a decently regular basis - so that we can reflect on, feel on, and act on, the dialectical contrasts between our 'non-being selves' (i.e., a composite of our aliented and alienting behaviors) as opposed to our 'being selves' (i.e, a composite of our 'contactful' behaviors where we are actually making good contact with ourselves and others -- not manipulating ourselves and/or them).

Also fitting into this dialectical contrast spectrum - but extending in a different direction - we might also look at the contrast between our 'being selves' and our 'becoming selves'. In this case, both experiences may be happening more or less simulateousnessly because as we 'behave contactfully' in a way that touches upon the outer edges of our talents and capabilities, we become something a little differently, and become someone a little different, than the 'less actualized' person that we just were before our 'self-actualizing' behavior(s). Does this make sense?

Here we might reflect, feel, and act on the actual essence of the 'tightrope of our life and our existence'. The contrast is this: Are we actually 'climbing' on the tightrope, using our mental faculties, and our passion, our adrenaline rush, and our arms and legs to actually get us to the other side, and in doing so, stretching the limits of our capabilities and potentialities - or are we simply 'hanging there', hanging onto the rope for dear life, or hanging there with someone holding onto us and supporting us, waiting for someone to come and rescue us from the rope overlooking the abyss, the big gaping void, of our existence...This is the difference between 'existential self-suffiency' and 'existential dependency'.

This is my interpretation of Nietzsche's 'Superman philosophy', and it is the starting-point of my own personally modified post-Hegelian, post-Nietzschean, post-a-lot-of-philosphers-and-ideas...'Gap Dialectical, Humanistic-Existential Philosophy'...

My name is David Bain. I am a taxi dispatcher by economic profession which generally keeps my budget reasonably balanced (until recently), and stretches my creative abilities and potentialities sometimes, at other times leaving me a little bored, lethargic, and/or non-challenged...wanting more...

The 'tightrope' formula is generally fairly simple: the more responsibilities we take on - up to a certain threshold of tolerance at least - the more we challenge our own capabilities and potentialities; in contrast, the more we seek to avoid responsibilities - at least of the kind that would legitimately challenge our abilities and potentialies - the more we are going to wrestle with (especially the older we get), the 'existential fallout' of a 'beingless existence' - or worded otherwise - an existence without meaning...

Worded otherwise again, it means that we will all end up having to 'go to trial' at some point in our lives (Franz Kafka, The Trial, 1925, "SOMEONE must have been telling lies about Joseph K., for without having done anything wrong he was arrested one fine morning..." ). Even though the trial may be predominantly in our own minds, this can still be the harshest trial of all - a trial about the accountability and responsibility we all must take for leading and/or having led either a meaningful, substantiated life or a life characterized by the huge, bottomless void, pit, abyss, that we see below us from the tightrope, and/or feel in the emptiness of our stomach and in the aching of our heart...

Those who continue to wait, usually fruitlessly, for someone else to rescue them and/or make their life interesting, are the ones most likely to suffer from the ineptitude of their own 'non-reaching' philosophy and their consequent alienation. (See Samuel Beckett, Waiting for Godot, 1948.) Obviously, no person's life can be written in 'black and white', it does no one any good to 'cry over spilt milk', to whine about 'ifs' and 'buts', or to lament how we could have been -- and the positive component of this is that we all can make our life more meaningful and productive at a moment's notice. Something we say, something we do, may be all that we need to do in order to steer what may have been a partly or largely alienated life -- or period of our life -- in a more meaningful, productive direction.

As you can partly see above, reading and writing about philosophy is one of the driving forces in my life. I have an Honours B.A in psychology from too far back to remember (The University of Waterloo, Ontario, 1979) and I am considering going back to university next fall to specialize in Hegelian philosophy, and perhaps even upgrade to an M.A. in philosophy. (I am looking at The University of Guelph in Ontario.)

In the meantime, writing remains the central growing point of my philosophical passion - and integrating Hegel, Nietzsche (The Birth of Tragedy - Apollo vs. Dionysius, the tightrope, the abyss and the Superman philosophy...), Anaxamander, Heraclitus, Confucious and the Han philosophers (yin-yang), Spinoza (unity, wholism, and pantheism), the Enlightement philosophers, the Romantic philsophers, the humanistic-existentialists, the deconstructionists, and the clinical psychologists (Freud, Jung, Adler, Perls...), academic philosophy and pragmatic philosophy - into a coherent, organized, 'multi-dialectic-integrative whole' - is what I both do, and continue to aim to do with more philosophical clarity and completeness.

Mainly, I am trying to stick to four philosophical paradigms and metaphysical premises as much as possible: 1. the historical paradigm of the evolution of the dialectic -- and 'multi-dialectics' -- in Western (and some non-Western) philosophy; 2. the 'scientific-process' paradigm of Heraclitus' premise of life as 'changing process; not stagnant structure' ('You cannot step into the same river twice' - Heraclitus); 3. the paradgigm of an integration of Nietzsche's, Kierkegaard's, Kafka'a, Beckett's, Sartre's, Freud's, Jung's, and Perls' humanistic-existentialism; and 4. the paradigm of Spinoza'a 'unity, wholism, and pantheism'.

To the extent that I can stick as much as possible to the integration of these four paradigms - and in the process 'climb around on the Nietzschean tightrope of my existence' as much as possible in each and every one of my essays, keeping them coming on a fairly day-to-day basis - to this extent, I expect that I should and will be happy with both the process and the outcome of my life's 'number 1 hobby'. But there is a lot of hard work and discipline that is needed in between the 'gap' of my 'promisary note' here and 'delivering the goods' of what I am promising to deliver.

You look at the careers -- and particularly the writing careers -- of famous philosophers and psychologists like Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud, and you realize that success did not happen without a lot of hard work -- living and breathing what they read and wrote about, in Freud's case, usually after he had already put in more than a full day's work in his psychoanalysis room. Sometimes you ask yourself whether the type of dedication and committment to do a job like this is worth sacrificing much of everything else. Is it worth neglecting your child and/or spouse? Kierkegaard walked away from a woman he loved very much and was scheduled to marry. Was he crazy? Turning against a life of 'balance' with a potential 'soul mate' in favour of a very solitary and generally miserable life -- where he did indeed become a great writer and a great philosopher. His sole company was 'God' in a very unorthodox, un-institutional sense of practising his own unique brand of 'existentialized' religion. Was it all worth it?

I believe that 'good balance' is generally to be preferred over 'righteous and existential extremism' which in the end is likely to leave one feeling cold, alone, and empty. What is philosophy if there is no room for the love of other people in your particular brand of philosophy. Many of the greatest philosophers over the course of history have seemed to live very solitary, unsocial lives -- as if battling their whole careers with their own social -- and self -- alienation. Perhaps there was some solice, some celebration, some psychotherapy, in their intellectual achievements. But I ask again: Was it all worth it? Was it worth walking away from love and balance? In a word, I would probably say, 'No'.

Balance, love, social tolerance, and 'dialectical wholism' rather than a very personally construed need and chase for righteous extremism, unilateralism, and a battle for intellectual supremacy could have probably been achieved in these philosophers lives. But that, for better or for worse, did not seem to be many of their destinies -- Socrates, Spinoza, Kant, Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Doestevsky, Nietzsche, and many more that do not come to the top of my head -- I include myself as an amateur trying, at least in part, to follow much the same direction as many of these famous professionals -- many of whom had to walk that usually very lonely path...down the righteous and solitary lane of the philosopher skaking his finger at the real and/or mistakes and pathologies of the society around him. (Not to be sexist but it was usually a man; and not to overgeneralize and to be sexist again but women generally seem to have a better knack for walking a 'social path' even as they may be just as 'socially critical -- or more -- than men.)

Is it worth not focusing your attention properly on the job that is paying your bills? Indeed, is the time that I need to spend on this project not violating every principle that I am trying to teach in these essays which is essentally that a person ideally needs 'good balance' in every part of his or her life to be healthy and happy? At what point does the human need for 'good balance' in his or her life conflict with the excess -- indeed obsessive -- amount of time that is required to try to be the best that you can be in the field that you are trying to excel in and bring home a performance that all your important loved ones can be pround of, only to find that all your friends and loved ones have disappeared on you because you effectively disappeared on them many years before? The choice between a 'will to balance' and a 'will to excel' is not always an easy one. You look at Nietzsche -- the 'poster boy' philosopher for the 'will to excel' -- and you see that he spent the last ten years of his life in a psychiatric institution, and you ask yourself, Was this from some sort of disease that he contacted along the way? (Syphilus has often been implicated.) And/or was it from a life of 'Dionysian excess'? And/or was it from too much 'philosophical obsession' in his life and not enough 'balance' from other areas in his life (romance, family, etc...)?, indeed, maybe even at least partly from one too many 'crushing love affairs' -- that left him with a huge 'void' in his heart? The same thing might be said about Kierkegaard -- deserting the love of his life practically at the alter for his religion and his philosophy when he was quite young -- and having the rest of his life to 'bemoan' this choice, while he watched her go off and marry another man. I look at the history of Western philosophy and I see what looks to be a lot of 'single' and/or 'lonely' philosophers jumping out at me from every page. There don't seem to be a lot of 'happily married philosophers with families' in these pages. And I can see why? The need to excel has far exceeded the need for balance. Or an obsessive need to excel -- and/or a lifeftime of trying to 'prove a point' -- has 'compensated for' and 'replaced' a 'life of imbalance and an emotional void' -- in most cases, probably motivated by the combination of a heart-breaking loss, grief and/or anger, and a 'transference deficiency' (i.e., carrying around the heart-breaking loss and/or the anger, compartmentalized but feeding an obsession, for a lifetime -- see Freud and 'transference'). I think of Nietzsche and losing his dad as a small boy, his two broken love affairs, and also the anger he had for the 'institutionalized religion' that had been 'introjected' into him as a child -- which he turned into a lifelong tirade against Christianity.

And then I think of Anaxamander's Fragment -- which I view as my own philosophical end to the search for 'The Holy Grail' (the starting point of Western dialectical theory in Ancient Greek philosophy which basically eventually evolved into 'Hegel's and then turned upside down by Marx's monumental, culture-shattering dialectic theory of 'thesis', 'anti-thesis', and 'synthesis'). I think of Anaxamander's cosmic view of justice -- 'what goes around comes around' -- and that the cosmic pendulum of justice will correct all polar imbalances and (un)democratic transgressions eventually over time, partly or mainly because each person and/or each segment of society who or which has experienced a polar imbalance and/or a(n) (un)democratic transgression in a deep and painfully personal-social way -- will most likely obsessively focus on this transgression, and do anything and everything within his or her power to 'see to it that this personal, social, political, legal, and/or cosmic imbalance is eventually corrected'. Call this 'Anaxamander's Law' -- as supported partly by Freud's law of transference. . I believe in Anaxamander's Law. I believe at least partly in Hegel's deterministic, if not always idealistic, dialectical theory, modified into a post-Hegelian, more humanistic-existential 'Gap' rendition -- which supports Anaxamander's Fragment and Anaxamander's Law. I believe in Spinoza's 'spiritual wholism, unity, and pantheism'. I believe in Heraclitus' and much later Korzybski's 'process theory of change -- and epistemology'. I also believe in Heraclitus's theory of 'dialectical unity' which might be viewed as an extension and a modification of Anaxamander's Dialectical Theory, Fragment, and Law. I believe in Nietzsche's 'will to excel' which should be the proper -- or at least the more 'humanistic-existential -- translation of his much more controversial term, 'will to power'. And finally, I believe in a post-Freudian rendition of Freud's Law of Transference as partly supplemented by Perls' Gestalt theory of transference, and Adler's concept of 'lifestyle'. As another amazing evolutonary development of Anaxamander's Dialectial Theory, Fragment, and Law -- which is over 2500 years old! -- one can also see the foreshadowing of the core basics of Gestalt Theory and Gestalt Therapy. Specifically, in Anaxamander's brief philosophy, one can see a foreshadowing of the Gestalt terms 'gestalt-formation', 'figure', 'background', and the more general scientific, biological, and psychological concept of 'homeostasis' as originated by Cannon, The Wisdom of The Body, 1932. I do not think I am stretching my interpretation beyond reason here, and if i am not, then all I can say is that this is mind-boggling and still greatly unrecognized and undervalued in my opinion. Indeed, the legacy of Anaxamander's Dialectical Theory, Fragment and Law is mind-boggling in terms of its evolutionary effect and/or foreshadowing of Hegelian dialectical theory some 2350 years later (G.W. Hegel, 1770-1831m The Phenomenology of Mind, 1807)

.................................................................................
Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
As is the order of things;
For they execute the sentence upon one another
- The condemnation for the crime -
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.
.....................................................................................

What was Anaxamander in effect saying?

What goes around comes around...

For every action there is a reaction...

For every thesis there is an anti-thesis...

And neither the thesis nor the anti-thesis will every die...

They will just take turns beating each other up and dominating each other...

One in the sun, the other in the shadow...

And switch...as the power reverses...

As it inevitably will with time...

The swinging pendulum of power...

With neither side ever disappearing...or blasting the other side into extinction...

A foreshadowing of the 'thesis' and 'anti-thesis' theory that would eventually -- some 2350 years later -- become classic Hegelian Dialectic Theory...

A foreshadowing of the 'figure' and 'background' theory that would even later -- almost another century later -- become Gestalt Psychology, and then some 50 years after that -- become Gestalt Therapy.

If you want to see how everything I have mentioned here in this essay comes together into one 'multi-integrative-dialectically-unified-and-whole package', then please keep reading to see how the Gap Multi-Dialectic, Humanistic-Existenatial system, anti-system, and integrative system of philosophy unfolds.

dgbn, Feb. 3rd-4th, updated Feb. 10th, 2007.

2007-01-20T07:56:00.001-08:00

1.7. Gap Multi-Dialectical Philosophy -- The 'Linking' Philosophy

Gap Philosophy is a linking philosophy. Linking is primarily what I wish to do here -- link ideas, link philosophers and philosophies, link psychologists and psychologies, link politics, link law, link business and economics, link medicine, link academics, link pragmatics, all of these different areas of human thought, feeling, and activity I wish to link both internally and externally -- for example, externally between business and humanism, between academics and pragmatics, between ancient philosophy and contemporary philosophy, between Science and Religion, between the Enlightenment and Romanticism, between Hegel and Nietzsche, between Freud and Adler, between Freud and Jung, between Freud and Perls, between Adler and Perls...and so on.

Ultimately, through all this work, I wish to link people together -- as best as this is possible given my belief that man (including woman) is first and foremost a 'narcissistic (selfish and self-absorbed) animal' until and/or unless he, she, and we are socially trained to either optimally balance our human narcissism with altruism, and/or we are taught to deny and/or supress our human narcissism altogether. Most religions do much of the latter -- usually with good intentions, not always with good results. GAP-DGB(N) Philosophy believes that an optimal balance of human narcissism and altruism is essential for the survival of mankind individually, socially, politically, and economically; and that human pathology begins to take place when either human narcissism is overly inflated on the one hand (no morality, ethics, integrity, law and order) and/or overly suppressed and denied on the other hand (religion, morality, and/or some forms of family teaching completely out of control).

Nietzsche ranted loud and clear on the dangers of denying and suppressing human narcissism -- or 'Dionyisianism' as he called it -- he called for a balance between human 'Apollonianism' (reason and order) and Dionyisianism (passion and sensuality) in his first book, The Birth of Tragedy, just as the Han philosophers called for a balance between 'yin' and 'yang', just as Hegel called for a balance between 'thesis' and 'anti-thesis', just as Freud later called for a balance between 'superego' and 'id', just as Jung called for a balance between 'personna' and 'shadow', just as Perls called for a balance between 'topdog' and 'underdog', and just as I am now calling for a balance between narcissism and altruism. Indeed, the 'philosophy of balance' goes a long way back -- back to the beginning of both Western and Eastern philosophy, and remains as strong or stronger in its roots, integrations, extensions, and applications, today as it ever has in philosophical history. What I would like to do is to bring all -- or at least many -- of these roots, integrations, extensions, and applications together in one place -- 'Hegel's Hotel' (named by me after one of my main philosophical mentors, G.W.Hegel) -- together in one system of philosophy -- DGB Philosophy -- in hopefully more integrative detail and clarity than has ever been accomplished before. That is my idealistic goal.

The most important concept in my philosophical system is the 'dialectic' -- a concept with long and important historical roots, not only back to Hegel and Marx in the 19th century, but also back as far as Socrates in Ancient Greece, and before him even, to the 'pre-Socratics' (primarily Anaxamander and Heraclitus) as well as to Confucious and the Han Philosophers in ancient Chinese philosophy ('yin' and 'yang'). Some of the extensions of the dialectic that I will use include: 'healthy dialectics', 'pathological dialectics', 'dialectical creativity', 'dialectical respect', 'dialectical negotiation', 'the integrative dialectic', 'dialectical unity and wholism', 'the multi-dialectic', 'multi-dialectical-unity', and so on.

I will define 'the dialectic' as any type of two way exchange -- either amicable and/or hostile -- whereby both sides are influenced by the fallout of the encounter, dialogue, negotiation, manipulation, and/or powerplay.
In distinguishing between healthy and pathological forms of dialectics, I will furhter distinguish between 'narcissistic dialectics', 'will to power dialectics', and/or 'sado-masochistic(dominant/submissive) dialectics' vs. 'humanistic-existential dialectics', the former indicating a wish to 'dominate' and 'control' the dialectics, the latter indicating a wish to 'sustain the integrity of balance between self-assertion and social sensitivity, between narcissism and altruism'.

There are times when I may take a strong philosophical 'either/or' position, but for the most part I am looking to creatively mediate, negotiate, integrate, and 'bridge the gap' between differences in perspective, lifestyle, philosophy... 'DGB' stands for the initials of my name -- David Gordon Bain -- but it also stands for the essence of my philosophy -- it is a 'Dialectical Gap Bridging' philosophy (indeed, a 'multi-dialectical' gap-briding philosophy).

In addition to 'dialectics', the other strong influence on my particular brand of philosophy is 'humanistic-existentialism'. We can all call ourselves by any large or small group of names that we ideally would like to be associated with. As far as me and my philosophy, I would like to be called a 'multi-integrative-dialectical-humanistic-existentialist'. Much of my philosophy is aimed at integrating Hegel and Nietzsche. I am certainly not alone in my aiming to do this. In different ways, Freud, Jung, and Perls all aimed for and achieved a different form of creative integration between Hegel and Nietzsche in their respective philosophies and psychologies. If my form of creative multi-dialectical integration goes any further than any of these great psychologists -- the results are yet to be seen -- I can only say that I have the luxury of being younger than all of these men, and therefore having the historical advantage of philosophically standing on their shoulders.

- David Bain, Jan 10th, 2007.

2006-12-24T13:00:00.003-08:00

1.9. Multi-Bi-Polarities and A Broad Overview Of The History of The Dialectic in Western Philosophy: (Chaos-Order, Predictability-Randomness, Determinism-Freedom, Yin-Yang, Male-Female, Process-System, Hegel-Nietzsche, Subconscious-Conscious, Apollo-Dionysius, Freud-Jung, Superego-Id, Personna-Shadow, Freud-Adler, Transference-Lifestyle, Sex-Power, Conservative-Liberal, Capitalism-Socialism, Humanism-Existentialism, Construction-Deconstruction, Life-Death, Being-Becoming, Contact-Alienation, Assertiveness-Sensitivity...And The Ongoing Evolutionary Synthesis of DGB Multi-Bi-Polar, Optimal Balance) Philosophy

The creation of this philosophical 'system' -- if you will -- has been an ongoing creative process which started out as an academic project back between 1972 and 1974, and has slowly evolved into a life-hobby project. The project has moved from 'psychology' as its main field of investigation in the 1970s and 80s to 'philosophy' in the 90s and 2000s. Philosophy has become the backdrop and underlying basement foundation for my previously linked ideas in psychology that integrated elements of General Semantics, Cogntive Therapy, Gestalt Therapy, Jungian Psychology, Adlerian Psychology, Psychoanalysis (in many of its different Freudian and post-Freudian renditions), and Transactional Analysis.

The key turning point in this creative, evolutionary development for me involved moving backwards from Jung and Perls to Hegel. Hegel -- indirectly through his influence on clinical psychology and psychotherapy in the 20th century -- opened up my eyes and ears to the study and the history of philosophy from Ancient Greek and Chinese philosophy to 20th century humanistic-existentialism and Derrida's post-Nietzschean 'Deconstruction'. Since Hegel seemed to be the main door forwards from philosophy into clinical psychology, personality theory, and psychotherapy on the one hand (with a strong overlapping respect for the corollorary influence of Nietzsche), as well as Hegel providing a major door backwards into the study of all previous Western (and Eastern) philosophy leading up to Hegel, and since Hegel to me, seemed like the ultimate integrative philosopher with his evolutionary dialectical theory (thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis) that was the propelling theory that motivated me to study Hegel (and subsequently, much of the whole history of Western philosophy), it seemed natural in the end to call this philosophical project -- 'Hegel's Hotel' -- the central philosophical meeting place for all Western (and non-Western) philosophers, psychologists, and maybe even eventually -- politicians.

Welcome to Hegel's Hotel.

The project -- and system -- starts with one basic idea -- the idea of the dialectic which I was originally exposed to through my study of such psychologists as Freud, Jung, and Perls, then traced back to Hegel, and then through Hegel, traced further back into its philosophical infancy -- into the philosophy of Anaxamander and Heraclitus in Pre-Socratic ancient Greece, as well as across the borders of Europe to China with less clarity as to its actual origin in the philosophy of Confucious perhaps, and definitely later in the integrative philosophy of the Hans Philosophers. Whether it was Confucious or the Han philosophers, or someone before both of them, someone in China came up with the dualistic and dialectic integrative concepts of 'yin' and 'yang' which would become a vital part of Chinese philosophy -- and indeed, extended to Western general usage as well, to this day, more than 2500 years later. Amazingly, this yin-yang philosophy -- this philosophy of bi-polar, dialectical integration, unity, and wholism -- would show some remarkably strong associative similarities to the types of ideas that were being asserted by Anaxamander and Heraclitus arguably some 50 years earlier (Anaxamander, 611-547 BC; Confucious 551-479 BC; Heraclitus, 535-475 BC; the Han Philosophers, 207 BC to 9 AD) without any equivalent to the famous 'yin-yang' terminology being connected to the early dialectical ideas that were being espoused. The twin dialectical ideas of 'yin' and 'yang' were more similar to the ideas of Heraclitus than they were to those of Anaxamander. Anaxamander's dialectic was essentially a 'will-to-power dialectic' , an 'imperialist dialectic' -- not that Anaxamander was advocating and promoting imperialism, but rather Anaxamander was simply stating -- and of course interpreting and generalizing from -- what he saw around him. And what he saw around him was a 'playoff of competing bi-polar forces' (such as the 'imperialism' of Sparta vs. the 'democracy' of Athens) where one side never totally, and permanently dominated the other, but rather there seemed to be a 'cosmic, what goes around comes around' type of logic and justice that was at work in the world and that almost fatalistically and deterministically guarnateed that one side of a 'survival of the fittest competition' would never dominate forever; rather, 'mutation of the underdog into a more powerful worldly force' would always come back and knock the 'topdog' back to the sidelines, knock the topdog back to the underdog position. (This sounds like a forerunner and precursor of at least part of Hegelian theory, but even more similar to Derrida's 'Deconstruction Theory' -- over 2500 years before Derrida's philosophical theory became popular!

In contrast, Heracitus brand of ' bi-polar, dialectical theory' took an evolutionary step forward from Anaxamander's philosophy -- which is not to state that Anaxamander's 'will-to-power-and-reversal-of-fortunes-through-mutation-of-the-underdog' philosophy isn't as directly relevant today as it was over 2500 years ago (unless perhaps my philosophy critics believe that I am taking too much creative liberty with the implications and applications of Anaxamander's philosophy -- to be sure, we only have 'small, leftover fragments of his philosphy from which it is easy to go 'creatively wild' with these fragments. However, I will stick to my guns here and continue to argue that my personal interpretation of his philosophy is both grounded and as relevant today as it was over 2500 years ago.) What Heraclitus added to Anaxamander's dialectical formula was the idea of 'dialectical complementarity, negotiation, integration, unity, and wholism' -- which is an idea that exploded into Hegel's most famous of dialectical theories -- the triangular 'dance' of 'thesis', 'anti-thesis', and 'synthesis'. Nietzsche built on this idea in his first (and he would say only) 'post-Hegelian work' -- The Birth of Tragedy , 1871. In my opinion, BT as we will call it from now on, was the forerunner and precursor of Psychoanalysis, Jungian Psychology, and Gestalt Therapy. Freud may not have read Nietzsche until later in his psychoanalytic career, but regardless, BT is essentially a psychanalytic work -- some ten or eleven years before Freud met his first patient (the famous 'Anna O' -- around 1882 if I am not mistaken).
What we have in the combined philosophical forces of the pre-Socratics, Anaxamander and Heraclitus, is in essence then, the foundation of Western and (Eastern) dualistic and dialectic philosophy, which in my opinion makes up the bulk of Western philosophy. What I will say from this, and this may be considered by many to be 'philosohical blasphemy' is that the philosophical foundation provided by the combined work of Anaxamander and Heraclitus is just as important, if not more important, to the overall evolution of Western philosophy, as the combined work of Socrates and Plato. (Nietzsche has been here before and made essentially the same argument -- if not even less diplomatically). One can see the remnants of Socratean philosophy in a present day courtroom, one can see the remnants of Plato's philosophy in practically every religion in the world but there is something about Anaxamander's 'will to power and cosmic justice' dialectic and Heraclitus' 'dialectical complementarity, unity, and wholism' philosophy that supersedes the work of both Socrates and Plato. One can say that it was the Anaxamander-Heraclitus connection, not the Socrates-Plato connection, that stimulated the greatest philosophical explosion in Western history from Hegel to Marx to Nietzsche to Freud to Jung to Perls to Derrida not to mention the political ramification of Marxian philosophy on the spread of (pathologically interpreted and applied) socialism and Communism in Russia and China, and Nietzsche's 'will to power' philosophy on the evolution of (pathological) German Imperialism and Nazism.

What you have read so far in the paragraphs above represents the backbone of the body of educational information I have arrived at after some 30 plus years of studying Western psychology and philosophy. The 'spinal cord' if you will of this backbone hinges around the idea of the 'dialectic' -- and more precisely, the integrated ideas of 'multi-bi-polar, creative, dialectical negotiation, integration, unity, and wholism'. This is the very essence of the philosophical system -- DGB Philosophy -- that I will be putting before you. 'DGB' stands for the initials of my name -- David Gordon Bain -- and it also stands for 'Dialectical Gap-Bridging' which is another way of describing the essence of the philosophy that I am about to put before you. I put this integrative set of ideas out there before you represented both in its simpler name of 'DGB Philosophy', and in it slightly more technical name of 'DGB Integrative, Multi-Bi-Polar Philosophy'. The system is both an 'epistemological system' in that it is asserting something about human nature, and indeed, about all of life in general: specifically, that we are all multi-bi-polar, and indeed, all of life is multi-bi-polar. I take no credit for this proposition, no credit for this theory, no credit for this philosophy and psychology of man, nature, and evolution, other than perhaps for the new, integrative way in which I present it, and to state that it is a theory and a philosophy and a psychology that has run through both Western and Eastern history in different but similar costumes to the tune of some 2700 years -- from Anaxamander and Heraclitus, to Confucious and the Han philosophers, to Fichte and Hegel and Marx, to Nietzsche (in 'The Birth of Tragedy') and Freud and Jung and and Berne and Perls to the biology of W.B. Cannon and the principle of 'homeostasis', to Derrida's 'Deconstruction'. And I am just touching or shaping a part of the 'dialectical iceberg' of Western and Eastern philosophy. There are many, many renditions of this same general philosophy that I have not touched on. One could easily argue -- which I do -- that it would be impossible for one basic idea -- let's call it the idea of multi-bi-polarity -- to appear and re-appear and re-appear again in a practically an endless varieties of 'language-semantic renditions' over thousands of years of human history -- and not have some strong element of 'epistemological truth' attached to it.

However, beyond epistemology and the endless search for 'functional knowledge or truth' by which to 'base our epistemological or conceptual maps by' and live our lives by, philosophy -- and particularlily here, DGB Philosphy -- takes one giant step further and reaches into the study of 'ethics' and 'ethical idealism'. The philosophical question has been asked over time: 'Can and/or should a system of values, morals, and ethics be co-related and based on a system of epistemology? Many philosophers have said 'no'. This philosopher is saying 'yes'. From the epistemological theory of 'multi-bi-polarity' comes the ethical theory of 'homeostasis', or 'dialectical balance' or 'optimal balance' which can be used to cover science, biology, physics, chemistry, bio-chemistry, medicine, psychology, philosophy, psychotherapy, politics, art, law, business and economics, politics, religion, sports and recreation, and whatever else I may have missed. And this too is the domain of DGB Integrative, Multi-Bi-Polar Philosophy.

From an ethical and a point of view of 'philosophical and psychological health', DGB Philosphy supports and promostes a style of life that operates around the 'half way point' between 'self-denial' and 'self-absorption' -- or, in the latter case, a term that became popularized by Freud and those life myself who have continued to use the term after Freud -- 'narcissism', or in its unhealthy state, 'unbridled, uncontrolled, unadulterated, narcissism'. Thus, in my opinion, Freud was essentially right to differentiate between two different types of 'neuroses' if you will which were/are essentially the 'neuroses of anxiety, guilt, and self-denial' vs. the 'neuroses of over-indulgence, narcissism, and unethical civil behavior'. I call the first brand of 'neuroses' -- if you don't mind me sticking with a psychological term that has been used for over a hundred years -- 'the existential neuroses' (or neuroses of 'not being and becoming') vs. 'the narcissisitic neuroses' which are the neuroses of over-self-indulgence, self-absorption, uncivil behavior, unethical behavior, dangerous behavior, and ultimately, self-destructive behavior.

From this, we arrive at another name for the 'ethical' side of DGB Philosophy which might also be called 'DGB Optimal Balance Philosophy'.

So again I come back to the question, 'Can man arrive at a "natural ethical system" -- one supported by scientific, philosophical, and psychological epistemological knowledge of a functional value? And I answer, 'Yes, the proof -- or at least the logical argument -- lies in 2700 years of Western and Eastern philosophy where the 'epistemological theory of multi-bi-polarity' leads to the 'ethical theory of optimal (homeostatic) balance'.

If this was a 'fictional' novel, of which this essay was the first chapter, then I would be destroying a good novel, because I would be sabotaging the 'mystery' of this novel by essentially writing the last chapter in the first. But this is not a fictional novel -- rather this essay is the culmination of 30 plus years of psychological and philosophical research on my part. So those of you who wish to 'explore the myriad of different pieces that make up the integrative, multi-bi-polar whole of this work', please, I welcome you to stay with me, through essays on epistemology, history, psychology, ethics, politics, law, business and economics, religion, art -- a combination of essays that I have already written and essays that have yet to be written, as DGB Philosophy continues to evolve. And to be sure, this is at least partly and eventually meant to be a 'multi-dialectical-integrative philosophical forum -- 'Hegel's Hotel' -- where your feedback and your essays, regardless of their editorial opinion, are welcome here as long as they meet a level of 'professionalism' and 'humanism' that, in my admittedly subjective, 'non-perfect', opinion, is moving in the same direction as what I wish to accomplish here. I am trying to promote participative democracy here, not suppress it -- even in the cases of opinions, ideas, essays, and other 'systems of philosophy' that I don't necessarily agree with. Come one, come all -- to Hegel's Hotel.

DGB, Dec. 25th-29th, 2006.

2006-12-04T21:59:00.000-08:00

1.10. Either/Or Philosophy Vs. Creative-Integrative Philosophy -- Noting The Distinction and Asking The 50 Million Dollar Question: Which Type of Philosophy Is Better To Use When?

There is a sense -- actually two senses -- in which all philosophy, all culture, all creativity, all conflict, is of a dialectical nature. We will distinguish between two types of 'dialectics': 1. an 'either/or' dialectic; vs. 2. an 'integrative' dialectic -- but first we need to back up and define a 'dialectic'.

What is meant by the term 'dialectic'?

The term dialectic implies 'two'. But more than this, it implies some type of interaction between the two. By my definitional standards then, which is generally close to traditional, historical philosophical standards, a 'dialectic' implies and requires two things in some sort of interaction with each other. One difference between orthodox, linear, scientific thinking -- which I believe stretches back at least as far as the philosophy of Aristotle -- and 'Hegelian dialectical thinking (or logic)' is that in traditional scientific, linear thinking, the logical formula is basically: 'A causes B, and B is caused by A'; whereas in Hegelian dialectical thinking, the logical formula works both ways, thus: 'A both influences and is influenced by B, while B both influences and is influenced by A. This is the important difference between standard scientific, linear thinking and Hegelian dialectical thinking. In general, this philosophical presentation supports and promotes dialectical thinking as a more 'true-to-reality-approach-to-reality' than its predecessor does, the latter of which is still very much ingrained into Western thinking. Eastern thinking tends to move much more easily along the 'yin-yang-dialectical-reciprocal-polarity-axis' which is much more in line with the type of thinking that I am promoting here. But the kicker is that the 'yin-yang-reciprocating-polarity' approach to thinking, feeling, wanting, and indeed to each and everything that happens in life and death has older roots in Western philosophy than it does in Eastern philosophy -- Anaxamander (611BC-547BC) compared to let us say, Confucious (551BC-279BC). If you skip Anaxamander and move to the second oldest Western 'dialectical' philosopher -- as in a philosopher who deals with the idea of 'reciprocating opposites', then you still have a Western philospher who was developing important dialectical ideas around the same time as Confucious was in China (assuming that Confucious was the creator of 'yin-yang' philosphy which I have not positively confirmed; I have also read reports that it may have been developed about 350 years later with the work of the 'Han Synthesis' philosophers around 207BC-9AD. This in itself raises the 'dialectical question' of whether there was an 'West-East-West' line of philosophical influence going on, or visa versa, or a combination of both influencing each other (perhaps through the 'China-Egypt-Greece line of travel and communication')? Or was the similarity in evolving dialectical Western and Eastern philosophy totally coincidental? -- or only coincidental to the extent that 'similar Western and Eastern minds' were 'philosophizing' from the same basic life process, and in this regard, 'a multi-dialectical line of human thought' was simply evolving and progressing from a life process that exhibited the same basic 'multi-dialectical characteristics' as were then being sensually perceived and conceptually represented through these different but remarkably similar Western and Eastern dialectical philosophies (Anaxamander and Heraclitus vs. Confucious and the Han Synthesis Philosophers). And then both would collide together in the 'apex of the triangle' with a philosophical force that would reverberate around the world in the 'one-two-three-four dialectical combination of Fichte (1762-1814), Hegel (1770-1831), Marx (1818-1883) and Nietzsche (1844-1900) some 2000-2500 years later. This combined dialectical force -- the bottom apex of the ancient East-West dialectical triangle -- would then go on to have dramatic influence on the development of politics -- pathologically as well as democratically (Lenin, Stalin, Nazi Germany), the birth of clinical psychology (Freud, Jung, Adler, Perls...), and the further development of philosophy (humanistic-existentialism, Foucault, Derrida...)

In the context of this philosophical forum and presentation, 'DGB' stands for three things: 1. my initials -- David Gordon Bain; 2. the essence of my philosophy -- 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging' (i.e., DGB Philosophy aims to 'dialectically bridge gaps' between different philosophical systems over and over and over again); and 3. one of my philosophy's major implications and applications trumpets that -- 'Democracy Goes Beyond: 1. 'narcissitic hedonism'; 2. a 'narcissitic will to power'(both the Capitalist and Socialist brand as well as the Conservative and Liberal brand or Republican and Democratic brand); and 3. a 'traditional, orthodox, mainly Western approach to linear, scientific thinking'). These ideas will all be developed at a later date.

Arguably my most important philosophical integration is between Hegel and Nietzsche. Hegel's 'flagship' work -- his masterpiece -- is 'The Phenomenology of Mind/Spirit' published in 1807 on the eve of Napoleon's invasion of 'pre-Germany'. Now in my mind, Napoleon's invasion of pre-Germany had a huge impact of the future psychology, philosophy, and evolution of later Germany, and at least partly explains the 'cultural traumacy' that preceded and led to the 'compensatory rise' of Nazi Germany (as a national form of 'identification with the aggressor' -- the aggressor being Napoleon.) Parts of Johann Fichte's work which had a major on Hegel's work which in turn had a major influence on Nietzsche's work -- all three philosophers and their respective works have rightly or wrongly, or part of both -- been linked to the rise of Imperialist, Nazi Germany. We will investigate, analyze, and clarify these assertions at a later date.

Let us zero in on Nietzsche for a moment. For our purposes here, there are five things that stand out about Nietzsche's work that will be built upon here: 1. his first book, 'The Birth of Tragedy' published in 1871, which is remarkably 'Hegelian' in its structure -- with Nietzsche's introduction of man's 'Apollonian vs. Dionysian paradox/dichotomy (and tragedy), even as Nietzsche later divorced himself from any part of Hegelian thinking; 2. Nietzsche's 'tightrope' analogy -- Man is on a tightrope (for example, between 'being' and 'becoming'). We will build on this analogy in many essays to come -- including the next two; 3. Nietzsche's 'Superman' (sometimes translated as 'Overman' but 'Superman' will suffice for our purposes here) philosophy which basically states that man has to 're-climb onto the tightrope over and over again to maximize the best of his human potentials'; 4. Nietzsche's concept of 'Will to Power' which we will examine in all of its ambiguities, strengths, and/or weaknesses; and 5. Nietzsche's 'Deconstructionism' which is as intense and as powerful as any form of philosophical and/or political writing committed to paper, and which foreshadowed the later work of Derrida for one who created the term- concept of 'deconstruction' which I have taken the liberties of adding the 'ism' onto the end of it -- which Derrida didn't like. Sorry Mr. Derrida but this is my philosophical presentation and forum; not yours.

Now, back to the two senses of what I mean by 'dialectic'.

The first type of dialectic is of a competitive 'either/or', 'Will to Power' nature. We will call this type of dialectic a 'Sophist-Socratean-Nietzschean Dialectic' (depending on the context) -- although it could also be called a 'Kierkegaardian Dialectic' as Kierkegaard wrote a book called 'Either/Or' which is the essence of the type of dialectic I am trying to describe here (but DGB Philosophy is much more deeply entrenched in Nietzschean Dialectical (Birth of Tragedy) philosophy with the other four Nietzschean additions mentioned above than it is in Kierkegaardian philosophy. To be sure, Kierkegaard was a very important philosopher -- one might say one of the main 'bridges' between Hegel and Nietzsche (along with Schopenhauer) -- but for our purposes here, Kierkegaard plays second fiddle to Nietzsche.

The other sense of the dialectic is a co-operative, integrative nature. This I call the 'Hegelian Dialectic'. Life is a combination of competition (Nietzsche) and co-operation (Hegel) -- working hand in hand with each other, 'narcissistic hedonism and a will to power' working in one place while 'altruism, co-operation, trust, empathy, social sensitivity, and generosity' may be working in another place. These two forms of the dialectic in action -- competition vs. co-operation -- may be working at cross purposes with each other, and/or they may find a way of eventually comeing together in some sort of temporary or longer lasting 'dialectical harmony'.

One is a case of domination, outperformance and supremacy vs. submission and/or perishment (if there is no such word as 'perishment', then I just created it); the other is a case of creative, integrative, egalitarian, democratic dialectical harmony -- in short, often a case of a 'compromise' between two or more existing entities, perspectives, philosophies, and/or lifestyles seeking different ends and/or means...'Democracy' and 'justice' can be viewed as a 'dialectical compromise' between 'narcissistic hedonism and self-assertion' on the one hand ('narcissism' and 'hedonism' again, we will define with more philosophical clarity later) and 'altruism' (which includes social sensitivity, empathy, and the like). Both types of living, both types of dialectics -- the 'righteous, either/or' Sophist-Socratean-Nietzschean dialectic vs. the 'creative, integrative, co-operative Hegelian dialectic' proceed hand in hand with each other, both have made their mark on the evolution of mankind and all other forms of life, both need to be more fully understood in terms of their respective strengths, weaknesses, and impacts relative to the past and future evolution of mankind, and for each and every one of our respective ongoing evolutions as individuals. Sometimes, taking an 'either/or' stance is the right way to go -- especially if by good fortune it seems to turn out that we chose the 'right path'; other times, integrating our ideas and values with the ideas and values of others is the better way to go relative to obtaining a more harmonious indiviual and collective 'dialectical-democratic harmony'. Sometimes pushing hard for what we want -- with no compromises -- can get us what we want if we are strong, confident, and forceful enough about it; other times, it can land us in the mud -- or worse. Sometimes success in life comes from a strong 'will to power'; other times our 'will to power' can trample and self-destruct us in situations where what is more needed is a 'creative, integrative will to co-operate and compromise'. The wisdom in life comes from knowing -- or painfully learning -- which 'style of operation', is better utilized in any one particular context or life situation. A 'will to power'; or a 'will to creatively integrate and compromise'. An 'either/or' choice or a 'creative, integrative' choice. A Sophist, Socratean, and/or Nietzschean choice. Or Hegelian choice.

That is what 'Hegel's Hotel: The DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Political Forum' is all about basically -- i.e entertaining all sorts of different life situations from all different domains of life and studying life -- such as philosophy, psychology, politics, law, business and economics, science, biology, bio-chemistry, medicine, art, religion, leisure and recreation, and so on --and applying either: 1. 'dialectic either/or logic' and/or 'dialectic creative-integrative logic' to each particular life situation.

Now the irony of this whole presentation, this whole treatise and forum of philosophy, is that it practically demands participation from different sources and different perspectives. Otherwise it would not be called a 'dialectic' or a 'dialectic forum'. To be sure, I have a particular architecture, process, and message that I would like to communicate to you, the reader. However, if this was was all that my work was about -- if I was intending to exclusively practice a 'will to power' throughout this enterprise, then I would at least partly, if not mainly, be defeating its idealistic purpose. Like many a 'hypocritical' person, I would be essentially demonstrating: 'Do as I say, not what I do.' One could say that Hegel and Nietzsche are in effect, still doing 'philosophical battle' within the confines of my own philosophical (DGB)work.

One final point. We can differentiate between 'internal' and 'external' dialectics or 'self' and 'social' dialectics. The human psyche (or mind) is a complicated piece of biological, mental, and spiritual 'machinery' (if 'machinery' is the right choice of word) -- and rarely is it 'totally, unconflictually, undivisively, and unconditionaly united' in all facets of its operation. Beware the person who says that 'it' and 'he' or 'she' is 'totally unified in thinking, feeling, and action'. When things are working best for us -- both individually and relationship wise -- usually we can say that we have achieved at least a temporary state of 'dialectical harmony and balance'. But this is not an easy state of existence to achieve, let alone maintain -- it is often fleeting, to be thrown out of kilter or out of balance by some newly arriving problem, obstacle, challenge, and/or conflict in our life.

In similar and different ways, our individual and collective experiences lead us in and out of balance, in balance when things are working well for us, out of balance when something temporarily or habitually derails and/or sabotages us.

So in a nutshell, what is the goal of this philosophical work? You've heard this before probably from all sorts of different venues. 'Balance'. Individual, psychic, philosophical, relationship, biological, bio-chemical, poliitical, legal, financial, work, leisure, spiritual, religious, community, racial, international, ecological -- have I missed anything (I'm sure I have) -- balance. Which somehow, in ways that will be determined as we go along, includes the Nietzschean philosophy of the 'tightrope' and the 'Superman' (which paradoxically might throw us out of the 'complacency' of our 'balance' for a short or longer while until we become comfortable on the tightrope or get to the other side, or come back again).

Thus, DGB Philosophy essentially 'splits the difference' between much of Hegelian and Nietzschean philosophy. However, it also splits the difference between many other philosophical and psychological perspectives such as between Freud and Jung, and Perls and Adler. You will meet all the different philosophical and psychological 'bridges' and 'tightropes' as we move along.

Between a search for 'dialectical balance' (Hegel) and a search for 'stretching our human limits and potentials' (Nietzsche), hopefully, you may find some concrete and abstract results that may 'tickle your fancy' here. Or not. You can't please everyone -- nor should you try. As I heard in an interview of the long time mayor of Mississaga, Hazel McCallion, and I may be partly paraphrasing what she said: 'You can't go through life as a Mambi Pambi'. I think we get what she means. She is my ideal of a great politician, 30 years in power, through the democratic election process over and over again, she hasn't lost an election, even though she is now in her 70s or 80s. No public debt during her 30 years of power. Working for the people -- dialectically in communication with her people throughout her 30 years -- not 'narcissisitically alienated and out of the loop from the people as are most politicians today who have their noses in the air and their hands in the pockets of the people who they are supposedly serving.

Hopefully, and ideally, if and/or when this project gathers enough momentum as a viable philosophical structure, process, and force, and if you choose to become involved in its evolutionary process, then there will be a place for your work here as well. Your feedback and creative contributions are welcome -- both as a source of altering the direction of my own evolutionary dialectical thinking, and also as a viable philosophical entity in its own right. Your contributions can reach me through my email address: dgbainsky@yahoo.com I will honour and acknowledge all pieces of work -- regardless of whether I agree with you or not -- that I think advance the democratic cause of this philosophical forum. Now obviously, there is a certain amount of 'will to power' in my editorial screening process. However, I am trying to teach a process of 'particiapatory, creative, integrative democracy' here. So again, your contributions -- conservative or liberal, capitalist or socialist, religious or non-relgious, as long as they are democratic -- are all welcome. Please enter 'Hegel's Hotel' with an open, flexible, evolutionary dialectical mind.

That is what this project is all about. A return to 'Enlightenment thinking' -- with a DGB evolutionary counterbalance of 'romantic-humanistic-existential-and/or-deconstructionist' philosophical thought. It has taken me roughly 30 years of my own psychological and philosophical investigation to get to this point right here. Some of the essays that follow will back-peddle where I have come from. Most of them will take off from this point here. Have a good day.

db, December 5th, modified Dec. 14th, 2006.

2006-11-09T09:37:00.000-08:00

1.11. Nietzsche -- The Abyss, The Tightrope, and The Superman Philosophy (Take 3)

Overlooking an abyss of death, man is scrambling on a tightrope of life that bridges two cliffs -- 'actuality' and 'potential' -- 'being' and 'becoming' -- but in between is all the anxiety about falling, the anxiety of death...anxiety of the unknown...anxiety of insecurity...don't look down! Be strong and keep scrambling forward until you get to where you want to be -- with a lot of hard work...rest momentarily...and then it's back to the tightrope again...man was meant to keep moving...to keep creating himself anew...between two cliffs again...to stay glued on one cliff for too long is to 'existentially die'...a certain amount of 'groundedness' and 'security' is a good thing...one does not want to live an existence that is constantly full of stress and anxiety...but one needs to optimally balance 'groundedness' with the 'tightrope'...stay on the same ground for too long and you stagnate...to relax and refresh is one thing...to stagnate is another...come on ye of failing courage...gather your strength and confidence...clarify your vision...and make it happen...your dream is on the other side of the cliff...with the tightrope your only bridge across... gather all your strength, courage, and resources because you need to bridge the gap, the abyss -- between actuality and potentiality -- between being and becoming...your creativity and the full repertoire of your resources is on the tightrope -- not on the firm ground...the firm ground is the smiling faces of your family, your friends, your community, to celebrate with you when you return...and/or when you make it to the other side...but the tightrope -- the tightrope is for you alone...or for you and your important 'other' as you both respect and grapple with the differences between you, as you both work to use the dialectic to bridge the gap or gaps between you. /strong>

I don't want to take credit for that last passage
because it is an embellishment of a famous Nietzschean
metaphor -- the tightrope and the abyss -- combined with a little of my own modified, and more moderate
'post-Hegelian, optimal balance' philosophy. I will
take credit for the embellishment of the metaphor and the integration
of Nietzsche and Hegel in a way that not even Nietzsche would have liked -- but not for the metaphor itself
because the metaphor of the tightrope and the abyss belongs to Nietzsche, probably the most intensely passionate
philosopher in Western history. In fact, I am not even
going to reference the metaphor because if you are an
experienced philosophy reader you will know where to
find the metaphor and if you are an introductory
philosophy student, then I say, 'Go find the metaphor
and keep reading Nietzsche until you find it.
Everything that you read by Nietzsche before you find
the metaphor is gravy on the meat and potatoes of
Nietzschean philosophy...the philosophy of the
Superman.

Now as for Hegel, unless you have a bottle
of aspirin, a very strong intellect, and a lot of
philosophical perseverence and determination, I think
you are better reading my own interpretations, modifications, and expansions
of Hegel, rather than Hegel himself. Or start with one of many possible 'Introductions to Hegel' which is where I invested much of my energy while 'The Phenomenology' still sits in my library daring me to challenge it.

If you are very intellectually brave -- and I cannot claim that I am -- then this is where you should go -- to Hegel himself through his greatest work, 'The Phenomenology of Mind (and/or Spirit)' -- depending on your translation of the title. If you end up in a cloud of words you don't understand, don't say I didn't warn you...Indeed, I have enough people complaining about the lack of clarity in my own writing, and, trust me, mine is a lot simpler than Hegel's. Hegel goes to abstract places -- in both words and thought -- where I turn back looking for more solid ground -- and passion. Here is where I inevitably turn to Nietzsche. Philosophy without the passion and intensity for life that Nietzsche showed and still shows us, is like life without love, and love without lust and sex. Philosophy is not all about words and reason and logic. This is where even the Enlightenment -- one of the greatest periods of Western philosophy -- failed us. It took Rousseau to first show us the limitations of 'Enlightenment thinking' -- for all its great push towards equality, democracy and freedom for everyone. It took Rousseau to first tell us that life -- and philosophy -- is not all about what is in the 'head' but also about what is in the 'heart' which sometimes, indeed often, may defy reason and logic. This opened up the whole 'Romantic' period of Western philosophy of which Nietzsche was probably its greatest culminating force and statesperson.

Hegel (1770-1831) came along before Nietzsche (1844-1900) and the former was caught half way in between Western Enlightenment and Romantic Philosophy. Hegel very much supported The French Revolution -- until it became the Reign of Terror -- but somewhat more confusingly, Hegel also supported Napoleon, the latter of whom can hardly be deemed to be an advocate of, nor a role model for, 'democratic, egalitarian, Enlightenment' thinking. There are some questions here that need to be asked about the extent to which classic Hegelian dialectical philosophy can be associated to: 1. egalitarian, democratic, Enlightenment philosophy; 2. Romantic philosophy; 3. the rise of German Imperialist philosophy; 4. the rise of Marxist philosophy; and 5. the various 'modifications' (perversions?) of Marxist philosophy in the form of Lenin and Stalin Russian 'Marxist-Fascist' philosophy and politics. (Obviously, one can see here that Hegel -- both good and bad, directly and indirectly -- had a hugely dramtic influence on 19th and 20 century philosophy and politics in Europe and Asia.)

My DGB Post-Hegelian (and Post-Nietzschean) Optimal Balance Philsophy purports to integrate the 'the best of Hegel and the best of Nietzsche' into one cumultive system of philosophy, psychology, politics -- along with every other form of human activity, culture, and evolution as well, at least to the extent that I have the time and energy to write in all the different fields I want to write in (science, medicine, law, etc.)

Now, to be sure, I am not alone in having successfully and/or unsuccessfully attempted to do this. Freud's Psychoanalysis mixes Hegel and Nietszche, as does Jungian Psychology, as does Perls' Gestalt Therapy. But I have this advantage over every philosopher and every psychologist who has gone before me -- I am writing from their shoulders. (I read that analogy from some philosopher -- forgive me if I do not know who said it, or where I found it, but I will give you the reference as soon as I find it again, which I think will be soon.)

Back to Nietsche. Unlike Nietzsche -- I like the dialectic -- indeed embrace the egalitarian, democratic dialectic -- which is why 'The Birth of Tragedy (BT)' is my favorite Nietzschean work. BT can be viewed as the precursor to Freudian Psychoanalyis as the young Nietzsche under Hegelian influence -- before he turned anti-Hegelian -- laid out the groundwork for what was to be the classic Freudian struggle in man. With Nietzsche, the struggle was between Apollonian and Dionysian man; with Freud the struggle would be reconceptualized as the struggle between civilized (moral) and non-civilized (instinctual) man.

In this philosophical project here -- Hegel's Hotel -- I aim to 'bridge the philosophical gap' not only between Hegel and Nietzsche -- but between every two or more sets of philosophers and or psychologists who I set my creative energies on. I have some 2700 years of philosophy, psychology, politics, law, science, medicine, culture, and evolution to work with. My creativity lies in the gaps -- that is why I used to call what I do here 'Gap Philosophy and Gap Psychology' but now I call it 'DGB Philosophy-Psychology' -- as in 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging Philosophy-Psychology'. It is my 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging creative abilities' that comprises my climbing attempts over the many different 'tightropes which I straddle'.

But Hegel's Hotel and DGB Philosophy-Psychology is not all about me. The idea of the dialectic implies two or more people or sets of opposing ideas acting on the same problem or challenge. I am just here to awaken or re-awaken people to some or many of the creative, integrative possibilities of the dialectic and the multi-dialectic in action. If you have followed me to this point and I still have your interest and attention, then let us by all means -- dialectically between the two of us, you and I, as reader and writer -- and switch; -- and again, you and I, as philosopher and student -- and switch -- keep this dialectical ball rolling. Philosophy -- like everything else in life -- is about education not only in the form of one perspective dominating over all other perspectives (because this only happens for a certain period of time before other persepctives come to the forefront) but rather, in the form of many different and often opposing perspectives, each generally with its own separate truth-value, each inciting and exciting passion and motivation from those who support its truth value -- and the important need and ability, if we all want to live peacefully on this earth together in close proximity to each other, to balance opposing truths and values towards some sort of central, workable, optimally balanced philosophy of life.

Allow me some room for creative egotism -- narcissism if you will -- when I call my own particular brand of this 'dialectical-integrative' philosophy -- 'Gap-DGBN Post-Hegelian, Post-Nietzschean, Humanistic-Existential Philosophy'. Or -- more simply labelled -- just 'Gap Philosophy'.

It could also be called 'post-Gestalt Philosophy' -- as I spent much of the 1980s learning Gestalt Therapy (which indirectly brought me to Hegel, Nietzsche and philosophy in general) -- but it has been 15 years since I was involved with the Gestalt Institute and much of what I have learned is knowledge that I learned either before I got to the Gestalt Institute (my Honours Thesis in psychology in 1979 was on the connection between Cognitve Therapy and General Semantics) and/or after I left the Gestalt Institute around 1991 (and started to focus on the study of philosophy). So even though Gestalt Therapy remains near and dear to my heart, I will call what I am doing here 'DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...' or just 'DGB Philosophy' and everything else that has influenced the direction, process, content, and/or structure of my thinking needs to include the word 'post'- in order to accommodate my many creative variations, integrations, and modifications with other 'schools of thought' that have influenced it too.

I am loyal to many schools of thought -- and at the same time -- to none. This is the paradox of my existence -- and my still evolving philosophy of life -- which are dialectically affected by each other.

dgb, first writing, Nov 6th-9th, 2006; second modified version, Nov. 22nd-24th, 2006.
dgbn, david gordon bain,
dgbn, dialectical gap-bridging negotiations
dgbn, democracy goes beyond narcissism.

2006-10-17T07:36:00.000-07:00
1.12. The Creative-Humanistic-Existential Stopwatch of Life

We all have the stopwatch of life on us, one way or another other. There are two types of stopwatches that are worth distinguishing. One is the creative stopwatch. The other is the social performance stopwatch. The two are usually intimately connected but let me distinguish the difference.

1. The Creative-Existential Stopwatch

We all have the drive to create. God and/or Nature has blessed each and everyone of us with certain individual, unique capabilities, potentials, talents. Call these 'CPTS' (Capabilities-Potentials-Talents). Under normal, healthy life, philosophical, and psychological conditions, we not only have a drive to survive, but we have a drive to survive with a flourish, with a passion, unless or until this passion is extinguished within us (such as by the perception of overwhelming obstacles, loss of meaning in life, entropy -- the loss of health and/or energy, loss of a loved one, tragedy or traumacy, resentment, depression, rage, guilt, sorrow...).

I have a fresh appreciation of some of Freud's later work, specifically, 'Beyond The Pleaure Principle', in which he conceptually creates a new 'dialectic' in man's life. By 'dialectic', in this context, and through most of the context of this philosophical work, I mean the distinction of a philosopher between 'two opposing life (or death) forces that collide with each other, each with their own separate 'will to power', that may result in any of a number of different consequences such as: war, court, one side completely conquering and/or controlling the other (i.e. domination/submission), a 'Mexican standoff' or mutual impasse, mutual or one-sided alienation, negotiation, compromise, approval-seeking, democracy, and/or integration. A distinction can be made between 'healthy' and 'pathological' dialectics, with most playing themselves out somewhere in between.

Using Freud's 'BTPP' (Beyone The Pleasure Principle) conceptualization, let us say that we all have only a limited time on earth to express ourselves in the way that we want to express ourselves, to fulfill or achieve our CPTs, and do whatever it is we want to do on this earth before the stopwatch of Time, of Existence, of Entropy, starts to grab hold of us, and slow us down, to our eventual death. Morbid perhaps, but this is the reality of our existence. The older we get, the more we can appreciate that entropy -- the loss of the energy and vitality through 'oxidation' and/or the aging process -- can become a significant deterring factor in the achievement of our CPTs. Life becomes a struggle -- which we likely won't notice when we are younger -- between our 'Drive to Survive With A Flourish' and Entropy (Aging, Loss of Energy, Oxidation, Death). In short, life -- and particularly 'life with a flourish' becomes a dialectic struggle between life and death (Freud's last dialectical philosophical conceptualization). I can accept this terminology and this dialectical conceptualization easily -- even if I let Freud's term and concept of 'instinct' slide away into history.

2. The Social Performance Stopwatch

We all have 'Individual Philosophies' ('IPs') that we may or may not try to turn into 'social philosophies'('SPs') -- this terminology is courtesy of my philosophy email friend, Paul Baioni, from Memphis, Tennessee. I will use the terms 'IP' and 'SP' in ways that promote my own IP and SP here; Paul's ideas can be found in links to our private/public emails, and beyond that, to his own systemized essays.

In my conceptuology, our IPs can be viewd as the 'bridges' between our capabilities, potentials, talencts on the one hand, and our Social Expressions or Performances (SPs)on the other hand. A distinction can be made between our private expressions and/or performances (when we are alone), our semi-private expressions and/or performances (when we are with close friends, family, and/or loved ones), and our public performances (when we are more in the limelight of the public appraisal such as at work, making a speech, writing a book or essay for public consumption, involved in a team or individual sports activity with people watching.

Now, as much as we may hate to admit this fact, we are all being appraised and judged, both in semi-private and public spheres alike. The more private our realm of self-expression, the more we have the 'freedom' to engage in what might be called 'narcissistic self-indulgance' (doing the things we want to do, and expressing ourselves in the way that we want to express ourselves). The minute we step into a relationship of two -- unless we are entering into a 'sado-masochistic' and/or 'dominance/submission' relationship -- we are entering a situation where we need to at least partly curtail the full extent of our narcissistic IP and narcissistic self-expression in favor of 'sharing some of this narcissistic limelight' with our partner in the relationship -- in whatever the form that their own narcissistic IP and self-expression may take. Thus, a dialectic can be seen to exist -- which is partly different for every relationship -- between the twin polarities of narcissistic self-assertion and social sensitivity (or talking and listening).

The larger the social stage is -- especially if it is a democratic stage -- the more there is generally going to be a sharing of 'narcissistic limelight' among the group, unless one or a few persons are doing something that warrants the rest of the crowd being willing to put aside their own narcissistic IPs, agendas, and self-expressions in order to watch, read, and/or listen to the person or persons who are the centre of attention. This usually demands a certain level of social credibility and trust in order for a decently large crowd to being willing to put aside their own IPs, agendas, and social performances for any signficant length of time in order to watch and/or listen to someone who is in effect 'on stage' for a purpose such as entertaining, motivating, and/or educating the rest of the audience.

Otherwise -- and even in spite of -- warrented social credibility (based on good past social performances, reputation, and so on), the Stopwatch of Social Performance is ticking. I have only so many words and minutes to attract my desired audience here, and if I cannot attract my audience within that limit of time, within the time limit of my Stopwatch of Social Performance and Credibility, then I will lose my audience, and will basically be writing to and for myself, just as if smaller or larger portions of an audience at a sporting or entertainment or political event grew weary, bored, and/or sufficiently upset that they started to walk out of the event. We all have our own, unique narcissistic IPs and agendas, and are only willing to spend so much time listening or watching or reading about someone else's narcissistic IP and/or social performance before we start to tune out and go back to our own more comfortable, more pleasurable, narcissistic IP and agenda, whatever that might be. That is, unless the educator, the motivator, the entertainer is charismatic and captivating enough to keep our interest focused on what is being said, done, and/or written.

I mention this because this philosophical perspective -- the perspective of the dialectic in life, self and society , and particularly the dialectics between: 1. life and death, 2. between survival with a flourish and entropy, 3. between narcissistic self-assertion and social sensitivity, 4. between conflicting IPs, 5. between conflicting Individual Wills To Social, Economic, Political, and/or Religious Power, and 6. between Apollonian (intellectual) energy, Dionysian (sexual and sensual energy), and Rousseauian (romantic) energy -- becomes the under-riding backdrop for the rest of this philosophical presentation and social performance. If you don't want to read about the influence of the dialectic on man's life in general, on our own individual and social life in particular, and on the history of Western Philosophy and Culture, then you are not likley going to want to read this philosophical presentation and social performance in its evolving entirety.

However, if what i have written so far has attracted you enough at this point to want you to keep reading, then i say welcome to Hegel's Hotel and DGBN-Gap Philosophy, and I will do my best to recognize that I only have a limited Stopwatch of Social Performance, the limit of time that I have within any essay to either entertain you and/or teach you some new idea that you may or may not be able to creatively apply to your own individual life, your own evolving IP. It is on that note that we begin this philosophical odyssey.

DGBN,
David Gordon Bain,
Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations
Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
October 16th, 2006

2006-10-01T07:06:00.000-07:00
1.13. Four Goals Of DGBN-Gap Philosophy

Let me list here very quickly four goals of Hegel's Hotel: Gap-DGB(N) Philosophy:

1. To 'bridge the many philosophical gaps' between many different philosophical points of view, particularily the ones that directly and boldly confront each other such as 'black' and 'white', 'liberal' and 'conservative', 'socialist' and 'capitalist'.

2. To 'deconstruct' the prevalence and domination of 'narcissism-out-of-control' in present-day North American culture and society, particular in Canada, my home country. (This is not a new problem to mankind -- west or east, north or south. Narcissisitic hedonism and corruption -- out of control to the point of destruction and self-destruction -- has been the ongoing scourge of mankind since the beginning of history, rearing its ugly head with a particular vehemence -- covertly and/or overtly -- usually just before these same societies 'crash and burn' in their own self destructiveness, ending in war, revolution, anarchy, rebellion, reformation, prohibiiton, and -- as people fully appreciate their great human losses -- a short-lived return to more 'humanistic-existential' values before this whole 'narcissistic process' starts up again, expands, and repeats itself in individual and/or cultural expansion to the point of self-destruction. Narcissism is like a virus that hides itself in the body until the body's defenses are lowered -- then it takes off to wreak havoc on the mind and body. The reason that narcissism is so effective is that it masks itself as 'the pursuit of pleasure' and who doesn't like the pursuit of pleasure? But hedonism, like dionysianism and narcissism, can take one to the hospital, jail, or the grave if one pursues it too vigorously to the point of loss of reason and self-control. Religion, ethics, and morals has always been the 'combined conscience' of mankind, but even religion has fallen victim to narcissistic hedonism over the years, and the combined force of religion, ethics, and morals, is not always (generally?) strong enough to fight off for long periods of time the 'seductive powers' of 'Dionysianism', 'Narcissism', and 'Hedonism' which I will sometimes combine under the acryonym 'DNH'. DNH provides much of the lifeblood of human existence but needs to be drawn in when it disintegrates into political, legal, economic, and/or religious corruption, war, addiction, obsessive-compulsive behavior, crack houses, ecstasy deaths, alcoholism, and the like. Also, without trying to sound like a prude or a socialist, the problem of 'too much money in the hands of too little people' needs to be addressed where the rich keep getting richer and much of the middle class starts sinking into what used to be the realm of the lower class, while the lower class sinks into the street. At one point, people in the 1970s and 80s thought we were heading for a '30 hour work week' while the opposite seems to have happened; '50 and 60 hour work weeks seem to be more the rule than the exception these days as more and more people are finding that they need to work longer and longer hours just to make ends meet. My formula is that DNH at the top of the social and economic pyrramid is causing much undue and unnessary hardship at both the middle and the bottom of the social and economic pyrramid.

3. To work on re-establishing and re-vitalizing 'humanistic-existential values' in the face of the huge 'existential void' being left behind by human narcissism-out-of-control.

4. To work on re-establishing and re-vitalizing the 'Humanistic-Existential-Democratic-Dialectic'(as opposed to the 'Narcissistic-Undemocratic-Dialectic') as a means of promoting all three of the goals and sets of values established above.

*DGBN, October 2nd, 2006, modified Jan. 20th, 2007.

* Short for...
* David Gordon Bain
* Dialectical-Gap-Bridging-Negotiations
* Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism'

2006-09-26T11:44:00.001-07:00

1.14. What Is The Purpose Of A Philosophical System? What Are The Different Types of Philosophical Systems -- and Anti-Systems -- We Can Distinguish From? And Will It All Matter In The End?

What is the purpose of a philosophical system? To give purpose, meaning, order and direction to any given body of knowledge or information. Philosophy provides the purposeful, meaningful, functional, logistical foundation for any particular body of information, stating in essence, the reason for existence of the particular body of information -- regardless of subject areas -- and both the abstract and specific dreams and/or goals that are behind the whole opereation -- the mission statement if you will -- of which the particular body of information is purported or designed to help us reach the desired mission statement.

It is imperative to make a clear distinciton between an epistemological philosophical system and an ethical philosophical system. The former type of philosophical system (epitemological) aims to answer questions about 'What is?' In contrast, the latter type of philosophical system aims to answer questions about 'What should be?' The first type of philosohical system aims to answer questions of 'realism' whereas the second type of philosophical sytem aims to answer questions of 'idealism'.

There are four other ways of classifying philosophical systems -- drawing from the classic Hegelian dialectical evolutionary model of 'thesis', 'anti-thesis', and 'synthesis', and adding a combination of Nietzsche's 'anti-system' philosophy and Derrida's 'Deconstuction(ism)as the fourth type of philosophy that attempts to 'deconstruct' and/or purge philosophy of any and/or all so-called 'systems' or 'Grand Narratives'. This fourth type of philosophy is like the 'anti-thesis' of any and all 'systematic' or Grand Narrative philosophies and presumably does not have its own 'system' of philosophy -- although Nietzsche had his 'Superman' philosophy which sounds at least partly 'systematic' to me. Nietzsche's Superman philosophy -- in combination with the philosophical work of Kierkegaard, Kafka (through his fictional stories), Sartre, and others -- some relgious, some non-religous -- spawned the birth of what was later to be referred to as 'Existentialism' or 'Humanistic-Existentialism'. The beauty of Hegel's dialectical philosophical system to me -- particularly when you 'existentialize' it and make it less 'idealistically deterministic' in the classic Hegelian mold -- is that it allows for all four types of philosophical systems (and anti-systems such as Nietzsche's later 'process or anti-' philosophy and Derrida's 'Deconstruction')to function together -- either harmoniously and/or in conflict with each other -- and dialectically work together and evolve off each other to build a hopefully better philosohical and/or anti-philosophical world. Now to be sure, I do not believe -- like Hegel did -- that this 'idealistic result' is a 'given' because you also have to factor in man's 'greed' and 'narcissism' and 'egotism' and 'territorialism' which may eventually result in a nuclear holocaust or a polluted world that will no longer support us. If this turns out to be the inglorious end to man's existence, then so much for man's 'idealism' and supposed 'spirituality'. We can/could say that man's idealism and spirituality was overpowered and died under a 'flood, an earthquake, an explosion, and/or a slow poisoning of uncontrolled human narcissism'.

DGBN, September 26th, 2006, modified Feb. 6th, 2007.

2006-09-25T06:17:00.000-07:00
1.13. Reductionism and Wholism

As a writer and a teacher I cannot escape the problems of 'reductionism' which is not all a bad thing, indeed, reductionism is partly a good thing, partly a solution to a problem -- the problem of 'understanding things and processes' by taking these things and processes to their 'lowest common denominator' in order to better understand how each and every part ('thing' and/or 'process') of a united system works.

The problem arises when people fail to see the full united context of how different things and processes are 'interconnected' -- wholistically united together. When people fail to see the full, wholistic, united context of a particular 'reduced' thing, process, or event, then they tend to draw conclusions and judgments that are distorted by their 'reductionistic mentality and attitude'.

People, things, processes, and events get scapgoated as a resulted of distorted judgments and decisions based on reductionistic thinking that pulls a 'particular piece' from the whole and fails to see properly how this particular piece interacts with the rest of the whole. For example, a manager of a company suspends a supervisor for 'padding accounting numbers' even though it was the manager him or herself put undue pressure on the worker to reach accounting goals that were not realistically obtainable without jeoparding the safety of the customers who were using the company's goods or services.

Furthermore, if one were to do a full 'wholistic' analysis of the situation one might find that the manager was being overly-pressured by the president of the company to achieve unrealistic performance standards, and the president of the company may have been overly pressured by the unrealistic performance standards of the shareholders of the company, and in some cases the shareholders of the company may even be unreasonably pressured by politicians to achieve unrealistic performance standards.

In the case, for example, where a private contractor is working hand in hand with a particular segment of the government that might expect unrealistic performance standards from the private contractor that jeopardize the public's safety. So the 'padded numbers' are found out, and the supervisor is suspended, perhaps fired for what he did. But it could have been worse. The supervisor could have tried to force the unrealistic performance standards which might have resulted in a public accident -- say a train derailing or a bus getting into an accident because the driver was travelling too fast.

Neither the politicians nor the 'higher ups in the company' want a full-scale investigation of the accident because fault may come back on their shoulders. So a quick, 'reductionistic' judgment and decision is made, a worker is suspended, fired, or found negligent by the courts, and put in jail -- and all the higher ups 'insulate' themselves from all blame and accountability relative to the part they played in 'promoting the unethical behavior'.

Reductionism and wholism are like to different camera lenses -- reductionism representing the 'close-up, zoom' camera lens and wholism representing the 'panoramic view' lens.

Any good camera man is going to fully utilize both types of lenses separately and/or in harmony with each other and any good 'analyst' and/or philosopher is going to fully utilize both reductionistic and holistic approaches to his or her work.

Such, I hope, is the case in all of the separate and integrative philosophical works that follow here. Reductionisn and wholism are both important functions of what I am trying to accomplish here -- in harmony with each other.

-- dgb, Sept. 25th, 2006.

-- David Gordon Bain

-- Dialectic Gap-Briding Negotiations...

-- Are Still In Process

2006-09-03T10:03:00.001-07:00

1.14. Technical Jargon vs. Simple Communication: The Function of Both -- And Their 'Dialectical Integration'

When does extra verbiage -- either the substitution of a more abstract, technical term for a more common-sense , simple one, and/or the addition of extra words, particularly abstract, technical ones, when less words or less fancy words would make communication more clear (particularly to a lay audience) -- have a benefit that outweighs the detriment of muddled communication?
How about 'never'? Or how about only when the word you want to use has a historical link that is exceedingly important to convey to your audience -- regardless of whether your audience is a lay audience that may not have any past knowledge of this historical link; or, whether your audience is a professional and/or specialized audience that may be very familiar with this historical connection -- and needs to know what you are up to in terms of working with, and making modifications to this historical link?
Well, this is the situation I find myself in. I have been accused by some of my readers -- mainly my more lay readers -- of 'over-technalizing' my communication, and of impeding the process of communication in the process. There is much to be said for the writer who can take a complicated idea and communicate it more simply without losing the core essence of the idea. I am a philosopher -- or a student of philosophy -- who is specializing in the advancement of Hegelian -- or rather (modified) Post-Hegelian thought. However, to this point in time, I have spent more time reading writers who have interpreted, supported, and/or criticized Hegelian thought than I have actually spent tackling Hegel's rather mind-numbing original works. Now the question can be asked, 'Do I have the intellect to try to directly understand Hegel'? Or was Hegel fooling around with technical words that did as much to hide the clarity of his ideas as communicate them? And/or was Hegel's thinking convoluted in a way that led to convoluted communication? Was Hegel's thinking meant to be convoluted -- and is this a good or a bad thing? What do we mean by 'convoluted'? Hegel's thinking focused on the dyamic tension created by opposing ideas -- first apart and alienated from each other, then dynamically hammering at each other, interacting with each other, either forcefully, coercively, and/or democratically and diplomcatically until out of this collision of opposing ideas, philosophies, and/or lifestyles, either purposely and/or by accident, an integration process starts to develop resulting in either an inferior and/or superior dialetic whole. Call this process 'dialectical integration', 'dialectical wholism', 'diaelectical evolution' and/or 'dialectical evolutionary wholism'.
Are all of these technical terms 'functional', 'meaningful' and 'important'? I think they are. Does the term 'dialectical integration' mean anything significnatly different than just the simpler term 'integration'? Perhaps not. Probably not. But the inclusion of the term 'dialectic' in the compound term 'dialectical integration' links everything that we are talking about here to a whole host of monumental moments and ideas in Western philosophical history -- from Anaxamander to Heraclitus to Socrates to Plato to Hegel to Marx to Nietzsche to Freud to Jung to Perls to Derrida.... Whether you are a lay philosophy reader who is taking some interest in my work here or a Professor of Hegelian Philosophy at some university, you need to know about this connection, and you need to know that I know about it and think it is monumentally important. In this respect, the simpler term --' integration', as much as it may mean essentially the same thing as 'dialectic integration' -- simply doesn't cut it. There is much more at stake here that needs to be fleshed out.
This work is a mixture of academic and non-academic work. Perhaps more convolution. I am a student of Hegelian Dialectical Philosophy -- I do not yet profess to be an 'expert specialist' in Hegelian Dialectical Philosophy. This having been said, there of plenty of 'Hegelian experts' -- past and present -- who have had plenty of Hegelian disagreements on what Hegel wrote -- and more specifically, on what he meant by what he wrote.
For example, we had a divergence in Hegelian Philosophy between those who took Hegelian Philsoophy to the 'political left' (The Left Hegelians -- the most important proponent here being Marx), and those who took Hegelian Philosophy to the 'political right' which may have even started before Hegel with Fichte and evolved eventually -- in its most extreme element -- into German Fascism with Hitler obviously being the most (in) famous proponent of this style of philosophy and its poltiical derivatives.
Was this an example of convoluted Hegelian thinking, and if so, is this convolution good or bad? Does dialectical thinking partly entail convoluted thinking? Out of chaos -- particulary the chaos of warring factions sometimes at their most uncivilized worst in behavior -- comes dialectical order, evolution, and wholism when the warring factions finally start to dialectically integrate (synthesize).
Is Hegelian Philosophy really that far from Darwinian philosophy? I don't think so. Some critica; associations can easily be drawn. Thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis. (Hegel). A male, a female, fertilization -- synthesis, and a resulting child. (Darwin) How far apart is this -- in general philosophy?
To what extent is my work Hegelian vs. Post-Hegelian? I don't even know. There is an explosion -- an orgasm -- of evolving ideas emulating out of my head -- and I haven't done enough sophisticated Hegelian research to know what of my ideas are a replay of what has gone before me vs. what is a 'cutting edge in new Post-Hegelian Philosophy'. Perhaps some of the Hegelian experts can tell me that or I will be able to infomrm you better as I become a more sophisticated Hegelian researcher and referencer.
Until then, I will leave you from this essay I hope with the pertinent reason as to why I have to use the term 'dialectical integration' as opposed to the simpler term 'integration' (union, synthesis...). The two terms may mean essentially the same thing -- but there are many, many more philosohical ramifications to the term 'dialectical integration' both in terms of philosopohphically and historically where we have been, as well as from a 'dialectical, evolutionary, wholistic' point of view, where we are going to.
*DGBN, June 28th, 2006. dgbainsky@yahoo.com
*David Gordon Bain
*Dialectical Gap-Bridging Negotiations
*Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

2006-09-03T09:42:00.001-07:00

1.15. Integrating Academic-Historical Philosophy with Contemporary-Applied Philosophy
-- DB, June 14-15th, 2006.
This philosophical forum and treatise -- comprised of many small essays -- is designed to combine theoretical-academic-historical philosophy with contemporary-pragmatic-street philosophy. On an academic level, it is about philosophical and historical evolution. On a practical level, it is about finding better ways to resolve conflicts and solve problems related to differences in perspective, opinion, lifestyle. It is designed to combine complexity and abstractness with simplicity with concreteness. It is about philosophizing in the gaps. The thesis here is really very simple and has been stated in many different ways -- I will state it this way: Wherever there is a gap in human perspective between A and B, or between A,B, and C, there is an opportunity for human evolution in the form of AB, or ABC. Call this a ’compromise’ if you will. Or call it an ‘integrative solution’. Or call it ‘synergy’ and under the best of circumstances -- a ‘win-win solution’. The more that is gained from the integration of two opposing perspectives, and the less that is lost for each side of the difference in perspective, the better the solution -- the better the conflict resolution. The best solution to a difference in perspectives -- the best conflict resolution -- is where the ‘combined chemistry’ of the ‘united whole’ is superior in terms of an ‘evolutionary function’ and/or a ‘homeostatic balance’ (1), point of view, than the individual parts by themselves in the difference in perspectives. ‘The united whole is greater than the sum of the individual parts’.
Unfortunately, this approach to human problem-solving and conflict-resolving gets lost all too easy in human greed, narcissism, selfishness, hedonism, righteousness, locked in, one-sided perspectives, power-striving, revenge-striving, arrogance, superiority-striving -- need I go on? My perspective -- and the perspective of this forum and this school of philosophy as it becomes more articulated and systemized as a partly academic, partly practical school of philosophy is: post-Hegelian, post-Nietzschean, post-Freudian, post-Gestalt, post-Derridan...It is humanistic-existential and this is only one of many hyphenated words that you will see in my work because the whole purpose of the hyphen is to bring opposing perspectives together in united, dialectical harmony and wholism. The harmony may not last forever -- indeed it will be continually tested and challenged by the opposing energies and forces in the hyphenated harmony wanting to continually or periodically eliminate each other, or alternatively, flee from each other so as to live in greater, individual freedom and narcissistic bliss. However, us humans for the most part being basically ‘civil, social’, this can create a problem too as narcissistic freedom and bliss can quickly turn into social alienation, estrangement, loneliness…the old ‘you can’t live with them and you can’t live without them’ syndrome…
So let us call this our existential and philosophical starting point -- the dichotomy of man’s existence in terms of his (and her) many bi-polarities -- perhaps the most significant one being between our individual (Dionysian (3)) wish for ‘narcissistic freedom and bliss’ vs. our (Apollonian (3)) need to live in an organized civilized society where people aren’t out to rape, pillage, kill and terrorize each other. (Hobbes (2), Nietzsche (3), Freud (4), Golding (5).…). Call this second set of impulses (or restraints) our need for democracy, egalitarianism, and humanism. Now obviously, these opposing impulses or values are going to be of different strength for different people. So let the philosophical fun begin...combining the realism of the way people actually behave with an idealism that is worth striving for, for greater and better democracy, egalitarianism, humanism, existentialism, peace, harmony, and balance. ‘Sure’, you say, ‘there has always been human selfishness, human conflict and human violence that goes along with that conflict, and there always will be’...and I answer, ‘Yes, that is true but what ‘was’ and what ‘is’, is not necessarily what ‘has to be’ and how we learn to handle our conflicts in life -- particularly the biggest conflicts -- is the test of our character as a person, our combination of self-assertiveness and social empathy, our ability not to succumb to ‘narcissistic rage’ and ‘righteous indignation’ -- and worse -- to act on the basis of the worst of our narcissistic and/or righteous and/or rebellious capabilities -- except perhaps where it is humanistically essential that some ‘anti-humanistic’ force be assertively addressed -- but rather for the most part to adapt a ‘Synergetic-Expressive-Empathic-Wholistic-Evolutionary-Dialectic-Imaginative-Democratic-Integrative-Triumphant’ (‘SEE-WE-DID-IT’) approach to problem-solving and conflict-resolving, that we don’t lose in the heat of the battle, or in a covert or overt philosophy of narcissistic, capitalist, materialism -- a philosophy of ... ‘I am going to try to take the most I can get here, and/or dominate this situation to the best of my dominating capabilities, and I don’t care about my neighbor, my co-worker, my employer, my employee, or worst of all, someone in my own family’. We do not need any more war, strife, violence, death, corruption, greed, separation, divorce, and the like right now. The world has much more than enough of this kind of grief, horror and trauma going. Let’s take our human existence -- a more dialectic-democratic-humanistic-existential philosophy -- to a better place; not a worse one. Let us put a greater emphasis on synergy, integration (synthesis) and balance; not a place of greater narcissistic, righteous destruction and self-destruction. We already have far too much of that. DGBN, June 14-15th, 2006. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
References
Homeostasis is the property of an open system, especially living organisms, to regulate its internal environment to maintain a stable, constant condition, by means of multiple dynamic equilibrium adjustments, controlled by interrelated regulation mechanisms. The term was coined in 1932 by Walter Cannon from the Greek homoios (same, like, resembling) and stasis (to stand, posture). Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (on the internet).
Hobbes, Thomas, The Leviathan, 1660.
Nietzsche, Friedrich, The Birth of Tragedybold; LINE-HEIGHT: 100%">Freud, Sigmund, Civilization and its Discontents, 1929.
Golding, William, Lord of the Flies, 1954.

2006-09-03T09:34:00.001-07:00
1.16. A Preliminary, Evolving Distinction Between Four Different Theories Of Evolution: 1. Creation; 2. The Hegelian Dialectical Theory; 3. The Darwinian Theory of Natural Selection; 4. Intelligent Design Theory -- And My (DGB) Editorial Comments
It must be understood that there are numerous theories of evolution kicking around, some genetically based (as in Darwin's Theory of Natural Selection), others centering around the idea of 'Intelligent Design' -- with or without the attached idea of a Supreme Being (God) as The Ultimate Creator; and within the scope of 'Intelligent Design', theories of evolution can also be classified according to those that focus on genetics vs. those that focus on acquired, social learning as the key to understanding the nature and process of the acquired, social evolution of man.
Hegel's Classic Dialectic Theory of Social Evolution (from his philosophical masterpiece, The Phenomenology of Mind) fits into this last category. However, Hegel created some confusion -- and/or a source of easy disagreement in his dialectic theory -- when he equated social dialectical determinism with social dialectical idealism. Hegel had a quote that I found in Bryan Magee's superb introduction to philosophy book called 'The Story of Philosophy'(1998, 2001, DK Publiishing, Inc., 375 Hudson St., New York, New York, Pg. 163, paperback edition) that said: 'The real is the rational and the rational is the real.' Now anyone that can see what is happening in the Middle East today, not to mention in many of our own countries, cities, towns, governments, businesses, families, personal and professional relationships, and so on, would be quick to put up a protest here in arguing that when it comes to human activities and affairs, 'The real is certainly not always rational, and the rational is certainly not always real.' Indeed, a strong argument could be made that the congruent link between 'realness' and 'rationality' is more of an exception in human affairs than a rule. Indeed, in classic Hegelian fashion (and/or in the fashion of Jacques Derrida's later 'Deconstruction'), we could use Hegel's own dialectical theory to throw up the obvious 'anti-or counter-thesis' to his argument: specifically, (more often) 'the real is the irrational and the irrational is the real' (which also makes 'the not real the rational and the rational the not real'). What would you say about that Professor Hegel?

Thus, this has always been a trouble-spot in Hegelian Dialectical Theory that other philosophers (Schopenhauer, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, in particular) and common sense lay critics alike have exploited and used to tear Hegelian Dialectical Theory apart ('deconstructed' to use the technical Derrida philosophical term). So an easy philosophical adjustment in Hegelian theory would be to make it more 'humanistic ally-existential' (emphasizing man's freedom to either make the world a better or worse place to live in as a direct and/or indirect consequence of his collective actions, and in this regard, to make Hegelian Dialectic Theory less of a theory that tries to be both idealistic and realistic at the same time, that tries to in effect, 'have its cake and eat it too' or tries to 'breathe in and breathe out at the same time' or tries to 'play both ends towards the middle' -- sometimes as in this case arguably to the ultimate detriment of the theory. All Hegelian Dialectical Theory partly aims to play both ends towards the middle (that is totally what the cycle of 'thesis', anti-thesis', and 'synthesis' is all about) but all Hegelian philosophers have to be aware too of the danger of perhaps Hegel's own most important dictum -- that 'All theories carry within them the seeds of their own self-destruction' (including Hegelian Dialectic Theory) and that by trying to play both ends toward the middle in this case -- pushing idealism towards the centre to meet realism -- maybe he was creating a partly idealistic, partly realistic theory that didn't really address either of these human processes properly, the strength of the theory ultimately deteriorating into the weakness of the theory. In seeking to play both sides of a problem towards the middle -- in this case, idealism vs. realism -- it addresses neither problem properly; just squeezing both of them together into a mediocre, theoretical hodgepodge in the middle. And among some of his later critics, all of us who have studied any Nietzsche know how much Nietzsche, in particular, hated mediocrity. Here then, is one potential criticism against Classic Hegelian Dialectic Theory: It could be called a 'Compromise-Mediocrity-Towards The Middle' Theory.)
To add to this criticism, we find it not surprising at all when four of the greatest philosophers of the late 19Th century (Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Marx, and Nietzsche) who were all strongly influenced by Hegel (if mainly in their counter-reactions against him), each pounded their fists against Hegel in their own partly unique ways -- Kierkegaard and Nietzsche both rebelled against Hegel's extreme abstraction ism and his 'Grand Narrative' style, while Schopenhauer and Marx countered Hegel's 'oh so pretty idealistic picture of human nature and human evolution ' with their own much 'uglier' (i.e., materialistic, hedonistic, selfish, greedy, narcissistic) ones. None of these four philosophers that followed Hegel would dare to equate human realism with human idealism. The only way you can reasonably argue this point of view is if -- like Hegel did -- you argue that man individually and collectively will somehow learn from his darkest moments --, learn from his walking through the 'muck of human evil, tragedy, and despair' -- and somehow come out in a better place of existence after it is all through. Is there any guarantee of this? I don't think so. What if we pollute the world to the point where it can no longer support us -- or blow it up -- before we learn from our collective stupidity, narcissism, and/or evil? The only way this is going to bring us to a better place is if 'heaven' is a better place and being dead is being 'closer to God'.
Or you divide the two types of human behavior -- and create two separate theories of evolution: one idealistic one in which you work on a 'humanistic-existential' (or some other version) of 'human idealism'; and two -- a separate more 'deterministic' theory of social evolution that fully takes into account the extent of man's propensity for 'unbridled and unending materialism and narcissism'.
It is this latter course of direction that Gap Multi-Dialectical Philosophy has taken dividing its social theory of evolution into two theories of social evolution: one idealistic and humanistic-existential; the other, more narcissistic, deterministic, regressive, and realistic (in a more skeptical, cynical, pessimistic -- but probably 'real' sense of the term 'realistic').
It is this latter course of direction -- one that in effect 'splits Classic Hegelian Dialectic Theory into two Post-Hegelian modified versions of Gap Multi-Dialectic Social Evolution Theories: one, emphasizing what we will espouse to be humanistic-existential values that balance human compassion with human accountability aiming at a more ethically idealistic theory of social evolution; the other more narcissistic, deterministic, regressive and real that aims to take into account that man will probably never behave in any type of ethically ideal manner.
If this course of action and philosophy interests you, then you have come to the right place.
DB, July 23rd, 2006. dgbainsky@yahoo.com

2006-09-03T03:36:00.000-07:00
1.18. Nietzsche's Philosophical Individuality and Diveristy (Multicplicity) vs. Hegel's Integration of Contradictions

Each dialectical communication exchange between two or more people opens up a myriad of possibilities of potential philosophical direction and without going into any particular direction, I will simply focus on the concept of that myriad of potential philosophical possibilities and what can be done with or about them.

Nitzsche was the great divisionist ('either/or' philosophy), deconstructionist ('anti-systemic' philosophy), and differentialist ('everything-is- different' philosophy). In contrast, Hegel was the great 'Contradiction -- then Integration' philosopher.

So here is where the two great philosophers differed. Hegel believed in a social-historical-cultural evolution theory ( applicable to philosophy, psychology, politics, law, medicine, science, religion, art, music, architecture, engineering, and every other avenue of human cultural development)whereby integration always follows contradiction between opposing perspectives.

Nietzsche -- after his first book, 'Birth of Tragedy' which is a classic Hegelian-style book and very noteworth for its accomplishment in that it can be viewed as a precursor to Freud and Psychoanalysis -- became an adamant 'anti-Hegelian' philosopher who disowned all 'systems', all 'Grand Narratives' (except perhaps his own), and instead started to emphasize the 'multiplicity' or 'individual diversity' of life -- without there being any need to talk about 'integration from contradiction'; rather, life simply needed to be appreciated in all of its individual displays of bio, cultural, and conceptual diversity.

So here is the best way to describe and contast the main philosophical difference between Hegel and Nietzsche: 1. Hegel philosophically trumpted the idea of 'contradiction followed by integration' whereas Nietzsche trumpeted the idea of 'contradiction and multicplicity without the need for, or rule of, any system, integration, or integrative system'.

Now the irony of this whole philosophical ocntroversy and contradiction is that both of them are right -- because life is a combination of integrating and differentiating (separating) forces. However, the deeper irony here, is that in the end, I think Hegel in terms of a social evolution theory turns out to be 'more right' than Nietzsche because go back and look at what I have just done in this paragraph -- essentially, I have integrated Hegel and Nietzsche, in classic Hegelian dialectical style, allowing for the always changing, moment to moment, unique combinations of both bio-cultural-philosophical (BCP)individuality (Nietzsche), and in the same and different domains, working towards integration rather than differentation and separation, BCP integration, synthesis, or union is happaning also at a similar or different rate of frequency (Hegel). In other words, the world is full of partnerships coming together while others break up, and in this regard, I have synthesized Hegel and Nietzsche in classic Hegelian dialectical style.

Thus, in my opinion, Nietzsche couldn't 'see the forest for the trees' -- he was locked inside his very important 'anti-Hegelian system of philosophical thought' which in the end, as I have just showed, has simply been proven to be just another 'feather in the cap of Hegelian dialectical social evolution theory -- with an 'Intelligent Design' behind it (coming from me -- and I don't profess or pretend to be God, even though I think that we all -- in our most creative moments -- have God-like capabilities which I would like to think He or She gave us to excercise to our fullest individual and collective capacities).

Over to you, Paul.

dave

2006-08-20T21:36:00.000-07:00

1.19. Time-Concept-Energy-Binding --
Through The Humanistic-Existential Dialectic

I believe that there is something seriously proufound in this essay of which I will take little credit. I am the 'ideological chemist or mediator' if you will or the 'dialectical shaman'. I like nothing better than to weave my way back into time, weave my way through time, and find 'magical potions' in the form of ideas in the deepest recesses and caverns of time. I search out and bring together magical ideas so that they can 'touch' each other -- sometimes for the first time -- make contact with each other in ways which they perhaps never have made contact with each other before, adding to their healing and/or the enlightening powers -- each in it own and respective right -- by combining these ideas together into a new and perhaps even greater healing and enlightening 'gestalt-formation'. I borrow the concept of the too unknown but brilliant linguist-semanticist-scientist-mathematician-philosopher -- Alfred Koryzybski -- to describe this process (or my rendition of it); he called it 'time-binding'. Indeed, time-binding is perhaps man's greatest evolutionary asset -- the ability to learn, to remember, to write down or otherwise pass down using language as the 'time-binding' agent that allows us to pass down our individual and collective wisdoms through the ages so that the generations that follow us can build from our shoulders.

'If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants.'
-- Isaac Newton

My idea -- my ideological ideal -- is to bring as many of these great ideas, these great thinkers, and these great people under one ideological roof -- call it the 'dialectical roof' -- to share in the glories of their great ideas, and to mix these ideas together -- philosophically 'dance' with them, integrate them, 'cross-fertilize' them. The name that I give to this dialectical roof and all of the great ideas, the great thinkers, and the great people that I plan to bring together under this roof is -- 'Hegel's Hotel'.

The first piece of ideological gold that I found in the history-philosophy books that I want to share with you -- it actually took me a good two or three decades to find it -- is a piece of philosophy that has a very poetic, mystical, msterious profound ring to it . Many philosophical experts and students alike have looked at it, interpreted it, torn it and reduced it to even smaller pieces than it is -- and then tried to put it back together again (like Humpty Dumpty). The philosophical piece by the man who is generally considered to be our second oldest Western (ancient Greek) philosopher is called -- Anaxamander's Fragment (Anaxamander, 610-546 B.C)

Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
As is the order of things;
For they execute the sentence upon one another
- The condemnation for the crime -
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.

Now it is easy to over-interpret something like this, to perhaps put more wisdom into it than properly belongs. In the process, turn a philosopher into a saint -- or even a God.

But I cannot leave this passage alone. I am transfixed by it -- as Nietzsche would say -- intoxicated by it. It grabs me, it shakes me, it will not leave me alone. I have to keep coming back to it.

Call me hallucinatory if you will, but I look at this passage and I see the beginning of Western Dialectic Philosophy. I see the first -- and one of the most important -- entries into Hegel's Hotel. I see the begiining -- the roots -- of Hegel. These roots would have a long way to travel before they got to Hegel -- through Heraclitus (The Riddler and the second Dialectic (Polarity) Philosopher, through the Sophists (the first set of formal, relativist, Deconstructionists -- today you would call them 'lawyers'), Socrates (the second major Deconstructionist -- more ethical and more idealistic than the more pragmatic, cynical Sophists), through Plato, through Aristotle, gradually spreading and spiralling its philosophical roots through the Scholasitic (religous, philosophical) Period, through the Enlightenment -- finally getting to Fichte, and then to Hegel. Then exploding outward through Hegel to Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, Perls, Derrida -- and coutless political, legal, business, economic, scientific, medical, relgious, and artistic expressions -- 'Good' against 'Evil', 'Black 'against 'White', 'Religous' against 'Scientific', 'Left' against 'Right', 'Masculine' against 'Feminism', 'East' agaisnt 'West', 'Orthodox' against 'Unorthodox', 'Dominant' vs. 'Suppressed', 'Heterosexual' vs. 'Homosexual'...'Either/Or', 'Tit for tat'... I could go on and on.

The passage by Anaxamander, in my opinion, could have easily been written by someone living in Lebanon or Israel. The very human cost of human destructionsism and self-destructionism -- man's 'Will To Power' at its worst.

I don't know much about the history of Ancient Greek but I do know enough to know that the people lived in what have been called 'city-states' with the politics of each city-state being different. 'Different' is the crucial, operative word here -- it always has been thoughout human history. Intolerance of difference. People not letting other people be different. Intolerance leads to hate -- racism and discrimination -- and hate through these passages leads to war. Sparta invading Athens. Athens turning around and invading Sparta. Each city-state upping the ante. The weak coming back stronger and the strong coming back weaker. The victim becoming the victimizer and the victimizer becoming the victim. Trading sides in the continual battle for war supremacy. Losing but learning from one's mistakes and coming back better prepared when the victor least expects it -- to overthrow the victor. It is easier to 'conquer' a land than it is to try to 'keep' it. The loser coming back stronger than before -- better prepared to win a war that they previously lost -- from submission to dominance and then back to submission again as the pendulum of 'cosmic justice' keeps swinging back and forth from victor to loser and back again 'in conformity with the ordinance of Time'.

Anaxamander's pasage -- perhaps cynically written, in my humble opinion -- is a statement of fatalistic, deterministic, dialectical, often violent, cosmic, and particularly human, justice. An eye for an eye. For every extreme action -- for every evil action -- there is going to be an equal and opposite, often escalated, reaction. If you live in a world of frontier justice -- which war definitely is (where police and courts and democracy and rights are no longer relevant; only soldiers, war strategy, and firepower) -- and you kill someone who is 'different' than you, on the 'other' side -- you can bet your bottom dollar that there is a very good chance that someone who loved the person you killed is going to come back and try to even the score. The more you kill -- assuming you can morally live with your actions -- the more you have to worry about the friends, the family, and the descendents of the people you killed. Live by the sword; die by the sword. What goes around comes around.

'Victory breeds hatred, for the conquered is unhappy.'

I read about the politician who said he 'didn't care about civilian deaths' -- and I feel sick to my stomach. I think of Bob Dylan's song, 'The Masters of War'.

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You that build the death planes
You that build the big bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

There are two ways the dialectic can play itself out -- through 'the will to power' which if it is not attached to the thill of competing in a sporting or game challenge, and/or not attached to the 'will to excellence in human achievement (partnered with human compassion), then it is probably a 'negative' will to power that is played out through the worst of human nature -- narcissism (selfishness) and greed and 'territorialness' and coercion, and manipulation, and hate, and force, and violence.

I think Anaxamander saw all this in human nature -- he saw how 'what goes around comes around'. He saw how 'black' and 'white' originated from the same 'Universal Souce' -- he called it 'The Boundless'. He saw how 'The Boundless Universe' differentiated into 'polar differences', 'polar opposites', 'polar extremes'... They would separate from each other, then collide with each other, each striving for total, universal dominance, and perhaps partly getting there, feeling the thrill of temporary victory, only to be eventually thwarted, brought back into line again, held back in check again, by the inevitable, rising polar strength of the opposite characteristic coming back into play again, toppling the victor off its pedestal, to take its place, but again, only temporarily again, as the cosmic pendulum of justice swings back and forth again 'in conformity with the ordinace of Time'.

Hegel -- to what extent he may or may not have been familiar with Anaxamander I don't know -- bought into Anaxamander's logic completely giving the dialectic a 'deterministic, fatalistic, inevitable clout to it' -- regardless if the dialectic is playing itself out in peace or war. And furthermore, Hegel assumed that the inevitable end to the 'determinsitic, forceful dialectic' -- regardless of how violent it is -- will be a solution that inevitablly takes man to 'The Absolute' -- and to God.

I am not nearly this optimistic in terms of the inevitable outcome of the 'forceful, violent' acting out of the dialectic in human affairs. Indeed, I am much more cynical in terms of the capability of man for ultimate destruction and self-destruction -- before he gets to any kind of ultimate 'Awareness', 'Consciousness', and 'God-like Knowledge'.

Freud viewed the ultimate acting out of man's 'positive' dialectical characteristics (debate, democracy, diplomacy, humanistic negotiation) with man's 'negative' dialectical features ('will to power', war, force, manipulation, violence, destruction and self-destruction) as the conflict between man's 'life' and 'death' instinct.

I don't look at this conflict as being one between two different sets of 'instincts'. I view it -- existentially -- as being one between two different sets of choices: 'life' choices vs. 'death' choices -- narcissistic, will to power, ignorance of human compassion, choices vs. humanistic-existential choices that build from a healthy 'homeostatic balance' between human compassion and human accountabllity.

Without a balanced leger of human compassion and human accounatability, we may indeed get to God sooner than we want to -- but it may be through a nuclear holocaust or through polluting the world we live in until it can no longer support us.

db, August 21st, 2006.

2006-08-12T07:38:00.000-07:00

1.20. The Influence of Hegel On 19th, 20th, and 21st Century Philosophy, Psychology, and Politics
Good evening ladies and gentlemen! This forum is designed for philosophy students of all ages and types -- beginning, mid-level, and more advanced -- I hope to appeal to you all. Philosophy is the great-great grandfather of all human subject areas -- including both those subject areas that are usually classified inside the realm of philosophy as well as those subject areas that are usually classified outside of it. A sample of the generally classified inside subject areas that we will at least touch upon, if not dwell upoin, includes: epistemology, ontology, ethics, realism vs. idealism, narcissism vs. altruism, Dionysianism vs. Appolonianism, dualism vs. wholism, structuralism (constructionism) vs. deconstructionism, rationalism vs. empiricism, spiruality vs. sensuality, being vs. becoming, living vs. dying, contact vs. alienation... A sample of the generally classified outside subject areas that we will at least touch upon if not dwell upon includes: psychology, politics, law, economics, science, medicine, religion, art, music, sports and recreation, leisure, hobbies...the list could go on and on. Basically, we are talking about all elements of human culture as well as our relationship with the natural world around us and if we are a religious person, our relationship with God. We are talking about all areas of human thinking, feeling, doing, being, becoming -- in essence the dynamic relationship between human philosophy and human psychology -- and all areas extending beyond this.

Philosophy provides the first floor (if not the basement foundation) for all of human culture. It provides our reason for living (or dying), our reason for being and becoming, our reason for being alive and contactful, or alternatively, our reason for being distant and alienated. Philosophy motivates and explains our individual and collective, cultural and counter-cultural, inner and outer, psychology of thinking, feeling, doing, being, becoming.... It is our reason d'etre. Philosophy and psychology are intimately and inseparably -- except in the classroom --entwined.

Hegel's Hotel: The Gap Multi-Integrative Dialectic (MID) School and Forum of Philosophy-Psychology-Politics... starts with the underlying assumption that Hegel was the most important philosopher in Western history -- or at least relative to what we are doing here. You are welcome to debate this if you wish but even in your debate -- your opposition -- you will have to acknowledge the value of Hegel's philosophy because Hegel created -- or at least he summarized, simplified, and popularized the creation of the dialectic -- the philsophy of opposition, and the philosophy of integrating opposing perspectives (what became popularized as the triadic cycle of 1. thesis; 2. anti-thesis; and 3. synthesis). This was arguably Hegel's most important contribution to philosophy. His second major contribution to philosophy was his creation of the term -- alientation, a term and concept that would become central to the soon-to-be blossoming development of the human existential movement, a movement that Hegel can be given credit for stimulating its birth. His third major contribution to philosophy -- connected to his first -- was his exposition of an alternative and partly complementary theory of evolution -- historical dialectical evolution (1. thesis; 2. anti-thesis; 3. synthesis; and 4. repeat at a new and arguably 'superior' stage of development) -- as compared and contrasted to the more publicly (in)famous Darwinian theory of evolution that would shock the world later in the 19th century. Hegal was the ultimate Western philosopher -- or at least the ultimate dialectic Western philosopher -- and his dialectical philosophy would have just as great an impact on Western thinking and living as Darwin's theory of evolution. Marx would turn Hegel's dialectical theory upside down and start a Communist revolution. At the same time there are elements of Hegelian 'elitist' thinking that have been implicated in the rise of German fascism. We have already noted the influence that Hegel had on the rise of human existentialism. His work can also be tied to the rise of 'Deconstruction (ism)' in the work of Nietzsche and then Derrida (some would say as a rebellious reaction to Hegel's hugely abstract, idealistic Grand Narrative; others like myself would argue that Deconstruction(ism) was inherently already a part of the Hegelian dialectical Grand Narrative in its 'anti-thesis' (deconstructive) stage of the triadic cycle.) Hegel's system of philosophy allows for similaries and differences in thought process alike and all are, or idealistically can be, integrated into the merging, evolving, dialectical wholistic historical union. If there are two major differences in perspective between classic Hegelian theory and what we are developing here as Gap Multi-Dialectical Theory, it is in: 1. the degree of 'historical determinism' (Hegel) vs. 'individual and group free will' (Gap Dialectical Theory); and 2. the degree of perceived 'automatic historical evolutionary progression' (Hegel) vs. the perceived progressive or regressive evolutionary effect of a particular line of individual and/or group behavior (Gap Multi-Dialectical Theory). In these two respects Gap Multi-Dialectical Philosophy can be viewed as a more Humanistic-Existential, Post-Hegelian version of its classic Hegelian predecessor. What remains consistent between the Classic, original Hegelian dialectical theory and what I am promoting here is the essential triadic (or depending on how you look at it, quadratic) cycle of the process: 1. thesis (Structuralism or Cosntructionism); 2. anti-thesis (Deconstruction(ism)); 3. synthesis (Reconstruction based on creative integration that ideally contains the best pieces of both opposing theories, perspectives, and/or lifestyles dynamically and dialectically pushing against each other, energizing each other ('Yin' and 'Yang', Dionysius and Apollo, Id and Superego, Shadow and Persona, Topdog and Underdog...) into a new evolutionary polarized, stabally or unstabally balanced (depending on the quality of the creative integration) -- dialectical whole.

The purpose of Hegel's Hotel: The Gap Multi-Integrative-Dialectic School and Forum of Philosophy-Psychology-Politics... is to re-popularize and re-energize Hegel and to offer a 21st century post-script to Hegel's most famous work: The Phenomenology of Mind (sometimes translated as The Phenomenology of Spirit').

Stated differently, the purpose of Hegel's Hotel is to dialectically bridge gaps between different perspectives, different opinions, different lifestyles, different theories.

Here are some of the protagonists and contestants that hopefully -- again, time and energy permitting -- will become involved in this evolutionary dialectical process and its evolving integrative structure: Anaxamander and Hegel, Hegel and Nietzsche, Hegel and Schopenhauer, Hegel and Kierkegaard, Hegel and Marx, Hegel and Derrida, Hegel and Freud, Freud and Adler, Freud and Jung, Adler and Perls, Freud and Perls, Jung and Adler, Pre-Socratic Philosophy and Post-Socratic Philosophy, Greek Philosophy and Scholastic (Religious) Philosophy, Scholastic Philosophy and Enlightenment Philosophy, Enlightenment Philosophy and Romantic Philosophy, Humanism and Existentialism, Constructionism and Deconstructionism, Conservatism and Liberalism, Capitalism and Socialism, Feminism and Masculinism, Orthodox Medicine and Nutritional Medicine, Science and Religion, Philosophy and Art -- and this is just a general overview of what is to come. I will start this process and anyone who wishes to join in -- to either debate my essays and/or in some other way add their own contributions -- is more than welcome to do so.

Welcome to Hegel's Hotel: The Gap-MID School and Forum of Philosophy

P.S. Appropriately, I like the fact that I have written this essay in the early hours of the morning of the 40th anniversary of The McMicael Canadian Art Collection and offer the essay as my own personal contribution to their anniversary and day of celebration. I hope to add my own multi-dialectical contributions to the philosophy of art sometime within the next year or so, when I get to that section of the forum -- as limited and partly naive as some of my comments may be due to my lack of artistic training and expertise. Still philosophy and art are definitely significantly entwined, and I wish to make my comments in this regard.

DB, July 9th, 2006, updated July 23rd, 2006.

2006-08-11T04:52:00.000-07:00

1.21. Name Changes: From GAP Psychology To Gap Psychology To Gap Philosophy to DGBN-Gap Philosophy

Where did the name ‘Gap’ come from in Gap Psychology and Gap Philosophy and how did it evolve just recently into 'DGB' Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...?
Back in the early 1980s, after graduating from the University of Waterloo with an Honours B.A. in psychology, I hooked up with two different ‘schools’ of psychology: 1. The Gestalt Institute of Toronto; and 2. The Adlerian Institute of Ontario. Moving back and forth between the two schools of psychology, I became aware of contrasts in the two different perspectives, and was trying to make sense of these contrasts — to ‘integrate’ them. One was espousing more of a ‘cognitive’ approach (Adlerian Psychology) while the other one was espousing more of a ‘gut-level, emotional’ approach (Gestalt Therapy). One was espousing more of a ‘unity in the personality’ model of the human psyche (Adlerian Psychology) while the other one -- while still espousing a 'wholistic' model of the human personality -- was at the same time recognizing and integrating into their model the idea of ‘polariities and conflict in the personality’. Thus, although not using these exact terms, Gestalt Therapy was espousing the Hegelian idea -- in a partly similar fashion to Freud and Jung -- that the human personality was always going through a process of 'dialectical evolution' which consisted of the Hegelian stages of: 1. 'thesis' (which Gestalt Therapy often labelled as 'topdog'); 2. 'anti-thesis' (which Gestalt Therapy often labelled as 'underdog'); and 'synthesis' (which Perls could have created a term like the 'central ego' to describe both that part of the personality that does the 'dialectical mediation or integration work' and also that part of the personality that contains the resulting syntheis between 'topdog' and 'underdog' integration -- but Perls chose to reduce the Freudian three-part model of the personality ('superego', 'id', and 'ego') to simply two parts (topdog and underdog). Instead, the idea of 'central or mediating ego' is more or less assumed within Gestalt Therapy. One way or the other, Gestalt Therapy refers alternatively to such therapeutically designed processes as 'hot seat and empty chair' work, and 'Gestalt Therapy in general' as ways to help facilitate the personality's natural tendency towards 'self-psychotherapy' (Perls called it 'organismic self-regulation) which tends to become interrupted by 'pathological forms of social conditioning' (social rewards and/or punishments and/or the imagination of them) that stops the personality's process of 'dialectical-self-psychotherapy' (my term, not theirs) from happening the way it normally should and would without the interference. The main point I wish to make here is that Freud, Jung, and Perls all more or less -- in slighty different fashions -- incorporated and internalized into the human personality these two Hegelian ideas which Hegel did not give a name to (at least that I am aware of) -- 'dialectical evolution' and 'dialectical wholism'.
Thus, what Hegel basically was calling 'social psychotherapy' -- i.e. 'social-cultural-historical-philosphical dialectical evolution and wholism' -- Freud, Jung, and Perls internalized into the human personlity to form a process of 'human dialectical self-psychotherapy' that mirrored (or visa versa, meaning that the psychological term 'projection' is very important here -- man 'projecting his internal world outwards into the realm of culture') what was socially, culturally, historically, and philosophically happening on the broader spectrum of human dialectical evolution. There is one more essential point to be made here: specifically, the 'gap' between Hegel and Freud was 'bridged' in Nietzsche's underrated but classic first book -- The Birth of Tragedy. In this book, in which Nietzsche distinguished the difference between a 'Dionysian' and 'Appollonian' view of life -- and the tragic struggle between them in the human personality -- Nietszche basically 'put gravel down on the road' and then Freud 'paved the rest of the way' with the birth of Psychoanalysis. It should also be noted that Schopenhauer -- who had a significant influence on Nietzsche -- played an important part in this 'bridging' process between philosophy and psychology as well. Schopenhauer's 'Dionysian' (below the neck) masterpiece -- The World as Representation and Will -- provided (along with Kierkegaard) a perfect 'counter-balance' to Hegel's more 'Apollonian' (above the neck) masterpiece -- The Phenomenology of Mind(Spirit). Schopenhauer's book and philosophy showed man the nastier, unadulterated, narcissistic, basic instinct ('Thomas Hobbes', 'Lord of the Flies') part of his personality and psyche -- the narcissistic-hedonistic-Dionysian side of 'human nature' -- that Freud conceptualized as the 'id' and later the 'death instinct (as a significant part of the id)', which made up an impossible to ignore one third of the triumvarate human psyche (superego--id-ego).
Now what I just wrote in the last paragraph is a totally updated version of what I was only vaguely beginnning to see in the early 1980s. At that time, by the end of the 1980s, I only knew that I had three schools of psychology that were more or less equally influencing my psychological-and-soon-to-be-philosophical outlook. It seemed only natural to use the first three letters of these three schools of psychology 'G' (Gestalt Therapy), 'A' (Adlerian Therapy), and 'P' (Psychoanalysis) to label this evolving psychological-philosophical outlook.
However, there was another way of looking at what I was doing which was also becoming more and more apparent to me. I was 'bridging the gaps' between philosophical stuctures (and processes). In the 1970s, I wrote my Honours Thesis with the aim of bridging the gaps between General Semantics, Cognitive Therapy, and Humanism. I consider this work as having been at least a partly successful venture with two limitations: 1. it was very dry (written from the neck up in typically 'Apollonian' style); and 2. in this sense, it lacked a good understanding of the feeling, the passion, the sensuality, the sexuality, the narcissism, the hedonism, the egotism, the basic instinct, the intoxication, the obsession, the compulsion, the addiction, the romanticism that I would start to find -- first at the Gestalt Institute -- and then, in the writings of Freud, Perls, Jung, Nietzsche, and Schopenhauer primarily. Which is not to say that I can't still get into the habit of writing from the 'neck up' (in very controlled Appollonian style) -- it is just that my writing is generally better when I let more of the Dionysian (Pisces) side of my personality out, and with it, more of my unrestrained feelings and impulses. (Not all of them but more of them. That is something I generally find very difficult to do. It opens up a vulnerability within me that I am generally reluctant to share with my girlfriend of 7 years and my closest friends -- -- if or when I get to see them -- let alone, the world at large.) As this project is ideally, partly an exercise in self-exploration and self-psychotherapy, much of the ultimate success or failure of this project may rest on what side of the fence -- my Appollonian and/or my Dionysian side -- that I choose to jump down to.
We all have psychological-philosophical-political-interpretive-evaluative-ontological-teleological-humanistic- existential 'gaps' in our personalities -- as well as there obviously being the same and different types of gaps between ourselves and the rest of the world (individually and/or collectively). This became much of the focus of Gap Philosophy in the 1990s as it evolved from GAP Psychology in the 1980s. The further evolution from Gap Philosophy to DGB Philosophy has been a very recent ones as I attempt to focus more on the solutions to the philosophical and psychological problems that were themselves more of the focus in the 1980s and 1990s.
'DGB Philosophy' is partly a narccisistic name -- it reflecting the initials of my name.
However, it also underscores the evolution from Gap Philosophy to 'Dialectical-Gap-Bridging' Philosophy.
Furthermore, when you add an 'N' to the name, you also get two further ideas that are important to me.
'Democratic-(Dialectic)-Gap-Bridging-Negotiations'; and
'Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism'.
This is why you will often see me sign my essays, DGBN.

Man is a rope, fastened between animal and Superman — a rope over an abyss. A dangerous going-across. A dangerous wayfaring, a dangerous looking-back… — Friedrich Nietzsche
DGBN, Aug 11th, 2006.

2006-08-02T06:25:00.000-07:00

1.22. Righteous Either/Or Philosophy vs.
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

2006-07-29T08:17:00.000-07:00

1.23. A Critical Distinction Between Two Very Different Types Of Dialectics: Narcissistic-Righteous-Either/Or Dialectics vs. Creative-Multi-Integrative Dialectics
DGBN, July 30th, 2006

Both the content and the process of Gap-DGB Psychology are steeped strongly in Hegelian Dialectic Philosophy (G.W. Hegel, German idealistic philosopher, 1770-1831, one of the most powerful, influential thinkers of the 19th century) Dialectical theory is a theory of polarities influencing each other — a theory of how opposing ideas and energies can either attract and/or clash -- come together either aggressively, even violently and/or in a more peaceful, harmonious, diplomatic, democratic fashion -- either/or -- in a 'will to power' and/or in a 'will to negotiate and compromise' -- but either way, still ultimately coming together in a dynamic synergetic fashion (integration, union, synthesis). This brings us to the critically important 'will to power dialectic' vs. the 'will to negotiate dialectic' (WTPD vs. WTND) -- the difference between husbands and wives, parents and children, Israelis and Arabs, trying to essentially destroy each other (or each other's point of view) vs. them trying to diplomatically, democratically, peacefully, come to a working compromise in their difference of opinions.
Need I emphasize the importance of how different these two types of dialectics are, particularly in their consequences -- and how going down one dialectic path is the path of human dialectic evolution, whereas going down the other path is the path of human dialectic destruction.
What we are talking about here is essentially the ongoing dialectic between civil and uncivil man. Man is both dialectically civil and uncivl, creative and destructive, narcissistic and altruistic, evolving and self-destructing -- all at the same time.
There is no Hegelian Determinism here -- not in Gap Post-Hegelian Dialectic Philosophy. The future is not at all certain. It is only to be determined by man -- and we can just as easily find Hell as Heaven. Finding 'The Hegelian Absolute', 'Finding God' through 'dialectical evolution' is no guaranteed predestiny. A nuclear holaucaust could be just as easily our self-made destiny -- not through dialectical evolution but rather through dialectical self-destruciton. Each and everyone of us -- both personally and collectively -- have choices, and it is those choices that will determine our personal and collective destiny. If we choose in either our personal and/or our collective stupidity -- to race towards Ecstasy, to race towards Crack/Cocaine, to race on our highways, to race towards chronic and/or acute alchoholic toxicity, to race towards polluting our environment and our body, to race towards cancer, to race towards creating new viruses in our laboratories and new weapons of mass destruction, to race towards killing each other in our cities, and across oceans, to race towards war -- it won't be through any form of 'dialectical human evoluton' that we meet our Maker, our Creator. It will be through our dialectical self-destruction. And if I was God, and man was supposedly my most esteemed Creation -- I would not be proud.
*DGBN, July 31st, 2006. dgbain@rogers.com
*David Gordon Bain
*Dialectical Gap-Bridging Negotiations
*Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

2006-07-29T07:58:00.000-07:00

1.24. From The Deep Gap Archives: Intoducing Gap Psychology
DGBN, Mar. 3rd, 2001

Would you like the opportunity to learn more about psychology? Whether you are: 1) a complete ‘beginner’ who would like to learn more about your own personal psychology or psychology in general; 2) a ‘psychology trainee’ who is perhaps training or thinking of training to use the study of psychology in some sort of career capacity; or 3) a ‘psychology professional’ who is already using the study of psychology in your career — I think that Gap Psychology (GP for short) may have something for you.
The aim here is to talk about psychology — the human mind (or ‘psyche’) in all of its realistic, idealistic, and pathological capabilities. We will talk about the capabilities of the human mind from the following three perspectives: 1) from a ‘cognitive-conceptual’ perspective, in which we will examine the nature of , and the connection between knowing, thinking, feeling, and doing; 2) from a ‘humanistic-existential’ perspective in which we will examine the nature of choosing, being, and becoming; and 3) from a ‘contact‘ perspective in which we will examine the nature of awareness, self and social contact, negotiation, and conflict resolution.
Publicly, Gap Psychology is a brand new, ‘multi-integrative’ school of psychology. Privately, it has been in an ongoing process of research and development for over 20 years.
Let me describe Gap Psychology in this manner. If you were to take ‘pieces’ of the ideas of Freud, Adler, Jung, Perls, Hegel, Korzybski, Melanie Klein, Fairbairn, Kohut, Berne, Fromm, Ellis, Beck, Maltz, Brandon, and an assortment of other psychological and philosophical thinkers who have influenced Gap’s still developing philosophical and conceptual base — put this combined smorgasbord of different ideas all into one big ‘intellectual salad bowl‘, add some of Gap’s own unique ingredients and ‘dressing’ to the mixture — and stir — you may start to get an overall conceptualization of what Gap Psychology is about. GP is a brand new multi-integrative school of psychology that has taken what I believe to be
many of the best psychological ideas of the 19th and 20th century... brought them together in one package combined with Gap’s own additions and extensions...integrated everything... and now is releasing to the public.
Call Gap Psychology a psychology ‘greatest hits’ package of sorts — but one that is holistically integrated in a way that the individual sets of ideas that may be partly or fully borrowed from other schools of psychology do not clash with each other; rather, they support and complement each other and add to the still growing ‘gestalt’ — the growing multi-integrative whole.
In the music industry, most greatest hits albums that I have ever bought have been lacking in the holistic integration department. Great individual songs can be imposed together in a way that they clash — they do not ‘fit’ together in close proximity to each other. In the same manner, two or more individual ‘sports star athletes’ may be brought together on an ‘all-star team’ or an ‘all-star line’ but the individual talents and/or personalities of the respective star athletes may be such that they don’t ‘mesh’ or ‘fit’ well together on the same team or line. The ‘holistic chemistry’ is not right. Getting the ‘chemistry right’ may involve removing a ‘star player’ and replacing him or her with a ‘plugger’, a ‘blue collar worker‘ — someone who would not perhaps normally be construed as a ‘star’ but who perhaps works in a manner that he or she brings the stars ‘together’, helps the stars fit together in way that allows the stars to be stars, making the ‘chemistry of the whole greater than the sum of the individual parts’. In such a manner, if everything works out right, when this Gap Project is sufficiently ‘finished’ enough on paper to be construed as a ‘systematic whole’ (I can only ‘guesstimate’ how long this will take — let us say tentatively that by this time next year I hope to have most of the main theoretical pieces in place), then perhaps you can view me as the ‘plugger’, the ‘blue collar worker’, the ‘co-ordinator’, or the ’chemist’ who perhaps has found a way to help the ‘stars’ of the philosophy and the psychology world — stars like Hegel, Marx, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Sartre, Freud, Jung, Adler, Perls, and many others — to shine a little bit brighter when their respective ideas shine together in cohesion with each other rather than apart and in opposition to each other.
This is my ‘life-work goal’ — the goal of The Gap Project — the goal of Gap Psychology, the goal of Gap Philosophy, the goal of Gap Holistic Health, the goal of Gap Humanistic-Existentialism... These are all individual ‘pieces’ of ‘The Gap Whole’ — ‘The Gap Project’, ‘The Gap Puzzle’… And the construction is all going to start right here — piece by piece, volume by volume — in the contents of The Gap Psychology, Philosophy, and Holistic Health Forum.
‘Multi-integration’, ‘time-binding’, and ‘thought-binding’. Bringing together 200 years + of humanistic-existential thought — in one package, one school of thought — to be applied for the hopeful betterment of mankind, both individually and collectively.
So yes, I am putting together a greatest hits package of sorts, in which individual ideas or conceptual pieces are borrowed from other schools of psychology, modified, extended, deconstructed and reconstructed, brought into contact with opposing assumptions from other schools of psychology, synthesized in ways that other theorists might believe that no such synthesis could possibly exist...
In the end, I believe I have constructed a useful multi-integrative working model of: 1) the human psyche; 2) humanistic existential-idealism; 3) human psychopathology; and 4) humanistic-existential psychotherapy. But right now the ‘construction’ is only in my head. So let’s get it out on paper. That’s the goal. And fulfilling life-goals (the art of ‘being’ and ‘becoming’) is central to what GP is all about.
*DGBN, Mar. 3, 2001. dgbainsky@yahoo.com
*David Gordon Bain
*Dialectical Gap-Bridging Negotiations
*Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

2006-07-24T05:52:00.000-07:00

1.25. My Ultimate 'DGBN-Gap-Hegel's Hotel' Dream
(Email To My Dad)

-- DGBN, June 25th, 2006.

Hi Dad,
In my ultimate dream, one day I’d like to see Hegel’s Hotel: The DGBN-Gap Integrative Philosophy-Psychology Museum go up in Toronto or somewhere in the GTA. There would be sleeping quarters upstairs for guests. Down below you would have a philosophy museum divided into different floors, with different specialty sections and rooms on each floor. The philosophy floor would take up the bottom floor of the 'hotel-museum-gallery' providing the foundation for every subject area delving into other different areas of human culture and evolution such as: 2nd Floor: Psychology; Third floor: Politics; Fourth Floor: Business and Economics: Fifth Floor: Law; Sixth Floor: Science and Medicine: Seventh Floor: Religion and Spirituality; Eighth Floor: The Arts; Ninth Floor: Sports, Recreation, Leisure, and Hobbies; Tenth Floor: Gap Multi-Dialectical, Evolving, Wholistic, Integrative Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-...Culture. Here is what the first Philosophy Floor might look like:
The Ancient Greek Philosophy Section consisting of: a) Anaximander’s Room; b) Heraclitus’ Room; c) The Sophists’ Room; d) Socrates Room; e) Plato’s Room; and f) Aristotle’s Room; and others….
The Eastern Philosophy Section consisting of: a) The Han Philosophers’ Room; and others…
The Scholastic (Religious) Philosophy Section consisting of: a) St. Augustine’s Room; b) St. Aquinis’ Room; and others.
The (Science and Mathematics) Enlightenment Philosophy Section consisting of: a) Descartes’ Room; b) Spinoza’s Room; c) Diderot’s Room; d) Voltaire’s Room; e) Tom Paine’s Room; and others…
The German Idealistic and Romantic Philosophy Section consisting of: a) Kant’s Room; b) Schelling’s Room; c) Fichte’s Room; d) Hegel’s Room; e) Schopenhauer’s Room; and others…
The British Utilitarian and American Pragmatic Philosophy Section consisting of: a) John Stuart Mill’s Room; b) Bertrand Russell’s Room; c) Williams James’ Room; d) John Dewey’s Room; and others…
The Political Philosophy Section consisting of: a) Plato’s Room; b) Locke’s Room; c) Adam Smith’s Room; d) Marx’s Room; and others…
The Humanistic-Existential Philosophy Section;
The Structuralist Philosophy Section;
The Deconstructionist Section;
The Gap Multi-Dialectical Philosophy Section.

Although I will probably never see this ultimate dream fulfilled in my lifetime, it is still within my reasonable capability to lay out the metaphorical ‘architecture’ to this hotel in the present work that I am doing….Dave

*DGBN, June 25th, 2006.
*David Gordon Bain
*Dialectical Gap-Bridging Negotiations
*Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

2006-07-24T05:45:00.000-07:00

1.26. DGBN (Dialectical Gap-Bridging-Negotiations) Philosophy:
Building Bridges Between Disconnected Points Of View With Small or Significant Gaps Between Them

This forum is designed to build philosophical bridges between separate philosophical ideas, opinions, perspectives, lifestyles, organizations, structures, and processes. For example, the forum aims to build a bridge between academic/historical philosophy and contemporary, pragmatic ‘street’ (home/family/work) philosophy. It aims to bridge the gap between the abstract and the concrete. Between philosophy and psychology. Between Hegel and Nietzsche. Between Anaximander and Hegel. Between religion and science. Between Enlightenment Philosophy and Romantic Philosophy. Between humanism and existentialism. Between conservatism and liberalism. Between capitalism and socialism. Between Freud and Femininism. Between Freud and Adler. Between Freud and Jung. Between Freud and Perls. Everywhere we go there is going to be a ‘dialectical face-off’ between philosophy A and philosophy B, and there is going to be an underlying assumption that there is a mixture of truth and distortion, value and disvalue, in both philosophy A and Philosophy B, and there is generally -- if not always -- creative value in aiming to reach an integrative, ‘homeostatic balance’ between whatever the two competing philosophies/philosophers/perspectives/ideologies/lifestyles are.

Thus, you can call Gap Dialectical Philosophy a post-Hegelian school, treatise, journal, and forum of philosophy. It is built on the Hegelian dialectical evolutionary theory of ‘thesis’, ‘anti-thesis’, and ‘synthesis’ -- and start over again at a different, hopefully better, level of dialectical negotiation. Thus also, we are trying for the most part to discourage most forms of righteous, narcissistic, , extremist, destructive ‘either/or’ philosophies, religions, organizations, etc. These types of philosophies usually generate ‘wars’ of any and every kind -- intra-psychic, inter-personal, civil, political, international…At a time when the emergence of Middle East War is becoming an escalating tragic reality -- not something 'out there' but something that is crossing the ocean and hitting 'back here' in a more and more shocking, personal manner, it is time once again that we preach and teach values of conflict negotiation that emphasize making creative conciliations, concessions, compromises that ideally aim for 'win-win' solutions but if not the best middle ground that we can find, allowing us to live in a harmonious, civil manner with each other -- not the opposite 'might is right' scenario that is putting more and more people -- young and old -- soldiers and civilians -- women and children -- into caskets (if there is time, the energy, and the resources to properly bury people).

However, this is not only a post-Hegelian school of philosophy but also a post-Anaxamanderian, post-Spinozian, post-Darwinian, post-Nietzschean, post-Kierkegaardian, post-Derridian, post-Freudian, post-Adlerian, post-Jungian, and post-Gestalt school as well. Call it a ‘Leap-Frog and Link’ school of philosophy, or Dialectical Gap-Bridging (DGB) Philosophy...these names all aim to describe the same basic idea -- linking opposing philosophies and lifestyles together into a more harmonious multi-integrative-dialectical homeostatic balance. Over and over again, I aim to describe a process of: 1. 'Philosophical Construction' (thesis); 2. Philosophical Deconstruction (anti or counter-thesis); and 3. Philosophical Reconstruction (modification, union, integration, synthesis, dialectical wholism and evolution...),

We are looking for creative, integrative conflict resolutions that bring people together in a spirit of ‘dialectical-democratic unity’, appreciating our unique individual differences and multiple different perspectives -- and in fact embracing these differences as a vital part of our human essence, heritage, and future.
As the great psychologist, Carl Jung, has written: “ ‘The greater the contrast, the greater is the potential. Great energy only comes from great tensions between opposites.’ In every case, the possibilities are contained within the opposites. What is required is their (creative, assertive, compassionate, democratic) interaction, so that the dialectic may be permitted to operate” (towards a successful ‘gap-bridging’ creative-integrative solution/resolution to the particular conflict). -- Joel Latner, The Gestalt Therapy Book, The Julian Press, 1973. (bracketed extensions mine).
In a world that seems to be rushing back towards the brink of nuclear war, and in a world where friends, family, and foes alike all tend to take righteous, narcissistic, extremist, ‘either/or’ stances against each other, it would seem that this type of philosophy of ‘tolerance and creative evolutionary harmony of differences’ cannot be expounded, promoted, and applied any time too soon. Please join me in this most important venture. Unmitigated death, grief, and misery is the consequence of rightous extremism and sticking to the goal -- with horse blinders on -- of aiming to force one's will on someone who is only going to fight back with equal rightousness, narcissism, extremism, hate, and violence (with those from younger generations continuing to e learning more of the same -- grief, hate, rage, violence, revenge..). 'It's a 'hard rain gonna fall' (Bob Dylan) until everone from every race, creed, nationality, and religion gets it through each of their thick respective heads that 'violence begets violence' -- until 'death conquers all'. Even 'victory breeds hatred for the conquered is unhappy.' -- Gautama Buddha. And a similar profound passage goes back to the beginning of Western -- as well as Middle Eastern -- Philosophy. Take a few minutes to properly digest this famous ancient Western philosophical fragment and you can interpret the essence of what has become a very well-known and popular modern saying --

'What goes around, comes around.'
Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
According to necessity;
For they give to each other justice and recompense
For their injustice
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.
-- Anaximander (610-546 BC)

-- DGBN*, July 1st, 2006. dgbain@rogers
*David Gordon Bain
*Dialectical Gap-Bridging Negotiations
*Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism

2006-07-08T23:33:00.000-07:00

1.27. Intoxication: Creativity, Destruction, and Transference

This essay was stimulated by two passages out of Nietzsche's book, Twilight of The Idols (originally published in 1895).

The passages were on the connection between the psychology of the artist -- and intoxication (meant symbolically or loosely, not literally). This passage lays down the gravel for what Freud would later pave over with the latter's concept of 'sublimation' -- which connected man's work energy with underlying (unconscious) sexual energy. I will modify Nietzsche's-Freud's idea of sublimation by connecting artistic energy to 'transference energy' -- which we will define shortly and which may or may not include 'sexual energy' -- but to be sure, often does. In this regard, this essay will offer a brief introduction to the fascinating discussion of 'transference' which we will come back to in our later more extensive discussion of transference as it pertains to our discussion on dialectic psychology.

First, the two passages by Nietzsche from Twilight of The Idols (1895):

Towards a psychology of the artist. -- For art to exist, for any sort of aesthetic activity or perception to exist, a certain physiolgical pre-condition is indispensible: intoxication. Intoxication must first have heightened the excitability of the entire machine: no art results before that happens. All kinds of intoxication, however different their origin, have the power to do this: above all the intoxication of sexual excitement, the oldest and most primitive form of intoxication. Likewise, the intoxication which comes in the train of all great desires, all strong emotions; the intoxication of feasting, of contest, of the brave deed, of victory, of all extreme agitation; the intoxication of cruelty; intoxication in destruction; intoxication under certain meteorological influences, for example the intoxication of spring; or under the influence of narcotics*; finally the intoxication of the will, the intoxication of an overloaded and distended will. -- The essence of intoxication is the feeling of plenitude and increased energy. From out of this feeling one gives to things, one compels them to take, one rapes them -- one call this procedure idealizing. Let us get rid of a prejudice here: idealization does not consist, as is commonly believed, in a subtracting or deducting of the petty and secondary. A tremendous expulsion of the principle features rather is the decisive thing, so that thereupon the others too disappear.

In this condition one enriches everything out of one's own abundance: what one sees, what one desires, one sees swollen, pressing, strong, overladen with energy. The man in this condition transforms things until they mirror his power -- until they are reflections of his perfection. This compulsion to transform into the perfect is -- art. Even all that which he is not becomes for him none the less part of his joy in himself; in art, man takes delight in himself as perfection.
(Nietzsche, Friedrich, Twilight of the Idols/The Anti-Christ, Penguin Books, This edition with a new introduction published 1990.)

(*This raises the disturbing question: Much like today's baseball steroid scandal, and knowing that Freud was involved with cocaine, the question needs to be asked: How much of Freud's writing -- if any? -- was written under the influence of cocaine. How much would the answer to this question affect the credibiltiy of Freud and his work?; how many of yesterday's great performances by people -- athletes, entertainers, artists, musicians, intellects -- who we revere today for these performances -- were actually performing high, and to what extent would our judgment of these performers and their performances be judged differently if we knew that they were high? Should the performances still stand in their own right -- to be judged for what they accomplished in their own right -- or should we view and judge them totally differently, take away all the credibility of these performances, based on the context of what and where they came from?)

So stepping away from Nietzsche but borrowing from him his idea that all forms of intoxication stem from a feeling of exreme excitability or agitation of either an extremely postive or extemely negative type. From this, we can summarize and using partly Freudian temrinology, say: All artistic intoxication stems from a feeling and an impulse of either narcissistic infatuation and fixation; and/or narcissitic tragedy or traumacy.

I think for example off the top of my head of the mothers who started the MADD (Mothers Against Drunk Driving) Program, and you don't have to reach too far to realize where the intoxication (poor choice of words in this case) energy came from and their resulting 'barrage of swollen compensatory transference activity.

A man's work -- and expecially his or her obsessive, creative work -- is a projection of who he or she is, what he or she is obsessively thinking about, feeling, striving for, at a conscious or subconscious level -- and the creative work, the art form, both hides and alludes to the nature of the person's underlying 'transference complexes'. ( a term that we will develop in a later section).

Scenes of peace are often compensatory measures for the artist's personal experiences of some level of war and strife.

The art form -- created through the progression of the transference complex -- becomes the individual's perhaps abstractified but very personal form of self-pschotherapy. The art form explodes from the narcissistic fixation -- until the narcissistic fixation can be properly worked through and integrated into the rest of the personality. The swinging pendulum again.

I will leave this area of thinking as a 'philosophical and psychological tease' for now but we will come back to it in the psychology section on 'transference'.

For now, jsut let me say that we all have to find a way to live in this world more peacefully and harmoniously with each other, and in this regard we always have first and foremost, a choice between attempted force, manipulation and/or coercion vs. creative diplomacy, democracy, and humanistic-existential negotiation. There is a very important difference between 'blind', short-sighted, narcisisistic' evolution (or regression) vs. humanistic-existential evolution in which certain particular human values of decency, democracy, compassion, and accountability are held to be of the highest importance. There is a difference of the utmost importance between Narcissistic Capitalism and Humanistic-Existential Capitalism just as there is a difference between Narcissistic Socialism and. Humanistic-Existential Socialism. One system -- regardless of whether it is based on Capitalist or Socialist principles -- cherishes human rights and values; the other system squashes them. It is not enough for some quasi and/or pseudo-democratic principles to exist in a political system; these democratic principles need to be constantly refreshed and expanded (or else they will constrict and disappear under the more negative human impulses of unadulterated narcissism and a personal and/or collective Will To Power. Plus these same expanded democratic principles need to be expanded in the legal system, in our businesses, and most importantly, in our homes. The dialectic needs to be developed and nourished in a creative, democratic, healthy fashion or it will disappear in the oblivion of unchecked human narcissism and a will to power.

db, August 21st, 2006.
David Gordon Bain,
Dialectical Gap-Bridging Negotiations,
Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
dgbainssky@yahoo.com

Come you masters of war You that build all the guns You that build the death planes You that build the big bombs You that hide behind walls You that hide behind desks I just want you to know I can see through your masks You that never done nothin' But build to destroy You play with my world Like it's your little toy You put a gun in my hand And you hide from my eyes And you turn and run farther When the fast bullets fly Like Judas of old You lie and deceive A world war can be won You want me to believe But I see through your eyes And I see through your brain Like I see through the water That runs down my drain You fasten the triggers For the others to fire Then you set back and watch When the death count gets higher You hide in your mansion As young people's blood Flows out of their bodies And is buried in the mud You've thrown the worst fear That can ever be hurled Fear to bring children Into the world For threatening my baby Unborn and unnamed You ain't worth the blood That runs in your veins How much do I know To talk out of turn You might say that I'm young You might say I'm unlearned But there's one thing I know Though I'm younger than you Even Jesus would never Forgive what you do Let me ask you one question Is your money that good Will it buy you forgiveness Do you think that it could I think you will find When your death takes its toll All the money you made Will never buy back your soul And I hope that you die And your death'll come soon I will follow your casket In the pale afternoon And I'll watch while you're lowered Down to your deathbed And I'll stand o'er your grave 'Til I'm sure that you're dead
Copyright © 1963; renewed 1991 Special Rider Music

Floor 3: More Essays on The Post-Hegelian, Quantum-Dialectic Paradigm: Hegel's Hotel

Whence things have their origin,Thence also their destruction happens,As is the order of things;For they execute the sentence upon one another- The condemnation for the crime -In conformity with the ordinance of Time.

Whence things have their origin,
Thence also their destruction happens,
As is the order of things;
For they execute the sentence upon one another
- The condemnation for the crime -
In conformity with the ordinance of Time.