Health bosses accused of flu-mongering
December 11, 2009
Comments on this story (32)
Theresa Boyle
HEALTH REPORTER
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Public health officials are misleading Canadians by continuing to characterize the H1N1 virus as a threat in the hopes of unloading millions of doses of unused vaccine, charges Ontario's former chief medical officer of health.
They are trying to save face because of an expensive overreaction, Dr. Richard Schabas said Thursday as lineups for the vaccine continued to dwindle.
He made his comments the day after the Public Health Agency of Canada unveiled a new advertising campaign aimed at encouraging Canadians to get vaccinated.
"Spending Christmas in bed or in an ICU unit is no fun and the only way to actually avoid that is for a large number of Canadians to be immunized," agency head Dr. David Butler-Jones told a teleconference.
He also said discussions are underway with the World Health Organization on what to do with the surplus vaccine.
Schabas, who is medical officer of health for Hastings and Prince Edward Counties, estimates that 35 million of the 50.4 million doses of vaccine that Canada has ordered, at a cost of more than $400 million, will not be used.
"They bought 50 million doses of vaccine and it's an embarrassment to them that it's not being used," he said, adding that it became available too late.
"I think if you are going to make that push, you at least need to tell people that the outbreak is essentially over and you have to say to people any future risk of H1N1, at least this year, is extremely small. ... You shouldn't mislead people." Schabas said.
The number of Canadians visiting doctors with flu-like symptoms peaked in late October, he noted.
"The real story is the disconnect between what the senior public health officials, provincially and nationally, have been saying to people and what's actually been going on," Schabas argued. "They have been misrepresenting the state of the outbreak and the level of risk."
Schabas said health officials have been preparing for years for a deadly avian flu pandemic and have had trouble switching gears to respond the mild H1N1 pandemic.
He added, people aren't buying into the fear as is evidenced by closing flu clinics. Toronto's eight remaining clinics were all to close Sunday but three of them shut their doors earlier this week because of little traffic.
While government officials now acknowledge the pandemic has turned out to be not as bad as initially feared, Schabas said they have been slow to adjust their responses.
"I think they got their knickers in a knot because they responded to their preconceptions. There was a preconception that a pandemic was going to be a terrible event," he said.
Ontario's 600-plus-page pandemic plan, like pandemic plans around the world, is modelled on a "moderately severe" pandemic with assumptions based on the 1957 flu pandemic. It anticipated 13,000 could die and up to 54,000 could require hospitalization.
The latest provincial numbers show 104 H1N1-related deaths and 1,656 hospitalizations so far.
Toronto Star
Friday, December 11, 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
On The Prospect Of Any 'Ultimate, Final, Absolute Synthesis'
There will never, ever be any 'Ultimate, Final, Absolute Synthesis'. Hegel was dead wrong on this account.
The only 'Ultimate Synthesis' -- is death.
What I mean by this, is that as long as we are living and breathing, we will always be in a fight for restoring 'balance in our lives' in a way that keeps us alive and fighting for life -- at least unless, or until, we decide to give up this fight.
Thus, the 'teeter-totter' or 'swinging pendulum' process in life is always with us -- both internally and externally -- until our life is over.
Only then can we talk about any 'Final Synthesis' -- complete entropy.
Until then, nothing is ever, ever going to be 'final'.
Any thought of a 'final ultimate Life Utopia' is completely bogus -- and simply gives new fodder for the gristmill of a whole host of new 'Counter-Utopias'...and 'New Syntheses' which in turn may be either warmly or coldly perceived and received...or both...and nothing ever ends unless or until there is some ultimate Holocaust...and even out of the ashes of this potential Holocaust new forms of life will likely spring anew...like new saplings springing out of the remnants of a Giant Forest Fire...
-- dgb, Nov. 17th, updated Nov. 22nd, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
The only 'Ultimate Synthesis' -- is death.
What I mean by this, is that as long as we are living and breathing, we will always be in a fight for restoring 'balance in our lives' in a way that keeps us alive and fighting for life -- at least unless, or until, we decide to give up this fight.
Thus, the 'teeter-totter' or 'swinging pendulum' process in life is always with us -- both internally and externally -- until our life is over.
Only then can we talk about any 'Final Synthesis' -- complete entropy.
Until then, nothing is ever, ever going to be 'final'.
Any thought of a 'final ultimate Life Utopia' is completely bogus -- and simply gives new fodder for the gristmill of a whole host of new 'Counter-Utopias'...and 'New Syntheses' which in turn may be either warmly or coldly perceived and received...or both...and nothing ever ends unless or until there is some ultimate Holocaust...and even out of the ashes of this potential Holocaust new forms of life will likely spring anew...like new saplings springing out of the remnants of a Giant Forest Fire...
-- dgb, Nov. 17th, updated Nov. 22nd, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
On The Dangers of 'Pigeon-Holing' Life Processes Into 'Neat' Verbal Concepts, Categories, and Theories: Aristotelean Either/Or Logic vs. Hegelian Dialectic Logic
At the risk of redundancy, I want to once again emphasize the dangers of attempting to pigeon-hole life into neat, verbal concepts, categories, classification systems, and theories...
This includes the danger of over-using -- to the point of abusing -- Aristotelean Logic. Now what exactly 'Aristotelean Logic' means is in need of some discussion. We will get back to this point very shortly.
Hegel was the first philosopher to strongly emphasize the dangers of Aristotelean Logic. From a slightly different standpoint, Alfred Korzybski would do the same thing about 125 years later in the latter's classic book, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelean Systems, 1933. You can read this book in its entirety now on line for free although it is not entirely an easy read...http://esgs.free.fr/uk/art/sands.htm).
In Hegel's Hotel, I wish -- because of the extreme importance of this message -- to repeat, emphasize, modify, update, and extrapolate on the same messages that were passed on to me, and those others who have read either Hegel and/or Korzybski, and/or interpretations of their work -- in particular here, relative to the dangers of Aristotelean logic.
What is Aristotelean Logic?
Well, there are two aspects of Aristotelean logic that we need to look at: 1. the syllogism; and 2. the law of identity and non-identy. I do not profess to be an expert in formal logic but, from what I can see, the syllogism is not reallya problem as long as it is used properly. However, the law of identity and non-identity is a problem. Let's take a look at both these aspects of Aristolean logic and how they inter-relate.
A/ The Syllogism
Major Premise: All men are mortal.
Minor Premise: Socrates is a man.
Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.
There is nothing wrong with this logic. If both the major and minor premise are right, and connected in such a way that the major premise represents an assertion or proposition about a certain class of things having a particular characteristic that is universal to that class of things; and the minor premise represents an assertion or proposition about a particular member of the class of things asserted in the major premise as having the particular universal characteristic asserted in the major premise -- then the conclusion should be 'logically right'.
Here is another example:
Major Premise: All snakes have no legs and slither when they move.
Minor Premise: This animal I am looking at has legs and is not slithering
Conclusion: Therefore this animal I am looking at is not a snake.
This type of Aristotelean logic can be otherwise stated like this:
If all members of a particular class of things have a particular universal characteristic.
Then a particular member of that same class of things is also going to have that universal characteristic.
B/ The Law of Identity and Non-Identity (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
So far so good. But here is where we get into trouble in a couple of different ways -- one emphasized by Hegel; the other emphasized by Korzybski.
A is A and B is B. A cannot be B. And B cannot be A.
This can be referred to as 'Aristotelean Either/Or Logic'.
Quite simply, this 'Law of Either/Or Logic' may be good for mathematics but it is not good for biology, physics, chemistry, medicine, psychology, politics, philosophy, religion, art, engineering, architecture, fashion, or any of a hundred other things that make up either 'evolution' or 'human culture'.
Worded otherwise, evolution does not work according to the principle of 'either/or' -- or at least not entirely. It works to the point where we can say that this bull seal won the battle against that bull seal in order to win 'mating rights' relative to a particular female seal.
However, it does not work to the extent that 'bi-polarizing' life only works to the extent that you allow for the possibility of a 'middle, interactive-integrative dialectic zone'.
It is in this sense here that what Aristotle did was he left out the excluded 'middle zone' in his multitude of 'bi-polar classification systems'. He excluded the 'gray zone', where 'gray' is both 'black' and 'white' as well as neither completely 'black' nor 'white'. 'Gray' borrows the partial characteristics of both black and white. Aristotle's 'either/or' logic does not reflect the 'gray zones' in life, in nature, in evolution, in human culture...
In this sense, evolution is often 'dialectically integrative evolution'.
'A' breeds with 'B' and the offspring become members of a new set which is partly both 'A' and 'B' but at the same time neither completely 'A' nor 'B'. In this regard, the offspring represents a new class of 'AB'. This is dialectic evolution which depends on the principle of 'biodiversity' based on the almost infinite potential of 'intermixing' different genes from different males and females, or for that matter, even different viruses, bacteria, molecules, and atoms.
Every modification in life creates a new life form.
A coyote is a coyote and cannot be a wolf.
A wolf is a wolf and cannot be a coyote.
Wrong! A wolf breeds with a coyote and now we have a 'new species of animal' -- we have a 'colf'.
A colf is both a wolf and a coyote but not entirely either a wolf or a coyote. It reflects particular characteristics of both a wolf and a coyote which takes life into a middle gray zone of dialectic evolution.
Aristotelean logic did not reflect this aspect of life.
Hegelian dialectic logic moved into to compensate for that 'gray area of life' that Aristotle did not account for.
Thesis intermingled with anti-thesis becomes a 'dialectic synthesis'. Hegel compensated for what Aristotle ignored or missed.
The problem is that many, many people today still use Aristotelean 'either/or' logic in context situatons where they should be using Hegelian Dialectic Logic instead. Not all the time. But in many, many cases which in turn causes many, many problems.
People try to 'pigeon-hole' life into two Aristotelean opposing categories -- A and B -- where they should not be leaving out the very viable and often superior Hegelian 'middle dialectic zone' of AB. That is why DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...uses a ton of 'hyphenated words' such as:
1. 'Liberal-Conservative' or 'Conservative-Liberal';
2. 'Republican-Democrat' or 'Democrat-Republican';
3. 'Apollonian-Dionysian' or 'Dionysian-Apollonian';
4. GAP Psychology (a mixture of Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Psychoanalysis);
5. DGB Philosophy (Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-Science...)
A/ Is 'Bi-Polar Disorder' an 'illness' or an 'excuse'? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic0
B/ Can 'Bi-Polar Disorder' be both or either an 'illness' and/or an 'excuse'? (Hegelian Dialectic Logic)
A/ Is 'sczhizophrenia' a 'biochemical disorder ' or a 'transference neurosis'? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
B/ Can 'sczhizophrenia' be both a 'biochemical disorder' and a 'transference neurosis'? (Hegelian Dialectic Logic)
A/ Is orthodox prescription medicine superior to natural health medicine or visa versa? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
B/ Can both orthodox prescription medicine and natural health medicine learn from each other and become 'Integrative Wholistic Medicine'?
We will talk about Korzybski on another day. That is enough for today.
-- dgb, Nov. 17th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
This includes the danger of over-using -- to the point of abusing -- Aristotelean Logic. Now what exactly 'Aristotelean Logic' means is in need of some discussion. We will get back to this point very shortly.
Hegel was the first philosopher to strongly emphasize the dangers of Aristotelean Logic. From a slightly different standpoint, Alfred Korzybski would do the same thing about 125 years later in the latter's classic book, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelean Systems, 1933. You can read this book in its entirety now on line for free although it is not entirely an easy read...http://esgs.free.fr/uk/art/sands.htm).
In Hegel's Hotel, I wish -- because of the extreme importance of this message -- to repeat, emphasize, modify, update, and extrapolate on the same messages that were passed on to me, and those others who have read either Hegel and/or Korzybski, and/or interpretations of their work -- in particular here, relative to the dangers of Aristotelean logic.
What is Aristotelean Logic?
Well, there are two aspects of Aristotelean logic that we need to look at: 1. the syllogism; and 2. the law of identity and non-identy. I do not profess to be an expert in formal logic but, from what I can see, the syllogism is not reallya problem as long as it is used properly. However, the law of identity and non-identity is a problem. Let's take a look at both these aspects of Aristolean logic and how they inter-relate.
A/ The Syllogism
Major Premise: All men are mortal.
Minor Premise: Socrates is a man.
Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.
There is nothing wrong with this logic. If both the major and minor premise are right, and connected in such a way that the major premise represents an assertion or proposition about a certain class of things having a particular characteristic that is universal to that class of things; and the minor premise represents an assertion or proposition about a particular member of the class of things asserted in the major premise as having the particular universal characteristic asserted in the major premise -- then the conclusion should be 'logically right'.
Here is another example:
Major Premise: All snakes have no legs and slither when they move.
Minor Premise: This animal I am looking at has legs and is not slithering
Conclusion: Therefore this animal I am looking at is not a snake.
This type of Aristotelean logic can be otherwise stated like this:
If all members of a particular class of things have a particular universal characteristic.
Then a particular member of that same class of things is also going to have that universal characteristic.
B/ The Law of Identity and Non-Identity (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
So far so good. But here is where we get into trouble in a couple of different ways -- one emphasized by Hegel; the other emphasized by Korzybski.
A is A and B is B. A cannot be B. And B cannot be A.
This can be referred to as 'Aristotelean Either/Or Logic'.
Quite simply, this 'Law of Either/Or Logic' may be good for mathematics but it is not good for biology, physics, chemistry, medicine, psychology, politics, philosophy, religion, art, engineering, architecture, fashion, or any of a hundred other things that make up either 'evolution' or 'human culture'.
Worded otherwise, evolution does not work according to the principle of 'either/or' -- or at least not entirely. It works to the point where we can say that this bull seal won the battle against that bull seal in order to win 'mating rights' relative to a particular female seal.
However, it does not work to the extent that 'bi-polarizing' life only works to the extent that you allow for the possibility of a 'middle, interactive-integrative dialectic zone'.
It is in this sense here that what Aristotle did was he left out the excluded 'middle zone' in his multitude of 'bi-polar classification systems'. He excluded the 'gray zone', where 'gray' is both 'black' and 'white' as well as neither completely 'black' nor 'white'. 'Gray' borrows the partial characteristics of both black and white. Aristotle's 'either/or' logic does not reflect the 'gray zones' in life, in nature, in evolution, in human culture...
In this sense, evolution is often 'dialectically integrative evolution'.
'A' breeds with 'B' and the offspring become members of a new set which is partly both 'A' and 'B' but at the same time neither completely 'A' nor 'B'. In this regard, the offspring represents a new class of 'AB'. This is dialectic evolution which depends on the principle of 'biodiversity' based on the almost infinite potential of 'intermixing' different genes from different males and females, or for that matter, even different viruses, bacteria, molecules, and atoms.
Every modification in life creates a new life form.
A coyote is a coyote and cannot be a wolf.
A wolf is a wolf and cannot be a coyote.
Wrong! A wolf breeds with a coyote and now we have a 'new species of animal' -- we have a 'colf'.
A colf is both a wolf and a coyote but not entirely either a wolf or a coyote. It reflects particular characteristics of both a wolf and a coyote which takes life into a middle gray zone of dialectic evolution.
Aristotelean logic did not reflect this aspect of life.
Hegelian dialectic logic moved into to compensate for that 'gray area of life' that Aristotle did not account for.
Thesis intermingled with anti-thesis becomes a 'dialectic synthesis'. Hegel compensated for what Aristotle ignored or missed.
The problem is that many, many people today still use Aristotelean 'either/or' logic in context situatons where they should be using Hegelian Dialectic Logic instead. Not all the time. But in many, many cases which in turn causes many, many problems.
People try to 'pigeon-hole' life into two Aristotelean opposing categories -- A and B -- where they should not be leaving out the very viable and often superior Hegelian 'middle dialectic zone' of AB. That is why DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...uses a ton of 'hyphenated words' such as:
1. 'Liberal-Conservative' or 'Conservative-Liberal';
2. 'Republican-Democrat' or 'Democrat-Republican';
3. 'Apollonian-Dionysian' or 'Dionysian-Apollonian';
4. GAP Psychology (a mixture of Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Psychoanalysis);
5. DGB Philosophy (Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-Science...)
A/ Is 'Bi-Polar Disorder' an 'illness' or an 'excuse'? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic0
B/ Can 'Bi-Polar Disorder' be both or either an 'illness' and/or an 'excuse'? (Hegelian Dialectic Logic)
A/ Is 'sczhizophrenia' a 'biochemical disorder ' or a 'transference neurosis'? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
B/ Can 'sczhizophrenia' be both a 'biochemical disorder' and a 'transference neurosis'? (Hegelian Dialectic Logic)
A/ Is orthodox prescription medicine superior to natural health medicine or visa versa? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
B/ Can both orthodox prescription medicine and natural health medicine learn from each other and become 'Integrative Wholistic Medicine'?
We will talk about Korzybski on another day. That is enough for today.
-- dgb, Nov. 17th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
Monday, November 16, 2009
More Thoughts On The Self-Destructive Direction of Uncontrolled Individual and Cultural Narcissism...
Practicing good ethics is like exercising each day and/ or like eating a good, calory restricted, healthy, nutritional diet...Tough work...but if you keep practising it more and more, day by day, you become much better, much more proficient at living an ethical, well-balanced lifestyle over time -- just like what it takes to get into a good, steady habit of healthy eating and exercising.
In contrast, practising narcissism is like eating a piece of cake, even worse, gorging on the whole cake, or like eating any and every type of junk food we can get our hands on and put into our mouth...It tastes great, it's easy, it satisfies at least a part of our hedonistic-narcissistic (pleasure-seeking) impulses...but there are not too many good vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, fiber and enzymes in what we are eating...most of what we are eating has no nutritional value at all and the older we get, the worse this can become as a health problem, especially as our metabolism slows down, usually exasperated by less and less exercise...
This is not to say that all hedonism and/or narcissism is bad -- because it's not -- our survival depends very much on our narcissistic genetics, biochemistry, and psychology. When our body tells us to eat, we need to eat. And similarly, with the other life-preserving impulses in our mind and body that help to keep us alive, both as individuals and as an ongoing species.
Indeed, like many things in life, narcissism becomes a paradox in our lives -- too much narcissism is not a good thing in our lives but so too is not enough narcissism in our lives.
Healthy aspects of narcissism include: self-assertion, self-confidence, self-awareness, self-propelled action...
Indeed, as humans we are probably largely programmed to be narcissistic unless or until we are taught differently -- or better -- to bring this, and keep this, in proper balance and perspective. Even teaching 'altruism' and 'ethics' and 'morals' does not completely, or even closely, eliminate or minimize our underlying narcissistic impulses. But for a 'civilized person and society' these counter-balancing beliefs and values of such things as altruism, social sensitivity, empathy, caring, love, ethics, morals... are essential in order to make our own lives and the lives of the people around us work properly.
Greed, selfishness, manipulation, corruption, fraud, collusion, abuse of power -- these are some of the different things that happen in our personal, social, business, and political lives when self and social narcissism start to slip and slide downhill and out of control....It becomes harder and harder to restore proper ethical, moral, and legal balance, the greater we let self and social narcissism slide down hill and out of control.
Nature injects us with narcissism. It doesn't really 'inject us' with much 'altruism' or 'ethics' or 'morals' -- these are all mainly culturally, religiously, educationally taught beliefs, values, and skills that take great time, energy, effort, and practice to develop. Like running uphill, in contrast to narcissistic self-absorption that requires little effort, energy, self-discipline...like running down hill with gravity as opposed to against gravity.
Living in a culture, an economy, an environment of 'unbridled narcissism' where narcissism -- like a fast, growing weed -- has 'propelled' itself beyond 'healthy civilian, egalitarian, fair and democratic boundaries', and into the area of 'crime, immorality, and corruption' where everyone develops a mindset of 'He's doing it so why can't I?' Or 'The company I work for or my government is being blatantly narcissistic -- using and abusing money unfairly, even corruptly, so therefore I am going to take certain narcissistic counter-measures as a way of compensating for the way that I am being unfairly treated -- these are the types of things that provide greater and greater 'fertilizer' for a larger and larger 'culture of unbridled narcissism'.
Most notably power corrupts -- unless or until there is some faction of society that says 'Enough is enough. This unbridled narcissism has to stop and brought back to more normal, healthy boundaries. If I don't say or do anything about what is happening here, who is? Everyone is passing the buck, remaining ethically passive, and letting their own ethics slip-slide away in the process...'
In Ontario here, we have a Liberal Government that is bringing in a new 'Harmonization Tax'. What a juxtaposition of words -- 'harmonization' and 'tax'. This is from a Liberal Government that has been audited as basically 'mispending millions if not billions of taxpayers money' in the just recently passed 'EHealth Scandal'. There is no Government Accountability here. If the government 'mis-spends' money -- with a lot of Liberal politicians and lobbyists getting 'quietly rich' in the process -- the government just shrugs its shoulders, perhaps offers one politician as a 'sacrifical lamb' (even though I am sure she has already made enough money off of Ehealth to retire for the rest of her life) -- and waits for the scandal to pass. Then they introduce the 'Harmonization Tax'.
As citizens of Ontario, we are far too passive not to mention probably mainly ignorant of the full extent of what this new tax is fully going to mean. We just shrug our shoulders and basically let the politicians get away with 'narcissistic mayhem'. Similarily to what happened on Wall Street. Unbridled and unethical narcissism permeates our culture like the dandelions in my front and back yard a few years ago. It took a lot of digging, over and over and over again, to get rid of most of these weeds. It still didn't get rid of them all.
I can't say that I am any type of 'ethical saint'. How many of us can? But there comes a point where narcissism eventually will destroy all semblence of what it means to be a 'civilized nation'.
Cultural narcissm propogates individual narcissism, and individual narcissism in turn propogates cultural narcissism. The two are 'dialectically entwined'. Without cultural and individual ethics counter-balancing the combined force of cultural and individual narcissism taking us all on a fast or slow roller coaster ride to self-destruction, bad things start to happen like we are seeing in the current recession. As a whole, we are all suffering from the malaise of personal and cultural narcissism destroying the ethical and economic balance in our society. We need more 'win-win' solutions -- not 'me-me', 'I win, you lose' solutions...In the end, we all lose...
One only has to go back and read some of Thomas Jefferson's quotes about how 'power corrupts'...and all of the other Enlightenment Philosophers -- John Locke, Diderot, Voltaire, Tom Paine, Montesquieu...to read how much work and effort has to be continually exercised in order to keep unethical power and narcissism out of government agencies and processes not to mention businesses... to fully understand that we cannot let this type of thing slide without drastic consequences eventually hitting us all...like the collapse of the major financial institutions on Wall Street and their essentially being 'rewarded' afterwards for their ethical and/or legal transgressions at the individual and collective expense of the rest of us, many of us who are fighting for our very economical survival...
Let me close with a few of the quotes that I mean...
...............................................................................................................................................
A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
Thomas Jefferson
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.
Thomas Jefferson
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Thomas Jefferson
Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
Thomas Jefferson
Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Thomas Jefferson
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.
Thomas Jefferson
Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
Thomas Jefferson
Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.
Thomas Jefferson
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson
Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
Thomas Jefferson
Every generation needs a new revolution.
Thomas Jefferson
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Thomas Jefferson
Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
Thomas Jefferson
Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
Thomas Jefferson
...........................................................................................................................
-- dgb, Nov. 14th-16th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcisism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process....
In contrast, practising narcissism is like eating a piece of cake, even worse, gorging on the whole cake, or like eating any and every type of junk food we can get our hands on and put into our mouth...It tastes great, it's easy, it satisfies at least a part of our hedonistic-narcissistic (pleasure-seeking) impulses...but there are not too many good vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, fiber and enzymes in what we are eating...most of what we are eating has no nutritional value at all and the older we get, the worse this can become as a health problem, especially as our metabolism slows down, usually exasperated by less and less exercise...
This is not to say that all hedonism and/or narcissism is bad -- because it's not -- our survival depends very much on our narcissistic genetics, biochemistry, and psychology. When our body tells us to eat, we need to eat. And similarly, with the other life-preserving impulses in our mind and body that help to keep us alive, both as individuals and as an ongoing species.
Indeed, like many things in life, narcissism becomes a paradox in our lives -- too much narcissism is not a good thing in our lives but so too is not enough narcissism in our lives.
Healthy aspects of narcissism include: self-assertion, self-confidence, self-awareness, self-propelled action...
Indeed, as humans we are probably largely programmed to be narcissistic unless or until we are taught differently -- or better -- to bring this, and keep this, in proper balance and perspective. Even teaching 'altruism' and 'ethics' and 'morals' does not completely, or even closely, eliminate or minimize our underlying narcissistic impulses. But for a 'civilized person and society' these counter-balancing beliefs and values of such things as altruism, social sensitivity, empathy, caring, love, ethics, morals... are essential in order to make our own lives and the lives of the people around us work properly.
Greed, selfishness, manipulation, corruption, fraud, collusion, abuse of power -- these are some of the different things that happen in our personal, social, business, and political lives when self and social narcissism start to slip and slide downhill and out of control....It becomes harder and harder to restore proper ethical, moral, and legal balance, the greater we let self and social narcissism slide down hill and out of control.
Nature injects us with narcissism. It doesn't really 'inject us' with much 'altruism' or 'ethics' or 'morals' -- these are all mainly culturally, religiously, educationally taught beliefs, values, and skills that take great time, energy, effort, and practice to develop. Like running uphill, in contrast to narcissistic self-absorption that requires little effort, energy, self-discipline...like running down hill with gravity as opposed to against gravity.
Living in a culture, an economy, an environment of 'unbridled narcissism' where narcissism -- like a fast, growing weed -- has 'propelled' itself beyond 'healthy civilian, egalitarian, fair and democratic boundaries', and into the area of 'crime, immorality, and corruption' where everyone develops a mindset of 'He's doing it so why can't I?' Or 'The company I work for or my government is being blatantly narcissistic -- using and abusing money unfairly, even corruptly, so therefore I am going to take certain narcissistic counter-measures as a way of compensating for the way that I am being unfairly treated -- these are the types of things that provide greater and greater 'fertilizer' for a larger and larger 'culture of unbridled narcissism'.
Most notably power corrupts -- unless or until there is some faction of society that says 'Enough is enough. This unbridled narcissism has to stop and brought back to more normal, healthy boundaries. If I don't say or do anything about what is happening here, who is? Everyone is passing the buck, remaining ethically passive, and letting their own ethics slip-slide away in the process...'
In Ontario here, we have a Liberal Government that is bringing in a new 'Harmonization Tax'. What a juxtaposition of words -- 'harmonization' and 'tax'. This is from a Liberal Government that has been audited as basically 'mispending millions if not billions of taxpayers money' in the just recently passed 'EHealth Scandal'. There is no Government Accountability here. If the government 'mis-spends' money -- with a lot of Liberal politicians and lobbyists getting 'quietly rich' in the process -- the government just shrugs its shoulders, perhaps offers one politician as a 'sacrifical lamb' (even though I am sure she has already made enough money off of Ehealth to retire for the rest of her life) -- and waits for the scandal to pass. Then they introduce the 'Harmonization Tax'.
As citizens of Ontario, we are far too passive not to mention probably mainly ignorant of the full extent of what this new tax is fully going to mean. We just shrug our shoulders and basically let the politicians get away with 'narcissistic mayhem'. Similarily to what happened on Wall Street. Unbridled and unethical narcissism permeates our culture like the dandelions in my front and back yard a few years ago. It took a lot of digging, over and over and over again, to get rid of most of these weeds. It still didn't get rid of them all.
I can't say that I am any type of 'ethical saint'. How many of us can? But there comes a point where narcissism eventually will destroy all semblence of what it means to be a 'civilized nation'.
Cultural narcissm propogates individual narcissism, and individual narcissism in turn propogates cultural narcissism. The two are 'dialectically entwined'. Without cultural and individual ethics counter-balancing the combined force of cultural and individual narcissism taking us all on a fast or slow roller coaster ride to self-destruction, bad things start to happen like we are seeing in the current recession. As a whole, we are all suffering from the malaise of personal and cultural narcissism destroying the ethical and economic balance in our society. We need more 'win-win' solutions -- not 'me-me', 'I win, you lose' solutions...In the end, we all lose...
One only has to go back and read some of Thomas Jefferson's quotes about how 'power corrupts'...and all of the other Enlightenment Philosophers -- John Locke, Diderot, Voltaire, Tom Paine, Montesquieu...to read how much work and effort has to be continually exercised in order to keep unethical power and narcissism out of government agencies and processes not to mention businesses... to fully understand that we cannot let this type of thing slide without drastic consequences eventually hitting us all...like the collapse of the major financial institutions on Wall Street and their essentially being 'rewarded' afterwards for their ethical and/or legal transgressions at the individual and collective expense of the rest of us, many of us who are fighting for our very economical survival...
Let me close with a few of the quotes that I mean...
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A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
Thomas Jefferson
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.
Thomas Jefferson
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Thomas Jefferson
Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
Thomas Jefferson
Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Thomas Jefferson
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.
Thomas Jefferson
Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
Thomas Jefferson
Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.
Thomas Jefferson
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson
Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
Thomas Jefferson
Every generation needs a new revolution.
Thomas Jefferson
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Thomas Jefferson
Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
Thomas Jefferson
Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
Thomas Jefferson
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-- dgb, Nov. 14th-16th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcisism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process....
Tuesday, November 3, 2009
On Properly Functioning Democracies vs. Pseudo-Democracies, Pathological Ideology -- and 'Snake Oil'
When the people at the top of the Corporate, Business World cannot control and police themselves -- which, obviously, many of them can't, or won't -- then the Government has to do it for them, creating and policing laws that discourage and minimize 'white collar crime' -- particularly, 'corporate plundering' of 'corporate business coffers' at the top.
When the people in different Government Sectors who have control over their own spending and paycheques and who specifically they give government contracts to without a democratic bidding, cannot control and police themselves -- which, obviously, many of them can't or won't -- then, people above them in more powerful Government Positions have to do it for them, creating and policing laws that discourage and minimize this type of Government exploitation of taxpayers' money -- and 'white collar plundering of public coffers'.
When the people at even the highest levels of Government Positions and Trust cannot or will not police the people in charge of significant amounts of government funds below them -- and exploitation results -- then it is the duty of journalists and philosopher-writers and film makers (Michael Moore) to hammer certain 'unpleasant, unethical government and corporate truths (or even 'half-truths') home until the proper government people are 'impeached', 'resign', are 'fired', and/or arefinally voted out of office.
Failing this, we as individual citizens in a properly functioning democracy, need to continue to apply pressure on the particular guilty parties, or at the very least, vote them out of office when their time for potential re-election comes due.
Anything less than this is a 'pseudo-democracy' -- a 'fascade' of a democracy. It is 'Ideology' in the Marxian pathological sense of the word where 'Ideology' means 'hiding what is really happening underneath the superficial rhetoric and campaign promises and white-washing and pretenses of what transgressing politicians and/or corporate bigwigs and/or marketing people are trying to sell you.
'Ideology' in this pathological sense of the word is nothing more than -- as Senator Barney Frank has aptly put it -- 'snake oil'.
-- dgb, Nov. 4th, 2009.
-- david gordon bain
-- democracy goes beyond narcissism
-- dialectic gap-bridging negotiations...
-- are still in process...
When the people in different Government Sectors who have control over their own spending and paycheques and who specifically they give government contracts to without a democratic bidding, cannot control and police themselves -- which, obviously, many of them can't or won't -- then, people above them in more powerful Government Positions have to do it for them, creating and policing laws that discourage and minimize this type of Government exploitation of taxpayers' money -- and 'white collar plundering of public coffers'.
When the people at even the highest levels of Government Positions and Trust cannot or will not police the people in charge of significant amounts of government funds below them -- and exploitation results -- then it is the duty of journalists and philosopher-writers and film makers (Michael Moore) to hammer certain 'unpleasant, unethical government and corporate truths (or even 'half-truths') home until the proper government people are 'impeached', 'resign', are 'fired', and/or arefinally voted out of office.
Failing this, we as individual citizens in a properly functioning democracy, need to continue to apply pressure on the particular guilty parties, or at the very least, vote them out of office when their time for potential re-election comes due.
Anything less than this is a 'pseudo-democracy' -- a 'fascade' of a democracy. It is 'Ideology' in the Marxian pathological sense of the word where 'Ideology' means 'hiding what is really happening underneath the superficial rhetoric and campaign promises and white-washing and pretenses of what transgressing politicians and/or corporate bigwigs and/or marketing people are trying to sell you.
'Ideology' in this pathological sense of the word is nothing more than -- as Senator Barney Frank has aptly put it -- 'snake oil'.
-- dgb, Nov. 4th, 2009.
-- david gordon bain
-- democracy goes beyond narcissism
-- dialectic gap-bridging negotiations...
-- are still in process...
On The Positive and Negative Side of Narcissism (Hedonism, Egotism, Individualism)
I heard a commercial this morning on tv that sparked this brief DGB commentary.
The ad said something like this:
'When a man does something special -- something one of a kind -- he is proud to put his name to it.'
This beckons back to my dad's Ideal Capitalism influence and his introducing me to 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand when I was in my late teens.
Succinctly put, narcissism - and egotism -- and pleasure-seeking -- and searching for the self-fulfillment or self-actualization of one's own Self, one's own Soul -- is not all bad. It is only bad when it gets twisted out of control, and you start moving down a path of one-sidedness, self-absorption to the point of everyone else's needs becoming inferior to your own, down a path of self-destructiveness and/or towards the destructiveness and/or tearing down of others around you. It is only narcissism out of control, narcissism gone wild, narcissism that excludes all others, that eliminates any and/or all feeling of compassion and sensitivity and humanism towards those around you, either close to you or far away -- that is the point where narcissism, hedonism, and egotism all become 'pathological' -- 'psycho-pathological' and 'socio-pathological'.
As for the healthy type of narcissism that I am talking about here, it is well described in this internet (Wikipedia) summary of Ayn Rand's famous book, The Fountainhead (1943).
....................................................................................................................................................
The Fountainhead is a bestselling 1943 novel by Ayn Rand. It was Rand's first major literary success and its royalties and movie rights brought her fame and financial security. More than 5 million copies of the book have been sold worldwide and the work has been translated in several languages. [1]
The Fountainhead's protagonist, Howard Roark, is an individualistic young architect who chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personal vision. The book follows his battle to practice modern architecture, which he believes to be superior, despite an establishment centered on tradition-worship. How others in the novel relate to Roark demonstrates Rand's various archetypes of human character, all of which are variants between Roark, the author's ideal man of independent-mindedness and integrity, and what she described as the "second-handers." The complex relationships between Roark and the various kinds of individuals who assist or hinder his progress, or both, allows the novel to be at once a romantic drama and a philosophical work. By Rand's own admission, Roark is the embodiment of the human spirit and his struggle represents the triumph of individualism over collectivism.
......................................................................................................................................................
Howard Roark -- and my dad's own real-life vision and self-enactment of him -- became one of my own earliest idealistic role models.
However, without character, integrity, fairness, compassion, accountability, humanism, and the ideal of a 'fair deal' -- a 'win-win business deal for both and/or all sides' -- Ethical, Humanistic-Existential Capitalism becomes Unbridled, Narcissistic Corrupt Capitalism where collusion and exploitation and kickbacks and bribery and 'Golden Parachute Contracts and Bonuses' rule the day. Employers exploit employees. And/or unions exploit businesses. Lobbyists exploit Governments. Governments exploit Lobbyists. Sellers exploit buyers. Governments and businesses exploit taxpayers.
And we wonder why we have a recession.
Capitalism has stopped playing by ethical rules. Businesses have stopped looking for 'win-win solutions'.
Everybody who has significant monetary power at the top is looking for their own narcissistic Golden Parachute, their Golden Retirement Package. Plunder the corporation. Plunder the taxpayer.
And we wonder why we have a recession.
-- dgb, Nov. 4th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
..........................................................................................................................
The ad said something like this:
'When a man does something special -- something one of a kind -- he is proud to put his name to it.'
This beckons back to my dad's Ideal Capitalism influence and his introducing me to 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand when I was in my late teens.
Succinctly put, narcissism - and egotism -- and pleasure-seeking -- and searching for the self-fulfillment or self-actualization of one's own Self, one's own Soul -- is not all bad. It is only bad when it gets twisted out of control, and you start moving down a path of one-sidedness, self-absorption to the point of everyone else's needs becoming inferior to your own, down a path of self-destructiveness and/or towards the destructiveness and/or tearing down of others around you. It is only narcissism out of control, narcissism gone wild, narcissism that excludes all others, that eliminates any and/or all feeling of compassion and sensitivity and humanism towards those around you, either close to you or far away -- that is the point where narcissism, hedonism, and egotism all become 'pathological' -- 'psycho-pathological' and 'socio-pathological'.
As for the healthy type of narcissism that I am talking about here, it is well described in this internet (Wikipedia) summary of Ayn Rand's famous book, The Fountainhead (1943).
....................................................................................................................................................
The Fountainhead is a bestselling 1943 novel by Ayn Rand. It was Rand's first major literary success and its royalties and movie rights brought her fame and financial security. More than 5 million copies of the book have been sold worldwide and the work has been translated in several languages. [1]
The Fountainhead's protagonist, Howard Roark, is an individualistic young architect who chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personal vision. The book follows his battle to practice modern architecture, which he believes to be superior, despite an establishment centered on tradition-worship. How others in the novel relate to Roark demonstrates Rand's various archetypes of human character, all of which are variants between Roark, the author's ideal man of independent-mindedness and integrity, and what she described as the "second-handers." The complex relationships between Roark and the various kinds of individuals who assist or hinder his progress, or both, allows the novel to be at once a romantic drama and a philosophical work. By Rand's own admission, Roark is the embodiment of the human spirit and his struggle represents the triumph of individualism over collectivism.
......................................................................................................................................................
Howard Roark -- and my dad's own real-life vision and self-enactment of him -- became one of my own earliest idealistic role models.
However, without character, integrity, fairness, compassion, accountability, humanism, and the ideal of a 'fair deal' -- a 'win-win business deal for both and/or all sides' -- Ethical, Humanistic-Existential Capitalism becomes Unbridled, Narcissistic Corrupt Capitalism where collusion and exploitation and kickbacks and bribery and 'Golden Parachute Contracts and Bonuses' rule the day. Employers exploit employees. And/or unions exploit businesses. Lobbyists exploit Governments. Governments exploit Lobbyists. Sellers exploit buyers. Governments and businesses exploit taxpayers.
And we wonder why we have a recession.
Capitalism has stopped playing by ethical rules. Businesses have stopped looking for 'win-win solutions'.
Everybody who has significant monetary power at the top is looking for their own narcissistic Golden Parachute, their Golden Retirement Package. Plunder the corporation. Plunder the taxpayer.
And we wonder why we have a recession.
-- dgb, Nov. 4th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
..........................................................................................................................
Sunday, October 25, 2009
More Comments On The Similarities and Differences Between Classic Hegelian Philosophy and DGB (Post-Hegelian) Philosophy
Just finished, Oct. 25th, 2009.
A friend of mine asked me to put together an essay aimed at capturing the main energy, focus, and driving force of Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy.
This, I have aimed to do in other introductory essays in the past, coming at the 'wholistic' issue from different angles, but given the fact that it has been a while now, I do believe, since I have written an 'all-encompassing' essay of this sort that aims to link everything I have written, and want to write, about together in one clear, readable package, and due to the fact that my writing has been more sporadic and without much seeming direction and/or overall vision lately -- I would agree that such an essay is once again in order. Even my Table of Contents is outdated and again needs a 'renewal' that reflects the clarity of vision of Hegel's Hotel.
So let me start by stating as clearly as possible what Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy has aimed to do in the essays that I have written, and is still aiming to do, in the remaining essays I would like to write:
1. Firstly, Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics... is an 'open philosophical system or treatise or forum' that continues to change and evolve from day to day, as its author changes and evolves -- that's me -- and it will continue to change and evolve until the day I die. Nothing is written in stone here. As life changes, and particularly as life changes for the main author who is writing Hegel's Hotel (again, that's me), I will continue to have something to write about as I continue to process other books and authors who I have read, and/or will continue to read, and as I continue to process my own life experiences in the context of those who I will continue to come into contact with, both good and bad, and as I continue to play 'the fitting game' as Fritz Perls used to call it, which can be both good in bad as we try to 'classify' and 'label' the life structures and processes we see around us, and in my case here, aim to compare and contrast the good with the bad, the right from the wrong, and the real with the ideal...
2. Secondly, Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...looks upon its main mentor, G.W. Hegel, and his main philosophical work, 'The Phenomenology of Mind/Spirit', 1807, as the centrepiece -- as the philosophical 'Bible' if you will -- upon which everything I write gravitates from like the planets around the sun, or like ripples or waves of water that spread outward from a rock or stone that has just landed at some point and time in the middle of a large body of water -- call this, if you will, the main centrepoint, mind-body and 'multiple-bipolarity' of 'life', 'death', 'structure', 'process', 'evolution', 'non-evolution', and everything that runs in between....
3. Just because I call Hegel's classic philosophical work my 'philosophical Bible', does not mean that I treat it as a 'perfect philosophical work' nor do I view it as being like the closest thing to 'God' that any philosopher has ever written, and/or will ever write. I do not even view the Bible this way. I view the Bible in the same manner that Spinoza did, as something that was written by humans, as a philosophical/mythological treatise that has some messages that are important to read about life, man, and how we should behave, but not something that should be treated as a 'perfect treatise from God'. Both The Bible -- and Hegel's classic philosophical work, 'The Phenomenology of Mind/Spirit' -- are worthy of great respect in certain areas of endeavor, but this does not mean that either of them is beyond human criticism in those areas that these human works could/can be better...Even the Bible is nnot always 'humanistic'. Just read the story of God, Abraham, and Isaac meeting on the mountain in an intended or 'pseudo-intended' human sacrifice. Just because God 'called off Abraham at the last minute' doesn't make the story any less 'barbaric'. Nor does Abraham sacrificing a ggoat instead of his son Isaac alleviate the story in any less sadistic manner. If I was Isaac, I would be wanting to 'sacrifice' both Abraham (i.e., his father) -- and God who played the ultimate 'sadist' in this twisted series of events. Perhaps, if anything, the ultimate 'humanistic-existential' message here was for Abraham and for all of us to know when and where to separate from authoritarian orders regardless of when and where they come from -- in the name of 'humanism' when humanism separates itself from God, or God's purported 'message of authority'. This is the humanistic-existential message that DGB Philosophy takes from the story of God, Abraham, and Isaac...
4. One of the most important words in the title of Hegel's most famous philosophical work is the word 'Geist' which in German can be -- and has been -- translated into English as either 'Mind' or 'Spirit'. I usually translate the German word 'Geist' (not that I know any German) as meaning both -- i.e., like this -- 'Mind/Spirit'. To leave out the word 'Spirit' -- and its intended meaning -- in my opinion, is a grave mistake. Hegel's own high degree of both 'Abstractionism' and 'Rationalism' partly contradicts the intent of his own philosophy which I believe is to blend 'Humanistic Enlightenment' Philosophy and 'Humanistic Romantic' Philosophy in the same philosophical work -- in his classic 'dialectic triadic style': 1. thesis: Enlightenment Philosophy in the context of German Idealism'; 2. anti-thesis: Romantic Philosophy in the context of German Idealism; 3. synthesis: Classic Hegelian Philosophy in the context of German Idealism.
Now, personally, I think that Schelling did a better job of handling 'the romantic-idealistic side' of 'dialectic idealism' than Hegel did. Hegel, as a whole, functioned more from 'the neck up' in his 'rational' dialectic philosophy whereas Schelling came closer to the 'romantic idealism and wholism' of Spinoza in the direction that Schelling took 'dialectic idealism'. The primary difference between Spinoza and Schelling is Schelling's 'dialectic romanticism and pantheism' vs. Spinoza's 'monistic' version of romanticism and pantheism. I prefer Schelling's dialectic-romantic-pantheistic philosophy over Spinoza's monistic version. I have not read much of Schelling's work -- from what I have read, it lacks the comprehensive, organizational structure of Hegel's more 'rational' dialectic philosophy. But it seems that Schelling was much clearer on the full extent of his dialectic-romantic-pantheistic-spiritual vision. On this level, I give Schelling full credit and perhaps even influencing Hegel more than Hegel influenced Schelling.
In this same respect, I am critically hardest on Hegel because Hegel's dialectic romanticism and pantheism, for the most part, gets buried beneath his high degree of abstractionism and rationalism -- even to the point where his so-called 'rationalism' is not rational -- or even humanistic -- in any sense that I believe in the word 'rational' or 'humanistic' should mean. Something like God on the mountain with Abraham and Isaac. From Hegel's 'deterministic-historical-rational' point of view, the so-called rational can be 'barbaric' and visa versa (following a very controversial and much contested Hegelian quote: 'The rational is real and the real is rational.') -- the idea here being that even when the 'rational' is seemingly 'irrational', the dialectic always leads to a 'rational self-correction' that could not and/or would not have happened without the historical context of the preceding 'irrational event' that made the following 'rational-dialectic-self-correction' possible based on historical 'hindsight'.
This is the alleged 'underlying rationality' of the dialectic engagement between human irrationality and rationality eventually correcting itself in human rationality. I can partly see Hegel's 'brand of dialectic logic' at work here but still, this point of view, I strongly take issue with as I aim to see such 'impending irrationalities 'ahead of time' -- or as they are happening -- in Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy.
Likewise, with Hegel's concept of 'The Absolute'. Absolute barbarism -- in any historical context of the dialectic in evolutionary process -- still does not constitute any form of either 'rationalism' or 'humanism' in Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy. Nor does DGB Philosophy, in any way, support -- as Hegel did -- the barbaric 'will to power' of Napoleon (especially against his own Prussian-pre-German State').
Actually, I should modify that last statement. None of us is either totally good or totally bad. And likewise with Napoleon. Napoleon stabilized France from/after 'The Reign of Terror'. Napoleon also abolished serfdom and emancipated the Jews when he conquered Prussia. (Introducing Hegel, Lloyd Spencer, 1996, 2006, p. 10. Napoleon then, can fit under one of those: 'Does the end justify the means?' questions. And Napoleon might be one of those examples that Hegel was referring to where 'Napoleon's brutal behavior actually led to some 'rationality' after he was finished 'conquering' different countries. I don't support Hegel's support of Napoleon's barbaric war actions anymore than I support the overcompensatory measures taken afterwards by Prussia, pre-Germany, and Germany towards 'German Nationalism, Arrogance, Superiority -- and its own evolutionary 'National Will to Power' over 'non-German States and ethnic groups. Germany, in essence, became worse than its main pre-German national victimizer (i.e., Napoleon) who seems to have been used as a 'Subconscious, National Idealistic Role Model'. This is an example of what I call 'National Transference and Identification With The Aggressor'...
...........................................................................From the internet...
Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry, where this is not to be expected. Thus, some philosophers may hold that the Universe is really just one thing, despite its many appearances and diversities; or theology may support the view that there is one God, with many manifestations in different religions.
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Let me use the rest of this essay -- as I have also done in other essays but new material keeps coming into the forefront of my consciousness faster than I can process it all -- to compare and contrast some of the main similarities and differences between DGB (Post-Hegelian) Philosophy with Classic Hegelian Philosophy.
Put most simply, DGB Philosophy does not share Hegel's (or Fichte's, or Schelling's) enthrallment with the idea of 'The Absolute'. As much as I don't like Schopenhauer -- neither the person nor the one-sidedness of his overall 'cosmic, pessimistic, narcissistic' philosophy -- still, Schopenhauer's narcissisticly based philosophy cannot be overlooked, because everywhere we look around, we can see it exemplified in the many injustices, corruption, and wars that we see in the world today, and indeed, throughout most, if not all, of human history.
Man's perpetual greed, selfishness, and one-sided righteousness cannot be overlooked, no matter how much we indulge in the idea of 'The Absolute' or 'Absolute Knowledge' or 'Absolute Being'. Maybe these ideas are useful human ideals, maybe the dialectic -- and 'dialectic logic' -- can at different points, move us closer to these absolute ideals, but still, the dialectic just as often moves us away from these ideals as it moves us closer because the human dialectic process is fraught with individual and group 'power pushes' or 'wills to power' that are just as often, if not more often, aimed at one-sided outcomes of selfishness, greed, money, property, power, revenge, sex, and righteousness -- all of which I capture under the term 'human narcissism' than it is aimed at anything we might call 'human balance, harmony, unity, justice, democracy, equality, freedom, integrity, character, fairness, wholeness...
In short, there will always be a perpetual ongoing conflict between man's striving for balance, justice, equality, and democracy on the one hand vs. his more one-sided striving for all of the things that I have labelled above as human narcissism on the other side. This perpetual ongoing conflict -- and the dialectic process that continues to negotiate these two different sides of human nature and behavior -- will never take us to anything that we can remotely call 'The Absolute' -- unless, along Schopenhauer's line of thinking -- we call this 'Absolute Narcissism, Chaos, Corruption, and Self-Destruction'.
I am sorry to say this but 50 plus years of living on this earth have dulled my 'Enlightenment and Classic Hegelian Idealism' to the point where it is at least equally countered -- probably greater countered - by my perception of the realism of Schopenhaurian pessimism, whether we call that 'cosmic' or 'the darker side of being human'. (I remember reading Freud when he said very much the same thing.)
Thus, probably the main difference between Classic Hegelian Philosophy and Classic Hegelian Idealism is my basic, overall rejection of his concept of 'The Absolute'.
Now, this does not mean that we need to start jumping out of windows or take on an attitude of 'perpetual despair' -- a type of Schopenhaurian philosophical bleakness, and/or 'Lord of The Flies' mentality.
I read in a quote the other day -- and I am paraphrasing -- that no monument has every been erected of a 'pessimist'. I wonder if this is true. Are there no statues of 'The Sceptics', 'The Cynics', Thomas Hobbes, and/or Arthur Schopenhauer out there? Most certainly, there are monuments or statues or paintings of Sigmund Freud -- and by the end of his career at least -- Sigmund Freud was very much a 'pessimist' in terms of his not having much faith in the future of mankind. Freud had seen and experienced two World Wars.
I am looking around me in the world today at Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan...I think of AIG and a collapsing Wall Street. I think of CEO's abandoning their bankrupt companies -- or managing government-funded bankrupt companies -- and either running away with Golden Parachute Contracts, or continuing to manage a government funded bankrupt company like they should be paid like the wealthiest man on earth, I think of government and corporate lobbyism, and the human narcissism and corruption behind all levels of corporate and government politics -- and it is hard not to be pessimistic, even cynical.
Hegel's Hotel is still being built to foster and worship a particular type of human 'spirit' -- call this Hegel's 'Phenomenology of The Human Spirit' if you wish -- a particular type of Enlightenment integrity and idealism built around the ideals of reason, rationality, justice, fairness, equality, democracy, truth...in combination with a particular type of Romantic Human Idealism that can be captured in art, mythology, music, and even a Religious-Spiritual-Pantheist Idealism that embraces Humanism -- not the type of institutionalized and/or extremist-righteous religion that seeks to eliminate and destroy all of those people who are 'non-believers'...
Hegel's Hotel trumpets Hegel's main driving spirit of 'Enlightenment-Romanticism' and/or 'Humanistic-Existentialism' as developed before Hegel by such noted Enlightenment philosophers as John Locke, Adam Smith, Diderot, Montesquieu, Tom Paine, Jefferson, Rousseau, and after Hegel by the likes of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre and complemented by 'Constructive Deconstructionists' like Socrates, Sir Francis Bacon, David Hume, Voltaire, Nietzsche at his best when he wasn't going off the deep end, Foucault, and significant elements of Derrida....
Hegel's Hotel trumpets the 'Dialectic Pantheism' of philosophers and/or philosophies like Heraclitus, Lao Tse, Daoism, Schelling, even the 'Mono-Wholistic-Pantheism' of Spinoza....
And Hegel's Hotel trumpets the 'pessimistic' evolutionary wisdom and understanding of the significance of 'human narcissism', 'freedom', 'alienation', and 'the will to power' as passed through the many years to us by such noted ancient and more recent philosophers as Anaxamander, Diogenes, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida...
And throughout all of this Hegel's Hotel strives for its own 'idealistic-realistic', 'Enlightenment-Romantic', 'Humanistic-Existential balance....
DGB Philosophy, in the spirit of Hegel and his masterpiece, 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' views the dialectic as the ultimate, central, driving, both uniting and separating, force of nature and evolution.
The dialectic is a self-correcting mechanism. But it is also a self-destructing mechanism. It is both a life and a death force at the same time. It is like the contradiction of oxygen -- which acts as both the breath of life on the one hand, and the ultimate destruction of life on the other hand (through the side-effect of oxidation.)
Indeed, at least in part, the dialectic might be viewed as the ultimate contradiction, the ultimate paradox of life. Hegel has stated that any theory, any perspective, any characteristic, taken to the limit -- will ultimately self-destruct in its own self-contradiction. We use the term 'bipolarity disorder' to describe a certain biochemical and psychological illness that we used to call 'manic-depression'. And yet everything we do in life is connected to the idea of 'bipolarity'. Indeed, 'health' and 'illness' is a bipolarity. And every bipolarity is connected by a dialectic process and/or alienated by the absence of a dialectic process.
Indeed, the dialectic might be viewed as being even more fundamental to life and evolution than oxygen (air) as well as water, earth, and fire. This argument goes back to some of the earliest arguments of the Pre-Socratic, Greek philosophers (and hundreds or thousands of miles away -- I don't know my geographical distance here too well -- to philosophers like Lao Tsu and Confucius in ancient China. They were working on the same types of philosophical problems -- i.e., the origin and dynamics of the world -- and coming up with similar answers.)
While monistic philosophers like Thales, Anaxamenes, and Heralclitus each trumpeted what they believed to be the original essence of life -- i.e., water, air, or fire respectively, Anaxamander -- in a much more metaphysical but more philosophically important manner -- trumpeted the beginning of 'dialectic philosophy' -- talking about 'The Apeiron' which might be translated as either 'Chaos' or 'The Wholistic, Preorganized Universe', before 'life is split into polar opposites which compete with each other for their very existence, or at least their primary, dominant existence (for the winner) and a return to 'The Shadows' of The Apeiron (for the loser to re-group, re-energize, and re-fight another war for supremacy with its more dominant polar opposite. In such a fashion, in Anaxamander's ancient Greek thinking, day dominates while night recedes back into the Apeiron. Then night overtakes and dominates day, and day retreats back into the Shadows of the Apeiron.
As primitive as Anaxamander's argument may seem, given the example cited above, this line of thinking became the essence of Hegelian thinking which still has a dominant place in philosophy, psychology, politics, biology and evolution theory today, and indeed can be incorporated into every aspect of human thinking, behavior, and culture. This continuation of Anaxamander's thinking -- through Heraclitus, through Lao Tse (in the start of Daoism), through Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, through Schopenhauer, Marx, and Kierkegaard, through, Nietzsche, Sartre, Foucault, and Derrida, through Freud, Adler, Jung, and Fritz Perls -- is the direction of philosophical movement -- the evolution of the dialectic phenomenon and concept in both Western and Eastern Philosophy -- that Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy is both striving to historically trace and to continue to advance along its more idealistic 'Enlightenment-Romantic', 'Humanistic-Existential' path
In this last context, I will return to the German word 'Geist' which I will translate here as 'Spirit'.
Without the best of the human spirit implicit its every evolutionary development, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit -- becomes Spiritless. Lifeless. Dead. It becomes just another form of the type of 'alienation' that Hegel introduced to the many profound philosophers who he most influenced -- even as many rebelled against him, and more specifically, his 'over-abstractionism' and 'over-rationalism'.
And similarly too this is probably the most important area where I do indeed follow -- and elaborate on -- Hegel's intended German 'Dialectical-Enlightenment-Romantic-Humanistic-Existential' Idealism.
Because the same thing can be said for Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...
Without the best of the intended human spirit implicit in its every driving force, its every driving essay, Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy becomes just another philosophical treatise. Indeed, worse than just another philosophical treatise. It becomes spiritless, lifeless, alienated, humanistically and existentially -- dead.
In most of my philosophical essays I write about the need for 'homeostatic' or 'dialectic-democratic' balance between opposite, bi-polar forces and perspectives. I write about the potential and real scourge of unbridled human narcissism -- gone mad and out of control.
But in this essay, I am writing about the need to choose one human bi-polarity over another.
I am writing about the need for the soaring of the human essence and spirit -- in dialectic contact and embracement with our and each and every day existence -- over the alternative: a lifeless, spiritless, humanistic-existential death.
As I just heard coming fresh out of the mouth of another limousine driver who I work with each and every day, we chase the supposed idealism of Capitalism as we are taught it in Western Society: more individualism, more freedom, more money, more time, more commodities, more human spirit...
And paradoxically, again coming out of the mouth of the fellow driver I was talking to just yesterday, we see all around us people chasing a dream that doesn't seem to have either a happy process and/or a happy ending -- we see an American-Canadian dream that, for many or most of us, is definitely heading down the wrong life path.
We see people working more hours, some putting in 50, 60, and 70 hour work weeks, spending less time with their families, spending less time with their loved ones, we see less human spirit, we see more and more human alienation, less freedom, less time, less energy, less money, less commodities, less individualism -- except in the most alienated and negative respect of individuals being more and more lonely even in the throngs of more and more people that they connect -- but don't really connect with -- in their day to day existence.
And this is where our so-called American-Canadian Dream seems to stand right now.
Hegel's Hotel wants to take this dream down a different path.
Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy wants to help re-create 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' -- with an elaborated Enlightenment-Romantic-Humanistic-Existential component -- in man.
That is where Hegel's Hotel stands today as it moves forward in its both its construction and its evolution...
-- dgb, Oct. 25th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
....................................................................
A friend of mine asked me to put together an essay aimed at capturing the main energy, focus, and driving force of Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy.
This, I have aimed to do in other introductory essays in the past, coming at the 'wholistic' issue from different angles, but given the fact that it has been a while now, I do believe, since I have written an 'all-encompassing' essay of this sort that aims to link everything I have written, and want to write, about together in one clear, readable package, and due to the fact that my writing has been more sporadic and without much seeming direction and/or overall vision lately -- I would agree that such an essay is once again in order. Even my Table of Contents is outdated and again needs a 'renewal' that reflects the clarity of vision of Hegel's Hotel.
So let me start by stating as clearly as possible what Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy has aimed to do in the essays that I have written, and is still aiming to do, in the remaining essays I would like to write:
1. Firstly, Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics... is an 'open philosophical system or treatise or forum' that continues to change and evolve from day to day, as its author changes and evolves -- that's me -- and it will continue to change and evolve until the day I die. Nothing is written in stone here. As life changes, and particularly as life changes for the main author who is writing Hegel's Hotel (again, that's me), I will continue to have something to write about as I continue to process other books and authors who I have read, and/or will continue to read, and as I continue to process my own life experiences in the context of those who I will continue to come into contact with, both good and bad, and as I continue to play 'the fitting game' as Fritz Perls used to call it, which can be both good in bad as we try to 'classify' and 'label' the life structures and processes we see around us, and in my case here, aim to compare and contrast the good with the bad, the right from the wrong, and the real with the ideal...
2. Secondly, Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...looks upon its main mentor, G.W. Hegel, and his main philosophical work, 'The Phenomenology of Mind/Spirit', 1807, as the centrepiece -- as the philosophical 'Bible' if you will -- upon which everything I write gravitates from like the planets around the sun, or like ripples or waves of water that spread outward from a rock or stone that has just landed at some point and time in the middle of a large body of water -- call this, if you will, the main centrepoint, mind-body and 'multiple-bipolarity' of 'life', 'death', 'structure', 'process', 'evolution', 'non-evolution', and everything that runs in between....
3. Just because I call Hegel's classic philosophical work my 'philosophical Bible', does not mean that I treat it as a 'perfect philosophical work' nor do I view it as being like the closest thing to 'God' that any philosopher has ever written, and/or will ever write. I do not even view the Bible this way. I view the Bible in the same manner that Spinoza did, as something that was written by humans, as a philosophical/mythological treatise that has some messages that are important to read about life, man, and how we should behave, but not something that should be treated as a 'perfect treatise from God'. Both The Bible -- and Hegel's classic philosophical work, 'The Phenomenology of Mind/Spirit' -- are worthy of great respect in certain areas of endeavor, but this does not mean that either of them is beyond human criticism in those areas that these human works could/can be better...Even the Bible is nnot always 'humanistic'. Just read the story of God, Abraham, and Isaac meeting on the mountain in an intended or 'pseudo-intended' human sacrifice. Just because God 'called off Abraham at the last minute' doesn't make the story any less 'barbaric'. Nor does Abraham sacrificing a ggoat instead of his son Isaac alleviate the story in any less sadistic manner. If I was Isaac, I would be wanting to 'sacrifice' both Abraham (i.e., his father) -- and God who played the ultimate 'sadist' in this twisted series of events. Perhaps, if anything, the ultimate 'humanistic-existential' message here was for Abraham and for all of us to know when and where to separate from authoritarian orders regardless of when and where they come from -- in the name of 'humanism' when humanism separates itself from God, or God's purported 'message of authority'. This is the humanistic-existential message that DGB Philosophy takes from the story of God, Abraham, and Isaac...
4. One of the most important words in the title of Hegel's most famous philosophical work is the word 'Geist' which in German can be -- and has been -- translated into English as either 'Mind' or 'Spirit'. I usually translate the German word 'Geist' (not that I know any German) as meaning both -- i.e., like this -- 'Mind/Spirit'. To leave out the word 'Spirit' -- and its intended meaning -- in my opinion, is a grave mistake. Hegel's own high degree of both 'Abstractionism' and 'Rationalism' partly contradicts the intent of his own philosophy which I believe is to blend 'Humanistic Enlightenment' Philosophy and 'Humanistic Romantic' Philosophy in the same philosophical work -- in his classic 'dialectic triadic style': 1. thesis: Enlightenment Philosophy in the context of German Idealism'; 2. anti-thesis: Romantic Philosophy in the context of German Idealism; 3. synthesis: Classic Hegelian Philosophy in the context of German Idealism.
Now, personally, I think that Schelling did a better job of handling 'the romantic-idealistic side' of 'dialectic idealism' than Hegel did. Hegel, as a whole, functioned more from 'the neck up' in his 'rational' dialectic philosophy whereas Schelling came closer to the 'romantic idealism and wholism' of Spinoza in the direction that Schelling took 'dialectic idealism'. The primary difference between Spinoza and Schelling is Schelling's 'dialectic romanticism and pantheism' vs. Spinoza's 'monistic' version of romanticism and pantheism. I prefer Schelling's dialectic-romantic-pantheistic philosophy over Spinoza's monistic version. I have not read much of Schelling's work -- from what I have read, it lacks the comprehensive, organizational structure of Hegel's more 'rational' dialectic philosophy. But it seems that Schelling was much clearer on the full extent of his dialectic-romantic-pantheistic-spiritual vision. On this level, I give Schelling full credit and perhaps even influencing Hegel more than Hegel influenced Schelling.
In this same respect, I am critically hardest on Hegel because Hegel's dialectic romanticism and pantheism, for the most part, gets buried beneath his high degree of abstractionism and rationalism -- even to the point where his so-called 'rationalism' is not rational -- or even humanistic -- in any sense that I believe in the word 'rational' or 'humanistic' should mean. Something like God on the mountain with Abraham and Isaac. From Hegel's 'deterministic-historical-rational' point of view, the so-called rational can be 'barbaric' and visa versa (following a very controversial and much contested Hegelian quote: 'The rational is real and the real is rational.') -- the idea here being that even when the 'rational' is seemingly 'irrational', the dialectic always leads to a 'rational self-correction' that could not and/or would not have happened without the historical context of the preceding 'irrational event' that made the following 'rational-dialectic-self-correction' possible based on historical 'hindsight'.
This is the alleged 'underlying rationality' of the dialectic engagement between human irrationality and rationality eventually correcting itself in human rationality. I can partly see Hegel's 'brand of dialectic logic' at work here but still, this point of view, I strongly take issue with as I aim to see such 'impending irrationalities 'ahead of time' -- or as they are happening -- in Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy.
Likewise, with Hegel's concept of 'The Absolute'. Absolute barbarism -- in any historical context of the dialectic in evolutionary process -- still does not constitute any form of either 'rationalism' or 'humanism' in Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy. Nor does DGB Philosophy, in any way, support -- as Hegel did -- the barbaric 'will to power' of Napoleon (especially against his own Prussian-pre-German State').
Actually, I should modify that last statement. None of us is either totally good or totally bad. And likewise with Napoleon. Napoleon stabilized France from/after 'The Reign of Terror'. Napoleon also abolished serfdom and emancipated the Jews when he conquered Prussia. (Introducing Hegel, Lloyd Spencer, 1996, 2006, p. 10. Napoleon then, can fit under one of those: 'Does the end justify the means?' questions. And Napoleon might be one of those examples that Hegel was referring to where 'Napoleon's brutal behavior actually led to some 'rationality' after he was finished 'conquering' different countries. I don't support Hegel's support of Napoleon's barbaric war actions anymore than I support the overcompensatory measures taken afterwards by Prussia, pre-Germany, and Germany towards 'German Nationalism, Arrogance, Superiority -- and its own evolutionary 'National Will to Power' over 'non-German States and ethnic groups. Germany, in essence, became worse than its main pre-German national victimizer (i.e., Napoleon) who seems to have been used as a 'Subconscious, National Idealistic Role Model'. This is an example of what I call 'National Transference and Identification With The Aggressor'...
...........................................................................From the internet...
Monism is any philosophical view which holds that there is unity in a given field of inquiry, where this is not to be expected. Thus, some philosophers may hold that the Universe is really just one thing, despite its many appearances and diversities; or theology may support the view that there is one God, with many manifestations in different religions.
.................................................................................................................................................
Let me use the rest of this essay -- as I have also done in other essays but new material keeps coming into the forefront of my consciousness faster than I can process it all -- to compare and contrast some of the main similarities and differences between DGB (Post-Hegelian) Philosophy with Classic Hegelian Philosophy.
Put most simply, DGB Philosophy does not share Hegel's (or Fichte's, or Schelling's) enthrallment with the idea of 'The Absolute'. As much as I don't like Schopenhauer -- neither the person nor the one-sidedness of his overall 'cosmic, pessimistic, narcissistic' philosophy -- still, Schopenhauer's narcissisticly based philosophy cannot be overlooked, because everywhere we look around, we can see it exemplified in the many injustices, corruption, and wars that we see in the world today, and indeed, throughout most, if not all, of human history.
Man's perpetual greed, selfishness, and one-sided righteousness cannot be overlooked, no matter how much we indulge in the idea of 'The Absolute' or 'Absolute Knowledge' or 'Absolute Being'. Maybe these ideas are useful human ideals, maybe the dialectic -- and 'dialectic logic' -- can at different points, move us closer to these absolute ideals, but still, the dialectic just as often moves us away from these ideals as it moves us closer because the human dialectic process is fraught with individual and group 'power pushes' or 'wills to power' that are just as often, if not more often, aimed at one-sided outcomes of selfishness, greed, money, property, power, revenge, sex, and righteousness -- all of which I capture under the term 'human narcissism' than it is aimed at anything we might call 'human balance, harmony, unity, justice, democracy, equality, freedom, integrity, character, fairness, wholeness...
In short, there will always be a perpetual ongoing conflict between man's striving for balance, justice, equality, and democracy on the one hand vs. his more one-sided striving for all of the things that I have labelled above as human narcissism on the other side. This perpetual ongoing conflict -- and the dialectic process that continues to negotiate these two different sides of human nature and behavior -- will never take us to anything that we can remotely call 'The Absolute' -- unless, along Schopenhauer's line of thinking -- we call this 'Absolute Narcissism, Chaos, Corruption, and Self-Destruction'.
I am sorry to say this but 50 plus years of living on this earth have dulled my 'Enlightenment and Classic Hegelian Idealism' to the point where it is at least equally countered -- probably greater countered - by my perception of the realism of Schopenhaurian pessimism, whether we call that 'cosmic' or 'the darker side of being human'. (I remember reading Freud when he said very much the same thing.)
Thus, probably the main difference between Classic Hegelian Philosophy and Classic Hegelian Idealism is my basic, overall rejection of his concept of 'The Absolute'.
Now, this does not mean that we need to start jumping out of windows or take on an attitude of 'perpetual despair' -- a type of Schopenhaurian philosophical bleakness, and/or 'Lord of The Flies' mentality.
I read in a quote the other day -- and I am paraphrasing -- that no monument has every been erected of a 'pessimist'. I wonder if this is true. Are there no statues of 'The Sceptics', 'The Cynics', Thomas Hobbes, and/or Arthur Schopenhauer out there? Most certainly, there are monuments or statues or paintings of Sigmund Freud -- and by the end of his career at least -- Sigmund Freud was very much a 'pessimist' in terms of his not having much faith in the future of mankind. Freud had seen and experienced two World Wars.
I am looking around me in the world today at Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan...I think of AIG and a collapsing Wall Street. I think of CEO's abandoning their bankrupt companies -- or managing government-funded bankrupt companies -- and either running away with Golden Parachute Contracts, or continuing to manage a government funded bankrupt company like they should be paid like the wealthiest man on earth, I think of government and corporate lobbyism, and the human narcissism and corruption behind all levels of corporate and government politics -- and it is hard not to be pessimistic, even cynical.
Hegel's Hotel is still being built to foster and worship a particular type of human 'spirit' -- call this Hegel's 'Phenomenology of The Human Spirit' if you wish -- a particular type of Enlightenment integrity and idealism built around the ideals of reason, rationality, justice, fairness, equality, democracy, truth...in combination with a particular type of Romantic Human Idealism that can be captured in art, mythology, music, and even a Religious-Spiritual-Pantheist Idealism that embraces Humanism -- not the type of institutionalized and/or extremist-righteous religion that seeks to eliminate and destroy all of those people who are 'non-believers'...
Hegel's Hotel trumpets Hegel's main driving spirit of 'Enlightenment-Romanticism' and/or 'Humanistic-Existentialism' as developed before Hegel by such noted Enlightenment philosophers as John Locke, Adam Smith, Diderot, Montesquieu, Tom Paine, Jefferson, Rousseau, and after Hegel by the likes of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, and Sartre and complemented by 'Constructive Deconstructionists' like Socrates, Sir Francis Bacon, David Hume, Voltaire, Nietzsche at his best when he wasn't going off the deep end, Foucault, and significant elements of Derrida....
Hegel's Hotel trumpets the 'Dialectic Pantheism' of philosophers and/or philosophies like Heraclitus, Lao Tse, Daoism, Schelling, even the 'Mono-Wholistic-Pantheism' of Spinoza....
And Hegel's Hotel trumpets the 'pessimistic' evolutionary wisdom and understanding of the significance of 'human narcissism', 'freedom', 'alienation', and 'the will to power' as passed through the many years to us by such noted ancient and more recent philosophers as Anaxamander, Diogenes, Hobbes, Machiavelli, Hegel, Dostoevsky, Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Foucault, Derrida...
And throughout all of this Hegel's Hotel strives for its own 'idealistic-realistic', 'Enlightenment-Romantic', 'Humanistic-Existential balance....
DGB Philosophy, in the spirit of Hegel and his masterpiece, 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' views the dialectic as the ultimate, central, driving, both uniting and separating, force of nature and evolution.
The dialectic is a self-correcting mechanism. But it is also a self-destructing mechanism. It is both a life and a death force at the same time. It is like the contradiction of oxygen -- which acts as both the breath of life on the one hand, and the ultimate destruction of life on the other hand (through the side-effect of oxidation.)
Indeed, at least in part, the dialectic might be viewed as the ultimate contradiction, the ultimate paradox of life. Hegel has stated that any theory, any perspective, any characteristic, taken to the limit -- will ultimately self-destruct in its own self-contradiction. We use the term 'bipolarity disorder' to describe a certain biochemical and psychological illness that we used to call 'manic-depression'. And yet everything we do in life is connected to the idea of 'bipolarity'. Indeed, 'health' and 'illness' is a bipolarity. And every bipolarity is connected by a dialectic process and/or alienated by the absence of a dialectic process.
Indeed, the dialectic might be viewed as being even more fundamental to life and evolution than oxygen (air) as well as water, earth, and fire. This argument goes back to some of the earliest arguments of the Pre-Socratic, Greek philosophers (and hundreds or thousands of miles away -- I don't know my geographical distance here too well -- to philosophers like Lao Tsu and Confucius in ancient China. They were working on the same types of philosophical problems -- i.e., the origin and dynamics of the world -- and coming up with similar answers.)
While monistic philosophers like Thales, Anaxamenes, and Heralclitus each trumpeted what they believed to be the original essence of life -- i.e., water, air, or fire respectively, Anaxamander -- in a much more metaphysical but more philosophically important manner -- trumpeted the beginning of 'dialectic philosophy' -- talking about 'The Apeiron' which might be translated as either 'Chaos' or 'The Wholistic, Preorganized Universe', before 'life is split into polar opposites which compete with each other for their very existence, or at least their primary, dominant existence (for the winner) and a return to 'The Shadows' of The Apeiron (for the loser to re-group, re-energize, and re-fight another war for supremacy with its more dominant polar opposite. In such a fashion, in Anaxamander's ancient Greek thinking, day dominates while night recedes back into the Apeiron. Then night overtakes and dominates day, and day retreats back into the Shadows of the Apeiron.
As primitive as Anaxamander's argument may seem, given the example cited above, this line of thinking became the essence of Hegelian thinking which still has a dominant place in philosophy, psychology, politics, biology and evolution theory today, and indeed can be incorporated into every aspect of human thinking, behavior, and culture. This continuation of Anaxamander's thinking -- through Heraclitus, through Lao Tse (in the start of Daoism), through Kant, Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel, through Schopenhauer, Marx, and Kierkegaard, through, Nietzsche, Sartre, Foucault, and Derrida, through Freud, Adler, Jung, and Fritz Perls -- is the direction of philosophical movement -- the evolution of the dialectic phenomenon and concept in both Western and Eastern Philosophy -- that Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy is both striving to historically trace and to continue to advance along its more idealistic 'Enlightenment-Romantic', 'Humanistic-Existential' path
In this last context, I will return to the German word 'Geist' which I will translate here as 'Spirit'.
Without the best of the human spirit implicit its every evolutionary development, Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit -- becomes Spiritless. Lifeless. Dead. It becomes just another form of the type of 'alienation' that Hegel introduced to the many profound philosophers who he most influenced -- even as many rebelled against him, and more specifically, his 'over-abstractionism' and 'over-rationalism'.
And similarly too this is probably the most important area where I do indeed follow -- and elaborate on -- Hegel's intended German 'Dialectical-Enlightenment-Romantic-Humanistic-Existential' Idealism.
Because the same thing can be said for Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...
Without the best of the intended human spirit implicit in its every driving force, its every driving essay, Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy becomes just another philosophical treatise. Indeed, worse than just another philosophical treatise. It becomes spiritless, lifeless, alienated, humanistically and existentially -- dead.
In most of my philosophical essays I write about the need for 'homeostatic' or 'dialectic-democratic' balance between opposite, bi-polar forces and perspectives. I write about the potential and real scourge of unbridled human narcissism -- gone mad and out of control.
But in this essay, I am writing about the need to choose one human bi-polarity over another.
I am writing about the need for the soaring of the human essence and spirit -- in dialectic contact and embracement with our and each and every day existence -- over the alternative: a lifeless, spiritless, humanistic-existential death.
As I just heard coming fresh out of the mouth of another limousine driver who I work with each and every day, we chase the supposed idealism of Capitalism as we are taught it in Western Society: more individualism, more freedom, more money, more time, more commodities, more human spirit...
And paradoxically, again coming out of the mouth of the fellow driver I was talking to just yesterday, we see all around us people chasing a dream that doesn't seem to have either a happy process and/or a happy ending -- we see an American-Canadian dream that, for many or most of us, is definitely heading down the wrong life path.
We see people working more hours, some putting in 50, 60, and 70 hour work weeks, spending less time with their families, spending less time with their loved ones, we see less human spirit, we see more and more human alienation, less freedom, less time, less energy, less money, less commodities, less individualism -- except in the most alienated and negative respect of individuals being more and more lonely even in the throngs of more and more people that they connect -- but don't really connect with -- in their day to day existence.
And this is where our so-called American-Canadian Dream seems to stand right now.
Hegel's Hotel wants to take this dream down a different path.
Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy wants to help re-create 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' -- with an elaborated Enlightenment-Romantic-Humanistic-Existential component -- in man.
That is where Hegel's Hotel stands today as it moves forward in its both its construction and its evolution...
-- dgb, Oct. 25th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism,
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
....................................................................
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