Truth is a White Lie

@Subjectivity9,

Subjectivity9;113548 wrote:

I have run into words from other cultures that they claim had no appropriate translation into English. And so we have Shakespeare and yourself coining new words out of necessity.

Although I must say that Archetype has a Platonic flavor that comes close to what I have felt in my own life. Whereas an ideal almost makes me think that I am in charge somehow. Archetypes move us beyond our own personal will.

I am not crazy about Freud, but will give him another look under your guidance. So please, what is Freud's "ego ideal?"

I must admit that my personal ideal goes beyond the ego, and so I am not so much trying to perfect the ego, as see my way out of it. I see the ego as limiting.

I am not advocating that we junk the ego, by any means, as it is the correct tool for the job of living as a human being. But, I do think that it is possible that we are more.

Are you familiar with Hermes, the jokester/trickster? (The holy fool.) He keeps showing up in multiple religions throughout the world, although dressed in different costumes and bodies; a coyote for the Indians. He opens doors. (Metaphorically)

Thanks for open some of my doors.

S9

Freud has to be carefully sifted. He has the faults of his time. Still, he popularized depth-psychology, and decentered the ego for us. Folks started looking beneath the surface. So Freud cleared a path for Jung and many others, opened the door for them. Freud was the atheist type. He and Jung split up because Freud didn't want to think about the archetypes that power religion. Freud was allergic to the occult. Lacan is a strange twist on Freud. Obscure writer but he has some great ideas. There's a site called No Subject I recommend.

To me, and I think Jung, the ego is just the conscious part of the self. So an ego-ideal would be your conscious hope for yourself. It sounds like your ego-ideal is to transcend the ego. I relate to this. This is why we are both interested in Archetypes, I suspect. Because there's a power there that one can feel. In fact, Jung defines the archetypes as numinous, which just means emotional. But he wanted to stress the peculiarity of this emotion, so he used a latinate term.

I suppose I needed a term like "meta-ideal" for this forum in order to talk to people who didn't know what archetypes were.

Yes, I am familiar with Hermes. Jung writes about him. He's a great figure. He's like the bridge between the ego and the unconscious? I think he figures largely in alchemy too. Ever read Jung's Alchemical Studies? He interprets the influence of Archetypes in their work. The Philosopher's Stone was another Christ myth, but different and in some ways better. Alchemical literature is rich and mysterious. Jung is such a master of details. He has studied with such passion. He can connect some dots.

I completely agree that the ego is limiting. Freud use the German "Ich" for ego. So it should have been translated into "I" instead of Ego. Ego is deceptive because it sounds more like an object. The early translator went for a Latin jargon. The id is the it. Isn't "it" more mysterious? Freud wrote a poem of the psyche using pronouns. How ascetic is that? I think of the abstract painting of the time. Malevich's black square. It all hooks up. Also Schoenberg. For me it's important to recognize that almost all abstract language is secretly figurative. I felt quite empowered when this clicked for me. Freud's "I" "it" and "above-I" are exceptions to this. He used pronouns and a prefix. But so much of philosophy and psychology use abstractions whose etymologies reveal a figurative root, if we trace far enough back. We're still using hieroglyphs. We've just stacked them so high it's hard to see it.

As always, it's pleasure talking with you.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo,

When you say decentered, you mean he got us looking at the subconscious as our true center, am I correct? (Sorry, you are more versed in this area.)

I personally would like to decenter the subconscious, which seems like a dead end.

To me the subconscious is a little bit like any belief system where you cannot witness it personally, and must have faith. Can you say “field-day” for speculation?

I have my own personal “Presence” as my center, and am able to constantly witness this.

With “Presence,” too, it begins to become apparent at first by looking below the surface. But at some point with increase sensitivity to the more subtle aspects of our Being, it becomes obvious all of the time…in your face.

I was unfamiliar with Lacan and went off to read about him. He does seem to have an understanding of the ego, although I can not attest to all of his facts in this area, and so am left taking his word for a great deal. Which always makes me uncomfortable, because the human imagination is so very fertile.

I prefer, at this point in my life, to move along step by step, only swallowing those things of which I can personally witness, or of which make an obvious sense, knowing what I know thus far.

For instance, I remember my kitten coming upon a mirror, and being totally surprised to see another cat in the room, (perhaps because he couldn’t smell him). He then commenced to look even close at the reflection, smell it (to no avail), and even to go so far as to look behind that mysterious mirror. Being an intelligent animal, he finally got it. That it wasn’t another cat. Whatever else he got I cannot imagine. I seriously doubt, however that this created any need in him for an ego self. But, I could be wrong. ; ^ )

Freud was also allergic to any one moving ahead him, even if they were right, and displacing him from center stage. I believe that Jung was head and shoulders above the fellow, and Freud knew it.

I would transcend the ego by understanding that the ego was not my most essential identity, and merely a tool. I would also transcend Archetypes.

I don’t believe Archetypes are emotional, but must confess I do not yet know what they are. They come closer to fate or destiny, if you will. Perhaps you know better than I in this.

No, I have not read Jung’s Alchemical Studies. Care to share some of its best?

By the way, do you think “myths” are synonymous with fairy tales, in that they are not real?

I love details to, (AKA subtle facts), like Jung, if they are details that travel more deeply into understanding, and are not just minutia that floats on the surface.

I am not sure what Alchemical Literature is. I usually associate that word (Alchemical) with Shamans. Am I warm?

I used to believe that all language that touched upon the mysterious was kind of a puzzle, like the Koans in Zen. Now I believe that language is only a good tool in describing a shared experience. For instance if someone has not seen a blue sky (blind from birth) it is the very devil to describe it to him.

Later,
S9

@Reconstructo,

Ego is I...In Greek...

@Reconstructo,

Huh, thanks for that Fido. : ^ )

I have a very wise friend, who called the most essential self (AKA Spiritual Self) the "I Am." This shows up in Christain Mysticism, alot.

S9

@Reconstructo,

I love that line from the movie Slaughter House Five, where a man refering to the Hero says: I could cut a better man out of a man...

We don't really get the essential self by cutting away other parts we think inessential... All that ego and id, super ego and sit on the porch ego does not describe man, or individual man... What benefit has come out of all that psychojargon...Have they really cured mental illness, or have they only created a niche...

@Subjectivity9,

Subjectivity9;113798 wrote:

To me the subconscious is a little bit like any belief system where you cannot witness it personally, and must have faith. Can you say "field-day" for speculation?

The unconscious is a hypothesis used to explain observations. It's a good one, too. It's the source of dreams, religion, etc., if you ask Jung. Also where are your memories when you aren't remembering them? To deny the unconscious is to say that your current conscious mind is the whole of your psyche.
The ego is the tip of an iceberg, if you ask Freud or Jung.

---------- Post added 12-23-2009 at 04:37 PM ----------

Subjectivity9;113798 wrote:

I don't believe Archetypes are emotional, but must confess I do not yet know what they are. They come closer to fate or destiny, if you will. Perhaps you know better than I in this.

We are all free to use words how we like. When Jung uses "Archetype", he stresses their numinous. A young man falls in love by means of the Anima archetype. Religious experience, for Jung, is a response to the Self/Totality Archetype. Jesus and Buddha the masks of these Archetypes, their contingent content. The ego is drawn toward fullness. I've seen what Archetypes, in the Jungian sense, can do..

---------- Post added 12-23-2009 at 04:39 PM ----------

Subjectivity9;113798 wrote:

I would transcend the ego by understanding that the ego was not my most essential identity, and merely a tool. I would also transcend Archetypes.

I can appreciate your attitude. But in my view, our desire to transcend is in response to the Self archetype. I see in humans all over a certain plan to transcend. THe plans vary. The general intent is universal. Look on this forum. We see contingent ideals in action. We can infer a meta-ideal or Archetype behind them. Of course I'm not desperate to prove this. Perhaps it's useful for some and not for others.

---------- Post added 12-23-2009 at 04:43 PM ----------

Subjectivity9;113798 wrote:

I love details to, (AKA subtle facts), like Jung, if they are details that travel more deeply into understanding, and are not just minutia that floats on the surface.

For me, the surest generalizations are founded upon many details. Jung considered himself a scientist, and therefore presented an abundance of evidence. Of course, I've always been the type who's impatient for the thesis, so I could compare it with my experience.

---------- Post added 12-23-2009 at 04:44 PM ----------

Subjectivity9;113798 wrote:

By the way, do you think "myths" are synonymous with fairy tales, in that they are not real?

I think they are only real symbolically. But the best ones are very real in this sense. A good lie can change the world more than a useless truth.

---------- Post added 12-23-2009 at 04:47 PM ----------

Fido;113869 wrote:

... What benefit has come out of all that psychojargon...Have they really cured mental illness, or have they only created a niche...

Good point. A corrupt person could make a buck or two on jargon. Happens all the time. But Jung was a sincere man, even if he tended to get tangled up in a few of his female patients. He was a scientist trying to understand religion and man's symbolic response in general. He offers a mental model of the psyche that explains religion, as well as other things. His earliest work, if I remember, involved dementia praecox.

@Reconstructo,

Jung???The dog... Do you suppose that cured any body???

Nietzsche's later work involved that same condition...

@Reconstructo,

Jung has been valuable for me. It's not just therapy but a science of the psyche. To tell me that Jung is worthless is like telling me that sex doesn't feel good.

You tend to reject religion as simply fraud, correct? But Jung examines religion from another angle, as the spontaneous creation of man. Man has a religious "instinct" and this is manifested by his response to certain myths/symbols.

Ecce Homo is a messed up book, yes. He was probably suffering the brain disease that killed his father. The syphilis may have been a rumor inspired by the Nazi's adoption of Nietzsche. But Ecce Homo still has valuable passages.

@Reconstructo,

Fido,

We don’t cut out parts of a man that we think are inessential. We cut out the part that we finally come to realize were pretend parts, or illusions, or unreal. It is a sort of a thinking man’s anti-psychotic, but using reason and insight instead of chemicals, or electric shock

What benefit has come of physical medicine? There are very few real cures at this point in human history. We deal basically, for the most part, with symptoms in order to alleviate SOME suffering.

But, let me point out that psychology is not merely about cures. Psychology is also one more avenue that moves us with vigilant attention, towards wisdom. Should we not try to understand our selves?

Granted everything man touches can be used to make a buck, and to grab privilege. But, lets not become so cynical of man’s purposes and weaknesses, that we stop trying to use these very same things that can be misused, also more wisely.

Peace,
S9

@Reconstructo,

The psychology of Freud needs to meet the razor of Occam...

@Reconstructo,

For me, to criticize psychology is to practice something like "depth-philosophy." Really, it's all psychology, for the criticism of psychology is one more aspect of the psyche, and one more thought to investigate.

To describe abstract language, which is made of trope, we use abstract language. which is made of trope. All we do is line up dominoes, associate words in a negative or positive manner. We use metaphors to describe our use of metaphors. So it's all one subject, I think, if one "zooms out" to see that it's all "soft-science," figurative language.

@Reconstructo,

It is too easy easy to divide the psyche along with the mind... To base the spiritual on the material is to say that other divisions exist, structural division...It is too easy to define most mental conditions, even happiness as the result of genetics, environment, or accident... To define the problems of psychology as some sort of spiritual problem is like the ancient inbalance of the humors being the cause of disease...

If Freud gave us a certain power it was to Choose ones self within self self..Who shall I be today; Ego, or super ego, or perhaps, little Id...I see the question thus: How will you, the man of myth and magic within you resolve yourself within society... I do not doubt that morals are at work with in each person... I do doubt that the mind as a myth, and as a spiritual form can be divided as Freud and others think...

We are are what we have always been.... We have the nose of a fish and the brain of a monkey all within our minds... We live in large and complex societies demanding different levels of interaction from all of us...It is no wonder that the market place can become a terror for some, because no one in their right mind can reason to a ratio...They have lost perspective, and how does the division of the psyche give that sight???

To be and be conscious is to be able to balance self with society... We have to see ourselves as seen, to imagine our behavior before we act...We need to find equity, not pushing harder than the load, and not riding it...The dialectic goes on in every mind, mythic or not... To presume a self is to presume another, and it is in the light of others, in our relationships that we live...

In the heart of our little monkey brains casting about in the shadows for danger there lurks a lion... Because we can conceive of it we can be it, and yet we fear, and need love all the same... We are what we have always wanted to be, and are always what we were... The child still lives in you with the magician, physician, and priest...Because we can play out our reality in advance of meeting it, we have ultimate control; and yet the complexity that makes concepts possible gives us the power to drag along personal baggage... And that comnplexity comes with the brains we have, overgrown onto earlier growths...

So what we are becomes an interplay of culture and community on a mass of nerves that reaches back to the dawn of life... You cannot divide people as their minds are, nor divide humans from humanity... Modern society has since the age of honor divided man from society and conflicted him within his conception of self... If you can judge from the Native Americans their society suffered a fair degree of hysteria...Yet; they were also a society under attack, threatened with anhilation, and with another society advanced enough to do it...

Why is madness of one sort or another so common to us??? Look at France before Leroy lost his head... Wasn't there enough madness in that time as judged by their morals... Look at how fast they moved to the Guillotine...Was that all their repressed desire for justice coming to light; or is that how the madness of failed societies is played out, in public, in spectacle, in the coloseum, and in blood...

That people did not just kill of their royalty, but some of their best, they drew blood all over France, and then, all over Europe..It is no wonder that Freud arrived when he did, in fact he was late...Same for Nietzsche, or Baudelaire...The time makes the man... And hysteria, this tortured introspection, this searching after the what is wrong with me, the self doubt that is only the doubt of a people in the morals of their whole society had become epidemic in his day...That is what luxury has bought us...That is the end of a money economy; to judge self and others by their net worth instead of their character...

@Fido,

Fido;114024 wrote:

Why is madness of one sort or another so common to us???

For one thing, we tend to feed the mad. Also, as we advance technologically, we create an environment more and more different than the one that man evolved to survive in. We are crowded into cities. Our hierarchies are less natural...

But the real theme of this thread, is that truth is a white lie. Why is there so much disagreement if there is one ethical truth? By white lie I mean "right" lie. We found our self-esteem largely on an ethic. Good = kind. Good = rich. Good = smart. Good = sexually attractive. We mix and match and get quite complex with our details. We attach ourselves to certain parties, themes, ideals. Everyone ends up with something as idiosyncratic as a fingernail, but there's a structure behind it.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo;114136 wrote:

For one thing, we tend to feed the mad. Also, as we advance technologically, we create an environment more and more different than the one that man evolved to survive in. We are crowded into cities. Our hierarchies are less natural...

But the real theme of this thread, is that truth is a white lie. Why is there so much disagreement if there is one ethical truth? By white lie I mean "right" lie. We found our self-esteem largely on an ethic. Good = kind. Good = rich. Good = smart. Good = sexually attractive. We mix and match and get quite complex with our details. We attach ourselves to certain parties, themes, ideals. Everyone ends up with something as idiosyncratic as a fingernail, but there's a structure behind it.

All truth is ethical, and there may only be one, but every single person has a piece of it...

@Reconstructo,

Don't you feel that your view is quite different from many on this forum? You and I have our preferred areas of study. And then all the others..how different they are. Some don't care for politics at all. For me, this is interesting. Some hate religion. Some love religion. Some lean subjective. Some lean objective. It seems that the mind is not unlike the fingerprint.

Sure, we (humans in general) overlap ethically in many ways, but look at the differences! Distribution of wealth is an obvious thing. But abortion, gay marriage, animal rights, etc. etc. Can we find someone who doesn't think they are right? How can opposite viewpoints both be right? In a way, they can, but not in the usual way.

I say that what we believe is part of our reality. Some beliefs help us, and these are white lies.

@Reconstructo,

I never confuse philosophy with democracy...

The fact is that everyone is right...You never find anyone not doing according to their sense of self which also is in accord with their view of truth...People speak and act on their version of truth, and the great problem of changing minds is that you must change a person's view of truth... And; there will always be those who compartmentalize their views of truth...They may hold great contradictions, one of certain knowledge, and one of faith that they never resolve, and do not think to... But; while that sort or numerous, they are not in the majority..From what I can tell...The truth is not just what people tell, but what they are...as they see themselves...Even Hermann Gorring called himself True Hermann...

@Fido,

Fido;114144 wrote:

I never confuse philosophy with democracy...

The fact is that everyone is right...You never find anyone not doing according to their sense of self which also is in accord with their view of truth...People speak and act on their version of truth, and the great problem of changing minds is that you must change a person's view of truth...

I agree. I would add that it's difficult indeed to reprogram human beings, but sometimes it's accomplished, by a Hitler or a Buddha. This is where persuasion comes in. This is why I say that reason is rhetoric, proof is persuasion.
Persuade traces back to the word push. We push folks. Our words are tools for manipulation. Of self and others. Sometimes well-intentioned, sometimes not.

@Reconstructo,

Reconstructo,

To criticize or doubt can be a good thing, only if used correctly. However, if someone uses it as a tool for slamming closed a door on anything that doesn’t please you at first sight, or anything that makes you uncomfortable, or anything that contradicts your own present paradigm, it can just keep you stuck in the quick sand of a closed (narrow) mind.

There is absolutely nothing that can’t be misused.

The wish to agree with others can also serve as a dead end.

Unfortunately, many people who wish to appear clever (to others and themselves) will criticize, simply because it is so much easier than coming up with anything new themselves. Then criticism is unproductive, and merely causes division.

So we cannot give our wholesale approval to anything. Don't you think?

S9

@Subjectivity9,

Subjectivity9;114214 wrote:

Reconstructo,

To criticize or doubt can be a good thing, only if used correctly. However, if someone uses it as a tool for slamming closed a door on anything that doesn't please you at first sight, or anything that makes you uncomfortable, or anything that contradicts your own present paradigm, it can just keep you stuck in the quick sand of a closed (narrow) mind.

There is absolutely nothing that can't be misused.

The wish to agree with others can also serve as a dead end.

Unfortunately, many people who wish to appear clever (to others and themselves) will criticize, simply because it is so much easier than coming up with anything new themselves. Then criticism is unproductive, and merely causes division.

So we cannot give our wholesale approval to anything. Don't you think?

S9

Sure, doubt can function as a faith. To say that something functions as a faith is not to attack it, for that would be a kind of faith that faith was bad.
When you say that criticism is sometimes unproductive, this is also a form of criticism.
Yes, many folks do remain in their quicksand, but quicksand is relative to enlightenment and subjective truth. The idea is to keep an open mind. To be truly open -minded is to consider the advantages of a closed mind.
Maybe I bring in too much Oscar Wilde-type paradox, but it amuses me. Idea is malleable. We can make discoveries by wiring it backwards. For me, it's fun.

@Fido,

Fido;113953 wrote:

The psychology of Freud needs to meet the razor of Occam...

That'll be a close shave.

---------- Post added 12-25-2009 at 04:13 PM ----------

Reconstructo;114216 wrote:

For me, it's fun.

I suppose you are not posting so that you alone can read your posts. So, how about for your readers? If any.

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