Ten Essential DGB Philosophical Principles Pertaining to The 'Multiple-Bi-Polar' Nature of Man and Life

A) Introduction


This is new DGB Philosophical-Psychological Thinking as of today, October 11th, 2008 -- this essay deriving from my last essay on this subject matter exactly one month ago, Sept. 11th, 2008). See my September 11th essay called:

DGB Post-Hegelian 'Sun-Planet Theory' and The Sixteen Idols of Philosophical-Lifestyle-Personality Extremism (Building From Sir Francis Bacon's Four Idols)


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B) Gods, Myths, Philosophers, and Heroes; b) Archetypes; c) Self-Energy Centres or Ego-States; and d) The Inter-Relationship Between Projection and Introjection

The rationale and logic for this line of thought runs something like this:

1. Gods, idols, heroes, mythological figures, and parental figures are all external projections and symbolizations of 'human ideals' -- some relevant and meaningful to a whole culture or society, others relevant and meaningful to some 'subset' of culture or society, and still others that hold only a deeply personal meaning for us, and us alone.

2. 'Archetypes' are subconscious, internalized (or introjected) renditions of externally projected Gods, idols, mythological figures, and parental figures.

3. Thus, 'Gods', etc... and 'archetypes' work hand in hand with each other, dialectically, and ideally democratically, on both an externally projected and an internally introjected level to make up much of the psyhological dynamics of the human personality...When 'Gods' and 'archetypes' collide and conflict with each other -- as part of a 'mythological and/or philosophical battlefield (much like in the battles of Ancient Greek Gods, read, for example, Homer and the Iliad -- so too do the forces within our own personlity/personalities; and visa versa.

4. In other words, myths and Gods are external reflections of the human personality -- much like an artist's completed canvas is an external reflection of his or her own personality; and much too like Government is a reflection of the internal workings of the human personality. Different government dynamics reflect different leader personality dynamics and visa versa. Dictatorships reflect partly different dynamics than democracies -- but not really. Everything is connected. Democracies tend to gravitate towards dictatorships, and dictatorships tend to gravitate towards democracies. 'Democracy' and 'dictatorship' together reflect one dialectical polarity, an important one -- the 'democratic-dictatorial polarity' -- amongst countless similar 'multiple-bi-polarities' that make up: 1. the character (meaning the philosophy and psychology) of man; 2. the biology, chemistry, and physics of man; 3. all aspects of the culture and politics of man; and 4. the essence of life -- and the 'life-death'/'health-sickness' bi-polarities.

Based on the above developed logic, and other related DGB Post-Hegelian, Post-Nietzschean, Post-Spinozian, post-Freudian, post-Cannon principles, here are:

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C/10 essential DGB Philosophy principles, pertaining to the 'multiple-bi-polar nature of man and life and the inter-related dynamics:


1. Individual molecules come together and unite ('differential unity');

2. 'Differentially unified' molecules break apart and 'individuate';

3. Individual molecules 'compete' with each other and/or 'co-operate' with each other with the goal of 'individual and/or group survival' in mind -- both often happening to some degree or another at the same time, sometimes, the 'competition' part dominating, other times, the 'co-operation' part dominating, and in effect, engineering both the 'constructive' and/or the 'destructive' (or 'deconstructive') forces of life and/or death, individual separation and/or differential union.

4. Stage 3 sets the stage for either Stage 1 or 2 to go into effect.

5. 'Freedom' and 'determinism' is another human and life 'bi-polarity', and the two dialectically interact with each other, negotiate with each other, and unite with each other, in the ongoing process and psych-philo-chemistry of 'free-determinism' or 'deterministic freedom'.

6. 'Republicanism' and 'Democratism' is another important human bi-polarity as is 'liberalism' and 'conservatism'.

7. 'Capitlism' and 'socialism' make up another important human bi-polarity.

8. 'Apollonianism' (ethics, equality, justice...)and 'Dionyisianism' (sensuality, sexuality, pleasure...See 'The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche, and also Freud and Psychoanalysis...) is another important human bi-polarity.

9. 'Security or safety' vs. 'risk, newness, and excitement' is another important human bi-polarity.

10. All human bi-polarities gravitate towards a position of 'homeostatic (dialectic-democratic) balance; and when this position gets too boring, too 'status-quo', too routine, too taken for granted, new bio-chemical, philosopical and psychological forces tend to propel a person and/or a society back out towards the edges of one form of 'bi-polar extremism' or another.

I will let you 'chew' on these principles for a while without further elaboration.

Have a great day!

-- dgb, October 11th, 2008.

DGB Multi-Bi-Polar 'Sun-Planet Theory' and Sixteen Mythological Idols (Gods, Archetypes) of Personality Extremism

1. Introduction

This is brand new DGB Philosophy-Psychology (effective Sept. 11, 2008, updated November 16th, and November 30th, 2008) although the ideas have been perculating in my head for a while now...It is kind of a DGB integation of 1. Sir Francis Bacon; 2. Friedrich Nietzsche's The Birth of Tragedy; 3. Carl Jung's mythological influence; and 4. the principle of 'homeostatic balance' which has a long Western and Eastern history -- Heraclitus; the Han Philosophers -- 'yin/yang'; Hegel's thesis, anti-thesis, synthesis; Nietzsche's early integration between Apollo and Dionysus; Freud's superego, ego, and id; Jung's personna and shadow; and Cannon's principle of homeostatic balance (added Nov. 30th/08).

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Think of the sun with the planets revolving around it; the earth needs to be just situated rightly -- not too far from the sun and not close to the sun -- which comes back to the main principle of the creation and/or evolution of life in the universe and on earth: the principle of 'homeostatic balance'.

Once you get this image in your mind -- of the sun and planets model and the principle of homestatic balance -- you are starting to get a picture of my latest perculating model of the human psyche -- a model that borrows from philosophy, psychology, biology, chemistry, and physics, and mythology. There is some Freud in it (projecting and introjecting), some Jung in it (archetypes and Greek Gods), lots of philosophy in it (such as the different 'eras' or 'periods' of philosophy), and running right through the middle of this model are the priniciples of: 1. 'multi-dialectic exchange, interchange, negotiation, power and control maneuvers'; and 2. 'homeostatic (or multi-dialectic) balance.

I remember reading a book a long time ago -- perhaps when I was in university (1974-1979) called, 'Man The Manipulator'. I will research the book and come back to you with the author shortly. I believe the author(s) had some training in both Gestalt Therapy and Jungian Psychology.

Anyways, my present model here reminds me somewhat of what the author(s)in that book were also trying to get at which was basically that (and I will paraphrase in my own words here and now): any 'particualar style of interconnected thought, feeling, impulse, restraint and/or behavior' or what Jung would call a 'complex' or Alfred Adler would call a person's 'lifestyle' has a combination of both positive and negative attributes attached to it (strengths and weaknesses). It's like perhaps the most important statement that Hegel ever made (and again I am both paraphrasing and extending his thought): Every thought, impulse, characteristic, restraint, theory, perspective, lifestyle...carries with it the seeds of its own self-destruction...Or worded otherwise, anything taken too far, will eventually explode, implode, self-destruct, poison, and/or take you off the deep end with it...Any form of extremism will eventually lead to your self-desruction...

Which brings us back to the principle of 'homeostatic -- and/or dialectical -- balance'. Here is my post-Hegelian-extension of Hegel's famous formula: The life cycle follows the pattern of: 1. thesis; 2. anti-thesis; and 3 synthesis (which -- my DGB extension -- pulls man and all of evolutionary life back to the 'central position of homeostatic-dialectic-democratic balance'. 'Not too strong (eg. The Republicans), not too weak (eg. The Democrats) but just right...'The Republican-Democrats or the Democratic-Republicans'. This is the post-Hegelian, bi-polarity synthesizing goal of DGB Philosophy.

Here is my extension of the famous Hegelian formula:

Thesis plus anti-thesis or counter-thesis creatively negotiated together equals homeostatic and/or dialectical balance which in turn provides a compensatory form of psycho- and/or philosophical and/or bio-chemical therapy for all different forms of philosophical and psychological and bio-chemical extremism.

I don't have the technical capability within this blogsite to create the type of model I wish to create with a 'sun' or 'planet' in the centre with all of its revolving planets or moons. So you will have to imagine this.

I have already written a number of different papers that can be found below this essay on 'Gods, Myths, Archetypes, and Self-Energy Centres...' This essay only becomes the essay that starts to pull them all together into one model of the personality.

At centre stage is the 'main energy centre in the personality' -- The Central Mediating Ego' (psychological model) which can also be called the 'Hegelian Ego' (philosophical model: thesis plus counter-thesis equal synthesis and homeostatic-dialectic-democratic balance) or Zeus (mythological model) or 'The Sun' (planetary model).


Here are some of the 'revolving planets in similar and/or different human lifestyles, complexes, and/or personalities'...


2. The DGB Sixteen Idols of 'Lifestyle and Personality Extremism'


1. Idols of The Tribe or The Crowd: (Crowd Pleasers, victims of peer pressure...)Don't get caught up and lost in the ideas and behaviors of the crowd or the 'herd' as Nietcsche would put it -- like lemmings you can be taken over a cliff. Think and feel and act independently -- this is your therapy;

2. Idols of The Cave (Hermits, Loners, Thinkers, Philosophers, Introverts, Shy People, Self-Infatuated People...): Don't get caught up and lost within yourself. You will suffocate there. If or when you do, come back out of yourself, and reach out to a person and/or people. This is your therapy;

3. Idols of The Sky (The Greek God, Uranus) (Idealists, Visionaries, Entepreneurs, Architects, pilots, astronauts, skydivers...): Come back to earth young man or woman, come back to earth and re-ground yourself. Your therapy consists of 'touching earth again and feeling the soil beneath your feet, the ground and trees all around you);

4. Idols of The Earth (in Greek mythology, the godesses Gaea): (Empiricists, people who are afraid to take a risk, people who need security above all else in their lives). Being solidly grounded is a good thing but take a risk young man or woman, take a risk! This is your therapy. Fly high into the sky and see how high you can soar;

5. Idols of The Theatre (The Magician, The Sophist, The Actor, The Fraud...: Don't be fooled by others using sophistry, illusion, smoke and mirrors; and similarily, don't fool others using sophistry, illusion, smoke and mirrors. Be congruent, be honest, be yourself. Your therapy consists of re-finding your self and who you really are;

6. Idols of Zeus (Authority, Power, Title): Don't be fooled by, or fool others, using a mantle of exploitive authority, power, and/or title. The best leaders can both talk with wisdom and charisma while listening to the wisdom of others. The worst leaders have a self-inflated opinion of themselves and can talk, even act with power and/or violence but they can't listen, and they don't care about others. They are strictly for themselves. Your therapy here consists of 100 hours of community work to try to help cure your self-inflated narcissism. Helping others -- altruism -- is what you are aiming to learn here, and truly caring about others;

7. Idols of The Word: Don't be fooled or fool others using a web of words that don't mean what they claim to mean, or you claim them to mean. If your words don't fit your meaning, then perhaps its time to go back to Grade 1, go back to 'the pointing game', or 'the fitting game', show that your words reflect your actions, and your actions reflect your words. To the extent that they don't -- your words are fraudulent and the more you use them this way, the more of a fraud your whole person becomes. Your therapy consists of going back to square one and making your actions fit your words and visa versa;

8. Idols of Apollo: Don't spend your whole life following the God of Righteousness -- i.e., Apollo -- because it will create for you a very one-sided life. You need to show tolerance and non-jugment at times also. This is your therapy -- to practise being 'non-righteous'. Or perhaps to spend time chasing and/or being the God you may be most afraid of - 'Dionysus' and/or 'Narcissus';

9. Idols of Dionysus: Don't get lost in the pursuit of hedonism, narcissism, pleasure, sex, alcohol, drugs, gambling, partying, the fast life Your therapy -- may be to practise Budhism or abstinence for a while, see what it is like to live without your addiction -- what are you scared of?, and how else can you overcome whatever you are scared of? Are you scared of aging? Of being bored?, Of having nothing of substance within you to sustain you without the 'addiction(s)'?;

10. Idols of Aphrodite: Don't get lost in -- or consumed by -- love. It will throw everything else in your life out of balance and leave you weak and vulnerable to loss, betrayal, abandonment, rejection -- especially, if you fall in love too easily, and 'idolize' the person who is going to create a self-fulling prophecy and become your worst nightmare by walking away from you when you are most vulnerable and dependant. You need to stay grounded, develop your own strengths and not 'project Gods' onto everyone you meet. Your therapy is to imagine that you yourself are the God for a while at least, and not always the 'underdog' looking up at other people's imagined or projected strengths, while lamenting your own real or imagined weaknesses and missing theirs;

11. Idols of War (The Greek God, Aries): Don't get caught up in -- and consumed by war. It will eat you up and destroy you. You think that you can destroy your enemies but for every new person who you kill, you are probably 'multiplying' new enemies -- all the friends and family of the person you destroyed. Your therapy lies in developing 'creative ways of negotiating towards win-win solutions'; not seeing everyone as your potential enemy -- and treating them like it, making your world a much more dangerous place than it needs to be;

12. Idols of Hades (God of The Underworld): Don't get caught up and lost in illicit and/or illegal activities. It will bring on your self-destruction perhaps faster than anything else, particularly if you are nurturing hate, power, revenge, and violence. What goes around will eventually come around. You will get yours in the end...What was that Martin Luther King quote that Obama liked so much -- something like...'The cosmic arc is long but bends towards justice'.;

13. Idols of Speed (The Greek God, Hermes): Don't get caught up in, and consumed by speed. Live in the fast lane, die in the fast lane. Fast is exciting in small doses but don't lose control of your 'gas pedal' and your 'brakes of proper restraint';

14. Idols of Athena (Goddess of Patriotism): Patriotism can be a dangerous thing if you get too caught up, and consumed by it. It breeds righteousness and intolerance -- 'It's my country's way or the highway'. You will eventually get caught up in 'group-think', and be subsumed by more powerful groups than you that tell you, you are not 'patriotic' if you do not think the way they do'. You will lose your independence of thought. This is very 'Republican-Authoritarian', and at worst, 'Nazi-German' in its method of getting everybody to 'tow the party line';

15. Idols of Hera (Goddess and Protector of Marriage): Marriage can be a beautiful thing but it can also be a strifeful thing. Don't completely lose yourself -- and your identity -- in marriage. Be the person you always were. Develop your own talents and potential even as the two of you seek to evolve together in your relationship. Flexibility and tolerance are important -- and not 'locking each other up in tight boxes that you both suffocate in' (or one person suffocates in by submitting to the other's domination). Win-win negotiations in marriage are essential;

16. Idols of Narcissus (God of Self-Idolation): Don't become so absorbed in yourself that you can't see the people around you and their own trials and tribulations. In the myth of Narcissus, Narcissus looked into a pool of water, saw his reflection, and fell in love with himself. Be sensitive to the needs, wants, feelings, thoughts, and problems of others. This is your therapy.

These are the 'idols of personality extremism' and DGB Post-Hegelian Dialectic-Democratic Philosophy-Psychology seeks to pull every one away from their 'planet of extremism' and back into their 'Central Mediating Ego', back to the life-balancing energy of the sun. The planets always need to come back to the energy of the sun.

And so it is with 'personality' and 'lifestyle' extremes.

Come back young man or woman, come back, to the warmth and mediating energy of the sun. You need to be not too close to the sun but not too far away from the sun either. The Earth is a good place to be (preferrably without global warming and global raining that is disturbing our 'ecological balance' and our 'homeostatic balance' within this ecological balance.

'Health' is generally the half-way point between bi-polar forms of psychopathology, physio-pathology, philosophical pathology, and ecological pathology that can be found at the life (and death) extremes.

-- dgb, Sept. 11th, 2008, modified and updated Nov. 16th, 30th, 2008.

Rationality and Irrationality in Man

When I was coming to the end of my Honours Thesis in Psychology in 1979, the subject of energy and motivation was just starting to come up as I was winding down. I knew that there was a whole new world that I had to investigate in terms of man's psychology because man is not an 'automaton' or a 'machine' or a 'computer' -- even though in some ways man's mind certainly does function like a computer, or rather visa versa.

The computer operates much like man's brain with a 'processor', 'memory', and so on...But man is not a computer -- he doesn't always think rationally and logically and objectively like a computer -- rather, he is subject to massive motivational and emotional influences and biases that can easily stray him from the path of objective epistemology. My work back in 1979 was largely a work aimed at teaching objective epistemology (even though the word 'epistemology' hadn't really entered my vocabulary and thought process yet. I was studying psychology, not philosophy even though the two I was to find out later are intimately connected to each other and cannot really be talked about 'wholistically' except in the way that they have influenced each other, or primarily that philosophy stimulated the birth of psychology as a more specialized realm of philosophy).

I was an 'Enlightenment' student of philosophy and psychology back in 1979 which means that in my writing I was basically functioning from the neck up. Yes, I knew about man's capability for 'irrationality' but back in 1979 it was all about teaching people to be different -- teaching people to be more 'rational' and 'logical'. The writers I was primarily influenced by were 'General Semantic' and 'cognitive' writers like Alfred Korzybski, S.I. Hayakawa, Albert Ellis, Nataniel Branden, Aaron Beck, combined with the beginnings of a 'humanistic-existential' influence in the writings of Erich Fromm.

It was easy -- or so I thought -- I was simply going to teach people the lessons and skills of General Semantics and Cognitive Therapy -- and the whole world was going to be a better place for my having taught these lessons and skills.

That was where idealism started to meet realism. I was an idealistic university student. What did I know about living in the world of 'reality' -- of trying to make a living, and keeping up with my bills, and raising two kids and dealing with 'emotional' women. Trying to 'teach' cognitive therapy and General Semantics to either of my two earliest girlfriends in the throes of a 'passionate' and (to me) 'irrational' argument was like trying to funnel an ocean backwards into a river. There was a lot of 'emotional spillage and chaos' where 'rationality', 'logic' and 'Enlightenment Philosophy' just did/do not carry the day.

After the experiences with my first girlfriend, I didn't even try to teach General Semantics or Cognitve Therapy to any girlfriend after that -- especially in the throes of an argument. It was dangerous. Something more was needed to better understand the full extent of man's propensity for 'narcissistic bias and subjectivity'.

Men and women simply do not function solely from the 'neck up'.

Welcome to the world of Schopenhauer, and Kierkegaard, and Doestevsky, and Nietzsche, and Freud, and Jung, and Perls...(although Perls did add a Korzybski-General Semantic influence to Gestalt Therapy). Welcome to man's 'ocean of irrationality trying to fit within the banks of a river of rationality'.

Schopenhauer called man's huge propensity for irrationality and narcissistic bias 'the deterministic will of the universe'. Kierkegaard called it man's 'Aesthetic' influence. Nietzsche called it man's 'Dionysian' influence. Freud called it the 'id'. Jung called it 'the shadow'. Perls called it 'the underdog'.

One could argue that even in the heart of darkness -- even in man's most seemingly irrational moments -- that 'reason' and 'logic' are still prevailing - but to a different 'God'. But reason and logic are dancing to the tune of a 'different God'.

Specifically, reason and logic have tuned out 'Apollo' (in ancient Greek mythology, Apollo was the God of 'ethics', 'morality', 'law' and 'order') and tuned in 'Dionysus' (the ancient Greek God of 'dance, celebration, and hedonistic pleasure). Or one could argue that man in the throes of irrationality is still following 'logic' and 'reason' but dancing to the tune of 'Narcissus' (the God of self-interest/self-absorption). Or 'Aphrodite' - the Goddess of love. Or 'Aries' -- the God of War... Perhaps the study of 'mythology', more than anything else, opens up the door to the study of human passion, bio-chemical impulse and irrationality -- what Freud called the 'Id'.

What I am starting to show here -- and to be sure, this is my writing in 2008, not in 1979 -- is that there is a very useful connection between the study of ancient mythology (for me so far, mainly Greek mythology), and the study of present day philosophy and psychology. In a similar regard, what I am also starting to show here is the connection between 'energy centres', 'value priorities', 'motivational bias' and epistemology.

There is a huge gap -- once again a chasm or an abyss -- between 'objective, idealistic, Enlightenment epistemology' and 'realistic, subjectively biased epistemology'. Applied human epistemology does not occur in an emotional vacuum. It occurs in a context and a backdrop of different types of human motivational subjectivity. Trying to change a person's epistemology -- or 'style' of epistemology -- without getting to roots of his or her subjective motivational energy centre and bias -- is like trying to get rid of dandelions by pulling out the stems without digging out the roots as well. Without digging out the roots of a dandelion, the dandelion is just going to grow another flower and stem.

Trying to teach rational, objective, Enlightenment epistemology is not going to be very useful or fruitful unless or until you are sure that the person you are working with is dancing to the tune of Apollo and not Dionysus or any of a host of other possible 'energy-centered Gods or Archetypes' (an archetype representing the internal element of an outwardly projected God).

Carl Jung went much deeper into this subject area than I will ever go. There are two ways of looking at a 'myth': one way is to look at a myth as an 'objective, epistemological falsity'; the second way to look at a myth is as a 'human subjective, motivational truth'. We are more interested in the second way of looking at myths in this context here.

But there is an even larger picture here. What I'm trying to do now -- which I didn't do back in 1979 because I couldn't, I didn't have the knowledge -- is to put the study of epistemology, or at least DGB Epistemology, into the larger context of 'Hegel's Hotel' as an entirely integrated network of 'sub-works'. In this regard, epistemology is not only a division of philosophy but it is also indirectly a division of psychology as well. For example, in Psychoanalysis, the study of epistemology might indirectly be incorporated into the study of 'ego-functioning' or 'Central-Ego-Functioning'.

If 'ego' means basically 'self', then 'ego-functioning' can be defined as all the different functions of the self. 'Epistemology' is one such function -- or actually, a number of 'inter-connected sub-functions' like 'sensory perception', 'association', 'distinction', and 'logical (or illogical) deduction and interpretation', 'feedback'...which I am all including under the name of 'central-ego-functioning'. This was mainly what my 1979 essay -- 'Evaluation and Health' was all about.

However, there are other 'ego-functions' other than 'epistemology' and 'central-ego-functioning. As well, epistemology is not the only function of the 'Central Ego'. 'Conflict-mediation', 'evaluation', 'response-choosing', 'consequence-interpreting', 'and 'executive action' -- within a 'DGB Philosophy-Psychology' mindset' -- are five other related sub-functions of 'The Central Ego'. The Central Ego is a metaphysical concept used to help breakdown and better comprehend all the different sub-functions of the 'Self' -- or 'Ego' -- or 'I'. I am my 'Central Ego' and my 'Central Ego' is me. But there are other 'periphery' or 'subsidery' functions of the Ego that are also worth naming, describing, and better understanding. These can be analogized to the 'Parliament', 'Senate', or 'Congress' in a 'State's' political activities relative to the 'President's Office', the 'Prime Minister's Office' -- or in business, the 'CEO's office'. All of these other names that can and will be discussed here in Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology are 'metaphysical concepts' used to help understand all the various 'sub-functions' relative to the philosophy, the psychology, and the executive action of the entire 'Ego', 'Self', or 'I'

You see, everything that man thinks and feels and does is 'projected outward into culture' -- politics, religion, mythology, art, music, sports, business, family, medicine, architecture, philosophy, psychology...

Religion is mythology and mythology is religion -- and both are a particular type of 'energy centre' dealing with a particular set of ego-functions and sub-functions that all can be equated to a particular type or brand of 'philosophy-psychology'.

Each part is connected to -- and plays a vital role in the overall functioning of -- the whole -- the Self, the Ego, or the I. In turn, the Self, the Ego, or the I, has a vital 'multi-dialectical relationship' with the functioning of the body -- and all its different part-functions. But we are primarily concerned with 'philosophy-psychology here -- not biology, physics, and chemisry -- although here too, everthing is wholistically connected -- mind and body, subject and object, spirit, senses, and soul...

In Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology everything is wholistically connected -- philosophy-psychology-science-medicine-art-religion-mythology-business-sports-entertainment-hobbies...These are all 'outward projections and reflections of the internal workings of man's multi-dialectical-philosophy-psychology'. They are all different cultural expressions of the many different internal 'energy-centres' and 'subsidiary-ego-functions' that are wholistically connected to the 'central-ego-functioning' of The Self.

This is 'the wholistic context of man's entire philosophy-psychology' that I didn't have back in 1979 when I wrote 'Evaluation and Health'. 'Evaluation and Health' provided the epistemological and the humanistic-existential foundation which is now 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology'.

Epistemology is the pursuit of 'truth and knowledge' in human philosophy-psychology. 'Humanistic-Existentialism' is one particular perspective in the pusuit of 'value, meaning, and action' in human philosophy-psychology. 'Evaluation and Health' was the foundational starting-point for both of these branches in the study of philosophy-psychology as presented through 'Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology.

For those of you who are interested in the study of 'epistemology' -- and the part language and semantics plays in epistemology -- I invite you to focus on your 'Apollonian energy centre' as we begin to study the interplay between 'truth and ethics' in my 1979 essay: 'Evaluation and Health'. I'm expecting a lot from you here as we focus for a while on man's philosphy-psychology primarily from the 'neck up'. Then after this, we will step away from 'Apollo' for a while and visit other more entertaining and dramatic 'energy-ego-centres': 'Narcissus' (narcissism), 'Dionysus' (sensuality, pleasure, celebration, dancing, sex...), 'Aphrodite' and/or 'Eros' (romance, love, passion, nature..), 'Aries' (war, deconstructionism...), and more...

I probably just made the study of 'Apollo', 'epistemology', and 'ethics' sound so boring that you may want to 'jump ship' on me here in order to 'fast-forward' to some of these other mythological Gods and external projections of internal 'energy-ego-centres'.

Alas, there can be no truth, ethics, justice, peace and harmony on earth if we all ignore 'Apollo'. Apollo is important -- and so too are both 'epistemology' and 'ethics'...So please...follow Apollo...with me...through 'Evaluation and Health'...

dgb, April 8th, 2008; modified and expanded, April 13th, 2008, briefly modified and updated October 18th, 2008.

Gods, Myths, Philosophers -- and Projected Self-Energy Centers: Part 1: Archetypes

People think that yesterday's God's and myths are dead -- a product of 'primitive' man who simply didn't 'know' any better. We all know myths are -- well, false. Or are they? Epistemologically they may or may not be false. They probably are. But the same can be said about today's Gods and religions as well. Are we so arrogantly bold as to believe that our own God(s) and religion(s) has any more epistemological claim to 'truth' than ancient Greek mythology? If we think we do -- we shouldn't. They are both the product of the same creative psyche -- projecting a combination of symbolism and need into the outside world...and into 'heaven'.

We need to be accountable for our own projections -- they are products of our own psyche, our own active, creative imaginations, usually built from some percentage, some proportion, of experiential truth and fictional fantasy. A projection is usually either a 'stereotype' and/or an 'archetype'. Stereotypes we lay on our friends, families, lovers, and enemies. Again, they usually contain a combination of truth and fiction.

Archetypes we lay on our 'Gods' -- and in DGB Philosophy, also our 'great philosophers from the past'. They too, usually contain a combination of truth and fiction. Epistemologically, they usually contain mainly or totally -- fictions. However, psychically, they contain 'truths' and these truths may be viewed as a combination of projected 'energy centres' and 'ego functions'. If we re-introject (swallow whole) the projective imagery that we originally spat out at the world in the form of Gods, myths, and religious symbolism -- then we give ourselves the opportunity of 'taking back' our 'energy centres' and 'ego-functions' that we may have lost in our projections, suppressions, repressions, and/or denials. In effect, our Gods are us. We simply have to take reownership of them.

We can do this if we look at our Gods differently -- specifically, as energy centres, ego-functions, and areas of self-empowerment that we gave up to the world in the form of our projections -- our Gods, myths, religion -- combined with a willingness to go back to an earlier state of being, both in childhood and in more primitive states of being in a relationship and in society -- an authoritarian society where we 'hang onto' a portion of our ego -- or an 'ego-state' -- that is still willing to play the role of the 'submissive servant or slave': 'You're right, I'm wrong'; you're good, I'm bad; you're perfect, I'm imperfect; you're the master, I'm the slave. This is the 'dialectic dance' of the 'master/slave' relationship. It is still played out in business every day we go to work. It is still played out in many marriages and relationshps, in most schools, in many doctor-patient relationships, in most expert-layperson relationships, professional-nonprofessional relationships, academic-nonacademic relationship, rockstar or professional athlete/groupie relationship...and in most Churches, Synagogues, and Mosques...

More than anything perhaps, we have a tendency to project the 'master/slave' relationship into our relationship with God...or vicariously into our relationship with our priest, pastor, minister, favorite evangelist...God knows everything; I know nothing; God is good; I am bad...God is right; I am wrong...

This is authoritarian religion with the 'poison masked as candy' being the 'submissive ecstasy' perhaps of being in the company of someone or something much, much greater than ourselves. Bow down to the Pedestalized Idol...Gain your ecstasy by feeling secure and safe in the hands of Someone who protects all of us lesser beings...Bow down to the False Idol...This is the message of Authoritarian Religion....

We need a new type of religion -- one that combines good will and compassion, safety and security, rootedness and community -- with an unwillingness to bow down to all False Idols -- either in heaven or in earth.

I think I can find that directive in The Ten Commandments...Here is it is from the internet...

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You shall not make for yourself an idol, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

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This is the Nietzschean Commandment -- the commandment that separates all 'humanistic-existential' religions from 'authoritarian' ones although Nietzsche would have made no such distinction. This is my modification of Nietzsche.

In humanistic-existential religions there will be no 'false idols' -- indeed, there will be no idols period. We will re-introject all of our 'projected false idols' and turn them into a new and integrative, multi-dialectical, humanistic-existential form of 'self-empowerment'. As our false idols crumble into the dust our 'suppressed' and 'repressed', 'denied' and 'avoided' energy-centres and ego-functions will slowly start to come alive again. We will start to regain our full humanness...our 'all too humanness'... In DGB Humanistic-Existential Religion (Deism-Pantheism), we will not deny man's sensuality, sexuality, and romanticism (Dionysus, Aphrodite...)but rather aim to integrate it with reason, ethics, integrity (Apollo). One can say that DGB Humanistic-Existential Religion is a religion born partly from Nietzsche's first masterpiece -- 'The Birth of Tragedy'.

And that is where I will leave the creative birth of DGB MDHE (Multi-Dialectic, Humanistic-Existential) Mythology-Religion-Philosophy-Psychology today...

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I can feel the spirit of Spinoza, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, Jung, and Perls all running through my blood as I write...Dead men with live spirits -- still scorching through my fingers...Are these my own 'false idols'? Or are they my bridge to some form of new 'integrative self-empowerment'? For myself, I believe the latter.

Of course, your are entirely free to decide for yourself...and what you believe is good for you...Many orthodox religious institutions -- whether they be Christian, Muslim, or Jewish -- do much good for the community around it. They serve a pressing need for compassion, safety, and rootedness...particularly in today's more and more alienated and stressful urban environment that is creating more and more estranged, unrooted or uprooted, anxious people. But overly righteous, anal-retentive, authoritarian religions can and do come with some significant 'side effects' -- or even 'main effects' -- that can be -- indeed are -- disturbing in their own right. This is where orthodox religion lost many, many thousands of old or potentially new 'customers' that simply were not 'buying' what orthodox religion was selling anymore...DGB Humanistic-Existential Pantheism offers no religious rituals...just a different way of looking at 'God', religion, and spirituality that is not authoritarian and which aims to integrate with science, nature, evolution, romanticism -- and humansitic-existentialism.

-- dgb, April 11th-12th, 2008.

Gods, Myths, Philosophers -- and Projected Self-Energy Centers: Part 2: 'Internal Ego-Structures'

Where do Gods, religion, mythology, philosophers, politicians, and psychologists all meet? On the shores of personality theory. And that is where we have landed right now. Every aspect of man's culture is a reflection of the internal workings of man's personality, man's psyche...

Hegel's Hotel is an external projection and reflection of the internal workings of my personality, my psyche. But at the same time, since Hegel's Hotel is aimed at exploring the full dimensions of Western man's history, culture, philosophy, politics, mythology, religion, art, science and medicine, law, economics and business -- in this respect, Hegel's Hotel is also aimed at being an external projection and reflection of all of Western man's evolving internal philosophy-psychology...

Obviously, the more that Hegel's Hotel investigates the history of Eastern, Middle Eastern, and Southern cultures -- the more that it can lay claim to having investigated the internal philosophy-psychologies of people who have been brought up in these cultures as well...But we are not there yet...Maybe some day...

There are strong similarities between the way 'the personality is run' and the way most governments and/or business corporations are run. Indeed, as I was running this metaphor through my head, a light bulb came on as to how both Ottawa might clean up its government processes and Washington-Congress the same thing. Because at first look, the metaphor doesn't seem to completely fit and hold up. But at second look, it does -- with some badly needed State-government adjustments to make State- government more like Personality-government. Let me fill you in on what I'm talking about.

But before I do, let me ask myself this question for clarification purposes on both your behalf and mine: Is this a political essay, a religious essay, a mythological essay, a psychological essay, or a philosophical essay?

The truth of the matter is that it is all of the above: it is the center of 'The Hegelian Wheel' if you wish or 'The Lobby of Hegel's Hotel'. You can go to one floor and specialize on political theory, or another floor and specialize on religious theory, or another floor and specialize on mythology, or another floor and look at the history of philosophy, or still another floor and specialize in Psychology and Personality Theory. But they all branch out from this floor and even more particularly from this essay on 'Gods, Myths, Philosophers -- and Projected Self-Energy Centers'.

In Washington you have 'Congress' and 'The White House' -- the latter representing the executive 'action part' of the American Government including the President's Office. Ottawa has its differences to be sure but we will focus on the similarities: 1. 'Parliament'; and 2. The Prime Minister's Office. A third factor in Canadian government is 'The Senate' which we will talk about at a later time...

Now within the confines of the personality we have a similar process going on but this process cannot be 'seen' so it is usually talked about either 'metaphorically' and/or 'metaphysically'. 'Metaphysics' -- 'above physics' -- means you cannot see metaphysics but that does not necessarily mean that it is not there...You just have to be more careful in your arguments because metaphysics -- similarly to religion -- can be 'epistemologically and logically abused' to come up with 'religious and/or metaphysical concoctions that simply don't exist nor have any semblance of usefulness even if we assume they don't exist'... Indeed, they may be either useless and/or worse -- toxic -- unless we can trace these pathogens back to their rightful owner and demand that the owner take responsibility and accountability for whatever 'virus' he or she was trying to pass on...

What is a 'structure'? In personality theory, this is a critical question. The bed that I am thinking of lying down on -- in fact, this is becoming what in Gestalt Therapy is called a 'figural gestalt' -- has a 'physical presence'. The bed belongs to the world of 'physics' in this regard. Its existence can be verified by many people because its 'physical structure' can be visibly seen.

But how about the presence of a 'Central Mediating Ego' -- used by some theorists including me to describe a certain 'faction' or 'ego structure' in the personality? This 'ego-structure' has no physical presence. It does not belong to the world of 'physics' because it cannot be seen to have a 'physical structure'. Rather, it belongs to the world of 'metaphysics' -- above physics -- and as such, it is much more susceptible to debate and dispute as to whether it even exists at all...The same can be said for many metaphysical concepts of course -- including 'God', 'Satan', 'Apollo', 'Dionysus', 'Narcissus'...and many, many more...

If you can't argure for their existence on the grounds of 'physical presence', then you have to resort to some other form of argument of which two stand out: 1. circumstantial evidence; and/or 2. functional utility.

Now, for example, let us say I argue for the existence of 'God' on the grounds of circumstantial evidence: let us say, for example, I argue that every last, tiny component of the world, and every aspect of the evolution of the world, shows signs of incredibly 'supra-intelligent creative design' which leads to the logical argument that this supra-intelligent creative design could not have happened just by accident; that indeed, it must have been created by some supra-intelligent creative Designer. For many people, that supra-intelligent creative Designer -- is 'God'. I would call this a 'circumstantial-metaphysical-epistemological' argument. Such a person -- or such people -- would believe in the reality of the epistemology of God on the grounds of circumstantial epistemological evidence.

However, if I pass on this last type of argument and move on to another type of argument: say, I argue instead that I believe not in a God in heaven per se but rather a God in the spiritual presence of every living being and thing -- and in a special type of relationship between people who love and/or care about each other and/or between man and nature when we can get past our alienation from nature and rather, fully engage with nature in all of its spectacular splendor...This is a different 'vision and conception of God' -- a Spinozian pantheistic vision. It has some attractive elements to it...It is a very wholistic, spiritual, romantic vision of the world and man relative to man and nature...Why would we want to fight about 'whose God is right and whose is wrong?' or 'whose God is better?' when we could all simply work harder to enjoy the 'Godliness in all of us'...Am I arguing that there is 'circumstantial metaphysical evidence' to support such a claim? Maybe, maybe not...That would be a secondary argument. My argument would be based mainly on what I would call 'functional and spiritual appeal'. In effect -- regardless of its epistemological 'truth' or not -- I believe that it introduces a type of philosophy that could help to make the world a better place to live in. My argument then, is more of a 'functional, metaphysical essence' rather than an 'epistemological metaphysical essence'.

The same thing can be said when we start talking about 'personality structures' and 'sub-structures' -- things like 'ego-structures' and 'energy centers' and 'ego-functions -- these are all metaphysical psychological concepts that I would argue have 'functional value' in describing them even if they do not 'physically exist'. One might say that humans think and feel and behave like they do exist -- even if this type of 'structuralization' or 'compartmentalization' of the personality is technically a 'fictional fantasy' that is more about making the teaching and learning of certain subject matters (like epistemology, science, religion, psychology and personality theory...) easier for human consumption than it is about technical epistemological certainties or truths...

Regarding the value of 'structualization' -- particularly as it applies to epistemology (the study of knowledge) and personality theory (the study of the human mind and/or psyche) -- there are those who do and those who don't -- believe in its functional value.

Chief amongst those who don't are two of the greatest 'deconstructionists' in the history of Western philosophy -- David Hume and Friedrich Nietzsche ('two birds of a feather who flocked together' although in different historical time periods -- Hume (1711-1776) during the 'Enlightenment' philosophical time period and Nietzsche just over a hundred years later (1844-1900) the second philosopher in as powerful a 'one-two deconstructionist punch' as there ever has been in philosophy further establishing the foundations of 'Post-Modernism' and 'Deconstruction ism' -- and on a more 'Constructionist' note -- the later beginnings of 'Romanticism' and 'Humanistic-Existentialism'.)

It is interesting to note some of the similarities between Hume and Nietzsche -- aside from their philosophies. Both had their fathers die at a very early age (Hume was 3, Nietzsche 5). Both were 'deconstructionists' before the term was created and popularized by Jacques Derrida in the 1960s. Both were 'post-modernists' before this term became popularized. Both were atheists. Both had recurring incidents with severe bouts of 'mental illness'. Without reaching for quick judgments here -- which is easy to do -- both philosophers may have had significant underlying physiological problems that may have factored significantly if not more strongly that this into their mental health issues -- with Hume it may have been a hormonal problem (iodine deficiency? A quote from Paul Strathern's book, 'Hume in 90 Minutes', states: 'Until now (presumably his early 20s, no age mentioned except that it was toward the end of his reluctant study of law) Hume had been tall and thin: a gawky fellow with gangly limbs. Yet despite his daily regimen of exercise, he now began putting on weight. On his daily rides into the bare, hilly countryside the horse became thinner as its rider expanded -- gradually becoming the portly figure he was to remain for the rest of his life. This suggests that Hume's troubles during this period may in part have been glandular. (Either this or it was the horse getting all the exercise, not Hume. My editorial addition.) With Nietzsche, it has always been speculated that his period of insanity at the end of his life -- about the last 10 or 11 years of his 56 year old life -- might have been triggered by syphilis.

However, having pushed aside the very likely possibility of influencing physiological factors, the philosophical and psychological factors need to be examined as well. 'Deconstructionism' (with or without the 'ism' attached to it) by itself leads to 'Nowheresville' -- or stated differently -- 'Philosophical Nihilism'. Deconstructionism needs 'Constructionism' or 'Structualism' as its 'dialectical dancing partner' -- just as Liberalism needs Conservatism and Conservatism needs Liberalism and Capitalism needs Socialism and Socialism needs Capitalism and the Republicans need the Democrats and the Democrats need the Republicans. Every form of 'structuralism' needs its 'two alter-egos' -- 'process theory' and 'deconstruction' -- to keep it 'honest', more flexible to change, and to keep it more 'wholistic' as opposed to one-sidedly 'reductionistic'.

It is quite possible -- indeed, I would say probable -- that both Hume and Nietzsche became overly consumed with their respective forms of 'extreme philosophical skepticism (nihilism?)'. I could lay assorted different psychological interpretations on this similarity in Hume's and Nietzsche's respective philosophies: both were probably significantly influenced by physical and/or emotional health issues; that some of these problems might be attributed to lack of a real 'father figure', or perhaps a pathological one, or to lack of a feeling of internal solidarity relative to insufficient parental love, or to lack of internal solidarity due to an absence of adult (female) love...All of this is highly speculative. I wasn't there to witness their lives, nor am I familiar enough with either of their biographies to give a strong interpretation that I have full confidence in...Everything in this regard is tentative and speculative...Both were highly gifted intelligent men but a high, gifted intellect is not in anyway synonymous with good mental and emotional health...Highly gifted intellectual people can be completely out of balance psychologically -- both in terms of internal self-destructive tendencies
and/or outward social destructive tendencies..

As we start to switch over from a philosophical mentality of 'deconstruction ism' and 'process theory' which is kind of like the 'half-way' point between deconstruction ism and constructionism, we now move into the philosophical realm of 'constructionism' and 'structuralism' -- where 'nothingness' and/or 'verbs' start to turn to 'nouns' or 'structures' or 'constructions'. Before we leave Hume and Nietzsche, it is important that we recognize that Nietzsche wasn't only a deconstructionist and/or a post-modernist and/or a philosophical nihilist. 'The Birth of Tragedy' was an extremely good 'constructionist' piece of work -- even if Nietzsche himself eventually rejected it as being 'too Hegelian'. And Nietzsche's 'will to power' and 'Superman' philosophy -- in essence, his 'humanistic-existential philosophy -- was also a valuable 'constructionist' contribution to the evolution of Western philosophy. So call Nietzsche an 'elitist' philosopher if you will, call him an 'arrogant, unilateral' philosopher if you will, but don't call him completely a 'deconstructionist-postmodernist-nihilist' because Nietzsche did eventually settle into his own constructionist-structuralist brand of philosophy -- the philosophy of 'self-empowerment' which in effect was the philosophy of the 'Superman' -- not the philosophy of 'the herd'. In this respect, Nietzsche can be viewed as being 'anti-Nazi' because Nazism was based largely on the expansion of the 'herd mentality' or 'submissiionism' -- which Nietzsche thoroughly detested. Nietzsche was not a Nazi even if his philosophy of 'the will to power' was easily subverted for Nazi purposes. 'Power over people' (unhealthy and socially pathological) is not nearly the same idea as the philosophy of 'self-empowerment' (individualistic and healthy -- a philosophical movement towards 'self-fulfillment' and 'self-actualization' -- and humanistic-existentialism -- let no false idols stand in the way of your movement towards self-empowerment in a social field.

As I said at the beginning we are standing at the shores of 'personality theory' which does not stand exclusively on its own but border on the edges of epistemology, religion, mythology, and politics -- at least to my way of post-Hegelian, post-Nietzschean, Humanistic-Existential thinking.

When we enter the realm of personality theory, unless you are B.F. Skinner or some other radical behavioral theorist, such talk will invariably revolve around such concepts as 'ego-structures' or 'ego-compartments' . Freud had three main 'ego-compartments' even though he didn't call them that. I am using the term 'ego' here very loosely to include basically any theorized 'psychic agency, energy centre, and/or pscyhic-sturcture'.

Freud (Classic Psychoanalysis) used/uses three such 'energy centres' -- the 'id', the 'ego', and the 'superego'.

Jung (Jungian Psychology) used/uses an assortment of different 'energy centres' such as the 'personna', the 'shadow, 'the archetypes', the 'personal unconscious, the 'collective unconscious', and 'The Self'.

Adler (Adlerian Psychology) used/uses one main 'energy or ego centre' -- the 'lifestyle' -- which could be arguably divided into two sub-parts: 'inferiority feelings' and 'superiority striving'.

Eric Berne and/or Transactional Analysis as a whole divided the psyche into these five main ego-centres: 1. 'nurturing parent'; 2. 'critical parent'; 3. 'adult'; 4. 'approval-seeking child'; and 'rebellious child'.

Fritz Perls (Gestalt Therapy) used a simple 'two ego-structures' model: 'topdog' and 'underdog'.

All of these different models of the human psyche have a combination of 'functional advantages' and 'functional limitations' associated with their respective classification systems.

All of these models involve the use of 'metaphysical concepts' -- 'above and beyond physics' -- that can neither be empirically proved nor disproved. They all involve 'epistemological leaps of faith' or 'leaps of interpretive abstraction' that can not be physically seen or otherwise sense -- but they can be argued for or against based on what we might call 'circumstantial or anecdotal evidence'. Any and/or all of the models can be used to your heart's desire. Any and/or all can be discarded at a moment's notice if you do not find them functionally useful in terms of understanding and/or explaining human thinking, feeling, and behaving...

I use a combination of all of them, one more than another perhsps depending on the context of the situaiton. I am a psychological integrationist as well as a philosophical integrationist. I believe in mixing and matching a network of different philosophical and psychological (metaphysical) concepts -- trying to avoid any areas of possible 'logical inconsistency'. But even this is not an 'iron clad rule' because different contexts and different circumstances may dictate the use of different metaphysical models. A theorist's metaphysical model should be adjusted to meet the specifics of concrete human behavior and individual cases -- not the other way around. Bending and manipulating the specifics of human thought, feeling, and behavior to satisfy the egotism, narcissism, and narcissistic bias of a theorists particular metaphysical model is unethical in my mind. Both a 'Classical Psychoanalyst's propensity for ignoring evidence of 'childhood sexual abuse' based on their 'Oedipal model' and the 'Sexual Traumacy Theorist's' propensity for doing the opposite -- 'creating' childhood sexual abuse where there was none -- are equally unethical and reprehensible. The well-balanced, 'wholistic therapist' will be knowledgeable with both models, open to both human possibilities -- and not have a close-minded, narcissistic bias towards either 'reductionistic' metaphysical model.

Let the 'objective evidence' rule the model; not the reverse.

Having now opened the doors to the study of personality theory, let us push a little deeper into this realm.

There is one issue that I forgot to close -- or didn't get around to closing. This was the associative similarity between 'the self-government of the personality' and 'the government of the State'. Excuse me for not answering this problem within this essay but we will come to a resolution on this matter once we have explored our approach to personality theory a little more deeply than we have at this point.

In other words -- please stay tuned to my upcoming essays on relgion, Greek Mythology, philosophy, and personality theory -- as they all dialectically and wholistically interact with each other.

-- dgb, April 13th-19th, 2008.

Gods, Myths, Philosophers -- and Projected Self-Energy Centers: Part 3: Mythology and The Make-Up Of The Human Psyche

Modern religion needs psychotherapy. It is too reductionistic, too specialized, too schizoid, too alienated from the full dynamics -- the full soap opera -- of the human psyche. In this regard, modern religion is a reflection of modern day man -- and partly a reflection, partly a counter-thesis, to modern day Capitalism and Industrialism. Steeped in personal and collective-cultural narcissism.

Perhaps I am being a little harsh here. For those of you who have managed to bring a certain element of 'liberalism' and 'religious-righteous tolerance' into your lives, then modern religion -- regardless of what denomination you may belong to -- may work just fine. 'Integration' is the key here and movement away from hardline religious 'either/or' righteousness...'Either you do this and you go to 'Heaven'; or you do that and you go to 'Hell'. This alienated and schizoid divisionism is the trademark of all past and present pathological religions...It involves an avoidance, a denial, and a flagrant hatred of the full psycho-dynamics of the human spirit, the human soul. Any religion that preaches hatred has itself gotten lost along the way in the poisoned spirit and archetype of Ares, Lucifer, Satan, and/or 'Hell'...It has gotten lost in the narcissistic Underworld -- with no 'Hero-God' anywhere to be found... Such religions need to find the archetypes of Apollo, Hera, Hestia, Eros, Aphrodite, Dionysus...and come back from Hades, come back from the land of the 'living dead'.

In contrast, Greek mytholody -- as alluded to above -- gives a much fuller, more vibrant, more passionate -- both divided and unified -- vision and picture of the human psyche. We just need to know how to interpret Greek mythology as a product of the creative, human imagination -- steeped in 'projections', 'projective-identifications', 'theses' and 'anti-theses'...with ancient Greek man, standing in the middle of these creative projections, trying to make sense of them all -- trying to harmonize them all -- just as unconsciously, he was trying to harmonize the inner Gods and Anti-Gods, heroes and anti-heroes, in effect, the projected 'archetypes' that made up the dialectic, multi-dialectic, and pluralistic dynamics and structure of his own psyche. Indeed, even the word 'psyche' has come down through the ages from ancient Greek Mythology, as 'Psyche' was a Greek Goddess with a very interesting evolution and history that we need to talk about. We will come to that in the process of the developing events as they are unfolded right here.

This essay here is the creative offspring of two of the most influenctial philosphers in the history and evolution of Western man -- Hegel and Nietzsche. Nietzsche would probably want to pound me over the head with his 'philosophical hammer' if he ever heard me say this, or saw me write it -- but Hegel and Nietzxhe make up two of the best 'dialectic philosophical lovers' (and I say this metaphorically of course) in the history of Western philosophy. The only two other pairs of dialectic philosphical lovers (DPLs) that I can think of off the top of my head that would rival the dual impact of of Hegel and Nietzsche would be: 1. Plato and Aristotle; and 2. Adam Smith and Karl Marx. You see the evolution of man -- and life -- is built more on the harmonization of differences -- or 'differential unity' -- than on sameness, sameness, and more sameness...Incest does not create a healthy offspring. This is where Darwin and Hegel meet -- another set of important DPLs. It is no co-incidence that 'dialectic logic' and 'copulative-fertilization' both involve the resulting integration of 'differential opposites' -- genetically, biologically, physically, physiologically, psychologically, and philosophically.

Here are some other important DPLs worth noting: Anaxamander and Heraclitus, the Sophists and Plato, Socrates and Plato, Heraclitus and Parmenides, Diogenes and Alexander the Great, Spinoza and Hegel, Hume and Kant, Voltaire and Rousseau, Nietzsche and Christiantiy, Hegel and Schopenhauer, Hegel and Kierkegaard, Hegel and Marx, Spinoza and Nietzsche, Freud and Jung, Freud and Adler, Freud and Perls...The Structuralists and the Deconstructionists, Foucault and Derrida, Hegel and Foucault, Hegel and Derrida...I'm sorry if I have left out any notable female philosophers because for the most part Western philosophy is a domain that has been dominated by male philosophers. To be sure, there were probably many notable 'female philosophers' hanging in the background of many of these male philosophers' lives...But until the rise of feminism, many of these 'covert female philosphers' have remained 'ghostly figures'...Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) might be viewed as the mother or grandmother of 'modern feminism'. Writing around the time of Tom Paine and his famous work 'Rights of Man', Wollstonecroft wrote that: 'Mind has no sex' and therefore rights are not determined by gender. (Richard Osborne, Philosophy for Beginners, 1992.). Thus we could dialectically pair Wolstonecroft with either 'Male Chauvanism' and/or Tom Paine.

The history and evolution of Western Philosophy can be viewed as the history and evolution of a multitude of DPLs 'cross-fertilizing' their ideas with each other.

In similar fashion, this essay is born mainly from the cross-fertilization of Hegel's 'The Phenomenology of Spirit' (1807) with Nietzsche's 'The Birth of Tragedy' (1871).

Let's plunge into Greek Mythology and bring back the Greek Gods and Anti-Greek Gods -- re-introject and re-integrate them back into the human psyche, and see where this takes us. The path is full of psycho-drama -- as is man's life. Greek mythology is a projection or a projective-identification of man's life into the minds and the spirits of the Greek Gods and anti-Gods...Some 2500-3000 years later -- or more -- it is time for modern man to take re-ownership of these Greek Gods and anti-Gods -- and to both re-introject and re-integrate them back into his own personal and collective pscyhe.

In this essay, we are not looking for 're-born Christians'. Rather we are looking for re-born 'Greek Mythologists' who are willing to take 'self-accountability' for all of the Greek Gods and Anti-Gods, Heroes and Anti-Heroes, that may be either integrated -- or differentially running amok -- within the conscious and/or subconscious confines of our learned and/or genetic psyches.

To be sure, I am not the first to go here. In fact, I forgot to give full recognition and appreciation to another important influence in my philosophical and psychological thinking, as projected out in this essay -- Carl Jung (1875-1961). Twenty-five years ago I could never have envisioned myself studying Greek mythology. But things change. Times change. We change. We better change -- or get caught in a living death -- a life of sameness, without variation and change -- and creative growth. Call this: 'Parmenides Existence'. It's not one that I am interested in.

Be re-born every day of your life -- or succumb to a 'lifeless existence' -- land of the living dead. --dgb

'You cannot step into the same river twice.' -- Heraclitus

It has been a long time since I used this next quote -- back around 1977 -- but I found it in my library in about 15 minutes.

'In the art of living, man is both the artist and the object of his art; he is the sculpter and the marble; the physician and the patient.' -- Erich Fromm, Man For Himself, 1947.)

Where Greek Mythology did take us -- and leave us -- modern man must go back to revisit and re-claim his 'psychic heritage'. Call this 'DGB Psychic Archaeology'.

Stand by and stay tuned for Part 4 of 'Gods, Myths and Philosophers: DGB Psychic Archeology'.

-- dgb, April 20th, 2008.

Gods, Myths, Philosophers -- and Projected Self-Energy Centres: Part 4: Parameters for A DGB Integrative Personality Theory

I want to connect DGB Integrative Personality Theory with Greek Mythology in a similar fashion to what Carl Jung has already done -- the latter in much more symbolic detail and with much more mythological expertise than I will ever be able to muster up.

However, there are some differences in what I intend to do. I am an 'integrative personality theorist' which means that I don't let the at least partly 'narcissistic conceptual boundaries' of this school of personality theory, or that school of personality theory from stopping me from theorizing beyond the conceptual boundaries of whateve school of personality theory I am engaged with at that particular moment. (Seem my essay on 'Conceptual Narcissism' which I will re-cycle here in the next essay.)

In the realm of personality theory, one can choose to be a 'monogomist' to any one particular theory that one is taught, and/or feels comfortable with. This has some advantages and disadvantages -- the disadvantages being that one particular personality theory, or any type of theory for that matter, will never encompass the 'whole' of what it is trying 'classify', 'compartmentalize', 'structuralize' -- and 'explain'. 'Theortical perfection' of any of life's wonders -- will always be the 'rabbit' that is just out of reach of the 'greyhound's jaws', the 'Roadrunner' that is always just out of reach of the 'Coyote's jaws', and the 'prize of perfection' that is always just out of reach of the 'creative theorist's mind'...

Hegel's 'Epistemological Absolute' and 'Nietzsche's Existential-Ontological Absolute -- The Philosophy and The Existence of The Superman' -- will always lie either significantly -- or just -- beyond the reach of man's individual and/or collective 'best efforts'...

Unless we are talking about '2+2=4' -- in other words, the tautology of mathematics -- man is forever condemned to a life of partial imperfection, with greater or lesser negative consequences relative to the severity of the 'error' involved in the degree of his imperfection.

As an integrative personality theorist, I take more interest in the similarity between Freud's 'Id' and Jung's 'Shadow' than I do worrying and nit-picking about their technical conceptual and practical differences. Ditto for the similarity between Freuds' 'Superego' and Berne's 'Critical Parent' or Perls' 'Topdog'.

I am partly a Freudian 'Traumacy' Theorist, partly a Freudian 'Narcissistic' Theorist, partly a Jungian 'Mythological/Archetype' Theorist, partly a Post-Freudian, Psychoanalytic 'Object Relations' Theorist, partly a 'Transactional Analyst' Theorist, partly an Adlerian 'Lifestyle' Theorist, partly a General Semantic and Cogntive Theorist, partly a Frommian Humanistic-Existential Theorist, and partly a Gestalt Theorist.

With DGB Integrative Philosphy-Psychology, 'theoretical Constructionism, Deconstructionism, and Integrationism' work hand in hand with each other in classic Hegelian fashion, looking for that 'Absolute Integative Super-theory' if you will -- like Nietzsche's Superman -- knowing that I will never achieve 'theoretical perfection' anymore than anyone else will but still believing in the pragmatic importance of theoretical integration, in the same manner that 'Particle Theory' and 'Wave Theory' combined to give Physics something theoretically and pragmatically better than either Particle Theory or Wave Theory -- separately. (See Quantum Theory and Wave/Particle Duality).

In DGB Integrative Philosophy-Psychology, we can, and will, use Greek Mythology -- and/or any mythology -- to help us develop our integrative philosophy-psychology.

However, we can and will also use philosophy, psychology, politics, economics, science and medicine... to get us to the same, and/or a similar place. Everything is integrated -- like Spinoza's pantheistic, spiritual wholistic philosophy combined with a Hegelian dualistic, multi-dualistic, and dialectical philsophical approach. We can even talk about 'Multi-Integrative, Dialectical Pluralism (MIDP)' which presents the need for an important distinction.

Specifically, there is a difference between 'Multi-Integrative Dialectical Pluralism (MIDP)' and 'Compartmentalized, Isolative Dualistic Pluralism (CIDP)'. These two approaches to the evolution of the culture of man seem to be inherently built into and paradoxically competing with each other in the form of different mentalities, different approaches to the issue of 'multi-perspectivism' and 'multi-culturalism'.

The first is built from a more tolerant and accepting, integrative mentality -- this can be found as far back as the ancient philosophy of Heraclitus in Greece and the Han Philosophers -- if not further back -- in China; the second is built from a more 'righteous, either/or, divisive' mentality -- and this can be found even earlier in the philosophy of the ancient Greeks, back to the philosophy of Anaxamander and before that even to the 'sparring Gods and Heroes, anti-Gods and anti-Heros in Homer's 'The Iliad', and the sequel to 'The Iliad' -- 'The Odyssey'. Thus, Anaxamander's 'dualistic, either/or' philosophy can be viewed as the secularization of Greek Mythology -- without all the names of the Greek Gods and Heroes, anti-Gods and anti-Heroes.

The paradox and dialectic of a 'righteous, either/or' mentality and philosophy vs. a more 'tolerant, liberal, accepting integrative mentality and philosophy has existed throughout the history and evolution of Western Culture. The paradox has been just as active -- and perhaps even harsher in its violent consequences -- in the history and evolution of China.

The first mentality, philosophy, and lifestyle leads to 'Multi-Integrative Dialectical Culturalism'; the second mentality, philosophy, and lifestyle leads to 'Multi-Compartmentalized-Isolative-Culturalism'. In the first mentality, the 'integrative dialectic' is alive at work and play; in the second mentality, different cultures may live side by side with each other but neither is touching and/or influencing the evolution of the other. The integrative dialectic is not alive at work and play.

The integration of different cultures living side by side with each other is most likely to take place through romantic and sexual integration -- say between a Muslim and a Christian, or between a Jewish person and a Protestant, or between a Protestant and a Catholic, or between a black and a white person, or between a white person and an Asian, or between a Canadian and an American -- because beyond the boundaries of romance and sex, most people seem to generally prefer to stay with what they are culturally familiar with rather than venture into another person's cultural domain. I say this as a generalization; not as an iron-clad rule because, to be sure, there are some people who like to fully engage in the 'newness' and 'foreigness' of venturing into the world of someone else's culture. Not many -- but some. These people -- whether through romantic and/or sexual infatuation, friendship, or simply curiosity and the willingness to venture into a foreign culture -- are the leading edge, indeed, likely the only edge of the evolution of what say Pierre Trudeau had in mind by his ideal of 'multi-culturism'.

However, for our purposes here we are more interested in the internal, personality manifestations of the paradox between 'Multi-Integrationism' and 'Multi-Isolationism' which seems to be an indicator of 'psychological health' vs. 'psychopathology'. The one leads to what might be called the 'healthy, integrative personality'; the other leads to what might be called 'The Dissociated Personality'. There is a direct parallel between 'The Dissociated, Non-Dialectically-Integrated Personality (DNDIP) and 'The Dissociated, Non-Dialectically Integrated State or Nation'. One only has to point to the isolationism of Quebec from the rest of Canada as an example in Canada; or in America -- the Mexican-American Dissociative Problem due to the border and illegal immigration issue, or often, I would imagine, even in the case of legal immigration.

It may not always be dysfunctional for two cultures to live side by side with each other without integrating -- as long as they can live side by side without conflicting in pathological ways. If friction and conflict abounds between the two cultures because of a 'righteous either/or' attitude, 'conflict of interest', 'prejudice', 'discrimination'...or whatever, then maybe some 'dialectical integrative' factors needs to be put to work to try to lessen the friction, conflict, and divisionism.

Thus, we only have a right to talk about 'bi-cultural pathology' to the extent that the two cultures are not getting along with each other -- either covertly or overtly -- and this is adversely affecting the lives of people in both cultures. If the differences between the two cultures are being harmoniously tolerated and accepted, then we have no right to talk about 'bi-cultural or dialectical cultural pathology'.

The same can be said for the internal dynamics of the personality relative to its degree of 'internal dialectic harmony' vs 'internal dialectic conflict, divisionism, denial, and/or dissociation'.

In a number of the essays to follow, I will present a number of different 'DGB Personaltiy Theory' models -- I'm not sure how many yet -- that show different dimensions to the similarity and interaction between man's psyche and the rest of his integrated and/or dissociated culture. I will probably present: 1. a 'functional-psychological model'; 2. a 'philosophical model'; 3. a 'Greek Mythology' model; 4. a 'political model'; 5. a 'biological-anatomical-medial model'; and 6. a legal model. However, I may combine a number of these more 'reductionistic models' together into one 'Super-Dialectical-Integrative Model' -- depending on how the flow of my writing goes. Until my work is written, everything remains 'subject to change', and even after it is written it remains subject to modification and updating...

However, before I present any model, let me briefly take you on a 'side-trip' to an earlier paper I wrote on 'Conceptual Narcissism'. (This too has now been modified and updated from when I first wrote it about a year ago.)

Then we will progress and/or regress backward through Western history from psychology to philosophy to to Greek Mythology -- before coming back to the present to possibly try out a number of other further 'cultural models' of the personality: the political model, the medical model, and the legal model. My point in all of this is to show that everything -- historically, philosophically, relgiously, psychologically, functionally, legally, politically, mythologically, scientifically, medically -- is connected. This is the Spinozian influence within my post-Hegelian writing. Please join me again tomorrow...

-- dgb, April 25th, 2008, modified and updated May 2nd, 2008.