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.
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