Archive for the 'Academic Writing' Category

Thesis Proposal

Adversaries, Psychology, and World Politics
Statement of Study

fencing3In The Experience of “Negative Otherness”: How Shall We Treat Our Enemies (2002) psychologist Stephen Gilligan, Ph.D. argues for an alternative to dealing with our enemies rather than simply fighting or fleeing. He claims that these two options are often insufficient, limited in their effectiveness to resolve conflicts. Fight or flight is the traditional way in which creatures resolve conflict in the world. This calls forth images of a Hobbesian state of nature and the way creatures coexist in such a state. Gilligan writes that different ways humans display fight are: repression, domination, demonization, demonization, numbing something, analyzing, disassociating. Exhibiting flight, we: “check out,” take drugs, surrender, have anxiety, paralysis, or depression. Gilligan observes that responding in ways such as those listed above often does not seem to get us very far. We continually encounter conflict, threats to our happiness and freedom, and sometimes even other people who want to kill us. However, Gilligan poses that dealing with negative situations using fight or flight results in a continuation of cycles of violence and human suffering. Following an analysis of modern and pre-modern myths, Gilligan posits the possibility of another way to be in the world. Instead of responding to an adversary in one or another form of fight or flight, one could seek to transform a situation. He asserts that when one is able to stay connected to themselves during a conflict with a negative other, and maintain a relationship with it, the encounter can become creative, a “nonviolent event that leads to new understandings, new conversations, and new realities,” (3.) He offers us some examples of what this looks like for individuals.

A self-ascribed post-modernist, Gilligan wants to shift our consciousness from the fight and flight response. However, it must be noted that even Gandhi himself (who is put forth as an example of this third way of engaging with an adversary) said that there were situations were violence is the only correct response. (In Merton, 36) Although this may be the case, every encounter with a negative other is an opportunity to see if we can remain “connected,” and examine whether an alternate way is possible, even beneficial.

His essay is tailored to a discussion of personal psychology, but is Gilligan’s analysis of how we understand, perceive and act in relation to “negative others” applicable to social phenomena? In reading Gilligan, I believe to have discerned themes of his psychological analysis in a) religious terrorism, as discussed by Mark Juergensmeyer in his Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence, and b) in the nonviolent protest of British rule in India by the followers of Gandhi, as portrayed in Steve York’s documentary India, Defying the Crown. Is it the case that these movements exemplify Gilligan’s analysis on a large scale? I will argue that they do. The goal of my study is to defend this position and consider the implications to social struggle around the globe.

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Academic Writing, Politics, Psychology, sketches | 6.02.2010 11:47 | No Comments

On Health Care Reform

Hey Health Insurance Companies!

virgoYour essence is good.
It is your job to help us with our health care.
You finance it through our monthly payments.
Your service is that we don’t have to have the savings to cover our asses.
You shoulder our responsibility.
It is not your job to deny claims or tell doctors how to do their job.
As a result, it is also your financial incentive to help us stay or get healthy.
What are you going to do about it?

Hey Lawmakers!

Expand the taxes on products that make us unhealthy.
We already have a liquor and cigarette tax.
Tax corn-syrup, sugar, partially hydrogenated oils.
Lawmaker, laws are to protect us.
Engage with agri-business!

Academic Writing, Politics, Rant | 15.01.2010 19:54 | No Comments

What Merleau-Ponty and Jung Have in Common

Ph o P'nBoth talk about an “Objective Psyche.”

For Jung this was a better term for the Collective Unconscious.

Merleau-Ponty said that the Objective Psyche resides in cultural objects. In relics and landscapes, one finds proof of the presence of the Other, of other people, beneath a veil of anonymity. One is seen in the pipe for smoking, in the spoon for eating, in the bell for ringing; and it is in the perception of a human act and another man or woman that a cultural world is verified. – paraphrased from the French Phenomenologie de la Perception, 1945

sketches | 6.01.2010 10:37 | 2 Comments

Complexes

I went to a seminar at the Jung Society where Paula McKinnon talked about complexes. I would like to recount the information here.

We started out by naming what we’ve heard: father complex, power complex, inferiority complex, oedipus complex, money complex, etc, etc. We know we have a complex when there is an extreme emotional response to a situation in life.

Complexes form in childhood, in parent relationships, and in relationships we’ve had with others. They are the result of conditioning childhood experiences pertaining to instinctual patterns and survival; events, traumas and difficulties.

They can be explained in terms of cause and effect. Complexes are pieces of ourselves that were split off from the ego and driven into the unconscious through acts of repression.

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Psychology, sketches | 13.10.2009 20:29 | No Comments

Yoga as a Form

triangle_orthique_2Yoga postures are like the Platonic Forms
Yoga is an opening
of the body
into geometric shapes.
Putting the mind
where before had just been darkness
Matter that is unaware of what it is holding
Opening to the essence of the form
Staying with the feeling
Moving through any discomfort
Perfecting the union of mind and body
Matter becoming conscious

What is it like to be a …
Triangle Mountain Tree Rock Eagle Bridge Dog Child

Philosophy, Psychology, Yoga, sketches | 23.09.2009 20:04 | No Comments