Dialectic Analytical Man

If no one esteems the best, men will be fee from contention.
If no one values the precious, men will be free from illegal gain.
If men see nothing to desire, their minds will be fee from confusion.
Therefore, the wise guides men by relaxing their minds and keeping their bellies firm;
By reducing their wills and letting their physiques become strong.
He always frees men form the search for knowing and demanding.
This means that the knower dares not act for the known.
When action is through non-action, no one is uncultivated.

Commentary:

In thinking about writing this week’s Dao De Jing commentary (12/9/2012 5:00 AM), I realized again that my experiences and journaling throughout the week are at this moment influencing what is being written. In the previous post and now, I am “following my bliss” as Joseph Campbell suggests, trying to tap into the creative energy every individual Lao Zi says we possess. Last week I was aware of the cannabis issue, the idea for the last post just bubbled up and I let it flow. I used several of Terence McKanna video clips discussing the use and legalization of cannabis, which were produced with beautiful art, ending the post with John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High and Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon music, accompanied again with beautiful artistic visuals. I purposely did not comment on these video clips, except once, because the idea surfaced that after viewing the post, a viewer might apply the model we developed in the earlier post “The mathematics of faith” and use the Following my bliss to the Dark side of the moon experience to plug it into the equation and carry on a dialogue. So, I will continue to work toward developing an Active Interdependence among blog readers, which I am thinking is an aspect of the John Nash’s governing dynamics. I went to Amazon and e-Bay and Chang’s book “Tao: A new way of thinking” is going for $91 and $49. Seem I have a collector’s item by my side.

Active Interdependence = McKenna’s Unique Thought x Our Dialogue²

In the Mathematic of faith post it was decided to ride one of Christ’s “unique thoughts” like Einstein  rode a beam of light in discovering that as one approaches the speed of light, time slows. So, we began with a unique thought suggested as the fundamental teaching of Christ, Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye with never a thought for the great plank in your own eye? From this follows that in order to Love thy neighbor as thy self, one has to be able to first authentically love thy Self. Lao Zi in turn is saying in this chapter that “non-differentiated knowledge is achieved through the action of non-action” (10). Christ is saying the first step is to “remove the planks in our own eye” and Lao Zi’s is saying “by reducing our will” one approaches the Dao, which is the teaching of Chapter 48:

To learn, one accumulates day by day.
To study Dao, one reduces day by day.

Edinger in his interesting book, Ego and Archetype, suggests that Christ’s teaching and let us now add Lao Zi’s clearly establishes Lao and Christ as the depth psychologist 2,500 and 2,000 years before Freud systematically uncovered the unconscious side of the human psyche. Taking the beam out of one’s eye and reducing day by day are similar processes with the same outcome – the realization that the cosmos and individual psyche are identical.

Chang goes on to state that, “increasing knowledge and simultaneously reducing it constitutes the dialectical process of Dao. …Lao is saying avoid learning through contention, through cunning, or through one’s ambitions and desires, as this only leads to confusion. The natural way of learning is simultaneously unlearning… This is what Lao Zi means by wei wu-wei, or to learn yet to unlearn.” The operative idea here is that this is the dialectical process of Dao. Chang chooses to illustrate this by first referencing Hegel’s idea of knowledge:

Knowledge, which is our object first of all or immediately, can be nothing other than that which itself is immediate knowledge, knowledge of the immediate or of what it is. We must act just as immediately or receptively, that is, must change nothing in our object as it offers itself, and must keep conceptual understanding out of the reception” (Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, pp. 153-154.)

Let’s look closer at Lao Zi’s saying “The wise guides men… by reducing their wills…” by continuing to apply Hegelian dialectical analysis to the idea of will, which in the above quotation Hegel says “we must act just as immediately or receptively, that is, must change nothing in our object as it offers itself, and must keep conceptual understanding out of the reception.” Giegerich (Dialectic Analytical Psychology DAP: 2), writes that “dialectic thinking begins with one single idea, notion, phenomenon and then shows its internal contradiction. It makes one conscious of the fact that what from the outside looks like a unitary and self-consistent unity is not unitary, but within itself contradicts itself. It is within itself different (distinguishing itself from itself). In this sense, dialectical thinking is recursive….a stepping backward so as to widen the horizon before oneself.” In Lao Zi’s terminology one reduces day by day.

Giegerich illustrates dialectic thinking with an example to will something – the idea that we have free will. He explains that “The fact that we have a will is the manifestation of human freedom. This is the one side. The other side comes to the fore when we realize that willing or wanting is radically different from wishing. I can wish to win the lottery, but I cannot want this (in the strict sense of willing) because the outcome of the lottery is totally beyond my reach. Willing always entails the will to use the real means necessary to achieve something. A person might wish to go back to school in order to get a Ph.D., but this does not necessarily mean that he or she has the will to do so. To wish such a thing might simply mean to entertain this dream in one’s mind. To have the will to get a Ph.D., by contrast, means to be willing to give up, for several years, much free time and many weekends to spend them for studying hard while others are free to use this time for their relaxation. I am not free; I must sit down and study. In other words, the will to go back to school entails the contradiction between my free choice AND my obedience to the ‘must’ that my choice involves. In willing, I am at once free and a slave. The will is the human capacity to be, within oneself, the unity of the unity and difference, of legislating government and subject bound by the laws prescribed by this government. For the everyday mind, the will is a unitary thing. That is all. It is simple one of the ultimate constituents of the human psyche. But if you open it up and look into it, you see, as a clock, its ‘moving parts,’ its internal ‘engine’: the inner complexity of the self-contradictory logical life that it is and as which it is” (DAP: 3). Thinking dialectically is about making conscious, getting inside an idea, or going under it in order to understand its inner contradictory workings.

Lawrence Cahoone presents another illustration of the seemingly unitary position of the “master and slave” and its underlying dialectics. After viewing it, getting inside this unitary position, going under it, understanding the contradiction, its internal engine, what is being made conscious and what are the implications?

Hegel’s Master Slave Dialectic

Hegel makes that important anti-Cartesian social claim that self-consciousness, my awareness of myself, of who I am, can only be achieved in relationship to another self-consciousness in being acknowledged by another. In the ancient world the relationship between the aristocratic load and the bondsman, the slave, or the indentured servant, prevented this mutual recognition. The limitation on each because of their unequal relationship, prevent each from obtaining true self-consciousness. This is Hegel’s point. That is the slave, sees himself as an un-free object. The master sees himself as free but only abstractly and fails to see that he is an object. So for example, the slave, who suffers more than the master does, the slave’s selfhood is denied by failing to understand his own freedom, his higher nature. The master’s selfhood is also denied because the master loses the physical creative act of working on things in the world, which is also part of selfhood.

So, each initially loses itself in the other and Hegel says they must engage. Hegel is thinking about the ancient Jews, the slaves in ancient Greece and Rome, the revolutions and revolts of salves ending their slavery. At some point historically slave classes must engage in a life and death struggle with the master, the ruling classes, over who can obtain independent self-consciousness. In the struggle, the bondsman comes to recognize free will, how? – the bondsman wins by the mere act of struggle because at the moment the bondsman fights, he and she has recognized his free will by his wiliness to brave death. And once that is true, he is the equal of the master.

The lord, on the other hand, comes to recognize that he is not a mere omnipotent negative power, but must deal with the slave on equal footing as another independent self. And in this act, according to Hegel, both come to realize their combined freedom independence and turn their mutual ‘unhappy consciousness’ to worship the external cross as the unification that they lack. Thus does the ancient world give up slavery in becoming Christian.

Hegel, on the one hand, is giving us social commentary that has to do with the French Revolution, the end of indentured servitude, the development of freedom, the right of the slave to stand up and face the aristocratic lord, face-to-face as equals, and what that means for each one of them. Further, Hegel is making the philosophical point that not just is it morally good to let the slave be free but that the master also fails as a human being, until the master can recognize in the other another free equal person. Only when I freely relate to a free equal do I recognize my free self.

Giegerich comments that “The dialectic process does not begin with Two, but with One, with a Position. There is, at first, no opposition to this position, no alternatives, no ‘dynamic relationship”. Rather, by committedly sticking to his one position that it holds, the mind discovers or is forced to admit, that this position proves to be untenable. It does not hold up. This experience amounts to a Negation of the initial position. If before the position A, the negation of the position results in non-A, a contradiction to the original position. The negation, if tested, again proves to be untenable and is accordingly negated. So we get the Negation of the Negation (not-[non-A]). But the negation of the negation as such is Absolute Negation and as such the reinstitution of the Original Position (=A). However it is now the Position on a fundamentally new level because it is no longer the ‘navie’ (immediate) position of the beginning, as a simply given, but mediated and tremendously enriched by the history of all the negations and as their net result. It has been greatly differentiated, is much more subtle, refined. Nothing has been lost or discarded through the negations. The superseded stages are all still there, however now only as sublated moments within the new Position. On this new level the dialectical process can then begin once more with the differentiated result as its starting point, i.e., as the new Position” (DAP: 3).

So, if we begin with the initial position given by Hegel’s master salve case and realize that it does not hold up, the result is a negation of the position, which itself needs to be examined. And as Cahoone points out, Hegel confounds this negation with social and philosophical commentary about Christianity and the French Revelation, which contributes, I am thinking, to miss-understanding the direction from which self-awareness comes. In the case of the Christian reference, it comes from the symbol of the cross outside oneself and for the master it comes when “he can recognize in the other another free equal person. Only when I freely relate to a free equal do I recognize my free self.” This I suggest does not hold up, given our acceptance of both Lao and Christ’s inner reducing ideas as the source for renewal. We now have a what Giegerich teams the Negation of the Negation or Absolute Negation, which is a reinstitution of the original Position that is on a new level having been enriched by negating processes just gone through. Giegerich then suggests that “On this new level the dialectical process can then begin once more with the differentiated result as its starting point, i.e., as the new Position.” How do you think that will unfold? This Dao De Jing video clip suggests the Daoist Dialectic Analytical Way.

Dao De Jing

I was up early (12.06.12) to write my ritual morning page and felt a need to re-organize my web-link logs (an excuse, maybe) and came across Joseph Campbell’s idea “follow your bliss.” The first video clip I watched was Terence McKenna ~ Inspiration Through Cannabis.

and then his clip You Are A Divine Being, which is what Lao zi and Jesus proclaim.

My friend Jack had just emailed me about Colorado’s marijuana legalization and today Washington State’s legalization went into effect and note, Jack, one new entrepreneur is targeting us baby-boomers . McKenna’s interview on “drugs” makes some excellent points!

I then clicked on, What you Gonna do about it? and after watching it,

I realized that what I was doing about it was “following my bliss”, writing a ritual morning page, and  posting it here online–intime.

The previous blog post, A Creative Individual A Daoist, presented a passage from Huxley’s The doors of perception, where a psyche transformation was induced by the drug mescaline, which led the author to a symbolic perception of the one reality. The perception of the one reality is a deep spiritual human quest that has many path ways and previously Chang writes the Dao De Jing offers a “methods of searching for the truth that have been handed down great sages of the past – the way of inner work.” I think McKenna, Huxley, and Leary’s experience and knowledge in using drugs like marijuana is something to consider, however, our direction in expanding consciousness is to understand both the eastern and western processes of thought  psychoanalytically. When McKenna says smoking cannabis interprets his dreaming, whatever he thinks he gains from the smoke is lost in not tracking he dreams. Another McKenna ritual in asking the I Jing a question on each full moon, we already are looking into this with our question on Obama Forward.

Finally, here is McKenna’s advice on how to use marijuana and then I think Pink Floyd’s – Run Like Hell is appropriate in remembrance of John Denver’s Rocky Mountain High.

If that run and mountain climb were not sufficient here is Pink Floyd’s Dark Side Of The Moon. Enjoy!

I have been meaning to straighten up my home office, get many books back on the shelf and into some organization. However, I have been having interesting experiences as I step over and sort through them, stopping to pick one up and re-reading at least some parts. This happened yesterday when I picked up Erich Neumann’s Art and the Creative Unconscious and started re-reading the chapter Creative man and transformation. Transformational leadership is a current research interest and the Dao De Jing is all about transformation. The Dao De Jing is a pre-configuration of Neumann’s magnum opus The Origins and History of Consciousness and his Depth psychology and a new ethic forms the underlying thesis in the posting Deep Jesus, Us? Early this morning I found this section in Creative man and transformation on Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception that is related to our study of the Dao.

The “primary symbolic image” is not complex, or alien to our experience. In a certain state of mind, which may be found in a number of ways, the “objective vis-avis” becomes transformed for us. The term participation mystique has a very similar implication but was coined for something remote from the experience of modern man. When things, a landscape or a work of art, come alive or “grow transparent,” this signifies that they are transformed into what we have called “unitary reality.” What we see becomes “symbolic” in the sense that it speaks to us in a new way, that it reveals something unknown, and that in its actual presence, just as it is, it is at the same time something entirely different: the categories of “being” and “meaning” coincide.

A passage in Huxley’s The doors of perception will make my meaning clear. A psyche transformation, artificially induced by the drug mescaline, has led the author to a symbolic perception of the one reality.

“I was not looking now at an unusual flower arrangement. I was seeing what Adam had seen on the morning of his creation – the miracle, moment by moment, of naked existence.

‘It is agreeable?’ someone asked.

‘Neither agreeable more disagreeable,’ I answered. ‘It just is.’

Istigkeit – wasn’t that the word Meister Eckhart liked to use? ‘Is-ness.’ the being of Platonic philosophy – except that Plato seems to have made an enormous, and grotesque mistake in separating being from becoming an identifying it with the mathematical abstraction of the Idea. He could never, poor fellow, had seen a bunch of flowers shining with their own inner light and all but quivering under the pressure of the significance with which they were charged; could never have received that what role as an iris carnation so intensely signified was nothing more, and nothing less, than what they were — a transience that was yet eternal life, a perpetual perishing that was at the same time pure Being, they bundle of minute, unique particulars in which, by some unspeakable and self-evident paradox, was to be seen the divine source of all existence.” (Doors, 17)

This insight into the symbolic mode that preceded our consciousness seems to justify our theoretical digression. For it turns out that the vision and production of a symbolic world of the archetypal as well as natural in religion, rite, myth, art, and festival not only involved an atavistic tractor and regenerative element arising from their emotional charge. In a certain sense they are characterized precisely by the fact that in them a fragment of the unitary reality is apprehended – a deeper, more primordial, and at the same time more complete reality that we are fundamentally unable to grasp with our differentiated conscious functions, because their development is oriented towards a sharper perception of sections of polarized reality. In the differentiation of consciousness, we seem to be doing the same thing as when we close our eyes in order to enhance our hearing, in order that we may be “all ears”. Unquestionably this exclusion sharpens and intensifies our hearing. But in us excluding the other senses, we’ve received only a segment of the total sensory reality, which we experience more adequately and fully if we not only scare it but also see, smell, taste, and touch it.

There is nothing mystical about the symbolic unitary reality, and it is not beyond our experience; it is the world that is always experienced where the polarization of inside and outside, resulting from the separation of the psychic systems, has not been affected or is no longer in force. It is the authentic, total world of transformation as experienced by the creative man. (Neumann, 176-177)

Alan Watts – The Taoist Way (Lecture)

A Creative Individual Is A Daoist!

When beauty is universally affirmed as beauty, therein is ugliness.
When goodness is universally affirmed as goodness, therein is evil.
Therefore: being and non-being are mutually posited in their emergence.
Difficult and easy are mutually posited in their complementariness.
Long and short are mutually posited in their positions.
High and low are mutually posited in their contradiction.
Voice and tone are mutually posited in their unity.
Front and back are mutually posited in their succession.
Thus, the wise deals with things through non-interference and teaches through no words.
All things flourish without interruption.
They grow by themselves, and no one possesses them.
Work is done, and no one depends on it.
Achievements are made, but no one claims credit.
Because no one claims credit, achievements are always there.

Commentary:

Before commenting on Chapter 2, theDao De Jing Video Clip in the last entry has a macro view of the essence of the Dao De Jing. It tells us the Dao De Jing has some very broad and deep ideas that will challenge our western way of thinking. The new awareness, we are pursuing is a new insight simultaneously into the universe and into ourselves – in other words the broad and deep structure of the universe is in us! What is in each of us is permanent, has always been there, is made up of an inner greatness and an equally possible inner failure, is always trying to manifest itself and it is our task to first comprehended and then to harness this force.

A key idea here is inherent – which suggests that we look within for our names have been written a priori in heaven. Jesus gives us this understanding in Luke 10:20 when the people rejoiced in seeing that they had power over demons to which Jesus responds, “do not rejoice in this, that the sprits are subject to you: but rejoice that your names are written in haven.”  Nineteen hundred years later, Jung (Psychology and Religion) puts it this way, “The Self, like the unconscious, is an a priori existent out of which the ego evolves. It is, so to speak, an unconscious pre-figuration of the ego.” The important point for us is realizing that our individuality has this a priori unconscious existence and that our quest is to discover its meaning. (See earlier post Deep Jesus, Us?).

What is exciting is that each of us is uniquely being called to occupy a precise place in the cosmic order no matter where or in what era we live and the Dao “invites us to try to live in direct relationship to all these forces.” This is the governing dynamic awareness that John Nash realized when he discovered that Adam Smith needed revision. The Dao De Jing is a way to address Nash’s “governing dynamics” a revision in understanding what it means to “do what is best for oneself and for one’s group” This is the political debate we are currently immersed in.

Governing Dynamics

The Dao De Jing we see is certainly broad, deep, and encompasses all of these meanings that will be addressed as our reading of the Dao De Jing continues.

Metaphysically the term Dao refers to the way things are.
Psychological it refers to the way human nature is constituted, the deep dynamic structure of our being.
Ethically it means the way human beings must conduct themselves with others.
Spiritually it refers to the guidance is offered to us, the methods of searching for the truth that have been handed down great sages of the past – the way of inner work.

Chang Chung-yuan, the translator and commentator on the Dao De Jing, who is guiding our reading, begins his introduction that the west first became aware of the Lao Zi in 1788 when a Latin translation was presented the Royal Society in London. Chang’s next reference is to G.W.F. Hegel, who in 1816 mentions Lao Zi’s writings in a University lecture and took pride in saying “I have seen them myself.” Hegel is an important western thinker that we will study and Chang begins his introduction by first citing Hegel: “Without a name Dao is the beginning of Heaven and Earth, and with a name she is the Mother of the Universe. It is only in her imperfect state that she is considered with affection; who desires to know her must be devoid of passions. … is nothing, emptiness, the altogether undetermined, the abstract universal, and this is called Dao, or reason.” (Hegel’s lectures on the history of philosophy).

Chapter 2’s commentary then begins with a comparison of the dialectics of Lao Zi and Hegel, focusing on the “self-identify of contradictions”. The dialectics inherent in both men’s thought are identical in that the dialectical process is a “reality where things pass over into their opposites, …is the basis of all motion and existence; the principle that governs the world.” What Hegel states, “In every distinguishing situation, each pole is for itself that which it is; it also is not for itself what it is, but only in contrasting relation to that which it is not” is identical to Lao Zi’s beginning statement, “When beauty is universally affirmed as beauty, therein is ugliness. When goodness is universally affirmed as goodness, therein is evil” (Hegel, Encyclopedia of Philosphy).

For Hegel the “dialectical process is a process of negation where opposites are mutually posited” and where he states, “Every dialectical negation relates real opposites, which may be distinct, different, contrary, or contradictory. Negation thus posits what it excludes” (Ibid). Lao Zi expresses this same idea in, “Being and non-being are mutually posited in their emergence. Difficult and easy are mutually posited in their complementariness.” Chang then cites Murti  suggesting that from this common point the dialectic of Lao and Hegel depart, in that Hegel’s dialectics is “a passage from a lower concept with a lesser content to a higher greater content” …and culminates in the idea of the concrete absolute, which is the most comprehensive unity of all” (7).

Chang’s position is that Lao Zi’s dialectic has no elevating movement toward a fixed goal of comprehensive, rational absolute.” There is, however, what Nishida calls the “self-identity of contradictions, … where the opposites of being and non-being, or beauty and ugliness, are mutually identified within themselves and not in any higher synthesis. … there is no progression toward an absolute beyond all contradictions.” Chang’s understanding of Hegel’s dialectic is incorrect and in fact Hegel’s dialectic is identical to Lao Zi’s.

Giegerich’s presents the argument on Hegel’s stance: “Dialectic thinking thus has a lot to do with ‘making conscious’ and getting inside the topic at hand. This is why we have to uncompromisingly reject the popular misconstrual of dialectical thinking as characterized by the tripartite of scheme of thesis – antithesis – synthesis. The scheme is (a) historically and philologically speaking not Hegelian, (b) in itself mindless, mechanical, unthinking, and (c) views what it calls thesis and antithesis outside, like objects that need to be reconciled or united. …There is no need for a solution here, but rather the insight and realization that the experience of the opposites was due to a superficial and preliminary view. So the dialectical movement, instead of seeking a future solution, is going under; it makes explicit the presuppositions that had unwittingly been behind and inherent in one’s initial assumptions; it goes back and down to the deeper Ground that had been there all the time and had merely not been seen. As we might put it in psychology, consciousness had been too unconscious, superficial, too undifferentiated, too prejudiced. The union of opposites (or the resolution of the contradiction) is precisely the prior reality, and a reality from the outset, not something to be created. What has been there from the beginning is allowed to catch up with consciousness, to come home to consciousness” (Giegerich et.al., Dialectics & Analytical Psychology: 5).

With this stated, Chang continues introducing us to Lao Zi’s dialectics in that “The wise deals with things through non-interference and teaches through no-words”, in other words it makes explicit the presuppositions that had unwittingly been behind and inherent in one’s initial assumptions; it goes back and down to the deeper Ground that had been there all the time and had merely not been seen.” It is through what Lao Zi calls non-interference that one “silently identifies with objective reality”, seeing reality from the outset, there from the beginning – letting this come home to consciousness. Experiencing this inner reality Chang quotes Nishida’s A Study of the Good to give us a feel for what it means to come home to consciousness. Nishida’s description is:

To experience means to know events precisely as they are. It means to cast away completely one’s own inner workings, and to know in accordance with the events. Since people usually include some thought when speaking of experience, the word “pure” is here used to signify a condition of true experience itself without the addition of the least thought or reflection. For example, it refers to that moment of seeing a color or hearing a sound which occurs not only before one has added the judgment that this seeing or hearing relates to something external or that one is feeling this sensation, but even before one has judged what color or what sound it is. Thus, pure experience is synonymous with direct experience. When one experiences directly one’s conscious state there is as yet neither subject nor object, and knowledge and its objective are completely united.

With this direct, pure experience, the self-identity of contradiction is achieved, and then
the “one is the many and the many is the one.” When this selfless harmony is achieved, the Dao informs us “great things happen and no one claims credit, All things flourish without interruption, Work is done, and no one depends on it, Achievements are made, but no one claims credit.” May I suggest this is John Nash’s creative revelation that Adam Smith theory needed revision in that “one needs to do what is best for himself and for the group.” The difference in both Lao’s and Hegel’s dialectics as it relates to Smiths economic theory is that doing what is best for ourselves involves internal-psychological-work, not external-materialistic-work.

Dao De Jing Video Clip

Something mysteriously formed, born before heaven and earth, in the silence, in the void, standing alone and unchanging, ever present and in motion. Perhaps the Mother of 10,000 Things, I do not know its name, call it Dao. For lack of a better word, I call it great, being great it flows, it flows far away, having gone far, it returns.

The picture before us is of a cosmic force or principle that expands or flows outward or more precisely perhaps descends into the creation of the Universe of 10,000 Things.

Together with this we are told of a force or a movement of return. All of creation returns to the source but the initial coming into being is to be understood as a receiving of that which flows outward and downward from its center.

Every created entity ultimately is what it is and does what it does owing to its specific reception of the energy radiating from the ultimate formless reality.   

This movement from the nameless source to the 10,000 Things is De. And the unique being, man, called here the king is created to receive this force consciously and is called to allow his actions to manifest that force.

The Dao that can be spoken of is not the Dao itself.
The name that can be given is not the name itself.
The unnameable is the source of the universe.
The nameable is the originator of all things.
Therefore, oftentimes without intention I see the Wonder of  Dao.
Oftentimes with intention I see its manifestations.
Its wonder and its manifestations are one and the same.
Since their emergence, they have been called by different names.
Their identity is called the mystery.
From mystery to further mystery:
The entry of all wonders!

Introduction:

I was up late one night over Thanksgiving with Annah, my 14-year-old daughter, re-watching the “Julie & Julia” movie where Julie a young 30 years old decides to cook her way through Julia Child’s cookbook and blog about her experience. An idea struck me! I will read through Lao Zi’s book “Dao De Jing” and blog my way through.  Since initiating this blog, I have had the thought to bring it “online intime”. I have been nudging up to this idea slowly trying to realize just what this means and, when I came across this Youtube clip Time sync, on time, in time!, I realized what I might be in for. After the time-sync clip and Julie’s cooking project challenges, I had second thoughts that I could keep a blog of my experiences and readings “online-intime”. But then I realize this is my experiential teaching pedagogy that I have been using since I started teaching in 1974:  one has to pay attention to one’s experiences, reflect on them in writing, as it all relates to an evolving theoretical framework, and then journal, blog, write papers – publish. Okay, understanding this is one thing, keeping It “online intime” is another!

Here is a concrete experience of what I think is now unfolding. The very next day after watching Julie blog, I watched the first Charlie Rose interview of J. K. Rowling (full interview) and listened to Rowling described the same creative processes in writing Harry Potter,  that  I had just experienced in watching Julie & Julia. This was a synchronistic and an enlightening interview for me and it brings us closer to understanding both the Yi Jing and the Dao De Jing. This blog “Dialectic Analytical Man” is where this is unfolding for me.
Charlie Rose with J.K Rowling

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ1s-YkraXY

The writing project, Kaptitalism on the Couch, has appropriately been expanded to examine Obama’s 2^nd Presidency moving, he hopes, forward. The expansion occurred when we asked the Yi Jing about what to expect from Obama’s 2nd term – reflections on the response posted earlier will soon be posted. So, the idea of blogging myself through Lao Zi’s Dao De Jing’s 81 chapters, one a week, is an attempt to better understand the experiences that are unfolding in time. It is important to realize that the Yi Jing was the book that both Lao Zi and his younger contemporary Confucius consulted in writing their books. Understanding and using both the Yi Jing and the Dao De Jing, will aid our comprehension and guide changes needed for an improved future – moving forward. This blog Dialectic Analytical Man is where this is unfolding is happening.

Commentary:

I have hyper-linked the Dao De Jing to Wikipedia so one might read some history. I will use Chang’s commentary, which includes both Chinese and Western thinkers on the Dao De Jing. Chang found in the writing of Heidegger a matching symmetry to that of Lao Zi. However, he also addresses the similarity in the thoughts of Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Jung, and others that mirror the wisdom being spoken.

As we read Chapter 1, we immediately sense a difference between our western and this eastern Chinese way of thinking. This difference is that western linear thinking begins with specifics facts and builds these together in drawing to a rational conclusion. While Chinese thinking has been described as circular often beginning with the conclusion. Chang says Chapter 1 does this in that it “both introduces and summarized the entire Dao De Jing – the 5000 charters of this text are all based on this chapter.” The most important sentence in this chapter Chang identifies as “its wonder and its manifestation are one and the same”, which carries the meaning of the middle way philosophy, according to which reality and appearance are identified” (1).

We are concerned right from the start with understanding the essence of Dao. The Dao is the source, the originator of the universe and of all things. Chang writes that the “Dao cannot be determined: it is nameless and inexpressible… its wonder and its manifestations, in reality and its appearance are identified.” Western efforts identify Dao as the way, with reason or nature are one-sided – “the Dao that can be spoken of in not the Dao itself. The name that can be given is not the name itself.” With this in mind, Chang translation of the Dao he calls “the Dao itself”. Chang’s approach is to identify the real Dao, by looking deep into its hidden meanings, which he states will be “revealed through non-discrimination.” So, here we see a keen distinction between the eastern way of non-discriminations and the western way of discriminations.

The key Chang suggests to understanding the wonder of the Dao is proper seeing. The lines, “oftentimes without intention I see the wonder of Dao” and “oftentimes with intention I see its manifestations” identify a task before us. This seeing is not ordinary in that when one really sees, the unnamable and the nameable are both identified, such that “when seeing nothing, one not only see nothing but also the ten thousand things simultaneously concealed and unconcealed.”  Chang states that, “When one sees being, one is not limited to the form of being. One sees that being is simultaneously the formlessness of being and the wonder of non-being. Therefore Lao Zi says: Its wonder and it manifestations are one and the same…. Their identity is called the mystery.”

Chang suggests that the seeing being described is a “mental function of contemplation, where one can grasp and identify the nameable and the unnamable, or being and nothing,” however, what is seen in Chapter 1, he says, “cannot be conceptualized”. Chang states the implication of this is that only “without intention or non-willing, is one freed from conceptualization and released to the total identity of the seer and the seen, which is the highest state of the mystery of Dao.” Without this inner experience of identity, our conceptualizations are worthless. One must simultaneously be fee from both the wonder of Dao as an objective of study and from the idea of the mystery as subjective feeling. When this is achieved “both things and myself are forgotten. Once one is free from both the subjectivity and objectivity, one can enter the gate of Dao.”

Chang ends his commentary by stating he hopes with this understanding we will now be able to better grasp the meaning of the remaining 80 chapters. Imagine, we have just read and looked at a commentary on Chapter 1, a summary of the entire Dao De Jing, one of the greatest books  a Chinese mind has produced, and we are feeling probably less clear than before starting. I think what Lao’s Zi is saying here, “without the inner experience of identity” is the same advice Confuses gives:

I hear and I forget,
I see and I remember,
I do and I understand.

To understand the Dao De Jing, one has to experience it!

Dao De Jing

Like the Bible the Dao De Jing is a book whose appeal is as broad as its meaning is deep.

It speaks to each of us at our own level of understanding, while inviting us to search for levels of insight and experience that are not yet within our comprehension.

As with every text that deserves to be called scared, it is a half-silvered mirror.  To read it is not only to see ourselves as we are but glimpse a greatness that extending far beyond our knowledge of ourselves and the universe we live in.

The Dao De Jing deals with what is permanent in us, it speaks about possible inner greatness and an equally possible inner failure, which are indelibly written into our very structure as human beings.

Under its gaze we are not American or Chinese or European, we are that being, man, uniquely called to occupy a precise place in the cosmic order no matter where or in what era you we live.

The Dao De Jing is thus a work metaphysical psychology taking us far beyond the social or biological factors that have been the main concern of modern psychology. It helps us to see how the fundamental forces of the cosmos itself are mirrored in our own individual inner structure. And, it invites us to try to live in direct relationship to all these forces.

Metaphysically the term Dao refers to the way things are.

Psychological it refers to the way human nature is constituted, the deep dynamic structure of our being.

Ethically it means the way human beings must conduct themselves with others.

Spiritually it refers to the guidance is offered to us, the methods of searching for the truth that have been handed down great sages of the past – the way of inner work.

All these meanings of Dao are ultimately one.

Yin Yang Balance – Genesis The Conception by Mystic Machine

*There are many translations of the Dao De Jing (pinyin spelling will be used) but I have chosen to use Chang, Chung-yuan (1975). Tao: a new way of thinking. New York: Harper & Row. It was the first book I purchased in August 1980 soon after taking up a new position at the Chinese University in Hong Kong.

President of the United States Barack Obama

Dear President Obama,

On November 7, 2012, after your re-election, I asked the I Ching a question about moving forward. The question I posed to the I Ching was: What of President Barack Obama Forward? Earlier on August 6, 2012 I asked the Yi Jing a question about your re-election. The question posed to the I Ching then was: What of Barack Obama’s Re-election?, and its response was sent to you last week. For the moving Forward question, I again held three Chinese coins with this question in mind and tossed the coins six times to generate six lines to make up one of possible 64 hexagram responses. I threw my coins and received hexagram 43. Kuai / Break-through (Resoluteness), with changing lines 9 in the first, second, and forth line yielding hexagram 39. Chien / Obstruction.

You read the body of Kuai and the changing lines only. You only read body in Chien, its lines are not read. Kuai address the immediate situational and Chien tells us something forward in time that needs attention. I see some very interesting wisdom here but know after reading these, you will see more. The I Ching’s response is like a Rorschach Inkblot exercise, as you read the hexagram reflects on what it means to you.

I asked the Yi Jing’s judgment about situations you face in moving forward in your new presidency. As a citizen my reaction to the oracle is on one level, however, when read by you, Mr. President and your team, it will speak deeper and be more verifiable. The only criterion for validity, Carl Jung suggests, is the “observer’s opinion that the text of the hexagram amounts to a true reading of his psychic conditions. …only if it is possible to read the pattern and to verify its interpretation, partly by the observer’s knowledge of the subjective and objective situation, partly by the character of subsequent events” (Wilhelm, 1968: xxv). Since the I Ching requires action on the part of the questioner, it is you, Mr. President, being advised by these hexagrams. Taking proper action is what sets the Yi Jing apart from fortune telling and thus justifies calling it The Book of Wisdom.

After the 9/11 attack on the U.S. and as President Bush was preparing for the Iraq war, I asked several question of the Yi Jing – the first question was “What of the September 11, 2001 tragedy?” The Yi Jing’s responses were sent to President Bush for his reflection and published, Scherling, Steven A. (2003 Spring). The Yi Jing Speaks to the World on September 11: A New Ethic. The Empty Vessel: A Journal of the Daoist Arts, pp 42-46. http://www.DaoistArts.com. I never heard from President Bush and the unfolding years make it very apparent he did not listen to I Ching’s advice. The wisdom of the I Ching’s response was deep to the challenges of leading the world then and now. I can read similar wisdom in these responses to you moving Forward. This might be an interesting way to approach your forward experiences with the Chinese – may I suggest they are consulting the I Ching about you.

Congratulation, Steven Scherling

November 9, 2012; Steven.Scherling@gmail.com

43. Kuai / Break-through (Resoluteness)

____     ____
__________         above      Tui          The Joyous, Lake
__________
__________
__________         below      Chien     The Creative, Heaven
__________

This hexagram signifies on the one hand a break-through after a long accumulation of tension, as a swollen river breaks through its dikes, or in the manner of a cloudburst. On the other hand, applied to human conditions, it refers to the time when inferior people gradually begin to disappear. Their influence is on the wane; as a result of resolute action, a change in conditions occurs, a break-through. The hexagram is linked with the third month [April-May].

THE JUDGMENT
Breaking-Through. One must resolutely make the matter know.
At the court of the King.
It must be announced truthfully. Danger.
It is necessary to notify one’s own city.
It does not further to resort to arms.
It further one to undertake something.

Even if only one inferior man is occupying a ruling position I the city, he is able to oppress superior men. Even a single passion and reason cannot exist side by side – therefore fight without quarter is necessary if the good is to prevail.

In a resolute struggle of the good against the evil, there are, however, definite rules that must no be disregarded, if it is to succeed. First, resolution must be based on a union of strength and friendliness. Second, a compromise with evil is not possible; evil m ust under all circumstance be openly discredited. Nor must our own passions and shortcoming be glossed over. Third, the struggle must not be carried on directly by force. If evil is branded, it thinks of weapons, and if we do it the favor of fighting against it blow for blow, we lose in the end because thus we ourselves get entangled n hatred and passion. Therefore, if is important to begin at home, to be on guard in our own persons against the faults we have branded. In this way, finding no opponent, the sharp edges of the weapons of evil become dulled. For the same reasons we should not combat our own faults directly. As long as we wrestle with them, they continue victorious. Finally, the best way to fight evil is to make energetic progress in the good.

THE IMAGE
The lake has risen up to heaven:
The image of Break-Through.
Thus the superior man
Dispenses riches downwad
And refrains from resting on his virtue.

When the water of a lake has risen up to heaven, there is reason to fear a cloudburst. Taking this as a warning, the superior man forestalls a violent collapse. If a man were to pile up riches for himself alone, without considering others, he would certainly experience a collapse. If a man were to pile up riches for himself alone, without considering others, he would certainly experience a collapse. For all gathering is followed by dispersion. Therefore the superior man begins to distribute while he is accumulation. In the same way, in developing his character he takes care not to become hardened in obstinacy but to remain receptive to impression by help of strict and continuous self-examination.

THE LINES
Nine at the beginning means:
Mighty be in the forward-striding toes.
When one goes and is not equal to the task,
One makes a mistake.

In times of resolute advance, the beginning is especially difficult. We feel inspired to press forward but resistance is still strong; therefore we ought to engage our own strength and venture only so far as we can goal with certainty of success. To plunge blindly I had is wrong, because it is precisely at the beginning that an I expected setback can have the most disastrous results.

Nine in the second place means:
A cry of alarm. Arms that evening and at night.
Fear nothing.

Readiness is everything. Resolution is indissolubly bound up with caution. If an individual is careful and keeps his wits about him, he needs not become excited or alarmed. If he is watchful at all times, even before danger is present, he is armed when danger approaches and need not be afraid. The superior man is on his guard against what is not yet in sight and on the alert for what is not yet within hearing; therefore he dwells in the midst of difficulties as though they did not exist. If a man develops his character, people submit to him of their own accord. If reason triumphs, the passions withdraw of themselves. To be circumspect and not to forget one’s armor is the right way to security.

Nine in the third place means:
Brings misfortune.
The superior man is firmly resolved.
He walks alone and is caught in the rain.
He is bespattered,
And people murmur against him.
No blame.

Here we have a man in an ambiguous situation. While all others are engaged in a resolute fight against all that is inferior, he alone has a certain relationship with an inferior man. If he were to show strength outwardly and turn against this man before the time is right, he would only endanger the entire situation, because the inferior man went to quickly have recourse to countermeasures. The task of a superior man becomes extremely difficult here. He must be firmly resolved within himself and, while maintaining associations with the inferior man, avoid any participation in his vileness. He will of course the miss judged. It will be thought that he belongs to the party of the inferior man. He will be lonely because no one will understand him. His relations with the inferior man will sully him in the eyes of the multitude, and they will turn against him, grumbling. But he can endure this lack of appreciation and makes no mistake, because he remains true to himself.

Nine in the fourth place means:
There is no skin on his thighs,
And walking comes hard.
If a man were to let himself be led like a sheep,
Remorse would disappear.
But if these words are heard
They will not be believed.

Here a man is suffering from inner restlessness and can not abide in his place. He would like to push forward under any circumstances, but encounters inseparable obstacles. Bus is situation entails an inner conflict. This is due to the obstinacy with which he seeks to enforce his will. If he would be the desist from this obstinacy, everything would go well. But this advice, like so much other good counsel, will be ignored. For obstinacy makes a man unable to hear, for all that he has ears.

Nine in the fifth place means:
In dealing with weeds,
Firm resolution is necessary.
Walking in the middle
Remain free of blame.

We always grow back again and are difficult to exterminate. Soul to the struggle against an inferior man in a high position demands firm resolution. One has certain relations with them, and there is danger that one may give up the struggle as hopeless. But this must not be. One less goal on resolutely and not allow himself to be defeated from his course. Only in this way does one remain free of blame

Six at the top means:
No cry.
In the end misfortune comes.

Victory seems to have been achieved. There remains merely a remnant of the evil resolutely to be eradicated as the time demands. Everything looks easy. Just there, however, lies the danger. If we are not on guard, evil will succeed in escaping by means of concealment, and when it has eluded us new misfortunes will develop from the remaining seeds, for evil does not die easily. So too in dealing with the evil in one’s own character, one must go to work with thoroughness. If out of carelessness anything were to be overlooked, new evil would arise from it.

39. Chien / Obstruction
____      ____
__________         above      Kan         The Abysmal, Water
____     ____
__________
____     ____         below      Ken         Keeping Still, Mountain
____     ____ 

The hexagram pictures a dangerous abyss lying before us and a steep, inaccessible mountain rising behind us. We aare surrounded by obstacles; at the same time, since the mountain has the attribute of keeping still, there is implicit a hint as to how we can extricate ourselves. The hexagram represents obstruction that appear in the course of time but that can and should be overcome. Therefore all the instruction given is directed to overcoming them.

THE JUDGMENT
Obstruction. The southwest furthers
The northeast does not further.
It furthers one to see the great man.
Perseverance brings good fortune.

The southwest is the region of retreat, the northeast that of advance. Here an individual is confronted by obstacles that cannot be overcome directly. In such a situation it is wise to pause in view of the danger and to retreat. However, this is merely a preparation for overcoming the obstructions. One must join forces with friends of like mind and put himself under the leadership of a man equal to the situation: then one will succeed in removing the obstacles. This requires the will to persevere just when on apparently mut do something that leads away from his goal. This unswerving inner purpose brings good fortune in the end. An obstruction that last only for a time is useful for self-development. This is the value of adversity.

THE IMAGE
Water on the mountain:
The image of obstruction.
Thus the superior man turns his attention to himself
And molds his character.

Difficulties and obstruction throw a man back upon himself. While the inferior man seeks to put the blame on others persons, bewailing his fate, the superior man seeks the error within himself, and through this introspection the external obstacle becomes for him an occasion for inner enrichment and education.

THE LINES
Six at the beginning means:
Going needs to obstruction,
Coming meets with praise.

When one encounters an obstruction, the important thing is to reflect on how best to deal with it. When threatened with danger, one should not strive blindly to go ahead, for this only leads to complications. The correct thing is, on the contrary, to retreat for the time being, not in order to give up the struggle but to wait the right moment for action.

Six in the second place means:
Six in the second place means
The King’s servant is beset by obstruction upon obstruction,
But it is not his own fault.

Ordinarily it is best to go around an obstacle and try to overcome it along the line of least resistance. But there is one instance in which a man must go out to meet the trouble, even though difficulty piles upon difficulty: this is when the path of duty leads directly to it — in other words, when he cannot act of his own volition but is duty bound to go and seek out danger in the service of a higher cause. Then he may do it with out compunction, because it is not through any fault of his that he is putting himself in this difficult situation.

Nine in the third place means:
Going leads to obstructions;
Hence he comes back.

While the preceding line shows the official compelled by duty to follow the way of danger, this line shows the man who must act as father of a family or as head of his kin. If he were to plunge recklessly into danger, it would be useless act, because those entrusted to his care can not get along by themselves. But if he withdraws and turns back to his own, they welcomed him with great joy.

Six in the fourth place means:
Going leads to obstructions,
Coming leads to the union.

This too describes a situation that cannot be managed single-handed. In such a case the direct way is not the shortest. If a person were to forge ahead on his own strength and without the necessary preparation, he would not find the support he needs and would realize too late that he has been mistaken in his calculations, inasmuch as the conditions on which he hoped he could rely would prove to be inadequate. In this case it is better, therefore, to hold back for the time being and to gather together trustworthy companions who can be counted upon for help in overcoming the obstructions.

Nine in the fifth place means:
In the midst of the greatest obstructions,
Friends come.

Here we see a man who is called to help in an emergency. He should not seek to evade the obstruction, though matter how dangerously they pile up before him. But because he is really called up to the task, the power of his spirit is strong enough to attract helpers who he can effectively organize, so that through the well directed cooperation of all participants the obstruction is overcome serious

Six in the top means:
Going leads to obstructions,
Coming leads to great good fortune.
It furthers one to see the great man.

This refers to a man who has already left the world and its tumult behind him. When the time of obstruction arrives, it might seem that the simplest thing for him to do would be to turn his back upon the world and take refuge in the beyond. But this road is barred to him. He must not seek his own salvation and abandon the world to its adversity. Duty calls him back once more into the turmoil of life. Precisely because of his experience an inner freedom, is able to create something both great and complete that brings good fortune. And it is favorable to see the great man in alliance with whom one can achieve the work of rescue.

Wilhelm,Helmut, (1968).The I Ching Book of Changes, 3^rd Edition. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

Time Synch – Online Intime! I am now making an effort to blog Online Intime.

In past issues of the HPR we began examining capitalism with a learning model presented in The Mathematics of Faith and in the second essay Kapitalism on the Couch our psychoanalysis of capitalism began. The third essay, Kapitalism: It Nature and Logic presented the structural components of this economic/political system and this fourth essay looks deeper into capitalism’s logic. To continue our psychoanalytical study of capitalism, we will make use of the learning model by examining a personal experience of exploitation and alienation – central components of capitalism as it increasingly impacts our universities.

In the study of capitalism, Synchronistic experiences will be important events to understand and several occurred the morning I finished a three-page letter to University of Mary (Bismarck) President Shea regarding the University’s violation of academic freedom – interference in individual self-actualization. After finishing the letter, I opened the Fargo Forum (2012.06.13:A4) and read three opinions regarding a St. Joseph teacher’s termination over her beliefs regarding gay marriage. An hour later, UMary-Fargo Director called to clarify news that I had not been fired from my facilitator position. I then read Bishop Victor Blake’s letter Paul said teach the truth (Forum 2012.06.17:C7) and watched the Up with Chris Hayes show on University of Virginia fires its president.  Finally, I unexpectedly came across and re-read Calvert’s article, Academia’s dirty little secret is derailing the tenure track (Forum 2007.02.11:A17).

Synchronicity

As the above experiences were unfolding, I realized that Bishop Blake reports a synchronistic experience that he calls Providence. He writes, “As Providence would have it, the day the article appeared, we had the following reading in our liturgy from St. Paul’s second letter to Timothy, I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus … proclaim the word, be persistent whether it is convenient or inconvenient: convince, reprimand, encourage, through all patience and teaching. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but, following their own desires and insatiable curiosity, will accumulate teachers that will stop listening to the truth, … But you, be self-possessed in all circumstances; put up with hardship, perform the work of an evangelist; fulfill your ministry.” The Wikipedia entry states that providence is “care exercised by God over the universe, his foresight and care for its future”.

An important difference in our respective experiences is that Blake’s providential experience imposes the closed system of Church dogma on an experience, while Carl Jung’s open synchronistic concept relies on the individual to interrupt an experience as it relate to his/her individuation. Blake quoting Paul closes the door on academic freedom and self-actualization – people are not allowed to follow “their own desires and insatiable curiosity.” This may be an acceptable position for teaching Church doctrine but it is not acceptable when a Church affiliated school decides to teach secular courses. Any school not embracing individual desire and insatiable curiosity is not contributing to the challenge of globalization and defends globalization that Pinky likens to a fish swimming in bowl of water that cannot be seen.

Defending Globalization

Paul’s next words “will accumulate teachers that will stop listening to the truth,” is central to the challenge teachers and universities face today. The premise of secular education is to seek understanding and truth, not to preach dogma whether it comes from The Church or The Corporation. The challenge facing our schools is the disappearance of academic freedom , which is defined as, “the belief that the freedom of inquiry by students and faculty members is essential to the mission of the academy, and that scholars should have freedom to teach or communicate ideas or facts (including those that are inconvenient to external political groups or to authorities) without being targeted for repression, job loss, or imprisonment.” Both the Church and the Corporation have dogmas incompatible with institutions of higher education and when they form an alliance – it is most unholy!

The Corporation

A recent Up w/ Chris Hayes Show, The Battle of Virginia, examines this un-holiness in the recent  firing of UVA President Theresa Sullivan, which is a wake-up call to the assault on academic freedom. Hayes states that the UVA experience of corporate takeover of the university is occurring across the country as corporate donations fill the gap left by diminishing public financing of higher education. Universities’ Board of Regents are increasing dominated by corporate CEOs who are using their business models to run universities, where control comes from the top and is directed at making a profit not seeking truth. In this respect the Church and the Corporation have similar mind sets – a self-possessed sense of what is truth.

As business schools snuggle up to corporation, their ability to teach ethics is being questioned. Garten’s B-Schools: Only C+ in ethics, gives business schools a C+ grade in the teaching of ethics. He arrives at this grade by examining ethical failures of businesses like Enron. These corporations were and are managed by individuals taught ethics in our major school of business. Schumpeter’s The pedagogy of the privilege suggests that with business schools named after major business benefactors, with 50+% of universities board of regents holding corporate positions, and with many business school faculties earning handsome consulting fees, faculty members are not going to deeply examine the ethics of corporations.

Calvert’s article, Academia’s dirty little secret is derailing the tenure track (Forum 2007.02.11:A17), closely examines the logic of the business model now being applied to universities. Citing a report from the American Association of University Professors only 24 percent of higher educational faculties are tenured and only 11 percent are on a tenure track. Sixty five percent are contingents, adjunct, part-time teachers, and graduate students hired “because they are cheap” and pose no threat to the authority now coming from the top. Calvert reports that UND and NDSU are following the trends with 63 percent and 72 percent of their faculties’ contingent. Calvert states that an education system dominated by a contingent faculty won’t work because these teachers are powerless or even interested in the pursuit of new knowledge. This powerlessness is the threat to academic freedom and for any dedicated teacher, alienating!

As universities move closer to the corporate business model, besides top down authority and profits they increasingly look like corporations in terms of alienation. Universities are increasingly alienating their teachers and students and this is important to understand because it affects U.S. competitiveness in the world. Any encounter with exploitation and alienation, logical components of capitalism, is painful!

The University of Mary’s Accelerated MBA Program is 90% staffed by part-time practitioner facilitators and when I joined in 2000, I was asked to re-design its initial MBA course. I design the course with a contingent pedagogy so that any facilitator could bring his/her Self to the course. Then in the spring of 2011, the initial MBA course was changed and I was presented with the new course’s syllabus and told it had to be followed. The Business School Dean said pressures to standardize syllabi across programs and locations were pressuring the University. The syllabus I was given was impossible to facilitate and after hours of discussion with its designer and administrators an understanding was reached that modification in content not structure could be made. I had fought to include my Self into the new syllabus and then taught the course three times to perfect its delivery. Still the time required to facilitate the course was excessive and UMary administrators avoided my analysis of student workload, facilitator workload, and fascinator compensation.

Then, a year ago, I learned a VP and I would be facilitating sections of the same course with approximately the same number of students, I smiled knowing that she would finally face the linkage between student workload, adjunct faculty work load, and compensation. The VP soon hit-the-wall as she scrambled to implement the original course design – her assessment to facilitate the course was the same as mine, 25-30 hours per week. Her calculation of our hourly wage rate was $10 and with Fargo’s average wage rate at $15, The University of Mary is clearly exploiting its adjunct practitioner facilitators.

Marx on Alienation

Besides exploiting wages another central issue in capitalism’s logic is alienations. Alienation  refers to “estrangement, division, or distancing of people from each other, or of people from what is important or meaningful to them, or of a person from their own sense of Self.” In my courses, the issues of a new depth ethics and self-actualization through the processes of individuation were being woven into a new approach to transformational leadership. This work at the center of my studies and my sense of Self requires of both the students and teacher exactly what the Blake warns about, individual desire and insatiable curiosity – only accessed with academic freedom.

Jung on Individuation

Last February when facilitating the online course with the pedagogy modification that had been agreed to, the UMary VP for teaching excellence entered the class 5-days from the course’s end of a five-week course and insisted that all syllabus changes be rescinded and the original syllabus reinstated. I asked why and was told UMary was insisting on standardized syllabi across all sections and campuses. I told him this could not be done at this point in the course. He then went directly to the students informing them not to complete what had been scheduled and not to contact me further. This was a direct assault on academic freedom and the students and my “sense of Self” – alienation clear and simple. The class was prevented from fully exploring new ideas on ethical leadership that went contrary to UMary’s Catholic teaching – of not looking deep into “our desires and insatiable curiosities.” Despite the demand not to interact, we did reach out to each other and all completed the course successfully.

The University of Mary’s Accelerated MBA program is seriously flawed and the flaw is not understanding the dynamics involved in realizing that the need for self-actualization, individuation requires both the students and teacher, the worker and manager, the follower and leader, becoming deeply involved in exploring their respective insatiable curiosities. To do this, teachers need freedom to pursue ideas wherever they lead. The experiences of exploitation and alienation reminded me of Charlie Chaplin’s Modern Times The Factory Scene where the assemble line paces his work while his supervisor demands more and more effort to keep up. It captures what some universities increasing look like.

Modern Times The Factory Scene

The logic of capitalism is to standardize and mechanize the production processes from the top down in order to extract as much surplus value, profit, from its production system as possible. Schools of Business dominated by CEOs, faculties feeding at the trough of corporations, and increasing staffed by adjunct-powerless faculty members are not going to produce the world class ideas that will lead the U.S. to a more prosperous future for all citizens. I now suspect that UMary’s reaction to a deep teaching pedagogy is the same as St. Joseph’s School was toward Ms Sullivan’s belief. The Catholic Church and its affiliated schools seem unwilling or unable to tolerate open, critical, and creative thinking.

To be continued…. Kapitalism on the Couch

Scherling, S.A. (2012, October 18). Modern Times The University Factory System – Kapitalism on the Couch. High Plains Reader, 19 (7), 21.

In the preceding HPR essay, Kapitalism on The Couch (April. 23, 2009; http://www.hpr1.com), capitalism was nudged up onto the analytical couch of Karl Marx and Carl Jung. Our analytical dialogue begins by examining the nature and logic of capitalism, which will address the dialectical approach to knowledge, a materialist approach to history, the psyche-social-analytical method, its commitments to individuation and socialism, and finally a look at how Marx’s visionary concept of society might be fulfilled in a future dialectical corporation. As stated in the first essay, The Mathematics of Faith (February 25, 2009; http://www.hpr1.com), the objective of these essays is to understand how the unconscious side of the individual psyche and the hidden side of capitalism impact our system of political-economy and in this essay we look at the nature of capitalism.

The “Nature and Logic of Capitalism” is economist Robert Heilbronner’s answer to the question, “What is capitalism?” Is the core of history found in the description of its “social formations” as Marx proposes? Or does its core lie in the realm of ideas as modern economist Joseph Schumpeter (Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy) maintains? At the center of this dialogue is the philosophical thought of Hegel – a dialectical approach to knowledge, which plays a central role in Marx’s social-analysis of capitalism. This dialogue was addressed in Fukuyama’s essay, The End of History?, which argues that history ended when the “idea of Communism” died in 1989 with the fall of the USSR, leaving the idea of the liberal democratic state the winner. However, in Marx’s view an era’s “social formation” determines history and continues to evolve aided by an important variable – technology.

Robert Heilbroner

History became a real interest of mine in the summer of 1959, when I read Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of The Third Reich” and Gorlitz’s “The History of the German General Staff.” That fall I entered Fargo Central High School and one of its inspirational teachers, besides Ed “Gadfly” Raymond was Bill Barney. I wrote two book reports for Coach Barney on my summer’s readings and was hooked on history. Later at UND I struggled with a decision to major in history or psychology – psychology barely won. Years later I realized that behind the thoughts of the worldly philosophers is a history of supporting thought. In Jung’s case his studies of the Gnostics, Alchemy, and the I Ching provided confirmation for individuation psychology. Later we will explore how these ideas are relevant to our study of global capitalism but now the existential issue is this – how does an idea arise?

For Marx, ideas arises the same way as British historian Jacob Bronowski in this book and TV series “The Ascent of Man” suggests – the evolution of the opposable thumb, man’s ability to grasp and fashion tools drives the development of the mind. In Marx’s terms at the center of history is its “social formation”, or more specifically its “distinctive arrangement of its social arrangements of productions” (Heilbronner 1985:14). Marx’s approach to the study of history is to examine these social arrangements of production or its “modes of productions.”

A rough taxonomy of history to apply this to is the primitive, imperial, feudal, and capitalist eras. Each of these eras has a unique mode of production to produce and commandeer its wealth – primitive society produces hunters and gathers, imperial/feudal society produces peasants/warriors and lords, and capitalist society produces workers and capitalists. Except for the primitive, which really does not have history, the imperial and feudal eras both had a capitalist element but it was not the centralizing mode shaping these societies. When the mode of trade and manufacturing moved to center stage, economists designated the era capitalism. This era has undergone significant change and continues to evolve, as the current global economic meltdown testifies to (Frontline, The Global Meltdown). We will address the evolution of capitalism, which some suggest is moving toward “socialism” but first, the nature of capitalism.

The era of capitalism begins around 1700 and while it has changed these ensuing 300 years, it has maintained the same “specific determinative forces.” Understanding these forces has been a central task of the great economists. Adam Smith, 1776, not able to decipher this complexity, simple saw the forces as a deity, “the invisible hand,” directing the drama onto beneficial paths. For Marx, 100 years later, the directing force in an “internal dialectic that asserts its sway through a ‘fetishism’ that blinds men to their real social situation” – hiding the real relationship between labor and capital. We will be examining this internal dialectic later.

Adam Smith Invisible Hand

For modern economists like Schumpeter the determinative force is individual (laissze faire) efforts to acquire wealth, which is the force driving society toward a state of “general equilibrium of wants and capabilities.” In all of these explanations, business activities are viewed as being directed by hidden forces beneath the surface of economic life. And as pointed out in a previous essay, Marx’s discovery of an “unsuspected level of reality beneath the surface of capitalism” is visionary and very relevant today – that is, to become aware. (Heilbronner 1985:17).

To study these “agency forces” Heilbronner (1985:19) proposes a framework, where the nature of any social system refer to its “behavior-shaping institutions and relationships,” and its logic as the “pattern of configurational changes generated and guided by this inner core”. The nature of a social system can be divided into three categories. The first is givens like geography, climate, and natural resources, which are not that important in the overall scheme, as the resource-poor Japanese success testifies to. Far more important is the second category, which is the drives and capacities (psychic energies) of individuals and how these are transformed from the raw state of the child into a socialized adult fitting into its social system. This is a central idea of Adam Smith – the wealth nations are its citizens, one area we will examine deeply. Remember from the first essay, Christ’s main concern is to take the bean out of one’s eye – that is, to become aware.

In looking into this key source of wealth, individual drives and capacities, we will rely on the work of Marx, Freud, Jung, and others. We will examine the capitalist’s socializing/indoctrinating educational system, a topic on the front burner of every national dialogue. An issue deep inside this dialogue is the topic of innovation and this is not just about new commodities to sell the Chinese but innovation in new ways to think, feel, and live. We will look at how Hegel and Marx’s dialectic will directly contribute to our dialogue on creativity/innovation and how Marx and Jung’s thought play an interdependent role in the ecological challenge facing the world.

The third category of nature is a society’s institutions, organizations, and belief systems. These have been created to receive man’s psyche energies and now act as channels directing these energies. Institutions that oversee indoctrination, education, and sustain the social-legal framework are vital to maintaining societal harmony. The Christian belief-system and its underlying logic (The Mathematics of Faith February 25, 2009; http://www.hpr1.com) also needs to be further addressed in understanding of capitalism (Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the Sprit of Capitalism). We will also closely examine the transnational corporation’s (TNC) role and a key variable under its control – technology. With technology as the dynamo behind globalization (Friedman, “The World is Flat”), globalization has been called the new magmus opus of our time and its driving logic, profit maximization, depends on technology (Giegerich, The Opposition of ‘Individual’ and ‘Collective’ Psychology’s Basic Fault). We will examine this thought and the new psyche-ecological ethic that surfaces.

The socializing process this third category imposes upon society is by no means smooth. The institutions molding behavior are themselves directed by inner logics that may take the form of “class against class, against tribe, civilization against civilization, or focus on color, religion, or sex.” Involved in all these logics are issues of domination and oppression, which invariably leads to alienation. In spite of capitalism’s wealth, it is difficult to find anyone not alienated by its nature and logic – why? As we will uncover, it is all about money – money money, money – wealth, who produces it, who gets it, and why? Next, we examine the logic of capitalism.