The Dialectics of Repression.

[The Last Man]

we take pleasure in our will to union, not in union itself.

Here you come very close to my understanding of all motivation as the lust for Truth. Truth I have in that context elaborately explained in terms of union.

Can you elaborate here, what is your concept of truth in terms of union?

[Sauwelios]

we take pleasure in our will to union, not in union itself.

Here you come very close to my understanding of all motivation as the lust for Truth. Truth I have in that context elaborately explained in terms of union.

What's your definition of 'Truth', then, in terms of union?

[The Last Man]

Funny how I just asked that very question.

[Jakob]

First of all, truth is transient.
It is a state reached through/in union of wills/forces which up until the union had been conflicting and as such the cause of a particular consciousness. In the resolution of this conflict, and hence, of this consciousness, an entirely different kind of consciousness arises - a limited duration in which subjective existence appears as self-explanatory, which is to say as much as that it appears to be objective, in line with all there is (appears to be).

The reason for this state of mind, the cause of it in physical terms, is explained by William Blake when he says that 'reason is the circumference of energy'. As we've seen before, above, everywhere I've written and been understood, reason is duality. In such a union of forces, in such a temporary resolution of duality, in effect, in such a fusion of quanta of power, as with all fusions, a great deal of energy is released. As a consequence, the circumference of this energy, the reason of the consciousness that belongs to the energy (the subject), breaks apart, and is temporarily supplanted in its function of ego by the entire mass of energy itself. The 'Self', for a short duration, takes over the function of the ego, for as long as it takes the rational functions of the subject to enclose the new constitution of energy. In other words, to impose, to refer to another discourse, a new symbolic order on the Real. This short duration is my definition of truth.

Please note that I am not talking about a simple libidinal release of energy here, I am referring to all integration of wills within the subject. So also about concepts which have appeared irreconcilable and in a flash of brilliance merge into a new, superior concept. Dwelling on the emergence of an integrated conception is such non-dual state of mind. I'm sure we all know this state. I expect you'll concur that it lasts until it has been formulated, circumscribed, encapsulated into terms. Then 'the magic wears off' (quite literally, as this fusion is the center of occult practice) and we need to pursue a new integration, a new moment of truth.

[Sauwelios]

Funny how I just asked that very question.

Ehm, yes, I first meant to ask something else, but it then became the same question as yours, and I did not realise it.

[Sauwelios]

The reason for this state of mind, the cause of it in physical terms, is explained by William Blake when he says that 'reason is the circumference of energy'. As we've seen before, above, everywhere I've written and been understood, reason is duality. In such a union of forces, in such a temporary resolution of duality, in effect, in such a fusion of quanta of power, as with all fusions, a great deal of energy is released. As a consequence, the circumference of this energy, the reason of the consciousness that belongs to the energy (the subject), breaks apart, and is temporarily supplanted in its function of ego by the entire mass of energy itself. The 'Self', for a short duration, takes over the function of the ego, for as long as it takes the rational functions of the subject to enclose the new constitution of energy. In other words, to impose, to refer to another discourse, a new symbolic order on the Real. This short duration is my definition of truth.

With this I think we arrive again at an essential disagreement between the two of us. I say that (the notions of) subject and object are necessary for consciousness. That is, there can only be consciousness of 'the Real' insofar as a subject imposes order on it. And in fact this is always the case (the 'symbolic order' is never finished). Consciousness then is not a subject's consciousness of an object, but its consciousness of objectification (in the active sense: that is, ordering, order-imposing, etc.). There can be no consciousness of oneness or separateness, but only of union or separation (both words taken in the active sense). Hence we take pleasure, not in oneness (union in the perfect sense), but in the will to oneness (i.e., in unification, in the active sense).

[Jakob]

I think you have misunderstood me there; I did not mean the fusion of subject and object in a totality, but all different objects into one. So that there is a pure consciousness of objectification, in your terms, until other objects start to emerge again into consciousness, and put the reached object, the result of the fusion, into perspective.

In a sense, however, the purity of the object results of course in a strong resonance between object and subject. They are aligned, so to speak. Which is not the case when we have a variety of objects, objectifying processes, which are in conflict, or at least in dissonance with each other. With this alignment it is possible to speak of a breach in the separation of subject and object. They are not one, but there is less of an absolute between them. Consciousness becomes aware of itself - it is aware of the dynamic it consists of.

[MagsJ]

Naw I just wing it mostly. I don't hang my hat on any 'isms', rather I try to sift through them in order to extract the useful psychological or philosophical pieces and elements contained within.

It's funny how those two isms came to work for me, and I have seriously found a peace of mind with their arrival


Funny how there is humour in the narcissistic:



...but not in the ascetic:

[Fromlostdays]

If It wasn't so late, I'd enjoy taking the original premises of this thread and trying to apply them to the conversation you two had afterwards for kicks, but honestly this stuff is a little over my head. I am familiar, however, with the "mine is bigger" .. would that be a pleasure principle? Sorry. You both seem very insightful, but what is all the insight in the world worth if you fall into the same traps less insightful people do?

Sincerely,

FLD

[izmo]

I see two limits to Freuds analysis:

1, given the case of many animals, the following of pleasure is not necessarily the result of an especially long nurturing phase.
2, the analysis of neurosis as an antagonism between pleasure principle and reality principle does not explain why these principles, in the human, are opposed.

That is not Freud's analysis at all. That is the original poster's interpretation of a small slice of Freud.

The first thesis should instead of Pleasure Principle be "Undesirable Thoughts due to the need to attain Pleasure at any cost." The first antithesis instead of Reality Principle should be "A brief conscious acknowledgement (Reality) that my thoughts are unacceptable which alarms me." These are the thesis and antithesis that produce repression. You've reduced it to all pleasure versus all reality, and that was not what Freud was saying.

That having been said, I really appreciate both of your vigor in pursusing this thread. There are a lot of mind-provoking ideas. Thanks for letting me be a fly on the wall.

[Jakob]

The first thesis should instead of Pleasure Principle be "Undesirable Thoughts due to the need to attain Pleasure at any cost." The first antithesis instead of Reality Principle should be "A brief conscious acknowledgement (Reality) that my thoughts are unacceptable which alarms me."

Hm that changes the case.
To whom are these thoughts unacceptable? Does Freud attribute this judgment to the superego?

And now I start to wonder, what happens with this sense of alarm? Do neurosis and sublimation still come in here?

[without-music]

Please, I want to see this discussion revived. I am just now getting into Freud.

[Fixed Cross]

Disregarding for the moment the dialectics of the OP and focussing on repression, I want to try to reproduce by heart some of what Freud writes on repression and neurosis in an early essay.

Certain drives, which he does not at first explicitly connect to sexuality, are intolerable to the conscious mind (which he does not at that point connect to the superego, a notion he may not have developed yet) and are repressed into the subconscious. That is to say, disallowed to enter into consciousness.

By this act, the drives are disconnected from the notions of the acts in which they would expend their energy, and continue to exist as raw emotive energy. This energy then seeks to attach itself to different (notions of) acts, against which the conscious mind (later, superego) has no law. This can be anything. The emotion may attach itself to any sort of activity, causing the phenomenon of compulsive neurosis.

If I remember correctly, Freud goes on to write that the original, natural activity-context of the drive, when it is repressed, expands in the subconscious. That is to say that the repressed content increases, it draws into itself more context, notions of activities that were not previously forbidden by the conscious law. So if unattended, repression is like a fungus, spreading throught the system, whereby more and more is repressed.

Freud goes on to describe how certain things repressed by this phenomenon can later surface again because they are sufficiently detached from the original forbidden context, but here my memory becomes really hazy. I will reread the essay and if no one has corrected me by then, post the actual story.

[Jakob]

My point stands; there are bees and wasps of conscience. One cannot know rather or not he is capable of enduring the pangs of conscience in revenge until he has stung; one cannot know rather or not he is destined for self-mastery before he casts his chains away; one cannot know if he has any worth beyond that of a servant until he has done so, and cannot avoid risking profound destruction in this test. There is always danger in self-knowledge. As Nietzsche says,

41. One must subject oneself to one's own tests that one is destined for independence and command, and do so at the right time. One must not avoid one's tests, although they constitute perhaps the most dangerous game one can play, and are in the end tests made only before ourselves and before no other judge.

To cast our chains off; this is one of the greatest tests that one must submit one's self to. And rather or not I interest you should be of little regard, in the face of reason. In the face of a point you either concede to it or refute it, you don't just wave your hands and say that I don't interest you, as it is not my concern to interest you, but to reduce you to a bed of ashes.

Finally, how can we see the world any other way? That is irrelevant to the fact that what we have in section 36 is a heuristic principle, not a metaphysical supposition, and it has absolutely nothing to do with the question of being.

Reminder

[Pedro I Rengel]

Pathos of need, how uncharacteristically Nietzschean of P.

Of course, to live based on need is not a pathos, but a privilege. A privilege given to animals, and which man can only attain.

Need is not suffereing however, is not pain, although pain, suffering, are the contours of it. That by virtue of which it can be said to be real.

Man has separated himself from constant need, constant pain, only to make it much more complicated and intricate and fun, to make it privilegeier.

If one digs deep enough, one finds that it is precicely this that is the ultimate refutation of Darwinist evolutionary theory in Nietzsche.

Long Live Nietzsche, K'sooooooooooooaa!

[Jakob]

In that frame we could see desire as the ennobled need, here evolving Into decadence of need, there into superhuman will.