THE “KARL JASPERS FORUM” UPDATE 27 (JULY 8, 2006)—Why Zvi Lothane awkwardly ignores Jaspers, Herbert Muller’s persistent mistakes, correlated with the Web Page on Richard Dawkins. REVISED UPDATE (JULY 9, 2006)—Zvi Lothane’s Responds. |
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email me. 1. The Transcendental theistic Jaspers continues to be misused Announcement: Herbert has announced that posting will be discontinued for the next few weeks due to vacation time. After this UPDATE 27 some time will be given to the Jaspers-Applied-to-Dawkins Web Page. At least that is my intention. 1.The Transcendental theistic Jaspers is still being misused--Herbert continues to misrepresent Jaspers to make him fit his formulae MIR and 0-D--emboldened, as I pointed out last week, by Greg Nixon’s predictable performance, i.e., his troth to mind-dependent-reality (an affirmative MDR form of MIR, the latter meaning mind-independent reality) and zero-derivation of consciousness/conscience but wholly limited to immanentalism. In his TA78 R31 to Peter Moller, Herbert more inaccurately than correctly represents Peter as being in agreement with Herbert’s rejection of mind-independent-reality. Herbert uses the Response to Peter in item [2] to say God is not only a concept, i.e., psyche-phenomenon, but a mere functional or dysfunctional invention, i.e., epiphenomenon, wholly based on an individual’s handling of personal empirical experience. This experience has to be consistent with Herbert’s invariable evolutionism, that the mind can be understood as having progressively “evolved”. That atheism, that feeling of superiority, is the progressive consequence that the mind and the origin of humankind is known and not merely hypothetically or propositionally knowable. That superiority, if one were speaking in progressive “evolutional” terms, could be referred to as highbred-hubris. Herbert is mentally predetermined to continue to misrepresent Jaspers on the concepts of the encompassing, i.e., he must have Jaspers speaking out of metaphysical immanence and not philosophical Transcendence. Those capable of comprehending Jaspers understand that Transcendence and the Encompassing of encompassings has an essential…beyondness…denotation in the theistic sense and encompasses the subject-object dichotomous predicament of the mind. Jaspers’ thinking does not proceed out of, continue in, or end anywhere near knowledge of humankind’s origin except where faith and informed reason is engaged but still leaning toward the invisible. Herbert can proclaim a religious evolutionism’s atheism and vaticanized ersatz church, but it is inexcusable to do this on a forum bearing the name of Jaspers. To use a more popular and current force as example: I would not do a “Richard Dawkins Forum” and then attempt to show Richard to be anything more or less than a consistent atheist and “evolutionist”. 2. Why Zvi Lothane fails to mention Jaspers’ critique of Freud--Zvi has submitted many Comments and one Target Article to Herbert’s blog and one should wonder why he has not once made reference to Jaspers. Jaspers was and is most qualified as a psychologist, psychotherapist, psychopathologist, philosophizer, and theos-logician for the task of critiquing Freud. And he has critiqued Freud. One can fairly wonder if there’s an ethological factor involved for what almost has to be an intentional disregard of Jaspers by Zvi. He has had several years to become acquainted with the “Jaspers” of the misnamed “Karl Jaspers Forum”. Jaspers has especially critiqued Freud from a psychopathology angle. But Zvi continues to promulgate Freud’s influence, which Karl Jaspers acknowledges too, but not with the adoration and approval Zvi seems to have. As one reads Jaspers’ critique of Freud, it becomes obvious why Freud’s limits are manifested in street popularity, or to use Zvi’s phraseology “street ideas and opinions”. I want to show that Zvi’s propounding of Freud without reference to Jaspers is so pertinent it is almost pathological to ignore it. And then I want to apply the demonstration further by leading back into the Web Page on Dawkins.
3. Zvi cannot plead learned ignorance—He can talk intelligently about other great personages, e.g., Plato, Jung, Buber…but not Jaspers. So one can only surmise how Zvi would handle Jaspers’ psychology of worldviews under the category of psychopathology where he considers Freud in sufficient depth to not be ignored. That one might distract from Jaspers could have something to do with the fact that Jaspers is not kind to the point of being dishonest toward Freud or Freudian-schools. Zvi reproaches Eugene Webb not because of anything relevant to Jaspers but rather primarily Freud, as though if Eugene can be shown wrong in one area he must be discredited for referencing Jaspers at all. Greg Nixon and Herbert Muller do similarly, the latter pushing atheism and to be consistent evolutionism too. But Herbert is caught between a rock and a hard place; his “Karl Jaspers” masthead and the real personality-loaded more informed and experienced Karl Jaspers. Whether through ignoring or misuse, all tends to verify Jaspers’ notorious worth in the struggle of named and unnamable powers.
4. The significance of Freud’s influence relative to mimicking—Jaspers critique of Freudianism directly involves voluntary and involuntary mimicking--and of course memory. Mimicking Freud might be intentional as seems the case with Zvi. With others, i.e., like the psychological affect of the school on the masses, mimicking is more involuntary, and is most phenomenal though Zvi considers it unwise street knowledge. In both cases awareness of Jaspers’ views becomes important. It is important whether consideration is given to self-deceived teachers and therapists and their transfer of ideas to students and patients. Reviewing Zvi’s Forum-contributions through Jaspers’ critique leaves one with the impression that Zvi is a member of the Freudian school and as a therapist participates not so much in individuality but rather he manifests a “feeling of an absolute knowledge and superiority in relation to other sects and schools” as Jaspers says (Gen. Psychop. 1963, Manchester U. Press, p. 773). Jaspers then says that the most famous past-example of this “is Freud and the movement which he founded and led”. We can now add a current example, besides Zvi, for comparison and that is Dawkins, the alleged Rottweller of the Darwinian school. It is important to respond to Zvi’s use of Herbert’s “Jaspers forum” to promote Freud at the expense of Jaspers’ reputation. Zvi’s argument that Darwinian “evolutional” ideas are incorporated in Freud’s basic ideas and that each enhances the value of the other is no doubt correct because the basic thinking is incorrect. The resultant feeling of superiority can be expected, as a negative jump between the correlations of ideas, for the meaning is no more certain than the phenomenology of the ideas being correlated. This limit or inferiority of ideas leads to manifestations of superiority. So in the following Jaspers’ devastating views on Freud will be briefly referred to, and will serve as a branching off into Dawkins’ sexual ideas, his meme-thinking, and comments about correlation as proof of evolutionism.
5. Jaspers accepts street-Freudianism as real--Jaspers states that Freud “has influenced many in their outlook on the world” but that on a more profound level and through personal involvement he is incomparable to Nietzsche and Kierkegaard. “Freud cannot be compared” with them for he keeps himself personally in the background and does not become involved. Freud’s teachings about repressed sexuality can be useful to Zvi and Dawkins as they tap into the unleashed evocative popular vital forces. It correlates deceptively well with evolutionism. Jaspers says, “unlike Freud...it is also possible to appeal to man’s mind and spirit and develop human psychology in this way”. If one needs to use the word existential to show the difference between Jaspers and Freudianism, existential, in the sense of Existenz, involves the openness of sublime personality rather than the suppression of one’s bass personality always in need of sublimating and the assistance of an “evolutionary” priesthood.
6. Freudianism and battling for power--So, if one were to be so inclined as to want to see something relevant to Jaspers in Eugene Webb’s Target Article, one almost has to work hard at not seeing the sublime side of Eros as involved not only in his Existenz philosophy but also in his personal life about which he does not hold back information; whereas with Freud if he relates his own dreams they are mainly offered in innocuous ways. In the competitive battle ground for school-power where the naïve are easily subject to mass-psychoses, “Freudian psychology seems...adapted to the form of fighting” i.e., the “battle where people intrude personally into each other’s psyche…and become malicious…in the struggle for power and superiority”. It is this superiority that leads to the inconceivable conduct exhibited by those like Zvi who ignore Jaspers. To ignore Jaspers on the subject of Freudianism defies any semblance of normalcy. It’s so outstanding as to make one wonder if it is not a cry for therapy from a psychopathologist.
7. Freud fails to apply himself personally and therefore not existentially--Freud’s avoidance of individuality’s transcendent core emits a non-core feeling and sense of irresponsibility (of course Freud is dealing probably with “street” opinionated personages more than then those enlightened consciously through healthy families etc.). Jaspers suggests that such a void arouses “a universal philosophic interest”, that this style of sober objectivity offers “freedom from one’s shackles without the pain of new ones, permissiveness, skepticism and resignation; this is an outlook on the world meet for many neurotics, artistic bohemians, the fanatically minded and any who would gain a supremacy through psychology” (774). Jaspers says that Freud himself manages to keep himself veiled while not objecting to followers who do not criticize his views and he discharges those that dare to disagree. Jaspers’ views on Freud did not change through the years. In his Philosophical Faith and Revelation he says that since Freud there has been a trend to interpret out of the unconscious (117), to interpret out of a pernicious exposure of humankind’s fundament (294). Again, the trend is not to interpret through an appeal to humankind’s mind and spirit, consciousness and conscience, and that has “street” influence where gang-like forces prevail--Oxford’s burning-martyr-street included in the Street Guide.
8. Ersatz religion, Freudianism and evolutionism--It is interesting that in his critique of Freud Jaspers should speak about substitute religions, that “Freudianisms [as is] has become a movement of faith within the guise of science” (774). He than adds that the danger is intensified if allowed to penetrate psychopathology for they tend to “nihilism, a callous fanaticism and an arbitrary skepticism” (of course Jaspers is referring to those who are ill due less to “street” consciousness and conscience). It’s my view that this can be said of the religion of evolutionism too, e.g., the Teilhard Chardin sort of “church of evolution”. However, what is new regarding Freud is that there are those who are adapt at verbalization, propaganda, and can redefine, and restate non-core personalities in personalistic ways like Zvi does with Freud, and the new language slips into popular mass-psychoses and comes across fleetingly as something positive and permanent or perpetually unstable. It is no wonder why then that under mass-popularity on a roll and concomitant intentional and unintentional self-deception as a human trait, it results in the loss of guilt’s creative tension by indulging in irresponsible talk about selfish genes and meme-reductionism.
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