Copyright 2013. Image not in the public domain.
Category Archives: Historie
Plato’s “Ladder of Love” from ‘Symposium’
Well then, she [the goddess Diotima] began, the candidate for this initiation cannot, if his efforts are to be rewarded, begin too early to devote himself to the beauties of the body. First of all, if his preceptor instructs him as he should, he will fall in love with the beauty of one individual body, so that his passion may give life to noble discourse. Next he must consider how nearly related the beauty of any one body is to the beauty of any other, when he will see that if he is to devote himself to loveliness of form it will be absurd to deny that the beauty of each and every body is the same. Having reached this point, he must set himself to be the lover of every lovely body, and bring his passion for the one into due proportion by deeming it of little or of no importance.
Next he must grasp that the beauties of the body are as nothing to the beauties of the soul, so that wherever he meets with spiritual loveliness, even in the husk of an unlovely body, he will find it beautiful enough to fall in love with and to cherish–and beautiful enough to quicken in his heart a longing for such discourse as tends toward the building of a noble nature. And from this he will be led to contemplate the beauty of laws and institutions. And when he discovers how nearly every kind of beauty is akin to every other he will conclude that the beauty of the body is not, after all, of so great moment.
And next, his attention should be diverted from institutions to the sciences, so that he may know the beauty of every kind of knowledge. And thus, by scanning beauty’s wide horizon, he will be saved from a slavish and illiberal devotion to the individual loveliness of a single boy, a single man, or a single institution. And, turning his eyes toward the open sea of beauty, he will find in such contemplation the seed of the most fruitful discourse and the loftiest thought, and reap a golden harvest of philosophy, until, confirmed and strengthened, he will come upon one single form of knowledge, the knowledge of the beauty I am about to speak of.
And here, she said, you must follow me as closely as you can.
Whoever has been initiated so far in the mysteries of Love and has viewed all these aspects of the beautiful in due succession, is at last drawing near the final revelation. And now, Socrates, there bursts upon him that wondrous vision which is the very soul of the beauty he has toiled so long for. It is an everlasting loveliness which neither comes nor goes, which neither flowers nor fades, for such beauty is the same on every hand, the same then as now, here as there, this way as that way, the same to every worshiper as it is to every other.
Nor will his vision of the beautiful take the form of a face, or of hands, or of anything that is of the flesh. It will be neither words, nor knowledge, nor a something that exists in something else, such as a living creature, or the earth, or the heavens, or anything that is–but subsisting of itself and by itself in an eternal oneness, while every lovely thing partakes of it in such sort that, however much the parts may wax and wane, it will be neither more nor less, but still the same inviolable whole.
And so, when his prescribed devotion to boyish beauties has carried our candidate so far that the universal beauty dawns upon his inward sight, he is almost within reach of the final revelation. And this is the way, the only way, he must approach, or be led toward, the sanctuary of Love. Starting from individual beauties, the quest for the universal beauty must find him ever mounting the heavenly ladder, stepping from rung to rung–that is, from one to two, and from two to every lovely body, from bodily beauty to the beauty of institutions, from institutions to learning, and from learning in general to the special lore that pertains to nothing but the beautiful itself–until at last he comes to know what beauty is.
And if, my dear Socrates, Diotima went on, man’s life is ever worth the living, it is when he has attained this vision of the very soul of beauty. And once you have seen it, you will never be seduced again by the charm of gold, of dress, of comely boys, or lads just ripening to manhood; you will care nothing for the beauties that used to take your breath away and kindle such a longing in you, and many others like you, Socrates, to be always at the side of the beloved and feasting your eyes upon him, so that you would be content, if it were possible, to deny yourself the grosser necessities of meat and drink, so long as you were with him.
But if it were given to man to gaze on beauty’s very self–unsullied, unalloyed, and freed from the mortal taint that haunts the frailer loveliness of flesh and blood–if, I say, it were given to man to see the heavenly beauty face to face, would you call his, she asked me, an unenviable life, whose eyes had been opened to the vision, and who had gazed upon it in true contemplation until it had become his own forever?
And remember, she said, that it is when he looks upon beauty’s visible presentment, and only then, that a man will be quickened with the true, and not the seeming, virtue–for it is virtue’s self that quickens him, not virtue’s semblance. And when he has brought forth and reared this perfect virtue, he shall be called the friend of god, and if ever it is given to man to put on immortality, it shall be given to him.
(From: Symposium 210a-212b).
Yogacara og Nagarjunas placering i den buddhistiske tradition
Nagarjunas værker blev nedskrevet omkring år 100 e.Kr. Hans nærmeste elev tolkede videre på hans ideer kort efter Nagarjunas død, men derefter må vi vente til år 500-700 e.Kr., før traditionen fra Nagarjuna tages op igen.[1] For nuværende ved vi ikke, hvorfor der er sådan et 300 år langt hul i den buddhistiske tradition, men et bud kunne lyde, at Mahayana-buddhismen i de mellemliggende år tog en drejning ud i den buddhistiske filosofis ideaistiske fase, også kaldet Yogacara eller ”kun indtryk”.
Yogacara er grundlæggende baseret på en fejlslutning. Yogacara identificerer sig selv som en Mahayana-skole, men Nagarjuna havde netop sagt, at intet eksisterede intrinsisk.[2] Således kan det derfor kun være forkert, når Yogacara-skolen siger, at sindsindtryk har en objektiv egeneksistens og en natur, som udgør virkelighedens eneste bestanddel.
Yogacara siger, at det eneste, som virkelig eksisterer, er sindsindtryk. Vi antager konventionelt, at sindsindtryk kun kan eksistere i samspil med fysiske objekter, men her mener Yogacara, at disse objekter er fundamentalt uvirkelige. F.eks. kunne du drømme, at du havde tilbragt en hed nat i selskab med en mystisk og eksotisk kvinde. Men kvinden eksisterede ikke i virkeligheden. Denne analogi nærmer sig det, som Yogacara mener, er alle sindsindtryks ontologiske status. For Yogacara-skolen gælder det, at kun sindsindtrykkene er grundlæggende virkelige.
Den tyske filosof Immanuel Kant og Yogacara-skolen startede således på samme grundlag: Ideaismen: Det eneste, vi selv har adgang til, er, hvad der foregår inde i vores egne hoveder. Vi kan ikke vide det mindste om, hvad der foregår uafhængigt af bevidstheden, og hvordan det ser ud, uden at det er passeret gennem det filter, som vores bevidsthed udgør.[2] Men hvor Kant konkluderede, at der måtte blive nødt til at være en verden derude i en eller anden form, sådan at der kunne eksistere en subjekt-objekt dualisme, så konkluderede Yogacara-skolens tænkere i stedet, at der netop ikke eksisterede noget andet end sindsindtryk, og at det blot var en grundlæggende vrangforestilling, en forkert anskuelsesmåde, der fik os til at tænke i subjekt-objekt og sind-materie-dualismer- for en Yogacara er det eneste, der eksisterer, en række sindsindtryk.
Buddhisme og Menneskerettigheder: Kan de forenes?
af Ryan Smith
Mange Buddhister mener, at der ikke findes et selv. Individet findes ikke, så hvordan kan det besidde rettigheder?
Dog er det ikke alle skoler, som har afsvoret troen på et selv: Den tidlige buddhistiske skole Pudgalavada påstod, at mennesket havde særskilt ontologisk status, men Pudgalavada-skolen er netop undtagelsen, og den blev da også hængt ud af de andre buddhistiske skoler som værende en “falsk buddhisme.” Pudgalavada’erne forsøgte at undgå denne kritik ved at hævde, at selvet eksisterede i en udefinerbar tilstand for det normale, konceptuelle sind, i tråd med Nagarjunas lære om den store sandhed om tomhed.[1] Det argument var der dog ikke mange, der købte: For Nagarjuna siger jo, at man ikke kan definere noget ved den store sandhed, end ikke selvet, da alt er fri af iboende karakteristika. Pudgalavada’erne modsiger derfor sig selv: De påstår, at der findes noget specifikt (selvet), men modsætter sig nærmere bevisførelse eller analyse af dette selv.
At ville bygge en deontologisk etik som menneskerettigheder oven på en radikalpluralistisk ontologi som den tidlige buddhisme er derfor ikke bare som at bygge et sandslot på stranden; det er som at bygge et sandslot på selve havet.
Theravada-buddhismen må afvise menneskerettigheder, fordi den er en radikal pluralisme, hvori ingen statisk deontologi er mulig. I Theravada kan universets forfatning beskrives som en art transcendent naturlov bygget på en fuldstændig momentær og pluralistisk ontologi. Det ville ikke give mening at definere statiske rettigheder i en verden, hvor alt konstant var i bevægelse.
Forfatteren Sallie B. King har i sin bog Being Benevolence (2005) argumenteret for, at buddhisme og menneskerettigheder er kompatible, men King begår her to fejl: (1) Hun sammenblander filosofi og realpolitik, idet hendes forsvar især beror på citater fra politiske ledere, der bekender sig til buddhisme, snarere end analyse af buddhismens filosofi, og (2) hun har en tendens til at udvælge de citater, som støtter konklusionen om, at buddhisme og menneskerettigheder er kompatible, mens hun ignorerer eller taler uden om de datapunkter, der taler imod en forening.
Kan buddhister støtte politisk omfordeling?
Inden for den politiske rettighedstænkning snakker man ofte om en opdeling mellem positive og negative rettigheder. Negative rettigheder er de klassiske frihedsrettigheder: Du har ret til at ytre dig, ret til at skifte religion, forsamles i ikke-voldelige grupper og så videre. Negative rettigheder er firkantet sagt retten til at være dig selv, uden at andre blander sig.
Positive rettigheder er derimod rettigheder til noget, som andre har. Det kan f.eks. være retten til (gratis) skolegang, som er indbefattet af FN’s Menneskerettighedskonvention. Positive rettigheder handler om ting, der kommer uden for individet selv. Det er rettigheder, som individet kan gøre krav på fra andre. Skal et individ f.eks. i (gratis) skole, så skal nogen andre betale til denne skole, så læreren kan få løn, m.v..
I moderne stater finansieres positive rettigheder (såsom retten til gratis skolegang) gennem beskatning af borgerne: Staten opkræver skat af arbejdende mennesker, og omfordeler så disse penge til andre mennesker, som så kan nyde godt af sine positive, “gratis” rettigheder.
Hvis menneskerettigheder defineres, som det er sket i FN’s menneskerettighedskonvention, hvor der altså både er positive og negative rettigheder, så kan buddhisme og menneskerettigheder ikke forenes. I De fem regler, som udgør den grundlæggende buddhistiske etik hedder det nemlig, at man skal afholde sig fra at tage det, som ikke er givet. Hvad angår de positive rettigheder i menneskerettighedskonventionen er de altså uforenelige med grundlæggende buddhistisk etik.
Buddhistisk Leninisme
Til slut skal vi se nærmere på en bekymrende trend inden for især Theravada-buddhismen. Flere Theravada-tænkere og politikere har forsøgt at forene buddhisme med menneskerettigheder, men eksempelvis har både den thai-buddhistiske munk og forfatter Buddhadasa Bhikkhu og det feterede burmesiske demokrati-ikon Aung San Suu Kyi defineret en syntese, som ender med at bekende sig til en folkevilje, der knuser den individuelle frihed og politiske individualisme, der er selve grundlaget for menneskeretttighederne, under fode. Hør blot her:
Suu Kyi: ”Once we get democracy, there will be people who misuse their rights and use them just for their own pleasure or personal gain. … Democracy is far from perfect. … I don’t agree with everything that is happening in the West, which is why I say that I would like our democracy to be a better, more compassionate, and caring one. That is not to say that we will have fewer freedoms. But that we will use these freedoms more responsibly…”[3]
Flotte ord, men hvad dækker de over? Hvordan kan Suu Kyi bestemme, hvordan burmeserne vil bruge deres friheder, hvis hun ikke har tænkt sig at kontrollere dem, og dermed indskrænke deres friheder? Hvis menneskerettighederne stipulerer, at individet har ret til selvbestemmelse, hvordan kan Suu Kyi så sige, at burmeserne som gruppe vil anvende deres friheder på en bestemt måde? Det kan kun ske, hvis der samtidig indføres kontrol og således netop en reduktion i frihederne. På den måde er Suu Kyis tænkning måske ikke så forskellig fra Vladimir Lenins, der ligeledes sagde, at der var fuldstændig frihed under hans styre, så længe man ikke anvendte sin frihed forkert.
Ligeledes har den thai-buddhistiske munk Buddhadasa Bhikkhu udtalt følgende:
Buddhadasa Bhikkhu: “Liberal democracy … upholds the ideal of freedom. … But the freedom it upholds is so ambiguous that it seems always to be controlled by the power of human defilements (kilesa). … The liberal philosophy or ideology of freedom does not have the power to resist the strength of human defilements. … Liberal democracy cannot deal effectively with this fact.
The word freedom as it is widely interpreted is actually inconsistent with the fundamental meaning of politics. If we think of politics as something that concerns groups of people living together, then the emphasis of a political system would be the well-being of the entire group. Freedom, on the other hand, is an individual matter. An emphasis on personal freedom shifts the focus from the group to the individul. Such a focus is at odds with the meaning of politics.”[4]
Folket må altså gerne have frihed, så længe de ikke bruger denne frihed til at forbryde sig mod ”folkeviljen”; et belejligt begreb som Bhikkhu reserverer retten til at definere på folkets vegne. På den måde ender Payutto med at blive en ny Rousseau, en ny Robespierre eller måske en ny Lenin.
Referencer
Buddhadasa, Bhikku: Me and Mine State University of New York Press 1989
King, Sallie B.: Being Benevolence University of Hawaii Press 2005
Suu Kyi, Aung San: The Voice of Hope Penguin Books 1997
Williams & Tribe: Buddhist Thought Routledge 2002
Dr. Dre Quotes
Dre: “A lot of people have tunnel vision. … That’s bullshit. Change has to happen.”
Dre: “People [who repeat themselves] have a child’s brain.”
[Asked about gangster rap:]
Dre: “[Let’s] move on. … How many times can you kill people on a record? How many times can you say ‘motherfucker’? It’s time to move on and come up with some new shit.”
Dre: “It’s easy to make a hip hop record … which means that there are going to be more idiots involved, which means that [we] are going to have some problems.”
Dre: “I try to reinvent myself. … [I’m always] trying new things.”
Dre: “[Ideas have to take you] somewhere out of your normal character.”
[Asked about rappers dissing each other in the music magazines:]
Dre: “Come on with that – I want to read some intelligent shit.”
Dre: “When I go in the studio I can’t have any limitations. I have to be able to take the music anywhere it can possibly go.”
Dre: “Me and Snoop are always, like, nonstop ideas when we’re together.”
A List of Quality MBTI Articles
If you’re into MBTI and Jung’s typology, you should do yourself a favor and read these articles. They will make you smarter:
- The Best MBTI Test
- Why Adam Grant’s Critique of the MBTI is Useless
- Musings on the Kantian Noumenon
- On Learning Typology through Spurious Sources
- The Transcendent Function in Artists and Musicians
- Review of ‘Discovering the Mind’ by Walter Kaufmann
- Did Jung Like Plato?
- Did Keirsey Understand Plato?
- Absent Parent and Jungian Type with a PS on Connecting Functions with Archetypes
- Millon’s MCMI: Allowing for Lateral Reversals
F.A. Hayek on Values and Morality
“Some readers will perhaps be disturbed by the impression that I do not take the value of individual liberty as an indisputable ethical presupposition and that, in trying to demonstrate its value, I am possibly making the argument in its support a matter of expediency. This would be a misunderstanding” – F.A. Hayek – The Constitution of Liberty p. 6
“We must show that liberty is not merely one particular value but that it is the source and condition of most moral values.”
In the struggle for moral support of the people of the world, the lack of firm beliefs puts the West at a great disadvantage (…) If we are to succeed in the great struggle of ideas that is under way, we must first of all know what we believe.” – F.A Hayek – The Constitution og Liberty
“What, then, are the essential characteristics of true individualism? The first thing that should be said is that it is primarily a theory of society, an attempt to understand the forces which determine the social life of man, and only in the second instance a set of political maxims derived from this view of society. This fact should by itself be sufficient to refute the silliest of the common misunderstandings: the belief that individualism postulates (or bases its arguments on the assumption of) the existence of isolated or self-contained individuals, instead of starting from men whose whole nature and character is determined by their existence in society.” – F.A Hayek – Individualism True and False p. 6
“Moreover, if civilization has resulted from unwanted graduale changes in morality ,then, reluctant as we may be to accept this, no universally valid system of ethics can ever be known to us.” – F.A. Hayek – The Fatal Conceit p. 20
“The important point is that every man growing up in a given culture Will find in himself rules, or may discover that he acts in accordance with rules — and will similarly recognize the actions of others as conforming or not conforming to various rules. This is, of course, not proof that they are a permanent or unalterable part of ‘human nature’, or that they are innate, but proof only that they are part of a cultural heritage which is likely to be fairly constant, especially so long as they are not articulated in words and therefore also are not discussed or consciously examined.” – F.A. Hayek – Law, Legislation and Liberty p. 19
“But it is a far cry from this general insight to the claims of the ethical, cultural or historical relativists or of evolutionary ethics. To put it crudely, while we know that all these values are relative to something, we do not know to what they are relative. We may be able to indicate the general class of circumstances which have made them what they are, but we do not know the particular conditions to which the values we hold are due, or what our values would be if those circumstances had been different. Most of the illegitimate conclusions are the result of erroneous interpretation of the theory of evolution as the empirical establishment of a trend. Once we recognize that it gives us no more than a scheme of explanation which might be sufficient to explain particular phenomena if we knew all the facts which have operated in the course of history, it becomes evident that the claims of the various kinds of relativists (and of evolutionary ethics) are unfounded” – F. A. Hayek, Studies in Philosophy, Politics and Economics
“It is a fact which we must recognize that even what we regard as good or beautiful is changeable—if not in any recognizable manner that would entitle us to take a relativistic position, then in the sense that in many respects we do not know what will appear as good or beautiful to another generation. .. It is not only in his knowledge, but also in his aims and values, that man is the creature of his civilization; in the last resort, it is the relevance of these individual wishes to the perpetuation of the group or the species that will determine whether they persist or change. It is, of course, a mistake to believe that we can draw conclusions about what our values ought to be simply because we realize that they are a product of evolution. But we cannot reasonably doubt that these values are created and altered by the same evolutionary forces that have produced our intelligence.” – F.A. Hayek
Why Erich Fromm is ENFJ (and not ENFP)
Erich Fromm: ENFJ or ENFP?
This post is about why the famous psychologist Erich Fromm is ENFJ (and not ENFP) in the popular MBTI personality system. If you are curious about what type you are, you can take a free MBTI test here.
So you know the cognitive functions. If you do, you know that J and P are not functions that one can go by when typing. The relevant question then becomes: Is Fromm an Fe-Ni type (ENFJ), or an Ne-Fi type (ENFP)?
Luckily, in setting out to type Erich Fromm, we are blessed with a substantial TV interview; namely the interview with Mike Wallace conducted in 1958. Now, I know you know the functions. But do you also remember what Jung said about the difference between judging functions (T and F) and the perceiving functions (S and N)?
Perceiving functions are more loose and spontaneous and tend to approach a problem from multiple difference angles, all at once. If extroverted (Se and Ne), this approach weaves a convincing whole with regards to presentation but at the price of not penetrating as deeply into the problem, unless a judging function is also engaged in order to help out.[1] Yet at the same time, the judging functions could also be said to be further removed from reality, because by the time their workings have been crystallized into finalized judgments, immediate reality will already have moved on. As the Greek philosopher Heraclitus said, one cannot step twice into the same river.[2]
Likewise, as we know from both Jung and van der Hoop, the Ne-dominant types’ ideas and perspectives tend to be particularly loose and chromatic (springy, as we like to call it). This is part of the reason why the ENP types are often perceived by others as being “cerebral but superficial.”
Yet, on the other hand, if they manage to develop their auxiliary function, they can counterbalance this springiness with something more solid and bring themselves to achieve an overarching synthesis of an impressive amount of knowledge. In the case of ENTPs, what is solid about them is their logic and principles. In the case of ENFPs what is solid about them is their values and causes.
Now on to Fromm
Now watching the aforementioned interview with Fromm it would seem to me that Fromm is anything but an Ne dominant type. Yet how can we reconcile this with his doctrines that make a habit of championing individuality (which is perhaps more of an Fi thing)? Well…
Fromm was part of a post-war generation of intellectuals where both Fi and Fe users saw individualism as the bulwark against repeating the horrors of WW2’s industrialized genocide. Both Fe and Fi intellectuals championed individualism over the community in this milieu. The point was to get to a place where people could never again say “I was only following orders.” So in a sense, it is correct to say that Fromm “goes against the system,” which, on average points more to ENFP than to ENFJ. But I am not sure that that means Fromm was an Fi user after all.
If you look at the interview, you will see that he has a particular agenda: He wants America to give up capitalism and become a Marxist state. So yes, he knocks the system, which ENFJs will, on average, be less likely to do than ENFPs, but he also has a personal stake in why he does so. It is not merely because he can loosely envision something better than the status quo (such as tends to be the fuel for the fire in the rebelliousness of NFPs.) Fromm clearly believes that there is a singular, rationally deduced alternative (Marxisim) which should be followed. He is not about the prospect of a solution; he is about what he believes to be the solution itself.
Likewise, showing true Fe, he takes care to clothe his statements in hope and optimism, rather than renouncing people for the course they’re on or by persuading by personal enthusiasm (Fi).
I think it is clear from Jung and Myers that the search for universality is more of an NTP + NFJ trait [Fe-Ti], whereas the truth of [Fi-Te] is more singular and personally felt. The ENFP is sort of a mixed type in this regard as they have the knack for personal truths [Fi], but at the same time they are also dominant pattern-recognizers [Ne] who take in as many perspectives as possible.
And incidentally, that is also the difference I see between him and Campbell: Campbell starts from a field of personal interest (mythology) and then works his way to the universal pattern contained in all cultures’ mythologies (Ne). This illustrates what I mean about the ENFP being a “mixed type” with regards to universality.
Fromm starts from the universal (Marxism, psychology, politics, love) and he ends with the universal (how to apply his agenda to society).
It is probably necessary to state here that more ‘universality’ is not necessarily better. Like everything else, it has an upside and a downside. The downside to too much “universality” is:
- That one’s feeling becomes tyrannical and self-righteous – you cushion your surroundings in an emotional atmosphere where these people cannot reasonably be allowed to disagree.
- A falsehood of appropriateness where the Fe-user is distanced from his own feelings, losing himself in what he “should” mean in each situation.
So all in all, that is why Fromm is ENFJ and not ENFP.