How To Think Morally: Self Psychology

If people understood themselves more fully, they would recognize how difficult it is to navigate the world where competing interests pull different parts of ourselves in different directions, usually centered around pleasure and the want of pleasure; such as an addiction to sex and a susceptibility to cheating others to avoid the inconvenience of hard work. Or an addiction to shopping, gaming, partying, all as a way to avoid the fact of your mind and the reasons for your ways of being.

Understanding multiplicity of self is essential if one is to properly understand the nature of human moral action. It isn't easy being human. And when we cannot think clearly about how we actually are, but instead become distracted by more appealing ideas that give us the simple satisfaction of social acceptance, we live in dissociation from the truth of things. And so, we destroy ourselves psychologically, interpersonally, and environmentally. The Universe is built in such a way that dyamics from one system feed into another system: self, into society, into environment, into society, into self.

A future sustainable society will require a populace that is trained early on to the nondual and nonlinear nature of existence. Parents would eat properly, good foods that benefit their body. The mind will work WITH the body in finding its pleasure, without harming it - trillions of cells - which sustain his existence.

Pregnancies will be peaceful and children will be born to healthy social environments with happy people, oscillating in healthy ways, instructing the child into the ways of openness, community and play.

In my perfect world scenario, kids would gradually be introduced to ecological ideas of self, society, animals and nature, and later on in the older grades psychoanalytical ideas can be discussed about the various parts of our mind and how each part 'vies' - as a sort of survival of the fittest ' - for attentional awareness. One past oscillation corresponding to "I need to do my homework" competes for neural activity with the more voluptuous "Or I can hang out with the guys". In order to make a decision that restores affective stability (homeostasis) the mind must dissociate (happens mostly unconsciously) the other idea. The idea that presses and dilutes the quality of the chosen excuse needs to be removed so that the system doesn't remain in bifurcated tension between two opposing oscillatory rhythms.

Since this is a basic human, now quantifiable fact, the psychoanalytic notion can now be couched in dynamical patterns of subcortical and cortical oscillation rhythms. It can be shown time and again that the phenomenological experience of "I don't like Mary" can lead to the psychological splitting of noticing everything bad about Mary; the more you talk, the more you need to justify your initial charge. Each behavior is modified by the last, leading down a predictable dynamical pathway, towards fulfilling the cardinal value: to increase feelings of goodness and decrease feelings of badness.

Seeing immorality and narcissism feeds on not seeing the world as it is (in it's non-linear complexity), it stands to reason that at some future time period school and education will base itself upon this concept. All Education will follow non-linear dynamics. Kids will know early on what they will pursue, and instead of being coaxed by a manufactured and artificial attractor, will pursue whatever appeals to him personally. Education will work more like a canal, becoming elaborated as the system (or human being) becomes more complex.

Seeing the self and understanding the self as a process of competition between opposing drives help us become objective and more clear-minded at what kind of world we want to create. Understanding the logic of development means accepting vulnerability to past conditions. Who you are was largely determined by past experiences with the world.

Ultimately, we are in the process of self-transcendence. Towards a concept of ourselves as species - collectively at one in our interdependence and mutual vulnerabilities.

Self-Psycology will never work.

I can never fully analyze myself. But I can give endless outcomes based on how im percieved.
I think everyone can agree

a reply to: rockintitz

Maybe it could if everyone followed the don't do to others what you don't want done to yourself thingy.
Then everyone would get along fine and it would be a pretty sweet place.

originally posted by: ZeussusZ
a reply to: rockintitz

Maybe it could if everyone followed the don't do to others what you don't want done to yourself thingy.
Then everyone would get along fine and it would be a pretty sweet place.

Not necessarily. Not everyone wants to be treated the same way. So while one is doing unto others what they themself would want done to them, those that have a different desire of treatment would still be offended or hurt, and would still refuse to reciprocate the behavior.

You'd still have people misunderstanding each other, and being mad about how they are not treated as they wish.

originally posted by: Astrocyte

If people understood themselves more fully, they would recognize how difficult it is to navigate the world where competing interests pull different parts of ourselves in different directions, usually centered around pleasure and the want of pleasure; such as an addiction to sex and a susceptibility to cheating others to avoid the inconvenience of hard work.

i have a little difficulty with the vices or things we should not desire, that you mention.

Whats wrong with an addiction (or a strong labido) to sex?

Where's the virtue in hard work and wanting a good life when the some get the good life not through hard work but because they are bright, clever, smart, talanted and astute.

Sometimes we reach conclusions without sufficently strong grounds for them. Sure, life is a compicated busienss and there is more to life than what meets the eye and life tests us out all the time. And sure, personal and spiritual development is also important. After all, the reason we come here is to learn and knock the dross off ourselves mostly through pain.

Lifes pleasures are usually only a little light relief from the pain we suffer through living life.

If we fail to pass on a world that has achieved these things our kids will have to try and accomplish this.

They will be up against all the same powers that be BS, racism BS, monetary system of rich and poor BS, war BS, prision BS, matrix BS, bad diet BS, destroying the earth BS, killing up the animals BS, not seeing the divine in each other and ourselves BS, needs of the few outdue the needs of the many BS, and the same Us vs Them BS the powers that be have been feeding the population the whole time unless we change it, so they wont have to.

Our BS will be passed on to generation one after another until one of them gets it right.

The majority of people have no desire or compulsion to 'understand themselves fully'. Every day a certain portion of population is born sociopathic/psychopathic (a NATURAL evolutionary process we are just starting to try and understand). Clearly, we don't understand human nature as well as we think we might. Our biggest mistake (imo) is trying to project our individual ideas about ethics onto the rest of humanity and the universe. We can clearly see nature doesn't reflect our ideas about morality. This utopian idea of complete cooperation and total equality is a pipedream that has no basis in real human nature whatsoever. We're animals, always have been, always will be, right down to the core of our being. Morality isn't universal; it's largely genetic, familial, cultural, and beyond that, completely subjectively arbitrary.

originally posted by: Calalini
The majority of people have no desire or compulsion to 'understand themselves fully'. Every day a certain portion of population is born sociopathic/psychopathic (a NATURAL evolutionary process we are just starting to try and understand). Clearly, we don't understand human nature as well as we think we might. Our biggest mistake (imo) is trying to project our individual ideas about ethics onto the rest of humanity and the universe. We can clearly see nature doesn't reflect our ideas about morality. This utopian idea of complete cooperation and total equality is a pipedream that has no basis in real human nature whatsoever. We're animals, always have been, always will be, right down to the core of our being. Morality isn't universal; it's largely genetic, familial, cultural, and beyond that, completely subjectively arbitrary.

So your saying in a nutshell that humans should forget about doing good and be more animalistic like savages? I dont think nuclear wielding savages will last very long, for thier ability to think ahead as to what is best for thier future and that of all humankind would be tossed out the door.

So the kids in your idea of humanity will inherit a world thats self destroyed because after all we are no better than animals, might as well give in to animalistic behavior and forget all about science, technology, and any knowldege that we are all one. Retreat back to the caves and let fire be our greatest discovery ever.

I would say we should do just the opposite of your post and embrace universal love and peace so our children can enjoy these things as well. Fight our animal nature to self destroy each other and the world around us, and look to the future changing the present to bring about a society we can feel at peace with.

No more Us Vs Them we are all one and destined for a singularity all else has no reality and is but an obsticle to our own evolution and our childrens evolution.

We should not pass on our mistakes to the next generation to try and clean up, because our generation lack the desire and will to do what we all know is right.

If we dont get it right the next generation will have to try, and if they fail as we have, then the next generation after that, and so it will continue until one generation of kids overcomes this Us Vs Them ignorance.

DENY IGNORANCE

a reply to: rockintitz

I don't get what you mean.

Countless books have been written on this subject, from Kohut to Kleinian object relations to relational and interpersonal psychoanalysis, to the modern neuroscience take on self organization: we DO NOT have one self, but 'selves' that are organized along their own affective-contextual basin of attraction.

In other words, change your context and you will in effect act like a different person.

So how do we deal with this? We 'split' or 'dissociate'.

And as for being unable to see this within yourself; I don't know about you, but I can see it within myself, so long as their is a quiet and meta-cognitive analysis of your own functioning vis-a-vis your interlocutor.

I agree that it can be difficult, and it probably isn't complete, as the psychologist Philip Bromberg says, we can only know AFTER the fact of its happening, since every state of mind is a state influenced by myriad factors, both what preceded and whats directly in front of us.

Nevertheless, morality, and self-awareness entails understanding and accepting the multiplicity of the self. And not, believing, erroneously and with stubborn self-delusion, that you are a simple, singular mind, although we do experience ourselves at a superficial level as such.

This way of thinking is precisely the problem: wanting to see linearity where there's only non-linearity. When we believe something, for example, theres always this pesky habit to 'split': to make what you say "right" and what the other persons says "wrong". Why do we this? Think about it. Minus a meta-cognitive organizing factor (such as a calm ontological acceptance that this is just how things are; a mind-state that requires great self-regulation) in the moment of speaking, emotion, particularly intense emotion, dispels countervailing views, particularly subtle ones which can only be entertained if you quiet your mind and 'regulate' your affect (emotions). Do people do this? Not really. And why is that? Because over-all, the human organism - in a state of self ignorance - prefers good and happy emotions to bad or mitigating ones. Since thinking clearly requires acknowledging other viewpoints within yourself and managing them in terms of their logical consistency, usually along the 'do not do to others what you wouldn't want done to you', this means rejecting thoughts/narratives attached to 'this feels good' and cultivating thoughts/narratives that don't feel so well, but our true by virtue of their logical consistency with your values.

This is personally why I have such respect for Buddhism. Its basic truth is that suffering is the result of ignorance. And the greatest ignorance in today's day and age is ignorance of the self - its multiplicity - and the naive enactments of self-absorbed defenses, albeit, understandable in a world which privileges individuality to the communal relations which actually BUILDS each and every human nervous system/personality. But nevertheless an irritating encumbrance to a vision of society which would be manifold times better than today's construction.

a reply to: Bluesma

I've heard it stated as "do unto others as THEY would want to be treated". Which sets the onus on understanding the other.

originally posted by: Astrocyte
a reply to: Bluesma

I've heard it stated as "do unto others as THEY would want to be treated". Which sets the onus on understanding the other.

That is not the traditional form, but I guess it is what I would hold as useful.... to an extent.

Because determining how someone else wants to be treated is no easy business.

That is where the traditional concept comes in...

We let another know how we we want to be treated, through example.
Then following that (each one has made a demonstration) there is almost always a phase of determining who will "bend".

If the two people are much alike in values and ethics, it is a quick and easy agreement.

If they are very different, say one likes to be treated a bit aggressively, the other prefers a much more gentle and sensitive approach,
The question becomes-
Who is going to go against their personal preference and adapt to the other???

Is the gentle one going to firm up and be aggressive?
Is the aggressive one going to tone it down and be gentle?

It gets to be a fight for dominance at times.

Funny, I always saw this same sort of thing in horses, in which their stage of determining hierarchy is played out by "who makes the other move". The first one to move their feet in reaction to the other loses and gets the submissive position.

ETA- then add in the more or less subconscious other desires and it all gets very messy!
Like the person with strict moral principles for behavior, which have a underlying desire to perceive others acting "immorally", in order to feel ethically superior to them- they will claim (and partially believe) they want another to treat them one way, while surreptitiously provoking others to react another way... or doing that so that they can work on "affirming" their own guidelines of behavior for themselves, through facing opposition.

It does boil down to some self analysis to realize one is doing such things and has many different "selves"...
But you know what? I find that a lot of people don't want to realize such stuff because it kinda kills the whole play for them.
Like when my husband keeps talking about an actor while we watch a movie "wasn't he in this or that other movie?" or
"You can see how they did that special effect, or make up, look..."
It pulls you out of the story. I think some people hate when I point out the reality of what is going on underneath the plays in real life for that reason.

Oh Christ, more moralizing, Blah, Blah, Blah. Just more people trying to tell the world, what to think, what to feel, when to think, when to feel and how to think it. If religion has shaped the current state of the world, then I don't want your religion.

a reply to: Astrocyte

Principles guiding moral decisions - they usually have to be indoctrinated.

I do have them, I feel like I carry them over from a "past life"...

I've been quite clean this lifetime, done something to make up for by failures in the past...

Not perfect - still feeling ashamed, embarrassed, and guilty, and still want to further reform myself - lost control and lost my mind.

Will continue to stick to my conceptions of morality, mind over matter, head before heart.

Morality has served me well in light of the sufferings that occur to those that don't - they all seem to be in a giant bucket of chum.

a reply to: Astrocyte

morals begin with childhood emotion and as the wilderness bigfoot develops into adulthood the way he acts out in his moral existence becomes solidified into him as a subconscious action zone deep within therefore detatching from his childhood emotions and becoming an intellectual decision on how to handle what is morally in need of attention