Re: politics and polarity

[Guest guest]

Greg, all,

It is possible to be almost completely identified with one's persona.

I keep in mind that of every 10 people I meet, maybe one or two of

them even knows what the persona is! And, I meet a very

unrepresentative group of people day in and day out. It is possibly a

worse ratio in actuality.

The most widespread psychological modality is ego psychology, or, in

our terms, persona-psychology. (This is true also for the apparent

unification of id/ego/superego in Freudian terms.) Even in instances

where such persons let down their mask, it is not felt, (i.e. not a

matter of a " relation " to something deep or mysterious,) as it is

felt by persons who have a depth psychology to refer to.

This is not to my mind a trivial point I make here. When we

psychologize about the currents of world affairs, often, as I see it,

we make the mistake: we feel as if the deep relations are right under

the surface. They are not. In the play of collective ego relations,

the unconscious stuff is buried very deeply and is largely

inaccessible to those person about whom we are making inferences.

imo

regards,

[Guest guest]

Dear Dan,

Sometimes you still manage to throw me. I don't think you could have thought

this through.

Lies can break the fiber of civilization not to speak of relationships. You are

too intelligent to think a comment meant to be " nice " disproves the necessity of

speaking the truth. Telling someone something they want to hear....that dress

looks great on you,,,has nothing to do with hypocrisy unless you gain some

advantage from that sentence besides a happy other. ( read Alice above if you

need to see the differences)

You know better than painting everything totally black or totally white. Life

just isn't like that.

Your remark:

" But hypocrisy is the homage paid by vice to virtue, and even that is a step in

the right direction. One of the

worst things, imo, to come out of the sixties was the widespread acceptance of

the notion that " honesty " and " authenticity " are unqualiied goods, and

hypocrisy an unqualified evil. I'll take a little hypocrisy any day. "

If I cannot trust you( the plural you) to tell me the truth our relationship

itself is built on lack of trust and has no true basis.In fact it is no longer a

relationship. A lie distorts reality. Hypocrisy is malignant to any relationship

also because who you really are is not the person I think I am talking to and

know.Your virtues that I rely on are not real.Nothing may be real about you

then.

What is the point in any relationship then? Honesty is a qualified good, only

because there are exceptions to every rule and sometimes it can be devastating

or harmful at that moment( in war, I guess). Authenticity can never be very

harmful to me. I expect that what I see is what I get from the other. If the

other is not being himself, who am I having this relationship with?

I personally believe that every lie makes all of us a little worse and more

disillusioned. I cannot think of any other trait which will damage a culture

and a society so completely.

My persona may harm me if I actually took it for my reality, but I do not

consider it inauthentic or a lie. As a teacher, I act like a teacher, as a

mother I act like a mother, as an artist I display those quirks, and as a friend

or as a wife I am who I really am without the mask.The older we get, I think the

less use the persona is. we begin to feel comfortable in our skin and can show

the real us to most people. That may be just an illusion, but I see it that way.

" How do you do? " is a lie? No, it is polite convention for some and a real

question to those who care. A convention to most people who would be very

surprised if you really told them how you are.That isn't on par as a lie.It is

one of those little customs we have to make social life easier.

Why would we want a reality we know is not real and is not dependable? How can

I be " real " if I cannot expect the same from you? The whole fabric of life gets

torn that way. We would soon do away with any moral code, if lies became the

common exchange.

What is worse to me is that I would begin not to know the real me anymore. I may

convince myself I am whatever hypocrisy I have painted for me. The how would I

know the " real " me? G-d forbid that outcome.

Please don't tell me you would lie to save being embarrassed,or for your gain,.

We have enough liars already in the world who try to tell us reality is really

not as we see it.

If you were serious in your post, I would be most disappointed. This world would

be a little worse for it.

Toni

I can't speak for God. For myself, I think that sometimes dishonesty is good,

sometimes bad. Doesn't every man know the correct answer to " Does this

dress make me look fat? " ? When I say " How do you do? " to someone when in fact I

couldn't care less how he does, I think that's a good thing. That's

about all I'm saying.

Regards,

Dan

[Guest guest]

> > Doesn't

> > every man know the correct answer to " Does this

> > dress make me look fat? " ? When I say " How do you

> > do? " to someone when in fact I couldn't care less

> > how he does, I think that's a good thing. That's

> > about all I'm saying.

>

> I agree with you. We must guard against being so

> literalistic about the language that we can't tell the

> little white lies that aid social intercourse. And

> indeed I do know the answer to the fat question. You

> are going back to the idea of is it OK to lie if I'm

> doing it for a higher good. But the intent and the

> context would be the guide for me.

>

> Greg

Hi All,

This actually goes to the side of the point which was

extremely interesting, the second point made which

was that the Democratic party is demonized as feminine.

I have made this connection as well - less consciously than

he/you - for me it plays out in the people I do business with,

Republicans and Dems and the way they interact. It's been

an exceptionally odd dynamic for me to watch as some of those

with whom I share the least groundwork in perspectives have

turned out to be the most honest and I do work like hell to

leave the politics out of business completely, which no one

seems inclined to do at any level nowadays.

Although it may be in part wisdom to recognize what is deeply

unconscious, it is also a waste of time. If we cannot get at

it what's the point of discussing it?

So, let's get at what we can and bring it to consciousness,

each one of us because I certainly don't have all the answers.

But, what I do know is that each one of us that can own and

recognize some piece of the feminine which we are trying to

heal brings the 100th monkey syndrome that much closer to

reality, a small fragment at a time. And, those tiny pieces

must begin to give weight to an era which has long been

grossly out of balance and distorted, to the great harm of

our humanity and planet.

And, we as women have our responsibility and our culpability

to this - very much so. What were we thinking to allow men

to tell us we had no brains for 2000 years? I remember growing

up and my mother saying, " you can't beat your father at chess,

women let men win. " I thought she was insane and promptly told

her so. You can see why my mother and I may not have had such

a phenomenal relationship.

And, frankly, she was way ahead of her time, a girl would say,

" I want to be a nurse, " and she would say, " oh, no, you don't!

You will be a surgeon. "

The Feminine Power is about Creation, we create life, babies

are born in our very bodies. How powerful is that? What is

more powerful than that? To give life. And, then we allow

some man to say, " and your son will die for our country. "

B.S.! Since when does some man get to tell me what

to do with the child that is born out of my body?

Why did Camille Claudel have to let Rodin take the credit for

her sculptures? Why were women not allowed to write?

Why are women, who make up the larger percentage of votes in

this country not voting for other women? What stupidity is

residing in our thinking? Why do we not honor and yes, fight

for the very lives we create? For our children? Insanity.

Complete and utter stupidity. I don't even get it to be quite

honest. Don't buy the mass media, don't buy the b.s., it's so

superficial, so over-wrought, so incredibly inane.

Gentleness is a greater strength than violence.

Creation is a much greater virtue than destruction.

Equality is a nobler idea than prejudice.

And dishonesty to wrap back up to the top is a b***sh*t

idea of diplomats who lie.

Let me be perfectly honest because this won't be popular.

Great art, truly great art, the Rembrandts, the Da Vincis,

Michelangelos, Paganininis, Mozarts, etc., comes from integrity

and cross-cultural fertilization. It comes from lack of ego.

Ego is separative, fear-based, and it thrives geographically

in mountains, and islands, i.e., the Japanese, the Swiss, and

yes, the Brits, who lie and call it " diplomacy. " And, their

great loss is the melding of culture, of peoples, of love.

There was a very funny line in " The Red Violin " a Brit coming

to bid at Duvall's said, " the only *** **mn prodigy the island

of Britain ever produced, Pople. "

Great art and music do not need integrity and honesty, they

die without it, it is absolutely essential.

And, we cannot heal without honesty, we must include it in our

dialogue. How am I? I'm sick as a dog, that's actually true.

And, I'm not going to lie to you to make you feel easy. Get

a backbone. My brother had a fight with the pentagon some

years ago, freshly minted little Master's from s Hopkins

in Engineering, all of 25 years old. They " lost " a couple of

hundred million dollars to Britain. My brother, , said,

" find it. " They said, " you're crazy. " said, " farmers in

Iowa are losing their farms paying your damned taxes and their

children have no food and no shoes and you're going to find this

G*d d*mn money. " They found it.

I know there's a huge Anglophile bent on this list but pride

goeth before a fall, and integrity and growth in our consciousness

is more important to me than being nice or popular, we must heal.

And, we must hurry the hell up because the planet, according to

most of the top physicists, engineers and scientists in the world

is in a precarious state.

The WHO in Switzerland estimates that 30% of the Iraqi population

is dying of cancer from DU - that would be our DU - that we

paint on the tanks with the leftovers of our nuclear power

plants excess.

That DU (depleted uranium) is blowing around on the winds of

the world.

That is the most insane thing I have ever seen. Crazy. Think

about how crazy it is that we have active nuclear destruction

blowing in the winds. You want to be polite? The hell with

polite. Get honest. Get scared. Get terrified. The life

which may depend on it is YOUR child's.

Much Love,

Annette

..

[Guest guest]

,

Hi. I'll respond to the substance of your post later. Being picky and

an ENFP who zeroes in on odd data, you wrote something that really

caught my eye.

>A:The WHO in Switzerland estimates that 30% of the Iraqi population

>is dying of cancer from DU - that would be our DU - that we

>paint on the tanks with the leftovers of our nuclear power

>plants excess.

What's your source for this shocking data? (I couldn't confirm at the

WHO web site where there are lots of detailed summaries about Iraq's

health situation.) I don't pick on this because DU isn't an important

issue, but, do so because the actual data is the best basis for

informing people. The latest WHO report on cancer in Iraq is

available on the WHO web site.

http://www.who.int/features/2003/iraq/en/

***

The United States is quite attached to DU, even if using it is a war crime.

According to a August 2002 report by the UN subcommission, laws

which are breached by the use of DU shells include: the Universal

Declaration of Human Rights; the Charter of the United Nations; the

Genocide Convention; the Convention Against Torture; the four Geneva

Conventions of 1949; the Conventional Weapons Convention of 1980; and

the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907, which expressly forbid

employing 'poison or poisoned weapons' and 'arms, projectiles or

materials calculated to cause unnecessary suffering'. All of these

laws are designed to spare civilians from unwarranted suffering in

armed conflicts.

http://www.sundayherald.com/32522

regards,

[Guest guest]

>

> " Let me be perfectly honest because this won't be popular.

> Great art, truly great art, the Rembrandts, the Da Vincis,

> Michelangelos, Paganininis, Mozarts, etc., comes from integrity

> and cross-cultural fertilization. It comes from lack of ego.

> Ego is separative, fear-based, and it thrives geographically

> in mountains, and islands, i.e., the Japanese, the Swiss, and

> yes, the Brits, who lie and call it " diplomacy. " And, their

> great loss is the melding of culture, of peoples, of love.

> Great art and music do not need integrity and honesty, they

> die without it, it is absolutely essential. "

>

> Annette

.

Dear Annette'

I know you were sick, but honestly don't you think this is too broad

a generalization? The English do have some great art. The Japanese

have great art. Don't remember any Swiss art at the moment. But

honestly, that's a pretty broad sweep

All countries lie and call it diplomacy. The hugh amount of

Pakistani and Indian people in Britain would be unhappy to think

they weren't part of " cross-culture fertilization. "

Now integrity? Picasso was not my idea of intergity, or are you

referring to their art, notthe artist's personal characteristics?

Every country, every culture has its men of integrity and honesty.

It would be hubris to think we could lump all of them together on

one side, and who do we put on the other?

There is no country on earth which does not have some " cross

cultural fertilization in this age of transportation and wandering.

Sorry, i couldn't let this by as i think of all the great works of

art I saw in Britain. Not only the continent of Europe harbors

artists past and present.

I was never an Anglophile until i majored in Government in college

and looked back at the amazing political history which no country I

can think of emulates. From the Magna Carta on, the English had a

genius for government, common law and individual freedom. Of course,

i too am generalizing. No country is without blemish as neither are

its individual people.

I cannot tell you how much pleasure English art and

archetecture,the great literature I have studied have given me I do

not detract from other cultures, I had to read and study and look at

them too. But politics and government was always way ahead there in

modern times compared to the tumululois history of the European

continent or Russia.

Just though id mention a few reactions to what you said in passion.

Hope you are feeling better.

Toni