from nothing to something

[Guest guest]

Dan, all,

You confuse me in leaping from:

>

> In other words, you do not believe that human nature will change :-).

> I agree with you.

to:

> the big, epoch making change in human history has imo been " modernity, " or

> rather the letting loose of the modern attitude

Were there an alternative able to successfully counter modernity, it would

have by now.

There aren't even any candidates with the exception of exterminating

modernists as soon as they show their colors; enforcing absolute

compliance among all others; and having the bosses of this all safely

guarded!

***

But you do put your finger on something with the introduction of the term

attitude.

As I see, and this only by virtue of idiosyncratic studies and my

prejudices, Jung specifically, the psychoanalytic psychologists generally,

tracked something of the evolution of human sensibility in noting that

introspective consciousness, once loosened from the grip of its being

dimmed and projected only on outward objects, (be they of any kind or

constitution,) will then discover the self-object, the individual

personality. This will thrill: " I " actually am somebody! :-)

In this not only is seeded modernity, but post-modernity too.

Going in the other direction, if we step back through the history of homo

sapiens, and note in doing so how the conceptions of human nature fall

away, we note these conceptions move from contradictory richness to,

eventually, survival modes of cognition. It's notable in speculating about

prototypes of human awareness, that eventually we find that there was no

need for stories, symbols, language. ...say, about 100,000 years ago.

From there, when we move forward we see the acquisition of all sorts of

different conceptions and human psycho-cultural systems, each one evoked

by the restless wanderings of human awareness and self-awareness.

***

One other fact of this is that the superior get to rule the inferior until

they themselves are rendered unto inferiority. The superior peddle 'what's

good for yuse guys' but, usually, do not make much of a case and, very

often, except themselves from the offered principles.

In light of this a do-over isn't very promising simply because the dynamic

and spectral psyche, (Jung's insight,) is restless and not very able to

submit to any kind of predictable run of compliance.

And this is true whether it's compliance to wisdom or not. Yes, people

believing that they can think for themselves is often proved dangerous,

but, the seeds for it pre-date the rise of the idea that it's better when

you allow someone else to think for you, and, go on about some role

compliantly.

In other words, this propensity to individuate would infect any do-over.

regards,