Kool-Aid didn’t kill those people.

[coberst]

Kool-Aid didn’t kill those people.

 

Transference and suggestibility killed those people.

 

In October of 1978, surrounded by hundreds of his followers, cult leader Jim Jones was found dead of a gunshot wound to the head; this event took place in Jonestown, Guyana, where the followers of Jones drank the Kool-Aid of group psychology, killing them self by drinking a soft drink laced with cyanide at the cult's sprawling compound.

 

The images of bodies found at the compound were seared into the consciousness of a generation. The phrase "drank the Kool-Aid" came to describe any blind devotion to a cause or person. It was not the Kool-Aid that killed all of these people but it was a human propensity called transference.

 

Freud informs us the reason for this form of behavior is the tendency for humans to be suggestible and influenced by a psychic form of transference.

 

What do the following entities have in common: fascism, capitalism, communism, political parties, and religions? They all have a common characteristic that can be called “group mind”.

 

What is striking is that members of these entities often undergo a major change in behavior just by being members of such entities. Under certain conditions individuals who become members of these groups behave differently than they would as individuals. These individuals acquire the characteristics of a ‘psychological group’.

 

What is the nature of the ‘group mind’, i.e. the mental changes such individuals undergo as a result of becoming a group?

 

A bond develops much like cells which constitute a living body—group mind is more of an unconscious than a conscious force—there are motives for action that elude conscious attention—distinctiveness and individuality become group behavior based upon unconscious motives—there develops a sentiment of invincible power, anonymous and irresponsible attitudes--repressions of unconscious forces under normal situations are ignored—conscience which results from social anxiety disappear.

 

Contagion sets in—hypnotic order becomes prevalent—individuals sacrifice personal interest for the group interest.

 

Suggestibility, of which contagion is a symptom, leads to the lose of conscious personality—the individual follows suggestions for actions totally contradictory to person conscience—hypnotic like fascination sets in—will and discernment vanishes—direction is taken from the leader in an hypnotic like manner—the conscious personality disappears.

 

“Moreover, by the mere fact that he forms part of an organized group, a man descends several rungs in the ladder of civilization.” Isolated, he may be a cultivated individual; in a crowd, he is a barbarian—a creature acting by instinct. “He possesses the spontaneity, the violence, the ferocity, and also the enthusiasm and heroism of primitive beings.”

 

There is a lowering of intellectual ability “pointing to its similarity with the mental life of primitive people and of children…A group is credulous and easily influenced”—the improbable seldom exists—they think in images—feelings are very simple and exaggerated—the group knows neither doubt nor uncertainty—extremes are prevalent, antipathy becomes hate and suspicion becomes certainty.

 

Force is king—force is respected and obeyed without question—kindness is weakness—tradition is triumphant—words have a magical power—supernatural powers are easily accepted—groups never thirst for truth, they demand illusions—the unreal receives precedence over the real—the group is an obedient herd—prestige is a source for domination, however it “is also dependent upon success, and is lost in the event of failure”.

 

Psychology is a domain of knowledge that is complex and filled with concepts that are completely unfamiliar to the vast majority of our population. But Psychology provides us with an insight into why humans do what they do that no other domain of knowledge can provide.

 

Sapiens are at heart slavish. Therein lay the rub, as Shakespeare might say.

 

Humans seek to be more than animals. We seek to be gods or at least propagate that level above animal and just below God.

 

That which promotes life is good that which promotes death is evil. “Evil lies not in the hearts of men but in the social arrangements that men take for granted.”

 

Wo/man lives a debased life under tyranny and self delusion because s/he does not comprehend the conditions of natural freedom. Sapiens need hope and belief in themselves; thus illusion is necessary if it is creative for life, but is evil if it promotes death.

 

A psychodynamic analysis of history displays saga of death, destruction, and coercion from the outside while inside we see self-delusion and self enslavement. We seek mystification. We seek transference; we seek hypnotists as our chosen leaders.

 

We seek the power to ward off big evil by reflexively embracing small terrors and small fascinations in the place of overwhelming ones.

 

Freud was the first to focus upon the phenomenon of a patient’s inclination to transfer the feelings s/he had toward her parents as a child to the physician. The patient distorts the perception of the physician; s/he enlarges the figure up far out of reason and becomes dependent upon him. In this transference of feeling, which the patient had for his parents, to the physician the grown person displays all the characteristics of the child at heart, a child who distorts reality in order to relieve his helplessness and fears.

 

Freud saw these transference phenomena as the form of human suggestibility that makes the control over another, as displayed by hypnosis, as being possible. Hypnosis seems mysterious and mystifying to us only because we hide our slavish need for authority from our self. We live the big lie, which lay within this need to submit our self slavishly to another, because we want to think of our self as self-determined and independent in judgment and choice.

 

The predisposition to hypnosis is identical to that which gives rise to transference and it is characteristic of all sapiens.]/b] We could not function as adults if we retained this submissive attitude to our parents, however, this attitude of submissiveness, as noted by Ferenczi, is “The need to be subject to someone remains; only the part of the father is transferred to teachers, superiors, impressive personalities; the submissive loyalty to rulers that is so widespread is also a transference of this sort.”

 

Freud saw immediately that when caught up in groups wo/man became dependent children once again. They abandoned their individual egos for that of the leader; they identified with their leader and proceeded to function with him as their ideal. Freud identified man, not as a herd animal but as a horde (teeming crowd) animal that is led by a chief. Wo/man has an insatiable need for authority.

 

People have an insatiable need to be hypnotized by authority; they seek a magical protection as when they were infants protected by their mother. This is the force that acts to hold groups together, intertwined within a mutually constructed but often mindless interdependence. This mindless group think also builds a feeling of potency. The members feel a sense of unity within the grasp of their leadership.

 

‘Why are groups so blind and stupid?’ Freud asked; and he replied that mankind lived by self delusion. They “constantly give what is unreal precedence over what is real.” The real world is too frightening to behold; delusion changes this by making sapiens seem important. This explains the terrible sadism we see in group activity.

 

I have read that some consider objectivism to be a cult rather than a philosophy; I asked my self what is the difference between a philosophy and an ideology. I turned to Freud and his book “Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego” for my answer. I discovered that Freud had turned to the Frenchman Gustave Le Bon for an understanding of group behavior.

 

Gustave Le Bon was a French social psychologist, sociologist, and amateur physicist. His work on crowd psychology became important in the first half of the twentieth century. Le Bon was one of the great popularizers of theories of the unconscious at a critical moment in the formation of new theories of sociology.

English translation Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, was explicitly based on a critique of Le Bon's work. The quotes and short phrases in this post are from this book.

[coberst]

Ideology is something we humans need to comprehend better than we now do. Ideology is both salvation and death.

 

We are all members of many ideologies. Our ideologies are the abstract ideas that we create and invest with value. Our ideologies are what lead us to live a certain way, die for a certain cause, and kill THEM who are not US.

 

I might be a Democrat, Catholic, American, and capitalist. When we are members of a group we can do things that we would never consider doing alone. As an American my group kills others, as a Democrat I may seek to improve the well being of my side while taking it from the other side, as a Catholic I may hate Jews, as a capitalist I may cheat to get mine. All of these things we might do as a group but perhaps never would have been so self-seeking alone.

[Inter.spem.et.metum]

What about an ideology that promote new ideologies and try to integrate as many existing ideologies as possible? It isn't that difficult.

[coberst]

What about an ideology that promote new ideologies and try to integrate as many existing ideologies as possible? It isn't that difficult.

 

 

I thinl it exists already and it is called nationalism.

[CraigD]

We are all members of many ideologies. Our ideologies are the abstract ideas that we create and invest with value. Our ideologies are what lead us to live a certain way, die for a certain cause, and kill THEM who are not US.

Some ideologies lead people to all of these things, but not all. In particular, any that falls under the category of strict pacifism explicitly excludes the killing of any “THEM who are not US”, as well, of course, as killing any US who are US, a prohibition common to many if not nearly all ideologies.

 

The term ideology is a peculiar one, similar in the change of its usage to the term technology. According to this wikipedia article, it’s first usage, in the late 18th Century, was etymologically obvious idea-ology, the study of ideas. Now, as coberst describes, its most widely understood meaning is a particular organized collection of ideas – rather than the study of ideas, an idea-object to be studied, or, as is more often, I believe, the case, not so much studied as identified and kept vague to maximize ones rhetorical effectiveness.

 

Like many words ending in –ology (or its equivalent in a Latin-borrowing language), “ideology” and “ideologue” appear to have been co-opted for use in political rhetoric – in the case of this particular –ology word, allegedly by Napoleon Bonaparte as part of his rise to power in post-revolutionary late 18th Century France. It’s interesting, I think, that this turn of use of an existing, obscure –ology word is often accomplished by the use of its –logue form to refer to a practitioner of it. I suspect this is due to very vague onomatopoeia – ____logue, regardless of what’s used in the blank, sound like someone bad to be vilified, while the equivalent ____-ist sounds nice and admirable. (eg: “technologist” vs. “technologue”)

 

As Korzybski famously said, “the map is not the territory”. That use of the idea of ideology is a central feature of many ideologies is a strange loop, but not necessarily an indictment of such ideologies.

[Inter.spem.et.metum]

Truth on a scientific level is factual and empirical, so no debate is necessary. But the ideologies that are based on setting sociological and philosophical truths are easily debatable. I am a true believer that there is truth in all things, it need only be found. I find that the time spent on historical ideologies, including religion, should not be considered time wasted, but rather time well spent on the evolution of human society and culture. No ideology should be ignored or looked down upon. They should be weighed and integrated accordingly. The mixture of ideas creates even deeper ideas. And although some ideas would be considered illogical, they are applicable and material to human existance.

 

Would you agree that I am practicing the orginial ideology?

[coberst]

The nature of the assumptions represents the major difference between philosophy and ideology. Philosophy seeks to see the world without taking any assumptions whereas ideology seeks to make its particular assumptions to be universal.

 

Non-philosophical forms of inquiry are intellectual endeavors constituted by certain basic assumptions. A scientific form of inquiry assumes that the world is an ordered whole and that we can, through reason, acquire knowledge of this whole. The world of science is governed by laws that define causal effects that are measurable and perceivable by humans.

 

It is the case that humans reason from within container like boundaries, thus we are always within a container. However the trick is to enlarge our containers and thereby gain a more universal perspective. We must find a means to examine our assumptions. Each container is constructed with its own assumptions. That is why philosophy is so useful. It is a domain of knowledge with the largest container, or at least the Philosophy dept likes to think so.

 

Ideology takes its assumptions and considers them infallible and strives to convince the world that their assumptions are natural and universal. Take as example the assumptions of Americans about democracy and freedom or the Catholic Church about Jesus.

[Inter.spem.et.metum]

AN ideology might do so, but not ideology as presented by CraigD.

 

I am a lover of philosophy, so I often taken the role of devils advocate. So, in the spirit of things:

 

Wouldn't you say that philosophy assumes that making the container larger is a useful means of better understanding of existance? Doesn't it make that assumption universal?

[coberst]

AN ideology might do so, but not ideology as presented by CraigD.

 

I am a lover of philosophy, so I often taken the role of devils advocate. So, in the spirit of things:

 

Wouldn't you say that philosophy assumes that making the container larger is a useful means of better understanding of existance? Doesn't it make that assumption universal?

 

Container is our conceptual schema that serves both perception and conception. At least this is what cognitive science teaches me and I find it agrees with me.

 

When I learned to use math to solve engineering problems in college I suspect that I had created several different containers into which such mathematical concepts as algebra, calculus, matrix theory, etc. were 'housed'.

 

Later in life I developed an understanding of math. Before that time I could use math but did not understand math. When this understanding developed I suspect that I did formulate another container that housed a great deal of other containers.

 

 

 

Is everything a kind of thing?

 

Is there a demarcation boundary between instinct and reason? Is there a demarcation boundary between anything between here and the Big Bang? Is demarcation boundary a part of nature or is it a necessity of human comprehension? Is category a fact of nature or is category a necessity of human comprehension? Is anything different in kind from anything else? Is everything different only in degree from everything else?

 

I conclude that demarcation boundary is not an essential characteristic of nature but is an essential characteristic of human comprehension. Everything is a seamless flow from the Big Bang to now. Only in our mind do we have a difference in kind.

 

Reality is a rainbow but we humans perceive reality as a myriad of containers! We perceive reality as containers because our “gut” tells us so and because classical metaphysics tells us so. Reality without demarcation boundaries means that everything is a seamless reality from everything else. It means that everything is not a kind of thing with its own necessary and sufficient nature but that all reality runs together and it is only in our minds that these containers exist.

 

We have a gut feeling about some things because our sense of correctness comes from our bodies. When Newton provided us with his theory of physics we could “feel” the correctness of much of it because he was using such concepts as acceleration, momentum, distance and velocity all of which we knew because we could intuit them, we could “feel in our gut” these concepts. Such was not the case when the physicist attacked the problem of quantum physics. Who has a gut feeling for the inner workings of the atom?

 

Our “gut feeling” constantly informs us as to the ‘correctness’ of some phenomenon. This gut feeling is an attitude; it is one of many types of attitudes. What can we say about this gut feeling?

 

“Philosophy in The Flesh” says a great deal about this gut feeling. Metaphor theory, the underlying theory of cognitive science contained in this book explains how our knowledge is ‘grounded’ in a manner in which we optimally interact with the world.

 

Humans and I suspect all creatures navigate in space through spatial-relations concepts. These concepts are the essence of our ability to function in space. These are not concepts that we can sense but they are the forms and inference patterns for our movement in space that we utilize unconsciously. We automatically ‘perceive’ an entity as being on, in front of, behind, etc. another entity.

 

The container schema is a fundamental spatial-relations concept that allows us to draw important inferences. This natural container format is the source for our logical inferences that are so obvious to us when we view Venn diagrams. If container A is in container B and B is in container C, then A is in C.

 

A container schema is a gestalt figure with an interior, an exterior, and a boundary—the parts make sense only as part of the whole. Container schemas are cross-modal—“we can impose a conceptual container schema on a visual scene…on something we hear, as when we conceptually separate out one part of a piece of music from another.”

 

“Image schemas have a special cognitive function: They are both perceptual and conceptual in nature. As such, they provide a bridge between language and reasoning on the one hand and vision on the other.”

 

Quotes from “Philosophy in the Flesh” and “Where Mathematics Comes From” Lakoff is coauthor of both.

 

Classical metaphysics tells us that reality is a myriad of containers each with its own essence and now I discover that such categories are not in reality but are in my mind. Most everyone, like myself, is attuned to this classical metaphysics plus gut feeling that we are dealing with containers and not a rainbow, this is very important.

[Inter.spem.et.metum]

Tearing down of categories...absolutely!!! Although, some are definitely applicable.

[coberst]

Tearing down of categories...absolutely!!! Although, some are definitely applicable.

 

There are two types of categories. There are the categories relating to our bodily embrace of the world and then are the categories of consciousness. The categories of consciousness are those that contain the essence of the thing, which we define as necessary and sufficient.

 

The categories relating to our bodily embrace of the world, we might call these the natural categories, are meaningful while the categories of definition, which we might call artificial, are intellectual.