Conservatives say Judge Sonia Sotomayor’s race-based approach to the law is grounds for her to not be a Supreme Court justice.
By DAVID D. KIRKPATRICK
Published: May 29, 2009
WASHINGTON — The selection of Judge Sonia Sotomayor for the Supreme Court has opened a new battle in the fight over affirmative action and other race-conscious remedies for patterns of inequality, with each side invoking the election of the first black president in support of its cause.
The 1993 nomination of Lani Guinier, center, to a top Justice post was withdrawn over her writings on minority voting.
Judge Sotomayor, whose parents moved to New York from Puerto Rico, has championed the importance of considering race and ethnicity in admissions, hiring and even judicial selection at almost every stage of her career — as a student activist at Princeton and at Yale Law School, as a board member of left-leaning Hispanic advocacy groups and as a federal judge arguing for diversity on the bench.
Now conservatives say her strong identification with such race-based approaches to the law is perhaps the strongest argument against her confirmation, contending that her views put her outside an evolving consensus that such race-conscious public policy is growing obsolete.
“The American ideal is that justice should be colorblind,” said Senator John Cornyn, a Texas Republican on the Judiciary Committee. “As we see people like Barack Obama achieve the highest office in the land and Judge Sotomayor’s own nomination to the highest court, I think it is harder and harder to see the justifications for race-conscious decisions across the board.”
Mr. Cornyn added, “This is a hot-button issue and one that needs to be confronted head on.”
Gary Marx, executive director of the conservative Judicial Confirmation Network, said he saw a playbook for the campaign against Judge Sotomayor in the successful attacks on Lani Guinier, whose 1993 nomination to a top Justice Department post was withdrawn after an outcry over her writings arguing for alternative voting systems intended to better represent minorities.
“We will see ‘racial quotas’ become a much bigger issue than they might have been had another nominee been brought forward,” Mr. Marx said.
But civil rights advocates, including Ms. Guinier, say times have changed in their favor, also citing Mr. Obama’s election. In an interview, Ms. Guinier said she saw the debate over Judge Sotomayor’s nomination in part as an opportunity for civil rights advocates to push back against the kind of criticism that had thwarted her own nomination.
“It is easy to understand the idea of viewing an individual on the content of their character rather than the color of their skin,” Ms. Guinier said, but race also is a social phenomenon of politics, history and economics that demand deliberate policy responses.
Americans often see the issue in an either-or way — “ you are race-conscious or race-neutral,” she said. “But the election of Barack Obama has served as an emancipatory moment, and people are ready to discuss and listen to more nuanced arguments.”
Having Mr. Obama as a spokesman is different as well, said Hilary O. Shelton, director of the Washington bureau of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. “The American people chose change — symbolically, but in policy as well,” Mr. Shelton said. “The American people see things differently now.”
What is more, many civil rights groups say, Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation could provide an anchor against the current direction of the Supreme Court under Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., who has led the more conservative bench toward a sweeping re-examination of government reliance on racial classifications, whether in school desegregation plans or landmark voting rights laws.
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race,” Chief Justice Roberts wrote in 2007, summing up his approach in one of the most memorable lines of his opinions.
Samuel Issacharoff, a professor at New York University Law School, said, “There is a tendency to say ‘The time has run, things are different, change has happened,’ ” adding, “It is an emerging theme of the Roberts court.”
Judge Sotomayor is not known to have identified herself as a beneficiary of affirmative action, but she has described her academic struggles as a new student at Princeton from a Roman Catholic school in the Bronx — one of about 20 Hispanics on a campus with more than 2,000 students.
She spent summers reading children’s classics she had missed in a Spanish-speaking home and “re-teaching” herself to write “proper English” by reading elementary grammar books. Only with the outside help of a professor who served as her mentor did she catch up academically, ultimately graduating at the top of her class.
She become the outspoken leader of a Puerto Rican students group, Acción Puertoricaño, leading other Hispanics to file a complaint against Princeton with the federal government to force the hiring of Hispanic faculty members and administrators. “She was very passionate about affirmative action for women and minorities,” said Charles Hey, another Puerto Rican student.
At Yale Law School, she was co-chairman of a group for Latin, Asian and Native American students — a catchall group for nonblack minorities. There she led fellow students in meetings with the dean to push for the hiring of more Hispanic faculty members at the law school. And, friends say, she shared the alarm of others in the group when the Supreme Court prohibited the use of quotas in university admissions in its 1978 decision Regents of the University of California v. Bakke.
As a lawyer, she joined the National Council of La Raza and the board of the Puerto Rican Legal Defense Fund, two Hispanic civil rights groups that advocate for vigorous affirmative action. As a judge, she has repeatedly argued for diversity on the bench by alluding to the insights she gleaned from her Latina background.
In one of the few cases dealing with the subject that she helped decide on the federal appeals court, Ricci v. New Haven, she ruled in favor of the city’s ’s decision to discard the results of an exam to select firefighters for promotion because too few minority firefighters scored high enough to advance. White firefighters who had scored well on the discarded test sued, and the Supreme Court heard arguments on the case in April.
“Her nomination and the Ricci case have brought racial quotas back as a national issue," said Mr. Marx of the Judicial Confirmation Network.
The public response, however, is hard to foresee. Few groups conducted public polls on the issue as it faded in recent years, and the results from those that did reveal a consistent ambivalence, said Michael Dimock, a pollster with the nonpartisan Pew Research Center.
When asked a question about “affirmative action or preferential treatment for minorities,” the public has consistently opposed the idea by a margin of two to one. But when asked about “affirmative action programs designed to help women and minorities,” an even bigger majority has supported them.
And, Mr. Dimock said, the election of Mr. Obama does not appear to have changed either result.
Saturday, May 30, 2009
Wednesday, May 06, 2009
'Pakistan's Pants are on Fire'...
I love the 'metaphors, and no-nonsense, straight-to-the-point dialogue' that comes out of this one Republican Senator's mouth. Forgotten his name...just found it. Correction Democrat Senator's Gary Ackerman's mouth although he talks like a Republican Senator...Gotta love his latest metaphor as heard on CNN...
...'Pakistan's pants are on fire'...
-- dgb, May 6th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
............................................................................
'Pakistan's pants on fire'
06/05/2009 10:26 - (SA)
Panicked residents flee Swat
US officer: Pakistan nukes safe
Pressure mounts in Pakistan
Pakistan retakes key road
Peshawar, Pakistan - More than 40 000 civilians have fled deadly clashes in Pakistan's Swat valley, officials said on Wednesday, amid fears that fighting between Taliban and security forces will torpedo a peace deal.
The chaos forced President Asif Ali Zardari onto the defensive - he brushed aside US concern that Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters are threatening Pakistan's very existence just hours before a summit with US counterpart Barack Obama.
Deadly clashes flared again overnight in Mingora, the main town in Swat, the one-time ski resort where local officials said armed Taliban have defied curfews and occupied government buildings, making a mockery of the peace deal.
The provincial government said it was scrambling to shelter up to 500 000 people they expect to flee Swat and local officials confirmed on Wednesday that tens of thousands had streamed out of the district in less than 24 hours.
"More than 40 000 have migrated from Mingora since Tuesday afternoon," said Khushhal Khan, the chief administration officer in Swat.
"An exodus of more than 40 000 people is the minimum number - it should actually be more than 50 000," said an intelligence official.
Bedraggled men, women in burkas and children piled onto pick-up trucks and led animals through streets in their haste to flee Swat, devastated by a nearly two-year Taliban insurgency to impose a repressive brand of Sharia law.
Panic and confusion
"I don't want my unborn baby to have even the slightest idea what suicide attacks and bomb blasts are. That's why I'm leaving Mingora with my husband," said a sobbing and heavily pregnant Bakht Zehra.
"For God's sake tell me where I can bring up my child where there are no suicide attacks," she cried.
Pakistan's military has been pressing a fierce offensive in neighbouring districts of Swat, where armed militants advanced despite the February deal, raising expectations of a renewed operation in Swat itself.
The operations were launched under US pressure to crush militants in the northwest, where Washington says al-Qaeda, Taliban and other Islamists pose the biggest terror threat to the West.
Panic and confusion spread through Mingora on Tuesday after the military issued - but then swiftly withdrew - an evacuation order, and clashes between security forces and the armed rebels broke out.
Khan said Taliban militants overnight seized control of several buildings and that four civilians were killed in the town - three in a mortar attack and one shot dead by security forces.
"They are patrolling in the streets in Mingora and occupying many official buildings, including a police station and a commissioner's office, which houses offices of top police and administration officials in Saidu Sharif," he said.
Government heavily criticised
Local police said on Wednesday that the militants had vacated the buildings and dispersed into the mountains, similar to rugged terrain in neighbouring districts where they are fighting guerrilla-style against the military.
The government was heavily criticised for the February deal to put three million people in the northwest under sharia law in a bid to end the uprising, which instead saw the Taliban push further south towards the capital Islamabad.
The violence and displacement forced Zardari to insist in Washington overnight that his government was safe ahead of a crunch summit on the Taliban insurgency at the White House with Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
"My government is not going to fall when one mountain is taken by one group or the other," Zardari told CNN.
But US lawmakers, who are being asked to approve a seven billion dollar aid package for Pakistan, have voiced increasing fears that the nuclear-armed country is losing the fight against Islamist extremists.
"Let me be blunt - Pakistan's pants are on fire," Democratic Representative Gary Ackerman said.
Obama has put Pakistan at the heart of the fight against al-Qaeda as he prepares to roll out an extra 21 000 troops to Afghanistan.
- AFP
...'Pakistan's pants are on fire'...
-- dgb, May 6th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
............................................................................
'Pakistan's pants on fire'
06/05/2009 10:26 - (SA)
Panicked residents flee Swat
US officer: Pakistan nukes safe
Pressure mounts in Pakistan
Pakistan retakes key road
Peshawar, Pakistan - More than 40 000 civilians have fled deadly clashes in Pakistan's Swat valley, officials said on Wednesday, amid fears that fighting between Taliban and security forces will torpedo a peace deal.
The chaos forced President Asif Ali Zardari onto the defensive - he brushed aside US concern that Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters are threatening Pakistan's very existence just hours before a summit with US counterpart Barack Obama.
Deadly clashes flared again overnight in Mingora, the main town in Swat, the one-time ski resort where local officials said armed Taliban have defied curfews and occupied government buildings, making a mockery of the peace deal.
The provincial government said it was scrambling to shelter up to 500 000 people they expect to flee Swat and local officials confirmed on Wednesday that tens of thousands had streamed out of the district in less than 24 hours.
"More than 40 000 have migrated from Mingora since Tuesday afternoon," said Khushhal Khan, the chief administration officer in Swat.
"An exodus of more than 40 000 people is the minimum number - it should actually be more than 50 000," said an intelligence official.
Bedraggled men, women in burkas and children piled onto pick-up trucks and led animals through streets in their haste to flee Swat, devastated by a nearly two-year Taliban insurgency to impose a repressive brand of Sharia law.
Panic and confusion
"I don't want my unborn baby to have even the slightest idea what suicide attacks and bomb blasts are. That's why I'm leaving Mingora with my husband," said a sobbing and heavily pregnant Bakht Zehra.
"For God's sake tell me where I can bring up my child where there are no suicide attacks," she cried.
Pakistan's military has been pressing a fierce offensive in neighbouring districts of Swat, where armed militants advanced despite the February deal, raising expectations of a renewed operation in Swat itself.
The operations were launched under US pressure to crush militants in the northwest, where Washington says al-Qaeda, Taliban and other Islamists pose the biggest terror threat to the West.
Panic and confusion spread through Mingora on Tuesday after the military issued - but then swiftly withdrew - an evacuation order, and clashes between security forces and the armed rebels broke out.
Khan said Taliban militants overnight seized control of several buildings and that four civilians were killed in the town - three in a mortar attack and one shot dead by security forces.
"They are patrolling in the streets in Mingora and occupying many official buildings, including a police station and a commissioner's office, which houses offices of top police and administration officials in Saidu Sharif," he said.
Government heavily criticised
Local police said on Wednesday that the militants had vacated the buildings and dispersed into the mountains, similar to rugged terrain in neighbouring districts where they are fighting guerrilla-style against the military.
The government was heavily criticised for the February deal to put three million people in the northwest under sharia law in a bid to end the uprising, which instead saw the Taliban push further south towards the capital Islamabad.
The violence and displacement forced Zardari to insist in Washington overnight that his government was safe ahead of a crunch summit on the Taliban insurgency at the White House with Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
"My government is not going to fall when one mountain is taken by one group or the other," Zardari told CNN.
But US lawmakers, who are being asked to approve a seven billion dollar aid package for Pakistan, have voiced increasing fears that the nuclear-armed country is losing the fight against Islamist extremists.
"Let me be blunt - Pakistan's pants are on fire," Democratic Representative Gary Ackerman said.
Obama has put Pakistan at the heart of the fight against al-Qaeda as he prepares to roll out an extra 21 000 troops to Afghanistan.
- AFP
Evaluation and Health: From The DGB-GAP Archives (originally written in 1979; significantly edited, modified, and updated, May 1st-5th, 2009)
National and international politics, philosophy, law, economics, and religion mimics individual psychology and visa versa. Here is an essay -- just finished -- that begins to show how...
-- dgb, May 6th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
.........................................................................
Part 1: Introduction: A Model of 'The Central, Mediating, Executive Ego' in the Context of 'The Personality-As-A-Whole'
Imagine that the personality is like a business where important, differentiated functions are divided into distinguishable 'departments', each managed by a different 'department manager', and each department having its own particular set of specialized functions, assets, needs, and demands required to run the department properly.
We can even analogize the 'running of the individual personality' to being like running a huge political state -- like The United States of America. ; or alternatively like running Canada with its individual 'province-departments'.
There is the potential for 'dialectical splits' between 'Federal' and 'State' (or 'Provincial') departments.
Or alternatively, there is the potential for 'dialectical unions' between Federal and State (or Provincial) Departments (and Functions).
All together, a country like America or Canada is a huge, pluralistic, and multi-dialectical State. And so too is the Individual Personality.
When the American People elect a man like Barrack Obama to be President of The United States of America, they want a number of different things -- such as:
1. A person with a 'top of the line intellect' who is capable of handling the job of President and Commander-in-Chief of The United States of America. (I think of people of America have gotten this -- you don't graduate from Harvard with top marks and a degree in law without having a brilliant intellect);
2. A person who is very good at the 'business, art, and science of living'. The American people are looking for a President who can 'balance' all the mult-fold intricasies of running a country as big and as complex as The United States of America. In particular, in this regard, they are looking for a President who can balance 'accountability' and 'compassionate' values. Here is arguably the biggest split between The Republican Party and The Democrat Party -- Conservative and Liberal Philosophical, Political, Legal, and Economic Factions and Functions: The Republican Party historically tends to emphasize 'accountability' values whereas The Democrat Party tends to emphasize 'compassionate' values. This will probably be the biggest challenge to Obama's Presidency as Obama tends to lean fairly heavily towards 'compassionate' values and it may become a question of whether or not this emphasis on 'social and human compassion' sinks him as a President either foreignly where 'less compassionate' States take advantage of him, and/or internally where the American economy collapes even further under all of his political, corporate, and economic 'give-aways';
3. A well-balanced, solidly unionized 'First Couple and First Family'. This is one of the places where Sarah Palin collapsed politically on the last federal election. She couldn't pull that one off -- even with all 'her family pictures'. JFK may have been able to pull his many 'infidelities' off without it destroying his political career. Same too with Bill Clinton. But not too many others can. John Edwards certainly didn't. This points out one of the toughest 'dialectic splits' to deal with in the human personality -- a conflict that we often project outwards onto our political leaders and our 'mythological gods', expecting them to 'harmoniously' deal with an issue that we often can't -- i.e., the issue of 'faithfulness' vs. 'infidelity'. In the human psyche, this conflict can be variously labelled such as the 'good boy/bad boy syndrome' or conversely the 'good girl/bad girl syndrome'. Among our mythological gods, the Greek God Zeus was infamous for His many affairs amongst both Gods and humans. Zeus was the symbolization, and idealization of the 'Alpa-Male' -- the 'testosterone-laden' God who could more or less have any female He wanted. Zeus was a 'Spartan God', a 'Republican God'. In contrast, Jesus Christ was the opposite -- more or less an 'effeminate God'. God of Compassion. God of Caring. God of Altruism. God of Love. All men walk a 'tight-rope plank' and each man walks it differently. Each man deals with this 'sexual dialectic split' differently -- the split between trying to live up to the Masculine Ideal of 'Zeus' vs. trying to live up to the Masculine-Feminine Ideal of 'Jesus Christ'.
Barrack Obama has to live up to the tightrope walk of balancing the psychology, philosophy, spirituality-religion, economics, and politics of Zeus with Jesus Christ. Bush failed miserably. There was not enough 'Jesus Christ Compassion' in Bush's psyche -- just testosterone-laden (in the area of aggression if not sexuality), hard-line, Spartan, Republican Psychological-Philosophical Dynamics -- and after 8 years, the American People had had enough of 'Republican-Spartan Philosophy, Economics, War, and Politics'. Enter Obama to offer something different -- a political projection of the more 'Jesus Christ Oriented Mythological Archetype Figure'. (Or perhaps Mohammad for that matter who shares some similarities in the Muslim religion with the Ideal of Jesus Christ in the Christian religion.)
The trouble that many men have with this Sexual Dialectic Split in the Personality -- as I have described it here between the Archetype-Figure of Zeus vs. the Archetype Figure of Jesus Christ -- was differently but similarily described by Alfred Adler under his concept of 'The Masculine Protest'. Unfortunately, Adler ran away from this concept when it became 'politically misinterpreted and incorrect'. This is too bad because it was a great concept. One that I intend to bring back to life again.
In the 'femininine sexual dialectic split', this split has sometimes been called 'The Madonna/Whore Syndrome' -- women more or less being expected to, or expecting themselves to, live up to some combination of -- let us say -- 'Mother Teresa' and the pop star 'Madonna' (where Madonna in this latter sense is used in the opposite sense of the first).
Now stepping out of the political world and back into the business world, any business can be divided into whatever departments the owner of the business feels he or she needs in order to run the business properly.
In personality theory, the business being run is the business of living -- the art and the science of living (See Erich Fromm, 'Man For Himself', 1947, and 'The Art of Loving', 1956).
In Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology, the business, art, and science of living -- or worded otherwise, personality theory -- is divided into 20 -- yes, count them! -- 20 departments in the personality.
Twenty departments in the human mind-psyche-personality, you gasp. Freud only had three (Ego, Id, Superego). Perls only had two (topdog/underdog). Jung's final divisions of the personality I am not sure of. Let us say he had five ('Persona', 'Shadow', 'Personal Unconcious', 'Collective Unconscious', and 'The Self'. He had other concepts like 'archetype-figures' and the 'anima' and the 'animus' but these, I believe, were parts of the 'Collective (Mythological) Unconscious'. So let us say, for working purposes here, he had five. I stand to be corrected by anyone more knowledgeable of Jungian Theory than me. But I am sure that I have the central 'essence' of his theory here).
Ronald Fairbain had some interesting concepts such as 'Rejecting Object' and 'Exciting Object' that I intend to incorporate into DGB Transference Theory.
Eric Berne had three main 'ego-states' -- 'Child/Lower'; 'Adult/Middle'; 'Parent/Top' of which 'The Parent' was divided into 'The Nurturing Parent' vs. 'The Controlling Parent'; and 'The Child' was divided into the 'Free Child' and 'The Adapted Child'. That makes '3 ego-states -- two of them which have 'auxiliary sub-ego-states'. My DGB Model is closest to Berne's Transactional Analysis Model while incorporating elements of all of the others as well. We will come back to the TA model shortly but first let us look at some of Erich Fromm's ideas -- another important influence on Hegel's Hotel.
Erich Fromm postulated 5 different 'basic needs' in 'human nature':
.....................................................................
From the internet..Wikipedia..
The word biophilia was frequently used by Fromm as a description of a productive psychological orientation and "state of being". For example, in an addendum to his book The Heart of Man: Its Genius For Good and Evil, Fromm wrote as part of his famous Humanist Credo:
"I believe that the man choosing progress can find a new unity through the development of all his human forces, which are produced in three orientations. These can be presented separately or together: biophilia, love for humanity and nature, and independence and freedom." (c. 1965)
Erich Fromm postulated five basic needs:
1. Relatedness - relationships with others, care, respect, knowledge;
2. Transcendence - creativity, develop a loving and interesting life;
3. Rootedness - feeling of belonging;
4. Sense of Identity - see ourselves as a unique person and part of a social group.
5. A frame of orientation - the need to understand the world and our place in it.
Fromm's thesis of the "escape from freedom" is epitomized in the following passage. The "individualized man" referenced by Fromm is man bereft of "primary ties" of belonging (nature, family, etc.), also expressed as "freedom from":
"There is only one possible, productive solution for the relationship of individualized man with the world: his active solidarity with all men and his spontaneous activity, love and work, which unite him again with the world, not by primary ties but as a free and independent individual.... However, if the economic, social and political conditions... do not offer a basis for the realization of individuality in the sense just mentioned, while at the same time people have lost those ties which gave them security, this lag makes freedom an unbearable burden. It then becomes identical with doubt, with a kind of life which lacks meaning and direction. Powerful tendencies arise to escape from this kind of freedom into submission or some kind of relationship to man and the world which promises relief from uncertainty, even if it deprives the individual of his freedom." (Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom [N.Y.: Rinehart, 1941], pp. 36-7. The point is repeated on pp. 31, 256-7.)
Five orientations
Fromm also spoke of "orientation of character" in his book "Man For Himself", which describes the ways an individual relates to the world and constitutes his general character, and develops from two specific kinds of relatedness to the world: acquiring and assimilating things ("assimilation"), and reacting to people ("socialization"). Fromm considers these character systems the human substitute for instincts in animals. These orientations describe how a man has developed in regard to how he responds to conflicts in his or her life; he also said that people were never pure in any such orientation.
These two factors form four types of malignant character, which he calls Receptive, Exploitative, Hoarding and Marketing. He also described a positive character, which he called Productive.
..................................................................................
The Modern Transactional Analysis Model of The Personality...
From the internet...businessballs.com
Significantly, the original three Parent Adult Child components were sub-divided to form a new seven element model, principally during the 1980's by Wagner, Joines and Mountain. This established Controlling and Nurturing aspects of the Parent mode, each with positive and negative aspects, and the Adapted and Free aspects of the Child mode, again each with positive an negative aspects, which essentially gives us the model to which most TA practitioners refer today:
1. Parent (Upper Ego States...dgb addition)
Parent is now commonly represented as a circle with four quadrants:
Nurturing - Nurturing (positive) and Spoiling (negative).
Controlling - Structuring (positive) and Critical (negative).
2. Adult (Middle Ego States...dgb addition)
Adult remains as a single entity, representing an 'accounting' function or mode, which can draw on the resources of both Parent and Child.
3. Child (Lower Ego States...dgb addition)
Child is now commonly represented as circle with four quadrants:
Adapted - Co-operative (positive) and Compliant/Resistant (negative).
Free - Spontaneous (positive) and Immature (negative).
Where previously Transactional Analysis suggested that effective communications were complementary (response echoing the path of the stimulus), and better still complementary adult to adult, the modern interpretation suggests that effective communications and relationships are based on complementary transactions to and from positive quadrants, and also, still, adult to adult. Stimulii and responses can come from any (or some) of these seven ego states, to any or some of the respondent's seven ego states.
......................................................................
The Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Personality Theory Model is built mainly from The Transactional Analysis with numerous 'auxilliary ego-state additions' and 'four unconscious/basement floor additions' that combine a mixture of Freudian and Jungian Psychology. There are also some 'Nietzschean Birth of Tragedy' elements in the model.
The DGB Model has:
A/ 3 Upper Zone/Parent Ego States: 1. The Nurturing (Hera/Gaia) Topdog; 2. The Dionysian-Narcissistic-Controlling Topdog; and 3. The Apollonian-Righteous-Rejecting-Controlling Topdog;
B/ 10 Middle Zone/Adult Ego States: 4. The Central-Mediating-Executive Ego surrounded by 9 'Auxilliary-Advisory Ego States: 5. The Darwinian-Survival Ego; 6. The Epistemological (Rational-Empirical-Metaphysical) Ego; 7. The Ethical Ego; 8. The Smith-Marx-Conservative-Liberal-Capitalist-Socialist Economic Ego; 9. The Security-Risk-Taking Ego; 10. The Enlightenment-Romantic Ego; 11. The Humanistic (Compassionate)-Existential (Accountable) Ego; 12. The Physical Health Ego; and 13. The Creative-Destructive (Constructive-Deconstructive) Ego.
C/ 3 Lower Zone/Child Ego States: 14. The Rebellious-Apollonian Underdog; 15. The Rebellious-Dionysian Underdog; and 16. The Adapted (Co-operative-Approval-Seeking) Underdog.
D/ 4 Unconscious Genetic, Bio-Chemical, Mythological, Symbolic, Dream, Fantasy, and Memory-Transference Templates/Complexes/Drives/Impulses
17. The Dynamic-Creative-Destructive-Symbolic-Integrating Unconscious
18. The Personal-Social Memory-Learning-Transference Template
19. The Genetic Mythological-Symbolic Memory-Learning-Archetype Template
20. The Genetic, Talented, Potential, Unactualized Self
..............................................................................
This is the entire DGB model of the human psyche and personality of which 'The Central Ego State' constitutes only one of 20 'departments' in the personality, albeit, one of the most important -- i.e. 'the Chief Executive and Mediating Officer', The 'Commander in Chief', The 'President of The Personality' seeking to integrating all other 18 departments in the personality.
To be sure there are some significant overlaps.
But this is the model we will work with for the forseeeable future.
We will return to a longer discussion of this model in Part 3 of this essay.
For now, let us continue on with Part 1 of this essay. Let us describe and explore a model and functioning of 'The Central Mediating and Executive Ego' in the context of the larger DGB model of the 'personality-as-a-whole'.
-- dgb, May 6th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
.....................................................................................
-- dgb, May 6th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
.........................................................................
Part 1: Introduction: A Model of 'The Central, Mediating, Executive Ego' in the Context of 'The Personality-As-A-Whole'
Imagine that the personality is like a business where important, differentiated functions are divided into distinguishable 'departments', each managed by a different 'department manager', and each department having its own particular set of specialized functions, assets, needs, and demands required to run the department properly.
We can even analogize the 'running of the individual personality' to being like running a huge political state -- like The United States of America. ; or alternatively like running Canada with its individual 'province-departments'.
There is the potential for 'dialectical splits' between 'Federal' and 'State' (or 'Provincial') departments.
Or alternatively, there is the potential for 'dialectical unions' between Federal and State (or Provincial) Departments (and Functions).
All together, a country like America or Canada is a huge, pluralistic, and multi-dialectical State. And so too is the Individual Personality.
When the American People elect a man like Barrack Obama to be President of The United States of America, they want a number of different things -- such as:
1. A person with a 'top of the line intellect' who is capable of handling the job of President and Commander-in-Chief of The United States of America. (I think of people of America have gotten this -- you don't graduate from Harvard with top marks and a degree in law without having a brilliant intellect);
2. A person who is very good at the 'business, art, and science of living'. The American people are looking for a President who can 'balance' all the mult-fold intricasies of running a country as big and as complex as The United States of America. In particular, in this regard, they are looking for a President who can balance 'accountability' and 'compassionate' values. Here is arguably the biggest split between The Republican Party and The Democrat Party -- Conservative and Liberal Philosophical, Political, Legal, and Economic Factions and Functions: The Republican Party historically tends to emphasize 'accountability' values whereas The Democrat Party tends to emphasize 'compassionate' values. This will probably be the biggest challenge to Obama's Presidency as Obama tends to lean fairly heavily towards 'compassionate' values and it may become a question of whether or not this emphasis on 'social and human compassion' sinks him as a President either foreignly where 'less compassionate' States take advantage of him, and/or internally where the American economy collapes even further under all of his political, corporate, and economic 'give-aways';
3. A well-balanced, solidly unionized 'First Couple and First Family'. This is one of the places where Sarah Palin collapsed politically on the last federal election. She couldn't pull that one off -- even with all 'her family pictures'. JFK may have been able to pull his many 'infidelities' off without it destroying his political career. Same too with Bill Clinton. But not too many others can. John Edwards certainly didn't. This points out one of the toughest 'dialectic splits' to deal with in the human personality -- a conflict that we often project outwards onto our political leaders and our 'mythological gods', expecting them to 'harmoniously' deal with an issue that we often can't -- i.e., the issue of 'faithfulness' vs. 'infidelity'. In the human psyche, this conflict can be variously labelled such as the 'good boy/bad boy syndrome' or conversely the 'good girl/bad girl syndrome'. Among our mythological gods, the Greek God Zeus was infamous for His many affairs amongst both Gods and humans. Zeus was the symbolization, and idealization of the 'Alpa-Male' -- the 'testosterone-laden' God who could more or less have any female He wanted. Zeus was a 'Spartan God', a 'Republican God'. In contrast, Jesus Christ was the opposite -- more or less an 'effeminate God'. God of Compassion. God of Caring. God of Altruism. God of Love. All men walk a 'tight-rope plank' and each man walks it differently. Each man deals with this 'sexual dialectic split' differently -- the split between trying to live up to the Masculine Ideal of 'Zeus' vs. trying to live up to the Masculine-Feminine Ideal of 'Jesus Christ'.
Barrack Obama has to live up to the tightrope walk of balancing the psychology, philosophy, spirituality-religion, economics, and politics of Zeus with Jesus Christ. Bush failed miserably. There was not enough 'Jesus Christ Compassion' in Bush's psyche -- just testosterone-laden (in the area of aggression if not sexuality), hard-line, Spartan, Republican Psychological-Philosophical Dynamics -- and after 8 years, the American People had had enough of 'Republican-Spartan Philosophy, Economics, War, and Politics'. Enter Obama to offer something different -- a political projection of the more 'Jesus Christ Oriented Mythological Archetype Figure'. (Or perhaps Mohammad for that matter who shares some similarities in the Muslim religion with the Ideal of Jesus Christ in the Christian religion.)
The trouble that many men have with this Sexual Dialectic Split in the Personality -- as I have described it here between the Archetype-Figure of Zeus vs. the Archetype Figure of Jesus Christ -- was differently but similarily described by Alfred Adler under his concept of 'The Masculine Protest'. Unfortunately, Adler ran away from this concept when it became 'politically misinterpreted and incorrect'. This is too bad because it was a great concept. One that I intend to bring back to life again.
In the 'femininine sexual dialectic split', this split has sometimes been called 'The Madonna/Whore Syndrome' -- women more or less being expected to, or expecting themselves to, live up to some combination of -- let us say -- 'Mother Teresa' and the pop star 'Madonna' (where Madonna in this latter sense is used in the opposite sense of the first).
Now stepping out of the political world and back into the business world, any business can be divided into whatever departments the owner of the business feels he or she needs in order to run the business properly.
In personality theory, the business being run is the business of living -- the art and the science of living (See Erich Fromm, 'Man For Himself', 1947, and 'The Art of Loving', 1956).
In Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology, the business, art, and science of living -- or worded otherwise, personality theory -- is divided into 20 -- yes, count them! -- 20 departments in the personality.
Twenty departments in the human mind-psyche-personality, you gasp. Freud only had three (Ego, Id, Superego). Perls only had two (topdog/underdog). Jung's final divisions of the personality I am not sure of. Let us say he had five ('Persona', 'Shadow', 'Personal Unconcious', 'Collective Unconscious', and 'The Self'. He had other concepts like 'archetype-figures' and the 'anima' and the 'animus' but these, I believe, were parts of the 'Collective (Mythological) Unconscious'. So let us say, for working purposes here, he had five. I stand to be corrected by anyone more knowledgeable of Jungian Theory than me. But I am sure that I have the central 'essence' of his theory here).
Ronald Fairbain had some interesting concepts such as 'Rejecting Object' and 'Exciting Object' that I intend to incorporate into DGB Transference Theory.
Eric Berne had three main 'ego-states' -- 'Child/Lower'; 'Adult/Middle'; 'Parent/Top' of which 'The Parent' was divided into 'The Nurturing Parent' vs. 'The Controlling Parent'; and 'The Child' was divided into the 'Free Child' and 'The Adapted Child'. That makes '3 ego-states -- two of them which have 'auxiliary sub-ego-states'. My DGB Model is closest to Berne's Transactional Analysis Model while incorporating elements of all of the others as well. We will come back to the TA model shortly but first let us look at some of Erich Fromm's ideas -- another important influence on Hegel's Hotel.
Erich Fromm postulated 5 different 'basic needs' in 'human nature':
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From the internet..Wikipedia..
The word biophilia was frequently used by Fromm as a description of a productive psychological orientation and "state of being". For example, in an addendum to his book The Heart of Man: Its Genius For Good and Evil, Fromm wrote as part of his famous Humanist Credo:
"I believe that the man choosing progress can find a new unity through the development of all his human forces, which are produced in three orientations. These can be presented separately or together: biophilia, love for humanity and nature, and independence and freedom." (c. 1965)
Erich Fromm postulated five basic needs:
1. Relatedness - relationships with others, care, respect, knowledge;
2. Transcendence - creativity, develop a loving and interesting life;
3. Rootedness - feeling of belonging;
4. Sense of Identity - see ourselves as a unique person and part of a social group.
5. A frame of orientation - the need to understand the world and our place in it.
Fromm's thesis of the "escape from freedom" is epitomized in the following passage. The "individualized man" referenced by Fromm is man bereft of "primary ties" of belonging (nature, family, etc.), also expressed as "freedom from":
"There is only one possible, productive solution for the relationship of individualized man with the world: his active solidarity with all men and his spontaneous activity, love and work, which unite him again with the world, not by primary ties but as a free and independent individual.... However, if the economic, social and political conditions... do not offer a basis for the realization of individuality in the sense just mentioned, while at the same time people have lost those ties which gave them security, this lag makes freedom an unbearable burden. It then becomes identical with doubt, with a kind of life which lacks meaning and direction. Powerful tendencies arise to escape from this kind of freedom into submission or some kind of relationship to man and the world which promises relief from uncertainty, even if it deprives the individual of his freedom." (Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom [N.Y.: Rinehart, 1941], pp. 36-7. The point is repeated on pp. 31, 256-7.)
Five orientations
Fromm also spoke of "orientation of character" in his book "Man For Himself", which describes the ways an individual relates to the world and constitutes his general character, and develops from two specific kinds of relatedness to the world: acquiring and assimilating things ("assimilation"), and reacting to people ("socialization"). Fromm considers these character systems the human substitute for instincts in animals. These orientations describe how a man has developed in regard to how he responds to conflicts in his or her life; he also said that people were never pure in any such orientation.
These two factors form four types of malignant character, which he calls Receptive, Exploitative, Hoarding and Marketing. He also described a positive character, which he called Productive.
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The Modern Transactional Analysis Model of The Personality...
From the internet...businessballs.com
Significantly, the original three Parent Adult Child components were sub-divided to form a new seven element model, principally during the 1980's by Wagner, Joines and Mountain. This established Controlling and Nurturing aspects of the Parent mode, each with positive and negative aspects, and the Adapted and Free aspects of the Child mode, again each with positive an negative aspects, which essentially gives us the model to which most TA practitioners refer today:
1. Parent (Upper Ego States...dgb addition)
Parent is now commonly represented as a circle with four quadrants:
Nurturing - Nurturing (positive) and Spoiling (negative).
Controlling - Structuring (positive) and Critical (negative).
2. Adult (Middle Ego States...dgb addition)
Adult remains as a single entity, representing an 'accounting' function or mode, which can draw on the resources of both Parent and Child.
3. Child (Lower Ego States...dgb addition)
Child is now commonly represented as circle with four quadrants:
Adapted - Co-operative (positive) and Compliant/Resistant (negative).
Free - Spontaneous (positive) and Immature (negative).
Where previously Transactional Analysis suggested that effective communications were complementary (response echoing the path of the stimulus), and better still complementary adult to adult, the modern interpretation suggests that effective communications and relationships are based on complementary transactions to and from positive quadrants, and also, still, adult to adult. Stimulii and responses can come from any (or some) of these seven ego states, to any or some of the respondent's seven ego states.
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The Hegel's Hotel: DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Personality Theory Model is built mainly from The Transactional Analysis with numerous 'auxilliary ego-state additions' and 'four unconscious/basement floor additions' that combine a mixture of Freudian and Jungian Psychology. There are also some 'Nietzschean Birth of Tragedy' elements in the model.
The DGB Model has:
A/ 3 Upper Zone/Parent Ego States: 1. The Nurturing (Hera/Gaia) Topdog; 2. The Dionysian-Narcissistic-Controlling Topdog; and 3. The Apollonian-Righteous-Rejecting-Controlling Topdog;
B/ 10 Middle Zone/Adult Ego States: 4. The Central-Mediating-Executive Ego surrounded by 9 'Auxilliary-Advisory Ego States: 5. The Darwinian-Survival Ego; 6. The Epistemological (Rational-Empirical-Metaphysical) Ego; 7. The Ethical Ego; 8. The Smith-Marx-Conservative-Liberal-Capitalist-Socialist Economic Ego; 9. The Security-Risk-Taking Ego; 10. The Enlightenment-Romantic Ego; 11. The Humanistic (Compassionate)-Existential (Accountable) Ego; 12. The Physical Health Ego; and 13. The Creative-Destructive (Constructive-Deconstructive) Ego.
C/ 3 Lower Zone/Child Ego States: 14. The Rebellious-Apollonian Underdog; 15. The Rebellious-Dionysian Underdog; and 16. The Adapted (Co-operative-Approval-Seeking) Underdog.
D/ 4 Unconscious Genetic, Bio-Chemical, Mythological, Symbolic, Dream, Fantasy, and Memory-Transference Templates/Complexes/Drives/Impulses
17. The Dynamic-Creative-Destructive-Symbolic-Integrating Unconscious
18. The Personal-Social Memory-Learning-Transference Template
19. The Genetic Mythological-Symbolic Memory-Learning-Archetype Template
20. The Genetic, Talented, Potential, Unactualized Self
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This is the entire DGB model of the human psyche and personality of which 'The Central Ego State' constitutes only one of 20 'departments' in the personality, albeit, one of the most important -- i.e. 'the Chief Executive and Mediating Officer', The 'Commander in Chief', The 'President of The Personality' seeking to integrating all other 18 departments in the personality.
To be sure there are some significant overlaps.
But this is the model we will work with for the forseeeable future.
We will return to a longer discussion of this model in Part 3 of this essay.
For now, let us continue on with Part 1 of this essay. Let us describe and explore a model and functioning of 'The Central Mediating and Executive Ego' in the context of the larger DGB model of the 'personality-as-a-whole'.
-- dgb, May 6th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
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