AIG executives' promises to return bonuses have gone largely unfulfilled
By Brady Dennis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
When word spread earlier this year that American International Group had paid more than $165 million in retention bonuses at the division that had precipitated the company's downfall, outrage erupted, with employees getting death threats and President Obama urging that every legal avenue be pursued to block the payments.
New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo threatened to publicize the recipients' names, prompting executives at AIG Financial Products to hastily agree to return about $45 million in bonuses by the end of the year.
But as the final days of 2009 tick away, a majority of that money remains unpaid. Only about $19 million has been given back, according to a report by the special inspector general for the government's bailout program.
Some of the employees who had offered to return their bonuses have instead left the company, taking their cash with them.
Others remain at Financial Products but are also holding on to their money until they see what Kenneth R. Feinberg, the Obama administration's "compensation czar," decides about whether they should get future bonus payments they have also been promised. Feinberg, AIG and government officials have been involved in ongoing negotiations over the status of past and future bonuses at the insurance giant.
Dozens of employees have hired lawyers, bracing for a fight if AIG or government officials try to block the payments.
Cuomo has said little publicly in recent months about the AIG bonuses. On Tuesday, his office had no comment when asked about the payments.
When the controversy erupted in March, Cuomo agreed to keep the employees' identities secret as long as a significant share of the money was returned to the company. Some of them said his demand amounted to blackmail. But AIG officials said at the time that at least 18 of firm's top 25 executives had agreed to return at least some of their bonus money. "We are deeply gratified that a vast majority of FP's senior leadership have expressed a willingness to forsake their recent retention payments," the company said.
But now, the government, AIG and the employees are on a collision course. Everyone is keenly aware that another round of retention payments at Financial Products is due soon, threatening to draw public attention to the issue once again. AIG is scheduled to pay out an additional $198 million to employees in March.
"They have a contractual right to be paid this money. They put in their time, and they have performed all their obligations successfully." said Andrew Goodstadt, a New York lawyer who represents more than a dozen Financial Products employees. "They're willing to assert their contractual rights in a court of law. They have extremely strong claims."
Goodstadt said his clients include computer systems specialists, mathematicians and other employees who did not have a hand in the risky credit derivatives that brought the firm down. Rather, he said, many employees who remain at Financial Products have worked to unwind the troubled trades on its books and protect the massive taxpayer investment in AIG, whose total rescue package peaked at more than $180 billion in capital and loans.
They stuck around, he said, in large part because of the company's promise of the retention payments. In addition, Goodstadt emphasized that the company told employees in March that their offers to return bonus payments were voluntary and nonbinding.
One former Financial Products executive said some of his colleagues had stayed with the company only because they expected to receive bonus payments this coming March. After that, he said, they will have "no reason at all" to stay. "There's no more carrot," he said.
A resolution to the bonus controversy has been bedeviled by a growing lack of trust between AIG employees and the government.
Financial Products employees say they were on the brink of an agreement earlier this year that would reduce the total amount of money due in 2010 and spread those payments out over time to avoid the scrutiny that would come with a large, lump-sum payment. But they claim Feinberg scrapped that plan after he was appointed in June and urged AIG to find a way to significantly scale back the upcoming bonus payments.
People familiar with recent discussions between Feinberg and executives at AIG, including face-to-face talks with chief executive Robert H. Benmosche, said Feinberg has insisted that Financial Products employees return the money they said they would before he signs off on any deal involving 2010 compensation.
"Feinberg is adamant those pledges be honored," said one of the people. "It's non-negotiable."
They also said he has continued to urge that the amount of money due in March 2010 be reduced.
"I don't know how they resolve it now. There's no trust there," said one Financial Products executive, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the payments. "In order to negotiate, there has to be good faith and trust, and the government has shown those two things don't exist with them."
AIG declined to provide official comment, but company officials have previously argued that it is essential to keep employees at Financial Products. While the most disastrous and risky deals have been purged from the books, AIG officials say a mass exodus of employees from the division could still wreak havoc and end up harming the government's nearly 80 percent stake in the company.
AIG said in an October statement that it was working through various compensation issues with Feinberg, "including future payments to employees of AIG Financial Products." The company noted that Financial Products employees "have until the end of the year to fulfill their commitments to return a portion of their March 2009 payment. We expect FP employees will honor their commitments."
...........................................................................
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
Monday, December 07, 2009
The Biggest CEO Outrages of 2009 by Helen Coster, Forbes.com
The biggest CEO outrages of 2009
by Helen Coster, Forbes.com
Friday, December 4, 2009
provided by
Almost a year ago, Bernard Madoff raised the bar for corporate malfeasance to an all-time high when he was arrested on charges of orchestrating a US$50 billion Ponzi scheme. Unsurprisingly, nobody managed to top Madoff's crimes in 2009, but 10 executives showed enough greed, hubris and chutzpah to altogether give him a run for his (stolen) money. Here are the biggest CEO outrages of the year (in honor of the holiday spirit, we're choosing them now and letting off anyone caught red-handed in December 2009).
In November a federal court sentenced Robert Moran, a UBS private banking client who is also the chief executive of Moran Yacht & Ship, to a two-month prison sentence for tax fraud. Moran's case came out of a larger government investigation into wealthy Americans who have used UBS to hide their money offshore and avoid U.S. taxes. Moran had pleaded guilty in April to filing a false tax return, and had admitted to concealing more than US$3 million in a secret UBS account. He finishes at No. 10 on our list.
Go to Forbes.com to view the slideshow
(Opens new window)
While Moran was busy rigging his yachts, David Rubin (No. 9) was busy rigging auctions, according to the Department of Justice. In October, prosecutors indicted Rubin, the chief executive of CDR Financial Products, a municipal bond brokerage, on conspiracy and fraud charges. According to the indictment, Rubin's firm rigged auctions that help determine which banks get the lucrative business of assisting governments in raising money. The prosecutors contend that participating banks kicked a portion of their profits back to Rubin, who denies the allegations. Like everyone on this list who has been indicted but not yet found guilty, he of course must be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But also like all the rest, he has gotten himself into a heap of ugly trouble in any event.
R. Allen Stanford (No. 8), the cricket-loving Texan who was, according to Forbes, a billionaire until this year, scored high in chutzpah in 2009. He and his co-defendants allegedly sold $7 billion worth of certificates of deposit through his Stanford International Bank and misappropriated most of the money, diverting more than US$1.6 billion in undisclosed loans to him personally. According to his indictment, he got by with a little help from his friends—in particular the chief executive of the Financial Services Regulatory Commission of the island nation Antigua and Barbuda, Leroy King. The Securities and Exchange Commission claims that in return for $100,000 from Stanford, King kept Stanford abreast of SEC inquiries into his dealings. Stanford has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces up to 250 years in jail.
Pity the mostly Asian investors who let Danny Pang (No. 7), the founder and former chief executive of Private Equity Management Group, manage their money. In April the SEC accused him of running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded his investors of hundreds of millions of dollars. Pang died in September at age 42, before he could stand trial. A coroner's report expected by January is expected to say whether he committed suicide.
In October the SEC charged Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the hedge fund Galleon Group, along with executives from Intel, International Business Machines and McKinsey, with insider trading. The government relied on wiretaps to show how Rajaratnam (No. 3) allegedly used private information to help boost the returns at his US$3.7 billion hedge fund. He allegedly made more than US$33 million in illicit profits; he strenuously denies the charges and is out on bail awaiting trial.
Two businessmen displayed especially vivid imagination in their extremely dubious activities. In Minnesota, Thomas Petters (No. 5) went on trial in October for allegedly orchestrating a US$3.5 billion fraud. Federal prosecutors accused him of promising rich returns to investors who lent him money to buy flat-screen TVs and other excess goods from troubled retailers for resale to companies like Sam's Club. The only problem: Petters had allegedly cooked up fake purchase orders and invoices to hide the fact that those surplus goods never existed. Prosecutors claim that he used new investor money to pay off old debts—the old pyramid scheme technique—and used the profits to fund his extravagant lifestyle. As we go to press the case is before the jury.
Thousands of miles away, B. Ramalinga Raju (No. 4) was living in his own fantasy world. The founder of the Indian outsourcing company Satyam Computer Services, he confessed in January to overstating Satyam's profits over several years and creating a fictitious cash balance of more than US$1 billion. He invented more than 10,000 fictitious employees to help him steal money from the company, and he used his mother's name to buy land with the proceeds. He confessed, but has yet to face charges in court.
The uproar over Wall Street bonuses this year earned two prominent executives places on our list. Edward M. Liddy (No. 6), who began running America International Group last September, faced a nationwide firestorm when it emerged that executives in his firm's financial products division, who bore considerable responsibility for the insurance giant's near collapse, were being rewarded for their disastrous results with US$165 million in retention bonuses. The retention packages had been put in place before Liddy joined the firm last year and were tied to 2007 pay levels, so they weren't affected by the firm's more recent losses. Liddy insisted that though the bonuses were "distasteful," AIG was legally obligated to honor its employment contracts. Many across the nation disagreed—and took it personally, since the company had received almost US$200 billion in federal bailout funds courtesy of the American taxpayer.
John Thain, then the chief executive of Merrill Lynch, pushed through US$3.62 billion in bonuses for his executives last December, rather than waiting until January as usual, just as the company was being taken over by Bank of America. Then in January, Bank of America revealed that Merrill had lost US$15.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008. That bonus push just made Thain's ill-starred captaincy of Merrill, which had begun with his million-dollar renovation of his office a year before, look even worse than before. Less than a week later Kenneth Lewis, the CEO of Bank of America, forced Thain out of his job.
And last but not least: the divine Lloyd Blankfein (No. 1), chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs. Despite bearing scant resemblance to, say, Mother Theresa, the Pope or the Dalai Lama, Blankfein told the Sunday Times of London in November that he was just a banker doing "God's work." He later said he meant it as a joke, but he certainly pays himself as if he were accomplishing something greater than human: In 2007 he made US$73 million, according to Forbes, and only $25 million in 2008, as the economy tanked, but look for a recovery in his compensation this year as Goldman Sachs has recovered far ahead of the economy as a whole. In honor of the modesty of his pronouncement, we lift him to the celestial height of No. 1 on our list of CEO outrages of 2009.
In Pictures: The Most Outrageous CEOs Of 2009
by Helen Coster, Forbes.com
Friday, December 4, 2009
provided by
Almost a year ago, Bernard Madoff raised the bar for corporate malfeasance to an all-time high when he was arrested on charges of orchestrating a US$50 billion Ponzi scheme. Unsurprisingly, nobody managed to top Madoff's crimes in 2009, but 10 executives showed enough greed, hubris and chutzpah to altogether give him a run for his (stolen) money. Here are the biggest CEO outrages of the year (in honor of the holiday spirit, we're choosing them now and letting off anyone caught red-handed in December 2009).
In November a federal court sentenced Robert Moran, a UBS private banking client who is also the chief executive of Moran Yacht & Ship, to a two-month prison sentence for tax fraud. Moran's case came out of a larger government investigation into wealthy Americans who have used UBS to hide their money offshore and avoid U.S. taxes. Moran had pleaded guilty in April to filing a false tax return, and had admitted to concealing more than US$3 million in a secret UBS account. He finishes at No. 10 on our list.
Go to Forbes.com to view the slideshow
(Opens new window)
While Moran was busy rigging his yachts, David Rubin (No. 9) was busy rigging auctions, according to the Department of Justice. In October, prosecutors indicted Rubin, the chief executive of CDR Financial Products, a municipal bond brokerage, on conspiracy and fraud charges. According to the indictment, Rubin's firm rigged auctions that help determine which banks get the lucrative business of assisting governments in raising money. The prosecutors contend that participating banks kicked a portion of their profits back to Rubin, who denies the allegations. Like everyone on this list who has been indicted but not yet found guilty, he of course must be presumed innocent until proven guilty. But also like all the rest, he has gotten himself into a heap of ugly trouble in any event.
R. Allen Stanford (No. 8), the cricket-loving Texan who was, according to Forbes, a billionaire until this year, scored high in chutzpah in 2009. He and his co-defendants allegedly sold $7 billion worth of certificates of deposit through his Stanford International Bank and misappropriated most of the money, diverting more than US$1.6 billion in undisclosed loans to him personally. According to his indictment, he got by with a little help from his friends—in particular the chief executive of the Financial Services Regulatory Commission of the island nation Antigua and Barbuda, Leroy King. The Securities and Exchange Commission claims that in return for $100,000 from Stanford, King kept Stanford abreast of SEC inquiries into his dealings. Stanford has pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces up to 250 years in jail.
Pity the mostly Asian investors who let Danny Pang (No. 7), the founder and former chief executive of Private Equity Management Group, manage their money. In April the SEC accused him of running a Ponzi scheme that defrauded his investors of hundreds of millions of dollars. Pang died in September at age 42, before he could stand trial. A coroner's report expected by January is expected to say whether he committed suicide.
In October the SEC charged Raj Rajaratnam, founder of the hedge fund Galleon Group, along with executives from Intel, International Business Machines and McKinsey, with insider trading. The government relied on wiretaps to show how Rajaratnam (No. 3) allegedly used private information to help boost the returns at his US$3.7 billion hedge fund. He allegedly made more than US$33 million in illicit profits; he strenuously denies the charges and is out on bail awaiting trial.
Two businessmen displayed especially vivid imagination in their extremely dubious activities. In Minnesota, Thomas Petters (No. 5) went on trial in October for allegedly orchestrating a US$3.5 billion fraud. Federal prosecutors accused him of promising rich returns to investors who lent him money to buy flat-screen TVs and other excess goods from troubled retailers for resale to companies like Sam's Club. The only problem: Petters had allegedly cooked up fake purchase orders and invoices to hide the fact that those surplus goods never existed. Prosecutors claim that he used new investor money to pay off old debts—the old pyramid scheme technique—and used the profits to fund his extravagant lifestyle. As we go to press the case is before the jury.
Thousands of miles away, B. Ramalinga Raju (No. 4) was living in his own fantasy world. The founder of the Indian outsourcing company Satyam Computer Services, he confessed in January to overstating Satyam's profits over several years and creating a fictitious cash balance of more than US$1 billion. He invented more than 10,000 fictitious employees to help him steal money from the company, and he used his mother's name to buy land with the proceeds. He confessed, but has yet to face charges in court.
The uproar over Wall Street bonuses this year earned two prominent executives places on our list. Edward M. Liddy (No. 6), who began running America International Group last September, faced a nationwide firestorm when it emerged that executives in his firm's financial products division, who bore considerable responsibility for the insurance giant's near collapse, were being rewarded for their disastrous results with US$165 million in retention bonuses. The retention packages had been put in place before Liddy joined the firm last year and were tied to 2007 pay levels, so they weren't affected by the firm's more recent losses. Liddy insisted that though the bonuses were "distasteful," AIG was legally obligated to honor its employment contracts. Many across the nation disagreed—and took it personally, since the company had received almost US$200 billion in federal bailout funds courtesy of the American taxpayer.
John Thain, then the chief executive of Merrill Lynch, pushed through US$3.62 billion in bonuses for his executives last December, rather than waiting until January as usual, just as the company was being taken over by Bank of America. Then in January, Bank of America revealed that Merrill had lost US$15.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2008. That bonus push just made Thain's ill-starred captaincy of Merrill, which had begun with his million-dollar renovation of his office a year before, look even worse than before. Less than a week later Kenneth Lewis, the CEO of Bank of America, forced Thain out of his job.
And last but not least: the divine Lloyd Blankfein (No. 1), chairman and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs. Despite bearing scant resemblance to, say, Mother Theresa, the Pope or the Dalai Lama, Blankfein told the Sunday Times of London in November that he was just a banker doing "God's work." He later said he meant it as a joke, but he certainly pays himself as if he were accomplishing something greater than human: In 2007 he made US$73 million, according to Forbes, and only $25 million in 2008, as the economy tanked, but look for a recovery in his compensation this year as Goldman Sachs has recovered far ahead of the economy as a whole. In honor of the modesty of his pronouncement, we lift him to the celestial height of No. 1 on our list of CEO outrages of 2009.
In Pictures: The Most Outrageous CEOs Of 2009
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
On The Prospect Of Any 'Ultimate, Final, Absolute Synthesis'
There will never, ever be any 'Ultimate, Final, Absolute Synthesis'. Hegel was dead wrong on this account.
The only 'Ultimate Synthesis' -- is death.
-- dgb, Nov. 17th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
The only 'Ultimate Synthesis' -- is death.
-- dgb, Nov. 17th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
On The Dangers of 'Pigeon-Holing' Life Processes Into 'Neat' Verbal Concepts, Categories, and Theories: Aristotelean Either/Or Logic vs. Hegelian Dialectic Logic
At the risk of redundancy, I want to once again emphasize the dangers of attempting to pigeon-hole life into neat, verbal concepts, categories, classification systems, and theories...
This includes the danger of over-using -- to the point of abusing -- Aristotelean Logic. Now what exactly 'Aristotelean Logic' means is in need of some discussion. We will get back to this point very shortly.
Hegel was the first philosopher to strongly emphasize the dangers of Aristotelean Logic. From a slightly different standpoint, Alfred Korzybski would do the same thing about 125 years later in the latter's classic book, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelean Systems, 1933. You can read this book in its entirety now on line for free although it is not entirely an easy read...http://esgs.free.fr/uk/art/sands.htm).
In Hegel's Hotel, I wish -- because of the extreme importance of this message -- to repeat, emphasize, modify, update, and extrapolate on the same messages that were passed on to me, and those others who have read either Hegel and/or Korzybski, and/or interpretations of their work -- in particular here, relative to the dangers of Aristotelean logic.
What is Aristotelean Logic?
Well, there are two aspects of Aristotelean logic that we need to look at: 1. the syllogism; and 2. the law of identity and non-identy. I do not profess to be an expert in formal logic but, from what I can see, the syllogism is not reallya problem as long as it is used properly. However, the law of identity and non-identity is a problem. Let's take a look at both these aspects of Aristolean logic and how they inter-relate.
A/ The Syllogism
Major Premise: All men are mortal.
Minor Premise: Socrates is a man.
Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.
There is nothing wrong with this logic. If both the major and minor premise are right, and connected in such a way that the major premise represents an assertion or proposition about a certain class of things having a particular characteristic that is universal to that class of things; and the minor premise represents an assertion or proposition about a particular member of the class of things asserted in the major premise as having the particular universal characteristic asserted in the major premise -- then the conclusion should be 'logically right'.
Here is another example:
Major Premise: All snakes have no legs and slither when they move.
Minor Premise: This animal I am looking at has legs and is not slithering
Conclusion: Therefore this animal I am looking at is not a snake.
This type of Aristotelean logic can be otherwise stated like this:
If all members of a particular class of things have a particular universal characteristic.
Then a particular member of that same class of things is also going to have that universal characteristic.
B/ The Law of Identity and Non-Identity (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
So far so good. But here is where we get into trouble in a couple of different ways -- one emphasized by Hegel; the other emphasized by Korzybski.
A is A and B is B. A cannot be B. And B cannot be A.
This can be referred to as 'Aristotelean Either/Or Logic'.
Quite simply, this 'Law of Either/Or Logic' may be good for mathematics but it is not good for biology, physics, chemistry, medicine, psychology, politics, philosophy, religion, art, engineering, architecture, fashion, or any of a hundred other things that make up either 'evolution' or 'human culture'.
Worded otherwise, evolution does not work according to the principle of 'either/or'.
What Aristotle did here was he left out an excluded 'middle zone', an excluded 'gray zone', where 'gray' is both 'black' and 'white' as well as neither 'black' nor 'white'. 'Gray' borrows the partial characteristics of both black and white. Aristotle's 'either/or' logic does not reflect the 'gray zones' in life, in nature, in evolution, in human culture...
Most if not all of evolution is 'dialectic evolution'. 'A' breeds with 'B' and the offspring become members of a new set which is partly both 'A' and 'B' but at the same time neither completely 'A' nor 'B'. Rather, the offspring represent a new class of 'AB'. This is dialectic evolution which depends on the principle of 'biodiversity' and the 'intermixing' of genetics.
A coyote is a coyote and cannot be a wolf.
A wolf is a wolf and cannot be a coyote.
Wrong! A wolf breeds with a coyote and now we have a 'new species of animal' -- we have a 'colf'.
A colf is both a wolf and a coyote but not entirely either a wolf or a coyote. It reflects particular characteristics of both a wolf and a coyote which takes life into a middle gray zone of dialectic evolution.
Aristotelean logic did not reflect this aspect of life.
Hegelian dialectic logic moved into to compensate for that 'gray area of life' that Aristotle did not account for.
Thesis intermingled with anti-thesis becomes a 'dialectic synthesis'. Hegel compensated for what Aristotle ignored or missed.
The problem is that many, many people today still use Aristotelean 'either/or' logic in context situatons where they should be using Hegelian Dialectic Logic instead. Not all the time. But in many, many cases which in turn causes many, many problems.
People try to 'pigeon-hole' life into two Aristotelean opposing categories -- A and B -- where they should not be leaving out the very viable and often superior Hegelian 'middle dialectic zone' of AB. That is why DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...uses a ton of 'hyphenated words' such as:
1. 'Liberal-Conservative' or 'Conservative-Liberal';
2. 'Republican-Democrat' or 'Democrat-Republican';
3. 'Apollonian-Dionysian' or 'Dionysian-Apollonian';
4. GAP Psychology (a mixture of Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Psychoanalysis);
5. DGB Philosophy (Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-Science...)
A/ Is 'Bi-Polar Disorder' an 'illness' or an 'excuse'? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic0
B/ Can 'Bi-Polar Disorder' be both or either an 'illness' and/or an 'excuse'? (Hegelian Dialectic Logic)
A/ Is 'sczhizophrenia' a 'biochemical disorder ' or a 'transference neurosis'? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
B/ Can 'sczhizophrenia' be both a 'biochemical disorder' and a 'transference neurosis'? (Hegelian Dialectic Logic)
A/ Is orthodox prescription medicine superior to natural health medicine or visa versa? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
B/ Can both orthodox prescription medicine and natural health medicine learn from each other and become 'Integrative Wholistic Medicine'?
We will talk about Korzybski on another day. That is enough for today.
-- dgb, Nov. 17th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
This includes the danger of over-using -- to the point of abusing -- Aristotelean Logic. Now what exactly 'Aristotelean Logic' means is in need of some discussion. We will get back to this point very shortly.
Hegel was the first philosopher to strongly emphasize the dangers of Aristotelean Logic. From a slightly different standpoint, Alfred Korzybski would do the same thing about 125 years later in the latter's classic book, Science and Sanity: An Introduction to Non-Aristotelean Systems, 1933. You can read this book in its entirety now on line for free although it is not entirely an easy read...http://esgs.free.fr/uk/art/sands.htm).
In Hegel's Hotel, I wish -- because of the extreme importance of this message -- to repeat, emphasize, modify, update, and extrapolate on the same messages that were passed on to me, and those others who have read either Hegel and/or Korzybski, and/or interpretations of their work -- in particular here, relative to the dangers of Aristotelean logic.
What is Aristotelean Logic?
Well, there are two aspects of Aristotelean logic that we need to look at: 1. the syllogism; and 2. the law of identity and non-identy. I do not profess to be an expert in formal logic but, from what I can see, the syllogism is not reallya problem as long as it is used properly. However, the law of identity and non-identity is a problem. Let's take a look at both these aspects of Aristolean logic and how they inter-relate.
A/ The Syllogism
Major Premise: All men are mortal.
Minor Premise: Socrates is a man.
Conclusion: Socrates is mortal.
There is nothing wrong with this logic. If both the major and minor premise are right, and connected in such a way that the major premise represents an assertion or proposition about a certain class of things having a particular characteristic that is universal to that class of things; and the minor premise represents an assertion or proposition about a particular member of the class of things asserted in the major premise as having the particular universal characteristic asserted in the major premise -- then the conclusion should be 'logically right'.
Here is another example:
Major Premise: All snakes have no legs and slither when they move.
Minor Premise: This animal I am looking at has legs and is not slithering
Conclusion: Therefore this animal I am looking at is not a snake.
This type of Aristotelean logic can be otherwise stated like this:
If all members of a particular class of things have a particular universal characteristic.
Then a particular member of that same class of things is also going to have that universal characteristic.
B/ The Law of Identity and Non-Identity (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
So far so good. But here is where we get into trouble in a couple of different ways -- one emphasized by Hegel; the other emphasized by Korzybski.
A is A and B is B. A cannot be B. And B cannot be A.
This can be referred to as 'Aristotelean Either/Or Logic'.
Quite simply, this 'Law of Either/Or Logic' may be good for mathematics but it is not good for biology, physics, chemistry, medicine, psychology, politics, philosophy, religion, art, engineering, architecture, fashion, or any of a hundred other things that make up either 'evolution' or 'human culture'.
Worded otherwise, evolution does not work according to the principle of 'either/or'.
What Aristotle did here was he left out an excluded 'middle zone', an excluded 'gray zone', where 'gray' is both 'black' and 'white' as well as neither 'black' nor 'white'. 'Gray' borrows the partial characteristics of both black and white. Aristotle's 'either/or' logic does not reflect the 'gray zones' in life, in nature, in evolution, in human culture...
Most if not all of evolution is 'dialectic evolution'. 'A' breeds with 'B' and the offspring become members of a new set which is partly both 'A' and 'B' but at the same time neither completely 'A' nor 'B'. Rather, the offspring represent a new class of 'AB'. This is dialectic evolution which depends on the principle of 'biodiversity' and the 'intermixing' of genetics.
A coyote is a coyote and cannot be a wolf.
A wolf is a wolf and cannot be a coyote.
Wrong! A wolf breeds with a coyote and now we have a 'new species of animal' -- we have a 'colf'.
A colf is both a wolf and a coyote but not entirely either a wolf or a coyote. It reflects particular characteristics of both a wolf and a coyote which takes life into a middle gray zone of dialectic evolution.
Aristotelean logic did not reflect this aspect of life.
Hegelian dialectic logic moved into to compensate for that 'gray area of life' that Aristotle did not account for.
Thesis intermingled with anti-thesis becomes a 'dialectic synthesis'. Hegel compensated for what Aristotle ignored or missed.
The problem is that many, many people today still use Aristotelean 'either/or' logic in context situatons where they should be using Hegelian Dialectic Logic instead. Not all the time. But in many, many cases which in turn causes many, many problems.
People try to 'pigeon-hole' life into two Aristotelean opposing categories -- A and B -- where they should not be leaving out the very viable and often superior Hegelian 'middle dialectic zone' of AB. That is why DGB Philosophy-Psychology-Politics...uses a ton of 'hyphenated words' such as:
1. 'Liberal-Conservative' or 'Conservative-Liberal';
2. 'Republican-Democrat' or 'Democrat-Republican';
3. 'Apollonian-Dionysian' or 'Dionysian-Apollonian';
4. GAP Psychology (a mixture of Gestalt Therapy, Adlerian Psychology, and Psychoanalysis);
5. DGB Philosophy (Dialectic-Gap-Bridging Philosophy-Psychology-Politics-Science...)
A/ Is 'Bi-Polar Disorder' an 'illness' or an 'excuse'? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic0
B/ Can 'Bi-Polar Disorder' be both or either an 'illness' and/or an 'excuse'? (Hegelian Dialectic Logic)
A/ Is 'sczhizophrenia' a 'biochemical disorder ' or a 'transference neurosis'? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
B/ Can 'sczhizophrenia' be both a 'biochemical disorder' and a 'transference neurosis'? (Hegelian Dialectic Logic)
A/ Is orthodox prescription medicine superior to natural health medicine or visa versa? (Aristotelean Either/Or Logic)
B/ Can both orthodox prescription medicine and natural health medicine learn from each other and become 'Integrative Wholistic Medicine'?
We will talk about Korzybski on another day. That is enough for today.
-- dgb, Nov. 17th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still In Process...
Monday, November 16, 2009
More Thoughts On The Self-Destructive Direction of Uncontrolled Individual and Cultural Narcissism...
Practicing good ethics is like exercising each day and/ or like eating a good, calory restricted, healthy, nutritional diet...Tough work...but if you keep practising it more and more, day by day, you become much better, much more proficient at living an ethical, well-balanced lifestyle over time -- just like what it takes to get into a good, steady habit of healthy eating and exercising.
In contrast, practising narcissism is like eating a piece of cake, even worse, gorging on the whole cake, or like eating any and every type of junk food we can get our hands on and put into our mouth...It tastes great, it's easy, it satisfies at least a part of our hedonistic-narcissistic (pleasure-seeking) impulses...but there are not too many good vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, fiber and enzymes in what we are eating...most of what we are eating has no nutritional value at all and the older we get, the worse this can become as a health problem, especially as our metabolism slows down, usually exasperated by less and less exercise...
This is not to say that all hedonism and/or narcissism is bad -- because it's not -- our survival depends very much on our narcissistic genetics, biochemistry, and psychology. When our body tells us to eat, we need to eat. And similarly, with the other life-preserving impulses in our mind and body that help to keep us alive, both as individuals and as an ongoing species.
Indeed, like many things in life, narcissism becomes a paradox in our lives -- too much narcissism is not a good thing in our lives but so too is not enough narcissism in our lives.
Healthy aspects of narcissism include: self-assertion, self-confidence, self-awareness, self-propelled action...
Indeed, as humans we are probably largely programmed to be narcissistic unless or until we are taught differently -- or better -- to bring this, and keep this, in proper balance and perspective. Even teaching 'altruism' and 'ethics' and 'morals' does not completely, or even closely, eliminate or minimize our underlying narcissistic impulses. But for a 'civilized person and society' these counter-balancing beliefs and values of such things as altruism, social sensitivity, empathy, caring, love, ethics, morals... are essential in order to make our own lives and the lives of the people around us work properly.
Greed, selfishness, manipulation, corruption, fraud, collusion, abuse of power -- these are some of the different things that happen in our personal, social, business, and political lives when self and social narcissism start to slip and slide downhill and out of control....It becomes harder and harder to restore proper ethical, moral, and legal balance, the greater we let self and social narcissism slide down hill and out of control.
Nature injects us with narcissism. It doesn't really 'inject us' with much 'altruism' or 'ethics' or 'morals' -- these are all mainly culturally, religiously, educationally taught beliefs, values, and skills that take great time, energy, effort, and practice to develop. Like running uphill, in contrast to narcissistic self-absorption that requires little effort, energy, self-discipline...like running down hill with gravity as opposed to against gravity.
Living in a culture, an economy, an environment of 'unbridled narcissism' where narcissism -- like a fast, growing weed -- has 'propelled' itself beyond 'healthy civilian, egalitarian, fair and democratic boundaries', and into the area of 'crime, immorality, and corruption' where everyone develops a mindset of 'He's doing it so why can't I?' Or 'The company I work for or my government is being blatantly narcissistic -- using and abusing money unfairly, even corruptly, so therefore I am going to take certain narcissistic counter-measures as a way of compensating for the way that I am being unfairly treated -- these are the types of things that provide greater and greater 'fertilizer' for a larger and larger 'culture of unbridled narcissism'.
Most notably power corrupts -- unless or until there is some faction of society that says 'Enough is enough. This unbridled narcissism has to stop and brought back to more normal, healthy boundaries. If I don't say or do anything about what is happening here, who is? Everyone is passing the buck, remaining ethically passive, and letting their own ethics slip-slide away in the process...'
In Ontario here, we have a Liberal Government that is bringing in a new 'Harmonization Tax'. What a juxtaposition of words -- 'harmonization' and 'tax'. This is from a Liberal Government that has been audited as basically 'mispending millions if not billions of taxpayers money' in the just recently passed 'EHealth Scandal'. There is no Government Accountability here. If the government 'mis-spends' money -- with a lot of Liberal politicians and lobbyists getting 'quietly rich' in the process -- the government just shrugs its shoulders, perhaps offers one politician as a 'sacrifical lamb' (even though I am sure she has already made enough money off of Ehealth to retire for the rest of her life) -- and waits for the scandal to pass. Then they introduce the 'Harmonization Tax'.
As citizens of Ontario, we are far too passive not to mention probably mainly ignorant of the full extent of what this new tax is fully going to mean. We just shrug our shoulders and basically let the politicians get away with 'narcissistic mayhem'. Similarily to what happened on Wall Street. Unbridled and unethical narcissism permeates our culture like the dandelions in my front and back yard a few years ago. It took a lot of digging, over and over and over again, to get rid of most of these weeds. It still didn't get rid of them all.
I can't say that I am any type of 'ethical saint'. How many of us can? But there comes a point where narcissism eventually will destroy all semblence of what it means to be a 'civilized nation'.
Cultural narcissm propogates individual narcissism, and individual narcissism in turn propogates cultural narcissism. The two are 'dialectically entwined'. Without cultural and individual ethics counter-balancing the combined force of cultural and individual narcissism taking us all on a fast or slow roller coaster ride to self-destruction, bad things start to happen like we are seeing in the current recession. As a whole, we are all suffering from the malaise of personal and cultural narcissism destroying the ethical and economic balance in our society. We need more 'win-win' solutions -- not 'me-me', 'I win, you lose' solutions...In the end, we all lose...
One only has to go back and read some of Thomas Jefferson's quotes about how 'power corrupts'...and all of the other Enlightenment Philosophers -- John Locke, Diderot, Voltaire, Tom Paine, Montesquieu...to read how much work and effort has to be continually exercised in order to keep unethical power and narcissism out of government agencies and processes not to mention businesses... to fully understand that we cannot let this type of thing slide without drastic consequences eventually hitting us all...like the collapse of the major financial institutions on Wall Street and their essentially being 'rewarded' afterwards for their ethical and/or legal transgressions at the individual and collective expense of the rest of us, many of us who are fighting for our very economical survival...
Let me close with a few of the quotes that I mean...
...............................................................................................................................................
A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
Thomas Jefferson
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.
Thomas Jefferson
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Thomas Jefferson
Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
Thomas Jefferson
Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Thomas Jefferson
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.
Thomas Jefferson
Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
Thomas Jefferson
Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.
Thomas Jefferson
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson
Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
Thomas Jefferson
Every generation needs a new revolution.
Thomas Jefferson
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Thomas Jefferson
Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
Thomas Jefferson
Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
Thomas Jefferson
...........................................................................................................................
-- dgb, Nov. 14th-16th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcisism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process....
In contrast, practising narcissism is like eating a piece of cake, even worse, gorging on the whole cake, or like eating any and every type of junk food we can get our hands on and put into our mouth...It tastes great, it's easy, it satisfies at least a part of our hedonistic-narcissistic (pleasure-seeking) impulses...but there are not too many good vitamins, minerals, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, fiber and enzymes in what we are eating...most of what we are eating has no nutritional value at all and the older we get, the worse this can become as a health problem, especially as our metabolism slows down, usually exasperated by less and less exercise...
This is not to say that all hedonism and/or narcissism is bad -- because it's not -- our survival depends very much on our narcissistic genetics, biochemistry, and psychology. When our body tells us to eat, we need to eat. And similarly, with the other life-preserving impulses in our mind and body that help to keep us alive, both as individuals and as an ongoing species.
Indeed, like many things in life, narcissism becomes a paradox in our lives -- too much narcissism is not a good thing in our lives but so too is not enough narcissism in our lives.
Healthy aspects of narcissism include: self-assertion, self-confidence, self-awareness, self-propelled action...
Indeed, as humans we are probably largely programmed to be narcissistic unless or until we are taught differently -- or better -- to bring this, and keep this, in proper balance and perspective. Even teaching 'altruism' and 'ethics' and 'morals' does not completely, or even closely, eliminate or minimize our underlying narcissistic impulses. But for a 'civilized person and society' these counter-balancing beliefs and values of such things as altruism, social sensitivity, empathy, caring, love, ethics, morals... are essential in order to make our own lives and the lives of the people around us work properly.
Greed, selfishness, manipulation, corruption, fraud, collusion, abuse of power -- these are some of the different things that happen in our personal, social, business, and political lives when self and social narcissism start to slip and slide downhill and out of control....It becomes harder and harder to restore proper ethical, moral, and legal balance, the greater we let self and social narcissism slide down hill and out of control.
Nature injects us with narcissism. It doesn't really 'inject us' with much 'altruism' or 'ethics' or 'morals' -- these are all mainly culturally, religiously, educationally taught beliefs, values, and skills that take great time, energy, effort, and practice to develop. Like running uphill, in contrast to narcissistic self-absorption that requires little effort, energy, self-discipline...like running down hill with gravity as opposed to against gravity.
Living in a culture, an economy, an environment of 'unbridled narcissism' where narcissism -- like a fast, growing weed -- has 'propelled' itself beyond 'healthy civilian, egalitarian, fair and democratic boundaries', and into the area of 'crime, immorality, and corruption' where everyone develops a mindset of 'He's doing it so why can't I?' Or 'The company I work for or my government is being blatantly narcissistic -- using and abusing money unfairly, even corruptly, so therefore I am going to take certain narcissistic counter-measures as a way of compensating for the way that I am being unfairly treated -- these are the types of things that provide greater and greater 'fertilizer' for a larger and larger 'culture of unbridled narcissism'.
Most notably power corrupts -- unless or until there is some faction of society that says 'Enough is enough. This unbridled narcissism has to stop and brought back to more normal, healthy boundaries. If I don't say or do anything about what is happening here, who is? Everyone is passing the buck, remaining ethically passive, and letting their own ethics slip-slide away in the process...'
In Ontario here, we have a Liberal Government that is bringing in a new 'Harmonization Tax'. What a juxtaposition of words -- 'harmonization' and 'tax'. This is from a Liberal Government that has been audited as basically 'mispending millions if not billions of taxpayers money' in the just recently passed 'EHealth Scandal'. There is no Government Accountability here. If the government 'mis-spends' money -- with a lot of Liberal politicians and lobbyists getting 'quietly rich' in the process -- the government just shrugs its shoulders, perhaps offers one politician as a 'sacrifical lamb' (even though I am sure she has already made enough money off of Ehealth to retire for the rest of her life) -- and waits for the scandal to pass. Then they introduce the 'Harmonization Tax'.
As citizens of Ontario, we are far too passive not to mention probably mainly ignorant of the full extent of what this new tax is fully going to mean. We just shrug our shoulders and basically let the politicians get away with 'narcissistic mayhem'. Similarily to what happened on Wall Street. Unbridled and unethical narcissism permeates our culture like the dandelions in my front and back yard a few years ago. It took a lot of digging, over and over and over again, to get rid of most of these weeds. It still didn't get rid of them all.
I can't say that I am any type of 'ethical saint'. How many of us can? But there comes a point where narcissism eventually will destroy all semblence of what it means to be a 'civilized nation'.
Cultural narcissm propogates individual narcissism, and individual narcissism in turn propogates cultural narcissism. The two are 'dialectically entwined'. Without cultural and individual ethics counter-balancing the combined force of cultural and individual narcissism taking us all on a fast or slow roller coaster ride to self-destruction, bad things start to happen like we are seeing in the current recession. As a whole, we are all suffering from the malaise of personal and cultural narcissism destroying the ethical and economic balance in our society. We need more 'win-win' solutions -- not 'me-me', 'I win, you lose' solutions...In the end, we all lose...
One only has to go back and read some of Thomas Jefferson's quotes about how 'power corrupts'...and all of the other Enlightenment Philosophers -- John Locke, Diderot, Voltaire, Tom Paine, Montesquieu...to read how much work and effort has to be continually exercised in order to keep unethical power and narcissism out of government agencies and processes not to mention businesses... to fully understand that we cannot let this type of thing slide without drastic consequences eventually hitting us all...like the collapse of the major financial institutions on Wall Street and their essentially being 'rewarded' afterwards for their ethical and/or legal transgressions at the individual and collective expense of the rest of us, many of us who are fighting for our very economical survival...
Let me close with a few of the quotes that I mean...
...............................................................................................................................................
A Bill of Rights is what the people are entitled to against every government, and what no just government should refuse, or rest on inference.
Thomas Jefferson
A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government.
Thomas Jefferson
All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.
Thomas Jefferson
All, too, will bear in mind this sacred principle, that though the will of the majority is in all cases to prevail, that will to be rightful must be reasonable; that the minority possess their equal rights, which equal law must protect, and to violate would be oppression.
Thomas Jefferson
An association of men who will not quarrel with one another is a thing which has never yet existed, from the greatest confederacy of nations down to a town meeting or a vestry.
Thomas Jefferson
Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto.
Thomas Jefferson
Conquest is not in our principles. It is inconsistent with our government.
Thomas Jefferson
Delay is preferable to error.
Thomas Jefferson
Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.
Thomas Jefferson
Do not bite at the bait of pleasure, till you know there is no hook beneath it.
Thomas Jefferson
Do you want to know who you are? Don't ask. Act! Action will delineate and define you.
Thomas Jefferson
Don't talk about what you have done or what you are going to do.
Thomas Jefferson
Educate and inform the whole mass of the people... They are the only sure reliance for the preservation of our liberty.
Thomas Jefferson
Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.
Thomas Jefferson
Errors of opinion may be tolerated where reason is left free to combat it.
Thomas Jefferson
Every generation needs a new revolution.
Thomas Jefferson
Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone. The people themselves are its only safe depositories.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience demands that man is the only animal which devours his own kind, for I can apply no milder term to the general prey of the rich on the poor.
Thomas Jefferson
Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.
Thomas Jefferson
Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call to her tribunal every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blindfolded fear.
Thomas Jefferson
For a people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security.
Thomas Jefferson
Force is the vital principle and immediate parent of despotism.
Thomas Jefferson
Happiness is not being pained in body or troubled in mind.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows best knows how little he knows.
Thomas Jefferson
He who knows nothing is closer to the truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.
Thomas Jefferson
...........................................................................................................................
-- dgb, Nov. 14th-16th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain,
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcisism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process....
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
On Properly Functioning Democracies vs. Pseudo-Democracies, Pathological Ideology -- and 'Snake Oil'
When the people at the top of the Corporate, Business World cannot control and police themselves -- which, obviously, many of them can't, or won't -- then the Government has to do it for them, creating and policing laws that discourage and minimize 'white collar crime' -- particularly, 'corporate plundering' of 'corporate business coffers' at the top.
When the people in different Government Sectors who have control over their own spending and paycheques and who specifically they give government contracts to without a democratic bidding, cannot control and police themselves -- which, obviously, many of them can't or won't -- then, people above them in more powerful Government Positions have to do it for them, creating and policing laws that discourage and minimize this type of Government exploitation of taxpayers' money -- and 'white collar plundering of public coffers'.
When the people at even the highest levels of Government Positions and Trust cannot or will not police the people in charge of significant amounts of government funds below them -- and exploitation results -- then it is the duty of journalists and philosopher-writers and film makers (Michael Moore) to hammer certain 'unpleasant, unethical government and corporate truths (or even 'half-truths') home until the proper government people are 'impeached', 'resign', are 'fired', and/or arefinally voted out of office.
Failing this, we as individual citizens in a properly functioning democracy, need to continue to apply pressure on the particular guilty parties, or at the very least, vote them out of office when their time for potential re-election comes due.
Anything less than this is a 'pseudo-democracy' -- a 'fascade' of a democracy. It is 'Ideology' in the Marxian pathological sense of the word where 'Ideology' means 'hiding what is really happening underneath the superficial rhetoric and campaign promises and white-washing and pretenses of what transgressing politicians and/or corporate bigwigs and/or marketing people are trying to sell you.
'Ideology' in this pathological sense of the word is nothing more than -- as Senator Barney Frank has aptly put it -- 'snake oil'.
-- dgb, Nov. 4th, 2009.
-- david gordon bain
-- democracy goes beyond narcissism
-- dialectic gap-bridging negotiations...
-- are still in process...
When the people in different Government Sectors who have control over their own spending and paycheques and who specifically they give government contracts to without a democratic bidding, cannot control and police themselves -- which, obviously, many of them can't or won't -- then, people above them in more powerful Government Positions have to do it for them, creating and policing laws that discourage and minimize this type of Government exploitation of taxpayers' money -- and 'white collar plundering of public coffers'.
When the people at even the highest levels of Government Positions and Trust cannot or will not police the people in charge of significant amounts of government funds below them -- and exploitation results -- then it is the duty of journalists and philosopher-writers and film makers (Michael Moore) to hammer certain 'unpleasant, unethical government and corporate truths (or even 'half-truths') home until the proper government people are 'impeached', 'resign', are 'fired', and/or arefinally voted out of office.
Failing this, we as individual citizens in a properly functioning democracy, need to continue to apply pressure on the particular guilty parties, or at the very least, vote them out of office when their time for potential re-election comes due.
Anything less than this is a 'pseudo-democracy' -- a 'fascade' of a democracy. It is 'Ideology' in the Marxian pathological sense of the word where 'Ideology' means 'hiding what is really happening underneath the superficial rhetoric and campaign promises and white-washing and pretenses of what transgressing politicians and/or corporate bigwigs and/or marketing people are trying to sell you.
'Ideology' in this pathological sense of the word is nothing more than -- as Senator Barney Frank has aptly put it -- 'snake oil'.
-- dgb, Nov. 4th, 2009.
-- david gordon bain
-- democracy goes beyond narcissism
-- dialectic gap-bridging negotiations...
-- are still in process...
On The Positive and Negative Side of Narcissism (Hedonism, Egotism, Individualism)
I heard a commercial this morning on tv that sparked this brief DGB commentary.
The ad said something like this:
'When a man does something special -- something one of a kind -- he is proud to put his name to it.'
This beckons back to my dad's Ideal Capitalism influence and his introducing me to 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand when I was in my late teens.
Succinctly put, narcissism - and egotism -- and pleasure-seeking -- and searching for the self-fulfillment or self-actualization of one's own Self, one's own Soul -- is not all bad. It is only bad when it gets twisted out of control, and you start moving down a path of one-sidedness, self-absorption to the point of everyone else's needs becoming inferior to your own, down a path of self-destructiveness and/or towards the destructiveness and/or tearing down of others around you. It is only narcissism out of control, narcissism gone wild, narcissism that excludes all others, that eliminates any and/or all feeling of compassion and sensitivity and humanism towards those around you, either close to you or far away -- that is the point where narcissism, hedonism, and egotism all become 'pathological' -- 'psycho-pathological' and 'socio-pathological'.
As for the healthy type of narcissism that I am talking about here, it is well described in this internet (Wikipedia) summary of Ayn Rand's famous book, The Fountainhead (1943).
....................................................................................................................................................
The Fountainhead is a bestselling 1943 novel by Ayn Rand. It was Rand's first major literary success and its royalties and movie rights brought her fame and financial security. More than 5 million copies of the book have been sold worldwide and the work has been translated in several languages. [1]
The Fountainhead's protagonist, Howard Roark, is an individualistic young architect who chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personal vision. The book follows his battle to practice modern architecture, which he believes to be superior, despite an establishment centered on tradition-worship. How others in the novel relate to Roark demonstrates Rand's various archetypes of human character, all of which are variants between Roark, the author's ideal man of independent-mindedness and integrity, and what she described as the "second-handers." The complex relationships between Roark and the various kinds of individuals who assist or hinder his progress, or both, allows the novel to be at once a romantic drama and a philosophical work. By Rand's own admission, Roark is the embodiment of the human spirit and his struggle represents the triumph of individualism over collectivism.
......................................................................................................................................................
Howard Roark -- and my dad's own real-life vision and self-enactment of him -- became one of my own earliest idealistic role models.
However, without character, integrity, fairness, compassion, accountability, humanism, and the ideal of a 'fair deal' -- a 'win-win business deal for both and/or all sides' -- Ethical, Humanistic-Existential Capitalism becomes Unbridled, Narcissistic Corrupt Capitalism where collusion and exploitation and kickbacks and bribery and 'Golden Parachute Contracts and Bonuses' rule the day. Employers exploit employees. And/or unions exploit businesses. Lobbyists exploit Governments. Governments exploit Lobbyists. Sellers exploit buyers. Governments and businesses exploit taxpayers.
And we wonder why we have a recession.
Capitalism has stopped playing by ethical rules. Businesses have stopped looking for 'win-win solutions'.
Everybody who has significant monetary power at the top is looking for their own narcissistic Golden Parachute, their Golden Retirement Package. Plunder the corporation. Plunder the taxpayer.
And we wonder why we have a recession.
-- dgb, Nov. 4th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
..........................................................................................................................
The ad said something like this:
'When a man does something special -- something one of a kind -- he is proud to put his name to it.'
This beckons back to my dad's Ideal Capitalism influence and his introducing me to 'The Fountainhead' by Ayn Rand when I was in my late teens.
Succinctly put, narcissism - and egotism -- and pleasure-seeking -- and searching for the self-fulfillment or self-actualization of one's own Self, one's own Soul -- is not all bad. It is only bad when it gets twisted out of control, and you start moving down a path of one-sidedness, self-absorption to the point of everyone else's needs becoming inferior to your own, down a path of self-destructiveness and/or towards the destructiveness and/or tearing down of others around you. It is only narcissism out of control, narcissism gone wild, narcissism that excludes all others, that eliminates any and/or all feeling of compassion and sensitivity and humanism towards those around you, either close to you or far away -- that is the point where narcissism, hedonism, and egotism all become 'pathological' -- 'psycho-pathological' and 'socio-pathological'.
As for the healthy type of narcissism that I am talking about here, it is well described in this internet (Wikipedia) summary of Ayn Rand's famous book, The Fountainhead (1943).
....................................................................................................................................................
The Fountainhead is a bestselling 1943 novel by Ayn Rand. It was Rand's first major literary success and its royalties and movie rights brought her fame and financial security. More than 5 million copies of the book have been sold worldwide and the work has been translated in several languages. [1]
The Fountainhead's protagonist, Howard Roark, is an individualistic young architect who chooses to struggle in obscurity rather than compromise his artistic and personal vision. The book follows his battle to practice modern architecture, which he believes to be superior, despite an establishment centered on tradition-worship. How others in the novel relate to Roark demonstrates Rand's various archetypes of human character, all of which are variants between Roark, the author's ideal man of independent-mindedness and integrity, and what she described as the "second-handers." The complex relationships between Roark and the various kinds of individuals who assist or hinder his progress, or both, allows the novel to be at once a romantic drama and a philosophical work. By Rand's own admission, Roark is the embodiment of the human spirit and his struggle represents the triumph of individualism over collectivism.
......................................................................................................................................................
Howard Roark -- and my dad's own real-life vision and self-enactment of him -- became one of my own earliest idealistic role models.
However, without character, integrity, fairness, compassion, accountability, humanism, and the ideal of a 'fair deal' -- a 'win-win business deal for both and/or all sides' -- Ethical, Humanistic-Existential Capitalism becomes Unbridled, Narcissistic Corrupt Capitalism where collusion and exploitation and kickbacks and bribery and 'Golden Parachute Contracts and Bonuses' rule the day. Employers exploit employees. And/or unions exploit businesses. Lobbyists exploit Governments. Governments exploit Lobbyists. Sellers exploit buyers. Governments and businesses exploit taxpayers.
And we wonder why we have a recession.
Capitalism has stopped playing by ethical rules. Businesses have stopped looking for 'win-win solutions'.
Everybody who has significant monetary power at the top is looking for their own narcissistic Golden Parachute, their Golden Retirement Package. Plunder the corporation. Plunder the taxpayer.
And we wonder why we have a recession.
-- dgb, Nov. 4th, 2009.
-- David Gordon Bain
-- Democracy Goes Beyond Narcissism
-- Dialectic Gap-Bridging Negotiations...
-- Are Still in Process...
..........................................................................................................................
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