There is a point where philosophy, psychology, politics, law, economics, art, and religion all meet -- or at least they should -- and that is around humanistic-existential values and principles. (There is also a point where some realms of human culture -- such as politics and religion -- should never meet which is a major part of the subject of the essay that appears below this one.)
For our purposes here, we will look at the ethical connecting point of philosphy, psychology, and religion aruond humanistic-exsitetntial values and princioples within and outside of the human psyche. This builds on numerous DGB principles established in earlier essays and emails (see links).
A person's IP (individual philosophy) is only one thing, albeit an important one
thing, going on in a person's personality or psyche.
There are other important factors, important parts of
the personality that influence its structural and
dynamic makeup and process.
There are a host of different psychological models out
there that you can choose to buy into, modify, or
reject, and I will use ('choose') a combination of
about five different models to lay out the combined
philosophical-psychological scenario that I present to
you below.
Firstly, there is the Self -- a modified Jungian
concept (filled with humanistic-existential principles
that I have added along the way) that I use to
describe that part of our personality that used to be
called our Soul. The Self-Soul is our Internal God, a
critical part of our entire psyche or personality that
we need to deeply heed. It contains a mixture of
physio-genetic and psycho-genetic traits and
blueprints that are capable of giving our life deep
meaning -- if we heed them, and live our life in
congruence with them. Congruence is an important word
here and the polar or dialectical opposite concept and
phenomenon to congruence is alienation. When we live
our life in 'good faith' (Sartre), we live our life in
congruence with the genetic blueprints in our
Self-Soul, in a way that also ideally fosters external
social harmony, respect, and integrity. Here we run
into a problem because we are talking about both a
self and social ideal that is based on
humanistic-existential values that many if not most
individuals and societies do not come close to
achieving. I will list 15 such humanistic-existential
values; 1. freedom to allow self-determination; 2.
narcissistic-hedonism (in balance with the other
values trumpeted here, and not to the point of
trodding on the other values listed here); 3.
acceptance (as long as the values being accepted are
in 'good faith'); 4. assertiveness; 5. respect; 6.
responsibility/accountabliity; 7. honesty; 8.
sensititivity, caring, empathy and compassion; 9.
fairness; 10. initiative/pro-activeness; 11. courage;
12. integrity; 13. persistence/perseverence; 14.
optimism; 15. romance; 16. spirituality and/or
religion based on humanistic-existential principles;
16. generositiy and altruism (giving and giving back
to family, friends, loved ones, community,
strangers...); 17. Multi-dialectical,
humanistic-existential evolutionary wholism; 18.
Multi-dialectical, humanistic-existential,
evolutionary democracy; 19. Multi-dialectical,
humanistic-existential business and economics (a
dialectical integration of guiding Capitalist and
Socialist principles)law, politics, medicine, art,
entertainment...
20. lest we forget -- fun, leisure, humor, play...
So Paul, for me, it is important that our guiding IP
be congruent with humanistic-existential principles
that stem from our unpoisoned Self-Soul, which in
turn, if you wish to take it this far, stem from our
Creator, our Intelligent Designer, and/or God.
When we act in congruence with the type of
humanistic-existential principles that I have listed
above, and am attributing to my mythological,
humanistic-existential God, then we can say that our
actions are based on a God-influenced, and God-like
self and social integrity (which we don't see a lot of
in our overly narcissistic-hedonistic driven world).
There are other factors that enter into this picture
such as 'introjected' and 'fake' ideologies (IPs) that
are meant to hide and/or distort what is really going
on underneath the glossy, proclaimed ideology. These
introgected and fake ideologies or IPs are obviously
carried on in 'bad faith'.
I will leave my ideas here for the time being.
DGB, Sept. 5th, 2006
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