Time

The primary process thinking, up to 90% of brain activity, knows no time the way we think of it consciously. It's the same as the mythical time, it's particular and eternal at the same time.

Seeng both sides: combining social and psychological approaches in understanding the human condition

From my experience, it appears that only those who have looked  into both the social and the psychological, achieve any kind of meaningful understanding of how society and humans work. When the scientist's blind spot includes an entire dimension of the human condition, all their work will amount to an exercise in futility. In (the more familiar to me) case of anthropologists, often deliberately ignoring the psychological aspects of observed practices (e.g., in  Rabinow's Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco) results in culturalist reductionism, where perhaps the most important aspect of a ritual is omitted. 

This understanding, however, is hard to win allies for. I remember Scott Lash, who himself studied both sociology and psychology, warning me that I would hardly come across academics even aware of the issue, let alone interested in any aspects or implications of it. Looking on both sides of the dark veil separating social and psychological facts, creates a transformational experience, a true Zen moment, a temporary dissolution of the object/subject separation, whose memory, however, lasts and influences all your perceptions for the rest of your lifetime. That is why, I would never be truthful, should I have to stick to only one part of the proverbial elephant. The blindfold may have been off for just a moment, but after that there's no way back. 

Ideal types: psychology vs. social sciences

All social theory is Invisible Pink Unicorns, because none of those ideal types actually exist. However, they help think about those invisible things, social facts, that often are more important than the visible and the obvious. Human psychology too can be understood in a similar way, by way of ideal types and theories (their veracity is gauged by their therapeutic effect). It's just as huge universe as the social one. However, even a better way to understand inner worlds is empirical, by directing your investigative gaze from the outside to the inside. There are many methods of doing that, definitely more surefire and empirical than many methodologies from social sciences at that. Kind of like Weberian Verstehen, only directed inwards.

What is identity?

... an illusionary habit of an unawakened mind and reaffirmed by a collective belief in its reality, somewhere between the minimum group paradigm and the mirror stage..

Social sciences and the culturalist bias

The assumption that enculturation rationally responds to/replicates social structure is itself a product of rationality and is thus only self-referential at best, and most of times very misguiding. It bypasses any awareness of psychological processes and how responses are produced and internalised. This lack of self-knowledge/reflexivity (from the famous "know thyself" maxim) is the main obstacle in the modernist scientific method, the blindfold that keeps the blind men from seeing the entire elephant.

One keep getting reminded of that beautiful Dostoevsky's question (to the effect of): "So what happens once we've fed everyone?" Is it going to be a better society once wealth is redistributed more evenly? Not that I'm against it, by the way. It's just that the effects will be mostly limited to welfare and economy, more purchase power and people engaging in ever new consumerist frenzies, inventing new hierarchies and guarding their wealth from outsiders. Same ole, same ole...

Is habitus actually Karma? Bourdieu through the Indic and psychoanalitical lenses

As quoth the poet:

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.

                                      Philip Larkin

This is, sans doute, a poetic account of habitus transfer on the subjectivity level. I imagine, Bourdieu would be nodding approvingly.

Social studies only observe and comment on that state of affairs, with no suggestions as per how social change would occur here (aka the trap of Post-Structuralism). The Indic and psychoanalytical traditions, however, take it that there is a way out of it and beyond it, it just takes the right kind of concentration, awareness and effort. Whether psychotherapy or yoga and mediation, ultimately it is about trying to stop that karmic buck or to shed the luggage of life scripts passed on generation after generation.

Or, as good wise Karl would say, a technological change in the material base (relations of production +  mode of production)  would cause a shift in the superstructure of values and ways of biding time until we die.

Would you go  into a yoga retreat/psychotherapy or rather wait until post-industrial society changes your lifestyle?

What is Lacan's mirror stage?

What is Lacan's mirror stage?

1. Many invited, few chosen
2. Borges and mirrors
3. Koans and duality
4. Empirical knowledge vs. intellectual knowledge

Briidging the irreconcilable in earthling studies

Bridging social and psychological studies is notoriously difficult. First of all, the two realities they explore are based in two fundamentally different planes of existence: social life is spread over time and space and subject to constant change, whereas the primary thinking process is timeless and spaceless. Caught up between the twain is the human being with their limited conscious mental capacity, to which the mechanisms of both the social and the psychological are mostly beyond comprehension.

As opaque and incompatible as the link between the two may appear, as long as skirting this most fundamental issue continues, no social sciences research can hope to offer any satisfactory results. 

That said, we need to be wary of attempts made to marry the two on a superficial level, like in uncritical sociology and behavioural psychology, where observable facts are taken for their face value. That way, we only end up with a deeply misguided, epistemologically shaky, analysis prone to gross ideological biases.

Endeavours to go deeper, which are fortunately, rather prolific, then run into methodological challenges: quantitative vs. qualitative and staged experiment vs. various varieties of participant observation. The former approach is theoretically linked to the quantitative approach: two traits are painstakingly isolated to be expressed as a dependent variable and independent variable, which would later allow to quantify that relationship. The hard to bear truth that all social as well as psychological phenomena are overdetermined (re. Freud and Althusser) and hence cannot be reduced to two variables is conveniently shoved under the carpet in the process of operationalising (turning concepts into numbers). The main motivation here appears is trying to come across as a "proper science" with "hard data" (i.e., numbers) -  the patently obsolete, if sadly persistent, positivist slant, that many people just can't seem to kiss goodbye.  

Participant observation that results mostly in qualitative research is hard to produce and as hard to consume. It requires time- and effort-consuming training in understanding complex issues by way of mastering abstract principles of analysis that are much harder to get under your belt than maths. It also brings in philosophical and epistemological concerns that cannot be decisively resolved, only accepted as paradoxes at the heart of human existence. That leap into uncertainty proves too much for most people, so they stick to tossing numbers and flashing PowerPoint presentations. 

Another leap, from analysis to synthesis, that Weber refered to as Verstehen, turns out beyond what many are prepared to deal with, too.

The simulachra of sex: the tyranny of media images in your bedroom

 


















"Body-perfect earthlings look for other earthlings looking exactly like themselves to fornicate with media-created images in their own heads." If that does not paint a mental picture  for you, then I don't know  what will.

Now for a bit of theory.

The earthling's social persona in the symbolic order of their mind, the perception of oneself as perceived by the Other, is based on a fundamental misunderstanding: the méconnaisance of taking the Ego for one's Self, of which Lacan (1931) wrote. Amazing how many people only get the letter of the Mirror Stage, but not at all its  spirit.

The frame of reference for the building and maintenance of that social persona, both symbolic and material, is taken from the social environment: parents, family, peers, and, to an ever-increasing extent, the media. The dynamic here is two-fold. Firstly, the earthling learns of the available/possible choices for assembling its identity, consisting of multiple extensions on top of the Ego. Secondly, s/he looks into the society as if into a mirror, picking on and learning from the reactions/feedback towards his or her social persona. 

The physical re-enactment of mental pictures, often media-created, then becomes a major life pursuit. Mutual masturbation into each other, aroused subliminally by those mental pictures is the sex simulacra (Baudrillard 1981) that, unbeknownst to most earthlings, is supplanting human sexual interaction with its glossy vapidity.

* The present analysis is a result of a long-term multi-site fieldwork project undertaken by the author.

Related sources: Lacan's sexuation formulae. 

Photo by Mehmet Turgut

Big boys, big toys

After many years of diving deep into social theory and psychoanalysis, I feel that I have re-emerged at the other side of simplicity. So many things in life are simple. Never simple the way they explain to you though. Let's illustrate this with a couple of real-life examples.

Two recent events made a click somewhere in my brain. First, Tokyo winning a bid to stage Olympic games 100 miles from a leaking nuclear reactor on the seashore in a seismic zone. Second, the USA's manic sword-flailing in Syria. In both cases, the course of action pushed on by presumably responsible and educated grown-up men is not dangerous and destructive, but also counter-intuitive, counter-logical and irrational. In fact, the word that lends itself the best here is satanic. Knowingly putting lives and livelihoods of millions of people in harm's way sure can't come across as anything but that.

I am not using "satanic" for the sake of a mere hyperbole though. Psychoanalytically, "satanic" implies coming from the Shadow aspect, which all humans have. In fact, it's part and parcel of who we are, albeit mostly unbeknownst to most of us. To what extent we are aware of it and to what extent we are able not to act on it, is in many ways dependent on the pressure society and culture put on us (Freud 1923). Empathy is one of those socially constructed personality traits. Children need to be taught empathy in a certain time window, lest they grow up to be inconsiderate and cruel. 

However, it is hardly ever perfect, the extent of the empathic function of the mind varies from individual to individual and is prone to  variation. Given a chance to be inconsiderate or cruel, most earthlings would act on their Shadow impulses. (When given free reign, earthlings go out of hand). Once empathy-free or empathy-light children grow up to occupy positions in power, especially unaccountable power, such as the top echelons of government, army or business, they  will  do exactly that: only this  time they won't tear fly's wings or torture a kitten, but choose a phallic display of power or a huge vanity project at the expense of  everyone else's good.

Although, for understandable reasons, we see mostly men doing that, the glass-ceiling-smashing career effort turns women into exactly that too, so these days we never run out of examples like Hilary Clinton, Christine Lagarde, Condoleeza Rice, or Dilma Roussef presiding matter-of-fact-like over mayhem and havoc.

Four best socio-psychological experiments

The four most beautiful and tale-teling experiments that combine the best of experimental science and participant observation are:

The Third Wave experiment

Blue Eyes, Brown Eyes

Stanford Prison Experiment  
Milgram Experiment

They all paint a rather bleak picture of the most of the humanity, however. Apparently, when given the chance most earthlings will turn into monsters. It is only their own pain or the fear of authority - God, government, parents - that keep most of them from that.

Interestingly enough, all the three experiments are considered controversial. All had to be terminated by emergency, as they, nearly or very much so, went out of hand - quite like actual life outside the ivory silo always does. 

Primary thinking process (definition)

Primary thinking process is what 80 to 90% of our mind is busy with, and of which we are only marginally aware  through dreams, Freudian slips, moods, insights, intuition, etc. Mental processes there are ideational, i.e., image-based, rather than what we commonly call logical or word-based. It is the playground of eternal myths and archetypes, where time and space conflate and the logic and common sense we earn through education do not apply.

This fundamental difference with the reality we are used to causes a lot of confusion among social scientists. Both Malinowski and Radcliffe-Brown in the 1930s famously misunderstood Freudian psychology as being all about sexual urges. After the war, Victor Turner in his Forest of Symbols famously called the psychological "Medusa's cave", probably because social theory has no relevance to it whatsoever and thus effectively renders social scientists helpless/useless when dealing with human psychology. That's probably the main reason why, say, Rabinow was extra-careful to specify that he would by no means deal with anything even remotely psychological in his Reflections on Fieldwork in Morocco. This attitude makes anthropology, the science of the human, peculiarly devoid of the human. I blame it on Durkheim who was doggedly insistent on separating "social facts" from "sociological facts" to boost the position of sociology in the late 19th-century France.

One of the possible ways to bridge the primary thinking process with the secondary, rational one are kōans.

See also: how to marry social sciences and psychology