[OPE] Spirit and self

Paul,

Much as though I admire your scientific insight, I don't think we should be overly impressed by the latest forms of bourgeois academic narcissism and reductionism expressed through pop psychology and philosophical rants.

We live in an era in which the elites are in reality profoundly insecure, indefinite, or uncertain about practically everything, and we should therefore not be surprised to find that this insecurity extends to the denial of the self and its identity as "real".

Metzinger's presumption is that the self is "a durable state of being", experienced by an individual and affirmed/projected accordingly. But this is again an instance of methodological individualism; the point is that the self ought to be interpreted relationally, praxiologically/actively and contextually, rather than simply as a mental blip and its projection.

We need strong selves to change our world for the better; if we doubt even the fact that we are really there, we are unlikely to succeed. I wouldn't deny that big ego's can get in the way of change, but without a self no change can be mastered.

The final bourgeois reification is when "the market" contains everything that is human, and we ourselves are nothing at all (other than what we believe ourselves to be, perhaps). What is really hilarious is how the Marxists cave in to the latest bourgeois fashions and trends without so much as a critical digestion of what they mean!

Jurriaan

_______________________________________________
ope mailing list
ope@lists.csuchico.edu
https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/ope
Received on Fri Mar 27 02:35:49 2009