Athenian and I get together to begin working through the foundational concepts for Gadamer's argument that it is intuition and not method that give us access to understanding and thus truth.
Another great episode. Thank you. I was so happy when you brought up Derrida. From the beginning of this series, I've been wondering: isn't the same critical approach for "history" true for different cultures today? And why not say the same about individual relationships? You can't possibly know the other person.
But after listening to you, I've realized: I can make the same point about an individual's own history. By applying this critical approach to the Bible, you not only have to cut yourself off from a larger tradition: you have to apply it to yourself. There can be no continuity inside a person either. (Freud's psychoanalysis did something similar.) Until you critically examine your own "history", it's not possible to "become a person". But who's doing the examining if you're not a person?
Karen Horney saw the root of neurosis in "the alienation from one's self". It seems there's a straight and necessary line between "historical criticism" and "being a bugman in a mass society". (Ellul also quotes Horney regularly.) According to her, this leads to neurotic pride: a project of building an idealized self-image to mask the feeling of unworthyness, of not belonging anywhere, of having no self.
Anyways, thanks for participating in my Bildung, and giving memories to this finite historical man.
Karen Horney is not a name I am familiar with. Will look her up.
You have nailed the problem exactly. To examine yourself does require you to cut yourself off from yourself, to turn your own self into an object. But, as you say, who then is now examining this alienated self. This is why community is so important and why mass man is so destructive. Ricouer’s “One’s Self as Another” deals with this as well. You can only know yourself in communion with others where there is a deep spiritual connection between people.
Her book "Neurosis and Human Growth" is fantastic. Ellul quotes her several times in "The Psychological Effects of Propaganda" chapter in "Propaganda". An example:
"When reading Karen Horney’s description of the neurotic cycle stemming from the neurotic’s environment, one might almost be reading about the cycle typical for the propagandee:
'Anxiety, hostility, reduction of self-respect…striving for power…reinforcement of hostility and anxiety…a tendency to withdraw in the face of competition, accompanied by tendencies to self-depreciation…failures and disproportion between capabilities and accomplishments…reinforcement of feelings of superiority…reinforcement of grandiose ideas…increase of sensitivity with an inclination to withdraw…increase of hostility and anxiety.'
These responses of the neurotic are identical with those of the propagandee, even if we take into account that propaganda ultimately eliminates conscious anxiety and tranquilizes the propagandee."
Another great episode. Thank you. I was so happy when you brought up Derrida. From the beginning of this series, I've been wondering: isn't the same critical approach for "history" true for different cultures today? And why not say the same about individual relationships? You can't possibly know the other person.
But after listening to you, I've realized: I can make the same point about an individual's own history. By applying this critical approach to the Bible, you not only have to cut yourself off from a larger tradition: you have to apply it to yourself. There can be no continuity inside a person either. (Freud's psychoanalysis did something similar.) Until you critically examine your own "history", it's not possible to "become a person". But who's doing the examining if you're not a person?
Karen Horney saw the root of neurosis in "the alienation from one's self". It seems there's a straight and necessary line between "historical criticism" and "being a bugman in a mass society". (Ellul also quotes Horney regularly.) According to her, this leads to neurotic pride: a project of building an idealized self-image to mask the feeling of unworthyness, of not belonging anywhere, of having no self.
Anyways, thanks for participating in my Bildung, and giving memories to this finite historical man.
Karen Horney is not a name I am familiar with. Will look her up.
You have nailed the problem exactly. To examine yourself does require you to cut yourself off from yourself, to turn your own self into an object. But, as you say, who then is now examining this alienated self. This is why community is so important and why mass man is so destructive. Ricouer’s “One’s Self as Another” deals with this as well. You can only know yourself in communion with others where there is a deep spiritual connection between people.
Her book "Neurosis and Human Growth" is fantastic. Ellul quotes her several times in "The Psychological Effects of Propaganda" chapter in "Propaganda". An example:
"When reading Karen Horney’s description of the neurotic cycle stemming from the neurotic’s environment, one might almost be reading about the cycle typical for the propagandee:
'Anxiety, hostility, reduction of self-respect…striving for power…reinforcement of hostility and anxiety…a tendency to withdraw in the face of competition, accompanied by tendencies to self-depreciation…failures and disproportion between capabilities and accomplishments…reinforcement of feelings of superiority…reinforcement of grandiose ideas…increase of sensitivity with an inclination to withdraw…increase of hostility and anxiety.'
These responses of the neurotic are identical with those of the propagandee, even if we take into account that propaganda ultimately eliminates conscious anxiety and tranquilizes the propagandee."
Looks like one to get from interlibrary loan. It’s OP and the digital versions are rudely expensive.
And this is why Ellul finds propaganda to be a form of violence against the spirit. Definitely going to have to look that book up.
Great episode, guys.
Thanks, Joe!