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Old 03-10-2007, 03:25 PM   #1
coberst
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Default Shut-upness: Living a lie

Shut-upness: Living a lie

Those who know say that Kierkegaard (circa 1840) was a psychoanalyst without fear of being laughed at because he knew that the scoffers are uninformed. Few sapiens have such courage born of self-confidence. The noted psychologist Mowrer said “Freud had to live and write before the earlier work of Kierkegaard could be correctly understood and appreciated.” Such, is genius.

Wo/man is a union of polar opposites; self-consciousness and physical body. It is thus “the true essence of man”. “Leading modern psychologists have themselves made it the corner stone of their understanding.”

The evolution into self-consciousness from self-satisfying ignorance inherent in animal nature had one great tragedy for wo/mankind, which is anxiety or dread. It is our very humanness which produces anxiety--dread of death. This anxiety results from the ambiguity of our situation and our inability to overcome such an ambiguity. This ubiquity of ambiguity drives us into the creation of a virtual world in which to live. Self-consciousness cannot be denied, we cannot disappear into a state of vegetation, we cannot flee dread; we can only create delusions--a virtual reality.

The task of the sciences of psychology, psychoanalysis, sociology, and anthropology are to discover the strategies that humans use to avoid anxiety. How do we function automatically and uncritically in our virtual world and how do these strategies deprive us of true growth and freedom of action?

Today we talk about ‘repression’ and ‘denial’; Kierkegaard, the pioneer, called these same things “shut-upness”. He recognized the ‘half-obscurity’ in which wo/man lives her life, he recognized that man recognizes the truth of ceremony, how many times to bow when walking past the altar, he knows things in the same way that a pupil uses ABC of a mathematical expression but not when it is changed to DEF. “He is therefore in dread whenever he hears something not arranged in the same order.”

Shut-upness is what we today call repression. Kierkegaard recognized a “lofty shut-upness” and a “mistaken shut-upness”. It is important that a child be reared in a lofty shut-upness, i.e. reserve, because it represents an ego-controlled and self-confident perception of the world.

Mistaken shut-upness, however, results “in too much blockage, too much anxiety, too much effort to face up to experience by an organism that has been overburdened and weakened in its own controls…more automatic repression by an essentially closed personality”. Good is openness to new possibilities and evil is closed to such possibility.

Shut-upness is called, by Kierkegaard, “the lie of character”. “It is easy to see that shut-upness eo ipso signifies a lie, or, if you prefer, untruth. But untruth is precisely unfreedom…the elasticity of freedom is consumed in the service of close reserve…Close reserve was the effect of the negating retrenchment of the ego in the individuality.”


This ‘lie of character’ is developed by the infant’s need to adjust to the world. This unfreedom becomes mistaken shut-upness when the character becomes too fearful of the world to open itself up to its possibilities. Such individuals become ‘inauthentic’; they are not their own person; they follow a life style that becomes automatic and uncritical, they become locked in tradition. This infant grows up becoming the ‘automatic cultural-man’.

“Devoid of imagination, as the Philistine always is, he lives in a certain trivial province of experience as to how things go, what is possible, what usually occurs…Philistinism tranquilizes itself in the trivial”.

Quotes from “The Denial of Death”; Pulitzer Prize winner for nonfiction by Ernest Becker.
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Old 03-10-2007, 09:08 PM   #2
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Default Re: Shut-upness: Living a lie

I concur, and here's why.

Becker compares three great thinkers Otto Rank, Wilhelm Reich, and Carl Jung to conclude that the three provide us nothing with which to connect their conclusions except that they dissented from Freud. However, there is agreement on the answer to the fundamental question, “What causes evil in human affairs?”

This agreement is also the agreement in all of the human sciences; “man wants above all to endure and prosper, to achieve immortality in some way”.

Wo/man wants, above all, to reject the knowledge of mortality; s/he does so by seeking to assure immortality in some way. Mortality is connected to our animal nature and thereby wo/man reaches for some way of being transcendent of that nature. As our mental capacity increased we rejected other animals with a vengeance because these other animals “embodied what man feared most, a nameless and faceless death.

Our fears are buried deeply within our unconsciousness by repression, that great discovery of the science of psychoanalysis. This repression “is achieved by the symbolic engineering of culture, which everywhere serves men as an antidote to terror by giving them a new and durable life beyond that of the body”.

I have just finished reading “The Art of War” an article in the March 12 edition of “Time” by Lev Grossman. The article is about a, largely computer generated, movie regarding a war in ancient Greece. The movie’s title is “The 300 Spartans” and Zack Snyder is the director. The movie is, except for the human actors, a virtual world created by digital movie techniques.

“Snyder is one of a small, hypertechnical fringe of directors who are exploring a new way to make movies by discarding props, sets, extras and real-life locations and replacing them with their computer-generated equivalents.”

“With so much computer-generated make-believe going on, the actor’s physicality is the movie’s only link to the real world…every frame was manipulated and color-shifted to create an intense, thunderstorm palette…The result is a gorgeous, dreamlike movie that’s almost perfect. Every frame is neat and composed, like an oil painting, not a hair or a grain of sand out of place. All noise and dissonance have been digitally eliminated. Maybe that’s the only way to make a war movie right now, or at least, the only way to make a war movie that’s not an antiwar movie…That’s why it’s a piece of mythology. It’s what we would hope for. “300” is a vision of war as ennobling and morally unambiguous and spectacularly good-looking.”

That’s one hell of a special effect. And this movie is, I find, an insight into the meaning of “evil in human affairs”. We are all directors of our individual and our community’s virtual reality.
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(12:31:27 AM) jwcgator2: I got it! I'll write an auto-procrastination program!
(12:31:33 AM) jwcgator2: meh, i'll make it later
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Old 03-11-2007, 01:14 AM   #3
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Default Re: Shut-upness: Living a lie

a topic only a true nerd could appreciate... better keep truckin with this boring crap!
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Old 03-11-2007, 03:07 AM   #4
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Default Re: Shut-upness: Living a lie

Why do you use the word "sapien" when "human" or "person" would have the same effect and not sound so weird?

It couldn't be so that you can prove you know what the word "sapien" means, could it? No, no, all this needless high-level thesaurus-style gramar couldn't be an effort to make yourself look like an intellectual philosopher, now could it?

By the way, you think that your wording and grammar are actually good, but they aren't. You make loads of redundancy errors and use plenty of needless phrases. One of these days I should un-lazy myself and rewrite one of your stupid essays in a superior (as in, more READABLE, less redundant, less high class) format.

What you need, sir, is a college english course.

And if you have taken one, and passed, I would like to speak to the professor who passed you.

Here. For the sake of trying to help you AND at the same time trying to prove you are a dimwitted sort of guy, I have rewritten the first two paragraphs of your essay to be vastly superior to what you have written. It also easily shows that you're full of crap. My thoughts are written in brackets.

The psychoanalyst Kierkegaard (1840) was extremely confident: such a rare quality afforded him the ability to ignore those simpletons who laughed at him. About his unique qualities, the psychologist Mowrer said "Freud had to live and write before the earlier work of Kierkegaard could be correctly understood and appreciated." [let the quotation represent itself; do not tell your audience what to think.]

Humans have both both a consciousness and a physical body. [You have used "self-consciousness" inappropriately. The rest of your paragraph is bull****. Regarding the second sentence: what is "it"? The union? This is an incredibly vague concept that you have not explained. Your audience does not live inside your own head. Remember this.]
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Last edited by Chrissi; 03-11-2007 at 03:22 AM..
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Old 03-11-2007, 10:14 AM   #5
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Default Re: Shut-upness: Living a lie

Shut up Chrissi. You're being the exact same thing you're telling Coberst not to be, and thus I see no reason why he should listen to you. You can't tell him he's a 'pretentious ****' but then but then be a 'pretentious ****'.

This has nothing to do with the diction of his post. I honestly don't see what the problem is, and just because you have excluded larger vocabulary doesn't mean you don't sound pompous and ostentatious :S

If anything your posts are getting on my nerves more so than Coberst and his treating a thread like a post style. You're destroying your own point by being elitist and pigheaded, and not contributing. Thus you are an addition to the problem, and 'if I had my own way' I'd ban you both

On the same note I also havn't contributed. XD
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Old 03-11-2007, 10:25 AM   #6
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Default Re: Shut-upness: Living a lie

Best I can tell, "sapien" isn't even a real word.
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Old 03-11-2007, 10:29 AM   #7
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Default Re: Shut-upness: Living a lie

Homosapien. Genus homo, species sapien.
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Old 03-11-2007, 10:53 AM   #8
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Default Re: Shut-upness: Living a lie

Quote:
Originally Posted by Reach View Post
Homosapien. Genus homo, species sapien.
Yeah, I know, but "sapien" alone is not a legitimate word.

ps oops lol "sapien" isn't even really what it is, it's "sapiens" with an 'S' at the end specifically I guess coberst failed Latin class, eh?

Things like this really make me want to learn Latin sometime, but I don't think I'll ever get around to it.
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Old 03-11-2007, 10:53 AM   #9
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Default Re: Shut-upness: Living a lie

Now all of you could impress one another if you were to become self-actualizing self-learners and write posts about things that you have learned.
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Old 03-11-2007, 10:58 AM   #10
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Default Re: Shut-upness: Living a lie

Quote:
Originally Posted by coberst View Post
Now all of you could impress one another if you were to become self-actualizing self-learners and write posts about things that you have learned.
I just did this. On my own, I learned, not only that "sapien" is not a real word, but also that "sapiens" (when used correctly) has an 'S' at the end. I posted about it.

The end.
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Old 03-11-2007, 11:14 AM   #11
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Default Re: Shut-upness: Living a lie

Quote:
Originally Posted by coberst View Post
Now all of you could impress one another if you were to become self-actualizing self-learners and write posts about things that you have learned.
We would if you made threads that actually were formatted to start a discussion.
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Old 03-11-2007, 11:21 AM   #12
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Default Re: Shut-upness: Living a lie

Quote:
Originally Posted by Chrissi View Post
By the way, you think that your wording and grammar are actually good, but they aren't. You make loads of redundancy errors and use plenty of needless phrases.
I'm sorry, but isn't THAT redundant?
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Old 03-12-2007, 02:01 AM   #13
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Default Re: Shut-upness: Living a lie

Coberst posts on more than one forum, he just copies and pastes the same thing he writes. He could care less to simplify his post just for one forum. It's his choice to use the words he wants, stop criticizing him for using it. I admit it was hard to understand him at first because some of the things he writes aren't organized and none of the ideas connect, but after reading so many of his posts, I'm used to it.

I mean, it's not like any of the regulars have problems understanding what he's trying to say and even if they do, there is dictionary.reference.com for us.

~Tsugomaru
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WHEN do you think people die...?
When their heart is pierced by a bullet from a pistol...? No.
When they succumb to an incurable disease...? No.
When they drink soup made with a poisonous mushroom...? NO!!!
IT'S WHEN A PERSON IS FORGOTTEN...!!!
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Old 03-12-2007, 03:54 AM   #14
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Default Re: Shut-upness: Living a lie

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Originally Posted by tsugomaru View Post
Coberst posts on more than one forum, he just copies and pastes the same thing he writes. He could care less to simplify his post just for one forum. It's his choice to use the words he wants, stop criticizing him for using it. I admit it was hard to understand him at first because some of the things he writes aren't organized and none of the ideas connect, but after reading so many of his posts, I'm used to it.

I mean, it's not like any of the regulars have problems understanding what he's trying to say and even if they do, there is dictionary.reference.com for us.

~Tsugomaru
The human sciences seem to have developed a consensus that our fundamental drive is the dread of death. Science seems also to agree that humans go to great lengths to deceive them self. So it is little wonder if we have a difficult time accepting this idea. I think it is a major mistake for us to ignore what all of the great thinkers have concluded because it just not fit into our common sense perceptions.

It is important for us to make the effort to comprehend what the human sciences tell us. The survival of our species may well depend upon our ability to comprehend what is our nature and to make changes in our social structure to fit our nature.
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Old 03-12-2007, 05:49 AM   #15
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Default Re: Shut-upness: Living a lie

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Originally Posted by coberst View Post
The human sciences seem to have developed a consensus that our fundamental drive is the dread of death. Science seems also to agree that humans go to great lengths to deceive them self. So it is little wonder if we have a difficult time accepting this idea. I think it is a major mistake for us to ignore what all of the great thinkers have concluded because it just not fit into our common sense perceptions.

It is important for us to make the effort to comprehend what the human sciences tell us. The survival of our species may well depend upon our ability to comprehend what is our nature and to make changes in our social structure to fit our nature.
I honestly am having trouble connecting what you just said to the post you quoted.

You're speaking in generalizations. It doesn't make sense in this instance, because his post was directed directly at certain members.

Also: "Science seems also to agree that humans go to great lengths to deceive them self." Science agrees? Or is it just psychoanalytic psychology that agrees this?

"So it is little wonder if we have a difficult time accepting this idea." It is little wonder if we have a difficult time accepting this idea. This makes no sense in relation to anything. Are you trying to say you believe we have a hard time accepting that humans by nature will lie to themselves in order to survive? How do we have a hard time believing this? Also, your next point about ignoring great thinkers is not connected to anything you had said in the previous sentences of the posts, unless by "great thinker" you really mean people such as Freud who spearheaded the psychoanalytic approach. Alternatively, I could see where you are going with this in terms of connecting it to fear of death or the nature of self deceit, but you leave out FAR too many details that would actually make what you're saying have any true weight.

"It is important for us to make the effort to comprehend what the human sciences tell us." **** that ****. I subscribe to only sciences developed by non-humans, thank you very much.

"The survival of our species may well depend upon our ability to comprehend what is our nature and to make changes in our social structure to fit our nature." No. We do not need to make conscious changes in the social structure to survive. The fact that our only true purpose as living beings is to survive is enough to ensure that we do everything we can to survive. What you're suggesting is that we must think about what we need to do in order to survive, when in reality, we have and will automatically do what we need to survive. If humans weren't capable of keeping themselves alive without conscious thought of social change for the better, do you really think we could have not only survived for so long, but also went from a small group of upright apes in Africa to the dominant species on the entire planet?

EDIT: I see that you've posted the very same thing in another thread where it is much more relevant. Why did you post it here where it doesn't make any sense? Got some wires crossed in your programming?
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Old 03-12-2007, 06:19 AM   #16
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Default Re: Shut-upness: Living a lie

Afro

I think that it is necessary to hold our common sense perceptions in abeyance when we try to gain a knowledge in some of the human sciences because these sciences speak about matters that we all have uneducated attitudes about.
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Old 03-12-2007, 08:15 AM   #17
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Default Re: Shut-upness: Living a lie

Quote:
Originally Posted by coberst View Post
Afro

we gotta learn things because we don't know them lol
Way to say absolutely nothing about anything and also completely not giving a legitimate response to anything I said.

ps He addressed me as "Afro", guys. How many bots do you know of that can shorten a user's name to something shorter which is also what the user commonly goes by?
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