>The question of identity falls into the idea of ego and I've found myself to
>have a passive ego, or Self, which asserts its "mind" in response to
>"violence".
OK, stop here. Where are you deriving your idea of "ego" from? Freud?
What other kinds of egos are there, other than passive? What are the
characteristics of these egos? Do all passive egos assert "mind" in response
to "violence"? What do you mean by that? Can you give an example or
an analogy?
Can you see how that sentence proposes a number of different levels:
Ego <===> ? (Id? Superego?)
Passive <===> ? (Active? Aggressive?)
Self <===> ? (non-self? environment? subconcious?)
"mind" <===> "violence"
without detailing them? You need to define your terms first. Then we
pick apart those definitions. Then you give us the punch-line. Then
we fail to laugh and tell you why we think the whole joke is in poor
taste. Usually, you don't get past defining your terms.
But, hey, that's why it's so much fun!
>I think that ego is the creator of violence and also what is
>created by violence.
Is violence central to ego ("the sense of self")? What do you mean by
violence here, given it's seeming central role?
>Ego which is active is oppositional to other egos,
>egos which are passive seem to spawn violence, too--an attempt to get
>someone to stand for something?
What is the difference between something that "actually" creates and
is created by X and something which "seems" to be that way?
>A Self which resolves this
>sadistic/masochistic inflation of ego must be at the expense of something
>else; and, I say it is at the expense of a social "s"elf.
This is where I get lost. There are so many things: Ego, Self, social
"s"elf, violence
as creator and created, passive, active, implied underlying causes, appeal
to principles
("standing for something"). You're going too fast for me!
>Or, is the
>socially constructed self the only true being the one which happens at the
>expense of the Self which is "director"( not "actor")?
And if I was lost before, now I'm in the void...everything we were building was
an illusion, the apparent shell is the real substance and the principle
"Self" is
sacrificed? Are you evoking Nietzsche's "dead God" or Skinner's "Unknowable
Mind?"
As an aside, the sentence above is dramatically gramatically incorrect.
By confusing you referents you are evoking the image of chaos and confusion.
I read the sentence three times and couldn't figure out the difference between
"director" and true, and ego...ack!
>All in all, some
>part of me is destroyed in the very act of trying to come to grips with this
>irony--the final point.
Wow! Only part of you is destroyed in that process? I couldn't make it through
with any of myself intact. Are you sure you don't have some definitions that
would make it easier for me to follow?
>Violence is the only way for some to see that they
>are alive
That makes me uncomfortable so close to the conclusion.
Unfortunately, Sartre and McLuhan would both agree.
>(and, thereby, the whole post fits into the psychological category
>"Borderline Personality",
Define "Borderline Personality". Are you expressing a psychosis?
>the resolution of this disorder may be to
>participate but not become involved.)
How does one do that? In my mind, one has to be involved to participate.
Reed
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Reed Konsler konsler@ascat.harvard.edu
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