Dec 6, 2023·edited Dec 6, 2023Liked by laughlyn (johan eddebo)
Thank you for your post. "Loo-ceee! You got some 'splain' to do!" Philosophy. Psychology. Religion.
I agree. The best we can think of serves to shed light on what is already there. Of course, the quality and spectrum of the aforementioned light that is shed and the reliability of the eyesight of the viewer of what is revealed all factor in what is declared as "there". The declaration is unreliable.
I do get annoyed with people romanticizing ancient cultural situational ordering of "how it was in the good ol' dayz". I mean, people in the "hunter-gatherers" collectives slept in large lumps not because touch was a vital component of well-being and they understood it as such, but for survival. Warmth. Protection. Infants were quieted more so than today so as not to draw attention from predators.
Can any of us actually imagine sleeping in large and stinking piles with other people farting and snoring and thrashing and screwing each other and lice and fleas, etc., etc.? I always laugh when I read this kind of nonsense as if primitive tribes had it all figured out knowing the authors of such nonsense would likely run screaming from the cave in the very traumatized condition they claim sleeping in large touchy-feely groups prevented. Why does anyone assume that kind of communal sleeping arrangement leads to a "good" night's sleep? No thank you. I like the luxury of sleeping alone on a bed. I also understand others like sleeping with others. One is not necessarily superior to the other.
That's my primary problem with most philosophies or psychologies. They seek to not only shed light on what "is", but then strive to cure it or explain it all away. In my experience, life is so much larger than that and the very moment we strive to control it is interestingly the same moment we lose any illusion of control over it because the truth is, as far as I can see, we have no control over it. This truth I have witnessed confirmed continually.
The best we can hope for is some degree of control over ourselves, but even that is partially illusion as is illustrated time and again that when confronted with various circumstances we surprise ourselves with our response despite all best efforts at control of oneself.
This construct of a "world" whether it be today or thousands of years ago is a pack of lies. Piled on top of one another like a haystack. The more we insist we will ferret through the hay and find that needle of truth, the more ridiculous it becomes because there is no needle of truth to be found in a stack of lies. Only more and more lies.
As the lovely song you linked says, what we loved was not enough. We don't love God. He's too large for most of us to love or to contain within the pages of any book or man made construct we call "religion" that we can delude ourselves with. We want a "small" love that feels "safe", so we trade the terrifying enormity of loving God for the disappointing barter of loving one another, at best. Or ourselves. Or nothing at all at worst.
Let the malignant psychos play out their best game at trying to control everything. They have lost before they even began. Though I have no doubt as they play out this losing game it will be painful for everyone. I say, so what? Regardless. And damn the torpedoes.
I sincerely hope people will leave animals alone and stop lying to themselves that whatever response an animal has to a circumstance or a substance somehow reflects how it affects people. It is evident we are not the same. It's cruel to keep insisting we are. All the way around.
Very well written. I really appreciate how you merged philosophy and psychology. My background is in psychology and there is a quality to trauma that solipsism emerges as a protective mechanism.
Like you said, experiencing trauma can lead an individual to turn their focus inward, towards their own personal and subjective experiences, as a way to shield themselves from potential harm. This internalization of their thoughts and emotions creates a separation and isolation from the external world, paralleling the philosophical concept of solipsism, which questions the existence of reality outside of oneself. Consequently, the impact of trauma in the modern era is intricately entwined with philosophical musings, as it shapes and influences our understanding of the world.
But it always comes back to the *I*, because the root of trauma is that the I is threatened and needs to be protected. The traumatized sense of self remains pivotal in this scenario, as trauma inherently disrupts and jeopardizes the wholeness of an individual's subjective perception, serving as the main locus of both the traumatic event and its subsequent reactions. This astute observation sheds light on the inherent constraints within the presented perspective.
Here's a related back-and-fourth with radical solipsism. Somebody tells me "how do you know you exist?" and I respond that if they really believed I didn't exist they wouldn't be talking to me because I would have to have existed to ponder the question to being with. It's like writing me a letter telling me the mail system doesn't work, or calling me to tell me the phone doesn't work.
Just as your article argues solipsism relies on but denies the prior fact of the self's connection to the world, so too this philosophical question assumes the existence it aims to undermine. Both trauma and philosophical stances like solipsism rely on a more basic intertwining of self and world for their very possibility, even as they propose a notion of separation. This reflects how experiences of harm and threat arise and are addressed within fundamental social and environmental bonds. This radical stance, meant to protect the *I*, by denying the reality of the world and others outside the self, could exacerbate and prolong the traumatic effects.
By situating itself solely within the private subjective experience of the "I", radical solipsism fails to adequately address or resolve the psychological effects of trauma. By restricting itself solely to private subjective experience, radical solipsism remains trapped within trauma's isolating effects and does not provide a means of reconstructing the relational and external dimensions necessary to psychologically resolve and recover from the traumatic experience.
Another thing I learned from psychology is that "problems created in isolation cannot be resolved in isolation." Psychology indicates that fully addressing issues arising from isolation or external harm requires moving beyond a solely isolated perspective to rebuild connections severed and re-engage factors involved in their creation.
Thank you for this. It's very insightful, and resonates well with much of what I've read on the topic during the last months, yet you connect the dots here in a way I have not really seen anywhere else.
An important point you make is of course the sense in which philosophy impacts upon the social world, and how these patterns of thought, especially when institutionalized, can have profound consequences. I don't think I really engage with this causal process in the above.
Although challenging (made moreso I think by virtue of my reading it this evening instead of the more critical thinking hours of morning!), this was an interesting and somewhat dizzying journey of tangential and relational thoughts that themselves do not resolve easily when pondered.
I believe what can make us feel alone, detached, unbelieving in ourselves or in the "other" is trauma. Repeated trauma was discovered via the MKUltra program that the CIA has used to seize control of the subject's mind by causing traumas that effectively compartmentalized the pain and suffering and absolute terror of the activities perpetrated on the individual or group.
Perhaps the most horrendous and heart rending are the accounts of what has been intentionally done to children to condition them for "handling" -- breaking the mind and giving the traumatist power over the victim through the splintering process Where traumas are stored and kept from the rest of the conscious mind and its engagement with reality).
Whether done with intention or because of pathological deviances being acted upon or ritual occult affiliations and practices to conjure dark magic and to sate the dark "lord's" demands for pain and suffering of an innocent, or to manipulate and split the mind for purposes of issuing new "programming" to (upon command or repetition of certain recognizable trigger phenomena) use the victim for the commissioning of acts not otherwise realizable for an "undamaged" individual whose feelings and emotions and the boundaries of propriety would normally inhibit such extreme activities, the victim's ability to process the extraordinary cognitive dissonance and complete inability to reconcile their having been mistreated in such inhumane and brutal a manner creates a sense of detachment and numbness to the tangible world that was previously mostly pleasant and rewarding - one in which they felt harmonious and connected and a sense of belonging and kinship.
And every human has to endure some forms of "trauma" - though most never experience the extreme unimaginable forms that break the ties with the real world and put them into suspended states of dull detached and unfeeling isolation and loneliness...where pleasing the person who has harmed you becomes a form of stockholm syndrome where even some bizarre connection to the tormentor/perpetrator/"handler" is preferable to feeling completely alone and vulnerable, defenseless, used up. Where the mind tries to find the means to negotiate an exchange to gain relief and find meaning and purpose and sensations that are satisfying instead.
Because we are created by a loving God who seeks to include us in the unbroken and uninhibited, unfettered, unceasing exchange of love and meaning that has characterized He, the Spirit and Son from before eternity and has therefore designed within us the capacity and need for this, we dissociate when what we intuitively know to be true by virtue of our created, built-in instincts and desires are violated or negated repeatedly by our experiences and our perceptions of those experiences, often shattered mosaics of ill-fitting ideas and notions that are undefinable and beyond description and no explanations sufficient to reach through our numbed faculties and our fractured perceptions and incongruent endurance of trauma are curative -- faith and trust yielding to doubt and disappointment--these are elements of what we see in those moments when we stand far away and look at ourselves and wonder if what we've been birthed for -- the purposes and intentions of our Creator in love and mercy and care and at times, nurtured by others to believe and accept as real -- are instead seemingly thwarted and instead the void filled only with dissonance, leaving us functionally deficient and disabled emotionally and relationally - even physically and spiritually.
There is only one solution, one absolutely unassailable means for our healing, deliverance and restoration, our being able to displace the isolation, fear, loneliness, feelings of estrangement and abandonment and surviving and finding health from the undeserved, unearned, unfair and unimaginable traumas --
Instead of starting with me -- am I real, do I exist - we start with God, Who alone is the constant, the fixed and unwavering truth and foundational reality upon which we can then build anew and rediscover who we are - why we're here - and how highly prized and special we are, and how unique and purposefully designed and commissioned we are -- chosen by Him, compatible with Him (through the One true mediator/spiritual "broker") who restores and gives meaning and context dispelling even the darkest shadows and the abyss into which the wrongs suffered have been sublimated, replacing them with confident hope, peace, the renewed sense of belonging and completeness, the understanding that we are not alone and we've not been left to ponder our lives and never know but instead to be assured, to be strengthened, to be encouraged and to find value, DESPITE the events and circumstances and feelings and hurts we've known - because He is greater than all of them and He loves in ways we spend our lifetimes fully comprehending and applying.
We are primarily NOT physical creatures -- we are first and foremost not just animals with heightened senses and an "evolved" brain with highly developed reasoning faculties - we are a brilliant and unique work of God - an expression of His essence, His breath and life congealing into human form, His image, though presently somewhat imperfect and out of focus, slowly emerging into the realization that I am not alone I have not been left to myself, abandoned and lifelessly struggling with pleasing my tormentor - I am beautiful and free to be and to do as He enables me. I am important and cherished and have been sought after and an inordinate amount of unimaginable goodness has been offered to em to choose instead of despair and isolation. I am joined with He who is all in all, who is there and is not silent, but speaks to and through me to a world still learning to comprehend His "language" and understand His "divine prerogative" -- to comfort, to "touch" us in ways which no human can approach and to gift to us the substance of the seemingly illusive and too often undefined longing with in us that now resonates with Him and yields the sense of bliss and joy that are our inheritance and legacy.
We are left unable to speak - for reasons of overwhelming affirmation and unfathomable realization -- He has given all to have us and He will not disappoint -- to take the broken pieces and refashion us into something so beautiful and unimaginably compelling that there are no more doubts, fears or uncertainties. We have found the reason for which we exist -- to glorify, to express, to transmit Him to others DESPITE who we were before He transforms and delivers us from the ravages and cruelties that we have suffered in the living out of our lives in this fallen world of rebellion, shame and deviance -- of division, disunity and self-seeking meaninglessness and despair. We are awash in a love that defines and gives meaning to an endless universe of His expression and we matter to the One who spoke it into existence and holds it together, and carries us through to a divine destiny that cannot be shaken or changed once we are His.
this is excellent. I've been thinking a lot lately about generational trauma, and even national trauma, and how it colors everything here in the US. But one of the things your article opened up for me was this: It seems clear that capitalism and especially late stage capitalism causes massive trauma. But maybe existing trauma (from imperialism, increasing tech and urbanization and lack of control over one's own time etc.) was part of what caused capitalism (originally apparently a phenomenon local to England) to spread like it did. Of course Descartes' ideas were, in part, I think, about "disenchanting" the world, so as to make exploitation easier. I have a sneaking suspicion that the philosophies that took hold at that time were in some way in service of exploitation. Haha. that might be a bit paranoid; I've never "liked" Descartes or Bacon, but also never read either one extensively. Anyway I remember a while back some stupid opinion piece in the (odious) NY times by a "philosopher" that posited ridding the world of (animal) predators, like tigers, wolves, etc. The thin utilitarian rationale was that it would result in "happier" conditions for more animals. As if the animal world were not completely relational. As are we, if we would stop lying to ourselves. It was like a trial balloon, to see, what? I have no idea. Just how contextless people could be in the comments. Just how disembodied. That's trauma for sure, that those kinds of thought experiments get any weight at all. Anyway, thank you for shedding some light on this darkness.
Thank you for your post. "Loo-ceee! You got some 'splain' to do!" Philosophy. Psychology. Religion.
I agree. The best we can think of serves to shed light on what is already there. Of course, the quality and spectrum of the aforementioned light that is shed and the reliability of the eyesight of the viewer of what is revealed all factor in what is declared as "there". The declaration is unreliable.
I do get annoyed with people romanticizing ancient cultural situational ordering of "how it was in the good ol' dayz". I mean, people in the "hunter-gatherers" collectives slept in large lumps not because touch was a vital component of well-being and they understood it as such, but for survival. Warmth. Protection. Infants were quieted more so than today so as not to draw attention from predators.
Can any of us actually imagine sleeping in large and stinking piles with other people farting and snoring and thrashing and screwing each other and lice and fleas, etc., etc.? I always laugh when I read this kind of nonsense as if primitive tribes had it all figured out knowing the authors of such nonsense would likely run screaming from the cave in the very traumatized condition they claim sleeping in large touchy-feely groups prevented. Why does anyone assume that kind of communal sleeping arrangement leads to a "good" night's sleep? No thank you. I like the luxury of sleeping alone on a bed. I also understand others like sleeping with others. One is not necessarily superior to the other.
That's my primary problem with most philosophies or psychologies. They seek to not only shed light on what "is", but then strive to cure it or explain it all away. In my experience, life is so much larger than that and the very moment we strive to control it is interestingly the same moment we lose any illusion of control over it because the truth is, as far as I can see, we have no control over it. This truth I have witnessed confirmed continually.
The best we can hope for is some degree of control over ourselves, but even that is partially illusion as is illustrated time and again that when confronted with various circumstances we surprise ourselves with our response despite all best efforts at control of oneself.
This construct of a "world" whether it be today or thousands of years ago is a pack of lies. Piled on top of one another like a haystack. The more we insist we will ferret through the hay and find that needle of truth, the more ridiculous it becomes because there is no needle of truth to be found in a stack of lies. Only more and more lies.
As the lovely song you linked says, what we loved was not enough. We don't love God. He's too large for most of us to love or to contain within the pages of any book or man made construct we call "religion" that we can delude ourselves with. We want a "small" love that feels "safe", so we trade the terrifying enormity of loving God for the disappointing barter of loving one another, at best. Or ourselves. Or nothing at all at worst.
Let the malignant psychos play out their best game at trying to control everything. They have lost before they even began. Though I have no doubt as they play out this losing game it will be painful for everyone. I say, so what? Regardless. And damn the torpedoes.
I sincerely hope people will leave animals alone and stop lying to themselves that whatever response an animal has to a circumstance or a substance somehow reflects how it affects people. It is evident we are not the same. It's cruel to keep insisting we are. All the way around.
Very well written. I really appreciate how you merged philosophy and psychology. My background is in psychology and there is a quality to trauma that solipsism emerges as a protective mechanism.
Like you said, experiencing trauma can lead an individual to turn their focus inward, towards their own personal and subjective experiences, as a way to shield themselves from potential harm. This internalization of their thoughts and emotions creates a separation and isolation from the external world, paralleling the philosophical concept of solipsism, which questions the existence of reality outside of oneself. Consequently, the impact of trauma in the modern era is intricately entwined with philosophical musings, as it shapes and influences our understanding of the world.
But it always comes back to the *I*, because the root of trauma is that the I is threatened and needs to be protected. The traumatized sense of self remains pivotal in this scenario, as trauma inherently disrupts and jeopardizes the wholeness of an individual's subjective perception, serving as the main locus of both the traumatic event and its subsequent reactions. This astute observation sheds light on the inherent constraints within the presented perspective.
Here's a related back-and-fourth with radical solipsism. Somebody tells me "how do you know you exist?" and I respond that if they really believed I didn't exist they wouldn't be talking to me because I would have to have existed to ponder the question to being with. It's like writing me a letter telling me the mail system doesn't work, or calling me to tell me the phone doesn't work.
Just as your article argues solipsism relies on but denies the prior fact of the self's connection to the world, so too this philosophical question assumes the existence it aims to undermine. Both trauma and philosophical stances like solipsism rely on a more basic intertwining of self and world for their very possibility, even as they propose a notion of separation. This reflects how experiences of harm and threat arise and are addressed within fundamental social and environmental bonds. This radical stance, meant to protect the *I*, by denying the reality of the world and others outside the self, could exacerbate and prolong the traumatic effects.
By situating itself solely within the private subjective experience of the "I", radical solipsism fails to adequately address or resolve the psychological effects of trauma. By restricting itself solely to private subjective experience, radical solipsism remains trapped within trauma's isolating effects and does not provide a means of reconstructing the relational and external dimensions necessary to psychologically resolve and recover from the traumatic experience.
Another thing I learned from psychology is that "problems created in isolation cannot be resolved in isolation." Psychology indicates that fully addressing issues arising from isolation or external harm requires moving beyond a solely isolated perspective to rebuild connections severed and re-engage factors involved in their creation.
Thank you for this. It's very insightful, and resonates well with much of what I've read on the topic during the last months, yet you connect the dots here in a way I have not really seen anywhere else.
An important point you make is of course the sense in which philosophy impacts upon the social world, and how these patterns of thought, especially when institutionalized, can have profound consequences. I don't think I really engage with this causal process in the above.
Keep in touch.
I highly recommend Darren Allen's Self and Unself. Wisdom and Truth from a contemporary.
Although challenging (made moreso I think by virtue of my reading it this evening instead of the more critical thinking hours of morning!), this was an interesting and somewhat dizzying journey of tangential and relational thoughts that themselves do not resolve easily when pondered.
I believe what can make us feel alone, detached, unbelieving in ourselves or in the "other" is trauma. Repeated trauma was discovered via the MKUltra program that the CIA has used to seize control of the subject's mind by causing traumas that effectively compartmentalized the pain and suffering and absolute terror of the activities perpetrated on the individual or group.
Perhaps the most horrendous and heart rending are the accounts of what has been intentionally done to children to condition them for "handling" -- breaking the mind and giving the traumatist power over the victim through the splintering process Where traumas are stored and kept from the rest of the conscious mind and its engagement with reality).
Whether done with intention or because of pathological deviances being acted upon or ritual occult affiliations and practices to conjure dark magic and to sate the dark "lord's" demands for pain and suffering of an innocent, or to manipulate and split the mind for purposes of issuing new "programming" to (upon command or repetition of certain recognizable trigger phenomena) use the victim for the commissioning of acts not otherwise realizable for an "undamaged" individual whose feelings and emotions and the boundaries of propriety would normally inhibit such extreme activities, the victim's ability to process the extraordinary cognitive dissonance and complete inability to reconcile their having been mistreated in such inhumane and brutal a manner creates a sense of detachment and numbness to the tangible world that was previously mostly pleasant and rewarding - one in which they felt harmonious and connected and a sense of belonging and kinship.
And every human has to endure some forms of "trauma" - though most never experience the extreme unimaginable forms that break the ties with the real world and put them into suspended states of dull detached and unfeeling isolation and loneliness...where pleasing the person who has harmed you becomes a form of stockholm syndrome where even some bizarre connection to the tormentor/perpetrator/"handler" is preferable to feeling completely alone and vulnerable, defenseless, used up. Where the mind tries to find the means to negotiate an exchange to gain relief and find meaning and purpose and sensations that are satisfying instead.
Because we are created by a loving God who seeks to include us in the unbroken and uninhibited, unfettered, unceasing exchange of love and meaning that has characterized He, the Spirit and Son from before eternity and has therefore designed within us the capacity and need for this, we dissociate when what we intuitively know to be true by virtue of our created, built-in instincts and desires are violated or negated repeatedly by our experiences and our perceptions of those experiences, often shattered mosaics of ill-fitting ideas and notions that are undefinable and beyond description and no explanations sufficient to reach through our numbed faculties and our fractured perceptions and incongruent endurance of trauma are curative -- faith and trust yielding to doubt and disappointment--these are elements of what we see in those moments when we stand far away and look at ourselves and wonder if what we've been birthed for -- the purposes and intentions of our Creator in love and mercy and care and at times, nurtured by others to believe and accept as real -- are instead seemingly thwarted and instead the void filled only with dissonance, leaving us functionally deficient and disabled emotionally and relationally - even physically and spiritually.
There is only one solution, one absolutely unassailable means for our healing, deliverance and restoration, our being able to displace the isolation, fear, loneliness, feelings of estrangement and abandonment and surviving and finding health from the undeserved, unearned, unfair and unimaginable traumas --
Instead of starting with me -- am I real, do I exist - we start with God, Who alone is the constant, the fixed and unwavering truth and foundational reality upon which we can then build anew and rediscover who we are - why we're here - and how highly prized and special we are, and how unique and purposefully designed and commissioned we are -- chosen by Him, compatible with Him (through the One true mediator/spiritual "broker") who restores and gives meaning and context dispelling even the darkest shadows and the abyss into which the wrongs suffered have been sublimated, replacing them with confident hope, peace, the renewed sense of belonging and completeness, the understanding that we are not alone and we've not been left to ponder our lives and never know but instead to be assured, to be strengthened, to be encouraged and to find value, DESPITE the events and circumstances and feelings and hurts we've known - because He is greater than all of them and He loves in ways we spend our lifetimes fully comprehending and applying.
We are primarily NOT physical creatures -- we are first and foremost not just animals with heightened senses and an "evolved" brain with highly developed reasoning faculties - we are a brilliant and unique work of God - an expression of His essence, His breath and life congealing into human form, His image, though presently somewhat imperfect and out of focus, slowly emerging into the realization that I am not alone I have not been left to myself, abandoned and lifelessly struggling with pleasing my tormentor - I am beautiful and free to be and to do as He enables me. I am important and cherished and have been sought after and an inordinate amount of unimaginable goodness has been offered to em to choose instead of despair and isolation. I am joined with He who is all in all, who is there and is not silent, but speaks to and through me to a world still learning to comprehend His "language" and understand His "divine prerogative" -- to comfort, to "touch" us in ways which no human can approach and to gift to us the substance of the seemingly illusive and too often undefined longing with in us that now resonates with Him and yields the sense of bliss and joy that are our inheritance and legacy.
We are left unable to speak - for reasons of overwhelming affirmation and unfathomable realization -- He has given all to have us and He will not disappoint -- to take the broken pieces and refashion us into something so beautiful and unimaginably compelling that there are no more doubts, fears or uncertainties. We have found the reason for which we exist -- to glorify, to express, to transmit Him to others DESPITE who we were before He transforms and delivers us from the ravages and cruelties that we have suffered in the living out of our lives in this fallen world of rebellion, shame and deviance -- of division, disunity and self-seeking meaninglessness and despair. We are awash in a love that defines and gives meaning to an endless universe of His expression and we matter to the One who spoke it into existence and holds it together, and carries us through to a divine destiny that cannot be shaken or changed once we are His.
this is excellent. I've been thinking a lot lately about generational trauma, and even national trauma, and how it colors everything here in the US. But one of the things your article opened up for me was this: It seems clear that capitalism and especially late stage capitalism causes massive trauma. But maybe existing trauma (from imperialism, increasing tech and urbanization and lack of control over one's own time etc.) was part of what caused capitalism (originally apparently a phenomenon local to England) to spread like it did. Of course Descartes' ideas were, in part, I think, about "disenchanting" the world, so as to make exploitation easier. I have a sneaking suspicion that the philosophies that took hold at that time were in some way in service of exploitation. Haha. that might be a bit paranoid; I've never "liked" Descartes or Bacon, but also never read either one extensively. Anyway I remember a while back some stupid opinion piece in the (odious) NY times by a "philosopher" that posited ridding the world of (animal) predators, like tigers, wolves, etc. The thin utilitarian rationale was that it would result in "happier" conditions for more animals. As if the animal world were not completely relational. As are we, if we would stop lying to ourselves. It was like a trial balloon, to see, what? I have no idea. Just how contextless people could be in the comments. Just how disembodied. That's trauma for sure, that those kinds of thought experiments get any weight at all. Anyway, thank you for shedding some light on this darkness.