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Ole Dude wrote:

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I now see "the red in tooth and claw" state as having been promoted by elite design. 
  

Ole Dude wrote:

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LloydMiller wrote:

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The unwashed and unschooled in the scientific method just projects instinctual archetypes like an animal. In born archetypes may be useful to an extent, but they don't represent the true knowledge available to the well educated and funded socialist bureaucrat.

Of course, the above is my interpretation of Lippmann. He unconscionably turns a truth into a justification for statism a la Plato's "philosopher Kings."

The human can be considered to be a complex feedback mechanism. A feedback mechanism has various "settings" either permanent (inborn) or acquired. For instance, a thermostat can be preset to one temperature, say 70 deg. F. or it can be adjustable with a dial (or digital screen). The thermostat "turns off and on or modulates" a furnace attempting to make room temperature match its preset or adjusted setpoint.

Likewise, a human being has setpoints, but many many thousands of setpoints instead of just one. In my view, Jung was really talking about these "setpoints" when he talked of archetypes and instincts. Not all the archetypes are active simultaneously. They are brought forward by happenstance in the environment, ie. as the need arises.

For instance, in a fear provoking situation archetypes of "fight or flight" specific to a species may rise to the surface of consciousness which then influence behaviour toward survival. The first reaction to danger may be quite imperfect, but with practice, the human learns to match his behaviour to these inborn archetypes for best results.

Ole Dude wrote:

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For example, the "American" family value system may be attacked – in a passionate and convincing voice - by citing the "terrible" family value system that "American" children abandon their parents in their older years; while the children of other countries do not. The argument works, until one goes to a ‘deeper’ level and argues, that ‘their’ parents paid for their own Social Security retirement three times over – and have been told for the third time that they still are not old enough to collect a dime. Still, the "surface logic" ("first-up" effect) comes up as a powerful persuasion device, usurping rational thought processes, to easily impose a different logic.

Ole Dude wrote:

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LloydMiller wrote:

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The "right-wing conspiricist" interpretation of Hegel as primarily a method of political manipulation is silliness.

was your statement. I can see a variance of my interpretation only in the relative significance of "primarily". Without that word does the statement convey your original meaning? If so my exception to your statement still applies. If not what purpose could you have possibly had in making the statement other than to make an implied negative association between the evil or ridiculous connotation of "right wing conspiracist" created by the media and the uses of Hegelian concepts (perhaps wrongly) for political manipulation purposes?

Ole Dude wrote:

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You have stated that the use (misuse) of the Hegelian dialectic for political manipulation is silly yet you have provided no evidence to support your contention.

Ole Dude wrote:

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Your perception that I have been influenced by "right wing conspiracist" theories is a projection of an image you (and the whole country) have been indoctrinated with.

Ole Dude wrote:

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Actually I was first introduced to a perhaps distorted view of the Hegelian dialectic via informal training I received for making presentations to upper management during my strategic planning tour. It was presented as the problem-solution model. To create a degree of disturbance in the audience' psyche in order to gain their attention and consideration followed by a solution that enabled them to have some relief from the tension created.

Lloyd Sez:  I would challenge you to find any trace of such a focus on mental manipulation of others in Hegel.  I could be wrong, having read very little of Hegel directly, only covering him in Philosophical survey courses and books. 

The "Dialectic" concept appears to trace back to Plato's "Dialogues."  In my interpretation, the Dialogues were presented as a method of approaching truth, but the cynic or conspiricist, of course, might deduce the Dialogues are really about persuasion or even manipulation of the thinking of others.  That is, generally, however, NOT the "accepted" concept of Plato's Socrates.  Plato's Socrates is generally assumed to be a disinterested "seeker of truth", not a manipulator.

My understanding of Hegel, an "idealist" like Berkeley (external reality doesn't exist, ONLY ideas exist--ideas in the mind of God of which the individual or human group shares only a small part), thought he discovered or proved the "laws" by which ideas evolve:  thesis, antithesis, synthesis (he may have used different words--well, he was German).  This, it was my impression, was a law completely independent of any efforts by individuals or groups to persuade or mentally manipulate.

Hegel created a great excitement in his time.  People all over the world thought they had insight into how ideas and the products of ideas, Groups, Social Organisms, the State, and History evolve.  Collectivists loved him.  Marx, of course, shared in the excitement, but denied Hegel's "idealism," and, instead, claimed absurdly that material reality followed Hegels evolutionary laws based on resolving contradictions between thesis and antithesis. 

In a prior post I mis-spoke in claiming Hegel projected his theory of ideas on external reality.  Actually, Hegel denied external reality.  Of course, I have a hard time accepting "idealist" concepts and continue to labor under the delusion that groups, the State, History, etc. reside in external reality not just "the mind." 

I am no scholar of philsophical schools, so I am the first to admit I could very well be wrong in my interpreation of some or all of the great Philosophical Schools.  I am more confident of the substance of what I think than that of what other think.  [Lloyd said]

I was indeed later introduced to the (perhaps also distorted) version of thesis antithesis synthesis. I understand that Hegel attributed this formulation to Kant which was followed up by Fichte. I understand that Hegel preferred the terms Abstract-Negative-Concrete or Immediate-Mediated-Concrete. I am aware that a proper application of Hegelian Dialectics is to proceed by making implicit contradictions explicit which leads to ongoing rounds of synthesis.

The misusage of the concept, as identified perhaps by writers associated with the right wing, is what is important to us in our discussion of how we are (mis?)ruled by an elite. As I have pointed out, for example, there are legitimate applications for the Delphi Technique, a derivative of the Hegelian Dialectic, but the potential for abuse (manufactured consensus) stands out as a major concern for all but the most naive among us.

The (mis?)practice of presenting manufactured "balanced" views which in actuality represent the limits of politically correct views with anything outside this range being classified as extremist is the second example I have presented.

Perhaps your appropriate response would be to respond to the examples that I have repeated here first and then deal with the diversion as to whether the term is being used according to Hegel's specifications. Remember even Marx declared that he was not a Marxist.