The invisibility of the structure of human society

 

The invisibility of the structure of human society

Becoming objective toward society encounters more obstacles than being objective toward our own mind.  Perhaps we can pretend to grasp the involvement of the ego because it operates within us. However, we cannot pretend to know the involvement of the socius as it is outside us; but it is an outside to which we are inescapably tied.

I’m meditating by rewriting a passage by Moreno. The lines above are where I got to.  The gender & grammar needed  fixing etc.  I think his idea shines through in the passage above.  See his original below.

I love seeing the equivalence of ego and socius.

Here is the original:

“but the degree of invisibility of the structure of human society, of its sociodynamics, is much greater than that of the single individual. The effort of becoming objective toward the socius encounters many more obstacles than to be objective toward his own individual mind. The involvement of the ego he can still grasp, perhaps he can pretend to know it because it operates within him. The involvement of the socius, however, he cannot pretend to know as it operates outside of him; but it is an outside to which he is inescapably tied.”

See this post. Where there is more on this topic.

Is a system a “thing”?

Perhaps in an approach of the social universe we can learn from Democritus and close our eyes to the actual configurations social “matter” presents to us families, factories, schools, nations, etc. Perhaps a mind not distracted by the gross facts in society will be able to discover the smallest living social unit, itself not further divisible, the social atom.

 

J.L. Moreno “Who Shall Survive?” p 291

We are born into a pattern of relationships

We are born into a pattern of relationships.
This pattern influences us deeply.
It has a tendency to repeat and persist. 

This brief summary is the basis of psychotherapy, of the unconscious and we work with these patterns in psychodrama.  I’m  pleased with the crisp summation.  I’m  satisfied that it captures the relational nature of our being. The relationship nature of the unconscious, or self.  It is alive as this pattern “repeats and persists”.  And does so even as repair and grapple with the tendencies as they persist.

However the summation is not as soulful or as wild as the process.

Continue reading “We are born into a pattern of relationships”

It’s only ontology.

From the Dictionary:

Ontology

noun: ontology; plural noun: ontologies
1.
the branch of metaphysics dealing with the nature of being.
2.
a set of concepts and categories in a subject area or domain that shows their properties and the relations between them.
“what’s new about our ontology is that it is created automatically from large datasets”

Origin

early 18th century: from modern Latin ontologia, from Greek ōn, ont- ‘being’ + -logy.

I have long had a phrase I use “It’s only ontology”.  I use it to listen to people as they talk about Jesus, Chi, Shan, God, spirit or soul and so on.  My little phrase reminds me to listen to the person rather than get into a debate about the existence of this or that. Also, irrespective of the existence of stuff, ontology  “shows properties and the relations between” categories.  For an archetypal psychologist, for example,  there is a fundamental distinction between soul and spirit. Other people may use the words differently, yet they can reveal much about their world view.  It’s only ontology.

PSM_V10_D562_The_hindoo_earthScreen Shot 2020-07-27 at 11.19.24 PM

I am looking back on earlier posts in relationship to ontology.  Here is one where my phrase does not hold:

Continue reading “It’s only ontology.”

Marx and Engels on Human Nature

Useful simple short article.

https://www.sfr-21.org/human-nature.html

Marx:

“Estranged labour, therefore, turns man’s species-being – both nature and his intellectual species-power – into a being alien to him and a means of his individual existence. It estranges man from his own body, from nature as it exists outside him, from his spiritual essence, his human existence.”

Working for money and not for love changes our nature. We become alien to ourselves, to our bodies and minds. We become alien to to our nature and the world around us. When we are strangers to our creativity we become strangers our own bodies, to nature as it exists outside us, to our spiritual essence and our human existence.

The Moment in History

I am a psychodramatist and hence a student of the work of J.L. Moreno.  And I hold his philosophy and methods to be revolutionary in the sense of having potential to heal humanity.  There is an area of his philosophy and outlook where he comes short of the potential, it is in the conception of mass action and the macro forces that operate in the world.  He lacks a good grasp of Marxism. And I think Marxism lacks the science of sociometry, the outlook of small groups.
Continue reading “The Moment in History”