Walter Logeman: Journal
I’ve been writing here about my close reading of Moreno’s writing on Marx and revolution. I’ve been reading Who Shall Survive and other sources.
I’ve stopped posting chapters here as I’m editing in Google Drive
See my whole effort here.
That link is auto updated with every edit!!
The first time Moreno mentions Marx in Who Shall Survive?, is in the Preludes of the Sociometric Movement (1978; xiv, xv)
The advent of sociometry cannot be understood without appraising my presociometric background and the historic-ideological setting in the Western world, during and after the First World War. Marxism and psychoanalysis, the two opposites, each had spent their theoretic bolt, the one with Nikolai Lenin’s “State and Revolution” (1917), the other with Sigmund Freud’s “Civilization and Its Discontents” (1929). The two opposites had one thing in common: they both rejected religion, they both disavowed he idea of a community which is based on spontaneous love, un-selfishness and sainthood, on positive goodness and naive cooperativeness. I took a position contradictory to both, the side of positive religion.
To summarise: Moreno makes it clear he is not creating his work in a vacuum. Freud and Marx are the ideological setting in the Western world, during and after the First World War. Moreno says “The two opposites had one thing in common: they both rejected religion”. Moreno took the side of positive religion. Continue reading “The First Mention of Marxism in “Who Shall Survive?” – Religion”
Saul Alinksy and Kurt Lewin are both on the family tree of my preoccupation, Marx & Moreno . My old friend Dennis mentioned he went to a workshop about them both (some time ago!)
Here is a site that mentions both figures. Continue reading “Saul Alinksy and Kurt Lewin”
Here is a follow on post to an earlier one Homo faber
What makes us human – what is the one thing?
Humans are creators: Homo faber. Continue reading “The relations of creativity. Moreno & Marx”
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.
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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.
“A fish does not know about the sea”
I think that is McLuhan? though he might have said
“A fish does not know about the see”
Moreno called it “Maximal Proximity”
J.L. Moreno “Who Shall Survive?” p 291
John Berger is worth attending to. He surprises and stimulates constantly about everything. I like this podcast:
Continue reading “John Berger and Marxist Art Criticism — podcast (and More)”
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”
