The Self Conflicted Type

[Timmy]

I'm sure that many of you are unaware that Uncle Carl has provided at least one explanation for a person's tendency to come across amorphously with respect to type. Anybody think Jung's "self conflicted" description could provide a measure of insight into the tendency of certain individuals to jump from type to type with ever increasing uncertainty.

"...Hegemonic imperatives of the Ego may compel atypical individuation, obscuring (the) presentation of archetypal psychological configurations. We must not misconstrue first causes. Self loathing is culprit. The self conflicted individual rejects egoistic paraphernalia and thereby attempts negation of the essential self, unaware the venality of its object drive. Failure to will the failure of will negates none other than the will toward self negation. Psychic transubstantiation, affected albeit, is not realized.

"Because the self conflicted individual draws extensively upon subconscious drives, self control suffers and bouts of inconsistent and irrational behavior surface. (Self conflicted individuasl are) prone to the acquisition of counterphobic attachments to existential levity, which wrongly they interpret as pride... Afflicted individuals experience progressive angst and suffering...

"Resolution (is) unlikely when pathology (has become) entrenched."

C.G. Jung

[Creepy-pokeball]

Im not sure I quite buy it. It is old, psychologically, but I am not one to say it is untrue, either.

I use an outdated, ineffective alpha-blocker to render panic attacks and flashbacks subdued. It does not even work for hypertension beyond one week in time. The body counter-adjusts to it, but the effects on the brain remain. It was discovered on acccident by the Seattle VA because the black vietnam vets couldnt afford newer hypertension medications, but they notied that the black patients were improving over the white patients RE: PTSD. Yet, the medication was failing on the body. So the Portland VA tested it out and found that the body adjusted to it, but it still rendered the less maladjusted tot he burdens of PTSD. Go figure. Even the old and outdated can have its limelight, and time will tell.

[DividedsGhost]

Let the happiness in Timmy.

[Timmy]

Im not sure I quite buy it. It is old, psychologically, but I am not one to say it is untrue, either.

I use an outdated, ineffective alpha-blocker to render panic attacks and flashbacks subdued. It does not even work for hypertension beyond one week in time. The body counter-adjusts to it, but the effects on the brain remain. It was discovered on acccident by the Seattle VA because the black vietnam vets couldnt afford newer hypertension medications, but they notied that the black patients were improving over the white patients RE: PTSD. Yet, the medication was failing on the body. So the Portland VA tested it out and found that the body adjusted to it, but it still rendered the less maladjusted tot he burdens of PTSD. Go figure. Even the old and outdated can have its limelight, and time will tell.

Huh. Interesting story Jadae.

[rat1]

That paragraph is very awesomely written. I have to say the real problem with it is it disacknowledges the true conflict of man as being social in origin; instead it is considered a problem with the individual. Self conflicted yes, but socially afflicted; and I think that should be the primary focus, not the criticism of our instincts; but the realization of them.

[Timmy]

That paragraph is very awesomely written. I have to say the real problem with it is it disacknowledges the true conflict of man as being social in origin; instead it is considered a problem with the individual. Self conflicted yes, but socially afflicted; and I think that should be the primary focus, not the criticism of our instincts; but the realization of them.

A broken psyche will create social problems for an individual. So it goes both ways. Chicken or egg, shall we say?

[marooned]

I'm one of these afflicted individuals. (*hurries forward to flaunt my unhealthiness*)

[DividedsGhost]

Jokes aside, I would be afraid of anyone that isn't self conflicted. They don't know very much about themselves and that means I know even less about them, which isn't very much.

[Galen]

I'm sure that many of you are unaware that Uncle Carl has provided at least one explanation for a person's tendency to come across amorphously with respect to type. Anybody think Jung's "self conflicted" description could provide a measure of insight into the tendency of certain individuals to jump from type to type with ever increasing uncertainty.

I personally am more afraid of those who have a tendency to jump from type to type with ever increasing certainty.

[rat1]

That paragraph is very awesomely written. I have to say the real problem with it is it disacknowledges the true conflict of man as being social in origin; instead it is considered a problem with the individual. Self conflicted yes, but socially afflicted; and I think that should be the primary focus, not the criticism of our instincts; but the realization of them.

A broken psyche will create social problems for an individual. So it goes both ways. Chicken or egg, shall we say?

It's not really chicken or egg since the most prominent feature of our evolution, looking over the past 50,000 years, is the very recent and massive acceleration of social complexity to an extent man is outdone to function instinctually; the suppression of the instinct is rampant and too great for any natural individual to survive. Survival at this point is mostly determined by luck as the individual is left more and more powerless, not to mention the poor and weak are supported by medicare and we continue to trash our environment. Humanity is headed towards its destruction. What you're calling evolution is actually a cancer growth. So shut the fuck up with your chicken and egg ******ry.

[Timmy]

Humanity is headed towards its destruction. What you're calling evolution is actually a cancer growth. So shut the fuck up with your chicken and egg ******ry.

Hell yes! Years ago I arrived at the same conclusion -- that humanity is most appropriately viewed as a terminal cancer, born of the breast of mother nature. Just as cancer overcomes the natural defenses of the immune system, humanity has broken the system of checks and balances designed to keep the global network of life in check. Arrogantly we view the history of our species as a the progressive conquest of man over nature. Missing from our perspective is the critical awareness that we are winning against ourselves and digging our own graves in the process; cancer always perishes with its victim.

The disease process traces its origins to the promulgation of a myth as old as human civilization and as deeply embedded in our collective unconscious as the myth of ego. I am, of course, referring to the myth of human exceptionalism -- the strict delineation of man from nature which posits man's strict metaphysical superiority to the latter (e.g. religious folk insist we are "created in god's image").

As yet, I am undecided as to whether this cancer finds its origin in our fundamental nature as humans or else originates from without, corrupting and holding hostage our natures. Either way, we have become the unwitting medium of our own annihilation.

Nice to know I'm not the only person in the world that holds this view!

[krieger]

humans are not exceptional?

speak for yourselves.

ps. humanity is the most positive contributor to the carrying capacity of the earth. it isn't a cancer so much as it is the cure. spurious premise is spurious.

[InkStrider]

"...Hegemonic imperatives of the Ego may compel atypical individuation, obscuring (the) presentation of archetypal psychological configurations. We must not misconstrue first causes. Self loathing is culprit. The self conflicted individual rejects egoistic paraphernalia and thereby attempts negation of the essential self, unaware the venality of its object drive. Failure to will the failure of will negates none other than the will toward self negation. Psychic transubstantiation, affected albeit, is not realized.

"Because the self conflicted individual draws extensively upon subconscious drives, self control suffers and bouts of inconsistent and irrational behavior surface. (Self conflicted individuasl are) prone to the acquisition of counterphobic attachments to existential levity, which wrongly they interpret as pride... Afflicted individuals experience progressive angst and suffering...

"Resolution (is) unlikely when pathology (has become) entrenched."

C.G. Jung

So basically, the existence of this "self-conflicted individual" is supposed to explain type uncertainty and amorphousness, or is there more to it than just this?

When applied to self-typing, there are so many reasons why people may be self-conflicted when it comes to type, some individuals just don't fit the stereotypical type descriptions that well. Childhood environments, negative life experiences, expected roles (gender, responsibilities), etc. have a way of masking a person's sociotype such that the individual does not identify with their typical identicals. Positive life experiences for one may boost confidence levels and make an Ip feel more extroverted than a typical Ip and have an Ej perceive themselves as more introverted than the typical Ej. Enneagram and the various stackings also modifies each individuals' propensity and drives. If the individual has a stacking contrasting of their typical type, all the more difficult to type.

And most importantly, if a person hasn't yet the chance to be placed in an environment which allow their ego functions to manifest, they may very well perceive themselves to be a type they are not, but the type in which they have been acquainted with all their lives. It would not be appropriate to call a person in such circumstances inherently "self-conflicted", would it? I choose to see it as a particularly difficult case due to the variety of human experience rather than view it as them being particularly inclined towards doubt, since perpetual doubt would inevitably be linked to the self-conflicted man. In any case, I see doubt and uncertainty as positive, as it is part of the process of weighing and thinking.

The more that people consider and ponder, the more self-conflicted they would tend to come across. There isn't inherently anything wrong with that, which this seems to imply. It does not mean that they are particularly self-loathing to the extent of turning away from who they are by wanting to be someone they are not, though some *might* be. I don't find such labels to be particularly healthy nor conducive.

[Hot Scalding Gayser]

"Because the self conflicted individual draws extensively upon subconscious drives, self control suffers and bouts of inconsistent and irrational behavior surface. (Self conflicted individuasl are) prone to the acquisition of counterphobic attachments to existential levity, which wrongly they interpret as pride... Afflicted individuals experience progressive angst and suffering...

No. What an overly convoluted phrase. Somebody that appears self-confident isn't really shameful deep down inside, and somebody who appears shameful and shy isn't being 'secretly powerful.'

It's just that it's much easier to relate to somebody's sadness than it is their success. Success is personal and ego-based, suffering brings out your humanity. We like people much better when they are depressed. When you're truly self confident, other people's opinions of you really don't matter to you. That is good for you, bad for everybody else.

The dangers of psychoanalysis, and the people who want others to psychoanalyze themselves... I think they are just too shy and scared of people, and they get bullied because of this. They make themselves easy targets and they always are prone to thinking there's something wrong with them. The 'light side' to this is that subconsciously they are being more caring and loving than most. They don't want to change, because deep down they think it will make them a bad person.

Successful people know that happiness comes from within, one person can control the world being 'vibrationally aligned' and happy enough. And that's all what the Illuminati/Illuminated Ones are. To the average suffering, sad-eye human this is preposterous and narcissistic and extremely uncaring. Somebody making an entire store full of overpriced cheap plastic crap that leads billions and makes one person incredibly powerful.

[Timmy]

humans are not exceptional?

speak for yourselves.

ps. humanity is the most positive contributor to the carrying capacity of the earth. it isn't a cancer so much as it is the cure. spurious premise is spurious.

Who's cure for what? God's cure for a diseased genetic lineage? Mother natures cure for excessive biodiversity?

I take it you've never heard of a j-population curve. Notably, a cancer cell count curve looks remarkably similar to the j-population curve. Humanity may be approaching a phase transition in which all the rules that once seemed to apply no longer apply.



Labcoat, given your wide scope of intellectual interests and your pretense of being well read, I'm surprised by the decisiveness with which you have voiced what seems to me to be a hopelessly short sighted conclusion.

[krieger]

dude, that line would have gone down a long time ago if human science and industry had not existed. and it's a baseless hypothesis that the breaking of the trend happens in a vertical crash-like manner. more likely there will be a slight downturn and then a taking off again when technological solutions are gradually leveraged against carrying capacity related problems. and that is the pessimistic scenario.

take a look at a world GDP index and try to find a "massive catastrophe" like the Great Depression within it. even such events are minor divergences from the norm, at best constituting a 20% gap in output that gets caught up on within three decades. in terms of human life loss the world wide gap is even less spectacular even if we include the second world war. Kurzweil's principle was completely unaffected by the combination of great depression and WW2. in the long run, people that bet against the trend of sustained improvement of conditions never win. oh, and did i tell you that the trend is accelerating?

to knock this one out of the ballpark: the population growth speed is decreasing. the trend is already leveling off. at the rate things are going, in 2050 nations are going to be subsidizing foreigners to immigrate into them. several European countries already have negative population growth rates and the general trend is for developing countries to resemble these places more and more.

as for biodiversity, in the end that is just a variety of information in genetic form, so we can pit any loss in that regard against the scientific and cultural feats of humanity and end up with a far more balanced analysis. we'll probably be designing new species by 2050 and not shedding a tear about what was lost in terms of genetic variety.

don't get me wrong; my prognosis on the economy for the coming 20 years is darker than most can fathom, but i'm just not enough of a historical whipping boy to think it'll be anything more than a pothole in the bigger scheme of things. megacrashes just don't happen. societies and ecosystems just aren't integrated to that extent.

[Timmy]

dude, that line would have gone down a long time ago if human science and industry had not existed.

Agreed, and the draw down would probably have resembled an S-Curve dip (see chart in my previous post) had it not been for the industrial and agricultural revolutions. My contention is that we are now at risk of experiencing a J-curve crash scenario, though I am open to alternative scenarios.

to knock this one out of the ballpark: the population growth speed is decreasing. the trend is already leveling off. at the rate things are going, in 2050 nations are going to be subsidizing foreigners to immigrate into them. several European countries already have negative population growth rates and the general trend is for developing countries to resemble these places more and more.

True, population growth has turned negative in much of the developed world. On the other hand,population growth in the developing world continues largely unabated. Models projecting that global population will stabilize within the next 100 years implicitly assume that the developing world will become more like the developed world and that improved social stability and widening social safety nets will lower birth rates. To my thinking, an alternative scenario in which developed nations begin to look a lot more like developing nations is equally probable. In any case, the relevant question is not whether population size is growing or shrinking, but whether man has exceeded his long run carrying capacity. You assume that technology has actually increased our sustainable, long run carrying capacity, whereas I am suggesting that technology has merely enabled us to temporarily exceed our long term carrying capacity in the short run. If I am correct then eventually, as occurs in any bubble dynamic, a reckoning will produce a deviation of equal and opposite magnitude, reigning in a global dark age and perhaps driving to extinction our species.

don't get me wrong; my prognosis on the economy for the coming 20 years is darker than most can fathom, but i'm just not enough of a historical whipping boy to think it'll be anything more than a pothole in the bigger scheme of things. megacrashes just don't happen. societies and ecosystems just aren't integrated to that extent.

If this is what you believe then your historical perspective is narrow. Examples of civilization collapse abound throughout history.

Every wondered why the "fertile" crescent, "birth place of civilization," is a dessert? The leading explanation is that widespread deforestation and overgrazing effectively destroyed the ecosystem, and so the epicenter of human civilization slowly migrated west. The next great wave of civilization complexity and "advance" occurred peaked under the Roman empire and was succeeded by a "dark age" 1000+ years in duration.

Read up on history of Easter Island and you'll hear a similar story. As the Easter Island ecosystem failed, ordered society collapsed and population size plummeted as islanders resorted to cannibalism. By the time their plight had become obvious, social organization had decayed to the point where building boats and seeking new land was not an option.

Point is, earth is the ultimate island. We're stuck here for better or for worse (no i don't believe we will successfully manage to populate other planets), and this time there is no unadulterated frontier to which civilization can flee.

as for biodiversity, in the end that is just a variety of information in genetic form, so we can pit any loss in that regard against the scientific and cultural feats of humanity and end up with a far more balanced analysis. we'll probably be designing new species by 2050 and not shedding a tear about what was lost in terms of genetic variety.

I think that you grossly overestimate man's flexibility, adaptability and intellectual capacity. I'm detecting in you this same sort of culturally ubiquitous arrogance to which I referred in my previous post. As far as I'm concerned, a good analogy for the relationship between humanity it's advanced technology is that of a child playing with a hand grenade or a blind man navigating a mine field. I think we don't even begin to appreciate the extent to which we depend upon the wider community of life on earth, and this oversight may well be out undoing.

[krieger]

Agreed, and the draw down would probably have resembled an S-Curve dip (see chart in my previous post) had it not been for the industrial and agricultural revolutions. My contention is that we are now at risk of experiencing a J-curve crash scenario, though I am open to alternative scenarios.

there is no basis for the claim that a technology neutral scenario would develop like an S-Curve any more than there is one for the claim that a technology saturated scenario would develop like a J-Curve. you're completely ignoring the ability of technology and human action to mitigate the angle of the decline on the downside.

True, population growth has turned negative in much of the developed world. On the other hand,population growth in the developing world continues largely unabated. Models projecting that global population will stabilize within the next 100 years implicitly assume that the developing world will become more like the developed world and that improved social stability and widening social safety nets will lower birth rates. To my thinking, an alternative scenario in which developed nations begin to look a lot more like developing nations is equally probable. In any case, the relevant question is not whether population size is growing or shrinking, but whether man has exceeded his long run carrying capacity. You assume that technology has actually increased our sustainable, long run carrying capacity, whereas I am suggesting that technology has merely enabled us to temporarily exceed our long term carrying capacity in the short run. If I am correct then eventually, as occurs in any bubble dynamic, a reckoning will produce a deviation of equal and opposite magnitude, reigning in a global dark age and perhaps driving to extinction our species.

your expectations of how nations will develop run counter to an over 400 year long historical trend so they certainly don't have the benefit of the doubt. you frame my understanding of the issue of carrying capacity extension incorrectly. i view the continual and self-correcting process of human innovation as capable of extending carrying capacity well beyond where it needs to be to avert an abrupt crash from the current level. this process may well involve temporal usage of dynamics that on their own are not sustainable. just that humanity relied on the burning of coal at one point in it's development does not necessitate it extend the habit forever into the future.

If this is what you believe then your historical perspective is narrow. Examples of civilization collapse abound throughout history.

Every wondered why the "fertile" crescent, "birth place of civilization," is a dessert? The leading explanation is that widespread deforestation and overgrazing effectively destroyed the ecosystem, and so the epicenter of human civilization slowly migrated west. The next great wave of civilization complexity and "advance" occurred peaked under the Roman empire and was succeeded by a "dark age" 1000+ years in duration.

Read up on history of Easter Island and you'll hear a similar story. As the Easter Island ecosystem failed, ordered society collapsed and population size plummeted as islanders resorted to cannibalism. By the time their plight had become obvious, social organization had decayed to the point where building boats and seeking new land was not an option.

Point is, earth is the ultimate island. We're stuck here for better or for worse (no i don't believe we will successfully manage to populate other planets), and this time there is no unadulterated frontier to which civilization can flee.

for one thing, none of your examples involve anything remote to the kind of world-wide crash that you're implying a risk exists of. you demand a major suspension of disbelief by even drawing the analogy. for another, the "tragedy of the commons" is a children's tale with no real historical basis. there is no substantial historical record of the Easter Island scenario, just a speculation. the climate in the middle east is regularly subject to major changes outside of any human involvement so the scenario you paint - which incidentally is not a consensus among historians - is circumstantial and redundant.

I think that you grossly overestimate man's flexibility, adaptability and intellectual capacity. I'm detecting in you this same sort of culturally ubiquitous arrogance to which I referred in my previous post. As far as I'm concerned, a good analogy for the relationship between humanity it's advanced technology is that of a child playing with a hand grenade or a blind man navigating a mine field. I think we don't even begin to appreciate the extent to which we depend upon the wider community of life on earth, and this oversight may well be out undoing.

it's 100% the opposite way. eco-system depend on human engagement these days, not the other way around. the best way to understand the world these days is to eliminate the concept of "nature". everything is artificial and subject to human discretion in these times. when people in some area stop fishing on the scale they normally do what you get is not a balanced "natural" situation, but one in which another species of fish or sea animal grows out of proportion. you just can't remove the human element this way.

[Timmy]

You are right that there is no conclusive evidence that a tech neutral situation would have produced an s-curve, nor is there conclusive evidence that we are currently teetering on the precipice of a J-curve drop-off. However, neither do you have any conclusive evidence that we are not currently on a j-curve trajectory. We are both speculating, and I'm perfectly willing to admit as much. My position originates in the simple observation that rapid, exponential growth patterns tend to reverse quickly, sharply and unexpectedly. Of course, I'm not so naive as to mistake appearances for processes. I have attempted to peer behind the basic mechanics of tipping points and j-curve dynamics and determine whether human civilization and more generally humanity exhibits prototypical j-curve dynamics. I conclude they do, and I'll explain why.

The core problem facing humanity is that man, who evolves slowly, is unwittingly altering his environment more rapidly than his capacity to adapt. If the rate of environmental change outstrips the rate of man's evolution, his nature winds up incompatible with his environment as though he were a fish out of water. I contend that we are already witnessing the repercussions of a growing mismatch between environment and human design, one that is outwardly observable in historically unprecedented rates of of obesity, cancer and mental illness (admittedly, there are legitimate grounds for questioning the relevance of statistics showing increased cancer and mental illness rates, but I believe the basic trend is evident).

You appear to object to the preceding line of reasoning on two grounds: 1) You disbelieve that ecological change is, to a significant degree, anthropogenic, and 2) you have faith in the capacity of human ingenuity to overcome future challenges "progress" (and survival). Irrespective of the many heated scientific debates over man's impact on our planet, I find it difficult to believe that human activities are not responsible for major ongoing ecological transformations, and I suspect "human ingenuity" is actually responsible for a great many of the truly serious problems our day. In my opinion, we as a society have taken part in a technological arms race that consists of doubling down and leveraging up on a fundamentally defective strategy/approach. Instead of tackling challenges conservatively and holistically with the goal of sustaining healthy, balanced societies, our greed, competitiveness, shortsightedness and insatiable curiosity have driven us repeatedly to ignore the greater context of our decisions and to reject tradition, harmony, and simplicity in the name of immediate, easily observable results. Invariably the quick fixes seem to lead to more problems down the road, and so pace of the technological treadmill must continually accelerate if societies are to continue functioning at all. Consider how western societies have attempted to "solve" the three catastrophes of modern society identified above -- obesity, cancer and mental illness. They have developed a bloated, inefficient medical systems that are increasingly unresponsive to their citizen's needs and which may just create more problems than they actually solve. Their response: add more layers of bureaucratic complexity and hope stupidly for a better outcome. Meanwhile, rates of obesity, cancer and mental illness continue to rise.

So far, the end result of this ratcheting up process has been the replacement of small, holistic, community oriented societies centered around the whole individual with massive, anonymous police states in which we have become slaves to the arbitrary designs of our systems and technologies. In spite of our alleged social progress, we find that we work as hard as ever whilst deriving less and less satisfaction from our lives. Something is seriously wrong with this picture and it takes nothing more than a feat of common sense to realize it. We are drowning in a self imposed sea of complexity and seemingly incapable of reversing our course and returning to shore. And so we continue to flail.

When you point out that our ecosystems are today highly dependent upon our involvement, you are actually supporting my point. We have created this burden for ourselves, and now find ourselves now unable to disengage without paying an unacceptable price.

400 years of history is nothing when you are speculating about trends which play out on the order of millennia. And while, logically speaking, I obviously cannot furnish a single example involving human extinction as the end result, the fact of multiple thousand-plus-year-long dark age during the 12,000 years history of complex human civilizations proves beyond any shadow of a doubt the possibility of severe and prolonged civilization declines of orders of magnitude greatly exceeding the 20-30 year types of events you have demarcated as the extreme of what's possible. Also, while I am aware of the lack of academic consensus on the matter of Mesopotamian desertification and the course of events that transpired on Easter Island, such examples ought to at least cause you stop and think.

Mind you, I'm not predicting that an apocalyptic crash is currently playing out before our eyes. I'm open to the possibility that we are tens, even hundreds of years away from such an event's unfolding. I'm just mindful of the possibility, even likelihood, that the long term trend is down, not up. I am actually quit a bit less certain in my perceptions than I come across as being. You may well be correct that the march of human history will continue unabated into the indefinite future, but, to be blunt, I seriously doubt this.

[ashlesha]

lol, what happened in here?