Critical Self-Consciousness

[coberst]

Critical Self-Consciousness

I once asked a professor of philosophy what is philosophy about, she said “philosophy is about radically critical self-consciousness”. I have decided that CT (Critical Thinking) is the first important step on to this stage of critical self-consciousness. CT is philosophy light.

Our mind tends to be dominated by the ego and the group when we have not yet become critically self-conscious. I am not an expert in these matters (such has never hindered me from expressing my considered opinion) but from the things I read regarding critical self-consciousness they make sense to me.

Ego influences me by:
I think it is true therefore it is.
I want it to be true therefore it is.

Group influences me by:
The group name identifies me.
The group influences my associations.
The group is us and the other group is them.
What we do is good what they do is bad.

I suspect that the ego domination was the natural human condition during early evolution and slowly the ego morphed (transformed) into a group in some areas of consciousness (focused attention).

I think that Madison Avenue (advertising agencies) and the oligarchy (non elective group running the nation in that group’s interest) have learned to manipulate our egocentric and sociocentric characteristics for the advantages of marketing interests. Our ego drives us to buy the BIG car and our group drives us to dominate the other group in the interest of our group.

‘To be critical’ is often, I think, confused with ‘to be negative’. To be critical is to stop, think, analyze, and seek comprehension and possible improvement. To be critically self-conscious is to focus the critical effort inward with the self as the object of criticism.

I think that most of our personal and international tragedies are a direct result of our lack of critical self-consciousness.

Is that a ‘bunch of baloney’ or do you find truth contained therein?

I think that we can do a much better job building a better society if we developed a critical self-consciousness. What do you think?

[Mark Lapierre]

I don't think it's a bunch of baloney, but I do think that any suggestion to focus on any particular area, will lead to less focus on other important areas of influence, even if those other areas are mentioned.

So I would include an acknowledgement of the influences of everything outside the self in that bold paragraph about critical self-consciousness. Critical self-consciousness is only part of the story. But it's also one of the stages of development mentioned by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi in Flow, which I wrote about on my blog. Basically it's the stage at which we realise that the group influences are stronger than we thought, and that the egoic influences are not as stable as we believed.

But there's at least one other stage after that one, during which we focus again on others around us, integrating ourselves more completely into society, without disturbing the results of the previous stage's introspection. Also bear in mind that the stages aren't so clearly delineated in reality, and we can be in different stages at once, or jump back and forth.

So I think that building a better society has to involve both individual development through critical introspection, but also through integration into society. Our tragedies are also the result of an inability (or unwillingness) to see other people as humans, fundamentally like ourselves. Self-consciousness alone won't change that, no matter how critical.

[coberst]

Mark

You are right on the mark. I have discovered an author who helps us concentrate on these essential facts that you reer to.

Ernest Becker has woven a great tapestry, which represents his answer to the question ‘what are we humans doing, why are we doing it, and how can we do it better?’

Becker has written four books “Beyond Alienation”, “Escape from Evil”, “Denial of Death”, and “The Birth and Death of Meaning”; all of which are essential components of his tapestry. Ernest Becker (1924-1974), a distinguished social theorist, popular teacher of anthropology and sociology psychology, won the Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction for the “Denial of Death”.

Many weeks ago a forum member suggested that I might be interested in the author Ernest Becker and I was given the following web site.
Ernest Becker Foundation This is a great one hour audio about Becker’s ideas given by a very good lecturer.

Becker provides the reader with a broad and comprehensible synopsis of the accomplishments of the sciences of anthropology, psychology, sociology, and psychiatry. Knowledge of these accomplishments provides the modern reader with the means for the comprehension of why humans do as they do.

Becker declares that these sciences prove that humans are not genetically driven to be the evil creatures that the reader of history might conclude them to be. We humans are victims of the societies that we create in our effort to flee the anxiety of death. We have created artificial meanings that were designed to hide our anxieties from our self; in this effort we have managed to create an evil far surpassing any that our natural animal nature could cause.

Becker summarizes this synoptic journey of discovery with a suggested solution, which if we were to change the curriculums in our colleges and universities we could develop a citizenry with the necessary understanding to restructure our society in a manner less destructive and more in tune with our human nature.

The only disagreement I have with Becker’s tapestry is in this solution he offers. I am convinced that he has failed to elaborate on an important step that is implied in his work but not given sufficient emphasis. That step is one wherein the general adult population takes up the responsibility that citizens of a democracy must take on; adults must develop a hobby “get a life—get an intellectual life”. In other words, it will be necessary that a significant share of the general population first comprehend these matters sufficiently to recognize the need for the proposed changes to our colleges and universities.


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Ernest Becker Foundation This is a great one hour audio about Becker’s ideas given by a very good lecturer.

Ernest Becker Foundation This is the Becker Foundation.

I have a “Friends of the Library” card from a local college. For a yearly fee of $25 I can borrow any book in that library. I suggest that you get one for your self. I suspect most college libraries will have a copy of Becker’s books. I suggest you read Becker and decide for your self his value.