Reader Discussion: 'Repress Yourself'

That struggle shouldn't be as hard as it is.

However incompletely and inconsistently, Iraq is saying that it is giving up on weapons of mass destruction and agressive designs.

The United States is saying that, if Iraq does so - there need not be war.

We're at an impasse, in large part - over questions of fact. And assumptions. Is treachery a complete - or even a particularly large - contributing part of the impasses we face?

The physical and logical interactions of the world are complex enough that "reasonable" answers - patterns that really hang together when connected - are very sparse. For this reason, right answers very often converge. With enough effort - if people are indeed consciously facing the real situation - the odds of getting good answers are excellent.

That means that issues of unconscious processing - and repression (in the psychological sense, as well as the political sense) are important.

People believe what feels right. But after enough evidence - enough care - quite often we almost always, almost all of us, feel right about the same things.

Almost always - but not always. When we don't come to agreements - issues of unconscious processing - and repression ought to be faced - with enough humility that all involved can admit that they might be missing, or misjudging some of the situation themselves.

rshow55 - 09:09am Mar 2, 2003 EST (# 118 of 126)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

rshow55 - 01:57pm Feb 23, 2003 EST (# 9240 http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_9000s/9239.htm http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_9000s/9241.htm

If we got that far - we'd be well ahead of where we are now - and the world would be a more hopeful place.

It would be more resonable to hope for legitimate exercises of power.

And reasonable to hope that, quite often, the last resort of violence could be avoided.

Maybe in the Iraqi case.

Maybe in the case of North Korea.

Maybe in other cases, too - including many of the cases that have concerned Almarst.

Almarst , since May 2001, has been suggesting that the United States has been governed by a conspiracy - and, in his view, a very evil one. The idea of conspiriacies is common enough - and sometimes true. The idea of unconscous and repressed logical processes can provide an alternative explanation, often enough. Without any need for people to forget that they are responsible for what they do - in significant ways - whatever their conscious intentions, or rationales, may happen to be.

When people resist checking facts - or even doubt that there can be facts to check - issues of repression can be involved.

As Repress Yourself by LAUREN SLATER http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/magazine/23REPRESSION.html . . . http://www.mrshowalter.net/Repress_Yourself.htm . . points out, repression may or may not be healthy. None of us can attend to everything we do - or feel. But if consequences matter enough - it can be worth doing so - and it can be reasonable to expect others to do so, as well.

The logical implication of unconscious processing and repression is clear. We can make mistakes - logical, practical, and moral -- and yet feel very sure of ourselves. Maybe most sure when we have the most reason to doubt.

rshow55 - 09:10am Mar 2, 2003 EST (# 119 of 126)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

Repression - and unconscious things, active and at some level known - but unconscious or denied, are a source of problems.

Another source of problems, that I think matters in the Iraq matter - with our problems with radical Islam, and with our problems with North Korea, involve problems of paradigm conflict including automatic and unconscious perceptual processing.

A classic experiment is described in THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS 2nd Ed. by Thomas S. Kuhn, , at the end of Chapter 6 “Anomaly and the Emergence of Scientific Discoveries”

313 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@138.SCCbcNceBno^1@.ee7726f/367

314 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@138.SCCbcNceBno^1@.ee7726f/368

Some other references to paradigm conflict problems - which are a barrier to peaceful resolution - are set out in 116 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@201.dgfSa6OVF8o^287330@.f28e622/137

I believe that there is a good chance that the Bush administration can get good answers to the problems set out in

Wizard's Chess http://www.nytimes.com/2003/01/05/opinion/05SUN1.html

America now faces a national security challenge of extraordinary complexity. Washington must simultaneously cope with three separate and potentially grave threats — from Iraq, from North Korea and from the threat of reconstituted international terrorist networks.

To do that, we have to do a better job of "connecting the dots" than we've done - and insist that others do so as well, in ways that work. I think that's possible.

rshow55 - 09:10am Mar 2, 2003 EST (# 120 of 126)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

rshow55 - 08:29am Feb 24, 2003 EST (# 9250 http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_9000s/9250.htm

From July of last year: America the Invulnerable? The World Looks Again by STEVEN ERLANGER http://www.nytimes.com/2002/07/21/weekinreview/21ERLA.html

"The Atlantic is fundamentally divided over attitudes to power, Mr. Kagan asserts. The Europeans, to escape their bloody history, are sharing sovereignty in the European Union, "moving beyond power into a self-contained world of laws and rules and transnational negotiation and cooperation."

"The United States, as a traditional nation-state bestriding the world and seeing threats all around, is "exercising power in the anarchic Hobbesian world where international laws and rules are unreliable and where true security and the defense and promotion of a liberal order still depend on the possession and use of military might."

"So, Mr. Kagan argues, behind the bitterness of the policy disputes are deep differences in values and politics, stemming from different histories and attitudes toward power and threat. The continental drift isn't a function of one administration, although the tone may change, with Mr. Bush more blunt than the ever-emollient Bill Clinton.

"The resolution, Mr. Kagan believes, is in a Europe that will commit more money and resources to the military — to the ability to project power, at least through the Balkans and perhaps the Middle East. Only then will Washington take Europe more seriously. Mr. Kagan says he would like Europe to take such steps, but doubts that it will. "

That may be part of the resolution. A more basic part - a more fundamental goal is to make a world where international laws and rules are much more reliable.

That is in large part a logical task - we need to know - better than we do - how people actually work - both when things work well - and when they don't - so we can make things better.

On soldiers and responsibility: THE 'EATHEN by Rudyard Kipling http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7b085/18

we aren't ideally logical beings - nor entirely conscious. Sometimes we repress and cooperate in repression in many senses (the poem includes good examples) - and sometimes we are automatic - and necessarily so.

More Kipling:

Mesopotamia .....1917 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee74d94/3625

Soldier an' Sailor Too http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?13@@.ee79f4e/1702

THE VIRGINITY http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee79f4e/1295

rshow55 - 09:11am Mar 2, 2003 EST (# 121 of 126)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

rshow55 - 08:30am Feb 24, 2003 EST (# 9251 http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_9000s/9250.htm

A classic experiment is described in THE STRUCTURE OF SCIENTIFIC REVOLUTIONS 2nd Ed. by Thomas S. Kuhn, , at the end of Chapter 6 “Anomaly and the Emergence of Scientific Discoveries”

313 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@138.SCCbcNceBno^1@.ee7726f/367

314 http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@138.SCCbcNceBno^1@.ee7726f/368

Some other references to paradigm conflict problems - which are a barrier to peaceful resolution - are set out in 116 http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_0100s/md115n.htm

The long, distinguished editorial yesterday Power and Leadership: The Real Meaning of Iraq http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/opinion/23SUN1.html says that

" More discussion is the only road that will get the world to the right outcome — concerted effort by a wide coalition of nations to force Saddam Hussein to give up his weapons of mass destruction. We need another debate. Another struggle to make this the United Nations' leadership moment.

We have to learn how to get closure - which often seems so close - and then eludes us.

An understanding of repression is important here. And the fact that we're automatic, as well. An area where those things are important is reading instruction - where both repression and automaticity - unconscious automatic processing - are important.

A huge step forward - in diplomacy, and life generally - would be for people to admit that - for everybody - repression and unconscious processing exist . When it matters enough - it can be morally compelling to look at them - to avoid mistakes and tragedies.

rshow55 - 09:12am Mar 2, 2003 EST (# 122 of 126)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

rshow55 - 08:39am Feb 24, 2003 EST (# 9252 http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_9000s/9252.htm Repress Yourself by LAUREN SLATER http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/23/magazine/23REPRESSION.html . . . < href="http://www.mrshowalter.net/Repress_Yourself.htm">http://www.mrshowalter.net/Repress_Yourself.htm . . deals with enormously important things:

''Repression'' is a word that radiates far beyond its small syllabic self; . . . . . But in experimental psychology, as opposed to psychoanalysis, repression has far more mundane meanings; it is used to describe those who minimize, distract, deny.

"George Bonanno, an associate professor of psychology at Columbia University Teachers College, has found similar results in his many inquiries into the role of repression and avoidance in healthy coping styles. And, unlike the Israeli researchers, Bonanno has used scales that go beyond self-report to determine who's repressing what . . . . .

"in a study of bereaved widows and widowers, Bonanno used a technique called verbal autonomic association. He had people talk about their loss while he looked at autonomic arousal (heartbeat, pulse rates and galvanic skin responses). What he saw: a subgroup of mourners who consistently said they weren't distressed while displaying high heart rates. ''These are the repressors,'' Bonanno says. ''And these people, the ones who showed this pattern, had less grief over time and had a better overall life adjustment, and this has been consistent across studies.''

"Bonanno has recently completed a study involving adolescent girls and young women who are sexual-abuse survivors. ''The girls who chose not to talk about the sexual abuse during the interview, the girls who measured higher on repression scales, these were the repressors, and they also had fewer internalizing symptoms like depression and anxiety and fewer externalizing symptoms like hostility and acting out. They were better-adjusted.'' . .

Repression can be useful, at least immediately in certain circumstances. Very useful. But there have to be important reservations about "the virtues of denial". Slater ends the article:

"Of course there are times, in an increasingly frantic world, when we need to do that; repression as filter, a screen to keep us clean. So turn away. But run away? Therein lies the litmus test.

"If you're breathless, knees knocking, and life is a pure sprint from some shadow, I say go back. Slow down. Dwell. As for the rest of us, let's do an experiment and measure the outcome. Let us fashion our lids; let us prop them proudly on top of our hurting heads.

We need our secrets, lies and fictions, conscious, and repressed - semiconscious and totally automatic as well. Our patterns work as well as they happen to. When problems are bad enough - when matters of life and death hinge on more reliable understandings - we must face them.

Repression is emotional, deep and dark. There's something else that is at least as important - and maybe less threatening. A lot of human behavior is automatic. Language processing, most of it, is like that. Reading - something people learn after much agony - with plenty of consious thought in the beginning - is like that. As you read, and think - you can't possibly be conscious of what's going on in your head. But in inescapable ways - you have to deal with the consequences.

There are important logical, practical, and moral consequences that come from the fact that we're not entirely honest - nor entirely conscious - and sometimes - on things that matter a great deal - not conscious at all. And people have different automatic responses. Those differences can kill, and often have, and can close off reasonable hopes, and often have.

We have to handle them better.

rshow55 - 09:12am Mar 2, 2003 EST (# 123 of 126)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

rshow55 - 08:54am Feb 24, 2003 EST (# 9253 http://forums.nytimes.com/webin/WebX?8@28.jJQqa3Xi4US.808110@.f28e622/10780

Usually, by a process of "collecting the dots" and "connecting the dots" we figure things out in ways that work for us, consciously and unconsciously. Individually - and as we work in interacting groups.

The unconscious logic in humans is sometimes very good: any reader of this thread has almost certainly figured out more than 100,000 word definitions - and done so correctly - without consciously being aware of the process. A lot of human negotiation includes logic that is no less sophisticated, and no more conscious. We watch television and do other perceptual-cognitive things, for fun, that necessarily involve an enormous amount of enormously ornate unconscious processing - virtually none of it completely understood in the ways that matter for action.

When a process of "collecting the dots" and "connecting the dots" fails to get agreement - people are seeing things differently - and if impasses continue - assumptions and processes - including the hidden assumptions and processes that are automatic - or semiconsciously repressed - or completely repressed from awareness but still active - have to be considered.

That's not impossible - or even all that hard. People set up situations (often correctly) where "the dots" are collected and say - to individuals and groups of individuals

" Here. Look for yourself."

The question

" Do you see what I see?"

is a very good question. When people ask it - and ask others to ask it - and keep at the process - problems that are otherwise hopeless can be solved.

Happens millions of times a day, all over the world - and has for many centuries. It needs to happen a bit more often - with a little more clarity - for international relations to become more reliable and stable than they are now.

Here's a place where "the golden rule" might help. When it matters - we can ask others to look at their assumptions - and have to. And we have to remember that they can see things differently from the way we see them - for reasons that can be wrong are right - just as we can be wrong or right.

If we keep at it - correct answers are likely to be found. That can make things more satisfactory, and especially safer.

Guardian - http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?8@@.ee7a163/414

rshow55 - 09:13am Mar 2, 2003 EST (# 124 of 126)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

The issues of repression and other kinds of unconscious or semiconsious processing are important when we think about the decisions that people make, the reliability of those decisions, the biases, conscious and unconscious, that may have been in play in the formation of those decisions - and practical and moral consequences.

rshow55 - 10:23am Feb 28, 2003 EST (# 9354 http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_9000s/9354.htm

NASA Pressed on When Officials Learned of E-Mail About Shuttle By KENNETH CHANG and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/28/national/nationalspecial/28INQU.html

The details that were obvious to me were, it seems, obvious to many NASA people, too.

What did they do?

A sermon posted on this thread many times deals with a case where a Russian colonel did not do "what was expected" - and saved the world from horror. The NASA engineers were ordinary people - reacting in ordinary ways - but they were not heroes. http://www.mrshowalter.net/sermon.html

9314 http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_9000s/9314.htm

9205 http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_9000s/9203.htm

9241 http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_9000s/9241.htm

9242 http://www.mrshowalter.net/a_new_9000s/9241.htm

We need logical tools, and human insights, that make closure possible, and agreements resiliant, to a degree that they haven't been before.

9040 reads:

But our "logic" - is mostly a choosing between many alteratives going on or being fashioned in our heads - and in the course of that choosing - people believe what "feels right."

But what "feels right," most often, is what, in our minds "cooperates with the interests of authority - with our group." Look at Pritchard's notes on Milgram's experiment - and on Jonestown - to get a sense of how wrong it feels, for most people, to go against authority. http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~epritch1/social98a.html

We need to face the fact that there is more need to check - especially when "the ties that bind" are involved - than people feel comfortable with.

On this thread, again and again, there have been technical arguments - and with absolutely stunning, monotonous regularity - gisterme presents arguments that make no technical sense at all - that are perversely wrong - and feels right about them.

(I believe, having read gisterme's response to this - that I'm exactly correct - and that gisterme is dangerously wrong - I'd even be inclined, just here, to use the word evil -- though he's making some openminded statements. But would block what would actually need to be done for checking to closure. ) . . .

We're dealing here with nonrandom, basic patterns of human behavior that get us into messes. We need to face them. If we did - we could do better.

We ought to think about the behavior set out in http://www.uwinnipeg.ca/~epritch1/social98a.html and realize that if we're i "wired to be nice" - that is - to be cooperative - we're also "wired to be self deceptive and stupid" whenever the immediate thought seems to go against our cooperative needs.

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/413

http://talk.guardian.co.uk/WebX?14@@.ee7a163/414

rshow55 - 09:14am Mar 2, 2003 EST (# 125 of 126)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

rshow55 - 02:00pm Feb 28, 2003 EST (# 9362

It seems to me that a lot of things might work out well - though things seem precarious.

They'd work out better, it seems to me, if some responsible people searched "almarst" , "almarst2002" and "almarst2003" on this thread - and looked at a lot of good stuff he's posted.

There's a lot of good stuff by gisterme , too.

Ugly as things are - compared to patterns of past centuries - or anytime in the 20th century - things seem to me to be going well. With just a little luck - maybe very well. Maybe I'm really screwed up - I'm feeling hopeful. There's some ugliness - but maybe it doesn't have to be too bad.

Sometimes - there have to be fights. Things have to be decided. To the extent that we can get ideas straight - get understandings to correct closures about facts - we can avoid a lot of agony and carnage.

There is such a thing as moral wrong.

And there are such things as right decisions.

Some of our most basic operational and moral problems are, in some key ways logical problems - and problems of courage - and a willingness to face facts.

Added here: To do that - we have to face the fact that we can deny facts and emotions - consciously, semiconsciously, and unconsciously, and that we do a lot of unconscious processing in our minds - and so do the other people we interact with. That means we have to be careful - wary - and concerned that we may feel sure of answers that can be wrong, or parly wrong, in ways that matter.

rshow55 - 09:15am Mar 2, 2003 EST (# 126 of 126)
Can we do a better job of finding truth? YES. Click "rshow55" for some things Lchic and I have done and worked for on this thread.

rshow55 - 02:01pm Feb 28, 2003 EST (# 9363

One of the first, slow jobs I had when I was relegated to "special education" was to slog through the entirety of Russell and Whitehead's Principia Mathematica , with instructions from Flugge to look for mistakes, big blatant errors - and other reasons the enterprise of mathematical-philosophical analysis had gone so badly. So my first feelings about Russell were not feelings of love.

Still, I've been charmed, recently, to read a much clearer book by Russell . . a book with pictures - and a lot of effort to deal with the problems of exposition the Science Times section handles so well.

THE WISDOM OF THE WEST : a historical survey of Western Philosophy in its social and political setting by Bertrand Russell , edited by P.Foulkes, with paintings by E. Wright. 1959

Here are passages from the prologue:

"There are indeed two attitudes that might be adopted to the unknown. One is to accept the pronouncements of people who say they know, on the basis of books, mysteries or other sources of inspiration. The other way is to go out and look for oneself, and this is the way of science and philosophy"

. . .

"Out of the common activities in which groups participate, there develops the means of communication that we call language. The fundamental object is to enable men to apply themselves to a common purpose. Thus the basic notion here is agreement. Likewise, this might well be taken as the starting point of logic. It arises from the fact that in communicating, people eventually come to agree, even if they do no more than agree to differ. When such an impasse was reached our ancestors no doubt settled the matter by trial of strength. Once you dispatch your interlocator he no longer contradicts you. The alternative sometimes adopted is to pursue the matter by discussion, if it is pursued at all. This is the way of science and philosophy. The reader may judge for himself how far we have progressed in this since prehistoric times. "

Maybe we can make some more progress, still. We need some better answers about "what it means to be a human being" - and those answers don't look so very far away, or so very difficult. If we had them, we could have more fun, be more prosperous, and fight less.

Added here: A willingness to face up with the logical (not just the psychological or psychiatric) consequences of repression and unconscious processing, will be necessary for some progress we can reasonably work for, and hope for.