Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site peora.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!genrad!decvax!tektronix!uw-beaver!cornell!vax135!petsd!peora!jer From: jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) Newsgroups: net.singles Subject: Re: Emotions and choice Message-ID: <1447@peora.UUCP> Date: Tue, 6-Aug-85 21:21:39 EDT Article-I.D.: peora.1447 Posted: Tue Aug 6 21:21:39 1985 Date-Received: Mon, 12-Aug-85 01:46:04 EDT References: <5557@cbscc.UUCP><591@unc.UUCP> Organization: Perkin-Elmer SDC, Orlando, Fl. Lines: 94 >>> I'm a (almost totally) self-actualized individual and I <--- from me. >>> KNOW that my emotions are my own CHOICE. Yes, >>> folks, choice. > Sorry, luv. If you give someone else responsibility for and > control of your actions and reactions (EMOTIONS, is what I'm talking > of) then you are living through them, not through yourself. If this > is what you want, then it is your choice. (gee, there's that word > again.) My goodness. When I wrote my original posting on the popular cult of self-actualization, I had not read this posting, since it was a very old one, and I had meant to skip over it. I don't generally make it a practice to criticize people in a direct manner, but the above comments (written both by the same person) do incense me somewhat. First of all, I do not really believe that "a (almost totally) self-act- ualized individual" would say they were so. That is a dismally vain and pompous thing to do. Instead, it gets quite to the heart of the matter which I was commenting on more generally previously. When I was a graduate student, I can recall a seminar they had there which was supposed to help you attain self-act- ualization. In those days, there was a magazine of social-consciousness, called "Versus," which frequently wrote penetrating commentaries on such things (it was later censured out of existence by the Panhellenic Council, because it suggested that some sorority members were not sincere in their charitable behaviours), which sent a reporter to this seminar. What struck me about this seminar -- and I will state this rather bluntly -- was that this seminar taught you something along these lines: 1) Self-actualization involves recognizing that you are in full control of your life. 2) Because you are in full control of your life, you don't have to experience any bad emotions if you don't want to. 3) People may try to make you not be in full control of your life; they may place demands on you, or you may have an emotional dependence on them. This is very bad. You can tell it is very bad, because sometimes it makes you feel bad, and it makes you feel bad because you have not maintained full control of your emotions. 4) Therefore you should realize that you are responsible to no one but yourself. When you feel bad, it probably means you are developing an emotional interdependency with someone else, and you shouldn't do that, because YOU ARE A SELF-ACTUALIZING PERSON! As I stated earlier, this is a philosophy derived from pathological cases and transplanted into the world of fairly healthy individuals. It is true that there exist people who have problems of emotional dependence. For such people, the above philosophy is a first step in a successive-approximation to moderation in this dependence. At the same time, this same philosophy is an absurd one in the everyday world. Now, it is hard for me to make an argument for this, because to do so would involve issues of moral relativism, and I know that there are some cheerful moral relativists waiting out there in the wings, and I just don't want to get into that long, pointless, tiring line of cold philosophical reason that attempts to demonstrate the shortcomings of moral relativism. So instead, I will just state an opinion: It is my opinion that you have a responsibility to care, to a reasonable and healthy extent, about the welfare of your fellow human-being -- not all of them, just those in close proximity to you. Only a few of them, in fact, because there are a lot of people in the world; but I feel you have a moral responsibility in this respect. It is true that you cannot help all the people in the world, and you have to realize this; but it is a sad thing that the world is this way, and you should try to help out when you can, when you are truly needed. In a less opinion-based way, however, I will say that I don't think the people Maslow described were the sort of people this strange notion of self-actualization attempts to produce. Maslow noted that they could sometimes be cold; that they could abandon long-term friends if they felt that that friend had betrayed some basic principle of theirs; and that they tended to be detached. However, I think he also perceived them as definitely caring individuals. I furthermore seriously doubt that very many of them would make statements about their position of strength, then go on to further berate someone by accusing them of failing as human beings, "by choice". Among other things, he viewed them as very "democratic," and I doubt they would have perceived these distinctions in people, other than in observing that they did certain things that were not perceived as particularly good or just. -- Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642