Ernst Becker wrote:"Personality is less responsible for personality change than the group itself. Plunged into an alien group under constant pressure to adjust to its standards, the patient is hard pressed to hasten his espousal of the new norms. His own values do not apply; and his consequent sense of personal deflation combines with his inner tension and anxiety to drive him to the desire to be accepted. Nor can he test these new standards to which he is opposed, or discuss or reflect upon them with someone of differing persuasion; he is alone in the hostile group, which will only give him its support when it observes changes in him and his behavior. Insistence on his personal values only brings condemnation from the group, so the patient's main concern becomes one of avoiding anticipated retaliation. He tries to make himself less vulnerable by divining what the group expects of him. Under these pressures he comes to understand that only those acts are "good" which aim toward the goal of mental health; any activity resisting this aim is "bad'. The new superego is unambiguous."
Diebert wrote:And yes, that in itself might be called one big fallacy but I prefer to call it non-participation or just putting on a show. Much like at the pub! When one side just has not arrived yet into any meaningful discussion, how can one even point out a fallacy? Don't forget that one party does not want to discuss according to any standard. The appearance of discussion has become then just a cover for seduction, projection, offloading etc. It's more like listening to a drunk emotional guy at the pub I suppose.
He deviated for a split second but he's back with you, Dan. I suppose you might have been worried for a second. I was!
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It has all much more to do with the issue of resisting coercion, which functions at the base of 'zennish' modalities of 'thought control'. The following ideas
can become a reference point:
Ernst Becker in 'Zen: A Rational Critique' wrote:"The Westerner who finds some charm in Zen is often hard put to reconcile the antimony, so foreign to his own traditions, between its poignantly esthetic musings about man and nature and its blatant denial of life. The purpose of this book is not to effect reconciliation, but rather to show that Zen really is a denial of life, a negation of the Western ethic of individuation and autonomy which was so laboriously fashioned by Mediterranean civilization and is still too precariously grasped. It is a trite observation that knowledge accumulates so quickly and voluminously that we are constantly forced to rediscover something long known which has been quietly buried under the silt of more up-to-date thought or more pressing research. Yet this is what seems to have happened with Zen. The credulous new generations have to start again at the beginning and learn things all over; and with an ever new spirit animating their strivings, it is inevitable that they should choose to delight themselves with the wrong things."
"Many in the West revolt both against reason's obviously majestic creations for the good life, as well as its utter failure to solve problems of personal contentment and creativity. But less well known than the negation of mind, and fundamental to any appraisal of it, is the method Zen uses to proselytize. Zen is basically a technique by which to achieve a mental breakdown of people so that they can be made to accept a new ideology."
Once you have noted the dynamic and the function at a core level of a coercive system of thinking (what I am labeling 'core dysfunction'), and once you have identified the players within that system as being unconscious of their own use of such a system, the
exposure of the game changes form. In a sense I guess it steps out of 'good-faith dialectic' and become one of 'dragging into the light'.
I would also suggest that the self, the person who is 'defending' against such an onslaught, must needs become 'tricky' and capable of concealment. There is a whole range of skills that are required to resist being dragged in. The self is really
the precious thing and must be protected from manipulation. To give over your self to some 'dysfunctional group' is not the wisest idea! The game becomes one of resistance, counter-ploy, use of innuendo, defense, etc. But all through the system, all through the players within the system, run all manner of devious currents. These currents can be identified, at least generally. 'Sincerity' is a farce. I suggest everyone actually sees this but few are brave enough (?) to state it.
It is really quite a trip.