GENIUS FORUMS

Erich Fromm in his book 'The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness' speaks of the cybernetic or monocerebral man:

"The cybernetic man is almost exclusively cerebrally oriented: he is a monocerebral man. His approach to the world around him - and to himself - is intellectual; he wants to know what things are, how they function and how they can be constructed or manipulated. This approach has been fostered by science, and it has become dominate since the end of the middle ages. It is the very essence of modern progress, the basis of the technical domination of the world and of mass consumption. Is there anything ominous about this orientation? Indeed it might seem that this aspect of 'progress' is not ominous, were it not for some worrisome facts. In the first place this "monocerebral" orientation is by no means only to be found in those who are engaged in scientific work; it is common to a vast part of the population: clerical workers, salesmen, engineers, physicians, managers and especially many intellectuals and artists - in fact, one may surmise, to most of the urban population. They all approach the world as a conglomerate of things to be understood in order to be used effectively. Second, and not less important, this cerebral-intellectual approach goes together with the absence of an affective response. One might say feelings have withered, rather than that they are repressed; inasmuch as they are alive they are not cultivated, and are relatively crude; they take on the form of passions, such as the passion to win, to prove superior to others, to destroy, or the excitement in sex, speed, and noise. One further factor must be added. The monocerebral man is characterized by another very significant feature: a special kind of narcissism that has as its object itself - his body and his skill - in brief, himself as an instrument of success. The monocerebral man is so much a part of the machinery he has built, that his machines are just as much the object of his narcissism as he is himself; in fact, between the two exist a kind of symbiotic relationship: the union of one individual self with another (or any other power outside of the own self) in such a way as to make each lose the integrity of its own self and to make them dependent on each other. In a symbolic sense it is not nature any more that is man's mother but the "second nature" he has built, the machines that nourish and protect him. Another feature of the cybernetic man - his tendancy to behave in a routinized, stereotyped, and unspontaneous manner - is to be found in a more drastic form in many schizophrenic obsessional stereotypes."

I reduce the essence of what Fromm is trying to get across above to the following far more simple analogy of the ongoing human dilemma:

We live in our brains and not in our hearts, and therefore love, understanding, and right-action or right-correspondence with life and other people do not exist in our lives. Which is due fundamentally to the lack of love, discipline, and warm human touch in the early and critical formative years of our development, causing most of us to have permanently malformed or damaged brains and neurological systems. Consequently feelings, intuitions, and right-perceptiveness have not been properly wired into us. Thus we live primarily in our heads or in an essentially cold and calculating mode of the intellect, thought, reason, and logic, rather than in our hearts or a warm, compassionate mode of intuitions or feelings. Or ideally in a mode where there's a fine or a natural balance between these two modes. The head or the brain or thought mode and the heart or the feeling or intuitive mode.

That's a great book, all of Fromm's writings are worth reading.

This is a pretty monocerebral board, no?

His psychoanalysis of Freud near the end of that book is interesting, not to mention his thoughts on Hitler, Stalin and the like.

What I get most of it is his replacement of the death instinct and libidinous desire with the theory that man's primary difficult is his relationship with reality generally and that so-called "death instinct" or "libido" are expressions of this desire to be in union with reality.

In a way, Freud was the quintessential monocerebral man, because Freud took many of his own neuroses and projected them intellectually onto all humanity. His desire to have sex with his mother became the Oedipus Complex, common to all men, and thus, Freud did away with his neurosis intellectually. He reasoned it away.

Where I disagree with Fromm would be that the monocerebral man primarily feels with the "heart", and it is this feeling that compels him to identify with his intellect. He feels, and this feeling urges him to abandon feeling and focus on the intellect. But we always feel first and think later.

This is a pretty monocerebral board, no?

Yes, except for me. And to a certain lesser extent Bob.

Animus wrote:This is a pretty monocerebral board, no?

Monocerebralism is everywhere in these last days. Though elsewhere it's not as highfalutin as it seems to be here.

Earlier today I was re-reading Fromm's 'The Art of Loving'. I feel it's probably his finest book. Short, sweet, simple, down-to-earth, and focused on the solution to the world's ills. Love!

He who loveth is born of the Infinite.

Bob Michael wrote:

Animus wrote:This is a pretty monocerebral board, no?

Monocerebralism is everywhere in these last days. Though elsewhere it's not as highfalutin as it seems to be here.

Earlier today I was re-reading Fromm's 'The Art of Loving'. I feel it's probably his finest book. Short, sweet, simple, down-to-earth, and focused on the solution to the world's ills. Love!

He who loveth is born of the Infinite.

My girlfriend is reading 'The Art of Loving' right now. It is one of Fromm's finest books for exactly the reasons you stated. While Anatomy of Human Destructiveness is great, its pretty long. Fromm gets right to his points in The Art of Loving. I can't remember all the books I have of his, pretty near all of them. Man For Himself, Escape From Freedom, The Sane Society. The Sane Society was my first Fromm, still one of the best, IMHO.

I remembered a quote from that book:

Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence.
Erich Fromm

Read more: http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/autho ... z18QH9H7Yq

Animus wrote:I remembered a quote from that book: "Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence." (Erich Fromm)

In 'TAOL' Fromm speaks of the need to avoid "trivial conversation", "bad company", and interestingly, "people whose soul is dead."

The latter I find being the vast majority of people. Their vital sixth-sense or intuitive mechanism having been destroyed by the cold and brutal human world they were born into.

Animus wrote:"Love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence." [Erich Fromm]

Indeed we fill up our heads with all sorts of schemes and dreams for world reform and fail to see the one and only solution, which is Love.

It's a delicious irony in that those who condemn in others their coldness, their lack of love etc...
turn out to be incredibly scathing, judgemental, controlling and proud themselves.

Bob, can you please give it to me straight up.

You say I am monocerebral, cybernetic, trivial conversation, bad company, have a dead soul etc...

You say you are none of these things.

You say it's the last days and I'm finished and you're not.

What actually happens to me?
What is your fate?

Can you help me with these questions?

Dennis Mahar wrote:You say I am monocerebral, cybernetic, trivial conversation, bad company, have a dead soul etc...You say you are none of these things.You say it's the last days and I'm finished and you're not.

You're putting words in my mouth here, Dennis.

Dennis Mahar wrote:What actually happens to me?

That all depends on the cards life dealt you and how well you can align your will with evolution's will.

Dennis Mahar wrote:What is your fate?

To build an 'ark' for some of those who can tune into the master plan in order to safely ride out the terrible 'storm' that's soon ahead. Of course having more than one 'ark' is always a real possibility, which might allow for a viable plan for yourself to also be a modern day Noah. But then who really knows anything for certain? I may die in my sleep tonight, which is fine too.

It's looking grim Bob.
How did you access the Master Plan?
What happened?

How did you access the Master Plan?

Google.

This is deadly serious Bas, go to the naughty chair!

Just between you and me Bob.
I've failed the my 'will aligned with evolution's will criteria'.
What will happen to me?

I'm desparate now.
In my desparation I'm going to have to ask for your credentials.

Did God actually tell you?
Is it conviction based in hearsay?

You have to have faith in the afterlife, because that's where the truth lies.

Dennis Mahar wrote:I've failed the my 'will aligned with evolution's will criteria'. What will happen to me?

You'll probably live out little more than a life of 'quiet desperation'. Though you probably won't realize it as such. So perhaps you're blessed afterall.

You have to have faith in the afterlife, because that's where the truth lies.

I'll go along with that.
I see the religious types caught up in a mood of 'lusting after'...
I mean there's a real benefit to them in a nuclear storm.
They're promised a reward.
They're always up and about with a great deal of perkiness.

Bob,
Can I have your credentials please?

Dennis Mahar wrote:Bob, Can I have your credentials please?

I don't need any Dennis. I speak with an authority which is not my own. A few have ears to hear while most unfortunately don't. It's really as simple as that.

Thanks for your patience with me and your kindness regarding my inquiry Bob.

Normally, in the everyday World when somebody appropriates to themself the responsibility of defining my future for me.
My response is to ask for credentials.
That's fair.

I speak with an authority which is not my own

Your response has thrown me somewhat.
Can you elaborate?

Dennis Mahar wrote:Your response has thrown me somewhat. Can you elaborate?

When I speak it's not I who speaks but the Infinite that speaks through me.

When I speak it's not I who speaks but the Infinite that speaks through me.

Fair enough, I don't know where I can go with that.

I was talking to another guy on this subject once.
He was linking God's will to nuclear storm.
It was intended.
I asked him where he stood in that.
He said God's will is my will.

I explained I wanted to transition the intentional verb to the copulative verb.
that would mean,
rather than saying nuclear storm is the will of God,
it would be saying,
I am nuclear storm.

He pondered a moment,
looked at me and said,
Bring it on!

I was shocked.

He was 'lit up' like a Christmas tree.

Dennis Mahar wrote:He was 'lit up' like a Christmas tree.

Very enLIGHTening, Dennis. Thanks!

Are you getting the full force of what I'm saying Bob?

Any religious type of whatever persuasion.
that has it stacked up that there's a reward later on.

Is by necessity,

I am nuclear storm...Bring it on!

If I come at a religious type and say:

what you have is a possibility for existential existence.

what you have is a 'stand'.

what you have is a context provided by Worldhood to live a life out of.

what you've done is make a very big move.

I get shot down with this:

When I speak it's not I who speaks but the Infinite that speaks through me.

Bob Michael wrote:Erich Fromm in his book 'The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness' speaks of the cybernetic or monocerebral man:

"The cybernetic man is almost exclusively cerebrally oriented: he is a monocerebral man. His approach to the world around him - and to himself - is intellectual; he wants to know what things are, how they function and how they can be constructed or manipulated. This approach has been fostered by science, and it has become dominate since the end of the middle ages. It is the very essence of modern progress, the basis of the technical domination of the world and of mass consumption. Is there anything ominous about this orientation? Indeed it might seem that this aspect of 'progress' is not ominous, were it not for some worrisome facts. In the first place this "monocerebral" orientation is by no means only to be found in those who are engaged in scientific work; it is common to a vast part of the population: clerical workers, salesmen, engineers, physicians, managers and especially many intellectuals and artists - in fact, one may surmise, to most of the urban population. They all approach the world as a conglomerate of things to be understood in order to be used effectively. Second, and not less important, this cerebral-intellectual approach goes together with the absence of an affective response. One might say feelings have withered, rather than that they are repressed; inasmuch as they are alive they are not cultivated, and are relatively crude; they take on the form of passions, such as the passion to win, to prove superior to others, to destroy, or the excitement in sex, speed, and noise. One further factor must be added. The monocerebral man is characterized by another very significant feature: a special kind of narcissism that has as its object itself - his body and his skill - in brief, himself as an instrument of success. The monocerebral man is so much a part of the machinery he has built, that his machines are just as much the object of his narcissism as he is himself; in fact, between the two exist a kind of symbiotic relationship: the union of one individual self with another (or any other power outside of the own self) in such a way as to make each lose the integrity of its own self and to make them dependent on each other. In a symbolic sense it is not nature any more that is man's mother but the "second nature" he has built, the machines that nourish and protect him. Another feature of the cybernetic man - his tendancy to behave in a routinized, stereotyped, and unspontaneous manner - is to be found in a more drastic form in many schizophrenic obsessional stereotypes."

Anyone who understands what this forum is about wouldn't make the mistake of calling its methods monocerebral. They understand that one cannot lecture oneself into the truth:

"Weltanschauung is in itself productive; yet it can never be synthetically credited from an ever-so-great sum of special knowledge, as every age of exclusively empirical knowledge believes."

(Sex and Character, Preface)

Understanding comes after reflection, but it doesn't take empiricism as the source of information, but the absolute.

This is why, Bob, your emphasis on love as the proper route to wisdom, is incorrect. You've blinkered out another option.


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Kelly Jones wrote:This is why, Bob, your emphasis on love as the proper route to wisdom, is incorrect. You've blinkered out another option.

Hmmm, I tend to think the problem is that I've shined too much light into your dark cave of genius, Kelly.