Variables - Karen Horney

"That overkindliness may be a reaction-formation against sadistic trends does not preclude the possibility of a genuine kindliness which arises out of basically good relations to others. That generosity may be a reaction-formation against greediness does not disprove the existence of genuine generosity."


So yes, oh yes. How fun. "New ways of psychoanalysis" seems to be a book full of fascinating repetitions of the idea that

- A may be B but A can also be C or D or even E. Thus, one cannot say A is always B.
- Extremes are bad and balance is good.
- Sigmund Freud is insightful but he's also very gross.

YIK! - B0riNG! Where is the originality? Where is the crack and where's the analness? I thought this book was about psychoanalysis, not Zen Buddhism. There's a reason why Sigmund Freud is the biggest name in the Psychology field and not Karen Horney, honey! (even though her surname deserves an award!)

I rant - The trUth!

"Athiests are extreme, they say there's no concrete evidence to prove that God exists, but where's the evidence that God doesn't exist?"

Oh my!! you must be a genius..! piece of shit.


This is what we call a BELIEF.

Do you know what else is a belief? Everything you consider to be the most scientific. Even your mother's existence.

How can people be so presumptuous to think that they know the truth?

Let me just ask everyone a few fundamental questions first.

- Where do we come from?

- Are you absolutely sure that you are conscious, aware of who you are, where you are, what your role in this "world" is?

- Are you absolutely sure that you are not part of your own illusion or something that has yet not a name for?

- Is there anything, ANYTHING you know for sure?

If you can answer any of these above questions with complete confidence, congratulations, you have succeded in qualifying yourself as a jack ass.


We believe in a lot of things. And there's no evidence to prove that anything we believe is anything closer to the "truth". Not only that there's no evidence to prove that there's anything such as the "truth".

So we are left with beliefs. You look around, find whatever you think is "real" and believe in it.

I'm an athiest and I do not believe in God, however I do believe in our ignorance and the mystery. And again, that is my belief. You cannot contradict me because your opinion is just as worthless/worthy as mine. And none of us knows the "truth", for we cannot even know the concept of the "truth".

There is so much to learn and so much we learn to make sense of everything that surrounds us and within us. (Gestalt psychology) But our knowledge is a bunch of hypotheses, theories, beliefs.. the truth? we shall never know.

The psychology of man's possible evolution - P.D. Ouspensky

The whole time I was reading this book, I couldn't ignore how commercial this book sounded. Especially towards the end when Ouspensky does an alleged interview with Mr.M. Ouspensky wanted to promote his school through his lectures, I see. But his approach reminded me of religious cult leaders.


Whilst Ouspensky has a lot of interesting insights to offer - especially regarding the incompleteness of man (nature develops man only to a certain point and then leaves him to develop further by his own efforts and devices), I found his views to be rather extreme, for instance when he says in the book "it's impossible to understand and not accept it at the same time, and thus man is incorrect when he says - I understand but I don't agree" Here, Ouspensky interpreted the idea of "I understand" in a way that demonstrates his lack of understanding in the function of language and communication.

"I understand" is a phrase that can contain various meanings.
1. I understand - where you are coming from, meaning that I understand the context of which your ideas are coming from.

2. I understand what you are saying, meaning that I'm understanding every word that is coming out of your mouth.


I also wish that Ouspensky elaborated on his theory of identification and consideration and the definition of negative emotions.

He distinguishes between pleasant and unpleasant emotions but fails to show the positive function of unpleasant emotions (senses) and how some of them should not be categorized as negative. And he also fails to show the accurate distinction between what is negative and what is positive. - even though he mentions that negativity = destructiveness, positivity = productiveness, but when explaining what is productive, destructive for man, he again falls into the abysm of vagueness and explains that we should achieve the consciousness by applying his school of thought into our life. (of course, this is no self-help, we have to actually get involved with his school and follow the rules) His idea that we can only tell what is positive and negative when we achieve the full consciousness(using HIS school of thought) is rather ambiguous and seems commercial even.

Rather than repeatedly (tediously) explaining the system of his school of thought and making himself sound like a con man(oops, sales man), Ouspensky should have explained his theories in a more concrete, scholaric manner.

I found "The psychology of man's possible evolution" to be exciting for Ouspenky's interesting and somewhat refreshing insights but not so reliable for its lack of analysis and his "subtle" and constant display of mercenary interest.


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Now I'm going to read Karen Horney's new ways in psychoanalysis. It's gotta be fun to have a surname like "horney".

P.D Ouspensky - Healthy(essence) VS Unhealthy(personality)

Personality is all that is learned in one or another way, In ordinary language, "consciously" or "unconsciously." In most cases "unconsciously" means by imitation, which plays an important part in the building of personality.

Artificial likes and dislikes can be acquired by imitation and imagination. These artificial likes and dislikes play a very important and very disastrous part in man's life.

By nature, man should like what is good for him and dislike what is bad for him. But this is so, only as long as essence(vs personality) dominates personality,.

Personality begins to dominate essence when man becomes less healthy, he begins to like what is bad for him and to dislike what is good for him.

P.D. Ouspensky - Men cannot do

" Man is a machine. He has no independent movements, inside or outside of himself. He's a machine brought into motion by external influences and external impacts. All his movements, actions, words, ideas, emotions, moods, and thoughts are produced by external influences. By himself, he's just an automaton with a certain store of memories of previous experiences, and a certain amount of reserve energy."

Here comes the fascinating part,

"In the English language there are no impersonal verbal forms which can be used in relation to human actions. So we must continue to say that man thinks, reads, writes, loves, hates, starts wars, fights, and so on. Actually, all this happens."

Ouspensky is a Russian "philosopher" whose first language I assume is Russian. When I first started learning the Russian language, I discovered a very fascinating and somewhat unique aspect of Russian - Russian is very impersonal and passive. It's inevitable that such nature of the language has an impact on people who speak it.

However, even though I see some correlation between Ouspensky's theory and the language he speaks, I'm not going to insist that Ouspensky's theory of the incapacity of humans is heavily influenced by the nature of the language he's most accustomed to. Such claim would be clumsy and dangerous. And so, read on...

P.D. Ouspensky - Evolution denial

"As regards ordinary modern views on the origin of man and his previous evolution I must say at once that they cannot be accepted. We must realize that we know nothing about the origin of man and whe have no proofs of man's physical or mental evolution.

On the contrary, if we take historical mankind, that is, humanity for ten or fifteen thousand years, we may find unmistakable signs of a higher type of man, whose presence can be established on the evidence of ancient monuments and memorials which cannot be repeated or imitated by the present humanity. As regards prehistoric man or creatures similar in appearance to man and yet at the same time very different from him, whose bones are sometimes found in deposits of glacial or pre-glacial periods, we may accept the quite possible view that these bones belong to some being quite different from man, which died out long ago."

- The psychology of man's possible evolution.

Once I have money - Karl Marx

Once I have money,

I am no longer bound by my individuality:

"I am ugly,

but I can buy for myself the most beautiful of women.

Therefore I am not ugly,

For the effect of ugliness - its deterrent power - is nullified by money.

I, in my character and as an individual,

am lame, but money furnishes me

with twenty-four feet. Therefore I,

am not lame. I am bad, dishonest,

unscrupulous, stupid;

But money is honored, and therefore

so is its possessor."