[Note: This posting
will mark the 800th posting of this blog. As when this blog hit the 400-posting mark,
its writer will begin a break – this time for one or two months. The blog itself will still be found at this
site and its archive feature will be in effect.
The reason for this respite is that the writer wants to finish another
writing project. Hopefully, the readers
of this blog will be on the lookout for the blog’s resumption.]
For those readers who have been reading the last few postings
of this blog know it is currently reporting on some of the fundamental ideas of
phenomenology psychology/philosophy. In
the last posting, it reported on a developmental model presented by the
philosopher Hegel. In that model, humans
are described as experiencing, through the years of their lives, a maturing process
– a development in three stages. The
reader can scroll down to the last entry to read that description.
Hegel is
mostly noted for offering a historical-dialectic model in which through
history, human societies are cast as working themselves through a series of
conflicts over various ideations of what the nature of societal/political life
is and/or should be. Through these
conflicts the events of the past are “guided” to be what they have been.
That guidance took form through the antagonism
inherit within certain societal qualities or elements such as subject and object
of knowledge, nature and mind, self and other, freedom and authority, faith and
knowledge, etc. The aim here is not to
explain his complex philosophy, but to provide a context for Hegel’s view on
human development – it’s based on contradiction and tension within a person’s
consciousness.
To summarize the three potential stages,
one can apply the following:
·
in
the first stage a child naively accepts what he/she is told or explained to be
real and the child makes moral determinations by relying on authoritative/moral
positions of those in authority;
·
in
the second stage, a young person – usually of teenage to young adult years –
questions authority and strives for, without much sophistication, freedom; and
lastly,
·
in
the third stage, a mature person comes to terms with authority and other power-holders
by understanding his/her freedom is advanced within communal settings.
The word “potential” is used because
there is no guarantee that any individual will advance through all three stages
– they might not even advance beyond the first stage. And besides – or because of – the shifts from
stage to stage are fraught with contention, conflict, and tension. This posting aims at sharing Philip Selznick’s
view[1] concerning
the implications this development has on the health of a commonwealth.
A commonwealth relies on its populous
to be supportive of its basic values, aims and goals, general processes, and
institutions. To the degree that
populous engages in personal changes, characterized by conflict – between the
individual and society and within themselves – one can readily see this does
not tend to help maintain or advance the commonwealth’s health.
Of course,
this is a matter of degree. A society of
any stability can accommodate various levels of such conflicts. Heck, one can argue these conflicts provide some
beneficial elements; e.g., spurring on creativity and motivation. But to maintain a functional level of such
tension, prudence calls for societal processes to establish those institutions
to help it handle these conflicts.
This creates roles within a society
and in which schools have a part. And
that role can only be successfully met with an understanding of what is taking
place within each of their students. But
further, school personnel – those who deal directly with students on an ongoing
basis – need to acquire a sophisticated understanding not only of what is
happening, but what is needed to happen to advance toward what is healthy for
the student and for society.
Schools, as this blog has argued and
provided expert opinion supporting, are not currently meeting this obligation
very well. In part, the educator, as
best as he/she can determine, needs to commit to know and understand what
constitutes the student’s consciousness.
And the Hegel model helps in devising the questions that educators
should ask of what he/she perceives student behavior to be including what those
students’ expressed concerns and desires are.
Such questioning can be directed at specific
concerns. The first is the issue of
freedom. Here, teachers need to understand
that true freedom – as opposed to intuitive freedom – can only be obtained by a
person being true to themselves. This
further calls for an inner strength that students might find hard to attain and
a self-awareness most people try to avoid.
And central to this process is the use of reason. Only through this questioning and process can
one enlarge one’s consciousness – a challenge that lasts a life time.
Hegel did not believe in subjective
morality. There is a right way in his
eyes.
He did not believe people choose
ideals or decide for themselves what is right or wrong. Rather, the moral worth of an event, decision,
or practice is known by the contribution it makes to an objective and immanent
ideal, derived from human nature and the
human condition, whose dimensions are revealed as history unfolds.[2]
This view demands two, what seems to
be, opposing approaches. The first is an
objective view of what is happening – what events mark a person’s life. And the second is an understanding of the
historical context within which one is placed.
While times change – and with it the prevailing assumptions, biases, and
understandings – one is served and services a functional consciousness by
approaching reality with examined preconceptions. It is a posture of proactive attentiveness; a
person views reality with a “fresh look.”
How?
By evaluating the conceptual world – what some might call, one’s theories-in-use
– about what is happening. These
conceptualizations often take on a hidden quality as the person opts a posture
of “that’s just the way things are.” In
political matters, for example, beliefs structure perceptions; i.e., they form,
and, in turn, they dictate what one perceives to strengthen existing and
invested-in opinions. That way of viewing
constrains consciousness and hinders maturation.
So, while everyday experiences can be
the source of hindrance, it still is the only venue that affords one the
opportunity to grow. Phenomenologists
call that one’s lifeworld and it exists both at the personal level and at the
societal level. In each level it is
unique. It is the stuff of which one’s
life transpires, it fills the textured settings – the details – of the
different elements of one’s experiences.
It provides the “wellsprings” of life.
And through the lifeworld and its
uniqueness the conscious landscape is formed in which one’s moral and “spiritual”
life can ground itself in what is concrete.
Acceptance of uniqueness brings a
realm of freedom – the freedom to be different and to be oneself. Interdependence, however, creates the
enmeshed, embedded, implicated self. Without
awareness of that condition, and responsibility for it, freedom is unguided and
spiritually empty.[3]
This take on phenomenology reminds the writer of the work of Thomas
Reid and his argument for common sense.
Once one matures beyond a stage, looks back with some chagrin, he/she
might view the whole prior years and embarrassingly think, why of course.
[Note: So long for a
while.]
[1] Philip Selznick, The
Moral Commonwealth: Social Theory and
the Promise of Community (Berkeley, CA:
University of California Press, 1992).
[2] Ibid., 67.
Emphasis added.
[3] Ibid.,
69.
