Friday 15 September 2017

Survival And Sanity II

In the immediately preceding post, I closed a quotation just before Sandra Miesel's interstitial passage identified a problem with Synthesis training:

"But psychodynamics could enslave as well as liberate." (p. 130)

In the following volume, she writes:

"Remolding worlds was simpler than remodeling humanity. While continuing to chart and influence the behavior of whole societies, the Institute also experimented with individuals. For a time, an elaborate holistic conditioning system known as Tighe Synthesis seemed an excellent way to maximize human potential. Although a few receptive subjects benefitted from the training, this promising discovery was never widely applied. Not only was it impractical to condition the entire population adequately, the process put too mush power in the hands of the conditioners."
-Sandra Miesel, FOREWORD IN Poul Anderson, Cold Victory (New York, 1982), pp. 9-13 AT p. 12.

I would add that individuals need to decondition themselves, not to be conditioned by someone else.

Although the Psychotechnic Institute was outlawed after the Humanist Revolt of 2170, the Foreword, referring to "...Valti's theories of sociosymbolic logic..." (p. 10) and written from the standpoint of a later civilization, states:

"We who take psychodynamics as much for granted as hyperlight physics may find it difficult to appreciate what those first crude equations meant." (ibid.)

Thus, the psychotechnicians will win eventually. Poul Anderson's works contain these six phrases:

Technic History
Technic civilization
Polesotechnic League

Psychotechnic History
Psychotechnic Institute
Psychotechnic League

The Polesotechnic League is part of Technic civilization which is described in the Technic History whereas the Psychotechnic Institute is part of the Psychotechnic History which is recounted in a series that has been given the title, The Psychotechnic League. Thus, there is no organization called "the Psychotechnic League." However, I wonder whether this phrase could be applied more loosely to the "league" of psychotechnicians who exist throughout the Psychotechnic History and who are certainly around much later than the Psychotechnic Institute. I will shortly reread "The Chapter Ends" in search of evidence of the ultimate triumph of the psychotechnicians.

Survival is "daily bread."
Sanity is "not by bread alone."
The partial sanity of the Psychotechnic Institute is "half a loaf."

5 comments:

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Aha, Miesel's comment "But psychodynamics could enslave as well as liberate" bears out the skepticism I expressed in your previous blog article.

And exactly how would you have individuals "deconditioning" themselves? What does that even mean? And since INFANTS need to be raised some "conditioning", however that is defined," is inevitable, even necessary.

I've read "The Chapter Ends" more than once and I simply did not find anything in it that could be traced back to the genuine Psychotechnic "League" stories. I think Sandra Meisel shoehorned that stand alone story into the Psychotechic series.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
Infants need to be raised.
I realized that I believed some propositions only because I had been told from birth that I did so. Then I realized that I had no reason to continue believing them. I could not see that I would have been persuaded of those beliefs as an adult.
When my daughter asked me questions, I told her what I thought and that she might disagree with me when she had learned more.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

One of those propositions being belief in God? A belief you eventually came to be skeptical about.

And I agree with how you reacted to your daughter's question. A devout believer in God could also behave like that. E.g., "Bertram, I believe in Jesus Christ as Lord, Messiah, and Savior, and the teachings of the Church He founded. But all I can do is explain my beliefs and hope you too will believe." Something like that.

Sean

paulshackley2017@gmail.com said...

Sean,
Yes, I can only describe my upbringing and education as indoctrination. All other points of view were dismissed as obviously wrong. I had to start thinking for myself, initially rationalizing received beliefs before I went beyond them.
Paul.

Sean M. Brooks said...

Kaor, Paul!

Well, I believe things atheism and socialism to be factually erroneous! But I hope I would have explained why I thought like that in a calm, reasonable way.

Sean