Hypostatization, reification, personification, deification, and intensional evaluation may all have their roots in the more primitive forms of a phenomenon called participation mystique by anthropologist Lucien Levy-Bruhl in his book How Natives Think. Participation mystique can have various elements: The belief that objects or animals have magical powers. The belief that an object (sometimes considered sacred) contains part of oneself, and has magical powers. (Some Australian aborigines had churingas (a piece of wood or stone) they rubbed when ill in order to try to heal themselves.) The belief that the individual didnt create the meaning; disowning the meaning and projecting it into something external. The unconscious projection of all kinds of powers into the environment. The loss of personal identity and rationality when in a crowd (as described by Gustav le Bon in The Crowd). The sports fanatic who talks of the team he supports as we. The patriot who refers to his supposed nation as we. The citizen who refers to the army of his supposed country as we. A lack of psychological, emotional, and intellectual independence. Feeling lost without the approval of others. Identification of self with objects like cars and houses. Identification of self with a career or company. The willingness to kill or be killed for unobservable or unprovable causes and reasons. The demand that society must provide us with whatever we need. The belief that certain words have magical powers. Accusing others of causing your emotions. Patriotism, pledges of allegiance, anthems, national flags, and the like. Religious beliefs, rites, and practices. Idolatry of all kinds. Etc. Note the correspondence and overlap between the above elements and the slave-mentality described earlier. Note also where (1) deletion; (2) distortion; (3) generalization; and (4) addition and hallucination occur in the above. [M. Esther Hardings book The I and the Not-I includes a chapter on participation mystique.] Semantic Reaction Korzybsky talks about semantic reactions (also neuro-semantic or neuro-linguistic), where one reacts more or less automatically and unconsciously to ones interpretation of an event or situation, rather than responding in a deliberate, calculated, and rational way to the event or situation itself. Semantic reaction refers to the whole reaction of an organism: a biological-verbal- emotional reaction which could include changes in adrenaline levels, muscle tension, digestive fluids, thoughts, feelings, as well as verbal utterances. Semantic reaction could be called intensional reaction (reacting to words -- or possibly, pre-verbal interpretation), as opposed to extensional response (responding to the event or situation itself). Semantic reaction tends to follow experiencing the world through the automatic intermediary of language -- intensional experience.
Posted on: Wed, 12 Mar 2014 18:44:28 +0000
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