Rationality and self deception

I want to start an open discussion on the role of rationality in self deception.

Humanity's ability to engage in rational thought has allowed us to separate ourselves from a situation to analyse it objectively, but can we truly separate our desires from our ability to rationalize?

I have observed that we all have a proclivity to rationalize our way into self deception. It is very easy to convince yourself or others of something false if you desire it to be true. We can literally make irrefutable logical arguments that justify our actions, but that does not make them correct.

One interpretation of Jungian philosophy is that it's every man's duty to remember consciously what we know to be true unconsciously. In a sense, you cannot rationalize your way into changing your feelings or emotions about something. Just because you tell yourself why you should feel a certain way will not always change how you feel, especially when your sub-conscous knows it to be false.

 

This is gunna be tough... haha. I didn't really mean to preach Jung in the original post and was more trying to use that interpretation in support of my beliefs that we can't trust our rationality to be objective. But here's my attempt at Jung in a nutshell:

Jung is pretty difficult to put in layman's terms, as it's analytical psychology that uses alot of wierd symbolism but I'll try and simplify some key points. Most of his work centralizes about the development of conscious self from the unconscious forces that govern him. Erich Neumann, his greatest student, often references myths and stories from across various cultures to support his claims as he analyzes the collective unconscious and different archetypes of human culture. The 3 main parts of the development of ego consciousness characterized by myths, are the creation myth, the hero myth, and the transformation myth. Jung aimed to analyzes the stages of ego development within the individual, and goes well beyond Freud who stays more at a surface level of analysis. I don't want to put down any of freud's work, but he watches the stages of development from an outside perspective in the development of an individual into society. Jung often talks of integrating your "shadow", or the darkness that lies within all of us. Every light casts a shadow. Nietzsche, one of Jungs biggest influencers, said something like: In order for your branches to extend to heaven, they must be rooted in hell. There is duality in all of us and in everything around us and most of us remain blissfully unaware of our own capacity for darkness. Neumann does a good job of integrating and examining the work of Jung through text in myth and religion and most of what I'm about to explain was from his book "The Origins and History of Consciousness".

It starts with the uroboros, the dragon that eats it's own tail. It's referenced in nearly every culture worldwide in one way or another and it symbolized the beginning and the end, the cycle of life, and the balancing of order. This is before the divide opposites such as masculine and feminine or chaos and order. The uroboros is often referenced as the unconscious wisdom that we knew before birth and will know again after death. It includes everything within it and is essentially the unconscious. As we progress from the uroboros, we have a desire to slip back into the unconscious uroboros to escape the uncertainty and perils of life that come with knowledge. In the creation stories in the bible, as soon as adam and eve obtain knowledge, they are banished from the garden of eden. This can be symbolically viewed as a birth from the uroboros and into the realm of consciousness. Once you become aware, you understand your own vulnerability, and now you have a responsibility to protect it. It goes along with the saying of ignorance is bliss because once you understand something and identify it as a potential problem or threat you have an obligation to do something about it. This begins the adaptation of personal responsibility and obligation to act in a manner that is proper and moral. Once you understand your own vulnerability, you understand the vulnerability of others as well. This starts the divide of good and evil because now you understand how to help and hurt people, as well as exploit and manipulate. This relates to my original point on rationality. Once you develop the capacity to understand and make sense of something, you can use the same capacity to formulate a logical and coherent reason to deceive yourself and others because you desire a certain outcome. A good example is when an alcoholic might say "I can just have a glass of wine at thanksgiving dinner. I don't even like wine and it's for celebration purposes, not to get drunk". You can lie to yourself because you desire that to be true, and it's a logical and rational thought process that is perfectly sound. The problem is that the alcoholic is voluntarily neglecting other variables in the equation, namely his own proclivity to falling into patterns of indulgence with alcohol.

I'm going to grossly oversimplify some of the rest of the points cause I don't have the patience and they're less related to my original point.

Following the separation of consciousness, the conscious self is at battle with themselves as it is swept around by unconscious desires. This stage of ego development often has references to the "great mother" or "divine feminine". This is a symbolic feminine and mother and coincides with chaos as well as the "yin" part of the yin yang in Taoism. There are nurturing aspects of the great mother as the ego is in it's early development stages and is essentially helpless but when the ego becomes more independent the great mother does not want to leave their child and attempts to hold back the adolescent ego from growing away and becoming autonomous. The great mother is characterized by creativity, fertility, and nurturing but is also referenced as the "terrible mother" when referring to it's capacity for destruction. It's essentially the shadow self of the great mother and the negative aspect of the symbolic feminine. Just re-clarifying this has nothing to do with guys and girls it's all symbolism. Creation and destruction are characterized with chaos or the feminine side, and order is perceived as masculine symbolically. Too much order can be bad as well as is the case when institutions are unwilling to accept or look to change their ways in an adapting environment. Anyways, when an ego fails to break free of the great mother, it ends in castration or death within the symbolism of myths often referenced. Essentially the ego isnt strong enough to break free, as is the case in the hero myth, and will instead (either voluntarily or non-voluntarily) end the helpless struggle in a desperate manner.

In the Hero myth, the point of slaying the dragon is often talked about. This has parallels with fairy tails and kids movies and myths and stories in every culture. The symbolism is to go out and voluntarily seek the dangerous, uncertain, beast of chaos and overcome it. It is overcoming the darkness within your self or the universe. The oedipus story is perceived as a failed hero myth, as oedipus gouges out his eyes after laying with his own mother unknowingly. At first, the voluntary act of overcoming the feminine by laying with his mother is a successful hero story (I stress this is SYMBOLISM), as in the early stages a man is nothing but a phallus or a means of reproduction to the divine feminine. The act of gouging his eyes is a form of castration, however, when he couldn't take the guilt of his own deed. So he reverted back into the previous stage in ego development. This reverting back may happen several times before becoming truly overcoming the unconscious or, and quite often, the hero fails to overcome the great mother. From there the hero furthers his development of ego through the slaying of the father, symbolically speaking to overcome the negative aspects of the symbolic masculine as they did with the slaying of the mother (or dragon).

The transformation myths talk about self actualization and how personality changes. One of the main points of the transformation myths is how rapid personality transformation seldom occurs to those who arent in desperate need of it. The person most likely to undergo a rapid personality change is one in horrible despair and who is lost and hopeless. The story of Osiris in Egypt formed the basis of the forumla for immortality involving birth, death, and rebirth. The old you essentially has to die for the new you to thrive. This parallels well with the idea of the uroboros and the cycle of life.

So that's the best that I can synopsize jungian psychology. I know it probably wasn't exactly "layman's terms" but I honestly probably missed alot. If you are interested, Jordan peterson has many youtube lectures on Jungian psychology and does a much better job than me at explaining the ideas in a more understandable manner.

 

Im currently reading maps of meaning right now as well and I can relate in that it's not an easy read. Coincidentally Im also an engineer . But yeah feel free to message me anytime.

 

It can be tough to disconnect an associated pattern with any pleasure or indulgence that involves a dopamine release. It truly takes a change in outlook in order to make any real change. Its hard and I can definitely relate because knowing that doesn't help all that much. You really need to desire what's best for you more than what is fulfilling in the short term. Or as Jordan Peterson would say, "pursue what is meaningful, not what is expedient". Definitely my favorite rule in his 12 rules for life book