Developmental politics acknowledges that cultural growth exhibits many varied characteristics. Viewed from certain perspectives this growth appears not as a sequential trajectory of step-wise advance, but rather as a “sprawling bush” of development that includes numerous branches, contradictory countercurrents, and even forces of decay that work against positive development or pervert it into trends that result in social regression. But notwithstanding the chaotic and contingent nature of cultural evolution, the historical record clearly shows how both modernism and postmodernism have emerged in opposition to what came before.
When faced with a positive-positive value polarity, the best way to advance the values of our preferred pole is to actually affirm the foundational values of the pole we oppose.
Since the work of Immanuel Kant, the imaginal has taken center stage in theories of perception. It’s like a pair of glasses, manufactured by the mind that brings what we see into focus. The great philosopher of the Enlightenment argued that we don’t know “the thing in itself” but perceive what our minds can represent – trees, sunshine, soil, showers.
If psychology is really the science which tells us how we think, it is beyond doubt that what I have called metaphysics falls within its province. And there I would gladly leave it if once I could satisfy myself that this phrase, even if not a complete account of psychology, is a correct one so far as it goes. But on this point I ask to be fully satisfied. The work of metaphysics is too important, too intimately bound up with the welfare of science and civilization (for civilization is only our name for systematic and orderly thinking about what are called ‘practical’ questions), to be handed over to any claimant on the strength of his own unsupported assertion that he is its rightful owner.
Because we [in contemporary America (?)] do not look back, we can remain innocent — and stupid. Whereas in Italy, it seems, you have looked back for centuries, are always looking back and therefore never innocent, but instead cynical.
The backward look reveals the patterns that show themselves repeatedly and indicate archetypal realities. It is not history that governs the future but the projections forward of these archetypal patterns. Thus when Futurology reports hope, progress, and greening, and supports these optimistic prognostics with advances in space science, biotechnology, lowered rates of infant mortality, more telephones, automobiles, and refrigerators, longer life expectancy, new ecological awareness — we believe we see reality. We imagine these are the determining facts.
But the reality lies in the eyes that see, not in what it sees. For precisely, the eye of the futurologist, informed by another archetypal vision, looks into the future and sees doom and gloom, destruction of habitat and species, floods and famines, civil insurrections, terrorism and plagues — a world, described by the great Saturnine pessimist Thomas Hobbes as a war of “all against all,” and the life of man as “nasty, brutish, and short.”
Hillman, James. Philosophical Intimations (Uniform Edition of the Writings of James Hillman Book 8) . Spring Publications. Kindle Edition.
When two nations share economic interests there is always concern that one side will take advantage of its position or withdraw from the relationship to work with someone else, or fail to keep its agreements. The more interdependent countries are, the more they try to ensure that their partners remain committed to the relationship and don’t, in an extreme scenario, seek to blackmail them. This distrust mounts and nations look for more effective levers to use, sometimes ending in war. Interdependence can create security—or insecurity and war.
It is hardly necessary to stress the fact that the ability to love as an act of giving depends on the character development of the person. It presupposes the attainment of a predominantly productive orientation; in this orientation, the person has overcome dependency, narcissistic omnipotence, the wish to exploit others, or to hoard, and has acquired faith in his own human powers, courage to rely on his powers in the attainment of his goals. To the degree that these qualities are lacking, he is afraid of giving himself—hence of loving.
