Dum dum dee dum...Phase 2 of the growth:
Now this part is both paradigm-shifting and uncomfortable. Remember what it was like when you first realized that everyone was forming opinions about you? Everyone! Ah, the glorious hyper-self-consciousness of the teenage years! What dawning had you awakened to? Metaphorically, of course. I'm well aware that you hardly ever awoke at dawn in your teenage years!
You awoke to the 2nd of Hegel's phases: A Dualistic Split.
This involves a fragmented view of reality
caused by fractured divisions between Self and Other.
- In religion this is typical of the Judaism. A chasm between people and God
leads them to live a nomadic lifestyle and live in, what Hegel calls “an
unhappy consciousness” (42). Wondering around, waiting for paradise. Some Christians...a lot of Christians...still inhabit this mindset. The Law is
something imposed on them from above; something they can never live up to.
- In child development this takes the form
of developing the analytical left side of the brain through education and
acculturation. The terrible two's say waddup. This process peaks in
adolescence, when the child realizes the power of their own opinions.
- This is the modernist phase of philosophy in which Descartes’ “I think therefore I am” rules. And it's all about me. Humans abuse the planet to make themselves nice pretty outfits, or to make their bank accounts look nice and pretty. Hey, everything is a bank account, we begin to think. Time is divided into neat little compartments, each allocated to particular causes. Time itself is a bank account with an unalterable balance that we continuously make withdrawals from.
It's an uncomfortable phase because it's the recognition of how far we have to go. We suddenly understand something of how little we understand (for some teenagers that takes longer than others :) But it's necessary.
At this point you could run back to where the world was unified and everything seemed hunky dorey...and live a life of denial...
Or you could jump down the rabbit hole head first and hope that hitting your head on the bottom causes you to become open-minded instead of well...the Mad Hatter.
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| If he was sane he'd never be spilling the tea! |
