Description
Book SynopsisThese psychological dynamics are presented by way of the developmental and relationship experiences we have with the outside world -- alternations between conflict and a striving to revert back to earlier developmental phases. At any given moment of our lives there is a gap between our desires for participation and our subjectively defined distance from our participatory aims. This gap is denoted the Tantalus Ratio, after the Olympian demigod. Transcendental longings and quests are explored in their actual structuring of the human personality. This new Theory of Personality also explores the mytho-empirical manifestation of the normative sacrifice of the young, denoted as the Isaac Syndrome. The author pays homage to Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus by recognising the absurd drudgeries of man's existence, the maddening routines, the point-lessness of being, the silence of god, and the cruelty of man to man. Examples from literature and myth demonstrate that if man can find a creative modus vivendi with his pitiful 'stone' burden, then the vicissitudes of existence can become punctuated with meaning, satisfaction and even happiness. Like Camus, the author concludes that it is only through creative rebellion that man can find authenticity.
Table of ContentsIntroduction -- The Away and Beyond is Right Here and Now; The Fist and the Open Hand; The Sisyphean and the Tantalic -- An Ontological Personality Typology; Separant and Participant Cultures -- The Social Component of the Tantalus Ratio; Jews and Arabs -- The Relationship between Personality Types and Social Characters; The Twenty-First Century Kulturkampf -- Fundamentalist Islam Against Occidental Culture; Interaction, Objectlessness and the Self-Continuum; Self-Choice and Uniqueness; Man, Others and Things -- The Phenomenology of Interaction; The Isaac Syndrome; Rebellion and Yearning; Index.
