2012.07.01 — Deterring Democracy by Noam Chomsky: Finished 2012.06.25

Deterring Democracy by
Noam Chomsky.
New York: Verso (New Left Books) 1991 ISBN 086091318X.
(Out of Print: the link to the title above goes to the text of the entire book at ZCommunications.org.)

Begun 2012.05.08.
Finished 2012.06.25
★★★★★

The end of the Cold War was greeted by the free world with a self congratulatory praise that echoed off the moon and back. And for the average person, the prospect for disarmament and some kind of 'real' peace had become a tangible reality. But the end of The Cold War gave to the American military industrial complex an opportunity and a problem. The opportunity was that without the USSR as a viable deterrent to American foreign aggression, America now had the opportunity to invade other countries at will.

And the problem? The American public, having been fed a steady and successful propaganda about the role of the USSR evil and American benevolence during the Cold War, saw its end as an opportunity to give peace a chance. Thus, in a curious irony, the end of the Cold War threatened to expose to America that they had been misled about that war by their media that had acted in collusion with big business's management of 'their' government. In effect, Americans had been given an opportunity to discover that they had been manipulated by a pervasive and expansive propaganda into giving to their corporate masters their manufactured consent to propagate American hegemony disguised as defending freedom.

It would have most likely been bad for business if the truth of American hegemony actually made it into prime time news. What could the manufacturers do to avoid such a catastrophe and how were America's hegemons going to be able to take advantage of their new freedom and expand in scale and scope their overt and covert invasions; and continue their practices of disrupting fledgling democracies without a solid enemy to justify the military spending in a time of peace? The answer: follow the same media farce as was practiced during the Cold War by the simple manufacture of 'properly' acceptable enemies with the proper implementation of the media supported propaganda. Thus was born, for example, the war on drugs, the farce of Grenada, Nicaragua, and Panama as serious threats to American sovereignty and safety.

The media hypocrisy and outright lying around these wars, and the comparison Chomsky makes to Britain forcing China to buy opium, is chilling. He provides numbers to back up his argument, and citations from business leaders and NSC documents that, if they had been spoken by German SS officers in WWII, would have earned them post war convictions for crimes against humanity.

Speaking of war crimes, it would appear that the USA was one of the biggest war criminals on the planet in the eighties, frequently using their UN veto power to overturn condemnation for their frequent invasions and unprovoked attacks on other countries for the explicit purpose of enriching big American business. News of these votes rarely made it into the news. Or, if they did, it was with complete fabrication as to the vote and what it really meant. Interestingly enough, this kind of behaviour was not new in the media's history of misrepresenting American foreign practices. For example, the non-reporting of the role America played in their support for and re-establishment into positions of capitalist influence many of the pre-war German industrialists that included convicted war criminals. Nor was America's support for pro-Nazi sympathizers in the brutal suppression of democracy in Greece following WWII that resulted in the torture and/or deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and the establishment of a brutal dictatorship (p335, 342).

DD is well written, and Chomsky's anger is tempered with a wry kind of humour at just how deluded and delusional the press is about their role in paving the way for American military brutality and unrelenting violation of the UN and the most basic tenets of respect for the rights of others. As always, the footnoting to the references is extensive.

For me, the detailed and somewhat organic way Chomsky writes solidifies the connections between the way the American military functions as the arm of Big Business, and Big Business's function as the manager of the controlled understanding of America's 'generous' role as planetary policeman. That perhaps the planet's greatest violator of the basic tenets of human rights and democracy is lauded by its corporate media as the singular champion of those ideals is nothing short of an astonishing proof that delusion knows no bounds. The level of hypocrisy that the media relays or creates with a straight face cannot be described in a review without the reviewer being seen as a complete idiot.

~~~~~~~
[Interlude: While reading this, there arose a pair of strange synchronicity events I like o call fushgis. Loosely, I understand fushigi as a synchronicity-like thing — click on the link to read my understanding of what it means. To read these 'synchronicity petites', as I have sometimes called them, and some quotations from the book, go to Deterring Democracy & a Pair of fushigis
End of Interlude.]
~~~~~~~

Now for some citations. Note, that since DD has been published on line and is available for free on ZCommunications' Web Page, my citations come from there. They originated as blue sticky notes I stuck in the book as I was reading it, and I've linked the page numbers to their appearance in ZCommunication's publication. Also, the on-line publication has also published the footnotes that you will see numbered in the citations.

Enjoy, if you can. From: 'Ch2. The Home Front: 2.Political Success:'

The political and social history of Western democracies records all sorts of efforts to ensure that the formal mechanisms are little more than wheels spinning idly. The goal is to eliminate public meddling in formation of policy. That has been largely achieved in the United States, where there is little in the way of political organizations, functioning unions, media independent of the corporate oligopoly, or other popular structures that might offer people means to gain information, clarify and develop their ideas, put them forth in the political arena, and work to realize them. As long as each individual is facing the TV tube alone, formal freedom poses no threat to privilege (p76).

From: 'Ch2. The Home Front: 3. The Achievements of Economic Management:'

The Reagan era largely extended the political program of a broad elite consensus. There was a general commitment in the 1970s to restore corporate profitability and to impose some discipline on an increasingly turbulent world. In the U.S. variety of state capitalism, that means recourse to military Keynesian devices at home, now adapted to the decline in U.S. power and therefore with a right-wing rather than liberal slant, the "great society" programs being incompatible with the prior claims of the important people. Abroad, the counterpart is large-scale subversion and international terrorism (whatever term is chosen to disguise the reality). The natural domestic policies were transfer of resources to the rich, partial dismantling of the limited welfare system, an attack on unions and real wages, and expansion of the public subsidy for high technology industry through the Pentagon system, which has long been the engine for economic growth and preserving the technological edge (p81).

From: 'Ch3. The Global System: 6. The Soviet Threat:'

We need not suppose that the appeal to alleged security threats is mere deceit. The authors of NSC 68 may have believed their hysterical flights of rhetoric, though some understood that the picture they were painting was "clearer than truth." In a study of attitudes of policy makers, Lars Schoultz concludes that they were sincere in their beliefs, however outlandish: for example, that Grenada -- with its population of 100,000 and influence over the world nutmeg trade -- posed such a threat to the United States that "an invasion was essential to U.S. security."22 The same may be true of those who, recalling our failure to stop Hitler in time, warned that we must not make the same mistake with Daniel Ortega, poised for world conquest. And Lyndon Johnson may have been sincere in his lament that without overwhelming force at its command, the United States would be "easy prey to any yellow dwarf with a pocket knife," defenseless against the billions of people of the world who "would sweep over the United States and take what we have." Eisenhower and Dulles may have believed that the "self-defense and self-preservation" of the United States were at stake in the face of the terrible threat posed by Guatemala in 1954 -- though it is interesting that in the secret planning record the only example cited to justify their desperate anxiety is "a strike situation" in Honduras that might "have had inspiration and support from the Guatemalan side of the Honduran border."23 The same may even be true of those who instituted and maintained a national emergency from 1985 to defend us from the "unusual and extraordinary threat" to our national security posed by Nicaragua under the Sandinistas.

In such cases, we need not conclude that we are sampling the productions of psychotics; that is most unlikely, if only because these delusional systems have an oddly systematic character and are highly functional, satisfying the requirements stipulated in the secret documentary record. Nor need we assume conscious deceit. Rather, it is only necessary to recall the ease with which people can come to believe whatever is convenient to believe, however ludicrous it may be, and the filtering process that excludes those lacking these talents from positions of state and cultural management.

In passing, we may note that while such matters may be of interest to those entranced by the personalities of leaders, for people concerned to understand the world, and perhaps to change it, they are of marginal concern at best, on a par with the importance for economists of the private fantasies of the CEO while he (or rarely she) acts to maximize profits and market share. Preoccupation with these matters of tenth-order significance is one of the many devices that serve to divert attention from the structural and institutional roots of policy, and thus to contribute to deterring the threat of democracy, which might be aroused by popular understanding of how the world works (p100-1).

From: 'Ch4. Problems of Population Control: 4. The Narcotraffickers:'

Social policies implemented in Washington contribute to the toll of victims in other ways, a fact illustrated dramatically just as the vast media campaign orchestrated by the White House peaked in September 1989. On September 19, the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) panel held a hearing in Washington to consider a tobacco industry request that the U.S. impose sanctions on Thailand if it does not agree to drop restrictions on import of U.S. tobacco. Such U.S. government actions had already rammed tobacco down the throats of consumers in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, with human costs of the kind already sketched.

This huge narcotrafficking operation had its critics. A statement of the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and American Lung Association condemned the cigarette advertising in "countries that have already succumbed to the USTR crowbar of trade threats," a campaign "patently designed to increase smoking by...young Asian men and women who see young U.S. men and women as role models." U.S. Surgeon General Everett Koop testified at the USTR panel that "when we are pleading with foreign governments to stop the flow of cocaine, it is the height of hypocrisy for the United States to export tobacco." Denouncing the trade policy "to push addicting substances into foreign markets" regardless of health hazards, he said that "Years from now, our nation will look back on this application of free trade policy and find it scandalous." Koop told reporters that he had not cleared his testimony with the White House because it would not have been approved, and said he also opposed actions under the Reagan administration to force Asian countries to import U.S. tobacco. During his eight years in office, ending a few days after his testimony, Koop backed reports branding tobacco a lethal addictive drug responsible for some 300,000 deaths a year.

Thai witnesses also protested, predicting that the consequence would be to reverse a decline in smoking achieved by a 15-year campaign against tobacco use. They also noted that U.S. drug trafficking would interfere with Washington's efforts to induce Asian governments to halt the flow of illegal drugs. Responding to the claim of U.S. tobacco companies that their product is the best in the world, a Thai witness said, "Certainly in the Golden Triangle we have some of the best products, but we never ask the principle of free trade to govern such products. In fact we suppressed [them]."

Critics invoked the analogy of the Opium War 150 years ago, when the British government compelled China to open its doors to opium from British India, sanctimoniously pleading the virtues of free trade as they forcefully imposed large-scale drug addiction on China. As in the case of the U.S. today, Britain had little that it could sell to China, apart from drugs. The U.S. sought for itself whatever privileges the British were extracting from China by violence, also extolling free trade and even the "great design of Providence to make the wickedness of men subserve his purposes of mercy toward China, in breaking through her wall of exclusion, and bringing the empire into more immediate contact with western and christian nations" (American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions). John Quincy Adams denounced the refusal of China to accept British opium as a violation of the Christian principle of "love thy neighbor" and "an enormous outrage upon the rights of human nature, and upon the first principles of the rights of nations." The tobacco industry and its protectors in government invoke similar arguments today as they seek to relive this triumph of Western civilization and its "historic purpose."32

Here we have the biggest drug story of the day, breaking right at the peak moment of the government-media campaign: the U.S. government is perhaps the world's leading drug peddler, even if we put aside the U.S. role in establishing the hard drug racket after World War II and maintaining it since. How did this major story fare in the media blitz? It passed virtually unnoticed -- and, needless to say, without a hint of the obvious conclusion.33

The drug traffic is no trivial matter for the U.S. economy. Tobacco exports doubled in annual value in the 1980s, contributing nearly $25 billion to the U.S. trade ledger over the decade according to a report of the Tobacco Merchants Association, rising from $2.5 billion in 1980 to $5 billion in 1989. Tobacco provided a $4.2 billion contribution to the trade balance for 1989, when the deficit for the year was $109 billion. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky took due note of these figures while testifying in support of the tobacco companies at a Senate hearing. The president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, commenting on the benefits to the U.S. economy from tobacco exports, "cited the removal of overseas trade barriers, primarily in Japan, Taiwan and South Korea" as a contributory factor (p123-125).34

We see that it is unfair to blame the huge trade deficit on the policies of the Reagan-Bush administrations without giving them credit for their efforts to overcome it by state intervention to increase the sale of lethal addictive drugs.

This is endless. The numbers you have noticed in the text are to footnotes. If you go to the linked page numbers, you will find the footnotes supplied at ZCommunications' transcription of DD.

I'll close with Chomsky at his most eloquent. He closes DD with a short history of so-called 'Freedom of Speech' in the USA. It is not what you have likely come to believe because the rhetoric you hear about it is a complete fabrication by the media and proper intellectual journals.

Those who adopt the common sense principle that freedom is our natural right and essential need will agree with Bertrand Russell that anarchism is "the ultimate ideal to which society should approximate." Structures of hierarchy and domination are fundamentally illegitimate. They can be defended only on grounds of contingent need, an argument that rarely stands up to analysis. As Russell went on to observe 70 years ago, "the old bonds of authority" have little intrinsic merit. Reasons are needed for people to abandon their rights, "and the reasons offered are counterfeit reasons, convincing only to those who have a selfish interest in being convinced." "The condition of revolt," he went on, "exists in women towards men, in oppressed nations towards their oppressors, and above all in labour towards capital. It is a state full of danger, as all past history shows, yet also full of hope."86

Russell traced the habit of submission in part to coercive educational practices. His views are reminiscent of 17th and 18th century thinkers who held that the mind is not to be filled with knowledge "from without, like a vessel," but "to be kindled and awaked." "The growth of knowledge [resembles] the growth of Fruit; however external causes may in some degree cooperate, it is the internal vigour, and virtue of the tree, that must ripen the juices to their just maturity." Similar conceptions underlie Enlightenment thought on political and intellectual freedom, and on alienated labor, which turns the worker into an instrument for other ends instead of a human being fulfilling inner needs -- a fundamental principle of classical liberal thought, though long forgotten, because of its revolutionary implications. These ideas and values retain their power and their pertinence, though they are very remote from realization, anywhere. As long as this is so, the libertarian revolutions of the 18th century remain far from consummated, a vision for the future.87

One might take this natural belief to be confirmed by the fact that despite all efforts to contain them, the rabble continue to fight for their fundamental human rights. And over time, some libertarian ideals have been partially realized or have even become common coin. Many of the outrageous ideas of the 17th century radical democrats, for example, seem tame enough today, though other early insights remain beyond our current moral and intellectual reach.

The struggle for freedom of speech is an interesting case, and a crucial one, since it lies at the heart of a whole array of freedoms and rights. A central question of the modern era is when, if ever, the state may act to interdict the content of communications. As noted earlier, even those regarded as leading libertarians have adopted restrictive and qualified views on this matter.88 One critical element is seditious libel, the idea that the state can be criminally assaulted by speech, "the hallmark of closed societies throughout the world," legal historian Harry Kalven observes. A society that tolerates laws against seditious libel is not free, whatever its other virtues. In late 17th century England, men were castrated, disemboweled, quartered and beheaded for the crime. Through the 18th century, there was a general consensus that established authority could be maintained only by silencing subversive discussion, and "any threat, whether real or imagined, to the good reputation of the government" must be barred by force (Leonard Levy). "Private men are not judges of their superiors... [for] This wou'd confound all government," one editor wrote. Truth was no defense: true charges are even more criminal than false ones, because they tend even more to bring authority into disrepute.89

Treatment of dissident opinion, incidentally, follows a similar model in our more libertarian era. False and ridiculous charges are no real problem; it is the unconscionable critics who reveal unwanted truths from whom society must be protected.

The doctrine of seditious libel was also upheld in the American colonies. The intolerance of dissent during the revolutionary period is notorious. The leading American libertarian, Thomas Jefferson, agreed that punishment was proper for "a traitor in thought, but not in deed," and authorized internment of political suspects. He and the other Founders agreed that "traitorous or disrespectful words" against the authority of the national state or any of its component states was criminal. "During the Revolution," Leonard Levy observes, "Jefferson, like Washington, the Adamses, and Paine, believed that there could be no toleration for serious differences of political opinion on the issue of independence, no acceptable alternative to complete submission to the patriot cause. Everywhere there was unlimited liberty to praise it, none to criticize it." At the outset of the Revolution, the Continental Congress urged the states to enact legislation to prevent the people from being "deceived and drawn into erroneous opinion." It was not until the Jeffersonians were themselves subjected to repressive measures in the late 1790s that they developed a body of more libertarian thought for self-protection -- reversing course, however, when they gained power themselves.90

Until World War I, there was only a slender basis for freedom of speech in the United States, and it was not until 1964 that the law of seditious libel was struck down by the Supreme Court. In 1969, the Court finally protected speech apart from "incitement to imminent lawless action." Two centuries after the revolution, the Court at last adopted the position that had been advocated in 1776 by Jeremy Bentham, who argued that a free goverment must permit "malcontents" to "communicate their sentiments, concert their plans, and practice every mode of opposition short of actual revolt, before the executive power can be legally justified in disturbing them." The 1969 Supreme Court decision formulated a libertarian standard which, I believe, is unique in the world. In Canada, for example, people are still imprisoned for promulgating "false news," recognized as a crime in 1275 to protect the King.91

In Europe, the situation is still more primitive. France is a striking case, because of the dramatic contrast between the self-congratulatory rhetoric and repressive practice so common as to pass unnoticed. England has only limited protection for freedom of speech, and even tolerates such a disgrace as a law of blasphemy. The reaction to the Salman Rushdie affair, most dramatically on the part of self-styled "conservatives," was particularly noteworthy. Rushdie was charged with seditious libel and blasphemy in the courts, but the High Court ruled that the law of blasphemy extended only to Christianity, not Islam, and that only verbal attack "against Her Majesty or Her Majesty's Government or some other institution of the state" counts as seditious libel. Thus the Court upheld a fundamental doctrine of the Ayatollah Khomeini, Stalin, Goebbels, and other opponents of freedom, while recognizing that English law protects only domestic power from criticism. Doubtless many would agree with Conor Cruise O'Brien, who, when Minister for Posts and Telegraphs in Ireland, amended the Broadcasting Authority Act to permit the Authority to refuse to broadcast any matter that, in the judgment of the minister, "would tend to undermine the authority of the state."92

We should also bear in mind that the right to freedom of speech in the United States was not established by the First Amendment to the Constitution, but only through dedicated efforts over a long period by the labor movement, the civil rights and anti-war movements of the 1960s, and other popular forces. James Madison pointed out that a "parchment barrier" will never suffice to prevent tyranny. Rights are not established by words, but won and sustained by struggle.

It is also worth recalling that victories for freedom of speech are often won in defense of the most depraved and horrendous views. The 1969 Supreme Court decision was in defense of the Ku Klux Klan from prosecution after a meeting with hooded figures, guns, and a burning cross, calling for "burying the nigger" and "sending the Jews back to Israel." With regard to freedom of expression there are basically two positions: you defend it vigorously for views you hate, or you reject it in favor of Stalinist/Fascist standards.93

Whether the instinct for freedom is real or not, we do not know. If it is, history teaches that it can be dulled, but has yet to be killed. The courage and dedication of people struggling for freedom, their willingness to confront extreme state terror and violence, is often remarkable. There has been a slow growth of consciousness over many years and goals have been achieved that were considered utopian or scarcely contemplated in earlier eras. An inveterate optimist can point to this record and express the hope that with a new decade, and soon a new century, humanity may be able to overcome some of its social maladies; others might draw a different lesson from recent history. It is hard to see rational grounds for affirming one or the other perspective. As in the case of many of the natural beliefs that guide our lives, we can do no better than to choose according to our intuition and hopes.

The consequences of such a choice are not obscure. By denying the instinct for freedom, we will only prove that humans are a lethal mutation, an evolutionary dead end; by nurturing it, if it is real, we may find ways to deal with dreadful human tragedies and problems that are awesome in scale (p397-401).

2012.06.29 — Tao te Ching Translated by Stephen Mitchell

Lao-Tzu.
translated by Stephen MItchell.
Tao te Ching: the Book of the Way.
London: Kyle Cathie Ltd, 1996. ISBN 1856262340.

Began 2012.05.23.
Finished 2012.06.08
★★★★★

I stumbled into this translation of the Tao te Ching more or less by accident. It turned out to be a far better read than I thought it would be. I would put it third in rank with the other translations of the Tao te Ching I've read.

I liked that this book is without any kind of embellishment, in a simple classic font, one chapter per page. Mitchell's commentary is brief and in general interesting and contributes to the enjoyment of the read. He has put his comments in an appendix without footnotes.

Oddly enough, the thing that stood out to me in this translation above all else was the economic commentary. I plan to check the other translations I have to see if Mitchell's emphasis in his translation is why that stands out. Or did it stand out because I am once more preparing to teach another course of Debunking Economics that is scheduled for this fall? Psychology and synchronicity are sometimes hard to distinguish.

Anyway, here is what I mean:

Chapter 19
Throw away holiness and wisdom,
and people will be a hundred times happier.
Throw away morality and justice,
and people will do the right thing.
Throw away industry and profit,
and there won't be any thieves.

If these three aren't enough
just stay at the centre of the circle
and let all things take their course.

And:

Chapter 53
The great Way is easy,
yet people prefer the side paths.
Be aware when things are out of balance.
Stay centred with the Tao.

When rich speculators prosper
while farmers lose their land;
when government officials spend money
on weapons instead of cures;
when the upper class is extravagant and irresponsible
while the poor have nowhere to turn —
all this is robbery and chaos.
It is not in keeping with the Tao.

And:

Chapter 57
If you want to be a great leader,
you must learn to follow the Tao.
Stop trying to control.
Let go of fixed plans and concepts,
and the world will govern itself.

The more prohibitions you have,
the less virtuous people will be.
The more weapons you have,
the less secure people will be.
The more subsidies you have,
the less self-reliant people will be.

Therefore the Master says:
I let go of the law,
and people become honest.
I let go of economics,
and people become prosperous.
I let go of religion,
and people become serene.
I let go of all desire for the common good,
and the good becomes [as] common as grass.

And once again, I see re-confirmed that nothing is new in the human social structures. Lao Tzu could be writing about what is happening right now in North America.

2012.06.17 — Chomsky for Beginners by John Maher & Judy Groves: finished 2012.06.14 & Fushigis*

John Maher and Judy Groves (Illustrator).
Chomsky for Beginners (but published as Introducing Chomsky in the USA).
Cambridge (UK): Icon Books, 1996. [Out of Print.]
ISBN 1874166420. [NOTE: The USA cover for this ISBN is different.]
★★★★★
Began 2012.05.27.
Finished 2012.06.14



This book review also contains a pair of fushigi:, which I've linked.
1. Blood pressure Fushigi
2. Crow Fushigi.

First, the review
I purchased Chomsky for Beginners without much expectation, but as a Chomsky book to put into my library. I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the exposition and thought that went into putting this excellent synopsis of Chomsky's ideas in linguists and their role in utterly transforming our understanding of human language. Even more than that, Maher and Chomsky include a range of contrary opinions and subsequent arguments that, although very concise, clearly illuminate the issues, thinking and controversies.

The basic evisceration of the behaviourist model of language acquisition was well articulated throughout. But I like how he approached Skinner.

The Refutation of Behaviourism
In 1959, Chomsky composed a basic refutation of behaviourist psychology in this review of B.F. Skinner's Verbal Behaviour. According to Chomsky, children are not born tabula rasa. On the contrary, each child is genetically predisposed to structure how knowledge is acquired.

"The phrase 'X is reinforced by Y' is being used as a cover term for X wants Y, X likes Y, X wishes Y were the case, etc. Invoking the term 'reinforcement' has no explanatory force, and any idea that this paraphrase introduces any new clarity or objectivity into the description of wishing, liking, etc., is a serious delusion."

Skinner's account rejects all postulations of inner states and sees human behaviour as entirely a function of antecedent events. For Chomsky, this reduction of human behaviour to 'conditioned responses' contradicts the actual [and demonstrated] complexity and freedom of consciousness (43).

I find the few quotations supplied to be on point and interesting. As a reader of fiction, even of so-called 'literature' I was bemused to read:

Perhaps literature will forever give far deeper insight into 'the full human person' than any model of scientific inquiry can hope to do (9).

The bulk (2/3) of the book covers linguistics. The balance of the book is Chomsky's political and media criticism. This was of less interest to me, that being where the bulk of my Chomsky reading has been. However with that exposure comes my ability to assess how well that section is put together. But more than that, the precise and clearly articulated criticisms of the media and socio-political thought in general was hugely informative and entertaining to read. For example, the contrast that Chomsky draws between 'enlightenment values' and how far our science and social perspicuity have fallen from them is delightful. For example:

The American Paradox
The United States proudly calls itself 'the leader of the Free World'. We know the US as a free and open society, more so in many ways than societies of Western Europe. And yet, Chomsky has criticized the US as blind to what it really is…
1. One of the most depoliticized nations in the industrial world
2. One of the most deeply indoctrinated societies in the industrial world
3. One of the most conformist intelligentsias in the industrial world.

Q: IS THIS NOT A PARADOX?
A: It only looks that way.

The freer the society the more well-honed and sophisticated its system of thought control and the indoctrination. The ruling élite, clever, class-conscious, ever sure of domination, make sure of that (138-9).

It is clear from the very first page that, unlike the one or two 'Dummy' books I've tried, the writers of Chomsky for Beginners, John Maher and Noam Chomsky, demonstrate deep respect for the readers' intelligence and ability to understand complex ideas. This at no time feels dumbed down. This book has been described as a good introduction to Chomsky's ideas, and it is. But far, far more importantly, this is a book that introduces one to the challenge of really thinking, even those who are, like me, familiar with Chomsky. And I loved that.

Now, everything up to this point would have earned from me four stars. So why five? Because for the first time I read someone else make the connection between C.G. Jung and Chomsky's ideas of language and language acquisition. I was so excited to see this! (For my connection, see my review of Noam Chomsky: A Philosophic Review by Justin Leiber.) From Beginners Maher does not elaborate on the connection beyond a citation on the Collective Unconscious which he implies has a correspondence to Chomsky's concepts of Deep Structure and Universal Grammar.

"One part of our biological make up is specifically dedicated to language. That is called our language faculty. UG is the initial state of that language faculty" (77).
…
Universal Grammar is that part of cognitive psychology (ultimately human biology) which seeks to determine the invariant principles of the language faculty and to determine as well the range of variation that those principles allow — that is, the possible human languages(78).

Now compare with Jung's idea of the collective unconscious and archetypes:

The human psyche is composed of innate forms always present, giving direction and form to their actualization in images and action. The collective unconscious is universal: it is shared by everyone. "The autonomic contents of the unconscious or 'dominants' … are not inherited ideas but inherited possibilities, necessities even, of bringing to birth the ideas by which these dominants have been expressed, every region has its forms of speech, which can vary infinitely" (80-1).

Okay, enough book review.

1. Blood pressure fushigi

I took my wife to an appointment with a dietician to talk diet as it relates to her recent onset of diabetes. This was her first time there, and there was an instantaneous clash of personalities. I won't go into the minutiae. However, the nature of the visit may perhaps be epitomized by when she had her blood pressure. For the first time in her life, despite having had her pressure measured many times because of fifteen years of serious health issues, it was taken with an automatic machine. Well, she has a relatively contentious relationship with mechanical devices, and when the pressure on her arm became far more intense than she was familiar with from the manual systems, she freaked. Pure panic. When I picked her up 45 minutes later she was still clammy and sweating from the panic. She commented that her arm still hurt and, to her great annoyance read over 160. In fifteen years of repeated tests under various circumstances, it has never been over 130, and normally sits between 120 to 125 to the surprise of every doctor who always expect it to be high.

So, later that day, when I return to reading Chomsky for Beginners, I read:

Universal Grammar is not a grammar. Neither is it a theory of knowledge. It is a theory about the internal structure of the human mind.

Principles, therefore, are universal to all languages. The specific values for parameters are a fixed property of language which vary within very specific limits from one language to another.

For example, age, gender, and renal function are parameter values (para = in addition to) that determine blood pressure in the human body.

If renal function is damaged by an illness like diabetes, then the blood pressure goes up. Therefore the study of dietary salt intake by itself will not provide an accurate and complete picture of operating renal function.

In a tightly integrated theory with a fairly rich internal structure, change in a single parameter may have complex effects, with proliferating consequences in various parts of the grammar (Chomsky102).

And the graphic to accompany it seems right on point, too.

2. Crow Fushigi

Well a second fushigi happened on the 14th, too. And indirectly it is related to my wife's visit with the dietician, so I'll include it here, even though it is not directly related to Chomsky for Beginners except though the dimension (or element) of time.

It began in the morning while waiting for it to be time to leave for the appointment. We have been observing a pair of crows who have nested nearby. Oddly enough, for the first time in my life I was actually dive bombed by the one the crows the previous weekend. Anyway, my wife asked when crows fledged. I said I didn't know, but that it must be soon.

When I dropped my wife off at the dietician's office, I went and did some banking. After that I had a nice open block of time and then went for a good walk to Queen's Park along 5th Avenue before going to pick her up. On the way back from the park I heard unusual sounding crow squawks. When I looked over to where the noise came from, I saw three crows standing at the edge of the roof of a house. One was in the eave, the other two on the roof. The one that was making the unusual noise was being fed by the other ones: it's beak was wide open and squawked it's demand for food, and the others were feeding it.

'Ah,' I thought, 'it would seem that the crows have fledged.' L.'s question has ben answered.

2012.06.05 — Deterring Democracy by Noam Chomsky & Fushigis* Rev 12.06.09

Well, despite my lack of verbiage, here — or maybe my lack is because of it! — I have been reading. And even finishing books. And in case this has got you excited to read a full fledged book review, your premature elation was, well, premature. This is one of my *fushigi book blog things.

It began, this morning with my continuing to zip through

Deterring Democracy

by
Noam Chomsky.
New York: Verso (New Left Books) 1991 ISBN 086091318X.
(Out of Print: the link to the title above goes to the text of the entire book at ZCommunications.org.)

This is filled with documented examples of the media's general misrepresentation of America's active role in destabilizing the world, rejecting peace, and subjecting 'client' states to terror, torture and death to ensure compliancy for the survivors to live in extreme poverty so as to benefit American corporate hegemony. Today's fushigi began with a particular gruesome read: that in some Latin American countries the extreme poverty has been effective in creating new 'free' markets. Specifically, the kidnapping, sale, fattening up and trade in babies and/or their body parts. Anyway, part one of today's first Deterring Democracy fushigis:

The foreign-imposed development model has emphasized "nontraditional exports" in recent years. Under the free-market conditions approved for defenceless Third World countries, the search for survival and gain will naturally lead to products that maximize profit, whatever the consequences, Coca production has soared in the Andes and elsewhere for this reason, but there are other examples as well. After the discovery of clandestine "human farms" and "fattening houses" for children in Honduras and Guatemala, Dr Lul's Genaro Morales, president of the Guatemalan Paediatric Association, said that child trafficking "is becoming one of the principal nontraditional export products," generating $20 million of business a year. The International Human Rights Federation, after an inquiry in Guatemala, gave a more conservative estimate, reporting that about three hundred children are kidnapped every year, taken to secret nurseries, then sold for adoption at about $10,000 per child.

The IHRF investigators could not confirm reports that babies' organs were being sold to foreign buyers. This macabre belief is widely held in the region, however; indicative of the general mood, though hardly credible. The Honduran journal El Tiempo reported that the Paraguayan police rescued seven Brazilian babies from a gang that "intended to sacrifice them to organ banks in the United States, according to a charge in the courts." Brazil's Justice Ministry ordered federal police to investigate allegations that adopted children are being used for organ transplants in Europe, a practice "known to exist in Mexico and Thailand," the London Guardian reports, adding that "handicapped children are said to be preferred for transplant operations" and reviewing the process by which children are allegedly kidnapped, "disappeared," or given up by impoverished mothers, then adopted or used for transplants. Tiempo reported shortly after that an Appeals Judge in Honduras ordered "a meticulous investigation into the sale of Honduran children for the purpose of using their organs for transplant operations." A year earlier, the Secretary-General of the National Council of Social Services, which is in charge of adoptions, had reported that Honduran children "were being sold to the body traffic industry" for organ transplant."

A Resolution of the European Parliament on the Trafficking of Central American Children alleged that near a "human farm" in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, infant corpses were found that "had been stripped of one or a number of organs." At another "human farm" in Guatemala, babies ranging from eleven days old to four months old had been found. The director of the farm, at the time of his arrest, declared that the children "were sold to American or Israeli families whose children needed organ transplants at the cost of $75,000 per child," the Resolution continues, expressing "its horror in the light of the facts" and calling for investigation and preventive measures.12

As the region sinks into further misery, these reports continue to appear. In July 1990, a right-wing Honduran daily, under the headline "Loathsome Sale of Human Flesh," reported that police in El Salvador had discovered l group, headed by a lawyer, that was buying children to resell in the United States. An estimated 20,000 children disappear every year in Mexico, the report continues, destined for this end or for use in criminal activities such as transport of drugs "inside their bodies." "The most gory fact, however, is that many little ones are used for transplant of organs to children in the U.S.," which, it is suggested, may account for the fact that the highest rate of kidnapping of children from infants to eighteen-year-olds is in the Mexican regions bordering on the United States.13

The one exception to the Central America horror story has been Costa Rica, set on a course of state-guided development by the Jose Figueres coup of 1948, with social-democratic welfare measures combined with harsh repression of labor, and virtual elimination of the armed forces. The US has always kept a wary eye on this deviation from the regional standards, despite the suppression of labor and the favorable conditions for foreign investors. In the 1980s, US pressures to dismantle the social-democratic features and restore the army elicited bitter complaints from Figueres and others who shared his commitments. While Costa Rica continues to stand apart from the region in political and economic development, the signs of what the Guatemalan Central America Report calls "The 'Central Americanization' of Costa Rica" are unmistakeable.14

Notes:
11. Anne Chemin, Lc Monde, September 21,1988; Guardian Weekly, October 2. Ibid., September 30, 1990. Tiempo, August 10, 17, September 19, 1988. Dr Morales, cited by Robert Smith, Report on Guatemala, July/ August/ September 1989 (Guatemala News and Information Bureau, POB 28594, Oakland CA 94604).

12. Ibid.

13. La Prensa Dominical. Honduras, July 22,1990.

14. CAR, April 28, 1989. For discussion of these matters, see references of Chapter 12, Note 58.

Yup, seems unbelievable that such a thing would happen, but as always Chomsky provides citations that are not easily dismissed. This description reminds me of Jonathan Swift's caustic satire A Modest Proposal For Preventing The Children of Poor People in Ireland From Being A Burden to Their Parents or Country, and For Making Them Beneficial to The Public. And it poses the interesting question, in our news-hungry age: why isn't this kind of horror news-worthy? Chomsky's suggested answer is that it works against the notion of America's democratic benefits of free-markets.

Okay, so what constituted the fushigi? About an hour after reading this, at work I opened my gmail account, had received, as I do every day, from Powells Books their 'Daily Dose' — a book and a customer's review of that. Well, today's Daily Dose was The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar.

Here's the text from the e.mail:

The Barbarian Nurseries by Hector Tobar.

Rachel's Comments:
"I was afraid I had become too cynical a reader to enjoy fiction anymore. This book restored my faith in fiction and in just about everything else. It's one of those reading experiences that makes you feel like you've emerged from a cocoon. Hector Tobar is my new hero. Absolutely amazing."

Publisher Comments:
New York Times Notable Book for 2011;
A Boston Globe Best Fiction Book of 2011.

The great panoramic social novel that Los Angeles deserves — a twenty-first century, West Coast Bonfire of the Vanities by the only writer qualified to capture the city in all its glory and complexity.

With The Barbarian Nurseries, Hector Tobar gives our most misunderstood metropolis its great contemporary novel, taking us beyond the glimmer of Hollywood and deeper than camera-ready crime stories to reveal Southern California life as it really is, across its vast, sunshiny sprawl of classes, languages, dreams, and ambitions.

I laughed at the juxtaposition of the description of the text to that of the title. What a weird fushigi.

Well, if that weren't enough, the following night, 2012.06.06, instead of finishing this very disturbing fushigi book blog, I finally answered a co-worker who asked for my opinion on a proposal he wrote to help 'fix' the problems of the high costs of imprisoning people, and that of the problem of too light sentences and recidivism.

I wasn't swayed by his argument. I felt it ignored the roots of the problem and proceeded with some false assumptions on the nature of punishment and human behaviour. In part, this is what I wrote:

Dear RM:
I read your appeal and it has passion but does not convince me for several reasons. I will take the time to respect your effort by providing you with reasons for my opinion.

… the American solution is financially effective: the state contracts prison management to giant corporations, who have lobbied with millions to ensure that they get the job because they are solely concerned with the social well being of black Americans. (Right!) And thus is created an MBA's wet-dream: make it illegal to be poor, offshore all significant manufacturing jobs to create endless unemployment, under-fund public schools, and you will have created a corporate money making machine. So what if it costs the state $150,000.00 per year (or whatever the number is) to incarcerate the serious criminals, because it ensures that the shrinking middle classes' taxes are transferred not into the hands of those unworthy welfare bums and drug addicts, but into the coffers of big business who have successfully lobbied to avoid paying taxes. I would not be surprised if, in the near future, your solution is enacted with the USA. It is a serious money making solution. But this pales in comparison to Jonathan Swift's solution to the problem of Irish poverty, when the British lords made destitute the already poor by forcing them off the land. Read his essay A Modest Proposal, which is a satirical presaging of today's MBAs. Of course, William Blake also delineated the solution to poverty in Britain in his time by highlighting the trade in children as chimney sweeps. Of course, this is now echoed in the current child sex trade practices of Asian countries, which is dependent for its continuation on poverty, a poverty which pelf takes advantage of and enriches the overseers. And I have just read in Deterring Democracy where Chomsky sites the trade of baby parts and organs for transplants for wealthy Americans and Israelis within the context of the destitution created by American 'free trade' practices brutally brought into place with wars both covert and overt, and with prolonged help of death squads and terror.

My pragmatic MBA nature found Brazil's solution to the problem of their criminal street children quite appealing: quietly kill them with covert death squads. Clean, simple, and efficient. And if the social poverty continues to create these ungrateful miscreants, then the price of a bullet is cheap, especially if the government is paying an American manufacturer for the supply of both the guns and bullets.
…

Well, the next night, shortly after recommencing Deterring Democracy, I read the following:

The share of the poorer classes in the national income is "steadily falling, giving Brazil probably the highest concentration of income in the world." It has no progressive income tax or capital gains tax, but it does have galloping inflation and a huge foreign debt, while participating in a "Marshall Plan in reverse," in the words of former President José Sarney, referring to debt payments.

It would only be fair to add that the authorities are concerned with the mounting problem of homeless and starving children, and are trying to reduce their numbers. Amnesty International reports that death squads, often run by the police, are killing street children at a rate of about one a day, while "many more children, forced onto the streets to support their families, are being beaten and tortured by the police" (Reuters, citing AI). "Poor children in Brazil are treated with contempt by the authorities, risking their lives simply by being on the streets," AI alleged. Most of the torture takes place under police custody or in state institutions. There are few complaints by victims or witnesses because of fear of the police, and the few cases that are investigated judicially result in light sentences (228).30

Note:
30 South, November 1989. Reuters, NYT, Sept. 6, 1990.

So, there you go. Not a book review, but a pair of the oddest fushigis.

And I strongly recommend that you give Deterring Democracy a read. It is very, very good. And, despite some of the reviews I've read, not all that hard to read.

2012.06.09 Fushigi Addendum.
Well, the theme of prison reform continued to be fushigi extended: today, when I picked up my weekly Globe and Mail, the cover story was about bail reform: CRIMINAL JUSTICE
A case for bail reform by Kirk Makin June 8, 2012.

2012.04.28 — Jung On Synchronicity and the Paranormal edited with an introduction by Roderick Main

C.G. Jung, Roderick Main (Editor)
Jung On Synchronicity and the Paranormal. Princeton, NJ, 1998 by Princeton University Press, ISBN 069105837.

Began 2012.02.01; Finished 2012.03.20

★★★★★

Jung On Synchronicity and the Paranormal (JoS&tP) is an important collection because it brings together in one short and well representative book, in Jung's own words, his interest in and experiences of the paranormal to a degree until now I'd read hints of but had never so plainly seen stated and elaborated. JoS&tP book goes far beyond what Jung included in his near-autobiographical, Memories, Dreams and Reflections. In MD&R there are included some paranormal activities, but my reading between its lines suggested to me that there was much more than was disclosed there. JoS&tP confirms that and then some.

In this anthology Roderick Main has done something quite interesting: even as Jung discloses a personal encounter with a ghost and other paranormal activities, including seances, Main provides linkages to some of the more under-discussed implications of quantum mechanics as they may apply to possible theories of paranormal experiences. Jung was very interested in the modern theories of physics because he saw a tangible theoretical and/or philosophical link between them and what his experiences with and ideas about paranormal experiences were leading him to think and theorize about psychology and the paranormal.

I particularly and thoroughly enjoyed the letters that were included, and not just because I love writing and reading 'heavy' philosophical letters too, but because Jung's informal writing is delightful to read. He relaxes his careful official persona, and expresses some of his unsupported speculations and ideas as to the nature of things inexplicable, such as the meaning of life, in ways always thoughtful, but frequently funny, too.

His face-to-face encounter with a ghost in a British farm house is particularly interesting because my reading of the encounter entangled it to me in one of the most interesting and quite frankly bizarre fushigis I've ever experienced. I have blogged it in 2012.02.02 — Half Face and More fushigis.

Despite this being about the 'airy fairy' concepts of synchronicity and ghosts, mediums and seances, Jung kept his writing and speculations and experiences 'real'. He doesn't leap to conclusions with his experiences, but allows them to challenge and question his pre-formulated beliefs about what may or may not be so-called reality. And in the process he challenges the validity of our ideological fixation on a rationalistic causal — 'Descartian' science. Unlike much of western science, perhaps especially the behaviourists who dismiss as unreal that which falls outside the bounds that their theories delineate, Jung proves his stature as a real scientist by neither dismissing nor idealizing his paranormal experiences: they become simply a part of the chisel that Life provided him to chip away at our false ideas and thinking, even if it is stingy in providing additional clues.

This is a solid five stars.

Now for some text I found to be particularly interesting for one reason or the other.

Pages 108-9
From 'The theory of synchronicity and Jung's astrological experiment. (Letter to A.D. Cornell (9 February 1960), Letters, vol. 2 pp.537-43.)

Jung points out that our perception of the an event is not the event, and that it is irrational — unscientific — to dismiss events because our perception is skewed or limited by our rational understanding of what is perceivable or possible. I laughed at how elegantly he used statistics to refute the completeness of causality's ability to explain 'everything.'

… My emphasis — as in all such cases — lies on the reality of the event, not on its having been perceived. This point of view accords with the hypothesis of an causal connection, i.e., a non-spatial and non-temporal conditioning of events.

Since causality is not an axiomatic but a statistical truth, there must be exceptions in which time and space appear to be relative, otherwise the truth would not be statistical. On this epistemological basis one must conclude that the possibility does exist of observing non-spatial and non-temporal events — the very phenomena which we actually do observe contrary to all expectations and which we are now discussing.

In my view, therefore, it is not our perception which is necessarily para- or supra-normal but the event itself. This, however, is not 'miraculous' but merely 'extra-ordinary' and unexpected, and then only from our biased standpoint which takes causality as axiomatic. From the statistical standpoint, of course, it is simply a matter of random phenomena, but from a truly realistic standpoint they are actual and significant facts. Exceptions are just as real as probabilities. The premise of probability simultaneously postulates the existence of the improbable.

Wherever and whenever the collective unconscious (the basis of our psyche) comes into play, the possibility arises that something will happen which contradicts our rationalistic prejudices. Our consciousness performs a selective function and is in itself the product of selection, whereas the collective unconscious is simply Nature — and since Nature contains everything it also contains the unknown. It is beyond truth and error, independent of the interference of consciousness, and therefore often completely at odds with the intentions and attitudes of the ego.

So far as we can see, the collective unconscious is identical with Nature to the extent that Nature herself, including matter, is unknown to us. I have nothing against the assumption that the psyche is a quality of matter or matter the concrete aspect of the psyche, provided that 'psyche' is defined as the collective unconscious. In my opinion the collective unconscious is the preconscious aspect of things on the 'animal' or instinctive level of the psyche. Everything that is stated or manifested by the psyche is an expression of the nature of things, whereof man is a part.

Just as in physics we cannot observe nuclear processes directly, so there can be no direct observation of the contents of the collective unconscious. In both cases their actual nature can be inferred only from their effects -just as the trajectory of a nuclear particle in a Wilson chamber8 can be traced only by observing the condensation trail that follows its movement and thus makes it visible.

In practice we observe the archetypal 'traces' primarily in dreams, where they become perceptible as psychic forms. But this is not the only way they reach perception: they can appear objectively and concretely in the form of physical facts just as well. In this case the observation is not an endopsychic perception (fantasy, intuition, vision, hallucination, etc.) but a real outer object which behaves as if it were motivated or evoked by, or as if it were expressing, .a thought corresponding to the archetype. Take for instance my case of the scarab: at the moment my patient was telling me her dream a real 'scarab' tried to get into the room, as if it had understood that it must play its mythological role as a symbol of rebirth. Even inanimate objects behave occasionally in the same way — meteorological phenomena, for instance.

Since I assume that our instincts (i.e., archetypes) are biological facts and not arbitrary opinions, I do not believe that synchronistic (or Psi-) phenomena are due to any supra-normal (psychic) faculties but rather that they are bound to occur under certain conditions if space, time, and causality are not axiomatic but merely statistical truths. They occur spontaneously and not because we think we possess a special faculty for perceiving them. For this reason I do not think in terms of concepts like 'telepathy', 'precognition', or 'psychokinesis'.

In the same way, the archetype is not evoked by a conscious act of the will; experience shows that it is activated, independently of the will, in a psychic situation that needs compensating by an archetype. One might even speak of a spontaneous archetypal intervention. The language of religion calls these happenings 'God's will' — quite correctly in so far as this refers to the peculiar behaviour of the archetype, its spontaneity and its functional relation to the actual situation (108-9).
…

Pages116-7
The theory of synchronicity and Jung's astrological experiment. (From 'An Astrological Experiment' CW18 1958.)

Jung argues that the 'truth' of causality relies on the existence of acausality. Again, he cites the use of statistical proofs of scientific truth as an inferred proof of causal relativity. He makes an interesting claim: Meaning arises not from causality but from freedom, i. e., from causality. His arguments are often appear, superficially, to be philosophical, but rest on a scientific attitude: … science gives us only an average picture of the world, but not a true one. If human society consisted of average individuals only, it would be a sad sight indeed.

1186 Naturally I do not think that [the astrological] experiment or any other report on happenings of this kind proves anything; it merely points to something that even science can no longer overlook — namely, that its truths are in essence statistical and are therefore not absolute. Hence there is in nature a background of acausality, freedom, and meaningfulness which behaves complementarily to determinism, mechanism and meaninglessness; and it is to be assumed that such phenomena are observable. Owing to their peculiar nature, however, they will hardly be prevailed upon to lay aside the chance character that makes them so questionable. If they did this they would no longer be what they are — acausal, undetermined, meaningful.

1187 Pure causality is only meaningful when used for the creation and functioning of an efficient instrument or machine by an intelligence standing outside this process and independent of it. A self-running process that operates entirely by its own causality, i.e., by absolute necessity, is meaningless. One of my critics accuses me of having too rigid a conception of causality. He has obviously not considered that if cause and effect were not necessarily5 connected there would hardly be any meaning in speaking of causality at all. My critic makes the same mistake as the famous scientist6 who refuses to believe that God played dice when he created the world. He fails to see that if God did not play dice he had no choice but to create a (from the human point of view) meaningless machine. Since this question involves a transcendental judgment there can be no final answer to it, only a paradoxical one. Meaning arises not from causality but from freedom, i. e., from acausality.

1188 Modern physics has deprived causality of its axiomatic character. Thus, when we explain natural events we do so by means of an instrument which is not quite reliable. Hence an element of uncertainty always attaches to our judgment, because — theoretically, at least — we might always be dealing with an exception to the rule which can only be registered negatively by the statistical method. No matter how small this chance is, (116) it nevertheless exists. Since causality is our only means of explanation and since it is only relatively valid, we explain the world by applying causality in a paradoxical way, both positively and negatively: A is the cause of B and possibly not. The negation can be omitted in the great majority of cases. But it is my contention that it cannot be omitted in the case of phenomena which are relatively independent of space and time. As the time-factor is indispensable to the concept of causality, one cannot speak of causality in a case where the time-factor is eliminated (as in precognition). Statistical truth leaves a gap open for acausal phenomena. And since our causalistic explanation of nature contains the possibility of its own negation, it belongs to the category of transcendental judgments, which are paradoxical or antinomian. That is so because nature is still beyond us and because science gives us only an average picture of the world, but not a true one. If human society consisted of average individuals only, it would be a sad sight indeed.

1189 From a rational point of view, an experiment like the one I conducted is completely valueless, for the oftener it is repeated the more probable becomes its lack of results. But that this is also not so is proved by the very old tradition, which would hardly have come about had not these 'lucky hits' often happened in the past. They behave like Rhine's results: they are exceedingly improbable, and yet they happen so persistently that they even compel us to criticize the foundations of our probability calculus, or at least its applicability to certain kinds of material.

1190 When analyzing unconscious processes I often had occasion to observe synchronistic or ESP phenomena, and I therefore turned my attention to the psychic conditions underlying them. I believe I have found that they nearly always occur in the region of archetypal constellations, that is, in situations which have either activated an archetype or were evoked by the autonomous activity of an archetype. It is these observations which led me to the idea of getting the combination of archetypes found in astrology to give a quantitatively measurable answer. In this I succeeded, as the result shows; indeed one could say that the organizing factor responded with enthusiasm to my prompting. The reader must pardon this anthropomorphism, which I know positively invites misinterpretation; it fits in excellently well with the psychological facts and aptly describes the emotional background from which synchronistic phenomena emerge.

1191 I am aware that I ought at this point to discuss the psychology of the archetype, but this has been done so often and in such detail elsewhere that I do not wish to repeat myself now.

1192 I am also aware of the enormous impression of improbability made by events of this kind, and that their comparative rarity does not make them any more probable. The statistical method therefore excludes them, as they do not belong to the average run of events (116-7).

Page 147
Life after death

Jung argues that so-called 'real' scientific experiments like those of J.B. Rhine suggest that consciousness is comprised of or rests upon a continuity beyond our normal observation of space and time. Jung doesn't say outright there is life beyond death, but the more cautious … there is no way to marshal valid proof of continuance of the soul after death, there are nevertheless experiences which make us thoughtful.

… When one has such experiences — and I will tell of others like them — one acquires a certain respect for the potentialities and arts of the unconscious. Only, one must remain critical and be aware that such communications may have a subjective meaning as well. They may be in accord with reality, and then again they may not. I have, however, learned that the views I have been able to form on the basis of such hints from the unconscious have been most rewarding. Naturally, I am not going to write a book of revelations about them, but I will acknowledge that I have a 'myth' which encourages me to look deeper into this whole realm. Myths are the earliest form of science. When I speak of things after death, I am speaking out of inner prompting, and can go no farther than to tell you dreams and myths that relate to this subject.

Naturally, one can contend from the start that myths and dreams concerning continuity of life after death are merely compensating fantasies which are inherent in our natures — all life desires eternity. The only argument I can adduce in answer to this is the myth itself.

However, there are indications that at least a part of the psyche is not subject to the laws of space and time. Scientific proof of that has been provided by the well-known J.B. Rhine experiments. Along with numerous cases of spontaneous foreknowledge, non-spatial perceptions, and so on — of which I have given a number of examples from my own life — these experiments prove that the psyche at times functions outside of the spatiotemporal law of causality. This indicates that our conceptions of space and time, and therefore of causality also, are incomplete. A complete picture of the world would require the addition of still another dimension; only then could the totality of phenomena be given a unified explanation. Hence it is that the rationalists insist to this day that parapsychological experiences do not really exist; for their world-view stands or falls by this question. If such phenomena occur at all, the rationalistic picture of the universe is invalid, because incomplete. Then the possibility of an other-valued reality behind the phenomenal world becomes an inescapable problem, and we must face the fact that our world, with its time, space, and causality, relates to another order of things lying behind or beneath it, in which neither 'here and there' nor 'earlier and later' are of importance. I have been convinced that at least a part of our psychic existence is characterized by a relativity of space and time. This relativity seems to increase, in proportion to the distance from consciousness, to an absolute condition of timelessness and spacelessness.

Although there is no way to marshal valid proof of continuance of the soul after death, there are nevertheless experiences which make us thoughtful. I take them as hints, and do not presume to ascribe to them the significance of insights(147).
…

Page 159
Miscellaneous insights and speculations
(From: Letter to E.L. Grant Watson (9 February 1956), Letters, vol. 2, pp. 287-9.)

Synchronicity is the link between movement of mass in space and time and psychic energy. So-called statistical truths are made up of exceptions to the 'normal' laws of the universe.

You are surely touching upon a most important fact when you begin to question the coincidence of a purely mathematical deduction with physical facts, such as the sect aurea (the Fibonacci series. My source calls him Fibonacci, not -nicci. He lived 1180-1250) and in modern times the equations expressing the turbulence of gases. One has not marvelled enough about these parallelisms. It is quite obvious that there must exist a condition common to the moving body and the psychic 'movement', more than a merely logical corollarium or consectarium. I should call it an irrational (acausal) corollary of synchronicity. The Fibonacci series is self-evident and a property of the series of whole numbers, and it exists independently of empirical facts, as on the other hand the periodicity of a biological spiral occurs without application of mathematical reasoning unless one assumes an equal arrangement in living matter as well as in the human mind, ergo a property of matter (or of 'energy' or whatever you call the primordial principle) in general and consequently also of moving bodies in general, the psychic 'movement' included.

If this argument stands to reason, the coincidence of physical and mental forms and also of physical and mental events (synchronicity) would needs be a regular occurrence, which, however, particularly with synchronicity, is not the case. This is a serious snag pointing, as it seems to me, to an indeterminate or at least indeterminable, apparently arbitrary arrangement. This is a much neglected but characteristic aspect of physical nature: the statistical truth is largely made up of exceptions. That is the aspect of reality the poet and artist would insist upon, and that is also the reason why a philosophy exclusively based upon natural science is nearly always flat, superficial, and vastly beside the point, as it misses all the colourful improbable exceptions, the real 'salt of the earth'! It is not realistic, but rather an abstract half-truth, which, when applied to living man, destroys all individual values indispensable to human life(159).

For the next citation, I chose to append Main's extract from CW8 with a few more paragraphs that precede his. His citation from 'The Soul and Death' begins with paragraph 809, but I like how Jung leads up to that beginning with paragraph 807. So, from CW8, pars 807-8. Jung suggests that neurosis and nervous disorders derive primarily from being alienated from one's natural instincts. Rationalistic thinking as regards things like death stand in opposition to our instinctual feeling or understanding of death and its potential meaning, and therefore approaches being a neurotic symptom.

807 … it would seem to be more in accord with the collective psyche of humanity to regard death as the fulfillment of life's meaning and as its final goal in the truest sense, instead of a mere meaningless cessation. Anyone who cherishes a rationalistic opinion on this score has isolated himself psychologically and stands opposed to his own basic human nature.

808 This last sentence contains a fundamental truth about all neuroses, for nervous disorders consist primarily in an alienation from one's instincts, a splitting off of consciousness from certain basic facts of the psyche. Hence rationalistic opinions come unexpectedly close to neurotic symptoms. Like these, they consist of distorted thinking, which takes the place of psychologically correct thinking. The latter kind of thinking always retains its connection with the heart, with the depths of the psyche, the tap-root. For, enlightenment or no enlightenment, consciousness or no consciousness, nature prepares itself for death. If we could observe and register the thoughts of a young person when he has time and leisure for day-dreaming, we would discover that, aside from a few memory-images, his fantasies are mainly concerned with the future. As a matter of fact, most fantasies consist of anticipations. They are for the most part preparatory acts, or even psychic exercises for dealing with certain future realities. If we could make the same experiment with an ageing person—without his knowledge, of course— we would naturally find, owing to his tendency to look backwards, a greater number of memory-images than with a younger person, but we would also find a surprisingly large number of anticipations, including those of death. Thoughts of death pile up to an astonishing degree as the years increase. Willynilly, the ageing person prepares himself for death. That is why I think that nature herself is already preparing for the end. Objectively it is a matter of indifference what the individual consciousness may think about it. But subjectively it makes an enormous difference whether consciousness keeps in step with the psyche or whether it clings to opinions of which the heart knows nothing. It is just as neurotic in old age not to focus upon the goal of death as it is in youth to repress fantasies which have to do with the future.

Now I return to the text in JoS&tP.

Pages 142-145
From 'The Soul and Death' (1934) (CW8)

Does death have meaning? Jung's experiences with people and their dreams who are approaching death have provided him with evidence that the unconscious remains unperturbed by its arrival and seems to view it as relatively unimportant. However the unconscious does seem to put importance on how one dies.

809 In my rather long psychological experience I have observed a great many people whose unconscious psychic activity I was able to follow into the immediate presence of death. As a rule the approaching end was indicated by those symbols which, in normal life also, proclaim changes of psychological condition — rebirth symbols such as changes of locality, journeys, and the like. I have frequently been able to trace back for over a year, in a dream-series, the indications of approaching death, even in cases where such thoughts were not prompted by the outward situation. Dying, therefore, has its onset long before actual death. Moreover, this often shows itself in peculiar changes of personality which may precede death by quite a long time. On the whole, I was astonished to see how little ado the unconscious psyche makes of death. It would seem as though death were something relatively unimportant, or perhaps our psyche does not bother about what happens to the individual. But it seems that the unconscious is all the more interested in how one dies; that is, whether the attitude of consciousness is adjusted to dying or not. For example, I once had to treat a woman of sixty-two. She was still hearty, and moderately intelligent. It was not for want of brains that she was unable to understand her dreams. It was unfortunately only too clear that she did not want to understand them. Her dreams were very plain, but also very disagreeable. She had got it fixed in her head that she was a faultless mother to her children, but the children did not share this view at all, and the dreams too displayed a conviction very much to the contrary. I was obliged to break off the treatment after some weeks of fruitless effort because I had to leave for military service (it was during the war). In the meantime the patient was smitten with an incurable disease, leading after a few months to a moribund condition which might bring about the end at any moment. Most of the time she was in a sort of delirious or somnambulistic state, and in this curious mental condition she spontaneously resumed the analytical work. She spoke of her dreams again and acknowledged to herself everything that she had previously denied to me with the greatest vehemence, and a lot more besides. This self-analytic work continued daily for several hours, for about six weeks. At the end of this period she had calmed herself, just like a patient during normal treatment, and then she died.

810 From this and numerous other experiences of the kind I must conclude that our psyche is at least not indifferent to the dying of the individual. The urge, so often seen in those who are dying, to set to rights whatever is still wrong might point in the same direction.

811 How these experiences are ultimately to be interpreted is a problem that exceeds the competence of an empirical science and goes beyond our intellectual capacities, for in order to reach a final conclusion one must necessarily have had the actual experience of death. This event unfortunately puts the observer in a position that makes it impossible for him to give an objective account of his experiences and of the conclusions resulting therefrom.

812 Consciousness moves within narrow confines, within the brief span of time between its beginning and its end, and shortened by about a third by periods of sleep. The life of the body lasts somewhat longer; it always begins earlier and, very often, it ceases later than consciousness. Beginning and end are unavoidable aspects of all processes. Yet on closer examination it is extremely difficult to see where one process ends and another begins, since events and processes, beginnings and endings, merge into each other and form, strictly speaking, an indivisible continuum. We divide the processes from one another for the sake of discrimination and understanding, knowing full well that at bottom every division is arbitrary and conventional. This procedure in no way infringes the continuum of the world process, for "beginning" and "end" are primarily necessities of conscious cognition. We may establish with reasonable certainty that an individual consciousness as it relates to ourselves has come to an end. But whether this means that the continuity of the psychic process is also interrupted remains doubtful, since the psyche's attachment to the brain can be affirmed with far less certitude today than it could fifty years ago. Psychology must first digest certain parapsychological facts, which it has hardly begun to do as yet.

813 The unconscious psyche appears to possess qualities which throw a most peculiar light on its relation to space and time. I am thinking of those spatial and temporal telepathic phenomena which, as we know, are much easier to ignore than to explain. In this regard science, with a few praiseworthy exceptions, has so far taken the easier path of ignoring them. I must confess, however, that the so-called telepathic faculties of the psyche have caused me many a headache, for the catchword "telepathy" is very far from explaining anything. The limitation of consciousness in space and time is such an overwhelming reality that every occasion when this fundamental truth is broken through must rank as an event of the highest theoretical significance, for it would prove that the space-time barrier can be annulled. The annulling factor would then be the psyche, since space-time would attach to it at most as a relative and conditioned quality. Under certain conditions it could even break through the barriers of space and time precisely because of a quality essential to it, that is, its relatively trans-spatial and trans-temporal nature. This possible transcendence of space-time, for which it seems to me there is a good deal of evidence, is of such incalculable import that it should spur the spirit of research to the greatest effort. Our present development of consciousness is, however, so backward that in general we still lack the scientific and intellectual equipment for adequately evaluating the facts of telepathy so far as they have bearing on the nature of the psyche. I have referred to this group of phenomena merely in order to point out that the psyche's attachment to the brain, i.e., its space-time limitation, is no longer as self-evident and incontrovertible as we have hitherto been led to believe.

814 Anyone who has the least knowledge of the parapsychological material which already exists and has been thoroughly verified will know that so-called telepathic phenomena are undeniable facts. An objective and critical survey of the available data would establish that perceptions occur as if in part there were no space, in part no time. Naturally, one cannot draw from this the metaphysical conclusion that in the world of things as they are "in themselves" there is neither space nor time, and that the space-time category is therefore a web into which the human mind has woven itself as into a nebulous illusion. Space and time are not only the most immediate certainties for us, they are also obvious empirically, since everything observable happens as though it occurred in space and time. In the face of this overwhelming certainty it is understandable that reason should have the greatest difficulty in granting validity to the peculiar nature of telepathic phenomena. But anyone who does justice to the facts cannot but admit that their apparent space-timelessness is their most essential quality. In the last analysis, our naive perception and immediate certainty are, strictly speaking, no more than evidence of a psychological a priori form of perception which simply rules out any other form. The fact that we are totally unable to imagine a form of existence without space and time by no means proves that such an existence is in itself impossible. And therefore, just as we cannot draw, from an appearance of space-timelessness, any absolute conclusion about a space-timeless form of existence, so we are not entitled to conclude from the apparent space-time quality of our perception that there is no form of existence without space and time. It is not only permissible to doubt the absolute validity of space- time perception; it is, in view of the available facts, even imperative to do so. The hypothetical possibility that the psyche touches on a form of existence outside space and rime presents a scientific question-mark that merits serious consideration for a long time to come. The ideas and doubts of theoretical physicists in our own day should prompt a cautious mood in psychologists too; for, philosophically considered, what do we mean by the "limitedness of space" if not a relativization of the space category? Something similar might easily happen to the category of time (and to that of causality as well). Doubts about these matters are more warranted today than ever before (142-145).
...

On reflection I am not sure what I expected to read before I began reading JoS&tP, but it turned out to be a far, far better read than I'd anticipated. Perhaps it was the inclusion of so many letters and extracts from letters, which I'd not read before except in tiny citations.

Also, my prejudice regarding the word 'paranormal' lead me to anticipate something other than what Jung explored, which is a very scientific, coherent, and sound argument that our scientific foundation in causal biased rationalism is not just misguided, but inadequate to explain the full range of what happens within the so-called bounds of life.

I highly recommend this book.