In today’s world of 2022 in the United States of America if you felt hungry and your refrigerator were empty you can look up a menu online and order the desired food to be delivered to you. Life is good! Thousands of years ago when man migrated to these strange and vast land he found nothing but wilderness. Most everything he saw on the continent was strange to him and new. The plants, trees, fruits, animals, the stars in the sky, the climate all of these had to be learned and experienced anew.
The average lifespan of a hunter-gatherer was about 30 years of age, if he was careful and skilled at living on earth. Thanks to the discoveries and advancement in energy generation, health care and speed of communication, your lifespan, in contrast, is about 80 years of age, and that, if you are not so careful and not so skilled at living on earth. A hunter-gatherer child had to be able to fend for himself by 6 or 7 years of age, whereby it takes 30 years of life experience to achieve proficient living efficacy in today’s advanced society.
In seven years time the child can read a terrain and ascertain where potential danger lies, where he can hunt safely, what berries he can eat, what plants he can use, learn how to use weapons, learn how to navigate himself in dense forest environment, use the sky to orient himself at any point on an open plain. Today, it takes the achievement of several PH. D. Diplomas to be able to accomplish all that, and it will be supervised and licensed activity.
Yet, the men of both times have the same physiological structure. Both share a nervous system that matures at the age 25 and start rapidly declining after that. By age 35 exertion shows in the diminishing velocity of performance, by 45 strength does not extend the confidence of earlier age, by 55, if you are still alive prior to the industrial revolution, you no longer recognize yourself, post industrial revolution at 65, unless you stayed active and took care of your body, you start experiencing pain every time you move, today at 75 you can still live a robust lifestyle and postpone the depression of natural life for another decade or two. So how do you extend the intensity of living at age 25 to your old self at 75?
One word, build a one in the many character.
According to the Oxford dictionary, character is the mental and moral qualities distinctive to an individual. And personality is the combination of characteristics or qualities that form an individual’s distinctive character.
In her essay “The Goal of My Writing” published in The Romantic Manifesto by Ayn Rand, she writes:
“Just as man’s physical survival depends on his own effort, so does his psychological survival. Man faces two corollary, interdependent fields of action in which a constant exercise of choice and a constant creative process are demanded of him: the world around him and his own soul (by “soul”, I mean his consciousness). Just as he has to produce the material values he needs to sustain his life, so he has to acquire the values of character that enable him to sustain it and that make his life worth living. He is born without the knowledge of either. He has to discover both — and translate them into reality — and survive by shaping the world and himself in the image of his values.”
In 2008 I listened to Dr. Leonard Peikoff’s lecture series on his soon to become book The DIM Hypothesis which was published by New American Library in 2012. The DIM in the title stands for Disintegration, Integration and Misintegration. If you want to know, as his subtitle states, “Why the Lights of the West are Going Out”, if you want to be part of an ingenious journey through history guided by a brilliant mind, please get a copy and read the book.
Dr. Peikoff’s work inspired me to apply his DIM hypothesis to psychology and formulate in broad terms a stylized form of personalities on the basis of the three fundamental modes. The following is my interpretation of the application of the DIM to psychology. I’ll follow the sequence of the acronym for the purpose of a continuous flow.
Let me begin by describing the Disintegrated Personality using the DIM
hypothesis.
At the base of the disintegrated personality is the belief that the world does not exist. Man’s perception of the world is a figment of his imagination. Pain and pleasure are subjective, nominal constructs created and manipulated by man’s mind. What one says he feels, regardless of how one actually feels, is the only standard of modus operandi.
In this view, metaphysically, “man is the measure of all things”, as Protagoras insisted in 420 BC. The universe as such is embodied in the imagination of man’s mind. There is no universe outside man. Epistemologically, the only way he functions, is by feeling the contours of his imagination.
If and when such man is presented with the requirement to earn his living, his response is: I don’t feel like it. In reality he forces his imagined conviction on others, counting, implicitly, on their normality to provide for his survival.
When man rejects the existence of nature, there is nothing to motivate his life. There are no values, and no goals to gain such. If anything on the outside actually stimulates his feelings he will claim it without regard for ownership or right to life. The only phenomenon that he senses is the state of his feelings. He becomes hedonistic. Everything he desires he takes, because he feels like it. Anything he dislikes he destroys, because he feels like it.
A man in such state develops psychosis. Nothing lasts for long, and everything is dictated by a whim of his feelings. Since there is no permanence of characteristics congruent with his feelings, he develops no personality. He is perturbing in relationship with others and destructive in relation to reality. His sense-of-life is marked by a grandiose scheme of solution to world problems, the same world that he doesn’t believe it exists. But, it feels good to talk about, at the moment. He is incapable to stand on his own in nature.
In contrast, and implicitly supporting the world through history:
At the base of the integrated personality flourishes the benevolent universe premise. Dr. Peikoff in 1976 explains “The ‘benevolent universe’ does not mean that the universe feels kindly to man or that it is out to help him achieve his goals. No, the universe is neutral; it simply is; it is indifferent to you. You must care about and adapt to it, not the other way around. But reality is ‘benevolent’ in the sense that if you do adapt to it -- i.e., if you do think, value, and act rationally, then you can (and barring accidents you will) achieve your values. You will, because those values are based on reality.” (Leonard Peikoff, 1976)
Metaphysically, integration is the adaptation of the self in reality to existence. The manifestation of this view is evident in the harmony between body and mind of the individual. Epistemologically, the individual relies on his senses; on the ability to see, hear, touch, smell and taste, and on the ability to integrate the perceptibly experienced in reality as a conceptually accessible thoughts of his mind. His life depends on the ability to think, i.e., on his faculty of reason.
When man depends on his nature to motivate his existence, he can anticipate future events as consequence of cause and effect. It is up to him to discover what is of value to him, and what is not. He becomes selfish participant in nature. He blends with the environment to procure food, to build himself an exalted career, to find the love of his life, to advance his life as longer he could. As such, he develops insouciance as his default mode of psychological state and adopts the benevolent universe premise.
In his personality he becomes flexible and adaptive, he is not willing to close his eyes and avoid the sudden danger he faces. In relationships he expects to offer and accept the best he can achieve. Love is an attainment of his highest values he can offer to another of an equal moral stature. His sense-of-life is defined by his achievement, i.e., he is proud to say -- I; for it is his effort to gain his values as he identified them in reality that signifies his life. He is eager to stand on his own in nature.
Most prominent and enduring explicitly throughout history is the misintegrated personality.
At the base of the misintegrated personality lurks the malevolent universe premise. Ayn Rand explains, “The altruist ethics is based on a ‘malevolent universe’ metaphysics, on the theory that man, by his very nature, is helpless and doomed -- that success, happiness, achievement are impossible to him -- that emergencies, disasters, catastrophes are the norm of his life and that his primary goal is to combat them.” (Ayn Rand, 1964)
Metaphysically, misintegration is the adaptation of a split view of the self to the universe. The schism is most notably characterized in the mystic view of natural vs. super-natural worlds. The secular version of this view is prominent in the dichotomy of the individual vs. the collective essence of the world we live in. The common denominator for these views is the epistemological dependence of the self on the will of the super-natural being and/or the collective.
When man allows faith to motivate his existence, he becomes apprehensive of what might follow as a consequence of his submission to the ineffable. He gives up his ability to see, hear, touch, smell, taste, and think. He abrogates his nature and becomes a selfless instrument subjected to the will of an epistemological dictator. As such, he develops anxiety as his default mode of psychological state and adopts the malevolent universe premise.
The duality of his personality is manifested in the time and effort he devotes to that which is of reality, and that which is of another dimension. To the extend that he adheres to the laws of nature, he is a productive member of society, to the extend that he gives up his nature, he turns neurotic. In his personality he becomes inflexible and rigid, he is not willing to open his eyes and look at the world for fear of calamity. In relationships he demands obedience, love is an obligation prescribed for him by his puppet-master. His sense-of-life is defined by the effort of his epistemological achievement, i.e., he must be humble, for it is the creator, or the collective who breathes life in him or supports his existence. He is afraid to stand on his own in nature.
When you look around the office, or wherever your work might be, you’ll find elements of these highly stylized personality trends in the people around you. In today’s society it will be difficult if not impossible to find a person who embodies either one of these modes perfectly, but historically there were individuals who animated this abstract approach with real world consequence. Hitler is a good candidate to represent the disintegrated personality as I see it. Augustine and/or Marx would be an ideal candidate to personify the misintegrated personality. And the seven year old hunter-gatherer has a chance to flourish another 20 or 30 years if he keeps it all together as an integrated person in the world.
Most men are mixture of the modes as described by the DIM hypothesis in different aspects of their lives. One can be impeccably integrated in his professional career and painfully negligent in his family life, another can be driven by pleasing others at any cost while fiercefully guarding his dedication to build the best body he can muster. As I explore the virtues of the process of integration in psychology and discover problems in the field influenced by insufficient differentiation of human nature the mixtures will help us find solutions tested against the requirements of the one in the many as integration is inspirational and corrective.
In time of adversity we have the choice to fight our misfortune or kneel down in prayer and parish. In the philosophy of Objectivism lecture series, Dr. Peikoff explains, “Character means a man’s nature or identity insofar as this is shaped by the moral values he accepts and automatizes. By ‘moral values’ I mean values which are volitionally chosen, and which are fundamental , I.e., shape the whole course of a man’s action, not merely a specialized, delimited area of his life.... So a man’s character is, in effect, his moral essence — his self-made identity as expressed in the principles he lives by.”
Let me add that your moral essence is the persisting and permanent stamp in your psychological sense of life. It is the link between your philosophical ideas and psychological value orientation, the link between your virtues and values as identified and practiced by you that will make you happy or unhappy, guilty or proud, fundamentally and ultimately integrated, misintegrated, or disintegrated. Any mixture of these that you find as an impediment to your successful flourishing will alert you to investigate and embark on a corrective course of action resulting in the one in the many outcome you can live by in peace and happiness.
In this episode I introduced you to the formal approach to the one in the many in human personality and character. It is one of the three fundamental modes of integration or a mixture of these that fundamentally augments or hinder our lives. In my next episode I’ll focus on the ancient call to know yourself and what does it mean to link your body and mind in harmony.