Post by M Winther"Understanding European psychology"
European psychology and its rooting in the interiority of Christian
Middle Ages
http://home7.swipnet.se/~w-73784/interiority.htm
Mats Winther
The notion of interiority might improve our understanding of political
history. For historical reasons, the Germans and the Japanese lagged
behind the other modern countries. Both nations, in an attempt to
catch up, "amputated" the medieval mind-set, allowing for a throwback
to a stage that was lacking in interiority. In consequence, completely
shallow ideals of Power, Beauty, and Glory, surfaced. Such a
regressive movement took place already during the era of colonialism
and the WWI. This analysis is also relevant to Stalinist Russia, which
also fell into shallow pre-medieval extraversion, although the deeply
introverted Orthodox Church did much to mollify the situation.
The Japanese concept of 'wabi-sabi' represents a worldview or
aesthetic centered on the acceptance of transience
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabi-sabi). The student of wabi-sabi
learns to view the most simple objects as interesting, fascinating and
beautiful. This is also relevant to the tradition of writing haiku
poems. Such disciplines represent the inner, or spiritual, experience
of human life, wholly antithetical to the antique expansive notion of
Beauty, Power, and Glory. However, such ceremonials could lose their
sense of interiority when they are adopted by extraverts who want to
make the impression of sophistication, much like European extraverts
adopting freemasonry, thus turning it into a repugnant exercise in
group narcissism.
When the standpoint of interiority is eliminated, a regress is
inevitable. On this view, the attacks on China and on Pearl Harbor
would not have occurred if the Japanese had not managed to amputate
their medieval mind-set of interiority. The reason why the
Scandinavians have never taken part in the outbreaks of madness that
have befallen Europe is because we are very bound up with nature. We
are similar to the Japanese in the sense that we like the beauty of
the little things, the dark meres in the wood, the wind that whispers
in the trees. The 'Neck' (Näcken) is ever playing his violin in the
rapids. Although Scandinavians are strongly rooted in nature, I am
afraid that young people are losing the contact with nature on account
of the modern development, such as the Internet. As soon as the spirit
of interiority is lost, notions similar to Hitlerism, Stalinism, or
fundamentalist Islamism, inevitably surface.
Mats Winther