In an article published at OpEdNews.com on May 12, 2014, Rob Kall asks, "What is the opposite of the psychopathic spectrum?" The healthy opposite of the psychopathic spectrum is the relatedness spectrum. But a more extreme opposite is possible, and it is unhealthy.

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Originally Published on OpEdNews

Duluth, Minnesota (OpEdNews) May 12, 2014: Rob Kall has asked, "What would be the opposite of the psychopathic spectrum?"

I would say that the healthy opposite of the psychopathic spectrum is the relatedness spectrum -- you know, John Donne's famous quip that "no man is an island." But psychopaths tend to think they are in effect islands.

Now, in the 1988 two-volume hardcover edition of Nietzsche's Zarathustra: Notes of the Seminar Given in 1934-1939 by C. G. Jung, expertly edited by James L. Jarrett, Jung says that the concept of Eros represents "a principle of relatedness" (page 382).

Much later in the seminar, Jung says that "the opposite of relatedness [involves] destructiveness" (page 872). He then explains that destructiveness can turn into "a warlike attitude" in which one becomes the enemy of mankind" (page 872).

In his book The Duality of Human Existence (1966), David Bakan discusses two dimensions of human existence: (1) agency and (2) communion.

Vicki S. Helgeson in psychology at CarnegieMellonUniversity in Pittsburgh has conducted research using Bakan's two dimensions of human existence. See the index of her 700-page textbook The Psychology of Gender, 3rd ed. (2009) for specific page references to her own research.

By definition, communion involves relatedness.

By definition, people on the psychopathic spectrum tend to over-do agency to the exclusion, or near exclusion, of communion.

It is also possible to over-do the spirit of communion to the exclusion, or near exclusion, of agency. This would be the extreme -- and unhealthy -- opposite of the psychopathic spectrum.

Now, for must of us, the optimal form of communion would be Martin Buber's I-thou encounter.

However, in our Western cultural tradition, St. Francis of Assisi experienced an extraordinary degree of communion that he commemorates in his famous song "The Canticle of Brother Sun." See Eloi Leclerc's book The Canticle of Creatures: Symbols of Union: An Analysis of St. Francis of Assisi (1977).

THE BIG PICTURE OF OUR WESTERN CULTURAL HISTORY

Walter J. Ong, S.J. (1912-2003), discusses the world-as-event sense of life in his article "World as View and World as Event" in the journal American Anthropologist, volume 71, number 4 (August 1969): pages 634-647. We reprinted this article in volume three of Ong's Faith and Contexts (1995, pages 69-90).

We could say that the spirit of communion is alive and well in the world-as-event sense of life -- as it was for St. Francis of Assisi -- and as it was for some of the psalmists who composed psalms in the Hebrew Bible.

The Walt Disney musical Pocahontas (1995) presents a stylized version of the world-as-event sense of life that children can relate to and understand.

David Abram presents a fine phenomenological account of the world-as-event sense of life in his book The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World (1996).

Now, in his larger account of our Western cultural history, Ong aligns not only the Homeric epics the Iliad and the Odyssey but also the Hebrew Bible with the world-as-event sense of life.

Then he aligns the emergence of Greek philosophic thought as exemplified by Plato and Aristotle with distinctively literate thought and with the world-as-view sense of life. See Andrea Wilson Nightingale's book Spectacles of Truth in Classical Greek Philosophy: Theoria in Cultural Context (2004).

But Ong is also careful to note that distinctively literate thought and the world-as-view sense of life did not automatically eliminated all aspects of primary oral cultures and the world-as-event sense of life. In ancient and medieval cultures, oral culture was still strong, even in Plato and Aristotle.

Concerning Plato's residual form of the world-as-event sense of life, see John Alexander Stewart's 500-age compilation and translation titled The Myths of Plato (1905). He includes the complete Greek texts.

Concerning Aristotle's orientation toward a world-as-event sense of life, see Eugene Garver's book Aristotle's Rhetoric: An Art of Character (1994).

Nevertheless, the world-as-event sense of life was carried forward from Plato and Aristotle in ancient and medieval philosophy and in Christian theology.

Now, with the emergence of the Gutenberg printing press in the 1450s, the world-as-view sense of life was heightened to unprecedented heights in the emerging print culture. Out of the world-as-view in print culture, modernity emerged historically.

Print culture gave rise to the inner-directed character type such as David Riesman and Erich Fromm. In American culture historically, all self-made men were inner-directed character types. In American culture today, self-described libertarians represent inner-directed character types.

Now, in Ong's above-mentioned article in American Anthropologist, and elsewhere in his publications, he suggests that a new constellation of our consciousness is emerging under the influence of our contemporary cultural conditioning involving communication media that accentuate sound.

The character type that Riesman and Fromm worried about, the other-directed character type, emerged historically under the influence of the cultural conditioning of communication media that accentuate sound.

Now, not all inner-directed character types would be on the psychopathic spectrum. For example, Fromm's most widely known book is The Art of Loving (1956).

But the psychopathic spectrum represents a development within the larger cultural history out of which the inner-directed character type emerged historically.

Authors Bio:
Thomas James Farrell is professor emeritus of writing studies at the University of Minnesota Duluth (UMD). He started teaching at UMD in Fall 1987, and he retired from UMD at the end of May 2009. He was born in 1944. He holds three degrees from Saint Louis University (SLU): B.A. in English, 1966; M.A.(T) in English 1968; Ph.D.in higher education, 1974. On May 16, 1969, the editors of the SLU student newspaper named him Man of the Year, an honor customarily conferred on an administrator or a faculty member, not on a graduate student -- nor on a woman up to that time. He is the proud author of the book WALTER ONG'S CONTRIBUTIONS TO CULTURAL STUDIES: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF THE WORD AND I-THOU COMMUNICATION (Cresskill, NJ: Hampton Press, 2000; 2nd ed. 2009, forthcoming). The first edition won the 2001 Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book in the Field of Media Ecology conferred by the Media Ecology Association. For further information about his education and his publications, see his UMD homepage: Click here to visit Dr. Farrell's homepage.

On September 10 and 22, 2009, he discussed Walter Ong's work on the blog radio talk show "Ethics Talk" that is hosted by Hope May in philosophy at Central Michigan University. Each hour-long show has been archived and is available for people who missed the live broadcast to listen to. Here are the website addresses for the two archived shows:

Click here to listen the Technologizing of the Word Interview

Click here to listen the Ramus, Method & The Decay of Dialogue Interview