The Myth of Tantalus A Scaffolding for an Ontological Theory of Personality

by Shoham, Shlomo Giora

• ISBN13: 9781903900437
• ISBN10: 1903900433
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2005-05-01
• Publisher: Sussex Academic Press

Summary

These psychological dynamics are presented by way of the developmental and relationship experiences we have with the outside world -- alternations between conflict and a striving to revert back to earlier developmental phases. At any given moment of our lives there is a gap between our desires for participation and our subjectively defined distance from our participatory aims. This gap is denoted the Tantalus Ratio, after the Olympian demigod. Transcendental longings and quests are explored in their actual structuring of the human personality. This new Theory of Personality also explores the mytho-empirical manifestation of the normative sacrifice of the young, denoted as the Isaac Syndrome. The author pays homage to Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus by recognising the absurd drudgeries of man's existence, the maddening routines, the point-lessness of being, the silence of god, and the cruelty of man to man. Examples from literature and myth demonstrate that if man can find a creative modus vivendi with his pitiful 'stone' burden, then the vicissitudes of existence can become punctuated with meaning, satisfaction and even happiness. Like Camus, the author concludes that it is only through creative rebellion that man can find authenticity.

Table of Contents

Preface & Acknowledgements	viii
Self and Transcendence	viii
Mythogene and Mythology	x
A Note on Gender	xii
My Debt	xii
With Gratitude	xii
Introduction -- The Away and Beyond is Right Here and Now	1	(1)
The Deprivations of Interaction	1	(3)
The Two Realities	4	(2)
The Core of the Self	6	(1)
A Note on Method	7	(1)
The Fist and the Open Hand	8	(29)
The Vectors	8	(6)
Conceptual Analogies	14	(3)
The Dual Orbits	17	(3)
The Tantalus Ratio	20	(2)
Growth and Decline	22	(15)
The Sisyphean and the Tantalic -- An Ontological Personality Typology	37	(40)
Where are the Fixations Fixated?	37	(4)
Object and Self: The Crucial Dichotomy	41	(9)
The Other Dichotomies	50	(4)
Some Empirical Anchors	54	(5)
Square Bolts in Round Holes	59	(1)
The Hassidim	60	(8)
The Men	68	(7)
Entropy	75	(2)
Separant and Participant Cultures -- The Social Component of the Tantalus Ratio	77	(48)
Patterns of Culture and Social Character	78	(3)
Activist and Quietist Cultures	81	(5)
The Tantalus Ratio and Social Character	86	(5)
Ten Pairs of the Composite Polar Patterns	91	(34)
Tool and Symbol Orientations	91	(4)
Welfare State versus Social Traditionalism	95	(2)
Scientistic or Mystic	97	(2)
The Carnivores and the Downtrodden	99	(4)
Exaltation and Lethargy	103	(4)
Time and the Void	107	(1)
Achievement and Resignation	108	(7)
Homo Faber and Fatalism	115	(4)
Nobs and Snobs	119	(3)
Salvation and Utopia	122	(3)
Jews and Arabs -- The Relationship between Personality Types and Social Characters	125	(32)
Jews and Arabs: An Illustration	125	(6)
East is East and West is West	131	(4)
Change and Stagnation	135	(2)
Reality and Illusion	137	(1)
Power and ``The Children of Death''	138	(3)
The Ecstasy and the Lethargy	141	(2)
``Haste is from the Devil''	143	(1)
The Driven and the Lazy	143	(1)
A Religion of Labour	144	(2)
Social Mobility	146	(2)
Dreams and Visions	148	(1)
The Extreme Poles of the Separant--Participant Continuum	149	(8)
Social Change and Social Character	149	(2)
Personality Type and Social Character	151	(6)
The Twenty-First Century Kulturkampf -- Fundamentalist Islam against Occidental Culture	157	(17)
A Frame of Reference	158	(6)
The Second Law of Thermodynamics	164	(10)
Interaction, Objectlessness and the Self-Continuum	174	(38)
Atzmi and Ani: The Two Faces of Man	177	(4)
The Poles and the Bridge	181	(3)
Some Dynamics of the Self	184	(7)
The Dialectics of the Tantalus Ratio	191	(6)
The Ani-Skewed Self	197	(12)
The Interactive Self	209	(3)
Self, Choice and Uniqueness	212	(13)
Developmental Forms of the Self	212	(3)
Core Dynamics	215	(3)
We are the Chosen	218	(7)
Man, Others and Things -- The Phenomenology of Interaction	225	(22)
Communion	229	(2)
In Search of Dialogue	231	(3)
The Oppressive Dyad	234	(8)
The Self and Others	242	(5)
The Isaac Syndrome	247	(26)
The Maternal Proscription of Incest	251	(5)
The Isaac Syndrome	256	(2)
Father against Son	258	(7)
The Rationalization of Sacrifice	265	(2)
Isaac and Christ	267	(6)
Rebellion and Yearning	273	(22)
Defiance	274	(6)
The Two Faces of Rebellion	280	(5)
The Search for Authenticity	285	(3)
Being with Fear and Anxiety	288	(2)
Creative Rebellion	290	(2)
The Quest	292	(3)
Notes	295	(25)
Index	320